Injury Update

It's been two weeks now, and my right ankle is bad as ever. My left ankle started to go down, which would mean I would be reduced to outright crawling.

As any crawling would take me past the cat's litter box, I am loathe to make it to this step.

I immediately put three socks on each foot, not for warmth, but in hopes that the swelling might stay down. (I will put up with sweating if it keeps the swelling down.)

I had a couple of iffy days with the left ankle, but it seems to be holding. The right one, however, is just killing me.

Meanwhile, I think I wrote about the candy bars in the freezer outside my bedroom door. Well, after crawling around on my floor, I finally came up with 5o pennies, and I had myself a Twix! Yay me.

Of course, with the proceeds, now we have little Hershy's Dark Minatures. They're 2 for a quarter, and just one is thirteen cents. I have two cents already, so that means if I can somehow find 11 more, I'm golden, baby.

Frustration

Let me tell you about frustration.

My mom bought these candy bars at Sam's Club, with the idea that anyone who wants one has to put $0.50 into a little tupperware container (in the freezer, where we're keeping the candy bars), and that way, when all the candy bars are gone we'll have money to buy a self-sustaining treat. Sort of how an employees' soda machine might work. I mean, obviously we can't be buying candy bars with our grocery money, but doing it that one time means that we can buy (something) every time we finish the previous item, because it will have paid for the next thing.

Does that make sense?

Anyway, here's the frustrating part. With being crippled, I really can't go anywhere. Bathroom trips are murder. I go as rarely as possible. I have basically stopped drinking, and constipation is my friend. (More on that another time.)

Meanwhile, the kitchen is the opposite direction from the bathroom. Well, at some point you simply MUST go pee, but I have found that no matter how hungry you are, enough pain will trump it every time. It's almost never worth the additional hour of agony it costs to stumble out to the kitchen and find food.

But here's where the candy bars come in:

For reasons I have yet to understand, our "big" freezer is located right outside my door in the hallway. This means that I pass it every time I go to the bathroom. As long as I'm passing by, it's not that much trouble to open the door and snag a candy bar, right? A nice little treat to make the days less agonizing?

Except, where on Earth am I going to come up with $0.50?

And now you see the frustration.

Lady Jane Scarlett Teaches Hyperion a New Word

I'm not saying I have the world's biggest vocabulary, but it is voluminous. Therefore, it is always a small surprise (and a large treat) when I learn a new word, and from one of my Reader comments, no less! (Although: most of my reader comments are pretty top-notch.)

Anyway, the word is:


ESURIENT

The definition: extremely hungry; ardently or excessively desirous; gluttonous or greedy.


What a great word! I can't wait to use it in a conversation. (And if you know me, you know this will come up. I am rapacious when it comes to all my desires, be they physical, sensual, intellectual or what have you.)


Now I know a new word!

And so do you.

Retrospotting: Matt LeBlanc

So, I'm flipping around early this morning, not really looking for something to watch; more looking for near-nudity, which is the best I can hope for on basic cable.

(At 5:30 on a Saturday morning, the pickings were slim. Suze Orman is not likely to take anything off, which can't but be a good thing; a replay of the second round of the LPGA Kapalua Classic might score me some tan calves, but that's about it; and Land of the Anaconda would only have possibilities on Skinemax, not TLC. Sadly, there wasn't a GGW informercial in sight.)

Anyway, I flipped to TBS, to a sitcom clearly from the late '80s/early '90s. The sound was off so I couldn't hear the tell-tale audience laughter, but the camera angles felt like Married.....With Children, except none of the Bundy clan were visible.



Instead, there were two guys in tuxedos, obviously Queens, NY Italian-American Blue Collar goombas trying to fit into high society. (I had captions.)

What makes this post-worthy is that one of them was Joey! Or should I say, Matt Leblanc!

Turns out that it WAS Married.....With Children, and the episode was a back-door pilot for a spinoff called Top of the Heap (later retooled as Vinnie and Bobby).

Matt LeBlanc played Vinnie Verducci, a moron Italian-American from New York who had zero intelligence but knew how to handle himself with the ladies.

I mean, it was flat-out creepy!

I always thought that the Friends character Joey was a complete original, not that there haven't been dumb guys in TV shows before, but that Matt LeBlanc took the character and created him from scratch, giving us the loveable Joey.

Now I know that's bogus. Obviously the creators of Friends at some point saw LeBlanc in Top of the Heap or Married.....With Children or whatever; they saw him playing Vinnie Verducci. They decided that's what they were looking for in their Joey, and that's how he got the gig.

Vinnie and Joey are too amazingly similar for there to be any other conclusion.

Canadian Thanksgiving

We celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving Monday night. Why? Well, we used to live in Canada, and wanted to honor our time there.

Actually, it was more an excuse to have a nice meal, but that works for me.

It was all Jerrica's idea, and she set the meal up, planned it, and even paid for it. Then, come Monday, it looked like all plans were off, as our oven didn't work. (Actually, this wouldn't have been too big a deal, since--as I have detailed on these pages before--Canadians are pretty liberal about when they celebrate their holidays.)

But my dad got the right oven part (a coil? maybe. I have no knowledge of these things), and we got to celebrate.

Jerrica made:

Parmesan Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Green Bean Casserole with the French Onion topping

Rolls (from the store, but baked anyway)

Pumpkin AND Pecan Pie

Sparking grape juice (as well as 7-Up and Ginger Ale)

and for the main course....

A Chicken/Stuffing/Gravy dish. I don't know what you call it, but it's fantastic. I tell you the truth: I might like it better than turkey. Well, maybe not, but when you consider how much easier it is to make and how often the turkey gets all dried out (and how everyone in my family but my brother steals the white meat), maybe the chicken/stuffing/gravy thing is the way to go.

It was a great meal, and thanks to Jerrica!

When does the suckage end?

I hate being hurt! I had every day between now and the Election tightly planned, to get in all the Halloween stories, tributes and political columns I wanted. Here it is Wednesday and I'm already 3 days behind schedule.

I so need a secretary.

Apprehension/Confidence heading into MNF

I realized that my opponent has one player left (QB Eli Manning) playing tonight, while I have none. On the other hand, I have a 32.5 point lead.

Obviously the Quarterback is the greatest potential scorer, and obviously 32.5 is a large amount for any one player to score.

I got curious as to what my level of Apprehension/Confidence should be. So, I made a little chart:


1 point behind to 7 point ahead - You have basically resigned yourself to losing, but somewhere in the back of your head you concoct "3 interception 2 fumble" scenarios where you might somehow win.

Ahead by 8 - 15 - You're very pessimistic about victory, but you feel a tinge of crazy hope. You obsess over the quarterback's scoring average, and pray for rain.

16 - 22 - Your gut still hurts a bit, but you feel cautiously optimistic. You still appease the football gods by employing as many reverse jinxes as possible, such as graciously conceding defeat on the message board.

23 - 32 - You feel good, but not great. You figure out exactly how those points translate (yardage and TDs), and you hope for hand-offs. You watch the game, still not able to relax until five minutes left in the fourth quarter.

33 - 41 - You're confident. One interception should do it. A quarter and a half without much scoring should do the trick as well. Somewhere in the back of your mind is that crazy thought of "what if?" but you mostly let it go. Actually, it would confirm your suspicions that the Universe is out to get you, so it's win-win.

42 - 53 - You're over-confident, cocky even. You moon the gods, and mercilessly talk trash on the Message Board. You might not even watch the game since your victory is "so in the bag."

>53 - You attempt to sleep with your opponent's wife/mother/sister/daughter

>75 - You attempt to sleep with your opponent's QUARTERBACK'S wife/mother/sister/daughter.


These statistics only apply to your opponent having 1 QB left to play in the Monday night game, although I'm sure we could produce a matrix to encompass all possibilities.

Life on Mars Update

Continued from Earlier.....

I finally found the shows I was looking for (Life on Mars and The Eleventh Hour) and got them watched. Unfortunately, it's 5:38, and I still have to write them both up.

Sigh. Friday's plans are smashed. Everyone is off work now.

What a total FML moment.

Why do I suck so much?

So, what kind of idiot am I?

I had all these plans for this morning: review three new shows (Eleventh Hour, Kath & Kim, Life on Mars), plus talk about the Season Premiere of CSI, with the whole Warrick thing. And maybe a Top Ten List.

So what do I do?

Oversleep.

I wake up at 1:00 AM, scrambling to find the shows online, which of course is almost impossible. I find Life on Mars for download, only to realize after I get it that it's the wrong one!

I'm not talking about the British version (which the American show is inspired from). I mean they made a pilot of the American show, THEN they rewrote the pilot, and recast it as well.

ARGH!

I just wasted 1 hour of my life falling in love with a show THAT WILL NEVER HAVE ANOTHER EPISODE.

I hate life.

Thankfully, the main character is coming back, but everyone else is replaced, so now I have to watch the same (or probably similar) plot show with new actors playing the same characters. You know how creepy that is?

Furry?

When I was researching my column on John Keats, the subject of, uh, orally pleasing a woman came up. I was looking for euphemisms, finally going with the standard "Cunning Linguist."

But I think my favorite euphemism that I came across was,

"Drinking from the Furry Cup."

Pics that didn't make the cut

I wrote a column on a John Keats poem this morning. Initially it was a Hyperion-X, but when it got cut down to regular column, not only did the racy talk have to go, but some of the pictures. There is nothing pornographic about them, but they are erotic. I present them here (and if you're easily offended, don't look).

No way this Leonardo painting makes the regular column. Pretty sweet, though.


She looks so bored!


You go, Ancient Greeks!



Nothing really offensive about this one, but it's more of a "Gather Ye Rosebuds" kind of painting.


You see, I really respect these people. They can't wait until after the party. Hell, they can't even wait to get upstairs!





I have no idea what the hell is going on here.


The painting right above this one? It's a freaking basket of fruit by comparison. What the hell, man?

This was the last to get cut. I almost thought I could pass this water-maiden off as a Devon Maid.

"I don't want....your life!"

Update:

Haven't thrown up again, but I'm still watching VARSITY BLUES. I forgot just how many quotable lines there are in this movie. (And I've seen it at least 20 times.)

I totally forgot about the insane brother who thinks he's different religious figures. (You haven't lived until you've seen a white southern 10 year old dressed as Malcom X say, "Ah Salaam Alaikum" while buying condoms.

Oh wait. the Whipped Cream scene just came on. Back later.

Puke and Rally!

I've been so sick all week. I hate being sick. It throws off my whole writing schedule. (I know it seems like I post about just any old thing, but I really do have a schedule.)



I was going to just take it easy this weekend, when the OJ verdict came in a few minutes ago. I don't care much about OJ, but it reminded me of the last time a big OJ verdict came in. That was a real Flashbulb Moment for many people. (They remember when and where they were, what they were doing, etc.)

I remember how big a case that was. I remember being in California at the time, and what an impact that verdict (and the fears leading up to it in a Post-Rodney King Word) had. I remember my anger at smug White America, assuming Black America was too stupid to see what they obviously believed.

(For the record, I find it fairly likely that OJ committed the crimes, but from a legal perspective, it never should have been brought to trial, and from the legal threshold of guilt, the jury absolutely did the right thing. People say he got away with murder because he was famous. That often happens, but in this case, with that evidence, his fame was the only reason the trial took place.)

Anyway, the OJ verdict stirred up emotions in me, and I thought maybe I can bang out a coherent column.

Then immediately after, I threw up the vegetable soup I ate.

Did I mention I hate being sick?

When I came back to my room, VARSITY BLUES was on TBS. It was the scene where Billy-Bob loses the Drinking Contest and runs and throws up in the washer (right next to where Ali Larter and Paul Walker are having sex against the dryer).



Billy-Bob turns to the couple and says, "If you're hungry I left a few hot dogs in there."

Then he turns to the crowd and yells, "Puke and Rally! Puke and Rally!" before heading back into drink.


Maybe that will be me.

Puke and Rally! Puke and Rally!

Oh, I gotta go. That sexy teacher/stripper who looks like Sarah Palin just came on screen. Maybe TBS will forget to edit.