Val Kilmer is Moses

All right. I was too curious not to so I did some research on this movie and put it at the top of my Netflix queue.

Who else besides Kilmer can claim to have played Doc Holliday, Batman and Moses?!

It was directed by the director of the American Idol vehicle From Justin to Kelly. He's also done this - which should've been titled "What Willis was actually talking about."

I'll let you know how it is.

Sightings

Cleveland is getting a new minor league hockey team. And, frankly, I don't get the appeal of hockey. But I do love the new name and logo - the Lake Erie Monsters.

I'm a sucker for all things cryptozoological.

I can't wait to get a jersey.

Speaking of jerseys:

This is my Minnesota Moose Jersey. I bought it at least 10 years ago. The team moved to Manitoba and now might be defunct. I got it cuz I like the logo. Anyways, I was watching Happy Gilmore the other day and when Happy takes Carol Vessey to the ice rink on their date. They walk right by the Moose logo. Weird!

That's the ticket

Is it bad that the US government would become less humorous if these two were elected?

How'd I miss this?!

Why was I not informed of this motion picture?!

But wait - it gets better:

Floor

Look at the floor I installed. Pretty good if I do say so myself.
Installing sheet vinyl/linoleum is not fun.

jerks

If u drive on the shoulder to pass standstill traffic, you are an asshole. And you are just making the situation worse. Bad karma.

Elevators don't normally impress me

but this one I was in this morning was awesome. It's in a revamped old elevator factory in downtown Cleveland. I guess they saved the best for themselves.

New stuff on my walls.

I moved my Abe kicking ass painting to make room for my dad's vanity plate - framed with the help of Kristen from work.

My dad got these plates to go on his Cadillac. He always wanted that car. He drove out to Toledo just to show it to me. And six months later he traded it in for the new model. He found that he didn't have much time to drive it, so he sold it and put the money away so he could buy a new one when he retired.

He had to get "KAZ S 1" b/c "KAZ" and "KAZ S" were taken (who else would need those?!) He also thought about getting "BINGO" but that too is taken and I wouldn't have wanted to be reminded of Bingo all the time.

I too have vanity plates. (Mariella makes fun of me from time to time. And I too like to make fun of cars I see with plates - I see "DUCHESS" all the time on my way to work.) It costs a little more but it reminds me of dad. He rarely showed off but he was damn proud of that car.

Tuesday Morning Sign

Saw this last Tuesday. Awesome.

Why I love to see Ohio State lose.

1. Stupid lawsuit.
2. The use of "The" in front of Ohio State University. Technically Ohio University should have be The Ohio State University. We were Ohio's first University founded in 1804. I think Ohio State was like 1846 when they saw how cool Athens was. So technically since OU is a state school. It is the Ohio State University.
3. The d-bag bandwagon fans - especially if you never attended.

I know it's kind of late to be regaling in the Buckeye loss, but too bad.

We went to a bar in Parma to watch the National Championship. And the bar was filled with Scarlet and Gray - I was wearing the more appropriate green. Drunk morons were shouting "O-H" and most of the time no one responded. After Ginn ran back the opening kickoff the place went nuts. But then Florida started marching up and done the field. Where's your sweatervest now, Buckeyes?

Here's the rundown of people in attendance (not making this up).

-Some guy with his entire head tattooed that we overheard that he had to be up early to meet with his Parole Officer.

-A group of 4 seemingly normal dudes drinking brewskis. However one didn't know that while coffee is brewed it's not really a brewski. He was subjected to much ridicule when the waitress brought him his WAY emasculating Irish Coffee topped with a delightful dollop of whipped cream.

-Mr. Overalls

These were clearly his "going out" overalls. He hadn't even worn them to work yet judging by their cleanliness. He did spill a beer on them when he was shouting about how much the Florida kicker sucked. So that was funny. I amused myself to no end by answering the "O-H" calls with "veralls."

Congrats gators. Go Bobcats.

P.P.* I know OU blew it in the GMAC bowl but our football team is typically overshadowing by our band who is WAY more fun to watch than the OSU band. Give me Crazy Train over script Ohio anyday.

*P.P. stands for Post Post. Much like Post Script only more modern.

Goodbye, Sandy

I had to put sandy down today. She bit my sister mary in the face. Mary needed some stitches and has two black eyes. I feel terrible for her. She has the worst luck. So I don't blame Mary. but likewise I don't blame sandy.

sandy was in the middle of unfortunate circumstances.

I got sandy when I bought my house in toledo. I shopped around for a while and found her through Maumee Valley Save-a-pet. I picked her up and took her home. I had a fenced in yard so I let her loose. she ran over to a bush and barked. she flushed a bird out. it was trying to fly away but sandy jumped, caught it and killed it. (and that was in the first 30 minutes I owned her.) she also shedded A LOT! so I learned not to wear black pants.

in toledo it was just me and sandy. we walked by the river almost everyday. I took her to work where she would hump ginger, the office dog. she ripped up the linoleum in my kitchen - the vet said it was separation anxiety. we went to obedience class and sandy was the star pupil. the other owners hated us b/c we made it look easy. and sandy would forget it all when we went home.

then sandy and I moved to solon. her and jill (my parents' dog) did not get along and had to be kept separate. i've still got scars from getting inbetween them once.

we then moved to bedford which was convenient b/c dad would let her out if I was late at work. we could even walk to Chanel. which we did a lot. sandy was part of the bingo cleanup crew and loved running around the cafeteria. A lot of the Bingo ladies would ask how she was. For some reason she hated Mr. Gotch - my physics teacher/bingo caller/nicest guy in the world and would bark at him everytime she saw him. But Mr. Gotch seemed quite proud when sandy made her debut as moses the downtown dog in Cleveland Magazine. And he would often ask about "his favorite dog in the world."

Sandy didn't really get along with Mariella's Chloe either. And Mariella was never a huge fan of Sanders and probably with good reason.

Then when dad died sandy and I moved back to solon to help out mom. she again had to be separated from jill so she was cordoned off to the family room. It soon became her territory which she was very protective of. I walked her when I could but I was (and still am) ridiculously busy with all the rental house nightmares. I feel terrible for putting her through the stress of moving so many times but I didn't have a lot of choice in the matter. I wish I had my old life back too.

Not everyone liked Sandy. In fact, few did. but that's alright. Not everyone likes me, but she was always happy to see me. And I was glad to see her. We had each other - for a little while anyways.

I love you, girl. I'll miss you.

Gross

By the lack of posts, you may have correctly assumed that I've been CRAZY busy with rental house repairs.

Here's the underside of the carpet we ripped out. I guess the tenants couldn't afford cups and just cupped their hands to enjoy beverages and soups.

Mom, Santa took a leak in my bowl!

It took tremendous restraint for me not to buy this discounted soup tureen.

Also what does a non-traditional electric menorah look like?

I love shopping

Grocery stores are fun before xmas. It's highly annoying but the store is doing there best. There's a woman walking around handing out "happy cookies" to anyone who looks grumpy. it made me laugh. but I don't think she's got a big enough cookie on her tray to cheer me up.

How much scrap metal did you throw out this weekend?!

Not as much as me, I bet.

My buddy Jerry, Mariella, Mom and Mary went up to Toledo this weekend to work on my house. It's coming together. (I'll be there again this Friday, if anyone's interested in helping. Some Xmas break this is shaping up to be.)

Jerry and I undertook the task of getting the burst radiators out from the second floor. Jerry thinks they're the heaviest thing he's ever moved (and he delivered stoves in college - and he almost became a firefighter or something too.) And I'm apt to agree. We're guessing the largest was somewhere around 400 lbs. I'm not sure the refrigerator dolly we rented was outfitted to handle such a load.

After that fun we spent a good portion of the day painting, scraping and Mariella swore once again that she will never remove wallpaper again. Thank god for my "crew."

Mariella joined me Sunday night at one of the Solon rentals to scrape the ceiling of a bedroom. And Kristen popped by to help a bit as well. That house is really shaping up too. I hope we get all this done before too long. It's not much fun and I think my friends are starting to avoid me for fear of being forced into servitude.

Rude ruse

I think, "it's a pretzel."

you think, it's a pretzel."

nope.

It's a cookie shaped like a pretzel. There ought to be laws against that kind of thing.

Inspiring confidence

I went to return some equipment to my former cable company. I was greeted by the above TV with an error message on it.

Also of the 4 TVs behind the counter only one had a grainy image on it. The other 3 were all static.

Grandma's Kitchen

Before he passed away, my grandfather asked if I would paint his kitchen. (He also asked about his porch but I was REAL busy this summer. We'll do that in the spring.) And he asked awhile before he passed away. A remodeled kitchen wasn't his dying wish.

I took a day off work and hoped to have it done. But it turned into a bigger project than I expected.

So anyways here's some before shots:

It was painted this drab blue. Actually I'm sure at one time it wasn't drab but it faded into a drab blue. Grandma also had this ugly wallpaper that looked like fake white bricks to cover the sizable cracks in her wall. She also had this paneling that looked like blue tiles behind her counter that began to wear from years of washing.

This is an in-between shot. You can see the new paneling behind the counter and the damage left from ripping off the old. (That's my favorite tool the Stanley FuBar lying on the counter. If you're tearing stuff up you need one.)

Here you can see the new paint and section I later covered with paneling. BTW the cupboards are nowhere close to being straight or level so cutting pieces around it was quite a bear. You can also see Grandma's newly white ceiling. She didn't want me to paint it white, because it would take too long. I'm glad I did because it really brightens it up. She was nervous because I told her I was painting it pink. Glidden makes a paint that goes on pink and dries white. Although I was also using a spackling that goes on pink and dries white and when you paint over that with the pink/white paint, it gets REAL pink. So I was nervous. I would've never heard the end of it if there was a pink spot on Grandma's ceiling. But it dried nicely.

Here's the finished product. We even found a place for a lot of Grandma's blue collectibles.

This wall was covered in the white brick wallpaper and has a huge crack in the corner that's covered by the new paneling. The wall with the bulletin board also had a huge crack that I was able to patch pretty well, if I do say so myself.

Here's Grandma's brand new doorbell. I also replaced the outlet over the sink with a GFCI so it'll trip there in case something happens. Oh, and we replaced the switches on the wall with new ones that LIGHT UP, so she can find them in the dark. Going to Lowe's and Home Depot with Grandma is pretty funny. I put a new lock on her side door and she wouldn't let me get the one with the gold finish b/c she thought someone would steal it or think she had lots of money.

It was a pretty big project but I had help from Mom, Mary, Mariella, Kristen and Grandma picked up a brush a couple of times - so it wasn't TOO bad.

Ill-glitterate

Updated, sparkle-riffic self-portrait.

I live in Loudville

Went to the cavaliers game last nite w/ a whole bunch of peeps. I had bought tix in the rafters (AKA Loudville). And then my agency's (supremely better/awesome/eight-rows-off-the-floor) seats became available. So I had 10 tix total. Unfortunately for me (and fortunately for Mary, her "bf", Lisa & Christy (Mariella's friends)), I only had four agency seats. So, I sat in the nosebleeds with Mariella, Kev, Jill and Greg Bob. I figured Mary hadn't sat in them before and she's been a big help of late. Plus, Kev and Jill sat in those seats last year and would likely never go to a Cavs game if it weren't for me asking - so I didn't want to abandon them.

I couldn't find anyone to use the last cheap ticket, so I ended up with two Brad Daugherty Bobbleheads - which apparently no one wants.

The game was good. They won - despite their best efforts to lose. Coaching tip for Mike Brown: If you've got the lead with less than five minutes left, attack the hoop, get fouled and get to the line. You don't shoot threes. Fortunately, they hit their ill-advised 3s but failed to get to 100, so no chalupas. And despite the violent crosswinds at such a high altitude the seats weren't that bad except for the screaming banshee of a 9-year-old who shrieked through the whole game. Her parents thought it was cute. Mariella and myself did not.