Back in Business

Hurrah! After being reduced to an incommunicado mess by my broken and dislocated right ring finger, I am finally back to ten-fingered typing at my normal rate.  This means that I am well overdue to get the ol' Pontoon Boat back up and running.

So, what did you all miss while I was away?  I did do a little bit of posting over at Facebook during the blog outage, so I reckoned I'd copy along some FB posts to catch you non-FBers up on the last couple of months.  Upon review, it looks like the usual mix of whining, lunch, and monster movies, wrapped up by a fun two-week visit from my nephew Shea and niece Atlee.

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John Magee
and Monique are watching "Rebirth of Mothra 2." The insane plot of this thing makes me believe it's the "Axe Cop" of giant monster movies.

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John Magee
and Monique just saw the Transit of Venus by projecting it on a piece of paper with a pair of binoculars. Awesome!

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John Magee
has spent $200+ on wheel alignments in the last year and would prefer that the state fix the damn roads instead of futzing around with a marginal income tax break that won't put nearly that much money back in my pocket. The Belle Isle Grand Prix track disaster wasn't an unlucky coincidence. It was just another day of crumbling state infrastructure for most of us.

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John Magee
is watching an Ishiro Honda quadruple-feature (Gojira, Rodan, Mothra, and The H-Man) while Monique and Katie the Beagle snooze. I suspect their dreams are filled with screaming Japanese people and inexplicably huge monsters.

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John Magee
is very proud that the Michigan International Speedway has yet to accidentally blow up a dryer truck during today's rain delay. #BetterThanDaytona

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John Magee
just learned that my dental insurance doesn't cover sedation unless you're having at least *two* wisdom teeth pulled at once. This leads to two interesting questions: 1) How cheap ... er, frugal, am I? 2) If I do save $300+ by going with the local, am I entitled to spend some of that on a fun toy?

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John Magee
Actual conversation as Monique and I drove home from Columbus, Ohio, today:

MONIQUE: "What exactly is a buckeye, anyway?"

JOHN: "It's a kind of nut."

MONIQUE: "Oh. ... That explains a lot about this state."

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John Magee
Actual conversation from last night, after we drove the MGB to Ann Arbor via Pontiac Trail:

JOHN: "We motored our roadster through the countryside."

MONIQUE: "I'm going to write a complaint letter to 'Wheeler Dealers.' They've corrupted your vocabulary with British."

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John Magee
For those wondering, my sister Susan did indeed survive the drive from Gettysburg to Detroit with all four kids plus Wilson. We immediately dispensed a therapeutic margarita and she is now recovering on the couch.

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John Magee
Lunch in the Cube: leftover linguine with beurre au citron, clams, eggplant, and peppers. (Atlee thought we should have seafood for dinner last night after she and Shea spent all day swimming and trying to catch fish with their hands.)

Susan Magee Riordan Atlee will no doubt have a very convincing reason why you should have seafood each evening. :-)

John Magee You'd be surprised at how easily I'm convinced on that front.

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John Magee
returned home to find Atlee (age 8) serving as DungeonMaster and running Shea & Monique through a Dungeons & Dragons game. However, I don't think those are *quite* official 4th edition rules she is running.

John Magee The plot is oddly reminiscent of "Return of Mothra 2."

Phil Gaven Set the record straight. Time to go all nerd-Santini on them Uncle John.

John Magee What really surprised me was when Katie the Beagle took over as DungeonMaster.

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John Magee
is increasingly annoyed at Phil Gaven for pointing out that every time anybody clicks on a sponsored "Romney for President" link, they force the Romney campaign to lose money. Sure, it's an incredibly effective bit of slacktivism that gives the average person a tool to fight back against millionaires and billionaires, but that Romney website is soul-deadening.

John Magee Ugh. That very post caused a Mitt Romney sponsored link to pop up in my sidebar. CLICK. There goes another little piece of my soul, nibbled away by the mendacious vapidity of the Romney campaign.

Phil Gaven While you're there, play this fun game: Find the Non-White People

John Magee Dear God, please don't make me linger.

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Susan Magee Riordan
Now I remember the chaos of four kids. Maybe Rich and I can slip out of Detroit Monday morning before John and Monique notice we've "accidentally" left Emerson behind.

John Magee We'll ship him to you via UPS.

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John Magee
Shea has decided to root for the Swiss in the Olympics. He likes their stance on neutrality. (And chocolate.)