smacky and bucky

Yeah, so, more news:

My coworker's dog died last night. He was a really sweet golden retriever named Max, 14 years old. Yeah, pretty old, but still a sudden death is very hard. She's out today. When I heard what happened this morning, I walked to the drug store and got one of those pet sympathy cards and passed it around to the other three folks in our department and left the card on her desk. Like my coworker, my wife had a dog that predated me (as my coworker's dog predated her husband), and losing the dog was like a piece of your past died.

Oh, and file this under "I wish I was independently wealthy and didn't have to work": My father-in-law's college roommate owns a big sailboat (40 feet, I believe), and he's sailing down the coast to Florida. He's stopping in at our place on Sunday, sailing in from the Chesapeake Bay, so we can check out the boat and wish him a good trip. It would be a dream to take a month off and spend October sailing all the way to Florida. Of course, my wife won't let me because we have bills to pay. Meanie! I'd miss her and the pets too. But a month at sea is awfully tempting!

Eight more hours of work, then home, load up the car with stuff, the dog, and Lola's friend, then off to the river. I cleaned out my car yesterday afternoon, which mostly entailed removing a bunch of saws, pruning devices and extension cords from the trunk. We need space in the trunk for random crap, since there will be a dog in the backseat and a woman in the passenger seat. I drive a VW Beetle (silver), and the trunk isn't really mafia regulation (no dead bodies going in there any time soon... at least not intact bodies. Maybe that's why I kept the saws in there!)

To answer your question, Kate, my dog Lexi hates when I curse at traffic, as she thinks I'm yelling at her. So now I have to curse using a happy voice while smiling: "That guy sure is an asshole, huh Lexi? He must have no arms because he sure didn't use the fucking turn signal...." Lexi wags her tail happily, and I end up feeling better, because really, have you tried to curse while smiling? It's hard to maintain any level of rage.

Random piece of advice: If you're going to cook a hamburger, it's best to thaw it first. Frozen meat takes forever to cook and it's impossible to cook evenly. It ends up burnt on the outside and cold and pink (bordering on red) on the inside. Yuck.

Oooooooooh, when I get back on Sunday, it will be October. My birthday falls on Columbus Day weekend, one of the frivolous holidays the federal government (and we, by proxy) takes off. And next Wednesday I get my gold crown [eye roll...WTF am I doing getting a gold crown? I'm not a rapper, and it's certainly not a status symbol in the circles in which I travel (which sounds snobbish but isn't. I just mean a white editor working for a nonprofit doesn't usually meet people impressed by a gold tooth, especially one so far back in your mouth it can't be seen without unhinging your jaw)]. The insurance company should have a good laugh receiving a claim for a gold tooth. I imagine a bill will be arriving soon for this stupidity.

Finally, if an official county car double-parks with the hazard lights on (during rush hour) while the driver gets out to write a ticket for an expired parking meter, is that considered irony, or just county greed? I mean, double parking is an offense for which one can receive a ticket from the police, a ticket I expect would be double the ticket for the expired meter!

Remember a few posts ago I said I wish I had the energy to clean out my car? Well, now I have to do it. A friend of my wife's is going to visit us at the river this weekend. Except she needs a ride, and since my wife will be in a meeting all day, her friend is coming to our house after work and riding down with me (I said with, perv!). I also have to bring the dog. I'm sure it will be fine, as long as we don't have to talk all the way down (three hours of small talk will kill me), she can stand my music (and really, I have so many different styles she has to like every fourth song, at the very least), and doesn't mind if I curse at traffic. (I do this with the windows rolled up. I curse to stop myself using hand gestures. I try not to escalate a problem. Otherwise, some guy cuts me off and suddenly we're reenacting the climax to Road Warrior and the man with the loincloth and hockey mask pulls up beside and tries to spear my wife's friend. And none of us need that.)


Damn, where did that come from?


If you've seen the second season of Home Movies, you might remember Brendon and his father have Pizza Club. (Wow, there's a site with an episode guide, so read about Pizza Club HERE.) Yesterday afternoon I did a lot of work at the other house, the haunted place that won't sell, and wife met me and we went to a fancy wood grill pizza place for dinner (The wood grill was the fancy part. The place itself is an average strip mall store.) I told her this was the first meeting of our pizza club. She got cheese, and then I cheated and had a calzone. Oh well, it's my club, my rules.

I watched Lost last night, of course. If you're a fan, you don't need to hear me rave, and if you're not, that's your choice and I don't need to convince you otherwise. And since 23 million people watch it, ABC doesn't need you either. So there.

So wait, I thought crystal meth made you excited, agitated, and possibly psychotic?

ATLANTA (AP) - Ashley Smith, the woman who says she persuaded suspected courthouse gunman Brian Nichols to release her by talking about her faith, discloses in a new book that she gave him methamphetamine during the hostage ordeal.

The man was an escaped convict, and had killed four people in his escape. Was giving him meth a good idea? In light of that, I'm surprised the guy gave up so easily. If he was wired, you'd think he would have fought. Maybe it had worn off and he was tired? Shrug. I don't know much about these new cheap drugs.

I stole this from a message board. De likely knows which one. These questions are important to discuss with your loved ones:

(1) A zombie invasion is occurring. You're trying to survive with your significant other by your side. Your SO is bitten by a zombie. Do you:
a) Kill your SO immediately to spare him/her from becoming a zombie.
b) Keep your SO around for as long as they're useful then waste zombie SO.
c) Keep your SO around until they become a zombie, then blubber like a whiny little bitch about how you love your SO/refuse to accept that SO is a zombie/let SO eat innocent people/protect zombie SO from being harmed by innocent people trying to defend themselves
d) Leave SO behind with zombies
e) Bite your SO to see if zombies bitten by humans will turn into humans

(2) If you're thrown back in time, is it okay to change the timeline and risk never meeting your SO, if you can change things for the greater good?

(3) If you die but cloned yourself before you die, is it okay for your clone to take your place?

One of the suggestions for # 1 was "People really should prepare an unliving will, and discuss it with their loved ones."

Feel free to offer answers to the questions.

The training session on Friday was actually interesting, and the weather was beautiful for the journey to my folks' place after. We went to dinner and caught up. Saturday morning my father and I went to visit my grandmother (his mother). She's not doing too well, but considering her age, I don't expect her to get any better, so it's a good idea to see her whenever possible. Then we met up with my mother for lunch. I hit the road not too long after that. They had a busy day planned picking tile for the bathroom and such. I arrived home up north just before six. I don't know who was more surprised and excited to see me, my wife or our dog. The dog probably had the edge in the excitement department. Laura said the dog spent most of the day lying by the door looking out the window for me. We (my wife and I ) had a nice dinner and (all of us, including the dog and cats) watched a movie. (I already forgot the movie completely.)

Oh, during the day on Saturday, my wife went with a bunch of our neighbors to the anti-war protests in DC. She got pictures of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, and saw someone from the cast of CSI. The next day the supporters of the war held their own rally. I think it said 400 people came, rather than the 20,000 predicted by the organizers. It was your basic "You don't speak for me!" rally. Sunday's rally, and it's lack of participants, demonstrates two things: (1) There is a faulty logic that concludes that if people are opposed to the war, they don't support the troops. I wish someone famous could eloquently explain why that's not the case. AND (2) As I've said before, when people are opposed to something, they'll mobilize and march the streets, but when a group of people want things to remain as they are (continue the war), you can't drum up any numbers. A call to maintain the status quo just doesn't pull the folks out of their seats.

Sunday I zipped over to the other house and mowed the lawn and raked leaves. We had four realtors call and get the code for the lockbox to show the house. Ran a few more errands, did a few more chores, and still had time for a nap before we had dinner.

So, over the course of 3 days and about 600 miles, I got quite a bit accomplished. I also discovered a few old CDs of mine at my parents' place, so on the 3.5 hour ride back home, I listened to Cibo Matto's Super Relax, (the extended CD single of "Sugar Water"), Pink Floyd's Animals (talk about a college flashback!), Prefab Sprout's Jordan: The Comeback (Man, I loved- loved-loved that CD once upon a time), and the debut CD from Suede (I still think that one is too whiney sounding. It won't get played again anytime soon).

I'm rather tense today about a book project. I was on the phone with the author yesterday for an hour going over pages. More changes to come in next round. I want this to be done soon. People have already ordered the book! Ahhhhhgh... It'll all work out. We have a great production department that can often work miracles, and with only a small amount of grumbling.

Tomorrow morning I have to get up around dawn and drive 2.5 hours to an all-day training on a computer program. The location of the training puts me within an hour of my hometown, so I'm going to continue south after and visit the parents. I'm thinking of driving back home on Saturday afternoon and surprising my wife with dinner somewhere nice. I'll probably come home and she'll be out all evening with her girlfriends though. My surprises don't always work out as planned.


I can't believe Toybiz is making a Taskmaster figure. Besides the fact that he lost every time he fought a good guy, he has one of the more inventive powers. He has photographic reflexes, meaning he can watch someone do something and repeat the same movements perfectly. Why he didn't just watch hours of Hendrix, Clapton, and others and become a rock god is a mystery to me, but he chose to become a villain. For an obscure character, he has enough fans to merit a website (taskmastersite.com) not that everyone on the planet doesn't have a page devoted to them somewhere on the 'net. I don't read comics much anymore (at least not individual comics), but Taskmaster was always a favorite of mine. He could throw a shield like Captain America, use ninja skills like Daredevil, and shoot an arrow like Hawkeye. Why did he always lose?!?

WOW. I was browsing around the internet(s) and stumbled on a blog of someone currently in the Peace Corps in Burkina Faso, the country where I served. Actually, LOTS of volunteers there have blogs, and he links to a number of them. So if you want to check out pictures of where I was five years ago, look here: http://adaminafrica.blogspot.com. My first response to seeing all this: Lucky! They have laptops. They have internet access on a semi-regular basis. There's an internet cafe in Ouagadougou now!!! They mention having CELL PHONES!

When we were there, our only windows to the world beyond the horizon were scratchy broadcasts on BBC radio and the international edition of Newsweek (that actually came on more of a monthly schedule). My favorite hangout in Ouaga was a shack with a dirt floor, plastic chairs, cold beer, and a boom box blasting the latest Zouk music from Gambia. Awilo Longomba was HUGE over there. His big hit at the time sounded like he sampled the O-E-O! song by the guards outside the wicked witch's castle in the Wizard of Oz (seriously, go to this amazon link and play track 3, "Coupe Bibamba," and tell me if it sounds like that.)

I was showing the guy's blog to my wife, saying I couldn't believe how different it's become in such a short time, and she asked if I would have wanted those things when I was there. And really, I was happier without them. Yeah, I have a two-year gap in my pop culture memory, but in the long run the only thing I missed was the debut of Britney Spears, so no big loss. And getting the internet over there shows the country is moving forward a little more. Good for them. And cell phones were probably issued to volunteers after 9/11 and the various coups we've seen in Peace Corps countries. I know I sound like an old fart saying "Back in MY day, we didn't have laptops! Blah blah blah..." That's why I'll probably never comment in any of their blogs. I'll just check in with them once in a while, like an uncle. A hip, cute uncle.

This is sort of a cop-out post. Here is a list of the first 20 songs iPod chose to randomly play from a 195-song playlist:

What Happens Tomorrow by Duran Duran
Paperback Writer by the Beatles
Celice by A-Ha
Cherish the Day by Sade
Playing With Uranium by Duran Duran
Same Denomination by Exene Cervenka (of the band X)
Zombie by the Cranberries
Lover by Sophie Ellis-Bextor
I’m a Worried Man by Willie Nelson and Toots Hibbert (country reggae)
Goodnight Tonight by Wings
This is the Day by Ivy
Dear Prudence by Siouxsie and the Banshees
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction by Otis Redding
Dogs of Lust by The The
One Vision by Queen
Everything is Everything by Phoenix
Right Between the Eyes by Garbage
Dare by Gorillaz
Here Comes a City by the Go-Betweens
Like Someone in Love by Chet Baker
Stoned Out of My Mind by the Jam

I'd also be interested to note the first 20 songs iPod would choose from all the songs (I believe it has about 3,200 loaded in right now). I know the list would probably be just as boring to others as this one. The list above is actually an okay reflection of my collection, as far as the ratio of '80s music to music from the '60s and '70s (or '90s or '00s, for that matter). There needs to be at least one song from the all-encompassing genre called "World Music" on there to be totally accurate, but I'm not so picky.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh man, Lost won the Emmy for best drama. HAHAHAHA! Between Lord of the Rings dominating the Oscars and Lost winning last night, geek is the new chic, beyoch!

Now we need to figure out a way to make kids think school is cooler than drugs, gangs, and knocking up your 14-year-old girlfriend...

The weekend was very relaxing. Spent Sunday afternoon in the pool.

No call from the realtor last night, so either the couple finally decided against buying our house, or the realtor drove off a cliff on the way to get the signed contract to us. I suspect he's not dead.

Damn.

(I mean "Damn, we can't sell this fucking house," not "Damn, our stupid worthless realtor still breathes the air of the living.")

In the style of Larry King's ("Paint your bald spot?") former column in USA Today, I'm just gonna wander the halls of my head a little.

Anybody seen Saw? (Man, that was fun to type. I've been chanting it to myself this morning.) I picked up the DVD at Target yesterday for $10. Halloween special. I'm going to watch it this weekend.

I made a new playlist for the iPod last night. It's called September, bitch! and contains 191 songs. Question: At what point does a playlist become so big that it becomes something else? And what is that something else called?

I'm currently reading the following books:

Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way by Bruce Campbell
The Go-Betweens by David Nichols
The Micronauts by Gordon Williams
The Science of Supervillains by Lois H. Gresh and Robert Weinberg

I currently wish I had more sleep, more vegetables in my diet, and the motivation to clean out my car.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. (AP) - A 14-year-old boy who went near the woods to retrieve a baseball was bitten by a rabid fox, Stafford County officials said.

Deputies shot the fox that evening and the wounded animal ran away. A fox with a gunshot wound was found the next day, apparently having been hit by a car. That fox was sent to the state lab, where it tested positive for rabies.

Good thing the car hit it, because there was an angry, rabid fox WITH A GUNSHOT WOUND wandering around! That's probably more dangerous than a fox with rabies.

[Thanks for the good eye, Monstee. This was a last minute post at the end of the day, and I was preoccupied with editing a book chapter!]

Well, it took the full two hours (plus a little longer). The dentist kept asking "Wanna take a break? Wanna stand up? Wanna rinse?" I just kept saying "No, let's finish this." I now have TWO new temporary crowns, one upper right, one lower right. Why on Earth did my teeth go to hell recently? My mother postulates it's because I spent two years in Africa, with no fluoride in the water, and a diet of rice and spaghetti. It's certainly a possibility, and as good a reason as any I can come up with. I would have thought two years with almost no sweets or food with preservatives would have actually been good for my teeth, but maybe Americans have ingested so many preservatives we now need them to maintain equilibrium. Shrug.

When the procedure was over and I was standing in the garage waiting for them to bring my car up, I noticed that I had received so much novacaine my right eyelid was actually sagging a little. Nice.

Anyway, the "pimpin'" note in the title is because the dentist informed me that he strongly recommends putting in a gold crown in the upper right, because it's stronger material and allows him to save more of the tooth. Before you get any mental images, the tooth is in the very back, so no one will see it unless I open very wide. It's not like I'm suddenly Flava Flav (or Smacky Smack!). My wife said "Well, at least I'll be able to identify you with dental records." WTF? I hope she was joking...

Our soon-to-be-ex realtor has a meeting scheduled for Sunday evening with a couple very interested in the house. If he doesn't land a deal, he's going to lose us, and all the money and time he spent on us all summer. He's motivated, and I hope he pulls it off. Can you believe it's still on the market? In our zipcode there are 40 houses on the market, and 33 of them cost more than ours, and 3 are the exact same price. The paper has been publishing articles about the slowing of the market around here. A long hot (HOT) summer didn't help, and gas prices are probably becoming a factor now. Great. I'm so happy Bush gave us those $300 tax refund checks a few years ago. That really helped save the economy. The fact we can pay all these different mortgages each month and not eat a diet of dog food is astounding. Yes, I suppose "astounding" is my word of the week.

I'm taking a sick day tomorrow, but not for any fun reason. I'm having dental surgery in the morning. The dentist blocked out two hours to do it. Think happy thoughts for smacky (Lauren: When I refer to myself in the third person by a fake nickname, I use lowercase because I'm humble), whining softly on the sofa to two cats who won't likely care and a dog that will likely just be excited I'm home early and will want to play.

Our satellite reception has been down since Sunday so we've been (gasp!) without television. We're not exactly roughing it though, since we watched a few episodes of Dead Zone on DVD (I can't believe my wife actually likes that show now. I never thought she'd give it a chance!), followed by a few episodes of The Oblongs. The repair(man or woman...repairperson? repair technician??) is coming tomorrow afternoon to fix it, since I'll be there anyway, silently weeping in pain.

I have to tell you about where I got a haircut this past week. I drove into town about 9, and stopped at Lester's barbershop. One barber, one chair, get comfortable because there's gonna to be a wait.

Lester (his real name) graduated from barber college in 1959. I was the youngest person in the place by at least thirty years. Two people were ahead of me: a Vietnam vet followed by a World War II vet (it came up in conversation). The three calendars on the wall were the only proof that it was 2005, as opposed to, say, 1965. Even the radio was tuned to some time warp station I had never heard before (and out in the country the radio only gets three stations. Maybe barbers subscribe to "Timeless Classics" satellite radio?)

Each person was in the chair exactly thirty minutes, regardless of amount (or lack) of hair on the man's head. This is a documented fact, and is utterly astounding.

This past week I've...

went swimming six times.
fished once.
went out in a boat twice.
read two and a half books.
read half a book in the pool.
watched three movies.
watched a bunch of episodes of Lost on DVD.
walked on the beach at least twice each day.
got one haircut.
ate seafood twice.
ate at a restaurant once.
cooked something on the grill twice.
played bocce once.
called work once.
checked work email twice.
listened to music nearly constantly.

Off on vacation all next week! I'll still have to get online, about once a day, to check work email, so if anything interesting or funny happens, I'll post.

I can already hear the blender making the pina coladas.

Oh I can't go through all the archives, but I believe I mentioned here our cat Buzz's hatred of riding in cars. We've tried putting him in a crate with his sister, putting him in a crate by himself, holding him in our laps, drugging him with over-the-counter medications, drugging him with prescribed Prozac from the vet. Nothing works! He screams most of the way, as if someone is jabbing something into him. Well, the cats are coming with us on our vacation. Wish us luck! It's normally a three hour drive, but with holiday traffic, it could take four or more. I wonder if it's safe driving with earplugs...

Thanks for the well wishes, everybody! We had a nice anniversary, our second as a married couple. De, I went with the theme of paper for the second anniversary. I bought her a print of the painting on the left a few years ago, and it's been sitting in a closet ever since, as it's an unusual size you couldn't frame yourself. I took it to a frame place about a month ago and had it double matted, in a nice frame, with non-glare, museum quality UV-filtering nonfade glass. (OOOOOOOOH...is there a glass anniversary, because the glass is the neatest part of what I just described). It's by Wayne Thiebaud and is called "Cakes" (sort of a literal guy, huh?). You can learn more about him here: Ten Things About Thiebaud. The list is from the National Gallery of Art school lesson plan called Frosted Fractions. They use the painting to teach math through cake slices! How cool is that?

We also gave a few other things to each other (she wrote me a poem, which I don't feel like sharing here, but it was very sweet) and had a nice dinner out.

Yesterday morning the air conditioner repairman was scheduled to meet one of us at our other house to check something out between 8 and 12. My wife worked from home and waited for the call. At 11:55 she still hadn't heard anything, so I called them up. The woman gasped and said "I'm sorry. I thought there was only 30 days in August, so I wrote September 1 on the schedule thinking that was today!" So the entire time she waited, the guy was scheduled to come by the next day. Now when the guy calls this morning, I have to leave work and go meet him, basically taking a lunch hour at 8am. Whatever.

Two more days of work (and likely a conference call on Tuesday of my vacation!) before stuff gets put on hold for our end-of-summer festival of slacking off.