The finish line. (although I hear that Norwegian Line’s boats are nicer)

Day 30

Well Bloppers, November is gasping its last and I hope most of you made it. As I noted yesterday I think the exercise of blogging every day was well worth it, even if I was personally responsible for clogging up more than my share of Senator Steven’s tubes with a lot of drivel about my kids, Dancing with the Stars and Halo3.

Aaand speaking of kids… ,just this morning I was appalled when I saw this bizarre poster at the Palisades mall today:

Really? Is this how far we’ve let common civility slide in our culture? We not only tolerate but expect that our children will be shrill, materialistic little monsters?

I guess that’s exactly what it means, but still, the message that I prefer to take away from this sign is that the cosmos is laying a little bit of a serendipitous kudos on me, ,my at-home-dad parenting skills and my well behaved boys. And jeez it’s not even like it’s that complicated to raise not-monster kids. Now of course Children of the Corn is a different matter…, now that I think about it even they were fastidiously polite while they were busy being evil. ,Whatever.

Have a great December!

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Still Blopping?

Day 29

Not to get all meta about this, but it is day 29 for all you NaBloPoMo Bloppers out there… so how you all doing? Everybody having fun? I know that for me it’s been a good exercise in staying focused on one task around here that’s actually good for my noggin.

Not that the usual routine of cooking and cleaning isn’t profoundly satisfying… ,oh right, it’s not… ,but still, way back I used to write every day and I wrote what seemed endless papers to finish up school, so until this month it had been a long time since I felt any pressure to produce. Of course that’s all well and good, but I still need to come up with one more staggeringly brilliant bit of insight by tomorrow. No problem.

Blop on.

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Hide me...

Day 28

So the next stage in our little renovation project has begun, namely looking at tile. ,Lotsa tile., Tile for this bathroom and that bathroom. ,Tile for the Kitchen. ,Tile for the floors and walls. ,Tiles for breakfast lunch and dinner. ,Gaaaa.

I’m actually doing ok so far; ,at every tile store I’m still nodding and ,“Hmmm-ing”, with a furrowed brow here and a chin stroke there, right on cue. ,I’m looking interested and even throwing in the occasional question just to mix it up, because we all know what happens if my Lovely Bride gets the feeling that I don’t care., Brrrrr.

Ooops, ,gotta go… ,I think I hear her coming and I can’t hide under this desk for much longer… ,pray for me…

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Things I care way too much about. Like Dancing with the Stars. And conspiracy theories.

Day 27

There are any number of reasons that people blog;, and the range, as we all know, is pretty wide. Some engage in erudite discourse about the loftiest ideals, some blog about what they fed the cat for lunch, and still others like to ramble on about idiotic conspiracy theories. And today I’m proud to present my very own homemade conspiracy theory that’s been carefully wrapped in crazy and topped off with a dash of ridiculous. ,And it’s about Dancing with the Stars, no less.

So here it is:, I’m absolutely convinced that Carrie Ann threw the judging last night when she gave Helio and Julianne that 9 for their second dance. The dance was clearly worth a 10, which I believe put Carrie Ann in the tough position of having to give them the praise the dance warranted and yet still somehow justify a 9. ,So, if you watch her comments closely you’ll see that she’s scrambling at the end to come up that lame excuse about Helio’s lifts not being smooth enough., Whaa?

Of course every idiotic conspiracy theory has to have a rationale, so… , I think Carrie Ann is in cahoots with Mel and Max who are supposed to win tonight, except that they didn’t dance well enough to make it a lock…, which forced Carry Anne’s hand when Helio and Julianne surprised everyone by turning in the best dance of the night. See?, It’s clear that the fix is in at Dancing with the Stars. , Really. ,Why is everybody looking at me like that? ,Here, ,look:

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Master Chief Makes Me Feel Funny...

Day 26

In keeping with the habit of brevity that I’ve been trying to cultivate here lately, please indulge me as I toss out the following declarative statement with no further build up. ,Ready? ,Here goes: ,I’m at a stage in life in which I’m down to very few vices. Actually I have so few left the number is embarrassingly close to zero, what with me firmly entrenched in my forties and being the very model of a modern major father figure… ,as it were.

That said, one of my knucklehead boys managed to step on/destroy/mangle our Halo3 disk this weekend, which left me unaccountably distraught until I realized in the midst of my grief that I seem be involved in a love-hate relationship with Master Chief as potentially destructive as that between Lindsey Lohan and booze., Or Paris Hilton and herself. ,You get the idea. ,I am, ,in short, ,pining for Master Chief. I used to hate both him and that damn game, and yet I kept playing it. ,A lot. ,Aw jeez, I guess I’m supposed to say it out loud: ,“Hi, my name is Evan and I’m addicted to Halo3.”

Really, as much as I whined about Big Team Battles and the sheer stupidity of Oddball, I was still getting better at beating down newbs and nose-scoping the better guys. My rank in Lone Wolves was 13 with 95 total experience, for heaven’s sake., (Good Lord, did that just sound as nerdy as I thought it did?) ,Yeah, think I need help for my latest addiction. ,Or…, at least another copy of the game.

Yeah, I’m just going to go out and get another copy of the game. What the hell, even if it is a nerdy addiction that’s turning my brain to mush at least it’s not killing my liver. ,Go me!

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Stuff.

Day 25

Anybody want a folding beach chair? Howzabout a set of bocce balls, or even better, an Easy Bake Oven. Most of it’s barely used, as are most of the boxes of junk now occupying my driveway like a small army of itinerant squatters who have come to vex me just in time for the holidays.

Well, I may be exaggerating as I’ve been known to do, but either way I just want the world to know that I was stuck this weekend cleaning out the garage, which is a job that I would imagine is only slightly less appalling than, say, a summer spent as Liza Minnelli’s pool boy., Only less humiliating. ,One would imagine.

Anyway, the point is that I’ve got a ton-‘o-crap to get rid of and not much time before the contractors show up to throw the rest of the house into chaos. ,So, who wants a big box of half empty paint cans?

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