Miasmatic Review

It's a goblin.

Last week at the store I saw a beer not only had I never had, but I had never heard of before. Of course this meant I must purchase one in order to sample it. I had placed it in the refrigerator to cool and promptly forgot about it. That is until today. I was supposed to have the power company come out so my electrician could do the last bit on the electrical. They where supposed to disconnect the power to the house so he could work on the external hook up before the city inspector comes. Originally ComEd was supposed to be here on Monday, they didn't show, so the electrician rescheduled for today, and again they didn't show. Sigh. I was rather frustrated and decided I needed something to drink, meaning water, not alcohol.

Once I opened the fridge I saw my bottle of Wychwood Hobgoblin Dark English Ale. I figured this would be as good of time as any to try it out.

According to the label it's a "Full bodied & well balanced with a chocolate toffee malt flavour, moderate bitterness & a distinctive fruity character with a ruby red glow" ~Jeremy Moss, Head Brewer.

It didn't take me long to realize this is a type of beer that I just don't like. It's not that it's bad; it's just got a bit of a flavor I don't care for. First off, it does have a slight fruity flavor that lingers on the tongue. Towards the end of the beer it does tend to be more malty, but not badly so. This is one of those beers that I think tastes better slightly warm as opposed to chilled. The aftertaste can be strong, but it doesn't last too long. If you don't like bitter beers stay away from this one, it's not overly bitter in my opinion, but it did have a bitter bite to it. Maybe it's because it's English, but I swear it really had a toffee flavor to it. I know the label says it does, but so do many others. This one however made me want to go get a Heath bar.

About now one of my few English readers that like this beer is about to blow a gasket and throw out the typical insult of, "Americans just don't have the sophisticated taste for European beer." Nah, that's not true. I like a lot of European beers. This, however, is not one of them. Again, it's not a horrible beer. It's just not the type of beer I like.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd rate this beer about a four.

She's gone

GAH! She left! She left me! She left me to go to Chicago for 3 whole days! She didn’t learn from last time. I’m not Single Dad again. Of course to make matters most difficult, my first day I have to work until 6:00 PM, which means I had to make arrangements for Clone. That made life a little bit more interesting.

By the time I got home tonight it was well after 6:30 PM. Dinner wasn’t done until 7:00 PM. Yes, I admit I made a crappy cheap and easy meal. It took clone all of 15 minutes to decide he didn’t want it and throw it onto the floor. He wanted his mama. GAH!!!! Finally I put him to bed; well I attempted to put him to bed. We could not find his favorite stuffed Animal… the poisonous tree frog. We also couldn’t find a pacifier. After twenty minutes of searching we finally found one. It was hidden behind the couch.

I know at one time we had close to 10 of the damn things, but where they are at now, no one knows. Well no one in this house at least. I think Ktreva might now where they are at, but she’s not here.

Tomorrow I have to rush from work, get the boys, run home meet the electrician (Com Ed is cutting power to our house so he can finish up). That should be fun with Clone. He’ll be nice and happy to play with, especially with no power.

I guess I'm famous.

The other day I was sitting on the computer playing Age of Empires III. It’s one of my favorite games. There is just something satisfying about building up an army and then decimating your opponent. Especially when I have a bunch of Indian allies that I can turn loose upon the unsuspecting settlers. When I hear their death screams it’s soothing. Much like the relaxing sound of a soft rain on a warm summers evening.

Clone comes over and decides he wants to watch me play. That’s not unusual, he also is fascinated by the settlers death cries. This time he decided that instead of getting his own chair, he wanted to sit on my lap. Sure, no problem. Maybe it’s harder to play, but I was getting toward the end of the game and I pretty much had already won. All I had to do was send the amassed army of 50 natives, 30 cavalry, 80 infantry and 18 artillery against the unsuspecting French. All was going well.

Then Clone looks up onto the computer desk and sees my Silent Bob Action Figure. He points at it and says, “That’s you, dada!” Looking at where he’s pointing, I chuckle and try to explain that no, no that’s not me at all. Clone looks at me like I am on crack and with all the seriousness a 3 year old has states, “No, that’s you!” Trying to argue with a 3 year old is an exercise in futility. However, I’m a stubborn man, so I tried. For 20 minutes I argued with him that it was not me, it was in deed Silent Bob. Apparently Clone is also stubborn, he must get it from his mother. At the end of twenty minutes I gave up. Telling him, “You’re right. That’s me.” I was hoping that would shut him up.

Did that work?

Hell no! Looking me in the eye, in all seriousness he says, “Dada, you tell the truth! It’s naughty to lie. You can’t say it’s not you!” Then he kept going on about how I have a statue of myself. I was torn between laughing from the loss of sanity to duct taping him to the ceiling fan.

I can see where he might think it looks like me. We both have facial hair. We’re both bigger guys, I do wear a hat a lot (only not backwards) and I do have a black overcoat that I wear to work on colder days. At least my son thinks I’m famous.

Beer Cannon

I’d say this was a waste of good beer, but it’s only Milwaukee’s Best Light. Which on the beer scale it is only slightly better then Camo Silver High Gravity Lager.

For all the potential stalkers out there.

How pathetic does one person have to be to dedicate a web page to their girlfriend? When I hear that the first thing I think of is some High School kid who is in his first relationship with a girl. Then I think, hey we have a future stalker here. At first I thought this was just one person, then I did a Google Search for “This page is dedicated to my girlfriend”.

Holy farking nightmare boyfriends! Ladies, please fill me in, if your man did something like this for you, would you appreciate it? I mean, do you find this romantic or creepy?

However, if you think you might want to make one of these. At least do it properly. Here’s a website on How to Dedicate a Webpage to Your Girlfriend. I think it’s important to make note of the first guideline. Guideline # 1 ~ Make sure you actually have a girlfriend.

What is the world coming to? I wish we could go back to the good ol’ days of finding women. Offer her father two cows and a goat for the pretty daughter and tell him you know a guy that will give the same for the ugly one because he’s desperate.

Talk about frigid.

I don’t know if this is good editing or if they added something to the water, but I want to know how this is done.

If anyone knows the answer, please share with me. Thanks!

Flaming fun.

Since the Fourth of July is rapidly approaching, I thought I would include this little cautionary tale. Originally I found this clip over at College Humor. (The site itself is NSFW, you never know what you’re going to have displayed).

This is why States like Illinois have laws banning fireworks. Idiots like these help support the governments belief that people can’t think for themselves and need to be told what to do. I mean seriously people; in what world would anyone think this is a good idea? You know that if the kid getting shot got hurt, his parents would be petitioning the lawmakers to make a law banning fireworks or making it a felony to shoot them at someone. Then they would name the law after the boy, the “Farking idiot that doesn’t have the common sense to not let his friend shoot him with Roman candle” Law. Then all the responsible, firework-loving citizens of the state would suffer. As the fireworks would get banned or you need a special license to buy them, people would go out of state to procure their fiery fun. Then they would make another law, the “People are buying fireworks out of state, bringing them back and lighting them, so we need to ban the setting off of fireworks” law.

Then the cops will be able to confiscate all the ill-gotten fireworks. And issue tickets to help bolster the local economy. Trust me, I have experience with this.

Maybe life is fair.

Here’s another example of how life balances things out naturally.

Ktreva:
-Going out drinking with some friends, she can have a good time on $20.00
-Getting her hair done. $100.00.
-Total: $120.00.

Contagion:
-Going out drinking with some friends: Approximately $100.00
(Before you ask, no that’s not at a strip club!)
-Getting my hair cut. $15.00
-Total: $115.00

Close enough in my books. I say that’s pretty fair. Right guys?!?!

Like I needed a quiz to tell me this.

Blatently stolen from CalTechGirl. And slightly modified... but only slightly!

When not to answer your door with a gun.

Last Saturday I was sitting on the couch in my living room watching TV. From the corner of my eye I catch movement through the window. I see two Hispanic males wearing basketball jerseys and bandanas walking down my driveway from my back yard. What the hell! I watch as they get to the sidewalk, turn and then come up the walk to my front door.

Oh hell no! You do not come out of my back yard, and then have the nerve to walk up to my front door. Quickly I grabbed the first thing in reach, my blunderbuss. Okay, it’s a primitive firearm, but all they see is a giant barrel. Most of the time people can’t tell that it’s not loaded or that it even requires black powder in the pan, the hammer cocked, a flint and the frizzen to be closed in order for it to fire.

With the blunderbuss over my shoulder I answer the door, “Can I help you with something.” These two teens are eyeing the beast slung over my shoulder with a mixture of “Oh Crap” and “Dude, that’s cool!” looks on their faces. Kind of nervously, one of the teenagers says, “We are with the local church. We are having a picnic next Saturday for everyone in the neighborhood. We wanted to personally invite you and your family to come and join in the festivities. There will be food, drinks and games for everyone. Here’s a flyer. Do you think you’ll be able to come?”

I flip that blunderbuss off my shoulder and level at the kid’s head. “GET THE FARK OFF MY PROPERTY YOU BIBLE THUMPIN’ DOOR BELL PUSHER! I HAVE HALF A MIND TO SMEAR YOUR BRAIN ALL OVER YOUR BUDDY STANDING BEHIND YOU! YOU HAVE UNTIL THE COUNT OF THREE AND THEN I’LL FILL YOU SO FULL OF LEAD, YOU CAN USE YOUR DICK AS A PENCIL!*” These two kids jump off the porch and run like their arse is on fire and their hair was a catchin’. One of the boys was running so fast ran right out of his sneakers. The other tripped and fell since his droopy pants fell down around his ankles.

And then my brain kicked in and decided to not do any of the above thinking it would have ended up with me in jail. I politely explained that I was not going to be available to attend; I have a Raptors game that night! Give up football for Church… What kind of sacrilege is that?

*I loved that line in the Three Amigos. I try to use it when ever it can be applied properly.

More then 15 minute notice is needed.

Dammit! I took the day off of work to have the Air Conditioner installed. I made sure the electrical was all up and working so there would be no problems. I even made sure that I cleaned out the area the unit was going to go and kept it clean. Since I was going to be home, I kept Clone for the day. No need taking him to the sitter if Daddy’s going to be home.

All was going well, I woke up early to make sure I was ready for them. I made a special breakfast for Clone and I. Just as I was sitting down to type up a post, the phone rings. It’s from the contractor. They can’t come today. Mother Farker! It pissed me off. I scheduled this day two weeks ago just to make sure there wouldn’t be any problems. I took the time off of work to have this done. They call the farkin’ day of the installation and want to reschedule.

Contractor: “Mr. Contagion. I’m sorry, but we are not going to be able to come out today to install the air conditioner. We’re going to need to reschedule.”

Me, “Wait… you’re calling me the day of the installation to tell me you can’t come? I took the day off of work to be here.”

Contractor: “I’m really sorry, when is the next available day we can come to install it?”

Me, “Tomorrow.”

Contractor: “… Tomorrow is Saturday.”

Me, “Yes it is, but I took today off of work to have this done. If you had told me yesterday I could have gone into work today and not lost the time. I won’t be able to take another day off in a while due to other peoples vacations. So it’s either tomorrow, or I cancel and go with another company.”

Contractor: “We’ll be out tomorrow. Is the same time okay?”

Me, “Yes, yes it is.”

Maybe I was being a bit of an asshole to the guy. I just don’t care. Too many people anymore don’t realize that other people work. If you want us to do something in the middle of the week, we can’t just leave work or tell them, “Hey, I’m not coming in.” Well I guess you could, but you’d be jobless pretty damn quick. I know I wouldn’t be this irritated if they had called me yesterday and said something, but they didn’t. They called me late this morning. I just find that highly unacceptable.

He's three!

It’s Harvey of Bad Example’s three year blogging anniversary. As he is part of the unholy trinity that begat my blogging career, I feel the need to share a story about Harvey. Of course it’s not about how I was begat, the statute of limitations aren’t up and I believe all three parties are still in relative good terms with their spouses.

Back in the dark ages, about 1 BC (Before Contagion) I used to roam the Internet, a lost soul leaving comments on various blogs, but never entertaining the thought of starting my own. Then one day I received an e-mail from someone I didn’t recognize. I really wished I had saved the message at it touched me deeply, but I do remember what it said.

“Hey, if you’re going to soil my blog with your comments, why don’t you get off your whisky soaked butt and actually start your own. You can’t be much worse then half the crap that is out there on Myspace. Well, then again you might. Anyway, I’m off topic here. You should at least start something so that we can reciprocate your comments by ignoring you.” --Harvey

I paraphrased a little, but that pretty much was like that. So away I went and started Miasmatic Review. Being a novice at blogging and he would actually return my e-mails, unlike the other two parts of the unholy trinity that I think have pretty much disavowed any knowledge of their part in bringing me into the blogging world, I’d ask him for advice on how to do various things… like set up trackbacks. That and his wonderful blogging tips actually kept me from making a lot of unnecessary faux pas, as opposed to the necessary ones that I made on my own.

Move forward a couple of months and I was advised of a blogmeet and had heard that Mr. Bad Example himself was going to be there. Oh glory of day! How could I pass up a chance to meet the man that inspired, motivated, coerced and assisted me in starting to blog? I vowed by all that is good and right in the world that I would be at this blogmeet, no matter what!

Upon arrival I instantly knew who he was. Not because of how he looked, or his mannerisms. It was because I heard him ask a waitress, “So, if you where going to start a blog, what would you call it?” As I walked to the table, he stood up to great me. It was like he was psychic; I’d never met him before, yet he knew who I was. Was it that paternal bond? Could it be his ever presence in the blogosphere gave him the ability to look through monitors? Could it be that his stalker like tendencies caused him to look up pictures of me, the mass abundance of them, on the Internet. He walked up and said, “You must be Contagion. I would recognize that spiky hair anywhere.” Then he proceeded to shake my hand and show me to a chair at the table. He took the liberty of introducing me to all of the other bloggers at the table. With cigars and whisky, he made me feel comfortable and welcomed. It was like I was a long lost son coming home.

Things got a little weird when he started referring to me as his boy and tried to hug me a couple of times, but I explained how I don’t hug and he stopped. Then, when the others weren’t paying attention, he said to me, “I have problem and I’m going to need your assistance. I feel you are the perfect person to help me with this task.” I was awestruck. He actually wanted my assistance. Me, a blogging newbie that had yet to make his mark in the blogosphere. (and still hasn’t). I couldn’t wait to hear what he could possibly want. Eagerly I agreed to help.

I asked, “What is it you want me to do?”

He leans closer, lips inches from my ear and yells. “GET OFF MY LAP YOU DRUNK! YOU HAVE YOUR OWN DAMN CHAIR!”

The ladies find it sexy.

The facial hair is coming in nicely. My mustache now covers my bottom lip. It looks a little ragged, until I start eating. Then the food works as a styling agent to help hold it in place. Ktreva finds that rather disgusting, but hey it works. Plus I discovered last Saturday at the Raptors game that if I drink good beer before going to the game. The filtering process makes the cheep beer taste like the good beer. Bonus!

I finally had someone at work question the bushiness of my face, or in their words, “Why is there a dead squirrel on your face?” I explained that I’m a re-enactor and I’m trying to get period facial hair, that and the fact that Ktreva forbid me from growing it, so now I must in order to preserve my male dominance in the house… well at least on this topic.

I’d post a picture, but many of you have politely requested I not do so anymore as it scared you. I’m just trying to be polite… this time.

I am the hammer god!

YAR!!!!!!!!! All the cement blocks are completely broken up now. My muscles are sore, my joints ache and my back is stiff. Ktreva is making fun of me because my right arm is looking all well defined and muscular, but my left looks the same as before. I told her I’m going to have to do more bar curls (Aka go to the bar and repeatedly lift drink to lips until consumed, order another and start again) to even it out, anyone volunteering to be a spotting partner?

Our electrician arrived to work on the wiring in the house. He was supposed to have come last Saturday, but he couldn’t make it. He’s doing this on the side and his employer had an emergency job to do. Tonight was the first night he was able to get over to start. He’s not finished, he has a lot of work to do, but he did get a good chunk out of the way. BTW, may the powers that be shine down on him. He started tearing into the electrical and noticed that the external wiring all the way through the meter was already gauged correctly. He checked with the city inspector, and now doesn’t have to move the meter. Our meter is in the basement, not on the outside of the house like most new ones. That means he is saving me even more money, and cutting a good 5 hours of work out of the job.

He did take a break tonight to admire my truck, which Ktreva found amusing. He has an old 70’s Chevy and was digging on Janine. We talked specs and checked out the features. For the rest of the night he kept saying, “God, that’s a nice truck.” I do believe he has truck envy.

Friday the heating and cooling company is coming to install the air conditioner. That means no more hot sweaty nights and weekends in the house. Maybe people will actually come over during the summer now since they won’t have the meat baked off of their bones. In order for this to be installed, I have to take the whole day off. However, they tell me that if they get here at 8:00 AM and there are no problems they should be done by 10 at the latest. That means that if anyone wants to help spot me doing bar curls Friday afternoon, say at a local wing joint, let me know! (hint hint hint)

My son has commitment issues.

No, he doesn’t have a girlfriend. He’s playing NFL Flag Football. Last Saturday the coach had him playing linebacker and had him doing pass rushing. Since they don’t have an offensive line, he has to stay at least 7 yards back from where the ball is being hiked, and then he can blitz the Quarterback. He’s quick and agile on his feet, and was doing a good job of hurrying the QB. The problem is that about 2 feet from the guy he would slow down and not go for the flag. There was at least 4 different occasions that if he committed to grabbing the flag, he would have gotten a sack.

When I asked him why, he told me that he was worried that he’d make a mistake and the QB would make a big play. I tried explaining to him that by not going for the flag, he was allowing the Quarterback to still make a play. Those can easily turn into big plays too. Tonight, after breaking more concrete up, we ran some drills in the back yard. I had him work on grabbing the flag. Then we worked on short range sprinting, and finally we worked on pass blocking and catching. Hey if he can make the interception, that’s just as good!

I didn’t work him too long. The point is for him to have fun. Not to hate the game, I don’t want to be THAT dad. You know, the one that is at the games berating their kid because he didn’t follow through. At home they work on drills and practice 4 hours a night, besides the team practice. I’m sure we’ve all seen a dad like that. In fact I knew a kid in High School who’s dad was so bad that he wouldn’t let his son go out with his friends on the weekend. They had to practice. The guy was convinced his son was going to be the first kid from our High School to get recruited to Notre Dame. Unfortunately the kid ended up breaking his leg the second game of the season his senior year. The last I heard he never played football again, well at least not during college and definitely not in the pros.

That’s not how I want to be. I want to help Boopie and encourage him. Work with him to improve his game. What I don’t want to do is drive the fun or the love of playing out of him. When he gets older I don’t want him to resent me for making him practice all the time. We won’t practice tomorrow night, unless he asks. Wednesday he has his normal team practice, and after that we’ll crush more rock. Right now I just like watching him play. Seeing him have fun on the field is more important then him being the strongest player on the team. I’d rather keep it that way.

Oh, and I did cheese one father off at the game on Saturday. I was talking to another dad and we didn’t understand some of the rules. (Like no rushing from with in 5 yards of the end zone, etc) He made the comment along the lines of, “It’s so the kids don’t get hurt.” I responded with, “Yea, I guess that makes sense. I mean, it is flag football; it’s not like real football. This is the football you put your kid into because they are too frail to play tackle.” (Boopie is a small guy and would get killed in tackle. In fact many of the kids would get crushed playing tackle) One of THOSE fathers overheard what I said and got a little agitated. Apparently he didn’t like the fact his son was not a starting safety for the Bears.

Puter went foom!

This appears to be rather old, so someone else may have posted this already. But since I haven’t seen it, here it goes again. A guy that does video editing was doing it on a Power Mac G4, he discovers that in order to runt he new programs he wants that he needs a G5. Unfortunately he can’t afford one. So he uses the internet to panhandle for $5,000.00. The catch is that if he gets the $5,000.00 he’ll blow up the G4.

Well he reached his goal, bought the new computer and fulfilled his promise.

I think he should have used a pound of black powder, it would have looked much more impressive.

Yea, that's about right.

I remember being younger and watching movies. The lead characters always had these hot girlfriends or would win the heart of the beauty they desire after. As I got older I was never able to figure out why I couldn’t do the same…(that is until I met my wife and then I was happy and never had any desires to even LOOK at another women because she’s perfect in every way.) In fact when I was younger I had a hard time keeping a relationship with a female over 3 months.

Now I know why. Here is a list of The 7 Best 80’s Movie Girlfriends. What’s great is if you read about each one, the break down why they had a crush on her, the character’s negatives and “How she was detrimental to our sexual development.

Personally, I always had a thing for Sloane (Mia Sara) from Ferris Bueller’s Day off. She always made me happy in my special place.

His finger is itchier then chicken pox.

I’m not a fan of rap. In fact there are only a handful of rap songs I enjoy. However, I do loves me some humor. I ran across this video. It appears to be made by Jamie Kennedy, I’m not sure what for, but it’s funny. I mean, c’mon who thought Bob Sagat could be such a hard arse! BTW, before you click play, this is NSFW (Language) Let me introduce you to Rollin' w/ Sagat!

He’s got a c0ck like a donkey, hard as a rock!

We've moved into the 1900s.

Our house has an antique cast iron lion foot bathtub in the main bathroom. I say main because at sometime a previous owner built a makeshift bathroom in the basement, but really this house only has one bathroom. The basement is an unfurnished limestone basement. The “bathroom” down there has no walls; it’s just a toilet in a corner of the basement with a crude shower built next to it. There are no walls surrounding it. For years we never had a real shower to use.

That is until today. After years of putting it off, I finally installed a shower in the bathroom. Well actually I bought a conversion kit to turn the lion footed bathtub into a shower. We like the antique tub and didn’t want to get rid of it. That and the fact it weighs a ton and is on the second floor also helped the decision. I really didn’t want to have to move the beast if I didn’t have to. Due to many other reasons I just never got around to converting the tub. Mainly it was because of laziness. Hey, I’m not denying it.

A couple of weeks ago the faucet on the tub started leaking. It wouldn’t turn off completely. The best we could do was slow it to a fast drip. Mainly it would just run as off the faucet was cracked open. All right, I needed to replace the faucet. If I was going to do that, I might as well install the shower. That was when I discovered that most of the local hardware stores do NOT stock the shower conversion kits anymore. I guess they figure that if a house had a lion footed tub, it would have been converted by now.

After searching for weeks I went to a locally owned hardware store, Nicholson Hardware. People, this is the best hardware store on the planet. It is stocked with just about everything you could look for in home improvement. Not only that but the staff is not only knowledgeable in all things hardware and home improvement, but also they are courteous, helpful and extremely eager to please. The only problem with this hardware store is its business hours. Monday through Friday 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM. It’s a contractor’s hardware store, hence why they have everything under the sun.

When I entered I found the new faucet easily enough, but I couldn’t find the rest of the stuff to make it into a shower. I asked the clerk and he told me that I could buy it piece by piece, or they had an all-inclusive kit that contained all of the parts. He then told me that the kit would be cheaper then buying all the part piecemeal. Sure enough he was right.

Ktreva was excited over the prospect of finally having a useable shower in the house. My father, the plumbing and electrical engineer, came over to give me a hand installing it. It only took about an hour and now all it needs is a couple of shower curtains and we are ready to… well shower I guess.

Now I don’t have to worry about falling asleep in the tub in the mornings.

From the dawn of time I came.

When we moved into our house, there was an old swing set in the back yard. It had been horribly neglected and was pretty badly rusted through. After our first year of living here, I ended up having to remove it. Removing of the metal was easy; I cut it up into smaller parts and set it out for the trash. That was only the part above ground. I had to dig up the posts sticking out of the ground.

Figuring that whoever installed it probably did the typical cement in the coffee can anchor system; I didn’t think it would be a problem. Quickly I discovered that the idiots had dug four huge holes, put the swing in place and then filled the holes with concrete. These concrete blobs (Blocks does not describe them) where huge, each one looks like they poured five gallons of concrete into the hole.

For the longest time they say in the back yard because the trash company wouldn’t take them and I couldn’t find of a way to dispose them… other then rebury them in the back yard. Since they where safety hazards I moved them to the side of the house with the help of Graumagus where they sat for the last 4 years. Every so often I would see if I could find of a way to dispose of them and I never could. The only option I had was to break them up into smaller chunks. That just sounded way too much like work, and I just let them sit there.

Now we are having a central air unit installed in the house. Those blocks are sitting exactly where it’s going to go. That means they must be disposed off. Earlier today I ran to Farm and Fleet to pick up the tools I was going to need to break these behemoth blobs of concrete up. I bought the biggest sledgehammer they had, 12 pounds, and a concrete chisel. I already own a good hand sledge, so I didn’t need to get one of those.

After work, I came home moved the first blob into the back yard and started my daunting task of trying to break it up into smaller, more disposable chunks. Now I understand why they used to have prisoners break stone. Sure it will build upper body strength, but after an hour I had no desire to do anything but take a nap. Of course, that was only one of those blobs destroyed. I spent a total of 3 hours in the backyard breaking these chunks up. People walking by where staring in disbelief at what they saw.

Every hit small shards of concrete would go flying in every direction. I sent some flying a good 30 feet away into neighbor’s yards and into the alley. I’m damn glad I had safety goggles on, or I probably would have lost an eye on at least three occasions. I had to alter between the big sledge and the hand sledge in chisel to give my arm a rest. The sledge used the muscle in the upper arm, while the hand sledge used more of the forearm. During one of my breaks Ktreva made the comment that it was a good work out, and that if I did it for 20 minutes a night my arms would be ripped. I had to correct her. My right arm would look like something off of a body builder, my left arm would look the same.

After getting the second one broken up into disposable chunks, I had enough for the night. There was no way I was going to tackle a third one. I just didn’t have the strength and stamina to keep going. That was about an hour and a half ago. Now I sit here, covered in concrete dust, my right arm aching and hanging limply at my side. I barely had the strength to lift up my hand so I could type this post. My shoulder is sore and I’m thinking of taping a bag of ice to it in the fashion of a baseball pitcher after a game.

Ten years ago this wouldn’t have been an issue. I would have had all four of those blobs broken up and disposed off. Not now, now I feel like I’m a feeble old man.

I hate getting older.

Damn those mirrors!

I hate days like this. After a weekend of fun and relaxing, minus Friday where I stayed home to deal with contractors, I hate walking into work to find a mess. It figures I take a day off and everything goes to hell. The first thing that I noticed is…

SPECIAL BULLETIN!!!! We interrupt this normally scheduled blog post for the following message.

Earlier this afternoon at approximately 4:15 PM Central Standard Time an invasion force was detected with in the realm of the Household. An innocent civilian (Mild, peace loving Contagion) was maliciously attacked while performing yard grooming. Fortunately the civilian was able to escape with no noticeable injuries. One eyewitness to the incident is quoted as saying; “He was just mowing the lawn when a swarm of the hostiles (Yellow Jackets) engulfed him. We thought he was going to be killed… or even worse.”

The civilian was able to escape and warn the authorities of the impending danger. An emergency session of the Household Security Council (Ktreva) was called. In a lighting decision it was decided that General Contagion was going to be called forth to deal with the insurgents. General Contagion, the highly decorated veteran and leader of such battles as the Great Wasp Invasion of ’05 and Operation Floracide, quickly and enthusiastically responded.

After reconnoitering the enemy’s base of operations (Located securely under the backyard shed), General Contagion decided to forgo normal tactics and go straight for biochemical saturation of the surrounding area. Specialist first class Boopie of the bio chemical transport unit brought out the new Bio-Toxin agent that the household had been developing (Gordon’s Hornet and Wasp killer from Farm and Fleet).

In his typical scorched earth policy, General Contagion unleashed a toxic spray of death upon the enemy. Those that came into direct contact with the toxin died in mere seconds. Those that made secondary contact died in less then 20 seconds. Then folly struck. Thinking that they had won the war, General Contagion halted his attack to survey the damage. At that time, the enemy base called in a squadron of seven fighters that had been out on maneuvers. General Contagion was forced to sound a general retreat.

Once General Contagion was able to gather his troops he went in for a second attack. This time screaming, “Kill ‘em all! Kill all the bastiches and let god sort them out!” Neighboring households looked on in shocked horror as they covered their children’s ears from the sounds of battle and their eyes for the horror they where witness to. By 4:30 PM Central Standard Time, the battle was over. Nothing living was left in the battle area by the time he was finished. Plant, animal and insect all lay dead or dying. Neighboring households rallied in protest at what they perceived as an unethical and unnecessary assault that ended in collateral damage in the thousands. General Contagion in his now legendary diplomatic stance wiped the sweat from his brow, and is reported as saying, “If you don’t like the way I dealt with the little bastiches then I suggest you tell you’re little friends to find someplace else to colonize. Oh, and sorry about your flowers.”
After confirmation of the entire colony being destroyed, General Contagion made the following announcement. “It is my pleasure to advise all of you that the household is once again secured from foreign invasion. Once again the neighboring households have complained regarding our tactics. They have nothing to complain about. It was not their sovereignty that was assaulted; it was not their lives that were in jeopardy. It was not their property being destroyed, it was ours! If it was their household being invaded, they can handle the problem any way they want. I did not ask their opinion and I don’t need their approval. If I wanted any lip from them, I’d jiggle my zipper.”

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog post already in process.

…By the time the day was ended, I had enough. I couldn’t get out of the parking lot fast enough. So trust me people, if you learn anything from this lesson it’s this, make sure your pants are zipped up before going into the videoconference.

Not what I had in mind

Almost two months ago I made a post regarding video clips of people putting Mentos into diet pop (Yes, pop. Not soda, not coke, but pop!) and making fountains. At that time I had asked title the post, “Oh the possibilities.” I was thinking along the lines of practical jokes and things like that. Well two guys decided to take the idea to a level that just baffles the mind as to why.

Click to watch video

What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos mints? It's amazing and completely insane.

The first part of this video demonstrates a simple geyser, and the second part shows just how extreme it can get. Over one hundred jets of soda fly into the air in less than three minutes.

It's a hysterical and spectacular mint-powered version of the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas, brought to you by the mad scientists at EepyBird.com.

It’s amusing, but it is a large file. I wish I had $200 to $300 to throw down the drain… or spill onto the ground.

What? No Ernst goes to Camp?

I’ve always been a movie lover. It’s the one thing I miss with having kids, I just don’t get a chance to go see movies anymore. What I do still have time for is looking at movie posters. I’ve always enjoyed a good movie poster. One that gives you an idea what the movie is about and makes you want to drop your hard earned cash , I think the price of movies is up to $10.00 a ticket, not counting the $15.00 small pop and $12.00 small popcorn.

The independent critics have listed what they consider The 100 Greatest Movie Posters of All Time. Some of their selections surprised me, others didn’t surprise me at all. Like the Titanic Poster, stupid poster for a stupid movie, yet because it did so well and every critic on the face of the earth couldn’t send out rave reviews fast enough, it doesn’t surprise me.

This poster surprised me.

This movie was made in 1971, and I only know that because I wasted the time to look it up. I’ve never heard of this movie, in fact it looks like pr0n. Hell the tag line is, “WHITE MAN...BLACK MAN...every MAN! To TAKE to BREAK or PLAY WITH any way she wished!” Eh, who am I to criticize? I’m still a fan of Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death.

Smokin'!

I know it’s not officially summer yet, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s here. Summer means grilling and EVERYONE should have at least one grill. One charcoal for flavor, and one Propane for efficiency. Or if you are lucky like I am, a hybrid grill that is both Gas and Charcoal. Charbroil made these hybrids a couple of years ago; as soon as it hit the market I jumped on one. I love the thing. I’ve read reviews from others that say they didn’t like them. To me it’s perfect I get the best of both the charcoal and the gas.

But I’m getting off point. Everyone should own a grill, and with father’s day around the corner you might want to look into either getting dear ol’ dad a grill or maybe replacing his old one. Either way, here are some grills you might want to look into.

I wonder how much trouble I’d be in if I came home towing this baby.

Trying not to blow a circuit.

It has been an interesting day for me. We’ve lived with out central air for years. We’ve had a couple of window units we would use just for the comfort of sleeping, but that’s all. We just had brand new windows installed in the house, and I was going to pick up a couple of bigger window units that would cool down more of the house. Long story short, I shot that idea down when A) I dropped one of these 200 pound monsters on my bad knee trying to get it out of the vehicle in the rain. B) I found out that in order to properly install the buggers you have to drill holes into the frame/sash. Since we have the high efficiency windows, that would mean releasing the gas in the windows and voiding the warranty. Sure I could work away around it, but I didn’t want to.

I started calling Heating/Cooling companies to get quotes on what it would cost to get a central air unit put in. The first guy comes out and says the furnace and ducting is fine, however the electrical won’t handle it. We have a house built in 1912. The electricity was an afterthought (as well as plumbing); we still have all the original boxes. Maybe you’ll remember this story from last year. We also only have 60-amp service. Since we have an electric range, dryer and dishwasher if we put one more heavy electrical appliance in the house it would constantly blow the main. Thus I need to upgrade to 100-amp service.

I’ve had numerous electricians come out and give me quotes, ranging from $2,400 to $3,000 to do the work. I know there are many people that will laugh at the sum and ask what the big deal is. Well, I can’t just pull $3,000.00 out of my arse! That’s just a tad too expensive for me out of pocket right now, and electricians don’t finance. I was telling my employees at work about my situation, and one of them tells me she has a relative that is an electrician that does work on the side. She got me in contact with him and after doing some checking he told me he’d do it for $1,400.00. That I can stomach.

Also I finally had enough with my Internet provider’s service that I switched service. I moved to a cable modem much, much faster. My pr0n loads much quicker now. I took the day off of work so that I could be here for the cable company to come install the lines. I also had two more estimates from other heating/cooling companies. It looks like AC may still be possible. Although watching the interaction between the cable company guy and the heating/cooling guy was mildly amusing. I got the distinct impression that when the heating/cooling guy arrived he thought the cable guy was a competitor. Once he figured out it wasn’t, his attitude toward the guy was much friendlier.

Just call me Bushy Bill.

I still haven’t trimmed the facial hair. It’s starting to grow pretty bushy. I’ve been combing it daily so it won’t look as bushy. Upon her arrival home Ktreva uttered the phrase, “I was really hoping you where going to trim that up before I got home.”

Not going to happen. At this rate, by the time my next event comes along you won’t be able to see my mouth through the mustache.

Bubbles that should not be.

Did you know that it is possible to have too many bubbles in a bubble bath? Last night in an attempt to not only clean Clone, but to also calm him down, I decided to give him a bath. Clone loves the bath, especially a bubble bath. He gets clean and he gets to play for a while. I figured this would be perfect, kill two birds with one stone. I’ve given Clone baths before; I didn’t think it would go any differently this time. Well, that is except for my adding bubble bath to the water.

I start the bath, and put a little bit of the bubble bath into the water. There wasn’t much of a reaction. After adding some more there still wasn’t much of an effect. So I put more in. Now we have a reaction. Bubbles started forming as I expected so I went to finish getting Clone ready for the bath. When I returned to the bathroom, the tub was full. I turned off the water and went to check the water to make sure it wasn’t too hot before putting Clone in. I sank up to my elbow in bubbles before finding water. We have an old lion footed cast iron bathtub, so it’s pretty deep. I had it about a quarter filled with water and the rest was bubbles.

GREAT! Owell… Clone should have fun with this so I placed in the tub. One minute I’m looking at him, and the next he disappears. The bottom of the tub was slippery from all the soap and he slid in under the bubbles. Don’t worry, he didn’t hurt himself. In fact he thought this was great fun. He kept hiding in the bubbles and popping up in different places. It was like a demented live action wack-a-mole game. Only instead of moles, it was a little blonde boy with a gnome hate made of bubbles.

I figured the bubbles would go away after a while, well I was wrong. The damn bubbles stuck around. The things would not dissipate. Trying to wash the soap off of him was about impossible. Every time I would start to make some headway, he would slip back under the bubbles and coat himself in them again.

Finally I had enough of this, so I yanked him out of the bathtub and toweled off all the remaining bubbles. I pulled the drain plug and waited for the bathtub to empty. It would have none of that. Nope, those bubbles sat there defying gravity and god. They would not go away. I knew better then to add more water, that would just create more of the annoying things. I figured after a while they would finally go away.

Flash forward to this morning. I go into the bathroom to take a bath, what do I see in the tub? BUBBLES! The damn things did not dissipate overnight. What kind of funky bubbles are these? Then to make matters worse, when I turned the water on, it created more. Then when I went to get into the tub, the soap had made the bottom of the tub slipperier then a snake covered in Vaseline. I about fell down. Thankfully my size thirteen feet where able to keep me from falling and hurting myself.

Ktreva is now back; thank all that is good in the world. I was getting ready to do a rejoicing dance when she dropped a bomb on me. In two weeks she is leaving for 4 days.
Four… Days… That is one day longer then this time. I don’t know if I’ll be able to survive.

Twitch

Still… Alive. Sanity… holding.

Please.

Send.

Beer.

FAST!

Horde 2, Contagion 0

Last night I was lying in bed dreaming a good dream. Shakira and Jessica Alba where wrestling naked in pudding over who was going to be the first one to pleasure me. My beautiful and understanding wife was doing that thing she does that I want her to do all the time, but she doesn’t do nearly often enough. All of a sudden there was a searing pain in my groin. It felt as if someone had hit me in the nards with a golf ball. I awake to find Clone climbing over me.

Me, “What in the love of god are you doing at… (looks at clock) 2:30 in the morning(?) awake?”

Clone, “Dada, I need drink.”

Me, “That makes two of us buddy. Go get into bed and I’ll get you a glass of water.”

After retrieving the glass of water for Clone, I return to bed. In hopes that my dream will pick up where it left off. Unfortunately I started dreaming about vasectomies. Sometimes life is cruel.

In the morning Clone did not want to get out of bed, and from the state of his room, I can tell that he didn’t go to bed when I told him to. Nope, he must have gotten up and started playing with his toys. Now when I needed him awake, he couldn’t keep his eyes open. He was like a narcoleptic after a long day of heavy drinking. Every and any attempt to wake him up resulted in loud and incessant crying… until he passed out again. Getting him dressed and ready for the day was like trying to shove a cat into a toilet.

Boopie on the other hand must have found a speedball because he was bouncing all over the house like a crystal meth junkie with electrodes attached to his nards. Boopie's hyperactivity counteracted with Clone’s sleepiness and created a horrible combination of laughing, crying, giggling, yelling and screaming. It wasn’t even 6:30 AM and I wanted to empty a bottle of Jack Daniels. Unfortunately I think Clone drank all of it.

I get to work, and I have never been so happy to be there in my life, even if it was one of my worst days as supervisor. I had a meeting that went horribly bad, two employees about wig out and in giving one feedback they burst into tears because, “I’m going to lose my job!” I don’t know where she got that idea; I never once said anything that would give her the indication that she was on the road to replacement.

When I go to pick up the boys I discover that Clone miraculously recovered from his drunken narcolepsy and played all day. He refused to take a nap. Great… that means more fun tonight. Sure enough on the ride home the boy fell asleep in the most uncomfortable of positions that only a child can sleep in. Deciding to keep my sanity a while, I’ve let him sleep now for almost an hour. I’m going to have to wake him up soon, but I’m waiting for the food to arrive.

Which reminds, I was going to make dinner tonight, really I was! Unfortunately I kind of left what I was going to make out on the counter this morning when I was getting my lunch made. I walked into the house and was assaulted by the smell of ground beef that has gone rancid… and cat turds. The damn cat must have eaten something that wasn’t fit for feline consumption because it’s arse smelled horrible. It was like a stinky dog fart was bottled, fermented, aged to juicy ripeness and then released in the house. Needless to say there will be no cooking in the house tonight. I have Chinese food on the way.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go bring Clone out of his coma. Only about 24 hours to go.

3 hours down, 46 to go.

With the help of some Children’s chewable morphine, Clone is asleep. Okay, I didn’t actually drug my child; I wouldn’t do something like that. That doesn’t mean I didn’t entertain the idea, but no I could not do that.

The stupid trashcan had me so pissed I couldn’t see straight. Clone had knocked it over trying to get behind it to hide from Boopie. This is not a normal trashcan; it’s a 55-gallon, trashcan with an auto-closing lid. Since it was obviously over full, i.e. trash was strewn across the kitchen floor; I decided to take out the trash. My plan worked for all of 15 seconds. As I pulled on the bag, the drawstring pulled the top inch off of the bag… all the way around. Someone, KTREVA, had decided to dump the kitty litter bag into the trashcan. That made the combined weight of trash, kitty litter and cat scat way too heavy for the bag to hold. Of course it didn’t rip until I was half way out of the trashcan, thus sending a showing of dirty diapers, empty beer bottles and other pieces of kitchen refuse everywhere. It looked like my kitchen had turned into a landfill. I was waiting for the damn sky rats to come and start eating the refuse.

After cleaning that up, I really didn’t feel like cooking. Then I had an idea, I’ll ask the boys what they want, we’ll get it and everyone will be happy. Dad, “What do you guys want for dinner?” The Horde, “Pizza!” Thinking to myself, I didn’t really need to ask. Boopie chimes in with, “Can we get Pizza Hut. They have that sampler pack that has hot wings, breadsticks and cinnasticks!” Clone, “Yea! Spinasicks! Dad, we get spinasicks? I want spinasicks! Spinasicks! Spinasicks! Spinasicks! Dad we get spinasicks?” Me, “Do you even know what cinnasticks are?” (I can’t recall ever ordering them before.) Clone, “Yea, they good!”

Boopie is laughing his little butt off by now. Clone is marching through the house chanting, “Spinasicks!” So I ordered from Pizza Hut, got the sampler pack. When I was on the phone with the girl I meant to make sure I was ordering the right thing. I ask her, “The sampler has spinasicks in it right?” (Pause on the other end of the phone.) Girl, “Excuse me?” Me, “The sampler, does it have spinasicks?” Girl, “Did you say spin-a-sicks? Me embarrassedly, “Yes, that’s what my three year old is calling them, I meant Cinnasticks.” Girl laughing at me, “Yes, it has cinnasticks.” Thirty minutes later our pizza and sampler arrive.

I give Clone a piece of pizza and a breadstick and let him eat. Clone inhaled two and a half pieces of pizza and a breadstick for dinner. Pretty good for a kid his size. It’s what he did with the other half of the pizza that cheesed me off. I asked him if he was done, and he told me he was. I walked over to get him out of the chair when he flings the half eaten piece of pizza at my head. He had picked all the cheese off so it was crust with sauce and it stuck to the side of my head like a like a suction cup. He’s laughing; I’m pissed and scold him. After cleaning me, him, the chair and the floor off, I sit down to eat some cinnasticks. Now I have an entourage of kids sitting around me fighting over the cinnasticks, “Dad! He took the big one!” “Dad, He’s not sharing the dipping sauce!” “Dad, Spinasick stuck in nose!” Clone sneezed while eating the cinnastick and jammed it in his nose. Apparently it was very uncomfortable for him.

After cleaning him up again, the boys played for a little bit while I cleaned up the mess and the house some. Then I put Clone to bed, but not until after he got a band-aid for his toe. At the sitters last Friday he skinned the top of his toes. I don’t believe they actually hurt, but he won’t shut up unless he has a Band-Aid on his toes. Figuring it wasn’t worth the trouble I slapped a band-aid on him. He started crying again. I had used a regular Band-Aid, not a Spongebob Band-Aid. After swapping them out, he finally settled down enough to let me put him to sleep.

Now I’m going to go grab a beer or twelve.

All by myself.

Ktreva has once again gone on a business trip and left me with the boys for three days. As many of you may remember, I’m not cut out for the single parent gig. Don’t get me wrong, I can do it… I’m just not good at it. It’s one of my many character flaws. Yes, they are my kids and yes they are my responsibility. I can handle that for up to 36 hours. After that I start breaking down, especially if they are misbehaving. They are my kids and I will do what needs to be done. It’s my duty as a parent to do so.

I’m sure over the next couple of days there will be plenty of good stories to share with you about my trying to raise the boys for 3 days on my own. As well as the wisdom and techniques that I used to keep them in line. But for now you’ll have to excuse me. Clone has tipped over the trashcan, Boopie is whining about having to clean his room, and I need to make dinner. (Read, I have to order dinner)

My Balls are huge!

There is a psuedo re-enactment this weekend. It’s more of a black powder shoot, and less of a re-enactment. In fact you couldn’t call it a re-enactment at all if it wasn’t for the fact that about 5 camps where primitive, there were 6 tin-tipis (Those are modern campers to you flatlanders.) In fact there where only about a dozen people in period dress there.

Since this event is about ten minutes from my house, I just day tripped it. I didn’t even bother putting on costuming. I did this event last year, and I didn’t feel the need to maintain any level of historical accuracy. I was going just to burn powder and throw lead with the ol’ smoke pole. (That’s a smooth bore musket to you green horns.) I hit the event around 10:15 AM, and didn’t leave until they closed the range at 4:30. I burned through 2.75 pounds of black powder, and 124 round balls (Bullets). Even if the range had stayed open longer I wouldn’t have been able to stay and shoot. I was out of powder and round ball.

Since I had spent more of my time of late shooting modern than black powder, I was pretty rusty. Sure I took second place in the competition last week, but that was only out of 4 people and 2 of them had never shot before. Early in the day my shots where spread out all over the target. By the end of the day every shot would have killed a Brit. In fact I had a couple of old timers tell me that I was pretty good with a smooth bore. I also had a couple of people ask how long I was had been shooting because my clusters where impressive, for a smooth bore. At one point I got into a little bit of a shooting match with a newbie. He had just picked up his first flintlock and was talking a little smack. Apparently the guy was a Marine and does all kinds of modern shooting. He figured would be an expert marksman with his flinter. He was giving me crap about my cluster when he toed the line, aimed, pulled the trigger and missed the backstop completely.

He missed because he had never fired Black Powder before and that explosion going off to the side of your head can be distracting. The guy flinched and hit the ground about a foot in front of the target. Me being me, I couldn’t help buy to spout off, “My cluster might not be perfect, but at least I hit something other then dirt.” He started getting a little pissy when some of the other shooters and I explained that, in that crusty re-enactor way, he’s new, has no idea what he’s doing with a flintlock and that you can be a sniper with a modern rifle, but black powder is a different beast. Hang fires, delays, small explosions next to your head are not only common, but also expected with flintlocks.

After some of the old timers gave him some words of advice on how to shoot a flintlock, he did get a lot better quickly. We played a couple rounds of “In the Black.” Basically you see who can get the most shots in the black in a 30-minute interval. Per shot fired he would have won, but that wasn’t the rule. The benefits of a smooth bore, they load fast. So I ended up winning.

Overall I had a good time. I need to get out there more often. I don’t get to shoot as much as I would like. Lack of available places to shoot and times to go shooting is what my problem is.

Oh, and I had no less then 5 comments that I have huge balls. Since most people out there shoot .45 to .56 caliber, my .75 round balls look monsterous.

Mysteries of the mind.

There’s a commercial for EPT that just makes me laugh. There is a lady walking, and she is thinking to herself, “I can’t concentrate, I wonder if I’m pregnant.” This strikes me as highly amusing. I mean, c’mon lets face it, the commercial is actually saying, “My brain doesn’t work, I wonder if I’ve got a bun in the oven?” only slightly more sensitively.

I’ve latched onto this theory with gusto. Every time Ktreva says, “I forgot” or when she does something with out thinking, I ask her, “Hun, are you pregnant? You’re brain’s stopped working.” I was at work and one of my peers actually said, “I can’t concentrate.” Since this was an office and work environment, I had to be more sensitive about how I phrased my question, so I shot out with, “According to the EPT commercial that means you might be pregnant.”

I’m not sure what was funnier the emphatic denial of, “I had better not be pregnant” or the worried look I received. You know, the look that tells a person “Crap, that MAY be what the problem is.” She left work in a hurry yesterday; kind of like her arse was on fire and her hair was catching. This morning she informs me that she is definitely not pregnant. She sure did look relieved.

She'll make your Tipii stand tall.

Over at the Spoon and Blade, we’ve gone native. We’ll at least as far as the Mortar Maidens go. Head over and see our first exotic Indian Mortar Maiden, Eyanosa.

BTW, It was discussed at this last event that I could open up a dating service for re-enactors. I’ve had many a person inquire on the various maidens and as to whether or not they are single, what events they do, and if they want a man. Hmmm… Maybe I could become a 1756 Internet Pimp as well as 1756 internet pr0n king.