fine whine

So Jessica decided that we didn't have enough furniture, I guess, since we now have paid for a jelly cabinet and a 6' corner shelf. The corner shelf the unfinished woood place had in stock had some molding sticking up so we didn't take it... not that the trusty ol' Galant would've been able to handle two pieces of furniture at once anyway.

It works pretty well, just not always. I also needed to buy a pair of ratcheting tie-downs to take home a 4'x4' sheet of plywood from Bargain Outlet. That was something of a spectacle, I'm sure, but for me it was something of a brainteaser.

First I bought the plywood, assuming that a half-sheet would fit fine in my trunk or backseat.

I don't learn.

You see, we'd already measured the openings of my car and none of them edged too far past 36 inches. This fact slipped my memory as I carried the plywoood to the register, and out to my car, and then I lifted it into the trunk.

Or rather, in front of the trunk.

I realized then my folly. I checked with the Bargain Outleteers, and they told me that they didn't do cuts. Mind you I'd just seen one of the employees bust out a DeWalt and slice a shelf in half, but I think that was just for fun, not profit.

So anyway, I picked up some tie downs, and then got about my business of strapping the wood to the roof of my car. It fit just perfectly.

The tiedowns are bright orange. It looked pretty cool actually, and was quite secure.

But back to jelly cabinets. I don't know what it really is... it seems to be a double-door cabinet, shelf inside, with a flat top. I keep calling it a jelly chest, but then I think about the sort of things of which Arnold would make fun. "Jelly chest" sounds just about right.

It's been an eventful week at work. I've been somewhat behind for most of it, but probably just productive enough to be safe. That said, when I got a phone call today that started off with "Mike, your job is done" I first thought that I was going to need to update my resume pronto, and second that it must be a Friday sort of gag.

It was neither. The color copies I'd requested were finished. So much for paranoid me.

For me to say that I don't watch any television is somewhat deceptive. I work with a guy who actually does not watch any television, namely because he does not have one. On the other hand I do have a TV, a 27" flat screen behemoth with two tuner-PIP and surround sound from Philips. It is a pretty nice TV, though its two tuners aren't great for receiving broadcast stations. Meant for cable (or better) it seems to only support antenna tuning out of some obligation to the FCC or the fraction of homes without better reception. Like mine. So the picture's crap, even with a ten dollar rabbit ears gizmo from Radio Shack. I don't watch any television, though, so this does not bother me (well, it does bother me when Jessica expects me to get her better reception to be able to watch the news, as though I'm more masterful with the little antennas).

Nope, I just don't watch any (broadcast) television. I never got hooked on the whole reality craze (whoa, take that one out of context) nor the news nor much anything else. There are some worthwhile shows, I admit, but never when I want to see them.

Enter the DVD. The studios have realized that there are other people out there like me (and ones willing to buy the sets, not borrow them like I do) who want to watch the shows, sans commercials and the dreadful wait between airings. For those people they release sets of current and classic shows on DVD. This is how I've watched M*A*S*H, The Sopranos, Starsky & Hutch, Futurama and the Family guy, though with those last two I'd seen many an episode on a computer screen, if you know what I mean.

Recently I checked out Showtime's Dead like me's first season and the entire run of the John Lovitz Critic cartoon. Both have humor mixed into them, and take place in or near NYC, but the similarities end there... or do they? Both had made a major misstep, from what I saw, by having an episode devoted to clips of other earlier episodes.

Yes, the dreaded clip show.

These are reviled by a lot of people, and I believe there is a shark-jumping category devoted to them. I don't like them either, but for a somewhat different reason.

The way that I'm watching these shows, when the regurgitation episode pops up it is within a couple days, if not hours, of the shows it is spitting back up (digested, or not). I know my memory's bad, but I don't need a recap that soon. I'm the sort of guy who fast-forwards through the "previously on" sequences, after all.

"I've lost my ability to tell between what's cute and what's idiotic."

Today I noticed that my garage door and my car's retractible antenna descend at the same rate.

I have a much more serious topic to discuss, though, as I have been watching the collected complete series of the Critic. That's where the slightly relevant quote up top first appeared, though I plan to now use it in my everyday conversation. The show's as funny as I remembered, and even more so now that I can catch more than half of the film in-jokes (before, I'd probably not have noticed a reference to Every which way but loose, though any mixup with Clint Eastwood and a chimp must just be funny).

That said, I'm having trouble enjoying the show without recognizing voice actors (at least, their voices) from Matt Groening shows (and possible even Nickelodeon). I'm starting to wonder if Mark Hamill's in here somewhere, but I'm not holding my breath.

But really, this DVD set is serious business. Why, here's the WARNING that appears before each set of episodes:

The copyright proprietor has licensed the programme (including, without limitation, its soundtrack) contained in this video cassette or Digital Versatile Disc for private home use only. Unless otherwise expressly licensed by the copyright proprietor, all other rights are reserved. Use in other locations such as airlines, clubs, coaches, hospitals, hotels, oil rigs, prisons, schools and ships is prohibited unless expressly authorised by the copyright proprietor. Any unauthorised copying, editing, exhibition, renting, hiring, exchanging, lending, public performances, diffusion and/or broadcast, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited. Any such action establishes liability for a civil action and may give rise to criminal prosecution.

I didn't make any of that up. In fact it worries me that I transcribed it, threats of civil action and prosecution and all, because I'm sure doing so was unauthorised (with an 's' no less). Go back and read that again (if I can, I authorise you to do so).

Oil rigs? Hospitals? Oil rigs?

I'm tempted to grab my portable DVD player and take this to a school, airline or oil rig and watch it without authorisation. Then I'm going to go out and figure out how to diffuse it too, while I'm there.

Gosh, that correct grammar stuff really sounds odd some times.

Sunday Rebecca and Jason dropped by, and after half a day's mischief and computer maintenance we popped into Fuddrucker's for dinner. The large burger was good and the free cheese-food sauce was a nice bonus, but the conversation was really what mattered.

Of course that was two days ago and most of that which I meant to write I've forgotten. One thing that does stick out, though, was Jason's character-judging question:

(Allow me to paraphrase, or rather the opposite of paraphrasing)

Say you've got this bunch of ants. You know, like a herd of ants, or something like that. Lots of ants. And they're in your house. Would you rather kill them all with a bug bomb (that would kill them all) or somehow combine them all together into one giant ant that you could shoot with a shotgun?

I mulled it over, and chose shotgun (well, I was actually in the backseat for most of the driving around). I figured I'd rather be able to make sure that the one single one was dead, instead of needing to check every little one.

You know, to make sure it was over. And if nothing else I could kick the damn thing too.

This has nothing to do with anything. I just wanted to post something the day it was supposed to be posted, you know?

So which would you pick? The tiny ants and the bomb or the one big ant and the shotgun?

Mondays wear me out. My boss is on vacation, my wife is in North Carolina, my workplace is getting political, my lawn is sprouting poison ivy willy-nilly, I've watched movies but have nothing great to say about them, the website on which I'm working is progressing too slowly, I might be one of those elusive swing voters this year except that my registration card hasn't yet arrived, my socks don't match, I worked on my friend's computer yesterday but didn't improve it too much, my modem's still fried and I can't find a replacement, the layout and cover of my novel are unfinished, and I'm tired.

I'm too busy to write anything worthwhile, in other words.