Last week we had new gates built.  To replace the new gates we had built about this time last year.  Apparently, you should never hire people who make their living digging holes and planting sod to build you walls and wooden gates.  That should be left to (and I know this will sound strange) masons and carpenters…

Our niece was in town again.  Instead of watching The Wackness again (it sucks), we took her to Hollywood, so we could find Lucille Ball’s star on the Walk of Fame, and John Wayne’s footprints at Grauman’s (Mann’s?) Chinese Theater.  And we did.  And we found that Hollywood and Highland is death to my car.  And that The Duke might have had very small feet…

Premium edition: An hour, ten minutes

Apparently, I have control issues.  For instance, when it comes to the wildlife in my backyard, I really need the creatures that I meet out there to run away in fear.  Or, at least run away.  Instead they need to defy me.  They seem to give me the old stink-eye, like a teenager who has just realized you’re the most stupid person on earth.  Amazing.

Aren’t I a hundred times larger than the little lizard living behind my trash cans?  Shouldn’t he cower in fear?  I know if I saw a ten-story bald man coming at me in progressive lenses I’d run like the wind.  What happened to “fight or flight?”  It’s now “flight or be ornery.”

I helped my neighbor trouble-shoot is malfunctioning cable box.  Yes, like I told my wife, I should have just joined the A.V. Club in high school and gotten a jump start on all this tech support jazz.

In two weeks I’ll find out whether on of my battery of doctors wants to have that thing on my ankle biopsied.  I think in two weeks I will be dead from thinking about it for two weeks.  I try not to think about it all the time, but I do think about it all the time, even when I’m supposed to be driving safely.

If I only had three months to live, I wouldn’t go to Paris, even though I’d never been.  I want to visit everywhere I’d ever been on more time…

PREMIUM EDITION: Fifty minutes

Monday I sneezed.  All day.  Tuesday I coughed rib-shaking coughs.  Wednesday I coughed rib-shaking coughs while I worried my head would split open.  Thursday I hobbled around, complaining about my knee, fearing that I may have ankle cancer.  All in a day’s week here in Dan’s head…

PREMIUM EDITION: Forty-two minutes

Well, well, well.  It seems that, not only do we have to warn our kids about the dangers of drugs, unsafe sex, pedophiles, and crossing the street without looking, we also have to tell them not to choke themselves to death with a rope in the kitchen.  Sounds like a game of Clue gone wrong (I liked it better when Colonel Mustard did it with a pipe in the study), but it’s called “The Choking Game.”  The rules are simple:  Choke yourself (or have a friend choke you) until you almost pass out.  Last one to accidentally choke themselves to death in the winner!  What fun!  If only Parker Bros. had thought of this years ago!

Of course, my heart goes out to the friends and family of Erik Robinson who accidentally asphyxiated  himself and died on April 20th.  He is apparently the latest addition to a growing number of children who die from “The Choking Game” each year.  Please, in all seriousness, talk to you kids about it.

HEY PARENTS: A great new product to look for Enfamil PREMIUM Chocolate! YUM!  It’s like YooHoo for the nipple set!  It’s a chocolate milk-like beverage for TODDLERS.  Yes, why wait to get your kids overeating sweets when you can pump them full of chocolate and sugar before they’re even on their own two feet!  They’ll go from learning to walk to bouncing off the walls in no time!  THANKS, MEAD-JOHNSON!

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PREMIUM VERSION: An hour, twelve.

I’ve been buried with two video projects leading up to our annual trip to Hawaii.  Lots of work, lots of shooting, lots of editing. Not lots of sleep…

I continue to find myself in situations that I should not.  For instance, I (often) find it very hard to do something I know I’m not allowed to do.  Also, for some reason I find it difficult to teach my son to lie to the police.  (Don’t worry, I didn’t and he didn’t and won’t, I promise)

This episode is about the weeks leading up to the video being finished, and the moments before we left for the airport.  Yes, I know we essentially live at the airport, but we have to at least lock up and get a lift to the assigned terminal.

Sometimes that sound is to keep you quiet, sometimes it is to wake you up.

Premium Version: An hour, thirteen and a half

I’ve noticed a different atmosphere at the bank since the beginning of the financial crisis: Customer Service.  Man, they are so eager to please I feel like I’m at the Bunny Ranch.  People are greeting me, pretending to remember my name, engaging me in (gulp) conversation.  It seems like they all want something from me.  Oh, yeah, my money.  So, it really is like the Bunny Ranch…

I got new glasses and yet can’t see very well.  So, I had to have my eyes examined.  Again.  Ordeal.  OR.  DEAL…  Is putting one of those gigantic eye-testing things on your face and asking you “Does this one look better, or does this  one look better?” the best we can do in the 21st Century?  Seriously?  There have been no major breakthroughs in the field of optometry  since the 1920s?

We went hiking.  But first we ran a marathon.  Well, almost ran over a marathon.

I say “Sh*t.”  Twice.

Premium Version: An hour, seven

Okay,  I don’t really know what got into me, but suddenly I found myself talking in this strange, stilted way for the first 8 minutes of the show.  I think I’m getting more and more frustrated with myself for not writing.  So, instead of talking, I’m going to talk like I’m reading?  That doesn’t make any sense.  Yet, what ever does?

I go over my daily routine.  “Routine” as in, the thing I do ever day, day after day, over and over, again and again…aaaarrrggg.

And, I talk about some other stuff, mostly my son’s recent research paper on the theremin.  I was disturbed/amazing/baffled by the fact that I have at least 5 albums that include songs that feature a theremin on one of the tracks:  Jellyfish’s Bellybutton (“Bedspring Kiss”), Soul Coughing’s Irresistible Bliss (“4 Out of 5”), Elvis Costello & the Imposters’ The Delivery Man (“Bedlam”) and The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds (“I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times”)

If you want to make your own theremin, or just want to geek out on some cool little electro-projects, check out MakerShed.com from Make Magazine.  Awesome stuff, including the Japanese mini-theremin.

Premium Version: 40 min or so

I whine for an hour and ten minutes about my computer dying on the operating table, visiting old friends over the internets and trying to go out to dinner.

Premium Version: An hour, ten

I got new glasses. I think. And, we need to make some changes that we can not afford. Well, don’t want to afford. No, can’t afford…

Premium version of this episode: One hour

I taught the other guy to take my job. Luckily for me, it took him three years to learn. Unluckily, eventually he did learn… Don’t worry, no names are mentioned in the telling of this tale…

“So, Klass, what exactly do you do for work? Yell into your iPod?”

I’m at a fork in the road, career wise, and need to come to grips with the fact that the only way I will survive is to accept both Dans.  And hope that others can too.

Did you know you can’t take photos of the merchandise at CostCo?  How else am I supposed to get approval on everything?

Lastly, to be clear: The Premium Shows are at “96,” the free shows are at “64.” Still better than “32.”