On The Road Again...

I'm heading back to SLC tomorrow to drop off daddy-o at the airport there. His flight leaves at 8am on Friday, which means I have to have him at the airport at 6am. Personally, I think he's lost his mind.

He says he has to leave this early because of the time change because he wants to get back to Atlanta in time to get a couple of things done. I, of course, being a serious non-morning person, say fuck that, if you want to get things done, take the redeye.

Of course, he also booked 8am flights and insisted we be at the airport at 6am whenever we came from DC out to Idaho...so I suspect his logic has just a wee trace of total bullshit in it.

Anyway, after that, I'm off to Las Vegas...unsure of when I'm heading down there because of potential weather issues, but I'll be there on Sunday, and supposedly I'll have computer access there, so I'll definitely send something from there.

God damn, I need a laptop. Not just for this (I hasten to add, so as not to look like a total loser), but so I can look at weather and stuff and figure out where to go so I don't slide off the road and such.

And of course, for things like this.

Merry Christmas!

I'd like to thank one Mr. Jesus Christ for being born today, because now that Christmas has passed, I don't have to listen to another fucking Christmas carol for at least a couple of weeks.

I may be Jewish, but I'll sure thank Jesus for saving me from these damnable songs.

There's still a couple I can stomach, mostly because of their sense of humor: Everclear's "Hating You For Christmas" and Fountains Of Wayne's "Alien For Christmas."

But all in all, I'm glad this has all passed. Now let's all go to Best Buy and find ourselves some discount digital cameras!

Oh well

No $312 million for me or Mark.

We matched a grand total of three numbers between our five tickets.

I guess I'll just have to wait til next time the jackpot gets too big to ignore, hee hee.

Tax On The Stupid

I went out and paid my Tax on the Stupid today, buying five bucks worth of Powerball tickets (two for me, two for Marky Monkey, and one for good luck, which we'll split if it hits).

My mom has always called the lottery the Tax on the Stupid, and not without reason. The odds of winning are 1 in 120,000,000, which is abysmal, but when that jackpot goes over 200 million bucks, people line up like Pavlov's rats for tickets.

Of course, mom and I are two of them. Just because you acknowledge something is stupid is no reason not to do it. I give you skiing.

The funniest part was my dad freaking out over the potential legal implications of me buying tickets for someone else. I got a mini-lecture on the ream of cases of people tearing each other to pieces in court when one person bought tickets for a friend.

I said I'd mark the tickets, but this didn't satisfy him. I finally shut him up by emailing Mark his numbers this afternoon after I bought the tickets so he couldn't accuse me of marking the ticket after the jackpot was drawn.

Hooray for paranoia...It's not like either of us is actually going to win, and even if we do, odds are very good it won't be more than about ten bucks.

But I'm glad I went out and paid my Tax. Besides, I can think of much dumber ways to spend five bucks.

Tax On The Stupid

I went out and paid my Tax on the Stupid today, buying five bucks worth of Powerball tickets (two for me, two for Marky Monkey, and one for good luck, which we'll split if it hits).

My mom has always called the lottery the Tax on the Stupid, and not without reason. The odds of winning are 1 in 120,000,000, which is abysmal, but when that jackpot goes over 200 million bucks, people line up like Pavlov's rats for tickets.

Of course, mom and I are two of them. Just because you acknowledge something is stupid is no reason not to do it. I give you skiing.

The funniest part was my dad freaking out over the potential legal implications of me buying tickets for someone else. I got a mini-lecture on the ream of cases of people tearing each other to pieces in court when one person bought tickets for a friend.

I said I'd mark the tickets, but this didn't satisfy him. I finally shut him up by emailing Mark his numbers this afternoon after I bought the tickets so he couldn't accuse me of marking the ticket after the jackpot was drawn.

Hooray for paranoia...It's not like either of us is actually going to win, and even if we do, odds are very good it won't be more than about ten bucks.

But I'm glad I went out and paid my Tax. Besides, I can think of much dumber ways to spend five bucks.

Mmm...DVD...

They still haven't announced when it's going to be released, but the helpful folks who post reviews on Amazon.com have posted the list of episodes in the third season (scroll to the "Customer Reviews" section, 2nd review).

At the sight of this list, I am simply reduced to a two-year-old: gimme gimme gimme!

Little help?

Okay, this has been driving me batshit for the past three days.

I have been having ice form on the inside of the windows of my car. Because of the angle that ice scrapers are built at, it is a serious pain in the ass to remove. I have several questions:

1. What the fuck?!

2. Why is it doing this?

3. How can I get it to stop doing this?

Yarrrrgh. This is driving me nuts! I'm currently attempting the "leave your window open a crack on the theory that moisture will escape the car better and thus not freeze onto the inside of the car" theory, but I suspect that it may not work.

Please email me if you have any idea on how to stop this.

Sleigh Ride

I went on an entertaining little dinner outing this evening.

Dad and I went to Trail Creek Cabin, which, among other methods, you can get to by sleigh. You take the sleigh out across a golf course, then pretty much through the woods and over the creek.

This is a fairly silly method of transportation, especially when it's as cold as it was tonight (about 4 degrees). However, it's one of those dumb touristy things you've gotta do once here, and in 21 years of coming up here, I had never gone.

So dad and I, armed with a wee bottle of whiskey (which held, at most, two shots) climbed aboard the sleigh and headed on out.

It's actually a very nice ride, and because Sun Valley has a dark sky ordinance (basically, you can't have any neon lights or lights that bleed upward so you can see more stars), the stargazing was brilliant.

Once you get out there to the restaurant and thaw off a bit, they start feeding you. They give you hot soup (and in my case, hot buttered rum) to complete the thawing, then feed you all sorts of meat and some potatoes au gratin.

Tonight's evening featured two musical guests, the first of which I hated and the latter of which I liked.

Guest #1 was an accordion player. If you thought Christmas carols were annoying before, oh, just you wait! Hearing them on the accordian will introduce you to an entire new universe of irritation.

He also came by each table and played, something that really drives me crazy. I feel (as a musician) that if people want to ignore you, fine. Let them. Don't be like, "Hey you! Pay attention!" or walk up to their table and solicit requests people obviously don't want to hear.

My dad observed my curmudgeonliness and commented that I, of all people, being a musician, should cut the guy some slack. Nope. Sorry. I hate people coming around and forcing themselves into your conversation, be it normally or with a musical instrument.

Musical Guest #2 was an a cappella group from Utah State, who were actually pretty goddamn good. (Fun Fact: Utah State is in Logan, Utah. Mark's sister-in-law, the one who just named her son Logan, went to Utah State.)

They came, they sang, they left. And a cappella singing is a hell of a lot less annoying than accordion music, especially when done by semi-professionals.

When done by drunken fools on the sleigh ride going back, however, it's downright hilarious. Especially when they try to remember all the words to "The Twelve Days Of Christmas."

They could barely remember the words to "Silent Night" past "Siiiiiiiiiilent Niiiiiiiight, Hooooooooly Niiiiiiiiight...um..."

It was quite amusing.

SuperSpud!

I have, in my posession, one of the largest potatoes I have ever seen.

It weighs 3.11 pounds (according to the grocery store receipt), and is approximately the size of a football. Looking at it in the grocery bag, where you can't see the telltale color and texture, you'd think it was a squash.

I purchased it to bring it back to Chicago and show the non-believers that yes, they really do grow 'em this big in Idaho. To give an idea of what we get in Chicago, they sell potatoes in five-pound bags.

I've spoken to a number of my friends about the purchase of what I have dubbed the Spud Stud, and reaction has been somewhat mixed:

REACTION ONE: "Why?"

REACTION TWO: "Isn't that going to rot before you get back to Chicago?" (No, potatoes stay good for long periods of time.)

REACTION THREE: "That's awesome! Do you have a digital camera?!"

I think the best idea ended up being the idea of getting pictures of just a hand holding the potato up in front of various Las Vegas landmarks. Or possibly just the Spud sitting at a slot machine.

But there will be pictures. Oh, yes, there will be pictures.

Damn it all...

Joe Strummer died today.

One of the movie critics from the Washington Post (whose obnoxious son went to my high school) recalls his days as a lowly boarding school student when Strummer was a prefect.

A bit of an odd way to recollect him, but an interesting departure from the standard obit.