The saga continues!

Check out Climbing the Walls (Volume II).

What?! How could I have missed WBQotW #50 without having some kind of celebration?! BAH! I blame the Holidays.

Can you believe it? #52 quips (in much more than 52 weeks because your host tends to get preoccupied … or … well … absent minded).

This week’s quip hails from a well known 80’s TV commercial. I’ve actually seen Mrs. Fletcher resurrected in a new ad not too long ago. My relationship with Mrs. Fletcher blossomed when Dr. Demento played a song about here back in the mid 90’s.

I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!
– Mrs. Fletcher

In researching this post, I found that Mrs. Fletcher is more famous than I thought. You can read about her on Wikipedia. This quip has run the gamut from Johnny Carson to Star Wars: Phantom Menace. Who knew that Mrs. Fletcher’s catch phrase would reach to galaxies far far away?

I tried to find the song, or even the lyrics, that played on Dr. Demento with no luck. Any net sleuths feel up to the challenge?

I’ve finally finished volume one of this very exciting (dare I say riveting) saga. Please enjoy…

Climbing the Walls (Volume I)

Okay. Let me walk you through this slowly, because it’s a little hard to swallow.

In January 2001, 43-year-old Jerry Colaitis was enjoying the show at a Benihana hibachi grill in Long Island. The chef tossed a shrimp in Jerry’s direction, perhaps expecting the patron to catch it in his mouth, like most folks would do. But Jerry tried to dodge the shrimp, straining his neck in the process. So far, I’m thinking, “Well that sucks. He should have eaten the stupid shrimp!”

Five months later, in June 2001, poor old Jerry is going under the knife! Seems that Jerry’s doctor felt that surgery was the only way to cure Jerry’s chronic neck pain. The surgery didn’t go very well and Jerry ended up with some “complications” (whatever that means). Now I’m thinking, “Well that sucks. He needs to find a better chiropractor!”

Five months after that, Jerry checks himself into the hospital with a very severe fever. The next day, Jerry is dead. Not to belittle the fact, but I’m thinking, “Well that sucks. Maybe Jerry’s family should sue the hospital, or maybe even the doctor who did the surgery five months ago.”

But NO! Jerry’s family is not interested in suing the hospital (which would probably pay a lot of money to maintain its image as a safe place) nor are they interested in suing the doctor (who most assuredly has a plump malpractice insurance policy). No, they’re going for the big bucks… the hibachi chef! Cuz everybody knows THOSE guys have all the cash! (You can see it right there in their giant jar of tips. There’s gotta be twenty or thirty bucks in there!)

So now I’m thinking, “Wow, that really sucks. These people need to find a real lawyer instead of the guy who shouts on his commercials during ‘Days of Our Lives’.”

This story would be funny if it wasn’t true, but it is.

How do you rank in cyber space? Are you googlable? (Ooooh! New word!) I’ve always ranked pretty well because my name is a bit unusual. When you search on “Trint Ladd” you don’t end up with a bunch of links to some English professor or small town city council member’s web site. You get me.

I think it also helps that my wife is famous. *wink*

So, anyhoo, not to gloat or anything, but my combined Web Ego is over 4500. (Bill Gates scores almost 13,000, so I’ve got room for improvement.)

Give it a try! (http://www.EgoSurf.org) Be sure to click “more options” and check all the different search engines. (Warning, it takes a long time for the page to finish searching you. Let it finish.)

It’s time to resurrect the old Conversation Enhancements topic. Today’s word comes to us from dictionary.com.

digerati \dij-uh-RAH-tee\, plural noun:
Persons knowledgeable about computers and technology. Technological intelligencia.

So if digerati is plural, does that make me a digeratus or digeratum?

I know that there are a lot of you out there suffering from viral attacks. Tis the season, I suppose, for sicky-bugs. My house has been spared thus far (knock on particle board). But for those of you out there whose bodies are slugging it out with microscopic maladies, this week’s WBQotW offers a bit of encouragement from Clinton appointed Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders.

We all will probably die with something sooner or later.

Believe it or not, I like memes (pronounced like dream). While this may seem like the domain of teenagers’ Xanga blogs and indiscriminate email forwarders, I feel it’s more than a good way for people to learn more about you. I think you can learn a little about yourself by publishing a meme.

Here’s my New Year Meme (Sorry if it’s a little long. You have my permission to “scan”):

1. What did you do in 2005 that you’d never done before?
Hiked in the Tetons. Got altitude sick. (What a coincidence!)

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions and will you make more for next year?
I hit most of my 2005 goals. I will have a list for 2006, but I haven’t written it yet.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Only to methane.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Only as a result of methane babies. (Okay! Okay! I’ll be serious… shyeah right.)

5. What countries did you visit?
Does Wyoming count?

6. What would you like to have in 2006 that you lacked in 2005?
Rock hard abs or world peace. I can’t decide.

7. What date from 2005 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Too much happened this year for any one thing to stand out.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Losing ~30 pounds (and gaining back about 10). Failing to summit Grand Teton. (Honest! I consider it an achievement!)

9. What was your biggest failure?
See number 8.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
See number 8. Thank God that was the worst of it.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
An Xterra for Tammy.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Any of the Sander’s girls. They blow me away with their devotion to God.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Some other youth, who I’ll not name. Working with youth is a real emotional rollercoaster.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Camping/hiking supplies and debt reduction.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
An apartment with a garage and an office with a door!

16. What song will always remind you of 2005?
Any song from the OC Supertones. I’ll sure miss those guys.

17. Compare this last year to this year:
’04 was good, this year was way gooder.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Reading. At the rate I’m going I’ll finish the books in my personal library about 100 years after I die.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Watching TV. Blech… (But I’m still looking for a TiVo this year.)

20. How did you spend Christmas?
Discover card mostly. No! Seriously, Tammy and I spent Christmas and New Years at home, relaxing and enjoying time alone together. Priceless.

— Clip the questions about my love life. —

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Monk and Mythbusters

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I’m trying to erase that word from my vocabulary. The only thing anyone should hate is their own sin.

26. What was the best book you read?
Every Man’s Battle and The Green Letters. (Both strongly recommended.)

27. What was your greatest musical (re)discovery?
The Supertones. You never really appreciate something until it’s gone.

28. What did you want and get?
To lose a lot of weight.

29. What did you want and not get?
A shower in the new office building.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Jeez. That’s hard. Just check the entertainment topic.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I’m 32, but refuse to act any older than 21 (maybe 12). We had a nice dinner. It was during Christmas musical rehearsals, so there wasn’t time for much more than that.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Not much. Maybe reaching the summit of Grand Teton instead of puking out (literally) at 10,000 feet.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2005?
Witty t-shirts and jeans. (Of course that has been my personal fashion since roughly 1989.)

34. What kept you sane?
Sane? Sane?! What are you saying?! Are you accusing me of being SANE?!!

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Katie Couric. Of course, by fancy I mean I’d fancy if she spent the next 12 months defusing IEDs in Baghdad (assuming she survived that long).

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Starving pigmies in Africa. (Better just check the politics topic.)

37. Who did you miss?
No one. My aim is superb and I always pick up the spent shell casings.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Michael Winters.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2005:
Always pack toilet paper. Oh, and pay more attention to your “thought life”. The bad things that you allow to live in your head will eventually escape into the real world.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
“When I was one hundred and three, it was a very good year.” (They Might Be Giants.)

Lots of folks get depressed after the holiday season. No more parties. No more presents. No more candy. But don’t let the post holiday blues get you down. You can have Christmas every day! In fact, to help you with this, I’m posting a Christmas song I just downloaded. It’s sure to cure your January Blues.

Merry Christmas everybody!!

(You may want to right-click and “save as” on this one.)
*Clicky Clicky*
(Ripped from Steve)

I’ve had this story sitting here for a while. Today there is fresh news on the topic.

NBC is rolling out a mid-season replacement show called “Book of Daniel”. The show centers around a “Liberal Episcopal” priest, hooked on pain killers who has face to face conversations with a “hip, modern Jesus.” Yyyyeah. I’m sure that won’t offend anybody.

It gets better. Ed Vitagliano, from the American Family Association, has viewed the premiere episode and tells us about the wholesome, every-day-Christian family and friends that Rev. Daniel hangs with. (Full review article)

“His wife struggles with an alcohol problem … while his 16-year-old daughter is arrested for selling drugs … his 16-year-old adopted son is having sex with the bishop’s daughter, and his brother-in-law has run off with his secretary – after stealing more than $3 million in diocese funds … Daniel’s oldest son is a proud homosexual, and in one scene the mother is shown encouraging the 23-year-old that soon he will find the right guy and settle down. Daniel’s secretary, according to press reports, is a lesbian who begins an affair with his sister-in-law in a later episode.”

I wonder if the person who came up with this show has some kind of vendetta against the church or maybe even has no idea what Christianity is all about? Hmmm. Well, it just so happens that “the series is written by Jack Kenny, a practicing homosexual who describes himself as being ‘in Catholic recovery,’ … and isn’t sure exactly how he defines God and/or Jesus. ‘I don’t necessarily know that all the myth surrounding him (Jesus) is true,’ he said.” (from another AFA article)

I found an “inside-Hollywood” blog that described the show thus:

“It actually looks a lot like Desperate Housewives – lots of houses shown, with various people having sex and/or hiding secrets.”

Yyyeah. That’s just what TV needs. *Sigh*

Already the uproar is having some effect. Two NBC affiliates, one in Indiana and one in Arkansas have announced that they will not broadcast Book of Daniel. I hope that more local stations will do what Hollywood never will: recognize a crappy, inflammatory, anti-God show for what it is and refuse to air it.

Well, I’m going to have to call up our local NBC affiliate and let them know that if they air this show, I’m going to have to watch Monk instead. (Oh, wait. I would be watching Monk anyway. Nevermind then.)