smacky and bucky

This band is called Banderas (like Antonio? Don't know. Hope not!) and this song was a hit in England in the early '90s. In my uneducated hindsight, I'd say they had the misfortune of having a shaven-headed lead singer about two years after Sinead O'Connor. America doesn't have room for two of them.

But it's a great song... dancy but melancholy at the same time.

If the introduction of Johnny Cash to a new generation of music fans is ultimately Rick Rubin's final legacy, I think he should be okay with that. Because, oh man... what an introduction!

(This is post # 1,225, if that matters. Just a nice number.)

In this modern world, where we watch images from around the world in real time, I'm always surprised when I discover a really good song from a band I never heard of. Not only from a band I'd never heard of, but a band that had enough success to release a greatest hits package in the UK!

Anyway, the band is called The Coral, and the song is called "Dreaming of You." The performance below is from 2007, but the single was originally released in 2002 (almost a decade ago?!?)

Having an annoying time with my insurance company. When you are diagnosed with something by a medical doctor, and then get it treated by a dentist, how the hell are you supposed to submit the claim to the insurance company? I've done it twice so far, and was just on the phone with them for almost an hour, being told the second one "has errors," mainly the dentist's bill does not have a diagnosis code. The diagnosis came from a medical doctor. The treatment came from the dentist. The dentist did include a treatment code. Now I'm waiting for a return call from the medical doctor so I can ask him for a letter with a diagnosis code in it, so I can have it in case the insurance company demands I submit it. (And WTF, insurance company? Everything has to be physically mailed to a PO box in Kentucky? Why? Why can't I at least fax it to you?!?).

At least we had a silver lining (unrelated to this but of a financial bent): The gentleman who purchased the DVD ROM of the comic collection last week must have been happy with the purchase, because he bought the Captain America one from me last night for $175. Which helps a little as I wait for the insurance company to reimburse me for the $850 I spent at the dentist (which is supposed to be ONE HUNDRED PERCENT COVERED BY INSURANCE SO JUST PAY ME BACK!!!!!).

I need to win the lottery. Not a huge jackpot, just a medium-sized one. I'd be thrilled with... $250K. That's it. I'm not greedy. Pay our bills, send the kid to college. I don't need "quit your job" money.

I apologize in advance for the vagueness of this post, but I don't want to name anything that would make this post come up in search results. You'll understand why in a sec.

We sell things on Amazon from time to time. It's simple to do and Amazon doesn't take too big a cut. We purge a few DVDs and books now and then. Well, I listed a DVD Rom of a collection of comics by the publisher that does Spider-Man. Got it? Anyway, it was $50 new when I received it as a gift four years ago and I listed it for $199 ($50 less than the next lowest). And someone bought it.

Well, that's nothing...

I received a box of ppostcards (misspelled on purpose), again, of images from comics by the same publisher mentioned above two years ago as a gift: 100 of them in a cardboard box. It was $20 new two years ago. I didn't do anything with them. I looked on Amazon and there were five for sale (one for $1,500?!?) and the cheapest for $300. I listed mine for $225, thinking it would never sell. C'mon, it was just ppostcards! Well, it sold this afternoon. Needless to say, this bastard is getting a free upgrade to Priority shipping!

These certainly help. In this crap economy, I've gotten a promotion (two years ago) and a fantastic evaluation (last week) but no raise. And we got a baby, yo!

Ron Swanson, drunk on Snake Juice and dancing in a little hat.

Baby is better, but now I have his cold. Fever, cough, headache, aching joints... yuck. It's always something, right?

Baby has a cold. And when you're a baby, you don't know how to blow your nose. So you sit around miserable. And get very little sleep. And thus mom and dad get very little sleep either. Then the mom catches the cold and two people are sick. And the house seems a little bit cramped with the sickness and the short tempers.

Today was Mother's Day. Flowers, card, gifts, I made all three meals today, we went to a park so baby could ride the swings, I listed a bunch of stuff on Amazon (and sold four things already).

While they napped, I mowed the lawn this afternoon.

I'm kind of tired.

We went to visit my family this weekend. That's not really an important detail, except to explain why we were in the parking lot of a hotel in a town 175 miles away...

The baby got a stuffed monkey for Christmas (to the right of kid in pic):

He's come to use the monkey as a "soother." He holds it and looks at it, and usually sleeps with it.

He had it with him at the grocery store this weekend:



Last night we got back to the hotel and I dragged in the million bags we travel with now that we have a kid and went to bed. Around 6:30 this morning I quietly got up and sneaked out to get coffee and donuts for me and the wife. I got behind the wheel and my sleepy eyes fell on something on the other side of the windshield. I got out and saw this:

The monkey fell out of one of the bags I was carrying in last night and I didn't notice. Some kind person came across it and put it under the windshield wiper so I'd see it.

Now, the kid is only 7.5 months old, so it's unlikely he'd miss that monkey much in the big scheme of things. I'm probably more attached to it by virtue of watching him interact with it. But holy shit, it was such a relief to see it and realize what almost happened.

As I'm writing this, the baby is asleep in the other room, with his arms tightly around a monkey almost as big as he is.