Look at this exclusive first peek!
Apollo won Dancing with the Stars although I saw none of it. I was too tired. Jordin should win American Idol. After tonight my reality tv schedule gets significantly lighter. Hurray!
For whatever I have been lazy with keeping my office cam up. It is online now however. You can check out my current facial hair.
For some reason I was thinking about which sporting “moment” I have experienced has been greater or more enjoyable. Just on a general basis.
In bowling, there was the instant when your hard hooking ball hits perfectly in the pocket, resulting in a satisfyingly loud bang, accompanied by all 10 pins getting blown back into the pit.
With golf it’s when I hit a ball off the tee that comes off so smooth you hardly feel the impact. The shot starts a little right but from the spin it swoops back to the left and upward, winding up near the middle of the fairway two or three hundred yards away.
In basketball, which I never played that much of, it was hitting a shot from far away that hits nothing but net. Playing tennis that moment came when I managed to get all the angles right to hit a screaming hard serve in bounds that was by my opposition before they could even take a step. Another sport I played a little of, racquetball, had a similar moment when I would hit a serve as hard as I could and it would come off the wall low and hard, burying itself towards a back corner resulting in the other player lunging in futility.
In football it was running wildly down the field with the ball, faking out one opposing player while running over another as well as being the QB that could throw a ball deep to a racing target, maintaining a perfect spiral.
With baseball there were two things that were on equal level. Striking out a guy with a hard fastball that he swings late on as the ball makes that wonderful snapping sound as it hits the catcher’s mitt. The other time is hitting a homerun, a real homerun that goes far and high. As you round third base you just feel like Superman.
In volleyball the moment is always hitting, especially hitting a ball through or over a two man block. When the ball hits the ground clean and hard with an appropriately high rebound, it just feels great. A hard ace serve and digging a very hard hit by the opponent into a point for your team is very satisfying as well.
Why did I bring this up? I dunno.
Well last night was the finale of my favorite show of the season, Heroes. Although I have to sadly admit, the last few shows for me were not exactly spectacular. The finale didn’t answer all the questions and introduced new ones. Let me just address the ending.
After a less than compelling fight scene between the evil Syler and Peter, Hiro, the time shifting Japanese guy shows up with his samurai sword. Once before Hiro tried to kill Syler but since Syler has kinetic powers he simply stopped Hiro in his tracks. Well this time for some reason, Hiro is able to run 20 feet towards Syler without him doing anything and shishkabobs Syler on his sword. Ok Syler is dead or so you would think.
All along it was shown that Peter Petrelli was going to blow up NYC. They get to the final moments before he blows up, but his brother flys in (his super power) and he grabs Peter and flies him far into the sky so he can detonate there. This made no sense. Peter is the super hero of super heroes. While all the other characters in the show only have one super power (except Syler) Peter has the ability to absorb and acquire the super power of any mutant he is around. He absorbed his brother’s flying power way back early in the show. So Peter’s brother, Nathan, who up to this point has been portrayed as a corrupt politician, turns into a good guy and offers up his own life to “save the world” by flying Peter out of there. Now even though Peter blew up, he will somehow survive because he also absorbed a miraculous self healing power. What didn’t make sense was since Peter had the ability to fly already, why didn’t he just do it himself without involving his brother? Dumb.
During the last moments they show a bloody trail leading from where Syler was to an open sewer grate so he obviously isn’t really dead. The little girl whose ability is to be able to know where any mutant on the planet is by just thinking about them says that there is one person she dare not think about, who is worse than Syler. She says if she thinks about this person he knows where SHE is. Obviously a seed for the next season. They also threw in a scene where a dying black guy that was being taken care of by Peter when he was still a hospice nurse is actually tied into everything that is going on although it is never really clear exactly how or why he knows all of this.
There are various other things that didn’t get tied together but I suppose a lot of that was intentional as the gaps can get filled in next year. I’ll tell you though, the f’ing commercial breaks were ridiculous. I bet there were close to 10 of them. Cut the viewers a damn break. It totally f’s with the flow of the show and it results in not enough time for actual content. The whole ending sequence felt rushed.
One of the things they showed during the numerous commercial breaks were clips for the new Fantastic 4 movie. This one is about the Silver Surfer. I don’t quite get it, my scarce knowledge of the Silver Surfer is he is a good guy but the movie seems to be focused on him being a villain. Eh, either way I will want to see it.
The finale of Dancing with the Stars is tonight, thank God. A 2 hour show that doesn’t start till 9. I could not see a minute of it and be just fine but I will hang in there because I know Ali enjoys it so much. Of the three left I think that Lelai is the most deserving because I think she had zero dance experience before the show. I think Apollo had some conventional dancing ability and Joey was in a boy band for cripes sake. Not taking that into account I think Joey is the best dancer but Apollo has the better partner. She is so cute and so good for only being 18 it is crazy. Who will win? I don’t really know or really care.
I taped up the flap on Nicki’s doggy door. With the flap out of the way she now is quite ok with going back and forth through it. Now we just have to convince her that the flap is not some sort of immovable object.
Here are some pics of the projects from the weekend along with some cute pooch pictures.
Today I was setting up for yet another grueling 300 workout. There was a guy back there while I was getting ready. I have seen him before, he is middle aged, probably closer to 50 than 40. He sort of looked like Mr McFeeley from Mr Rogers.
This guy was another member of the terrible form club. He is yet another one of those guys that do reps rapid fire, using a third of his range of motion. Every exercise he does looks like silly. Well anyway I was setting up my stuff which included setting up my step bench. Well evidently, Mr McFeeley set his glasses on top of the step bench and I hadn’t noticed. (his glasses were rather small and frameless) After he got done doing a funny looking set of high speed, bouncing, stretching things he said something about if I saw his glasses. Puzzled, I said no. He said he sat them on top of the bench which I now had propped against the mirrored wall while I set the steps up. He pulled the bench away from the wall and there were the glasses on the ground behind it, a little dirty but evidently unharmed otherwise. Now of course I wouldn’t intentionally dump a guys glasses on the ground and I said to him “I’m sorry, I didn’t see them there. Are they ok? Just a little dirty?” None of which he responded to. He just gave me a dirty look and went out into the main gym floor to do some more exercises with bad form. F him. He meandered back into my 300 cave as I was finishing up. After the work out I am so spent that there is no tolerance for any bullshit in my mind. My fuse at that point in time is incredibly short. I was sort of waiting for him to say something further about it and I was all ready to verbally beat the shit out of him for reacting so negatively to what obviously was an accident. However he said nothing so either did I. I am the asshole.
All in all the weekend had a nice flow to it. On Saturday morning I took apart the pressure switch on the well so I could try to try to remove the cracked reducing fitting. Once I took the switch off and put a pliers to the nut, it just broke apart more, evidently it is glued in place instead of threaded. So now the job got a bit uglier. I was going to have to cut out the entire fitting, put a new T in place and attach the valve to it.
So I went to Lowe’s first since I struck out at a Home Depot earlier in the week. I walked circles around the aisles trying to come up with what I needed, a 1 inch T that reduces to a threaded 1/2 inch, a 1/2 threading fitting that reduces to 1/4, and a 1/4″ riser to attach the switch to. I stared at those shelves forever but could not find all the stuff.
Dejected I decided to go to the nearby Home Depot. This was the main store in our area, bigger than the one I was at earlier. Again I walked and walked and could not find the stuff. Finally, as a last resort I talked to an employee and described what I needed. He marched me right over to the adjacent aisle. The fittings that were in place were all pvc, the parts he showed me were brass fittings. For some reason I had it in my head that I couldn’t mix the two but when I asked him about it he said it was no problem. So I had the three parts I needed, finally.
Installation of everything went pretty well although it was a bit hairy. Since the T was going in between two pipes already attached to something else there was little room for error. I had to quickly swab glue on both sides of the T and shove it together. I wasn’t able to turn the fitting a 1/4 turn like they recommend with pvc fittings. It was a long 2 hours waiting for the cement to cure. I was very concerned that once I applied pressure to the joint I would see leakage. Thank goodness the connection was dry, problem solved.
For a good chunk of Saturday we were outside doing various other chores like mowing grass, weeding, weed whacking, and spraying. We are at the time of year when weeds seems to be the worst. I hate weeding. The most annoying thing of all are weeds that spring up in spots were you purposefully engineered things to eliminate them. All around the house we have a foot and a half or so wide border of stone with weed block underneath. I put huge sweat equity into getting this set up and the primary reason I did it was to eliminate having to weed the area. Well despite my best efforts, weeds still manage to grow among the rocks and right now is the worst of it. Even though there is only a tiny bit of dirt on top of the weedblock from decomposed grass and junk, it is plenty for certain weeds to live on. Removing them is a rather large pain in the ass as you have to move the rocks out of the way so you can grab the weed at it’s base to get the root, otherwise you will just pull the top off which will grow right back in no time. Of all the outside jobs, I hate weeding the most. Bending over for all that time does not agree with my tall frame.
Ali went to a make up party the neighbor was having and I just relaxed and played some WoW. After she got back we had dinner and finally got around to watching World Trade Center, which I downloaded months ago. I remember when I heard about this movie coming out in theaters it seemed like it was too soon. 5 years wasn’t long enough. This was probably also why I was in no rush to see it at home. It wasn’t quite what I expected.
I was interested how they would handle the story since it is such a touchy subject. They never show the planes hitting the buildings but they use plenty of the real footage we saw after the impact. The movie was focused solely on a small group of NYC port authority police that went into the building. The two that wound up being left were trapped under one of the collapsed concourses. I don’t think the movie needed to be made after seeing it. A big chunk of the flick was nothing but a close up of Nicolas Cage’s face as he had dialogue with the other cop that was alive in the rubble. The rest of it was about the families and their fear of what had happened to their loved ones. The movie just offered nothing that I needed to see. We all went through 911, we all saw first hand the tremendous human suffering that was involved with it. After the movie I said to Ali how it is strange that in some ways, the pain and sadness of 911 feels like it just happened yesterday but in other ways it seems almost ancient history, if not fictional. I think back about how after the tragedy the world all mourned with us, were all behind us and how our country was united unlike anything I ever saw in my lifetime before. That time period today seems so distant as we are now despised by more people abroad than before 911 and are now mired in a never ending, unwinnable conflict that had no connection to the original 911 events. Well at least big oil and Haiburton are happy about it. Anyway, the movie to me was an effort that didn’t need to be made, just restating what we all already knew, C+.
On Sunday we planned to go to a matinee of Spiderman 3. Before that I went out back to the pit and excavated some more sandy fill. The first couple loads went into Nicki’s area. The fill that we had dumped in her area to raise it was top soil sort of stuff. When she digs in it she gets very dirty. So I filled the big hole she has dug out with nice clean sand, hoping she can get her digging fix without becoming a dirtball. The other two loads went to fill in another small area between her play area and the house that normally floods out during wet season. Then I went inside to do a quick vacuuming job. I didn’t want to have housework to do once we got back from the movie.
We got cleaned up and headed out. We stopped for lunch and then went to Petco and Home Depot to look at patio door pet inserts. These are panels you install that allow your dog to go in and out as they please through a flexible door with a magnetic catch that closes it. We thought it would be nice for Nicki to not have to rely on us to let her in and out all the time. Petco’s doors were expensive, $230 bucks. Home Depot had a shitty selection of only doors sized for medium dogs, although they were about half the price. We decided to check out Lowe’s after the movie.
As we were walking towards the theater in the parking lot we heard a big crunch off to our left. Ali spotted it sooner than I did. Some dumb ass woman was backing her full size SUV out of a space and turned it too hard too soon and raked the side of a minivan next to her. This actually happened probably 200 feet away from us. We stopped and looked as the SUV stopped, the woman got out, went over to the side, witnessed her carnage and then brought her hands up to her head in dismay. I said something to Ali asking if she thought we should go over and make sure the woman doesn’t hit and run. We didn’t go over, I figured that other people much closer had to see/hear it as well. However Ali kept looking back the entire time we were standing in the ticket line to see if she saw the bad driving offender cruising out. We talked about how incredibly pissed off we would be if that happened to our car.
The ticket line was very long, unexpectedly long for a matinee. It was annoying because they have 8 ticket windows but only had two of them manned, contributing to the problem. We spent 10-15 minutes in line so my annoyance meter was already on the rise. When we got in the lobby Ali asked if I wanted her to go get seats awhile since we were close to the start time. I told her to go while I would get us a drink.
I have an uncanny ability. It is the ability to always pick the slowest moving of equally numbered lines. Whether it is the toll booth on the highway, the drive up teller at the bank or in this case, the snack line at the movie theater, I will ALWAYS pick the line that takes the longest. It’s a gift.
Well after waiting in the ticket line, waiting in this line was more annoying. It wasn’t that long as they had a bunch of people on the counter. Each line was maybe 4 or 5 deep, I took the line that had a woman and 4 kids with her. My thinking was that these five would all order at once, removing the majority of the line in one swipe. It didn’t work out.
The people in front of the fivesome were slow or the kid that looked like he was 12 behind the counter was slow. Several times I looked longingly at the other lines around me, realizing that most of the people that I started out equal with were already at the counter ordering food. I had that moment we all get where you weigh the prospects of jumping to the back of a faster moving line instead of waiting in your tortuously slow one. I decided to stay put, relying on my original hope that the 5 in front of me would order and leave very quickly. Boy was I wrong.
This woman looked like she was in her 40’s. The kids around her all looked to be 10 or younger. Finally they got to the counter and the ordeal began. Perhaps it is just me, but I felt it was reasonable for people to have a basic idea of what they were going to order during the 10 minutes they are waiting in line. This concept was foreign to the group in front of me. First off, the two boys ordered separately, even though the mother was paying. I guess it was an exercise in them being “big boys” who can order their own food. However they didn’t know what they wanted. “Um, I’ll take this, no that, oh can I also have this, oh and also that…” Finally the boys finished and moved 3 feet to the left so mom could now order with a little girl and little boy. She was even worse. Again, no one knew what the F they wanted and when mom ordered she would say one thing at a time, the kid would get it, come to the register to ring it up and then mom would say “and I want this” and then “oh and that…” By this time I was in disbelief. The woman had to feel the searing daggers shooting out of my eyes burning into the back of her incredibly oblivious skull. Finally, after what seemed an eternity at the counter, this incredibly annoying woman and her pack of little indecisive minions were gone. I ordered my drink and Reese’s peanut butter cup and was off the counter in 30 seconds.
It took me so long at the snack stand that I walked in after the previews started. I told Ali how I was delayed but didn’t get into the details. Oh well it was behind me, I was ready to enjoy the movie. Right before the movie started a group of maybe 6 or 7 young boys scurried in front of us and then sat in the row behind us. Immediately the chatter begun. I knew this could be an issue but I hoped they would settle down once the movie started. Ok well let me just deal with the movie first.
In a nutshell, it didn’t live up to the hype for me. Sure the action scenes were great, the special effects are top notch and there were many memorable moments during the film. However, for me, there was just too many things going on. Harry hates Spidey, likes him, hates him again, Sandman comes around and is tied into Spiderman’s life, Spiderman becomes what you think is Venom and then another dude becomes Venom, Mary Jane ‘s up and down professional career to go along with her hot and cold relationship with Spiderman. It was just too much. It was kind of a jack of all trades but master of none situation. The movie didn’t focus on anything long enough to develop it. There also were some really dumb parts to it that didn’t seem like they fit in like when Peter Parker becomes John Travolta junior strutting down the street. Eh it just didn’t work that well for me. I’d give it a B+ and sadly I think I enjoyed the other two movies more.
During the movie, there was another side show developing. These kids behind us were just annoying. They were talking, laughing at each other, throwing shit and spitting spitballs. I tolerated it for about the first half of the movie, hoping they would settle down. Ali thought that one of the parents of the kids was a few rows down sitting by himself. She was more annoyed than me at the kids and after she did one of her patented “turn around and look menacingly” moves I turned around and said in a polite but stern voice “Hey guys, can you please keep it down?”. They said sorry. They turned it down a notch but still were annoyingly loud.
A little later, a woman and two children come walking up the steps. Ali and both looked and wondered what the hell she was doing. Why would you be walking into a movie that is already half over? They happened to walk down our aisle and I almost died when I saw it was who else but the f’ing annoying woman that was in front of me in the food line! How appropriate. As they shuffled in front of us, we were looking at them in disbelief. The woman mumbled something about the kids decided they wanted to see Spider man… Unreal. Not only could the kids not decide on food choices, they also could not decide on a movie. I imagined the conversation this woman had with her little darlings. “You don’t like this movie honey? Ok let’s walk around the theater and you point to one you want to walk into, ok? Whatever you want….” Even though I know nothing about this woman, I have extreme dislike for her at this point.
So the movie ends, the lights come up and Ali is annoyed. She was so annoyed at the kids behind us that she wasn’t even thinking about the movie. She starts with another one of her common moves, talking loudly about people around us that are annoying her without talking to them directly. Ali was ranting about how ridiculous it was that a parent was there and yet the kids were allowed to be rude and loud. I told Ali that we didn’t know if the guy was a parent but she said she saw one of the kids behind us go down to the guy. As we funneled out the exit we wound up behind stupid snack line lady with her little flip flopping kiddies. Ali was still ranting loudly saying something about “… I guess it is normal for kid’s today….” The woman said “well you obviously don’t have kids…” As we got out into the hallway Ali said “if I had kids they certainly wouldn’t be bratty ones…” The annoying woman was heading for a different exit and stopped and said “Excuse me??!! My children were not the ones misbehaving…” I gave the woman a look of disdain and Ali just ignored the comment as we walked away. In that moment, even though I thought this woman was a dipshit, I felt like a jerk as well. I felt like Ali and I were Todd and Margot from Christmas Vacation, the yuppie couple that looked down upon Chevy Chase’s wacky family. It wasn’t a feeling I liked.
As we walked out I tried to temper Ali’s anger. I pointed out that if you stick 7 or 8 young boys together in a theater unsupervised, they are going to act like that. Ali’s point was that she was sure a parent was there. I said he may have been but the woman that we had words with was not the mother of all of them (although I think two of the boys were the ones with her) I dunno, I just had the feeling like afterwards I was the asshole. Although I am not quite sure how to handle the situation better. Should I bite my lip and let the kids carry on however they see fit. Should I threaten them into silence? I don’t know, it was a no win situation. Just another reason to watch more movies at home I suppose.
After the movie we went to Lowe’s and were pleased to see they had panels for large dogs, in white (to match our patio door) and they cost 90 bucks less than the Petco model. We paid for it and after some manipulation, were able to barely fit the box into the Camry through the fold down seat. Once we got home we immediately jumped into installation. It was pretty straight forward although we had to do some ad libbing along the way to accommodate the alarm system that is installed on the sliders.
We got the door installed and then went about trying to train Nicki to go through. Like anything she hasn’t done before, she was scared of it. Ali and I were on opposite sides encouraging her. We taped the flap up and she went through it. We praised her loudly and gave her treats. Then we tried progressing to her going through with the flap down. That didn’t go so well. She wouldn’t go through on her own. If we lifted the flap part way she would go but she wouldn’t initiate the act herself. Plus the noise the flap makes as the magnet locks it back into place was scary to her. We worked with her for awhile but couldn’t get past her going through without us assisting in some manner. Hopefully she works through it. We are thinking about having the neighbor’s dog Zoe over to demonstrate for Nicki since she already has a dog door of her own that she zips through constantly.
The rest of the night was low key. We both stayed up too late and are both tired this morning. Long entry….
The latest 300 workout report can be found here. My knees still suck. The highlight of the session was doing 19 pull ups to start it off. One away from the big 20.
If you think the sidebar in Vista is pretty cool but you want to stick with Windows XP. check this out http://www.desktopsidebar.com/ I am running it at work, it is pretty damn slick. It is especially slick at work since I installed a second monitor. I really am digging the two monitor set up. I like it so much that I may implement it at home too.
My Friday almost got off to a miserable start. It was pitch dark as I walked out to the kitchen and then flicked on the big overhead light. As I glanced back, I saw a big ass hairball and the accompanying throw up in the middle of the small area I walked through to get to the kitchen. I was just lucky to have cleanly stepped over it. So I grabbed the clean up gear and scrubbed away. I thought my janitor duty was done but of course I was wrong. Cat barf never travels alone. So as I walked around the right side of the island I spotted another nice half dollar size pile. Then to top it off, as I was reaching down cleaning this spot, off to the right maybe 18 inches is one of Button’s patented skid marks. I was so f’ing annoyed. A cat will never, ever be under my roof again once these two vacate the planet.
As I was laying in bed last night, trying to fall asleep after watching yet another good episode of Ultimate Fighter I was hearing things. This isn’t something new, I just never mentioned it before. In our bedroom we have an air cleaner running that provides white noise that makes it easier for me to fall asleep. However even with that running, I sometimes hear weird things as I am trying to fall asleep. Sometimes it sounds like music, sometimes it sounds like muffled speech. If we have the dishwasher running that normally adds to the ambient noise. Eventually the noise, whatever it is, fades into the background and I fall asleep.
As I was lying there, listening to the weirdness, it made me think about growing up and things I thought I may see or hear. Our house and property was downright scary at times for me. Our house in Gouglersville was an OLD farmhouse, I think it was built in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s. It also had various out buildings including a huge old barn, workshop, garage and a genuine outhouse. Being that old, there were plenty of places for scary things to hide. Here are the most notable ones I can remember.
The barn was a scary place for me, especially the lower level. The lower level had horse stalls in it and a connected dark room that was filled with various junk. It was the area that the push mower was stored as well as our bikes so I had to go in there on a regular basis. If I just had to grab my bike and it was decently sunny out, it wasn’t bad. I would snag my bike and be out of there. However if I had to get something from deeper inside the barn and it was late in the day or God forbid, I had to go in there with a flashlight, it was borderline terrifying for me. I can clearly recall the fear of going around in there, totally expecting to see a ghost, a voice or a pair of glowing eyes looking back at me. I just had the feeling I was being watched. It freaked me out. Upstairs it wasn’t quite as scary unless I ventured into the back of the barn that had two small storage areas that looked like they would be a very cozy hiding spot for a serial killer or demon.
The basement of the house had a low ceiling, was dimly lit and had a musty smell that I for some reason enjoyed and remember very clearly. Down there was the big oil heater. It was also where the washing machine was located. I can’t tell you how many times I would be down there and feel like there was something waiting behind the heater, stalking me. When I would go down there I would normally try to do whatever I had to do and get out of there without looking around. The basement was only dimly lit by the light on a switch. To light up the rest you had to pull the chain on a couple light fixtures. I always feared that as I turned on one of these lights a bloody, gruesome thing would be illuminated before me.
The final scary thing was actually the weirdest one as it was actually created by my uncle and put in place by my mom. My brother and I slept in the renovated attic. The stairway down was right in the middle and at the bottom of it was a high shelf that went across. My uncle is an artist and one of his projects was this weird sculpture. It was a big furry head with a face that was set in about 3 inches and was facing to the right so you only saw part of the face. I hated this thing. It creeped me out big time. I remember thinking this thing was looking at me, moving it’s eyes and all sorts of other freaky shit. Just like the basement, I resorted to just not looking at it as I walked down the stairs although at times it felt like the head was watching my every move. Now and then I would shoot a glance at it. I never caught it actually moving. In retrospect I don’t know why I never asked my mom to move it. It really scared the shit out of me.
When my dad and step mom moved back to Gouglersville, they pretty much gutted the place and renovated everything top to bottom. In doing so they removed much of the scary factor.
This weekend I plan on getting out to see Spiderman 3. I have various chores already written down and ready to go. The most important one is fixing the fitting that the new pressure well switch is attached to. The pvc part has a small crack that is leaking badly. We have started getting some pretty regular afternoon rain, I may be able to cut back on the sprinkler schedule.
I got my entry form for this year’s Pottstown Rumble. I sadly tossed it into recycling.
They had a sports injury seminar here yesterday which I attended. It was run by an orthopedist that seemed to be real good. If my knee issues don’t subside I think I may get a second opinion from him. The guy that I have been going to is very good but I don’t really like how my last set of visits went with him. I saw him initially and then after that every visit was handed off to his associate and they never really seemed to address the left knee problem other than saying that it “should” heal.
Melinda got voted off last night on American Idol. I predicted it to Ali a few minutes prior. She is a great singer but does not have the look that appeals to the masses. Blake and Jordin don’t have that problem.
Ali got sick during the tail end of our trip this weekend and is feeling pretty shitty.
Here are pictures of a few things around our house as well as pictures of the old well pump switch I replaced (which I since have discovered is leaking at the pvc fitting).
Here are the pictures from this weekend. As always, either mousing over a thumbnail, or clicking the thumbnail will reveal any description.