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| i want a whole jewish infield! |
| 08.24.06 (11:20 am) [edit] |
Denis Leary rants on Mel Gibson after discovering his beloved Red Sox have a Jewish player. Oh, Mel, you bigoted, anti-Semtitic dumbfuck. Talk about a crash & burn. If he hadn't lost most of his Jewish audience after Passion of the Christ, his whole drunken rage thing pretty much blew him out of the Hollywood water. Interesting how two of Hollywood's favorite heartthrobs have completely imploded. Between Mel and Tom Cruise, what short, attractive movie stars do we have left? |
| 7 Comments |
| get this motherfuckin' video |
| 08.23.06 (11:01 am) [edit] |
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Snakes on a Daily Show Samuel L. Jackson is the man. |
| 0 Comments |
| freakin' collector nerds |
| 08.19.06 (12:11 pm) [edit] |
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It's hard to believe it's almost Danny's birthday, but a week from Monday, my little manimal will turn four. I'm not ready for him to be a four-year-old, but I distinctly recall not being ready for him to be a three-year-old, and that turned out okay. Danny wants to have a Cars-themed birthday party at the water playground, which is fine by me. We're just having two families, because the other two I would have invited aren't available. Fine by me, again, because I really like the other two moms and we can have completely suburban-inappropriate conversation in between wrangling various boys. [Insert side comment here... last week, Orange and I debated whether it was weird that we pretty much only have blogger friends at this point. I mean, we have other friends (we're not complete losers, I don't think), but we seem to gravitate towards one another. My argument is that I met my husband online and we've managed to stick together for 11 years and three kids, so maybe meeting people online (for a certain kind of person) is actually an uber-intelligent way to connect. We're all more cerebral online, probably. Or not. Maybe we're just all freaks.] *very large ANYWAY....* So, Danny's Cars- themed party. I was able to get party favors, lollipops, etc. You can get Cars plates, cups, banners, balloons; you name the expensive disposable crap, and Disney/Pixar have licensed it. But the toys? Puh-lease. I've managed up until now to get Tow Mater and a Sally plus laughing toys. Tow Mater I found, untagged, at Target a month ago; since they had no more and couldn't scan anything, they sold it to me for $1.99. Deal. Sally was hiding at a Walgreens, for about $5. She's actually Danny's favorite (I think he's got a crush), so there ya go. Interestingly, he's not as interested in Lightning McQueen (though Jake likes him). Now, I dare you.... go online and just try to get your hands on Cars toys that are appropriate for a four-year-old. I was dying to get Danny this Mack Truck Playset that has been sold out everywhere. My mother-in-law actually wanted it to be from her, but most resellers were not only charging and arm and a leg, but tacking on insane shipping fees, too. I went on a massive phone and internet hunt this morning; no luck (really on any of the toys at all) at Toys R Us, Target, Wal-Mart (yes, I HATE them, but still), K-Mart, or Disney stores. The woman I spoke with from the Disney Store at Old Orchard was pretty disgusted, too... she said she can't count the number of frustrated parents and grandparents who have called or come in to get a Cars toy for their little one, and been shut out by the collector nerds. I Froogled the item and pretty much the only place it was available wsa on E-Bay. I did weaken and go to E-Bay last week to buy the Mater, Lightning McQueen, and Sally cars. I got all three from the same seller for under $20 including shipping, which I figured was fine. Today, I scanned the list of auctions and Buy It NOW!s for the best option. Sometimes the base price wasn't too bad, but the ending time was far enough off that you could tell it would cost a fortune. One of the items had only one bidder and was ending within the hour. The price was at $15.99; shipping was US Priority and maybe $6. So I bid... and kept the window open to monitor the bid. Sure enough, at three minutes left, the little fucker hiding in his mother's basement leaned over his Cocoa Puffs and Bud Lite to outbid me. "Oh, no, you didn't!" I exclaimed, and hopped back into the fray... upping his bid by $1.01. I refreshed almost hysterically until I finally saw the "YOU WON!" image. And PayPal'd my money before anything could happen. Now, I have that combo adrenaline rush and crash. I'm $34.10 poorer (though MIL wants to pay for it, so I guess we'll just pay for the other three cars), and hope that Danny's Cars obssession doesn't wear off before he gets to enjoy the toys. So little is just for him -- we do lots of sharing toys -- and I want him to have a cool, big-kid toy similar to some of the things Jacob's gotten in recent years. I've gone crazy to get some toy or book or whatever that I just knew would be perfect, only to see my kid "ho-hum" it. On the other hand, my insane need to purchase exactly the right gift has paid off, too... Jacob's unbirthday present when Danny turned one were a trio of tiny beanie cheetahs -- a few months after seeing the Wild Thornberrys Movie and becoming enamored of the baby cheetahs, he was still pretending to take them with him wherever he went. The baby cheetahs were a hit. I've ordered the birthday cake, and now just need to fill in a few party favors and wait until next week to make a keg of lemonade and buy a sandwich tray. We're getting close. Soon, the birthday party will be a memory and we'll be onto the next family drama. In the meantime, I'm going to get as many still-toddler snuggles as I can... and try to curb my resentment of the collector nerds. And to remember to buy up as many cheapo Pixar theme toys as I can, when the next big movie is released. |
| 4 Comments |
| family meeting |
| 08.15.06 (10:59 pm) [edit] |
|
I should totally be asleep right now, since it's almost 9:30 and my alarm is set for 4:45 am. But I'm not sleepy enough yet, so I'll write this up instead. The continuation of our Parent Effectiveness Training has led us to the purchase of the Family Effectiveness Training home training program (now -- it's Effectiveness Training; the Home Game!). DH has started going through some of it with Jacob in the hopes that it will help cut through some of his anger issues and help us deal with him (and Danny too) in a more healthy way. Part of this training has led DH to suggest that we have Family Meetings. Our first meeting, two weeks ago, was DH's idea, so that we could democratically come up with a plan for the weekend. Since our weekends generally revolve around some combination of errands, kid activities, and/or family stuff, the boys feel like they don't often get a choice in what we do. So we sat down in the dining room/nursery while Benjamin napped, and I played scribe while each person got a chance to say what they wanted to do that weekend. Jacob: Play Rivers, Rails & Roads Draw Watch TV Learn something Play outside Watch the Cubs game DH: Go to work Give Danny a haircut Clean Jacob's mattress Take out the garbage Clear out clutter Spend time on the computer Watch the Cubs game Me: Take a shower & do my hair (we were going out to dinner that night) Go shopping for clothes for new job See my brother Finish scrapbook for my mom's birthday Wrap mom's presents Make sure everyone eats lunch Danny: Play "I Spy Bingo" Watch TV Play outside Play in the Playhut Go in the car Eat something that is chocolate Go to sleep Look out the window Big hug for everybody Is that not the cutest thing ever? Danny's list just killed me. I got very choked up at that point, not only because I had awful PMS. How sweet was my kid that he wanted to plan time to look out the window, and have a big hug with everybody? DH didn't get the looking out the window thing, but when I come home from work, Danny is often sitting on the parson's table we keep in the front window, watching what goes on below him. Alberta has always said that he seems to know when I'm coming home -- and will often go to the window and wait as that time draws near. The meeting worked out really well. We were able to go through and get almost everything that everybody wanted to do in. DH didn't end up getting to do as much work around the house as he wanted, and I was up until 2 am finishing my mom's book, but in general we did okay. So we'll probably continue to try to do this. I'd like to keep my notes from these meetings as snapshots -- pictures of who my kids were at these points in time. |
| 2 Comments |
| hard to believe |
| 08.09.06 (10:25 pm) [edit] |
|
It's a living, folks. I still love my job. Things are crazy, but mostly in a good way. I'm working for a large university at the medical school, and classes started this past Monday so we're buried. We have students in our two concentrations, and we're starting our online courses with them, so there are some kinks to work out. Two oddities of note: 1. One of the people attending this program asked about ten questions in my speech Monday about the new online learning program. And then came up and asked me more questions. He let slip his background in IT/training. He then stalked me the next morning for my e-mail address so he could pass me feedback. Okay, so he's eager. No biggie, right? But wait.... when he stalked me, I was in the administrative office, with the registrar and publications coordinator. When the guy left us, the admin folks asked if I'd gotten his CD yet. Apparently, the man is a whistler. He whistles jazz music, they told me. No, seriously. This person quit his job with a major international corporation to whistle for a living. 2. Because we film a lot of the classes we offer in order to stream them over the web, we have to ask participants to sign a boilerplate video release. Our organization uses pseudo-volunteers -- some of whom are former patients -- to come in and be "models" for demonstrations. I was asked this morning to go talk to the group of people and explain what we were doing, and ask them to sign the releases. These folks are mainly pretty disadvantaged... not necessarily because they're disabled. Let's just say that there were some hygiene issues and leave it there. It was a colorful bunch. So I was introduced by a faculty member, and went into my new spiel about our program. I promised that we would do everything to protect their privacy; that we were not filming any sessions they had with the students or doctors, but in case they agreed to be a demonstrator this term, we'd like to have these forms on file. And they turned on me... twenty amputees in various states of health and emotional chaos. "How much we gettin' paid for this?" "People gonna download me and put me on their computers all over the place." "Uh uh, I think we need some lawyer to come here." "Why you need this?" "What you mean, we ain't gettin' extra money for this? You gettin' money?" I did my best to contain the eruption, but eventually I was kicked out of the break room, with the words "We need to have us a private meetin'. We tell you what we want when we done." I staggered down the hall and into the admin office, where I found the faculty member who'd introduced me. "How could you send me in there like that?" I practically shrieked. "They HATE me! They're really mad about this! What if they leave?" "Oh, they're not going anywhere," he said. "Not until they get paid. Trust me." "I can't believe they're really mad," said our registrar. "Let me go in there and see what's going on." I stayed behind while she went down to the break room. Five minutes later, she was back. "Oh, my G-d, I thought you were kidding," she exclaimed. Her eyes were wide. "They really ARE mad! And I'm surprised, because this is our most laid-back of all the groups." I boggled. "I am SO not doing this again!" An hour or so later, I walked past the elevator bank on my way to the restroom, and passed one of the demonstration subjects. "Have a good day!" I bubbled. I got only a grunt of disgust in return. For the rest of the day, various faculty members came in and let me know that, from now on, I would be handling any negotiations with the demonstration subjects since we had such a bond. I may never live this down. |
| 1 Comments |
| they told me so |
| 08.01.06 (5:36 pm) [edit] |
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"This is what you should be doing." |
| 3 Comments |
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