What's Wrong With This Picture?

Welcome to The House of As Many Televisions as People. The place where I am hardly qualified to use the remote. (Now, the watching of The Television requires TWO remotes, one for device and one for programming.) You will notice something amiss with the picture right off the bat. Just in case my semi-professional phone camera photography leaves something to be desired, I shall illuminate the image (a regular ion tube am I...) That large non-working thing in the back is a 52-inch LCD TV. One that refuses to turn on, without a signed act of Congress. The thing in the front is the semi-large screen that continues to do its duty, although I notice it is filled with longing for relative quietude in our bedroom, once its home.

The large non-working thing has been a cherished member of the clan for four years and change. It joined us Christmas of '04 and has followed our every move since. It recently went through a stint of uninterrupted on-ness, which was precipitated by the reluctance discovered one morning to promptly get into the ON position when remote was pointed and pressed. And pressed. And pressed some more, new batteries installed, and pressed yet eleventy-hundred times further.

After it sluggishly achieved on-ness, a decree by the Television Master determined that the Large TV Shall Not Be Turned Off, Only Muted. So thus we lived for three months or so, the large screen pressed into service, a flicker alive in our living room 24-7. Until, alas, The Fateful Day. The day the Television Master himself, absorbed in his remote duties, accidentally Turned It Off. Panic ensued, and the brother of the television master was summoned, Uncle Ray the Professional Fixer of All Televisions (whom I suggested contacting those three months ago when the trouble started - just sayin') Anyway, Uncle Ray did some remote remote studies through the telephone having to do with how many beeps and burps and blinks the thing emitted over the course of buttons mashed, and determined that he could fix the problem -- the problem which any other Television Professional would charge you $600 -- for mere pennies. So we wait with bated breath for Thanksgiving and Uncle Ray to come to town. In the meantime, maybe just to remind the large screen of its eventual obsolescence, (They Are Expendable, after all...) this is the scene in our living room. The Medium Boy misses the giant ambiance and the XBox, almost as much as the Television Master himself. I've gotten used to the two remotes, although I do still surf INTO commercials. Old habits (and careers) are hard to break.

Of Christmas Music, iPod and Earworms

Get this. This past weekend, the radio station I am slavishly devoted to went all Christmas music, all the time. I KNOW, right!? A word to the programming crew at KQIS: early November is TOO EARLY for wall to wall jolly. I know it seemed like a good idea at the time, but Christmas music at this point of the season does NOT lift my mood, it makes me nervous about the impending shopping, planning, cooking, eating, and Santa-waiting in store for me. I do hopefully click the button every morning, just to see if this really was a figment of my audio imagination, but alas. Bing is crooning, or someone's mama is kissing Santa Claus. There is something to be said about peaking too soon. I need my regular rock, at least until Turkey Day, and I refuse to dial around. So! I have become happily reacquainted with my iPod. I just set it on shuffle and let 'er rip. I got a lovely mix yesterday of Carly Simon, Barenaked Ladies, Hall and Oates, Head East, Simon and Garfunkel, Chicago, Amy Winehouse and more. Oh, and I do have a few Christmas Selections on there. I shuffled past 'em. The lady singing loudly in the silver Saturn is me. Yay. I may go back to KQIS after Turkey day, when I can joyfully immerse myself into Bing and the lot. Maybe.

Thankfully, nothing really stuck in my head, and actually the whole iPod experience served to dislodge an earworm (you know, those songs that get into your head and ride it for all it's worth) that had been in my head for a few days, thanks to the Medium Boy. He has been singing Pink's latest, Funhouse. This is a sticky little tune about evil clowns and on and on. I don't even want to write any more about it for fear of depositing it like so much chewed gum into my head again. It started me thinking about other earworms that had happened over time. Very lately I had the Taylor Swift earworm disease, in which any song she did got lodged in my brain. The worst was the thing about Romeo. A very very long time ago, that Kinks song "Come Dancing", I think it was, would adhere to my cranium for weeks at a time. That la dada dada, dadedade da hook especially. There have been other songs at other times -- what are the earworms you've known and heard, and heard and HEARD?

Okay, so if you're in fourth grade, life might be hard.

It was very nearly the end of the Medium Boy last week. On his birthday, no less. I'd had it with the stubbornness, the bearish attitude, the surly pleas to be left alone. All in a space of twenty minutes, circa 7 AM. UGH. I thought I'd just make it a nice round ten years of his and my life. Give him back, no exchange, no refund. Fourth grade is killing us. Another option I considered was the performance of a craniotomy by electric knife and shoving the times tables in there, for this is the only way seemingly left that they're going to get IN there. Where is Dr. Derek Shepherd when you need him?

On the other foot, Halloween is coming up and despite the fact that I seem to have no use of the front of my face besides the production of green slime, (another post altogether...) I'm looking forward to the Ninja who will inhabit the body of the ten-year-old for the night. We've painted toenails black to celebrate just such an occasion. "It's so GOTH!" squealed tough Ninja Boy. Who promptly got in trouble next day at school trying to surreptitiously show said dark tootsies to his friends. Ah, the intersection of fourth grade angst and fourth-grade-boy senselessness.

We did have a glorious time at the ice hockey rink party; he only fell approximately six times, and there are no major bruises on his body that I've been allowed to peruse. We ate cookie cake with blue and orange icing (WHY do they insist on making icing in colors not found in nature?) for a week, and the boy racked up. He's got enough cash for that new bike he has been jonesing for, which I am lobbying hard in favor of instead of the Nintendo DS, which is our other option. He graciously bought us McD's breakfast Saturday morning, and I was allowed to borrow a buck for Cub Scout money this week. He is awesome sweet, that black-toed ninja Medium Boy. Okay. So I guess he gets to live. For now. I could still hunt down that receipt, you know.

Dear Entrecard, I QUIT

Yes, dear Internets, no more Entrecard for me. Take me off the list. Why, you ask? Well, for one, I would like free reign over the content of my blog. Me. The author, the absent hostess, The One Who Thought of It. I haven't been holding up my end of the bargain, really. I haven't done any dropping since I don't know when. BUT. I will NOT be blackmailed, or bought. I will NOT pay $5 a month "subscription fee" to keep ads I didn't solicit out of my space. It may get dusty from disuse sometimes, and the cobwebs might clutter a bit, but this little blog is still mine, and one of the few things in life I like to think I still have some semblance of control over. For now. This moment. Okay, this one. So see ya, Entrecard. Don't let the screen door hit ya in the ads.

Facebook Ate My Blog

I haven't been around here much lately. I've ignored comments, I've let perfectly good blogging ideas go by the wayside (How's this one for ya -- originally suggested by Karyl who had a moment on Rosh Hashanah -- exciting new headwear for balding Jewish men on their way to temple -- it's a toupee - it's a yarmulke -- it toup-ulke! Impress the nice girls, oy, they'll love it... okay, well, maybe not.) I've been a terrible hostess. While IRL, I have actually had a terrible cold that has caused great hunks of green matter to spew from upper orifices and make me pass out and miss any vestige of social life I will ever have and alienate those kind souls who thought they wanted to have that social life WITH me, that is hardly the excuse for my absence here. After all, everyone knows while in the throes of Nyquil, blogging is fun -- kinda like drunk blogging, and re: spew, this is what Lysol comes in spray bottles for, after all. No, the iffy health is NOT the reason for the scarcity of posts here lately. It is totally the fault of the Devil Facebook.

Yes, I have fallen into the time abyss that is Facebook. Facey Spacey is my life now. I Farkle, I have a farm - uh, TWO farms, two different universes, a fish bowl, a roller coaster cluster, a group of sorority sisters, and I apparently am wanted by the mob. Not to mention the large sucking sound of a minute of time spent trying to rack up points clicking on little groups of clinking clacking jewels. My friends friend me, and make unreasonable demands on my gifting ability. They want farm animals, smiles, pillow fights, hearts, long island iced teas, you name it, I got a friend who wants it from me. So you see, Facebook has eaten my blog. I no longer have the energy to come up with snappy repartee for the general internets, because my special Facey Spacey people need a pint of O-negative, and want to know what Melrose Place character I'm most like. I was the Heather whatser-name one. Although I took the quiz three times with all different answers, and got the Heather person all three times. Was she the only one in Melrose Place? These Facebook quizzes are amaaaazing. Not always in a good way.

I promise to stop this obsession, I promise to drop Entrecards again, and make little comments to my bloggy friends really reallllly soon. I just have to break 100K in Bejeweled Blitz, then all will be right with the world. Until then, can I send you a smiley heart and call it a post?

Bar Tricks and Marketable Skills

Okay, this is sort of a meme that fell from the sky while driving in search of lunch. It is a list of my personal, shall we say, quirks, acclaimed bar tricks and unusual but sometimes very handy ergo marketable skills.

1. Can do that cherry stem in a knot thing. Always popular with the boys.

2. Can take bra off while still wearing shirt. (see above) and OMG now that I am elderly, such a relief. I've done this particular trick driving home, even. Just don't tell the po-po.

3. Can take jeans off without unzipping. This is a product of Xtreem Non-Carb Regime currently undertaking and I guess should be noted as temporary until I get some that fit again. Or eat a few fries, undoubtedly.

4. Can read upside down. Very very handy when in clients' and bosses' offices.

5. Can reliably count by sevens from any point in the scale. I don't know how that happened, except that I had to hand-write radio schedules for a good while in my youthful career. Now I'm Rain Man.

6. Can dredge up some seriously frivolous information about archaic culture (think 70's TV) when faced with competition. Never been beaten in Trivial Pursuit.

Um, okay, that's it for now. A little meme-lette for those who don't see the point of coming up with eleventy-hundred little things to reveal to the Internets...

All Together Now

No endorsement intended, except my usual attraction to odd and wonderfulness. And okay, beer. But not necessarily THAT beer.