I see death as a sort of ever-changing blob of goo that moves slowly down my family tree.

This is my family tree. Well, just my side of the family.

All my grand-parents are dead. For years now, Death has been hovering just above my parent’s level. Like this.

As soon as Death claims someone at a lower level, each Zone shifts down, and the reaction of people learning about a person’s death change accordingly. For example, if one of my kids was to die today, it would be tragic. If I was to die today, it would be unexpected.

So my mom’s in the hospital. As you’re reading this she is under the knife for a second angioplasty following her second, third and fourth heart attack in the last six months. Death is slowly creeping it’s way down. I don’t want Death to shift down.

Not because I’m afraid to be Next in line. Because I don’t want my kids to get to the Unexpected zone just yet.

This is kind of a rebirth edition. With pictures / graphics. Enjoy.

• The Phoenix: So Hilly decided to reinvent herself. I can’t wait to see what she’ll do next. Just so you know, I’m totally stealing the Hilly Sundays and making them Mikey Sundays. I kid, I kid. I never blog on Sundays anymore.

• The Dark Phoenix: I’m thinking about this. Again. I already did this and that, so I’m thinking about making it official. Again. Feel free to gimme your thoughts, opinions and assvice.

• The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning. So I completely missed the release of Gathering Storm, the 12th (and final) book in the Wheel of time series. Well, true to the Robert Jordan experience, the final book has now become a three book saga. So the ending is really a beginning. As it should be, I guess.

• Galaxies are Colliding: I look good in black.

In a slightly modified Call of Cthulhu tradition, I’ll keep the last two bullets for myself – the madness is here and I’m not going down without a fight.

That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons even death may die.

Oh yeah, it’s Monday all right.

This is “Disintegration” from Luke Chueng.

I gotta keep it together. I might kill someone before the day is over*. Stay tuned.

*Of course I won’t. But if I did, wouldn’t this be messed up?

There’s this joke in French. It goes like this:

Je m’entraîne pour avoir un corps d’athlète. J’ai déjà commencé par avoir le pied d’athlète.

It translates something like this:

I’m training to get an athlete body. I already started with athlete’s foot.

Not that funny I know.

In my case I would trade my ripped left calf muscle for athlete’s foot.

According to Doctor Google, I tore my Plantaris tendon, pretty much right where you could draw a line between the two Soleus muscles lines in that graphic.

The result is intense pain, kinda like your calf is in a constant state of cramping. You know the feeling some people experience in the middle of the night when they wake up rolling on the floor clutching their calf and crying? Well, I have that exact pain all the time.

Doctor Google told me that I should compress, ice and elevate the leg. Doctor Google also said that Tylenol or something similar to Tylenol would help with the pain.

On my way back from work yesterday, I bought two massive Tylenol buckets – one “Extra Strength” and one “Muscle Aches & Body Pain” – and one giant elastic bandage similar to this one:

Of course, within minutes of putting the bandage on, one of the fasteners broke. I also took 2 pills and elevated the leg.

Well, Doctor Google was right. I feel much better today. I won’t be running anytime soon, but at least I’m not whimpering and rolling around on the floor in my office anymore.

Doctor Google: The only true universal health care.

I posted this same image last year.

I’m reposting it again this year, because quite frankly, I have absolutely nothing to say about 9/11.

But…

I feel that publishing something about my kids, my work or my Wii would be disrespectful.

Peace.

Well lookadat.

I finally make a graphic, and Kidless Week is cancelled? WTF?

Actually, it’s not really cancelled. It’s just put on hold on account of bacterial tonsillitis. At this point it’s only LovelyWife’s issue, but I am told by my Favorite Nurse that odds are not in my favor: It turns out that Bacterial tonsillitis is highly transmissible by saliva, and since this is a kidless week, we had the chance to do a lot of saliva exchanging activities. By that of course, I mean that we ate using each other’s fork at the restaurant. I was told that odds that I’ll get infected are 80-20. Those are not good odds.

So Kidless Week is not over, but we didn’t feel like going out yesterday night. We stayed in and ordered pizza – pepperoni / cheese / bacon. Hey Becky, I think that qualifies as regular food, yes? Unfortunately, it’s nothing to blog about.

Oh, I also had a whole post about how Crocs sucks, after spending half an hour on the phone with them trying to find out what happened to my order, only to be told that they lost the manifest that said my order was really shipped, but I was assured that it had been shipped and that I should get it tomorrow if not today, and to call back next week if my order didn’t come in.

Oh I’m a king at multitasking, so half an hour on the phone equals this:

Of course, I’m not going to use it now, but no sense letting my hard work go to waste.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’ll go try to better my odds at beating this bacteria by having one or twenty more Scotches. This MacAllan is medecine to me right now.

One last thing: I think I’m addicted to those smileys. Thanks BluePaintRed!

Oh, and I agree, it’s not a really good graphic.

My home computer is dead.

My seven year-old AMDK6 1.3GHz with 1G of RAM and 80G main HDD (second 320G HDD) just stopped working.

Actually, it’s the main HDD that died.

So now the question is: Do I get a new HDD for 200$ 80$, and reinstall XP (my computer is too old for Vista) and basically spend a few days trying to prolong it’s useful life – which would be much easier achieved by installing Ubuntu like I planned on doing about a month ago –  do I get a new Windows-based computer for about 1500$ 1000$ or do I finally get a Mac for 2500?

Here’s another option: Do I live without a home computer for a bit?

And as a corollary: what will I do with all the extra space?

Decisions decisions.

+++++

In other less gloomy news today marks my parent’s 38th wedding anniversary.

EDIT: I adjusted some of the prices I quoted originally.

Turns out I’m leaning more towards the “cold and needs a hip replacement” on the hip to hip continuum.

You see, my niece is on Facebook. 

But that’s not what makes me feel old. 

She’s going to turn 15 this summer.

But that’s not what makes me feel old. 

One of her profile picture says “Pornstar Barbiiee” 

But that’s not what makes me feel old – but we’re getting there.

This is one of her status updates (bear with me):

My niece’s name A la de la paiinee Solideee & A penne luiidizoonn pamal Boucoupp ses temppss siii ;; Sa va passer Tropp Dchangement Danss ma viiee Surmenntt Lmorall Un peuuxx aterree maiis A lcachhee Deriieree Sonn Souriiirreee (U).

I know that’s all in French. Don’t worry about it too much. The important thing you should know is that the proper way to spell whatever is written there is:

My niece’s name a de la peine solide, et a peine lui disons pas mal beaucoup ces temps-ci. Ça va passer, trop de changements dans ma vie sûrement le moral un peu à terre mais elle le cache derrière son sourire (U).

And I just “translated” word for word, it still doesn’t make much sense even to French speakers. I won’t even try to make 

You see, I have no fucking clue what’s that new way of spelling things. I mean, I know my niece is not an idiot, I’m pretty sure she knows this is not the way to spell words. so it must be done on purpose, right?

I mean, you guys know the power of proper spelling. Heck you’ll call me on all misspellings found or typos you find here – I know it’s not in a mean way, no worries – so I think I can safely say that misspelling takes the focus away from the message. 

Sigh

So, I guess I’m half pissed because I have no clue what’s going on, and half pissed because my niece sounds like an idiot. 

I’m so fucking old.

Get off my lawn.

LovelyWife almost set the house on fire tonight.

Again.

That’s awesome, because I didn’t know what to blog about for today.

She was cooking meatballs in the oven – the frozen kind that you just throw in the oven – on a baking sheet. After 15 minutes she pulled out the baking sheet, set it on a plastic cutting board, and proceeded to flip the meatballs over.   

She then put the baking sheet back in the oven.

She somehow failed to notice that the plastic cutting board was now stuck to the bottom of the hot pan. That’s an honest mistake because, you know, who would think that a plastic cutting board could do that.

She did wonder for a brief moment where the cutting board went, but she figured she had just imagined that there was one on the counter moments ago, and her hapiness caused by her thinking she did not burn the countertop took over her puzzlement.

That last paragraph? Her words.

About two  minutes later, I asked her if she was burning some plastic. She said no, of course. When the smell of burning plastic continued getting worst, I made my way to the kitchen and saw LW looking at the oven with that face. You know the face that told me she hed just realized where the plastic cutting board went.

The whole thing looked like melted wax from the top grill, to the middle, to the bottom element.

Liquid plastic is transparent. And hot.

So now, she let everything cool down,  and both trays are covered in plastic. 

It’ll take me about 45 minutes
a pair of pliers, and Xacto knife, a cold chisel
and a hammer to get rid of that.

The bottom element is now encased in plastic. In hard plastic.

Uh oh! time for a new stove?

Funny enough, that’s exactly what LovelyWife said. She’s been wanting a new stove for about a month now.

Oh no, no pictures! I have my glasses on!
Plus I put a plastic thing in the oven! 

Me suspicious.

I see this in my immediate future.

Well, unless I manage to save the other stove. But come to think of it, I’d rather have a new stove than a LovelyWife who’s looking for a way to get a new stove. 

Edit: I just saw BPR’s Stop or I’ll shoot post. I have a suspicion that LovelyWife reads BPR.

The world is shocked about the death of Natasha Richardson.

I feel bed that I have no clue who she is.

And I did Google that shit.