February 12, 1996 Subscribers: 2 Volume 2, No. 5

BREWMEISTER!: I finally decided to take the plunge . . . open up the Christmas present . . . start my first batch of home brew . . . had the kit . . . all the ingredients were pre-measured . . . not too hard to figure out . . . boiled the malt . . . hops . . . looks nasty . . . smells like rotting alfalfa . . . hmmmmm . . . while it was boiling . . . we sat around trying to come up with catchy names for the brew . . . seems like canine names are in . . . the way our dogs were sniffing the air I could see why . . . the name "Hair of the Dog" came up . . . then simply "Dog Hair" . . . then "Dog Pee" . . . we decided that maybe we were going down the wrong path . . . thought maybe an "Ice" label might be better . . . I mean after all . . . we did chill the wort (that's what they call the boiled mess that makes beer) . . . maybe "Icy Dog Pee" . . . I guess we'll wait 'til we taste it . . . moved the fermenting bucket to a corner in the basement . . . Sunday morning my MinPin was going crazy . . . barking . . . we finally located her . . . in the basement . . . growling at the beer . . . then we heard it . . . the air lock on the fermenter was bubbling . . . she didn't like the sound . . . or the smell . . . there's a name out there somewhere . . . I know it'll come to us.

BOYS ON THE SIDE: I don't normally do movie reviews . . . but this was a movie weekend . . . late Friday we had the first screening of "Boys on the Side" . . . my daughters watched with us . . . Mama went to sleep . . . the girls were talking . . . then they had tearful outbursts . . . kept me so distracted with their emotions . . . I missed a lot of the dialogue . . . I wasn't really getting into the movie . . . I figured it must be a girl thing . . . I wasn't that affected . . . the next morning Mama decided to run it again . . . we sat there with no distractions . . . it wasn't a girl thing . . . it's a sad movie . . . makes "Beaches" look like a comedy . . . I give it two Kleenex's up! . . . then we watched "Outbreak" . . . I thought the bombs going off was pretty exciting . . . gave the speakers a workout . . . ended up with "The Last Picture Show" . . . it was different . . . it was the longest two hours I've spent in a long time . . . had it's moments . . . it was a little hard to see all the now famous actors . . . in a movie before they were famous . . . "introducing" Cybil Shephard . . . what an impression she made . . . Cloris Leachman . . . made it real hard to concentrate on the plot . . . I do want to see the sequel . . . "Texasville".

2 DOWN: I've lost two people at the office . . . in the last couple of weeks . . . we've not had to really be looking for folks in a while . . . it's quite an eye-opener . . . our little ad in the paper . . . amongst the thousands (I'm not kidding this time) . . . we've gotten a number of responses . . . obviously all that matches is the word computer . . . the candidates have no qualifications for what we need . . . last Friday . . . 3 out of 3 scheduled interviewees didn't show up . . . various excuses . . . maybe we'll have better luck soon.

MEMORABLE WEEKS AHEAD: Happy birthday Mr. Lincoln . . . then Valentine's Day . . . then next Monday's a holiday for Presidents' Day . . . then Tuesday is the end of Mardi Gras . . . Wednesday is Ash Wednesday . . . Thursday is the real Washington's birthday . . . so much to do . . . then it's the last week of February . . . all the stuff that was due March 1 . . . is supposed to be done by that Friday . . . it seemed like such a long time 'til March 1 in January . . . now it's almost here . . . guess I better get busy!

"When all else fails, you doing nothing won't seem quite as bad!" --Mikey, Thinking Too Hard