This Is Why the Dogs Have Been Sporting Green Stripes On Their Tails

...and why I needed to order more paint. The biggest canvas I've tried yet, maybe 5 feet tall, it rode low on my easel and occasionally bore the brunt of some heavy-duty dog frollicking.

If you think the sky is too blue, and the grass and trees are too green, it's because they were that day.

Coco Sees Nothing Silly About This

I had to order some paint so Coco could have somewhere to sit.

How To Attract People Who Think You Are Beneath Them

From an ad in Ultimate, an Oregonian Sunday magazine designed for people who buy $7,000 barbeque grills for their illegal immigrant help to clean, and need a place for their trophy wives to pass the time between plastic surgeries:

"DEFINING YOU. As you move through the many aspects of your life, you want your defining style to always shine through."

I couldn't have said it more assily myself.

Here's another good one from an article on a development of million-dollar play-houses blighting the view from Smith Rock, using up high-yield farm land and calling its design influence "Napa/Tuscan Style": "The [Richingtons] step inside to the foyer, where the view into their home's great room and beyond is staggering."

I'd hate to make all my house guests stagger out of pure fabulousness. I'd rather use beer.

And I'd rather not see their ridiculous Disney Tuscan World houses from the top of Smith Rock State Park, the best hiking and rock climbing park in Oregon.

Harrumph.

I've got to go move through some aspects now.

A Masterpiece In Fossil Fuel Derivatives

You've all been very patient waiting for these roofing before and after pictures. Almost as if you didn't care! But finally, after many setbacks, which included:

• A shortage of Kiwis;
• The Miracle of the Shingles, wherein one roof worth of shingles multiplied supernaturally into at least five rooves (roofs?) worth;
• The Incredible Shrinking Dumpster;
• Panic and Complaint;
• The Plague of the Surprise Rainstorm;
• A shortage of roofers;
• Nail gun compressor failure;
• A shortage of nails; and
• A shortage of shingles;
  

the roof is on there. And in a weird moment of foresight, the Captain bought the most burly, heaviest-duty, Category 5, 50-year-warranted shingles, so that we never have to do this again.

BEHOLD THE RATTY 20-YEAR-OLD SLICES OF CEDAR, AS USED BY PRIMITIVE CULTURES THAT HAVE COME BEFORE US.BEHOLD THE SHINGLES OF SECURITY NOW BLANKETING US WITH THEIR TARRY PROTECTION.
AND BEHOLD THE PATIO OF CLEANLINESS, FREE OF THE SHINGLES OF FILTH.

AND WE SHALL DWELL IN THE SHELTER OF PETROLEUM RESIDUE FOREVER...or until we move to an over-55 gated community and get a miniature poodle and a golf cart to get to the recreation hall.

We are at the Mercy of the Feebleminded

Maybe it’s a Clue to Why People Vote the Way They Do.

So there I was at JC Penney’s, buying another Formal Sweat Suit for my collection, when I encountered a zombie at the checkout counter. It was hard to tell at first, but there is no other explanation for the following transaction.

Zombie: That will be $76.01.

Me: (Hands over four twenties and a penny, not wishing to get 99 cents in change)

Zombie: (Takes money and turns to her cash register. beep-beep ka-ching) $3.93 is your change.

Me: $3.93? I thought you said the total was $76.01.

Zombie: No. It was $76.08. Next.

That’s right. No “Oops, you must have mis-heard me; the total is $76.08.” Not even a funny look. She just took the penny and rang it up like people hand her random coins all the time, maybe to give the cash register calculator a workout.

I walked away slowly, so as not to look too delicious, as I realized that my brain, being one of the more active ones in the mall, must be a highly prized treat to such a creature.

I suppose it must be mind-numbing to work the register at the Penney’s store at Westfield Shoppingtown Vancouver (its honest-to-God name), but holy cripes. That’s like only using the brain part that keeps you breathing and releasing unwanted gas buildup.

So keep an eye out. And don’t leave your brain unattended.

Video Gold, Right Here.

Baby Panda

This video has been viewed by like 76,000 people, yet that is not enough. I like the way Mom reacts, and then adapts, like all moms end up doing.

URGENT BULLETIN

Roadhouse is on the Encore channel tonight at 9:45. The Oregonian TV schedule describes it thusly: "('89) Patrick Swayze, Kelly Lynch. A legendary bouncer agrees to tame a notorious gin mill."

A worthy title for which we should all aspire: Legendary Bouncer.

Favorite quote from Roadhouse: "Pain don't hurt."

If I'm Not Back in 24 Hours, Just Wait Longer.

The roof is almost finished.

Can you hardly not wait for the before and after?

That's what I thought.

You’ll just have to wait longer.

I have nothing witty to say, so I will give you a small slice of gonzo from the late great Hunter S. Thompson, apropos of nothing.

“I decided to call my attorney as soon as possible. Have him wire me some money to buy a huge albino Doberman. Denver is a national clearinghouse for stolen Dobermans. They come from all parts of the country.”

I'm Hip on Breaking Eggs to Make Omelettes, But This Is Ridiculous

This is what the back of our house looked like yesterday. If you want destruction done most destructively, I know some guys.

This is what twenty-year-old cedar shakes look like on the ground, instead of on your roof. Today, most of it is in the 30-yard dumpster parked out front.

Fortunately, the guys who did the destruction are not the same ones putting the new shingles on.

Hey, what's more sexy than before and after roofing photos?

Stayed tuned!

The Captain's Been Moonlighting Again

Fire Captain. Swift water rescuer. Building-collapse people-puller-outer. Surfer. Dirt bike maimer. Sub-elite level cyclist. Ivy fighter. Budding roofer. And male model?

Are You Mad?

Well, get in line. Coco is better at it. She seems to have held her breath too long.

The Score

New Sprinkler: 0
Scotty: 1

Don't Look To Me For Advice

...because my advice generally goes like this:

• If you want some motivation, listen to "Do Your Thing" by Basement Jaxx.
• Sorry. I don't know how you motivate yourself to find your iPod, put the bud thingies in your ears and turn it on. Or buy that song. It's on the Rooty CD, if you were wondering.
• If you want your dogs to go outside, sprinkle some cat food on the patio.
• I don't have any problem getting them to come in, so I have no advice for that.
• If you want to get more done today, drink more caffeine. No, more than that.
• If you want to read books for free, go to the library. My check-outs this week: something from Kingley Amis, Martin Amis, and Tim Dorsey (I was in a caffeine-induced hurry and A-D is closest, although you need no excuse to read Tim Dorsey).
• If you want to watch some good TV, stay up late or get a DVR and watch The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and The Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Conan O'Brien is good, but Craig Ferguson's monologues kick Scottish ass.
• Finish what you started. It's what my mom always said, so its probably a good idea.
• Mom, am I finished with this? 'Cause I want to go watch TV...

Dude - Where's My Dude?

The Captain left at 9 this morning for a dirt bike ride around one of the three acccurately but unimaginatively named Blue Lakes in the Mt. St. Helens area. It's now 7:30 p.m. and I've drunk my Friday drinks without any Friday dinner.

A threeee hour tour....a threeee hour tour...

Update: The Captain straggled in at 9:45 after picking up the pieces of another friend who bit it on one of his little rides. Word to the wise: if the Captain invites you on one of his little dirt bike jaunts, politely decline. Despite being Captain Safety in addition to being Captain America, his buddies tend to come back with less skin and/or bike parts then when they started. Coincidence? I think not.

Summertime and the Livin is Easy, Part 2

Now with 50% fewer commas!

My backyard is being overtaken by vines. It's a common problem here in the PNW. Leave an old car in a field and by next year the blackberries will have swallowed it and spit out the tires (too chewy). This works with old gardening equipment, houses, and the elderly if they don't move fast enough.

In my back yard it's wisteria vines, which fight my urge to trim them by shooting out blossoms that are just so ridiculously purply and sweet-smelling that I give them a little space to grow. However, they are starting to look aggressive and scary so I may have to go out there with a machete and a crucifix and beat them back.

My kitchen is being overtaken by fruit. There are blueberries from the bushes out back, blackberries from the farmer's market, and plums from a friend's tree. Not even a close friend - just someone trying to get rid of the wheelbarrows full of plums that plum trees dump in your yard, if you are unlucky enough to have one (or dumb enough to plant one). If you don't pawn them off on your friends and neighbors, your yard ends up ankle deep in plum goo all winter.

Summer fruit popping up out of nowhere must be nature's way of keeping humanity alive in spite of being mostly stupid and, if America's Funniest Home Videos is to believed, prone to stunts that end in testicular damage.

Time for a Picture of Something Cute

This is a jerboa of some sort. A "lesser" jerboa, I think. But don't tell him. It takes two separate pictures; one for the absolute gallons of facial cuteness and ridiculously long back legs,
and one for the ridiculously long tail, the usefulness of which I can't imagine. I think they live in the desert, like in Morocco-land.

This probably won't make up for the fact that some of your tax dollars are going to enrich Halliburton, and the rest of your take-home pay is going to the oil companies, but it couldn't hoit.

Sorry, did that just wipe the cuteness smile off your face?

Oops.

How Low Can You Go?

The Bush Gang is making lifelong friends in the Middle East while sincere young men and women, who just want to do the right thing, are getting sent to be IED fodder.

The Israelis bit on the bait and are getting reeled into more death and hatred.

Floyd Landis, the cyclist least likely to dope (second only to Tyler Hamilton) seems to have been caught with his pants down and a needle in his ass.

It turns out my son has been using his college classes as opportunities to catch up on his sleep.

And to cap it off,

I seem to have gained weight on my most recent diet attempt.

I would just hunker down and wait for Christmas, but I’m afraid Santa may have drowned from melting polar ice caps.

Anybody for a drink?

Only Serious Jugglers Need Apply

I Like Fatboy Slim. But Only Serious Jugglers.

See the way these balls are juggled?
That's how my feet look when I dance.
Boppity boppity, baby.
You know what's funny?
All the comments for this video are from "serious" jugglers who consider this Chris Bliss quite the hack.
Juggler fight! Juggler fight!