smacky and bucky

Back in the real world, after a long holiday at the river. Thanksgiving for 9 people. Eating until you must nap. Sigh...

I ordered autographed pictures of Lisa Welchel for two of my sisters-in-law for Christmas. Not just signed, but dedicated to them by Blair from Facts of Life! She got married and had three kids in three years immediately after the show ended, and now she's a home-schooling, country traveling, do-gooder. Yes, I got them for the kitch factor. And they were $5 each, including shipping! I checked her site out, and it doesn't appear my money will go towards any sinister plan. Not like Tootie, who uses her proceeds to buy arms for the contras.

Well, the weekend visiting my parents was pleasant enough. They live in Lynchburg, Virginia. Home of Jerry Falwell (though thank God we weren't members of that freak's church growing up), home of Nascar, as different from Northern Virginia as you can get. I love my family, and it was really nice seeing everyone, but when it's time to go, I just feel so glad I don't live there.

On the way back, we stopped at a store we had passed on the way down: Plow and Hearth. Think LL Bean, but more furniture and accessories instead of clothes. I stopped because Laura wanted to, thinking I'd walk the dog a little and we'd get back on the road. But I ended up buying something: a turntable stand. What the heck is that? Well, the record player sits on top (we already have a record player. I just bought the stand, and it was 50% off!), and it has slots for record storage under it. I've been buying some records here and there lately. Why? We have a record player, records are cheap, there are still some things that haven't been released on CD yet, and some things just sound better on vinyl. I think it's because vinyl actually cut grooves into the plastic responding to the vibrations of the sound at the time of recording, whereas CDs are computers translating sound digitally, so vinyl represents what the song really sounds like. I bought three records by the Commodores at a thrift store where records were priced 5 for a dollar. The only sad thing was I couldn't even find two other records I could stand to purchase, even just for the album cover art. So I spent 60 cents. She's a brick house indeed.

My wife is taking tomorrow off and heading down to the river this evening (I'm working tomorrow). She plans on cooking (with her mom) Thanksgiving food for about 10 people. She loves entertaining. She's like Martha Stewart without the felony rap sheet. Since I'll be alone this evening, I'm hoping my order for deepdiscountdvd.com arrives today. They had a sweet 20% off sale (thanks for the code, De!). I bought a bunch of movies I've been meaning to watch for less than $7 each, and I got season one of Twin Peaks on DVD for $17.01, and the Mystery Science Theater 3000 collection 6 for less than half sticker price. I don't know if the sale is still going on, but you can try either of these codes: SUPERSALE or NYTIMES. Both are good for 20% off and free shipping.

So my wife is vice president of a video production company, and she's a member of Women in Film (which sounds like an alliance of porn actresses, but they're referring to the women on the other side of the camera, so it's not like that.) They offer free movie tickets for sneak previews every now and then. A few weeks ago she saw the new Bridget Jones (with a girlfriend) and last night we went to see Christmas with the Kranks. It's not winning any Oscars, but it's got a few laughs in it. Awful title for a movie, but someone explained to me that they decided to change it from Skipping Christmas (which was also the title of the Grisham book) so people wouldn't confuse it with the Ben Affleck turd of a movie Surviving Christmas.

If I really wanted to nitpick about the accuracy of this movie, I would concentrate on one part of the movie: the daughter. She supposedly joins the Peace Corps and goes to Peru. She leaves on the day before Thanksgiving (wrong), flying straight to the country (wrong. you actually have to be processed for three days in the DC, so you can get immunizations, visas, etc.). She decides at the last minute to come home for Christmas, after only a month in Peru (wrong. you have to stay in your country six months before traveling outside the country borders). But none of this is important to the plot of the movie, and I didn't even bother explaining these things to my wife, because that would be like watching Star Trek with someone and having them explain why something couldn't have happened because in episode ___ Spock said "_____," so he shouldn't be doing _____ now. There, my time in the Peace Corps has now been compared to being a Star Trek geek. I've taken to insulting myself.

We went to Target last night to pick up a birthday present for my father (an HP digital camera and picture printer combo. The man likes to take pictures) and we picked up a few other (cartful) items. I found Home Movies. That show is funny! "Get away from my mom!" Ha. I also ended up picking up Live Aid. I don't know HOW Target priced this so low, but Amazon lists it for $40, but is selling it for $27.99. Well, Target had it for $19.99. Four DVDs, over 10 hours of music. I grabbed the last one they had.

If I had to chose between The Incredibles and Polar Express, I'd chose The Incredibles every time. Well, every time except this once. I'm talking about cereal. In the battle of movies, The Incredibles handily beat the competition, but here it's a different playing field. And I don't judge a cereal by it's box (if I did, again, The Incredibles would win). The Incredibles has star-shaped strawberry flavored cereal. Okay, not bad, but nothing to get too excited about. The Polar Express...oh my, you bastards...cocoa cereal with marshmallows. A lucky charms that's turned to the dark side. Of course Target was offering this cereal (which doesn't expire until JULY 5, 2005!!!) at four boxes for $7. Again, how the heck do they do this? However, since I'm an adult I showed restraint. I only got two boxes.

We're going to visit my family this weekend, and my sister is coming with her husband and my two nephews. I can't remember the last time we saw each other. They live in North Carolina. I'm looking forward to it.

So I work for a nonprofit in the Washington, DC area. The idea of nonprofits has always amused me. You would think that organizations declared "nonprofit" would have a rather idealistic "hippy" attitude toward money. No no, that's not the case at all. Between surprise government audits and monthly meetings of the board of directors, the company is VERY concerned with its bottom line. This is the second nonprofit for which I've worked, and both places always kept a nervous eye on profits. Not because we're not supposed to make any, but because we're expected to make more each year, just like any other "for-profit" company out there. It's a weird situation to be in.

Our company president announced a few weeks ago that we went above expectations for the fiscal year, so this year we'd all be getting bonuses. A nice surprise. On Friday I was handed an extra check equivelant to a week's pay. Cool. I'm considering getting the Home Movies season 1 boxset. It's only $22.99 at Target. I have a soft spot for that show for some reason. Probably because I love Coach McGuirk, voiced by H. Jon Benjamin, an alumni of Dr. Katz.

Does anyone have any ideas about how to just relax and anjoy the upcoming holiday season and not stress so much about what gifts to buy people? I seriously worry about that, and the gift receiver's reaction to said gift, that I find it difficult to just let the holiday joy wash over me. I know it's because I've been brainwashed by television that I need to find the perfet gift for everyone, but if anyone has advice on how to keep my sanity, I'd appreciate it.

Oh, I almost messed up pretty bad on Friday. I decided to go kayaking on a gray, cool afternoon, and leisurely paddled out for about 45 minutes, and with the calm tide, made it out pretty far (I could see land, but it was far away). When I turned around to head back, the wind started gusting against me, the tide started flowing out, and the rain started. It took another hour to get home, only this time paddling hard the entire way to keep from being blown back. I was soaked and exhausted by the time I made it home. I think the kayak is being put away until spring. Indian summer is officially over!

My wife went out to dinner with a friend, so I decided to watch a horror movie. I decided to pick up Ju-on. It's the Japanese film that was remade in America as The Grudge. It's definitely creepy and atmospheric. It's basically a haunted house story, only the house is completely normal looking. Which makes it a little more creepy. Sam Raimi (of Evil Dead and Spider-man fame) actually got the director of Ju-on to come to America and remake the movie with American actors. They even got a couple of the creepier actors from the Japanese movie to reprise their roles. I haven’t seen the American version, but now I’d like to compare the two.

Got the kitty valium on Monday, so the cats will be ready to travel after work. I’m going to take my time heading out of town, since the pills need an hour to really work. So I’ll slip them a pill in a soft treat and slowly get stuff ready to go.

Oh, and when my wife got in, she told me that our friend is engaged. So between passing the Bar exam on the first try and this, Rose is having a pretty good year.

And I got an email from an ex-girlfriend yesterday. Someone I actually dated for five years. The one who at the time I was sure was the one. Most of college and two years beyond. We ended up breaking up and she married someone else when I was in Africa. She’s in Texas now. It’s totally bizarre that she wrote, as it’s been at least three years since we’ve communicated at all. Maybe four? I’m not sure I like the past jumping out at me like that. I’ve mentioned before that I tend to always look forward, to complete one portion of my life (high school, college) then move on, keeping in touch with only one or two people from each period. I never want to be one of those people who can’t be happy today because I’m always sighing that “_________ was really the happiest time of my life…” Yuck. Maybe I’m not being fair to myself by closing off those times and storing them away. I just worry about wallowing in it. Anyway, her email brought back a lot of memories, only some of them less than happy. I wish her well, yet continue to hope I never see her again. Be happy, but just be far away from me. We will never be buddies. I have no desire to revisit ghosts. That may sound harsh, but it took a long time to get over her. To trust women again. To open myself up to something real. To allow myself to be vulnerable to someone. I had built up a big shell around my heart, and it took someone really special to tear it down. Now I only have room in there for Laura.

I'm out the rest of the week. I'll update if something interesting happens. You never know, it could. Be optimistic.

We went to see The Incredibles last night. You MUST go see this. On the big screen. I of course loved it because I'm a geek and a real sucker for all that stuff. But more amazingly, my wife loved it. And she wasn't just humoring me. She raved about it in the car and actually said "I can't wait until it comes out on DVD so we can own it forever." (!) I'm not sure what part of it resonated with her, but God bless Pixar for making a cartoon so freaking cool.

I won't spoil any of the movie here. Just go see it!

Great weekend, and I didn't really do anything exciting enough to write about in detail. That was the point. Just a relaxing time, watching the sailboats on the water. I had the last soft shell crab sandwich of the season (well, my last of the season. I'm sure I didn't get the last one made until next year!)

I bought a pair of those small long-range walkie-talkies (WOW. That's the first time in my life I've actually WRITTEN the word "walkie-talkie." What a stupid looking word that is. Did a 5 year old win a cereal sponsored "Name this product" contest?). They have a range of "up to" six miles. I'm not sure what "up to" means. Guess the solar winds have to be blowing the right way to get maximum range. The idea behind these is: my wife and I sometimes drive separately to the river, and if we needed to contact each other (and we're in range) these are easier and safer than pushing a lot of buttons on a cell phone during crazy traffic. You just push and talk. It has 24 channels, so hopefully my wife won't say something and get hit on by 32 different truckers in the immediate area. We'll see. Okay, I'll admit it. The geeky part of me thinks those things are really cool, and if she agrees we can use them, does it really matter why I want them?

My office gets Thursday off for Veterans' Day, so I'm taking Friday as a vacation day and making it a 4-day weekend. I'm sure over half the office is doing that.

I need to pick up some kitty valium from the vet today. Our boy cat Buzz screams like someone's pulling his tail when he has to ride in a car, while the girl cat Maddie sleeps away. So we'll give Buzz a little something to relax him. A year ago, Buzz used to sleep while Maddie screamed. Odd that they completely switched on this. It's not really valium, so don't worry. It's some herb that's slightly stronger than the regular over-the-counter stuff you can get for "tense pets." Helps mellow him out.

So, coming out of the haze of the election, with the final twitches of disbelief finally leaving my system, I've been trying to find a little escapism that would make me smile. And I came across something that did the trick: Fraggle Rock on DVD. Three episodes of a show I haven't seen since it was first on the air. We watched the first episode, and had a great time. My wife teased me that I must have been in high school when I watched the show before (I'm a whole three years older than her), but a quick check at imdb.com confirms that I was 11 when it came out. So, while I wasn't exactly in the middle of the target age for the show, enjoying it at age 11 isn't shameful. Not like I also played with Barbies and wet the bed! Honest!

I also picked up the new John Lennon release Acoustic. I haven't actually listened to it yet (going to this afternoon) but I can already recommend it. The CD booklet includes the chords along with the lyrics, so you can learn how to play the songs! That's very cool.

Looking forward to a weekend with no news. To paraphrase Bush: "I've got some leisure capital, and now I intend to spend it."

(Today's title from Seymour, Steve Buscemi's character in Ghost World)

I already said this in a comment on De's blog, but it needs repeating here:

I was sickened to see George "Asshead" Allen (republican congressman in Virginia) smirking that Daschel getting booted gives a "clear signal to other democrats in congress that the American people will not stand for them acting as roadblocks to the republican plans." Oh shit. And he specifically mentioned that now they should be able to go forward with oil drilling in Alaska. Guess it's time to squeeze as much as we can out of the world now and let someone else deal with the mess we leave behind when we die with our bloated corpses. Sigh.

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While I'm at it, I also had another thought: Why is it that when a (traditionally white) woman takes fertility drugs and has 6 or 7 kids at one time, it's a "miracle" and she's on the news, and companies line up to give them free things? So you had a litter. Congratulations, you’ve achieved something usually limited to the lower animals. Dogs and cats do this every day. It would be one thing if this simply happened. Then it would be unusual enough to make the news. But if you paid a fertility doctor thousands of dollars to be in this position, well, um, that was your choice. Good luck with it. Yet when a (traditionally black) woman is on welfare and has 3 or 4 kids, she’s shamed and a leech? How does it all come down to a matter of timing? Five kids at once is a “miracle?” Actually it’s not; it’s a perversion of science. Who can honestly say they need five children at once, (or at all really, but I won’t criticize that. If a woman wants to spend her life as a breeder, so be it.)

Women used to have lots of children, and there were valid reasons for it. The infant mortality rate was so high, having a large number of kids increased your chances that one of them might live to adulthood and take over your family business and keep the family name alive. Also, women had little education and no jobs outside the house. Husbands had a great deal of control over their wives, and “barefoot and pregnant” was the norm. Times have changed. I’m not railing against motherhood. It’s a beautiful thing. But don’t be surprised when I don’t stop what I’m doing to send you good luck wishes when I see you on tv holding 5 kids you paid a doctor to give you.

Are these doctors quacks? Or is fertility such an inexact science that you can’t predict how well the treatment will work? “Oops, you went from barren to having 6 kids in you. My fault!” Or do these people see the local news coverage of the couple in Buttcrak, Iowa beaming with the 6 little miracles, and the free diapers and college educations, and decide “What the heck, we could use some of that.”

Now that fertility treatments are becoming common, people are less impressed by the “5 children at once” trick. Maybe it will discourage people from doing it.

Wow, I sure picked a small portion of the population to pick on today. Tomorrow I’ll rail against people who eat grapes in the grocery store before they buy them. Like it’s not stealing. It’s not like opening a box of cookies while you’re in the store. You’re buying the box, so you can eat them all if you want. But grapes are sold by weight, so if you eat them in the store, they have a lower total weight when you reach the cashier. That’s called stealing soccer mom. I see you do this and it makes me feel petty and mean. It makes me want to turn you in.

I've said this before, on my old blog, but I hate people sometimes. "Good" and "moral" people justify their little sins. I feel like Travis Bickle, only I'm not going to shoot anyone to impress Cybill Shepherd. (Taxi Driver reference, in case you haven't seen it.) Let's be clear: I know "hate" is a strong word. I mean it in the curmudgeonly Mark Twain way, like when he described The Damned Human Race. Not in the “a great fire needs to cleanse the Earth” sort of way. And I know I’m a hypocrite. We all are.

No rant. I'm wired on coffee and not enough sleep. The republicans now control the House, the Senate, the White House, and the Supreme Court. And control of congress will allow them to get judicial nominees through. Clean sweep, all three branches. So much for checks and balances, huh?

Maybe it's time to get that playstation 2. I can take my aggression out on some ewoks. In the meantime, I guess I'll rake leaves until I'm exhausted.

Anyone seen Around the World in 80 Days? The Jackie Chan version, I mean. Is it worth seeing?

Just got back to work after waiting in line two hours to vote. Pretty funny, actually. The same people that loudly complained about the lines being so long are probably the same people that support America overthrowing dictators and installing democracy everywhere. Fools, if people had democracy, they'd have to stand in line to vote just like you! Who wants that?!? I’m constantly astonished by the things people in America find to bitch about. Once you’ve seen a man in Africa with legs deformed by polio (Yes polio. In the 21st century. It’s not irradiated QUITE yet) dragging himself over to you to ask for the equivalent of a nickel, standing in line for a while is a MINOR inconvenience, made less tolerable only by people who have IMPORTANT THINGS to do and need to tell everyone.

Note to self: pick up beer after work. It could be a long night.

Completely unrelated: If you've never listened to a DVD commentary track by Kurt Russell and John Carpenter, you are missing out on a lot of funny stuff. They’ve recorded them for Big Trouble in Little China, Escape from New York, and The Thing. I wish they’d do one for Escape from LA too, but I’m not even sure if that’s available on DVD. Each one sounds like they sat down together with a few drinks to watch the movie. They discuss the production, tell stories about themselves and the other actors, point out which stunts Kurt did and which were done by the stunt double, etc. They are everything a DVD commentary track should be. Example: Did you know that Escape from New York was filmed in St. Louis? The old town portion of downtown had been destroyed by a fire, so John Carpenter rented the entire burned out area to film in. Wicked cool.

I'm definitely not complaining, but it was 80 degrees this weekend. I could have gone swimming.

We got home last night around 6:30, after being away for the weekend. Just in time to pass out candy to the little munchkins that came by. Oddest moment: One girl, maybe 6 years old, was wearing jeans and a red sequined halter top. All I could figure is she was supposed to be one of those Bratz dolls(?). It seemed WAY to creepy to consider asking, so I just gave her candy and closed the door quickly. The hoochie looked has finally trickled down to the toddler set.

Huge news: My best friend and his wife want to adopt a baby. They called and asked if I could be a reference for them, and I said sure. I've known him since I was 4. We met on the bus going to kindergarten. So a day after they asked, I received a letter from the agency, asking for me to describe them as individuals and as a couple. No pressure there, right?

So I'll be crafting this letter over the next day or two, in case I'm not updating. Besides, my plans are this: Vote tomorrow, watch tv in the other room and get election updates yelled to me by my wife, who will be up all night watching if it's a "too close to call" race again. After work today, I'll be going to Target to buy leaf bags, cat food, dog food, and coffee. There. That level of mind-numbingly boring detail should do it.