Auto-tune the News #3

The news set to a beat with the Auto-tune effect on the pundit's voices.

My daughter tries to bribe me...

Julia has been hanging around with a girl that I like to call, BFF (best friend forever). I don't actually call her that, but for this story I will since I don't like using real names of people without knowing them too well.

So Julia and BFF have been hanging out with each other a lot. There have been several sleepovers. I mentioned the one on Saturday where she came back smelling like a bunch of wet puppies...

This Tuesday she decided that she wanted to ride her bike over to BFF to hang out. Well she'd been really tired for those first two days of summer camp and didn't want her to get even more tired.

Julia didn't see that logic. All she knew was that she wanted to see her friend, BFF.

She kept pleading and pleading. I kept telling her no.

Finally, Julia pulled the Ace in her sleeve. She ran into her room and came back with money.

"Daddy, I will give you two whole dollars of my own money if you'll let me go over to BFF's house."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"Are you trying to bribe me with my own money (money I gave her for her allowance), so you can go to BFF's house?"

"Please, Daddy. I'm serious. I'll give you to whole dollars."

"No!" I exclaimed. "I'm not going to take your money!"

Julia could see I was a hard sell, so she upped the price.

"I'll give you three whole dollars if you'll let me go to BFF's house."

I stared at her. While the money was certainly tempting. I didn't want to start a bad trend.

"Put your money away," I said. "I'm not going to take your money no matter who much you try to give it to me. You can go to BFF's house to see if she's home, but if she's not there, you have to come back."

She ran out the door only to return 10 minutes later because she wasn't there, but in that absence, I could only shake my head. I could not believe that my own daughter had tried to bribe me. It's not like I've ever tried to do it myself, let alone in front of her. I rarely keep cash on me!

Maybe she gets it from Laura...

June 3rd - Stretching...

Today I went swimming with Julia after work. Laura worked out while we smam. She's apparently got it into her head that she's going to sign up and run a 5k, which is about 3 miles. She also took great pleasure in rubbing it in how she's in the best shape of her life and how I need to get back on the ball since I've gained a lot of weight since last summer.

I grumbled, "Oh, you're just loving rubbing this aren't you after all my years of suggesting that you start running."

"That and the 'you need to stretch' stuff that I've been hearing."

I've been urging Laura to stretch because she doesn't. I keep trying to tell her that not stretching is going to lead to problems, but she doesn't listen. She periodically will pull a muscle, which requires her to ice and take pain killers.

I try to point out that if she goes to a doctor to complain about the muscle that a doctor is going to ask how it happened and when the cause is diagnosed, the doctor will show her a series of stretches to perform before and after working out to get rid of it and prevent it from happening again.

Laura scowls every time I tell her to stretch.

I replied, "Well, it's true. And if you're going to run a 5k without stretching, you're asking for pulled muscles, shin splits and Achilles tendinitis."

Audiobook - Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

I just finished an audiobook for 'Odd Thomas' by Dean Koontz. Dean Koontz is like the poor-man's Stephen King, which is a little unfair to Dean, who after all was publishing for years before Stephen first got published.

There are major differences between a King and Koontz book. Whereas King likes to take his time moving into the plot, Koontz generally hits you over the head with it. They move fast usually.

I've read 'Phantoms', 'Intensity' and 'The Bad Place' by Koontz, but I wasn't so much a fan that I wanted to read more.

I saw that he was branching out into a series with the Odd Thomas series, which is on its fourth volume by now.

The series centers around a man called, Odd Thomas. Go figure. Odd is his real name and he has the unnatural gift of being able to see the dead. The dead appear to him when they need him to help with unfinished business. He works with the police chief in town, who knows of the gift, by leading him to the killers of murdered people.

This is all turned on its head when Odd notices a man who's being followed around by dark shadows that usually appear when mass trauma is about to go down. He follows the man with the shadows and sets in motion a series of horrifying events that changes the town he lives in forever.

It's a pretty decent listen. The narrator is just right to play the very simple Odd. It does have its share of horrifying scenes, but not so much to turn off the non-horror fan. It's also a little humorous at times.

June 2nd - Waterparks, Ghostbusters and I Don't Care...

Earlier today, I went out for a run. I'm trying to get back in the swing of running. Since winter, I've gained about 10 pounds. Normally, even with my extra gut weight, I'm in better shape than Laura. After my pitiful performance while hiking Saturday, I can see that I'm in need of getting back in the groove of running. I had quit last year because I started getting massive pain in my Achilles heel. It turns out that I have Achilles tendinitis. After a months of icing, stretching and strength exercises, the tendinitis may never go away. It's a lot better but still there somewhat. I decided to just be cautious and stretch a lot before and after. That seemed to work. It wasn't bad. I ran/walked for about 37 minutes.

While running, my mp3 player was on shuffle. It came across the new Fall Out Boy song called, "I Don't Care."

I had to smirk a little because I joke with my brother, Bill about his parenting skills. There's the 'Hey! Stop that!' technique which is invoked when the older child does something naughty. Another strategy is the 'I Don't Care' technique, which is invoked when the older one is being slow and giving excuses for not doing what Bill wants. When this happens, Bill is all 'I DON'T CARE!' and 'LOUD NOISES!' while trying to get his point across.

So I pictured Bill screaming 'I DON'T CARE!' every time it was mentioned in the song.

For example:

"(Bill's voice) I DON'T CARE! what you think as long as it's about me. The best of us can find happiness in misery."

There's also a section that goes,

I said I DON'T CARE!
(I DON'T CARE!)
I said I DON'T CARE!
(I DON'T CARE!)
Said I DON'T CARE!
(I DON'T CARE!)
I DON'T CARE!
(I DON'T CARE!)
No, I don't

All to the tune of Bill's voice. I wish Bill would consent to me recording him yelling like that so I can create a mash-up, but he probably wouldn't do it.



We may make a quick trip to Colorado for a three-day vacation in late July.

I stumbled across a water park called 'Water World', which is north of Denver and sits on 64 acres. My original plan was to take my brother's fold-up camper and save on hotels, but Laura nixed that plan.

"So you're wanting me to spend all day getting sun baked and wind blown at a water park and then top that off by sleeping outside without air conditioning? I don't think so."

The problem is that Laura showed the park's web site to Julia, which is something I wasn't even going to do. Now Julia is insisting that we spend every day there. It's still not set in stone, but I'm just thinking a day at the park would suffice.

We'll also be hitting the Casa Bonita, which I've been to once. It's a huge Mexican restaurant with cliff divers, wild west shootouts, wild gorillas and various other oddities. You can also go into a treasure cave and dress up like an outlaw to get your picture taken. It's about the only thing I remember about Denver other than my Dad's friend's son freaking me out about rattlesnakes when we went on a hike. He made it sound like they could snatch you by jumping at you from 20 feet away. Needless to say, I steered clear of any possible rattlesnake hiding places.

Ghostbusters was on AMC. They were celebrating the 25th anniversary of the film. When that was announced between commercials, Laura said, "Jeeeezzzzz!" while cringing.

It's really something when you realize how old you are in relation to things that you liked when you were a kid. I was about 13-years old. Laura was about 9-years-old. This happens to me more and more.

I like to freak Julia out by telling her how old some of her favorite songs are.

"Do you know the song, "Somebody to Love" by Queen?"

"Yeah" she'll say.

"Well, it's over 30 years old."

"Whoa!"

June 1st - Summer camp and a super-sonic toilet.

Julia started her first day of summer camp, which is run by my employer. They have a day care facility and run a summer camp for the older kids.

Julia has been a little weird that last few days. When spring break ended, she almost refused to go back to school because, "No one plays with me at recess." We tried to reason to her, but she wouldn't take our reasoning. Then we remembered that she had pulled the same arguments at the end of fall vacation and winter vacation. When I opted to have her teacher talk to us and give reports on it, which we had done previously when Julia had complained about recess (Her teacher was baffled at the complaint. She assured us that Julia plays with a lot of kids), Julia back peddled and decided that she wanted to go to school after all.

She cried off and on the last few days of school last week because she said she loved school. She declared that she was never going to see her teacher and her friends again. She was also distressed that another year had come and gone. Julia is sad that one day she's going to leave us. I assured her that she could live with us while she goes to the local college. She excitedly agreed.

I'm going to hold her to that!

So this morning, Julia was marginally excited. When I picked her up, Julia was pretty tired. By the time bed time rolled around, she declared that she was "soooo tired!"

I mentioned yesterday that I wanted my super sonic toilet. Well I picked one up at the local hardware super store. It's an Eljer Diplomat. While it's the economy purchase, it was rated at a 10 on the flushing scale. An independent water research group tests toilets using a paste that they mold into fecal shapes. The paste is made of soy beans. My new toilet can now flush up to 1000 grams of fecal matter in nothing flat!

I was going to install it tonight, but Laura put her foot down.

"For the love of God and my sanity, just please wait for the weekend!"

I guess super-sonic flushing will have to wait until then. She also threw a monkey wrench into my plans. She is insisting that we put it in the bathroom by the front hallway near Julia's room. I think it's so I'll be forced to not use that one and not the one in our master bedroom. The other benefit is that if we have people over, we no longer have to worry about the toilet backing up.

I know I'm kind of weird about this stuff, but I look at it this way. Last year, we spent about half the amount on an umbrella for our deck along with an umbrella stand. But because our deck is high off the ground, we had many problems with wind gusts. More than once, the umbrella would just soar out of the crappy base and fly off into the yard. Then it snapped in two one day just by the wind knocking it back and forth! This was only after one month of use! Plus it didn't really help with the sun's glare because we'd try to use it near dusk, but the shadows were past the deck, so it was like we never even had an umbrella. We also spent a lot more on shrubs and flowers that died!

At least with this toilet, I'll know that I'm going to get some worry free, quality flushing in!

May 31st - Sleeping in, puppy smell, movies, toilets and Dad...

I woke up late today at about 9:30. Usually, I have to get up with Julia since Laura insists that she needs more sleep, so I am up at about 7:30 or 8. I should go to bed earlier, but I feel like I'm wasting valuable time if I go to be earlier.

Last night, I watched the movie Sleepaway Camp, which is a slasher film from the early 80s. It's very low budget, but has an interesting twist at the end. It's not something I'd recommend to someone though. I just wanted to see it since it's considered a cult classic.

Julia spent the night at a friend's house last night, which is why I got to sleep in. Before she left, Julia smelled like a wet puppy from her day's playing. When she got back at 11:30 this morning, it was obvious that she hadn't bathed because she absolutely reeked. It was like following Pig Pen from the Peanuts gang around. She thought we were joking, because Laura was waving her hand in front of her nose and going, "Julia! Oh God! Get in the bath tub!"

Julia was like, "I don't need to take a bath."

"Oh, yes you do!" Laura said.

Julia reluctantly walked to the bathroom. All the while, Laura was waving her hand in front of her nose as she followed Julia.

"Man!" Laura said.

Later, we went to see the movie "Up", the new Pixar movie, which is in 3-D. I've mentioned my love of 3-D movies, so I opted to see the 3-D version instead of the 2-D version. There were some really cool 3-D trailers for movies, including a live-action movie about these hamsters that are genetically engineered spies.

Up was pretty good. Like all Pixar movies, it has a good story with a good heart, but unlike past ones that were 20 minutes too long (Cars and Ratatoille), this one was just the right length at one hour and 36 minutes long. There were good laughs, especially when the dogs that have collars that let them talk appeared.

After the movie, we went home and I used the bathroom, which normally wouldn't be anything to write about, but I have had it up to here with my toilets in the house because you severely run the risk of clogging up the toilets every time you use it for... bulky deliveries. I used to keep tabs on who was clogging up the toilet more (since it happened about once a week). I'm not going to say who was winning that contest because I'm under orders to keep the results confidential. Promise kept!

This last time was the last straw as even though I flushed several times during the 'bulky delivery', it still clogged and I had to plunge the bowl.

Super-powered toilet, here I come!

Ever since we moved in, it's been my fantasy and my mission to replace our toilets. Our builders installed what have got to be the cheapest toilets. I had to replace the hardware inside them less than a year after we moved in. They clog at the drop of a hat, which I've mentioned, so I'm afraid to have people come over lest they leave an unwanted bulky delivery behind.

Last night was the season-finale of Breaking Bad, the AMC original series about a chemistry teacher who starts cooking crystal meth when he finds out that he's dying of cancer. Well since the show it doing quite well in the ratings, it's been renewed for a third season. Coincidentally, Walt, the teacher, has had his cancer go into remission after miraculous progress from the cancer treatment. The finale was excellent as Walt's calculated lying for the past 19 episodes all seemed to collapse. His wife laid into him in her most calm voice, which made it all so great. Walt could only stand there speechless.

I ended the night by listening to a few mp3s I made of my Dad. I have a couple of phone calls from 2007 that I taped when I was sort of planning on writing a book about my childhood. The plan was to interview Dad, but it felt weird interviewing him without him knowing. I was thinking of asking him if he'd let me dictate family stories, but we felt that he might have been insulted. But I'm glad that I have these two phone calls. There are pretty funny in parts, especially when he talks about Hillary Clinton.

He said something like "If I lived with her, I would sleep with one eye open because she'd kill you in your sleep."

I'm glad I have them to remind me of Dad. I'm going to post the eulogy later this week after I edit it some more.