The Annekenstein Monster

A new, periodic-to-daily, until-I-get-tired-of-it feature of The Annekenstein Monster will be the Dictionary.com word of the day, used in a paragraph of my creation that somehow relates to something that’s going on in my life.

Today’s word: Hector

This week, there has been quite a bit of talk, on a couple of blogs I frequent, about the word “vagina”. Fortunately, the debates remained civil and nobody attempted to hector another.

My wife’s grandmother, Helen, in her 10th decade, suffered a large heart attack about a week ago. She’d been in the hospital ever since, at times seeming like she’d pull through, at other times seeming pretty frail and showing her age and condition. Upon her being admitted to the hospital, the nurses told the family to expect Helen to not leave the hospital, and so, over the past week, we were expecting death to come. Today at noon It did.
I wasn’t really close to Helen. I liked her and she was friendly enough to me over our 20 years of knowing each other, but in the past few years, I’d only seen her a couple of times. Karyn and Cameron, the church-goers in our family of three, would see her much more often at church.
One of my last memories of her was when she, still living on her own in her own home, invited us to stay for lunch during one of our visits to see her. We didn’t really want to stay but we did. She made us Kraft Dinner. From what I remember, she didn’t have any milk for the cheese mix, so she used a bit of water instead. Unfortunately, she used too much water, and the resulting cheese sauce was pretty weak. Actually, the word ‘weak’ implies much more flavour than what was contained in that dinner. It was, by far, the worst macaroni and cheese I’ve ever eaten.
Still, it was a nice visit, and she was remarkably smart and clear and spright for a lady of her age. And in my 20 years of knowing her, I’ve never seen her angry or unpleasant, and she was always quick to laugh.

She was a pretty religious lady. And even though I am not religious at all… Helen, I hope everything works out for you.

Well, it was bound to happen. Obviously, a few months ago, all the pipes and plumbing in our bathroom got together and planned this. First it’ll be the toilet that goes. The bathroom sink and its pipes, having been replaced a mere year or two ago, decided it’d be obvious if they went again. Now, the final bit of bathroom plumbing has decided to malfunction and depart. So, today, we have new taps and shower, plus new pipes leading to the taps and shower.
To get to the pipes, our interim plumber (the much appreciated Cecil has put his back out and was unable to attend to our needs) had to go in from the bathroom closet. That means the wall in the closet had to be, um, removed. That means that everything in the closet had to be removed.
The closet in question has probably seven shelves, and is as deep as a standard tub is wide. Pretty deep, for a closet, I think. Over the 10+ years of living here, we’ve begun using less and less of the back areas of those shelves. Lately, in fact, I’d guess we only use the front 6 inches of those shelves. That’s not to say the rest of the area is empty. Quite the opposite, in fact. All the shelves are piled deep with all sorts and manner of bathroom and non-bathroom items. Many of which have not been seen for years.
One of those objects was a pill bottle that contained some of Cameron’s baby hair. Much lighter than it is now. I found it interesting how my wife was quite struck by the memories that this bottle of hair elicited, yet my reaction was (perhaps typical of the male of the species) more along the lines of “Erp.”
The difference must have something to do with the fact that she has a vagina

For those, like me, who are a fan of both, Johnny Depp will be on The Actor’s Studio tonight on Bravo.

Film actors must just salivate at the opportunity to act in a Coen brothers movie. Tom Hanks looks wonderfully funny. The movie looks very promising.

Film actors must just salivate at the opportunity to act in a Coen brothers movie. Tom Hanks looks wonderfully funny. The movie looks very promising.

Here’s a link to the MoveOn dot org Voter Fund 30 second television commercial that CBS won’t allow to be aired during the Super Bowl.

Be careful, though. You might see something that makes you think just a bit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s Oscar time in Blogland, and everyone’s got a post or two about the nominations.

But here’s one that I bet is different. See, I’m very much looking forward to seeing (I’m assuming they’ll perform) Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara perform “A Kiss At the End of the Rainbow” as Mickey and Mitch.

That got me thinking:

What five artists would you really like to see perform at next year’s Oscars?

Here’s mine, off the top of my head (artists are real, songs and movie titles, obviously made up):

Rufus Wainwright singing “Babelfish” from the movie “Fountain Lake”
Dwight Yoakam singing “Texas-Size Hole” from the movie “The Appellate”
Liz Phair singing “Guy Homme” from the movie “Augmented” or singing “Augmented” from the movie “Guy Homme”
XTC singing “Beat Up” (from their new album) from the movie “Stone-Dead Churchill”
Tom Waits singing “Hambourg Whore in the Land of Gin and Tonic” from the movie “Uncle Auntie”

I’m sure if I gave it more thought, I’d come up with a better list, but I think the above five performers would make a kick-ass Oscar telecast.

I’d also love to see the movie Stone-Dead Churchill, especially if XTC was involved It’d be the hit smash, hot new movie import from Britain’s newly discovered Tarantino. Also, I expect Uncle Auntie would be good. Maybe it’s a Robert Altman comedy. Guy Homme must be some sort of period piece, maybe Guy is a french foreign legionairre? Renee Zellwegger would star as the squinting Monsieur Homme. The Appellate sounds like some southern legal drams bullshit starring Cruise and Paltrow. Fountain Lake would be a psychological thriller starring Harrison Ford and Nicole Kidman as husband and wife. Yes, husband and wife.

I love Curb Your Enthusiasm. I’ve been enjoying it more and more each season as it’s run on The Movie Network. Sad to say, however, that last season (I believe the series’ third) may have been the high-water mark. Specifically, the episode where Larry David talks to rapper Krazee Eyez Killa and laments the effort and hard work required in orally pleasing females. To me, that one scene, in a very funny season of very funny scenes, is the definition of comedy.

The first four episodes of this season have seemed progressively more forced and false. While still very funny and still some of the best comedy on television this year, it seems the show has fallen into the trap of having David’s character *dictate* the wackiness of a scene or episode, rather than allowing his character to *discover* the wackiness. In the past, Larry David would stumble into his troubles. Now it seems as if he’s seeking trouble out. It’s a subtle difference, and one that I’m sure I’ve not explained well enough, yet I’m not going to bother or bore you all with trying to explain further.

I’m not giving up on the show. Not by any means. It, combined with back to back reruns of The Sopranos, makes Tuesday night the only night of television I currently look forward to.

I love Curb Your Enthusiasm. I’ve been enjoying it more and more each season as it’s run on The Movie Network. Sad to say, however, that last season (I believe the series’ third) may have been the high-water mark. Specifically, the episode where Larry David talks to rapper Krazee Eyez Killa and laments the effort and hard work required in orally pleasing females. To me, that one scene, in a very funny season of very funny scenes, is the definition of comedy.

The first four episodes of this season have seemed progressively more forced and false. While still very funny and still some of the best comedy on television this year, it seems the show has fallen into the trap of having David’s character *dictate* the wackiness of a scene or episode, rather than allowing his character to *discover* the wackiness. In the past, Larry David would stumble into his troubles. Now it seems as if he’s seeking trouble out. It’s a subtle difference, and one that I’m sure I’ve not explained well enough, yet I’m not going to bother or bore you all with trying to explain further.

I’m not giving up on the show. Not by any means. It, combined with back to back reruns of The Sopranos, makes Tuesday night the only night of television I currently look forward to.