World Records Aren't All They're Cracked Up 2 B

It was in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, so it must be true:

Arboretum Tree-Huggers Embrace Record
Tree-huggers of all ages flocked to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chanhassen on Friday, and it appears their efforts at a Guinness World Record for the World's Largest Tree Hug paid off. The arboretum's Judy Hohmann said that 935 huggers participated in the event from noon to 1 p.m. in the shade tree exhibit.

The previous record was 702, set in Cheshire, England, in 2011. In order to be counted, each participant registered at the site and was required to hug a tree for a minute within the designated time frame.

First of all, don't people understand the term tree-hugger was not meant to be literal? It originally just meant someone who was particularly eco-friendly. When did it turn into an actual Public Display of Affection? [My best guess: about the same time gay stopped meaning carefree and happy.]

Second of all, I wonder if I'm the only one who found it...um...awkward...that one of the pictures accompanying the short piece showed a woman actually kissing a tree with her arms passionately wrapped around its trunk. That's just taking a misunderstanding to a whole new level.

Third of all...and to tell the True Truth, third of three...since when is having the organizational skills necessary for registering a lot of one-minute tree-hugging idio--ahem--people worthy of garnering a World Record?

I can understand giving international recognition for most-miles-traveled-by-walking-on-hands or longest note sounded on a didgeridoo, but hugging trees? Or worse yet, and this is an actual-factual record, recognized by Guinness, Most Steps Walked Down By A Dog Facing Forwards Balancing A Glass Of Water. I mean, how many dogs are even in the running for that?!?

I've decided I'm going to create a world record of my own, and let the world shower me with the appropriate adoration, respect, and gift cards. I'm pretty sure I've already got this one locked up: Most Games of Electronic Solitaire Played by a Balding Former Hoosier While Sitting in a Workplace Restroom.

Observed Absurdities™ 10 - Fer Sail Cheep

Queen CanDo is rapidly evolving from trusted co-worker and faithful reader to Almost the Truth Special Corespondent. Here's a collection of actual For Sale notices she saw on FaceBook.

Garage sale going on today from 9-6 at 621 edgar place (capaco) addition, there is women’s shirt’s medium and large, shelf’s, nic nac’s, vcr’s and misc. also for your information, beware there are people that are going to sales that feel the need to steal thing’s right off of your table’s, what are thing’s coming too.

[Holy guacamole! Got enough unnecessary...correction: WRONG...apostrophes there, Myrtle? What are things coming "too", indeed.]

Microwave.  Has weird dent in top.  $10

[Not sure if the weird dent brought the price down to ten dollars or bumped it UP to ten dollars.]

I have 2 traxxas cars one is a stamped and other is a rustler the stamped has x15 speed controle in it and rustler has x l1 in it both needs a motor but other then that work good rustler might need tuning but stamped is ready to run with a new motor and I have a home made trailer with tit to the black body has the hitch to pull it and trailer has leds on it and the black body has head lights and tail lights on it and I have 5 batts for them and 4 or 5 5 hr charger and one quick charger for all them and I have a tool box for all parts too if you like see them let me know thanks

[Has FaceBook started charging people if they use punctuation marks?

I have a hoop nose ring that I only wore once paid 10 asking 5

[Wow...50% depreciation because of coming into contact with your mucus only once?!? What are things coming to?]

Like Sand Through the Hourglass...

I only had one real goal for my recent trip back to Indiana. Outside of visiting with my folks, FlatulenceKing and SweaterGal, the only thing on my to-do list was to drive the extra 70 miles it took to get to Anderson and have lunch at Skyline Chili.

I know, I know...it is a sick obsession and I need professional help. Talk to me about it when you stop needing coffee.

With that important pilgrimage completed, the only thing left for me to do was sit around the house listening to FlatulenceKing say "What?" and SweaterGal yell "Oh fer cryin' out---put your ears in!" So to pass the time, I decided I would learn how to play all 68 games in my iPad app, "Card Shark". I've had the app for a while now, and will play one of the games while I'm waiting in line at the post office or "resting" in the room of that name, but I had only used about half of the games available, so I wanted to broaden my horizons.

One of the features of this app is that it keeps statistics on each of the 68 games: how many times played, winning percentage, total time played...

Apparently, my favorite game is "Red and Black", with over 37 hours logged in, playing 358 games and winning 53.6% of the time. That time waste is bad enough, but what's really shocking is that, as of the writing of this post, I have been moving electronic playing cards around my iPad screen a total of 151 hours, 7 minutes, and 17 seconds. That's right...over six days of my life...forever gone.

And don't ask me how long it took just now to add up the 68 individual time logs.

The Eucharist...With Flair

It's always interesting to be a visitor at a church, maybe more so when the church you're visiting is your Home Church...you know...Home-Home...where you first learned "Jesus loves me, this I know" and "On a hill far away stood an old, rugged cross"...where you didn't have to look at the bulletin because you knew exactly when to stand and sit and greet your neighbor (not necessarily in that order).

Your Home Church...where nothing ever changes, and yet everything is different.

It was strictly piano-and-organ in my growing-up years, with our noses stuck in the hymnals, reading the four-part harmony, and singing stanzas one, two, and four. Now, there's guitars and drums and a flute and songs so new the lyrics haven't even made it online yet. (Don't get me wrong, meesa no complainy..."the name of the place is I Like It Like That"!)

There was, however, one change to The Way Things Used To Be that took me completely by surprise when I was back Home-Home last Sunday.

As always, the emblems for the weekly communion service (little chicklets of bread-like substance, and small cups of Grape-Juice-Because-Nothing-Was-Fermented-In-The-Passover-Meal) were passed from person to person among the pews. I had not been warned that the heavy metal trays and thick, glass cups of my youth had been replaced by lightweight plastic versions of each, so when I braced myself and received the juice tray from my neighbor, my over-tensed arms promptly threw the thing up over my head...raining down an unexpected shower of Holy Welch's on the row of blue-haired saints behind me.

At least it gave them something different to complain about...instead of "those drums are too loud."

If I've Told You Once...

Big Brother, Inc. has never had a reputation for high-quality internal communication pieces. It is well-documented (see this previous post) that they could use the services of their own technical writers (aHEM!) to proofreed stuph befour sending it owt.

Worthy of special note is the Training Department, which excels at preserving typos, misspellings, and non sequiturs. (Side note: in the process of finding the correct spelling for non sequitur, dictionary.com asked me if I meant nonsemite.) As an example, here's a question and answer from a quiz I took after being trained in workplace ethics:

It's the closing commentary on my correct response that's the issue: "Correct. The manager is actually directing the team to 'mis-charge' their labor, which is again company policy and our values."

I haven't really decided yet whether this is missing an "st" or commas after "is" and "again".