The battle of weight loss and my penis hurts

I wrote to bacon a few weeks ago in telling it how much I miss it, and I still do. This was all prompted from a visit to my doctor telling me to lose weight. Well, if anyone was curious, things are going well. I joined L.A. Fitness and that has been a godsend because they offer fitness classes. I am really bad about wanting to go jump on an elliptical machine but when other people are around me I feel embarrassed not to be able to keep up.

The other nice thing about the gym is that it offers racquetball, which it turns out is really fun. My coworker and I have started playing once a week and while I am not good at it, we spend at least an hour and a half playing. Wednesday's game brought with it my first injury though. I went to swing at the ball to bounce it off the back wall and instead of getting the intended lift on the ball, it ricocheted off the wall and came back to hit me square in the penis. Not ball, just my wiener.

I was glad of it hitting where it did but it felt like it took my penis and thumped it as hard as I could against a hard surface. Sort of like slamming your finger in a door but with my dick. I had to walk it off for a little bit before the game resumed but it left no marks and I recovered so no harm done. Makes me think I might need to start wearing goggles though because that could have blinded me had it hit me in the eye.

Oh, on the weight loss thing I am sitting at a loss of 8 lbs as of this morning. I haven't had bacon or french fries in almost a month. I am consistently tracking my calories via a handy app on my iPhone and my cookie intake has dropped significantly to about 1 a week. Two more pounds and I will have achieved a quarter of my goal.

That is all,

Newt

Moviephone

I was driving in a very rural area Tuesday when something occurred to me. The Internet has really changed the way we live. Specifically the way we go to the movies.

Remember when you wanted to go to the movies and you would grab this large paper thing called a phone book and look up theatres. Then you would call the number and wait while the automatic recording would come on to tell you the movies that were out and the times they started? Thinking back on it I actually get reminiscent of the time when I could listen to a robotic voice saying, ""Angels in the Outfield" playing at 11:45, 1:50, 4:00, 6:50, and 9:20."

Then there was the problem of having to listen to all of the movies until yours came up. Invariably someone was always in the room yelling, "Well, what time does it start?" and you would miss the times because of it and have to call back in and go through everything again.

Isn't it amazing what technology has made obsolete?

That is all,

Newt

Coma Chameleon

My mind has been wandering a bit lately, partially due to hunger, but one thought that I can't seem to get out of my head is what it would be like to wake up from a coma after a large number of years.

I read a story a long while back about a man who woke up from a coma after something like 20 years and he asked for a Pepsi and wanted to know if Reagan was still President. How unnerving must it be for someone to go into a coma on say, June 13th 1992 and then wake up today? The massive changes that we have had in that time would be astronomical. One day you think a Nintendo is the height of technology for gaming and you wake up and get to play an Xbox! You go comatose when Macaulay Culkin is slapping his face and wake up to Justin Bieber on the hospital Muzak machine.

In my wandering mind I thought up a couple of interesting scenarios.

1. You go into a coma around age 10 and wake up at age 21. You don't have anything past a 4th grade education and suddenly you are in a man's body. You now have to begin learning where you left off. You are a real life version of that movie 'Big'. Do you return to school? By the time you get to college people your age are buying houses and getting married. You graduate and you are now competing with other graduates that are 10 years younger than you. It wouldn't just be a environmental change you have to deal with, but a financial and educational one too.

2. You go into a coma as an adult and you wake up years later to find that life didn't stop when you did, it kept going. All of your friends have moved away or are at a much different stage in life, your marriage has fallen apart because your wife has moved on, and you have missed the death of your father. Your family has to welcome you back into their lives and try to catch you up on everything you've missed but they constantly find that they are bringing up things you don't know about and it is awkward and uncomfortable.

There are tons of other variations but the thing I think is most unsettling is the idea that you have to acclimate to the world. The changes in politics, religion, gay rights, television, the Internet, and every other media would be so difficult to catch up on. Where do you start. Do you get a list of the top 100 movies and watch them? Do you go to a bookstore and just soak in the mass of fiction you have missed? Can you ever really get caught up on life or will there always be something that you feel you are still missing?

I know one thing I would have to do and that would be to try to get caught up on my comic books and after waking up from a coma, it wouldn't be easy to do. First, I would need money and that would mean finding work after being out for so long. Trying to find a job would be difficult. What do you put on your resume?

1992-1994: Waiter at Chili's
1994-Present: Coma patient at Dallas General Hospital

That might not get you a call back.

The one saving grace for my big problem is that ebay has come along to make buying massive amounts of crap much easier. It would be a long process but one I would enjoy.

I am not sure why this has gotten so stuck in my head but it doesn't want to leave. Has anyone else ever contemplated this?

That is all,

Newt

Grave Error in Judgement - Nuts

I have this thing I do when I regret doing something. It usually occurs about 3 seconds after I regret something and either out loud or in my head I always tell myself, "I may have made a grave error in judgement". Surprisingly this happens a lot and it happened on July 3rd.

We were going to a pool party on the 3rd at a friends house to celebrate the 4th and last year I got, how do we say, falling down drunk. I literally fell down and almost sprained my ankle due to excessive amounts of alcohol. I got out of the pool and my ankle buckled and I lay on the ground wailing as everyone laughed at me. I woke up on the couch in clean clothes and not sure how I got there.

This being the case, I thought I would prepare for this year's party by making sure that if for some reason my pants were removed that I would look good. I know this probably doesn't make sense to most people but it is entirely possible that someone would see me sans pants and I didn't want to appear unkempt so I, well, I trimmed my pubes.

It is a proven fact that if you have little to no hair on your crotch that your dong looks like a dang, as in, "Dang that is big". And with going in and out of the pool I figured if it got shown, it would be better to reduce the look of shrinkage. This is the logic that went through my head.

So, I grabbed my electric razor and started mowing the lawn, so to speak. This is not, in and of itself, a mistake. However, when I decided to remove the guard from the head of the razor and freehand it, that's another story. I nicked my sack and started bleeding. It wasn't awful but it wasn't pleasant either. The pain was not the main issue though. That came all day when the little hairs just kept poking into my entire crotch area as I walked.

"I may have made a grave error in judgement"

Newt

Dear Bacon

Dear Bacon,

I miss you. I haven't had you in a few days and the fact that I need to lose weight means I may not have you for a while. Please understand this isn't my choice. I have to do it.

I had grilled chicken breast for lunch today and the whole time I was imagining you. I miss your salty crunch and the way you can take anything and make it better. Remember that time I ate a whole plate of you? Yeah, those were good times.

I hope you don't forget about me while I am gone. I won't forget about you. Not after all the good times we had.

Love,

Newt

I'm Tired

I'm tired. Not sleepy or aggravated. Just tired, of everything. I am bored with blogging, I haven't really enjoyed anything as much as I feel I use to. My life seems better than ever and there are times where I just feel like I embody Blah!

I don't feel creative anymore. I remember a long while ago I was quick on my feet with things. I would say that I still am but maybe it isn't as honed as it use to be. I want to make something but I don't know how to.

The baby is coming and I feel like the next three months will be the last part of my life where I will be able to just go do something stupid and not have to worry about the consequences. I joined a volleyball league for the summer partly because I could.

I went to the doctor a few days ago for a check up and he told me I had to loose 40 lbs. Shit! that is a lot of weight. And I have zero motivation to do it, which doesn't help. But I am officially watching what I eat. The first day I got a headache and I think it was because I was so focused on not being able to have a cookie that I caused myself to become peeved. How sad is it that I can give myself a headache because I want a cookie?

I am starting to feel old. I think that might be a part of my funk. That and George Clinton. We were on vacation this weekend and I didn't get drunk. I drank a little but I honestly didn't feel like drinking. And when 10 o'clock rolled around I was happy to forgo the band we were listening to at the bar and instead go home and finish reading my book.

I wish there was a shot you could take that would rid you of malaise. I found an over the counter narcotic that would give temporary relief but like I said, I can't have cookies anymore.

That is all,

Newt

Batman XXX: There is a Nerd God

"Holy Threesome Batman!"

Apparently there is a Nerd God because you can now see Batgirl getting pounded by the Boy Wonder. Axel Braun, Porn director extrodinaire, found a legal loophole that allows for the Porn Parody of the old 60's Batman TV show to be made into a porn.

It is called Batman XXX and it is awesome. I have never hidden my interest in comics and I have also been verbal of my love of porn so when these two things were combined and looked to be genuinely entertaining, I had to do something I haven't done since I was 18. I actually purchased a porn DVD.

I finally finished it, I had to stop a few times to...uh, well...huh? Oh, yeah. Anyway, it was fairly good. Dale Dabone plays Batman and can do a mean Adam West impression. The girl who plays Batgirl is a favorite of mine(Lexi Belle) and the extras are something that are actually kind of fun to watch.

They give a sex free version of the film that clocks in at about 30 minutes, the full length (pun intended) version runs about 2 hours, and the behind the scenes footage shows you the guys playing the characters seemed to have actually been fans of the old show. Also they show a reading of a script for porn which was an odd thing to watch. I believe I read they even hired the old costume director for the show to come in and make the costumes.

This is the trailer. It is safe for work.



I got my copy off of Adam & Eve and if you entere 'pop' in at checkout you save 50%. Oh the wonders of the internet.

That is all,

Newt

I'm so Happy!!!!

On Monday my wife said the six sweetest words she could ever have said to me. I am tearing up just thinking about it. No, she didn't say, "Meet Jessica Alba, sex her up" and it wasn't "I want sex every single day" and it most definitely wasn't "Here, I bought Amazing Fantasy #15" (first appearance of Spider-Man for the non-geek readers). No, she said something I have been waiting years to hear.

"You can get a new TV."

Oh, here come the tears again.

Sorry, I dried my eyes. Thanks to Best Buy's Father's Day Sale, I am now the proud owner of a Samsung 46' LCD work of art. It is everything I hoped it would be. And we bought it a friend. We now are able to experience Blue Ray, which is something we waited on.

Sam and Ray have been great together. They are a match made in heaven. I couldn't ask for two better pieces of equipment. I just stand there watching them sleep and think how lucky I am. I never thought a Father's Day sale would mean I would be able to buy such perfect offspring.

Hooray!

That is all,

Newt

The danger of sneezing

I will warn readers this is a disgusting post but when I told my wife this story she did not give me the sympathy that I was hoping for but instead fell over laughing at me. Thus I bring it to you, dear readers. Be warned.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -



Are you sure? I don't want to hear about how gross this is later.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

OK, but I warned you.

This is a cautionary tale. Hopefully my pain will save others from the same fate. You see, I almost ripped my asshole open a few days ago. I was sitting on the toilet, and just as the Titanic of turds was cresting I felt a sneeze coming on. There was a moment where I thought to myself, "If I sneeze while dropping a deuce, will it force the turn to shoot out like a cork from a pop gun?" Scientifically speaking, I was curious enough to find out and let my sneeze continue whilst my bung hole was in full bloom.

The answer to my query is a resounding "NO". Instead it causes what I can only assume is the feeling of being violently anally raped but only in the opposite direction. I let the "Achooo!!" out and immediately followed this up with a blood curdling scream and finished with a massive collapsing over in pain.

As I stared at my face in the mirror and tears began to well up in my eyes, I realized that there are many times in life when you do stupid things and I had just encountered one of them. The look of shock that was plastered on me for a few moments was a sight to behold and I was forced to sit for a moment to catch my breath. My poor anus still hasn't forgiven me.

I wish to leave you with profound words of wisdom at this point but I don't have any. Wisdom is clearly not my forte.

That is all,

Newt

This sure has been easy...a Post Mortem

Well, we finally moved. It took two weeks from the original signing date to get our names on the paperwork to sell our home, a delay of 6 hours to have the movers even show up, and three days of heavy unpacking but we are in.

We love our new home. It is huge in comparison to our old house and the layout is a bit different, especially the kitchen and living rooms. I had to mow for the first time on Monday and that ended up taking 2 hours because the grass hadn't been cut in a month. Already we have met a couple of the neighbors and the neighborhood is an upgrade. If I can just get the cable line dropped into my office I am gold.

That is all,

Newt

Trivia time

I am in Denver for few days and yesterday I had me a good ole time. Yesterday, after working at one of our Denver plants I joined a group of people from the company in a scratch golf game. I haven't played golf in over a year and this game really proved a point. You can't just start playing golf again.

I made about 3 decent drives and one solid putt. I hit one well enough that it overshot the green and went out into the street. I don't know if I hit a car but I may have. But I redeemed myself later in the evening.

You see, it was $1 taco night in the apartment complex of one of my old coworkers. After the game we headed over to the clubhouse of her complex and when we arrived we discovered they had trivia. I signed us up the second we walked in the door as team Newt the Wonder Frog and oh what a wonder it was.

The game consisted of 5 rounds however we walked in on the 4th question of round 2. The first question got me going as it was "Who sang "I'm too sexy"?" Well I knew that was Right Said Fred and we were off. My coworkers really didn't add much to our game as I knew most of the music, movie and TV questions but they tried and helped on a couple.

By the end of the night, we came in third against 7 other teams. Now that may not sound all that impressive at first glance but our score was 71 points while 2nd place had started at round 1 and had 72 points. 1st came in at 83 points and I know I could have taken it if I had started from round 1. Third place won us a $5 gift card to the bar so my coworker was happy. Had we won 1st we would have had $20. I was a superstar.

That is all,

Newt

This sure has been easy...

"This sure has been easy," I said on Tuesday morning. I was referring to our impending move and sale of our home. We had an offer on our house within 10 days of putting it on the market and things went very well with selecting our new home. The financing worked out in our favor, we got a low interest rate, and we planned to move in on Friday. That is until Wednesday.

Wednesday I was working from the house and got a call from my realtor. "Do you want to schedule a final walk through on your new home?" I had been meaning to set that up so we worked out to go over that afternoon at 4 and make sure everything looked good for our move in. We had appointments to sign our buyer and sellers agreements on Thursday and this was my last chance to see the house before we signed. At 3 I got the call that has been plaguing us ever since.

"Trinity, we have a problem?"
"What's that Dan?"
"It seems the buyers on your home had an issue that will cause them to be unable to close tomorrow. Their agent said it should be fixed tomorrow and we can close on Friday."
"What? Well that isn't good. Do you know what it is?"
"No, but I am going to call around and see what I can find out. This is going to delay me getting to our walk through so I will meet you at 4:30 instead."

At the walk through I learned what happened. There was a gift of some money given to the buyers for the purchase of the home and when that happens you have to declare the gift and get a statement saying it isn't a loan. They didn't do this and thus we were stuck. After talking to my realtor we were told by the buyers that Friday shouldn't be an issue and to expect to close then.

Diana was flying in for this and we had transferred utilities, booked movers, and taken off work to get all of this done. I wasn't happy but one day wasn't going to kill us. I broke the news to her and she landed in Dallas on Wednesday night.

Thursday we heard nothing. The loans were stuck in underwriting and we were waiting. I had moved all of our important things such as movers and installs to Saturday but late in the afternoon we still knew nothing. We went and signed the paperwork on our new home and hoped that Friday afternoon was a possibility.

It ended up not being possible as well. We were out shopping for baby furniture and waiting for news on what was going to happen. When the call came, we were informed of what was holding us up. Somewhere along the way, our current address was spelled Oaks instead of Oak, the buyers wife has a hyphen in her name on some but not all of the documents, and a previous offer the buyers had made on another home that they ended up abandoning after inspection was under question for earnest money. It was now known that the earliest we could close would be Monday and more likely Tuesday or Wednesday.

Diana had to leave town on Saturday morning so we had to go get Power of Attorney to allow me to sign for both of us. I had to rush to reschedule all of our utilities and installs and now the movers have been put on hold again. I had to reschedule a work trip that was supposed to happen on Tuesday and Diana is scrambling to find time to come home and help me move.

So, "This sure has been easy" was the biggest bit of irony I have seen in a while.

That is all,

Newt

People who should be real

I was eating a pack of Chewy Sprees today and a great sadness swept over my body. I realized that Willy Wonka isn't real and then it occurred to me, "I sure wish he was." Why hasn't someone become Willy Wonka? I mean, how hard would it be?

Buy an abandoned factory and convert it to a candy land, hire some midgets to dress up as Oompa Lonpas, and invest heavily in purple suede suits. Then you can just live out your days floating along a chocolate river and drinking dew from edible cups of sugar.

Someone has to have the money to do this. Rich people spend their money on stupid stuff all the time. I just want to walk through those awesome iron gates and have a apparently crippled man walk out so I can watch him take a tumble and then welcome me to his home. Is that too much to ask?

That is all,

Newt

Aged, like a fine wine

I am closing in on 28 and it appears my body is falling apart already. Not sure why but I would guess it has just passed the warranty period and now will begin to fall apart rapidly and with resounding disappointment.

Three weeks ago I got out of my truck and my knee was injured. "Did you get hit by a car like a real man?" you ask. No, I literally just swung my legs out of the truck and when my right leg hit the ground I had a sharp pain in my knee joint and it has progressed nicely into a dull pain and massive amounts of swelling. It makes getting up a bitch too. Imagine a turtle on his back and you can get a decent idea. I have spent the last few nights having this conversation with myself and/or Diana if she is in town.

"I think my knee is swollen. It looks bigger. At least I think it looks bigger. Maybe it is in my head but it really feels swollen. I definitely think it is swollen." I then stand and look at it in the mirror and try to compare my two knees. Since they are both kind of fat and scarred up from years of neglect they look almost the same.

Oh, and the greatest moment of my life happened last night. I had to buy my first tube of Preparation H. Yep, that's right. I have a nice anal burning that needed the soothing that only a small tube of yellowish gel could quench. I say quench because that is the best description for the feeling of having gel in your anal cavity for hours on end. I had the continual feeling of having sharted.

I got doubly lucky because when I went to buy The H I got the embarrassment pleasure of having to buy the tube from a woman. When I saw her I just decided I should walk up and say "Yep, I have anal itch and sharp pain in my rectum but you already knew that due to this extremely embarrassing purchase I am making." Instead I just avoided eye contact and hoped The H shrinks embarrassment with the same gusto as my butt hole.

That is all,

Newt

What-A-Crock of $#!+

The one problem I have with travelling is that on Wednesday’s, when new comic books come out, I am away from my home shop and can’t do my Comic Book Day ritual. That is that I go get my comics at lunch, head across the street, and grab a Whataburger with bacon and cheese. I then sit in a state of bliss for the next 20-30 minutes as I eat my meal and read a couple of comics. I make due when travelling by finding the closest comic shop and visit on Wednesday to pick up a single issue so as not to tempt the comic gods. You must make your weekly sacrifice of $3.


As I was driving into Columbia on Sunday I was dumbfounded to find something so disgusting, so utterly shocking that it makes every tabloid rumor, every American Idol results show, dare I say even every Telenovela dramatic reveal pale in comparison. Some sonofabitch in Columbia, South Carolina has defiled the Whataburger.

I know, I know. I almost shit my pants with disgust when I saw this blatant disregard for decency. The sign says “Since 1954” and after some fact checking I confirmed that Whataburger was established in 1950 which means that this pitiful excuse for a human being is a thief.
I went undercover today to find out how deep this conspiracy goes. My coworker and I went to eat lunch at this imitation and my level of disgust deepened when I stepped into the door. Look at these combos:


#1: What A Burger (What A Crock is more like it)
#2: What A Burger w/cheese (Yeah, that’s original)
#3: Double What A Burger (Double Suck my ass you copycat)
#4: Double What A Burger w/cheese (Now you just put cheese on my ass so you could keep sucking it)
#5: 8 inch Philly Cheese Steak (This is blasphemy. At least have the decency to copy everything. You probably didn’t have time to write down the combos as you were running away from the flavor police)
#6: 4 oz Ribeye Steak Sandwich (That one sounds kind of tasty.)

I tried a regular burger just for safety sake. The food itself wasn’t bad but it wasn’t the caliber of food that a Whataburger loyalist would come to expect from the name Whataburger.


And look at this drink. This is minute. I could drink that in one gulp. Come On! I guess Fancy Ketchup would be too much to ask for?


I can’t believe what this world has come to. Shame, shame!

That is all,

Newt

Travels for Work - Columbia, South Carolina

I am currently sitting in my hotel room at the Clarion and tomorrow begin another fun deployment at a company here in Columbia, South Carolina. Today was a hellacious day because I have spent most of it on a plane. Diana and I were in Amarillo, Texas this weekend visiting a friend and I had to fly from Amarillo to Dallas to Columbia today and landed around 5:30 p.m.

Columbia is the capital of South Carolina yet as I drove around today I can't say it screams "STATE CAPITAL!". It is a nice enough town from what I have seen but nothing so majestic that I would instantly recognize it as a special place.

I went and took in 'The Losers' at the local mall tonight and felt like I had entered the Twilight Zone. Their mall is like nothing I have ever seen. It had no real front entrance and after circling the entire building, I found the Barnes and Nobles right next to the T.G.I.Fridays and guessed this was the place. I never saw a sign for the movie theatre but assumed it was inside and after being unable to find it, I checked the mall map.

What's this? The mall is on the roof? Huh? So I got on the elevator and went up to the roof and found nothing. It opened to a parking lot. I went back down and tried going to another area of the mall but it took me back to the roof. I finally found a mall cop and asked and apparently the theatre was up there but on a totally different part. I went back to my car and drove up the three ramps of the parking garage to the roof, silly me I hadn't thought to park up there, and finally found the theatre.

I was blown away. Sitting on the top of a two story mall was a 7 screen movie theatre that had absolutely no signs other than the small lettering above the door that said Regal 7 Theatres. I would never have found it. FYI: check out the movie. It was a lot of fun to watch.

After dinner I wanted to try something local so I drove around and found Bojangles' Famous Chicken 'n Biscuits. I was greeted by a ton of black people so I knew it was going to be good. This nice old black lady named Nancy recommended I get the Supreme, which was 4 chicken fingers, fries and a biscuit and I was not disappointed. And this was at 9:30 so it was not the freshest it could have been. I love that it was named Bojangles. That seems kind of racist since they sell fried chicken but I honestly can't say why.

That is all,

Newt

Moving is a pain in the ass

FYI: It sucks to move. Since my old lady went and got herself knocked up we decided we didn't have much of a choice though, so to make room for our little bundle of joy we put our house on the market. I mean, I could have given up my comic book room but, come on, we all know that isn't happening.

I spent a couple of weeks, with the help of both mine and Diana's dad, updating our house and a For Sale sign went up in the yard. We saw a lot of action in the first week and after 10 days had accepted an offer. I think I might be spoiled on real estate because when we bought this place it was super easy and now selling it was too. We made enough cash for the down payment on a new place and as of today we now have an offer accepted on a new home.

Come May 14th we will hopefully be moving a little bit north of our current home and taking up residence in the house we will raise our kids in. With that we have started packing. God I hate packing. It is the worst experience because essentially you just take all your crap you never use and move it to somewhere else. You also are forced to do without things while they are in boxes. So far we have packed up the study, the living room's miscellaneous artifacts, and some dishes.

I have to go visit with an inspector on Thursday to make sure nothing is wrong with our new abode and then we can start getting our paperwork ready.

One of the funny things about selling this house is that the buyer is a fellow comic book collector. Since this is the case he has asked me to walk him through the house and get together to talk comics while he is here. Kind of odd but I am looking forward to it. He claims he has more comics than I do so I want to challenge that while he is here.

Oh the joys of real estate.

That is all,

Newt

I'm getting a tadpole

I can't believe I get to type this but...I am going to be a father! (yes it was intentional)

My wife, Diana is 14 weeks pregnant and I have been informed that not only is it mine, but I am somehow responsible for it. WOW!

We waited to announce this news until the first trimester had passed and now that it has, the entire blogosphere is now allowed to know this. So, Newt the Wonder Frog is getting a sidekick. Not sure what kind yet but sometime in the first week of October we will be welcoming an addition to our lives.

I have a policy about writing about kids, and that is I don't care for it. I think of my blog as an arena for releasing the gremlins in my head so they don't completely take over. That being said I am sure I will want to write everything in the world about my baby so my wife decided to start a family blog for us. So, if you are interested in knowing my feelings on parenthood, family, and babies or you just want to follow along as God gets even with me for all my past mistakes, you can follow our journey here.

That is all,

Newt

To the Mystery Machine

I've got a mystery and I need YOUR help to figure it out. I was reading "Exile" a week ago and got to page 100 or so and found something interesting. A receipt was in the book.

I thought to myself, "Now that is funny. Someone wanted some pastry while reading this book so they had to stop at the 7-11." I looked down at the receipt and at the bottom was the transaction date.

08/12/03

Thinking about this, the dates in the story were more in line with 2006-2007 so I decided to look at the publication date of the book and I found...dun dun duuuuunnnnnn....It was a first edition hardback that was published in 2007.

What does this mean? Why would someone hold on to a receipt for at least 4 years and then put it in a library book? Why this book specifically? Was it a bookmark? If so they didn't finish the novel or maybe they did and just left it in after. But again I am left wondering why?

I have a few theories. The first is that the 7-11 reciepts use a different date distiction and this is actually from 12-03-2008. If that is the case then the date is not as odd and the rest is pretty simple. I am going to go to this 7-11 since it isn't far from me and see if I can verify this.

Any other thoughts? Come on Velma! Grab Fred and Daphne and lets figure this out!

That is all,

Newt

Hidden Gem

A few weeks ago I made a pact with my wife. "Diana" I said, "will you make a deal with me? We have so many books that I would like to agree that until we have read all of them, each for their own books, we will not buy another book." And the surprising thing is, she agreed. I say surprising because, while I latch onto authors and buy all they have written, my wife will do that and pick up a random book after reading the jacket and deciding that, "It is only $4 so what the hey."

I love this about her but in the last year or so, her book buying habits have started to overwhelm our already bursting shelves. And she has a tendency to go for thicker novels which doesn't help things much.

The only problem with this agreement involves my book club. Once a month I have to have the book that we are reading, and as of late I have had luck picking books I already own but haven't read. Well, this month I wasn't so lucky and I need a copy of Richard North Patterson's Exile and Diana refused to let me buy it. Thus, I went somewhere I haven't been since I was a child...The Public Library.

Something snobby in me says, "Trinity, you don't need the library. You will just want to keep the book so just buy it." Well, I am now without that option and so I went to the public library today and opened an account to get my book and I must say, the Lewisville Library is nice. It was quite, had a wonderfully large area for children, and carried a decent supply of books. It isn't too large or overpowering and I was able to find Exile without any help which is more than I can say for some libraries I have been in.

And there were people there...at 11 a.m. on a Monday morning. I assumed it would just be me. So maybe I will give this library thing another try after I return the book I have. I mean, there is no way I will have all of my books read by next month and there is sure to be another book club meeting so I just may have to.

That is all,

Newt