Tom and I have been discussing canceling our cable. After a long discussion, we determined our DVR is currently set to record three different kinds of programs:

1. Programs we like (10%)
2. Programs we watch when there’s nothing else to watch (15%)
3. Programs we thought the other person liked so we sit through them and pretend to be happy about it (75%)

To make matters worse, if we want to watch a show on our 1980’s tv, we have to warm it up for 15 minutes before it works. The damn thing is on its last legs and we’re waiting for it to die before we cough up the money for another one. As of this moment, no dice. Like Joan Rivers, it keeps hanging on.

More and more, we are turning to Netflix streaming. It’s free with our current subscription (it’s $10 a month or something), we can watch a multitude of shows that are almost immediately available to watch (takes 1 – 2 minutes to upload), and we can watch it up in the computer room on something that doesn’t need a warm up. My favorite thing about Netflix streaming is that I can watch a lot of British comedy, which Tom and I love. British humor seems a little offbeat to the average American, but I guess after so much Monty Python and Red Dwarf, it’s perfect for us.

Our current favorite is a show of sketch comedy, called “That Mitchell and Webb Look”. A lot of their different skits are recurring themes. One is nonsensical game show called “Numberwang” where the same two contestants appear in every single show, and they just spout out random numbers for no reason. At random times, the host will shout “That’s numberwang!” No one knows what any of it means, and that’s because it means nothing — and that’s what’s so funny about it.

Numberwang, episode 1:

The other clip I attached is a recurring theme they do about Nazis (the Brits love doing comedy about Nazis for some reason). In their Nazi-themed skits, the characters always change, but the general idea is the same.

Mitchell & Webb Nazis:

If you have Netflix, or if you happen to see this at your local movie rental, check it out!

The second time around it seemed… funny… almost poignant in some strange, adumbrated way.

That night, I woke at 3:00am and tossed and turned for a good half hour before I started to pray. While I was praying, I realized I hadn’t fully given up the worship ministry in my heart and needed to do so. So I prayed about it. It was a quick prayer, nothing fancy — no bells or whistles, no trumpets of angels or anything odd that signified it was done. In fact, when it was all over I just felt “okay”. I can’t even say I was at peace about it; it was just one of those things I knew I had to do simply because I was being asked to. So I turned it in, like the badge and gun of a seasoned cop. A done deal. After that, I knew Sunday was the end of worship for me, even though a replacement worship leader hadn’t come forward. I had faith that something was going to happen.

And it did. Church was really weird yesterday and I can’t explain why. I mean, I know why it was weird, I’m just not sure I could put it into words. You’re just going to have to trust me that the whole thing was weird. The worship service was just… the strangest one I’ve ever done, not to mention the shortest. Everyone was distracted for one reason or another, myself included. People were coming in and out, totally late (per usual) and I found it a lot more distracting than I typically do. And there was this guy — when he came in, there was a group of people in back who were really excited to see him and it added to the distraction. When he came up for communion, along with everyone else, for some reason I happened to look up when he was near my piano and I realized that for some inexplicable reason I was smiling, and oddly enough, he was looking at me and smiling — we were both grinning at each other like idiots. Why the hell were we smiling? I don’t even know. Then I went back to the worship set thinking just how weird that was. It was all just weird, man.

I ended worship early because I was so distracted. Afterward, I confided in a good friend of mine, Yvonne, what had happened the night before and that I knew worship was going to be resolved that day. She said she’d be praying.

Sure enough, an hour after I got home, I got a call from my pastor saying someone had come forward and said that they felt that the worship was something they were supposed to do.

My response: So when do they start????

No start date yet, but I’m praying it’s ASAP. I still have the Christmas Eve service to do on Thursday which is fine (I guess). I’m ready for change in a really strange way… Now I’m ready for the next step, though I’m not really sure what that means.

Full of win.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Asks the wife.

“They’re on sale, only $10 for 24 cans,” he replies.

“Put them back, we can’t afford them,” demands the wife, and so they carry on shopping.

A few aisles further on along the woman picks up a $20 jar of face cream and puts it in the basket.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Asks the husband.

“Its my face cream. It makes me look beautiful,” replies the wife.

Her husband retorts, “So does 24 cans of Budweiser and it’s half the price.”

Tonight, my boss is participating in a Q&A session. The director who is coordinating this event asked, via her assistant, to find out what my boss, as well as a VP who is also participating in the event, might like as a thank you gift. They asked for our bosses’ hobbies, and asked for a little help in what a humorous gift might be.

The other admin emailed back first about her boss. She says:

She likes unique things. A good sense of hummer and is very unorganized!

When I was done crying from laughter, I sent her back a private note saying, “I’m fairly certain you meant HUMOR.”

Update: She emailed me back with this little gem:

oh gosh yes….ha-ha sorry about that…I really do not like hummers.

That’s more personal information than I wanted, but thanks for sharing.

Yeah, and unfortunately I don’t have any screenshots. As I said earlier, I’ve been wanting to play some new games and have been tinkering around with a few others. Inexplicably, I loaded up Hellgate again. And every day, Tom would say, “Oh, so you’re playing that game that you hate?”

Yep.

So I made another sword chick and started chopping up post-apocalyptic London. Her name: SnoCone. (Pink Cupcake was taken by another toon, so I had to go with SnoCone.) Things were going relatively well for an entire 30 levels — yes, I was level 30! Then I got to the final “Test” quest, where you take control of an obnoxiously inept robot and blast your way through a street. When you get the robot to the end of the street, regardless of whether or not you killed anything at all in your path, you win, hooray.

Only I was so annoyed with said inept robot that I clicked the option to exit the robot and restart the quest. I ended up back at the beginning of the street, out of the robot. And that was fine except that I HAD NO BODY. No matter what I did, I had no body. I was just a mindless essence floating around, unable to do anything. I couldn’t even get into the portal. So I quit out of the game and when I came back… My quest log showed I was in the middle of the quest and NOTHING would let me get back into the robot, because apparently the game thought I was still inside the robot. I killed everything on my own and ran to the end of the street, stood in the portal where the robot is supposed to go… Nothing. Needless to say, this is one of those disastrous, show-stopping bugs that the game was so widely criticized for.

So I did the desperate thing that you know you are absolutely NOT supposed to do (I don’t even know why they make it an allowable option): I abandoned the main story quest line.

Which abandoned everything I had done up until that point. There is no way to get the original quest back, because the original quest line begins in a small training area that is closed off once you leave the area.

Level 30! No way to progress the game any further!!! What a piece of crap!!!!!! And you know what the worst part of all is????

I started a new swordmaster named SlapChop.

You’re right, you’re right. I should have named her MissParsley.

“A First Grade school teacher had twenty-six students in her class. She presented each child in her classroom the 1st half of a well-known proverb and asked them to come up with the remainder of the proverb. It’s hard to believe these were actually done by first graders. Their insight may surprise you. While reading, keep in mind that these are first-graders, 6-year-olds, because the last one is a classic!”

Here they are — the first graders’ additions are italicized.

1. Don’t change horses until they stop running.
   
2. Strike while the bug is close.
   
3. It’s always darkest before Daylight Saving Time…
   
4. Never underestimate the power of termites.
   
5. You can lead a horse to water but how?
   
6. Don’t bite the hand that looks dirty.
   
7. No news is impossible.
   
8. A miss is good as a Mr.
   
9. You can’t teach an old dog new Math.
   
10. If you lie down with dogs, you’ll stink in the morning.
    
11. Love all, trust me.
    
12. The pen is mightier than the pigs.
    
13. An idle mind is the best way to relax.
    
14. Where there’s smoke there’s pollution.
    
15. Happy the bride who gets all the presents.
    
16. A penny saved is not much.
    
17. Two’s company, three’s the Musketeers.
    
18. Don’t put off till tomorrow what you put on to go to bed.
    
19. Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and you have to blow your nose.
    
20. There are none so blind as Stevie Wonder.
    
21. Children should be seen and not spanked or grounded.
    
22. If at first you don’t succeed get new batteries.
    
23. You get out of something only what you see in the picture on the box.
    
24. When the blind lead the blind get out of the way.
    
25. A bird in the hand is going to poop on you.
    
26. Better late than pregnant.
    

“I love Monopoly – just putting it out there.”