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Monday, December 30, 2013

A Crime to Remember

Greatly enjoying the ID network's "A Crime to Remember", a well done and insightful series that follows crimes of the distant past. Within one of its darkest tales, the gruesome "Career Girls Murders" of 1963, a reminder that even the worst aspects of human life carry within it some purpose: the mistakes made during the investigation of that crime led NY to abolish the death penalty and the US Supreme Court to deliver its "Miranda Rights" decision.

Friday, December 27, 2013

Gordon Hinkley

A big RIP to Milwaukee broadcasting legend Gordon Hinkley, who passed away this week at age 88.

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Mike Hegan

RIP former Brewer and announcer, Mike Hegan, who also had lent name on a batting cage facility here in Milwaukee. 

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Our Snowman



LuLu won!

LuLu is THRILLED with a Monkey-go-Happy she won in a worldwide contest on pencilkids.com! It came all the way from New Zealand! To win it she had to correctly id the foreign city shown in a video, which i identified as Cracow in the first ever use of my eastern European history degree! Lol good for her!

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Anchorman 2

Home again, after seeing "Anchorman 2" with Lisa, courtesy of $5 Tuesday's at your local Marcus Theatres - with popcorn included in the price. LOL'd a ton, picked up a few new catchphrases, and followed it up by going out for decrepit, moderately burnt coffee at the airport Denny's. 

We finished the date with a flourish:, by stopping at the grocery store for kielbasa that YaYa told us  she needed *at 9 PM*  for a cultural fair at school tomorrow. LOL

Monday, December 16, 2013

A Little Light Reading

My contract law flash cards

Joan Fontaine

Some news this morning that made me literally gasp with shock, which makes no sense, as the woman was 96 years old: the GORGEOUS and talented Joan Fontaine has passed away. Since the late 80's, when I was a devoted watcher of the AMC (back when it was an actual classic *movie* station), I have been a fan of her work, and, to be honest, her hotness. Along with Brittany Murphy, she is now enshrined forever in the Dan Slapczynski Eternal List of Five. RIP

 @ Landmark Family Restaurant 

RIP Quasi

Quasi, our deformed pleco, died overnight. He's been sick for over a week. Not 'ich' sick, but "lets move from the old folks home to the hospice" sick. RIP sir, and may you swim straight forever in whatever pseudo-heaven your soulless self has gone to in the sky.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Audrey Totter

Audrey Totter, a Hollywood femme fatale I just watched in "The Set-Up" last week,has passed away at age 95. RIP beautiful.
China has landed an unmanned probe on the moon. I . . . am not pleased.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Hot Dog!

To my great shock, it appears that I learned something in Criminal Law and the final went well!  I think that, barring the professor being on the take, I aced 32 of the 45 problems, bombed one, and listed 12 under "maybe" - but I'd go to Potawatomi on the odds of those "maybe's" being largely "correct" answers. This portion of the exam is only 1/3rd of the Final - the other 2/3rd's coming from two 2000 word take home essays I had to hand in to receive today's exam - so the possibility still exists that I stunk it up. But if I did, I stunk it up less than I feared four hours ago.

Quote of the Day

“The better we become, the less conscious we are of our goodness. If anyone admits to being a saint, he is close to being a devil. Jean Jacques Rousseau believed that of all men, he was the most perfect, but he had so many cracks in his soul that he abandoned his children after their birth. The more saintly we become, the less conscious we are of being holy. A child is cute so long as he does not know that he is cute. As soon as he thinks he is, he turns into a brat. True goodness is unconscious.” Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Thursday, December 5, 2013

BREAKING NEWS: The Brewers have traded Nori Aoki to the Royals for 24 year old lefty Will Smith. Aoki was the lone Brewer on my fantasy team, and a good one at that. I'll miss ya!

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Christmas Card Time!

Addresses, addresses, I need your addresses! Please...my new phone has no addresses saved from the old one. If you normally get a team slap xmas card, then please private message me your address. If you don't normally, and would like to start receiving the coveted "most awesome family ever" xmas card, then PM your address as well!!! Basically, you don't send your address, you could be crying over the loss later :) Lisa 

Monday, December 2, 2013

My Thoughts

RE: the (mild) hue and cry that we should remember the driver of the car too, not just Paul Walker, when talking about the fatal crash:  if you want to be remembered when you die, *DO SOMETHING WORTH REMEMBERING*. If I die the same day a pop star dies, good luck finding my obit. I'm cool with that, in large part because I hope to one day be the somebody that overshadows Joe Blow's passing.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Paul Walker

I didn't know Paul Walker as an actor, haven't seen any Fast & the Furious movies, and don't remember him in Pleasantville. Still, a human is a human, so RIP.

Friday, November 29, 2013

Black Friday 2013

Longest line of the day? Joann Fabrics, of all places, where the line not only snaked around a roped off queue but continued down about 40% of the store's considerable length. Second place? Easily Kmart, where the line was awe-inspiring but rather quick. No line of note at Dollar Tree.




Alas, the one item I needed to buy on Black Friday I failed to procure, and off-sale I may not be able to pull it off this Christmas. Won't be the first time I've had to improvise, but . . . sigh. I did get a few deals on smaller items last night, and *fingers crossed* my co-workers hopefully scored on two items for me earlier this morning. So far today we've cleaned and rearranged the living room and we're gearing up to go buy a Christmas tree, with some talk we may cut one down ourselves. 

Happy Black Friday everyone.


Jane Kean

RIP 90 year old Jane Kean, aka "Trixie"  from the Honeymooners :(

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Frustration

"Tolzein would have been on his back or throwing INT's [today], we saw 3 losses with him, I don't need to see anymore" You're an idiot, sir. This is a poorly constructed, shoddily coached Packers team, currently led by a QB [Flynn] that is a favorite of the coach despite being laughed off the roster of many a better team. Where are all the Matt Flynn/Ted Thompson fanboys now?

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Doctor Who - The 50th Anniversary

Following exactly one day after JFK’s assassination, another event that loomed large in my childhood took place: Doctor Who, a low budget children’s sci-fi show, premiered on the BBC.




As with Kennedy, I didn’t become aware of the phenomenon until the 1980’s. By that time, if I can get my own memories in sync with the chronology, they were already on the Fifth incarnation of the Doctor (Peter Davison) and it had become a worldwide cult favorite.

I don’t remember where I saw my first Who, or when, but I remember gobbling up the slim Target novelizations of each episode and imagining what the companions looked like, so it was at best a fleeting glimpse of the show itself.

Later, a PBS station here in Milwaukee began playing Doctor Who in chronological order every night at 10pm, one half hour episode at a time. I’d often pull up a chair in my Grandma’s kitchen and watch it with her – oh! The sacrifices she made for me! I enjoyed Hartnell, was not as in love with Troughton as most people seem to be, adored Pertwee (still my favorite Doctor) and was fond but not overjoyed with Tom Baker, etc.

Did I mention I fell immediately in love with Sarah Jane Smith, and still feel a pitter-patter at the mere mention of her name?

Around the time the PBS station caught up with the Davison era I stumbled upon a Madison affiliate that was broadcasting the very first episode of the 7th Doctor! It was probably a year old by then, but no matter; to me I was blown away at the “awesome” special effects, which seemed sooooo much more advanced than the rubber suit monsters I’d been watching every night!

I joined a national Who fan club and subscribed to their newspaper, once writing in and objecting to their casting the BBC of the “enemy”, and getting a personal response in turn. I had a Doctor Who mug, and a Tardis key on my key ring. My Mom crocheted me a reasonable facsimile of Tom Baker’s scarf that I still use. For my 15th birthday my Grandma bought me a retrospective of the show’s first quarter century. I frequented the Turning Page, a niche bookstore on the East Side that specialized in Who, and my Dad let me drive all the way there when he was teaching me to drive.

I LOVED that show.

And then it was cancelled, packed off forever into the land of reruns. Our PBS station refused to pay for the rights to the show and it was dropped from their schedule. The Turning Page closed. A Fox TV movie introduced us to the 8th Doctor but did nothing to revive the series.

Life went on.

I was happy to hear the show was returning in 2005 but was no fan of the overwrought, cynical acting of Christopher Eccleston, and let’s not get into how awful John Barrowman is as an actor. I barely paid attention to the series.

And then came Tenant . . .

He brought the show back to life for me. The charm, the wit, the excitement and the humor, it was all there again, in spades. He never quite trumped Pertwee for me but man, it’s close.

(Mat Smith ain’t too bad either)

Now the show is more popular than ever, a true global phenomenon. I wish more people realized that the pre-revival Who was darn good stuff worth watching, but I’m not going to argue with success. Today marks the 50th anniversary of the show, and what a milestone that is! 50 years is a heck of a stretch for a business, a marriage, or even a building to acknowledge; but a TV show???

Wow.


Congratulations to everyone connected with Doctor Who over the last fifty years. I tip my hat to all of you, and wish you fifty more to come!

Friday, November 22, 2013

What an Odd Refusal!

I offered to take in my JFK memorabilia to Lu's class - original newspapers, contemporary magazines, LP's, photographs, books, a plaster bust, etc - to tie in with today's anniversary, but my offer was rejected by her social studies teacher.

"Maybe next year," he wrote.

Yes, yes. Because the *51st* anniversary is the perfect time to use media attention to generate interest in a historical event.

JFK - 50 years later

50 years ago today John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, an event no Baby Boomer will ever forget.

My own connection to the event began twenty years later, in 1983. I was nine years old that year and had just started the fourth grade when my Grandfather, a man I loved and idolized, passed away. To say that his death put me in a tailspin is almost an understatement, but sometime in the weeks that followed my Mom gave me a book on JFK. It was just a thin children’s book, full of more myth than fact – I particularly remember one scene where Jack fell in love with Jackie when he first saw her over a dinner table – but it hooked me.

I began to read everything I could about JFK. In retrospect it’s easy to see I was simply substituting one fallen hero (my Grandpa) for another (JFK), but in those dark months it was just about the only joy I remember. Somewhere around that time, and I don’t remember if it was with my knowledge or not – my Mom mailed out two letters about my newfound passion. Just before Christmas, two packages arrived in response.

The first, from Senator Edward Kennedy, included a short mimeographed note of thanks and contained information about both JFK and RFK, as well as two 8x10 black and white photographs, one of Jack, the other of Jackie and his children.

The second package was incredible. It came from the Kennedy Library, and included the following handwritten note from William Johnson, the Chief Archivist.



Inside was more information on JFK and his library, and some items I’ve now forgotten. Here’s one I never have: an original copy of Life Magazine dated November 29, 1963 that chronicled the horrific events of Dallas and its aftermath.



 Remember, this was on the cusp of the 20th anniversary of his death. There were books and magazines and television specials galore, and I collected whatever I could. I accumulated a scrapbook of articles from the Milwaukee Journal’s Green Sheet, a few record albums of his speeches, a plaster bust of JFK, book upon book – you name it.

So on the actual anniversary of his assassination (in 1983 it was a Tuesday, if I’m not mistaken) I took this little collection into my school for show and tell, passing it among my classmates. I’d like to say someone was inspired, or even that it was met with boos – either one makes a great story – but I don’t remember, so odds are it was met with quiet tolerance.

Over the years my adoration of JFK waned. The reality didn't quite match up with the legend, and that’s a hard pill to swallow when it was the legend you fell in love with. My politics changed too, and suddenly a New Frontier that mocked Eisenhower’s admirable time in office held much less appeal.
The pendulum has begun to swing full circle, tho’ it will never reach the zeal I had as a child. JFK and I would disagree politically, but not as much as I once thought; his reputation was pushed to the Left by nostalgia and the far more liberal records of his brothers. He was a fiscal conservative and a cautious Hawk, two qualities I find appealing in a candidate. And even if he was as liberal as some people work hard to believe, it would carry a lesson all its own: that you can disagree with someone’s politics while still admiring them as a human being.


Even 50 years on, JFK’s memory continues to inspire this nation.  Rest in Peace sir; you earned it. 

Thursday, November 21, 2013

The Jingle Bus

This evening, while YaYa was at dance, Lisa took the three youngest to Turkey Bingo at their school, then headed down to the Holiday Lights Festival at Pere Marquette Park. There they saw fireworks, sang carols, saw the Mayor speak, and watched Santa turn on all the holiday lights! 

After class I met them there and we all took the Jingle Bus (a charter) around downtown Milwaukee, seeing the sights and the lights (rhyme unintentional).

On the bus they asked for kid volunteer's to sing carols, and Junie was the first to sing a solo, followed quickly by Smiley, and much later, a shy LuLu took the microphone. All three sang "Jingle Bells". 

Other than my fear that our van would be towed from where I sorta/kinda parked it illegally, it was a very nice, very sweet family night. Well done Mom!

Lulu's new bike


I purchased this for $20 at a rummage sale this summer and surprised her with it :)

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Sylvia Browne

RIP purported psychic Sylvia Browne, age 77

Syd Field

A belated RIP to screenwriting guru Syd Field, who died recently at age 77.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

The Gettysburg Address - November 19th, 1863

150 years ago today Abraham Lincoln journeyed to the Gettysburg battlefield to dedicate its cemetery, and delivered one of the finest - and shortest - speeches in history. 

The spirit of his mighty words lives on, as I hope they will forever. 

Take a moment to read them again, and offer up a prayer of thanks for all those who gave their lives to save freedom and our Union all those many years ago. 


Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.


Monday, November 18, 2013

I've Seen It All

I've seen it all. Hubby rearranged fish tank plants/skull to make pathways wider for our handicapped fish. He loves all creatures, big and small...lol....except mice. - Lisa

Monday, November 11, 2013

My Day

Lousy snow. The first of the season and I'm already wishing it was spring. Anyone who likes this stuff should check themselves in at County.

Anyway, I'm at Marquette School of Dentistry getting LuLu an exam. 

Later:

Now shopping at Goodwill

Quasi the Pleco

Sunday, November 10, 2013

A (Giant) New Pleco!

A productive day. I waterproofed the back porch - and the handprints of the kids we made in the cement back in '07 - then fixed the latch on the back door. Meanwhile Lisa went grocery shopping and made a great chicken dinner. And to top it off, confident that the Ich was gone, Smiley and I went shopping for a new pleco. 

We found one. But instead of the 1" version we had, we went home with a giant 8" beast that looks like an aquatic dinosaur found its way into our tank. Heck I was scared to even hold the bag when we left the store. 

The best part is, we paid only $4.99 for him. His spine is permanently bent, and so he's gone unsold and unwanted for weeks. It was his disfigurement that sealed the deal, just as GusGus's glaucoma ridden eye made me snatch him up. Yes, I felt sorry for a pleco :)

But, there was more to the adventure. On the way home Parker and I stopped at a store, and when we came back out I noticed the car was leaking onto the pavement. My first thought the radiator went, but no: the giant pleco bag had broken, flooding the backseat and pouring out the door! We managed to save just enough water to cover the pleco and hightailed it back to the pet store, with Parker holding onto him and talking him through the ordeal. 

We made it, and this time when we left the bag was securely sealed in a box for transport!

Saturday, November 9, 2013

A great day

A good day overall, and a happy opposite to Friday's misery. Dance in the morning, then a nap, followed by Mass (the priest led off the sermon with a discussion about Aaron Rodgers' injury), then dinner with the family and two of Lu's friends. :)

Friday, November 8, 2013

The End of An Era

The final issue of (Milwaukee based) The Onion will hit newsstands on December 12

Phone Problems and the Ick

My phone is acting screwy: text one contact, and another contact replies. I'm sure it's a fluke that can be fixed if I remove the battery, but as a testament to my laziness I'm not about to trouble myself with removing the case just yet. IOW don't count on a text conversation this evening.

Meanwhile, the outbreak of Ick seems to have been arrested in our aquarium, in no small part to my Awesomeness, even in the realm of fish doctoring. We've lost no one in 3 days, and all appear well except the goldfish, who no longer exhibits signs of the disease but never bounced back properly. If there's no further losses before Sunday, I'll start rebuilding the population.

Adorable!


This was taken July 1st at the Domes

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

My Little Girls

 



Changes at Marquette

 Today Marquette took a concrete step towards eliminating the part- time evening program ( I'm grandfathered in). So if you're a working adult hoping to get a law degree, you have only a year or so to apply and get in the final class.

Thursday, October 31, 2013

A Ghost Story

It was three in the morning when the ghost returned to visit Steven.

At first, shortly after his family moved into the house, there was only the sound of heavy, careful footsteps in the night. Alarmed, Steven would leave the imagined safety of his bed and venture down the hall, terrified of finding an intruder. But it was always the same; the kids fast asleep and unaware, the doors bolted, the windows locked.

In the morning he and his wife found it amusing, a curiosity to liven up the anecdotes they told about their new home. Neither, of course, believed in ghosts.

That was how it started.

What followed was a lull, two weeks of undisturbed and blissful sleep. And then, an escalation: the footsteps again, this time breaching Steven's room and stopping just beside his bed. After that the mornings brought no peace. The restless nights made tempers flare, and he grew angry each time his wife dismissed his claims, blaming it all on the shifting frame of a century old house.

Steven, for his part, was no longer sure what he believed.

Soon his wife let the news 'slip' to his mother. "I don't understand why you would worry," his Mom said, over his protest that the whole thing was blown out of proportion. "Our family has owned that house since it was built. The only people to pass away there are your great-grandparents, and even if they could come back, you know they would never harm you."

They were words meant to comfort, but did the opposite. He felt no kinship with a couple dead and gone twenty years before his birth. Nor could he fathom caring about his own descendants, at least those he wouldn't live to see. If there were angry spirits in the house, why would they be obliged to tolerate him? For the sake of a relationship four generations removed?

That was the night the figure appeared. There were footsteps of course, loud enough to wake him but no one else (although, to be fair, he never really slept well at night anymore, surviving on catnaps scattered throughout the day). They came forward slowly but confidently, as if the spirit no longer cared to mask its presence, and again, they paused by the bed. Ignoring his fear Steven opened his eyes.

Before him stood a shadow, a man-but-not-a-man. While there was no physical form, the shifting darkness that was its whole worked to craft an illusion of strength and bulk. Through the pressing, psychical weight of his fear Steven sensed a strange familiarity in the figure. Remarkably, he found himself begin to get out of bed.

Not yet, a voice said, and he had no doubt it could be heard only in his mind. Not yet.
That was the beginning of the end.

In the weeks to come Steven would spend his nighttime hours awake, fighting off sleep with a ferocity fueled by fear. His work began to suffer; his children, sensing something wrong, grew distant, and his wife, concerned, begged him to see a doctor. When he refused all pleas for help he found himself banished to the living room couch. For Steven it seemed a hidden blessing. The shadow man seemed contained to the upstairs level, and his few nights on the couch gave him his first true rest in months.

On the night of the final visit there was no sound, only an icy shiver that wrenched Steven awake with a stunning abruptness. The figure stood at the head of the couch, leaning over and staring - if it had eyes at all - directly into Steven's face.

Now, it said.

The figure began to walk away, heading for the kitchen. Steven's body, his mind, his very soul screamed caution, and he resolved to stay where he lay. It was a surprise to him, then, that he found himself on his feet and following the form. They entered the room together, and in front of his eyes the figure disappeared.

Here again Steven's body reacted against his wishes. His head screamed retreat, and yet he looked frantically for the figure, as if instead of vanishing he'd simply lost sight of him in a crowd. Through the pantry lay the door to the basement stairs, and the sound of the familiar footsteps. He opened the door(retreat!) and began to descend. His eyes had grown accustomed to picking out form and figures in the dark of night, and they came quickly to rest on a figure below.

On his way down his foot stubbed against an item on the stairs, and hearing it begin to fall he instictively reached out. His hand came to rest around a taped handle, and instantly registered it as his son's little league bat.

At the same moment he noticed the cellar door hanging off its hinges, and the glint in the shadow's hand as it rushed up the stairs. Before these thoughts were complete the intruder slammed into Steven, slashing at him in a frenzy. The first blow struck harmlessly against the bat.

A second later the man was on him again, grabbing the bat and tossing it aside before raising the knife for a final blow. Steven's eyes went from the knife, to the eyes of his assailant - and then to the familiar figure emerging from the dark.

Pitch dark arms ignored the blade and encircled the intruder's neck from behind, leveraging him up and off of Steven. It was then, only for a moment, that he saw the face of his visitor. There was no face as we know it, simply the impression of one, but in its imagined features was not one face but many; his great-grandfather and his father before him, his sons and his future grandchildren.

Even in the surreal chaos of that moment he knew in the end the fight would be his own. The intruder continued to struggle and the shadow grew paler, and in the dark Steven's hands found the bat once again.

Now, the shadow said, and Steven knocked the intruder to the ground.

He would see the shadow only once more in his lifetime. Years later, he and his wife would babysit their firstborn grandchild. In the middle of the night Steven stirred and wandered into the baby's room, and sat in the rocker alongside the crib. From the corner of the eye he noticed a shadow distinct from the darkness, but did not turn to meet it.

Together, they were content to stare into the face of the future.

- Me, 2009

Monday, October 28, 2013

Fish Armageddon!

A tragedy here today: one of the two feeder goldfish that have survived year after year was violently attacked by a rogue Molly overnight. A side fin was ripped clean off and there's a gash along its side. I removed the Molly, and tempering my anger, gave him to Smiley in a bowl of his own. 

Meanwhile the goldfish survives, obviously in pain, and much weakened. *fingers crossed* In addition, for three days in a row we've lost fish. A Black Moor died overnight on day 1 (but I had seen the ba*tard Molly attacking it the previous evening). A Beta followed on Day 2, and on Day 3 a red tigershark and a small feeder fish died. Grace is begging me to call Dale Czech for help, but I think that's just because she thinks he's cute. It's fish Armageddon around here!

The Christmas Wish List

Two gifts for my Xmas wish list

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Errands

A list of my errands to accomplish this morning before going to bed

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Someone stole my Groceries

Left a bag of groceries behind at the register at Pick N' Save, and of course someone stole it. The store employees were rude as hell about it, who knows why - it's not like I expected them to replace them. Ugh. That's why I get for not shopping at Aldi or Piggly Wiggly this morning.  F- Roundy's.

Just FYI

Available at Value Village on 27th and National

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Junie and The Sound of Music

Junie came home from school singing songs from "The Sound of Music", which they'd watched in class today. I'm super happy; I'd been trying to get them to fall in love with it, but good luck getting the kids to watch anything more than 10 years old at home. Now it's all she can talk about :)

Andy Pafko

RIP Milwaukee Braves great Andy Pafko, age 92

Monday, October 7, 2013

Three Thoughts

Ack. FB is rife with goofy political stuff as of late. 

a) Whether the Redskins change their name or not is not a political issue, it's a social and economic one - if the public and their $ demands it, it'll happen. Repeat, it is not a partisan issue and I don't blame Obama. Geesh.

b) the gov't 'shutdown' is not the apocalypse, and the people involved are not traitors. Disagreeing on how/if to fund this bloated corpse of a gov't is a legit issue for both sides. Calm down. 

c) I think Obama is a barely adequate executive who, to his favor, has continued many of the Bush-era policies and done a world of good re: student lunches. I didn't vote for him, I don't want him, I'll be glad when he's gone - BUT he's the POTUS and he will be for three more years, so I'm not going to waste my breath on pointless attacks or impeachment motions. Save your energy for 2016 when it'll do some good.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Vo Nguyen Giap

Vo Nguyen Giap, the history teacher turned General who helped drive both the French and US out of Vietnam, has died at the age of 102. He fought for the wrong side, but he was an opponent worthy of respect and so RIP sir, RIP.

Another Thumb Update

Around one or two in the morning my damaged thumbnail fell off, which is good, because as of late it had started to smell like rotting zombie flesh, and lets not forget the occasional pus that leaked out at odd times.  In the words of my wife, the whole thing is "Soooooooo unsexy." She is wrong of course; there's someone for everyone, and somewhere on Craigslist some nutty chick would pay good money for a swollen, pus-filled zombie thumb. If you know her, shoot me a message; maybe she can help me pay down that van repair.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Grumbles

Lisa, over my objections, vetoed a planned night out of town for our anniversary because it conflicts with Trick or Treat for the kids, and she feels its important we are there for the offspring that day. The weekend before is YaYas bday, so that's out, and the weekend after is just plain lame. It would have been our first night away alone since Job Prior, 5 yrs ago, and I can't say I'm not irked. When these buggers grow up and say we never did anything for them/cared for them/sacrificed for them, I have to remember to bring this up (along with a million different points).

The Van is Back

My van is back. The serpentine belt, tensioner, and something vitally important and impressive (but illegible on the receipt) were replaced. All things being relative, it wasn't that awful in overall price, coming in at just about 2x the cost of LuLu's teeth - and those things were just useless chunks of calcium. All kidding aside, I could use a nice bandage to stop the financial bleeding, but the important thing is we're back on the road and I've helped our moribund economy.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

More Car Repairs

Very bummed. Van went down with what sounded/acted like a broken belt early this afternoon, but upon inspection the belt is intact and all the pulleys are working . . . it's now at the shop and it'll certainly cost me more than I want to spend. Damn. And I just filled up the tank too, which part of me always views as a jinx. D'oh!

More Leaks

More alleged leaks from the supposedly confidential arbitration hearing for Alex Rodriguez. Former union head Marvin Miller was dead on; maintaining any semblance of confidentiality when dealing with the jokers at MLB is wishful thinking. WTH is wrong with the current leadership of the MLBPA??????

Tom Clancy

RIP the great Tom Clancy, author, age 66 :(.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

3-1

It's official, the Sad Sack Slapjacks are now 3-1 in my fantasy league after knocking off the league leader, and by morning I'll know if I share the top of the board.