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.