Random Notes from a Crank

Sunday we finished putting up our outside Xmas lights. So did the neighbors. For the most part, we're pretty traditional. We have some frosted bulbs outlining the front expanse of the house that I put up on Friday, and Mrs. Nasty placed the garland and lights around the front porch. We have a couple of smaller lighted outdoor knick nacks dotting the front yard. Nothing garish but only celebrating the season. Our neighbors across the street, on the other hand, have some of those damn inflatables: one monstrous penguin with a Santa cap that's probably at least seven-feet tall, another large inflatable of Santa and his sleigh, some large lighted presents, and SpongeBob with a Santa hat. SpongeBob, for God's sake. 

In the spring we will put our house on the market. My daughter, a well-known hater of change, informed us the other day that's she's going to "sabotage" the selling of our house. Her tentative plan is that she's going to plant all kinds of bugs throughout the house, so people won't buy it. Who knows if we'll actually sell it because a) we have to find a buyer and b) we have to find a house in the Charleston metropolitan area we like enough to move to something different. I'd like a home with either a pool, a pond, or a barn. I doubt any of those will happen, but we will not buy a new house without a basement. We saw the destruction a tornado can do when we visited Tuscaloosa last fall. I also need space for some manner of a garden, so we'll see what the market brings this spring. 

The start of December marks the time when the kids and I get into high gear quoting lines from the movie A Christmas Story. We'll recite some lines from that flick from time to time throughout the year, but when December hits, it's ON, baby. Below is the scene we act out most often. 



The Old Man: [angry muttering] Don't you touch that. You were always jealous of this lamp. 

Mom: [feigning innocence] Jealous of a plastic lamp?

The Old Man: Jealous ... jealous because I WON.


The Old Man: [angry] GET the glue.

Mom: [resolutely calm] We're OUT of glue.

The Old Man: [Indecipherable angry noise] You used up all the glue ... on PURPOSE!"


In other fine media matters, new episodes of Clubhouse Confidential have started. C[C] is one of finest sports-related programs around. 

And wow, what about the Doug Fister trade, huh? The Nationals appear to have done very well for what they gave up for Fister. Here's a detailed analysis of the trade from MLB Trade Rumors.  And here's an acerbic analysis by Fangraphs titled "Nationals Steal Doug Fister from the Tigers." 

Stay Positive: Old Advertising

What you see above is my recent purchase from eBay. For over a decade, I've had a couple of framed Schlitz magazine ads from 1951, but I finally got around to getting a beer sign for downstairs. 

The ad on the left is a locker room scene that depicts a victorious golfer pouring "The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous" since he's the "Club Champion" of 1951. 

Here's the text of the ad: "Best round I've had all day!" [at the top of the copy] There's no more rewarding beer than Schlitz, and that's not merely a professional opinion. It's the verdict of the people we make Schlitz for--people, like you, who buy the beer that tastes best to them. More people like Schlitz than any other beer. So it's not surprising that  today Schlitz is... The Largest-selling Beer in America 

The one to the right is hilarious. A little cub stole a six pack of Schlitz from a fellow on picnic with his significant other. She's behind a tree in the background with a "Oh my gosh" look on her face.

Here's the copy of the ad: "You may be cute, but I'm thirsty!" [at the top of the text box] If the cub should happen to open one of those cans, he would know why that two-legged creature is growling about losing his package of Schlitz! Once you've enjoyed the special taste of Schlitz--the taste no other beer can match--you'll know why no beer lover likes to lose a single swallow of the Schlitz he has set his heart on. So many people feel this way about Schlitz that it's... The Largest-selling Beer in America

Random Notes from a Crank

Yesterday, I prepared some cheese-stuffed, bacon-wrapped jalapenos. I went out to start the grill and discovered, eventually, that my grill is dead. I've had it for a long time, and I've needed a new one for a while. The second burner was all corroded and rusty and barely pumping out any heat. For the past few months or so, I've been grilling with one and a half burners. 

I got the grill, if I remember correctly, as a gift for one of my first fathers' days, back when we lived in South City (St. Louis). As much as that fact holds sentimental value, I'm really like my new grill: four burners, a fully functioning side burner, and an electric start mechanism.

It was fairly easy to put together. Except I missed one part of the directions. After I had it all put together, for some reason I couldn't get the electric starter to work. Curse words were used. Then Mrs. Nasty noticed a AAA battery on the ground, smiled mockingly at me, and leafed through the directions to discover that I hadn't put in the battery for the electric starter. Typical move by this here hombre. 

I like maps and atlases, which I've prattled on about before. I also like learning about dialects. This map, the "Full Scale Dialect Map," combines my interests in both. My dialect region, where I grew up, is the Western North. Mrs. Nasty hails from southwest tip of the Inland North dialect region because she's originally from Cedar Rapids. My kids are growing up in the Central Midland region. 

I've been catching up on my magazine and academic journal reading lately. "Letting Biodiversity Get Under Our Skin" by Rob Dunn was featured in Utne, but here's the link to the article in Conservation if you're interested. Dunn provides information about the "possible link between biodiversity and human health."

Random Notes from a Crank

As I recounted in a February post, we renovated our half-bathroom. Recently we renovated our full bathroom on the main floor of the house. 

Below is home improvement porn.

This is the view from the doorway.

This is the view from near the tub/shower. Three of the walls are yellow, and the accent wall is a hue of blue called "bayside." 

This is the close-up view of the flooring, Allure "Limed Oak." 

I've noticed a difference in the water bill since we put in the new toilet in our half-bath. Now that we have the same kind of toilet in the main bath, I'm looking forward to an even cheaper bill. The tanks of those old toilets are so large that you could have stored a couple of beers in them. [I stole that image from an old Simpsons episode where Homer kept extra beer in the toilet tanks.]

The box the new vanity and sink came in was a huge box, which my five-year old son quickly decided to use in his room. Strangely enough, he wanted to sleep in the box a couple of nights, and we let him. Here's a picture of him asleep in his box, his cardboard cave.

Speaking of my son, as we drove through rainy St. Louis on Friday night, if there was ever any doubt about his loyalties in major league baseball, there is none now. It's clear he's a Cubs fan like his father. As we drove by the new Busch Stadium, he enjoyed booing the stadium because the Cardinals play there. Not exactly good sportsmanship, but I found it humorous. It was a highlight of the drive there for my daughter's dance competition out in Chesterfield. 

This past week I've had a Johnny Cash CD in my car, and my daughter has become obsessed with the song "A Boy Named Sue." In one day when I was carting her around to school and practice, we probably listened to it about ten times. Often over and over and over. I know how she feels because that was one of my favorite songs growing up, and it was one my dad introduced me to. 

As I was listening to Here We Rest yesterday, I had a realization. I don't know if anyone else has made this comment before, but my favorite song on that album, "Stopping By," is the yang to the yin of Cash's "A Boy Named Sue." 

I discovered a snack at the grocery store today: dill pickle flavored sunflower seeds. 

I have a hankering for buttermilk. 

Here's my on-deck reading shelf. 

Random Notes from a Crank

What you see above is Darby and her arch-nemesis, the chunky squirrel who lives in our maple tree in the backyard. Somehow the rodent thought it was a good idea to take refuge on the swing set, which drove the dog crazy. Chunky has some cojones because I watched her climb down the near side of the a-frame and outrun Darby back to the tree -- just toying with poor Darby. It was a morning and early afternoon packed with plenty of barking. Great times. 

If you've been to the Nasty homestead, you might have noticed the fence. It's new. A couple of months ago when we had some high winds here in east central Illinois, a section of the old rickety fence blew down. So we purchased a new one. Well, we bought part of the fence because our neighbor who shares the property line went halfsies with us. That set us back some money, but it looks a lot nicer and more stable than the previous one that was erected when the house was built in the mid-70s. I have a number of mounds of dirt along the fenceline where the guys dug post holes, but I've got places to put all that dirt. If the weather is decent this week, I plan to fix a drainage problem in the front yard. I'll be digging fourteen feet worth of a drainage ditch for tiling purposes. Maybe I'll put in a French drain. 

What a name though  ...  French drain. It sounds like something that happens in a vampire novel/film or some technique in porn. You decide. 

Music Friday: "Bombs Away" & "Peach Blossom"

Probably the best new album I've purchased this year is Wonderful, Glorious by the Eels. 

I've featured this band before, and if you've followed their recent work, before the current release, they created a trilogy of albums that is quite good. Each album has a theme:

• Hombre Lobo ~ Desire
• End Times ~ Loss
• Tomorrow Morning ~ Redemption

Below are videos of two songs on the new album. Both connect to my moods this afternoon. 

I went into the office this morning after dropping off the kids to do some work. I was finished by 11 and went home to install the cabinet above the toilet in our half-bath we just remodeled. 

Days ago when I first tried to install it, I had trouble with the wall anchors and screws. It was frustrating. This morning I tried it again, and they did the same damn thing they did previously ~ anchors not staying in the wall correctly, which makes the mounting bracket not be secure. 

I tried it again. Same deal. Madness. 

Curse words yelled at inanimate objects, invective lobbed at the manufacturer of the product, these were the sounds inside my house around 11:20 am. 

I went to the hardware store again to get bigger anchors to see if those will work. I returned home and tried it all again ~ curse words yelled at inanimate objects, invective lobbed at the manufacturer, the dog scared and hiding out in my son's room. 

I returned to the hardware store yet again to find a solution. A gentleman who works at Ace asked if I needed any help. I responded with an emphatic yes and told him the situation. I showed him the manufacturer's anchor and screw, and he asked a great question about the weight of the cabinet. He then directed me toward the same anchor I had used before, which initially raised ire inside me, but then he said the manufacturer should have provided a fatter screw. 

I bought the new-old anchors and the new screws, went home, and installed the damn thing with no problems. Kudos to you Ace worker. Kudos. 

So below are "Bombs Away" & "Peach Blossom" that signify part of my day so far. 

Random Notes from a Crank

What you see above is our half-bath off of our bedroom. Over the past couple of weekends, Mrs. Nasty and I renovated it. We have a pretty good process. She reads the directions, and we both do stuff with me doing a fair bit of the grunt work, which is perfectly fine. If something goes wrong, guess who didn't follow directions? 

As usual with home improvement, ripping out the old crud is fun. We took out the old sink and vanity and got rid of inefficient toilet. The first part of the process was laying the flooring, which was really quite easy. We used Allure flooring that looks like wood. We had a whole box of it left over from when we had a guy lay it in our kitchen and dining room. The main tool you need is a good utility knife. And patience. We put in a new toilet. Mrs. Nasty painted the walls a chocolate brown, which I like referring to as "sexual chocolate" if you get that reference from Coming to America. Then it came time install trim and quarter round, which was a new experience for us. I got to use a miter saw, and Mrs. Nasty is particularly good at using a coping saw for corners. We bought the sink and vanity at Home Depot for a good deal back in mid-January, so we had that already. Mrs. Nasty installed the faucet, and we got that ready this past weekend. We had originally thought we could connect the supply lines and p-valve below the sink, but after lining everything up to where the pipes and supply lines should connect, we obviously needed longer supply lines since the new vanity is taller than the old one. In addition, I looked at the plumbing parts we purchased. We looked at what was below the sink. Then we thought, "Why don't we just pay a professional to do that?" So today the plumber came and hooked it all up correctly. Victory. Now it's on to new flooring, trim, and a new vanity and sink in the main bath. 

Last week I reread the graphic novel Watchmen, a damn fine work that really exemplifies the nuclear paranoia during the Cold War. I'm pretty sure I read it back when it came out. And it's just a good story -- with superheroes. A few years back, I overheard some folks talking about the movie made from the novel, and they were dogging on the film. Now that I've read the book again and having recently watched the film, I thought the movie adaptation was quite good. Whenever something moves to film, there are aspects of the original that will get cut, but the film is pretty true to the book. 

Delving back into a graphic novel from the 80s got my mind wandering though...

I wonder what Donna Rice is up to?

It sure isn't "monkey business." 

And what about Fawn Hall? 

One of my favorite new stories of that era is the fact she shredded documents and took them out of North's office in her dress. Those acts seem like appropriate images for the Reagan administration. 

Can you tell I was an adolescent male in the 80s and I followed political affairs?  

Random Notes from a Crank

What you see above is the little project we finally got around to. After I painted our bedroom on Sunday morning, in the afternoon Mrs. Nasty went to Ace to get hardware for this project, and then I got to use my powerful drill. What you see is the back corner area of our house right where the back door is located. When we bought the house, It had lattice there, but a big wind came and blew that cheap crap down months ago. Because we had gotten new shutters earlier this summer, Mrs. Nasty had the smart idea of doing something different. We had contemplated buying some different lattice and installing it. Instead we reused the old shutters, she spray painted 'em, and then we finally installed them once the weather got cooler and after I had painted the trim this summer. The shutter configuration provides some privacy and color. Cheers to "repurposing" (as the home improvement shows say) and to Mrs. Nasty for her excellent idea.

For a couple of years now, the house across the street from us -- a three-bedroom, one and a half bath ranch --- has been where some college students (a couple) have lived because when the owner couldn't the sell the house for what he wanted (presumably). He rented it to his relatives (the college students) to apparently skirt around the zoning ordinance for our street being only single family dwellings. We got a little excited once the college kids, who were decent neighbors, graduated and the house went back on the market. The house sold pretty quickly because the owner priced it right (finally), and the new owners had scores of workers doing all kinds of work on the house. But we kept wondering when they were going to move in. Then last night the couple were over there, and the guy was pounding a post into the front yard. The sign on the post says, "For Rent. Call xxx-xxxx." @#$%. Here we go again. I wish they'd just try to sell the damn thing.

I'm looking forward to Ryan Bingham's new album, which will be released on his own label in September.

Jay Heinrichs has sound analysis of Ann Coulter's embrace of Paul Ryan on Figures of Speech Served Fresh.

We're no longer close to a Costco, but this article about the company explains some of the reasons why I'd still be a member if we lived in St. Louis.

One of the leading stories in college football this week was Tyrann "Honey Badger" Mathieu getting kicked off the LSU for what appears to be substance abuse issues. One of my friends asked me what I thought of this, and here's what I wrote: "Mathieu will hurt LSU initially on special teams and run support, but their redshirt freshman and true freshman corners behind him on the depth chart are probably better in coverage than Mathieu (he is overrated as a CB as Kevin Norwood and others exposed in the National Championship game). Short term it'll hurt LSU, but they should be fine by the time they go to Auburn in late September. Their game vs. the U of Washington could be interesting, but they're playing them in Baton Rouge, so I wouldn't pick that as an upset unless their highly touted QB isn't as good as everyone says. They also got a QB who transferred from Penn State, but that's not a big steal as far as I saw when we played the Lions the last two years." That's me quoting me! Overall, LSU is still loaded. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I've spent part of the last three days painting the trim and wood parts of the exterior of the Nasty home. Painting, and I've done a lot of it in the past dozen years or so, always takes longer than you think it's going to. The most uncomfortable part of the project is that my feet hurt. All that time going up, going down, and standing on a ladder kills your feet. My dogs are barking.

Before I started painting this morning, the neighbor across the street was having a big garage sale because they finally sold the house after they got the asking price to a reasonable level. I picked up some nice old tools--channel lock pliers from the 30s, skinny needle nose pliers that look just as old, and a sledgehammer. I don't know why I need a sledgehammer, but I got one now. I'm gonna be pounding some stuff, whatever that stuff may be, with force, clowns.

After I applied sunscreen before we went to the pool, my five-year old son had this comment as we backed out of the driveway: "You're really hairy, Daddy. You're like a BEAST." I am, son. And he's one of my favorite Marvel comic book characters. My son's comment also reminded me of a couple of my fraternity brothers who enjoyed calling me Teen Wolf. It could be time to do some "urban surfing."

I have been known, on occasion, to howl at the moon.

Because I've seen so many Disney Channel sit-coms, I'm thinking about writing a post that acerbically distills the fundamentals and themes that have to be in a Disney show.

Then again, I have to give the massive company credit for their new standards about food advertising to kids. There are lots of articles out there about the new standards, but here's one from Time. Kudos to Disney/ABC/etc.

As for the two recipes below -- Sweet Potato Salad and Serrano Infused Cucumber Soup -- I prefer the latter. I'll be making it again for sure, especially since summer is upon us.

Random Notes from a Crank

At a meeting yesterday, I learned that the profile I had when I entered college -- a first-generation college student and an Undeclared major -- would make the higher ups, the muckity mucks, consider me an "at-risk student." I found being undeclared making one "at-risk" a little odd, but local and national statistics provide evidence that those folks don't stick around for their sophomore years as often as the others. I find that metric kind of sad because the whole point of college, for me at least, was exploring different subjects and trying to figure out what I liked and wanted to do.  Because I was interested in psychology, history, sociology/anthropology, philosophy, English, classics, and education, it would have been silly for me to declare a major. Now that I think about it some more, some people -- like Admissions counselors and high school teachers -- sometimes would act a little funny when I would tell them I was an undecided major. While I understand many people see higher education as an avenue toward a job and, sure, they deserve a return on their investment, it's also important to explore other subjects other than just what's in one's major, especially since people are likely to change jobs more than ever nowadays. Or maybe that's just my liberal arts mindset talking...

As I've probably written before, I love small college towns in the summer. When a substantial portion of the nine-month population heads back to their original territories, the town I live in becomes quiet. Sure, we have summer classes, but the character of the town is different. The weather is helping too. It's been gorgeous here in east central Illinois.

Mrs. Nasty was surprised yesterday when I told I'd watch The Hunger Games movie with her. I haven't read the novel, but she loved it. I'm no avid moviegoer, but it sounds like interesting dystopian fiction, which I don't mind. But as for dystopian reality, I don't like that. Now we just need to figure out a date night and arrange a kid sitter.

Speaking of Mrs. Nasty, she has an idea for our back patio area that once had cheap lattice adorning it. I had to tear it down because of wind damage. Since we took off the old shutters and replaced them with new black ones (see Stay Positive below), she wants to try using the old shutters where the lattice used to be. She's going to paint four of the old shutters, and then she wants to rig them up to hang in that area using a eye and hook system and cabling. I don't know if it will work (I think it will), so we'll see what happens. We already have a bottle tree in the front flower bed that I'm sure some people find weird, so a decorative shutter system will be a nice compliment in the back yard. Because of this nascent project, on Monday I got to do some demolition work on the framing that held up the lattice. Tearing up stuff is fun.

As much as I dislike it when people put down Southern states based on Yankee attitudes, I think the article in Mother Jones -- "'It's Just Not Right': The Failure of Alabama's Self-Deportation Experiment" -- is a case study of, as some Southerners say, "the dog catching the car." Be careful about what laws and policies your legislators pass. Hear that, nitwits in Springfield?

With my dog not freely running around and patrolling the backyard because she's rehabbing from surgery to repair a cranial cruciate ligament, the squirrels and birds are no longer vigilant because she would chase after anything that was in the yard. When she's back on her game, she's going to be beating some squirrel ass back there. Or more likely, the neighbors will return to hearing her bark a lot.

Stay Positive: Easy-to-Install Shutters, Water Balloons, & The Avengers

This afternoon Mrs. Nasty and I put some new shutters as you can see above. They were surprisingly easy to install.

For a long time, we just stayed with the burgundy shutters we inherited when we bought the house, but we made a change for the better.

I was not looking forward to putting up those things because of my past experiences with home improvement. I have Tim Taylor-like tendencies if you get the old pop culture reference.

On second thought, I guess there was the incident where I fell off the ladder, fell on my butt, and did something to my right knee, but other than that snafu, it was a sound success.

After that was all over and because the kids were good while we worked, we had a water balloon fight. Water was splattered liberally.

Tonight it's a viewing of The Avengers. I hope they don't screw up the plot line from the original comic book too much since the current cartoon is more true to the Marvel comic since the group started with Ant Man and Wasp.