Apr. 22: Ketchup

I haven’t blogged much lately. No reason, really, except that I’ve not been feeling like there’s much to say. I know, you’re wondering what one has to do with the other.

So rather than individual posts about a bunch of different topics like I usually write, I’m going to smash everything I haven’t said for the past several days into one post to get caught up. Totally cheating, yes.

Movie

For Manullang Family Movie Night on Friday, Jack chose Monsters vs Aliens. We went to the cinemas and approximately $467 later, enjoyed a very, very funny movie. I was pleasantly surprised. The voice talent was good—Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Seth Rogen, Stephen Colbert (as the president!), Rainn Wilson, Kiefer Sutherland, just to name a few—and the story was sweet. Not Pixar-caliber, but still good, and deserving of many alien thumbs up from the Manullang Fam.

Concert

Lori and I went to Unwigged & Unplugged at Keller on Sunday evening. If you enjoyed the movies This is Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind, you should punch yourself in the nuts if you missed this concert. It was Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer, appearing as themselves, and incredible—it’s amazing what those guys can do; they play several instruments and create some awesome harmonies. And their lyrics—oh my word, they are talented! They did songs from all their movies and albums, interspersed with film footage of various types and a couple special treats, like 3-D effects for one lucky audience member and a dramatic reading of an NBC censors’ memo. The crowd was enthusiastic and that made it even more fun. Lori and I loved it.

My friend Chris also went, and even got autographs before the show. Is this the coolest?

He left me a very strange and amusing message on my Facebook wall yesterday:

I didn’t look closely to see what was available at the merch stand, but I saw the green skeleton t-shirt on several audience members. If only I’d known they had “Big Bottom” spandex Speedos! They’d be perfect to wear at the Lassens’ housewarming pool party!

Illness

Jack stayed home from school today. He said his stomach hurt but we weren’t altogether sure he didn’t just want to stay home and play with his Nintendo DS. Still, he was moving pretty slow and I didn’t want to get to work and then get a call from the school saying he needed to go home. I stayed home with him and babied my little guy, which I loved much more than he did.

He seems to be feeling better; right this minute he’s sleeping on the couch with his hand in his pants.

New bed

Our new bed was delivered Saturday morning and I could hardly wait to go to sleep that night. I was disappointed that I slept terribly, though—it was one of those nights where I felt like I just tossed and turned and never really fell asleep. A nap a few hours later went fine, but Sunday night was more tossing. Of course, I wasn’t ready to return the mattress quite yet, but I was frustrated at it being less than perfect. As I said before, I had unreasonably high expectations in that bed.

Monday and Tuesday nights, I slept much, much better. Like a baby, even. Now I think I’m loving it. My back pain is gone. GONE!

Victor’s been sleeping just fine, as snore-y as ever.

pto

It’s official: I’ve been nominated for the PTO board. Next month they vote. I’ll probably be the VP of Student Programs, which means I’ll coordinate a bunch of the events that are supposed to make the kids smarter. Because of my responsibilities, I think a more appropriate title would be VP of Central Intelligence. Not sure when I should propose that revision…

Many homes in our neighborhood are now well-represented by the PTO board and active members, and more than one person has called us a gang because of this. This is thrilling because I’ve never been in a real gang before. When do I get to kill someone for looking at me the wrong way? Soon, I hope, because I’ve already got my eye on someone.

iPhone

My favorite iPhone applications so far are twitterific, Huff Post, and Scramble. Scramble is like Boggle, and you can play against other people. Sometimes I rock at it and sometimes I think I must be playing against that guy who wrote the dictionary himself.

My fat fingertips are getting used to the teeny-tiny keys on the keyboard, and although I’ve not received nearly as many texts as I had been promised (ahem!), I’m getting better at texting too. Yay.

The lack of my custom ringtones still pisses me off. Boo.

Bad guys

I ran into a friend of mine yesterday whom I hadn’t seen in quite a while. Her 26-year marriage is ending and the reasons why are completely depressing to me. It was really good to see her again and catch up a little, but she’s planning to move soon to get away from all the bad stuff and that was the saddest news of all (for me). I don’t blame her for wanting to move; I’d want to too. Strange how you think you know someone and then realize how much they’ve kept from you all along. Gah. Makes me mad.

Also, some people’s exes are just jackasses extraordinaire, or so they tell me. Makes me mad.

EmCityGuy’s wife Bryan got hit by a car while riding his bike yesterday. He’s alive but hurtin’. The idiot who hit him wasn’t paying attention because she was “rushing home to relieve her au pair.” (I’m sorry, Ma’am, but you have a babysitter. You can call her an au pair, but you’ll sound exactly like the moron you are.) I’d like to hit HER with a car! Stupid woman shouldn’t have a license. Makes me mad.

I’m like the Hulk (if he was in a gang)

And you should not make me mad. Remember, I’m in a gang and we are BAD ASS.