MilkmanDan

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat The tops of my own shoes shuffling forward as I endure Disney World. NT: Ways Disney World might ultimately be destroyed.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Pariah, because being in charge will give him protection from MilkmanDan's vengeance for even mentioning that @#$!!! Dora the Explorer Map song. NT: Ironic ways to kill off characters from preschooler TV shows.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Death Tribble. I mean, seriously, you'd think after 36 failed attempts he'd just give it up by now.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Go, Diego, Go! Yeah, you, you perky little brat, you moron. What? You need to get down the river? You've got a magic talking Rescue Pack that can transform into any vehicle, and you still need a bunch of people to tell you you need it to be a boat? Did you fall off your zipline onto your head a few too many times? You need to go across the water. OF COURSE YOU NEED A STINKING BOAT! Why don't you try giving you the Rescue Pack to Alicia, maybe she's not a complete frigging idiot. I hope Baby Jaguar grows up and eats your face.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Finding whoever it is who does the voice-overs for Dora the Explorer and killing them in the most horrible way imaginable. What? I've had a six four-year-old at home for several days. If I hear that stupid "I'm the map! I'm the map!" song one more time somebody needs to die.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat For writing amazingly vague predictions that will run under the heading of "Horoscopes" in local newspapers that millions of people will still, for some reason, give credence to. NT: Why hasn't MilkmanDan been posting much lately?

Re: Order of the Stick Wow. Just . . . wow.

Re: The cranky thread Sucks to hear. Unfortunately, you're screwed because you had a job last year. My first job out of college was working in financial aid, got to the point where I was working on the software systems that help determine your eligibility for aid. It's based on your prior year's AGI. For what it's worth, getting financial aid next year may not be nearly as much of a problem, though for the "good" aid (Pell Grants and such), you would be shocked how incredibly low your income has to be to get anything like that. You can still get unsubsidized loans, but then you're responsible for the interest while in school (which does suck, yes). I'm sure knowing why you got screwed by the financial aid gods makes it so much easier to handle.

Re: The cranky thread Daughter has strep throat. Have had to watch her at home for a few days while trying to work a busy week, and now I think I might be getting it. And my wife just got an official letter that her position is being eliminated as of June 30. @#$!!!!!

Re: The cranky thread *sigh* I've been at my job almost nine years, all as a contractor. They've been discussing contract extensions since October, as the contract expires . . . March 16 (Monday). They've been on the cusp of a three-year extension for months, arguing back and forth, and today I find they have indeed signed a three . . . month extension. With, of course, promises of a longer extension. Stress, anyone?

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "I swear, that's got to be the fourth couch this month!" "Don't make her angry, dear. Just throw the toy mouse and smile."

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Anything of my neighbors, rather than mine. NT: Things definitely not to feed to your cat.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Evil mutant space cows. For me. NT: Ways evil mutant space cows can ruin your day.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Monkey Ballistics

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "Print everything in ransom-note assemblies of random fonts, or Delthrien is going to post another new topic at the wrong time again!" From the Mumbai Times--"The sense of style is impeccable, the story is gripping, and the direction is top-notch, but the lack of over-the-top musical numbers is simply unforgivable. Thumbs down!" NT: Re-imagine classic sci-fi scenes, except as done as a Bollywood production.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "Send me, Foxbat, one billion dollars, or I'll kidnap Delthrien from these boards for another two years! Um, anyone? Hellloooooooo?"

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Crawl in and out of your mouth while you sleep. NT: Today is 3/3/9, Square Root Day. How should you celebrate most appropriately?

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Azathoth will get directions to the cube of that annoying developer who never listens to me. Let's see him code a bunch of bugs into the software when he's a gibbering idiot. Well, more of a gibbering idiot, anyways. NT: Ways to punish software developers who code way too many bugs into software.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "Star Trek: Deep Space 9--We're gloomy, but at least we don't utterly suck like Voyager"

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Your soul has been replaced with Folger's Crystals. Now 50% more evil.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat Doctor Doom is a transsexual transvestite from Latveria. NT: Other embarrassing secrets Doctor Doom doesn't want anyone to know about.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "Seriously, I think 'Avengers Bollywood' would really help us capitalize on the Slumdog Millionaire thing." NT: Song titles from "Avengers--the Musical!"

Re: The cranky thread An admittedly selfish rant: One of the reasons we moved from the D.C. area back to the Midwest is so we could by closer to my wife's family. I always defined "family" pretty specifically growing up; my family was my parents and my sister. Then there were my relatives, who I had to see on occasion, but they certainly weren't family. Family is a relationship, not an accident of genetics, you know? It's not like there was something horribly wrong with my grandparents or cousins or whatever; we just didn't have anything in common, so I felt no need to spend time with them. In fact, when my grandfather (my last grandparent) died three years ago, I hadn't seen him in 18 years. Then there's my wife. She grew up in a small town in Iowa. Her mom lives there. Her brother and his family. Her grandparents (all of them). Aunts, uncles, great aunts, great uncles . . . at a family gathering shortly after we got serious, she introduced me to someone who she instantly identified as her third cousin. Third cousin? Who the hell knows who their third cousin is? Anyways, I've always kind of envied her for having an actual big "family", the kind that literally gets together every Sunday at grandma's house for Sunday dinner. It's cool, I really like them. That being said, I like them maybe three times a year. My wife likes them nine or ten times a year. So, we came to an understanding--I'd go to Iowa a few times a year with her, but, if she wanted to go that often, she'd take the kids along and do her visit, and I'd stay at home. I get a couple of these weekends a year, and I cannot even describe how much I look forward to them. I sleep in (which for me means until like 8:30, because I'm so used to waking up early with kids I can't sleep in any later anymore regardless of whether they're around or not). I sit in the basement and play video games. I goof off. I purposely make huge messes around the house just because I can and because it's the one time my probably OCD-ridden wife isn't around to freak out about things not being organized. I utterly LOVE these weekends. I've been looking forward to this coming weekend for about a month. She was going down to Iowa, I was staying here. She was heading down Thursday, and I was actually taking Friday off just to fully enjoy the time. I hadn't taken a "me" vacation day in ages; I wasn't even going to leave the house, just lay around and vegetate. So, this past weekend, her brother and my mother-in-law came for a visit. He's a professional handyman and has a friend in town who asked him to do some stuff, so it was a combo work/play visit for him. Perfectly fine, I like the guy a lot. Played some Rock Band together, had fun. Then, Friday night, the phone rings. Her grandma (her dad's mom), who has been mentally slipping away for years and is in a home (an ASTOUNDINGLY depressing place) is in the hospital and it isn't looking good. I tell my wife in the morning once she wakes up, and she and her brother head down to Iowa to try to see her before she goes. Doesn't happen, she dies while they're on their way. On Sunday, I drive the kids and her mom halfway and meet the wife and her brother, and we basically swap, do a half-drive each to make the handoff easier. We come home and, tomorrow, we head to Iowa for the visitation Thursday and funeral Friday. Staying through Sunday. So, instead of Thursday-Sunday alone, I have Wednesday-Sunday in Iowa. And yes, it's for a funeral, for her grandmother. It's not the "really special" grandma Sunday dinner, the one we named our daughter after, but my wife was once really close to this woman before she really started to mentally go about 7 or 8 years back. It's very hard on my wife and I'm trying to be as supportive as possible and haven't said one negative thing at all WHICH IS WHY I'M ON HERE RANTING ABOUT THE @#$!$!! SITUATION. I hate going to Iowa. I lived there for 15 years and we're going to be just down the road from Iowa City where I still have loads of friends but it might as well be 500 miles away, because every time we go to that stinking little town she's from I get dragged from family function to family function and I never get the opportunity to ever actually do anything I want to do or see anyone I actually want to visit. And yes, it's a funeral visit and should be family time, it's just that I've got a giant bucketfull of resentment over all the past trips that never quite seems to empty out. Add to that the fact that I really do feel selfish as hell for feeling this way and I'm just a pile of giggles right now. I'm coming off a really ugly batch of stomach flu, I tweaked a back muscle lifting weights last week and did something else the other day so that it feels like I've been kicked in the spine, and I slept like utter crap last night, so I'm in a lousy mood, and now on Friday instead of gaming I'll be having some awful dinner at a restaurant in rural Iowa and on Saturday instead of going out for a long-planned night with some friends I'll be doing something that involves . . . something a lot less enjoyable than a long-planned night with some friends. So, between the bad mood at the guilt about the bad mood, I'm really, really, really looking forward to the next few days.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat He leg-presses your entire house.

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat "Yes, sure, we'll do whatever he says! Wait, what do you mean he's no longer president????? Obama? Really? I was wondering where he'd gone off to . . ." NT: It's Charles Darwin's 200th birthday. How should it be commemorated?