Arr, Me Hearrrties!

Avast! I may have used this title for a post already. I occasionally have little fits of pirateism that must be indulged.

Actually, I've had a long and drawn-out fit of pirateism for the last few months, thanks to Puzzle Pirates. It's a little multiplayer online game that offers one heck of a long free demo for download. One's character is a rather lego-looking little pirate who can go island hopping, chat with fellow players, and play addictive puzzle games along the lines of tetris and bejeweled in order to interact with their world in such things as sailing, swordfighting, drinking, bilging, etc. If pirates had little chipper, round faces, were squeaky clean, and would rather challenge you to a puzzle than draw and quarter you, this would be just like sailing the high seas!

I'm a dork because I get into the ridiculous stuff like deciding which island to apply for citizenship on, or saving up for a new, more piratey outfit, or furnishing my shack with fancy little goodies. The thing I like the most about it though, is the fact that it's a darn fun way to interact with friends who are far away. I recommend it, even to non-gamers. The puzzles are not hard to learn, and they're good fun. If anyone would like to try it out, let me know, and I'll share some pieces of eight, and extra swag with ye (er...you.) so you don't have to start at the bottom of the barrel. It's handy to have someone to show you around at first too.

If you already play Puzzle Pirates, my pirate is called Miett, and she's on the Midnight Ocean--send me a "tell" and we can get together and maybe go on a nice relaxing Sunday afternoon pillage...

Vacating

In a couple weeks, something rare and wonderful will be occurring, much like a blue moon, or a phoenix rising from the ashes...or a two headed turtle... or something. For the first time ever in our married lives, (honeymoon excluded) and pretty much the first time in the Boy's entire life, we will be going on a VACATION together. I'm all a-flurry!

We're going to Hilton Head Island, which is kind of funny, because it's a fancy dancy golf resport and we are neither fancy-dancy, nor do we golf. BUT it has pretty beaches, good food, and one can go swimming, play with dolphins etc, or have a boat dump you on one of the little nearby islands for the afternoon so you can poke through old graveyards or have a picnic. Also close by is Savannah, Georgia, which I have wanted to visit since I read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. It's supposed to be a really intersting town, with lots of gorgeous southern gothic architecture, and fantastic old cemetaries.

All I can say, is that I hope the Boy gets a taste for vacations. Planning and looking forward to something is almost as happy a thing as going on the trip.

On the positive side...

It's odd that, although for the most part, I'm enjoying Psychonauts, I can only play for limited amounts of time. Now games like Dark Cloud 2, or Katamari Damacy, I negotiate by getting everything done in real life so I can play for large chunks of time... But Psychonauts is different, for some reason. I just end up turning the game off after an hour or so. Hmm.

I must admit, it has one of the most entertaining and wildly varying series of levels I've encountered. You pop into the subconscious of someone with a Napoleon complex, and find you're a miniature piece on a terrain model battle map, which, up close, is a sunny countryside divided into sections. It's fun to run about on. Slightly less fun, however, is dealing with the game in that area.

Another level is in the subconscious of a Spanish painter - The level is called Black Velvetopia, which should give a hint as to what things look like. There are no whites at all--everything looks like...well, a painting on black velvet. This was probably my favorite level. The boss fights were reasonable, and everything was just so darn...neat to look at. I suppose having to avoid a massive magenta bull that comes hurtling down the narrow street you're trying to traverse every 6 seconds or so could get old pretty quickly, but fortunately, I found it more entertaining than anything.

Ah well. Toro!

Cycle-Nots!

The only occasionaly bane of my existence is Psychonauts (for the PS2). I'm about 10 hours in, and have spent some time mucking around in some of the more enjoyable aspects of the game--bouncing really high on a big ball of psychic energy, exploring, and shooting stuff with my mind. Oh--I also sort of enjoy the "collecting stuff" aspect of the game, although I know many people would grind their teeth about this. A lot.

The setting(s) are entertaining: the game takes place at a (government sponsored) woodsy children's camp, where potential psychics are trained in the arts of levitation, focusing mental energy, and burning stuff with your mind. Oh, and you can prolly go canoeing too. The camp is extensive, and eventually, you can also run the about in people's minds as well, for completely different levels. While you're in there, you can clean up mental cobwebs, and clear out emotional baggage. And when I say emotional baggage, I actually mean it. Like, crying duffle bags, and sobbing purses. I wish it were this easy. I'd totally be a shrink, if all it took was popping into someone's subconscious to dust and organize crap.

The thing that really makes me flail and stomp is the boss fights. Some of them require you to do something so arbitrary and weird that you've wasted most of your lives before you figure out what the heck is expected of you. The thing that bothered me the most, though, was an encounter with a completely random and detached boss on a particular level. I was walking along, minding my own business, when I fell through the sidewalk into a fiery cave where I was forced to waste lives and health increasers on a boss who had absolutely NOTHING to do with the level or the game, and for whom beating held no reward to speak of. In fact, it felt almost as if the boss had snuck in from another game. Zelda, perhaps. When, in a flurry of cursing, I defeated the boss, my words were, (through clenched teeth) I *never* want to do that again."

1. Pause game
2. Save to make sure nothing happens to make me have to accidentally have to relive that.

Imagine my joy when abruptly, 10 minutes later, I fell through the sidewalk AGAIN, and had to fight the SAME boss I had just killed, again for no reward or benefit. I was thrilled. What is this? Busy work? For pete's sake, it's a video game! Isn't a time waster IN a time waster a little redundant?? Are they trying to draw out the game somehow?

Other than that sort of crap, the game has been fairly interesting. I'll give a final verdict later.

The Bee's Knees

Or in my case, "the bee's stinger in my knee." Technically a wasp. Ow. Darn those flying snippets of evil. Bees I don't have a problem with. They make hunny (rum-pumpum) and they actually die if they sting you, because they leave their stinger behind, along with what looks like a chunk of guts. I tend to imbue them with logic and such: "Well, I know that huge human is wearing that gawd-awful shirt, but is it really worth the price of death to sting them for it? I'll wait until someone gets a fly swatter. Then I'll attack."

Wasps sting with impunity. And because they *like* to, the little bastards. Actually, the particular sting to which I refer was more educational than anything. At the age of 5-ish, I stuck a stick into a large ground hornet colony and was "well rewarded" for my efforts. Supposedly, I am semi-immune to wasp stings because of it. The sting hurt like the dickens for about 5 minutes, and then almost completely went away, leaving a large but unswollen red mark. And that's how it stayed, with the exception of some itching over the next couple days.

Long, dumb story made longer and dumber.

I realized the other day just how much I like life recently. Incredibly, I am not on medication. I'm just rather content and happy. Which...is really sort of strange. Not that I've never been content or happy before--or indeed, both at the same time. Oh yes, I've managed it--but it's just that this seems to be a pretty permanent state.
I suppose it could have to do with the contrast of the first five months of this year to the last three months. The last three months have just been...good. I'm gaining back a sense of self, a little dignity (but not too much), I'm purging myself of unrealistic expectations and unnecessary guilt, and have worked at putting completely out of my mind the things that make my bloodpressure rise. Surprisingly, it's pretty much worked. And now, apparently, I've also just written a trite and slightly annoying self-help book (see above paragraph, which is long and boring.).

Superdickery at its finest.

Many of you have probably seen the website that is now called superdickery.com. However, I still can't resist posting this particular jewel of wonderous lustre.

For those of you who haven't had the distinct pleasure, the above site is composed of real, unaltered scans from old superhero comics.
Essentially, the idea is that the founder of the site was paging through some old Superman comics, and he realized, "Hey. Superman is a real dick."

Lo and behold, after perusing most of the images on the site, I cannot disagree.

Superman is not just a dick, he's a hilariously selfish bastard. At least the Superman from 20+ years ago was. And so was his riduclous sidekick, Jimmy Olsen, who seems to be alternately trying to sell Superman out or turning into various ape-like creatures and attempting to communicate by using a typewriter...

In fact Lois Lane appears to be the only innocent in this whole deal. She's the one who accidentally takes the potion that ages her 50 years, or is forced to ride around scrunched uncomfortably inside a sweaty, bullet proof bubble. ("It's for your protection, Baby!" calls Superman, and snickers as he waltzes freely down the street next to her. Not an exact quote, but you know what I mean.)

Not Christopher Reeves, though. He was more superman than Superman.

RIP.

RIP, Mr. Robert Moog*

We'll miss ye. I hope they play some awesome synthesizer and theremin at his funeral.

*Moog (pronunced like "rogue" with an M)

Porcuhog babies

Only those with the strongest disposition and utmost confidence that their head will not explode from the utter cuteness should scoll down...



The above are hedgehog babies found on the blog of Liew Cheon Fong, a Malaysian tech-blogger. Those of you who read Boingboing may have seen this photo, as he was linked from there today for posting this very photo. Go LcF!

God Bless the Indian Summer

Listening to Pedro the Lion in the background.

I'm posting a link to the first comic of the series I mentioned a few weeks ago - Starship Crisis...except now it's Starslip Crisis. The site and comic are changing their name, and it has been done oh-so-slickly.

The starship gets around by finding the same crew and ship who happen to already be at the desination in a parallel universe. Switch places, and voila! This last switch landed them into a webpage where the sitename had changed. Read and enjoy.

Our X-box has died inconveniently as I was beginning Psychonauts, which promised to be an interesting and fun game. Darn it all.

Mwah-haha!

Forgive me a cruel chuckle. I left a response after one of snobby-lady's most offensive posts for the forum survey yesterday, and it unleashed a storm of pent up anger toward her from the other survey participants.

My post was comparatively mild-mannered. I answered the mod's question and added, "Wow... Everyone has a right to their own opinion, Bitch-face." (uh, except that I used her actual name, cause I'm polite like that.) She responded, "I never said that everyone didn't in fact I wrote that in my post, if you'd even read it." (Ouch. Run on sentence, anyone?)

I didn't bother responding because several other people responded that they had read her post, and certainly didn't gather from it that she respected anyone else's opinion, and that they also found her tone and posts condescending.

The forum is over and snobby-lady has actually managed to bite her lip and write less offensively since then. I wonder if this will make her think about how she treats people? Probably not, but I get the petty satisfaction of having said something about it.

On a Scale From One to Bitch..er...Ten

I would say this woman in my focus group is a 10+.

I'm participating in a study on consumer opinons of fresh vs. frozen food. (Getting paid, of course. I don't contribute my opinions to the vast machine that is American consumerism for free! Feh!) Today was the first day, and since this morning, the 10 or so people participating have been logging on to give a little rundown about who they are, and giving their opions on the questions and products presented. For the most part, it's a group of nice, regular women. There are people from Colorado to New York, some retired, none with kids, 2 of them widowed, and almost all of them with pets they lavish attention on. (no exception here)

We were focus surveying along, minding our own business, when one woman (who has a line of jewelry and a spoiled lapdog--I picture her as Paris Hilton's mother) took it upon herself to, in the rudest possible way, let us all know how ignorant and bourgeois we were for believing "the ridiculous lie" that frozen food could in any way, shape, or form be acceptable (instead of answering the queston that had been asked). Every single thing she writes proves she is consienciously snobby. Other people have expressed similar views, but everyone else manages to do it without being entirely offensive and condescending.

A few questions later, she reasserted her bitchiness (and failed to answer the question) by insisting that everyone could afford to shop at Whole Foods Market, and you'd have to be stupid not to shop there or a specialty store. (Even the widowed lady on a fixed income who lives in a tiny town in Georgia.) "People who would even shop at a store where they suspect might have something lower quality anywhere in it, are people who should just shop at a dollar store for their food. If I even thought there might be something lower quality at a store, I wouldn't let you shop there for me!"

So... people shop for her?

I begin to despise this woman in earnest.

When asked whether we prefer prepared food from the frozen section or the deli section of our grocery store, she wrote:

"I prefer neither. If I want prepared foods, I'll go to a restaurant instead. It's almost the same price and I trust the owner of the restaurant more than a mega grocery store chain's department manager whose just worked a 12 hour shift for 7 days straight because he's shortstaffed and can't get anyone to work for pennies with lots of hours. I feel he might not be adhering to any health guidelines."

?? Does she have a bone to pick with people who work lots of hours for little pay? (those bastards!) In principle, my preference on the food is the same but.... Woah there, bitch-face. What did a grocery store manager ever do to you? I'd be afraid to EVER eat at a restaurant, if I were you. Folks'll spit in your food faster than you can say, "I'm better than you!"

Bleh. I feel like she's stifling the focus group. Now the lady who admitted she can't often afford fresh seafood, and the retired lady who lives in a small town--they give quick, short answers instead of writing about their opinions like they were before. I don't blame them. I wouldn't want to be dissected and told to grocery-shop at a dollar store because I "clearly don't care about freshness or expiration dates."

Bitch-face feels like she has to convince everyone that A. she's better than them, and B. They should shop exactly the way she shops. ("The only frozen food I buy is Sorbet.")

THAT'S NOT THE POINT OF A FOCUS GROUP.

Session over. I feel better. Until I log on tomorrow and see what other outragously offensive thing she's written.

What a little chalk will do

I stumbled over this pavement artist's site the other day:

Julian Beever

I wish they would show more of the pieces from the "wrong" angle. It's bizarre how distorted he has to make the images to create a 3-D look from one direction. Some of them, it's hard to believe are chalk.

I remember an artist in Royal Oak AGES ago... probably 1994 or so, who was doing impromptu 3 minute paintings of space using spray paint in really unconventional ways. They were beautiful, and I was fascinated because the process was so simple and foolproof. I tried it later, and came of with almost as nice an image. I'll try to remember how it was done, and make one. If it works, I'll take a picture and post it.

Prithee, Scroll Downward.

I must direct everyone to scroll down and read the comment that was left on July 25th's "Ow! My Most of Me!" post.

Best. Cat door. Story. EVER.

I'm still snickering to myself about it.

In the end, we managed to have a semi-lopsided "cat hole" which our taller, clumsier cat has to sort of scrunch to get under, but all-told, I guess that's ok. Unless she gets Rheumatism or something in her old age, and is unable to scrunch. While we're on the topic of cat doors, I must share this link to an uber-nerd's cat door dream.

Behold: the Flo Control Project

I can only hope to aspire to such awesome nerditude. I love it.

Smells Like Teen Spirit and Other Various Deodorants.

When I saw this, my first thought was, "My! Gus Van Sant looks a lot like Kurt Kobain."

Ow! My Most of Me!

Achey hands because I just wrenched off the basement door in order to cut a cat hole in the bottom of it. Well, not a cat "hole," persay, but more of an arch. An opening. An aperature. And hopefully something that won't look as though a monster took a snaggle-toothed bite from the door.

Nihao's immediate response to me removing the door was to puke. Thank you Nihao. Now I know exactly how you feel about it. She's been meowing incessently for the last couple days, probably because I've been rendering huge upsetting changes, like cleaning out the litter box. I've tried to make sure she is extra loved and patted. She's actually much better than she used to be--It's been months since she's thrown up because of stress. I'm dreading how it will be when the time comes to rennovate the kitchen, starting with flat-out gutting the place. Poor Neen.

In any case, now that I've got the door off, I'm at a standstill because I can not, for the life of me, make the blade snap into place on the jigsaw. Oh, I've tried. And tried. And cursed like a sailor. I'm beginning to feel that perhaps the jigsaw is designed to entirely ignore people with that extra "girl" chromosome. This sort of thing drives me insane. I can open tight bottle lids, assemble furniture without the directions, program a VCR, even change the oil on a damn car, but I can't...plug...the little...blade...into the jigsaw. GGAARRRRR!!

C-to-the-omic

Here is a comic that takes neither itself, nor you seriously.

Starshift Crisis

Summary: elitist, cynical curator of a museum of worlds based on an intergalactic starship has a giant, humorless preying mantis-like butler who makes him tea. The art is entertaining, but the writing is what comes in a cut above many a web comic I've browsed. In a way, it feels as though someone shook Douglas Adams and a webcomic fell out (except that dear old DA is dead. Uh, ewww. No shaking dead people). I'm not saying that it draws too much on Adams--just that it makes me snicker in precisely the same ways.

I tried BBQing pork chops tonight. Big, thick meaty ones. And they turned out dry and sucky. Oh well. It could have been worse. They could have been dropped in poo.

Calling All Audio-Nerds!

I stumbled across a website for the best type of audio-nerd today. This guy scanned vinyl into his computer and managed to interpret it into something akin to music. The sound samples on the bottom are barely recognizable swishy, crackly bits of Vivaldi's Four Seasons.


Observe.

Someone needs to use a sample of this thing in a song or two. It's practically good enough to listen to on its own as minimalist techno or something along those lines.

You! Musically inclined friends! Let me know if you make anything from it. I'd be excited to hear.

The first time I saw the Monkey, I was spinning at a club in Dusseldorf...

Someone sent a link to THIS today, and I was much entertained by it. It reminds me a little, for some reason, of the people who made the Urban Monkey short films years ago.

The Urban Monkey films revolved around deadpan documentary interviews with people and footage of an elusive "urban monkey" who can out-breakdance anyone on the block. They did a recreation of the legendary "bigfoot footage" that was killer as well. All of this was set against a backdrop of original hip-hop. I'm sad to find that it's disappeared so utterly from the internet. I couldn't even find it using the Wayback Machine.

Now-a-days, the Urban Monkey title has been claimed by some British kid who hops around. Okay. He's slightly cooler than that, but it makes me just a wee bit bitter.

It Grew on an iShrub

Now this is rather slick.



I'm tempted to make some sort of crack about how it only plays rustic folk music now... but I won't.

Oh. Dear. God.

Poor Ennio Morricone, legendary composer of western music and countless movie scores... even HE is not immune to hokey covers.

This must be Swedish. And it's got to be the seventies. It would have to be Sweden in the seventies for anyone to remotely think this is okay.

For those of you of the "Read Now, Click Later" school, the above link is one the Boy sent to a video of what looks like the cousin of Lemmy from Motorhead fronting a fringe-laden band of Swedes high on peyote who've decided that converting Morricone compositions to disco music is actually somehow a good idea.

This is not a joke. The front man seems so taken with the idea that occasionally he punctuates the music with a triumphant (yet slightly sinister), "Hahaa!"

Clad in genuine apache bikinis, the Swedish ladies swim team gyrates their way through the set, brightly crooning, "Apache-pache boy!" as if to somehow convince us that the fluffy-haired gent in a yellow fringed jumpsuit is, in actuality, a certified Native American.

Don't miss a priceless moment near the end where, unable to resist the Apache Boy's aura of seventies sexiness, the ladies run their hands over him...and one earnestly squashes his puffy hairdo. The motion reminds me more of the desparing "Lifetime original movie" mother vigorously stroking the brow of her injured child and choking out: "It's aaaall right. It's going to be aaaall right. It'll be over soon."

Don't worry, Apache-pache Boy. It'll be over soon.

And for My Next Trick...

I will make a snap decision to go to Greenfield Village with my out-of-town family--because I can always finish my work tonight. What a concept. Now that I'm freelancing, where there is a laptop, there is my job.

Do I miss getting heartburn within an hour of arriving at the old office each morning? (I'm dead serious: EVERY day.)

Oh, hell no.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Come on Back, Now...

Quick post to point out that suddenly people who didn't exist when there was betamax are making music as though they warped right out of the best part of the eighties. I... I have to like it. Lots. Retro-pop is never something I could listen to exclusively, but this stuff is really tight:

The Bravery
- Energetic retro-pop that begs for a screening of The Breakfast Club and pixie stix for everyone!
My Favorite
- Think more mature Anything Box with female vocals over tinkley keys.
VHS or Beta
- Robert Smith's son beats up Simon LeBon's son and steals his band. Somewhere along the way, one of the guys from Daft Punk gets lost and ends up in the studio. (try title track... yummy!)

I'll be applying for membership here...

I always knew the Christ knew how to rock.

Low Gravity

I'm in the process of reading Tam Lin by Pamela Dean. It's part of the Fairy Tale series, which is a collection of modern retellings. So far, it's been rather enjoyable, not only becasue if the fact that I tend to be fascinated by fairy tales, but also because the writing is quirky and interesting. At times, the characters seem as though they could be hanging out with the pretentious Classics scholars of A Secret History, but in general, they seem geniune enough, and less inclined to murder each other. (not that A Secret History was not enjoyable as well...) I'm not far enough into the book to really say much more than that.

I watched a shamefully large chunk of episodes of this past season of "Lost" last night. Very interesting stuff, though I wish the finale had answered more questions than it did. Hurrah for TV, that this sort of thing can be mainstream. It's no Twin Peaks, but it's better than most of the schlock that's been on the past few years.

Too Late the Phalarope

Found this book while doing some spring cleaning... It's been years since I've read it.

What the phalarope actually has to do with this blog entry is debatable. It's a small, sleek shore bird that, if Alan Patton is to be believed, can be found in South Africa. In other words, it has nothing to do with it.

But it IS too late. I ought to be sleeping since I think I may be, once again, on the brink of getting sick. Which reminds me:

At the event of my grandfather's 90th birthday (!) this week, a cousin's significant other asked what was happening musically, and I was sort of horrified to find that I was giving him the same answer as I had last time I saw him--a year ago. He raised an eyebrow and commented that if we don't use a gift, the Muse will take it away. I'm hoping the Muse just has a little more patience, because after a year of working a job that devoured my personal life, I'm finally at the point where I can begin to reaquaint myself with the people I care about, and begin to write again.

I feel as though I'm starting over in many ways-- I'm desperately hoping that I don't have to go through the long period of exceedingly sucky writing in order to produce anything worthwhile again.

Challenges:
1. tune your damn piano
2. restring your dusty guitar
3. write something decent enough that you're not tempted to gnaw off your own arm rather than read/listen to it.

Ha. We'll see how that goes. Seriously, though... I'm actually optomistic.

A Letter to the Creators of Suikoden IV.

Dear Suikoden IV Designers -

What drastic and stupid thing happened between Suikoden III and Suikoden IV? Please read my January 17, 2004 post regarding III. It wasn't a perfect game, but it was detailed and highly enjoyable after the first 4 hours. I've actually played it again since then.

Now re-read the few negative points I made about III. Those also apply to IV. Apparently, you didn't attempt to revamp the rough areas of the game. Instead, you just made them rougher. And also, I have to assume that there was an internal memo regarding Zelda - Windwaker and Dark Cloud II that stated, "Feel free to use any of the fun ideas from these games. However, recreating these in any way that could be construed as enjoyable will result in immediate discipliary action up to and possibly including termination or being buried neck deep in a fire-ant nest."

I enjoyed the sailing aspect of Windwaker. You could see distant tantalizing islands, the clever bit about the many map-painting fish was entertaining, you could land anywhere you darn well pleased, and the steering mechanism made some sort of SENSE. On the other hand, there is S.IV, which has a huge map which requires you to slloooowwly traverse EVERY SQUARE INCH in order to see any islands. Lord knows I would have liked to have seen those islands on the horizon, but for some mysterious reason, on this ocean, one doesn't realize an island is there until you're practically crashing onto the beach. Oh WAIT. You CAN'T sail onto the beach, because when you're about a quater-mile away from the damn island, your ship inexplicably heaves itself around, and regardless of your efforts, steers itself firmly away for much too long a period of time. What. The. Hell. The encounter rate alone on the ocean made it near impossible to go anywhere without ripping large chunks of my hair out.

Someone thought the idea of fishing from Dark Cloud II was a good one. But the effect is like taking a big bite of a s'more and realizing that someone made it with a lump of white spray insulation instead of a marshmallow. It looks good until you try it. Like the sailing, all vestages of fun were carefully drained from a good idea. Everything is wrong, detail has been stripped away, leaving a sad shadow of a fishing game that repeatedly plays a mocking noise when you inevitably break your line or lose a fish. Fuck you.

Designers, I can only assume that it was fear of some malevolent project coordinator that kept you from using the interesting multiple-character chapter method that was used in III. Or laziness, maybe?

Also worth note is the fact that the character design in this game is BARELY interesting, and the more interesting bits are unintentional. The silent protagonist runs as though he sat rather hard on a substantially large stick for the first few hours of the game. Even after the change out of his initial ridiculous culottes (remind me of the unflattering "gym shorts" the girls at my dread Southern Baptist junior high were forced to wear. *shudder*) he wears retarded "little pants." At least he walks slightly more naturally. (as if only a small stick were up his ass now)

Sad. Very sad. I don't understand why anyone making or testing the game would not have realized what a pile of crap it is, and how un-fun it is to play. Thank God I rented instead of buying.

Even after all that ranting, I still acknowledge there are some good things about the game. There is a point after which you can make your characters run very, very quickly. Comes in handy when you're bolting around trying to figure out what the next trigger point is. Also, the idea of a huge ship being the base you establish is interesting.

Bleh. Good and bad weighed, S. IV only comes in at 2 out of 5 stars.

2 Things. Probably more.

1. Britney Spears and Mrs. Federline-Spears are making their own reality tv show, apparently. Now instead of just occassional spots on VH1, the grateful public will get regular glimpses of their moronic and dubious relationship. Sing from the rooftops!

2. The Boy and I (for some reason) really like the Discovery show, American Chopper. We're not really the kind of people that watch a motorcycle building show regularly, I think. BUT... American Chopper has about the best interpersonal exchanges and relational dynamics of any reality show I've ever watched. Honestly. Again... that is probably not the reason it's popular with people in huge trucks.

Cast:

Senior - massivly muscled middle aged shop owner. Soft on his younger son, Mikey, and hard as crowbar on his older son, Pauly. Senior has a very "old school dad" feel. Deleriously happy? The corner of his handlebar mustache twitches. Grouchy? EVERYONE RUN.

Pauly - Older son (31). Fantastically brilliant chopper fabricator. Regular guy, with a wife and little daughter. Does his own thing in the shop, and almost without fail, it turns out beautifully. Most of the time, he manages to be completely deaf when his father is bellowing at him from 2 feet away. Sometimes loses his cool and bellows back.

Mikey - younger son (20s). Plays the idiot, because he knows it means he can get away with not working and most times, Senior ends up snorting and trying not to laugh instead of raging. I can't decide if he's really as shallow and incompetant as he seems, or if it's some sort of defense mechanism against his father taking him seriously and treating him like Pauly.

Vinnie - complete saint who steadily and quietly works away with Pauly while Senior stomps and rants around the shop. Close friend of Pauly's.

Rick - basically ditto of above, except he and Pauly are not as close.

Mike - Some schmuck from the shop who occasionally shows up on the show and tries to steamroll the design so he can hotdog for the camera and get on Senior's good side. Perfectly willing to step on anyone he thinks he can get away with stepping on. Even not being a fabricator, I can see his work is shoddy, and his ideas generally suck.

Having seen enough of the show to have a bit of a handle on the relationships, you begin to appreciate smaller things:

Senior's 1974 Sunshine chopper is dragged out for restoration, and Senior takes a long look at it. His ears turn pink, and you know how incredibly proud he is of that bike, and how much he's loved it. He refers to it in the feminine. In some respects, he's very like my dad.

Senior goes ballistic because he suddenly decides there are too many drinks around the shop. He roars something about severe consequences, and forces everyone to pick up pop cans etc before they can continue the bike they're working on. Later, he feels bad, but instead of apologizing, he hovers a bit near the build, asking Pauly questions about his plans in a slightly sheepish way. Very dad-like.

In any case, I recommend seeing the show at least a few time to appreciate the priecless familial interactions.

Full Circle

A couple months ago I convinced one of my former bookstore coworkers to leave the world of wrathful middle aged women and pilfering teens to some work at the company I am currently employed by. It's been intersting to exchange stories with her.

Not to say that the bookstore consisted ONLY of the above mentioned, but it's weirdly weighted in that direction sometimes. It's been over a year since I last worked behind a counter, and I've found that the fact that I am treated humanely every single day has morphed me into a much more confident and secure person. hmm. I do miss the bookstore at times though.

In my talks with S, I was reminded the other day of the Not Really Lawyer. This was a man pushing the far end of middle age, who, dressed in a grubby and wrinkled polyester suit, would "stop by" the store in the mornings and end up wandering about all day. The Not Really Lawyer used to tell me about his job as I'd fill his coffee mug. He talked offhandedly about the firm he worked for/owned (depending on the day). So much to do. So prestigious. So lucrative. And, as he'd sit for the fourth hour in a row reading the same magazine, I'd think to myself, "So sad."

If he had just been a guy trying to pretend he had a place in life, that would have been one thing, but the Not Really Lawyer tended to border on obnoxious about it. He'd talk about the massive settlement he'd just raked in, while fingering the grubby edges of hs sleeves as though there were imaginary cuff links. And he'd give a look down his nose and pointedly say things about how he USED to work in retail, but he wanted something better for his life.

Then there was the time he abandonded his 94 year old father at our store. What a rollicking good time. The Not Really Lawyer dragged the old man in by the elbow and plopped him into a chair near the cafe. For the rest of the day the father sat there, sometimes snoring gently. Closing time came, and we realized that we hadn't seen Not Really Lawyer in hours, and his ancient father was still flopped onto the seat in the cafe. I don't remember exactly how we roused him from his deathlike slumber. I do recall though, that the old man couldn't even tell us his son's name at first, and seemed disoriented, to say the least. At a loss, we eventually called the police. I hope Not Really lawyer remembers to do things like provide food and liquids to his elderly father.

Shame on you, you pretender.

Most Likely the Coolest Photos You'll See Today...

It would take many many gin & tonics to get me to play tennis on the helipad of 20+ story building. Looks like a film set, but no... it's the Burj Al-Arab Hotel in Dubai.



And now it looks as though we've just been beamed up with Mike TV in Willie Wonka's factory.



Look! It's our favorite bald tennis player about to play fetch with his charming yet slightly gullible canine pal.

Well, I'll Be Gosh-Swoggled.

Whatever that means.

I had the pleasant surprise today of having author Patrick O'Leary comment on a July blog post in which I mentioned enjoying his book, The Gift.

(Well, on the miniscule chance you ever read this blog again: I own The Impossible Bird too, Patrick, and think it also is beautifully intricate, and has fantastic cover art. And I'm a girl. Er..a Dudette..?)

The Boy would also like to me point out that O'Leary is a southeast Michigan native, and set a scene from his book, Door Number Three, in the Borders Books at Southfield and 13 Mile Rd.

Ha! That pleases me more than it probably should.

Not a single, tiny, wimpering regret.

Regarding my last post, I would just like to say that I should have added several more exclamation points to drive home my point. And I lied - I did look at PvP again today since Kurtz posted what he deemed and "apology," and I was curious.

In his "apology," Kurtz first presents himself as a hurting victim, then manages not only to be MORE offensive toward Fred Gallagher, but also to alienate all MegaTokyo readers as well. You think drastic sterotypes and bitter blanket statements are really going to mollify anyone? How about a little humility? Perhaps he's unaware of the fact that he actually shares a massive percentage of his readers with MegaTokyo. Like I said earlier, Fred can be melodramatic, but at least he's unassuming and genuine.

Congratulations - You really put those pokey-eating MT readers in their place, Kurtz. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that you may find a curious dip your readership. I'm sure I'm not the only person who left in disgust.

Because he can't freeze my blog.

There was once a time when the webcomic PvP was actually enjoyable - it was witty, funny, creative, and definitely one of my bookmarked "dailies." However, even during the golden years of PvP, I was occasionally annoyed by its creator, Scott Kurtz. He took himself so seriously, and his constant weedleing for people to click sponsor links and buy his swag grated now and then. I responded by ignoring the rants/journal entries, and still managed to enjoy the comic.

Within the last year or so, I've trudged dutifully through several painfully stupid and unfunny story arcs involving things like Jade's younger sister trying to seduce Brent (I kept coming back for the faint hope that there might be a strip involving Scratch and Skull.). The decline of the comic is not what ultimately made me stop visiting PvP, however. The strip didn't disturb me half so much as Scott Kurtz disturbed me.

The fact is that in his PvP universe, Scott Kurtz is a god. A tyrannical little god who's terrified of people saying anything MEAN about him, and who rewrites history as suits him. I recall his rant about an obnoxious band in the booth next to his at a particular con...understandable - they sounded like total asshats. However, Scott went one step further and attempted to mobilize his PvP army against them by CLEARLY posting a link to the band's site and, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, saying how awful it would be if too many people downloaded from their website, because they might exceed their bandwidth and have to pay a lot extra...

What do you think that means? It means, "After them, my PvP minions!" Of course. I thought at the time it was a sort of low thing to do, but it didn't particularly bother me...

Except that a couple days later, god-Scott breezed in and erased his previous post, replacing it with one that claimed, in a self-righteously indignant tone, that some people had accused him of telling readers to flood the band's server and that was not what he intended AT ALL. These guys were just trying to make a living, etc. etc. and now they're good friends, blah blah.

What outrageous and obnoxious backpaddling. Just admit that you were pissed off, and you wrote before you thought of the consequences, Scott.

That episode left a bad taste in my mouth, but it was pretty much behind me, until this past week's debacle. In the midst of congratulating Rodney Caston (of early Megatokyo renown) on his upcoming baby, Kurtz took an unexpected and unwarrented swipe at Fred Gallagher, current Megatokyo writer and artist. Now the swipe itself, though to me a pretty despicable thing, was Kurtz's personal opinion. I believe that he's wrong, but he has every right to say what he wants. Conversly, I have ever right to never go back to his site again because of my personal opinion that he's a dickhead.

Now, if you go to the PvP site, you won't find any evidence of the post. It's been neatly swept under a virtual rug by Mr. Kurtz. He even froze the thread on the message boards pertaining to it to keep people from discussing it. It took only a few hours for him to realize that someone, somewhere might think that it wasn't cool, and as a result, say something MEAN about him. Like that he's a dickhead.

Fred responded on Megatokyo's site. He was a little overwrought and emotional, but one can hardly blame him. In the end, his point was valid: his business relationship with Rodney Caston is none of Kurtz's bloody business.

The jewels that only occasionally crop up in PvP these days are not worth putting up with Scott Kurtz.

Today, after years of reading PvP, I deleted the bookmark entirely.
It was a grand, pointless gesture, but somehow it feels good.

The Joys that Come with Age

"What creature walks on four legs at the dawn, two in the midday, and three legs in the evening?" the Sphinx asked Oedipus. At least I think that's how it goes. As I recall, the answer to the Sphinx's riddle was "Man - because he crawls on all fours as an infant, walks as an adult, and uses a cane in his old age."

Speaking of old age...

I have a hearty esteem for the elderly. Anyone who manages to stick around 80 years has my respect. At the same time, one can't deny that sometimes, as people become more childlike in their old age, they render stories that are by one token sad, but by another, howlingly funny. My general rule of thumb is that I will not take myself seriously as an old person, (Why start then?) and I should hope if I do something laughable, people are not afraid to guffaw.

For instance:
A friend had a grandfather who, upon his own occasional epic episodes of flatulance, would crane his head around sharply, demanding, "Who's that? Who's there?!"

How could one not giggle like an idiot?

A sister of mine worked at a home where a tiny, ancient French-Canadian lady refused to eat breakfast. When J gently but firmly steered her back to the table, the tiny lady went into little girl mode - stamping her foot angrily, and flinging her ever-present tissue to the ground in a fit of rage. As the tissue fluttered gently to the floor,(perhaps not the effect she had intended) she would declare, "I'm goin' to TOWN!"

When I'm old, I hope that somehow I manage to avoid troublesome things like brain shrinkage and the type of thing that puts one into the company of people such as This lucky lady.

This story is the reason I've been thinking about age today. The Boy's grandfather did the exact same thing a few years ago. What boggles me is that he managed to superglue BOTH his eyes shut. One I could (sort of) understand, but BOTH-- reportedly, the grandfather put the "drops" into one eye, noticed they stung a little, but proceeded with the next anyway.

Upon finding he was rendered blind via his epoxied eyelids, he sat quietly on the bed until it was clear that the Boy's uncle was awake, then called him in a little voice to inform him that there was something wrong with his eyedrops. (the "little voice" gets me - in both the lady and grandpa stories. What other type of voice could you possible have but a meek and sheepish one after doing something like that?)

The uncle took him to the hospital, where some jackass of a doctor decided it would "just wear off on its own." So they went home again. The uncle stayed home from work, understandably, and together they sat on the couch so the uncle could tell the grandpa everything that was happening on Murder She Wrote. In the Boy's family version of the story, this section in accompanied by the teller making a very interested face and leaning forward, except with his or her eyes tightly closed. "Yes? yes? What now?" The uncle says things such as, "ok... now Jessica is underneath the window in the bushes. She's listening to the conversation... Oh! They might have seen her!"

Later, the uncle took the grandpa to another hospital, where they told him the first doctor was a jackass. The glue had dried on the surface of the grandpa's eyes, creating a hard contact with sharp edges that scratched every time he shifted his eyeballs. Through sheer determination and merciless ripping, the medical staff opened them again. Today the grandpa seems no worse for the wear from it.

Rollin' on Through...

I realize that back in October I was going to write about the virtues of Katamari Damacy, but I forgot. Well, first, let this be known:

Katamary Damacy is as ragingly fun and adorable as Sci-Fi Channel original movies are ridiculous and laughable. ie: A LOT.

The object of the game:

Emergency! You are the tiny Prince of the Universe! You must use this sticky lump called a Katamari to roll crap up for various dubious reasons! Your father is a buffoon, but he's huge, and he'll make a star out of your lump to replace the ones he broke!

Also, listen to this fantastic music as you roll! Ready-go!




There is nothing quite so satisfying as growing your Katamari to the point that you can actually knock over that annoying kid in the alley and roll her right up! Haha! And those cats! And that guy! And that car! And that elephant! And that building! And that whale! Take that!

Eventually, you get to the size that your mammoth Katamari overshadows the tiny prince many thousands of times over, and you bonk into and roll up clouds and rainbows, enormous oceanic whirlpools, entire islands, massive Gozilla-like creatures and the like...

There's nothing quite like it. So satisfying.

Take me out back and shoot me.

...because, God help me, I can't help being curiously attracted to awful Euro-fluff-electro.

I know it barely qualifies as music. I know that being a musician of sorts myself, I ought to pointedly and publically loathe it. But secretly I go home and download it because the wispy, annoying strains can be addictive LIKE CRACK.

I'm sure this guy understands.

I laugh at the video, and the fact that this young man looks as though his head actually expands and contracts with the music. Then I shamefully find and download the mp3 to play repeatedly until my brain explodes and bursts into flame, purging itself of the addiction 2 days later.

Incidentally, also I find it quite amusing that my search for the mp3 landed me at a google-translated page where, in order to join the mailing list and keep up with what's new, one enters one's email below where it says,

"For always being dawned on the innovationes of the situated one, you enroll yourself to the Newsletter:"

Carpooling with Respectable English Magicians

I'm currently "reading" Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell on my way to and from work. I received an early Christmaas gift from The Boy of a flash player and a subscription to audible.com, and all my wildest audiobook dreams have come true. The flash player is a tiny little thing about the size of the remote I use to unlock my car doors (but it carries something like 16 hours of audiobook). In fact, I carry it on my keychain, and on occasion find myself, arm outstretched, starting and stopping an audiobook rather than letting myself into the car. Despite that minor confusion once and awhile, I adore the little thing. I also adore the iPod, but it is clumsy to use while driving, and I tend to forget to lock the buttons, so I unexpectedly flip back and forth between tracks. Whereas the pod needs to be placed somewhere I can control it, and where it won't fly off the seat at a sudden stop, the flash player stays on my keychain, and I simply plug the cord from the tape deck into it and control it from there. eee!

I find myself humming the refrain from the post-credits wedding sequence in Napolean Dynamite where Kip earnestly sings to his bride, "I love technology/ (reassuringly) but I love you more, you see/ but I STILL love technology... always and foreeeever.

Technology I will take a little longer to completely warm up to is the Bluetooth headset for my cell phone. I like that there are no wires. Ever since Pinnochio, the world has known that "no wires" is quite a good thing. But I find that I clutch at it for fear it will fall off my ear. I find that it takes longer to apply the headset to my ear than it does to simply pick up the phone and make a quick call. I'm sure I will get better at it. Once it's on and I'm chatting hands-free I love it. Eventually I'll adore it like I adore my flash player.

Always and foreeever.

Curse you, Green Horseradish!

Oddly enough, I woke up today without any sense of taste. I have been able to smell as usual, but eating has been a depressingly lacklustre event. The only taste zone that seems to be semi-intact is the "bitter" zone toward the back and sides of my tongue. I had a mint earlier, and rather than cool mintiness, all I got was a weird bitter taste toward the back.

All I can think is that is has something to do with the fact that I ate large quantities of wasabi peas yesterday. I tasted them at the time... or so I thought. One never knows.

The main reason being tasteless (heh) sucks today is that we were taken out on a business lunch today to a really nice restaurant. I got a lovely calamari dish which was perfectly cooked and melted in my mouth. However, I no idea if it tasted nice--I just know it was not gummy like bad calamari tends to be.

darn wasabi peas.

Sudden Bit of Respect for the USPS

Soo... while driving home from work today, I was surprised and gratified to catch a snippet of a song by The Postal Service between news items. Even more interesting, however, was the fact that the next story was a little piece about the fact that the United States Postal Service had discovered that a little electro-indie band on the West coast was using "their name" and sent them a cease and desist letter.

I imagine the exchange taking place between shy indie rocker Benjamin Gibbard and a stern looking middle aged group of postal workers.

Postal spokesperson: You can't use our name you know!

Benjamin Gibbard: Oh? Oh...shucks.

Postal spokesperson: (clearly had been expecting more anger) So..that's..uh,that.

Bejanmin Gibbard: (hands in pockets, kicking one foot a little) ...But I LIKE the postal service.

Postal spokesperson: (quietly muttering out of side of mouth to other postal people - "oh my god, he's so adorable! are we sure about this?")

Other Postal People: (burst out) Fine!! AUGH! You're so cute!! Be our mascot!! We'll make a stamp with you on it!!

Benjamin Gibbard: Ok. Cool.

True: Surprisingly, after the intial contact, rather than requiring the customary ceasing and desisting, the USPS found themselves charmed by the adorablilty of the indie kids, and eventually asked if they could adopt them as the offical USPS band. Apparently the USPS wants The Postal Service's music for commercials, to sell their cds in post offices, and have them play at a mega-conference for postal big-wigs coming up.

Who's your daddy?

Uncle Sam.

Boating Day in the USA

I stood in line with everyone this morning, but the difference is, I was actually being PAID while I was standing there. I love my company.

________________

Boo whines and whiiiines until I fill the cat bowl to an amount he find sufficient. It's different all the time. Some days, he becomes wrathful that there is only a half bowl of chow available for him at any one time. Other days it can dwindle to one or two nuggets before he starts to complain. Today it didn't look as though Nihao and he had eaten at all during the day. The bowl still contained about the amount I had measured out for them when I left this morning.

As I inpsected it, his persistant BEEEEEWWWWWWW??? bbeeeeeeewwww?? got louder and louder, and he actually stood up to tap me on the elbow with his paw. So, like my parents before me, (carefully salting my plate of food when I begged for it--but without turning the salter upside down so anything comes out) I picked up his food bowl and carefully rustled through it with my fingers. "I'm adding brand NEW food for you," I lied.

I put the bowl down and he huffily ate his fill and promptly went to sleep afterward. I must admit I was a little shocked that it worked. I had expected some innate feline sense to alert him. I guess he's more like a little kid than I thought.

En-pea ARRR!!

Am I just the sort of dork who secretly enjoys a good autumn Public Radio fund drive? Why yes...yes I am!
I can't decide if it's the fact that I'd rather hear people begging for money than about politics (quite possible--in fact, probable) or if it's the thrill of meeting the new member challenge for the half hour. Maybe both.

I realized the extent of my dorkiness while I was driving home and found that I'd left the radio tuned to the fundraiser ALL THE WAY HOME. And it's been like that all so far this week. I've been listening to the various hosts and assessing their tactics - I found that the phones rang more for the people who sounded like they were smiling, who didn't apply guilt, and who brought to bear little personal stories that apparently did the trick. C.N. and T. M. are leading the crew for over-all skill with smooth flow and managing to work the phone number 888-258-9866 (oh god. I know it by heart.) into three sentences of dialogue 47 times without sounding awkward or stilted.

I haven't heard her so far this year, but T.C. automatically LOSES if she's been trying to raise funds this year. I heard her last year and it was a disaster. I can barely keep the station on her self-satisfied, snotty nosed voice for more than a few seconds when she's announcing news, let alone when she's personally asking me for money but somehow manages to come off as supercilious and lofty at the same time. I swear she sounds like a parody of someone exceedingly proud that one of my sisters does. ("Hmm HMMM? with upturned nose and bored, half closed eyes, as if you weren't worth the effort to LOOK at.) Last year T.C. and C.N. were on duty together and C pointed out that support could cost as little as a chocolate bar or a capaccino a week (smooth--good move. The phones ring.) Then T cuts in proudly, talking directly through her nose as usual..."Udless you're me, and you eat BELGIAN IMPORTED Chocolate...thed it's a little bid moore expedsive..." Long pause. Phones stop ringing.

Hoookay.

More blog to come, only this will be about the outrageous head-exploding cuteness and crack-like addictiveness of Katamari Damacy. In the mean time: http://katamaridamacy.jp/ (ENG!)

Top Security

Am I the only one who finds this amusing?



It's lasted over a week now, but I expect that any day I'll order my dinner from a misty-eyed BK clerk who will explain of the silent and devastated staff, "Someone stole it. They stole our promo sign. After we put a lock on it an everything."

Rest in Peace, Man of Steel

I was sad to hear Christopher Reeve died.

The REAL problem with America today...

Okay... another PSA from the desk of yours truly:

If you happen to live in Michigan, and you happen to be researching a home equity loan, allow me to save you about 45 minutes of wasted time you will NEVER EVER BE ABLE TO GET BACK BECAUSE IT WILL BE GONE FOR GOOD. This PSA will also be helpful in preventing sweaty palms, grinding of the teeth, and the overwhelming inclination to punch anything within arm's length. My suggestion: do not, I repeat, DO NOT call a place called AIM Lending in Grand Rapids. Particularly if you're a woman. The sensation of simultaneously being walked all over, and having your ass kissed is an interesting one, but definitely NOT enojyable.

Allow me to explain: I called said "business" this week to see what sorts of loans they offer, what sort of rate I might get - nothing specific, mind you. I spoke first to a friendly enough trainee guy. He offered some info on the company, and took down some info so he could get me some quotes. Or so I thought. He called back later to let me know that THE senior loan specialist, Mr. Utter Ass-hat, would discuss the loan with me. "Okay - thanks. Bye trainee-guy," I said, and things just went straight to hell from there. The voice that then appeared on the other end of the line was like a cross between the guys on Car Talk and Howard Dean during his RAAAWRR! speech. He had that used car salesman/motivational con artist way of using my name at the beginning of every sentence. "So Steph - you mind if I call you Steph, there?" Yes. I do. Already my hackles are rising slightly.

What followed was an unbelieveable half hour of this guy raving and raging about how his company is a non-commision company, and "the only thing....the ONLY thing, Steph, that I want to do for you is find you a loan a a great rate! Steph, let me ask you, have you gotten any numbers from people? 'Cause whatever it is, we can beat it because those commission companies are trying to screw you every which way. Pardon my language, but it's TRUE, Steph. All I want to do, all our company is here for is YOU. (somehow I doubt that.) Lemme tell you about our owner. He's worked in this business for 20 plus years. His father worked in the business for 40 years! (pardon my ignorance, but what does this have to do with getting an approximate quote on a loan, and why should I believe that you, a total stranger are running some sort of loan charity for me out of the goodness of your heart?)

When he wasn't stridently informing me of random and entirely unrelated facts about his company, he was yelling about commision based companies, telling me anecdotes about how people's lives are ruined by them and claiming THEY are what's wrong with America today. He yelled this at least THREE times during my conversation with him.

"Now tell me, Steph - have you been reading all these articles in the newspaper about how bad they're finding out commission places really are?" (what freaking articles?) I responded that and that we had researched all the different ways of getting loans before we decided to go ahead with getting quotes. (We're not stupid here.)

"Well Steph, that doesn't surprise me one bit. No sir. She's a smart one. These guys are agreeing with me. I've got about 5 people listening in - training, y'know. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. You seem like the type who's really sharp."

Don't patronize me, asshole. And excuse me... YOU'RE training people? God help us all.

In the process of the verbal gauntlet, he asked me if I'd been told various (unrelated and random) things about the company. I responded that I hadn't.

Now it gets even weirder and more uncomfortable: Ass-hat informed me that trainee-guy should have known better than to NOT mention all this crap to me. Then he proceeded to turn on poor Trainee for 'messing up.' Somewhere in Grand Rapids, poor new guy trainee was getting berated in front of four other trainees, and a potential customer. Talk about inappropriate. "It's ok," I said. '"We're all been the new guy at one point or another."

Then another barrage of asskissing including such gems as, "You know, Steph. I like your style. You've got STYLE."
Then: "Trainee-guy's ok, right Trainee? TELL THE LADY YOU'RE FINE."

Then: a weak throat clearing from Trainee-guy and, "Um, I'm fine."

The conversation ended shortly thereafter with Ass-hat telling me he'd call tomorrow to let us know what he could do for us.

??? Kind of weird that after 10 minutes of explaining a few facts to any other company, they were able to tell us if they could help us, and what sorts of things were possible. 30 minutes of Ass-hat, and all I'd gotten was the urge to kick the wall.

Poor trainee-guy.

I don't know why I picked up the phone to Ass-hat the next day. Maybe I was hoping that one last ditch effort would help me get the info I needed to compare with potential programs from other companies. Dumb girl. You knew what was coming. Another round of chauvenistic, egocentric, condescending, blustering. And AGAIN, in front of a group of trainees.

When he told me he'd call at the end of the week once we'd made a decision, I (gently) cut him off.

Me: "So you're not going to actually give me any information about loan programs that might help us?"

Ass-hat: "Steph, if someone told you they'd give you a rate lower than X, they're LYING. If they're friends or family, you need to CUT OFF your relationship with them right NOW! "cause they're LIARS, Steph!"

Oh. That's nice. A complete asshole stranger over the phone that I've never met telling me to sever relationships with friends and family.

Ass-hat: "Steph, you need to make a desicion, then we'll talk."

Me: "How can you expect me to make a decision if you haven't given me any information?"

Then, unbelievably, Ass-hat yelling: STEPH, YOU'RE TREATING ME LIKE A USED CAR SALESMAN AND I DON'T APPRECIATE IT!! I'M BEING MR. STRAIGHT AND HONEST WITH YOU, AND YOU'RE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF ME!!

Me yelling back (Utterly dumbfounded, yet completely pissed off): NO! HOW CAN YOU BE STRAIGHT AND HONEST WITHOUT HAVING ACTUALLY CONVEYED ANYTHING FACTUAL??? IT'S BAD BUSINESS TO EXPECT PEOPLE TO COMMIT BEFORE KNOWING WHAT IT IS THEY'RE COMMITTING TO!!

Ass-hat (shouting as fast as he can in front of his trainees) WELLIDON'TCAREIFYOUDECIDETOMAKETHESMARTCHOICEANDGOWITHUS-YOU
CANSTILLCALLWHENYOUFIGUREOUTWHATYOU'REMISSING,BUTIDON'TEVEN
EXPECTYOUTO!!!!! *CLICK*

Like an elemetary school breakup.

Me:.... bye ASS-HAT.

Such a smooth operator.

I Want to Be a Ninja Air Dancer

It makes me mildly sad that I don't see billboards etc declaring, "Otogi - Myth of Demons is the prettiest video game EVER!"

'Cause it is.

It's not so much the beautiful environments and character design as it is the fact that the main character, (a tall slender samurai-type) can leap insanely high, and instead of plunking back to earth, he drifts, like a cherry blossom petal, his hair streaming fluidly out behind him. It's like watching the best dancer ever, in low gravity. If he engages in swordplay mid-air, he actually hovers as twirls and slashes. It's graceful. The environments give a sense of an intricate stage--or some underwater feudal Japan.

Also fun is the ability to interact with almost everything in the environments - mainly by demolishing things into massive mounds of rubble in clouds of dust.

President Kim II Sung is Alive in the Hearts of Humankind Forever!

I've been browsing around North Korea's brand spankin' new web portal, obviously. As much as I know Communism is alive and well in certain parts of the world, it's sort of strange to see it floating around the ether of the internet. Red on the Web!

For those of you know are not aware of Kim II Sung's credentials, I'll quote the website:

"Our leader is indeed the greatest leader of the working class. He personified unusual intelligence, outstanding leadership and lofty communist virtues, which nobody has ever possessed, and opened up and shone modern history with his profound revolutionary theories and great revolutionary practice. He is a benevolent father of the people, who brilliantly covered the whole distance of the prolonged revolutionary struggle with boundless devotion to the revolutionary cause and with warm love for the people."

That says it all, I suppose.

In other news, a fortune cookie I got the other day insists that I will "suceed in my pesant plans."

Well, then.

The Rocket's Red Glare...

It's the night of July 3rd, and from our balcony I can see five different displays of fireworks. The big display is the annual Sylvan Lake show to the southwest, putting out colorful pyrotic pom-poms so huge that the THONK-THONK of the send-ups rolls across the lake and echoes against southern Pontiac like thunder.

The rest are indie displays, made possible in part by Fred the illegal fireworks salesman, and viewers like me. It's been quite lovely. The people 2 doors down have been putting on nightly shows at dusk for the past week. They must spend thousands of dollars. Maybe it's worth it to them since they know the neighbors are all on their porches, balconies and lawns, enjoying it along with them. After particularly flashy pops, one can hear clapping and sometimes whistling from all the nearby streets. It gives me a warm feeling about our neighborhood. The people a couple streets in either direction have decided to give our street a run for the money, with their own illegal displays. Hurrah! More pretties! For some reason our neighborhood is just bursting with either patriots or pyromaniacs. Or both.

I get too excited about fireworks, I think. I find myself grinning and clapping my hands like a 4 year old. Fortunately, I've gotten to see a whole bunch this year. I'm excited for tomorrow night. That ought to keep me til next summer.

It's okay. I'm disturbed by it too.

I just discovered my phone camera could do this. And now Nihao's a surprised looking nun. Nunhao. Blessed be.

When the cat's away, the mice will...sit up behind the tv in a plastic bag.

Just finished reading Patrick O'leary's book, The Gift. It's the most satisfying read I've had in a while. I'd put it into the same category as Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy etc. That goes to show there's nothing like a well crafted, intelligent fantasy novel. O'Leary's book is perhaps more "traditional" in the sense that it contains dragons and wizards etc, but he manages to make them unlike anything you've read before. All really good fantasies have elements of the real in them, and this is no exception: the significance of Names, how storytelling is essential to our humanity, etc.

One more point in the book's favor is that fact that unlike the woeful majority of fantasy literature, it actually has interesting and beautiful cover art. Not the melodramatic schlock that (God knows why) publishers decide to slap on even the best (i.e. poor Robin Hobb) fantasy books.

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The other day I was at the pet store and on my way through the checkout line, I decided on a whim to buy one of those small toy mice made from real rabbit fur for our cat, Boo. Once I got home, I didn't actually remember it was in the bag until I caught him sniffing and pawing where I'd left it on the kitchen floor. As soon as I gave held it out to him he got hunter-eyes (you know--when something enticing is twitching and suddenly your cat's pupils are like dinner plates), snatched the mouse and ran off, joyfully tossing it and worrying it. And this went on. ALL DAY. The next morning I was slightly disgusted to find the ragged husk of what was left of the "mouse" on my bathroom floor. All there was was a small patch of mostly bald rabbit skin with many, many holes in it. As I peered at it, Boo flounced through and whisked it away. Ew. I decided that since the toy had been such a success, I ought to get him another. I found a MEGA pack of them at Meijer for a fraction of what I paid at the cat store, so brought it home, gave Boo one mouse from the package, and carefully wrapped the bulk of them back up and set them up behind the tv.

Let's spring ahead a couple days, shall we? But first let me say this: we are unusually blessed with good cats. They excrete ONLY in their litter box, they scratch only occasionally on our carpet-never the sofas- and they NEVER climb up where they shouldn't be and cause mass destruction by knocking things off bookshelves and mantles and kitchen counters. Our cats are generally the models of restraint (except when it comes to wet food). This is why I was shocked (and highly amused) to reach the bottom of our stairs one morning and find our living room awash in a sea of half-gnawed, bedraggled, colorful mice, with Boo lying, exhausted and slightly guilty looking, on the couch. He had carefully jumped from the couch to a stack of DVDs on top of the shelf, to the top of the speaker (also covered in stuff) to the top of the tv, and without disturbing the plant, had pilfered the bag of mice, gnawed it open, and had a wild party. All this without disturbing any of the precarious piles of stuff that cover that area. Single minded, determined, and only a LITTLE naughty cat.

Gently Drifting Expletives...

I was thinking back to one of my favorite local news broadcasts ever today. The story was dubbed "The Cussing Canoeist" by the press. It seems that a few years ago, a canoeist in a public park paddled over a large rock or something of that nature--whatever it was it caused him to loudly proclaim, "FUUUUCK!!" A startled family was within earshot, and after recovering, the parents marched said canoeist straight to court. Apparently, many states still have laws left over from the good old days that prohibit men from cursing in the prescence of women and children. (Learn somethin' new every day, dontcha?)

Now I don't have a problem with cussing. I do think that people need to curb their mouths in public, though. I'm not making a judgement as to whether I thought "Fuck" Boy needed to go to court or not. I just admitting to being secretly pleased, because as a result of the legal mayhem, the local news took it upon themselves to do their own digital reinactment of the incident.

A straight faced news anchor lady with severe hair explains the situation as, behind her, the scene plays out with a canoe to represent the "cussing canoeist, and little figures of the unsuspecting family around the river bend. Suddenly, the word "Expletive!" bursts from the canoe, and the news anchor solomnly indicates it as it driftes gently around the bend of the river into the ears of the innocents.

HA! Floating cussowrds! ha... Ahem. You may have had to be there. In fact, it's more than likely.

If I could kick Dan Brown in the knee for every book he sold....Well, actually, it wouldn't matter how many times I'd get to kick him, at least I'd feel better. Go to Amazon and read the reviews of people who give Angels and Demons one star. They appropriately explain what I mean. I'd like to gently drift some expletives at HIM.

Post Angels and Demons, I'm not certain if the next book I read is actually a really good book, or just a really good book in comparison to anything Brownian. Darn you, Dan Brown, for temporarily impairing my judgement!

I'd also like to take this opportunity to blame Dan Brown for the major zit I got on prom night in high school.

A Lilliputian Massacre

First of all, has anyone seen the 1939 animated "Gulliver's Travels?" You know--the one with the kindly, bland-faced Gulliver whose first response to an attempted assasination is a slow and thoughtful, "Myy, my." In fact, as I recall, that was his response to just about everything--the swarming Lilliputians creating a new outfit right on him, the bumbling, munchkin-like watchman who inevitably falls off a bridge or some other tall structure (fortunately?) into Gulliver's hand. Myyy, my.

Back to my main point: Well, think about the tiny, bumbling watchman for a second. Think about his annoying, highpitched yelps and gurgles. (Made you want to step on him, didn't it? Or am I alone here?)

Now, if you've ever played the video game "Halo," think about the little Covenant aliens shaped like triangles with bad attitudes. Think about their annoying, highpitched yelps and gurg.... hey.... Don't they sound IDENTICAL to the Lilliputian watchman? Some designer watched the "Gulliver's Travels" cartoon as a child and thought, "This movie would be SO much better if I could run that watchman over with a ATV and then shoot him with his own weapon."

hmm.

Post Script: I'm not necessarily condoning Halo. I recognize the slickness of the design, but I don't particularly like it. The Boy plays it, and from downstairs I get to hear the sounds of space battles and Lilliputian watchmen getting their butts kicked.

Heads and Tails

As a postscript to an already too long post, I'd like to add the fact that I've always thought that my little cat, Boo had the tail of a much taller cat. After measuring, I think I'm right. Boo, weighing in at something like 8 pounds, has a tail that is a majestic 11 1/4 inches long. Nihao, at 13 pounds, has a 10 3/4 inch tail. Does this prove anything? Not really.

But it somehow gives me a weird satisfaction.

Succumbing to the Dork Side

So the past couple weeks at the McW household, have (among other much more important things) consisted of lots of tee-heeing and trying on various Jedi outfits and bragging about how badass in the force one is. Oh yes, padewans, we have been playing the Star Wars video game "Knights of the Old Republic." In fact, not 20 minutes ago, the boy soundly kicked the booty of the Dark Lord of the Sith once and for all. And, dorks that we are, we're probably going to do the whole thing over, so our character can be a total annoying jerk in all the conversations and interactions.

I have been playing Zelda - Wind Waker in between KOTOR stints, and as a result, I've found myself at times telling Ed to just somersault over long distances--it's faster... Oh. Different game.

KOTOR turned out to be a pretty interesting game. I enjoyed the interactions and possibilities for doing it up light side style, being a complete smartass, or simply tossing away your conscience for the dark side. There has been some debate about which answers will actually garner the MOST light side points-- ie: Should I take the reward for saving this guy's kid and thank him? Should I wave my hand and say, "You wish to double that amount you're paying me?" Definitely not. Oh... I should decline the reward and offer to give the kid a piggyback ride. Yeah. Totally most light side.

Though it was a fun game, and we'll certainly play it again, there were things about it that drove me utterly NUTS. For example, it's a game with lots of depth blah blah blah...so why are there only about 3 character models for NPC heads??? It's disconcerting to walk up to someone completely new and see the face of the same guy whose innocence you proved on Dantooine, who tried to get you to smuggle goods off Korriban, who mistook you for someone else on another planet, and who now appears to be a Sith academy hopeful with a squeaky voice. ANNOYING. Especially when the voice is polar opposite of what you expect from the character model.

I did appreciate the reference to "walking carpets," though.

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Cautionary note:

My children, if you have any interest in actually knowing how much money is in your account, or making deposits that post to your account within a reasonable amount of time, if you are interested in a bank with decent online banking, that shows accurate numbers and makes an ounce of freaking sense, do NOT bank with TCF bank.

I have called customer service several times about a mysterious number that shows up in my online statement... I've gotten a different answer EVERY SINGLE TIME. Not even the people who are supposed to be helping me out have a clue how it works. This particular number is sometimes negative, sometimes positive, and always a mystery. I've been able to deduce that it has something to do with pending transactions. I've been confidently told by customer service that it represents what my balance will be once everything posts, or that it represents the sum of pending balances and has nothing to do with my current balance, or that it represents my actual available balance, etc etc. I was dumb enough to believe a couple of them, and as a result, ended up bouncing stuff, which makes me CRAZY. Finally I decided to ignore them all. Things were going well, until a deposit I made didn't show up in my account a few days later. A call to good old customer service revealed that my deposit had been lost. LOST. I think I'd be better putting my money into a shoebox. As a result of the lost deposit, several things bounced--they were good enough not to charge me overdraft fees. (see? I can appreciate that fact.) However, it meant that my only means of cash--my debit card, (no more credit cards) had been cut off due to "insufficient funds." Another call and I was assured that it would all be cleared up by Mon at 9am...which was good because I coasted to work that morning on gas fumes. A check in call around 11 and the entirely unhelpful rep assured me that everything would be cleared up by..."2 days at the most." So... long story short, I managed to get home, and as soon as I get my next check I'm opening up a National City account.

Lesson learned.
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On the brighter side, we have discovered another incredibly neat place about 2 minutes from our house. Nope--I'm not talking about the rocking HUGE Salvation Army right nearby, or the very cool little Liberty bar in downtown Pontiac... It's actually a greenhouse/nursery. I know that might sound lame, but this place is hands down the coolest greenhouse I've ever seen. It's been there since 1897--the greenhouses are real glass, (thus, smaller than today's plexi ones) and there are a mutitude of rooms through which one can wander, looking at handmade tile amidst the plants, or wrought iron work from around the world, or just staring at plants I've never imagined. There are mysterious and ancient vines that wind their way from room to room. You can tell the concrete has been there for a hundred years--it's aged and mossy, like something you'd see in the secret garden or read about in a George MacDonald book. It's magic.

Out back, if you wind far enough through the rows of trees and shrubs and flowering things, eventually you'll find a picnic table at the base of a HUGE oak tree by the river. Maybe we'll take a picnic sometime.

Of Meds and Idols and Babies

I find it disturbing that marketing people either don't notice, or actively approve certain medical product names. For example, the anti-sinus stuffiness nosespray called...FloNase. Yes. As in...Flow...Nase(l). Makes you want to sniff just thinking about it, doesn't it?

That's certainly not the worst one. What were these people thinking? Was there a marketing meeting about it? Were there people sitting around a shiny table slowly muttering things to themselves like, "okay... it's a medication that helps you enjoy life more....happy... good times...celebrations....cele...CELEBREX!" Or... "Alright....it's a cream that heals hemmroids...it disolves onto your butt...umm...'Ass-pacify?' 'Bootycool?' Or maybe...Anus..ol? ANUSOL! Yeah!"

The boy commented that it makes him worry a bit that there's a tooth medication called Anbusol, or something along those lines. One of these days someone's just going to grab the wrong tube.

It reminds me of the Energizer commercial from years ago with the cowboy leaping from a balcony onto his horse's back. He winces in pain, remarking that he should have used "Sittagin," a hemmroid cream. Then the Energizer rabbit pounds through etc...

Sir Elton John can kiss my Anbusol. Not that I'm a die-hard Idol fan, but if he had a lick of sense in his fancy little head, he wouldn't have made that "American Idol racist" comment. Does he realize that American Idol is not just an enigmatic entity that independantly puts its foot down weekly and kicks another contestant off? Does he realize that he's calling ALL OF AMERICA racist? Has he been watching the show? Does he realize the "TOP three" up until this point has pretty consistantly been made of at least 2 African Americans? The main thing though, is that there were three contestants all offering the same "product"--soulful black diva singing. Good stuff, that. Everyone else fits into their own little niche. There's soulful black diva niche, rat-pack crooner niche, pop-girl niche, whatever the heck Diana is niche, and the rich, raspy, mellow niche. The three divas were splitting the votes of the entire "soulful black diva" segment of the population. It was inevitable that one of them would end up gone. I guarantee that had there only been two of them, they both would have been in the top three. Just ask Ralph Nader. He knows about vote splitting. um... or maybe he doesn't.

I visited a friend in the hospital yesterday--after nine long months of puking and hormones and paralyzing contractions, she finally had her tonsils out.

OF COURSE NOT. She had the baby. Of course, he didn't agree to come out until she had sat for 2 days with a needle in her arm, trying to be induced. Glad he finally made it though. It's nice to see him. Such a little person. I feel a bit guilty that I wasn't able to visit at the hospital again today. M will probably be bored out of her mind by the time they let her go home. I'll try to visit tomorrow, so she's not lonely. I will come bearing flowers--just not roses, which, I think she's allergic to?

It was amusing though-- M and J's personalities summed up in a little exchange while I was hanging with them in the hospital a few hours after the baby was born.

J (videotaping everything, excited and dreamy): Birth and life is so amazing and wonderful! I saved the placenta. I'm going to plant a tree in the yard, and bury the placenta beneath its outstretched branches.

M (hooks the baby expertly onto her breast. Looks thoughtful.): Yeah...and the dog across the street will come over, dig it up, and eat it.

Congratulations, you two! I'm excited to see what this baby will be like in 15 years. Hopefully the perfect cross-section of both of his parents - an excellent musician who is actually really great at math!

I have to admit it.... I have a crush on Hellboy. He's so endearingly....big and red. Ask me why I don't have a crush on the Kool-aid Man. The big question though, is whether I have a crush on Hellboy, or Ron Perlman. I loved the man in City of Lost Children (a gem that you must see NOW if you have not yet). I think playing gentle, hulking weirdos becomes him.

Watched Intolerable Cruelty tonight. Brilliantly written, and without the blood I sometimes associate with Cohen Bros films. "Ah!--" you might say, "But 'O' Brother Where Art Thou' was not a bloody film!" To which I would reply, "THE COWS." (Gore can be as unsettling being heard, but not seen. Anyone who's watched 'Shallow Grave' can attest to that.) In any case, I enjoyed it. It reminded me in some ways of Down With Love. All the snappy dialogues, without the kitch.

The new job is hard to comment on. Part of the reason is that people who read this blog are associated with it. Part of it is that I deal with people's personal medical information every day. Ok. Most of the reason is that. I'm not a bookseller anymore. I'm someone who buys books, or would, if I had the money. The delightful part is that I can feel free to comment on the ignorance and audacity of other customers if I so choose. I... I haven't actually commented, uh, aloud yet, but darn it, I'm free to! For the first time in years, there is no part of my life governed by the rules of customer service. I am content to hide in a basement office behind a computer and communicate with the people I need to solely by email. I'm not the "face" of anything but myself. I don't have to conduct myself on behalf of an organization. Actually, that's not exactly true. The emails I write for work are unnecessarily cheery and friendly. I suppose that counts as putting a friendly face on my company.

The sad thing about the way my life goes because of this job is that, though I make a bit more money than I did selling books, I'm left with as little, since I'm now tied to putting the same percentage toward debt. I don't have debt because I'm a shopaholic. I have it because the car broke down enormously, then I was incapacitated for four months and still had to pay bills, then the other car broke, we bought a house, and the car broke down again, etc etc etc...
It's scary not to have a cushion of emergency credit. But it's the only way I'm every going to get out of this. It also means that I can't take a week off work unless I save up enough banked hours to cover it, or I've been there a year.

Listening to Guster right now, and thinking about the book I'm reading currently - _Future Noir: The Making of Bladerunner_ by Paul Sammon. I enjoy the insights he provides, having been present during much of the filming process and having written more about the film that probably any journalist... BUT... (there's always one.) I get the feeling I got reading _The Man Who Could Taste Shapes_. The feeling is that, deep down, secretly, the books were written as an exciting expose of the author's coolness. Names are dropped like...like flies(?) and certain phrases make me kind of wrinkle my nose. Paul Sammon insists that "this humble writer was not worthy of being in all thse cool places and talking casually to all kinds of huge people you'll never meet in real life," just a little too often. The author doth protest too much. By the same token though, the book is very interesting. Who knew that Dustin Hoffman was almost Deckard? Don't answer that. Especially if you knew.

To bed we go, to bed we go, and Easter will be in the morning.

Which reminds me... I will miss the sad, lardy, milk-chocolate bunnies my dad used to hide under our beds every year. The eyes were the only good part. I'll never forget the year though, when dad bought the bunnies early, and left them in his trunk a little long on a sunny day. As a result, my neatly boxed "hollow milk-chocolate Cottontail Jim" looked as though he'd gone suddenly from zero gravity to the bottom of the Marianis Trench without any protective gear. I only found one eye. The other was probably in the massive melty dent that was his tummy.

Best Easter bunny ever.

Lately, the face of spam has changed. It's morphed from an ugly hairy guy in a dim room going,"heh heh..." as he sends out billions of "Enlarge your Penis" mails... into an ugly hairy guy with a dictionary picking out unlikely words to fool spam filters... THEN saying "heh heh..." as he sends the spam. As much as I LOATHE spam, and get a moment of satisfaction to every time I report a spammer to spamcop.net, I have to hand it to them. Some of these new titles are downright catchy. I'm glad not to see stuff about my manhood enlargment, (?) or getting loans fast. I kind of have to give a sort of grudging credit to whomever came up with the title "Decreeing Billow!" I've started saving some of the most interesting of the titles. I've collected such gems as

polygon griffin (creatures of myth come alive in an old video game!)

cuff referee (surely a ref from one of those grass-stain remover commercials. Or maybe one who monitors other's cuffs for stains.)

blank lignum (what a shame. I prefer my lignum heavily decorated.)

church man (a little known evangelical superhero.)

Decreeing Billow! (still my favorite. It sounds like a character from a William Blake poem. Listen! I'm "the fiend hid in a cloud's" cousin, and I've got an announcement!")

More to come...

Nihao's taken to grooming Boo at length, much to his dismay. I've never known a cat to be as disheveled as he likes to be. His fur is just a little too long to be smooth, and sticks out at funny angles. Then Nihao goes to work, and Boo emerges a few minutes later, his face and head gleaming with wet, slicked down hair like a little Dapper Dan man. He consoles himself by rolling on the wood floor, collecting al sorts of particles and dust, which stand out against his blackness. My feline Swiffer.

It's the sort of thing that makes you think a filmmaker was snorting about when he wrote it. In the film "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," one of the more obnoxious relatives is seen during a get-together relating her completely implausible story: "I was suffering these headaches, and the doctors, they did a scan and found this lump in the back of my head... and when they removed it, they found it contained....(dramatic pause) TEETH. That's right. I'd had a twin sister all these years. INSIDE ME."

Now, my morbid curiousity has assured that I know about many bizzare twists of nature. But I had never before understood what is known as "Fetus In Fetu." I'd heard stories about people having tumors removed with teeth in them. What I didn't understand until last night is that it is the beginning of an actual PERSON that they have removed. Apparently Fetus in Fetu, or vanishing/phantom twins happens at the very beginning of a pregnancy when the cell divides to become twins, and the normal one curls in on itself, envloping the other cell, which actually continues to form inside the first one. The fetus in fetu can form an umbilical cord of sorts to its host--the normally developing baby, and continue to live like that for... well, for years. One of the examples on the Discovery special we saw last night was a seven year old boy who had an enormous lump removed. Not just a lump... horrifically enough, it had limbs, discernible facial features, and loads of long dark hair.

There has never been a documented case of a fetus in fetu actually being conscious--or having a fully formed brain, for that matter-- Most of them have never developed a head to begin with... which makes the whole thing...I don't know...easier to think about? Do I want it to be easier to think about?

Semi-Spoilers ahead:
And now, on to the Easy to Think About section. I played 'Beyond Good and Evil' a couple weeks ago, and my overall impression is that it's a fun little game. It was cleverly designed, the gameplay was challenging without making me repeat parts incessently, and it was satisfying to beat. There are always going to be parts in a game where I rage at the designers, and aside from a couple ridiculous fights (including the final boss, which went on FAR too long) my main complaint is that they couldn't leave well enough alone. The story conludes with a spine-tingling happy ending... but wait. The designers are French. ie: must add on angsty bit after credits roll. I can understand wanting to set up a sequel, but this was over the top: The credits roll, panning along the children's drawings in the lighthouse that was home to the main character... how sweet.... and finally we arrive at the place where the beloved uncle of the main character stands overlooking the sea. (So glad we put in all that hard work to rescue him. ) But the music changes! Suddenly he's hunched over and.... hrrk! A quick flash showing he's been INFESTED with eeeevil!!
Aaaand cut!

Grrrrrrrrrrr.

Advice for the day: make sure you choose a competant insurance company who will bother sending your proof of insurance to people like, say.... the place through which you have your car loan. 'Cause if they don't, you're suddenly slammed with an enormous bill including fantastically overpriced "default insurance." And if you don't immediately pay said new mongo bill, you will be sent incessent collection notices, and your credit will be WORKED. Then people at both companies will do their best to be unaccomodating and shift the blame onto whoever else they can. It is only after you burst into tears and ROAR at them that they will suddenly realize they are completely at fault and rectify the situation. Slowly.

Grrrrrrrrrr.

Tax time is nearing again, and for the third year in row, I'm la-dee-dah, because our numerical genius tax law expert friend has asked if she can do them again. No. You read right. She ASKED. Because she LIKES it. I want to give her big trophy awards for being saintly and able to understand tax codes (the two don't necessarily go hand-in-hand) and get us lots of money back.

Yaaaaaaay!


This is odd... after the better part of four years, I no longer work at the bookstore. I will now be full time at a medical billing type of place, which promises little to no material for good storytelling. Which is maybe exactly how I want it. I still have lots of residual bookstore tales to tell. Maybe I'll just stick to that for awhile.

Now I get to be one of those customers who berates other customers for being a self-centered idiot.

Final story: I was driving with the boy yesterday and looked over to see a lonely, bedraggled wig in the snow at the side of the road. All sorts of questions leap to mind: Was someone driving in a convertible in this weather? Did someone get fed up and rip it from their pate? Did someone get fed up and rip it from someone else's pate? I laughingly pointed it out to boy, who looked at it and then me, blankly. I explained that I was laughing at the wig, and he seemed relieved. "Oh....I thought at first it was a partially deflated dog. Which wouldn't have made you laugh."