The Advisor Advises

It's my birthday tomorrow. Which means...we're going to Tony Roma's this week. I joined the Tony Roma's preferred customer club a few years ago, and for the last three years, they've sent me a coupon for a free entree during my 'birth week'. For those of you that know me, you are well aware that free things and me are never very far apart. So, we're going on Thursday (which also happens to be my mom's birthday) to enjoy some ribs, chicken, and likely some sticky facial hair...

I noticed in the bathroom stall that I use nearly everyday at the University where I work the following graffiti one day:

God is just pretend.

A few days later someone had erased the word 'pretend'.

The phrase God is just has remained untouched for several months now...

My son, let's call him Z, began eating Heinz Baby Beginner Foods about 3 months ago. Z is now an expert in the field of single vegetable and fruit purees. I say he qualifies as an expert based on the fact that he's been eating them 2 to 4 times per day for 56% of his life now, so, assuming none of my readers will challenge his 'expert' qualifications, let's carry on, shall we?
There are 10 types of Heinz Baby Beginner Foods, and through his variety of facial expressions and body language, I have uncovered his rating system. Here goes:
#1. Sweet Potatoes (Daddy likes them, and so do I)
#2. Squash (ditto)
#3. Peas
#4. Green Beans
#5. Wax Beans
#6. Carrots
#7. Bartlett Pears (What can I say, I'm a vegetable kind of guy?)
#8. Applesauce
#9. Peaches
#10. Bananas (I recommend avoiding these altogether if you know what's good for you.)

Coming soon...Strained Foods!

So, yesterday I was looking for some apparel that would display the Blogger logo, because I think it looks cool, and you don't see anyone wearing it around here... I checked out the Google Store and came across this cool Blogger T-shirt. I sent in my order for the $9.00 T-shirt, and received this message in response:

"Thank you for placing this Google Store order with GatewayCDI! The shipping table on the website applies to orders shipping within the continental U.S. only; international orders will be charged actual shipping based on the larger of actual/dimensional weight. In addition, we ship international orders via free domicile and any duties and taxes incurred for your international shipment are also calculated in the shipping charge shown below, as well as a $25 processing fee for international orders.

Therefore, the total shipping charge for this order is $97.05 to ship via UPS Int'l Standard shipping. Please let us know how you would like to proceed with this order. Your order will be placed on hold for 30 days pending your response. After 30 days, the order will be cancelled. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or if we may be of assistance."

YIKES!
I cancelled my order.
According to Jeremy, a Customer Satisfaction Representative from the Google Store, they don't have a lot of International Customers.

"Honestly, there are not many customers that accept the shipping charges."

I guess not.

19.047619047619047% of me is a huge nerd! How about you? This test made me feel incredibly un-nerdy. My wife would be surprised.

I have always been a city dweller, except for that brief period during the summer of 1997, when I technically lived in a town that was incorporated as a city, but not for long. (in 1998 Drumheller went from being the country's smallest city to the country's largest town.) In the larger cities that I have called home (Winnipeg & Edmonton), which many will not consider very large at all, homelessness was something that was not a secret. It was clear to me that there was not a simple solution to homelessness, but I never thought that someone would be willing to take the blame for the fact that homelessness exists in our country. But apparently, our Prime Minister has decided to appoint someone as being completely responsible for Homelessness. Okay, so I'm just being silly, but can you believe that our government hands out stupid titles such as this? Maybe it didn't sound so bad in French, I guess I could ask the guy responsible for that?

In my experience, an easy conversation starter for any 'cocktail party' type of function is to ask the individual with whom you are pursuing a serious conversation, "so have you heard of any new collective nouns lately?" Collective nouns are most commonly used to describe groups of animals, but as a frequenter (is that a word?) of choir-related functions, I have been inclined to come up with my own list of collective nouns for voice parts. I didn't necessarily make these up on my own, but I have become rather attached to them.
A drone of Basses
A pride of Tenors
An attraction of Altos
A screech of Sopranos