This year, I've been forced to give a hard rethink to my former quasi-enjoyment of winter ( Read more... )

As maddeningly chaotic as it is whenever the brats all get together (or when the middle and youngest get together), sometimes unintentional hilarity ensues to leaven the free-floating rage that their shenanigans more typically arouse in me.

Case in point: yesterday, the middle child came over to trash the house and futz with the family room's ( Read more... )

My middle son has been married for almost two years now; even so, he makes a pilgrimage to the parental homestead most Sundays with a heapin' tub o' laundry, supposedly because his mother doesn't charge him as much to do his laundry (what, him do laundry?? surely, you must be joking...) as it would cost him and his wife to do it at their apartment ( Read more... )

When I heard my youngest refer to President Obama's swearing-in as the "inniggeration," I realized that, had my company been open today, I would've very likely heard the same unlovely phrase from at least three or four of my co-workers (not including a couple of my bosses); even money that at least one of them would've coupled it with describing ( Read more... )

...you regard an obsolete toilet as lawn furniture.

*pause*

You're definitely a redneck if you place said toilet on your neighbor's lawn --- as one of our neighbors did. Put their toilet on our lawn, that is.

Now, I realize that we're living in a trailer park (excuse me: a "mobile home estate"); but could we please not conform so readily ( Read more... )

Last night (Saturday, 24 November), we finally saw an opening band that the missus liked more than the headliner: The Infatuations, a funk / soul / rock band from the Detroit area that sounds like they've been together for years owing to their tight vocal harmonies and outstanding musicianship. They were the second opening act for the Howling ( Read more... )

Last Friday (2 November), the missus and I caught a couple of local bands -- Rio and the Rockabilly Revival and Horse Cave Trio -- at a nearby venue.

She didn't like the Horse Cave Trio when we first saw them -- IIRC, it was on a bill with these guys (who she really hated) -- but they eventually won her over when they were one of the bands at ( Read more... )

So. World Series 2012. Detroit Tigers (American League) vs. San Francisco Giants (National League ( Read more... )

I recently noted my interest in movies about blobs, and my intention to rectify a gap in my movie-watching history by using Netflix to rent the sequel to the 1958 movie The Blob, the 1972 (though the small text at the bottom of the title says 1971 in Roman numerals) movie alternately titled Beware! The Blob, Beware the Blob, Son of Blob and The ( Read more... )

On the commentary track to Magnum Force (1973), the second of the five Dirty Harry movies starring Clint Eastwood, the co-screenwriter, John Milius (who also co-wrote, uncredited, the screenplay for the first movie in the series, Dirty Harry [1971]), said that the scenes of the two women throwing themselves (separately, mind you) at Harry Callahan ( Read more... )