Can't Talk Now -- Running About Like A Headless Chicken....

Christ I'm tired and this process has barely begun.

Let's see if we can get this in the proper order....

Woke up around 8:30, saw Morris off to his job interview, then called the stupid mover guy back about the whoel concept of him getting back to us with a fucking date he can send his mover minions out to actually move our stuff, because I ain't moving three antique armoires by myself.

He promised to call us back, the wife gave him my cell number because he seemed to stress her out with his less than matter of fact way of talking about things. We also found out that the land line is officially cut off at this house and is presumably turned on over at the new house.

The wife and I packed for a couple hours, starting in on the kitchen, pans and dry-goods so that the pantry area can be a priority when we got a set of keys. Mover-man calls back, we're set to go on this coming Thusday at 9:00 AM, not necessarily ideal, but better late than never. Morris returned, he's apparently overqualified for the job in question but got several leads to a few different companies that may be more his speed.

We had lunch, killed a little time, then headed out to the title office. Signed loads of papers, received garage door openers and a single set of keys for the new house, presumably because we'd just signed a waiver that gave the previous owners access to the house until Tuesday, September 2nd, as they had requested and they still have all the other keys. Curious what they might still have at the place, and excited to see the house empty, we headed over there, because they supposedly only had stuff in the garage and storage room out back.

Driving up to the house, we find a flatbed trailer with one flat tire and two cars clogging up the driveway. Annoyed and a little taken aback, we ended up blowing off the visit altogether and heading back to the old house to wait for Morris' appointment with the Realtor. I called the Realtor and reiterated the impression she'd given us, that these folks would be working out of the alley, and the fact that this was obviously not happening, and since she'd just made a large commision that perhaps she could put a bug in their ear about getting the fuck out of Dodge. I was very glad that I've now mentioned on three seperate occasions my intentions to throw whatever they may leave behind out into the alley after Tuesday, and if there's a trailer involved, I can simply load it up and drag it to their nice new home and dump it on the street. I'd just hate for them to be surprised when it happens.

We went with Morris and the Realtor to tour two different houses, both of which would need extensive work, but Morris seemd confident that he could do it, so the afternoon at least gave him an idea what he was in for at the price range he's looking at.

Having been assured that the house was now previous owner free, we drove back over there and let ourselves in. There is still a pile of oddball boxes and shit near the entryway, as well as the hall to the guest side of the house. The kitchen is lousy with their stuff (and oddly missing a microwave), cluttering all countertops, and there's a few piles of papers in the office area. Not to mention the trailer that doesn't appear very mobile in the front driveway of the house. Oh, and the weird fucksticks took their mailbox, which I can assure you was nothing special, and left hundreds of dollars worth of drape treatments.

None of this is a big deal, except that it looks like about two hours of work that they just don't want to do, that's exactly what's pissing me off about it. I don't feel comfortable piling our boxes of shit up in the same room as their boxes of shit, so if nothing seems to be moving by tomorrow at noon, I may be making my own piles of their stuff in the garage with the other odds and ends of thiers that we found out there, give them a hint.

We took time out to go and pick up the recuperated Yorkie from the vet, she is back to normal and is absolutely ecstatic to see us, the poor thing's had a rough week. I hope she takes the move in stride, as she's finally back to normal physically, I hope the emotional side of this won't freak her out.

The Mother In Law and the Uncle dropped by while we were at the new house, we had dinner with them and then gathered up some more newspapers from the MIL's house for packing purposes. Back at the house we started with the opposite end of things, the Master bedroom and closet, which they seemed completely out of, so we transported all of our clothes over there, as well as the contents of the Master bath. It's a small step, but we've marked our first bit of territory. We start again in the AM around 10, and I suppose just start grabbing boxes and stacking them up in the appropriate rooms, leaving someone over there to keep an eye on things if the other folks decide to show up for their shit, see that they don't start grabbing the wrong boxes.

I'm filled with a combination of excitment and dread, as the library area which will house basically all of my crap isn't a room that is going to be immediately set up, as we may or may not be pulling out carpet and staining the concrete floor, we're definitely pulling out a little built-in desk area (as the room has a dorm vibe) and then re-painting the entire room. Then we have to buy bookshelves to line the walls with, and wait for them to be delivered. God alone knows how long this will take, so while I'm excited to get over there, we won't have any way of making any of this happen for I'd guess at least a month or so, so I'm kinda missing my access to my junk that I never looked at anyway.

Weird how that works.

Then there's the closet off of that room that will need to be fitted out with shelving units to hold the DVD's and CD's, and who knows when that'll happen either....hell, we're not even moving all the furniture on this coming Thursday, still hoping against hope that 'staging' the empty house with a few pieces of furniture will coax someone to dig out their checkbook. I'm dreading living out of boxes for (I'd imagine) at least a couple of months at the least, as well as wondering where the hell the rest of my furniture is.

But it'll all work out for the best in the long run, it's just going to be a weird stretch for the next little bit, particularly since we won't have cable/interweb connections over there until Friday of next week, but the house will be mostly moved on Thursday, so I may have at least one day, possibly more of me driving over here just to use the laptop to post the blog and then go back 'home'.

Strange days.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Packing, Moving, New House, Annoyance, Real Estate, House Hunting, Yorkie

Can't Talk Now -- Going To Airport....

We're off to pick up Morris from his late night arrival at the airport. He has a job interview with a local company tomorrow, then we close onthe house in the early afternoon. Morris has some house-hunting of his own scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, which I believe we'll be tagging along for, because it's not as if we have anything else to do, right?

No, seriously, it'll be fun, and it's not as though we thought we'd actually get everything done over this weekend anyway, so the house looking will be a nice distraction from the packing and other shit that's consumed the week.

We got up around nine in the AM, and the mover fellow came by shortly thereafter, taking stock of what we want them to move, which mostly consists of furniture. He seemed to seriously doubt that they would be able to move us before this time next week, which is about par for the course, but whatever. We can at least start in on the boxes and smaller items this weekend, and let them do the heavy work toward the end of next week.

The Yorkie is still in the vet's care, as they are waiting for her to eat and produce a solid stool after the antibiotics take effect. I assured them this might be a lengthy process, as the dog is pretty finicky and will go as long as 24 hours without eating when at home under normal conditions, let alone in a strange place and feeling weird. I seriously hope she gets to come home tomorrow or this weekend, it's like not having a kid around when she's not here.

We went to Odessa this afternoon after the wife ran several bank and insurance related errands, met Macguffin for lunch and then went and attempted to macth up the color of the bedroom carpet that we're replacing with what they had available. The variety in question is of course out of production, but we got pretty close, so when it's in a different room at the end of a hallway fromthe other bedrooms, I seriously doubt that the new buyer will be able to spot that it's a different color.

After we got back from that, we picked up even more boxes and ran by the Mother In Law's house to pick up soem newspaper she's been saving for us for packing purposes. We headed home and I have to admit that the week finally got the better of me and we both took a nap for about three hours because I was just wiped the fuck out after all the hassles of the past few days.

We watched some television in the evening, then went out to grab Morris.

The wife and Morris have headed off to their respective rooms to sleep while I finish putting the last touches on this and crash myself.

I fear that next week will be even worse as far as stress and frustration will go, as I see us being split between two houses for at least one week, possibly into two, which will get really old, really quick.

On the upside, I found some spiffy looking Halloween props I'd love to pick up while flipping through the Front Gate catalog, including a pair of life-sized mummies. There's also an urn with little bat detailing and lit branches in different Halloweeny colors, I'm hoping to be settled enough to decorate for Halloween and freak the new neighbors a little bit, just to set the tone for our new relationship with them. I still have the blood-stained bolt of fabric from last year, and I'd like to keep adding to things in that kinda vein. The new house has three French door styled windows along the front, I'm thinking I may cut the fabric into sections and hang them over the windows, backlit with a strobelight or something of that sort, make it look like out-takes from Dexter from the street...

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it Baggy Eyes! Airport, Moving, Packing, Yorkie, Carpet, Decorating, Halloween

You Can't Stop Fucking Me Over, Can You?

The post title directed at the world around me and God himself at this point...

I'm so frustrated right now I have to force myself to stop grinding my teeth for fear of popping the braces loose again.

This move is rapidly becoming the clusterfuck I should've known it would.

Point A) The dog is a very nervy animal, and as such gets off her feed really easily; for example, when we're on a trip and she's stressed or she eats a different type of food. Since last weekend's out of town jaunt saw her staying with two different sets of strangers and eating God knows what, she's had explosive diarrhea since we've had her back. We thought this would pass after she had a day or so of her own food and home to acclimate, but in spite of eating and drinking normally, she's still squirting everywhere, and has clinched the fact that the bedroom carpet will have to be completely replaced when we move. The wife calls the vet this morning, and we can't even get the dog in to see him until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.

Bottom Line: We can't move into this new house with the dog spraying shit everywhere, otherwise I'll just kill myself.

Point B) The wife can't even make this happen, because she's tied up with a non-profit project that she's working on that has me feeling like I'm the only one moving this weekend. So I will probably have to stop whatever I'm doing to take the dog to the vet myself while she stuffs envelopes for a charity. I love our personal lives playing second fiddle to volunteer work.

Bottom Line: The charity thing is still seeing that our personal lives are playing second fiddle, despite the wife's promising me (after the whole front bedroom/junkroom disaster) that she'll be more commited to us first, saving humanity second.

Point C) The people who are selling us the house are now wanting to rent it back from us for a couple of days, the details of which are fuzzy as I type this, but I believe they involve their children who are away at college in some form or fashion. I find this infuriating, as they've owned their new home for 8 months or more, and have had plenty of Goddamned time to pack and move, and if baby junior sonofabitch who's away at college can't take time out of his schedule of keg-stands to come home and pack, tough shit, pull the trigger and have the maid pack his junk so we can move into our new home.

Bottom Line: I don't care if they are planning on paying us for the inconveniance this weekend, we have had a plan to start moving on Labor Day Weekend for over a month, that's always been the closing date and these fuckers have had almost a year to finish their new home or rent a fucking storage unit.

We have Morris flying in this weekend on his own dime to help us move, which now may or not even be able to happen, my dog is producing nothing but Hershey's Syrup no matter what she eats, and I may have to stop packing every Goddamned thing in this house to go and take her to the vet myself because of my wife's previous charitable commitments that have her hand signing 2000 letters begging for money.


That is all.


Fuck this.

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Okay, I wrote that first bit about 12 hours ago, and the dog is now at the vet's overnight because she has a bacterial infection that they had to help her recuperate from. The wife played the "my husband's really bothered with the situation, can you get her in today?" card with the reception people and they relented and squeezed her in this afternoon, thank fuck for small favors.

More packing has been done, the wife is finally finished with the non-profit shit for the week and we have movers coming to give a bid on the job tomorrow morning.

The people we're buying the house from will be moving stuff out of the house this weekend, but from the alleyway garage and garage storage room, so we'll be able to start moving our shit in the front door, so that works out okay. I've already said (in these exact words) to the Realtor that if there's any of their stuff hanging around at the end of next week, I'm putting it in the alley and letting the elements take it.

I'm tired and still vaguely aggravated, I'm off to bed.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Annoyance, Bitching, Frustration, Moving, Packing, Yorkie

I Can Recall A Time When My Life Wasn't Constructed Of Cardboard Boxes...

Jebus, there's less and less to say to you people.

M'kay, here we go....

I spent today as I used to spend all my workdays at the 'real job' when I worked at the flower shop. I popped in the iPod and worked my little ass off with whatever busywork came along, in this case the entryway bookcases that had to be emptied. I worked on that for a couple hours until I ran out of boxes of the preferred size, so I decided to take a break and get some lunch.

The wife had a couple of meetings, so I tried and was actually successful in making lunch plans with Robbb, so and I grabbed a bit of Chinese for lunch and then wandered through Best Buy. I bought a couple of boxed sets that I will have no fucking chance of watching anytime soon, presumably because I don't have enough shit to move already, so I'm now the proud owner of the Masters Of Horror Season One Set and the first season of Heroes on DVD. I hit the paper company for a couple more bundles of boxes and then went home, got back in the pajamas and started boxing up more books.

I did this for the entire afternoon, the wife left and came back from another meeting and we eventually had the Realtor drop by to give us some paperwork to look over, as we're all go for Friday afternoon to close on the new place.

The wife ordered food, I finally finished the entryway, got dressed and picked up supper while she worked some more on her non-profit project. We ate supper and got caught up about our respective day's, then she took a break from the non-profit work and we watched a TiVo'd episode of the Henry Rollins Show that featured an interview with artist Shepard Fairey, the man behind all the Obey Giant installations. The wife got back to her mailing and I packed up some more of the den area, knick-knacks and the contents of our candle closet from the hallway.

This kept me busy until around eleven, and now I'm writing about it so I can go to bed.

The end.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! iPod, Packing, Moving, Shopping, Television, DVD, Heroes, Masters Of Horror, Henry Rollins Show, Art, Shepard Fairey

Can't Talk Now -- Packing....

I'm not entirely sure why I'm bothering with this thing right now, because there's a helluva lot of other house-related things I could be doing. The ever dwindling traffic assures me that if I stopped dead in my tracks with what has become a supreme act of will the past few weeks, an average of about 20 people would notice and there'd be more room on the interweb for the spam/ad blogs that seem to make up around half of what Blogger has to offer.

But fuck bitterness in its stupid, stupid ass, I'm going to ride this bitch straight into the ground, because no one has ever accused me of knowing when to stop.

The day in whirlwind fashion:

Worked a bit this morning, finished the last project, listened to the last two Destroy The Brain podcasts back to back and then got ready to go and see the bossman so I could get paid for the two things I had finished.

The Mother In Law calls to let us know that the reason that a friend of the family didn't buy the house was supposedly because the Realtor had told her that there were 'electrical issues' with the house, as told to K's sister. The wife comes back from meetings, I tell her this factoid and she gets pissed, mentioning not too casually that I was the person who mentioned that there were a few electrical outlets that had issues and put that idea in the Realtor's head in the first place. This annoys me, as that's the kind of thing that will turn up when the house is inspected anyway, and there are numerous other reasons the house perhaps isn't selling. I also take the third-hand information with a grain of salt, as the people involved relating the story are a drunk (the potential buyer), a recovering alcoholic (K's middle sister) and then the MIL herself, known for misinterpreting stories time and again.

The wife and I have a bit of tension, as I feel attacked over mentioning the electrical outlets (which are simply old and loose, which allows for a plug to fall out on occasion), which may've been extrapolated into 'electrical problems', which could lead a potential buyer to think the house will smolder and burn around them due to unshielded bad wiring.

I showered and then dropped off stuff to the bossman and got a check, then hit an orthodontist appointment in the early afternoon. I left with aching teeth and a voicemail from the wife apologizing for being snippy, as she'd called the woman in question who allegedly had concerns and had found out that her comments were about houses of this age in general, not specific to our place because something had been mentioned. Thus, the second-hand story from the wife's sister to their mom is debunked as the sister relaying bad information as she's normally known to do.

I deposited the check and picked up some food and went back home. Since the wife and the Yorkie were both napping, I watched The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada off the old TiVo and enjoyed my food.

The wife and I watched a lot of television this evening, including the new Entourage, Color Splash, Girls Next Door and Californication while I packed up the DVD collection for the move.

I also took time this afternoon to pack all the CD's from the office closet, so all of the 'media' is now safely squirrelled away for the coming weekend and I'm free to move on to the rest of the house, including the wife's books in the entryway.

Blah, I'm tired, I'm off to bed, I'll be spending the rest of the week concentrating on the move.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Blogging, Podcasts, Destroy The Brain, Bossman, Orthodontist, Movies, The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada, TiVo, Television, Entourage, Color Splash, The Girls Next Door, Californication, Moving, Packing

Little Rock Arkansas, Day Five

I'm at long last getting caught up, having skipped last night's post in favor of actual sleep...

I woke up hungover this morning for the first time in forever, although the headache thankfully passed quickly without the aid of any drugs whatsoever. The Mother In Law was instructed as to our departure time, and our Memphis couple dropped by the room to say their goodbyes as they had to head back home, the poor wife needing to get some work done for a presentation on Monday. We left the MIL getting ready for the trip home and ran the one errand Morris really wanted to do on this trip, which was to get his picture taken in front of the house used in the opening credits for the old Designing Women show.

We found the house pretty easily, and as we drove up to it noticed what looked like a woman standing beside a parked car at an intersection, presumably talking to the driver. We parked and walked up to the house to take a photo, and then heard this strange wailing. The woman wasn't actually standing, but rather sitting in the window of the vehicle, and leaning on the roof of the car, sobbing loudly, and as she continued to do so, the car turned the corner and drove away, with this girl sitting on the window, crying loudly.

Seriously, the weirdest thing I've seen in awhile.

We drove by Central High School so Morris could see it and then called the Bride, who had made noise about meeting us for lunch before we left. Their honeymoon doesn't actually start until they fly out on Monday morning, so she and her Sister and Brother In Law met us for lunch at a great pizza place called Damgoode's, where the wife and I had eaten before with the Bride, it was a great meal.

Goodbyes said, we headed to the hotel, collected the MIL and luggage, stopped to re-fill the rental car and then headed to the airport. Morris and K dropped us off with the luggage and then went to return the car. The curbside bag-check was easy, although they managed to look at the MIL's ID and then gave her K's boarding pass, an easy enough mistake as they share the same initials, though not the same name. I noticed after the fact that we had the wrong name on the boarding pass, but when they double checked it at security and still waved her through, I figured what the hell.

Because otherwise, the terrorists win.

The MIL didn't bother to remove any of her heavy jewelry, which resulted in the same full-body wand search and pat-down as she set off the alarm like a bank heist when she walked through. It's an interesting angle to take, playing ignorant to what you have to remove and then they just get annoyed and run a wand over you, but I think the only way to pull it off is to be of a certian age that would allow such a clueless state about how things are done in this modern world.

Flying in private planes has certianly spoiled the MIL to the harsh realities of today's refugee camp style air-travel that the rest of us are bitterly aware of.

The flight to Dallas was uneventful, the layover was something like two hours, so Morris was kind enough to hang out with us and shoot the shit for awhile. The MIL decided that she'd not had enough frisking and searching in Arkansas, so she wanted to step outside for a smoke and then brave the security BS all over again, so Morris escorted her to the outdoors on his way out.

The plane arrived and people started deboarding, I started getting pretty antsy about things, as I could totally see some kinda backed up line at security keeping the MIL from making the plane and us getting stuck in Dallas overnight, or being forced to rent a car and drive back.

Magically, the MIL wandered up about 4 seconds before they started boarding our flight, we got settled and away we went, back to Midland.

We picked up the Yorkie and dropped off the MIL, then came home and watched some random television, just happy and content to be on our own couch.

We close on the new house next Friday in the early afternoon, so I have to get my shit together and get this place packed in the next four days. I'm also now beginning to dread the cable switchover, because I've obviously had trouble keeping current with the blog the past few days with easy interweb access, I don't know what it'll be like to not have it in the house at all, which is what I'm guessing will be the case, maybe a day or so of downtime between cutting it here and turning it on there, just because nothing in our lives is ever simple.

I'm out, it's been a loooong day.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Travel, Little Rock, Wedding, Damgoode Pies, Airline Security, Moving, Packing, Exhausted

Little Rock Arkansas, Day Four

Sitting here waiting for the shower, I thought I should open this and start getting my thoughts together for tonight's post. Morris is furiously ironing his outfit for the evening, while the wife finishes her shower and the Mother In Law wanders around the adjoining room fretting about when we have to leave for home tomorrow afternoon.

And there's still the wedding reception to deal with later.

Typing this now as both the wife and Morris snore on either side of the room, very late in the evening.

This morning we woke up about 9:00 and hung around in bed, Morris first in his sleeper sofa and then actually in our bed with us for awhile until our Bride to be called to let us know that she was bringing us doughnuts from someplace called Shipley's. She delivered them to our room, then climbed into bed with us and chilled for about 30 minutes before she had to go and run errands with her Groom.

We got dressed and left the hotel, leaving the MIL sleeping while we ran a few personal errands, including finding a gift for the Bride to be and then meeting her at the reception hall at noon so we could help with the set-up of the party. We helped load stuff in and then started setting things up, placing tables, table linens and the centerpieces, which were to be simple bottles with Gerber daisies. Another load of stuff came and we unloaded, finished what we could of the set-up, including putting together the candy buffet, which was labeled sweets like M&M's and Starburst in glass jars that you could serve up for yourself as a favor when the reception was over. Still missing some decorative items for the final touches, we went with the Bride to grab some lunch with our friends who had just drove in from Memphis for the wedding. We hadn't seen them since last year, so it was fun to get caught up a bit over a great burger at a place called Cheers, which was amusingly adjacent to one of the interior design stores that we'd been into twice in two days, so when Morris wanted to check it out, the wife and I had to bow out, for fear the store clerks would think us insane. After food, we ran the Bride all over hell and half of Georgia to gather all of her last minute items, then dropped her back at the reception hall and put the finishing touches on the flowers and the candy set-up. We headed back to the hotel to get ready for the party, quite happily finding the MIL fully dressed and ready to go.

This worked out great since the wife had only learned about an hour and a half before the party that she was kinda expected to be at the little J.P. ceremony they were having for the assembled friends and family before the reception party. We got dressed rather frantically, then met our Memphis couple in their car in front of the hotel so they could follow us back to the party and hauled ass. After a few false starts directions-wise, we arrived and walked in as the Bride was asking if anyone had seen my wife anywhere, so our timing was perfect.

The ceremony was short and sweet, the food lines formed quickly and the band started playing around 8:00. A local band called The Getty's, they played three great sets of cover tunes that ran the gamut from Elvis covers to Blister In The Sun by the Femmes to Bulls On Parade. Really great stuff, everyone really enjoyed themselves and the happy couple had a great time at their own party, which I'm told is the best way to judge how much fun a party is, whether you enjoy it yourself or not.

I proceeded to get completely smashed as I knew very few people there and had eaten very little, and when the wife ran to MIL back to the hotel when she'd hit the wall around 10:00, I stepped outside and called Macguffin to see what was up back home. He was out, but Blanco let me bend her ear for a bit. The wife came back, entertaining our Memphis friends, Morris and I bonded with a few Arkies who liked us in spite of Arkansas/Texas sports rivalries, and then it was time to break the whole thing down.

We spent about 45 minutes taking everything down, putting the rental equipment back in its proper place and loading all the personal stuff back into the right vehicles.

Having made such a great impression on the Bride's Brother In Law, he wanted us to come out to a bar and have another drink with he and his wife, which we did, although between the party and the bar the vibe of the evening shifted, as his wife seemed ready to go home and he seemed less into the idea than he had back at the party. Add into this the fact that the only bar that was open was actually a good drive from the party, rather than the one down the street I thought we were going to and the whole thing was kinda pointless. We had a single beer and called it a night.

We said our goodbyes and went to the hotel to roost.

The MIL was still up, half asleep and smoking a cigarette, so we visited with her for awhile, ate a few bits of some random room service she had ordered for late night snacking, then retired to our own room.

I started to rough out the post some more and eventually gave up, as I was feeling extremely tired, what with a wedding set-up and a half-dozen cocktails, so I resolved to get some rest for the return trip home and just attack the post with more vigor at a later date, so I got to sleep shortly after 2:30 in the AM.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Travel, Little Rock, Wedding, Decorating, Cheers, Reception, Getty's Band, Wedding Breakdown

Little Rock Arkansas, Day Three

With an eventful day ahead, I sit down for a few brief minutes to get a jumpstart on tonight's post.

We slept 'round the clock last night, after finishing off the last two episodes of the final season of Coupling. I had to do some checking with Wikipedia afterwards, just to see why the show bowed out so quickly, and was happy to find a little afterword about it from the creator, which neatly wrapped up any plot threads one might have had any question about.

Once we started rousting the Mother In Law, we made a call to the Bride to be to see what she needed us to be doing. There weren't any errands she needed us to be involved with this afternoon, which left us 'free' to do what we wanted, which basically meant we had to take the MIL shopping, which she's been chomping at the bit for since we got here, in spite of the fact that we are here to help out someone else with their wedding. The MIL went about getting ready for a day out of the hotel finally, so I watched an entire 90 minute movie on the laptop via those rental throttling, movie streaming pricks over at Netfux.

I also ordered in some food, because God alone knew when we would actually get to eat something. We headed out, making a point of running the MIL by one of the cute little home decorating stores we wandered through yesterday. The two women were hungry afterwards, so we had to stop at a little place called Trio's so that they could get a bite to eat. I decided to ignore food in favor of three cocktails for lunch with a nibble of the appetizer we ordered.

This left me nicely buzzed for the wander around the mall that we took next, following around behind the MIL as she drifted through Dillard's looking for that magical thing that she can't get back home. During this time we got the call from Morris, saying that he'd managed to forget his boarding pass and had managed to miss his flight, meaning we had nowhere to be for the hour we'd allotted to going and picking him up, so we ended up at the rehearsal dinner location about 45 minutes early.

The dinner itself was fun, everyone seemed to be having a decent time and we called it a night so we could run the MIL back to the hotel and get her settled before we had to do a late night pick-up of Morris from the airport. We popped by the Bride to be's house on the way back to the hotel, visited for a bit and then drove through a Wendy's for a late night snack for Morris which ended in harsh words when it was found out that they couldn't add another Frosty to his order. I'm not sure how that got to be such a big arguement, but I was the one who didn't get a Frosty, so I'm not sure why Morris was so upset.

The topper of the evening has been that as I finish typing this, half of our party is standing in the hallway watching the white-trash couple two doors down presumably getting arrested by the cops after their loud shouting match and scuffle destroyed enough of the room to attract enough attention to have someone call the police. The MIL, Morris and I all took turns standing in the hallway with all the other rubberneckers, and have spent the rest of the night trying to piece together what was going on with the hodge-podge of half-dressed drunks that all stumbled out of the room after the cop finally showed up. The best part was when one of the drunk women was shouting various and sundry profanities about how unfairly they were being treated and when told to stop swearing in front of strangers by hotel staff, she turned to us and did a drunken curtsy, asking our forgiveness. Another gem from the highlight reel was the cop telling them "Now see what's happening, these people are all out here looking at you...", which apparently was their every right as paying guests of the hotel, who weren't showing their asses like the drunks in question.

North Little Rock is proving to be quite an interesting place.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Travel, Little Rock, Wedding, Shopping, Trio's, Dillard's, Domestic Disturbance, Police

Little Rock Arkansas, Day Two

....propping open the window to the blog world early today, as I don't know when I'll get back to it this evening....

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Hotel ruminations: The average temperature in the hotel seems to be a balmy 85 degrees, especially any common areas such as the hallways, lobby and particularly the elevator, which feels like riding in a microwave from floor to floor that smells of warm, used dishrags from a bad restaurant.

The room on the other hand gets nicely cold, via one of those large wall units that sounds like a leaf blower, but once you've grown accustomed to the noise it nicely drowns out all other sounds of the hotel and lets you sleep like a rock. The only trick is once it gets to the set temperature and shuts off, the sound of it starting up again is fairly startling, so you'd damned well nbetter be asleep before it kicks off, otherwise you'll think someone's starting a car in the room with you.

But we're having a great time, I assure you.

We got up around 9:00 this morning, ordered in a bite for breakfast, which was kinda so-so, and then headed out to check out a couple of interior design places that the wife had tracked down via the Southern Living website, as they had a hand in decorating the Idea House we saw in Hot Springs yesterday afternoon. The first shop we were able to locate was way the hell across town, and looked to be situated in an old supermarket building, and was filled to the brim with a mixture of antiques and new merchandise, all of which were pretty reasonably priced all the way around.

We heard from the bride to be somewhere around this point, got directions to where the groom and his friends were to meet us for lunch, and then made the trek back and met them at a little pub. I had several Guinness, as it seems to be served in very few restaurants here and I figured I should take advantage while I can, since I don't know when I'll see another one around these parts. We met the new folks who had arrived for the wedding today, had a few appetizers and then split up into our respective groups for the afternoon, the groom to be intertaining his friends for the afternoon (which basically consisted of drinking at a few different bars) while the wife and I ran the bride to be around on some errands she had for the wedding.

Mind you, they don't have a marriage license yet, but we're buying stuff for the goodie bags that are to be left in the hotel rooms for the out of town guests. This consists of a little decorative bag filled with tissue paper, bottled water, cookies, fudge and some other little snack items. The groom doesn't seem very bothered with a lot of the wedding rigamarole, but seems up for the reception, which promises to be a heavy duty party. I found this a little weird, but whatever, I helped put together the bags and helped deliver them to the hotel, I've done what I
felt like I should as a friend of the bride.

We hit another interior design store in the afternoon, then all reconvened back at the hotel for a bit before heading back across the river to a little award-winning barbeque place called The Whole Hog, which was a great meal. The pulled pork sandwich was good, and the various styles of sauces really set things off.

Quite to my surprise, we found ourselves back at the hotel very early in the evening, only shortly after 8:00, so I had a lot of time to finish polishing up the post and chill. I'm looking forward to reading some more of the Vachss novel I brought with me for the trip, I blew through about a hundred pages of it on the trip up here, so think I may have a chance of finishing it by the time we head home on Sunday.

I'm out kids, tomorrow will probably be busy as well.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Travel, Little Rock, Wedding, Shopping, Southern Living Idea House, Interior Decorating, Dining, The Whole Hog

Little Rock Arkansas, Day One

We flew out of Midland this morning at what felt like the crack of dawn, but was a lot closer to mid-morning. We had to get up early and shuffle the Yorkie off to the babysitter's house, then load up the Mother In Law and her luggage and book ass for the airport.

The security guy was happy to see me as usual, I seem to recall we missed each other on our last plane excursion, so he gave me a particularly thorough once over to make up for it. This paled in comparison to the treatment that the MIL was treated to, I seriously began to fear a cavity search was in the offing as they asked her to remove more and more of her jewelry and layers of clothing. She was finally determined to be a non-issue, terrorism-wise and was allowed to pass, so we grabbed a breakfast item at the little food court and sat down to eat.

As we were lounging about, calmly eating our breakfast, we heard the third and final boarding call for the flight we were so non-chalantly about to miss come over the intercom, so the wife ran ahead to make certian that they hadn't left us behind while the MIL and I gathered up the rest of her burrito and headed that way.

The flight to Dallas was pretty uneventful, as was the layover and the flight from there to Little Rock although we did have the weird flight attendant Nazis. You know who I mean, the ones who wanted to make certian that our carry-on items were stored firmly under the seat ahead of us and not blocking our feet, going so far as to bother the wife twice about it during the course of the take off speil. We collected the luggage and took the 45 minute drive to Hot Springs to check out the Southern Living Idea House, which was pretty cool, although we were very surprised to learn that it was set on less than an acre of land, as it looked like a lot more of an area taken up with such a beautiful house.

We again braved the detour that we had easily passed on the drive up on our route back to Little Rock, which had us sitting in stopped traffic for a good half hour waiting to get waved ahead by the orthodontically deprived grinning roadworker with a sign alternately reading 'slow' or 'stop'. It wouldn't have been quite so bad except that he sat on the tailgate of a pickup the entire time, swinging his feet like a child at a swimming hole, grinning like an idiot, seemingly pleased to be inconveniencing a large group of people.

Back in Little Rock we found the hotel after a little fumble of our Mapquest directions, checked in and walked the three blocks through the hotel to our eleveators and finally, our rooms. I knew I was getting a bad feeling when I heard the desk clerk say that we could walk "Or drive" to the other side of the hotel...

We got settled, the MIL was of course exhausted from schlepping through three different airports as well as two stories of Southern Living design, so she decided to chill in the hotel and order in while we went to meet the wedding couple and another couple friends of theirs for dinner. They chose a Mexican restaurant because we couldn't ever get that at home, so we met them at a place called Senor Tequila's, which I personally find to be a horribly rascist name for a Mexican food place, but whatever.

Good food, even better enormous glasses of beer, as the Arkies do like to drink. This was something I noticed the first time we visited here and have yet to be proven wrong. We retired to their house and visited to awhile and then finally headed back to the hotel to check in on the MIL. I found us some vending machine sodas and snacks, we got caught up and then I excused myself to our room to finish writing this little bit and post for the night.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Travel, Little Rock, Wedding, Hot Springs, Southern Living Idea House, Senor Tequila's

TVLand Part Eleven And Family Drama

This will be one of my weird grocery list posts wherein I just rattle off the bullshit I watched this afternoon and evening, because we have to leave at an unGodly hour in the morning, and I have all kinds of things to do before that happens. If this isn't the kind of writing you're looking for, please check back later in the week, and see if inspiration has somehow struck me to write something better.

I wouldn't hold my breath, if I were you.

The wife did the errands routine this morning and early afternoon, while I worked my little heart out, almost finishing the next project while listening to a good deal of iPodded material while doing so. I heard a new SModcast, with more childhood reminiscing from Smith and crew, the latest from Simon Mayo and whoever was standing in for Mark Kermode doing movie reviews, and a new Indie Spinner Rack. ISR was especially interesting this time around, as they had a phone interview with John Bergin, artist on From Inside, his graphic novel that he's currently adapting into an animated feature-length film, as well as being an accomplished musician with his industrial band Trust Obey.

The wife and I ran around this afternoon, picked up a few things for this trip and then visited the Mother In Law who has yet to cry uncle about her taking this trip with us, so as far as we know, all three of us are headed to the airport in the AM. The real wrinkle to this is that we're going to a wedding, and that the MIL finally received a settlement proposal in the mail this week from her estranged husband, as she'd finally served him with papers a couple weeks back. The settlement is laughable in terms of what he thinks she should get from their rather insane family fortune and 40+years of marriage, especially when you consider that they married poor, and all this wealth was amassed during the marriage, so there's no fucking way he's going to weasel out with a low ball offer.

The problem is that this whole thing has set off the broken record of what a lousy husband he was, how much she was mis-treated, etc. type of routine that I listened to for the first two years K and I were together, as the MIL was coming to grips with the fact that he had basically left, and just never asked for a divorce; they were in fact living in two seperate states since I've been around. Now we're hearing all the same stories of misery and vomit that have been around for years, but it's all fresh to the MIL since the divorce is finally a reality.

The wife actually asked "Are we going to be talking about Dad all weekend, because I may have to kill myself if we are", presumably in an attempt to stifle some of the reiteration of all the same stories that we all know by rote at this point. I think the most frustrating thing is that it's always the same message of "Wow, this guy who was an asshole to me for the past 40 years is still an asshole" which to my mind only requires a reaction of "Good, fuck him, get the divorce, let's move on, not talk about the dinner fifteen years ago where he yelled about the pot roast, okay?"

It's done.

Over.

Fuck it.

But it'll never be that easy, the MIL doesn't work that way, there's always the morbid fascination with re-examining everything from the past 40+ years and making certian that it was as miserable as she remembers, which of course makes me want to know why the divorce didn't happen sooner, if the man was such evil incarnate, but whatever, I don't know anything beyond what I've been privy to the past few years. The idea of therapy is of course shot down, because the MIL fancies herself smarter than any potential therapist, so her version of therapy is inflicting these stories on the family as they are assembled, or the friends of the family. I'm just tired of re-hashing the same stories about a man we're supposedly trying to get out of our collective lives.

Or at least let me tell the stories, I'll try to spice them up with naughty nurses or aliens or something, just to keep them fresh.

Anyway, this whole thing has long weekend written all over it.

The wife and I watched several things on the old TiVo, including the newest Californication, which the wife found more amusing than the last one and I liked quite a bit, most of the criticism I see leveled at it is that the characters are all shallow and self involved, which to me is the appeal, it reminds me of Bret Easton Ellis' approach to characters in his early novels. All they seemed to be were self-destructive cyphers running headlong after what they think they need in their life from moment to moment, but completely lost in the grand scheme of things. Duchovny's Hank seems to fit that bill perfectly, in that he seems to have an idea about what he wants, but no desire to say no to whatever he's offered while waiting it out to see if that happens.

We also watched the Flavor Flav Roast that TiVo suggested, which was pretty amusing and vulgar. I was also struck by how much Flav's animated mannerisms reminded me of K's nephew, who I know has never seen the man to be able to imitate him. The strange gesticulation, even the facial expressions, I fear that her sister may have had another of Flavor Flav's love-children and not told anyone. Okay, I'm totally kidding because there's no way on God's green Earth that could have ever happened, but the kid really does look like the man, and it's weird to me.

I packed another four boxes of books from the computer room, which takes care of all of my books for the move save for a few that're stacked up on the nightstand in the bedroom and on a table in that room. Over 20 boxes of just my books, and there's probably at least that many more that the wife owns in the entryway built-in shelves.

Yeesh.

I'm out, I have to finish laundry and get that set to pack in the morning, and possibly grab a shower before bed, unless I can sneak one in before we have to be gone tomorrow.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! iPod, SModcast, Indie Spinner Rack, Comics, John Bergin, From Inside, Family Drama, Divorce, TiVo, Californication, Bret Easton Ellis, Comedy Central Roast, Flavor Flav

Et Tu, Design Star?

I think HGTV has officially signed on like everything else in life to slightly fuck us over with the current results of their show, Design Star.....

There's a couple of guys on the show that we both dislike and that I'd personally like to see beaten with pipes, and they're of course somehow excelling at the various 'design challenges' that they've been given over the course of the show. This is precisely why I usually don't allow myself to get fished into these Goddamned reality TV shows, they always end up pissing me off.

If either of these dipshits win the competition, I'm going to be pretty fucking annoyed, since they already axed our favorite queen this week in favor of letting the two jock assholes continue to the next level. There's only four people left, two annoying alpha male douchebags and one quiet guy and one quiet girl, so I fear that it'll eventually be down to the two alpha male dicks to see who has the louder 'personality'.

In other news...

I got a lot of work done today while the wife did her non-profit meetings, although I fear I may not actually get the next full project finished before we have to leave for Arkansas for this wedding on Wednesday in the AM. I did listen to a couple new thing on the iPod, including the newest Night Of The Living Podcast, which had a hilarious routine about twist endings ("Sixth Sense? He's dead the whole fuckin' time. Next!"), and a new DVD Weekly Podcast.

The wife and I have plans to do a little shoppiong tomorrow afternoon, for something new to wear to the wedding this weekend, as well as the usual visit to Best Buy, I will be needing the set of Dexter Season One on DVD, I'm quite excited for that one, and I understand there's also a new 2-disc set of Robocop, which I've unfortunately never actually owned.

I know, and I call myself a film fan...

I'm tired and slightly buzzed from the wine kids, so I'm out.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Reality Television, HGTV, Design Star, Annoyance, Workday, iPod, Night Of The Living Podcast, DVD Weekly Podcast, DVD, Dexter, Movies, Robocop

Malaise (Or: Our Stuff Held Hostage, Day Three)

I'm not sure what's going on with my life this week, and since I can't seem to muster the enthusiasm needed for the on-again off-again (allegedly) regular feature of Cinematic Sunday, I figure the least I can do is type out loud about why I don't feel very motivated of late. The last few posts have been a real chore, as they have just felt like place holders while I wait for something interesting to happen or something clever to say.

There have been several instances when I've felt this way in the past, whether or not it's been abundantly apparent is in the eye of the beholder, but the feeling usually passed and I felt like I had things to talk about that could be construed as interesting by the interweb public.

I don't think I'm particularly depressed, I'm just feeling very unmotivated and detached from the shit going on around me right now, and I'm not exactly sure why. I think the whole problem recently is that so much of the latter half of this month is up in the air, what with the following list (in semi-order of frustration/annoyance):

1. The continuing attempted sale of this house (which will involve being routinely displaced while I'm trying to work),
2. The trip next week to Little Rock for a friend's wedding,
3. The fact that the Mother In Law is going with us to said wedding (as she's always a bit of a handful for any trip),
4. Trying to close on the new house (early if possible),
5. Trying to get packed to the point that we can actually move after the scheduled closing date on Labor Day weekend,
6. And the various painting and whatnot that we'll have to do once we get into the new house (around all of our shit still stacked up in boxes). I must admit that it is minimal, but there are projects there, definitely.

I've also been feeling weird this weekend because I wanted to write some more stuff for the Big Suck Loser site, because it's something I enjoy doing, but have felt very unmotivated to do, in spite of the fact that the others involved with the site have pretty much dropped out due to the commitments of their real jobs.

I was also planning on getting some work done over the weekend so I could get some cash in the bank before I have to put all that aside for about a week and a half, what with the upcoming trip that'll keep us gone from Wednesday through next Sunday, and then getting ready for the move the rest of that following week. This didn't happen at all, for no other reason than that I'm fucking lazy, and I can't even say that I ignored this to do a lot of heavy packing, as the packing that's been done can be described as light at best at this point.

I'd feel a lot less guilty/stupid about not having anything else finished if I could at least say that the house was half-packed at this stage of things, but that's definitely not the case. I feel as though I'm somehow dragging my heels because I don't want to have my stuff boxed away and unavailable to me for any longer than absolutely necessary, which is a strange thing to think about. I'm actually finding a way to worry about not being able to look at books or CD's that've gathered dust for God knows how long before this move, and that I've had zero desire to thumb through or listen to until they're packed away in a box ready to be dollyed out to a moving van.

And this is just the third day or so of our packing extravaganza.

I think must be what it's like to lose your mind, but be slightly aware that it's happening and unable to do anything about it.

So that's been the state of the weekend, just in a blah kind of mood, feeling pretty unmotivated to do a lot of the things I need to be doing.

We visited the MIL this afternoon, then came home and started packing up the den living area, which involved wrapping a lot of tchotchke type stuff that's been hanging about being decorative and now needs to be stowed away for transport. The wife still has weird ideas about somehow staging the place with minimal furniture for either an open house or just for potential buyers who are brought by. I personally don't see this happeing as we have to close and move basically, rather than having early access to the new place and being able to move our umpteen boxes of shit out of here so that they can even see the floor when the house is shown. And I sure as hell don't want to have to leave half of the furniture behind to give potential buyers the idea of what the room looks like furnished while I'm a few blocks away at the new crib, sitting on a fucking folding chair, missing my couch. The wife tackled the storage closets in the hallway this afternoon while I worked on the den, and emptied two of the three closets, boxing things up and organizing them in the front room.

We had a late afternoon dinner with our friend Brian and his family in honor of his mother's birthday, then got back to the house in time for the Fox Animation re-runs.

I'm out.

Be seeing you (if only to go through the motions, like a loveless marriage).

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Personal, Frustration, Annoyance, Moving, Packing, Big Suck Loser, Books, Music

Since I Still Don't Seem To Care What I'm Writing About Lately...

I think I'll just be winging this mother this evening, with no particular plan for what to write about.

Tonight's post is brought to you by Shiner Bock, because it was the only dark beer served in the Mexican restaurant we ate at tonight, and the number 6, because that's how many of them I've had at this stage of the evening.

I'll open with a joke that my wife heard yesterday from her eighty-seven year old Grandmother, and I stress the age in an effort to make the joke funnier, because it's pretty crass unless it's coming from an unexpected source.

"Why have they stopped having barbeques on Brokeback Mountain?"

Because the weenies have started to taste like shit.

Woohah! Thank you Grandmother! We'll be here all week, try the veal and don't forget to tip your waitresses!

Jeez. Seriously, I have no idea where she hears shit like that, but it definitely keeps things interesting, just because it is so wincingly bad and tacky, but coming from this tiny little woman it's funny, like when one of those funniest video shows features a toddler cursing when they don't know what they're saying.

We got up late this morning, half-heartedly packed a few more boxes and then just piddled around the house for most of the afternoon.

I watched Miami Vice since it's been popping up periodically in cable for the past month or so, and I'd been curious if it was as good as some had said, or as bad as the conflicting opinions had groused. It was an alright movie, but it really felt as if they had no interest in doing anything to really introduce what they assume are characters we're familiar with and then muddled through a plot that seemed pretty sketchy at best. Worth a look on cable at best, but I didn't really get a lot out of it.

The interweb travels midafternoon led me to a post over at one of my usual haunts, where Al had seen fit to bestow upon me the following award, which may leave anyone reading this to wonder if he's reading the same blog they are. I'm officially an Inspirational Blogger, so suck on that, 7th grade counselor, I'm on my way to ruling the world, one lousy post at a time. I should also note that this little banner pops up at the end of the week where the Sitemeter was telling me that my daily activity was in a fucking tailspin like one of those little planes that got bitch-slapped by Kong when they had him treed on top of the big-ass building at the end of that film.

Seriously, I may have to start writing about more celebrities if the numbers don't pull out of the freefall they're in, or just 86 the hit counter altogether.

Kidding, if I were trying to do this for a larger audience, I'd change the title to something about Jesus, what a great country America is and how much I loved my Mother's apple pie, God rest her soul. I admit to wondering about the fickle nature of the reffering URL's of the interweb, but if I were doing this for anything besides my own amusement I'd have quit a looong fucking time ago.

Which is a long roundabout way of saying thanks for the award Al, it's great to be able to get to know each other on a near daily basis via the web, and I appreciate the acknowledgement and the friendship.

We had dinner this evening with our friend Brian, which involved a 40 minute wait at a local Mexican food chain, only to be seated and have our drink order taken by a young lady who looked to be around 14 years old, which I think may be illegal in most parts of the world. She was unable to bring us the alcoholic beverages we ordered, but did keep us in sodas, tea and chips until our 'real' waitress was able to extricate herself from the table of seventeen to our left and make a brief appearance at our table.

The Mother In Law dropped by to say hi once we got back to the house, the two dogs in tow, which was a huge source of amusement for Brian, who had never imagined that she'd become "one of those women who always goes everywhere with her little dogs".

Apparently she used to be crazy in a different way, now we've just channeled it into the dogs.

As with most of this week, I'm tired and off to bed. I'm a little over halfway through the 3rd season of Coupling, which I've been watching via those rental throttling, video streaming pricks over at Netfux each night, and I want to finish this season in the next day or so.

In a strange bit of synchronicity, I also TiVo'd several episodes of BBCAmerica's Jekyll today, as it's brought to us from the same creator, Steven Moffat, and co-stars the super cute Gina Bellman, both of Coupling fame...

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Amusing, Movies, Miami Vice, Awards, Inspirational Blogger, Blog Traffic, Television, Jekyll, BBCAmerica, Steven Moffat, Gina Bellman, Coupling

Still Somewhat Heartless...

Blah, seriously kids, there's really nothing new going on here.

I got some work done in one sitting this morning, finishing one of the small projects I'd been working on, then did another stint in the afternoon to get the next big one started. I listened to the latest from Stomp Tokyo, and a new Horror Podcast while I did this, and then decided to take another pass at the early stages of packing.

The bookshelves in the computer room are looking pretty empty, but there's still a good eight shelves left and I've already stacked up seventeen boxes worth of books. I really had no idea, but there you go, right? Seventeen boxes and this room is only half done, there's still the CD's in the closet to consider.

The wife started in on the bedroom, filling several boxes with towels, linens, and then starting in on the master closet, which included all manner of shoes.

We had dinner with Robbb, who vented about his job and got caught up with us because the routine of late has been that we won't see him again for at least a few weeks, by which time we'll be in the full swing of the move.

Back at the ranch we split up and pakced a few more boxes each, then called it quits and watched the Call Of Cthulhu disc which turned up in today's mail courtesy of those rental throttling pricks at Netfux. The short film (40-something minutes) was really a lot of fun, it's shot in black and white, and told in the style of a silent film, complete with dramatic music cues and title cards to tell the tale. All of the sets, green-screen and props look great, and it's hard to nitpick at something that's obviously a low-budget production labor of love, so I even found some affection for the stop motion Cthulhu creature in the latter part of the movie. This little film is well worth a look, check it out.

I got an e-mail this morning from Tavo of Tavo And The Flat Black Thrillers, letting me know that they now have a full length album available. Songs Of Justice is comprised of several tracks found on their Gospel covers EP as well as new material specific to this album. It's available now via iTunes and Napster and is well worth your $10, search for it on either site or check out this Google link that has all the links you could possible need relating to the album. Check it out, then whip out that credit card and support a great unsigned band that knocks out some tremendous Rockabilly.

Now alls I need to do is go over to their Myspace and grab the pic to print a little sleeve for the album, and I'm good to go with my recently purchased music from the interweb. Every now and then technology is awesome.

I'm out kids, check out the album and thank me later.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Podcasts, Stomp Tokyo, Horror Podcast, Packing, Moving, Movies, Call Of Cthulhu, Music, Tavo And The Flat Black Thrillers, Songs Of Justice

My Heart's Not Really In This One...

My eyes are killing me today, the graphs are having a cumulative effect that's really frustrating this week. I think the overall problem is that I keep doing several things over the space of a week, and then not jacking with it at all the following week, thus the eyes never really acclimate to the situation completely, they're either completely fatigued or completely rested, with no middle ground.

I got a lot done today, work wise (hence the eyestrain) and a couple of things listened to on the old iPod. The latest Night Of The Living Podcast finally popped up on the feed, they had taken their weekend off and recorded late, as well as a new episode of the Dead Lantern Splattercast.

I feel as though I should also give the latest (Cool) Shite TV a plug, since I made a point of featuring it last time, so here's the newest vidcast from my favorite Aussies not counting Kaufman.



We showed the house again this afternoon, and as I type this shit at eleven-something at night I'd say that it's safe to say that they're officially not calling with an offer, which I don't think exactly bodes well for the sale of the place, since these folks were (again) the ones that were "really interested".

We bit the bullet this afternoon while the house was showing to the latest set of people who don't want to by it and bought the moving boxes, which I guess makes it more 'real' that we're going to be moving soon. I started with the computer room, boxing up books off the bookshelves, emptying about two shelves and filling four boxes. This is going to be a very long, tedious process, moreso than when I moved my crap here, because we must now factor all the stuff that I've acquired since then, as well as all of hers....

The whole garage/car/suicide thing keeps edging its way back up the 'things to do' list I have on the desk.

I'm out kids, it's time to rest my weary eyebulbs and I don't have anything else to bore the five of my regular readers with anyway. Watch the Shite and check back for something (possibly) more entertaining tomorrow.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Eyestrain, iPod, Night Of The Living Podcast, Dead Lantern Splattercast, Cool Shite TV, Real Estate, Open House, Frustration

Awards, Birthdays, And The Real Estate Shuffle

I have to take a moment to acknowledge the fact that I've had two different Bloggers who've given me some sort of award, one at least a few months back, and the other earlier this week, and being something of an attention whore, I thought I should bring attention to it.

In the reverse order of which they were received, Eric313 gave me the "I'm Original" award, which is a lot of fun because it is comprised of a barcode, sure sign that we'll all carry The Mark one day to indicate our individuality to the overlords, or at least so Satan can tell us apart when we're blowing him.

Several months back, amidst a flurry of cheating at a movie trivia game hosted over at Becca's site, I won (by default) a "Movie Genius" award that she bestows every week. I felt kinda weird about it at the time, as I only won because I managed to get a few answers in before someone Googled the rest of it and skewed the contest entirely. But then I figured that in today's politically correct landscape of bullshit awards that are set to make sure no one ever feels bad, why the hell not display it proudly, alongside my "Everyone Gets A Trophy Day" trophy.

We got a bit of work done this morning, while the maids did their bit, which worked out quite well, as the people who saw the house last night wanted to see the house agian this afternoon.

The wife and I ran errands and grabbed a late afternoon bite to eat, then headed home so the wife could go to a meeting and I could finish picking up the house for the next tour that'd be coming through at 5:30. I'm thinking of installing a turnstile, we've had so many fucking people wandering through here recently.

We loaded up the Yorkie, headed over to the Mother In Law's place, because we had the nephew's birthday to attend this evening anyway. We killed a bit of time at the MIL's and then walked across the street to the Sister In Law's house to have cake and sing for the lad and watch him open box after box of Lego accessories. We all had a piece of sickeningly sweet cake that made me wonder what a diabetic fit actually feels like, then headed back to the MIL's, collected the dog and came home.

The current couple that's eyeing our house is a weird double-edged sword, as they have turned out to be a couple that we know personally. This is putting stress on us, because they are allegedly going to make an offer (which we've heard before, but the wife loves the house apparently), but we know they have the means to do so (which is nice) and that my wife may end up feeling as though she has to make special allowances to these folks because she knows them. I'm standing firm with a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy, the house is being sold "AS IS", which means they need to decide up front if they can handle the truth, renovations and all; if they don't bring something up, we need to keep our fucking mouths shut. I'm not saying that this place is a money pit filled with asbestos or something, but they know that it's priced to move for pretty obvious reasons, and I don't want to get into a weird bargaining area with them where we find ourselves paying to re-paint and re-carpet the entire house or something like that.

The (very) good news is that the wife in the equation really likes the house, and their situation is very similar to K and mine, in that he married into money, so basically I imagine that she has more of a hold on their financial reigns than he does, and will probably come around to her way of thinking easier than if we were talking about sinking his entire nest egg into something rather than a portion of an inheritance that she received from her family. I know they want to see the place yet again tomorrow afternoon at 1:00, so I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that her family doesn't put her off the place.

I'm out, I need to get some work done tomorrow morning before we have to vacate the place, and I also plan on starting to pack tomorrow evening, just to get the ball rolling.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Bloggers, Awards, Maids, Yorkie, Birthday, Real Estate, Open House, Crossed Fingers

Workday, Shopping, Dodging Potential Buyers, And Explaining The Finer Points Of Adult Swim

The workday started bright and early, and I was able to listen to a few things whilst putting the finishing touches on the latest project. I got the newest Destroy The Brain and Mondo Movie podcasts out of the way, as well as most of the latest ReGen Magazine podcast, which is a really interesting mixture of Industrial and other edgy drum & bass and techno stuff, well worth a listen.

Shortly after noon I went out to grab us some lunch and also ran by Best Buy and picked up the DVD release of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters, and the latest from David Lynch, Inland Empire, which of course never made it within a country mile of this area. I'm quite looking forward to the Lynch goodness, though knowing the length of the film and that I might want to be prepared to strap in for two hours plus, I decided to forego the viewing this evening and wait for a night that I could give it my complete attention. Instead I decided to check out the Aqua Teen movie again, and therein lies an amusing tale of "I told you so."

We found ourselves displaced in the evening, around the 5:00 o'clock hour, so some other random Realtor could show the house to someone else who won't fucking buy it, so we drove through some Starbuck's and then went to the Mother In Law's place to wait out the showing in relative comfort. The MIL was MIA when we got there, presumably having left to go pick up her supper from wherever, and the wife ended up on the phone when we walked into the empty house, so I decided to pop in the Aqua Teen flick since no one else was around to be offended or confused by it. I'm about fifteen minutes into the film when the MIL and her Sister In Law come in from the garage, carrying their dinner. The MIL asks what I'm watching and says that she'll come join me.

"Um, it's a really stupid cartoon that I doubt you'll like; you guys should just chill at the table in the kitchen."

"Oh no, I'm curious what you're watching, we'll come in here..." she assures me as she drags out some freaking TV trays for the occasion. Not really worried about offending her as much as having her begin to suspect that I'm as retarded as the other Brother In Law, I resign myself to trying to explain the dynamics of a cartoon about a carton of french fries, a milkshake and a rolling ball of meat to a sixty some-odd year old women.

Both women and the wife join me in the living room, the two older gals dig into their deli sandwiches.

"Okay, so he's a talking thing of French fries..."

"Uh, yes, his name is Frylock, the other one's called Shake, y'know, the cup...seriously, I wasn't kidding even a little bit when I said this was stupid as hell and that you wouldn't get anything out of it."

"And what are those green and orange things again?"

"Those're aliens, they are here just to annoy the shit out of the food characters...really, the whole idea of this stuff is that it kinda builds on the absurdity of it all, until weird shit that happens becomes funny because you have a 'what next?' kinda thing going on...see, now that chicken's actually on fire, isn't that funny?"

"I believe that you might've been right about this not being for me."

"Never a lie from these lips ma'am, just remember that, I always have your best interests in mind."

The middle Sister mercifully dropped in with her young son about fifteen minutes alter, which gave me the excuse to grab the disc from the player, as I'd hate to hear her kid picked up some foul language from the one random cartoon that he saw on my watch. I wasn't looking forward to attempting to explain to the MIL why the Doctor Weird guy kept doing all his crazy shit, or why nothing makes any real sense after a full 90 minute film.

Be seeing you, and remember to keep all your movie viewing age appropriate.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Podcasts, Mondo Movie Podcast, Destroy The Brain, ReGen Magazine Podcast, DVD, Movies, Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters, David Lynch, Inland Empire, Family Night