Five for Friday

A little list-y fun for your Friday (and mine):

  1. One Sentence – True stories, told in one sentence.
  2. Makes me pine for the microfiction days of yore and Ficlets. *Sigh*

  3. Two Sentences
  4. First?

  5. Three Sentences
  6. See above.

  7. Four Sentences
  8. Self explanatory.

  9. Five Sentences
  10. No comment.

  11. 5ives
  12. Merlin Mann’s lists of 5 things. Better than that last sentence makes it sound.

So there’s my five (plus one) list. Maybe I should call it a Polish fifth or maybe a Baker’s half-dozen (which would actually be seven, right)?

Anyhow: there is/was a list.

Enjoy your weekend more than you’ve enjoyed this!

The Goldilocks Reconfiguration

Weekend mornings are always fun for the entire family.

The best benefit of having kids: the permissive expectation that you, yourself, can and should act like a child sometimes too.

Saturdays are habitually Chick-Fil-A biscuit mornings, with the whole clan tucking in to flakiness and acting flaky.

Sundays I’ll typically make a breakfast of pancakes or scrambled eggs or french toast. Anything I can do in a big batch or heaping, steaming plate/bowl. This Sunday it was french toast and as we all dug in, I recounted my own version of the story of Goldilocks and The Three Bears, themed for the holiday season of 2008.

“Once upon a time there was a young lady named Golidilocks. It was Christmas time so she went to the mall looking for gifts.

Upon entering the mall she came upon a Sharper Image store and was immediately taken in by the bright, flashing lights and exotic, luxurious textures.

She spied a row of three heated bearskin recliners with vibrating back massagers and sat in the first, large lounger.

‘This chair is too big and stiff. The bearskin is taut and brittle and the heating unit is stuck at eleven!’

She moved on to the medium-sized chair.

‘This chair is too squishy and the massager won’t stop going. I think I’m getting motion sickness!’

Finally, she sat in the smallest chair and found relaxation.

‘This chair is just right!’

Just then as Goldilocks was closing her eyes and propping her hands behind her head, a sales associate approached.

‘May I help you, ma’am?’

‘Sure. How much is this chair?’

‘Fifteen hundred twenty two dollars and eighty six sense,’ the sales associate flatly stated.

That is when Goldilocks ran screaming from the mall and into the woods, never to be seen again.

The End.’

Of course this little retelling was interrupted multiple times to correct me, all of which I ignored.

In other news, Sharper Image is actually closing all of its retail stores and will live on as an as-yet-unlaunched online-only brand.

Merry Christmas!

Meditations on Facial Hair

I’m a hairy dude. Always have been, always will be.

Manscaping, short hair for Summer and facial trimming aside, I’m always just a follicle or two away from being mistaken for Sasquatch (a nickname I was gifted in high school) or Grizzly Adams.

To be fair, I’ve cultivated some of it myself. Hard not to if you’ve got a nigh-unibrow. But still, I like to think I’m creative and fun-loving in my executions.

Enter The Expanded Beard Type Chart. It’s pure genius, you’ll want to click.

For old-schoolers who prefer photography to illustration, there’s also a handy Beard Trimming chart from 1884 out there on the interwebs. Worth your time as well.

We all know what happens when I decide to stray from my standard Van Dyke, don’t we? If not, feast on these:

Yukon Cornelius Seth

Fu Manchu

Thoughtful axe murderer

Maybe this is the year I tackle Whiskerino. I like the idea of doing nothing and getting a bird’s nest in return.

We’ll see what the wife says. Stay tuned.

I’m a Muppet Liar

I said I wouldn’t post about Muppets that much, but I have. Recently.
I said “Mostly Muppet” is actually more like “Slightly Fraggle” (though I don’t own the domain.
I said a lot of things I didn’t mean because I’m back at the well this afternoon.

First, a video response to Fozzie’s video from last week, by Rizzo the Rat & Rowlf:

Second, a very enterprising German driver who is flouting the authority of traffic cameras by:

  1. Driving an English car
  2. Posting a life-sized “Animal” doll in the passenger’s (left side) seat

Well met, herr driver! [Via BoingBoing]

Onomatopoeia

You know, today’s morning commute was much like all the rest. Unremarkable except for a slightly less congested ride no doubt due to the gas shortage in the Metro Atlanta area.

And then this conversation started from the back seat.

Jenn: Neigh
Owen: [Unintelligible]
Jenn: Hey Seth, how do you neigh
Me: Excuse me?
Jenn: You know; how do you make a neighing sound, like a horse. (She was reading Owen a farm-animal-themed book and needed creative direction)
Me: RRRheeeeeeherrrrrrrr! Phffffffffffffff!!!!11!!!Eleven *Gums Flapping*
Jenn: Yeah, but that doesn’t sound like “Neigh”
Me: But neither does a whinny. I don’t think it’s an onomatopoeia like “quack” or “bark”
Jenn: And neither of those sound exactly like the noise.
Me: Like “meow”.
Jenn: Right.
Me: Right.
Jenn: So how do you neigh again?

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

If only every morning were illuminated with the light of such discourse.

Thursday!