Saturday, October 22, 2011

Beware! Uninspired Torpor Ahead!


So a week or so ago, I was returning to work from lunch, as is my custom. I opened the car door, and as usual, had too much stuff to grab up and stand up with... so I grabbed my beloved iPad and reached up, placing it on the roof of my car, thereby freeing up a hand to grab up more of the stuff I needed to take into work with me. I've done this before - I get out, snatch the iPad from the roof, stick it under my arm, and walk in, heavy laden with my stuff...

Only this time, yes, I forgot to grab the iPad. About 90 minutes later, I found myself looking for the thing, and realized, in a flash-fit of sheer panic, that I didn't grab it off my car! I ran outside, stomach in a knot, and there it was, still sitting on my car, in a packed parking lot. It seems nobody wanted to help themselves to a free iPad. Ah, well, their loss, I suppose.

To say I was relieved is an understatement.

Of course, the level of panic I felt over the potential loss of my iPad certainly got me wondering if maybe, perhaps, I'm a bit too attached to the thing... I hesitate to call it an idol, since, in a way, that's admitting sin... but I found I "didn't even want to THINK about" what it would have been like to lose the thing. That also was a red flag. I mean, it's not like there's anything on my iPad that is irreplaceable. I can re-download and re-install all the games, apps, music, books, etc. that are on there, if I needed to, easy peasy. Maybe that wasn't the real issue... perhaps I would merely have been overwhelmed by the feeling of sheer stupidity I would have felt by having been so moronic as to leave an $800 gadget on top of my car for any wandering shmoe to help him/herself to.

I would have felt like this guy...

I wonder what the story is behind this picture..?


OK, enough nonsense. Bottom line, I still have my iDol, so all is well.

Or is it? MUAHAHAHAH!!!!!

So, my Youngest has been losing more teeth. She lost one of her front-top teeth, making a big hole in her smile. The other front-top one was loose as well, so she had great fun for a few days pushing on it with her tongue, slowly forcing it over toward the very middle, so that it looked like she just had one center-top tooth. She called it her "uni-tooth", and she and her sisters had many giggles over it. I was surprised that there seemed so much wiggle room that she could do that with her tooth.

Well, Wednesday night, I came home from work to a very upset 5 year old. Thursday, it turned out, was going to be "school picture day". She was frantically trying to pull the now-stubborn loose uni-tooth out, so she wouldn't look "like a freak" for her school pictures, thus being forever immortalized in the yearbook. We tried to show her how to smile with her mouth closed, but she couldn't seem to smile without flashing that one front tooth. Sure enough, Thursday came, and she came home with her new school ID card. There's the unitooth...

As I write this, it is the next day (Friday). Yep, her unitooth came out tonight. A day late.

Ah, well... makes for a cute story...


Her 6th birthday party is Saturday. It's a costume party, remember. No, I still don't have a costume. At this point, I'll either need to make something that is ridiculously lame and homemade-looking, or dart to the mall and drop $40-$60 on a pre-made costume, which will be equally lame. Neither option is palatable to me. Well, there are certainly far worse problems to have. So I won't sweat it too badly.

We tried to make Mags a wearable cardboard Transformer costume, but without success. Good thing I bought that pre-fabbed one off Amazon. That reminds me, I found out (the hard way) that "2-Day Shipping" is really 4-5 day shipping. Apparently, buying something on the 17th and having it arrive on the 21st still counts as "2-days", because of a nebulous concept called "processing time"... I don't recall the "3 to 5-Day" option taking any longer than 3-to-5 days before... makes me wonder why I paid through the nose for 2-Day...

Man, I am a rambling fool tonight...

We had our first Christmas Play rehearsal tonight at church. Enthusiasm and excitement are high. Hope it lasts. I like the script. We'll see how well I still like it a month from now...

I'm sorry, but you MUST watch this video, hi-res, full screen.


Landscapes: Volume Two from Dustin Farrell on Vimeo.


Breath-taking.

See? See what happens when I don't have anything hilarious and/or interesting to share? See what you get? Tales of teeth, of costumes, of shipping foibles, of play rehearsals... I need to get out more... at least I've still been working out with my wonderfully-sadistic personal trainer. He destroys me. I love it.


See Left Handed Toons for more hilarity.

OK, well, I guess I'll go now. If anything similarly exciting happens, like, say, I find an unmatched sock, or I sweep the front sidewalk, why I'll be sure to post it up here straight away!

Dave the Boring

9 comments:

Odhynn said...

Smartass time!
Let me spoil the optimism of the Problem diagram for you.

The conclusion "Don't worry" can only be reached through "No", since "No" exclusively is terminal to the process; there is no further investigation to it, so don't worry.
"Yes" on the other hand, leads to more questions rather than answers, yet it doesn't include the latter; finding out "how" to do something about your problem is the precise source of worry.
Not to mention that estimating whether the condition is "Yes" or "No" (i.e. whether you can really do sth about your problem) is a query [and therefore a worry] in itself.

Bottom line, if you have even the slightest suspicion you might be having problems in your life, worry. WORRY HARD!

Rory L. Aronsky said...

Breath-taking.

Like a shorn scrotum. But seriously, this is great, and it ties right into my love of ambient music too.

Grace Sandlin said...

maybe if you read a better selection of books :) I joined a book club and have been working my way through pulitzer winners and classics, plus fun ones of course. still halfway through a dance with dragons. sort of stuck because it is so boring to me right now. do you know of any other good fantasy series. read sanderson already

Rug Warrior said...

I loved Dance with Dragons.

Thanks Dave for another great post. Glad you did not lose the iPad.

Lisa

logankstewart said...

I'm glad your ipad was still there, too, friend. I live a world away and am pretty sure I would've felt the dread in your heart had it not been there.

David Wagner said...

Dry: You worry too much!

Rory: That's the first time the phrase "shorn scrotum" has appeared in a comment on my blog. You should win a prize for that!

Grace:I try to read only good books! I'm certainly not opposed to quitting on a book that doesn't click with me. I'm reading Gates of Fire (Pressfield) again at the moment. My favorite book ever. My only regret is that I can't read it "for the first time" ever again... as far as other good fantasy series? Hmm... I'd hate to recommend yet another series that you won't like. Lemme chew on it and send you a message on Facebook.

Lisa/Logan: I would have been crestfallen, to say the least, if I'd lost the thing. And felt like a total imbecile in the process. I still have the thing and I feel like a tool!

Abbie Josephsen said...

Haha, i totally disagree with Dry about the diagram, but thats okay :) if you can't change anything, don't worry about it, you'll get gray WAY too early :D You worry too much Dry!!!

good post dave :) I'm sure youngest looked awesome in her yearbook picture :) she is a cutie! and that left-handed toon is hysterical! love it!

Odhynn said...

But that's precisely my point!
If we can't change anything ("No" in the diagram), then we don't worry.
If we can, then we worry.

And we can, yes we can.
It's a worrisome world out there, and we gotta do something about it!
Oh, the burden!
[ runs away screaming ]

Unknown said...

Love, love the video. Reminded me of my trip across America. Although my pictures were in no way as cool. I might have to repost...

Glad to hear you didn't lose you iPad. I think losing something that expensive makes me squirm.

So funny about Maggie and her tooth. I need to see a picture of that. Can't believe how much time has gone by.