I'm So Excited I Can't Even Blink

There's no friggin' chance I'm getting anything else done today.

I am becoming steadily more giddy about the movie by the second, and that's even after receiving various lukewarm reviews from a variety of sources (including this guy, who I may have to kill in a dramatic duel later). I'm bouncing up and down in my chair. And for once, it's not just caffeine.

And at the end of the Ebert review, he mentions the next three...

You know, it matters not how much of a pudknocker Lucas is (and he is a giant pudknocker). I will watch any and every Star Wars movie made, until the day I die.

Snay, You Know What to Do.

Warning: slowest website in the universe.

Amen, My Brother...

It's great that such a prominent member of the blogging community has his head so firmly NOT up his own ass.

The Roof, The Roof, The Roof Is... Really Expensive...

So it is with a song in my heart and a massive credit card charge that I can say that my roof is now in better shape than it has ever been during my entire tenure here in this silly house, and probably than it has been in the last twenty years...

Here's the bastard skylight that WAS up there:



...note the complete lack of anything resembling a waterproof seal on the low end; the idiots who owned the house before me all independently decided that the leak MUST be on the high side, and wasted a lot of time putting layer after layer of tar goo all over it; it wasn't until I got up next to it on a ladder from the inside, and saw that, lo, the metal on the bottom was almost completely rusted away, that the truth came out. Fast-forward through many months of having a tarp duct-taped over it, and finally this piece of shit is off the roof. I am going to give it to my mom to use as a cold frame. Woohoo.

Because the roofers discovered the extent of the damage only after they took this thing out, this was their temporary over-the-weekend solution:



That would be a half-sheet of plywood (which I paid for, even though they took it with them when they left) and a crapload of tarpaper (which accounted for my being billed for another 1/2 roll); it looked like this from the ventral side:



Note the massive hole where the plaster and lathe had been slowly rotted away over a span of years... the floor below, which is over the main bathroom, is so water damaged that I'm going to just use it as a tile substrate. Luckily, this room was a full bar when I bought the house, and so it shall be again, only this time, I am designing it. Which basically means it'll never get done, but whatever.

So this morning they came back and finished everything up; here's what the inside looks like now:



And here, at long last, is the new n' improved exterior:



Sooooo much better. Also, it has a vent, which provides a glimmer of hope that, when summer finally arrives, one will not immediately burst into flame when ascending to the third floor. Yay!

So, even though I ended up spending about a thousand more than I intended to spend, the fucking thing is finally done, and I basically have a new roof out of it; here's a good view of the edge of my roof (with the other, less leaky skylight) and my neighbors' free roof repair:



Pretty much that entire edge was completely degraded and allowed water infiltration, as did that far top edge (the parapet); it actually doesn't matter how expensive this was, they did a great job, and I would enthusiastically recommend them to anyone. I just wish I wasn't so damn broke.

The Roof, The Roof, The Roof Is... Um... Being Repaired.

I worked from home this morning briefly, in order to authorize some more work than was originally contracted; a few weeks ago, I had finally decided to suck it up and get my goddamned leaky skylight replaced, and called these folks over for a consult.

A very professional gentleman came over and took a look at the skylight and some other potential projects, then went away and came back with an estimate for the work a week or two later. He spent a good bit of time preparing me for the shock of the expense, which was a little terrifying (especially after getting reamed on my windows) but then it turned out to be about 1/4 the cost of the windows. Yay!

On top of that, since I went ahead and signed right then and there, they took an additional 10% off just for saving them a trip. Yay! I was pretty much ready to recommend them to everyone then and there. When the estimated start date (last Monday) rolled around, I noticed that the estimated start date on the contract had been scratched out and replaced with, um, June 25th. D'oh! But then last Thursday they called and scheduled the work for today. Yay! (It's a veritable rollercoaster of emotion, my life.)

They stopped by yesterday at lunchtime to review the estimate, and then there was some phone tag as they tried to tell me that there was "more work that should be done, y'know, while we're up there"... uh oh. This sounded an awful lot like Contractor Speak for YOU ARE SO FUCKED, WE WILL TAKE ALL YOUR MONEY.

But then this morning, we went up on the roof, and he showed me that pretty much all the flashing pretty much everywhere on the roof was totally fucked. It's not clear how I didn't notice this before, but there you have it. So I gleefully signed an addendum contract, and was on my way.

I am so fucking excited about this I can't even blink.

UPDATE: The dude called, and apparently, and shockingly, after some decades of neglect and/or shitty patchy repairs, the frame of the skylight is completely fucking rotted away, and will cost me some money if I don't build it myself. Yay. Guess I know what I'm doing Sunday evening. Fuck.

Super Size My Ego

So, Morgan Spurlock is doing well. He has a blog. He has a new "reality" show. For his first episode, he will spend 30 days trying to live at the minimum wage. Hmm, this idea sounds familiar somehow... oh, right, this and this... Now, I'm not trying to imply that Mr Spurlock is swiping their idea and not crediting them, but a cursory search for the word "Ehrenreich" on his blog returns no matches.

And, frankly, I'm not going to search the posts, because he writes in this infuriating "aw shucks, I'm just a simple guy trying to show people that they can do better" way that makes me want to force him to eat McDonald's until he pukes out another car window. But I find I don't really have much of a problem assuming that he has not publicly credited Barbara Ehrenreich, and won't. Maybe that's not his fault, maybe the idea was suggested to him without attribution, maybe he's just being carried along on the flavor-of-the-month express train, but that's just fucking lazy. If it's his handlers' fault, they should've been more careful to ensure he doesn't end up looking like a pompous ass.

The movie was OK. Fast Food Nation was a thousand times better, a million times more balanced, and at no time did it feature Spurlock's vegan harpy girlfriend (who apparently is now publishing a book called something like "America's Detox Diet" because, you know, she would've done that anyway... it has nothing to do with his sudden coattails...

I don't begrudge him his success; I think it's great that his movie may've made some people think twice about larding themselves with McFood. But that doesn't mean it was a great movie, any more than Fahrenheit 9/11 was, because Moore says it is. They both served a purpose, and served it more effectively than plenty of books and movies that were vastly better researched and fact-checked. But that doesn't grant either Moore or Spurlock license to be a self-important dick.

It Appears To Be Raining

And who do you suppose forgot to put a tarp back over the skylight? Sigh.

Read This Now

And start stopping sucking.

Those of you who already endeavor not to suck, read it anyway, because it will make you hate life slightly less, if briefly. And no, that's not my crushing hangover talking. Shut up.

Whoopee!

Today is my blogiversary. Things still pretty much suck. Joy.

My Brain Goes Boink!