Tikkabik

Cheap enough that I'd never go fishing for one in a chemical toilet.

"A customer aboard the train contacted the conductor to say there was a customer in the toilet in distress," Metro-North spokesman Dan Brucker said. "Soon our entire Hudson Line was in distress."

This is the sort of thing you'd NEVER read said about an MBTA Commuter Rail train. Bostonians just don't have a sense of humor about such things. Knowing Boston, there'd be an inquiry launched immediately to discover how many arm-eating toilets there are on Commuter Rail trains, with condemnations from various public officials demanding millions of dollars in federal transportation money to remodel the trains to make sure such a tragedy never happened again.

Posted by flargh at 09:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Bob got an A on this at school:

This is a story about the worlds largest turkey. One day at the farm a turkey ate to much then he became huge. It already was very close to Thanks-giving.

The turkey was so big it was 10 times the size of the world trade center! on Thanks-giving in the morning the turkey saw a plane the size of itself. so the turkey jumped on the plan which flew him straight to Greenland for Thanks-giving. The end.

Posted by flargh at 09:51 PM | Permalink

60 Minutes ran a segment last Sunday about what's called "viral" and "underground" marketing. As I understand it, viral marketing seeks to build product and brand awareness by manipulating non-traditional forms of media -- Internet newsgroups and Web chat sites, for example; instant messaging and so on. Underground marketing places paid representatives of companies to show their products in use in public areas that might draw the interest of passersby -- a guy using a video game peripheral on his laptop at Starbucks, for example, or a happy-looking couple in Times Square asking strangers to take their photos with a new camera-equipped mobile phone.

Much was made during the segment about how companies are resorting to these forms of guerilla marketing more and more to overcome a cynicism among the buying public, who feels that they're being marketed to all the time. Between ads on TV and radio, spam, pop-ups and pop-unders, telemarketers, billboards and so on, it's little surprise that people feel that way: It's total overload.

Anyway, I've been ruminating about this for a couple of days now to get a better handle on how I feel about marketing efforts in general, and what I've realized is that I think some marketing is terrifically clever. I see ads on television almost every time I watch that make me laugh out loud or stir something in me, so clearly some marketers are doing their job, at least when it comes to getting my attention. What pisses me off is stupid advertising.

Case in point: This ad for Febreze I just watched. Febreze is this air-freshening product that allegedly neutralizes the crap on your furniture, draps and carpet that makes your house smell like dog, cigars, gym socks, ass, or whatever else. My wife likes it; my mom can't stand it. Personally I'd rather just live in a hermetically sealed dome free of any contact with the outside world, but you can't have everything.

So this ad introduces viewers to what folks did before Febreze -- potpourri, Lysol, priestly exorcisms, whatever, then talks about the way the product works, encourages people to take the 7-day challenge, and ends showing this woman ushering guests into her conspicuously clean and, presumably, fresh-smelling house.

The first thing her friends do when they step in the door is get beatific grins across their faces and inhale deeply. Now, I ask you, what kind of fucking sniff-freaks are these people that they gulp in lungfuls of air the second they walk in? It's just an insult to my intelligence to think that this Febreze shit is going to make that much of a quality of life difference to me. It's stuff in a spray-bottle.

So the point of all this isn't to rant about what idiots the Febreze marketing people are -- I think that point stands to itself. The problem with marketing, in my opinion, isn't necessarily the quantity -- hell, I've said it before and I'll say it again: If there was a Commercials Channel on the cable box, I'd watch it, if it was best-in-class Clio-winning stuff. The problem is the quality of the commercials in general. And, like their prime-time counterparts, the sad truth of it is that the quality, for the most part, sucks.

Posted by flargh at 07:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

God, I love 24. And tonight is a new episode of The O.C.. Life is worth living again.

Posted by flargh at 10:00 PM | Permalink

My time management skills profoundly suck, and I can't figure out why -- I'm convinced it's some neurological impairment like ADHD or something.

I used to be a meticulously organized person. I had a filing system and kept receipts of everything and was generally very anal retentive. About the same time I hooked up with Bonnie, this all went to Hell. And this is no indictment against her, either, although she is profoundly disorganized about a great many things. It just seemed that when I began to share my life with someone else, as I did basically for the first time with her, I began to lose the ability to keep track of my own.

My disorganization picked up momentum when we got pregnant and started to have kids. It's been sort of like an avalanche -- there must have been a trigger event that sent a little bit of snow sliding off a precipice, and that snow took all the other snow with it. Now, three kids later, I'm about a mile downslope buried under yards of snow, wondering how to breathe and which direction is up. The question is, how do I get this mess undone?

On some levels, it feels like trying to get the genie back in the bottle or closing the barn doors after the horses have left -- there's no question that the damage is done. But you'd think that there should be a finite point somewhere along the way where I can just draw a line in the sand and say, "Okay, this is it. I'm getting my shit together *right now* and nothing will stop me," but everything I do just seems to be pushing off more chaos.

Part of the problem is that I just get overwhelmed with the scale of it all. So many pieces of paper that make up the detritus of my life -- medical claims forms, receipts, tax returns, bills, invoices, statements. What do I do with it all? How do I get it under control?

I'm told that when facing a huge task, the best thing to do is focus on one, small, manageable part of it and that seems like sensible advice. Alas, even the act of finding that small, manageable part often seems insurmountable by the end of the day. I get flustered even trying to decide what's trash and what's not. Is this Best Buy receipt for my copy of the Indiana Jones DVD set worth keeping? But what if I discover some flaw that requires a disc to be replaced, or need it for some heretofore unknown rebate that might net me savings? Where do I put it? Well, I don't have a folder for these things in my already overburdened file cabinet, so I'll just stick it in this pile here.

And that's how it starts. Weeks from now, that pile will have Sub Club tickets from Subway and a few crumpled Fleet ATM slips and a half-torn note with someone's phone number who I can't remember but don't want to throw away.

Seriously. Isn't there some drug I can take?

Posted by flargh at 08:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Masashiko Shizawa is suing the city of Los Angeles for taking away his dignity after they searched his hotel room in conjunction with an investigation into his stalking Britney Spears.

I'd counter that he did that all by himself, about the same time he started stalking her.

Posted by flargh at 12:56 PM | Permalink

My kids have been driving me up the wall this weekend. Yesterday Emme had a hissy fit at her soccer practice after her team lost, and I had to bodily drag her off the field, much to my embarassment and humiliation.

This morning I sacked Bob's video game playing privileges for another week after he assaulted his sister -- this was the day he was supposed to get them back, following a similar incident in which he scratched her face last week. Now he's stomping around the house with a huge attitude about the whole thing, despite the fact that he has no one but himself to blame.

And now James is whining relentlessly -- tired and hungry, it seems, but unwilling to either nap or eat anything substantial (he'd happily graze on snacks, but I'm not that easy).

It's just one of those days when you question your parenting skills and wish they were someone else's problem for a change. In other words, just like any other day of the week.

Posted by flargh at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The fact of the matter is that if airlines would simply configure their airplanes to offer reasonable accommodations to people, devices like this wouldn't be necessary.

The guy who created the Knee Defender is 6'4", but he's hardly unique. I'm three inches shorter than him, and I suffer the same problem when I fly -- the guy in front of me drops his seat, and goes right into my knees. Most of the time, other passengers aren't even aware that they're causing a problem for those behind them -- they're just desperately trying to find some modicum of comfort when they travel.

American's better about it than most airlines -- they offer six inches of extra legroom throughout coach (I've written about this before) -- but flying in the ass-end of coach on other airlines can be murder.

Posted by flargh at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As told by Sweetpea, perhaps.

Posted by flargh at 03:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This guy is definitely more macho than you.

Posted by flargh at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's god-damned cold outside today and I for one do not like it.

Posted by flargh at 10:37 AM | Permalink

Well, at least I know where not to go if I ever plan to die in a vegetative state.

Posted by flargh at 07:00 PM | Permalink

Free Taco and Pepsi if a target is hit during the World Series. Check it out.

Posted by flargh at 05:55 PM | Permalink

George Lucas' first feature film was an oddball science fiction movie released in 1971 called THX 1138. Featuring Robert Duvall and Donald Pleasance, the movie was this dystopian vision of the future that's very derivative of earlier anti-fascist parables like 1984 and Brave New World, where people live in underground cities and have their emotions controlled through mandatory drug use.

THX 1138 is a crap movie -- weak production values, a disjointed story and basic plot problems never have made it a favorite of mine, although there's an interesting plot device presented in it called the Omnichapel. Apparently it's the state-mandate religion of sorts, where people give their confession to a religious icon called Ohm that hears their confession and comments to them in a hollow way that will be immediately familiar to anyone who's toyed with "Eliza," that software that mimics human behavior by analyzing text you input and reacting according to keywords. In fact, we discover Ohm is nothing more than a tape loop.

It's an interesting image to be reminded of when you visit Grouphug.us, this odd site that Frank found and told me about where people are encouraged to make anonymous confessions to help them feel better about past transgressions against others or sensations of self-loathing or hatred.

Some of the confessions are so out of line that I suspect they're pulling our chains, but others are plausible (and occasionally revolting) enough to seem realistic. In any case, it makes for interesting reading, in a rather voyeuristic way.

Posted by flargh at 03:19 PM | Permalink

So the producer of John Williams' afternoon talk show on WGN radio in Chicago (AM 720) gave me a jingle today and asked me if I wanted to talk about Apple's release of iTunes for Windows last week. I said yes, and we did the spot this afternoon at about 4:20PM (Central Time) or so. So if you're in Chicago and you were wondering who that Mac geek was on your drive home, 'twas me.

I've been doing the game spot on Your Mac Life for about a gazillion years now, so I'm used to the pace, and I really like radio. They said we'll talk again, so maybe I'll do it again some other time!

Posted by flargh at 05:42 PM | Permalink

I'm on the state and national do not call list registries, so when I got a call from some service called "Care Free Homes" this morning, I was surprised. She launches into a brief introduction and then asks me, "Do you have an older home?"

My immediate response was to tell her I'm on the "Do Not Call" lists.

"Well, sir, we're exempt from that list ..."

Yeah, I'm aware that certain organizations are exempt from abiding by the do not call lists: Charities. Some non-profits. People running for office. Basically anyone who doesn't sell goods or services.

But this was just the wrong tack to take with me.

"I don't really give a fuck," was my response. "The point, which you're apparently oblivious to, is that I'm totally hostile to anyone who calls my house soliciting any kind of business whatsoever. Take me off your list. Do. Not. Call. Again."

I hung up the phone.

I don't know how much bloody clearer I have to make it to the outside world to leave me the fuck alone, unless I've invited you in. If I could hook up an electrical buzzer to the telephone to give these assholes a shock in their ear, you better believe I would.

Posted by flargh at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I really hate Web sites that rip off other people's designs. It's one thing to just stick with a standard template in a blogging system, like Tikkabik does. I may be uninspired or just incompetent at fucking with CSS.

But these asshats just wholeheartedly rip off Apple's Web site design. They're hardly the only company to do this -- just the latest in a long line of unimaginative weenuses. It doesn't speak very well for their products. Hell, they couldn't think of their own game -- they just ripped of Stratego.

Maybe there's some subtle irony here, after all, they're "Clich

Posted by flargh at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

America's Horror Themepark may be overstating things a bit, but there's no question that Spookyworld is a hell of a lot of fun if you enjoy haunted houses. The problem is, predictably, the lines.

Spookyworld, for the uninitiated, is a permanent installation -- though it's only open for a month a year. It's an amusement park of sorts that takes up the woods behind Gilette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. featuring a number of different variations on the haunted house theme, and a midway filled with the sort of amusements you'd expect to find at a carnival: Games of chance and skill, lots of unhealthy things to eat, and overpriced tchotchkes to buy.

Ever since I was a kid, I've adored haunted house attractions -- hell, I've even been in one or two. They're great, harmless fun. This one is expensive -- $23.50 to get in, and $20 more if you want to skip the hour-long (in some cases) lines by using "VIP" entrances and get free hot chocolate and refreshments -- but if you break it down by the cost of the attractions, it's not a bad value at all. There are at least six major haunted houses there -- Elvira's Haunted House, House of Fangs, 3D Haunted Disco, the Haunted Mineshaft (or some such shit), Spirits of London and Circus Macabre -- and a few more neat walkthoughs, like one that shows real-world torture implements and another one that has Hollywood monster movie memorabilia.

Given that the cost of haunted houses is usually around $5 anyway, you're at least breaking even spending the $23.50 -- but we got into Spookyworld for free, thanks to my son Bob's luck at a recent raffle at the Boys' & Girls' Club.

We ended up staying until about 11:30PM, and Bob and his friend Jeremy capped the night by going on a couple of amusement rides.

So anyway, Spookyworld -- if you like haunted houses and are near Foxborough, check it out.

Posted by flargh at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

So last Christmas Bonnie got me this Jakks Pacific video game system that's an Atari 2600 built into the stick itself. It came with 10 built in games that brought me back to when video game consoles were a total novelty, and the kid who had one was the envy of every other kid on the block. I showed it to Bob, who was weaned on the Dreamcast. He was unimpressed, to say the least.

Well, Electronic Gaming Monthly did this piece called Child's Play that made me think of that. They posted transcripts of what these 9 kids -- all between 10 and 13 -- thought of playing old school games like Pong, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders and others. It's an absolute riot. There's this one kid named Kirk that I'll adopt if anything ever happens to his family, he's a laugh-riot.

Posted by flargh at 08:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

What a load of sanctimonious horseshit.

Posted by flargh at 10:31 AM | Permalink

This goes out to anyone who's ever told me to eat a dick.

Posted by flargh at 08:29 AM | Permalink

Here we go again:

1. Name five things in your refrigerator.

Milk. Diet Coke. Golden Delicious apples. Steak. The head of my last victim.

2. Name five things in your freezer.

Popsicles. Bags of frozen vegetables. Meat. Ice cubes. Frozen yogurt.

3. Name five things under your kitchen sink.

Dishwashing detergent. Floor cleaner. A dustpan and brush. The kitchen trash barrel. Mold and mildew.

4. Name five things around your computer.

Bills. Software boxes. An office organizer filled with pens and paper clips. A game controller. Dust.

5. Name five things in your medicine cabinet.

Anti-perspirant. Shaving cream. Ointment. My razor. A large spider.

Posted by flargh at 08:11 AM | Permalink

My wife and my sister in law have been talking on and off for months about my sister in law's van. She and her husband were planning to replace the van come spring with a new model -- that's why I have, in the past, alluded to my need to get through one more winter with our own frickin' van. My plan was to limp through the winter and save up enough to buy the van from my sister in law come spring.

She couldn't wait, however, and closed a deal last week on a new Chevy Tahoe. This accelerated our plans, and while I can't say that I had the cash on hand to close the deal, I did manage to beg, borrow and steal enough to get the van on the road yesterday.

It's a 1996 Chevy van, a G10 model converted by Glaval. It's Glaval's Gladiator Sabre model, which, at the time, was a premium conversion -- high top, running boards and ground effects, thick carpeting, four velour-covered captain's chairs, a bench in back that folds out to a decently sized bed. What the kids love the most is the TV and VCR. What I love the most is its mammoth size -- it's like a living room on wheels. I parked it right next to the frickin' van last night. It's longer than the Aerostar by about a foot. It's wider and taller too. All told, it's giant.

Believe it or not, the big van has considerably more mileage than the Aerostar. It's almost all long-distance highway mileage though, and much to my sister in law's credit, she took care of it meticulously with regular tune ups and oil changes. She's also fixed almost all of what's broke, so as a result, it runs great and we have a marvelously preserved van to use.

Where's this leave the frickin' van? We're keeping it. About four years ago I decided because I was working out of the house that we could reduce our load to one car. But since then the kids have gotten older (and we had another one), and our schedules aren't nearly as easy to coordinate around a single vehicle as they used to be. So I'm going to hang on to it for a while, and use it as a second car for when I need to haul stuff to the dump, or take one of the kids some place when Bonnie's otherwise indisposed. So I'm sure much hilarity will ensue for some time to come still.

Posted by flargh at 08:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Something died in the van.

At least that's what I first thought. This odor appeared late last week that was the smell of death and decay. It wasn't rotten garbage -- we'll keep a bag of trash in the car because it seems like the kids are always eating something or blowing their noses, but it's usually not wet trash like what you find in a garbage can -- usually not something that would rot.

I checked under the seats. Nothing obvious -- no discarded, used diapers from James or bundles of half-eaten lunch or snacks from the other two children. No rancid packages of moldy cheese or lunchmeat that would have rolled out from an errant shopping bag on the way back from an excursion to the grocery story.

The smell got worse on Saturday. Every time I swung open the creaky sliding door, I was assaulted with a waft of pungent stench like a small animal had gotten trapped in the floorboards and died there. The strawberry air freshener did little to mask the odor, except to apply a chemical sweetness to it that made the smell almost worse. That's when I decided to get to the bottom of this.

I pulled all the crap out of the back that Bonnie and my mother had amassed over the summer -- beach chairs we never used. Toys and clothes and other detritus. A milk carton crate filled with emergency auto supplies, like motor oil and antifreeze and windshield washer fluid. The huge Emmaljunga carriage we use when James is napping and we're out someplace.

Still nothing.

Of course, there are mounds of toys hidden under the seats -- handheld video games, plastic tchotchkes from Happy Meals. Scribblings from school. Crafts projects. Out.

A rusty but functional tire iron. An umbrella that doesn't open all the way. A box of huggies baby wipes, half full.

Still nothing.

Bob's baseball cap from little league, which has probably been sitting there since spring. I lift it up and immediately I'm assaulted with a foul odor. Inside is growing at least six different kinds of mold -- I've sent them to the CDC for analysis. There are telltale stains inside that look like something got poured in the hat -- maybe the leavings of one of James' milk-filled sippy cups -- and whatever bacteria has been growing in there has taken over and is growing a miniature network of cities and interconnected highways.

Maybe that'll take care of it once and for all. It smelled better Sunday. Still a little funky, but it's an old van.

Posted by flargh at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So my mother managed to land a pretty sweet deal on a slightly used InFocus LP335 digital projector recently, thanks to eBay. She's ostensibly going to use it professionally, though she dropped it off at my house last night so I can screw around with it. It's got computer, s-video and composite video interfaces, and while it's not quite as well equipped as newer models, it projects quite a nice image. It's got less than 40 hours on the lamp, too.

I had it hooked up to the PowerBook in about five minutes yesterday afternoon and was blasting a big picture on the wall. Last night I decided to hook it up to the home entertainment center, and, woof.

As it turns out, the outside wall of my living room is just about the perfect size to project an image on. I have a love seat framed on either side by a 550 CD rack and a large video tape rack. The space in between is, with only about two inches to spare on either side, is completely filled with the image from the projector. I've got it perched on top of the stereo cabinet -- if this was a permanent installation, I'd get a ceiling mount, for sure.

The color is a bit washed out -- tinged a little more blue than I'd like. And the projector's fan is loud, even in standby mode when the lamp is off. But given that I'm just borrowing it temporarily I don't really care that much. There's still this huge novelty in looking at these giant images in the living room. Can't wait to try it out with the GameCube and PlayStation 2!

When you consider the extraordinary cost of a wall-mounted wide-screen plasma TV or even of a decent projection TV, compared to the size, dimensions (it's about the size of a Yellow Pages phone book) and price (used on eBay, $500 and change), I think the cost/benefit ratio of a projector is pretty extraordinary. The downsides are that the lamp burns out every 2000 hours or so and costs a fair amount to replace, the fan's kind of loud and you need a dark room to display the image properly. But if you can live with the drawbacks, wow -- it's pretty damn cool.

Posted by flargh at 07:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I'm having a hard time figuring out if this idea is brilliant or creepy. A little of both. I guess it's probably okay as long as they're not having diapers changed or anything.

A friend of mine suggests that it's high time for a U.S. franchise. I think he might be on to something. Think Hooters and Chuck E. Cheese combined.

Posted by flargh at 11:48 AM | Permalink

An excellent use of Flash technology, I must say.

Posted by flargh at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

If you read the Web site you know the drill by now:

1. Do you watch sports? If so, which ones?

Rarely, though I've been caught up in baseball with the Red Sox doing so well, and I generally like football. But watching sports wasn't really part of my environment growing up (something else I can lay blame for at the feet of my single mother [wink]), so I'm not as rabid or fanatical as other men I've met.

Also, I usually find myself doing other things with my time on weekends -- shopping with Bonnie, or taking her and the kids some place.

2. What/who are your favorite sports teams and/or favorite athletes?

As I'm not really that much of an enthusiast for any sports, I can't really say with any degree of accuracy that I have absolute favorites, but I guess geography is probably the biggest pull for me here: The Pats, Red Sox, Bruins, the Revs, Celtics.

In terms of individual athletes, I enormously respect Lance Armstrong for continuing to kick ass as much as he does.

3. Are there any sports you hate?

Naw. Just ones that I have lesser or greater degrees of ambivalence to.

4. Have you ever been to a sports event?

Sure, plenty of times. I like pro soccer games the best for the energy of the fans, and the fact that it's a real multi-cultural mix.

5. Do/did you play any sports (in school or other)? How long did you play?

I skied really avidly until I was a young adult -- I haven't in a number of years, mainly because it's a hugely expensive thing to do, both for the cost of equipment and outerwear and also for the cost of lift tickets, and because even in this region it really means a weekend trip as opposed to a day trip -- and with three kids in tow and a wife that doesn't do well with heights, well, it's kind of a deal-killer.

In school, however, no, I didn't do any sports at all. I didn't go to college and in high school I ended up at a private school of last resort for my junior and senior years. The school was tiny, and didn't have any sort of athletics program (there were no facilities to do any of that stuff with). We didn't have a prom, either. To be honest, those are both two rites of passage in high school that I'm just as happy to have done without.

Posted by flargh at 11:01 AM | Permalink

So Apple has this new TV ad to push the iPod. I think it's great -- stylish, colorful, interesting. You can check it out yourself on Apple's Web site if you haven't seen it.

But after reading some of the comments people have made to the story linked above ("Targeting Blacks or Gays?" ... "Racist?") I think Apple should have optioned a different Black Eyed Peas single -- "Let's Get Retarded."

Posted by flargh at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Opera and ballet. Two art forms that I just don't get. Never liked 'em, probably never will.

I do have three words of advice for the male dancers who say that Anastasia Volochkova -- at about 100 lbs -- is too heavy for them to dance with: Upper body workout.

Pfft.

Posted by flargh at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So the kids have been running around the house for the last week or so in various stages of passing infections to each other. Sneezing, snorting, coughing. James has been a veritable slobbering mucous-beast, with various translucent, gooey substances running from various orifices.

My kingdom for a hazmat suit.

So it was inevitable that I'd get sick. I'm sitting here with a box of Kleenex on one side of me, dosed to the gills on Dayquil caplets. The Dayquil's taken the edge off my symptoms but I'm still sniffling and sneezing and sore throatey and achey and painey.

It's at times like this I'm reminded of what a complete wuss I am. I have no tolerance for this sort of discomfort. Chronic pain I can usually live with and work around and tolerate, but there's something about getting a cold or flu that makes me want to stick a bullet in my head.

Posted by flargh at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We moved into the house we're living in almost two years ago. Some folks buy a home and make it a project for the first few weeks or months. They'll lay new carpet, repaint rooms, repaint the house, do landscaping, and other things to mark their territory.

And we have made a lot of changes. Trees have been cut down, brush has been cleared, a fence has been installed, a play set has been erected, the house has been repainted, and an office has been put in (well, everything except the floor, but we'll get there).

Emme's room has been repainted (a pink color that suits her) and we redid the color in the downstairs bathroom too -- a light green and "classic" Winnie the Pooh motif for the room we call "the kids' bathroom."

So it's ironic that the rooms we spend the most time in -- the living room, the master bedroom, the family room and the upstairs bathroom -- have had the least amount of work done to them. Bonnie and I have wrestled with what to do with the upstairs bathroom almost since we moved in. All we knew for sure is that what has been in there has had to go -- it's this dreadful blue-on-blue theme that both of us find drab and boring.

We'd toyed with the idea of a Badtz Maru theme (he's the naughty penguin friend of Hello Kitty), but I never made it happen. For a long time, I figured that I wanted to do this moon and stars motif that I've seen in bed and bath stores a few times and really liked. I've never actually bought it, or the paint to go with it.

But today, on the spur of the moment (well, actually after seeing it in an online catalog), we bought a bathroom set that we're very happy with -- Nightmare Before Christmas.

See, it's the Tim Burton movie's tenth anniversary this year (and, coincidentally, ours as well), and there's been a resurgence in Nightmare merchandise -- along with a lot of new stuff we've never seen before. This set -- featured on Hot Topic's Web site and in their stores -- is one of those.

Now we have the smiling visage of Jack Skellington on a five-piece bathroom set -- a drinking cup, soap dish, lotion dispenser, toothbrush holder and trash barrel. We also have a bathmat that looks like Jack's head, and a matching shower curtain, and matching shower curtain hooks.

The only thing we didn't get was the towel set, because I felt they were rather thin and cheaply made and didn't expect they'd last very long. Just because Bonnie and I are really big Nightmare fans doesn't mean we're willing to get ripped off on cheap merchandise.

It's fabulous. I love it. Best part is that I didn't pay full price -- 15 percent off, thanks to a little frequent shopper's card that I was due to redeem. And, Bonnie and I agreed to call the set our anniversary gift to each other this year, which I think is a good compromise.

I have a suspicion that this is going to be a bigger project than we anticipated. The sink and the cabinets don't go with this bathroom set at all. Nope, not one bit. Well, paint first. Then we'll see what happens.

Posted by flargh at 07:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

There's a scene in last week's episode of Friends when Frank Buffay Jr. (Giovanni Ribisi) and Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) are talking about Frank's three kids, triplets. He suddenly leans across the couch with some urgency and says desperately, "I haven't slept in four years."

Then he tries to negotiate the adoption of one of his kids, at least for a couple of minutes until he comes to his senses and realizes he couldn't possibly live without them. It's a television moment I can totally relate to, especially on Saturday mornings when one of my kids is staying over at Grandma's. The volume level throughout the house is substantially lower than normal.

Now, if I could just catch up on the sleep, it'd be great. But alas, with one kid suffering massive allergy attacks and other insisting on sleeping in mummy and daddy's bed, that didn't happen.

Posted by flargh at 09:32 AM | Permalink

After a one-week hiatus, the Friday Five is back.

1. What vehicle do you drive?

1989 Ford Aerostar. First minivan, certainly not the last.

2. How long have you had it?

Two years in January, IIRC. Hopefully it'll make it through one more winter.

3. What is the coolest feature on your vehicle?

Its capacious carrying capacity. It can hold seven people in comfort and still have room for a buttload of cargo. (It's the extra-long version.)

4. What is the most annoying thing about your vehicle?

There are three things that get up my ass about the Aerostar: A) Its lack of reliability. It's elderly and infirmed. I plan to get rid of it come Spring, good lord willin' and the creek don't rise. B) The A/C doesn't work and it's too damn expensive to fix or retrofit with the non-Freon refrigerant the new cars use. C) The display on the radio is burnt out so you have to guess what station you're listening to (and, for that matter, what time it is unless you're wearing a watch).

5. If money were no object, what vehicle would you be driving right now?

I'd be torn between a brand new full-sized conversion van or an SUV. After driving the Aerostar around for almost two years, I've grown from thinking a full-sized vehicle was a luxury to finding it very, very useful -- like the time I pulled out all the bench seats and used it to haul dozens of bags of leaves.

I'd probably look at the top-end minivans like the Toyota Sienna and the Ford Windstar, but I suspect I'd find them a bit cramped. After renting an Expedition one holidaya weekend I know I'd be just as comfortable in that as in the Aerostar, which is why I'm saying that I might like an SUV instead.

And preach not to me of fuel conservation and America's need for oil, ya fuckin' hippie. *You* try hauling around a wife and three kids and groceries for a week in a Ford Focus and you tell me how comfortable *you* are.

Posted by flargh at 01:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I've long had a love affair with the music I hear in TV ads. I bought Nicola Conte's Bossa Per Due mainly on the strength of hearing Jet Sounds while watching the cute bald black guy do the bunny hop on the Joe Boxer ads, and I've bought Wreckage by Overseer after having Horndog drilled into my head by the same Mitsubishi ad a million times. Another one I love right now is "September" by Earth Wind & Fire, though I confess I've long had EWF's greatest hits (1 and 2) on CD. (The fact that the whole ad campaign is focused on supermodels' butts is just icing on the cake.)

But every so often a choice of music in TV ads just weirds me out, because it's a song I love and would never expect to hear used for advertising. Last time it happened was with Nissan's ads that sported "How Soon Is Now?" by The Smiths. But it just happened again a little while ago -- "Pictures of You" by The Cure is being used for an HP ad.

The Smiths and The Cure, used to shill products on prime time TV. Man, am I getting old. If Fugazi ever gets used to sell Doritos or something, that's it: I'm cashing in my chips and never watching TV again.

Posted by flargh at 08:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So I talked with one of the cofounders of StarROMs today (see MacCentral for details), and I'm even more excited now. These guys are a-ok. If you're an emulation junkie, check them out. They get points for being Mac users too.

Posted by flargh at 03:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Well, emulation has always been legal, but getting ROMs for your emulator hasn't.

I am a huge fan of emulation -- namely, the emulation of "classic" arcade games (and to that end, Brad Oliver's continued efforts to make MacMAME work earn high points in my book).

Anyway, one problem I've always had in recommending (or, as I did earlier this year, reviewing) MAME is that the ROMs that actually turn the emulator into something fun to play with aren't usually able to be acquired legally.

Anyway, StarROMs Inc. is a solution to that. This company is legally reselling and distributing ROMs from original arcade games, starting with Atari's library.

StarROMs' e-store system is a little convoluted, because the company is determined to push the idea of buying "credits," just like tokens at the arcade, in $0.25 increments. $10 gets you 40 credits, which you can use to purchase the actual game ROMs. Games start at 8 credits, or $2. Admittedly, they're craptastic Atari Baseball, Football and Soccer, but still...

Now, I admit that the economics of it doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense when you can buy "anthologies" for $30 or so, but I still think it's a neat way to legalize an underground phenomenon that's been around for years. Good on StarROMs. I hope they succeed. I hope more companies license ROMs to them too!

Posted by flargh at 08:10 PM | Permalink

As it turns out, Rush Limbaugh truly is a big fat idiot.

Posted by flargh at 06:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)