The Weekend Is Looking Up

Merry Sunday, sucka uckas. I'm glad some of you enjoyed yesterday's Venn Diagram. If Dom ever finds his way to my bliznog he should be proud to have been showcased. Speaking of Dom, I'm gonna roll that fool when I'm in the 'lo in a few weeks.

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Friday Was Wack

Friday night I was bored as hell. I finally got some energy up to bring my radar detector to the Post Office to send in for service. We have one of those handy do-it-yourself mailing stations so you can mail stuff at any hour of the day or night. Oh, it's sweet.

So I waltzed in, package in hand, ready to get to doing-it-myself. I placed the box on the scale, entered all of the info, added insurance and tracking, printed my receipt and was happy knowing that in a few moments I would be able to check this off my list.

The last thing the machine tells you before it thanks you for visiting the Post Office is to place a Priority Mail sticker on each side of the package. "Right, I'll just reach over here to the Priority Mail station and grab a few stickers" I thought to myself. Eeee-wrong. They had no stickers. I walked around a bit, even checked in the trash, and came up empty-handed. I would have to go back on Saturday.

After that, I hit up Target for some items I've been lacking. Mostly I wanted to buy a movie to watch, but I threw in some dried cranberries ($1.79 a bag, yo), AAA batteries (for my headlamp, $1.00 for four) and some black socks for work. I ended up crashing out at 9:30. Yup, I'm old.

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Saturday, A Day of Productivity

Saturday I awoke at 9:30 after a measly 12 hours of sleep. Work has had me running around, thinking, answering questions, and generally doing work and it's taken a toll on me. Oh, plus I've been doing a lot of running which also tires a guy out.

I had some breakfast and set to work on the storm windows I was fixing last weekend. I spent most of the morning cleaning the old glaze out, removing (much more carefully) the one good pane, cutting a new pane, and installing all four panes. I took some pictures but I doubt you care to see a ratty ass window.

After that, it was off to the Post Office (which was closed by then) in the hopes that they'd have more stickers out. They did, and I sent the package off to Ohio for repair. Oh my way back, I swung by the auto parts store and picked up a new wiper blade for the rear windshield of my Lesbaru. Finally, I've needed one for over a year now. The old one was just about to either rip in half or turn to dust, so I got to it right in the nick of time.

While I was installing the wiper blade, I took some window cleaner to the rear windshield. The glass had apparently last been cleaned at the factory, and there were times when I couldn't see out of it. A few swipes of the paper towel and it was good as new (ish).

After that I pretty much hung low for the night. I watched the movie I had bought the previous night (Caddy Shack) and turned in. Oh yeah, I may have snuck a run in there too. It was the maiden voyage of tights for the winter. I held off as long as I could, but the mercury dipped below freezing so the tights came out.

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Tricked Again

Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you. Fool me every weekend, we're all fools. This was the case this morning when I showed up for the group run. It was supposed to be a nice, easy run in the woods, serving as a recovery run for a woman who ran the ING NYC Marathon last weekend. Instead, it was 5.5 miles up Mount Greylock (on dirt roads), then back down another road. For good measure, we ran around a little when we finished to round it off to an even 12 miles.

Let me tell you, I was freezing. It was around 30, windy as a bitch (you know how windy bitches can get), and I was dressed all wrong. I had no wind breaking gear, no gloves and a cotton sweatshirt. I had to pull one sleeve down over my right hand, and wear a bandanna on my left hand (I couldn't cover the GPS watch, lest I should not have the route captured). Thank God there were no gangs up there or we surely would have been clapped at for sporting the wrong gang bandanna.

What we did see were hordes of New Yorkers on their way to the visitor's center to check out the view. The condo/time share consortium likes to show people the nice view in the hopes of selling them a piece of property. In reality, they cannot see that view from what might become be their property. In actuality, the condosare on the other side of another mountain, but whatever. Let them pay $400k for a small apartment next to the slopes.

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Word, I'm out.


Over and Out,
Old Coot

Get the Whole Story Here...

Never the 'Tween Shall Meet

My homebizzle Dom from the B-lo sent me an e-mail today. To it he attached a Venn diagram that I think might clear up a few questions for those of you who may have had different experiences to those we had back in high school. Take a gander and let me know if there's anything you don't understand.

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Is Wu Tang Clan Anything to Fuck With?

If you're having trouble seeing where Wu Tang Clan and Things to fuck with overlap, click the picture. It should be clear that The Wu Tang Clan ain't indeed nothin' to fuck with.

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Big Ups to The RZA, The GZA, the Old Dirty Bastard, Inspecta Deck, Raekwon the Chef, U-God, Ghostface Killa and the M-E-T-H-O-D Man. Rest in Peace, Big Baby Jesus.

Over and Out,
Old Coot

Get the Whole Story Here...

List of Things To Do: Update

Hey guys. I was just perusing my Olde Blogge (remember the blog I had before I came here to Blogger?) and I stumbled upon a list I made on January 11, 2006. I had been inspired by a popular television show to come up with a list of things I wanted to do before I turned 30. I still have plenty of time, but I thought I'd check in and see how I'm doing.

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The List

1. Run a marathon
2. Take a bike trip somewhere far (not a day trip)
3. Throw a huge party
4. Get married
5. Have people genuinely cheer for me
6. Work at a coffee shop
7. Take a cruise
8. Have somebody work for me
9. Be mentioned in a magazine
10. Skydive
11. Rescue a Damsel in Distress
12. Get my ass kicked by a woman (not the Damsel, preferably)
13. Travel outside of North America
14. Grow a vegetable garden

Okay, let's take a look at these one at a time:

1. Run a marathon - Haven't done it yet, but I have plans in the works.
2. Take a bike trip somewhere far - I assume this means further than a day trip. Haven't done it yet, but I would still love to.
3. Throw a huge party - Nope
4. Get married - Negatory and highly unlikely at this point. This is a dumb goal anyway, probably part of the reason we have a 50% divorce rate in this country.
5. Have people genuinely cheer for me - Well, at the Brock Trot I had people cheering for me (although, they didn't know my name). As I got closer to the finish line they really started cheering, and it seemed genuine. I'm taking credit.
6. Work at a coffee shop - Nope. I think this is more of a lifetime goal anyway, not a "by 30" goal. I wouldn't put it on the list if I rewrote it today.
7. Take a cruise - Nope, and probably won't happen. Again, not a real "by 30" goal anyway.
8. Have somebody work for me - Not yet, but maybe soon.
9. Be mentioned in a magazine - Nope, but I've been in the paper several time. Wait, I was in Berkshire Living magazine, but only in a picture and they spelled my name wrong. I'm taking credit.
10. Skydive - I'm thinking next summer for this one.
11. Rescue a Damsel in Distress - Hmm, tried once but she was a bitch anyway. I'll take credit but it's not exactly what I had in mind.
    
12. Get my ass kicked by a woman (not the Damsel, preferably) - Still working.
    
13. Travel outside of North America - Done! Went to Japan this past summer.
    
14. Grow a vegetable garden - Damn, still haven't done this.

Conclusion: I've achieved only 3 of the goals. If I remove the ones I think are dumb (or at least have no place on this list) that's 3 out of 11, still not a good number. Some of them are not necessarily under my control (getting ass kicked by a woman), and some I truly think I'll be able to fit in during the next year. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

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Over and Out,
Old Coot

Get the Whole Story Here...

The Weekend Three-Banger

Hey y'alls, what's up? Or, in the words painted in blaze orange on one of the boulders up in The Boulders "Whast (sic) tha (sic) word". Yes, that's correct. Two misspelled words in a three-word sentence, painted on a boulder for all to see. Dumb bastards.

FYI, The Boulders is 634 acre piece of land owned by Crane & Co. (they make the paper on which our money is printed) and protected by the MA Department of Fish and Game. At the top is, you guessed it, a bunch of boulders. It's a popular destination for hikers, bikers, runners and unfortunately, punk-ass high school kids.

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Friday, Perfect for Spring Cleaning

This past Friday we had the day "off" as the 10th day in our 9/80 schedule. The company counts this as a vacation day, and likes to tout it as a real bonus. In reality it's just a day filled with all of the chores that you couldn't do for the last two weeks because everything was closed by the time you got out of work. Anyway, I put it to good use this week.

My plan was to clean out the garage (or put the shit back in the basement where it belongs), take the 5 bags of lawn detritus (needles, etc) to the transfer station, "winterize" my kayak (put a tarp over it), get new panes of glass for my last remaining storm window, take the four bags of clothes to one of those clothes bins (like Goodwill, only convenient), mow the lawn and have a fire.

Well, I did manage to pick up the glass (damn, $18 a pane for a window I barely need), drop off the sacks o' pine needles and clothes, mow the lawn, run the gas out of the lawn mower (for winter) and do a bunch of laundry. I didn't get to the garage or the kayak, but I had my reasons.

Back Story: I have two storm windows with two panes of glass in each. A few years back one pane in each window was broken in a wind storm. Conclusion: two windows with one good pane and one broken pane in each.

After picking up the 2 panes of glass for my storm windows, I felt inspired to start working on them. I scraped the paint, got the old glaze out of the track, removed the little glazing points (the little metal things that actually hold the glass in place) and was ready to install the glass. That's when I thought to myself, "Well, I really should re-do the glaze on the old glass too. Why half-ass it?"

So I set to work removing the glaze and glazing points from the good pane. I cleaned it up real purdy-like and just when I almost had the glass out, CHINK, the damn thing broke. Now I have three panes to replace. My next step was to steal the glass out of an old window I don't need, cut it down to size and replace both panes.

With handsaw in hand, I cut the old window frame to pieces, gently removed the glass, set it aside, and quit for the day. That was enough suffering for one day. I didn't want to risk breaking another piece of glass.

I think tonight I'm going to reassemble the first storm window and get started on the next. Hmm, maybe I'll clear out the garage so I can work in there.

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I Know There's a Reason...

This weekend I decided to rearrange my bedroom. It's always a refreshing task that seems to give you the feeling of having a whole new bedroom. As with any task, it also introduces a few more tasks that, if tackled, improve your quality of life. This one was no different.

For a while now I've been trying to figure out a new configuration for my bedroom furniture. Every time I think I have a plan, there's some reason why that plan won't work: the bed would be right in front of the door, bad Chi, outlets in the wrong places, etc. This time, I threw caution to the wind and basically just mirrored the old setup, switching the bed with the rest of the stuff.

My bedroom is not quite a square. It has a little cove-like area where my bed used to be. This made sense because it kept me from losing floor space, and it gave me that cozy cave-like feeling that hermits like me enjoy. Needing a change, I decided I could live without that and I moved everything around.

Besides a new arrangement, there's the added benefit of a clean room. Anyone who's ever moved furniture knows that you better have a HazMat team on call to deal with the shit behind/beneath that furniture once it's moved. Rearrange everything and you're really asking for it. I had more dust, cat fur, spiders and cobwebs than I could imagine in an otherwise clean room and thanks to my decision to rearrange everything it's now all clean.

The other benefit is that my bed (and a pound of cat fur/dust/spider carcasses) used to cover the return vent for the heat. This of course resulted in no (or at least very little) heat in the bedroom. In a house where the warmest room is 58 degrees at night, an unheated (or scarcely heated) room gets mighty cold. We'll see how that works out.

As I rested my head on the pillow Saturday night (the first night in the "new" room) I was prepared for a good night's sleep. It was early and I had a sense of satisfaction that can only come from checking myriad things off a to-do list. I double-checked the alarm to make sure it was off then rolled over to drift off to sleep. BAM! A street light was shining right in the freaking window, right in my freaking eye! Maybe that was the reason I never moved the furniture around.

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Alright, I've been working on this for days. If I don't just cut it loose now it'll never get posted.


Over and Out,
Old Coot

Get the Whole Story Here...

Off the Dome

I've been trying to keep posting on a regular basis. Over the weekend I spent hours writing, but then pulled the plug at the last minute when I deemed my monologues unworthy. Instead of talking about what I've been doing, I'm just going to put down some thoughts I've been having lately.

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Feel-Good Lyrics Pop Quiz

There are some songs in regular rotation in my living room and in my head, songs that just plain make me feel good. Below you'll find a few lyrical selections from those songs (I, II, III). Below those you'll find the artists (A, B, C). See if you can match them up correctly. Since this won't be graded, don't cheat and look up the answers on Google.

I

The Good Life.
Let's go on a livin spree.
Shit, they say the best things in life are free.
The Good Life.

Sorry, this one doesn't look as good on paper as it does on the airwaves.

II

The telephone's singing, ringin'
it's too early don't pick it up.
We don't need to,
we got everything we need right here,
and everything we need is enough.
It's just so easy when the whole world fits inside of your arms.
Do we really need to pay attention to the alarm?
Wake up slow, mmm mmm, wake up slow.

III

Fuck you too, bitch.
Call the cops.
Ima kill you and them loud ass mothafuckin' barkin' dogs.

Okay, this one is not a feel-good lyric at all, but I hate loud ass mothafuckin' barkin' dogs. In fact, whenever I hear a dog barking incessantly (which is often) that line runs through my head over and over.

Artists:
A. Eminem
B. Jack Johnson
C. Kanye West

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Lost Meanings

You know how old people are so worried that today's youth won't know how to tell time on an analog clock? If their fears are correct, in a short while when you yell "Zombie at Five O'Clock!" the kid won't know where to shoot. He'll be so busy digging his mobile phone out of his pocket he'll probably barely even notice that his flesh is being torn from his body.

Some additional phrases in danger of losing their meaning include:

• Dial a Phone
• Tapping your wrist to silently ask someone the time (no, not a phrase but if people use the clocks on their cell phones they won't know what that motion means)
• Area codes - meaningless these days. Phone numbers will soon just be 10 digits with the first three loosely identifying the region of the country where someone resides
• Rewind - No tapes to rewind. Hell, even CDs are on their way out. You can't rewind a Flash drive. Now the term is "back that up", as in "Yo son, that was tight. Back that up." Remember "Be Kind, Rewind"?
  
• Cigarette Break (AKA Smoke Break) - This one I'm trying to keep alive, but with a different meaning. I take smoke breaks but just walk around outside to clear my head.
• Turn Signal - Use it or lose it.
• Common Cold - Nobody just gets sick anymore, we have super viruses now.
• Responsibility - Think about it, this is a do what you want and someone else will cover you society.

Sorry, this list got a little lame on me. I had a real reason for starting it, but nowadays it's taking me several days to put together a posting.

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That's it. I'll holler at y'all later.


Over and Out,
Old Coot

Get the Whole Story Here...