I just posted my annual year in review, quixotic.land/year-in-r…
Just posted my year in review. quixotic.land/year-in-r…
2020 Review Complete. My annual descent into self-reference and humble-bragging is posted 2 full days before the year actually ends, tempting fate in a really dumb way. quixotic.land/year-in-r…
The Deserved Punch
(Originally from my 40th birthday set of posts, 8 years ago now)
The trivia question on screen, before the movie started, was, “What classic 216 minute film features no women with speaking roles?”
I said, “I don’t know, but I bet it was a damn fine film!” This caused my not-date to be faux-offended. It turns out, the film is Lawrence of Arabia. So, I was right, it is a damn fine film. When she protested, I made her a bet, she couldn’t go 216 minutes without talking. $10. She accepted. It was about 5 minutes before the 2 hour long movie we were going to see started, so she spent it charading whatever she wanted to say. Most charades begin with middle fingers, right?
About 15 minutes into the film, she moves in her seat, bumps my arm, and says, “Sorry.” Then immediately gasps, realizing she just lost the bet. She begins frantically miming, holding up 2 fingers, then making a O with her fingers. So, we go double or nothing. And I try not to laugh loud enough to disrupt the other movie goers.
Eventually the movie ends, she’s still charading everything she wants to say. I suggest we go across the street for ice cream. It’s really obvious we’re goofing off to anyone that sees us. We can’t stop laughing, she’s constantly trying to get me to guess what she’s signing. When we get into the ice cream parlor, I announce I have to go to the restroom and tell her to order. She shoots daggers out her eyes at me. When I come out, she’s actually ordered, and the guy at the cash register is laughing too. He told her she could talk, and he wouldn’t tell, but she didn’t. I think the menu had numbers, so ordering wasn’t too hard.
So now we’re sitting out on one of the few heavily foot trafficked roads in Louisville (Bardstown Road), eating our ice cream with another 30 minutes or so to go in the now risk free bet for me. She decides to start telling me something via charades again, and I just start blurting out random things. I remember, “An Elephant! With a Hat!” At this point, she gets the giggles. The absurdity of the scene is pretty apparent to everyone around. Her giggles start making other people laugh. She’s trying to not actually make noise as she’s giggling. And then, the inevitable. A loud, clear “stinky cheese”, “trouser trumpet”, “mouse on a motorcycle” escapes from her. The look of horror on her face is priceless. I would gladly have paid the bet right then and there. The laugh was worth so much more than $10.
But, she was adamant. She wasn’t going to do it. There would be NO talking from her until the clock ticked the 216th minute. I was driving when that minute ticked by, and she punched me, hard. Called me an asshole and then laughed some more.
Hux had his toe worked on today. It looks so much better and will help him with walking more than a block.
Coming home to dogs happy to see me after a long day of work almost made the first long day back to work worth it.
Did my annual year in review, posted as a ‘page’ on my micro.blog (https://quixotic.land/year-in-review/). When trying to merge 2018 into the old one, discovered pages have a 64K limit. So 2018 is broken out separately.
September ended here in Louisville, KY with 0.04" of rain. It’s 96 degrees today. I keep thinking about my racist uncle who spent 5 minutes ranting about Global Warming being a lefty lie, then said, “But it did snow more when we were kids”
We really live in a magical age of consumption. Over the last week or so, I’ve seen 🎥📺 The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Schitt’s Creek, Russian Doll. Finished up Kimmy Schmidt. I ain’t made or built or contributed squat over that time, but I sure have been entertained.
This is a mighty strange boxscore. 🏀
- Every Celtics bench player has a positive +/- (double digits!)
- The Lakers hit a higher pct from 3 than regular shots, and that’s higher that FT
- Lebron is 1-5 on Free throws
“Humor is what happens when we’re told the truth quicker and more directly than we’re used to.” — George Saunders (The Braindead Megaphone, p80) 📚
“Our minds are not marble sculptures, they’re a campfire boiling a couple of pints of mud in a bone bucket. " - 📚 Gnomon by Nick Harkaway (I noted the page it was on (285), but not the character that said it, sorry)
I woke 90 minutes early today. Came to the office at 6am. Set up a Ray LaMontagne playlist on spotify. I can be here, but I can lament my life choices that led me here, damn it.
My wife’s gramma (89) does Christmas late. And she does it up right. Today really featured food, a lot of loud people in small quarters, magnificent weather and this lovely lady sitting out in the porch. 🐸👵🏻🌲🎁
Pre-ordered the complete Binti trilogy off of Amazon. Now I need to schedule a trip to the locally owned bookstore to atone. 📚
Cleared out my instagram queue. Erased or archived 99% of my gmail. Backed up my data drives. Sometimes I can be a grown up.
For the last 9 years I’ve written and shared an annual review, This year’s is done - quixotic.land/year-in-r… I also threw all the other ones into one giant markdown document here - quixotic.land/previous-… (not all opinions survive the march of time)
