The Holidays Are Upon Us

Do you know how I could tell the holiday season was upon us? It wasn't when I heard Bing Crosby crooning "It's Beginning to Look A Lot like Christmas," standing among the discounted pumpkins in Wal*Mart the day after Halloween. It wasn't when the perky newscaster informed me that this year Thanksgiving day was the new Black Friday, that Black Friday would run until Cyber Monday and that if I had any hope of getting a deal on the hottest gifts I should've done all my shopping by last Tuesday. This all dovetails neatly with vodka and Oreo Wednesday. Just wake me up for really, really casual Friday, okay?

My first inkling of the approaching yuletide festivities might have been when I awoke from dozing in front of the TV this afternoon buried under the first real catfall of Winter, but I missed even that clue. Heck, it wasn't even when some real go-getter on Pintrest suggested we decorate Cheerios with candy sprinkles and leave them out with Santa's cookies as "elf doughnuts." Great, like we don't have enough mouths to feed already!

No, I realized that the holiday season was truly upon us when my wife informed me that our furnace expired-- and oh, by the way, the brakes are going out on the car.

So what you are telling me is that not only do we have no heat in the house, if we decide to go over the river and throw the woods to Grandma's house we are liable to just keep going?

Okay... Deep breaths... Just roll with the punches. We've got a couple of electric heaters to get us through the cold nights. At least we don't have water, snow or a complete power outage like the poor folks on the East coast. And I suppose we could wrap a chain around an anvil and toss it out the back of the car if we really want to stop someplace. I guess I can't really complain. It could be worse.

As a strict adherent to all of Judge Murphy's edicts I know what I'm talking about. I take my role as an object lesson for the rest of you quite seriously. How many times have I walked up in the middle of conversation, "...Well, could be worse. at least you're not--" only to be met with foot shuffling and awkward silence?

"At least he's not who? Who are you talking about? Fellas? Hey, where ya going? At least he's not who?"

You would think it would get to me. Some say that weird twitch in my left eyelid is proof of a man on the edge. I just try to shrug it off. What else can I do? If you can't be in on the great cosmic joke of fate you might as well enjoy being the butt. So I just smile and keep watching the skies for that final punchline. At least if I get smashed by a falling satellite I'll be imortalized in the pages of Ripley's  Believe It Or Not, right between the man with three noses and the water skiing squirrel. A man couldn't ask for a better legacy than that.

Portrait of A Very Bad Dog

 
Good evening. Our first offering this evening depicts a tale of woe involving a runaway pooch and the broken-down old man who must search on foot through blistering pain and blinding migraine to find her. The irony of the story is that though the doggy is long since safe at home the old man's spirit is cursed to wander, calling her name and muttering about her ability to leap thirty feet in the air. We call this painting, "Portrait of A Very Bad Dog," and it's found it's way home at last... to the Night Gallery.

 So this was how the day went: I woke up from a short, restless night of bad dreams with a throbbing migraine. I took the dog out in the yard for her necessaries and slouched down in my mushroom chair trying very hard not to pitch forward on my face. The next thing I know "Scarsnout" decided to make a break for it. I swear the last thing I heard as I saw her fluffy tail disappear over the fence was a full-on philharmonic rendition of "Born Free."

Now my days of chasin' tail are long behind me and since I left my cane in Teresa's Jeep I decided to take a mosey. By the time I got around to the gate she was as scarce as a well-paying job in the current economy. I set off down the road. At first it was "76 Trombones Led The Big Migraine." After half an hour it felt like the Lesser Bataan Death March. I searched high and low, to and fro, hither and yon, over there and beyond. I walked well more than a mile-- six or eight perhaps, not in another man's shoes but in my Angry Birds jammie pants. My Angry Birds were angrier than usual today.

I can only imagine what the good townsfolk thought as I staggered along calling her name and muttering lines from "Moby Dick."

"I'll follow her around the Horn, and around the Norway maelstrom, and around perdition's flames before I give her up! From hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Ye damned dog!"

By the time I got back to the house my metal hips were grinding and I thought I smelled smoke. Have you ever burned out a butt-bearing? It isn't pleasant. My head was pounding harder than ever and I had a bad case of mummy-leg. I was NOT happy. Then about 1:00 or so she came leisurely trotting back to the house.

THEN-- and this is the icing on the cake-- When Teresa got home from teaching class and I sat down and began to tell her my piteous tale of woe, unbeknownst to me our fat old Siamese tomcat was backing up to me.

BEEP...BEEP....BEEP... Just like a garbage truck.

Suddenly I felt a warm, wet spray all over my legs. The damned cat sprayed me! THE DAMNED CAT SPRAYED ME. Why you !@#$%@!!^&%!!!

REDACTED...

...And that's how the cat learned to fly, the dog learned I was mad, the wife realized it wasn't funny and the rest of God's creatures trembled with fear.

The End.

Postscript:

The dog knows she's fouled up big time. I've ignored her all day and she's been laying on the sofa with her head hanging over the side like she's expecting a trip to the gallows at sunrise. I want her to learn a lesson but I'm afraid that no matter how forlorn she is tonight the minute the September sun hits her face and she drinks in the cool morning air her lesson will vanish and she'll be flying through the air like Pegasus.

Out of The Frying Pan

Hash Brown Casserole

It's happened. I've signed up on a recipe site. I've installed a recipe app. I've become that guy. School has started again for the Fall and my Sweet Victoria Rose has begun her circuitous teaching schedule, traveling around central Texas more that an itinerant preacher I've decided to step up to the plate, quite literally and shoulder most of the cooking burden. That means finding recipes that we will both enjoy, shopping for ingredients for said recipes and preparing them with a minimum  of food waste, smoke and/or fire.

I used to be a pretty decent cook in my college days, but I've gotten lazy and out of practice over the years. I need to get my chops up-- pork and otherwise, in the kitchen. If I'm lucky cooking will be like riding a bicycle, except with fewer skinned knees and pant-legs caught in the chain. Am I up to it? Only time and my egg timer will tell.

Vapor Trails

"Pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment of human affairs."  -- Albert Einstein

Albert was right.  There is a certain meter to smoking a pipe, to fall into the slow rhythm of draw and exhale, to watch the smoke unfurl in the breeze. It makes a man thoughtful. There is a reason writers and artists smoke pipes. It helps to slow down and organize one's thoughts. The act of smoking a pipe is like a mantra, nothing more is needed than a pipe full of your favorite blend and a cool breeze on a Fall day to put one into a meditative state.

My prized possession is the Peterson Dingle with the bulldog shape I was given as a gift long ago. I think if my house were on fire it is the thing I'd brave the flames to retrieve. It has perfect balance, smokes well and is beautiful in its shape and form. It fits perfectly in my hand. I've spent many a happy hour with this pipe as a companion. Ah, I do love it so.

The Stars in the Heavens

Last Night I stayed up to watch the annual Perseid meteor shower, a longstanding tradition with me. Could be as many as 100 an hour the astronomers said. With great anticipation, just around midnight, Sweet Victoria Rose and I gathered in the yard for a front row seat to the grand cosmic ballet. And to our delight we saw half a dozen or so shooting stars streak across sky. It was late and it had been a long day for both of us. My wife, having the sense in the family, decided to go to bed after the initial spurt of meteors.

The real show won't start until the predawn hours the same said astronomers predicted. So I too went in the house, not to go to bed but to piddle with an art project for a couple of hours until time for the real spectacle to begin. I had a whole bag full of provisions, equipment and various sundries to enhance the viewing experience, as well as a large mug of iced tea. You simply cannot view meteors properly without iced tea. I settled in and waited for the show. And waited. And waited. And waited.

 There in those predawn hours in which I was promised at least 300 meteors I sat like Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin. And like Linus I was disappointed. Oh, I did see the celestial ballet, or at least a rehearsal for it. The crescent moon lined up with Venus and Jupiter nicely. That was pretty. My patience was rewarded with a glimpse of the International Space Station passing slowly overhead. (Don't get too excited. You can't see solar panels and astronauts floating around. It looks like a dim star following an arc across the sky as it reflects light from the sun which has not yet crested the horizon.) And I did see some meteors. Five of them.

Yes, for the three hours I sat there in the dark I was granted a peek at exactly five meteors. Not even half-a-dozen but FIVE. Those 100-meteor-an-hour guys really ought to be selling used cars. I was operating at a meteor deficit. The astronomers owe me 295 meteors. It hasn't always been like this. As a kid my best friend David and I would camp in my folks' back yard and watch a grand show every August. As an adult I've seen a few good ones too. One in particular leaps to mind-- sitting in the open hatch-back of a little Ford Escort, listening to "The Planets Suite," By Gustav Holst, with a bottle of wine and good company as meteors whizzed through the heavens like Van Gogh's Starry Night. But this morning was very different. No wine, no Holst, no company and darn few meteors. At five in the morning I finally dragged my weary bones to bed.

They say that the shower for tonight ought to be as good or better than the Saturday/Sunday version. They say you might be able to see 100 meteors per hour. So if you are out and about just before dawn you might stop and stargaze for awhile. And if you see a lonely figure in the gloom and ask yourself, "I wonder who that idiot is, sitting in his yard in the dark." It's just me waiting for The Great Pumpkin.

The wisdom of The Big Cat Daddy

It is a dangerous trip along that arc, for one way is to peace, the other way madness lies. Harder still to find the arc connected at both ends and twisted in the middle, an endless uroboros where potentialities, actions and regrets cross and loop back upon themselves ad infinitum until all things are possible and impossible.

 As a seeker on a quest to find that "thing," object, person or destination, or even yourself, one can get lost because there is no "thing," no object, no destination. There is only everything and nothing. The journey never ends, it cannot end. You may get off the pony but the carousel still spins, leaving you only with where you've been.

There comes a time when we must stop looking and start seeing. A time to stop navel-gazing lest you set fire to yourself from the glare, a time to stop tugging at the loose threads or you will unravel yourself. Things are what they are.  If the Beatles taught us anything it was that sometimes it is just better to let it be.

Making FaceBook Cover Pictures For Desktop & Mobile

I'm finicky when it comes to the appearance of my FaceBook page. I want a cover picture that looks good on both my desktop and my iPhone, but creating such an image can be tricky.
 
What looks good on the computer--

FaceBook Cover Picture As It Appears On My PC

May look awful on the smart phone--

As It Appears On My iPhone

And it's tough to get it right by trial and error.

Oops!

Aw Man!

Finally!

So I designed a template that marks out the proper proportions for both computer and iPhone to help layout pictures so they'll look their best on both.

Right Click and choose, "Save Image As"

 
You can layout a smart looking cover picture by simply keeping your main visual element confined within the center boundary. Add details on either side to create impact when viewed on a computer monitor. Be aware that your profile picture will be moved and re-sized by the smartphone when the image is scaled to fit, and both sides of the picture will be cropped of f .

Feel free to download the template and use it to create your own smartphone optimized cover pictures.

Here are some examples of cover pictures I've designed using the template.

In Honor of The 43 Anniversary of The Moon Landing

For The Premier of "The Dark Knight Rises."

Tribute to "The Green Slime."

When translated to iPhone the Flaming Eye of Scorn is somewhat centered on the screen.

I also try to keep my profile picture relevant and stylistically compatible with my cover picture.

Starry, Starry Mike paint your Facebook blue and gray...

That's all there is to it. Soon you'll be knocking out great FaceBook cover pictures like a pro. Happy FaceBooking!

d20 Critical Hit

I'm not necessarily a big RPG guy but this caught my attention--

I think this is about a 9.5 on the old awesome meter. It is ten bucks, a little pricey for a die, but the the RPG geek cred you rack up is worth the cost.

Without the die this guy is just a dude with his mom's dish towel wrapped around his head.

You can own this piece of  RPG Nirvana here:  http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/deaa/

Apollo 11 +43

Here I am enjoying a celebratory cigar in honor of the 43rd anniversary of the first manned landing on the moon. Mike, Neil and Buzz, here's to you, boys! Job well done.

Hello there!

Yes, I've started ANOTHER blog. Because if there is one thing my wife complains about it is that I don't spend enough time on the computer. This makes number 5. These 5 blogs replace my old Typepad blogs. I've compartmentalized them so Sci/Fi and Star Trek end up of Rockets, Robots & Ray Guns, Comics and superhero stuff makes its way to Supa Cat Daddy, Anaglyphopolis is all about 3D and historical and Steampunk stuff naturally goes on The Gentleman Time Traveler. This blog I'll reserve for mundane rants and observations.