Ok, lots of things happening today, my fiends.

It’s Friday. Praise Gad. It’s also homecoming at my school, and the kids have been given the chance to dress up silly in honor of “spirit week.” Yesterday was “Halloween costume day,” and some of them were downright inventive, and frankly seemed to take quite a bit of thought.

Others were funny, like this. (Check out the kid on the far left — remember when basketball shorts looked like that *all* the time, fellow crusties?) The wise guy on the far right is a regular RtB reader, who shall remain anonymous.

Then there’s later tonight and Sunday morning – getting together with a friend I haven’t seen in almost 20 years! (Boom Boom, where ya wanna meet?)

PK sent me some hi-larious pictures. I will post some of them tomorrow.

It’s going to be a good weekend.

Fink out.

Dude. I’m sitting here in my lovely little parlor in jeans, sweatshirt, turtle, socks, shoes, and my wool winter coat. And, as will come as no surprise to my family and friends — I’m fuh-reezing.

Fall is coming to Ohio (some, like Mavis, would say, “at long last!”). And that always brings a bit of consternation to the Fink house. The Thriller, who could wear a swimsuit to a snowball fight, likes to turn the furnace to the “off” position when he comes up for the night. Therefore, when I get up at 5:00 on a freezing cold morning, the Rat’s nest is a toasty 51 degrees. Nice.

Urge to strangle.

I mean, I know his reasoning behind it, and I understand. Natural gas, which heats our 92-year-old house, is frightfully expensive, with no relief in sight. I’m just trying to balance misery with necessity here. I guess my misery is a necessity.

Brrr.

FO

PS – Lars comes for dinner tonight – yay!

All right. I admit it.

I. Love. George. Will.

There, I said it. Squeaky-clean conservative nerd bird George Will: political pundit, analyst, columnist, baseball author and writer extraordinaire. He’s never without a quiet-but-witty comeback; never lost for a tidy statement that makes a whole mess of sense.

I don’t care about his politics. He can live in or flap whatever wing he wants – it matters not. I’ve read lots of his op-eds, and watched a bunch of his live interviews on various news programs. I think he’s brilliant.

Again, it’s not the subject matter that thrills. It’s the way he turns a phrase, be it in person or in writing. For instance, this little gem effortlessly rolled out of his face last night after the presidential debates:

Is the race now different than it was at 9 p.m. eastern time? The answer, I think, is no. This wasn’t a game changer. Both had their familiar personas. Barack Obama was the rather tweedy professor conducting a national seminar. John McCain was a rather hotter personality – the national scold.”

The national scold. I like that. And so what if he’s worn the same hair style since he was two years old? I wish he would ask me to lunch so I could just sit and listen to him talk over Cobb salad and white wine. That would make my day.

On an unrelated note, this made me laugh, and should give some fellow crusties a chuckle or two as well. Nothing personal…just some nice PhotoShop work. Heh.

Until tomorrow, my fiends…

Fink out.

PS – I hate Cobb salad. And white wine.

Photo credit: LA Times

I don’t know how I “landed” there (a little aviation humor), but I was at askmen.com this morning.

*pause for effect*

Not that I wanted to ask men anything, mind. I was interested in the article. (Isn’t that what most men say?)

Anyway, I saw this. I won’t link to them, but I’ll acknowledge that I am reproducing their article in part, and credit Ross Bonander for writing the boldface items. Here are the main points:

5 Things You Didn’t Know About Plane Crashes

1. Surviving a plane crash is good for you. Apparently, people who survive a crash are emotionally and psychologically healthier for the experience. Something about having had some control over a dire situation.
2. The first 90 seconds after a crash is known as “golden time.” In other words: don’t panic. Don’t try to save your iPhone from your carry-on. Don’t worry about modesty – rip off any clothing that’s on fire.
3. Planes routinely crash because they’ve run out of fuel. That is pretty much unbe-freaking-lievable.
4. Survival rates improve when the pilot ditches. Comforting thought.
5. There is a .00001% chance your plane will crash. That means that next time you fly, you have a 99.9999815% chance of surviving it.

If only that were enough……

Fink, all ate up with the phobia

I put a question mark in the title because I’m not sure there should be any. Maybe there should, but who’s going to care?

This post comes perilously close to another BTTH session, like 2 days ago. I’ve read a *lot* of blogs about blogging, and honestly, people need to relax about it. Check this out:

A Couple of Blogging “Rules” I’ve Read from Reputable Authors

• “Don’t post about too many different subjects; it will confuse/alienate your readers.” Nonsense. First, I think most of my readers (except maybe D***d S**l) have brains. Second, my stats show that the majority of my readers are repeat visitors. I can’t tell anything more than their ISP name (like comcast.net) and the city in which the ISP is located (or which country – I get dozens of hits a day from outside the US), but they do tell me how many are return visits. RtB always shows up in Google/Yahoo searches, so I’m being indexed. Why change what I do? I heart my repeat offenders.
• “If you don’t have anything specific to say, don’t post that day.” Wrong again, toots. I want to be a writer. I love to research. Love writing + love research = friggin’ FIND something to write about. That’s the fun of it for me. And when I don’t have any research handy, I think of something else. It’s amazing what the human brain can concoct when it’s called upon to think creatively. I used to think of myself as not particularly imaginative in the literary sense. I don’t think that anymore, simply because I’ve forced myself to manufacture ideas on demand over the last several months. Do that, and you get better at it.

Rat Fink’s Blogging Rules, or Advice from a Disreputable Author

• Who’s paying the hosting fees, doing the research, or keeping the free blog space looking nice? You are. So write about whatever you want, whenever you want. If people are interested in what you say, they’ll come back. And chances are they’ll bring friends via email and word of mouth.
• Give it time. I’ve written a blog post every day since 22 February. My hits started out around 5 per day. As of a month ago, I’m up to over 30 times that.
• You should be a decent writer. Either that, or you have to not care how your stuff looks. But what I’ve noticed over the last seven months is that I’m getting better at it. It’s like any muscle; you keep flexing it and working it, and it’s going to get better/bigger. If you’re not a decent writer, work on it! You could…I dunno…start a blog.
• To the people who say, “Who cares about what you write?” I say, “Um, I do.” ‘Nuff said. You’re worth the effort, so if you want it, go for it.
• You have to be disciplined about it. No doubt. If you say, “Eh…I’d never keep up with posting,” you’re not a blogger. It’s like brushing your teeth: it needs to be part of your daily (or weekly or whatever) routine. Pick a schedule and stick to it.
• Force yourself to research. I’ve heard the Internet is a cool place to find stuff. Learn what’s real and what’s bogus. Check and double-check your sources. If some guy’s blog says that the Wall Street Journal said thus-and-so, check it out before you link to him. Besides, research is fun.

Or…you could just read me every day to get your blog fix on. You could tell your friends to read me, too. Hey, Penguin Books! Simon & Schuster! How’s about a book deal? I’m real easy to work with and I don’t take up much space.

And now I’m really late. Arriving with no makeup on would be cruel & unusual for the 6th graders this morning.

Until tomorrow…and yes, Virginia, there will be another Finkpost. Gare-own-teed.