Archive for August, 2009:
Parking Karma
In case you haven’t figured this out before, I have a bit of an evil streak. I admit to it. And, just like everyone else, I get the urge to get a little vengeance when people are mean to me.
We all want to bash in some headlights when someone steals our parking space. But we don’t do it. Because we don’t have a baseball bat handy. Or because we really don’t want to go to jail. And occasionally we think, maybe he had a good reason for taking that spot. Maybe there’s a pregnant lady in the back of the car and she’s in labor and they really need something from . . . Autozone/the mall/my apartment building before they head on to the hospital. Yeah, I haven’t come up with a good excuse for it either, but I try to be a good person and imagine there was a good reason . . . But in the end I want my revenge.
God Bless Guitar Hero
Many people think the game Guitar Hero isn’t any kind of blessing. My father says if my sister practiced a real guitar half the amount of time she spends playing ‘that game’ she’d be a skilled musician by now. Instead, she is very skilled at making a plastic guitar click in an abnormal rhythm.
Everyone in my family plays the game . . . except me. That could be because I suck at it. And for a while I agreed with my father. It was just a video game sucking everyone’s time.
Sure, it’s a phenomena. South Park made an episode about it. Bands are dying to be on it. Every kid dreams of being immortalized in a poor CGI rendition as one of the rockers. And I have to admit, (CGI aside) the game is well put together. I laughed my butt off the first time actually didn’t ‘fail’ a song and was rewarded with a nice paycheck. Which the game immediately rescinded to pay for my ‘trashed hotel room’ and ‘new leather pants’.
So while this game eats away at my children’s lives – and other family members’ too! I have to remember what it has done for us.
The Whole Nine Yards
Since moving out of the city I have to say that I have encountered a whole new share of yard issues.
In Los Angeles, one of the major problems was that we needed to park the cars on the street, just to reclaim those last square feet of driveway as yard space. Where should we put the six foot, inflatable leprechaun for St Patrick’s Day? He took up the bulk of the grass area and left a precious little play spot for children who didn’t have much of that inside either. We got a push mower so we wouldn’t make noise and disturb the neighbors (and, yes, I do mean the kind with no motor whatsoever, two wheels, and blades that you kept really sharp because they didn’t go really fast.)
We tell people that we live in Nashville now, but that’s really a bit of a lie. Our address is listed as one of the smaller satellite towns further out. And, like is the case with many big cities, if you look at the map, you can see where Nashville was, where this old small town was, and where newer smaller cities/districts/suburbs have sprung up to fill the space in between.
A Night at the Opry
A few weeks ago I had the singular pleasure of watching Steve Martin get inducted into the Grand Ole Opry. You may be thinking that you read that wrong. Or that there’s another Steve Martin. Well, no you didn’t and yes, it’s him. Most people don’t know that the funny man also plays a mean banjo, but the Opry folks do.
Being a Steve Martin fan and a banjo fan (yes really, I do know the difference between ‘Orange Blossom Special’ and ‘Wabash Cannonball’), it seemed like the perfect time to check out the Opry.
It turns out my thirty-five dollars didn’t just get me a ticket, it opened a portal into another world. I thought I knew what was coming, but I was not prepared.
Assume the crash position
You know the economy has changed when the airline that used to be criticized for its cattle-call manner of boarding passengers is now the nicest player in the game. But, even though our standards have lowered, there are still a handful of things that make flying less than it could be. Or even make it devolve into a struggle just to get through security without hurting someone.
Once my shoes have been checked for C4 and I’ve had my bags searched because of that bottle of water I absent-mindedly tucked in my carry-on, I’m ready to be led on board for the flight itself.
I just love flying. I love small foil wrappers housing three to five peanuts each. I like asking for a coke and getting a two ounce glass with one and a half ounces of ice. I like half-done crosswords and sudokus that always seem to kick my butt, even though I do quite fine at home. I like SkyMall.
No wait. I DO like SkyMall. Some things in there are over-priced and ridiculous – who would buy a car from a magazine? Wait, don’t tell me that you did it. I really don’t want to know. But every now and then, there are some things in SkyMall that are really cool.
