big cliché

We watched Shaun of the Dead this evening and if you haven't seen it, you need to. Seriously. I'm not kidding. Get up right now and go rent it.

Back now? Good. I have a question. Is it wrong of me to not-so-secretly yearn for a PC/CDROM game where you earn phat stacks for sniping stoopids at the shopping mall? Don't tell me you haven't thought about it, and you know the people I'm talking about. Those folks who think that the middle of the aisle is where you stop to chat with a friend you haven't seen in 17 years; the ones who refuse to keep their children from tormenting everyone in turn while in line at the register then look right at you, smile and say "terrible twos!" like that is an acceptable excuse for their child's simian behavior; and then there's my personal favorite: the 180 switcher. The 180 switcher is usually rifling through a purse or bag, while on that damnable cell phone, walking very slowly in front of you and then for some mysterious reason he/she does an about face and walks bang into you. Rather than doing the polite thing by begging your pardon, they just give you the look--as if you were the one who walked into them and interrupted their cell call to the president.

I envision a mission-based FPS where you are sent to different malls across America to weed out the rabble, ensuring a blissfully pleasant shopping experience for the rest of the polite, considerate folks out to spend their hard-earned dollars. You would get mission briefs, plans of the mall's service corridors and air ducts so you could plan your escapes, different disguises, and of course the latest and greatest in hardware. Imagine being able to choose from the Remington 700 Police, Tikka T3 Tactical, Sauer SSG3000 (all offered with suppressors) or even the Barrett M107 for the final mission: the Mall of America! You would also have your choice of sidearm, edged and impact weapons. You know as well as I do that would sell like hotcakes. No, even better. The only catch is that you can't snipe the wee kiddies--only their folks because we all know it is the parents' fault if the kid is doing some silly, nonsensical crap. Oh yes, you would receive instant ca$h bonuses for cleaning out the bangers, redeemable at any of the conveniently located ATMs. I would call it SMS-Shopping Mall Sniper. Once I made a million off it, there would be SMSII: More Malls, More Money, and finally SMSIII, The End of the Sale. You know you'd buy it.

WHETHER THE SECOND AMENDMENT SECURES AN INDIVIDUAL RIGHT

Oooh! Quick, look! A government agency who read it correctly!

In case you hadn't see it over at Kelly's place, I have added the Assault Weapons Watch link to the roster. Enjoy.

Aimee and I were talking earlier this evening, and I was reminded of a thought I had last week. It occured to me that what really makes us individuals are the particular brands of crazy we carry around with us. I'm sure I'm not the first to come to this conclusion, but I was finally able to relate to it personally. Each of us does different things in different ways for reasons that may or may not be readily apparent. A good example of this is when I slice bread for a sammich. When I go to spread the mustard or mayo on the bread, it has to be in such a fashion that allows me to put the slices back together in the order they were cut. I didn't even realize I was doing it at first, but now I just accept it and move on. A conscious example of this is when, after I hop in the truck and jam the key in the ignition, I imagine that if I can't get my seat belt buckled by the time the dinger stops, a bomb placed in my truck by some shadowy character, who was dropped off by a black helicopter, will detonate. Twisted, huh? At the time Aimee and I were talking about the sugar cookies in the pantry. I asked her if she had any of them and she told me that they had irratated her throat when she tried one. Now the cookies hadn't really irrated her throat. Her throat was already raw and scratchy from her cold. But the cookies were mentally linked to the unpleasentness and she was put off those sugar cookies for-ever. And, she noted, that they werent' done enough. This in itself is worth mentioning because when we make chocochip cookies, she likes those as undercooked as they can be and still come off the sheet.

They say it's money, but I think it's crazy that makes the world go 'round.

Went back to work yesterday after being off all last week, and it was like I never even left. Except for the hundred-plus e-mails outlook was just waiting to dump on me, that is. I hate, no loathe, e-mail at work. Seventy percent of the stuff I didn't need in the first place, another twenty was stuff dated for a day that had already come and gone and of the last ten percent that is actually pertinent, half are duplicates because no one in our building really believes anyone when they say "I'll e-mail you the TPS report cover sheet" so I get the same message twice, with the same lame "FYI" at the top. Problem is that I have to go thorugh one hundred percent of it just to be sure before I delete it. Ah, the joys of corporate America! But man does it pay the bills.

Aimee and I completed 2/3 of our Christmas goodness last week. Had my folks up for a home cooked, traditional Christmas eve dinner of red curry chicken with spicy corn fritters and steamed veggies. Then Christmas day, we went to Aim's folks to exchange gifts with her family after a super-tasty dinner of chicken and tortilla soup. I was completely confused that we would be having Texican food with nary a taco in sight, so I ended making flour tortillas so there would be soft tacos. Soup is, after all, a side dish or first course! What a wanker, huh? In the end, good times were had by all. We got some great gifts, but probably my favorites are the last of the knives I needed to complete my Henckels Classic set. I got the 7 piece block set off ebay back in August for 1/3 retail and have been hankerin' to finish the set ever since. So if you gots something that needs slicin', dicin', pared, boned or julienned, I gots the blade for the job. I say "probably" because it is a very tight race between the knives and my new "Peace Through Superior Firepower" T-shirt from SIL and her hubby. I can hardly wait 'til casual Friday!

In other Christmas break news, Funky-Fresh D Allupindahous, aka DMAN, and his lovely wife stopped by for a bit Sunday night. It was great to catch up with Ol' D, but Holly was beat down with a bad cold so the expedition to Angles was definatley out. Too bad 'cause I remember how much D loved that place back in the di-zay. (Such a shame there aren't any sarcasm tags in html, huh?)

I said "2/3 finished" earlier because we will still be making that trek to the Fort to hang out with Mom & Co. in Arkansas. That will have to wait until MLK day weekend, but we won't be officially done with Christmas until then. Which makes me even happier I got the rest of the knife set because I am sure I will end up cooking dinner for them, just like last year. Problem was that we met at my sister's pad and bless her little heart, but she is just not a cook. Which means that there was not a sharp knife in the joint. This year, that will not be an issue.

Oh yes, I updated the POT? two days ago, but have been entirely tooooo lazy to put up a post and let you know about it. Apparently all that time off somehow sucked the will to type right out of me!

One final note: props go to Chris S. for recommending the Iron Head salsa, which is made just up the road a piece in Moore, OK. I opened a jar and a bag of chips while Carol and I were cooking Saturday and the salsa was gone in about half an hour amd there were only six of us snackin' on it. Look for it in your 'better' grocer's deli case. In Norman, that means Albertson's. It has got to be the best commercial salsa I have ever had.

Yeah, I said Christmas. None of that liberal PC "Happy Holidays" stuff here, because I celebrate Christmas. If you observe Hanukkah, Kwanza, Ramadan or simply nothing at all, that is your bidness and I wish you the best of your respective holiday season. But I will not fall victim to the PC police in my own home. I am sick to death of reading all these stories about how one guy got all bent out of shape because someone said "Jesus" on the school playground, or at the public library. It is just plain crazy. I still think if you are offended or freaked out by Jesus, Hunakkah, Kwanza, Ramadan or any holiday ritual practiced by those of faith than YOU are the one with the issues and should place yourself under house arrest until January 2nd. Better make that 'til MLK day. Wouldn't want you to accidentally see any "After Christmas" sales, now would we.

Isn't it strange, though, that even folks who aren't Christians will still exchange Christmas gifts under the guise of Jolly Old Saint Nick? Hmmm. Stange? Or very clever? They get all the gifts, with none of the guilt!

Anyway, I was looking through the archives yesterday and it was the day after Christmas last year on which I started this whole mess. I read up through January and it occured to me that I've enjoyed this past year o' blogging immensely. I seriously thought, at first, that I would grow tired of it but there seems to be an inherent theraputic effect to jotting all this nonsense down that keeps me coming back to the dashboard. I have always wanted to keep a journal of some kind, but found that my atrocious penmanship combined with the strange, uncomfortable hand gymnastics of trying to write on bound pages was very discouraging to say the least. Many thanks to Jefe for pointing out the easy way to do this. Had I know such a thing existed I would've been on it years ago. But like I pointed out on day 1, I believed that I would have to really get my HTML skills up to snuff. I should've know that someone would've done the hard part for me--even if they haven't released a blogger home edition.

All in all it has been a good year here at the 'stead, and I hope yours has been as well. I know (from reading your blogs) that it has been a trying year for some, a year of change for others, and for a lot of us just another year, but I like to think that things generally get better. Unless you become addicted to heroin, start selling yourself and lose your children to DHS just before you are arrested and thrown in the pokey, but that is a different documentary altogether, isn't it?

On that note, I'll wish each and every one of you the happiest, merriest Christmas possible. I hope you find yourselves surrounded by family or loved ones, basking in the warm glow of fellowship after you wake up tomorrow, then showered with the gifts of the season. I wish all of you safe travel to and from your holiday destinations and I look forward to seeing you, or at least your comments, here at the cliché for another year. "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night".

Now that the jig is up, so to speak, I can tell you that all that baking and candy making was for my favorite peeps on tour 3. Yes folks, I spent eight straight hours in the kitchen making goodies and sweet treats for my boys on the show--prime time, that is.

You see, were it not for the continued efforts of the six gents who I supposedly supervise, my work life would be an unliveable, nightmarish glimpse of hell from 2p.m. to 10:30p.m. every Monday through Friday. However these guys, who repeatedly amaze me with their ability to take what the client is dishing out and still leave smiling, make the job enjoyable and save my bacon on a daily basis. Which makes eight hours in the kitchen time well spent to hopefully convey my grattitude for all their hard work during the year, but even more so over the last month, which is our client's busiest time of year.

In case you were curious, they each received a mini-bundt pound cake, 3 ounces of hand-dipped candy coated pretzels, a bag of chocochip-hazelnut cookies (remember the shelling of the hazelnuts?) and a handmade caramel-pecan candy bar, hand-dipped in rich, sumptuous milk chocolate. It may not sound like eight hours worth of work, but remember that each time I made something, I had to clean up my own mess before I could start the next something and I am a messy cook. And when your making homemade caramel, you can't really do anything but watch that thermometer, now can you? But I'm getting off the point here, which is that the guys who make up the tour 3 crew are the best.

So then Rob, Tim, Jason, Paul, Chris and Neil, for everything you do--this post's for you!

Even after all these years away from a working kitchen, I was still able to pull off an eight hour shift.

Seriously. I started baking and making candy at 7p.m. Tuesday, and it is now 4a.m. Wednesday. I stopped only for lunch and I finished cleaning up about 20 minutes ago. And I even cooked lunch while I was in there! I guess it was dinner, since we did eat 'til around midnight, but what-eva, Plucky. And I think there may still be a little more to do after I gets me some sleep.

Still not feeling festive yet, despite the marathon holiday cooking so I guess it will hit me about the time I get my first wrapped Christmas gift.

Man, you ever get stuck next to that table at the restaurant? We all have, but tonight's show was probably the best yet. There were four of them, three guys and one gal. The gal didn't say much, which was no doubt due to the fact that you would've needed a rib spreader to get a word in on the two talkers. The talker who reminded us of Don Vito, kept singing in a very discomforting kind of man-boy voice that could've been good if he was in a holiday choir rather than singing along with the muzak in a freaking Denny's!

Just as we were finishing, I heard the most alarming thing I have ever heard a grown man say, "...is probably my favorite Michael Jackson song of all time." My hearing just kind of went blank after that sentence. I don't remember what song he named, only that he felt compelled to sing a verse. Those, by the way, are words no man should ever say out loud in public. Or in private, now that I think about it. If I had popped one in his brainstem as I walked by, the judge would've surely seen it was a mercy killing. I can almost hear the judge now. "What? Singing Michael Jackson tunes in a man-boy voice? In public? Heck, son, that's what you're s'posed to do"!

Yes, I'm still sitting here typing. In reality, I'm waiting for old Moms to get on line so I can get Christmas ideas for the krewe in the Fort.

Looks like there will be no firebreathing pics this week after all. I got one of my Christmas presents early, which was a light meter that should be capable of metering the brief, intense burst of light generated by a big ball of fire. Looks like the weather isn't going to play ball tomorrow, which was the orignally scheduled date, and I can't seem to raise Jefe to try to sneak it in tonight. Aw, shucks.

Estute observers will note I mentioned in the earlier post that the laptop is back! With a fully-functional DVD multi-drive, no less. Sweet. Although I am a bit confused by who worked on it. You see, I shipped it to the Toshiba Repair Depot last week. Today, when I opened the box, the first thing I noted was the return address label was not the TRP label, but some guy's personal label, exactly like the kind charities send you if you have ever given them a nickel. Second, I found two gigantic, and I mean freaking huge, dog hairs in the box, which kind of skeeved me a bit. When was the last time you saw giant dogs running around a depot-level repair facility?

You ever take a few minutes to look over your entire CD collection and pick out some old classics you haven't checked out in a while? Of couse you have, we all do it. Last night, I decided I had finally heard enough of the 6 CDs that have been in my changer for the last 5 months. You would think I would've gotten tired of them sooner, but with only a 7 minute drive to work, I average 2, or so, songs a day. If I'm headed for the ci-tay I always grab the Sirius tuner, so you can see how 6 discs can last 5 months. Anyway, I reloaded some old-school favorites, and I wanted to take a few to let you all in a little-known secret from the mid-nineties called Disincarnate. They don't have a site up, or I'd link it for sure, but here's a bit I stole from BNRMetal.com:

Disincarnate was a technical death metal, and one of many bands over the years featuring James Murphy. The vocals are standard early death metal, but the riffs and song structures are almost progressive at times, a great deal more intricate than many death metal bands of the time. Murphy has worked intermittently on a second album for a couple of years now, while dealing with medical issues (he is currently undergoing treatment for a brain tumor) -- there is no set time for a release.

Now here's the problem with the Big D--They were kind of a side project for some guys back in the di-zay, so they were never really a "band" in the conventional sense. But the one CD they did put out, Dreams of the Carrion Kind, will not only smack you down and call you Susan--it will then pick you back up, spin you 'round and smack you again! It is that hardcore. But it does it in a way that is so good, you'll want to be smacked. If you're a death metal fan, that is. Otherwise, you should steer clear because it is not for the faint of heart. I had almost forgotten how good this disc is until today. I was tooling around town with it just as loud as the truck stereo would go, without inducing distortion, be-bopping all over the seat like some kind of epileptic who forgot his meds. I'm sure the folks in traffic around me were having several laughs at my expense, but sometimes you just have to move that body, even if you are in your vehicle surrounded ridiculously stoopid Norman traffic.

Today, while surfin' the ebay, I came across a listing for a Creative Zen Mini. The listing expires in like 2 hours, so I won't bother linking to it, but the price was $309.99. It was a rather long listing, using all the cut and paste tricks ebayers often use when they are too damn lazy to come up with their own listing, or link to the manufacturer's site. The truly STOOPID part of this was that old boy snagged an image from Amazon.com to use in his listing. Apparently, he didn't check the code too closely because the image is actually a link that takes you to Amazon's webstore...where the same product is $60.00 cheaper! Stoopid. So stoopid.

Now, I know this is contagious because I am starvin' like Marvin but rather than going to get a bite from the kitchen, I'm still sittin here on the laptop typing away while my tummy growls. Stoopid.

Just incase you thought my life may have taken a turn for the exciting since fixing the dvd player, let me bring you up to speed. And remember kind friends, I can't be held responsible heart attacks caused by all this energy and excitement jumping off the screen, so try to stay calm. Mkay? Tonight, while Aimee was making a fabulous dinner, I shelled one half pound of hazelnuts. After dinner, while she was making candy, I shelled the other half. Steady, gang! I know that is hard to believe, but it is true--every single word.

Last night, I made divinity.

I know, I know--I'm going to put myself in an early grave with all this partying and carrying on, but I knew the life of a rockstar was dangerous when I accepted the position.

And the final bit o' excitement? I have been taking antibiotics for a sinus infection for the last 9 days, and what did I get for my trouble? A freaking headcold! Son of a bis-kit. How does that happen? So all day, I've been trying to speak english but it hasn't been working out so well. It has been coming out more like engrish.

Ah, the joys of the rock-n-roll lifestyle. It's hard freakin' work people.

Help Bushy Bushy With His Brain Power!

This is just too funny to keep to myself. Even if it is fun at Bushy's expense. Thanks go to the Biscochito Bandito for the link.

Good Luck!

Yahoo! News - Lottery Winner's Wife Regrets Ticket

What not to do with your lottery winnings. As if you were really going to win. Let me ask you this: if we can all be linked to the Dali Llama or Kevin Bacon in seven jumps, why is it that NO ONE I know has ever said they knew a guy, who's cousin met the half-sister of the brother of the guy who won the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes? Huh? Why is that?

In keeping with what seems to be the theme of the month, our DVD player/home theater receiver died last night.

After sitting through the 99 minutes of pure evil known as Thirteen I turned off the TV, receiver and set-top box and went to the office to do something--probably read up on your blogs. By the way, if you haven't seen it, don't. It is almost as bad as Kids and that movie made me want to schedule a vas for the very next day.

Anyway, Aimee powered up the DVD again to retrieve a CD she was looking for (our unit is a 5 disc changer) and heard something like "spin, spin, spin, crunch, crunch, crunch". Then there was nothing. No discs moving around, no discs ejecting and certainly no discs playing. Bummer.

I called the repair guys who fixed it the last time it took a dump (it was under warranty back then and the victim of a lightning hit) earlier today and they told me it could be anywhere from $50-150 to fix, but they wouldn't know anything until they opened the case and did the estimate, which is $35 just to play. If it was worth repairing then the estimate payment would be applied towards the bill. So at the absolute least were gonna be out the time and gas to take it up to N. 36th and Portland, before any parts or labor and possibly the $35 just to find out it would cost more to repair than it is worth.

After we finished watching our shows this evening, I disconnected the unit so I wouldn't have to do so tomorrow before driving it up to the city. I put it on the counter and Aimee and I kind of looked at each other like "well, it's out of warranty anyway..." and that was all it took. Truth be told, Aimee wanted to tear into it last night, but I was a doubtful we could pull it off without making it worse. Before long, the cover was off, wires were disconnected, screws were strewn about and we were scrutinizing every plastic part in it trying to find the source of the "crunch, crunch, crunch". You'd think something that noisy would have to be fairly obvious. Not so. There was an internal cover that protected the disc changer and lens assembly, so that had to come out, but it still wasn't at all obvious what could've caused such a ruckus. None of the little plastic gears we could see were stripped and everything seemed to move freely. But then Aimee noticed that one set of gears seemed to come under tension, then stop altogether, but we couldn't see what could be causing the tension. We spun the gears over and over trying to find the source of the binding, but couldn't see anything. Oh well, we tried. Sadly, there were still 4 discs stuck in the internal magazine including the one she was after in the first place, so we decided to take the magazine apart, very carefully, to get those out. Once all the discs were out, we were able to see the cause of the problem! One of the disc trays had jumped its track somehow and was binding the mechanism that pulls the disc trays into the player section. After a bit of tweaking and testing, we had everthing back in order, all the disc trays back in the magazine, and all the screws back in their respective holes with no leftovers. And the best part is that it even works. Well, the real best part is that neither one of us has to make a special trip to the ci-tay at the crack of 11:00a.m.

FOXNews.com - U.S. & World - Peterson Gets Death Penalty

Justice, anyone?

Hot and fresh, CA style.

FOXNews.com - After Hours w/ Cal Thomas - Column One - United States Needs to Quit United Nations

Read this. Then read it again.

We should've been out of the UN years ago.

Yahoo! News - Korn Show Leaves Politicians Fuming

I guess that was just too much Korn, huh?

Or maybe not.

Today when I was gettin' dressed for work, I was feeling a little...strange. So I got out a pair of real slacks--no cargos today--put on a button-down and grabbed the only sportcoat I currently own. I figured "what the heck", why not wear it. The silly thing just sits waaaay in the back of the closet wrapped in plastic wasting away. Let's get the poor thing out and let it shine! Keep in mind that our office is rather casual so if you wear a collar and a coat, every one there thinks you are either coming from an interview, on your way to one, or bucking for a promotion. However, if they had been paying close attention they would have noted that I haven't shaved all week and, really, when was the last tme you went for an interview and didnt' either shave or trim up that beard?

Sitting at a stoplight on the way there, I decided I would have a bit of fun with it. So when the inevitable questions started, I just told them "I wanted to feel pretty" today! Yes, I'm serious. Randy, without missing a beat, said "well then you've done it!" When I told Phillip, he looked at me as if I had said I was leaving Aimee for Christopher Lowell then said to "never, ever use 'pretty' in that context again". Big Daddy Don looked at me and asked which one of the other team lead jobs I was interviewing for. When I delivered my now pat answer, he looked at me in much the same fashion as Phillip and said, "No, really. What's with the coat?" I looked right at him and said "Can't a fella just get up and decide he wants to look nice for once? Maybe boost his self-esteem?" I haven't the words to describe the look Don gave me before he turned back to his computer to continue reviewing the turnover report I had finished only minutes earlier. I'm guessing he must think I'm a bit off by now. When I first started this job, I worked for Don and was still wearing three earrings to work at that point so he used to refer to me as "that kid with all the holes in his ears." Or so I was told later by Nate.

Now you know the really real truth: I am a dork. A giant dork, to be exact. And I love it. Last year on Halloween, I put on my best dress shirt, tie, coat and slacks then headed to the office. When people asked "what are you dressed up for?" You know what I said. You should've seen the look on my boss' face. Priceless.

By the way, I felt so pretty today, I had Aimee shoot a new portrait for the POT? archive page so if you are curious, you know the way.

Amazing how one little brown mouse can generate such a large smell!

Last night Jason and I were going crazy trying to find the source of this malodorous emanation, but despite all our best efforts we were unable to expose the source of the offending aroma.

Today it was getting worse and much more persistent, so after I finished my initial paperwork and got all the updates distributed, I started looking again and low and behold, I found it! A brown mouse had snuggled up under the left wing of my 'desk complex' and given up the ghost.

Stinky little punk had us sniffing around the HD last night like a couple of idiots.

FOXNews.com - U.S. & World - Five Killed, Two Hurt in Ohio Concert Shooting

Could someone please tell me how this guy got through the door with a firearm? PLEASE?

How about a moment for the late, great Dimebag.

Tonight I get home and pop the pilates DVD in the laptop, thinking I'll be able to get the largest part of the hour-long video finished before Aimee gets back from the store. You see, rather than making my loving wife hear the word "powerhouse" 3,198 times during the workout, I have been doing it in the office using the DVD playa in the laptop. But not so tonight, kind friends. After staring at the screen for forty seconds straight waiting for the auto play to kick in, I ejected the disk and tried it again. Then once more to make sure I hadn't somehow screwed up loading the disc. So I try to browse it and I get "Drive D:/ is not available. Device I/O error" or something equally windows-esque. So, like any self-respecting geek, I powered down and reseated the DVD module. Power up and...nothing, absolutely nothing! Stupid! You're so stupid! (Come on guys, remember UHF?) So I uninstall the driver and reboot. Still nothing. Ok, go to the Toshiba website and download the latest driver. Remove old driver, install new, and still...nothing! Well, nothing except for that mocking error message. Time to call for some of that free tech support. I call the number and get through in a surprisingly short period of time, like under four minutes. Guess what? He wants me to uninstall the driver again--only from safe mode. So we do that and...yep, you guessed it. So get this: rather than drop-shipping me another DVD module, even though I gave old boy the manufacturer and model number, they are going to send a box. I have to put my laptop in the box, send it back to the depot repair center (because the closest service center is in freaking Big D and I'm just not) so they can swap out my DVD then ship it back. I even asked old boy two times to make sure they couldn't just ship a DVD module. How absotively, moronically asinine is that? And they are't even going to use the TEAM to ship it.

Of course this has to come on the very heels of my "Oh, Toshiba is doing pretty good by me" speech after Aimee reminded me that our DVD/VCR combo we got for the bedroom is still a complete piece. It never has recorded VHS right, and now the DVD sounds like an F404-GE-402 turbofan engine (with afterburner module) spinning up in our armoire. Tasty. Downright freaking delicious.

Yahoo! News - Parents Go on Strike, Move to Front Yard

Notice it doesn't mention anything about 'beating the children'.

Coincidence?

Sittin' here at work, and someone has brought in the last dregs of the Krispy Kreme's from their meeting, as they always do. For some reason (probably that we are a bunch of eatin' fools) we in the HD always get the rest of the building's leftovers. Which may be why most of us have "HD20", which is that extra twenty pounds gained since starting on the HD.

The decision is this: to my right, I have a nice warm cup of coffee--light and sweet, just the way I like it. In front of my monitor is the perfectly ripe banana I brought to snack on. If I tilt my head to the left just so, I can see that wistful box of KK's on the table at the north end of the HD calling to me. And I know from peeking that my all time favorite KK donut is in that box--the creme filled, choco-dipped sugar bomb.

So then, which do you thik goes better with the coffee? The fresh, healthy bananna, or the chock-full of trans-fat and partialy hydrogenated vegetable oil donut of DOOM? Yep, the donut. But the real question is which one will I eat?

I have finally rated enough of these dang songs on radio.launch.yahoo that I am starting to hear the ones I wanted to hear again.

Who would've guessed it would've taken 603 ratings to hear Queens of the Stone Age again?

the Winsor Pilates Advanced Body Sculpting DVD smacks you and calls you Conchita Bonita!

Dang kids, DG was not joking. I thought I was all bad and stuff because I could pull off the twenty minute workout--and actually keep up with the fitbots on the video who are able to do the entire workout without breaking a sweat or so much as even hinting that they will lose the dopey permagrin. The only real difference being I ended up all sweaty and there was no smiling involved. So tonight, I decided I'd just pop in the Advanced Body Scupting video. Heck, I've mastered the twenty minute and I even took a sneak-peak at the first ten minutes or so of the advanced video last Friday, right? I think they purposely hid the twisted-pretzel stuff in the middle and last half of the video so we would foolishly think we could pull it off. All I have left to say is that I now have a much healthier respect Mari Winsor and her team of evil fitbots, but I will master it. Oh yes, I will.

And before that was work. Holy cow, who left the gates open? From the time we came in until the time we left it was brutal. Of couse, it is much worse for the guys answering the phones but it was bad all over today--for everyone. All I gots to say is I can't wait until the Christmas holiday rolls around. Oh well. I knew the job was dangerous when I took it.

Finally, in movie news there are two more I should let you in on. First, the lesser of the two: All I want. (It was also called Try 17 for some odd reason). It was promising. It has Franka Potenta and Elija Wood. It just didn't quite work out. In fact, Aimee hit it on the head when we bought it. We were looking at the DVDs at the wm, and she said "It's got Franka in it and she's always good..." Sadly, for the movie, she was the only thing it had going for it. It had it's moments and it was funny at times, but the acting was so clunky it was like they were all working on their first jobs. Not even the surprise cameo by Deborah Harry could save it. Alas, that's nine bucks we'll probably never get back.

The other movie, which was a big surprise for me, was Love Actually. I guess I should tell you that it surprised me because I was able to sit through it. Maybe it is this way for you too and you understand where I'm coming from. You see, there are certain actors I just can't watch. There are a even handful out there I find so repulsive that I would rather zip up my junk than have to sit through one of their movies. Hugh Grant is one of those actors. Generally speaking, just the sight of his huge, giant horse-teeth will send me to the other room. I can't really explain it, but I think it may be related to an incredibly bad movie called The Lair of the White Worm, but I digress. Love Actually looked really good when we saw the previews, and it does have some of my favorites (Emma Thompson, Laura Linney, Billy Nighy) but then I saw those teeth and thought to myself, "Dang, there's one I'll have to miss." Well Aimee recorded it and started watching it the other day, and I caught a scene with....him....that was quite funny. I knew I was going to have to just get over it and watch the movie. And I'm glad I did. It is very good. And despite almost falling into that beat-to-death romantic comedy formula it still managed to work it all out in the end. You should watch this one, just not with any guy friends. That may be a bit too strange. Spouses and significant others only. Mkay?

FOXNews.com - Foxlife - DiCaprio King of Cheesy Lines

Finally! I know now I am not alone.

I spent all of last night googlin' to find a free, easy to use, NON-perl, NON-PHP, NON-mySql, or whatever that crap is, alternative to blogger.

Guess what? I don't think there is one. I hear movable type is quite good, but that has to be installed on your server and since I am entirely too lame to host my own server and too tight to pony up the 28 cents (or whatever it is down to) a month for hosted webspace, that isn't an option while cox is kicking down 10megs for each email account I activate on our high-speed.

As far as I can tell, I have three options here: option 1, get serious about this and host my own. Option 2, get my intellectual freak on and learn how to do all this through HTML or XML. Or option 3, shut the fudge up and deal with blogger's "idiosyncrasies". Hmmm. I wonder which one I'll continue doing? I mean really, what else do I have to wank about? The ban is gone, Bushy is allupindahouse and I have a shiny, new Beretta in the gun safe. Life, as they say, is good. No, it is great.

And now for something completely different: Has anyone else heard that song by Lazyboy called "Underwear goes on the inside"? It absolutely slays me. "...it was horrible Johnny, there was cheesecake and porkchops everywere!" Brilliant.

Man, I'm sure going to be sad when Hollywood Video quits mailing out those "any 3 movies for $1 each" coupons. I love those things! Where else are you going to get new-release DVDs for a buck? And don't tell me blockbuster, because I cut up that card last week after over 2 years of non-use. Let's just say I've got issues with our local "lackluster".

So tonight was The Triplets of Belleville. And it was good. Very little dialog, but the animation told the entire story. It always sounds seems a bit goofy to me to talk about characterization when referring to animation, but the drawings really did make it a wonderful thing. It is CG animation, but they put 2D renderings over the wireframes instead of polygons or pixels or whatever they would normally have used. Some of the vehicles still look CG, but the overall appearance is that of classicly hand-drawn animation--because for the most part, it is.

On the DVD we rented, there are English, Spanish and French language versions, but we chose French to preserve the original feeling of the movie. Even though neither one of us could understand a word, it was so well told that we were easily able to follow the entire plot. And it is a strange one. A French boy who is being raised by his grandmother is all about the Tour de France. It becomes the thing that brings them together when the other things she tries fail. During the race, he and 3 other cyclists are kidnapped and the story takes off from there. The triplets are an old Vaudeville-style trio who befriends the grandmother, Madam Sousa, when she is in desperate need of assistance tracking down her grandson.

The music in this one is spot-on as well. If you want something a bit different, but very cinematically tasty, get it. Sorry, Dusty, I couldn't find Tiptoes, but if they had it, I would've rented it.

I just realized that I have put up an entire post without blogger hosing it up! What a freaking surprise! Hey, blogger peeps: still waiting for that stand alone version so I don't have to hook up to your server.

Tried to put this post up at 5a.m. but Blogger wouldn't hear of it. Oh well.

All I really wanted to say, since it was 5a.m. and all, was that we finally watched Big Fish and while it was pretty good, it wasn't all that and a bag of chips. I liked The Nightmare Before Christmas much, much better. In fact, I love that movie. It makes me very happy indeed.

Oh yeah, we bought Spiderman Dos thirty-seven minutes after it was available and watched it shortly after that. I enjoyed that thoroughly. Probably better than the first, in my opinion.

So then, the only one left to watch tonight is The Triplets of Bellville. I'll let you know how that one goes, provided blogger has their ducks in a freakin' row.