Remembrance

Don Herbert, more popularly known as "Mr. Wizard" died today at the age of 89.

I am not a science person by ANY means, but I always enjoyed watching his show as he not only introduced me to the joys of science, he introduced generation after generation of young viewers to the joys of science as well, and he will be missed...

Perfect Tommy: Emilio Lizardo. Wasn't he on TV once?
Buckaroo Banzai: You're thinking of Mr. Wizard.
Reno: Emilio Lizardo is a top scientist, dummkopf.
Perfect Tommy: So was Mr. Wizard.

- from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

How true Perfect Tommy... how true...

Now let's all go freeze a superball in liquid nitrogen and smash it with a hammer, just for old times sake.

I don't even know where to begin...

So I'm in the front of the office, the radio is on and the DJ says that Paris Hilton was released from prison today, a scant day or two into her 23-day sentence, because she was depressed.

Stop the world, I want to get off...

It was forty years ago today…

... that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play.


Today is the 40th Anniversary of the release of what is arguably THE most influential rock album EVAH; The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Go on... give it a listen today…

Coooooool

Oops

Director Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas, Timecode) was going through security at LAX when he was asked the reason for his visit.

He responded by saying; "I'm here to shoot a pilot."

Five hours after immigration and airport officials got online and figured out that, "pilot" has more than one meaning, he was released.

Don't you feel safe that our airports are hiring the best and brightest...

Went to a picnic and an Amish barn-raising broke out

Honey Mustard, The Peanut Butter, The Jelly and I were going to a Memorial Day picnic at the home of one of my sisters-in-law yesterday.

The fete was scheduled to start at 4:00… and unbeknownst to me, my father-in-law, brother-in-law and his Dad were erecting (heh heh heh… I said erect…) a wooden swingset… a task they started at Noon.

So, needless to say, from 4:00 until (no lie) 9:15 in the evening, the four of us, joined later by my sister-in-law’s fiancé, put the set together.

I could go into detail of how the process went, but A: I don't have that kind of time, and B: I honestly don't think I have enough swear-words in my vocabulary to do the story justice.

What I can say is this; when it comes time to upgrade The Peanut Butter and The Jelly’s playset, I’m gonna splurge on a little extra money and have professionals install it… lest my children be playing on something that looks like it was put together by Homer Simpson.

Because the kids did not having a swingset to play with, I was the adult of the day when I quickly ran home and got The PB & The J’s birthday present from my parents. How do you think THIS THING went over with nine kids ages 23 month to 15 years?
Yeah... I was the hero of the day...

Kemp's 7-word Movie Review

This week's offering; Shrek 3.

"They should have stopped at number two."

That is all...

Ya remember that post a few weeks ago wherein I said I wasn’t going to do this blog anymore and how I had lost my spark to write and yada, yada, yada?

.....

I’d like you all to forget that post mmkay? Thanks…

Happy Birthday to The Peanut Butter & The Jelly

Dear The PB & The J:

It was five years ago today… at 4:19 PM… that you came into this world.

The PB, you came out loud and crying at 4 pounds, 14ounces.

The J, you came out ‘floppy and unresponsive’ at 4 pounds, 3 ounces and with 10 tangles in your umbilical cord.

But you were healthy, and for that your Mother and I are eternally grateful.

After three weeks of life in the NICU, we brought you home. To say your Mommy and I were nervous would be a colossal understatement…

We were scared to death.

Dozens of questions went through our heads; ‘Would we be good parents?’, ‘Would we be so-so parents?’… ‘Would we be parents that you would have to talk to therapists about when you’re both older?’

There were adjustments, and some of them were hard to... well, adjust to. Some weren't... like sleep, since you both started to sleep through the night around 4 months of age...

You crawled...

You walked...

You talked...

You sassed...

And…

You’ve grown..

Happy Birthday girls… I love you both very, very much… more than anything else in the world, and will continue to do so, always... and forever..

Love Daddy

A Rant on the blog that refuses to die

I am literally sick to my stomach and am in desperate need of some ranting and venting, hence yet another post on the blog that refuses to die.

Some of you may remember that Honey Mustard and I put a bid on a new and larger house a few weeks ago with a contingency of it passing a home inspection.

Well, the inspection was today… and the house failed in a more spectacular fashion than George W. Bush would a public speaking class.

In other words, it wasn’t pretty.

When the home inspector with over 30 years experience says that the house is “a pit” and is “a fire waiting to happen” because of the electrical system and he is “amazed the house hasn’t caught fire yet”, you know you’re in trouble.

The inspector went room to room and went over each room with a fine-tooth comb and found so many things wrong with it that it would take me until Christmas 2009 to list them all, but here are a few of the better ones:

• Upstairs bathroom leaks into downstairs bathroom (Convenient…)
• Downstairs bathroom leaks into the basement
• The exhaust fan on the stove/oven doesn’t go outside as Illinois law dictates; rather it goes into the attic. Meaning if a fire occurred on the stove, the entire house would go up in flames.
• The outlets in every room are installed incorrectly.

Needless to say, we are going to rescind our offer.

These are things that no one; not me, not HoMu, not my father-in-law or mother-in-law, or my Mom and Dad noticed when we went through the house.

Granted, it’s a positive that we discovered it BEFORE we bought it and moved in, but still… we liked the layout of this house… we liked the looks of the house… we liked the yard…

And now we’re back at square one.

I can sum up my feelings in one concise word;

FUCK!

Thanks for allowing me the chance to vent. Carry on…

One Last Post: Happy Birthday Mr Big Dubya!!!

Yes, I've already broken my vow of not posting anymore, but this... this is a special occassion...

Kara over at Cape Buffalo is throwing a virtual birthday party for everyone's blogmigo Mr. Big Dubya.

For a virtual birthday gift I present to him: a couple of cubans...



Damn Blogger... I mean these types of Cubans:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY M-B-D! AND MANY, MANY MORE!!!!

And the curtain drops...

Sorry about the cryptic post earlier this week, but I was in a rush and didn’t want to be talked out of something.

I know I’ve flirted with this in the past but now it’s time.

It’s time to end this blog.

In the last few weeks, readership, comments and visitors have dropped dramatically and, as a result, I have not been in much mood to write.

I plan to continue with TBWA, The Blogfathers (if they still want me) and DDS (which I hope makes me elligible for the Blogpound next Fantasy Football season - hint, hint Tony...) it's just that I feel it’s time to bring this blog to an end as I have been in a severe case of writer's block for a few weeks now. I have the second and third part of my Vegas story ready, but it's... for lack of a better word... off. It doesn't make sense, it's unfunny and, in all honesty, it's cruel to a certain demographic.

I will be keeping the URL active on the off chance I am ever hit upside the head with a sledgehammer with a thought and need to express it.

Having said that, however, this will cease to be an "active" blog.

I seem to have lost my "blog muse" if you will and I don't know where it is.

For all of you that have been loyal readers, and I know there are a few, I want to give you a sincere "Thank you… and goodbye."

The End

Buh-bye...

Day One: Sand, sand everywhere, so let's all take a drink

Epilogue: The original plan was to go to bed relatively early after arriving late Wednesday night, but one thing led to another and we stayed up until 3:00 in the morning, went back to our room and

…

The following takes place between 7:00 AM and 2:30 AM…

Thanks to casinos pumping enough Oxygen into the joint to awaken Keith Richards , we went to bed about 2 or 3 in the morning and woke up and were raring to go at 7 AM.

We got cleaned up, dressed, hit the brunch buffet and, after being briefly sidelined by my ogling/playing of a Star Wars slot machine at Bills Casino (formerly Barbary Coast) we hit The Strip.

Today’s target; walk North South North to pick up our tickets at the Sahara for Trent Carlini’s show.

As we stepped outside, we immediately noticed something… there was no sun, and the wind was blowing harder than Paris Hilton at a new club opening…

{Rimshot!}

Because of which, we saw a LOT of people diving into shops to buy sweatshirts or jackets.

We’re Chicagoans, we did no such diving…

Besides the “chill” in the air, the wind was kicking up enough sand that one thought that Mac the Atlas man was around…

I’ll wait a moment for that reference to click…

We walked… we shopped… we visited each casino and played at least one game and, if the time was right, had one drink before we would walk to the next one.

That wasn’t so bad, I won a nice Calvin Hill gift set from The Riviera… and HoMu won a Leather bag set.

We finally arrived at the Sahara, got our tickets, made reservations for dinner at House of Lords (where The Beatles loved to go when they were in Vegas) and decided to walk back to our hotel via the other side of the street with the first stop to be Circus Circus.

Big. Honking. Mistake.

Apparently, about 98% of the vacationers that come to Las Vegas with kids stay at Circus Circus. We left our kids at home, so being surrounded by screaming children and obviously bored & longing parents ignoring said children was, to be polite; a bit taxing.

Mental note made at that time; never, ever, ever go back to Circus Circus…

We left C-C (we both vowed to never speak of the experience again…) and, seeing as how we both had sand in every single orifice of our body’s thanks to the wind and wanted to clean up before we went to dinner and the show, we decided to cab it back to The Flamingo. We did our thing and took the monorail (monorail… monorail… monorail…) back to the Sahara.

Dinner was excellent; we had time to gamble (I won about $50 on Blackjack) and went to our show.

Trent Carlini is Elvis. If you like Elvis and you go to Vegas, ignore every other Elvis impersonator and go see Carlini… you will NOT be disappointed.

After the show, we decided to take the monorail (monorail… monorail… monorail…) back to our hotel. When we arrive we head across the street to O’Shea’s. The War table is full, as are all the Blackjack tables, so we each find a ‘one-armed bandit’, I light my cigar and we gamble… badly… very, very badly… so when all else fails… drink.

And then go to “bed.”

Coming Next: “Day Two” or “Deliverance: Las Vegas Style”

Random (Las Vegas) Thoughts for a Wednesday

A few random thoughts about our trip to Las Vegas.

• There is a lot of construction going on in Vegas right now. A LOT. It will be interesting to go back in, say, five years and see the city.
• The Flamingo is great. Bugsy would be proud…
• The Tropicana, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, will be gone within five years. It’s not being maintained very well, the restaurants all looked like (and served) crap, the theaters are run-down and the casino itself was craptacular.
• Saw a lot of kids in Vegas. Can’t really understand why parents would bring kids to a place where the primary pastime is drinking and gambling…
• Flying over the mountains is beautiful… but I miss the days when pilots would tell you to look out the windows at see ‘such and such.’
• People are rude, more so than Disney World.
• 'The Strip' at night is amazing.
• If I see one more picture or video of Celine Dion gyrating, I’m gonna plotz.
• Terrific views of the city atop Paris’ Eiffel Tower.
• If they stopped handing out the hooker cards and booklets, or at the least recycled them, every forest in the world could be re-populated.
• The biggest-selling clothing line in Vegas (meaning I saw them in every store and on 90% of the people walking around) had “CSI” plastered on them… as if they couldn’t find those anywhere else.
• ATM fees around the city were $4.99. That’s not just outrageous, it’s obscene.
• Cab drivers in Vegas drive like Chicago cabbies, but they do their best to get you somewhere quickly…
• What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas... and stays OUT of the blog; Sorry Samantha.
• On the final shuttle to the airport, a woman got on and proceeded to have a very loud conversation on her cell phone the entire way to the airport… in French. She didn’t even stop when one of the other passengers asked her to or when I said a smart-ass comment about frogs legs…I know, I know – that was harsh.
• Two airline flights, two rough landings.
• Random Vegas Photo Time! This is a photo of one of the pools at The Flamingo with a very stylish and very retro feel.

Random Las Vegas Picture

Everyone said we had to go here because it's a lot of fun; so we went:

I thought they said S and M World... imagine my disappointment...

Las Vegas: Departure (hopefully) & Arrival (hopefully)

When we woke up Wednesday morning, there was snow on the ground.

Snow… in Mid-April… wtf?

Later in the morning, the snow became this combination of quickly-changing and ever-changing snow/sleet/rain.

Usually it takes about an hour to get to Midway from our house, but because of the weather… and knowing that people can’t drive if they see a flake of snow fall from the sky, we decided to leave for the airport a little earlier.

We dropped The Peanut Butter and The Jelly off at HoMu’s parents house and hit the road.

Lo and behold, the traffic was fine and we arrived at the airport about three and a half hours before our flight was scheduled to depart.

Son of a…

We checked our bags and then checked the monitor to see the status of our flight:

“On Time.”

Excellent.

We then had two and a half hours to kill but that was not a problem as it gave us a chance to eat dinner at Harry Carry’s Seventh Inning Stretch and have a calming alcohol-based drink before boarding.

After that, we went to our gate and checked the status of our flight…

“Delayed.”

Son of a...

Did I mention it started snowing again… harder? And that the wind picked up… and that the temperature started to drop?

We were supposed to leave at 4:35, but at 4:45, they put a sign on the board that still said delayed… but listed no time.

Hmmmmm…

Being the inquisitive one that she is, HoMu went up and asked them approximately what time our flight would be leaving… the conversation went something like this:

“We don’t know, we can’t find the plan.”

“I’m sorry, what? Are you being funny?”

“No unfortunately I’m not…”

“Oh. Shit.”

That’s right, you heard me (sorry Sarah); they couldn’t find the plane.

Gotta love Southwest…

About 20 minutes later, they announced that they found the plane (it must have been in another pair of pants or something…) and that it was on its way to Midway.

A joyous applause was heard throughout the terminal… which was quickly beat-out by shouts of anger and frustration as the flight in the next gate was pushed back an additional hour.

So, we boarded the plane about 5:50 and they tell us we should be taking off within the next 10 minutes.

Needless to say, that was wrong.

We left the gate in ten minutes, but we sat on the tarmac for an additional 40 minutes before taking off…

We landed about 8:45 Vegas time and were told that our luggage would be on carousel 14.

We waited… and waited… and waited… and waited…

Finally, I saw a Southwest desk in the corner of the baggage area and went over to ask when our luggage would be unloaded and put on carousel 14, that conversation went something like this:

“When will the bags from Chicago be unloaded?”

“They already have been. They’re right here. We have our own luggage carousel.”

“We weren’t told that, the sign said carousel 14. I mean, didn’t you think it was odd that no one was claiming their luggage.”

“Actually I did. I thought about making an announcement, but didn’t.”

“You’re an idiot, do you know that?”

So HoMu and I got our bags and, since Southwest wasn’t doing a damn thing, we walked over to the luggage carousel where everyone on our flight was waiting and told them where to go and whom to yell at.

They obliged.

We quickly found the shuttle to The Flamingo, arrived, checked in and, seeing as how we hadn’t eaten since 2:00 Chicago time and it was now 11:30 Chicago time (9:30 LV), we grabbed a bite to eat before hitting the casino for a quick drink and some quick gambling before hitting the strip and getting to bed early so we could start early the next morning.

We ended up going to bed around 3:00.

Tomorrow; “Day One” or “How We Ended Up Getting Sand in Every Orifice of our Bodies”

Two nonstop flights to guilt please

Honey Mustard and I leave for Las Vegas tomorrow without the The Peanut Butter & The Jelly.

That’s right, just the two of us… and we’re positively giddy about the idea.

Now don’t get us wrong, we absolutely, unequivocally, unconditionally love our children, but… come on… anyone with kids knows exactly what I’m talking about.

However, there is one problem…

In The PB and The J’s 4 ¾ on this planet (and NOT counting the nights they were in the NICU since we were next door at the Ronald McDonald House) we’ve been apart from them, overnight, for a grand total of two times…

You read that right… two times.

Once, a year and two months after they were born when my Uncle Nishan (who I am named for and who was always like a grandfather to me) passed away.

The second time was two years ago when we decided to have some salvation for an evening and stayed the night at Hotel 71 in Chicago, had dinner at Miller’s Pub, drank too much with friends of ours at the Congress Hotel Bar (which is THE BEST dive bar in Chicago btw), and had Sunday Brunch at The Signature Room atop the John Hancock building…

And that’s it.

So here we are… on the cusp of multiple nights away from our little demoñios angels… and HoMu and I are more than a little nervous.

The girls?They’re excited… no, scratch that… they’re thrilled... after all, they get to spend two nights with HoMu’s parents, then two nights with my parents.

Four nights of spoiling… four nights of being given money from Abuelo (my Dad)… four nights of being the center of attention from their Gama (HoMu’s Mom, whom they usually have to share with six other grandchildren)…

It’s enough to make them push us out the door two days early.

...

… but it’s also enough to make HoMu and I a little worried.

But, we’ll muddle through somehow.

It's a pleasure to just be nominated...

Lisa over at My Thoughts, Ideas and Ramblings has nominated The BushWhacked Administration for the Blogger's Choice Awards - Best Political Blog.

So if you agree with her (and really, who wouldn't?), head over and give Scott and I a vote:

http://www.bloggerschoiceawards.com/blogs/show/698

It's a moral imperative...