It's Toothday!

Bernie had one of her wisdom teeth removed today. My mom drove her to the oral surgeon and brought her home. When I got home from work, the Novocaine was just wearing off. I can't stand to see Bernie in pain - it just tears me up inside. I've been spending the evening giving her the ice pack for 20 minutes, then taking it away for 20 minutes. I'll be happy when she goes to sleep so I know she's not hurting any more. This may actually be harder on me than on her.

Now Here's Something To Rant About

Brian D., please look at this one. Now this is something to rant about!

Severed Leg Custody Case

1. A redneck ("Jethro") buys a charcoal smoker at a forclosure sale.
   
2. He finds a severed leg wrapped in paper inside it.
3. The redneck former owner of the leg ("Cletus") comes forward, wants it back so he can eventually be buried with it.
4. "Jethro" says "finders keepers" and is suing to keep the leg.
   
5. He's currently displaying the empty smoker for $3 a look. ($1 for kids)
6. He says, “The price will be going up if I get the leg.”

This kind of stuff can only happen in South Carolina.

Bonus:
Here's the 911 log from when "Jethro" found the leg:

Disptach: "What's the problem there?"

Caller: "I got a human foot."

Disptach: "Have a what?"

Caller: "A human left foot."

Disptach: "What's your name?"

Caller: "My name is "Jethro" and its plum nasty got me grossed out."

Illegal is Illegal

This is a rebuttal to Brian's rant on his blog. I respectfully disagree with his take on this story.

To summarize, an illegal immigrant came to the US from Guatemala, scrimped and saved for 11 years working as a dishwasher, then was taking his $59,000 savings home in cash for his family. He got caught, and now the US Government doesn't want to give his money back.

Brian holds the opinion that this fellow earned his money and the government is evil to withhold it. I disagree.

Here's my take on the situation:

He's illegal. That makes him a criminal by definition. He committed a crime coming across the border, and then continuously for 11 years. That makes his earnings the proceeds of a crime. Legally, it's forfeit.

He doesn't speak any English. That's sort of irrelevant, but it ticks me off just the same. He was here for eleven years and didn't bother to learn a single word of the language of the land.

He didn't pay any taxes on that money. OK, that burns me up inside. Do you think he may have gone to the hospital once in 11 years? Did he drive a car? Did he use public transportation? Did he use public facilities? Almost certainly he did. For free, since he didn't pay any taxes.

He's liable for fines. The IRS failure to file penalties would be 25% of his $59K. The fine on his employer would be $20K for willfully employing an illegal (which is a certainty due to his making far below minimum wage) - I assume that the fines for being an undocumented worker are similar. He doesn't have much "earnings" left over after that.

Here are some wonderful quotes from the article:

"They are treating me like a criminal when all I am is a working man," he said.
(Gee, you think? You ARE a criminal! The word "illegal" sort of implies that.)

"I no longer feel good about this country."
(Wonderful. Don't come back then. Be sure to tell all your pals to stay away from the mean old United States, where we have laws against sneaking over the border and sponging off our tax-paid services.)

Robert Gershman, one of Zapeta's attorneys, said federal prosecutors later offered his client a deal: He could take $10,000 of the original cash seized, plus $9,000 in donations as long as he didn't talk publicly and left the country immediately.
(That was a darn generous deal. Look at my math above.)

I'm sympathetic toward 99% of illegal immigrants. I've been through the process of getting visas and green cards for my wife. I know it's incredibly complicated, especially if you don't know English. I have lots of sympathy for people who come here looking for a better life. They truly want to live here because America is a better place. They deserve a chance.

Not this guy, though. This guy came here to eat at our buffet, filled his pockets, and then tried to slip out without paying. We should make him wash dishes. Oh, wait...

This Is Just Pathetic

• This is a Division I-A football program in a BCS conference.

• Yes, they are holding mid-season tryouts for a kicker.
  
  
• You'd think with 85 full scholarships a year, they could recruit one that's worth a damn before the season starts.
  
  
• But, no, it's dook University. They had a girl kicker a few years ago, remember?
  
  
• They apparently have no shame whatsoever.
  

Looks Like the Geek Party Is At My Place

LucasArts is coming out with a lightsaber game for the Wii

I feel very sorry for my Playstation-owning friends, but I'll take pity on them and invite them over when this hits stores early next year.

Voomvooom....vrrrrroooow....

Disc Golf

Since my team was getting the stuffing beaten out of them by their opponent this afternoon, I decided to abandon the football game on TV, and to instead burn off my frustration through phyisical activity.

Earlier this week, a co-worker sent me a map of the local disc golf courses. I haven't played since I moved from Raleigh 3 years ago, and I've been itching to start up again. Before I inflict my rusty skills on anyone else, though, I need to practice up.

So, today I grabbed my wife and we drove 30 minutes to the only reasonably close disc golf course. These are nearly always located in a nice park in the middle of a terrible neighborhood, and this was no exception. I told Bernie to leave her purse at home.

I dug out my little bag of golf discs. I have 5 of them - two drivers, one fairway driver, one intermediate-length, and a putter. For those of you who have never played this sport, yes, you can play with a regular frisbee, but in order to score well, you do need a few specialized golf discs. Mine were all bought cheaply at the secondhand sports store.

I'm sure I offended Bernie a few times today, because the point of this was to burn off a bad mood, and I really wasn't nurturing or helping her much, but she really didn't do too badly for a beginner. She gets no distance, but she does keep the frisbee on the course, which is hard to do if you don't know much about throwing the things.

Anyway, we didn't keep score, but I can still do some of the things I used to do when I was in practice. I just need to get more consistent and figure out how to combat my lack of depth perception while wearing sunglasses in the woods. A bit more practice, and I'll be fit to play with others. I'll try to coach up Bernie in the backyard, too.

The Project

A few months ago, my boss at work asked for all of us to each make a powerpoint of one of the applets on our web portal. The powerpoint would describe where the data behind it came from, how it got updated, the I/T processes involved, and how they mapped to what was displayed in the applet.

That was my first experience with powerpoint. Having been with IBM for so long, I was used to Lotus Freelance Graphics. So I took the opportunity to explore exactly what bells and whistles powerpoint offered, and ended up making the presentation a parody of Star Wars with animated screen crawls, integrated music, laser beams, explosions, etc.

I was scared to death to show it to my boss, but she just about died laughing, and when it came time to show it for real, mine was the only one that didn't require someone to stand there and explain each slide and click the mouse to move through the presentation.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, she was bragging on me and my powerpoint skills to her boss, and he asked her if I could work on a presentation for him to take to India to show to our offshore contractors. She agreed, and I met with him to see what he wanted.

Well, it turns out it's not powerpoint at all, because the presentation is already complete. What he wanted is three videos to embed in the presentation. I enthusiastically volunteered to put together the video for him.

Last week, we shot video of our headquarters buildings and also of some of our stores, and I am in the process of editing them, and it's going really well. I had a basic knowledge of how to edit already, but I have learned on the job this week. This has been fun, and I hope it makes a good impression on my upper management bosses.

Now I have to go through a bunch of elevator music to put in the videos.

Computer Hassles

I came home last night to the news that Bernie's monitor had 'blown up'. I went upstairs and checked and it sure seemed that way. Burning smell, nothing on screen, etc.

So, I got online on my PC and discovered a great deal at Circuit City. A 22-inch widescreen LCD for $200 after rebate. I was all over that (both of us have 19 inch LCDs, so this would be an upgrade), so I bought it online and we picked it up at the store. I unboxed it when I got home, and found that it didn't fit in Bernie's hutch (awww), so out of the goodness of my heart, I offered her my monitor and volunteered to take the new one. (Grin)

Since I was coming out on the better side of the deal, I decided to hook up her computer first. I hauled my monitor upstairs and hooked it up to her PC, and there was no difference. I must be slipping - I know better than to buy a component without troubleshooting first, but this time I got slack, and it bit me. I removed her video card, and plugged the monitor into the on-board video, and bingo, we got video again (crappy video, but video nonetheless).

So, I had to take that beautiful monitor back to the store tonight. (Sigh) I got Bernie a slight upgrade in video cards (NVIDIA 6500 up from 5500), and got everything working again, and it cost me $65 as opposed to $200. That's a good thing, right?

Then how come my monitor suddenly looks so small?

On a Side Note, My Wife is Cute!

Incidentally, this is one adorable pic of my gorgeous wife.


And so is this one!

Happy Birthday to Bernie!

To my lovely, sweet, wonderful wife. Happy Birthday, and I hope that you share at least 60 more with me!

Here's a tribute to my honey, Perez Hilton-style!

Chapel Heelia

My parents are still buying season tickets for UNC football. I dropped out a couple of years ago after the John Bunting coaching era destroyed my enthusiasm. Well, now that we've got a real coach, I'm excited about it again. I don't intend to drive 3 hours every weekend to see football games, but nonetheless, since the folks are going, I figured I'd give Bernie her first American football experience. I've given her two years of football-free wedded bliss, so it's time. She's looking forward to stadium food more than the ball game, of course.

We'll be driving to Chapel Hill in the morning, seeing Ron and Tammie for lunch, going to the ball game at 6pm, and staying overnight in a hotel. We'll be back on Sunday.

Go Heels! Beat JMU!

Conveyor Belt Sushi

Something that is hard to find in the ol' USA is sushi restaurants where the sushi comes around on a conveyor belt. Our favorite place in Malaysia is Sushi King.


You just show up, sit down, order a drink, and pick up whatever strikes your fancy from the belt as it passes by your table.
They have lots of 'non-traditional' sushi as well, which is cool. Stuff like deep-fried boiled eggs, and tuna salad inari, and chicken floss rolls. That's in addition to normal raw fish nigiri and maki.

The color of the plates dictates the price of the dish. Bernie and I come out real well when we eat there. We stuffed ourselves for the equivalent of $8 US.

Rain Delay

For those of you not local, we're in the middle of record heat and drought here in NC. We've had less than a tenth of an inch of rain this month, and we were in severe drought conditions in July.

This morning, I woke up to my clock radio and the station was playing Phil Collins "I wish it would rain" song.

This evening, the sky opens up and it is pouring down, giving our poor dead lawn some much needed moisture.

Good ol' Phil. Better than a rain dance.

The Delicious-est Catch - Season 2

Today, I reveal the pictures from the fabulous dinner at the crab restaurant. This was a re-creation of a meal that Bernie's family treated me to the very first time I came to Malaysia. Click on the pictures to enlarge. I've left them in high-res, though a couple are unfortunately blurry.

We'll begin with the appetizers:

Pork short ribs. The only non-seafood dish on the menu.

They call the above "La-la". It is clams in a brown sauce. I'm not much into clams unless they're deep-fried, so I didn't try this one. Looks good, though.

Missing from my photos is the dish of Mantis prawns, which were fried and in a black sauce. They were delicious.

Now for a short public service message:

What you see above is a small dish of sliced malaysian chilis. This is a condiment. This is also the hottest chili pepper I've ever put in my mouth and I wouldn't eat (another) one on a dare. And I like spicy stuff. Stay away.

Restaurants also serve a big dish of chopped raw garlic, which is also used as a condiment.

OK, now for the main course - the crabs.


Check out that menu. If you like crabs, this is heaven. Especially if you can't indulge your crab fantasies in the USA due to the prices. I'd love to go back here again and order the 20 or so crab dishes that we didn't get to try.
Crabs in butter sauce. This was the particular dish I had been dreaming of since my first time trying it three years ago.My favorite way to eat it. Spoon crab meat and sauce onto a slice of fried bread.

Crabs in tomato garlic sauce. Yummy!

Crabs in dry chili sauce. This one is hard to eat, as you tend to lose the sauce when you pick out the meat, but it really is delicious.

Following all that spiciness, Bernie and I wanted to cool down, so we ordered a young coconut.
You simply pry off the top, sink a straw in, and drink the coconut water. Since this is a young green coconut, the liquid inside is water, not the thick milk that is inside old husky coconuts. After you drink all the water, you scrape out the tender meat with a spoon and eat it. Both the water and meat are coconutty-licious.

The Chinese have a belief that certain foods cool the body or warm the body and they will use this method like medicine. Every time someone saw me sweating in the heat, they'd tell me to drink coconut water to cool down. It works! I prefer my coconut to be refrigerated, though (This one was cold and delicious).

It's a shame I'll have to wait two more years to do this again.

Malaysian Eats! Let's Get It Started.

OK, I'm going to milk this subject for a few days, and go into some depth, rather than do it all at once and gloss over all the goodies.

This first posting is about that Malaysian creation, the Rotiboy. Rotiboy is a chain of bakeries that specializes in something they call a "Mexican bun". I've never heard of such a thing, and no bakery in the US seems to know what a "Mexican bun" is, so I think it's their own creation.

The Rotiboy mexican bun is a yeast bun with a dollop of sweet margarine in the middle, with a coffee cream topping baked in. The result is a light, sweet crusty bun with the most amazing aroma when it's fresh baked. The topping sinks into the bun when it is baked and forms that wonderful crust. The flavor combination of coffee and sweet yeast roll with butter is awesome.


This is a photo of the baker swirling the cream topping on before baking. They locate these Rotiboy stalls just inside the entrance to the malls, and the buns are baked fresh all day so that the aroma draws you in. This is the Malaysian equivalent of Krispy Kreme with the "Hot Doughnuts Now" sign. You just can't resist it, and if you manage to walk by without getting one, you feel sorry for yourself.

Some day, they are going to open stores in the US and make a fortune.

We're Back!

We have triumphantly returned to North Carolina, having survived our trip to Malaysia. Honestly, the flight home was about as unpleasant as I could hope for, and we will be reconsidering our method of travel for our next jaunt to Bernie's homeland.

We've managed to partially unpack, restock the fridge, and eat two meals since we got home. A long nap revived us partially this afternoon, but it's bedtime.

Tomorrow, I'll start on my blog entries on the food and fun we experienced in Malaysia. Despite losing about half our vacation to the flu, we got plenty of pix and stories. After three visits, I feel like I am beginning to understand the country a bit, and I like it a lot. So stay tuned!

Finger

Butch

Knocked Flat

Bernie's mom and I are both victims of some sort of respiratory infection. Bernie's starting to get it too. I've been to the doctor here and gotten some amoxicillin and various cold meds, but it's taking a lot of time to move on. Anyway, this is why I haven't posted anything since we were in KL. Hopefully, I'll get over the hump on this and be able to enjoy the rest of the vacation.

Greetings from Malaysia

OK, We're here and we're alive. Highlights from the first 1/2 day:

US Airways check-in person can't find us in the computer, even though we've already printed our boarding passes online. Eventually she prints new boarding passes and checks our luggage thru to Kuala Lumpur. We aren't very hopeful that US Airways' computer is going to get our luggage to the right place.

We call Malaysia Airlines from the gate to make sure they have us in their computer. They do. They assign us good seats and we feel a lot better as we fly to Newark.

We check in at Newark. As we pass thru security, Bernie notices that the boarding passes don't have the same seats that we were originally assigned. This means no certainty of an aisle seat. I get angry as we wait for the gate attendant for two hours. When he finally shows up, he tells us that we do have an aisle, but not the cozy aisle-and-window seats we wanted. Grrrr.

Fight to Stockholm is OK. In Stockholm we get off the plane, go thru another security check, walk down a stairway, and check in at the same gate, wait a few minutes, and get back on the plane. What was the point?

I watched 9 episodes of season 3 of House on the next leg of the flight. Since I've never seen the show before, I guess I caught up with it. I like it, though it's hard to suspend disbelief when you watch 9 shows in a row where a patient comes in with one disease and somehow ends up with a completely different life-threatening, rare disease and House diagnoses it without consulting a computer, textbook, or a different doctor.

We landed in Kuala Lumpur, and I had only managed about 2 hours of sleep in 27 hours. The bags made it, believe it or not. Aunt Annie and Bernie's mom met us at the airport and we picked up her dad and we went to get dim sum for breakfast. We checked into our hotel and I caught a 4 hour nap, while Bernie took care of her number one priority - getting her hair straightened at the mall. After that, we got dressed up and went to a birthday party for her Uncle Sam at a fancy club. I would have liked to have partied harder, but honestly, I couldn't keep my eyes open. We got back to the hotel at 11pm and I crashed hard. I didn't dream, wake up, or even turn over until morning.

We had decided to not pay for an extra breakfast buffet at the hotel, so Bernie told me to go try the one we got free with the room. It was totally amazing. They had every breakfast food imaginable, including all the Malaysian ones, of course. Dim Sum, Roti Canai, Roti Telur, Chee Cheong Fun, Curry Laksa, Fried Rice, Rice porridges, Beef bacon, Chicken sausages, Breads, Tropical juices, and Western stuff as well. After I reported back, Bernie decided it's worth paying for.

Today's activities included a quick turn around the mall in the morning. I had to get caffeine, as my addiction is not being fed properly and I'm a bit headachy as a result. We got some Red Bull at the local Jusco. Then we were picked up by Bernie's parents and we got Roti Canai for lunch. I had never tried Murtabak, so they ordered it for me and it was wonderful, but it was way too much food. We went to visit her Grandma next and some of her aunts and uncles were there as well. They had food and tried to feed us again. I'm beginning to suspect that I have a "Feed me" sign around my neck. After a short visit, we went to her Godma's house and got our briefing on Felicia's wedding and our duties. There was food there also, but I knew what we had planned for dinner so I tried to abstain. I can't resist Char Siew Paus, though, so I held myself to only one.

Dinner was an attempt to re-create a wonderful meal that Aunt Annie treated us to three years ago on my very first visit to Malaysia. We went to this restaurant that specializes in crabs. They have 32 different crab dishes to choose, and tonight, we had 30 people to feed. We had crabs in butter sauce, crabs in tomato chili sauce, black pepper crab, crabs steamboat style, and also had mantis prawns fried in cream sauce, La-la, which is clams in chili sauce, beef short ribs, and some sweet and sour prawns. Bernie and I then split a young coconut and drank the water and spooned out the white meat for dessert.

Pictures of the food were taken and I'll post them at my next opportunity, I promise. They tell me that Malaysians only eat one meal a day, but it starts at dawn and ends at bedtime. I can believe it.

Now we're back at the hotel and I'm sleepy again. I guess we'll go to bed early and get a quick start in the morning.

Big Ol' Jet Airliner...

Tomorrow is the day! This will probably be my last chance to post something before we leave. I think I'll be able to post occasionally while we are in Malaysia for the next two weeks, so keep watching this space.

I'm doing some video conversion to get a couple of movies on my Zen. I lost the program I used to do that with before when I had the computer repaired, so I had to relearn how to do it. I spent the entire evening yesterday processing and re-processing trying to get it in the correct format. Finally I got it right on my last try.

The fridge is clean, there are some workers fixing up our last house punch-list things today, and I just went out to buy another TSA luggage lock. I think we're ready to fly.

Not Spoiled After All!

Hey, the site that I went to with all the spoilers was WRONG!

Funny, they had all the pages photographed from the book, but the synopsis they posted was full of errors.

Anyway, I read 880 pages in one day and finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows around 3:30 this morning. Now I can go back and re-read it carefully.

I'll give the rest of the world a week to catch up and then I'll discuss the book here.

I will say that I liked the payoff at the end, but didn't like a lot of the buildup. There's no way they could make a credible movie out of this book, in my opinion. It's just too dense.

Yesterday, Bernie and I accomplished the following in prep for our trip:
1. Mowed the lawn
2. Edged
3. Sprayed weeds
4. Cleaned the house
5. Washed the rugs
6. Shopped
7. Made pork buns
8. Fixed my Dad's internet
9. Ripped my Cantonese lesson CD to MP3s for the flight

There's more to do today, of course.

In another note, I went to my doctor and whined about unsuccessful dieting and she gave me a prescrip for Phentermine, which I tried back during the Fen-Phen craze. This is the half of the cocktail that was determined to be safe and remains on the market today. It's also the half of the cocktail that I felt did me the most good. I started on it yesterday, and just like I remember, not only does it kill my irrational hunger pangs, it makes me feel like a normal human being with normal energy levels. When I'm taking this medicine, I'm not finishing one meal while dreaming of the next one. That's a wonderful thing.

Spoiled!

I couldn't help myself.

Really.

The local newspaper's website had the link.

It was just a click away.

I clicked it.

Now I know.

Damn.

Wish I hadn't.

T-minus 11 Days and Counting

In 11 days, we'll be on a plane for our two-week Malaysia trip.

Bernie is playing it smart and is taking a year's supply of birthday and Christmas gifts and cards, already wrapped and signed, for her family, which will save us the bother and cost of shipping stuff over there in the near future. This means I get one suitcase for my clothes and stuff, while she gets three pieces of luggage (two will be boxes).

3 to 1 really isn't that bad when you think about it. After what I learned last time, I know that we can get same-day wash and fold service for our clothes for a few bucks, so I'm only taking 7 changes of clothes with me. Plus my suit for the wedding. I should be fine.

I've got 5 books, plus the new Harry Potter on the way. Hopefully, this will get me through two 22-hour long flights. I checked the movie list for the flight over there, and I'm pretty sure I can enjoy 6 or 8 of the movies they've got on demand. They've also got the whole slate of Arrested Development, which I've never seen. Bernie will probably watch the 12 episodes of Grey's Anatomy, I'm sure. Since we're going in July and returning in August, the movie list will be different from the return trip, thank heaven. The first time I flew to Malaysia, I watched Fellowship of the Ring about 6 times after my laptop battery ran out. I think I watched it in Cantonese the last time just for a change.

We're going to try to be much more liberal with taking pictures and movies while we are there, so we should have lots of blog-fodder when we get back. I'm taking the laptop, so we should be able to post some while we're overseas.

I have a shopping list that I want to check out while I'm there. For the most part, I'm just checking prices:
1. Bluetooth earpiece for my cell phone
2. Handheld wi-fi devices
3. Pen-based graphics tablets for the PC
4. Fancy keyboards for the PC
5. GSM cell phone for a friend at work

From my experience last time, I'm going to get lots of massages at the hotel spa. The difference in currency rates makes this one hell of a bargain, and my back and neck need some serious work.

One thing that I really enjoy over there is the fresh-squeezed juices you can get almost anywhere. I'm looking forward to fresh lime juice with sugar cane over ice, and mango lassi, and young coconut water, etc.

Poor Trouble is going to have to be without us for 14 days. We've got pet feeders and visitors lined up so that he doesn't go wild in the house. I hope that's enough.

This should be a fun trip - less tourist-y, but with more time to do what we want to do. I plan on savoring every moment of it.

Order of the Phoenix

Bernie and I caught a 6:30 showing of Harry Potter tonight.

I think I enjoyed this movie the most of all of them. If you've read the books, I think you'll agree with me.

I've always been impressed with the adaptations of the books. Condensing an 800-page book to a 2 hour and change movie has got to be a tough job. This one took the cake. Some really nice surgery was done to the story and it was seamless and hit on every important point from the book.

I felt from reading the book that this story was basically only a setup for the next book. The movie did a better job of standing on its own than the book did, and gave us some insight into our main characters that wasn't present in previous movies, while giving us some nice action to whet our appetites for the inevitable big conflict to come.

My impressions from the book were that the combination of a hard life and teenage hormones had finally made Harry crack and unleash his dark side. The movie took that and ran with it. Bravo!

I couldn't help noticing all the jealous looks from Ginny when Harry was entranced with Cho, too. That'll pay off nicely in the next movie. The sneak peeks of Ginny's magical prowess were quite nice as well. My only disappointment was that Sirius didn't get a bigger slice of the action before meeting his demise. No two-way magic mirror in this movie, either, which sinks one of my book 7 theories.

On a technical note, the Thestrals were fantastic, but the giant, Grawp, and the centaurs really sucked from a CGI perspective. They were only on-screen for a short bit, however.

So far, my favorite movie of the summer. Now if book 7 would only hurry up and get here!

The Week(end) in Review

On Friday, both Bernie and I were under the weather. Both of us were a little sick on Thursday night, and I still had my headache and nausea when I work up on Friday, so I stayed home from work and slept until 2pm without waking up. Groggy but feeling better, I managed to make it through the afternoon and we went to Concord Mills mall at dinnertime and did some shopping. The Black and Decker outlet had some fine deals, and I got the hand-held detail sander I've been wanting as well as a studsensor (yes, it goes off whenever I hold it, ha ha), a hacksaw to replace my broken one, replacement blades for the hacksaw, and an item-to-be-named later because it is intended to be a gift for someone - all for 10 bucks.

We went to Charlotte's newest pride and joy, Panda Express, for dinner and enjoyed it immensely. In my previous job, Panda was my customer and I really like the company and the food they serve. I've been waiting for them to expand to Charlotte for quite some time. If you check out their link, you'll see a company that is running their business the right way.

On Saturday, we rested and spent some time with my Dad, who is alone all week since Mom went to the beach with my sister and her family. I think I got the last bit of the bug that was bothering me out of my system. We got to bed quite late because we were washing the pillowcases and forgot to dry them until bedtime. This needs clarification. We bought a set of 1200 thread count sheets and pillowcases when we got married. They are so wonderful that we refuse to sleep on anything else, and we will wash them and put them right back on the bed. Since we had forgotten to put them in the dryer, we had to wait to go to bed. Logical? Maybe not, but that's us.

Sunday we got up quite late due to the late bedtime. We followed our routine and went out to get a newspaper so that Bernie can clip coupons and look at the ads. On the way, we got lunch at Arby's and took it over to Dad's place since he was home alone again. After our visit, we went back home for a nap, ended up helping the neighbors to lift a big fountain they bought, and by then, it was dinnertime, and Dad called us and invited us to Souper Salad. After that, we came home and both of us worked on a powerpoint that Bernie needs to do for work.

Reading this over, I think this is the most boring thing I've ever posted. Next weekend, I think we'll explore an abandoned gold mine and look for the lost demon city of Azaraoth.

Independence Day

Today's July 4 cookout was the best ever!

We got ourselves up at 9:30 am and started our food prep for the big party. Bernie had a minor crisis with her ricotta-lemon purses (the fruit roll-up strips that were supposed to be used as a tie for the little crepes started dissolving) and had to change her strategy (she baked them in a muffin pan to make cups instead of purses), but aside from that, everything turned out superb.

Judge for yourselves:

The wieners, sausages, and cheeseburger on a stick










The curry shrimp with pineapple skewers











The veggie kabobs









The Char Siew Pork









The Chicken Satays (with peanut sauce not pictured)










We had about 12 people, including my parents, our neighbors, my sister and her family, and our friends Brian and Sophie and little Elise. Bernie's appetizers, desserts, and decorations got rave reviews as well, so we are quite proud of ourselves this evening. We even got everything cleaned up in an hour after the party was over!

We have lots of leftovers. Is anyone hungry?

Saturday

Incidentally, I wrote about Sunday before I had the chance to write about Saturday.

My oldest and dearest friend, Phil and his wife Selena came on down to Stallings to visit us for the weekend. They got here on Saturday for lunch and we brought home some barbeque from E.B's in Indian Trail. My folks came over and we had a long visit. Selena is an excellent tailor (seamstress?) and runs her own business on the side, so a while back I had bought some gorgeous black cloth with gold and blue chinese dragons and had asked her to make me a shirt. She brought the final product with her and it is fabulous. This is THE PERFECT SHIRT. There is no finer. And, even better, she says it was so time-consuming that she wouldn't ever want to do another one. Therefore, I have the last Hanzo sword, so to speak.

We took Phil and Selena out to our favorite Asian buffet, Tin Tin, and gorged ourselves on the saturday night specialities. Bernie loved the lobster salad and the squid, and I introduced Selena to curry laksa, which she loved. I must be getting old, because I really can't do more than two trips to a buffet any more. I got a plate of food and a bowl of laksa, and I was full. So disappointing when I'm surrounded by so much variety of great stuff. Oh well.

Today, we finished our grocery shopping for our July 4 blowout and set all the meat to marinating. (the skewers will have some flavor darn it, because we're marinating them for 36 hours).

It's been a great weekend, but far too short. Thank heaven for the holiday.

I like Ga-Ze-Bo-Ze-Bo

If you've been to Wal-Mart, or Lowe's, or Home Depot recently, and browsed through the garden center, you've probably seen those patio canopies that look a little like Lawrence of Arabia's tent.
Well, I've been coveting one for a while, since our backyard has zero shade, and today the price was right at Value City, where they had a very nice one for 50% off. My mom and dad called me while Bernie and I were taking Phil and Selena to breakfast and told me what was going on, and after Phil and Selena started back home to Raleigh, we met my folks at Value City and I basically got my birthday gift early this year.

After it cooled off a little outdoors, we put it up and it really wasn't difficult. I was prepared to throw some lag bolts into the concrete, but for now we are letting some concrete pavers hold down the legs. I'm going to have to extend the patio just a bit with a couple of those pavers, but I'll have to dig out the grass under the pavers, and there just wasn't time tonight. Overall, I'm very pleased and I'm sure it will be useful on the 4th!

Another One Of My Favorite Weekends

This weekend, we had no set plans. That's my kind of weekend. We woke up when we felt like it, did what we felt like, and still got all the chores done. And it doesn't feel like we did much of anything.


I'm sorry there hasn't been too much going on in my life to blog about lately. I'm sure things will pick up when we go to Malaysia at the end of next month.

As a reward for sticking with my blog during this time when there's nothing exciting to report, I give you all the link to Desktop Tower Defense, the most addictive web game on the internet, in my opinion.

Ottoman Empire

When we got our new living room furniture, we knew we needed something to put our feet up on. Having exhausted our ready cash, I was asked to make matching ottomans.

I made this ottoman a couple of months ago to match our new sofa. An ottoman 4 feet long would be very expensive to buy from a furniture store. I made this one for about $40. (The legs need to be painted, but we haven't gotten around to that yet)









This is the one I made this week. It goes with the armchair and has rolling casters.













Bernie wanted one with storage, and that's what she got. I'll line the interior with some cheap fabric and cover the staples on the bottom of the cushion.

'Twas a Nice Day!

• Had a pretty good day at work, no complaints.
• Got home, made chicken wings (yummy)
• Bernie and I booked our tix to Malaysia
• I paid bills and noticed I had a bunch of reward points on one of the credit cards
• Sure enough, it's enough to get two free tix to Newark for the first leg of the Malaysia trip, saving us about $400.
• Then, I log onto Fark.com, and I got my SECOND greenlight!!!!! Woo hoo!

Updates

Bernie's been stealing my thunder lately, and I just realized I haven't blogged in nearly a week!

Here's my update on life:

1. I gave blood today at a Red Cross Bloodmobile at the office. This was my first time. I had no idea you feel like crap afterwards!

2. I saw the latest news articles on "heelie" shoes. IMHO, any kid using them indoors needs to be tripped and do a faceplant.

3. Brendan's wedding was really nice and low-impact to everyone. They even said vows to the baby, which was cool.

3a. Brendan's family really has some beautiful women in it. In high school, we'd all lose 30 IQ points whenever one of his sisters was nearby. Not much has changed.

4. Bernie and I go to get the final approval for her 10 year green card on Friday. She'll get her passport stamped so that we can go to Malaysia in July-August.

5. We're really excited about the Malaysia trip now. Bert is still thinking he's going to go with us, so I'm particularly stoked.

6. Diet update: I did 4 weeks of Atkins and lost 20 lbs. I followed that with 6 weeks of Weight Watchers, and lost nothing. I followed that with 2 weeks of salads and rice cooker meals and lost nothing. One weekend in Williamsburg and I gained 5 lbs. I'm back on Atkins as of now, and can you blame me? I want 30 more pounds gone before the plane trip.

7. The auto shop next door to the office sends out special deals to my company's employees. I got an oil change, tire rotation, and car wash for $30 and I dropped the car off when I got to the office, walked across the parking lot to my building, and they were through by lunchtime. And they even Armor-all'ed the tires. Every once in a while, life is good.

8. We took apart our backyard fountain and rebuilt it last weekend, this time using concrete. It looks pretty darn good, I must say.

Crack in Crisp Form

Warning! Stay away from this bag!

I opened a bag of Flat Earth Baked Veggie Crisps this evening. 30 minutes later, I realized I was working my way through the whole bag one chip at a time. I had to get the bag away from me.

So I took it upstairs, where Bernie was on the phone with her mom. I mouthed the word "Addictive" and dropped it on her desk.

An hour later, Bernie comes downstairs saying "What have you done to me? Are you trying to kill me with this stuff? I finished the whole bag!"

I'd advise a surgeon general's warning on this bag in the future.

So How's That Anniversary Trip Going?

Today is Sunday, and we're done. It's been a nice trip, but mixed results.

Saturday:
We got up and had a free breakfast at the hotel, then went into town to endure our timeshare sales presentation to get our free tickets. My parents have a timeshare, and they made sure we were not going to say "yes" to anything before we went on this trip. We endured and kept our resolve and ended up with our free Busch Gardens tickets.

So we got into the park at 12:30. For those of you who don't know Busch Gardens, it is a theme park, and the theme is "The Old Country", or Europe. The park is divided into England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Italy, France, and "New France", which seems to be Canada although they won't admit it. We walked through the park until we ended up in Germany, where we had a late lunch at the FestHaus (various wursts and ribs and potato salad) and got our battle plan together. We went immediately to the newest attraction, the DarKastle, which is a 4-D ride in haunted castle based on Mad King Ludwig of Austria and Castle Von Schwanstein. This was the best ride of the day, believe it or not. 3-D ghosts and such menace you while the motion of the ride gives you the impression of flying and falling, etc. Very impressive.

We spent much of the day standing in line, and ended up only riding 3 more attractions. I didn't get Bernie onto the Loch Ness Monster or the Alpengeist, however, I did get her onto the Big Bad Wolf, a rollercoaster where your car is suspended underneath the tracks and flies around tight turns and makes a sheer drop toward the river. She loved it. Although she ABSOLUTELY DID NOT WANT to ride the new coaster, the Griffon, she had an unholy fascination with it all day and probably took more pictures and video of that ride than she did of anything else. Go figure.

One small disappointment - they no longer offer brewery tours. There is a little club where you can sample different beers, but you must make an appointment. This used to be the really cool interesting adult part of Busch Gardens, but now it is no more.

We finished our day at Busch Gardens at about 7pm. Neither of us felt like we could stand in line any more because our feet were so sore. Hot and tired, we went back to the hotel room and showered the grime off of ourselves. A bit later we recovered enough to seek dinner and ended up at some deli near the college of William and Mary, where we had two of the best sandwiches I've ever tasted. I had a hot Pastrami with knockwurst and provalone and Bernie had a Corned beef with salami and ham and swiss. This was a really fun day.

Sunday:
We got up and had a nice breakfast in the restaurant next door. We had tried the restaurant up the street, but it had a long line due to tables not being cleared fast enough. We looked and the bus-person was some old woman who was using the bus-cart as a walker. About 20 of the folks waiting in line all decided to leave en masse, and the old man who was running the place was tearing his hair out.

After breakfast, we went to Colonial Williamsburg and walked around a bit. We did a short bit of shopping, then went to the outlet mall and spent 2 hours. Bernie got a skirt and a sweater for her efforts. Then we went back into town and had lunch at Barret's Seafood, which is supposed to be one of Williamsburg's good restaurants. This was a total disappointment. Our waiter abandoned us after we were seated and we had to send another waitress to get him. Then we ordered, and I got crab cakes, mostly due to how good the one ordered by a person at the next table looked. It came and looked completely different, with smaller portions and the asparagus that was supposed to a side dish was mysteriously replaced with some limp broccoli. I called the waiter over and told him of the mistake and he brought me out the asparagus, which was in a tasteless hollandaise (not even a hint of lemon juice in it). Bernie had simply ordered soup and dessert, and the bread pudding she ordered was absent the chocolate sauce that was supposed to be on it. We looked at the same dessert that was ordered by our neighboring table, and theirs was larger portion, with a scoop of ice cream and had the correct chocolate sauce on it. We mentioned the missing sauce to our waiter and got "all the chefs do it a little differently" as an excuse. Well, this was a $35 lunch. What we order, we are supposed to get, and the standard should be set pretty high for that price. We left and didn't complain further, but we won't be going back there, nor will I be recommending that place again. This has not been a fun day.

So now, we're back at the hotel, and we're pretty much done with Williamsburg. I'm giving some thought to checking out early and heading home tonight so we can have a nice relaxing day at home to end the holiday. Bernie is taking a nap and we'll decide when she wakes up. We've really enjoyed being together and adventuring in a strange place, but home is where the heart is, I guess.

The Final Idol Blog of 07

I don't think it was much of a contest tonight. Jordin was much better than Blake. The songwriting contest winner was unfairly skewed towards her, but even if you throw that out, she outperformed Blake in the previous two rounds.

To start off, he reprised his previous triumph of "You Give Love a Bad Name" and I think he did it even better than his first performance. However, Jordin chose to do her new song first, and she chose a recent Christina Agulera song, "Fighter", and the combination of her performance, and the subsequent erasure of the only knock on her style, namely, that she can't do modern songs, scored more points in my book.

The second round was Blake's "She Will Be Loved" from Maroon 5 versus Jordin's reprise of "Broken Wing" by Martina McBride from country week. Blake was flat flat flat off pitch for the entire song. The judges failed to notice, so I'm beginning to wonder if the fix is in. Then Jordin did her song and she took a previous "10" performance, and topped it, bringing the house down. Second round to Jordin as well.

The third round wasn't even fair. The two of them had to perform the same song, the winner of the songwriting competition, which was supposed to spare us from the god-forsaken inspirational insipid honey-sweet mediocre ballad that Idol tortures us with every season. What a difference! We got a slightly more hip god-forsaken inspirational insipid honey-sweet mediocre ballad named "This Is My Now". Blake struggled from the first note and by the end he was just coasting to get through it. The judges were inclined to give him a mulligan, but should they? Jordin took it and, as predicted, ripped down the roof with it. She choked back tears on the last line, and darned if it didn't fit perfectly. The judges quickly reverse course and pretty much handed her the trophy right then and there.

Now for some criticism about Idol that I've been holding back all season.

Idol needs to fire the sound crew and director. The sound has stunk all season. Microphones cutting out, improper volume mix, incompetent mixing board, feedback, backup vocals disappearing...it's all happened far too often for the #1 show on television. I've felt that on many occasions, one performer has had a good performance turned mediocre by a bad volume mix between the band, the backup vocals, and the lead vocals. In the "Idol Gives Back" show, the group performance was a train wreck where the person singing lead almost never had their microphone active. On that same show, even Ryan had his microphone cut out in the middle of introducing a performer.

I don't understand why the stars that perform on results night are allowed to have monitor earphones while the actual Idol contestants don't get them. Pitch problems have been prevalent all season, and that one common (and for pros, it's essential) piece of equipment can prevent it. (Have you ever tried to sing on pitch with accompaniment when you can't hear the music or yourself?) It's crazy not to do it.

Tonight, I felt that Blake was drowned out on the last song by the background vocals, while Jordin had the opposite problem during her turn.

I've also been vastly underwhelmed by the band this season. Tonight was their worst performance all season. I heard at least twice a horn player (a trombone, I think) playing a stray note during a rest (sacrilege!!) in the middle of a song. The acoustic guitar was grossly out of tune during both versions of "This Is My Now", which contributed to Blake's out-of-tune-ness, and nearly threw Jordin off in the middle of her version. The background singers were as sharp as Blake was flat during his turn, and I don't think they all knew the words, because the chorus sounded quite 'mush-mouthed' in places.

This is supposed to be a group of professionals? I really wish I could watch the show once with my friends Ed and Jeff, because I'm sure they'd notice a lot more problems than I did.

I've also mentioned this before, but the recap clips shown at the end of the show were quite obviously not the same performances we saw live, as Jordin's tearful break in her voice was not present, and Blake's pitch was better.

OK, I've run out of gas. All in all, I think the best singer is going to win. We'll see if I get shocked tomorrow.

Heroes

Heroes, season one, is the best show ever! I'm not going to give anything away, since my father-in-law is watching it a few weeks behind in Malaysia, but the season finale was absolutely GREAT! And we get continuity going into next season, to boot!

We had a pretty good weekend. I got a new cell phone, hopefully one that won't shut itself off whenever I'm not looking, which my old one did. I helped my dad powerwash my grandfather's house, and we tried a new recipe from the Weber Grill Cookbook, which I recommend to everyone. This time we tried a marinated pork chop which was so good even my nephew who won't eat anything complimented it.

We're going to Busch Gardens this coming weekend for our anniversary. We got a deal where in exchange for enduring the timeshare sales pitch, we get 3 nights in a hotel and two entry tickets for $129. Bernie tells me she doesn't want to ride the Griffon, which is an intense rollercoaster. I agree, but she's going to come with me on the Loch Ness Monster if I have anything to say about it. I think I liked BG better than Disney (sorry, Elizabeth!) as a child. We are already 2 years married (legal papers signed on the 18th of 2005), but we treat our official anniversary as the 28th, since that was the wedding date. These have been the best two years of my life, and I don't mind letting everyone know that. I picked the right girl and I'm proud of myself for not letting trivialities like thousands of miles and a 18 months of long-distance relationship prevent me from making her my wife.

I have to tell this story before I finish tonight. My wife was talking to her dad on the phone this morning. He told her that he had been remembering the cabinet in our garage all day yesterday, which I had to re-attach to the wall while he was visiting us. He told her that it had been bothering him all day yesterday, and to please remind me to take a look at the other cabinet in our garage to make sure it didn't fall. 5 minutes after she hung up with him, I came home for lunch, opened the garage door, and the cabinet was on the floor, leaning up against Bernie's car. Luckily, it didn't do any damage to her car, and the stuff in the cabinet was all over the floor, but nothing had broken. I guess it's been attached to the wall for a year despite the screws being a bit too short to anchor properly into the wall studs. Papa apparently tapped into his psychic powers and forsaw it. He's a real-life "Hero", I guess! Too bad he couldn't call us a day earlier and say "Replace the screws, save the cabinet!".

Who's in the Finals?

Bernie and I had to watch the Idol results show upstairs tonight since we won't get the downstairs receiver replaced until Friday. I didn't realize how nice Bernie has it that she can surf and watch TV all at the same time in her office. I don't have TV in my office, now do I? Hmmmm.

Anyway, we got to see Elliott Yamin perform again. The dude has gotten a total makeover! Curly, shaggy hair and good teeth! I think if he had looked like this last season, he might have been the big winner. Anyway, his song from his new CD sounded great.

Later on, we got to hear Maroon 5, and I think I may have to buy their new CD when it hits stores. I already knew I liked their song "This Love", which Blake covered last night. Now I've heard two songs from them, and I like them both. This merits some further listening on my part.

So, by now you probably know that Melinda got sent home. It's too bad, because she's one of the best - just not in a genre that gets enough votes. Melinda and Jordin are splitting a lot of the same votes, I think, and Lakisha was splitting that group even further before she was eliminated. I guess Blake is getting the teenage girl votes, plus the "vote for the worst" votes, plus the Seattle demographic. He and Jordin are the finalists. I'm fairly certain this means Jordin is a landslide winner, as she will certainly pick up Melinda's voters. We'll see next week.

No Idol Analysis Tonight

Sorry, guys. I had my HD satellite box die on me at exactly 8pm tonight and I was on the phone with tech support for most of Idol. I wasn't paying enough attention to analyze.

I do think that all 3 singers were in top form tonight, and I wouldn't be able to rank them, as I consider tonight's performances a dead heat.

That being said, I think Blake is outta here tomorrow.

The New World Dictionary

Being Offended (verb):
A state of being when:

• If it happens to you - justice, punishment and reparations are required in order to make it right.
• If it happens to someone else - they just need to lighten up and learn to take a joke.

Nice Relaxing Weekend

'Twas a good weekend. Here are the highlights:

• Bernie went with Mom and Sis to her favorite nursery, Roots to Go. She bought one plant, while mom and Sis bought lots.
• Meanwhile, Dad and I kept the nephews and we made them walk with us (3 blocks) to the playground, where they played on the swingset, then they wanted to go on the walking trail in the woods. We walked on the trail, then we walked back to the house in the hot sun. By the time we got there, the boys were completely manageable. We fed them a popsicle and put the Superman DVD in the player and before you knew it, their mommy was back. If you use strategy, the kids aren't hard to handle at all.
• After a lazy afternoon, we called Brian and Sophie and took them out to dinner at Souper Salad to thank them for their wonderful affidavits for Bernie's PR. One-year-old Elise ate two slices of pizza, some assorted olives and cheese, and an ice-cream cone (sans ice cream). No wonder she's building those muscles for walking so quickly. She really loved the crunch of that cone, too.
• Brian helped me with installing Bernie's new ceiling fan in her office. I had it done right, it seems, but the breaker switch had turned off when I wasn't looking. We took it down and double-checked everything anyway, and it works and looks great.
• On Sunday, we went to my Sister's country club to celebrate Mother's Day at their brunch. Pretty swanky, and the buffet was pretty nice, topped off with the chocolate fondue fountain. I stuck to the breakfast stuff, and Bernie pigged out on salmon (both smoked and steamed on the whole fish) and dessert.
• A nice long nap on Sunday afternoon.
• Dinner and ice cream at the parents' place on the brand-new deck.
• Quick grocery stop, then TV here at home to finish off the evening.

Only two more weeks until our second anniversary. We're going to Busch Gardens for the 3-day Memorial Day weekend. (Isn't it cool that we will always have a long weekend on our anniversary?)

Only Moderately Nerdy

I'm definitely less nerdy than I was when I was younger.

Tuesday Night Fever

Tonight's Idol was Barry Gibb, who sounds a lot like Sean Connery when he talks. (It's the "swish-swash-swish-swash" sound he makes.) Anyway, since I was born in 1969, I grew up with the BeeGees, and their songs are more part of my subconscious than my conscious mind, so I may not remember the titles or words, but I know the songs. I'll try to make my analysis make sense despite that.

Tonight, they each sang two songs from the Gibb family catalog. I'm not going to even mention individual judges comments for each song because between the time crunch and their normal incoherence, they were more irrelevant than ever. Suffice it to say that none of the judges liked anything they heard tonight.

First up, Melinda. She sang "Love You Inside and Out". She had the range of the song, and interpreted it really well. I felt this was something she could go into a studio and record today. I could close my eyes and imagine this was on the radio. All three judges said it wasn't exciting enough. Maybe they don't understand disco. Disco isn't exciting. It's simply a good beat and rock steady from beginning to end. Philistines.

Second was Blake, doing "You Should Be Dancing". This wasn't a great night for Blake. He tried to do the falsetto and was consistently flat-pitched. He did some beat-boxing at the end of the choruses that wasn't very impressive. He dragged the tempo and it really stunk up the place. The judges agree with me.

Third was Lakisha, wearing a black-on white outfit that looks like a Ben & Jerry's carton. Overweight women should NEVER wear something that resembles a cow, folks. She did "Staying Alive". Honestly, this really wasn't terrible. She did the warbling during the bridge really well, and the verses weren't bad. She let the backup singers do most of the high stuff and filled in during the choruses. Not great, but not bad. Judges: Hated it.

Batting cleanup today was Jordin. She sang "To Love Somebody". I don't know this song well, but Bernie does, and she loved the way Jordin sang it. I liked it as well, though I don't remember this performance much just a 1/2 hour later. The judges said it was the best so far, but weren't enthusiastic. I guess I have to agree.

The second time around, the trends continued.

Melinda did "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart". Again, this was quite recordable and would work as a single on the radio today. She nails the last note and makes the crowd give her an ovation. Judges are still only lukewarm. Judge Judy is in the audience and I think they should sign her up, because Moe, Larry, and Curly aren't doing much to earn their paychecks tonight.

Blake needs to improve on the second song, and he does, a bit, with "This Is Where I Came In". I can understand why he chose this one. It's a blank page for improvisation, since no one knows it. Unfortunately, it comes out pretty bland and while he spares us the falsetto this time, he beat-boxes again when it isn't needed and it comes off as pretty amateur. He's also flat again. Not good.

Lakisha comes out in a better looking dress. Black sides with kelly green midstripe. The only fashion mistake she makes (and she does it consistently) is to go with a high waistline. She performs "Run To Me". Unfortunately, this song exposes her weakness - she can't sing soft and sweet at all. She tries, and her voice just won't do it. It completely fails her on the last note of the song, which is akin to losing your bathing suit in the pool. There's no hiding it and no way to save face after it happens. Also not good.

Jordin comes out and tries to hit the home run of the night with "Woman In Love". She almost succeeds. She's a bit off-pitch in the beginning and alllllllllmost off pitch on the high notes. She bends those notes up into where they ought to be, but you can tell she's having to work at it. I'm starting to wonder if voices are beginning to show the strain of a long season and having to perform twice in one night. This was still my favorite of the nght, however. I want her to do this one in the finals and nail it.

So, after double the value tonight, I put them in this order

1. Melinda
1. Jordin
3. Blake
3. Lakisha

Either Blake or Lakisha is taking the gas pipe this week. It all depends on if Blake gets the white male vote from Phil and Chris's departures last week, or if those votes go elsewhere.

A Long Distance Dedication to Elizabeth

A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.

A Will is a dead giveaway.

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

A dyslexic poet writes inverse.

In a democracy, it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes.

A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.

If you don't pay your exorcist, you may be repossessed.

With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.

Show me a piano falling down a mineshaft and I'll show you A-flat
miner.

When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.

The guy who fell into the upholstery machine is now fully recovered.

You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

Local Area Network in Australia: The LAN down under.

He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.

A calendar's days are numbered.

A lot of money is tainted: 'Taint yours, and it 'taint mine.

A boiled egg is hard to beat.

I have a photographic memory, but I never bothered to develop it.

A plateau is a high form of flattery.

The short fortune teller who escaped from prison: a small medium at large.

Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

When you've seen one shopping center, you've seen a mall.

If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.

When she saw her first strands of grey hair, she thought she'd dye.

Bakers trade bread recipes only on a knead to know basis.

Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

Acupuncture: a jab well done.

(Note: I found these on a message board, but I've 'improved' a couple of them)

Grrrrrr

Tonight, I get a call from my old friend Ed. Ed is the friend who is head fly man for Blue Man Group at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. He got Bernie and me some comp tickets to the show when we were in Vegas last year. Ed has diabetes and was about as reckless about his condition as a human being could be back when we were all growing up together. I think he was voted "least likely to survive to age 25" in high school. Back then, the group would go on hikes or bike rides and Ed would usually end up passed out in shock with one of us shoving crackers down his throat to get his blood sugar back up. Ed is an outdoors kind of guy and has the Grizzly Adams beard (flaming red, of course) that goes with his persona. He managed to land one of the nicest girls I've ever met despite this, and convinced her to marry him, and they have a little girl who looks like a living doll. They moved to Las Vegas when Ed got the job with Blue Man Group a couple of years ago. I think most of my old group of friends has been out there to visit at least once since then.

Well, Ed is visiting Raleigh with his wife and little girl this weekend and called me to see if we could try to get together on Sunday. Of course, this would be one Sunday where I have to go to work for one tiny little hour in order to test a new software code deployment my department is doing this weekend. I can't leave town.

These things can only happen to me. Grrrrr!

Not a Good Night for Cowboys

I was slightly wrong, but Jordin survived her bad week after all.

Phil and Chris are gone. Phil was victim of the "ironic song" rule ("Goin' Down In A Blaze Of Glory"), and Chris went on his coattails with another cowboy-themed song ("Dead Or Alive").

Hint to future Idols: Don't sing songs containing lyrics about "going home" or "going down" or "going out". Fate loves irony.

So, your final four are Jordin, Melinda, Lakisha, and Blake.

I think Blake outlasts Lakisha, but the finalists are Jordin and Melinda. We need to see how Jordin recovers from her scare, though. Remember, Kellie Pickler survived a bad week last season only to follow it up with a worse week and elimination.

By the way, I have a higher opinion of Bon Jovi after this week. I think he's the first pro on the show this season that actually is a musician instead of just a front man, and it showed.

Shot Through The Heart

Oh, my heart. I'm afraid Jordin is going to go home. This was a bad week to have a bad week, since two go home. It's Bon Jovi week, and the girls were all going to have problems that only clever song selections were going to solve.

Scores from this week are added to last week's scores and the bottom two go home tomorrow.

Rock songs like Jon Bon Jovi's don't require a great voice, however, they do require exceptional musicality and, most importantly, the ability to 'lose yourself' in the song. JBJ also has a funny range, so unless the performers transpose the songs to a better key, they could be in trouble. And, indeed, none of them changed the key from the original.

Phil went first and did a very nice rendition of "Blaze of Glory". If the Idol Irony Rule is in effect, that would doom him to being sent home, just because of the appropriateness of having to sing "Going down in a blaze of glory" for his final performance. Somehow, I think he's staying.

Jordin was next and tried to do the iconic Bon Jovi song, "Livin' on a Prayer". It was too low for her, even in rehearsals and she didn't heed the warnings that Jon Bon Jovi gave her. She did a fine job of saving the song in her performance, but you just couldn't hide what was going wrong. The judges gave her credit for doing her best in a bad situation, but this was the worst performance of the night. I really hope her last week's performance saves her.

Lakisha came on and blasted out "This Ain't a Love Song". There just aren't many Bon Jovi songs that are going to work for a woman, and she chose wisely. Not the best of the night, but definitely in the top half. She's only got one volume, and it goes to eleven. This song is big enough to hold it, though. I think she actually had an advantage in not knowing Bon Jovi songs. That meant she actually had to listen to the discography and pick one that sounded right. Jordin obviously thought "Oh! Bon Jovi! I've gotta do Livin' on a Prayer!"

Blake did "Shot Through the Heart (You Give Love a Bad Name)". Just from hearing that, you'd think he doesn't have the voice to carry it off. Blake took a huge risk and deconstructed the song, making it fit a techno-beat, and did a beat-box duel with a percussionist in the middle. It worked. Man did it work. He brought the song home by changing it to the classic version at the end. I'd give this a 9.5 out of 10. Best of the night.

Chris sang "Dead or Alive". I thought that he might be able to do a passable Bon Jovi imitation, as long as he avoided certain songs where JBJ's voice is much bigger than his. This one fit my theory. He did a pretty good job and the judges liked it. Not original, though.

Then there was Melinda. I couldn't imagine what she'd pick. I had thought that "Never Say Goodbye" was one of the few songs a woman could pull off, but she instead chose "Have a Nice Day", which is one of JBJ's more recent hits. She channelled Tina Turner and made it work.

Update: Oh, and I forgot to add that I'm ticked off that no one sang "Never Say Goodbye", which would have saved Jordin or Chris's butts tonight if they had thought of it.

So, for tonight:
1. Blake
2. Melinda
3. Phil
4. Lakisha
5. Chris
6. Jordin

And last week:
1. Jordin
2. Melinda
3. Phil
4. Blake
5. Chris
6. Lakisha

Which leaves me to calculate this order for elimination:
1. Melinda
2. Phil
3. Blake
4. Jordin
5. Lakisha
6. Chris

If I'm even slightly wrong, Jordin is going home. We'll see how right I am tomorrow.

Twas a Good Weekend

Nice weekend, but nothing much to report except for cooking and eating, which we shouldn't be doing much of.

Yesterday, we went to see the Malaysian women bowlers, then a quick shopping trip and then to my mom and dad's place, where I helped them move their potted patio plants so they can have their new deck built next week. Mom had a new recipe from the Weber grill cookbook for Eastern NC BBQ. She had defrosted a pork boston butt and slathered it with rub. I then put it on the grill in indirect heat, with hickory wood chips on top of the fire, and left it going for five hours, until it was falling apart. Then we pulled all the meat apart and soaked it in the sauce made from vinegar, red pepper flakes, sugar, etc which is the Eastern NC Barbeque magic potion.

It was delicious.

Today, we celebrated my Dad's birthday (his 60th!) and I grilled burgers over at his house and we had cake and ice cream. Mom got the cake from Costco and it was the darkest, richest, chocolatey-est cake I've ever seen or tasted in my life. It was black. Not brown, but black as night all the way through with dark chocolate bittersweet shavings stuck to the dark chocolate frosting. The cocoa content of this cake was off the scale. It was great, but no one is going to be craving chocolate for awhile.

Tonight, Bernie and I are worn out, even though we haven't done much in the way of exercise. I wonder if the choco-endorphins are working on us. Anyway, we sleep with the angels this night. Zzzzzzzzzz...

Suddenly, It All Makes Sense!

Sanjaya's family are pot-growers.

Now we know why he's got such a weak grip on reality. And no wonder why the state of California voted for him so often!

Tonight's Idol

I was underwhelmed by the show and the theme tonight (Inspiriational Songs). That being said, all the competitors were really good! Maybe it's Sanjaya's absence, but the singing really was great tonight.

Show commentary: This was the "Idol Gives Back" show. You'd think Ryan would shave. Simon was actually pleasant tonight and really didn't stick it to anyone.

Tonight's theme was an attempt to make up with Melinda and Lakisha for giving them bad themes two weeks in a row (Country and Latin). Melinda rocked and Lakisha didn't. Lakisha violated rule #1 - don't do a song by a former Idol winner. She also shouted and oversang the song again. Hers were the only bad comments of the evening from the judges. Phil was really good again - he seems to have found his comfort zone, finally. Chris ("If I Could Change the World") and Blake ("Imagine") were weaker but good. Jordin went last and brought down the house with "You'll Never Walk Alone". I really think she's going to win.

Tonight's ranking:
1. Jordin
2. Melinda
3. Phil
4. Blake
5. Chris
6. Lakisha

Based on Lakisha's waning fan base in recent weeks, I think she's gone. At the beginning of the season, I would never have thought 3 guys would still be in it this late, but they're hanging on.


Wednesday Update:
They didn't eliminate anyone this week (though they left poor Jordin twisting in the wind). They'll add up the scores with next week's scores and eliminate TWO next Wednesday.

Harry Potter

I realized this weekend that I hadn't pre-ordered my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows yet, so I went on to Amazon and did my duty. Only to hear the wail of dismay from my wife, who had already done so for an early birthday present for me. Now we'll have two copies. Oh well.

Anyway, I was wikipedia-browsing on Deathly Hallows today and I figured I could put my predictions for what will happen in the book into a blog post and maybe get Elizabeth and Chris to actually leave me a comment or two.

First, I think "hallows" is being used in its "relics of saints" definition. The "saints" being loosely interpreted as Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin, Helga Hufflepuff, and Rowena Ravenclaw. So therefore, the "deathly hallows" are the relics of the founders of Hogwarts - which are horcruxes containing parts of the soul of Voldemort, keeping him alive after the death of his body.

Second, Sirius and Dumbledore will be helping Harry and the Order of the Phoenix from the afterlife. Dumbledore from his picture frame, and Sirius by the use of the two-way mirror he gave to Harry.

Third, Rowling has stated that we will learn a lot about Lily Potter in book 7. She has also said that Harry having his mother's eyes is a crucial fact that will play out in book 7. It has been stated in previous books that Harry's protection from Voldemort is due to Lily's dying in order to protect him. Dumbledore "had a gleam in his eyes" when he heard that Voldemort had returned from the dead with the use of Harry's blood. I add this all up and theorize that Lily's death may have caused the equivalent of a white-magic horcrux, preserving Lily's soul after death and protecting Harry. You have to commit a murder to create a horcrux, so maybe the white-magic equivalent requires sacrificing oneself to save another. When Voldemort used Harry's blood to return to life, he may have put a piece of Lily into himself which can be exploited as a weakness.

Based on something Rowling said, I think Harry, Hermione, and Ron all survive the series. I think Neville and perhaps Hagrid will die in the course of the story. Just a guess.

R.A.B. is Regulus Black, and the amulet horcrux was found in 12 Grimmauld Place in Book 6.

Three of the six horcruxes have been found - Tom Riddle's diary, Slytherin's ring, and the locket. This leaves items from Griffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff to be found. Is Godric's sword one? I think that Harry's scar is the seventh horcrux and we'll see a dilemma as to whether Harry should kill himself in order to rid the world of Voldemort. I think Lily's horcrux will be the key to Harry's survival.