The Depressing National Weather Forecast

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So funny what I consider depressing - death is not one of them, nor is financial disarray, some tear-jerking chick flick or even Taco Bell's discontinuation of the chili-cheese burrito.

But what does depress me is the Weather Channel's National Forecast. Not so much because the nation is being bombarded with meteorological fire and brimstone (thank you, George W.), but because of my past and how TWC stirs it up - more specifically, flashing four cities up on screen every eight seconds.

Four cities in eight seconds equals two seconds per city. And I look at where I've been, what I've done, and I can confidently say that 90% of the cities popping up on screen were home to me for at least three weeks of my life. So as I'm serving ungrateful patrons to the Chesapeake shanty restaurant where I now serve people, being bombarded with requests for more ketchup, I look at the TV screen and see, in the course of one minute, 30 two-second memories of better times, memories with ambition at the forefront of my mind, memories of working with the best and the brightest the nation could ever ask for, memories with success written all over every business trip I concluded.

And one minute later, a commercial break interrupts the reflection, and it's back to the kitchen to dig up some more ketchup.
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The Growing Popularity of Nick Drake

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I think it's worth recognize an obscure figure in the music world today - Nick Drake.  If you're under 25, you probably know who I'm talking about, but he seems to have slipped under the radar to the majority of us.

Drake swirled around in the circles of obscurity for most of his career, but in 2000, one of his songs made it onto the UK charts for the first time, quickly followed by another one of his songs. Today, any decent online stream of AAA music will very likely have him in the mix, and his popularity continues to grow.  Drake has a style which fits very well with today's acoustic sound; his songs are catchy, and his voice carries an almost hypnotic quality which leaves you yearning for more.

But all good things come to those who wait, and Drake had to wait quite a while for his newly found mainstream recognition; he died in 1974.  His first charting was with Pink Moon, a song recorded in 1972, 28 years after its initial release.

 

Here's hoping he can look down.

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Government planning at its finest...

-Fantastic. We were told not to bring our pens to job training today by the Department of Commerce for a Census position (my temporary employer) - all forms must be filled out in regulation black ink pens supplied by the government. They shipped the pens to the classroom... every one of them with blue ink.

And so training begins.

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My Companion... a Shetland Sheepdog

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In fairness to my wife, I have committed to share some negativity about my dog, a Shetland Sheepdog named Piper.

...well, I can't think of anything negative. So I will share with you what she looks like:

- a pony
- a seahorse
- Barbara Streisand
- Celine Dion
- Joni Mitchell
- Gwyneth Paltrow
- Sarah Jessica Parker
- Jennifer Love Hewitt
- Seabiscuit
- an aardvark
- a Volvo S80
- an anteater
- a red fox
- a calico bunny

And if she's wet from the tub, she looks like a brown recluse spider.

Okay, in fairness, she is NOT perfect - she is a poopie-diaper aficionado. But I view that as more of a talent than a flaw.
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My Nemesis... A Pug

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It's no secret I got wrapped up on the wrong side of life in my teens, and that a number of life-changing events followed in rapid succession which pointed me in the right direction. And for many years now, I have been blessed with a supportive family and loving friends.

I started to wonder whether any retribution would ever come my way for my youthful mischief. For a while, I thought the omnicient eye of Karma somehow passed me by. Alas, my accumulated misfortune has in fact arrived, represented in a 20-pound package of purebred, leaky-faced hell.

I am speaking of a PUG.

For anyone that may read this who may not know me personally, allow me to say I take pride in accepting all of God's/Darwin's creatures for what they are. If a sea cucumber could survive outside of the water and learn how to make a decent martini, I would very much consider having one as a pet. But I'm really having trouble remaining objective with this Chinese breed, which, honestly, isn't doing China any favors as they struggle to improve their global image.

The Pug, Pearl, was the only baggage my wife brought into our marriage - but it's plenty.

First, I will describe what this creature looks like to me at any given moment:

- a poison dart frog
- a cicada
- a shittake mushroom
- a russet potato
- Don Knotts
- a lawn grub
- a freshly-shorn New Zealand sheep
- a faded Brazilian pig
- an Autumn gourd
- a medicine ball
- a bowl of Borscht
- a BMW Isetta

---and if you dipped her in orange Kool-Aid, she would look like a candied yam.

Now, in fairness, beauty is only skin deep. My Shetland Sheepdog looks like Barbara Streisand, according to my wife. Personally, I think she looks more like Celine Dion, but that's neither here nor there; she's a great low-maintenance dog. Pearl's ugliness, however, is to the bone. Her day consists of several activities: snoring so loud the windows rattle, slurping her paws louder than a five year old chugging a 44 oz. cherry-limeade slushie, waving her anus to the world more prominently than a white-tailed deer, manufacturing a caustic coffee-colored slime that is a mix of tears, snot and saliva and rubbing it all over the carpet and/or my pants, or running around the house blowing snot clouds every six seconds like Jonah's white whale. (Ah, one more thing she looks like).

Worse, this rodent is racist. If she sees a black man, she blows all her hair out like a lawn wishie - TV viewing included. Even if you lived under a rock from today until 2011, all you would have to do is see how much hair she has on her body to know if Obama or McCain had been elected president.

If you still think Pugs are cute and I'm just a bitter jackass, let me leave you with this story. I'm driving to see family one day, and both dogs were in the back. Piper (the Sheltie) was sleeping soundly. Pearl was snotting all the windows with a brown drippy haze. Hunger strikes upon my belly, so I pull into a Golden Arches. As I unwrap my tasty double cheeseburger and set it on the console so I can pull my fries out of the bag, Pearl jumps up from the back of the car and proceeds to blow two snot streaks onto the top of my cheeseburger - then sat right back down. She didn't even want to eat it, she just felt the need to mark it.

There's my passion for the day. Happy Monday.
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The definition, as promised.

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Oh yeah. Nugloo.

Nugloo (pronounced NUG-loo), is a sniglet for a unibrow. Before you disappear from this blog, never to return, let me explain this senseless drivel of which I type.

During the days of airwaves dominated by Whitesnake and the entire population of Renault Fuegos dying en masse along our roadways aired an HBO program called Not Necessarily the News. One might watch an episode now and nickname it Not Necessarily a Half Hour Worth Living. Alas, the SNL-style Evening News with Dennis Miller spinoff was graced with a segment called 'Sniglets', which inevitably transpired into a collection of instant books, T-shirts and breakfast cereals. Sniglets was hosted by a 70's porn-star looking fellow by the name of Rich Hall, and Sniglets in themselves were actually pretty funny - the general population suggested a made up word and the definition it belonged with, such as:

• Noodlium: the window found on all boxes of supermarket pasta;

• Phozzle: the furball that collects on a turntable needle;

• Peamorpho: the peanut butter that squirts out the little holes of a Saltine when bitten down upon, and, of course...

• Nugloo.

Now you know. Don't say I never did you any favors.
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What is a nugloo?

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Okay. First, the burning question: what is a nugloo?

Well, in short, a nugloo is a Sniglet. More on that later.

Why I started a blog, I have no idea. I have no exceptional talents and very little to share. My life story has been pleasantly uneventful so far. One might say I've been on cruise control for the last twelve years or so, but no one would say it, because my life isn't exactly on anyone's mind. As it should be, as far as I'm concerned.

So, what does one do with a blog if that have nothing blogeriffic? They do nothing with it, I guess. But I'm going to try and do something with mine, even though I have absolutely no idea what it may be at the moment. So, without further ado... Nugloo.
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