Psychotomy

kiir went to some dar thing with my mom today (agreed, largely AfAIK, b/c i wasn’t going to be home so she figured she could keep my mom company, get brownie points with the inlaw, that kinda thing … two hours later, they declread today would be a holiday, but she’d committed :o)

as she was leaving, she admonishes me to clean, then comments “who am i kidding, you’re just going to play video games”. I’ve been cleaning for the last HOW MANY MONTHS? and now i’m getting grief b/c the last two days i didn’t? ;) (i know she was joking)

so i cleaned some more. filled two more bags of trash. shred bin is getting full-ish again, too. took down another few boxes of stuff to the basement, although we’re in the “not fitting so perfectly” stuff now, so boxes fill up fast. still have a bunch of stuff, but not sure how well it organizes. cleaned up my desk a bunch, finished assembling the entertainment center, partially so i didn’t have to worry about any (more) screws and bits vanishing when it’s moved all over next week

i hate cleaning. I realllly hate having to clean ALL OF THIS CRAP UP! b/c, yaknow? there’s a LOT OF CRAP! *sigh* i should go back to cleaning now. or maybe play video games …

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k is, shockingly, completely psycho.

and today’s revelation is brought to you by the makers of advil and letters STFU! one of the games on the xbox’s arcade disc kiir picked up is backgammon. i’ve often wondered how to play backgammon, so i decded to give it a shot.

omg, k went baLLISTIC over that. jumping, barking, barking, jumping, running around, barking, more barking, cripes he was displeased. that was sometime earlier this week, he was energetic. last night i decide i want to play something, and the DoA4 demo is kinda boring and i can’t find the game anywhere, tired of poker at the moment, and launch up backgammon. b/c the sound is OFF and the puppy is sound asleep.

I made it through the first game, figured out HTF i was supposed to be playing and what to do. started the second game, was 75% or so done, and the puppy rouses up to shift. and he sees me playing backgammon on the TV. and goes batshit bonkers. i mean OFF THE WALL NUTSO here. barking, jumping, barking, bitching, everything! apparently it wasn’t the sound, so much (although it would have woken him earlier obviously, this time) but the game.

my dog hates backgammon. go figure.

Posted in: games, k-line by attriel /
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From a NYT article (What’s Wrong with Cinderella?)

Easier, that is, unless you want to buy your daughter something that isn’t pink. Girls’ obsession with that color may seem like something they’re born with, like the ability to breathe or talk on the phone for hours on end. But according to Jo Paoletti, an associate professor of American studies at the University of Maryland, it ain’t so. When colors were first introduced to the nursery in the early part of the 20th century, pink was considered the more masculine hue, a pastel version of red. Blue, with its intimations of the Virgin Mary, constancy and faithfulness, was thought to be dainty. Why or when that switched is not clear, but as late as the 1930s a significant percentage of adults in one national survey held to that split. Perhaps that’s why so many early Disney heroines — Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Wendy, Alice-in-Wonderland — are swathed in varying shades of azure. (Purple, incidentally, may be the next color to swap teams: once the realm of kings and N.F.L. players, it is fast becoming the bolder girl’s version of pink.)

see, that’s what i’m talking about.  pink is a girls color because they say so.  but it isn’t.  ok, i didn’t know it used to be a boy’s color, but jeez there’s a lotta pink.  and blue?  bah.  whateva!  hell, i’m colorblind, i got all kindsa free excuses when i buy things “inappropriately colored” but seriously.  is wearing a blue dress gonna make the girl into a bride of satan?  pink onesies are gonna turn my hulking brute of a linebacker into a gay homosexual?  pfft.  (OK, so i’m more likely to do the whole “not under my roof!” thing if he wants to play american football than if he wants to date guys, that’s not my point here)

and later in the article it talks about princess peach (there was some bootcamp princess peach game) … and it made me wonder …

WTF is she “princess peach”?  her dress is pink!  there’s nothing PEACH !  at all!!!  I just don’t get that.  i mean, come on, would it be THAT hard to make it a peach dress?  (or is this the part where everyone tells me she DOES wear a peach dress?)

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monday is new years day, we have the day off.  i’m an hourly employee, i have to make up that time, so 4x10hr days.

president ford died this week.  93, not bad considering apparently there were two assassination attempts during his brief presidency (2yrs or something i think).  because of this, president bush has declared a day of mourning (appropriate), a federal holiday.  on tuesday.

which means i have 3 days to do 40hrs.  i am SO not doing 13hr days :o  my boss’ boss (boss isn’t in this week, and bb sent the message around) suggests that the building will be open, so i could come in.  more likely i’ll work from home so i can at least get my 10 hours.  i’ve just never been clear on whether i COULD work my hourly on fed holidays.  b/c, yaknow, it’s a holiday and the office is basically shut down.  what am i working on?

of course, then there’s the question of what am i working on most of the time AT my desk, since i’m still in a very dry period here :/  oh well.  whatevah

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on the salvation army thing, kiir decided not to bother with the furniture that was questionable upstairs.  so i took it apart and hauled it to the dump thursday.  we decided on what we needed for the bathroom, so saturday morning i tore it up and got the old vanity & sink out.  took it up to the dump.  guy at the entrance (it’s free to residents, so they check IDs) asked if i had jus the sink in the back, i told him there was more in the trunk.  he starts going on about building waste and mumbling something that sounded like iwas supposed to use the commercial dump entrance and pay by the pound or some crap.  i ignored him and dumped the stuff like i have been.  let’s recap:  last saturday, two sinks and related crappage.  wednesday: cabinet. thursday: furniture and a couple more cheap shitty cabinets.  saturday: sink and a handful of rotting plyboard.  and we only had issues  ONCE?

after that, switched up cars (i ruin mine with trips to the dump not hers; need hers for picking stuff up at home depot, though, b/c it needs to be in one piece, yadig?) and got the new vanity and sink (“these are all the 18″ depth sinks.  all we have is white” “uh, ok” ), get it home, work at hurting myself some more by hauling the 36×18 vanity into the house.  cardboard is ripping off all over the place, so it’s hard to pick it up :o  get it in, take it out of the box and … the drawer front is broken in half.  take the DRAWER back, b/c it’s a big fucking heavy cabinet!  go home, get the rest of the big fucking heavy cabinet, return it, buy the new one, take IT home, and it’s OK.

picked up a plane (actually a dremel and planing attachment) and started trying to trim down the door frame.  trim some more.  take off the gaurd b/c it’s getting in the way of what i need to plane.  plane some more.  bit snaps off (goes flying but luckily did NOT take my eye with it or anything).  use the crowbar to get the cabinet in since it ALMOST fits.  get the sink top and .. . yeah, right.  need more clearance.  ended up ripping off the moulding … the moulding i’d just spent 1.5hrs and a 20$ bit planing down.  got a new bit and a hand-held scraper (new bit for later; scraper to try to trim the little bit i still needed).  another few hours and ~2-3″ of sawdust/shavings and i can get past the doorframe finally.  then i had to cut a big hole in the fucking drywall.

JESUS!  got it in, though.  there’s a hole in the wall and the doorframe needs all kindsa fixin’.  but the sink’s in.  hooked up to the water.  but not the drain.  EVERY OTHER SINK has been 2-4″ gap between the drain out and the wall pipe.  this one?  no, this one’s b eing different.  it’s 1″ too LONG (and 1″ over, but that could have been handled).  I need to figure out what part to put there, now, or what needs changing up, or SOMETHING.  *sigh*

spent on and off the last couple days trying to work on the living room.  but it gets tiring and annoying.  and i have to do something with all these boxes i’m filling (4 with dvd’s, and i fear the bookshelves and the MASSIVE boxes they’re gonna take :/)

little over a week to clear the living room (and hall and kitchen and fix the bathroom and … *sigh*)

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my grandmother and aunt made some clothes (crochet) for the baby.  i’m kinda disturbed by the “diaper cover” (they’re not shorts, it’s closer to a pair of crocheted underwear … it goes over the diaper to hide it or something; i doubt that’ll see much use b/c it just disturbing), and kiir didn’t like some of the stuff.  blankets, hat, cardigan, booties.  i think it was the color or something.

but when my mom brought it down, since grammy was there for xmas (and THAT hasn’t happened for YEARS), before she gave me the bag she says “you can look at it now, since your grandmother’s here, but you cna’t have it until the baby shower” … b/c i was going to try to steal it or something?  jeesh, kid’s still 4mo out, i don’t think i need to be swiping handmade baby clothes, yaknow?

it was nice overall, assuming you ignored the proto-arguments (my grandmother is turning into her mother: argumentative, always right, and opinionated; so, like me, but without the deep sarcasm ; and even i try to hold my tongue around holiday and family, really i do!).  got a bunch of things we’d asked my parents for; gave my grandmother her gift from last year, since we didn’t really see her at all in the intervening year :/  drove her home after dinner.  35mi from my parents to her house.  45 from there to our house :o  so that answers her question of “who’s closer” (which was kinda silly, since whoever took her home had to go SOMEWHERE after ;o)

been reading on a log of blogs with kids about the holidays and how hard it is having to go back and forth between families.  or, the luckier ones where it’s a switchoff year by year.  i’ve always liked our arrangement, and reading everyone elses horror stories …

we spend tday with my inlaws (at their lakehouse these days, oi) and xmas with my folks.  neither family is really religious (jewish and christian gone jew, vs hindu and christian; and then our hindu & jewish), but since my mom has always done xmas (there’s no christ in our xmas!) and her family is more hannukah-y, it makes sense.  i don’t see that really changing, even with a kid, so it’s really nice.  at t-day, my sister-in-law’s in-law’s insisted that she was supposed to spend t-day with them this year since last year was with her parents.  and by “her parents” we apparently ignore “and us and our relatives” since both families were together last year :o  i think it’s b/c t-day dinner was at my inlaws (even though we went to her inlaws the next night), so it counted as “her family”‘s turn …

yeah, ok, whatever.  our way is so much more convenient.  and if someone starts kvetching, i’ll just stay at MY place with the baby, and they can damned well come to me! :)  actually, thats kindof what my parents did with most of hte holidays.  as someone had a child, they’re house became the place for the holiday.  well , that might have been helped by my dad’s family not celebrating any of hte same holidays, being on a different continent, or the fact that we didn’t really go that often to visit that we needed to worry about “balance” …

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was trying to move the old flat-screen (not panel) 32″ tv downstairs last night.  figured it was only a couple years old, worth keeping.  but it’s really heavy.  not out of the realm of my ability to move, but really heavy.  and then it’s really bulky.  and some moron decided NOT to design hand-hold places into it.

after a bunch of effort and a few tries, i decided i couldn’t move the thing more than a few feet.  and then i had to get it back up to get it onto the old stand again.  jesus that was hard.  we decided to let salvation army have the damned thing.  assuming they’ll take it.  if they don’t, i’m at a loss :o  it can sit in the corner or something.

the white cabinet we were giving them, when i tried to put it together it slipped and cracked.  so i took it to the dump, instead, this morning.  the two entertainment centers are good to go.  the armoir that was in K’s room, the base seems to be disintegrating, so they may not take it.  i’ll have to disassemble it tonight if they don’t.  the nightstand and one of the kitchen mini cabinets are good, but they may not take the other cabinet b/c the back’s coming off.  just needs a couple tacks, but i didn’t notice it last night and didn’t feel like fixing it when we were going to bed and kiir pointed it out.  if they don’t take it, i’ll rip it apart into the trunk like the armoir and the white box.

and this weekend?  i get to do the third bathroom, YAAAY!  just in time for xmas!  YAAAY!  then i get to clean the whole freakin’ first floor Y– aw hell, BOOO!!! :o

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saturday i was supposed to do the third bathroom.  put K in for the weekend for it and everything.  after kiir got up, we went out and checked to be sure they had what we needed at home depot before i take out the old one :o  did lunch, bought the xbox, some general shopping (limited to the places i didn’t have to wait to get into the parking lots :o) and wrapped/mailed some stuff to friends …

then i realized that it was too late to get the old bathroom out to the dump if i disassembled it, and i didn’t want to carry it around or store it or anything, so we punted on the bathroom this week :o  kiir’s going to confine K in our room (or his room may have space next weekend after salvation army takes every damned thing wednesday ;) while I do the parts that would be bad for puppies :o
at least the other two bathrooms work again.  hopefully won’t take too long next week.  b/c then i also have two weeks to clear (not clean, CLEAR) the first floor so they can do the new hardwood flooring :o  wheeee

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this weekend we were going to try and hook up with a nintendo revolution.  sunday was the second release.  we’d also  been looking at an xbox360 (gears of war looked interesting to me) and we’d found some games so it wasn’t just for one game anymore

saturday we bought an X and a handful of games :o  saturday evening the lines had started forming for the wii, and i just do NOT care that much about, well, virtually anything, honestly.  hooked up the X and played with it

sunday we went down to ikea to look at tv stand furniture.  b/c salvation army is coming tomorrow (wednesday) to pick up our old ones.  and a bunch of other crap that we’re trying to get rid of in order to de-clutter the damned house.  might work, but all the other work i’ve put in seems to have backslid b/c the whole house is a big mess again :(  ended up picking up the one we were planning to do with the new living room center, so that’s handy.  on the way home, we decided to stop at best buy (again) and look at their flat panels.  b/c our tv is almost 25″ deep, and the stand is 24″ deep (deep as they came) and i wasn’t sure it would fit when we put up the rest of the center.  ended up buying a 32″ hd flat panel b/c it was only 600$ :o  did remember to buy the power cable-strips (squids) that we went for at least.

sunday evening i spent putting together (most of) the tv stand and hooking up the new TV.  we’re planning on maybe giving the TV to SA tomorrow (if I can move it downstairs, i’ll keep it.  If I can move it  at all, I’m going to ask my parents if they want it; otherwise, it’s going with whoever can carry it :o) the new Tv is much smaller, and yet larger :)

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monday i got the master fixed up.  when the pipes were all connected and screwed down, the top doesn’t wobble anymore yay.

wednesday i worked on the hall.  with some pvc cement and some of the bits i’d bought over the 4 day saga, i managed to get the sink together.  noticed last night that there appears to be a leak somewhere, so i need to figure that out.  probably need to tighten a nut.  need to look into that this weekend, figure out which bit is leaking.  hopefully it’s one of the real bits that i can just tighten, not the cobble job i did to connect the drain to the trap bits.  didn’t REALLY fit (like a 1.25″ into a 1.5″ or something; i put a reducing washer in, and put on a screw-down connector, but the washer makes it a little high so the connector didn’t necessarily screw on right;  i think i have other sizes of the screwdown, including some with a deeper thread that might connect better)

this weekend i need to do the living room bath (“powder room”), where the bits only technically fit (as in, the distance between walls is EXACTLY the measurement that we got off the vanity top … could be tricky to get in, but we’ll see what happens)

also need to pack up the pewter/etc off the entertainment center, so they can take it wednesday.  need to get the other one cleared off and probably into the hall so they can get to it too.  salvation army’s picking up a bunch of the furniture crap we decided we don’t need/don’t want anymore.  they’re nice, but they don’t really fit, especially with a baby on the way.  so we’re taking the deduction for getting rid of it, since it’s in good condition still an’ all.

so, i have another weekend that will be busier than my weeks!  (and this is likely to go for another month or two, still, as the backroom has barely been touched; and the living room needs to be stripped so they can do the floors early january … then everything needs to be put back (and mounted to the walls with the “child safety tip-proofing” straps)

*sigh* haven’t played online much this week, been messing with the bathroom most nights :/

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