BaddaBlog

Friday, July 27, 2007

Locked Out

Coming up the stairs I grumbled like The Old Man in "Christmas Story". I censored the worst of my language since the boy was enjoying breakfast within earshot. (Just like Cosby said parents do... and make themselves sound like complete idiots.)

"What's wrong?" My Beautiful & Dutiful asked.

I barked, "I'm locked out!"

She had no clue if it was her fault. Since I hadn't even left the house and she saw my car keys in their ususal place she couldn't figure out how I managed to lock myself out of anything.

"Locked out??? Locked out of what?"

"My effing pants! At best I probably have five pair. Seven including jeans."

Not only that, but a couple of my fitted dress shirts just don't look as slick as when I bought them last year.

Now I need to get into the Waist Disposal Service.

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Monday, July 23, 2007

Wizard Geeks

Soucheray wrote about it Sunday. Television and radio news in general went nuts with Harry Potter stories last week.

My nephew started reading the books this summer. He listened to the books-on-tape a year or two ago. He blitzed through the first four and started the fifth in only six weeks. Not bad for a kid who isn't yet eleven.

Far be it from me to question an adult for standing in line to buy a kid's book. I've slept out for concert tickets once and I play D&D. I've gone to movies on opening night. I get that. However, even with all the dice I've rolled I can't get into Harry Potter.

Souch apparently read the first book and said it was neat for a kid's book. My Mom started reading my nephew's books and said they were kind of fun. My wife took me to the first two films. Too. Damn. Long.

I love long films if the story merits and if it is fun. "LA Confidential" requires every ounce of attention. "Braveheart" harkens back to the days of epic films. The true epic films still hold my attention. Potter is merely a modern film spectacle... which is fine. It just is not likely to sustain.

My wife, the boy, and I drove off yesterday... and she sits in the front and starts to put her iPod earphones in. (I refuse to call them ear-buds.)
Me: "What are you doing?"
Wife: "I'm going to listening to the last five minutes -"
Me: "No you're not.
Wife: "- of the sixth Harry Potter... what do you mean -"
Me: "It is five minutes. Wait until you actually have the time to start reading the new book."
Wife: "But I want to -"
Me: "Yeah, and I want to be Spider-Man, but that's not going to happen right now."
Wife: "You're being a -"
Me: "Jerk? Yeah, and listening to an audio book in the car when you could be talking to me and your son is rude. I did enough of that as a teen ager. Put it away."

Actually, only the first half of that conversation happened.

By the way, it is me or do you get the impression that some folks would by a gleaming white turd if Apple put an "i" in front of it and a crappy battery inside it and let you listen to any number of songs and lame pod-casts?

The new iTurd. Everyone's got one... and they bring them into the cinema when they go see "Harry Potter and the Impending Restraining Order".


The Onion: Harry Potter

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Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Simple Pleasures

Happiness is having a toilet… pretty much all to yourself. Oh, I already knew this… but just not the amount of joy that it actually brought me.

My toilet is back. It took a vacation for about a month and a half. I know what you’re thinking, “Toilets don’t go anywhere.” While that is true, this toilet left the bathroom. Sure, he only got five feet away… but that must be another country to a toilet.

In any case, the toilet-reinstall guy showed up this morning. The work originally started after the bathroom suffered a leak in the ceiling… some days were hard to schedule, some of the work took time, for a while neither the B&D nor I were available, and so on. Recently, there’s been a fairly consistent rate of work, but clearly the important part is in now.

The heavens open up, choirs of angels sing, trumpets ring out with fanfares, gleaming shafts of light fall down upon the earth, and from that plot of earth springs a beautiful, porcelain sculpture representing both form and function.

I might just hold a relaunching ceremony later tonight... I'll have the boy throw a Kleenex into the bowl for a new-maiden voyage.

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