Y’all, talk to me about garlic. Burpees tells me it’s time to start thinking ahead about Fall crops, and as garlic is supposed to be planted in the Fall, I’m thinking about it. (I’m very obedient.) Do I want hardneck or softneck? I’m thinking hardneck because I read somewhere that it stores longer, but then I read that softneck lasts longer, so what the hell? I know zilch about garlic aside from the fact that I like it, and I’m not planning to go hog wild with the growing of it, just want to plant some for my first try at it. So my ears are open, give me some advice, and if you have a favorite variety, let me know. I’m willing to try anything!
Look. I know you probably can’t tell this, but I try not to be a snob. I really really try. But when it comes to things like casting the tiny Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher, I can’t get on board. I mean, COME ON. Jack Reacher is a huge hulk of a man. Tom Cruise is a tiny, elfin thing.
(Okay, I exaggerate. But seriously, he is neither huge nor hulking.)
I hoped and prayed that I’d be proven wrong – I wanted to be proven wrong, I did! – but after viewing the trailer, I’m concluding that Tom Cruise is no Jack Reacher. Not only is he too small, but his voice is too high, and he’s trying too hard when he says “Remember, you asked for this.” He’s too obviously ACTING, because Jack Reacher would say that sentence without trying to make it sound menacing – and it would make you shit your pants. When Tom Cruise says it, trying too hard, it just makes me want to boop him in the nose, all “Oooh, little man, who’s the little man? Who’s going to kick my ass? I’m soooooo scared!”
David Morse would have been an excellent Reacher (though I think he’s probably too old for it now). Now THERE is a man who can be menacing without having to work at it.
Recently, after being repeatedly warned that Dish Network would no longer be carrying AMC, and knowing that one of the best shows ever – Breaking Bad – airs on AMC, we switched from Dish Network to DirecTV (or however the hell they capitalize it).
What a friggin’ undertaking. When Fred called DirecTV to sign up with them, he was on the phone for something ridiculous like 45 minutes. He finally got done with that call, which was basically just setting up the appointment to have it installed, and from then on the phone rang what seemed like constantly. An automated call to let us know that we’d set up the appointment for this day and this time. An automated call to remind us again. Another automated call to remind us that the appointment was the next day. A call in the morning to make sure someone would be home. The installer called later in the morning to let us know what approximate time he’d be here. A call when he was on the way. And then? A call to ask if the house number was on the mailbox. (At that point, I was able to say “You should be able to see a man in a red shirt mowing the lawn. That’s the house.”)
They got it hooked up and the guy left and then we discovered that the DVR they’d installed, rather than being the one that can record five (!) things at once, was the regular, boring two-things-at-once DVR. I was not having this, not because we necessarily need to record five (!) things at once, but because there have been many times when we’ve needed to record three things at once, but couldn’t and thus had to decide which show to skip. So Fred had to call and make another appointment for another installer to come out. Cue the incessant phone calls.
In the meantime, since we had our DirecTV service set up, Fred called Dish Network to cancel. Weren’t they so very sad, Dish Network was, that after they gave Fred the BULLSHIT spiel about how Dish wasn’t REALLY going to drop AMC, they were still in negotiations, blah de blah (which is total bullshit, as they do NOT carry AMC any longer), to find out that Fred had already signed the contract with DirecTV and there was nothing Dish was going to be able to say to change that. So they told Fred that they’d send a kit to us so we could send the DVR, remote, and something else from the satellite dish back to them.
For the next week, we got calls from Dish letting us know that our mailing kit was on the way and that if we didn’t send their shit back to them within 30 days, there’d be a charge. Every fucking day, multiple times a day.
I started referring to Dish as “our psycho ex-boyfriend” and DirecTV as “our insecure new boyfriend.” After Dish called, I’d hang up and say “That was our psycho ex-boyfriend letting us know that he still wants his shit back.” After DirecTV called, I’d hang up and say “Our insecure new boyfriend wants to make sure we’ll really show up for our date.”
Of course, as soon as DirecTV got the new DVR installed, we started getting the “How’d we do?!” calls. And once Dish got their shit back, they stopped calling, though they’re still sending letters in the mail trying to woo us back. “Dear Fred Anderson, We’ll do anything to get you back!” they say. Yeah? Okay, buy out our two year contract with DirecTV, start carrying AMC again, and give us the cool five-tuner DVR. Somehow when they say they’ll do “anything”, they mean “anything but that.”
Do I love DirecTV more than Dish? Well, the DVR that records five things at once is cool, as is the three months of free HBO, Showtime and Cinemax (I think Starz, too, but who the hell watches that channel?), but I think in the scheme of things they’re all the same.
Alls I know is that Breaking Bad premiered this week, and we were all OVER that shit. Love that damn Jesse Pinkman. Bitch.
Previously
2011: Probably the early-onset Alzheimer’s.
2010: Things on my recent list of annoyances.
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: Goddamn squirrels.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: No entry.
2003: No entry.
2002: OR I may have thought to myself, well, every author is entitled to a horrid piece of excrement or two.
2001: I’ve been packing in a desultory and lazy fashion this week, and have about half the upstairs done.
2000: I think if any of the kitties lose their mind and go on a human-throat-gnawing spree, it’ll be her.
