Fucking pop-up ads… I just had one that opened full screen with no way to close it short of firing up the Task Manager and killing that window. The only good thing about it is that it wasn’t for porn, amazingly enough.

I have to wonder what the hell they’re thinking when they design something like that. I mean, okay, you’ve definitely caught my attention, but do you think I’m going to buy your product now that you’ve pissed me off???

We had an evening out at the Hollywood Bowl last night, where Beth’s dad has a box down toward the front. Last night’s production was To Ella With Love, a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald with a group of current jazz singers singing some of her greatest hits. All told, it was a nice evening. The music was good, Beth’s sister packed a nice dinner for us, Beth’s rarely-seen other sister showed up and was on good behavior, Beth’s dad was in a good mood, and Zoe was really well-behaved considering that she’s no jazz fan and was annoyed that the scatting was waking her up.

And, yeah, that scatting… That’s one thing I can do without. The musical equivalent of speaking in tongues, it’s just grating to me. A little is okay, but too much is way too much.

Skittlee-boo-bap-doobaow-doobaow-doobaow-zeeeeeeeUMP!

Just stop, okay? Scat, scat!

Okay, after the last entry I just had to break out the scanner. This is a scan of my favorite of all the notes Zoe has left out at night. It’s instructions, with diagram, of how she wants me to fill her Camelback bag with water and chill it in the refrigerator overnight. I love how specific she is that it goes in the fridge, NOT the freezer. I found it on the floor leaning against the wall outside the kitchen, arrow pointing toward the fridge.

This one’s definitely going in the Memories Folder. I’ll show it to her Prom Date 11 years from now.

Zoe has a very strict bedtime of 8:00 pm — she has to be in bed by 8:00 or else– Or else it might be a little later than that. 8:30, maybe. Or perhaps 9:00. Certainly no later than 10:00. 10:30, tops.

Whatever time it is, though, once she’s in bed she’s In Bed and must not leave her room. The loophole is that she can leave her room only if she’s 1) bleeding or 2) on fire — which has since been negotiated to include 3) if she has to go to the bathroom or 4) she sees a Bad Guy. (You’d be surprised how many Bad Guys we have lurking about.) The end result of all this is that she usually only ventures out five or six times a night.

Since the myriad excuses she offers when she gets caught outside the wire are now falling on deaf — and angry — ears, Zoe has added a twist: she leaves signs out for us. Written up on construction paper in multi-colored crayon with glitter glued on for accessorizing, they’re usually pretty cute and sometimes funny.

Tonight Beth and I were working in our offices on the opposite end of the house from Zoe’s room, and as I headed for the kitchen I found a sign waiting for me on the floor in the hallway: “Mom Dad I not sleepy at all OKOK.” Pretty cute, I thought, so I headed to Zoe’s room to give her a kiss and tuck her in again.

“I not sleepy” girl was out cold, snoring like a lumberjack.

I give up. I’m finished with poker, at least limit poker. I just got home from an afternoon of bad beat after bad beat, the crowning glory of which was:

I looked down to find AA. I raised.
Stupid called.
Board came rag, 6, 6. I bet.
Stupid called.
Another rag came. I bet.
Stupid called.
One last rag came. Stupid bet.
I knew I was beaten but had to see it so I called.
Sure enough, Stupid has called a raise and every one of my bets with 5/7 offsuit and the last card gave him a straight. He had total crap right up until the very last card fell. I had the best hand all the way, the way I was betting told him I had the best hand all the way, and still he called me all the way down. And then won on the river.

Un. Fucking. Believable.

I give up.

The American Airlines website hates me. Every month I go there to begin trying to work out my itinerary for the next month’s trip, and every month it lies to me. No matter where it is I’m trying to go, how I want to get there, where I want to fly from or when I want to fly, it always tells me: “No flights were found matching your request.”

For this latest round I’m trying to get to Fort Smith, AR. They have a small regional airport there and I’ve been to its website, which assures me that they have several flights a day from Dallas/Ft. Worth and that American Eagle flies there. Since DFW is American’s hub, you’d think it would be a pretty easy 2-flight affair, wouldn’t you? BUR -> DFW -> FSM, piece of cake, right? Wrong.

American’s website says I can’t get there from here. So just to see how badly it was lying, I told it I wanted to go just to DFW from Burbank because I know there are at least two and I think three direct flights a day. I know this because I flew them twice a month for a year. In fact, I flew one of them last month when I went to Manchester. So I checked this with the AA website, asking for a flight from BUR to DFW. And it suggests:

Fly Aloha Airlines from Burbank to Las Vegas.
Fly Continental from Las Vegas to Houston.
Fly American from Houston to Dallas.
And this itinerary begins at 10 pm and ends at 9 am the next day.

I think I need a travel agent.

Oopsie, it’s gone, deleted in a spasm of belated sensitivity.

Don’t dwell on the past, move on!

Oopsie, it’s gone, deleted in a spasm of belated sensitivity.

Don’t dwell on the past, move on!

I’ve been inked; the tattoo is finished — for tonight, at least. Here ’tis:

We still have to do the background aura/rays/something but we’re going to wait until this heals up and we kick around some ideas for what it’ll be before we continue.

I love it, this was my best tattoo experience yet. The artist was Danno at Art to the Bone in Sherman Oaks, and he’s doing all my tattoos from now on. He seemed to love tattooing me, too, because he kept raving about how great my skin took the ink and how he only sees skin like mine is one out of fifty people. “You can get tattooed here anytime,” he told me at one point.

I think I’ll take him up on it.

Plan for this afternoon: get a tattoo. This tattoo:

I’m not sure about the blue rays coming from behind; I’ll be working that out with the artist when I get there but it’ll be something similar. It’s going on my left shoulder. I’ll post another picture of the final product tonight.