Crown Me

This morning, I had the pleasure of getting a temporary crown with the promise of a permanent one in three weeks. It all went just fine, though spending an hour and a half with hands in one's mouth gets a bit trying by the end.

The most horrifying part was this: After being all Novocained up, I was left lying in the chair, listening to god knows what "light rock" station, for it to take full effect. All it once, it happened. The song I loathe most in the universe, "Black Water" by the Doobie Brothers, started to play (Let me note here that naming a band after a drug without the slightest bit of irony is offensive).

At that point, I imagined myself as Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man, being ready to tell anyone anything they wanted to know if only they would SHUT OFF THAT SONG.

Dentist, Hair and Stuff

Yesterday, I went to the dentist for a routine cleaning and it turns out I need to have a crown put on a tooth that's been on the watch list for some time. As I was checking out, a woman said to me "Is that a punk haircut?" I replied "It was when I was in my twenties." She said "The girls where I volunteer have punk haircuts. I think they're cute."

Who calls short, semi-spiky hair a "punk haircut" these days? And in the case of my hair, which is really very conservative compared to what it looked like when I actually DID have a punk haircut?

Later I popped down to the Giant Eagle to pick up a few things, and I was in the extremely poorly named Express Lane. The woman being rung up had been helping on the Extreme Makeover house in Penn Hills, and as soon as she made this known, she became a major celebrity. Some tidbits I learned:

The house is for a guy who has just been let out of prison and whose wife runs a daycare center out of their home (the woman behind me in line found it pretty odd that they'd let you run a daycare center in a home with a convict)

The dirt on the woman's sweatshirt was fake because they filmed a few laundry detergent commercials while there.

The Extreme Makeover folks did do some rewiring of the house next door to the new one, and the entire street's residents have been put up in hotels for the week.

The woman felt bad for the other residents, because she thought they should "spread the wealth around." Good thing Joe the Plumber wasn't listening.

This has to be one of the most horrifying things I've (almost) read

The case for protecting the dignity of plants. Really.

Scheduling Application Design

Last Saturday, I took my dogs to be groomed. I had forgotten the requisite rabies certificates, so I had to reschedule their appointment. This involved removing the dogs from the previous time slot and readding them to a time slot the following week. I have seen this same sort of activity when I reschedule my own grooming...the user is moving me around.

I would like to make a request of all of the software developers out there who develop software for scheduling appointments. In addition to allowing the user to view a calendar and move people in and out of it, PLEASE add a function that lets the user view a "schedulee" and simply change the date and time on that person's record. It just would make things so much easier.

Incidentally, there was a whiteboard in the reception area of the groomer's. On it, someone had written "Welcome" and the names of the dogs with appointments that day. There were perhaps 15 dog names, including Spike and Penn. For some reason, they felt compelled to put quotation marks around Z's name. Spike, Penn and "Z". I just don't get it.

Oh, yes...the Amarone

The minute I saw our favorite waiter was assigned our table, I knew we could get some of that lovely Amarone that they were serving at the wine dinner at The Carlton. It wasn't cheap--$25 a glass--but well worth it, and considering a bottle retails at $89.00, a fair price for the glass.

I'm no wine expert, but this Amarone smelled like dried cherries and while dry, had a nice sweet, but not cloying finish.

We are looking into ordering a case. How I wish I lived in a civilized state that didn't have the absurdity of a Liquor Control Board.

Pittsburgh is Beautiful

I just love Pittsburgh at this time of year. The numerous trees have turned, making a drive to or from work much better than usual.

It was the hubby's birthday last week, but his sister was in from out of town, so we are officially celebrating tonight at The Carlton. Also tonight at The Carlton is a wine dinner. One of the wines they are serving is an Amarone that has scored 100 Wine Spectator points.

Since Amarone is our favorite wine, we are hoping to leverage both "it's his birthday" and "we're regulars here" in order to score a glass. If we do indeed get to try it, I'll post about that experience.

EGGCORN

With all these investigations into ACORN and voter fraud, the husband came up with a good idea: Start an orgranization called EGGCORN that is dedicated to unregister voters who have no business voting.

What do Italians Eat for Breakfast?

I was interested in what Italians eat for breakfast because I've been going heavy on breakfast and lunch and scrimping on dinner lately. Most Italian food is essentially healthy (when it's authentic, and not the cheese-laden stuff we think of as Italian here. Don't get me wrong; Italian-American food is wonderful in its own right.) So I did searches of my favorite sites, and, finding little, did some Internet searching. I ran across this thread: What do Italians Eat for Breakfast?.

So it sounds like it's primarily something sweet with coffee, which doesn't suit me. What does interest me about this thread is the fear of appearing to support some sort of stereotype or referring to people unused to a small breakfast being chastised as "ugly Americans". I don't know if this is a microcosm or just an unfortunate mix of strange people....

Goodbye America

So the massive bailout bill passed with so much pork attached even Emeril Lagasse couldn't cook it all.

This excellent article lays out how the government caused this mess.

What frightens me the most is that there were thousands upon thousands of people who called their congresspeople to object to this bill, but it was passed anyway. I thought they were supposed to answer to us. Y'know, the whole government by and for the people thing.

It was nice knowin' ya, America. Time to make us a new one.

Pushing Daisies!!!

See for yourself.

Pushing Daisies Season Premiere Tonight!

I am so very excited to once again enter the magical world of Ned, Chuck and Emerson. There has never been anything like this on TV. The writing is excellent and it is just visually stunning. If you haven't seen it before, I'm sure they will show a recap.