Introductory Blog

Welcome to my blog for the first time ever, Strathroy. I'm writing this because I plan to introduce my blog to people other than Joshua James Horky, who was, until now, my only regular reader (that is, until I stopped blogging; when he gave up)

I have called it Dr. Bingpickler's Epistemological Time Pone because that's a funny thing to call it, I think. I value my sense of humor. I take it very seriously, Lewis would say, if he weren't busy right now asking for God to open up the earth and take Philip Pullman into the grave still kicking. BTW, boycott that Golden Compass movie! To say the same thing twice now requires only four keystrokes, so boycott that Golden Compass movie! Let's make up signs that say "The Golden Compass Points Children Straight Toward Hell!" Let's.

My sense of humor has a long and boring history. It began when I realized that when I said certain things, people gave me positive attention, and cold, hard eggnog (joke!). Those things that I said were not very often good things, meant for edification or encouragement. They were, rather, frivolous nonsense or crass peanut gallery comments. They remain so, to this day. Watch!

Strathroy, when ever will you exist outside of the stifling box into which sadistic Cartography has placed you?! When will you seek fame and fortune and exotic beverages outside of Southern Ontario? When will you loung by Lake Baikal, get irradiated in Lapland, or mauled by a bear in Kamchatka? Canada may be really big, but not as big as Russia, No sirreee.

Brandon will be funny again on 9 Oct. 2030. The first scheduled time for him to be funny (3 Aug. 1988, in case anybody was still reading this) had to be cancelled due to sunshine, (NOT a joke) so we're having another go. I'm training hard, Strathroy. I have strongly ambiguous feelings toward you, by the way.

Brandon V. Pickering

just writing

My blog now has four posts and four drafts, including one that was posted and removed. I'm not sure that blogging is really for me. I always hated the idea of an online journal, and now I think I've become part of the reason I hated it. I'm just wasting your time, Joshua, with my self-pitying statements about how stupid blogging is and my existential angst over whether I should just end it all. All this blogging foolishness, I mean.

O faithful reader, your blog is an awesome blog. Um... I'd better continue this in an e-mail.

Her shoes

Joshua has a long outstanding request that I write about Virgie's shoes.

Virgie's last pair of shoes had huge holes by the time she threw them away. They were her only pair appropriate for regular use, so we went to Target to replace them.

The shoes for women were all god-awful, so we went two aisles down to the boys section, and she picked out two pairs that she liked.

I want to say that they differed in price by one dollar. It may have been three, certainly no more than five. Virgie had a crisis of conscience. She thought she preferred the more expensive pair, but she wasn't sure. Shouldn't she just let the price arbitrate? But what if she really did want the more expensive pair, and found herself wishing afterward that she had thrown caution to the wind? I couldn't convice her that money was no object in this case. Seriously, it's the price of two apple pies at our favorite restaurant (OK, maybe ten.) But no, she had to make the right choice. Our lives depended on it.

"We'll wish we had those $1-5 when the zombie hordes come," I falsely remember her saying. "The man at the little weapon stand will say, 'pointed stick: one dollar, baseball bat: three, nunchaku: five.'"

I think she got the more expensive ones.

Somnolalia

I wonder if there is a word that means to talk in your sleep. Perhaps I can make one up: somnolalia. I think that would work.

I did some talking in my sleep last night. Right after she heard it, Virgie wrote it down. She shared it with me over breakfast, which we eat every morning at 5 friggin' AM. Here's what my subconscious wanted to say:

What did you say?
You're going to be the X's
I'm going to be all the other ones,
'Cause they got the power.
Look at that!
Wow!

The cow

I took a job with an infomercial company as a statistician three weeks ago. It seemed perfect, but it has become apparent that the company comes by its money dishonestly. For instance, they sells a book which touts natural remedies to virtually any chronic disease, including cancer. The book contains very little medical information. It just plugs an online newsletter which costs $10/month, or something like $500 for a lifetime subscription. The mastermind of the operation is Kevin Trudeau, the only person who has been permanently banned from selling products on television. Because of the first amendment, however, the FDA couldn't stop him from selling books, so that's what he sells. Those books, and various other products with dubious claims attached, are what generate revenue for the company. The longer I stayed there, the more uncomfortable I became. I put my two weeks notice in after one week.

Anyway, I took on a project which required that I review 200 pages of health code. Having no idea what a "primal cut" was, I googled it and found a picture of a cow. I should say, the image of Cowness: noble, sturdy, not particularly intelligent. Here is the cow-

http://www.pgabeef.com/angus_beef_chart.htm.

You're welcome.

Brandon

Intro Blog

Hello,

My name is Brandon Pickering. I have cancelled my MySpace account because of the incessant, lascivious advertising. Also, my wife has been encouraging me to switch to Blogger because it looks nicer. She is right.

The title of my blog refers to my friend Joshua. You can find his blog at the following link:

http://kd7djs.blogspot.com/.

One of the things that makes Joshua's blog awesome is that all his links are merely the word "here" in context. This blog is not as awesome as Joshua's blog.

My wife Virgie and I went to the library in Manchester-by-the-Sea one afternoon. They had a box of free books. From it we obtained an old copy of The New York Times Cookbook, which contains an article about cheese. In that article the author mentions somebody who invented a word meaning "cheese lover." I may change the title of my blog after re-reading the article when I get home. I wonder if I can do that.