Atomictumor

So, last night I had a dream that GAC and I and the fam moved into a condo/apartment kinda thing, because we’re too broke to keep our house.  In the dream, we’re unpacking and bitching about how small the damn thing is (which would be something, given how small our house is now…) and just generally being unhappy about the whole thing, when Pigpen jumps in the empty bath.

For some reason, I’m concerned about him in the tub, so I start trying to get him out (not sure why there was difficulty pulling a 4 yr old out of an empty bathtub, but those are dream physics for you).  In the process of doing this, I realize that the tub isn’t secure.  And that its held up over about a 5 foot drop solely by cardboard boxes.  And that the tub itself is cardboard, just cleverly disguised as tub.

I move the thing, and look down to a hidden section of the apartment concealed behind the tub.  It has the same carpet and paint on the walls, and appears to be part of our place, rather than its own.  Hopping down there, I find a living room and 3 bedrooms (one with a bathroom with presumably genuine tub, tho I didn’t try it).  The living room has a massive HDTV, has to be 70 or so inches, hooked up on satellite.  One of the bedroom has a more modest 50 or so inch TV.  There is a screen door with a bitchin porch, leading out to a massive yard with playground facilities, and no signs of life (no apartments, road, power lines, nothin.  Not even a baseball diamond in the corn.)

So, we had a party.  The end.

Yeah, I was disappointed too.  I thought it’d be cooler.

Can someone (ahem Netmom?) please point me to any and all laws concerning the sale of beer at a grocery store in OR? Nodbob (6 months shy of 21) and I went to a grocery store to buy beer, and they wouldn’t sell it to me unless he showed them his ID as well. I was carrying and paying, he was just my ride. Are they going to start refusing me beer when I have my kids with me?

I think it’s cuz he has a bitchin’ mohawk.

A woman in my class came in distressed the other day.  She claimed that her car had been stolen from her apartment’s parking lot.
Yesterday she came into class and said that she’d received a call from the cops.  Turns out it had been reposessed, not stolen.
Here’s where it gets scammy.  The dealership in question (Smoky Mountain Car Supercenter) had received her car payment only one day late when they sent out their repo guy.  When my classmate called them to ask why they towed the car, the salesman said that he’d mispelled her name on the contract and she hadn’t noticed, so they had voided it.  Hmm.
Luckily, she’d written down the VIN for the car before it got towed.  Upon looking it up, she found out that the car had four owners in this year alone.  It looks like they get their downpayment, maybe a second payment, void the contract and repo the car and start the whole process over again.
Our readers are too smart to fall for something like this, but I know you all know some suckers.  Spread the word and make sure no one gets shafted again.

As some sort of cosmic judgement, GWB ends up getting Parkinson’s, or Alzheimer’s, or nerve damage, or one of the many things that might one day be cureable with the research that he has hamstrung today.

I try to stay optimistic as we round the bend on year 6 of his finger on the button, but its hard to. We have the end of the world brewing in so many different pots that sometimes I just have to either hide under the covers or get drunk and watch TV.

Good thing we’ve got boy band covers of Al Green songs on NBC.

As I type this post, I am totally rocking out to INXS’s Kick album.  Here in a minute I’ll be checking out REM’s first two records, Murmur and Reckoning.  After that, it may be Madness, the soundtrack for Easy Rider, Dexys Midnight Runners or Fats Waller.
Basement Records (way the hell out on Chapman Hwy) is, unfortunately, the only place to buy records, unless you count the potluck flea markets offer.  Of course, when you’re on a tight budget, Basement’s $2 record bins are fairly potluck, too.  Although we have picked up some Johnny Cash, The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan there before.
Record store owners can be an odd bunch.  Mr. Basement, for instance, was listening to a radio talkshow VERY LOUDLY when we came in.  He only turned it down to rant at us for a while about how evil cds are, and that when people come to their senses, there will be a restoration of power to the throne of vinyl.  He has given us this rant both times we’ve been in the store.  Last time, we were there longer and were privy to his NRA speech as well.
While I disagree (to myself, since I don’t want to be yelled at by Mr. Basement) about an underdog win for vinyl, I do agree that albums are a wonderful medium.  They have a unique sound, big, beautiful cover art and a nostalgic quality that makes buying and listening a pleasure.  Any time I go to a flea market, bazaar or yardsale, and they have albums, I am compelled to look through them.
You just can’t stomp to make a cd stop skipping.