IndyCar Racing

This is why I follow IndyCar racing...

Bird "Offs Itself" In Our Front Yard--Kids are Stunned

WARNING: GRAPHIC PICTURE BELOW!!!
(click on it for a slightly larger view)
Recently, a cowardly neighborhood robin decided to "off itself" via some string and the young red oak tree in our front yard. I'm not sure what events led to his decision. There was no note left behind and I don't remember any of the other robins speaking (or, chirping) about how difficult his life had been. Perhaps there was a shortage of worms or maybe his house had been destroyed--I don't know. Actually, just the other day I found a robin nest in the our garage (we leave the door open too much, I guess) and threw it out into the yard. Did I have something to do with this?

Anywho, I apologize for the graphic nature of this image. We are still dealing with it in our home.

On a more serious note, I really don't know what happened here. This is a real picture that I took a few years ago. I think we had some twine caught in the tree and this poor guy got stuck in it. Anyone that knows me knows that I'm a bird watcher. The more I think about it, this looks like (brace yourself for the worst pun ever) FOWL PLAY!

Mrs. Big Doofus is blogging

My wife is a prolific writer and editor. I encouraged her to start a blog of her own and now I'm not sure what to think. I love her writing, but it looks like most of our dirty laundry will be aired out for everyone to read online. This means I may need to devote some of this page to damage control or just flat out lying about things that happened.

I have a link to her blog on the top corner of the page, but just in case you cannot move your neck muscles that far due to some sort of odd, perhaps tragic amusement park accident here it is again:

Miss Sniz (or Mrs. Big Doofus)

Driving in the Work Zone

Here in Indianapolis, we're rebuilding a six mile stretch of I-70 on the east side. They call this project "Super 70" and even created a logo and promotional events to crown the event--what an incredible waste of tax payer money. When I repaint the wood trim on my house (something Mrs. Big Doofus has been hinting at this summer), I don't give the job a fancy name like "Rapid Repaint" and have my neighbors contribute money to promote the project...but I digress.

Anyway, the speed limit is normally 50-55 on this road, but they've lowered it to 45 for the construction zone. That's reasonable. However, police officers love it because it's an easy target to meet their speeding ticket quota for the day. Seriously, the Indianapolis Star did a story recently bragging about how much money the city is making by enforcing the speed zone. I drive on this stretch regularly and the company doing the work gets a bonus for finishing early. This means that that there are almost always large crews working in the area--another good reason to SLOW DOWN (these people have families, too). But every FREEKING day I get at least one person that inches up so close to my bumper that I can see their nose hairs in my rear view mirror. To make matters worse, when they finally get around me (I'm usually doing 45-47 mph) they give me a dirty look or even FLIP ME OFF. Arrrrrgggggghhhhhh!!!!!

Memo to the Guy That Flipped Me Off Yesterday:
You really need to trim your nosehairs.

Q-tips out the window

During my morning commute to work, I was behind a burgundy Pontiac. While waiting at a stop light, he opened up his window and threw out a handful of used (I assume) Q-tips. That's about the grossest things I've ever seen. Since spring is nest-building season for the birds here in Indiana, you just know that some poor sparrow or robin is going to have an interior wall that smells like this guy's earwax (or worse).

Movies on Airplanes

NOTE: I've edited this post to drop out any four letters words just like the airlines.

If you've traveled at all in your life, you've probably seen a few movies on airplanes. I can remember back in the day when they used to have the special connection headphones that you could only buy on the plane. Considering the fact that you can't get a free meal on an airplane anymore, it's surprising that they now allow passengers to plug in their own headphones. Of course, you can still purchase a pair on the plane for $5.00.

Anyway, the REAL reason for this post has to do with how the airlines edit movies to be seen on the plane. A recent trip featured the movie Deja Vu starring Denzel Washington. He plays an ATF agent that tries to prevent a terrorist strike from happening (it's actually an entertaining movie--so I will not spoil it). The editors are careful to make sure that there is no fowl language left in the film. I'm sure I heard a few occurrences of "h%&&" and "d@^!" but you NEVER hear the word "sh!>" on a movie edited for an airline or US television. I'm not sure why this is the case, but it is. The real irony is that the movie was STILL loaded with many violent scenes including a ferry boat explosion that kills hundreds of people--including small children with their families. You can literally see them being blown off the boat and into the water. Dead bodies are carried off by emergency crews. In one scene a man is made unconscious with a gunshot and then lit on fire by a terrorist. He's literally burned alive on the movie. However, if he would have been awake and alert enough to cry out, "Sh....(you know the word)!" those of us on the plane would never know.

Eating your kids candy

I was in my car and on the way to a business meeting today when I noticed a package of Air Heads that one of my kids left in the car. I'm kind of a kid at heart, so I decided to munch on one of these things while making my way to my appointment. If you're not familiar with Air Heads, they're sort of like an extra sweet, intensely flavored taffy. You get a flat stick with flavors like Watermelon, Cherry, Strawberry, Mystery (don't know what that's supposed to be) and "Blue Raspberry." In addition to intense flavors, they also use intense food colors and I walked into my meeting with a dark blue tongue. [WRITERS EMBELLISHMENT] I wasn't sure how to explain it when they asked me about it and this was a potentially BIG business deal. So, I faked a heart attack on the spot and they attributed the blue tongue to some sort of loss of blood flow to my head. As I was being wheeled out to the ambulance, I handed my clients the papers to sign and the deal was closed. I even jacked up the price and I think they paid it out of pity.

Names for Baseball Pitchers

Now that football season is over, it's time to focus on the Cincinnati Reds and IndyCar racing (and my wife and family). This year, the Reds have a hot prospect pitcher named, "Homer Baily." I'm no rocket surgeon, but I think this is a poor choice of a name for a pitcher. Anyone can hit a "homer" off of a pitcher named, "Homer," right? So, it got me thinking of some other bad names for baseball pitchers:

"Beamball Jones"
"Hit You In the Head Johnson"