I've been getting awful, awful, nefarious sleep lately, for maybe two weeks. Rebecca thinks it's impending fatherhood crushing the psyche. Truth is, that's not what's keeping me awake. It's either caffeine or night sweats or something. On the baby front, I'm actually very eager and ready; I'm not full of anxiety and screaming at strangers or anything like that.

All right, I did leave Home Depot in a huff the other night, abandoning a gas grill right in the checkout aisle over a sale misunderstanding.

But, still! I'm being perfectly reasonable right now! Hey, FUCK YOU!

The happy ending was that we went to Sears after the Home Depot incident and were showered with customer love, just as we were when we purchased our front-loading washer and dryer at the tiny Appliance Center in town. They should call it Appliance Center and Good Service Store because with two different salespeople, we were both times left with the warm fuzzies over how well we were treated.

This time, the dude helping us took apart the grill and helped load it into my tiny car in the rain. Never once complained. Never once was bitter that he was working on the 4th of July.

At Home Depot, I was in the warehouse wilderness, abandoned and scared. I swear I could hear wolves.

So, yes, we grilled and we grilled yesterday, leaving behind the entrails of our old, tiny gas cooker, which was literally falling apart in a pile of rust and ancient meatjuices. If felt good to be the victor of grilled foods, to beat my meats, as it were. Real good.

Other things are happening that you may not be aware are happening. Rest assured that even when we are caught underwares, these things still happen.

For instance, we have a new comic, much delayed, but still socially relevant, I think. It's about the iPhone and if its tone is crushing defeat as opposed to jubilation, well just know that neither P.J. or I own iPhones. Are we bitter? I'll let you judge on that score.

Also, today, a story of mine ran in a section of the paper we call "A coffee with..." My coffee, delicious, was with Sylvester Becker, a self-styled German Cowboy. You can read the story here. Be sure to check out the Austin Business Babes podcast, too.

A review of mine for Dungeon Runners ran in the Tuesday paper, but it got lost in the chasm between print and Web publishing. It's a locally produced game, so you'd think it would be of interest, but, hey, I just work in the salt mine, I don't package the salt into cute tubes with umbrella-carrying girls and sell it to your grocer.

Happy 5th of July!

It's still in there.

Oh. Man. so funny.

The Steven A. Smith hecklers are back. Sock puppets are genius.

I kept meaning to update over the weekend, because there was a lot of things afoot (everything, it seemed, but feet themselves), but I kept getting sidetracked.

Friday was my big iPhone day and I spent it out reporting. I had a bunch of stories run in rapid succession in the paper including Friday's story about modern phones, Saturday's A1 story about the iPhones lines (I'd like to be modest, but fuck it; I thought I knocked it out of the park) and a video I shot and edited myself late Friday night. Also lots of updates on the work blog. I'm seriously iPhoned out. I didn't even buy the damn thing.

Saturday was Rebecca's birthday. We mostly took it easy and ate out at restaurants a few times and watched some movies. Letters from Iwo Jima, as good as it is, may be the longest movie ever made. At least it feels that way. It took us three separate nights to watch this thing. And then there's a whole other movie that goes with it! Clint Eastwood, I can't even get out of bed in the morning sometimes and your 105-year-old ass is knocking out like 10 hours of cinematic brilliance at a time? You are truly a man among tiny elves.

As part of my Getting Things Done journey, I went to the Office Depot ("We have the same shit as Wal-Mart, but for $3-$10 more for each item!") to stock up on supplies.

Let me just say that although I walked out with a three-tier file holder, I was not happy about it. The file holders they carry at Office Depot were an affront to filing. It's like someone who hates filing was employed to design these little file/paper holders and did everything they could to make them flimsy, ugly and unwieldy. It was like asking a Klan Grand Wizard to organize Juneteenth. These are horrible fucking file holders and I am ashamed that I broke down and bought the least ugly one they had, especially since now I have to look at it all the time now.

I also bought folders, a giant full-sized stapler, some very expensive Post-Its and, most excitingly, a label maker.

The book says to go to the store and get a simple desktop Brother labeler, one that plugs in so you don't have to deal with batteries.

What the book fails to mention is that this simple labeler costs 100 fucking dollars. I can buy a laptop for that! Jeez!

So I compromised. I didn't want a hand-held labeler, but I don't get stressy about changing batteries, so I got a cute desktop one that doesn't take up much space. Seriously, some of these label makers look like they could launch space shuttles and take more desktop space than my monitor.

This is the labeler I bought:



Cute, right? I got to work making labels for REBECCA, CAT. and the time/date. It was a productive Sunday night.

Future plans include labels like CREPE MYRTLE, CREPE MYRTLE 2, TRASH BIN, OLD CHICKEN, DO NOT EAT and something I can wear as a name badge. The labeler does lower-case, but I don't care. I want to LABEL. EVERYTHING. ALLCAPS! This is going to totally rock.