Don't even ask about how I got the Explorer stuck in a snow bank....

After having a not very good time shopping yesterday, I had planned an entire long-winded, whiney screed about how god damn difficult women are to shop for, because it's not enough that you just grab something cool looking off the shelf and wrap it, no, they need to have products with meaning and that signify your feelings. After three hours of trapsing about a half closed mall not finding anything that "spoke to me" I was ready to just buy the women in my life a grocery store gift card (nothing says I love you like gift certificates for produce), I gave up. Today, I sped out for an hour of shopping and found exactly what I wanted -- inspiration had struck while I'd been toodling around the local Big Lots store, a store filled with the junkiest crap you've ever seen. I spend about $100 there. No lie. (If you don't know or understand the Griffith Family approach to gift giving, read this.)

So what else is new?

From Wired News:

"Bloggers are navel-gazers," said Elizabeth Osder, a visiting professor at The University of Southern California's School of Journalism. "And they're about as interesting as friends who make you look at their scrap books."

Ouch.

The order of events:

The wife and I are milling around the bathroom this morning, doing the usual SSS*.

Our house is under the flight path of most arriving and departing planes from the Tompkins County Airport and a large jet went over head about 7:25.

"I better hurry," I said as I stepped into the shower. "That's my plane."

"Mine, too!" Bon said. "Going to Mexico, right?"

"Sure," I told her. "Puerto Vallarta, baby!"

Because I am a child of the 1970's, I never hear the names Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, Acapulco or other Mexican destinations without thinking of Doc, Gopher, and Julie on the Pacific Princess (ABC, Saturdays, 9pm).

And thus, I've had the theme song to the "The Love Boat" stuck in my head for the last two and half hours.

*Shit, Shower, & Shave

Okay, so much as I complain about certain aspects of living back in central New York State -- namely, the GOD DAMN SNOW -- there are things I love. Sure, there's the close to family, nice town, cheap house, yada yada yada... but perhaps the greatest thing is once again finding all my favorite snack foods from childhood.

When I was a kid and we'd spend weekends up at my grandparents farm so my family could chop enough wood too keep them from freezing to death or so my mom could spend summer days and evenings fishing or driving the dune buggies everyone seemed to have (sans any actual dunes, though we frequently got stuck in deep puddles up in the woods), we'd occasionally drive in to the town of Angelica and I'd get a box of DooDads. Today most folks would call it Chex Mix, but they'd be wrong. Chex Mix is home made, DooDads were right off the assembly line. The combined the crackers, with pretzels and little cheese sticks. And peanuts, but I don't like peanuts too much, so I'd eat around them. Nowadays, DooDads have been transformed into Ritz Snack Mix. They taste exactly the same and they took out the peanuts! Some things have improved in this country since the 70s besides the fashions.

Last night at Wegmans I also found my French-onion dip of choice as a child, Bison (made locally in Buffalo!) While it's certainly no different than the HelluvaGood brand I've eaten for years, it does come in an 8oz container which I prefer (with 12 oz, you run out of chips before you run out of dip and that's a waste and makes me feel guilty. One shouldn't feel guilty when stuffing their craw with salty, greasy goodness dipped in whipped sour cream and onion, I always say.)

Pretzels come in all shapes and forms and sizes. But to me there is only one truly great pretzel: Anderson "Gems" Nuggets. They come in a big plastic barrel. They used to sell them at the Staples near the Access Magazine office, but then they disappeared and I thought they didn't make them any more. Low and behold: they sell them at the local Tops Friendly Market.

Finally, my current favorite. To me, Corn Nuts are a relatively new snack: I didn't catch on to them until only four or five years ago when I lived in Northampton, MA. When I left Northampton, I was in a panic that I wouldn't be able to find them again -- I used to buy them in the bulk food aisle at the local crunch-granola grocery in town. I shouldn't have worried. Not only are their the Corn Nuts brand you can buy at many gas stations and even CVS pharmacies, but they have big huge bags of them at one of the farmer's market-type enclaves here in Ithaca where I wouldn't buy anything BUT the nuts of corn.

So, this week I've covered TV/TiVo and snack foods. If I can manage to fit in dogs, computers, and porn my wife, I'll have covered everything in the world that matters to me. I hope to do it while eating the modern day DooDads.

You know how some words look funny or seem to look just plain wrong after you look at them too much? That's how I feel today about the word "Plus." I have it in several decks (the sub-heading under a headline) on my site and it just looks... wrong. I think maybe I'm thinking of 'pus' when i see it, but it doesn't feel like an oozy kind of word.

Maybe I should stop playing Halo on the Xbox until midnight everynight, too. That might help.

It might be time to kill of a friendship that has blossomed since January 9 of this year. Sure, we had our ups and our downs, our high times and our lows. This friend made me laugh, made me curse with anger, and even brought a tear to my eye occasionally. We're close... but it might be time to let go.

I speak, of course, of my beloved TiVo.

I waited months to get my first TiVo because I was determined to get all I could from the service -- I wanted local channels. I wanted to tape two programs simultaneously. I wanted best damn picture I could get. I got all that with a DirecTV satellite and a DirecTivo reciever while I was in the Boston area. But as anyone who even remotely can stomach reading my wretched whining knows, out here in the icey plains above Cayuga Lake, that's just not so. WB isn't even an option (No Gilmore Girls!) and Fox won't grant me a waiver to get the network on the satellite (no pausing Homer Simpson). Instead, the cobbed-together solution has been: tape stuff on WB and Fox on the VCR. Since UPN isn't even an option, we download episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer from Kazaa. I'm not proud of it, but at least we have the option.

And now, TimeWarner Cable might come to the rescue. They are offering a DVR (digital video recorder) service in their digital cable boxes now. If I drop the satellite and TiVo reciever all together and go to cable, I'd save around... well, five bucks a month, but that's $60 a year! I could buy a month worth of comics books with that. I could buy 15 special value meals at Mickey Ds (give or take a McNugget). And I'd spare myself the hassles of taping.

But... I hesitate. The TiVo interface is familiar and comfortable. The knock off service on the TimeWarner box looks like some first-grader's imitation of it. But do I want comfortable interfaces or do I just want to get my frickin' programming?

I know I think about this far too much, and I'm determined that this will be the last time I write about it so as to prevent boring you to death. But those in the know about this, please lend my your thoughts as I decide whether to move on in my digital entertainment world.

I've come to the conclusion, after two days at this wireless LAN conference, that the wimmen's don't go for the Wi-Fi.

Big surprise, huh?

I'm considering blogging about something every hour I have left in California, or at least until they pry away my beloved wireless Internet access.

Someone asked me to day how often I take advantage of wireless Internet access at cafes or places around Ithaca, so I can get out of the house and still get work done. I'm embarrassed to say, I never have. I hate typing on laptop keyboards, my laptop has about a 45 minute battery life, I'm too lazy to leave the house, blah blah blah. Any excuse will do. But maybe next week, I'll try it. Of course, I need to find a place in Ithaca with free wireless public access. I almost hope I don't find any, then I can blame it on others and not my own intrinsic lameness.

Yet am even I inane enough to come up with more to blog about? Stay tuned.

I really need to be working… I've only got nine hours until I get on my red-eye flight home and what if I can't finish it all? (Insert sarcastic smiley here for those not familiar with written sarcasm.)

Instead, I'm thinking about someone important in my life.

I don't cry much. My wife would say never, but I do weep like a little girl at the right moments. I think last time was over a year ago at my grand mother's funeral. I don't count tears of pain like slamming my head into an open cupboard door.

One time I do remember crying was in late December 1998. Unemployment from FamilyPC was imminent I didn't yet have a new job lined up. Bon and I were frazzled, nervous, and fighting about money one night as we drove through our home in Easthampton. That's when Bon suggested that maybe we shouldn't get Caper.

Caper was born on December 5 that year, and we'd already been to see him-- at two weeks old he was a furry little slug, no personality, nothing but an eating and pooping machine. Very similar to what he is today, though he does have personality to spare.

At the thought of losing that little yellow man, I welled up. I was angry and frustrated with my stupid ass job, for kicking me out after seven years. I was angry at myself for not being better prepared for the eventuality -- which, considering the economy of the time in retrospect, was the best time ever to be laid off. The thought that this circumstance beyond my control might take away the love I was already starting to feel for him was too much to stand.

So I told Bon no. No way would I let the circumstances dictate who'd I let into my home or my heart.

And thank god. For four years, Caper, my little yellow monkey, has been making me smile almost every day, whether it's with his happy greetings, or his expressive face, or his unmeasured love.

Happy birthday, Cape-man.

If there are any two women I fear not being able to keep up with in a conversation -- especially a conversation on popular culture, even though I know I could wup them both in the 20th Anniversary Trivial Pursuit -- it's these two.

(For my male and lesbian readership, I tried so hard to get them to do mud and/or jell-o wrestling for the pictures, but they insisted this would have to do.)

There's few people I'd have enjoyed dinner with more. Thank you both.

I don't have many rituals in my life. A few… the toast each morning (except when I remember that my wife would occasionally like me to eat oatmeal or a banana-blueberry smoothie) and trying to put my socks on before my pants (they're easier to pull up that way. The socks, I mean) and being rabidly obsessed with unlocking my car doors before I reach the car using the little remote (which Bon took away from me since she drives the car all the time now, but she doesn't use the damn remote from a distance EVER).

My favorite ritual that I follow as often as possible is one I only do when on the road: I fill the sink with scalding hot water and soak a wash cloth in it. I then take out said cloth, wring it free of excess moisture, fold it carefully into a ¼ size strip of cloth, lay on the bed, and put the hot towel over my eye balls.

I've been doing this since at least 1996 on some trip to Comdex in Vegas, maybe longer. It makes the whole day seem more tolerable.

Occasionally at home I'll be up in the bedroom in the mid-afternoon (not often, obviously… no reason to be there unless I need to get layers of clothing since I'm too cheap to turn up the heat [just like my dad used to be before he got into his sixties!]) and I wonder, "Hey, why not do the whole hot towel on the eye balls thing?" and sometimes I try it, but it's not the same when three Labradors take this laying on the bed during the day as a sign that it's time to LICK ALL DADDY'S FACIAL SKIN OFF or better yet POUNCE ON DADDY'S TESTICLES.

No, no. Just not the same.

So today, I did my stuff for the show: writing, meetings… no speaking engagements though, I got out of what little I had to do to cover for my boss who isn't even out at this show in California because he got sick -- and I came back to my room, and I got my hot towel and I laid on the bed. And it was good.

And now I miss my dogs.

Is there ever a time when the grass isn't greener elsewhere/elsewhen?

Today I'm -- as I imagine I used to say it before learning to put my tongue between my teeth -- firty-free.

Of course, like almost every birthday I've had since I was 19, I'm spending today working. I began by posting some stories on the site, then I took out the recycling (which is an adventure when you have a 100 foot long driveway on hill... thank god I bought that hand truck), and now I'll work for another six hours before I leave to go to Rochester to get on a plane to go to California. I should land tonight about 1am Eastern time. Woo. Hoo.

Still, also like most previous birthdays, I expected to be melancholy and I'm not. I guess staying busy on the day of helps. (Maybe less busy to an extent -- my bosses took me off one of the two sites I was running so I can be devoted to 802.11 networking full time. I'm still not sure how I feel about that... but I'm mostly glad to still be employed).

Thinking about my birthday too much -- the downside to 35! Eleven years before I can spell my age backwards and forwards again! Where are my pants? -- would probably put me over into slight depression. Or not. I guess I don't know why I'm not thinking about it more, other than to say being 33 is like being 23 or 27 or several other ages not divisible by five... it's just a place holder.