XTreme Playing

Posted on October 12, 2004 by Frog

When my sisters and I were kids, we played with Barbies just like little girls everywhere. Occasionally, we’d actually play nice with our collection of plastic people, but mostly we didn’t. Typically, one of the doll heads would end up in the bedroom light. One of my sisters was the master of climbing on the bunk bed, stretching out and plucking the head back out of the light. Sometimes all the dolls would get their heads switched. It was a challenge to get Ken’s head to fit on Barbie’s body.

My Dynamic Duo would often run over other dolls with the Batmobile. And, who can forget the always dangerous elevator in the Barbie apartment? Sometimes, the elevator would eject right out of the top of the apartment building sending bodies out into the air. Other times, Barbie and her equally stupid friends would stand under the elevator car and become crushed.

I came across this on BoingBoing and laughed to myself. I’m afraid if we had had a copy of Sims we would have done something similar.

Posted in General Spleen Venting | Comments Off

Home Away From Home

Posted on October 11, 2004 by Frog

We went to Home Depot again today at lunch. All this home improvement stuff is making it so when the good people at Home Depot see us coming, they yell “Norm”. Ok, maybe not.

We received excellent and stellar service today at the Home Depot. I’m not kidding. I don’t know what it is like at other Home Depots but the one in Mechanicsville should get gold stars because they always have great service there. We bought a new shower door and not only did the HD employee find a ladder to retrieve the door from the high shelf he also found us a larger cart so it would be easier to haul the door around. He went out of his way to help us.

Posted in Generic Thoughts | Comments Off

Things That Are Probably Strange

Posted on October 10, 2004 by Frog

Item One: My right wrist hurts because of all the work I did yesterday with the rolling pin. What was I cooking up in my kitchen? A new floor. Yep, almost all of the peel and stick wonder tile are on the kitchen floor. And, naturally, the tool to use is a rolling pin to smooth out tiles. It is a kitchen floor, after all.

Item Two: A couple started or finished an argument when they sat down behind us in the restaurant last night. Unfortunately, the better-half couldn’t get the “richard cory”. Richard Cory? What’s the story, Richard Cory.

Item Three: The total lack of other customers last night at Kroger. It was 9pm but what else do people have to do at on a Saturday night?

Item Four: At about 9:30 last night, while we were watching teevee, we could hear someone on a loudspeaker say, “If you can hear me, make the dog bark again”. Repeat twice and you’ll be as confused as we were.

Posted in Thinking | Comments Off

I Made Pee Pee In The Potty

Posted on October 8, 2004 by Frog

Last night we got a phone call from The Niece, actually my sister dialed the phone but The Niece was on the line pretty darn fast. And, this is what she said, “I Made Pee Pee In The Potty”. This, my friends, is BIG news. So big in fact that you don’t need to read the newspaper or watch tonight’s news show because everything else will pale in comparison. The Niece made Pee Pee In The Potty. She’s a potty training genius. She is.

An aside, she’s also the most polite 2 1/2 year old ever. After she told me the good news and I gave her a verbal high-five, she asked “May I speak to -insert better-half’s name here-?” That’s right she said May I. Not “let me speak to” or “I want to talk to”, but “May I”. The child is marvelous and she made Pee Pee In The Potty.

Posted in Generic Thoughts | Comments Off

I Heard It But Can’t Find It

Posted on October 7, 2004 by Frog

This morning on the way in to work, I heard a brief segment on NPR about a painting that a municipality paid for and had to then cough up another $6,000 to pay the painter to fix. Was the painting something obscene–like David with a boner and the city wanted a fig leaf? No. The painting depicts famous people and lists their names. The painter misspelled something like 12 names of famous people. Not just any famous people but people that changed the world–like Einstein. People we’re all supposed to know and readily identify.

Correct me if I’m completely out in left field on this, but if I deliver misspelled words to the client, I fix them. I don’t charge another $6,000 because I was an idiot.

Posted in Listening | Comments Off

Home Work

Posted on October 5, 2004 by Frog

When we met with our realtor last week, she did a walk-through of the house and pointed out things that we should repair, paint or replace so that we’d be in a better position to get a buyer to write us a nice fat check for the house. Last Friday afternoon we went to Home Depot and filled a cart with all manner of supplies. The cart was full. The bottom rack was full too.

On Saturday and Sunday while fighting off colds (with varying degrees of success), we managed to repair the silverware drawer, replace 3 bathroom faucets (one bathroom has two sinks) and installed a light fixture in the master bath.

Every time I open the silverware drawer I chuckle to myself. I usually yank it open with lots of force because it has been broken for the almost 9 years we’ve lived there. Now, it just glides open without so much a squeak. It makes me chuckle that the repair cost us $3 and an hour of our time.

The bathroom light fixture replaces the two wires (complete with wire nuts) that have been hanging down out of the ceiling for almost 9 years. The new fixture doesn’t cover the hole so that will get repaired soon. In case you are gasping that we haven’t had overhead light in our master bath for 9 years, please take a deep breath and realize we have another light that does a nice enough job. You can, however, go back to gasping about the fact that we’ve had wires hanging out of the ceiling for 9 years. I gasp and I live like that. The new light doesn’t get turned on much because I forget that the switch now works. I’ve walked past that impotent switch for years. That’s a habit I probably won’t break in the time we’ll live with that new light.

The remaining home work list is still pretty long but some of it is easy stuff–painting our bedroom, installing recessed lighting in the hall bathroom and getting someone else to scrape and re-gravel the driveway. There are some bigger jobs and one I hope we tackle this weekend is putting vinyl tile in the kitchen. The tiles have been sitting in the dining room acclimating to the house and we have all the necessary supplies (cleaner, floor leveling compound, trowels, etc). The current kitchen floor is atrocious and is part of the reason I’ve always hated the kitchen.

Don’t worry there’s no reason to think we’ll take a look at the results of our labor and decide not to sell. Dressing up the house is one thing but that kitchen will never get any bigger.

Posted in House Proud | Comments Off

It Really Bugs Them

Posted on October 5, 2004 by Frog

This morning I ran the car over to Jiffy Lube for an oil change and I took my copy of Linux for Non-Geeks to read while I waited. Since it is a beautiful fall day, I sat in one of the chairs outside and started reading.

After a few minutes a man and woman came around the side of the building. He walked with a cane and she had that hard smoker’s skin. You know what I mean. Women smokers of a certain age have that tough skin on their faces. No amount of moisturizing or retinol is going to repair that damage. Reason #456 not to smoke. I digress.

Continue reading →

Posted in Thinking | Comments Off

No One Expects the Spanish Inquisition

Posted on October 4, 2004 by Frog

No one expected the Spanish Inquisition and, yet, that’s exactly what they got.

Posted in Thinking | Comments Off

Mmmm Chocolate

Posted on October 4, 2004 by Frog

Today while making a deposit at the local Wachovia, we received a Hershey’s Kiss. It’s customer appreciation week and they are handing out chocolate. I haven’t gotten a treat while at a bank’s drive-through since I was about 5. Back then, the treat was usually a Dum-Dum sucker. I love the root beer flavored Dum-Dum sucker. I guess you could say I’m a sucker for that flavor of sucker.

Posted in Thinking | Comments Off

Helena!

Posted on October 4, 2004 by Frog

We have a laundry chute in our hallway that dumps out on the boy’s side of the garage. We’ve never understood why a laundry chute and why on that side of the garage. The washer and dryer are on the other side and as far as we can tell they’ve always been there since that’s where the plumbing is. We’ve never used the laundry chute for anything other than a way to communicate with each other if one of us is in the garage. We open the chute door and yell. I think I once sent a beer down to the better-half using the chute but I can’t remember how I could have gotten it safely down the chute without breaking the bottle.

Continue reading →

Posted in Watching | Comments Off