As the wife was getting ready to leave for her agility class tonight, she asked me about my day. What was there to say? It was my first real day back from vacation (yesterday I didn't work, spending instead 11 hours getting my brand new PC up and running). It was just like every other day. Some are better, some are worse, whether that means productivity, or enjoyment, or whatever.

"Did you think it was going to be any different?" she said.

The problem is, yeah, I kinda did. I have no idea why I should think that. The things I accomplished in two days of writing full time while sitting in a non-Internet enabled lodge in New Hampshire may have inspired me to greatness, but it's tempered severely when you have to do your 9 to 5.

Worse, I felt like I should catch-up on on reading some blogs, so I did that for the last couple of hours, with Family Guy and Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law episodes playing in the background. Now, I don't even want to write this... I want to go read another Harry Bosch novel, or watch more TiVo-ed shows from last week.

I'm tired and cranky. Tomorrow, I think maybe I'll try to get out of the house. It certainly seemed to do wonders for me last week.

Except for a visit to the Tops to buy cinnamon—the secret ingredient in the wife's blueberry chutney recipe, delicious over marinated chicken!—I haven't been out of the house all week.

It's been a blur of Wi-Fi (pronounced: wiff-ee), WiMax (pronounced: whim-ask) and ultrawideband, with a pinch of prime time television (no LOST! No Scrubs! Argh!) and a healthy dollop of "The Black Dahlia," a book so well written that when I play the dialog over in my head like a movie, it sounds like poetry. Shakespeare in murderous 1940's Hollywood, loosely based on the real crime. Imagine a 1950's cop movie, all that great dialog, but with cussing. Excellent stuff.

Today however, I break free of the confines of my home to travel to NJ, the mandatory resting place before the day trip into Manhattan to see Spamalot. There, I will likely laugh until milk comes out my nose, without even drinking any milk.

I'm just as likely to be aroused though... the last time I saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail was in 1987. I was 17, I was in perpetual horniness... and I was showing the film to my girlfriend for the first time.

At my house. Sitting on the couch. Alone. No adults at home.

Oh my, yes.

A wonderful night, capped off by the fact that I never saw the end of the film.

Oh. My. Yes.

I doubt the Wife will even let me get to first base while we're sitting in the Shubert Theater, though.

Anyway, I'm off to the Tops for one more trip... I need to buy some groceries for my dad, who in his role as The Nicest Guy In The World is coming out to house and dog sit for a couple of days. Once I give him a half hour drill instruction on how to operate the TiVo (heaven forbid the Nicest Guy also embrace time-shifting of TV...), we'll be on our way.

You can't go home again. Because who could afford it?

When we sold our house in Hudson, Massachusetts back in 2002, the first thing we tried to do is post it on a site called ISoldMyHouse.com, a Web site for New Englander's trying to do a "for-sale-by-owner" to avoid paying broker fees, also known as the greatest financial ass-rape of the modern age. Especially in Massachusetts, where a mere shed on a driveway could probably garner $50,000 if sold by itself. (Sadly, we ended up panicked and sweet talked into giving our listing to a agent. To this day, we can't pass a Re/Max office or a hot-air balloon without setting our teeth on edge.)

Maybe it'll go better for the folks who bought that house. Because as of two days ago, it is back on the block. My friend Vikki, looking for houses for the last year without any luck, was sent the new listing, which went live just two days ago on, yes, ISoldMyHouse.com. And, of course, property values have again gone up. The asking price is almost $80,000 more than we sold it for.

It's painful to see the pictures. Not because it isn't a great house -- it is frickin gorgeous, inside and out-- but because it looks like in one of them they took down the fence in the back yard to, I dunno, park behind the house? I swear I see the fence posts from our professionally-installed, black-coated cyclone fence resting against the shed in the foreground.

Worse, the third picture? That's one I took! It is over three years old. How do I know it's mine? That's my recliner chair, inherited from my father-in-law, the one sitting right next to me in my basement office right now that Caper sleeps in all day when I'm working. That's our swing-arm floor lamp next to the chair. That's the dining room table and chairs I bought off a friend back in 1997. That’s our Labrador-print throw blanket over the back of the chair. If I had some super-high-tech-sci-fi photo software like they use on the tee-vee cop programs, I could probably enhance the image enough to show my own reflection in the back window. Unbelievable. I'm reprinting it here since, well, god damn it, I took the picture!

I loved that house, but it's not like I'd buy it back. I have no desire to live in Hudson again for one, and more so I certainly would never be able to afford a mortgage on the place now, even with all the equity and what little price increase there might be if we sold our place here in Ithaca. But I hope Vikki goes to take a look at it. It would be pretty cool to visit and see if my old basement office is still painted canary yellow. I always liked that. And I want to find out if those idiots took down that damn beautiful, expensive fence.

I'm nervous as hell about going to see Jon Stewart tonight. The specter of horrible visits to Cornell when I was an undergrad is rearing it's headless corpse on a black mare, ready to run me down in the woods like a squat, fat Ichabod Crane.

The cold is likely to be the worst part — I anticipate that we'll be waiting outside for around an hour, maybe more, in 15 degree Fahrenheit cold. I've ordered the wife into multiple layers. I've been wearing my thermal underwear since 6:30 this morning in anticipation.

Yesterday, I actually went over to Cornell yesterday and reconnoitered the area, trying to scope out parking, waiting areas, etc. Probably a good idea since I really haven't walked on that campus in about 14 years and had no idea what building this... concert? Performance? What exactly is it called? is going to be in. Turns out that Barton Hall is the Cornell gym. I poked my head in yesterday and found a building the size of a couple of football fields and a ceiling about four stories high.

As I walked around what was essentially a four block area, dressed in a thick Carhart jacket, scarf, gloves and ear-grips, I was freezing down to my nads. Had someone flicked my scrotum with a finger, they would have heard the skin shatter like the thin glass of a Xmas ornament. And that was at least in the 20s. Tonight I'll augment with another layer, a balaclava and maybe even my neoprene ski mask over that.

Parking is always a problem at Cornell, there's no chance we'll get within a quarter mile of the place, so that's a crap shoot. Bonny will be on Cornell campus for an agility seminar, so I'm going to pick her up in the Livestock Pavilion — dirt floor and all, such a high-tech campus — and from there we'll drive toward Barton to scope things out, see if we need to get in line. I'm not even prepared for what we do if we don't have to wait in line in the cold... that will throw my plans all asunder and I might just have to go home with the $64 dollars in tickets in hand.

Somewhere in my home, my wife has hidden chocolate-chip-filled sugar-cookies. She claims that they are hidden in plain sight, easy to find if I really wanted them.

I really want them.

And I can not find them. Anywhere.

I'm ready to fucking kill someone.

"I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti."

It's 6:30am here, and typical for me on a Saturday, I couldn't fall back to sleep after feeding the idiots their breakfast. Monday through Friday that's never a problem, since those are the days I have to get up. But come the weekend, when the world is my oyster, my brainmeat seems to say, "Get out there, get going! Face the day. Carpe diem, caveat emptor, ipso facto, ad naseum, buster!"

I think that Latin translates to "Today, in fact, seize a cautious buyer until you puke again and again." Tho maybe not. I never took Latin, I learned most of what I know on Law & Order reruns.

So I'm sitting here in my dining room, watching deer in my front yard try to find something to eat under the snow, which is again falling in great fluffy chunks, trying to think about something to write about from the past week. It was a span of days that was very typical in it's overall effect at boring the crap out of me.

I bought tickets yesterday to see Jon Stewart (the The Daily Show) perform next Friday at Cornell. I was heartbroken a couple of weeks ago to find out he was performing and that tickets were sold out before I even knew. But yesterday, in a quick perusal of the local papers online, I saw that he added a second show and bopped right over to the ticket page at Cornell.edu and snagged a couple. Though I was still on the fence about it... the seats are general admission and we'll likely have to stand outside in line for a couple of hours waiting to get in. That's always big-ass fun in the winter.

Not to mention the wife — whom I call "The Squantillion" — and I have a horrible track record of attending things at the Cornell campus that goes back to 1990. Back then, in the heady days of our relationship, I would frequently try to drag her up to Cornell to see movies, since the film board there always got in some unique stuff and had great crowds.

Two of my fondest memories of my freshman year (before I met the future wife) involve movies at Cornell. One was seeing Pink Floyd: The Wall for the first time and finally understanding what all my friends in high school had raved about for so long... that film and its message haunted me for weeks. I felt heartily stupid for resisting their entreaties to watch their much viewed VHS tape.

The other was sneaking away from the dorm—which was a whole big story in itself—to see a second run of the original Die Hard with the most enthusiastic crowd of students I had ever witnessed. It was the first time I'd ever seen a crowd so in love with what it was watching.

The memories of those great times were something I always wanted to recapture after, but it seemed that any time Squanto and I would venture to the East Hill of Ithaca, something would go wrong. Tickets were sold out, parking was impossible, students were rude, weather was bad, shiny demons would pop out of the earth to try and eat our souls. You name it, it went wrong and we started to get so sick of it that by the time senior year rolled around, I don't think we went over to Cornell at all. So, 13 years later, we'll see how it goes next Friday.

One week after that, we're heading down to New Jersey to stay with friends who snagged us tickets to see Spamalot, so it's the month o' entertainment for us. Though with TiVo and Netflix and memberships at the local theatre (with an 're' not an 'er'!), it's always the month of entertainment for us. It's just a more pure, concentrated form of entertainment when you pay over $30 or $100 per ticket.

I'm steeling myself to go back upstairs and face TurboTax.

As expected, we'll owe big this year. That's the price one pays for doing instant turn-overs of cheap stock options so one will have the cash on hand to go on vacation to Hawaii. Luckily, we anticipated the government's desire to anally rape us for their cut, so we put half of the money away. Turns out it might not even be as bad as I expected... I would know already if Merrill Lynch had seen fit to put all the info I actually needed on my 1099 form, which makes it look like all we did was get free money. We did have to pay something out for the initial shares, which, when entered in our 1040, will bring down the amount we owe by a few hundred bucks. I'll take it.

So today is St. Valentine's Day, that most hated of "holidays" by men the country over, as we confirm our inability to be sensitive to the needs of our womenfolk.

See, right there, I just called that female entire gender "womenfolk," solidifying my insensitivity. Sigh.

Last year was probably the best Valentine's day eve since the wife and I were in New York City for the evening to watch the Tony-winning masterpiece of stagecraft and musical comedy that is Avenue Q. It was truly a wonderful night, despite having to be in NYC for it and one we try to duplicate yearly. Not with the same play though (duh). In 2003 we saw the first Broadway version of Little Shop of Horrors. Next month we'll be down south again to partake of a little something called Monty Python's Spamalot, the musical based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Which actually opens officially on Broadway tonight, but we couldn't get tickets for then, and we're lucky to have tickets at all. (I don't know why we didn't start doing this years ago.)

Still, Valentine's is today, and there's nothing going on but finishing taxes. The wife and I will make a nice pesto chicken dinner and watch some TV (24 and Medium) and retire early (before midnight -- it's a school night). It's pretty much like almost every holiday that doesn't involve unwrapping big gifts. Which we'd probably do too, but neither of us got around to buying anything for each other as yet... though I am pledged to get her the finest sub-$100 waffle iron money can buy. I look forward to many a morning of Homer Simpson's Space-Age Out-of-This-World Moon Waffles in my future. (Hmmmm....waffle run-off....)

Hooray, it's tax day! the day when the wife -- whom I call Squanto! -- and I run around like crazy, trying to think of anything we can that would serve as deduction enough to keep the government monkey off our backs. We won't beable to this year. I think there will be little doubt, once we calculate in all the stock options I exercised, that we made more money in 2004 than any year in the history of our lives. Sadly, even tho I'm rich as Midas, I didn't do much in the way of, how you say... "giving." Unless you count Xmas presents. If we could deduct those, then the frickin' government would owe me big.

I'm heading back to the gym at the ol' alma mater today for the first time in... I think it's been eight months. I really have no memory of the last time I was there, to be honest. Hopefully they'll let me in -- they aren't known for checking the IDs to thoroughly up there. Which is good, as I'd rather not pay my admittedly cheap yearly fee until next payday. (Because I'm lazy and don't want to go online and take the extra two minutes to transfer money from my savings account to cover the check. I disgust even myself, people.)

It's been a productive day for a Monday, which is traditionally my day to feel like a complete sloth. I find it hard to rev up the old brain meat after a weekend of being, well, sloth-like. (For example: This weekend I shopped for gifts for a two year old, then gave said gifts to the two-year old, ate the two-year-old's cake, and made him laugh like a ninny by shocking him on the forehead with built up static electricity. Even when I put snow on the back of this kid's neck, he laughed. Griffith men are hearty stock, immune to cold and electrocution. At least at that age.)

I was up at a decent hour and put out the recycling on the "curb," though we don't really have curbs out here in the sticks where I live. I did five loads of laundry over the course of the day, simply amazed at how much clothing two people can wear in the course of a week. I even played with the dogs during the zenith of the day's warmth (unseasonable high in the mid-40's today).

Underlying all this throughout was the knowledge that my friend Bill has been in the process since about 6am of getting to a plane in Baltimore that will take him to Germany, then to Kuwait, and then on into the city of Baghdad, Iraq. Bill -- an original member of Squished Frog Productions before we even called it that -- is a major in the United States Army. And it's his year to go. Assuming it's just a year and they don't force him into another at this time next year.

If there's an upside, it's that he'll likely get combat pay while he's there (I hope) and that he's to be stationed at a location near the west side of Baghdad in or near the former Saddam International Airport that the US took over in the invasion. Bill told me last night when he called to say good-bye that he'll be working out of one of Saddam's former palace's, where all the generals are working (maybe it's even this palace ?). I hope he gets to take a dump in the former dictator's solid gold toilet.

All day it has stayed with me that he'll be there. Bonny and I talked about this all through dinner -- what it'll be like for him to get there, to live there, what he'll eat. Bill says it will be like Groundhog's Day -- 7 days a week of doing the same things over and over and over.

Mostly we wondered how his family copes. He's left his wife and kids -- a brood that has grown to seven as of this past December -- before to go to bad places. In the army since 1992 (and he was ROTC before that) he's been to Somalia and Panama, and I think others, during skirmishes there. I'm embarrassed that I don't know for sure.

Of course it all seems different to me now. More real. I'm closer to it because I'm more informed of this war than any other in my lifetime. I was too young for Vietnam and to absorbed in college during the first Gulf War. Even knowing Bill was over in conflicts during the 1990's I didn't think to much about it... they all seemed so small. Like they weren't real enough to have an impact. For that, I feel like I owe Bill and apology, though he'd tell me not to be an idiot about it.

I'm afraid throughout this year I'm going to be an idiot every time I hear about another bombing or insurgent attack -- let alone those stupid freak transport accidents that seem to happen to the damned armed forces all the time, killing people before they've even gone into combat, I think they bother me even more.

I can only imagine how his family feels.

I wish him well, hope that I'll be able to hear from him now and again (if they'll let him use his new laptop to go online), and I hope that the worst thing that happens to him is that he's bored by the repetition of it all day after day. It's not a good place to live for " interesting times ."

The worst thing that should happen to him is running out of toilet paper while he's crapping in one of Saddam's 24 karat thrones.

Three weeks later than I'd hoped, I finally shot my Survivor audition tape today. The hold up was, I don't have a tripod and the wife wasn't able to go outside and hold a camera up until now due to her surgery. But hey, with seven whole days to the deadline of submitting, there's no time like a Friday.

I decided to do it with little planning to make it seem more down to earth, out in the back yard, in the snow. We did about seven takes, four of which I just flubbed by running out of anything to say, two that were blah (one where I grimaced to much according to Bon the camera-gal), and one that seems just right. We're going to try more in the morning when the light is better as well, and decide which one to send in then.

We talked about what it would be like if I were to actually make it on the show (chances are better to be kidnapped and anal probed by aliens), wondering how she'd manage the dogs for seven weeks without me, if my company would let me take a leave that long so I could come back to work (doubtful). It was fun, like having a lottery ticket in hand the night before the big drawing, wondering.

Luckily my wife is a great editor and she also read my Survivor applications and noticed that one of the questions I answered I completely misunderstood and my answer made no sense. So I reprinted that page and filled it out again. My application has a different color ink on every page, making it obvious I took me like a month to fill out, each time with a different pen in hand.

I realized also -- being a technological genius -- that my digital camera does have a video out so I can shoot a video on that and transfer to VHS for the Survivor submission, and still have a digital version of my antics to show here. But I won't post it until March... by that time I should know for sure whether I'm going any further in this, as the producers discretion. Here's hoping. Maybe I'll buy a lottery ticket while I'm at it. And watch the skies for UFOs...

I try to use letter openers, I really do. I have like four cheapy ones -- barely as sturdy as a plastic knife -- that I have placed strategically in mugs holding pens that are in my office and the kitchen of the house (where most mail is sorted and piled before we recycle it as needed). I even have a couple of electric mail openers around here some place, though they suck.

So explain to me why I still feel the need to open envelopes by sliding my index finger below the sealed flap? Last week I did that and sliced the paper into my skin just above the knuckle on the back of the finger. I proceeded to bleed like I was filled with anti-coagulants.

And then, today, I did the same thing -- and sliced right into the same spot. There's blood all over the place as I type this. So, lesson for the day: opening mail is dangerous for many reasons in this age of mail-bomb terrorism, but nothing hurts worse or makes you feel dumber than a paper cut.

Just before New Year's, I found a body next to my mail box, that of an adult female white-tail deer. It had been struck by a vehicle traveling down our road (speed limit: 55MPH plus whatever you want since there's never any cops on it). I could tell this was true based on all the little bits and pieces of car that were strewn along the shoulder of the road, the obvious remnants of a plastic bumper and headlight and all else you'd find on a today's little toy cars.

I called the village office and was told that they couldn't help me because I'm technically in the "town" of Lansing—though my mailing address is Ithaca. Whatever. Turns out to get someone to pick up such a carcass was all a county matter anyway. I called the Tompkin's County highway department and got some voice mail, and left a message telling them where to find the victim.

This was all late on January 30, so the body was left to putrefy next to the mailbox for four days over the holiday weekend (luckily for my nose it wasn't August and 85 degrees). A couple of times I went down to the mailbox to put stuff inside to mail out, and I swear it appeared that the body had shifted a little each time or that the fur was different or even missing —though it really had not changed. It's one of those tricks that dead things play on the living, to make you question your non-belief in otherworldliness.

Today when I got the mail, the deer was gone. The only evidence of the animal's untimely death was some crushed down grass and the plastic bumper parts still on the shoulder of the road.

The Wife—whom I call Switchback Squanto!—told me earlier this week that not long ago she'd been stuck in traffic behind the truck that travels around the county and picks up the decaying roadkill. She watched as two guys had pulled out a 100+ pound deer body by the legs and heaved it into the back of a large dump-truck sized vehicle, tossing it like you would a small child into a pool or lake on a lazy summer day.

I had mentioned to my brother the cop that I'd called the highway department and he'd sagely said they'd be out after the weekend to get it, and he was right. So it's obviously something rural police have to deal with calls about. There's not much I can find online in a cursory search about this job of roadkill removal, and nothing at all locally. I've been wondering though: Who picks it up? County government employees? Freelancers, contracted for pickup and disposal? How do they dispose of them? Burial? Cremation? Dog food factory? Seems like an awful lot of work for bodies that would usually just go back to the soil if they hadn't had the idiocy to walk in front of a fast moving metal and plastic beast that could obviously take them in a fight.

I have been thinking about this a lot for the last few days in the back of my mind, and I've realized tonight that I really don't want to know much more. I'll just sit back and be happy I live in a civilized world where there are people willing and able to do the dirty work the rest of us are too squeamish to consider.

I've been curmudgeonly saying bad things about 2004 over the last few days. When the topic of the New Year has come up I've said things like, "begone, ye epoch of eee-vil!"

Though I'm not sure why. Outside of the election's results, it was a pretty good year. So here's my quick, off-the-top-of-my-head list of all the great stuff that came out of aught-four.

Great vacations:

One thing on TV that did make me cry was watching the documentary on HBO called Shelter Dogs. It was an amazing piece of work about an "upstate" New York animal shelter and the trials it goes through. I recommend it highly. Nothing I hadn't heard before, of course, but the focus they had on a doberman brought up deep memories of the dobie we fostered several years ago and how hard it was for me to give the big lug up. So I wasn't crying much about the show, more about that handsome pup we called McBain, who used to eat socks and vomit them up whole, who once ate an entire case of microwave popcorn, who put fear into the hearts of all the people who saw him -- people he would have gladly knocked down and kissed. I haven't seen him in eight years. He's probably not alive now. But he always will be in my heart whenever I see a black Doberman.

Posted by Eric G. at 08:44 PM | What the--? (0)

We're closing in on the end of the year. It's the traditional time to take stock of all one has accomplished— and not accomplished— in the preceding 365 days.

But screw that. I'll take stock in March or something.

Right now, I've got to fit in three more days of total relaxation. I mean, I could really get used to this. I wish my wife would have surgery every year at this time, giving me an excuse to go no where and do nothing.

Well, next to nothing. I do have to fluff her pillows and make her lemon tea and do all the laundry on top of my usual daily back-breaking duty as dish washer. But my god, it's been nice. A few entries back I complained about her not embracing her recovery properly and she felt guilty so we've watched more hours of tube than was healthy. Though, I think, still under the national average for most kids today. We're not even close to watching all we've got stored on the TiVo and on DVD in the cabinet (Hellboy and Firefly... good times.) (But when the hell am I going to watch all these Looney Tunes on DVD?)

My version of doing nothing is very busy, as I'm trying to cram in as much entertainment as possible. In the last week I read not only the comics I was saving (not Cerebus yet though) plus a few novels (I finished Strange & Norrell, huzzah!), and I got the wife to read the entire print run of Strangers in Paradise. I've got pictures of her reading it and smiling to prove it. It only took me about five years of cajoling her about these books and she finally acquiesced. Perhaps it helps that she was captive in the house and high on pain killers.

I supposed her recovery isn't all about my entertainment. She's also doing very well, no longer sick or sore or anything. A couple more weeks of rest (she's off until Jan. 17) and she should be good as new. Better, actually. Oh my, yes.

There is a lot to do in the next three days, however. I want to install at least one of the two ceiling fans I got for Xmas in the upstairs bed rooms that need them. One is a replacement for an ugly-ass kid's ceiling fan in rainbow colors, so if you want the old one, let me know, its free to the first person who asks. I also need to take down our fake Xmas tree and all the lights outside (ladder fun!). I need to change the oil in the tractor and the snow blower while the weather is warm (the tractor won't start easily below 20 degrees). I want to upgrade the CBLDF.org site to the latest MovableType software to combat the comment spam over there. Etcetera.

And if I don't get to it, well, la dee da, I'll have done something more important, that is to say, virtually nothing at all.

This is the strangest Xmas Eve of my life. With the annual orgy of material-goods goodness (AKA holiday gift exchanging) over last weekend, there's no anticipation here, no last minute buying, and thus nothing to look forward too.

Except for our breakfast plans tomorrow—pancakes and bacon. Excellent.

Remember when I said Bon was having a good recovery? I'd spoken too soon. All that was typed before the 36 hour wave of nausea and vomiting hit. We think the sickness was caused by the pain meds and antibiotics. They kept her safe from infection, but also kept her from ingesting anything more than two pieces of toast in that time. Once we got the doc's permission to take her off them and got some anti-nausea pills that cost $160 for four pills (we didn't pay that, thanks to our high-quality U.S. medical insurance, so take that, Canada), she got her appetite back fast and has progressed quickly from oatmeal to home-made chili and kettle chips.

I've taken the time while she's been napping to do some much needed cleaning in my basement office. I hadn't vacuumed in a couple of months...I usually wait until the dog hair dust bunnies can bark. I've been organizing some comics that need to be filed. Some still need to be read, too. It's good stuff that I saved: the entire run of Stray Bullets (some of it I've read but not all), the color graphic novel of Jack Staff and the B&W volumes of Kane (all by Paul Grist), various reprints of the later Grendels. And maybe Cerebus if I can bring myself to dive into the final issues.

I've actually been kind of annoyed with my wife during this recuperation time. She could be using this time to read all sorts of stuff... but she has no interest. She could be watching tons of movies, but it's been a challenge to get her to watch even the dumbest crap I've recorded on the TiVo (she called Steve Martin's Cheaper by the Dozen physically painful to watch... hard to argue that.)

I've got the next nine days off to play nurse maid, and I intend to watch every unwatched DVD in the house (the entire season of Firefly awaits), even if I saw the films in theaters (Hellboy! Two-thirds of The Lord of the Rings!), more crap on the TiVo (Sylvia, Wonderland, some Peter Sellers films) and more books and comics.

Even though I haven't had surgery and I'm not sick, I'll show my wife how to properly recover no matter what it takes.

The wife is home for her convalescence. So far, this is pretty damn easy. She's able to do just about everything for her self (I feared the worst for the bathroom... for better and for worse only goes so far until someone is in a nursing home).

All I have to do is cook. Which has so far consisted of making her a slice of toast. My mother-in-law is also here and they're chit-chatting away, so Bon's not bored with me yet. Since I have to work tomorrow and Thursday, she won't get a chance to be bored with me until Xmas Eve, which won't feel like Xmas eve to us since we already had our holiday last weekend. To me, the season's greetings are over, it's time for season's sitting around.

I'm sitting here in a funk, vacillating between melancholy and rage.

Not that I have much to complain about, my life is great, I'm healthy and got money in the bank and blah blah blah, but I've had a week of little annoyances and grievances and they're starting to fester in my brain and piss me the hell off. And the stupid crap, both self-inflicted and external, always seems to happen in clusters.

Little things like annoying comment spam and shit-bird trolls on my blog got things off to a good start. Trolls are the douche-bags who pop in to a site, anonymously insult the proprietor and then bail, hoping to get a rise... may they all have the fleas of a thousand camels lay eggs in their armpits.

I went down to Time Warner earlier this week to turn in its craptacular DVR and was told I couldn't close my account because I still had a cable box outstanding. Which was utter nonsense, as I didn't have one. I told them this repeatedly and pointedly, making sure they understood that this was their mistake, not mine—I never had another cable box.

Of course, this morning I found that unused cable box on a shelf in my basement utility room.

(Also, please note people, that even a craptacular DVR is better than watching TV the old fashioned way. I guess, however, there's no convincing some people people no matter how much I evangelize... such people still just enjoy writing paper checks and reading ink-stained newspapers and churning their own butter and turning the cranks on their Model-Ts, I guess.)

Last night I put on my suit and got out of the house to go to the Ithaca College yearly holiday party, held at the McMansion that the college president lives in (on the college's dime) and found it an overcrowded exercise in wondering what the hell I was doing there. (Free booze, though.)

I've cranked up the Visa debt for the holidays, cramming in all the shopping so we can do Xmas with the families this weekend, a week earlier than the actual holiday, all to accommodate the Wife having surgery on Monday morning. This will be followed by a month of recovery time, during which I will be her house slave. (Hopefully she'll sleep 90% of the time so I can finish reading Strange & Norrell.)

Whenever the holidays come around and I only budget for gifts, it's inevitable that something else comes along that needs immediate paying for. Case in point: we took our much hated Subaru Legacy Wagon into the shop this morning for a 90k mile tune up— which was already ridiculously expensive at around $600— and found out that it's got three different oil leaks in the engine. So crank that bill up to $2k. Nice.

It's just been that kind of week.

Only the agonized screaming of the little people gives me the solace I need to get through the day.

Survivor's time with us may be fleeting. The show that I raved about back in the summer of 2000 to anyone that would listen just finished what I think is its ninth season, but the ratings for the finale were the lowest of any Survivor ending show... even lower than the one Rosie O'Donnell hosted (shudder).

Tho it's still a winner for CBS it probably only has a shot at a few more seasons, and thus it's time to put myself on the line: This afternoon, I filled out the application for Survivor X. Now I need to shoot a video, and luckily I've got the technology. I will make the Wife help me shoot it out in the snow over the weekend, and get this puppy in the mail.

I need to get my passport updated to be eligible, so there's $55 I need to mail out. TANSTAAFL , as a wise man on the moon once said.

I'll miss Palau... with my luck, the season after that, to film next summer, will be the first time they try to do the show in the Arctic.

So far, so good. I'm sitting now in the JetBlue terminal at JFK, home of a terminal-wide free hotspot and the best new airline in years. I think I like SouthWest better -- first (and last) time I flew with them, the entire flight attendant crew was like a comedy team entertaining the passengers, which was a nice change -- but JetBlue gets my thumbs up most of the time. Can't go wrong with DirecTV at every seat. Though only one major network, that's just a tease.

Also, nice that they only put the outlets designated for laptop use on the most uncomfortable bench seats in the whole terminal. Smart way to make sure they don't get used too long. At least, that's how it worked in my case.

On the 5.5 hour red-eye, I only got about an hour of sleep. The rest of the time I coughed and read Strange & Norrell (Strange has just left Norrell's magical tutelage, and what's the deal with the thistle-down haired man's plans?) and watched an old episode of Detroit Animal Cops on Animal Planet without the sound. And an ancient Happy Days on TVLand that I all but convinced myself was an episode of Love, American Style because of the way Tom Bosley was dressed, he didn't look like he was in the 50's at all, but then there was Richie and Joanie and all was right with the world of reruns.

Three more hours and I'll finally board the flight to Syracuse, fly for an hour, then drive for an hour. It's almost as many hours of travel as I had on the way out with the missed connection, but feels so much nicer because it was planed ahead of time. Not that much nicer, but close enough for jazz.

Time to buy a Krispy Kreme.

Great Goggaly-Moogaly!

It's Zachary T. Paleozogt in plastic. I'm not going to explain to you people why, just accept the fact that I MUST HAVE THIS. Put this at the top of my Xmas list, ASAP people. Buy it here.

The blog comment spammers have finally found Squished Frog and embraced it. I'm both annoyed and relieved. Annoyed because now I have to combat them, but relieved that they consider my modest ramblings worth of their automated postings which desperately try to get their sex/drug/casino sites higher up on the Google listings. I wonder if the volume will stay low enough for me to delete them individually for a while... i hope so, at least long enough for me to install MovableType 3.1, which is way overdue anyway.

Speaking of spam, in three months the wife and I will be off to NYC to see our third Broadway play in three years (following Little Shop of Horrors and Avenue Q) -- the new SpamAlot, which is based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Starring Hank Azaria (he does voices on the Simpsons) and David Hyde Pierce (Frasier's brother Niles). Sweet. I especially like that we're seeing all of these shows with the original cast, sometime while they're still in "previews."

I'm once again in northern California, the third time in three years, and on the east coast at least I'm 35 years old. Here in sunny but frigid (what the hell is up with that?) CA, I've got another hour-plus.

I wish I could say the trip out was unremarkable, but it took me 13 full hours to get here from the moment I left my house to the landing gear hitting the tarmac at San Jose Airport. Because of weather, they kept the plane on the ground for an extra hour in Syracuse so when I got to Chicago for my layover, the connecting plane was long gone. So I was put on standby for the next plane to San Jose, which was, of course, one concourse over. This always happens in Chicago—you never land in the same place you're supposed to again take off from. It happened on the way to and from Hawai'i. I've come to expect it of O'Hare Airport. And I still like it better than Dulles.

So, I waited for an hour at the gate for someone to show up so I could confirm that I was going to get on, all the while reading Strange & Norrell, which I can say is enjoyable, but goddamn, it's the heaviest book I've ever read. And I don't mean that metaphorically. It's 780 pages and I think they were printed on cardboard. As I waited, the screen behind the desk at the gate went blank. I went and checked the departures board and, yes, they changed the gate due to a delay, so I had to again go to the other concourse.

There, I waited another three hours to find out that the plane was full. They said I was on automatic standby for the next flight to San Jose— which, oh, is in half an hour. They didn't tell me that, I found it while taking what I thought could be a leisurely stroll to—you guessed it—the other concourse.

This plane I got on. That's when my semi-dormant cold decided to kick in and play out in stages. First came the runny nose. I was blowing it every 5 minutes, much to the disgust of the man sitting next to me on the aisle. His constant shifting and sidelong glances made me want to grab his sweater sleeve and wipe off. Then, that stopped, and the sore throat kicked in. I skipped the pretzels (no meal on the super-cheapo United coach class apparently) and went for the ice.

Finally, about an hour before landing, my left ear started to ache—maybe the worse I've had since I was 11 and took my first plane ride to Florida to see my grandparents. That was a doozy but it had a gaggle of hot stewardesses (we could call them that back then) surrounding me, filled with pity and trying to soothe my aches. This ear ache I had to suffer in silence like a man. I wanted to cry. Try as I might, I couldn't equalize, blowing my nose did nothing, chewing gum, yawning, all the tricks, nothing made it better. Not until we touched down and the pressure equalized.

An hour later, after I got my rental car and checked in to my hotel to find I'd been set up by our most excellent events coordinator to get a mini-suite room, I blew my nose again.

And I swear to god, my left eardrum exploded and started to ooze down my lobe onto my cheek. At least, that's what it felt like. The pop was enormous, the pain was like a sharp pencil jammed in there and twisted. Luckily, it didn't last long. The pain fell away and that was that. I was in California.

This was hardly the worst airport experience of my life. That was the 16 hour trip last year to Oregon through Dulles. I'd rate this as worse than the 8 hour wait for a plane in San Juan Airport though, because at least there I was with the Wife (whom I refer to as... Squanto!). She's back home dealing with her pain-in-the-ass job and the three idiots all by herself and I'm sitting here turning a new age that officially puts me closer to 40 than to 30. I'd almost forgotten about it until I was on the phone with my Mom tonight and she wished me a happy. She probably remembers it only because of the pain it caused her in 1969. Here's hoping when I climb on the red-eye tomorrow night that I don't remember my b-day of 2004 for the same reason. Though I'll take the sinus pain over passing a human being through my system.

Okay, so it's the end of the week, and I haven't posted any more Why I Am Better Than You entries. One reason is because, well, it's been the holiday, and I had to drive six hours in many directions to have two different meals (hey, that's a WIABTY™ right there!), and then my wife —whom I call Squanto—got sick with a nasty-ass cold just in time for her birthday, so I have been playing nurse maid (another WIABTY™!) and then I came over all Xmas-y and decided to decorate the entire front porch of the house with lights and finally put some ornaments on our brand new faux-tree that has all the lights built in—and it rotates, which is cool. Though not fast enough to send anything flying off it. It's a Martha Stewart brand tree we picked up last month, fresh from the "Big K," as the kids call it today. Or maybe that's the corporate marketers.

I'm not sure why I bother. No one in my family usually sees any of these decorations. Though my parents did stop out yesterday for a short time while out Xmas shopping. But they only did that so they could get a copy of our Xmas Wish Lists, because they'd left their copies at home. And Dad forgot to go look at the tree, so now he wants video of it to see next weekend, when I go out to their house for another Thanksgiving meal. In the (hopefully) completed kitchen from hell, that is now looking quite heavenly.

It's all just more time for me to corrupt my nephews.

Really, I haven't posted a WIABTY™ because I haven't been able to really come up with anything that makes me super-special over anyone else. I got nothing.

Actually, I had one, all about how I'm never late for anything and hate that so many people are, something I was conditioned for in high school and college by knowing so many people who were never on time for any thing. However, a couple of years ago, just before I moved back to NY I spent a lot of time with two friends of mine that I wouldn't exactly call punctual (unless it involves a deadline), and I found it in myself to embrace the occasional bit of lateness. So that nixed that.

Squanto would have appreciated an entry on punctuality, since that is one of her strong suits (and makes her damn sexy. ) Even more she would have appreciated it because she felt the last two WIABTY™s were directed at her specifically, even though they were not. My goal is to make everyone who doesn't do them feel bad, not just her.

She apparently felt that it was personal enough that she went with me last Wednesday to give blood and it turned into a fiasco. She wasn't able to get any blood out even though the phlebotomists sat there jiggling the needle protruding from her vein in hopes of breaking the dam in her vein. In the end, they only got about 5 ounces of blood out of her, and they need 40 or some such to be able to use the bag. So in the end she was in pain, and had wasted her time. Afterwards, we barely spoke to each other for a while as I felt terrible, but couldn't bring myself to apologize... what kind of message does that send? "I'm sorry you tried to do something selfless and nice?" But at the very least she won't have to worry about me bugging her to go to the blood bank ever again. Her body obviously doesn't want to give up the goods.

She told me her theory is that she got her current mega-cold by giving blood. I tried to tell her that getting an arm swabbed with copious amounts of iodine probably help kill the cold, but I wasn't believing my own bullshit anymore than she was.

The rest of the week I've spent finishing listening to a book on tape (Skinny Dip) started back in early October—it took a while, as Squanto and I were listening to it together, so I would only play it while we were traveling together. I also finished the single-player campaign in HALO 2. The reviews were right, it is a short game, but I think it ended at exactly the right time for me to not lose interest in it. Though killing the final 'boss' monster was ridiculously easy, I have to say. I watched a couple of DVDs (Elf and The United States of Leland... the former actually has a more believable ending).

And tomorrow, I'm off to San Jose, California for the twice (sometimes thrice, but hopefully not again) Wi-Fi show. Rest assured I won't be late for that... much as I'd like to, I'm a paranoid about never missing a flight, so my punctuality will be back for at least the airport trips.

The problems with distractions is, if you don't let them distract you and get just it over with, other distractions come along and sit next to them.

And by distractions, I mean forms of entertainment.

I was talking to my friend Josh this morning and he asked me:

JOSH: hey did you finish Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell yet?
ME: uh... no.
ME: I haven't STARTED it yet! It stares at me from the shelf every night, shaming me! "why did you buy me a month ago," it says "if you weren't going to read me immediately?"

And the book is right to be ashamed of me.

Books are like my crack cocaine, I have to buy them, they're an addiction. But I'm no better with movies and video games. They must be my black tar heroin.

By my count, just walking around my house this morning, I have the following:

I swear, when I saw this, I almost felt my eyes fill with tears... of joy.

Look at it—there, that graphic— that simple set of numbers and letters in a grid. Do you know what it represents? DO YOU?

I'll tell you what it means. It is the end to the tyranny over me by the worst user interface since Microsoft Bob. It means that soon, very soon, after parting with a little money and dealing with some installation hassles, after nearly two years of suffering at the hands of Scientific Atlanta's incompetence and TimeWarner's stinginess and desire for control—and all because I'm too spoiled to give up recording two channels simultaneously—I'll be reunited with... TiVo.

For those who haven't been following this saga for the past two years, here's why this is important: When I lived in MA, I had wanted TiVo so I could enter the world of digital video recording, granting me the power of a GOD over what was on the tube. And lo, when I got a DirecTV dish and a DirecTiVo unit, it did indeed granted me those powers and more, with an interface crafted from the finest pixels by geniuses of the highest digital caliber. We lived in this bliss for a year.

Then, we moved to Central NY. We were told we could have our DirecTV satellite, which would allow us to have our dual-tuner TiVo —but if we did, we could not have our local television networks. DirecTV would not support them in our new home.

Strange as it may seem, I still watch the vast majority of my programming from the networks (LOST anyone? Gilmore Girls? Arrested Development? I'll give up a kidney before I give up these programs! And back then there was Buffy and Angel still on, too!). So, obviously, this was unacceptable. After a few months of wrangling with the network affiliate in Syracuse, trying to get waivers so I could get the network feeds on my DirecTV account, I gave up, cashed it in, and jumped back to cable.

The upside to this: my local TimeWarner service had started using digital cable, and the cable box had a DVR built in, and it would record two shows simultaneously. Just like DirecTiVo!

The downside: It was like going from using a Macintosh back to a sliderule, interface wise. The problems run from having to jump back to the beginning of shows after recording stops to not having adequate "Season Passes" to a few other annoyances. But we've lived with it for almost two years.

Hated it and cursed it, but lived with it.

All the while, my dual-LNB DirecTV dish has remained poised on the side of my house, staring to the southern sky, awaiting the day it would again be put into use.

Tonight, finishing up (finally) my tech edit on a book for Pearson Publishing, I read one of the chapters discussing using satellite signals for TV and I thought, what the hell, I'd look on DirecTV.com and see if the local channels are finally available. I held no hopes for such and outcome. But a watched pot never boils, and apparently an unmonitored media service occasionally delivers what you want if you stop asking for it. For there was a channel listing of the local networks I could get if I signed up now for DirecTV (still no UPN, but I'll live with that.)

So, over the course of the next week, I have to buy myself a new DirecTiVo unit, call up DirecTV to get service reinstated, hope that the dish is still pointing at the satellite, and turn off my TV cable without turning off my cable modem. All moves that are totally worth the time and effort and money to bring back in my hands the elegant hour-glass shaped remote that will make TiVo once again a part of my life.

Where does the time go between posts on this blog? You'd think that when I can post almost every day while on vacation in an exotic island locale that barely offered me the sanity of broadband, I could pull it together enough to write something while I'm home, spending nine or ten hours a day in front of the dual LCDs that are my window to the outside world.

Well, you can blame this delay on Microsoft. Again. Only this time, instead of my time being sucked away trying to fix the company's easily broken OS or e-mail application, I've been sucked into the one thing they always seem to get right: HALO!

Yes, HALO 2 is out on the Xbox. It's been the constant topic of discussion between Joe and I as we plan future gaming ventures on our Xbox Live accounts (killing Tom Clancy's terrorists in versions of Rainbow Six is, sad to say, getting old). My brother, still obsessed with the original HALO to this day—he's just as likely to be playing that during the day as changing soiled, smelly diapers on his sons—will likely be joining us. All because on the big release day on Tuesday, the day $100 million flowed to the coffers of Redmond, WA, I was able to plunk down my $140 bucks for two copies of the game (one for the bro plus an Xbox Live starter kit. It's early Xmas... he'll get nothing under the tree this year and like it. Okay, very little. Okay, a little less than normal.).

I'm glad I didn't go out at midnight that morning for the sale at EB World like thousands of others. I'm not that hard core, though I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get a copy at all that day after the marauding teens got all theirs. But— much like I did when the last Harry Potter book came out —I walked into Target around 11am and found about 25 copies on the shelf. Plus, I snagged the last of the free strategy guides they were giving out, as well.

I think the proper term to use toward aforementioned marauding teens who got their copies 11 hours early, for all the difference that makes is: psych! Suckers. You kids is stoo-peed.

Meanwhile, the game, like other first-person shooters before it, permeates my thoughts like Tidy-Bowl does toilet water. I've got the strategy guide by my side so when my computer is doing something that takes a while (like, say, opening a blank document...) I can quickly look up some tidbit to help me out later. I've skipped my usual ritual of the Daily Show at lunch to instead wolf down left over chili and get right back into a half hour of killing Covenant grunts before I go back to work. And as soon as I'm done typing this, I've got to strap on my ray gun for a couple more hours.

And this is just the single-player campaign folks... I've got untold hours of multi-player goodness to get out of this game too, just as soon as Joe get his pre-ordered copy from Amazon, probably sometime next week. Sad for him.

Enough of this. Time to go kick some virtual ass. For those of you only with PS2 or GameCube... I pity you.

This past weekend I attended a wedding of friend's Brett and Kerry back at the old homestead. Nuptials/reception were actually held at the quite lovely Lake Lodge outside of Alfred, where my brother is known as The Law.

Anyway, it was nice as I got to sit at a table with my friends from HHS, watch another friend have a very funny wedding ceremony (pictures here) and eat some good food.

We had a couple of seats open at our table of eight. Over to the table to say hello to my friends Mark and Bill comes Kathy, who, at a year older than me, looks about 12 years my junior. I have no idea what time machine wrinkle cream she's using, but even after having two kids, she looks exactly like she did the day she graduated high school. It's unbelievable.

I'm watching her talk to Mark and Bill, wondering when I should say hi, and realize quite suddenly in my head: she has no idea who the hell I am.

Mind you, she and I were in theater productions together for several years. This woman was my date to my junior prom. She went on dates with me and one of my best friends at the same time and he and I had a very 16-year-old mind-blowing talk about that when we realized it back in 1986... neither of us had conceived up to that point that women play the field, too! (Had I only been as good at that as she...)

I haven't seen her since the summer of 1989 when she won a plastic frog at the Hornell Fireman's Carnival that became the first "squished frog" that Bill, Brett and I ever immortalized on film (we hit it with a bat, I think... or maybe we drove over it? I forget).

Finally, she sat down, she looked over at me, put her hand out to shake and introduced herself.

And I did the same, and I think the moment she heard my voice, maybe she finally clicked to who I was.

Laughter was had all around.

Later, as I was telling the groom about this, he pointed out with far to much honesty that she was probably thinking an instant later, "Boy, did you get fat!" True. Considering that even with my Freshman 15 in 1989 I was still a few pounds lighter when she last saw me, not to mention I no longer wear the coke-bottle glasses of my pre-LASIK life, it's a wonder she would click to who I was at all.

Kathy, standing nearby as Brett said this, blamed it on the beard (only seven years old itself) which was sweet of her.

Earlier that same day, the Wife and I were shopping up at the Hornell Wal-Mart, which based on the crowds is the only place to go in town for anything, and I saw another woman I knew back then, also from the high school plays. She too, back then, had been a beauty to behold, a gorgeous creature. However, the ravages of the last 16 years seemed to be etched in her face, her extra weight, her dead eyes. She pushed a cart accompanied by a small boy, no doubt hers, and seemed to have all the energy and vivaciousness of your average Romero zombie.

She didn't recognize me at all, of course -- I swear I could walk into my own high school reunion with an uzi and mow everyone down and no one would know to tell the police was me -- which was a good thing, as I couldn't imagine having to say to her, "hey, you look... great?"

Kathy, however, did say that to me. All hogwash, but she always had the ability to make a person feel good about themselves, a trait sorely lacking in so many. Including myself.

As we left the reception, I gave Kath a quick hug and told her I'd see her again in 10 years and see if she recognizes me then. Maybe I'll have lost weight, shaved and have reading glasses... but probably I'll just have the glasses.

A smart person would probably spend what little warmth and sunlight they have left to enjoy in the calendar year of 2004 in a hammock, with a good book and an iPod filled with showtunes and a container of cornnuts to munch on.

Not me. Here's how I spent my past Saturday. Notice the wacky-ass ceiling fan up there? Yeah, that's what I did. (That's in my parent's kitchen, part of the Never Ending Kitchen Remodeling Project of Aught Four.)

At least, I helped. As my brother would say... okay, as my brother actually said—he gave his usual 110%, I gave my 50%. He might have been being facetious, but sadly, it was still true. Then again, when he starts working, everyone else looks like they're standing around with their thumbs up their ass. (At least I did have the pleasure at the end of the day to tell him that he hung a bunch of lights in the ceiling up-side-down. Take that, Mr. I -Never-Have-To-Read-The-Directions!)

That, by the way, is an all wood ceiling in the center—it's raised in the middle to accommodate the Jetson's ceiling fan. The rest will be wooded later, but we had to finish framing it out and putting in the lights.

You can't see it in the picture, but there were old fluorescent lights up in the ceiling that we had to pull out, one of which I inherited (translation: My dad didn't have any place to put it, so he put it in the back of my mini-van). That's how I spent my Sunday: I hung an 80 lb fluorescent light in my basement utility room, which heretofore was illuminated with naught but a single bulb, barely enough luminescence to prevent hitting one's noggin on a pipe. Now it's bright enough to sun bath under.

Seeing as I was already perspiring from that (a short trip for one of my stoutness, worsened by inheriting the profuse sweat glands of my ancestors), I spent the rest of the day in equally manly household pursuits. I put a table top on an antique 25-gallon crock (don't ask) and hung a bicycle with a fancy pulley system from the ceiling of my garage. Then I washed all three dogs. And folded about 200 lbs. of laundry.

Then I watched Desperate Housewives and went to bed.

And that's how I spent my weekend.

Creepy... I just got an e-mail message from my great-grandmother.

My late great-grandmother.

I know it was her, because it has her name, Edna Stevens, in the "From" box in my email.

Of course, she sent it to me and about 40 other people in my company...

And she spelled her own last name wrong (its actually "Stephens"), but I don't recall what her level of literacy was...

And she seems to be selling me Va|ium and Via-Gra and Vic0din....

But otherwise, I'm pretty sure it was her.

What is it about phlegm that just makes it impossible to swallow? I mean, you would think it would just slide right down, but instead it always seems to stick in the throat, only to get horked back up for eventual expectoration.

Obviously, I'm sick.

Not sure what happened or how I got this way, since I have little contact with the outside world in my protective, IP-based bubble here in what I call the "Fort o' Seclusion," but which my Wife calls the basement. Still, over the last 36 hours I've started to generate mucus on a scale unprecedented in my sinuses.

To fight it, today I'm going all liquid diet for the first time since the ColonBlow experiment of January. At the time I deemed the ingestion of grape flavored sawdust a dismal failure since it didn't product black sludge feces, but I have to admit, it shed a couple of pounds. Per hour. (Amazing how that works when you don't have a donut or candy-bar or brownie every few hours.) I hope that along with flushing out the bad germs, I can flush out some fat cells as well.

I'm also sucking down Zinc tablets (Cherry-flavored my ass... they taste like Elmer's wood glue) and taking Dimetapp or Comtrex or something like that. All I know is, it says "non-drowsy" on the box, which I find disappointing, as I'd like to take a nap.

Since the wife wasn't home last night, I didn't see the big wrap up of The Amazing Race -- I told her I'd wait and watch it with her. (Totally deserves the Emmy, tho hard to fathom it beating out two seasons of Survivor in a row with Rupert.) So now I can't ready any Internet news today for fear of learning the outcome ahead of time. I must encase myself in a news-less bubble. Time to turn off the RSS Reader and limit the browsing to work.

This is never going to work.

Bonny was away for about 36 hours through Tuesday night. She was in Chicago for a quick 1.5 day trip to a seminar on how to do better propaganda to trick wayward youths with excessive means into going to our old alma mater.

Monday, that was fine with the dogs --- they probably just thought she was still at work. And Tuesday, well the two bitches (not a bad word!) didn’t have much problem.

But our little boy, Caper -- he gave a new definition to the term ‘momma’s boy.’

The sulking. The forlorn looks. That morning at breakfast for the first time in his life, he actually refused to eat. At first I was worried -- I palpated his stomach looking for bloat or tumors or stones or whatever, I checked his ears and nose and throat. Finally, I lead him back to his dish and he ate a mouthful, and then walked away. I brought him back five more time and he ate most of it.

He had no problem playing when distracted but I could tell when it clicked in his brain: “Mommy still no home,” his little brain would say. Then he’d go sulk. So it’s all drama. Angst of the canine. It’s not like we don’t leave him behind other times, such as at my parent’s house when we go out of town. The difference is, this time he was stuck with me and not his precious lady-human. I try not to take it personally. After all, I have a great loving relationship with our youngest, Kylie, though in my heart I know she’s a slut and would go off with any human that paid attention to her.

I think the psychic link between lady and beast is strong, as she got sick on the plane back home and yacked into a barf bag at the same time Caper was staring through the cyclone fence in the backyard, waiting for a car to pull into the driveway.

"When it came to your writing," he said, "you blew it."

This was said to me in the early hours of this morning by my oldest friend in the world, Mark, who I have known since the seventh grade. It was nearly 4am and we and a gaggle of people had been drinking since around 8:30pm the night before, at a bachelor celebration for our mutual friend, Brett, who's giving up his legal ability to sleep around next month.

I'm so out of practice for nights like this. I'm a practiced homebody. Having usually lived far from friends and co-workers, getting together for debauchery and vomiting in smoke filled rooms (some of it was even from regular tobacco!) where beers are shoved at me like cattle prods are shoved at Abu Gharib prisoners and the most off-hand comment can contain a reference to a person's mother's sexual proclivities, it is all so far from my second nature.

Nevertheless, I had an incredibly good night right along, meeting new people (the names of almost all I promptly forgot... I need to buy a book on remembering... bur remembering what again?), reminiscing with guys from high school, talking diverse topics such as Strong Bad e-mails to acting in local theater to wireless networking (ugh), and laughing like I haven't laughed in a long time without the help of Steven Colbert.

Discussion at one point centered on my recent fiction entry here on the blog, with some impromptu psychoanalysis of me by all at the table. I think it ended with the conclusion that I'm fucking nuttier than a can from Planters. I'm sure all the great writers of psycho characters get that all the time ("Oh, Mr. Harris! Your writing makes me think that perhaps you are a cannibal! Who likes fava beans, no less!") Perhaps I need to balance my crazies with some upstanding moral heroes... or not.

The occasional female wandered into the basement room we used, though none to remove a stitch of clothing, much to everyone's consternation (we even scared one girl away with a giant woop-holler as she entered looking for a bathroom).

After we got done at the bar some of us traveled over to Sean's apartment. There was more beer there and someone dialed-up some pay-per-view porn on his TimeWarner cable account to serve as soothing background ambience for the gathering.

Sean, for those not in the know, is perhaps the most likable person on earth. Even when performing acts of pure evil—despicable acts with innocent youngsters, mind you—people want to be his friend. He told me numerous times that he's enjoyed reading my blog, especially the occasional mention of target=_blank>The Girl I was Obsessed With™ (or TGIWOW) in high school. He would find it funny, because he was dating TGIWOW at the time, which back then made me insane with jealousy. But dammit, I still wanted to be his bestest friend. Everyone did, though he claims not to see it.

So why did Mark disparage my writing? Travel to the past with me for no good reason other than to show how good the memory on my friends is:

In the summer of 1986, after a couple years of traveling down to Myrtle Beach for a few weeks of the summer with Mark and his family, in 1986 Mark's family took Sean. However, that same year, my parent's decided we should go to Myrtle Beach as a family as well. So the two families were there at the same time, and did many things together.

One of those things was to go see the film Howard the Duck. And I hated it. Suck fest. It's a film universally derided and condemned as one of the worst ever made in Hollywood, and at the time I hated it even more because I had read a couple of the classic Steve Gerber comics it was based on. Not that I really understood them... I think Howard was a bit beyond me. Still, my mistake was in articulating my dislike of the film by mentioning how small the eyes were on the Howard puppet/suit (looking nothing like he was drawn in the comic, as if that mattered), which those two fuckers never let me forget. I would never have made it on a debate team with that keen insight.

Still: Howard's a suck fest. I'll let the NYTimes review of August 1, 1986 back me up.

This point (being brought up again at 3:30 in the morning, mind you) came amid a furious argument between the three of us that consisted essentially of compliments that we denied were true. For example, Mark tried to tell Sean that he was universally loved and could run for mayor of Hornell and probably win, a premise at which Sean scoffs. Meanwhile, Sean said to me many times in the night how much he enjoys reading my hilarious and gut busting and Pulitzer worthy entries in this blog. (I'm sure those were his exact words). He said this again as Mark and I were preparing to leave, and that's when Mark said that, as for my writing career, I had blown it.

This is an insight he delivered with a drunken stagger, a smile trying to show bravado in the face of probably not even being sure if he'd said aloud what he was thinking.

Still, it was a simple, straight-forward articulation of every doubt I have about my career path of the last 16 years.

Maybe he realized the harshness of the statement—or maybe he had to pause and turn 360 degrees to the door and back again while the alcohol cleared a new neuron to finish his thought—but he turned back and told me how he came to this feeling, saying that at one time, he and Brett had discussed taking my resume and submitting it to TSR (the former publishers of the Dungeons & Dragons games).

This goes back, apparently, to our affection for our D&D games in high school, where I was the dungeon master who treated a campaign like a writer who know the beginning and the end of the story, but not any of the middle—and I let my friends in their guises of barbarians and Halflings figure that out with dice rolls and funny accents and lots of cola.

Mark thought I should have been a great writer of fantasy and science fiction (or at the very least should have made kick-ass modules for role-playing).

I worked with a guy once who freelanced for TSR, and I don't think it was pretty, so I'm kinda glad that wasn't my path.

Still, this was a compliment in the long run, delivered ( as is a tradition with my high school friends) by first being torn down before one can be built up.

I realized long ago that when it comes to creative work, you can't really trust the opinions of family and friends. Everyone who's written a story and showed it to their mom is told how great they are, unless their mom is an evil, honest shrew-lady. Friends and family are (supposed to be) biased in your favor.

Many times some people are going to be impressed by your works even when it's utter shite because it's not something they think they could do.

The only opinions that matter in the long run are those who are going to get you published/produced/hired. And once you get past the initial hurdle, the important opinions are those of the people who pay the checks. Maybe even more important are the people you work with. (I'm sure to this day my college sophomore year roommate only thinks of me with derisive disgust that I didn't keep writing comedy with him instead of spending all my time in the dining hall and sleeping with that girl I hooked up with the same year. He went on to write for Conan O'Brien and just produced a pilot for UPN. But I married that girl. )

After that, what matters is the opinion of the consumers of said "artistic product". However, getting to them is damn near impossible, and even if you do, we all know the general public is a bunch of moronic sheep anyway, so who cares what they think? (Unless they have money. Or connections. Then you'll care.)

Still, it was a great compliment to get, and one of many I recieved that night, which was nice since I've been so absent for so many years. I was telling the Wife the other night, in discussing her giving a call to a friend she's also out of touch with, that I'm realizing that after you go a while not calling someone, you start to think, "wow, they must hate my guts for not calling in so long" and then you just keep putting it off and putting it off. I'm finding that sometimes the people on the other end feel the same way, and when you finally come together, it's just a big relief for all involved.

And it's especially fun when doing Kamikaze shots and/or watching pay-per-view porn.

Besides the evils of cake, the other thing I can't shake is my need for more damn books. I'm still reading my way through the $150 shopping spree I got on BarnesandNoble.com a few months ago, have yet to read any of the books I bought at the Friends of the Library sale last summer (because I got caught up in some books I just had to get off Amazon) -- and then today, weakened by a review in USA Today, I just had to make another quick Amazon purchase (which ballooned into $43 bucks for four books in no time). (The books in question: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Hark!: A Novel of the 87th Precinct, Murder of Angels, and The Last Coyote —I need that last one before I can read any of the FotL Sale books, as I got the entire series of Harry Bosch novels except that one, the fourth in the series.)

That's not even counting the audibooks on the iPod.

This is all easily blamed on my parents, who never saw a murder mystery novel they didn't like. As a kid, one of the great things my mother and I shared was working our way through all the exisiting 87th Precinct Novels by Ed McBain, by taking them out of the library. Before that, the year after I was in 5th grade, I won an airplane ride over the Canisteo Valley through the Hornell Public Library by being one of the three kids in town to read the most books. I ostensibly read one book every day that summer, and reported on them to the librarian, who's name was Terry Howard, and even back then I knew she was one incredibly hot babe. I'd have given her a book report on anything.

As it was, to meet my personal quota of one book a day, some of those books including things like collections of Peanuts comic strips that took about an half hour to get through. At the same time, I was reading Encyclopedia Brown, books about werewolves and Bigfoot, and lots of comics (but they didn't have comics in the library then, so I couldn't give reports on them).

Every day, I rode my bike with the banana seat (colored to look like it had blue glitter sparkling under the vinyl) back and forth to the library, about 10 blocks away. To do this, I had to either go through the underpass -- which meant going about 30 miles and hour down a cement hill into a tunnel -- or crossing the railroad tracks along the abandoned depot. I usually went the latter. It's where I encountered my first homeless person, when I hit the sleeping drifter in the legs with my bike. It never occured to me then that people would sleep against the depot. He gave me a dirty look and I moved on, my backpack loaded with books. I don't think anyone can go that route anymore, as there's a grocery store and a shopping plaza where I used to ride through on my bike, even up to the time I was in high school. Hell, the trail I used to walk in that same empty stretch of land across the tracks from the depot is now being turned into an Eckerds drugs. It's depressing.

Anyway, books: my mom told me the other night that once they reclaim their dining room (now filled with all the overflow from the kitchen that's under renovation) they're giving away every book on the homemade shelves in there. She told me to take what I want, as the rest would go to the hospital, Salvation Army, whatever.

Just what I need. More books.

If only there was a hot librarian around to give my book reports. I guess I'll have to settle for just the private joy of reading them.

(Oh, an a quick mention by the way, because it's been bugging me: There's a reason why movies based on Dennis Lehane novels win Oscars, and why movies based on James Patterson novels seem to have killed Morgan "Easy Reader" Freeman's career. As the kids say, Lehane rAWks.)

I'm sitting in a hotspot (others might call it a cyber cafe) in downtown Ithaca right now, waiting for the garage to throw a new tire on Matilda. I had lunch here, and I couldn't resist, I just ponied up also for a piece of their "ultimate chocolate cake." Which was very very good. But eating it made me feel dirty. Weak. Out of control.

All good signs.

It's amazing what a false sense of security can do.

I had to change a tire again today. It's the same tire that went flat before and that two different garages could find no problem with in the past. Well, now consider that shoddy rubber ready for the fire in Springfield, USA.

Since I just changed a tire on Matilda, the mini-van, less than two weeks ago, I skipped all the things I would usually do: didn't read the manual, didn't get flustered trying to figure out how to extricate the jack, didn't spend 20 minutes trying to get the donut spare off the stupid cable mount under the vehicle. (Though I did grab the phone to take out with me like last time.)

I was flying along, changing that sucker like I knew what I was doing. Spare ready. Lugnuts loosen. Jack in place. I had the vehicle raised up into the air at about the right altitude to get the flat off, took a step back to make sure, and watched as, in slow motion, the vehicle rolled backwards just enough to fall off the jack. Said jack was left laying sideways under the side panel.

I hadn't put a chuck behind the wheels. I hadn't engaged the parking break. I had not followed the instructions. That apparently only works for other people.

I engaged the break and stuck four different pieces of 2x4 under other tires to get Matilda locked down, and started to lower the jack into place so I could use it again... and it wouldn't turn. The entire jack got bent at enough of an angle as the 2000 pound vehicle rolled it that the foot long screw that lowers and raises it was now angled and thus useless.

Christ.

Thank god I'm in my own driveway and not on the side of an Interstate.

So now, AAA has a driver on the way to come and jack me up so I can get the donut on. Instead of buying just a new tire, I need to buy a whole new jack.

I'm truly the most unoriginal procrastinator that's ever lived. I seriously want to just do some writing but instead stare at my RSS reader like a zombie, or surf around, or whatever else... I'm sitting here on my ass, why not do what I want to do? Pathetic.

I'm not sure if it’s the weather (two solid days of drizzly rain, remnants of Hurricane Frances, probably) or the knowledge that I'm firmly entrenched in September (traditionally a month of mixed anticipation and horror when I was in school... there's little to anticipate about a September now), but I'm feeling like I want to claw my eyes out and just feel the vitreous humor drip down my cheeks. I don't want to look at the walls, I don't want to smell the air freshener in the toilets, I'm sick of Siren looking at me like it's my frickin' fault that when I take them out to play the grass is so high and wet and oh, daddy, please, I'm a delicate Labrador, I can't work in these conditions! Jesus Christ, you dogs eat your own feces! Wet grass shouldn't be a hardship!

Sigh.

Okay, so I've also got a bit of freelancing I'm doing, tech editing a book on home media networks. It's not exactly the most stimulating thing in the world. And it doesn't pay much. So I've turned in almost every chapter late so far... maybe they won't pay me at all.

I should have just left the house two hours ago, gone for a walk in the rain, maybe even taken one of the idiots with me for a walk, but I'm almost physically incapable of leaving my desk before 5pm on a work day sometimes, just in case someone should call, or some "news" should break that I need to cover. This makes me a good company boy, and it's why I'm still employed as a work from home stooge. So I tell myself.

So now it's almost 6pm, the wife's still not home. I wouldn't leave before she got home either, since if I was gone and so was one dog, she'd probably freak out thinking something's wrong, and I wouldn't be smart enough to have left a message or a note to assuage her panic. Another reason to sit and stare at these hateful walls, this stupid screen, and put up with the hopeful, optimistic looks of ignored canines.

I spent the day Saturday the fourth in Hornell -- it was my Mom's birthday. Here's some snippets:

My wife (known to me only as... Squanto!) , despite several years working in technology journalism, really has absolutely no patience for computers. If they don't do what they're supposed to, and I mean right god-damn now!, then things will be slammed, curses will be hurled, and husband's had best make sure the dishes are done or there will be more hell to pay.

Thus it is that this weekend, while she's away in Massachusetts playing with her former CDL* cohorts, I will be fixing her computer. Not just running a couple of utilities and simple diagnostics though. Her PC has been running for about three years now and has kludged itself up enough that it's time to go tabula rasa on it's ass. Always scary, but so worth it in the end. The most time consuming part will be doing all the backups of data, trying desperately not to forget any documents, bookmarks, ledgers, etc.

So. I'm off for an exciting Friday night. Tomorrow a trip to Hornell for my mom's b-day (and some more kitchen remodeling work) and then hopefully by Sunday night I'll have her PC running like new again. We'll see.

*Crazy Dog Ladies

Bravest thing I did today: I installed Windows XP Service Pack 2 on my main work computer after doing very minimal data backups. Foolishness really. And this was after four days of trying to get the update to download. But I did it, it took an hour to install, and it works like a charm. First thing I did with it: turn off Microsoft's crappy built in firewall. But I like the new Internet Explorer pop-up blocker. Kinda stupid that it's not available for IE on other versions of Windows, but that's how you sell.

Most Cowardly thing I did today: I had to change a tire on our mini-van (we call her Matilda). The driver's side rear tire was flat as Ally McBeal, which the Wife found out when she drove down our driveway this morning on the rim. So, I pulled out the manual (to see what I was doing), the jack (that took 20 minutes to extricate by itself), pulled out the donut spare, and loosened some lug-nuts in preparation for jacking the vehicle up.

It was about this time I got this vision: my leg pinned under the van, crushed when the jack failed, and the car has severed my femoral artery and I bleed out on my own driveway, despite my hideously girlish screams for help that would go unheard because I have no neighbors near by. Bonny would find me about eight hours later when she got home from work, and she'd see the van in the same spot, and be royally pissed that I hadn't changed the tire, spoiling for a fight after a heard day of work, and then she'd find my pale corpse, showing remarkably little lividity underneath since all my blood flowed down the driveway into the street, but rigor mortis has begun to set in, sped along by my laying in the sun upon the clean blacktop of my driveway.

When I got that stuck in my head, I went and got the phone out of the house and put it close by the van so when-- I mean, if -- the van slipped onto me, I could at least make a call to 9/11. Assuming the pain of having my tibia and fibula crushed to power doesn't make me pass out instantly.

Somehow... I got the tire changed without incident. Matilda can be driven off to get a new boot.

It was almost disappointing, really.

Just goes to show, there's probably no such thing as a AAA guy with an active imagination.

That reminds me, I meant to give some hell to the person who stole our sign.

Signs proclaiming "Bush Must Go!" have been springing up all over our progressive little valley here and Squanto (the Wife) and I, being also of that particular persuasion, forked over our six bucks for a sign too. It is basically a weatherized cardboard sign that fit over top of a cheap metal frame.

We had two problems. First, there were spaces at the bottom of the sign, on each side, for putting in an extra message of disgust toward the current administration. Most in town were buying extra anti-Republican bumper stickers and putting them in the slot. We were cheap, and wrote something in with a magic marker. The Squantalicious One decided on this saying: "A Village in Texas is Missing Its Idiot!"

We tried to put this down by the end of our drive way to no avail -- the ground was so rocky that the frame couldn't get embedded enough to hold the sign up. One day, the Wife decided enough was enough, and put the sign right out on the side of the road. Technically no longer on our property -- we live about 150 feet back from a 55-mile-an-hour two-lane road, complete with county-maintained culverts and ditches, etc.

At first, having the sign out there for all to finally see, turned my stomach into knots. I had visions of Right-wingers in pick-up trucks with Molotov cocktails driving up to my house, doing donuts in my front lawn as they whooped and hollered and tossed the flaming brews at the front porch.

After a couple of weeks though, I forgot my fears and went back to my usual existence.

And then, a couple of weeks ago, while I was down getting the mail, I saw that the sign, including the metal frame, had vanished. Gone. I checked the ditch, I crossed the road to see if it had blown off, but it was simply and utterly gone.

I have no idea who took it or why. Squanto, even more paranoid than me (where my paranoia leads to fear, here's leads to anger, and thus we both embrace the Dark Side) said it was probably the people about a mile down the road from us, the only house in town that has the guts to put out a Bush/Cheney sign on their front lawn. I figure it was more likely that some municipal worker saw our sign not on private property and said "sucks for them" as he threw the sign in the back of a dump truck. I can only hope he shook his head in sadness with a feeling of solidarity our over-zealous, ditch-encroaching protest.

Part of the Griffith Master Plan for Weight Loss is to give away as much of my bodily fluid as possible.

Thus, I have been giving blood as often as I can for the last year. That translates to every couple of months, because donors have to wait 58 days in-between donations, during which time all that retched blood grows back. I'm about half way to getting my first pin, for giving up One Gallon o' Plasma.

The Red Cross sets up a remote station every two months at the Ithaca VFW on State Street, right across from the beloved and seldom visited State Diner. I've tried to be there like clockwork. It's far easier to give here than it was to even find a place near where I lived in Massachusetts. Back then, I really wanted to give (especially after 9/11) but I never did. At the time I was considering it, so was everyone else, and the donations places (an hour's drive away) couldn't handle the capacity.

Usually the 45 minutes it takes to get through the donation are pretty innocuous. First trudge up the side stairs to the second floor of the VHW, which hasn't been redecorated since the early 1960s. An ancient, battered, and I suspect un-functioning Bingo sign sits on one end, over the doors to the bathrooms.

I hand over my ID to the first volunteer at the table who marks down that I've arrived on a reservations sheet. She or he makes me sit on a metal chair and read the several page pamphlet that spells out all the reasons I would not/should not give blood: Had Hepatitis. Exchanged money or drugs for sex. Lived out of the country for more than three months. Fuck men. Got a tattoo in the last 12 months. The usual things.

I skim it, admire the pretty colors on the print outs, and go to the next station where a Red Cross staffer asks me my name, rank, and social security number. They pull up my stats from the last visit, and then print out the questionnaire. This I take to a private cubicle where I have to circle either Y or N for each query. The only Y I ever circle is the first one: "Are you feeling healthy and chipper and wonderful today?" or something like that. The rest are reiterations of the reasons not to give: Like to smoke crack out of shared needles. Had AIDS for lunch. Fuck men. Are a Republican. Etc.

I was also told this time, for the first time, that the Red Cross is very anal, and that if I circle an N, I should make sure the circle doesn't touch the Y. Must be they grade it with a computer, like the NY Regents test.

After I fill this out (but don't sign it), it's time for the stick, the prick and the pump.

First the same staffer sticks an electronic thermometer in my mouth. After growing up with glass thermometers, feeling the metal rod with the prophylactic rubber sleeve under my tongue now feels unnatural. My temp: 98.8.

Then the prick: she takes the middle finger of my right hand and rubs it down with alcohol, then uses a sterilized spring-loaded unit with a point on it break the skin on the finger. She squeezes out some blood then wipes it off, I assume to make sure it's not contaminated with rubbing alcohol. Then she squeezes more into this little plastic tube that sucks my life giving juice up like a sponge. She then puts a drop into a vial of blue liquid and watches it fall.

"You've got a high iron content," she said. With a finger motion she added, "look at it fall." She went on to tell me that most men have higher iron in their blood than women. I asked her if it was dietary, and she said she didn't know. Maybe testosterone causes iron.

Finally, the pump: she puts on the sphygmomanometer on my arm to check my blood pressure. She had to do it twice, because she couldn't hear my pulse (66) over the oldies radio station blaring in two different parts of the room. She seemed a bit worried and asked me if my usual blood pressure was like this. For a second I thought, 'here it is, hyper-dog-damn-tension, finally, after all these years.' I pictured myself clutching my chest, ala Redd Foxx. Turns out, if anything, it was low ( 114 systolic and 84 diastolic). All that clean living is finally paying off with wide open arteries, apparently.

She had her boss come over and witness me signing the questionnaire and he handed me to a phlebotomist who's name I was either never told or I promptly forgot. She brought me over to the area of six cots, arranged in an oval with an opening for entering and existing the spheroid. In the middle was a table filled with, uh, phleboto-items, the tools of the trade for extracting blood.

Since my last couple of donations I've continued to have a little red mark in the crook of my right elbow. So when she asked what arm to use, I said, "oh, lets try the left." I had visions of my right arm being unable to heal so I'd look like I was shooting up black tar heroin, when all I'm doing is donating my blood so those addicts have a supply after for the transfusions they need after they fall in the gutter, split open their heads, and almost bleed to death. I give and give for them, but I don't want to be seen as one. But the left arm -- no luck. She used the tourniquet and had me squeezing a foam grip, then she throw another sphygmomanometer on and pumped it up until the arm turned blue -- but she still couldn't get a good vein. So, she had my flip around on the bed. She popped up a nice one in no time on that side and with the usual warning "you'll feel a little pain here," she stuck me and I started to leak.

I've learned two things while doing this many donations lately. One, never look woozy if you're not, or they'll try to keep you there. Since there's no way to get off those cots that isn't awkward-looking, I get that a lot. The other thing is, don't close your eyes to relax. Last time I did that, I had the phlebotomizer harping on me -- I guess she thought I was passing out.

Instead, I stare. At the ceiling. The acoustic tile in the upstairs of the VFW is similar to what was in my room as a kid -- a never ending series of dots that are repeated exactly from tile to tile -- only this ceiling to panted an off white sometime during the Carter administration. Therefore, some of the holes are filled in with paint, some aren’t. Some of the bigger holes are now smaller. So instead of counting the holes, like I used to do as a child when I would try to go to sleep on the horrible summer nights when Dad made us go to bed when the sun was still out, I instead play a game of trying to see what holes are missing by comparing tiles to tile to tile.

All the while I squeeze the foam grip each few seconds, and I leak.

Or perhaps I gush. One of the other phlebotians saw my progress and said to my attendant, "Wow, he's really pumping!"

"Yeah," said my phlebotominister, but with the condition: "With this arm. Got a big juicy one on this side. Not so much on the other side."

My left side never felt so sad.

I barely caught this as they had a large box fan going right next to my head. So I only caught dribs and drabs of the rest of this....

The superviser came over on the others side of my cot, near my head, and he started grousing with the phlebs about the remote they had at the Temple Beth El. Apparently, they get all sorts of crap from the little old ladies who run the place. One of them accosted some of the technicians once as they sat down to have lunch, for taking time out while people were waiting to give blood. Even if it weren't mandated by the state, it probably would be with some union, so who you going to fight? But the techs managed to be passive aggressive about it.

"You should see K____," mine said, referring to a co-worker, "She brought in a ham sandwich and ate it right there."

Everyone thought this was a riot. Silly Jews! We eat pig meat in front of you and you don't know! Ha ha!

For some reason, after I'd filled my pint bag o' hemoglobin, she continued to talk to me about the little old women of the Temple. "They're just one of the worst to deal with, is all. Not all our remotes are that bad."

I just smiled with understanding as I held my arm aloft with a piece of gauze on the voluntary wound. That's when she gave me the kicker:

"You know, I think, what would be good for those people, would be to just eat a little ham, you know?" She said this leaning in, conspiratorially, wink wink, you get me, don'tcha white boy?

Now, if you're not familiar with my profile, I've got to say, it wouldn't be hard for someone to mistake my schnozzola for that of a person of Hebrew descent. Had I been in the right frame of mind -- perhaps I needed more blood flowing to my brain than the measly five pints I have left -- I would have engaged her in some banter in my natural goy state, and then finally ended with, "Damn you, you vicious pork-eating anti-semite! I am a son -- of Abraham!"

That would have been very funny. For me, at least. Though it might have been difficult coming back there to give blood after.

But all I could think to do, unfortunately, was to smile weakly and scuttle quickly to the snack area.

There, I consumed a juicebox, a brownie, and eight Oreo cookies. For strength, don't you know. And after another talk about put-upon minorities -- guy sitting next to me had a t-shirt from a high school out west on an Indian reservation where the sports team was named "the white knights" of all things -- I beat a retreat to the car.

It's long been a running gag in my family that if my dad has to write a check for the amount of $12 in some way, he'll just make it out for $13, because he can't spell the word "twelve." He confirmed this for me the other day when he mentioned how he did it again, and just now he called me and asked how to spell it. I think he's starting to wear it like a badge of honor. I've heard of worse badges.

I can't believe it's August 18 already. Typical summer. I blinked and missed the whole thing.

I was just in my back yard with the dogs and saw a 2+ foot long snake. I started to try and pick him up with a stick (because I'm apparently, like, 8-years-old) and I was shocked to have him strike at the stick. And the little viper was shaking his tail-feather in a way not at all reminiscent of Ray Charles. I could see no rattle, I could hear no rattle, I saw no fangs or dripping venom. But I know rattlesnakes are not uncommon in the great state of New York (as a lad on a back road my parents came upon a man driving back and forth over a rattler he'd hit, making sure it was dead... he took it home to make a belt out of it) and I don't want my dogs running up on this bastard or any of his family and getting bit, even if he's not poisonous. Siren came over to see what I was playing with and almost stepped on the pissed off python, which sent me screaming for her to "LEAVE IT!" which usually works and did wonders at that decibel level.

After I put the dogs inside the fence, I went back to check him out and found him (slowly) slithering out of the yard. It was also pretty obvious that he'd just had something to eat. There was a bulge in him about half way down. It wasn't like he'd eaten a small pig or baby or something. But at the very least he'd had a field mouse. Luckily, he couldn't fit a dog. Well, maybe Paris Hilton's little rat dog, but I heard she found him, so I assume it's just a mouse.

In answer to Sean's question, yep, I did finally stumble upon the Amber Spyglass in the eponymously named book. It kind of snuck up on me, as I thought it would be a telescope shaped thing, which I guess it is, but as the character built it, it didn't sound that way. (And it's in the part of the book I hate and have had to resist just skimming, where the "serpent" of the book is living with a bunch of horses with wheels. Or something. I guess they'd look cool if Peter Jackson ever did a movie of it, but I can't picture them like I can most of the other vivid elements of His Dark Materials... harpies! foot-high spies! Intention craft!)

[If you have not yet read the His Dark Materials trilogy, sucks for you that you didn't understand a word of what was said above.]

This weekend was the kind of weekend that all other days of the year are meant to lead to. Pure laziness (even when mowing the lawn). Pure happiness (even when frustrated finding a parking spot).

On Friday night my parents called to ask if the Wife and I would be around Saturday afternoon, they wanted to bring me a present. Unlike most presents they bring, this one I (in theory) earned by doing some work for them earlier this month (which I'll get around to posting about sometime). Not that I needed a gift, and hell, they do enough for my brother's family and mine all year long that it was nice to just do something for them, but my unadulterated greed precludes me from ever turning down anything they give.

Saturday morning, Squanto and I decided to go shopping, and headed up toward Skaneateles (pronounced skinny-atlas), a small but very affluent burg located about 40 minutes away, on the north end of Skaneateles Lake, one of the Finger Lakes that bisect this entire region of the state so its impossible to drive east/west. We spent the morning and early afternoon wandering around the overpriced shops, remarking how much it felt like Cape Cod (where we were exactly one year ago). The only thing I bought was a big bank for my youngest nephew and we had lunch at a fantastic burger joint called Johnny Angels. There' should be a Johnny Angels in ever city in the union.

We were home by 2pm and after I mowed the lawn, got some chicken casserole cooking, and then I spent some time in the hammock listening to The Time Traveler's Wife on my iPod. The wife was lounging on the deck with her own iPod, listening to an audiobook called The Breathtaker. I'm hoping it leaves her addicted to serial-killer novels so we can talk about them incessantly into our old age.

My folks got to the house around 4:30 and presented me with a sleeve of Styrofoam cups as my present. I accepted this graciously, at about the same time that our idiot dog-boy Caper hit my mother full on in the knee with his shoulder -- the same knee she's getting surgery on in a few weeks to continue fixing whatever she tore up last year. She sat on my lawnmower, which was still in the yard dripping dry after I'd hosed it off, trying not to cry from the pain, and after she recovered enough to stand again (I was going to drive her to the door on the mower but she said no), my parents presented me with my real present: a reel mower. As in, a person powered lawn mower like people used to have in the 1910s. I'd almost bought one earlier this year, but couldn't bring myself to do it, and here it was, shiny and new and all put together for me. I need to buy a grass catcher for it and I'll be set to use it to sweep my yard for clippings and to get a little exercise in the bargain. (So we'll see how long I really want to use it.)

We had a nice dinner, looked at many pictures my parents brought out of my nephews (including this one of Josh, the youngest -- he's starting to get a real face now, instead of that generic vaguely Churchill-esque head that all newborns have), and just had, as my grandparents might have put it, a "nice visit." The folks left around 7:30 to get home and feed their own dogs.

Bon (Squanto's real name, for those of you just joining) and I watched a couple of newborn birds wandering around our front walk and bushes for a while, then wandered around the perimeter of our yard, something we've only done a couple of times before, pointing out trees that need to be chopped down, limbs that need to be cut, pulling a few dead ones ouf and throwing them into the brush. We found a vine of wild grapes growing in the back. She tried a fewand spit them out quickly -- nasty. She laid in the hammock for a while and wouldn't let me in with her, afraid it would bring the whole thing crashing down. So I swung her as high as I could to see if she'd scream, but she only cursed at me.

We fed the dogs and then sat on the front porch for a while, watching the hot-pink clouds slowly turn to grey as the sun set.

Eventually we went inside and watched a DVD, My Life Without Me, a very good flick about a woman who's dying and decides not to tell anyone.

I read some more of The Amber Spyglass (which still doesn't have a spyglass in it at the half-way mark) before I went to bed at mignight.

This morning, Sunday, let's just say waking up was nice. Damn nice.

The wife was obsessed with the thought of a waffle for breakfast. We don't have a waffle iron, though. So, we tried to decide what restaurant in town would have a killer breakfast menu with waffles and all we could come up with was Wegmans, the local uber-grocer. Down at their cafe, we found that wasn't the case-- no more made-to-order waffles. Bastards. So we bailed and drove up to College Town on the off chance that one of the eateries up there we don't get to often would have a brunch -- and lucky us, Ruloff's had a brunch menu so varied that she didn't even get waffles, she ended up with Eggs Benedict.

We were determined to get some ice cream afterwards at the fabled Cornell Dairy Bar, which we'd heard about a lot, but never been to when it was open. And we weren't any luckier today -- no Sunday hours. Bon says my mission this week is to get over there when they're open and buy ice cream sandwiches. I accept this mission. (Yes, that's a real fake cow on top of the Dairy Bar, but for a while, it wasn't there...)

(It's amazing how much of this weekend was food-centric, huh? Well it's not over yet...)

We stopped at the CollegeTown Bagels closer to home and grabbed a couple of small "chocolate mice" desserts and some bagels before returning to our own abode. After eating them (almonds for ears! Clever!) and playing with the dogs for a while, and experimenting with the new reel mower, we have hit the PCs for some work.

And that's the most diary-like blog entry I've made in a long time. Its probably boring as hell, but damn, it's been a great dog-damn weekend.

I try not to think about things like the deaths caused by Charley in Florida, or Iraqi uprisings, or all the usual pain and suffering that goes on in the world on a weekend like this, but actually find it harder not to let it intrude during good times -- Democrat liberal-pussy guilt, I guess. Whereas on a typical day of bullshit or a weekend of laboring I don't think about that at all. So next weekend, I'll be back to labor (helping my parents put up a new ceiling in their kitchen) and I'll forget the pain and suffering... and I'll be longing to think about it while sitting in my hammock, doing nothing at all.

I did some ego surfing on a new search engine today called IceRocket , which apparently is a Google rip-off from rich-guy Marc Cuban but with thumbnail images of the sites it links to. Seems pretty out of date, as all the links that come up to this site when I searched "squished frog" show the old design. I also found a bizarre Web page at RottenEggs.com that makes direct reference to the "Why Squished Frog?" page of this very sight as if it were related to the Muppet Movie. Or something. I honestly can't tell.

Which is my way of saying, I've got nothing much to say. Not much going on. Would have been at a play last night -- the Hangar Theatre's production of Cats, which is apparently selling out fast -- but we switched our tickets so Bon could go to a class last night, which she skipped because of rain. Instead she watched three episodes of the Daily Show, two Queer Eyes, and then we watched the end of Last Comic Standing. In between and around all this viewing, I read The Amber Spyglass, which is riveting (albeit getting laden down with a few to many fantastical creatures), and doesn't even yet have an amber spyglass in it.

I played some Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow on the Xbox yesterday after work with Joe, who's in the path of Charlie right now and I have called him twice now to urge him to get the hell out since he's on the edge of the evacuation zone and I think it would be better for him to find his house flooded after it's all over rather than during. He wasn't going to go, but I think he's going to go stay with someone at a higher elevation. Maybe he'll take the cats.

That's cats mentioned in two paragraphs in a row.

That's three. Might be a record for this blog, as we're more of a dog-blog.

This morning, I got back to the grind early-- I was up with the Wife as she got ready for work, after a week of sleeping in until the last minute. It's time to feed the beast... Web sites are ravenous creatures, always seeking some new morsel of content to swallow and display, and I am little more than a zoo keeper assign the task of slaughtering new vittles for it. Luckily, it keeps the vomit to a minimum...though there was a bit of spew this morning, as I referred to a company in a story yesterday as a "corporation" when it's monitor is really "systems." I cleaned up that little bit of up-chuck off myself and I'm ready to again throw some meat to the digital critter.

How's that for a metaphor for my life?

The blissful weekend is soon to arrive and will probably not amount to much as the rain will likely continue (Charlie's overspill?) which means not time in the hammock. I've got some florescent lights here in the basement filled with dead flies that need to be cleaned out. And a couple of units for hanging bikes from the ceiling of our garage to get them out of the way... not that I'll ever ride the $5 bike I got at the police auction a couple of months ago and my brother kindly tuned up for me, since 1) it's always raining and 2) I'm a sloth.

Maybe I'll get some writing done. Would be nice to take the dogs swimming somewhere, just not sure where we'd go that won't be thronged with boaters or drinking teenagers and broken bottles. Ithaca's a great animal town in many ways, but for dog-friendly facilities it's pathetic. The Wife has suggested in the past that I take my extra time and desire for something more to do with my life and channel that toward trying to get an multi-acre off-leash dog park built in this area, but that seems selfish of her... I don't ask her to spend her free time trying to get a comic-shop/porno-theater/ice-cream-stand combo with Laz-y-Boy chairs in the lobby built for me. Sheesh.

Here's a noise you don't hear every day: The screams of bunnies.

Oh, and do they ever scream. At least they do when they're in the razor sharp talons of a hawk, oh yes. Yesterday I was sitting down on the back deck to have some lunch (homemade chili, homemade salsa, and crappy store-bought chips... I need to learn to make homemade Tostitos) and heard a blood-curdling shriek from my yard. My first thought was one of the dogs had got caught it something, perhaps with a head under the fence. So I bolted up right, making a lot of noise with the wrought iron deck chair.

That noise was apparently enough to startled the hawk that had silently descended upon one of the dozen or so rabbits that call my yard a home. They'd be a real nuisance if we had a real garden (the rabbits, probably not the hawks), but all our plants are up on the deck so only the bugs (and our dogs) can ruin the growth.

This particular hawk had its brown-gold wings out-stretched and gave a quick flap after I stood, and took off in an arch around the yard. I saw his erstwhile prey scamper for the woods. I had foiled the hawk's lunch plans.

I started calling for the Wife, who couldn't hear me over the washing machine she was filling. When she finally came out, I told her about it, pointed out the arc of the bird's withdrawal from the scene. She said, "Good god dammit! Wait, come back! Take a few more of them!"

Squanto, as I like to call her, is a blood thirsty vicious woman. But that's part of her charm.

I'm not sure what she has against the bunnies, as they haven't done much outside of entertain us with their frequent courtship rituals (running at each other and jumping straight up in the air, for example) amidst the clover in the yard.

Last year we found a dead bunny in the driveway that I figure had been hit by a hawk we scared away in a similar fashion. I had to move him off into the woods with a shovel. It makes me wonder just how many of the little over-breeding rodents have been popped out of the back of my house without my seeing it.

But I know that in the future I'll be keeping an ear out to hear the frightened screams. The unholy, terrible screams.

Years from now I expect if I'm ever interviewed by a sociopathic serial killer in a glass cell, he'll ask me about the screams, and even worse, what followed the screams... the silence.

Assuming I can hear anything over the washing machine.

For some reason I can't understand, this site has completely avoided getting any comment spam -- that is, someone uses a program to flood the comments on blog posts with nonsense words that have hyperlinks to (usually) porno sites. This is done by sites to increase they're Google PageRank. I've never had any, yet Joe's site gets tons of it and he hasn't updated his blog in months.

This week though, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) site, of which I am the proud volunteer Webmaster and which is powered by MovableType, the same tool I use for my blog, got hit with a massive attack of comment spam. It wasn't the first. It took me hours to clear it, since I'm not using a fancy MySQL database to run it. Even when I turn off the ability on the posts to make a comment, these script kiddies seem able to flood it with spam.

Which all means, I have to take some time soon to update to the latest version of MovableType, 3.1, to avoid that happening again. That should suck away a few hours, though it's still less than I'd have to deal with if I was posting all the content on the site myself.

Speaking of the CBLDF, total fanboy moment: one of the board members of the Fund is Neil Gaiman, who anyone who knows me well knows I frickin' worship. Last year, I dropped him a note through his site thanking him for sending so much traffic to the site (whenever he mentions the CBLDF, traffic goes through the roof, since he has many non-comic-savvy readers to bring to the table). He actually wrote me back. So I had his e-mail handy to forward him a message yesterday that was sent in to the CBLDF's Yahoo!Group address, and only comes to me. And Neil kindly wrote me back with a thank you.

So I spent an hour on IMs telling anyone I knew could that knows who Neil is that "I'm on a first name basis with NEIL FUCKING GAIMAN!" (Sort of.)

Such a dork.

Still, I like writing that because... well, I'm on a first name basis with NEIL FUCKING GAIMAN.

I'm completely off the wagon. I haven't gained any weight back, knock on dead trees, but damn... in the last day I ate a half pound of M&Ms and more chili than is good for any colon. I bought a half gallon of chocolate Panda Paws ice cream and promptly hid it from the Wife in the freezer in the garage as if she'd berate me for it, and I wouldn't blame her.

When I told her last night about the illicite treat, she only gave me our trademarked admonishment: "You're bad(TM)." I couldn't argue.

You decide:

"So, when you move into your fancy new office, you want me to provide you with some boudoir photos?" he asked.

"Uh...." she started.

"You know, a nice shot of me in a Speedo or something?"

"Sweetie," she said, "I don't even like to see pictures of hotties in Speedos."

After several uncomfortable seconds of faux-weeping, he said: "You did hear how you phrased that, right?"

She thought about it and said, "Yes. I did. And I suck."

"Yes. Yes you do."

Signs of age: This morning in the shower I was looking at my feet. And I realized that, while my feet aren't Frodo-like in their hirsuteness, there was just this strange little line of hairs along the top of my foot. Worse, my big toes -- on both feet -- had about five or six individual hairs sticking out. I could see each one individually.

But thanks to the Gillette Corporation, now I can't.

This weekend was the baptism of my youngest nephew, Joshua Warren, or as he'll be called by me when he's old enough to be annoyed by it, "Wahrn." He was named that after my late maternal grandfather, and that's how his mother and wife said it, so I consider it family tradition. Like toast for breakfast, or spending too much as Xmas.

I probably got to spend more time that day with his older brother, John, now 19 months old or so, than I have in my last five combined visits out to Hornell (where my brother's family lives three blocks from my parents). John is motoring around now without any concerns for safety or well being, his god given right as a human with the cognitive capacity of a Labrador. And that's not meant as a slight, as I'm sure by age two he'll be as smart as a Collie. He's already far surpassed wiener dogs and Chihuahuas.

First thing my brother Paul and I managed to do with John was get yelled at. See the picture at left (photo from Dad's Polaroid). When this was witnessed by his mother and grandmother -- not my mom, the other grandmother -- they both said "Don't you lift that baby up by his arms!"

When Paul asked why with some incredulity, there were only mumbles because, lets face it, there's no reason in the world not to hold a child up by his arms like this. Dislocating a shoulder is so much more fun if you learn to do it right as a toddler. And John was smiling every time we did it, like a little goon.

As the ceremony commenced, I decided to keep John busy while the adults concentrated on pouring water on his little brudder. Besides, walking with him was far more exciting than sitting through another baptism. Good thing they usually do it to kids who are oblivious (cognitive capacity of a new born sheepdog).

I walked him up and down the aisles of St. Anne's Church, which was recently scrubbed down after some smoke damage from a fire in the back. (I'd link to a news story about the fire but, get this -- the Hornell Evening Tribune apparently thinks it's the NYTimes and charges people to see the archives. Ha. I bet that's a real cash cow for them.)

John would point at things and make a noise of interest and I'd say "Yeah!" and try to explain what it was. Like "Oh, yeah, that's Jesus Harold Christ. But see, he wasn't wearing those nice robes like that when he carried the cross. See that thing on his head? That's a crown of thorns and it got blood in his eyes. Oh, and he screamed. A lot. Just ask Mel Gibson."

We played with the collection baskets (my Dad was interested at one point in seeing if John would sit in one for a picture) and I taught him to walk on the pews and how to step over the divider in between. He knew instinctively to stand on the hymnals and didn't flinch at all when the priest came in and said hi to him (I thought I was going to get a "don't stand on the hymnals" speech.)

Eventually, I had to give him up, as John wanted to check out the goings on up in the front of the church, where he wandered about from person to person. It was funny to watch the adults scramble to be the one John went to. The validation of a child's love makes a person feel important. Face's light up and seem to say, "Look it, I'm the grandparent/aunt/obscure-relative/friend-of-the-family of choice this small being with an attention span of five seconds! -- oh, wait, there he goes, so I'll just smile warmly and pretend not to be hurt by his callous disregard of my adoration."

Not that I'm any better, but since I seldom get to interact with John sans the presence of his entire extended family, I'm used to letting other take the lead. And more than happy to let them take it when he's filling a diaper with that sludge some call feces, but I call "requiring a hazmat team."

The rest of the day was spent picnicking at Paul's house where, as usual, his side of the family (me, Mom, and Dad) tended to stay separate from his wife's Jen side of the family, apparently none of whom ever left the county. John took a nap and when he woke up, he ate and then played for almost an hour with a giant plastic toy car he could climb in and out of. My wife -- due to a miscommunication about Chicken Pox, which she's never had, she didn't accompany me out to the ceremony -- found said car at a yard sale. John seemed to love it, especially the doors that would open and close, and that he could push it around like a shopping cart. Thus, I won the contest for his attention span, by proxy. So there.

Okay, here's an idea:

Let's say you're a lady. And you've got a truly sensitive significant other, a guy who is just madly in love with you and he does all he can to make you feel loved and wanted. He does dishes every day (okay, most days), keeps a roof over your head, and pees sitting down. All for you.

Now, let say that despite all that, your significant other boy (or S.O.B.) has one major problem in that he's -- how do I put this delicately? -- "laundry challenged."

Some uncharitable souls might call him a "clothes wash retard."

A wash-tard, if you will.

Now, if you are the woman I describe, knowing how hard your man works to make you feel loved, warm, covered in rose petals and kittens and sunshine, blah, blah, blah, wouldn't you want to do you best to protect that man -- that glorious hunk o' man, that very dude who mows your lawn and hangs your curtains and records Antiques Roadshow for you and drives your ass all over creation -- wouldn't you want to protect him from... himself?

How would you protect the wash-tard, you ask? By maybe (and I'm just throwing this out there, so feel free to through it back, as Ron Burgundy sez), I dunno, just by maybe buying clothes that aren't so goddamn easy to ruin?

I mean, when you ask him to do a simple job... taking the laundry out of the washer and placing it in the dryer, for example.... you'd want that job to be pretty brainless for your average moron, right?

Yo might think it helps if you yell, "I've got bras in that load!" from the other room, but inside you know that's not going to be hard for him, because -- being the kind of man he is, who's desperately in lust with your cleavage -- he knows a bra when he sees one, and he knows that the elastic goodness they bring shouldn't be subjected to the parched heat of an electric dryer. He know, lordy he knows. He may be a wash-tard, but he's able to learn from some experience.

But did you bother to tell him at the same time that there's a shirt in that load with the absolutely ludicrous instruction of "LINE DRY ONLY"? Did you? You didn't? Well, Christ. Don't you feel heartless? After all he's done for you? You know, after all, that part of being laundry challenged -- indeed, the foremost component of this affliction! -- is the inability to ever give tags of any kind any regard whatsoever.

I'd hazard to say that most men, especially those of us who don't have to wear any clothes at all in our day jobs, if we so desire, are very likely to have this problem, ladies. Because we don't buy shirts or pants that can't be throw into a pile and just washed and dried. Its not in our makeup.

And don't give me that crap about towels and t-shirts and different kinds of fabrics that shouldn't mix because they dry differently. I've seen you (uh, I mean, I know that women in general...) throw white towels in with red towels, so I know there are no real rules when it comes to laundry.

Except for those rules that exist on small, hard-to-find tags. Those are the rules I shall... uh, I mean, we men... shall never learn, and thus will wash-tards always exist.

Conversation I had via IMs today with my friend Lauren, discussing a company we used to work with back in the day that makes uninterruptible power supplies:

Lauren: I found this on APC's web site: Be afraid...be very afraid: APC GENDER CHANGER, DB37 MALE TO DB37 MALE, SLIM-LINE DESIGN

ECGriffith: they do classifieds now? way to branch out APC!

Lauren: lol

Lauren: APC V.35 GENDER CHANGER, V.35 MALE TO MALE, STRAIGHT THRU PINOUT

ECGriffith: the even do surgery.

Lauren: they must be a swiss company

Lauren: and last but not least: APC VIDEO COUPLER, S-VIDEO, SVHS, MINIDIN4 FEMALE TO FEMALE, INLINE COUPLER

ECGriffith: hot girl on girl action!

Lauren: whoo-hoo!

Long weekend coming to a close, and I don't think I did a single productive thing. I don't know whether to be disgusted with myself or intensely proud.

How can I tell I'm not young any more (if I ever truly was)? I use this formula:

Barbeque + Caffeine + Superhero - Sleep = Me Feeling Like I'm Going to Yack.

After getting about four hours sleep on Monday after dealing with my e-mail issues, I got only three on Tuesday night because I went to the midnight showing of the premiere of Spider-Man 2. Just to make sure I'd be up through it all, I popped a NoDoze around 10:30. Since I thought this would be a good idea since I fell asleep during the pod race in a midnight show of Star Wars: Episode 1 back in 1999, and hell, I was still in my 20s then. However, maybe I fell asleep because that movie sucked.

FYI, the caffeine was not necessary for Spider-Man 2, as the film was absolutely riveting, one of the all time great superhero flicks, up there with X2, the original Superman, and Unbreakable. Once I was in bed by 2:30am, I was still hopped up on caffeine goofballs and unable to not think. I ran every second of the film over in my head. (Any problems I have with it are described by Steven Grant over at Comic Book Resources [contains SPOILERS], especially how the fantastic bit in the trailer where Doc Ock throws the car through the windows doesn't make much sense in the context of the film if given any thought. Overall though, this film lives up to and beyond its hype, which is not easy to find in movies these days.

My last look at the clock was 3:30am.

When I got up Wednesday at 6am to feed the mutts, I felt slightly wired, in that way you feel wired when you're, say, drunk and walking along a narrow building ledge and all you have to balance yourself is a bowling ball. I drank a glass of water and my stomach did a flop-flip (like a flip-flop, only, bad). I tried to sit down to work and thought I was going to hurl the now body-temperature H₂O up on the keyboard. I pulled the curtains in the bedroom and laid back down for a couple of hours, bringing my sleep up from deprived to just disadvantaged, and finally got to work a little late, but in time for a meeting.

In cyberspace, no one knows you take meetings in your pajamas.

My thanks to Brett for thinking of me for his extra midnight Spidey 2 ticket, it was great to spend the evening with him and Sean, a man who is a living testament that eating nothing but steak and lettuce is good for you, at least until his heart explodes from all the clogged beef or something. He rides a humongous red motorcycle now -- I think it was red, it was dark -- and with his head shaved, if you set him on fire while riding, he'd look like Ghost Rider. With a goatee.

(FYI, I have started to call my wife by the nickname Squanto. There is no good reason to do this, but I do it anyway.)

Yesterday was supposed to be a day of rest. Not because it was Sunday, but because I did a bunch of crap around the house Saturday (painted, cut and mounted lattice on a deck, etc.) and I decided Sunday would be lazy day, perhaps in the hammock, perhaps on the couch.

Instead the wife decided we should go for a walk. Up a gorge.

We hit Buttermilk Falls State Park and climbed up one side (with stairs) and went down the other (no stairs. Turns out stairs are good). Half way up we were both feeling the pain. Meanwhile, we were being passed by cheery senior citizens. Pathetic.

Dogs are allowed there on leash, and because dogs are allowed, there's poop. Right on the trail, sometimes. The wife decided that since other people are inconsiderate scum willing to get dogs banned from the park by not cleaning up after them, she would, at the very least remove the feces from the trail herself. For the dogs, not the people, who are filth. She would select a stick and use it to fling the droppings off into the woods.

I told her that she should get a job in the park, as Poop Ranger.

"Yeah," she laughed. "Squanto, the Poop Ranger."

It was there I came up with the lyrics to her new theme song.

(sung to the tune of "When Captain America Throws His Mighty Shield" from the 1960's Captain America cartoon; listen to MP3)

When Squanto the Poop Ranger finds turds on the trail
She knows she must remove the poops or fail!
With the pick of a stick
and the flick of her wrist,
The shits are removed
and will never be missed.
When Squanto the Poop Ranger finds turds on the trail!

Continuing the theme of hating Mondays...

Last night, I worked late, but not until 9pm. I decided to take the wife out to dinner and she said we should go to Lucatelli's, an Italian place in Ithaca that neither of us had been too since 1992. We soon found out why. The hostess took us into the dining area, which was almost completely empty, but she asked us if we wanted to sit in the lounge. I have no idea why. But we said, sure, whatever.

The lounge decor is vintage 1960's lounge, complete with Sinatra music playing on the stereo. We were seated at a corner booth, which meant scooting across 7 feet of vinyl to get in front of our place settings. A TV at the bar was running some movie channel playing a war movie with Owen Wilson, it was playing louder than Frank. I had a very nice breaded chicken dish, but Bon had some pasta that was either old or moldy or both, I'm not sure. We got it taken off the bill.

Since we wanted to skedaddle from there fast, we decided we'd go treat ourselves to some desert up in Collegetown. We walked by the dessert place, which appeared to have a bunch of store bought cakes and pies, nothing home made. Instead, we decided to go to a fancy place we'd never been to before, Stella's, mostly because the menu outside said it had a dessert called "Chocolate Orgasm." Two great tastes that taste great together.

So we went in, orders a couple of martini's, and asked for a Chocolate O -- and the waitress said they were out. We settled for the tiramisu. Turned out it was their last one, and it tasted like it. It tasted like they'd made it in 1998 and had kept it in a freezer ever since. We also got that taken off the bill.

Monday nights out in the big city. All you get is leftovers from the weekend.

One of the joys of my job working from home is that my retired father -- who isn't really sure what the hell it is I do for a living -- feels free to call me whenever the mood strikes. He might call to point out some story he read in a magazine ("septic tank maintenance!"), or to ask my help in finding something on the Internet that he's sure he saw just the other day (uh... Google much?), or so we can perform the clandestine gift buying plans that are so much a part of my family. We're big on big gifts.

Today he called me with something unique, however. He found a gun in the wall.

Some background: Each summer my parents have a household project. Sometimes its not even limited to summer. Since they built the two car garage in 1981, I don't think a year has gone by that they haven't done some major household redecorating or reconfiguration or renovation.

They can't be bothered to empty the attic and basement of 35 years of detritus -- because you never know when a Popular Mechanics from 1958 might yield a worthwhile article! -- yet they have no problem ripping down plaster and lathe to re-sheetrock a room. They've redone the living room, the dining room, two bedrooms, the bathroom, the front porch, moved the washer and dryer up stairs, even built their deck out and out and out so it now covers, no lie, 1.2 square miles. The neighbors are pissed. When dad retired, the family got together and built an addition on to the garage as a woodworking shop. A few years ago, they redid the kitchen. And now, its time to redo the kitchen again.

This weekend I'm going out to help them replace the roof on the back part of the kitchen, which is an add-on space that was there when they bought the house in 1969. The roof has started to leak, and needs to be fixed/replaced before major interior work begins. Dad won't get started ripping the existing roof off until Saturday (in case of weather), but that didn't stop him from going to town inside. They've moved out the cupboards and counter, so its time to pull down the wood paneling that's been there since they bought the place (a week before I was brought home from the hospital, in fact, all pink and chubby and hungry. Very similar to my current state, in fact.).

And there it was in the wall behind the paneling, buried in the blow-in insulation... the gun.

Well, not just any gun. A BB gun.

A copper-plated Commemorative Daisy Air Rifle model 50, the Golden Eagle, in fact. It was stamped with the name and dates on the barrel, and there's a decal on the stock that says "1886-1936" -- the first fifty years of the company's existence. From what I can find on the Web, this gun was released in 1936. It would hold 1000 BBs. A couple are up for sale on eBay right now, with low bids expected at $160 or higher (no bids in yet, though.)

It's not the first thing my parents have found in their walls. They once found a handful of corset stays, probably dating back to the 1920s. Not hard to picture someone tossing those... corsets hurt! (I assume. Ahem.)

The question is, why get rid of a highly collectible Air Rifle? That gun could have been stuck in the wall any time between 1936 and 1969. Thirty-three years.

The story behind this gun would be fascinating to know....

Did a child use it to kill neighborhood sparrows in the maple trees in the backyard and, overcome with horror at what he'd done, put it in the wall as his dad was replacing the paneling?

Perhaps a sadistic father, angry with his sons test scores, held the weapon out to his progeny and in a major "psych" took it back and said "It says in the wall until you pull them grades up, boy!" -- the boy was so dim he continued to fail and forgot about his golden gun...

Maybe some kindly uncle buy it for his nephew only to have it disappear when a disapproving mother snuck off with it and inserted it in the wall during some remodeling before her child accidentally shot one of the neighbor kids?

We'll never know.

Meanwhile, hey... free gun!

After spending much of the month of April being extremely frugal (a word, by the way, I just had to look up the spelling of... God damn Google ...), I went on a buying binge this month as my material needs meter spiked into the red. Here's a quick list of some stuff I bought. Sadly, I can't remember it all:

To the woman in my Monday night watercolor painting class:

I understand completely that you feel that, at your advanced age, taking a painting class for the first time since you were probably in grade school, you might be a bit out of your depth. I feel for you that your talent is probably not up to the caliber you were hoping for, what with your inability to draw and all.

But I'm sick of hearing about it.

It's so nice for you that one of your co-workers is taking the class with you. It gives you someone to talk to, giggle with, share your outlooks on how much better all the other students paints are in comparison to your own unpleasant neophyte scribblings.

Now please shut up.

To the 105 pound Tara Reid look-a-like -- your golden tresses cascading over your milky white shoulders which showed through the torn off collar of your tight t-shirt with the word JUICY printed on the front, splayed over your pert, perky breasts -- who showed up at Weight Watchers last night:

What the hell?

Perhaps later I can join you at a meeting of Bleach Blonds Anonymous, where I'm sure I'd look just as in place as your skinny ass did at WW.

So, the whole Weight Watcher's thing, which I'm constantly bitching about? (Except for the last two weeks, apparently...) Yeah, that's going nowhere fast.

I re-upped for another ten weeks, but I've fallen off the wagon mentally and I fear there's no getting back on. Perhaps if I can stay at this weight (down 19 to 21 pounds, depending on the week) until January of next year, then I rejoin, maybe then I could get a handle on the next 20 pounds.

I am only staying at about every other meeting, just to punish myself when I go up a pound at this point. During meetings, all I do is sit and think of things to say if I'm asked a question so I'll sound oh so funny. They usually revolve around my saying things like "Hey, what the hell, I thought there was supposed to be a buffet here!" When the group was quizzed on the best ways to save time -- not sure why... more time to stuff our faces with pie, perhaps? -- it actually took some will power not to raise my hand and suggest that "you should flush while still peeing." The efficiency of that action would likely have been lost on a room full of females.

I took a notebook with me the last few meetings, did some plotting one night, made a list of things to do around the house this summer... and I also copied down all the platitudes that are spouted, apparently to get us through the week. Well, everyone except me, since I hold them up for ridicule instead of taking them to heart like a good soldier against over-eating should.

Here's the best of the last few weeks, with some translations. Keep in mind, these get repeated A LOT.

Being a typical American sheep (is the singular of sheep actually sheep?), I watch American Idol. And like most, I especially enjoy the early episodes, where we can stand by and watch people just suck, even though some of them really think they don't. It's funny and sad and scary and as of tonight, I can totally relate.

Plus, I have a whole new respect for Wil Wheaton.

A few weeks ago, trying to figure out how I'd spend all the extra cash in my wallet that I'm not saving for the day Medicare and Social Security run dry, I was surfing the Web looking at all the local theater goings-on around Ithaca. There's plenty of it year round, but especially in the summer. And lo and behold, I find that the big local place, the Hangar, is having auditions for adult parts. It's a cattle call which they use to cast people in whatever parts comes up over the year.

It was not much of a leap from reading that to my head filling with visions of me on stage at the Tony's, accepting my award from Nathan Lane with what modesty I could muster. Surely a company that hires big-name Equity Actors would surely recognize the local talent in front of them as superior.

Days later, I had swung the pendulum from the superego to the far side of my ego -- I knew I couldn't memorize the required monologue, I wasn't that good a singer even when I did plays in high school, what the hell was I thinking? (Meanwhile my id was saying, "download Internet Porn!")

I've fretted and stewed over trying out right up until this evening, talking myself in and out of it numerous times. Having been cast in a play in the meantime -- did I mention that I'll be playing Pat Robertson as if he were protrayed by Peter Lorre playing Renfield in Dracula? How could I neglect that? -- I let myself again think, damn, maybe I can make it on that main stage.

I'm under no illusions about my part in this play (called Chapel of Love). This is a production of locals, all of whom are friends, some of them work with my wife at the IC campus, so I fell into it and was welcomed, not because of any great aptitude on my part, but because I was a willing, warm body, and they needed people. I'm gratified that they seem to like what I'm doing though. Again, that helped my confidence in going for this audition.

After weeks of hemming and hawing, I called and scheduled myself for an audition for Friday night at 9:30. My first clue at the insurmountability of the task should have been that the location for the test was the IC School of Music building. That's perhaps the most talent-filled structure on the campus, maybe even in town -- unless you count the beer-funneling talents of many a fraternity at Cornell. Those guys can really drink, and fast!

I also learned I couldn't sing a song a cappella (having been brainwashed by American Idol, I figured that was how it was done). They wanted me to be accompanied on the piano. So I went out and spent 14 bucks on a book of music from the musical Godspell. I figured I should sing something I knew by heart, and my friend Mark and I used to sing the tune "All For the Best" to entertain folks and I still liked it.

Then today, I spent the hours between 4 and 7pm beating a monologue from Neil Simon's Prisoner of Second Avenue into my head. It's from the POV of a guy who recently lost his job, so I thought based on past experience, I could relate.

Finally, I popped a NoDoze with hopes of chemical pep, and then, I did the audition.

And it was fine. Okay. Maybe even "good." I dropped a line in the monologue (not that the art director folks knew, they didn't have a copy). When I sang, I think I was pretty flat. I don't know what key I sing in, since I'm no musician. And I did some stupid hand gestures that in retrospect I think made me look like a mime. And despite promises to myself, I was a bit nervous. Also, I can't remember if I shook hands with both the people there, or just one... that bugs me.

The artistic director laughed through my monologue at the right parts though to be honest, I wasn't expecting to get any laughs, as I figured they'd be so damn tired by that hour they'd just want to go home, so the chuckles threw me a little. I'd made a crack when I started to sing saying "I hope this doesn't turn out like American Idol" (got another laugh) and when it was over, they said "That was good. And see, we're much nicer than those guys on American Idol." And they were.

Then silence and smiles.

Then I realized, that was it. It was over. I quickly calculated how long the last person in the room had been auditioning: easily ten times the amount of time I had. So it was all over.

I thanked them all for the opportunity to do this. I left.

On the way home, my wife bought me a brownie ice cream sundae as a reward for going through with the audition. I could tell she knew as well as I did, before I even said anything, that it had amounted to nothing in the long run.

Later at home, watching Wonderfalls (WATCH IT! Fridays at 9pm on Fox!), I sat there and actually caught myself thinking: They might still get in touch with me for a call back. They might. They really might.

My hubris can still amaze me.

Now its almost 3am, the caffeine pill is still muscling through my blood stream, and I know the truth of it. They won't call. They won't e-mail. And it's fine. It is. I'm really not prepared to make the time/energy commitment to a major play this summer, nor probably ever again -- I already resent the Chapel of Love play for eating into my time sitting around doing nothing.

Besides, I'm no longer 17. "Play practice" is no longer a good way to meet girls (not that I ever mastered that either). And I'm not the top of the heap of talent -- to think I was even close to the top in high school in 1988 only underscores how untalented the entire place must have been. Perhaps if our director back then had actually directed plays instead of just handing out the scripts and essentially saying "have at it"... maybe things would be different. Maybe I'd have stuck with it? Doubtful though-- I never auditioned for plays in college because there were people there studying to do it for a living, how could I compete? It took me three years to even figure out what the hell I wanted out of college besides free meals in the dining hall.

So I shall do my job in Chapel of Love, and maybe even do more such community performances in the future if these same people will have me, which would be nice. And I can safely go back to my usual creative pipe dreams of painting and writing and getting on a reality show, preferably on an island where I can earn a million bucks, or at the very least lose more weight.

I'm in Toronto, Canada, heading into the final four hours of the show my company puts on that I have to help "run." Which is a misnomer, as all the hardwork I did for it was weeks ago, I don't consider the public speaking part to be much work. One of the events guys complimented me on my ability with the people in the audience, noticing that some editors have that ability, while others are withdrawn almost to the point of autism. In this industry (well, my part of it, which is tech journalism), we call what I have "the schmooze gene.")

We drove up here on Monday night, "we" being myself and Joe (don't bother following the link… the bastard hasn't blogged since October of last year!). He flew in from the sunny climate of Florida to the arctic tundra that was spreading across the city of Syracuse. The weather was calling for a few inches to hit the grounds just after we left central NY.

My long suffering wife spared no expense in pointing out that whenever I leave for a business trip, the snow comes in a surge. She neglects to forget the entire months of January and February when she didn't have to move a scrap of snow herself. Oh, how I pity her. Yes.

Highlights of the trip up and throughout the show:

• Expecting a long delay at the border crossing, Joe and I got our driver's licenses ready and prepared for the thorough body cavity search. Instead, a bored guy in a booth holding a magazine asked us where we were from, where we were going, business or pleasure, and waved us through. It took about 20 seconds.

• On the Queen Elizabeth Way, first sign we saw was for "Toronto -- 115" and we both said at the same time, "115 Miles!?!"

  We're not good with the metric thing.

• Hotel's should all have high speed Internet in every room. It's not that expensive, especially with Wi-Fi. I should know, I write about it EVERY DAMN DAY. So to get a room without it was a horrible blow. When asking to switch rooms to get high speed, the woman at the counter said, "We do have dial-up Internet access in each room." As if that would appease us. That's like offering a lollipop to a crack junkie.

• Joe's sick --- he's always sick, but he doesn't think so -- but was ill enough that he ditched me for dinner last night, which I had with two women from the research side of the company. We ended up going to a pub/restaurant to get some more authentic St. Patty's Day vibe and ended up next to a dance floor pushing out million decibel dance music, such as extended versions of "Billie Jean."

• All of Toronto's downtown has a basement that doubles as a mall. It's fascinating, and bizarre and fun to walk around and try not to get lost. I tend to think of myself as having an almost infallible sense of direction (probably because I live with a woman who probably never find our car in most mall parking lots without me), but this Toronto underground is tough. I eventually found my way to the Eaton Centre, the big four story mall in town.

  (Hysterically funny story: My high school girlfriend's family once took a vacation trip up to Canada and her younger sister, who was mentally retarded and a bit overweight) was obsessed with going to the Eaton Centre. Turns out to be a very large disappointment for her, as she thought the place was the "Eatin' Centre" and it did not have a preponderance of places to do said "eatin'". If you can stop laughing after that, you're made of stone, people.)

• When Joe and I finally got switched to new rooms, we each got suites that were over sized, including full living room furniture and a six-seat dining room table. The beds, however, were trundle beds, hidden up in the wall. I was hanging with Joe in his room and on his first try pulling it down, he dropped it square on his foot. (Again… pure comedy gold.)
  

Not much else to report. The show's fine, the people from my company are great, and blah blah blah. But I'm ready to go home.

It has been a strange week.

Though not so strange as to pull me much out of my normal routine: wake, shower (sometimes), dress (mostly), spend three hours checking e-mail and reading about Wi-Fi, eat lunch while watching Curb Your Enthusiasm (Mondays) or The Daily Show (Tues-Friday), spend another four or five hours writing about and editing stories about Wi-Fi, send e-mails, and wait for the wife to come home.

Between Monday and Tuesday I made five different trips up to the Ithaca College campus, mostly to drop Bon at work since we had our mini-van in the shop getting a new bumper but on after a little fender bender in a friend's driveway. On my second trip up, walking around Bon's office, I saw a poster for a speech being given by a former FBI profiler, himself a former graduate of the IC school of music. Further proof that no one ever gets a job in their major. Bon hadn't told me about this free lecture -- she likes to mention when sopranos will be on campus singing opera or ballet recitals, but neglects to mention anything about guys tracking serial killers, one of my favorite things.

I made the trip home to drop her off and barely made it into the lecture as seats were at a premium. The Ithaca chief of police was there, and over 200 students. I asked him a lot of questions, thought I was making a slight nuisance of myself actually. It was fun. Too bad he spent all his time talking about a case I already knew a lot about.

On Thursday, my brother called me, as he does all the time. He didn't sound any different on the phone -- he always greets me by saying "Hey, douchebag," or "hey, scumbag," which would be offensive in any other family I guess, but not in mine -- however he was calling to tell me not to worry, but that Dad was in the hospital.

Dad and Mom had just come out to Ithaca the night before and had dinner with us. I think it might be the first time they had Thai food. I knew Dad had a cold but he seemed well on the mend. I figured red curry chicken would certainly cure what ails him. It made my nose run, that's for sure.

He made a trip to the doctor Thursday and the doc sent him direct via ambulance to the St. James Mercy emergency room with a temperature of 104 and a preliminary diagnosis of pneumonia. Chest x-rays didn't confirm that (its mostly likely just a chest infection of some sort I've since been told), but they wanted him admitted anyway.

He's been there since, and I've talked to him several times. His temp is down, they're pumping him with IV fluids and antibiotics, and he gets to pee while in bed, so I think he's almost enjoying himself. Maybe it's the sponge baths.

This is his second trip to the hospital in the last few months, as he had a kidney stone attack not long ago either. Stones in the kidneys are something all Griffith men have had... my first and so far last one was Groundhog's Day in 1998. We blame Grandma's gout.

It took Dad a few hours to get checked in, as they waited to get him a private room. Being the family member of a hospital employee -- my mom runs the hospital's LifeLine program, which I always explain to the unknowing as an "I've fallen -- and I can't get up!" program -- is getting a private room. Such are the perks. That and all the Jell-o you can eat.

Dad told me the other day he thinks he exacerbated his cold/flu/infection by taking a hot shower in the afternoon before his doctor's appointment, which probably shot his body temperature up a couple degrees. This from the man who put me through one of my most torturous moments of childhood: he placed me in a bathtub filled with ice water once when I had a fever. The only greater agony I had before I was 10 years old was zipping myself into the fly of my jeans, if you know what I mean. Or maybe the time in second grade when I was playing Duck-Duck-Goose and hit my head on the gym floor trying to sit down too fast...

I thought about driving out to Hornell last night to see him, but when I talked to him on the phone yesterday afternoon he said not to bother. He figured he'd be out soon, Sunday at the latest. I feel guilty for listening to him and staying home.

I just got off the phone with Dad and he's going to stay another day. They took out one of his IVs though and he's actually considering walking up and down the hallway. I would make a joke, but this is a man who my family still counts on for lifting heavy items. I guess those days are over. His emphysemic wheezing should have been our likely first clue though.

Sickness is going round the family this week. Bon has felt like her head was stuffed with sweaty socks all week. My usually angelic nephew's a screaming bag of sniffles, so I'm told. And my mother, god bless her, went into a dentist appointment and they yanked out a abscessed wisdom tooth way in the back of her mouth. Big fun for everyone.

But me, I'm healthy. I have made it through the winter sans a head cold. I guess I'm just looking forward to another week of the ol' routine. Much as I hate it sometimes... okay, a lot of the time... it beats the alternative of hacking, sniffling, wheezing and bleeding that the rest of my family seems to have adopted.

Okay, so according to the scales at last night's cult meeting, I'm down nine million two hundred ninety-eight thousand six hundred forty three and a half milligrams total [sorry, I know that joke is old... it's 20.5 pounds for you non-metric types] since this exercise in public humiliation and constant hunger began about 7 weeks ago.

This would be cause for much celebration, the likes of which Kool and even his Gang would be sickened by, for my celebrations usually involve using a forklift to put food into my pie hole -- but that's not happening. For two reasons. First, eating twice my body weight negates the whole "loosing weight" paradigm I'm trying to shift here (sadly), and secondly, it’s a crock.

Last week I was up by half a pound. Understandable. I haven't exactly been careful. I went to this week's weigh in expecting to see much the same result. It was, after all, a week wherein I ate half a pizza in one sitting. A week where popcorn and butter, again, met. A week where I didn't drink my prerequisite 13 gallons of water each day. In other words, I did not follow the program to the letter.

And yet I was, according to their scales, down by six pounds.

(Full disclosure: Unlike other weeks, I took my wallet and keys out of my pocket before being weighed, so that probably accounts for something. This is pretty conservative however, as I've seen some women practically strip down to their bikini briefs before getting on that scale just to eek out every last drop of weight loss the the scale can show, all the better to manage their frail psyches.)

Six pounds. I wasn't able to focus on the meeting at all as I thought about it. I likely missed a charming number of prosaic platitudes and trite banalities that might have changed my life. But all I could ponder was that WW is a complete and utter scam filled with charlatans bent on taking my money and making me think I'm yo-yoing like crazy on the scales, likely doing myself untold amounts of physiological damage.... or they calibrate their scales perfectly. And Bush is clamoring for a DVD of the first season of Boy Meets Boy, too.

After my first pronounced loss last month I checked the WW results against my own bathroom scale and the difference was around 10 full pounds -- and my home scale was in my favor. As of last night, with the same accoutrements on (sans keys & wallet), the difference was only THREE pounds.

A fast Right Wing diet-industry conspiracy? Simple technical malfunction? Or do my keys really weigh that much?

The problem with a male getting a massage goes back to the "When Harry Met Sally" principle: "no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive."

I don't think that’s 100% true, as I have many, many attractive friends, oh my, yes. But if they were to start rubbing their oiled hands up and down my back, arms and legs, it would be a different matter. Hell, if they knew what they were doing with those oiled hands, some of my truly ugly friends might even get lucky. Yes, I'm talking to you. *WINK*

The point of this is, when the wife gave me the gift certificate for my massage, she said I should go to her usual masseuse, who she described as, well, let's just say attractiveness probably wasn't an option. And it probably wouldn't have been... if I'd ended up with her. Instead, despite my request on the phone, I ended up with a different masseuse, who's name I promptly forgot the split second she uttered it. That happens when I am concentrating very hard at not looking at the very, very tight t-shirt on a young woman who's about to be in a room with me while I'm naked under a sheet and she'll proceed to kneading my back muscles with her oiled hands. And elbows.

Dear god, the elbows.

I managed to get through the one hour session with nary a give away, if you know what I mean. As for the massage, well, I had one once before, about seven years ago, during a company retreat to a hotel/spa in Vermont. After that piece of shiatsu, I felt like I'd been hit by a high speed bus. In a good way. After this week's hot-rock rub down, well, it felt good, but not smacked-by-a-mac-truck good. I was mildly disappointed.

The next day, self-improvement week continued. I got a haircut in the morning, which I had to drive 20 miles for. The woman who cuts my hair used to work two miles up the road, but then opened her own salon over in Groton. I continue to go to her because she only charges 10 bucks a cut and she's so god damn cheerful even at 8:30 in the morning, and sometimes I need that. Every couple of months.

At my lunch hour, it was time for the big event though. I went back to the same spa where I'd had the massage and managed to get lost in their silly ass building, going to the wrong area and sitting for 10 minutes while a woman there puzzled over why I wasn't in her schedule book. My wife had neglected to explain to me that despite the presence of a front desk, the various businesses in this building don't really interact. How handy.

I was greeted by another new face, again, I forgot her name instantly, and this had nothing to do with tight t-shirts (though she was kinda cute) -- I just really suck at remembering names. I have read all the tricks -- repeat the name as you greet the person, compliment the name, make a comment aloud to them that cements the damn name in your head -- but I always forget the tricks until after the name has escaped my feeble gray cells. I know I can always ask them, "sorry, what did you say your name was again," but I figured in this case especially, I'd wait to see how it all turned out.

I was in the same room as the previous day's massage, same table, same donut to rest my face in. She told me to take off everything down to my boxers (why she would assume boxers I don't know) and get under the blanket face down. I took off everything but my boxer-briefs (My boys need a home! -- Cosmo Kramer) and my wool socks, as it was cold in there.

When the waxer/de-hairer/sadist returned, she started engaging me in conversation. She was very nice, but I was astounded at this exchange:

Her: So what was it that made you want to get your back waxed?

Me:

Her: Or really? What TV show?

Me: That one on Bravo? The Queer Eye for the Straight Guy?

Her: Huh. Really. I've never heard of that one.

There's really someone out there untouched by the Fab 5? Amazing. And she's in their industry. That's like British spies having never heard of James Bond. Turns out though, she doesn’t have a television.

What she did have, was hot wax, strips of muslin, and a wiling participant for her sadistic games of torture.

I admit, the first couple of yanks of hair weren't bad. I've had worse pain with pulled off bandages.

Then she got to the edges, which I define as the sides of my back, my shoulders, and just above my ass. We are taking pain that felt like I had a vicious sunburn and someone decided to slap it really hard. With a cat-o-nine-tails.

As she's slather on the bees wax (mixed with honey I was told) she'd chat away (I heard all about the water tower with the hole in it in her home town, and how lucky she was to have a well (but no frickin' TV!)). But as she put down the strip into the hardening wax, she'd say "Take a deep breath -- and exhale."

And during the exhale, she's yank.

It turns out that despite what you would expect, I only wanted to scream when inhaling during a yank. The exhaling was the way to go. But she was inconsistent with telling me when to expect the pain, so I spent most of the time concentrating on my breathing, trying to anticipate her moves, so that when she pulled, I'd be blowing out. Good mental exercises to remember should I ever be strapped to the rack or locked McCain-like in a box in the jungle.

In the end, she gushed over how nice my skin looked after the fur layer was gone. She probably tells that to all her victims.

And now, to share it with the world, here's some pictures of me, before and after. (I told Bon to not make me look fat when she took these, but she failed, so I cropped them. One shot she took of just my back looked to me like a giant ass cheek. Horrifying. I should go on a diet or something.)

Christ, that's disgusting, with or without hair. My back looks like the face of a 14 year old on a chocolate binge. I'm sorry you had to see that.

The waxer had said people who do this kind of thing regularly find the hair grows back much finer and that doing it three or four times a year is about the norm.

I expect she'll see me again around 2010.

And i'm down by 1.07142857 stone. Woo. Hoo.

My wife loves Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I think if she could be best friends with Carson (the fashion guy) and go to lunch every day with him and be catty about the people that walk by, I think she would be in her glory. (And I think she'd like to convert Kyan, the skin/hair guy, if you know what I'm saying. But that's a whole other thing.)

While I find the Fab 5 quite comical myself, I'm far more into their message of overall self-improvement -- especially that of removing excessive body hair. Ever since the wife thought it would be funny to tickle me via my nose hairs, I've been on a regular regimen of cutting, snipping and tucking all the follicle-based nasties I can. (I even gave my whole family nose/ear hair clippers for Xmas one year. Just the men.)

But lets face it, I'm not a Nazi about this self-improvement stuff, or I'd be a 160 lbs, have a six pace that didn't say "Mike's Hard Lemonade on it, and have done some crazy move like bicycled across the Atlantic. That's why the move I'm taking this week is a huge step forward in my metro-sexuality: I'm getting my back waxed.

For a guy who didn't develop any appreciable chest hair until long after high school, it has become more and more apparent that all the fuzz went on the reverse side. It certainly doesn't bother me, and I don't think it’s a real relationship deal-breaker, but why take chances? The wife splurged and bought me a one-hour hot rock massage as a Valentine's gift, so when I called to make the appointment, I asked about the possibility of peeling off the pelt.

So, tonight I get my massage. Tomorrow morning, I've got a hair cut. And tomorrow at lunch, instead of eating a delicious low-calorie soup to lose weight with, I plain to shed a few pounds by having someone slough off the ol' wool on the epidermis.

The nightly ritual in the house is for the dogs to be told to "go to bed!" usually several times as their minds shut down at the site of my hands at the cookie jar. Once they get up there, I follow and give them each a treat, not so much because they deserve it, as to prevent our eldest from vomiting before morning -- she's the inverse-upchucker, throwing up only when her stomach is empty.

Last night I did this as I was coming up the stairs, Siren and Kylie at different points poked their head out of the door to check on me.

"Hey!" I'd yell and they'd do a quick 180, hoping I hadn't actually noticed.

"You know," I yelled to Bon who was sitting in her office up stairs, checking her e-mail or reading Internet porn or something, "These dogs never trust that I'm coming up with the cookies!" I threw each mutt the meaty crackers and said to them, "I find your lack of faith disturbing." Not that they cared.

Occasionally I like to quiz my wife to make sure my inherent geekness has seeped into her consciousness as thoroughly as possible. I decide this was one of those times.

"Who said that, do you know?" I yelled to her in the other room.

"Said what?"

"I find your lack of faith disturbing," I repeated.

She gave it a millisecond of thought and said "I dunno."

"I'll give you a hint," I said. "He had a respiratory problem."

"Uh… I still don't know."

"Really. C'mon. You know this… he also had a sword. Respiratory problem an a sword."

"Honey, I really don't know," she said.

"How can you not know this? Okay, one more hint: he wore all black."

She gave this another few seconds of thought and finally blurted out: "Zorro?"

I laughed at the same time as I convulsed. "Dear god woman! Zorro?? Respiratory problem? Sword? All in black?"

She just looked at me blankly, plainly hoping I'd go so she could get back to the spams about herbal v*agra.

"One more hint: He turned out to be someone's father?"

"Oh," she said laughing, finally getting it.

I went to bed, mutter and laughing. "Zorro. Jesus Christ."

Bon and I had what I like to call a "Ray and Deborah moment" this morning.

I had been up since 6:15 snow-throwing and snow-shoveling. It was now 7:45 and my wife was kindly making me some pancakes. I, still wiping sweat from my eyes (for no amount of cold stays my glands), decided I would have a glass of the delicious juice of the orange with the break in my fast.

We had three half gallons of OJ in the fridge -- I bought them on sale -- and I took the first out, shook it, and empted it into my glass. It was only a thimble full of liquid. So I grabbed the next full container. I took the top off, but thought to myself "Before I remove the little plastic tab/stopper, I shall first shake this carton to ensure it is properly mixed within." For no fan of the water at the top/sediment in the bottom of beverage containers am I. And thus did I shook.

Orange juice flew everywhere.

"Hey, look out, Jesus, I just pulled the the tab on that one, dumb-ass!" my wife said to me.

"What the hell!" I yelled back, taking my sticky/sweet arm and hand to the sink to rinse off. "Why the hell would you do that?"

"I needed to put some in the batter," she said very matter-of-factly. OJ is just one of the many secret ingredients in her pancakes, but that wasn't the matter-of-fact she meant to convey, moreso the "you're a dumb-ass for not looking for the tab first" fact.

"For Christ sake," I said (we're quite the blasphemers here because, well, we don't believe in shit), "there's a God-damn [see, there it is again] open container in the fridge!"

And on it went (as she directed me in how to properly clean the floor of the drippins). Finally, she said, "Why did you even do that?" She meant the shaking. So I pantomimed it for her, starting with the open container, moving to the new, and my horrified reaction to having juice run down my arm, until she laughed, and I laughed, and we ate our panckaes with syrup.

I'm thinking of turning this into a stage act. Pantomime of spills has got to pay something.

I'm developing an unhealthy fascination with Scarlett Johansson, the star of Lost in Translation (who was robbed at the Golden Globes). I must stop goggling her right now. Thankfully, there's about 50 new ones at IMDB.com. Yowza.

Three weeks into WW, and down 5.44310844 kilograms.

So I'm two weeks into Weight Watchers and I'm already down 10 pounds. No lie. This is, of course, very nice and I receive many kudos (especially at the cult meetings), but I don't think it means much. I was helped by having an enormous amount to lose anyway, like a rich man in Vegas. And the liquid diet last weekend probably helped. This week I'm hoping that donating a pint of blood will knock off a pound or too.

The meetings are the bread and butter of this diet to me. I find them annoying, cloying, and -- occasionally -- fascinating. They are the punishment that keeps it real.

This silly-ass constant denial that Weight Watchers isn't a diet (it’s a "food program") feels like programming from the corporate higher ups, who I hope are a damned skinny lot. But I can overlook that, since rationalization is just one of many ways to cope with trying to lose weight (my favorite way to cope is to ignore it and eat frosting right out of the can.)

(Aside: The last time I ate pre-made cake frosting right out of the can -- something I was known for as a child that probably hasn't helped me out one iota in my later life -- was in February 1999, freshly laid off from my job at FamilyPC and working from home at the time for a dotcom that I despised. I sat in my basement office reading and eating fudge chocolate icing with a spoon, watching over Caper who was then about 10 weeks old. Every time he yawned and stretched I'd panic that he was peeing on the floor and I'd scoop him up to go outside and do that in the snow. He'd look at me with droopy eyes that we thought back then he'd never grow into like I was quite mad.)

The meeting leader is a woman -- there are only three men out of about 50 women there each week -- who is not afraid to embarrass herself, I'll give her that. Last week she did a rap. This week she sang a song she wrote for Oprah back in the 80's on the occasion of her massive weight loss. Her favorite platitude, one I've seen in three meetings in a row, is "Turn over a new leaf," which turns into a group activity as she expects all of us to hold our hands together in front of us as if praying but flattened horizontally, and then flip our hands over. I guess that mimics a turning leaf, but it makes me think of flipping a flapjack. And then coating said pancake in pure Vermont Maple Syrup...

The meetings are meant to be stress free, so its not as if anyone is called upon or forced to speak when she pitches out her questions such as "What did you find this week that really helped you?" or "What did you do to find a positive this week?" The only time I thought about volunteering was when she asked "What is the best thing about losing weight?" and I got a foolish grin on my face when I thought about raising my hand and saying, "I can see my penis again!"

You don't have to say anything -- unless you get an 'award.' Awards are handed out for individual's milestones. In two weeks I've had two such landmarks -- the 5 pound barrier (I got a bookmark!) and then the 10 pound mark (I got a ribbon! I'm moving up in the world. At 15 pounds I expect to get a letter opener, with which I can gouge out my eyes.) When she hands out an award, she asks point blank, "What did you do to get to this point? What helped you achieve your goals?" Both times I've not really been able to think of a good answer, so instead I first told the tale of how I went to Wegmans to get vegetables one day, and they were giving out free cake. In the vegetable aisle. (No lie.) The second time I just told them about the spreadsheet I use to track the all important points (or as they write them, POINTS), as I'm too lazy to pickup an actual pencil to track my caloric intake.

With three meetings down, I've got eight paid yet to go, which will get me through the end of March. At which time I expect to weight 145 pounds dripping wet with my clothes on and I can again start eating things like corn nuts and butter -- dare I say it -- frosting from the can.

If only that were true...

The whole ColonBlow experiment was a dismal failure. I basically went on a liquid diet for 24 hours, drank sawdust that smelled faintly of grapes, felt bloated and worried that I would need to rush to facilities so badly at some unexpected moment so I never left the house all weekend... and got nothing out of it. Literally. Apparently, my large intestine is clean as a whistle. Which is disappointing, really. As a person who has swallowed his gum all his life (I just swallowed a wad of Big Red this morning!), I was hoping to get that giant impacted ball of Cherry Bubbalicious Bubble Gum out that everyone always told me I was going to be stricken with.

Two months after buying our new mini-van -- which we named Matilda, because I always wanted a car with a name, like Herbie -- we've finally sold the vehicle it is meant to replace, our Ford Explorer. I have to say, this Explorer has been perhaps the greatest vehicle I have ever owned. I was resistant to getting something new, that's for sure. My wife's cries of the safety factor and how driving something with 120,000 miles on it would lead to disaster, and yada yada yada fell on deaf ears. Or at least ears with headphones on, with the volume turned way up. Eventually I caved, as I usually do.

Anyway, the Explorer: we advertised it for a month in December and got not a single call. Slight panic ensued. We got one call when I parked the vehicle at the bottom of our drive way with a FOR SALE sign in it, but scared the caller off with our asking price. Then, last week I placed $100 worth of classifieds in local papers and one day into our ad campaign, we get a call. The guy wants to pay cash for the full asking price and will take the vehicle sight-unseen. This could be a disaster, but I think by tonight we'll be richer and back down to being a two-car family... and I'll be missing the one piece of machinery with an internal combustion engine that never gave me a moment's grief.

The wife requested last night as we lay in bed trying to fall asleep as the wind howled outside that I not write about our venture into the world of colon cleansing, so to be a nice (albeit censored!) guy, I deleted the post, and sadly, along with it, a comment from Laura requesting photographic evidence… I don't want to look like I'm revising history, so I'll just say, sorry, despite how much I think this research would give to the world of science and comedy, I'm going to honor her wishes and keep my posts to writing about losing weight and playing Xbox. The only feces I'll be writing about will be that of my dogs. (and hey, it's the time of year for Poop-cicles!).

Off to a good start today with the points counting -- had only a smoothie today for breakfast.

I wish it had had a pancake in it.

Hi! I just wanted to tell you all what GREAT time I'm having loosing weight, and how much fun my first meeting was now that I've rejoined Weight Watchers!

I never felt so much support in my life! People in the room were there to help and nuture me, and I wanted to nurture them back!

At one point, a lady got a special bookmark for hitting the point of loosing 80 pounds, can you believe it? She talked about how she'd started the program a couple of years ago but they both dropped out, but she'd stuck with it and look at her now! You go!

Our group leader told us how important it is to find an anchor to get past the food, and she suggested a teddy bear! Just like we used to have as kids as an anchor before we learned to substitute food in whenever we felt hurt or down or bored-- genius! She cracked though thirty years of my societal conditioning in mere moments! I went right out to Target and bought myself a big snuggly bear right after the meeting. I named him Growly! I hug him whenever I feel hungry, and it makes the pounds glide off!

And man, do I feel cool and respected when I count the point values for all the foods! Math IS fun!

Time to go eat some celery sticks! C-ya l8t! (Get it?)

I tried to love it. I really did. But a mere 47 hours later, and I'm as fucking miserable as I remember being the entire first half of 1998. God, how I hate dieting.

Of course, Weight Watchers would tell you "It's not a diet! We don't limit you to any one type of food!" In fact, someone did say that in the meeting on Tuesday. I should have printed out this from Dictionary.com to wave in her retarded zombie face:

di-et: N. A regulated selection of foods, as for medical reasons or cosmetic weight loss.

It's a cult. And I actually paid for entry.

There was indeed a woman at the meeting (see above) who talked about how she'd lost 80 lbs, which is admittedly an astounding accomplishment. (Supposedly, were I to ever meet my body height's optimal weight, I have to lose the same. Which is about as likely as my winning a Tony award for dramatic snow shoveling.)

My attitude was poor at the meeting. As the aforementioned woman described her weight loss (and she still had a ways to go, to be honest) and how she'd started with a couple of friends who were no longer there, I almost blurted out "Is it because you ATE THEM?"

The platitudes for the evening were written on the board before we sat down, so our perky leader (though not perky in a Katie Couric sense... more like in a washed-up Liza Minelli sense) wouldn't forget to try and drill them in. From the comments of other diligent members there, she's big at drilling in sayings. My favorite was the night was, "If I get hungry, I'll stick a screwdriver into my eyeball."

Sorry, that wasn't her. That was me in my head.

The group leader did actually suggest the teddy bear though. I thought about trying the one she brought in, let my dogs have their way with the pink stuffed monster, and then return it the next week, soiled and torn and trod upon, like my once glorious caloric intake.

Since the meeting has ended, it's been one disappointment after another. I kept to my point allotment yesterday (WW For Dummies: All foods carry certain number of points. You get only a certain amount of points you can eat per day. Going over means you're a fat-ass.). Yet after the wife went to bed, I slunk into the kitchen and downed a handful of corn nuts -- one corn nut is easly 72 points. Yet I only am allowed to eat 28 a day.

Life without corn nuts is not worth living, but yet I go on.

I also found out that despite paying over $130 for 11 weeks worth of meetings, the online tools for keeping track of these points are not available to me unless I want to pay another $12 a month! For Christ sake. I found a spreadsheet I can use to tracking things, but it's not going to do me much good on the road. Online tools were part of why I thought it wouldn't be too painful -- I could assuage my growling tummy with my Internet addition. WW can go screw themselves before they get another dime of my money. Shysters. Mountebanks!

Today was actually easier though. Not as many pangs, and I'm not thinking about food every second. I think it pays to stay busy... yesterday I didn’t have much to do so everything was taking on the shape of lollipops and meat products just like in old Warner Bros. cartoons. I put a rubber band around my wrist to snap myself when hungry, like the smoker's do, but I haven't used it yet. I keep forgetting it's there.

Here's hoping I don't eat it. I wonder how many points in a rubber band?

The New Year is upon us and as always in this time of some sort of temporal new-ness, thoughts turn to the topic of… self-improvement.

This usually takes the form of "New Year resolutions," AKA lies we tell others and ourselves about how we'd like to become better as human beings. I could list a number of such items here, and what the hell, for my own cognizance (but not necessarily for my edification) I shall list a few, so I don't forget where I'm lacking:

1. Lose weight.
2. Write more.
3. Meet people locally.
4. Be more charitable.
5. Take the dogs for a damn walk occasionally.
6. Fucking swear less.

But all of these items are probably not going to happen. Except, I hope, number one. Things are getting out of hand.

This week, taking days off between the holidays to do some projects around the house, I really let myself go. In getting ready for this resolution, telling myself it's all one last hoo-rah! before I put myself on the weight-loss wagon, I bought my favorite kettle chips, got a bag of corn nuts, made salsa, ate chili and tacos and pizza, snacked on chocolates filled with liquors, and, oh yes, ate one last meal from McD's complete with an extra order of fries. It was glorious.

And it was not radically different from a normal weeks caloric intake.

I even bought a 2-liter bottle of Sierra Mist. Not the Diet Sierra Mist I usually get -- I got the leaded type!

I'm outta control.

Back in good ol' 1998 (back when I was still only in the second job of my adult career, still in my first house, and still wearing glasses that could be used be industrious arsonists to start fires when the sun was out) I managed to shed 25 or so pounds with a combination of starvation and physical abuse. That is, I joined Weight Watchers and went to the gym.

The gym was actually the fun part -- it was an easy walk from work and my friend Laura and I would go down there a few times a week and push ourselves through the routine to get a sweat worked up and mock the freaks we saw there. Would that she were here now.

Weight Watchers was the true torture. Me, then a 28-year-old in my so-called prime, I sent myself to the weekly weigh-in for 12 weeks straight and a few times afterwards, hoping to catch the bug that brought the multiples of middle-aged women -- oh, and yes, such meetings are almost exclusively 40+ women wearing a 14+ in size -- out to discuss their eating habits, their successes and triumphs in not eating, and their tragic defeats at the hands of Zingers and Swiss Cake Rolls.

Aside: Zingers used to be one of the grand snack cakes of their day -- you couldn't watch a Peanuts special on CBS in the 1970's without craving one as Dolly Madison spread its money around as sponsor. I recently encountered Zingers on a store shelf and they are shrunken, dry, wizened versions of their old selves.

Would that were true of us all. But unlike Zingers, I've expanded, and not my horizons.

So, I'm making the commitment again. It's time for me to lose some weight, and spending some money on a bargain gym membership up at the ol' alma mater last year wasn't enough. I obviously need to throw in some public humiliation of talking about my fat-ass with a bunch of strangers.

The money factor also is big on my psyche. Especially if I pay ahead. Wasting money on $92 worth of posters this week (we're decorating a newly panted room in the house) seems like no big deal to me, but that same amount spent on a few weeks of stupid one-hour meetings will probably drive me to the meetings with zeal to not waste a stupid cent.

I truly dread the whole thing. But will I try to stay committed.

Even as my attitude will inevitably suffer, as my pangs grow, as my thoughts turn toward the lack of things in my (future) life with any taste to them… I will try to stay committed.

Either that, or I'll accept that I'm at the size my genetics meant for me and just keeping wolfing down these corn nuts.

At home, my 34th birthday has been over for a couple of hours. But I'm out in San Jose, Calif., working at the tradeshow my company throws that's related to my site, so it's still my birthday here.

My birthday ended really on Sunday, Nov. 30, after I got some great gifts from my folks and my brother -- a new gas grill, XM Satellite radio, and a dog will a belly full of old, rancid turkey-flavored peanut oil. I only got to play with the last one. It apparently is true, Dawn does take grease out of your way, especially when used to wipe down the ass of a Labrador that has had grease based diarrhea for 12 hours.

I didn't get to stay and care for my ailing mutt for long, as I had to catch a flight out of Syracuse for the show. Last year, I left on my actual birthday for this same show, and ended up arriving at the Rochester airport to find my flight cancelled. I thought I was heading for the same problem in Syracuse, but only got delayed…. Tho that was long enough that my mad dash across O'Hare in Chicago meant while I made it to Cal-ee-for-nee-uh only a ½ hour late, my luggage was about 18 hours behind me. I ended up giving my talk today (Installing a Home WLAN with more than capable partner in crime and comedy, Joe M.) in the same clothes I wore on the planes yesterday.

Still, if you have to be a tradeshow on your birthday, it couldn't be better than to do it with friends. Joe's here and Vik (who worked with me at Access and now works on Wi-Fi Planet with me) is here, and that makes it actually good. Tonight we were going to go off and have tapas for dinner and started with some drinks with a vendor and PR person who I was enjoying the company of so much, I invited them to dinner. Maybe my schmooze gene is kicking in again? It's so underutilized sitting in the basement all day. (Even better, they bought all the drinks and dinner. I miss having a decent expense account. $50 per diem a day my ass.)

So, it's after 11, time for bed. I should really write a story for tomorrow, but instead I'll get up early. Then it's write, moderate a panel, meet with vendors to judge them for best of show awards, moderate another panel, meet with other judges to find out who wins, get some dinner, drive Joe to the airport, then write up a story about the award winners. Tomorrow will be hell day here. Thursday it calms down again. Friday, we'll all be wondering why we didn't schedule earlier flights out and I'll just be counting the seconds to my red-eye. Luckily my new iPod, my glorious 20GB MP3 Player purchased for me by the woman who lets me share her bed, is filled with about 6 days worth of audio, including an 8-hour book on tape. That will hopefully keep me busy.

Now, sleep.

I'm a big fan of the PB&J. And when I say that, I'm talking a sammich™ with jelly, not jam (no seeds for me) and crunchy peanut butter out of a cupboard so it's easy to spread, not creamy out of the refrigerator that's half frozen (this is a constant argument in my house which has forced us to save our marriage in the only way possible: buy two different cans of peanut butter that are stored separately).

That said, I'm having a problem with the PB&J: There's no perfect drink to go with it. Soda (I'm a Diet Sierra Mist guy these days) just doesn't taste... right. OJ definitely doesn't work. Hot beverages won't do. Some will scream that milk is the only way to go, but I associate milk with chocolate to much for that to work.

I'm thinking Kool-Aid... but I haven't had any in about five years.

I miss you, Kool-Aid.

(Damn, I was hoping the guy in the Kool-Aid Man suit was going to bust through my wall just then and poor me a glass of Black Cherry sugar water. No such luck.)

I will continue my search.

I sort of forced the wife into taking a defensive driving course with me this weekend. I was planning to take one earlier this summer after I got my last speeding ticket (first one since 1994, so don't give me crap), but I couldn't find a convienent class in town. This past Saturday's six-hour snore-fest was up at the college, featured discounts for alums, and featured an easy form for signing up.

Last time I took a defensive driving course I was still in college here, and had just had my first accident in my own car. I took the course over a couple of nights at the city's BOCES campus and was bored to tears. I think they used some of the same videos I'd seen in Hornell High drivers ed back in 1987. But, such braindead fare made it easy to handle the night classes -- I seldom fall asleep even during the most boring of films. In fact, I was seriously hoping for the same thing with this class -- perhaps a nice 16 year old film about seat belts.

Sadly, over the last decade these classes have gotten more touchie-feelie. Our instructor didn't want to lecture. He wanted "discussion." Blah.

He went around and made us all say our name and something about driving. Bon said, "It's not politically correct now, but I love my SUV." Bless her.

I said, "I'm Eric, and I really hate driving. But it's a necessary evil." I felt stares. Some of them, from the red-neck trio of boys across the room who were forced there by their "ma," filled with revulsion and hostility.

Bon -- who, it should be noted, likes to make me drive everywhere even tho she knows I don't like it (so perhaps my signing her up for this class was not-so-subtle revenge) -- was actually taking notes as the instructor blabbed about "octanes." All I cared about was reducing the points on my license. New York state has a lovely system where you get points for each offense, and once you get 11 in 18 months, they yank your license. This course drops four points off your license, tho it doesn't really mean diddly until you're closer to 11. I've only got three. Thankfully, this cure for insomnia also knocks 10% of my insurance.

I took notes myself during the class, but mostly so I could ridicule it later in the blog here...

For example, we spent 20 minutes on stopping for school buses. Did you know that on a divided highway, if you're going the other direction and are ten lanes away, you are still supposed to stop if a school buss stops.

We were asked if we considered ourselves having average or above average driving skills. Bon threw up her hand like Horshack in Kotter's class room at the 'above' request. I said nothing. But to my overwhelming joy the instructor said "only state troopers are usually 'above.' Most other people are probably self deluded." My smile could have lit a small nation. (And, FYI, if you rack up the total hours I've driven in my life versus her, even with a couple of tickets and accidents under my belt, I'm probably statistically still better. Look, my horn! Toot toot!)

I think courses like this would also be helped if the instructors could hear.

He handed out a kosh ball and said however had it had to eithr list something that upsets them about other drivers or to say what they themselves do to piss off others. Bon volunteered and said she hates people that base unsafely (as to all the people who admire that) and then threw the kosh at me. I'd been preparing an answer: "I like to slwo down for my driveway about a mile from home, until I've slowed almost to a stop by the time I reach the drive to turn in. And no one can pass on the left due to the traffic coming the other way or on the right because there's no shoulder. I like to get them stacked up about 20 cars deep behind me." This is all exaggerated of course, but I got lectured about it anyway.

Bon and I started passing notes to each other on the free Post-It not pad we were given for the course by Liberty Mutual insurance. She called the teacher "cheesy, nevrous giggle guy." After that, his cheesy, nervous giggle was all I could notice.

Finally, we got to the movies, and it was an oldie -- a 1950 Disney short called Motor Mania, starring Goofy (but before he was called Goofy and before he said "Gorsh!") In fact, every character was actually Goofy.

Another note from Bon: "Put black rimmed glasses & different voice on him -- and its Drew Carey." Also true.

Later he asked us what we'd do to improve our driving. I told the class that I was overcome with guilt over my admission of liking to slow down other drivers and that I wouldn't do it anymore. And that I'd smile and wave at people more.

My god. He actually said, "Didn't anyone pick up on the philosophy of the new Star Wars movie? I didn't see it, but someone told me about it, and I like it. It's something like: 'there is no try.' Someone else in the clase said "There is only do and do not." Christ. Mangling the words of the Jedi Master. And if only 1980 were actually that new.

"Speed before you get in the car" he said in an attempt to get people to take their time on the way to work. What happens if I slip in the shower because I rush to get out before the soap drains, tho? Can I sue?

Finally, lunch. We ate at the Campus Center dining hall, the one place on campus I did the least amount of work during my tenure with dining services. Good lunch tho: Pizza and Waffles and Pie!

Back to class. He said all stress is self-induced and launches into a discussion of the serenity prayer as the answer. Bon leans over to me and asks, "What are we, in AA?"

My theory on road rage (perfected while staring at a wall): The only thing that prevents it is that no one wants to hurt their own car. Sometimes when I'm Poed at someone on the road, the only thing prevent me from ramming them over and over and over to prove a point is that I don't like paying for repairs to bumpers.

Second movie up: From the 80's come a documentary featuring race car drivers I've never heard of saying it's not "sissified" to wear seat belts.

After the afternoon break went off on a major tangent, bloviating about some sort of roll over formula (wheelbase divided by two times the height of the center of gravity or T/2H -- the closer the final number is to one, the more likely you are to roll your vehicle) -- an obvious diatribe against my beloved sport utility. Turns out he's bitter about them because his kid has one.

And, he was a sexist -- at one point he said that if a car lost power steering, if the wheel had to be turned, "I could, but a smaller woman might not be able to." I was offended on behalf of all the broads present.

Finally, 3:30 arrived. Done. Thank god. 10% of my insurance and I don't have to put myself through it again until 2006 (when the discount drops off). Here's hoping between now and then instructors of this course go back to letting the bad video tapes do the teaching.

I like spiders.

I always have. I know, I know, its only because for a many, many years as a child... and in the spring of 2002 for that matter... I was obsessed with the adventures of Amazing Spider-Man. I admit that. But I learned a lot about spiders back in my childhood of the 70s.

(Whenever I was obsessed with a new super-hero, usually for a short period of time of a week or maybe a month, I would learn what I could about the physics of that character. For example, I read about archery and made myself a crude bow and arrow when I read my first Green Arrow tale. Not to mention he had that cool Robin Hood hat. If the physics and "science" of the hero was to far fetched to research, I'd create something in their image. I still, somewhere, have the doll I made out of the Silver Surfer using scraps of wood, hook-and-eye screws, and silver spray paint. I lost his cosmic surfboard though, years ago.)

I knew the poisonous spiders (Black Widow, Brown Recluse) and the desert spiders that can jump several feet and why spiders have all the eyes and what spiders do to their prey.

That's what I always remember most fondly however: the prey. Spiders are likable because they kill bugs far more annoying than any arachnid.

But I'm afraid I'm turning into a spider collector. Like one of those ladies with a house filled with cats.

In the window of my basement office yesterday, a fly got caught in a Web. He was buzzing randomly and eventually I got up to see if I could put the bastard out of my misery, but I found him trapped, and the spider who laid the trap seemed to be tormenting him. The web slinger would come down and seemingly bat the fly about the face and neck, then run away... then come back down and do it so more. I watched this enrapt for several minutes. I realized eventually that the spider was wrapping all but invisible threads around the former maggot. All the better to suck him dry.

The rural-type mail box we have down by the road is getting a little out of hand as well. Over the summer, a couple of spiders took up residence inside, living in little web sacks, laying eggs, enjoying the dark. Occasionally one would cling to the mail as I took it out, and I'd try to get him back into the box before shutting it. Now, there's about nine or ten web sacks in there. The mail delivery woman probably thinks we're like the Addams Family up here and would not blink to find a severed hand inside. Waving at her.

Tomorrow or the next day, I plan to clean the Webs. No more webs in the windows of the basement and garage. Time for the denizens of the mail box to vacate for winter. Bad enough I'm always using the Dustbuster on dead bug carcasses anyway.

However, as of July 2 2004, I will welcome all spider's back. That's a promise.

I was a member of the military at age 8.

It's unfortunate that the local VFW doesn’t recognize action in the Hornell suburbs when you're in the KISS Army.

Ah, KISS. I was there with them in the hey-day -- I even watched the KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park TV movie in prime-time. My brother Paul and I owned all the albums (or "borrowed" them from my older cousin who worshiped them) and played them incessantly, especially the greatest hits album, Double Platinum. Paul and I and our friends Tommy and David from down the street would constantly "rehearse" along with KISS tunes. We had started out with the Monkee's Greatest Hits, but there's something about the make up, the out fits, the over the top antics of Gene Simmons that sucked us all in.

We were masters of air guitar, had real kiddie drum sets we beat into submission, and eventually graduated to "real" guitars with fish-line for strings. When that broke, we used the toy guitar as a form to cut out and make new fake guitars out of wood. Why we never made one shaped like a battle axe I do not know.

By the time the eighty's hair band days for KISS came around, I had moved on. Billy Joel became my artist of choice, and the metal bands of the day never seemed to have the -- yes, I'll say it! -- talent early KISS had in spades. My brother, ever the connoisseur of music, has always tried to get me to "come back" to KISS, but that alone was the kiss of death. Paul pushes his musical tastes with so much zeal that I'm usually turned off of his choices for life. He's like a born again when it comes to that stuff. To this day I own nothing by Van Halen because he annoys me with them and has ever since I had to listen to his first band play "Panama" about 80 times in one evening. Occasionally on key.

Last week in Vegas, I was only vaguely aware of the fact that KISS was in town. I certainly knew Aerosmith was in town -- Steven Tyler was seated behind us at the Cirque du Soleil show we were at and the wife couldn't stop talking about it. So when we showed up on Friday around 3pm at the half-price ticket counter outside MGM Grand and saw tickets available that night for a concert featuring both bands, we 1) peed our pants with joy 2) bought tickets and 3) immediately tried to call Paul at work to rub his face in it.

The concert started a bit after 7:30...so we thought. After suffering through the 40 minute repetitive "performance" of opening band the Porch Ghouls, we waited about 40 minutes for the stage to be reset --- this was about the time we started to panic. Our flight left at 1am, meaning we had to have the rental car returned by midnight or so to catch the tram over to the Vegas airport. We figured we'd leave the MGM Grand theater around 11 to be safe. Yes, we're not really big on the gambling with being late. We hate late. It's probably the primary reason we've stayed together 14 frickin' years.

KISS hit the stage at 8:45 or so and it was...magical. Paul Stanley at 54 years strutted across the stage for 70 minutes completely shirtless. He didn't look a day over 52. At least there was no excessive gray chest hair or something. And he works out more than me, obviously. The only thing that gave Gene Simmons away as a rocker with 30 years experience was the slight double chin under his makeup line. Even drummer Peter Criss was there, which was interesting considering his not so happy history with the band. He's looking every bit his age, even through the makeup, and thank god he got to hid his paunch behind the drums all night. The years and the drugs have not been kind.

The musical selections with only about two exceptions were from the 70's, as it should be, and I even recognized a the two 80's tunes they did. But knowing almost all the songs they did by heart and not having listened to them in a decade or so made for highly enjoyable experience. I loved every minute of it.

Aerosmith, also a fav of mine since college (I consider their post-drug days the best, with some of the early drug days thrown in. The mid-90's on have left me cold), hit the stage very late since they had to take down all of the KISS pyrotechnics. Again, great show, excellent time (we especially loved when Tyler took a proffered cell phone from an audience member and sang an entire verse into it) -- and too long. We sat there and waited and waited for them to leave, hoping that they'd finish soon, even though it ran contrary to our desire to get our money's worth out of the overpriced (even at half price) tickets. In the end, we managed to stay long enough to hear Walk This Way, but I I'm sure they left my favorite (Dude Looks Like a Lady) for the finale which we missed.

A great night (made even greater by Bon's desire to look like a concert goer by donning a too-tight black tank top). As of today, KISS Double Platinum is on my Wish List.

As mentioned before, my old home-made Squished Frog Productions logo featured a frog that's head some said looked like a penis. In discussing the redesign today with Joe, he said:

"Your new tagline should be: "Now, with no more subtle phallic undertones!""

A new tactic I came up with for telemarketers today just out of the blue:

The call came in and the caller ID said "Out of area," a guaranteed sign. I answered and said "Hello." (I usually say "Eric speaking" out of habit, but I think that causes more hang-ups when people make wrong number calls or just want to sell the Wife something.)

After the momentary pause during which the telemarker was connected to me after his system automatically dialed the number, he said, "Is Bonny there?"

I pause, inhaled, and found a very, very dark place inside myself from which sprang:

"Bonny died a few days ago in a car accident."

"Oh, oh dear," said the caller, sounding genuinely upset. "I didn't know." Because he calls to sell useless crap to a lot of other dead people, apparently.

"Yes, well thanks for nothing," I told him, and hung up.

Still, it doesn't matter... I forgot to tell him to take the number out of their system, so they'll be back. Next time, I plan to tell them she (or me, whatever) was killed in a horrible accident involving a meat grinder.

It just occured to me that I never mentioned here that my brother and sister-in-law are on the way to child #2. I made such a big deal out of the first kid, I should not give the second baby short-shrift. That's the kind of things that scars them for life, and he's got parents to do the scarring. I'm the cool uncle who will give him loud toys and will tell him how much worse his father was than he is when he's older. (I'm nervous, however, that my wife is going to be "the aunt who buys underwear and socks as presents" and I'm constantly harping on her about it.)

Notice I only use the male pronouns when mentioning the future papoose.... it's pretty much a given. We Griffith boys don't throw many double-X chromosomes; I doubt we'll start now. Which sucks, because my brother refuses to even consider naming the tyke Eric, not even for a middle name, which is just mean and makes me cry.

The term "Irish twins" is bandied about a lot when people hear that she's pregnant again, but by my calculations these two youngsters are going to be 14 or more months apart. Apparently, to be true Irish twins, the two children have to be born within one year of each other.

My brother and I are only 10 months and two weeks apart.

(The universal exclamation when I say that is generally, "Your poor mother.")

The whole thing with my teeth this last couple of weeks has been big fun.

As I previously recounted, I had swallowed a crown I'd had for ten years just prior to my least favorite dental visit since I'd had it put in. Turned out I had to go last week to see a periodontist (gum specialist) and get a little surgery.

The crown I had was mounted on a post, and that post was attached to what was left of my former bicuspid's natural root, which was still in the gum. That root, said the doc upon examination that required cutting into my gums to make flaps like on a tent door, was bad. As in, decayed. No wonder the crown fell out.

What he did was this: he took out the root and packed my gum, all the way up to my maxilla, with some kind of cow bone graft. Then he sewed up my gum flaps over it. This bovine bone material will, eventually, have its cells replaced by my beloved human cells, resulting in newly formed bone under the gum that can be used to implant a new post for a new crown which I will no doubt swallow sometime in 2014. Or maybe I'll get Mad Cow disease long before that (Googling "cow bone graft" seems to return as much on that madness as it does on what I had done.)

After a week of pure annoyance with stitches that kept coming loose, I'm now free of the string in my teeth and can go back to putting what I want between them, like bits of steak and that little skin off of popcorn kernels.

In a few months, once I'm no longer a bovine/human hybrid, I can consider the new tooth, probably to the tune of 2000 simoleons. Maybe by then I'll be so used to the hole in my smile I'll just leave it out.

Who am I kidding?

Something happened to me today that hasn't happened since the glory days of the Internet boom: an HR person called me to see if I was interested in a job opening.

He'd seen my resume up on HotJobs.com, saw I was a good fit, showed it to the editor-in-chief and she liked my background, and so on. It's nice to be loved.

Of course, the job pays what I already make and it's in the middle of Long Island, so chances are I'm not interested. I suppose that the position is covering one of the all time most boring things in the world (business and financial news about and for computer resellers... I'm sleepy just thinking about it) helps solidify that.

Where are the six figure offers for my dream jobs? When they start coming in, then I'll declare the world as nice as it was in 1997-2000. Not a momemt sooner.

Life is much nicer since I bought a new (overprice) battery for my cordless phone. I can actually talk on it for longer than 15 minutes now.

It's the little things.

There was a time when I liked going to the dentist.

Then I moved back to the state of New York.

I got a dentist appointment in Ithaca almost immediately upon moving back (one year ago this week). Took a while to get in which was annoying, they wouldn't just submit to my insurance so I had to take in a check which I found irksome, and the hygienist was of the type to constantly give me lecture after lecture as she had her fingers in my mouth, which I found exasperating beyond measure. I determined that 1) I would not go back for a while (I know twice a year is good, but sometimes also seems like overkill) and 2) that I would get new hygienist.

Then, the crown swallowing incident took place. Mind you, I called the dentist in late July but they couldn't get me in until today. When I told the receptionist (who, amazingly, is named Bonny with a "Y") that my crown was loose, she asked if it was out. I said no. So she said it would have to wait. I was on the cancellation list in case an opening came up, but none did.

So, here I am today at the dentist. My crown is gone down my own gullet. The hygienist -- the same one who lectures, because I wasn't smart enough to remember to ask for a new one -- tells me I should have called in when it came loose. Then the doctor himself comes in and says the same thing. I'm no snitch, I'm no rat... oh, hell, yes I am. I blamed it all on Bonny the receptionist without hesitation. (Bonny the receptionist at least had the smarts to seem contrite about it as I left.)

So what's the damage? I was told that the crown with its post had been affixed to what was left of the root of the tooth that used to occupy what is now empty space in my face. The left over root seems cracked, and there's not enough to work with to make a new crown apparently. So I get to go see a gum specialist for 'gum lengthening' procedure for a new crown. Assuming he can even do that. So I might pay $600 for a new fake tooth, or just a couple hundred to be told I can't have a tooth in there at all.

And none of this will take place until October 14. (Yes, I'm on the cancellation list. But I doubt that will make much difference.)

What really pissed me off? Getting a lecture from the hygienist that I drink too much soda.

She: Do you drink a lot of soda?

Me: Just diet.

She: You shouldn't. Just drink water. Water's good for you.

Me: (Stern stoic silence coupled with what must have been a look of sheer malevolence.)

She: Not to say you can't have some soda! Maybe one glass a day. So by say, Wednesday, you'd have three glasses. That's a lot.

Me: [More silence. I don't give a rat's arse what she says. As a former Coke addict (the kind with caffeine), just moving to diet soda was a major move on my part... Diet Sierra Mist for christ's sake. Hardly the worst vice ever. I decide to direct my gaze to the ceiling to indicate she no longer holds my attention.]

She: The soda companies want people to think Nutrasweet doesn't cause cavities but it does. I just have to tell you. You know, that's me doing my job. And I like what I do. I have to educate people to do my job.

Me: (Continued silence as I contemplate the psychology of an individual who's chosen profession is cleaning the gunk out of other people's orifices.)

She: Blah blah blah.

Oh, and I have a cavity.

All this before 9am. Yippee. Summer's over. Let the fun begin.

When I was 19, and working in my beloved dining hall as a student supervisor -- my nickname behind my back was, for a time, "Little Hitler" as I got drunk on my power (Power I say!) -- I was swiftly humbled when a freshman told me she didn't realized I was a student. She thought I was a full time employee of the place and that she thought I was about 25 years old.

When I was 23 and moving into an apartment, my landlord was telling me some story and said something like, "You know how that is, you being what, 30? 35?"

Yesterday, the world went too far. I received this in the mail:

I'm 33 years old. But some list somewhere thinks I look over 55.

Actually, though, this could work in my favor. I read through this piece of paper and the little fake card carefully and absolutely nowhere does it say that I must be over 55 to belong to AARP.

So, I intend to join. My check for a one year membership is all made out. By this time next month, I intend to be enjoying the old-fart discount on everything I can get. I might even make a name badge out of the card, just in case some clerk some where looks at my and doesn't under stand that I'm old enough to get bargains in exchange for my grey hairs.

Back after a week of vacation on the isthmus with the mostest (I spent the entire week mistakenly calling it an isthmus -- and even then, I really wanted to call it an island -- but a cape is really just a cape. I'm not even sure it's a peninsula) and here's some memories:

It's the peak of summer. And you know what that means?

Flies and maggots.

Because we feed our dogs BARF, there's always stray pieces of meat laying about in bags or containers that don't get thoroughly rinsed, and thus providing a lovely fetid home for the eggs of our multi-facet eyed visitors. Twice now I've made emergency runs to the dump as our garbage got infested with things fit only for eating on reality TV.

Shameful but true.

Worse, however, are the adults of the larve, aka, Musca domestica L. I'm not saying we're akin to the former farm houses of our grandparents -- where finding a few thousands dead flies in an unattended room after a month is about as normal as scratching your crotch while watching sports on TV -- nor is it even remotely as bad as the mosquito haven of our previous house -- but the bugs we've got are annoying as hell.

Last Christmas, my dad and mom bought everyone in the family a bug vacuum. These are handy do-dads you see in many home improvement-type catalogs. Some suck down spiders and bugs and put them in a baggie for you, so you can safely transport them outside. Not the one my Dad bought. This thing looks like a toilet plunger. Once a bug is sucked down into the extendable tube, it's thrown against an electrified grate, zapping him with enough juice to send a little wisp of smoke and fried insect stench wafting to the nose.

It's glorious.

I've had this vac sitting in a charger for about eight months and never thought about it, always going for my $16 Oxo Fly Swatter instead (it's got an ergonomic handle and a fancy "fly silhouette" in the corner-- it looks like a cartoon fly flew through the grate, ala Roger Rabbit). But swatters are messy. You have to scrap off the corpse and clean the guts and blood off whatever surface you smack.

Not with this vac. It's clean, easy to use, and holds a charge even better than my DustBuster. Outside of the charred flesh smell every time you turn it on, it's the perfect tool for a summer day.

Yesterday, I worked.

My friend Giff spent the night Friday, so seeing him off in the morning Saturday meant I was up early. By 8am, I'd already finished painting the entirety of my back deck, a process that has been two months in the making.

(I thought I'd finished it... turns out there's a big section on the back that I didn't even seen until last night. Some projects never die.)

Since I got the deck painting done so fast, decided to take advantage of the energy burst and finish the deck all together -- this meant installing the forest green plastic lattice along the bottom edge. All the better to keep my dogs inside the fence. One in particular, Kylie, has developed something of a Houdini reputation in being able to squeeze through openings fit only for snakes.

By about 3:30, I was only half way done -- and felt completely done in. Despite dousing myself with sun block, I could feel the cellular damage to the skin on my back beginning. Sweat was dripping off me like runoff in the mountains in spring. Sweat mixed with the sun screen I'd injudiciously applied to my face, so I was blind. I'd taken to wearing a towel on my head, held in place by a baseball cap, to soak up the pounds of liquid that exited my pours (and which I resupplied with about 20 glasses of water that day). Oh, and my head was pounding. I tried to sit in my hammock but the swinging made me nauseous.

Ibuprofen. Nap. Fans. All good things I rediscovered for about an hour that afternoon.

Finally, I finished the project. I'm not 100% happy with it, but it'll do. Bon brought a friend home for dinner (she'd been at a dog agility trial all day) and her friend said "Isn't it nice to have a man around the house that can do handy things?" Bon and I just looked at each other and smiled, as we both know I'm quite useless. I admitted it too, and told her friend that I do these things because, well, I'm cheap. Which is true.

Though you can bet I'm going to hire someone to reseal my driveway, another project I was planning to tackle this summer. Somehow, pouring 5-gallong buckets of tar and spreading them all day sounds about as much fun, well, attaching plastic lattice in 90 degree heat.

Well, that didn't take long... I got my first offer of Viagra via spam on my brand new email address today. I don't think it even took two weeks. Oh, well. You can't fight city hall, nor junk mailers.

Despite the time stamp on this entry, I'm writing it on Friday night -- really it's just past midnight on Saturday, but only on the east coast. I, however, am in the most unlikely of places -- the west coast. Namely, I'm in Portland, Oregon. I came out for a full day meeting with the folks at Intel to talk about all that they do that is wirelessly wired (if you don't understand that, you don't know or don't understand what I do for a living).

It took me 16 hours to get out here on Thursday the 10th. I left around 10:30am from home, arriving about 2:30am. Were it not for the time difference, I might never have shown for the meetings, but I got just enough sleep. Though I admit to taking advantage of chemical supplements to get me through the day: I drank an entire tiny pot of earl grey tea with my breakfast. Hot. It's a wonder I wasn't bouncing off the walls. Luckily, I managed to also spend a full 2.5 hours of the day in Portland stuck in highway traffic, so that tempered any excess energy.

Portland reminds me of Tampa/St. Petersburg, but with more hills. St. Pete, for example, has numerous places that will loan you money when you promise to sign over a check, plus many bail bond's men, seemingly on every corner. Here in Portland, on at least two I saw a "Loan for Title" place -- you keep your car, but they get the title to it after they give you some money. What is the New York State equivalent of this?

So, back to my travel woes in flying out, here's what happened: I got to the Syracuse airport with just enough time to spare. I was supposed to fly to Chicago, where I would sit for 1 hour and 15 minutes until I was on the way to Portland, scheduled to land at 8pm east coast time/5pm west. Except the Chicago flight was cancelled before I even got to Syracuse. After standing in line an extra long time as security searched all the luggage to be stowed for trace chemical elements (a new one on me since 9/11/01), I was told they'd already booked me on a flight to Dulles where I'd catch a plane there to Portland.

Dulles is a dump. I hate that airport, especially because the terminals are not interconnected -- you have to take a tram between the buildings. The tram is huge, like Frank Miller's version of the Batmobile -- think of the thing that moves the space shuttle out of the hanger, but going 30 miles per hour (still too slow). I figure if I have to suffer the indignity of moving from one terminal to another, I should at least get some exercise out of it. All right, actually, I like the moving sidewalks.

I really learned to really hate Dulles yesterday -- familiarity breeds contempt. Familiarity with gate D15, especially. The flight scheduled to leave at 4:50 was pushed back to 5:30.

Then to 6pm. Then to 7:30. Then 8.

In that time, they boarded us. Then they said we could get off, but stay close. I contemplated changing my flight all together, and getting back to NY, but that probably would have been delayed too: the east coast was being pummeled by thunder bangers worthy of Thor, apparently. You wouldn't know it sitting at D15, where the sky was overcast but far from rainy. Exactly the opposite, in fact. Dry as sand.

I was just about ready to call it all off and then at 8:30, after trying unsuccessfully to find an open Ben & Jerry's in the terminal, they reloaded us. We sat on the tarmac for another hour, many of us listening in on the provided headsets to the channel with air traffic controller talk. I heard many, many planes be released from holding, but gave it up to watch the tail end of Chicago on the ship-board LCDs. (Later I saw "Bringing Down the House" with Steve Martin and Queen Latifah. How I could witness that film and still not sleep a wink is beyond me.)

Okay, I know why I didn't sleep a wink: worst seat in the house. In the miserable prop-plane puddle jumper from Syracuse to Dulles, and then even on the nice jet out to Portland, I was in the very last row -- the one with seats that won't recline. Absolute torture. Impossible to sleep (since I do that head-knod/wake-yourself thing if I can't lean back) and just misery on my back. A father was sitting next to me and his three or four year old daughter was coloring while we chased the daylight west, but once it got permanently dark she drifted off, and shifted from seat to seat next to me, the father moving gingerly around to avoid waking her. She kicked me several times, her discomfort in lying on the seats echoing mine.

I also watched something remarkably stupid over and over in the seats one row ahead and opposite me. An absolute giant of a man, perhaps 6'4" and easily 300 pounds sat on the aisle, and was himself next to a mother and daughter. The mother was one of those post 40 chicks who wants desperately to be younger -- she had brown hair streaked with purple and was wearing one of those mid-riff showing shirts I usually find sexy on even the most zaftig of females, but lets just say she did NOT having it going on. Her daughter was about 3 or 4 also. And had to go to the bathroom at least four times.

So. Each time this happened, giant man would get up and the woman would get out of the row with the daughter. A more ungraceful display I've never seen. The woman was incapable of getting her ample ass past the reclined seats in the row in front of her. Worse yet, on at least one of these occasions, she was fully carrying her daughter, who'd shed ever ounce of clothing she had on in the beginning of the flight. If we'd taken a picture of it, the Wal-Mart photo guys could have called it kiddie porn and had us arrested, but here I was subjected to it in full, personal, force.

Over and over I saw giant dude get up as purple momma scrambled out with the child in various states of undress. One time, she just walked on the seats. He obviously had no problem sitting behind a reclined seat -- so why not offer to sit by the window? Clod. Then again, I should have thanked him, because otherwise I might have been looking at the purple haired woman's wrinkly love handles all night.

It would appear that my junking of the squishedfrog.com email address I've been using for about five years was worth it. Instead of 150 spam in my email this morning, I had about 15 (all from my work e-mail, to boot).

Of course, I haven't exactly made my new email address private -- I do want people to be able to reach me, so it's plastered all over this site -- but hopefully it'll take a few months or years for the junk mail to reach its previous proportions.

Tho I have to admit... there's something I miss about getting 150 messages to cull through each day. It was a nice time waster, and it made me feel loved and wanted by people who don't even know me.

I'm just sitting here at the ol' computer, putzing away the final hours of work before the holiday arrives at 3pm sharp, I yawn, and ...ow.

Ow.

Owwww. Jesus. Mother pus-bucket. That frelling hurts.

I think it's a cramp, right in my back. I start to bend in each direction my torso can go, hoping to stretch it back the way it should go, but its no good.

So I wait it out. I tear up a little. The dogs stare at me anxiously, wondering... is it time for ball?

Then it's better. Ah.

I walk upstairs to the let the canines out for their mid-morning constitutional and ... ow.

GOD DAMMIT.

Of course, now I'm thinking: kidney stone. I've hade them before and it was horrible. Just like this. But this seems different. Too high up in the back, on the right side.

Other thought: Appendix. Still seems too high up though. (As if I'm some kinda internist and know exactly where my innards are at any given time.)

I grab the phone and call the wife. I want to tell her if I'm not here when she gets home, I'm in the hospital. Or passed out in the basement. My dad once tried to withstand the pain of a kidney stone and ended up passed out. Then spent a few days at St. James Mercy, I believe. That's what I was girding up for.

No answer at Bon's desk. I'm thinking next step is either drive myself over to Cayuga Medical or call the local ambulance (a private ambulance service, which, by the way, also owns a local funeral home. Talk about synergy.). I'm very hesitant on the ambulance thing, since I'm still fighting my insurance over who's going to pay for my doctor appointment from last November. Imagine they're glee in making me pay for an emergency room visit for what could be just a muscle cramp...

And then, as if someone had been holding my liver and spine together with pliers and suddenly let go, the pain is gone.

I walked gingerly for a few minutes. Then, just to tempt fate, I started gyrating my abdomen and back, as if I had an invisible hoola hoop going. Nothing.

So, I'm back at the desk. Wondering if I should take the safe route, or avoid the hassle, cost, etc.

Three guesses which way I go.

It occurs to me after four days on the road that I need to memorize my cell phone number.

So it's Friday night, and because I'm an idiot all plans I had to get out of the hotel tonight fell through, unless I want to go out all by myself, and walking about Boston in the twilight when it's 90 degrees holds about as much appeal to me as licking a dumpster.

Instead, I'm going to have me some class-A (I hope) room service. Used to be when I traveled on the company dime, I would always treat myself to a room service breakfast. Not with my current company. The motto here is, "Why treat for the extras when you can, well, not?" And they don't. There's a per diem of about $25 a day that can cover calls to home and any meals. (It might be $50, I really don't remember until I fill out my expense report, but it makes little difference with the prices out there. The frelling sandwich I have coming up from in-house dining is $18. And the 10-ounce Sierra Mist coming with it is $3. But since I haven't paid for anything else at all today, this meal's on the CEO.) Not that I'm complaining. Number one, being skinflints has kept this company alive long past the dotcom bust. Second, complainers in this company tend to get fired.

Oh, so I traveled out here for the 802.11 Planet show, the expo named after my site and at which I AM A GOD.

Well, I'm extremely popular at least. All the PR people want time with me to tell me why they're so damn great. At least they did, until I was saddled with doing judging for the expo's "Best of Show" awards. I went from booth to booth yesterday, dragging my kemo sabe Joseph around as his health slowly dwindled from sniffly to SARS, and forced as many nominees as possible to give me the blah blah blah. We picked five worth recipients, but I avoided too much time today on the show floor in case the non-winners (because there are no losers at this show!) wanted to pelt me with rocks and garbage.

Oh, my club sandwich, fries and drink just arrived. Twenty-seven bucks, total. They added on the tip automatically. It was good, but not that good. C'mon.

Now, I shall quietly read "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," (I got a copy on Monday morning when B&N released the unclaimed pre-ordered copies) and then watch "Monk" and sleep.

I'm in a hotel in south Boston (the Seaport, by the World Trade Center) and the phones in my room are making me nostalgic. They're exactly the same Meridian phones we had at my first job, at Windows Sources magazine with Ziff Davis Publishing in the early 90's. Great phones. They did all you could want and more. Easy to use, big buttons, great speakers, nice CID dispay at the top. I've used many a crap phone since then -- some of which I bought for myself -- and few come close to the Meridian. If they had a wireless handset or at least a headset jack, it would be perfection for any PBX.

So here I sit. Alone.

Well, except for two dogs.

When the wife leaves for weekends away during the summer, my ritual has become to stay up as late as humanly possible each night she's gone so as to mitigate any chance of not being able to sleep. It's a trick culled from many a night of sleeping alone and staring at a ceiling.

She's off in Massachusetts this weekend, doing dog agility with our monkey-boy Lab, Caper. I was in MA last weekend myself, visiting friends in a whirlwind trip (60 bucks in gas got me almost 900 miles), punctuated by having the dreaded "Check Engine" light come on in the car about four and a half hours from home. Turns out the cause of this malady was that the gas cap might not have been tightened enough. And people think the Blue Screen of Death in Windows is scary. Those not in tune with the internal combustion engine really should have a talk with the Subaru people about their user interface design.

I spent a cold week in the basement, feeling chilled every day, putting on a jacket when I went out side since it was usually gray or rainy. I felt that way today and went out to do some errands, but by the time I got home the sun was shining and the heat in my faux-suede jacket was festering. I spent the evening in shorts, lolling around the house. I finished a book by a local author who liked Ithaca so much she moved away, and even watched the last ever Dawson's Creek (a show I truly enjoyed until its creator left it in the second season). I sat through the hours in the new recliner my wife bought me (in exchange, I paid for our summer vacation. We are nothing if not equitable in this home.).

I wish I'd spend the night calling friends and chatting with people. But after a couple years of isolation due to the job and where I decide to buy my homes, I'm at a loss most of the time for how to even go about it sometimes. A voice in my head says, why would any of your friends spread across the United States want to hear from you? Besides, it's a Friday night, and they've got lives. You're the only one at home, the voice says. I know this isn't true, but the knowledge doesn't get me to the phone.

Tomorrow is back to gray and dreary, with afternoon showers. I'm kind of relieved and glad because I want an excuse to stay in. Summer is a time of great guilt for the sedentary, and we need the assistance of the weather gods to make us feel okay about indoor pursuits like Xbox, or writing, or cleaning my office, or, uh, Xbox.

I'm sure everyone out there is concerned about my health (thanks for asking). I joined the Wellness Center up on the IC campus a couple months ago, and was pretty good about getting there a few times a week, but that dropped off about three weeks ago when Wellness cut it's hours and the only option was to go on the campus and use the regular Fitness Center gym. That mean's going to the facilities used by the students instead of just faculty and staff. As much as that's nice because it gives me something to look at, it's much harder because I'll feel the need to suck in my gut the entire time. I know it doesn't hide anything, it's just an instinct that is hard to prevent.

I don't know why I bother with the whole gym charade. Well, yes I do… the exercise, much as I hate it – any of you who get that "exercise high" where you reach "the zone" and feel great after intense physical exertion can bite my over-sized ass cheeks – it makes m feel like I'm doing something. And, it's actually better than the alternative, which is really the only thing that will actually work: dieting. I know it works, I've done it before. Loathed ever breath I took during that time, but I did it. Nothing sucks the jolly out of me faster. So painful, yet so needed.

Well, time to hit he sack. I've got a stack of comic books on the bed stand that will get me through the next few hours until my eyes can no longer stay open. Good night.

Cool -- I just won tickets on the radio to JOEL GREY: The Road to Cabaret, an Evening of Conversation, Music, and Q & A . The question they asked during WICB's Best of Broadway was "For what 1985 film did Joe Grey get nominated for the Golden Globe?"

I knew the answer, but cheated with a quick google (it's a verb!) anyway to confirm the full title: Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins. The announcer came back on the radio to congratulate me and called "The Adventure Continues" (which it might have had that film not tanked). So I didn't need to be anal.

So, that's $100 worth of tickets to see a Broadway legend, which is pretty nice. Of course, I'd most like to ask him what it was like to work on the fifth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer....

No court for us!

I've had enough of court rooms for one year, actually. I was only in one for about 15 minutes to protest a speeding ticket in late March (I plead it down but still got a fine... I wanted to do more, but the surly ass judge looked like he was as willing to put up with my shit as George W. is willing to wear a turban) and I wasn't looking forward to small claims. Well, not entirely. But we had such a slam dunk of a case to get our cash that it might have been fun...

Here's the gist: we bought our house in September last year and as we moved in, we could see that the laminate (read: faux wood) floor in the kitchen had bubbles in it. As if someone had poked a straw under and blown them up. Obvious water damage causing the laminate to shrink and grow. So at the closing for the house, we brought it up and our disappointment in it and got the seller to hold $1200 of the money we were paying for the house so it could go toward repairs. The money got escrowed with our lawyer.

I got some estimates. Not on fixing it though. It was beyond fix. It has been installed improperly (the guy who installed it actually came to look, and of course blamed the problem on the previous owners). Everyone else said the installer did a terrible job, and I agree -- no caulking the edges, no breathing room in some places for expansion/contraction, etc.

About this time, the deadline for the seller to get this fixed -- the responsibility was on him in the paper work -- came and went. So we decided to go ahead with it. One day in October, the seller actually showed up at my house out of the blue and asked if he could get some more time. It was an obvious pressure tactic -- we'd been communicating through the lawyers to this point and it was all going our way, so he wanted to get face to face where it's harder for us to refuse him. So I gave him another week to get some one up to the house for estimates. And no one came.

In that time, I got three more estimates! But now I was beyond trying to get it fixed. We'd always wanted to have a nice tile floor in our kitchen in the old house, so I decided we'd get one now.

It took a few months since the holidays and other things got in the way, but in February a guy recommended to us came in and in a week put in our new tile floor. (My parents helped Bon and I rip out the old). It looks great. It cost a helluva a lot more than $1200, but that was still all we expected to get from the seller, since it was the money escrowed with our lawyer.

And the seller, upon hearing that we'd replaced the floor, refused to give us the money. He offered $500. My lawyer, a great attorney by the way, went slightly ballistic at that and sent one of the most kick ass letters I've ever seen to the seller's lawyer, telling him the seller was not adhering to the agreement, etc. It was great. Plus, it said that we would be going for the money in small claims court.

I filed the paper work for that last week -- but it turns out my lawyer's letter likely did the trick. The day before I even filed, the seller's attorney sent a note to mine, giving the ok to the release of the full $1200. The check arrived a couple days ago.

Bon and I celebrated with an expensive meal downtown.

And that's that. No court for me, no histrionics or fist pounding during testimony, no finger pointing and wagging of contracts and paperwork. I'm almost disappointed. Almost.

For Easter -- which I personally consider a bigger non-holiday than Arbor Day, and I think it's ridiculous that anything be closed for it that wasn't closed for Passover, or hell, for St. Patrick's Day -- the wife and I were off to church.

No, we haven't found God (I didn't know he was lost! Bada-BING!) -- My nephew was being baptized.

I don't do well with church. I believe it all began when I was a wee lad, and my grandparents took my brother and me to the Canisteo Baptist church where they were members. Now, staying overnight with my grandparents in those days was always an exercise in seeing just how far politeness could take us before the screaming began. Besides speaking to us in French and expecting instant comprehension, Grandma would feed us only foods we didn't like, from the barely tolerable (Cheerios) to the outright painful (liver -- the first and only time I ate it).

On one Sunday during a holiday season, we were seated in a middle pew toward the back and I listened with horror as the female clergy-person (Reverend? Vicar? Padre? Mother superior? I dunno) went on at length about how children should not be taught Santa Claus, but only the story of Christ. She probably didn't like that Drummer Boy stealing his thunder, either.

I was too far gone on the Xmas commercialism express even at that age to get past the growing anger that sermon inflamed. I think part of her argument was Santa and Satan being too close together in spelling, but that might be wishful thinking on my part.

(At a completely different sermon at that same Baptist church, there was stoked in my being a fervent desire to follow the ways of "our lord" Jesus. Except, in my mind, Jesus H. Christ was a kick-ass meta-human super-hero with a flowing robe and a flaming staff or righteousness! He went wandering from town to town like the guy in Kung Fu, helping the weak and trod upon with his Magic Rod (eww) that turned water to wine, and cracked skulls of the bad guys! I vividly remember putting on a bathrobe and a fake beard I cut-out of a paper plate, so I could enact the adventures of this savior turned super-hero. My brother Paul wouldn't go along with it and play Jesus's sidekick, so I probably hit him with the big stick and ran before he could catch me. WWJD, indeed.)

As I grew up -- despite some of my best friends being Catholic, but probably because I dated a Born-again Christian -- I started to feel full-fledged heebie-jeebies with anything having to do with church. I vividly remember being at some church in town for a show choir performance and having such high anxiety, I thought I was having a panic attack. I felt like a hypocrite being in such a building. Picture Bill Gates trying to live with the Amish -- that's how I felt.

It boils down to this. I have a lot of respect for religion. You have to respect something so important is so many lives, cable of driving people to doing acts of such incredible good and despicable evil. While I tend to believe, historically, the use of religion as the only basis for a decision is the road to disaster (no one expects the Spanish Inquisition), I'm also hopeful that religion can be what keeps people from going the wrong way when times are tough.

Not for me mind you. While I'm no atheist, but I'm far from convinced there's any one right or wrong way in the higher-being belief business. That was and is always the argument that most drives me up a wall: "My religion is the only religion that's right. Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Presbyterians are all going straight to hell." Yes, and perhaps monkey's will fly out my butt. Religious group-think and blind following just makes it worse. It's not the military. Well, at least not everywhere it isn't.

I don't have panic attacks in churches anymore. I even got married in one, if the chapel at Ithaca College counts. I was disappointed my wife wanted to be married in a chapel, but we made the ceremony wholly ours in every respect: nothing was in it that was forcing us down a path we weren't ready or willing to take.

So, it was interesting for me to watch my nephew get baptized in Hornell's St. Anne's Catholic Church on Easter Sunday. I suppose it's good to know he'll always be accepted there even if he doesn't practice -- everyone deserves a place to go even if they don't know it. But baby John Edward isn't likely to be brought up going to mass several times a week like most of my catholic friends from school did (and probably still do). If it's possible, my brother may be less religious than me, and his wife didn't want a church wedding -- they got married in their back yard. I think this baptism was done out of mother-in-law guilt.

Which is all well and good, but the part that bugged me was that the ceremony basically contains an oath before God that the parents and god parents (which I am not one of) will raise the child to follow the tenets of the church. I guess that's easy for some people to ignore. If the ceremony were forced on me, maybe I'd ignore it too. But, like I said, I have a lot of respect for religion even if I don't practice it. I know for a fact that if I had a kid, when the suggestion came that my child be baptized (and someone always suggests such a thing, because people can't keep they're mouths shut, especially when it comes to raising childred), I'd be poo-pooing the idea in no uncertain terms.

The big guy and I have an understanding -- I can flip-off the heavens after a snow storm and I can say the F-word in church all I want (like I did yesterday... my Mom smacked me) as long as I'm not a dick to other people. Well, people who don't deserve it. But if I make a promise to my personal higher-being, I try to stick too it, even if it's just between us. Like the time I swore I'd give up eating cake. And drive slower. And that I'd never, ever read porn if he would just make the itchy, painful rash go away.

I trust God to know when I'm kidding.

It's 11am on Sunday. This weekend I've worked around the house in the glorious 50 degree sunny weather, eaten McDonalds and brownies and hard lemonade, spent hours on the PC updating Facts Are Meaningless to Movable Type, watched three episodes of Farscape, purchased roofing shingles to replace all those blown off in the last six months, and done very little thinking unless you count creating a cascading style sheet as thinking.

Today is all abou thinking and writing and blogging and playing with the bitches until my wife get's home late late tonight, and then it's back to married life.

Which is exactly the same as all of the above, but with supervision.

And fewer McDonald's #5 meals.

For two days this week, the hills of Ithaca were enveloped in a fog the likes of which I have never seen. I was afraid to pull out of my driveway because I couldn't tell if vehicles were coming from either direction.

That's what it was like at 7:30 Thursday morning when I left for my appointment at the Wellness Center.

First, however, knowing the errors of the previous day -- namely, I showed up freshly showered but scaly as a Sleestak -- I slathered some moisturizing lotion on my legs and arms, taking special care of my elbows... I once worked for a man who had the world's ugliest elbows, all knotted and gnarled as if he'd used them to stoke a fire, and I desperately hope to avoid such a fate for my favorite joints. However, I neglected to use my stash of fragrance free I keep at my desk (for one should never type with dry skin.) Instead, I used the lotion bottle near Bonny's sink, which I always forget is where she recycles all the old lotions in the house. This mishmash moisturizes just fine, but smells like a French brothel. As did I, now. Too late to worry it though, I had to get up to campus.

I got to the Wellness center and, after a quick call to the campus safety office to make sure I wouldn't get towed, I met Renee, the graduate student who would be completing my physical test that day, and will be my physical trainer, setting up the exercise routine I'd be following soon. First however, it was to the back room to put me through my paces once again. This time, thankfully, without headgear.

To be honest, it wasn't terrible. I had to do some testing for my grip (my right hand is about twice as strong as my left hand... take from that what you will), my limberness (which probably isn't a word, and if it is, doesn't describe my ability to stretch at all), and the prerequisite push-ups and sit-ups. I did more push-ups than I thought I was capable of, but my sit-up experience goes to show that my abdomen is the root of all my problems.

This part of the test was punctuated by the fat calipers . Renee had a plastic box that held this special piece of equipment, which she had to use to pinch around my back, side, stomach, and thighs to measure my body fat. Of course, this always reminds me of the classic 70's commercials that said if you can "pinch an inch" it's time to take off the weight. I could pinch a decameter.

I had my shirt off, and Renee was kneading my flesh to get up a good amount of flab to grab, when I was stricken with a sudden terror.

I was well aware that my chest was now a patchy mess after being shaved for electrodes the day before -- Bon says I was shaved with the shape of a human ass into my chest. Being a moderately hirsute fellow in the front -- I'd say mid-way between a silverback ape and Robin Williams, at worst -- I have another problem however. The hair around my belly-button tends to capture clothing fuzz and flotsam like a dryer lint trap. My wife is constantly on the look out for navel lint in there. I think she finds it amusing that it generally looks blue.

So as Renee finished with her first fat measurement on my back shoulder blade and asked me to turn around, I was overcome with the thought that I potentially had a wade of soft refuse tucked in my tummy, likely sticking out for all to see. It had completely escaped my mind that I had taken a shower less than an hour earlier, and all thoughts of my excess moisturizer giving off a cloying flower fragrance only an old lady would admire had left me also. I was horrified that this 23-year-old girl would have to see the horror my midriff collected.

I didn't look down. I stared at the wall as Renee had me place my arm or thigh or shorts in various positions so she could get a pinch (I had to drop trou about an inch so she could squeeze the folds at the top of my pelvis). I started to think, Maybe she'll just pluck the lint right out. She might even use the calipers to do it. And she'll place the wad in the garbage and say nothing and act like it happens all the time. For who's to say it doesn't? I'm sure we've all been there.

I had to turn around again soon so she could go through the pinch process a second time -- part of the routine. I surreptitiously swiped my finger across the umbilical hole in my breadbasket, and (WHEW) found nothing. It was just me, my hairy spare tire, and the occasional bald patch. And really, that's all I could ask for. Minus the spare tire part.

Renee will be crunching all the numbers from my final test and the previous day's running to come up with the perfect course of therapy to get me on track to a slender-er moi. More on that as it develops.

It's 10am as I start typing this, and I've already been to the gym and spent an agonizing 45 minutes on the phone with a vendor from the UK telling me about a chip. And not the kettle-fried, potato-y kind , unfortunately.

Yes, I'm back to the gym on a (hopefully) regular basis for the first time since January 1998. Back then, as the economy boomed and life was good -- I was working with good friends in a great town, owned my first house, my little dog was only a year old; we truly had the world by the cahones -- I was still a bucket o' lard. Knowing I had only eight months until my 10 year high school reunion spurred me to join the gym and Weight Watchers, and over the next six or so months, I managed to drop 25 pounds. I was still overweight for a guy my age and height and hair style, but it was nice to move to a different pant size.

This year nothing is spurring me to weight loss outside of my own self-disgust, which as I've mentioned waxes and wanes depending upon the mix of my brain chemicals. I mean, if the Sopranos has taught me anything, its that skanky gangster molls should be attracted to my physique at least. Perhaps I just don't kill enough of my goombahs...

Either way, I'm giving weight loss the ol' college try again, quite literally, having joined the Ithaca College Wellness Center. Not only do I get access to the gym for a year for $100, but I get a personal trainer to come up with the exact exercise program I need to molt the outer layer of my rotundity.

Before I can start pumping the hydraulic iron, however, I had to be tested. Yesterday at 8am I met with a senior health sciences student named Jen, who had the brownest eyes I have ever seen. She was there to put me through the first part of my stress test, which is their way of torturing me to see how much I can endure. She had me take my shirt off (while a graduate student looked on... nothing like having an audience) and proceeded to shave various parts of my chest and abdomen so she could attach electrodes to hook me to an ECG.

[Digression: An ECG is an electrocardiogram, which measures heart rate and abnormalities... it just so happens, my parents picked my name based on those same initials. It's sometimes also called an EKG (because in medicine, I guess you can spell it "kardio"), so for years my grandfather called me "Elmer Kirk," instead of Eric Christopher, hoping it would stick.]

Jen went through four razors to clear the areas she needed. I assumed this was because I have a pelt second only to the nutria , but she kindly assured me that it was because they have the cheapest razors they could buy. What do you expect for such low tuition dollars? $31,000 a year doesn't go far any more.

As Jen was smoothing out my chest, I realized that after I'd taken a shower that morning, I hadn't put on any moisturizing lotion, something I'd promised myself I'd do laying in bed the night before. After the cold winter, my arms and legs have the texture of red, easily-bruised, cinder-blocks. I guess it didn’t matter much, as Jen then got out alcohol and gauze and proceeded to rub repeatedly on the spots where the electrodes would go until my skin turned pink. I guess I conduct electricity better that way.

After running some initial ECG numbers and taking my blood pressure (BP), I was taken out into the back room -- thankfully they don't do these tests in the middle of the actual gym area -- and Frank, the guy in charge of the center, helped Jen get me hooked up for the main stress part of the test. I would be doing a brisk walk on a treadmill (that would get an increased incline) until I could walk no more. I was again hooked up to an ECG, had a sphygmomanometer on my arm, and was outfitted with a giant piece of head gear with a breathing apparatus. It was like a snorkel, and about as comfortable as holding a stapler in my mouth. Frank pinched off my nostrils with a pair of fancy nose clips, and they got me walking.

As I walked, Jen took a BP ever couple of minutes. I haven't had my arm draped around the shoulder of a 22-year-old coed that often since, well, I was 22. As the speed and incline increased, they would frequently ask me to rate my exertion level on a level of 6 (at rest) to 200 (heart exploding, aneurysm imminent). The chart is based on heart rate of the average college student: 6 = 60 beats per minute, 20 = 200 beats per minute (or two six packs of Jolt cola before finals). I could only communicate through hand signals, such as thumbs up, thumbs down, or a middle finger.

The air I was breathing through the head dress might have been sand. Whatever it was, it had absorbent properties that would make Bounty (the Quicker Picker Upper!) jealous. My throat was dry as Geraldo Rivera's moustache.

Walking at four miles per hour, I lasted only 8 minutes before the shin splints and the pain in my gluteus maximus was too much for me. Pathetic. All the while, Jen and Frank would yell out "Great job!" and "Good effort!" and the like. I'd like to hire them to come to my house and say that as I sit in this chair.

After a cool down walk, I sat down in a molded plastic chair and the sweat just started pouring off of me. I had to lean forward so I wouldn't create suction between my back and the plastic. Frank handed me a paper towel, pointing out that "there might be some saliva" when he took off the ceremonial head dress/snorkle of the Wellness Center. He was right. All the moisture in my mouth had worked it's way between my teeth and lips. That, the sweat, and suddenly a runny nose had me feeling sexier than I'd felt in a long time. If by sexy, you mean "close to death."

I walked out of the center with Frank, who left a note for Renee, the student I'd be working with as my trainer. I headed home on rubber legs. By the time I got home though, I felt fine. And I worked for the rest of the day in my shorts, even though there was still snow outside. Quite the protest, huh?

Next up in my Gym update: Renee, the Fat Calipers, and Fear of Navel Lint.

I'm the taxman

And you're working for no one but me.

-The Beatles.

I'll tell you right now: if you own a house that will even remotely be worth more money someday than you paid for it, and you think you might sell when you realize how much that is, and you work from home, do not take the home office deduction.

We did, and we have to give the combined mix of the Federal govenment and the state of Massachusetts about three grand. (The kind and benevolent state of New York, however, is giving us a small refund. Of course, we didn't claim the home office here.)

The problem with all this has to do with capital gains and depreciation on the percent of the house claimed as a home office deduction. I don't know the math of it, I just have to write the damn checks. Of course, I should have seen this coming, but we blew through the extra cash we got selling the house in MA, doing things like the new kitchen floor (which we still likely have to sue over to get our measely $1200 in escrow).

Not the worst financial situation ever, to be honest. But it's galling to give the government anything right now, even more than usual.

So, I'm joining the gym. It's up on the Ithaca College campus, it's a $100 a year and I get a personal trainer in the guise of a health sciences major who's probably going to be spunky and cheerful and have a body with 1% body fat who I will loathe. Unless I got a cute 20-year-old co-ed. Well, I might still hate her after the work out.

Assuming I get in. I filled out the form online to join on Wednesday and as of yesterday my only communication from them was a phone call from a Jennifer who wanted details about my checking off "heart disease" as a family trait.

I don't know why I checked it... I guess I just assumed it, but should have known better, because, silly me, everyone in my family dies of having wet, blackened, destroyed lungs! Emphysema, baby!

I actually keep a cheat sheet culled together from asking my parents over the years of what I've likely inherited from the Griffith and Stephens clans of central New York. With the exception of my mom -- who makes up for it by having the same thing Micheal Jackson claims turned him white -- all my immediate ancestors have had hypertension (as in, blood pressure high enough to make your ears bleed while thinking hard). Every time someone puts a sphygmomanometer on my arm, I clench up a little thinking, "My time has come." I probably outweigh two or three of my grandparents put together (well, especially now that three of them are dead... it's a good way to shed pounds), but I still have an okay BP. Go figure.

I find it somewhat comforting to know exactly what my parents are going to die of. Being 40+ year smokers -- and Camel Regulars for my dad, to boot! -- I figure if they get to go out in a flaming car wreck, they'll be lucky.

I expect to spend a countless hours in the St. James Mercy Hospital cancer center, watching them grow weaker and weaker as the cancer eats them away from the inside; perhaps we'll be able to string their time in bed out to several months if it's just the emphysema destroying their alveoli, one by one, until they suffocated because they betrayed they're own lungs.

This is partly why I felt a need to move back to New York last year. I estimated 10 years tops before their health starts to completely fall apart. My dad wheezes like a broken fireplace stoker now just from minor exertion. Selfish prick that I am, I like to forget that and still have him help with things like tearing out my floor. Mental note to self: No more heavy lifting for Dad.

The whole learning-from-other-people's-health-mistakes thing is something my parents -- who combined have over 65 years of full-time health-care experience -- have stuck their heads in the sand about smoking. So deep they're up to their patellas. But I can't claim moral superiority since I never met an Oreo Cookie or Chocolate Mousse I didn't like. Though at least I'm only killing myself.

So, hopefully the gym folks will look at a family history of emphysema as no big issue and let me in for the coeds to whip into shape. I'm going to need all the strength I can muster in about 10 years.

Is it possible to have jet lag when only moving over one time zone? It certainly feels like it is.

I'm absolutely exhausted. Right down to the core of my big ol' bones. Just whipped. And wiped.

My six day whirlwind "vacation" (during which time I worked four of the six days, rode on five different aero-planes, sat in airports for a combined total of 8 hours, and had to speak on topics on which I'm not an expert to rooms of 120+ people) has ended. I'm home, back in the office, watching as six days of messages and spam stack up in my inbox. If I didn't have a cable modem, this would take until about noon. As it is, it's been a 20 minutes and I've only got 28% of the messages.

I had it all this trip. I saw old and dear friends, made (I hope) a couple of new ones that I'll see and/or work with again, watched movies with my best friend Joe in Florida (including seeing Apollo 13 on an IMAX screen at Kennedy Space Center), met some vendors (most of whom bored me to tears... one so much I felt myself drifting off... when i asked them at the end what (if anything) they said had to do with 802.11 networking, they seemed a bit put off. As if I'm the one who made the meeting with them. Jesus Christ. Does the name of my site, "802.11 Planet" not indicated that maybe, just maybe, I'd have some specific interested in, oh, I dunno, the 802.11 networking aspect of your business? Get out of your ivory tower, schmuck, not everyone covers you just because you're a big shot company.), I had highs and lows of emotion and (ahem) drunkeness (Bourbon Street, it turns out, looks just like it does on TV), and then when it all came down to it in the end, I almost didn't want to come home.

It's perhaps the first time I've traveled for work that I didn't look forward to getting home. Maybe it's living in Ithaca, the SAD (Season Affected Disorder) I constantly seem to have here, or the fact that every time I called home I got to hear about some new disaster:

The snow all melted, but now the backyards a mud pit and my dogs are the wrestlers. My wife's sister is threatening to move to Texas to get away from family (and at this point, I wish they'd move to fucking Iraq). My brother's mother-in-law's dog died (yes, the extended family shit is a bit much, isn't it?).

Oh, and I have to sue a guy in small claims court. Probably. Over the floor in the kitchen and the money that was escrowed back when we closed on the house to help us pay for it. Christ.

Email is at 64% and counting. I can't wait to re-read it all. I hope there's some penis enlargement offerings, I just don't feel I get enough of them.

So, I'm back, got in last night about 1:30 after being on plans for hours. After I heard about the need to sue for the measly (in the long run) $1200, I was so frustrated I called Joe and left him a message from the Pittsburgh airport around 10pm. The gist of it was, "why the hell didn't I stay in Florida?"

The temp shot up to 60 degrees her in Ithaca over the weekend. Great. But my basement office is still 60 without the space heaters on and it's not the 60 that feels warm like outside.

I'm back to square one. In the basement, just me and the dogs all damn day long. Still no life, still no hobby or interest or friends in this burg and it's starting to fucking irk me and piss me off and I could use an accidental overdose of gamma radiation to alter my body chemistry so that when I become angry or enraged, I'd have an excuse to bust some heads or kick a car door or at least randomly pinch people, really hard, and hopefully leave a mark.

So it's been a busy couple of weeks in the basement of Casa de Griffith on the shores of Lake Cayuga. What has gone on?

I'm preparing like a man possessed for a tradeshow. Mind you, I've been to lots of tradeshows in the last decade, but not like this -- I'm a featured speaker in a presentation. What's more, it's on a topic that I'm sure is near and dear to everyone's hearts: Wireless Network Security. This is much like getting zookeepers to talk about urinary tract infections in polar bears: They might have to clean the mess, but they're aren't vets. (How's that for the worst analogy ever?) Still, I'm doing my best to become a mini-expert on the topic and mastering PowerPoint at the same time.

Our kitchen floor, long the bone of contention in our purchase of this house, is finished. When we moved in, the faux-wood floor (laminate) was pathetic shape, with big bubbles in the floor from moisture damage and who knows what else. At the house closing, we forced the seller to set aside $1200 of the money we gave him to get the floor repaired or fixed. There's no fix to it, so we finally, after six months of estimates, waiting, more estimates, and the usual hemming and hawing, got the damn job done. Ceramic tile, baby. It's nice (though we should have picked a darker grout). Now we get to let the lawyers fight about if we get our money or not.

We met with an accountant to get started on our 2002 taxes. You'd think it would be simple... all we did was have 7 months of freelance income, live in two states, sell a house, buy a house, and build up the usual amount of deductions. Well, actually it would be simple, but for the fact that because we sold our house at a profit, we'll get screwed over because we took a home office deduction for the last three years. There's just no way that the government doesn't get theirs. (And we bitch about this, but I still think any Bush tax cut is a dumb idea. I'm a true American, always wishing everyone paid but me.)

As per usual, we spent the entire day before the meeting with the accountant rustling up paperwork that we should have had organized all year. And we're pretty anal-- I hate to see what it's like for people who don't have filing cabinets.

I got a raise at work. Which was nice.

I started volunteering teaching kids HTML and the like at the local science museum. I did not come away fulfilled, but I'm going back for more anyway.

I spent part of my day today trying to call back a telemarketer. The same person has called me two days in a row and hung up on my answering machine or me... but doesn't have caller ID blocked. I keep trying but only get a busy signal or it just rings for hours. I did a Google on the number -- you can do reverse number looks ups now for listed numbers, which is rather scary -- and got his name and address. If he calls again I plan to answer the phone screaming, "Jasin! Is that you? Dude!" Wonder if he'll try to sell me a vacation or some herbal Viagra then...

It's 5:25pm and still daylight outside. Is there anything more beautiful?

(okay, yeah, light at 7:25pm accompanied by 82 degree weather -- 72 degrees with the wind chill. But I'm going for a glass half full feeling here after a few weeks of the glass feeling completely empty.)

An accounting of the birth of my nephew, told from the perspective of a person who couldn't see much of the mother and father:

10:30am: I left home, drove up to the Ithaca College campus, double parked and picked up Bonny so we could drive on to Hornell.

12:05pm: Arrived at my parents house, dropped off our dogs, fed them some lunch.

12:30pm: Arrived at the hospital and found my mom and dad sitting in the waiting area by the main elevators, just outside of maternity. We're told my sister-in-law, Jennifer, is nine centimeters dilated. Sounds like we arrived just in the nick of time, baby should be here any minute!

12:40pm: Went back to the maternity room to see Jen and my brother, Paul (aka, the daddy). Jen's mother and sister are there. Jen is uncomfortable (physically). I get uncomfortable socially, as we degenerate into a discussion of what a freak Michael Jackson is.

1:00pm: Bonny, Mom, Dad, and I partake of a lunch of hospital food in the St. James Mercy Hospital cafeteria, which is quite different from when I last ate there a decade ago. Though the food is not different. In fact, it might be exactly the same food. Made 10 years ago.  (Four meals cost $11 though... can't beat that.)

1:30pm: Jen gets her epidural (set at 10). She is feeling no pain now.

2:30pm: My mom tells me someone I know is in the gift shop. I stop in and find the volunteer behind the counter is Josie, my 11^th grade English teacher. She was a good friend of the family of my high school best friend, Mark, and thus by extension was friend of mine even though she was a teacher. She doesn't look much different than she did 15 years ago, though she apparently retired from full time teaching in 1989. Not teaching does not age a person much, I guess.

3:00pm: Nothing is happening.

3:10pm: My dad and I leave -- we have to take my parents new dog, Sunny, a very neurotic Shetland sheepdog (neurosis because even though 8 months old, was never socialized to people... because dog breeders are idiots), to the vet for his first checkup. We also have to pick up my grandmother's 16 lb cat Mickey, who was there being treated for a bladder infection.

3:44pm: While at the vet, I call the hospital and page mom. She tells me still nothing is happening. Jen is in "bouncing on the ball." I assume this is some kind of pregnancy euphemism and hang up.

4:15pm: We've dropped off Sunny at home (my dogs look at me with digust as we leave) and then take Mickey down to my grandmother's house in Canisteo. My grandmother has become a great grandmother about 7 times in the past, so having another great-grand-child up at the hospital doesn't do much to phase her.

4:30pm: We arrive back at St. James. The OB/GYN has taken the liberty of breaking Jen's water. That'll show that water. Baby should be out in seconds. I find out "Bouncing on the Ball" is literally -- she's bouncing on a handle-less Hippity-Hop, trying to jar the kid loose.

5:00pm: No change. They start to turn up the Pitocin level on Jen to artificially increase he contractions.

5:30pm: We Griffith's in waiting area are getting hungry. (We don't go to the room much, as Jen's mother and sister are hovering, determined to be the first to hold, or at least be the first to hear the crying, of the child). Griffith's start to discuss the viability of pizza.

5:45pm: Still no change, so Bonny and I go to my parents house to feed our mutts and then to get a couple of large pies at the Hut.

5:55pm: While feeding dogs, mom calls me on Paul's cell phone (I'm carrying it for him since using it in the hospital would cause the plane to crash. Or something) -- the baby is crowning! Should be out by the time we get back!

6:10pm: We pick up the pizzas. Bon I bitching the whole time: "We missed it! God dammit, we missed it!"

6:20pm: Back at St. James -- we didn't miss a thing. Jen is in active labor. (We found out this morning though that whoever told Mom the baby was crowning at that point was some kind of, uh, idiot.)

6:30pm: Eat pizza. We give one to the maternity ward nurses, since they've got four pregnant women/deliveries that day, so they probably can't get to dinner. They are turning Jen's epidtural down to 4 -- she's pushing, but can't feel anything, so she's not pushing at the right times.

7:00pm: Still pushing. Dad and I go over to Paul's house to let his three Great Danes out so they can "do their business."

7:15pm: Jennifer's mom leaves to go home and feed her dog, Abby (a Great Dane with a eating disorder -- she can only eat while her upper body is elevated, so she swallows while her front paws are on a chair). If you think we all have lives revolving around our dogs just a tad too much, well... yeah.

7:30pm: The nurse's discover they have pizza. Jen still pushing.

7:35pm: Still sitting in the waiting area. Reading 2 month old People Magazine. Bonny burst out laughing. I ask her why, she just repeats one of my brother's favorite lines: "Prairie Doggin'" [[I'm not going to explain it.]]

7:40pm: I start writing out a timeline of the day on the back of a St. James newsletter. Jen's mom comes back and asks "Still nothing?" as she goes by. We nod the affirmative and she sighs a sigh that says "Why would a doctor let this happen?" Because, after all, they're like gods!

7:55pm: Ellen comes out to tell us the baby is apparently too big. Jen is going in for a C section.

8:15pm: I walked back toward the room, but the doctor is still in there having her push (which seemed political at the time --the OB/GYN was not going to do the C, so why not see if she could get it out? Paul said later that Jen had to push since it was active labor.) They turn her epidural back up to 10. Plus they have to give her a spinal for the C-section.

8:35pm: I walked back to the room again. They're still prepping the surgery/delivery room. Jen is in her room, with mom, sister, Paul, plus aunt and her sister's boyfriend. Paul told me to come in. Jen is worried about her dogs, her rabbit, her hamster, can't stop crying. It's full blown pregnancy mania, without the husband abuse. Jen asks the nurse if Paul can still cut the cord, but nurse tells her, no, not during a C. Also, Jen (who is starving, hasn't eaten since the night before) is told she can't eat whatever she wants after a C section -- more crying at this than anything else. Who can blame her?

8:40pm: I tell all this to my parents and Bon, who, wisely, stay out of the way.

8:50pm: Finally, they get the surgeon and anesthesiologist in -- they'd been at the funeral for another doctor's murdered son, apparently. Jen gets rolled into the room.

9:16pm: My dad is locked into maternity -- they have to let him out with a code (the doors go automatically at 9). But he tells us they can hear the baby crying.

At 9:30pm, both families are standing in the hallway, waiting, and finally the nurse wheels out the basinet so we can see this:

John Edward Griffith
Born 9:07pm, February 7, 2003, 21 inches long, 7 pounds, 11 ¼ ounces.

My nephew, to be christened John Edward Griffith, is about to be born. My mom called at 8am to say my sister-in-law went to the hospital at 4am, but they sent her home after he contractions receded. Then she was back by 7am.

Paul, my brother and the expectant father, called at 8:30. He said she's going to go any time in the next four hours. I just signed myself up for a quick day off from work and once Bon tells me she's done with some last minute work at the office, we'll brave the new snow coating routes 13 and 17 and hopefully by in Hornell before they clean the gunk off the kid.

My goal: tell the nurses that I'm the father so i can make out the birth certificate and make sure the kid is named John ERIC Griffith. Doesn't that sound so much better?

Yeah, whatever.

I'm busy. I've got video games to play and work to do and I'm saving up to buy a tile floor. Oh, yeah, and my chronic battle with winter-depression. But hey, at least I've got... uh... two layers of pants on to keep warm. Yeah, that helps. I guess.

RING

Me: Eric speaking.

Telemarketer: Hello, is this Eric?

Me: That's what I just said, isn't it?

Telemarketer: Hello sir, I'm calling on behalf of fund raising for the Police Benevolent Society --

Me: I'm in no shape to make any donations to anyone right now. I just got laid off from my job. [[fyi, this is a lie, folks.]]

Telemarketer: Well, sir, it would take some time for our envelope to reach you by mail at which time you could send --

Me: Did you even hear what I said??

Pause

Me: How could I make any donations to you when I don't even have an income?

Telemarketer: Thank you for your time.

CLICK

[Very disappointing. I had an entire crying jag planned if he'd kept going.]

God bless my wife... she gives me a hard time about eating to many carbs for breakfast, insisting that at least twice a week instead of my usual bagel or toast slathered with delicious creamery butter, I have a smoothy or some oatmeal. But not today... we were downtown this morning when she decided muffins were in order, which then also turned into donuts. When I dropped her at her office, I said to her jokingly, "Get me a soda!" and she did. So now I'm hopped up on chocolated donuts and diet Pepsi.

Resolutions? I have none. I understand my own psychology enough to know that I would not keep them. To quote the great H. Simpson: "Never Try."

Still, one thing I will be attempting to do is blog more. I'm not sure why, but I think it boils down to the fact that I really believe in the saying "Writers Write." And I should not be just writing crappy news articles about wireless networks. I should be telling more fart jokes.

Speaking of wireless LANs, I just realized something this morning about one of my writers. He's a pretty good writer, but very formal, and something about his style has been bugging me a lot lately and I only just realized what: He rarely uses contractions. A search though his work for an apostrophe rarely turns them up outside of possessives. Wacky.

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?

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

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.

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?

I'm taking a day off tomorrow. First one since the move, and that didn't really feel like a week off so much as punishment in the form of time to do work around the house that couldn't wait.

I'll be working tomorrow, too, just not on stuff that pays the bills. Like finishing the fence, writing, and, uh, paying the bills.

I have much to tell -- the floor! the past! the vomit! the rabbits and deer! -- so maybe tomorrow.

I think life will settle down a bit after December 9th. I hope.

Yesterday morning as we were waiting for our guests to arrive, Bon got up from the living room couch were she was playing the Xbox and said:

"Well, I guess I have to go start being Martha Stewart Griffith for the day."

"Oh yeah? Are you also into insider trading?" I asked.

"Well, you know I'm always looking for a hot tip." she said.

Have I lost the will to blog? I wonder sometimes. It's not as therapeutic as it used to be... or maybe I'm beyond needing therapy? No matter, I will whip up a quick update for the day so the site is at least not too stale. Might as well, as my wife is not interested in me as she's instead "killing boogies" (our euphemism for playing video games... she and I are both determined to finish off the Buffy the Vampire Slayer game for Xbox soon).

Today was a nice day -- our first a major "dinner party" with a number of my family members out. There were two major reasons to serve up a vat of chili and a couple of my home made pizzas though. The first was to get help in moving the crappy metal shed that came with my house on to the new pad my folks and brother helped me build -- okay, I helped them -- for my new $2000 Amish-made 10x16 shed. My cousin's husband, Bill, took charge with my brother and before we knew it, the ass end of the shed was up on the wheel barrel, they had a couple of corners, and we carried it out into the yard and backed it up on to the foundation. It took about three minutes. Well worth a pot of chili.

The second was to give my grandmother a dog. Her dog of the last several years, Lady, (farmers are not known for handing out fancy names to dogs) passed away a few months ago. Grandma, who is not exactly the ambulatory of people, has hemmed and hawed about getting a new dog. But Bonny and I have kept an eye out for listings about dogs that might be a fit for her.

Bon and I ended up out at the SPCA shelter in Cortland, NY yesterday and met an 11-year-old girl named Maggie who immediately reminded me of Lady. Maggie's pretty spry for a bitch her age, needs to lose some weight, get spayed (who the hell doesn't spay a dog before it's 11? Lazy ass dumb redneck bastards, that's who), and probably have ever single one of her teeth pulled. But since Grandma just recently had the last six of her own teeth yanked, they sounded like a good match.

When they arrived at my house today, Grandma met Maggie and my mom asked what she thought of the dog. Grandma said she's nice.

"Well, she's yours," Mom said.

"No she's not," Grandma said.

"Yes, she is. If you want her."

Grandma cried.

After my family left, there was a car accident on the busy road I live on. Bon and I never heard it as she was on the phone and I was at the time playing Spider-Man the Movie on the Xbox (two words: Freaking WOW). Cars started stopping in front of the house so we walked down to check it out -- a minivan had slammed into the ass end of an SUV. Minivan was totaled, leaking oil and gas all over into the newly installed drains on the road. Fire trucks and cops arrived moments later. I look forward to reading tomorrows paper to find out why it happened. I'm betting the SUV breaked broke braked hard for a deer crossing the road.

Now, it is time to buckle down for a few hours before Alias.

Oh, for those keeping score: ABC, CBS, and now NBC are all available on my DirecTiVo. Let's give a big hand to the local affiliates for the big three networks. WYST 68, Fox affiliate in Syracuse, you can expect a phone call tomorrow so I can find out why you aren't as giving.

For a look at how I've spent the last couple of nights, check out www.cbldf.org. The site is live with the new redesign and using Movable Type as a publishing system. Yippee for me. (No doubt if I knew PHP it would have been even better).

So it's Halloween. No candy here. We're remote enough to not have any trick or treaters (and just in case there's anyone willing to make the trek, I'm turning out the lights so they don't have any desire to visit). Not that I don't want them, but I don't want to disappoint the one kid that might brave the traffic on our road.

Best Halloween ever: actually just three years ago, in 1999-- Indian Summer hit big time, we were in the new house in Hudson, MA, my parents were out to visit. I spent the day relaxed, even washed the cars in the heat. We sat on the porch and handed out candy, and the dogs got to sniff the neighbor hood kids. My next door neighbor's kid was dressed as Batman.

I said to him, "Hey, I bet I know your real name!"

He said, "I'm Jeffrey!"

"Oh," I told him. "I thought you were Bruce Wayne."

Joe was up for a visit a couple of weeks ago. Joe and I both use Netflix to rent DVDs. Thus the stage is set for this morning's conversation via instant messages...

ECGriffith : you owe my wife thanks...
JoeyJoeJoe : Of course I do.
JoeyJoeJoe : Why?
ECGriffith : last night I booted up my laptop and was going into Netflix to change my queue and lo and behold -- I got up the account of one Joe Moran!
JoeyJoeJoe : Oops!
ECGriffith : I just startedt to giggle uncontrollably. I was going to fill your queue with all sorts of stuff...
ECGriffith : but Bonny said I couldn't. :'(
JoeyJoeJoe : Forgot to set that back, eh?
ECGriffith : you would have been flooded with all the gay porn I could find on that site had it not been for her!
ECGriffith : and if not gay porn.... Teletubbies!
JoeyJoeJoe : Same thing!

Here's a good reason to living in Ithaca --- in the space of a month, I've managed to catch two radio shows devoted to broadway music. One on NPR, naturally, which I can't find again because this area has about 20 versions of the same NPR station (WSKG Binghamton) because the hills and lakes disrupt reception so much you must switch around constant to get a good signal.

But my own alma mater's FM station, WICB, has Best of Broadway on Sundays from 10 to 11am. Followed by Breakfast with the Beatles for another hour (which they had even when I was a student... the web site says the Broadway show has been on since 1957)... it's a couple hours of bliss amid the pop stars.

I mean, they're playing "Ed Sullivan" from Bye-Bye Birdie, featuring Paul Lynde (okay, so it's the movie sound track, who cares?)! How often do you think that tune get's air play? I'm betting this might be the first time, world wide, in ten years.

It's official: the local Fox affliate has proclaimed that they will not let me access the Fox national feed via my DirecTiVo unit.

The other three networks (WB and UPN aren't even an option) have said nothing.

Because you're dying to know about the washer and dryer -- we bought new one's at Thayer appliance last week. They were delivered this past weekend, and almost didn't fit in the closet set aside on the first floor for laundry. However, we squeezed them in and they work fine. We got a front loader washer, the new wave in cleansing your garments. My brother has been raving about his front load washer for years... you know you're old when you are raving about appliances. (TiVo doesn't count as an appliance, so shut up.)

I had breakfast this morning with my writing professor from college, she who shepherded me through many a class, a senior project (still unfinished), a job as a computer consultant, and into an unpaid post-graduate internship. She's the only part of my academic life I've stayed in touch with.

Now, a decade later, I'm back in Ithaca, Barb (my former prof) is still teaching Magazine Writing, so I told her jokingly a while back I'd speak at her class.

Horrifyingly, she took me up on it.

Next Tuesday I will be speaking to a class of 22 juniors and seniors about writing for (or trying to write for) magazines and Web sites. Barb also sent an e-mail out to the entire writing faculty and every single Writing Major student who wants to stop by.

It's a good thing I'm not afraid of public speaking, or I'd be all clenched up. I actually am a little, but that's not because I'm nervous...

Last night, I hooked up my new Xbox. I got it almost/sorta/kinda free -- I took points I earned on my credit card, got a gift certificate at Amazon.com, and bought it with a game I've been dying to try, Halo. (Back when I worked at WildWeb Games, Halo was like the Holy Grail -- the game that was going to change it all and especially make the Macintosh a powerhouse of gaming. Then the developer got bought by Microsoft. Sucks for Apple, because Halo became the major launch title for the Xbox).

Anyway, I hooked it up, got the game going, and played the first person shooter for an hour. And got sick to my stomach. I was physically ill. Not because the game is revolting... the motion of running around this simulated space ship had me feeling like I'd just jumped a chasm in the General Lee with dem Duke boys.

The is humiliating since I've been busting on my friend Lauren about this same reaction from her when playing Doom for years. Perhaps it is my now advanced years coming to get me. I'd much rather be sick about the prospect of public speaking.

Sometimes you just want to be agitated.

Such when you're, oh, I dunno....washing clothes.

Turns out the washing machine we bought with our house -- the house is five years old, but the washer is definitely more like 15 -- just doesn't agitate. As in, that central column that moves the water and the clothes just sits there and hums. Worse, when the water drains, the tank (basin? bin?) doesn't spin, so the clothes that have sat there in their own filth during the wash and rinse cycle go into the dryer twice as wet as they should.

So, tonight, we shop for a brand new washer. And a dryer, too. The one here still has gum stuck to the inside. The previous owners let their kids eat a helluva lot of gum. Now that's quality parenting.

Ten days ago, I forgot to mention that I hit a milestone: Exactly one decade in the field of tech journalism.

And I didn't even get a gold watch.

Today, however, is another important anniversary: exactly 1/10 of my career (that's one year, for those not interested in doing the math) has now been spent in the gainful, at-home employ of Internet.com (which is/was owned INT Media, which was a dumb name; the company is now Jupitermedia, which at least sounds cool, albeit a touch incongruous). That's good. The stock is in the toilet, but the CEO says it's not our fault and he says he just bought more, which is nicer than him selling it and living in Fiji. So I guess all is well.

Please dear god, let them vote Robb the skateboarder off first.

I'm sitting in front of the TV and I'm watching cable television for the first time in months.

Real-time TV sucks.

One of the things I like about my new house is the planes. We're right in the path of the one major runway at Ithaca/Tompkin's Regional Airport and they make lots of noise and look really cool that low to the ground. But Bonny just forwarded me this headline:

ITHACA -- Heavy rains caused a small twin-engine aircraft to hydroplane off the runway upon landing at the Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport Sunday night, damaging only the plane's landing gear.

So suddenly all my jokes about the engine's falling off and hitting our garage aren't quite as funny any more...

But they're still funny.

As I predicted, I got to the DMV this morning at 8:20, stood outside in the rain waiting in line to get in (I would have stayed in the car but the line was already 10 people deep) and when I finally did get up to the window, the woman did not even once glance at the driver's record I was told to get from the fine state of MA to prove when the license was issued. The point is, I guess, when stymied at one window of the DMV, just get back in line and hope you get a different cashier and they'll let you through.

Consistency is the bugaboo of quality customer service.

Here's some classic customer service for you...

I called DirecTV over 6 weeks ago, knowing I was moving and requested a waiver so that, even though I was going to move to an area where they don't provide local channels, I could still get the broadcast networks that have national feeds (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS).

Yes, I understand that there are rules and laws that govern giving out the access of these channels, but I don't give a damn. I want special treatment. I make no bones about that fact.

Well, I've had my DirecTV set up for four days and 1) the networks for Boston were still showing up in the channel guide, but with no actual content on the channels and 2) the national feeds were also blank. So, right this second, as I type, I'm on hold with DirecTV to find out if I'm going to get my waiver or not.

I'm told (you're gonna laugh) by the customer service rep that they don't have my new address. Apparently only the installation company that put up the dish had the address, and they didn't bother to share that with DirecTV. Because why would you do something like that? (What really makes milk shoot out my nose that DirecTV main office had to call the installer -- I didn't do it. So they had the address somewhere. Perhaps on a Post-It note that is now shoved up their arse.)

Here's where it's gets knee slapping funny: They put in the waiver request for me to get the networks alright -- but at my address in MA. Where I already got the networks. All of them. Even UPN and WB.

Sigh.

I'm fully prepared to take this to the top. I'll fight this to the upper echelon of DirecTV and Hughes and beyond.

[[The service rep just came back on. I've been informed that they have to contact each individual local network affiliate to get permission from them to let me get the national feeds.

This just gets better and better. NY State -- it's like a technological backwater. ]]

Sorry, sorry, sorry. So much to say, so little time. It's amazing what having a life can do. Or in my case, not so much a life, as a job and lots of unpacking.

Here's how I spent my day in between working and listening to the guy who was installing my house's radon abatement system:

The New York State Department of Motor Vehicles seems to be about 25 years behind the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles. Outside of both handing out shiny metal plates to attach to cars, they seem incompatible.

In MA, you don't stand around waiting -- they give you a number and you sit at a nice bench until you're called. MA recently redid ALL of it's RMV offices, so even if you have to drive a few miles out of your way, it's worth it for the clean space, and the friendly people. Plus, they have a kick-ass Web site with all the info you could want.

In NY, the building, specifically the one in Ithaca that I became intimate with today, you step back into the 1970's before you even reach the door. You stand in line as women (go any guys EVER work at the DMV?) yell "Next!" Once you do get to a window, you're guaranteed to be sent away because you don't have the right stuff. Me, I wanted to switch my MA driver's license to one for NY, but they won't let me. Why? Because my MA license doesn't display the date it was given to me. So I had to spend $10 to get my driving record sent from MA.

I did get one of our vehicles switched to a NY registration, but not until I had to run to the insurance agency so they could take pictures and fill out forms (in MA, the insurance agents didn't take pictures and they had "runners" that would go to the DMV and take care of registration for me). When I got the plates, she gave me the registration and another sticker to put in the window (NY requires two stickers on the windshield to MA's one... you seeing the frickin' pattern here yet?) the cashier charged me $65 and said, "Here's a sheet says you've got a month to get the car inspected."

Hold the phone.

"Uh," I said smartly, "I'm pretty sure I read on the DMV web site that I could keep my current Massachusetts state inspection sticker in the window until it ran out."

"Oh, yeah," she said, taking back the piece of paper. "You understand, I don't know what people have so I've got to give that out."

Yeah, right. And perhaps primates will fly from my anus. Smells more to me like collusion, some stupid law someone put on the books to get people to inspect cars before it's needed and put money in the pockets of seedy inspection guys.

Damn, that's paranoid. But it's the exact thought that went through my head.

No matter, it is horse hockey pucks, and I'm glad I saw that much info on their worthless Web site so I could shoot it down. Who knows what else I got screwed on -- I'll bet if I'd hit another window, I probably would have my new license right now without any hassles.

Okay, back to work for me.

The results of testing my new cable modem connection (which just started spontaneously working overnight) according to BroadbandReports.com:

Your download speed : 1102771 bps, or 1102 kbps.
A 134.6 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 369378 bps, or 369 kbps.
Seems like broadband .. above the 1mbit barrier!

Life is good.

Greetings from central New York.

We survived the move. Most of our stuff survived, even. Settling in has been a bear. I'm currently fighting it out with a cable modem and dial-up and hoping to be online by morning work time. There are many stories to tell of the last week, so stay tuned....

I got a letter from our lawyer handing the transaction of our house purchase in Ithaca on Friday. It actually wasn't a letter to me or Bon, it was a carbon copy of a letter to the lawyer for the sellers, pointing out a small itsy-bitsy problem that might have cropped up.

Turns out they people we're buying from may not own the house. Or the land it's on.

That's oversimplifying a very complicated thing, but right now the paperwork is incomplete. A church owned the land in the 1970s and 80s and transferred it to a development corporation in 1987. That company went bankrupt. From there, I'm not clear on what happened. Did the church get paid for the land or not? Maybe not. That could be a problem.

Then again, it could be nothing. There's probably some piece of paper in a laywer's or court clerk's office somewhere that will clear it all up. Even if that's not the case, chances are we'll still get into the house as expected, via the early "pre-possession agreement" we already have (meaning we get to move in before we actually own the house/land and will pay rent).

The question now is, when will we close and actually own the house? On time (Sept. 9)? Probably later. It is, indeed, too soon to know.

However, as a wise person probably once said (since I can't say I've ever actually heard anyone say this), it's certainly not too late take a bottle of Maalox with a vodka chaser while I worry.

I'm not a napper. I don't nap. Maybe as a child, but not since I've had conscious memory has it been in me to take naps. Once a year I might get the urge and actually pull it off, but not often.

Today, however, I thought I was going to fall asleep at the keyboard. That's what I get for staying up past midnight with the TiVo and getting up around 5:40am when Siren made a noise like a car backfire ("KACK") and left a small glob of stomach acid on the bedroom floor. After that it was pointless to sleep, so I got up, ate, took the dogs swimming, and was at work by 7:45.

So after I got done with work, I went up stairs into my 90 degree bedroom and lay down and took a nap. It was hard going at first, but eventually, I was out. Here's how my nap (filled I might add with colorful dreams that seemed to last much longer than the 45-minutes I was out) ended.

RING.

RING.

Christ.

"Hello."

Pause. (We all know what that means.)

"Hello, I'd like to speak with the man or the woman of the house, please."

"This. Is. He."

"Good afternoon, sir." I'm calling on behalf of Marty Lowry of the Prize Patrol, who's been trying to reach you for some time regarding a drawing you entered to win a Chevy Tahoe."

"Hurm." (My thought is to say, what, Marty's too good to leave a message? But why bother. We know there's no Marty. So instead I say, "Hurm.")

"Do you have a pen and paper handy sir so I can give you the 800 number at which to call him?"

"Sure. Go ahead."

"The number is tool free at 866-XXX-XXXX." (All I heard in my head was blahblahblah-blahblahblahblah.)

"Okay," I told him. "I'll call it with all due haste so I can get my free truck."

"Sir, could you repeat that number back to me so I know you'll reach him?"

Caught in the lie. Horrors.

"No, actually, you're right, of course, I can't repeat it to you, because I didn't write it down and I think you know I have no intention of making the call."

"Yeah, uh..." He was no doubt looking for his next index card with the speech about what I was missing out on.

Click.

I hung up and closed my eyes. It was too late though. Nap time had passed. Maybe I'll get another one sometime in 2003.

Is this what's considered the perfect weekend?

Yesterday I got up at 9am and started packing. I hit Bonny's office with a vengeance (the kind best served cold, as Khan says the Klingon's say, though how the hell would he know? He never met one... but I geekily digress). Maybe this was my subtle way of getting back at her since she is off having a life and I'm here all by myself, frittering away my noon, suppertime, chore-time, too.

By the afternoon yesterday I had run out of boxes for packing books. Books make up about 90% of what I seem to be packing. Packing our house every two years always is a fun reminder that we live in a tinderbox just waiting to go up in the fuel of novels, magazines, comics and files I horde like an old lady hordes cats. At least cats aren't flammable. Well, not without chemical tampering.

I called a local liquor store and asked if they had extra boxes -- they do every day, I was told. This took me back to my college days... back then, moving every year, I had to find boxes and somehow was lead to a liquor store. Their boxes are great -- perfect size for books (not to big) and sturdy, and some times with handles. So it's apt that I'm moving back to Ithaca and taking all my stuff in boxes that say "Michelob" and "Jose Cuervo."

Our friend Jean brought me some boxes from her place of work -- Friendly's. They were also perfectly sized boxes, but a couple I didn't feel I could use, as I could still feel crusted fish batter on the surface of a few. I don't think having coffee table books that smell of cod is the way to being life in the new house. I finished my day putting away most of the books and knickknacks in the living room.

There's still so many things to pack. Christ.

I tried to sit and watch a DVD last night, a film my friend Jill had recommended long ago (because her cousin was an animator on it), called "Waking Life." I had to turn it off after 20 minutes. I've never walked out on a film in my life, but I'd like to think if I'd paid big money to see this one, I would have. The animation was certainly interesting, but I'm the guy who couldn't take the talkiness of "My Dinner with Andre" which at least had the inimitable Wallace "InConTHEEVable" Shawn in it. This talking head extravaganza was too much for my psyche. If I want deep psycho-babble, I'll read Heinlein.

Today was CBLDF.org day. I'm finishing organizing the site redesign conceived/completed over a month ago. I want to make the site automated, using the amazing MovableType. Still, I wasn't looking forward to it... I had it in the back of my head something would go wrong with it no matter what I did. So I got up late (9:30am), had a leisurely breakfast of toast and OJ while not reading the Boston Globe (they already stopped delivering it... all I read is the comics anyway, which I read online later), and then took the dogs for a walk. They played in the water for while, then I got home by 11:30, finally sat, and started working.

I pretty much sat here until 7pm with one stop for lunch (pot stickers! Yum!) and to feed or play with the K9s.

Now it's after 9pm. My ass is sound asleep. The site is working, with some caveats. It's not launched yet, though. Soon.

I've been listening to the same oldies station all day, which plays way to much Smokey Robinson (because they're promoting a concert with him next week). And they play that frickin' lame ass "new" Elvis song just about every hour. Who'd have thought an oldies station would be as bad as the bubble-gum pop stations? How many times can I stand to listen to "Tears of a Clown"?

Time to go up stairs and watch Alias and the continuing train-wreck that is Sex in the City (I can't... look... away.... mostly because I'm hoping for more shots of Kim Catrall's boobs. I've loved her since Porky's. It set quite an example for this 11-year-old. I even liked her as a Vulcan). And even that show at it's worst is better than rotoscoped philosophers going blabblahblah for two hours.

I might just lose weight this month. Apparently when my wife isn't around, food takes a back seat. I've skipped lunch the last couple of days without her influence. She's like clockwork on meal times, since she gets headaches or cranky or [Dog help me] both when she misses a meal. Me, I eat when I'm hungry.

Sadly, when I get hungry after missing a meal, I get REAL hungry, so the positive effect of the missed meal goes, well, missing.

Worse, though, I'm apparently a complete idiot in a kitchen by myself. Here's some fun things from meal preparation time in the last week:

1) I decided to have a couple sausages for dinner. I forgot to get them out of the freezer though, so I had to pry two links apart from the pack with a butter knife. As I'm taking the ice-covered spicy wieners to the grill, I realized I forgot something (tongs maybe... I forget), and spun around. The frozen sausages flew out of my fingers like wet soap in the shower, and landed directly in the dog's water dish. (Yes, I rinsed them off and ate them anyway... I let these dogs lick my face, what do I have to be afraid of?)

2) Tonight, making spaghetti and meatballs for one (and I made a freakin' vat of the stuff so I'll have plenty left over for a few days), I went into the cupboard to get the salt to put in the boiling water, and it slipped from my hand and hit the little jar of toothpicks. Small pieces of wood rained everywhere on the counter, but the majority landed in the full bowl of food I'd just prepared for Kylie. I then spent the next five minutes picking bicuspid-picking splinters, now soaked with meat juice, out of the bowl. If I missed any, they've probably perforated her bowel by now.

Here's hoping I make it the rest of the week without harming myself.

I've been up since 4am.

I was high on caffeine for 5 hours (a glass of Pepsi at 4:15am with a NO-Doze). I didn't stop for 4.25 hours as I drove from my in-laws to my house in MA.

Now I'm crashing, crashing, crashing... and it's only 9:17am.

Bon bought a big ol' jug of Cranberry Juice before she left town and never finished it. So I've been trying to empty it off a little at a time with breakfast each morning. I like to pretend everytime I take a sip that it's curing whatever fictitious maladies my urethra might have.

Woohoo! First day of freedom!

So what did I do exciting on this rainy day in the fine state of Massachusetts? I started packing. I managed to fill five boxes of candles and candles sticks and knick knacky antiques-- three of those alone were just candles. I'd have to live without electricity for about a year to burn through all that wax.

As a Collector with a capital C of many different items that I actively seek out (Books by John Sandford and Neil Gaiman, statues of Hellboy, and of course the god damn comics that probably added a full $1000 to the estimates from the moving companies), I've always expressed to my wife that perhaps if she had a nice collection she pursued, maybe she'd find it very enjoyable.
However, having the next 36 days (and counting!) alone to myself in the house and having already spent half a day snooping into her stuff, I've discovered she's always had collections, she just never treats them as such.

Candles are just one the tip of my wife's collecting proclivity iceberg. All around the house, as I aggregate like items to pack, I'm finding:

It's coming down to the wire... in four days, my wife will be leaving to spend the month of August in central New York as she begins her new job. Her first real job in eight years...

That is, if you can call the soul crushing surroundings of cubicles and red-tape-laden bureaucracy and egotistical dim-wit employers a "real job".

Actually I guess that's pretty much the definition.

That means as of Sunday the 28th, I'll be on my own. Alone in the house save for two female dogs who will look to me for sustenance and entertainment.

I, on the other hand, will look to the cupboard and refrigerator for sustenance. I've pledged to not shop for groceries if I can, so as to minimize the amount of food to move to the new house.

As for entertainment... well, there, you got me. August is pretty much a black hole for entertainment, in my vast experience. I guess lots of DVDs and whatever reruns of Scrubs I can pull up on the TiVo. And I hope to see all the friends I do have left that haven't already fled the area like rats deserting the sinking ship we call the Boston job market (Jill, Vikki, Josh, this means you, goddammit.)

I'll also be packing. A lot. I want to do a couple hours worth every night. I want it all ready to go for the first week of September. (Mental note: go get boxes.) Anyone looking for a work out and lots of paper cuts any evening in August, feel free to drop by.

We're heading out to NY again this afternoon, this time for the structural inspection on our new house. Actually, we aren't getting the full inspection -- it was already done for a guy who wanted to buy the house before, but he backed out. He was kind enough to just give us the report. So we're going to walk around the place with the inspector and get some questions answered and save big money all around.

That should offset the nickel-and-diming on this end as our buyers want our port to be fixed. This is the same issue we had with our current house when we moved into it. The previous owners did a band-aid fix but it didn't take, cosmetically anyway. The porch isn't going anywhere, but it looks like its settled down an inch, so of course we're going to lose a few hundred over that. Better than a few thousand, tho. Hell, we're giving them the pot rack that Bonny's father made by hand from an antique wagon wheel, it's practically a family heirloom, so I'd say the porch shouldn't matter. But, of course, it will. That's how these things work.

Give-take. Back-forth. Push-pull. That's the "fun" of house purchasing and selling.

In case it wasn't clear since I haven't had time to post much this week: as of Friday, we not only have our current house underagreement to sell, but had our offer to purchase on the house in picture below accepted, PLUS Bon was offered the job at Ithaca College. She accepted, and will start in just two weeks. Thus we'll likely live apart for a month until we close on the new house. Anyone wishing to stop by evenings and entertain me is welcome.

The boredom of the holiday was quickly forgotten as of Friday last week. We were on the road to central New York, not looking forward to trying to rush around to see family without adequate time, to probably look at a bunch of crappy houses in Ithaca that we wouldn't buy, and then we'd have to wait around for Bon to have a job interview on Tuesday (and her with nothing to wear).

We started out pissed – our buyer agent didn't make any appointments for us to see places on Saturday, so we ended up having to plan on Monday house viewings. However, that did give us a couple days in Hornell to see my family. We some nice dinners out, hung out with my brother and his wife (I made lots of pickles and ice cream jokes), and went swimming in his pool with my dogs. I even bought new swim trunks for the first time in years. I let Bon pick the color (blue).

Monday, back at the in-laws house, I was up by 5am and working so I could get as much done as possible for my sites before we went to see houses in Ithaca, a process that always takes about three hours longer than it should. This time it was worth it, though– we saw no less than three frickin' houses that were great. We also saw four houses that I wouldn't even recommend to the homeless, and in one we were almost attacked by a vicious dog when we woke the sleeping owner. It's all action and adventure with us.

The house I liked most was, of course, far out of our price range. That's why one should never look over their money cap. I started calculating ways to get the price down as soon as I saw it, but sadly most of my plans involved kidnapping or threats.

The other two were great. One was brand spankin' new construction that included a heated floor in the finished basement (how could I resist??) but it had very little land and was a bit too expensive. The other house (at right) was only five years old and much cheaper because it has high radon levels, so it needs an abatement system installed to suck the carcinogens out the window, plus it's on a very busy road – but, otherwise, it's got it all. Lots of land (1.8 acres), set well back from said busy road, four bedrooms, 2.5 baths (including a master bath with a large tub and a separate shower stall), fully finished basement, two-car garage attached… it's damn nice.

Oh, and as we drove back to my in-laws house, we called our broker in Mass and found out our current house has a second, better offer on it.

We're taking it.

After two months of house hunting/selling suffering, everything came together in about 36 hours.

Today, after Bon had her third job interview at Ithaca College (she's a shoe-in, but I think that's despite finding a suitable dress and shoes) and after a nice lunch at the ol' Tower Club restaurant where I used to be a waiter and dishwasher, we went back to the house we liked so much and took lots of pictures (I'll post some when we get home). Then we went to the realtors and did the paperwork to make an offer.

As of tomorrow, I hope we'll be official with an agreement to sell and buy and then we can move on to the really fun part: lawyers and inspections and mortgage commitments and packing and moving. Yippee!

It's a holiday, and I'm spending it at home all alone (unless you count the two bitches sacked out on the living room floor in the 90 degree heat).

Today I plan to do work. Sad and pathetic, but so much non-paying stuff builds up in life as the paying stuff gets done, that I'll take free time at the PC when I can get it. Besides, it's at least 10 degrees cooler down here. Though I wish that made a difference in the way my pleather chair sticks to my thighs.

I'll be working on automating the CBLDF.org site today. I hope it works, though I have a sneaking suspicion this will backfire on me... not that the automation part, but that when I do it, it'll require the Fund staff to make more content for the site than they really have time or desire to do, and I'll end up back with static HTML pages to keep it going. We'll see. At least the new design is done, which I had nothing to do with, by the way.

I'm going to buy this for my wife on the proceeds from selling previous items on Ebay. This is not out of love as much as it is to have the one day a month where she's grinding meat to not be a high-blood-pressure fest as her old grinder slowly craps out.

I will probably get sucked into looking through old boxes of stuff I own, too... It's amazing how much I never was able to unpack when we moved in here. I started that last night, but had to put the boxes away so a realtor could show the house. They viewers stayed so long that by the time we got home (one must vacate one's home to make potential buyers feel comfy), it was too late to go see Men In Black II, which pissed me off royally (I have this thing about seeing films on opening night). Still, staying a long time means they probably liked it, and I need people to like my house now. Because I want all of their money. In great big bins that I can swim in, preferably, ala Scrooge McDuck.

Today, I might even write some stuff up for work to make my Monday next week a trifle easier. Mr. Forethought, that's me.

Of course, all this could go awry and I might spend the day performing CPR on gerbils for all I know. Life is unpredictable. Well, maybe not that unpredictable, but I'm told truth is stranger than fiction. Must be it's just not stranger than what I tend to read.

My brother is only 31 years old, but he's thrown his hat in the ring to become the chief of police in the town where he works. This is scary on so many levels my brain can't even compute.

No actually, I think he'd be a great boss to the guys there: fair and fun and with no ego to bruise. Well, maybe a touch of ego...his last name is Griffith and we have standards to maintain.

He said the other day that he was required to get three letters of recommendation and managed to get (lucky) 13 of them. Unfortunately he told me after they were due. I offered to write one for him anyway, but he quickly declined -- he feels one stray nasty tale of his childhood might sink the whole enterprise.

That just hurts... that he thinks I would use a story from childhood to sabotage him, when there are plenty of good stories from his adulthood.

Still, I thought about it, and even though I'm past the due date, I have composed a letter on my brother's behalf anyway, which I'm making public here.

Dear Village of Alfred Committee in Search of a Brand Spankin' New Chief of Police:

My name is Eric Griffith, and I'm writing on behalf of my brother, Paul, a police officer/patrolman in good standing currently in the employ of the Village of Alfred. Paul is a candidate for the currently open Chief of Police position (what I like to call "head pig" -- get it?) and I'd like to explain to you why I think he's a perfect candidate.

My brother takes no guff from anyone. He won't be a patsy or kowtow to any of you that may be out-right corrupt, or maybe just want him to look the other way when your wife gets a ticket or your kid gets a little ride to the slam after he hits the wacky-weed. Just ask my mom, Paul won't do anything she tells him, and she used to be his boss for a while. And he still won't clean his room.

My brother is a crack shot with a paint ball gun (we don't count the time he hit that window in Erie, PA) and I'm sure could track down a serial killer if one came to town. (Which I'm sure will happen soon, if all the novels I read are any indication of how many serial killers there are in the world. There's at least five in Allegany County right now, I'll bet. Lock your doors.) He's also tough, he could take on any five "perps" (I love to say "perps"), even when he's drunk, and come out of it only minutely scathed. Maybe even unscathed if he was behind the wheel and they were lined up on the sidewalk.

My brother drives his patrol car with the utmost care and diligence, however. That time he put one in the ditch was found to be a mechanical error! There was a nail in the tire, or sand in the gas tank, or something! C'mon! He hasn't actually hit anyone or anything since he borrowed my car back in 1993 and drove it into the back of a parked state trooper sedan. (Hearing that news was still the only time in my entire life I actually fainted, but I forgave him, just hours ago in fact.)

Most of all, I think you should know this about my widdle brudder (that's just a little nickname I have for him):

He's one of the good guys.

Best regards,

Eric Griffith

Paul's Older Brudder

The Wife is out picking up large amounts of carved animal flesh to feed to our dogs, which leaves me alone with the news: we have an offer on our house.

Actually, not completely alone. I told the dogs, and I told the carpet cleaning guy, who was here for a second time this week to re-shampoo Bon's office. After it dried, the "sea-foam" carpet started to form cancerous looking brown stains. I think it's cat urine left over from the previous owners that soaked into the pad and came up during cleaning. Or soylent green.

Anyway, it's our first offer, but it's a lowball amount, so now we have to go into the whole game of back and forth. Yay.

An offer. On my house. I guess I am moving, after all. Dammit.

Ages ago, before the Internet bubble burst and blogs were all the rage, we had a cleaning lady. Every two weeks, a Portuguese woman who spoke no English would come over and clean the house for a couple of hours. If we needed her to do anything different, Bon would call her husband and he would tell her over the phone.

When we had to let her go because I was sucking off the teat of Massachusetts unemployment, I made a solemn promise to my beautiful, wonderful Wife that I would pick up the twice monthly vacuuming duties -- we can't go more than that or the dog hair around her gets thick enough to fill large throw pillows.

I hate vacuuming.

In the early days of high school, I vacuumed a lot. Many weekends I spent entire days just cleaning at my parent's house -- dusting, dishes, scrubbing, whatever. It took me years to realize that I was doing this because my mom loved it, that mean she loved me, thus I was getting pure and utter approval and acceptance, which is something I wasn't always feeling outside of the house as puberty hit me like an SUV might hit a wayward moth floating on the Interstate.

Of course, my puberty was a cakewalk, but back then, it felt like an hell that I could not control. I compensated by sucking my families dead skin cells and cigarette ash using a central vacuum system.

To this day, if the Wife and I have a major fight, I will sometimes cope with my anger/resentment/disgust/whatever by scrubbing cups and plates or washing windows. Since we've discussed this phenomenon, I sometimes wonder if she instigates arguments just so she'll have an occasional clean counter top. (I'm sure she doesn't, but if I were her, I would. "My hon, you look terrible today! Look at all those dirty plates...")

Now, of course, I have to clean no matter what mode I'm in, because, well, there's nothing quite like selling a house.

Unless you count dragging your genitals through broken glass. That might come close.

I'm just realizing -- or re-realizing, since I know I went through this selling our last house sale in 1999 -- that I really, truly, and utterly detest cleaning things when I'm in an otherwise good mood. Cleaning only makes sense in my broken psyche when I'm royally pissed or depressed.

It doesn't matter though. We are in the never ending cycle of:

1) Clean the house.

2) Leave the house when someone wants to see it.

3) Have some free time, maybe we can a movie... no, wait, have to clean more, people might come over.

Now, I have nothing against a clean house per se, but I live with a woman who can't walk into a room without first scanning to see that all pictures, clocks, and wall hangings are perfectly symmetrical. With that kind of pressure, this house doesn't get that unkempt. Now take this inability to allow clutter to the extreme needed to sell a house for an asking price of $.3699 million dollars (yeah, sounds cool, don't it?) and you'll know my current personal hell.

(The things we do to sell for big bucks. We turn on every light before we leave so the place will look brighter. We make sure the toilet seats are down. All the dog beds get picked up and put in closets behind the clothes. I even tuck my chair in at my desk.)

That's the easy stuff. It's the constant wiping of surfaces, scrubbing of walls, and sweeping of floors that is killing me. We had our upstairs (which is all wall-to-wall carpeting that I despise) professionally cleaned, but that only made some of the stains worse -- we think he sucked them out of the carpet pad. However, it has spared me some vacuuming time.

Still, it's only a matter of time. The dogs are shedding like sheep being sheared and it's my job to make sure the wool is gathered.

So, it's all over: our house is no longer FSBO.*

We signed the papers this evening to put it under Re/Max, the realtor company with the ubiquitous balloon motif, with a realtor who claimed he could sell the place for $10k more than what we'd been told it was worth before. The dollar signs in my eyes were, of course, large, but this was done less for my capricious avarice as it was for my overwhelming sloth-dom.... I can't stand the thought of hanging out for open houses and making calls to place ads and all that horse-puckey. Besides, with the increase in the house price, giving the guy his 5% will not leave us as poor as it would have before.

I spent the rest of the evening, after downing a couple of hot dogs and some fine Victory Markets potato salad, posting more stuff to eBay. I've got about 40 products up for sale right now, so jump online and buy my crap. Or don't. There's plenty more where you came from, bucko.

I'm now catching up on my blog reading... I used to spend at least an hour a day perusing blogs and linking off to more blogs, and book marking blogs, and thinking about things for this blog... but now I spend maybe two hours a week on anything blog related. I find I skip any long, verbose blog posts (like the kind I always do) and make time only to read the witty bits that have terse sentences and short paragraphs. Does that mean I'm outgrowing blogging? Or that I had more time before I took on 80211-Planet?

And now I blog.

Things I'm thinking about:

I still want a bidet in my new house, wherever we end up. And I want an office with bright canary yellow walls like this one.

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund guys were supposed to give me a redesign a couple weeks ago, but I haven't seen it yet. So I can pretty much guarantee we won't have CBLDF.org redone by July 4th. Too bad. There was an article in the latest Comic Buyer's Guide [requires free registration to read] about the Fund, but did they mention the URL for the site at all? Not once. I wrote them a letter about doing that probably three years ago, but I guess it didn't stick.

I need to go to bed and get up early. Tomorrow we're going to Vermont for the wedding of my good friend Vikki and her beau Ed. I hope a visit with many old friends will recharge my funny batteries and make this page worth reading for more than just my random bitching. Unless that's what you like, in which case, hey, enjoy, dumbass.

*For Sale By Owner

I really don't. I can't think of anything pithy or interesting. I could go on about the selling of the house, the fact that I haven't watched more than one hour of telelvision in 72 hours, that I had to vacuum the house for an hour last night at 9pm in anticipation of our first showing, that I'm making mega bucks this week on eBay selling stuff (including broken stuff! unbelievalbe... but they better not screw me since it clearly states IT'S BROKEN), that i still have to finish painting the front porch... but none of that seems interesting.

We thought we had a house. But we don't.

What we do have is our current house on the market a little bit ahead of schedule and dry asses.

Here's what happened: Bonny went out to Ithaca this past weekend, all by herself. She had a job interview at the ol' alma mater and aced it -- when she called me after, she said "I'd be shocked to not get an offer," which is pretty amazing as her ego really isn't that big. At least not compared to mine.

After that she looked at houses.

And looked at more houses.  And then some more.

She looked in Ithaca, Newfield, Dryden (both suburbs), and south into Big Flats and Horseheads, two towns with terrible names that are only an hour or so from my parents, but another hour back to Ithaca. There were a couple of nice houses, but nothing like the one she fell in love with just outside Ithaca on Saturday. She got in before it was even officially on the market. It is an old farmhouse in immaculate condition with a barn/garage, three sheds, 10 acres of land, and freakin' library. She loved the house, even went back to see it on Sunday.

By Monday, even though I'd only seen it in pictures and via Bon's vivid descriptions (and even though I was nervous about the fact that it's more money than I want to spend and one shed has a bad roof and the old stone foundation leaks into the basement like a fat guy in a dark suit on the Fourth of July), we made an offer. Of course, as we'd been told, making an offer in a sellers market doesn't mean jack without the cash to back it up. So, I went out Monday morning at 7 to the Lowes Home Improvement and bought a gigantic "FOR SALE BY OWNER" sign.

As of this morning, that sign is out, and our house is listed at ISoldMyHouse.com, the local New England spot for FSBOs* to make a listing. It doesn't put us in the almighty multiple listing service that realtors worship like a volcano god, but it's free, and this move is all about saving money, god dammit.

As of today, our offer for the Ithaca farmhouse (for $10k less than asking price) was rejected. No big shock I guess, though I was hoping the lady selling the house would take some pity on us as the first offer. Not that Bon and I haven't been wishing her bad karma ever since. We're vindictive and petty, but you've got to love us.

To be honest, I wasn't sold on even bidding on the house until I heard about the bidet.

Yes, the downstairs full bath of that farmhouse has a bidet. I've never seen one live, let alone used one, but I've always thought it fascinating that Europeans, who (no offense to my overseas readers) can have some of the most questionable smells emanating from them in public, go all out for using the ol' rear admiral on a regular basis. Yet, we hyper-clean, overly-lilac-cented-hygenic (in some cases) American's will make doo [get it??] with nothing more than wet cheese cloth to clean with.

Bon couldn't quite grasp the whole bidet concept. I tried to explain it to her ("We're going to have to buy some brown towels") but we ended up going online to find a description of how to use one. She thought the whole thing was such a riot -- she especially liked the description that said to move the posterior up and down for effective cleansing --  that after I went to bed, she continued to search Google for bidet info , even finding a contest at PoopReport.com for renaming the porcelain squirter. The winner was, of course, "buttsink." She called me out of bed twice to her office to read things on that site.

No one likes poop and fart jokes more than my wife, god bless her.

Sadly, bidet or not, that house is now out of our sites (though I hope she doesn't get any offers so we can come back in two weeks and try again). Our current house is already getting some traffic: a realtor came by today, another might bring a family to see the house tomorrow, and a third person has been e-mailing Bonny about it. It'll probably go fast. And now that we don't have any prospects out in Ithaca, it'll probably go faster.

I wish I'd saved that box my refrigerator came in. With a length of garden house and a puddle, I could probably make my own bidet.

*For Sale By Owners

Here's how screwed up the world is: I just sold twelve GI Joe comic books I bought in 1983 for a grand total of $8.10 on eBay. The Joe Team, for those not into the world of funny books, is experiencing a bit of a resurge in popularity in the field, along with other 80's stalwarts like the Transformers, Micronauts, He-Man, and (the only one that was really good) Battle of the Planets (AKA G-Force).

Some guy in Quebec bought my Joe comics for $93.

Woo-Hoo!

All told, I made $220 bucks this past week selling comics. Not all went for what they were worth, but the big ticket items (I sold my complete set of FROM HELL for example) more than made up for that.

Gotta love the worlds biggest flea market.

I'm sitting in the Philly airport's C terminal, trying to work, and there's this tiny housefly that has decided I am the most fun person in the world to annoy. I'm wearing a polo shirt, and thus he continually lands on my bare forearms, just light enough to tickle me and make me aware of his presence. Since I don't want to look like a complete psycho by slapping at myself constantly to get rid of him, instead I just flap my arms out at the elbow, as if I were doing a chicken dance on one side. At one point the damn insect went from one arm to the other and back again and then back AGAIN so I likely looked like I was having an elbow-related stroke.

I arrived way too early at the airport -- I always do. Even before 9/11/01 warnings to arrive early early early, I was rabidly obsessed with never missing a plane, and would make sure I had at least an hour to sit in the airport just in case they changed a gate or lost my reservation or whatever. I once landed at O'Hare in Chicago after my connection had left and spent two hours crossing terminals to find another flight home and don't relish doing it again. Therefore, here I was at the airport a full two hours before my 9:30 flight to Boston.

I got to see full-blown fear-of-technology panic in action this morning. In the line ahead of me at e-ticket check in (where you go up to a video kiosk, put in your credit card so it can read your name, and then follow the prompts so it'll print out your boarding pass) were an elderly couple. At least three kiosks were empty and beckoning to them to step up, but the woman, a wizened old dear in her early 70s that I'm betting used to be much taller than her five foot two inches, stood in front of her husband and looked from one to the other and then the third and back and around again as I waited behind them. She'd lurch forward, change her mind, then lurch back. Finally, someone behind counter taking bags noticed her plight and told her if they didn't have bags to check they could go up to the gate to get boarding passes. She beat a hasty retreat with her husband in tow.

Security this trip has been a breeze. No removing shows, no pat downs, no full body cavity searches. I haven't even been asked to turn on the laptop. Maybe it helps that I didn't have the makings of a lethal weapon in my bag this time.

I didn't get breakfast at the hotel (since I went right out the front door to catch the $8 dollar airport shuttle, half the price of a cab) so grabbed a bagel and orange juice in the terminal at a Sbarro of all places. They also had out some pete-za pies out, natch. But as much as I love day old pizza for breakfast, the thought of eating a warm slice of Sbarro pepperoni left me cold.

I'd like to thank my wife for making me realize that OJ "from concentrate" is the stuff that tastes like battery acid. Of course, that was the only kind hey had at the Sbarro. Years ago, my underdeveloped pallet -- that can't tell the difference between Chardonnay and Chablis, but can differentiate a classic Coke from a Pepsi -- didn't even know there were different kinds of juice of the orange, and didn't care. Now I feel sufficiently snobby that, while I drank my OJ from concentrate, I didn't enjoy it. (Sbarro did toast my bagel in their pizza oven, and for that I'm grateful.)

I'm writing all of this at gate C19 with no Internet access. During the conference I was truly spoiled with walking around the building and having access at all times, continuing to have IM conversations I had started in whole other rooms, just opening up the laptop after an hour to find all my e-mail downloaded. I've got an understanding now why wireless ISP aggregator services like Boingo might actually make it (though there are currently only about 40,000 paying subscribers for the service). I know I could get a comp subscription with my job, but there's no reason to, since I barely travel. Makes me wish I traveled more… and then I remember that I'd rather stay home.

Tired. Want to sleep, should work. But I just can't bring myself to do any, so instead I sit in front of the screen of this laptop for no good reason, in my hotel room, surfing the Web on the last high-speed connection I'll see until I move, my thighs sticking to the horrible vinyl chair.

Yes, my love affair with traveling to Philadelphia is over.

I'm not going out with a bang either. I went to dinner tonight with my boss and one of the company's main IT guys, both of whom live in Minnesota (the company offices are in Connecticut. Don't ask.) We followed the IT guy to a place in Chinatown where he had a great lunch earlier in the week, and it was among the worst Chinese food I have ever eaten in my life. It was a buffet, which should have been a signal. Second signal was that they had fries on the buffet. Final signal was when I put the food in my mouth, and signals traveled from my taste buds to my brain.

During dinner, which was punctuated with talk of lead paint, who gets screwed over by downloading music and movies, and if Microsoft is really screwing over anyone, I found out I'm the only person that works for the entire company that works off a dial-up connection. Oh, wait, no, one new hire has dial-up. But she'll have DSL by next week. Pathetic.

There was a bit of excitement at the end of the day after my final panel was over (where luckily all the guys talked too much so I didn't have to do any question asking) -- I thought someone stole my laptop. Turns out, I (or someone, since I don't remember doing it) put my bag on a chair in the front row. I've been purposely not saving passwords and so forth on this system all week just because of that very possibility, but to actually face it head on was a bit of adrenaline I could have lived without.

So, tomorrow I'll get up at 5am, check my mail, download a couple of news releases to re-write on the plane, and hopefully be home by noon so I can finish working and say good bye to the wife as she heads out for a weekend of job interviewing (at Ithaca College, they called back) and house viewing (some very good prospects on the list this week.)

It strikes me that one could sleep all day long in a hotel room. The curtains are multiple layers of fabric thick, and can shut out all outside light quite effectively. Hotel rooms can be like inside a masoleum. Bon doesn't allow us to have such darkness in the bedroom at home for fear I will sleep too, too much -- the only concession she made to me when choosing curtains is that they are dark blue (which she wanted anyway, so much for concessions). However, those curtains are as thin as cheese cloth, and hold back about as much light as your standard sheet of Saran Wrap™.

Last night I was all schmoozed out. I had a ticket for a free drink at the show's cocktail reception and couldn't even bring myself to get the booze (wine or beer of my choice). I gave the ticket to my favorite events person here and told her to find it a good home. Then I went back to my room, slept, watched a DVD (The Man Who Wasn't There… not bad, but not the Coen Brothers' best; but it had Scarlett Johansson in it, so who cares?), read, thought about blogging but couldn’t summon the mental energy, and finally went to bed around midnight. A pathetically boring night, but hopefully it replenished my batteries.

Today: more of same. I'll be baby-sitting a room all day to introduce speakers, moderating two of the panels, and sitting on this laptop wirelessly surfing. Well, not too wirelessly, since the battery charge is only good for about 2 hours (less with the wireless network card running full tilt boogie all day to keep me connected), then I've got to plug in. It's only been a half hour as I write this and the battery is down to 77% charge.

I should have brought another DVD over with me, and my headphones… well, probably not. About the time the dais collapses and several speakers in my room die when convention drapery suffocates them, I might get in a smidgeon of trouble.

It's midnight and I'm sitting in my underwear in a hotel room in downtown Philadelphia, giddy over the fact that I just got the high-speed internet connection in my room working.

It doesn't take much to make me happy.

The trip down was uneventful. At Logan Airport, I bought a $30 copy of a book I know I won't like very much (Violets are Blue by James Patterson... he revealed who the bad guy in this one was in the last book, but is now acting like it's a big secret, which I guess it is if this is your first Patterson novel. The books annoy the crap out of me anyway, as protagonist Alex Cross spends all his time wondering "why do I track down scummy serial killers" and never changes a thing about his life. Ever. This has been going on for over a decade in these books. I'm sick of hearing it and wondering which of his lovers/family members will get whacked next. It's all ways "personal" with Alex Cross.) I think when I'm done with it, I'm going to sell it used on Amazon immediately.

When I got to the hotel, I was trying to head to my room to do my usual travel ritual, which is to lay on my bed with a scalding hot wash cloth on my face. I don't know why I started doing this a few years ago, but I love to do it when I'm in a hotel. I've tried it at home, but it's not the same. But on the road, once a day, wash cloth goes on. Unfortunately, I got nabbed in the lobby -- I didn't even recognize Ted from the main office, but he saw me and invited me to dinner with a big group of the sales and events people. So we went around the corner to a seafood place and I awaited the social discomfort of being at a table of 13 people I never met before.

As the meal progressed, however, so did the wine in my glass progress to my gullet. Nothing works as well to loosen my tongue, and before I knew it we'd been sitting for 3 hours (2.5 of which was spent waiting for our meals) and chatting away about spouses, work, the fact that we're not getting raises this year again, etc. It turned out quite nice.

Knowing how bad I can be with names, I spent a lot of my concious time when I was quiet running down the names of everyone at the table over and over, so that when I see them tomorrow, I'll know who they are.

(So the secret's been revealed to the principle players, but I've been asked to not reveal it to the general public. Sigh. Well, anyway, it's still damn good news, and no, it doesn't involve me passing on my genetic make-up, having found a house (yet), getting cosmic revenge on those who have transgressed against me (tho that would be nice), or moving back in with my parents. For now, lets just say, certain members of my family don't want to have their belly rubbed at work.)

I've got a secret.

I was told to tell no one. (For a very good reason.)

So I won't tell (well, that's not true, I've told a couple of people, but I know they don't have anyone to tell that would ruin it), but I'll say this:

It's good. It's happy happy joy joy knews that makes me smile whenever I think about it.

It's a good day.

All that said, I have to admit, comic collecting is a very stupid hobby. Unless you like heavy lifting.

After over 25 years of collecting the monthly bits o' boyhood fantasy, I've amassed over 27 full boxes of the damn rags -- and that after pulling out probably another short box worth of funny books to sell on eBay soon. Sorting the last four years worth of monthly purchases into my overall collection so they'd be in alphabetical order -- the frickin' Holy Grail of comic collecting! -- took two nights of quite literally back breaking labor as I carried boxes up stairs to stack, sort, bag, file, and the carried the boxes down again to be shelved.

Admittedly, I came to my senses by the time I got to the Ms and stopped taking boxes up and down stairs and filed them in my basement office, where they are permanently kept. But I thought I was being a good husband by spending time with my wife upstairs... she, who looked upon me and my mad hyper-sweaty activity with sadness that seemed to say, "Why doesn't he take up philately?"

Bonny has forbidden the use of the cliché term "in the driver's seat" in our house. That's because we're not in it anymore.

Why are we not in the dri-- in control any more?

Money.

Glorious, horrible, beautiful, awful money.

Or the lack thereof.

It started with our buyer's agent in Ithaca telling us chances are even if we make a bid on a house, no one will take us seriously. Because we don't have the cash on hand, plus our current place isn't on the market. Without seeing that, why would anyone trust that we'll be able to buy a house. Fine. That just made me want to dig in my heels and not move at all. It's not like I'm looking forward to packing and unpacking and all that crap.

Then we did a stupid thing.

The wife and I put together a budget to see how much we've been spending over the last year, and how much we're likely to spend in the next 12 months. Bonny filled an Excel spreadsheet with columns and rows and formulas and used headings like "Non Discretionary Expenses".

What it amounted to was finding out that, assuming I'm the only one making any money, we're spending about $1000 dollars per month more than we take in. So if Bon doesn't make around a grand per month, we can't pay utilities, groceries, taxes, etc. That doesn't even count buying things like clothes, books, haircuts, pet supplies, or porn. (

I did lump the DirecTV payment into the necessary stuff, however. I'm not a god damn barbarian.

What this boils down to is either Bon gets a job (ha ha, yeah, cause there's no competition out there in this market!) or we now MUST move. And just like that, WHAM!, we lost control.

It was nice while it lasted -- knowing that we could sell the house on our time table, move when we felt like, maybe even stay for another year if we couldn't find a great house in central New York. But the lottery winning feeling of all the money this house could bring is over.

Now moving out feels more than ever like... work.

The tradition in our house is that I feed the dogs each morning whenever they demand, but on Saturday, Bon takes care of them. (In a desperate attempt to get myself more sleep time, I've been known to bribe the wife into getting up for me with sweet offers: "Hon… I'll give you a crisp new five dollar bill if you feed the idiots." This sometimes works.)

Thankfully, though, Saturday's are my day to sleep in. Yesterday was no exception, even though we were at her parent's house. She got up around 5:30 to fill the piggies' trough, but never came back to bed. She was so obsessed with house hunting after seeing a couple places on Friday afternoon that she started typing up notes about them. She even did a questionnaire for us to fill out at each house so we won't forget the details.

My wife is nothing if not organized, god bless her.

We got to Ithaca about noon to meet our buyer's agent at an open house she was holding at one of the homes we'd toured the night before – a gorgeous colonial, practically right on the Cornell U campus, with Fall Creek running through the back yard. If it had perhaps one more room, it might be big enough for us. Hearing about how many bids it was getting -- some by people who hadn't even been inside the house yet, including a likely wealthy Cornell trustee -- made the pain of losing it seem a little less.

We had lunch with our buyer's agent, who we both like a lot despite the fact that she's not necessarily the greatest at returning phone calls (then again, we live by the phone—I can't imagine what it's like to have a job where you move around town that much). We ate at CollegeTown Bagel's, Ithaca's own localized bagel/deli chain. Good stuff. Just the amount of great restaurants in Ithaca makes me want to move back.

We toured three houses after lunch. The first was a 1970's concoction with no yard to speak of. It had perhaps the most gorgeous kitchen I've seen to date, but otherwise it was nothing we fell in love with. The bathroom off the master bedroom still had the shower/tub in that green avocado color so loved by everyone in that decade. (I’m always happy I can say I was not born in the 70's.)

The second house was the one we're giving serious consideration. It's a colonial built in the early '90s on a nice big 2-acre lot in Lansing, not far from the mall/shopping, on Murfield Drive (I keep wanting to call in Mulready). The problem is it needs some work. A coat of paint, new carpets (preferably no carpets -- we hate wall to wall carpet), some slight moisture damage in the basement, new window screens preferably not clawed to death by the cat, etc. And according to some analysis from our agent, it's a bit overpriced. We didn't fall in love with the house on first sight, but it's one we keep coming back to.

The third house we looked at was one I needed to get out of my system: it was on the top of a hill outside of Dryden, in an area were I can't even get cable (thus no broadband, which ain't happening), but it was so damn big I just needed to see it. This house has no less than six bedrooms and 3 full bath rooms. Two of the closets on the second floor were about 10x12 feet. I've seen smaller studio apartments. The living room had a 60 inch television, which was necessary just to see the screen from across the room. The master bedroom had room in it for an office plus a Jacuzzi tub in the master bath. All in all, it was so large that even with the huge amount of crap we own, we'd still leave about 1/3 of the house vacant if we bought it. Which we won't.

We drove down to the lake after the last house, to say good-bye to my in-laws as they set up for a night to sleep on their boat. The water in Cayuga Lake is so high that the boat is about 2 feet higher than normal, so my mother-in-law, Linda, almost fell in as she was trying to get off the boat with some food. She served us some sodas (I had a full-fledged Coka-Cola, which happens about once a year for me) and pastries. I had a cinnamon bun. Then a neighbor brought over cupcakes filled with strawberries or something. Why must people ruin perfectly good food by inserting fruit into it? I pretended the cinnamon bun was enough to avoid it's fruity-filled nastiness.

As we drove back toward my in-laws house and the dogs, debate ensued over whether Ithaca is still too expensive. To me, the whole point of making this move is to save money. My dream: sell our house for a profit of $150k, use half to buy a house out right, then invest the other half and live off the interest for ever!

Which won't happen if we want to live in a town like Ithaca. That lead back to the other debate: why not buy a house in a cheap place like, oh, Hornell (where my family lives) or Greene (where my in-laws live)?

Bon said if she was going to settle somewhere and (theoretically) raise kids, she'd take Greene over Hornell. Which, of course, I took umbrage with: Hornell has some skeevy parts of town, but I'd sooner raise a kid there than in Greene… Greene's just to --

"Go ahead, say it!" Bon railed. "Call Greene 'Podunk-ville!'"

"Uh, I wasn't going to say that. I was going to say… it's too 'rural'."

To prove me wrong, she drove me by some of the rich-people houses on the outskirts of town. We even drove down the street her grandmother now lives on and got out and walked around a house for sale. Yet that house is still $115k – and the thought of spending that much to live in Greene, a town who's economy hinges on a forklift business that has threatened to lay-off my father-in-law more times than I can count in just the years I've known him, makes me sick.

Besides, we'll never choose to live in Greene or Hornell, if for no other reason than to avoid making one side of the family feel slighted. Even though my dad said to me on the phone Friday night that maybe we should buy my in-laws place. I think Dad just wants me to have a barn like they've got in their back yard.

We got back around 6pm and played with the dogs until they were panting machines, ate some left over Chinese food, and debated and planned for buying and fixing the house on Mulrea—I mean, Murfield.

(In between, we did fun snooping around my in-laws place. We found a thank you note they received from someone who actually wrote "LOL" under a line. While I contemplated that the Internet culture has even infiltrated the note-writing sarcasm of middle-aged women, Bon distracted me with something even more mind-boggling. In the chest freezer my in-laws keep out in their back room, there were at several Tupperware containters. Bon held one up and said, "This is strawberry-rubarb jam I made. In 1984."

She wasn't kidding. The piece of masking tape used as a label said exactly that in her 13-year-old handwriting. Further spelunking into the depth of the freezer turned up 20-year-old broccoli, pork, and beans, and my favorite, a container of shredded zucchini from 1979. Twenty-three year old zucchini in stasis!

If I could find a stash of Star Wars action figures from that era in such suspended animation, I'd be rich. Of all the antiques to be collecting, food is one that I never considered.

This reminded me of when, as a teen, my brother was renting space for his band in the upstairs of a building that used to be a school in downtown Hornell. Exploring it, he found a cache of World War II vintage canned foods next to the old auditorium, including a five-gallon drum of 40-year-old peanut butter. I hope he didn't eat any.)

Around 9pm, I finally said, let's stop talking about the damn house. It was making my brain hurt. Then I went online and started shopping at www.improvementscatalog.com, considering things we'd want to buy for that house. It never ends.

Last night I dreamed of packing and moving and expanding they yard and cleaning out the basement and it just NEVER ENDS.

Today is Sunday. The dogs were up and ready to go out at 4:30, and I was ready to make them settle down but Bon yelled at me because we knew this would happen when we didn't let them out again after 10pm. Whatever. I had to go outside with them because it's not a fenced in yard and we still don't trust Kylie to not run off (though I doubt she'd go far knowing food was coming). I tried to go back to sleep, but after Bon told me I'd been snoring all night, I felt bad and tried to set myself on my pillow so I would sleep through my mouth. Then I couldn't sleep. I finally got up at 5:15am and started typing this.

So here I am.

We're closer to having a house and moving than we thought, but still not committed. And we've both admitted that's probably good. Neither of use feels completely ready to leave Massachusetts and our current home yet. I think I realized yesterday just how much I really like MA in so many ways. I just wish it was closer to central New York, which, to be honest, Ithaca is really the area that I seem to give a crap about. Thus we're right back to paying too much.

Having absolutely no family members who ever served in a war of any kind (except for my cousin who is currently on the USS Bataan running the 24-hour a day kitchen to feed God knows how many ravenous sailors), this particular holiday has never been much more than a three-day weekend for me. It used to mean heading to Stony Brook State Park in Dansville to storm the falls (imagine a number of 20-something men in eye patches with plastic swords wading in the water).

This year, Memorial Day Weekend means house hunting. That's right, we're back out in Central New York. There's a very promising house that went on the market this week, and we want a look see before the bids start coming in.

In the car last night, Bon and I started one of our all mighty lists: who to change addresses with, what to cancel, what to follow up on, should we move. It made it feel all a little more real.

To make sure all my work was done before we head off to Ithaca this afternoon for house tours, I was up at 5:15 this morning to feed the canines and then stayed up using my in-laws beloved cable modem to post some work. Don't tell me I don't know how to live.

So what else is new this week? INT Media, the company I work for, has deferred raises again for six months. For some reason the company doles out salary increases to the entire company at once instead of based on the date you started. I was due in January, along with everyone else, to get a salary/performance review, but they said then that the balance sheet could do with a wait until July. Yesterday, we were told that raises will not happen in July either, see you in 2003.

It's hard to complain, however, since I've got a job that I can take with me to a new house in Ithaca.

(FYI, anyone who's been trying to get to Facts Are Meaningless and find the site down, the site is in the process of visiting every weight station on I 95 all the way to St. Pete. Joe's move to Florida is on over the next few days and he had to pack up his server in a box and put it on the moving truck. No room for him to take such a device a Corvette. In fact, he probably can only fit himself, a vacuum, and one cat in that car. But at least he'll get there fast.)

After I made the last post, I got a call from Bon requesting a new jacket. Turns out the one she was sitting in the rain in (during a 46 degree wind chill) was not water proof. Eric and Gore-tex, to the rescue.

I had to stand in the rain myself for half an hour before she was done timing another class of dogs so I could give it to her. The other women with her recording the running times (they're called scribes) started using me as a gopher to take scribe sheets to the main tent to be recorded.

The rain finally let up a bit as I waited, but there was no way I was going to get a chance to talk with the wife -- the trial judge immediately had put her to work laying out a new course for the next class. Apparently the judge, who is the only person who gets paid to attend, rules with an iron fist over more than just whether a dog qualifies or not. Time for the wife to become a judge, me thinks. (Actually I've thought that for a while.)

I came home, ate some re-heated pizza, and watched The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on TiVo. Now I'm playing with Web sites, upgrading MovableType to 2.1, that kinda thing. Maybe I'll write later, or tomorrow, if it rains.

This morning, I was fully prepared to drive 6.5 hours out to Ithaca, look at houses for a couple of hours, and then drive back. I've done stupider things.

I was on the road by 6:35 in rain so bad I saw a guy with a house boat in a side yard lining up animals two-by-two. The forecast called for one inch of rain, but I think we'd already received it by that time. To make matters worse, I realized I didn't have the transponder that would let me breeze though the toll booths on the Mass Pike, and a quick look in my wallet showed that I didn't have a bit of cash on me either. I hit an ATM in Worcester and moved on... and the rain got worse. My temper was flaring like the cuffs on bell-bottoms.

I started composing a blog entry in my head about how bad this trip was going to be. I figured once I lost the radio signal, I'd turn off the radio and end up spending the entire drive in deep thought about this potential move, my job, Bon's job/work prospects, the novel, the quality of Episode II, and the sad lack of musicals coming out of Hollywood. Too much thought... it inevitably leads me to being either depressed or invigorated... and I wasn't betting on the latter.

So, I turned around and went home.

There weren't any killer houses on the list to look at anyway.

Back home by 8am, I felt guilty because I was there with the girls (Kylie and Siren), while Bonny was with Caper at an agility match she'd helped organize for the Labrador Retriever Club of Greater Boston, one of three canine related clubs to which she belongs. Because she organized it, she had to work it. That translates to her sitting out in the deluge, maybe under a tent if lucky, all day long, working to make sure the match went off without a hitch. She was already in a bad mood yesterday when she went to set up the match site, since (as per rules handed down from that most asinine organizations, the America Kennel Club) the agility equipment couldn't even be fully setup the day before. After all, a competitor might drive to the site at midnite and walk the course, giving them an edge over everyone else.

Idiots.

Thus, Bon had been at the site since 7am setting up in the rain. My guilt got the best of me, so I drove the half hour to the site in Wrentham, MA, to at the very least give her our cell phone so she could be in contact if needed.

I consider it a testament to the great love we share that I was able to so easily pick Bon out of a crown of similarly dressed CDLs™* (amazing how many grey-green rain coates women wear). I stood behind her tent, where she was timing each agility run for about 10 minutes, wearing a bright red rain coat and a red and white FamilyPC logo emblazoned umbrella, until she looked over her shoulder enough to notice me (I didn't want to disturb her while working). She told me to take Caper home -- she wasn't going to run him. The class he was supposed to run in was the very class she was timing.

Agility matches run in a downpour so bad that the rain is coming in horizontal? Organizers who also paid to enter don't get to run? Pathetic. I'm not competitive enough to enjoy doing such a thing even in great weather, but what I was watching was completely the opposite of fun. The only sport that should continue in the rain is football, and that's only because those guys are paid so much, they should continue to play during volcanic eruptions at the 40 yard line.

So, without even time to give me a wet hug, I took my leave of the wife, grabbed the yunky-boy**, and split.

Now I'm home, at the 'puter. I think because Bon is down suffering at something she loves, I should do the same. So instead of reading the book I just bought or watching DVDs or organizing comics or selling stuff on eBay, I plan to spend the rest of the day writing (because I'm no Stephen King. Writing is to me, fulfilling at the end, but a monstrous struggle while I'm doing it). So I'll write stuff. Stuff for work, stuff for me, just... stuff.

*Crazy Dog Ladies
**short for "Yellow Monkey," one of Caper's many nicknames, along with Ass-boy

Well, sue me. I'm busy. This new set of job responsibilities has me jumping through hoops and then some. I actually thought I was working hard before. What a fool.

So, how was my week?

Bonny got the news a couple days ago that her last major client, ZD Smart Business Magazine, was being shut down. Not only does this mean she might not get paid for her last assignment (which was a bitch to do), she may never work in this town again. Or so she things. She doesn't have much experience with the whole "unemployment" thing, outside of watching me deal with it. She's not taking it well, but already things are looking up. She had, on a whim, sent a resume to our ol' Alma Mater at Ithaca College about a writer job they had open. And guess who called to give her a phone interview? Of course, or beloved, overpriced, underpaying IC. Seeing as we're likely moving back that way, I take it as a sign from a higher power. Or as close as I'll get without being hit by lightning.

Bon and I built an Agora-based shopping cart at Agility-Equipment.com. Check it out. It's even secure when you send in your credit card number, and very handy if you ever need a $450 a-frame for your dogs to climb. And who doesn't need that?

Over the next week, all the network programming I watch regularly is coming to an end for the season -- Simpsons, Angel, Buffy, West Wing, ER, 6 Feet Under, Raymond, etc. Some, like Futurama and Alias, are already over. This ushers what I like to call "healthy time." It's the time of year I finally break out of the winter cocoon that and spend some time outside on a regular basis, instead of just on the weekends. It may only be for an hour or two after I finish working, but its light enough out to allow it.

One of our favorite TV shows of the past year, 24, took a very strange and ugly turn at the end of the episode on Tuesday. I don't think I buy it. For those who missed it, consider this a spoiler warning, but for gods sake, if they don't go back and show a montage of shots that show just exactly where apparent traitor Nina has been trying to screw with Jack's day, I will have lost all respect for the program. And it's treading on very thin ice since the whole "fugue state" episode. If I want that crap, I'll watch The Young and The Restless.

Speaking of Y&R, Isabella had a stroke when the baby was born! And Jack didn't get custody of his baby from that witch Diane. Typical.

A quick, funny aside: Looking around on Realtor.com for giggles, I plugged in info to search houses for sale in the home of my youth, Hornell. For $119,900, I found this house for sale. This is remarkable for two reasons. This house is half the price of my current place, but it's on a hill in an area of town that, as a kid, I thought you had to be a millionaire to live in. Plus, it's right next door to the parents of my high school girlfriend. They hate my guts, so it would be great to live there and let my dogs 'do their business' in the neighbor's yard. Maybe I could stop by to borrow a cup of sugar or some power tools and start regaling them with stories about how I used to, ahem, "be with their daughter" in her bedroom when they'd come home unexpectedly and I'd hide in closets or climb out windows.

Good times.

Of course, living in Hornell ain't going to happen. Let's be real.

Bon and I decided to take yesterday to get our bearings about the possibility of living in the Finger Lakes area, back toward Ithaca. Starting out from her parent's place near Binghamton, we drove north on Interstate 81 almost to Syracuse, but got off on route 20 and drove West across the top of Otisko Lake, Skaneateles (pronounced Skinny-atlas) Lake and Owasco Lake. The town of Skaneateles is beautiful, with the downtown right at the northern tip of the water, and beautiful houses abound. All too pricey, of course. It looks like a bedroom community for guys who golf too much, anyway.

We took route 20 all the way over to Cayuga (pronounced kay-you-ga) Lake and down through most of the major towns on the east side of the water. I was hoping to fall in love with something -- especially Auburn, where Wells College is… it's an all girls school and wouldn't it be nice to be working there? -- but nothing looked particularly inviting. As my wife likes to put it, it's woodchuck country. And she's not talking the wildlife.

Really, the only option for us Ithaca (pronounced ith-ah-kuh) or the surrounding area. Ithaca is where we'd be comfortable with the people, the way of life, the way of doing things. The suburbs of town are all close enough to feel more than comfortable. We met with a buyer broker to talk terms and she gave us some listings to consider and we went and had lunch at the glorious State Diner (pronounced state die-ner) on State Street, the 24-hour grease fest with the fold down seats in the booths just like at the movies. It hasn't changed in the decade since I last ate there.

Over lunch, we looked at listings and thought one looked particularly good in Dryden. Driving by, we found it not so good—no yard, and next door to the worst looking house in town (it had plants growing out of the rain gutters) and the local bar. A couple other overpriced houses we drove by were nice but either had no yard or were so remote we could never get broadband at them, and we've got to have broadband. I'm not going through dial-up use on a regular basis again.

Where we go from here all depends on how much we really care for moving. It looks like we'll have to pay more than we wanted to get a nice place, so our savings -- the whole point of trying to move -- might not amount to much.

Overall, we ended the day tired and frustrated and feeling like there's be many, many more 5 hour car trips to Ithaca in the next few months if we were ever to find the perfect place. Because I didn't want us to make a decision about whether we should do this move while we were both cranky, I spent the ride back to her parent's quizzing Bonny about the times as a kid when she would accompany her late grandfather to cattle auctions, and how they slaughtered pigs on his farm. I know, most guys get such romatic talk out of the way during the first date, but it takes me a while to warm up.

Happy birthday to my uncle, David. He's my dad's younger brother and one of the greatest guys alive. He lives in Virginia and my parents are down there right now visiting. I think. They might be on the way home. I haven't kept very good track. It's been a busy week already.

I inherited more work this week. I'm now in charge of another site at work, and it's going to mean a lot more daily grind writing since I have to do news stories. I find myself constantly reloading my pages at NewsAlert waiting for a story to pop up that I can follow up on. It's quite nerve wracking. I'm not sure how regular beat reporters deal with it. But I guess I'm finding out.

We got our check from the feds this week, complete with the extra $50 bucks, which was nice. I needed it, as my checking account had ebbed to single digits after the last mortgage payment. Paying $500 to get the brakes on the car totally replaced this week didn't help either.

On the house side, we move closer and closer to what feels inexorably like a move out of town: we've got three realtors coming over in the next two days to check out the place and give us the market value on our house. The house down the street that spurred all this on still doesn't have a sign that says "under contract" but I'm pretty sure it is.

A higher power seems to want us to know about what's going on with that place, as Monday night a woman stopped by my house to talk to me about the neighborhood. She's the mother in a family with three kids that bid on the place already. As of that night, she was putting in a second, higher bid that would bring them right up to asking price. If whoever they were bidding against that night went higher than asking, that bidder would probably get the place. So, I'm pretty sure it's a done deal.

Remember, this is a $359,900 house with only three bedrooms and 1.5 baths, no garage. We've got that plus more yard and 2 full baths. And their place was bid on in less than 10 days. So who knows. By September maybe I'll live on Cayuga Lake.

Heading downtown today, Bon and I made a stop at the mail box first to see if we'd received anything good.

"Money, money, money!" she said with glee, and handed me the envelope from the Internal Revenue Service. We'd mailed our taxes in over seven weeks ago, so it's about time.

However, inside was a statement saying that our "estimated taxes" had been written down wrong, they'd adjusted them, and we'd be getting a refund. Well, no crap Uncle Sam, we were already expecting a refund. Now the question was, how much have you screwed us out of you frickin' overzealous bean counters?

We made our trip to the post office and the hardware store and the market and grumbled every time the topic came up. We'd gone through a mess last year with our taxes because we'd filed them with some inaccuracies, and we'd gone to great lengths to get it right this year. Getting money taken out of our pockets again this year when we hadn't done anything wrong was an unbearable prospect.

We got home and I pulled our copy of the 2001 1040 form and went through it... and lo and behold, they did change the amount we're getting back. To $50 in our favor. Looks like our account had a typo when he put in the numbers and left out $50 Bon had paid in on her quarterly taxes.

Thank you, frickin' overzealous bean counters!

Today I had a meeting with someone I wanted to impress and I managed to not spill ink on my hands, split my pants, emit bodily noises, or spit. Things are looking up!

First, note that my current house cost $227,000 when we bought it 1999.

Second, note that according to Boston Magazine, real estate prices in my town shot up about 19% in just the one year from 2000 to 2001.

Third, we got a call from Re/Max the other day, asking us if we'd like a free appraisal of how much our house might sell for – they're so desperate for places to sell, that they're offering appraisals sight unseen in this town.

Fourth, Bonny noticed yesterday that a house down the street from us was going up for sale. Driving by it today, we saw that they were having their first open house, so I whipped around into a u-turn and drove us back so we could take a look.

As usual in an open house, the sellers were not there so as not to blurt out something inappropriate to a potential buyer ("yeah, that toilet's never worked right" or "We never could identify what that smell was..."). Instead it was just the realtor from Prudential. The house is much like ours – a three bedroom, with no garage – but a bit nicer inside. They've got granite counter tops and tile floor in the kitchen, almost half the basement finished off, etc.

I signed the guest book with my name, started to write the same street, and almost wrote the same town, but decided to put Hornell at the last minute so as not to answer a bunch of questions of the realtor got noisy. (She did start asking if we were on this same street and I kind of pointedly told her, uh, no, we're from New York. I then headed up the stairs leaving Bonny to extend my lie: "Oh, we have friends out here, so we might move...")

All told, this house is really not that much different from ours.

Asking price: $359,900.00.

The knowledge that my house could sell for anything close to that – for I refuse to believe that house could be worth more than $40k more than ours – and that we could clear anywhere from $80 to $100k over what our mortgage is, is like winning the lottery. This house has gone from being an invisible investment to the most important thing in our lives.

All afternoon the wife and I have been daydreaming about what it would take to make the place salable, and then coming back to reality to consider that we don't really know where we'd go even if we did sell. While I'm not nervous that my current job is in danger, but I'm not convinced that any company or job will last forever, and I don't want to move to, say, central New York and then end up not working...

Still, that doesn't stop us from being giddy. Bon just called me to tell me she saw a listing for a four bedroom house on South Hill in Ithaca (same hill as our ol' Alma Mater) for $59k.

Fifty. Nine. Thousand. For a four bedroom house. In Ithaca.

Thank you, house. You're like a lottery ticket I can cash in any time I want.

Yesterday I was meeting with someone that I wanted to impress. I'd like to think I did, but it was through no help at all from me.

First, I sat down with this gentleman and as I tried to position my self on his low couch, I heard a small, tell-tale tear. It wasn't like I'd opened up a sheath from my lower back to my crotch, but my new pants obviously didn't care for how I'd positioned my legs. (A later check revealed no obvious holes in the slacks.) Still, this got the sweat glands going.

Next, I sat and took out my hand-made pen to take some notes. My mom's current hobby is turning material on a lathe (wood, Formica, tin, human bone, you name it, she's probably turned it by now), insert pen "blanks" into the material, and making beautiful looking hand turned writing instruments. She made me one out of green Formica Corian last time I was home. It's a beautiful pen, so that's what I took with me.

I'd forgotten that I'd accidentally run this same pen through the washing machine last week.

Instead of twisting it, I reflexively pulled the pen apart, realized my mistake, and pushed it back together without looking. The damage was done. A couple minutes later I realized my hands were... sticky. And what were those smudges on the paper? I finally took a closer look -- my fingers and the pen were both coated in black ink.

I wasn't done yet. He pulled up my Web site on his computer to take a look at my handywork. Of course, there was a broken image on the top page.

I wish I could have finished up the meeting by accidentally hitting him in the eye with spittle as I spoke. Perhaps a nice spontaneious bloody nose, or uncontrollable flatulence of the "silent but deadly" persuasion. I settled for shaking his hand with my ink-stained fingers.

It's past midnight. I'm still up in my office, deciding about what to put on Ebay tomorrow, what to give to the Salvation Army, and what's worth donating to the local high school, if they'll take what I've got (lots of old copies of Symantec Norton programs I can't sell). I'm actually going to sell off my entire collection of Doctor Who novels, which I bought and read while still in high school. I should pull some comics and sell them, too. Good-bye, memories and treasures I adore! I need some cash.

I keep coughing. I think I swallowed a lot of dust today, either when I was vacuuming out the ash-pit under my fireplace, or when I was grinding rust off the bottom of the lawn tractor's mowing deck. Or both. Yes, I spent my day cleaning and getting my basement ship shape. This after a walk at the park with the dogs, and a quick trip to the greatest ice cream stand in the world, Erikson's in Maynard (just reopened for the season today), where they make it themselves next door in the dairy. Bon and I split a small dish of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream – we're dish people, no cones for us. Erikson's also gives out free doggie ice creams to any doggie at the window: a Styrofoam plate with a scoop of vanilla and a dog biscuit on top. We got one for Siren, since we didn't make her a big ol' meatloaf cake like we'd promised her the day before on her birthday.

Instead of meatloaf making, the wife and I hit the multiplex last night to watch the horror flick Frailty (if anyone can explain the title's significance to me, I'd appreciate it.). I won't say anything about the film, as it's one of those that's best if you don't know anything about it going in. I think I liked it better than Bon, but not by much. Bill Paxton is one shitty actor.

Oh, before I forget: I was in the bathroom the other day when Bon yelled to me, "Whatcha doin'?"

I said, "Spiking the punch!"

I got a million of 'em.

Warning: The following post contains the usual scatological meanderings you've come to expect from this blog. If you don't want to know about the bathroom habits of modern married couples, stop reading now.

My wife, in her upstairs office, seems to always yell downstairs, "Whatcha doing?" when I've sat myself down on the throne. (Yes, we've been married a long time and don't close doors for such trivial matters as defecation.)

I usually just tell her what I'm doing, succinct and to the point. She says, "Oh," and that's that. I return to reading and voiding.

However, yesterday, just as I'd settled on the ring, she inevitably yells down, "Whatcha doing?"

I'd been waiting for this moment, and replied, "I'm downloading from my broadband modem."

With almost no hesitation, she says, "Ew! You're gross!"

Almost as if on cue, I had a bout of loud flatulence. Then from upstairs she quipped:

"Sounds like there's noise on the line."

As of this writing, it appears that all the wet PCs (see below) are functioning within normal parameters. The Epson Color Printer, however, is still soggy as a bowl of Cheerios in milk, and I don't antipate printing any fancy color graphs anytime soon.

I had a very nice weekend. All day Saturday and Sunday we spent outside working on the yard, the garden, etc. getting things ready for the onslaught of summer. With help from a friend who was here for the weekend, I cleared the dead tree in the side yard, aerated the lawn to promote growth, and replaced all the bad sidewalk blocks in the front path and using the leftovers to create a little mini-patio under the stairs out back, all the better for storing equipment and tools. Bon got the garden cleared and weeded, and we put down some week killer in the garden path and seeded the dead spots in the lawn.

What's more, the glorious coming of Daylight Savings Time had put a smile of pure joy on my face – I love this time of year.

So, I suppose, karmicly, I was due for it to blow up in my face.

Bon and I noticed this morning in the downstairs shower, that for some reason the water had backed-up into the tub, leaving a nice residue of gunk. We washed it down and chalked it up to hair in the drain, and decided I'd go get some Drain-O at the supermarket after I had a chance to check e-mail. I started a load of laundry as Bon headed out the door to her latest eye doctor appointment (by the way, she's seeing 20/15 in each eye—that's better than 20/20. Don't be a pansy-faced-wuss, go get LASIK surgery if you wear glasses).

I grabbed a copy of my current favorite magazine, CPU, and was, ahem, administering to some necessary bodily functions up on the second floor when I heard the splashing.

With all necessary haste I made my way down stairs with my pants barely up to my knees. I was convinced the clothes washer had begun to overflow due to whatever problem had hit the tub earlier. So I checked the laundry room (on the first floor) and found no problem. I trundled to the bathroom next door, now with pants up at least to my ass, and found the following scene: green water filled with detritus that could only be small amounts of fecal matter was flowing copiously from the toilet bowl all over the floor (and filling the bath tub also, but that was not flowing all over the floor). The deluge was heading into the hallway.

I got on my knees in the overflow and turned off the water shutoff to the toilet tank—no effect. Then I realized the H2O draining from the washing machine was what was coming up. I ran back to the laundry and hit the shut off. Back to the hallway, I grabbed every single towel we owned from the linen closet and started to sop up the mess on the floor.

I was wiping for several minutes before I got it all up, stopping only to throw towels out the back door onto the deck.

I got it under control, and thought, maybe I should check the hot water tank. Since it had been the subject of so many problems in the past, maybe it was also to blame here. I went down stairs and found nothing amiss—in fact, the perpetual leak the tank intake line has had since my brother and father installed has completely stopped.

Then I heard the dripping.

I started to walk the circumference of the basement, past the stairs and the work bench, finding nothing. By the back door that leads outside, I saw a drip coming down. But that wasn't the source of the noise I heard. And now I could already feel my insides growing cold.

I slowly opened the door to my office and my worst fears were realized. The table I use for most of my computer equipment was a ¼-inch deep with puddled water. The two desktop computers on top were laden with drips. Drops had splashed on to my router and a wireless access point I've been testing for work. My laptop thankfully had the lid shut, but water was collecting on it.

I really don't know what I did next. I was so filled with overwhelming panic that I think I just moaned. I probably repeated "no, no, no" over and over again. Perhaps I slapped my face like McCauley Culkin.

I can only imagine how it feels to pull up to your house and find it ablaze with the fire department shooting water into every window. But this gave me a taste, I think. Don't think I love my computer equipment so much I can't live without it. Some of that stuff is antique or seldom used—but all of those products I use on a regular basis for work and without it, I'm dead in the water when it comes to doing my job. And my company didn't provide any of it, so I need what I've got, because I'm not getting anymore from them.

I finally pulled myself together. I unplugged everything first, then took items out. Once the equipment was out of the line of fire, I grabbed what semi dry towels I could find and went to town on table and floor, trying to get them dry. I grabbed two fans and got them pointed at the carpet. I looked up and realized the only thing that helped much was the drop ceiling... one touch of the two tiles in the corner revealed that they were holding a large amount of water.

Now I was pissed. Whatever was causing this block was going to feel my wrath.

Having experienced a couple of clogs in my day, I own a couple of drain snakes/augers. I tried going from the bathtub down, but got nowhere, I checked the main trap on the line that goes out to the sewer, but my snake couldn't seem to reach any clog. I checked three other traps, managing to get the auger 20 feet in each but still didn't fix anything.

I had two traps left to check when Bon got home. She calmly and carefully explained to me that I was a god damn idiot and that I should call a plumber. To me, this sounded almost as good as letting my wallet plug up the toilet, but I'm her willing slave. I called, explained my dilemma, and they had a two man team here within 45 minutes.

The pros knew what to do. They tapped the convergence pipe where all the drains come down to the main sewer drain and could tell just where the block was. They got an electric auger – something I didn't even know existed – and went to town. They pulled down a bit of gunk and one of them showed it to me on the end of his snake – it looked like a giant wad of wet paper towels.

"Feminine products," he said, with a smile. I have no doubt feminine products account for 90 percent of any plumber's income. He snaked it a couple more times for good measure, and we could heard the clog break like a fat-guy's gas after too much sausage.

I know Bonny didn't flush a pad down the john – when we were in college working at the dining hall, she had to work a shift once where the entire dining hall basement flooded because the ladies in the all-girls dorm overhead had flushed enough tampons to choke the Alaskan Pipeline. The stench and rot of that night had taught her long ago, never flush anything that absorbent. I won't blame the friend of ours who was here this weekend, who old enough to know better -- but she was present at the last major flood I had at our old house, too! She's a goddamn jinx.

The plumbers had me go up and flush everything, run the washer, wash out the tub, and it all worked like a miracle. They left, happy to have helped, and told me the bill would be coming. Yip. Pee. I can't wait.

So now, the floor appears to be almost dry here in my office. Towels are washing. The ceiling tiles are still drying outside. The first floor had been mopped to disinfect us from the overflowing poop-water. I've got a space heater running to dry out my desktop PCs. The laptop's okay, but I'm not sure about anything else yet.

And I have become the new mortal enemy of Kotex.

Bonny got her second eye laser corrected tonight. All went well. She's sleeping off the Valium now. Believe me, Valium is needed – even when I was under a triple dose when I had my laser eye surgery four years ago, I almost twisted the head off the teddy-bear they have me to hold as they sliced a flap in my cornea.

(Just saying that I've turned so many people off of LASIK surgery, but believe me, it works, you wusses.)

Not much else new to report. There seems to be much time inbetween vignettes worth posting about here. I'm working steady at the job, got lots of CBLDF updates to do, need to fix a friends Web site design, and I need to take a chain saw to a tree that feel in my side yard. It fell as we were out playing with the dogs in the fenced in back yard mind you – we watched it fall in the spot where we usually throw the ball for the dogs. Would have crushed them like bugs, easily.

Still, this weather has me crazy. I'm actually eager to go weed flower beds and rake dead plants from the garden. It's likely to be the only weekend of the year I'm inclined toward such work, so the Wife had best take full advantage.

Bon and I got home last night from the weekend away in central New York where we had Easter dinner on Saturday with both her family, and mine that traveled out to my in-laws (hey, free meal).

I finally got to meet my nephew, and even fed him. He did not spit up on me, which I consider the height of politeness.

We were too tired from another four hours in the car to want to make any dinner, but just about all the restaurants and take out places in our lovely hamlet of Hudson, MA were closed because of the "holiday" – except for the Chinese place on Main Street. Thank god for those God-less Chinese.

We drove down to get the take out and as we were leaving, I courteously thanked my spouse for paying for our dinner. She, in turn, thanked me for driving.

"Well, of course," I said. "That's because I RULE." I added that last part with a brief flourish of my hands like Doug Henning, to underscore my point.

"No, no, dear," she replied. "I rule."

"See, you're using 'rule' with a completely different definition. Your rule means 'control.' My rule means I rock, I'm great, I'm an extra-super-wonderful guy."

"So..." she ventured, "what you're saying is, you're my bitch, and I control you?"

Silence.

"Yes."

She laughed all the way home.

We attended the calling hours for my sister-in-law Jen’s dad, John Crowe today. The crowd of people come to pay their respects was long, with a sort of receiving line of John’s siblings. Jen and her mom and sister sat on the opposite side, receiving frequent hugs from those who they knew, and probably some they didn’t.

Since John was a former cop, and my dad is a former member of the fire department, and my mom’s worked in the same hospital for over 35 years, it was a parade of people they knew or soft of knew, and more than a few that I thought I recognized, but most of the time I really didn’t. The funeral home was opened in a partnership with a guy who used to work with my dad on the ambulance, who died years and years ago, while he was still in his 40s I believe. My dad talked at length with the surviving partner, and dad told me later, they usually always talk about the same thing: how unexpected death can be.

My brother was like a rock today, and I’ve never been prouder of him. He and Jen have a unique relationship that I think generally breaks down into: 10% sex, 20% loving adoration, and 70% sarcastic bickering. They sometimes argue so much over the dumbest shit that my parents will just get up and leave their house if they’re going at it. Today, however, with Jen seeing her late father for the last time, he was where he needed to be all the time, which was usually right at her side, with her and her mother, as they dealt with what has to be the most crushing blow of their lives.

I think about death a lot – there seemed to be a point a year or two ago that I was going to a lot of funerals – and those thoughts frequently turn to how I would deal with the death of either of my folks. I’ve long known to my core exactly what my dad, at the very least, will die of: straight up lung cancer, no question about it. It’s something I usually think I’m well prepared for. If he goes via any other method, it would be because of some sudden and uncontrollable accident like a drunk driver or slip on the ice. Which is something I suppose I wouldn’t be. Jen and her family weren’t. Who would be? If we start living in a way that prepared us for that, we’d constantly live scared and paranoid.

No matter how he goes, I told my dad I’m going to try not to be too weepy about it, and I’d make it a party when we say good-bye to him. A celebration of life. He seemed to think that was really the only reasonable course of action. A friend of ours once had a giant gathering at the death of her mother and asked any and all present to share stories about her parent. I think I’d do the same. I know I have a few doozies to tell, and I’d love to hear some from others.

Later this morning we head on to Hornell to be with my family, specifically my brother and sister-in-law, who’s father died on Wednesday night. There are calling hours at the funeral home on Sunday, and a funeral (mass? Interment? I’m not sure) on Monday. Bon and I will likely miss the Monday ceremony, as we need to be back in Massachusetts on Tuesday so I can go to Jury duty. Not to mention get some work done.

Apparently, calling hours are not a big thing in all parts of the country. I always assumed that’s just how it worked: someone passes away, everyone who might have been even remotely acquainted with the deceased gets a chance to stop by and pay their respects, and then a real funeral ceremony would be held for just family. Maybe calling hours are only for the popular. I suppose there’s nothing worse than having funeral home calling hours and no one shows up. Unless it’s throwing a Tupperware party and no one shows up. That would suck.

The first dead body I ever saw was that of my next-door neighbor, Mr. Prunoske (pronounced pru-nos-key), when I was 11 years old. He was an incredibly nice man who worked nights, so sometimes his wife would yell at us kids for making too much noise while playing during the day when he was trying to sleep (which always made us feel sufficiently guilty, because we liked Mrs. Prunoske a lot, too). Since then, I’ve had many a relative pass away and always found seeing the body to help with some closure. I didn’t get to see my Grandma Griffith after she passed away last October, but I saw her just before and it will have to do.

"You know, sometimes life sucks. Then it makes you eat it."

That's what my brother, Paul, told me this morning when he gave me the news about his father-in-law.

Paul was working last night. He was out in anAlfred Police cruiser around 3am, when he got a call from dispatch telling him to phone his in-law's house because of a family emergency. He didn't have his cell phone with him; it was in his locker at the station house. So, of course, as he drove back to the station his mind was racing with all the types of terrible news that could come from such an early morning call.

When he got through, his wife's aunt answered the phone. She told Paul that his father-in-law, John, had died a few hours before.

John, a former police officer himself in our home town of Hornell, NY, had been working for the last few years as a charter bus driver. He was apparently on a two-driver trip taking a sports team down south. They'd stopped in a motel in Georgia when John began to have chest pain. The other driver with him took him out to the bus to get him to a hospital, but before they even arrived John told the other driver to call 911 apparently. By the time they interfaced with an ambulance and John arrived at the emergency room, an hour had passed since the cardiac arrest had begun. (Paul got all this direct from the ER doctor in Georgia, apparently.)

John was 53.

So this morning at about 4am, my brother got to live out my worst nightmare and tell his wife that her father had died.

I want to blog but have so much work to do. I'm helpi