Whatever

$345 Squirrel

The chimney sweep had to do some masonry work to extract the carcass of the squirrel that had somehow managed to lodge himself into a crack in some bricks. We think he squeezed past the chimney screening, fell down the flue and when he couldn’t climb back up he tried to escape via a loose brick and failed. So instead of the $150 he added another 50 for brick work and another 50 for the tighter fitting (and hopefully squirrel-proof) chimney cap. Add that the 95 smackers on last Friday for the pest control visit. We get one expensive squirrel. Should have had the thing stuffed, rotting looking skull and all.

Still some flys appearing on the living room window and dead on the floor in front of it. Donna asked me to put a black plastic bag over the fireplace opening for a couple days, hopefully whatever flies aren’t dead by now will be when we take the plastic off in a couple weeks.

Manny Rameriz’s Batting Helmet

Geez, I’m sure it is superstition not wash it or whatever, but that thing is gross. It probably started as a little pine tar transferring off a batting glove, but it is now officially out of hand. I think the players have been spitting tobacco juice on it, that is the only way it could have gotten so bad in just the 6 weeks you’ve been off the DL – Yeck!! By the way, those Shirley Temple curls poking out from under it aren’t helping either.

Good News, Bad news

Top down for the ride to work. Another hot day in the afternoon, so it went up for the ride home, stayed down to the Bike Club meeting and even home from that. Good news was that the garage door opener is fixed and it only cost the $55 for the service call. Bad news is that all it took to fix it was that the repair guy had me shut the breaker off for 5 minutes and then turn it back on. He said that there is a prection chip on the cicuit board that can be reset sometimes when the unit takes a power surge. One of the remote controlled ceiling fans on the screened porch was discovered not working this afternoon, and for whatever reason, that same trick worked on it as well. Go figure. Also good news is the insurance agent called to say that any TV under 25″ is just a replacement thing, no need to even try and get a repair estimate. Makes sense, a new 19″ TV was $100 at Target, the TV repair shop wanted $20 just to look at it.

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions sine 02/02/02: 128

Hollywood II

I was 1 for 2 against them Saturday night. It was our yearly trip to the Big-Mo Drive In and the double bill was Showtime with Robert DeNiro and Eddie Murphy and Murder by Numbers with Sandra Bullock.

I was suckered in by Showtime. I think I was suckered in because the movie didn’t try to be something other than exactly what it was. It was a silly little plot littered with holes and full of clichés, but I still was entertained – here’s why: Eddie played a caricature Eddie, DeNiro play a meld of every DeNiro character since, well, the beginning. William Shatner played himself or what we have come to believe is himself and he is just like that in real life or he is as brilliant an actor as Andy Kaufman was. I laughed and I wasn’t even upset like I usually am by the every-car-in-the-sector police chase/blow ’em extravaganza.

And I almost bought into Murder by Numbers, but it tried to take itself to seriously. I’m sure when Sandra took the role it was because the character she was to play appeared to have depth because of her tortured past. For whatever reason it just didn’t come out that way. The collapsing balcony fight scene and subsequent rescue thing looked like it was thrown in because everyone involved knew it was a dog of a movie and felt that it would punch it up. Then when we got our now Hollywood standard triple twist in the end about the actual killer nobody really cared.

Taking Money Seems, Dirty

Seeing as I have a high speed connection a friend at work asked if I would download Slackware 8.0 for him. Did it and I just finished burning the ISO’s. All I wanted in return was for him to give me 3 blank CDRs. He doesn’t have a burner so he doesn’t have any CDRs, he will give me $2 for my troubles. For whatever reason, taking money seems, dirty, but I’ll take it and buy a big bag of chips or something. Would have rather had the CDRs….

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 73

Columbia House

I can’t help myself. The 12 for a penny or the price of one or whatever is too good a lure for me. I usually join, fulfill my obligation and get out. 6 months later I get back in. I am about to get back out again.

Got a flyer in the mail today, who are these people think they are kidding? A “Hot Pick” is highlighted on page 5 – Chris Issak’s Heart Shaped World! The album is from 1989. how can that be hot unless they still have several thousand copies in the warehouse and some boss is HOT to get rid of them. How about this? They have a two page spread entitled “Then & Now” with 2 albums from the same artist from the past and then one from the present, one such pairing is the Back Street Boys’ then, Milenium (1999) and now, Black & Blue (2000). Wow, their sound really has evolved over all those year.

Yikes! How about a warning?

I guess I set myself up for this one. Way back in the late 80’s when the internet was young, my favorite past time was to view other folk’s web pages. Find an ISP and look at all the local people’s sites. Some were lame, some were good and others were awe inspiring. I could waste hours a night surfing home pages.

Flash forward to the 00’s (?) and today’s new home page is the blog. Go to the Blogger home page and there on the left are recently updated blogs and blogs of note. Click one and it leads to more, which lead to more and the next thing I know it is time for bed. how I got there last night I don’t remember, but I started reading Sean’s Daily Drivel and for whatever reason it captivated me.This guy was writing about ordinary events like most, but he was incomplete. He kept refering to Kelly in the past tense. I read further and further back and then there it was, February 25th would have been his wife, Kelly’s, birthday and this was the one month anniversay of her death! Just 6 weeks ago Sean is another happy-go-lucky 25 year old, married for about 6-1/2 years and today he is a widower. Wife got sick on a Saturday with what they thought were kidney stones and by Monday she was gone, a victim of a blood infection.

That wasn’t what I bargined for while reading blogs. Damn, I’ve been bummed all day thinking about that. One day things are cool and like 48 hours later your world is rocked, big-time. Hang in there Sean, I hope the blogging helps ya. It sure opened my eyes.