I first heard his one-of-a-kind baritone when I was about 5. My mother had given me a copy of the original Broadway cast recording of Camelot. Though I can’t find just the man himself singing from that particular LP, here’s at least a taste of what I heard way back then:

As cheesy as Robert Goulet was, at least he reveled in the fondue that was his career. While many other swingin’ 60s Broadway types and lounge singers tried to be taken more seriously than the flower-power generation would allow, he happily took roles which specifically played on his uncoolness. He appeared semi-regularly on Laugh-In, on several of the uncoolest variety shows of the 70s, was on love-them-or-hate-them shows like The Love Boat and Fantasy Island, and he made an appearance on Police Squad, the precursor to The Naked Gun movies … then he appeared in The Naked Gun 2-1/2: The Smell of Fear in 1991.

Long before bachelor pad royale and ultra-lounge became cool again, there was Robert Goulet, in one of my top five favorite holiday movies, Scrooged and one of Tim Burton’s best efforts, Beetle Juice. He was also right alongside Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and friends in a couple of episodes of the short-lived Comedy Central series TV Funhouse. As what, you ask? None other than THE Robert Goulet, friend to the animals (puppets) and high-class Atlantic City lounge act.

I haven’t even mentioned the Weird Al Yankovic video.

His latest achievements included several commercials for ESPN - which surprisingly (or not) made him uber-cool again - and a semi-famous Super Bowl commercial for Emerald Nuts just this past January:

Robert Goulet died today at the age of 73. He never lost his voice, but far more impressive, he never lost his sense of humor.

Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.

Please for to enjoy the following video before reading on:

I am in the throes of interior design ecstasy: I’ve been perusing a book we picked up at the Getty on our last trip to L.A. Design of the 20th Century is a dictionary of sorts, complete with brief histories of the people and companies behind interior design of (you guessed it) the 20th century.

When Modern Drunkard magazine manages to get an issue out, I happily read it cover-to-cover. Based on the title, you may think it’s all drunken fluff written by alcoholics, but I’ve found at least half of it is well-researched, real history of alcohol. Mostly written by drunks, but hey …

I recently finished The Areas of My Expertise (by John Hodgman), which I only recommend if you have a super-dry, ultra-skewed sense of humor. The section on 700 hobo names alone would be hard to get through otherwise.

Online, I try to keep up with Salon and McSweeney’s at the very least. We get The Onion and A.V. Club in print here in Denver, so I pick it up and read it while on the aerobics machines at the gym. I also pick up the weekly Westword and skim it thoroughly.

I’ve subscribed to Wired magazine for years and voraciously read each issue. It helps me catch up on geek tech without having to translate an overabundance of geek speak. This month, I found that the folks at Popular Mechanics took on the 9/11 conspiracy theorists and that the resulting debate is on YouTube (part one is located here if you care to see it).

Two friends of mine in the past two months have given me copies of Watchmen to read. I first read it years ago at the behest of a roommate and I couldn’t get into it at the time … I was in the middle of a messy divorce and never really liked comic books. Now, as much as I hate to admit it, this comic book - “graphic novel” is a euphemism to make comics more acceptable to adults, so it’s a term I steadfastly refuse to use - can be good. Really good. Like I have to recommend this one to everyone I know, as borderline humiliating as that may feel. “Here, read this comic book, it’s really good.” Sheesh.

I subscribed to Skeptic magazine just after Dragon*Con this year. The writers take on various topics, use actual scientific research to prove or debunk them, and include footnotes and resource lists so anyone can go check out the facts themselves. Some articles are a bit like reading an academic paper, but I like that they back up everything they say. Also, they don’t shy away from both sides of an issue; I read both of the pieces on second-hand smoke and appreciate a) not being talked down to by either side and b) being allowed to make up my own mind on the subject. I also think they’ll appreciate that I take everything they print with the proverbial grain of salt. Call me a skeptic among skeptics.

I am a click away from ordering the complete writings of Anais Nin. I am really looking forward to that.

So yeah, I’m a Reader. I read for myriad reasons: Knowledge, fun, understanding, escape, education, and the sheer enjoyment of it. Sometimes I do it simply to ignore people around me.

But mostly I do it so I don’t become a Waffle House waitress.

For the first time in a few years, we went all out. I mean ALL OUT. Waaaaaay the fuck beyond the call of duty. We’re talking 2 hours of prep and an inability to drive a vehicle due to costume considerations.

Observe:

We’re still considering an outing this Wednesday in the same outfits. With effort like this, you just gotta do it more than once. Also, we’re hoping to get full-body photos of the actual clothing, because it’s pretty amazing (if we do say so ourselves).

Though slouching in the back of a taxi to save the hairdo is a bit much.

I first made the comment about Hallowe’en whores a few Octobers ago and it’s only gotten worse since then.

See, according to the folks who make such items for our purchase, there are only two types of Hallowe’en costumes for women. They consist of “period correct” or “slut-whore.”

Every year I go shopping to see what’s available and in the last three in particular I have not once run across any store-bought costume which fits into a middle ground. Generally, we now have a choice of wearing a floor-length outfit that covers just about everything - think vampire / Victorian, Morticia Addams, or a basic witch - or we can wear a mini-skirted, low-cut, bare midriff whore suit.

When did Frederick’s of Hollywood take over Hallowe’en? This trend is the very reason I started making my own costumes years ago. I somehow manage to get full coverage and be sexy simultaneously, so I know it’s possible.

This is what Joel Stein had to say about it in an L.A. Times op-ed:

It’s transforming formerly child-friendly costume shops from fun-creepy into Chris Hansen-creepy … That’s why, after much research and consultation, I have founded our nation’s newest holiday: Slut Day. It will take place the first Saturday of every August, a time both barren of holidays and plenty hot enough for really degrading costumes. Slut Day festivities include costume parties with themed drinks such as the Lindsay Lohan (just whatever in a giant glass) and, if possible, flat-screen TVs showing the latest celebrity sex tapes and select parts of “Meerkat Manor” … In addition to fixing the Halloween problem, Slut Day also can replace the “Pimps N Hos” parties scattered across the calendar, which are racist and sexist, with an event that is only sexist. That’s a 50 percent reduction in offensiveness.

Amen, brother.

And sister, please put on some clothes.

This is a perfect example of my favorite misspelled word in eBay auctions.

Satan sheets are still the best, though.

I said I’d call, then I didn’t. I got busy and forgot and then we had to leave town. Wish I could say you’re the only person this happens to.

I said I’d be at a wedding, then I lost the invitation and couldn’t recall if I had the right day and time. Still, I traveled to town a day early and wondered all that Saturday if I should just show up at the place I thought was the correct one. Which, it turns out, would have been the right thing to do. Instead I missed it entirely.

I had lunch with an old friend I haven’t seen in nearly a decade and spent less than 45 minutes with him.

Then there’s the dirty old man in me, who starts drinking, and eventually skips out on the good friends whom I’ve told - repeatedly and that very night - that I want to spend more time with them. I want to apologize for thinking with my dick, but I don’t know what to say when I know, with all certainty, it will happen again.

All these situations occurred just in the last two weeks. They are not isolated. I’ve been running past friendships and situations through my head recently and I’ve come to realize something very important:

I’ve been a a selfish, heartless, uncaring bitch at least since high school.

Yeah, I know, you’re not surprised by this revelation. I, on the other hand, was convinced I wasn’t this way until after my second or third marriage crumbled. It just doesn’t seem possible that I wasn’t a nice person until my heart had been broken a few times. That’s how it works, right?

Then I remembered that patient, codependent, loving-to-a-fault friend from my high school years whom I treated pretty badly. Not “Mean Girl” badly, but a “you’ve got a talent, friends, or something else I can use to my own ends” badly. (I did this at age 16, no less. I should write a screenplay: “I Was a Teenage Sociopath.”)

Nature or nurture? I don’t care. I just wanted to warn you that I don’t plan to change. Not yet. Still busy deconstructing it.

This may take awhile.

Hooked on Colfax
A coffee shop with the fastest wi-fi access in town. Be sure to try the chorizo breakfast burrito and the Mezcal Mocha (mocha with cinnamon).

Kiva Southwestern
A regional cuisine which is the perfect mix of New Mexican and Tex-Mex. The portions aren’t too big, either - there’s no ubiquitous pile of rice and beans as sides. Also, happy hour features $2-$3 margaritas and a free taco bar.

Atomic Cowboy
A bar that wants you to hang out for a long time: They have board games stacked at the front door in case you need a Monopoly fix. There are TVs with sports on them, but the sound is down most of the time. The cajun burger and the chicken ceasar wraps are faves, and they have Strongbow on tap in ice cold glasses.

Rialto Cafe
A few weeks ago, they changed their happy hour menu to include $4 specialty drinks and $3 appetizers. The chicken satay skewers were melt in my mouth good. Also try the real, live, honest-to-goddess, old-fashioned (a retro cocktail if there ever was one).

Sonodas
Sushi. Good sushi. Not the absolute best in town, but it won’t cost much, either. The regular dinner comes with a plate full of chef’s choices, plus miso soup and a salad with the best ginger dressing we’ve had thus far in life.

Leela European Cafe
First, they are open 24/7. Second, they have a full bar and serve every hour it’s legal to do so. Third, free wi-fi. They also have a full coffee menu for caffeine fixes and, as if that weren’t enough, there’s the East Coast sandwich: Pastrami and roast beast on ciabatta with pesto mayo. It nearly makes one believe there’s a god.

We are at one of these locations at the moment, counting down the minutes to World Series tickets going on sale today at noon. So, when the Rockies / MLB / ticket company’s servers go down by 12:15pm - which every person who has ever worked in or around IT knows will happen again - maybe we’ll catch up with you at one of the other above locations to drown our sorrows in good food and drink.

The ticket lottery system worked for the Red Sox … dunno why it can’t work here.

I love people with the entrepreneurial spirit, so kudos to RoxandSox.net for jumping on the web so soon after the Red Sox won their last playoff game … and right into the Rockies tickets debacle.

And the fans are still waiting.

But there is fury today in Denver.

For those disinterested in baseball (or sports in general), from outside the US, or living under a rock: The Colorado Rockies made it to the World Series for the first time in club history. Tickets for games 3, 4, and 5 (if necessary) went on sale - exclusively online - this morning at 10:00am.

As of 12:30pm, they suspended sales. The official word is fans overwhelmed the computer system.

What is more likely is that the company handling the online sales system had no clue how rabid Colorado Rockies fans are.

I like baseball. Not enough to know player’s names or stats, but I did regularly go to Dodger games when I lived in L.A. years ago and I did make it to two or three Albuquerque Dukes/Isotopes minor league games every year when I lived there. We’ve managed to get to a few Rockies games every year since we’ve been in Denver, even with our travel and work schedules. Of course it helped that we were able to get two-for-one tickets via Wells Fargo this year, so we went a bit more often than usual. (We both prefer hockey, but the Avalanche don’t play in July.)

We discovered when buying tickets this past summer that we can’t get them from our home computers. There is some glitch on the Rockies site that won’t work with us - and trust me, I live with a computer guru who has tried everything that can be tried, software and hardware, to get it to work - so when we’ve wanted to buy tickets, we’ve packed up a laptop and the portable printer and placed the online order from somewhere with good WiFi access.

So this morning at 8:30am, in anticipation of the World Series tickets going on sale, we packed up our briefcases and headed to a favorite Colfax location with super-fast, free Internet.

And there we sat for 2-1/2 hours, clicking refresh and waiting, waiting, waiting … and we weren’t the only ones, either. Horror stories came pouring in from all over Denver.

The Rockies spokesman who made the announcement said, “We are as frustrated as our fans are.”

Forgive me for doubting that. The tickets will still sell out, however they get sold. The Rockies will make their money, no matter what. But the fans? So far we’re getting fucked real good.

And fans are converging on Coors Field as I type this … the police have already blocked off the areas surrounding the park (Blake Street, Market Street, etc.) due to overwhelming pedestrian traffic. God/dess help the Rockies if they don’t get the system back online today or work this out.

Hell hath no fury like a fan scorned.

When you pay $140 for each highly-rated, super sport tire on your car, the last thing you expect after just 10K miles of use is a blow out.

A BIG blow out.

On a freeway overpass.

At 60+ mph.

Fortunately, my love knows how to steer through a flat and safely change a tire on the side of the road. Better, he knows how to handle the staff and management at Discount Tire to ensure we do not have to pay another $140 for what has turned out to be an obviously faulty product.

Heaven help them if they don’t.