A little girl was singing to herself on a bench next to her mother.
-- Will you stop doing that.
-- Tra-la-la, tra-la-la. Doing what?
-- That.
-- What?
-- Your tra-la-laing is driving me nuts.
-- Maybe that's why I'm doing it.
-- You're trying to piss me off?
-- Tra-la-la.
-- You're a terrible child.
-- Nah-uh. Tra-la-la, tra-la-la.
-- Trust me, my little annoying one. The next time we come to the mall it won't be your father buggering off to go look at hunting equipment while I sit here with you driving me insane, no, while I'm having a glorious shopping experience and not thinking of you two at all, it will be him sitting here suffering a meltdown after listening to your incessant tra-la-las and then he will be the one fantasizing about a divorce and lost custody just for a little peace and quiet.
-- Whatever. Tra-la-la.
May 2, 2014
Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature. Unaware that the Nature he is destroying is this God he is worshipping. -- Hubert Reeves
May 3, 2014
This photo was taken just after a customer had informed chef Marco that his baked ziti sucked and he was going to Yelp it.
Me thinks the marketing people for this security firm should get better copywriters. In their literature was this twisted gem:
Malcolm had a lot of time on his hands and pretty soon began to think that the lonely guy down the street could be a serial killer. Instead of buying our security suite to protect himself and his family, Malcolm ratted him out to Scotland Yard. For the next three months the authorities put the lonely guy through the security state apparatus and made his life a living hell. It turns out he was just lonely and hadn't killed anyone until the idea of doing that to Malcolm started to sound pretty good. Coincidence?
Buy our security suite and protect yourselves against snitches like Malcolm!
May 5, 2014
Spent half an hour with the plumber this morning discussing a leak in the water line to our barn. It was a wide ranging talk from how deep to how far to how old to how much. Then he left. That's all that's happened. Anything interesting going on with you?
His neighbors were less than pleased when Marty built himself a runway on the roof of his house and had commercial jets landing there at all hours of the day and night. In a TV interview Marty said, "Look, I'm an entrepreneur. I saw that my house was 30 minutes closer to town than was the airport, so I came up with a way for folks to cut their ground transportation time in half. It was just a hunch. I installed runway 15L and the rest is history." But what about the complaints of his neighbors - the deafening noise, the scalding hot exhausts, the pervasive stench of jet fuel and the people coming and going at all hours of the day and night? "They're just jealous," scoffed Marty. "I'm making a pretty penny off this deal, see." What about his recent application to land international travellers? "Who told you that! Who leaked that information?! That's private information, you know. But now that it's out, yes, we will soon be landing international jumbo jets on our newly constructed extended runway 33R. And we'll have an international terminal as soon as I can acquire the house behind me which is owned by a really old lady who has emphysema."
May 7, 2014
I was asked by an industry person trying to get a handle on what I do, "Would Jerry Seinfeld think KeithSpeak is funny?" What? How would I know what Jerry Seinfeld thinks? She stood there expectantly, waiting for an answer. God.
May 9, 2014
She's still waiting. God. So I spent that last couple of days getting in touch with Jerry Seinfeld but to no avail. It seems my people aren't talking to his people, I dunno, some silly misunderstanding over who was going to pay for lunch and Super Bowl tickets. So I told her the truth. She seemed surprised, but I wasn't sure if it was because I couldn't get to Seinfeld or that I had my own people. Either way, it's all over now.
May 10, 2014
Betrayal ensued. Someone told a secret and so it was a secret no more. The fallout was swift. A friendship aborted, lessons about privacy and trust learned. That's what happens to us. We are subjective beings living a sensuous life. See me, feel me, touch me, heal me. Shakespeare's plays speak to us because he illustrated this so well. We humans are here to feel.
(With windows) You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
Bob Dylan
Lady, I don't do windows. Period.
Mavis Preston
May 12, 2014
Two ducks, I don't know what kind, were standing in our driveway this morning. I know this because I let Maddie out and about 20 seconds later she came running back into the house, found me, Come! Come!, then turned around and hightailed it back outside. I followed her and saw the ducks. They were just standing there on the asphalt 15 feet away. Maddie was mesmerized. I was watching Maddie watching the ducks who were watching me and the dog. After perhaps a minute of everyone staring at everyone else, the ducks flew off toward the lake. Maddie waited until they were out of sight before turning around to me with a did-you-see-that! look on her face. Too cute.
May 13, 2014
Stop complaining about how awful your life is. All that does is reinforce what you already know. Repeating it over and over keeps you in the same sour place and becomes a self-fulfilling mantra. If instead, you focus on what you want your life to be, you then have movement toward that goal. The difference between staying stuck and movement is your focus on one or the other. See?
May 14, 2014
So this guy fancies himself a guru. He says that he has found inner peace, eternal love and universal enlightenment. Others don't believe him. They point to his Mercedes cars and lavish living accommodations and say that he can't be a spiritual man if he possesses that stuff. That is a myth, says the guru. Money is exterior, spirituality is interior. The others, now defenseless, drifted away to troll other people who didn't think like they did.
May 16, 2014
Got a jumbled mess of paperwork from a freedom of information request. The pages were redacted to the point of unreadability. What was in plain sight however, was my social security number, unlisted phone number and address, none of which should have been available. What's painfully obvious is the government thinks their secrets are more important than mine.
May 17, 2014
I have a friend who works in a dress store and she said that a gay couple came in looking at wedding dresses for the bride. The problem? The bride was 5'10" and weighed 300 pounds. His name was Ronny. My friend said she had nothing in Ronny's size. Ronny threw a hissy fit. His fiancé tried to calm him down but Ronny went off the rails, berating dress makers for their short sightedness, then collapsing in a chair crying uncontrollably over "his gross fat self". The groom asked if a wedding dress could be ordered in Ronny's size. My friend said it could, but that it would take 6 weeks to get in. Drat. Ronny wanted to be a June bride. Would there be enough time?
May 18, 2014
I had an item that broke but was still under warranty. It was manufactured in Germany so I sent it back to where it was made for repair. They sent it back to me still broken and said that since I was in North America, I should send it to their facility in Mexico to be fixed. I sent it to Mexico. They returned it unrepaired and said that though they were a repair facility for the company, they no longer worked on this particular product. They suggested I send it to Sweden where it was assembled. I sent it to Sweden. Weeks later, Sweden said they never received it. By now I had spent $65 in shipping charges, been living without the item for 8 weeks, and honestly, didn't miss it. So I dropped all inquiries, forgot about the product and moved on with my life. Inexplicably, months later, the item was returned to me, still broken. Jeez.
May 19, 2014
Are you at the bottom looking up, or are you at the top looking down?
Yesterday, in looking for a particular book, I came across another book I thought I no longer had. It had been loaned to me by a friend some 25 years ago. That book was a manual of techniques for learning a specific process. This morning, out of the blue, I get a Skype call from the very same person who lent me the book. He mentions that he has just signed up for classes to learn a new skill - the exact same one the rediscovered book was all about! You're not gonna believe what I just found, I said.... Coincidence to find a book I never thought I had, talk with the man who loaned it to me 25 years ago a single day after finding it again, find out he is trying to relearn the exact same process taught in that book, and my subsequent return of it to him? Coincidence? I think not.
May 21, 2014
My Internet connection was down and I had to get something to somebody quickly. The funny thing was, my first thought was to send them a telegram. How weird was that? I mean, a.) it's hardly fast, and b.) you can't even do that anymore, and c.). I've never sent a telegram to anyone in my life so why I would think to send a telegram now? Maybe it's the vapors?
May 22, 2014
The opposite of yesterday seems to have happened. The viral nature of the Web became apparent today when I went to check the site logs and discovered that while I was personally offline, my site (still up and running) was attracting a record number of hits. KeithSpeak had been discovered by somebody on Facebook and overnight my page views shot through the roof. This all happened while I was unable to gain access to the Web. So, while I was dead in the water and unable to connect to anybody in the digital world, the digital world was connecting with me and I didn't even know it. Hmm.
May 23, 2014
Overheard at the dentist:
-- You look like you're in pain.
-- I am. I cracked a tooth eating some candy corn we saved from our wedding.
-- You had candy corn at your wedding?
-- We got married on Halloween.
-- Oh.
-- In 1986.
-- Wait. You tried to eat candy corn you saved from 1986?
I have domains listed with a registrar that insists on spamming me daily. I've asked them to stop their shenanigans, but they haven't. I've threatened to move my domains elsewhere if they don't (the problem with that being several are long term registrations that have already been paid for so it's a hollow threat but still one I feel I have to make). I could put them on an e-mail blacklist but then I would never get domain renewal notices. Frankly, I don't understand why they're doing it. I'm already a customer, so why are they alienating me by sending their poxed daily doses of up sell spam? The result of their tactless blunt marketing is that I will never register another domain with them ever again, and as soon as the ones I have there expire, they will be moved elsewhere. Take that you e-mail abusing heathens.
May 27, 2014
Be it plant or animal, how weird is it that we have to eat other living things to keep living ourselves? And why is everyone's idea of what constitutes food so diverse? To half the world, eating insects is the norm. Other places eat dogs, cats and horses. It's been said that certain indigenous tribes eat humans. Is it simply culture that shapes our food preferences? Socio economic factors? Geography? Adventurism? Supply and demand? What dictates what you put in your mouth? For me personally, I favor the nutritional wallop of either those little white powdered donuts or pizza, but, you know, maybe that's just me.
May 28, 2014
I met this vacuous girl who told me about all the people she followed on Twitter and how delighted she was that each and every one amused her so. She breathlessly listed her favorite movie stars and sports heroes and why their 140 characters were so precious to her. Then she asked me who I followed on Twitter. When I said, No one, she made a face that expressed deep concern. How could I possibly ignore the famous and opinionated? It was at this point that my will to care about anything further she had to say vanished. And vice versa.
May 29, 2014
Got a knock on the door at 6AM. Half asleep, I throw on a robe and open the door. Standing there is a boy of about 16 asking if his mother is here. What? He repeats his question. I say that his mother, whomever she is, is most certainly not here. He turns around and leaves. What the hell was that?
May 30, 2014
Turns out his mother was here. Kind of. She had smashed her car into a telephone pole at the top of our property. I discovered the abandoned car and an empty vodka bottle at the edge of our field this morning. Doesn't it always feel better when sense is made of the unsensable?
