House Update

So the home improvements, while never-ending, have slowed considerably, and our house is becoming more and more lived in. I thought this would be a good time to record a second little walk-through... here's the post of the first walk-through from the day of our home inspection.

It turns out I'm a bit long-winded... who knew? It's just that I'm not sure what to say sometimes and I don't want to look stupid or worse - have Tiff roll her eyes at me! I never seem to pass that second test, but I get so off-topic and talk about the unimportant that we broke this up by floor and each one is still like ten minutes long! So... hope you got some time on your hands before you begin this.

Okay, here's the first floor/basement/garage:

Now's a good time to run to the bathroom...

Be sure to check out John Duffy's Encore! featuring artist extraordinaire Tiffany Duffy!

What is up with that chin I've got going on!?! Oi ve... time for a diet! (More on that in future posts.)

All in all, our home is everything we could ask for and more. Well... I could think of a thing or two more but we have to have something to strive for!

Encore! Encore!

Lately, I’ve been making an effort to post semi-regularly… and I hope you’ve been making an effort to read them semi-regularly, while keeping up with my archive of great posts from the past, perusing through my catalog and re-reading your favorites. I have been hearing your silent appreciation and inaudible calls for more for weeks now and am proud to announce my encore presentation, John Duffy’s Encore.

That’s right, from the guy who tried to bring you John Duffy’s Words, John Duffy’s Sacrifices, and still manages to bring you John Duffy’s Places every now and then, comes an all new addition to the World of John Duffy, John Duffy’s Encore! (This is where you, the reader, squeal with delight.)

I know what you are thinking and I can assure you that while, my encore has begun, the main event is far from over. The Muted Guerrilla is healthy as ever and will continue its great tradition of being great. With John Duffy’s Encore, my wife and I will be trying to highlight cover songs - good, bad and downright odd - and I think that the two of us agree that we spent far too long finding a suitable name for it.

My wife wanted something that was kind of catchy, but her main requirement was something not cheesy. I didn’t realize how hard that would be for me. First off, I wanted it to begin “John Duffy’s…” which Tiff wasn’t too excited about, as she will be just as much a contributor as me. However, I see it as just sticking to an already laid out theme – that of my own greatness. It looks like I won that one.

John Duffy’s what though? For a long time, it just sat blank as we bounced a few ideas back and forth. Then I was sure I had it, John Duffy’s Cover Discovery. I think it’s beautiful, but admittedly, there is that extra syllable and Tiff wasn’t too psyched about using the word “cover” in the title. I didn’t fight this as my “John Duffy’s” opener was still on shaky ground. I quickly changed focus and my mind bounced from Cover Discovery to Cover-alls to what I still think is a brilliant name, John Duffy’s Poncho.

John Duffy’s Poncho. I love it! I need to get into merchandising.

While I was envisioning crowded streets on a rainy day with everyone wearing rain jackets stamped with www.JohnDuffy’sPoncho.com, my wife was busy thinking. In a moment of brilliance, she spouted off possible tag-lines, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” seemed the obvious favorite, but then she twisted it around to “The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions,” which seems to suit the direction we were heading with the blog. It wasn’t long before Encore was suggested, and we knew we had a winner.

The possibilities seem endless, so be sure to check out John Duffy's Encore now. With the way I keep up with these things, who knows how long it might be around! Don't miss out!

Expect the Unexpected

These thinking errors are contagious! Now that I’ve diagnosed DC United Ad Campaign, I’ve been pointing out flaws left and right.

This summer, after three seasons of mild interest, I’m excited about the fishbowl of flaws that is Big Brother, which I believe is the original reality game show. My wife's been into it for a few seasons now, and I've always rolled my eyes about it and haven't hesitated to tell her what I think of it. This year, however, I have seen the light and am now a true fan.

It even took some time this season, but I willingly admit that I am now addicted. When a show has three crucial shows a week, you almost have to be addicted to watch it. When you find yourself scouring the internet for more info, you must be addicted. And if you're taping Showtime's Big Brother After Dark each night so that the next day you can watch up to three hours of people living in a house, you must be my wife. (That last one works out well for me though.)

I used to think that I didn’t like the show because it feeds on discord and thinking errors. The more arguments and fights that it has the better, and there’s something about me that doesn’t do well seeing angry people. I get worked up. My muscles get tense. I get angry and I find myself always aligning with one side and having a never-ending inner monologue of retorts and rebuttals defending someone that I typically don't really like.

But that's part of the reason why I think this season is different. While of course there are definitely still the trouble-makers - Chima's Uniqueness thinking error for Giving Up at the First Sign of Failure and for Expecting More Out of Others than From Self got her kicked out of the game by the producers! - there are actually people that I like in the game. There are people I'm rooting for and would like to see win the whole kit and caboodle and who I'm hoping don't make any silly mistakes. Tonight's episode should reveal a lot about where the game is headed.

Anyways, Big Brother's tag line is Expect the Unexpected, and while it has been very unexpected that I've gotten so wrapped up in the show, I guess I expected to get all into some random show. Now, as far as me making fun of my wife for liking such rubbish, maybe I should point the thinking error finger at myself.

OMG! IHD!

I hate the dentist. I went yesterday for the first time in 18 months, and I’ve decided that I truly hate the dentist.

I remember as a kid being excited about the dentist. I always got to leave school early. I hardly ever had cavities. The people were always so nice and friendly. And, I always got a new toothbrush. It was great. I think everywhere you go should have some sort of small parting gift. (I’ll have to figure out what I can give folks when they come visit me. “Don’t want you to leave empty handed!” I would say.)

What I do not remember, even in the slightest, is the pain. I get that they are using sharp tools and that they have to scrape right up to the gums, but golly, I walked out of there with the taste of blood still in my mouth. The pain was not just physical either. They hurt my pride. And that’s a wound that will take a lot more time to heal.

You see, after they got me good and bloody, they started poking at my teeth and calling out things like “DO on 32,” “MO on 13… and 7,” and “Wrought-iron fence on 24.” I could be wrong on the lingo – I hope – but when it was all said and done I have eight cavities! Eight! I had nine cavities last time I went to the dentist, and that was after not going for something-like 6 years! Eight cavities!

I think the good dentist saw the heart-broken surprise in my eyes and quickly said, “You just need to floss.” She went on to explain that I have four cavities that are affecting eight teeth. Four cavities are still way too much. I was expecting a clean bill of health! ... and a toothbrush.

It all makes me hate the dentist. In fact, I feel the need to protest publicly. Maybe next time I go to the dentist, I'll wear a shirt that says, "I DON'T FLOSS!" and "I hate the dentist." That'll show them.

IHD by johntduffy

We Win Trophies

As I’ve said before I’ve become a strong supporter of DC United. They are one of the most successful teams in American soccer, and Wednesday, September 3, they take on newcomers, the Seattle Sounders, in the US Open Cup Championship here in Washington . I plan on being there. I’m already very excited!

My excitement is triply doubled for reasons best explained by the website, We Win Trophies. As the link explains, Seattle complained that they should be able to host as they will be able to sell out the mid-week game, which is not only true, but pretty damn impressive. Last year, DC hosted the game to a crowd of barely 8,000 fans – albeit die-hard fans. Seattle went on to say how their fans were best in the league and yadda-yadda-yadda. Well, that’s just a smack in the face to this not-yet-die-hard fan.

So the team is making a strong effort to draw in people to the game with this elusive We Win Trophies campaign. The story goes that the ads started out on the metro as signs that just read “09-02-09 We Win Trophies.” Then they got this weird sticker ad on the front page of a local paper, not The Post, that said the same thing on the front, but then you peeled it off and the back had info about the game. Now, it’s pretty well advertised all over.

As much as I love that they can say “We Win Trophies,” I’m worried about what it implies. The Washington Nationals are currently last place in baseball, the Redskins are perpetual under-achievers, the Capitals are really good but can’t, well, win a trophy, and the Wizards… basketball’s so far off my radar that I’m not sure what to say. DC United has definitely been the most consistent championship team, but it is need of more fans and I’m just not sure that it’s smart to lift yourself up by putting the others down.

When I worked as a counselor, we would call that a thinking error – Views Self as a Good Person. (That wasn't what we called it, but it's the same list, same author and I can't remember what we called it.)

Regardless, I’ll be there; I encourage anyone and everyone to come. It should be a great game and I’d love to see the seats full.

Plus, at the end of the game, there’s not just a winner, there’s a champion, trophy and all. How many games that you’ve been to can you say that? Go United!

Pass the Pigs

A few weeks ago, I went up to Philadelphia to see a friend and catch a baseball game. Unfortunately, this year we did not catch a foul ball. But I did catch-on to a cool new game, Pass the Pigs.
I never knew two little pigs could be so intimidating! But once you start the game, your hopes and dreams can build and fall faster than a crazy night around a craps table. And these two pigs are at the center of it all. You throw them up and let them land and the "swineherder" calls out the score, but you have to know the Pass the Pigs lingo, which can be kind of tricky. Here's me doing my best doubling as the swineherder and the play-by-play commentator.

That wasn't even half the scoring too!! As you can tell "pig outs" are bad, but not as bad as if you rolled this:
The dreaded piggy-back. I've never seen it, but I can only imagine. Not only do you lose all your points for the round, you lose the game out-right. It would be awful. Of course, I guess if I saw someone else roll it, I might just go ... hog... wild.(?)

Christian the Lion

If you're anything like me, you saw this video awhile ago when it was an internet sensation:
It really is a pretty cool video.

Today, I was flipping through channels when I stumbled upon a documentary about that video on Animal Planet. While it doesn't make me want to go out and get a lion, it definitely makes me want to live in the 60's... those were groovy times. They kept playing the big finale throughout the hour long show, and it never got old. It's just an oddly amazing story.

I like to think I have a similar bond with my feline friend (you'll have to sing your own Whitney Houston):

Well, you know what they say, separation makes the heart grow fonder. I hope that would be the case.

Another Day at Lunch

Now that I’ve mentioned my lunch break, I feel oddly exposed and I feel like I should say more and more about it until it has become... well, over-exposed. Maybe I should rename my blog, Lunchtime with John Duffy. It sounds like the title of really good Saturday afternoon PBS programming! “I’m your host John Duffy. Let’s cook something good today.”

Anyways, today I took a camera with me to add pictures of this place that I’ve been talking about. Today was pretty comfortable weather-wise as there was no summer sun, but that might be a bad thing as far as pictures go. There were also no birds… I’m not sure where they went. Here it is from where I sit:

And if I turn and look right:
I took this picture because there are probably about two weeks worth of apple cores behind that post and that damn water bottle is still standing there, unfazed and mocking me.

I think I would like having a camera with me at all times for any blog-worthy thing I run across. I would call it my BlogCam and if I got one, I could say that I’ve entered my BlogCamEra. It would take some getting used to though, the whole photojournalism thing.

For instance, instead of last week’s heroics of me saving a boat, today -drumroll please- I saved a life. Let's start with the fisherman who was "just trying to catch one damn bass" before he had to go to work. I know this because he told me so as he walked from the dock on my left, as seen above, to the dock on my right:

A few minutes later, there was a loud splash off to my left and there on the dock is a fish flapping around. I watched him for a minute or two... I was surprised how long he fought it, flopping around like fish out of water... oh wait... and then there was just still. I didn't want him to start smelling, so I went up to push him in the water. He was clearly still alive, and with a kick, I watched him swim away.

It was only after the fact that I remembered the camera sitting with my lunch. Yeah, I definitely still have a thing or two to learn about photojournalism. Next I'll try to figure out over-exposure.

A Little Boat

Last week, I saved a boat during lunch.
It was a pretty pathetic boat though. It didn’t fit in with the other aluminum boats with their shiny motors and fancy green paint that surrounded it. It was just a small rowboat; it reminded me of the boat I used to row around a small cove in Maine , except this one didn’t have any oarlocks. Or oars. And it wasn’t painted. And its plywood sides were coming apart. And it had about 6 inches of water in the bottom. And there was nowhere to tie it on to anything.

I think maybe it had saved itself, as it was floating unattached in the water wedged between a boat and the pier. I just spotted it and realized it wasn’t attached, so I pushed it around a little with my foot (almost falling in the water in the process) and then decided to go find the elusive marina staff, who took care of the rest.

Today, it sat on the land right in front of me, and I sat and stared at it curiously, as I slowly ate my lunch. Where could this boat have come from? How did it end up here? Who would possibly use this boat? I wondered.

My first thought, admittedly, was images of Cuban refugees trying to survive the 90 miles of open seas that separate them with Florida . Being as I live in Northern Virginia, this is probably not the case – unless people are escaping the horrors of Fairfax County . I’m not ruling it out though. It is conceivable that the Cubans got swept off course and this is where they ended up… I mean, it is missing its oarlocks after all.

Then I thought it must be a ghost ship. Not in the sense that it’s captained by the dead who are now roaming the land, but maybe it had sunk somehow and something recently – a rain storm maybe – has unsettled it and it rose from the murky depths. The standing water, the damaged sides… it all adds up.

So my mind moved on and I started wondering if it had a name. All the other boats around there have names like PW13265 or PW13476… boring names, if you ask me. I figure I’m the one that found it so maybe the staff that I talked to would approach me in hopes of naming it after me, the John Duffy. I think I’d have to say no. Even the most pathetic of boats deserves to be named, but I’m holding out for nothing less than a bridge. The John Duffy Bridge . It would be great… although something tells me that perhaps the pathetic little boat would be more fitting.

My Sister, the Artist

So it's been awhile, but I think I've mentioned that my sister Becky is a fabulous artist somewhere in a past post. Recently - errr, six months ago - she changed games in the art business. Rebecca Duffy, artist on the road from show to show, was out and Rebecca Duffy, elite gallery owner, was in. I got to see her gallery, full of art from many, many artists, in June and it is very cool... very perfect for a gallery.

It's in Downtown Wilmington North Carolina, which was pretty cool to begin with but now it's got this must-see gallery in a building called Chandler's Wharf. So the art is cool, the place is cool, the building is cool, the town is cool... I'm not sure why I wouldn't go! Here's a little promotional video they put together:

The River to Sea Gallery, it's the place to see and be seen, and it's currently, the only place where you can get my wife's art, if you don't have the internet, which... I'm guessing... oh dear reader of mine... that you do. Just a guess.

Loose Change

I find myself thinking about the recently de-linked Thoughts from the Change Race quite a bit. I'm always hopeful that I will find a penny or nickel in a parking lot or on a sidewalk somewhere, and when I do, I start to wonder how much money has been found, how much money has been lost, how much money I could find if I walked down more sidewalks, and ultimately, how much I've gotten out of shape and really should be walking more.

What brings it up is something I've noticed from work. As part of my job, I have to go door-to-door through neighborhoods throughout the county, and I've noticed that in the less desirable neighborhoods, there are stray coins in almost every other driveway and littered here and there throughout the street and sidewalk. The nicer neighborhoods, on the other hand, while usually having much more suspicious people, are virtually devoid of having any lost nickels and dimes.

I could probably list several probable reasons for this, but rather than reasons, I like to think of it as symbolic of something or other. Plus, some things have too many reasons for being what they are. I think that when I get around to writing the Great American Novel, I'll have to include this little tidbit some how. Right now, my working title is John Duffy: The Greatest Man Alive. It's a work in progress though.

A Few Changes

I'm making a few changes around here. Slowly but steadily I'm creating the perfect website. One that will no doubt rival Yahoo and Google in one way or another.

A bit off subject, but I always used to look down on people with Hotmail accounts, because Hotmail is kind of goofy, but now they've got Bing.com. Bing.com might be coolest thing to come along in a long time! One day it might rival the likes of The Muted Guerrilla! I was trying to figure out what the pipe banging sound that is behind my toilet when I run the water was, so I typed "pipes tapping behind toilet" into Yahoo and got a whole bunch of nothin', then I tried Google and got diddly-squat, then inspired by clever advertising, I tried Bing.com and Bingo! The first thing on the list told me all about water hammer and what to do to eliminate it.

Anyways, I've made a handful of changes so far with more to come. So far I've changed some of my links. I pulled my stuff and my wife's stuff into separate columns. I've stopped sacrificing collecting words but I've left the links up, with hopes of returning to them.

Thoughts from the Change Race has sadly come to close. After collecting and tallying $288.41 cents of lost change, the poor guy finally realized there's more to life than watching the ground beneath his feet. That was my own little editorial there, but since he's ended his blog, I've ended my link. Also on the chopping block was My Side of the Fence, a blog by a Manassas City Councilman, which I'm not linking to because I never clicked through.

I've also made a Steve Goff's Soccer Insider blog a permanent link on the side for easy access. I expect everyone follow along and become soccer experts. There will be a test. Also new is Joel Achenbach, who among other things writes the Achenblog for the Washington Post which usually is good for a laugh or two. I think I'm just enough of a dork to find him funny; in other words, he's pretty dorky, but that's okay. Those along with my brother-in-law's blog and good-ole Rick Steves, I've now got all I need to make it through the day attached right here to my blog! What could be more perfect!

Next, I think I'll get Tiff to pick out some new colors for me... right after she fixes the water hammering.

More United

It was a beautiful Friday evening in late April. The flowers were blooming. The birds were chirping. And the crowd was going wild.

I've suckered Tiff into going with me to just one DC United game this year, by way of winning a March Madness bet, but it was a great time all around. DC was playing the New England Revolution and it was a much better game than the 1-1 final score depicts. Here's the one video Tiff took during the game. It was in the closing minutes of the game and although they were playing well enough to win, DC was down by one. ... Oh, and Tiff had asked early on to name one person that she could follow during the game to keep it interesting, so I had told her Ben Olsen.

It was great! The game ended soon thereafter in a 1-1 tie, but the whole place was going crazy. I never thought a tie could be so exciting.

In fact, it's not over! Once we got on the Metro to head home, a swarm of veteran fans filed in behind us still in full celebration:

And it didn't stop! Soon there was not just singing but banging on the ceiling in celebration! Which caused a big cloud of I-don't-know what to pour down on us! It was awful! But it didn't stop! As the Metro rumbled on and emptied out, the fight songs may have ended but the singing carried on!

(I'm not sure what is going on at the end of that one... is my wife stalking somebody?) But sure enough... the party didn't end until we left the train and headed home. It was a great night and helped make me a great fan.

I hope to return to the stadium to see another game soon... Wednesday, September 2, one month from today, DC United hosts the US Open Cup Championship against the Seattle Sounders. I hope to see you there!