me, i whistle all the time

I’m on vacation, I’m on vacation (read it again, mockingly sing-song this time, like kids on the ballfield, y’know?). No, really. I’m on vacation. A week of time off, today being day #1. Sharaun’s folks don’t get here until late (10ish), so I have the whole day tomorrow to work in the yard, write, sleep, or maybe cook something. Cook something?

I was thinking the other day about the talent of whistling. Some people can’t whistle; me, I whistle all the time. I actually prefer whistling along to music over singing, perhaps because I tend to favor the tune over then words – but that’s immaterial. Anyway, whistling: how’s it work? Have I just been conditioned to know what blow-velocities and degrees of lip-pursing produce which tones? I can hear a song, or note or whatever, and whistle it back nearly pitch-perfect. I guess it just comes with time, eh?

I’m gonna admit something right now, I’ve never seen Goodfellas. Yup, that’s right – and I’m not even gay. I mean, there are quite a few mandatory-man-movies that I’ve somehow missed over the years: Goodfellas, Platoon, Scarface, Full Metal Jacket, Caddyshack, the list goes shamefully on and on. It’s not that I was a practicing non-male or anything, I guess I just never saw ’em. I know, this is cause for excommunication from the secret society – but I just had to get it off my chest. Think of more requisite male-movies, I bet I missed a fair amount of them.

Dude, all this buzz in the media about this about this unbeatable Jeopardy champ got me curious, and I decided to TiVo a couple episodes to see what it’s all about. After thirty consecutive wins, this dude has won nearly a million dollars – all from answering trivia in the form of a question. I pitted myself against him tonight and did OK, but the guy knows some seriously obscure stuff. Watching him trounce the opponents, I couldn’t help but imagine myself in his place… sweeping the categories, ripping through useless facts with a confident posture and cocksure smile, making millions.

Tonight Kristi called me with the perfect setup: she told me she was killing time reading her Jane magazine (not to worry, no more femmagazine bashing), and there was an article about the proliferation of blogs on the internet. She proceeded to read to me from the article, which started out talking about some political pundit site, and then read on: “…or read about the every day musings of an average guy at www.pharaohweb.com…” I about choked, wanting to hang up the phone that instant and call everyone I know (to brag that my blog had hit the big time, Jane magazine of course). After telling her to “shut up” a few times, she broke down and admitted the ruse. As far-fetched as it was, I wish is were real? I mean, what is a “blog” but a big “look at me” sign?

Holy crap, this has got to be the coolest game ever. Sharaun and I sat up for an hour trying to stump it with sitcom characters last night, but it beat us every time (at least, when we knew enough to give it meaningful answers). Try it, pick a sitcom character and then answer the questions as if you were that character – it’s fun with two people because one can think of the character but keep it a secret while the other poses the questions. I mean, we went totally obscure on this thing and it guessed ’em all.

Update: 12:17am, I’ve stumped the damn page! Haha, take that – I’m Fred Mertz from “I Love Lucy,” not Charles from “Charles in Charge.” Triumph! Sweet victory! Playing a dictator/sitcom guessing-game to into the wee hours… who cares! I’m on vacation.

Dave out.

Also written on this day...

• play-by-play, part ii - 2010
• mostly about old stuff - 2009
• the opposite of downhill - 2006