Fine? Why Fine?

Damage

I thought this was one of the better quotes I've seen on Overheard in New York:

Woman: I mean, what kind of person marches their daughter into their sixth grade class and announces that their daughter just ate a whole chicken? Who does that? I never forgave her for that.

I've forgiven my mother but still never fully understood why she insisted on giving me a nickel and four pennies to buy milk when it cost nine cents in the elementary school cafeteria. I remember wishing that she'd just fork over the dime, just once. 

Food Stuff

Couple of quick thoughts...

A few weeks ago I had Deep Fried Mac 'n Cheese at this place and I find myself daydreaming about it ever since. We got as an appetizer for the table of 6 and if I could do it all it again, I'd get one just for myself. If you're on the Lower East Side check it out.

I know this sounds gross but trust me, warm roast beef and cream cheese makes an excellent sandwich.

And on a less disgusting note, I cannot recommend Thomas' English Muffin Toasting Bread highly enough.

Kiwi Humor

This is pretty clever.

I'm New at This

I've been home for 20 minutes and have answered the door twice for Trick or Treaters so far. I'm on my own here since Chrissy teaches on Monday nights in the city. I have no idea what the current protocol is for handing out candy to kids. The last two Halloweens we lived an apartment and there were no Trick or Treaters, before that I lived in a "bachelor pad" in Long Beach in an area that didn't have that many kids. A couple of times, I remember pretending that no one home during the handful of times the doorbell did ring.

Now that I'm a new homeowner in a new neighborhood, a lot is riding on how I handle this inaugural Halloween. I don't want to be the cheap curmudgeon who has shitty candy and deals it out frugally only to become the target of eggs and shaving cream in the future. I also don't want to be a pushover and taken advantage of by the older kids.

So what's the call these days? Do you just hand the kids the bucket o' lantern and let them grab a handful or am I responsible for dropping a couple of things in each kid's bag? So far I've done both but the pressure's getting to me.

Chrissy's main concern was that I was going to eat all the candy. It's a valid one, since I'm like a chick when it comes to chocolate. I actually went and bought more on the way home to be safe. I'm also pretty much counting on not living around any hippy-types whose kids can only accept "healthy snacks." They'd be out of luck but I told Chrissy if this scenario does come to pass, her blueberry Nutri-Grain bars are in play.

Looking at this collection of kids from LI in their costumes, I have a feeling that this kid is allergic to all candy and gets beat up regularly,

And this kid will someday realize that he didn't really pull off the effect he was hoping for when his mom thought the veil from her wedding dress would provide the illusion of a train engine's steam.

...Alright, a couple of kids in Piazza jerseys just showed up and gave them like half the candy I had.

Top 5 Reasons For Blogging Less Than Usual This Week

5. I've been watching the baseball playoffs. I thought Lou Pinella was going to be great in the booth doing the ALCS. The first game he was pretty good but after a week I've decided he's actually pretty terrible. It makes sense to have an AL manager in there who could give a little insight into the some of the players the rest of the country isn't that familiar with, but to Lou every player--no matter how shitty--is really good and "hurt his team during the year." You'd think a guy who's known for losing his shit every other game would be a little more interesting but he even was talking about how great all of the umpires are. My opinion may the exception because Fox has been getting positive feedback and Lou's considering doing full time.

4. We (my father-in-law and I) expanded the closet in our bedroom (Chrissy's and mine, I don't share a bedroom with my father-in-law) and painting, staining, etc. has taken up a bunch of my time.

3. Can't think of a #3. Oh yeah, I raked a buttload of stick, branches, twigs, and leaves in the backyard that had accumulated during the week+ of rain we had.

2. Thursday night I was lucky enough to have a polysomnography.

1. It was one year ago today that I got married. We went to this place last night, which is about as NYC as you can get on LI as far as food, decor, and ambiance. We spoke to my grandmother on Friday night who said, "Congratulations, may you have another 50 years. I won't be around for that one, but good luck." And doesn't that say it all?

Whole Lotta Crazy Right Here

The latest meme is for people to post their quirks or idiosyncrasies. I saw this at Sheila's and then at Michele's. The meme asks for 5, so I've whittled down my baggage and offer you this quintet of crazy.

• Sponges. The kitchen kind. Can't touch them. This is one of my longest running ones, I've been adverse to sponges as long as I can remember. I've pretty much avoided using them my entire life. In the apartment we didn't have a dishwasher so we had to clean everything ourselves. Terrible, I know, but it becomes troublesome when one person won't touch a sponge. The answer of course is to go through these things like crazy.
• I always put both socks on first. Then my left shoe but I don't tie it until I put my right shoe on, then I tie my left shoe then the right. [UPDATE: As I'm getting dressed to go out to dinner tonight, I should clarify that it also extremely important that I put my socks on, then my pants, then my shoes. It irks me when people put their pants on then prance around barefoot prior to putting their socks and shoes on. Wrong order as far as I'm concerned.]
• Little balled up piece of paper. The worst. If you crumpled up a regular 8x11 piece of paper it won't bother me but as the piece of paper gets smaller my unease increases. The most common occurrence is when I'm at a restaurant and someone takes the paper of their straw and rolls it up in a ball. (I'm gagging slightly as I write this.) If it's someone I know well and who knows me, I'll ask them "What the hell is wrong with you?" If it someone who doesn't know about my thing or who I'd rather not know, I'll sweep it off onto the floor. I feel bad for the guy who has to sweep up but they'd have to do it anyway. When I'm unsheathing my own straw, I make sure it comes off either whole or in two pieces. Sometimes, I'll fold it but I'll never roll it up into a little ball. You little balled up straw wrapping people are complete animals as far as I'm concerned.
• Certain sounds force me to grab hold of my front teeth. Nails on a chalkboard and other high pitched squeals don't really bother me all that much. My thing is different. There are a lot of things that can create a similar noise but the best way to describe it as the sound of a guitar player (playing an acoustic guitar) sliding his had up and down the fretboard. The best example of this is on Sade's "By Your Side." Go listen to the clip. Hear it? It's the worst! The Sound overwhelms me. Other sundry ridged plastic objects can make this sound as well. Terrible.
• I'm a pretty big Counting Crows fan: I've seen them 12-15 times (3x in one week a few years ago), I have all of their CDs, etc. I was also at the show that they did for MTV's old 10-Spot show which is also the second disc in the double-cd, Across a Wire: Live in New York City. Having seen them so many times and listened to the live CD so many times, I know the differences between the live and studio versions of all the songs, especially the ones on Across a Wire. The result has been that when I hear the studio versions on the radio or iPod, I sing along but I do the live versions. The changes in inflection that Duritz does live, the different "yeahs," "woos," and "heys." All of it. The most fun (or crazy) song is the live version of "Murder of One" which includes a bunch of "Get the hell ups!" which I have to sing even when it's the just the studio version. If I didn't explain this well, listen to the Amazon clip (Disc 2, Track 9) you can hear him say "Let's go, Let's go" towards the end. That's only in the live version, but I add it to the studio version every time I hear it.

I may update the list if I can think of any other good ones.

UPDATE 8/21/05

Overheard in My Car Last Night

She: I can't believe you're not going to go the craft fair with me tomorrow.

He: (...)

Thought I'd Share

This morning I had the third of four trips to the dentist for root canal. Root canal always sounded like a scary and painful procedure, but either my dentist has a preternaturally light touch or everyone else is a total pussy. I don't know which.

Anyway, while she was doing whatever she was doing in my mouth I started thinking about where all the spittle/saliva ends up as it's being sucked out of the patients' mouths by that thing. I came pretty close to throwing up all over the both of us (and the hygenist) but I was successful in repressing the desire to toss.

My guess is that no one actually has to come in contact with the vat where this stuff ends up. It probably just goes down a regular drain, but what if it doesn't?

I think this idea came into my head because I'm constantly hearing radio commercials for this new show on Discovery. 

The Homestretch

For anyone interested, my hiatus will continue until at least next Wednesday. We're moving on Tuesday and whatever weird arithmetic that went on in my head to determine when to call the cable company to hook things up in the new house was totally off. They're not coming until next Wednesday, so I really doubt I'll be posting again until then. I'll also probably be totally out of it as far as my reading of other blogs.

One night while we were painting Chrissy exhaustedly said, "I need a montage." Like they sang in Team America: (Lyric site w/ tons of pop-ups so don't click through, it's just a blog courtesy thing.)

The hours approaching, just give it your best
You got to reach your prime.
That’s when you need to put yourself to the test,
And show us a passage of time,
Were going to need a montage (montage)
Oh it takes a montage (montage)

Sure a lot of things happing at once,
With mind, everyone what’s going on (what’s going on?)
And when every shot you show a little improvement
Just Show it or it will take to long
that’s called a montage (montage)
Oh we want montage (montage)

And anything that we want to know, from just a beginner to a pro,
You want a montage (montage)
even rocky had a montage (montage)

(Montage…montage)

Anything that we want to know, from just a beginner to a pro,
You need a montage (montage)
Oh it takes a montage (montage)

Always fade out in a montage,
If you fade out, it seem like more time
Has passed in a montage,
Montage

She right; since we've closed on the house last month, our lives have taken on a quality of a Kevin Bacon movie montage. (Think She's Having a Baby and/or He Said, She Said.) I beleive both of those movies went to the well for the old "we're moving in together" montage.

You know, the packing, the painting (with requisite paint fight that leads to coitus--for the record it doesn't work like this in real life), picking out furniture where the woman gushes over a piece while Bacon scowls with his arms folded across his chest, followed by Bacon doing most of the heavy lifting of said piece of furniture, etc. And like the song says, all of this is over and done with in about 3 1/2 minutes with Bacon and his co-star living in their cool new pad without actually screaming at each other at the top of their lungs because that's the only form of communication they're capable of.

In my reality the last few weeks has consisted of going to work, coming home, eating pizza, going to at least two of the following: Lowe's, Home Depot, Home Depot Expo, or Ace, driving the 20 minutes to the new house and working, painting, cleaning, etc. until about 10pm, then back to the apartment to shower, sleep, and start it all over again the next day. One night when we were driving to the house, "Don't Stop Me Now" came up on the iPod and we settled on it as our Kevin Bacon movie montage soundtrack.

I'm a shooting star leaping through the sky
Like a tiger defying the laws of gravity
I'm a racing car passing by like Lady Godiva
I'm gonna go go go
There's no stopping me

I'm burnin' through the sky yeah
Two hundred degrees
That's why they call me Mister Fahrenheit
I'm trav'ling at the speed of light
I wanna make a supersonic man out of you

Don't stop me now I'm having such a good time
I'm having a ball
Don't stop me now
If you wanna have a good time just give me a call
Don't stop me now ('Cause I'm having a good time)
Don't stop me now (Yes I'm havin' a good time)
I don't want to stop at all

Naturally, it's totally dopey, but so his having to paint your new house and allowing it to devolve into a paint fight like Bacon consistently does. The song captures the determination and exicitement of getting our house ready...uh...if life were a cheesey '80s movie.

Most thankfully though, my father-in-law knows how to do almost everything that we needed to do in the house and with my dad as the Luigi to his Mario they did a lot of work during the day. I mean a lot of work. We couldn't have done it without them. I love those guys. [As an Italian-American, I think I just offended myself with the Nintendo reference.]

So until such time that I have internet access again, later.

Oh and I have some minor dental stuff going on that should be taken care of this Wednesday just make sure that this that much more of an annoying week.

Break

It was a big deal--one of the hugest--when David Lee Roth left Van Halen. It wouldn't have been such a big deal if Michael Anthony left at the height of the group's fame. MA was just the bassist. And a chubby balding vest-wearing one at that. He wasn't the band's personality like DLR or it's virtuoso like Eddie or even Alex who was at least Eddie's brother.

So if the blogosphere is Van Halen, I'm like Michael Anthony's 4th cousin. No one's going to miss me.

Posting will probably even less frequent here than it has been for the rest of the summer. We're closing on the house on Friday. Which is good but as anyone who has moved knows, things will be thrown into major upheaval and chaos as a result. We have some work to do in the house that we're going to try to get done before we actually move. We're shooting for the middle of July to make the full switch over to our new residence. So there's that.

Also softball on Sundays and during the week will also consume some of my time and energy.

Tonight we're going to see Kevin James on his yearly return to LI. (I've realized his shows here coincide with the running of Belmont.)

What else? I've been driving a rental car since the beginning of the month because Saab has had my car since then for repairs. If I understand it correctly, a ball bearing or something came loose in the steering column and I suspect that there is some Swede swimming it across the Atlantic to New York as we speak. They're paying for the rental car (a fully guido-ed out Grand Prix) which is nice but I'd really like my car back sometime soon.

One of my buddies lent me Tom Friedman's new book so I'm now about over 100 pages in all three of the books on the "Currently Reading" sidebar. Also, The Confusion just arrived and I'm ready to abandon everything to get into that. Not just the other books but Kevin James, the house, etc.

So, I'll pop in but don't expect much. (I'd like to think that I've lowered expectations enough that you're already at the "not expecting much" stage.)

UPDATE

Also, take a freakin' guess already.