Faster, Cyclone!

Snapshots from my recent life:

* * * So I'm watching THE ADDAMS FAMILY movie this afternoon, because I haven't seen it in a really long time, and there's a knock on the door, and I open it and am delighted to see SuperDrama Teen, who has been staying at her Bio-Dad's with her two younger sisters since Sunday night. And without thinking about it I blurt out "It's my child!" To which she said "It is!" And then Bio-Dad his damn self steps into view. Heh. Bet he just hated hearing that. Now, if I'd known he was nearby I'd have said something different, but, on the other hand, I love it when a plan comes together.

* * * Watching THE ADDAMS FAMILY, I was struck by a couple of things. One is, that snotty Girl Scout who shows up and offers to buy some of Pugsley and Wednesday's lemonade, if they will buy some of her Girl Scout cookies? Mercedes McNab, baby. (I watched the end credits carefully and confirmed it.)

Secondly, a week or so ago I caught about ten minutes of a movie that turned out to be Rob Zombie's THE DEVIL'S REJECTS on Showtime. I was so struck by the utter depravity of the brief sequence I saw (a brother/sister psycho team torturing some poor family to death in a motel room) that I did a little research on the film, and its apparent precursor, HOUSE OF A THOUSAND CORPSES, on the web. And I went away from that wondering to myself "Why the fuck would someone even make movies like this? What's the point? What would inspire that?" But as I'm watching THE ADDAMS FAMILY, it occurs to me -- if there really were a family like the Addams, well, it would be the family from HOUSE OF A THOUSAND CORPSES. In real life, the Addams would have captives chained up in the basement and they actually would lure people back to their house (or break into someone's motel room, whatever) and torment them to death slowly. I can especially that scary little Wednesday chick doing this, but, honestly, pretty much any of the Addams seem game for some random stranger torture/murder games.

Odd how something is funny in a whimsical, fantasy context, and becomes utterly terrifying in 'realistic' trappings.

* * * So we went to a local theme park last week and I lost SuperWife's cell phone, which was stupid of me, but, hey, I'm like that. Now today she finds out from her mother that apparently someone called her mother last weekend and advised that they had found SuperWife's cell phone and wanted to return it. All this, after SuperWife has spent the last several days turning off service, getting a replacement phone, and then getting service turned back on with the new phone.

I don't know what any of this proves, except, next time I get told to carry the cell phone, I'm going to put it in a pocket with a button on it, or something. Plus, if the guy trying to return the phone looks like any of the Addamses, or any of the Devil's Rejects, I'm going to counsel SuperWife to let him keep the fucking thing.

* * * Nate's moving here, and I may get to run my RPG again. That should be pretty cool.

* * * Nobody seems to want to hire me for anything. I had always felt that, if worst came to worst, I could go over and get hired back at Kroger's again. It would be a crappy job with crappy hours for crappy pay, but it would be something. But a month ago it seemed like worse had come to worse and I actually did go over there and get re-hired and after I nearly killed myself stocking produce for four weeks, they fired me. I know, I couldn't believe it, either. Kroger's FIRED me. If you could actually see some of the people who have been working there for years and years, you'd know how humiliating THAT is.

Still, all I can really say at this point is, I've been fired from lots better places than that.

I have managed to line up an interview for a small call center tomorrow, and we'll see how that goes.

* * * So I bought myself a booster of AVENGERS yesterday and along with a lot of relentlessly stupid Ultimates and Young Avengers horseshit, I got a Two Gun Kid. Which is pretty cool. I buy one booster, I get a Super Rare, and not only that, but it's a Super Rare I wanted, too.

* * * My wife's ex-husband's ex-girlfriend apparently wants to make all nice with us again, now that she's not dating the Evil Bio-Dad any more. I guess we're just supposed to forget all the incredibly nasty shit she's said about both of us, and all the incredibly psychotic things she's done. Me, I'm all about forgiving and moving on, generally, but there are always exceptions, and anyone who has publicly declared on multiple occasions that I can't be a good parent because I don't have a driver's license or a college degree is not anyone I'm ever going to want to be palsy-walsies with. I did want to note, though, that a few weeks ago she sent SuperWife an email solemnly promising she wouldn't read our blogs any more, and she actually kept that promise for a little while, but as of last week, our respective hit counters are back up, and, yep, it's all her... she's apparently found the stress of getting through each day without a little hit of me and SuperWife to be impossible to deal with. And, anyway, all it is is her solemn word she's breaking, again. It's not like that means anything. Obviously.

Now I know how famous people feel about THEIR nutjob stalker-fans.

* * * I imagine there's more I could talk about, but it's escaping my brain right now. At least I'm not blogging about Harry Potter, though. I saw something on TV the other day where this weeping circle of kids was abjectly begging J.K. Rowling please please please PLEEEEEEEEEASE don't kill off Harry Potter, and if she actually doesn't, to please please please PLEEEEEEEEASE write more books about him, and I'm like, jesus, you sad, sad fucks, get a life. And then I thought, where the hell are their parents, and aren't they ashamed of themselves, letting their kids grow up like this?

I'm trying to imagine any book series I've ever read where I would get on my knees and beg the author not to kill the main character, or to please please please write more installments. I mean, I'm a pretty serious bibliophile and there are some book series and characters I just love all to pieces, but still, if I heard that Barbara Hambly was going to write a novel in which she killed off Sunwolf and Starhawk, or that Lois McMaster Bujold was going to kill off Miles Vorkosigan, well, I suppose I would be a little bit taken aback. But I wouldn't grovel or anything. Fuck. I'm still aggravated that John D. MacDonald died 21 years ago and to date, no one has yet published A BLACK BORDER FOR McGEE, which was supposed to be the final installment of the Travis McGee series detailing McGee's long overdue death. Mind you, I like Travis McGee, but a little closure would be nice.

* * * So last night I'm watching that new FX show DAMAGES, which isn't bad, although every single startling plot twist I've seen coming five minutes ahead of time, at least. Anyway, the pilot episode was run commercial free, and apparently the local station feels like they have to make up for this, because they were cramming as many commercials in last night as they possibly could, with the result that, the last second or so of one commercial would be chopped off by the start of the next one, and since most commercials these days pretty much follow the formula of "something visually interesting happens for twenty nine seconds and then we show you the product in the last second", well, what was happening was, you'd watch the commercial, wonder "what product is this for?" and then, you didn't find out.

I'm thinking, if any of the sponsors were watching along with me last night, they must have been pretty unhappy.

* * * SuperWife just read some of this over my shoulder and she says that at least two of my kids would be sitting there begging J.K. Rowling not to kill Harry Potter, too, but I refuse to believe it.