Samuel and Todd's Poll

How big is your booty?
	the size of an atom
	the size of a squirrel
	the size of a basketball
	the size of Montana
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The Mysterious Magic Box

Magician Samuel Tarpley is transformed from a normal boy into a black Spaniel puppy when he enters the Mysterious Magic Box.

Cell phones off. Roll tape.

Samuel's Birthday List

#1. Wii system
#2. Mad Science: Bubble Maker
#3. Wii system: Wario-ware smooth moves (for Wii.)
#4. Tri-clops
#5. iCoaster
#6. Roboquad
#7. Airblade
#8. Bee movie video game for Nintendo DS
#9. Hasbro electronic Hyper slide $20 amazon
#10. Track attack
#11. Spy gear, Tri-link
#12. Loony toons, Duck amuck DS
#13. Techno robotic dog
#14. Ice cream maker
#15. Creation station
#16. Fosters: Imagination Invaders DS
#17. SpongeBob Squarepants: Atlantis Squarepantis game DS
#18. Shell Shocker
#19. Net Jet
#20. Alvin and the Chipmunks video game DS
#21. Hotwheels: Trick Tracks
#22. Club Penguin Membership
#23. How to do street magic DVD
#24. Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games DS
#25. Alex Secret Marker Kit
#26. FX Snow
#27. Klutz-Shrinky Dinks Book

Ethan's Fun School

Ethan reports that his school doesn't offer chocolate milk at lunch because "they don't like people to have fun."

His plan:

"I'm going to create a school for being fun and breaking the rules. It might be hard to not get arrested. So maybe I shouldn't have a contractor build it. Maybe I should build it myself."

When pressed, he agreed upon one rule:

"No harming puppies."

Chase is run by idiots...hurray

Here's how incompetent Chase is.

I went to the bank today to make our mortgage payment. I didn't have the loan number, so I went to the window and gave them my ID. After a couple minutes of typing into her computer, the teller said, "The loan's not coming up on my screen. You'll need to see Customer Service."

So I went to Customer Service, and, after a couple minutes of typing into her computer, the Customer Service rep said, "I see a mortgage, but it says it's been paid off."

I said, "We refinanced at the end of November."

So she called the mortgage division on the phone. And THEY couldn't find it either.

Chase thinks we've paid off our mortgage.

That's the kind of incompetent customer service that will keep me as a life-long customer.

Gay Pride

Big news in the Tarpley household.

Six-year-old Ethan proclaimed, "I am gay, and I am single."

I said, "Do you know what that means?"

He said, "Yeah, it means a boy who's in love with another boy. I'm in love with Aaron. We're going to get married. Then we're going to adopt a baby and name him Spot."

"A baby named Spot?"

"Spot is a dog."

Not that there's anything wrong with it.

Grandmother Tarpley

I bought a January 1961 issue of National Geographic on eBay last night. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that that was the issue featuring a fold-out, cutaway view of the Eisenhower White House.

If you were like me, at some point around 1969 or 1970 you found that issue in a back bedroom of your grandparents' house in Tulsa, and spent the next 2 years wearing out the pages memorizing all the rooms of the White House.

Perhaps, if you were really a lot like me, you even built a scale model of the White House completely out of paper in your grandparents' living room, only to destroy it two hours later in a fit of anger over something that was obviously the fault of your older brother, Brad, who never did really possess your extraordinary sense of creativity despite his butt-kissing straight-A smugness.

But I digress.

I was excited to find that old magazine, and I can't wait to get it, and tonight I thought--for an instant--"I'll call Grandmother Tarpley!"

But of course I can't call Grandmother Tarpley. It's funny how you can suddenly and urgently miss someone who has been gone for 9 years. But of course I do. Every now and then, over something really important like an old issue of National Geographic, I do.