Moosie tracked it down:  http://www.viralchart.com/media/clips/roadrage02.mov

IKEA has really weird ads, you know it?  The one that's being currently broadcast doesn't make much sense, either. 

These were taken last month whilst in Sydney, if I'm correctly recognizing the performance hall in the background:

These were taken this past weekend;  here's Alex's friend, Phil, with yet another Mac admirer:

Alex mixing it up with one of the natives:

Hmmmm....if you can't beat 'em, join 'em:

....I came across a nice photo of the Shonan Brass, the band's brass quintet; Alex - the creator of the hilarious word play in the comments under the "word list" post - is the one with the tuba (for anyone new to the blog):

...so maybe this actually happened!

I know lots of them very well and am able to both use them in a sentence and define them; others I wouldn't try to use myself but understand when they're used properly in context; others I either haven't heard of before or have heard of but might possibly not realize when they're used incorrectly.  What I'm referring to is the list of 100 words that Houghton-Mifflin, the text-book people, say every high school graduate should know (the three in red are those I haven't a clue about):

The following is the entire list of 100 words:

Regular readers of my blog have probably twigged to the facts that, one, I love fireworks displays and two, I love photos of fireworks.  Not being anything approaching a skilled photobug myself (thank heavens for autofocus!), I'm always amazed at the fabulous pictures that real, honest-to-goodness photographers can manage.  Here are a few I shamelessly filched right off the ABC website:

Bill Kostroun/AP Photo

Seth A. McConnell, Rapid City Journal/AP Photo

Isn't the above terrific?  Fireworks over Mount Rushmore!  Never saw that before.

Karen Bleier, AFP/Getty Images

The above was of the fireworks shot off from the National Mall in Washington, D.C.  Someday I would dearly love to see those in person, along with the fireworks over New York City.  So many fireworks, so little time!

Oh, and here's one from right down the road at the Ballpark in Arlington, following the game between the Texas Rangers and the Los Angeles Angels (the Rangers won, BTW):

Matt Slocum/AP Photo

There are many, many more wonderful photos at ABC.com, so be sure to check 'em out. 

Yesterday being the 4th of July, Dmitry had Carolyn and Ravinn over to hang out, and we all gathered on the front porch to watch the firework display from the Concerts in the Garden.  This is just a segment of it, as it turns out 2-3 minutes of fireworks video action creates too large a file to be uploaded by either Xanga or YouTube.  Notice the occasional rogue bottle rocket in the upper right, and the voices heard are mostly Dmitry with some murmurings from the girls.

Yesterday was also Charles' first day at work and he said it went pretty well. 

Hope everyone had a safe and pleasant Independence Day!

Off and on, mind, not constant, steady rain, but occasional cloudbursts.  Most all the area lakes are full to overflowing, so that boat ramps which were shut last July because of low lake levels are now shutting because of high lake levels.  Poor ol' Lake Grapevine just can't catch a break.  Tomorrow I'm going to take my camera to snap photos of the river, etc.  This afternoon Haltom City and North Richland Hills (where Jessica lives) got pounded yet again.  Jessica says they've been getting heavy rains every afternoon for days now, so it never has a chance to dry out, so when it rains, it floods.

Today's flooding unfortunately caught Jessica's mother-in-law, who had her car flooded by high water in NRH as she tried to enter a parking lot to wait out the storm.  All the pick-up trucks making the attempt succeeded, while the cars didn't.  Jessica feels awful, as the only reason Taylor was there at all had been to go with them to a local water park (which wound up being closed when the afternoon storm hit).  Taylor's having a truly rotten week, as she had to have one of her dogs put down Saturday morning, the one that's left is throwing up and apparently has heartworms so might also wind up being put down, and now Taylor's car is flooded.  And it's just Tuesday.  Fortunately her husband, who owns a contracting company and has been working in Colorado, is due home this evening.

Charles got a job!  He's been hired by the Olive Garden restaurant near Ridgmar Mall, where Jessica used to work.  Starts tomorrow.  He'd been searching since he got home, but being the honest person he is, he'd tell potential employers that he's hoping to back to Texas Tech in January, which tended to drop him to the bottom of the possible-hire list.  The rain has been hard on him as well, as the Corvette is loooow to the ground, so isn't exactly flood-friendly.  It's occurred to us, though, that the monsoon season arrived in Texas along with him so Don and I are thinking he needs to be treated like Jonah on the ship, and tossed into the ocean.  

Well, darn.  I missed thinking about it.  No biggie, but yesterday marked the 28th anniversary of our buying our house.  Actually, IIRC, we technically bought it a day or two earlier but moved in on July 1st.  Still, these days staying in the same abode for 28 years is not common!  It's been nice here.  In the twin house directly behind us, our neighbor has lived there for around 25 years, and the man next door has been there for at least 10, maybe even 15 or more.  Long time, anyway.

What the deuce happened to getting out and putting the hood up if one's car breaks down?  This morning while taking Dmitry to school I was aways back in the right lane of Montgomery, so I could turn and get on the freeway.  Light changed but the line didn't move.  Looked as if a pickup truck up front was determined to go left and was willing to block everyone until the traffic cleared.

Okay, that was unjust of me, as it turned out there was a car ahead of him with its hazard lights on, obviously stalled, so everyone had to go around him to turn right.  It's good he put his hazard lights on, but would have been better to have also put the hood up.  I pointed out to Dmitry it's fairly easy to miss the blinking lights when there are cars behind the stalled vehicle, but more difficult to miss a raised hood, and that's a nigh-universal signal for "This vehicle isn't moving anytime soon, folks."  It's becoming less and less common to see hoods up, however.  Most people settle for the blinking lights only, thus causing longer lines behind them as approaching traffic can't see that there's a problem needing to be avoided.

Dmitry spent the night with the Waybourns on Saturday and he told of their finding a couple of turtles on the road, and moving them so they weren't smushed by cars.  Haven't seen a turtle in ages.  Nor garter snakes.  Nor frogs.  Nor horned toads.  Nor lightning bugs.  When I grew up maybe a mile and a half away from here we regularly found all those, often shoving them into boxes or jars and putting them in our bedrooms as "pets".  Used to love being able to lay in the dark bedroom and watch lightning bugs flicker on and off over where the dresser was.  Happy times!

Usually I post stills, but this evening I grabbed my Flip Video and headed out onto the front porch when the first WHOOMP! sounded; there's a quiet spot about 2/3 through...keep watching and there'll be the finale: