Erin likes Heinz ketchup, not Hunt’s. I have never been able to keep this straight because I grew up on a 15-house dead-end street, two doors down from Mr. Hunt and across the street from Mr. Heinz.
How do I remember which one to buy? Mr. Heinz used to go for long walks all the time, and Mr. Hunt was a woodworker. Erin likes to take walks; woodworking, not so much. So, I buy Heinz.
Last Friday, I stopped at the jeweler on my way home from work to pick up Erin’s just-resized engagement ring. When I got back to our building, I had a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. A guy about my age got in the elevator with me, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see him looking me up and down.
He said, “Looks like you’re going to make somebody happy tonight.”
“You don’t know the half of it - the ring’s in this pocket,” I replied, pointing to the bulge in my pants pocket.
“Are you serious?! Well, go get ‘em buddy!”
And I did go get ‘em. I thought it was pretty funny, and I finally remembered to tell Erin about it tonight.
PZ Meyers was kicked out of a screening of Ben Stein’s new “documentary,” Expelled.
I went to attend a screening of the creationist propaganda movie, Expelled, a few minutes ago. Well, I tried … but I was Expelled! It was kind of weird — I was standing in line, hadn’t even gotten to the point where I had to sign in and show ID, and a policeman pulled me out of line and told me I could not go in. I asked why, of course, and he said that a producer of the film had specifically instructed him that I was not to be allowed to attend. The officer also told me that if I tried to go in, I would be arrested. I assured him that I wasn’t going to cause any trouble.
But who DID get in? Richard Dawkins. Read the whole story and the follow up.
Sometime around my third year of college, I saw As Good As It Gets, and it got me thinking - what if this IS as good as it gets? At that point, my freshman year of college had been the best year of my life and things only seemed to be going downhill from there. I started to wonder if life would never be as exciting as it had been then.
Then, during the roughest time at work last July, Gogol Bordello released Super Taranta and I spent weeks singing along to Ultimate:
There was never any good old days
They are today, they are tomorrow
It’s a stupid thing we say
Cursing tomorrow with sorrow
The good news is that the good old days ARE today (well, and tomorrow). I met Erin about the time that album came out, and life with her is better than I ever thought it could be - and we got engaged last week, if you hadn’t heard. We’re looking at places for the wedding for next September, and I couldn’t be happier. No one likes a mushy blog post, but ya know what? Life is good.
One of my favorite new blogs, The Art of Manliness, has a free Guide to Being A Gentleman in 2008.
Procure tandem bike. Ride it alone with a “If you can read this, the bitch fell off” t-shirt.
Credit to Aaron Franklin for that one.
Via Boing Boing
I wish I had wandered through Chinatown that night:
After Guitar Hero made its way to mobile phones, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise: The game has (unofficially) made its way to the Commodore 64. Creator Toni Westbrook calls it Shredz64. We call it a ridiculously cool labor of love, and the best thing we’ve seen today.
People like this make me wish I was geekier. Full article on Joystiq.
A while back, the Friendly Atheist posted 34 Unconvincing Arguments for God. I wanted to re-post the PDF here, and the author, August Berkshire, just gave me the go-ahead: