Month: September 2005

I had to call my grandmother yesterday. She is 86 and stronger and more mentally stable than most I people I know. Anyhow, I’d been working a problem and was stuck when it suddenly occurred to me that "there’s more than one way to skin a cat" and I came up with a different solution rapidly.

Now, I’ve been skinning cats since I was about five but I have never questioned exact why we skin cats. So I went to the source. See, when we’d get a bath at my grandmother’s apartment as the kids were stripped down, she’d say "there’s more than one way to skin a cat." Her answer? She chuckled and said, "I don’t know."

So what does Blingo say?

World Wide Words

Points out that it dates back to 1678 as a common proverbial phrase but gives no real origin other than conjecture. Relates it to the Southern US states to skinning a catfish.

bartleby.com

"Many tasks can be accomplished in several ways." but we know that already.

Phrase Finder

"a boy’s gymnastic trick" with a description of the trick and a note "Mr. Funk doesn’t say WHY anyone would actually skin a cat" A reply to the post claims "People used to skin cats to use the fur" but gives no citations

TakeOurWord.com

Cheapness

AOL Member

Another catfish reference

EZBoard forum

"boys (and adults too) did torture cats in the 16th-18th centuries" but refers to harvesting the fur

Messy Beast

catfish and fur references. Perhaps the best description thus far.

The phone junction box. 

pulling wire 

Having the tools and know-how to run your own telcmo makes you feel like you work with MI-5. Btw, I ran a cleaner installation than the original Bellsouth certified installer (although it doesn’t show in this picture). 

I hope there is peace in the end.

Does anyone in Knoxville have a spare DSL modem (preferrably westel) lying around? I know someone that needs to run a test to confirm that their modem is bad. If their modem is bad and you want to sell yours they will probably be willing to buy it. Just let me know in comment or email. Thanks.

I want to thank Julie for bringing me coffee. It was 20 times better than I ever would have expected!

I want to thank Jude for providing Tim with this Rwandan Proverb:

“You can outdistance that which is running after you but not what is running inside you.”

I so needed that!

I need our camera

Good movie

Three year old works the dvd and volume controls like a pro

A computer hath been repaired! The symptoms on this one: It would boot to the user login prompt for Windows XP, wait 20 seconds, then reboot. The cure: virus cleaning, adware/malware removal, operating system updates, driver updates, software conflict removal, outdated software removal and live linux boot cds to be able to apply the fixes.

Rain today.

We as guys make mistakes. Sometimes they are big and we hear about them from our wives far longer than we feel we deserve. However sorry I feel for Hulk Hogan, I think he will take this one (WARNING! NWS! Privates shown.) to his grave! If I’m not mistaken though, despite her dark roots Mrs. Hulkster is a natural blonde!

I can hear her now. "You want it? Go look at the picture because that’s the only time you’ll ever see it again!"

As for the rest of us, we guys wish to thank Mr. Hogan for making our errors in judgement so insignificant in comparison.

I remember when I lived in Kenner, Lousiana (4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th grades) that we had charts and would track the hurricanes. The feeling that a hurricane was coming was not one of fear but of joy that school would be cancelled but sadness that for every inch of water I had in my street a friend of mine had an inch in their house. The rains would come and they would stack their furniture on bricks. Neighbors would chain off roads or sit on porches with shotguns to remind people not to create wakes while driving past their houses.

Well now that everyone has become hurricane watchers, The Severe Weather Information Center is a website that should be part of your weather bookmarks.