Wednesday, June 24, 2009

A New (to me) Look

Snazzy. Or at least "different". Whatevs. I like having the shit listed on the right hand side of the pane better. Looks a bit cleaner too.

So news? Do I have news? Will I have news? What news? Is there news? Shouldn't I have news by now? Are you sure there will be news? Aren't you potentially fucking with the "jinx" if you mention the remote possibility of maybe perhaps having a hint of some instance of something that could be construed as news? Hmm? Dunno. Won't know for a couple of days at least. Stay tuned or whatever.

UPDATE: There is no update unfortunately. Well, at least there isn't any update as of 9:00 this morning (Tues. 6/30/2009). Hmph. I should have news by now dammit.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Lazy Post

So stupidly busy at work this week so I don't feel particularly creative. This is a good time for a list then yes? Yes. I'm sure that I've stolen this from another site but I can't place where I saw this before (Pajiba maybe?). At any rate, this is a list of movies that if I stumble across them on TV, even edited on TNT or something like that I'm probably going to hang out at least for a scene or two. These are not in any particular order, excepting as they came to me.

  • Groundhog Day - must stop every time even though I find Andie MacDowell incredibly irritating. Bill Murray is just perfect in this movie.
  • Young Frankenstein - I think I may know close to every line in this movie. I even like the slow 3rd act. Now, unfortunately it's become a game of "Guess Who's Dead" in that film.
  • Empire of the Sun - with Batman as a little kid! Wheeeeeee!
  • Blues Brothers - Another completely quotable movie. I always feel like I should like this movie more than I do. I'm just sort of "meh" about it but I have to stop when it appears on my screen. It's the law.
  • Glen Garry Glen Ross - Love this movie. I even like the awkward scene with Pacino and Jonathan Pryce when he's trying to get his check back from Roma. And Jack Lemmon OWNS this movie.
  • Repo Man - Another movie I find myself quoting a lot. Granted this one is a rare beast to stumble across but HBO goes through a spurt every now and then.
  • The Fifth Element - Such a fun movie. The silliness and sci fi stuff gets me hooked every time.
  • Shaun of the Dead - Didn't think I'd like this one (timid woodland creature after all) but it was too awesome to ignore. I should probably put Hot Fuzz in this list too.
  • Hot Fuzz - There, I did.
  • Better Off Dead - Now that's a real shame when folks be throwin' away a perfectly good white boy like that.
  • Raiders of the Lost Ark - Of course I have to stop on this one.
There are probably others that I cannot remember at the moment.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Good-Bye Little Buddy

Tonight I have to do one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Mugsy, our 15-year-old little fuzzy boy (who was the first cat that The Wiff and I got together) has been very ill for awhile now and after failing to respond to treatments, losing weight because he will not eat, is going to be taking that final trip to the vet. I can't even bring myself to write it out. I've helped my sister when the time came for one of her cats a few years ago and that was hard enough. But this is my bubba. My little fuzzball. My Mugsy-boy.

I can rationalize this decision up and down, left and right. He is clearly not healthy nor happy and is only going to suffer and not improve. I know that it is the "right" decision for him and us as well. However, since I must like to torture myself, I can't help but think that there's something left that we could do to fix him. Of course there really isn't. He's done. He's just done. What sucks the most right now is that I know that we have to go do this thing tonight and I'm sitting here at work trying to keep it together. So far, so good. Tonight all bets are off though.
my little bubba, circa 1994 in our Allston apartment.
Just look at that face will ya?

Friday, June 12, 2009

More Things Only I Care About (aboot! hee!)

The windshield wipers on the Jetta have been operating rather sluggishly for awhile now but I've been quite good at ignoring them (side note: I have a bit of a history with windshield wipers. Aside from the fact that I think they're under-engineered [nerd] for such an important safety feature, they just seem flimsy. On a trip out to Wisconsin in the old Nissan, I had the driver's side wiper arm come loose and it ended up flinging itself over the right side of the car coming to rest precariously on the side mirror. All of this during a rainstorm on the highway in Iowa. Awesome. The Neon had issues with it's wipers too. But I think that was just cuz it was a shitty car overall). This morning the wipers had my full attention. Why is that? Well it was pouring out and they would not work. Like, not at all. Hmph.

The Wiff is still on vacation (and home now, she didn't bring me a toy either...I pouted because I'm wicked mature. Oh, and now she has a cold and feels like crap, so her vacation is kinda taking a bad turn) so I couldn't grab the Old Girl (the Volvo wagon...not The Wiff! heh. She's going to punch me isn't she?) cuz that would mean that she would be stranded at home. She doesn't drive manual trans and plus, like, the windshield wipers don't work. I knew that she had to take Oliver to the vet this morning and so I had no choice but to take the Jetta. Good thing I always use Rain-X on the windows. I have to say: I frickin' love that product. It works just as advertised. I set out on my 15 mile drive to work and even with the Rain-X working for me, it was a bit harrowing. Especially at low speeds. At higher speeds say 35mph and above, the beaded up rain was swept away nicely from my line of sight. But below that it was still kinda hard to see. It was still waaaaay better than if I didn't have that stuff on there but not as good as working wipers would have been.

I did make it in to work without killing myself or anyone else so that's good. I just looked up how to repair/replace the linkage for the wipers and it doesn't look too complicated. I ordered the parts ($60 plus shipping, so like $73-ish) and they should be in around Wednesday of next week. That'll be next Saturday's job me thinks. Stupid cars.

And now in the interest of Full Disclosure: I've been sitting here at my desk since I got in this morning and only just recently did I notice that I was uncomfortable ... um ... down there. Y'know what I mean? Things had gone awry and needed ... attention. It's not that big of a deal (HEY-OH!!!) but I sit in a cube y'see, and said cube is right outside the a couple of offices. Plus, the added bonus of this being a very well lit and "airy" office environment (meaning the offices are all glass walls and one wall of my cube is also glass albeit frosted). The way that these offices are set up the women who sit in them are in my peripheral sight all day (and vice-versa). One of them has her computer monitor kinda positioned so that she's sort of staring right at me all day. It's kinda unnerving. I know that she's not in fact staring at me but every time I turn around to toss something into my recycle bin or write on my whiteboard, we make eye contact. It's awkward and I wish she'd change her seating position. If I had noticed my "situation" earlier I could have made things more suitable without much fanfare. But I hadn't and now I was faced with a minor emergency. I had to do something and that something had to happen now.

I got up, made unintentional eye contact with my neighbor, and then moving over out of her line of sight to the furthest corner of my cube, I attempted to make the necessary adjustments. I was trying to use minimally invasive procedures and I soon realized that this would not suffice. There was going to have to be an investigation into what was causing the issue. And since I'm a class act, I composed myself as best I could and made my way to the bathroom. Walking was a bit of a chore but I made it without further damage. Upon closer inspection it was determined that my underoos were to blame. I quite literally had my panties in a bunch. How the fuck that happened I have no clue. I fiddled and guided everyone to their proper locations, washed my hands (you're welcome fellow workers) and made my way back to the wonderful world of FDA regulations.

All is well now, thanks. Isn't that a lovely story?

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

I'm All On My Own...Someone Alert the Authorities

Since this past Friday (the 5th) The Wiff has been out in the Berkshires with her friends doing some crafty things and then spending a day at a spa. This leaves me to my own devices, rattling around our house and farting at will (wassup ladies? sorry, this prize is taken). I've never actually lived all by myself (like with no roommates or y'know, a wife) and so I was kinda looking forward to having the place to myself for a few days. Plus, I'm a reasonably mature adult so how hard could this be? I mean, at my age my father had 4 kids and a horribly difficult job driving a truck around Boston all day. Surely I can make my own lunches and throw food at the cats, all without burning the house down until Wednesday right?

Day 1: Technically not a full day since she left on Friday and she was still around when I left for work, but whatever. That night, after getting home from work, I treated myself to a pizza and a couple of beers (ok, 3 beers), plopped myself down in front of the ye olde boob tube to watch some TV. I had thought briefly about maybe going into town to see if there were any interesting bands playing but then I remembered who I was and dismissed that idea as ludicrous. I blasted around the channels, flipping so fast that I barely had time to process what show may or may not have been on that channel before zipping on to the next one. That got old faster than I had anticipated and so I settled on something that would have bored The Wiff to tears and made a night of it.

That night I spent rolling willy-nilly around on the bed since I did not have to stay on my assigned side (the right-hand side of the bed Nosy Nelly). "Whole-bed" privileges mean that I could in fact sleep however I saw fit. I lounged across the bed at a truly radical angle and set about trying to fall asleep. No go. I ended up back in my usual spot with Molly the cat adhered to the back of my knees. Go away Molly, your girth will push my whole back out of alignment silly animal. Molly usually smashes herself against The Wiff, you see.

Day 2: Saturday morning came and I was awakened by four hungry cats making their case known. Morticia, a.k.a. the "bowling ball with feet", sat on my chest while keeping an keen eye on Molly (whom she hates with the white hot fury of a thousand suns). Molly of course thinks this is funny and will taunt Morticia. So, Morticia hisses at Molly and I am subjected to evil, evil cat breath at 7am. I guess if you don't brush your teeth for 15 years you end up with really horrible breath. Morticia has it in spades.

The other cats (look, I know ok? Four cats is borderline crazy town. Lay off it ok?) don't do the sit on you and stare thing. No, they cry and cry and cry. Especially Mugsy. Oliver does this thing where he finds a really vulnerable part of your arm and licks it until you toss him across the room and/or get up. All of the above tactics are incredibly effective in at the very least waking the sleeping human. Usually it is The Wiff who will get up and feed the little beasties so that they'll leave us the fuck alone for maybe another hour or so (and I get the glorious whole bed for a little bit while she does so), but since she's not there, I had to go do it. And by the time I had finished dealing with all that nonsense, I was wide awake. Stupid cats ruined my sleep-in Saturday time.

So I make coffee and some breakfast for meself and now what? Hmm. Got the whole day here to do whatever I want. Yep. Mmm hmm ... [crickets] ...Video games on the new giant TV? Well now! Don't mind if I do!

And that was an entire Saturday. Some people would call that an entire Saturday "wasted" and I call those people "women". I had a grand old time. I think I bathed but I honestly don't recall. And does it really matter? Nope. Oh, and did you know that cats demand to be fed more than once a day? Well, they totally do. When is The Wiff coming back anyway?

Day 3: Ok, this "Feed us!" rigmarole is really getting on my nerves. Don't you fuckers have thumbs? Get yer own food. Marky sleepy time now. Sunday came up way faster than I had expected and I kinda felt a little guilty for not doing anything on Saturday. I know! I'll purge some junk out of my office upstairs! Oooh! Maybe I'll even go up into the attic and try to make that somewhat organized (a chore I have been steadfastly blowing off for going on 6 months now). Plus, I should totally install the window unit air conditioners now while it's nice out so that when the icks of summer finally get here and punch me in the balls I can retreat into one of the A/C rooms (we now offer 3 different air conditioned rooms for your convenience by the by).

Yea, I didn't do any of that stuff. Oh fuck you Mugsy, I'll feed you in a second. Jeez.

Day 4: Monday, and so back to work I go. Hmm, maybe I won't make a pot of coffee instead opting to wait until I get to the office to partake of the lovely free gruel we have there. Wow, I kinda like the fact that The Wiff likes to cook. She will whip up a tasty little egg sammich in the morning that sustains me all the way until lunch. Oh yea, and she usually makes me a lovely lil' sammich for my lunch too (PB&J or maybe ham and cheese and a snack! Saving cash! Lookit us!). Wow. I'm a child. I am a giant, cranky child with a driver's license and a taste for scotch. How the hell did I convince her to talk to me let alone marry me? God, she must have been really fucking desperate. And thank jeebus for that! Whoo-hoo! Here's to lowered expectations!

For dinner I had planned to make myself a couple of buffalo burgers but of course I forgot to take the stuff out of the freezer. Awesome. What did I have instead? PB&J of course. Isn't that the obvious choice for a substitute? That night Molly finally figured out that if she doesn't lay across my legs she won't get flung off the bed in the middle of the night when I roll over. Sorry Molly, it's a little thing called inertia. Look that shit up.

Day 5: That would be today, Tuesday. This morning was another exercise in intricacies cat nutrition (hey, they sure do drink a lot of fucking water...didn't know that) as well as the always difficult decision of whether or not a particular shirt was ok or should be ironed. You've probably figured out by now that the shirt was determined to be not that wrinkled. Another victory for time management.

So what's for dinner? Yea! The buffalo burgers that I was going to have last night! That'll be great! Oh, except that I didn't think of it until I was in the goddamn Sumner Tunnel. Stupid tiny brain failed me again. Luckily for me, The Wiff knows full well that I'm just this side of retarded and had stocked the freezer with all kinds of simpleton-proof dinner choices. Mmmm, frozen turkey sausage Stromboli monstrosities. Yummy (they're quite good, for realsies)! Oh fer the love of Pete, I will FEED YOU IN A GODDAMN SECOND you frickin' cats you. Must prepare this stuff now before something shiny distracts me and I forget to heat these things up. Just relax and fight amongst yourselves. And will somebody please fill that water bowl already?! Oh, right, that's me too. Dammit dammit dammit.

Day 6: This will be tomorrow morning only and then The Wiff will make her triumphant return later in the evening. I just have to remember to wash all my dishes before she gets home so that she doesn't sigh all disappointed-like at me. Ooooh! I hope she brings me a toy!

Monday, June 1, 2009

Chucky in the Neighborhood

The other day I was driving back home from the Home Depot (what? I can do manly things sometimes...) and since I live on a busy street (a stupidly busy street really) I like to take little side streets to avoid the main bulk of the stupid humans that always seem to be in my way (what's up with that anyway? Get out of my way already. I've got shit to do). There's one intersection in particular that is just a clusterfuck. It's just a 4-way stop but there's a convenience store on one corner and a chinese food place on the other. Throw in a couple of bus stops and it can take FOR-E-VER to get through there. And then there's the added bonus of bad tempered thuggish teenagers milling around the store. Oh, and I've personally watched 2 different accidents where someone waiting at the light is broadsided by some complete tool backing up from a parking spot in the convenience store parking lot. That, my Internet peeps, takes a special kind of stupid. Lynn has these people in abundance.

I have a few choices to bail on this intersection when it looks like I won't make the green light. All I have to do is go down the little side street and the bang a left which will dump me right back onto my stupid street. On the day in question I did just that. I pulled up behind the car in front of me at the stop sign and waited for them to grow a pair and take the right already. As I'm sitting there wondering if I should have just sucked it up and gone to the intersection anyway (this guy was clearly terrified of driving and/or couldn't figure out that the pedal way over on the right will make the car go VROOOM!), I looked up and across the street at this shitty blue house (unkempt lawn? check. crazy out-of-control bushes? check. peeling paint and general disrepair? check and checkmate). As I was sitting there wishing that my neighborhood wasn't so crappy I looked up at one of the bedroom windows and what do you think was staring back at me? Chucky. Yes, THAT Chucky.

I honestly let out a gasp (there goes my manliness cred again). This doll was splayed in the window Jesus style and just glaring down at me. Look, I understand. It's a doll and it can't "get me" but it sure as hell spooked me. I've never seen Child's Play and I never, ever will. Why is that? Well, I'm a timid woodland creature and cannot deal with horror movies no matter how campy they might be. I think the not liking horror movies thing stems from the fact that my parents took me to see Jaws when it came out. I was five. FIVE! That ain't cool.

Yea, so I'm looking at Chucky and he's looking right back at me when I realize that whoever lives there is my neighbor. Awesome. I got to wondering how long this thing has been lowering property values in my neighborhood (hmmm...perhaps this is one of the reasons I had such a hard time trying to sell my house a few years ago) so I went to Google maps to check out the street map. They did that "Street View" mapping thing last summer over here so I moved the little camera down to this house and made the camera pan upwards to the window. Sure enough, there was Chucky. A little blurry, but he was there. So tonight on our way home from work, the Wiff and I went back down that same side street and stopped the car in front of that same house. I snapped the picture below so that you, my faithful reader, could get a sense of the lovely sight that greeted me. And to those living in this house: please don't murder me. Thanks!

click on the pic to super-size this creepy mofo

MP3 Shuffle 'cuz I'm Super Lazy

I felt like doing another 5 Song Shuffle today and since I was able to revive the ol' MP3 player (mad skills baby), maybe it'll be a good'un. Plus, I'm slow at work today so...

1. Teenage Bad Girl – Cocotte
2. Elvis Costello – Less Than Zero
3. Rapeman – Radar Love Lizard
4. The Upper Crust – Little Lord Fauntleroy (VOLUME UP!!)
5. Minor Threat – Cashing In

Nice. Ok, lemme do that shit again. I don't really care if you're bored. I'm having fun.

1. Bat For Lashes – Bat's Mouth
2. Rapeman – Kim Gordon's Panties (wow. these guy hardly ever come up in my usual listening ... weird)
3. Danger Doom – Benzie Box
4. The Pixies – Something Against You
5. Death From Above 1979 – Go Home, Get Down

ok. That's enough of that. Since this thing blew up on me last time I was forced to completely wipe the harddrive and I purged a lot of the stuff that I had had on here that I used to just skip through. In theory now I should only get songs that I actually like. Let's see how long it takes before I get sick of what I have on here. Or if this thing finally croaks for good.