February. Didn’t really write in February. Kind of got bogged down in things, so I figure I’ll give a nice long summary post for the month, touch on the high points. Enjoy.

Went to Woodloch in the Poconos. Had a juggler knock a little straw out of my mouth with a juggling club while I made a sort of bear pooping in the woods squat. This followed my statement that one of my favorite parts of Woodloch was the bacon (I wanted to give the guy some material to work with making fun of me – that’s the point, right?) Noah screamed through the entire routine (Note – no more audience participation until Noah is in Kindergarten). When I returned to my seat, Noah wouldn’t stop moaning “My turn” while trying to run for the stage so we had to leave. I was a celebrity the next day with all the seniors who’d attended. “Hey, you were the guy with the juggler. That bacon guy.” They may have laughed, but they all had to admit that Woodloch has some mighty tasty bacon.

Also got Noah and Carol on the snow tubes. Jake was a master already. Noah was instantly in love with experience – he cried when we left after four runs. He wanted more. I made Carol go once and she still hasn’t forgiven me. Spent a good deal of time on their Woodloch Forest indoor playground too. It was seriously cool. Good trip all around.

Lots of snow this month. We’ve had about an inch of persistent ice on the driveway for a couple weeks. It’s been a thaw/freeze/snow – thaw/freeze/snow cycle. Kind of yuck. The worst part is, as always, the schmucks on the road. Stupid driving in winter weather aside, I have a HUGE issue to bring up. You MUST clean off your car. That means front and back windows and your roof. If you do not clean off your entire car you are an asshole. There is NO excuse. You are an asshole. I say this with confidence. You know that time you didn’t clean off your roof  – come on, we’ve all done it at least once – you know how that big 4 foot by 4 foot slice of ice and snow went flying off when you were doing 60 on the highway? Well, after that sort of righteous sound of slide and release, you forgot about it. But there was some schmuck behind you who saw the massive boomerang of nastiness come flying at his windshield, swerved to avoid it and almost went off the road. There is an 87% chance that the swerving schmuck in your rear view was me.

Look, it’s dangerous. Last year there was a young kid in New Jersey who got his window smashed in and his face all cut up. Clean off your roof. If you’re driving around with 8 inches of snow on your roof, you’re a dick. If you’re driving around with 8 inches of snow on your roof and that little gopher hole of snow remove from the windshield so you can barely peek out at the highway, you’re a cocksucker. Seriously.

If you have a big SUV and you’re 5 feet tall and you just can’t reach the roof, get a tall friend, get a stepladder, get a long brush, or get a car that you can properly clean. For years I’ve bitched and moaned that it should be a law. You must be at least this tall to buy this car. If you don’t measure up, it’s time to look at a subcompact. There’s no excuse. You’re just being lazy. Clean off your freaking car before you kill somebody…like me.

Forget about this winds of change crap – the candidate who has a clear anti-roof snow platform has a good chance at getting my vote in 2008.

Hmmmm…. what else can I bitch about. Oh, yeah. Disney. I’ve been catching a lot of Disney in the morning when I get up with Noah. Slim pickings on the kid networks before 5 am. On the mornings when I get up with Noah we’ve been watching Lilo and Stitch on one of the Disney channels. Not a bad show. In fact, I really like Disney. Overall. I like Disney World. I love the Pixar stuff. Most of the animation that goes into theaters is good. Most of the animated TV shows are good. They tend to say “stupid” or “idiot” a lot, words I don’t like hearing reopeated by the kids, but overall it’s not that bad.

But I HATE Disney tween programming. High School Musical or High School Musicrap? You decide.

Around 5 am there aren’t too many commercials, but the Disney channel shows all these music videos from their various teen sensations. I’ve seen a lot of videos from High School Musicrap II lately. A lot of Hannah Montana too. Absolutely atrocious. The music is terrible, the plot lines from the shows are bad 70’s sitcom style. Just really really bad. And they do these fake newsbreak things with kids pretending to be entertainment news media types, interviewing the cast and crew of various Disney projects (mostly made for TV movies or direct to DVD features). Self-serving, but not nearly as bad as Fox News turning last night’s American Idol episode into a 15 minute human interest story/shameless promotion of their awful programming.

Beyond the bad storylines and hackneyed pop hooks in the songs, I find the tween actors absolutely unbearable. They are so ridiculously melodramatic. Every one of the kids on these shows is liek hyped up on meth, with facial expressions and enthusiasm reminiscent of early Fritz Lang stuff. Check out Metropolis. Get a look at Peter Lorre in “M” and you’ll see what I mean. Aaargh! They’re so fucking sassy and cream puff melodramatic it make my gums bleed.

I challenge you to watch 5 minutes of Hannah Montana. If you get through the bad wigs, egregious and inferior rewrites of classic Saved by the Bell plots, god-awful music performances, Billy Ray Cyrus Achy-Breaky Heart jokes (and that stupid fucking Shaggy chin he’s got now), and the over-the-top scenery chewing acting without putting a fork in your eye, you win. Congratulations. You’ve now lost 5 minutes of your life and about 5% of your working left brain to permanent damage.

If I could just get Noah to watch the Tick at 5am it would be much more palatable.

OK, I guess that’s enough kvetching for February. Overall not a bad month. Busy. Short. Over. Here comes March…