The 10/30/05 episode of The Chair and Automan is out. Download the MP3 directly here. Or better yet, get a podcatching client and subscribe to this podcast here. Or check out my Odeo channel.
In this episode:
I talk about hospitals, a bathroom incident at my Mom’s house and I play some randomly grabbed songs by Five Miles Out, Spinnerty and Fall Out Boy.
Audio feedback/promos are always welcome at jaslusher AT gmail DOT com.
Later.
After a remarkably quick and uneventful recovery Jonny (Mr. Onesock to you) has come home. He was quite a trooper about the whole thing and didn’t complain much considering that last Tuesday his guts were getting some fresh air. I can guarantee that they were cause I’ve got pictures. I’m not lying they used a camera to find the cyst inside his belly and snapped a couple of shots for us. Dr. Pipkin handed them to us with the remark, “Here’s something for his baby book”. They would be great in a baby book if, of course, you were trying to make the book icky.
He fussed a bit for the first day or two because his little belly was empty, not to mention sliced and sutured. He was getting all his nutrients intravenously and little ones aren’t wired to be cool with that. Once he got to swallow his nutrients again he quieted right back down and has been his little ubercool self ever since.
To tell you the truth, I second-guessed our decision to go ahead with this operation right up until the moment they were walking away with our little bundle of joy. Turns out that if I had put the brakes on to the proceedings, he probably would’ve eneded up with a life-threatening digestive tract blockage in 4 or 5 months. The cyst was what is called an illial duplication cyst. The tissue that cyst was made out of would have been excreting bile and therefore growing. In a wee child it woudn’t have taken long to become an emergency.
All of that is behind us now. Jonny is back home and resting comfortably. Though they will most likely never see this, I would like to thank all of the doctors and nurses that did such a wonderful job caring for my family. It’s greatly appreciated.
George Takei, better known as “Sulu” from Star Trek, announced that he is gay.
I suppose I should put on the same mock shock face that I did when Rosie O’Donnell and Ellen Degeneres announced their homosexuality.
Am I supposed to be surprised by these little announcements? Was I supposed to act shocked when Sheryl Swoopes came out? I was about as shocked as I was when Greg Louganis came out.
I don’t believe I have been surprised by a “coming out” since Rock Hudson. Everyone since then has been an obviously gay person stating that they didn’t want to hide it anymore. I got news for all of you, YOU were the only people that thought you hid it well.
Here is a bit of advice to any and all gay people out there, celebrity or not. Don’t hide it, just be yourself. The only people that care are the ones that don’t need to be included in your life anyways.
And don’t bother coming out. It is a waste of energy. Just do your thing with your partner. When you show up to a party holding hands, they will figure it out. And if they act funny, don’t hang with them anymore. It’s that easy.
It is exactly how I handle my interracial marriage. I never tell people ahead of time. The facial expressions during the introductions are all I need to know.
Is it a coincidence that the White House reverses its stance on the Davis-Bacon Act suspension as soon as Florida needs some rebuilding done?
I guess they don’t mind some profiteering as long as it isn’t done in brother Jeb’s state.
There once was a small boy named Jonny and he had an evil cyst. Blah happened and now the cyst is gone.
Scared to death, I was. But he pulled through it like the little trooper that he is. It did involve some removal of his bowels, so he will be in the hospital for 5 to 7 days. He has a private room with a pull out bed and Marilyn and I will take turns watching him. I do the cooped up thing very poorly, so Marilyn will be spending more time in the room than will I. My job will be centered around making Marilyn and Jonny more comfortable and making sure that Emily doesn’t feel left out.
Thanks to all the well-wishers and feel free to leave any good karma that you have for my family in the comments.
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The 10/22/05 episode of The Chair and Automan is out. Download the MP3 directly here. Or better yet, get a podcatching client and subscribe to this podcast here. Or check out my Odeo channel.
In this episode:
I ramble, I tell which groups I think the songs from the “Sounds Like” episode remind me of and I play some randomly grabbed songs by Sole, Dr Israel and Chance.
Audio feedback/promos are always welcome at jaslusher AT gmail DOT com.
Later.
Via Kung Fu Monkey, I have really been enjoying following the online novel, Dingo. You should go check it out.
He posts a chapter a week and is currently on chapter 7. It is good enough that I have been getting antsy about the new chapters coming out. Check it out.
Seeing that it is 5 am and I’m wide awake (unlike the youngun that woke me), I will tell you the story of why I hate Home Depot. It is a long and sordid affair and I hope it doesn’t scare too many readers.
I used to live in a dump. That is the kindest, most charitable way I could possibly describe the little house that I was getting my mail delivered to. It belonged to a buddy of mine and was in horrible disrepair. He couldn’t rent it out without fixing it up and I needed a place to stay cheap. Really, really cheap. So he decided a little bit of rent right now was better than no rent at all until he got it fixed and let me stay there for a pittance.
How bad was this place? Early in my stay there, I needed to use the,um, facilities. As I opened the bathroom door, it came off. Completely off. Termites had eaten through the wall that the hinges were attached to. So there I was, bathroom door in my hand and a need for speed in my trousers. Not a pleasant combo.
This palace did not have central heat. It only had a propane furnace which I rarely had enough money to supply with the appropriate amounts of propane. So I relied heavily on the fireplace and space heaters.
There was a huge picture window in the living room. Somehow (I can’t remember how), it had gotten broken. The glass didnt fall completely out but there was a large hole in it and several cracks that looked like they could spread at any minute. With my already precarious heating situation, the hole wasn’t helping keep my butt warm.
I needed to get that window fixed. My rent was so low that it was understood that any repairs to the house were my responsibility. So I called Home Depot. After paying a $30 deposit, a man came out and measured the window for replacement. He told me that I could call Home Depot the next day for the estimate on what it would cost.
I called the next day and was told that they couldn’t find the paperwork, please call back. I ended up calling back well over a dozen times over the next week. I was given every imaginable excuse why they couldn’t tell me what the estimate might be, up to and including “I can’t find my reading glasses, could you call back later?”
Finally, after a week of dealing with these jokers, I call and they tell me that they just don’t make windows that size.
That is a flat out lie. They make windows any and every size. All you have to do is provide measurements and a window company will cut a piece of glass and some vinyl to make a window that size. It’s not rocket science.
So I realized, after all that fooling around, is that they just didn’t want my business. Maybe the house was too decrepit. Maybe I gave the estimator a funny look. Maybe I sound funny on the phone and they don’t like to deal with funny-sounding people. I don’t know why, but I do know that they didn’t want my business.
I called the store manager to let him know how offended I was and got the run around. I called their corporate offices to make a complaint and never received any reply. I e-mailed them to complain, nothing.
They really just didn’t want my business. So I have made sure to oblige them in every way since that day. They haven’t gotten a dime from me in almost a decade. I have spent tens of thousands of dollars on home remodeling in that time and every dime I spent for materials went to Lowe’s or another of their competitors. They don’t want my business, fine. They won’t get it. Ever.
That is why I hate Home Depot. You should too.
I haven’t written much in the way of political statements lately as I, quite frankly, have had much more important things going on. There are a few points that I would like to make, however.
First, having Tom DeLay booked on charges makes me happy. Happy happy happy. And I thought justice was dead in this country.
Having Bill Frist being investigated for a Martha Stewart-like crime makes me equally happy, happy, happy. Even if all he gets is Martha Stewart-like time, it will be a victory for law-abiding Americans everywhere.
The fact that there are ongoing investigations into White House staff members for crimes up to (but not limited to) treason just goes to show that talking the talk is not enough. Eventually you have to walk the patriotic walk and that seems to have been a task that the current administration is unequal to.
In the fall of 2001 Republicans were given an unprecedented amount of political rope with which to lasso both foreign and domestic problems. All they have done is hang themselves with it. Hopefully we will be saying good riddance to this bad rubbish that has darkened our doorsteps for far too long.