When I was a kid, I didn't understand the meaning of that album title. Why were they quitting? Weren't they a pretty good band? What the fuck?
Later in life, I came to understand how people stop doing things that others may find enjoyable. The band was experiencing internal problems, and they wanted to go out on top. Made perfect sense.
Which brings me to my sad announcement -- the blog is over. Yes, it's true... I'm signing off for good.
I know, I know -- it's a tragedy and a travesty... thousands -- nay, millions -- of readers will soon miss my words of wisdom, my quirky comments, my skewed outlook on life itself. But my work here is done... it's time to move on...
Besides, when the Onion is mocking what you're doing, you know this thing has jumped the shark...
Bye bye, now...
Monday, November 30, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Back to School Issue
Never got around to starting the snowmobiles -- the family got me busy making dinner. They wanted steaks on the grill -- I guess it's been a long time since they had a home-cooked meal. Like since Thursday, when we had turkey, roast beast, dressing, potaters, ad nauseum... the traditional Thanksgetting dinner.
So we had some of Jewel's finest on-sale, thin-cut-for-your-convenience NY Strip steaks. Good value, but you'd never mistake them for a nice restaurant piece of beef. The red potaters made it a palatable selection, followed by the Blackhawks game on WGN. They battled back to tie it, then lost in a over-overtime shootout. Oh well... they're pretty good this year. Last year was a panic watching them in the playoffs. This year may be better (stated at the risk of sounding like a Cubs fan...)
Raining today -- thank God. I was afraid we might go three days in a row without it. It feels like we're living in Louisiana, only colder.
Despite the wondermost weather, the kids are headed back to school. My youngest son is a senior at University of Illinois. And no, he didn't get in by virtue of my being a meddling Blago donor, he got in on his own grades. And my daughter is a grad student at ISU. They've spent the past few hours in a frenzy of Christmas decorating... the tree was done last night, but they insist on icicles on the rooftop eves and twinkly lights around the windows. As typical, they got about half way done, then called me for backup. So I begrudgingly helped them out. It's a lot easier now that I'm not a practicing alchoholic any more.
Well, the Bears are about to start up... the Bears were just one bus-crash away from having a chance today, but it looks like the Minnesota Vikings got to the stadium intact, so let's let the ass-whuppin' begin!
So we had some of Jewel's finest on-sale, thin-cut-for-your-convenience NY Strip steaks. Good value, but you'd never mistake them for a nice restaurant piece of beef. The red potaters made it a palatable selection, followed by the Blackhawks game on WGN. They battled back to tie it, then lost in a over-overtime shootout. Oh well... they're pretty good this year. Last year was a panic watching them in the playoffs. This year may be better (stated at the risk of sounding like a Cubs fan...)
Raining today -- thank God. I was afraid we might go three days in a row without it. It feels like we're living in Louisiana, only colder.
Despite the wondermost weather, the kids are headed back to school. My youngest son is a senior at University of Illinois. And no, he didn't get in by virtue of my being a meddling Blago donor, he got in on his own grades. And my daughter is a grad student at ISU. They've spent the past few hours in a frenzy of Christmas decorating... the tree was done last night, but they insist on icicles on the rooftop eves and twinkly lights around the windows. As typical, they got about half way done, then called me for backup. So I begrudgingly helped them out. It's a lot easier now that I'm not a practicing alchoholic any more.
Well, the Bears are about to start up... the Bears were just one bus-crash away from having a chance today, but it looks like the Minnesota Vikings got to the stadium intact, so let's let the ass-whuppin' begin!
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Change of Seasonal machinery
Started out the day with a mission in mind.
I'm not much of a "doer" on my days off, but I seldom have more than two days off in a row, and I get pretty twitchy on days like this -- it's my fourth in a row. Today's mission: the changing of the seasonal machinery. To wit: putting the lawnmower away and breaking out the snowmobiles for the upcoming sledding-and-drinking season.
The lawnmower is the easiest part, in that it has electric start. I have a zero-turn Everride Warrior -- a commercial-sized rider that cuts a 5-foot swath through my suburban jungle. I changed the oil, greased it up, stabilized the fuel for the winter, and rode it around the neighborhood to get all the new oil circulated and the fuel and stabilizer mixed. I rode it over to my neighbor Kent's house, where he was working on one of his race cars. (He's independently wealthy, retired at a jealousy-inducing age, and owns several cars and bikes.) Talked some shit about raccoons and skunks -- you know, the usual chitchat. He caught the neighbor's cat in his raccoon trap last week. We laughed about it -- we both hate that cat cause it hunts the songbirds -- then I put my Stetson back on, jingled my spurs and rode on home. (Or maybe it was just a Bass Pro-Shop baseball cap.)
I had shut off the fuel valve and planned to drive the mower into the garage just as the engine died -- with a dry carburetor. But it ran out of fuel before I even got back to my driveway, so I sat in the road, cranking away like a doofus, until it started again. The best laid plans, eh? Got her parked in the garage, where it will serve as a mouse condo until next spring.
Took a few minutes to watch Mike Rowe wrangle some alligators on Dirty Jobs. I love that show. I've had a few of those jobs in the past, but for the last few years I just watch my workers handle the shit end of the stick while I stay in the truck and do crossword puzzles. But as my mentor Tommy Fawkes often said, "The cream always rises to the top," to which I would always add "Yeah, but so does the slag..."
So next up, the snowmobiles. This will be the torture test... starting them requires some 20 or 40 pulls on the starter cords. I dislocated my shoulder a few months ago, and did a month of rehab to fix the damage to my rotator (sp?) cuff. You can't really pull the cord with your right hand, so my recently-recovered left shoulder will be put on the testing block. We'll see if the doctors and the physical therapists earned the money they got.
If not, I'll name them all in my next blog.
I'm not much of a "doer" on my days off, but I seldom have more than two days off in a row, and I get pretty twitchy on days like this -- it's my fourth in a row. Today's mission: the changing of the seasonal machinery. To wit: putting the lawnmower away and breaking out the snowmobiles for the upcoming sledding-and-drinking season.
The lawnmower is the easiest part, in that it has electric start. I have a zero-turn Everride Warrior -- a commercial-sized rider that cuts a 5-foot swath through my suburban jungle. I changed the oil, greased it up, stabilized the fuel for the winter, and rode it around the neighborhood to get all the new oil circulated and the fuel and stabilizer mixed. I rode it over to my neighbor Kent's house, where he was working on one of his race cars. (He's independently wealthy, retired at a jealousy-inducing age, and owns several cars and bikes.) Talked some shit about raccoons and skunks -- you know, the usual chitchat. He caught the neighbor's cat in his raccoon trap last week. We laughed about it -- we both hate that cat cause it hunts the songbirds -- then I put my Stetson back on, jingled my spurs and rode on home. (Or maybe it was just a Bass Pro-Shop baseball cap.)
I had shut off the fuel valve and planned to drive the mower into the garage just as the engine died -- with a dry carburetor. But it ran out of fuel before I even got back to my driveway, so I sat in the road, cranking away like a doofus, until it started again. The best laid plans, eh? Got her parked in the garage, where it will serve as a mouse condo until next spring.
Took a few minutes to watch Mike Rowe wrangle some alligators on Dirty Jobs. I love that show. I've had a few of those jobs in the past, but for the last few years I just watch my workers handle the shit end of the stick while I stay in the truck and do crossword puzzles. But as my mentor Tommy Fawkes often said, "The cream always rises to the top," to which I would always add "Yeah, but so does the slag..."
So next up, the snowmobiles. This will be the torture test... starting them requires some 20 or 40 pulls on the starter cords. I dislocated my shoulder a few months ago, and did a month of rehab to fix the damage to my rotator (sp?) cuff. You can't really pull the cord with your right hand, so my recently-recovered left shoulder will be put on the testing block. We'll see if the doctors and the physical therapists earned the money they got.
If not, I'll name them all in my next blog.
Friday, November 27, 2009
The Day After Thanksgiving -- African-American Friday
Last night we were goofing on a Menard's ad for the Black Friday crush... The ostensibly-home-improvement store had three different flyers in the high-priced placement of the day's Chicago Tribune newspaper.
We made great sport of the things Menard's is selling -- lumber, shelving units, water heaters and filters, the usual stuff. But the ancillary crap -- notebook computers, iPod accessories, kitchen appliances, pots and pans, summer sausage (Really? At a fucking lumber yard??) candies, Christmas cards... We had a great laugh.
The sale went from 6 a.m. to 11, so I said I'd set my alarm to make sure I didn't miss it...
Got up about 9, made it to the store by 10:30, and by God, half of the things I wanted were already sold out. And it wasn't like they only had a few items -- there were entire end displays vacated. Looked like a hoard of locust went through there... Mexican locust, by the look (and the sound) of things... Understandable, as the store is between Mundelein and Diamond Lake, Illinois -- a burgeoning nesting ground for our brothers from under the border.
Dumbest thing I ever did was to take "French" in High School. (But they speak Frenchola in Canada, which is where I was planning to go if that VietNam war had run on a few more years...)
Oh well. Anyway, I wasn't looking for quality stuff there, just the goofy gifts you get when you ask for goofy gifts for Christmas. I really don't shop the local lumber yards for quality electronics and kitchenware. I go to PetSmart for that stuff...
I hear a leftover turkey sandwich calling me, then I have a meeting at 1 p.m. -- my ass will be meeting my recliner, and I want to be there when it happens. Aloha.
We made great sport of the things Menard's is selling -- lumber, shelving units, water heaters and filters, the usual stuff. But the ancillary crap -- notebook computers, iPod accessories, kitchen appliances, pots and pans, summer sausage (Really? At a fucking lumber yard??) candies, Christmas cards... We had a great laugh.
The sale went from 6 a.m. to 11, so I said I'd set my alarm to make sure I didn't miss it...
Got up about 9, made it to the store by 10:30, and by God, half of the things I wanted were already sold out. And it wasn't like they only had a few items -- there were entire end displays vacated. Looked like a hoard of locust went through there... Mexican locust, by the look (and the sound) of things... Understandable, as the store is between Mundelein and Diamond Lake, Illinois -- a burgeoning nesting ground for our brothers from under the border.
Dumbest thing I ever did was to take "French" in High School. (But they speak Frenchola in Canada, which is where I was planning to go if that VietNam war had run on a few more years...)
Oh well. Anyway, I wasn't looking for quality stuff there, just the goofy gifts you get when you ask for goofy gifts for Christmas. I really don't shop the local lumber yards for quality electronics and kitchenware. I go to PetSmart for that stuff...
I hear a leftover turkey sandwich calling me, then I have a meeting at 1 p.m. -- my ass will be meeting my recliner, and I want to be there when it happens. Aloha.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
New Blog
To quote Steve Dahl, radio God of Chicagoland for the past 30 years, I've got nothin' to say, and I'm sayin' it. From time to time, I'll spout off about what's bugging me. Currently, it's the psychotic thieves that infest Springfield and Chicago's City Hall.
But tonight, in repose after a Thanksgiving meal fit for a King, I'm not in a bad mood at all. The family is watching White Christmas, the dog is snoozing, and there's a crossword puzzle calling my name. So away I go...
But tonight, in repose after a Thanksgiving meal fit for a King, I'm not in a bad mood at all. The family is watching White Christmas, the dog is snoozing, and there's a crossword puzzle calling my name. So away I go...
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