Early Sunday Morning

A week after my last post and all is okay, not well by any means, but okay.

My dad never did make it upstairs. It was nice and cool. That was a blessing as we totally botched getting the air conditioner in. My mom refused to read the directions, my dad refused to help, and I discovered that I can destroy anything if I put my mind to it.

Last sunday three hour job was foiled because no one had a working drill to drill the holes and securing screws into the heavy wood window frame. We tried again on Monday morning at 6AM before my Mom, my sister & her kids were set to go to Niagara Falls for an overnight trip. Can this MORE of a setup for disaster?

I didn't take my blood pressure pill yet so I could lift anything heavy (namely a 300 pound air conditioner), my mom still refused to read said instructions and the drill only worked part of the way. I had to get my dad's 300 pounds to get said screw into the frame. He did it in such a way that it was completely warped and we had to pound it into the frame (and be nagged about that until the end of time). There was also a little point of the plug for the AC unit not fitting the outlet, but a quick call to an electrician would fix that.

Three hours later the thing is in the window and working. Well, for a time, it turns out that since someone refused to read the directions, we didn't angle the thing so that water could flow OUT of it. Instead, water was flowing inside the house. When I went downstairs it looked like the Amityville Horror movie with stuff oozing out of the wall. Thankfully, someone had half a brain and turned off the AC before the outlet got soaked.

My mom left for Niagara Falls. That left my dad and myself all alone. Another call to the electrician went unanswered until the next day, leaving my dad to grumble for a good 24 hours. I mean, hes pissed. He spent Monday twisted up in the chair down there in anger. Tuesday comes and right before my dad was set to have a dentist appointment and/or a psychotic episode, the Electrician called and was on his way over. 10 minutes after he gets here, and after bending two frame supports, the AC works properly.

So what did we learn, kids? Read the directions. Follow the directions. Or better yet: HAVE A FREAKING ELECTRICIAN PUT IN YOUR 300 POUND AC UNITS.

End of rant.

The rest of the week went pretty smoothly. I'm getting used to having the kids here. Though I'm weaning them from reading my instant messages out loud because a) they're private conversations and b) it's really freaking annoying. I keep forgetting that they can read and was embarassed when I pulled up my kid-friendly mp3 list and a couple of the things weren't quite kid friendly. "Uncle, what's 'Elmo Having Sex' about? He's a muppet!" Then I cursed that friend who used to send mp3s of everything and anything under the stars. Don't worry, I saved them from Bugs Bunny farting and cursed that same friend again...

Oh, when in doubt, Warioware Inc. for gamecube is the BEST game in the world to hold the attention span of 7-10 year olds. With 5 second gameplay per game, it's like the best thing I could have asked for. They will literally play that thing for hours and it never gets old. Thank god, I've needed it.

Meeting my newest nephew was pretty special. Xander is now 14 months old. We had a pretty immediate bond. I had to play with the other kids first while he watched then all of a sudden he's my constant companion. He even dances when we sing "Xander Pants" to the Spider-Man theme. That's pretty cool.

The update on my inheritance is that allegedly it will be here a week to two weeks from when I sent a release form back. I sent it back about a week ago. I really doubt that it's going to be here any time soon. I need to start selling chunks of my life again on ebay until then.

As for today, the kids, my parents and my sister are in New York for an overnight trip, they'll be back this afternoon. So yes, I've had the house to myself FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A YEAR. What did I do? Well, nothing unusual really. I'm not used to the quiet and I'm still doing things to keep the house in shape. Like taking the garbage out. You'd be amazed at how much garbage a woman and three kids can produce in a five minute period. We have four garbage cans filled to capacity and they've been gone 24 hours now and I'm STILL taking out garbage. I'm probably going to take a bath then go to the store later, and that'll be the day.

Ah the life of a 30-something unemployed loser. Gotta love it.

They're leaving Tuesday night, that's going to be heart breaking. I won't miss the messes, mind you, but yah, it's going to be pretty hard.

On that note, off to start the non-eventful day.

k9

Back From Lowes

So it's later. There is a ginormous air conditioner in the back of the station wagon. I can just imagine the amount of swearing it is going to take to get the thing down the hill, around the house and in the window. That's tomorrow. Today I'm praying for rain so my dad stays downstairs.

When we were at Lowe's I almost killed some poor fool in one of those in-store handicap scooters who was in front of us in line. When we got the AC they gave me a cart to push. I couldn't see the end of said cart so I ran into the poor guy in the scooter when I tried to get in line. Instead of saying, "James, back up, you're going to hit the guy!" my dad sorta said "You hit that guy." after the fact. Then "You hit him again!" when I backed up. I apologized to the poor fool who thought he was safe from idiot with cart and thankfully some hot red head took him first at another register.

I'm a big dumb idiot but at least no damage was done.

Someone get me through the day.

k9

Saturday Nightmare

My father broke his air conditioning downstairs. Instead of opening a window, he got out a huge fan and he's sitting down there in the heat. He's declared that he "might come upstairs later". This is a bad thing.

The AC down there is a huge unit. I couldn't get it out of the window myself and my mom (and my visiting sister and her kids) are out of town right now until tomorrow. Likewise, I just don't have $400 for one. My inheritance isn't in yet. Another week or so, yah, but not right now.

The only thing that has kept me sane in this house all these years is there's a degree of seperation from my dad. Upstairs is my space. Downstairs is his. I go down there when he needs me, but other than that I take being upstairs as a vacation from him. His constant needs will only drive you insane and it'll be worse tomorrow when my sister and the kids are home.

My mom just called. She's as frightened as I am of him being upstairs. She's authorized me to do what it takes to get a new AC today. I can't put it in, but it'll save the torture.

Developing. This should be fun.

k9

Live8 a Week Late

So I missed most of Live8 last week. I didn't think much about it, my consciousness level really isn't high enough to grasp the concept behind it. They weren't raising money? Okay, so they were trying to put pressure on the leaders at the G8 meeting by playing music. Looks like they succeeded in some way because the result of the conference (even with the horrible London attacks this week), saw a crap load of Aid go to Africa. In that, looks like they got what they wanted.

I was pretty much turned off by MTV and VH1's coverage of the concert when I tried to get into it. It was like there was 30 seconds of music to 2 minutes of talking to 5 minutes (or more) of commercials. They have a second chance this morning as MTV and VH1 are both airing unedited coverage of the concert after thousands and thousands of complaints. The only thing that really sucks is that they're doing different coverage on each channel and aren't replaying it, so you have to choose between "young and hip" on MTV and "everyone else" on VH1.

I'm sitting here ready to TIVO the VH1 portion as I'm listening to bootleg mp3s of the concert. Right now I have Madonna's "Ray of Light" on but this is in the aftermath of listening to both Brian Wilson and Pink Floyd from the concert. Oh my god, so they're "old fogies" and "not relevant" to the "modern audience" according to a lot of people. Well SCREW THAT. I had tears in my eyes during the Pink Floyd set. Just cold chills up and down my spine. Brian Wilson wasn't as mind blowing, but let's face it, the fact that with all his problems that he's up on that stage doing *anything* let alone an amazing five song set is a tremendous achievement. Plus he rocked with a set he knew (including my favorite, the reworking of "Good Vibrations" with the SMILE lyrics) and a kick ass band.

Heard Dido earlier and she's not for everyone but she picked up with her last song, "7 Seconds" and she must have impressed since her albums sales are up more than any of the "young and hip" acts.

Right now with Annie Lennox and "Sweet Dreams." I had hoped for a full fledge Eurythmics or Police reunion for this show, but you know what? Sting and Annie Lennox's sets were worth it on in their own.

Oh well, if this doesn't verify that I'm officially an old fogie, I don't know what will.

I'm out to start the day.

k9

Updated: Well MTV's John Norris appeared on VH1 with the intro of their Live8 coverage. He pretty much gave an apology for last week's coverage without actually apologizing. Looks like the VH1 coverage is on now then MTV will pick up coverage with "young and hip" bands at 3PM ET. There goes MY day. :)

Update 2: LOL sit through 4 hours of it and Pink Floyd takes the stage with "Breathe." It's awesome. Then I notice the thunder isn't coming from the TV. Three seconds later there's a satellite outage and I start screaming at the TV.

MTV is replaying Pink Floyd later but LOL that was the ULTIMATE "D'OH" moment.

I hope to god they put this out on DVD. Lightning DOES strike twice. Knowing my luck.

Dumb Dreams

So I had a dream I was on a show called 'the Stupidest Show Ever' with your host David Spade. I was a sidekick. The premise of the show was that we'd be approached by people with really dumb stories who were seeking help and then check to see if the stories held up or if the people were nuts.

The first half of the dream was all about putting the show together and proving to the network (probably Discovery), that we could do the show. It involved making fun of a lot of Internet nerds, all of whom thought they were dating the same woman "over the Internet." Instead it was another of their friends playing a gag on them and raking in expensive gifts and paypal.com "donations." We exposed that. The show got picked up.

Our second case was of an Asian couple who inherited a large mansion over looking the sea. Every night the lights would go out in the house and the spirits would come in and terrorize the couple, groping the wife and threatening to do horrible things to them should they not leave the house. At the same time the bank wanted the property because a mortgage payment was due. The husband was all freaked out because he couldn't concentrate on making money and was going to lose his job if he didn't get some rest and soon. He was determined to stay.

The way the show was set up it was Just me, David and a security guy with night vision goggle camera units. No big vans, no production units, the footage would come from cameras set up all over the house and whatever we could capture on our night vision cameras. If the ghosts were going to appear, the network didn't want to "spoil" the natural state of the house by having too many people there.

We get there and David, who feels this show is a joke, starts getting loaded on wine. We meet the couple. They explain their situation. David makes comments that the wife is hot, which she is, and then she looks out the window and shrieks. We look and it looks like there are ghostly figures walking on the waves down on the water (the water was some 500 yards from the house). I immediately look and they look familiar (as they look like the characters from a Rob Zombie movie) but I don't say anything.

The wife says that when they see the "pirates" on the water, things will start happening soon. That's when I start roaming the house for signs of hauntings. Our security guy is backing me up, leaving David with the couple at all times. About an hour later the lights go out. For some reason the way the house is set up, when the lights go out, it's pitch black. You can't see anything at all with normal light. We hear screams and "demonic voices" from where the couple is so we go tearing into the living room area.

What I see with the night vision is three rednecks. Two really big guys and one skinny guy. It looks like they're armed with shanks. They're pretty nimble as they make their way around screaming at the couple to get out and one is feeling the wife up. She screams but doesn't run. David is trying to talk to the "spirits" since he didn't get his goggles on in time before the power went out.

The spirits demand that the couple leave the house and claim that since the couple brought intruders into the house, a sacrifice must be made. So the one who groped the wife starts to drag her into the bedroom. The husband is freaking out but he feels hands on his shoulder keeping him in his chair. David is trying to talk sense into "the spirits."

He gets the wife's spirit captor to stay for a minute and he talks about other places the spirits can go. How this house really doesn't have a meaning to them. Somehow he convinces the spirits that haunting is dumb and that they should probably get out of the house tonight without any sort of sacrifice. He was at the top of his game with venom dripping put downs and insults. The spirits didn't like this, but released the wife and start to leave.

That's when the security guy and I sneak fully into the room. The two big guys start down the stairs. The security guy and I "accidently" run into the third guy. There's a crash, the lights come back on and we're holding down some skeevy redneck. We were about to beat the living crap out of him and call the cops when the wife yells out "NO, I love him!"

That's when the whole plot by the wife unravels, David says some little speech about Scooby Doo plots and I wake up.

So scared.

k9