Wow….

At the school I went to when we lived in Hillsboro, OR last (from fall 1979 to June 1981), this lady was one of my classmates. Interesting to see what she’s made of herself. (I only remember her because she is the only “Brenna” I have ever known. Unusual names stick in my head.)

UPDATE: OK, reading this a bit later on, I think I might sound like I’m saying that the only memorable thing about Brenna is her name. That’s not what I mean at all; we were in third and fourth grade together, and I remember very few names from way back then. Hers is one.

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Mazel tov!

Matt Jones, whom by virtue of having known him since fifth grade is the person outside my immediate family I’ve known the longest (unless you count the girl from 2nd grade who is now one of my Facebook friends) in my life, went and did something rather rash. Ach! He has to squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom now! Aieee!

In fifth grade, by the way, Matt and I had hair of similar length. Clearly, judging by his photos, we have gone in somewhat opposite directions.

Anyhow, congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Jones. May the Force be with them!

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Some Random Observations

Comments on some stuff….

:: I’m still not much of a fan, but over time I’ve developed a small bit of appreciation for The Family Guy. Mainly, I find Stewie (the megalomaniacal English-accented baby) and Brian (the articulate, alcoholic dog) reasonably funny. Everybody else, not as much. But I don’t hate the show as much as I used to.

However, I’m in no danger of becoming a fan of Seth McFarlane’s in general. The Cleveland Show and American Dad are freakishly awful.

:: Last night’s Simpsons episode was a repeat of a Sideshow Bob episode I hadn’t seen before, that borrowed its plot from the movie FACE/OFF. Bob escaped prison by switching faces with a cellmate. A line I liked, from Bob describing his own removal of his own face: “As Krusty’s assistant for many years, I had been hit with so many pies that my face had lost all sensation!” Geez. One wonders what kind of pies Krusty’s using, that they hurt that much.

:: I’m not following America’s Got Talent all that much — turning it on occasionally, mainly — but I do like the “Fighting Gravity” and “AscenDance” acts quite a bit. In fact, both acts are of similar types, so I wouldn’t mind seeing both win and end up doing acts in Vegas together. I’d love to see the show end with some act like this winning, as opposed to yet another singer. Three of four winners have been singers thus far (the second was amazing ventriloquist Terry Fator), and if I wanted to watch a mere singing competition, well…that’s what IDOL is for.

:: The weather this summer has been awful. June was cooler and rainier here than normal, and July has been one nearly unbroken stream of hot-and-humid. I am more than ready for August, which I’ve always found the most pleasant of the summer months. (Well, I guess I have to include September, but emotionally, I consider September to be an autumn month, even if it’s often in the 80s in September round here.) But this month has been too warm for me to enjoy doing much of anything outside at all.

:: I’m starting to feel the pull of the Siren Song of power tools of all kinds. I’m not sure that I have any real use for one those new Dremel Trio tools, but damned if I don’t want one. (No, I’m not going to buy one absent a use for it. I’m not that dumb.)

:: I feel pretty stupid when I have to go into Home Depot to exchange an accessory for a power tool of mine, because I bought the wrong accessory or the wrong size accessory or something similar. I should know what I need, dammit! (Specifically, it was the belts for my belt sander that I bought the other day. I needed 18-inch belts and got 21-inch ones because I wasn’t paying attention.)

:: People in West Seneca, NY are resisting the conversion of some buildings that already exist from a no-longer-being-used satellite college campus into housing for low-income senior citizens, on the usual basis that traffic will go way up (because apparently senior homes have traffic rivaling that of local shopping malls) and because it will “lower property values”. How it will do this, I have no idea. Personally, I wouldn’t mind having a new, built-in community of folks who will spend money in the town, especially since it would mean using pre-existing building stock, but that’s just me. Gotta love those NIMBY’s — they’re not just about preventing the dumping of nuclear waste in their backyards anymore!

:: Is it just me, or have fireworks displays become, well, boring over the years? Unless you’re watching the super-duper displays in New York or Washington or Boston for the 4th of July, or the amazing displays at Disney World, it’s just kinda nice and kinda dull now. “Ooooh, a red one! And now a green one! That one’s purple AND green! And a couple of those loud BOOMy ones just for effect! And now…a red one and a green one at the same time!”

Maybe, though, fireworks displays were always like this, and I only realize it now because these days, if you want, you can see fireworks somewhere on a weekly basis. At least in Buffalo, you can. When I was a kid, fireworks were on July 4, and that’s it. That’s the way it was, and we liked it!

:: People who drive in pristine white Oldsmobiles are extremely annoying. But even worse are people who drive around in Camaros as though they are pristine white Oldsmobiles.

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Productivity: I has it!

UPDATE: Oh yeah, I forgot something! Updated at bottom.

It’s been a pretty busy weekend at Casa Jaquandor:

:: Grocery shopping, as usual.

:: Making dinner last night. I found a new recipe for Chicago Deep Dish Pizza crust, which I tried out with these results:

Chicago Deep Dish pizza, new recipe

Wonderful! My original Chicago Pizza crust recipe was good, but I always felt like something was missing, because it didn’t turn out as flaky or buttery as the crust at Pizzeria Uno. So I found this recipe, which is pretty close to the same except that it adds a secret ingredient.

Which is butter.

Yum!!! I love this stuff, even if it does take quite a while to make.

:: The big task, though, was changing The Wife’s oil. Well, the oil in her car. I can’t very well change her oil, right?

Regular readers will remember the debacle that unfolded last time I tried to do this job. Well, this time I met with success, but not without a few speedbumps along the way. First, the weather refused to cooperate for days; I’ve been trying to get this job done for a week, and only today did the weather finally start to clear up. Second, The Wife’s car is not easy to get jacked up high enough to do an oil change. (Next time I’ll be buying those little ramp things.) Third, it turned out that we had bought the wrong filter last time, so I had to go off and get the right one. Ugh! But…finally, the oil is changed. Huzzah!

:: Also, laundry.

And now, blessed relief! Time for a beer.

UPDATE: Oh yeah, how could I forget this? I’ve written in the past about various operational difficulties that have afflicted the Main Computer here at Casa Jaquandor — the super-loud cooling fan, the CPU cooler that started to fail, the fact that the computer doesn’t currently recognize the CD-DVD drive (I need to re-install Windows for this to work again, I think), and so on. Well, something new started happening: the computer would switch into Power-save mode and nothing would bring it back out. So after probing about, I diagnosed this as the video card overheating. Our original video card has a tiny cooling fan of its own, but I discovered that it was no longer spinning at all, so I assumed that was my culprit. I read that you can replace those fans, but I figured that since the computer’s nearly four years old anyway, replacing the video card entirely is probably the way to go. I want to get at least one more year out of that machine, anyway. So it was off to Best Buy, where I picked up a new video card for $50. (We don’t do hard-core gaming or anything, so those insane cards that cost $170 are not in the running.)

Got home and got the new card physically installed, which was actually quite easy. Hooked everything back up, fired up the computer, and realized a new problem. Everything was working, but the video card needed to have its drivers and such installed via the CD-ROM that it came with.

Which the computer couldn’t read because that drive is currently inoperative.

So I put the CD-ROM into my laptop and copied its files to a Flash drive, and then I ran the installation software on the Main Computer using the Flash drive. And now, everything seems to be working. Not only has there been no recurrence of the Power Save thing happening, but the heat sink on the new card must be of higher quality — that, or the new card just runs cooler — because the main cooling fan in the computer has been kicking into high gear a lot less frequently. I do still plan to add one more cooling fan to the machine, just to be safe, but so far, so good.

There! I think that’s everything.

Oh wait — I didn’t get any writing done at all this weekend. Shit. What a wasted weekend!

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MarioKart!

Turn turn turn turn turn turn TURN!!!

So, we picked up Mario Kart a while back. This is, as the title makes clear, is one of the Mario franchise games. It’s a go-kart/race track game, in which you pick your character and your vehicle and navigate at breakneck speeds through various courses that have lots of obstacles.

Of course, this being Mario, you’re pitted against all manner of obstructions: walking bombs, yawning precipices over molten lava, enormous caterpillars that wander back and forth across the path you’re driving, and so on. Sometimes you’re driving on a raceway; other times you’re driving on normal roads that are populated by other cars. There are races on ice, and there’s a maddening race on a narrow track that orbits the Earth. (Go off the road on that one, and you burn up on re-entry. Wheeeee!!!)

Mario Kart is an occasionally maddening game to play. There are ways to pick up items that help you out throughout the game; some of these give you speed bursts, while others are weapons you deploy to slow down the other drivers. The other drivers, though, get to pick up the same kinds of weapons, and sometimes sheer bad luck can convert a first-place running into limping into the finish in 11th place (out of 12). The most maddening ones are when you’re hit with multiple objects, right after the other, so you can’t even get yourself started again before you’re hit.

But like the other Mario game with which I’m deeply familiar, Super Mario Bros., this one is designed for maximum addictiveness. The races are no more than three or four minutes long, with four races being grouped into a “cup”, so there is constant temptation for “just one more race and then I’ll go do some writing, really, I totally promise.” Especially when certain courses prove to be so difficult that all you want to do is come in first, just once! (I have yet to win Wario’s Gold Mine, for example. That one drives me batty.)

The game’s visual invention is amazing. Not just the landscapes, but there are humorous touches all over. I especially love all the little cameo appearances by people, creatures, or other items from Super Mario, like the giant cast-iron ball of teeth that barks like a dog, or the ghosts that jeer at you, or Bowser himself. And there are lots of small jokes in the backgrounds, such as in the race through Coconut Mall, where at one point you have to contend with cars being driven by whichever Mii’s you have created for your system.

I’d write more, but…I need to go play some Mario Kart!

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Eleven!

So The Daughter turned eleven yesterday. Which meant that I got to embarrass her all day by pointing out things like, “Hey, eleven years ago today, I had to change your first diaper! I saw the first poo you ever made!” Happiness is, truly, torturing your own kids.

There were presents, obviously; the main one was that we took her to Best Buy and let her pick out the Wii game of her choice. After a few false-starts, she settled on Mario Kart, which turns out to be an utter blast. I haven’t played it all that much myself yet, but just wait. Oh yes.

What’s funny about the Mario games is their obvious Japanese sensibility. What I mean by this is the way they blend humor with addictively cartoonish sadism. I mean, in Mario Kart, you can take on the persona of a cute little princess, stick her in a rocket-powered go-kart, and drive her off cliffs repeatedly to her doom, all the while laughing at her cartoonish squeals of “AIEEE!!!” And since one can choose which vehicle to put her in, one can even do this in a rocket-powered baby stroller.

All this makes me think that the Mario games are the videogame equivalent of being on a Japanese game show.

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A Post of Pith

Some pithy observations:

:: I’m sorry, soccer-lovers of the world, but your sport just isn’t for me. I can’t imagine what you all love about it so. I get especially confused when soccer fans tell me that baseball is too slow-paced a game. Soccer makes me long for things that are a lot more exciting, like reading a textbook on accounting, sorting my silverware, shopping for towels at Target, or watching a nature documentary of octopuses copulating in slow motion. How on Earth soccer manages to inspire anyone to stay awake, much less to a massive riot (win or lose!), is utterly beyond me.

:: There’s a relatively new video store near Casa Jaquandor that is now our default video store, since the closest three Blockbusters all closed. It’s a nice enough store, but in some cases, their movies are full-screen versions. I find it impossible to take that store seriously now. Full-screen? Really?! Why not stock VHS while you’re at it?

:: Friday night fun: turn down the lights, put some Pink Floyd on the stereo, and read a couple of Funky Winkerbean collections by candle-light. Make sure you have the suicide hotline on speed-dial, though.

:: So we’re at a mini-golf place the other day, and Hole #18 is just a normal hole. That was really weird. At every mini-golf place I’ve ever been to, Hole #18 actually keeps your ball. This one doesn’t. Weird.

:: I keep looking for recent (last 10 years or so) superhero comics that aren’t mainly depressing tracts in which we delve into the existential issues of the hero of the title, and aside from the Joss Whedon run on X-Men, I’m not finding any. The latest? Spiderman: Reign. Decent enough story, but all through it I keep thinking that it’s just The Dark Knight Spider Returns.

:: I didn’t see a hard copy, so I don’t know if it was an actual front-page story, but the other day, one of the top three stories on the Buffalo News website was an article on the pernicious menace of…goose poop. Seriously. Lots of Canadian Geese fly over us, either on the way to Canada or on the way out of it a few months from now, and it turns out that…geese poop. And that poop is a news story in the Buffalo paper. Hard to believe newspapers are in trouble these days.

:: I’m having a hell of a time finding ideal headphones for my cell phone. It uses a smaller headphone jack than normal headphones. I got a ten-buck adapter thing, but the adapter’s not very robust, and it’s already started that thing that headphone cords tend to do over time. I have a pair of earbuds that fit the phone, but the buds themselves don’t seat reliably into my ear, or if they do, they un-seat themselves fairly quickly, robbing me of sound quality. This is an annoyance, since I put an 8GB card into my phone and want to use it as my main MP3 player.

:: Seen at The Store: mother pushing her shopping cart. It’s one of those kid’s carts where the front is shaped like a car or truck or something. Little boy reaches out and grabs the pursestring of a passing old lady, who grabs her purse back, sees that it’s a little boy in a kid-cart, and starts laughing. Mother then comes forward, smacks the kid, and says — I swear I am not making this up — “I told you to stop doing that!” Never have I seen a child whose future was more certain.

:: Thing I’m tired of hearing about: “Man-caves”.

:: A while back, The Wife had a flat tire on her way home from work, so she called me and I ventured out to help her. Of course she was stopped on the side of I-90 in Buffalo. Nice and busy. Of course the driver’s side tire was the one. Of course the spare was rusted in place and I couldn’t budge it. Long story short, we called a tow truck. Tow truck arrived. Driven by an enormous person who looked an awful lot like Robert from Hell’s Kitchen, but with a very high-pitched voice. Long story short…we couldn’t tell whether our tow-truck driver was a man or a woman. So the other night, we’re driving to Kleinhans Music Hall, and there on the side of I-190 in downtown Buffalo is a tow truck, where the unfortunate vehicle is being trussed up by none other than our sexually-ambiguous friend from a few months ago.

:: If you’re going to insist on talking on your cell phone while you’re driving, might it not be a bit safer to hold it in the same hand as the ear you’re holding the phone up to? As opposed to wrapping your right hand all the way around your head while you’re trying to maintain 65MPH on an urban highway?

:: I find this defense of the phrase “I could care less” staggeringly unconvincing.

:: I swear, my interest in football drops a bit each year…and yet, every summer, I’m excited when all the “Pro Football Preview” magazines start coming out. I always buy three of ’em.

:: “Dad, my teacher says that if I want to bring in cupcakes, it has to be tomorrow.” GAHHH!!!

:: Sign #785 that you may have jumped the shark as a person: you and a friend speculated on what a musical version of Schindler’s List would be like, right down to the show-stopping dance number and the closing power ballad, “I Could Have Done More”.

OK, that’s probably enough pith for now. Don’t worry, I won’t be exorcizing my pith on a regular basis. I’d like to keep some of my readers!

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Dispatches

Sorry for the radio silence, but my father-in-law is in town visiting so we’re doing more family stuff this weekend than spending time online. Regular posting will resume Monday (although I don’t rule out the possibility of a stray post here and there). For now:

:: World Cup Soccer is starting! Let the snoring begin!! (I find soccer so staggeringly boring as a spectator sport that I’d almost rather watch golf. Or country line dancing. Or a John McCain appearance on a Sunday morning news show.)

:: I heart farmer’s markets.

:: We’ve had no rain for almost thirty-six hours. I hope my plants don’t die.

:: Stupidest thing I’ve read today: a person responding to the notion that maybe 16-year-olds shouldn’t be trying to sail solo around the world by pointing out that teenagers fought and died in the Revolutionary War. Well, I’m convinced!

:: More to say in a post to come, but if Classical Mystery Tour comes to your neck of the woods, please go. We did, and it was an enormous blast.

That’s about it for now. I may have a post or two up before Monday, but no promises! Enjoy your weekend, folks.

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Random Observations

:: I’m saddened by the separation of Al and Tipper Gore.

:: I’m annoyed at all the commentators who think that the important thing about the oil spill in the Gulf is that President Obama isn’t showing enough emotion about it.

:: I’m entertained by the new season of Hell’s Kitchen. My early favorite is the pretty girl with long, red dreadlocks. Why? Because she’s pretty and has long, red dreadlocks.

:: I’m reminded that every time I see actor Stephen Tobolowky, I think, “Hi. My name is Werner Brandes. My voice is my passport. Verify me.”

:: I’m tired of all the hot weather already. Hot weather stinks.

:: I’m wishing that xkcd did comics like this one more often.

:: I’m amazed at how much writing I can get done in one hour…when I’ve shut off my laptop’s wi-fi.

:: I’m perplexed by the teevee show Glee. I love musicals and I always enjoy high school settings, but Glee confounds me.

:: I’m reminded anew, after watching the first two episodes on YouTube, of the staggering degree to which Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was Aaron Sorkin’s love letter to himself.

:: I’m happy that The Daughter laughed at all the right places when I watched the pilot episode of Firefly with her.

:: I’m amused by the awfulness of the teevee trailer I saw tonight for Eclipse, the new Twilight movie.

:: I’m flummoxed by the trailers for the new Karate Kid movie, especially the fact that they’re calling it The Karate Kid when Jackie Chan says, “I will teach you kung fu!”

:: I’m frustrated that my favorite pair of earphones finally died last week after eight years of loyal service (they came with the personal CD player I bought in 2002), and that none of my other pairs make me happy for using my phone when walking. (I’m using my phone as an MP3 player now.) I prefer the phones with the piece that hooks over the back of the ear; I’ve never liked earbuds much at all because they get uncomfortable after a not-too-long period.

:: I’m enjoying a glass of Vernor’s Ginger Ale with a shot of Captain Morgan Tattoo Rum as I write this.

:: I’m ending this post before it becomes incomprehensible.

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