I'm Back!

What's even more amazing is that I didn't even go anywhere. I just haven't had time to post any ramblings lately!

Well, today is really no exception. So I thought I'd entertain you with a few pictures of my cat, Ozzie, goofing around in an empty case of Pepsi:





Like most cats in this world, he likes to climb into things and stay there for hours on end. This, however, only lasted a few minutes.

Oh, and we spent a good portion of the weekend decorating the house. I'd post some pics and even though it looks incredible, the place still looked really messy. And besides, Christmas lights look so much better without a camera flash illuminating the room.

I'll be back when I've got more stuff to babble about :)

Big Breakfast?

When it comes to breakfast, I usually whip up a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles or make some Pillsbury Toaster Streudels - the Strawberry Cream Cheese ones being my favorite.

But since we now have our Entertainment coupon book, we decided to take advantage of the McDonald's offer of a free Big Breakfast with the purchase of the same.

It'd been years since I had one so I figured what the hell.

I should have taken a picture. You would not have believed it.

Breakfast, partially. As for Big, well, it was far from it.

When I opened the Styrofoam container, I was shocked to find out that McDonald's latest Big Breakfast version, perhaps Big Breakfast Millennium Edition, consisted of a biscuit, some scrambled eggs, and a chewy sausage patty. Oh, you do get a hash brown patty but damn - this was crappy!

Let's put it this way. The biscuit was split and utilized as the bun, and the eggs and sausage were the innards. I combined that with one packet of runny McDonald's jelly and I had my "big" breakfast - on a bun. Basically, when you order one of these things you are getting a Sausage and Egg Biscuit Value Meal sans the drink.

The plus side: We only spent $3.50+ for the two. Even at that, I still think we were charged too much.

McDonald's sucks eggs. And sausage.

Notes

I've added a new banner to the blog. Not because Blogger.com told me to, but because I'm anxiously awaiting the release of "The Phantom of the Opera" movie. It's been a long road, even if at one point Antonio Banderas was being considered for the role of The Phantom. Truth be known, he's not all that bad. See either Spy Kids movie - good for a laugh.

What I'm interested to see is how this elaborate stage production will carry over to the big screen. I've seen the show umpteen times and know quite a bit about it. Even have a prop from it.

If you've seen the show, this is one of the "Notes" from The Phantom.

Here's the envelope:


And here's the note:


These came courtesy of Marie Danvers who played Chistine in the last Los Angeles production of the show. She and my brother are good friends, and she's quite down-to-earth. Ann and I got a chance to meet her after a show. It was funny seeing how many people had no idea who she was when she walked out backstage - and they had just seen the show!

At any rate, Marie enlightened us about one of the dangers of working at Arby's - Potato Cakes. She says they're addicting and swears she's eaten more of those than anybody else on the planet.

They are good...

SLASHED! Update, Part 2

I've now learned that our neighbors, the kids that were being questioned about things, were victims as well. A bike was stolen from their front yard from what I hear.

There are now "stolen bike" posters around the neighborhood which prompted me to ask myself:

1. Why did they even have a picture of the bike to begin with? It's a piece of crap!
2. It's a piece of crap - why would they want it back?

It reminded me of Pee Wee's Big Adventure, one of my favorite movies, co-written by the late and still sorely missed Phil Hartman. Maybe I should call and tell them it's in the basement of The Alamo.

Oh, and I've created an Amazon.com Wish List. I'm still adding stuff to it.

What A Bargain

Ann and I picked up one of those Entertainment 2005 coupon books at Target last week.

At a price of $22.50, the thing has more than paid for itself. It's mostly 2-for-1 coupons for various fast-food joints, but also has coupons for fancy local restaurants.

Highly recommended stuff. Get one!

My New Toy

I picked up this Tyco RC car at Ralphs yesterday for $20. The digital camcorder is attached to it with a mini clamp/tripod. I need to adjust the weight distribution because the thing flips when going from reverse to forward.





I have two cats. You can only imagine the trouble I'm gonna cause them now.

SLASHED! Update

So it turns out that there were about 20 other cars that were victimized by a roving band of drunken idiots that night.

This is what Ann learned at the local tire store, where they couldn't keep enough tires in stock. In fact, we had to order the tire for Ann's car. She was talking to another victim who had his son's tires slashed and swore that "the cops better find these guys before I do." My thought exactly.

From what the guy said, he heard and saw a group of "kids" drinking on the corner earlier that night. He also found the bed of his son's truck filled with beer cans the next morning.

One day and $130 later, we have a new tire. Many thanks to the assholes who found great pleasure in taking food out of my son's mouth for this unexpected expense. I hope you are caught and forced to pay the victims what they spent for new tires. Speaking of which...

The police were here tonight and, from what I can speculate, were questioning one of the 20-something kids next door to me. For someone who wasn't a victim of the slashing, he sure was agitated by the whole thing.

Strange, isn't it?

SLASHED!

It was a beautiful morning. The sun shone through the leaves of the sweetgum tree. The dew-covered grass of my front yard was also decorated with fancy autumn colors. A classic Southern California winter morning to this point.

I snuggly packed up Anthony and Ann's car, gave them both a kiss, and off they went. I soon departed for work as well.

About a minute into my journey to work, I get a call from Ann on my cell phone.

"I think I have a flat," she said. I asked where she was and I met her there. From there we went back home.

But on our way home I noticed something. Many cars had flat tires on the street to the east of us. One car had both tires on the driver's side flattened. All cars with flats were parked in the street. I counted five cars altogether.

Apparently, we were number six:



Ann hadn't seen the other cars so when we got home, I told her I was going to call the police.

Twenty minutes later, the police came and took a report. From what they told us, there was a city-wide tire slashing spree last night in Long Beach. Ann thought something was up because she told me she heard a noise about 8:30 last night, but didn't notice anything unusual outside. With the people behind us remodeling their house, we've become used to loud and random noises lately, so that probably why I may have dismissed anything I might have heard.

The one time Ann decides to park in the street, this happens. Not a lot we can do about this except buy a new tire.

And park in the driveway from now on.

Deja Vu

Just the other day, I plopped Anthony on my shoulders for the first time. He enjoyed it. I told Ann to take a picture of us.

Soon afterwards, I was reminded of a photo that my mom took of me and my dad with me resting on his shoulders.

Here are both pics, side-by-side:



My father died when I was 7 years old. I've made a promise to Anthony that I'll be around a lot longer than that.

Poorly Drawn Together

Being a writer, I hate reality shows. But I was a fan of the first season of MTV's The Real World back in the 90s. It was something new back then, before the airwaves were saturated with them.

That said, I watched a show last night on Comedy Central called Drawn Together. It is billed as the "first animated reality show" and from what I saw on the website, seemed interesting.

But that's about all that was interesting.

The show is based on animated characters from different genres: A 20s Betty-Boop-style character, a Pokemon-ish animal, the goody-goody Disney-esque princess, etc. Like The Real World, they are selected to live together and we are subjected to seeing what happens.

So what happened?

The animated Internet pig (voiced by Adam Carolla) routinely micturated on anything or anyone it pleased, and the princess and the girl who looked like a Josie and the Pussycats reject exchanged a long, passionate kiss in the hot tub. Aside from that, the other conflicts, if they were even so, weren't exactly amusing.

What makes this show unbearably painful to watch is that it has no likeable characters. Each is as annoying as the next and I wanted to strangle every one of them after the first 5 minutes. I understand what the creators are trying to accomplish or what their concept was meant to be like, but it just didn't work for me. I'd rather watch Family Guy and if you know me, that's really saying something.

If you want to watch a funny animated show, give Cartoon Network's Adult Swim show The Venture Bros. a try.

Any show that makes references to Depeche Mode is alright by me.