the corner office

Even though reviews are mixed, we'll have to go watch Revenge of the Shite because well, it's just something one has to do. Ronwen wanted to re-watch the first two episodes, so on Friday night we rented the Phantom Menace. It's really not that good, and every time I re-watch it it becomes even less appealing. I fell asleep halfway through (admittedly, as much from a hectic week as anything else), and Ronwen eventually gave up after scratches on the DVD caused the movie to keep dying. I don't recall ever having to take a rented video back because it was so badly damaged, but with a halfway finicky DVD player, renting becomes more of a hit-and-miss affair.

Yesterday started off splendidly, with a vsit to the post office to collect the latest addition to my CD collection: The Spectres' debut album, Rubber Room Rock. This baby went out of print a year and a half ago, and new, sealed copies go as "collectibles" on Amazon for $130. The only other second-hand copies I've seen were hovering around $90, so when I saw a copy for $36 or so, I snapped it up. That probably makes it the most expensive CD I've ever bought, but dang, it's worth it. Classic psycho-rockabilly, brilliantly off the wall songs, top-notch stuff.

Spent a quiet night at home last night watching telly (Return to Me, and Married To The Mob), and mooching aimlessly around the Net. I woke up this morning with a bee in my bonnet. We have a number of old pine bookshelves which have never been painted or varnished, and desperately needed prettifying. We had started staining and varnishing some of them a while ago, and they were turning out quite nicely. I wanted to get going and finish off the rest of them, but finding the right colour varnishes turned out to be a huge schlep. We headed out west, sitting in traffic (on a Sunday, sheesh) and missioning up and down Hendrik Potgieter Drive trying to find someone stocking the right Plascon stuff. Eventually we admitted defeat, headed back to Cresta for lunch, where, go figure, the local small hardware shop had exactly what we needed. Got home, and my enthusiasm was well dampered. I finally got going, and started on one of the bookshelves. I have to admit that Ronwen did most of the painting last time around, so kippie here is still a bit of a newb with this whole painting/varnishing gig. I'm as stained as the wood is, and by the end of the week the skin'll be falling off my hands from washing them in turps all the time. I'm really not a DIY kinda dude.

Needless to say, we're buzzing on the turpentine fumes. Quick extrapolation of the stain-wait-stain-wait-stain-wait-varnish routine across the remaining bookshelves and we're in for another month of this. By then we'll be eating with spoons and drooling uncontrollably. Psssssssssh.