More FB - thru mid August

August 10th

I rented 'Gremlins 2' for the kids from Blockbuster. I wanted Space Camp (taken out of inventory and sold), Howard the Duck (missing from the shelf) or Short Circuit (unavailable in any Milwaukee Blockbuster), but whatcha gonna do? The kids wound up loving it almost as much as the original, and actually *thanked* me for renting it. Be still my shocked heart.

August 11th

Watching 'Babysitter Wanted' an unexpectedly good horror film starring a talented Jennifer Garner lookalike. Cannibals, Satan, some dark humor & a decent script - well worth a rental.

I tried treating the kids to a pizza yesterday only to find out Villa Roma has gone under; last week Bella's Fat Cat shut its doors too. I feel like sending a great big thank you to [Gov Jim] Doyle and [Mayor Tom] Barrett for fostering such a successful business enviornment here in Milwaukee.

{note: this led to some confusion, as readers commented that they saw Bella's still open and accepting customers. Posts from a few months later will show why we were all right}

We're watching The Rock in 'Tooth Fairy'. It's actually pretty dang funny.

'Did u hear about the Morgans?' was an average romantic comedy w/ quite a bit of genuine warmth.

We're watching the hand model/low talker/pirate shirt episode of Seinfeld. Truly LOL

[man, there was a lot of TV time that day, eh? LOL ]

August 12th

Hey - a neighborhood resident/manager at BN is the one who came to me with news that Bella's had folded. He said his wife went there herself & discovered it was OOB, and I'm 100% sure I heard him right. Still, I just got a FB note saying it seemed to be open today. I'll stop by tomorrow and find out what's going on. Meanwhile, I can personally confirm Villa is gone, w/ the inside empty and a note on the door.

Someone rifled through my car last night, which I don't understand at all. It's pretty damn obvious there's nothing there of any value, besides the car itself. I would have appreciated it if they'd closed my door tho', rather than drain my battery.

OK, so I went to Bella's myself this morning and it *IS* closed. There's a sign on the door promising they'll be open again soon, but what Milwaukee hamburger/custard stand chooses to close its doors in the middle of a 90 degree week? I fear they're kaput.

August 13th

The same people who preach the 'value of hard work, regardless of pay' are the folks who sit on their butt earning $80G while they pay their workers a subsistence wage- & then act smug when their employees can't pay their rent. Bullsh*t - the value of a job is in the standard of living it allows you to maintain. A hard days work for a fair wage, and nothing less.

What do you get if you insert human DNA into a goat? Banned from the petting zoo. (h/t Carlos)

[to which a reader responded: Speaking from personal experience Dan? My reply: I wish! Unfortunately, Farvmille won't allow it for 'ethical' reasons.]

W Lisa @ work yest.[@ State Fair] it was up to me to take all 4 kids for physicals. Immunizations for the two little ones, blood work & urine tests for all. All the kids (knock on wood) are very healthy and ht/wt proportionate, except Lu, who is only @ the 25th percentile for height. I bred with a Swedish-German because I value size, and what does Lisa give me? A 7 yr old only an 1 1/4th taller than my 5yr old. What a gyp. ;)

YaYa (age 8/nearly 9): 77.5#, 54"

LuLu (age 7): 52#, 47"

Smiley (age 5) 50#, 47.75"

Ginger (age 3) 33#, 37.75"

Among the dozens and dozens of things relegated to the mythical "When we're back on our feet": a compost tumbler.

August 14th

Lisa wimped out on me early, so I headed over to Blockbuster and rented the new 'Clash of the Titans'. I'm not sure why every modern movie hero needs to sound as if they have a bad sore throat, but aside from that it was a fine action film. I do worry that as CGI continues to improve movies risk becoming expensive cartoons, but that's a topic for another day.

Man, my kids sucked this morning. Here's a new rule I'm enforcing: if even one of them says "not me" when I ask who left the fridge open all night or who moved my phone charger, "not me" will translate to: "Only one of us is probably guilty, but just on principle Dad's gonna make all four of us regret the day we were born"

August 15th

True story: I stumbled across Jeeves and Wooster on PBS and told Lisa how I used to love watching the show before I met her. "Yeah," she said. "You and every other virgin shut-in".