Flaming Brit Eddie Izzard

Stolen from DJ, who stole it from YouTube.

Excuse me, I need to wash my hands

1,168,440How Many Germs Live On Your Keyboard?

And now, an Usher moment

Not that pretender Usher rap guy... the real Usher.

David Usher.

Doesn't he look like Keanu's brother?

Well, "BFF" and I think so.

We would just eat him up, we would.

Methinks it's not so weird to wake up crying about a dream in which I go to school to tell the nuns that one of their cherished 8-year-old students has died in a war.

Of course, I was the student.

My dreams have been really unpleasant the past couple of nights.

We're cooking with gas

Subsequent to this post, I am indeed cooking for my friend B., if only to make his co-workers jealous.

Apparently, he and his friends were pretty much living off canteen food. One of his buddies, let's call him Corey cuz that's his name, eats two reheated pizza slices and 2 hot dogs for breakfast. EVERY DAY. Yuck.

So... when Friend B. heats up a lunch of, say, roasted chicken leg and vegetable-fried rice, his friends tend to sniff around him, enviously.

Monday B. had pasta with my Famous Spag Sauce(tm). Today, chicken. Tomorrow, pork tenderloin with a double-stuffed potato and an apple/raspberry garnish.

Like I said... if I'm cooking for myself I won't eat. If I have to cook for someone else, I manage.

Though my new jeans are size 7.

Heh.

I benchpress 18 litres

Of water, that is.

I get a very large thing of water (the big blue plastic containers seen most often in office settings) as needed via the milkman, but up until recently I had the Teen to help me hoist it and funnel pure spring water into 2L bottles, which we'd then keep in the fridge and then refunnel into smaller bottles for various excursions.

Yesterday was my first time tilting the vast blue jug (for want of a better word) on my own. I tried to manage 18 litres in one hand and a 2L bottle with funnel atop in the other. Didn't take more than a few seconds to realize this defied the laws of physics and my own capabilities.

I found a compromise, though. Large 18L jug sorta of leaning on the kitchen counter into a tall water glass; then pour contents of glass into plastic bottles via funnel.

It takes some grunting and a wee bit of spillage, but it works, and it means I don't have to drink tap water.

Post-sales service

You'd think that "regular" people like Heather (dooce) and Jon would be more human? Nope.

Here's the thank-you note I got for ordering their calendar. Note the freaking TYPO.


Thanks for puchasing a Blurbodoocery product! We hope you enjoy it.

Heather & Jon Armstrong
http://www.dooce.com
http://www.blurbomat.com

I love puchasing things. Dooce just lost cred with me on two fronts (not that I am big potatoes or a large carp in a small cow field or backyard koi pond, respectively. ) Just saying: they lost it on the two areas that matter the most to me or, indeed, to any loyal customer/reader : proper supervision of your writing staff and decent customer appreciation. No less a man than Lileks made me walk away from his Bleat as a fanatic reader and purchaser of his books for the very reason that his drive for spending so much time on his blog(s) and late-night TiVo didn't quite jive with feeding his daughter microwave mac & cheese.

I am not holier than thou but I abhor crap customer relations (and btw, Lileks didn't appear to give a shit beyond his Amazon credits.)

It's raining!

It's damp and disgusting out there and it's raining when it should, by all rights, be snowing.

Sheesh.

Plus... I am watching a defective TV movie! (Not for much longer, mind you.) It's the strangest thing... you can hear all the sounds from the various tracks EXCEPT the voices of the actors. Birds are cheeping, background noises of all kinds are there, but all you can see is the actors mouthing their words.

I thought at first it was a stylistic pretension... but now I realize it's just a fatal flaw. Ah, well! Cue the next DVD!

(Later: even better. The next movie on the SUPR channel (remind me not to order that one from ExpressVu) has DELAYED dubbing. Bad, just truly bad... although the movie is pretty crap, too... I'll Always Know What you Did Last Summer... a sequel spawned by a truly horrific first film. Oh! No! I just remembered. I think an actress, was it Sarah M. Geller, who screamed so much in the first movie, I actually cheered when she got the hook? Yeah, I think so. Sick? Not so much. Healthy dose of reality more like.)

Better, thanks

Snide voice mails will not make me want to pick up the phone.

Have rented a couple of Grindhouse productions and those, on the other hand, make me want to blog. So far, Planet Terror with Bruce Willis and Freddy Rodriguez (of Six Feet Under fame) is, well, you know... gritty and gory and as cheesy as the box art. But with real talent on the roster.

I could be the only person I know who can salivate for BBQ ribs while watching a cannibal movie.

Just sayin.' A tad jaded.


I went into work Friday evening and the lights in the store were painful for the (thankfully-subsiding) migraine of the previous day. I've discovered that no-name extra strength acitominaphen (hope I spelled that correctly?) is more effective than Tylenol. Two days without coffee surely helped the headache go away, too... although I've known people who said caffeine withdrawal actually gives them a headache.

So I gambled, and brought a Starbucks iced frap with me. It was delicious.

And the evening at the store went by pretty well after only one crying spell! Just one!

I think I'm over the first phase of empty-nest shock now.

In fact, I saw the Teen today and he's in a good place. More on that eventually, prolly on the other blog which, apparently, more people read.

I got me a piece of Dooce

In an attempt to make myself feel a bit better, I went online and ordered one of Dooce's Chuck calendars. (All rights reserved, dooce.com)

Who says retail therapy doesn't work. Hah! I bought some beautiful original art cards from deej and the Dooce daily-dog torture calendar, and pretty soon I'll be able to pay off the rest of my Xmas order from Regalo Boutique (owners: Mindy & Chris).

It's just if I actually had all these goods in my hot little hands right now, I would feel a whole lot more human.

Le sigh. Yes, I will get over this phase soon. Just as soon as I land on the Moon or get a bit part in CSI: Miami with David Caruso arching his red eyebrows in skeptical fashion at me. Or something. Something unusual. That would be nice, right about now.

PS: Also? Dooce tried to make smoothies with a chunk of frozen fruit! Hah! Done that! Dinnent burn out my blender, though!

She came this close to commanding an Entreprise

I had no idea how really interesting Genevieve Bujold's life has been. Her Catholic school education, her temper on the set, and this: In 1994, she signed on to play the lead character, Captain Nicole Janeway, in the American television series Star Trek: Voyager. However she dropped out after filming just a few scenes of the series' first episode, stating that a TV series work schedule was too demanding.

Go here to read more about her.

She has a co-starring part in a movie that's on the tube at the moment, Delivrez-moi, which is one of those hard-hitting made-in-Quebec films. One of those really depressing movies.

I've always thougth she was a cool chickie. And I always pointed out Bujold to my Teen as an example of an actor who can really act. This woman has more talent in her little finger than 10 (insert name here: who? um... Andie McDowell, Julia Roberts, and a few blondes I won't even mention.)

She was in Dead Ringers with Jeremy Irons, among other roles.

Suggested reading

If you're in the mood for a heart-warming story, go here.

And here's an amusing little quiz: celebrity or look-alike? I scored 80%.

So, the boy moved out.

And so starts a new phase in my life, and his.

I'm not feeling overly bereft... yet... but the apartment seems awfully quiet without the sounds of the ever-present Fight Channel!

I think my biggest challenge will be making real meals for myself. At least when he was under my wing, it forced me to come up with a varied menu at all times and always make sure he got his veggies. Cooking for myself? Maybe not so scrupulous. I will try, however.

My grocery shopping habits will be different, of course. No more granola bars (bleck, for the most part) or cookies or Yop yogurt drinks to buy.

From now on, my mess is my mess and I clean up only after myself. No more stray hairs and fingernail clippings in the bathroom sink. Less laundry to do (although I have a load of his sitting here waiting... since he took the bus into town, he brought only what he could carry). Many fewer megs of HD space taken up with rap music.

His best buddy here in cowtown was upset that he moved. In fact, he reacted in downright hostile fashion. I had to explain to the Teen that Dark was unhappy because he felt he was losing a friend. But I know they'll keep in touch, at least for awhile.

As for us, we'll be in touch by phone and, of course, MSN.

And for Cootie's part... well, I can tell she's wondering what's up. She's been following me around today. She was always very partial to him.

So life goes on. Just a little differently, is all.

PS, later: I forgot to mention.... no more Pr0N on my puter! A few days ago I found a bunch of really sick files the boy had downloaded. I promptly deleted them and gave him a talking-to. This was not rotten.com stuff here or even Britney or Kim K videos... but rather, unmentionables that I figure most teens are curious about. Still, I'll give the kid kudos for cleaning up all the rest of the stuff he had on this machine... photos of online contacts, music, MSN chats which I wouldn't have read anyway. I have this thing about Pr0N ever since I found cache files of kiddie photos on my ex-b/f's computer. Sick bastard denied it all, but I will forever wonder about him.