Remember, Remember ye Randoms November...

It's that time of the month again, Cyberspace.

. . .

No.  Don't be gross.

It's random picture update time.  Which means you lucky a-holes get to check out all the day-to-day, not-cool-enough-to-warrant-its-own-blog-post pictures and events from the month of November.

Enjoy.

Celebrating Grandma's birthday over at Mom's house, with the whole Chinery clan.

Uncle Grant talks Star Wars with Abby

Kris and the girls took Watson over to the park on the other side of the Tridge in order to hike the trails along the Tittabawassee River.

There are some cool trails down there.  I probably haven't been down them since 1992 or 1993.

Scavenging for God knows what. . .

As I said before, we had a vet down in Florida explain to us that we would have to get Watson a coat for winter this year, since his fur isn't accustomed to the cold yet.  The girls and I ran up to PetSmart one day to do just that. . .

Watson doesn't have any fur on his neck, chest or stomach, and the fur elsewhere is pretty thin, so I was looking for something that covered a lot of his legs as well as the entire front/chest area.  This was difficult, because his body is long for his height. . . most coats I had him try on fit like total shit.

(We ended up getting this one.)

Picking mushrooms and climbing a tree outside of Chestnut Hill.  Every damn day that I pick the girls up from school they ask to climb this frickin' tree.  Where you see Abby in the pic above is about as far up as they like to climb.  So all in all it's a real waste of time.

We waited until the weekend before Thanksgiving Break to bust out the Christmas decorations this year.  That's par for the course, really - we always wait to put up the tree until the day after Thanksgiving (African American Friday), but we usually cave and put up the rest of the interior decor the weekend before.  Here, Abby cuddles with the annoying (and SINGING) bathroom snowman.  I hate this dude with a passion.

One day after picking up the girls from school, I met Mom over at the Community of Christ Church in Midland.  The church is selling the building, after fifty some years of residency, due to low membership and staggering costs.  Mom was pretty upset by it, and has been actively involved in helping clean out the building of furniture, office supplies, etc.

Anyway, she had me swing by to go through a bunch of stuff and if I wanted any of it.  While a lot of it was junk, I did score an audio mixer for my sound system, three bar stools (two white ones and a vintage, retro-looking one that looks awesome downstairs in my '80s section of the basement), four wooden kids' chairs, and a computer/work desk on wheels (half of it tilts forward for using with a laptop, while the other surface remains flat. . . say, for cocktails.) 

In addition, I scored a 7ft tall, pre-lit Christmas Tree (the top strand of lights doesn't work, but that'll be an easy fix) and several fake fall-ish potted plants.  Just 'cause.

Interracial babies.

The weekend was particularly warm for the time of year, so I made sure to hang up the Christmas lights outside while it wasn't frigidly cold out.  Nothing too crazy - just a series of icicle lights along the room and porch bannister.  I'm simple.

Took about two hours, just in case you were curious.

Upon coming inside, I had to re-super glue our table-top tree. . . which always suffers a broken-off palm tree or person every year when we take it out of its packaging.  It's become somewhat of a holiday tradition around these parts.

As if we were tuned in through some bizarre Brother Telepathy, Chris sent me a pic of his house all lit up for the Holidays. . .

. . . as did Jeff.

And so I sent them mine (which I think turned out really well this year.)

Hanging out in the basement with America's most annoying dog.

Mom came by the house and dropped off these two gems  one day:  two boardgames that she's had upstairs in her game closet for the last twenty or so years.  The bottom one I received as a Christmas present in 6th or 7th grade, while the other I actually put on Layaway at Meijer when I was in 8th grade.  To call either of these games 'nerdy' would be a severe understatement. . . so of course I'm hanging on to them.

Sometimes, when the girls act up or get in trouble, they lose friend privileges.  No big deal, right?  That's kinda Parenting 101, folks.  Well, one day Abby decided that she'd go ahead and act like a bitch - I forget how, exactly - so, long story short, she lost friend privileges for the day.  She was super upset about this, so Kris suggested that Abby draw a picture to express how she was feeling about the sentencing.  Here's what she drew (I'm the Carrot Top son of a bitch at right, and Abby's the crying, house-arrested child in the purple dress. . . leaving Watson, inexplicably in a 'ladybug costume.'   Just 'cause.)

Art time with the neighbor kids.  We're practically foster parents at this point.

Another day of chaos in the basement. Not all the kids were in frame, but there were at least eleven over at our house that day.  Not including our two.

Arts and crafts at Abby's girl scouts meeting (Abby's a Daisy now.)

We set up the 3-foot Christmas tree in the girls' playroom in the basement shortly after breaking out the rest of the Christmas decorations.  I picked up a Darth Vader tree blanket at Target for it this year, which looks pretty badass (thank God Star Wars is everywhere this year.)

Kris' Sangria of choice.

Showing off our collection of musical Hallmark ornaments to the neighborhood kids.

Kris and Abby made some 'daisy' cookies for Abby's Vesting Ceremony (when each of the Daisy Scouts in her troop get their pin. . . or badge, or whatever.)

The troop leader, Courtney, pins Abby.

The squad.

Found this in Abby's backpack one day after school.  We're not cool with this.

This chick hates her picture being taken. . . completely opposite of her older sister.

First Egg Nog of the Holiday Season.  Ranks right up there with putting up the Christmas Tree in this household.

Wrapping Christmas presents in the office after the kids fell asleep. . .

We equate 'Christmas Activities' with Classic Movies in this household (See: Hough Christmas Tree and Some Like It Hot.)  We opted for Casablanca this year.  Maybe you've heard of it.

A bizarre anomaly we've noticed lately in our yard:  the grass on the right, under sunlight, is normal, while the grass under the shadow cast from our house is covered in frost. . .  even well into the afternoon.  Michigan's weird. 

Busting out some Connect 4 with Grandma.

In a rare display of sisterly cordiality, Alayna reads a story to her little sister.  You can rest assured they were at each other's throats seconds after this picture was taken.

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. V

Okay, America - today I have two reviews for ya. . . and neither of them are good.

Album Title:  The Family Christmas Treasury

Album Artist:  The Holiday Choraliers and the Longines Symphonette (featuring the World-famed Thomas Organ)

I know what you're all thinking out there - THE  Thomas Organ?!  Are you kidding me?!

Seriously, folks.  You'd think with such a list of contributing 'talent' on a record like this, there just might be something worth listening to.  Sadly, that isn't the case, here - this collection is terrible.

Another classic mash-up featuring the hot skills of those Holiday Choraliers and those gangsters in the Longines Symphonette.  Dope stuff.

This is a four-record boxed set, and every side of every record sounds about the same - elevator music.  From the early '60s.  You feel like you're sitting in an insurance agent's waiting room in 1963, slowly losing your mind as your eyes drift along a wall of wood paneling and western-themed oil paintings.  And, because it's Christmas and everything, this f***ing record is playing really, really quietly in the background.

Can you picture Hell now, Internet?

This four-record boxed set was among the bulk collection of records I inherited from my dad's mom back in 2005, and there's a particular here worth mentioning.  Among the collection my granny gave me, there were about twenty mint-condition boxed sets that she had amassed through Time-Life, Reader's Digest, and the like back in the '60s and '70s. . . and from their flawless condition, most had never even been listened to.  This particular box set, however, is significantly worn - there's a lot of pops and hisses on these records, despite my attempts at cleaning them.  Scuff marks, scratches, etc.  Nothing serious that would make me toss the set or prohibit from gracing one of my turntables, but enough to cause audio distortion.

This, to me, clearly means that Granny played the shit out of this boxed set.  She loved it.  It's worn to pieces from so much love and use over the years.  And that's just straight-up weird, 'cause this album, as previously stated, is 'wood paneling and western-themed oil paintings' in music form.

Which, if you knew my granny at all, explains a lot.

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously? (scored a point for being one of my granny's favorites, and I do love my granny.)

- SHELVED -

Album Title:  Organ and Chimes

Album Artist:  Jesse Crawford

This one is barely worth reviewing.  I only feel the need to mention it because I want the world to know of its sheer horribleness.

Jesse Crawford - whoever he/she is - deserves a swift kick in the nuts (or lady parts) for making this.  The only people this record is suited for are those elderly people who can't hear any more, but still feel it's their Christian duty to sit in church and listen to pipe organ music they CAN'T EVEN HEAR.  For that's what this is, readers - pipe organ music.  Nothing more.  While playing this, occasionally there would be chimes, and my dog Watson would lose his shit, thinking people were at our front door.

Doorbells ringing over an out-of-tune pipe organ.  Playing Christmas tunes.  That's what this record is, folks.

No.

And, judging by its sound quality (or lack thereof), I'm assuming it was recorded in a dingy church basement in some small town in the midwest, by someone's cousin (probably named Travis) who records speeches in the town's city hall.

To add insult to injury, there's an abundance of pops and hisses on this atrocity that prohibit me from even playing it through on my turntable.  Henceforth, I am casting it down back into the fires of Hell from whence it came.

VERDICT:  1/10 - Ohio

- THROWN IN THE GARBAGE -

- Brian