How far? Far enough...

Our new house has a relatively small back yard with no fence. Because of this, we were initially concerned that our cat, Moe, would want to go outside, roam around and generally be a pain in the ass to get back in the house.

For a day or two, that's what happened. We'd let Moe outside, he'd venture way past our property into the dirt beds of the opposite side of the street where they're starting to build new homes behind us.

Fed up, I got a yellow nylon rope that we used the last time we moved to tie stuff down, tied one end to our deck, tied the other end to Moe's collar and put the collar on Moe.

Moe resisted at first, but then gradually accepted his fate to be tethered to our deck. It's worked out pretty well save for the one night when he walked around part of the deck's base three times and then could only make it up the deck stairs halfway before running out of rope. He was out there for hours before I remembered he was out there.

One thing Julia likes doing with the collar and rope is that she'll snap it on herself and crawl around on the deck like she's the cat. She thinks it's funny and it is generally.

The other day we had some friend over. Julia, like any other kid her age, was trying to get their attention, so she snapped on the collar and started acting like a cat. Our friends laughed at it, so Julia kept it up.

My friend, Jeff, asked Julia about the rope.

"How far can that rope go?" he asked innocently.

She said with an air of confidence, "Far enough."

I had just turned my head to check the grill when I heard Jeff exclaim, "No! Wait! Stop!"

I turn my head in time to see Julia running. She had run down the steps of the deck and made a beeline straight out from the deck into the yard. This while the rope was trailing behind her with the slack getting shorter and shorter.

She heard Jeff's cries to stop and had stopped with about 5 feet of rope behind her. Now all of us were yelling to come back, stop and don't run.

Those messages must have sounded like, "Don't stop. Keep running!" because Julia took off again, only to have the rope's slack to tighten. Thankfully, Julia wasn't going that fast as the rope snapped because while she did indeed get pull backwards by the rope's tightening. She pull herself off the ground with no harm.

We lightly scolded her while we took off the cat collar she had snapped on herself and told her not to do that again.

It's funny now, but it could have been a worse ending.

Keith Richards falls out of a tree. No seriously...

Keith Richards, the guitarist for the Rolling Stones, fell out of a tree while in Fiji. Seriously, he did. See the link if you don't believe me.

He was in Fiji on vacation and fell out of a coconut tree. Keith Richards suffered a mild concussion and spent several days in the hospital.

When I read this headline, I thought it was a joke, but April Fools Day had already passed.

So after reading this, I have to wonder, was it because he was stoned, drunk, both or just stupid? If you've ever seen Keith Richards, he looks like he crawled out of the grave and has for years. He's skinny and looks like he's consumed every vise under the sun, yet he decided to climb a coconut tree.

My other thought was that maybe he was too cheap to buy a coconut. After all, he's part of the same band that have more money than any human being could ever spend and they still want more. This is the same guy that was pissed off when he heard the Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony" song that sampled the Rolling Stones. Instead of letting the band settle, they screw them by forcing all profits to go to the Rolling Stones and even barred them from performing it live.

Or maybe it's fate telling Keith that it's time to come home. I think he's been tempting fate for years with his smoking, drinking and other vices. Who knows? It's still pretty fun.

And Keith if you're reading this, hope you're well, loved your first solo album and please don't sue me...

Saw the Wild Madascar Nemo movie...

So I was dragged to the new Disney movie, the Wild this past Easter Sunday.

I was lobbying to being let to go see Scary Movie 4, which looked a lot more interesting and way funnier, but I was given the evil eye, so that was nixed.

The first 20 minutes or so, I was so bored that I thought I was going to fall asleep.

The movie centers around a lion named Ryan, who wants nothing more than to roar like his Dad, Samson, who is voiced by Keifer Sutherland. So Ryan sneaks off while Samson and the other animals are sleeping and gets into this green carriers that Samson had warned Ryan were "trouble". The carriers are of course loaded onto a freighter to be sent to the wild. Ryan wants to get to the wild so that he can find his roar.

The first part of the movie is a bore because they jam it so full of dialogue and goings on that it feels forced. I got the feeling that the test audiences wanted them to get out of the zoo faster.

It's only when Eddie Izzard, the British comedian, gets more screentime as the Koala from London named Lionel that the movie starts to move along. That and some decent performances from William Shatner, Janeane Garofalo and Richard Kind help break the monotany.

What bothers me about the film is it's very similar plot points from other animated movies of recent.

When you consider...

The Wild features a father that doesn't want his son out in the wild...
Finding Nemo features a father that doesn't want his sone out in the wild (ocean)...

The Wild features a son that is resentful of his father being so protective...
Finding Nemo features a a son that is resentful of his father being so protective...

The Wild features a lion that is a main attraction on billboards and posters...
Madagascar features a lion that is a main attraction on billboards and posters...

The Wild features a trip across the ocean with a lion and other animals...
Madagascar features a trip across the ocean with a lion and other animals...

The Wild features a group of animals that believe the Lion is their savior...
Madagascar features a group of animals that believe the Koala Bear is their savior...

The Wild features a group of animals that sing and dance...
Madagascar features a group of animals that sing and dance...

The Wild has a buddy Giraffe...
Madagascar features a buddy Giraffe...

You can see where I'm going with this. It's an okay movie. Unless you really love Eddie Izzard, like my wife, or can't get out of seeing this with your kids, I'd suggest to leave well enough along and stay away.

I'm sorry, but the mass of squiggles on the screen doesn't match your signature...

With our new advances in technology, there are bound to be some snafus, some glitches, some bugs in the system.

I love using my bank's debit card for purchasing items from the store. It's convenient and fast.

One thing that I've notice about them. Every now and then, you run across one of the signature base type thingies that you run your card through and sign that doesn't quite work correctly.

One of the bigger office supply chains is a haven for these machines. I've run across them in different cities in which I'll slide my card and then when it's time to sign my name, the writing stylus goes crazy and a mass of squiggles ensues making any hope of signing my name neat and legible slim to none. The one downside to those machines is that it's hard enough to sign my name neat when using a stylus, but when it goes haywire, even more so.

Usually when I run across those messed up signature 'consoles' (?), the cashier doesn't ask for my card to compare the signature because what would be the point, but every now and then one of them does.

"May I see your card?"

I stare down at the mass of squiggles, shrug and hand the cashier my card. The cashier will then analyze my card signature and the signature on the console. This always struck me as unusual anyway because we're at the mercy of hourly employees who've been standing around all day to suddenly become handwriting experts to stop would-be thieves who may be using a stolen card that's not theirs. But in this case, the person was a big enough expert to be able to tell what I was going for when signing. Like a subject studying an inkblot, she saw through the mass of squiggles and recognized my signature. Nice one...

I'm surprised that our new cat is still alive...

We got a new kittie about a month ago. Susie is a small, thin tabby cat that looks a lot like our older cat, Murphy.

My wife said that she wanted to get a new kitten because she wanted another small cat to love. Our two existing cats are about nine-years-old at this point. They're also overweight and not too active anymore.

Julia also wanted a new cat when we moved into our new house. She was going to call the call, Sandy, but then settled on the name, Susie.

So in the new house, I was working in the basement on the computer. Julia was playing with her stuff behind me.

I hear this faint mewing.

"Susie!" I called as sometimes kittens will cry when they don't know where people are.

Still mewing from Susie.

"Susie!" I call again louder. "Come here!"

Still no Susie.

"Julia, can you go and find Susie? I think she's lost and can't find us."

"OK." Julia says.

I still here the mewing and then it starts to get louder. I turn around and there, inside a clear plastic zipped bag that came with Julia's MegaBlocks, is Susie meowing up a storm.

"I just don't think that Susie likes being in here, Daddy." Julia comments like it's no big deal.

"Get Susie out of there!" I exclaim. "She can't breathe in there!"

Julia lets Susie out.

"Now did you put Susie in there?!" I ask sternly.

Julia pauses and looks down. "Nooo" she draws out quietly.

I start to say something and then stop. I say in a quiet voice. "Now Julia, I know you're lying because I didn't put her in there and Mommy's at work, so I know she didn't do it either. Now did you put Susie in there?"

"Yes," she admits.

"All right." I pause and try not to blow up. "I'm NOT mad, but please don't ever put Susie in that bag again. She won't be able to breathe."

"Okay..." Julia said.

Later in the day, Julia was playing in her room. I checked in on her. Julia was on her bed, which is a loft bed. Susie was up there with her.

Julia told me that she wanted to play with Susie in her "tall" bed and ushered me out of the room.

I tinkered around the house for about 20 minutes or so. I decided to check on Julia and Susie to make sure that she was being nice to the cat.

I walk in the room. There on the top bunk is Julia. She's flipping through a book.

I look around. I don't see Susie.

"Where's Susie?" I ask.

Julia responds by pulling up her Barbie suitcase that she got for Christmas and says, "She's in here."

She unzips it. Susie blinks to the bright light and crawls out of the suitcase.

"Julia! Don't put Susie in the suitcase! She won't be able to breathe!" I exclaimed.

Julia makes a sound like "tsssshhhhhhhh" or whatever sound kids make when they're sighing and rolling their eyes.

"All ri-ight!" Julia responded in a tone that said "I never get to anything fun."

I have a dream that drives me nuts...

I have a recurring dream that drives me nuts...

It happens about once a month. I'm usually back in college for some reason. The premise of the dream is this: I have five classes to take, but I only have time for four, but I fail to do anything about the fifth class.

Throughout the dream, I usually find out that I'm still enrolled in the fifth class and I haven't dropped it yet! I'm cruising along in my classes when I happen to look at my schedule somewhere near the end of the first part of the semester. There on the page, is my forgotten class! I go to the class and find that I'm hopelessly behind. I have papers that are weeks overdue, tests to take and lots of reading to do. It seems like an impossible task, but it doesn't stop. It also doesn't get better, it gets way worse. I start to crumble under the stress to the point where I stop going to class. I just accept it. I give up. I fail.

It's a hard dream to take because I haven't been to college in about 8 years. In fact, I wasn't taking full-time classes since I was an undergrad. I shouldn't be having dreams about keeping up with schoolwork, but I am.

I wake up freaked out and come to my senses when I see that I'm in my own bed. I'm sure someone could say that maybe I have a lot of things to worry about in my life and that I worry that I won't catch up with them, that I'm going to miss them. I could buy that, but the dream involves me forgetting something... Weird.

Too bad aspirin isn't invented yet...

The other day, I was talking with a co-worker about something when I mentioned that I had a headache.

She said, "You know what nurse told me about headaches?"

"What?" I asked.

"It's your body's way of telling 'Go take an aspirin with some water.'"

I laughed because I couldn't believe that.

I said something like, "You what I also heard? 'An apple a day keeps the doctor away.'"

That was a lame retort. I admit it. But talking with my wife, who gets headaches a lot since she suffers from migraines, she told me that there is some sort of truth in that. A headache can mean that the body needs more hydration, so you should drink some water.

I don't know if that's true or not, but I still have to think about the aspirin thing. That would be all well and good for now, but what did they do before aspirin was invented? I can just picture a person going to the doctor for a cure for the headache. The doctor would say, "Here, have a glass of water. I would tell you to take some aspirin with that, but it hasn't been invented yet. You'll just have to make due for now."

Fine. Rub it in...

A while ago, I saw one of those feel-good columns about a teacher that works with blind students. The headline read: "Teacher sees bright future for blind students."

I thought, "Fine. Rub it in."

Tell her it's an advant garde student film you made!

I watched the Ring Two on HBO last week. It wasn't really that scary anyway, but I was taken aback by the attempt to scare at the beginning. The premise is that if you watch the cursed tape, you'll die in seven days unless you show it to someone else, who then will die unless they show someone else, and so on...

A teenager is trying to get a girl he asked over to watch this tape because it's just so scary he has to show somebody. He reiterates that it's really scary and she has to watch it now! Phone rings. It's the guy's buddy who tells him that he made it. The clock says 10:58. When it hits 11:00 weird shit happens, girl watched video with her eyes closed and kid dies.

I don't know about you, but if it's imperative for me to live by showing someone else the death tape, I'd mail it to the person that I hate the most and if that fails, I'd tell the girl that it was a weirdo student film that my cousin wants a critique on... and I'd do it a lot sooner than two minutes to midnight! I'm sure Iron Maiden enjoyed the irony by you copying the song, but only in a movie would someone wait that late to show the movie.

Maybe he had it coming because he was forgetful.

I'm still waiting for the other problem...

At my job, people complain. A lot. Some more than others. I was sitting around working the other day when a co-worker somes over to me and says, "Hey, I've got a real dilemma."

So the co-worker explains her problem and I'm waiting for the other one to be explained, but they don't. They finish. Leaving me to ask, "So what's your other problem?"

Dilemma is one of those words that's being mangled today. It means that it's "a situation that requires a choice between options that are or seem equally unfavorable or mutually exclusive." It's like choosing to eat a piece of moldy cheese or expired yogurt as your only food choices for a meal. Both are okay to eat, but not the best tasting.

People call Dr. Laura all the time (or they did years ago when I listened to her bored in the afternoon delivering pizzas) with this same intro. "Hi, Dr. Laura. I have a dilemma." They then explain that their lone problem is something inane that is partly their fault because they're being stubborn. Dr. Laura invariably yells at the caller, but not about the misuse of dilemma. Shame...