Announcement

In case you haven't heard . . . or in case you've only heard two or three times . . . we're pregnant.

By we, of course, I mean Lil, as I have neither the capacity nor the desire to go through the last-stage ritual of procreation. But Lil is up for it, and so I said God bless and I support you. And I do.

No, we don't know the sex yet. Yes, we are going to find out. No I will not name the baby after you, or, if I do, it will simply be a coincidence. No, we haven't finalized names yet. Yes, we are registered (and online too), but I've recently discovered that while not above most things, I am above pimping my blog-readers out. So you're all off the hook. Perhaps, as the time grows closer, the funding becomes short and I become desperate . . . well, more desperate, I'll put up a link and beg your indulgence.

If you're impatient, drop me a line, and I'll give you the site.

The highlight of this for me has been, of course, shopping. Somehow in my genetic makeup I have the canny ability to shop not only with an eye for the most expensive items, but also along aesthetic lines that make it twice as costly. It's an impressive skill, one that I haven't had to hone to any great degree. By contrast, my wife's desire and patience for shopping is similar to that of a Navy SEAL team: she goes in, makes a surgical strike, and is out with a minimum of effort and time involved.

So, it was no real shock when Lil asked me what kind of stroller I thought we should buy. I already had one in mind. It would be black, with big wheels, and a lift kit. It would also have a Blaupunkt DAB 54 with 15 inch Pyle Driver speakers and a Rockford Fosgate T10001BD amplifier.

I don't know exactly what all that means, but I want it.

I also want a 9-ton winch on the front, and shift-on-the-fly four-wheel drive. I'm considering a four-bottle 450-kilogram thrust/per JATO system.

Is it a bit much? Maybe. It's hard to say what kind of alien-invasion/zombie-attack situations I might find myself and my child in while out for a simple stroll. I was a Boy Scout, once upon a time, and so I take seriously the motto: Be Prepared.

If someone can forward me the mounting specifications for a Quad Fifty, I'd be deeply appreciative.

Staring at the Sun

Recently, Gawker, who writes the blog A Goose Egg (I've linked him over on the right), posted a story about trying to purchase Irish whiskey. Gawker and I aren't necessarily friends, having never met and never interacted except via our respective blogs and comments. Also, I'm not nearly as funny as Gawker, and so I must remain jealously in his shadow, cursing his very existence and wondering why God has granted me just a fraction of his talent.

It's a complicated melodrama . . . mostly on my end.

But back to the Irish whiskey. As I informed Gawker, Irish whiskey was invented by a little old lady who lived outside of Edinburgh to replace harsh Scottish tea for sickly children. There is only one, true whisky to be drunk and that is Scotch.

And no, I didn't spell "whisky" wrong. If you see an "e" in whisky when referencing Scotch, then it's not Scotch. You're being treated to a knock-off in the finest carmel-colored wood alcohols that will make you go blind and result in tragedy for the rest of your family and friend. Hence Irish whiskEy.

Of course, when drinking Scotch you should always drink responsibly. This means, never drink Scotch that is less than twelve years old, only drink single-malt Scotch, and only drink from the glens: Glenlivet, Glenmorangie or Glenfiddich.

Oh, and it's not Glenfidd-ish. The Scots are a hard people, they live in a hard land, and like to end their words with hard syllables. Glennfiddich, my preferred Scotch, should be pronounced correctly as Glenfidd-ICK, and if possible a little spray should come out, and you should chop someone's head off with an ax.

I told you they hard. It's part of why Scotland never managed to take over the world. Well, that and the Scotch they always drink. True Scotch is never less than 40% alcohol by volume (80 proof for you drunks at home).

Gawker, seeing the err of his ways in consuming Irish whiskey, consulted me further on Scotch as a proper, ethical, spiritual and moral replacement and asked if he could mix in Diet Pepsi. I advised that while the Scots aren't nearly as violent as his people, the Indians . . . from India (reference Gawker's response to me in his comments), we can become unruly as it pertains to drinking Scotch. Unruly to a Scot means that we'll invade your nation, raid, pillage, plunder and otherwise pilfer our hearts out and all this while wearing a kilt!

If you're going to mix Scotch and Diet Pepsi (or any other liquid substance) you should first make certain there are no Scots within hearing distance. You can usually tell, as they have their faces painted blue, carry cumbersome swords and answer most questions by yelling, "FREEEEEEEEDOMMMMMM!" They also end everything they say with "ya bastard."

Which brings me to my conclusion: There were three men, an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scot sitting around a table drinking their Scotch when a fly breezed in. The fly landed first in the Englishman's glass, who being English pushed the glass away and refused to drink. The fly then landed in the Irishman's glass, who shrugged and drank anyhow. Who cares about a fly? Finally, the fly landed in the Scot's glass. The Scot lashed out, grabbed the fly by his wings and shouted, "Spit it out, ya bastard!"

Sitting on a Barbed Wire Fence

The missus and I have a running bet to see which of us can come up with the most practical, the most necessary and the most costly home improvement project.

We had to add "practical" to the mix because I came up with bronzing all the bedding and linens, then having the bronze covered in gold, because, ya know, if you're going to turn your linens into metal, might as well be gold. And then I decided that we'd want to protect the gold with a nice titanium-alloy, so that they could conceivably last forever and double as high-altitude airplane parts. I was informed that sleeping under sheets of metal is not very comfortable, and I'm a man who loves his comfort.

I own a double-pillow top, Serta king-size matress, with cashmere on one side for the winter and silk on the other for summer.

Yeah, it's that important.

Currently, neither of us is winning this little contest, since we both agreed to remodel the kitchen countertops, and then agreed to replace all the base cabinets at the same time. This effectively doubled our little project, and forced us to declare ourselves an independent country to avoid paying Home Depot. Robtonia has declared Home Depot a rogue nation and placed them on the top of our Axis of Near-Evil nations.

Robtonia is now in the market for building an L-shaped wall in the master bedroom which will become our new walk-in closet. This seemed a perfectly logical step, since we've been making due with the IKEA purchased standing closets that we got about two years ago. That's about the life-cycle of a fully mature IKEA furniture product, after which point it rapidly bio-degrades to rejoin the soil.

It's the IKEA Circle of Life.

It's the wheel of furniture fortune.

But I digress. The point here is that we needed a contractor to build our little dream wall. A simple matter, I figured, since contractors are always eager for building things ever since they wrapped their mitts around their first Fischer Price "I Can Build or Destroy It" playset. I right-clicked through the Yahoo Yellow Pages and pulled up any number of contractors that serve our area. I rattled off a list to the missus, who then promptly called them all. One was able to set up an appointment to give us a quote, the others promised to call back.

Oh woe. Oh sadness!

No one called back. The appointment rescheduled for Friday and then failed to show up. I called, left him a voice mail and have never heard back.

One "handyman" agreed to come that day and said he would call when he could swing in and give us a quote, but he mumbled heavily and made me think of Steve Buscemi from Billy Madison. I can't say that I was sorry when he never called and never showed up. I'm all out of rouge lipstick anyhow.

So here I sit, sad, forlorn, unloved by the general contractor community who are probably all sitting at Dunkin' Donuts having a laugh at my lack of experience with their ilk. It must be a right of initiation into the realm of contractor-dealing.