Mmmm, cheese

I'm no grammar vandal, but I'd enjoy this bathroom wall sign, even without the typo.

A sign of the season

As most of my readers know, it has rained pretty much non-stop for six weeks in Boston. This has put umbrellas at a premium, so I've started to breed them.


If all goes well, I'll have a new litter of baby umbrellas in about 10 weeks.

I know the feeling

Here's a pic I snapped in the factory where I work. Please forgive the low lighting. Hopefully you can make out the Diet Pepsi and prescription pills that were left in a hallway.


I've had a tough week, but these are not mine.

E is for Error

Mrs. N-B snapped this pic at the Government Center MBTA station. How does a sign-maker spell a word correctly and incorrectly on the same sign?


I'll give them the benefit of the doubt -- Maybe leaving the "e" out of "trolley" is a mnemonic device to remind you not to take the E train.

Rock of your-joke-here Bus

I've been seeing this RV around my neighborhood for about a month now. Here it is on Washington Street Saturday.


You may have to click on the picture and enlarge it to read what the Ohio vanity plate says. Anyway, I had dream that this RV was Dusint Pedroia's. What could that mean?

Words of wisdom

I couldn't help but think of Seinfeld when I saw this sign.

Blog Fail

I'm an occasional reader of the very entertaining Fail Blog, and I'm now ready to contribute to the fail lexicon.

I snapped this picture of a parking meter the other day. Hopefully you can make out the display.

Picture pages

My love affair with the Boston Transportation Department goes back to the late 1990s, when I started driving -- and more importantly, parking -- in the city. I'd conservatively estimate that I have paid Boston $2,500 in fees and fines for parking illegally.

And don't even get me started on Das Boot.

All of which brings me to this picture, which I took yesterday, showing a Boston Transportation Department van parked illegally near Kenmore Square.


If only I'd had my ticket book on me.

Picture pages

At the risk of turning this blog into a photo album, please enjoy this actual picture from my workplace.

I wish I could claim credit, but I wear a different shade of lipstick.

Chief Wiggum? Is that you?

I was planning on holding up this Dunkin's, until I saw that the police flooded the zone with multiple marked cruisers. They're always one step ahead, I guess.

I love lamp

Behold the last known photo of a gaggle of lamps that once congregated in the men's bathroom at my workplace. They lived in the bathroom, a silent forest of dormant illumination, for many years, except for that time a coworker tried to free one of them.

She bravely entered the bathroom, moved the lamp to my office, and proudly offered the lamp to me as a method of indirect lighting. I was so pleased, until the brain trust removed my lamp, citing safety concerns.

I snapped this picture near the trash cans. Apparently someone clear cut the lamp forest. It's the end of an error -- er -- era.

Mr. Butch remembered

It was just about a year ago that a homeless fixture of Allston-Brighton, Harold "Mr. Butch" Madison Jr., died in a scooter accident in the neighborhood he called home.

I snapped this picture of a guy remembering him last week on Brighton Avenue, at a memorial near the spot where he died.


The composition is okay, but I wish I hadn't cut off his feet. Oh well. It was on a camera phone, from a car at a stoplight.

What's up with those creepy dolls, I wonder.

Back to the bathroom

This post may help explain one of yesterday's comments.

I'm pleased to report that the men's room at the widget factory where I'm employed is once again in full working order. For nearly two weeks, this was the situation, more reminiscent of a bloody crime scene than a room for quiet repose:


Needless to say I'm relieved everything is back to normal. I gave that right-hand urinal a test run after service was restored yesterday. To be honest, it left me wanting a little more. It was out of order so long, I guess I was hoping for a gold-plated handle, or at least a more powerful flush. I'm angry about it, but I wouldn't say I'm pissed.

True picture

Mrs. N-B spotted a wild turkey walking in Cleveland Circle on the Boston/Brookline line. Take a look. I bet he'd been drinking at Mary Ann's and was headed to to The Eagle's Deli for some food.

I sing the body electric

I'm having a static electricity problem. In my office at work, I generate a charge ever time I even come near something metallic -- printer, door frame, ancient electronic equipment.

I would estimate the power of my electric charges at 1.21 gigawatts, give or take one lightning bolt.

How bad is it? I'll tell you. There's a machine that looks like this in my office:


I shocked it so bad that it actually registered an error message on its antique display. Such is my power. Beware.

It feels good to be sore

It's hard for even me to believe that I ran a 5K yesterday, though I suppose it's less surprising if I tell you it was part of the "Pub Series" of races in the Boston area.

Even more shocking is that I beat my personal best for that distance, despite a complete and total lack of training. I finished at 33:30, about three minutes ahead of my pace the last time I ran three miles, of 36+ minutes.

That 36+ time was waaaaaaaay back in 1992, when I was 14 and had to run three miles in the final preseason practice for my soccer team. Who knew present-day NaturalBlog (5'9" 175 lbs.) could beat youthful NaturalBlog (5'3" 153 lbs.)? I'm shocked. Shocked!

But will it stick? Who knows. For what it's worth, I rode my bike to work this morning.

Mid 60s? It hasn't been this warm on an Opening Day in ages.

I spent the afternoon -- in shortsleeves, mind you -- smoking a cigar and drinking an ice cold beer on the porch.

Sixty-five degrees in Boston. In January. What would Al Gore say?

I wrote last year about global warming's closing argument. This must be its post-verdict celebration.

It's fun to enjoy, as long as I don't think about my new skis gathering dust in the basement, along side Mrs. NB's still-unused $200 bootwarmers.

I wonder -- can my Solomon's double as water skis?

2006 Year Ender

It's my final post of 2006, so please indulge some rambling inspired at least in part by the events of the last 12 months.

In the year that brought us a Hollywood love pentagon (featuring David Spade, for Pete's sake) the fire crotchtroversy, and Rosie vs everybody, I suppose I shouldn't complain about celebrities' bad behavior, since it gave me so much to write about.

Let's just hope the coming year will bring more moral judgements from our own present-day Atticus Finch (Donald Trump), more leisure sports to consume me, and enough silly gimmicks to fill in the weeks when I run out of ideas.

I do have some resolutions, one of which is to start using spell check. You'd think I'd be able to get grammar right, but writing the first draft of history (on deadline) isn't as easy as most people assume.

I'd also like more inanity, but why wait til the new year to start: