Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

John Riiter died!

I’ve been pretty quiet lately… the new game that I’ve been waiting on, Acheron, started the other day with a bang, and there’s this miserable awful devilish puzzle that nobody seems to be able to figure out. So yeah, I’m obsessing.

The girls have been completely at each others’ throats for the past few days, and I have no idea why. The constant fighting, screaming, and thud of fist against flesh has been tattooed into my brain.

In happier news, a friend is painting my AR-15 bubblegum pink and I think it’s beautiful. I was considering a Barbie logo, with a little daisy to dot the ‘i’, but thought that might be too much.

I’m thinking about stopping work on the puzzle and doing something more enjoyable, like coating myself with honey and lying on an ant hill.

I just finished The Tooth Fairy by Graham Joyce. At some site I had seen it listed as a really scary book, and I started reading it with great expectations. Turns out that it’s your basic group-of-boys-coming-of-age novel, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s like drinking a swig of Dr. Pepper and discovering it’s really water in your glass.

The book itself was entertaining and fairly compelling. The opening chapter is absolutely chilling and will make me think twice before dangling my toes in a body of water. I guess I recommend the book, maybe 4 out of 5 stars. It’s strange. Did you ever read a book and have trouble deciding whether you liked it or not? I think I will need to read it again in another 6 months, now that I know what it’s about, and judge it then.

In the meantime I am still looking for a really scary book. Something that will give me the shuddering creeps, like The Haunting of Hill House, or The Shining. Have a suggestion?

…was a failure to communicate.

Anyway, there was a message Saturday night about the baby, but it was on hub’s cell phone voicemail and Sprint was screwed up and never gave him a new voicemail notification. Therefore we all blame Sprint.

Both dogs are in considerable intestinal distress and have painted the walls and floor of two separate rooms in 2 different houses lovely shades of brown. They also decided to charge all the kids who get off the schoolbus outside of our house. They are about to be mounted and hung on the wall. The kids are pretty constantly fighting about Every. Single. Thing. Max’s ass smells. Maddie keeps howling. Hotels in Las Vegas keep sending me enticing offers to stay there and I’m pondering running away from home. Oh, and I was 3 pounds heavier when I came home from the ranch; hopefully it was a cycle thing (which, by the way, is out of freaking whack, thanks).

They need to invent calorie-free alcohol.

I read on Binkey’s blog that M.S. had her baby on Saturday. Congratulations! Her husband left us a cryptic message this morning with the number for the hospital, but he didn’t happen to mention why they were there, or that there was a baby involved.

This is, however, an improvement from last time she had a baby, which I found out about 3 days later from a forwarded email from a mutual friend.

I will try not to be bitter until I know the whole story!

I’ve been getting a lot of hits from people searching for the lyrics of the song “Manifold de Amour” by Latin Playboys (a.k.a. Los Lobos). I’m pretty sure this is right:

Voy a navegar
al puerto del alma
cruzando el mar
hasta que llegaré

in English:
I’m going to sail
to the port of the soul
crossing the sea
until I arrive

It was featured on the Desperado soundtrack. Not sure about the sudden interest, though – is it in Once Upon a Time in Mexico or something?

Anyway, hope it helps.

I always know trouble is brewing when hub loads my web page, gives me a “look”, then starts typing furiously, interspersing his pounding on the keyboard with “How do you spell suchandso?”

Jo said her first “y’all” tonight. We are so proud!

We’re going to the ranch tomorrow, so perhaps I will have some nice creepy crawly pictures for y’all when we get back. This is the first time we’ve gone with the kids in a long time, so it’s kind of a trial run to see what Opening Weekend will be like (dove season opens in the South Zone on 9/20).

You should be very proud of me. I haven’t blogged any snarky comments about how handguns are illegal in Chicago, so workplace shootings and gun crime will never occur there.

Oops.