So, I’ve been without internet at home since Friday night when our cable modem decided to stop working (I’m guessing it’s something outside the house though.) I feel very out of touch. I also find myself wanting to lok things up all the time and I can’t. It’s very annoying.

This has been bugging me for a while, so I think it’s about time I got it out. Let’s talk about daycare. G and I looked at 3 places that took infants. Our first choice had no openings until June (when Izzy will start going for 2 days a week), our 2nd choice is where he currently goes, and our third choice while in Hyde Park, might as well have been run out of a trailer from the impression I got.

In case you didn’t know, daycare is expensive. As a result of it being so expensive I have some expectations.
#1 - Consistent care. I don’t like the fact that each week there seems to be at least one new person watching over Izzy. It was bad enough that the 2 primary people in charge of his care are each part time. One takes the morning shift and one takes the afternoon. Oh yeah…and please don’t take care of my kid while you’re sick.

#2 - Let the kid sleep. I expect them to allow my son to sleep when he needs it. When he’s home, we have no problem getting him to take 3 naps throughout the day. Somehow they only get one. This always makes for a fun evening.

#3- Follow directions. When we ask you NOT to heat his bottles, we’d appreciate you so as we ask.

#4- Let him learn. When Izzy started daycare he was more than happy to hold his bottle when being fed. Apparently they don’t let him do this, and now he has no interest in doing so.

#5 - How about some notice? Telling us at 4:30pm one day that our son can’t come to school the next day because his “blue sheet” (documentation tha he’s got his shots) has expired is ridiculous. (Especially when it hasn’t)

I’m sure this list will get longer….but I might as well let it go for now.

All I want is for a contractor to show up at my house, do what he was supposed to, and have it work. WITHOUT SOMETHING ELSE NOT WORKING!

We got a dishwasher installed yesterday….now there’s no water pressure in the kitchen sink.

A Christmas tree decorated with blue and white does not make it more acceptable to Jews.

We bought a hot water heater in January. The factory setting is supposed to be 120 degrees. The plumber isn’t allowed to set it higher because anything higher could scald a baby. Well, we had to turn it up to 120 degrees since it wasn’t actually even that high. Everything was great. For about the last month, when I take a shower in the morning I keep having to nudge the water temp up until it’s all the way up and all that’s coming out is warm water. It wasn’t like this when it got installed. So, when I called the srevice people and they tell me to turn up the temp on the heater since we’re in the colder months I about flipped. Colder months? I live in Florida. A month and a half ago it was still 85 degrees out and I think the water temp in the gulf was pretty high, at least Wilma seemed to think so.

A tech is scheduled to come out, but if he says there is nothing wrong and the temp just needs to be turned up it’s going to cost me $60.

Why can’t I just accet things like this? why does it get me so damn angry?

But you’ll never get to have a party at Chuck E Cheese.

Chuck E. Cheese shows DOD propoganda.

Thanks to Daddytypes for the link.

The Weakly Planet printed another letter. Regardless, the editor after having seen the play is siding with Mr. Lieb.

“Self-Righteous Justifications
I wish to offer my opinion of Mark Leib’s self-righteous justifications for his desecration of March of the Kitefliers (Letters, Aug. 17-23).

I was involved with theater for nearly two decades - and no, I have never been involved or affiliated with Jobsite - from the standpoint of both cast and crew. Each time I read a review from a professional reviewer, I’m struck by the dichotomy between their words and Mark’s, as each review Mark writes reminds me more and more of Ionesco’s Professor holding up an empty hand, shrilly shrieking “Knife! Knife! Knife!” as he stabs at his student. With his latest review of Jobsite’s production of a wonderful and unique play, he seeks to kill that which he did not - and could not - create, and couches his lukewarm apologies for spoiling the theatergoers’ experience in high-flown language, showing his purported moral and literary superiority.

That Mark chose to reveal a rather critical plot point indicates not that he “could not write a coherent review of the play” without destroying one of the highlights of the production, but that he felt a sense of entitlement to act as he so chose, willfully disregarding what makes the theater a wonderful experience: its wonder, its majesty, and its mystery.

Mark states that “A play’s assumptions are essential to any critic’s argument; its conclusions are for the spectator alone.” Ironic, then, that he would provide a conclusion based solely on his assumptions of what the reader needed to hear.

Mark found the play “half-inspired, half-formulaic.” His apology is, if you will excuse the vitriol, half-assed.

Jonathan M. Northwood

Portland, Ore.”

Keep writing your letters folks, cause this is all the guy gave us…
“MARK LEIB REPLIES: I did indeed receive an e-mail from Jobsite Theater Artistic Director David Jenkins, asking that I not reveal the unspecified “secrets” in March of the Kitefliers. I immediately felt that in one case at least the request was unreasonable - that I couldn’t write a coherent review of the play if I didn’t address a particular theme. This theme, revealed in Act One and elaborated throughout Act Two, was, as I said in the review, the better half of a play that was “half-inspired, half-formulaic.” The real secrets of the play - the results of this revelation and the outcome of a romance - I didn’t give away. A play’s assumptions are essential to any critic’s argument; its conclusions are for the spectator alone. I do regret, though, that I didn’t warn the reader that I was revealing a first-act surprise.”

Why would a critic write out an important plot twist? If I thought it would do any good I’d ask both of you to write letters demanding his removal as critic.
Damn I’m pissed off. I’m not linking to the article because if you haven’t seen the play, I don’t want you reading it.

If you bought something, and it broke under warranty, when you took it back to the store what would you expect to happen if they no longer carried that exact model, but carried a comparable model?