This is my coat of arms, that I drew when I was 11 and I was in love with Princess Diana and all things British, so I read books on heraldry and ignored most of what I learned and drew some badass unicorn horns and swords and arrows. And some gender ambiguous people hanging out,
Read on »Anecdotes
Question: birthday redos
Anon Question: If you had to live your 16th birthday or your 21st birthday over and over for a month, which would you choose? I wish I remembered either one well, actually. I have a terrible memory and don’t recall what I was doing either time. That really is why I take photos and why
Read on »old golf balls
When I was a kid living in Ankeny, Iowa, living on Belmont Street, my dad had a yellow-ish plastic bucket of old golf balls in the garage. He kept them for golf practice, I guess – although I don’t know how good they were for that, given that they had gouges out of them and
Read on »On the Tarmac for 6 hours for SXSWi
Yesterday we had one of those nightmarish plane trips you hear about on the news every so often. Our American Airlines flight to Austin, Texas had a (supposed to be) short stop in Dallas/Fort Worth airport. The first leg from Indianapolis to Dallas went smoothly, and we got on the plane 1717 for the 36ish
Read on »Sesame Street Clips that scared me as a kid
Courtesy of Boing Boing, where they felt the same way. This first one with the orange singing was really scary: This one was more funny, but it still bugged me. I swore up and down that Mahna Mahna was from Sesame Street, while friends of mine insisted it was from the Muppet Show. Turns out
Read on »Magnetic Fork
A while back, I blogged about a strange phenomenon that I and my co-workers discovered while out at lunch in a restaurant – some of the knives at our table were magnetic. We noticed it a few more times in different restaurants – one or two knives will be magnetic and you can pick up,
Read on »Delicious Annual Nut Sale (Spay-Neuter Serv.)
I know this “true story” is true, because it’s an actual memo that got sent around our work email.
Read on »Slush Mug Commecial
We used to have these. Now that I recall, we had this type of Slush Mug, then later another version. I still have my second, newer one; mom gave it to me a couple years ago when we were cleaning out stuff at her house.
Read on »It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature
One of my very favorite commercials from childhood. I never noticed before that she’s telling the Goldilocks story wrong at the beginning.
Read on »National Coming Out Day
Okay, I’ve been officially called out by one of my gay friends for being flip about National Coming Out Day, so I’ll ‘straighten’ my act out and give the day the attention it deserves. Nineteen years ago on October 11, 1987, I was a student at Ball State University. I had been out of the
Read on »Friday Pet Blogging
It’s hard to read while wearing all of your pets.
Read on »Scary Kid Stuff (with pictures!)
Paul the Spud at Shakespeare’s Sister asks the question “What creeped you out as a kid?” and got quite a few responses. Here are mine, many of which were from TV shows that I probably shouldn’t have been watching. 1. The Star Trek episode “Miri” where the crew beams down to a planet that at
Read on »For a very short time today, we outranked Lance Armstrong
The seller’s agent for our new home was a bit late to our closing, because he has Lance Armstrong and Robin Williams staying at his house for race weekend. His house is a block and a half from ours, BTW. During our closing, he got paged that they had arrived at his house, but he
Read on »Freshly Poured Concrete
I went to Bagel Fair this morning to get a bagel and coffee for breakfast. There’s a construction crew around the building on scaffolding working on the exterior, and they were also pouring fresh concrete on the sidewalk in front of the building. To get into the store, you had to walk across a wooden
Read on »You Know You Were A Little Girl Of The 70’s If:
This is the most accurate of these lists I have ever seen! I’ve checked off all the ones that are mine. You wore that rainbow shirt that was half-sleeves and the rainbow went up one sleeve, across your chest and down the other… You made baby chocolate cakes in your Holly Hobby Easy Bake Oven.
Read on »McDonalds Employees Make Own Recipes from McD’s Ingredients
Boing Boing links to a Live Journal community of McDonalds employees that make their own recipes (for back room and after hours consumption) using the ingredients from McDonalds foods. We did this back when I was in college and working at Mickey D’s in the summer time, and got in so much trouble for it
Read on »Childhood Memories
Passed along from my friend Matt. Typically I add these to the big fat list I’ve compiled of quizzes about me, but right now I don’t have time to merge the two. I should also link a bunch of the answers below to pages on the site, but no time for that either. 1. What
Read on »Schwinn Stingray
Schwinn is once again producing, after 25 years, the Sting-Ray bicycle, with a version for kids, and also one for adults. My first bike when I was a kid was a red Stingray, very similar to this one, and my older brother’s was blue. I had the V-back handle bars and banana seat. We thought
Read on »Bigotry and anti-gay hate at the Republican National Convention
Pastor Donnie McClurkin will be performing at the Republican National Convention. Among other things, McClurkin thinks homosexuality is a “curse,” that it’s caused by men raping small children, that being gay is a choice, that it can be cured, and most explosively, that gays are trying to “kill our children.” He’s come to those conclusions
Read on »Stuff I used to believe
When I was a kid, I got the colors yellow and orange confused all the time, because yellow cabs are actually *orange* and I would read the name “yellow” and think that was the color. No I didn’t learn colors late, I learned to read early. Also, I remember my grandma talking with my mom
Read on »Henry Kissinger
How I got Henry Kissinger to sign a lyrics sheet from the Monty Python song.
Read on »Magnetic Knife
One day I was out to lunch with my co-workers and I picked up my knife to cut something, and the fork stuck to it. The knife was magnetic. But only the table knife, not the fork or the spoon. And my knife was the only one that way, no one else at the table
Read on »This Sounds Hauntingly Familiar
From the ONION: “Harsh Light Of Morning Falls On One-Night Stand’s DVD Collection” The harsh light of morning fell on the terrible DVD collection of Marc Koenig Monday, when Traci Pearle discovered it upon waking up from their one-night stand…. Out of the thousands of movies you could own, why would you spend your money
Read on »English Xmas Kitties
Stacy Mineart Today was yet another day in that inevitable annual melee we call christmas preparation. The rarity of Sunday opening hours in England necesitates that on such occasions every able-bodied individual must pile onto the high street to take advantage of the extra shopping opportunity whether they need anything or not. Thus, when I
Read on »Brown Bobby Triangle Donut Machine
My grandmother makes donuts several times a year, only instead of being round, they’re in the shape of triangles. They are a family favorite that everyone looks forward to, and frosting and eating the donuts at Thanksgiving is a family tradition. She makes them with an old paraffin wax donut making machine named the “Brown
Read on »My junior high tennis shoes
Hey, look! It’s the tennis shoes that got my ass kicked in junior high school. Some genius has scanned the 1980 JC Penney catalog and put it online for you to peruse. I wonder if they also have the “Chic” jeans my mom made me wear; the ones that got me beat up in the
Read on »Jesus is the reason for the season
There were no riots over the fact that the wrong man is President of the United States, but in Portland, they had a riot because people wanted to see fireworks on New Year’s Eve. I think the people in Portland are a bit dim. Also, it wasn’t a holy-roller that put the “Jesus is the
Read on »What do you want to be when you grow up?
I remember when I was a little kid, I read a book about Camelot and King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table–and because I was reading pretty far above my age level, I understood what I read, but I didn’t understand the context of it… meaning I didn’t really have a concept of
Read on »Feller breaks collarbone in butch football play
Douglas E. Feller, 4445 Bevington Lane, Indianapolis, broke his collarbone this afternoon while playing touch football at Barb and Michelle’s cookout. Displaying the butch, masculine qualities for which he is so well-known, Doug was going out for a pass when he swerved to avoid a tree, did a half-somersault in the air, and landed on
Read on »English as a Fifth Language
These sayings were on a pad of paper my boss got in Chinatown:
Read on »Accidental Peeping Tom
When I was a kid, I was cutting through my neighbor’s side yard to get to the next street over, and as I passed Kloberdanz’ house, I saw a motion in one of the basement windows and glanced down. I saw Matt Kloberdanz in the basement, and he looked up and saw me. I was
Read on »My Family Christmas Letter – 1999
My cousin Sarah wrote her family’s Christmas letter this year, which I just got in the mail. If I’d written the Christmas letter for my family, it probably would have gone something like this: This year was pretty amazing for the Mineart family — no one flunked out of school, or got thrown in jail,
Read on »Adventures in a Chevy Chevette 2
I picked up my car this afternoon. It’s a 1987 Chevy Chevette, dark blue, and it’s falling apart. I had to have the alternator replaced, $141.69. This is the second time it’s been in the shop recently; two weeks ago, I just got it back after having the starter and flywheel (what the hell’s that?)
Read on »Adventures in a Chevy Chevette
I got stuck in my car. It’s a 1987 Chevy Chevette, dark blue, and it’s falling apart. It was freezing cold this Indiana morning, and there was a thick layer of ice over everything. I made the mistake of not looking outside at this inclement weather before I got dressed for work, so I was
Read on »Embarrassing Elevator Stories
Ah, the elevator. Such a delightful way to interact with your fellow man, especially in a workplace environment. Such a great way to act strangely in other people’s personal space. Sixth Floor I work on the fifth floor of a six floor office building here in Indianapolis. I was going home at the end of
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