I need to open this post by wishing my parents a happy 27th anniversary. Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Also around the house, let's revisit the issue of my brother. Yes, The Brat is home for the summer... and he's grossing me out. As if it weren't bad enough that he has found it necessary to wear a cap to the dinner table every night, now he has decided that he doesn't need to wear a shirt. As a side note to my future offspring, let it be known that neither of these will be acceptable in my house. Back to my brother, his desire to go around the house shirtless all the time was bad enough before when he was just scrawny, but that is no longer the case. I'm glad to know that he's comfortable with his body, but he needs to recognize that the family flab is setting in. Two years of college have begun to take its toll on his body, and he's starting to get a little pudgy. He's not as disgustingly flabby as I am just yet, but the lovehandles are developing nicely and the belly is starting to protrude over the boxerline (as he insists on going around the house in nothing but boxers most of the time). On top of it all, he shaves his chest and gut to show it all off. Uhhh... buddy, you need to put a shirt on - especially at the dinner table. Ick. And to think that his summer break has only just begun....

On a completely different topic, let's address the issue of Movable Type once again. Last week I quite hastily suggested that I might switch back to Blogger. While Blogger's little improvements like comments and email posting were long awaited, I don't actually intend to switch back. I mostly just don't intend to upgrade my version of Movable Type to mt3 anytime soon. They're going to have to do some major overhauls, up the number of blogs and authors per license, and drop the price significantly before I would consider upgrading. Like most mt users, I take no issue with paying for using their program and services, but what I object to is paying far too much to get less than what I'm getting now. Months or potentially years down the road I may choose to invest in a new and improved version of mt, but there's no point right now. Version 2.64 is working fine for my needs right now, so as the tired, old cliche goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Finally, good luck Dave! Dave is moving back down to Madison on Friday to begin training for his research assistant job as a grad student at UW-Madison. Dave, you need to hurry through so we can start calling you Dr. Dave sooner rather than later.

Good night everyone, I'm out of here.

The Adventure:
I'm not sure if I should feel proud or pathetic. I woke up this morning with a craving - an itch that needed to be scratched - so I decided to do something about it.

I somehow woke up about 8:30 even though I don't think I passed out on the couch until at least 3:30. I sat up, shook the sleepiness from my eyes, and said to myself, "Self, I think you would like an omelet today." Who am I to argue with me? There was only one slight problem: how does one go about making an omelet?

Walking in to the kitchen, I grabbed the first cookbook that I saw. I paged through to the breakfast section, and about 6 pages into that was a recipe for some bizarre omelet. Do cookbooks ever have normal food? Anyway, I discovered that all I really needed were eggs and whatever I wanted to put inside the omelet. Sweet, I think I can do this!

Oh, I forgot to mention one more thing: I can't crack an egg properly to save my life. I'm pretty good at punching a big hole in an egg or getting most of the egg on myself or getting dozens of pieces of eggshell in the eggs, but I can't really crack eggs. It was quite an adventure cracking those three eggs (people usually eat three-egg omelets, right?), but I knew the work might be worth the reward.

So, I got the eggs cracked in the bowl, I beat them, and I added just a splash of milk (I'm not sure if the splash of milk did anything, but it just sounded right). I got the skillet heating with some margarine in there while I searched the fridge for something to put in my omelet. The choices pretty much consisted of ketchup, more eggs, ranch dressing, shredded cheddar cheese, venison jerky, and Cheesedogs. I thought the others might taste sort of funny, and the Cheesedogs will probably be my lunch, so I decided to go with just the shredded cheddar cheese. That's a big omelet, which means I needed lots of cheese. This being my first omelet, I didn't know that, so my first omelet ended up being big on eggs and light on cheese.

Okay, now I had to pour the eggs in the skillet and let them sizzle. Okay, you can start sizzling any time now. Uhhh... did I put too much egg in there? Is it going to burn the bottom while nothing else gets cooked? Ummm... uhhh... there's a big bubble forming. Should I pop it? Okay, I'll pop it. Ewww... now the popped bubble is throbbing like a heart... like the heart of the little unborn chicken that I'm about to consume. Ick. Eventually it all cooked. I threw the cheese on one half and turned the other half over the top. I let it sizzle a little more. Then I flipped it over. This isn't so hard... maybe I'll multitask. This is the point where I decided to throw toast in the toaster. Oh yeah, I'm about to be two-for-two today. Maybe it's time for that omelet to be done. I slid it off onto my plate, tossed the finished toast down next to it, poured a glass of milk. I kick ass.

The Assessment:
My omelet turned out okay. Next time I most definitely need a lot more stuff for inside the omelet, but as for the cooking of the eggs and all, that seemed to go pretty well. Maybe the ranch dressing and venison jerky will be pretty tasty.

I see the new movabletype 3.0 is up on the website... and most definitely not free. Kind of a little disappointed. Of course, as long as I don't upgrade I'm fine. On the purchase page it shows that mt3 can be downloaded for free, but one only gets one author and three weblogs. The other limitations basically spell out that anyone who sticks with the free version will be banished to the lowest circles of hell. Now, I understand that Ben and Mena need to make some money to support themselves and the other employees, but I can't say that I'm not pretty upset and, well, disappointed. Looking at the list of what is included with a paid license, I have to chuckle at the 4th one listed: Generous limits on weblogs and authors. Hmm... somehow me thinks that's not really the case. Throwing down $99.95 (or $69.95 during this "introductory" time) will only get a licensee 3 authors and 5 weblogs. For $100! For $150, one gets 6 authors and 8 weblogs. And the creme de la creme, the high-end commercial license, gets 20 users and 15 weblogs for $699.95. Start saving your pennies kids or else it's time to switch back to Blogger.

Choosing to pay for website hosting was perhaps the best choice I ever made. I see now that the allowable space for my plan has jumped up to 300 mb. Yay! Looking for website hosting on the cheap, check out Below $10 Hosting.

Okay kids, here's the one you've all been waiting for: The 2004 Too Much Trivia in the Pants photos are now up. See all the joy and splendor that was the Pants this year. Sorry it took so long, but it took actually sitting down and doing it for it to get done. Hmmm... imagine that.

Having had problems recently with comment spam on this website, I decided to check and see if there was any new spam to delete. I was surprised to discover that the TMTitP blog had somehow jumped to having over 150 comments. A few of them were spread out, but this entry had somehow compiled 95 spam comments alone! Wow. As for another entry, one which I had posted the previous year, we got a response to call a call for women. Hey, a woman wrote to us... we must be doing something right.

Well, it's Wednesday afternoon, and that means that I'm not at work. It's a beautiful day outside, which I suppose expleins precisely why I'm sitting inside right now. Don't get me wrong - I'm thinking about doing something productive outdoors like clean the interior of my car - I just thought I'd take a little time to indulge you, my reader, with a bit of an update as to what I've been doing in the last several days.

Last Friday night, Dave finally cashed in the boot. Dave's dad had payed for a boot for Dave at Old B a few months back, but Dave had never cashed it in. He was saving it for when Corey got accepted to Madison. Well, Corey didn't get accepted to Madison, while Dave is moving back to Madison later this month, so the time seemed right to finally drop in at Old B and drink the boot. Matt and Ben were next door at Deja Vu, so they stopped on over and assisted in the consumption of the boot. I didn't really have much to drink that night, but there was something about the beer that made me feel like ass the next morning.

Storms rolled through briefly on Saturday. One lightning strike knocked out power at the airport for about 15 seconds, but then it kicked back in. I'm not sure if that was the result of the generators or not. There was no noticable difference, unlike last year when the power went out for several hours due to a lightning strike, and all we had were minimal lights and the Muzak. The party at Trish's in Brillion was that night. Having had to close as usual on a Saturday night, I couldn't get there until late. I picked up Hilari (who wouldn't have gone had I not given her a ride) and drove out there. Michael was the only other person from work who was there when we arrived. I'm told others were there earlier, but left before we arrived. Corey showed up a little later with Dave in tow. We drank, played darts, ate some chips, and shot the shit, but never got drunk enough to act like buffoons. We left that silliness to Kyle's friends and coworkers. We left a little before 2, and I hear the party didn't last long after that. The drive back to Appleton had me stuck behind a Calumet County sheriff's deputy, who was purposely driving slowly to piss me and other drivers off. Where 10 meets up again with 114 and becomes 4 lanes, I pulled into the right lane, and the sheriff's deputy promptly decided to be a dick and drive in my blind spot all the way up until I turned on Oneida. This is incident numero uno of cops being dicks in today's entry.

Okay, so then there's Sunday. Mother's Day. The family got together at my aunt and uncle's house on the southside. I had to leave about 2 to hurry home, change, and get to work. Knowing what I know now, I should have called in sick. Our 5 o'clock arrival from Detroit arrived on time, but the captain wanted to board up and head out early, as storms were moving into the Detroit area. Dispatch had agreed at first, but then changed their minds and put the flight on a ground hold. I stayed around the gate area waiting to see if we'd get an update and could send the plane out. Our 6 o'clock arrival from Minneapolis also came in on time, so we had to put them at a different gate. Seeing that weather was moving to into the Minneapolis area also, I asked the captain if they'd be getting out on time. He made some phone calls and discovered that they were also being put on hold. I ran back-and-forth from one gate to the other seeking out information for three hours straight. Most of the news wasn't good - like when the Minneapolis captain told me that weather had deteriorated there, the airport was evacuated, and flights were diverting all over. Eventually Minneapolis got the okay to board up and leave, but just as they were being sent out, word came in that the Detroit crew was going to time out due to the hold and that flight was being cancelled. Of course, by then it was too late to put anybody on any other flights, so everybody had to be moved to Monday. Word then came in that the overnight from Detroit was cancelled, so we got to work on our nightly duties. When it came time for our Minneapolis overnight to board up, it appeared we still didn't even have a plane, so we made several phone calls - most of which were met with busy signals - before Michael got through and received word that that flight had also been cancelled. With more paperwork to do, I still didn't get out until 12:40.

I needed a drink badly, so I decided to stop down at Jekyll's. Travelling my usual 7-8 mph over the limit down College Avenue, I had a cop in desperate pursuit of a donut fly by me going at least 5 mph faster than I was. I thought little of it when he turned off onto Badger. What threw me was when the same cop darted out of the Tastee Bakery parking lot 3 blocks down and pulled up next to me at an intersection. I looked over at him as he pointed at me, yelled, "Hey!", and signalled for me to roll down my window. This was the conversation:

• Stupid Pig: What's the speed limit around here?!
• Me: Uhhh... 25?
• Stupid Pig: Start driving it! (yelled as he peeled out around the corner toward the cop shop)

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of law enforcement, but this stupid pig, as with the one the day before, drew to mind some serious questions. The first question is: Is it legal for cops to drive around harrassing citizens and attempting to coerce them into breaking the law? I know the cops around here are bored and need something to do (especially since Dunkin' Donuts closed 8 years ago and the new Krispy Kreme hasn't even begun construction yet), but don't we have real crimes to solve? Have they bothered finding Laurie Depies yet? Are they still on a non-quota quota system? On any given day driving around this town, I could easily hand out upwards of 50 moving violations, but the cops in this town are completely invisible before dusk. Even between dusk and dawn, the cops in this town only exist on three streets: College Avenue, Wisconsin Avenue, and Richmond Street. If one is ever interested in perpetrating a crime in Appleton, I suggest avoiding those three streets and you're golden. My other questions is, and if there are any lawyers or members of the law enforcement community out there reading this, perhaps you can answer: What federal, state, or municipal law is the one that gives police the right to break the law. I'm not refering here to laws that give police the ability to turn on their lights and sirens and speed off to the spot of an emergency, because I know about those. No, I want to know precisely where it is stated that police officers can speed all over town. I want to know where it is stated that cops can drive extremely slow just to hold up traffic. I want to know where it is stated that cops can pull up to intersections and never use a directional. I want to know where it is stated that cops can run stop signs and red lights. I want to know where it is stated that cops who don't feel like sitting through a red light at night can simply flip on their lights and cross. I want to know where it says that cops can follow, tailgate, harrass, coerce, intimidate, lie, and do all the other things that they do that blatantly break the law. If one of you can tell me, I will gladly post it here, otherwise I want to know why any citizen of this country should have even one iota of respect of the dispicable trash that tries to pass itself off as our law enforcement community.

Enough about that... it's time to get to Monday. With all of the cancellations and delays, I didn't figure there was any way that I'd actually get on a flight out of here to head down to Memphis, so I was surprised to find that I'd be able to make it on the noon Saab to Minneapolis. Harry and I rode the new tram down to the middle of the C concourse and ate lunch at Fridays. I think the plane down to Memphis must have been only 2/3 full. I had a window seat in exit row of the 757, where I was surrounded by pilots hitching a ride down to Memphis. Seated in the aisle seat in the row in front of me was a girl bearing a remarkable resemblance to Kate Winslet. I'm certain that she caught me several times checking her out as she got up to fetch something from the overhead or to use the restroom. I also noticed as we left the plane that she had a ring on her finger. After checking in at the hotel and tossing our stuff in our rooms, we met up with Jen and Gary in the lobby. The 4 of us took a cab down to Beale Street. We first stopped at Dyer's for dinner. We then moved next door to Wet Willie's, went across the street to Pat O'Brien's, went down the street to Club 152, and came back to Alfred's. About 11:30 we were going to stop for one more at the Hard Rock, but they were closed. We were going to try Pat O'Brien's again, but they were also closed. WTF?! We gave up and decided to just hop a cab back to the hotel. I still couldn't sleep and ended up not going to bed until about 2:30.

Wow, this is getting to be one long entry... and I'm still not done! I got up early (by my standards) to get ready for class. I hopped in the shower, but when I went to get dressed, I realized that I forgotten to bring deodorant along. Fuck. I got dressed and went down to check out of my room. Thankfully, they had deodorant at the front desk, so I went in the lobby restroom and put some on. Whew. When I came back out, Harry was waiting for me in the lobby, so we caught the shuttle to the airport. Having arrived plenty early, we stopped for breakfast at McDonald's, where the carbonation was broken on the soda machine. Eh, I had orange juice instead. Class flew by fairly quickly, and after taking the test, I checked my flights home. The Minneapolis flight looked to be pretty tight, while the Appleton flight was booked solid. Rather than take my chances, I just rebooked myself on a Green Bay flight. The Minneapolis flight was full, but I lucked into one of the last seats - a center seat - between crotchety old man and breast-feeding mother. It wasn't the most comfortable flight, but I made it. About 45 minutes into the flight, the woman seated in front of me screeched and handed something to the man in the aisle seat, telling him to toss it in the aisle. She pleaded for someone to stomp on it. I didn't see smoke, but my first thought was that it was on fire. Breast-feeding mother stomped on it. Turns out there was a scorpion on her book. Neither she, nor anyone around her, knew from where it came. The flight attendant picked up the carcass with some napkins and tossed it in the garbage. Arriving in Minneapolis, I chose to go to the Green Bay gate instead of the Appleton gate. I would late find out that there ended up being 5 seats open on the Appleton flight after all. Anyway, I checked in with the gate agent, and she was nice enough to put me in first class on my first flight in the ARJ. We arrived in Green Bay about 6. I hadn't been there in so long that I had forgotten how much of a dump the Green Bay airport is. Now that I was in Green Bay, I needed to get back to Appleton somehow. I knew I could use a cab voucher, but first I had to find a cab that would take one. I tried a Yellow Cab parked out front first, but he wouldn't take my voucher unless he had it in hand right then. I, of course, wouldn't have one until I got back to Appleton and could fill one out. I then called Astro Taxi, and that dispatcher said he had to check to see if he could accept them. I called home to tell my mom that I'd be home as soon as I could find a cab. I then called back Astro, the dispatcher said he could take a voucher, and he sent a driver out to the airport. The ride back to Appleton seemed to take forever. We arrived at the airport, I wrote him out his voucher, and that was that. I got home and ate dinner with the fam, and then flopped down on the couch exhausted and fell asleep by 8:30.

I guess that brings us up to today. I have just one more topic I want to hit upon: highjackers. No, I don't mean airplanes or cars or boats, I mean computers. I must have downloaded some something back about a month or two ago and now my computer has been taken over. It only really affects my browsing, but it's really annoying. It changes my homepage all the time and it brings up other websites when I use Google. I've tried various different programs to get rid of it, but I have so far been unsuccessful. Any suggestions?

That's enough for me today.

I noticed a couple days ago that we had quite an assemblage of spiders right outside our front door. Unfortunately, I discovered them right before I had to leave for work. I also couldn't find a can of Raid, so I called my mom at work and filled her in on the situation. She came home after work and sprayed, but she said there was only one little spider out there when she went out. Well, I stepped outside today and discovered at least three dozen more spiders outside the front door and under the overhanging front window. Sitting on the front porch, it took all of two minutes for one of them to start using my pant leg as an anchor point for a web. At that point I decided to fight back. I went in and found a can of Raid and must have sprayed half the can around the front door and all around the front window. If these were just a couple of garden spiders spinning webs in the garden and catching flies I wouldn't mind so much, but with dozens of them covering the entire front of the house in webs and crawling all over near the front door, the last thing I want to see is them invading the house. I guess I won't know immediately how successful my little offensive assault was, so I might have to attack again soon.

It seems a bit of a controversy has flared up on a small scale this week thanks to another jackass from Illinois who refuses to obey the law in Wisconsin. A certain Sun-Times columnist got busted for speeding and decided to write about it (via Gapers Block). Never really willing to admit that she was in the wrong for driving 18 mph over the limit, Ms. Laney instead has chosen to place all the blame on everyone else: the other drivers around her, the Racine County Sheriffs Department, and the Wisconsin DOT. Okay, I'll give her the DOT one. The problem is that Ms. Laney - like all Illinois drivers who cross north of the border - seems to think that it's perfectly acceptable to speed in our fair state. These Chicagoans fly down our highways in gold-trimmed Lexuses with tinted windows at 85-90 mph, and then they want everyone to feel sorry for them when they get pulled over. Tough titty. It's not as if our troopers need to seek you out because the Wisconsinites the ones with the rusty F-150s blocking the left lane while driving 10 mph under the speed limit. All they need to look for is the ass hole tailgating the F-150 and you're done for. Yes, Wisconsin is a state full of hicks, and if you don't like it, don't come here. If you do choose to come here, obey the law or take your punishment and shut up.

I have a couple minutes here before I need to run off to another task, so I thought I'd jump online and address the readers. I've been awfully busy, but I thought I'd squeeze in a few lines while I can.

I accompanied my parents to Ponderosa on Sunday for lunch. Can you say PWT? Wow. There were mullets and Sturgis shirts galore. Pontiacs dominated the parking lot. I can't remember the last time I saw such an assemblage of Wrangler jeans. And of course, having the buffet, there were some sizable appetites with ample storage space to stow all that food. It's like going to the nature preserve and getting to see the animals in their native habitat.

Is there some sort of weird radio wave blocking or interference going on on the corner of Meade and Wisconsin? Within the last few months I began noticing that my remote for my power locks doesn't work at the Express service station. I can neither lock nor unlock my car with the remote. I've never experienced the problem anywhere except for there, which has me questioning what kind of action is going down at the Big Green Convenience Store.

I picked up a copy of the new Modest Mouse album last week and I've been hooked ever since. I had heard it was pretty good, but hadn't actually heard any of the songs, as none of the radio stations around here will play that sort of music, so I was pretty blown away when I started listening to it. (How's that for a run-on sentence?) It's in my cd player in my car and I don't think it'll be leaving anytime soon.

Four days into the new work schedule, and I'm already sick of it. Do I really have to wait until June 10 to get a new schedule? This closing 5 nights a week thing is going to kill me. I have neither ambition nor social life. I protest!

Okay, time to go. Work is calling.

Yes, May is finally here, but it's damn cold outside. Well, it's not really that cold outside, but it's pretty cool for May. It's all of 44 right now, while the forecast low for tonight is 29. Wtf?! Is it not really spring? It most definitely needs to warm up, as I have to work until midnight the next three nights, and I don't want to be freezing my ass off when I leave work at night.