Nocturnal beasties! I got up at 3AM to do some work and the noises I kept hearing outside my office window almost amounted to a racket. I heard numerous animals clumsily climbing over the fence in our yard, squabbling beneath the bird feeder and all manner of critters coming and going until it got light. Out in the fresh snow are tons of animal tracks. I recognize deer, rabbit, raccoon, squirrel, pheasant and either coyote or dog tracks. What are they all doing up at night? You know how hard it is to see at night? My my.
March 3, 2018
I can't believe how expensive smartphones still are considering they have sold a few billion and they only last like 2 years. Did you ever hear Captain Kirk say, Gotta get a new communicator cause the memory has run out and the home button no longer works? Yeah, I didn't think so.
March 4, 2018
If you're dissatisfied with your life, what do you plan to do about it? You can blame others, but that's futile as they certainly aren't going to fix it for you. You can pretend that all is well and ignore your dissatisfaction, but that will just perpetuate the situation, not resolve it. Or you can accept responsibility for the way things are and actively set out to promote a newer, better set of circumstances. The choice, as always, is up to you.
March 5, 2018
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Politicians are still the scum of the earth
What else isn't new
March 6, 2018
I get a call from the natural gas people telling me they are coming to change out the meter. I tell them that our driveway is a skating rink because of the snow and ice we've been getting and suggest that the trucks either have 4 wheel drive or else they should reschedule. The dispatcher pooh poohs that and says they're coming. Of course, both trucks get stuck. I could pull them out with our tractor, but I think the gas company deserves to pay the $300 they will be charged to get their guys unstuck. Hubris and all.
March 7, 2018
Ok people, enough about the lack of pictures. This month marks the end of our 18th year of KeithSpeak. As a present to all of you, when we start our 19th, I will begin to add more pictures back into the blog. Ok? Happy? Good.
March 8, 2018
Why do you need someone else to tell you how to lose weight, how to get in shape, how to make love, how to eat properly, how to enjoy yourself and how to treat the opposite sex? Are you an alien? Have you no trust or confidence in your own magnificent powers? You are you. Take control. Assert yourself to yourself. Wake up.
March 10, 2018
Overheard two girls at the movies.
-- I will not give up Facebook no matter what my parents say.
-- Why do they want you to do that?
-- They say Mark Zuckerberg is a user and I'm playing right into his hands. But all my friends are on it. I'm supposed to abandon them because the Zuck is an asshole?
-- Parents suck.
-- You got that right.
March 11, 2018
Overheard the same two girls after the movie.
-- I hate having to turn off my phone for two hours.
-- You never know who was trying to get a hold of you.
-- It's like being in prison.
-- Yeah, like what if there was an emergency?
-- Yeah, like finding out if Karen and Joe broke up.
-- Did they?
-- Nah.
-- Selfies at the movies!
March 12, 2018
Look, I can't tell you to be kind to animals any more than I can tell you to stop smoking crack. But be kind to animals. And regarding the crack, that's still now and will forever be up to you.
March 14, 2018
Stuff That Happened Today
He was kinda old and used up looking, bent over, coughing. A lady stopped and asked him if he was all right. He shook his head yes, waved her away and continued hacking. I was sitting on a city bench not 15 feet away. He stops retching, wipes his mouth, stands up straight, brushes his shirt and says to himself, "Be confident, Ronald, you can get this job", before starting off with as much swagger and false bravado as he could possibly muster.
Stuff That Happened Later Today
I wondered if Ronald got the job.
March 15, 2018
We are multidimensional creatures. You can live multiple lifetimes simultaneously. When you hate another ethnic group, another nationality, another religion, you could be hating on yourself, because you could be living another life as one of those people. So there's the miserable you that has to hate on others, and there is the possible other you being hated upon by your current ugly self. Man, why would you do that?
March 16, 2018
So you grow old. Is that the worst thing ever? If who you are is tied up with how you look, then perhaps growing old is the worst thing ever. But really? Ok, here's some women who didn't care how they looked - Marie Curie, Annie Oakley, Babe Didrikson Zaharias. Here's ones who did - the Kardashians. 'Nuff said?
March 17, 2018
I'm watching a cat slink through some bushes as it tries to get closer to the bird feeder. Overhead, birds make warning calls and all at the feeder take off before the predator is near enough to strike. The cat sits up. The jig is up. It starts to lick its paw as if it hasn't got a care in the world. I wonder, the birds wonder, is this a cat trick? But before we get answers, the cat suddenly turns its head toward the field and listens for a few seconds before hurrying away in the opposite direction. Two minutes later, two coyotes, knackered from a night of hunting, emerge from our field. As I watch from my office window in my plush bathrobe eating Oreos, I see that it is a dog eat cat eat bird kind of world out there. My my.
March 18, 2018
Met this fascinating guy from the Philippines. He was the kind of fellow who was surprised and pleased with everything. He had a Ph.D, he was Microsoft Certified, and was currently working for Samsung helping with the S9 launch. I told him that my wife had pre-ordered an S9+ and that it was to arrive this week. I can't tell you how much this pleased him. He wanted to know her current phone. He was super surprised when I told him she was upgrading her Galaxy S4 to the S9+. "Five iterations! She will be so pleased with the advances made! Of course, the S4 was a good phone in its day." I told him the S4 was her second smartphone. That she had an original Galaxy S for two years before moving up to the S4. "The S! The original S without the 1! That is beautiful. Very beautiful." All in all, everyone had a good time.
March 19, 2018
He watched a Monty Python sketch where one of the fellows puts a rolled up sock down his pants to enhance his crotchal area. Only this guy uses a thick athletic sock and the end result is, um, out of all proportion. He walks around the mall with his artificial appendage and sure enough, people stare. It didn't matter to him whether their reasons were different from his.
March 20, 2018
I know a super conservative, moralistic, church going religico who is venturing into the pot business. He has applied to become a retailer. When I reminded him that less than a year ago he was railing against drugs and gays from the pulpit, what's changed since? He says that god told him it was ok to sell weed. I laughed and called bullshit on that worn trope. He smiled wanly, didn't even try to defend the lie. Besides making money (every drug dealer's mantra) he didn't have a real answer as to why he was throwing away his preciously held loudly voiced morals. Heavens, what will he do if a gay wants to buy pot from him?
March 21, 2018
My wife got her new Samsung Galaxy S9+ smartphone yesterday. She messed around with it some and then gave it to me to customize to her preferences. I'm that special kind of guy who loves reading manuals cover to cover (how else are you going to completely know what the thing can do)? So I spent the better part of the day going through all 274 pages on this phone, adjusting this and tweaking that along the way, and then I went online to read S9+ tech tips and tricks and implemented the applicable ones. The phone is finally optimized for my geeky sensibilities and customized to just how my wife likes it. Then I backed it all up. Finally, I opened a beer, marveled at my work and congratulated myself on learning so much.
March 22, 2018
So I'm watching this discussion show on aliens and how they're just like you and me only different, when this so called expert says that he was recently abducted and quite frankly was shocked by all the old tech running the spaceship. He swore it was being powered by a '37 Buick Roadmaster engine. "Hell, the exhaust pipes vented into the cabin, which I thought was ridiculous, careless, dangerous and mind numbingly dumb - which had me wondering about the intelligence of these so called intelligent creatures, you know? - but then I learned that they live on carbon monoxide and since the earth is full of belching cars and regurgitating smoke stacks, not to mention still available Roadmaster parts, it kinda made sense for them to come here." The panel was abuzz! Was it possible that aliens were dumber than us?! The panel started speaking all at once as this sensational testimony was hotly debated.
March 23, 2018
Overheard two drunk men at the pub.
-- Tell me somethin', George. You and me come to this pub every day. Am I right?
-- Yup.
-- Ok, well I come 'cause I'm a alcoholic. I never been afraid to admit that. But how come you come every day?
-- Mel, I do it to get away from my wife. Iris is a handful. Always has been. I can only take so much. This pub is my refuge.
-- So it's a good thing I'm here then.
-- Why's that?
-- I'm good company.
-- Mel, you are good company.
-- That's what I been sayin', George. This whole time. Sure have.
-- Mel, what would you be doin' right now if you weren't here drinking?
-- Shoot, I'd be home drinking by myself. I'm a alcoholic. I never been afraid to admit that.
-- And then you would be no good company. To anybody.
-- No good. Tell me somethin', George. You and me come to this pub every day. Am I right?
-- Yup.
-- Ok, well I come 'cause I'm a alcoholic. I never been afraid to admit that. But I forget, how come you come every day?
March 25, 2018
I lost some keys yesterday. So I went back into town and retraced my steps but couldn't find them. Several hours later, at my front door, is the person who worked in the last place I stopped. She had my keys. This is a small town, but the fact that she was willing to bring them out to me and was somehow able to locate my house, wasn't even the most amazing part. Her father, a friend of mine, just happened to be visiting me at that exact moment. They were more than surprised to see each other here. It was really cute. Coincidence? I think not.
March 26, 2018
Yesterday, I read that my bank has once again posted record profits. In the mail today I get a letter from the same bank telling me their rates are going up. Well that's just peachy, greedy and rapacious.
March 27, 2018
FIRST PARAGRAPHS WE'D LIKE TO READ
The impeachment was swift and he was packed off to federal prison. His family scattered like the cockroaches they were, scurrying away in disgrace with their brand now a toxic waste dump. Within weeks, every administration scumbag was either ushered out the door, sent to prison, or paraded through the streets while the townsfolk pelted him or her with rotten vegetables. Then all the stupid acts they committed while in power were reverted back to the sanity of the Obama era. At last, the press had to write about something else. And everyone was overjoyed.
March 28, 2018
If someone asks you to help them move, and you don't want to lift heavy furniture that's not yours, tell them that you have to wait at home all day for the cable repair guy to show up. They will understand this because at some point everyone living has had to wait at home for the cable repair guy to show up. Basically, it's the get-out-of-jail-free card to anyone ever asked to help someone else move.
March 30, 2018
A pregnant woman wanted to name her kid Ctrl-Shift-Delete. She explained that that is how to eliminate the cache in Google Chrome and she didn't want her child to carry around old baggage so she's going to name it Ctrl-Shift-Delete. Her husband, however, was not entirely on board with that. Seems he preferred Ctrl-Alt-Delete, the standard for bringing up Windows Task Manager. "That way, the kid can shut down whatever isn't working and get going again." But the wife objected. "Look, we'll probably default to calling it the acronym, and while mine is a classy CSD, your awful name spells CAD! Well, what if we have a boy! Do you want people to think he's a cad! My god, Harry!" Eventually, both sets of in-laws couldn't stand it anymore and went in together on a lawsuit barring either name from being used for their grandchild. The court agreed, approving Marco for a boy and Abigail for a girl. And that was the end of that.
