Monthly Archives: October 2012

The Straight Man

Romney, fresh off getting beaten down for jumping ass-first into the Libya crisis, too eager to deliver his "Obama is apologizing" zinger to figure out if it even made sense in that context, is learning some more punchlines to setups he hasn't heard yet.

Mr. Romney’s team has concluded that debates are about creating moments and has equipped him with a series of zingers that he has memorized and has been practicing on aides since August. His strategy includes luring the president into appearing smug or evasive about his responsibility for the economy.

"...and so then I say "Obama? More like 'No-Job-Ya'! Am I right folks, or am I right?" "

Is everyone on that campaign a robotic douchebag? Besides being funny, aren't zingers supposed to be spontaneous?

What would be the most awesome awesomeness in the history of awesome is if Obama brings a little drum set to the debates so he can do rimshots when Romney delivers his prepared and practiced zingers.

Or, if that's too unwieldy, maybe just bring a big red button that plays a canned rimshot sound?

Fiona Apple @ DPAC

She started off with a rant about people who say she looks too skinny and hasn't aged well. Apparently saying that would make me sexist.

Then, they did a bunch of her older songs. Then a break to rant about stupid people who keep making "Criminal" jokes about her recent run-in with the law. Then some more songs.

Her on-stage vibe - as you can imagine, given her songs - is wound-up, taught, caged, angry, intense. Her band keeps their heads down, she storms around her half of the stage. But the band was great. And she was great. The song selection was great (even if she did leave-out "Criminal"). Sadly, as with Blondie on the same stage, the sound was far too bass-heavy. Must be a problem with the venue. The overly-loud bass left her vocals frequently inaudible, since she does a lot of singing in a slight whisper. When she got louder, she sounded great, though.

A good show.

The crowd was full of people who could not tolerate silence. When the song got quiet, they started shrieking. When the band tried to do breaks in songs, they started shrieking. When she was talking, they started shrieking.

The Kitchening

Cabinets are in!


iPhone

That's going to be the world's biggest kitchen island*. Something like nine feet long, IIRC. It's supposed to get a single piece of granite, basically 9' x 4', but with a slight curve sticking out on the side facing us and a cut-out in the middle for the stove-top.

We happened to be there at the time the granite people showed up with the finished countertops. We peeked in the truck and noticed that there were no pieces with curves. About this, we inquired. "We were told to cut it straight", was the reply. By whom, we inquired. "By <the builder's foreman>", was the reply. The order form for the granite mentioned the curve. The house plans show the curve. But, the builder's foreman decided we wanted no curve. And so... we get no curve.

We were also there while they were drilling the well. Loud! big drilling trucks rumbling away.


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That's a bunch of crushed stone and cement, sprayed around the trees and ground, after they left. I guess they line the well hole with cement and tubing. I wonder how that gets cleaned up.

The builder also cleared out all the shrubs and brush that was growing between the big trees in the front of our lot. Now it's going to get seeded for grass. Which means I have a giant lawn to mow. We didn't ask for that.

On the positive side, we had three house showings this weekend, after three weeks without any. No buyers, but interest is better than no interest. Plus our neighbor's house finally sold: after 14 months on the market, a $20K price reduction, and $8K in kitchen upgrades last month. Whew. Nice to have that off the market, it was making our house look expensive!

* - This claim is unverified.

Start Your iPods

Random five, describe!

  1. Miles Davis - Blues By Five. A long one, but a classic. A snappy start to things on this dark and dreary Monday.
  2. Department Of Eagles - Waves Of Rye. This is such a good album. It's the kind of album that makes me wish the band had more albums I could buy. Roughly based in folk, but heavily tweaked-out with electronics - reminds me of Grandaddy, or St Vincent.
  3. Black Star - Brown Skin Lady. Hip-hop, laid-back and funky. This record has been growing on me, slowly, over many years.
  4. Sea And Cake - Neighbors and Township. It's from their brand-new record, so I'm not really familiar with this one yet. But, this sounds like it could have been on any of S&C's recent albums. It's too new to have a YouTube link, so here's a link to their cover of Bowie's "Sound And Vision".
  5. Elliott Smith - The Last Hour. A slow solo-acoustic tune - bittersweet, of course. And as with most Smith songs, the lyrics seem prophetic in retrospect.

What you got?