Wherever I Lay My Head Is Home

I may try to keep this fairly short, I slept like crap last night and would love to catch some extra sack time.

The house was to be shown today at 11:00, so we spent the better part of two hours straightening before we made ourselves scarce. It's quite surprising to realize how much crap you scatter about in your daily life if you're made to hide it away and erase virtually all evidence of your presence in the space of an hour or two. We have made a system of quickly re-making the bed complete with all 38 throw pillows that go into that production, hiding away the odds and ends toiletries that accumulate on the bathroom counter, hiding the little dog gates that keep the Yorkie from a couple different rooms, the little quilts or throws from the couches in the den, all the shit that just shows up on the kitchen table and counters...

It's like some kinda shitty slapstick routine that only features two Stooges, and it's getting pretty old.

We dropped the Yorkie with the Mother In Law so she could visit with her dogs and chill, then we went for some lunch and then hit Best Buy to grab the new release stuff that my wife and I can't live without.

The wife is the proud owner of Dallas Season 7 now, and I grabbed Hot Fuzz and the special edition of 300 for myself. I had every intention of watching one of these movies long enough to fall asleep on the couch and try to make up for the lousy sleep last night, so we picked up the dog and headed back to the house. The wife split for a meeting she had and after I checked e-mail, I went through the house and tried to set everything right that we'd tucked away earlier.

First step would be to turn off every damned light in the house, which had been turned on for the showing, pull out the blankets and the dog's little pillow, put up the dog gates, and lay down the dog's little potty pads that she usually ignores. I changed back into the pajamas to get more comfortable and then popped in the special features disc of 300 and started watching a little featurette about Frank Miller, author of the source material of the film.

The phone rings, it's the Realtor, who mentions that the house looked nice and that she has another Realtor who wants to see it this afternoon. I curse inwardly, say that'd be great, and then wait out the wife for the 20 minutes it takes her to get back from her meeting. I let her know about the new surprise showing, then we spend the remaining hour waiting for delivery of a plant for the front room, and then pick up the house again, grab the Yorkie and go over the the MIL's house to hide out and maybe watch a film.

The MIL watched 300 with me while the wife napped briefly, then she left for another damned meeting in the late afternoon. The MIL and I finished the film and I packed the Yorkie up again and headed home. The wife got home as I was putting up the dog gates and whatnot, so we chilled out with a TiVo'd episode of Color Splash on HGTV, then ordered a pizza for supper and popped in Hot Fuzz.

So in a nutshell, I spent the day running from Realtors and watching movies I'd seen before just because I can.

I'm out, it's bed-thirty.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes!

Open House, Television, Dallas, DVD, Movies, Hot Fuzz, 300, Yorkie, Color Splash

Workday, Home Repair And Movies

I sat my happy little ass down this morning and got some actual work done, which was a nice change of pace. I was happy to be doing something other than fret about the damned house for a change.

I have a steadily mounting backlog of stuff piling up on the iPod, so I blew through a couple weeks worth of Destroy The Brain! Podcasts, which have been pretty fun so far, and it's nice to have something new to replace the Pickled Embryo stuff, who posted their last show this week, as one of the hosts is moving out of the country. I've not listened to the last one yet, so I just assuming that this means the show is completely dead in the water, as they made no mention of plans for a solo show last week.

I also listened to last weeks' Night Of The Living Podcast, covering more Stephen King material and filled with even more digressions than usual, which was pretty funny as always.

In the afternoon I did some final touch up painting in the front room and then surveyed the remaining now wasp-free zone of the pack porch area that still needed to be cleaned. I swept out everything from the area and gave the windows a thorough Windexing.

The wife brought over a couple items on loan from her Mother, a large plant for the one corner of the front room as well as a matching wingback chair for the same area, so we arranged that and carried out the table that had previously lived in that corner. It will be hidden away at the Mother In Law's house until the house sells, like a political figure living out its life in exile.

We got a call from the Realtor who wanted to confirm that she could show the house between 11 and 1 tomorrow, and she mentioned that the last person who'd seen the house liked this one the best of what they'd seen that day. I had to of course get her to repeat this for the wife so she'd stop trying to get into the shower with the toaster over no one wanting to buy the house. What this actually translates to is really nothing other than that they liked our house better than the other 2 or 3 they saw; she may've shown them a buncha slum housing for all I know, but at this point any good word makes us perk up. The next showing will have a much better shot without the chickens around I'm sure, and maybe we can get her to drag the people who liked it back by for a visit without poultry.

We watched a TiVo'd episode of Entourage in the late afternoon, then the wife left for a meeting at one of her non-profits and I picked up a little around the house.

She brought back take-out for supper after her meeting, and since I've been reading a bit about the new Rob Zombie Halloween flick, I asked the wife if she cared if we watched his first two films, which she's never seen.




She was cool with it and we watched House Of 1000 Corpses back to back with The Devil's Rejects. I was happy to see that I still have the same impressions of both films, in that there's a lot I like about both of them, but what doesn't work (lines, sequences, etc.) looks as clunky as it ever did, so my initial impressions of things haven't swayed one way or the other. Don't get me wrong, the good definitely outweighs the bad in both films, but there are bits I do wince at each and every time I watch them. Devil's Rejects specifically, because it is the more assured film, telling a grim story and the characters incessant "fuck you's" at each other is just tiresome, I realize that people under extreme stress probably lose a lot of their vocabulary, but it just got old after awhile. I tended to forgive more of the flaws in House easier, as it was a first effort and far from an easy ride to the theater, but the second time around I was expecting less hamfisted dialog, so whe it's off, it's pretty glaring.

I'd also have to point out something (and beat a dead horse some more) that occurred to me while watching the final moments of The Devil's Rejects, and that's the fact that we've just watched over three hours worth of cinema about pretty reprehensible characters, yet Zombie was able to actually make me feel sympathy for them when they found themselves being tortured at the hands of a vindictive lawman. Here we have rapists and murderers that I was wincing at them being tortured, but something like Hostel, which is populated with 'everyman' frat jock jagoff types, that film made me wish the torture sequences went on longer. I mean, just because I don't have anything in common with someone shouldn't mean that I don't care when they're being nailed to a chair, but in the case of Hostel it certianly translated that way, but with Zombie's films the characters were charismatic enough for you to care about in spite of the Gawdawful shit you'd watched them do for the first hour of the film.

I really have to stop beating this dead horse, seriously, you'd think Eli Roth had fucked me out of money, stolen a girlfriend or something, the way I keep coming back to the issues I have with him. It has to be some kinda weird back of my mind jealousy or something, otherwise I'd let this shit go.

I'm tired, it's late, so I'm out.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Workday, Podcasts, Destroy The Brain, Night Of The Living Podcast, Home Repair, Television, Entourage, Movies, Rob Zombie Halloween, House Of 1000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects, Hostel

Are You There, God? It's Me, Mob. Please Kill Me.

I think I'm seriously going to kill myself if this Goddamned house doesn't sell soon, because we're now second guessing shit that's never even entered the arena of 'problem' before.

I just spent about 30 minutes at 10:30 in the evening moving furniture around in the front room on the off-chance that the layout of the furniture is what's been keeping fuckers from buying this house. This was the last thing I ever thought I'd be doing at nearly eleven o'clock in the evening, and achieved nothing at all, save to drag a piece of furniture from the garage storage out to the front living area. The fucked-upedest thing is that the way the front room is layed out, there's no easy solution, unless you create two obviously seperate sitting areas, which we don't have enough matching furniture to do, so if we even attempt it the whole thing looks like a 'before' picture on a design show, because nothing looks as if it should be in the same room together.

The way things are arranged right now leaves the impression of a large open room, ideal for entertaining and with very little on the walls or one specific corner. The corner is what the wife now has a wild hair to address, wanting to re-shuffle the room to create a hodge-podge of seating in a corner that right now has a end-table in it, using a couple of chairs and a small trunk that I owned and somewhat matches the wood tones of the two armoires on the other side of the room. The problem is that between the armoires and the proposed sitting area is a stark white chair, ottoman and sofa that don't really blend with the proposed chairs intruding into their corner. Things look fine as they stand, and I think throwing something random into the corner is a bad idea, as the table that's currently there is part of the set that's already in place in the opposite corner.

If the intention here has been to stress me out as much about this shit as she's been, kudos honey, because I'm really feeling a lot of frustration here that shows no fucking sign of letting up, as I just walked into the kitchen for a stiff drink and a handful of antacids to notice that she's now started moving stuff away from a wall to do some touch-up painting at 11:00 in the evening.

Jesus Harold Christ in a chariot-driven side-car, please make the madness stop.

I can happily report that I took down the chicken's containment unit today, their little run is completely gone. I yanked the wire off it and then hammered the framework apart, sawing the larger pieces of wood in half so they'd fit in the dumpster.

And in that "I'll take 'things I'll never find myself doing' for $200, Alex" vein, I found myself literally shoveling shit this afternoon, along with dirt, mud and whatever else had collected around the birds pen, which was a pretty disgusting experience but if thankfully over. I then sprayed the area down with the hose, effectively sending most of the evidence of the birds out towards the alley and away from the prying eyes of potential buyers.

I also swept out the garage, and looked after the scrapings from the wall in the front room, which the wife had done touch-up painting on. I was also annoyed to notice that the patched areas on that wall were nicely spotlit in the sun coming in from the skylight above it, making it a glaring statement to the buyer, but what are you gonna do, I can't move the fucking skylight.

We had dinner with the inlaws, which was fine except for Grandmother getting annoyed with K and her sister because they weren't hanging on every word of a story she was telling about their Aunt and a dog she's recently acquired.

I just ignored this situation and wondered inwardly how much more erratic her behavior is going to get before I lose it and start yelling at her. I haven't had to deal with a tiny little old woman's bullshit in a good long time, so this is a weird acclimation process for me. Usually I find it amusing, but it kinda rubbed me the wrong way this evening.

We headed home and I grabbed the wasp spray and fixed their little red wagons, all we have to do now is finish sweeping down the outside of the house in their areas, and then do the windows and we're good to go.

The wife and I watched a little bit of television before she sprang the whole furniture scheme on me and that was basically the end of my night. The weird thing is that we're not arguing about it(which is a nice change), we're just equally frustrated and antsy about things right now.

Be seeing you.

P.S.:

Did you ever have one of those weird epiphanies that comes from the most unlikely place?

As I was typing the last little bit of this post, the old Office Space Soundtrack pops up in the iTunes shuffle with The Geto Boys doing Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta, which puts a strangely optimistic spin on life. Seriously kids, I have so little to complain about, why am I sweating this little shit? I have very few responsibilities, I basically work when I want to pay bills, I get to spend all the time in the world with the woman I love, life is sweet, fuck a buncha stress about things that don't matter.

Here's a clip, because it changed my mood in the space of about three minutes, but be forewarned, it's sweary!



Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Annoyance, Moving, Home Repair, Family Dinner, Music, Epiphany, Office Space Soundtrack, Geto Boys, Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta

Tag, I'm It, Baggy Eyes!

I refuse to let my Tasmanian Devil end quote die, just because it amuses me. Oddly, I was never a fan of the character himself, but that's another digression. We're here right now because Splotchy has tagged me with five random questions of his own devising, and the task of sticking it to the next five people with my own questions.

First, let's run through the questions and the hate-filled lies I use to answer them:

1. Choose one superpower: super strength, super speed, or invisibility. Explain your choice.

My gut says super strength, just because it'd be nice to not worry about someone being able to hand me my ass, but I've gotten used to being a pretty openly smart-assed guy, so if I've survived this long without it, I'm probably cool. I'll go with super speed, just because there's always more I think I should be doing, working, writing, etc. and I think that'd go a long way towards me feeling like I was accomplishing something more with my time.

2. What's the weirdest music in your collection?

Hmmn, after some inspection of the CD closet, I'd guess that the Gabber techno stuff would probably be what the average person would consider the strangest. A lot of it is abrasive 'wall of noise' type stuff, though there are some amazingly heavy basslines in there as well.

Oh, and I have a burned copy of a Shakira CD, which isn't necessarily weird, just weird for me to own it; what can I say, I like her little homewrecker hips. Yowza.

3. Name a place where you never have lived, but have always thought would be a good place to settle down.

In my youth I always thought of Seattle being somewhere I'd love to live, though as my life has worn on I've never really pursued it. I don't necessarily see myself living somewhere else, the wife's family is here, etc., but that's the one place I'd had aspirations for at some point in time.


4. Have you ever seen, or been in the presence of, a ghost?

Not that I've been aware of, though I had one instance of a weird chill while looking out the kitchen window at my grandmother's old house once. The feeling was as if something touched the small of my back as I leaned towards the window, and it wasn't anything that felt like the cloth of my shirt shifting or anything I could simply explain away. It was just a strange unexplained feeling that could have easily been my own overactive imagination, although I've always wondered.

5. What should be a crime that currently isn't? What's currently a crime that shouldn't be?

I think that the people who go out in public in their pajamas should be ticketed, because we're not in your living room ma'am, this is Wal-Mart, dress like an adult interacting with a society, please.

As for what shouldn't be a crime, I'd probably lean towards something like pot, which is strange since I don't have any real interest in it anymore, but I've personally found it to be less harmful to the masses than alcohol or cigarettes.

Now about those questions of my own for the next set of victims...

Hmmn.

Questions for (if they want to play, and I hope they do) Dale, Yas, Buckaroo Banzai, Eric313, and Ellen Aim, because they're a nice assortment of people I know personally and people I only know via the web.

1. What got you into the blog world in the first place; was it something you read about, did you know someone who did it, etc?

2. What was the first film you bought with your own money to watch over and over again, be it on DVD, VHS, Betamax...and is it a film that you still like today?

3. Since celebs always want to speak for the world about how we should be pitching in and saving the world, who would you choose to represent us the best?

4. What do you think is the most unlikely comic-book to film translation, the one that no one will ever be able to translate properly? (No fair cheating and naming the existing ones that shouldn't have been made...)

5. Tell me the type of music that you like least, then tell me the artist from that genre that you find the least annoying. The lesser of two evils, if you will.

Good luck for those of you that choose to accept the challenge, and if you don't I completely understand.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Meme, Tags, Superpowers, Gabber, Shakira, Music, Ghosts, Haunted

Maybe You Should Stop Trying To Help...

This story I'm about to tell you isn't funny except in that way seeing someone get hit in the balls on one of those 'funniest videos' type programs is funny, but I feel that it deserves inclusion here to paint a true picture of the type of 'help' we're getting with the whole house prep thing.

The prescribed repairs planned for today were fully underway, the wife touching up the painting here and there, and I'd been seeing to the spackle in the front living area when the phone rings and the Mother In Law lets us know that she would be over shortly after lunch.

We took a moment to go and drive-thru some McDonald's because we refuse to believe everything Morgan Spurlock tells us and still find some enjoyment from playing Russian Roulette with our health. We ate and then jumped into the next step of things, which was to see to the dust and grime on the outside of the house. The wife hit the front of things while I started working in the back yard, sweeping down the side of the house with a broom and dusting down the doors and windows with a small wisk broom.

The MIL finally arrived, with both of her dogs in tow, because we've been trying to keep one dog from peeing or shitting in the house all week, so why not throw a few more dogs into the mix to help, right? Jesus, please give me strength.

The wife had finished in the front and had come outside to start cleaning the windows thoroughly, following behind me as I pregressed down the house. The MIL spots a wasp nest in the corner which I'd been skirting, as they seemed pretty active and while I don't think I'm specifically allergic to them, I've never had a good experience when stung either. The MIL proceeds to tell me that she's knocked down any number of wasp nests at their ranch in Arkansas, and tells me this is how it's done.

She ignores all my protestations about this course of action, yanks the broom away from me and stomps over to the nest and boldly swats it down.

The wasps swarm her.

Because that's what wasps do. How she's never had this happen to her before I have no idea, but she seems genuinely surprised.

She tries desperately to juke away from them, but hey, they're pissed, and next thing I know she's yelling that they're biting her on the ass.

I grabbed the broom from her and swatted a few of them down, and helped her fan her shirt around to get the offending insects away from her and out of her clothing in case they'd squirmed their way in there.

The wasps are now lazily patrolling the entire patio/porch area, so we're eventually driven inside because they have recovered from the initial shock and are trying to find out where they're going to be sleeping tonight.

Thankfully the MIL isn't proving to be allergic or something, as I'm thinking oh fuck, next she'll be saying that she's having trouble swallowing or something...

We give her the tour of the house and get approval on the work thus far, which somehow passes muster for her, perfectionist that she is. I must say that I was surprised by this, and satisfied that she's not going to fall out or something now that she's full of wasp venom from the three stings she sustained during her skirmish, we send her on her way as a pickup is pulling up in front of the house.

The pickup belongs to a relative of the MIL's maid, who was dispatched to take possession of the chickens, which is of course fabulous news. They drive around to the alley where I let them in the back gate. The birds all go positively apeshit when they realize they're about to be chicken-napped, and I get another pleasant surprise. The guy and his son take the initiative and corner the birds themselves, toss them into the small cage that they originally lived in when we first got them, which is a tight fit, but would suffice until they got to their farm outside of town. This works out great, because the last thing I was feeling like doing this afternoon was stumbling after a panicked chicken in a a very confined space.

We are now a hundred percent chicken free for the first time in a year or more, which is a great feeling. Tomorrow I will break apart the little run we'd built for them and trash it, as well as cleaning up the area around it so the little outbuilding looks normal again. I'm sure that this will go a long way towards making the house more appealing to the potential buyer, it's only a pity we never had a chance to do this before the house was first being shown.

Our friend Brian spent some time with us tonight, since he's going to be out of town for a week, and we grabbed some supper and played around with the Wii. I'm so out of practice with the damned Wii Tennis that each and every game just depresses me anymore, but it was a nice way to pass the evening.

More home repairs tomorrow here at the HGTV Blog, er, I mean Dear Bastards.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Personal, Home Repair, House Painting, Chickens, Wii

It's Only Hair, Not Life Or Death

I called Robbb quite randomly today, on the off-chance that he might be available for lunch. I did so pretty half-heartedly, since I'd called several times in the past few weeks and each time he'd been too busy to take a break, had just gotten back, or whatever. Imagine my surprise when he says that yeah he can grab a bite, and that he was ready to walk out the door.

I stall slightly and asked him to give me ten minutes to get over to his place of employment.

I then frantically shuck pajamas, throw on clothes, cologne and deodorant, swish some mouthwash and scamper out the door to meet him.

We ran by the bank for his job, then hit a Subway for a couple of sandwiches and visited for awhile before he had to get back to the grind.

I managed to miss a call from the wife during lunch, so when I called her back I found out that she was going to be accompanying the Mother In Law to my hairdresser, who she was going to let cut her hair for the first time today. I was excited about this, since her current hairdresser is erratic at best and a big pain in the ass to deal with. Plus I think very little of her as she never tries to work with the MIL on maybe updating the hairstyle, she is content to keep giving the same haircut and ratting it up with as much hairspray as possible, which drives me insane. I had hopes that perhaps a new stylist would pull her slightly towards a more contemporary cut.

Once I picked up some coffee and headed back to the house, the wife and I got a call that the Realtor wanted to show the house in about 45 minutes. This kinda clinched the fact that I needed to be out of the house, so we picked up the house and grabbed the Yorkie to take her over to the MIL's house.

The MIL's haircut went well, though she even brought her own bottle of crap with her to insist that it be sprayed down thoroughly, in spite of my begging her not to shellac it to death as she always does. The wife and I thought it looked good, though as the evening wore on after we left the opinion that the MIL expressed changed slowly but surely to one of disappointment. She seemed to think it looked fine when we left, then during dinner it seemed to be something she could stand once she herself had a chance to style it like she normally would, then we're back at her house and she's "been shorn like a sheep" when describing it to K's older sister on the phone, which isn't the most glowing endorsement she could be giving.

This is the same situation we run into with her clothes, because the MIL has it in her head that she can't find clothes that fit her properly, and as such buys any number of expensive clothing to take home and tear the hems out of and re-sew herself. This is pretty amusing, since she's tall and thin, which I know designers never design for people who are tall and thin, right?

She also has it in her head that no one can do her hair to her satisfaction, and as such, no one will ever be able to rat it up like she wants it, which I find weird, since the crispy, hair-sprayed 'old lady' hair isn't really her, but what she's accustomed to doing.

I think I'd fall over dead if I saw her with just a hint of pomade and nothing else in her hair.

We're planning on finishing up the painting shite in the morning, the MIL has somehow decided that she needs to be here for the occasion, which I see translating to her watching and critiquing what we're doing until I'm forced to either ask her to leave.

Or just go to the garage, start my car, then sit in it and wait for it to rob me of my life precious.

I'm hoping for the best, but cringingly prepared for the worst at this point. My wife has already said to her mother that she "did the painting in the hall", which sounds as if we painted a hallway, which is a baldfaced lie. The bitter irony of the situation is that the light on the end of the hallway burned out during our trip to Vegas, and since we rarely use the hallway light, we didn't notice it until the other night when we were looking at the places that need to be touched up.

My crazy wife went ahead and painted the spots in the half-light, since neither of us felt like driving to the store for a single light-bulb that night. We still don't know what the hall looks like, as we still haven't picked up a bulb amidst other errands. I'm actually kinda scared to change the fucking bulb, as I don't want to know how bad the thing could potentially look, because in the half-light it looks okay, but could easily turn to misery and vomit under the harsh light of the 75 watt bulb.

There was of course no word from the Realtor about how the showing this afternoon went, which means presumably that they were as under-whelmed as the other people who saw it. I know that the house will sell due to the neighborhood it's in, it's just a matter of time; the trick will be to keep the wife's head out of the oven until that happens. She's still wigging out about the house not moving in the week it's been on the 'secret' market. I keep asking her if we're hurting for money and she's not telling me for some reason because it's been a vicious circle of frustration so far. I know it's annoying that no one has walked in and started pulling out a checkbook by the time they got to the kitchen, but my point is that we're not in a financial bind to purchase the other house, so why let this drive you insane in the interim? Yes, it'd be preferable to move this house immediately, but if it doesn't happen, we're not going to lose the cars or something, so why let it ruin your day to day life?

The whole car/garage/purr me to sleep idea is looking better and better, though it'd probably just fuck up the curb appeal even more, "...that's the suicide house".

Man, it's been a series of personal bullshit related posts this week, what a weird change of pace for things, since I usually blather about a lot more pop culture stuff than this. The house thing has completely de-railed me, though thankfully not in the way it has with the wife.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Personal, Haircut, Hairdresser, Errands, Home Repair, House Painting

Mixology (Or: Half-Assing Our Way Towards The Goal Line)

The main thing I'm learning about the relationship with the wife is that once I allot a specific day or time to take on a project of whatever significance, the wife will invariably decide that now is as good a time as any to jump into that, motherfuck a schedule.

Having said that I had no problem with tackling all the random painting tasks on this coming Saturday, I was of course surprised that we were buying paint this afternoon. The girl mixing things came back with a decidely pink-tinged sample spot that she'd placed on the plate for comparison, which I flat out refused, and when she tried the color-matching thing again, she got a completely different formula than she had the first time. Trying again, the color was significantly whiter, closer to what was on the switchplate, but still looking a tad different; we settled on it in the hope that it dries a little darker if given more time.

I was even more surprised when I found that we were buying a little quart of paint for what I was thinking was an entire hallway of painting. The wife has apparently decided that we're going to color-match the switchplate from the hall and just do touch-up painting rather than re-paint the whole hallway as I was thinking we'd be doing. I personally don't think that this is the best idea, because obviously if the color's off even a smidge we've now painted a series of weird splotches all along the hallway in our attempt to make the place more saleable.

I decided to keep my mouth shut about this and just resign myself to painting the entire thing at the eleventh hour if so required rather than starting an arguement about things. This corner cutting also conjured my idea last night about hanging pictures instead of dicking around with fresh paint, but whatever.

Once back home with the supplies, I ran the trash out and then realized that my wife was in the hallway sandpapering the spackled areas that were to be painted and obviously getting ready to paint them. She does this while I folded some towels and then I see her going by with the little mini-tub of spackle with obvious intentions of starting another project next, so I ask what happened to the Saturday idea and she says that she's just puttering around, don't worry about it.

I end up spackling a little dent above the doorway in the bedroom that's been painted over but never really spackled properly, so I do this for her, and then figure fuckit, everyday is Saturday here at Casa de Mob and move on to the next project.

When we had the heating and AC units replaced a few months back, they repositioned the thermostat for no discernible reason, about 6 inches higher than it had been previously. They covered the existing hole with a blank switchplate that didn't exactly hide what had been done, as the old thermostat was near antique and circular on the wall, while the switchplate is obviously rectangular, leaving a weird exposed patch of unpainted wall area. I place the little metal screen with its mesh tape crap over the hole and once I'm convinced it's not going to fall off, I start applying the spackle, which looked pretty decent if I do say so myself. I was of course reminded of helping my father when he used to tape and texture drywall on his gig as a maintenance man, it makes me a little proud that any of that stuck with me, since I know fuck-all about cars, which was his forte.

I left the spackle to dry overnight preferably, as I want it to be completely set up before I even think about giving it a second layer and then a touch with the old sandpaper; just to be dead certian it's going to stay in place.

Thankfully the one problem area in the front living room was successfully pushed off until Saturday, because the wife thinks it may be a more involved project than what we did today.

The wife and I watched the latest from the guys who gave us Saw, the creepy puppet horror flick Dead Silence. It was okay, nothing to write home about, there were a few creepy scenes, and I know what the internet buzz about the WTF? ending was all about. A rental at best, they unfortunately used the same reveal at the end with all the spinning cameras as the protagonist realizes what's really going on that was the climax of the original Saw film. We also watched the two episodes of Ace Of Cakes that aired tonight, which were amusing as always, I never fail to find myself sympathizing with them as they try to build an edible whatever at the last minute.

I also spent a good deal of time flipping through the stuff available for the streaming option from those rental throttling pricks at Netfux. I'm rather excited to have the option of watching this stuff via the laptop while travelling rather than being stuck with whatever pops up in the hotel room.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Household Repair, House Painting, Movies, Dead Silence, Saw, Television, Ace Of Cakes, Netflix, Streaming Video

A Typically Haunted Wednesday

I was amused to see an email this moring from those rental throttling pricks at Netfux announcing that they are lowering our monthly rental rate. Reading further and wondering how this plays into their ongoing plans to screw us as consumers, I instead find that they now offer free streaming movies and television via their website. The amount of free content you can check out is in direct proportion to your rental plan, sonce we are on the three at a time for $17 plan, we can watch up to 17 hours of programming each month for free on their site. I don't necessarily know that I want to stream stuff on the computer screen, but if it's something like a television program, it could be cool. I watched a Joe Rogan stand-up special, which was pretty cool, and allowed me something different to listen to while I checked the web this morning, so it could be a useful service for some things.

The Realtor dropped by mid-morning to leave copies of the seller's disclosures and other odd paperwork, and since the wife's been in panic mode since we returned from Vegas, I had to ask what was up with the showings that the house has had. She mentioned that of the two showings she gave (the third was by someone else in her office), that one of the people was looking for a picture perfect home that's ready for immediate move in (which this house is not) and the other wasn't willing to do as much work as the place would require. This is understandable, as the bathrooms and kitchen are all pretty dated, functional, but dated and would require substantial renovation to make them contemporary. The Realtor suggested that we paint the hallway and take a look at a wall area near a skylight in the living room that shows some water damage from before the roof was replaced a few years back, just to alleviate any questions about the water damage and to freshen up the hall. I don't believe the wife ever painted it when she bought the place and for whatever reason it's never had any art or pictures hung on it, so it shows the spackle of the repairs that I'm sure were backburnered at some point. While I'm dangerously tempted to just grab a hammer and nails and throw some framed art over the offending areas, I've consented to some weekend painting with the wife to get this turkey ready to show to someone on Tuesday.

If they don't bite, we'll go ahead and list the house publicly, which I think the Realtor has been trying to avoid the hassle of. Who knows, with the wife as freaky about the sale as she's been, we may just postpone that step until the house is empty once we've moved and let the chips fall where they may.

We had our now customary Ghost Hunters mini-marathon this evening, which was fun, although the show always manages to make me a little edgey because I have a very vivid imagination. Seriously, the Blair Witch stuff really freaked me out in the whole 'less is more' kinda way that can only happen when the viewer's imagination is given free reign to picture the worst thing in that viewer's mind rather than just showing them nothing but blood and viscera hitting the screen for 90 minutes.

The Ghost Hunters were followed by a documentary shot by three young guys who went looking for the supernatural in Nevada called Ghost Adventures. It was pretty silly, especially since they managed to find photographic evidence of the supernatural at every single location that they visited. I found this pretty far-fetched, even being as opened minded as I am and probably willing to let a given situation creep me out, I still found it pretty hard to buy that they just roll into any given area that's supposedly haunted and manage to film full-body apparitions and shit, I mean, c'mon, this isn't The Haunted Mansion dammit, it's not going to be that easy. They also went apeshit over every little glowing 'orb' that happened to flit by on camera in these ancient antique buildings, without a mention of the fact that those type of things could very well be dust.

Dust? In this abandoned hotel? Naw, has to be a ghost.

They did visit someplace called the Goldfield Hotel which has interesting stories that would certianly give me the willies and is worth a Google to see what's up with it.

I'm out, there's a lot of work to be done tomorrow.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Netflix, Streaming Video Content, Joe Rogan, Realtor, Household Repairs, Television, Ghost Hunters, Haunted, Ghost Adventures, Goldfield Hotel

Wandering, Shopping And Double-Dipping

There's nothing of any real importance to talk about today, which is annoying considering that I was out of the house most of the day running around, shopping and that sort of thing.

I'd spoken to Macguffin late last night, and since I knew the bossman was planning an out of town trip later in the week, I made the command decision to put off the job for a couple days and re-group, try to get the sleep patterns back to normal and then knock out a lot of stuff between now and when he gets back. This decided, I'd made plans to hang out and just dick around this afternoon rather than trying to jump back into things straightaway.

The alarm didn't go off which meant Macguffin ended up waking me up when he called to let me know I could drop by whenever. I got up and started getting ready, noticing that the wife was MIA, presumably taking the dog to the groomers.

This turned out to only be half true, she'd already taken the dog to the groomers earlier in the morning, but soon returned from a second errand. Her oldest sister had it in her head that she and K should go in on a lot of land for their Mother to build a house on, adjacent to the plot of lannd the oldest had just bought for herself. This is all well and good, except that we got the call about it yesterday, and K said that she would possibly be interested in doing that, and then her sister calls her this morning to go to the real estate offices and sign off and write them a check.

Ignoring the fact that we've not even been been back from Vegas for a full 24 hours and that the initial answer was a resounding maybe. Grrr.

K went along with it instead of making waves, but was of course feeling ram-rodded into doing something she only had a minor interest in doing to begin with, especially right now that we're in mid-house purchase and trying to sell this one. The idea of this is that once the Mother In Law's divorce-in-progress is settled she'll have more than enough money to reimburse the two daughters for the lot, but the purchase was timely because of how fast the lots were going due to the current real estate climate.

Not that said climate is working in the favor of our selling this fucking house yet, but we're living in hope.

I was able to talk the wife down a bit about the sister's expectations of her to just jump in line when she has a scheme in mind, and then headed out to pick up the Macguffin.

We hit the CD Warehouse over there where I found absolutely nothing, then grabbed some lunch. We ran into Best Buy because I wanted to pick up a couple of new releases, specifically the much acclaimed Korean film The Host, which I've wanted to see for about four months or more, the long-awaited 2-disc release of Fred Dekker's classic Monster Squad, and the Zach Galifianakis: Live At The Purple Onion DVD, just because it looked like it was going out of print based on the Amazon listing for it.

Best Buy had exactly one copy of the Monster Squad disc that an acquaintance of mine we ran into ended up buying, which was odd for them, as they usually stock new releases deeper than that, so Mac and I ran by Circuit City who at least had a handful of the damned things. He and I hit a couple of bookstores and then called it a day, so I ran him home and headed back to town to see what the wife was up to, as she'd not been available via phone all day.

She seemed in a better humor than when I'd left her this morning, so we headed out for a bite to eat. One Mexican dinner later we were back at the house, she was fielding several phone calls and I checked into the old interweb to see what was happening there.

We watched Monster Squad, which was every bit as charming and fun as I'd remembered it being, and then we called it a night.

The interweb this evening brought me some interesting news about the inevitable double-dip all the DVD companies will take, via the Cinemaslave Blog: There will be a big fat boxset of Twin Peaks material allegedly releasing later this year called Twin Peaks: The Definitive Gold Box Edition. It is said to include the full television run, including the pilot which has been missing from everything due to legal rights tangles, and the set is due in October, which would be really cool if it happens, now the question is do I gamble on this being true and e-Bay the out-of-print first season while someone might pay a crazy price for it? I just have the gut feeling that if I did so the plans for this upcoming set would fall apart somehow and bite me on the ass, leaving me Peakless.

The other interesting bit was that at long last the Kill Bill films look to be scheduled to be released in November as a four disc set called Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, which would be cool to finally own before it's considered a 10th anniversary edition, and since the two DVD's I already own were cheap enough, this doesn't actually feel like as much of a screwing as it really should.

I do have to wonder if there's any hobby that doesn't stick it to the consumer by selling them the same shit slightly repackaged time and again?

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Shopping, Real Estate, Movies, DVD's, The Host, Fred Dekker, Monster Squad, Zach Galifianakis, Live At The Purple Onion, Twin Peaks, Definitive Gold Box Edition, Kill Bill The Whole Bloody Affair

Leaving Las Vegas

We were scheduled to depart Sin City this morning at 11:20, and the members of our group in the know wanted to be at the airport around 2 hours early, as the security rigamarole wait time tends to vary. We got up at 8:00, got packed, checked out and headed to the taxi stand which was refreshingly empty. The ride to the airport was a quick one, the skycaps checked our bags and printed boarding passes, we hit the tram to the proper gates, and then about ten minutes later we were through security and getting dressed and re-packing our carry-on once security was through fingering through it.

We now had 2 hours to kill before the plane was scheduled to leave.

Had we slept in, we'd have waited in line for the security bullshit for an hour and a half and probably missed the flight, because nothing's ever easy.

We had some Mexican food at one of the little places on the food court strip, and then settled in with the rest of the cattle in the holding area to wait the remaining hour and a half for the plane to arrive.

At some point I looked up from my book and saw that some of these people started getting in line, as in standing rather than sitting and just chilling out a full 45 minutes before the plane even landed.

Seriously, what dream seat are you planning on staking for yourself buddy? If you get in there early enough, you think you'll get to fly the fucking plane or something? Yeesh.

We boarded fairly quickly and then sat in a queue of planes waiting to leave, which meant that we sat on the runway for a full 30 minutes before we left the ground. We got into town a little under thirty minutes late and headed to the Mother In Law's to pick up the Yorkie and the Betta. Morris was in town on his way back to Dallas with a friend, so he made time to drop by and say hi as he passed through, and then we finally made it home.

There were unfortunately no offers on the house out of the three times it showed while we were gone, and the wife is now thoroughly stressed about that, but this too shall pass. I'm thinking give it a few weeks before we start really freaking out.

Tired, must sleep now.

I'll leave ya with an appropriate video clip with amusing subtitles, I'm not sure where this was pulled from, but I don't think it was an American release.



Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Travel, Las Vegas, Flying, Returning Home

Vegas, Baby, Vegas! Day Three

I'm running really late getting this done, which is annoying to me, but here's our day in nothing near a nutshell:

We woke up around 10:30 this morning, and I went downstairs and grabbed coffee and a few pastries. The hairdressers called around 11:30 and asked if we wanted to do brunch downstairs, and the Beaverhouszen contingent eventually joined us.

We hit the casino for about an hour, I added to my champagne brunch buzz with a few more cocktails and then we headed out to The Venetian to check out Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, which was pretty cool. We got some fun pictures and also managed to lose the wife's camera case along the way. We went back over the entire attraction and never turned it up. I have no idea where we left it, and it was just the simple one that came with the camera, but it's still annoying to lose it.

My favorite part of the attraction was the Chamber of Horrors, which featured exactly three horror icons (Freddy, Jason and Leatherface), not in wax but played by actors. As the cards fell, I was leading the group through the maze-like thing, which seemed pretty small, and since the actors don't usually react to the first person walking through things, I was mostly getting startled by the screams of the people behind me rather than the actual movement of the actors.

We wandered the shops there for a bit, and then split up to head out for different destinations, the hairdressers, K and I caught a cab to New York, New York because they wanted to got to the M & M Store aross the street at the MGM Grand, and the wife and I were going to Zumanity in about an hour.

We killed the hour, I had a few cocktails and we grabbed a bite at a little burger place near the theatre, then we went in to get seated.

Zumanity was super cool, a more sexualized version of the Cirque Du Soleil shows, with less of an emphasis on the theatrics and more towards the burlesque of things. Great stuff, I was really impressed.

Once we got out, we were met by Anastasia Beaverhouszen, Kno1 and their friend G, since Kno1 was going to hang with us while Anastasia and G went to see the late show of Zumanity.

Our plan was to cab it to The Rio and check out the one bar I'd picked from a list Bubs had sent me, have some cocktails and maybe a little food if the notion struck us. The Voodoo Cafe proved to be something of a pain in my ass, as I approached a short man in a cheap suit and asked if he could seat 3. He asked if we were going to be having a meal, I said I wasn't sure, we were specifically interested in drinks and possibly appetizers or something of that sort.

He counters that they don't specifically serve appetizers, and that seating is limited as was seating at the bar, but if we were to order food a certian percentage would be dropped if we were planning on having dinner with them....I don't believe I'm even paraphrasing here, this was a rather stream-of-consciousness ramble he had going and I was getting extremely lost in the translation.

I said that I was over it and to nevermind, as the whole conversation was getting very annoying because he didn't have three menus in his hand by this point and just walked away. The wife wanted to know what was pissing me off so she made a point of inquiring further and finally came back with the upshot of all his vague bullshit, which was that there was a $20 cover charge to get in which seemed a bit ridiculous to me since all I really wanted was a cocktail and a place to chill, so we walked around that level of the hotel a bit more and finally said fuckit and left.

Sorry Bubs, it just wasn't in the cards, though why the guy was so weirdly vague about something as simple as "There's a cover charge" is beyond me. Kno1 theorized that our mode of dress (Shorts, tees and sandals) may have been a factor, but I saw at least three people rolling out of there as I talked to the guy who were dressed the same as I was, so who knows what the deal was.

Cabbed it across the street and down a bit to The Palms, which was surprisingly quiet, looked into the dresscode of the Playboy Club, which was (as we figured) dressier than we were, but that guy was really nice about it instead of being vague and frustrating. We chilled in a bar there and had a couple drinks, visiting and watching the random passersby for an hour or so, then headed back to the hotel.

The hairdressers were chilling in their room, eating pizza and watching porno, so we hung with them for awhile, with them flipping back and forth from straight to gay scenes, neither of which were very erotic. The guy on guy thing is pretty gross for me as a straight man, and for whatever reason the straight porn they'd ended up with was one of those MILF things with some broad sporting a spooky boob-job and was actually pretty gross itself.

We called it a night pretty quickly, as we have to be up at the crack of dawn to check out and rush to the airport to submit to the stripsearch and whatnot before the flight home.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Travel, Las Vegas, Venetian Hotel, Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, New York New York, Cirque Du Soleil, Zumanity, Rio Hotel, Voodoo Cafe, Annoyance, Palms Hotel, Playboy Club, Porno

Vegas, Baby, Vegas! Day Two

We slept in until 9:30 this morning, which gave me about 4 hours of sleep, and the wife 5 since she had the good. Anastasia Beaverhouszen, her hubby Kno1 and our friend G are sharing a room, and since they'd crashed early like sensible humans last night, they texted us to say that they were about to eat breakfast and then head to the pool area.

We checked in with the hairdressers and our other friend M, who were getting ready to head to the pool as well, so K and I elected to grab breakfast downstairs instead of heading out to the pool, as neither of us was particularly interested in swimming or soaking in the pool.

After a pretty decent breakfast we headed out into the heat to the pool and hung with our friends for awhile, had a couple drinks and whatnot, just so we could make an appearance and then went to explore the hotel shops to see if there was any trinkety shit we couldn't live without. We found nothing except for the bar and had a few more cocktails and a lot of great conversation, I think we're in a really great place after the tensions of earlier in the week.

We went upstairs and showered again, as we'd applied a little bit of sunscreen during the time by the pool. We realized that as the only couple on this trip not sharing a room with someone else it was our duty to take a moment to get busy just because we could, and then the wife decided to catch up on her sleep and I went on a shopping excursion with the rest of the group.

We walked across the street to Caesar's and wandered around the Forum shops for about an hour and a half, pausing to watch the animatronic statues do their thing, and then we headed back to the hotel. We stopped in a bar for a drink to nurse the old buzz, and then headed up to the rooms.

The wife was up from her nap, and we lounged about for an hour or so until it was time to get ready for the dinner and the show this evening at the Bellagio. We headed over and picked up up the tickets for Cirque Du Soleil's O and then had dinner in the Cafe Bellagio, which took us through almost the entire hotel floor. This gave a great tour of the various displays of art glass and some amazing floral arrangements that made me almost wistful for the time when I had an opportunity to try utilize such found ideas in my daily work.

Almost.

The meal was good and we successfully killed time until it was time to get seated for the show.

I've seen any number of Cirque Du Soleil shows on television or video and have always been a big fan. The wife has seen several of them live, and picked one for us to see that no one in the group had seen yet. O (or the 'one with water' as I hear it described more often than not) was amazing, the sets, the acrobatics, the fucking clown they set on fire, everything was simply stunning. I was of course reminded of the Patton Oswalt routine about these shows: "Everything about Cirque Du Soleil is wet and French and gay and on fire all at the same time."

Yes, yes it was.

I loved every minute of it but it was a pretty long day, so when we left the theatre we told the hairdressers and M that we were heading back to the hotel to crash.

The wife hit the bed to chill with the television to unwind and I got online and made the blogging magic happen yet again.

Fuck, I'm tired.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Travel, Las Vegas, Caesar's Palace, Forum Shops, Shopping, Cirque Du Soleil, O, Bellagio, Patton Oswalt

Vegas, Baby, Vegas! Day One

Opening the window into Blogville, population you a bit early as always with a travelling day, because God knows when I'll actually be writing.



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It's now 2:30 AM Vegas time (Or 4:30 AM our time) and we've just returned from some kinda co-ed strip joint called Olympic Garden which was an interesting experience to say the least.

But that's how the night ends, let me start at the beginning.

We got up early and got the house opened up for the Realtor to show at the newly rescheduled time of four in the afternoon.

The wife dropped the dog off at her mom's house and we had an early lunch with our friends from out of town, and then I finished my various household chores, including laundry so I'd have something to wear this weekend. I also made a run and dropped off the latest stuff with the bossman, got paid and deposited the check, which I thankfully happened to double-check once I was at the house and noticed that the teller had screwed me out of a hundred dollars when she did the deposit. I called them and they were able to get it right easily, but I was really glad I happened to double-check the slip.

We met everyone at the airport and flew out to the blazing deserts of Las Vegas, the flight taking just over two hours and we lost two in the shuffle, so we arrived at 5:30 their time, though it was 7:30 ours. We got an Excursion limo for 10 bucks a head to run is from the airport to the Flamingo Hotel, which seemed pretty reasonable and easier than trying to find a series of cabs. Everyone was hungry once we got settled into the rooms and not feeling very adventurous, so we hit up one of the buffets in the hotel rather than jacking around with trying to find a vehicle sizeable enough to transport all 8 of us around. The food was decent if obviously overpriced and we decided to explore the hotel and hit the casino.

I don't gamble, so I watched our various parties on their slot machines for the better part of two hours, and as they gambled the two hairdressers talked more and more about having a commitment ceremony while we're here, and since I've never been to a lesbian wedding before, I was pushing that we go for it this evening. Three of our group had retired to their rooms by this time, as it was late for us on Texas time. Five of us were still up, and since this idea had come up several times, we decided to get out of the hotel and see what we could see. We walked down The Strip for a bit to Harrah's, where we finally decided tonight was as good a time as any to take the marriage plunge, and walked back down the block to a cab stand type area and asked the cabbie to take us to an all night wedding chapel, as we were completely unprepared save for the idea itself.

The driver was Ethiopian, with an interesting accent and had to call his dispatch twice trying to find a suitable chapel, after we explained the situation to him, and after some deliberation, he had to tell us that neither he nor his friend back at home base knew of any such chapel that was open after midnight.

The hairdressers had gotten it in their heads that we needed to take me to a strip club, and this came up again as a plan 'B', and the cabbie jumped at the notion, as he had a place in mind that had two levels, women on the ground level for the men and men stripping on the second floor for the ladies, and since we figured that this could function as a bachelorette party and allow the lesbians to take me to a strip club, thus killing two birds with one stone, we went for it.

The funny thing is that the hairdressers both went to my bachelor party, so it's not as if they haven't seen me around naked women who don't give a shit about me before, but this was the random idea they had so who am I to argue? I like strange boobs as much as the next guy.

This was how we found ourselves at Olympic Garden, or OG as they abbreviate it on their linens and website address, and we paid an exorbitant cover charge, found a table with the help of one of the dancers and ordered a round of drinks. Strippers came and went, some prettier than others, none particularly spectacular looking, though I was reminded of my personal feeling that if we're stripping, we might as well be going fully nude (this place doesn't), because who the fuck are we kidding? We're all dirty sleazy people here, so let's just get the goods out and here's your dollar, please move on, let's not bother with the stupid peek-a-boo crap. None of us were tipping, because fuck that after their cover charge, (Sorry, strippers) and the only one of our group who got any attention was the gay male, who had to re-buff the lapdancing offers of no less than four women. I had one hit me up and waved her off because I'm not about to throw the last $20 I have on me towards some half-hearted bump and grind.

After an hour or so of watching the women do their thing, the girls asked our resident gay male if he wanted to check out the action on the male side upstairs, so we headed up there and holy shit, I have to say that the bar has been raised for the gayest thing I've ever seen. The man-whores are WAY more agressive than their female counterparts downstairs, swarming our table with literally a string of four different guys in a minute and a half all vying to give a lapdance to any of the females. The guy who might've actually wanted a dance? No dice, just the women, and I had to brush off this Eurotrash guy with a heavy accent who looked like an even gayer version of that Criss Angel guy and approached us wearing nothing but a thong and shook my hand vigorously and asked if K was my lady because (and I quote) "You should give me $20 and we can get this party started and I'll give her a lapdance..."

We'll pass, thanks Scooter.

We had a drink and watched as drunk straight chicks who all looked average to cute to even very attractive paid good money to have well-muscled very likely gay men rub thier cocks against them and I had a few different thoughts on the matter. On one hand, I am amused that women fall for the same silly lines as men do when it comes to the whole stripper thing, but I'm also a little depressed because I'd hope that the fairer sex wasn't every bit as crass as men are.

Call me on the double standard if you want, but I'd hope that one of the sexes would have more sense about these type of things and my money would've been on women.

I have to say that I'm amused that the wife genuinely seemed a little grossed out with the men, but could appreciate the women for costuming or technique at the very least, I don't know what that means inthe grand sceme of things, but at least I don't feel like I'll ever find her banging a male stripper, so that's comforting on some level.

I'm exhausted, I'm out.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Travel, Las Vegas, Flamingo Hotel, Olympic Garden, Strippers

Pack It Up, Pack It In...

Jebus H. Christ in a chariot-driven sidecar, if we somehow make it through this move without getting a divorce, I'll be impressed.

The wife was teetering near meltdown mode this morning, as we had to get every bit of the neverending piles of crap from the front room out of the house by 2:00 in the afternoon when we met with the Realtor. I helped her load up a suburban full of it, and she dropped that back at her mother's, where the mom's maid and handyman would unload it and then hopefully bring back the suburban so we could get rid of the rest of things.

I was trying in between all this shit to get some work finished so I could pick up some cash before we leave town and maybe pay a few bills.

I got a call from a friend who's in from out of town and made plans to eat with he and his wife, K passed as she had more stuff she wanted to deal with here, and our maids were now underfoot as well. While I was waiting for our friends to arrive, she made a crack about being sorry that she'd helped me move my stuff in here, as it was 'my problem' and not hers, mocking the assessment I've made numerous times about the mess from the front bedroom.

I didn't say anything in response and went to lunch, though when I got back she brought it up again, so we got into the neighborhood of an argument pretty quickly, with me finally conceding that I was indeed being a dick about helping her with what was very much her (finally admitted) problem of all the shit she ignored for the better part of at least a year and a half.

Her point was that it was pissing her off that she was forced to deal with all this stuff alone in an effort to sell the house so we can move to a better home and begin a more organized life together.

My point was that I would never let anything get so slovenly and out of hand in the first place, the only reason I was able to stand it was that it was in the front bedroom, out of sight out of mind. Petty ass that I am, I of course couldn't resist a shot about the helping me move analogy being bullshit, because I didn't hand her a box when she walked into my old apartment and say "good luck, just start grabbing shit."

We're totally cool now, apologies all around for behavior and attitudes, but I hope to God the rest of this transition goes smoother, because I hate it when we fight. We end up spending about 90% of the time together since she does nothing but non-profit work and I work out of the house now, and if it's a tense miserable time, it really wears me the fuck out, beside the fact that I hate being at odds with her.

Once all the stuff was finally out of the house and we'd made peace over a long talk at the kitchen table, the Realtor arrived and we walked her through the place, as she'd never actually been here before. We sat down with the Realtor after giving her the tour, settled on a selling price which was a bit lower than what K was wanting to open with, but was reasonably lowered because the kitchens and bathrooms in this house are all really outdated, and the tubs in particular look as if thy were salvaged from the sets of one of the Saw films. I mean, they're okay for a shower, but I wouldn't take a bath in one of those things on a bet, they're just too sketchy. Her advice was to open a little lower rather than having this turkey just sit on the market for months on end, traipsing the world through here in an attempt to find just the right buyer who's willing to pay a higher price. She has at least three people who want to see this place, and will start showing it tomorrow at noon, with other visits scheduled over the weekend while we're out of town.

It would be absolutely amazing to get an offer on this place while we're out of town, so we're crossing our fingers, as there's not a lot of houses available in this area of town, so even if they want to fix it up, we may have an edge because of the location in the older, more established neighborhood.

I am starting to get excited about the move now, the house looks as good as it ever will and things are feeling more real as we plan to sell. We're looking at different pieces of furniture for the new place now and have found a great way to deal with all the music and video. I'm eyeing some new shelving for the intended media closet in the back of the house, which would house all the music I own and then some, as well as all the DVD's and any I could buy in the next few years. The room we're dubbing the library is a bedroom at the back of the house, complete with a walk-in closet and full bath. We'd originally discussed built-in bookshelving, but the wife noted that not everyone will have the same boner we do for a library, so we'll instead be repainting the room and simply lining the walls with varying heights of matching bookshelves, along with a daybed for lounging and chair or something of that sort for chilling out and reading or laptopping it. The closet has come to me in a vision, as I was planning on trying to build some sort of shelves, but once I saw these I can't get the idea of a 'U' shaped set up within the closet, three shelving units lining the walls, but not so tall as to completely eat up all the wallspace, so knick knack items and posters or whatever can be displayed above or on the shelves themselves.

Of course none of this will probably happen for at least three or four months after we move, as there's the strange desk unit I've mentioned previously built into the bedroom that will have to be removed, and the actual painting and then unpacking it all, but Gawd it'll be just fabulous once it's all said and done.

The fucked up thing about ALL of this?

The wife and I spent a good hour this evening talking with the Mother In Law about the 'dream house' the wife wants to one day build.

And we've not even moved into this one yet.

We're all fucking nuts.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy eyes! Packing, Moving, Argument, Shoot Me, House Painting

Is There Someone Here With Us?

The wife and I watched the customary Wednesday evening three-fer of Ghost Hunters tonight, which always consists of two re-runs (which we've usually never seen having come late to the dance, as it were) and then a new episode. The new on this evening involved them investigating a house near where the Manson Murders occurred, as the original house has been torn down and the ghosts have evidently taken up residence down the block.

The interaction with the ghosts was pretty interesting, as they used a device which the spirit can effect easily and asked yes and no questions, to which they appeared to receive distinct flashes in response. The person responding claimed to be Jay Sebring, one of the victims in the Manson Murders, who answered in the affirmative when asked if Sharon Tate was also within the house. Very freaky to think about, and definitely more than I would want to know about a house I live in.

No one has died in the new house, to the knowledge of the inspectors, and yes I did ask, because I have an active imagination and wanted to know.

I watched the copy of Severance that my man Al was kind enough to hook me up with this afternoon, and that turned out to be a pretty enjoyable flick. Most of the goings on were pretty standard slasher fare, but the whole film has a black humor to it that sets it apart, and I liked it quite a bit. I was also happy to finally place the Danny Dyer guy, who I'd seen before in Borstal Boy and Human Traffic, I was wracking my brain the entire running time of the film trying to figure out where the hell I'd seen him before. I'm looking forward to going back and checking into the special features when I have more time to really sit down and enjoy them. The mid-afternoon viewing served to basically rest my eyes from the graphing and squinting, I didn't have the time to really dig into the disc.

That won't be happening this week, that's for damned sure, as I've been trying desperately to finish the remaining projects and get paid for them before we leave town Friday afternoon. We're also still putting the finishing touches on the mini-makeover the house has been getting, so once the wife finishes boxing up the last of the random piles, we're actually going to transport them to her Mother's house for storage until we're in the new place and can really sort and store everything properly.

I'd worked my way through the rest of the second project this morning, and started prep work for the third, listening to some stuff on the iPod. There was a little fill-in show from Cinemaslave, a new (Cool) Shite Daily Show, new stuff from The Horror Podcast and a new Dead Lantern Splattercast. The Splattercast had good news in that they mentioned that the Wii release of Manhunt 2 might be available later in the year, rather than shelved or cancelled permanently, which is cool, as I'd like to check it out.

And that's basically the day in reverse, from the workday through to the evening televison.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Television, Ghost Hunters, Manson Murders, Sharon Tate, Movies, Severance, Danny Dyer, Podcasts, Cinemaslave, Cool Shite On The Tube, Horror Podcast, Dead Lantern Splattercast

You Had Me At 'Chainsaw'

Rome wasn't built in a day, but this house will be haphazardly thrown back together in the space of a month if we have our way about it.

Our scene opens at the veritable crack of dawn as a lawnman starts a weedeater in the front yard and the Yorkie loses her mind. She proceeds to go apeshit for the next hour or so, and I give up on sleep and hit the interweb to see what might've happened in the 6 hours I was sleeping. The alarm on my phone goes off about an hour later and I turn it off and head to the kitchen table to start graphing the next project.

The wife gets up around this time and sets out with her list of crap that she wants to pick up at Home Depot, leaving me to drink a Carnation Instant Breakfast and graph my little heart out. The Carnation gives me almost immediate heartburn, which is always a great way to start the day, followed second only by listening to the barking of a frantic dog.

I work solid for about 3 hours, which while rough on the eyes is amazingly productive and I completely finish the first set of stuff, but decide to hold off on inking it in quite yet in favor of getting the next thing started. I listened to the latest (Cool) Shite On The Tube and a new one from the guys over at Stomp Tokyo while I did my thing and the time passed really quickly. The next thing I know the wife's back from the store and is preparing to leave again, this time taking her niece and nephew to lunch, with plans of bringing them back to play Wii for a bit in the afternoon. Anticipating helping her entertain the troops later, I elected to stay home and work some more before getting distracted for the afternoon.

I gave the newest Indie Spinner Rack a listen while I did my thing, and then the wife returned by herself. When I asked what gives, she told me that the kids had only wanted to go to lunch and had other plans with their little friends, social butterflies that they are. This left us the afternoon alone to start in on the grocery list of repairs and odd jobs the wife had noted down for the house. She did a bit of touch-up painting while I put several little shades on different naked bulbs around the house, then we both put up new towel racks in the main bathroom.

Quoth the wife "I never knew replacing this stuff would be so simple."

I assured her that this very thing was why I've been in such a shitty mood about rebuilding this house after ignoring such simple stuff since she bought it 7 years ago.

I replaced a few odd switchplates here or there and she headed back out for boxes for the magazine stacks in the front bedrooms while I graphed a tad more. I also paused somewhere in the middle of this and fixed a cabinet door that refused to stay shut by replacing the little clasp thing inside the door.

We both came to a stopping point and I actually had a massive headache from staring at the graphs for so long in a stretch (always a mistake, but hard to resist when it's going quickly) so we decided to lay down and try to cat-nap it for about an hour or so shortly after five. I know I must've felt like shit, because I rarely sleep during the day and very little at night.

The evening brought the viewing of a film the wife had noticed on cable and asked if I wanted to TiVo it last week, and that's how I found myself watching a movie I recall watching when it first came to video and not really liking it.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre : The Next Generation is of course the film that Renée Zellweger would probably rather we forget she ever appeared in, but Matthew McConaughey looks like probably he enjoyed himself, just chewing the scenery to bits. The film itself is quite possibly the stupidest thing I've seen in some time, characters disappear with no ryhme or reason, and there's a really vague conspiracy hinted at that makes no sense whatsoever in the context of the other movies that proceeded it. I also have to note that for a film that's has the words chainsaw and massacre in the title, there's less gore here than the average episode of any of the CSI's.

And Leatherface is a transvestite for no apparent reason. Seriously, what the fuck, over?

I'll be writing a full review for this turkey soon, because I can't have sat through this stupid shit for no reason at all, I have to at least get some material for the BSL out of it.

I'm out kids, it was an early morning and tomorrow will be a long day as well, I need to go and rest my trembling eyebulbs.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Workday, Podcasts, Cool Shite On The Tube, Stomp Tokyo, Indie Spinner Rack, Home Repairs, Movies, Texas Chainsaw Massacre The Next Generation, Renée Zellweger, Matthew McConaughey