Here’s my latest obsession.

This is the new MiFi from Verizon. When activated, it creates a wifi bubble. This is perfect for my laptop during the long, tedious train commute, where internet service is nonexistent. The advantage this device has over a wifi card is that I can also use it for my iTouch. That way, I have all the advantages of an iPhone without suffering AT&Ts horrible service. It’s two device drivers for the price of one. Plus I get major kewl kid cred.

Mrs. Wife and I recently used it to check our email while driving from New Jersey to Ohio. In the desolate mid-state Pennsylvania mountains, no one can hear you scream. Or get wifi.

Up to five people can use the same signal, but it’s secure so the only way someone else can leech off of my wifi is if I give them the WEP key password on the back of the device, which I’ll probably never do because I hate people so much.

The bad part is that when I activate my cell phone jammer to cut short a rude boy’s cell phone call, it also knocks out my wifi signal. So I can use one device or the other, but not both simultaneously. Also, I keep it in my pocket and wonder what the negative long-term effects are of having my testicles constantly bombarded with a radio signal at close range. It’ll probably sterilize me but at this point I don’t really mind. But if it starts to shrink my boys, I’ll have to rethink using it.

On a clear, blue, warm day, you can take your girls to the big Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, located on the shores of Lake Erie. Why do you suppose they call it Erie?

Do you like the architecture? I do. It was designed by the brilliant I.M. Pei. It’s suppose to look like a record spindle with some stacked 45s. The girls were mildly amused about the whole thing, which was good enough for me.

My father- and mother-in-law made the trip from New Jersey for my mom’s funeral, which I thought was incredibly gracious of them. The whole lot of us visited the Hall of Fame the next afternoon. There was a big Life and Times of Bruce Springsteen exhibit. Mrs. Wife and her kin are related to Bruce (hence, the backstage passes of a few posts ago), so the family photos and history resonated with them on a deep level.

Father-in-law is a stickler for details, so when he found one small, teensey-weency factoid that was incorrect regarding Bruce’s formative years, he quickly hunted down the exhibit curator and set things right.

This…

…is one of my favorite activities back in Clevo. Those are bratwurst on the top rack. Have you ever had a bratwurst? Oh, holy sweet Mother of Jesus they’re good. Especially if my brother-in-law is at the helm working his grill magic. If you haven’t had the pleasure, please stop reading immediately and run out to your nearest butcher and pick up some links. And if you can arrange it, have my brother-in-law cook them. You’ll thank me later.

Dharma tip o’ the week:

Take it from me; it is virtually impossible to drift off into a state of meditative bliss while the lick from AC/DCs Back in Black is rattling around inside your head.

I showed this to Mrs. Wife and she saw it as a woman about to have her head blown off. I saw something quite different and she accused me of having my mind in the gutter. What did you first see?

* * *

Last week at A Company Called Malice, we were told that until further notice, we are required to work a minimum of 10 hours of overtime each week. This imposition comes right at the onset of summer; the season to be free. That same day, the new unemployment numbers were released. Here in the U.S. we are up to 9.4%. So I’m just going to keep my fucking mouth shut for once and grind it out.

* * *

I watched the Tony Awards last night. Well, part of them. They were so abysmal that I had to bail out. My sister texted me wondering if Broadway has finally hit bottom. I informed her that that’s not possible since Broadway, apparently, has no bottom.

This morning’s Asbury Park Press brought the sad news that Memory Lanes, my local bowling alley, burned to the ground.

If you’re good at shooting billiards, you’re a shark. Pool halls have a dark, sinister, poetic panache associated with them. Being good at pool can get you laid. Have you seen The Hustler? Or its sequel, The Color of Money? But nobody gives a shit if you’re a good bowler. Least of all, hot girls who wear a lot of black and like to hang out in tough neighborhoods. And I don’t know why that is. To me, they’re two sides of the same coin.

Isn’t that a great name for a bowling alley? Memory Lanes? Bowling is perceived as a low-brow form of entertainment but it’s always been a part of my life. There aren’t many things I did as a child that I occasionally still do today. I use to take 7-Year Old Daughter to Memory Lanes. We had a nice time but now it’s gone.

The second passing came courtesy of The Recording Academy, the association that bestows Grammy Awards. Polka music has been quietly eliminated as a category. It’s considered irrelevant. My father was an empty, useless man but one thing he did right was play polka music when I was growing up.

On Sunday mornings we use to watch the locally produced Polka Varieties on TV. It was like (and I’m not kidding about this) American Bandstand for polka music. The host was Paul Wilcox (Paul Whitesocks) and instead of attractive teens dancing to the latest rock hits, there was a live band, usually Frankie Yankovic, and the dancing audience was comprised of extremely old people.

Laugh if you want, but it takes a great deal of dexterity to dance the polka. Especially for women! They have to perform all those complicated steps backwards. Yankovic was a virtuoso of the button box. The Beer Barrel Polka! Who Stole the Keeshka Polka! And the polka guaranteed to offend at least half your audience, The Too Fat Polka.

I don’t want her.
You can have her.
She’s too fat for me.

Look, obviously, I’m not trying to insinuate that a bowling alley and an antiquated form of music meant as much to me as my recently deceased mother. Don’t be an idiot. But things pass out of your life and you feel a void, even if it’s a small one.

* * *

This was the first Saturday that I didn’t have my usual afternoon phone chat with my mom. It was weird. I called her number so I could listen to her recorded greeting but the number had already been disconnected.