Podless

I never realized how much I could love a dongle. I'm a certified iPod lunatic; I'm well on my way to burning through my 80Gb-er after burning through a 20GB-er. The reason that the iPod, in particular, works so well for me is because I have it integrated all across my life: I can listen to it at home, at work, on a plane, and, most importantly, in my car.

Well, at least I could listen to it in my car, until this little connector dongle doodad broke deep in the innards of the iPod. So I can't listen in the car anymore - who cares? I care! I'm not proud to admit it, but I have a podcast schedule that I stick to rigorously. Each morning, I start a particular podcast on the way to work and then I listen to it in pieces throughout the day, where I'm in the car or it's just me and the 'pod. This whole
arrangement has proven to be informative, entertaining, and, I can only imagine, outrageously attractive. With a defective dongle, what happens? I must listen to the radio.

Have you listened to the radio lately? I hadn't. I certainly didn't expect it to offer anything on the level of the 'pod, which is pretty much an endless loop of the Sound of Young America, Hanselminutes, Use Your Illusion II, and George Jones. I did think I could find something 50% as awesome; after all, I do live in Austin.

Here's what you get in a town that has a few good stations: decent song, slightly better song, mildly amusing DJ banter, commercial for monster truck show, bad song, terrible song, insipid DJ banter, commercial for edible underwear. I can loop through as many stations as I want, but this pattern holds true. It's pretty much what I'd expect to hear in Hell, where the Devil keeps things just interesting enough that I'm unhappy, but not mad enough to stick my ears into the molten rivers of pancake syrup.

I actually figured out last night that, if I place my iPod into a very particular spot in the cradle in my car, it'll still make a connection. It won't allow me to change songs, it'll forget where it was when I turn the car off, and I can't make sharp turns, but for the love of God, it's something. I now just need to find a straight path to work and a 20 minute-long song that'll last the trip. Maybe I'll alternate between Meat Loaf's finer works and American Pie? We'll see.

Baby Talk

Eric and Kristin just had a baby! Woooooohooooo! Knowing both parents well, I predict the following.

I predict Elizabeth will be a pretty child. She will be pretty, but not TOO pretty in that way that causes other women not to like her.

I predict Elizabeth will be intelligent. She will be so smart, she'll preschool at NASA. This will work well for a while, until the other baby rocket scientist shuns her for her unorthodox views on the Hubble Constant.

I predict Elizabeth will be strong, at least by baby standards.

I predict Elizabeth will be a craps prodigy, to the point where Eric will take the baby monitor to the casino not to check in on his baby, but to relay the latest bets and rolls to his daughter.

It's all very exciting news and I hope to meet this little lady soon. (Hopefully her parents will be around at this meeting, or else I'm not going to know who this little girl is or what to do with her.)

In other news, all is right in the world of Powelldonia. I'm working on a new website (don't count on anything new for a while), I'm spending a lot of time at work, and I'm getting my stomach loosened up for Thanksgiving. On to winter!

Winter Sleeves

You know why everyone hates winter? It's because I get sick and I can't wear shorts. If there's one thing that brightens humanity for everyone, it's me, in short pants, at peak health.

I bring this up because both of these storms are striking at once this week; I think I'm getting the flu, and it's just cold enough outside that I'm trapped in this limbo between short sleeves and long sleeves.

There's clearly no solution to the whole flu thing, aside to cross my fingers and pray that it's a violent new strain of Platypus Flu. On the short sleeves/long sleeves issue, some creativity can be applied. What I propose is simple: shirt sleeves made out of wrapping paper. When it's too warm for long sleeves, you cut off your paper sleeves and then when you get chilly, you pull the paper down from the wrapping paper roll, thus covering your arms in a festive and delightful manner.

Aside from these subjects, the other topic that's been chewing on my mind is our finances. Between buying a house, getting married, and going on a honeymoon, it's been a rough year for the Bank of Powell. I can only assume that the global economy noticed this great outpouring of money and decided to crater out of sympathy. I can only guess that the people at the World Bank and the Federal Reserve got together and concluded that if my net worth was going to drop precipitously, so would everyone else's. I'm touched by the gesture, but it seems a bit excessive.

The good news here is that the expenses are over. From now on, if I'm spending lavishly, it's on libel lawsuits and libel lawsuits only.

I Done Done It

The papers are right, folks: I'm married. I don't know what makes me happiest about our wedding: 1) that there were no major or even semi-major incidents, 2) that no one objected to the marriage, 3) that my mother-in-law received a 1 AM call asking her to please come pick up the wedding attendee who had passed out under a tree at the vineyard, or 4) that a vineyard employee complained to my mother-in-law about all of the whiskey bottles left at the very same vineyard. When a wedding has been built up like this one had, it's bound to get a little wild.

It was a great wedding, and exactly what Laura and I wanted. Rev. Boj did a phenomenal job with his officiating; everyone who had to give a speech successfully avoided the f-bomb and did a great job in being humorous and un-terrifying. The food wasn't poisoned, I'm still eating and loving the cake 5 days later, and most importantly, the bartenders didn't cut me off at my own wedding (not that I was planning on hitting it that hard, but that specific act just seemed like the absolute wrong way to enter into a union).

How are the first 4 days of marriage? Well, they're a lot like the past few years of living together, with the exception that I get to wear a ring and complain about the ol' ball and chain.

With this plus Obama's victory, I feel like there are some real reasons for hope in life. I'm sure it's the exact opposite for all of the Republican, Libertarian, and Green Party women who lusted after me.

The Deed Is Done

If I can get married to a respectable woman, then the United States can elect a black president. I took care of the first part over the weekend, let's see what happens tonight.

Expect an exhaustive rundown tomorrow on this weekend's events, as soon as I can rest up a little bit.

Woo, Matrimony!

Tomorrow, at 5:01 PM, I start my last weekend as a single man. Since I base my entire life around what I've seen in movies, I look forward to losing the wedding rings, getting deported, and killing a hooker (on accident). Unfortunately for everyone but the hooker, that's not the way it's going to go down. In true CWMP fashion, I'm going to buy some barstools and then find and deface the appropriate toy for my Halloween prop.

My life has been dominated by the wedding for the past several weeks. Originally, I was thinking, "Oh man, all of my friends and family are coming out to this thing so it better be great." And now that I've put a lot of work into it, I no longer worry about making a great event for friends and family. Friends and family, if you're at the wedding and you're not just tickled pink, shut the hell up. If anyone needs to enjoy this wedding, it's the people who put all of the work into it. In fact, if you're just showing up to the wedding and someone who's actually been workng on the wedding asks you to change their oil or give them a haircut or mulch something, just do it. We've earned it.

In terms of the actual marriage itself, I'm not that anxious. In fact, if there were a witchdoctor going door-to-door giving out free weddings, I'd sign us up and make this thing happen ASAP. For me, moving in together was a lot more terrifying than getting married. The idea of sharing all of my space and all of my time with someone was a little daunting. Once we got that part done though, marriage wasn't so bad at all. We just keep doing what we're doing AND people give us presents AND we save money on taxes? Let us wed!

Dinner At Barry White's House

Expect posting to be rather light for the next couple of weeks, as I have a wedding to hyperventilate over.

The big source of anxiety right now is the music. When we were discussing the wedding originally, I was not hip to the idea of a DJ: if there's going to be some jerk playing awful music at the wedding, I want to be that jerk.

As a lover of music, it's a great idea. The problem is, wedding receptions are long. Really, really long. I am going to have to shave midway through this wedding reception or else I'll walk out of it with a big ZZ Top beard. I've started telling my doctor and dentist that, for regularly scheduled appointments, they should just meet me at the reception.

In getting all of these lengthy playlists ready, I've listened to so much music that I have no idea what I like anymore. It's like saying a word over and over again until it sounds like gibberish. I'm so out of touch with my musical taste, I could probably bust a move to Wolf Blitzer right at this very moment.

I think I came up wiht a little mindhack for getting around this, though. For dancing songs, I just imagine that I'm hanging out at Barry White's house. It's just me and Barry and a few other happening people at his house, drinking sherry, and I say, "Hey Barry, check this out," as I drop some tunes on. If it seems like Barry White wouldn't throw sherry in my face over that song, it stays on the playlist.