Trumpets! Fanfare!

Ladies and gentlmen, it is my pleasure to announce the one-year anniversary of Bech-Tech.net (version 2.0… we don’t speak of the first). Yes indeedy, on October 30, 2005, Bech-Tech was birthed! It was a Sunday evening… AND a double post day! Which, if I check the stats, might have been a first and last for Bech-Tech. Personally, I’ve done a few of those, but they’re a hassle.

Anyway, kudos and praises to the site that pays the bills around here… Without the Bech-Tech, Jeety’s Joint wouldn’t be possible. Congrats, mom and pop Bechdel on one year!

Ah yes, a look back in time… 2005’s month of October on the original Bech-Tech! Look how chic!

Welcome ghosts and goblins to the first Jeety’s Joint Halloween post! Who knows if I’ll actually have time to write on the 31st, so this will have to do. What’s that you ask? Am I listening to “The Monster Mash” right now? The answer is, of course. Does anyone know how many Grammys this song won? My guess would be… “all of them.”

But how many of us have actually sat down and studied the lyrics to this song? It’s unbelievable… it actually tell’s a story… that makes no sense and is quite weird. First of all… the beginning of the song starts out with 46 seconds of weird “spooky” noises and just plain silence. There’s a door creaking open… some beakers clearly bubbling with ghoulish delights… and then the drums start like an 80s hair-metal-rock song. By second 47 of the song… Boris has begun.

Yes, that’s right… the fantastic vocals of “The Monster Mash” are sung by none other than Bobby “Boris” Pickett and his Crypt-Kicker 5. Legends. Here’s the best part of this whole thing, actually… the song reached NUMBER ONE on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1962, and No. 3 on the UK charts, eleven years after its original release. Ridiculous? Maybe. Awesome? Definitely.

Anyway, I was going to go into this deep analysis of the lyrics, but as it turns out… it’s just not funny. But I encourage you to check them out yourself… The Monster Mash

Another Halloween classic for me has been Homestar Runner’s Halloween cartoons… today I checked out some of their older one, cause it’s been a while since I’ve been there. The Halloween Carve-ival is an all-time classic. Anyway, check’em out, if you daaaare! (oooh, spooky) Homestar Runner Click on “toons” and then “Holiday” on the remote, and then look for the Halloween ones in the TV Guide on the right.

Finally, the thing that has kept me from my work all weekend and is most likely the work of the Devil… The M&M Dark Chocolate movie painting thing… It’s this painting that M&M’s set up that has 50 different movie titles hidden in riddles… and you click on the clue and type in what you think the movie title is. For example, there’s a sheet with the state of Texas on it that has tears in it. You click on the sheet, type in “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and you now have 1/50. I’m up to 31, but I feel like I’m hitting the wall now. It’s unbelievably addicting, though. Checka checka checka checka check it out! M&M Dark Chocolate

Alright, that’s all I got for now. Tomorrow’s a big day around these parts, if anybody’s paying attention. More on that later…

In case you forgot, Mike Tyson and Bobby Brown performed a rousing rendition of “The Monster Mash” on the Jimmy Kimmel Show.

Wuzzzzup my babies? I hope you’re keepin’ it kool, with a K, yeah, that’s right.

Well, now that the pleasantries are out of the way, let’s get right down to it. We’ve got a problem in this country my friends. A problem so egregious, so vile… a problem so dispicable, so insulting… that it simply must be dealt with immediately. I am, of course, talking about our nation’s airports. Let us begin, by asking the obvious…

WHAT IS GOING ON?!?

To be honest, most of the problems come from people. Actually, maybe all of the problems, I’m not sure, cause I haven’t written this thing yet. After I’m done, I’ll reflect. Anyway, let’s say… “FOR INSTANCE”… that you’re on the bus, traveling to the airport. You’re sitting there, minding your own business, the journey is going swimmingly… you come to a bus stop and pull over for somebody with luggage, clearly going to the airport. Immediately, you begin to feel ill. Your stomach turns, you begin to salivate a lot like how you do before you throw up (you know what I’m talking about, and don’t pretend like you don’t. It’s gross, sure, but everyone does it.), you break out into a cold sweat. Why, you ask? Becuase you’re just SURE that the morbidly obese passenger, who refuses to hang up her cell phone while lugging two HUGE bags onto the bus and then doesn’t pay the bus driver, resulting in us sitting there awkwardly for a few minutes until he finally says, “I’m waiting,” making her decide it might be a good idea to hang up now, is going to be sitting next to you in the cramped, tiny little plane. (Kudos if you were able to follow that entire sentence without having to go back… it took about an hour to construct properly.) Anyway, you know what I’m talking about. Even if your experience isn’t quite as bad as this “hypothetical”… when you travel alone, you look around the waiting area, eyeing up your potential “plane life partner.” True story, I’m sitting in Atlanta (aka one of Hell’s airports… and yes, Satan needs many, include his favorite destination and hub for Methusalah Airlines, O’Hare International) and there’s this 60something woman, clearly traveling with a corpse that I assume is her husband. They had literally just transfered him from an iron lung or something, becuase this guy had one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel. I don’t think I ever once saw him open an eye. They were both inexplicably wearing heavy winter coats in a not-so-cold airport (it’s the devil’s after all, he’s not a fan of the chill). I honestly thought to myself, “If I sit next to these too… I will catch typhoid… and polio…. with a twist of lyme disease.” I don’t even know if you CAN catch some of those things, but I have no doubt I would have.

Anyway, my point is, the whole scene is like a leper colony gone bad… instead of quarantining these people, we’re trapping perfectly healthy ones on an aircraft the size of my hallway (see previous post for picture reference… it’s not big). So instead of “easing” people’s fears about flying, the airlines have set up a system where people continuously dart their eyes around the waiting area, looking to see “what’s wrong with this guy?” It’s horrifying. As if the entire experience of being in the airport isn’t weird enough…

Follow me, if you will. You get to the airport… and check your bags. Right off the bat, this is weird. Becuase HALF the time, you know you’re never going to see them again. That’s why when you pack before a flight, it’s a really somber experience… “Well old blue, it was really nice knowin’ ya. And if you make it out on the other side, we’re gunna party… you guys are gettin’ TWO dryer sheets next time, baby! I’m not just sayin’ that either.” And then of course you forget. After that, you get your ticket and go through security. Wow, what an experience that is. I know I went into this a little bit last year, Thanksgiving-ish time. At that point, I thought it was really funny that people say “thank you” to being frisked by the TSA… just as a reaction. I know I did it. It wasn’t that I particularly enjoyed it (he could have taken me out to dinner first! OHHHH! Thank you, I’ll be here all week, folks!), but it just felt like what you say at the end of that experience. Well, that’s not happened since, but the whole process of walking through the magical gate of colors and beeps is ridiculous…

First, you get assigned a “lane,” and thus, a gate. Immediately, people begin removing their belongings from their bags, in some gratuitous fashion. People are so freaked out their going to have their bag inspected, they decide it’s a better idea to just shovel everything out of it and put it all in the little bins… And of course that right there is contest… “Oh wow, Betty’s got four bins… she must be doing really well.” Me? I’m a two bin buy. One for my back pack, one for my laptop, shoes, cell phone, keys, belt… Yeah, belt. That’s another great part of the process. After you hand over all of your personal belongings so you can “cross over” through the magical gate, you immediately begin stripping, like you’re on a hot date (or so I would imagine). This gate is so wonderful, that you just can’t wait to get your clothes off and walk through it. In Austin, I almost forgot to remove my soccer jacket, but luckily the TSA woman informed me that I wasn’t quite naked enough to enter the gate.

Then all of a sudden, you walk through, nothing happens and it’s over. All that time of preparation, the angst, the anticipation… all for not! You get through to the other side and all of a sudden you see the machine has spit your belongings out the other side and down the little rolly bar thingies as if to say “your stuff’s not good enough to inspect.” Well, whatever buddy! Then, the stark realization hits you… it’s all over. Time to put your clothes back on. You look around, everyone has a glassy stare as they’re slipping their shoes back on, wondering what just happened. The belts are the best though. I like imagining someone who’s never been to an airport coming in at this point… seeing all these people put their belts on and wonder what exactly just took place. Airports are weird places, my friends.

So… basically what I’m trying to say here is… I’m really looking forward to my future travels!

Here we have NOT the plane I traveled on most recently. And a true statement. Nothin’ like gettin’ felt up by a perfect stranger (especially if it’s Cousin Larry. And if you understand this, I salute you.). I almost took a picture of the near-dead guy, but I thought better of it.

I figure I must be some terrible miracle of modern science, becuase I must be the only human on earth who suffers from severe jet-lag, traveling from one time zone to the next one over. It’s either that, or the fact that I got about 4 hours of sleep last night and have been up since 5:30, Austin time. Either way, I’m flippin’ tired and to be honest, feelin’ a bit nauseated. Either way, it’s been waaaay too long since the last post, so I thought I’d update my peeps.

I planned this trip back in July, when I bought my ticket to come to Austin in August. Fares were cheap and we thought it was a good idea. And it was. Except for a few minor set backs. First of all, I hope someone from Delta is reading this… so I can tell them to “kiss my grits,” but uh… it seems unlikely that anyone is. Oh well. Basically, NONE of the times for flights that I selected in July ended up being the flight time I actually had. I was supposed to land in Pittsburgh at 7 on Friday and then in Austin at 2 on Sunday. What actually happened was something a bit… different. I got into Pittsburgh at 9:30 and didn’t get back to Austin until 3:30 or so.

Friday night, I went to eat with the fam at Max & Erma’s. We kept Eli up waaay past his bedtime, but he actually didn’t seem to mind too much. Kevin was hoping that this meant he wouldn’t get up at his usual 6 a.m. the next day, but uh… no such luck. Anyway, at around 11, I headed into Pittsburgh to go see my peeps. I drove into Oakland and uh… didn’t know what was going on. So Nate came out and we found a spot and walked to Amie’s palatial dorm suite thing… very nice. So Amie, Cassie, Nate and roommates Angel and Bridgette and I all hung out for a while… it was nice catching up and seeing them. I left Oakland at around 2 and got home by 2:30… uh… you do the math.

Saturday, I got a haircut, watched Texas eek out a win against Nebraska and basically just hung out with the fam. Lil’ Eli is all OVER the place… quite a different little guy than the one I left in August. I took 70+ pictures of the boy alone that day, and I wasn’t the only one taking pictures. I dunno how he’s not blind. Anyway, we finished out the day with a rousing game of… one of those versions of Cranium. The new one about pop culture and stuff. My team lost… twice. (But I don’t take the blame for the American Idol question… Randy, Paula and Simon were practically in the room, thanks to my incredible artistry… hahaha)

And then BAM! Wake up at 6:30 to get back on a plane to Austin. More delays, and I finally got to my room by 4 this afternoon. And now I’m half-conscious and delerious. So, sorry for the random post, but there’s an update. I think I might do an analysis of the whole airport process a little later… Hopefully this week isn’t too busy. Anyway… for now… adios.

The Eanit gnawing on one of his little people thingies… that I believe were all the Rubinos? And here, Eli watches the Texas game… PANICKED! Luckily, everything was fine and the Longhorns pulled out the win.

Eli and grandma, playin in the family room. He knows what to do when the cameras come out!

Happy family! Like the Chinese dinner, but less risky. And finally, Eli at the dinner table after his delicious meal of… grossness. I dunno, he seemed to enjoy it. Whatever, babies are crazy.

Well, I figured since I have a bunch of pictures on my computer from various… things, I might as well share the good ones with all of you. I don’t normally do photo posts, but these were just too good to pass up. Enjoy!

Here’s a couple from vacation of everyone’s favorite peanit… Eanit! Subtitles read “Raaaaaaarh!” and “Whatchu talkin’ ’bout, momma?” It looks like the boy is puttin up a pretty good fight there in the sink.

These two involve food (in a manner of speaking) so I lumped them together. First, there’s Kevin being weird. Poor Jen. Kevin’s now missing is front teeth. The price you pay, I guess. Second, we have Scott’s DELICIOUS birthday cake. Actually… for those of you not there, it was the foulest thing ever labeled as “food.” Instead of the chocolate cake they had available, Jackson decided to go with the ol’ Italian Rum Fruit Cake. And what a choice it was! Scott’s look of suspicion is just about right, and Jackie actually couldn’t stop laughing about the cake. The picture really captured the moment nicely.

Here, Eli is hard at work learning sign language. This means, “back up off my crib, cracka!” And on the right, good ol’ Jackson… always there to ruin a good family candid shot. This one is especially nice though, because his glasses magnify his eyes so they’re huge. A nice touch.

What a goof. Nice umbrella. This must be the new “hip” thing. Anyway, the other one… oh my. What an example to the youth! And look at the JOYOUS smile on his face! The boy however is clearly looking at the umbrella, thinking… what a goof!

And finally, this was a picture taken by Jackson during the Memorial Day parade, I believe. I’ve highlighted a few of the good reactions for you.

Alright, let me start with a big, fat UGH! I had this medium-length post all written out last night… it was great. You would have bene laughing, crying. You know, really feeling the emotion. As usual. And then instead of clicking “Publish” I clicked “View Site” for some UNKNOWN reason… and poof! Gone. Just like that. Wordpress really needs to uh, I don’t know… fix that ridiculousness. It’s kind of funny though, because that whole situation really fit the theme of the post. I will now try to reconstruct it, but that’s really annoying and I’m sure it won’t be nearly as good as it was last night. But… here goes.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted about things that annoy me, and I realize everyone is basically on the edge of their seat waiting to hear things like this, so I thought I’d do us all a service and list a few that have come to mind recently. And you can all assume that clicking the wrong link and erasing an entire post is somewhere on this list, in spirit.

1. So, when you’re doing your laundry… there are a lot of steps involved in the whole dirty clothes to clean clothes process. Well, maybe not a ton, but still. It’s not a task I could give to my pet monkey Bobo and expect it to be done well. Although, he is surprisingly skilled with an iron. Regardless… One of the best parts of the process is the dryer sheet. Sometimes I lay it on top of the clothes so Reaganomics can take their effect and trickle-down gets dryer sheetness all over the clothes. Sometimes I put it in the middle, like a wonderful surprise for the dryer to discover later. It’s a game I play, and I enjoy it. Immensely. Anyway, you know how when you get your clothes out and they’re all clean and warm and happy? It’s a really great moment. And then you take the clothes back to your room and have a little bonding session. “Oh, I remember the day I wore you, Mr. Eaton Electrical shirt. Good times, indeed my friend!” Anyway, my point is, sometimes the dryer sheet gets forgotten in all this mayhem. Well… the dryer sheet gets its revenge, let me tell you. So I put on my UT Tennis Club shirt. I’m lookin’ hip. Everyone’s sayin, “Hey, who’s that cool cat? Wish I could be his friend.” You know. Usual stuff. I go to Rhetoric at 2:00 and I’m in there for a while, talking about how we shouldn’t scare the people we’re mentoring by telling them all the stupid things they did in their papers all at once. Or something along those lines. And I happen to feel a rustling sensation in my left armpit. The dryer sheet whispered “hello, friend.” Ahh! Talk about creepy. That should be a saying though… “Have you ever had a day when you find a dryer sheet in your shirt?” “Wow, that bad, huh? Sorry to hear that.”

2. Next up… here at UT, the business school is pretty good. They have pride, or something. The question I want answered is when did business school turn into “dress up” school? These guys who walk around on campus in suits all day long… it has to stop. You look like fools, and no one takes you more seriously because you’re wearing a killer Jerry Garcia tie. The best part is, they always have to walk around like they’ve got somewhere that they HAVE TO BE! Calm down and walk at normal pace. The problem is, that wearing a backpack with a suit doesn’t work for these guys… so they’re probably walking so fast because they have to go back and get their crap for each class every time. And unfortunately their little binders they all carry won’t fit everything. Nice trapper-keeper. What is that, Spiderman embossed with the gold in-lay on the leather edition? Nice, dude. Very business-like. Last week, I was walking by these three guys, all in suits of course, outside a building practicing their speech. Oh man… it was great. He was even doing the looking around (at no one, mind you) and asking if anyone had questions (again, no one there). The best part of the whole thing though was when asked and looked at the brick wall of the building, his two comrades looked at the wall too. Sigh…

3. Ugh, I’ve forgotten what my third topic was. See what happens? Great, just great. I seriously just sat there for like ten minutes trying to remember and I can’t so… If it comes to me, I’ll be sure to let you all know. In the meantime, enjoy these.

Look at the cute little Snuggles bear. Yeah well, one man’s cute, cuddly bear is another man’s menace. Wait til it happens to you!

Oooh, look at these guys on the left! I bet they were probably just talking about something really important! Us common folk wouldn’t be able to understand, because they only speak in a dialogue frequency that can be picked up if you walk really fast on the sidewalk. Shucks. Maybe they should take a tip from these guys on right. Sure, they’re probably all dead by now, but they knew how to do business. In hats, and slowly. Sipping lemonade. May I also point out that the white guy sitting down at this very racially diverse meeting (nicely done, HR!) clearly has a thing for one of his fellow business associates? Even more diverse than we thought!