Tag: television

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Eat Your Damn Eggs

I got up this morning and cut up some fresh tomatoes and serrano peppers to scramble into some chopped bacon and eggs. Mom used to make something like that, but I’ve always just cheated and used a can of Rotel. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but after cooking off all the liquid, I thought it was perfect. We barely had enough rice for everyone, but Autumn initially refused to touch it anyway. She came into the kitchen and got really quiet when she saw me cooking, which was a good indication that it was about to get dramatic. Summer turned on her Mom Voice™ and made her sit at the table until she ate the bowl I fixed her. A bunch of yelling later, and Autumn called out to me that she actually liked it as we all let out a collective eye roll.

We spent the rest of the day watching TV. The girls each spent a bit of time cleaning up house, and I pulled all the literal trash out of the junk drawers. We sobbed through a bunch more Glee, and had leftovers for dinner. I wanted to be more productive, but I guess it was my own fault for not just getting up and going home.

Who started this tagline tradition anyway?

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Gleekout

Today was a day of leftovers and television. The kids got a proper yellin’ after showing some attitude, and fixed it surprisingly quickly. Summer had them clean up house a bit after taking Autumn to the gym. Later she took her to her parents’ house so her mother could make Autumn a formal dress.

I warmed up some more leftovers for dinner, and the three of us watched a bunch more Glee until bedtime.

So you like show tunes. It doesn’t mean you’re gay. It just means you’re awful.

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Dear Journal,

Summer took Autumn to pick up the breakfast pizza I ordered, then took both girls to their all-region band event. She was still feeling sick and came back to nap in the floor while I watched some more renovation YouTube videos. Eventually she had to go take the girls home for lunch and to clean up before their concert.

I cleaned up and took a bath for a while, and eventually left to get stuff for dinner. I stopped by Harbor Freight first to return my broken fireman’s axe that didn’t even make it through one log. Then I went to Walmart for beans and veggies to throw in the InstantPot. Summer wanted a coffee, but Starbucks had a line coiled around the building like a constrictor, so I went back towards McDonald’s instead. She liked the hot mocha just as well, and it probably cost less than half as much.

I started chopping up onions, celery, and carrots to throw in with our old ham bone, then threw it all in the pressure cooker. Clint stopped by while I was prepping, just briefly enough to pick up some network cable and then hit the road again. A couple hours later, we had a pretty decent soup made. I thought it was a bit bland and lacked inspiration, but I was in a little bit of a rush anyway.

Summer, Eaddie, and I binged on several episodes of Glee until we couldn’t take it any more. It was well after all of our bedtimes anyway, and even I felt weepy tired.

Once again, I’ve won!

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Your Lift Keeps Lifting Me Higher and Higher

I slept so well last night, and though I woke refreshed, I would’ve loved to stay in bed a while. I made it in to work in plenty of time and started picking at my stack of laptops. Things feel just slightly more organized now, and though I still have many in various states of disrepair, I feel a little less stressed over them.

Allen suggested Taco Villa for lunch, and by the time I got back to the shop, Zach and Gary had agreed to ride along. I thought I was going to do the right thing and only eat half of my nachos, but I guess the half I was looking for was on the bottom. When we got back to the shop, I hung out there for just a little while and tried to help with a stuck headphone plug before heading back to the high school.

I had to borrow the lift to get up to the choir projector and replace the lamp. Most of the lamps I’ve replaced out there have been pretty straightforward, but this BenQ was evidently made form over function. Once I found the hidden screw to release the cover, I still had to pry the lid off, and then the lamp didn’t have any rails or anything to slide it into position. I just had to hold it up and get the screws locked down.

On the way back to my office, I got a work order that some kind of cable had come down into the road at vo-tech. I went out to investigate, and it ended up being one of the new fiber lines we’ve just had run out to all the campuses. Someone had run over it and crushed a good portion of it, and I couldn’t tell where it was actually supposed to go, but they’re definitely going to have to run a new line now. Fortunately I don’t think it was actually in use yet, so it won’t cause any outages.

When I got home, I received the bag-in-box Coca-Cola syrup spigot I ordered, and tried making a Coke in my SodaStream. Light flavoring and heavy carbonation tasted pretty good, but I wish the syrup wasn’t so expensive. When I last did the math, it wasn’t significantly less than the cost of a 2-liter per volume.

Next up was moving car insurance around, just in time to run and get the girls from karate. I took them home and snacked a bit until Summer got home, at which point all the girls got ready for bed. I convinced Summer to let Eaddie stay up for one episode of Glee in bed with us, and then it was lights out.

I hate cats.

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I’m not kidding! Why do they always think I’m kidding???

The middle school started ACT Aspire testing this morning, and I drew the short stick. I burned the entire morning sitting in Sara’s office, and only got called out twice – both times to unlock a door in the counselors’ room because someone forgot their key. At one point, Robin brought the counselors to talk to me about trying to get their campus to a 1:1 device ratio so they could test all the kids at once. I vehemently replied that we should instead be reducing the device count, and that testing everyone at once is a very bad idea. I’m still surprised when people are shocked to hear me say as much.

Nobody wanted to join me at Ruby Tuesday for another $5 salad bar, so I went by myself and just sat at the bar. It was a quick and quiet lunch, but not inside my head. A group of employees were mingling at the other end of the bar talking mad trash about how people had been coming in all day asking for John. John’s served my tables many times in the past. He is far and away one of the best servers I’ve ever had at any restaurant. He’s always courteous, professional, prompt, and most importantly conscious of what’s happening at the table. Even today, he stopped by to say hello, commenting that I wasn’t with my usual posse. Never once has he even suggested that we should ask for him by name, and I honestly don’t feel like that has anything to do with why people do so. If any of those employees spent half as much time hustling as leaning, maybe they’d have eager repeat customers.

After lunch, Allen drove me out to London so I could show him that he didn’t properly re-enroll a Chromebox after powerwashing it. I figured I had already burned half a day, so I might as well get a trip out of it. When we got back, I spent a little time at the shop before heading to the high school. I got a very little bit done. My Adobe form was printing unpredictably.

My evening flew by as usual. I went home for a little while before going to Walmart for some things. I needed cat food, and wanted to peruse for a while without someone nagging about it. It’s funny, because I used to always want someone to go with me, but oftentimes now it’s more peaceful just to go alone at my own pace. I picked up some cold fried chicken on a whim in case anyone was hungry, and headed up to Summer’s.

We ended the evening with some more Glee. There’s just something about that show that completely sucks me in emotionally.

So blame it on my ADD, baby.

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Blunt the Knives and Bend the Forks!

I got up this morning and picked up another breakfast pizza from Casey’s for the kids. It was a big hit as expected. The girls had fallen asleep in the middle of The Hobbit last night, so I played the first half of the 1977 cartoon to catch them up. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise how well they matched up, since they’re both adaptations of the same story. It became obvious which parts of the new movie were embellished and extended. The cartoon sort of just gets straight to the point, and for that reason it worked well to get everyone on the same page.

Noah had to work, so Summer took the kids and left me to spend the day at the house. I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately, and just felt bored and listless for most of it. I didn’t want to do anything, either for fun or to be productive. It stuck with me all weekend, just like the last. The only thing I accomplished was stacking a tower of Soylent that arrived over the past couple days.

Summer made dinner in the evening, so I joined them for some delicious pork chops, zucchini, and potatoes. Then we watched a couple episodes of Glee before bed.

So, carefully, carefully with the plates!

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Razing a Suddenstink

I got out of the house a little early today so I could pick up a breakfast pizza from Casey’s. It was a delicious bacon, egg, and cheese number that was an absolute delight to consume. Surprisingly few people took part in it, but I wasn’t upset to have a little left over at the end of the day.

Jason had vague projects for us to do, and I was to be with Allen all day, doing things for our two lost techs. The morning job was to run a new WAP line to the middle school auxiliary gym, where presumably nobody actually needs it. I was willing to climb up on top of the cinder block wall above the ceiling grid, but couldn’t hoist myself up that high while also climbing between tiles. Luckily Zach showed up to help, and we ran the line with relative ease.

Nobody seemed to like my idea of $5 salads from Ruby Tuesday, but somehow that’s where we ended up going. Ben and Zach were good with it, and Allen reluctantly let himself be peer pressured into riding along.

After lunch, Jason helped us replace a heavy, old SMART E70 with a newer touch panel. That went pretty smoothly as well, but when he left us, he forgot his backpack. When we got back to the shop, he was suspiciously apologetic about forgetting it, and wouldn’t stop going on about it. We could never figure out why that was, or why it was such a departure from his angrier attitude from the morning. He even let Allen and me go home an hour early, but nobody else seemed to get that same courtesy. Of course I actually ended up staying until 4:30 helping Zach look at a door, but the gesture was still nice.

I mostly zoned out after work, sitting at my computer tired and bored. I eventually called Suddenlink again because, in spite of their promise that my bill would be significantly lower, I was charged the same overpriced amount I’d paid for the last five months. Being after hours, every useful department was closed, and I could only speak to a heavy-accented “Adam Smith” that insisted my bill was still correct.

Summer got home pretty late, and it stormed a bit, but I eventually made it up to them. We watched a couple episodes of Glee as the weather alerts started rolling in. They got super nervous, but didn’t want to take shelter or accept my offer to stay at my house either, so I mostly just felt stupid for letting them rile me up, looking out the door to see if a tornado was coming.

I locked the deadbolt. It’s not getting in.

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The Figurer of Things

I had to learn all manner of things today. I felt spread super thin across all kinds of random and artificial fires. Everything was super urgent to everyone, and it was up to me to bring everything back down to an appropriate level. Amber’s been bombarding all of us with things since we came back from Christmas break. I didn’t even get to really touch any of the 1:1 stuff today, which has been their primary concern all week. I did get a fair amount accomplished, but every time I turned around, I had to figure out some new system. I didn’t mind it so much. If anything, it was entertaining.

Ben texted about Popeye’s for lunch, so I met him, Zach, and Allen there. I actually had a pretty good experience with my food being regular sized and not puny, and I even had a coupon. I tried to make a better decision with smaller portions, and the price was right.

Afterward, I spent a while at the shop working in the Google Cloud Directory Sync, which was something I toyed with back when it was GADS instead. With a little help, I resolved another of Amber’s hot ticket items for the day.

I spent the remainder of my day at the arena, trying to figure out why their AV equipment wouldn’t wake up from sleep. I shot off an email to who I thought was our supplier, but it sounds like that was a bad lead. More figuring tomorrow, I guess.

I didn’t get to spend very much time at home before I had to run to Walmart for some dinner. Summer wanted to grill burgers, and had to get the girls late, so I picked up a couple things and headed to the house to start the prep. The girls weren’t feeling up to helping a whole lot, but Summer did manage to help enough to get everything ready at approximately the same time. I grilled a bunch of bacon and made massive hamburgers, and felt a particular pride when even Autumn got up from dinner with a clean plate, especially after I had gotten adventurous with the burger patties.

Summer and I finished the evening with another episode of Glee. I hadn’t forgotten how that show made me have the occasional feeling, so I’m glad to commit to finishing it for once.

And somehow I managed to fit the whole thing into my mouth.

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Chillin About Town

I woke up to an obnoxious cat this morning that came into the bedroom and crawled under the covers to aggressively lick my arm and nibble at any thin spots in my skin, presumably to eat me alive. Rather than allow myself to become a feline lunch, I left for home and cleaned up for some lunch myself. Mom made fish soup, and I needed to get my case of bananas to Dad, so I went across town for a while.

After lunch, I stopped by Julie’s to deliver some dried pork. We talked for a little while before I left for Lowe’s to peruse for some deals. I saw a butane torch listed online for cheap, so that was my primary objective, but the whole store was littered with bright yellow sale tags, and there was nobody with me to groan about my sifting through junk. Julie told me about a refrigerator that had been marked down significantly, but it was marked as sold by the time I found it. I did eventually find my torches, so I grabbed a handful for everyone. I may have to go back for a couple more now that I’ve had some time to play with one.

From there, I stopped by Superfast to see Summer before heading back home. I felt just a dash of inspiration that was quickly overrun with lethargy, so I wasted most of my time there until Summer was to be home. I headed up to pull out the leftovers, and we snacked for dinner. She brought Autumn home, who watched TV while Summer and I started on Glee. Then I watched the better part of The Matrix as she fell asleep.

It means buckle your seat belt, Dorothy because Kansas is going bye bye!

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The Dark and Twisted World of Lace

Autumn got up this morning and immediately abandoned ship to stay with her grandparents. I got out of bed and munched on some leftover breakfast and watched some YouTube while Summer dropped her off and hit the gym. When she got back, Eaddie wanted to go shopping, so I went home to clean up and met them at Shoe Carnival. They had already been to a couple other stores, and this was their last stop. I picked up a couple new pairs of shoes for myself, and then I let Eaddie pick Zaxby’s for dinner.

We decided to stay at my house and start on The Mandalorian, so we picked up some things for them and headed home for the night. Just as we started the show, Allen called and asked if I wanted some bananas. He had just left church, and they were giving them away. I remembered seeing Walmart’s barren banana shelf a couple days prior, so I guess now I know where they all went. He and Charlotte stopped by and gave me an entire case of them. It was literally and figuratively bananas. They visited for just a minute before leaving, and we continued with the first two episodes.

I found myself completely unable to suspend my belief, even for this beloved sci-fi fantasy franchise. We were introduced to a character, told immediately and without any ambiguity that he was a badass, and then followed him on a journey of hijinks and near-comical level of close calls. Then he proceeded to wander across the planet on foot, followed by a floating crib, where he was previously told it would be inaccessible without taming and riding, like a Disney princess, on the 3D render of a kindergartner’s drawing of a T. rex. We knew he wasn’t the only one after this extremely high-level target, yet it floated around behind him completely open to any wandering eyes, as though he was inviting additional antics from any would-be antagonists. The music initially gave me a nice space-western vibe, but then filled in with too much horn. My favorite part of the whole series was the episode-specific art slideshow that played behind the credits. Of course I’ll watch the rest of the series, but like The Last Jedi, I was left utterly disappointed and found myself caring less about the franchise.

Summer had to work again the next day, so they called it a night. I stayed up a bit longer, surfing the dark underbelly of the internet and following a rabbit hole of the boat shoe cult and their traditional leather shoelace knots.

Mando? More like Mango. Except mangos are delicious.