Church Sign Generator.
Hours of good Hell-bound fun.
Do It Yourself Nelson Clock.
This one involves a MIG welder—I intend to use wood and a drill press.
I haven’t seen the actual show (we don’ have the HBO), but this clip is sheer brilliance.
Million Dollar Baby: Worth every Oscar they gave it. Great movie.
Hitch: That rarest of species: the funny, watchable, engaging romantic comedy.
Our house: Not nearly enough progress as I’d hoped, but it’s getting a little closer. There’s a coat of primer on the back atrium windows, the attic window above the stairs, and on the fascia board over the peak of the atrium window. (That was an interesting feat of acrobatic skill, hanging my stupid ass over the side of the roof to slap a coat of paint on a board. It’s funny how fearless I get with heights as the summer progresses…)
Life: We spent Saturday evening with R&K on their deck in Canton, overlooking the neighborhood, harbor, and city skyline. As always, it’s great fun to relax with the two of them and enjoy cocktails on the cheap. The pair of all-weather couches and comfy pillows up there is a testament to their excellent taste—sitting on their deck is like being in a private club. Jen and I spent last night poring through the IKEA catalog over furniture we can’t afford. How coincidental was that?
…back to work…
I got a pile of spam from some asshat—”aaa@aaa.com”, at 68.23.148.214—linking to a bunch of shitty epinions and other ad sites today. This was on top of two other douchebags who tried to game my site to link back to someplace else earlier in the day. Stephen had written something a few weeks back about installing a plugin for MT called spamlookup, which promises to help screen comments whenever the shit starts flying. I don’t use Trackbacks, which is one reason, I think, that I haven’t been hit harder in the past, but I guess it’s only a matter of time for everything. I’ll report back when I see some results (if any.)
Update: I got eighteen more hits from this same dick over the course of the last 12 hours, from varying IP addresses. Spamlookup only caught one, which looked different from the rest.
The past couple of weeks have been kind of slow here at Idiot Central as well as elsewhere on the web. It’s not that there’s nothing happening and we’re lounging around in our underwear watching reruns of Dr. Phil and swilling lite beer; both Jen and I are stupidly, numbingly, unaccountably busy. It’s just that I’d like to write about something other than the color we painted the hallway last weekend, or the eggplant growing in our backyard, or what we had for dinner last night.
I realized last night that I’ve been working like an absolute retard since the end of spring and I have nothing to show for it, except a pile of debt. I’d like to say that our brief sojourn to Ireland was paid for, but the harsh fact is that it was put on credit, and I feel that credit hanging over my head like a noose. (I don’t regret going, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.) I dislike debt about as much as I dislike foreign objects in my eye, pro wrestling, and tequila hangovers, so this situation has me a little stressed out. My lovely wife listened to my worrying last night, and was remarkably understanding and calm about the whole situation. I suspect she’s just as tired, worried, and concerned about all this crap as I am, but she’s learned how to keep me from completely wigging out. Thanks, baby.
It’s not like we have a Ferrari in the driveway, or a plasma-screen TV, or closets full of clothes—I’m currently wearing a threadbare shirt I’ve owned since high school and a five-year-old pair of shorts—I’ve just been socked with dumb one-time bills ever since we got back, and it seems like I’ve been writing newer and more expensive checks every day. And that shit is getting old.
Perhaps, then, it’s fitting for me to post these pictures I took a while back of a house in Ellicott City: The owner has covered the outside with handmade signs (and some of you may know that I have a certain love in my heart for homemade signs) talking about Jeebus, his government, his neighbors, and other assorted subjects. I don’t know what the whole story is, but I present our own local oddity for your viewing and reading pleasure. Maybe this guy has the right idea.
French Cars Suck.
But this looks bad as shit. I’d buy it, even if I couldn’t keep it running. (1967 Citroen DS 21 M Cabriolet)
Compare Bank Rates
Well-designed site, and helpful, too.
Driving to work this morning, I passed a Ford pickup, driven by an older man with a receding hairline and a beautiful border collie in the passenger seat. Normally, that would have been enought to put a smile on my face, but there was something else. It’s very unscientific, but I’d have to say here in Maryland, about 3/4 of the pickup-driving crowd sport a big fat “W” sticker somewhere on their truck, something I find it hard to understand. So it was with great humor I noticed the bumper sticker on the back of this particular truck:
DRUNK FRATBOY DRIVES
COUNTRY INTO DITCH
Thanks for that, Pickup Truck Man.