FireVaney's

Thanks to artificial intelligence,  Hollywood,  as we now know it,  will cease to exist  inside of three years.  Flesh and blood actors will only find refuge,  if any,  upon the boards.

A number of loud and flashy storms scudded through the Windy City last night. It’s been a few years since I’ve heard a strong Illinois thunderstorm. As I cheered on the wall-shaking thunder, I recalled the many violent storms of my youth, and then suddenly reminded myself that I was once the Storm Master. [Self-proclaimed.] That’s right, I had the “authority” to rate and judge [subjectively] thunder, lightning, and downpours. As you might expect, the more relentless and varied the claps and rumbles of thunder, and the more dazzling and blinding the streaks and flashes of lightning, the higher the rating. Bonus points if I could feel the thunder seemingly shake the foundations of the house. [To the best of my recollection, I paid little attention to the rain (I was inside, after all), unless, of course, it thrashed my bedroom windows.] Less worthy storms were those that executed strong starts, but petered out too quickly into a light rain [story of my life, really], and so on.  20 April

Betty slid two frozen Eggos into the toaster oven. I didn’t ask why she didn’t use the toaster. True, there is a “toast” setting on the toaster oven, but did she use it? Nope. She turned the temp dial all the way to max and burnt the hell out of those poor waffles. We’re talking burnt enough to trigger a freaking smoke detector. For real. Did she apologize? Nope. Instead, she pointed at the crumbs scattered over the bottom of the toaster oven. She blamed those crumbs for triggering the smoke detector. In other words, she blamed me. True, there are many scattered crumbs and, yes, I should probably clean them out. But I use the toaster oven several times a week, and I’ve never caught its crumbs smoldering. What’s more, I’ve used the toaster oven several times since Betty charred the Eggos, and the smoke detector hasn’t once peeped. Ergo, the crumbs are not to blame. Such being the case, I’ve left the crumbs alone and I’ve banned Betty from using the toaster oven.  29 April 2005    

It’s a simple YES/NO question: “Is it hot outside?” Pose it to Ma, pose it to Grandpa, and their answer? Always, always, always something like: “All I do is sweat.” Restate the question: “So it’s hot outside?” Respectively, their reply’ll go something like: “You don’t believe me, do you? I’m a liar, that’s what you’re thinking. How dare you call me a liar.” And so you’re lambasted when all you’ve done is ask a simple question. In sooth, nobody in my family—save for me, unless the remark I make is facetious (which, if it is, it’s typically as plain as Wonder Bread)—will limit themselves to a simple Yes/No response. In fairness, it isn’t as if they enjoy bloviating at the drop of the hat. You will receive many “I don’t know” answers—especially from Grandpa. Exempli gratia, he never knows what he wants for lunch or dinner. Ask him, point-blank, what he wants for any meal and he’ll say, “Not much.”  19 July 2006

Rufus ate potato chips all of his life. He ate all kinds of potato chips, but only potato chips. He did not eat hotdogs or hamburgers or French Fries. He ate BBQ flavored potato chips, cheddar cheese flavored potato chips, sour cream & onion flavored potato chips, you name it. He ate all brands and all varieties. He ate potato chips. And milk. Chocolate milk. Made with chocolate syrup . And so he’d munch all varieties of potato chips and he’d wash them down with chocolate milk made from chocolate syrup. And the milk was always 2% milk from the fast food place down the street. The fast food place down the street only sold milk in the half-pint size. Rufus only drank milk and bought potato chips from that fast food place, so he gave it a lot of business. He gave them so much business they started stocking bags of potato chips just for Rufus. (Or so he believed.) They weren’t the big bags, they were the little bags. But Rufus didn’t care. Rufus went on like that for many years. His