Still not here. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll have to paint the apartment myself.

Anyone feel like painting with me?

Est-il dans l'arbre?

Much more than an annoyance: the disappearance of Maurice between my front door and Flint, Michigan

v

Yes, I saw that elsewhere. Very disturbing.

Whew! Painter arrived.

Here we go again. The painter was supposed to arrive at 8 a.m. to finish the job. It's now 9:40. He left his gear, and hasn't been paid, so I assuming that he'll show up, but at this rate, it's going to take three days to paint the two rooms.

I think you have to make allowances for artists. The muse cannot be summoned with a click of the fingers.

He actually said yesterday that even though he can't paint a picture, he considers what he does his art. He is meticulous and what he finished is the best paint job I've ever seen. It's the rest of the room, the hallway and the kitchen that have me upset. Do you feel like painting, Orik?

Wearing that hat???

I guess I'd better eat it.

But it is a great hat. Is that Orik under it?

Tube strike Train companies that take full advantage by posting twice as many staff at the ticket barriers thereby forcing punters to pay their grossly inflated fares. Buses during said tube strike full of people screaming out their lives on mobile phones

Don't discourage him from eating that hat

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I thought he was the new Iron Chef.

Minor annoyance: not feeling comfortable, nor having the time, to write "The Producers" scene - "Hitler was a better dresser than Churchill, he told funnier jokes than Churchill, he could paint an entire apartment..." - to reference Lippy's apartment painting.

OK..
Franz Liebkind: Hitler... there was a painter! He could paint an entire apartment in ONE afternoon! TWO coats!

Obviously I hired the wrong guy.

A weird thing happened to me today. It's not an annoyance, not a reason to be cheerful, but nor do I feel like giving it its own thread:

Just now, at 19.06, I realised that I never ate lunch today, never even thought about a bite to eat all day and I didn't even have breakfast So that piece of Bitto must be languishing, semi-melted in my bag

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Birds. Perhaps nesting magpies, I don't know, whose relentless chuntering at an astounding decibel level in a tree quite some distance from my bedroom window has driven me out of the bedroom and forced me to set up accommodations in the living room

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It took me the better part of two days to get Tivo set up at our house this weekend. Thanks mostly to Adelphia cable which has to be the worst cable provider anywhere. It takes forever to get a live person to speak with; they can't give correct information (whenever they tell me why something doesn't work, I feel required to call a second time to see if I get the same answer--frequently, I don't); their computer is always down; they won't activate the serial port of their (well, Motorola's) cable box ((apparently because they want to make it harder for people to set up Tivo as opposed to some product they may offer some day (which probably won't work)). Anyway, using infrared instead of the serial port, Tivo is working. It's like a lazy man's VCR with more features and you don't have to worry with tapes being eaten.

Gosh. Am I a grouch, or something? I found myself only this morning asking how Barney the Dinosaur can wipe his bum with such short arms.

I've always viewed Bert and Ernie as being in the same category as Laurel and Hardy and Morecambe and Wise - able to share a bed with no questions being asked.

But there's something funny about Barney.

What do you suppose this word means, you know, the one that the clerks at the cash register in stores say to you in an exasperated tone. Could be spelled either "nex" or "necks."

That's it. I'm changing my name to Lippidine. Or maybe Ranitippy.

You can also axe for an expresso.

Arrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhh.