And just for the heck of it, here are a couple more images I find amusing, both ganked from Samurai Frog.

The first is Rumer Willis, daughter of Bruce and Demi Moore, as she appears in Sorority Row, yet another remake of a movie from my early adolescence (admittedly not a very good movie, but I’m just getting sick of all the remakes on general principle):

I’m not any kind of fan of Rumer’s — as far as I know, I haven’t seen her in anything — but this pic struck my fancy because, well, the apple hasn’t fallen very far from the tree, has it? Click to enlarge, for the full effect, and tell me if you don’t see what I mean.

And now here’s one that’s kind of dumb but made me smile anyhow:

And with that, I guess I’m going to go find something to do outside for awhile… have a good one, everybody…

Just something Lileks said this morning that struck me:

The worst thing about Depression isn’t the sense that you’re ac-centuating the negative, it’s that you’re seeing things the way they really are, stripped of the illusions you use every day to divert yourself from the Yawning Maw of Futility. It’s the wind that blows off the snow and reveals the stone.

I think I mentioned recently that I’m coming up on my fortieth birthday in a few weeks. (If I didn’t, hey, kids, guess what? I’m turning 40 soon!) I’m not real happy about it. In fact, I’m trying my damnedest not to drive everyone within earshot crazy by having a stereotypical breakdown and mid-life crisis — there are few things as disheartening as realizing you’re acting like a total cliche — but I have to tell you that it’s pretty tough maintaining an air of cool, collected indifference toward your advancing age when you start receiving junk mail from the AARP. That’s the American Association of Retired Persons for you young people who may not know of it.

Now, I do occasionally receive mail that’s intended for my father. We share the same first name and we did share the same address for a very long time. So my first thought when I spotted the AARP’s logo on the business-size envelope in my hand was that it must be something for him. But no, it was plainly addressed to “Mr. Jason Bennion.” Which would be me. No room for error there.

Compelled by morbid curiosity, I slit it open… and discovered within an official membership card emblazoned with the same pre-printed “Mr. Jason Bennion.” The accompanying letter instructed me how to register my membership and described the fabulous benefits I can receive by doing so today.

But I’m only 40, for god’s sake! You know, the new 30? Isn’t that what all the magazines have been calling it lately? Or was that just a passing fad and they’ve decided 40 is over the hill after all? Whatever will make us insecure enough to buy this month’s issue, right? Right?

Ah, geez… I suddenly feel the need to slip into a cardigan and pop a Geritol.

One more for tonight…

The Salt Lake Tribune really needs to have a chat with its headline writer:

Skateboard attacks man over alleged fake-drug sale

Treacherous skateboards! When are the police going to do something about them! When I was a boy, you could walk down the streets without fearing that some skateboard was going to leap out and mug you, but now everything’s gone to hell in a mop-bucket!

(What actually happened, of course, is that some guy attacked another guy with a skateboard. But sloppy editing gives a very different impression, doesn’t it? Anytime anyone around my place of employment wonders why they need pedantic guys like me slowing down the process when they’re on deadline, I’ll just point them to this example…)

(Incidentally, the headline has been fixed since I first saw it this morning — it now reads “Skateboarder attacks man…” — but still, I think my point was made. Proofreaders… if you deal in words at all, we’re your most valuable resource!)

Ever since she was a little girl, my mom wanted to own a horse ranch with a white board fence. Life, of course, doesn’t work out the way we imagine it will when we’re young — that’s a truth I’ve been struggling with myself lately — but she did manage to get an approximation of her dream, at least. There’ve always been horses around the Bennion Compound, even before I came along. When I was a kid, she dabbled a little with breeding her mares. (I learned the facts of life by watching three foals enter the world, and one, sadly, that didn’t quite make it.) And yes, she even got her white board fence, across the front of a hay pasture she and Dad bought from one of the neighbors. It wasn’t Southfork by any means, but it was pretty good for our circumstances.

At its largest point, our little herd numbered five head, three of which were papered Arabians. But that was long ago, and time and entropy have taken their toll. This morning, my parents had to make the difficult decision to have one of Mom’s two remaining horses put down. Her registered name was Misty Dawn, a derivation of her mother’s name — Desert Mist, or more familiarly, Misty — and her sire’s, Dantu (that’s pronounced Dawn-Too, for the record). But we’ve always just called her Dawn, naturally.

Continue Reading…

I’ve had a couple inquiries from Loyal Readers as to my whereabouts and condition; apparently, the lack of tributes for the plethora of recently departed celebrities (which, as you all know, are usually like catnip for your humble host) has them worried about me. Your concern is much appreciated, folks, but rest assured that I’m alive and doing fine… mostly. I seem to have entered into another of those periods when I’m insanely busy at work, constantly chasing around on the weekends, and too damn exhausted in the evenings to accomplish anything more thought-intensive than shoveling food in the general direction of my mouth. This has been the pattern of my life for several years now — somehow, I’ve managed to land myself in an industry that booms in the summertime, right when most people are finding ways to take it easy — but I still haven’t gotten used to it, and I honestly don’t think I ever will. I’m easily distracted and inclined toward procrastination at the best of times, and when things get like this… well, blogging isn’t the only thing I haven’t managed to keep up with. And I’m feeling pretty damn frustrated about it, too. This isn’t how I used to imagine my life was going to be. It was supposed to look a lot more like this:

Glamorous space babes offering me cocktails while I pursue galactic adventures aboard my somewhat phallic-looking rocketship? Yeah, wouldn’t that be lovely… anyhow, I’m taking a mental-health day tomorrow, and among all the other items on my to-do list, I hope to get a couple of those tributes written. Keep your fingers crossed for me…

(Incidentally, more images like the one above can be found here. If you’re into this sort of thing. Which obviously, I am.)

Courtesy of Lileks:

People! It takes all kinds to make a world. I just wish sometimes they’d go off and make one of their own.

My buddy Jack Hattaway is preparing to ride in his second Lotoja Classic, a 206-mile bicycle race that runs from Logan, Utah, to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in September. This time, however, he’s doing it to raise funds for the important research being done high on the hill above our fair city at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. Jack was planning to ride again anyhow, but he was inspired to make this year’s race a bit more meaningful after watching a good friend battle — and defeat — melanoma. As it happens, The Girlfriend and I have recently had our own experiences with cancer and the Huntsman Institute — not us, but involving people that matter to us — so it’s a cause near to our hearts as well. If my loyal readers will forgive me, I’m again going to ask everyone reading this to consider throwing in a couple of bucks for a worthy goal.

You can learn more details about Jack and why he’s doing this at his donation page. I hope you’ll click through and at least give it some thought.

If you’re interested in the Lotoja Classic, here’s the official site for that. And lastly, here is the little blurb I wrote about Jack’s participation in the event last year.