Paolo Nutini: Dave's Studio Blog

If there's one thing you should know about me, it's that I enjoy the funny. Whether it be photos, the written word or a performed shtick, I love to laugh. I have the utmost respect for people who can be verbally descriptive and hilarious at the same time. It's an art form. They humble me. The interwebs is the best place to discover untapped written talent. Enter the blog.

Sidebar: I'm grazing from a baggie of reheated Tostino's Pizza Rolls that were originally baked properly two days ago. For future reference, I would not recommend this for lunch.

So earlier today, my favorite Californian, Robin, sent me a link to Dave's Studio Blog. Dave Nelson apparently is a member of Paolo Nutini's camp and will be blogging about the ongoings from inside the studio. His blog launched today from Paolo Nutini's official site and Robin thought that I would enjoy it. She was right.

I dig Paolo's music, but I don't follow his site routinely. I have friends like Robin to do that for me. She filters me juicy nuggets that she'll know I'll find interesting, like Dave's Studio Blog. This blog is something I will continue to read because he's all kinds of hilarious. Take, for instance, this little morsel, captioned underneath a picture of Paolo at the studio control board:

Here is Paolo fresh (if a little shaken) from a journey into the very heart of darkness from which he barely survived and only his quick-witted mind and agile ballerina feet kept him from meeting his maker. He has refused to go into details about his ordeal saying only that it stemmed from an argument with a shaman about Quantum Leap. His hand was stuck to his chin for 72 hours.

How full of hilarity is that?

I won't continue to fawn over Dave's comedic charm, I'll let him do that for himself. Enjoy, my faithful readers. All two of you.

Of Montreal - An Eluardian Instance

I'm loving this song. And yearning for summer. Bring on the funky sunglasses.


Of Montreal ~ An Eluardian Instance (2008) Dir: Jesse Ewles from jesse ewles on Vimeo.

The above embed is all I can muster now.

Out.

Subwoofer Cat

I laughed so hard watching this clip that I snorted a little snot bubble. Cats are just so damn funny.

Hey toilet! Here's 200 bucks! Flush away! And take my trust with it!

Yesterday, I hated being a parent. Yesterday, I turned into my mother. Oh God! Did you hear that? I TURNED INTO MY MOTHER!

My 10 year old son, Joonya, lost his new iPod. I discovered this little fact yesterday morning before sending him off to school. My last words to him as he walked out the door were, "Joonya! You're a %$@!* liar!" Nice, eh? Let me back up.

This year, we were at a crossroads as to what to buy Joonya for Christmas. He's at that age where he's pretty much outgrown toys, and he's not really into gaming, so finding stuff for him was difficult. He's a sports kid. Plus he's an only child so he gets really everything he wants, within reason. And fortunately for us, he doesn't really want much. We have a small fortune invested in sports equipment, and he's happy with that. Well I had the brilliant idea to buy him the 4th generation iPod Nano. DaHubs thought I was a little crazy, but is it any crazier than buying him a $200 baseball bat that he'll outgrow in two years? (which we did last summer) Uh, not really.

So the iPod was a major hit this year. Joonya was so surprised, and he took it with him on our after-Christmas road trip. The car trip was whine-free! Bingo! I made one very distinct ground rule regarding the iPod. IT DOES NOT GO TO SCHOOL. Period. End of discussion. I know my son. I know his level of responsibility with small electronics. It stays home or in the car on longer trips.

The little shit snuck it out of the house in his backpack and lost it. He had it less than 3 weeks, and it's gone, gone, gone. Gone, baby, gone. I was so pissed off, words cannot describe how livid I was. But the thing was, I wasn't mad about the money, I was mad that he lied to me. And snuck it out of the house. And did EXACTLY what I knew he would do. LOSE IT.

So yesterday morning was hell on earth. I'm sure he went to school wondering who that lunatic was inside his mother's body. See mention above of how I turned into my mother. It was like an out of body experience. When he got home from school, we had a long chat about what he had done. I stewed and worried all day at work, just ask the Camarilla hooers who had to listen to me whine all day.

I decided that he would determine his punishment, hoping that his version would be far worse than mine. I was right, he did come up with something much worse, and we agreed upon his punishment. He's working off the money. Taking it out of his bank account teaches him nothing because I'm padding his account directly with my paycheck, so he has to work it off. He's also grounded for a lengthy time which means no ice skating or hockey with the boys down the street. Ouch. The minute he backtalks or whines about his punishment, the all-star basketball team will be taken away. That's my leverage. With Joonya, sports participation is always the leverage.

If the iPod is found, which I know is highly unlikely, he won't be getting it back. Lesson learned. For both of us.

Parenting isn't hard. Good parenting is.

The Best Cartoon Ever

Today I posted this video on the thread I haunt daily because it fit with the topic at hand. I just love this cartoon. Remember back in the late 80s, early 90s when the bombastic helicopter parents decided that Bugs Bunny cartoons were too violent for helmet wearing-child consumption? Are you effing kidding me? These toons were classically funny.



I heart the abominable snowman. And George. "I ain't no bunny wabbit!"

Albukuh"kay" - bwah ha ha ha ha.

Pissing and Moaning

Ugh. It's Sunday, the day that I usually clean our pigsty and cook a decent meal, pretty much the only one of the week. I'm so easily agitated today, and I'm not sure why. Here's a list of the reasons why I might be bitchy, but in the end, the final answer is that I'm a bitch hog, pure and simple.

1. The house is a mess. Always. There are only three of us here, why on God's green Earth do we make such a mess? It's not like we live in a huge house either. It's a small 40's style 3 bedroom, 2 bath war-era bungalow. No wonder the mice have found our Garbage House their own private little utopia. We can't keep it clean to save our lives.

2. My hillbilly Christmas tree is still up. It's Jan. 11th. Well, it's not like I've turned the lights on past Jan. 2. That makes it acceptable, right? In my effed up little world, it makes sense. I have to disengage the tree today, something I'm clearly avoiding. I'm staring at it right now, flipping it the bird.

ETA at 3:43 p.m.: The tree is down, safely duct taped inside it's brown box coffin down in the basement for another year.

3. My dumbass decision to attempt to skip my period. I've been on the pill for a really long time and never attempted this before until last week. Supposedly you can skip your period by starting a new pack of pills instead of waiting until the following week after your period starts. Since we were going on vacation during the week of my scheduled period, I didn't want the hassle so I decided this would be a good time to tempt fate. It didn't work out so well for me. Aunt Flo didn't arrive as scheduled, but she showed up with a vengeance 3 days later. Of course, I wasn't prepared so we had to make an unscheduled stop at the local Gas-n-Sip to load up on feminine hygiene products. There's something squicky about buying Tampax from a podunk gas station. Anyway, I'm all out of whack. I haven't stopped leaking gloopy black gunk since, it's been about 10 days now. Oh shut it, if you're a girl, you understand. If you're a guy, grow a set. It's biology, get over it. Even the hottest chicks out there leak gloopy black gunk.

4. I hate the crap that is on the mainstream radio today. My favorite local indie station does some odd Sunday programming, usually in Spanish, and I don't understand anything they are playing. So I'm forced to listen to the drivel that is being mass produced by mega radio conglomerates. My area has shitty radio. Oh, and that I'm old school. I still like listening to the radio. My iPod is choice and all, but while I'm moving around the house cleaning, I don't want anything attached to me. With my luck, my iPod would fall off my person and land in the stank toilet that I'm attempting to clean.

ETA: Hate me some Britney, Rhianna and Cook. Sorry. I try to like them, I just don't.

5. Gray hair. I've made it to age 40 before having to color my hair to hide the gray. But lately, this is getting me down. Realization has set in that I'm not 21 anymore. (Please, if someone knows the whereabouts of my 21-year old body, please, I beg you, send it back to me.) My hair is a really dark brown so the gray shows like a beacon. Bah.

6. Procrastination. I am the queen. That. is. all.

7. Sean Puffy P. Diddy or just Diddy Combs. Do the world a favor and pick a name, k? Thx. That's always bugged the shit out of me.

Ok, procrastinating done for the moment. Must get back to the wonderland that is JMR's flop house.

Stuart Little doesn't live here. His cousin, Eddy, does.

Good criminy! Mouse update.

More innards and blood on the kitchen floor. Dead mouse in the trap. That's three rodents in my house. THREE. I don't live in Garbage House 5. WTF? Mice? My house? WHY?

I'm seriously creeped out by this mouse thing. I'm ready to pack up and move.

And in other JMR news, it's snowing. A lot. And I feel like I've been repeatedly punched in the stomach about 29 times. Time to call it a night.

And maybe a day tomorrow.

Mickey and Minnie, I'm not a fan. Please go away.

I'm taking a break from work to vent about a little problem I'm having. Also, I've shirked my blogging so it's time to get back to business. Lunch break well spent.

Backing up to a couple of weeks before Christmas, I found the innards of small creature on my living room throw rug. Hmmpf, nice. Critter innards. Lovely. I assumed that our slasher cat, Jagger, brought in his little prize from outdoors and proceeded to eat in on my living room rug. Why do cats insist on doing this? But I digress. That happened on a Friday, I think. So Sunday morning I shuffle down to the kitchen to get the coffee started and there awaits, in the middle of the floor, half a mouse. Half. *cue the eye roll and disgust*

So now I'm wondering how Jags is able to fool us humans by bringing in his little treasures. How do we keep missing this...unless...oh no. No, no, no...we do not have mice. Not. an. option.

Move forward to Christmas morning. The obliteration of presents is over. Coffee has been consumed. It's time to shower and get on the road to visit with family. As I'm cruising through the kitchen, a little movement catches my eye, under the baker's rack. Whoa, what was that? I stop, spin and stare. Sure as shit, a little gray mouse is popping his little head through the white cold-air return vent under the baker's rack. Holy shit! Of course, like any middle aged suburban wife, I screamed like an idiot for my husband, as if he could magically stretch his arm across the room (picture Stretch Armstrong), grab hold of the little rodent, plop his little ass out of the vent, and proceed to remove him to the great outdoors. No, oh no, removal of said mouse requires blueprints, options, consultants, traps and beer. (for me)

See, the thing is, we're leaving for the day. The following day we have a gabillion things to do. Then the next morning we're leaving for a 7 day vacation. How do we fit in mouse removal? Dilemmas, dilemmas.

Apparently our little friends have hit the motherlode, leisurely helping themselves to the cat food that is stationed close by. Ballsy, if you ask me. I mean, Slasher Cat already took one of them out, you'd think that would have been a lesson to them, but noooooo. They're going to push their luck. I guess the lure of free cat food has more appeal than life. Again, ballsy little fuckers.

So I tell DaHubs to cover the vent and I move the cat food to another part of the kitchen. But instead, we decide on covering the majority of the vent, leaving a small little escape, leave the catfood close by, and buy a "humane trap." Only, we forget to tell our neighbor that's what we do. She's going to be taking care of our cats while we're away, and is aware of our mouse problem. Because we were in a hurry to leave, we forgot to mention that we left a trap. She walks in and sees that we covered the vent, assuming the entire vent is covered. She doesn't see the trap.

So to stop this Tolstoy novel, I'll move to the quick. We get home to a faint foul odor in our kitchen. The trap has moved several feet from where we left it. The humane trap has mouse poop in it, but no mouse. The neighbor said about 2 days after we left, there was a terrible odor in our kitchen. She assumes that the mouse is stuck in the closed vent, expired and rotting. So did the mouse escape his humane trap? Did Jags fish him out and kill him? WHERE THE HELL IS THIS MOUSE?

I still don't know if he's dead. I'm not happy in my kitchen. I'm fixated on the corner of my kitchen that has the vent. I'm a little creeped out.

And to add salt to my wound, for the second time in the last 6 months here at the office, we have a mouse. Last time the little bastard shit in my coffee cup. Now he's running amok helping himself to stashed peanut butter crackers and oatmeal packets.

Will this mouse madness ever end?