Or before G-H, as in "neighbor" and "weigh"

Now is the time on the blog at which I stop to mock someone desperately in need of mocking.

Some have expressed reservations about commenting here for fear of being viciously derided over spelling or grammatical errors, but I cannot stress enough how little you have to worry about that.

Unless you were to commit your errors in the course of making some cutting, accurate remarks taking me down a few pegs, then, yes, I might have to lash out in the easiest way possible.

Other than that, I will love you even if you write like whoever wrote up the error page for the Restricted Trailer site of the upcoming movie I Love You, Man.

It requires you to enter "your" name, age, location, and birth date before allowing you access, and it's apparently either broken or somehow smart enough to realize that Fyuck Eweman is not my real name.

---

We're sorry, we were unable to verify your information at this time.

Please check the information you submitted and try again.

If you are receieving this page after re-submitting your information - we are unable to provide you with access to this section of the site and we apologize for the inconvenience.

---

"Let's see... oh, man, I wish I hadn't slept through all of junior high...* I before E, E before I... why not both! It's genius! Now, I can finally get back to copy-editing Associated Press stories."

---

* Or attended an American school after 1970.

Telegram from Hellegram

I just wanted to post a quick note of very sincere thanks to everyone for your nice comments and wishes for J-'s safe and speedy recovery.

She will be harnessing your words as fuel to cool the flames of rage and hatred for all of creation whenever the Earth absentmindedly rotates under her hip.

We spent Monday night and much of Tuesday in the hospital, instead of going right home Monday afternoon as they had hoped. This is because the universe loves J- so much it wanted to make sure she would sit down and take a breather for a good long time, with a paid, professional staff of enforcers on hand to play the heavies.

By now, she's setting land-speed records for crutch pilots, and she hardly feels those flaming fingers of death ripping her apart from the inside whenever she sits down, gets up, brushes against something, tries to scootch into a more comfortable position, or exhales.

On other fronts, the debilitating full-body itching that nearly claimed the lives of three nurses and one doctor has now subsided due to that trendiest of prescription painkillers, Taking Off Your Pressure Stockings Once Home Because When Pressed The Doctor Suggested You Could At Some Point Remove Them If Absolutely Necessary. Trade name: SorrybitchesIdowhatIwant-ycontin.

To sum up, I'll let J- herself have the last word, absolutely faithfully transcribed from her sudden whisper in her fitful sleep:

Fffucccckkk.

Revenge of the Leafs

Since I've been so lax in responding to comments (and visiting people's blogs) in the past few weeks (and possibly indefinitely), I thought that instead of adding a bunch of responses now that no one would see, I'd write a separate post acknowledging your comments on this recent post showcasing M-'s language development through the lens of a leaf assault.

First off, I'd appreciate it if you guys would keep the violence of this neglect-ridden incident hush-hush. That is, unless Child Protective Services would be willing to work out some kind of time-sharing arrangement in which they would take the kids away from us only on Friday or Saturday nights, and maybe a day or so during the week as needed.

As for M-'s seemingly accelerated development in certain areas, I have nothing to offer in the way of tips or tricks, as requested, except to say that you should apparently try to spend as much time on the computer as legally allowed; never plan anything voluntarily or arrive anywhere on time; only feed your children random, disturbing combinations of food ALWAYS outside of whatever society tells you should be a Meal Time; and be ready to fend off many, many hard plastic finger puppets, because my friends, There Will Be Poinkings.

Important Question: Paper, Liner, Hover, or Madness?

I'm gonna keep this simple. You may take me for the head of the new Human Un-Hygenic Activities Committee, but I promise not to judge you any more than legally required by the Common Sense and Decency Act of 1937.

I simply must hear from everyone on this important issue, particularly the ladies, who are potentially the worst offenders due to understandable volume, if no other reason...

Do you sit, or have you ever sat, directly on a public toilet seat?

Captcha the memories

Just a thought on something I've noticed in commenting at some of your blogs and elsewhere:

When I begin typing various letters in those CAPTCHA boxes*, Firefox helpfully suggests to me some of the past strings I've typed, and I can't help but wonder how much such completely useless information my computer has saved up in various nooks and crannies.

But then, how much do I have myself? And more importantly, which of us has more?

Regardless, I suppose saving the entries in CAPTCHA fields isn't always useless. Recently it helped me remember that one time I was asked to type out xgvzd before commenting somewhere, and that other time I had to type xftwp... what heady, groundbreaking times those were!

---

* I got rid of mine a couple weeks ago, to stop annoying everyone, and I haven't yet had to deal with any spam comments at all.

North Dakota on my mind

In a footnote yesterday, I suggested that I might compare* the U.S. state of North Dakota to a state of near-death.

You must understand that I say this based on the fact that it's the only U.S. state from which I haven't yet recorded a visit to this blog. Every other state has sent me anywhere from a handful to well over a thousand hits, and in fact half the states have visited at least a hundred times, along with 53 foreign countries, but between the two Dakotas, I'm holding steady at 1 visit in almost 8 months.

What gives, Dakotas?!? We must have some common interests or interpersonal connection that might trick you into coming here. Given that you have the highest percentage of churchgoing citizens in the U.S. (according to Wikipedia**) and your highest point is something called White Butte, I feel sure it's a temptation when I suggest you can stop by once in awhile to yell at me for being a "filthy, godless, America-hating, city-slicking, Obama-loving, liberal hippie!" Sound good? You know it does.

Actually, the most cutting of criticisms would be that this whole post is just a ploy to attract an unsuspecting hitchhiker or two wandering the Google turnpike from up Dakota way. This, however, is not remotely accurate, and furthermore: "Gov. John Hoeven", "Mt. Rushmore sucks", Sioux, departing, "Western Meadowlark", "flights out", Minot, "how much longer till I can leave", and "Who needs Mt. Rushmore, anyway... we're just not that showy".

Whatever you wanna say to me now, funny-talking folks, fire at will-- my comment board is open as always!

In closing, it is a distinct honor to disappoint you, my likely-incensed casual North Dakotan drop-ins. I'd love you to stay, but if you simply can't, I ask only that you leave a tiny piece of your Very Upper Midwest souls with my friends at Google Analytics on your way back out the door, so I can finally finish coloring in my cool map of the U.S. various shades of green***.

---

* In case you were born/raised in North Dakota, or you have family there, or you'd just like to defend a physically large state containing only almost exactly 10 times the number of people as the minor Chicago suburb in which I live, please note the supremely artful and undeniably endearing hedging of my phrasing^ here. I'd appreciate it if instead of cursing at me, you just chuckled lovingly and suggested I go into politics. ...Okay, go ahead now.

** This is a disclaimer that must always accompany any fact taken from Wikipedia-- new rule.

*** They don't call it "Anal-ytics" for nothing!

^ Or alternatively, you could just admire my extensive and arguably excessive use of adverbs and gerunds.

The DTs are now the LDs*

I have a potentially tragic announcement. Are you ready? Have you braced yourselves?

I'll be camping in the wilds of Minnesota** all next week. Starting today, in fact. That's right, folks-- I'll be going without The Internet for a whole week for the first time in a very long time. Needless to say, in using this blog as my primary writing practice tool, I have amped up my time spent online to an unhealthy degree, so this crash will likely hit me hard.

But I'm sure it's for the best-- it must be for the best, because otherwise I will have been tortured for nothing. Then I'd have to rival Mr. Charlton Heston (R.I.P.) in my tantrum-ry by falling to the ground, cursing the cruel world, and telling whoever is kind enough to help to get their filthy hands off me. Then I'd likely sail right over the top by demanding they let my kbps go and screaming something unintelligible about Soylent Green.

Anyway, what you have to look forward to in my absence are a few short posts set to appear on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and possibly two post-free days after that, while I try to get my act back together. I'll probably have to skip replying to your comments for this coming week, unfortunately, but I did finally post replies to the past few posts yesterday-- check them out if you're so inclined (or bored waiting for a new post to appear).

I fear opening my blog feed reader after a week away. My deepest apologies if I seem to have forgotten any of you for awhile-- I'll be catching up as best I can whenever I can!


* In case this title makes no sense, because it's late right now, LD of course equals LiteralDan, and DT equals Oscar gold!

** Also known as "Minnestoa" to typing fingers everywhere.

Museum of Natural Hilarity

Hello and welcome, visitors from Camp Candid Carrie's latest field trip-- thanks for coming by! My name is LiteralDan, and I'll be showing you around today.
I see that most of you have brought bag lunches, and I want to assure you that I do not hold this against you whatsoever. There is no chance at all that the museum will have to close due to budget shortfalls and rising expenses for the cafeteria, where we provide high-quality, delicious meals at affordable prices. We've arranged a nice little picnic area for you all away from our pesky paying lunchers out near our beautiful, brand-new Dumpsters.

Before we move on to our tour, I think you should know a few important things:
1. Under no circumstances do I appreciate sarcasm.
2. I do not particularly like children, so please refrain from behaving as such during your time in our esteemed facility.
3. Forbidden topics for questions include the infamous Three Foulest Subjects in the World: feces, violence, and pirates.

Now that we've got that out of the way, follow me to our major exhibits on Human Behavior, Art, Hygiene, Masculinity, Computers, and Insectophobia. As we go, please notice our list of Departments to the right, as well as our Blogroll of partner museums of equal educational value.

And of course, we wouldn't be a respectable non-profit educational organization if we didn't encourage you all to visit our gift shop!


Editor's Note: As one or two of you may have guessed, that picture is not actually of me, but rather a common garden gnome.* I'm sorry for toying with you like that.

* In case the sight of this gnome got you all excited to discuss your favorite imaginary creatures, I will do my best to point you towards some other classic mythological figures covered here: leprechauns, Cinderella, dentists, Super Mario, stay-at-home dads, and zombies.

Declaration of Independence from posting

In honor of the love of vacationing that I share with all Americans*, I'm going to be lame today and do the blog equivalent of a clip show. So while I run off to the parade and ready myself for those most delicious of all meats, free hot dogs, please jump over to this old American-flag-related post you may have missed. Comment freely, as if it's new, and help complete the charade!

Also, let's all wish a Happy Birthday to the little lady who shares this day with Lady Liberty-- my sister Katie. Didn't anyone ever tell you all those fireworks are for her? Today, she's officially an adult, although, fortunately or unfortunately for her, she'll always be my baby sister. Nice try with all that growing up, sucker!


* Though studies show we don't actually tend to take them, for the legitimate fear of being found expendable and fired. We seem to instead make up the time by "wasting" lots of it while at work, such as by reading blogs. Vive la résistance!

Umm... see my list of bad habits*

I'm writing this post as a confessional-- I don't have my homework.

Yes, instead of writing another one of my (self-issued) award-winning posts today, I have blown all my "free time" this morning reading blogs. Any chance you'd accept me tracking down a bunch of the comments I left and just cobbling them together into a list post? Nah, probably not.

So, in addition to a confessional, this is also an apology. That is, unless I commented on your blog this morning, in which case you should feel honored by my selfless exaltation of you and your work over my own. Also, you should feel exceedingly guilty for your undeserved moment of apology-accepting, but you can make it up to me by, shall we say, exploring some of the tempting offers placed around the page or by shopping at Amazon via my link to the right.

Based on the number of people (at other nominated blogs) who misread my noncommittal offer of a magical tote bag for one's eternal soul instead as a legal promise of a regular tote bag for voting for me in a mere blog contest, I just might need all the cash I can get.

Even though that wouldn't personally cost you anything, as a show of gratitude, I still might be able to repay you with a free extra soul.** They're great to play with when you're having a rough day, like a stress ball.


* Here's a link to my list of bad habits (among other things)-- most of them are applicable today.

** Hey, if someone is willing to trade their eternal soul for a tote bag just to make a point, I am certainly going to fulfill my end while also capitalizing my new asset. See Milhouse v. Simpson for legal precedent.

Winged migration

I suppose this serves as something of a sequel to my post Things I found in my bed last night-- here's how J- got me away from the computer last night while I was responding to all your many wonderful comments on the last few posts:

"Can't you just blog 'Wife found bug wing in bed, must go now'?!?"

This was after much poking, prodding, and begging to this end. She decided she could not possibly sleep in the same bed as a piece of an old bug wing, and only I have been imbued by the gods with the power to flick it off the sheet.

This is actually great progress for her-- in past, better-rested days, she would definitely refuse to sleep in the bed for at least a day after the sheets were changed (and probably burned), and she might even insist on sleeping at a hotel. Now she was tired enough to just be rid of the wing so she could get some blessed sleep.

Although, as it turns out, when I went to the bathroom after The Flickening, she ended up pulling the sheet off the bed and flipping it around to put the apparently toxic Spot Where the Wing Was on my side of the bed instead.

That's love.

An additional child

I've come to the realization that even when I put down M- and D-, I'm still carrying our other stubbornly clingy toddler, Belly. I mean, 20 pounds roughly equals one toddler, right? So I'm going to start thinking of it that way, to provide myself with a tiny, weak, easily vanquished, and non-intimidating enemy.

Belly is a stubborn and demanding child, though he does keep me warm. Still, he's always known I hate him, so there's no point in pretending anymore that he's imagining my whispered snide remarks and double stink eyes anytime I feed or care for him alongside the other kids. He is most definitely my least favorite child, and in fact I consider his paternity highly in question.

I suppose you may find it disturbing, then, that after personifying this lil fella, I plan to ramp up my efforts to starve him and crush him into oblivion day by day. After months of walking even more than before, I feel like I can walk anywhere without tiring. Luckily our neighborhood has grocery stores, convenience stores, hardware stores, restaurants, and the library all within a few blocks, so it's pretty easy to just walk everywhere.

Hundreds of pushups and crunchers have also helped rebalance my body composition, and they have left little Belly on the defensive, wondering what he ever did to deserve this treatment. Soon he'll be like one of those poor, emaciated, swollen little children on one of those charity commercials, but unfortunately for Belly, there will be no creepy bearded man gratingly badgering and guilting people into sending money to allegedly help him save the waif.

Little Belly will instead stand like Oliver Twist before the Master, pleading for more pizza and junk food, but he shan't receive a crumb beyond his allotment, and so shall I hang him for his insolence. I swear by the benevolent gods Mozzarella and Canadian Bacon, Bellicose J. Tumtum shall perish from this Earth by the close of a fortnight!

[Editor's note: Okay, more like several months, since I take a relaxed approach to most everything, and because I don't want to die, but I'm trying to really scare him here.]

What was my name back then?

I do not exaggerate when I say I actually had a hard time clearly remembering the days before I was a parent, in order to complete yesterday's list.

It's probably because I was in college in those pre-kid days, so everything was in flux for several years before I ran right into marriage and parenting. Sounds kinda sad, but it's probably for the best, both so I don't have years of "glory days as a carefree adult" to miss or to compare my current life to, and because it indicates I'm so used to parenting small children that the bizarre daily events just don't register like they would.

That list could probably be 100 items long if I took more time and really jumped into my Way-Back Machine. Maybe I'll do some followup lists as more things come to me (things like, "I'd miss always having my kids available as an escape hatch from the small-talk express").

Anyway, even before writing the list, I knew that I feel pretty content these days, and I have surprisingly few regrets, which is always nice to realize. Now, if the Lottery Commission would just come through with my check.

Do the sweeping, Cinderelly

Apparently M- read my dishwasher post and is trying to pitch in to earn my love. Good girl!

Note: This wasn't my idea-- she grabbed the broom out of the closet when I opened it, as she often does, but this time she took off across the house actually trying to sweep. After taking this picture, I traded her for a more manageable hand broom, so she could push crumbs around the floor for a few minutes. I don't think she fully understood the purpose of this activity, but then it took me awhile, too.

A political experiment

Here is an experiment:
Ron Paul.

I'm not sure how many people will get this, but let's see if I get some comment spam now from misguided Ron Paul supporters.

Footnote: To clarify, I say "misguided" meaning people misguided in their method of supporting him, not that they are misguided to support him at all. I think he has a fresh voice and a straightforward manner that is very welcome in our American politics. I love the fact that I respect this guy without agreeing with much more than half of what he says, either in concept entirely or just the extent to which he wants to change certain things.

Anyway, the experiment failed, since I don't yet exist in most search engines, among other factors. Wonh-wohhhhhh....