I need to learn to swear in Hindi, Pashtu, Urdu, and Chinese.  It would help me to get my point across.

Stepping into a hot shower while still drowsy and stepping on a wet, lifesize, silicone rubber frog that squishes under your foot just like the real thing is better than a cup of coffee.

Not as good as a bat with a nicotine habit, but it does the trick.

Apparently suggesting that Irish Woman take a vow of silence for Lent was not such a hot idea after all.

You know what sucks about being a former Intel weenie?  Not being able to explain to your wife why you’re interested in some weird detail in the news or why some things in the “Today in History” column piss you off.

Don’t even get me started on why I can’t watch the first 15 minutes of “Hunt for Red October” where Sean Connery is speaking Russian.

• Really, George Lucas?  You added a sub scene in the re-release of “The Phantom Menace” where JarJar calls Amidala ‘hot’?  And he was speaking to a 9 year old Anakin?  Yeah, nothing creepy about that.
• Taking Boo to a local establishment with video games, ticket prizes, blow-up confidence courses, and a two story inflatable slide may have been my best idea ever.  He was would wound up like a cheap watch after we got home, but he was asleep at 7:30 precisely and I haven’t heard a peep out of him yet.
• Taking a full-on face plant off of the end of the two story slide might be nature’s way of telling you that it’s time to go eat some pizza.*
• I think Boo is going into a growth spurt.  At the restaurant, he ate three chicken fingers, a handful of corn chips, a quesadilla, and half a large pepperoni pizza washed down with a large glass of milk.  When we got home, he complained he was hungry.  I shudder at the thought of the teenage years.
• Next time I take Boo there, I have to make sure I’m not on pager support, because it would have been a lot more fun if I’d been able to take advantage of the well-stocked bar.
• Boo and Girlie Bear won enough tickets playing games to win a pen shaped like a flamingo and a dinosaur filled with silicone gel that you could squeeze and make bubbles with.  I thought that was kind of neat until I realized how much money I’d given Girlie Bear to entertain herself and that these two pieces of soft rubber kitch were all she had to show for it.
• Taking a vacuum to a dog might not be the most fun thing I and Shadow have ever done together, but it’s more effective than using the leaf blower to gather up all of the hair.  Guess it’s going to be an early spring, because I could knit a litter of puppies out of what we swept up the other night.
• Went out and laid out the spring project of moving everything on the north end of the back yard to the south end and everything on the south end to the north end with Irish Woman.  I started to object on some of the details, but held my tongue.  It’s easier that way, and I now have plausible deniability.
• Irish Woman put out bird feed this morning, and our front porch looked like something out of “The Birds”.  I’m not looking forward to cleaning that sidewalk.

To wives and sweethearts!   May they never meet!

• It’s really nice waking up to the whole family in the house.
• I’m really going to miss having the bed to myself.
• If it ain’t raining, it ain’t training!
• Flash-bang grenades are actually pretty cool when you’re not in the room into which they’re being tossed.
• Ricochets don’t hurt as much as direct hits.  Not to say they don’t hurt, just not as bad.
• The muzzle of a 12 gauge shotgun is amazingly huge when it is pointed at your face from across the room, with the owner taking up slack on the trigger, even when your brain is screaming “It’s only loaded with wax shot!”.
• It is amazing how compliant you become when said shotgun is pointed at you and the owner is screaming “Get on the ground!”.
• Luckily, I wasn’t the one who had his clothes cut off of him so the medics could practice treating wounds.  I had a pretty ugly head wound.
• Fake blood takes a lot of work to get off of your skin.  Baby wipes just make it so it’s not drippy.  I can’t wait to try to get it out of my clothes.
• Going into the Stop-n-Stab for a soda on the way home with your hands, clothes, and face dirty with mud and fake blood gets you some really interesting stares.
• Artillery simulators be loud.
• You know you’ve matured when you know better than to even ask if you can go out and get shot at for fun on the evening of Valentine’s Day.
• I will always own a home with a fireplace.  Coming home, cleaning up, and lighting a fire made me feel a lot less old and cold.
• Having a wife who cares enough to have a pot of hot chili and a pan of cornbread waiting for you is worth her weight in diamonds.

Does anyone else wonder if Alec Guinness and James Earl Jones had payments to ex-wives or bookies that forced them to sign on with George Lucas to make Star Wars?  I really enjoy the first movie that came out in the ’70’s, but you have to admit it’s not exactly the Royal Shakespeare Company or The Bridge Over the River Kwai.