…From A Kitchen Table

Good morning sleepyheads (the little iBook is still on Pacific Time),

It’s the final day of my trip to Chicago. I haven’t really settled in yet as promised in the previous post but I thought I’d write something anyway. Something about how Mattel is trying to run a play from the Disney book in a quest to kill the parents of little girls everywhere perhaps? Yes, I shall.

This Princess and the Pauper thing is out of hand my friends. My tiny nieces are just silly for this thing. It’s not just dolls of course, it’s a musical, it’s a website, it’s a movie (straight to DVD), and a music CD (with Martin Short!) to play over and over and over again.

[pretend you’re two and say this with your tongue sticking out of your mouth] “Can I hear Princess and Pauper again!”[repeat one hundred times until the play button is pressed, again]

I will say that the production values are pretty high, just not high enough to bear a thousand repeated listenings (and I’ve only been here three days). Also it’s worth mentioning that there have been limits imposed on these things nowadays. No Barbie CDs during the Super Bowl, for instance. No unsupervised surfing to Barbie.com.

I’ve done okay in my role as Uncle Bob running around and trying to make fun out of nothing (which makes the toys kind of sad, but I just don’t relate to the mermaids and princess carriages, dig?). I’ve also done an okay job as Family Tech Support. My brother now has a little home network so that he can use his old laser printer with his new Mac. All the computers have been upgraded, optimized, sanitized, sanforized, and whatever else I could think to do with them during my short visit.

Did I mention beer? Why should I have to?

Did I worry about cold? I shouldn’t have worried that much after all. C’mon, thirty degrees? Feels like eighteen? Big whoop! I only say that though, because my smoking cessation program has allowed me to also resist the urge to go outside for any length of time. These are the perks ladies and gentlemen.

More perks? They’ll have to wait!

Your pal,

bob