(no subject)

So I got done assembling the bookcase... er... DVD shelving unit today. It's not painted yet but I did set it up where it will go and put some actual DVDs on it to model what it looks like. There's a picture here. I am not a carpenter. I do not carpent for a living. This is purely a hobby activity. I'm pretty okay with the squareness -- it's not a bad effort, for being done with nonsquare wood. It also fits in the given location (that shiny thing behind the upper shelves is the back of the fridge -- one of the goals for this project was to cover up the unbacked area of the fridge, which sticks out from the wall there. The jury is still out on whether or not I need to cross-brace the shelving. I'm contemplating that -- DVDs don't weigh much at all and I think it might be overkill.

I think I am going to have to attach the shelving unit to the wall, somehow. The cats can get to the top of the fridge and if they leap badly upon the unit, it will tip over and spill my DVDs all over the floor. That would piss me off a lot.

Also, before anyone comments on this, there are two sets of bootleg DVDs on the shelf. The first is the first half of Fruits Basket, which I purchased in an official capacity as a sample item for educational purposes. Since I financed it out-of-pocket (The budget meetings were hellish -- asking for a budget for bootleg education would have been excruciating.), I kept it after I left that office. The other is the first fifty or so episodes of Prince of Tennis, which I didn't want to download (would have taken forever) and which I was perfectly happy paying someone in Hong Kong for. If there had been legit commercially available English-subtitled Prince of Tennis episodes, I would have boughten them. There weren't. Everything else is legit.

Anyway. Shelving built. Next steps: Locating leftover brown paint from house trim. Debate over whether or not I want to cover up screw holes with wood putty (I'm currently leaning towards too-much-fucking-around). Decision on the bracing issue. Painting. Yep. I can do this. I will NOT leave half-mint-green shelves standing with the DVDs in place...

(no subject)

I'm putting off making a pie. See, because I belong to a fractured, remixed family, I get more than one Holiday Dinner. While this used to piss me off when I was younger, these days I have matured sufficiently to appreciate the additional gravy opportunities that this state of affairs adds to in my life. I like gravy. Anyway, tomorrow I'm Holiday Dinnering with brother Joe, his wife, their rugrats, and my mother. I've promised to schlep a peach pie to the affair. I haven't made the pie yet. That's going to happen before I go to bed tonight, but I'm putting it off as long as possible so that I can blame the minute imperfections in the thing on the lateness of the hour.

I was going to make the pie earlier today, but my train of piemaking was interrupted while Joe called me to tell me that Duncan (the nephew) did not want to go to the State Store with him. (Joe and I live in Pennsylvania, where Demon Rum is only available from state-sanctioned outlets that we call State Stores. We Pennsylvanians, the same brilliantly smart folk who keep electing Santorum, know full well that all ya'll who live in ungodly states where wine and even hard liquor are sold over the counter like Pepsi or Fanta will one day succumb to Demon Rum and Succubus Vodka and Pompous Ass White Wine and the rest of them without the protection afforded by a proper, governmentally-operated booze marketplace.) Duncan is three. It is interesting to note that the high point of my brother Joe's day with his son was trying to take him to the liquor store. This is the kind of parenting I approve of. Way to go, Joe!

Joe also mentioned, out of the blue, that he was amazed to discover that Eminem DID NOT SUCK. He also likes that Snoop Dogg person who apparently is now wishing that he had never, ever referred to himself as Snoop Doggy Dogg, which is how I still think of him even though that has to have been at least ten years ago. I will pimp Joe for more information on these artists while I am visiting tomorrow so that I can make properly informed purchases of their work but I do feel moved to point out that Joe compared Snoop Dogg's laconic, almost behind-the-beat delivery (he's on the Kid Rock album I have, with the sex rhymes song... WCSR, so I know what this sounds like) to that of Frank Sinatra. For my part, I noted with interest that punk bands did NOT all sound like drumsets falling down the stairs -- some of 'em were building a really enjoyable sound out of licks, rhythms, and other musical building blocks that were sort common in the genre and which you got used to after sufficient exposure to the lingo. Er. If that made sense.

This is not getting the fucking pie made.

[Edit] 12:45 AM -- Pie made. Pie in oven, forty odd minutes to go until finished. The peaches were from some I froze this summer, peaches that were perfectly ripe and delightful, sex in a half-bushel box. They were already sliced and frozen in pie-ready amounts so all I had to do there was thaw, mix, and dump into the pie tin. Dinner: a few orphan peach slices and the leftover pie-filling-juice, a raw delight that them as don't make pies at home never get to taste.