My dad always gets a Powerball ticket, and he plans to buy a private island when he wins. I told him the current jackpot is so big he can buy SEVERAL private islands.

The stupid, it burns . . .

The woman I was talking to called over her son, who knows about computers. He needed to email a file to me, but the email program wouldn't accept my address. It finally dawned on me what I was hearing him read the address as. "Did you put the @ sign in?" "You didn't tell me to put the @ sign in!" I did, but he kept talking over me so may not have heard it, but I broke professionalism and said, "It's an email address, they always have @ signs in them."

It went downhill from there.

One of my best experiences was a joint concert at the Jones Beach Theatre. Bowie was the headliner. By the time he came out, storm clouds were rolling in off the Atlantic. He sang a song or two and then the winds picked up and the rain was coming down and lightning was a couple miles off the shore. We could see crew offstage trying to get him back undercover and to end the set. He stood out in the rain and the wind and lifted his fist to the heavens and defied God to stop his performance. And the beautiful bastard finished his set in the rain, wind, and lightning.

It went downhill from there.

All the better to roll your @s at him.

I told him the current jackpot is so big he can buy SEVERAL private islands.

I once tuned into HGTV and they had "Island Hunters," like House Hunters but with people buying private islands instead of houses.

I hated them and yet couldn't look away.

Put differently, the current jackpot is so big he can buy SEVERAL private islands for himself and for some random axe murderers on the internet. Just sayin'. (Psst, Jesse, tell your mom.)

Well, he'll probably buy an island for my brother and one for me, and I'll be nice and share my island with you guys. There will be villas with cats and also cat-free villas for the allergic among us. Dogs will roam freely, followed by attendants to scoop up poops. There will be one magical unicorn ALL FOR ME ME ME.

So selfish, not sharing the magical unicorn.

I'll overlook this flaw if I don't have to be a poop-scooping dog-attendant.

I went to the grocery store and failed to even ask if I could buy a ticket there. Trying to interact with the bagger, the cashier, and the PIN-pad was too much for me; this is why I usually do self-checkout. But at least I have lunches for the rest of the week. Maybe I'll go find a gas station tomorrow.

Can we make Trump be the poop scoop attendant? A silent poop scoop attendant.

Belated Christmas vakay story: so my family is the non-leash family. They live on the border of a state park and take the Dodd for hikes off the leash and only grab them if there are horses incoming which is not usually in a timely fashion. But the dogs are super friendly and believe everyone is their buddy. Okay, fine. It's a joy to see them burning off energy unrestrained by a humans pace. But beyond running into people who are dogshy, there's the other side of things, like running into poachers with their hunting dogs in wildlife protected areas.

Suddenly, on our carefree romp, there's barking and growling. We rush forwards and there's a guy in camp with his two handsome but fierce looking dogs not on a trail and it's our one dog being mounted while our other stands back. My dad tries to make nice and asks what breed the dogs are. Guy snips that they're dogs "that don't like being surprised by other dogs" or something similar. And I feel bad, I do, because, yes, we've broken the leash rule. On the other hand, they're happy loving dogs that aren't a danger to anything but dangerous people/animals and he really ought to take his unsocialized dogs further from heavily peopled areas. These dogs have been roaming free for about s decade on these trails and everyone stops and pats their heads or ignores them. I wish they had a command to bring them to held swiftly for those who aren't keen. But if the only thing keeping others safe is your leash, keep them out of the public, dude.

I know we're wrong wrong wrong in regards to the public at large, but when our only bad e Petrine in over two decades is a fucking poacher, I can't feel too bad about it.