passing notes

Yesterday on Facebook I got a message from a high school pal. In the course of catching each other up, he mentioned that he still had some of the notes we'd passed in senior English.

This got me to wondering: Do kids today still pass notes? Because from about 6th grade forward, I tended to get in a ridiculous amount of trouble for it. ;-) Maybe today they sneak-text, I dunno. But 26 years from now, who's going to be able to pull up a really funny text message?

Sometimes "progress" ... isn't really.

life's little absurdities

Loved 'em then, love 'em now, but the Thompson Twins: 3-piece band, one guy, one black chick, one blonde chick, none of them with the actual last name of Thompson. How uber-ironic we tried to be in those days. ;-)

Anyway, a comment made to me earlier today made me dig this up:

No Peace for the Wicked

There's a scandal in the city, lots of rumors flying round
I gave them all my money, what I lost they found
Sometimes I think they're madder than hatters having tea
Setting up the situation to destroy the scenery

(chorus)
(There's no peace) No peace for the wicked
We're dancing till we drop
(There's no rest) No rest for the wicked
And we're all too scared to stop

Oh can't you see the trouble?
It causes me much pain
Cause I don't understand
Why should I stand out in the rain?
Sometimes I think they're madder than hatters having tea
Setting up the situation to destroy the scenery

(REPEAT CHORUS x 2)

Satellites spin through the air, suffragettes are everywhere
When the headlines hit the streets they're gonna knock you off your feet
Satellites spin through the air, acrobats of atmosphere
Maybe love will disappear
I wonder if you really care

There's two people on the wire
Making fun of what you said
Say you're looking for affection
Won't you look at me instead?

No peace for the wicked
We're dancing till we drop
No rest for the wicked
And we're all too scared to stop

I've heard the phrase both as "no rest for the wicked" and "no rest for the weary," but the latter -- while it certainly makes more sense to me -- appears not to be the original.

Moving on:

Stopped at Papa Murphy's (a take-and-bake pizza joint, for those unfamiliar) to grab some dinner. Big sign on the window: "WE ACCEPT FOOD STAMP BENEFITS."

Yeeeah. You can't buy toilet paper with food stamps, but they'll let you have all the high-calorie food you like -- and then give a bunch of social scientists zillions in grant money to figure out why poor people invariably are fat. Go figure.

trying to get back in the groove

Oy. Busy few weeks. After an immediate-family reunion in KC, I trotted off to Milwaukee for a couple days last week to attend "job camp." It was held at a casino. About 1000 people came. One of them was the former mayor of South Milwaukee. Times are tough all over. ;-)

It was an interesting day, though, and I learned a lot of things. Such as:

-- Aggro people suck.

-- I appear to be a magnet for the perpetually perky and chatty. Why it is they decide to plop down next to me and start invading my privacy is beyond me.

-- Getting resume advice from a zit-faced 25-year-old is a little surreal.

-- While condom machines in bathrooms are so common as to go unnoticed anymore, the bathroom I went to at the casino was the first one I've ever seen a sharps (biohazard needles) container in. Didn't exactly inspire confidence in the clientele...

--- ... average age, 80. Watch them bitching about how little money they have while pumping coins into dollar slots. The poker room and off-track betting rooms were filled as well.

-- Candidate for unluckiest employee ever: male, late 50s, electrical engineering and MBA degrees, has been laid off 5 times in the last few years and his most recent boss was a former Chilean merchant marine. WOWZA did he have some horror stories.

-- "185" jokes, courtesy of ComedySportz:

185 accountants walk into a bar. Bartender says, "sorry, we don't serve accountants here." 185 accountants got so depressed, they jumped off a ledger.

185 couches walk into a bar in Davenport. Bartender says, "sorry, we don't serve couches here." 185 couches say "well, OK, we'll go sit in divan."

185 jars of mayonnaise walk into a bar. Bartender says, "sorry, we don't serve jars of mayonnaise here." Jars of mayonnaise say "Hell, man, what's your problem?"

I had a bunch of others written down and now can't make out what they meant. That'll teach me to wait this long to post again. :-)