Daily Ambivalence - I wonder if seeing a cloud that looks like a severed chicken head is a sign of the Apocalypse

I haven't read the Book of Revelations in a while so I'm not sure what that cloud up there means.

People get all bent out of shape about the Apocalypse but I'm pretty there can be things in the sky that are a sign of something else besides the end of the world.

Store openings, for instance.

Come to think of it, there is a new sunglasses kiosk opening in the mall this weekend. What that has to do with a severed chicken head is anyone's guess.

Seems like poor marketing to me.

I wonder if seeing a cloud that looks like a severed chicken head is a sign of the Apocalypse . . . eh.

Daily Ambivalence - Mexican drug lords

Sometimes I wonder if the leaders of Mexican drug cartels allow their kids to go trick-or-treating on Halloween. And if they do, I wonder if they take their kids to the store to buy costumes.

I mean, well, of course they take their kids to the store to buy costumes, so that being settled, the next question boils down to  costume choice.

If your dad is a Mexican drug lord and you lean towards science fiction, is it more likely that you will fall in the Star Wars camp or Star Trek camp? If fantasy, do you wear school robes on Halloween or elf ears? And if you want to go monster, is it 1930s Universal or scissor hands?

I don't know.

That's the one thing I can't figure out about Mexican drug lords.

Mexican drug lords . . . eh.

Next great American novel

This is a picture of the next great American novel being created.

Yeah, no bald spot yet

Daily Ambivalence - this potato salad has celery in it

The first thing you notice about the existence of celery in your potato salad is that celery is spelled with a "c" and not an "s."

The second thing you notice is that celery is a horrid, crunchy surprise lurking among your potatoes. The celery doesn't necessarily attack you, but it doesn't not attack you either. I'm no lawyer, but I'm sure there is some level of criminal molestation inherent in the unexpected crunch that accompanies celery in potato salad.

If a super genius invented an accurate measurement system that could tell you with absolute certainty which of these two properties of celery in potato salad was more egregious, which do you think it would be?

That is a trick question, of course. You could never create such an unbiased measurement system. Too many variables.

Still, it would be nice to know the answer.

Some nights I sneak into my backyard and stare up at the night sky. I can't see very many stars because I live in a city, but I have a good imagination so I imagine dozens of stars and then I think about questions such as this.

I'm kind of like Plato.

This potato salad has celery in it . . . eh.

In voices

I read the last post and got confused for a second because I thought I said writing in voices, which wouldn't make sense because voices are just sound produced by continuous and regular vibrations made by another human being's vocal chords, which to my knowledge isn't like an invoice at all. I got a real laugh when I realized my mistake, but then I remembered a post I once wrote about gum disease, which is no laughing matter, and that shut me right up real quick.

Daily Ambivalence - writing invoices

The thing about writing an invoice is that invoices typically reflect actual work that has been done, services provided, or items taken off a shelf.

Too bad an invoice can't be more like a best-selling novel or even a movie about a government cover up with aliens and a cute local bartender played by Sandra Bullock where she's down on her luck and poor but she has always been fascinated by molecular biology and she uses this knowledge to help the handsome thirty-something FBI agent who is single and who is sick of putting up with all the crap from his supervisors. Together they prevent an alien invasion using Bullock's radical theories on DNA. The movie ends at the bottom of an abandoned mine shaft where they kiss for the first time.

Invoices aren't like that though. They're just pieces of paper that say "I did something, pay me."

Writing invoices . . . eh.

There was that dream about prefabricated sheds

There was that dream about prefabricated sheds and the angry mob of Quakers who had come for a barn raising and isn't it funny how raising and razing sound the same when you pronounce them but they mean the complete opposite and I wonder how often people get confused and show up for a barn raising but then do something totally unexpected and looking at that from the outside seems the very definition of sitcom gold but I'll bet it's not funny to the farm animals who were looking forward to a little shelter this winter but there you are laughing because some guy pushed a button on a laugh track. You bastard.