found footage festival

i went this past weekend to see Vol. 2 and the consensus is - hilarious. the found footage festival is simply a collection of funny video clips from home movies, workout videos, instructional videos etc. found at local thrift stores and over the internet. i highly recommend looking it up and going when it reaches your town. check tour dates here:

http://www.foundfootagefest.com/


amongst the visual gems is the commercial instructional video for a chicken harvester:

friggin' spot-on

stupid dog

two weekends ago my dog Charlie had a wrestling match with a car. i was sitting at a stoplight and he decided it would be a good idea to jump out the back window. he never hit the ground, a car in the next lane hit him and ran him over at about 45mph. if you've ever heard a dog yelping in agony whilst writhing in pain on the ground then you know where i'm coming from. i got out, 3 lanes of traffic had screeched to a halt and two women and a cop show up out of nowhere. they're each telling me directions to different animal hospitals and Charlie is just laying and crying on the ground. the cop asks me to pull off onto the shoulder after he helps me scoop up the dog and put him in my truck. the guy who hit him had stopped there as well and was just as pale-faced and shocked as i was. his wife was bawling in the passenger seat of their car. i asked the cop if he was going to give me a ticket as i assumed it would be my fault for not restraining my pet. he said no, and the other guy said his car was ok so i took off.

now, i had previously dropped meg off at the park to go for a run and i decided that logistically it'd be a lot easier if i picked her up before going to the vet. i got to the park and she's nowhere to be found. the lake she runs around is about a 2mile loop and i could do nothing but stand there on top of the hill waiting for her to come into view. meanwhile i'm freaking out, not knowing if Charlie has internal bleeding or how much time he has left. finally she shows up and we run to the truck and go to the nearest vets office.

it's saturday afternoon

the vet is closed

there's no emergency number.... F!

i called information got the number for a few vets in the area and eventually one of their answering machines gives the number for the emergency clinic nearby. we haul ass and every time i look in the rear view mirror, Charlie is trying to move around or look out the windows with that big stupid smile on his face like nothing happened. i knew better and i was actually shaking at this point.

we get to the vet and they bring him back for x-rays and ask for a $500 deposit for whatever. sure. meg's crying, and i'm wondering how bad it is. i keep hearing Charlie yelp in the back room and have to go outside. the x-rays come back and the doc says it looks like it's just a dislocated hip. to my disbelief, no broken ribs, no broken pelvis or spine, and all his organs look good. they can either pop it back in, or put it back in surgically which would give much better results. i elect for the surgery as i don't want the dog re-dislocating his hip every time he jumps off the couch.

now before he can go under for surgery, he has to stabilize etc. so three days pass and they put him under. the doc takes another set of x-rays and calls me. the ball on top of his femur had been shattered. F. after some discussion, we elected to give the boy a new stainless steel hip. Charlie came out of surgery and was fully enjoying his cocktail of pain killers.

we finally got him home alst thursday, and i expected him to be crapping all over himself in his cage, and not eating or drinking etc. but he's actually been a really good little patient. at this point, his swelling is all gone, his bruises have gone away, his road rash has scabbed over and is healing, and he's almost ready to get all 27 of his staples out.

the funniest/scariest thing is that when we brought him home, they gave us antibiotics and "pain meds" and told us to give him one of each every 8 hours. i started to run out of the pain meds so i called a friend who's a vet and explained the situation. apparently the "pain meds" are a pretty strong narcotic. ah, so that explains the drooling, the huge pupils, and the staring off into space. we've cut back on the meds a bit and he's starting to become his old self after only two weeks. he's truckin' around the backyard and he's got that goofy smile back on his mug.

so all will be well, but the morals of the story here kids are:

a. don't keep your car windows open too far, even if you think your dog would never be so stupid as to jump out

2. if you have a pet that you care about, get pet insurance. a lot of companies offer it as an employee benefit for $5-$6 per month

iii. ween your dogs off narcotics slowly....

here's Charlie the day we got him home after his surgery (click to enlarge):



he looks much better now btw.

Caribou Barbie ends up raising more money for Obama

Obama's coffers have been filling since Sarah Palin attacked him repeatedly in St. Paul last night.
An Obama aide confirms Drudge's report that Obama has raised about $8 million from more than 130,000 donors and is on pace to raise $10 million by the time McCain reaches the stage tonight.
UPDATE: Obama spokesman Bill Burton says, "Sarah Palin's attacks have rallied our supporters in ways we never expected. And we fully expect John McCain's attacks tonight to help us make our grass-roots organization even stronger."

Bolt

this guy is ridiculous. he breaks world records without even trying. in the 100m he basically walked the last 25m and still won by a long shot. he broke the world record for the 200m without breaking a sweat. the media is roasting him because it seems he's not maxing out his effort, but i have to say that if i made a $1 million bonus for every world record i broke, i'd break my own record about five times as well instead of going all the way the first time. check him out:


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/olympics/article4578959.ece?openComment=true

Long time away, but i've decided to hop back on

So after about a year and a half, i have a modest urge to start blogging again.


In the past three weeks, i've flown over 7300 miles and have been in 9 states. work brought me from denver to midland, TX - back to denver for 8 hours - to williston, ND - back to denver for 12 hours - and then vacation brought me to Newark, NJ - to Boston, MA - to Portland, ME - to Saratoga, NY - and back to Denver. I leave in two days to go to casper, WY and then hopefully i will be back home for a bit. vacation was a lot of fun. I got to see family and friends and even played some golf while it rained for the entire time i was there.

with my few days in denver, i plan to go to Wally World to stock up on apocalypse neccesities such as beer. meanwile my office stocks up on blankets, water, air horns, and oxygen tanks. "why is this," you ask? because in two weeks, the Democratic National Convention will be in town. i plan to work from home that week along with almost everyone in my office. the poor secretary at the front desk, however, must be in the office to field phone calls and take deliveries. we are providing her with her own armed guard, we have put special locks on all the doors, we're buying the supplies mentioned above, and we're taking our sign off the building. the city of denver seems to think there will be mass chaos, and i suppose they have good reason. here's a list of the actions some of the protestors plan at the DNC as provided by the city of denver and my building's management:



my office is planning on un-bolting everything from the sidewalk outside so that it can't be worked loose and thrown through the glass front of the building, including mailboxes. they'll be fined from the USPS and the newspapers for violating "freedom of speech" and they are willing to pay the fine. i hope the city doesn't burn to the ground, but building management keeps mentioning tear gas and asking us to learn how to use oxygen tanks.

i choose to sit at home, drink beer, and watch it all unfold.

storms-a-brewin!!

they are calling this the "Iverson Blizzard of 2006". The Denver Nuggets have lost Carmelo Anthony due to his being an unsportsmanlike retard but have gained Allen Iverson, the hot point guard / 2 gaurd frm philly. His first game as a Nugget was cancelled last night due to weather and the the fact that I-25 was closed from Wyoming to New Mexico, and the fact that a national emergency was called, and the National Gaurd came in to help all the idiots stranded in their cars. here's a look at what is happening on the street (or in the case of my street, what isn't happening):



my back yard. that's a 6' fence.



my front yard. you can't see the road, cuz it hasn't been plowed yet.



my neighbors down the road. 24 hours into the storm and it's still coming down. i hope they can find my road....