The New Life Has A Mascot

King Bob.

Because why not, that's why.

New Life

For the past five years or so, Julie have been living a life that was, while not built around just surviving, definitely defensive in nature. Get Julie through grad school before she can't stand her job any longer and quits them both. Get the kids through high school. Hope Julie's cancer doesn't come back. Borrow money with the plan of paying it back eventually. Just keep it all together and functioning, reacting to each crisis as it happens, using as much mental duct tape as necessary, until we can manage to gain control and start doing what we want to do instead of what we have to do. Until we can make it to the New Life.

I'm very happy to say, the New Life has started. Julie has her masters degree and board certification and is working as a Family Nurse Practitioner. She likes the work, the pay is good, and she's working daytime hours so we get to see each other a lot more. It's been five years since her cancer treatements finished. And now that I have a CPAP machine that helps me sleep a lot better (more on that later), I have a lot more energy. And we've decided that now is the time to deal with something we've both been postponing: our weight.

We're eating better - a lot better. Lots fewer calories. We're going to the gym together 4-5 nights a week. In five weeks I've lost 14 pounds. Today Julie ran her first race ever, a 5k. She's already signed up for a 10k in October and a 10k followed the next day by a half marathon at Walt Disney World in February. Our plan is to keep pushing until we are both well under 200, and then to stay there. We're feeling great, we're feeling empowered, and this is gonna happen.

Some Thoughts About the Walt Disney Company

A few months ago, I took my daughter to Walt Disney World for a long weekend. We used to do these trips a lot, when she was younger, but we hadn't gone since Brett and I separated, and now she's nearly an adult. We had a great time, but that's not what I'm thinking about today. Instead, I'm thinking about what a valuable asset it must be for a corporation to have so many iconic characters, from so many decades, that it can use however it wants. One example: the Wishes firework show at the Magic Kingdom features the voice of Jiminy Cricket and the song "When You Wish Upon A Star" (from 1940's Pinocchio) and starts off with Tinker Bell flying over Cinderella's Castle. Another example: the upcoming video game Disney Infinity, which allows players to mix and match characters and props from about a dozen different movies (Pirates of the Caribbean, Toy Story, Fantasia, etc.). People see these iconic characters and immediately associate them with Disney. What other corporation can do that? Warner Brothers has the great Looney Tunes characters, but what have they done with them in recent decades? Universal Studios has pushed hard to create a Harry Potter world in the Islands of Adventure theme park, but who looks at Harry and Hermione and Ron and thinks "Ah, yes. Universal Studios. They also gave us Lon Chaney films and Jaws." Does anyone outside the industry know who the original United Artists were?

So, back to Disney and their roster of easily recognizable iconic characters. Purely for my own amusement, here's a selection (by no means complete) of their bigger player, sorted by decade.

1920s

1930s

1940s

1950s

 

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

Holy crap that's a lot. And it's by no means complete. Granted, not everyone would know all these characters, or what movies they were in, but they're pretty damn recognizable, and most people who do recognize them would know what company created them. Which says a lot for Disney's ability to stay on point, decade after decade. Regardless of your opinion of massive ever-expanding global corporations, you gotta respect that.

And oh yeah, one more thing. They recently added another iconic figures to the roster:

So My Daughter Got Her Learner's Permit ...

... and I can't stop thinking of what it said on the box of one of the expansions for the game Car Wars I played a lot as a teenager:

If you don't like the way we drive, stay off the roads. ...and the sidewalks. ...and the lawns.

I'm Afraid To Go Home

This was followed by: "You like screaming. Otherwise you're bored."

If I Ever Die Mysteriously, These Posts Are Gonna Get Julie In A Lot Of Trouble

"I gotta kill you."

"You do not."

"I do. I has a need."

"You just think you do."

"I do! I have a deep burning desire."

"A BURNING DESIRE IS NOT A NEED!"

Gotta Find It

Julie: I HAZ QUIT JOB AND SCHOOL AND FIND MYOWNSELF
ok?

me: find youownself? is it missing?

Julie: Yah, I looked everywheres
GONE
it's on the milk carton
under missing

me: ok, that's going on the blog

Julie: LIES
you only write about incidents that involve blood.

Quick Update on the Score:

Cheese grater: 1
Michael's thumb: 0


There's a possibility that dinner included human flesh. Good news is, nobody complained.

Really Bad Language

Julie is a connoisseur of bad words. Not only are "Jesus Fucking Christ!", "Holy shit!", "Move your ass, motherfucker!" some of her most commonly uttered phrases, she also knows what are apparently some really horrible curses in Tagalog, Hindi, and Nihongo. She likes to test these out on native speakers, to make sure she is saying them right.

This shit is really important to her.

So, what ghastly expletive did she utter last night, when she stepped on a piece of glass and drove it half an inch into the sole of her foot? Did it make the paint peel off the walls in seven different languages? Did it make the angels weep, and the demons cower in the corner? Did it shift the earth on its axis and permanently alter the numeric value of the gravitational constant? Or was it simply the relatively mild "Ow! Mother of God."

Today, poor Julie is hanging her head in shame. For years she has been preparing for just such a moment, only to allow it to slip past her.

Toothbrush Wars

Julie: Did you just brush your teeth with my toothbrush?

Me: No, I think I used mine...

Julie: You did! You filthy dirty bitch!

Me (checking the bristles on my toothbrush and finding them freshly wet): No, see, I used mine.

Julie: Oh, okay.

Me: Did you just call me a filthy dirty bitch? For something I didn't do?

Julie: Yeah. You like?

Me: Of course not.

Julie: Yes you do.

Conversation After I Returned From The Store With Half the Groceries Wrong

Julie: I love you.
Me: I love you too.
Julie: Even if you has a dingleberry.

On The Morning Of Our Anniversary

Julie: "Are you still taking me out for dinner tonight?"
Me: "Yes. Anywhere you want to go."
Julie: "Louisianna."

Ha, I say! Ha!

So, Julie's been catching me every now and then with the showerhead: turning it to point out into the room, instead of down, so I get good and sprayed when I turn the water on. But yesterday she went to take a shower, and as she turned the knob her thought process went something like:

"Michael already took a shower this morning right? Or was he going to go to the gym? Oh, I think maybe he did go to the gym, so he didn't take a shower, which means the showerhead is still OH SHEEEEEEEEIT!"

I has an amused.

Lemony Fresh

Julie: How much do you love me?

Me: Enough to put up with you and your craziness.

J: Put up with me? PUT UP with me??? I cannot believe you said that.

M: Well, I did.

J: That is so rude.

M: Aiyeeeee! Whathell you just pour on me?

J: I don't understand. What do you mean?

M: You just poured something on my head. The heck is this?

J: Oh, you mean this?

M: You poured a packet of lemonade mix on me? Yuck! That's all ... icky!

J: But.... it's only five calories.

So, What's Been Going On The Past Few Months?

Life's been going pretty good the past few months. Financially, as the consequences of my divorce are easing and Julie's continuing recovery from the cancer treatments makes it easier for her to work, plus a nice gift from my parents, we're doing a lot better than we have in several years. More money coming in than going out is a damn nice place to be. Nice enough that we felt comfortable borrowing some money and getting a little something for Julie:

Not quite as fast as it looks, but it is a nice piece of machinery. And it means I don't have to drive us everywhere in my car.

Our cable company finally made HBO Go available to us. Similar to NetFlix's streaming service, it's a really spiffy system, if you already have HBO. In addition to having access to more movies than HBO On-Demand, it also let's you access all episodes of every series HBO has ever run. I've watched Luck and Rome, and Julie's been watching Big Love. Works nicely on our PCs, iPads, and iPhones. Very nifty.

Julie's just about finished her bachelor's degree. It probably won't benefit her career directly, but it does allow her to pursue more advanced degrees, which she couldn't do with just a two-year degree. Yesterday, she got an acceptance letter to the University of South Alabama's critical care nurse practitioner program. So, in a few years, she'll be able to get a job where she's the one who can prescribe medicine, order treatment, and tell someone else to clean up after the crazy patient who just pooped all over the floor. So that's a yay. Meanwhile, she's going to take additional classes at the local community college so that she can apply to either medical school or pharmacy school later. Or maybe go for a nurse anesthetist degree. As my mom told her, when she gets a fire lit under her, she really gets a fire lit. And I am so very proud of her.

Me, I'm just doing my job. I've transferred back to my old department, after a three-year stint in programming that didn't work out. I learned some good stuff, but the project they assigned me to was a really bad idea, and it just kept growing, instead of ending. Feels really good to be out from under it.

And because some things never change, I went to take a shower the other night, and she'd set a trap for me. The shower head was pointing out into the room, instead of down. I got wet, my towel got wet, the dog got wet. We both yelped (the towel remained silent). Yup, that's my baby.

Siri's Not As Smart As She Thinks She Is

Julie: Siri, tell my husband where I am.

Siri: Here is your message for Michael: "Where I am." Would you like me to send it?

Here Is A Gorilla

Because gorillas are awesome.

via NatGeo

Julie's Philosophy Of Homework

College student on TV sitcom: "Ever since I was a little girl I've had this problem with procrastination."

Julie: "That's not a problem, bitch, THAT'S A SKILL!!! And I has it many!"

Darth Hippie's Personal Transport

"I find your lack of faith is bummin' me out, man. You dig?"

Very Important Numbers

Many muches.

All of it.

257.

One million hundred.

Does you need me to kill you? You will like.*




*Okay, this one isn't really a number. But it's still important.