All Good Things Come to an End

And my stay in Maricopa is no exception.  Alex and I will be leaving at around 7:00 tomorrow morning.  Or at least that's the plan.  Since the earliest that we've been waking up is about 9:00, there is a slight possibility that we might get out of here a little bit later than that.  Only time will tell.  (Anyone else have Nelson in their head now?)  Whatever the time we leave, I expect that my blog posts will experience a precipitous decline in frequency after tonight.  Once I resume my regularly-scheduled programming, there is little likelihood of three posts in a month, let alone a day.

Stop cheering, jerk.

Last night, my cousin Titus took Alex and me out to dinner and a movie.  (He says we're cheap dates.)  Dinner was fantastic.  He took us to YC's Mongolian Grill, and the food was fan... excellent.  It's a sort of "build your own stir-fry" place, where you take whatever vegetables and meats you want, pile them as high as you possibly can into a bowl, create your own sauce from the various ingredients, hand it to the cooks, and they fry it right there in front of you in a matter of minutes.  Very delicious and probably pretty healthful, at least until you add in an ice cream cone for dessert.  Also, as I discovered, very hot.  After they put your food back into the bowl, it steams about as much as the cooling tower on a nuclear power plant.  Even after the steam seems to have mostly dissipated, every bite releases more heat trapped in the food.  It's very important to sufficiently cool off each forkful (or chopstick-full, depending on how adventurous you are) before putting it in your mouth, or the resulting burns on your tongue and the roof of your mouth will hurt like a mofo for at least the next day (I can't yet say when the pain goes away).  But the food was still worth it.

Anyhoo, after dinner we watched "Clash of the Titans", a remake of some old movie I've never seen, so I didn't get any of the references made to it.  While somewhat entertaining, it's not a movie I'm likely to ever watch again.  The most amusing part was the post-movie analysis from Titus and Alex.  As you might expect from a 90-minute action film, the "plot" was - shall we say - less than developed.  Plus there were some moments that were just plain unbelievable, even for a film about mythological Greek gods.  But since this isn't really a movie review (2 stars; A "can-miss!"), that's all I have to say about that. (Yay, lame Forrest Gump reference!)

And that's it: my final post from Maricopa.  Unless of course I write another one at 1:00 in the morning, or wake up early and need something to do.  But most likely, it's the last one.  So, I bid you adieu until next time, which will probably be May.

STOP THAT!

(Nelly Furtado & Chris Martin)

Help Me

or "Cancel Print Job?"

I have issues, and I'm not referring to my ever-so-slight OCD tendencies.  At least not right now.  No, today I'm talking about my apparent inability to tell myself 'no'.  The trouble is that whether or not anybody else finds me convincing, I do.

In case you're wondering what inspired this post, I bought a printer.  Not so bad, right?  But what if I tell you it's the second printer I've bought in about two weeks.  And the third printer in the past six months.  Why do I need three printers, one might be tempted to ask.  The answer, of course, is I don't.  But they were such good deals I just had to get them!  Didn't I?

The first printer I bought around Black Friday last november, and it's the only purchase I actually regret.  It's an HP OfficeJet 6000 - a plain old inkjet - and I very rarely use it.  But it was cheap and had built-in duplexing (Ooo, duplexing!), so I bought it.  The second printer is a beautiful color laser, the Samsung CLP-620ND.  I have yet to see mine, but I've looked at its twin at OfficeMax.  I love it.  It prints at about 20 ppm and has auto-duplexing (that's a big selling feature for me, in case you hadn't noticed).  Better yet, I got it on an incredible sale and paid half of what it's currently selling for.  And I think dad is going to buy it, so that one hardly counts at all.  I hope.  Finally, we come to the third printer, the HP OfficeJet 7000.  Yes, I know that seems remarkably similar to the first printer, and in many ways it is.  It's a regular inkjet.  It doesn't scan, copy, or fax, and it doesn't have auto-duplexing.  But it prints page sizes up to 13"x19".  Borderless.  Dad doesn't know this yet, but he might buy this one too.  I'm hoping it will be perfect for printing event posters and things like that, where something larger than 8.5"x11" might be nice.  I'm not going to tell you what I paid for each of these printers, but I will tell you that I paid less than $370 for the three of them together.  And I didn't pay a penny for shipping on any of them.  And I got 3% cashback on the Samsung and 10% cashback on the most recent purchase.

So you tell me: am I convincing?  I certainly seem to think so.  If you agree, I might be able to get you a really good deal on a lightly-used OfficeJet 6000.

(Alkaline Trio)

Shut Up

Shut up, just shut up, shut up...  Just thought I'd begin with a Black Eyed Peas song that would speak to how we're all feeling right now.  But apparently, the three-week fast from blogging left me with a desire to gorge myself upon the wonderful buffet before me.  And as everyone knows, when you stuff your face after not eating for awhile, unpleasant consequences can arise - AKA I have diarrhea of the mouth.

Anyhoo, moving away from metaphors relating to gross bodily funcitons, let's talk about inspiration.  I haven't got any.  Well that was a short conversation.

Lemme explain.  No, there is too much.  Lemme sum up.  Shavuot is in about 5-6 weeks, and I have had approximately zero ideas about the decor for the feast meals.  ('Decor' needs the little accent thingy, but I don't feel like trying to figure out which ALT+ key combination makes it.)  I was hoping that my little excursion to Arizona would inspire a flood of ideas, but so far the only idea I've had is that I really like calla lilies, even if they don't survive the Arizona summers.  At first glance, it may appear that I actually have plenty of time.  But when it comes to "creative" things, I can never have enough.  This is because my creativity is notoriously unreliable; it tends to go on vacation just when I need it most.  Then I end up rushing to get things done in time because I didn't have any ideas until the night before (this is a common theme in many areas of my life).  It's as if my genetic code forbids my brain to exert any energy on specific tasks unless the available time drops below a certain point.  Fortunately, these procrastination genes (I think they come from my father) include a marvelous gift in the form of "last-minute panic".  It's often the only reason I get anything done.

Consider this your warning that you might come to Shavuot and find the same decorations from last year.

Cripes, that was me "summing up"?  Imagine how awful the full explanation would be.

(Black Eyed Peas)

Say "Aah"

Or "AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUGH!!", which would be a perfectly normal reaction upon seeing I have written TWO posts in one night/morning.  Apparently I have too much to write about to be confined to one itsy-bitsy 7000-word post.  So here comes another.  Ha, just kidding.  I'll limit this one to a maximum of 5000 words.

And now onto another exciting episode of "A Day in the Life of Kenneth", or "Shoot Me Now" as it is colloquially known.  Prepare to be astonished by my wisdom or the lack thereof.

A point of order before I launch into my story: "today" is yesterday, not today.  The day changed at midnight officially, but I'm still awake and therefore it's still "today".  If that's not perfectly clear, then one of us is stupid.  No comments about which one of us that might be, although in my defense, it is either really late or really early, either of which seems like an excellent excuse for reduced brain function.

After James left this afternoon (that's "today"), Alex and I headed to McDonald's to join the millions of other Americans who blame Ronald for our obesity.  Yay for transferring blame!  Anyhoo, after our delicious low-calorie health food and the subsequent regret, we thought we'd go to the best place to shake off those pesky feelings that one is unattractive and overweight: the mall!  As you all probably know, most of the stores in malls cater to two basic types of people: thin and gorgeous, and thinner and gorgeous-er.  Thus, as we wandered around the mall looking for the food court (SHUT UP! Alex was low!), we couldn't help but notice that there appeared to be only two types of people patronizing the mall stores.  The thin and gorgeous, as you may expect, were everywhere, flaunting their thinness and gorgeousness and basking in the neon lights of stores made just for their skinny butts.  But if you think that the other group was the thinner and the gorgeous-er, think again.  It was precisely the opposite.  Now, being the resident of a particularly fragile dwelling, I hate to toss around large rocks, but some of these people would have looked upon Quasimodo with aspirations and jealousy.  This got me wondering: if one accepts the premise that only two types of people frequent malls - and one must, for my logic is undeniable - then to which group does one belong?

The answer did not make one happy, so one has determined to no longer frequent malls.  It was either that or admit that one might be wrong, and one really hates doing that.  Or, a third option that one has just now thought of: the allowance of an 'observer' group that is neither thin and gorgeous nor fat and ugly, but instead goes to the mall merely to observe the other two groups in their unnatural environment.

One is satisfied.  Perhaps one shall have ice cream.

(Trey Songz)

I Like

Yay for me!  I've managed to go three weeks without having one bloggable event happen in my life.  Okay, so that's not quite true; I just haven't actually blogged about anything that's happened.  I'm a bad, bad blogger. :)

As I type, I'm sitting in my uncle James' house in Maricopa, AZ (pronounced "Mary-COPE-uh" by normal people, and "Muh-RIH-coh-puh" by me because I suffer from brain damage).  I decided to tag along with Alex (pronounced "Al-icks" by normals and "Al-eeeks" by brain-damaged me) when he returned home after coming up to EskDale for Pesach last weekend.  (I feel this is as good a point as any to warn you that I didn't have an outline of where I wanted this post to go when I started, so we can all be confused by the lack of direction together.)  When we left EskDale, the weather was doing its best imitation of mid-December Anchorage - and being very convincing I might add.  From what I gleaned from the Facebook statuses of the poor souls left behind, it only got worse after our departure, with an onslaught of as high winds and hell – er, I mean hail.  Maricopa, on the other hand, is enjoying its Spring season, characterized by warm temperatures and sunshine: the perfect time to do some yard work, should we choose to entertain the notion that such a time actually exists.  After debating whether to go to the Dumb Hippo (Home Depot) or Wool's Prome Imhoovement (Lowe's Home Improvement), Alex and I set off to buy some of the necessary supplies to install a drip system.  (Those nicknames are Alex's doing; as you can see, I'm not the only brain damaged one.)  As we're both impulse buyers, the extensive selection of flowering plants at the Lowe's nursery called to us, and we planned to buy some flowers for the rather barren yard.  We're both geniuses who would never be lulled into forgetting the blazing Arizona summer by the perfect Arizona spring, so we naturally selected two plants that are genetically engineered to withstand extremely high temperatures without withering: calla lilies and geraniums.  (In case you either don't know me or are completely daft, that's sarcasm.)  Alex is determined to keep the lilies alive until June, and I wish him the best in his all-but-impossible task.  We did get the drip system installed - and I use the term 'we' very liberally here: Alex was very lazy and barely helped at all while I slaved away.  (I trust no sarcasm disclaimer is necessary here.)  All 'we' need to do now is fill in the trenches in the back yard, and the work will be all done.  I think I'll let Alex handle that since he needs to put more 'sweat equity' into his home or some other lazy copout reason.

Anyhoo, I'll be heading back north on Tuesday to rejoin the Esquimaux tribe up at EskDale.  I sincerely hope the weather has improved, because now that I've gotten used to spring, I don't want to go back to winter.  Also, you'll have to forgive me if my speech is a bit fouled up.  The non-native population of this area with which I have been spending time has some most peculiar linguistic patterns.

Nude guyt, and nave a dice hay mootorrow.  Or mater lis thorning, as nit is ow clun ewok tocal lime.

(Keri Hilson)

Here Comes the Weekend

Tomorrow is Friday, and I couldn't be happier.  It's been a really long week, and I'm ready for a day of rest.  Plus, Net and Cary are coming out with their adorable children, and that's the icing on the cake.  The coconut pecan icing on the rich, chocolaty German chocolate cake.  Mmmmmmm...

After several beautiful Spring-ish days, the weather soured today.  The wind picked up considerably, and we even got a few drops of rain this afternoon.  Most depressing, however, was the accompanying drop in temperature.  Not to be deterred by a wee bit of moving air, Grandpa felt it was important to remind everybody he talked to at lunch that "we just haven't been having the Spring winds this year."  Normally we all take this in pretty good humor, but when one has spent the majority of the day being battered about by something-that-feels-an-awful-lot-like-wind-but-apparently-isn't-wind, it becomes more difficult.  Buoyed on by his inability to hear any opposition to his claims - he's apparently lost his right hearing aid - he proceeded to articulate his standard for "strong winds": 90 miles per hour.  It's little wonder that we don't frequently have "strong winds". :-)

I hope it doesn't sound like I'm picking on my dear grandfather.  Even at 93, he's still one of the nicest and smartest people I know.  (It also helps that I hadn't been out in the wind today, so I found the above situation rather amusing.)  He's remarkably independent, and in spite of a few significant problems with his memory, he still knows all of our names, where he is, and most of the other important information.  While he struggles with time, he lives in a world where it's perpetually Spring and never windy.  Old age could certainly be worse.

(Roxette)

Square One

On our way back from hauling chairs to Baker last week, dad told me an interesting grammar puzzle that he was given when he was young (typically known as the Pleistocene Era).  I'm posting a modified version of it here, and the first person to correctly solve it will win an Oatmeal Butterscotch cookie.  Must claim prize in person; approximate retail value $.10. :-)

Punctuate the following sentence correctly:
James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher

Does it make me strange that I find that incredibly interesting?

(Coldplay)