A rose by any other name Favorite things becomes my much-abused Various and sundry this week. Why didn’t I think of that before?

Cheap stuff Man, this is awesome: Costco has the 5-disc, 12-hour HBO special on the 1960s space program, From The Earth To The Moon, for a “whopping” $21.99. That’s $5.40 a disc. You cannot beat that - it’s not even that cheap used on Amazon. Too bad I didn’t learn about this until after we’d already made our big trip there - and so had to make a special one-item-only trip and endure The Lines just for this. It was worth it. (And, yeah, I’m aware that Discovery Science is airing the episodes. I don’t want the episodes. I want the whole series and the extras, dammit.)

Wax on, wax off I spent most of Memorial Day waxing my truck, after having spent part of the Sunday afternoon prior to that claying the truck with my newly purchased Clay Magic kit. You may remember some mention of claying in a previous post in which I purchased Turtle Wax’s new Liquid Clay Bar. Well, I gave that a try on Alissa’s car, got as far as the hood with that, and changed the name from “Clay Bar” to something that begins with “s” and sound suspiciously like “hit.” I dug out my old Clay Magic bar and went to work and in about the same time that it took me to do the damned hood had the whole car clayed and, as it should, it felt like glass once waxed. I have come to realize that trucks are always more difficult to deal with when cleaning, requiring about double the amount of time and energy, so it came as no surprise that my Ridgeline took far longer. The results, however, were much the same - the finish is amazingly smooth. Seriously, if you love your car, do it and yourself a favor and give it a claying once a year. You will reap rewards come time to sell it - people freak out at how well paint gets taken care of when you do this. It removes all the damage that the sun and the chemicals from the road can do to your paint. It obviously can’t fix paint damage, but it seems to ward off fading completely - four years on and the paint on Alissa’s Accord looks just like it did the day we picked it up.

Ain’t that a kick in the head When I wasn’t waxing my truck, we took Amanda to Arrowhead mall today to check out their play area. We’re coming up on the last weekend of her Little Gym classes (whew) and she’s going to need something indoors to burn off some energy on weekends, and our house just isn’t going to suffice. We were hoping this might do in a pinch and it seems it might, but I wasn’t too thrilled with the “clientèle,” I guess you would call it. Sure, security swooped in to kick out the kids who were obviously far too old to be in there, but he didn’t stop the idiot kid from jumping off the faux-firetruck, hitting Amanda in the head as he did so. Luckily he only grazed her, but it could have been much worse: my daughter’s first enemy may have had to feel my wrath.

Speaking of pricks . . . I finally begin my long treatment for allergies with twice-weekly shots for the next few months, which then goes down to a slightly less intensive schedule and gradually lessens over time for the next few years. It sounds tedious and it probably is, but with as awful as my allergies generally treat me (migraines, infections, etc.) it’s likely going to be worth it. Since I’ve been on some serious allergy medicine, things have been pretty good. Not perfect, but good. But I don’t want to be on medication forever, so the shots are the best way to get around that. I hate needles, but I think this is actually going to be worth that - and that’s saying a lot.

And speaking of medication I’ve got a meeting with Dr. Brain next week to hopefully start weening myself off of my migraine medicine. I’ve come to the conclusion that most of my migraines were from a few strategic foods that, unfortunately, I really, really love, but that I’ve basically given up and since then I really haven’t had any significant problems. I hate saying it, but chocolate and cheddar cheese are things of my past and, in the case of chocolate, that’s really hard to deal with. I’m sure there’s a threshold that will allow me to eat some, but I don’t really like tempting fate right now. I have learned one thing and that is that things labeled “chocolate flavor” are not really chocolate and so are basically safe, for whatever reason. There must be some vital ingredient missing. I don’t know what, but I sure wish I did. Anyway, it will be nice to get off of this drug - it makes me forgetful, most of all, such as spelling words I’ve always known how to spell, or forgetting words just as I’m about to say them, but most embarassingly is that it often prevents me from remembering people’s names, even people I see every day. Very, very frustrating - I have that “tip of the tongue” feeling much of the time, know what I want to say, but just can’t say it. I’d also like soda to go back to tasting normal again. I’ve learned to deal with it but the day when the drug is out of my system and soda tastes delicious again will be wonderful.

Lost for words Remember what I said a couple weeks ago about missing out on Lost? Man, anyone that was a fan and dropped out seriously missed out on one of THE BEST season finales of ALL TIME. Rent/buy this season when it comes out and catch up.

Bad influence One of Amanda’s favorite books has a picture of an ice skater that I found particularly dorky. For a while when Amanda would point at it I would say, “Geek.” Now Amanda points at it and calls the ice skater “Geek.” Oops.

Fakation I’m utilizing the power of a holiday to maximize my time-off savings, so I’ve taken the next four days off for a fake-vacation or, as you’ve guessed it, a “fakation.” It’s an Al Bundy vacation - I’m not going anywhere, I’m not doing anything special, just staying home and hanging out with my little girl (when I’m not destroying faucets or repainting parts of the house, that is,) but, unlike Al, I’ll probably be doing some home-fixin’ things that aren’t particularly vacationary in nature, but, hey, at least it’s not work.

I beckon Death with open arms to our home. Come hither, Death, just don’t knock upon our door - I only want you to hang around outside and kill.

You see, I sprayed some kick-ass bug spray around the house today. I’ve sprayed it before and it is, hands down, the best bug spray you can get, from my experience, outside of professional applications for which you would pay way more. We’ve always had big problems with crickets and I hate crickets. Since I started using this stuff last year, no crickets. And really not much of anything else. And I’m alright with that. I don’t view my house as “the environment” - I don’t want bugs and such to live here, so as long as this stuff is safe for humans and cats, it’s good with me. So today I put down another bi-monthly application and made sure to completely cover our back porch, which is where Amanda’s little slide is (being sure to move the slide before I sprayed, of course) so that nothing can come up on the porch and make a safe home of her slide. Along with, of course, a heavy application around the entire house foundation and about two feet up the side of the house and out onto the land around it. It took a while, but it sure is worth it when, tomorrow morning, I go outside to see the battlefield lined with the bodies of those who made the mistake of attempting to cross the invisible shield of death. Tonight, Death waits not with his scythe for bugs but in a field of crystallized granules of delatramethrin. No, it’s not very poetic, but it sure is satisfying just the same.

It’s that time again - time to look back at the past week and get all misty-eyed about the great things that have passed. A lot of TV talk this week . . . it’s season-finale time, you have to expect that.

Word to your mother/Yo momma Mother’s day has come and gone, and I didn’t get a chance to say anything on the site, but I’m seriously amazed at how Alissa has managed to just become a mother literally overnight. I realize this is her second year at it, but it can’t be said enough: I am eternally thankful for the amazing job she does tending Amanda. Fathers, as important as they are, have a significantly different role - we grow into it, despite being there from the beginning. Mothers take it all on immediately, and I really don’t know how they do it.

Wilco It wouldn’t be a “favorites” list without some mention of music, and currently the new Wilco album, Sky Blue Sky, is completely dominating my mind. It’s beautiful - sublime, gorgeous, and relaxing while being intelligent and just confrontational enough that it could never be deemed “easy”. It’s a stunning piece of work - maybe their best. Watch Lookout For Hope as there will be a review coming sometime soon. (I feel a little bad - I still haven’t written about Rush’s latest and here I am ready to whip one out for Wilco after just a few days.)

Genesis remasters/remixes Oh, come on, you can’t possibly expect me to not mention more music. I told myself I’d hold off and I tried, but Tuesday I picked up the just-released remix/remaster of Abacab with $10 in Best Buy Reward Zone coupons and fell in love. (Seriously - I just jumped between this and Sky Blue Sky all week, basically.) There are a lot of complaints from audiophile geeks about a travesty having been committed upon the back catalog, having had the master tracks remixed to today’s audio standards, but I’ll tell you - I’m hearing things that I’ve never, ever heard before. Sure, they’re a little sharp and bright in the treble end of things, but I can put up with that. And today I gave in and bought the rest - utilizing the amazing power of Discounts: Borders’ “buy 3 get the 4th free” sale (bought 3 discs and a birthday present for my brother in law) and Google Checkout’s $10 off your first purchase deal at, surprisingly enough, VH1’s online store for $14.79 plus $4 in Fedex shipping - for a total of $8.78. The total of all 5 albums is something like $55 - about $33 cheaper than the box itself, which I’ve decided is a waste as the b-sides are a non-issue since I have most of them on the Archives 2 box, and they’re just not all that great, for the most part.

Survivor Say what you want about Dreamz’s back-stabbing reneging on the deal he made with Yau-man, it sure made for great TV. Come on - think about it. Yeah, it made everyone angry as hell, but had it gone the other way around, the finale would have been boring as hell. I still think that stupid bastard should give Yau back the truck he cheated him out of, even if he doesn’t actually want it (Yau-man is a conservationally-minded citizen, of course) so at least he can sell it to make something out of his Survivor deal. As for Dreamz, well, I’m not a spiritual person, but I think that boy’s got some serious karma headed his way. He might be getting a lot of attention now, but that’ll be short-lived. Once the media moves on - and it may already have done so - then what? Think of what kind of attention he would have gotten had he given up his immunity. He would have been a hero and could have had publishers begging him to write his life’s story, he could have been a motivational speaker, etc. - something that could have made the difference he claimed all along he wanted to make. Now he’ll always be the guy from Survivor that screwed over a beloved contestant, all for naught.

Gilmore Girls This week marked the final episode of one of my favorite series. (I might be one of the few straight males to say that.) While it had taken a serious down turn in the past couple of seasons, the latter half of this season was rapidly approaching the quality fans knew and loved. Regardless of that, it was time to say goodbye - the story was winding down to a logical conclusion and, despite talk of a possible shortened 8th season to wrap up some loose ends, the important stories were drawn to a satisfying conclusion this past Tuesday. So satisfying, in fact, that it makes it hard to believe they actually had any plans to carry on from here next season - there is simply no logical way to pick up from such an emotional “season” finale as this and move on, and then end it again. Any other finale would have paled in comparison. And, if any Emmy personnel may be watching, why not give a nod to Lauren Graham, who has gone so sadly ignored for so long. If she doesn’t deserve an Emmy for the scene of her saying goodbye to daughter Rory while ironing her clothes to ward off tears and bad thoughts, no one does. It was one of the most powerful scenes I’ve seen on TV in a long time.

American Idol I missed my Idol wrap-up this week, so I’ll just post my reaction here: I’m both surprised and not surprised at Melinda’s elimination. For such a talented singer, it’s a surprise, but with the powerhouse fanbases that Jordin and Blake have churned up behind them, it’s hard to be too surprised. Melinda simply attracted an older group of fans who aren’t going to sit on their phones, obsessively hitting “redial” for her like Jordin and Blake. That said, I think Melinda will be fine - she’ll probably never be a huge success, unless she can somehow manage to pull off a rock career (her “Nutbush City Limit” this week convinced me she actually could) because she’s just too old-fashioned and will appeal to a crowd that appreciates that, which is to say, a limited one. I’ve been predicting Jordin for the win and I still do, but who knows - she could royally screw up on Tuesday, and from what I read, a lot of this is dependent on what awful piece of “songcraft” they are given for their first single to perform that night. We’ll see.

Vacation No, I didn’t take one, I just made a decision on when to take some time off: the week of Memorial day. I’ll be taking the four days following that day and just resting, getting stuff done around the house, and playing with Amanda. It should be nice, but most of all, it’s just plain needed. I am burned out, badly, and need a break from the everyday grind. I wish we could go somewhere but that’s just not in the cards right now, unfortunately.

Cell phones Didn’t I talk about this last week? Deja vu . . . In the span of one week, we made a decision - we got rid of our old phones and found new “pay as you go” phones from Alltel, and so far, so good. For people who use their cell phones a minute or two a day, committing to a plan is just stupid - but very good for the cellular company. This puts the ball back in our court, even if, per minute, it’s slightly more expensive. We’re still way better off financially because we will never use up the minutes quickly enough that it makes sense to be on a traditional plan. Plus, the new phones are tiny, and now I can carry the damn thing with me so I actually have it to use if I need it. That is, after all, the whole point of a cell phone.

Man, I sure do miss the days of class trips. Lining up outside the school, clambering up the steps of the bus, finding just the right seat - preferably one that didn’t have too many gouges in the vinyl covering, sneaking a window open before one of the teachers noticed, and then heading off to something that was supposed to be vaguely educational, but was really just an excuse to get away from actually learning for the day, and, of course, let’s not forget a terrifying fake gun attack at some point in the trip.

Something tells me Assistant Principal Don Bartsch bears an uncanny resemblance to The Office’s Michael Scott . . .

This sounds more like something Dwight would plan, however.

I’m starting a brand new thing here on the site, partially just to make sure I keep active here (so I don’t focus all my time over at Lookout For Hope) but more because there are just things that don’t fit anywhere that occur during the week that might not warrant a full post by themselves but would qualify as something I really enjoyed and want to mention anyway. Or maybe they’re just some things that happened. Maybe not “favorites” - just something. Whatever. Don’t be harsh.

And thus was born “favorite things”! So, without further ado, this week’s favorite things:

Lost: holy crap, what a great, weird episode. Those that abandoned Lost are really missing out. Sure, they dragged their heels for a while and that 6 episode thing last fall where we watched Jack, Kate, and Sawyer sit in cages wound up being pretty pointless, but starting earlier in the spring, Lost has been back at season one quality, aside from a couple of stray episodes. This week, however, might have been the ultimate Lost episode. If you gave up because you weren’t getting answers, you gave up too soon - we’ve been consistently getting answers this latter portion of the season (along with new, equally intriguing questions.) And they’ve been doozies!

Robert Plant’s Pictures At Eleven and The Principle Of Moments remasters - I’ve never given Plant’s solo career the time I should have, not after years in my youth listening to what really weren’t very strong albums (Now & Zen, Manic Nirvana). I’ve always thought he had some great singles but not particularly great albums, so I never bothered to give them a shot - until this week, when I sampled his first two post-Zeppelin albums, Pictures At Eleven and The Principle Of Moments, which recently were remastered (they were previously available remastered only in the 10-disc Nine Lives box.) And, man, have I been missing out. While after these two albums he quickly fell victim to 80s production values, these two albums are absolutely awesome. While I’m annoyed that I missed out on them for so long, I’m kind of glad that I get to discover them now.

The Office I’m of the belief that most “super-sized” sweeps episodes are not stronger than regular-length episodes, and last night’s was no different (last week’s was far stronger) but this is still by far the funniest show on TV. Key moments go to HR rep Toby, who Michael refused to allow to go on the beach trip, for his unmasked disappointment expressed when offering Pam his suntan lotion when she commented that she needed it because she was wearing a two-piece (and I think many of us guys agree, Toby, but we never got a payoff in the episode.) Creed also got one of the best moments - just two brief bits where he was seen in the water catching a fish with his own hands, then was later seen upset at missing out on the hotdog-eating contest, holding the bones of said fish in his hand.) I think my favorite - and he’s always a favorite - was Stanley, who, in an attempt to win Michael’s favor and therefore the management position, tried to be positive and happy for once. If you couldn’t guess, my favorite moments of The Office involve the smaller characters.

Neil Peart: Ghost Rider Not so much a “favorite thing” as an update. For a couple of months I’ve been reading Rush drummer Peart’s memoirs of his days following the loss of his daughter (car accident) and wife (cancer) within 10 months of each other, and I just don’t seem to be making much headway. I can be a slow reader. I don’t like to read fast. I don’t find much satisfaction in that, but this is really slow. I think what it is is that it’s unpleasant. Rush is my favorite band, but reading about the pain he’s suffering is very difficult, even if it informs the songs he would later write. I just don’t know that I’m going to make it through. It’s hard to read page after page of mentions of pain, not to mention that there is a lack of forward story motion. I realize it’s his real story, but, I don’t know, it might have been edited down a bit more to make it move forward a little less slowly. Maybe I’m just not a good audience for this type of writing - I’ve never been a big fan of pretty much any autobiographical writing pretty much for all of these reasons.

Cell phones It’s time for a new phone. My phone had a crack in the plastic over the display for something like a year. Sometime last week, I think it was, I dropped it on the floor of my truck while I was driving and moved it with my foot. Little did I guess the sheer power harnessed within my very foot, for I crushed the clear plastic without realizing it. I picked it up to find a bunch of shards of plastic in there, but the phone still works. It’s just ugly and uncomfortable. It’s also almost three years old now, amazingly, and I’ve pretty much hated it the entire time I’ve owned it. It’s a big phone. I don’t need anything special, but I definitely want a flip-phone, as this one was not and I think it was my first non-flipper and now I see why most phones are. One thing to know about me and phones is that I don’t really use them. I don’t call people. I’m not a phone person. Email is my thing. I’ll call if I have to, but I’m just not a big talker. I use my phone maybe one minute a day. But I get why phones are important and it’s been a very handy/important thing to have, especially when you have children, so we’re going to switch to those “pay as you go” phones with the refill cards. That concept just makes sense. Buy the phone, buy a card for like $25, and make sure to use it up in 90 days or get a new refill in that time. I can live with that. But $60 a month for something I barely use? Not making a whole lot of sense. But this time I get a phone with a camera. It seemed totally pointless in the past, but now I have had dozens of times when I’ve thought “damn, if only I had a camera” - not something I NEED to have a great picture of, but something stupid I would have loved to have gotten a picture of. I will rectify.

Leaving work two hours early because the boss said so I can only think of one thing better than that, and that is not working that day at all.

Oh, and this:

I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve watched that this week.

(If you’re totally confused, and you probably are because, well, you’re a normal human being, it’s from Cartoon Network’s Tim And Eric Awesome Show Great Job!. I’m certain that about 95% of the public will hate this show, but for those 5% of us who enjoy bizarre humor like this, this is a gold mine.)

Amanda, at just over 20 months old, is quickly grabbing onto words and using them, or at least her own versions of them, at a fairly quick rate lately. Of course, the big issue is whether we can understand the sounds coming out of her mouth or not. It’s one thing when she she says “dawyak” because we know that gets used interchangeably (for unknown reasons) with “dok” (which is “dog” because, apparently, “g” is hard to pronounce,) and in some cases things are known by their sounds, such as “cuck-cuck” for duck, or a combination of the two, as in the case of “ditties” (kitties) and “birlaks” (birds) who are usually accompanied by, respectively, “meow!” and “tweet Tweet TWEET!” But it’s another when she blurts out seemingly incomprehensible syllables of something that seems to mean something important to her - and then repeats it over and over, growing more upset and frustrated each time.

Take, for example, recent trips to pretty much anywhere that requires a shopping cart. We get Amanda out of the car, put her in the cart in the store and she immediately starts squawking “Flacker. Flacker!” And we’re confused. “What?” we both ask, and she responds with a very frustrated, near-cry “Flacker!” Further inquiries get us no further, only more, louder announcements of the mysterious “Flacker.” And as Amanda blurts out “Flacker,” I start listening further away, imagining what other people are hearing. Just think about it, dear Reader - imagine that word repeated, machine-gun like and loudly: flacker flacker flacker flacker flacker flacker! We both realized what it sounded like, too, and quickly set about solving the mystery.

We ran through a list of potential things she might want, each one wrong, each one greeted with an upset “Flacker!” until we reached the magic word: “Pacifier?” “Yessss!” slid happily out of her smiling mouth. It’s only then that we realized the flacker was out in the car.

I’ve worked at my company for nearly 6 years, using the same basic phone for that same time, but I still don’t know how to transfer a call. I’ve tried it before when I’ve gotten a wrong number caller, and the process seems to be pretty simple: hit “transfer” and dial the proper extension, the one they really wanted to reach. But it never works, instead resulting in the other party being dropped. So when I receive a call and they ask to be transferred, I usually tell them, “I’ve tried this transfer thing before but it usually doesn’t work out,” and then do it, and then drop them when I mess it up. I always wish I’d said a pre-emptive “sorry” before I set about my duty, but I never remember to. I would make a terrible secretary.

Today was my latest transfer-attempt and it went no differently. Only this time the caller was kind of rude, not really asking to be transferred more than pretty much demanding it. I told her who I was when I answered, she said she had the wrong number, then said, “Okay, well transfer me to extension _____.” I warned her, transferred, and she got dropped. And then, five minutes later, the phone rang again with her number. I didn’t bother to pick up, instead proclaiming out loud, “Lady, I’m not answering. You know this isn’t the right number!” This would be another reason why I would make a terrible secretary.

I got an unexpected day off from work today. It seems little Miss Amanda came down with a pretty nasty cold over the past couple of days. She had a really bad cough on Monday night and we decided to take her in to the doctor this morning, but she suddenly stopped coughing after I made the appointment - you know how that goes. So I thought she was doing better . . . until she actually got up and proceeded to expel snot at high velocity. That was when I decided to just take the day off and let her rest at home with me where she would be most comfortable.

We had a good day, in spite of all the mucus, which blasted out of her nose on a pretty regular schedule. I think today might have been the most number of wipes I have ever gone through since she arrived, this being, by far, the worst single day of a cold she has yet had. It got me thinking: I can’t recall any instances in my life when I have sneezed and blown copious amounts of liquids out my nose, uncontrollably, so there must be a point at which you actually gain control of that. After today, I really wonder when that is.

One fun thing today was that Amanda was extremely polite - everything I gave her was received with a “Dank you, dada.” Mind you, she didn’t thank me for all the wiping up I did, but I’m sure she appreciated it because she seemed to enjoy having the contents of her nose on her arms and hands about as much as I did.

While she was sleeping in the afternoon, I spent a bit of time on my computer sorting through dozens and dozens, literally, of live concerts that I’ve downloaded over the past couple of years. It seems my hard drives are starting to fill up and it’s mostly live stuff - all of it FLAC encoded (this would be a compression scheme that keeps audio files from losing their fidelity unlike mp3 files do, but the downside is very large files) and I’m not entirely sure how many of them made it to CD (most have made it into Itunes, at least.) It may seem dumb that I worry about this since I do have them in Itunes, but if I lose my Itunes library, I lose those files, too, so I need to have all those concerts saved somewhere else. Believe me, this is a big job that I should never have been so lazy with, and now I’m slowly sorting out what is already burned as audio or archived or what is just plain not important.

And the other part of the day I finally got to watch one of the DVDs of Bill Bruford’s Earthworks Anthology, and I can report that it’s fantastic. Expensive, yes, but for fans of the band, especially those not in cities that would ever be graced by their presence, the live material here is a must-see - especially the electronic, chordal-drumming Bruford does in Volume 2. Really fascinating to watch a drummer play melodies. Amanda awoke midway through that and ate her lunch, swaying in rhythm to a couple of tunes - she’s hep.

Who knows what the next couple of days brings - hopefully her cold will subside so her encounter with Elmo on Saturday isn’t marred by being sick. I’m just hoping neither Alissa nor I comes down with this, either.