Congrats!

My niece Caitlin made the freshman volleyball team!! It's been proven that High school athletes:* make higher grades* get into less trouble* graduate at a higher rate* drop out less often* have higher GPAs than non-athletes. Now she is a high school athlete, and I couldn't be prouder of you Kay kay!! - Lisa, with a monster 'ditto!' from me!

her Dad: Great stuff, Kay Kay is what Ryan used to call you right?

Caitlin: [Yaya} started it!

YaYa: That's right, give props, lol....Ahem....Actually I consider myself partially responsible for the solidified use of the name when I branded it your rapper/hood name, remember??? LOL  

Yaya: ;D lol oh yes.

Stop the Nonsense!

A local station chopped Snoop's rap out of Katy Perry's "California Gurls" & I mean CHOPPED - as abrupt a change as you''ll ever hear. Another station edited out  'crackhead' in "You're Love is my Drug" - presumably because the Crackhead community might take offense. I suppose these r the same yahoo's that flip over the cover of Rolling Stone on newsstands to protect our fragile little eyes. G'damn morality police.

Gizmo steals our ham!

Gizmo, the cat we inherited from my wife's Aunt when she passed away in June, stole a 2# bag of shaved ham Lisa had just put on the table. I recovered the torn/chewed bag from the basement floor a few minutes later. Ghetto little beast. 

In other news, something you don't see every day: two dragonflies bumping nasties in the backyard. It was quite the sight for the kids.

Quote

Study, drill and technique do not stifle talent - they free it.

G'damn I look good tonight. It's times like this I wish I had a twin brother, just so I'd know what it's like to stand alongside true beauty.

Extract

We watched the movie "Extract" last night, starring Justin Bateman, Ben Affleck, and the hot brunette from 'That '70's Show". It was a pretty good comedy, and certainly worth a Redbox rental.

I rented 'Furry Vengence' w/ Brendan Fraser & Brooke Shields for the kids. They luv it, & I admit LOL'ing when the racoon peed in Fraser's mouth.

Hungarian Goulash

I'm making traditional Hungarian Goulash for dinner. It's the first time I'll ever eat it, much less create it from scratch. I saw the recipe on 'America's Test Kitchen' & had to try it. Beef, paprika, bay leaves, vinegar, 2.5 hrs in a dutch oven, etc - I hope I didn't take on too large of a task.

update: The goulash? Good sh*t Maynard.

Yum! - Lisa

On Prescription Drug and Litigation

During today's trash TV (Maury, etc) there were many ads encouraging people to sue drug companies for X, Y & Z. Here's my 2 cents: if a drug is tested & approved by the FDA, then drug companies should be exempt from litigation related to side effects. Sound harsh? Then make the approval process tougher. 'Course, folks already think the process is too long, but the public always finds *something* to whine about.

Or at least make advertising the class action suits on tv illegal. People don't even realize whatever symptoms they are having are related to a past prescribed med until they realize they can cash in....ridiculous, especially for the people that need the prescriptions to be affordable! - Lisa

WOT fans: Brandon Sanderson reports that the last draft of Towers of Midnight is ready for the printer. Release date: November 2nd, exactly one wk before I pick up my deluxe copy of Dubya's memoir. Gonna be a fine November for readers :)

@ the barber w/ Smiley (who is 5) and there's a ten yr old crying during his haircut. Nut up dude.

Quote

 "You don't see your own children grow unless there's a new one to remind you how tiny they come." - quote from The Searchers, by Alan LeMay

A Quote

Never trust a traitor, even one that you create

That's a line I read back when I was 12 or so, in Avon by Paul Darrow (a novel of Blakes 7). It's stuck with me since that day. 

BIG News!

@ emissions testing, waiting to renew Lisa's plates.

Oh! And big news today: the Never Ending Pasta Bowl is back at the O. G. Life is complete.

K-Mart

Not that it matters to anyone, but K-Mart truly is the place where lousy customer service goes to flourish and multiply.

I've found some decent deals there lately, and the only place left w/ layaway....my kids only hope for a decent Christmas, lol. But customer service there is still as much of a joke as always. - Lisa

Still more Farmville

So . . . is the mammoth statue too much?

FV friends - please help in 'raising' my expanded chicken coop. I'm also in need of Topaz, horseshoes, bees, and a life. Thank you in advance.

UP

We just finished watching Pixar's "Up". I'm not sure why the kids (who watched it earlier in the day) loved it as much as they did, as balloon/house/talking dog silliness aside, it's very much a movie about adult themes. The montage of Fredrickson's marriage? It said more in 90 seconds, without a single line of dialogue, than most movies do in 90 minutes. Well done.

The Stone Sword

@ The Stone Sword, a medieval theme restaurant, w/ the kids and mee lady.

It was a huge disappointment. Nothing "themed" except the walls. No one talked funny or wore costumes, what a bummer. And my meal was so bad I didn't eat it and asked them to take it off the bill....and I NEVER do that. - Lisa

It's on Layton, in the old Sizzler building. It wasn't *that* bad, although Lisa's meal sucked. I like mine, and the sweet potato fries were da bomb. Overall, I'd give the place a C- as a restaurant, an F as a themed place, and a lifespan of less than 6 months. 

Date Night

w/ the kids at sleepovers, we began a 20 hr childless period (of which 1/3 was devoted to sleep, 1/3 to work). It was more of a tease than an actual respite, but we did get good & drunk on tequila at El Fuego, then returned home to watch 'Date Night'. A good movie, and appropriate, but dragged down by Tina Fey. One more time: she's a writer, not an actress. She sucks in front of the camera.

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".

Junie raids the fridge

How much can a twenty pounder eat? Corn dogs, carrots, a granola bar, some salad, an apple, cereal, waffles . . now she just raided the fridge and brought me a jar of peanut butter and cream cheese. YOU ARE TWO. YOU DO NOT HAVE A TAPEWORM. GO WATCH ELMO. Ugh.

Update: she just walked in wearing a bagel around each wrist like a bracelet.

I wish I could flee but Lisa has the oldest three at a waterpark. I'm trapped, trapped I say!

Not Me

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 bleepin' 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"

Clash of the Titans

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.

A Pediatrician Visit

W Lisa @ work yest.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.  ;)

Want

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