This image is from www.transparency.com, where you can see the full table and download the map.

I hesitate for a moment. He isclearly proud of his survival skills, in particular building igloos, and I don’t want to burst his bubble.  I haven’t even thought about igloos for years and years, but how often do I get to say this at parties?  NEVER.  It is probably my only chance. 

“In fact, I do know how to build an igloo.”

It’s one of those quirky things that my Search And Rescue Leader parents taught me back in the day.  I actually haven’t built one for about 20 years but I went through the steps with my dad on the phone and he confirmed that I had it right.   He sometimes still builds igloos for snow camping because they are warmer than tents.

Here’s how, in case you’re wondering.

1. Pack down snow using your feet and the backside of your tiny backpacking snow shovel.  I think about 10 x 10 feet will do for a one or two person igloo.  The well-packed snow needs to be a couple feet deep so when you cut the bricks out they will be nice and thick.
2. Pack down a separate area where you will build the igloo.
3. Use your backpacking snow shovel to cut out squares from the packed snow.  Actually, they should be more like trapezoids– all the sides should angle inward slightly so they will fit together in a gradually smaller circle. 
4. Put the bricks in a circle.  Then you just keep building upwards in slightly smaller rings until you have built a dome.  If you’ve done it right, the last brick will fit perfectly into the final opening at the top.
5. dig a little tunnel to get in and out of your igloo.

I guess they have special tools these days just for building igloos– this picture comes from a product review of such a one at www.kk.org

fuzzy monkey

Pro Evolution (the most popular search by far)

man-eating maggots

Kerri Strugg smokes

Jesus punctuators

comma skis

waa scraper

comma spice quizes

waddly acha DVD

There are several other interesting ones but people I know did them so I’m leaving them out.

Last Saturday we bought us a 1996 Toyota Corolla with 90,000 miles on it. On Friday, The Mister had gone to check out various “private seller” cars for sale. He would call these cell phones, and the guys on the other end would say things like, “Meet me at the CVS off of York road. The car is there.” (Yes, THAT CVS. The one where the drug dealers hang out.)

The Mister would say when he got there, “Why are you selling this car for higher than its Blue Book value?” and “You listed this as good condition, but to me it looks fair.” To which the parking lot guy would invariably say that the stated price was actually an excellent deal and he wasn’t budging. “Let me be honest with you,” he’d say, and lie through his teeth. “This car has never needed a single repair even though it is ten years old! The only reason I’m selling it is because my teenage daughter doesn’t like the color!”

So it was a relief to find the listing for the Toyota, and meet an ordinary working person in front of his house, and get the maintenace records and take the car for a test drive, and have him offer a lower but still reasonable price and throw in a pair of new tires he had sitting around, primarily because he took a shine to us. He drove the car to our house himself and in general oozed friendly, enthusiastic trustworthiness. It almost seemed too good to be true. I wonder if maybe he had trouble selling it because of the piles of papers and the giant teddy bear filling up the back seats.

We were pretty sure we got a great deal, but I didn’t want to say so until we got the car inspected. Our nice mechanics put on the new tires and replaced some belts and gave us the thumbs up and the coveted yellow “pass” paper!

Woohoo! couldn’t have been easier, really. The only problems were that car apparently hadn’t been cleaned out for five years or so (yay for coin operated industrial strength gas station vacuums), and the very prominent bumper sticker, which read “secular jews of baltimore.org”

Our last car had a Christian fish on it from the previous owner. We left it on there despite our suspicions that the Mazda was not born again. “Close enough,” we figured. This bumper sticker was a little different since it did not correspond to our status in any particular. Not secular, not jewish, not from Baltimore or planning to stay here, not organized. We spent a week falsely advertising ourselves to Maryland traffic. But The Mister came through again, with a little elbow grease, some solvent, and a scraper! Now we are unidentifiable. And that’s the way we like it.

Or is it just global warming Jack Abramoff’s doing?  (edit made in response to Kate’s complaint)
I’m thinking maybe today in my meeting I will keep one eye crossed the whole time and see if anybody notices.

Oh, and Nate, the author of the raven article, posted some comments about my comments on it. We’re so meta! If you want to get meta-meta, you can comment on his comments on my comments.

Yep, you got that right. Come August, the Mister will be Professor Mister.
We will be moving 8.05% of the way around the world, God willing (that last phrase is a little something I picked up in West Africa, where it is considered presumptuous to assume anything about the future).

Where exactly is that, you ask? Well, here’s a few hints.

• The distance from Annapolis, MD to this city is 2004 miles.
• The typical air quality of this region is 1 (on a scale of 0-100, 100 being best).
• Famous former residents of this state include Cesar Chavez, Kerri Strug, and Charles Mingus.
• Household pests we may encounter include scorpions, roof rats, and rhinocerous beetles.
• It is sunny 300 days out of the year.
• The highest and lowest points in the state are, respectively, 12,633 ft and 70 ft.

We will be skulking around and causing our usual havoc somewhere near latitude 33.542 N, longitude 112.071 W

Most of the information for this post came from here and here.

We’re excited!

 Dottie Comma:  Sorry to interrupt, but I have this problem I just can’t figure out.  Will you help me really quick?

Boss-Type Person:  Sure, what is it?

Dottie Comma: Well. Will you write down, in all caps, the words “Read, Study, Grow”?

Boss-Type Person: HAR HAR HAR HAR.  Okay, okay! It was me! HAR HAR HAR!

Dottie Comma can get a full confession with two questions or less.

PRO EVO: Pro Evolution — Guideline for an Age of Joy.

With a post it note stuck to it.

Here it is:

It was self-published, by a house in Switzerland. Now, who could this be from? My office mate swears he didn’t see anyone come in last night or this morning. And it’s not his type of joke really.

Does someone think I need to evolve? It’s true; only yesterday I declared myself a fluffy monkey to the entire internet.

Maybe the “Age of Joy” refers to the fact that I sometimes put a wiped-off-but-not-washed fork in my desk drawer. Somebody has observed my lack of dedication to dishwashing detergent! Before you get all grossed out and swear to yourself that you will never kiss my extra-germy mouth (either for the first time or again), I should clarify that I do wash the fork before I use it the next time.

I bet my mouth is cleaner than a monkey’s anyway, evolution or no, because unlike a monkey I don’t knowingly eat the feces of myself or others.
Maybe its the night janitor. We pass each other on our way to and from public transportation. Whenever I work late and she comes into my office to empty the trash she says, “Whooee! Pretty hot in this building tonight!” Or, alternatively, “Whooee! Damn cold outside isn’t it?”

In both cases I say, “Yes, yes it is!” I say thank you about the trash can, and by then she is gone.
Ordinarily I wouldn’t count that as philosophical conversation leading to the exchange of edifying reading material, but maybe I overlooked something.

Maybe it is the notorious grouch on our floor. Maybe she is only pretending to be grouchy, when in fact she has the secret of true joy, and stealthily spreads her message to those she deems worthy.

My next step: collecting handwriting samples. I do, after consultation with the connivingest department members, have a clear suspect.