Saturday night I stayed up way too late to watch one of my favorite movies of all time: The Right Stuff. You can’t get much better than a great movie based on a great book by one of my favorite authors, starring some of my favorite actors. And let’s thank God for the TCM network and its decision to broadcast good movies without commercial interruption, bleeping, or bad dubbing (e.g. “Forget You!” in place of the F-bomb.) Heck, you can even see boobies on a good night of the week, if you’re lucky. And that’s what I say: More boobies and more F-bombs on cable channels.
Geek-Out. Last night, while Jen sat on the couch and IM’ed her sisters attempting to come to some kind of consensus on bridesmaids’ dresses (which was about as sucessful as recent attempts for peace in the Middle East), I went through iTunes on my laptop and erased about 3/4 of my local music library. My Pismo has been getting slower and slower over the last few months, and while I fully understand that I’m using a four-year-old laptop, I’ve really noticed it slowing down using Photoshop 6 in Classic, which used to run like greased lightning. Anytime I get ahead of the user interface by a second or more, I get extremely frustrated, because often times my thought processes are two or three steps ahead of what I’m currently doing and it’s annoying to have to wait for the computer to complete some stupid task like making a button change color. (This would be the reason I have a copy of PS 7 for OSX and don’t use it.) Today I’ll be cleaning off some more gunk from the drive to free up some swap space and see if things improve. And thanks to Jason for the maintenance suggestion.
The scene: the express (10 items or less!!!) line at the Hunt Valley Giant. The players: handsome early 60’s male patron, smartly dressed, no wedding ring. Attractive late 50’s female clerk, requisite Giant uniform, nice hair, no wedding ring. The exchange:
Man: Helloo there!
Woman: Hi. (Checking items.)
Man: So, how did your football teams do this weekend?
Woman: (Barely perceptible pause) Oh, I don’t follow football.
Man: (Who’s got nothing) Awww, what are you, some kind of… (panic setting in) non…sports…liking…person?
Woman: (Not looking up) …
Man: (Grabbing for anything at this point) …Well, college basketball is really my thing.
I could only stand behind this poor sap and shake my head quietly as his ass caught fire and plunged into the ground. I’m no playa like Engelbert Humperdink, but I understand that A. it’s not smart to include sports in your opening line. Unless you’re hitting on a woman you’re playing sports with, leave the football chatter at home. B. have a follow-up line to your line. Chances are you’ll get shot down, and sometimes it’s better to have a good comeback—women like the chase, and if you’re interesting, you may get a second chance. C. Don’t follow a brush-off with an insult. Duh. D. Enough about you. What does she like? Why don’t you ask her, genius? She doesn’t give a crap about whether or not you like college basketball.
All of these things I wanted to explain to this poor guy, who may or may not have been trying to git some, but I figured he was already shamed enough as it was.
Yesterday afternoon I continued the Blue room demolition and reached the point where I can start snaking wire. While I made noise and yanked plaster down, Jen bundled up on the bed and drank TheraFlu to try and ward off the evil nasties. Outside, the freezing rain made an icy shell on top of the snow we got Saturday night.
Movie Review. Underworld was an entertaining, if not derivative movie about vampires and werewolves; the chick from Pearl Harbor ran around shooting guns trying to save the singer dude from Creed. “Romance story” this movie ain’t, but I can see how people could get “sexy” from the sheer amount of leather pants worn in the film. Thankfully, kung-fu was kept to an absolute minimum in favor of gunplay. But yeah, you’ve seen this movie before.
The Return Of The King was a great flick. All the best elements of the first two movies, wrapped up into a superb 2.5 hours of filmmaking. Perhaps the ending dragged on a little long; perhaps there could have been a little more Fellowship, but what I hear from the LOTR fans at my company, of whom there are legion, it was very faithful to the book.
Jen and I have a few rituals in our new house together. Some of them date back to our pre-cohabitation days, and some of them are new. One of the oldest ones we have is Sushi Day, where we drive to our favorite sushi restaurant (which happens to be just over the river and through the woods in Ellicott City) and get the same basic stuff each time: two cups of miso soup, one order of edamame, the spicy tuna roll, the spicy california roll, and the Japanese lasagna (supplanting the kabuki roll, which was a little large for one bite, and made you look like Godzilla eating a passenger train.) Jen had a crappy day at work yesterday so we braved the pea-soup fog, got our sushi and two six-packs, nestled up to some Queer Eye, and enjoyed the feast. This morning, though, my head still kinda hurts.
Muha-hah-hah-hah Dept. I just got, in a morning of pure serendipity, two presents for Jen accomplished with little or no fuss (knock on wood.) I don’t think she’s going to see these coming, but they’re good’uns. (Hi, Jen!)
This Is Funny. 8:45AM – I’m sitting out in front of a client’s office on North Charles Street and surfing the web via somebody else’s unsecured WiFi hotspot. pretty good connectivity, too. Let that be a lesson to you—lock your hotspots down, people.
We have made it through the other side of the first blizzard in this house with no injuries or disasters. Saturday morning we went outside to help our neighbor and his wife dig their car out of the snow (he’s the one who had a pacemeker put in three weeks ago.) They took off to run errands and came back to give us some heavenly coffee cake from Sugarbaker’s down the street. The rest of the day was spent in pursuit of leisure. At 8, Redux came on Bravo and we wound up sitting through that whole thing until midnight—it was interesting to see the new footage, but I can’t say it added anything to the movie that needed to be there. I highly recommend Hearts Of Darkness, the documentary made with footage shot by Coppola’s wife during the filming, as it contains a ton of fascinating behind the scenes stuff that is alternately heartbreaking and hysterical.
(The Angels Wanna Wear My.) We drove up to the Towson mall this afternoon to get out of the house and do a little shopping. One of the first places we hit was the Apple Store, where I asked about the blue iMac. From what it sounds like, the video board is fried—a $300 repair. Yikes! We then ventured over to the Nordstrom Rack where Jen found a dress and I found a pair of red retro sneakers. I’ve always wanted a pair of cool red shoes, and I’ve got them now for the low price of $27.
Grandma’s Hands. Two things reminded me of my late grandparents this weekend, and they both brought me a smile. Jen and I busted out our Christmas gear on Saturday and tried to make the place look festive. One of the things I’ve had for years is Rappin’ Santa, a little fabric covered Santa Claus who raps a tune when you clap your hands and dances in time to the beat:
Jingle rap, jingle rap
Jingle all the way[unintelligble]
In a onehorse open sleighHah!
Huh-hah, Jingle Rap!
Huh-hah, huh!
My Mom’s mom gave it to me before she passed on, and I never get sick of it.
The other thing that brought a smile to my face were the mittens I put on to shovel the walk on Saturday. They are green, a shade that doesn’t go well with anything I own, and made out of heavy synthetic wool. Every Christmas my gramma Dugan would have us all trace our hands on paper so that she could knit us mittens for the next year. The mittens I have were actually made for my Dad about twenty years ago, but they fit my hands perfectly. They’ve been with me for years and seen lesser machine-made mittens die, and I think of her every time I wear them.
The Baltimore area is socked in with snow, and due to short-sighted company policy Jen is at work. I’m here trying to diagnose a sick iMac and doing some freelance work. Tom & Jerry cartoons—that’s something that brings me back to days after elementary school with Channel 11 and a pile of Legos.
Proof There Is A Higher Lifeform Out There. Adam Goldberg in a new Comedy Central show about a Jewish vigilante doling out justice A-Team-style, called “The Hebrew Hammer.”
Proof That Some People Need Prescription Medication. Is this the most insane story ever? Unbelievable. I’ve always said that mayonnaise is the condiment of the devil.
This morning was a pretty tough one; after three nights on our IKEA pullout couch, the one with the razor-thin mattress, I went back to my firm Sealy and now I’m paying for it. It feels like I’ve gone five rounds with Muhammad Ali. I could use fifty good sessions with a yoga teacher or an understanding physical therapist. One of the unexpected good consequences of the holiday was the fact that we moved a bunch of furniture around the house, and found that the living room is a lot bigger than we thought. Having all that crap gone is a relief, and we’re finally getting a sense of how large the room actually is.
I brought five window candles at the dollar store with Todd this afternoon, and brought them home to put in the upstairs windows. Not three hours had passed when one of the cats jumped up on the sill and knocked one over, blowing the bulb out.
The A/V Club. Jen and I decided that a whole lot of nothing was in order for our post-family Sunday, so we rented The Matrix Reloaded and X2 from the Blockbuster and watched both of them. The Matrix, truthfully, was not as bad as most folks told me it was. Jen and I both thought it was entertaining, fun, scary, and loaded with action. X2, in my opinion, was pretty good as well, but full of plot holes. Even so, the writing was good, and the heroes were heroic. All in all, a very enjoyable afternoon (made better by a bottle of wine.)
Looks like Nissan is using one of my favorite Morphine songs to sell SUV’s. I can’t begin to tell you how bummed out I am about that. Although, I suppose, if I was a reasonably successful underground band, and the founder and lead singer died suddenly of an untimely heart attack, I might be tempted to sell a song or two to put the kids through college. It isn’t getting any easier to afford, that’s for sure.
Crap. According to this chart, the 17-year cicadas are due to rise in 2004. For folks planning an outdoor wedding (or reception), consider this page. I can’t seem to find any pages on the brood cycles of Maryland, but we have a yard full of deciduous trees as well as a mature oak in the backyard. This is going to be fun…
Word of the Day. Autodidact: n. 1748 a self-taught person.
Etymology: Greek autodidaktos self-taught, from aut- + didaktos taught, from didaskein to teach (courtesy of the Miriam-Webster dictionary)
Feelin’ Groovy. Day three of the annoying cold. Grr.
We Couldn’t Be Prouder. This morning I sat on the dining room floor, adding CD’s to our iTunes library and sipping my coffee, and I glanced over at a gray blob on the floor by the table. Normally, there are about five of those kitty mice (a plastic rectangle covered in colored rabbit fur, with two plastic eyes and a rawhide tail) laying around the house at any one time, so it wasn’t anything new. This one was different, though, because it looked, well, roughed up. I looked closer and realized it was a real mouse, and somebody had obviously worked it over for a while before killing it. I picked it up and put it in the trash with a big smile, not only because our cats are fearsome warriors, but because it didn’t wind up in one of the beds with us this morning. “Look what I brought you, Mom!”
Depending on how we feel this weekend (or at least, how I feel) I may be tackling this project upstairs this weekend. Mmmm. Shiny clean floors. I’m looking forward to making a real difference in the house, as I feel like I’ve gotten stalled in the last week or so.
About Damn Time. Here’s the good news. Congratulations!
Huh. This morning I got a bullshit email from somebody trying to get my Citibank PIN and access number. After getting past the idea that somebody knows my email address and the fact that I have a Citibank account, I went to the Citibank site and within two clicks found a page for reporting suspicious email. After getting past the idea that there’s so much abuse that they need to have a page for this, I was impressed that I was able to find it so quickly.
Return Of The King. OK, I know that Jen loves Aragorn, but after reading this article, I fear she will leave me for a man named Viggo. Hell, I’d marry him. I really enjoyed his candor and common sense. Viggo for President! (Salon will ask you to sit through a 30-second ad to see the whole article, but it’s worth it.)
I’ll never screw with Terminal commands I don’t understand.
I’ll never screw with Terminal commands I don’t understand.
I’ll never screw with Terminal commands I don’t understand.
I’ll never screw with Terminal commands I don’t understand.
I’ll never screw with Terminal commands I don’t understand.
I’ll never screw with Terminal commands I don’t understand.
*Whew.*
Take Two. I have OSX running on the iMac now, and along with about a gazillion other things I’d like to do with it (an iTunes server, internal/external file serving, scheduled backups, iPhoto libraries), I downloaded and installed a dyndns client (link) so that we can share files from the house. I tried this a year or so ago, and had no luck (OS9.2 on the 8500) so I’m hoping this will work more seamlessly on OSX. I currently have some issues with port mappings in the router and the firewall in OSX, but should be able to iron them out tonight.
Somebody scheduled some freezing weather for the first day of October, and I don’t appreciate it.
You Kids Get Off My Lawn! Dept. Memo to the guy who’s been parking his Volvo out in front of our house with the ‘For Sale’ signs on the window for the last two weeks: the house isn’t empty anymore, pal. Move it along or I’ll call somebody to tow it. Thanks. How about I park my Scout out in front of your house for a few weeks? Bet you’d love that.
??? Dept.: What the hell is this dick doing NFL commentary for? For the unenlightened, here’s some suggested reading.
NBC Sucks. Nice of the Leno folks to refer to Howard Dean as the ‘Presidential Wannabe’ in their promos last night, and helpfully booking him after the oh-so-important Catherine Zeta-Whatever. This morning Katie Couric, the poster girl for pink fluffy pom-poms, went after him like a pit bull in heat. I thought I was watching MSNBC for a minute. Interesting to see impartial journalism at work. (note: I don’t know anything about Dean or his politics, but it’s pretty obvious the suits at NBC have cast their ballots.)