Today's the last day to get your roster in to the Amish Tech Support Dead Pool. Pick fifteen celebrities/politicians, send 'em in to Laurence, and win spiffy prizes if enough of 'em drop dead in 2004.
But hurry. You have until Midnight tonight. When the big ball drops in Times Square, the contest closes. Get a move on!
My thanks to Laurence and Piper for putting on this extravaganza of death every year. Here's hoping that the picks drop like flies.
We're back, after an extended visit with family in South Dakota. My Sister Mary and her husband Don, my niece Tracy and her partner Rod and daughter Maddie, and my Mom. Plus various aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. It was a glorious Christmas.
And we are really glad to be home.
Highlights of the trip: Tracy's daughter Madeline is three and a half, and very charming. Blonde curls, big eyes, and a fiercely active brain. She will be a terror in her teenage years, and a success in her adult years.
Playing Uno Attack. It was a "let's try this" gift for Fred, and it turned out to be a raging success. Take Uno and modify it slightly to incorporate a fickle card launcher. Instead of drawing a card, you hit the button. You may or may not be given cards, and the cards that you are given can vary from three to fifteen depending on the whim of the launcher. Oh, and it definitely launches them. They get scattered on the table in front of you. The effect is nerve-wracking, and usually causes loud outbursts at the table. It's amazingly fun.
Catching Mom cheating at cards. We played a card game called Golf (which is also amazingly fun) and caught Mom trying to reverse a play she had made. I immediately called all the absent siblings and let them know what was going on. Apparently Mary and Don had caught her previously, so that's two known instances. It's a genetic thing. Our Grandmother was famous for cheating at cards as well, and probably never played a straight game of Solitaire in her life. We are all shocked and appalled.
Driving around Rapid City and taking in the changes. I lived there for eleven years until I moved to Minnesota in 1991. The intervening twelve years have brought a lot of changes. The place is crawling with casinos, quickie loan outfits, used car lots and Oriental buffets. The effect is very trashy. Yikes.
We had a blast, and are now pretty well worn out. Ever so glad to be home. The cats are glad we're back as well.
Fred caught the girl next door kicking the family dog. He told her to stop it.
Her response? "It's my dog."
Not for long if you continue to abuse it, sweetheart.
He's a lab puppy, barely five or six months old. Getting big, but still a puppy. So he's yappy and lively, and barks a lot. (He wants to come in, but spends the daylight hours outside while the family is gone.) Apparently she thinks that's a good disciplinary technique.
Little brat. I'm in a fine mood right now because of this. It'll pass, but for now I'm really fucking pissed. I'm hoping that Dad (who is the REAL owner of the dog) will catch her at it and have a rather brutal discussion with her.
I can dream, can't I? In the meantime, Fred and I will be keeping an eye out. This will NOT go unchallenged.
Today was Christmas in the Susskins household. Stockings were hung, and filled by the Midnight Elf. (Even a stocking for the cats.) Presents magically appeared. Fred got tools, shirts, games and a propeller for his pickup. (A chrome prop that hooks onto the trailer hitch and spins when driving.) I got socks, Snicker bars, Looney Tunes DVDs and a personal water cooler. It's a little desktop version of a standard water cooler, complete with chiller and a glugging jug on top.
We then had a nap, followed by breakfast (okay, brunch,) and a trip to the theater to see Return of the King.
Frickin' amazing movie. Oh so good, oh so satisfying.
Came home, had pizza, watched a show on serious Christmas displays, and now we're ready for bed.
It's been a good Christmas. And on Christmas day, we get to do it all again with my Sister in Rapid City. Whee!
We took a drive tonight, and looked at Christmas lights. Contrary to the opinion of a certain Long Island blogger, I like the big messy displays. I appreciate the classy type. But I really lust for the gigantic hedonistic displays with forty strands of chasers, a dozen plastic figurines, colored spots, two inflatables and a row of candy canes around the entire perimeter.
Big and gaudy, that's my style. I like the kind of light display that causes havoc with air control, that doubles the neighborhood electricity consumption, that melts snow. The kind that requires the power company to come out and add circuits to your house just so you can safely make microwave popcorn at Christmas time without tripping breakers.
Luckily for my neighbors, I am perennially lazy and will not take the time or effort to put up such a display. But if I had a lot of disposable income around Christmas time, I'd hire a team and get this place glowin'.
I will at some point get that giant spruce on the corner all lit up. And I'll have to rent a cherrypicker to do it, and have extra power run temporarily. But it will happen some day.
Gee, maybe I'll shake off the laziness and decorate the locust too. And make that Simpsons' Christmas diorama, and put plastic reindeer on the roof, and put out the projector, and floodlights, and chasers.
I'll send you a picture when it's done, Michele.
I'm not the only one who is running out of things to say.
The Muse has moved on, and has not left a forwarding address. Obnoxious bitch.
I almost started fisking a column by Nick Coleman in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, but just couldn't work up the bile.
Think I'll go home and tease the cats.
I claim twenty points. Not only for knowing that it's the Hulk at Universal's Islands of Adventure, but also because it's my fiftieth coaster.
Double points!
Let's see... Christmas shopping, humidifier repair, a bit of snow, The Simpsons Hit & Run (58% through the third level!), a gigantic chicken burrito at Panchero's, an afternoon of crap tv, stroganoff for dinner, and a movie with popcorn. A pirate movie. THAT pirate movie.
Pirates of the Caribbean is the BEST PIRATE MOVIE EVER.
has swept out of our home. Yes, the annual Christmas at the Chateau celebration we put on has officially ended. This year's hedonistic tendencies centered around wine coolers and innuendo-laden word games, with a dip or two into The Simpsons on Playstation, and a robust Pink Elephant gift exchange. Occasionally the gay men would all converge and start talking trash, until a straight woman would bowl through the group and break it up.
In its wake, the Apocalypse left a trail of empty bottles, dirty dishes, chicken bones, bottle caps, cookie crumbs, shrimp tails and barbeque sauce. The neighbors are scandalized, and the cats are frantic.
Damn, it was good. The kind of good that makes one proud to be an American. Say what you will about our country; we know how to throw a helluva party.
Now how are we going to top this next year?
To bed with me. My eyes feel like they have brightly colored sand in them.
I was thinking on the bus tonight. I don't really know what my political leanings are. I seem to be a free-floating blob, reacting to any one thing that makes me irritable.
That, in and of itself, is somewhat indicative of my political sense, but not really. None of these things tend to connect. I get pissed at individual issues and ignore the bigger picture.
So what am I? Republican? Democrat? Conservative? Liberal? Libertarian? Socialist? Pagan? Nerd?
None of them seem to fit all that well, though I suppose I identify more with (small L) libertarians and Conservatives than with Liberals and Dems. I'm not much for Socialist, because that's the life of the bland. Nerd is me, but so is Smart Urban Sophisticate. (Okay, that was bullshit.)
Truth is, I don't seem to have a lot of strong convictions other than the following; take responsibility for your own life, quit pissing about how unfair things are, and if you try to take my car/wallet/stereo you will lose a hand.
Other than that, I don't seem to care much. The world will go on whether I get all flustered or militant or not. So why stress out about it?
I do, however, admit that I voted for Ralph Nader. Not because of any strong bias against Dubya or Gore, but because I thought it would be interesting if the Greenies got their 5% and got some major funding.
I also support the war in Iraq, support Israel, think all this furor over "the sanctity of marriage" is stupid, want to kick Janet Reno in the balls, and am pretty sure that every President is/was a complete opportunistic scumbag so we should just get over that fact and let them do their job although that doesn't mean we should let them just walk all over us in the process.
Hmmm. Maybe I'm more Conservative than I thought.
So. After the mad whirlwind of Thanksgiving, we needed a quiet evening. And we got it. Fred came home with a nice little item from the library. A DVD copy of Xanadu.
Yes, that Xanadu.
In lieu of dinner, we made a big batch of popcorn, served up apple-grape juice and coke, and snuggled together on the couch while watching Olivia Newton-John, Gene Kelly, and a bunch of people that nobody has heard or seen since. It says a lot about your cast when the third most recognizeable person is Fee Waybill. And the fourth is the disembodied voice of Wilfred Hyde-White.
Anyway. Lots of Olivia with her feathered hair and leg warmers, skating at Venice Beach, crappy voice looping, glowing neon special effects, Electric Light Orchestra, a brief animated segment by Don Bluth and crew, and the sight of Gene Kelly playing clarinet as the Sun inexplicably rises over the ocean on the west coast. (Maybe they meant it to be on the east coast. Never mind little California details everywhere, including one of the Muses running below the Hollywood sign. It's New York, man. New York is known for its beaches.)
We had a grand time. And the best part was that we didn't have to pay a rental fee for this pointless piece of fluff.
Oh, and one other thing. The music made me all nostalgic for 1980. Who knew?
Addendum: This movie came out in 1980. I was eighteen. I saw this in the theater. So I knew what I was in for tonight. Full disclosure; that's me.