weapons of massdistraction

Somehow we’ve made it to Friday, and there is far far too much going on this weekend. Too many things to name, but I’ll list off just a few…

• The Bad Boys of Cinema…the Oak Street is showing Shaft tonight at midnight, and Last Tango in Paris all weekend long.
• The Walker Art Center’s Free First Saturday event for this month is called “Pop-Mart” and seems to revolve around a food theme. Starts at 10am.
• Saturday night the Triple Rock Social Club celebrates their 7th Anniversary (already? wow - I guess they did open when I was pregnant with the little man) with a special anniversary show.
• Sunday afternoon is the Minneapolis “Thank God It’s Over” party for NaNoWriMo. While I didn’t participate as actively as last year, I still think it would be fun to attend. Our local Municipal Liaisons scored an amazing venue, The Loft Literary Center at Open Book. There other NaNos will be reading excerpts from their stories.
• Sunday night it’s the MN Rollergirls “Close Encounters of the Female Kind” at the Roy Wilkins Auditorium.
• Also Sunday night, oddball singer-songwriter Jane Siberry will be performing at the Cedar Cultural Center.

But the big event of the weekend will be brought to us by the lovely Zophia, who has put in a lot of hard work these last few months, helping organize the No Coast Craft-o-Rama craft sale (and more). It’s one day only, and that day is tomorrow, from 9am-4pm. I am so there.

Bonus: Speaking of hand-crafted goods, I came across these creatures at House of Ingri a while ago. They’re slightly creepy, yet cool, and hey, made of vinyl.
Plus: You probably don’t need to know this, but late last night the little man groggily got out of bed, stumbled into the bathroom, and, umm, attempted to use the facilities…but neglected to lift the toilet seat. Like, at all. That was a first. And hopefully a last.
And: Aeon Flux opens today. I don’t think I’ll be seeing it. It’s already being billed as “…a thoroughly awful and unusually incoherent piece of work.”

We need to move to Minneapolis. This morning it took an hour and a half to drive the little man just 11 miles, to his school. And then another half hour on top of that to get myself to work. But if we do try to buy a house in Minneapolis, comparable to the one we currently reside in, in St. Paul, our mortgage payment would double. At least.

The rest of the day was just as crappy as the commute in, but my frown turned upside down after work, when we pulled into the driveway and I saw a package waiting for me on the doorstep (which I managed to score for $112, with free shipping). I know what I’m doing tonight, after popping open my bottle of Martinelli’s Sparkling Apple-Cranberry. The only question is…where to begin? Because really, necessary as it was, season one wasn’t all that.

Bonus: The opposite of my morning driving experience…watch the trailer here. Here’s the plot outline: “After winning his first competition, Takumi focuses his attention on drift racing, a sport he has unknowingly perfected while delivering tofu in his father’s Toyota AE86.” Vroom vroooom! (via Popgadet)
Plus: I hadn’t thought about the goth-core band Ink and Dagger in ages, though I used to be quite a fan and saw them play a few times. So seeing this story on Pitchfork today brought back some warm fuzzy memories. But things aren’t so warm and fuzzy for the surviving band members. I hope they can successfully sue the pants off Microsoft for using not one, but three Ink and Dagger songs in their Amped game, without the band’s consent.

You’d think Sundays would be all lovey dovey good times around here, but this particular one has been on the frustrating side.

• Woke up sometime before 3am and couldn’t fall back to sleep again for several hours…until it was nearly time to get up for the day, around 7am. So I was wide awake to hear one of the cats puking outside my bedroom door in the wee small hours of the morning.
• When I did get up for the day I found that the server that hosts this site was down, and the friend whose server it is happens to be out of town. Thankfully another friend has a key to the house and was able to go over and fiddle with the crappy DSL modem.
• When I got into the car this morning, to meet a friend for brunch, the engine wouldn’t turn over. It took half a dozen attempts to get the car started. That’s a first. And troubling.
• On the way to brunch I stopped by the bank to deposit a check and received a rather unpleasant financial surprise.
• I realized today that a movie I borrowed from the library is way overdue. And still, I neglected to return it. Doh.
• The little man took a nap this afternoon. That’s a bad thing. In general he only naps if he’s getting sick.
• I napped away much of the day. Maybe I’m getting sick too. Yay.
• All the pretty snow has melted. Looking out the patio door earlier I saw the little man’s sled looking sad and lonely, sitting on top of the slick green grass.

These are all relatively minor things, but still, in combination they conspired to make me a rather cranky lass today. And tomorrow, it’s back to the grind. Sigh.
Bonus: Bruce Lee is big in Bosnia. Who knew?

I had fully intended to catch up on my sleep last night, honest. But around 2:30am the husband woke me up. He was moaning, loudly, in his sleep. Scared the crap out of me. I tried to rouse him from his weird dreams, but I only succeeded in getting him to stop with his Ghost of Jacob Marley impersonation. A little while later he started tapdancing in his sleep, shaking the whole bed all the while. Sometimes I think we should get two separate twin beds, Dick Van Dyke style.

Yesterday afternoon, when I picked the little man up from his after school program, I was informed that he had been engaged in an odd activity. He’d been picking up stacks of books, taking them over to the kitchen playset, and placing them inside the toy oven. When asked what he was doing he replied “I’m cooking the books.” Maybe we’ve listened to a little too much NPR in the car. I’m afraid the lad may have a future career as a shady accountant for big business.

Bonus: Woke up to a new Making Fiends episode this morning. Yay!
Plus: When I got into work this morning I discovered that my iPod mini, the newest one, was completely dead. Not so Yay. In fact, I nearly had a panic attack…but I calmed myself and turned to Google. First I found this bloke’s post about a similar situation, and in the comments someone had linked to an Apple support doc that did the trick. Had to do a manual reset, but it’s up and running again. Phew.
And: Jay Ryan, illustrator and poster-maker extraordinaire, now has a book out…a collection of his best work from the last decade, with the oddly compelling title 100 Posters, 134 Squirrels. Hmmm.

This afternoon I got out of my pajamas…for the first time since Friday. Turns out moping really isn’t the best way to pass the time. Who knew? Thankfully my mother-in-law agreed to watch the little man for a few hours, so the husband and I could get out for a bit…to see the new Harry Potter movie, and grab a bite to eat. That was a decent distraction. And the little man, he’s awesome. I thank my lucky stars we’ve got him. Before his bath last night he was singing the Batman smells version of Jingle Bells and cracking himself up. That boy has got the best belly laugh, I just love it. After his bath he was jumping around on my bed, naked, save for a Batman mask, when he declared “I’m naked Batman!” The husband coaxed him into jammies while dryly commenting “I don’t think I’ve seen that Batman movie” *pause* “and I don’t think I want to.”
Bonus: My Verve Remixed³ box set arrived yesterday (though I didn’t find it on the doorstep until today). Just ripping it now and so far I quite like what I’ve heard.
Plus: An odd but clever clip the husband found, via robot wisdom, I think. The human skateboard.
And: Just under thirteen hours until tomorrow morning’s appointment. Hopefully I will spend some of that time sleeping instead of worrying myself sick(er).