At one point we stopped the movie for one reason or another, most likely a crying baby (he’s sick again). Oprah was on and she was crowning people Princess for a Day. I made some off the cuff comment about poor pathetic people who couldn’t be happy with their own lives and needed Oprah to boost them up. Boo hoo, I thought. Jen informed me I was ignorant and didn’t know what I was talking about. I decided to watch Oprah to prove to her that I did know what I was talking about. Princess for a Day wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. The princesses were people whose family or friends had written Oprah about how unselfish, giving, and deserving they were. So Oprah brought these people to her show and lavished them with gifts they could not afford for themselves. A couple of them made me a little teary eyed. It was pretty darn cool. I told Jen I’d like to be Prince for a day. She just laughed and told me to restart the movie. I get no respect.

I also made banana bread Monday evening. Didn’t have enough walnuts for two loaves, so I put chocolate chips in the second one. It was SO good! Jen asked if I was going to take some to work to share with my friends. “Heck no!” was my reply. I could sit and eat the whole loaf by myself at one sitting. Or I could have if I hadn’t left the bread home alone with my wife when I went to work Tuesday…

Is anyone else tired of all the Michael Jackson stupidity? I don’t mean the stupidity coming from MJ, I mean the media’s, and the public’s, fascination with the poor guy. He’s sick, leave him alone for crying out loud. I actually heard one reporter say, “We just can’t seem to get away from Michael Jackson in the news these days” or something to that effect. THAT’S BECAUSE YOU KEEP PUTTING HIM ON THE NEWS, YOU MORON!! I honestly don’t understand why people are so fixated on how many plastic surgeries he has had. I mean, who gives a rat’s rear? The whole pedophile aspect is a bit disturbing, but, to be honest with you, if MJ took me on a world tour and let me have the run of Neverland – I think that’s worth a little fondling. Granted, if it was my son, I’d have to kill Michael, and no amount of surgery, plastic or otherwise, would be able to put him back together again. Did I watch the news special on MJ? Of course I did, but only because there was nothing else on.

I told Jen during the movie that I thought I could be an assassin. She laughed, asked why I thought that. I told her I liked guns, I’m smart, trainable, I generally don’t like people much, and I’m cold blooded. She just snorted and laughed again. This time I could see her clearly and I knew it was not a delirious giggle that slipped out while she was imagining the riches of an assassin’s wife; it was not the nervous chuckle of her thinking, “my gosh, he is cold. What is he capable of?” No, it was a snort of derision. Right afterward she said, “You cold never be an assassin. You’re a big chicken.” Nothing like spousal support, eh. That was pretty much the end of that alternate career path. Maybe she should be the assassin; she’s the truly cold one. At one point during the “discussion” she even said, “yeah, you an assassin. You’re half right.” Give it a minute, you’ll get it.

If I’m not assassin material then why, when I fastened the toothbrush head to my SonicCare toothbrush this morning, did it seem just like tightening a silencer onto a Walther PPK?

LOL, Christmas was a week ago and I forgot to post this. No big deal really, but here it is anyway.

After re-reading this post, it sounds a bit scroogish and that’s not the feel I was going for, nor do I dread the holidays. I enjoy getting up early and going to see the rest of our family. We have a great family and it’s a joy to spend holidays with them. I guess I just sometimes feel that we spend a lot of holiday time with Jen’s family and mine gets left behind a little bit. It’s probably not true, just a skewed perception I have because things are so different now than they were when I was young. It also makes me sad that my brother Wes, who is 17 now, didn’t get the full family Christmas experience that I always got, because our dad left when Wes was 10 – I was 26. Sometimes I feel responsible, well guilty really, that I didn’t do more, or wasn’t more of a presense in his life after our dad left and I think some of that guilt still carries over into Christmas when I’m spending the morning with Jen’s family instead of mine.

Wow, I didn’t want this to turn into a post about broken families or guilt or blame or any of that. All I wanted to do was point out that I always have good intentions for the holidays but then run out of time or don’t manage my time well.

Have a great, safe, exciting and blessed day tomorrow. Merry Christmas.

Jen played a tricky game on me. She asked me to get a clean burp cloth out of the diaper bag and was telling me where it was. She kept saying, “it’s right THERE. No, right next to the wipey container. Can’t you SEE it?” I think she finally reached in and pulled out what she was trying to guide me toward and it was the new 4 DVD extended version of “The Fellowship of the Ring.” It was funny because the day before I had thought she might do exactly that, but I didn’t give it much thought because I didn’t think it would have arrived so soon. It was a happy surprise.

Had a board meeting at the church at 7:30pm and after that went back home and fought with my PC which has been spontaneously rebooting and/or shutting down, and that’s not a good thing at all. I updated the drivers for my video adapter and if that doesn’t fix it I honestly think I may cry and just give up on computers altogether – I’ve pretty much had it. The whole dang thing is pretty much brand new and it’s very frustrating to me to have something I built not work the way it should. I just hate it. I can’t tell you how much I hate it. It’s like a fiery ball of spite burning in my soul and the only thing I can blame is my skill as a technician. And that just makes it worse.