An Evening In The Life (Only An Evening?)

So tonight we headed over to the Lowes on Route 1 to place our order for the new flooring we’re putting into our basement quilt room/den; once that room is redone (we’re taking out a horrible little wet bar), we’ll be upgrading our TV, so basically we’re viewing each step in the renovation process as one step closer to being able to watch hockey in glorious HD in four colors. (Pookie, in the middle of some random game on some random night: “This would look so much better with yellow in it. As it stands, I can’t see where the ice ends and the boards begin.”) On our way home we passed a farm that had Christmas lights already festooning the posts at the mouth of their driveway… and after nearly driving off the road in excitement, we realized that way out in the middle of the field where the farmhouse stood, they also had lights bedecking eaves and doorway. It was chilly and dark and rainy and seasonal! EEEE! Then we got home and had a scrumptious cheese dinner, and settled in front of the (only three-color) TV for some hot Tranny action. Gentle Reader, life is good.

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When Will The Schedulers Learn??

Dude, it’s Monday night! Pookie works late on Mondays! NHL, we’ve told you this a thousand times — don’t schedule Devils games when she’s at work. How hard would it be to take our schedule into account? Obviously they’re not listening to us on the 7:00 start time issue, but really, is avoiding Mondays all that difficult?

UPDATE: On second thought, thanks Schedulers. Keep up the good work!

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Devils Win! Devils Win! At Home!: Post-Game Reaction

Wow! The Devils just did the craziest thing — they won a game at home! Sure, it was against a fellow bottom-feeder, but beggars can’t be choosers. And baby steps. And all that stuff. It was a win! We have a few thoughts about tonight’s momentous event:

– In the waning minutes of the third period, Schnookie remarked that this game was uncharacteristically fun to watch, as there was something about the Devils that seemed fresh and fun. Pookie suggested maybe it was the first NHL goals by Vasyunov and Tedenby that made the Devils seem like they had a sassy spring in their steps, and Schnookie said that was partially it, but there was something less tangible. “Whatever it is, I feel like I haven’t even noticed Langenbrunner once tonight,” she marveled. Pause. Pookie: “He’s a scratch tonight.” Longer pause. Schnookie: “Well, that explains it.” Seriously, isn’t there a vast difference between the way the Devils look without him in the lineup and the way they look when he’s around to drag them down? It’s like his whining sourpussness blocks out the sun or something. But, on the bright side, we actually pretty much like the entire Devils team when he’s not playing, so we’re hopeful that this season can be salvaged. Lou.

– Tedenby is our new favorite Devil. At one point in the second period Chico was talking about the Oilers goalie while we were discussing Tedenby, and suddenly Chico was going on about how “they call him ‘The Giraffe’.” Pookie was like, “Tedenby is The Giraffe? That’s awesome! He’s exactly like the little miniature giraffe in that DirecTV commercial!” And then she did the little happy wriggle from the end of that commercial. Needless to say, the rest of the game featured the ever-growing legend of Mattias Tedenby, Miniature Giraffe; for example:

Pookie, after a good play by Tedenby: “I saw him get drafted!”
Schnookie: “It’s hard to believe we didn’t realize he was a giraffe when we saw that.”
Pookie: “I know!”
Schnookie: “Well, we were pretty far away from the stage, and he’s such a miniature giraffe. It was hard to tell.” Pause. “Although I don’t understand what kind of idiot scout interviews him and comes away from it thinking he’s a hummingbird on crack eating all their candy. Who mixes up a hummingbird and a giraffe?”
Pookie: “Short Circuit.”

– The play leading up to the game-winning goal was hilarious. Honestly, could Hank, Patty, and Chuckles have looked any less dynamic? Pookie suggested they were passing exactly how the old guy on the Simpsons with the really long white beard would do it. And just as we were on the brink of having to decide whether we were going to howl with laughter at the ineffectual passing or scream “shoot the fucking puck you fucking fuckers!”, Chuckles decided it was time to just finish this sucker. The ensuing explosive celebration, from Chuckles himself and his equally thrilled teammates, was — dare we say it? — adorable. It’s like he was attempting to create a new persona for himself, perhaps a Captain Chuck This Shit. (See what we did there?) It’s not quite as cute as a miniature giraffe, but if that goal was a sign of things to come, we’ll take it.

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A Silver Lining

Shortly before the season began, we had a short discussion about the unexpected hierarchy of deliciousness of Chuckles by color:

Boomer, in the kitchen, “The green has to go first!”

Pookie, in the living room, looking dully at the remaining Chuckles in front of her, “Information that would have been useful a Chuckle ago.”

Anyway, our point is, Gentle Reader, last night? Was the green Chuckle. But remember, there’s only one green Chuckle per pack. We’ve gotten the green out of the way! Sometime in the next 15 years, we have the red and black Chuckles to go!

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Devils/Sabres Game Diary, Or How Lucky Is Your Elephant?

These guys again? And the Sabres too? Well, here we go, we guess. That’s the one problem with it not being the offseason – sometimes you have to watch some pretty awful hockey.

PREGAME

– We spend a delightful half an hour before the broadcast starts playing Super Mario Brothers on the Wii. There’s nothing like watching Mario cheerfully plummet to his doom repeatedly in world 7-1 to put everything into perspective. The elephant seems to be trending highly unlucky, but miracle of miracles, Mario eventually pulls it out and clears the course. Lucky elephant, indeed!

– We spend a slightly less delightful few minutes in the broadcast’s intro wondering why our dinner isn’t ready yet. How long can it take baked potatoes to cook? This elephant wouldn’t know luck if it kicked him in the face.

– Tedenby sighting! We have a Tedenby sighting! The elephant is less pachyderm and more hummingbird-on-crack.

FIRST PERIOD

19:06 The arena looks laughably empty. The elephant is too lonely to bother choosing sides at first, but swings negative when Kovalchuk fancy-pantses his way through the entire Sabres team, gets Enroth sliding out of position, but shoots wide. Pookie: “Well, Enroth is really intimidating.”

13:05 We miss some action because our potatoes are starting to come out of the oven. You know what’s exciting? We’re eating with our new sporks!

The elephant thinks our flatware is trending stylish.

10:27 There’s not a lot going on in this game, so Chico decides to pump us up by pointing out that Hedberg made a stop on the first shot he faced tonight, which is a big step up from the last time these two teams played. The elephant, like the crowd, is asleep.

9:46 WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Enroth juggles an Elias shot from long distance, and Arnott is at the crease — being casually and politely observed by a Sabres “defense”man – to just be able to chip the tiniest bit of the puck into the net while drifting off into the corner. It’s 1-0 Devils! And Tedenby got the secondary assist! WOOOOOOOOO!! Schnookie: “That was all elephant.” Pookie: “Yup. That was the unseen trunk. It gonged in off it.”

7:26 The Sabres very nearly put the puck into their own net from the entire length of the ice on a delayed penalty to the Devils. Alas, the elephant is napping on the job, and luck isn’t with that slowly creeping puck – it taps the outside of the goalpost before coming to rest and drawing the whistle.

0:28 There’s a stoppage for some reason, and MSG+ takes the opportunity to plug their intermission content, including LICENSE PLATE REVEAL! EEEEEEEE! Pookie: “The elephant is looking up, up, up, baby!”

SECOND PERIOD

20:00 We get our Trenton Devils update before the puck drop, and Schnookie sadly laments about Doc’s calling them “the T-Devs”, “I wish he called them the TrenDevs.” Lucky elephant: “Me too.” Also, just for the record, we think it’s hilarious that Gel-O spent the intermission talking about how great the first period was. The Devils are up by one goal against the second-worst team in the conference. Pookie: “And a fluky goal at that.” Let’s not go crazy here, people.

14:36 The elephant mocks the MSG+ team’s crowing about how awesome the Devils are for having a whopping one-goal lead (Chico even goes so far as to call it a “cushion”) against the Sabres, and Pominville makes it 1-1.

14:23 The elephant says, “Soon I’ll be dancing on your graves, losers!” as Hedberg gives up a long-range goal to Roy-Z. 2-1 Sabres. Chico: “Whoa! That’s a shocker!” Pookie: “Chico. How is that even remotely shocking? Tell me when you were shocked.” Chico starts the replay by suggesting maybe the goal wasn’t wholly shitty, because maybe the shot was tipped ever so slightly by Tallinder, but you know what? That would only make it worse.

10:53 The diarist is not in the room when the Devils score. She comes back to find a 2-2 game, and says, stunned, “The Devils scored?” The other -ookie: “Yup. On a Vasyunovaround that bounced in off Clarkson.” The elephant is stunned – it doesn’t know what to think anymore.

9:32 Doc has a moment where he realizes his own looming mortality as Clarkson celebrates in front of the net after a Volchenkov shot, prompting Doc to shout “SCORE!”… except the puck is in the corner. The elephant chortles evilly.

8:16 Langer gets spun headfirst into the boards at the bench, and we will admit – we gasped with horror. Even for Langer. See? We’re not monsters. Ennis gets called for hooking on the play, so the one-for-the-last-33 Devils PP takes the ice. The elephant is like, “I don’t actually need to bother here, do I?”

7:58 WILL WONDERS NEVER CEASE? Suck it, bad-luck elephant! Arnott just grips it and rips it from above the faceoff dot, and the shot ricochets off of an almost impossible number of things to find its way into the net. It’s the second PP goal in 11 games for the Devils, and now it’s 3-2 Devils. The good-luck elephant smirks at his bad-luck cousin, but Chico ruins the moment by immediately wondering if this is going to be “a hat trick night”. No, Chico, it isn’t.

6:09 The bad-luck elephant starts pummeling the good-luck elephant with his own upraised trunk, and Myers scores a goal from the mirror-image location of Arnott’s second. Only Myers doesn’t need 10,000 deflections on his shot because Hedberg is a terrible goaltender. 3-3 game.

5:00-ish We come back from commercial to see this awesomeness:

That’s pretty much the exact same facial expressions you’ll find on the denizens of stately IPB Manor when we have to watch the Devils play! It’s like our living room, but with more expensive clothes! Pookie: “It looks like Marty’s regularly kicking Zach in the back of the head.”

1:53 If only the Devils could play this Enroth kid every day! Of all the ridiculous things, they score again. Langer makes it 4-3 Devilswhen he tries to feed Travis in front, but Butler does all the work for him by tipping the pass perfectly into his own net. The good-luck elephant stuffs the bad-luck elephant into a steamer trunk and sits on the lid.

0:00 The period comes to an end on a frenzied Sabres PP thanks to some idiocy by Arnott. It’s a bit of a shooting gallery in the waning seconds, prompting Pookie to remark, “It’s almost like the players are all stopping after every shot to be surprised that it didn’t go in.”

THIRD PERIOD

11:06 Rather like the Devils, we’re not paying very close attention to this period. Until it’s 4-4 thanks to Tallinder having no idea how to make decisions in front of his own net. We’re so glad that bad-luck elephant was manning the helm as the Devils GM this past summer, so the team could acquire such a dazzling defensive talent.

6:48 Bad-luck elephant starts sharpening his tusks to gore good-luck elephant when the Devils go on the PP.

2:42 Both good-luck and bad-luck elephants are shocked to see how quickly this period has passed. The hell? This game’s flying by! How unusual for Devils/Sabres.

0:57 Despite it being a clear night outside, our feed is completely breaking up. The elephants are trying to tell us something, but we’re not quite sure what it is.

OVERTIME

We have nothing to say about this because we can’t see what’s going on. What the hell is going on with our feed? It better not have fucked up our tivoing of ANTM, because while we don’t mind not being able to see this OT, we will NOT abide missing ANTM.

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A Very Dallas Vacation Recap: Chapter 3

So, back to our Dallas vacation recaps! After our visit to the State Fair, we let our cameras cool off with a couple of lower-key photography days. We headed out to McKinney to do some hard-core quilt shopping one day (Patty is the world’s most patient hostess. We spent FOREVER in the AWESOME quilt shops there), then spent the next day sampling biscuits and gravy at Bubba’s, doing some furniture shopping, visiting the Mustang fountain in Irving, then partaking of the stunning cocktails and desserts at La Duni restaurant back in Dallas. Of course, “cooling off” doesn’t mean our cameras were getting the days off entirely…

If you are ever in McKinney, go to Spoons cafe and get the chocolate cake. Seriously. It looks like a regular old cake, sure, but seriously — this is the best. cake. ever.

Biscuits and gravy, by Pookie

Black-and-white lensbaby Mustangs, by Pookie

Curious Mustang, by Pookie

Galloping, by Schnookie

Schnookie, by Pookie

Hooves, by Schnookie

Iron hooves, by Pookie

This is your leader’s nose, by Schnookie

La Duni Chupito, by Schnookie

La Duni Shaken Mariana, by Pookie

La Duni Lemon 43, by Schnookie

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Devils vs. Rangers, 11/05/10

Just when you think it can’t get worse, the Rangers come to town. Join us for an open thread!

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