So, you wanna work for the TSA?

This Web page will give you a chance to see how well you'd do if you were a baggage screener at an airport.
Hopefully, if you work for the TSA, you do better than I did.

I also found this ...

Another old favorite from my early teenage years ..

I am not a Twit; Neither am I Tweeting

I have noticed my blog posts follow a trend: they are getting shorter and shorter. Still, I refuse to start using Twitter.

Look what I found ...

He he he he he he he.

New links! New links!

I added some new links to the links page. Here's a brief rundown:

1. WAKY 103.5 FM: Simply my favorite Louisville radio station. Classic rock with a classic radio station feel. They DJs make me feel like they are talking to me, and not purveyors of corporate crap. Plus, they play songs a few tracks deep into an album, meaning you get to hear things you don't on other stations. They stream online, too.

2. The Grand Comic Database: Worth checking out, although it doesn't look like a finished project. It reminds me of Baseball-Reference.com, in that the site is compiling a list of all the comics ever published. Here's how they put it: The Grand Comic-Book Database Project (GCD) is a volunteer project with the goal of documenting and indexing all comics for the free use of scholars, historians, researchers, and fans. I don't have a membership yet, but I may well sign on.

3. Smithsonian Folkways: Looking for some great recordings to peruse and download? There's music, spoken word, sound effects, animal sounds and all kinds of other stuff from all over the world. I'd say, however, their primary focus is folk music, and there's a lot of Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly-type music for your pleasure. Here's how they say it: Smithsonian Folkways Recordings is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution, the national museum of the United States. We are dedicated to supporting cultural diversity and increased understanding among peoples through the documentation, preservation, and dissemination of sound.

Serial cereal blogging

Today, it was Frosted Mini Wheats.
Last week, I had CoCo Wheats several times.
I have had a persistent desire for good grits lately, though.

Blogging: No editor, fewer revisions

I just had to post something about my last post. I stand by the ideas behind it, but it shows that the immediacy of the Internet may not always be good for clarity of execution.

As I re-read the post, I discovered that I had left out a sentence that should have been present, and I broke the paragraphs up incorrectly. Or, at least, I broke them up in a way that's not as clear for the reader as I intended.

Here it is again, with the changes in italics:

Every now and then, I finish eating and the waitress brings me a credit card bill to sign with a pen from another restaurant.
Signing a bill in one restaurant with a pen from another always makes me laugh a little bit.
(New paragraph) However, if I owned a restaurant, I sure as heck would not want to be advertising somebody else in my own eatery.
What would I do? For what it's worth, here is my contribution to restaurant marketing.
Firstly, I'd confiscate all the pens I could find from other restaurants.
Secondly, I'd buy a whole bunch of cheap promotional pens with my restaurant's name and address on them. (Eliminate a paragraph break.) I'd make sure every customer had one of these pens to sign his credit card receipt.
On a side-note, I'd also encourage patrons to keep the pens in hopes they would use them to sign their bills at other restaurants.

There. Isn't that better? Amazing what looking at something after a couple days will do for you.

Negative advertising

Every now and then, I finish eating and the waitress brings me a credit card bill to sign and hands me a pen from another restaurant.
While it always makes me laugh a little bit, if I owned a restaurant, I sure as heck would not want to be advertising somebody else's place.
Firstly, I'd take away all her pens.
Secondly, I'd buy a whole bunch of cheap promotional pens with my restaurant's name and address on them.
I'd make sure every customer had one of these pens to sign his credit card receipt. I'd also encourage patrons to keep the pens and use them to sign their bills at other restaurants.

Groo-vy (but a little late)

The second issue of the new Groo series is out, but I just found a prequel at MySpace Dark Horse Presents. I should have never stopped linking to those issues, doggone it.
(For some reason that link is going to the current issues of DHP, so you'll have to look for issue 28, which was last month's installment, to find the Groo story. Sorry. It's still worth it.)
Here's a preview of the first couple of pages of issue 2.

25th Anniversary Usagi stuff!

Aren't these cool? They are statues of the Usagi Yojimbo characters. From Roku Toys.
They are awfully expensive, at $89 apiece and $399 for the set.
Here's the PR material:
Star Wars Master Sculptor, Tony McVey sculpted these highly detailed polystone statues in time to celebrate the 25th year anniversary of Usagi Yojimbo. This eagerly anticipated line of statues is sure to delight fans of all ages.
Unfortunately, they were delayed and won't start shipping until January:
Yes, we know it's a drag and we're very, very sorry for the delay. Due to unforeseen manufacturing circumstances, the release of the "Usagi Yojimbo - Series One" collection will be delayed until January, 2010.
Here are some more preview images.
If the statues cost too much for you, go buy some of the comics. "Usagi" is one of my favorite comic books.
Also in celebration of the 25th anniversary, Stan Sakai wrote a fully painted a new graphic novel, called "Yokai." Yours for a little less than $11 on Amazon.com. Here's some preview art.

NFL Head-to-Head (Another Weak Week)

It's underdog week! We are picking underdogs this week:

Dave:
Bengals over Vikings
Panthers over Patriots
Bonus Pick: Navy beats Army

Me:
Chargers over Cowboys
Bears over Packers
Bonus Pick: Mangini keeps his job another week.

Browns beat Steelers (Random thoughts about last night's game)

Been a while since we could say that, eh?
I went to bed with the Browns winning 3-0, figuring it would be all downhill from there. I assumed the Steelers would pancake the obviously inferior team from Cleveland.
I remember thinking, as the kick that put them ahead 3-0 went through the uprights, "Is this the first time all year they have held a lead?"
I wish I had stayed up to watch the rest.
Brady Quinn didn't look all that good, only passing for 90 yards, but the defense looked a lot better than the offense.
If the Browns had played like that more often, Eric Mangini might have a job at the end of the season. Maybe if they finish like that, he still will.
Josh Cribbs may be the best player the Browns have had since they returned. Maybe he's the best since Bernie Kosar retired.

OK, I have been VERY Lax about this lately ...

.. also very busy.

But, that's no excuse!