Here's your friendly reminder that there is only one month left to submit your everyman photos.

so bookpimp was asking me if the new what i'm coveting section of the site was a one-time deal or something i looked to maintain and keep updated. after laughing hysterically i assured him that not only will it be routinely updated but it very well may receive more attention than any other part of d.com. i mean here it has only been a week and i've already added two new items to the list. i don't want to exclude any exuberant gift givers this holiday season because every recession needs a good shot in the arm to get that economy going again. and no one, and i mean no one, is going to say troy dearmitt didn't do his part to ease any consumeristic angst my fellow citizens may be experiencing.

a few have inquired about this. allow me to answer your question.

the highlights are:
1. submissions are due by january 10.
2. and the first place prize money has doubled.

in anticipation of the coming holiday season, i've created a new section of dearmitt.com as to not leave too many of you scratching your heads on what to get your humble but gadget hungry host this year. so i invite you to please visit my personal life registry also know as what i'm coveting.

so i'm working on a new section for the web site. i'm not entirely certain what to call it just yet. leading candidates are Rockefeller Center II, the Return of Rockefeller or maybe even Carnegie Hall.

for those bad at reading between the lines, yes, we are expecting number two.

and for those really bad at reading between the lines, that is not a reference to the feces-based number two but the kind of number two that a census bureau would be interested in.

and for those who are just butt stupid. marty and i are expecting our second child. you can expect to be deluged with photos and silly captions come early may.

per my web logs, my site is rapidly becoming recipe central. there's a whole ton of people out there looking for new stuff to eat. i like that. and seeing this made me remember that there were a few recent finds i needed to add to the what i'm eating recipe index, which i've now done.

if you like taco salad or that 7-layer taco dip at least one person brings to every outdoor event, you'll love the mexican casserole just added. it's crazy good and because it's a casserole can be served as an entire dinner which the 7-layer dip can't, in good conscious at least.

and, i'm most excited about the twice baked spinach potatoes find because i'm quite the loaded potato aficionado but mine are drenched with butter, laden with cheese and slathered in sour cream. the noted recipe has none of that but hits the table just as tasty as it's venomous counterpart.

let me know if you like them.

for those on the get troy committed consortium, allow me to proffer additional evidence. for those participating in the troy is the most anal man on the planet group, allow me conclude your effort. and, for those who like to occasionally dine with walt and i, allow me to remove the mystery of what will be slopped in front of you on any particular evening.

while we each have our own reasons, a few months ago marty and i moved to a monthly menuing system. on marty's part she has been trying to keep our food budget somewhere near the allotted amount. i have been petitioning to know what we are having that night so the ingredients are ready for use (meaning not frozen) and accounted for (meaning not at the store). and, collectively we recognize that it probably isn't ideal to have our family meals at 9:30pm given the little human we are now responsible for. given these factors we now sit down at the end of the month and create a menu for the coming month. rules follow:

1. we alternate who gets to pick the meal from day to day
2. sundays are new dish night
3. mondays are staple night
4. fridays and saturdays are left open
5. tuesday through thursday rotates between rice, meat, fish, pasta and a wild card dish
6. and lastly, should you wish to dine with us, you must tell us before sunday, shopping day, so we may get extra stuff for your gullet. note: steak night works on a strict first call first come basis and if marty doesn't like you, she requires you pay for your own cut so kiss up well.

given this lengthy introduction, i now welcome you to visit the recently completed What I'm Eating section of dearmitt.com.

additional note: only the recipes we deem keepers are committed to the recipe index for your own use and edification.

welcome to the comeback tour of 80's phenom troy dearmitt. troy is rejuvenated, recalibrated and the same as before except for being a little older, wider and 60% more owned by the man. what man? that man. the man! you know the one i'm talking about. the one that owns 95% of your man.

regardless, prepare to bombarded with more unsolicited tales of self deprecation, meaningless prattle and social misfittitude, because i've been busy offending the masses in person and without contemplation and now i'm back to share these opinions and experiences with you, my silent but impressionable partner in these crimes.

for reasons big and small i will be taking a short sabbatical from my duties here at dearmitt.com and will not be updating the site for the month of may. i apologize mostly to my stalker types, all three of you, in that i know you frequent my pages with unwavering if not unnerving consistency.

i'll be back in june. see you then.

and we all know this absence is really due to the unrelenting schedule of the octoroon jihad tour.

in two days we celebrate bella's one-year birthday and in honor of this milestone, i will be reenacting the weekly rockefeller center updates for the month of march. and, in case it has been too long for any of you, that means that a new bella pic will be waiting for you each and every monday morning. i hope you enjoy them.

I have recently been told I have a responsibility to my readers. This disclosure closely paralleled my discovery that I had readers. All very exciting.

I was recently telling someone of a recent trip I took to north carolina to surprise my best bud Bookpimp on his 30th birthday. The person I was speaking to turned on me and in a highly exasperated manner proclaimed, "But you said (on your website) you couldn't go and that you were sending him a present, which was going to be late might I add." (12.28.01 entry)

Well yes but all that was a ploy to make pimp think I wasn't going when I really was.

And, just when in the hell were you going to tell us?

Hmm. Soon. I swear. I was just about to. The fact of the matter is on my way there in the airport I overheard this great exchange in the bathroom between a small boy and his father. At that moment I decided to make a photo essay of sorts where I would combine photos from the trip with things I overheard on the trip. My initial plan was to get 30 of each in honor of bookpimp's special day, but alas my friends aren't as stimulating as I initially thought and so we have 15 photos coupled with 15 quotes for a cumulative 30. There is no order or credits given. The order is irrelevant and the orators know who they were which should be enough so Bookpimp is 30 is just a lean collection of images and words which I hope you enjoy at some level.

And, pimp has his present now. And, he seems to like it. although instead I think for a present I could have simply told him that I wouldn't ask him if it feels different being 30, because a lot of people ask that, and there really is no answer, I guess because there really is no question but I guess it does feel different in a sense in that you get asked a lot more inane questions than when you were 29. See you at 40 to see if it's any different than 39.

so you're ready to see the results? i know you are, so i won't bore or delay you too long but would like to say that i felt the contest was an outstanding success, as can be seen by simply perusing through the photos.

if you want to see the winners, go here.

if you want to see all of the photos, go here.

thanks to all who participated. i personally enjoyed the experience and feel as though something happened here. something good and something broad. again i thank you.

and to the winners, the checks will go out tomorrow.

and to those who were part of a tie (2nd and 3rd), you will not be splitting the award but will each receive the full bounty. we here at dearmitt.com believe strongly in not getting generic when it comes to lucre. ok, so this is the first award we've ever given so it's doubly important to not set a lame precedent so you may anticipate the full amount in your mailbox.

i'm going to bed. now. i may have more to say on this matter tomorrow, but at this moment, i'm going to bed. i'm going to bed right now. good night.

photos have been organized, judges have been put in the ready and prize money deposited in the bank. so, for all of you uber-procrastinators, this is truly your last chance, or rather midnight tonight is your last chance to get your everyman pictures in. i would like to thank everyone who has already contributed. thanks for taking the time. pictures will be posted and winners announced in one week (MON.12.17) so make sure to stop back by to see the fun.

in checking my finances the other day, i realized that i had depleted my private slush fund. while most wouldn't care about such a trivial detail other than myself, money from this account was to be used to pay out the awards in the everyman contest (only 5 more days).

so i thought of what i could sell (mmmmuuuussssttttt ssssseeeelllllllllll teeeeeeveeeeeeee) and couldn't think of even a single item i could bear to part with. so i fell back on my FREE STATE beer jar which is always chuck full with the those shiny hard things we carry around in our pockets. if you're not hip to the budgetary tip of never paying the change on anything, therefore only receiving it, and then dumping your change everyday into a container such as a FREE STATE beer jar, i'd encourage you to start. anyway, aint nothing to roll the prize money plus forty bucks out in quarters while watching monday night football. some days i get the impression that i'm alone in my thought that there is something crazy therapeutic about the process of rolling coin. if i could roll about two hundred k in nickels, i just might be centered enough to want to do something other than roll out coin.

now once i pay this out i'm going to be scraping the bottom of the wallet again, so if anyone knows of anyone who needs a website done, send them my way. i work for food. well the money that buys the food. as long as it can also be used to acquire an ipod. you know one of the basic staples of life.

just one more week left in the everyman contest. so if you have aspirations of entering, i suggest you get to it, because word on the net is latecomers need not apply.

first, a retraction
i'm just going to come up for air long enough to tell you that i may have spoke to impetuously the other day (11.06.01). as life surely emulates, i tried to fight the good fight in reference to sticking to my tried and true mac os, but only lasted two days before leaving the reliable and steady woman (os 9.2) for that young and lithe hellion (os 10.1). she kept whispering in my ear, telling me of the exotic life we could share. shut up, i would say, audibly might i add, but in the end i found myself gazing into her eyes. her dazzling, binder-blue and feature filled eyes until i did not have the internal wherewithal to fend her advances any longer. sorry 9.2, marry another, my heart has been stilled by this young and fresh damsel i have named desiree.

second, another retraction
multiple people have requested that i raise the allowable entries in the everyman contest from one to more. i initially had it set to three but changed it right before i published because in the event only one person entered the contest, it didn't seem fair to pay them all the jack (for one entry), even though i said i would. bookguy suggested that i raise the number of entries one can make, but say that each person is only eligible to win one award. couple that with my newfound confidence that i should receive at least three separate contestants, i'm ok with raising the number of potential entries. so i'm returning it to three photos per entrant. please feel free to dig deeper and better your chances of selection.

lastly, yet another retraction
while i may not be a photoshop guru, i have used it enough to spot an obvious fabrication. such was the case with the first photo entry received in this years contest. granted a strong clue was left in that i've been in the house where this photo was taken and am pretty sure don knotts has not holiday'd there. while i do not want to stifle any creative ambitions here, blatantly doctored photos may not be the strongest of candidates ... i hope.

many people i know are very creative. far more creative than myself. some wish they had a site. other's don't know that they wish that but they do and some are so bizarre they don't think normal thoughts like the rest of us. bottom line is though that they all have things to say and experiences to share. my everyman contest is a vehicle to allow expression for those who may not have adequate channels to vent through.

i have been thinking about doing this for awhile and figured that instead of sitting here at my desk a year from now thinking i should do the same thing, i'd just give it a tryst and see what happens. it's all about experience and thinking about it just doesn't seem to count the same as going through the gyrations, so here we are.

if you are reading this it must mean that you are one of my four visitors and given such bleak numbers, i'd appreciate it if you could direct anyone you know who may be interested in this contest my way. while i'm mentally steeled for a flop or bomb, i'd like to see it succeed, although i haven't yet determined what that means.

in that i'm now married at the hip to st louis, i regularly partake in the excercise of defining positive things about living here. number seven on the list of why it's good to reside in a depressed and blighted city is that going to un-addled cities has much more appeal and benefit as can be seen in my latest photo essay on the twin cities.

Last week my mother worked in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, tomorrow she begins working in downtown St. Louis. It turns out that I am not the only one bella has wrapped snugly around a finger. Personally, I'm surprised she was able to hold out till now, this being her first grandchild and all. But, while this is great news for us, it is only mediocre news for those who frequent dearmitt.com's franchise page, Rockefeller Center. In that the page was initially designed for my out of town mother, now that she is in town, its continued propagation does not carry the same import. And given this, updates will not happen every Monday, but instead on a monthly basis.

I've also set a pretty high stick for when kid number two comes around. I've often heard that people do not photographically deluge the second child with the same vigor as the first. I hope to not deal that card to my children so want to slow down and meter my enthusiasm because I'm certain there is something to this syndrome so many people talk about. So, perhaps it's a smart move, perhaps it's nothing greater than a cop out but that is the decision coming out of this camp and I hope that all who have made Rockefeller Center part of their Monday routine will continue to do so and share in the latest antics of our little one in the new monthly format.

The greatest reward of taking the time to grow a website such as this can be found in the constant connectedness one can create with those close to them. An ancillary benefit of such a venture can be found in the connectedness people you do not know have to you, the creator. I have only recently begun tracking the activity to dearmitt,com (huge crime that) and have gained new and curious insights about the people who visit and frequent my humble cyber abode.

8am and 10pm are peak times for visitors.

Weekdays see more traffic than weekends.

A lot of people use the google search engine (smart move)

Linux is the least used OS coming here.

And, best of all, there are people out there who are way more freaky than I am. So daft in fact, I am dedicating a new section of dearmitt.com to what they want from me. Because a very cool part of logging is that I get to see what people want to see from me. I will update this section as long as the weblogs continue to proffer items as bizarre as "bolt thrower chick" and "copulating squirrels" and I will call this new cavity "What do you want?" Please visit it now and frequently if you ever require a sign that you are more normal than your fellow man. And, please don't ask me why some of these requests are leading to content I created because I honestly do not understand more than half of them.

The first rule of writing states "write what you know about." In perusing my recent entries I have been steadfastly white-knuckling that missive. Quirks of the body, things emanating from the body and obsessive observations of the body have always been a hobby of mine. But, with the interest of you, the reader, in mind I will make attempt to better diversify my content and not post another body or waste related monorail item for at least, uhhhm, four days. To promise anything greater would require me to forget the first rule of writing and while I could possibly do so, the second rule of writing also states, "write what you know about" and this backup instruction would foil my plans to spare you. I bet you never thought that the redundant listing of important philosophies would actually end up biting you in the aspiration one day (look there, it almost got me).

I would liken the last year to one of those too awake to sleep but too tired to do anything constructive kinds of states. And, in this stupor, I completely spaced the one-year anniversary of dearmitt.com. What began as an exercise to learn something about the web and myself has culminated in a gob of words and partial core dump of my mind, the parts I don't mind my family seeing at least.

For those who said they just didn't get it, knowing you as I do, I say Thank God! If you did get it, I wouldn't do it.

For those who claimed it was egocentric and self-aggrandizing, guess what? You're right. But perhaps after reading the site for a year you might even call it narcissistic.

And for those who visit me every day, week and month I sincerely thank you for showing me that there are other people on the planet as occasionally disinterested in reality as myself.

A few people have razzed me recently regarding my sandals and socks look as seen in this month's gallery selection. It is time for us as a people to get past this hangup with socks and sandals. I am doing you a favor by masking from you my least appealing and cleansed body part. And, all this without even touching on the medicinal implications of the foot--bunions, calluses, lost toenails (which is super-gross if you've ever had the pleasure), foot odor, athlete's foot, etc. So let us dissect our friend to the south at a raw and anatomical level.

Unless you are a part of the wasabi tribe of southern Africa or one of their charter members, your feet are bunged up all the time in a B.O. ridden vacuum you call your socks and shoes.

All male feet at one point or another have come into contact with human urine, and oftentimes it's not our own. Tut, tut, tut ladies, don't wipe that brow just yet, because if you've ever lived with a male, your little piggies have swam in the yellow water as well.

While my feet are exceptional in this next area, most people's feet possess at least one oddity. My claim to fame; my feet are as wide as they are long. Yes, you did the math right, that would make them square.

I have never seen two sets of toes that look the same. This is unnerving. I've also known people whose second toe is longer than my pinky finger. Also unnerving.

Lastly and most importantly, people's grotesque negligence towards the routine and non-optional maintenance of their feet is appalling. You gotta get between the toes, between them.

Given the abuse I have taken over my cloth-covered toe, the obvious need for discussion and the fact that I am right, I am dedicating this entire week to the human body. And, can we get a game of socks versus skins going here?

Tonight Marty and I will be attending the graduation ceremony at the high school she teaches at. Each year at this time we watch as a fresh crop of students jet off for the exciting and frightening unknown that is independence, responsibility and free form decisions. While I am hopeful of the experiences they will enjoy, the selfish lobe in my mind desires them to remain, For me, the therapeutic benefits of my interactions with many of them is marked.

David Lienemann possesses a quiet and refined maturity rarely seen in a person of his age. I regularly marvel at his view and interpretation of the society around us. With gifts in the form of photography, music, business, and human nature, it's more than hard to remember he cannot legally drink. One of my first conversations with him involved this website and he told me it seemed pretty good but that it needed more pictures. I asked if he was suggesting I put up more of my pictures or publish some of his. "Yes", he replied and days later supplied me with a block of photos from a recent trip he had taken. That was many months ago and I have just recently completed the feature and invite you to visit California in Reason to see the work of a future photo great.

Jessica Campbell, known by many as the gay sister in Election and/or the hermaphrodite in Freaks and Geeks, will be departing to hone her skills on the big screen. I don't really know Jessica but regularly saw her at various school functions and events. These encounters always weirded me out given how much I enjoyed and remembered election and freaks. I have spoken with Jessica a few times (Stalker! Stalker!) and she is an intelligent, lovely and spookily centered young woman who is traveling in the first class section of the success concord. She has already filmed her next picture, The Safety of Objects, starring Glenn Close, which should be coming out this summer.

The Amen boys, the departing ones at least, represent my most selfish loss. These gifted acapella entertainers have provided me with more hours of enjoyment than they can conceive. Whether tapping a toe to Elliot's remarkable rendition of the Streets of Philadelphia (philidelphia.mp3 - 4,387kb), slapping a thigh during Roundy's energetic Basketcase (basketcase.mp3 - 4,100kb) or getting dizzy watching the Pennington twins lead the always randy Instanbul (instanbul.mp3 - 3,154kb), these guys will be sorely missed and prove to me that life is in fact not fair given the unreasonable amounts of natural charisma and talent dealt out to each one of these young men.

My social microcosm will certainly feel the loss of these and other students but humans across the country will have the benefits of making their acquaintance. Treat them honestly and well because they make me smile. And for those of you who do not have access to our exceptional youth allow me to confirm that while the bad ones are getting worse (ala columbine), rest assured that the good ones are absolutely getting better.

One time while getting my car fixed a guy sat down next to me in the waiting room and started talking to/at me. While this is not a noteworthy event, what made this exchange odd was that this gentleman thought I was dating his daughter and asked me about an outing that apparently took place a few nights previous. He was working on his second question before realizing that I was not his progeny's suitor (I'm real certain the dumbfounded look on my face clued him in). Now, while this fellow represents the guy who most thought I was someone else, he is definitely not alone in that I am often confused or likened to people who are not me.

Given the frequency of these sightings and a comment from a guy last week at lunch, I have compiled a list of the people that I have most commonly been compared to.