PAgent’s Progress

If you would be so kind, I’d appreciate it if you could bop over to Arbitrary or Subjective, a brand-spanking new blog by a friend of mine who also lives in the Portland area. I think you will find it is worth reading.

“Her name was McGill, and she called herself Lill, but everyone knew her as Nancy.” Or, in this case, Fluffy.

I got a tasty, tasty iced mocha this morning at Pioneer Place. As I was leaving Starbucks, I see a huge poster of Donald Trump grinning down at me. It was advertising “Trump Steaks”, which are “The World’s Greatest Steaks”, and apparently available at Sharper Image. (Sharper Image now sells food? This disturbs me somehow…)

Since I considered this to be prima facie proof that the Apocalypse is now upon us, I pulled out my phone to take a picture. Documenting the atrocity, as it were. At this point a Sharper Image employee, inside the dark and locked store, started waving his arms and mouthing “no pictures!” at me.

So, let me get this straight, mallboy. You are asserting that you somehow have the authority to prevent me from taking a photo, when I am standing outside of your locked store, of a huge ADVERTISEMENT that you have cunningly hidden behind a floor-to-ceiling plate of glass.

Yeah.

Bite me.

I really, really, really like this picture.

(click for full size)

Some of you may not know, but part of Google’s plan for World Domination is the creation of personalized Google homepages (you can reach yours at www.google.com/ig. Once you have a homepage, you can add a variety of “gadgets” to deliver content to your homepage. You can also personalize it with a Google theme that changes with the time of day and season of the year.

Now you can also add iGoogle Gadgets that are created by other users. Because I just love jumping on tech bandwagons, I’ve created a Google Gadget that will let you see a selection of YouTube videos that I like.

If you are interested, go to PAgent’s Video Picks at Google Gadgets, and save it to your homepage. I promise I will revise the content when I find new videos.

Like the sorry excuse for a blogger that I am, I didn’t post a thing for the entire three-day weekend. I told myself everyone else was enjoying the holiday, so who would be catching up on blogs?

Anyway, for the curious:

Saturday

Cleaned the kitchen.

Made a run to CostCo to obtain three racks of babyback ribs, hit them with the sweet dry rub that my wife likes, and BBQed them about 5 hours with hickory pellets. To quote my son: “You should cook ribs more often.” To quote my wife, “I think you should just always have a bowl of that rub on hand.”

While I was at CostCo, picked up a copy of “Super Paper Mario” for the Wii. It’s a damn clever game, with the ability to flip into 3-D in order to solve puzzles, and get around obstacles. Unfortunately I suck at platform games, mostly because of my inability to leap with precision. It’s nonetheless enjoyable.

Being at CostCo was unbelievably frustrating. It was, of course, packed. However that didn’t have to make it horrible. No, what really made it a trip to Dante’s Inferno was the people. Like the family that stops in the middle of the intersection of major aisles to discuss what part of the store they should visit next. And the parents whose child is playing in the middle of the aisle, and their only response is a half-hearted “Danielle. You shouldn’t be playing there. People want to get by.”

Oh, and although my faithful readers will point out that I am hardly qualified to give parenting advice, I still have an observation for the father who was pleading with his young sons to stop sitting on the butter and behave: When you, as a parent, put yourself in the position of begging your child for their obediance, you have turned the power structure of the relationship upside down. The child is now in charge, and you are asking their permission to parent. Do you want to know a secret? Kids aren’t happy being in charge. They really do thrive when parents set limits and enforce them consistently. Be the parent, and take control of your kids. You will be happier if you do.

The frosting on the cake, as it were, was the skinny blonde thing wearing the T-shirt that said “You better earn more than I can spend“. Well, at least you’re letting prospective boyfriends know in advance the kind of shallow materialistic bitch that you are. Thanks, I guess.

Sunday

Fired up the lawnmower, and cut the grass. Fired up the weed-whacker, and mowed down weeds. Fired up the edger and … failed to get it running. It would start and run for about three seconds, then die. I decided the gas must have turned to varnish over the winter, so I drained the gas tank and refilled it. Then I checked the spark plug for fouling. It still wouldn’t run. If you keep injecting gas into the carbuerator with the priming pump, it will keep running. As soon as you stop, the engine dies. I’m thinking this is a fuel line issue. Unfortunately, PAgent has no business disassembling a Briggs & Stratton engine. Dammit.

Monday

Our little planned BBQ metamorphosed into a full-on neighborhood potluck. Folks brought salads, side-dishes, drinks, and whatever meat they wanted me to throw on the grill. I manned the Traeger, and fixed BBQ chicken, country-style ribs with either dry rub or dijon-garlic-rosemary marinade, bratwursts, and burgers.

I ended up working the grill most of the time. People tend to feel badly about this. As if I’m being forced to cook and so I miss out on the good times and conversation. They shouldn’t. I suck at small talk. I’m actually much happier grilling, especially when people tell me they like what I’ve cooked for them. When I am at my grill, with a beer in my hand, watching happy people eat, all is right with my world.

I love this picture!

I’m so tickled by it that I feel compelled to throw up another link to The Llama Song. Everybody sing!

Animal pic courtesy of Dark Roasted Blend.