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".

Autumn on the Farm

My farm in fall.

Early August - movies, music, and more!

August 5th

Raided Redbox and watched "Don McKay", then 'Afterlife' w/ Christina Riccia and Liam Neeson. Both were good, but I'd give the nod to 'Afterlife'. It wasn't scary, but it sure was creepy.

Yesterday evening I spent an hour doing yardwork sans shirt - in part because of the heat, but also so the neighborhood ladies could swoon as the sweat dripped seductively down my back hair. Anyhow, in return for my selfless act the mosquito population scored a couple dozen direct hits, so the last 16 hours have SUCKED.

August 6th

Amelia Earhart crashed in the ocean, and Hoffa was whacked by the mob. There, I solved two great 'mysteries'. Whoo-woo. You want a missing person case with zest? Try Judge [Joseph Force] Crater. RIP Judge, wherever you are.



WTMJ just ran an story about a marijuana growing operation in a Brookfield house that was located right across the street from a school. Egads & gasps! The guy is facing *40 YEARS* for growing a plant, but I guarantee you could chop me to bits right where I sit & be out in 20. You know who should get 40 yrs? The narc who phoned in the tip, and a culture that devotes so much time, effort and $ to this crud. {this post met with some strong reactions from a cop friend of mine.}

August 7th

Nothing better than the smell of burnt popcorn in a breakroom as big as my closet

Yo - does anyone have a copy of *any* of the following DVD's: Howard the Duck, Space Camp, Short Circuit, or Batteries Not Included? [I would rent these for the kids in the following months]

August 8th

I heard a radio interview this morning with Tim Gunn. I wish I hadn't, because now I miss Project Runway something fierce. Anyhow, I love Tim Gunn - uh, you know, in a manly, largely platonic way.

After I dropped Lisa off at the [WI State] Fair I rented "Batteries Not Included" for the kids. Against all their (very vocal) expectations, they liked it. Olivia adored it actually, and peppered me with questions throughout. It really is as good as I remember.

Our Good Samaritan has struck again. This time they left a bag of school uniforms, and a brand new backpack filled with supplies on our porch. Whoever you are, thank you. [this was our friend Anne U.]

Me like The Like. Buy their album. As a bonus, the cover is hot.



Buy this album [Sia's We are Born]

Artie Shaw on a rainy night

As I drove home tonight it was storming and I discovered, to my chagrin, that I'd left my Artie Shaw cassette at home. Since I purchased it in the early nineties, it has been *The Perfect Rainy Night* companion.

Eventually the tape will wear out, be damaged, or lost. I've never been able to find this combination on CD, so I'm including the track list here so Future Dan can compile it on his own.

Oh Lady Be Good

Deep Purple

What is this Thing Called Love

Nightmare

Indian Love Call

Begin the Beguine

Traffic Jam

Stardust

Summit Ridge Drive

Back Bay Shuffle

Comes Love

Serenade to a Savage

Frenesi

Special Delivery

Stomp

Temptation

Moonglow

(1990 Delta Music Inc, Lazerlight #79713)

Frozen

After work Lisa & I watched "Frozen", a movie about 3 skiers who are mistakenly stranded on a ski lift when the resort closes for the week. From the start you *know* it's going to get ugly - and it does - but it was a solid effort and enjoyable (for us, not them).

Bony Legs by Joanna Cole

LuLu is a big fan of 'Bony Legs' by Joanna Cole

Happy Birthday YaYa!

Happy 9th Birthday YaYa! May you celebrate 100 more in health and happiness!

xxooxx

Early August - YaYa has her tonsils out!

7ugust 1st

Another morning of demo work, with me ripping up 3 layers of flooring to expose the subfloor. The bad? I'm sore head to toe. The good? Hang on, I'm thinking.

August 2nd

‎"Damnit Smiley, go to the bathroom and wipe your butt! Yes, now! Because you've got a big chunk of poop hanging from your a**, that's why!" - Lisa

{re Kara DioGuardi being fired from American Idol} Shoulda done this two seasons ago . . .

August 3rd

‎#1 Thing you don't want to see when you walk into a Chinese restaurant to pick up your order: Not one, but *two* health inspectors berating the owner.

{I pd for the food and went home. Deeeee-lish! :)}

"Broadcast TV sucks donkey balls" - Lisa, after sitting through Leno only to be rewarded with Jimmy Fallon. OTOH, The Black Crowes were Leno's musical guest. A bit of trivia: I drove their drummer to the airport in the middle of the night after his wife called to say she'd gone into labor back home.

August 4th

YaYa had her tonsils & adnoids (?) removed today. The surgery was quick, but w/ the wait and recovery it was a 7 hr day. She was in good spirits b4, in agony right after, & seemingly back to (nearly) normal now. Here's a good sign of her overall health: when I took her pain med script into Walgreens they had *NO* record of her having meds filled with them in the last several years - so long she was no longer in their system. Knock on wood.

{her recovery was nearly flawless. She was sore for a week or so, but fully in the swing of things and active within a couple of days. Well done YaYa!}

{re: Alex Rodriguez becoming the youngest man to reach the 600 home run plateau)

Yankees. Arod. Greatness. They really do all go together, don't they?

A bad dream - yeah, I'm aware that it makes me sound nuts

Ok, here's a nightmare I had two nights ago.

There was a killer on the loose. He'd killed before, but I don't know if he fit the bill of a 'serial' killer. He gave notice that he was going to strike on a playground east of some mangrove trees. I was on a balcony in a high rise apartment building, looking down on the beach, when I noticed a playset that matched the warning.

Immediately the cops were dragging in the killer, a blond man with curly unkept hair, along with a messenger bag of 'trophies' in his hand.

Then I was in a movie theater, once of the lush, velvet palaces that would be extinct if not for places like The Oriental. It was storming, and rain was pouring in from dozens of holes in the roof. There were five gallon buckets on many seats to catch the water. I knew it was my friend Tre's theater, and I literally climbed over rows of seats - passing his father as I did - to find him.

I did - Tre was weeping to the side of the stage. I seemed to know what was wrong; it was the reason I had journeyed there, but as I went to comfort him . . .

I was now outside a home, one superficially similar to my mother-in-law's home. It wasn't the same tho'. There was a long driveway, and there was a house with its side 'crossing the T' at the end of the drive, and another running parallel to it. There was dumpster full of large, broken pieces of blue ceramic. I asked what it was, and was told [Dirty Jobs host] Mike Rowe had a workshop there, and those were the discards of his attempts at pottery.

Then, presumably because Rowe's appearance sparked thoughts of reality TV, I noticed a very steep and snowy, forested hill across the road in front of the house. A huge pine tree was being cut down. It slipped out of control and slid down the hill at high speed, right into the busy motorway. Much of the tree broke off on impact, but the rest continued skiing down the road towards houses in the neighborhood. People began running after it to witness the carnage.

Then I was a child in the house I stood next to, and my 'mother', a woman dressed in an apron and house dress, picked up a large lambskin copy of the constitution and began to read aloud. She then declared we had a right, under law, to claim the lumber from the tree as our own. We set off to the scene of the accident.

Once again I was an adult, and I remember I felt very weary and emotionally drained. In my hands was the messenger bag from the start of the dream. I was in a garage with a workbench, and I told my (female) partner it was wrong that no one had looked inside the bag when the arrest was made. It was now old and water-logged, and removing the items was like sifting coins from the sea floor. The last item out was a womans wallet.

Inside was some money, misc. cards, and a high school ID that was now decades old, showing a girl about four years my junior.

"So he killed her," my partner said. "At least now the family can get some peace. Nice job."

And then I woke up.

Quote

Most people are mostly good, most of the time - Gerald Ford