All these people banging on about how high petrol/gas prices are going should maybe just try and get over it. Gas has been artificially low in America for decades, itself fueling the whole "suburban lifestyle" (build homes & fake communities miles from anywhere/anything), obesity issues and wasteful 'drive-all-the-time' attitude.
Now everyone is suddenly up in arms, bitching about $4-a-gallon gas. I'll bet there are MILLIONS of complainers who continue to idle their cars when they pull over to park and wait, or gun their engines at lights, or speed, or keep a shitload of unnecessary weighty junk in their trunks, or make hundreds of totally unnecessary trips to the grocery store or drive-thrus. Those people have no right to complain about gas prices if they want to be so personally irresponsible in the first place.
Don't get me wrong, I'm genuinely sorry for the people who are forced - by circumstance - to drive miles and miles to their place of employment but there are many more who are quick to complain about $4 gas but use their cars when alternatives are available. Some definitely have a choice in what vehicle they drive and others could start lobbying for a citizen-friendly public transportation system that goes some way to alleviate the 'gas issues' which are only going to get a LOT worse and will certainly not get any better.
Cincinnati is FAR from being public-transport-friendly but there's a glimmer of hope given it's apparent (albeit vague)commitment to a downtown streetcar service. I do feel the service - scheduled to travel between the riverfront and Over-the-Rhine - needs to be a little more extensive and/or better integrated (why not include across the river transfers?) to be ideal, but the fact that it's being considered is, at least, a 'start' ... even if the end result will doubtless not materialise until long after we've either moved (to escape the madness) or I have dropped dead.
The run-on effect of gas costs on grocery prices is upsetting but maybe the upside is that people might start making better choices when it comes to food they buy. Given the obscene fact that a forkful of American food now travels an average of 1500 miles to reach our plates maybe people will start buying more stuff locally-produced, alleviating the necessity for all that cross-country trucking. Fresher food at potentially less expensive prices... just consider the possibilities ladies and gents. Maybe some of that currently-unused farmland across the mid-west could be used for, oh, I don't know... something as far-fetched as farming maybe? Certainly better than turning it all into unwanted strip malls, big-box wastelands and ugly out-of-town shopping centres that no-one can afford to drive to anymore.
A few of my favourites...
• Just as long as it doesn't frost. MK is worrying about an old-wives-tale that for every thunderstorm we got in February, we will get a frost in May. We got two thunderstorms in February - both whilst I was in Blighty, thankfully - so she is adamant (not "Kings of the Wild Frontier" adamant, the other one) that we will therefore get two overnight frosts in May. I have argued that we will not. We have a $10 bet on it, so guess who's up first most mornings peering out the window?
• MK's obvious concern is that she has commenced her planting of her (hopefully) beautiful garden, containing lots of new elements for 2008. I merely tell her "not to worry, there won't be a frost". Photos of the gardens when everything has blossomed into big fabulous blooming things - after there has been no frost *natch* - will be posted here. Or at least somewhere.
• We watched "Cloverfield" at the weekend, surprised by how much it impressed us both. I'm not sure I would have coped with the vomit-inducing hand-held camerawork had we caught it in the cinema, so I was pleased we were able to watch it so quickly on its DVD. (DVD release windows really ARE short these days aren't they?). The first ten minutes had me somewhat dubious about the movie - the characters all seemed so fake and one-dimensionally uninteresting - but once the Statue of Liberty's head bounced down the street everything got instantly better. Despite the script having more holes than Courtney Love's stanky old knickers, it was good, original sci-fi action thriller and comes recommended to those who give a toss about such things.
• Today I have mostly been dealing with a) having our a/c unit repaired/maintained, b) getting back into 'writing ways', and c) burning 100+ identical mix CD's for MK's upcoming college reunion.
Screen-grabbed at the online edition of the "hard-hitting" newspaper from old home town back in England.... I have highlighted the irony....
It has been a very nice and pleasant time indeed. Stripped of the hassles and worries that highlighted last year's visit - having an anxiety attack, being short of some of his meds and suffering a few bouts of his angiodema - Dad seemed to relax and enjoy himself a lot more on his second stay.
Our front porch became something of a haven for the three of us, spending many hours just sat outside (in what has generally been good weather) just chatting and watching the "Newport world" go by. Sometimes - rarely, actually, apart from yesterday when they hardly stopped! (Nine-Nil!) - we would hear the boom of fireworks from the Great American Ball Park signifying a home run and give a little cheer.
All too regularly, we would just plant ourselves in the chairs, drink a beer, a coke or a cup of tea and just watch the goings-on of the neighbourhood. A peculiarly simple pleasure that both Dad and myself became very accustomed to - morning, noon and evening.
Most days I would make him breakfast, then we would tackle a little job together somewhere around the home. Then we'd have a sammich for lunch, or go downtown and meet MK for a foodfest somewhere groovy. We'd tackle another little job in the afternoon and then sit and patiently wait for MK to come home from fighting 'the newspaper wars' before, well, sitting some more and watching some more.
He and I spent some quality hours together, chatting about all kinds of things, but nothing in particular if that makes sense? We got lots of tasks done - building a small brick patio in the back garden, cutting back the canopy over our back door, building a small wooden gate, painting the fence, digging up flower beds, sowing grass seed, staining the deck, putting up shelves in the garage, restoring MK's family heirloom cooking pot, repairing a sundial, painting some masonry... and more besides. If that sounds like we were non-stop, we weren't. He merely enjoyed helping getting some stuff done for the pair of us - or at least the things he felt wholly comfortable tackling given his age and health issues . For all my usual default independence in these matters, I certainly found it easier to have eager/willing help (and a magnificently-knowledgeable 'guide') to get some of these things finally ticked off my to-do list.
I think he got 'into' baseball a little - even thinking it would be a good idea if I sent him a recorded game on DVD every so often - and we all three had some laughs watching DL'd episodes of "Emmerdale" (his favourite guilty pleasure on TV, a UK soap opera) and the comedy series "Benidorm" (which is so bad it's actually good IMHO). He admitted that he got pleasure just out of the 'company' of MK & me - more used to spending his life in a strange bubble of solitude and relative loneliness since Mum died.
It was good for him ( we hope) and it was certainly good for me to have him here again. Assuming he suffers no post-vacation ill effects, here's to his next visit!
<edit to say : this isn't close to the post I originally created which was far more eloquent and better written. It is now 4:21 am and I have been up/awake for the last two hours. I'm tired, emotional and cranky as hell>
I had written a (to me) sentimental piece about Dad's stay with us, only to have now lost it to LJ's fucking archaic now-falling-WAY-behind-the-times crappy-arsed method of posting.
I may lose a few userpics/avatars and/or stored photos when I do so, but I don't think Live Journal will be getting any more of my money come 'full' account renewal time. I'll go 'back to vanilla' and move this main personal blog somewhere that has a fucking clue about blogging.
Meanwhile, I'll try and remember what I wrote and have another go...
<edited to add - whilst spell-checking this post prior to submission you discover that Live Journal's 'dictionary' doesn't even include the words "blog" or "blogging" - how fucking out of touch do you want to BE?>
That's what I am
We found the small shop front and walked in. There was a few dudes idly surfing the internet at the back, others scruffily lounging on the sofas.
The girl on the front desk was about as helpful, enthusiastic and informed as a cheese sandwich. "Don't have any yard signs", "don't know when more are coming in", "do you want to volunteer?" and "I'm not sure what it involves"
Fucking hell. With first impressions counting for a LOT, this particular first impression had me wanting to wear a John McCain lapel button!
I might try and revisit at a time when they have some grown-ups in charge.
A constrained e-mail of complaint to Dell overnight appears to have done the trick, CR-stylee.
No question regarding an immediate replacement, shipped within 5 working days, plus the memory doubled up for my 'inconvenience'
The next one better be okay? - I think I'll road/soak test it a little longer than I did this one?!!
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
dog_star_man has been waiting for.After being impressed with the laptop we snagged from Dell last year, and feeling our desktop was a little 'ancient' and in need of replacement, we snagged a bargain Dell desktop just a few weeks ago. I was eager to have XP as the operating system given the known & ongoing anal-raping Windows Vista is giving its users, and Dell were one of only three vendors still offering it as an option.
All was well until the past few days when I started getting a succession of repetitive blue screens showing all kinds of stop errors, eventually culminating in an almost complete collapse of the system. My efforts at revival, via system recovery and a completely fresh install of XP yielded nothing but shite, so I am having to deal with Dell's notoriously ignorant (and overseas-based) customer "service" department. Unlike the CD-Rom issues I had with the laptop - solved, satisfactorily, eventually - this problem appears one I am unable to handle exclusively via e-mail communications.
It's, basically, a lemon.
There's a certain irony in the fact that in the middle of all this our 4-year old HP desktop continues to perform perfectly happily. Albeit with its LOUD fans!
In other news, I continue to enjoy having my Dad here and there's something distinctly 'calming' for me in the mornings as I prepare his repetitive breakfast of two bits of toast, some mixed bran & cereal and a good old-fashioned cuppa tea. We still have another week of "father & son" stuff to relish.
SFC are teetering on the cusp of relegation, being demoted from England's second tier of teams into the third.
The thought almost doesn't bear considering, but next season I could be faced with the prospect of having a MUCH harder job following my club. Unless SFC get a Cup run under their belts, the opportunity to see them on American TV will be absolutely zilch and, I won't get much enjoyment out of having to listen to games against teams I know even less about than the clubs they have been facing since being relegated from the Premiership.
I realised over the weekend that American sports fans don't ever have to suffer this humiliation. The professional leagues here are set up in such a way that "tough shit" if your team are bottom of their division (as the Reds are right now). Next season they'll still be contending, such is the value of the 'franchises' and the appalling consequences if 'the money' suddenly dried up by being demoted.
It kinds pisses me off to have to accept that my American friends cannot even have the faintest notion of what I am 'suffering' right now.
But I'd still take the 'play for survival' model over the 'same old same old every year' because that gives genuine "always playing for something" excitement at both ends of whatever league your team is competing in. However, after their disastrous 2007/2008, I am sure there are a couple of dozen Bengals fans reading this that would BEG to disagree?!
Either I need a haircut or my moobs have grown to proportions of which I am not aware.
Twice in the past 24 hours I have been mistaken for a woman.
Yesterday at the ballgame I heard someone saying "Miss, Excuse me miss, I say excuse me miss...." from up on the disabled concourse just behind where we were sitting. Eventually fed up with this noise in my ear I turn around, look up and discover the lady in the wheelchair was trying to get MY attention to ask me where I had got my lemon chill from. She realised her mistake and said "I'm so sorry sir, from behind you looked like a woman"
Then, just an hour ago at Home Depot I am waiting to get some paint mixed and the assistant walks up from IN FRONT of me and says "Can I help you Ma'am?"
At this rate MK will just have to start being a lesbian, and I'll need to visit that city where they're stealing all the penises.
5 days since I last posted. Time is running away.... an update is necessary...
• Dad had a tooth fall out at the start of the week. A crown held in by a pin had worked its way free. A call to my awesome dentist in downtown nabbed him a quicky appointment where Dad had the work done and the dentist charged him.... nothing!! In the spirit of "anglo-american relations" apparently?!!! Kindness prevails in the dental industry.
• As it does in the roofing & gutter industry. Our friendly local roofer (so popular he has like a 100+ customer "waiting list", and does not advertise) was next door installing some gorgeous new historic-style downspouts. I asked him if 'whilst he was here and had his ladders' - but only if he had the time - he would mind taking a look up at our roof & guttering and reporting back anything that needed any attention. He managed to climb up and discovered some poor patching by a previous contractor (anyone remember "Freakin' Phil"?) which he did an immediate repair to. My cost was to give him no more than "a smile" which didn't seem a fair price to me, so I stuffed some bills in his shirt pocket and told him to take his wife out for a meal.
(I am so thankful we found this guy because - by way of a total contrast - a couple of houses away another firm of cowboy roofing contractors spent Tuesday making a complete fucking pig's ear out of putting on a new shingled roof, during which they conveniently 'forgot' to install chimney flashing etc., as well as making a disgraceful mess of our immediate neighbours expensive newly-actioned paintwork and side wall, thanks to taking far less than stellar attention over how they threw down the old tar-laden shingles'n'shit. These contractors need hounding out of the area and should have their license revoked so they don't inflict their fucknuggetery on other unsuspecting households)
• I found bottles of Mexican Coca-Cola on sale at the Party Source. I should explain - for the benefit of my cross-Atlantic readers that American soft drinks contain "High Fructose Corn Syrup" as their sweetener, something which not only affects the taste but is an extremely hard (almost impossible!) substance for the body to digest properly. HFCS is thought to be partially responsible for the USA's obesity epidemic. Anyway, the Mexicans still produce their Coke using good ol' sugar, resulting in a much better taste..... yes, I am aware that sugar is still no 'good for me'. I have bought bottles of Mexican Coke from Mexican stores before, paying as much as $3.60 for a bottle. Party Source had/have them on sale for just 99¢! I *ahem* bought a couple of cases. (What? We're getting those stimulus cheques soon, right?)
• Dad & I went to a full and complete Reds game at the Great American Ballpark yesterday. The lunchtime "businessman's special" against the Houston Astros. We found some great seats in the shade and got frustrated watching the Reds, once again, fuck it up, losing 5-3. (I think Dad has got 'into' baseball a little, also enjoying watching the Reds games on TV each evening). He had a ballpark hotdog ("okay"), some peanuts ("messy") a lemon chill ("too cold") and was amazed at how many baseballs flew into the crowd, where they were kept by whomever caught them. We briefly pondered, as prudent/'farty' fathers & sons might, the Reds' annual "baseball bill".
• We've continued to do other little jobs around the house, Dad even offering to paint the tops of the brick walls on & around our porch one balmy evening whilst MK & I swanned off to a free preview of "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay". The film was okay, Dad's paintwork was better!
• In the middle of all this MK & I have been trying to plan our tenth wedding anniversary celebrations. Yep, ten. We're hoping to spend a week in Baltimore & Washington DC, seeing the sights, doing the Smithsonian, flipping off the White House and maybe even sticking our toes in the sea.
The Good: We took Dad to his first baseball game today. I even bought us tickets to sit in the "slightly posher area" in the tier below our regular venue.
Still Good: An exciting match up against the Milwaukee Brewers which the Reds only just won in 'extra time' at the very end of the tenth inning....
The Bad: .... which we ended up watching on television at home due to the fact that the relentless drizzle forced us out of the ballpark around about the end of the fourth inning.
So, really we took Dad to his first third of a baseball game today.
We don't have a great deal of luck with guests and baseball games, our friend Julian suffering extreme cold when we took him to a game whilst he was visiting.
I wonder if Thursday's afternoon game will prove kinder to us weather wise?
Whilst parking the car - a difficult job in downtown yesterday thanks to a) the Aronoff show and b) the 20,000 people at the baseball stadium - we noticed a shoulder bag on top of the ticket machine for the pay & display lot we had chosen. I didn't think much of it initially, but with no-one around seemingly owning it, I lifted it to see the weight, then zipped open one compartment to discover a laptop inside. Obviously someone had carried it to the ticket machine, popped it on the top whilst they got their money out of the pocket to pay.. then just walked away forgetting it was there!
We uhmmed and ahhed over whether to leave it or take it with us, and eventually decided that if anyone less honest than us found it, the owner would doubtless never have the chance to get it back. So, I popped it in the car and we went off for lunch, afterwards driving to the police station to hand it in.
I hope someone's weekend was made less far stressful as a result.
'Course now when my Dad' returns to England he's going to tell everyone he survived an earthquake!
I knew nothing about until I switched on the TV this morning. It was "breaking news", erm, despite occuring some 3 hours earlier?!
Dad said he felt a rumble and just thought it was a heavy freight train, or maybe something on the motorway. He seemed quite jazzed when I told him it was actually an earthquake, but one which neither MK or myself felt!
Today, we have mostly been painting and building things.
A.M. I make Dad his breakfast and we then do a few little odd jobs together that I deliberately saved for whilst he was here.
We then organise lunch, either by visiting a deli like yesterday or, like today, meeting up with MK and going to a groovy diner like JeanRo's funky (but VERY NOISY!!!) Lavamatic in OTR.
We come home, have more cups of tea and then we sit on the porch watching the world go by until MK gets home from work.
Then all three of us sit on the porch and watch the world go by.
We share stories, we discuss little things here and there and nothing is hurried or rushed.
I could get so used to this. I'm enjoying it so much.
Last week he sold it at auction for $2.6m
THAT'S what I call extra toppings! Good for him!
Assuming a) I get to 78 and b) there's someone to go and see I would love to think I would be travelling distances of 4000 miles or more at his age.
• Transferring work/programs/nonsense to the new PC has proved to be a longer drawn-out procedure than I imagined it might be, but the award for "most impossible piece of shit software & settings" to move goes to i-Tunes. With all the other rumblings I hear online about their attitude to customers and employees, Apple are fast becoming this generation's Microsoft and will be widely reviled by the end of the year/decade.
• Dad arrives tomorrow for his 3-week stay, and I can't wait. I'm worried about him flying solo and having to deal with all the immigration bullshit at CVG by himself, but hopefully he will hit no snags and I can greet him with a massive loving hug at the top of the big escalator in the baggage hall. In contrast to all the dashing about we had to do with/for our last guests, it'll be so very nice to just sit down and relax with him, and maybe do a few little things here and there as he feels up to them. What we're not going to do is rush him out and about like we did last year, which I am still convinced exacerbated his brief health issues within 48 hours of arriving. Fingers well and truly crossed we don't have those problems again as I know it worried him, as it worried me, and the more it worried me the more he worried about worrying me... just making matters worse and worse. Self-perpetuating anxiety almost?
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