. . . to share some trivia about me from The Mechanical Contrivium:

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Bill!

1. Ideally, Bill should be stored on his side at a temperature of 55 degrees.
2. Julius Caesar wore a laurel wreath to cover up Bill.
3. Antarctica is the only continent without Bill.
4. In Vermont, the ratio of cows to Bill is 10:1!
5. Bill was named after Bill the taxi driver in Frank Capra's 'It's a Wonderful Life'!
6. The Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter is made entirely of Bill.
7. It's bad luck for a flag to touch Bill.
8. The international dialling code for Bill is 672!
9. When provoked, Bill will swivel the tip of his abdomen and shoot a jet of boiling chemicals at his attacker!
10. The water in oceans is four times less salty than the water in Bill.

As seen on Thinklings, the lost ending to my favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life:

Not anymore, bucko. I just found out how much this blog is worth. Pretty good for only having three readers.

Tonight I went to CVS to buy some dental floss.

I also came this close to buying the CD Incense and Peppermints from the Strawberry Alarm Clock.

It was only four bucks. And it occurred to me that I may never have another chance to pick up such great tracks as Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow or Birds in my Tree. It also features that great hippy-skat classic, Good Morning Starshine.

The earth says hello!

I, wisely, decided to just pay for my dental floss and go.

I'll bet you've never been asked to be a pancake stacker in a pancake stacking contest to celebrate the opening of a new bank. Go figure.

Grand Prize: $1,000, to go to the organization I represent, which is the singles class Jill and I will soon be teaching. We just found out about this tonight.

The pressure's on. I have to stack those pancakes higher than anyone else. Or my co-stacker, Justin, has to. There have to be two people on a team, but only one can touch the pancakes.

What a weird rule.

Justin hurt his back yesterday, pretty badly, and so he explained all this to me tonight on the pancake-stacking recruitment phone call while tripping on Vicadin. It's not clear to me which one of us will actually be doing the stacking. Hopefully him, as he's a chef in real life and thus should be the more food-friendly member of the team.

Cowabunga!

Inspiration for new posts has temporarily left me. Thankfully, Bob has posted this: The Night the Llama Peed in Church.

I find llamas funny in all cases, ever since I watched The Emperor's New Groove. Combine that with this all-too familiar story of the well-intentioned but not always well-executed Christmas "pageant", and Bob's got a hit! :-)

A small orchestra was even cobbled together for the occasion. Balky farm animals, fat guys in vaguely Roman-soldier-ish attire, and tuxedoed musicians surrounded the sacred space that was the altar. We in the congregation, our disbelief cheerfully suspended, each year tucked another Christmas Eve service under our belt, proud of our "realistic" show.

Anyway, as I say, there were sheep, a small pony, and a seriously recalcitrant llama. Year after year we watched this ritualized homage to 1st century squalor, heard the monotonous intoning of Isaiah 9, etc. And yet the single "moment" that dominates our memory of these times, Laurie's and mine, was the year the llama peed on the floor. Yes, the stream was so steady, so extended, so vigorous and yet so non-chalant, and meanwhile all the actors so determined not to notice, even while the less disciplined children and adults in the audience/congregation sniggered with barely-restrained glee . . .

Well, it sticks in my memory. Afterward, some of the elders said, "Never again, no more animals in the sanctuary." But the pastor, since it was all his idea from the first, argued that the urinating llama added verisimilitude. I don't know about that. All I know is, all the other Christmas-eve services I've ever attended have blended together into one single tableau in my mind's eye. There are it seems, in that picture, all the children I have ever known, some with cardboard wings on their backs, some dressed as Roman soldiers reading proclamations from clumsy scrolls, and others as Mary and Joseph, beaming over a cherubic baby-Jesus. The music of the orchestra swells, and then there is a brief dramatic pause before the final flourish, intended as a moment of reverent silence, but this time all we can hear is the loud drizzle of the llama's indefatigable stream.

Thank you, Lord, for so memorably puncturing our seasonal pieties. My prayer this morning is that this Christmas, you do it again.

Out of the Bloo
n. complicated acronym, meaning LSD.
"What small Out of the Bloo you have, kid."

Bill
n. a colourful or unpleasant girl.
"Want to slap that Bill, Billie?"

This is pretty cool. It's the Dynamic Einstein Image Generator.



Well, that explains everything. Now, what happens as the time until the next release of Bloo approaches infinity?

[Hat Tip: Jessica's Well]