Farewell Fair-Weather Feathered Friend

Busy little woodpecker
Working on my wood deck or
Slowly making my maple hollow
Flighty feathered headbanger
Do you know I said "Dang!" or
Something that my grandkids should not follow?

I'm sure it won't be long til
Your percussive song will
Be heard somewhere further from my yard
'Cause as sure as kings are crowned and
Lightning streaks toward ground, man
My tree is gonna fall and fall hard

And you'll set a new precedence for
Speed of changing residence or
Bouncing back from friendship lost and gained
And soon a neighbor nearby
Will experience the fear I
Once did when in my backyard you had reigned

Indiana Solo and the Empire of Darth

This WOULD be an episode of Observed Absurdities™ except that these visual mash-ups are too cool.

"I don't care HOW big your light saber is!"

 "Death Star. Why'd it have to be a Death Star?"

Dr. Jones Takes Aim While Riding a Tauntaun

"Hey, I just met the best-looking archaeologist ever!"

"This seems to be from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away."

Thought It Would Be Fun To Go Live, Then THIS Happened

It seems like "everybody" is doing live video these days...Periscope, FacebookLive, The News at Ten...

I thought it was high time I got it in gear and joined the masses.

However, I'm not really sure I've got the mechanics of it down yet.

https://youtu.be/yAJIPS9bIFU

Going Out in a Blaze of Stupid

Forty-one years ago, a group of male adolescents and I spent the night before our last day as high school students camping out in my rural Indiana school's parking lot.

Well... we didn't actually camp out. No tents were pitched nor sleeping bags unrolled. No fires were lit, except for a propane-fueled camp stove for some bacon and eggs in the morning. But oh, the havoc we wreaked.

• Using a couple pick-up trucks, we rounded up a few outhouses to decorate the school grounds.
• Also part of the decor was an eclectic gathering of For Sale signs.
• We took all the cement parking space thingies (they may actually be called curbs, but they're the individual ones, you know?) and put them in front of the entrance doors.
• With the remaining cement parking space thingies, we built a cabin.
• We found a couple old tires and ran them up the flag pole. Then Steve Z. shimmied up the pole and flipped a tire over the top like the world's largest ring toss. NOTE: Steve was probably drunk when he went up, but was most definitely sober when he got back down.
• Someone had brought an Army-surplus smoke canister, and about 45 minutes before the start of the school day, we hooked that baby up to a car battery and watched the smoke roll.

I've got to admit, the school principal, SexyLexy, was very good-natured about it all. His only communication to us about the whole evening was when he came out after 30 minutes of smoke screen activity and said, "Okay, men, you've had your fun. Now let's put that thing out and get to your classes."

Did I mention this was an Army smoke canister?

There simply was no Putting That Thing Out. We emptied three fire extinguishers and all of our bladders into That Thing and the smoke just kept rolling.

And then the wind shifted and blew the smoke INTO the school building. NOTE: We were kind of The Popular Guys when the evening started, but our approval ratings definitely hit a low mark as everyone coughed their way through the last day of school.

Grandpa Dewey Doesn't Know His Head From...

I've never been accused of being overly intelligent, and now I've got a three-year-old's testimony to back up that evaluation.

While Beloved gets the privilege of spending time with our granddaughter, SweetCheeks, almost every Thursday evening, it's more of a rarity for me to have the night available for performing grandfatherly duties like  reading bedtime stories and sneaking pieces of chocolate past the watchful gaze of her parents, KayJay and TheWind.

It's enough of a special occasion that when I arrived one Thursday night a couple weeks ago, SweetCheeks had painted a picture to commemorate the event.

She handed it to me and said, "I painted a picture of you!"

"Oh! That IS me!" I proclaimed, as I pointed at the circle in the upper left, next to the long reddish line, "There's my head!"

SweetCheeks looked at me as if I had just declared that turtles could fly and said, "No...that's an 'O'!"

Recasting Movies With Animals

This is not to say that many movie actors and actresses AREN'T animals...but...well...not in this sense.

Duck and Cover Girl

The way I figure it, women must be pretty fierce.

Tough.

Fearless warriors, who refuse to run away from a challenging situation.

Here's what I'm talking about...the other evening, Beloved and I were strolling through a big box retailer where all the associates wear red polo shirts. We were in the aisle for eye makeup (a good place to be, because Beloved was wanting to purchase some eye makeup) and I noticed what Covergirl has chosen to call some of its offerings.

If you're in the market for mascara, some of your choices are fairly violent, if you ask me.

Lashblast Fusion...sounds like something Han Solo would use to neutralize a greedy bounty hunter.

Plumpify Blastpro...I can hear this being shouted in a munitions development lab. "Prepare to plumpify Blastpro!"

A third name just makes me cringe in sympathetic pangs of pain...Clump Crusher.

And the ladies are using these things right next to their eyeballs! Amazing bravery!

One particular eyeliner caught my attention as well...Liquiline Blast.

I'm almost certain it takes an extra person to help apply this; standing about 20 feet away: "Alright! Brace yourself! I'm going to blast the left one first! One...two..."

"Wait wait wait! Is that YOUR left or MY left?"

"Three!"

"AUGH!"