Holy cow, is tomorrow finally Friday?
Indeed it is.
All week, starting with Monday, I’ve been told “this thing is a *HUGE* priority but we can’t move on it until we get pieces X, Y, and Z. We should be able to go forward starting tomorrow.”
Tuesday “We’ll do this huge thing that is our top priority tomorrow.”
Wednesday “This is the biggest thing we have on our plate. We can’t move until tomorrow, though.”
Thursday Morning “We should be able to move on the top priority after we do these few small things that we have to co-ordinate with a handful of people.” (small things co-ordinated and completed) “AUGH HOLY COW WE HAVE TO DO THESE THINGS RIGHT NOW AUGH!!!!!! Wait, no. We’ll do them tomorrow.”
So we’ll do it tomorrow.
My weekend consists of not doing things tomorrow. They will either be done today or not at all.
So… what’s on your docket?
Ten year anniversary. Sister is house- and kid-sitting and we’re going out
Sweet.
Congrats.
Congrats!
Congratulations! I hope you have a splendid time.
You know that homework you said I should stay up and do tonight? After rereading the same paragraph 6 times with zero comprehension, I’ve decided it’s weekend homework instead – joining all the other weekend homework. 🙂
Also, Margaret Atwood gala and reading tomorrow night. Don’t think I will have the energy for the rock show afterward (which is a bummer as it is also a surprise birthday party for one of the performers). Gaming Saturday. Watching at least another episode or two of the Gilmore Girls.
And sleep, glorious sleep.
I liked Gilmore Girls. I saw every single episode after they came out on DVD.
I held out for a long time, but so far I’m really enjoying it.
I have all the seasons on DVD, easily one of my favorite shows.
“This? Oh, Plinko’s talking about Babylon 5.”
Maribou told me “Don’t be a gender bully!” and I said “I wasn’t!” but then I felt like I should apologize anyway.
I’m sorry, Plinko.
Dude, my wife makes fun of me 10x harder than that over my love for the show, JB. Still love ya.
I actually know a few people who love Gilmore Girls and have recommended it to me. The conversation starts with “Believe it or not…”
Sorry, by people I meant “male people.”
Moving the daughter to her first apartment on Saturday (last year she was in a dorm). The son goes away to his freshman year on Tuesday. That’s all of them.
“Now What.”
Heckuva good question.
I recommend you start with a beer.
One every 10 minutes, until you pass out; then switch to every 20 minutes.
Remember when you first got married how you’d spend the occasional evening wearing little more than pajama pants as you went about your evening emptying the dishwasher, say, then watching a little television, then a cigarette on the stoop?
Well, you’ve quit smoking, television is a wasteland, and now that the kids are out of the place, there’s only one dish.
Wear little more than pajama pants anyway.
You’ve earned it.
Dude, I’m a programmer. I live in little more than pajama pants.
Then put some dang clothes on.
It’s Buffalo weekend, finally!
Swinging by the old alma mater on the way up so the Four Year Old can pick out some new gear that says Daddy’s College. Dinosaur BBQ in either Syracuse or Rochester tomorrow night! Hitting the grocery store to stock up on Loganberry Crack (http://www.buffalochow.com/2008/01/loganberry_the_buffalo_drink_y.html) Staying with an old friend in Rochester tomorrow night, and leaving The Dog there for Sunday night.
Tailgating and Bills game on Sunday -my expectations may be sufficiently low that it’s physically impossible for them to let me down*, and the Four Year Old will be joining us in the family section wearing her new pink Buffalo Bills dress (I think it’s important to teach one’s children about dealing with the filthy stink of 13 years of failure, especially when that failure will be Los Angeles’ failure in a year or two). If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to track down Pinto Ron at his new digs now that Roger Goodell (PTOOEY!) kicked him off site. If we’re even luckier, we’ll say hello to the Messiah Jim Kelly, upon whom hopes of saving the Bills seem largely to rely….again.
Visiting and staying with the remaining group of Buffalo relatives (there are only four left – a decade and a half ago there were fourteen) after the game. Subpar pizza and Space Awesome wings Sunday night, maybe some Beef on Weck.
If the border traffic isn’t too bad ([this parenthetical censored as being in violation of the No Politics Rule for use of the words Bush, passport, and fish in close proximity)], we may try to swing over to Niagara on the way home Monday morning so the Four Year Old can see the Falls and so Mom and Dad can hit up the Duty Free. If the border traffic is too bad to go into Canada, we’ll probably skip the Falls entirely, since the US side makes me depressed.
Picking up The Dog in Rochester. Then a five hour drive back home Monday afternoon, with a goal of getting back by 6.
*I’m actually not sure it’s possible for my expectations to get so low that it’s impossible to let me down. A few years ago against the Patriots on Monday night, they had a 10 point lead with less than 3 minutes to play. I was fully prepared for them to lose by virtue of a Tom Bundchen TD pass followed by either (1) onside kick recovery or (2) a quick three and out, in turn followed by a signature Tom Bundchen no huddle drive for a TD. When the initial TD pass occurred, my expectations were not let down. When the Patriots kicked it five yards deep into the end zone instead of going for the onsides, I was still prepared for the three and out. When Leodis McKelvin decided to run the ball out of the end zone rather than take the touchback and promptly fumbled the ball inside his own 20, meaning Mr. Bundchen didn’t even need to do one of his signature drives to win the game……well, I was stunned. Apparently, setting my expectations at “Bills will blow a 10 point lead with less than 3 minutes to play” was still insufficiently low.
I know what you mean. The Giants are up 7 1/2 with 19 to go, they play only weak teams from now on while the Dodgers have to face some good ones, and in the back of my mind is “That would be a historic collapse”.
Ye of little faith.
And the Spawn of Satan come back from one strike away from a loss in the bottom of the ninth to score two and win. I’m just saying.
That was my brother’s fault.
Go Chiefs! (I’m wondering if my expectations are as low as yours…)
It’s League Mini-Fest in D.C. tonight, then Maryland Brew Club CrabFest tomorrow. Sunday’s probably yard work/outdoor play with Alice. She got a scooter plus safety gear for her birthday, and I got safety pads, too, so I can try to start skating again. I’m hoping it won’t be too long before the whole family can go wheeling around together on the bike path.
I’d love to hear a review of the mini-fest!
My vacation starts in about one hour. Longest hour EVER! I have 9 days without work. I will start with grocery shopping, cleaning house, and various other chores. I’m not sure what I will do after that. I may or may not visit family in CA for a couple days and paint the bathroom.
How was the wedding?
Lovely, thanks for asking. My sister has great taste and I’m able to wear my bridesmaid dress over and over again. It was all outdoor in an apple orchard and farm that was rehabilitated. The weather was perfect.
Gilbert and Sullivan on Saturday, flying up to Auckland on Sunday.
Which one? G&S, I mean.
Pirates of Penzance, lots of fun.
‘Tis a glorious thing.
Dad’s 70 and the wife’s grandmother is 85, and the birthday parties are at exactly the same time, so we’ll be splitting up for those.
At some (many) points, there will likely be alcohol.
And hopefully the Cowboys will be weeping by Sunday evening.
Have something close to fun at the parties.
Continuing to procrastinate homework that I’d planned to do every day since Tuesday. Or maybe actually getting some of it done.
I’ve read book 3 of The Sandman (Dream Country); not as good as book 2. More a selection of short stories than a unified plot, and some of those stories (the one with the cats) weird and unnecessary. Small amounts of characterization for Dream and Death, and a little fleshing out of the worldbuilding, but not much else. Should have Seasons of Mists soon.
He has several digressions throughout Sandman. A one-shot story here about a character and Dream shows up in two frames in the middle of the story never to be seen again, a minor character from a forgotten arc gets his own story for an issue…
It’s not plot that he’s playing with as much as theme.
He’s a big fan of telling the same story he just told you… only, now, since you know the ending, you have a completely different reading of the beginning.
If you know what I mean.
2 of the stories in ‘Dream Country’ do end up being related to the overall plot; the other two (including ‘A Dream Of A Thousand Cats’), are like JB says, more ‘theme’ than ‘plot’.
I personally like the digressions – in addition to enjoying them in their own right as short stories, I think they make the overall ‘world’ that much bigger (by briefly glimpsing weird side corridors, it gives the impression that there are many, many more stories outside the one you happen to be reading right now).
I loved the Sandman series, and am another fan of its digressions.
Which book had “Ramadan”?
That would be The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables and Reflections
.
Ramadan is beautiful. JB, at some future point how would you feel ’bout doing Sandman for an (actual) Bookclub, if we had enough people interested in reading/re-reading? I’ll be due for a re-read anyway. I usually do one every year or two.
I save Sandman for moments of despair. Likewise LOTR. For at least 30 years I read LOTR every autumn, now it’s about every two or three years. But Sandman I save as an anodyne for dark moments.
So we’re using the ten-volume trade paper, not the five volume Absolute set. Which is okay…
Sounds like we might have a quorum!
Count me in.
Well, we should probably have a consensus on which versions we want to use. I mean, do we want to be able to say “turn to page 84 and look at the 3rd frame, the one with the treasure chest?”
OK, though I think that regardless I’ll go with “the version the library has.”
Fair enough. I’ll make an announcement on, say, Tuesday.
How much lead-up time do we want for the Sandman reading? I’m going to start from the beginning and move from there… there will, of course, be an amazon link but to properly give people who aren’t inclined to buy enough buildup time to make their reservations and get in line, how much time do you think we’ll need?
I liked the digression with the man who didn’t die in Book 2; these ones just weren’t as interesting to me. The Calliope one was pretty good (and I definitely want to know her history with Morpheus), but I’m getting a little weary of the use of rape as a default trauma/threat for female characters. (This isn’t just a Gaiman thing; Alan Moore does it too.) So far I count two instances of Rose being in danger of rape in The Doll’s House (in both cases a guy rescues her), plus Calliope in this one (which seems really unnecessary – she’s a Muse, there’s no reason to think physical contact of any kind is should be necessary for inspiration).
KatherineMW – I get this criticism j/e/g encr, ohg V qb guvax vg’f (hasbeghangryl) vaqvpngvir bs gur xvaq bs punenpgre Znqbp vf qenja gb or (gubhtu hfvat encr gb vyyhzvangr n znyr punenpgre znl abg frrz zhpu orggre gb lbh, vg fgvyy frrzf qvssrerag guna whfg hfvat vg nf fgbpx ‘crevy’ sbe n srznyr punenpgre).
Gurer’f frireny ersreraprf gb guvf (V nz tbvat sebz zrzbel, urer) ‘Ur encrq ure, areibhfyl, ba gur zhfgl pnzc orq’ (gung jbeq ‘areibhfyl’ – lvxrf); ‘Sbe n zbzrag, ur jnf nsenvq gur byq zna zvtug unir fbyq uvz n erny tvey – gung ur, Evpuneq Znqbp, zvtug unir qbar fbzrguvat jebat, rira pevzvany’ n gubhtug ur gura qvfzvffrf. (Ur nyfb yngre fnlf ‘V pbafvqre zlfrys n srzvavfg jevgre’ va na vagreivrj, gur fphzont!)
Pnyyvbcr’f abg *erny* gb uvz, ur’f fb frysvfu gung nyy ur pnerf nobhg ner gur fgbevrf naq uvf bja rtb. Fb V qba’g guvax gung Tnvzna vf qruhznavmvat be fvzcyl hfvat Pnyyvbcr, ohg fubjvat ubj Znqbp qbrf; V nz abg fher ubj ryfr Tnvzna pbhyq unir npuvrirq dhvgr gur yriry bs ybnguvat jr raq hc jvgu sbe Znqbp bgurejvfr.
The bowed floor that I thought was because of Isaac turned out to be a burst pipe. I spent most of the afternoon firmly ensconsed between two hot water heaters trying to stick my big arms into way too small a cubic space. I think I have the leak fixed so tomorrow I am going to mill some red oak and replace the bowed floor.
Sunday I am going to hope that the Saints can find some defense.
That sucks, Dex. I hope this autumn treats you better than this summer did.
I am at the leading edge of a fun-filled Weekend On Call, and have already enjoyed the myriad delights of Early AM Pager Beeps!
Also maybe running. And maybe mowing the front lawn one last time.
mowing the front lawn one last time
We woke up this morning to have all four cats on the bed for the first time since May.
It’s officially Autumn.
So don’t feel like you have to mow it.