The Dartnel
May 27, 2005
Boy, is this place a
mess! Why won’t you people take your
garbage out with you? I mean you,
Stan!
Allow me to ramble a
bit. I really meant to write on this a
couple of months ago, when I was doing income taxes. There’s a line on Form 1040 called “Other
Sources of Income” or “Miscellaneous Income” or something like that. (Did I mention I’m an accountant? J) On this line, you list income you’ve received
that doesn’t go anywhere else. You also
list the sources of the income. Okay,
I’ll put it in English! You list where
you got the money from. This includes
income you got illegally. That’s
right, our government thinks that people who make money illegally will be
stupid enough to report it and pay taxes on it!
Actually, maybe they’re right. So
many criminals are dumb. There may be
people out there who would list, for example, $50,000 in income from engaging
in prostitution or $47,000 from robbing banks.
(I fully expect to hear from an FBI agent about this paragraph.) Hey, if tax forms put criminals like these
behind bars, I’m all for it. Of course,
there’s probably a law on the books prohibiting tax forms to be used as
evidence in cases like these. I hope
not.
Enough for that
rant.
Today’s uplifting
thought from the Dartman: Sticks and
stones may break my bones, so I stay off motorcycles.
Time for another
rant. That’s all I’ve got this week; I’m
sorry! I went into the Choctaw Casino at
Pocola a couple of weeks ago to blow a couple of dollars. (I only blew $1.90, but that’s not
important.) I can see why people blow
all their money there. The entire place
seems designed to lull you into a trance.
“Must put more money in, must put more money in, …” The lighting is subdued, as though to make
you slightly drowsy. As we all know,
judgment is one of the first things to go when drowsy, as the first rant above
illustrates. (I was making a joke about
illegal income!) Also, some of the
machines are deceptive. I sat down at
one, thinking that I was playing at two cents a bet. Turned out, it was eighteen cents a bet,
despite the button I pressed saying “two cents”! I don’t think I’ll be going back anytime
soon.
One thing I am
coming back to is the…
Word of the Week: triskaidekaphobia – n. meaning a morbid fear of the number 13 or the date Friday the 13th
(pronounced tris-ky-dek-uh-FOH-bee-uh)
Not a good phobia to have if you were born on, say, June the 13th.
What’s that? You want to know how I’m doing? I’m doing fine! I barely recognize the man in the mirror anymore, but I feel great! No, I’m not that old. Twenty-six next month. (Yes, Ashley, I know that’s a fragment!) A month minus fourteen days, I think it is. (Maybe I should write a whole Dartnel entry using nothing but fragments!) The Superstition Principle remains in effect, by the way.
Thanks, Stan, for clearing your trash!
Darrell
May 20, 2005
Here we go again!
I have no further
news to report on the … item I mentioned from last week. In keeping with the Superstition Principle, there
will be nothing mention on the … item until I have something
definitive. I don’t want to tempt fate.
Speaking of tempting
fate, it’s the…
Today’s uplifting
thought from the Dartman: Got ya! You were expecting that insipid word of the
week, weren’t you? Well, you’re not off
the hook that easily!!!
Mwh-ha-ha!!!
Quote of the week
(although a few words may be slightly off):
“If God saves you, and you’re an idiot, you’re just a saved idiot.” ~ J.D. Sumner, of the famous Stamps
Quartet
Another month minus
seven days and I’ll be 26. I’m getting
old. Seems like only yesterday I was in
high school, asking girls out on dates, getting straight A’s, going to all the
school functions, being the most popular person in school… Wait a minute, just whose life am I
remembering? It sure isn’t mine! I didn’t even drive when I was in high
school! It’s been seven years since high
school graduation. Sometimes, it seems
like seven minutes, or months, or decades.
Some of my high school friends I still keep in touch with. Some seem to have disappeared off the face of
the earth. I know that at least one of
the people I grew up with has died.
Change is inevitable. Still, to
go back to those high school days again!
There are so many things I would do differently. There are also so many things I wouldn’t
change for anything.
Now, it’s the
self-delusional…
Word of the Week: menagerie
– n. meaning 1. A collection of wild or unusual animals, especially for
exhibition; 2. An enclosure where wild or unusual animals are kept or
exhibited; 3. A diverse or varied group (pronounced muh-NAJ-uh-ree or
muh-NAZH-uh-ree)
Keep on keeping on,
Darrell
Postscript: Two items came up between the time I wrote
this and the time I posted this:
May 11, 2005
The Dartnel enters
its second week in production. Unlike
its predecessor, this log will feature only the highest quality commentary …
hee, hee, hee; I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face!
I have a job
interview tomorrow. In keeping with my
insipid superstitions, I will not reveal who it’s with, what it’s for, and
where it’s located. You’ll just have to
suffer until next week. Even then, I’ll probably
still be tight-typed. (Should that be
“tight-lipped”?) At this point, I’m just
hoping for a break. I need
something to look forward to in the morning.
Ack, well, we’ll see.
Today’s uplifting
thought from the Dartman: When
confronted with an awkward date, let me know.
I promise to be less awkward after notification. (That’s ALL I could come up with? A lousy insult at my expense? Like I even GO out on dates. {Wait a minute… now I’m insulting myself in an
aside? What am I doing? I’m outta here.})
The final episodes
of Star Trek: Enterprise air Friday.
I’ve already made my thoughts on the subject of the end of Trek
public earlier. I don’t remember what I
wrote, so this may be in conflict. I
feel that it’s time for a rest. The last
movie bombed worse than Stan’s last album (YES!). The show’s stuck on a backwater network, and
that’s the nicest thing I have to say about the bozos at UPN. After 18 straight years of Trek, I’m
not convinced that there are any new ideas out there. I don’t buy into fan theories that the
producers have wrecked the show, either deliberately or through sheer
incompetence (unless, of course, Stan does side work on the show). Now that I’ve rambled on about nothing, let’s
leave this subject.
Now for something else
that should be left behind, it’s the…
Word of the Week: claque – n.
meaning 1. A group hired to applaud at a performance; 2. A group of fawning
admirers (pronounced KLACK)
I’ll leave it to you
as to which definition best fits the Dartnel!
Before I forget,
please take your trash with you on the way out.
I’m sick and tired of cleaning up after you.
Darrell
May 5, 2005
Happy Cinco de Mayo!
Welcome to the newly
rechristened on-line journal of yours truly, the Dartman. Even with the new look to the home page, I
promise the same great content you’ve come to expect from the former “Darrell’s
Corner On-Line Journal.” So there! J
I
really have very little to report. I’ve
sent some job applications out, but I’m becoming a bit jaded about this whole
job finding process. It’s hard to
believe that someone can graduate near the top of their class from an
accredited four-year university and still have trouble finding work. Let this be a lesson to me: overconfidence breeds disaster. Actually, I feel that if I were willing to
relocate to a large metropolitan area (i.e., Dallas), I’d have little
trouble. As most of you know, though, I
despise the big city life. I think I’d
have trouble working in Tulsa, which isn’t that large of a city! To be frank, I’m extremely close to going
back to school for my Master’s in Accounting.
I really want real world experience before starting work on my Master’s,
but it looks as though I might have to skip that step. We’ll see.
Today’s
uplifting thought from the Dartman: When
the going gets tough, the tough get going.
The weak get going, too: going to
Tahiti, going to the bathroom, going to an old shack (sorry, old joke), going
to the bottle, going to get as far away from the boss as humanly possible, going
to…
It
amazes me sometimes how stupid we can be.
I saw this on the Jay Leno show a couple of weeks ago. It was during a segment he does on Monday
nights, in which he reads headlines and so on from newspapers. Generally, there’s usually something wrong
with the item he reads (i.e., typos, bad grammar, poorly chosen sentences,
etc.). This particular item dealt with a
guy (or maybe it was a girl; I don’t quite remember) who drove into the DMV to
get his (her?) license renewed. Let me
reemphasize: he (I’m assuming from this
point on that it was a “he”) literally drove his car INTO the
actual DMV building! The DMV called the
police to the scene. By the time the
police arrived, the guy had had sufficient time to renew his license. Let me repeat: After driving his vehicle INTO the
DMV, he was still allowed to RENEW his license! To quote Yakov Smirnov, “What a country!”
Speaking
of things hard to explain, it’s the…
Word of the Week: rara avis – n. meaning a rare
or unique person or thing (pronounced RAIR-uh-AY-vis)
Get
out of here; I’ve got too much on my heart.
I don’t like to feel the pain. By
the way, the pain shoots through me like a dart. (Anyone who knows where this sign-off came
from, please click
here and tell me!)
Darrell