Almost the Truth

Oscar Tweets

2012-02-27T20:33:00.001-06:00

Up till now, me having a Twitter account (@deweyroth) was just a residual happenstance from me saying, “What’s up with all this tweeting I keep hearing about?” Last night, I decided to change all that and committed to sending my personal commentary on the telecast of the 84^th Annual Academy Awards into the World Wide Wackfest…140 characters at a time.

For those of you who missed it:

6:57 Central Time - @SteveMartinToGo and I will be keeping you up to speed on the Oscars. Or up to snuff...your vice of choice

Wait...what? I thought the Oscars started at 7:00 Central...There's still 1/2 hour of "ooh your dress is beautiful"? Going to pop corn...

Morgan Freeman could make a subway toilet classy.

Have fun storming' the Fuhrer!

The movie theaters of our youth? Mr. Crystal, did they HAVE movies when you were young?

Great montage

Jennifer Lopez is a great woman of faith...would have to be to believe she's not going to pop out of that dress

They should remake the Wizard of Oz...so Barbra Streisand could play the Cowardly Lion...no make-up required.

8:05 Those huge leaning Oscar torsos are kinda scary.

8:08 - Is anyone else feeling a little guilty for thinking that the Iranian's acceptance speech was a coded message?

No wonder Christian Bale uses an American accent in all his movies...I can't understand a thing he says in his normal voice.

HA! The sound editors made a joke: "Hugo." "No, HUgo."

8:27 - Why do I have to keep seeing that weird thang the Sarah Palin impersonator is wearing?

I was wondering when there was going to be a movie-themed commercial. Way to go, Diet Coke!

Cirque du Soleil's performance was "What it's like to go 2 the movies" Um, yeah...I always have people doing handstands on trapezes @ films

First honest laugh of the show...8:46...thank you, Chris Rock

Rango!!!!!!! yay!

Yes, one and all..."Brave" is looking like a must-see.

Emma Stone is bending over and is still taller than Ben Stiller.

9:10 - How does one become the president of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences?

9:12 - Sorry, I normally really like Billy Crystal, but he's doing a lot of laughing at his own stuph 2night

That was cool...the musical score winner took time to greet each of his co-nominees before taking the stage.

9:19 - We can send a man to the moon, but we can't convince people they don't need to bend over for the mic to pick up their voices.

Thank you, Angelina Jolie, for standing that way in that dress with those legs.

However, Angelina, your arms are freakishly 2-dimensional.

9:43 - Documentary short film...yeah, yeah, yeah...whatever.

So...were all the nominees instructed to talk about how much they love movies and when they first started watching them?

9:56 - Meryl Streep is presenting the Governor's award. ActorBoy says she's even beautiful without make-up.

Still waiting to see @tomhanks...where art thou, oh bosom buddy?

Watching the In Memoriam segment reminded me of the year the Emmys failed to recognize Larry Hovis' passing. AUGH!

"Sank-Q"

10:25 - Didn't Glenn Close play a man before? (See "Hook" for the guy thrown into the Boo Box.)

Actually, Meryl, over half of America was saying, "Yes, the Academy finally got it right (for a 3rd time)!"

10:36 - The producer of "The Artist" looks and sound like Peter Lorre. I'm just sayin'...

So much pomp &self-importance & so many Meaningful Statements &the show fizzles 2 an end with "Well, that's our show, goodnight everybody"?

Almost the News XV

2012-02-24T19:23:00.001-06:00

Author Will Speak to Monthly Lunch
"It's like this," said Michele Hermansen, author of Unexpected Journeys, "When a person only eats a mid-day meal once a month, you kind of want to get to know it a little first."

Man Makes Plea in Beer-Dumping Case

To be specific, the man said, "PLEASE dump that case of beer in my fridge!"

Al-Maliki Bars Breakaway Provinces

The newest chocolate sensation is so popular, pieces of Canada are falling into the ocean.

Elephant Poaching Worst On Record

Johnny W. Muller, regular patron at Dumbo's Diner: "I've been coming here for over a decade and I mean to tell you...I've never had eggs this bad before!"

Ex-leader's Spouse Wins Czech Asylum

The husband of jailed Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko got the big prize in a recent raffle, and is quoted as saying, "I am likink the building, but what am I supposed to do whit all the crazy peoples livink dair?"

School Aide Gets Jail for Sex with Student, 16

You would think the aide would have gotten a motel room or something. The jail is an odd locale for that kind of activity.

Obama to Return Cash Tied to Mexican Fugitive

Seriously...if I have to explain why this headline made me pee a little, I'm not sure you should be reading this blog.

Geological Oddity at Niagara Falls!

2012-02-18T12:17:00.005-06:00

Thursday's Saint Paul Pioneer Press printed an article by Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "A tightrope walk over Niagara Falls? Canada says it's OK"

There's probably a joke somewhere to be had about "tightrope walk" and "falls" being in the same sentence, but I'll let that go in favor of expressing shock, amazement, and disbelief about something that came later in the article.

The article itself was somehow cramming all the news covered in the headline into 17 paragraphs. Paragraph Number Nine states: "Wallenda plans to install the wire 60 to 70 feet above the 160-foot gorge, which will dip down in the middle, meaning he'll walk downhill during the first half of the 30- to 40-minute walk and uphill until the end."

Read that again carefully, and -- like me -- you may have two questions:

1) Is it even possible to dip any way other than down?

2) How would stringing a two-inch-thick cable cause a 160-foot gorge to dip in the middle?

Dewey is...

2012-02-13T20:37:00.001-06:00

According to the World Wide Wackfest and a Rest in Him Ministry-helping search on GoodSearch.com, I am much more than meets the eye. Observe...

Dewey is best known for developing the theory of instrumentalism, which posits the value of an idea in relation to its practical consequences rather than as a transcendent truth.

Dewey is a cancer survivor.

Dewey is a must read for cat lovers, cat owners, library employees, and anyone who is having a hard time in life and needs some inspiration.

Dewey is adopted!

Dewey is the Welsh form of the masculine name, David.

Dewey is a first-team all-American.

Dewey is about 15 miles south of the Kansas border.

Dewey is new association executive for River Counties.

Dewey is a board certified cardiothoracic surgeon who specializes in the treatment of valvular related heart disease, cardiac transplantation, mechanical assist devices, and complex coronary artery disease.

Dewey is no Mr. Miyagi.

Dewey is a paraprofessional at Rush-Henrietta High School with severe arthritis pain.

Dewey is a year older than me. [Nice trick, eh?]

Dewey is scheduled for a settlement conference, or further case management on Tuesday.

Dewey is better looking than Jeeves.

Dewey is a co-founder of functional psychology.

Dewey is not just a party town.

Dewey is a member of the American Library Association's Hall of Fame.

Dewey is dating!

Dewey is not altogether forgotten.

Dewey is now old enough to be the president of Idaho.

Dewey is a dead man. [True, interestingly enough…see Galatians 2:20!]

Hello, Earworm, my old friend

2012-02-02T15:37:00.001-06:00

This quarter's round-up of insidious melodies...

NOVEMBER

1 – Little Girl (The Beatles) J, P, G, & R at their most homicidal: “I’d rather see you dead little girl than to catch you with another man…You better run for your life if you can, little girl. Hide your head in the sand, little girl. Catch you with another man? That’s the end-duh, little girl.”

4 – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Judy Garland) My, my, my…The Season certainly started early this year.

5 – Lay Down Sally (Eric Clapton)

16 – Bad Time to Be in Love (Grand Funk Railroad)

28 – Crocodile Rock (Sir Elton John)

DECEMBER

1 – Hey, Soul Sister (Train)

2 – Midnight Blue (Melissa Manchester) Behold, one of the few times I could actually identify how the morning’s earworm “was planted in my brain.” I heard this classic on the radio during my morning commute yesterday.

3 – It’s Not Easy Being Green (Jim Henson as Kermit) One of the most poignant performances, puppet or personal, of all time. (For the first-ever performance on Sesame Street, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIOiwg2iHio&feature=fvsr)

8 – You Make My Dreams Come True (Haulin’ Oats)

15 – Best of My Love (The Emotions) This is the 1977 disco-ish song, not the 1975 tune by the Eagles…which should give you a clue as to how irritated I’ve been since it popped into my head at 4:30 this morning!

16 – 1, 2, 3 (Len Barry) “It’s easy. (It’s so easy.) Like takin’ candy from a BAYbeeeeee…”

17 – Let’s Get It On (Marvin Gaye)

21 – I Want You to Want Me/All You Need is Love (Cheap Trick/Beatles) My marvelous morning mental mash-up

22 – Theme from “Three’s Company” (Yes, my subconscious is just that annoying.)

26 – Making Room (This is a worship song written by Dave Burkum and Jonathan Miller, two pastors at my church [www.valleycc.org] specifically for this Christmas season.

29 – What a Fool Believes/I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face (Doobie Brothers/from My Fair Lady) And if you don’t think this made my morning bowl of Cheerios^® a strange experience…

JANUARY

1 – I Can Help (Billy Swan) “If your child needs a daddy…”

5 – Have You Never Been Mellow? (Olivia Neutron Bomb)

11 – Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing (Stevie Wonder)

19 – (Last Night) I Didn’t Get to Sleep at All (The 5^th Dimension) While I wasn’t all that happy about having this swimming laps in my head all morning, I was glad to be able to say it wasn’t true.

21 – Every Woman in the World (Air Supply)

25 – In the Mood (Glenn Miller) And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

27 – Running on Empty (Jackson Browne) It’s not a good sign when this is the first thing in your head in the morning.

28 – All Night Long (Lionel Ritchie)

30 – Your Name (Phillips, Craig and Dean)

A Cure for What Ailed Me

2012-01-22T21:43:00.000-06:00

I was taken aback recently when I read the following newspaper advertisement:

Twas the night before Christmas [okay, I was taken aback about a month ago...] and all through the town, not a creature was stirring, except for a firefighter, a nurse, a doctor, a plant manager, and office worker...some of them struggling to stay awake throughout the night shift...

Supporting those of you who stay awake for the rest of us

NUVIGIL is a prescription medicine used to improve wakefulness in adults who experience excessive sleepiness (ES) due to shift work disorder (SWD). Ask your doctor about ES due to SWD and if NUVIGIL could be right for you.

Several things add to my taken abackedness:

1) The condition of being really, really sleepy now has its own acronym?!?

2) While I can understand the brand name, NUVIGIL (when I stop pronouncing it "noovih-gill" and start saying "new vigil"), I'm puzzled as to why the generic name for this world-saving substance is ARMODAFINIL...sounds like a cross between an armadillo and a flower. Unless maybe instead of "armo DAF ih nill" it's supposed to be "armo da final"...like preparing a student for a very important test.

3) For nine years, I worked from 11:00 at night to 7:30 in the morning. (Not doing anything nearly as important or exciting as fighting fires, tending the sick, or managing -uh- plants; no, no, no...I was proofreading prospectuses for mutual funds.) All that time, I thought my being really, really sleepy was due to a) not getting a good day's sleep; and b) the extremely boring (EB) nature of my duties (MD). As it turns out, it was a medical condition! I was suffering from SWD! I could have joined the ranks of women everywhere who blame their innate crabbiness on PMS and declared, "Hey! It's not my fault I keep falling asleep and writing nonsensical marginal notes like 'bold, no sugar;' I've got SWD!"

4) The fine print is rather worrisome: NUVIGIL may cause serious side effects including a serious rash or a serious allergic reaction that may affect parts of your body such as your liver or blood cells, and may result in hospitalization and be life-threatening.

Seriously? But hey, baby, you'll be awake!

If you develop a skin rash, hives, sores in your mouth, blisters, swelling, peeling, or yellowing of the skin or eyes, trouble swallowing or breathing, dark urine, or fever, stop taking NUVIGIL and call your doctor right away or get emergency help.

Gee...ya think?!? "My eyes are yellow and peeling, and I can't really breathe, but gimme those pills so I can stay awake for what is apparently my imminent death."

Do not drive a car or do other dangerous activities until you and your doctor know how NUVIGIL affects you.

Translation: We're marketing this as a way to do battle with ES due to SWD, but until you pop these pills in your mouth and swallow them, it's only a best guess as to what it will do to you. That'll be $49.99, please.

And now you know why it's called Practicing Medicine (PM).

Crashing Through Writer's Block

2012-01-15T20:57:00.001-06:00

Come on, Mister Creative, sit down and write
Make the world chuckle and don't take all night
Do it in prose, do it in rhyme
Do it in doo-doo; just do it in time!

The good news is, it won't have to make sense
You're long past the time when you tore down that fence

Create a laugh, a snicker, a groan

Tell of a prank to perform on the phone

No need to inspire much wonder or awe

Just pass on the tale of your latest faux pas

Or make something up from when you were a youth

It's okay to lie; this is Almost the Truth

The 12 Days After Christmas

2012-01-06T16:03:00.001-06:00

On the first day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Seven days to take down the tree

On the second day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Warmed broccoli casserole
And six days to take down the tree

On the third day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Left-over ham
Warmed broccoli casserole
And five days to take down the tree

On the fourth day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Spoiled eggnog
Left-over ham
Warmed broccoli casserole
And four days to take down the tree

On the fifth day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Gifts to return
Spoiled eggnog
A ham salad sandwich
Warmed broccoli casserole
And three days to take down the tree

On the sixth day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Six pointed comments
Gifts to return
Spoiled eggnog
A ham salad sandwich
Warmed broccoli casserole
And two days to take down the tree

On the seventh day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Seven snide remarks
Six pointed comments
Gifts to return
Spoiled eggnog
A ham salad sandwich
Warmed broccoli casserole
And one day to take down the tree

On the eighth day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Eight ultimatums
Seven snide remarks
Six pointed comments
Gifts to return
Spoiled eggnog
A ham salad sandwich
Warmed broccoli casserole
And a dirty look for leaving up the tree

On the ninth day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Nine nasty notes
Eight ultimatums
Seven snide remarks
Six pointed comments
Gifts to return
Spoiled eggnog
A ham salad sandwich
Warmed broccoli casserole
And a dirty look for leaving up the tree

On the tenth day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Ten disgusted sighs
Nine nasty notes
Eight ultimatums
Seven snide remarks
Six pointed comments
Gifts to return
Spoiled eggnog
A ham salad sandwich
Moldy broccoli casserole
And a dirty look for leaving up the tree

On the eleventh day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Eleven ‘Lord, have mercy’s
Ten disgusted sighs
Nine nasty notes
Eight ultimatums
Seven snide remarks
Six pointed comments
Gifts to return
Spoiled eggnog
A ham salad sandwich
Moldy broccoli casserole
And a dirty look for leaving up the tree

On the twelfth day after Christmas, my true love gave to me
Twelve home-baked cookies
Eleven love notes
Ten mended socks
Nine happy hugs
Eight sexy kisses
Seven stunning smiles
Six little giggles
Time to myself
Four Dr. Peppers
Beef on a bun
Sweet potato fries
And a ‘Thank you, dear, for taking down the tree’

My 2012 Headline Wish List

2012-01-03T20:27:00.000-06:00

Not likely to happen, but it would warm every cockle my heart has to see these headlines sometime this year...

Firefly and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip Return to Television

Ocean's Fourteen in Post-Production, Ready for Late-Summer Release

Kardashians Fade Into Obscurity

Delta Announces $50 Flights to NYC

Minnesota's First Winter With No Snowfalls Over 3 Inches

Valley Park Neighborhood Oddly Quiet on July 4th

Publisher's Clearinghouse Prize Patrol Visits Local Blogger

The House and Senate Work Together and Actually Accomplish Something Positive

...namely...

Political Advertising Outlawed

Now, only outlaws will run political ads...wait...what's new about that?

Almost the Nativity

2011-12-23T15:27:00.000-06:00

(For those who arrived late, this is a reprint from 2009.)

I view the Bible as being 100% truthful and reliable...however...it doesn't always report 100% of what actually happened. At times, it uses figures of speech and poetic language and just plain leaves some things out. For example, what really happened between Luke 1:26-56 and Matthew 2:18?

Following the angel Gabriel's announcement to Mary that she would give birth to the Messiah, and Mary's hasty, three-month visit with her kinswoman, Elizabeth, she returned to Nazareth and her betrothed, Joseph.

"Joseph?" Mary inquired, as she entered the carpenter's shop.

"Is that the voice of my turtle dove?" laughed Joseph as he picked Mary up and swung her around in joy.

"Careful, you glorified lumberjack." Joseph was a little confused about needing to be careful, so Mary continued: "I've got some wonderful news, oh hubby-to-be! I am expecting a child."

"That's a wonderful, positive attitude, my basket of flower petals. I, too, expect that our God will be gracious and grant to us the blessing of being parents." (Joseph was not the sharpest chisel in the toolbox.)

"You don't understand, my muscular ox. I am, even now, at this very minute, expecting a child."

Joseph tilted his head to one side, squinted, and slowly said, "Yea, verily...me, too."

Mary slipped her hands up Joseph's arms and cupped his face. "Let me speak plainly, oh He Who Is Strong of Arm and Thick of Skull. I'm preggers."

The light dawned excruciatingly slowly in the carpenter's mind: "Heyyyyy...what were you doing for the last three months, anyway? I thought you were visiting your cousin Elizabeth. Is there something in the water up there?"

"Joseph," Mary calmly interjected, "I am not pregnant by the effort of any man. God has placed this child within me."

"Riiiiiiiight."

MY FIRST TIME: Episode Four: You can't get there from here

2011-12-12T19:05:00.010-06:00

Synopsis: The author and his Beloved, as part of their first-ever, short-term, cross-cultural missions experience, arrived in Panama City, Panama, a day later than the rest of their group.

The first thing to hit me when the sliding glass doors opened -- the doors that separated the stiff, official, will-they-let-me-in-the-country-or-not customs area of the airport from the throng of brown faces looking for someone other than me -- the first thing to hit me was the smell. Not that it was an unpleasant odor, just...different. Certainly pungent. Decidedly piercing. Altogether unavoidable.

The second aspect of Panama to impress itself on me was the heat. This was February. I had left 26 degree Indiana and now walked into 95 degree Panama. Again...not unpleasant, except for the whole tennis-shoes-melting-into-the-concrete phenomenon.

The gringo missionary we would be working with knew the representative of the sponsoring organization that had organized the trip and who was with us (because he stayed behind in Miami, remember?), so we had no difficulty being found. Frankly, even though we had never seen the missionary before, it wasn't hard to pick out the only six foot, four inch, redheaded Irishman that side of the Rio Grande.

We wended our way through the crowds to a large taxi/small cargo truck, which took us to the bus terminal in town, where we booked passage for our six hour bus ride to a town named David (pronounced, Dah-VEED).

Methinks the actual distance from Panama City to David is about 120 miles, but we spent the first three-and-a-half hours of our trip zig-zagging through the narrow, congested, always-in-a-state-of-disrepair streets of Panama City...stopping for every souvenir cart (no doubt owned by a cousin of the bus-driver's wife's shoe salesman's nephew) and stray dog (the other white meat).

To give you an idea of just how exciting it was riding in this fairly-full, vintage bus with an assortment of animals, produce, cranky kids, and large, belching hombres, let me pass on three words: No...Air...Conditioning.

"Hey, Mommy's Daddy!"

2011-12-05T20:03:00.002-06:00

I became a grampa Sunday morning.

Well, to tell you the True Truth, I've been considering myself the father of a child who has a child since I first saw the ultrasound picture and could tell how absolutely cool my grandson was:

But just yesterday morning (as James Taylor invades my brain), they let me KNOW you were [here]. Seems that the plans they made [got left behind].

It's true, the little goober came a few weeks early, but all is well and right and good and fine...except for a personal question of my own:

What do I want SkittleKid to call me when he starts talking in a few weeks?

(Yes, it will happen that soon. His mom, AngelFace, is An Educator and will settle for nothing less than a precocious prodigy...reading The Brothers Karamazov at the age of three.)

I've heard plenty of possibilities:

Grandfather - Way too stuffy for a wannabe hippie like me; makes me think of Shirley Temple pouting and crying in a snowstorm

Grandpa - Impossible to pronounce, which is probably what led to the invention of...

Granpa - which no one actually says; it always comes out...

Grampa - which is fine for what it is: the masculine form of Gramma; but I guess I want something less derivative

Gramps - This would be great if I chewed tobaccee, walked with a hitch in my gitalong, and was named Walter Brennan

Peepaw - Kind of cute in a it's-a-shame-Dewey-has-to-wear-Depends-at-such-a-young-age kind of way

I know it will depend on what SkittleKid's tongue can actually navigate, but I wouldn't mind Papa Dewey...except now that I say that out loud, it sort of sounds like you're instructing someone to quickly swallow some kind of illegal pill.

Oh well, whatever he ends up calling me, I'll love it because I love him. And that's the whole, complete, actual, factual, true truth.

Shopping CAN be fun!

2011-11-28T20:03:00.000-06:00

'Twas the week before Black Friday, and Beloved and I were stalking around in a department store, looking for things we would only think about considering to contemplate buying if it was 75% off. On a good day, shopping is not on my top ten list of fun things to do, but add to that the dark cloud of We-Don't-Really-Have-Any-Money-To-Buy-Things, and my day was, if not totally shot to blazes, at least sweating profusely from the radiating heat.

The tension...for me, at least...was permanently dispelled as a result of the following scene:

A mid-sized circle of people was passing me, walking in the opposite direction. Well...most of the people were passing me. One young girl was barely keeping up with the group as she hobbled on one foot, trying not to touch the other to the floor, and expressing her frustration in a series of almost-crying whimpers.

A mom-like entity in the middle of the group, pushing a shopping cart, grumpily mumbled, "SOMEbody needs a nap."

With no hesitation and in a clear, purposeful tone, the hopping child declared, "I don't need a nap. You ran over my ankle!"

Am I a bad person for laughing?

Almost the News XIV

2011-11-22T07:37:00.001-06:00

Self-Defense Claimed in Baseball-Bat Killing
The defendant testified that "the bat had a knife and was coming at me! I had no choice!"

ADT Settles with Family of Woman Slain in Bed
The arbitration lawyer said it was an unusual location for a settlement to take place, "but, hey, whatever works."

Fiber One Bars Recalled For Nuts
Sane people, however, will still be allowed to purchase them.

Ventura's Suit Over Search Tossed
Two questions: 1) Why would a search motivate anyone to throw the former Minnesota governor's dapper duds?...and...2) When did Yoda start writing headlines?

Wildfire Destroys 72 Reno Homes
Michael Martin Murphy's hit song spent two weeks at the number three spot back in June of 1975, but last week, when played at an extreme volume, it literally brought the house down...several houses, actually.

Man Gets Four Days For Lewd Conduct
...but that's all. After four days, he has to stop.

Possible Gas Leak Prompts Evacuation
Just another Sunday afternoon at my dad's La-Z-Boy.

MY FIRST TIME: Episode Three: How much is that urinal in the window?

2011-11-19T19:33:00.000-06:00

Synopsis: Having overcome the hurdles of a decapitated hawk and a missed connection, Beloved and I finally arrived in Panama City, Panama, to begin our first short-term, cross-cultural mission experience.

This was my first experience using a passport and a visa to enter a different country. My level of anxiety as I shuffled through customs, carefully eyeing the well-armed soldiers as they carefully eyed me, was somewhere between that of a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs and a three-year-old boy needing desperately to go wee-wee.

Funny I should mention that, because the complimentary ginger ale on the flight had turned me into exactly that...except for the three-year-old part.

The good news is, there was a rest room conveniently located a few feet away. The bad news is, when I went through the first of two doors, there was a woman sitting there. I was about to turn around and double-check the sign on the baño to see if the little figure had a skirt, when a fellow traveler said, "It's alright; she's the attendant."

Being only partly convinced that it was "alright," I went through the second door and into the rest room proper. It was a fine and modern facility; fairly clean, I was told, because of The Attendant sitting between the two doors, whose job it was to keep it that way.

Whilst Taking Care of Business, my mind raced with questions: Is Senorita Attendant going to walk in and start cleaning while I'm in here? How much does one tip a person who keeps the paper towel dispenser full and the waste can empty? Would it be impolite to barter?

As I walked past her on the way out, I handed her what I thought was the equivalent of a dollar, but I must have miscalculated because she took one look at my tip, jumped out of her chair, kissed me full on the mouth, and went dancing and skipping down the hallway.

I heard on the news that night something about an upward spike in Panama's national economy...

Amazing Numbers!

2011-11-11T11:43:00.001-06:00

Having just been subjected to the umpteenth breaking news story about today being 11/11/11 (GASP!), I feel it is my duty as part of the blogosphere to inform as many people as possible that tomorrow's date will be...11/12/11!

YES! IT'S TRUE!

And you better make note of it now, because this arrangement of numbers representing month/day/year won't happen again for ONE HUNDRED YEARS!

And...oh my goodness gracious me...Sunday will be 11/13/11...an arrangement of numbers representing month/day/year that won't happen again for ONE HUNDRED YEARS!

But in other news...wait! This just in! Monday will be 11/14/11...an arrangement of numbers representing month/day/year that won't happen again...ZZZzzz z z z z z z z z z......

Link-a-palooza

2011-11-10T19:37:00.001-06:00

Being on vacation, I just can't bring myself to sit down and compose the next chapter in my first cross-cultural mission experience or write about the latest mangling of the English language perpetrated by SweaterGal and FlatulenceKing (my parents, with whom Beloved and I are staying), so I'm being absolutely lazy and reproducing for the Almost the Truth fan base (all both of you) a list of interesting links that I keep updated on my FaceBook page...

MUSIC IN GENERAL

Adam Ben Ezra doing a suhweet solo upright bass cover of Come Together
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOkYMw5-ZMg

James Taylor's song, Fire and Rain, makes me feel kinda like the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter.
http://youtu.be/5_qLGl5uhSU

How unbelievably cool would it be for Paul Simon to invite you on stage to sing one of his songs?
http://youtu.be/AXBlY5CImUU

The Beatles in their first TV appearance: The Mersey Beat program in the UK, 1963...She Loves You
http://xoteria.com/CH54.html

Paul Revere & the Raiders perform Ups & Downs on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour:
http://youtu.be/ioufyn6j3cU

Beatles & Jackson 5 doing Hey Jude and I'll Be There. This is what started my love for mashups.
http://soundcloud.com/mixessss23/the-beatles-jackson-five-vs?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=facebook&utm_content=http%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Fmixessss23%2Fthe-beatles-jackson-five-vs

Beatles & Jackson 5 together in a masterful mashup of In My Life and I Want You Back.
http://youtu.be/xQ_Ywk1g6PU

Come Together & I Love Rock and Roll mashup of the Beatles and Joan Jett.
http://youtu.be/MZBuYbKgvQI

CLASSIC (i.e., oldish) JESUS MUSIC

Rich Mullins singing his song, Creed
http://youtu.be/5Tpq4MoRVV4

Phil Keaggy & Randy Stonehill doing Sunday's Child and seeming a lot younger than they really are.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0NyIalFDjc&feature=player_profilepage\

Keith Green, singing Your Love Broke Through
http://youtu.be/h89-3_kIRDA

Larry Norman, the man who started it all: The Rock That Doesn't Roll
http://youtu.be/Y18yPO03zjo

GETCHA LAUGHING

Rowan Atkinson w/ Not the 9 O'clock News reciting a modernized Apostles' Creed, mostly standing firmish in their beliefs...kind of.
http://youtu.be/IUQcCvX2MKk

Jello Cubes Being Dropped - High-Speed Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n5AfHYST6E&feature=player_embedded

22 Examples of Refaced U.S. Currency
http://twentytwowords.com/2011/05/12/22-examples-of-defaced-u-s-currency-or-should-that-be-refaced/

Barney Fife "reciting" the preamble to the U.S. Constitution
http://youtu.be/oBuPQgV8yBM

Beatles 3000 is a great parody of historical research and the pompous talking heads who think they are experts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z2vU8M6CYI&feature=player_embedded

Back to the Future's Biff riffs on questions he always gets asked
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwY5o2fsG7Y&feature=player_embedded

Ma & Pa Kettle do some fancy math
http://youtu.be/zDjzKzSWSM8

GETCHA THINKING

Single episode of "Truth for Life" podcast. My favorite Scottish preacher, Allistair Begg, with an inspiring illustration of worship.
http://www.truthforlife.org/broadcasts/2011/03/10/learning-how-to-worship-an-illustration-part-b/

Back in the U.S.S. Earworm

2011-11-01T17:27:00.000-05:00

Morning arrived, but I was already awake...with these unbidden songs wreaking havoc on my attempts to sleep Just Five More Minutes.

AUGUST
2 – Angels Unaware (Matthew Ward)
3 – Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (Beatles) Irritation: when the song first came out, the Beatles were all “No, this isn’t about LSD. John’s son, Sean, drew this crazy picture…” And then, years later, in a filmed interview for the “Beatles Anthology” TV miniseries, Paul just matter-of-factly, with no hint that he was rewriting history, said, “…and of course, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was about drugs…”
12 – Maxwell’s Silver Hammer (John, Paul, George, and Ringo)
16 – Anna (Beatles…which is now getting a little silly, don’t you think?)
17 – While My Guitar Gently—oh for cryin’ out loud…
21 – I Knew You When (1965 hit by Billy Joe Royal, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG1slUQTsUM&feature=player_embedded, but my poor unfortunate soul was hearing Donny & Marie Osmond’s version)
26 – Show Me the Way (Peter Frampton)

SEPTEMBER
1 – Saturday Night’s Alright for Fightin’ (Sir Elton John)
3 – Psalm of Hope (Debbie Roth, www.restinhimministry.com)
8 – Mama’s Pearl (Jackson 5)
15 – The Love of God (Rich Mullins)
19 – Feed the Birds (from Mary Poppins)
20 – Hard to Say I’m Sorry (Chicago, that toddlin’ town)
22 – Beautiful Things (Gungor) Just learned this song the evening before during worship rehearsal; must have learned it well, because now it is all I can hear!
23 – Marian the Librarian (from The Music Man)
27 – Treasure of You (Steven Curtis Chapman)

OCTOBER
3 – Sailing (Christopher Cross)
6 – Let’s Dance On (Monkees)
9 – Nashville Cats (Loving Spoonful) Strikes me that these could be flipped around in almost any order, and it would still sound right. (Loving Spoonful by Nashville Cats; Nashville Spoonful by Loving Cats; Spoonful Cats by Nashville Loving…)
10 – Dreamweaver (Gary Wright)
20 – Mother and Child Reunion (Paul Simon)
25 – All Night Long (Lionel Richie)
27 – All Night Long (Lionel Richie) And all DAY long, too!

MY FIRST TIME: Episode Two: And the Grammy goes to...

2011-10-22T11:17:00.000-05:00

Synopsis: While taking off to begin my first-ever cross-cultural short-term mission adventure, the plane decapitated a red-tailed hawk, necessitating a return to Indianapolis instead of a flight to Miami.

While we sat in the plane, which sat at the gate, which housed the ticket agent, who worked for the airline that Orville built, it became increasingly clear that the visual inspection for hawk damage was going to delay us to the point of missing our flight from Miami to Panama City. Beloved and I informed our misnamed flight attendant how important it was for us to get to Miami and asked if there was anything that could be done to help poor, poor pitiful us.

Amazingly, our request resulted in quick action. We were soon hustled onto a plane heading for Nashville, where we would catch a ride to Miami, in hopes of arriving in time to board our flight to Panama City, where we would meet the missionaries with whom we would be working at a church in a jungle on an isthmus that God built.

One happy note: it felt really cool to be carrying a guitar case through the Nashville airport...walking in the steps of Chet Atkins and Roy Clark and thousands of nameless hopefuls.

At this point in the story, the alert reader will have noticed that the alternative plan for getting to Miami was filled with hope, not certainty. The reality of how the plan played out is that we landed in Miami just in time to see our flight to Panama take off. So, we retrieved our luggage, got tickets for the next flight to Panama City (which was the next morning), were given vouchers for dinner and a room at the Miami Luck-shurrey Sweets, and hopped on a shuttle to get there...all while failing to hear our names being paged by the CIY representative who had stayed behind to take care of us.

Said representative joined us at our table while we were eating our Chicken Chord-off Blew...had we known the next ten days would be spent eating nothing but chicken and rice, methinks the choice would have been cheeseburgers.

After being informed of the brand-spanking-new plan for the morning, Beloved and I retired to our room and spent our first evening on the outside-your-comfort-zone mission field in an eighth-floor Miami hotel room, watching Eric Clapton sweep the top categories at the Grammy Awards.

MY FIRST TIME: Episode One: This is your captain speaking...

2011-10-16T21:13:00.000-05:00

Back in my days as a vocational youth pastor/minister/guy, it was positively trendy to take members of one's youth group on short-term, cross-cultural mission trips...get the little whiners out of their comfort zones and show them a piece of the world that doesn't have instant access to high fructose corn syrup.

I sincerely wanted to jump on the bandwagon, and felt like I should have a similar experience myself, so I could recruit student participation with a modicum of integrity. Therefore, Beloved and I signed up to participate in a Christ In Youth (CIY)-sponsored/organized trip to Panama.

The fund-raising was fairly easy. It seemed that everyone in the Southern-Indiana congregation in which I was employed was more than happy to see us go...though several were trying to limit the funds coming in to the price of a one-way ticket. Hmmm...

Funds acquired, bags packed, and prayers said, we boarded our plane in Indianapolis, with plans to fly to Miami where we would switch planes and continue on to Panama City.

About halfway through the plane's ascent, we all heard something - a definite ka-chunk of some sort. I would even go so far as to say that I felt something as well...and not just the warm puddle that formed in my lap, but a disturbance in the Force.

Nobody said anything, and I was cautiously looking in Beloved's direction to Make Sure She Wasn't Alarmed, but when a co-pilot-looking youngster quickly toddled from the front of the plane to the rear, jingling either some keys or prayer beads in his hand, my keen intellect told me that something just might possibly be amiss.

Immediately, the plane went through a series of turns and banks that would have made the great Waldo Pepper jealous. I was about to ask for my third cartoon-decorated air sickness bag (Vomit Envelope; Hurl Holder; Puke Pocket), when the plane's intercom crackled into life:

This is your captain speaking. We appear to have sucked a red-tailed hawk through one of our jet engines while taking off. The ground crew at Indianapolis International Airport report they have found MOST of the bird. There doesn't appear to be any damage to the plane or any negative effect to our controls, but we're going to turn around and land back at Indianapolis so we can make a visual inspection.

You may be surprised to hear this, but not one person out of the hundred or so of us on that plane stood up and said, "C'mon, ya sissy! What are you afraid of? Let's GO for it!"

Drugz R Guhd

2011-10-08T20:03:00.002-05:00

The spam filter at my place of employment, Big Brother, Inc., is usually pretty efficient. I've never received an offer of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the prince of Turfghanstibull or been warned that Oprah Winfrey is planning on changing the U.S. Constitution so she can be not only Queen of All Media, but also of North America.

But every once in a great while, something redonkulous slips through and lands in my inbox.

Case in point is the following bit of lilting literature:

Wellbutrin SR is not habits forming unlike hard drugs.
They changes number of serotonin in the mind, which make you odd for
the few weeks.

You can get discount for your order. Save 11% on your ENTIRE ORDER.
Promo code is expire on 10/4/11.

Strange that the promo code is the word "expire" and that it's only good on one day. But I was sad that I missed the opportunity to save 11% (not 10%...not 15%...but 11%) because I could really use something that would limit my state of being odd to just a few weeks.

Observed Absurdities™ 3

2011-09-29T21:17:00.000-05:00

Up to this point, the little sub-set of posts falling under the title of Observed Absurdities™ have included oddities brought to my attention from alert readers around the globe (all the way from Elko, Minnesota to New York, New York!), but today, I offer something I noticed all on my very own.

First of all, you need to be aware of the general apoplexy that overtakes me when I consider how convenience-dependent the North American Public has become. We don't buy heads of lettuce anymore...now it's Salad-in-a-Bag. Kids aren't sent to school with a sandwich and a Tupperware bowl full of chips...nooooo...it's got to be one of those pre-packaged, cartoon-infested Munchable thingies.

It's even possible to buy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches...like it's too much to ask anyone to spread their own peanut butter...with the crusts of the bread already removed!

Knowing how such self-helplessness appalls me, imagine how many blood vessels broke in my brain when I was driving home one day following a van with THIS painted on it:

AAA Batteries

Delivered and Installed

I freely admit that I have a less-than-symbiotic relationship with most power tools, but seriously...

Big Brother is watching.

2011-09-20T20:47:00.000-05:00

Toward the end of last month, Beloved and I spent a couple days at the Great Minnesota BragFest, which I've written about before (http://almostthetruth.blogspot.com/2009/09/great-minnesota-get-together.html).

The biggest shock to my system this time around, other than the Australian Batter-Dipped, Deep-Fried, Ranch-n-Cheese-Sauce-Smothered Potato Slices, was heading into the Public Rest Room and being greeted by the following sign:

"This restroom is under video surveillance by State Fair Police."

I'm wondering just where the cameras are focused, what out-of-work pervert do they pay (or, more likely, pays them) to monitor said cameras, and...gosh...don't people get sent to jail for that kind of stuff?

Not being one to let a performing opportunity go to waste...and thinking that maybe this was a new recruiting technique for America's Got Talent, I quickly went to work with a little song-and-dance number I keep in my back pocket for just such occasions.

I had just finished the second chorus and was beginning the dance break when my left (jazz) hand was grabbed and put behind my back, where it was greeted by and manacled to my right hand. It seems the State Fair Police (whose uniforms are apparently plain white coats) thought I was busking for dollars without a license.

It took Beloved a few hours to get me released...especially since she didn't miss me until she ran out of money for cotton candy and cheese curds.

But everything's okay now. My parole officer has a very comfortable couch in his office. It's really relaxing and helps me talk to him in our weekly sessions. (But he makes me call him "Doctor." Crazy, huh?)

CAUTION: Handle With Care, Part 2

2011-09-10T11:17:00.001-05:00

When last we met, I was going on and on about an old memory that had been pulled up from the files because I ate a McDonald's cherry pie. This time, let me call your attention to the box in which said pie was delivered to my anxiously awaiting hands.

I'm pretty sure that the phrase "I'm lovin' it" is what's supposed to be associated with the graphic of the canoodling couple...which is satire-worthy enough...but what really got my attention was how appropriately inappropriate the other written message was for the picture: "CAUTION Handle With Care I'M HOT"

Makes me wonder what kind of other consumer warning labels people ought to have attached to themselves...

DO NOT CROSS...It's my way or the highway

NO SHOULDERS...So don't come to me crying about your personal drama

TOP SECRET...Except when the gossip is really juicy

DO NOT TALK...Because I'm not listening

NO JOKE...I have no sense of humor

I'M WITH STUPID...Even when I'm all alone

NOTE: No fair printing up T-shirts without giving me a cut. (COPYRIGHT BAD COP...I take bribes)

CAUTION: Handle With Care, Part 1

2011-09-02T20:03:00.001-05:00

I recently indulged in the evil pleasure of a McDonald's cherry pie, and there are two things I want to say about that.

ONE
McDonald's cherry pies remind me of McDonald's apple pies which remind me that a few years back I bought a pair of them at a New York City McDonald's so ActorBoy and I could properly be called "customers," for whom the use of McDonald's not-so-public rest rooms were reserved.

It happened six years ago, when the two of us were exploring The Big Apple as part of his beginning his theatre studies. He was 18, moving to a refurbished hotel/dormitory in Brooklyn, and excited about this huge new world that was opening up before his very eyes. I was 48, dropping off my only son in New York There's-a-Victim-Born-Every-Minute City, and decidedly anxious about this huge new world that was opening up before his very eyes.

It's true that my anxiety had a lot to do with taking this fish of mine and putting him in an exponentially larger pond, but I confess that my biggest worry during the four days we spent together there was if my bladder would hold out until we found a Relief Station.

City That Never Sleeps? HA! It should be called The City That Never Pees. I'm convinced this is the reason NYC residents have earned their reputation of being cranky and impatient...they are all fighting incontinence with a fervor that rivals Teddy Roosevelt's charge up San Juan Hill.

TWO
Have you ever actually looked at the box that McDonald's pies come in? Well, let me tell you...next time... (stay tuned!)

Abundance and Lack

2011-08-26T16:17:00.001-05:00

Beloved and I had just consumed mass quantities at our favorite local Mexican dining establishment (favorite because it's 1] close; and 2] cheap) and were being wheelbarrowed out to our car when I struck up a short conversation with a short person...may have actually been a child now that I think about it.

I complimented him on his hair, of which he had plenty, and how it was swooped up from both sides and formed a ridge along the top of his head. (You know what I'm talking about, right?)

I then bent over so he could see the opposite effect naturally transpiring on the top of my head (seen here in a shot from a wedding I recently officiated):

The closing line to the conversation was, of course, "You've got a faux hawk and I've got a no hawk."

For Your Consideration...

2011-08-13T19:53:00.000-05:00

I just stumbled across a "Star Wars Crawl Creator" on the World Wide Wackfest and, with little forethought and no malice intended, came up with a little something, which you can experience in all its Technicolor glory by clicking the following link:

http://www.starwars.com/games/playnow/crawl_creator/index.jsp?cs=3vc4gqyj6x

Enjoy...then make your own! (And some people say that Almost the Truth has no educational value...)

What the thief is trying to say is...

2011-08-06T11:07:00.000-05:00

This isn't a straightforward story.

It all started...well...it ALL started several years ago when God said, "Let there be..." and there was. But more specifically, this little tale started on August 1, 2007, when the I-35W bridge near the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota collapsed:

The bridge collapsed, killing several and critically wounding several more.

Four years later, a memorial to the fallen and a message to the standing was dedicated.

One or two days later, 22 letters of that message were pried off the granite of the memorial and stolen away.

This morning, the local paper printed a list of those stolen 22 letters, wondering if the thief had hidden a message of his or her own that could be made from those letters.

So of course, I put my friend, http://wordsmith.org/anagram/, to work and came up with the following possibilities. Feel free to pick your favorite:

- A Urgently Mismanaged Wow
- A Reanimated Lung Wows Gym
- Emanated A Wry, Glowing Sum
- Swung A Grimy Emanated Owl
- Lemmings Wow A Runty Adage
- Urgently Swim A Mown Adage
- Adage Slew A Ingrown Tummy
- Own A Slummy Garaged Twine
- Winnow A Musty, Garaged Elm
- Summon A Wily, Garaged Newt
- A Mismanaged Rug Went Yowl
- A Mum Gently Wows Drainage
- Town Slew A Gummy Gardenia
- A Granulated, Newsy Mom Wig
- Damage A Mewling, Runty Sow
- Nuns Damage A Wormy Wiglet

Oh, Earworm, you came and you gave without taking

2011-07-30T13:07:00.000-05:00

This quarter's collection of morning mind music is a little light for two reasons: 1) I spent most of the month of June waking up with songs from the latest Giant Step Theatre (find us on FaceBook) production (Beauty and the Beast); and 2) when it wasn't that, the most-common thing going through my head upon leaving the Land of Nod was something along the lines of, "Oh come on...I know it's light out, but I don't have to get up for another half hour!"

MAY
4 – Living Letters of HOPE (Debbie Roth) I kind of feel sorry for the world when this finally gets released to the public (http://www.restinhimministry.com), because once this puppy gets in your head….
5 – Couldn’t Get It Right (Climax Blues Band)
10 – There is a Way (Debbie Roth. Yeah, yeah, yeah…somebody else sang this in the version that made it onto Christian radio stations, but it was Beloved’s voice I was hearing…over and over…this morning.)
12 – Forever in Blue Jeans (Neil Diamond) “Nothing aROUND but the SOUND of my HEART and your SIGHS…”
17 – I Say a Little Prayer for You (Dionne Warwick) How appropriate: “The moment I wake up, before I put on my makeup…”
20 – Hungry Heart (Bruce Springsteen)
23 – Babe (Styx) I always thought that “Styx” should have been the name for a heavy metal band instead of one that did all these national anthems from Mamby-Pambyland.

JUNE
6 – Dr. Jesus (Michael & Stormie Omartian)
9 – Baby, You’re a Rich Man (Those Lovable Moptops)
28 – Chains (Having endured almost three weeks of “He must die! He must die! This awful beast must die…” from the Giant Step Theatre production of Beauty & the Beast, The Beatles were more than welcome this morning.)
30 – Western Island/The Broken Pledge (Eric Peltoniemi, about whom I wish to wax eloquent, but what follows is the best yer gonna git. I know Eric from our 7 summers of working together with the Dakota Chautauqua. He wrote all the music, played guitar and acted in the later years, and is the High Exalted Grand Poobah at Red House Records. The album from which today’s earworm emerges, Songs o’ Sad Laughter, is a collection of 12 of the best folk tunes ever written, sung by a man who knows what he’s doing.)

JULY
4 – Bluer Than Blue (Michael Johnson)
5 – The Other Side of the World (Rich Mullins)
10 – Afternoon Delight (Starland Vocal Band)
12 – To God Be the Glory (Tony & Donny)
27 – Sailing (Christopher Cross, which has always been a funny name to me: criss-cross)
29 – I’ll Carry On (Rich Mullins)

Good Question

2011-07-25T19:57:00.000-05:00

Beloved and I just got back from a long weekend/short vacation with SweaterGal and FlatulenceKing. My brother, Dave McCool, is turning 60 next week and a party was thrown early...just in case he doesn't make it, I guess.

A splendid time was had by all, except the cousin who got blindsided by a stray chunk of piñata. And when I say blindsided, I mean that he is now blind on his left side.

I particularly wanted to attend the wingding to bask in the little-remembered fact that there are people sucking air on Planet Earth who are actually older than I am. It was good to remind myself of that and had the additional benefit of Beloved seeing me looking young and virile in comparison to the walking cadavers that constituted most of the other attendees.

The biggest chuckle, for me at least, came during the drive back to the Land of 10,000 Forbidden Things. We were listening to a James Taylor CD, and Beloved wondered out loud, "Who decided to add an 'S'? Why isn't it Jame?"

And now you know why I love her so.

For the Follicly-Challenged

2011-07-14T20:57:00.002-05:00

I was about to tell you the story of the genesis of what follows, but even the explanation of where it came from doesn't explain from whence it came. Suffice it to say that I must thank SamWise for the germ of the idea...and ask him to please wash his hands better from now on.

If you're familiar with the music of the MopTops from LiverPool, you'll soon realize what tune should be going through your head with these words.

I'm a real no-hair man

Ain't got more than twenty strands

Barber, you should make no plans for me

Have no need for a comb

That's one thing I do not own

Fuller Brush Man, just go home, tee-hee

No-hair man, hair's missin'

We all know my head glistens

No-hair man, I'll never sing lead in a hard metal band

I'm as bald as I can be

On my head, skin's all I see

No-hair man, I'm dandruff-free, that's all

No-hair man, no graying

Do you hear what I'm saying?

Left it all for somebody else to grow what they can

I don't fret 'cause my hair's slim

No-hair man don't pay for trims

Don't you wish you were like him - like me

No-hair man, telling you all

I look like a cue ball

I can shave the top of my head with my bare hand

I'm a real no-hair man

Ain't got more than twenty strands

Barber, you should make no plans for me

Barber, you should make no plans for me!

Runt Afghan Swami (Fun with Anagrams)

2011-07-07T20:37:00.002-05:00

Beloved left me this morning.

Oh, don't worry...she plans to come back as soon as she's had her fill of her siblings and the mountains of Wyoming. Estimated time of her return home: mid-August...2014.

Until what time (if any) she returns, I leave in charge the Scarecrow, by virtue of his...oops...old audio loop...

Until her return, I'll do my best to accomplish something constructive. Take tonight (please): I thought I'd go through some of the piles of papers that tend to accumulate of their own free will while I'm busy having...you know...A LIFE! I was humming along at a fairly decent clip (making music with my lips closed...next to a reasonably respectable barber shop?) when I came upon a slip of paper with this Web address on it:

http://wordsmith.org/anagram/

From that point on, any hope of meaningful progress toward feng shui was off the table, out the window, down the drive, and thrown under a bus.

Consider the possible permutations of Beloved's full name, Debbie Ann Brewer Roth:

A webbed reborn hinter - Translation: a Christian who doesn't come right out and SAY things...who happens to be a...frog?

A thinner robber dweeb - At least I know she'd appreciate the part about being thinner.

What kind of visuals pop into your head with these rearrangements of my full name, Duane Alvin Roth?

Radial oven hunt - Gotta be one around here someplace.

Devour inhalant - Don't try this at home, kids.

Round leviathan - Circular whale?

Hot urine vandal - We aim to keep our rest room clean, your aim would...yeah, you've heard that one before.

Well, that's done. Now, I wonder what's about to expire in my hulu.com queue?

Almost the News XIII

2011-06-30T17:17:00.000-05:00

E. Coli Fatal to 10 is Tied to Vegetables
...a fitting punishment indeed.

Man Gets Prison for Growing Pot
Wait...they're giving away prisons to pot-growers now? Talk about a white elephant gift!

Ex-Tijuana Mayor Held in Guns Case
Hope they drilled an air hole for the little guy.

Texas Negates Twins' Recent Strides
In a bold mixture of state autonomy and government health care, the physical therapy that recently helped conjoined twins, Kanga and Roo Hu, to be able to walk was officially poo-pooed by the Lone Star state.

Blagojevich Grilled During His Retrial
The judge had a cheese-brat, and the prosecuting attorney, unfortunately, got some barbecue sauce on his vest. Nevertheless, they were both heard to say, "Rod really knows his charcoal!"

St. Croix Bridge Faces Fall Deadline
It needs to collapse by next Tuesday...or else.

Twin Cities Man May Have Been Somali Suicide Bomber
I reserve the right to be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this should have been stated the other way around.

LowerMyExpectations.com

2011-06-18T21:03:00.002-05:00

Recently, while I was waiting for a crossword-based game that shall remain nameless to finish loading on FaceBook, the following advertisement appeared in the margin (as all good FaceBook advertisements are want to do).

Every fiber of my proofreading body was personally offended by what I saw.

"CALIFORNIA Driver Are Being Ripped Off By Not Using This One Ridiculously Easy Trick"

I've got a news flash for LowerMyBills.com...YOU are being ripped off by a copy writer who can't compose a simple English sentence.

As if I'm going to trust my car insurance dollars to this company. I can only imagine what happens when you try to file a claim: "We sorry that you're policy does not covers the type of lost describes in you're claime."

It looks like Artie is in a funk...

2011-06-08T18:37:00.001-05:00

...and rightly so.

It's bad enough that this picture from the 1975 Grammy awards preserves forever Mr. Garfunkel's fashion faux pas of a tuxedo t-shirt...apparently he's not too happy about being the only one who had to stand by the cadaver.

Thanks to 22words.com for bringing this gem to my attention.

4 8 15 16 23 42

2011-06-03T16:13:00.001-05:00

For people who are missing the television experiment in exquisite frustration that was LOST, the title of this post holds wonderful memories. For the rest of you:

1) What?!!? Do you live in a cave?!!?

2) Fret not, what follows should hold the same amount of deep meaning for you as it does for Losties...which is to say, little to none.

A game that some folks enamored with the series have played is to use these omenesque numbers in conjunction with the different books that were referenced on the show. Being at a loss for anything else to post in this space, I thought it might be fun to give it a try.

Being unable to find my copy of Watership Down, I decided to use another touchstone of popular culture, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

So...the idea is to discover a meaningful message in the first word on each of the pages: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42. Here we go:

Past with no gingerly on shake

Okay, that didn't work out so well. Maybe it should be the 4th word on page 4, the 8th word on page 8...Daylight it out the what missed

Ummmm...the last word on each page? It Dumbledore Hagrid gone the room

That's a little closer to something. How about inverting things and taking the 42nd word of page 4, the 23rd word of page 8...Morning he all to you shake

I know...I must have just chosen the wrong touchstone of popular culture. Let's try the final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

1st words: Be your daily remembered exclusively Dudley

4/4, 8/8, etc.:The I upsurge charity a the

Last words: Though table he more remarks son (Hmmm...this may be secretly hinting that Harry's father is actually a piece of furniture, but I doubt it.)

Inversion: We as of of inside himself

Okay, okay...maybe the book choice was weak. Let's go with the best-selling book of all time, the Bible. There are a multitude of translations/versions/editions, but I'll go with the copy I've got closest...yes, I'm just that lazy.

1st words: Then but Shechem between but I

4/4, 8/8, etc.: Of of and is the we

Last words: Taken ground strife country day them (Hmmm, Part Two...some foreshadowing of strife in the Middle East, perhaps?)

Inversion: The righteous the brothers his God

Look up the word awesome. I think the last phrase is in the definition.

Almost the News XII

2011-05-28T11:07:00.000-05:00

Tax Breaks Dwarf Deficit
A newly-approved tax has brought an end to the decades-long shortage of little people (no pun intended...kind of).

Masseur Accused of Touching Woman
Ummmmm...isn't that what she was paying him to do?

Medtronic Taps CEO with Global Viewpoint
Depending on how hard they tapped him, that could leave quite a bruise.

After Flat Tire, Woman Hit by Car
...as if being hit by a flat tire wasn't bad enough.

Teen Found After Abduction Report
Apparently, the people searching for the abduction report had better skills than those who were searching for the teen.

Funeral Set After Firefighter's Death
...which makes a whole lot more sense than setting it before the firefighter's death.

Observed Absurdities™ 2

2011-05-23T21:27:00.004-05:00

This was passed along by Queen CanDo, and is so absurd it hardly needs any commentary.

An ad for the REGIO toilet by INAX:

Fit for a king

For those who insist on the highest level of comfort and style, the REGIO toilet by INAX is so much more than just a toilet. REGIO's comfort technologies transform the bathroom into a personal spalike escape. Soft LED lights set the mood, relaxing music melts away stress, an automatic lid uncovers a heated seat, and there's even a dual-nozzle bidet. The Zenlike minimal design is available in brilliant white ($5,900) and black ($7, 350). inax-usa.com

I can't help but be curious...

1) What the sam hill is a comfort technology?

2) Just what kind of mood am I supposed to be in, and how is soft lighting supposed to help me get there?

3) Is anyone besides me just a teensy bit nervous about a possible malfunction of the seat heater?

4) Why would anyone within spitting distance of a right mind spend almost six thousand dollars for a toilet with a mechanical lid and an iPod?

5) And why, oh why, does a black one cost $1,450 more than a white one? Is there that much of a difference in supply and demand for the black ones?

This is just my personal opinion...and I reserve the right to be wrong...but I'm pretty sure that anyone who would lay out this kind of dough-re-mi for a toilet should be shaken out of his or her Zenlike trance, taken behind the servants' quarters and horse-whipped...with a real horse.

Observed Absurdities™

2011-05-13T12:07:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while, a good-hearted reader of Almost the Truth will bring to my attention something that he or she deems worthy of my brand of skewering. Every once in a greater while than that, I agree with him or her.

Behold...

ActorBoy brought the wonders of Uloric® to the table. To quote its ad: "Gout's root cause is high uric acid. If you have gout, high uric acid can lead to more attacks. To help reduce attacks, lower your uric acid."

So far so good. The logic is irrefutable: Gout=high uric acid. Lower uric acid=no gout.

To continue with the ad: "ULORIC can help. ULORIC is clinically proven to help lower uric acid to a healthy level."

Yippee-skippy! All is right with the world! However...let's take a look at the ever-popular list of possible side-effects, and I quote: "The most common side effects of ULORIC are liver problems, nausea, gout flares, joint pain, and rash."

Please notice that one of the side effects of the medicine designed to relieve gout is flare ups of gout.

How successful do you think Bayer® would have ever been if they had said, "Got a headache? Take Bayer Aspirin. But, hey, yeah...in the interest of full disclosure, we feel we should warn you that taking aspirin might make your head hurt."

Turtle-Man!

2011-05-09T09:47:00.000-05:00

From the Way-More-Explanation-Than-It-Deserves Department:

Every Friday at my current place of employment, we are required to electronically sign our time cards by a particular time. In order to encourage/force us to comply with said requirement, our manager has initiated a "Turtle Race" in which the last person to sign their time card is declared the "winner" in an email featuring a goofy picture of a turtle.

One particular co-worker (Gigantor the Drummer) has a high percentage of wins, in response to which, another particular coworker (Queen CanDo) created a picture of a turtle with Gigantor's face: "No one can defeat me! I AM TURTLE MAN!!!!"

...which of course led me to compose the following...

(To the tune of the Spider-Man cartoon theme)

Turtle-Man, Turtle-Man
Does whatever a turtle can
Never rushes; never runs
Shell protects him from big guns
Look out! Here comes the Turtle-Man

Is he strong? Listen, man
He could crush you like a can
He’s got power in his shell
He sends villains straight to hell
Hey there! There goes the Turtle-Man.

In the swamp at night
At the scene of a crime
He can snap; he can bite
But he takes his sweet time

Turtle-Man, Turtle-Man
Friendly neighborhood Turtle-Man
Hasn’t got a single lack
Has his home on his back
To him, life never makes him hurry
He hasn’t got a worry
We love the Turtle-Man!!!!!

There is nothin' like an earworm...

2011-05-01T18:07:00.002-05:00

...nothin' in the world. Nothin' else can make you squirm like a never ending earworm!

FEBRUARY
2 – American Pie (Don McLean)
10 – Maybe Tomorrow (Jackson 5)
15 – Entries have been a little sparse, because I’ve been doing battle with songs from the most recent Giant Step Theatre production, rather than with anything anyone else would recognize. Imagine waking up to “He did it ‘cause he’s a one-eyed jack. He’s a kleptomaniac” or “When you find yourself in the middle of a pickle, it don’t pay to lose yer head” running laps in your brain.
18 – The Things We Do for Love (10cc)
19 – Good News (2nd Chapter of Acts) My earworms haven’t included any early Jesus Music for a while…and welcome back. (The bad news is, I can’t find a clip of “Good News” on YouTube to show you.)
24 – The theme song from I Dream of Jeannie (of COURSE I had no problem finding THAT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XELze7CXKjk&feature=related)
27 – Old Days (Chicago)
28 – Michelle (Beatles)

MARCH
2 – Closer to Me (Seals & Crofts)
4 – Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem DRY Bones…
5 – Take the Long Way Home (Supertramp)
6 – Take the Long Way Home (Supertramp) That’s right…two days in a row. And today, it stayed with me all day long; not just in the morning. Grrrrrrrr.
8 – Whenever I Call You Friend (Kenny Loggins & Stevie Nicks) Even though I lack an ounce of affinity for Stevie Nicks, either as a solo act or with Fleetwood Mac, I admit that this is one of the most-infectious duets devised by mankind.
10 – Reign in Us (Starfield)
15 – I Will Follow You/Sounds of Silence (Chris Tomlin/Simon & Garfunkel) Interesting juxtaposition.
18 – C’mon Get Happy (Partridge Family)
23 – Let Me Love You Tonight (Pure Prairie League)
29 – Bring the Rain (Mercy Me)
31 – Someone Saved My Life Tonight (Elton John)

APRIL
1 – Psalm of Hope (Debbie Roth hasn’t even recorded the vocals for this yet, but the tune, written by our very own KayJay, got stuck in my head last night and lasted through this morning.)
5 – Midnight Blue (Melissa Manchester)
11 – Kiss on My List (Daryl Hall and John Oates) Trivia: they were never officially billed as “Hall & Oats.” They maintained their individuality, even as they became a highly-successful duo. Another note…when this particular song gets in your head…GOOD LUCK!
13 – Room Noise (2nd Chapter of Acts) If anyone reading these words knows this song, I will personally and unashamedly wet my pants.
18 – That’s Entertainment (from The Band Wagon)
21 – We Are the Champions (Queen)

Come and listen to a story...

2011-04-27T20:57:00.001-05:00

Here's the set-up: A person ventures out on the World Wide Wackfest (www) and finds babelfish. Said person then types an English phrase, translates it to a foreign language, copies that translation and translates it back to English. The results can be, in varying degrees, humorous, confusing, unexplainable, thought-provoking, and/or meaningless.

In this case, we got a little bit of it all.

The original phrase was: Come and listen to a story about a man named Jed: a poor mountaineer; barely kept his family fed.

The results are printed here for your amusement, bemusement, ceemusement, etc.

Spanish: It comes and it listens to a history on a appointed man Jed: a poor mountain dweller; he hardly maintained his fed family.

Korean: Jed distinction becomes and about the man talk comes and listens closely: The alpinist who is poor; Defended his family fed. barely.

Dutch: Bowl and lustre to a tale concerning people Jed called: a bad mountaineer; hardly its family kept fed.

French: Come and listen to a history about d' a man called Jed: a poor mountaineer; hardly its family EDF kept.

German: And hear to a history over a man, who comes Jed is called: a poor mountain climber; its family Fed hardly held.

Greek: Come and you hear a history for a individual that is named Jed: one poor mountain as soon as it kept his family feeding.

Italian: It comes and it listens to a history approximately a called man Jed: a poor mountain climber; to mala pain he has maintained its family fed.

Japanese: Jed name can be listed, the story concerning the person it comes, hears: Poor mountain climber; That family fed. was maintained at last.

Russian: It comes and listens to the story about the named person Of jed: poor mountain climber; barely held in control its FED. family.

Chinese: Comes and listens about a person's story to name Jed: A pitiful mountaineer; Had not retained his family fed nearly.

Portuguese: It comes and listening a history on a nominated man Jed: a poor alpinista; it badly kept its fed family.

Awww...poor alpinista...(any relation to Al Pacino?)

When a Facebook Status Goes Rogue

2011-04-19T19:37:00.001-05:00

I really don’t know what causes these things, but let me assure you that I am not making up or almosting the truth about anything that follows. (None of the names have been changed, because nobody’s innocent.) All I did was change my FaceBook status to:

They laugh alike, they walk alike, at times they even talk alike

That’s all it took to inspire the following flurry of comments.

Stephanie Caro They're cousins! Identical cousins, and you'll find ...

Tom Cash ‎"One pair of matching bookends, different as night and day." Man, the Patti Duke Show theme music had to be dug up from the moldy-oldie file. I can't believe I remembered it. We are old.

Leslie J. Sam Helgerson Cookie Monster and Grover?

Dewey Roth SamWise: Close. It's actually Yoda and Grover.
"The Other" Tom Cash wins an "I Knew the Show Title and Still Managed to Include Dewey in a Sweeping Statement of Truth" award.

Tom Cash ‎"The Other" Tom Cash? I thought I was one of a kind!

Dewey Roth Well, you're not the Tom Cash that sang "Take This Job and Shove It."

Tom Cash That was Johnny Paycheck!

Dewey Roth All these years, I've been so very wrong.
But there IS a country singer who stole your name, right?

Theresa Burdette Hagaman You know it still plays on satellite TV - good as ever

Tom Cash Tommy Cash is Johnny Cash's youngest brother. He recorded some singles and albums, but never made it big. His best known song is "Six White Horses" (released in 1969), a tribute to John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, & Bob Kennedy. My personal favorite: "I Didn't Walk the Line" (1965)!

Dewey Roth T-Girl...Beloved and I borrowed the DVDs from the library. It's surprising how FEW plotlines had anything to do with their physical similarities.

Leslie J. Sam Helgerson Tom — When you wrote "...a tribute to JFK, MLK and Bob Kennedy," I thought "Bob Kennedy? How did the game-show host from "Split Second" get into that group?"
Man, things are sure entertaining in my head!

Tom Cash Clarification: John F. Kennedy; Martin Luther King, Jr.; and Robert F. Kennedy!

Dewey Roth SamWise...you're thinking of Tom Kennedy, who also hosted "You Don't Say!"

Dewey Roth ‎...which I loved

Tom Cash You don't say!

Leslie J. Sam Helgerson Dewey — Yes. I know. That's why it struck me so funny. Like that old song "Abraham, Martin, and Wink."

Susan Woodcox Kasdorf But they’re cousins.....identical cousins

Dewey Roth ‎...in every way

Barry Gordon PARENT TRAP meets PATTY DUKE...
Margaret Hamilton as Maid / Mrs. Williams...2 episodes

Apryl Dunshee Haden I have no idea what all you old people are talking about...

Leslie J. Sam Helgerson I like the part where Ben-Hur puts the girls in the back seat of his talking car and drives the girls across the parted Red Sea to visit Mr. T, with Bill Bixby riding shotgun. Or something like that.

Tom Cash That only happened after My Favorite Martian employed Mr. Ed, the talking horse, to take Wally and the Beaver to Mork from Ork, who proceeded to get the entire bunch Lost in Space. When Edith Bunker heard about it, she told Archie, who immediately blamed Meathead. Or something like that.

Dewey Roth Jane! Help! Stop this crazy thing! Help! Jane!

Leslie J. Sam Helgerson It's Alive!

Kevin Williams ‎...as different as night and day

* * * * * * *

All of which culminated with Leslie J. Sam Helgerson posting on his own wall:

Headline: Facebook status takes on life of its own
Philosophers, Mathematicians perplexed by non-sequitur responses
Congress to investigate, cites possible copyright infringement

With friends like this, who needs television?

Almost the News XI

2011-04-09T10:03:00.004-05:00

Teacher Charged with Choking Students
It was decided that charging the choking students by themselves would be too lonely for them. You know, "misery loves company" and all that sort of thing.

Cows Put Down After Escape
The cows that had wandered away from their overturned truck on Interstate 90 were rounded up in quick order and treated to a tongue-lashing that would have made Don Rickles proud: "What's your problem, udder-face? Been eating your own pies? And seriously, this is not the season for leather."

Horse-Boarding Operation Gets OK
Oklahoma officials were shocked at the news today, and released this statement: "We don't really know what horse-boarding is, but it's bound to be WAY worse than waterboarding, and that certainly raised a stink."

Business Group Loses Director
"It was the strangest thing," says assistant director, Arnold Benedict, "he was sitting right there just a minute ago. We took a break to refill our coffee urn, and now nobody can find him."

Gophers' 14-Point Lead Disappears
"It was the strangest thing," says assistant coach, Jordan Michael, "it was sitting right there just a minute ago..."

Police and Military Sweep Tahir Square
...because, apparently, neatness counts.

Who Belongs on Met Council
...because, apparently, they need a pinball wizard or two to make those digit counters fall.

Four Middle-Schoolers Take Top Math Honors
...and they say they won't give them back until the lunch room serves cherry pi.

What's in a name?

2011-04-05T11:43:00.003-05:00

The Roth dinner table has never been accused of being boring. In fact, some folks find the frivolity frightfully frantic.

What? Doesn't everybody sing during supper?

One can't help but head toward hilarity when one's mind works like...well...like what happened the other evening...

Beloved had made some chicken noodle soup, but didn't have enough chicken-broth-making stuff for a whole pot, so she supplemented with some beef bouillon. KayJay noticed the blend of tastes and brought the above truth into the open.

"You got beef in my chicken," said I.

"You got chicken on my beef," offered Beloved.

KayJay rounded it out with, "Two great tastes that taste great together!"

It made me wonder what such a meal should be called. "Cluck and Chuck" was the first thing that came to mind, even though it made no sense to KayJay because she had no idea there was such a thing as a chuck roast.

"Actually, " I ventured, "that would be a good name for a restaurant that specializes in both chicken and beef: Cluck-N-Chuck."

It was only after saying it a few times that we realized what a marketing fiasco it would be to give a restaurant a name that sounds like people getting sick by eating there.

Dewey wants...

2011-03-31T11:37:00.000-05:00

According to the World Wide Wackfest and a Google search, I've got a long list of wants:

Dewey wants Petey to go away.

Dewey wants Hal to quit drinking coffee.

Dewey wants philosophy to rise above old tired disputes to address new, more vital questions and problems.

Dewey wants an iPhone.

Dewey wants his clients to be happy and confident about their real estate decisions.

Dewey wants to turn his unsuspecting students into a rock band and crew, which will serve as a vehicle to stardom.

Dewey wants to pursue his dream of becoming a singer.

Dewey wants to experiment.

Dewey wants us to evaluate our experiences in terms of their consequences.

Dewey wants to be a baby.

Dewey wants to play.

Dewey wants a sister.

Dewey wants to take schools out of the education business, as traditionally understood, and put them in the conditioning (or parenting) business.

Dewey wants to deny that we can grasp reality through faith or logic.

Dewey wants the design to inspire residents to live without toxic materials, consume less overall, and use resources wisely.

Dewey wants to show families that there is fun for them, too.

Dewey wants company in the slammer.

Dewey wants to be in those old black and white “Thin Man” movies.

Dewey wants reconciliation.

Dewey wants a fast commuter bike.

Dewey wants to help you love the one that counts — yourself.

Dewey wants a productive work environment for city workers who enthusiastically and diligently serve the public.

Dewey wants to bring the philosophical estimate of human knowledge back into its concrete home context: practical problem solving.

Dewey wants to keep the Emersonian theodicy alive under new circumstances and challenges.

And after those last few mouthfuls of gobbledegook...true truth be told...Dewey wants to hurl.

Gloating When the Opportunity Presents Itself

2011-03-19T15:27:00.001-05:00

Among the eclectic items on my list of former occupations is disc jockey. To be clear, my activity that falls under that label had nothing to do with the image that just popped into the heads of any readers under the age of 30. I did NOT stand over a pair of turntables in a dance club...nor did I move any recorded disc, 33-and-a-third or 45, for the sole purpose of making scritchee-scritchee-scratch noises.

The chapter of my life when I was a disc jockey involved playing music on the radio, checking dials and meters on said radio station's transmitter, and ripping-and-reading news from teletype machines so that the listening public would be totally informed and prepared for life as we know it.

Contrary to how important that news dissemination aspect of my job just sounded, there were times when I would do exactly what I just described: rip news items off the Associated Press teletype, rush into the studio, and start reading a five-minute newscast that consisted of three minutes of news, one-and-a-half minutes of commercials, and 30 seconds worth of weather forecasting.

Once, that level of intense preparation (cough-cough) led to one of the few moments of embarrassment I've ever experienced.

One of the short reports I was reading involved a legal action being taken against the Bonnie Baking Company. When the phrase, "apparently, Bonnie's loaves are too long" passed my lips, I started laughing uncontrollably and was unable to continue. I tried breathing deeply, biting my lip, and thinking about dead puppies, but every time I turned my microphone back on, I only got two or three words out before my belly went tight, my voice went high, and I had to turn it back off so I could titter with utter abandon.

Now...I told you all that so I could say this...

During National Public Radio's recent coverage of the in-process tsunami (one of the results of Japan's mega-earthquake), the news anchor was interviewing an expert on such matters and stumbled her way into a reason why American broadcast journalists really ought to be educated beyond "which button do I push?" or "which camera do I look at?"

NPR's employee (courtesy of several foundations, a government grant, and viewers/listeners like you): "What sort of effect can we expect in Hawaii? We're monitoring several Web cams and it looks like right now they've got big waves, but not hugely big."

Hugely big?

Seriously?

And is that wave of water expected to be moistly wet?

* * * * * * *

Congress recently voted to stop giving money to public broadcasting. I'm not saying there's any connection here, but...

This is so lightweight I can't even be bothered to think of a title for it

2011-03-09T07:27:00.002-06:00

I went to a high school speech meet last Saturday:

The Persuasive Relay will begin in five minutes. That will be followed by the 100 yard Sarcasm Duo.

I suppose that sometime in the future I need to give this the full Almost the Truth treatment, but in deference to me needing to start work in three minutes (and my general laziness) I just want to share the most humorous phrase I heard all day:

European urologist

And if you don't understand why that's funny, I'm pretty sure you're wasting your time hanging around this blog.

A Little More Knowledge

2011-03-04T06:57:00.001-06:00

The curiosity of one of my co-workers, QueenCanDo, was aroused by yesterday's post, and she said I should do more research on brominated vegetable oil. I replied, of course, that because she was the one who was so all-fire curious, she should do more research.

She did. And this is what she found. (And here is where she found it: http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/1999/jul/29/what-brominated-vegetable-oil-and-why-do-soda-comp/) With thanks to Matthew Alice of the San Diego Reader, I steal the following:

Mr. Matthew:

Here is a query that has been torturing the curiosity lobe of my poor little brain for months. What, exactly, is brominated vegetable oil, and why do soda companies put it in their drinks? It seems citrus is a favored flavor to which to add the...uh...zesty tang? of brominated vegetable oil. I have asked top chemists from the most prestigious institutes in the San Diego area and have stumped them all. The stumper is, why combine bromine, a toxic element at best, with vegetable oil, which seems like a gross substance to be adding to fizzy thirst-quenching drinks?

—Rene Hayden, Normal Heights and UCSD

Until we looked into the matter, Rene, Squirt was the official soft drink of the 1999 Robitussin-Matthew Alice Invitational. Well, we forgot to send the invitations anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter.

Brominated vegetable oil is a semi-disreputable substance that in the U.S. and Canada can legally be added (in amounts no greater than 15 parts per million by weight) to citrus-flavored drinkable substances. More than 100 countries ban it; the World Health Organization can't even bring itself to say the letters BVO — but you know how touchy those foreigners can be. Spend all day eating yak yogurt or Vegemite and you think you know cuisine.

Anyway, without brominated vegetable oil, your favorite lemony-limy soda would look like the Gulf of Alaska in the wake of the Exxon-Valdez. To get fat-soluble citrus flavorings to waft evenly throughout a can of sugar water thickened with seaweed or tree gum, you have to make the specific gravity of the flavor droplets match the specific gravity of the rest of the goop. Bromine has two, maybe three distinct advantages. First, bromine atoms weigh a ton. Pound a few into the vegetable oil molecules, lighten with a soupçon of citrus oil, and you've got a darn near perfect match for the sugar water. Second, bromine ionizes at the drop of a hat. And third, brominated vegetable oil gives lemony-limy-citrusy drinks the hazy appearance we gullible shoppers associate with fresh, tangy, real-fruit taste. BTW, the drink need not be fizzy. Check out your next tub-o-Gatorade for the telltale BVO.

Bromine is extracted from sea water. You don't want to know how. In its liquid or vaporous form, it's lethal. But once you've got the stuff, you're set to make light-sensitive surfaces for photographic paper, lead-eating additives for gasoline, fire-extinguishing material, agricultural fumigants, and lots of other handy stuff. Until 1975, you could make sedatives too. But science got suspicious when droves of overmedicated people were wheeled into psychiatric facilities, diagnosed as loony but actually suffering from bromism — so much serum bromide that they couldn't stand up or remember their names.

The down side of our oil-soluble friend is that it can build up in fat cells. Fat cells in laboratory pigs, anyway. How big a leap it is from pig science to people science is still in doubt. And not much happened to the brominated pigs anyway. Conservative countries banned BVO, we just limited its use. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, never too shy to yell "Fire!" in a crowded supermarket, lists BVO as an additive that "may pose a risk and needs to be better tested." They put BVO in the same slot with aspartame and quinine; though it must be safer than Olestra, saccharin, and sodium nitrate, things they say no rational person would consume.

One extrapolation from the pig studies was the estimate that a 165-pound adult would have to drink 353 12-ounce cans of soda per day for 42 days to have detectable bromine in his/her fat. Laughable, you say? Your intrepid investigator has read the medical report of a man whose diet included three or four liters of BVO'd soda every day. In a month, he was in the ER with confusion, headaches, tremors, memory loss, and fatigue. By the time he was correctly diagnosed two months later, he couldn't walk and was pretty much down for the count. Luckily, the diagnosis of bromism and six hours of hemodialysis brought him around.

A Little Knowledge

2011-03-03T06:57:00.000-06:00

If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, then it just may be possible that a lot of knowledge is absolutely catastrophic. I recently found out far too much about Sun Drop® Citrus Soda.

It started out, as most of my journeys of discovery do, innocently enough.

I was casually strolling toward the self-checkout lane at my local ginormous-box grocery superstore when I heard a nasally voice, emanating from somewhere around knee level, ask, “Would you like a free bottle of Sun Drop® Citrus Soda, sir?”

I looked down toward the source of the sound and saw a ginormous-box grocery superstore employee reaching his hand up to offer me a coupon.

Well, a display of the soda in question was right there, and the coupon for a free bottle was right there, and the available spot in the self-checkout lane was right there…so sure, “I would like a free bottle of Sun Drop® Citrus Soda, yes sir.”

We had pizza for dinner that night, which was an excellent opportunity to open my free bottle of Sun Drop® Citrus Soda and give it a test run. It tasted like Dr. Pepper/Seven Up Inc. was trying to come up with its own version of Mountain Dew®, but missed the mark because they gave Sun Drop® Citrus Soda some actual…you know…flavor.

The similarity to Mountain Dew® made me curious as to whether Sun Drop® Citrus Soda was caffeinated. It was exactly at this point that I should have beaten myself about the head and shoulders with a blunt object and gone to bed with my curiosity sternly rebuked, but nooooo, I picked up the bottle and read the list of ingredients: carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup [Is that corn syrup that is high in fructose content, or fructose corn syrup that has been violating the controlled substance act?], and contains less than 2% of citric acid, orange juice concentrate, sodium benzoate (preservative), caffeine, natural flavors, acacia gum, yellow 5, ester gum [Do you remember her? Nice gal.], brominated vegetable oil.

None of these ingredients surprised me except for that last one. What the farnsworth is “brominated vegetable oil”? And to be more precise (because I have a fairly firm grasp on what vegetable oil is), what the farnsworth does it mean to brominate something?

Rather than do the sensible thing and distract myself with an episode of Alias Smith and Jones on Hulu, I attacked the slippery slope of “a little knowledge” and consulted dictionary.com.

In its normal helpful style, dictionary.com told me this about what it means to brominate:

brominate
[broh-muh-neyt]–verb (used with
object), -ated, -ating. Chemistry: to treat or combine with bromine.

You would think this would satisfy me to no end…but you would be wrong. And what follows is the bit of knowledge that I really wish I would have avoided:

bromine
[broh-meen]–noun Chemistry:
an element that is a dark-reddish, fuming,
toxic liquid and a member of the
halogen family: obtained from natural
brines and ocean water, and used chiefly
in the manufacture of gasoline
antiknock compounds, pharmaceuticals, and dyes.

They’re treating or mixing vegetable oil with this stuff and putting it in my Sun Drop® Citrus Soda, which I am pouring over a pile of ice and allowing to slide down my throat.

I’ve finally gotten a grip on the True Truth the Apostle Paul recorded in Philippians 1:21: “…to die is gain.”

Fab Four FaceBook Fandango

2011-02-28T18:17:00.000-06:00

I unilaterally declared February "Beatles Name That Tune" month and posted a different bit of Mop Top lyric as my status update on FaceBook every day (except Sundays). What no one in his or her right mind would have anticipated is how the whole list holds together as a semi-coherent conversation...which is the only kind of conversations I have, anyway.

Oh yeah, I’ll tell you something I think you’ll understand. I've been in love before, and I found that love was more than just holding hands. Love you every day girl; always on my mind. One thing I can say girl: love you all the time.

When you told me you didn't need me anymore, well, you know I nearly broke down and cried. Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be. Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head. I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping. Pools of sorrow, waves of joy, are drifting through my open mind, possessing and caressing me.

Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing and fighting, my friend. There's nothing you can do that can't be done; nothing you can sing that can't be sung. With our love, we could save the world; if they only knew.

Been away so long I hardly knew the place. Gee, it's good to be back home. When I'm home everything seems to be right.

Who finds the money when you pay the rent? You know how hard it can be. The wild and windy night that the rain washed away has left a pool of tears crying for the day.

Would you believe in a love at first sight? The minute you let her under your skin, then you begin to make it better.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. My love don't give me presents. And in my hour of darkness, she is standing right in front of me.

The girl that's driving me mad is going away. The man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still. And of course, Henry the horse dances the waltz!

How gifted is that doggie in the window?

2011-02-24T21:47:00.001-06:00

Reading is a wonderful thing.

Through the magic of the printed (or pixelated) word, a person can go from being ignorant to being informed; unlearned to knowledgeable; not even knowing what it is you don't know to knowing something you never even knew you didn't know.

An article by Jesse Ellison in the February 21 issue of Newsweek has, like Paul Simon said in "Sounds of Silence," planted a vision in my brain that still remains.

The bad news is, the vision is not all that attractive. But first, the info, and I quote:

Labs [as in Labrador Retrievers] can detect colorectal and bowel cancer with 98 percent accuracy by examining stool samples, according to a recent study. The current technology is correct only 10 percent of the time.

I'm just...I mean, I really...when did...how the farnsworth has it been determined that Labradors can do that?!!?

Firstly, if the current technology can only correctly detect colorectal and bowel cancer with 10 percent accuracy by examining stool samples, how could we determine the dogs' accuracy? "Hey, Melvin, Fido here says the donor of this sample has cancer. Better run it through our technology again...not that we can trust it the second time any more than we could the first time."

Secondly, how does one go about training a dog to know the difference between a stool sample from a cancer victim and a stool sample from someone without cancer? How many years of medical school (and boxes of Beggin' Strips) does that take?

Thirdly, how does Doctor Doggie communicate his or her findings? It brings to mind the comedy sketches skewering Lassie...

LASSIE

Bark! Bark-bark!

MAN

Lassie! What is it, girl? What's wrong?

LASSIE

Woof! Arf-arf! Yalp!

MAN

What?!!? Timmy fell in the old, abandoned well and has multiple cuts and contusions, with a possible hairline fracture of his right femur?

Fourthly, think about how dogs sniff each others' hind parts when they get together. All this time we thought they were greeting each other or trying to determine if they had met before. In reality, they're just performing medical screenings for each other.

Fifthly, maybe the high percentage of accuracy stems not from the superiority of a canine's diagnostic skills as contrasted to a computer's, but the superiority of the canine's methodology of examination. Maybe we humans could be just as accurate if we "put our noses to the grindstone," so to speak.

Which leads me, sixthly, to revealing that the title of the article quoted above is "Are Dogs Stealing Our Jobs?" and answering the title's question with a question of my own: Who would want that crappy job, anyway?

For the record...pun intended.

Hey, how's the weather treatin' ya?

2011-02-17T19:57:00.001-06:00

The January 10 & 17, 2011 issue of Newsweek shared some statistics (garnered from America's Health Rankings) that put my hectic life on hold and led me to ponder the cause, ruminate on the reason, and consider the source.

The stats were on binge drinking, defined as men pouring five or more drinks down the hatch in a single sitting (or, for women, four or more drinks...how sexist). The title of the bar graph was "Binge Drinking Prevalence, 2010," and listed state names and a percentage.

What the award-winning team of journalists at Newsweek failed to inform this reader on was what the farnsworth the percentages actually meant. For instance, Minnesota, which came in third (c'mon, Sven, you're not trying hard enough!), was listed at 20%. Does that mean that 20% of Minnesotan drinkers are binge drinkers? Or does it signify that Minnesotan drinkers binge it up 20% of the time? Or...could it possibly be true that one in every five residents of the Land of 10,000 Entitlement Programs is a binge drinker?

Whatever the significance of the percentages, what caused my pause to reflect were the names of the top four binge-drinking states: Wisconsin (23.2%), North Dakota (21.5%), Minnesota (20%), and Iowa (19.4%). If we could get South Dakotans educated enough to know how to open a brew, the Upper Midwest would have a solid lock on the top 10% in the nation!

The burning question is, does living here in the tundra drive a person to drink, or does a propensity to over-imbibe coincide with the lack of good judgment it takes to put down roots (in the 5 weeks of the year when the ground is thawed enough to do so) here in The Nation's Icebox?

Ask a Silly Question

2011-02-05T11:47:00.002-06:00

Years ago, when I was earning a living subsistence by working with youth in a local church (i.e., The Youth Pastoring Daze), there was a particular day in which I went with a particular youth to visit her grandmother in a particular hospital. (Notice, it was not General Hospital. Nowhere near that much drama.)

While talking with the patient, I asked if the doctors and nurses were being good to her. Her reply was not only an education on the difference between her generation and mine, but an occasion for me to drop to my knees, clasp my hands over my heart, and cry from laughing so hard:

"In sixty-two years of marriage, I never once undressed in front of my husband, but around here, people come in and look at whatever they want to see!"

Hey! Look me over; lend me an earworm

2011-02-02T07:27:00.000-06:00

It happens once a quarter: I post a list of those snippets of songs who force their way into my head while I am trying to sleep for just five more minutes.

NOVEMBER
1 – Yesterday (The Beatles)
9 – Younger Than Springtime (from South Pacific)
13 – America the Beautiful
15 – Daybreak (Barry Manilow) An earworm that actually made sense! Well, it would have made sense if daylight savings time hadn’t ended. As it is, day doesn’t actually break forth into all its splendor until I’m on my way to work.
16 – Good Morning (Beatles) Wait a minute…this is getting spooky.
17 – How Great Thou Art (There…that’s more like it)
20 – Babe (Styx)
21 – Midnight Blue (Melissa Manchester)
22 – Babe (Styx) Yes…again. Honestly…the lyric is “Babe, I’m leaving; I must be on my way,” so LEAVE ALREADY!
27 – Don’t Worry Baby (The Beach Boys)/Be My Baby (The Ronettes) This is a mash-up I’d like to hear the cast of Glee do. It really works.

DECEMBER
1 – Castles in the Air (Don McLean) This was pre-American Pie, and if anybody reading these words also has his vinyl album, Tapestry, I think I may wet myself in shock and amazement.
3 – Dreidel (Don McLean, again) I tried to ignore this, so as not to repeat artists so quickly, but I had to tell the truth. And I know why McLean is insisting to have residence in my cranium: I listened to a couple of his albums while putting up the Christmas tree November 29th. Now, why are his songs still inflicting themselves upon me? Is it because they are so hauntingly beautiful and unique, or is it because my brain is just that feeble so as to accept any imprint whatsoever? (Don’t answer that.)
8 – Tonight’s the Night (Rod Stewart)
20 – Night and Day (Sergio Mendes and Brazil 66)
27 – Sweet Georgia Brown/Cantina Theme (from Star Wars) Unusual mash-up, I know, but try it…you’ll see that my subconscious is fairly genious.
28 – We Need a Little Christmas (The blame for this rests squarely on the shoulders of the Christmas episode of Glee that I watched last night.)
29 – Angels from the Realms of Glory (“Come and worship. Come and worship. Worship Christ the newborn king!”)

JANUARY
3 – For Once in My Life (Stevie Wonder)
5 – Evensong (Dave Burkum, who is the lead pastor at my church [http://www.valleycc.org] and wrote this song, which is used for our Sunday EVENing service…get it?)
9 – At the Hop (Danny and the Juniors)
11 – Vehicle (Ides of March) And, yes, you are correct…this is not the first time this little number has appeared on this list.
13 – The Air that I Breathe (The Hollies) Of course, this being January in Minnesnowta, the air that I breathe tends to make my lungs freeze…the whole situation’s brought me to my knees.
14 – Bound to Come Some Trouble (Rich Mullins)
18 – Tired of Waiting (The Kinks)
20 – Jessie’s Girl (Rick Springfield)
24 – Smoke of a Distant Fire (Sanford-Townsend Band) Yes, I had to look up the name of this one-hit-wonder ensemble.
26 – How Majestic Is Your Name (Michael W. Smith)
31 – Everlasting God (“You are the everlasting God…the everlasting God…You do not faint, You won’t grow weary…”) My subconscious probably felt the need to remind me of this True Truth because it knew I was going to wake up to YET ANOTHER SNOW STORM!

I reserve the right to be wrong, but...

2011-01-28T17:07:00.002-06:00

According to my exhaustive research (i.e., reading an article by Daniel Gross, "Digging Out of that 'Big Hole'," in the January 31, 2011 issue of Newsweek), the Chief Executive of these United States of America (long may they wave) made a statement concerning the current economic situation that gives me pause.

To quote the article:
In early January, [President Obama] said, "We've got a big hole that we're digging ourselves out of."

Now...I've never claimed to be the sharpest pencil in the box, the brightest bulb in the pack, nor the fuzziest peach on the tree, but it would seem to me to make an awful lot of sense to follow the advice of my dear grandpappy, Ol' Reliable (I don't recollect I've ever mentioned Ol' Reliable before):

When you find yourself in a hole...STOP DIGGING!

Almost the News X

2011-01-21T16:47:00.000-06:00

Modern-day Babe is Latest Twins Legend
Professional baseball is abuzz with the news that the Minnesota Twins' latest player acquisition is a talking pig.

Six Dead in Church Van Crash on Freeway
The crash comes as no surprise. Dead people are rarely any good at driving church vans.

Quadruple Amputee Tries to Swim Channel
Why is the song "When the red-red robin comes bob-bob-bobbin' along" going through my head? (Oh my goodness...please forgive me!)

State Saw Job Gains in October
Minnesotan lumberjacks made significant advances before Halloween.

2,100 Arrested in Moscow Sweep
Over two thousand inmates of a Russian jail were issued brooms and forced into a street-cleaning effort.

Jet Lost Contact, Forces Capitol Evacuation
The nation's lawmakers cleared out of their offices as a Boeing 727 searched for a misplaced optic lens.

Man Sues Lab Over Accuracy of Alcohol Test
The fact that he thought a dog could efficiently administer such a test may be an indication of his relative level of sobriety at the time.

Man Arrested in Beer Truck Attack
No word as to why no charges have been filed against the truck.

Sting Foils Oregon Bomb Plot
The former front-man for the rock group, The Police, spread Reynolds Wrap over the piece of ground in Oregon where a dead explosive device was buried. Film at 11.

Movie Quote Stream of Consciousness

2011-01-17T19:17:00.001-06:00

For the past few months, my daily status update on FaceBook has been a quote from one of the movies in my VHS/DVD collection. Reading them all end-to-end makes for an...um...interesting experience:

You're speechless, I see. A fine quality in a wife.

Just wishing I could do the job for you, sir. I'd give her a HA! And a HI-YA! And then a OUU-WA! And I'd kick her, sir.

That'll do, pig. That'll do.

Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?

Art off. OK, I want channels 18, 24, 63, 109, 87, and the weather channel. You hear me, runt? I said that's ten, you gutless, yellow, pie-slinger!

I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside. I can tell you that our waitress is left-handed and the guy sitting up at the counter weighs two hundred fifteen pounds and knows how to handle himself. I know the best place to look for a gun is the cab of the gray truck outside, and at this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Now why would I know that? How can I know that and not know who I am? What if I can't find her?

It's easy. She's standing right next to you. If you were in your office right now we'd be having this conversation face-to-face.

It's the same year after year: they come, they eat, they leave; that's our lot in life. It's not a lot, but it's our life.

Well, you know, race cars don't need headlights, because the track is always lit.

Well, so is my brother, but he still needs headlights.

And the big brown bear came lolloping over the mountain.

Do not cite the Deep Magic to me, witch. I was there when it was written. What do you suppose happens back home if you die here?

You are the only ladies of the household, I hope, er, I presume? I'm just doing my job. You gotta appreciate that.

Nah - calling it your job don't make it right, Boss. Why not just kill them? I'll do it! I'll run up to Paris - bam, bam, bam, bam. I'm back before week's end. We spend the treasure. How is this a bad plan? Seize the day, boys! Make your lives extraordinary!

How 'bout this for a number? 6. That's how old my other daughter is. 8 is the age of my son. 2 is how many times I've been married - and divorced; 16 is the number of dollars I have in my bank account. 850-3943. That's my phone number, and with all the numbers I gave you, I'm guessing zero is the number of times you're gonna call it. Do you like kids?

On a case-by-case basis.

Do you know how to make chocolate milk?

I think I could figure it out.

Promise you won't kidnap me and my brother and plant stuff in our brains?
Sure.

Welcome to Earth.

Mine! Mine-mine! Mine!

May God grant us the wisdom to discover right, the will to choose it, and the strength to make it endure. I just want my old job back and my old life. Oh, and two weeks paid vacation for all the workers in the quarry, an annual cost-of-living increase, and those little packets of ketchup in the lunch room. I'm not a smart man... but I know what love is. And what are you? So full of hate you want to go out and fight everybody! Because you've been whipped and chased by hounds. Well that might not be living, but it sure as hell ain't dying. And dying's been what these white boys have been doing for going on three years now! Dying by the thousands! Dying for you, fool! I know, 'cause I dug the graves.

Sorry, no goats.

Baaaaaa-lony.

Wait a minute. You aren't seriously suggesting that if I get through the wire... and case everything out there... and don't get picked up... to turn myself in and get thrown back in the cooler for a couple of months so you can get the information you need?

I was most unfortunate in my youth to come across a vomit-flavored one, and since then I'm afraid I've lost my liking for them. But, I think I could be safe with a nice toffee. It is not our abilities that show what we truly are. It is our choices.

Come now, Harry, the Ministry doesn't send people to Azkaban for blowing up their aunts. Dark and difficult times lie ahead. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy. The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are. You must be wondering why I brought you here.

Actually sir, after all these years I just sort of go with it.

If? If is good. When we crashed, my entire life flashed before my eyes. It didn't take too long. You... you man! You stupid, stupid man!

Five players on the floor functioning as one single unit: team, team, team - no one more important than the other! Just one day, and then I swear I'll be content with my share. Won't resent, won't despair, old and bent, I won't care, I'll have spent one day out there!

OK, remember when Paul McCartney wrote the song Michelle and then he only wrote the first part, Annie said. And then he gave that part to John Lennon, and he wrote the part that said, "I love you, I love you, I love you." And Annie said that it wouldn't have been the same song without that... and that's why the whole world cried when the Beatles broke up on April 10, 1970.

Where — is — my — super-suit?

Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes? I very little, you cheat very big! My soul is prepared; how is yours? You’re a teacher?

Part-time.

Give 'em the fist, give 'em the wrist, give 'em the finger! He's a piece of hardware, Hogarth. Why did you think the army was here? This rabble you're talking about...they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn't think so. People were human beings to him. But to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they're cattle. Well, in my book he died a much richer man than you'll ever be. You're gonna need a bigger boat. To conquer death, you only have to die.

I'm the king of the swingers, whoa, the jungle V.I.P. Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. Oh, yeah. Oooh, ahhh; that's how it always starts. Then later there's running and screaming.

This is T-Rex pee? How'd you get it?

You don't wanna know.

It wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast. As my grandpappy, Ol' Reliable, used to say... I don't recollect if I've ever mentioned Ol' Reliable before? In my day, we had fantastical feasts when I lived in the palace. And now, look at me — wasted away to practically nothing — banished, and exiled, and practically starving. Then the clouds opened up and God said, "I hate you, Alfalfa!" I'm ugly and awkward and I always say the wrong things. I fly around throwing away perfectly good marriage proposals. I love our home, but I'm just so fitful and I can't stand being here!

It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing. Not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall. End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path...one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass.

Capital bit of humor, wooden leg named Smith!

I know kung fu. Everybody runs. Red light, green light. Come up against a lock you can't pick, you mash them together... *boom*. Hasta lasagna, don't get any on ya.

That was the hardest part about having to portray you: grinning like an idiot every fifteen minutes. Who are you? What's your name? Do you have a wife? A girlfriend? Because if you do, I'm gonna find her. I'm gonna hurt her. I'm gonna make her bleed, and cry, and call out your name. And then I'm gonna find you, and kill you right in front of her. Put that thing back where it came from or so help me...

Hey! Dragon. Dragon, not lizard. I don't do that tongue thing. Jack not name! Jack job! Look at me, I'm the King Of New York! I live for furs. I worship furs! After all, is there a woman in all this wretched world who doesn't?

You've never heard of Leonardo DiCaprio? How far away is London anyway? What is truth? Why should I trade one tyrant three thousand miles away for three thousand tyrants one mile away?

Well, you can't know. Not until you look at a dumpster. But when you climb into that thing for the first time and you pull those newspapers over you, that's when you know you've messed your life up. Somebody comes along like your son, and gives me a leg up, I'll take it. Even from a kid, I'll take it.

But, George, do you think the children will be safe without Nana? A lie keeps growing and growing until it's as plain as the nose on your face.

You ignored the rules of engagement. In a fair fight, I'd kill you!

That's not much incentive for me to fight fair, then, is it? We are very much alike, you and I; I and you...us. Oh, except for a sense of honor and decency and a moral center...and personal hygiene. Have you come because you need my help to save a certain distressin' damsel? Or...rather, damsel in distress? Either one....

My daughter speaks with wisdom beyond her years. We've all come here with anger in our hearts, but she comes with courage and understanding. From this day forward, if there is to be more killing, it will not start with me.

His name is Blane? Oh! That's a major appliance, that's not a name! I work hard to build an empire, and your only joy is to amuse yourselves destroying it.

As you wish.

This pin. Two people. This is gold. Two more people. He would have given me two for it, at least one. One more person. We can stay up late, swapping manly stories, and in the morning, I'm making waffles!

Donkey, you have the right to remain silent. What you lack is the capacity.

Bless us, oh Lord, for these Thy gifts which we are about to receive. And yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of no food, I will fear no hunger. We want you to give us this day, our daily bread. And to the republic for which it stands, and by the power invested in me, I pronounce us ready to eat. Amen.

If you want to be somebody, if you want to go somewhere, you better wake up and pay attention. The road to love may be barred by still many more dangers, which you alone will have to face. So arm yourself with this enchanted Shield of Virtue, and this mighty Sword of Truth, for these weapons of righteousness will triumph over evil.

I'm gonna get out of bed every morning...breathe in and out all day long. Then, after a while I won't have to remind myself to get out of bed every morning and breathe in and out... and then, after a while, I won't have to think about how I had it great and perfect for a while.

She's a female! And all females is poison! They're full of wicked wiles! I like rich people. I like the way they live. I like the way I live when I'm with them.

Wesa got a grand army. That's why you no liking us meesa thinks.

Why do I get the feeling you're going to be the death of me? I find your lack of faith disturbing. Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. Your father he is. What do you want to be married to me for, anyhow?

So I can kiss you anytime I want.

Swing Heil! That's it! I've had it with you and your emotional constipation! The world will know that free men stood against a tyrant, that few stood against many, and before this battle was over, even a god-king can bleed.

Music to drown by. Now I know I'm in first class.

I got somethin' to say. And then I ain't gonna say no more. He took advantage of me. And if you fine, fancy gentlemen ain't gonna do nothin' about it, then you're just a bunch of lousy, yella, stinkin' cowards, the - the whole bunch of ya, and your fancy airs don't come to nothin'.

You take your dead cat to the graveyard on the day somebody wicked's been buried, and when the devil comes, you heave your cat at him and say "Devil follow corpse, cat follow devil, warts follow cat, I'm done with you". That'll fetch any wart.

You are a sad, strange, little man, and you have my pity. I'm packing your extra pair of shoes, and your angry eyes just in case.

SQUIRREL!

You have to promise you won't fall in love with me. Hubbell, it's Katie. You did know it was Katie.

Womb to tomb!

Birth to Earth!

Have you ever, like, seen somebody? And you knew that, if only that person really knew you, they would, well, they would of course dump the perfect model that they were with, and realize that you were the one that they wanted to, just, grow old with. Have you ever fallen in love with someone you haven't even talked to? Have you ever been so alone you spend the night confusing a man in a coma?

Well how do you like that? Not so much as a "kiss my foot" or "have an apple". For twenty-three years, I've been dying to tell you what I thought of you! And now... well, being a Christian woman, I can't say it!

Is this good news or bad news?

2011-01-11T20:13:00.000-06:00

It was the kind of headline that would normally get a snarky sentence or two in an edition of "Almost the News": Lakeville Students Up in Arms Over Graduation Ceremonies

Except for one unique occurrence, I would have followed that up with something about God's arms coming out of the sky and carrying away the Class of 2010 as they received their diplomas; or, at the risk of somebody going all "Have you forgotten Columbine?" on me, written a sentence about students with guns in the rafters.

The astute reader is now asking him or herself, "What unique occurrence was it that kept Dewey from treating this particular headline with his particular brand of insight?"

The answer, my friend, is not blowing in the wind. Rather, it is in the following statement: I actually read the news article.

[Respectful pause, allowing for the catching of breath and/or regaining of consciousness]

It seems that several families in the South-of-the-River (SOR) city of Lakeville are earning their titles: SOR-Heads. Having grown accustomed to holding their graduation ceremonies at a Twin Cities' premier event center, the recent command of the school board to cut costs by having graduates graduate from school at the actual school from which they are graduating was met with a determined lack of enthusiastic support.

The line of reasoning goes something like this: There's not as much seating available at the high schools. We would fill up the gymnasium, PLUS having people in the auditorium watching on closed-circuit television, and only have 4-to-6 tickets available per graduate. What about all of Johnny's out-of-town aunts and my second cousin's co-workers who are astounded that anyone from our family is actually completing high school?

The line of reasoning fails to take into account one undeniable True Truth: Most of Johnny's relatives would pay good money to NOT have to sit through a high school graduation.

I think I just solved education's problem with underfunding.

Nappy You Hear

2011-01-01T12:01:00.001-06:00

Following last night's revelry of antioxidant-rich, Pomegranate 7-Up and a 500 tournament (in which my fiery crash of defeat was matched only by last year's excursion to Loserville), I spent this morning drifting in and out of slumber with a disorganized parade of thoughts trying to gain my attention:

Did I remember to make that payment that is always due the first of the month?
Is anybody else going to buy one of my books (Almost the Truth about Youth Ministry or Almost the Truth: The Blog Archive 2008-2009) this year? (http://stores.lulu.com/deweyroth)
I really need to write up that book proposal for I Am Legion and get it to some actual-factual publishers, instead of living in the wilderness of self-publishing.
Is that a raccoon on the roof? (For the source of this stray thought, see a previous post: http://almostthetruth.blogspot.com/2009/05/not-exactly-bats-in-my-belrfy.html)
Another year, another chance for Lindsay Lohan to hose up her rehab.
As of this morning, here in Minnesota, if you drive into an intersection and there isn't room ahead of you to drive out, you are now breaking a law...in addition to being fairly stupid.
Ack! I need to write a meditation today to share at the communion table Sunday!
Something warm for breakfast would be nice.
Did I damage our roof when I spent six hours Christmas Eve with a mini-sledgehammer getting rid of the ice that had built up around the eaves? (There's a reason why those are called ice dams and not ice darns.)

May the coming trip around the sun find us all a little wiser, a little more content, and a lot more able to sleep in without a brain battle bending every bouncing bunch of baloney into a weapon of somnolence destruction.

A Christmas Linkfest

2010-12-23T20:17:00.001-06:00

Here they are, all in one place for the first time (except on my FaceBook wall), an eclectic collection of links to videos, both new and old, all connected in some way or other to Christmas. Get a cup of hot chocolate, pull up a chair, and enjoy...

Animals "singing" Deck the Halls:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-0WVfj76bo

A Canadian mall's food court singing Handel's Hallelujah Chorus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE

The Plunderer's March, my favorite song from Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOJBU95pVmw

The Digital Story of the Nativity is how Matthew or Luke may have related the story if they had written The Gospel According to Steve Jobs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkHNNPM7pJA&feature=player_embedded

And finally, the True Truth of White Space Christmas:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1754721911627&oid=33475707006&comments&ref=mf

Peace on Earth to you and yours...

There's no business like snow business

2010-12-11T13:07:00.001-06:00

Here in Minnesnowta, we are currently in the midst of what is being advertised as "the largest snowfall since the Halloween Blizzard of '91." Personally, if the scene in my driveway is any indication, I'm glad we didn't move to the tundra until 1994.

To pass the time between shoveling and spinal adjustments, I've been hanging out on FaceBook, of course, and one of my friends came up with the fun idea of inserting the word "snow" into the titles of movies and television shows...which got me thinking...which is a dangerous thing:

They made a movie about my efforts at raking the snow off my roof and clearing out my driveway: The Chronicles of Suburbia: The Voyage of the Snow Treader
The 1957 Oscar-winner for best picture, starring Alec Guinness as a prisoner-of-war dealing with a freak blizzard in the jungles of Southeast Asia: Snow on the River Kwai
Speaking of Alec Guinness, did you see him as Obi Wan BeenFrozen in Snow Wars?
That Christmas favorite with Jimmy Stewart, where his character finds out what his boring, little town would have been like if there had never been winter: It's a Wonderful Snow
Harrison Ford's adventurous archaeologist searches Antarctica for a religious relic: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Snow
A boy wizard does battle with the Dark Lord VoldeFreezemeister: Harry Potter and the Half-Snow Prince
Steven Spielberg's first blockbuster about a resort town's sheriff hiring a crusty, old snowplow driver to conquer a freakishly large blizzard: Snows (My favorite quote: "You're gonna need a bigger blade.")
Sandra Bullock stars as a gal who pretends to be the fiance of Old Man Winter: While You Were Snowing
That classic musical from Hollywood's Golden Era, starring Gene K-K-K-Kelly, Debbie ReynoldsWrap, and Donald O'Icicle: Singing in the Snow
A man is shipwrecked on an island: Robinson Crusnow
A Native American helps the European Americans fight the European Europeans: Last of the Snowhicans
The madcap mishaps and mayhem of a group of Army surgeons stationed in Alaska: S*N*O*W
A perky gal with a lot of spunk gets a job in a Minneapolis TV newsroom during the largest snowfall since the Halloween Blizzard of '91: The Mary Tyler More Snow Show

I could go on, but our miniature chihuahua, Edgar, is going to need to empty his bladder soon, and I need to either clear him a path or dig him a tunnel.

Minnesota: The Land of 10,000 Boasts

2010-11-27T16:27:00.001-06:00

I've mentioned before about my aversion to Minnesotans' aptitude for declaring the state's superiority in practically every measurable circumstance known to mankind. Herewith are some Actual Factual examples:

Minnesota's 49 million turkeys were far and away the most raised in any state and 18 percent of the nation's total.

Minnesota leads the Midwest in a hot trend: cremation

Our state is tops in fishing licenses sold per capita.

Minnesota has some of the most creditor-friendly laws in the country.

Other states have challenged the accuracy of the decades-old breath test device called the Intoxilyzer 5000EN, but Minnesota is the only place where the case landed in federal and state courts.

Minnesota has been named the "Best Trails" state.

Minneapolis/St. Paul is one of the most intoxicated areas of the U.S.

Minneapolis has the purest heroin at the lowest price in the country.

* * * * * * *
Well, well, well...don't you just want to stand up tall and give out a yell?

I saw the light...not

2010-11-21T21:13:00.001-06:00

Beloved called me while I was at work and announced that she had a light out.

This confused me a wee bit, as I'm more accustomed to thinking "the lights are on, but nobody's home." (Not that I think that about Beloved, you understand! It's just a common phrase. Seriously, folks!)

Upon cross-examination, it was discovered that the light to which Beloved was referring was the driver's-side headlight of her car.

"No worries," I cheerfully responded, "I'll just pop that puppy out and plug in a new one. In fact, I think I may already have a replacement at home. I'm pretty sure I bought a two-pack the last time I needed one."

"Where would it be?" asked Beloved. "I've been looking for a while and haven't found anything."

"Well, if there is one, it would be on a shelf in the mud room," I jovially offered.

"I looked there."

"No big deal," I chuckled, as this latest development rolled off my back, "I'll just stop on the way home and pick one up."

* * * * * * *
It took a couple passes through our newly-remodeled, super-sized StallMart for me to find the automotive lighting aisle, and the model number I needed had only one representative in the massive display of possibilities (which seemed to have absolutely no logic behind what got hung where), but I eventually arrived home, triumphantly carrying my quarry in its requisite plastic bag.

It was while I was placing said plastic bag in the recycling bin (strategically placed in our mud room) that I saw the previously-purchased automotive headlamp on the shelf. "Ha-ha! How amusing," thought I, as I cheerfully headed out to quickly switch the good for the bad so Beloved could once again drive safely in the dark.

* * * * * * *
NEWSFLASH! THIS JUST IN: Those who design the engine compartments of the modern mechanical marvels we call automobiles are apparently double-jointed contortionists...with an evil streak a mile wide.

It's true...when I finally wormed my hand into the so-called "space" between the battery and the cap sealing the compartment that held the bulb for the headlight, my only option for actually twisting the cap off was to have a friend lift me up and spin my body. And when this was done, I immediately dropped the cap into the interior of the fender/wheel well/labyrinth.

But was this enough humiliation and defeat for this particular day? Apparently not.

Having irretrievably lost the cap/seal/lid-thingy, I then proceeded to be completely unable to remove the faulty bulb...forget about putting in the new one. It was impossible to actually, you know, see what I was doing, so I was stuck feeling around with my fingers, which were fairly well numb with cold at this point. I could unplug the thing, but as for figuring out the combination of yoga and ninja moves necessary for getting it out, I was about as useful as a seeing-eye dog with a blindfold.

I finally submitted to the reality of my ineptitude and drove to my friendly neighborhood oil-changing tire store and asked the grease monkeys if they could save me from my rapidly-increasing frustration. Practically before I finished asking the question, I was on my way, with my bruised ego whimpering in the back seat.

When I asked MonkeyBoy how he got the cap out of the fender, he said, "I'm the one that's always dropping things around here."

So, yeah...I was out-performed by the worst guy in the shop.

Bela Lugosi, where are you?

2010-11-11T16:47:00.000-06:00

I gave blood the other day.

Correction: The Red Cross took some blood from me. Giving just isn't the right word to use for the red-tape wrapped, multiple-instruction sheet covered, inquisition-like screened event that I endured Monday afternoon-into-evening.

The unfilling station had been set up in the atrium-formerly-known-as-the-foyer of my church (http://www.valleycc.org), and the lead pastor had shamelessly begged us to fill up the appointment sheet, so I dutifully-obediently-pathetically participated.

Upon entering, I was cheerfully greeted, given a name tag, and issued a forest-killing pile of instructional pages informing me of the importance of my donation ("Give blood, good; use dirty needle, bad") and warning me of the possible-though-not-likely side effects of having blood forcibly removed from my body...including having a bruised arm that may display "a rainbow of colors." (Actual factual quote.)

I had to answer several questions about my personal health and private behavior. The good news is that said questions were privately answered by me on a computer. I'm thinking if the questions had been asked by a human being, face-to-face, we both would have been blushing like a nun at Chippendale's.

I was granted acceptance into the privileged crowd of acceptable donors, and directed to lay down and expose my neck to the incoming bat — er — give the nurse access to my arm. Once she pounded the inside of my elbow and painted my right side with antiseptic, it only took three people to lift the needle that was then twisted into my helpless flesh...all while telling me to relax, which was kind of like telling a person jumping out of a plane to fall up.

However, my attempts at relaxation must have been effective after all, because the next complaint cast in my direction had to do with the lack of speed with which my blood bag was filling. That's right — I wasn't bleeding fast enough for them. They kept jiggling the pipe that was protruding from my arm and milking the hose that ran from the pipe to the blood bag, but it all was taking so long that the wound started clotting over as if my body was saying, "I ain't got time to bleed."

Bottom line was, they couldn't get a full pint out of me and ended up having to discard the 90% of a pint that they got. It's all-or-nothing with those professional vampire types at the Red Cross. They told me not to let it discourage me from giving again in the future, but I said, "You are not the boss of me! It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to!"

But I think I will give it another try at the next opportunity. My arm is looking like a bag of Skittles and I can practically taste the rainbow. Yum!

My financial worries are over

2010-11-07T20:57:00.000-06:00

I think I've had an apostrophe.

I've seen my future, and it's so bright, I need to wear shades.

The source of my inspiration and abundant hope is the following Associated Press item I read a few days ago.

McDonald's Pays for Worker's Weight
SAO PAULO - A Brazilian court ruled this week that McDonald's must pay a former franchise manager $17,500 because he gained 65 pounds while working there for a dozen years. The 32-year-old man said he felt forced to sample food each day to ensure quality standards remained high, because McDonald's hired "mystery clients" to randomly visit restaurants and report on the food, service, and cleanliness. The man also said the company offered free lunches to employees, adding to his caloric intake while on the job.

I can see clearly now (welcome to your newest earworm)...there are untapped resources out there waiting to be mined:

I should be awarded a cash settlement for all the sleep I lost during the nine years I proofread prospectuses for mutual funds...on third shift. Not to mention the damage to my nervous system and arteries from all the caffeinated beverages I had to ingest to ensure my wakefulness.
There should be a sliding scale of damage payments to my tender sense of well-being and usefulness for all the years I ministered to teens...who turned around and became felons, freeloaders, and insurance agents.
My current place of employment forces me to actually, you know, show UP, which involves wear and tear on my vehicle, along with other operating expenses that are not fully reimbursed.

If we work this right, ladies and gentlemen, we may never have to work again.

Good morning, Earworm, the Earth says hello

2010-11-02T07:27:00.000-05:00

I wake up in the morning, and these songs are turning/churning in my mind. I shoo them away. They ignore me. I take down their names so I can put them on report.

AUGUST
3 – Everlasting God (“Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord; we will wait upon the Lord; we will wait upon the Lord…”)
4 – Country Road (James Taylor)
9 – Lady (Little River Band; this REALLY needs to stop showing up in this list. I’ve even NOT listed it a couple times when I should have, figuring it would be too annoying for readers with heart conditions to handle.)
10 – I Will Call Upon the Lord (“…who is worthy to be praised.”)
13 – Me and Bobby Magee (Janis Joplin. Kris Kristopherson can suck eggs.)
19 – Spinning Wheel (Blood Sweat & Tears)
20 – These Eyes (The Guess Who…no…seriously…this is not a game …that’s the group’s name)
22 – Love Isn’t Always on Time (Foreigner)
24 – I Am the Walrus (The Beatles. Where have you been, oh, Fab Four? You haven’t showed up in my morning music for a loooooong time. And when you do, you give me THIS?!!? Well, goo-goo-ga-joob to you!)
25 – First Song that I Sing (Sara Groves)
26 – Come On Eileen (Dexys Midnight Runners)

SEPTEMBER
2 – Reign In Us (Starfield)
3 – So Far Away (Carole King)
8 – I Am a Servant (Larry Norman. I sang a different Larry Norman song at the state fair on the 4th and found out that NObody in the room knew who he was. I could barely finish singing the rest of my set because of my grief.)
9 – You Should be Dancin’ (Bee Gees)
13 – Running On Empty (Jackson Browne) What a way to start the work week.
26 – My Wish (Rascal Flats…though I’m really hearing it because Beloved sang it in three concerts last week.)
28 – Top of the World (Carpenters)
29 – Still the One (Orleans)

OCTOBER
1 – If I Can’t Have You (Yvonne Elliman)
3 – Couldn’t Get It Right (Climax Blues Band)
7 – Country Road (James Taylor)
9 – The Face of Christ (Chris Rice)
29 – Hey Tomorrow (Jim Croce)

Gingivitis P. Skulk, at your service

2010-10-29T13:17:00.001-05:00

I've been running low on inspiration and time when it comes to posting anything chuckle-worthy here. Blame it on rehearsals and performances with Giant Step Theatre's latest production, Pinocchio, in which I play the guy who sells Pincushion to the evil puppet master, sticks Pinhead with a huge dinner bill, and rushes Pine-Sol onto a boat to Pleasure Island...where he will be turned into a donkey and used for slave labor.

I'm a lovable rascal.

I'm a lovable rascal who hasn't been able to post to his blog because he's had to keep speeches like the following concoction (courtesy of Peter Martin) fresh in his head:

We'll sue the pants off 'em! We'll nail 'em to the wall! We'll send 'em cryin' for their mothers! There will be damages! Big ones! I'd say a million for each of the counts against them. Count these counts: you've got violation of probate, bad faith fiduciary malpractice, wrongful accretion of intellectual property, breach of eminent domain, misrepresentation of an affidavit for collateral negligence, and circumstantial conspiracy to violate a coroner. Not to mention malfeasance, malpractice, maladjustment, and Mal Torme. Plus adverse possession of an affidavit for the party of the first part and de facto negligence against the due process to collateralize the defamation of the party of the second part. Did I miss anything?

"They didn't smell too good."

Brilliant! We'll get 'em for malodorous intent, too!

* * * * * * *

I'm lucky I can remember my own name, what with this kind of stuph filling my head.

Until next time,

Charles

THAT much, eh?

2010-10-13T15:07:00.003-05:00

I was reading Renee Valois' review of Chanhassen Dinner Theatres' production of I Do! I Do! in Sunday's St. Paul Pioneer Press and was taken aback by the following paragraph:

The music is pleasant but not stellar — with one song a standout in popularity and poignancy, "My Cup Runneth Over" (with love), which has been covered by everyone from Perry Como to Bing Crosby.

Let's lay aside the factual fact that the parenthetical, with love, ought to be inside the quotation marks and have initial caps, along with the rest of the song title...and how those things NOT being done hurts my feelings. The phrase that really threw me for a loop was the one that ended the paragraph:

...covered by everyone from Perry Como to Bing Crosby.

Really?!!?

And just how many artists reside in that wide expanse? By my count, it's a grand total of one: Engelbert Humperdink.

And he has to really squeeze to fit.

I didn't know I had it in me!

2010-10-03T21:27:00.001-05:00

While in Indiana recently, Beloved and I spent two-and-a-half hours with an ex-girlfriend of mine, eating breakfast. Not that we ate breakfast for two-and-a-half hours (though I wouldn't have minded a second helping of biscuits and gravy), but we sat in the restaurant that long, swapping stories and catching each other up on what had happened in the 15 years that had passed since we last saw each other.

Contrary to what some of you might be thinking about a face-to-face between an old flame and a current flame, there were no emotional fireworks. Two reasons: 1) Beloved happens to think the old flame is a very nice, interesting person; and 2) Beloved knows she owns my heart (and half of all my worldly goods).

The best thing I gained from the morning (in addition to a bit of plaque in my arteries) was hearing the story of something I did in my late teens...something that I had no memory of whatsoever, but which fills me with belated pride.

Behold...

A small group of us had been the entertainment for a monthly meeting of the Elks or Lions or Fraternal Order of the Manly Muskrats. After thrilling them with a condensed version of The Wizard of Oz, we piled into OldFlame's car. As she was backing out of the parking spot, she ran into a pole, denting the rear fender of her parents' car.

Burying her head in her hands, OldFlame lamented, "Oh no! I'm going to be in so much trouble!"

We drove to her house and I told her to wait at the car. "Let me handle this."

I went into the house and gravely spoke with OldFlame's mother, who we lovingly referred to as "Ina Mae," which was very convenient, as that also happened to be her name.

"Ina Mae...we were in an accident."

Motherly instincts boiling over, Ina Mae asked, "Is everybody all right?!!?"

"Yes. We're okay. It just dented the fender."

"Oh, well, thank goodness!"

* * * * * * *

I actually got her to be thankful for a dented fender! Pretty good for a sixteen-year-old theater geek.

Epilogue: Apparently, OldFlame's dad didn't take the news with quite the same level of gratitude.

I'm goin' back to Indiana

2010-09-19T15:07:00.000-05:00

Traveling from just south of Minnesota's Twin Cities to just south of Fort Wayne, Indiana involves a number of decisions:

Should we leave Saturday morning, or right after work Friday...arriving at my folks' place (the home of SweaterGirl and FlatulenceKing) at 3:00 AM?
Should we go south through Illinois on I-39, avoiding the drive through Chicago, or cut 50 miles off the trip by braving the Windy City?
Which lane should we get into at the toll booth?

Having taken the second option on the first two decisions, I was faced with the third question repeatedly between 10:00 and 11:00 PM. And at the very first toll booth, I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt my ability to choose wrongly.

In an effort to get everyone to purchase an I-Pass that allows you to bypass stopping to pay individual tolls, all toll-paying on the Jane Adams Memorial Tollway is done by cash to a real, live, surly human being. That wouldn't be so bad, I reckon, except that the driver of the van in front of me apparently tried to pay the one dollar toll with a 100-dollar bill that had to be tested for authenticity by a specially-trained agent of the Treasury Department who had to be flown in from Denver.

While I was waiting for the van driver to get his change...in very specific denominations of bills and coins...the thought struck me: JANE ADAMS MEMORIAL TOLLWAY????

Why would an actress who is, according to IMDB.com, "best remembered as the sympathetic hunchbacked nurse, Nina, in 1945's House of Dracula," have a tollway on the northwest side of Chicago named after her?

Or maybe the Illinois Department of Transportation is honoring the Jane Adams of janeadams.com: the "dynamic, exciting, and empathetic speaker whose presentations illuminate contemporary trends in lifestyles and choices, provide tools and strategies to increase personal satisfaction & professional achievement, and motivate audiences to take control of their lives, expand their horizons, and fulfill their goals." (That retching sound you hear is me.)

Oh...never mind...the line is moving again...talk to you later.

Dewey has...

2010-09-14T19:43:00.001-05:00

According to the World Wide Wackfest and the search monkeys at GoodSearch and Google:

Dewey has taught our teachers how to learn.
Dewey has an attitude.
Dewey has demonstrated the creative ability to compose inspirational music, lyrics, prose and poetry.
Dewey has never been appalled by the novelty of an idea.
Dewey has had an insidious effect on American democracy through the baneful impact his core ideas have had.
Dewey has been an avid fisherman and lover of art all of his life.
Dewey has been developing a novel approach to treating addiction.
Dewey has offices in the U.S., U.K., China, Italy, Germany, and Poland.
Dewey has been photographing the landscape of California and beyond, from the ground and air in detail and in general for thirty years.
Dewey has not yet clipped any coupons.
Dewey has met some large and small dogs, and plays nicely with them.
Dewey has memories from when he was a baby and dropped by his grandparents.
Dewey has come under attack before.
Dewey has also appeared in many jazz festivals.
Dewey has the skill and experience to see a case through.
Dewey has a great sense of the majesty, grandeur, and adventure of life.
Dewey has been called an experimentalist.
Dewey has been active in the art of balloon sculpturing since 1975.
Dewey has swept the likes of communist Jones into our classrooms and put fear in educators to label Jones' venom as venom.
Dewey has published a total of 26 books and 4 videos.
Dewey has been a featured presenter at the Annual Festival Gathering of the Network of Biblical Storytellers (NOBS).
Dewey has four children.
Dewey has come to learn a lot about himself, people, and the world.
Dewey has been very active behind the scenes.
Dewey has previously lectured in composition at the University of Tasmania.
Dewey has two Administrative Assistants.
Dewey has studied the effects substance abuse has on the brain.
Dewey has served as president of the Society for International Nutrition Research.
Dewey has a new fiddle album out on his own DewBug label.
Dewey has his next acting project lined up.
Dewey has been a mess for years.
Dewey has total control!
Dewey has a problem he's not quite sure how to solve.
Dewey has rolls and rolls of puckered fat draping his squat frame.

For those who are curious, about five of these statements are actually factually true.

Injury + Insult

2010-09-03T14:33:00.000-05:00

Back in the days when I was paying for groceries by ministering to/with youth, there was one Senior Pastor I worked with who was particularly fond of Christmas music: Joy to the World, Silver Bells, Oh Come to Old Faithful...the whole spectrum.

And I really had no problem with that. I'm fairly fond of the fa-la-las meself. Besides, he did force himself to wait until Halloween to actually put any Christmas music in the Mega-Bass, three-CD-changer, shelf sound system unit in his office.

Which brings me to today's subject: the disparity in salary and perks allotted to Senior Pastor/Preacher types and what is imparted unto Youth Minister/Student Pastor/Now-That-I've-Screwed-Them-Up-Beyond-All-Recognition-Please-Save-My-Teenager types.

Giving a larger paycheck, office, education allowance, and parking space to The Preacher than one does to The Youth Guy/Gal is perfectly understandable, acceptable, reasonable, and both okie and dokie. The Preacher usually has responsibilities beyond Sunday morning sermonizing that justify a higher rate of compensation.

However...

This exalted position creates a couple of issues; one that's bad for The Youth Guy/Gal, and one that is a disadvantage to The Preacher.

1) When the planets, stars, and prevailing winds all align to the point of being able to raise the salaries of the church's pastoral staff, some brilliant mathematician decides that increasing each staff person's salary by the same percentage would be the only fair course of action to take. Those of you keeping notes will soon realize, if you haven't already, that this results in a larger increase for The Preacher and a widening of the gap between The Preacher's salary and that of The Underling(s).

2) The knowledge that The Preacher's office is larger and packed with more material blessings than the converted broom closet that The Youth Guy/Gal scrunches into makes said office the specific target of any burglary attempts.

Now...I've said all of that so I can say this...

One chilly night in early November, a burglar burgled his or her way into the inner sanctum of the Christmas-music-loving Senior Pastor I was speaking of earlier in this post. Drawers were rifled, books were strewn, pen and pencil sets were pilfered, and worst of all...the Mega-Bass, three-CD-changer, shelf sound system unit was taken.

Did I say that was worst of all? No...back up...let me change that. The absolutely worst thing—what added insult to injury—was that, in the midst of what had to be a rushed, hushed, and hurried bit of larceny, the perp took the time to open the CD player, take out Julie Andrews Sings Christmas, and leave it behind. It was as if to say, "We want your stuff, but your taste in music sucks!"

Almost the News IX

2010-08-25T11:33:00.001-05:00

Rural Bankers Survey Now Points Toward Contraction
Specifically, the word can't.

Girl Honored by Lakeville Police for Helping Mother
Has it come to this? Is dusting the house before company comes such a big deal now that it gets noticed by the police?

Military Muscle on Display
Hundreds of curious patriots an hour are filing past the preserved bicep of General George S. Patton.

Mark Bellows to Run for Mayor
Tension was high during last night's City Council meeting when Councilman Mark raised his voice and argued, "The mayor should not have to run in the Race for the Cure! I'll do it for him, and I'll do it well!"

Petters Witness Found in Contempt
After being missing for five days, Larry Reynolds was found hiding in a rented storage facility in the small town of Contempt, Arkansas.

Man in Critical Condition After Stabbing
One of the staff nurses at Mercy Hospital is quoted as saying, "All that guy does is whine and complain."

Bear Who Mauled Caretaker Put Down
A bear that mauled a caretaker has been given what is locally referred to as "The Rudolph Treatment": all of the other bears laugh and call him names.

According to the white pages...

2010-08-20T18:47:00.001-05:00

The following is an educational service, provided free of charge by Almost the Truth.

According to whitepages.com, there are four people with the name “Dewey Roth” in the United States of America…and I’m not one of them. (It's true. As much as I try to ignore it, my actual, factual name is Duane...though for over four decades no one has called me that with any regularity except my 8th-grade English teacher, Linda Reed. She refused to call me Dewey because she had a girlfriend with that name. I refused to call her Mrs. Reed because I had a basket made out of plants with that name.)

Ravenna, Nebraska is home for an 83-year-old farmer named Dewey Roth. Anybody still actively farming at that age deserves to be recognized for having a not-quite-as-unique-as-I-once-thought-it-was name without any further harassment.

There's another 83-year-old Dewey Roth in McAllen, Texas. Apparently, 1927 was a very good year. According to the aerial view map at bing.com, he lives in a dark van in the middle of South Taylor Road.

1958 turned out a pair of Dewey Roths as well. One lives in Independence, Missouri; home of Col. Sherman T. Potter (fictional commanding officer of MASH 4077), Paul Henning (creator of The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres), and Harry S Truman. ("S" with no period, by the way. Like my own father, King Flatulence IV, President Truman had no middle name, just a letter.)

Tonawanda, New York is where our fourth and final Dewey Roth hangs his hat. When the town was founded there were several women named Wanda that lived there...several...large...women.

Oh, what a beautiful earworm!

2010-08-04T07:23:00.002-05:00

This quarter's round up of songs I woke up with...

MAY
3 – Let the Whole World Sing (DeGarmo & Key)
4 – Heart Hotels (Dan Fogelberg)
5 – Come Sail Away (Styx)
11 – Your Mama Don’t Dance and Your Daddy Don’t Rock and Roll (Loggins & Messina)
12 – If You Leave Me Now (Chicago)
13 – This morning, I was trying to sleep and trying to sleep and kept hearing a strange compilation of what seemed like every recorded song known to mankind…just snippet after snippet of tune after tune. I think my Random Access Memory is short-circuiting.
18 – Forever Eyes/Yesterday (Jars of Clay/Beatles) This made for an interesting mash-up. There is hope! Maybe my subconscious has a promising future as an arranger/producer.
19 – Love is Still a Worthy Cause (Sara Groves)
20 – Turn Your Radio On (Ray Stevens, though, yes, there are a few other versions out there)
21 – Jesus Paid It All
25 – Let’s Get It On (Marvin Gaye…but if you ever get a chance to hear a band called “Ferris” do it live…do it.)

JUNE
3 – Trickle Trickle (Manhattan Transfer. Long, almost useless explanation: For over a month now, I’ve been posting a snippet of a lyric as my status statement on Facebook…a different snippet each day. The source material has been my CD collection, arranged alphabetically by artist. The first day was Carolyn Arends, then The Association, through the Beach Boys and the Beatles, etc. In this list of morning earworms, I have generally ignored songs that I know are in my head because of the previous day’s status statement. That said, here lies Manhattan Transfer because “Trickle Trickle” pushed its way into my brain in spite of a June 2nd full of Don McLean: “Starry, starry night; portraits hung in empty halls; frameless heads on nameless walls…”)
15 – Whole New World (from Disney’s Aladdin)
17 – Yesterme, Yesteryou, Yesterday (Stevie Wonder)
21 – El Shaddai (Amy Grant)

JULY
12 – Love Hangover (Diana Ross)
17 – Stand Tall (Burton Cummings)
27 – With a Little Luck (Paul McCartney & Wings) I am particularly irritated at this particular earworm this particular morning. Firstly, because I’m thinking that it’s only going to get worse after tomorrow night’s PBS special giving Sir Paul some sort of American music honor (and how much sense does THAT not make?); but secondly, because the brain bombardment started over an hour before I needed to get up this morning.
30 – Midnight Blue (Melissa Manchester)

BOGO

2010-07-30T19:37:00.000-05:00

I've recently been bombarded with the supposedly wonderful retail news that I can BOGO.

Payless Shoes says I can BOGO.

Applebee's has a BOGO drink special going on.

Here a BOGO, there a BOGO, everywhere a BOGO-BOGO.

And what does BOGO stand for?

Buy One Get One

Well, excuse me, but isn't that what one would normally expect from any purchasing transaction?

Wet Carpet: This is not an instruction

2010-07-25T18:17:00.003-05:00

It started with a wet spot on the carpet.

This is not such an abnormal experience in the Roth household: have I introduced you to our two dog-like creatures?
On the left is Edgar, on the right is Connor, and stuck in the middle with you is KayJay. (KayJay is NOT one of the dog-like creatures of which I am speaking, so that leaves us all to deduce that it must be the decidedly rat-like creatures, Edgar and Connor to which I refer.)

Let me explain that we have been tempted to rename these two marginally-canine companions Cate and Nate...as in Defecate and Urinate...signifying what they each are more prone to do in the house than in the backyard. That being the case, a wet spot on the carpet was not so much a cause for alarm as for aggravation. It smelled like Connor's particularly pungent variety of cologne and he was immediately blamed, ridiculed and ostracized.

This repeated itself several times, in fact, until I started wondering why Connor always seemed to decide to express his manliness when the air conditioning was running.

To make a longer story shorter, let's just say that we discovered that a leaky air conditioner, not a leaky pooch, was the source of the wet spot. Of course, this was not determined without the need of cutting a hole in the wall to gain visual access to the rear of the offending unit and a subsequent visit by our friendly, neighborhood RepairGuy to see if the leak could be fixed.

With coils properly cleaned and alignment impressively fiddled with and a lot of talk using words to which I smiled and grunted as if I had an inkling of a clue as to what RepairGuy was saying, the leak appears to be fixed.

That's good news for our carpet, but now I'm stuck trying to figure out how to apologize for unnecessary scoldings to a creature that has a brain the size of a walnut...a very small, smooth walnut.

ACT NOW!

2010-07-08T15:37:00.002-05:00

The World Wide Wackfest is a marvelous thing. Using the appeal of the Internet, a person can take items that would normally be tossed aside as outdated, useless, or at the very least, quaint, and turn them into money-making opportunities of astounding proportions.

Observe:

What child could possibly resist the charm of a plastic, wind-up walking crab advertising Seattle? For a short time only, you can experience the thrill of the hunt as you find this little guy on ebay and enter into the bidding frenzy that is sure to ensue! With perseverance and determination, YOU could be the one to have this priceless souvenir shipped directly to your home or place of business! Click here: http://cgi.ebay.com/Seattle-Souvenir-Walking-Crab-Toy-/320559080911?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4aa2cf65cf

Or maybe classic entertainment is more to your liking: Imagine the joy on your child's face as you pop the fully restored, special edition of Disney's The Little Mermaid into your VCR! Relive the magical, musical moments of this film that marked the rebirth of Disney's animation department and ancillary marketing prowess. See it in all its VHS glory by clicking and bidding: http://cgi.ebay.com/Disneys-The-Little-Mermaid-Special-Edition-VHS-/320557802461?cmd=ViewItem&pt=VHS&hash=item4aa2bbe3dd

And finally, for those with slightly more sophisticated tastes: You can immerse yourself in the wizarding world of Harry Potter without going to Orlando or taking out a second mortgage! All you have to do is be the highest bidder at http://cgi.ebay.com/Harry-Potter-and-Sorcerers-Stone-VHS-w-new-footage-/320557808320?cmd=ViewItem&pt=VHS&hash=item4aa2bbfac0! Go back to where it all began with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, now with Never-Before-Seen Footage! (And we're not talking about close-ups of Hagrid's toes, baby!)

These fantastic opportunities are only up for bid for a few days, so don't delay, or, or...or...well, golly! That would just be so not swell...

Almost the News VIII

2010-07-02T17:07:00.000-05:00

Drive to Free Attorney Grows
The no-charge services of a lawyer have never been "just around the corner," but now one can expect even more highway time before getting there.

Man's Shooting May Be Hate Crime
As a matter of fact, the chances of it being a love crime are practically zero.

Ikea Recalls Blinds That Choked Child
Quoting a company-wide electronic newsletter: "That set of blinds was a beautiful shade of light brown; I remember them distinctly."

Bill Would Trim Bankers' Say at Fed Banks
Who this guy, Bill, is, and why he has so much influence, is yet to be determined.

Big Signs Will Be Allowed on Parkway
The city of Burnsville will suspend enforcement of its signage ordinance on Burnsville Parkway during road construction this summer, but the large signs are required to maintain a minimum speed of 35 miles per hour.

Troops Targeting Taliban Leaders
In an attempt to gain a foothold for democracy and capitalism, U.S. troops in Afghanistan have been taking leaders of the insurgency on shopping sprees.

Pavano's Latest Gem Halts Twins' Slide
A recent trip to a playground was cut short for Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen when a new diamond was put up for sale.

Hey, Dewey, why haven't you posted anything recently?

2010-06-20T21:27:00.000-05:00

Possibly random concepts and/or factual facts that may or may not pertain to the above question:

One of the driving forces behind Almost the Truth is seeing humor in the plethora of situations in which one finds oneself.
There is often humor to be mined from what is actually a painful experience.
Humor mined from pain is often not humorous to the actual person experiencing the actual pain.
Since June 9th, my life has kept a fairly tight orbit around the planet of Beloved's knee replacement surgery and the recovery from said surgery.
As a general rule, Beloved does not read Almost the Truth.
Most general rules have at least one major exception.
(Insert Murphy's Law here.)
I know which side of the bread my butter is on.

Waiting Room

2010-06-09T10:17:00.009-05:00

Here I sit, where families wait
While Beloved gets help for her gait
Our 31st to celebrate

What to get her for a present?
More costly than glass over pheasant
A new right knee: Oh my! How pleasant!

When they wheeled her through the door
I can't say that it was a bore
But I've had deja vu before

When 30 years we had been wed
To this same room I had been led
A new left knee laid her in bed

Back then, I felt a whole lot dumber
Than I do this cusp of summer
Now I know PT's a bummer

But still, we let the surgeon slice
To walk painfree will be so nice
And so we've let him do it twice

No...surgery is not a curse
It certainly could be much worse:
I could compose a longer verse!

What's the opposite of false humility?

2010-06-02T19:57:00.000-05:00

Every so often, I click my way over to amazon.com and search on "Almost the Truth about Youth Ministry" just to see if the book-selling behemoth is still making my tome available...or to see if anyone else has written a review. (Thanks, Denise Grove [classmate from high school], for "Funny, funny, funny! Dewey Roth should have written a longer book. I read it in one sitting. It left me wanting more.")

It's always a nice feeling to see it there, but imagine the stuh-range feeling I had when this was my search result:

I know that screen shot might be hard to read, so let me elucidate and illuminate...or at least ruminate.

Brand new for $9.95. That makes perfect sense. That's what a person would pay at http://stores.lulu.com/deweyroth.

I can even kind of understand "12 new from $8.36." Lulu.com being the only place where the book is actually available, (if amazon sells a copy, they have to buy it from lulu.com first) there are apparently some independent sellers out there willing to take a $1.59 loss in hopes of making it up with inflated shipping charges. Okay...fine.

But here's what does a fairly fine job of confusing me beyond the bounds of my normal, loose grasp of reality: "2 used from $16.27"? And to be exact, one seller is offering a "used--like new" copy for $16.27 and a different seller has decided he/she can't let a copy go for anything under $16.28.

Wha--?!!?

Are there people out there who just refuse to get a decent bargain and insist, instead, on paying over 63.5% more? For a used copy? (And True Truth be told, you and I both know those sellers haven't purchased a copy from lulu.com yet, so if anyone is fool enough to order from them, it will be an absolutely new copy.)

What is this...the 1980s?

Of course, the best solution to it all is for you fine folks to order a copy directly from lulu.com, so the pauper-esque publisher (me) gets a bigger share of your hard-earned greenbacks.

THAT'LL teach those unscrupulous up-markers of others' output!

The Muppets Take Hollywood

2010-05-28T06:47:00.000-05:00

It started innocently enough.

Doesn’t it always?

On May 16, 2010, I had wanted to note the anniversary of the death of Muppet creator, Jim Henson, in my Facebook status, and so…

It was 20 years ago today, Kermit's daddy just passed away...

This led to a few comments from friends about how we couldn’t believe it had been that long ago and how we were glad to hear that a new Muppet movie was in production.

That’s when the speculations began…

Samwise: What's it going to be? Singing in the Pond, Citizen Kerm, The Princess Pig, or Avatoad?
Dewey: It's a somber drama...Felt Needs. Or maybe a horror picture about puppet cannibalism...Foam on the Range.
T-Girl: What about The Wizard of Foz?
Dewey: The Count of Monte Gonzo
T-Girl: Animal House...no, wait
Dewey: Indiana Kermit and the Electric Mayhem
Samwise: Statler and Waldorf of Arabia; The Maltese Fozzie; How to Train Your Piggy; Dances with Rizzo
T-Girl: Doctor Pigvago
Dewey: A sequel to Castaway, but starring a certain green someone…Kermit the Hermit; Bert & Ernie Go to White Castle; The Big Birdowski…

And people say spending time on Facebook is wasteful. Ha!

Almost the News VII

2010-05-21T17:03:00.001-05:00

In Hot Water, Utah GOP Leader Quits
Utah's House majority leader announced his resignation at a press conference today held in a hot tub.

DNR has Hired Sharpshooters to Take Out Small Herd of Elk
Apparently, the elk were not able to find their own dates.

World's Most Endangered Turtle Species is Threatened
Well, yeah...that would go along with being endangered, wouldn't it?

Jacobs Abused Boys Back to '62
Physicist, Ezekiel Jacobs, was amazed today as he found that, instead of a specially-equipped DeLorean, all it took was some physical violence to initiate time travel.

44,000 Helmets Recalled by Army
It was an evening full of nostalgia as soldiers from wars long since past reminisced about their headgear.

Chinese Professor Gets 3.5 Years for Setting Up Sex Parties
Seems like way more prep time than would be necessary.

I got to thinkin'...

2010-05-10T21:47:00.004-05:00

Last Friday, I went to see a high school production of the mega-hit piece of musical theatre, Les Miserables. [Say it with a French accent: lay mizza-ROB-luh. In conversation, those in the know usually just call it "Les Mis" (Lay Mizz)] It was a great production, considering there were only two lines of spoken dialogue the whole evening and they would earnestly sing such memorable lines as, "Hey, Eponine, what's up today?"

True Truth is, it really was impressive and especially gratifying to see/hear several Giant Step (Children's) Theatre alums blow the roof off the joint.

[For any newcomers, Giant Step Theatre is the group wherein I coach acting, choreograph dance-like spasms, and share a stage with as many as 80 3rd-9th graders. (See www.myspace.com/giantsteptheatre) We generally take a well-known fairy tale and twist it into something familiar-yet-fresh. For example, in February, we performed Snow White and the 7 or 8 Dwarfs.]

ANYway...one of the Les Mis cast members (a Giant Step alum) suggested that we do a twisted version of Les Miserables and call it Less Miserable.

And THAT, dear readers, is what got me thinking...dangerous, dangerous stuph. How about a show focused on:

A hospital for folks that find it very painful to recline: Lay Misery
Inventing a soft drink without as much carbonation: Less Fizzy
An unmarried gal who works as a greeter at a Hawaiian airport: Lei Ms
A bed-wetter: Lay Whiz

You can never predict from whence inspiration will spring. But because I'm a little afraid of where this particular bit of brain runoff may go, I best be cutting it off right here. Consider yourself blessed.

The earworm, my friend, is blowin' in the wind

2010-05-03T07:27:00.001-05:00

Behold...the quarterly round-up of those irritating snippets of music that were wafting through my head, uninvited, as I woke up from a perfectly good sleep.

FEBRUARY
1 – Ooh-Ooh, The Coffee Says You Must (Okay, this isn’t really a song, but it’s a musical phrase that kept repeating itself in my head over and over when I woke up this morning…no explanation…at all…absoposilutely irritating.)
3 – I’ve Gotta Be Me (Sammy Davis, Jr.) There are plenty of other versions of this song, but I’m so glad it was Sammy’s voice I heard this morning.
5-16 – Songs from Snow White & the 7 or 8 Dwarfs (Whenever I’m in the midst of a production with Giant Step Theatre [Find us on Facebook and mySpace!], my mornings, and several afternoons and evenings as well, are spent with songs from said production tromping through my brain. This time around, I’m being bombarded with lyrics like “Dum ditty dum-dum, dum ditty-doh,” “Don’t try, no don’t try to be somethin’ you ain’t,” and “I am furious. I am livid. I’m insane with righteous anger. I am seething from my toes up to my crown. I am vexed. I am irate. I find it hard to hold my temper, and in fact I cannot keep my breakfast down!”)
19 – Diamond Girl (Seals & Croft)
25 – Joy to the World (Mistimed Christmas celebration in my brain)
28 – Forever in Blue Jeans (Neil Diamond)

MARCH
4 – Mercy is Falling (“Hey-O! I receive Your mercy. Hey-O! And I receive Your grace…”)
10 – Lady (Little River Band)
14 – ‘Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus
15 – Who I Am (The Police)
16 – Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows (Lesley Gore)
17 – Lord, I Offer My Life to You
18 – Lady (Little River Band…again. You would think that having attended a Norah Jones concert last night would have a positive effect on my morning earworm, but nooOOoo…)

APRIL
6 – Good News (2nd Chapter of Acts, which is one of THE seminal groups of “Jesus Music,” which became “Contemporary Christian Music,” which became Big Business owned by a company that also makes a fine Kentucky bourbon)
7 – Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)
16 – Looking for the Right One (Stephen Bishop)
17 – Words (Bee Gees)
26 – Since I Don’t Have You (Brian Setzer and His Orchestra do a suhweet rendition…very interesting that this popped up while Beloved is back home again in Indiana)

Bond on Back Burner

2010-04-26T17:17:00.006-05:00

Cynthia Dickison reported in the Sunday (04/25/2010) edition of the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

MGM's financial woes have done what villains could not—stop James Bond. The studio's cash crunch has put "Bond 23," scheduled for release in 2011 or 2012 with Oscar winner Sam Mendes set to direct, on indefinite hold.

Let me say two things about that:

1) If something is going to be released "in 2011 or 2012," but you don't know which...is it really accurate to say that it is scheduled for release? "Studio executives are hopeful that it will be released..." maybe. "Popular opinion assumes it will be released..." perhaps. But if something is scheduled, methinks the timing of it ought to be known, you know?

2) I personally don't think finances have anything to do with the shelving of the next Bond movie. I personally think the shelving of the next Bond movie has a whole heckuva lot to do with the fact that the last Bond movie blew with the force of a major hurricane. It should not have been called Quantum of Solace. A more accurate title would have been Quantity of So-Lame.

I'm just sayin'...

Winner Wiener Whiner

2010-04-15T22:17:00.000-05:00

Being raised as the youngest of four children (until my younger sister, DeSurprise, was born when I was ten), had its own unique blend of advantages and disadvantages:

While I certainly got all the stereotypical attention that naturally falls to The Baby of the Family, this resulted in having four older siblings who weren't all that crazy about the transfer of power.
It was great having those older siblings on your side when it came to dealing with bullies on the school bus, but that also meant I had omnipresent snitches eager to inform SweaterGal and FlatulenceKing about any less-than-noble activities I may have even just been rumored to have been thinking about observing.
Household chores were spread fairly thin amongst the four of us, but they often required cooperation amongst the four of us...ACK!

The prime example of all four Roth Childs needing to cooperate to accomplish a chore was Doing the Dishes.

Notice that I did not say "washing the dishes," or "taking care of the dishes." Noooooo. Doing the Dishes was an operation that required precision, skill, stamina, and a strategic mind to rival that of General Patton. My oldest sister, DeeDee QuickWit, would use one sink full of sudsy water to wash the dishes. My brother, Dave McCool, and other sister, Darlene DontTellMom, would take the dishes from the rack, dry them, and put them away. My job, which you will see was the most pivotal and important: taking the dishes from the sink full of hot rinse water and placing them in the rack.

I know, I know...from the outside looking in, it would seem that my part of the operation was pretty easy and evidence of being treated preferentially because of being the youngest. Looking back at it from a distance of several decades, I can understand that misconception. And apparently, Dave McCool saw it that way at the time, because he once stumbled upon a way to enforce a little Older Brother Superiority:

"Hey, Dewey. I bet I can hold my hand in that hot rinse water longer than you can."

"No way!"

"Sure I can. You go first."

At this point, you all know exactly what's going to happen. I, on the other hand, hadn't a trace of an inkling of a clue.

Speaking of "the other hand," I ended up needing one, because I held my hand in that near-boiling water until the meat was about ready to slip off the bone. At which point, my loving brother quickly dipped his finger in and out of the water and said, "You win."

And now you know why I don't have much of a competitive spirit.

What you hear is what you get

2010-03-31T21:47:00.001-05:00

Last week, I spent some time with SweaterGal and FlatulenceKing (my parents). It's always a blast from the past to head to Hoosier Land and try to carry on a conversation over the cranked-up-so-Dad-doesn't-have-to-wear-his-hearing-aids soundtrack of RFD-TV:

"Hey, Dad," says I, "don't you kinda think Marty Stuart's hair makes him look more like an 80's rocker wannabe than a country legend?"

"Huh?" grunts FlatulenceKing.

"Marty Stuart's hair...that's pretty wild stuff!"

FK's face screws itself into a question mark as he replies, "Oh, I doubt he even uses snuff, no matter how mild it is. But I'll tell you one thing...he needs a haircut."

I laugh out loud.

"What...you don't think he needs a haircut?"

"Yes, I do," I snicker in reply.

"No I don't...I just cut mine last week."

Now I'm confused: "What?"

"You said I need a haircut, too, and I said I don't because I just got one last week. You wanna borrow my ears?"

"No, that's okay."

"They're right there on the table."

"I said, 'No'."

"So what?"

"Not so...I said, 'No'!"

"Go where?"

With a resigned sigh, I answer, "Branson...are you going to go to Branson?"

This state is not my home

2010-03-18T19:57:00.004-05:00

I don't know if it's like this in every part of every country, but around here, if you're not from around here, no matter how long you've lived around here, you are never truly from around here.

The fact that I don't really fit in Minnesota, nor will I ever, was made abundantly clear to me last night at a concert by Norah Jones. Ms Jones cranked it up with a slightly honky-tonk rendition of an old Johnny Cash tune, Cry, Cry, Cry. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP4G2QVX_wQ) It's a song just made for the audience to shout along in the chorus. (Cry! Cry! Cry!)

Well...that was never gonna happen in the comfy confines of The O'Shaughnessy theatre.

What's more, my hands were begging to clap along with the song, but my brain wouldn't allow them the pleasure, knowing that they would be alone in the crowd of politely-listening Scandehoovians.

I leaned close to Beloved and whispered, "Minnesotans just don't clap."

She replied, "That's because they don't know how."

And I immediately knew she was right (an occurrence with which I am intimately familiar). If they had attempted to clap, they'd be doing it on 1 and 3 instead of 2 and 4.

...And it occurs to me even now that many of you need me to explain what that last sentence even means.

Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

Limited Random Access Memory

2010-03-11T19:47:00.001-06:00

I've never claimed to be an intellectual superstar, but I've always thought people in general had a general sense that I was generally more intelligent than I know that I really am...generally speaking.

Apparently, I haven't been fooling anyone.

Last night, after our mid-week Prayer Pathways thang at church, a TV theme song from who knows how many eons ago popped into my head...and directly jumped into the atmosphere through my mouth. (Translation: I sang it out loud.)

It was at that moment that I learned the True Truth about the discrepancy between my perception of people's perception of me and their actual perception.

PrayerPal looked me in the eye and said, "I wonder what kind of important information you can't remember because you're taking up space with stuff like that."

To paraphrase Calvin & Hobbes: It's not that I'm stupid, I just have a mastery of totally useless information.

Many are called, but few are chosen

2010-02-25T21:47:00.002-06:00

JURY SERVICE: A Rite of Passage to Adult Citizenship

That's what the poster in the Jury Gathering Room for the United States District Court in Minneapolis declared. It felt just a smidgen strange to think that, at the age of 52 years, 6 months, and 14 days, I was finally becoming an adult citizen of the country in which I was born and raised. "Today, I am a man."

I had been placed "On Call" for jury duty for a two-month period, and here I was, one-and-a-half months into it, finally being called to the courthouse to be interviewed for possible inclusion in a jury for a civil case. Just the possibility of serving on a jury in the U.S. District Court gave me a heightened sense of my own importance...albeit inflated and unfounded.

I parked at the Mall of America and rode the Hiawatha Line light rail into downtown Minneapolis. That was a first for me. The one really interesting/strange/mysterious thing I noticed was a small panel on the inside wall of the train that looked like it was a speaker for a public address system. Okay, the speaker-panel-thingy wasn't all that interesting/strange/mysterious...it was the sign under it: PANTOGRAPH HANDLE.

I thought, "What the Sam Hill is a pantograph, and why does its handle look like a speaker-panel-thingy?"

According to Dictionary.com, a pantograph is "an instrument for the mechanical copying of plans, diagrams, etc., on any desired scale." Here's a picture of a simple pantograph being used to draw an exact copy of a triangle, only larger.

In my extensive research on the World Wide Wackfest, I found a picture of the actual sign in question (thank you, southtwelfth.tumblr.com) along with a paragraph proposing that the sign is actually a pre-printed graffiti tag of a gang called The Draughtsmen: "Who else celebrates the use of the pantograph?"

The far-less exciting and far-more likely answer was discovered when I looked at the second definition for "pantograph" at Dictionary. com: "In electricity, a device usually consisting of two parallel, hinged, double-diamond frames, for transferring current from an overhead wire to a vehicle, as a trolley car or electric locomotive."

What does all of this have to do with jury duty? Well, nothing really, but I don't really have much to say about the actual serving of jury duty: I didn't get to actually serve. In the pool of 18 people being scrutinized to whittle down the number to 12, there were 5 pastors or ex-pastors. I was one of them who got whittled.

Suddenly, I feel insignificant and unworthy to be called a true American citizen.

"Today, I was almost a man."

Creative Recycling

2010-02-14T18:37:00.007-06:00

An interesting conversation was had in my current place of employment the other day.

And yes...that is a noteworthy event. It doesn't happen that often.

My fellow technical writer, WhatifBoy, was talking about needing to take some time off to attend to the needs of his dog: "It's time for Sparky to have some knee surgery."

Having lived through Beloved's knee replacement last summer, my first thought, and actual statement, was, "It's time for Sparky to have his mail delivered by earthworms. Sayonara, Sparkster."

And then our administrative assistant, ClerkGirl, chimed in with a slightly more positive thought: "You know, there are plenty of dogs that get along fine with only three legs."

[The thought just struck me that the "Having lived through Beloved's knee replacement..." paragraph above might sound a little bit like I wish I would have arranged for my wife to be pushing up daisies instead of having her knee replaced. Ummm...FYI: that's not what I meant.]

I was feeling a teensy bit chagrined at having suggested euthanasia, when ClerkGirl added, "Then Sparky would have a new chew bone, too."

I'm still out of breath from laughing so hard, and I think I peed a little.

And they call the wind Earworm

2010-02-05T22:53:00.001-06:00

Here's a quarterly round-up of the songs that were blowing through my head on these particular mornings as I fought my way toward wakefulness.

NOVEMBER
4 – Lullaby of Broadway (from the musical, 42nd Street)
9 – Undercover Angel (Alan O’Day) Whether this being in my head had anything to do with Beloved’s return from a week-long trip to Wyoming, I will leave up to you to decide.
15 – The Battle Hymn of the Republic
19 – Food, Glorious Food (from the musical, Oliver!)

DECEMBER
1 – Honky Cat (Sir Elton John)
10 – Reason to Believe (Carpenters) And yes, sticklers for the Truth, the group’s name was “Carpenters,” not “The Carpenters.” I’m just sayin’…
16 – Burdens are Lifted at Calvary
17 – The Right Thing to Do (Carly Simon) and Midnight Blue (Melissa Manchester) This actually made a pretty interesting mash-up in my slowly-regaining-consciousness state-of-being. Maybe the cast of Glee should work on this.
21 – The Stranger (Billy Joel) This song marks a very special place in my musical life. The album that shares its title was the last pop music I ever purchased on vinyl. 1981 is also about when I stopped listening to pop radio with any frequency (or on any frequency, for that matter).
25 – I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day (For once! An earworm’s timing that makes perfect sense!)
27 – You’re the First, the Last, My Everything (Barry White) And let me tell you, if you don’t think it’s a scary thing to wake up with Barry White’s low-rumble of a voice looping through your consciousness, you’ve got another think coming.
29 – Nothing But a Miracle (Rich Mullins)
31 – Only Yesterday (Carpenters) Kinda spooky that this barged its way into my head on the morning of New Year’s Eve, eh?

JANUARY
2 – We’re Getting Nowhere Fast (This Train)
4 – Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong (Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes)
6 – Cry for No One (The Beatles)
8 – Theme from Firefly (I watched the penultimate episode of this Really-Good-But-Tragically-Short series on hulu.com last night. The feeling is kind of like ActorBoy’s wedding reception: really enjoyable, but heartbreaking at the same time because I knew it couldn’t last.)
9 – Jesus Messiah (Chris Tomlin)
12 – Lotta Love (Nicolette Larson) I actually had to dig a bit to get the title and artist for this one. I searched on “Got a Lot of Love,” then tried “Gotta Lotta Love,” and finally plucked a snippet of the lyric out of thin air (my heart needs relating, not solitude) and found the answer. Who would have thought it would be that hard?
16 – (I Love You) More Today Than Yesterday (Spiral Starecase) Yes, that incorrect spelling is correct.
20 – We Need a Little Christmas (from Mame)
21 – Shadow Dancing (Andy Gibb) Not the first time this incessant tune has wormed its way onto this list. Maybe it’s because the song itself is so repetitive. It’s not nice to speak ill of the dead, but really, Andy…
27 – Private Eyes (Daryl Hall & John Oates)
28 – Kathy’s Song (Simon & Garfunkel)

I'm only human...not!

2010-01-28T15:13:00.001-06:00

I did a vanity search on the World Wide Wackfest and made some interesting discoveries:
1. Contrary to what I might be led to believe by the address on all my utility bills, I do not live in Minnesota.
2. I am not a human being.

OBSERVE:
According to mantra.com, “Dewey Roth is a private company categorized under Farm Land Leasing and located in Cairo, NE. Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of $48,000 and employs a staff of approximately 1.”

After I gave up trying to figure out whether they rounded up or down to get to “approximately 1,” I started looking around for my articles of incorporation, but to no avail.

I’ll admit that I haven’t been feeling like myself lately, but I didn’t think it was this bad.

Almost the Truth to Go

2010-01-23T20:13:00.001-06:00

Knowing that the tens of you out there who actually, factually read Almost the Truth feel a little sad at clicking your way to another Web page and leaving the latest installment behind, I have graciously decided to provide a way to keep the grins close to you whether or not you're close to a computer.

It's an amazing invention with which you can read and re-read two years' worth of blog postings without the need of any Internet connection, random access memory, or even battery power.

It's a little thing I like to call a book.

That's right, friends, as of just last night, Almost the Truth: The Blog Archive 2008-2009 is available for purchase at one of two Web addresses:

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/almost-the-truth-the-blog-archive-2008-2009/8243725

or

http://stores.lulu.com/deweyroth

Now you can have a reason to grin and/or groan at your side, morning, noon, or night. Buy early; buy often. Valentine's Day is coming up. People have birthdays all year round. The 4th of July would be a great time to celebrate the freedom of the press. And you know what? It's never too early to get that Very Special Christmas Present for that Very Special Someone.

The Brave! The Daring! The Shameless!

2010-01-18T13:27:00.002-06:00

That journalistic juggernaut of truth and wisdom, Entertainment Weekly, has a feature called "Style Hunter." Every week, there is a page full of answers to reader requests for where to purchase particular pieces of clothing or accessories that were seen in recent television or movie productions.

The following example fills me with wonder and awe...

Who makes Kate Hudson's sunglasses in Nine? - Camilla

For Hudson's glitzy dance number, veteran costume designer Colleen Atwood chose frames by Cutler and Gross London (style 0886), which are available at Selima Optique (212-677-8487; $490).

I'm sorry, but...ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!!?

1. If I were the producer of that movie, concerned with keeping things within a budget, when Colleen Atwood chose those frames, I would have chosen a different designer.

2. How absolutely fearless does a person need to be to think they can charge that much money for a pair of sunglasses?

3. Are those things made strictly out of the rendered hoofs of Argentinian mountain goats who died of natural causes during a full moon in months that have an "R" in them?

I am so totally in the wrong line of work...

Almost the News VI

2010-01-16T10:07:00.000-06:00

FBI Digs into Yard of Home with 11 Bodies
An internal investigation is underway to determine what has caused the apparent shortage of shovels.

Man Pleads Guilty to Molesting Girl
Of course, he should have been pleading to a judge. If he wanted to plead to a molesting girl, he should have pleaded for her to stop it.

Bill Helps Wireless Users Who Switch
Thanks, Bill. You're a nice guy.

Judge: Gitmo Trials Need Perspective
A new court artist is being sought for the trials of Guantanamo Bay detainees. Judge Royce Lamberth has declared that the work of the current artist "has no depth. It's too flat; practically one-dimensional."

High Court Delays Boy's Return to U.S.
The 9-year-old Brazilian boy waiting to return to his U.S. father will have to wait a little longer. The court can't make a ruling in his case because it's just too stoned.

Learn a little lesson from our friend the Tasmanian Devil

2010-01-02T20:27:00.000-06:00

There it was, on Page 4A of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, on the first day of 2010:

Tasmanian Devil Ill Revealed
WASHINGTON -- Fierce as they are, Tasmanian devils can't beat a contagious cancer that threatens to wipe them out. Now scientists think they've found the disease's origin, a step in the race to save Australia's snarling marsupial. The furry black animals spread a fast-killing cancer when they bite each other's faces. Since the disease's discovery in 1996, their numbers have plummeted by 70 percent. Last spring, Australia listed the devils--made famous by their Looney Tunes cartoon namesake Taz--as an endangered species. The surprise finding, reported in today's edition of the journal Science, has led to development of a test to help diagnose the tumor.

Forget for a moment how the title of this short article calls into question whether the thing that ails Tasmanian devils was revealed or whether a Tasmanian devil was revealed rather badly. There's a more important turn of phrase to skewer here.

Did you notice it?

Since the disease's discovery in 1996, their numbers have plummeted by 70 percent.

So...the thing that's killing off the Tasmanian devils isn't cancer...it's the discovery of the disease! Before the scientists stuck their noses into it, things were swimming along just fine, but nooooo...They of the Sacred Lab Coats had to go and make a discovery! Now the TDs are racing toward extinction!

Put this in the list of Things That Are Worse Than They Were Because Now There's a Name for It...right along with Swine Flu, Attention Deficit Disorder, and Pre-Menstrual Syndrome.