Quest for a pretty kitchen & POTC2

So on July 4th, Home Depot was having an uber-sale on refrigerators. When my parents told me of their plan to go buy one, I said, "Don't we need a new dishwasher worse than we need a new 'fridge? Since the 'fridge is still working and the dishwasher is older?" They didn't think so... So, my parents went down and bought this *huge* 6-foot tall, side-by-side stainless steel thing with ice and water in the door made by GE. It's really great! We put the old 'fridge in the garage next to my car. It now has all the stuff my brother bought to drink the last time he was home that the rest of us don't drink in it (mostly beer), as well as the proverbial jar of jam and thing of mustard, and all of our (read: my mom's ;D ) extra ice cream is in the freezer.

Well, Joe came over to help my dad hook up the water filter and icemaker the day after it was delivered. That was a week ago, last Saturday, while I was out seeing "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" (more on that later). That night, I got up to get a drink of water and noticed that there was something weird about how the floor felt underneath my feet. It was... bumpy... and making squeaky noises when I walked on it. I turned the light on and took a good look. The whole area in between the island and the sink, dishwasher and refrigerator is warped and buckled. Water was coming up from spaces between the boards. I dried up as much as I could, left a note that I didn't do it and went back to bed.

The next day when I got up my dad told me that they had found the source of the problem. The dishwasher had decided to start leaking... (Since at that point Dad had had several hours to come to terms with it and really upset anymore, I did take a moment to say, "Didn't I say you should have gotten a new dishwasher last week?" because I am just petty enough to want to point out that I was inadvertently right about something.) But oddly, not on top of the current floor, but rather between the Pergo and the subfloor beneath it. The Pergo in that area is unsalvagable. We'll have to have it pulled up and replaced pretty soon, and only about 2 years after having it put down. But, more importantly at the time, the dishwasher had to be unhooked and we couldn't use it for a week until a new one could be delivered. My parents went back down to Home Depot, where they gave them a great deal on a new stainless steel dishwasher to match the 'fridge... and almost match the beautiful Frigidaire oven we have. I wanted them to go to Famous Tate, since they usually have the best deals, and that's where we got the Frigidaire oven, and I'm amused that their showroom still looks like an old 1950s appliances shop, but they said Home Depot was a better buy... whatever. I wasn't paying for it so I can't really say...

A few days after the dishwasher was delivered and hooked up and working perfectly, my parents decided that they might as well finish the kitchen, since they had just about everything stainless steel now, and they went out and bought a stainless steel microwave at Best Buy. So now the whole kitchen is stainless steel... If only the floor wasn't buckled and warped, and the cabinets all functioned like the design lady at Home Depot had said they would, and the lighting was better, it would be a perfect kitchen. We just got to get those few little things fixed and then it will be perfect.

But as to the state of the floor, let this be a lesson to anyone who thinks that laminant Pergo floors are easier to take care of than real plank wood... they aren't! At least with real plank, they won't buckle if a little bit of water gets on them. Pergo will begin to buckle in a matter of minutes with as little as 1/4 cup of liquid spilled on it and left. And it will never go back to how it was before. Also, if you have something like a desk chair with wheels on it, like the chair I'm sitting on in front of my computer screen, it will in about 6 months begin to rub off the picture of the wood that is printed on the surface of the Pergo. Pergo says that this will not happen, but it does... I know from experience. You can't sand away and refinish problems on Pergo like you can with real plank... And I don't mean that thin, practically veneer stuff that they're selling in home centers and calling "real wood." It is, but it's not... Now, Pergo *is* *much* cheaper than real wood, and looks better longer than most carpet does (barring things like water spilling)... but really, it's the linoleum version of wood. Just like tile looks *way* better and is more durable than linoleum, real wood looks way better and is more durable than Pergo. Same goes for Formica vs. granite for counter-tops. I just don't like laminants...

On to "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest"! I loved it! I thought it was not as good a story as the first one, in that the first one was a much tighter story, and this one seemed a wee bit sloppy to me. But I still loved it! Johnny was amazing, Orli was amusing... I hated what they did to Norrington's character, and I thought Captain Jack was a bit more toned down than he was in the first one... but those are really minor issues. Though I know some people had real problems with those changes. I can't wait for the third film to be out. And I made a killing on the Hollywood Stock Exchange! Cleared over H$2,000,000 on the moviestocks alone, plus several hundred thousand on the weekend call and seasonal warrant. If only it were real and not hypothetical money...

I also saw "Superman Returns." I adore Brandon Routh. He's *lovely*... And Kevin Spacey did an admirable job. Though the psycho-without-reason Lex Luthor of the comics and movies cannot hold a candle to the tortured soul of Smallville/Michael Rosenbaum's Lex and never will... ::sighs::