ScaifeNet because we can't let Soros have all the fun...

For the first time this summer, I actually had a decent dinner while attending the madness that is Rochester's "Thursdays on First." A taco salad from "Salad Bros."...

Blogging has become one of those curious life distractions. Back when I started blogging in 2002, it was still a fresh and exciting medium, a medium from which I could potentially launch a lucrative career IF ONLY enough people would notice my brilliant and occasionally unspeakable hilarity. Now, everyone has a blog, or everyone has disappeared into FaceBook, or everyone has jumped into the increasingly bizarre vernacular of Twitter, which has become something akin to shorthand swearing, what with it's omnipresent @ and # symbols. But, that's the Web. Every month is a shake of the Internet Etch-A-Sketch, and we begin anew. My blog never caught on the way I had secretly hoped, but what did I actually expect from an eclectic mix of whatever the hell this blog has been about for nearly a decade? I don't have the regular ambition to be a Bleat, and I'm not curious enough to hoover up and link to all the news and opinion of the day of an Instapundit. Well, whatever. My blog is what it is. And it is a THUNDERJOURNAL. I used to bemoan the fact I never learned a different language (I knew enough Japanese during my year living there to get through shops and restaurants), but the fact of the matter is I've learned and relearned the language of the Internet, and frankly it's getting tiresome. And it's not just tiresome because you have to relearn the...

Last week, I had a face-to-face, sit-down interview for a new job and, despite my own perceived lack of solid inter-personal skills, I managed to advance to the second round of the applicant review process, in the form of a writing exercise assignment and personality assessments. Now, the writing exercise I'm pretty confident about. After all, having written professionally now for over a decade, I think I have that particular skill figured out. The personality assessments, however, left me a little bit frazzled. I was assured, prior to taking the personality assessments, that there were no wrong answers. That's just nonsense. Of COURSE there are wrong answers; otherwise, what's the point of taking the assessments? I was also encouraged to be "brutally honest with myself," which just can't possibly end up being a good thing for me. I mean, I once blew up a grenade in my parents' back yard, got hit by a train and cheated death in other similar monumentally stupid ways over the course of my life so far. If I'm ever going to be brutally honest with myself, the only conclusion I could possibly reach is that I'm a spectacular moron. The assessments themselves were particularly peculiar. In the first assessment, I was asked to place 12 terms and phrases in order of how good and bad I felt they were. I was able to list the "good" terms fairly easily -- "I love my life,"...

As my previous post indicated, I now have some free time on my hands, and it occurred to me that this may be a good opportunity to dust off an idea I've had for some time. Basically, I think it would be funny to post some of the more annoying toys that have found their way into our previously quiet household. This first item, I've dubbed "Hell Tractor," because I have no idea how we procured this ridiculous thing, so I can only assume it arrived here via a portal from hell. It arrived sans batteries, which should have tipped me off that even Satan couldn't stand this thing in its fully-functional form. Originally, our son loved the tractor when it was just inanimate and innocent. But then I went and decided to see what the thing would do if I loaded in some batteries. Imagine my surprise when I first wiggled the farmer, which is totally not a euphemism for masturbation, but probably should be: Great howling crash wagons! The first time I fired that thing up, my son started screaming his disapproval, and really, who could blame him. It probably didn't help that the damned thing started cruising right at him. How could you see this coming at you and not start screaming? It also scares the hell out of the cats. When they hear Hell Tractor's engine sputtering to life, they run and hide either under the...

Last week, staring into my work monitor, with the hissing sound of the "white noise" machine permeating the office, I just kind of hit a brick wall, figuratively speaking. For 26 months, I'd labored at what was supposed to be a dream job: good pay, great benefits, all that good stuff. Yet it was the worst work experience I've ever had in my 12 years out of college, spanning six different jobs. It was a writing job in name only. It was more accurate to characterize it as a mind-numbing, bureaucratic, spin-the-wheels to nowhere abyss. I would be assigned projects that would be tweaked, retweaked and, eventually, just kind of disappear altogether as infighting broke out between parties that weren't even supposed to have input when it was first assigned. I had projects that would get tied up in review so bad, some wouldn't be completed for nearly a year. Worse, processes and procedures would be updated during that time, so even if the projects were finally approved, they would no longer adhere to the most recent templates and style guidelines, so I'd have to go in and change it all. So, it was rather galling to have a performance review that said I tended to miss deadlines. Really? You don't say? It was made all the more surreal when you consider that I had numerous freelance writing requests coming in during those two years, as many as one or...

With over ten months of experience under my belt now of being a father, I can confidently look back over those months and declare I have absolutely no recollection of about 90 percent of the time that's passed by. In fact, one of the most common questions my wife and I ask each other on practically a daily basis is: "What did we do yesterday?" After asking that question, we both sit in a confused silence for several seconds, trying to come up with an answer. Having an infant in the house is a more powerful mental eraser than any bar-hopping weekend bender I went on back in college. The second my head hits the pillow at night, I can actually feel my brain scouring itself of any memories consisting of waking up at 4 a.m., changing a diaper or hearing my boy fuss. The only memories I'm left with come morning are those that consist of of baby smiles and laughs. It's all a pretty clever evolutionary trick that ensures you'll at least consider the possibility of having another child. If all you can remember are the cute and precious moments, you're more likely to try for another diaper troll. And it's not limited to just selective recollection on the part of my brain, either. This being the digital age, we have a digital camera and video player at our disposal at any given moment. Yet, amazingly, going through...

Ryan: CNN.com video headlines are a scream. Ryan: "Palin isn't first to sling 'cojones' " Ryan: "Cloris Leachman 'so sick of Betty White' " Caroline: hard-hitting journalism! Caroline: Any headline with "cojones" in it is A-OK in my book. Ryan: "If a shark attacks you, hit it here" Caroline: Can I still hit it there if it doesn't attack me/ Ryan: We should get together after work and sling some cojones....

So, I was driving into work this morning, and I hear the voice of Tom Selleck on the radio, and I think "Oh, hey, Tom Selleck! He was Magnum P.I., and he doinked Monica on "Friends!" I should listen to him!" And Tom Selleck says to me: "Take time out to be a dad today. Learn more at fatherhood.gov." And I'm sitting there, considering what I had just heard, absorbing the sheer lunacy of the whole thing. Because, every day for the last ten months, from the moment I wake up in the morning, to the moment I go to bed, and quite likely in the dreams in between, I'm ALWAYS taking time out to be a dad! I'm a dad at home, and I'm a dad when I'm sitting at work, wishing I was at home being a dad. I'm ALWAYS a dad. Now, I realize I'm not the target demographic for the fatherhood.gov initiative, such as it is. I'm a responsible father who is always thinking five steps down the road to ensure my family has a home and food for the foreseeable future. But, all that just made the ad and the initiative all the more insulting to me. Like, I wanted to yell, in no particular direction: "SCREW YOU!" As my good friend and Geode Twin Caroline said: "If you have to 'take time' to be a mom or a dad ... YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG."...

Caroline: cnn.com: "Jesus' return set for May 21, 2011?" Caroline: I should make a casserole for such an occasion. Ryan: I was just going to say: "I haven't even prepared a room for him!" I'll have to dust off that old manger in the garage. Caroline: But you're remodeling your basement, that's got to count for something. It's like you knew. Ryan: I knew the wife was pregnant. Ryan: Our boys would be total best buds with the J-Man. Caroline: BFFs Ryan: They'd totally play X-Box. Ryan: Favorite game: "Halo" Caroline: Natch...

WANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...

This is a screen capture of an ad that appears on SiteMeter. It's actually an ad for eye glasses, but when I first saw it I thought "What the hell is that raccoon doing with a samurai sword? Maybe I need glasses or something....

I walked through the local RACE exhibit today, as a sort of work field trip, and I made the following astounding discovery:...

Just when I thought I wouldn't be able to come up with a good blog topic this week, I happened to be perusing MSNBC.com and saw the following headline: "How to get boys to read? Try a book on farts." Immediately, I knew I was going to have to check out the article. Because, you know. . . FARTS! For an article with such an attention-grabbing headline, some of the first introductory paragraphs just didn't deliver what I was hoping for. For example: Boys have lagged behind girls in reading achievement for more than 20 years, but the gender gap now exists in nearly every state and has widened to mammoth proportions. See what I mean? Boring! I was lured by the siren song of farts, and now I had to slog through stuff about a "gender gap?" The article was losing me, in other words. Thankfully, the article eventually went on to explain what I've already known for over 30 years. Namely, if you want to get young boys interested in learning, you often have to start with the lowest common denominator: potty humor. "Butts, farts. Whatever," said Amelia Yunker, a children's librarian in Farmington Hills, Mich. She hosted a grossology party with slime and an armpit noise demonstration. "Just get 'em reading. Worry about what they're reading later." Sing it, sister! Actually, I have my own anecdotal experience to draw upon in support of this learning initiative. Back...

I feel as though I've been waiting for something to happen to me, when I should be out making things happen for me. Perhaps I'm thinking things are more complicated than they need to be....

It honestly doesn't seem that long ago that we--we being the collective swarm mind of the Internet--were crowing with glee as the walking petri dish known as Paris Hilton was being carted off to the klink to serve her mandated stretch of time for being, well. . . for being Paris Hilton. Well, time has passed. The lazy-eyed Paris Hilton has been ushered off the public stage and has now been replaced by one Lindsay Lohan, who dazzled us in "Mean Girls" with a pair of breasts that seemed to be a gift from the Great Spirit himself. Lohan has been in rapid decline ever since, showing the world that, yes, you can actually destroy yourself in less than five years if you really apply yourself. The Lohan is now poised to serve a 90 sentence for failure to appear in court on charges of booze-related shenanigans, or something. Now, while I'm all for justice being meted out to those famous people who believe themselves to be above such nonsense, there's something about this that just doesn't smell right: "She is paying her new lawyer a fortune to fix this mess. She doesn't care what it takes," an insider tells me. "If Lindsay needs to start a Facebook campaign or set up protests or something like that she is totally into it. They are treating Lindsay differently because she is a star, so it's about time she used her star...

We went to the nearby town of Byron this evening, thinking we'd go to popular Oxbow Park, not realizing the park closes at 4 p.m. Before we went to the park and discovered it was closed, however, we decided to grab a bite to eat. We were going to go to Dairy Queen, but we decided to try the Mexican restaurant next door. What transpired was an episode Seinfeld might label "The Salsa Nazi." We sat down, and our server (also the owner) was very prompt, asking us if we wanted anything to drink. When we ordered water with a lemon slice, his irritation was so palpable, I could feel my tongue swell. So, we weren't totally surprised when he brought us plain water with no lemons or straws. We weren't going to say anything, because we knew what we were going to order to eat later wasn't going to improve his mood any. The Salsa Nazi next brought the check to a table occupied by an older couple sitting near us. They asked for his name, and they seemed genuinely surprised when he said his name was the same as the name of the restaurant. It was clear they wanted his name so they could later call and complain, but instead the server/owner handed him his business card, and they certainly weren't going to give the owner the 411 regarding his terrible inter-personal skills. So, they simply paid for...