Ruminating Slav

I'm no girly-girl, but ...

Y'all. The cat. He caught a lizard. In the emeffing house. He bit off its TAIL. The tail kept spastically twitching. The lizard was still alive. Oh god. I had to do something because the cat kept trying to fuck with it but oh god it was a live lizard and its Mexican jumping bean of a TAIL. I got out the dustpan and broom and scooted both lizard pieces onto to dustpan where they proceeded to leap and skitter about, doing the fucking Cha Cha with each other. I am proud that I only squealed and dropped the dustpan once on the way to the bathroom, where I unceremoniously dumped Messrs. Lizard and Tail into the toilet. Aaaaand, the maraschino cherry on top of that puke sundae of an experience? The flush woke up the baby.

I'm a-gonna getcha!

I'm a-gonna getcha!, originally uploaded by *Karo*.

Check out this horribly unattractive yet oddly humorous picture of my kid. Just wait until he hits puberty and starts slouching around wearing whatever the 2020 equivalent of safety pins and eyeliner will be. Then the fun really starts.

Nerdsville, U.S.A.

Completely solidifying the notion that I have become Joss Whedon's queen bitch, I currently have this sitting on top of my Netflix pile at home. I'm so ashamed that I can't even bring myself to type it. Is there anyone out there who's actually seen this? I'm looking at you, Tom Wanat.

Did you know Joss Whedon was actually born "Joe Whedon" and named himself Joss? Really! These are the sorts of fascinating tidbits you learn when the length of your baby's nap verges on concern-causing and you've pretty much finished the internet in an epic quest to put off working on That Damn Annual Report for work (I'm not a total failure! I've got 11 pages done so far!).

Also. Did you know that the strategery-filled board game Blokus is available to play online at the game's official web site? The Java applet doesn't appear to work in Safari or Firefox on Intel Macs, but oddly enough does in Flock, which is fun and pretty and you Firefox extention people can sneer down your noses at me for liking it and feel all superior, bully for you. Anyway, many thanks to C. and K. to introducing us to the Tetrisy fun of Blokus this past weekend. You'll be proud to hear I have picked up the physical version of the game in hopes of inciting a Blokus Revolu in Panama City this weekend.

Oh! And the Zach Braff movie that comes out this fall, Last Kiss, looks pretty sweet:

Good video blogging times

Please enjoy this video of my son busting his ass to get his paws on a fruit puff.

Sand sandwich, anyone?

Oh man, oh man, internets. This weekend we're heading to Panama City, FL for some BK family reunion-type fun, only BK discovered last night that he'd neglected to send in the second half of his condo deposit 30 days before check-in. My heart lept at the thought of having nowhere to stay and therefore not having to drag my and my baby's buns via airplane to Mobile, AL and then driving three hours from there to Panama City. Because we all know how well the last plane ride avec baby went. Plus, the beach? And Baxter? I'll tell you what that equation will equal -- handful on top of handful of sand being jammed into his craw. Does sand count as roughage? Hm.

This weekend our friends C. and K. were in town to see their new nephew and stayed with us. C., that tricksy devil, left expensive jewelry at our house, virtually guaranteeing a visit to Austin so we can return it to her. We're on to you, lady. Saturday night the gents stayed at home with the baby while C. and I went out and had dinner! And mojitos! I need to get out more. For reals.

You know what's fun? Say you like a tv show, but you've watched all the seasons and find yourself a little sad that it's all over. Here's what you do -- get a friend hooked, and demand daily updates so you can vicariously relive every plot twist and turn. Nice.

Do you think the yard service across the street who just woke up my baby with their supersonic leaf blower would object to being given a print-out of Baxter's nap schedule, with strict instructions to work around it?

Karo the pirate is angry, matey! Yaarrrrr!

Proof I need to visit the sah-lon

hair clip, originally uploaded by *Karo*.

Thank god this day is almost over

Brace yourself, internets. The Slav is about to get her rant on.

First off, teething baby. I think that says it all, and consider it a cranktastic backdrop to the yarn I am about to spin.

My Macbook Pro has been acting kind of odd for a few weeks now. Every now and then it would randomly shut down with no advance warning -- just "click," and a black screen. It kept happening more and more frequently, so today I sucked it up during First Nap and called AppleCare, who led me through the standard diagnostic crappity crap, proclaimed the problem most likely fixed, and told me to call back if it happened again. Great, thanks. So totally worth the $250 I paid for the extended warranty.

Then the provost's secretary calls to tell me that I've neglected to turn in my timesheet for this month, so I have to haul myself and Cranky McCrankerson up to Richardson to turn it in, because god forbid we have the ability to file these things electronically.

During Second Nap my computer dies again, so I call back, and after more random shit I am told that the additional RAM I installed a couple of weeks ago must be the culprit, so I am to remove it and that will most likely fix the issue. Small problem, though. I had to take the laptop in to the Apple store to have the RAM installed in the first place, not because I am incapable of installing memory, but because I don't own fucking Tinkerbell's phillips-head screwdriver, which is necessary to get behind the goddamn panel. I'm going to spare you the rant about how the Apple Genius wouldn't just HAND me the screwdriver for five minutes so I could stick the RAM in myself right there at the desk but instead made me wait in the fucking line so Grand Emperor Geeksimillian could scurry into the back room and do it himself.

Anyhoo, Radio Shack is closer than the Apple store, so I drive over there, buy some jeweler's screwdrivers, and come back home only to find that fucking HERCULES, when installing my additional memory, decided that he was going to seal that panel tighter than an old nun's asshole. MY THUMB HAS A BLISTER, people. It's all red and swole and STILL HURTS from the 20 FUCKING MINUTES I spent trying to unscrew these tiny little screws of Satan.

You guessed it, though: I take out the RAM and the computer still shuts down. Awesome. During my THIRD phone call to AppleCare, they took pity on me and bumped me up to Tier 2 service, which you'd think would lessen the moron factor but yeah, not so much. Now I am supposed to loop the hardware test off the install CD for THREE HOURS with the power cord plugged in and wait for it to die. I make it an hour and a half before I pull the plug just for grins because a few weeks ago I'd read something on Gizmodo about a silent recall of early Macbook Pro batteries so I figure what the hell, last resort before they make me reinstall the operating system because you KNOW that's what phone call #4 is going to be about. Hey, guess what? Computer dies in 10 minutes.

At this point I'm so enraged at the AppleCare asswipes that I call the nearest Apple store and just ask if they have the right battery in stock and drive over there, all the while imaging what delights I might have been able to engage in today had I not spent two fucking POINTLESS hours on the phone with AppleCare. When I get to the store I breeze right on by the Genius Bar 'cause, hey, Apple's clearly a little low on the geniuses today, and march right up to the cashier and say I called earlier about a battery. And lo, the gods smile upon me and an Employee Nerd emerges from the back at that very moment with a box and says to the cashier, "Someone called about a battery earlier. Here it is." Now I am all official and call-aheady and no one is going to question me or demand my case number. Sweet!

As the cashier is opening the box to get the new battery out I take out the old one and something prompts me to look at it before I hand it to her and I quite literally shriek in the middle of the North Park Apple store because, internets, this is what I see:



Uh, yeah. That would be my TOTALLY FUCKING WARPED MACBOOK PRO BATTERY.

Hey! Hey, AppleCare! You think maybe that's what was causing my problem? Huh? Huh? Do ya? You think my fucking BULGITY-ASS battery might be causing my computer to shut down every 45 minutes? DO YOU? MAYBE, just MAYBE, instead of having me perform hours of pointless diagnostic test you might have asked me to look at the goddamn battery because apparently I am not the only poor slob to have this problem.

Jesus tittyfucking Christ!

Oh, but wait, internets, just you wait. As I'm marvelling over the sight that is my warped battery with cashier #2, I hear a voice behind me say, "Hey, did your battery bulge out?" I turn around, and there's Mr. SMU College Guy With the Hair and the Clothes, and I'm all, "Yeah! Did yours?!?!" He then embarks on the litany of problems he had with his Macbook Pro, including a non-functioning mousepad button and then the epiphany hits me: "You mean my mousepad button wasn't all tacky recently because I dropped a french fry down in there or something?" NO NO, MY FRIENDS, THAT WAS THE BULGITY-ASS BATTERY. Mr. SMU and I chuckle and admit that we are both idiots for buying a new product the minute it comes out, and I turn back to the cashier, and that's when I see it.

There's my laptop upside-down on the counter. Cashier #1 has put in the new battery for me, only she put the wrong end in first so it's sticking up and obviously not flush with the bottom of the computer. She's just kind of standing there looking at me so I'm all, uh, ok, and go to fix it. However, apparently Miss Thang got all DRIZELLA on my laptop's ass and decided she was just going to MAKE that shit fit, and it's stuck. Ess Tee You See Kay, stuck. At one point cashier #2 is holding my laptop and I'm bracing myself against the counter and pulling on the battery as hard as I can, panting all the while, "It. Doesn't. Go. In. That. Way!" while cashier #2 is yelling in a panicked voice, "Get Alan! Get Alan!"

You think I kid, but I don't.

I think I might have blacked out a little at this point but when I came to the battery was fixed and I ran out of there as fast as my little legs would carry me before another Genius decided to help me out. On the way home I stopped at the liquor store because ... Well, really, people, I don't think I have to explain why. It was there that I noticed a suspicious empty spot in my wallet and spent the next 20 minutes combing every crevice of my car for my missing credit card. I called BK at home and had him dig through the trash to find the Whataburger bag to see if my credit card was in there, 'cause Yours Truly had decided a kid-sized chocolate shake would be a nice treat after the blistered thumb fiasco.

("I'd like a small fry and a kid-sized chocolate shake please."
"A small fry and a what?"
"A kid-sized shake."
"What size?"
"Kid size."
"What size?"
"KID. SIZE.")*

BK returns to the phone to report that his task was "disgusting and fruitless." FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC. Imagining having to spend the night cancelling my credit card and all 6,703 things that get charged to it automatically, I head on over to Whataburger to see if I left it there. And what do you know, there's Mrs. What-Size herself, holding it out for me as I walk in there door. Nice one, What-Size. Nice.

*Whataburger beverages come in kid, small, medium, and large. Kid is 16 ounces. I'm not sure who needs more than 16 ounces of shake, but there you go.

There's more, but the baby's awake

Yesterday while grocery shopping, the muzak was interrupted by the butcher informing shoppers that they were "dropping it like it's hot" in the meat department, where ground beef was available for $1.99 a pound. I'm no marketing genius or anything, but somehow I think this particular Albertson's is missing its target demographic of arthritic north-Dallas octogenerians shopping with their nurses.