Team Gray!

When I wrote this post, I listened to XM radio daily. Since then, we’ve stopped subscribing to XM radio, and I found some of the comedians in Netflix. Netflix has this great feature called instant queue, where you can watch movies, shows and specials instantly on your TV. You don’t have to mail DVDs back and forth.

So I was trolling through what’s available instantly, and I found: 1. Jim Gaffigan Beyond the Pale. This is the routine that is chopped up into various bits on Laugh USA: a lot of Hot Pocket jokes, other jokes about food, including the cake bit: “If you eat 6 slices of pizza, people say, “You were hungry.” If you eat 6 slices of cake, “you got a problem!” Watching him do his bit in context makes it even funnier.

2. I also found: Frank Caliendo, All Over the Place. This is the routine where he talks about Scooby Doo, John Madden, Adam Sandler, John Madden, Kermit the Frog, and, did I mention John Madden? The name of this act says it all–Frank Caliendo is really all over the place, but is so funny to go there with him. You have to see this DVD to catch all the jokes. For example, I’ve heard him do Adam Sandler on the radio, but had no idea that’s who he was doing. Check it out.

3. I watched two Brian Regan Comedy Central stand up specials, looking for one of the bits I’ve heard on the radio. I didn’t hear one. But Regan is still hilarious, and clean.

4. Demetri Martin is also available in Instant Queue, but be warned: he cusses in this routine. You might want to send the kids out of the room before you hit play on this show.

5. You can watch 4 comedians for the price of one with the Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie. These guys aren’t on my top 10 list, but they are funnier on television. The Blue Collar Comedy Tour features: Bill Engvall, Ron White, Larry the Cable Guy, and Jeff Foxworthy. Larry the Cable Guy and Ron White may be too raunchy for the kids to watch; you can fast forward past them if you want. Bill Engvall and Jeff Foxworthy are classy, and they do routines that you hear on the radio, so that’s a bonus.

Clinton Jackson, Carlos Mencia, Kathleen Madigan, Mike Birbiglia, and many others are also available in Netflix Instant Queue in the TV series: Comedy Central Presents.

Lighten your summer with some good comedy on your TV or computer. Don’t have Netflix? Click here.

I’m sorry I haven’t posted here lately. I can’t think of anything to say, and can’t find any pictures to post.

I’ve been busy elsewhere on the web. I wrote about our 4th of July on imswimming. Then I tried to stir up controversy about swimming attitudes.

My hats are still listed on etsy. Go over and check them out. They’re all lonely. They’d love a new home.

I have another blogging project I’m working on that I don’t think I share here just yet. Suffice to say that it takes up a lot of my time and energy, and it’s really exciting and important.

In other news, those 4 bikes I mentioned out in front of our house the other day have all been taken. It is satisfying to have a successful “free store.”

Tomorrow is Curtis and my 19th anniversary. I can’t wait. Until then, I hope you had a great 4th, and a decent 5th as well.

I had this loose idea in my mind to do a tour of fruit picking with the children this year. We’ve done apples together for years, but we hadn’t picked strawberries in 13 years, cherries in 12. We’ve never picked blueberries, a travesty that I plan to remedy next week or so.

I think it’s important for children to know where food comes from, yadda yadda yadda, but that’s not my front of the mind reason for taking them fruit harvesting. It’s something about being out in the fresh air, doing something productive, possibly learning a lesson along the way.

The trees preached a sermon today. Sweet cherries are much higher up than sour cherries. Sweet cherry trees are taller and more mature than the sour cherry trees. The sour cherries are so pretty–bright red, they look like a textbook picture of a cherry. The sour cherries are almost black. And we found another sweet cherry today, the yellow cherries. These are like albinos. Even their pits are light in color, and their juice is clear.

The baby was too small to do much in terms of picking cherries, and she was grossed out when I took the pit out of a cherry so she could taste it. So she ate the cherries whole. She didn’t have a problem. I found myself climbing trees, jumping out of trees, jumping up to snatch a berry directly overhead.

It’s physical work, cherry picking, is what I’m saying. My teenage son, who was 3 the last time we went cherry picking, was into it way more than strawberry picking. He was up a ladder every time I turned around, wise-cracking and picking to his heart’s content. My oldest daughter spent some of her time squealing about wasps and bugs, but got over it and pulled branches down for picking, climbed trees, and used ladders as well.

But the two little girls seemed to enjoy the outing the most. They went off with their tree-climbing friends and created an adventure for themselves. The little ones never uttered a word of hunger or thirst the whole time we put in our hard labor.

The U-pick cherries cost $20 a 5 gallon bucket. We managed to fill it half-way in 2 hours. Sweating and exhausted, we and our friends left. I can see why cherries are so expensive. It ain’t easy getting them in your bucket.