Here I sit, sipping my Fish Eye shiraz (from a box!), watching the Mets on ESPN, enjoying a rollicking thunderstorm that's rolling by outside -- and it comes not a moment too soon, after two days of 90-something and I can hardly keep up with water the grass (crunchy brown underfoot).

And now no power... and it's back... gotta go reset the wireless access point...

And I'm back to being online. Glavine just moved the runners over with a bunt -- maybe the Mets can add to their 2-0 lead.

Went to Wal-Mart earlier, but no story worth telling (but I did consider snapping a photo of the guy wearing the shorts and the knee-high Banlon socks). Then I went to Beast-Buy to try to find a new mp3 player. The one I've been using for years of jogging is starting to get a little fugazy. I saw a nice-looking Sony online, but wanted to see it up close and personal -- no dice, either at Wal-Mart or Beast-Buy. So then I took a walk through the foofoo import store, and then head home. Stopped at the deep-discount grocery store Marcs that just opened at the site of Tops, the now out-of-business competitor to area grocer Giant Beagle.

The place was full of a Marcsists. I mean full. It looked like the people of Berea hadn't eaten in months -- the place was mobbed. I strolled through, took note of several tasty delicacies that I would purchase on a return trip, and then drove the rest of the way home.

Mets crapped out this inning; stranded two runners in scoring position. Weak.

Took da chimpz to the town pool this evening and Mojo somehow decided that this would be the evening to show an actual interest in swimming. Real swimming -- not the paddling around and holding the edge stuff he's donw throughout all his years of lessons. There he went, swimming the full width of the pool without assistance.

Then he revealed his ulterior motive (because with Mojo, there's always an ulterior motive): he wanted to join Cookie in jumping off the diving board. He got out there to the end of the board a couple of times and chickened out. Even Alane was unsure if he would panic in the deep water and urged me to stop him. My take on it was "If he's feeling adventurous, don't get in his way."

So finally he took the dive. And he loved it. There they went: Mojo and Cookie jumping off the board, swimming to the side, climbing out and diving in again. They had a blast.

And now we're back at Berea-Rose and I've found the Met game on ESPN. Sweet. Score is tied at 1, but the Mets have a runner at first with nobody out in the 7th. Maybe it'll turn into something.

Bloody crack, indeed. Get used to it, Bazzukajoe: your children do intend to cause you severe physical harm. And they will succeed more often than you think.

It's a cool summer morning here at Berea-Rose. Da chimpz are still asleep, but that won't last long. They'll be up soon, requesting their usual: a bowl of "Funny Butt Cheerios" and a cup of orange juice. Then they'll wreak havoc in front of their video game console (maybe the Cube, maybe the Wii, maybe one at each), and then I'll herd them into the car to take them to camp.

At any point one or the other will make an assassination attempt. I am resigned to eternal vigilance.

So i was playing with Ellexa yesterday, rolling a ball back and forth across the house. I sat on the floor with her and she was blocking the way into the kitchen. I leaned into the kitchen to grab the ball and i was on my knees not realizing i had ventured in too close to the counter. I lifted my head and slammed right into the counter top corner. The sound was excellent. It resulted in a nice gash and a blood stained tile floor. I have black ablue welt with a nice bloody crack in my forehead, or is it a five or sixhead. Not sure anymore but it hurt. Nice work huh?

I didn't think it was possible but last night's NY to Cleveland flight was even worse than the last one. The 7:30 flight, I learned because I checked the status on the cab-ride over, was canceled. I immediately called and was surprised that they had another flight for me -- they said it would be leaving at 7:40.

Ten minute delay? No problem!

Yeah, like hell: when I got to the check-in kiosk it said, nope, can't issue you a boarding pass because your flight already departed. I looked at the line to get to the agent -- I'd never make it to the desk in time. I went to the monitor -- turns out the flight they put me on was originally scheduled to depart at 6, but don't worry, it had not departed -- the plane hadn't even arrived yet.

I went to the gate, gambling that they could issue a boarding pass there. Seeing the lines at TSA I made the exectuive decision to skip my usual trip to the food court downstairs to get da chimpz their customary black-and-white cookies (making them the first casualties of the night's delay nonsense).

So I waited at the check-in counter, and anyone who knows how much I hate lines will know that I was fuming. The plane arrived so the agent fled down the jetway; sometime later another surly attendant showed up and printed my boarding pass.

So far so good: I was holding a ticket and I could see the plane we would be using. We boarded at about 8, closed the door and waited. And waited. And waited. It was a packed flight and stuck as I was in a middle seat with my spine contorted and my testicles compressed I was quite close to losing my mind. Especially when they lowered the video monitors and played a special greeting from Continental's head honcho -- one that included lots of false platitudes about how great the airline is. The flight crew walked about and down the aisles telling people to sit down and put away their cellphones. "This is an active taxi-way" they said without a trace of the irony you would expect given that there was absolutely nothing active about the taxiway we sat on.

We sat on the tarmac for three hours.

Three fucking hours!

The pilot blamed it on a line of thunderstorms approaching from the west. We sat and waited and I wondered if we couldn't get the plane at least over the New Jersey, get onto Interstate 80 and drive part of the way there -- we'd probably get there sooner.

To make us all feel better about the Continental-enforced torture we were all enduring, they announced "free headphones!" so we could watch the CNN propaganda that was by then playing on the video screens. I declined, reading the rest of the NY Post, gritting my teeth, and leaning forward to ease my screaming back.

I stumbled off the plane after midnight, limped through the mostly-empty terminal and found that my horror show of an evening would be topped by a special guest appearance: sitting on the floor in the C-concourse holding forth before a small circle of hangers-on was none other than Ron Jeremy. I shook my head and walked disgustedly to the parking lot, hoping I would not be charged for the extra day.

Oh, and speaking of newspaper articles, yesterday's Wall Street Journal weekend section discussed boxed wines (again) in its wine column. I'm not above drinking wine from a box, so I read to get their recommendation. Imagine my delight to see that they were writing about Fish Eye wine, my old standby, now available in a box.

Then I got to this part of the story:

We first ran across FishEye, in regular bottles, as part of a tasting of the house brands of big chain stores last year. Back then, it was an exclusive offering at Harris Teeter grocery stores and we wrote that it was "consistently disappointing." Others must have disagreed, however, because the Wine Group says the brand sold so well that the company decided to put it in a box and roll it out nationally. (It is also still available in bottles.)

Why don't they just get right to the point? Piss-water.

Did you ever accidentally sneak up on someone who was acting suspiciously? They get all startled and flustered and so do you because you didn't mean to do it -- maybe didn't even notice the person until he gathers himself up and slinks off?

We did that today in a big way. We took Da Chimpz to the school in the next town because we wanted to use their field to give Cookie some batting practice. Alane was driving us down the school's circular driveway, aiming the car for the big parking lot just beyond but, oops, she somehow missed the fact that the drop to the lot was separated by a grassy burm. As we went sailing Starsky & Hutch-style over the embankment I screamed WTF and it was only then that I saw the only other car in the parking lot...

We have no idea what the guy was doing there, sitting alone in his car in an empty parking lot but we're sure he was up to something nefarious because when he saw us tear-assing over the rough and hurtling in his general direction he got this terrified look on his face, like he feared a mob-style hit, and as we parked next to him he quickly started his car and fled.

Which of course made us laugh even harder -- who does a drive-by shooting from a Subaru?

Alane came home from work all excited the other day because she'd seen a story in the otherwise despicable Plain Dealer -- an AP story about marauding monkeys in Puerto Rico. She found the whole notion extremely entertaining. I, on the other hand, could only think of our old pal Mike Evans who had spent some time down on the island of Desecheo trying to remove the very same unappealing primates. He did a research paper (skip down on this page to see the citation) on his experiences, including his unique opportunity to correlate the physical characteristics of the little beasts to their dietary habits. How does one evaluate the diet of a rhesus monkey? Why, by examining the contents of its stomach, of course. In the cabinet of Mike's dorm room were plastic bags containing the dried contents of those simians' stomachs -- not something you see every day on a mid-1980s college campus (don't know what you'd find on a college campus these days).

Anyway, I remember walking with Mike to his room one day and for some reason he had left his door unlocked. Bad idea -- someone had come in and riffled through his belongings. Interestingly, the burglar appeared to have taken a keen interest in those plastic bags -- some were ripped open and crumbly bits of dessicated forest meals were strewn across the floor.

Mike maintained his low-key demeanor and as he began to sweep together the mess he speculated persuasively:

"They must have thought this was some sort of really exotic hashish or something."

It still makes me laugh to think that back in 1986, someone at SUNY Purchase unknowingly smoked monkey-puke expecting to get high. And maybe he did!

American Airlines and US Airways..........Remind's me of riding a steaming flying turd.
As far American Airlines goes I too had the worst experience with them. We waited 1 hour in D.C. for a flight crew. When they arrived we were already on the plane and waiting. The flight attendants were in the back kitchen area and they were berating some of the passengers for thier attire as well as thier complaining. My return from Dallas was on American Airlines as well and on that flight the airline doublebooked my seat. When i spoke to the stewardess she smirked and "well your right, head over to the gate and s[peak to the woman there. Maybe she has ananswer for you." Very Helpful....I got to sit in the last seat on the plane. I told my company how awful thier flights are and that thier scheduling is only a suggestion.

UNCTIOUS.....I think you should have had your dad stand behind you guys and punch his hand everytime he leaned on the bar.

ante-difluvian-its a great word

American Airlines is blowjhinsky. Which I think I mentioned once or twice before... ah, as recently as Friday, a groggy day following a long night of piss-poor flight performance. Not only did I briefly blog my woes here, I wrote a complaint message to their customer service. Four days later, they sent their less-than-satisfying response. Here's part:

We realize it is especially frustrating for our customers to wait for flight crews to
arrive, and we do everything we can to make necessary scheduling changes in the least
intrusive way possible. Still, I am truly sorry you were inconvenienced by just such
a situation.

This was after the part of their message that "tipped me off" to the fact that I can look up the on-time performance of any given flight on the DoT website. In other words: you should've known that flight never goes on time. No make-good for you. Take a hike.

Weak. I gotta be in the city again next week. The Continental end of the Hopkins terminal is always a madhouse, but I'm booked with them. Let's see how those guys do.

Let's see if people who Google "American Airlines" get to this post (made even likelier the more I keep mentioning "American Airlines"; including a misspelling of "Amercian Airlines" increases the chances too).

It was a boring Sunday afternoon, and none of us had anything to do. It was just Aunt Phyllis, Uncle Pat, and me driving around trying to make a plan. Finally, we decided to go to our semi-local casino called Mohegan Sun. It's a great place because they have a DDR machine (Dance Dance Revolution, for the not-so-acronym savvy) in an arcade, and my parents can go play on the slot machines. They ran out of money before I did, and my dad decided to take a thirty second video clip of me and some random Asian kid playing DDR. It's very low quality, and it's short, but I think you can get the gist of what happened. I'm on the right, and the Asian kid is on the left. He was a 'bar whore,' as we call them. He hangs onto the back bar in order to take the weight off his feet so he's able to move them faster. I still beat him, but only by a bit. He was a good player, and it was a very good match.