RIP, Captain EO

Google always impresses me with the speed with which its index is updated. Still, as fast as it is, it's not actually instantaneous. This afternoon, one of the girls at work got a call from her husband saying Michael Jackson had died. He didn't have any details, so she immediately turned to the internet and googled "Michael Jackson dead", clicking the first result that came up.

After 1 minute of skimming the article, she started running around the office telling employees and patients alike, "Did you hear? They found Michael Jackson dead at his house, and he's been dead for like 20 years and the guy that's been running around saying he's Michael Jackson all the time is an imposter!"

I immediately smelled something fishy, so I followed her back to her room to check her source. Sure enough, since the Google index wasn't quite updated yet, that first Google result she followed was this article, from that bastion of sober journalism, The Onion.

Lost/Found

Next to one cupboard in our dining room is a small hole where a power outlet used to be. The hole sat uncovered for a while until we noticed that some toys were inexplicably vanishing. I discovered that by contorting my hand just right, I could get my camera in just far enough to get a picture of the inside of the wall, all the way down to the bottom between the drywall and the studs.

Before

Tonight, after a good solid 90 minutes of strategically maneuvering the shop-vac hose, I liberated the following:

• 12 Crayola Color Wonder markers
• 1 teacup
• 1 tea spoon
• 1 child's fork
• 1 Fisher Price Little People figure (the one known as Maggie?)
• 1 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (believed to be Michelangelo)
• 1 orange motorcycle thing that fits inside aforementioned Ninja Turtle
• 1 toy croissant
• 1 toy mashed potatoes blob
• 1 wooden knife from a kitchen set
• 1 Happy Meal™ car
• 2 stuffed cats (a gift from one of our exchange students)
• And, Diego, the animal rescuer. Judging by his position on the top of the toy heap, he had jumped in to try to rescue them all.

After

While You Were Out...

It seems that in most blogs, there's a flurry of posting, then a gradual slowdown, then a few months in which nothing happens and you wonder if the author died or just got lazy. That period is always followed up by an apologetic post wherein the author apologizes for not keeping up with their responsibilities to their audience and swears that they'll be more faithful in their duty in the future.

This is not one of those posts.