I just got back from the dentist and there was a new hygenist instead of the annoying one from the last two visits. She is now my most favorite hygenist in the whole wide world. Laid back, funny–in the way I like and not in the yucking it up way and did a marvelous job without all the stupid chatter. May Jan, the rocking hygenist, stay with my dentist forever.
Today is my sister’s birthday. Happy Birthday M.
This morning whilst cleaning out my junkmail folder I came across two winners in the Spam of the Day™ contest. Please note the wonder of random words (and farm animals) smashed together to entice me to read the rest of the email.
Spam One: 
Spam Two: 
It is 10:45pm. The neighbor is cutting the grass. He is an asshat.
The other evening when The Niece visited, she wanted to go outside and sit in the truck, where she proceeded to switch all the switches, pull all the levers, and ask me to roll the windows up and down, up and down…. The activities included an attempted feed of the credit card into the CD player (intercepted in time), and a little bit of napkin art. For posterity, here’s her first triptych. Media: rollerball pen over fast food napkin. Date: 23 June 2004.
I got a free copy of Cook’s Illustrated in the mail today and started reading it. I got a few pages into and thought I would post to see if anyone else gets this magazine and if it is worth subscribing to it. It seems like a valuable read. Please leave a comment if you have an opinion. Thanks.
As an aside, I sat down about 45 minutes ago to post the above paragraph and just finally got around to it. Know how a stack of filing just suddenly pisses you off? We have a plastic file box and notebook that get updated somewhat regularly but, apparently, neither one of us has done it since LAST YEAR. Everything of value is now filed and there is a stack of trash on the floor. I sent the better-half an email that he can look through that stack and salvage what he wants but he has to do it tonight because I’m chucking it tomorrow.
I realize that if a stack of filing pissed me off, a stack of trash on the floor should send me to the nuthouse. Lala–it doesn’t.
The more I read about copy-protection on music CDs the more upset I get. I’m completely sick of the RIAA hunting down children to slap fines on them for swapping music.
I know that stealing is stealing. Don’t get me wrong regarding theft. I get it. It is wrong and illegal. At the same time, the RIAA should find a new way to do business. Adapt or perish, you thugs. Treating all of your customers like a bunch of thieves will come back to haunt you.
Last night the Niece and her parents came over for a visit and to eat some ice cream. Actually I had some ice cream sandwiches and fruit-cicles and we munched on those.
As they were leaving, I was putting the Niece in the car and I bumped her head on the car. She wasn’t really hurt but I think she was a little pissed and surprised that I would inflict such cruelty on her. She got kisses from mama and that seemed to work. It also helped that I grabbed her magnetic drawing board and told her I was drawing a picture of her including the bump on her head. She took the board from me and studied the picture for a second and then very emphatically said “Thank you so much”. With that, they were off.
My mother gave us the heads up the other day about a show on China’s Lost Girls. If you can catch the show in repeat, I highly recommend it. I think the show did a good job of balancing both sides of the story–what is happening in China and what the American parents go through.
Some parts of the story were very familiar to us since it mirrored what my sister and her husband went through when they adopted the Niece. In fact, some of it was like watching the video of their trip to China. Especially how excited the families were prior to getting their daughters. I was at my sister’s house when they got the referral package with the Niece’s picture and paperwork. It was an amazing experience and I’m really glad I was able to participate in that day. I equate that day with being there for her birth.
Last night, after catching the Metro back to our hotel, we discussed the concert. Sure, we talked about the musicianship, the flat-out superb guitar playing, how the pianist reminded the better-half of Patrick Macnee–the usual.
One of the things we discussed at length was the clarity of the sound. It was loud but it was pure. The better-half even said we could throw out all of our speakers and load up on the JBL. Believe the hype–JBL is all about clarity and tone.
