I'm Steve the LLamabutcher, and I'm an idiot

But you knew that already.

Random grab-bag for a Monday night:

1. Immigration speech? Too tired right now. I'll watch the stream later, but to be perfectly honest I've had trouble getting motivated on this issue one way or another. That's just me, Senor Vegas.

2. Mother's Day at Rancho Non-sequitor was a big hit. With four kids under 9, and two under 3, breakfast in bed is just not a good idea (unless you use a drop cloth perhaps). I gave The Dear One the best gift I could give: absolute peace and quiet for about 4 hours, as I scattered the kids around the neighborhood like an angry and vengeful Zeus tossing knucklebones with the fates. And no, I have no idea what the heck that means, but it just popped into my head and sounded zesty. I did score major points, though, by getting her as the real present some books from the store that just happened to be on her amazon shopping cart list, but that I hadn't seen. Perfect strike. Sometimes you just get lucky, I guess.

3. Next Monday brings the neighborhood book club to our house, so naturally I had to spend the day repainting the living room. Grrrrrrrr. I've been dropping hints that the long range weather report has it raining/thundering next Monday so to get me out of having to restain the deck. The Dear One is in two book clubs---one is the olde time one that she started back in '94 after we got married (and for a number of years, blissfully, met on Monday nights, freeing me with unfettered Monday Night Football quality time), but this one is the dreaded neighborhood one. Why is it dreaded, you ask? Well, the olde time one is practical as all get out: they figured out as they started the key to longevity was to not meet in anyone's actual house, so as to supress the Martha Stewart Arms Race (aka the Mad Murtha Martha impulse) that is the bane of chick lit booke clubbe experience. Twelve years, 120 books, and @45 members later (Charlottesville, being a college town, is a transient place, and they've been very good about cycling new blood in), the olde booke clubbe rages on. The neighborhood book club, however, is the bane of my existence. The only thing I can say is that at least they've gotten past the Oprah phase, which, to be perfectly honest, was quite painful to watch. Now, mind you, there are level headed folks in the Neighborhood Book Club: besides The Dear One, Left of the Dial's "Top Management" is rumored to have joined (she is the Nora of their Nick and Nora Neighborhood blogging dynamic duo). But still, there are the other ones, who---somehow, I don't know exactly how---are always costing me money. I would rig a perimeter of claymores to keep the NuSkin/SouthernLivingathome/ Merry Chef/Happy Harpy out of my yard, except that's probably against one of the numerous onerous covenants. Having a politcal campaign sign in your yard=a serious affront to the "harmony" of the neighborhood. Having your mailbox and phonebox stuffed with glossy crap being peddled by neighborhood hausfraus=a serious part of being a good American. Now, mind you I don't have anything against kids coming by and selling stuff: I felt it my duty as a devotee of Uncle Milty Freidman to buy boxes of cookies from each and every Girl Scout that came to our door over a three month period, but my patience for such peddling ends when the kid is old enough to push a lawnmower or lift a snowshovel. Want an easy $20 from the proprietor of Stately LLama Manor? Edge my damn lawn. Want to make money as a grownup peddling cheesy crap on others? Get your ample arse on ebay like everyone else. Geez, what would you think if I went door to door with these people trying to peddle our official LLamabutcher Industries brand of LLamabutcher Thongs?

Now that you think of it, that might be the makings of our first podcast.

Anyhoo, I'm trying to wrassle up some righteous indignation tying the imperative to paint the living room to the impending arrival of the book club, but Occam's Razor would cut to the fact that 1. it's been on my to-do list now for about 6 months and B. the semester's finally over so I have a bit of time schedule flexibility for awhile. (The Dear One likes to point out that I have a fast-paced, pedal to the metal 24/7 job---that's 24 hours a week, seven months a year. I say, she's grossly exagerating. I mean, after clearing tenure three years ago, I've got the routine down to 19 hours a week, tops.)

But hey, to thine oneself be true and all, I've just found that there's nothing like a little righteous indignation to focus the mind on clearling the backlog on the to-do list.

Damn bookclub.

4. Stevie cried doing the Carnival of the Bauer---and not because I screwed up and didn't include about six entries that came earlier in the week and hence lay unexamined in the Tasty Bits Mail Sack. No, while doing research one of my oldest and most important core beliefs, not to mention easy lay-up jokes, lay shattered like so many delicate Hummel figurines after someone told Hugo Chavez there was a Lil' Debbie Snack Cake hidden somewhere in the warehouse.

You see in college I was a bit of a geek: I was in this program where we did a Politics, Philosophy, and Economics thing, and were a wee bit hardcore about it. To blow off steam, we made fun of English majors. Now, some of my best friends were English Majors (Robbo, to name one, not to mention The Dear One---did I mention she's in two book groups?), but English Majors, particularly at the Glorious People's Soviet in Middletown were a bunch just asking for ridicule. And for some reason, "English Major" as a synonym for "effete wussy" not to mention "incompetent and incapable" just kind of stuck, with the phrase, "What English Major came up with this literary theory?" as my own personal version of FUBAR.

And then, I saw this. The ass-kickingest English Major in the Western canon.

D'OH UPDATE: I have a longer bit in the comments section on the actuarial prospects of different types of majors in 24, but I missed the identity of "TDP," so let me give a little background. You see, TDP was a history major undergrad, only because he got his forms in late (it might have had something to do with me, in the lower bunk and seriously hung over, breaking the alarm clock radio with a random shoe. Fortunately, those were the days before camera phones). So he wound up being a---wait for it---history dude, specializing in European Imperialism in the Third World. Fortunately, he listened to me and my dulcet tones of evil, and did his senior thesis as >"European Imperialism in the Third World II: Getting it Right this Time." It was a pure work of genius, as everyone thought he was kidding. Yet, now he is a major insurance/health care exec. I would say, "Heh, indeed" but then I'd owe Glenn Reynolds a quarter.

Anyhoo, Tomas, I'm glad you're hanging around, and you're on my list (along with long-time commentator and new dad Keith S.) to get set up blogging. The world demands your evil be vented, mon!