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AUGUST 2002 Saturday, August 31, 2002 Man, it feels like I'm on vacation. Except...umm...I'm not. Just a mandatory four-day Labor Day holiday in the state of Michigan. That new Gateway commerial is really annoying. Have you seen it? It's an ad for their new computer, which looks like the ugly kid brother of the new iMac, and in the commercial, the Gateway computer is jumping over the iMac and sticking its tongue/CD drive out at it, and the voice over boasts that it's cheaper than an iMac. Sure, but as I said to a friend of mine, in the fashion world, that's called a knock off. Knock offs are cheaper than the better items they are designed to be like. And if Gateway thinks its product is so superior to an iMac, why the hell'd they design it to look like an iMac? Speaking of Apple products (seems to be a theme this month), the iPod is great. I've been using it mostly in the car, since my Civic has only a cassette deck. My new favorite song to drive to? Harder Better Faster Stronger by Daft Punk.
Tuesday, August 27, 2002 My new addiction? Bridge mix. (I know. You don't have to tell me.) My roommate calls it a box of chocolate for those of us with less money. She has a good point.
Monday, August 26, 2002 In other news, I had a brief moment of excitement this morning when I opened up a new container of Philadelphia cream cheese, peeled off the instant win gamepiece on the lid, and saw that I was a first prize winner. First prize! That must be -- what? -- at least a grand in prize money. Yeah! It was an exciting moment for me and my Lender's bagel. Then I read the small print on the gamepiece and found that all I had won was a tub of cream cheese. Apparently, the grand prize is $100,000, but the next rung down is a tub of cream cheese. Thanks for nothing. The free cream cheese is probably plain, too, and not veggie or chive or anything like that. Bastards.
Thursday, August 22, 2002
Wednesday, August 21, 2002 In other bad news, we found a second bat yesterday. It was sleeping in a box in the basement. My very brave neighbor brought it outside and tried to dump it out of the box, but some CDs fell on it and broke its wing, so it just kind of flopped around the patio until another neighbor with a BB gun came by to put the furry bastard out of its misery. I sincerely hope this is the last one. In other very good news, my shiny new laptop and iPod are on their way to my door!
Tuesday, August 20, 2002 I ran downstairs to take care of business in the smaller bathroom, then went back up. I opened the porch door, grabbed a broom, tried to stop myself from shaking, and went in the bathroom, closing the door behind me. The bat hadn't moved, and I didn't know what else to do, so I put my hands on the end of the broom to get a lot of leverage and just gave it a good whack. And it didn't move. So I hit it a few more times, and then it fell and kind of twitched. It was stuck to the broom, so holding it out flat, I walked out the porch door and slammed the broom on the rail. I saw the bat fall off and could hear it hit the bricks on the patio. Ick. When I woke up this morning, I didn't see it outside. A stray can probably made breakfast out of it. I feel kind of bad about killing it like that, but it was in my house, and trying to shoo it out humanely just hadn't been working. It took me a long time to go back to sleep, though, and I'm still shaking. But at least I took care of our bat problem...for now.
Sunday, August 18, 2002 Over the fourth of July, though, I bought two tables at Ikea. You know how they package stuff -- everything's in cardboard boxes and you have to put it together. When I opened up the boxes at home, I was pissed when I realized that they were made of unfinished pine. So much for cheap tables. That's why they were so cheap. There would be work involved. So, in an effort to make them look like furniture and not like the ten dollar pieces of wood that they actually are, I resolved to stain and seal them. I've never done anything like this, so I went over to my neighbor's garage. She is my age but can do all kinds of stuff like this, and I frequently see her drag an old piece of furniture into her garage on a Saturday morning and drag the same piece of furniture completely refinished back into her house Sunday evening. So she gave me a shopping list for Lowes (I of course bought something wrong, but she had what I needed) and talked me through the staining process, which is more complicated than I thought. There's a lot of wiping with a stain-soaked rag, and you get a lot of stain on your hands, and you have to do multiple coats. No wonder furniture's so expensive. Anyway, now I have two rosewood-stained unassembled end tables that actually look good. I probably have more stain on my hands and feet (handy tip: don't stain furniture barefoot), but the stain's water-soluble and will hopefully wash off sooner than later. When the tables dry completely, I can seal them and put them together. So now I'm all proud of myself for doing something with these tables and am thinking that I can now be one of those people who buys armoirs and china hutches at Salvation Army for eight bucks and strips them and refinishes them to look like priceless heirlooms. See what happens when I learn something new?
Friday, August 16, 2002 Update: Bats aren't fooled by flypaper.
Wednesday, August 14, 2002
Ingredients
Assembly
Tuesday, August 13, 2002 I've had Peter Bruntnell's Normal For Bridgwater for about six months, but it hadn't sunk in until now. Just really nice acoustic rock -- kind of a British alt-country disc, and one you want to listen to over and over and over.
Thursday, August 8, 2002 Or, it's just a game Heinz is playing with ketchup fans. Looks like a good ploy by the PR people at Heinz to get other people to do their jobs for them. "Yeah, Sally, I can't think of anything else to put on that bottle besides the words 'Tomato Ketchup.' Let's see if we can get someone else to pick up the slack while we just collect a paycheck." "Great idea, Bob!" The back of the bottle gave some other examples of what might go on a Heinz ketchup label, like, "Meatloaf's only hope," "Mustard looks up to it," and "Quiet please. Tomatoes meeting inside." (I think the latter is actually kind of funny.) Heinz is accepting submissions for their Say Something Ketchuppy contest at their website. And I'm sure they'll get lots of them. Some people are just really into ketchup. Have you ever known someone who ate it on everything? Yeah -- those people are weird. I like ketchup on tater tots, onion rings, fries, and that's it. People who put it on everything from steak to eggs to goddamned mangoes really need a methodone-like clinic to get themselves off the ketchup. So don't have an ideas for a submission as of yet, but if Kleenex decided to run a similar contest, my submission would be, "Tissue? I hardly know you." Yes, it's an old joke, but I swear, anytime someone asks me if I have a tissue, I say this and they laugh. Well...they laugh sometimes. Maybe it's once in a while. Okay, someone laughed at that once. It might have been me, but there was definitely laughter. Definitely.
Wednesday, August 7, 2002 The unfortunate thing is that Latona doesn't quite seem bright enough to understand what's going on. But she's only 23 and has probably been treated like a child by record company types her whole life, so you almost feel sorry for her. She even makes some comment to the author of the article that she really wants her first album to be a classic, so it's important that the photos on the cover and on the inside look right. J's got her so geeked about her potential image that she doesn't even get that it's about (duh!) the music. I'm sure she'll be in a "Behind the Music" or "True Hollywood Story" in a few years talking about how J Records totally screwed her over.
Tuesday, August 6, 2002 Today is primary election day in Michigan. So I got up early and got dressed, and I happened to put this t-shirt on. I went to the polling place, which for me is the local senior services office. They're a little slow over there, but on the whole they're nice people. They also don't get a high turnout, especially on primary day, so they're happy to see anyone walk in. I went in at around 8:15 this morning, and I was the only person there aside from the senior volunteers. And I learned that if you wear anything that looks even half official and half authoritative, seniors are extremely impressed and immediately want to know more about it. They all asked me what event it was for, and where I got the t-shirt, and if it was a good job, etc. etc. etc. I spent one minute voting and about five trying to explain that I wasn't a cop or a security guard or anything like that.
Monday, August 5, 2002 In other news, I had a really good guacamole sandwich for lunch today. Have you ever had a guacamole sandwich? I wouldn't have thought to put guacamole on a sandwich with just a little mozerella cheese and nothing else, but I like guacamole, and I like sandwiches, so I guess it makes sense. And I have to say, this was especially good guacamole from this place in town that I go to for lunch now and then. Yeah. Nothing like good guacamole. Except -- duh! -- a good guacamole sandwich. Mmm. But yeah, so anyway...the bats! And the dishwasher! And the shelf in the fridge! Damn.
Sunday, August 4, 2002
Thursday, August 1, 2002 The title of this month's page (I title each month -- have you noticed? Please say you've noticed?) comes from the title of a song on Josh Rouse's Home album. Here at amyscoop.com, we like the elegant songwriting, soothing voice, and pop melodies of Signor Rouse. Highly recommended.
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Beep! Hey, it's Amy. Thanks for stopping by. I might be out for the next few days. See, I got my new iBook, and I'm all excited! It has OS X 10.2 on it (before it's officially released -- I know!), and it's got all kinds of cool features that I've been playing with. I haven't explored around OS X much, so this is all kind of new and exciting. Plus, the portability of the laptop will let me do all sorts of important things in the comfort of my own bed, like check email and watch DVDs. So I'll be back in a few days. Thanks again for checking in. Beep!
I bought a squeezy bottle of red Heinz ketchup last week, only to learn that it's no longer just ketchup but is now (see photo at right) my fish stick improvement system. So it's a system that will somehow improve my fish sticks. A system. Yes. Let's see. I haven't had a fish stick since I was about twelve. I never thought they needed a whole lot of improvement -- how much thought do you really give to fish sticks? -- and I never liked ketchup on them. Tartar sauce, sure, but ketchup? Ick. But apparently, ketchup is now an all-in-one system (system) that will improve my fish sticks, and improve them so well that Heinz felt that this fact should be proclaimed on the front of the bottle. It's a fish stick improvement system. Yes.
