Humble Tidbits of Vacuity

I’ve noticed several blogs recently have been doing posts about what search engine words/phrases have led people to their blogs. I thought that would be really cool to do, but quickly discovered that I am unable to do it because I just have the basic, free sitemeter thingy. Apparently, with the ultra-cool, deluxe, plus, biggie-sized version you can just click a link and get a wicked TPS Report (with the new cover) or some such document.

However, I have decided to not let that little obstacle get in may way and will be drawing on the vast power and encyclopedic knowledge that is stored in that thing I call a brain and will report my information as well.

The overwhelming majority of visits to HToV come via the random blog button created by Bobby over at Bestest Blog.

For whatever reason, I’ve had MANY vists over the years by people searching for X-acto knives.

Every once in a while, people have been shunted here by various versions of “nosebleed coming out of eye.”

The last several months, there have been well over 30 visits from people who were searching for “busty coeds” or “busty coeds cinemax.”

What surprises me most of all, considering that this IS the Internet and all, is that I’ve only gotten about 2 or 3 hits based on the content of this particular post (Warning: Contains graphic language and/or content of an “adult” and sexual nature. I neither encourage nor endorse anyone under the age of 18 to click this link. If, after having read the warning, you still choose to click the link…well, then…that’s your decision and you are responsible for whatever bizarre, psychological damage that may occur.)

Thanks for visiting.

This post was hand-crafted especially for you by Kevin at 12:59 PM | 18 of the live studio audience members commented already

The personal mp3 player. What can I say about it? Not much, other than it’s just not for me. A couple of years ago, I thought I wanted one. One of our departments here at work has hundreds of these little 512 meg Rios and a guy from the department let me borrow one. I took it back to my computer, installed the software, hooked it up, and began perusing the 2000 or so songs I have on my computer. I copied over enough to fill up the thing and was all set and ready to go. And that’s when I found out I didn’t need one. I never had an occasion to turn it on and listen. My car only had a cassette tape deck. I figured I’d buy one of those cassette adapters and listen in my car. Nope. The tape deck kept ejecting the cassette adapter after 3 seconds. I returned it for another one and it kept getting ejected. So I returned it for my money back. I kept the mp3 player for 2 weeks, and never listened to it once. I’d listen to the songs on my computer while at work, but never found a situation where I would need a personal player. So I gave it back to the guy and said, “Glad I didn’t spend any money on one.”

Then for my birthday in 2005, my wife got one a 4 gig personal mp3 player. I thanked her for it, but said that it was a waste of money and we should take it back. Instead I got a cd player for my car that would play both regular CD’s and mp3 data discs. So that’s what I use.

Lately, I discovered that one of the talk radio stations here in town offers its talk shows via podcast (which is just a spiffy way of saying mp3). I was so excited. I could now listen to my favorite morning talk show (which I don’t get to listen to cuz I’m at work) anytime I want. However, it seems like such a waste to burn 75 megs of talk show to a CD. That’s only using 10% of the CD. Unfortunately, the in-dash cd/mp3 player won’t play CD-RW’s…only CDR’s. HERE is the perfect use for a personal mp3 player.

So, a friend of mine who just got a new iPod, let me borrow is 1 gig iRiver last Monday. I copied the talk show onto it, plus several other songs I might want to listen to…and that’s it. It’s been sitting in my desk drawer ever since.

The in-dash player doesn’t have an input jack, and I can’t justify spending money on an mp3 player AND an wireless FM transmitter just so I can listen to a 2 hour talk show whenever I feel like it.

So, the personal mp3 player just doesn’t make any sense for me and my lifestyle.

But they sure are neat, aren’t they?

This post was hand-crafted especially for you by Kevin at 3:02 PM | 13 of the live studio audience members commented already

Got tagged by Mairin Verthandi over at Tales from the Trenches to do a meme. So here it be.


1. If you had to choose one vice in exclusion of all others what would it be?
Lust

2. If you could change one specific thing about the world what would it be?
I would ditch the whole daylight savings time thing. This spring, we should all just set our clocks ahead ½ hour and be done with it forever.

3. Name the cartoon character you identify with the most.
I was always kinda partial to Underdog.

4. If you could live one day in your life over again which one would it be?
What’s the point in doing that? I think the memory of whatever day that is for someone is probably much better than the actual day was. Why ruin it?

5. If you could go back in history and spend a day with one person who would it be?
I’d want to spend the day with the first person that looked at a crab or a lobster and said, “I’m gonna eat that!” He must’ve been one hungry dude.

6. What is the one thing you lost, sold or threw away that you wish you could have back?
My Superman doll from 1979.

7. What is your one most important contribution to this world?
Well, of course the answer to this question is my kids.

8. What is your one hidden talent that nearly no one knows about?
I can swallow in such a way that it sounds like a fart.

9. What is your most cherished possession?
There is nothing that I have which I would classify as “cherished.” I have things I like. I have things that I’d miss if I didn’t have them anymore. But there’s nothing that holds a super-special place in my heart of hearts.

10. What one person influenced your life the most when growing up?
Ultimately, I think it would have to be my mom. She did a real good job at instilling the messages “If it’s too hard to do then you shouldn’t even try” and “Whatever you do isn’t all that good and someone will have to come and correct it.” She wasn’t malicious or condescending while she was teaching me this. I’m 100% certain that she has/had no idea that this was the message she was broadcasting.

11. What one word describes you better than any other?
Goofy.

This post was hand-crafted especially for you by Kevin at 3:31 PM | 5 of the live studio audience members commented already

Last weekend, around 5 pm while my wife was out somewhere with our girls, I was awakened from my fever induced sleep by my son screaming in terror. "Daaaad! There a squirrel in the house!!! It's in my room!! Waaaaahhhhh, there's a squirrel in my room!!!"

I, of course, was instantly awake. "Where? Where?" He led me to his room and, right there on the windowsill, was a squirrel. Oh, joy. I shut his door, walked down the hall and shut the door to my daughters' room and to my room. I checked to make sure the squirrel was still in my son's room (it was) and I went through the kitchen to close the basement door. OK. Now, if it got out of my son's room it would still be confined to the hallway, living room, dining room, and kitchen.

Despite the screaming by my son and, what I felt, the palpable adreneline induced excitement in the air, my two dogs were still lying on the living room floor. I peeked into my son's room (still on the windowsill) and called the dogs over. As soon as they saw it, the game was afoot.

One of the dogs jumped onto his bed. The other remained on the floor, blocking the exit. All three animals just stood there, each waiting for something to happen. Then it did. The squirrel jumped, in an attempt to leap over the dog on the floor and head out the door. It didn't make it. The dog smacked it out of the air. I'm not sure exactly what happened after that, cuz I said "Oh, shit!" and shut the door. After that, I just heard a lot of running around in there. Then it kind of calmed down.

I opened the door to peek in. Apparently, the dogs had trapped the squirrel under his bed. Now, his bed isn't one of those beds where you can just slide things under. He's got a big wooden thing with six drawers and the only way under the bed is either through the space between the mattress and the wall or to push the matterss all the way toward the foot or head of the bed and slide through that gap. One of the dogs figured that out and under the bed she went. I heard just a few seconds of scuffling and that was that. Then the dog came out. I wasn't sure if she got it or if it had somehow escaped or what. I left the two dogs in there, shut the door and called my neighbor.

She came over with a cardboard box and I told her the story. We decided to check under the bed. I lifed the mattress and she held the box like a shield to bat the squirrel away if it jumped out like things do in the movies. As soon as I lifted the mattress, I saw it. Dead. I ended up scooping it up with a snowshovel and putting in the box, which I taped securely enough that not even Houdini could have escaped.

I believe the squirrel came in through a hole in my son's wall. A hole that had been there for several years that his desk was sitting in front of. So...if it came in through the wall, that means that it was in my attic. I haven't heard or seen any more, but that doesn't mean that they're not there. I'm really not looking forward to setting traps and all that other stuff that goes along with removing these creatures from my life.

Have any live studio audience members ever had to deal with a situation like this?

This post was hand-crafted especially for you by Kevin at 6:29 PM | 8 of the live studio audience members commented already

Over the Thanksgiving ’06 holiday, I got into a disagreement with someone about the Borat movie. He asked if I saw it. I hadn’t but had seen many clips from it over the Interweb. He asked my opinion and I said that everything I had seen had me in hysterics. He then told me that he had read some of the controversy about the movie gone to see it, found it offensive, and ended up walking out. Well, that surprised me. Here’s a guy that listens to Howard Stern religiously. I just couldn’t fathom how he could be offended. So I asked.

He said that most of what he saw was pretty funny; things that Borat did, how he was interacting with people, saying racist and insulting things and the reactions of the people. But it was when Borat was at the rodeo and sang the “Kazakhstan National Anthem” that this guy got offended. He didn’t like the fact that Borat used The Star-Spangled Banner as the tune. He said that Borat was making fun of patriotism.

This is where the disagreement, which turned pretty heated, began. I said that I didn’t understand how he could find it offensive enough to walk out, when he was laughing right along with the movie up until that point. He just felt that it had crossed the line and was completely uncalled for, especially in the political climate that exists right now. So I wanted to know why it was OK for him to be laughing along with the all the racism and religion jokes, but draw the line when it comes to taking a jab at The National Anthem. He just felt that it wasn’t right and walked out of the movie.

I fired back with the idea that, if you go to this movie, knowing that there’s controversy about it, knowing that Borat is going to be satirically making fun of anything and everything, and laughing at Jew jokes, ethnic jokes, religious jokes, and anti-women attitudes…then you give up any right to be offended when he finally turns his sights on something YOU hold dear. You just gotta roll with it, take your licks like everyone else, and move on. YOU’RE not that special to be immune from it.

He said that was bullshit and that he has every right to be offended.

I stood my ground and said that when you willingly put yourself in a situation where you KNOW that “being offensive” is part of the show, it’s hypocritical to laugh at everything and then get upset when something you are or believe in is attacked.

Eventually, with the intervention of several other people, we agreed to disagree.

I told this story to several people at work the next week and was shocked that most everyone agreed with him. And I’m still being haunted by this argument. It came up again the other day when someone brought it up to me as we were discussing movies. This guy asked what I thought of the movie The Descent. I said I like it a lot, and jokingly added that all those girls would have probably died of hypothermia being 2 miles underground in the cave, wearing tank tops and shorts and getting soaked in the underground stream. Well, he used that as support that my argument about the Borat movie didn’t make any sense. “How can you say you both liked the movie and had a problem with it?”

::Sigh:: I then had to explain that it was a nitpick and it didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the movie. Also, I didn’t TURN OFF the movie and say it sucked because of that little “problem.” He said I was being inconsistent. I said the situations were completely different. He said that it sounded like I was the hypocrite.

What are your thoughts on the subject?

This post was hand-crafted especially for you by Kevin at 4:44 PM | 5 of the live studio audience members commented already

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This post was hand-crafted especially for you by Kevin at 1:49 AM | 8 of the live studio audience members commented already