November 30th 7:49AM
Food Network rocks
I've been trying to augment my skill in the kitchen, and foodnetwork.com has been a big help. My esteem has now shot through the roof, though, since I discovered their online videos, available for all kinds of culinary craftsmanship, including baking, cooking, entertaining, knife skills, meat & poultry, and more! Holy carp! They are irreplaceable for helping the clueless (me) find their way.
November 27th 4:49PM
Blog slog
Holy God, has it been this long since I blogged?
Work smirk
I chose to work last Friday, which threw my boss's schedule off, because I can usually be relied upon to weasel out of work whenever possible, and last Friday was one o' them possibles.
My boss also opined aloud that the day would probably be slow, and if he let a full crew work, there'd just be a bunch of "grab-ass" going on. He loves us, can you tell? So, not one to disappoint, I ran around the office all day, grabbing peoples' asses. Woohoo!
Just kidding. The day wasn't a nut-crusher, but it wasn't dead either - I took about 17 calls, compared to a daily average of just over ten. I also did some billable web design, too. So, Captain Grab-Ass was wrong.
Groovy movie
My wife and I saw The Incredibles today, after lunch. It was pretty damned good. I like super heroes and I like animation, so I was primed for a good time, and got it.
Dog flog
My niece was walking her dog down the street when the young pit bull of the neighbors across the street started harassing him - I heard my niece getting vocal about it, so I went outside and chased the tenacious terrier away. I shoulda beat him to death and done the same with its owner, but I settled for shooing him away. Good enough.
Sushi, uh, ... mmm, ahhh... premises are for jerks anyway
(Warning - this portion of the post is even less
interesting than normal)
My wife and I went to our preferred (and only known) sushi joint after the
movie. The owner's daughter, "Wendy," who I'd never met, recognized
me as (one of) the webmaster(s) of MantecaStuff.com,
and mentioned the site. Now, I'm not the type to fish for compliments, but
usually, if someone likes something you've done, they'll say something benignly
pleasant, like: "Yeah, 's nice..." This one just mentioned the
site, and stood there. The suspicious gap in our conversation caused my
to feel there was something she didn't love about it, so I asked her, and
she finally came out & said that she was uncomfortable that Stephen
Lam's name was on it. Apparently, he's just an employee, and is in some
danger of not working there forever, and she thought it might give the wrong
impression for his name to be on the Sushi joint's page on MantecaStuff.com.
So, now it's gone. I noted that it wasn't his idea to put it up there, it
was mine, and that Stephen's helpful and friendly nature are what gave me
enough enthusiasm to post the business's page in the first place. Wendy
noted this with all the reaction of an android. They were very kind when
we left, and even kicked me a something-something roll, for free! How nice
of them.
I haven't seen Stephen there the last few trips. I miss the smiley dude.
November 23rd 4:25PM
Dog of a blog
Ach, what a week so far. My son woke up WAY too early every day of the weekend, but then I got him back - I took him to get his shots on Monday afternoon. "Take that, boy!"
Actually, he was a little trooper, and bore up really well. I was very proud of him. I was not very happy with the doctor and their office staff however. It took over an hour and a half to get 20 minutes worth of care; that pissed me off. They streamline the process to suit themselves, not their patients/clients, and it's bullshit.
I'm working the night shift tonight, to take up for a lost comrade in arms. They fired a part-timer last week who wasn't terribly reliable, and I'm helping pick up the slack his absence provided. Up until now, the slack his presence provided was borne by everybody. Heh, heh. Anyway, I'm on lunch right now.
Shorties
I have learned that the show "Shorties Watching Shorties" is a great way to present stand-up comedy - they take snippets of stand-up routines, and run them with animations that represent situations in the sets. It comes off well, although I was put off at first by the way the central theme of the show is babies who embrace adult and disgusting (booger, poo-poo, pee-pee) themes. I'm getting over it, and the comedy is excellent.
November 20th 2:18PM
I use the word "fricking" a lot lately
Sue me. I didn't quite feel the acid that goes along with the F-bomb, and some of my tenderer readership might appreciate the substitution. Hell, I spoke to one broad within the last week who bristled at the use of the word "crap." So you never can tell. Using "fricking" twice in the same week doesn't normally suit me, but there you have it.
Fuck it.
Hail the Queen
I'm listening to Queen's "We Will Rock You" DVD, one of my all-time favorite pieces of media. You should check it out. If you don't appreciate it, I have no use for you.
November 19th 12:49PM
Wikipedia is a little bit fricking awesome
Paris from space is now my desktop wallpaper
November 15th 12:49PM
Life is a blur
The comedy show at the Fat Cat was pretty good, although the service was lacking. This aspect of live entertainment is fast becoming a fetish with me.
I find that I simply cannot enjoy a show when it takes 20 minutes to procure a fricking beer (no blender, no recipe, just pop the top and bring it to me, for crying out loud!), and 45 minutes to an hour for a plate of deep-fried food that takes 5 minutes to deep-fry. Unacceptable.
This obviously demonstrates just how important booze is to me on a night out for comedy - to me, it's like popcorn at the movies. Shamelessly expensive, but part of the experience just the same, and since I'm willing to pay the exorbitant fee, you had Goddamn well better keep 'em coming, Sancho, or I will hold a grudge against you that makes Khan look like Captain Kirk's ex-boyfriend, dammit.
Anyway, the show was good just the same, although the headliner, Danny Bevins, seemed like he was phoning it in until the halfway point in his act, when he seemed to start feeling a groove and broadcasting the material like he meant it. Up until that point, he was fairly wooden.
On the other hand, the feature act, Kristian Vallee, was funny, approachable and down-to-earth. I'd see him again.
E. Clark MC'ed, and is the same MC we saw at PepperBellys in Fairfield. He wasn't bad, but wasn't exactly inspirational, either.
She thinks my laptop's sexy
Dell sent me an e-mail yesterday, saying delivery would be at least a week later than they planned/promised, next Monday at the earliest. The next day (today), they sent an e-mail advising me it had shipped. Uh, cool. Whatever.
November 12th 12:49PM
I'm not sure I'm going to make it
Today has been an exercise in restraint. Everything is more annoying than usual - my boss is even more of a hooting dork of an ape than normal, my work is more distracting and irritating... I must be on my man-period. If ever I needed a laugh and a drink, it's today.
So we're going to see a stand-up comedy show tonight, at the Fat Cat in Modesto. Danny Bevins is there, along with some as-yet dimmer stars in the comedy universe. I fully expect to have a great time, and order my drinks three at a time.
November 11th 7:49AM
Sit on my lap, sweetie
I took advantage of my wife's temporary insanity last night, and put in an order for a Dell Inspiron 1000 laptop. Oooh, Tommy like...
November 9th 1:03PM
It's all ca-ca
My company's DSL provider is having major outage problems all over the place, so many our customers' DSL lines are down hard, and it's been raining dog shit all morning. What a great day.
Speaking of rain
The forecast calls for rain - did I mention my wife went back to work on Monday? - so maybe my wife'll get a day or two off this week.
November 8th 1:03PMClean livin'
Did I mention I gained three pounds? Yep - 236.5.
Hawking up a winner
I have been asked to change my voicemail greeting, mentioned in a past post. Ah well.
November 8th 7:59AMDemocrats implode
Since the day after the election was officially called for Bush, and Kerry made his concession speech, I have watched Democrats fall upon each other like a pack of jackals over half a chicken. They went from hope to hatred overnight, vilifying the American people and even their own candidate, saying that Kerry "didn't want it bad enough," and "our candidate sucked." How shameful.
You know, what? You lost. It was a hard loss, I'll admit - I've seen how badly people wanted change, how they had whipped themselves into an anti-Bush frenzy and convinced themselves that if Bush won, it would be an unthinkable Armageddon in this country.
The terrible fact is that that damned right wing and those from the middle who gave your guy a fair listen and still disagreed were motivated enough to get off their asses and do something about it on Tuesday, and people of your mind were not, or there were fewer of them. Either way, the process worked, fair and square, and you lost.
In the last election, Dems consoled themselves with the righteous anger that they were robbed, and the Big Bad Supreme court subverted the will of The American People (an assertion that was bullshit anyway).
In this election, The Goddamned American People are stupid and wrong and evil, and hey, there must have been voter fraud, too, right? Yeah, and maybe space aliens beamed 4 million voting Ohio Democrats aboard their Mothership until 11pm PST Tuesday night, frustrating the will of the people yet again!
Come on, just be good losers, and take your best whack at it next time. All this bitching, moaning, checking real estate prices in Canada and reluctance to face reality... it just makes you poor losers.
And stop beating up on your candidate - John Kerry wanted the win as badly as anyone, and worked to secure it. But he didn't win. That's it. Someone had to win, someone had to lose, and that last someone was you.
Stop the crying. Pick a better message, candidate, and try harder to motivate people. Pissing and crying, the likes of which I've seen in the past week, won't win over any open-minded voters over. It sure wouldn't get my vote.
November 5th 7:55AMSuper Dad
I rock. For the last 18 hours, I've been a model father and husband. I came home and worked like a Guatemalan immigrant whose Green Card renewal was in doubt, and I watched my boy so my wife could eat and take some nice long breaks. You shoulda seen me, vacuum in one hand, baby in the other; I'm terribly proud of myself. Somewhere, my ex-wife is taking it in the ass from some guy who lied to her about his first name and will steal from her purse in the morning when he leaves to go back to his wife, and she's eating her fucking heart out. Suffer!
Wow - that went from wholesome to hateful real fast. It never takes me long.
This morning, I got up with my son at 5am, fed him, changed him, watched him, made fried potatoes for breakfast, and got him started eating again while my wife ate breakfast.
Just like George Bush, I have worked to attain some political capital, and must learn to spend it wisely. Hmmm.
Husband of the Year 5 years running, punk!
November 4th 12:36PMThat's rich
CNN reports that:
The French military hospital housing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat denied reports that he had died Thursday, saying he had been transferred to another department for treatment more appropriate to his condition.
Yeah, the morgue.
Lucky bastard. I wonder if I could get sent to Paris the next time I contract a mysterious ailment. If I'm really secretive and ambiguous about my next hangover, maybe I can finagle a trip back there. I get some pretty stupefying diarrhea.
>cough cough<
November 4th 5:35AMArafat ... has AIDS?
Some reports are now coming out that Yassir Arafat may be limping towards eternity, having fallen into a coma before his medical condition could have been diagnosed, or at least before it was shared with the world.
I view the prospect of Arafat's passing as I do that of my boss getting fired: nervous, but cautiously hopeful. The current guy pretty much sucks, but the next guy could be a whole lot better or a whole lot worse. Knowing life the way I do, I expect the new guy will be disappointingly similar, a busywork do-nothing.
As I said, some have reported that Arafat is critically ill with a "blood disorder" and dangerously close to the end, while aides (there's that word again) close to him say he's just sleepy. I wish I could muster that kind of lying power - my next call in for a sick day would engender such sympathy that I'd qualify for workman's comp.
November 1st 12:49AMRoll a fattie
I weighed 233.5 this morning, same as I have (overall) for weeks. Last week contained no diet or exercise discipline whatsoever.