What kind of buttmunch clears the sidewalk of snow/ice at SEVEN O'CLOCK on a SUNDAY MORNING? A buttmunch who lives on our block, apparently. I thought it was before dawn when the scrrrrrrrp, scrrrrrrrrp, SCRRRRRRRRP started, and I was ready to shove our air conditioner out of the window in the hope of silencing this egregious noise. Then I peered at my clock and saw it was JUST after seven, which did not improve my mood at all but I figured it made a homicide slightly less justifiable. If it had been 6:59, the guy would have been toast.
Following that brilliant start to the morning, I got to spend the entire day dealing with computer crap. While we were away over Christmas, a pernicious malware program (I had never heard that term before, but now I know all I need to know about it -- MALWARE, NO ES BUENO) got onto our hard drive and basically effed it all the way to hell.
Since we are fairly incompetent when it comes to any kind of technical...anything (and in any event we couldn't even get the computer to TURN ON), we called the Geek Squad and shelled out a not-insignificant amount for them to fix it. They managed to remove the malware (which was a "Trojan horse" of some kind, and as far as I am concerned whoever created it should be eaten alive by rabid hedgehogs), but it seems that it still did some irreversible damage to Windows, so I was left to try to piece our lives back together. As in, restore our computer to its factory settings and reinstall everything (ON MY OWN, thankyouverymuch).
Needless to say, I would rather have spent my Sunday rolling around naked in the freshly fallen snow and being tickled by an army of evil clowns.
In other news, we went to see "Hedda Gabler" yesterday, and it failed to impress. I had high hopes, since I think Mary-Louise Parker is the bees' knees, but the whole thing was a minor disaster. I'm not sure if the adaptation/translation fell short (I'm not familiar enough with the work to tell what all they changed) or if the piece itself simply isn't relevant today; but it was difficult to be moved by any of the pivotal moments, many of which seemed abrupt and inconsistent.
MLP didn't seem to have found her character yet, and she and some of the other actors flubbed lines on multiple occasions. At one point, I am fairly certain that she lost her place entirely, as she and that creepy dude from "Fargo" (not Steve Buscemi, but the other guy) had a fairly nonsensical conversation in which it appeared he was trying to jog her memory. Granted, the play is in previews right now, but don't they have months of rehearsals to get off-book? Come on.
Another beef I had was that some of the actors used very rounded tones and formalized speech inflections to reflect the period of the play (late 1800s, Sweden). Others had plain old middle American accents, circa 2009. And one guy sounded as though he'd just swaggered off the Texas prairie. I didn't expect them all to affect Swedish accents, of course; but if one character sounds like a late 19th-century aristocrat and another sounds like they just finished the breakfast service at a HoJo's in Des Moines, it's a tad distracting for the audience.
I think I have sufficiently griped about my weekend. Now I'm off to salvage the last few hours of it with some dinner, some wine and the Golden Globes.
You are your father's daughter! And hopefully having done this, and hopefully defeated all malware residuals, you feel proud of your yourself. Kick back and judge the gowns for the evening.
Posted by: terriwc | January 11, 2009 at 06:52 PM
Do they even have a Howard Johnson's in Des Moines? Because I lived there for 3 years and obtained a degree at the local university and, while I believe the Days Inns and Best Westerns poliferated the area, I do not remember a Howard Johnsons. I'm just saying.
Posted by: Dianna | January 11, 2009 at 11:52 PM
Computer problems are huge time-suckers and so frustrating. I feel for you!
Posted by: H | January 12, 2009 at 09:41 AM
Well, THAT blows. Sorry to hear you had such a crappy weekend! Here's hoping the next one is better.
Posted by: nonsoccermom | January 12, 2009 at 12:44 PM
I hear that "buttmunch" is this year's "asshat".
Posted by: CraigNY | January 12, 2009 at 01:44 PM
poor you. a computer problem of that proportion would have had me weeping. this is why we have apple computers (laptops). hardly any trojan malwares, evil viruses etc. are even created to attack apple, much less actually make it to your computer to destroy it...
am sorry to hear mlp and the production is disappointing. i think she is (usually!) the cat's meow too.
Posted by: beyond | January 12, 2009 at 05:08 PM
Your descriptions slay me. And my favorite word this January by far would be "f*ckface."
I'm such a lady.
Posted by: Marin | January 12, 2009 at 05:52 PM