We’re getting closer and closer to our new kitchen. We know the new style, we know most of the cabinets we want… Now we just have to purchase and install ourselves. Which means removing the existing cabinets, laying down the rest of the floor, installing new cabinets which we’ve never done before. It should be a breeze!! Work commences during Spring Break, if we dare…

So I was talking to my daughter on the drive to school, educating her on the finer points of life for an eight year old. A quarter, I told her, is two bits. A fin, I said, is five bucks. And a sawbuck is.. Well, what is a sawbuck? I honestly couldn’t remember. So as I soon as I got in the office, I looked it up. Here’s the answer:

If you’ve never heard the term “sawbuck,” it’s probably simply due to the inexorable march of time, since the term was once widely known in the US. In the literal sense, a “sawbuck” is the contraption better known as a “sawhorse” — a brace or frame, originally in an “X” shape with crossed legs, used to hold long pieces of wood while they are being sawed. The word “sawbuck” derives from the Dutch name for the frame, “zaag-bok,” and first appeared in English in the 19th century.

However, the “buck” in Harry Truman’s famous motto “The buck stops here” (meaning “I accept the responsibility”) has nothing to do with money. In 19th century poker games, the dealer of the current hand was designated by an object called a “buck” (supposedly originally a knife with a buckhorn handle) placed on the table. When the next player’s turn to deal came, the “buck” was “passed,” a phrase which came to mean “transfer (or evade) responsibility” by the early 20th century.

Source: Word Detective

Next up: Moolah, lettuce, wampum, and simoleons.

I’ve been lucky enough to be listening to an advance copy of the upcoming Fountains of Wayne album, TRAFFIC AND WEATHER. It’s a really good record with some great songs on it. I don’t think it quite works for me as an album the way their last smash hit WELCOME INTERSTATE MANAGERS blew me away, but I don’t mind and it doesn’t bother me the way it seems to bother other people.

Because with the advent of the Internet and the blogging and the obsessive fan sites criticizing and examining every conceivable aspect of the entertainment industry in microsopic detail, and with the reported instances of people being much more critical and mean when on-line as opposed to “real life”, I gotta say I am much more on the side of the “If you like something, say so, otherwise move on to something else you like” school rather than the “Rip ‘em a new one for even daring to create something” viewpoint, which seems all too popular these days.

Why, you ask? Well that’s easy–because I’m not that great. I mean, I like myself, I’m happy with my life and my so-called accomplishments. However, would I want Fountains of Wayne coming to my house and criticizing my projects? “Why isn’t the floor done? Why haven’t you picked out your cabinets? There’s a nick in that wall. Why didn’t you finish your mystery novel? Is that all you have saved up for retirement?” I think not.

And, unlike a lot of people I read talking on the net I think, I have tried my hand at a few things– I wrote songs, I had a band, I half-finished a book, I cobbled together some functioning computer programs. I know how hard it can be to try and do something, anything. And the older I get, the more I realize how complicated things are, and what a long, long way there is between the “idea” and the market for those ideas.

And you can’t help but think that the things that are being criticized online mostly comes from the on-line environs. People are listening to MP3s, watching cam and xvid copies of dvd screeners on their bargain basement PCs. It’s not what you would call an optimal environment to view the creative work of others.

So my philosophy? Look for things you like. Explore new things you think you might like. And if you don’t like something, it’s not meant as a personal affront against the core of your very being. It’s just a song. It’s just a movie. It’s just a TV show. It’s some people trying to express themselves as best they can and make a living, too. It’s the entertainment business, and you should count yourself lucky for anything that goes in and comes out the other side not looking like sausage. Because the joy I get from singing along with a FoW song in my song on the way to work far outweighs any amateur criticisms I might suggest.

There’s a heck of a lot of other stuff out there–why don’t you go find it and quit busting my chops?

I now people usually talk about how the world is going to heck in a handbasket, life isn’t fair, etc. And I couldn’t agree more. However, I have to say that I am a pretty happy guy lately. I’m not saying I won’t be miserable and depressed sometime later (tonight? tomorrow? next week?), however, here are some of things responsible for my current happiness:

1) When we took Cooper to UM for a check-up recently, they said he was AOK, and would not need another heart procedure at this time as we had been fearing, and at most he might need some blood pressure medication.

2) Our kitchen renovation, while not the speediest, has gone well, we have done the whole thing ourselves (with help from my awesome neighbor), and have saved at least a few thousand dollars

3) We fixed the refrigerator ice maker ourselves just last night, saving a couple hundred dollars

4) My son and daughter are happy, active, and healthy, giving them plenty of energy to distract and annoy me.

5) My spouse and I will have been marred for 17 years this year and and can still stand each other and are ocassionally able to find time to be alone together and.. well, let’s not get into that…

6) My friends are family are reasonably happy and healthy within the context of their relative existences

7) I just finished a really good book on tape (Elmore Leonard’s PAGAN BABIES) and am about to start a mystery by one of my favorite mystery writers, Henning Mankell; the new Bird and the Bee record is really good and hummable; HEROES is a really good show, and 30 ROCK is really funny.
It looks like the Bush administration’s policies are falling apart and people hate him and wish the whole administration would just die, just like me.

9) I’ve been selling a bunch of old tech stuff on Amazon.com and making all sorts of small change so I don’t have to feel guilty about buying new books.

So there–I am happy! Whistling in the dark, but happy happy happy. I just hope I can remember all these things the next time I’m down!

I’ve always loved detective books, and the older I get, the more I’ve been drawn to “police procedurals”, which basically show the method by which law enforcement officers try and solve crimes. I think the older you get, the more you are interested in how things are accomplished, probably because you start to realize how hard it is to accomplish anything yourself. So detective books are no different.

And what have I learned from these books? What does it take the solve a crime? Work. It’s not intuition, or beating up an informant, or going on a “hunch.” It’s just plain work. There’s meetings every day, at the beginning and the end of each day. It’s taking notes. It’s following up on leads even if you know they won’t pan out (because most of them don’t). It’s going over things, then going over them again, and then again after that. It’s coming up witha theory, then abandoning that theory, and trying antother. It can take weeks, months, or years. And it may not happen at all. It takes a special kind of person with a special kind of teancity, a kind of tenacity I’m not sure I would have.

This week I saw David Fincher’s ZODIAC. This is most engrossing movie I’ve ever seen about the drudgery of police work. This case was invesigated over twenty years, and no official arrest was ever made. Many men put many years of their life into trying to solve these murders, and, as the movie makes very clear, the world kept on turning, people kept on living their lives, and other murders are committed by other killers, and at some point you have to ask yourself “Why go on?” What good would it do? What are you accomplishing except tearing up your own family life to search for an answer you may not find?

I don’t think this movie will be that popular, if that’s important. No one chases the criminal down a dark alley or draws a gun or jumps off a building. There are no explosions. And while the movie makes a strong suggestion as to the identity of The Zodiac Killer, there is enough ambiguity there to make you question if they are picking the right man. In fact, there are so many facts and leads and possibilities, maybe you can’t find the bad guy. This is why I think it won’t be that popular and why I, of course, think it’s a very compelling movie, and a very thoughtful piece of art. Anyway…check it out.

P.S.

No, I am not Zodiac.