Ninja Cat

It's a slow burn at first, but well worth it

Turn, turn

Well, it would appear summer has left New England. granted, the leaves haven't gotten serious about changing yet, but there's a chill in the air and it's getting dark earlier.

I like fall. It's my favorite time of year. I love the crisp, clear air. The smell of leaves on the ground. Dressing in layers. Halloween. I'm not a fan of what fall leads to, but that's the cycle of life.

What I don't like is how expensive living is going to get. Dropping $3K on a wood burning stove. Another $400-500 a month to keep the house heated. Snow. These things I can do without.

Day off

Today I took a for-the-fuck-of-it vacation day.

Drove the boy to school, window shopped for wood burning stoves, split 2 cords of wood, worked on my Halloween costume, did some laundry, watched some TV.

That was it, and it was great.

RIP, Richard Wright

I remarked today that one of the things that sucks about having mature taste in music is that you have to watch the greats pass on, one after the other.

And no one sings me lullabyes
And no one makes me close my eyes
So I throw the windows wide
And call to you across the sky....

Happy 9/11 Day!

Seven years ago today things changed slightly here in the US of A. Namely, airplanes stopped flying for a couple of days, any pretense of personal liberties was pissed away, The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson was unfairly yanked from the airwaves, and the news crawl became a permanent fixture on CNN.

Seven years on, the country as a whole has still failed at passing through the Kubler-Ross model. We're not anywhere near acceptance. Not when the footage in Cloverfield is considered too soon. Not when a city can crawl to a stand still over Lite-Brites. Not when W still holds office. Not when you can't wear your shoes to pass through airport security.

Come on, folks, seriously. We'll never forget, I swear. We won't. It's a defining moment for the 21st century. The images of that day will forever be imprinted on our memories. But we can get past the mourning, the hand wringing, the fear mongering. We can move on.

We may never get back our pre-post 9/11 world, but we can buck up.

The wheel keeps on turning

Another weekend come and gone.

Friday night M and G were otherwise occupied, so KG and I watched season one of Arrested Development. We retired early, and that was nice.

Saturday Hanna arrived. We took the kids to Edaville Railroad for a "Day Out With Thomas the Tank Engine." The kids had fun, and we managed to be there in between the worst of the downpours.

We survived what was left of the hurricane with a minimum of damage. There was some flooding in the office, which is not a good sign. I can't figure out where the water came in from, but it appears to be somewhere inside the wall. The next door neighbors lost the top of a tree, which landed on and shatter one of the panels on my picket fence. One of the new ones, of course.

Today started off with KG and I having a shouting match in the kitchen, but that resolved quickly enough. Took the kids to McD's for breakfast, and then had an open house at TKJr's kindergarten. Tonight I created yet another gift application on Facebook, and am now preparing to call it a night.

Tomoorw starts another exciting week at work. Closing for August is Thursday ( Never Forget!), so I'm sure it'll be a stressful and highly annoying week. Woohoo, I say.

It has arrived

Got my copy of The Bunny Boy today. I have not had a chance to give it a good listen yet, but I am very much looking forward to my commute tomorrow morning.

I'm very interested in seeing how their planned internet series works out. For now, I'm just counting the days until October 12th.

w00t!

Sometimes I just want to talk. About feelings and things. Those annoying mushy things that supposedly connect one person to another.

Is it asking too much to have a conversation about us?

I've got a story to tell

Unsupportable Stupidity

I was cc'd on the following email conversation this morning:

Manager: Do the clinicians need to do anything other than turning the computer on and signing in?

Help Desk: No, I have set it up such that regardless of who logs on they should be able to open Citrix, log in, and use it as desired.

Manager: Thanks very much – can someone please write up step-by-step instructions so that Extended Hours staff in need will know how to use the desktops correctly? Thanks!

Umm, excuse me?? Step by step instructions??

Step One: TURN ON THE FUCKING COMPUTER.
Step Two: USE THE FUCKING COMPUTER.

For the record, this exchange was prompted by the manager attempting to turn on a desk top PC . She pressed the power button on the monitor several times. When this failed to boot up the computer, she freaked out.

Thankfully I did not have to respond to this request. I probably would have been fired.

Figures, don't it?

I called in sick to work yesterday when I was not indeed sick. I believe in the importance of the occasional mental health day, and of course I'm often called upon to stay home with a sick child.

Now, it's a little after 10, I'm tired as hell, my eyes are itching and I've been sneezing all evening. Top that off with a scratchy throat.

Guess I'm going to have to ride this out and hope it's just allergies.

Show some love for Hallmark

It would appear that the good folks at Hallmark have begun selling greeting cards for same sex marriage. While this may appear to be forward thinking and inclusive, the some what less good folks at the American Family Association think differently.

They've gone to the trouble to set up a website where you can send an email to the Chairman of Hallmark expressing your disgust.

Funny thing is, you can edit the text of the email. What's to say one doesn't instead send an email of support? Eh?

Click here and turn the hate around.

[Note] You might want to just cut and paste the email address rather than using the AFA page. I got me some email from them this morning.

Little Man

So, last night I experimented with the slide show maker that comes with the Nero software. It was fairly easy to use, but I must admit the constant pop ups asking if I'd like to buy the updated version were annoying.

Please excuse the varied wipes and fades. I just wanted to get a feel for how they all looked, and by the time I was done burning it I was far too tired to go back and replace them. I did manage to get in one star wipe, though. So I got that going for me. Anyway, here's a tribute to the boy:

Burn, baby, burn

I took advantage of the tax free weekend to finally replace my broken CD-ROM drive. I upgraded to a Sony DVDR drive. The install was fairly painless, and everything seems to be working. I burned a quickie CD, and it sounds fine.

I also purchased a plug in to convert VHS to DVD. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get that installed, dust off the VHS deck and dig out my old home videos. I'm guessing that'll keep me out of trouble and up late for a while.

Lightening!

Apparently the refrain of choice when nearly hit by lightening:

"Holy shit!"

Oh, he's not going to... arghhh!!!

So, I'm driving through North Quincy today on my way to pick up my daughter. I was waiting at a red light, idly gazing around. I noticed some guy walking on the sidewalk. He didn't look homeless or crazy, just an average looking, middle aged black man. He drew my attention because he stopped short at a large rain puddle on the sidewalk. Suddenly, he got down on all fours, and to my abject horror began drinking from the puddle. DRINKING!!!! I was stunned. I jest not when I say he was lapping that shit up! I was actually too shocked to grab the camera sitting in my laptop bag.

I have no earthly idea what would cause a man to drink rain water out of a sidewalk puddle. Some sort of mental illness is surely to blame.

Just another day.

Coincidence or conspiracy? You be the judge

A hep cat named Sal pointed this out to me today, and I must admit the resemblance is a tad uncanny:

The CW Network logo
Allah

While I'm not usually inclined to buy into conspiracy theories, I do offer this in support of the theory. You've been warned.

Screw you, high bidder!

All week I've been watching an auction on eBay for this original Burma Shave sign:

It was at $10 until this evening. With a few hours to go, it jumped up to $35. I sat on it until the last 39 seconds, and ended up getting out bidded at $65.

Fuck, I really wanted that. It's been a while since I caught the auction fever, so now I'm all riled up. I guess I'll have to make due with the knowledge that the asshole who got it ended up paying a lot more because of me.

Mosaic meme

Oh, and it's click-o-riffic!

So, I found this on Mycalls blog, and thought it would be fun. Of course, he has a nice actual mosaic showing on his page. Me, I just don't feel like joining Flikr today. So my meme, you gots to click the link to see the picture. Here's the rules:
1. Type your answer to each of the questions below the mosaic into Flickr Search.
2. Using only the first page of results, pick an image.
3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into mosaic maker.


1. What is your first name? Christopher,
2. What is your favourite food? "What? Oh, not much, hanging out, eating some pizza...",
3. What school did you go to? Salmacis,
4.What is your favourite colour? water droplets in the shower - o.k. bokeh,
5.Who is your celebrity crush? Come for the celebrities,
6.Favourite drink? Mmmm, there's more in here....,
7.Dream vacation? Reminder to Self: Slow Down on the Caffeine,
8.Favourite dessert? angry CIA killer,
9.What you want to be when you grow up? The Snuff Film,
10.What do you love most in life? An old Killarney home,
11.One Word to describe you? DEEP SEA HARDHAT DIVER #8 "NO EINSTEIN ON THE BEACH",
12.Your nickname? The Power of Blood (2nd in a series)

My answers? (highlight)
1. Christopher
2. Pizza
3. Mount Ida
4. Blue
5. Katee Sackoff
6. Sam Adams
7. Tropical island
8. Tapioca
9. Content
10. Kerry
11. Eclectic
12. Schultzy

Sweet smelly tongue goodness!

So, yeah... HAPPY DAY!! Tickets went on sale today for The resident's Bunny Boy show at Foxboro.

Tickets have been purchased, and we'll be soaking up some eyeball goodness on October 12th.

Woohoo!!