New York

I'm in the Binghamton, N.Y., area right now for work. I've never been to this part of New York before so I'm enjoying seeing some new scenery. And it is very beautiful up here. Lots of trees, hills, rivers, etc... Oh, and destroyed homes, but that's not the beautiful part.

Anyway, nothing blog-worthy to share until today. I was driving through the Deposit area along Route 17. What a gorgeous area. Big hills covered in pine trees - all along the scenic Delaware River. The road was winding - just a great drive.

And there I was enjoying all of nature's beauty when, out of nowhere, a bird comes flying straight into the driver's side door while I'm going 65mph. It was a tremendous thud even though it was only a smaller bird. My thought pattern went from "Ahh, nature...look at all those big trees....nice flowing river...this is nice...I like it here because *THUD* HOLY SHIT, BIRD!!" I actually yelled out "Holy shit!" too. I even flinched, like it was going to fly through the door and hit me.

It's a good thing this Saturn (rental car) has those dent-resistant doors they're always advertising on TV. Can't imagine explaining that sort of dent to the folks at Enterprise. Thanks, nature. That'll teach me to appreciate you.

Anyway, I'm headed back home on Friday, just in time for some total awesomeness: We're going to see the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Baltimore Choral Arts Society perform Beethoven's Ninth Symphony! I'm thrilled because I've wanted to see this performed live since I was young and played my Beethoven's Ninth CD into oblivion. Woohoo!

Music

People will buy anything. Today I received proof of that (beyond my own occasionally odd purchases) via an email.

I've been selling some of my used CDs and books and crap on Half.com. I love that site. And when I started listed my stuff on there, it was interesting to see what was selling for how much.

What shocked me the most was how much people were selling the soundtrack for the movie "Powder." You know, that movie with Jeff Goldblum and Mary Whatsherface with the albino kid who's really smart. I bought that soundtrack after seeing the movie because I loved the music. All instrumental, cool stuff.

Yes, I own the Powder soundtrack.

Anyway, I bring it up because people on Half were selling it for a decent amount of money, and there were only a few copies. With a little more research I figured out that this soundtrack was now out of print, making my copy worth more money than I paid for it. I laughed my ass off. Of all the CDs I own to become more valuable, it was the soundtrack to the albino Einstein movie.

So I listed my copy for way more than I think it's really worth and laughed again. No way anyone will ever buy this, I thought.

Until today. I got the email this morning: "You've made a sale!"

Someone bought my copy of the Powder soundtrack for $45. Which is a deal considering how much the used copies are going for over at Amazon.com. People will buy anything.

The Hood

That title is appropriate for two reasons. The first: this update involves life in my neighborhood. The second: we just bought a second car. Cars have hoods. So I'm both using slang and a term for a part of a car, which is why that title is appropriate for this post.

Also, I like explaining jokes into ruin.

So, the 'hood is still fun to live in. We're adjusting to life in our new home and around our new neighbors. No real updates on Assface The Swearing Neighbor, but that's probably for the better.

One new update is that Amy and I have started playing basketball fairly frequently on the court in the park at the end of our street. And by "playing basketball" I mean "playing PIG or HORSE." And by "on the court" I mean "on the glass-encrusted court." Seriously, this basketball court looks like someone had a Let's Break 10,000 Bottles! party on it every day since the dawn of time.

When Amy and I first showed up, it was shocking. We kicked the bigger pieces out of the way and hoped the ball could survive the rest. We also altered our game to be SHARDS instead of PIG or HORSE. It seemed more appropriate (like the title of this thread, have I mentioned that?).

We also think the name of the court should be Shards Memorial Basketball Court.

The first night we played SHARDS it was just us. Not too many people were out in that park on a warm summer evening. Then we played last Friday and Saturday night. As soon as we stepped onto the court with a basketball, three or four kids immediately appeared up against the fence asking if they could play with us. And so we've been learning the names of the kids that live near us since they enjoy playing with us.

They range in age from six to about 13 or 14, and boy do they have foul mouths on them. The ones on the court weren't too bad around us - maybe they were afraid the "adults" would scold them. But that didn't stop the ones on the swingset near us. Even the six-year-old was yelling things like, "F*ck you, bitches!" to his friends to make them laugh. Nice. And then one of the teens we played with pulled a knife out once or twice while on the court. Not at us, but just to show his friend and make vague, non-serious threats. That was fantastic.

In any case, most of the kids are polite with us (even Knifey McKniferson), at least. Maybe it's because they don't know how to read us yet. Maybe they view us as cool older people who are not their parents. I don't know, but they don't try to steal the ball from us or kick us off the court, which is nice. I think they like that we let them play. Honestly, I was telling Amy, I think they just want to play. I think if I bought three or four extra basketballs and just handed them out while I was playing, I could start up my own Youth Club because it'd be something for them to do besides hanging out being mischievious, pulling knives and yelling obscenities.

Amy was teaching this one young gal (maybe 10 years old) how to bank a basketball more correctly, and the gal really took to it. It seems like these kids don't have people taking much interest in their lives. I could be wrong, but just by watching how they react when we show interest in them and let them play ball with us - they seem to act more like kids having fun instead of crazies pulling knives on each other.

Speaking of that young gal (the 10-year-old), when she started playing with us she told us a great story. She paused in between shots to say, "My future husband went to jail last night."

"Oh really?" I responded. "How old is your future husband - and what did he do?"

"He's 19. And it wasn't his fault."

"Does he know he's your future husband?"

"Oh yes," she said. "I told him. But he shouldn't be in jail, they mistook him for another guy."

Mm hmm. Ah, life in the city for young people.

So, beyond SHARDS (which we cleaned up by the way - I took a broom down to the court the second time we went and cleaned off half of the court so we could play without injuring ourselves), Amy and I just bought our second car.

The whole time we've been together we've existed with one car, my trusty little '95 Saturn SC2. That worked fine in Boston when we relied on public transit. Once we moved down here two years ago, we got lucky because the apartment complex we lived in was within walking distance of both our jobs.

Now that we're farther away from our jobs, a second car was really needed. We looked for a while and had a hard time finding anything in our price range, then we stumbled into a Chevy dealership and found our gold. A 1998 Buick Century. Seriously. We had no idea something like that would be in our price range, but it was. And it had low mileage, only one previous owner and was in good shape.

So we bought it. As you may know, just the mere thought of Buicks brings to mind images of old people. This purchase instantly made us 65-years-old. I mean, look at that car. It screams, "I'm beyond retirement, i drive 25mph in a 65mph zone, now get off my lawn, you young punks!"

We brought it home Friday night and Amy took it out Saturday to drive up to Delaware. When she returned....the "Check Engine" light was on. *sigh*

And so we're taking it back tonight to make those crazies fix it. Thank God for those "30 days/1,000 miles we'll fix it all" warranties one can get. I'm hoping the fix is nothing too major. Such is life.

Oh, and possible names for this car include Matlock, Dorothy, Blanche, Rose, Sophia, Angela Lansbury, Madge, and MacGuyver.

Also, let me take this time to diverge from my blog post title (which was appropriate up until now, don't you think? Did I mention that?) and talk about the stupidity that is Bath Fitter. You know, Bath Fitter. The ones who come into your bathroom and install a whole new tub/shower unit over your old one. Because you're too lazy to just redo the entire bathroom.

Okay, I'm not ripping on those who get a Bathfitter unit, it's probably much cheaper than redoing the whole bathroom. And they look pretty nice.

Our house has a Bath Fitter unit. I was fine with that, it looked nice. Then more than a week ago I heard the tub squishing beneath my feet. Sounds like there's water between the two tubs. Fantastic. I look up the local Bath Fitter and noticed that their website said "And all of our products are backed by our Lifetime Warranty."

I called them and they proceeded to tell me that Lifetime Guarantees don't transfer, and that this unit was installed only two years ago. First of all, What. The. Hell. Lifetime warranties don't transfer? It's a frickin' bathtub and shower stall. Who takes that with them when they move? So now the current owners of the product are screwed because they didn't travel back in time to purchase the house themselves before installing Bath Fitter? What a stupid business model. (help me, I'm beginning to sound like my brother)

I argued with them, but to no avail. I wrote a letter to their corporate office. They want to charge me $60/hour to fix this problem when I've only lived in the house for 2 weeks? And, you know, I could understand if the unit was installed years and years ago - maybe that wouldn't qualify for free repair. But come on - it's only two years old. That's faulty installation - which is their fault, not mine.

After sending the letter to corporate, they have their local office call me to re-explain their Lifetime Warranty policy and how it doesn't apply to me. Thanks for addressing my problem.

So, screw you, Bath Fitter. I challenge you to a game of SHARDS, loser pays for the repairs.

Me...LIVE!

I mentioned on this blog before that I did this Stoop Storytelling show in mid-June. Well now if you want to listen to the audio of my story or some other storytellers, it's online!

I encourage it - and not just listening to mine, either. All of the audio listed on this site is of some awesome stories told by cool and interesting people. My story is listed under my name for the June show. I write it like that because I don't always enjoy actually putting my full name on this blog.

Obviously most of you know me. If not, use the blog username to figure out which one is me. "H" shouldn't be that hard to figure out.

And that's a photo of me telling my story. Looks all artsy for a big nerd like me.

Hope you like it!

"Hush! The Naked Bear will hear thee!"

That title is from a spam email subject line I received today. Too good to not share with everyone.

Anywhore, sorry for the blog slacking. I'm not dead, or trapped under a pile of boxes, or running from the law in some foreign country.

We are now officially living in our new home, having moved all our crap last Wednesday. Our floors are done and the painting is all done except for the window frames and baseboards. That's not too hard to do even as we're unpacking.

So the house is full of boxes and unpacking has been progressing slowly. I'm enjoying the new commute and having a porch and most of the home ownership process. There are other parts I hate, but meh - it's our first home. Not everything's gonna be all puppies and rainbows. And if it was, those puppies would be leaking and the sealant around the rainbow would be coming loose and we'd have to figure out how to fix it ourselves.

Since I last updated some fun stuff has happened, too. For example, we have a neighbor that I call "Assface." He earned that name becuase he's very mean and always angry. When we first showed up to our house a few weeks back to start on some renovations, he came right up to Amy in our backyard and starting harping on us about the rat problem in the back alley. Like it was our fault the previous owners of our home were douchebags who kept their lawnmower covered and down by the basement door over top a drain with no grate. Anyway, the rats had decided that was a fun place to make home.

So Assface acted like it was our fault. No "welcome to the neighborhood" or "hey, I'm so-and-so and welcome" - just a "WE'VE GOT RATS AND THEY'RE ALL COMING FROM YOUR HOUSE! RARGGH!"

We brushed him off because we were already planning to clean out the basement door area.

Anyway, he further endeared himself to us several weeks later when we heard him yelling obscenities back and in forth with his wife in their house and in their backyard. Because these are all rowhomes we live in - his backyard is about 20 feet from ours. He's a real nice guy. But the best part happened over father's day weekend.

My parents were in town helping out with some new house stuff. Mom and I left to go run an errand, leaving dad in the backyard with a saw cutting some quarter-round moulding. He hears Assface inside his house yelling obscenities, threatening someone. So dad gets worried that he may be about to hear domestic violence happen. But then Assface comes outside and he's actually threatening someone via his cell phone. The best line was this, though:

"I WILL CUT YOUR M*THERF*CKING HEAD OFF WITH A SAW!!"

Then to make it even better, he goes, "HELLO?!? HELLO?! SONUVABITCH HUNG UP ON ME!" and stormed back into his house.

And so threatening to cut someone's head off with a saw became our family catchphrase for the weekend. When dad forgot to wear his hat out back while slicing drywall, I brought it out to him and told him to put it on. He grumbled and so I said, "DAD, I WILL CUT YOUR HEAD OFF WITH A SAW IF YOU DON'T PUT THIS HAT ON!!"

He put it on while laughing hysterically.

And so Assface is the fun, angry and ever-so-creative neighbor that I will avoid like the plague. I've told some friends, though, that I'm tempted to make him some cookies in order to introduce ourselves to him, but to add an Assface touch to them: Offer them to him in a swearword-laden greeting.

"HELLO, DEAR F*CKING NEIGHBOR!! WE F*CKING MADE SOME F*CKING COOKIES FOR YOU, YOU GIANT ASSHOLE! WE'RE SO F*CKING EXCITED TO BE LIVING IN THIS STUPID ASS NEIGHBORHOOD AND WE HOPE TO F*CKING GET TO F*CKING KNOW YOU F*CKING BETTER! RETURN THIS F*CKING TUPPERWARE TO US OR WE'LL CUT YOUR HEAD OFF WITH A MOTHERF*CKING SAW!"

Too much? Perhaps. We just want to fit in, though.

Now that I have the swearing out of the way, I want to extend a giant thanks to all those folks who read this blog and also helped us out in the past few weeks with carpet-tearing, painting, etc... I'm looking your way, Dawn, Darren and Amber. I don't think anyone else who helped reads this blog.

Amber gets an extra special prize because she's crazy and loving enough to frickin' (sorry, still have Assface syndrome right now) FLY here from Chicago to help me paint. Seriously. She flew here two weekends ago just because I told her I was on my own that weekend and had to paint the whole place. So Amber is awesome. I already knew that, of course, but this just cemented it even more.

Any other funny stories? A few, yes! During our official move last Wednesday, we had these great moving guys lend a hand. They were nice and could lift more than I can ever dream of lifting. They were carrying three boxes at a time. Also, we have a 150-lb dining room table. Seriously - it's that heavy. The leaf is part of the tabletop, hence the extra weight. It took four strong ladies (Amy and me plus two other excellent friends) to carry it into our apartment when we first got it.

Why do I tell you that? Because one mover lifted the entire damn thing onto his back, carried it out the door, down two flights of stairs and about 100 feet out to our truck. I was amazed. He also left a large "I'm -a-big-muscular-guy" mansweat-print on it. It was like art. Art that I quickly wiped off, but still. The whole experience reminded me how puny I am.

And our cat Tuesday is now adjusting to life with hardwood floors. She's been a carpet cat for most of her life so she's used to natural traction being all around. Needless to say her learning experiences with hardwood have been entertaining. She slides everywhere while running (think Scooby-Do when he starts running somewhere and doesn't move for a few seconds). She also makes quite the racket when she goes down the stairs.

Plus, the first day we moved in she tried jumping up on our bed, but quickly lost her footing on the hardwood. That sent her jumping facefirst into the side of the mattress. Being a cat, she promptly played that off like she meant to faceplant into the mattress. She acted like she was just rubbing her face against the mattress, and haha weren't we silly to even think that she just made a mistake!

Oh what else. I can't think of much because I've inhaled too many cardboard box fumes. I'll update more later!