It has been raining for the past 24 hours. It’s been coming down pretty much non-stop. They say it’s going to just keep raining for a while.
And tonight, the floods arrived.
Animal Impressions.
Have you ever took a moment and pondered what your cat or dog thinks about you? I sometimes do. For example, as I type this blog entry, Tom is looking at me like I’m rather nuts and is voicing his displeasure with what I am currently doing. This is totally going to go into the “Too Much Information” file, but I’m typing this on my PowerBook while sitting on the john.
I believe in multitasking.
Tom and I have a lunch routine that must not deviate or else he’ll express his disappointment in me by meowing and making burying motions over his food dish.
I do wonder why he is so adherent to a timetable. Is it because I need to keep to a timetable myself? Have I trained him to do things in a certain way, or has he trained me?
There are moments when we’re out and about that I’ll see some random animal in our travels and wonder what they’re thinking. Does the pooch in the purse really like being in a purse? Is the squirrel trying to eavesdrop on a phone conversation while running across the road via telephone line? Do the birds really look for clean cars to do their business?
I find it all very curious.
“My Wife, The Ghost”
I’ve discovered a lovely little sitcom on YouTube. It’s call “My Wife, The Ghost”. It’s filmed in fabulous black and white and edited in a traditional 50s or 60s style in the likes of “Bewitched” and whatnot. Sure, the premise is a little dark but it’s actually quite fun to watch.
I’m in awe of the production value of the episodes and now I’m totally inspired for my next video project.
Keep It Simple.
Sometimes, I think we all need to go back and remember when things were simply stated. Take a look at these videos on youtube.
I think we should sit down all the politicians and remind them to stop making things so complicated!
Scents Sense.
A couple of months ago Earl and I installed a garbage disposal in our kitchen sink to aid with the mess we make when we cook and attempt to clean up afterwards. We both grew up in households where discarded vegetables down the drain are good and discarded vegetables in the garbage can are bad.
The key to garbage disposal success is to run it after filling it and giving it a drink of water while it’s doing it’s thing.
One of us, and I’ll go out on a limb and take the blame for this, forgot to run the garbage disposal after shoving some things into on Friday night. Come Sunday morning, it was showing it’s complaint by giving off a less than delicious odor. So while we were at the market yesterday, we picked up these lemony things that you drop in a grind up, thereby releasing a wonderful gas that should make the whole Garbage Disposal Experience pleasant again.
The kitchen smells like someone got frisky with the Pine-Sol. Lots of Pine-Sol.
I don’t think I understand the logic behind a “lemon fresh scent”. Who says that the smell of lemons means it clean? I mean, I don’t think we’ve ever seen a person getting prepped for surgery by orderlies rubbing lemon juice all over them. We would assume that said patient is clean but I’m sure he or she doesn’t smell lemon fresh when they’re wheeled into the operating room, a sprig of parsley on the side notwithstanding.
The truth be known, this decidedly chemically induced lemon scent is giving me a damn headache. So I’ll probably take an aspirin before going back to work. I think I’ve learned my lesson and will remember to run the disposal (is it disposal or disposer?) in the future.
And I think I’ll discard the rest of the lemon drops. You think I would have learned after my last run in with cleaning scents.
Creative Space.
When I took my walk the day of the Summer Solstice this past week, I made a mental list of things I’d like to get accomplished. One of those things was to get the room I call my “creative space” cleaned up and to make it a more asthetically and productive environment.
So this afternoon that’s exactly what I did.
Earl and I have been using matching office chairs for the past couple of years in our respective computer rooms. They’ve matched to the point where they were both broken, ready to fling us out of our seats at a moments notice. I felt a trip to Staples was in order, so we picked up a couple of office chairs and I picked up a desk for my PowerBook setup.
The Mac Mini has had issues since I fired up the trial version of Microsoft Office on it, so I wiped the Mac Mini clean and I’m in the process of reinstalling all my audio tools. Thank goodness for firewire drives, it makes me it much easier when your important files are saved on a separate hard drive!
I also dragged the IBM Netstation from the basement up here into the studio so I would have a computer that could be devoted to work and all that stuff. It’s behaving itself on my old computer desk.
While in somewhat of a cranky mood today (which was rectified by a nap), at least now I’m feeling a sense of accomplishment and that I’m ready to tackle the work week head on.
Alumni.
Well Earl and I survived my high school’s 117th annual Alumni Dinner this evening, followed by a the presentation of scholarships and other alumni association business in the auditorium afterwards. The food was delicious and the whole program was quite interesting.
I graduated from high school 20 years ago. I thought that I would run into some classmates at the alumni banquet this year, but no such luck as I was the only representative from the class of 1986.
One of the more interesting things I noticed about the high school involves my handwriting. The summer between my junior and senior years of high school, I worked for the district cleaning and painting the classrooms to prep them for the new school year in the fall. That same year, Room 102 was divided into two smaller classrooms. Instead of numbering the new room as Room 101A or Room 102A, I took a heavy black magic marker and renumbered the existing Room 101 as Room 100 by making the trailing “1” into a “0” on the room number painted on the molding over the door. I then wrote “101” over the new classroom, doing my best to mimic the other painted room numbers throughout the school.
My room number is still posted in faded magic marker over the doorway to Room 101. I found this quite exciting.
Coupled with the work I’ve done as a hobbyist with the clock systems in the school, my legacy lives on at Pulaski Junior-Senior High School.
Twenty.
Earl and I are going to my high school’s annual Alumni Dinner this evening. I figured this year would be a good year to go for a couple of reasons. First of all, my Dad is being installed as the president of the Alumni Association this evening and I’d kind of like to be there for that. Secondly, and quite honestly I can’t believe this, I graduated from high school 20 years ago this weekend and I thought it’d be a nice round number to go and see if any of my fellow classmates are around.
The Alumni Dinner is an interesting experience in that it’s held in the high school cafeteria, using the school’s table settings and served and prepared by the school’s kitchen staff. Tonight, Earl and I will be enjoying a fine roast beef dinner served a la fifth period with mashed potatoes that have just the right amount of “plop” when placed on a melmac plate.
I have to admit that I’m not really that nervous about the whole affair, in fact, I’ve kind of been looking forward to the experience. It’ll be fun to walk the old hallways again.
No Biggie.
Wendy’s announced this week that they are getting rid of the “Biggie” and “Great Biggie” nomenclature on their value meals. From what I can gather, the American public is no longer smart enough to grasp the idea of “Biggie” or “Great Biggie” as a size designation, so they are going with the old standards, “Small”, “Medium” and “Large”.
Here’s the kicker, and I have to admit that I really get a kick out of this. Well, not really a kick I suppose because I’m not doing the teaberry shuffle or anything like that, but rather, a kick in that it gives me a little bit of a chuckle.
Anyways, the “Biggie” is now … drum roll please… a “Medium” (and I’m not referring to Patricia Arquette, though she is a lovely woman).
That’s right ladies and gentlemen, what used to be huge is now not so huge anymore, in fact it’s just average.
I can’t help but wonder how this is going to affect the already growing waist sizes of the American public should this type of sizing develops into some sort of trend. We are constantly bombarded by news reports about the fattening of America and our obsession with fast food. In fact, I’m sitting in a fake fast food restaurant right now (Panera) while I’m blogging today. My large iced tea is bigger than freezer in my grandparent’s first refrigerator after it was defrosted.
One of the things that I enjoyed about our dinner date last night at Pinhead Susan’s in Schenectady is that the portions were reasonably sized. In the past, Earl and I have ordered some random appetizer that just about required a dump truck to haul it to our table. Naturally we ate the entire thing and depending on alcohol consumption at the moment, we may have licked the serving plate and surrounding table top afterwards, but we really didn’t need to eat such mammoth portions.
So next time you go to Wendy’s, you may get more by asking to “Go Medium”. If you decide to step it up to a large soda, think of the fun you can have by wading in it.
Fast Food Causes.
Over the past couple of years or so, Earl and I have steered our dining habits away from the “big three” fast food restaurants for the most part, opting to hit up local establishments when we are out and about on our travels. There are exceptions to this rule, most noteably when we enter Chick-Fil-A and/or Sonic territory, then we hit up each of these restaurants at least once. That is, until today.
I am big fan of the selection of food at Chick-fil-A. Their yearly calendar, featuring their rather infamous cows in various poses, has graced our kitchen for the past several years. I crave their waffles fries. I love the fact that they offer a “Polynesian Sauce” (instead of the pedestrian Sweet-n-Sour) with their chicken strips. I’ve even pointed out to several Chick-Fil-A cashiers that I live near the town that their cash registers are emblazened with (they’ve never cared) and that I’ve driven at least 150 miles to eat their food (they still didn’t care).
For those not familiar with the fast food chain, one of their unique features is that every single one of their restaurants is closed on Sunday. I find this to be quaint, harkening back to the good ol’ days when life moved at a slower pace. Whether the store is in a mall or standalone, it’s a guarantee that it’s closed on Sunday.
Chick-Fil-A is quite a charitable organization and supports numerous religious based organizations, including Focus On The Family. Now I believe that anyone and everyone has the right to express their religious or spiritual beliefs in any manner that they see fit. If you get spiritual satisfaction by sitting on a washing machine in spin mode while chanting “Era Era Era”, then I certainly encourage you to practice your beliefs with gusto. On the other hand, some folks make spiritual choices that are downright scary, but that’s their right and they should not be denied the opportunity. That being said, I will no longer spend money with a company that monetarily supports organizations such as Focus On The Family for these two reasons: this group believes that homosexuality, while inherent to a person in that they’re born that way, can be cured through various means (I can’t bring myself to read as to what that involves as I’m afraid it might include electroshock therapy and the thought of that rather freaks me out). The group is also vehemently opposed to gay marriage, because the gay boys and lesbians shouldn’t be getting married, they should be getting “cured” and then marrying a member of the opposite sex.
I think it’s obvious that these beliefs run quite contrary to my own.
Now that I am a little bit more informed on these matters, I can say without hesitation that I will no longer support Chick-Fil-A. In tandem with my beliefs of live and let live, I’m not going to ask anyone reading this to follow suit, but I offer this blog entry as a little piece of information.
