Down with the sickness

I'm taking a sick day from work today; I actually do feel sick, and I'm sure that being at work will only make me feel sicker, yes? Best to stay home and get better than go to work and get sicker. Sure, it'd be best to go in and get everybody else sick, and then take tomorrow off, landing me a three-day weekend, but oh, well.

So, I watched ANTM last night, and what's-her-name quit the show when the time came for the judging. She actually wasn't going to be picked, but jumped the gun and quit, instead, earning the Contempt of Tyra(tm)! She was the gal who looked like she should be a 70s drug dealer's girlfriend in a movie, or something.

I'm definitely rooting for Heather in this. Lisa's really attractive, but has a kind of empty-eyed look and kittenish insecurity that's not appealing. I like that gal (Jenah, maybe??) who has the goose egg eyes and blonde hair who's not impressive in motion, but who nails it with the pictures. She reminds me of a gal I knew from college, except that she's bottled blonde. The so-called "plus sized" model is sort of interesting, too, at least in her looks -- on camera, anyway. In person, she's kind of furtive.

Tricks are for kids

Some parental trickery -- Spousette took B2's Noo Noo (as he calls his blankie) and cut it in half without him knowing it. This was to make it easier to launder the thing, since any time we'd take the Noo Noo, B2 would squawk. So, magically, we now have two Noo Noo's, one of which we use and the other we keep in reserve. Come laundry day (Sunday), I take the dirty Noo Noo and replace it with Noo Noo 2. B2's none the wiser.

Another trick: B1 doesn't like the crusts on his bread, so I slice the crusts from them. Then I dice them and put them in a little baggie for B2, who thinks because they're in a baggie, they're somehow a treat. In the past, if I put those diced crusts on his feeding tray, he'd just ignore them or throw them away. But in a baggie, why, suddenly they're special, and he's happily munching on them! Muahaha! So, no wasted bread, and children get fed!

Still another one -- B1, ever the diva, won't willingly eat the heels of the bread. Sometimes, though, that's all we have left. So, I take the heels and put peanut butter or Nutella on them, and stick them together. That way, he can't see the heels! Muhahahahh!

Our boys love "Between the Lions" -- muppettish kids' reading show, on at 6:30 a.m. CST on PBS, if you must know. And they do a great job with it, except for a couple of shows that kind of weird me out -- there's Cliff Hanger, this benighted soul who's always hanging from a cliff, never seems able to escape.

And then there's Chicken Jane, who occupies this twisted world where she's always getting reamed somehow and saving the kids (modeled after Dick and Jane) from peril. Here's a representative episode of it. I always feel bad for poor Chicken Jane, forced to protect these idiot children from all sorts of things. When the little ditty starts, I'm always saying to Spousette, "Poor Chicken Jane!"

Shrinkage

With Halloween's imminent approach, the candy aisles overflow with chocolate. And that's swell, although I have to say that the "Fun Size" isn't so fun, anymore. They keep making them smaller. I just ate a fun size Mounds that was all of .6 of an ounce. I bet in the 70s, a fun sized Mounds was likely far bigger. I hate that. So, eating two of them, I end up eating 1.2 ounces of Mounds. I might as well go shoe-shopping afterwards. Sheesh.

Work's insane as ever. Annoying Bizarroworld, extra-annoying and mentally ill coworkers, and me just wanting to be gone from there, trying to keep my head down for when the bullets start flying. I have a couple of job-lead nibbles, but refuse to get my hopes up just yet, lest I jinx'em.

I watched "Beauty & the Geek" last night, again. I hate that they call the geeks "geeks" -- that bugs me. But it was still amusing. Spell "Intelligence" -- I loved how slowly and carefully the mimbo spelled that. The makeovers were amusing, too. Now they all look like hipsters, with varying degrees of success. The pretty boy did the best in the makeovers; hopefully he'll keep that look going, and should be up to his armpits in babes after this show's over.

I can't believe it's only Wednesday. Today should really be Thursday, shouldn't it? Lordy.

Something I stumbled on over the weekend, on one of the lame weekend shows, they had people sum up their week in three words, which led to a treaclefest. But I liked that concept, and will likely do that for kicks.

Last week: Sick of it!!

Music: Big Black, "He's a Whore" (perfect tune for the moment)

Can't win for losing

I knew our free (sigh) cable went out for a reason this summer; they're doing the MLB playoffs on basic cable this year! Thanks heaps, Bud fuckin' Selig. Now I won't be able to watch the Cubs play. That alone might guarantee them a World Series Championship, just in sheer Fuck You Factor. Still, it's really irritating -- I love watching the playoffs, and they took them off network television. WTF? Those of you with basic cable, looks like they'll be on TBS. I guess I'll listen to the games on WGN AM 720. Pout.

Clown Kick...

Guess I'm thinking about clownish things because Autumn's approaching, and it makes me think of Halloween, and spooky things, and clowns creep me out.

Classic...



That's such a great bit!

And this, man, oh man.

Sun and sweat

Pretty good ride in this morning, although damn is it humid! And I kept hitting little clouds of teenaged mosquitoes or midges or something that would stick to me. What a nightmare! Ptht! (me spitting out bugs)

Six more days until the trip to California. It's a wedge driven in my summer schedule -- an interruption. I'm sure my folks will love seeing the kids, and the kids ought to have fun, but the trip'll be kinda hellish, I imagine, although hopefully the novelty of it will inspire the boys to behave!

But I'm hell-bent on getting the book pitched to agents, and this week-long hiatus is an interruption for me, kind of breaks my stride.

I'm making some additional changes to the story, for a stronger ending. Nothing wholesale, just some more tweaks and tightenings of it. I decided I'm going to kill a major character in the story; normally, I avoid that, since I think it's kind of lame, like "Ohhh, somebody has to die" -- but I thought that him surviving the story sort of weakened it, weirdly enough, whereas his death would positively impact several other character groups -- like if he died, he'd provide strong motivations to three other major characters, and would propel the story forward into another realm. It just works better that way, I think. It raises the stakes of the story, and I like that.

Otherwise, if everybody survives, it's like the end of a sitcom, where they freeze-frame it with everybody smiling and laughing, and the music and credits come up. And I hate that. So, I think he will likely perish!

This quote reminds me of many people I work with...

"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." — Robert E. Howard, The Tower of the Elephant

I'm an honorable savage in a dishonorable time!

Silverfishin'

I think I shall not bike today, given the likelihood of the obligatory late-afternoon Chicago thunderstorms. Gruh. But the rest of the week looks to be mostly clear, so I'll bike then.

Got those silverfish traps, and deployed them in our bathroom. They've caught some of the pesky little bastards, but not nearly enough -- my foot remains the best silverfish trap. I hate those things.

Really don't want to go to work today. Today's TB's last day, before her exodus. I overheard Costy talking on the phone about tying editors' salaries to the page counts of the publications they work on, although I didn't hear all of that -- but it does fit his more = better quantitative ethos.

So annoying -- I've still got a bit of a sunburn on my left arm; an archetypal trucker's burn! I was so careful over vacation to not get burned, paleface that I am, and then on the drive home, I cooked my left arm. Stooopid.

I watched "Hell's Kitchen" last night, wanted to do a happy dance when drowned rat Melissa was axed from the show. That was great. That bossy, bullying bag of rags needed to be dumped the week before, but I was glad she got what was coming to her.

As for who I'm rooting for, it's tougher this year, no real stars. I like Julia, just as an underdog -- her personality's kinda not-there, and I think she has no chance of winning, given her limits as a chef (she's a solid short-order cook, works well in the kitchen, but seems way out of her league, otherwise). I think Rock will be the one to win, because he combines culinary imagination with hard work and good kitchen skills. He's the likeliest to win, I think. The other guys are dopes; they've got no chance. Brooke the nanny has some talent, but isn't up to the task, and Jen the cipher, nah (although she handled her position in the kitchen very well last night). She's a possible dark horse, although I doubt it.