I hate days like this. After a weekend of fun and relaxing, minus Friday where I stayed home to deal with contractors, I hate walking into work to find a mess. It figures I take a day off and everything goes to hell. The first thing that I noticed isÂ…

SPECIAL BULLETIN!!!! We interrupt this normally scheduled blog post for the following message.

Earlier this afternoon at approximately 4:15 PM Central Standard Time an invasion force was detected with in the realm of the Household. An innocent civilian (Mild, peace loving Contagion) was maliciously attacked while performing yard grooming. Fortunately the civilian was able to escape with no noticeable injuries. One eyewitness to the incident is quoted as saying; “He was just mowing the lawn when a swarm of the hostiles (Yellow Jackets) engulfed him. We thought he was going to be killed… or even worse.”

The civilian was able to escape and warn the authorities of the impending danger. An emergency session of the Household Security Council (Ktreva) was called. In a lighting decision it was decided that General Contagion was going to be called forth to deal with the insurgents. General Contagion, the highly decorated veteran and leader of such battles as the Great Wasp Invasion of Â’05 and Operation Floracide, quickly and enthusiastically responded.

After reconnoitering the enemyÂ’s base of operations (Located securely under the backyard shed), General Contagion decided to forgo normal tactics and go straight for biochemical saturation of the surrounding area. Specialist first class Boopie of the bio chemical transport unit brought out the new Bio-Toxin agent that the household had been developing (GordonÂ’s Hornet and Wasp killer from Farm and Fleet).

In his typical scorched earth policy, General Contagion unleashed a toxic spray of death upon the enemy. Those that came into direct contact with the toxin died in mere seconds. Those that made secondary contact died in less then 20 seconds. Then folly struck. Thinking that they had won the war, General Contagion halted his attack to survey the damage. At that time, the enemy base called in a squadron of seven fighters that had been out on maneuvers. General Contagion was forced to sound a general retreat.

Once General Contagion was able to gather his troops he went in for a second attack. This time screaming, “Kill ‘em all! Kill all the bastiches and let god sort them out!” Neighboring households looked on in shocked horror as they covered their children’s ears from the sounds of battle and their eyes for the horror they where witness to. By 4:30 PM Central Standard Time, the battle was over. Nothing living was left in the battle area by the time he was finished. Plant, animal and insect all lay dead or dying. Neighboring households rallied in protest at what they perceived as an unethical and unnecessary assault that ended in collateral damage in the thousands. General Contagion in his now legendary diplomatic stance wiped the sweat from his brow, and is reported as saying, “If you don’t like the way I dealt with the little bastiches then I suggest you tell you’re little friends to find someplace else to colonize. Oh, and sorry about your flowers.”
After confirmation of the entire colony being destroyed, General Contagion made the following announcement. “It is my pleasure to advise all of you that the household is once again secured from foreign invasion. Once again the neighboring households have complained regarding our tactics. They have nothing to complain about. It was not their sovereignty that was assaulted; it was not their lives that were in jeopardy. It was not their property being destroyed, it was ours! If it was their household being invaded, they can handle the problem any way they want. I did not ask their opinion and I don’t need their approval. If I wanted any lip from them, I’d jiggle my zipper.”

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog post already in process.

Â…By the time the day was ended, I had enough. I couldnÂ’t get out of the parking lot fast enough. So trust me people, if you learn anything from this lesson itÂ’s this, make sure your pants are zipped up before going into the videoconference.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:37 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Almost two months ago I made a post regarding video clips of people putting Mentos into diet pop (Yes, pop. Not soda, not coke, but pop!) and making fountains. At that time I had asked title the post, “Oh the possibilities.” I was thinking along the lines of practical jokes and things like that. Well two guys decided to take the idea to a level that just baffles the mind as to why.

Click to watch video

What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos mints? It's amazing and completely insane.

The first part of this video demonstrates a simple geyser, and the second part shows just how extreme it can get. Over one hundred jets of soda fly into the air in less than three minutes.

It's a hysterical and spectacular mint-powered version of the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas, brought to you by the mad scientists at EepyBird.com.

ItÂ’s amusing, but it is a large file. I wish I had $200 to $300 to throw down the drainÂ… or spill onto the ground.

Posted by: Contagion at 08:25 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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IÂ’ve always been a movie lover. ItÂ’s the one thing I miss with having kids, I just donÂ’t get a chance to go see movies anymore. What I do still have time for is looking at movie posters. IÂ’ve always enjoyed a good movie poster. One that gives you an idea what the movie is about and makes you want to drop your hard earned cash , I think the price of movies is up to $10.00 a ticket, not counting the $15.00 small pop and $12.00 small popcorn.

The independent critics have listed what they consider The 100 Greatest Movie Posters of All Time. Some of their selections surprised me, others didnÂ’t surprise me at all. Like the Titanic Poster, stupid poster for a stupid movie, yet because it did so well and every critic on the face of the earth couldnÂ’t send out rave reviews fast enough, it doesnÂ’t surprise me.

This poster surprised me.

This movie was made in 1971, and I only know that because I wasted the time to look it up. I’ve never heard of this movie, in fact it looks like pr0n. Hell the tag line is, “WHITE MAN...BLACK MAN...every MAN! To TAKE to BREAK or PLAY WITH any way she wished!” Eh, who am I to criticize? I’m still a fan of Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:58 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I know itÂ’s not officially summer yet, but as far as IÂ’m concerned, itÂ’s here. Summer means grilling and EVERYONE should have at least one grill. One charcoal for flavor, and one Propane for efficiency. Or if you are lucky like I am, a hybrid grill that is both Gas and Charcoal. Charbroil made these hybrids a couple of years ago; as soon as it hit the market I jumped on one. I love the thing. IÂ’ve read reviews from others that say they didnÂ’t like them. To me itÂ’s perfect I get the best of both the charcoal and the gas.

But IÂ’m getting off point. Everyone should own a grill, and with fatherÂ’s day around the corner you might want to look into either getting dear olÂ’ dad a grill or maybe replacing his old one. Either way, here are some grills you might want to look into.

I wonder how much trouble IÂ’d be in if I came home towing this baby.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:40 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It has been an interesting day for me. WeÂ’ve lived with out central air for years. WeÂ’ve had a couple of window units we would use just for the comfort of sleeping, but thatÂ’s all. We just had brand new windows installed in the house, and I was going to pick up a couple of bigger window units that would cool down more of the house. Long story short, I shot that idea down when A) I dropped one of these 200 pound monsters on my bad knee trying to get it out of the vehicle in the rain. B) I found out that in order to properly install the buggers you have to drill holes into the frame/sash. Since we have the high efficiency windows, that would mean releasing the gas in the windows and voiding the warranty. Sure I could work away around it, but I didnÂ’t want to.

I started calling Heating/Cooling companies to get quotes on what it would cost to get a central air unit put in. The first guy comes out and says the furnace and ducting is fine, however the electrical wonÂ’t handle it. We have a house built in 1912. The electricity was an afterthought (as well as plumbing); we still have all the original boxes. Maybe youÂ’ll remember this story from last year. We also only have 60-amp service. Since we have an electric range, dryer and dishwasher if we put one more heavy electrical appliance in the house it would constantly blow the main. Thus I need to upgrade to 100-amp service.

IÂ’ve had numerous electricians come out and give me quotes, ranging from $2,400 to $3,000 to do the work. I know there are many people that will laugh at the sum and ask what the big deal is. Well, I canÂ’t just pull $3,000.00 out of my arse! ThatÂ’s just a tad too expensive for me out of pocket right now, and electricians donÂ’t finance. I was telling my employees at work about my situation, and one of them tells me she has a relative that is an electrician that does work on the side. She got me in contact with him and after doing some checking he told me heÂ’d do it for $1,400.00. That I can stomach.

Also I finally had enough with my Internet providerÂ’s service that I switched service. I moved to a cable modem much, much faster. My pr0n loads much quicker now. I took the day off of work so that I could be here for the cable company to come install the lines. I also had two more estimates from other heating/cooling companies. It looks like AC may still be possible. Although watching the interaction between the cable company guy and the heating/cooling guy was mildly amusing. I got the distinct impression that when the heating/cooling guy arrived he thought the cable guy was a competitor. Once he figured out it wasnÂ’t, his attitude toward the guy was much friendlier.

Posted by: Contagion at 06:14 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I still haven’t trimmed the facial hair. It’s starting to grow pretty bushy. I’ve been combing it daily so it won’t look as bushy. Upon her arrival home Ktreva uttered the phrase, “I was really hoping you where going to trim that up before I got home.”

Not going to happen. At this rate, by the time my next event comes along you wonÂ’t be able to see my mouth through the mustache.

Posted by: Contagion at 06:36 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Did you know that it is possible to have too many bubbles in a bubble bath? Last night in an attempt to not only clean Clone, but to also calm him down, I decided to give him a bath. Clone loves the bath, especially a bubble bath. He gets clean and he gets to play for a while. I figured this would be perfect, kill two birds with one stone. IÂ’ve given Clone baths before; I didnÂ’t think it would go any differently this time. Well, that is except for my adding bubble bath to the water.

I start the bath, and put a little bit of the bubble bath into the water. There wasnÂ’t much of a reaction. After adding some more there still wasnÂ’t much of an effect. So I put more in. Now we have a reaction. Bubbles started forming as I expected so I went to finish getting Clone ready for the bath. When I returned to the bathroom, the tub was full. I turned off the water and went to check the water to make sure it wasnÂ’t too hot before putting Clone in. I sank up to my elbow in bubbles before finding water. We have an old lion footed cast iron bathtub, so itÂ’s pretty deep. I had it about a quarter filled with water and the rest was bubbles.

GREAT! OwellÂ… Clone should have fun with this so I placed in the tub. One minute IÂ’m looking at him, and the next he disappears. The bottom of the tub was slippery from all the soap and he slid in under the bubbles. DonÂ’t worry, he didnÂ’t hurt himself. In fact he thought this was great fun. He kept hiding in the bubbles and popping up in different places. It was like a demented live action wack-a-mole game. Only instead of moles, it was a little blonde boy with a gnome hate made of bubbles.

I figured the bubbles would go away after a while, well I was wrong. The damn bubbles stuck around. The things would not dissipate. Trying to wash the soap off of him was about impossible. Every time I would start to make some headway, he would slip back under the bubbles and coat himself in them again.

Finally I had enough of this, so I yanked him out of the bathtub and toweled off all the remaining bubbles. I pulled the drain plug and waited for the bathtub to empty. It would have none of that. Nope, those bubbles sat there defying gravity and god. They would not go away. I knew better then to add more water, that would just create more of the annoying things. I figured after a while they would finally go away.

Flash forward to this morning. I go into the bathroom to take a bath, what do I see in the tub? BUBBLES! The damn things did not dissipate overnight. What kind of funky bubbles are these? Then to make matters worse, when I turned the water on, it created more. Then when I went to get into the tub, the soap had made the bottom of the tub slipperier then a snake covered in Vaseline. I about fell down. Thankfully my size thirteen feet where able to keep me from falling and hurting myself.

Ktreva is now back; thank all that is good in the world. I was getting ready to do a rejoicing dance when she dropped a bomb on me. In two weeks she is leaving for 4 days.
FourÂ… DaysÂ… That is one day longer then this time. I donÂ’t know if IÂ’ll be able to survive.

Posted by: Contagion at 06:23 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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StillÂ… Alive. SanityÂ… holding.

Please.

Send.

Beer.

FAST!

Posted by: Contagion at 07:18 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Last night I was lying in bed dreaming a good dream. Shakira and Jessica Alba where wrestling naked in pudding over who was going to be the first one to pleasure me. My beautiful and understanding wife was doing that thing she does that I want her to do all the time, but she doesnÂ’t do nearly often enough. All of a sudden there was a searing pain in my groin. It felt as if someone had hit me in the nards with a golf ball. I awake to find Clone climbing over me.

Me, “What in the love of god are you doing at… (looks at clock) 2:30 in the morning(?) awake?”

Clone, “Dada, I need drink.”

Me, “That makes two of us buddy. Go get into bed and I’ll get you a glass of water.”

After retrieving the glass of water for Clone, I return to bed. In hopes that my dream will pick up where it left off. Unfortunately I started dreaming about vasectomies. Sometimes life is cruel.

In the morning Clone did not want to get out of bed, and from the state of his room, I can tell that he didnÂ’t go to bed when I told him to. Nope, he must have gotten up and started playing with his toys. Now when I needed him awake, he couldnÂ’t keep his eyes open. He was like a narcoleptic after a long day of heavy drinking. Every and any attempt to wake him up resulted in loud and incessant cryingÂ… until he passed out again. Getting him dressed and ready for the day was like trying to shove a cat into a toilet.

Boopie on the other hand must have found a speedball because he was bouncing all over the house like a crystal meth junkie with electrodes attached to his nards. Boopie's hyperactivity counteracted with CloneÂ’s sleepiness and created a horrible combination of laughing, crying, giggling, yelling and screaming. It wasnÂ’t even 6:30 AM and I wanted to empty a bottle of Jack Daniels. Unfortunately I think Clone drank all of it.

I get to work, and I have never been so happy to be there in my life, even if it was one of my worst days as supervisor. I had a meeting that went horribly bad, two employees about wig out and in giving one feedback they burst into tears because, “I’m going to lose my job!” I don’t know where she got that idea; I never once said anything that would give her the indication that she was on the road to replacement.

When I go to pick up the boys I discover that Clone miraculously recovered from his drunken narcolepsy and played all day. He refused to take a nap. GreatÂ… that means more fun tonight. Sure enough on the ride home the boy fell asleep in the most uncomfortable of positions that only a child can sleep in. Deciding to keep my sanity a while, IÂ’ve let him sleep now for almost an hour. IÂ’m going to have to wake him up soon, but IÂ’m waiting for the food to arrive.

Which reminds, I was going to make dinner tonight, really I was! Unfortunately I kind of left what I was going to make out on the counter this morning when I was getting my lunch made. I walked into the house and was assaulted by the smell of ground beef that has gone rancidÂ… and cat turds. The damn cat must have eaten something that wasnÂ’t fit for feline consumption because itÂ’s arse smelled horrible. It was like a stinky dog fart was bottled, fermented, aged to juicy ripeness and then released in the house. Needless to say there will be no cooking in the house tonight. I have Chinese food on the way.

Now if youÂ’ll excuse me, I need to go bring Clone out of his coma. Only about 24 hours to go.

Posted by: Contagion at 04:36 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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With the help of some ChildrenÂ’s chewable morphine, Clone is asleep. Okay, I didnÂ’t actually drug my child; I wouldnÂ’t do something like that. That doesnÂ’t mean I didnÂ’t entertain the idea, but no I could not do that.

The stupid trashcan had me so pissed I couldnÂ’t see straight. Clone had knocked it over trying to get behind it to hide from Boopie. This is not a normal trashcan; itÂ’s a 55-gallon, trashcan with an auto-closing lid. Since it was obviously over full, i.e. trash was strewn across the kitchen floor; I decided to take out the trash. My plan worked for all of 15 seconds. As I pulled on the bag, the drawstring pulled the top inch off of the bagÂ… all the way around. Someone, KTREVA, had decided to dump the kitty litter bag into the trashcan. That made the combined weight of trash, kitty litter and cat scat way too heavy for the bag to hold. Of course it didnÂ’t rip until I was half way out of the trashcan, thus sending a showing of dirty diapers, empty beer bottles and other pieces of kitchen refuse everywhere. It looked like my kitchen had turned into a landfill. I was waiting for the damn sky rats to come and start eating the refuse.

After cleaning that up, I really didn’t feel like cooking. Then I had an idea, I’ll ask the boys what they want, we’ll get it and everyone will be happy. Dad, “What do you guys want for dinner?” The Horde, “Pizza!” Thinking to myself, I didn’t really need to ask. Boopie chimes in with, “Can we get Pizza Hut. They have that sampler pack that has hot wings, breadsticks and cinnasticks!” Clone, “Yea! Spinasicks! Dad, we get spinasicks? I want spinasicks! Spinasicks! Spinasicks! Spinasicks! Dad we get spinasicks?” Me, “Do you even know what cinnasticks are?” (I can’t recall ever ordering them before.) Clone, “Yea, they good!”

Boopie is laughing his little butt off by now. Clone is marching through the house chanting, “Spinasicks!” So I ordered from Pizza Hut, got the sampler pack. When I was on the phone with the girl I meant to make sure I was ordering the right thing. I ask her, “The sampler has spinasicks in it right?” (Pause on the other end of the phone.) Girl, “Excuse me?” Me, “The sampler, does it have spinasicks?” Girl, “Did you say spin-a-sicks? Me embarrassedly, “Yes, that’s what my three year old is calling them, I meant Cinnasticks.” Girl laughing at me, “Yes, it has cinnasticks.” Thirty minutes later our pizza and sampler arrive.

I give Clone a piece of pizza and a breadstick and let him eat. Clone inhaled two and a half pieces of pizza and a breadstick for dinner. Pretty good for a kid his size. It’s what he did with the other half of the pizza that cheesed me off. I asked him if he was done, and he told me he was. I walked over to get him out of the chair when he flings the half eaten piece of pizza at my head. He had picked all the cheese off so it was crust with sauce and it stuck to the side of my head like a like a suction cup. He’s laughing; I’m pissed and scold him. After cleaning me, him, the chair and the floor off, I sit down to eat some cinnasticks. Now I have an entourage of kids sitting around me fighting over the cinnasticks, “Dad! He took the big one!” “Dad, He’s not sharing the dipping sauce!” “Dad, Spinasick stuck in nose!” Clone sneezed while eating the cinnastick and jammed it in his nose. Apparently it was very uncomfortable for him.

After cleaning him up again, the boys played for a little bit while I cleaned up the mess and the house some. Then I put Clone to bed, but not until after he got a band-aid for his toe. At the sitters last Friday he skinned the top of his toes. I donÂ’t believe they actually hurt, but he wonÂ’t shut up unless he has a Band-Aid on his toes. Figuring it wasnÂ’t worth the trouble I slapped a band-aid on him. He started crying again. I had used a regular Band-Aid, not a Spongebob Band-Aid. After swapping them out, he finally settled down enough to let me put him to sleep.

Now IÂ’m going to go grab a beer or twelve.

Posted by: Contagion at 02:09 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Ktreva has once again gone on a business trip and left me with the boys for three days. As many of you may remember, IÂ’m not cut out for the single parent gig. DonÂ’t get me wrong, I can do itÂ… IÂ’m just not good at it. ItÂ’s one of my many character flaws. Yes, they are my kids and yes they are my responsibility. I can handle that for up to 36 hours. After that I start breaking down, especially if they are misbehaving. They are my kids and I will do what needs to be done. ItÂ’s my duty as a parent to do so.

IÂ’m sure over the next couple of days there will be plenty of good stories to share with you about my trying to raise the boys for 3 days on my own. As well as the wisdom and techniques that I used to keep them in line. But for now youÂ’ll have to excuse me. Clone has tipped over the trashcan, Boopie is whining about having to clean his room, and I need to make dinner. (Read, I have to order dinner)

Posted by: Contagion at 11:31 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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There is a psuedo re-enactment this weekend. ItÂ’s more of a black powder shoot, and less of a re-enactment. In fact you couldnÂ’t call it a re-enactment at all if it wasnÂ’t for the fact that about 5 camps where primitive, there were 6 tin-tipis (Those are modern campers to you flatlanders.) In fact there where only about a dozen people in period dress there.

Since this event is about ten minutes from my house, I just day tripped it. I didnÂ’t even bother putting on costuming. I did this event last year, and I didnÂ’t feel the need to maintain any level of historical accuracy. I was going just to burn powder and throw lead with the olÂ’ smoke pole. (ThatÂ’s a smooth bore musket to you green horns.) I hit the event around 10:15 AM, and didnÂ’t leave until they closed the range at 4:30. I burned through 2.75 pounds of black powder, and 124 round balls (Bullets). Even if the range had stayed open longer I wouldnÂ’t have been able to stay and shoot. I was out of powder and round ball.

Since I had spent more of my time of late shooting modern than black powder, I was pretty rusty. Sure I took second place in the competition last week, but that was only out of 4 people and 2 of them had never shot before. Early in the day my shots where spread out all over the target. By the end of the day every shot would have killed a Brit. In fact I had a couple of old timers tell me that I was pretty good with a smooth bore. I also had a couple of people ask how long I was had been shooting because my clusters where impressive, for a smooth bore. At one point I got into a little bit of a shooting match with a newbie. He had just picked up his first flintlock and was talking a little smack. Apparently the guy was a Marine and does all kinds of modern shooting. He figured would be an expert marksman with his flinter. He was giving me crap about my cluster when he toed the line, aimed, pulled the trigger and missed the backstop completely.

He missed because he had never fired Black Powder before and that explosion going off to the side of your head can be distracting. The guy flinched and hit the ground about a foot in front of the target. Me being me, I couldn’t help buy to spout off, “My cluster might not be perfect, but at least I hit something other then dirt.” He started getting a little pissy when some of the other shooters and I explained that, in that crusty re-enactor way, he’s new, has no idea what he’s doing with a flintlock and that you can be a sniper with a modern rifle, but black powder is a different beast. Hang fires, delays, small explosions next to your head are not only common, but also expected with flintlocks.

After some of the old timers gave him some words of advice on how to shoot a flintlock, he did get a lot better quickly. We played a couple rounds of “In the Black.” Basically you see who can get the most shots in the black in a 30-minute interval. Per shot fired he would have won, but that wasn’t the rule. The benefits of a smooth bore, they load fast. So I ended up winning.

Overall I had a good time. I need to get out there more often. I donÂ’t get to shoot as much as I would like. Lack of available places to shoot and times to go shooting is what my problem is.

Oh, and I had no less then 5 comments that I have huge balls. Since most people out there shoot .45 to .56 caliber, my .75 round balls look monsterous.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:53 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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There’s a commercial for EPT that just makes me laugh. There is a lady walking, and she is thinking to herself, “I can’t concentrate, I wonder if I’m pregnant.” This strikes me as highly amusing. I mean, c’mon lets face it, the commercial is actually saying, “My brain doesn’t work, I wonder if I’ve got a bun in the oven?” only slightly more sensitively.

I’ve latched onto this theory with gusto. Every time Ktreva says, “I forgot” or when she does something with out thinking, I ask her, “Hun, are you pregnant? You’re brain’s stopped working.” I was at work and one of my peers actually said, “I can’t concentrate.” Since this was an office and work environment, I had to be more sensitive about how I phrased my question, so I shot out with, “According to the EPT commercial that means you might be pregnant.”

I’m not sure what was funnier the emphatic denial of, “I had better not be pregnant” or the worried look I received. You know, the look that tells a person “Crap, that MAY be what the problem is.” She left work in a hurry yesterday; kind of like her arse was on fire and her hair was catching. This morning she informs me that she is definitely not pregnant. She sure did look relieved.

Posted by: Contagion at 03:42 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Over at the Spoon and Blade, weÂ’ve gone native. WeÂ’ll at least as far as the Mortar Maidens go. Head over and see our first exotic Indian Mortar Maiden, Eyanosa.

BTW, It was discussed at this last event that I could open up a dating service for re-enactors. IÂ’ve had many a person inquire on the various maidens and as to whether or not they are single, what events they do, and if they want a man. HmmmÂ… Maybe I could become a 1756 Internet Pimp as well as 1756 internet pr0n king.

Posted by: Contagion at 06:47 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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