weekend


28
Aug 10

Shower head for the touchdown

It wasn’t my first thought of the day, but it didn’t take long after waking up to realize that, this time next week, we’ll be watching football. This makes me very happy.

I watched, over the course of three installments, It Might Get Loud, a documentary where producers took three guitarists and put them in a room to see what happens when they stop being polite, and start talking about chord changes:

The Edge describes himself as an architect, which makes perfect sense when you hear his explanation. Jack White has this artistic struggling “I think I’m a little more important than I really am” vibe. Jimmy Page is Jimmy Page. They’re all great in their own ways, though Page of course transcends by virtue of his longevity and the genetic condition known as Being Jimmy Page.

If the producers are looking for a follow up project, I’ve just given them a title.

It is a good documentary. I’m no musician, of course, but I enjoy hearing the discussion of how these works came about. A lot of times you get the sense that there is this Thing and they wanted to Express It and eventually it made it to a recording studio, became a hit or important piece and now they have to Explain It. Trying to verbally explain this Thing which has become Transcendent must be an interesting exercise.

I watched this over Netflix. We signed up for the free trial last night. The Yankee downloaded a few things from the instant viewing feature. She’s watching television episodes on the television. I watched Full Metal Jacket — which has not aged well — on my phone. That was R. Lee Ermey’s third role, but the one that made us all aware of him. He’s done more than you realize, since.

Also, he might be the star in a sentence featuring the best ever use of the word refused.

R. Lee Ermey was involved in a jeep accident during the making of the movie. At 1:00 a.m. one night he skidded off the road, breaking all the ribs on his left side. He refused to pass out, and kept flashing his car lights until a motorist stopped. In some scenes you’ll notice that he does not move his left arm at all.

“I am in a great deal of pain, indeed old boy. But I shan’t to acknowledge it. I will not acquiesce to the sweet morphine that is mental surrender. So be a good chum, ribs, and stand fast while I flag a motorist.”

For some reason, in that story Ermey turns into a very proper Englishman in my mind.

Where was I? Oh, yes. It Might Get Loud. I had to watch it in three installments because I decided to replace the shower head. I made this command decision about 15 seconds after I broke the older shower head.

We have a slight dripping leak and I thought if I turned the plastic shower nozzle a bit tighter … SNAP.

So we visited Bed, Bath and Beyond. The Yankee walked us directly to the shower fixtures, which was a bit disturbing considering we’ve never been in this particular store. She mulled over the options.

Buying a shower head that would match the one in the guest bathroom was out of the question. The store no longer carries them. But you can get one online for 25 bucks. Of course, at the store, your options range from 29 to 99 dollars. I’m tempering my instinct to put my foot down with my guilt about breaking the shower head to start with. She buys a sensibly priced one. I suppose.

It is made by a company that calls itself Oxygenics. If you break it down, that means oxygen-born. More than air should fall from this device. The literature assures me that this might be the last shower head I’ll ever purchase. And it better be, if there’s anything that makes you feel more stupid than reading language on a shower head’s packaging I don’t know what it is.

Consider:

“The storm is coming … prepare to be drenched.”

Do you know what I do when a storm comes? I go inside. Out of the rain. So, already, we’re a little counter-intuitive in the marketing.

“A powerful, pressurized monsoon of water will envelope and sweep you away to a wonderous place.”

Again with the imagery. But doesn’t all of this sound wasteful? Oh no.

“… while saving 23% water and energy compared to industry leading brands.”

I’d like to suggest to the good people at Oxygenics that they add the word “other” to that phrase. Right now they just look like a trailing brand.

It has “1 drenching spray, 54 anti-glog spray nozzles” and is “guaranteed not to clog.” No pressure there, nozzles.

Here’s the best part, the 9 inch adjustable shower arm — mentioned by a sticker-like logo on the package, as if they weren’t sure when they designed the thing how big they could get that little rod — has two joints. From which water will spray. When you add the wall attachment and the shower head attachment itself that means there are four potential places from which water can escape.

Oh, but it has a monsoon, you see.

We visited the grocery store for a few staples. At the cash register two young men were there to help us. One was the bar code digital transfer engineer, the other the product package and dispersal supervisor. Whenever we make it to check out I try to find ways to entertain them. Who knows how long they’ve been working. It is new and clean and so happy with itself, andĀ  most of the customers are in the pleasure-zone known as Publix shopping, but you never know if the guy just had to deal with the guy that really ruined his Saturday.

So the patter today was about how we forgot our ecological shopping bags. Not to worry! I just bought a new shower head which will save 30 percent on energy. I am, as the cool kids say, offset. We hate the earth. The hemp woven, hand stitched, biodegradable hues of those items were left safely in the laundry room, where they are doing us a great service by hanging from something, so that we won’t forget them should we venture to the grocery store.

We live a mile-and-a-half away. One day the person will ask paper or plastic, I’ll remember I left the bags and ask him to hold everything for three minutes while I fetch my own.

He suggests we leave them in the passenger seat. But where would the passenger sit, my good man?

I point out that we usually keep them in the trunk, where they are also often forgotten. And then the conversation turned into one of those “A-ha! You’re my witnesses moments” that you just live for.

If we ever see those two guys up front at the grocery store again I’m going to have the world’s best follow up joke, brought to you by items on the condiment aisle, just to see if they remember.

We grilled steak. We baked potatoes and enjoyed okra. That’s a win. And next week we’ll be watching football.


22
Aug 10

Catching up on stuff

Four pictures for you that didn’t find there way elsewhere on the site this week. First:

Dr. Copeland

That’s Dr. Copeland, one of our talented and kind professors at Alabama. He’s on my dissertation committee, and I’m lucky to have him. That’s not his Emmy, but rather one of his students. That is, apparently, the first Emmy won by a former Alabama student and he brought it to be displayed in a trophy case somewhere in the building.

Allie's toys

Allie got a care package from her grandparents. These are called Midnight Crazies, or some such upsetting thing. Allie doesn’t need help with the late night, early morning fun. She’s a yowler. It is a special grief to hear this for hours and for no discernible reason.

The Strutting Ale House

It was the Ale House. Very recently it became the Strutting Duck, which had moved closer into town. Just the other night we walked through the parking lot on our way to grab a burger and noticed the Strutting Duck sign. Now it is the Ale House again. Very strange.

A bird

This bird did not like me.

Also, three videos, all shot from my phone:

That’s from my Thursday morning drive. Nice, empty field, nice empty, country road. It has a good feeling.

We were at Petco, checking on kitteh food options when a big guinea brawl broke out.

I edited that while we were walking through the grocery store. This is the coolest thing ever.

And finally:

The ice cream man War Eagleth.


22
Aug 10

When I think school, I think Juno

I woke up, I turned on the television, and there was Julius Caesar, the 1970 version, starring Charlton Heston, Jason Robards, Sir John GielgudĀ  and others. I wrote about it on Twitter:

Watching Julius Caesar, starring prototypical Roman, Charlton Heston. Great American cast reading English dialect about Italians. #globalism

Heston played Marc Antony three times. Unlike Caesar he accepted it thrice. People made Planet of the Apes jokes the second and third time.

Twitter News Alert: They just stabbed Caesar. In a related story, the music is odd percussion, reminding audiences of Planet of the Apes.

Marc Antony gives a stirring, populist speech for Caesar and the people riot. He then drinks from a wooden bowl that breaks like glass.

Robards and Johnson just tear up the big Brutus/Cassius scene. It is exhausting to even watch it. “Fret till your proud heart break!”

Cassius’ death scene was so bad that when Brutus arrived he looked around, as if were expecting to be Punk’d.

Exeunt Robards nee Brutus. Heston comes on to say “We finally really did it. You Maniacs! You blew it up!” Credits!

This film isn’t well received at IMDB, I suspect because of the understated power and hammy acting of Charlton Heston. There are times when he feels like he’s performing on a stage for a great audience, waaaay in the back of the house, but forgetting the camera is right there. It is, though, a terrific movie for a day when it is too hot to move.

In the late evening we went for a bike ride. The bike I was riding is, well, messed up. It won’t go above fifth gear. Half the time it won’t go below it. But I can pedal in fifth! So I can coast or ride that one speed, or try to force the chain. Doing that means an awfully big downstroke which creates the other problem: the seat won’t stay up. Every hill or so I have to stop and reset the height, pressing the little clamp down as hard and as far as I can, hoping it will hold.

And it does, for a while. And then, seemingly at random, the clamp gives way, the seat slides down into the tube on the frame and whatever symmetry I had is replaced by something more or less perpendicular to the road, with my splaying feet and knees feeling like they are inches from the ground.

So I only did about five miles like that. The Yankee came in too, it was getting a little dim. Guess we’d started too late.

That’s OK, because after we got cleaned up we made dinner and enjoyed a delicious spaghetti parmesan. We watched the Back to School marathon on USA, which featured Juno, the story of a precocious 16-year-old who gets pregnant and judges everyone in lines a little too dated for someone her age.

Got a one-liner, an adoptive family and everything turns out great! Your parents will support you and your friends will come around. Welcome back to school, kids!

Tomorrow, I’m dumping a bunch of pictures and things on you from the last week. Thinking of making that a regular feature, too. Anything to pad another day around here.


15
Aug 10

Looking back to call it a day

This is complete filler, as much or more than you normally find here. But it was a low key day — that’s nice to say again — so I’m sharing a few pictures from last week and catching things up on the site.

I saw these at Angel’s Antiques, the place where I bought a grill. It was not an antique, but new and cheap. I am at least one of those things, hence buying a grill there. I also bought two more Glomeratas there. I stopped shopping after that. As Jeremy Henderson said, “That place is like crack.”

Tiger head

A site dedicated to Pennsylvania beer history notes “In the forties and fifties Schmidt’s was famous for Tiger Head Ale, a brand acquired from the Robert Smith Ale Brewery after prohibition.”

They had facilities in Pennsylvania and Ohio and this can has survived for decades. It is still full, too. On the side is a price. On the bottom there’s another sticker which reads “Not for consumption.”

There’s no chance of that.

ticket box

Someone took all of their ticket stubs from old Auburn games and thought they should cover this box with them. Inside, out, bottom and top are full of tickets, mostly from early 1990s games. In a few decades from now this will seem incredibly cool, now the box is just waiting in an antique mall. Time is funny like that.

Flagship coffee

This is from a coffee company in Iowa. Apparently the bag dates to the 1960s, which almost works with the graphic style. Other than seeing a few bags for sale online I can’t much more about the people. Was it good? Did it taste better at altitude? Was it really parachuted on customers? Were they expecting it to fall from the sky?

Speaking of pictures, I caught up on the photo galleries, which haven’t been this neglected in ages. The July gallery, destined to be a bit underwhelming, is finished. The August gallery has finally been built and is now in progress. Only took half the month.

Tomorrow: I think I’ll show you a video.


14
Aug 10

Saturday

We're feeding everybody

The squirrels found our food. This bothers most people, but I like squirrels. How could you resist a face like this?

Who me?

The car got it’s mechanical attention today. Added two new tires — for a total of six! — and then the tire guy suggested that this configuration wasn’t in keeping with state highway policies.

Otherwise the day was a traffic mess. The less remembered the better.

We managed to pick up a new grill, though. We’d considered the basic model, but I found one that was a griller and smoker for only a few bucks more. So we went across town, in the day of frustrating traffic, picked up the grill and a new cover. Brought it home, wiped it down, fired it up and made delicious steaks.

The Yankee made okra. And, in her first time out, did a great job with it. I’ll have leftovers for tomorrow.