Wednesday, May 23, 2007

What Are They Teaching Them at That Junior High?

Lucas (13) and I were running an errand last night and he wanted to hear “that cool song about MTV with the cool guitar” at the begining.

“You mean, Money for Nothing by Dire Straights?” and I spin the dial on the iPod to the song.

“Yeah, that one!”

We listen to it for a while and it comes to the mildly offensive lyric:

The little faggot with the earing and the make-up
Yeah buddy, that’s his own hair
That little faggot got his own jet airplane
That little faggot, he’s a millionaire

I wasn’t going to censor the song, but I did feel kind of bad for singing it at the top of my lungs as we barreled down I-80.

“So Lucas, that’s not the nicest thing he could say there, you know.”

“Mhm. Yeah, uh-huh.”

“You know what that means, don’t you? Faggot?”

“Yeah, something about sticks.”

I turned the music down, “Really? That’s what you think that means? You’ve heard other people call each other faggot at school?”

“Shee-yeah, Dad. ALL the time. People call each other faggot all the time.”

“Bunch of sticks.”

“Yeah, seems kind of weird.”

“Lucas.”

“Yeah, Dad?”

“Lucas, technically, that is what the word means, a bunch of sticks. But it’s also mostly a highly derogatory and offensive word for homosexuals.”

“Oh! Well, everyone at school thinks it’s a bunch of sticks.”

“Nu-uh!”

“No! They totally do. Bunch of sticks! Someone looked it up, I think.”

So we had a little conversation about slang words and that he should NEVER call anyone that. And that fag was essentially the same thing, unless he was in England, in which case someone is probably just asking him for a cigarette.

“Which would be a problem, because I don’t smoke, Dad.”

I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that in this day and age a group of seventh graders could be so sheltered/protected/swathed in veils/oblivious that they wouldn’t know about that sort of slang. And I depend on the school system for a quality education! I pay my taxes! Who’s in charge of teaching these kids about Life and all its horrors?

I guess I have a calling in life, after all.

Jon scribbled this mess on 05/23/07 at 12:14 AM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

You Spin Me Right Round

Last Saturday I went and bought us a new clothes dryer. I know! What exciting lives we must lead! The most exciting thing we did all weekend was buy a new major appliance.

But!

Later we did coke lines off the lid of the dryer! And then we flew down to Tiajuana where I got arrested for an unspeakable act with a donkey! Molly Ringwald was there! She danced wildy into the night and played a pair of cheap maracas!

Sorry, that’s just a re-occurring dream I have.

OK, seriously, we got a new Samsung clothes dryer thing-y. It tumbles the clothes around and blows hot air on them. That’s about as exciting as I can make it.

But!

The story really is a bit more entertaining than me plunking down the AmEx card on Saturday and then meeting the delivery dudes yesterday afternoon.

About three months ago, the old dryer essentially stopped doing its namesake duty, namely drying things. Sure, it would spin them around in counter clockwise fashion, but you could tell its heart wasn’t really in it. Mostly because the clothes would still be damp after spinning around for over an hour. Getting them all the way to dry would take hours. Painful. And since we have kids who enjoy generating dirty laundry just like they enjoy breathing, we tend to have a LOT of laundry to do. Three hours to dry one load throws a Giants Stadium sized wrench into the finely tuned Swiss watch workings of our family mechanics. People complained about not having anything clean to wear. Some people, who have easy access to credit cards, just went a bought a new shirt and pair of jeans on the way home from work (Yeah, that was me, but it was just that one time, you gonna make something of it?) And though the weather is warmer here in Utah right now, we aren’t really set up to dry our clothes on a line outside. The way our house is situated on our postage stamp sized lot, there isn’t really room for a clothes line. Though my liberal Al Gore loving soul wishes we could. The sun seems to do a fine job of drying things out (like my skin, for example), clothes seem like a natural.

Wait! Come back! I know it sounds like I’m telling a story about clothes drying now and you are probably thinking I’m going to downshift into “paint drying” mode, but trust me, it gets better!

So handy little ol’ me decided that I could fix the dryer, even though I know nothing about dryers and the electricity pumped into the beast (220) is WAY scary to me. People DIE from that stuff. Maybe I could figure out what was wrong and maybe I could replace whatever bad thing was tired and broken. (Couple too many “maybes” in that sentence, you’ll note).

Anyway, I took the dryer apart.

And put it back together again.

Which is basically a bit like how I begin to troubleshoot computer problems. “Shut it down. Restart it. Is the problem still happening?”

While I had the thing apart, I gave it a good cleaning. Found a dead goldfish, $3.82 (in nickels and pennies) and Jimmy Hoffa. Or someone who has the same build as Jimmy. Whatever.

I plugged it back in and it behaved the exact same way as before. Nonchalantly heating the air inside the drum and not really doing much drying.

Oh, and the squeaking. Seems I’d introduced a bit of a squeak into the mix. It’s possible that when I put the thing back together, I didn’t get everything back together exactly perfectly. So the machine squawked. Loudly. Intolerably loudly as a matter of fact. No lie, you could hear it WAY down the street if the laundry room door were open. It sounded like we were beating kittens in a sack with set a cheap tiajuanian maracas.

I took it back apart and fiddled around with some stuff and put it back together again but, much like Humpty Dumpty of yore, there really wasn’t any putting it back together again. Some kind of weird dryer entropy took over and we were just going to have to put up with the racket. Swearing at it to shut the HELL up didn’t seem to do any good, either.

And. Since the pieces didn’t quite fit exactly perfectly, the dryer exhibited a nasty habit of chewing up clothing. A pant leg would get caught in the moving parts and have the crap beaten out of it.

Here is the thing. You can have a lazy dryer. Or you can have a LOUD dryer. But a LOUD and lazy dryer just won’t cut it. And I have an American Express card which can fix BOTH those problems in one fell swoop. Plus the whole “eating clothes” thing was a bit of a downer.

On Saturday afternoon I walked right into Best Buy into the appliance area (after drooling on the HDTVs) and said, “I’m buying a dryer RIGHT now!” and 5 minutes later I had myself a new dryer, to be delivered on my lunch hour on Monday. Glorious capitalism at work.

Did I do ANY homework, research, fasting and praying about which dryer to purchase before buying the dryer? Not even a minute. Shocking, I know. I did buy a floor model, so I got a pretty expensive model for far fewer pesos, but I barely even know the brand name. Usually I know chapter and verse on large purchases like this, but I just wanted dry clothes in an environment that didn’t make the neighbors think we were molesting animals over here.

I went to hook the new dryer up yesterday evening and as I’m replacing the old plastic hose with shiny new aluminum hosing, I found about 17 metric tons of lint packing the sides of the ancient hose. It’s possible, quite possible, that had I merely moved heaven and earth in the first place (i.e., moved the washer so I could properly get at and replace the dryer vent/hose), that an increased air flow might have helped the old dryer not be so lackadaisical about its duties.

Maybe.

I’m afraid to ask Google about it.

Jon scribbled this mess on 05/22/07 at 12:03 AM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Friday, May 18, 2007

Remote Control Violence

I’m at the kitchen table, pounding away on a work project which never seems to die, but keeps limping along, sapping me of my precious bodily fluids as the days pass. I’m logged into my zillion IM accounts, because, well, I don’t know, really, Adium just happens to be open. So I IM to my oldest daughter Carrie, who will be first in line to get the MSN skin embedded chat client when it comes out in the next few years.

Me: is lucas still there?

Carrie: He is.

Me: as soon as whatever he’s watching [on TV] is over or 11 (whichever comes first), he has to go to bed.

Carrie: It’s over.

Me: smack him!

Carrie: I did

Me: and tell him I said to go to bed!
Me: i didn’t hear an outburst
Me: better smack him again

Seconds later, I hear Lucas, “Hey! Why’d you do that? Ow!”

We are the modern American family.

Jon scribbled this mess on 05/18/07 at 12:04 AM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Thursday, May 17, 2007

I’m Princess Meanie-Pants, and I’ll Be Your Daughter This Evening

Take a gander at Exhibit A:

Doesn’t she look precious? Innocent? Adorable? Just so dang cute that you start to salivate like you are a chocoholic let loose at night at the hollow chocolate Easter Bunny factory?

You’d be wrong, Internet. You’d be ever so wrong.

You’d also be wrong about going crazy and eating an entire factory full of hollow chocolate Easter Bunnies. A) They’re hollow. You are being robbed of chocolate! B) whoever ate a good hollow chocolate Easter Bunny? If you are going to throw caution to the wind and commit a felony, at least break into someplace decent, mmm, K? C) I forgot what (C) was because I had to go to 7-11 and get a Snickers bar real quick and I lost my train of thought. Mmmm, chocolate.

So that little sweet sleeping creature of love in the photo? Not so love-y last night. She’d been promised ice cream in exchange for good behavior at a Junior High band concert. Was she a good girl? Was she quiet and attentive? Did she clap appropriately and not make cat calls and “wooohooo!” noises at the cute boys like she normally does?

Surprisingly, she was on her best behavior. She so deserved a reward. One problem. By the time the concert was over it was far too late to get ice cream. People had to get home and do homework, take baths and in the case of one nine year old, hide his online poker winnings from his father who wants to buy a 50” LCD HDTV.

You can see where this is going, can’t you?

Youngest girl child threw a FIT. And we aren’t talking about a mere temper tantrum, like your garden variety two or three year old might throw. No, no. Child of Love The Last started throwing punches. Connected once on her Mom.

Mom doesn’t take that kind of crap from nobody.

We are not a violent family. We don’t use spankings as punishment; we are a “count to three” and of the kid isn’t obeying by three, Time-Outs and other forms of non violent punishment occur. Those other forms of punishment include things even worse than spankings, like forcing the misbehaving kid to watch Fox News, or if they’ve been really naughty, Bill O’Reilly. *shiver*

So this violent streak is a new one. Maybe it’s because she’s the youngest. Maybe it’s because she was terribly disappointed that a promise would go unkept, though an even better rain check was proffered. Maybe she’s just not very smart. I know it’s tough when one is only four years old since cause and effect are somewhat mystifying processes and you live only in the present, but this was a fairly extraordinary outburst.

She smacked Reha on the way home from the concert. Upon entering the house, she was to march straight to the bathroom and begin her Time Out. And Time Outs can NOT begin until the screaming and the yelling and the histrionics have stopped. And the little cretin gets herself properly into the bathroom.

Instead she runs into the house, letting out the most hideous noises, as if she’d swallowed a tornado warning system and launched herself into a prone position in the middle of the upstairs hall.

“Ellis, you have to go to Time Out. You can’t just lay there face down breathing in carpet fibers.”

“JUST FORGET ABOUT THIS, MOM!”

Yeah, right, like that’s going to happen.

She finally shoots me a Laser Death Stare™ in between screams and gets in to the bathroom. But she’s still wailing. To say she is screaming loudly is an understatement like saying that Donald Trump has “kinda odd” hair.

So about twenty minutes later, the screaming still hasn’t subsided so I open the bathroom door and remind her, “Ellis, your time out starts once you stop FREAKING out, babe.”

“I. KNOW. THAT!”

“OK, I just want you to be able to come out here with the rest of us.”

And then she kicked the door so hard it almost slammed shut on my nose.

So that picture up there, where she looks all angelic and sweet and shit? Pictures lie, man, pictures lie.

Jon scribbled this mess on 05/17/07 at 12:03 AM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Photos Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

The Somewhat Inevitable Post About Twitter

The progression usually goes like this: You hear about twitter, someone probably saying something on a blog somewhere, “It’s the next big thing! You simply must join!” and so you go check it out. You think that its deceptively simple interface must hide something. You probably scoffed and mockingly thought, “How stupid. No way am I signing up on that. Why do I care what other people are doing and why on earth would they care about what I’m doing?” Plus, do you really want to sign up for another social networking site? Isn’t your MySpace page enough?

In a fit of pique, you sign up. After all, everyone else you know on the IntarWebs is doing it. And being late to the game is icky in this Web 2.0 world, after all. Your first post is probably something along the lines of, “I can’t believe I’m doing this. This is so stupid. But, oh well, here I am.”

Then you download an app for your Mac or Windows box so you don’t have to log into the site in order to “tweet.” And you still can’t believe that you say things like “saw your tweet!” but you soldier on.

You change your mobile phone plan to include unlimited text messages, so you’ll never miss a “tweet” from one of your new found friends. And so you can post from ANYWHERE, thanks to your fancy pants text messaging phone.

Then you dig into your blog code and paste in the “status badge” twitter code.

Finally, you write a blog post about twitter and the jig is up and it’s all pretty much over. You are done for. Just pack it in.

Anyway…

So a couple months ago, I signed up for twitter and let me tell you, I’ve been through all those phases. (Except the part about changing the message plan on my phone. Already had that. And the status javascript is my code, but currently it’s commented out and lurking in the darkness.)

And here’s the thing about twitter:

It’s fun, but it is earth-shattering and all important? No, not so much. Feels a lot like IRC circa 1995, but you get to choose who you listen to. Will I still be on twitter in a year? Kind of doubt it, but maybe. It entertains me, but I’m pretty easily entertained, after all.

If you are at all curious, go ahead and sign up. It’s totally free to use via the web or IM. (And if you don’t have unlimited messages on your phone plan, stay the hell away from getting “tweets” via the phone.) Twitter doesn’t charge you to use the service via text messages, but your cell phone company might rape you. As a matter of fact, it’s kind of difficult to figure out how the folks at twitter will make money in the long run. Perhaps they have something up their sleeve. Jaiku and Dodgeball are similar animals, though twitter seems to be the service that has captured the fascination of a zillion people. And by zillion, I mean that literally. Sometimes twitter is painfully unresponsive, but it’s getting better.

My fascination with it comes from not answering literally the main twitter question, “What are you doing?” And I rarely “follow/befriend” people who answer that question with statements like “making ramen for dinner,” “waiting on line @ Starbucks, “ or “poopin’.” That’s when twitter is “poke a fork in your face” annoying. People who “tweet” literally don’t make my personal cut. I truly believe that almost no one cares about what I’m doing at any given moment and generally I feel the same about everybody else’s activities. So personally, I try not to answer that question, but instead treat it as a bit of a challenge, “What pithy, witty or interesting thing can I say in 140 characters or less?” It’s like micro-blogging, but you are strictly limited by space constraints. Indeed, tumblr, which is essentially micro-blogging personified, even allows you to import your personal twitter RSS feed.

And some people are amazingly witty and funny. These are a few of my favorite “tweets” I’ve seen so far:

Darth Vader (not the real Darth V., but he’s pretty funny)

Steven Wright (not the *real* S.W., but a quote a day. *awesome*)

(Twitter has a “favorite” function that mostly nobody uses, I don’t think. I kind of do, but I’m goofy like that.)

This is me.

And yes, I know I swore, I wouldn’t write an entry like this, but so it goes. (Lower right corner of that image).

Jon scribbled this mess on 05/15/07 at 08:08 AM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

What Are They Teaching Them at That Junior High?

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

You Spin Me Right Round

Friday, May 18, 2007

Remote Control Violence

Thursday, May 17, 2007

I’m Princess Meanie-Pants, and I’ll Be Your Daughter This Evening

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

The Somewhat Inevitable Post About Twitter

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