The Dow Is Up!

It's tool time!

One of the joys of having a month off of school is that I get to work on the house a bit. And believe me, it needs a lot of work. We recently painted our living room and dining room. They used to be an annoying shade of peach or pink, but now they're green. It's amazing how much better the rooms look. I was getting quite annoyed with my house because it lacked any color. Apparently, the people who lived here before were blind or needed no stimulation whatsoever. The rods and cones in my eyes were literally (yes, literally) dying from lack of use. Now, life is much better.

One of the benefits of painting the rooms is that the windows stand out a lot more. They're simple white windows, but the white contrasts against the green much better. The problem? The Wife thought it'd be a good idea to add crown molding to the rooms. And so that's my project for the day. (Though I suppose that if I write a long enough blog entry, I won't have time for the crown molding.)

For those who don't know what crown molding is, it's a strip of wood that goes around the room where the wall meets the ceiling. I didn't really know what it was myself. That's one of the benefits of having a wife. She's always more than willing to patiently explain these things to me. Okay, that was sarcasm. "What do you mean you don't know what crown molding is?!?!?!" I swear sometimes I feel like AJ on The Sopranos when Tony told him to clean the gutters (as a punishment) and AJ asked where they were.

Our dining room (my first adventure/attempt) is about 12' by 14'. So after dropping off Luke at daycare, I headed over to Home Depot in my BFT. I never realized how empty it was at 7:30 on a Thursday morning. What else could people be doing at that time of the morning? Oh right, WORKING! I keep forgetting about that.

So I stroll on over to the wood section. I find some pretty sweet-ass crown molding. It's all fancy and intricate. Then I remember The Wife's instructions on what she wanted. "Nothing fancy and intricate." Hmmm. Should I buy the fancy stuff or not? I decide to pass on it (even though it would have pimped our dining room quite nicely). I strolled down and found exactly what I was needed. And to my joy, it came in 15' pieces. This means I won't have any unsightly seam marks in the middle of the wall. (You're probably 3 steps ahead of me, so just wait for it.)

I buy my four pieces and try to make it to the checkout counter. It was no easy task. I nearly took out a display of doornobs and I actually hit some guy. Well that's what he gets for coming to the Home Depot so friggin' early in the morning. Jerk.

As I'm wheeling my cart out to my BFT, I have a revelation. The bed on my truck is only 6' long. But the pieces of wood are 15' long. Hmmm. I think they might be a little longer than my truck bed. Now if I can just think of a way to fold down the pieces of wood to be less than 6', I'll have it made. (By the way, this is why I shouldn't be going to Home Depot this early in the morning. Or at least not until after I've had some coffee.)

After much hemming and hawing, I say "screw it" and just throw the pieces in the back of my truck. I leave the tailgate up, so that the first 6' are on an angle upwards. Meanwhile the remaining 9' are dangling off the back. Now, this crown molding stuff is kinda thin, maybe an inch thick. It's very flexible. So, these pieces are bouncing all over the place whenever I move, which is a great way to drive through the morning rush of traffic. At one point, they almost bounced out of my truck, so I had to stop and weigh down the ends in my truck with a tire that was fortuitously sitting in my back seat (don't ask).

I finally made it home without further incident. Now I have the enjoyable task of measuring, cutting, and nailing up the wood. For some reason, this seems like the easy part right now. Personally, I'm really looking forward to when I cut one piece of wood an inch short and have to go get more. Ah, will the fun of homeownership ever end?

There's this great song out called Peanut Butter Jelly Time. Fans of Family Guy might recognize the song because Brian (the dog) dressed up as a banana and started singing and dancing to this song. I didn't really get the joke since I'd never heard of the song before. Now I get it and I'm quite disturbed. This is what makes the internet wonderful. That and porn.

Crank up the speakers and give it a listen.
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/banana.php

I recently got the Reverend Horton Heat's new Christmas album, "We Three Kings." Yes, you read that right. The Rev put out a Christmas Album. For those who have no idea who the Reverend Horton Heat is, it might seem logical that a Reverend would release a Christmas album. On the other hand, if you know the Rev as the leader of punk/rock-a-billy band with songs such as "Bales of Cocaine," "Nurture My Pig," and "Sue Jack Daniels," it might seem a bit odd.

I've been a fan of the Rev for a few years now. He puts on a great show. He's not actually a Reverend (at least, not that I know of). His band is a three-piece with a stand-up bass. No, not the person who plays the bass. Having a stand-up bass player is not very unique. I'm talking about the actual instrument.

If you're not familiar with the Rev's music, you might have heard some and not been aware of it. He's had at least two songs featured on TV commercials. "Big Red Rocket of Love" was featured on a car commercial (Mitsubishi?) and "Eat Steak" was featured (creatively enough) on a Beef commercial.

His Christmas album is actually quite good, featuring a lot of old-time favorites, like "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Winter Wonderland" and "Jingle Bells." It also features one of my all-time faves made famous by Chuck Berry, "Run Rudolph Run."

I don't know why the Rev released this album. Perhaps he needed the money. Or perhaps he just wanted to give parents a decent Christmas album to listen to with their children. Either way, I applaud him. It's a fantastic album, at least for this time of year. I'm guessing that it's going to start sucking pretty bad around January. Call it a hunch.

As a new parent, I struggle with the idea of punishment. Not in the "should-I-spank/shouldn't-I-spank" way. More in the "how soon should I spank" way. I had to ground Luke this morning and it was quite difficult. Mostly because he's just 10 months old and didn't really understand me. Besides, he has nowhere to go anyway.

Here's the problem. Luke just won't listen to me. This morning, he woke up at 3:45 screaming his head off. I told him, "That's enough!" And what does he do? He just screams MORE! I won't take that kind of backtalk from my kids. I tried everything I could think of to make him stop screaming. I shook him. I pinched him. I dropped him on the ground. Nothing worked!

Finally, I had to give him to The Wife. She used her magic touch and got him to back into his crib. Screaming his head off still, but at least he was back in the crib. Finally, at 4:30, I'd had enough. I grounded him. I told him he couldn't have any more play dates this week. And he sure as shit wasn't going to the dance this weekend. That only set him off more.

Since I just watched Nanny 911 the other day, I thought there might be an approach that I was missing. Maybe I should try picking him up. Huh. That seemed to have calmed him a little bit. Maybe I should try stuffing something in his mouth. After several failed attempts with clothes, fingers, and pets, I decided to try a bottle. That seemed to do the trick. At least until he found out it was empty. Apparently, he wanted to actually EAT something. Some people!

Anyway, Luke finally fell asleep around 5:00 a.m. while I watched a replay of the Bulls beating the Lakers in the 1991 NBA Championships. (Thank god for TiVo and ESPN Classic.) I shouldn't get so excited about a game that happened 14 years ago, but I couldn't help it. I was giddy from lack of sleep.

The moral of the story? Don't have kids. Oh, and make sure you write things anonymously in case the DCFS doesn't understand sarcasm.

It had to happen. I knew it would seep out eventually. I tried to keep it a secret, but it was only a matter of time. Today, The Wife mentioned on her blog (http://1moremommy.blogspot.com/) that I watch Nanny 911. I'm so embarrassed that I'm writing this in full muslim regalia so that nobody can see me typing.

I try to avoid watching these shows because it's so formulaic. (Unlike, say, Law & Order. "Wait, there's a twist at the end? The person you wanted to make me think did it wasn't guilty after all? No WAY!") The basic premise of Nanny 911 is that there's a couple with way too many kids. Last night, it was 6 kids under the age of 9. And they were willing to have more. (The first condition of being on this show should be that you'll sterilize yourself. And if you haven't improved by the end of the show, your kids are sold to gypsies or the circus.)

There are two potential parenting problems. Most couples have one or the other. The lucky ones have both. The first problem? Dad is an idiot. He's off playing video games or doing wheelies on his ATV (I swear to god, someone did this) while he was supposed to be watching his kids. Basically, he leaves it up to his wife to do all the childrearing.

Problem number 2 is parents who yell all the time. I have a young child (10 months), a terrible dog and two annoying cats. I understand the need to yell at them. Sometimes I do it for stupid things, like they walked (or crawled) in front of the TV and the Bears gave up a touchdown. What the F? You don't MOVE when the Bears are playing DEFENSE!!!! (On the other hand, when they're on offense, you're better off walking out of the room to avoid vomiting. But I'll discuss the Bears at a later date.)

The shocker these parents encounter regarding yelling at their children is: it's generally not very effective. It seems counterintuitive, I know. Yelling at and beating of children should make them better and more responsible. Yet, it often doesn't. (That said, if my parents would have tried "reasoning" with me and my siblings, we would have "reasoned" ourselves into armed robbery and/or kidnapping.)

What's annoying about these shows is that I get so hooked so easily. And it's because the parents are idiots. I just want to reach through the screen and slap the stupid out of them. I'm sure I'm not alone, which is why these shows are so popular. Parents love watching this show because it makes them think that they're good parents because they don't have kids that smear their own feces on the walls.

The problem is that Fox is missing a great market: single people. They don't want to watch these moronic parents. They want to watch morons who have the same problems as them. My proposal is for Fox to make a show out of me hitting on women at bars. I'm a little rusty since I've been married a couple years now. But in all honesty, I didn't have that great of skills to begin with, so how much worse could they have gotten? After watching me try to pick up some fine ladies, people will suddenly realize that their own pick-up skills aren't so bad after all. And for those that doubt just how bad my skills are, I should point out that I had to resort to the internet to find a wife. God bless those Russian mail-order services!