The Craptastics

I found a nifty website that does nifty stuff to photos.

Tada!

Mona Thea

I went for an ultrasound on my heart yesterday to have my murmur checked out and see if it’s affecting my blood pressure at all.

I must say, the technician was cheerless.  She asked me to take off my shirt and I said, “Alright.  But take into account that fluorescent lighting is very unflattering.”  Nothing.  Not even a courtesy chuckle or smile.  When it was all over and she wouldn’t give me a hint about the results (apparently they have to be analyzed by a “doctor”), I offered to take off my shirt again.  Her expressionless reaction suggested that my pasty upper body did not sweeten the deal any.  

Anyway, I’ve been putting off all these tests because a) I love putting things off b) I don’t think they’ll amount to anything and c) I’m afraid they’ll amount to something.  The night before the ultrasound I had this irrational fear that I’d be told I’d been born with a monkey heart which would explain both my blood pressure and tendency to throw feces.  

I’ve been toying with the idea of posting a list of my favourite movies.  But a preliminary list came across as completely typical and unoriginal.  Braveheart!  Shocking!  The Lord of the Rings!  I know I’m alone on that one!  I think I’ve now used up my exclamation point quota for the year.  !

I turned us into superheroes.

Captain Craptastic and CraptastiGirl

I might as well admit it.  We have a mouse.  

We aren’t dirty people.  Honest.

I think it was last week I left a bowl of popcorn kernels on the kitchen counter.  Y’know, leftover from eating popcorn.  In the morning, the leftover kernals had been moved from the bowl into a little pile in the corner.  And he left a little trail of… mouse gifts.

The thing is… we have a cat.  A cat that’s apparently only good for pissing on our couch.  Which, in my opinion, isn’t good.

I’ve been looking into making a humane trap, because I feel sorry for the little bugger.  It might be genetic.  My father has a history of harbouring mice.  And he might actually be a little boy that’s been turned into mouse by a witch.   Um… “he” being the mouse.  Not my dad.  My dad is a human that has had little to no contact with witches.  Unless you count gypsies.  I know I do.

I am so ready for Spring.  I can’t wait till I walk out the front door and smell it.  It being Spring.

Fortunately, this Spring we get to go to Scotland.  We found relatively inexpensive tickets a while ago and we just went ahead and bought them.  Ever since I was last there, after under-grad and before grad school, I’ve wanted to take Thea and show her… everything that I saw.  Ancient mountains, old buildings, rampant racism.  We haven’t had a proper overseas vacation since our weekend in China almost two years ago.  We’re excited and it’s important to go now before we start house-buying and baby-having.

Hopefully we’ll have a chance to swing down to England and visit from friends and family there as well.

Completely unrelated to anything, I found this site that apparently reproduces a sound only heard by young people.  I could hear it, despite being ripe at twenty-nine.

Well, that was quite the dry spell we had there.  

Something happened to me over the Christmas season and I just didn’t feel like writing anymore.  I’m not saying something in particular happened to make me apathetic… I just didn’t feel like writing.  So I didn’t.

And I don’t feel like catching up either.  So let’s just pretend I’ve been writing consistently for the past… two months.

I’m home alone.  Thea is sleeping over at her sister’s house tonight because they’re going somewhere early tomorrow morning.   Could I be more vague?  Yes.

I’m craving a big screen, high definition TV.  My sister-in-law and her husband have a beautiful TV with surround sound, and we periodically go over and I pop in some of my favourite movies to see what they look like big… and highly defined.  We ended up watching Braveheart last weekend, and it was almost like experiencing it for the first time.  It looked and sounded phenomenal.  And that was just upconverting the DVD.  Imagine it on Blu-Ray.  

The thing with this whole being-responsibly-married and trying to save up for a house and whatnot, it’s difficult to rationalize purchasing an expensive luxury.

Back in the fall there was a discussion amongst some of my friends over whether a pastor should purchase/own an expensive luxury car.  From what I recall, most said that they wouldn’t judge a pastor in that circumstance.   If I’m honest, I probably would.  

Regardless of the looming depression, we still live in a culture of immense wealth.  And I think we’ve lost perspective on what it is to be truly grateful and generous.  And we’ve lost what it means to be truly uncomfortable.  Even with my regular TV and terminal automobile, I’m hardly suffering here in our cushy, bloated society.  

But I really want that TV.

I’m sleepy but I don’t want to go to sleep.  I have the dreaded Friday-night Saturday-morning combo-shift at work this week.  It’s crummy coming home, going to bed and heading back to work.