Upside of this:

• You’ll feel cool, because everyone is doing it.
• Easier to remember.
• Will probably make me less grumpy. (Yeah, I know you didn’t want to say anything.) But no guarantees.
• Feels better.
• Tastes better.
• Looks better (I think) because I can control it more.
• I can now add cool new features for your blog-reading pleasure. (I’ll even take suggestions.)
• And for everyone using Blogger/blogspot, you can now follow the new site by clicking that little Google button, like you’re used to.

Downside of this:

• You have to move, and no one likes to move. But you have to admit, this place has been looking kind of dumpy. The dry-rot has gotten bad, and the rats and disease are rampant. Yeah, it’s time to move. Sorry.
• The rent is a little more expensive at the new website, and the neighbors can get a little loud.
• This site will no longer be updated, though it will still exist. (I have trouble letting go of things.)

As you can see, the pros clearly outweigh the cons. And, so, it’s time. The truck is pulling out, so I’ve got to go. Please come on over. I’ll leave the back door unlocked, and I’ll hopefully remember to deactivate the alarm.

Reputation@Stake

Stupid (adj.) – Idiotic

Bet (n.) – A gamble

Stupid Bet (phrase) – A challenge, risk, or attempt, with the potential for very dumb consequences.

This week’s SB Award goes to:

Mr. Flat Face, for thinking, “I bet this helmet will protect my head.”

A wise man once said, “Helmets are perfect. Helmets are your friend. Helmets are invincible, and will protect you from all dangers.” That wise man died soon afterward, from head trauma, but I still believe him. And Mr. Flat Face appears to believe him as well. I admire his faith in the wise man’s words, even to the point of assuming that a helmet need not cover all parts of your head. I mean, as long as you think to wear a helmet, that should be enough, right? I guess that could be true. Maybe it is the thought that counts, but thoughts clearly aren’t one of Mr. Face’s strengths. And even less so now.

Things I’m assuming about Mr. Face:

- He feels no need to wear a seatbelt in his car, since it has airbags.

- He was playing a video game the day his instructor went over simple guarding techniques. (Like put your hand up rather than out, and maybe even turn your head to the side a little, if necessary.)

- He no longer has to worry about being able to smell people’s feet.

- He lost this fight. Quickly.

May you always resolve your differences with words, and always have a couple of Excedrin handy.

Reputation@Stake

Maybe you’re just not good at favorites. That’s fine. So, what about this one: Three people have quit at my office over the last year. Question – was I one of them? Take your time. Alright, time’s up. Duh. I’m still working here. How could I have quit? Well … uh … actually, January had a little incident, that I forgot to mention. You see, Susan and I had planned on going on a ski trip—which I had announced weeks in advance (I’m very responsible)—and at the last minute my boss told me I needed to stay because of a big fat dumb project that had just come up. Well, that is what is classically known as an impasse. And impasses tend to get in my way, and I don’t like yielding to them, but that just creates another impasse. So before this snowballed into a monster impasse extraordinaire, I decided to try something. I quit, and said that I would reapply for my job when I got back. I even wrote up a letter of resignation. It went something like this: “To Irma, See ya beans! Affectionately, Reputation@Stake.” Or something close to that. And there were surprisingly few applicants for the position when I got back.

But that reminds me of the next quiz question. What is the first name of my boss? Oh, wait. Don’t read the above paragraph yet. Okay, now answer it. Oh, never mind, forget it. And, no, why she prefers for us to call her by her first name rather than “Your Highness”, is not a quiz question. (By the way, if I had her power I would totally make people do that.) But back to the quiz. And this one is multiple choice. What is my greatest fear? Snakes, spiders, or a blood-thirsty serial killer wandering through my house at night with an axe, after having just cut the power and phone lines? What?! Spiders? What is it with you people and spiders? No, it’s the murderer. Spiders are like the size of a nickel, and they can’t even pick up axes. What’s so scary about that?

You guys aren’t doing nearly as well as I assumed you would, so here’s the last question. Can “The Stupid Bet” be found anywhere other than “thestupidbet.wordpress.com”? Ah, tricky one huh? In fact yes. It can now be found at simply “thestupidbet.com”. It might even be moving there permanently pretty soon, too. Huh? No, don’t worry, I’ll let you know before I discontinue it here. What? You want one more? Okay. Bonus question: How many fingers am I holding up? (Hint: I’m not giving you one.) But I will give you five guesses.

Reputation@Stake

you, but you needed to die.

The end had

come, and we both knew why.

You could have

objected, but why even try?

You knew it was

over, so you had to comply.

Sure, we had some

good times, I won’t try to lie.

But memories

like those bring no tear to my eye.

Yes, I remember

that day, when I decided to buy.

And I got some

help from that towel store guy.

But you know

the facts, so you can’t deny,

That you could no

longer make anyone dry.

And no one

knows that, better than I.

You were no longer

soft, and you’d lost all your dye.

So I had to kill

you, but don’t let that imply,

That your quality

wasn’t once very high.

But those days are

over, so it’s time for goodbye.

Reputation@Stake

A sign that you had a really slow day:

You write a poem about throwing away an old towel.

THE TOP 5 PLACES I CAN’T GO ON VACATION

When my wife, Susan, and I go on vacation, we just assume that no place is off limits. We have either snuck into, or finagled our way into, dozens of places in multiple countries. It’s just what we do. Restrictions are for suckers.

In Pittsburgh we convinced a guard to let us into an exclusive men’s club and even got him to give us a personal tour, which was great since he had a key to all the locked doors. We snuck onto the roof of the National Cathedral in Washington DC—you wouldn’t believe how much they appear to not want people to do that. We had to go through the monks’ personal quarters (it was a round room with a red carpet, and looked eerily similar to the dorm room in Harry Potter) and through the little bell-ringing room, but we got up there. Then there is Venice, which had lots of places that were off limits—so that was a fun trip.

Every destination seems to have restricted areas. We don’t like that. And like I said, we assume that doesn’t apply to us. What they really mean is that it’s closed to stupid people—especially since most places’ big-time security systems involve a sign on a stick, or a little rope stretched across a doorway. Seems like an invitation to me.

So this week’s top five is a list of places that I don’t think even Susan and I could get into. That doesn’t mean we won’t someday try (especially now that we know about them). But these five places would be particularly challenging.

1. Disneyland is just taunting us with this one. A comedian once said that since there is no alcohol allowed in Disneyland, how can it possibly be “The happiest place on earth”? Good point. But there is in fact one place you can get snoggered in the park. It’s called Club 33.  And very appropriately it is in the New Orleans Square section. Duh. Where else would it be? It’s supposed to be a secret private club, but how secret can you be when your details are explained in Wikipedia? The problem for Susan and I is that it costs between 10 and 30 thousand dollars to join (but maybe we can find a coupon), and the waiting list is fourteen years long. You have to be buzzed in, and show a membership card, and probably give a DNA sample, so this might be beyond our abilities, and therefore belongs on this list.

2. The funny thing about this next one is that I might be invited there someday. But until the end of the world comes, it’s a big no-no. And that’s actually the point of the place: The end of the world. It’s called Mount Weather, so they’re not very creative, but they’re very super duper serious. Whatever goes on in there is wicked secretive, because it’s the place the US government has prepared for people to go when the world is about to be destroyed, or annihilated, or whatever. It’s the highly secure, last safe place on earth, impending doom, destination of choice. So unless Susan or I can find a way to send a comet toward earth, we’ll probably never get in.

3. The year 2013 is the key to this next one. That’s when Susan and I will make our move. Because otherwise, the Ise Grand Shrine is incredibly tough to crack into. We could probably fake being members of the Japanese imperial family to get in (that’s a requirement) because we’ve impersonated journalists and architecture students to get into places. So how hard can royalty be? However, the kicker is that being imperial isn’t enough. You also have to be a priest or priestess, and neither of us know anything about the Shinto religion. Ah, but there is a loophole. They demolish and rebuild the shrine every twenty years. (It’s a death/rebirth thing.) And guess when the next deconstruction is scheduled? 2013. Time to get fitted for a Japanese construction-worker’s uniform.

4. Now, this next place isn’t racist. Sexist, but not racist. I’m telling you this because it’s called White’s Gentlemen’s Club. But that’s just because the founder’s name was Francis White. (See, told you.) But no women are allowed. (See? I was right again.) So, obviously I have a slightly better chance of getting in than Susan, but the only way I can do it is if I’m invited in by a member who also has the support of two other members. And not that many people like me. At least not all in one place. And definitely not in England (the club’s location). Plus these guys are loaded. They make six-thousand-dollar bets on things like which of two raindrops will slide down a window first. Seriously. So you know they can afford the best security systems. But maybe we can get them to bet on whether Susan or I can get inside first. Ha! Another loophole.

5. If Club 33 sounded exclusive, how about Room 39? That’s both exclusive and annoyingly vague. But just because it’s in North Korea, and run by their government, that doesn’t mean we don’t want to go there. Of course we want to go there—you told us we couldn’t. Plus, since it is suspected (no one knows, because no one can get in) that inside they are making tons of counterfeit currency, maybe if we can get in, they’ll print us off some.

Reputation@ Stake

The library. That was my only destination. I had no desire to attend a horror carnival where I would be taking five years off my life, which for a split second I thought would just be five years off my jail sentence. I swear I only looked down for half of a third of a fraction of a nanosecond. It was all the radio station’s fault really. No one actually even liked “Come On Eileen” back in the 1980s, so why would you still be playing it over twenty years later? I had no choice but to change the station. So if I really had killed a road worker, I bet the jury would have understood.

But I didn’t kill anyone. I just swerved six inches in the wrong direction, and creamed a traffic cone. The side of my car looks like it hit a giant clown fish, and the cone looks like it’s bowing to a Japanese emperor, but at least no one actually got hurt. The problem was, there was a traffic guy about ten feet away, kneeling by the curb, and he popped up in shock when he heard the thump. So my experience went like this: Song comes on—ears start hurting—bad flashbacks from my school days start coming on—fear of a horrible song getting stuck in my head, forces me to act—I look down—turn a knob—hear a really loud thump—look up just in time to see, out of the corner of my eye, something orange and white bouncing off my car—and immediately see some orange and white guy stand up with shock on his face. What conclusion would your brain leap to?

Now in reality I was just coming off a red light so I was only going about ten miles an hour, but I still saw the future face of my bunkmate in my cell on death row, in that fraction of a second. He was big and ugly, sure, but that wasn’t the hard part. What really bugged me was that I was on death row because of “Come On Eileen.”

So, no harm was really done. The cone and my heart should just pop back into place. But that was one horrific nanosecond. I have no idea how much I freaked out the nice traffic guy, but when I came to a stop, he gave me an awkward little smile (like he would have enjoyed testifying against me) and then waved me on. The very first thing I am going to do after writing this—and, well, maybe after a Dr. Pepper or two (this trauma stuff makes me thirsty) and maybe one of those little pizza bagels—is sit down and write a letter to the highway department, pleading for them to dress their workers in any other color. Blue would be a good choice. That way if I ever did hit someone, it would match my car better. (Okay, that was a little dark. Sorry.)

Reputation@Stake

Stupid (adj.) – Idiotic

Bet (n.) – A gamble

Stupid Bet (phrase) – A challenge, risk, or attempt, with the potential for very dumb consequences.

This week’s SB Award goes to:

Mr. Guilty Cretin, for thinking, “I bet I can cheat on my wife, and get away with it.”

Ouch. I’m thinking Mr. Cretin routinely underestimated his wife. I suppose it’s possible that she was just swatting at a bee that was buzzing around his car, and all she had with her were a few pickaxes in her purse. Unlikely, but that’s probably the story her lawyer will tell. At any rate, her aim was good. I also wonder if it would be any consolation to Mr. Cretin, that those pickaxes were bought on sale. No? I didn’t think so. Well, at least it isn’t—as far as I know—illegal to drive a car in that condition. You do have to get it to start first, though.

Things I am assuming about Mr. Cretin:

- After what was done to his car, he really, really shouldn’t look at his large high-definition TV.

- He didn’t stay at home much before, or after, this incident.

- He’s probably not going to get much say in which half of his possessions he keeps.

- There’s a good chance that he was an Executive at Enron.

Well, I hope everyone has a nice weekend, and that you always finds creative ways to show your displeasure.

Reputation@Stake

Last time, his challenge was for me to write an entire post about lint—which he was sure I couldn’t do. But with the help of my friend TS Hendrik, who completely coincidentally and very bizarrely talked about lint on his site as well, I had material to fill a post. And so Jackson was toast. And now I can boast. Alright, enough of that. The new challenge is for me to do another entire post about … here it comes … a comma. Yeah, that little punctuation thing. Just in case (and for my own amusement) you don’t remember what a comma is I’ll show you. Here’s one “,” and here’s another one (,) and here’s one more: ,. (It doesn’t take much to amuse me.)

The problem, this time, is that no one has stepped up to help me. I’m all alone in my attempt to write about commas. But, no matter, I will bravely forge on. After all, commas are pretty cool. I’m sure they got lots of dates in school. I mean, their only real competition, if you think about it (and everyone does) is the little Period. Nowadays, though, more often than not, he is just called a dot, which isn’t so hot. (Sorry. I didn’t mean to do it that time.) In fact, I just happened to notice, that just like a Period, you don’t have to press the Shift key on a keyboard to type a comma. But you have to use shift for both the Question-mark and the Exclamation-mark. Ha! Losers.

Plus, everybody wants to be a comma. Apostrophes and Quotation-marks have been accused of identity theft. And I’m thinking about going as a comma for Halloween. I had considered going as a question-mark, but now that I know it’s a loser, I’m going to (as a 35-year old) dress up as a comma instead, so I won’t look like a loser.

Now, originally, I had wanted to look up and recite a bunch of statistics about commas, but laziness got the better of me. (It used to get the best of me, so that’s an improvement.) And so, in lieu of that, I’m going to make up some statistics instead. Here goes: The Comma was used for the very first time when a caveman’s wife accidently bumped into him while he was making a cave drawing. (The validity of this, however, is still being debated by scholars today.) The Comma is also particularly good at playing Monopoly, it likes tacos as long as they’re not too spicy, and it has never been to Batswana, but could probably find it on a map (if it got really, really lucky). And, if, it, had, the, power, it, would, make, everyone, write, their, sentences, like, this, one.

Reputation@Stake

Now, the whole project did come with instructions, and although they were written by a very bright four-year-old, I still think that they could have been done a little better. So, for the sake of anyone else who may also end up constructing this piece, I’ve decided to rewrite the instructions, as well as give you a little heads-up on what to expect. This will hopefully significantly cut down on any frustrations during the construction process. It is a multistep procedure, so let’s get started:

Step 1 – The finished product should look something like this:

If this is not the model you received—don’t worry—it’s really not going to matter. The picture on the front is like an estimate. It’s the manufacturer’s best guess at what it might turn out to be. Remember those gum ball machines where you’d put in a quarter, and you knew you’d be getting gum, but there was no telling what flavor, size, or shape would fall down into the little trap door? Yeah, it’s like that.

Step 2 – Here are all of the parts they have supplied:

Again, this is supposed to be standard, but clearly someone just grabbed handfuls of whatever parts were nearby and mailed them to you. So don’t worry if yours appear different. Once again, it’s really not going to matter.

Step 3 – The provided diagram drawings:

Clear. Concise. Professional. I show you these for two reasons. One, because it was crumpled in amongst the parts and I didn’t want it to scare you.  And two, so that you would know what in the world it was.

Step 4 – Tools you will need:

For some reason these weren’t included with the parts, but make sure you have them on hand.

Step 5 – The parts you will have left over:

Don’t worry, even if you followed the diagram, there are always parts that don’t get used. You can sell them on eBay if you’d like.

Step 6 – What it looks like when you’re done:

There, see, that wasn’t so hard. I don’t know why you would have any questions after this, but if you do feel free to give me a call—it’s $19.95 for the initial call, and $39.99 per minute. Expect to be on hold for a long time. Hope that helps.

Reputation@Stake

TOP 5 WORST ANACHRONISMS IN MOVIES

An “anachronism” is basically something that is in the wrong time period, or place. If you’re not familiar with the word, its definition will become more clear after reading these five examples.

1. Somewhere around 3500 years ago, a baby named Moses was floating in a basket down a river, and was eventually picked up by an Egyptian princess. Well, when the movie The Ten Commandments was made, depicting this scene, the director seemed to think that no historical problems would arise from sticking a zipper on the princess’ dress. The two things are only separated by about 3300 years, so I guess it was a tough call.

2. Roman times were hard for a gladiator, especially in the movie Gladiator. Not only did you have to fight in a coliseum with tigers and soldiers with weapons, but some of the chariots had gas tanks in the back of them. Makes them much more difficult to outrun. It’s surprising the Romans didn’t think of doing that in the first place.

3. Now I know the main character in the movie Catch Me If You Can was good at faking things, and making them believe he was someone he wasn’t. But, since he was running around in the 1960s, I’m just not sure how he was able to walk down the street and make a big FedEx truck appear, and drive by in the background. The movie is based on a true story, so that guy must have been amazing.

4. In the Scottish highlands, back in the 1700s, some funny stuff was going on. The movie Rob Roy tells us things about the man known as Rob Roy (coincidence?) that I was surprised to learn. He was tough, sure, and would fight for what he believed in, which was great. But what was even more amazing was that he somehow got his hands on a box of Band-Aids, and put one on a scratch he’d apparently suffered when we weren’t looking. How he got a hold of something that wasn’t invented until the 1920s, is a mystery that the movie does not address.

5. Surprisingly, even Shakespeare was not immune to this kind of thing. In Julius Caesar, in the middle of a conversation, Shakespeare wrote a stage direction for a clock to strike. Then he has two characters respond to it, “BRUTUS: ‘Peace! count the clock.’ CASSIUS: ‘The clock hath stricken three.’” Sure, it would be less dramatic for Cassius to say that “the Sundial hath stricken three,” but in a way it would have been more accurate. Julius Caesar and Roman empire were good, Shakespeare, but I’m afraid those clocks you’re hearing are only in your head.

Reputation@Stake