A very unusual story and very amusing - I had to read it twice!
A Man and His Moose A True Story by Wendell Gee, Fourth Grader
Softly and silently, he crept into the car and drove to Westown Pharmacy. Little did he know I was in the car watching as he bought a mini Hallmark reindeer.
When he got home, he carefully took off the tags and called this poor reindeer “Herbie the Moose” (Maybe because this man works for the company with a moose!)
This is what this man and his moose did: they went in the car together and they walked around the house together, When they went in the car, Herbie was on the steering wheel or the dash. When they walked around the house, Herbie was on this man’s head.
When I bug him, he sends Herbie, his “attack moose” after me! Remember when Burger King was having their Herb ads? This man would make his Herb say, “Daddy! Daddy! They want me! They want me! Daddy, please bring me to Burger King so we can be $5,000 richer!” and this man would say “why would I only be $5,000 richer? I thought it was $10,000,” and Herbie would say, “I want half!”
When Herbie makes me mad, I send him flying! But, when that doesn’t work, I put him in some of these: freezer, sock/underwear drawer, the cellar, behind the couch, or in my puppy’s mouth.
When this man uses Herbie, I think he is getting senile early. Sometimes, he puts Herbie in front of a petrified cow turd and says Herbie is taking a poop!
This man I ought to know because he is my Dad.
footnotes:
The “company with a moose” logo. NOT a moose, btw…
Herb commercial
The best picture they have of him is one where he’s literally holding a bowling ball in front of his face… This was considered one of the biggest flops in marketing history, as the year-long campaign never caught on and nearly sunk Burger King altogether.
I am absolutely DYING at the video description. Also, upon reflection, I think the bowling ball thing is the inspiration for the #geeselfie tag I’m fond of using on the Book of Faces. (Don’t tell me advertising doesn’t work!)
The original
Dude, what the fuck was up with that handwriting?!?!?!
Also - that fucking cow turd.
He bought it somewhere as a random souvenir during a trip to Texas. That thing… wow. I haven’t seen it or thought of it in DECADES, but.
I can picture it perfectly.
Shall we say hashtag scarred for life? Because. Yeah. Abso-fucking-lutely.
The prednisone didn’t help at all. In fact, it looked like it made things worse.
The last straw, as it were, the sign we’d been begging him for, was the morning of the vet appointment. He was drinking water and assumed the poop position WHILE he was drinking. He realised what was happening and ran for the door, only to slip on the ceramic tile. He basically pooped where he landed and that was that. The look on his face said it all…
While there are definitely regrets - we didn’t catch it early enough, we didn’t do enough - I feel better knowing he’s not going to suffer any more. Supposedly, it wasn’t hurting him, but you could see his frustration.
It must be terrible to know your body is failing you and there’s nothing you can do about it.
So, we said goodbye to Guinness, our Guinney Pig, our moose, our beer, our asshole… our baby.
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We saw Океан Ельзи the Thursday after. While it was a good show, it wasn’t as good as the one we saw in NYC. I’m chalking part of that up to the fact that we sat in seats instead of hanging out in GA on the floor and part of it to mourning.
That leaves us with one band left, but we won’t see them until October. (OCTOBER!!!!!)
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I’d been moving on the treadmill every day since Feb 1st, and I broke my streak on Thursday.
In my defence, I had a pretty bad migraine, but it still sucks. I started over yesterday even though it sucked. It was my worst workout yet, and that’s saying a lot.
It was a perfect storm of dog’s death, dad’s 22nd anniversary, and what would have been my mother’s 77th birthday.
Not to mention work stress from the IT project from hell.
We’re “upgrading” our project management software with a group of programmers in India.
And it is not going well.
They can’t do a simple upgrade since we’re going from Windows 7 / CRM 2011 to Windows 10 / Dynamics 365.
They also can’t build a report or take simple instruction.
It has been the most frustrating thing about my job to date, and that’s saying something… I mean, the woman I replaced made my life a living hell for the three months she hung around to train me. God, she was a nasty piece of work.
Next weekend, we’re decompressing with a trip to Disney. Well, I’m hoping it will be more relaxing than heading to the parks on a runDisney race weekend… but we’ll see.
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I am really hating being left alone while the hubby plays hockey three nights a week. The house feels different without a pet in it.
And I’m not counting my squirrel buddy, although they kept me company ALL FUCKING NIGHT last night.
The damn thing managed to bust through one of the soffit vents in a place that is practically impossible for a human to access. And, that is, for once, not a complete and utter exaggeration. Neither is the fact that they kept me company in the bathroom, in my office, and in the living room. You can hear them in the ceiling when they get really active. I suppose we should be happy it’s not a fucking lizard. I’m use to squirrels and mice in the house.
Mind you, I like to watch a lot of horror movies when I’m fucking around on the computer, so the first few times I heard them, I freaked the fuck out. There’s a bunch of horror movies about previous owners who refuse to leave their houses and stalk the new residents, and we get a lot of mail for the previous residents even though we’ve been here for like 5 years. So… not a huge stretch for my overactive imagination.
Anyhoo, a dog is off the menu. I was thinking about getting a rabbit, but that was shot down. I’ve decided that we’ll get a cat. Maybe two… but not until Memorial Day weekend.
It’s been a long month already, and we’re only seven days into May.
Marathon Weekend registration was this past Tuesday and apparently sold out in record time.
I was sitting in the neurologist’s office with my husband asking about options… but I’d already decided against trying Dopey again.
Right now, I don’t have the interest in running a marathon. 6 hours of running isn’t really what I want to do right now, and I doubt I’ll ever get fast enough to cut that time down.
So, I passed.
I did register for Wine & Dine, though. I think if I start training in earnest now, and maybe follow some of the Dopey / Wine & Dine rD training plans, I’ll be fine with the half marathon.
I need to redeem myself for the crappy runs I’ve had lately…
I have been pretty good about putting in some miles every day, though. They may not be quality miles, but they are miles.
I even started doing a lot of iFit workouts that are hilly or walking intervals, so I’m getting some variety in.
I’m doing the Space Coast South Half Marathon this Thanksgiving, and that should be fun. The South course has no time limit and I’m going for the experience - mostly because some of my favourite Dopeys are going.
I’m at peace with my decision, but I’m having massive FOMO this weekend (Springtime Surprise) because I love the medals and theming, but by the time I decided I wanted to do it, it was sold out.
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In other news, I’m writing my first original piece of fiction in a long time. (AND it’s het!!!! Yeah. I don’t know where that came from either.) It’s a wee bit autobiographical, but I got inspired by reading these absolutely terrible books about women who work for sports teams.
I’m four chapters in, and it’s getting there. It’s a totally shitty first draft. I mean, really shitty first draft, but it’s a nice break from throuples and soulmates and statutory rape. (Wow. I write the full spectrum, don’t I?)
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As if I don’t have enough hobbies I’m ignoring, I’ve decided to learn how to crochet.
So… that’s knitting, counted cross stitch, scrapbooking, sewing, photography, web design, and a few others that I have all this stuff for, but will probably do nothing with.
I should really do a photo dump here… I made a friend at the Ft Lauderdale half and the concerts have been amazing, but I don’t have the energy.
I know I should be scheduling Ukrainian lessons, but I don’t have the energy.
I know I should be doing… anything but I don’t have the energy.
I’m very obviously depressed, but having to watch a beloved family member deteriorate in front of your eyes will do that to you.
It turns out he tested negative for DM (but may be one of the 2% affected by it and doesn’t have the carrier gene for it), but it could be a spinal tumour or a herniated disk. It’s $5,000 for a doggy MRI… and then, he’d probably need surgery to fix either issue. He’s 12. I’m not putting him through all that… and as much as I love and will do anything for him, let’s be honest. It’s stupid to spend that much on him. It’s not going to increase his quality of life and I don’t want him to spend whatever time he has left dealing with the repercussions of those decisions.
We’ve got him on prednisone, but it’s a temporary fix.
We’ve bought some time, but I don’t know how much.
pro tip: wash the car windows before going to a drive-thru safari
So.
I don’t know how to say it, so I’m just going to drop it here:
Guinness has been diagnosed with Degenerative Myelopathy.
When he was diagnosed with arthritis in his hips, it was expected. He’s a 12 year old, German Shepherd. Bad hips are a fact of life.
What was not expected was going to see a canine neurologist and having to listen to her tell me that we should really think about putting him to sleep.
The Zest Legacy, 2nd Generation: Bryce and Nathan Richardson
I don’t make it a secret amongst friends that I retreat into video games when the world becomes too much.
I’m probably a year into hardcore playing the Sims again. I cycle in and out of the Sims because the game gets boring, but this might be the longest I’ve been in deep.
All that to say, the new Sims expansion pack is really frosting my cookies.
Let’s start with the size and scope of the expansion pack: Growing Together is a complete overhaul of generational gameplay.
They’ve reorganised the social pie menus. Added a whole new life state (infants). Changed the way Sims interact with different personality markers. A memory system of sorts.
I’ve only been playing with it today because it took me most of yesterday to update my mods. (I have a metric fuck ton of custom content and mods. WAAAAAAAAY too many.)
The Sims team practically rewrote huge chunks of code to shoehorn infants into the base game and then added even more into gameplay by adding the new expansion pack.
Let’s also add the fact that the base game is now free so there are more players using mods.
There are several major mod tech support Discord servers and, from what I can gather, they are shutting down for a few days because of the amount of abuse the volunteers are getting.
A change this large has broken every single mod I have. I knew it would. I was expecting it to.
Mod developers have been SHOUTING to remove their mods and to make sure they were updated before you put them back into your game.
Yet, people don’t pay attention. It’s easier to let the game get completely destroyed and then bitch in the support servers.
I haven’t seen anything this ugly in a long time.
It’s a fucking video game. A buggy video game which (I think) is almost completely unplayable without mods now.
I love my mods, and yes, it is a major pain in the ass to manage them but I made the choice to play with them, and that’s something *I* need to deal with.
Screaming at the person who has spent hours making the things I can’t live without, KNOWING that they’re not getting anything from EA for fixing the game, doesn’t accomplish anything except making the modders quit…
But… dealing with the fallout from that isn’t bad enough.
Nope.
Apparently, if you live in Ukraine, your version of the Sims is geolocked. If you want the new expansion pack, you’re screwed.
They get language choices of Czech, Polish, or Russian. No English language version at all.
But, wait, there’s more!
If you live in Ukraine, you can only pay for your game using rubles.
RUBLES.
This is problematic for two reasons:
1) The hryvnia is the official currency of Ukraine.
2) Russian rubles are not allowed to be used in Ukraine thanks to the invasion.
Apparently, Ukrainian Simmers are reaching out to EA and complaining about those things.
And EA is constantly deleting the forum posts, shutting them down, and otherwise ignoring them.
This makes me so fucking cranky.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrr
But, aren’t my Sims up there adorable? They’re from my favourite legacy to date.
THAT I CANNOT PLAY WITH BECAUSE EA BROKE MY MODS.
I started a new save file because I don’t want to destroy my boys and their kids. Once everything is up to date, I’ll go back to them.
And while I’m impatient, I’m certainly not going to go to Discord and scream at people.
