In an unprecedented move, in addition to winning the Rose Bowl game, the Oregon Ducks came up the lucky winner of the Rose Bowl. Many in attendance were unaware that the stadium was up for grabs, but the city of Pasadena made a brief, unreported statement prior to the game that they were tired of all “these strange people” over running their fair city all the time. So, their city council voted 4-3 to get rid of the stadium. It seemed to be the major item causing everyone to show up.

So, now that they’ve won it they’ll have to engage the Beaver engineers at Oregon State to devise a way to dismantle the stadium and transport it back to Eugene, Oregon where it will replace the fairly new Autzen Stadium. No one’s sure how that will work out since the Beavers and Ducks are mortal enemies. It could be ugly indeed. To make this work, all the Duck football games for 2012 will be played in Reser Stadium in Corvalis, Oregon, home of the daunted Beavers. Many Duck fans think this is OK, however, because they feel it would do the Reser stadium proud to have a winner in that stadium.

After the drawing, as mentioned above, the Ducks beat the Badgers in a game that could have gone either way until the Ducks went on top 42-38. The Badgers made a valiant effort with 16 seconds remaining but made a crucial judgement error after a first down by attempting to spike the ball with only 2 seconds left. Perhaps it was an experiment to see if it could be done in that amount of time. Now they know. It can’t. Game over, Ducks win. Their first Rose Bowl win since 1917. Some of the members of that team, from 95 years ago, were still on the team after receiving special waivers from the NCAA to extend their eligibility to play. No one at the game noticed them, however, because they weren’t moving very fast. It didn’t help that all of them had shrunk to the size of Kevin Duckworth’s left shoe. Still, they were a proud bunch who can now put it to rest having won their second Rose Bowl game.

A lot of the previous information is inaccurate. Just so you know.

Today my eyes are turning and my ears are screaming. I don’t think one has anything to do with the other, but they are both extremely annoying. That isn’t a complaint, just a fact. I don’t complain because the ringing in my ears gives me an excuse to drink heavily. I don’t do that, but it gives me an excuse if I ever decide I want to.

I’m in trouble again. Diane found the stocking holder that a broke. It’s a stocking holder for Christmas stockings, in case you didn’t relate. I broke it in a good way, actually, because it tipped off the mantel because it was too heavy with all the stuff I put in Diane’s stocking. It was a cute little snowman in a red hat with a fluffy white ball, and he was holding a red bird in his left hand. Now it’s just a cute little snowman with no fluffy white ball on his had, and no bird in his hand. When I broke it I just put the pieces next to it. I went for 9 days without being in trouble until she found it. I knew she would. So, now I have a new project.

Christmas is officially over at our house, now because I took the lights off the roof and the upper porch. I even put them all away. And, I straightened up all the Christmas stuff in the basement, too. That amazed Diane because I did it all while she was gone for an hour. She couldn’t believe that I actually got that much done in such a short time. Heck, I was even sweating when she got home so I don’t understand that. I don’t sweat very often. Except when I climb stairs. Or walk really fast.

I hope everyone is enjoying a great start to their last year on Earth. Remember, 12.21.12 is looming large on everyone’s horizon.

Better think fast because you only have fifty-two hours and fifty minutes to go … no, make that fifty-two hours and forty-nine minutes to go … no, wait! It’s only fifty-two hours and forty-eight minutes to go. Man !! I need to learn how to type a little faster so I can keep up with the clock.

Clocks are such innocent, mechanical “things”, but I swear, when you’re not watching them they just whirl around like crazy … unless you’re at work. They always go slow at work whether you’re watching them or not. They also go faster and faster the older we get.  Why do you suppose that is.

I heard about some research that revealed adrenaline actually slows down time for the adrenalee. That’s probably not a word, adrenalee, but I suspect you know what I mean. Anyway, this research involved adrenaline junkies who jump off cliffs and supposedly discovered that when adrenaline was running high people perceived things as if they were in slower motion. You know, like in “The Matrix”. But, scientists decided that the real reason people think time is speeding up is really related to how rich the memories are. So, when you’re young time goes slower because everything is more memorable. When you’re old time goes faster because they aren’t so memorable. They didn’t use those exact words, but that’s pretty much what it means. I like the “Matrix” concept better.

Here’s a head’s up for anyone who’s ever had a hankering to rip up an old Winnebago. Sometime next Wednesday and/or Thursday Jack is going to bring his torch to our house and we’re going to cut the engine and transmission out of the old 1968 Winnebago that someone left in front of our house a few years ago. Once that’s done we’re going to call one of the local junk haulers wants it for the metal. If you wish to participate in, or just watch this once in a lifetime event, just show up. A-B bring a main dish,  D-Z bring dessert. The only thing that will keep this from happening is if it’s freezing, or snowing. Rain alone won’t stop it.

We just watched the Portland Trailblazers win their 3rd game to go 3-0. They had 25 turnovers in the game and still beat Utah. You just gotta wonder what the scores will look like when they quit giving the ball away.

Diane went to bed already so I need to head that direction so I can get settled before she goes to sleep. That won’t happen, of course, because she always goes out like a light just before her head hits the pillow. One of these days I’m going to film that. One of these days.

Stay safe.

This morning, around 6:30am (0630 for you military types), the moon was partially shut off for about 1.5 hours to save power. The government decided 8 months ago that they were going to do this if certain measures weren’t taken by USA inhabitants to curtail their unending overuse of power production facilities.

“Why,” said one prominent senator, “the average citizen has no idea how much power is consumed to illuminate the moon on clear nights. No, they just fire up all their danged electronical gadgets without a care, not knowing that they are helping deprive some poor, starved South African citizen of just a little bit of the moon’s glow. Now it’s come to this!”

The senator refused to be named and was wearing a moon globe over his head to hide his identity. He got into a vehicle with Kansas license plates. I, personally, find that last bit unremarkable because the news report was from Wichita.

Since the dimming moon was, essentially, a power outage no one was surprised that 850,000 women were immediately inseminated as they are with any kind of power outage. Some of the inseminees reported that it happened so quickly they were unaware that an inseminer was involved. “I was just sitting in my rocking chair, playing sudoku, John was  on his way to the bathroom, the moon went out and, BAM!, I was inseminated! John didn’t know what happened, either, as he was flung to the floor with great force,” reported one newly inseminated mother of 12.

I always thought insemination was a physical act but, apparently, it’s really associated with electricity in some manner, and how bright the moon is at any given moment. I’ve since learned that locations where the sun & moon rarely shine have a much higher insemination rate than do places when the sun & moon are readily available for viewing, many times both at the same time.

Because of all these new revelations whirling around in my head, I’ve decided to make it my life’s goal to find out who that moon-headed senator from Kansas is and petition him to work on legislation that requires all weathermen, in the world, report nothing but good news regarding the weather. If they tell everyone it’s going to be nice and cozy everywhere, we all know that will happen because the weather does just exactly what they report it will. If they say it’s going to be cold, it’s cold. So, all they have to do is say it’s going to be warm and that everyone needs to plant their palm trees. Not only will this enhance global warming, it will reduce the expanding population because the sun & moon will always be visible. Certain locations would have to remain in the dark, however, to ensure potential inseminees have a place to go should inseminational urges overtake rational behavior. But they would need a visa. The only inseminators in these locations are those who took too many viagaras and find themselves in a permanently turgid state. Therefore, insemination will take as much, or little, time as the inseminee wishes to expend  on the effort. In a clinical trial using this method, it was reported that some inseminees remained in the controlled territory for an average of 6 hours, and 3% never return.

I read that report 4 times and still don’t understand what its supposed to mean.

Back to the eclipse … Diane set her alarm for 0600 so we could get up and watch it. She also set it to 0430, but I was the only one to hear it. I didn’t get up then. I waited. We got up and bundled up in warm clothes as it was only about eleventy degrees outside, then went in the yard to watch. Complicating this was all the motion floodlights that come on when something walks though our yard. We had to shade our eyes to see the moon clearly. And we stood there, watching. It’s a real slow process. We watched some more, then the dogs finally decided it was OK to go back in the house. That made us happy so we fed them. Watching an eclipse isn’t high on my list of exciting things to do. Looking once is good. Watching isn’t recommended.

Now the sun is up, we think, but it’s hiding behind an overcast. The weather people say it’s going to rain tomorrow so we need to start waterproofing everything.

Today we went to see “Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 1”. They may have listed the title differently, but that one makes sense to me. For the rest of this, I’m just reporting things as I see them.

For those of you not familiar with the Twilight series, it began as a series of about 14 books about benevolent-type vampires and a group of equally benevolent werewolves. I have to admit that I’ve read all 9 of the books and actually enjoyed them. They are the kind of books that you have to keep reading to see if anything exciting happens then someone turns them in to chick-flicks, which I also enjoy. It’s OK for guys to cry once in a while, as long as it’s dark.

The main character in the books is Bella and her shiny vampire boyfriend, Edward, who is, like, 112 years old. But he looks about 30, playing the role of an 18-year-old. Bella was a more convincing 18, by far.

The Cullens Clan (of vampires) lives in Forks, Washington on the Olympic Peninsula. It’s a for real place. It’s interesting that they filmed many of the scenes right here in St. Helens. Go figure. There’s even a tour of downtown showing all the places here in town they used. Those who live here are able to easily pick out the locations. Even me.

Anyway, the story is mostly a love story about Bella, Edward, and Jacob (one of the werewolves). It’s an odd triangle love affair centered around Bella, of course. I actually liked Jacob better than Edward so figured Bella made a colossal mistake by focusing on Edward. The only way she could connect with Edward was by having him bite her, making her immortal, and forever a bloodsucker, as Jacob would say. Most of the scenes are of Bella and Edward kissing and it looks, to me, like he’s trying to gnaw Bella’s lips off. She comes up a little puffy some times, but he still tries.

Everyone knows that vampires and werewolves are mortal enemies. If they don’t, they should. If they watch any of the 6 movies in the Twilight series they will understand. Or, maybe they won’t. That doesn’t really matter. Just understand that they hate each other but Bella keeps them from killing each other. Interesting. She’s a mortal, for crimeiny sakes.

After lots of drama, and some interesting encounters with the Voltari (I think that’s right), the head of all the vampires, who are stationed in Italy, not Transylvania, like most of us would have guessed. At least I would have. Actually, I did, and couldn’t understand how the author could have played me like that. I felt betrayed in an odd way, because it turned out to be OK that they worked out of Rome. After all, that’s where Vatican City is and you can’t get any more opposite than that – vampires and catholics.

This most recent movie is about Bella and Edward’s wedding, the ensuing honeymoon, lots of lip gnawing, a two-month full term pregnancy, and the death of Bella. She really looked terrible in the end, until the transformation. When she opened her eyes, the movie ended, just like Avatar, on in Avatar it was a guy. A really BIG guy. But, I bet either Edward or Jacob could whip him. It will be interesting to see what happens in the Part 2, but it won’t be coming out until 2014, or something like that.

Overall, the 3 or 4 movies have remained faithful to the 5 books.

In the middle of all that I had to take the dogs out because Diane said Ziva was groaning. Turns out she was groaning because she wanted to get acquainted with a cute little raccoon not much bigger than Ozzie. Ziva and Panzee cornered the raccoon under one of the grape vines and I was able to intercept them all before they disappeared into the property above us. There was much growling and gnashing of teeth, but the little raccoon was a feisty little fellow and the dogs decided the better part of valor was to listen to me and quit the assault. The upside of that encounter was that I got to run the 100 yard dash in my boots to do the intercept so I got all the exercise I need for the next 6 days.

Now I can just lay around and eat nuts.

Today was Friday. I say that, knowing full well that each and every one of you already know that. Being Friday, however, means that the PAC-12 NCAA Football Championship game is on tonight between the Oregon Ducks and the UCLA Bruins. Oh, wait! That game is over! The Ducks won 49-31! What a surprise. I was allowed to watch the entire game. Had it not been for the loss to USC, perhaps the Ducks could have repeated for a national title bid against LSU. Instead, they’ll just have to settle for the Rose Bowl. What a bummer, right? Wonder who they will play.

Shortly after the game started, I borrowed Diane’s car for a run out to our church to resurrected the printer/copier. That only took about 30 minutes, so didn’t miss much.

I’m having trouble thinking of things I did today worth talking about, so I’m just going to tell some more lies. What’s new there? Eh?

Today was beautiful. That’s not a lie. It was sunny, clear, which seems a bit odd for December. Granted, it was a little chilly, but we can live with that by just staying indoors and peeking out the window at the blue sky. Actually, we can do that from our recliners, which we often do – between TV shows.

Speaking of TV shows, we’ve been thinking about getting another DVR so we can record all our favorite shows. Right now we can only record two shows at a time and there are three shows shows we absolutely have to see on some nights. “When,” you might ask, “do you have time to watch all of those shows?” With new developments in quantum mechanics, and nano technology, it’s simply a matter of having one of the new TVs that speed things up a little. Currently, they can only do this while using a DVR but there are rumblings about models soon to appear that can speed things up in real time.

The downside, of course, is that when the TV speeds things up watchers tend to lose track of what’s going on, and the actors voices tend to be on the shrill side, taking away from the drama in most shows. It’s kind of hard to believe the reality of a good love scene when both actors are talking like Alvin the chipmunk. But, it makes you laugh, and that’s important, too.

So, I recommend that everyone just take a course in “speed listening” techniques, like we’re going to do, so you can overcome the deficiencies of the sped up TVs. At $18,000 a pop, it’s just not worth it. In a few years the price will drop to around $8,000 and the technology should be better allowing most normal people to keep up with the action. If you invest in speed listening, as suggested, you’ll be way ahead of the curve and will be able to watch your TV shows on your navigation system while stuck in traffic jams. They can be streamed directly from your DVR to your navigation system via your iPhone. No other phone will work for this feature at this time. Maybe in 2015.

Now I’m sufficiently tired to go to bed and drop right off to sleep.