How handy are you?

As I constructed the furniture yesterday I had a random shuffle of music playing, and I imagined how good or bad some of the singers would be at home improvement. Here's a sampling.

NOT GOOD
Kylie Minogue. Pop pixie, but rank with a hammer
Robert Smith of The Cure. No way can this miserable bastard be bothered with dowels
The Thrills. Saw them live. Good band, but seem a little dim
Alicia Keys. Knows shit about her brother Allen
Skeeter Davis. Will feel sorry for herself as soon as she reads the 5 page instructions
Charles Manson* I imagine Tex did all the self-assembly furniture for The Family
Blur. Would argue about which direction the furniture should take. Wankers.
Beyonce. Really?
Pink Martini. Don't strike me as being heavy lifters
Lauryn Hill. I wouldn't trust her to fold an ironing board

GOOD
James Brown. Legally starts all columns with the title 'Good'
Those Darlins'. Boozy southern belles, know their way around a screwdriver
Shirley Bassey. Former lathe operator. (I made this up)
Neko Case. Competent DIY enthusiast
Maxwell. Owns a Silver Hammer
Tom Waits. Could make a chair out of the sideboard pieces
Joe Cuba. When you write a song called Bang Bang ...
Madonna. She'll do it in the style of an English cabinet maker.
Amy Winehouse. The most logical and sharpest mind in the music industry today
Chris Isaak. Nailed a few things in his time

* Actually listened to Helter Skelter by the Beatles

Oh. Here are the 2 constructed pieces.

Who's the Man II?

Fuck-a-doodle!!

I put the sides on back to front.

Time to de-construct the whole damn thing and start again.

And I was doing oh so well.

Who's the Man?

Well I guess today that will have to be me.

Crate & Barrel just dropped off this ...



... in piece format.

Tools required (insert your own joke here), just a screwdriver and allen key.

How hard can this be?

Did we go to church together in Curtis Bay?

No we did not.

Wii Fit Boxing Coach

I was driving up Broadway tonight to go see the new $92 million (I shit you not) library in Cambridge.

It was closed by the way.

Back to Broadway. There's a series of one way streets running complementary, and the doink in front of me kept doing the 'slow down before a junction' move.

(s)he (un)successfully managed to indicate four consecutive times to repeatedly turn the wrong way, down each of the one way streets.

Finally the tool performed an illegal left and pulled a 5 point U-Turn.

Much like the Wii Fit Boxing Coach I was repeatedly shouting left, right, left in a humiliating fashion at this prize-winning mule.

Well why wouldn't you?

Some of the little kiddies of Beverly chose today's Veterans' Day to go all Urban Warfare on our asses!

As I eat my lunch there are 10 kids with BB Guns patrolling our parking lot. They are all dressed in goggles, with bandanas over their mouths. I would call this look "Militia Nerd".

I knocked on the window and one of them jumped a mile in the air, then did some gesture with two fingers pointing at his eyes, which I think meant, "Don't give away my location,"

They appear to have no problem walking through people's yards with their rifle and hand gun replicas.

Where's a sniper when you need one? Oh ... they executed the DC guy yesterday. Sorry, didn't mean to be inappropriate, I'll leave that to the 12 year guerillas who are no doubt scratching my car right now.

What's with the Crazy Train Stories?

Helpful

Look at the little snowflake next to the temperature (39°F) in the bottom right corner.

How else would I have known it was snowing/freezing on the road today without this helpful graphic?

Oh that's right, I have a windshield made of a transparent substance, so I can see the big fucking snowflakes falling right in front of me. That's how.

The other point of note here is that when I took this photo the AMI (Audi Media Interface) was playing Yeah! by Usher.

I'm in the club with my homies, tryna get a lil V-I, keep it down on the low key, cause you know how it feels.

Indeed.

That's Christmas taken care of then

Link here

Audible groan from the M.R.S.

My long suffering, eye-rolling Anne has consistently rejected my request to buy a wine rack.

Her reasons seem extremely flimsy.

1. We only buy one or two bottles at a time
2. I'm allergic to fruit - my tongue breaks out in hives after 1 glass
3. I am being pretentious
4. I'm attempting to impress Didier, our friend and bon vivant/viveur ... I never know which one to use (thus slightly challenging point #3)

Well hold on to your hat my dear, because instead I'm going to start using this



That's right, wine collection management software. Grab the Blue Nun, we've got some data entry to do ....

A struggle

My childhood was NOT hard, but the kids at school (myself included) were verbally cruel and sarcastic.

I have little empathy for children, I don't communicate well with them, and I don't care for their vulnerability.

So .... Halloween is an absolute nightmare.

It's 6.20pm and we just turned on the outside lights, propped open the gate, and schlepped the pumpkins out. I've poured a glass of wine, to lighten my mood.

And now the countdown begins. I'm sure some kid will make me smile (bee costumes usually do the trick), and some will be self-entitled little twats.

UPDATE: A kid dressed as Freddy Kruger turned down candy and asked for a glass of water instead. Then tried to drink using his claw hand. Excellent.

Hit the Juice!

The vaguely homoerotic adventures of the gym continued today.

Between sets I usually chit chat with my trainer, and today I mentioned an article I'd read in which LeBron James muses that there won't be any steroid scandals in basketball.

I casually mentioned this, and it lead to a pregnant pause, and then an inquisitive statement about steroids.

I was only trying to make conversation, not suggest I start on the juice.

So there it was. 2 men alone in a gym talking about vitamin b12 shots in the ass.

Fade to Black

I was merrily catching up on Mad Men last night, when the TV screen went dead. I could still hear the soothing voice of Don Draper ... just couldn't see him.

A few frantic on and offs of the TV, DVR, Apple TV etc. All to no avail. My wonderful 50" TV is to quote Monty Python. "Deceased."

A quick check on Amazon where I bought the TV revealed I bought it one month and 3 days ago. Only 72 hours outside their return window.

I did call and I must report that their Customer Service is fantastic. Hopefully I should have a replacement sorted out today.

Cannot say I ever saw a mountain bike on my TV. Perhaps it's a photo, and I should just attach it to the screen. A 50" picture frame no less!

Things that make me go "Yay"

My Pencil Sharpener desk tidy arrived yesterday from the UK. It's pretty damned cool if I say so myself. Over the years I've collected a bunch of different containers that I've put to use, but this is my favorite ... just beating out the ethnically inappropriate 'match the outfit with the face' hot chocolate spinning tin I used to keep my paperclips in.

Hung with the contractors this morning when I hit Home Depot before 7am. It feels like you get a bit more respect at that time in the morning, as if your craft project is a little more hardcore. Never mind that I was buying a $3 pot of brown tester paint, for the mirror frame that I'm slowly killing.

On my drive in I listened to the new Pink Martini record. Gotta love the lazy mariachi rhythms, and totally overboard showboat piano. Splendor in the Grass with help from Tchaikovsky, and Bitty Boppy Betty a song about a cross-dressing DA are my early favorites.

Finally, I'm proud to say I managed to curtail the potential embarrassment of wearing hot pink boxer shorts at the gym. They are Bjorn Borg boxers and they are usually kept under wraps, but I switched to shorts instead of track pants today, and big surprise I ended up doing a bunch of floor exercises with my trainer. It takes a big man to admit he likes a pink boxer short. I might even wear the yellow ones next week.

Sweeping the Nation

I'm a fan of both, so Cheese or Font is the perfect time waster on a cold autumn day.

Click here to play.

No explanation necessary

hint hint

Around this time of the year, people ask me to drop subtle hints about what I might want for Christmas.

OK, so I don't wear a watch. But if I did.

And with the dollar being relatively weak against the European currencies, now is the time (see what I did there?) to get this beauty for under a $1,000!

Come on. It's better to give after all ...

Garfunkel & Oates

I'm loving all of their songs, but this is easily my favorite

U-Glee

Despite DNA evidence to the contrary. I love this show!

I don't give a shit how damned fruity it is, what bugs me is that it is so damned American.

When self-entitled people from the suburbs of middle America say, "Why do they hate us?" THIS IS WHY.

It's so fucking uplifting. And staged. And homogenized. And show-offy (yes that's a word).

And yet I cannot take my eyes off of it.

We got tons of US shows when I lived in the UK. Some good, some not so good. I can usually disseminate what will transfer well to Europe and why*.

I swear that Glee will fuel hatred throughout the world. "Look at those nerdy kids, taking average pop songs and adding a gloss of show tune pizzazz".

My fruitiness surely reached it's zenith this week. Rachel the lead female singer had the same bedroom dresser as me. Aaaaghhh, my brain is throbbing with how toolish I feel for spotting that.

I have to stop now, before I break out into choreographed song and dance.

* Regarding TV shows that came to the UK. At work the other day I referenced Champion the Wonder Horse, a show I watched in the 80's. It was a US show that was made between 1955-56. It was called The Adventures of Champion in the US. Was my childhood TV so bad that we had to import a 25 year old show about a horse themed sub-par Lassie rip-off?

OK one more thing. In the UK they changed Top Cat to 'Boss Cat' (some copyright issue). It made no sense at all, and they couldn't be bothered to change the theme tune.

Snow Joke + Jesus + Pigeon

It's snowing! The Patriots are playing in snow. Like real men.

Elsewhere, week 6 of football has brought it's usual collection of double six-shooters to the guy upstairs. I think God would be a fan of the running game ... there seems to be more work involved.

Wide Receivers should be atheists ... or called for blasphemy every time they point to the heavens after a 3 yard screen-pass reception.

Otherwise, Jesus must have one hell (sic) of a fantasy team.

Pigeon running interference!