The Bullet: Magical!

Most of us have been fortunate enough to have come across the wonderful world of the magic bullet on Saturday afternoon infomercials. We love the playful interaction of all the folks who happen to congregate at the home of a non-threatening Englishman: Berman the lovable drunk, the young couple dressed for a cocktail party, the busy mother, and of course, the ever-entertaining Hazel, a frumpy old woman who dangles a rubber cigarette from her mouth as she offers pithy commentary on the goings-on.

"Chopping garlic! Stinky, nasty garlic!"

Either by some incredibly fortuitous coincidence -- or more likely, by the dizzying versatility of the amazing machine in front of him -- we witness the Englishman find a way to solve all of their problems with one incredible tool: the Magic Bullet!

Fade back into the relative grayness of our lives. Here, we chop with a tool. We puree with another. Our minutes (minutes!) are filled, occupied incessantly with myriad appliances. Our backs sting from the whip of these time-consuming demands, but here and there we steal a moment or two to ponder longingly on the legend of our youth, that beautiful tale of convenience and ease that washed over us like a warm bath after morning cartoons...

Still, in this vain, cruel world, we find ourselves in doubt...

Is the Magic Bullet just a dream? A psychological placebo? The final sprite left in Pandora's box that keeps us trudging onward, but ultimately too fine a thing for this vale of tears? "Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear"?

Well, my friends! I fell through the looking glass yesterday when I chanced upon the hallowed thing in a Costco in New Jersey! Prometheus-like, I brought it to the mortal realm, and gathered my friends round. With faith abundant, I began a smoothie party not unlike that demonstrated by the infomercial:

Each of my several guests enjoyed their own color-coded mugs, filled to the brim with their individualized smoothies, each made in ten seconds or less!

I beg your patience with the relative gap in enthusiasm of this next group. Surely, they did not understand the awesome significance of what they were experiencing!

(especially Bert in the middle there)

My friends, I am happy to report that the Magic Bullet is every bit as magical as you had hoped in your wildest dreams! All is well with the world!

As I sign off, I see one chronic upstager's floating cat and raise him a cat on a keyboard in space!

The Internet! Keeping Us Connected!

Am I the only one that feels a resurgence of blog activity!?! I just want to keep the ball rolling here, you know what I mean?

And if you're all going to be all like, oh, Von Grinner, why don't he write? Maybe you should keep in mind that I have a very high stress job!

Which reminds me, I teach Physical Science at John Bartram High, to sophomores and freshmen. If that is news to you, you are not really my friend, because everyone knows that except for people that only get their news from my blog (who know who you are, my cheeto-dusted ham-faced pickle-sweat lurkers).

Teaching is fun and challenging. Every day, it is up to me to find ways to get people to learn without them knowing it, or without it feeling like work, which nobody likes. Right now I'm in the middle of Physics:

That's my favorite slide I've used so far. I stole it from a web site, but I won't say which one. I want to see how long it takes him to take it off of my blog. Monkeys are fun! One thing about this monkey is, irrespective of the x-component velocity (or acceleration) of a projectile subject to gravity, its y-component acceleration is constant: -9.8 (m/s)/s. That's what I like about this monkey.

-smirks knowingly-

The district has muchos problems, like this and this and this. No bueno, right Dev? But no teacher recently got arrested for a DUI, unlike SOME district I could name! No, actually I feel bad about that (which is why I'm not linking to it). We gave her a hard time in that class; we were nutz like Renee on the hit television series, 24. NuTz!

Lots to say about my job, if I were so inclined... Like when the lights went out and the generator also failed, so it was pitch black in the halls -- in between classes! Some people got jumped (one had to leave in an ambulance) and our front hall was thrashed. It was crazy like when Renee stabbed that guy in the eyeball, and then over and over, and then Jack in the belly (Jack was all right).

But, like the above, most of what ya'll would like to hear would pretty much be gossip. The good things happening would be more responsible to blog about, but not as fun to read. We'll try: recently, one of my students -- who had threatened me to the point of suspension last month -- has turned in all his work and is pulling a solid B. I called his mom to say positive things!

See?

You want to hear about the threat, right?

Well, mom also reads this blog, and she is proud of me, and loves me very much. She wants to know how wonderful I am, and not how things are -- despite my wonderfulness -- crazy like Renee when she sawed off that guy's thumb, just because she wanted his bracelet.

Anyways, that'll do for now. I have contributed. Ball's in your court, Jaron! Or Tressa!

I don't want Gregan to upstage me right away. It is common knowledge that he has the best blog. I think, though, I am making some inroads into his secrets. Like ending with ytmnd flair, such as this gem, which shows the ever-versatile Gary Oldman hitting a high note.