Category: Generic

Moths

It’s a few days before the official start of Winter.  We should be dealing with temps in the 20s and 30s.  Instead it’s in the 50s.  When this happens the bugs, specifically the moths, don’t receive the memo that they are supposed to go away and die.  They have nothing better to do with their time so they swarm around any light source near our house, including the back steps and the unshaded window I’ve been sitting next to in the dining room.

Assholes.

One Part Ooops, One Part Ewww

Remember Halloween?  Remember this guy?

Untitled

No? You forgot about him? So did I.

He went out on the front stoop just before tick or treating started on Halloween.  I lit the candle inside and then when trick or treating was over I blew the candle out.

Then I forgot about it completely.  So much so that when I came home from dropping off the kids this morning I noticed that it was sort of still on the step.  I say sort of because a nice chunk of it had rotten away, and another big chunk had fed the local critters.

I started my lunch break today by wrapping it up in a trash bag and getting rid of it.  G-R-Oss indeed.

Sorry about that, neighborhood.  It won’t happen again (at least until next Halloween).

Christmas: Temporary Delay

We were all set to go tree shopping last night.  We have a fake Christmas tree in the cellar but someone who shall remain nameless (me) suggested that maybe this year we skip the fake tree and get a real one.  Everyone agreed.

Jen wanted to get a tree last weekend, but I didn’t.  It wasn’t a kid weekend, and I wanted the kids to have a say in whatever tree we end up with.  Last night was the first kid night we’ve had since then, so we were going to go last night.  I even brought up the tree stand from the cellar and moved the furniture around.

Unfortunately, Jen had work to do after dinner and one of the kids still had a little homework.  Jen suggested I take the kids and go without her, but that would be just as bad as going last weekend would have been.  We can’t go tonight because two of us don’t get home until late.  We can’t go Friday because one of the kids has a school function and two of us won’t be home until late.  Saturday is our next opportunity so I nervously threw it out as a suggestion, expecting to hear complains and you-hate-Christmas accusations (which wouldn’t be all that inaccurate).

Nope.  I got an I-don’t-want-to-go-without-mum from one kid, and an we-can-go-in-the-daylight from Jen.  The other kid just agreed with me. Nice!  I promise I’m not sabotaging Christmas by pushing things off. Really.  This isn’t selfish anti-holiday behavior.  This was really for the best.

HoHoHo!

Trump Fans

I never had any interest in using any of the wordpress.com themes that don’t show the full text on the main page.  I thought they were stupid.  Un-Bloggerish, if you will.  Then I used one for Lizardfish because the background image looked awesome.  Now I’m softening.  I put this theme on last week and so far I haven’t started hating it yet.

It has changed something for me though.  Now I want every post to have an image.  There’s a function called a featured image, which is used here, but I have to add the image to my wordpress.com storage.  That’s going to get old quick.

Anyway, I wasn’t going to write about themes…

I saw something on Facebook today that made me laugh.  Someone shared a canned search that finds all of your Facebook friends who are fans of Donald Trump’s official Facebook page.  It’s a nice way to blanket stereotype people as Trump-esque neo-fascists.  In much the same way as the Donald, in the most blatantly un-American move I’ve personally ever seen a candidate make, has blanket stereotyped all Muslims as terrorists.  Gee… my buddy’s five year old son doesn’t seem like a terrorist, but if the Donald says so it must be true!

The search returned three people.  One of them is already muted due to insufferably offensive conservatism.  The other two have given me no reason to take action as of yet.  It’s possible that they liked the page before the campaign.  I mean maybe they are just fans of his old TV show. Note:  That is an example of not painting all people who have a thing in common with the same stereotypical brush.  That’s how it works.  Get it? I so disapprove of fascists, but reading a fascists Facebook page does not make you a fascist.

So what’s the relevance of the featured image at the top of the page?  It’s a picture of Trump Tower in New York.  At least I think it is, it’s an old picture.

Really Old Gig Picture

1999.  Prime Meridian.  I don’t remember where we were playing, but it was the second of the two shows we did in our three years.

This image is blown up as much as this template will let it (I think).  Really, really small.  I’m trying to figure out what the pedals at my feet were.

The silver guy on the left is the three way switch for my old Fender Amp. Clean/Rhythm, Reverb, and Boost… I think. The white thing to it’s right is my old (now deceased) Boss tuner.  The next one over is the little yellow guy.  That would be Larry’s Ibanez swell flanger.  Is it a good flanger?  Sure, it’s swell!  Sorry, old joke.

I can’t really make out if there are two more pedals or three more.  If it’s two then the next one to the right is my old Washburn analog delay.  I still have that, but I haven’t used it in decades.  Last would be my Cry Baby Wah-Wah, the single greatest pedal ever created by human (or divine) hands.  If there are three black colored pedals then… I haven’t a clue.

The band from left to right, Mike the Bass player (also currently in Lizardfish), Maria the drummer, Tracey the singer, and Rob the tubby assed red head.

Rock and Roll.

 

ADDENDUM: I remember what the other pedal was!  It was my old (now deceased) DOD Octoplus!  My octave divider that let me sound like Ritchie Blackmore on those incredibly rare occasions when he actually used his.  That was driving me crazy.

Winter Classic

The Bruins are in the Winter Classic this year.  New Years Day against the Canadiens at Gillette Stadium.  I’ve still never been to Gillette.  New Years Day runs the risk of brutally cold weather, and that’s the main reason I didn’t look at tickets when they first became available.

Today though, I just looked at stubhub.  The cheapest tickets they have are running about $220 each.  The seats themselves though… I think they are closer to Rhode Island than to the actual ice.

Still… no, I can’t… but still….