And a one, and a two...

Not much going on today. I'm trying to get ready to take Char to my Dad's house for a few days, so I can visit & help him out a bit and Ed can get a little wife & kids vacation. Oof. I had a fairly productive day of doing laundry (four loads), changing some bedding, getting dinner on the table (at 6pm, for once in my life) and baking brownies (with Charlotte's help, of course). I just need to pull some clothes together and I think I'll be ready to pack it in and veg out on the couch for a bit.

I received this video in the mail today from Faithfulee. It's a production number from Broadway Melody of 1940 starring Fred Astaire & Eleanor Powell. It was pretty cool to see the precision & how much fun this old tap dance routine was. Amazing footwork. In any case I thought I'd share. I got a kick out of watching it. I know my Mom would have loved this.

Don't know how many updates I'll have over the next few days since I'm visiting my Dad.

They must be good, they're International...

Good evening all! We've had some craptacular rainy weather all day today. Even the poor Pepper-Pep was crossing her legs, didn't want to go out & do her business until 6pm for fear of getting her paws & coat wet.

But despite the bad weather it was a good day. Ed let me sleep late today. Mmm, perfect activity for a rainy Sunday. Anyway, we went to mass, although we made it there late. Sometimes I think that's not such a bad thing, since Charlotte isn't there as long it gives her less time to get antsy. Charlotte was very good today. She behaved, ate her grapes, and even sang along to the closing hymn. The fact that it was 30% "Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia" helped tremendously. But my favorite moment had to be at the collection time. We've been letting Char put the envelope in the basket for a few weeks now. Today she brought her giraffe purse (to match her giraffe dress) and I had tucked the envelope in there. When the basket was coming around I opened up her purse and let her grab the envelope herself, to which she declared "Oooh, it's the money for Jesus!" Too funny.

So we get to the car and Ed has the brilliant idea to go to International House of Pancakes (IHOP) for breakfast. We were hungry and had nothing better to do anyways, so we made the 20 minute or so trip up north to the restaurant. Charlotte has never said no to a good plate of pancakes. Boy, did we chow! It was so good. Ed ended up with way more food than he could handle so he shared his hash browns with me. They weren't bad at all! I was never a hash brown fan, but this might change things. Although I've come to the realization that I might only like potatoes if they are fried (chips, French fries, potato pancakes, now hash browns...the pattern has emerged). But I digress... Charlotte was like a pancake eating fiend! We were somewhat surprised since she blew through a whole bag of grapes at church & figured that she wouldn't be too hungry. Not so! We got her a stack of 10 silver dollar pancakes and she ate 5 of them. And the highlight was trying out all of the different syrups - Char was in heaven! I think she had different syrup with each pancake - strawberry, blueberry, boysenberry, butter pecan & standard maple. From what we could fathom, the boysenberry went over the best. She was incredibly well behaved to boot. We were very proud of her.

We came home and Charlotte was very cranky since she fell asleep in the car on the way home. She screamed at the top of her lungs to go upstairs & watch a movie. Once again we had nothing better to do so we went up and watched Toy Story. Charlotte didn't sit still for the whole film, but it did inspire her to start pulling out every toy she could get her hands on. It was cute. It's been a while since Ed and I saw that film and it's still as brilliant as when we first watched it.

Once again I've managed to ramble on when I swore I was going to make this short. Story of my life! We are headed up now, hopefully to watch Desperate Housewives & Big Love.

Yup Yup Yup... an additional gripe

I came across this page from a blog a little while. I'm immensely jealous! I totally want to make a Sesame Street Yip Yip alien costume. I've totally deemed these the coolest things ever! Some great audio files are found on a WFMU blog entry. They made me happy to listen to. Another thing that makes me happy from Sesame Street & the Muppets is Mah Na Mah Na. I could listen to that song all day long. Cracks me up. I'm trying to make Charlotte love it to. I have some work ahead of me with that one. After throwing it into Google I was surprised to see that the song did not originate with Sesame Street & the Muppets, but instead had a soft core beginning. Oof.

So Bortz pointed out another issue that I have with Connecticut foodstuffs:

4) Mustard on Hamburgers

Yuck!! Totally gross! I hate going to a fast food restaurant because if I forget to special order my burger it comes with both ketchup and mustard (and, if you go to a Wendy's, they put mayonnaise on too. Ugh!) I don't think I can blame Connecticut though; I've encountered this in the South too.

Went to Trackside Pizza for dinner tonight. Yummy. A train went by while we were there and totally startled all three of us. 'Twas a good night out.

Lazy night quickly turns into gripe night

Hi there! I don't feel like writing a whole lot tonight. I tried returning a call from my friend Greenlawyr but she's not answering her cell. I figured I'd be conversing with her for quite a while this evening so now that I have all of this new found free time I just feel like going upstairs, snuggling on the couch & watching a movie with hubby. We lead such an exciting life... Maybe I'll start work on a long overdue baby blanket I'm looking to crochet. (I hope that link works without having to register...). I just finished a hat & scarf set for Ginky a few days ago - sent it off to her in California yesterday. Yes, I thought a hat/scarf combo was a little odd in Cali but her roomie likes to keep the thermostat down loooow.

Hubby sent me this link a week or so ago. I found it highly informative, on a very important subject. As a New Jersey boy and a New Yawk girl living in Connecticut, we still can't get over hearing the word "grinder" referring to food. Seems somewhat wrong. Then again, the bread they use here is crap anyway, so hero, sub or wedge don't seem like appropriate monikers for such an inferior platform to build your sandwich.

Which brings me to my food gripes about Connecticut. Don't get me wrong, I love living in the Nutmeg state, but coming from New York I have some issues:

1) Bread.

They have no concept of the "hard roll". A hard roll is supposed to have a somewhat firm crust, and a solid filling. It should be able to hold itself up nicely, especially when filled with all sorts of sandwich fixin's. Not here in Connecticut. When you ask for a hard roll you get a rather squishy type roll. It flattens when you use it in any type sandwich & tends to get all mushy. It isn't necessarily bad in its own right, but it's a far cry from a true NY hard roll. Thank God for Costco and Cassone's rolls that I can get there. It loses a bit when they are not fresh from the corner deli, but it certainly does the trick.

Bagels also are problematic. From what I understand, there is something in the water that just makes NY bagels so darn good. Bagel places are few & far between around here. I think that's my new qualification - a place has to make their bagels on the premises. I have a place in Waterbury that works for me. There's supposed to be a bagel place in Cheshire that I haven't searched out & tried yet. Mostly I end up stocking up when I go home to New York to visit my Dad. Either that or have a standing order to people who come to visit me from NY. ("Coming over? Bring me a dozen bagels!"). We used to have a local place that brought bagels up fresh from the Bronx every day. That was pretty cool. But by the time they got up here they were a little stale & just not quite the same. I refuse to eat a bagel purchased from the supermarket or delis here. They just don't cut it. Call me an elitist but I need my bagels!

2) Pizza.

Oh that is an ever evolving quest to find a good pizza around here. Well, there are plenty of pizza places around, and there are a ton of good Pizza places in New Haven, but nothing beats a New York or New Jersey pizza. When we first moved up here, I would call for a large plain pizza, and I would get asked "Do you want cheese on that?" ??? Of course I want cheese on it! The whole point of a pizza is to have a layer of bread to bring cheese & sauce goodness into my tummy! But apparently around here, a plain pizza equals bread & sauce. Blasphemy!!! Most places around here cut the za into a million little slivers too - handy when feeding a kid or when you feel like just a little bit more, but not so good when you want a decent slice.

We do pretty good getting New Haven Style Pizza at Wooster St. Pizza. We just recently came across an excellent pizza at Trackside Pizza. It's a quaint little place situated down by the railroad tracks that run through town. The restaurant is tiny, as it is located in an old subway car. But WOW do they have good pizza. Brick oven cooked, nice thin crust, yum. We've only been there once but I'm taking the fam there again tomorrow for a second shot at it. Still not quite NY pizza, but it's the best I've found up here. Of course, Ed will argue that there is no greater pizza than Pepe's Pizza on the actual Wooster Street in New Haven. I've only been here once, and the za was good (it should be, as they lay claim to being the first pizza place in America), but I'm not so keen at waiting an hour & a half for a pizza. No joke. But I'll have to go there again some day.

My buddy Bortz took great issue with everything around here being called "apizza" instead of plain "pizza". Which I found funny since she is part Italian and all. My parents, from the Bronx, used to always joke around and call Pizza "Ah-Beets" so I just figured it was an Italianized way of saying it, or kind of jokey. But I just discovered while looking up links for this entry that apizza is actually the name of New Haven Style pizza, which designates it as being different from the traditional or New York style pizza. See, you learn something new every day. So there Bortz.

All I know is that I'm very sorry for those poor fools who think Dominos is the bees knees when it comes to pizza. They have no idea what they are missing.

3) Diners.

Where the hell are they? Diners exist in Connecticut, but nowhere near the amount you will find in NY/NJ. And they aren't open 24 hours a day? What's the point of having a diner if you can't sit there at 3am to have a super early breakfast?!?!?! Hubby & I nearly died - once, we got out of a movie at 12:30am and proceeded to search out a diner to have a late night snack - nothing much, just a cup of coffee & an English muffin or something along those lines (if we were in NY I would have totally gotten a bagel LOL...). We came across a diner and went in. The waitress agreed to seat us only if we would order right away, as the kitchen was closing and the diner would lock up at 1am. !!!!! That's when things would just start to get hopping! Oh well.

Apart from those three points, I love Connecticut. So let me be a bitchy New Yorker and get that off my chest. See, I feel much better now. So much for writing a quick entry & watching a movie with hubby... sorry love!! :-(

Cause & Effect

Another beautiful day here in Connecticut! Charlotte and I spent a lot of time outside this afternoon. I even got her to sit in a chair for a few minutes with me and relax. A two-year-old relaxing? Unheard of!!! We brought out some water and a bowl of grapes and were good to go. I took the phone outside with me and caught up on some phone calls while Charlotte investigated things, chased down bubbles & found & mangled pinecones. There was a huge bumblebee buzzing around in the backyard today too. It had been a while since I had seen one. I pointed it out to Charlotte and explained to her how it goes from flower to flower & pollinates them, and to give bees their space & leave them alone. We sat and watched him buzz around for a while and do his thing. We could even hear that loud, distinctive buzzing that reminded me of lazy summer days. All in all it was very relaxing, not something I can often say about sitting in the back yard with my energetic daughter!

I found another interesting link on Sissyfight today. A fellow board member posted this half hour video, which it turns out to be a movie called "Der Lauf der Dinge" or "The Way Things Go!". It's a giant Rube Goldberg like chain reaction contraption, which uses lots of chemical reactions in addition to physical ones to keep the chain going. While ridiculously long, it was pretty neat in the long run. I found it a little distracting noticing all of the cuts in the film to get from one reaction to another, but I guess one of this length would have been damn near impossible to do all at once. It's odd, they use a good amount of fire in this film, and the sound of the flames is somewhat lulling. It's like it draws you in. There's one part with a swinging flame ball that it rather mesmerizing, between the sound of the flames and the way it wisps through the air. In any case, this film was apparently the inspiration for the Honda Cog commercial that was out a year or two ago, which stages a similar Rube Goldberg type contraption using only parts from the car it is advertising. Pretty darn neat if you ask me.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I received my longest sleeper hit on Where's George. I haven't entered & marked any bills in quite some time so it's always nice to get a hit from these old bills, especially one that I entered two month after I started Georging! Had to share - it made me happy!

Spring! Videos! Laughter!

It's so beautiful out! The perfect weather has finally arrived. It's somewhere around 70° out, with a little breeze, and it couldn't be more delightful! Charlotte and I went outside for a while and played in the back yard. We inspected our tulips and daylilies to see how they are growing, went down the slide a few times, threw the ball to the dog, walked around the backyard, and sat on the steps for a bit. I placed a few phone calls to friends that I hadn't been in touch with for a while. And then Char decided it would be fun to take off her shoes and run around in her socks. She refused to put her shoes back on and ran away when I tried to put them on for her so in we came. Homey don't play that game!! Such a shame, since it is so nice out. I can't wait until the day comes when I can actually sit on the back porch and read while Charlotte plays in the yard without fear of her running off. One of these days!!!

While surfing around on You Tube I found this neat video of a cockroach controlled robot. As if the thought of roaches running around the place isn't enough to wig you out, now someone has given them motorized wheels!! Seriously, it's a pretty neat machine.

Speaking of You Tube, I received this "Crybaby" video via e-mail from a friend of mine. I got a good laugh out of it since this is a sight I see at least once a day (although not quite to this extent!) While searching for the video on You Tube I came across this "crybaby" video, which I found kindof funny but more sad than anything.

By the way, I know I can embed You Tube videos directly into by blog but when I tried that in a previous post it messed with the format of the blog template, so I will just keep linking to them in the future. Six of one, half dozen of another.

Our resident crab fiend on Sissyfight posted this video of a commercial for the Honda Element. I get a big kick out of it. I've been running around the house saying "I peench" ever since I saw it the first time. Cracks me up. It's so low key, it's great.

Basketball & Caffeine

I found this story in my websurfing a few weeks ago, about an autistic kid who was the Basketball team manager at his high school. I think originally on You Tube. It really warmed my heart. It's nice to see a coach give a kid a chance as oppossed to collapsing under the pressure of parents & team players who want nothing more than to win.

I received an e-mail today from Think Geek. They are a great source for all things nerdy & bizarre. I had to get their "Newbie" & "Geek In Training" shirts for Charlotte whe she was born. In any case, they were offering a new product called Buzzaire, which is metered dose caffeine inhaler. It looks just like an asthma inhaler. Whatever happened to the days of No-Doz & Vivarin? Yikes!

Jack Attack!

Well, the conversation turned to the Fox show "24" at the Easter dinner last night, with about half the table chiming on about how much they love Jack (Bauer), with the other half of the table left to wonder who the heck we were all talking about. I suggested that Jack lovers must check out the Random Jack Bauer Fact Site. Be sure to check out the Top 100 Facts. One of my favorites: "When life gave Jack Bauer lemons, he used them to kill terrorists. Jack Bauer f***ing hates lemonade." Off to watch him now!!

Happy Easter - More Blogs

Hey there! It's Easter night and I'm just checking in with my e-mail that has piled up while we were away visiting the relatives for the weekend. It was a fun weekend but very long. Getting ready to pack it in real soon.

I came across an article about Kyle MacDonald, who is trying to barter his way up to a house. He started by bartering a red paperclip and he's managed to trade that up to one month's free rent. Rather nifty! Ed's been following this guy's progress. Pretty cool - I must admit that I'm somewhat amazed at his progress thus far. I'll be following his bartering journey at his blog, One Red Paperclip.

While browsing through this blog's home site at Blogger.com, I came across a list of blogs to watch. New York Hack, which I mentioned in a previous entry, was mentioned, as well as this site, called Crunk and Disorderly. How could I refuse to check it out with a name like that?!?!? I was greeted with this page - and I got a hearty laugh out of the Pastel Easter DJ. Too funny. I hope the link stays on the page with the picture I referenced!!

Bouncing & Toys, More Blogs & Prayers

I've been bad, and haven't posted anything new in a few days. It's not for lack of wanting to!

Ed sent me this link to an inflatable ride called "Invasion Slide" Yikes! It's huge! I especially like the alien. I would love to see this in person. I'm dying to get an inflatable bouncer for Char but I'm trying to hold off. I talked to a guy at Wal-Mart who said that last year the bounce houses were mucho reduced at the end of the season. If I can get one for $50 in August as oppossed to $200 now that would be totally awesome. Charlotte would still get plenty of use out of it for the next few years anyways. We might even be able to put it in the basement for the winter. The munchkin isn't tall enough to hit her head on the ceiling while jumping. Ed, on the other hand... well, that's another story. I think we are going to settle for a Step2 Up & Down Roller Coaster for now - Charlotte attended a birthday Party a few weeks back and they had this and she loved it. We picked up a sand box on clearance last year and I just got some playground sand to fill it with. We were considering a playhouse of some sort, but will make do with what we have for now. Hopefully it will be enough to keep her occupied in the back yard, along with her slide (similar to this) and our little inflatable pool. I also picked up this Little Tikes Ultimate Beach ball Sprinkler - I looked all over the place to find one last year and couldn't find it. Char loves balls, so I'm hoping this will be a big hit. I'd love to play with it too. She recently inherited the traditional Little Tikes Cozy Coupe from our very kind neighbor (who also hooked her up with the slide). Char is loving it, although I wish she's stay in in for more than 10 seconds at a time...

Speaking of Ed, I invite you to check out his blog here on blogger.com. I figured if he could do it, so could I. He tends to be more eloquent on single subjects while I tend to ramble and jump all over the place. Opposites attract, eh? In any case, I love him and hope you enjoy his blog too.

Finally, Bortz sent me another good forward - it's called "Prayers". I got a good chuckle out of it. Enjoy!

FEMALE PRAYER

Before I lay me down to sleep,
I pray for a man, who's not a creep,
One who's handsome, smart and strong
One who loves to listen long,
One who thinks before he speaks,
One who'll call, not wait for weeks.
I pray he's gainfully employed,
When I spend his cash, won't be annoyed.
Pulls out my chair and opens my door,
Massages my back and begs to do more.
Oh! Send me a man who'll make love to my mind,
Knows what to answer to "how big is my behind?"
I pray that this man will love me to no end,
And always be my very best friend.
Amen.


MALE PRAYER

I pray for a deaf-mute nymphomaniac with great boobs
who owns a liquor store and a bass boat.
This doesn't rhyme and I don't care.

Have a great Easter/Passover, to anyone who might be reading this.

Figures... no fun links, so I'll talk blogs

So I start a blog to showcase some of the wacky things that I've come across during the day, and nothing comes my way for a while. Oh well. Of course as soon as I publish this entry I'll find all sorts of oddness. I haven't been to Fark in a while - that's usually a good source but it's so easy to get sucked in and then I'll be reading all day long.

I'm fairly new to the whole blog scene. There are only a few that I check in with on a regular basis. Mostly friends old blogs (although she doesn't do it anymore apparently - oh well).

I came across New York Hack on the AP wires a few weeks ago, and I love it. It's written by a female NYC cab driver. She talks about traffic, Jersey Drivers, and the idiots she encounters on a nightly basis. Nothing is candy coated. It makes me laugh. While I love New York City, it's reputation as of late has been a little candy coated. Everything is pictured as rosy & bustling. I find it refreshing to see first hand accounts that there are still a vast number of idiots left in the city. That's what makes New York the greatest city in the world!

I also get a kick out of reading the James St. James Report. James was one of the original Club Kids that were a mainstay of the NYC Club scene in the late 80's & early 90's. He & his cohorts would dress outrageously and go to the clubs to see & be seen. Not that I ever made it to a club to see first hand. While I loved dance music, the whole drug & club scene was not my thing. But I do find myself fascinated by the stories. James wrote a book about his experiences and the resulting clubland murder called Disco Bloodbath, which was later turned into a movie called Party Monster starring Macauley Culkin & Seth Green (not to be confused with the documentary of the same name, but same general idea). I get a kick out of the movie. I dunno, it draws me in every time. It's sad to see how drugs can twist a person's mind. All in all, it was a scene that I'm glad not to be a part of, but it's interesting to watch. So James is a rather flamboyant writer and it's always fun to see what he is up to.

Another fun site I like to check in with is PostSecret. The blogger, Frank Warren, asks that ordinary people send them a postcard with a secret on it. They he posts a few every week. It's fascinating to have a little window into other people's dark sides. Some are rather innocuous, while others are rather painful & sad. As the USA Today article points out, "For many readers, PostSecret is a deliciously addictive fusion of old tech (snail mail) and new tech (the Internet) that produces something never seen before." Good point.

The last blog I'm posting here today is Daily Depeche, which links to a number of different Depeche Mode sites & links. Hubby just found it yesterday, but I think I'll have to check it out fairly often - they have some cool things listed.

Uphill, both ways, no more... damn I'm old!

No fun links tonight, but I did want to share a forward that came through Bong, the Depeche Mode Mailing List. I found it amusing and very true. Enjoy!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning ... uphill BOTH ways... yadda, yadda, yadda And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter ... with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

And talk of about hardship? You couldn't just download porn! You had to steal it from y! our brot her or bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of "Hustler" at the 7-11! Those were your options!

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "asteroids" and the graphics sucked ass! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens; it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! ... Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!

You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little brat-bastards!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up. We had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire ... imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid JiffyPop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled.

You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

Regards,

-The 30 Something crowd!

Mommy's Helper

OK, I got this video in a forward quite a while back from my sister-in-law - she surmised that my daughter could easily grow up to be the girl in the clip. So I've been playing with YouTube this evening so I thought I'd upload it and try to embed the video here. Here goes - be sure to give it a chance to load:

Tacky, scary, and creative

Well I have a few interesting links that I came across over the last few days. First, one of my fellow posters at Sissyfight found this link to a Frederick's of Hollywood Catalog from 1977. Yikes! I've said this many times about the 70's - I'm so glad I wasn't really old enough to appreciate how bad the fashions were back then. I cringe everytime I look back & see pictures of bell bottoms & plaid pants. In any case, the wig is especially frightening!

Also from Sissyfight, there was a link to this old health class movie - "VD Attack". Best part is that it's made by Disney, of all companies. Wow, this brought back memories. No, not of VD, but of all of those overly melodramatic movies & filmstrips that we used to see in school. Excellent. I'm listening to it as I type this, and I'm getting a good chuckle because the VD General is talking about getting VD from a "terlit seat".

And my favorite - I got an e-mail from Bortz a few days ago. I sent her and a few others a link to a funny cartoon which sung the merits of Kosher food. She wrote back:

Speaking of.....
I saw a license plate in White Plains saying emoilcom.
So I typed it in: http://www.emoil.com/
You can call him at 917-448-BRIS.
NICE!!

So I checked it out - sure enough, a full blown informational website advertising this guys Mohel business. Too funny! Actually, as a non-Jew with no experience of a Bris, I found it very interesting to read. I tell you, if I were Jewish, and had a boy, I would totally call this guy up. I'm all for people who take creative measures to advertise their business. I mean, a Mohel is the last profession I would expect to put a website on a license plate for advertising purposes.