sadly, i wasn't here for the original conversation or even the retelling. i heard about it third-hand from marty so the players will have to forgive any kluged details (and, should that happen, walt is to shoulder the blame).

e-love and dr. j have a dog, hattie. they also have a new baby, alison. trying to gauge his wife's commitment to their family members, e-love recently posed the following questions to her.

1. if crazed terrorist broke into the house and said you had to cut off your pinky finger or they would kill hattie, what would you do?
2. if crazed terrorist broke into the house and said you had to cut off your baby's pinky finger or strangle hattie to death with your bare hands, what would you do?

let's just say you don't want to be hattie, or any other canine for that matter, on dr. j's watch should crazed terrorist break into the home looking to grow their collection of finger-pieces.

One day in the future, George Bush has a heart attack and dies. He immediately goes to hell, where the devil is waiting for him.

"I don't know what to do," says the devil. "You are on my list, but I have no room for you. You definitely have to stay here, so I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I've got some folks here who weren't quite as bad as you. I'll let one of them go, but you have to take their place.

I'll even let YOU decide who leaves." Bush thought that sounded pretty good, so the devil opened the first room.

In it was Ronald Reagan and a large pool of water. He kept diving in and surfacing empty handed. Over and over and over. Such was his fate in hell. "No, George said. "I don't think so. I'm not a good swimmer and I don't think I could do that all day long."

The devil led him to the next room. In it was Richard Nixon with a sledge hammer and a room full of rocks. All he did was swing that hammer, time after time after time. "No, I've got this problem with my shoulder. I would be in constant agony if all I could do was break rocks all day," commented George.

The devil opened a third door. In it, Bush saw Bill Clinton, lying on the floor with his arms staked over his head, and his legs staked in a spread eagle pose. Bent over him was Monica Lewinsky, doing what she does best. Bush took this in disbelief and finally said, "Yea, I can handle this." The devil smiled and said "OK, Monica, you're free to go."

from the desk of big ed

       

only one more week to get your entries into the everyman.

regarding the new troyscript, SMELL MY FINGER, here are few more details about marty's finger sucking ritual:

she sucked on her ring finger, just up to the first knuckle. she did this so much she thought that finger was flatter than the rest.

she only sucked on this finger when upset. the story goes that after a bad day, she'd come home, curl up on the couch, suck on her left ring finger while woobying with her right hand (woobying deserves a week of explanation on its own and will NOT be tackled in the near future).

her three older brothers mocked her, quite mercilessly. the more i hear about childhood in a large family the more it sounds like being at school all the time. and on a semi-related side-note, it recently came to light that marty's second oldest brother once held her out of a second story window ... by the foot. marty does not remember this event.

marty sucked on this poor-ass finger till she was somewhere between eight and ten. when i tell people this story in person i usually add that she really didn't stop until her third year of college.

marty would prefer i didn't share this story on the site. i guess we'll get to see if she really kicked her ring-finger habit for good or not.

i watched the season premier of nypd blue the other night. it seems they plan to go out swinging in this, their farewell season. one of the plot lines followed a guy who received a botched circumcision at birth and was subsequently converted to a woman at infancy only to get it reversed in adulthood. i told you those things were bad, and that's circumcisions, not sex changes.

in another thread they introduced some new talent to the show, another female detective. i gotta tell ya, this 15th precinct somehow manages to attract the most beautiful policewomen of all time. i mean sure, when i think new york city female cop, i think smoking hot women, don't we all. three things all of blue's girls have in common:

all of them weigh less than a buck twenty
all of them could pose for playboy
and, none of them would ever go out with me

and, this is all it takes to be a lady detective on nypd blue; staggering beauty and a willingness to reject yours truly.

i read the following over on kottke. i wanted to share it with people at work but given our company's policy against allowing us to access any sites of interest, kottke's a no-go. and since my site has surprisingly eluded their 'things people might like to read' index, i thought i'd share it up on my own unnoticed web site.

for those of us relegated to use the wonderfully porous windoze environment, what follows is a list of steps to help protect you from them.

8 steps to better windows security

1. Run Windows Update regularly.

2. Install ZoneAlarm (Firewall)

3. Buy and install NOD32 (Anti-Virus)

4. Install WinPatrol (Anti-Hijack)

5. Buy and install AdMuncher (Ad and Popup Blocker)

6. Install and run AdAware (Anti-Spyware)

7. Replace Internet Explorer and Outlook Express with Firefox & Thunderbird

8. Disable Autorun.

i haven't tried this yet, but am planning to in the very near future. and i also thank the guy who took the time to put this invaluable list together. anyone who makes me work less is top notch in my world.

people do all kinds of kooky things to lose weight. my favorite, by far, never to beaten, is this one:

eating every meal in front of the mirror ... naked.

awesome in its simplicity, this plan rules. and, i figure if such a routine can help your dietary choices, imagine what it could do for other facets of your life. would you have ever guessed that as i'm typing these words to you i'm looking at myself, naked, in a mirror i hung over my desk. can you see a difference? i can.

a couple of very nice mormon fellas stopped by the house to chat the other day. after some polite conversation and realizing the purpose of their visit, i decided to save them some time. i asked if their organization was the one that disallowed caffeine. in a surprisingly unabashed manner, they said they were.

i took a moment to describe my daily regimen, in regards to caffeine, to their dropped jaws. i then explained, in a very succinct manner, that i'd sooner give up my rights of reproduction as well as the body parts responsible for that reproduction before i would forfeit a single swig of my luscious and legal narcotic. it was here that they bid me a good day and went on their white-shirted way.

i just met my second person who used to have a scanner that could pick up cell phone conversations. as i understand it, due to changes in cellular protocols, these devices can no longer receive the signals. too bad about that really, cuz there are about seven traits of my personality that would have made that activity and me real good friends.

interestingly each of these fellows had similar findings. they said that the dominant thread of conversation they heard dealt with infidelity. one of them went as far to put it at 70% of the conversations he listened to took place between affair goers.

the second most common discussion they spied; couples fighting.

now there's some math even i can add up.

a week before bella was to begin preschool she said she wanted to make valentines for her teachers. for those who don't live with this girl, valentines are the common world equivalent of a homemade hallmark card.

bella valentines typically involve of a complex formula only fully understood by her. they are diverse in style but do have certain common threads. for instance, rarely are people drawn without a browneye. allow me to swing your attention to exhibit a which i will call the 'grandparent anal valentines debacle' which fostered several silent dinners at my parent's house. given her past record, walt and i were a touch concerned of what might be in store for her new teachers.

you can obviously imagine our anxiety when bella announced her creations were complete. we hesitantly took them from her outstretched hand and eyed them carefully. no anuses, check. no penises, check. no ginas, check. (gina is pronounced like china only with a G and is how bella says the word, yes you guessed it, vagina). relief poured over us. it was important that the teachers' first impression of our child was not a jaded, or real, perception. we felt this was a pivotal component of our eldest girl's success in the classroom.

on the morning of the first day, bella was super adamant that her valentines not be left behind. we assured her multiple times we had them, clapping my hand on the three sheets of paper in my back pocket. once at school it was her single and immediate mission to distribute them to her teachers. i only saw the first of these transactions. she gave it to the smiling educator who leaned down to thank her.

teacher: oh my, isn't this a beautiful picture.

bella: yes it is. it is a person being chased by a shooter.

teacher: oh. well, isn't that ... interesting.

yes it is interesting, but not nearly as interesting as the parallel story of how marty and i became the newest names on missouri's department of family services watch-list fifteen minutes after that exchange took place.

i'm confident we just witnessed the beginning of what is certain to be a rollicking academic career.

in case you missed it yesterday, a new troyscript was posted.

in case you were wondering, after reading the above troyscript, what it looked like to have your bedroom across the way from bella's, wonder no more. photo compliments of the previous tenant.

we got us a school-age child. she starts today.

if you run into me and think i'm crying, i am.

regarding any thoughts of strength, peace and love you were going to wish my way, please direct them to her teachers instead for they need the help far more than me.

those poor and unsuspecting souls.

puberty punched me in the face so hard i was nearly unrecognizable on the other side. the greatest victim to this unprovoked mauling was my hair, which is certainly no secret to anyone who has met me since the age of thirteen. before this adolescent milestone, i had silky strands just like the other kids, but as a teenager i was the sole member of a yet-to-be-established support-group for people w...

when i email people for the first time, i sometimes worry about the subject line i choose and if it will be thought of as spam and consequently discarded. emails i've sent that fostered this sentiment:

i wanted to introduce myself
have you seen my latest photos
you're not going to believe this
i think i know you

and lastly ...

do you wish you had a larger penis

don't ask me to expound on that last one ... bookguy asked me not to.

the new guy's wife

(this definitely qualifies as a string of words i never expected to be said to me in conversation. it also qualifies as one of the most amazing string of words ever said to me in conversation.)

imagine britney spears' career if she were 50 pounds heavier.

but then again, it hasn't seemed to hinder anna nicole's ability to earn a buck, so who knows.