Wednesday, October 31, 2007

ummmm...dayum

Is it bad when your plumber looks into your sewer says "DAMN! That ain't right!" and then runs from the house.

I come home to my wife telling me that there is a tree growing out of the floor in my guest bath.

"Yeah right, " sez I.

I venture in to el bano and holy mother of pearl! There's a tree growing out of the floor.

This is NOT going to be cheap.




BAH!!

Tole

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

And I Bought a House Why?

***sigh***

For the last couple of months I have been noticing a slowly developing problem with my sewers. We have 2 bathrooms in the house and they were taking turns stopping up. It all came to a head today when they both backed-up at the same time.

I ran a sewer snake down the clean out in the backyard. I ran a toilet auger down both toilets. I reamed out the vents pipes coming through the roof. All to no avail.

Dammit.

Call a plumber.

He does everything I did, just with better tools and pulls some roots out from under the house. I'm going to repeat that; because, it bears repeating. He pulled TREE ROOTS OUT FROM UNDER MY FRELLING HOUSE!!!

crap.

Then we move into the house and he comments that the sinking floor, cracked ceiling and leaking shower in the master bath are all most likely the result of how we got roots into the sewer pipes under the house. The cast-iron sewer main is cracked and leaking water under the house.

I turn to see the ($) ($) look in his eyes, but I am pleasantly surprised that he looks as forlorn about it as I am. Either this guy should be selling stuff for a living, giving his acceptance speech to the Academy, or he really feels my pain.

I'm going to go with the latter. My brother recommended this guy, and my brother brooks no bull from those he uses. If the guy was even the least bit crooked, my brother would have smelled it out and stomped on him hard at some point. I begin to feel better.

Then he comes out with the small ray of sunshine in this whole drama. He's seen this before and home owner's insurance should cover most of the repairs.

**dance a jig of joy***

So tomorrow, I'll give a call to the old insurance shiester...ummm...agent and see where I stand.

Tell me again why I thought giving up renting was a good idea?

Tole

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Monday, October 22, 2007

Exsqueeze Me? Baking Powder?

Late last week J.K. Rowling, who I had held out hope for staying as normal as possible, fell right off the face of the planet. Were sales lagging? Did she freak out about the possibility of losing all the press coverage with the end of the Potter series? She seemed so normal...

WHY?!?!? WHY?!?! WHY!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Dumbledore is gay?!?!? WTF?!?!? I bet he liked little boys too and hence his affection for Potter….wait did he touch him in an inappropriate manner?

YE GODS!!!!

Please retract it. Why can’t you just be happy with being the richest psycho on the planet and keep this crap to yourself? Why not just let the series fade into the annals of literary history?

Oh well. I would like to at this point state that I do not actually have a problem with the fact that she wants one of her pivotal characters to be gay. BUT if that was the intention all along, why not deal with it in the books? Why now after the end of it all drag this crap out into the open?

I will most likely continue to read the series (I’m only up to book three), but all copies purchased hence forth will be used so as to not put another nickel in the pocket of a press-whore who just couldn’t let sleeping dogs lie.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go investigate a rumor that Frodo was Bilbo and Gollum's love child.

**groan

Tole

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

You Just might be from Podunk.

Last Christmas one of my co-workers gave me one of those joke-a-day calendars as a gift. This particular one happens to be just chocked full of "You might be a redneck if..." bits of comics genius. (Canst thou smellest te sarcasm?)

Some of them are really funny, others make my head spin in circles and feel like I should be spewing split-pea soup...sorry, sidetracked.

The particular thing that drove home to me exactly where I live went something like this...If you've ever bummed a dip of snuff from your mom, you just might be a redneck.

Now there are several people where I earn my daily bread who most definitely fit the redneck category, and even they found this one to be just plain gross. I share these daily gems with one lady in particular who responded with a story about a woman she works with in a gorcery store who always has a dip in her mouth and a spit cup close at hand. She asked, "Can you even imagine dating someone who did that?"

I thought about this for a minute and responded, "Do you have any idea where I grew up?" I not only dated girls with "snuff rings" on their hip pockets, since I worked in a grocery store in high school, I also supplied their habit with my employee discount.

I of course bought them gum as well.

Tole

Make It Aluminum They Said - The Finale

Started it up this morning around 10 AM and let it come up to operating temperature. So far, so good. Decided I needed to road test it to ma...