The Random Avenger

moving on

2008-06-15T10:26:00.001-07:00

this blog is retiring and being replaced by

http://cegrayson.wordpress.com

come join me there!

Weekend of DEATH!

2008-04-22T08:27:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I’m relaxing on Saturday night, catching up with some episodes of my favorites shows (That would be Torchwood and Battlestar Galactica for those of you who haven’t been paying attention) when I realize that someone appointed this the weekend of mass slaughter in American Sci-fi television. Yes, I know Torchwood is British but it was on BBC America, so I’m still counting it.
So, first Torchwood. Ihave to say, after the flashback episode, I saw this one coming. I knew people were going to die, and at the moment Jack’s lost brother Grey showed up I knew he would be evil. Not that they teased that much. The who reunion went hug-stabby-stabby. So, you know, evil from the start.

But why did it have to be Tosh? Watching her pull herself down into the medlab and administer a painkiller even though she knew she was a goner, just so she’d be cogent enough to talk Owen through shutting down the reactor, in hopes of saving his life … way to go, Tosh. Owen was not worthy of you. Owen’s own death … well, he’d died already and I’ve never really liked the character, but I did get a little lump in my throat during that last conversation, when he’s raging against death and Tosh asks him to stop because he was breaking her heart. Made more poignant by the fact that Tosh never told him she was dying too. And they did find the one way of killing Owen that would actually work, being dissolved in radioactive goo. (side note: would this work on Jack too, or would he still be alive even though he was in molecular-dispersal form). Can’t say I’m not really sorry to see Owen go (sorry, Burn Gorman, but you just never rang true for me in a rare case of me liking the writing but not the performance. See also: Tracy Scoggins in Babylon 5), but Tosh’s exit really hurt. It was made even more bittersweet by the attempted palliative of her last message, found by the surviving members of the team as they cleaned up her station. “It’s all right.”

And so from there I went to Battlestar Galactica. Now, this is not a show you go to when you want to feel good about life. This episode, though … Oh my holy frakking god.

We knew it was going to go bad when Cally found out her husband, chief Tyrol, was a cylon. This is the girl who shot Boomer, remember. And her conflicted, victim-abuser relationship with the chief would come into play in some sickening ways. So, when she found out and went totally bugshit crazy, it made sense, especially since we’d spent a lot of the episode dealing with her already burgeoning stress-induced breakdown. This quite rightfully tipped her over the edge.
Now, Cally’s been one of those important characters that haven’t necessarily had starring roles on the series. She bit the ear off a revolutionairy on the prison ship when he tried to rape her. She got trapped on Kobol with Hotshot, where she was the first to use the term “Motherfrakker,” which was since become a show staple. She was beaten by Tyrol when he was going crazy after finding out his last girlfriend was a cylon. She later married Tyrol and moved with him to New Caprica, whereupon it was her arrest and planned execution that drove a lot of the plot.

And now this. She knocks Tyrol unconscious, takes her baby, and goes to the airlock. At this point I was prepared for that. The direction of these scenes really showed us how Cally’s world had shrunk to encompass only that which she could experience inside her own head. Her husband is a cyclon. That means her baby is a cylon. Her world is over.

She sets the airlock so that it will space both her and little Nicky, who is of course, crying his little curly head off.

This was going to be brutal. And usually I would turn off a show that did something like this and never watch again (I have a thing about little kids dying because of my own family’s history. It’s why I can’t watch a lot of horror. Yes, I know about the Mist and will never forgive Stephen King) but this show earned it. It was supposed to be brutal.

And then Tory shows up, talks Cally down, takes the baby.

Throws Cally across the airlock and spaces her, while the confused child watches. We see Cally’s astounded, frozen face, as she floats away in the dark.

It could have been so much worse, but … whoa.

This is the first time that we have seen one of the final five cylons, those who are fundamentally different than the rest, do something despicable. But even so … Cally had just tried to murder her own child. And Tory is afraid of being exposed. So, there’s the argument that this was a strange kind of self-defense. Well, I could make that argument if Tory had not done it so coolly, so dispassionately. So, probably not self defense.

And since I brought up the women if refrigerators concept in the post about Bonnie Richmond, I should mention it here. Yes, we have two dead women. But for it to be a true fridging, two factors must be in evidence. The characters cannot die heroically. And they must be killed as part of someone else’s storyline, not in a culmination of their own. It helps if they’re killed by men, but that’s not necessary.

Tosh dies a hero. No question. She saves the world. She tries to save the man she loves (but does not deserve her!). So, no fridging here.

Cally … she’s not a hero, she is definitely a victim. But while she is reacting to events in her husband’s story, this is very much a part of her own. Cally has always struggled with living in this new world. This … this is Cally’s story, this is Cally’s end, not just an adjunct to Tyrol’s. So … no fridging here either.

But this was definitely the weekend of death. I have not watched the new Doctor Who yet, so please … no one tell me Martha got blasted into the sun or something (I know it’s impossible, since she was on Torchwood already). Still, at this rate, I’m expecting the Coen brothers to guest-direct a very special episode of 30 Rock where Kenneth the page is put through a wood chipper. Actually, if any show could pull that off, it would probably be 30 Rock. And Kenneth would probably survive it by the force of his sheer, plucky optimism.

Carry on ….

Mere Mortals

2008-04-13T19:32:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a new fiction project. I guess you'd call it a ficblog (I probably didn't make up that word, but I like it anyway). It combines my love of super-heroes, sci-fi, weird science, romance, adventure serials and, of course, the Apocalypse. And zombies.

Here's a snippet:

I decided that no matter what happened, I wasn’t going to close my eyes. There was a theory that at the moment of death, the retinas recorded the last image that slammed against the back of the eyeballs, and I wasn’t going to have that image be the dark insides of my eyelids. I mean, I know that whole theory is just debunked bullshit, but I liked the thought. And I was sure that if it did turn out to be actually true, one of Dan’s friends would be able to find some way to develop the film.
So I looked at Dr. Dillard, I stared at her face as she snarled and spit, animated by that green fire inside her eyes, the fire, I knew, that had burned out her soul.
I couple of low, shattering crunches exploded in from the side—gunshots?—and the hands that had held me released their pressure on my shoulders even as I felt a burst of heat at the back of my head.
I took the opportunity to fall back, but as I had been kicking out anyway, I ended up doing some awkward back-roll that was only barely more survivable than it was dignified, and the zombie doctor was on top of me.
I heard the shot again as the top of her head came off and erupted, a green supernova consuming her head. The rest of her body fell on top of me, splattering me with blood and other, pulpier, fluids.
What. The. Hell.

So, there it is. That's the opening of ep 2. I hope you'll check it out. Its updated twice a month, by the 1st and the 15th, but I've worked a little bit ahead. You can check it out by going to meremortals.wordpress.com

C.S.A. : The Confederate States of America

2008-04-05T17:12:00.000-07:00

The North loses the battle of Antietam, which denies Lincoln the victory he needs to make the abolition of slavery a central goal of the war between the states. This allows the south to keep the moral authority enough to swing Britain and France in on the confederate side. Gettysberg is lost. The South wins the war, destroys the north, and the United States of America ceases to exist, transforming into The Confederate States of America.

This is the plotline of the film C.S.A: The Confederate States of America. The film is a fictional documentary, purported to be a British film at first not allowed to be shown in the C.S.A. The film is presented as if it is being shown on CSA television, complete with fake advertisements aimed at a Confederate, slave-owning, audience. Products (some of which actually existed at one time) like “Sambo Oil,” “Darkie Toothpaste”, a COPS-like show about Runaway slaves called, appropriately enough, Runaway.

In this disturbing alternate history, Harriet Tubman attempted to sneak Abraham Lincoln into Canada and was hung for her trouble, as Lincoln was at first imprisoned, and then eventually exiled. Dying in 1905. Jefferson Davis ignores Robert E. Lee’s pleas for emancipation, and returns the practice of slavery to the north (at the supposed suggestion of his own slave), Frederick Douglass flees to Canada and leads the “Red Canadian” protest against slavery in the former U.S. Chinese immigrants are wrapped into the slavery program as they come to mine gold and build railroads. The CSA becomes involved in a decades-long war as they try to subjugate south America, instituting Jim Crow laws against Hispanics even if they do not enslave them. The CSA even enters WW2 on the side of Nazi Germany, though they do try to persuade Hitler just to make slaves of the Jews instead of exterminating them.

In short, this is a ghastly vision of a history in which U.S. Cultural development is stunted and Canada takes the US’s place in world popular culture. Slavery still exists in the modern day. It is all presented as if it’s a Ken Burns documentary. Some of this works really well, especially the parts that are interviews with history scholars and archived footage. The parts that are reproductions of supposed cultural works, such as plays and 1940’s movies, are the real weaknesses, so poorly written and performed as to breakbelievability a little. This is a forgivable sin, however, as it may be part of the point.

This film is fascinating, revealing a world that might have been. I’m not sure if all parts of the history hold up, but it certainly seems plausible. It’s also a helpful reminder of how some attitudes can become ingrained in a culture. Any history buff, anyone interested in how diversity issues can play out in a culture, should see this film, and shudder at a world that could have existed.

CSA is available on DVD, and often replays on IFC. It was produced by Spike Lee and directed by Kevin Wilmott.

The Return of Battlestar Galactica

2008-04-05T08:07:00.000-07:00

Battlestar Galactica is back.

Life is worth living again (at least for 10 weeks).

Ok, no, that’s over-stating it, but watching the show last night, it did seem like something vital to our cultural landscape had been returned. Over the past 3 seasons, this show has just hit on so many levels. It’s probably one of the first successful revamps to overcome fanboy handwringing by saying “fuck-all” to expectations, establishing its own voice, and becoming a work superior not only to its earlier incarnation, but to almost everything else out there right now. It’s navigating a tricky, heartbreaking storyline, running full-on into narrative land-mines and somehow surviving them. The End of the World! Everything you know is wrong! Reboot character gender/ethnicity switch! Plucky band of rebels vs. an overwhelming superior force! Character returns from the dead! We are not the people we thought we were! Bob Dylan songs in space (ok, this one may not be a common trope, but it was definitely a mine in the field)! It was all there, and all handled with maturity, brutal honesty, and grace.

Season four finds our “ragtag fleet” of apocalypse survivors facing not only a fleet of enemy battleships but more dangerously, a fatal confusion as to what to do next. It begins moments after Starbuck’s return. She’s been to Earth, and wants to lead the rest of them there. By leaving Starbuck, ultimately, just as confused about how she’s returned as the rest of the cast, the writers expand this story, adding a new layer to Starbuck. They make her an oracle. She knows the way to go (she thinks) but only because she can somehow feel where they’re going wrong. But because she can’t explain what happened to her, no one trusts her. She becomes Cassandra, the prophetess of Troy, cursed to see the future but not to be believed. Of course, Starbuck is a classic screw-up character, so she’s going to take everything to the extreme, and she does go to extremes to make the leadership listen to her at the end of this ep, which leaves her face to face (well, gun to face) with a major character whom, early in the series, she saw as a mentor.

And while Starbuck becomes an unlikely Cassandra, Gauis Baltar, fresh off of his acquittal, is trying to turn himself into a false prophet. The problem is, he may actually have a connection to the one true God. And as he falls into despair, and literally offers up his life in exchange for another (the degree of his sincerity is probably up for interpretation), he may actually be transforming, Siddhartha-like, into something he has never been. An honest man. Purely by accident, of course.

And the newly revealed final four cylons? No one had more importance to the New Caprica resistance that these four. Where do they go from here? Those are the questions they are asking themselves. But for now, Tigh provides the answer. They are who they have always been. New revelations change nothing. There’s a comforting philosophy there: we are who we choose to be. Genetics, race, even experiences, are nothing compared to personal choices. And yes, we’ve seen this storyline before in Caprica-Sharon who became fell in love wit Helo, betrayed her people, and became Galactica’s Athena, goddess of wisdom and war. Who these four become is still unclear. There is a possibility for betrayal.
We’ve been promised an honest, clear-eyed, brutal end to this series. Ten episodes this spring, ten next spring, and that’s it. It’s clear the writers and producers have the end in sight, and the freedom to tell story they need to tell. Not many shows get this chance. And no matter what happens, Battlestar Galactica has earned the right to go where it’s going to go. .

When good shows go bad: Beauty and the Geek!

2008-03-28T07:46:00.000-07:00

All right, show. I won't un-season pass you yet, but it was this close.

If they hadn't done away with Beauty vs. the Geek and paired the girls and guys up, this would have been my last episode. It was just so bad. We get the vs dynamic in real life, why did we need it on this show, who's strength is taking two people from very different worlds, pairing them up, and helping them grow together. That's the show I think we all signed up for.

Watching the girls rub up against the guys in a hot tub so they could "weaken their enemies?" Ugh. The school-yard pick they used to form the teams (the girls picking, of course, because they won the challenge.) Also, ugh.

There certainly have been some mean-spirited contestants on this show before, but the show itself has never been mean. This season, it was.

But maybe that part is over now. Of course, Jillian, my favorite Beauty is gone, because of the really dumb third-challenge twist. But so is Amber, the nastiest Beauty since Season Three's Cece (still the worst reality show contestant of all time. When your partner throws the entire competition just so you don't win? It's a sign, kiddo).

But last night did have that adorable scene of Leticia waiting for Matt to return from the hospital alone on the stairs. And Amber feeling really, genuinely guilty for having accidentally breaking his shoulder during a game of flag football.

Maybe it'll return to form from here.

But it's still on probation.

Our Long National Nightmare is Over: Monica Seles off Dancing with the Stars

2008-03-26T09:35:00.000-07:00

I kid, I kid. Kind of. I really felt bad about it, but watching poor Monica Seles lurch across the stage, dragged, propped up, kept in position by her unfortunate partner, Jonathan, was just not fun. I'm sorry, Monica. I know this was your chance to be a princess, but you really, really just ... and she seemed so nice, and was trying to hard, I couldn't even enjoy making fun of her.

Now that I've said that, I have to admit that if I were on Dancing with the Stars, my own experience would be much the same. I'm sure my partner, Kym (because that's my partner in the Dancing with the Stars show in my head) would have to put me on roller skates and drag me around the floor and pretend that roller disco was a ballroom category no matter what Len said about it. So I can relate. And really, I don't want to relate when I watch this show. I want celebrities to be either 1) good, or 2) a mockable train wreck. Monica certainly was a train wreck. But I felt bad mocking her.

So, hopefully, she can throw herself some princess parties and move on with her life. Penn, now, I was actually surprised to see go because he has a sizable fan base. And he was mockable. He seemed to be inviting it, so ... I guess I'm not too sad, but I was hoping it would be Cristian, fo whom I must ask the question, does anyone else think this guy is an asshole? Just me? Ok.

In our house, we're rooting for Kristi (of course), Marlbe, and Jason. Everyone else I'm meh on. Except for Marissa, who I think may be our next Monica. Right now her pep makes her entertaining (and yes, a little bit mockable) but she's showing signs of becoming pathetic in the classic sense of inviting pathos and that MUST. NOT. BE.

Priscilla scares me. She's like the botoxed bride of frankensteing, and there's something weird about her affect, like she's drugged up or something. I can't quite put my finger on it. But I am afraid.

Different Rules: Is Big Love the most moral series on television?

2008-03-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

We don’t have HBO at our house, so I didn’t discover this series when it originally aired. I’d heard about it. At first the concept seemed like something that would appeal to me only slightly more than the cake decorating shows our local religious broadcaster would show in the early afternoons while I was growing up. Like most people, I found the whole idea of polygamy distasteful. I couldn’t imagine an entire TV series around the concept. Or, well, I could imagine it, and it was in my head like some mutant hybrid of Desperate Housewives and Last Man Standing. Not for me.

But then I started hearing about how good it was, how seriously it took the concept, how well-written and well-acted the characters. And then there was the presence of Amanda Seyfried, the late, lamented Lily Cane from late, lamented Veronica Mars. I was intrigued. So one weekend when I was home alone and looking for something to kill the boredom, I rented the first season DVD set. And then I knew exactly what they meant by the phrase Big Love.

The genius of this series is that it takes a concept most people are immediately repulsed by, and shows you the human and emotional layers underpinning it. You come to understand exactly how people can come to live this way, and in this story you find a connection with people who are in the middle of society, but are not part of that society. In its own way, and despite the immediate reaction most people have to its subject matter, Big Love may be the most moral series on television.

The concept of personal and sexual morality is not one given much real examination these days. A lot of series pay lip service to it, but that’s usually just so characters can feel bad as they’re breaking their own rules, followed usually by a bender where they feel so, so bad about what they’ve done before they go back to the way things were before. Rarely do we see a cast of characters who are so interesting because they stand up and resist, because they fight for what they believe, and fight as well to live up to it.

And that’s where the concept of polygamy becomes vital, because for that to really be examined, you have to take the story out of the realm of the familiar. These are people who live my different rules, but they are rules, and they are consistent, and seeing how they struggle can shed light on our own moral struggles. This might also be one of the best depictions of a family of faith I’ve ever seen. How many times have you seen the main characters in a modern series, when conflicted, or lost, or scared, or feeling gulty, literally getting down on their knees to pray for guidance? And receiving it. Most of the time this kind of thing is treated as a joke.

Yeah, there’s sex on this show. But it’s not casual and indiscriminate, It has consequences. And a context. And we may see our main family “living the principle” in a way that is moral, but we see the dark side of this practice as well. We see the compounds and cult leaders where young girls are made to marry 80-year-old men. We see the dichotomy that exists in this world. We see just how weird and twisted it can get. And in the second season, we feel for Bill, our main character, as he tries to have things both ways. He tries to “live the principle” but also walk in the mainstream world. And though he comes to some sort of stalemate with the forces against him, it is obviously something very temporary, and likely to have horrific consequences down the road.
I really do think this is the more moral show on TV right now. And I can’t wait to see how things work out for everyone next season, but I’m almost afraid of it too, because there’s some real badness on the horizon, I have a feeling, and I don’t want to see any of these people go down hard.

Go not gently into that good fridge: R.I.P. Bonnie Richmond

2008-03-06T13:35:00.000-08:00

OK, I take back everything bad I said about Jericho. The last to episodes have been fantastic, as a truly evil enemy has reared its head, and the citizens of our plucky, home-spun little town has started to make the beginnings of a … dare I saw it … an insurgency. So, good job Jericho (and thanks for giving Heather a bigger role after distressingly leaving her out of the 2nd episode.

The real reason for this post though was to comment on the murder of Jericho’s resident little sister, Bonnie Richmond. My first reaction was … yikes…why her. But it made perfect sense, and the way it was done was first class. While the women in refrigerators charge is often invoked when a female character meets her death, I do not believe this is a case of a fridging.

Fridging occurs when a (usually)female character is offed to have some sort of effect on a male character, usually the protagonist. It is usually brutal, as this was, and is often presented in a sexualized way (though not always). Though they may have killed off Bonnie Richmond in a spectacular and ugly manner, she was not shoved in the fridge. In fact, Bonnie was given an exit befitting most male protagonists. Girls, usually young girls, don’t usually go out this way in things that aren’t written by Joss Whedon or Gail Simone. Her gender does give us added pathos, but as much of that comes from the fact that she was deaf. And I had a feeling she was a goner when they started leaning heavily on the “I’m going to Cheyenne to become a relief worker” plotline.

Bonnie died in a hail of bullets, wielding a shotgun in defense of her new big sis Mimi, who’d uncovered some “discrepancies” in the books of the military contractors given control of the town in post-wasteland America. She was fierce and brave and protective and became a serious threat to the Blackwater contracters storming her house. Yes, I mean “Ravenwood.”

And Jericho becomes the show it could be, its metaphor perhaps a little too on the nose, but intact and important. Bonnie’s death affects everyone, not just her big brother. (I had a feeling she was a goner when they started leaning heavily on the “I’m going to Cheyenne to become a relief worker” plotline.

Jericho has three episodes left. Watch them. They’re probably won’t be more, but now I know the creators can handle this.
And goodbye Bonnie. Your friends and family are going to nail someone’s ass to the wall.

5 things I'm obsessed with right now.

2008-03-06T10:32:00.000-08:00

Chips ahoy candy bites (chocolate chip cookie variety) We’re doing the weight watchers points thing at my house, so chocolate is mostly off the menu. As are starbucks mochas and dark chocolate m&m’s. I am dying. I never realized how much candy I was popping or how much I was addicted to it until I had to write down the points of it and not go over freaking 25 (fortunately, exercise allows me to eat more). But these little 100-calorie snack packs are saving my life, keeping me from stopping at whatever convenience store I’m passing and diving into a full-on cherry coke and candy bar snack binge. Well, usually.

The Wait, Wait! Don’t tell me! Podcast. This NPR news quiz is a riot, sparing no one (not even Barack Obama!), taking no prisoners, and making passers-by look at me funny while I break-out laughing while I’m on my hikes through Sundial Bridge park. Listening to newsman Cark Cassell channel celebutards Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears during the “who’s Carl this time?” segment has been the only thing getting me through some really, really bad days. It’s available on their web site or you can get it through itunes as well. That’s what I do, since I’m lazy.

SpongeBob SquarePants Edition of Life. This game plays quickly, and has a plot. I can pay attention to it. Yes, you actually play Spongebob’s life, and who wouldn’t want that?
You choose between going to college (which allows you to become a fry cook) and going straight to work (which allows you to become an ince cream vendor for less money). You don’t get married, but you do adopt a pet. And watch out for the expense card. You don’t want to get stuck with the bill for Plankton’s latest plot.

Sheryl Crow’s Detours album. Yeah, she got sunny and treakly there for a while but a bout with cancer and a break-up with Lance Armstrong has brought her back to us. Her adoption of son Wyatt has preserved her wit as she writes and sings again about politics, love, loss, and above all else, hope. God Bless this Mess takes a listless look at modern American life and Out of Our Heads gives a prescription for the problems of the world. The music is intricate and stripped down to its acoustic roots at the same time, the lyrics harsh and loving, her voice raw and weathered, the way it was on her first three albums. It’s a great album. If only Melissa Etheridge’s post-cancer album had been as successful.

Barack Obama. Yes, I’m on board. I did not drink any kool-aid. I know he’s not the second coming, but he’s the first politician who’s come along in a long time that makes me think the system could still be changed from the inside. I know he’s inexperienced, but look where experience has gotten us. Obama 08!

Hey, Random's in the name: The Dancing with the Stars Season 6 cast.

2008-03-02T09:43:00.000-08:00

OK, the only thing I will say about this show in general is that I didn’t really want to start watching it, but my wife did, and I at first refused but over the course of Season 4 got sucked in. I was a big Apolo-Julianne Fan (thought Joey and Laila were awesome as well). I also thought that Scary Spice was robbed last season. ROBBED!

That said, I watch it because it is often on the level of an interesting train wreck. And I love, looove, love it when the judges are mean to them. And Tom Bergeron is often worth the time all by himself. I’ve been a big TB fan ever since he was on that weird Fox morning news show in the early 90’s. I can’t remember the name, but I think it involved puppets in some form or another. I may be delusional. Aside: is there a more worthless TV personality than Samatha Harris? Why is she even there?

I am sad to admit that we did watch that horrible Dance War show with Bruno and Carrie Ann. Seriously, it was almost as bad as Crowned. The only highlight was during the finale, when Kenny Mayne returned with Dance Center to name the next cast. (Kenny Mayne is teh awesome.!)

My reaction? I was underwhelmed. But that may be because I was really, really hoping that Donny Osmond was going to follow in the footsteps of his sister. Have you SEEN the White and Nerdy video? That would have been spectacular. But no.

Most of the people actually on the show? Meh. There could be something interesting happen, but the cast itself is actually kind of blah. I do have a few thoughts on the teams, however.

They are obviously paring Julianne Hough with Adam Carolla in an attempt to break her streak. Either that, or they have so much confidence in her skills that they think she cand pull out another win. Maybe it’s a final level boss scenario? This will be her greatest challenge. Whatever. She’s still off-the-scale hot and nothing Adam can do will take that away from us. Actually, that's not true, is it? f he screws up and gets her eliminated, she'll be off the show. Someone replace Adam Carolla with a dancing robot right now!

Can I be forgiven for the fact that when I saw the name Monica Seles I immediately thought about how her stab wound was going to affect things? And then I wondered if she was going to grunt every time she completed an intricate move. That could mess up the timing. I was also really hoping they were going to pair her with Maks, but he isn’t even on the show this year, which is a shame. I liked his attitude.

Shannon Elizabeth and Derek Hough? It’s just going to be a pretty-off, isn’t it? Maybe she was the only one who’d make him look like a real, grown-up boy, since Jennie Garth certainly couldn’t do it.

After the Wayne Newton Fiasco, producers make it up to Cheryl Burke by giving her a hottie latin actor. This could backfire. See also : Albert Reed.

They’ve paired Karina with another Mario. Someone has a sense of humor.

Penn Gillette gets Kym, who’s always solid but never makes it all the way. I don’t think it’s been her. I mean, she took Joey to the finale. For some reason, however, I think Penn is going to be this year’s so-awful-it’s-entertaining contestant and will, thus, make it pretty far. He’s also got a fan base. See also: Billy Ray Cyrus.

Then we have Mrs. Elvis, herself. I don’t even know how to react to this one. She’s been off the radar for so long that I don’t know if there’s a fan base to vote for her. The upshot is that the fan base is likely to be old, and a lot of the people who watch this show are old (yes, all right, case in point) so that may work in her favor. It’s probably what kept Jane Seymour in the competition way, waay, waaay past the time she should gave gone (to be fair, a dead mom and food poisoning played a role here as well). So, Priscilla probably needs to off one of her relatives or have a stroke halfway through the competition just to play it safe.

Marlee Matlin might be a spoiler. She may be deaf, but has danced before. Remember her as The Dancing Bandit on Picket Fences? I know deaf people can feel music even if they can't hear it (thanks, very special episode of Quantum Leap!) so she'll be better than people assume. Her partner is new to the show, I think, so who knows what will happen there. Maks would have been awesome.

I don’t even have opinions on the rest of the cast, really. Jason Taylor could be a contender, as could Broadway’s Tracy Turnblad, who may be a sentimental favorite in our house depending on the personality. My wife is geeking out over Kristi Yamaguchi (don’t ask) but really …. I really wish Donny Osmond would have signed on.

And Steve Fucking Guttenberg? Yikes. I haven’t even been able to look at pictures of him since he played the child-molesting mayor on Veronica Mars. Derek Hough better watch out backstage.

Jericho Season 2

2008-02-23T09:06:00.000-08:00

Jericho Season 2
Tuesday, 10:00 p.m. EST
starring: Skeet Ulrich, Ashley Scott, Kenneth
Mitchell, Brad Beyer, Alicia Coppola, Michael Gaston, Sprague Grayden, Esai Morales

You know, I’m always behind a fan-led rebellion against the corporate America that cancels a TV show. And when that campaign actually works? Awesome. Fans saved Jericho by sending tons and tons of nuts to CBS corporate offices, leading them to renew the show for seven episodes to, at least, wrap up the story. Go fans! However, sometimes when this happens, the show you’ve saved is Jericho. And that’s not always a good thing.

Jericho started off weakly last season. I mean, for a show about a nuclear attack that destroys the U.S., leaving a small Kansas town to fend for itself against enemies internal and external, it was astonishingly meh. The set up was fantastic. I loves me a good apocalypse story, and by focusing on the little people just trying to survive and make their way in a brand new world … what could possibly go wrong?

Well, for starters, they cast Skeet Ulrich as the lead character. Now, it's not that he’s spectacularly bad, he’s just … kind of there. No personality. Charisma-free, if you will. But not so charisma free that, Keanu-like, it actually goes out the other side and becomes actual charisma. Then, they saddled this prodigal-son character type with a ridiculous back-story involving the middle-east, an obvious Blackwater stand-in, and a sad-sack partner he helped get killed. Yawn. And let’s not even get into Lennie James as Robert “I was a cop in St. Louis” Hawkins.

The single worst move they made, however, was framing the main character’s romantic prospects around so-charisma-free-she-comes-keanu-like-out-the-other-side-and-then-dives-back-in-to-sucking again Ashley Scott character. Instant hate by almost everyone. It was so bad that when Ulrich had more obvious chemistry with Sprague Grayden’s Heather they made a ridiculous move to take her off-screen as if we would be so desparate for romance we would accept Ulrich and Scott together at the end of the season. It’s basically Smallville’s Lana problem.

But anyway, toward the end of the season actual plot developed, and the show allowed some characters with actual personality to assume center stage (Hi, Stanley and Mimi) and killed off some of the more annoying (you are not missed, April). Unfortunately, Ashley Scott’s Emily is still alive. They all but redeemed themselves when, as one of the final images of Season One, they showed us Heather looking at a new flag of the Country, promising intrigue to come.

So, Season Two is finally here, and I still have a burning question: shouldn’t the apocalypse be more exciting than this?

What works: There are nuggets here of the potential the series has always shown. The plot is moving along as we’re getting more information about the new nation forming out of the west. The series seems to be taking on more of an epic feel. This could be both good and bad.

The addition of Esai Morales as the military leader is promising, as is the attention paid to Stanley and Mimi. And the first episode feature Heather in a prominent role which seems like it will be important later. There are a lot of pieces here that could really work.

What doesn’t: We still have Emily around. And Ulrich is still our lead. Heather is absent from the second episode, which is not promising at all. I can’t even be intrigued anymore when Hawkins talks about the bomb he has in his basement. We’re supposed to take as fact that this new government is eeeevil when we’re shown no eamples of them being, actually, evil. Misguided and heavy-handed? Sure? Shifty? You bet? They have apparently commisioned some evile tetbooks, and they are getting ready to re-write the constitution. These things are defenitely not good, but if they’re the big bad, they’re not there yet. So, once again… the apocalypse = boring. That shit is not right.

Bottom line: I’ll watch this season, and post here if it gets better, but for now … yes, the apocalypse really should be more exciting than this.

The Spiderwick Chronicles

2008-02-18T09:41:00.000-08:00

The Spiderwick Chronicles

Paramount Pictures, PG

written by: Holly Black, Tony Diterlizzi, Karey Kirkpatrick

directed by: Mark Waters

starring: Freddie Highmore, Sarah Bolger, Mary-Louise Parker, David Strathairn, Martin Short, Nick Nolte, Seth Rogen, Andrew McCarthy

When you’re the parent of a third-grader with ADHD you come to appreciate books like The Spiderwick Chronicles by Tony Diterlizzi and Holly Black. Because of the attention issues, she has to read a lot just to maintain herself at grade level. And at the third grade level (especially when you have to read book that have special “AR tests,” the selection can be a little disappointing. And since we end up reading a lot of them together, I love it when we find a series of books that doesn’t bore me as well as her. She’s not ready for Harry Potter yet, so The Spiderwick Chronicles was a godsend (Thanks, Mrs. Evans for suggesting them!). They’re well-written, the characters are interesting and conflicted, and the adults, while clueless for part of the plot, do NOT act like idiots just so the kids heroes can be … well, kid heroes. Plus, as the father of a daughter, I appreciate it when we run across girl heroes that exhibit brains and brawn, and you’d have a hard time finding a better girl hero than Mallory Grace (but more on that later). Actually, you’d have a hard time finding a better hero than Mallory Grace, regardless of gender. That’s refreshing.

My son, also, fell in love with story. He can’t read yet, but he loved the pictures, and would sit while we read aloud. When he first started seeing commercials for this movies, he was probably the most excited of all of us. I was a little afraid, actually. Most of the time movies get these things wrong. I know things need to change. For a five-book series, plot must be compressed to fit into a two-hour movie. The Bridge to Terabithia and the Harry Potter movies mostly got these things right. The Seeker (from the Dark is Rising Books) pissed all over the concept and made a lot of fans really mad. Where would Spiderwick fall on this line?

What works: Nearly everything. This is a great film, not just a great kids movie. If you like kids adventure films (by that I mean adventure films with kids as the main characters. Think Goonies) you’ll love this movie. It’s genuinely scary in places, the danger is real, and the kids come to life almost directly from the pages of the book. I was a little worried when I saw that Freddy Highmore had been cast as the Grace twins. The kid is very British and these kids are very American and, frankly, Highmore seems almost like a lazy casting choice since he’s played a lot of major kid roles lately. What I forgot was that he gets these parts because he’s good. With one exception, his performance was flawless. The two characters he plays seem like two separate people. I found myself believing they’d discovered a heretofore unknown Highmore twin. The best performance, though, was by Irish actress Sarah Bolger as Mallory. She was perfect. Sarcastic, smart, and gutsy. The greatest moment in the movie was when she was whacking at invisible (to her, anyway) goblins and her brother throws her the stone ring that will allow her to see. The cinematography there was gorgeous, the moment perfect. I would even say that I liked Bolger’s Mallory even more than Emma Watson’s Hermione Granger. Yes, I said it. It’s probably the sword.

The CGI is pretty good. There are just a very few moments when you are really aware of the fact that it is, indeed CGI. Most of there involve the Griffin. What is does well is make what is essentially a collection of dandelion fluff seem actually scary. The characters that are mostly CGI, like the villain, Mulgarath, and Hogsqueal, interact well with the human players.

This was a series of books with a lot of heart, about a family in crisis trying to find a way to stick together as they put together a new life for themselves. That remains the core of this movie.

What doesn’t: I am someone who appreciates movies who have great, iconic scores. This could have been one of them, but the score, by the usually excellent James Horner, just seems kind of bland. It provides atmosphere, but there is no real memorable moment here. And my one complaint about Highmore … he does affect an American accent pretty well, but there are times that it seems like just that. An affected accent. I got used to it. Bolger has no such problems.

Bottom line: This is a wonderful film I’m sure we’ll be getting on DVD the day it comes out. Much, much better than recent films like The Golden Compass and The Seeker. Plus, it’s got the trailer for the new Indiana Jones movie at the beginning, so you really can’t lose.

newuniversal: Everything went White

2008-02-16T08:57:00.000-08:00

newuniversal: Everything went White

by Warren Ellis and Salvador Larocca

Marvel Comics $19.99

I was thirteen years old in 1986, when Marvel Comics decided to celebrate their twenty-fifth anniversary by creating an entire new Universe. Seriously, that’s what they called it, The New Universe, and it was designed to be the world outside you window. But a world that suddenly, had people developing super-powers (not necessarily outside your window, but you get the point). Sound like a familiar concept? It’s almost the exact concept of the tv series heroes, done twenty years (and, some would say, more creatively successfully) earlier. The New Universe was not destined for long-termed success. The first batch of titles was cancelled a year in. The rest made it another year and a half, but most people agreed there were some damn good stories in their, told by creators at the top of their game. And it was a world, refreshingly, with no reset button. When the most actual “super-heroic” of the characters accidentally blew up his home town of Pittsburg (not to mention himself), no one came along and fixed it. Instead, the event propelled the New Univers into a war between governments using civilian, super-powered, pawns. It really did see the situation to a believable (if not a very satisfying) conclusion.
So, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of this event, in 2006 Marvel assigned brilliant, gonzo writer of conceptual and super-heroic science fiction, Warren Ellis, to reboot the property. To assist, they gave him the services of fan favorite artist Salvador LaRocca. Instead of an entire line of inter-related titles, the New Universe was reborn as one book, newuniversal, and the entire story will be told in one title. The first story arc has been collected as the hardcover Everything Went White.

Story: As he usually does, Warren Ellis has delivered in rethinking the concept of the New Universe. In the original version, there was an explosion in the sky of white light, which gave a couple of hundred people world-wide super-powers. In this new version, Ellis has re-thought what that “white event” was and come up with an explanation that has real implications for the future of the planet, tying it in with quantum mechanics and multiple-worlds theories. Ellis loves his gonzo science (as do I) and this provides a layer to the story that was absent in the original. He also culls the cast down a bit too. There are four super-humans the white event has awakened, and each has his or her own specific purpose.

As usual, Ellis creates interesting, believable characters and writes dialogue that accomplishes expositional tasks but also sounds like something that people would actually say, peppered with humor and pathos throughout. He avoids using some of his stock characters (no chain-smoking, sarcastic, bitter Brit investigator here. yet.) This first volume doesn’t delve as deeply into character as some would like, but this is clearly a story working off of the EVENT structure, and that takes precedence. There are some nice bits, though.

This is but the first volume, and as such, the ending is a little weak. It does not so much end as it does stop. This would not be so alarming except that Ellis and Marvel been coy about when and where the story will continue. It has been announced that the series will return early in 2008, but so far it has not yet appeared. I am invested enough in the story at this point that I almost want to seek out the actual issues as they come out. (Don’t worry honey, I know that’s how it all starts …)

Art: Salvador Larroca’s work is gorgeous here. In some places it is almost photo-realistic. It succeeds in being both a fantastic place and “the world outside your window.” His character work is particularly strong. But there is one thing about the piece that some people will find distracting, at that’s his obvious modeling of certain characters on famous people, at least in their appearance. Basically, we have Josh Hollaway (Sawyer from Lost) as Oklahoma football player Ken Connell; A red-haired, green-eyed Angelina Jolie as robotics expert Jenny Swann; Johnyy Depp (circa his Ninth Gate days) as historian Len Carson; James Cromwell as government agent Phillip Voight; and, bizarrely, some weird hybrid of Hillary Clinton and Dr. Laura as the president. This practice of “spot the reference” can distract a little from the story. Some people like it, others don’t. I’m on the fence.

Bottom line: A promising start to a great story. I just hope it continues. It certainly does more with the concept than Heroes ever thought of doing.

Torchwood Season 2

2008-02-07T14:14:00.000-08:00

Torchwood

BBC America Saturdays 9:00 e.s.t.

starring: John Barrowman, Eve Miles, Burn Gorman, Naoko Mori, Gareth David-Lloyd

Whenever I saw the name Torchwood on my DVR’s now playing list last fall, it would be an immediate watch now. You know how it is, there are some shows you are excited about, but might save until a few episodes pile up to enjoy in one sitting. Lost is like that for me. Others, you give a little “ugh” and watch because you’ve already gotten involved in a series, but at a certain point it becomes a chore before you man up and just delete the damn thing for your season pass list. Others, you sit and watch immediately because you just can’t wait. Sometimes, these are the very shows you’re embarrassed to admit you watch. Such was the case with me and Torchwood.

Let me be clear, I loved this show. It’s basically a british version of the X-files, centering around a team assembled and led by a Doctor Who supporting character, the immortal time agent Captain Jack Harkness. They investigate the weird and the secret, the occult and the just plain wrong, and they think they do it with panache and style (your mileage may vary). In its first season, Torchwood worked better as an idea of a tv show that it did as an actual tv show. The episodes were wildly uneven in quality with some of them, like Small Worlds, which reimagined a fairly malevolent fairy mythology and They Keep killing Suzie, which played with the unfortunate consequences of a resurrection on the higher end of the quality spectrum and others, like Cyberwoman and Combat taking genre tropes and stringing them in Christmas lights. The season ended on a mixed note, with the team fighting a breakdown of the time/space vortex in Cardiff and a abysmally literal interpretation of the devil coming to town to make trouble.

The main problem the show had was that it thought it was groundbreaking, and kept reminding of us how groundbreaking it was, especially in the area of sexuality. It’s creators nonchalantly threw out comments like “Oh, everyone’s bi on Torchwood” and every single character had a same-sex encounter, even if it was only hinted at. All this is fine, and it would be a progressive approach to the issue is some of it didn’t come across so gimmicky, so “oh, look what we’re getting away with now,” that it actually cheapened the issue.

Still, I loved every minute of it. What can I say, some shows just push the right buttons.

Season two just started on BBC America. The first two episodes added Buffy alum James Marsters to the supporting cast as a rogue time agent who once had a relationship with Captain Jack. The second started what looked to be a season-long arc about a secret alien invasion, which could have ended up like the worst of the obtuse X-Files mysteries but actually developed the plot while leaving it open for more.

What works: These first two episodes are on par with the strongest episodes of Season one. Of the two, I preferred the second, in its paranoia-inducing concept of finding out that you are not who you think you are. The first, with Marsters, would have been a disaster if not for Marsters’ performace, as it’s basically a macguffin hunt that turns out, predictably, to have been an exercise in misdirection. The actors seem to have settled in, the writing is more assured. The show seems to have found its tone, combining camp and suspense, in a way that it rarely did in season one. The characters seem more natural too. When Captain Jack and Captain Jon hart make out while busting apart a Cardiff bar, it actually seems character driven, and not just a stunt.

What doesn’t: I’m still not a great fan of Burn Gorman’s Dr. Owen Harper, and Eve Miles’ Gwen grates at times, as does her boyfriend, who I’d really hoped was dead during the finale. The villains are stronger as well, but this is still Torchwod’s weakest aspect.

Bottom line: Better than it was, but still by no means perfect. Still, I probably love it more because of its imperfections.

Big Boned by Meg Cabot

2008-02-02T11:12:00.000-08:00

Big Boned by Meg Cabot
Avooks. $13.95

I don’t know how to put this, really, but I sort of accidentally fell in love with a chick-lit book series. Seriously, I didn’t mean for it to happen. I picked up the first book Size 12 is not Fat for my wife for Christmas last year (we have a longstanding habit of making books a significant part of our Christmas purchases for each other. What?) because she loves mysteries, had just come off a Patricia Cornwell binge and was looking for something a little lighter to read. I saw this, read the back cover description, which entailed a plus size former teen pop star solving mysteries at a dorm in New York and thought “hey, this might work for her.” I didn’t even mention her Spice Girls obsession.
So, she read it a loved it and couldn’t stop cackling while she read it. It was intrigued. She said I’d probably enjoy it but understood if I wasn’t secure enough to be seen reading it. That was a challenge, so I read it too. And fell in love.

The premise is this: Heather Wells was a teen pop sensation who lost her recording contract because she insisted she be allowed to write her own songs. She also gained a bit of weight after her stage days, and her fiancée, another teen pop sensation and son of the record company’s owner, broke up with her. She entered a spiral of depression but got her life back together, decided to go back to school, took a job as an assistant residence director of a dorm, and moved in with her former fiancee’s hunky private eye brother, purely as his roommate. Yes, of course, she’s secretly in love with him.

Along the way, she starts solving mysteries, because the dorm she works at is nicknamed “death dorm” because of the number of people who tend to die in unfortunate ways. Big Boned is the third, and for now final, book in the series. In it, Heather has to solve the murder of her boss (the position of Heather’s boss is a little like this series version of Harry Potter’s defense against the dark arts teacher), a man no one liked, finds herself on the list of suspects, and has to navigate her way through a student labor strike. Also, decide how she wants to respond to the question her new boyfriend, a vegan, fitness-obsessed math processor, wants to ask her.

What works: As in the other book in the series, its strongest aspect is character and dialogue. That’s what makes these books so enjoyable. Heather is snarky, funny, and very relatable, even to someone like me who could only be more outside the target audience if I was a marine or a lumberjack (I’m neither, by the way). And anyone who’s ever worked in an organization that’s gone over to a management fad will find a lot to laugh at here. Some earlier characters come back here and become more important, and several relationships change and/or are deepened in some way. The ending is a great payoff for some of the “shippers” in the audience, but I don’t want to be any less cryptic than that.

What doesn’t: Well, it’s not the kind of book that either elevates or transcends it genre. It’s a light chick-lit mystery and it’s not trying to be anything but. The mystery plots of these books also tend to be sort of afterthoughts, so hard-core mystery lovers are not going to be satisfied.

Bottom line: Like I said, it’s a lot of fun, especially if you need a break between heavier books. And if you can dislike Heather Wells as a character, I probably don’t want to know you (see also: Ugly Betty).

Ghost Hunters International

2008-01-25T08:47:00.000-08:00

Ghost Hunters International
Sci Fi Channel Wednesdays 9:00 EST
starring: Robb Demarest, Andy Andrews, Brian Harnois, Donna LaCroix, Barry Fitzgerald, Shannon Sylvia.

I’m starting this one off with another confession. I kind of believe in ghosts. There. I said it. It should come as no surprise. I grew up in the buckle of the bible belt, where every misfortune and unexplained event was regarded as evidence of demonic activity, especially after the Frank Peretti books became popular (that man has a lot to answer for). We all said we didn’t believe in ghosts, per se, but … we really did, at least a little. These days I can admit it. I don’t believe in them as much as some people do. I like to think of it as keeping an open mind, but yeah … I believe, at least a little. But it’s probably only because I really, really hope it’s all true.

So, recently my wife and I have become addicted to Sci Fi’s paranormal reality series, Ghost Hunters. Yeah, I know. It’s just always been a bit of goofy fun. We particularly enjoy figuring out the real-world causes for the “hauntings” before the investigators do. And on those rare occasions when they do find actual paranormal activity? Awesome! Yes, I kno it could all easily be faked. But if you’re going to enjoy a show like this, you just have to go along with the fantasy. Otherwise, what’s the point? Please know that I in no way see this is a serious documentary show. It’s just for fun.

Apparently getting a good response from those episodes of Ghost Hunters that went to Europe, Sci Fi commissioned this spin-off series, wherein a team of investigators made up of some veterans, some friends, and at least one newbie go to Europe to investigate ancient haunted places.

What works: The European setting brings a new epic, mythic feel to the proceedings that just is not possible in the U.S. The teams walks through castles and plazas and monasteries haunted by history, let alone by ghosts. That’s this spin-off’s strongest advantage over its parent show. Here, we’re looking for victims of the plague, of bloody torture, or religious persecutions and actual dead kings, not just 70’s suicide victims, civil war soldiers, and cowboys (not that those aren’t cool too). From a story perspective, this is gold. Looking for a ghost in an actual medieval torture chamber (with most of the equipment still intact)? Classic.

What doesn’t work: This show lacks the primary strength of Ghost Hunters, and that’s the presence of lead investigators Jason and Grant, as well as Tech Manager Steve. In their place, we have Robb, apparently a veteran who’s worked in the Paranormal Society’s Florida branch; Andy, a veteran of the US team; and Brian, Steve’s right-hand man in the tech department. Grant and Jason bring a friendly, skeptical, jokey vibe to the proceedings and have a parental chemistry with their team that is the result of a long bond. That atmosphere is completely absent here. Robb and Andy are all right as investigators, but clearly do not have that bond, and the gentle humor is almost completel absent. Brian continues his role as lovable doofus of the group. Everyone needs one of those, but without his mentors, its hard to take him seriously as an investigator or as any kind of authority figure.

Donna, US case manager, is here too, and she is fine, I guess, but fails to impress as she’s always been one of the more gullible team members and without Jason and Grant to hold her back, just gets more shrill here. Then we have new members Barry and Shannon. Barry actually appeared in the Ireland episodes of the original show, and there seemed just a little too invested in finding evidence of the paranormal, having a tendency toward the overly dramatic. This is even worse here. At any moment he may stroke his beard (not a euphemism!) and whisper “there’s an evil presence in this room.” And Shannon … sigh. Her storyline seems to be that she’s the inexperienced one who is getting stronger over time. That can’t come fast enough for me, as she’s usually the first to scream, to be shrill, to sit stooped in a corner with the night-vision camera turning her eyes into wide silver disks, raccoon-like. I honestly don’t know why she’s there.

Bottom line: It’s a lot of fun, still and the locations are wonderful. The team needs a lot to be desired. It would have been better to do an International Season of Ghost Hunters with the original team intact (yes, I know Steve won’t fly so we would have been relying on Brian anyway). So it’s good enough for what it is but I can’t wait for Jason and Grant to be back with new episodes of the original in March.

Anyone want to join me in forming PAPS: Pacific Alliance for Paranormal Studies? Seriously, email me. I’ll bring my digital video recorder and laptop, you bring the EMF detector and the motion-activated camera. There’s a spooky barn on the road back to my house that I think needs to be checked out.

Cloverfield

2008-01-20T09:16:00.000-08:00

Cloverfield

Paramount Pictures

Directed by Matt Reeved

Written by Drew Goddard

starring: Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel, Odette Yustman, Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T.J. Miller

First, a confession. I was geeked out to see this movie in a way I have not been about any movie since Joss Whedon’s Firefly follow-up, Serenity. It’s important that you know that so you know how many grains of salt with which you’ll need to take the rest of this review. This is actually the first movie I’ve ever gone to see in the theaters by myself, since my wife refuses to see horror movies and everyone else I know was busy during the time I had to go (I decided that taking my daughter out of school or subjecting my five-year-old to this was just not a good idea. I’m devoted to the idea of passing the geekery down to the next generation but even I have my limits). So, there I was, opening day, noon showing. There were a lot of people in line at the box office, including a field trip from some sort of group home, but most of them turned out to be in line to see 27 Dresses (I know!) It was just me and some older couple in theater 9 to see Cloverfield. I was in front of them, so it was almost like a private showing.

So, was it worth it? After all the online build-up, the viral marketing campaign, the title-less trailer in front of Transformers (I know!) featuring the decapitated head of the statue of liberty … did it live up to all of it in a way that other recent internet phenomena have not (looking at you … Snakes on a Plane)? For me? Absolutely. In fact, I loved this movie in a way I have not loved a movie since Serenity. It’s not perfect, by any means. In fact, its almost imperfect enough to be perfect, for the experience it provides. But I’ll get to the flaws later.

What Works: This film is shot, and presented to the audience, as if it is footage found by the military at the sight of a disaster. And it really does look like a videotape you’ve popped into your VCR. There are snippets of old footage interspersed with the new, a couple newly in love sharing one perfect day, but the bulk of the movie starts at a party being thrown for the guy in the couple who’s going away to take a job in Japan. He’s also blown it, big-time, with the girl of his dreams. This just happens to be going on the same night what can only be described as a GIANT FUCKING MONSTER attacks New York City. We follow these characters as they try to survive the attack, first attempting to get out of the city, then heading back to the disaster to save someone. It does not turn out well. Do not get attached to any of these characters.

What I really liked about this film was how it presented the events from the perspective of the normal people caught up in them. Another movie would have given us, Independence Day style, the broad picture, characters ranging from Scientists to soldiers, probably the nuke-ordering president, a couple of civilians in New York (most likely family or love interests of the other main characters) telling this story from beginning to end, finding out what the monster was as how it could be defeated, eventually someone coming in at the last minute, finding an ingenious device to kill the monster before the entire northeastern seaboard has to be destroyed. And that movie would have been fine, I guess. Depending on the writing and the performances, it could have been fantastic. It would also have been tired. If there is one that this movie isn’t, is tired.

The device, some would say conceit, of the camcorder puts the viewer right there in the middle of the action, living, dying, running, screaming. I felt like I had survived the monster attack myself (actually, survive is too strong a word). Another thing that works is the monster itself. We do eventually get a very good look at it, but for most of the movie is it glimpsed through dust, around corners, it is felt more than it is seen, which makes it scarier. It gets no less scarier when you do actually see it. And yes, as you make have heard, the camera work is a little sick-making at first. But unless you are especially prone to motion sickness, you will get used to it.

What doesn’t work: Horror movies aren’t really great at creating really compelling characters, and this one is no different. These people are fodder, and there are attempts at depth that fall flat somehow. Still, there is enough there that you do end up caring about these people and what happens to them. It’s saved by some of the performances, especially Lizzy Caplan as Marlena and Michael Stahl-David as “main character” Rob. There also some logical problems. We’re never shown that the Monster is that incredibly fast-moving, but it goes from decapitating the statue of liberty to stomping mid-town Manhattan is about twelve seconds. (I guess you could say it was just kicking it around, but still…) And whoever manufactures this video camera should use this film as an advertisement because this thing provides a great picture and extremely loooong battery life despite being kicked, dropped, rolled over, monster-stomped, and crashed in a helicopter. This product is highly recommended.

Bottom Line: People are either going to love or hate this movie. I loved it. The older couple behind me hated it. The ending is somewhat ambiguous and that’s going to make a lot of people leave the theater unsatisfied. But the ending is not the point. The experience was the point. And I had a great experience watching this movie.

Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles

2008-01-15T08:27:00.001-08:00

Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles

starring: Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker, Summer Glau, Richard T. Jones

Fox Mondays 9:00 est.

I wasn’t expecting to like Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles as much as I did. In fact, when I first started hearing about this project, months ago, I had almost zero interest. It felt like a step backward for the series, and in many ways it still is, but it’s a step backward that makes sense. For once.

This series takes place between the movies Terminator 2 and Terminator 3, and its events effectively wipe Terminator 3 from the record, either ignoring it completely or making it so those events never take place. This suits me just fine, as I’d never seen T3, so it significantly flattened my learning curve. It is, in short, the story of Sarah and John Conner running from killer robots, protected by a defender sent back from John’s future as the leader of humanity against the machine race. Sounds a lot like T2, and it is, but there’s a key difference. Now that the T-101 is governing California, the future needs a new defender, and here the producers make a really interesting choice.

Knowing any “buff-guy” type is going to live forever in Schwarzenegger’s shadow, they replaced him with former Ballerina and Firefly psychic commando Summer Glau. Glau’s casting is inspired. She’d already proven her action-hero chops in Joss Whedon’s Serenity, so whether or not she could handle the action sequences was never in doubt. But while her River Tam was a wreck of brilliant tics and undulations, she could summon a stiff coldness and directness of purpose that Glau brings back here in her Cameron. It works really well, and not just because “hey, it’s a pretty little girl who can kick ass” because I would hope, as a culture, that we are past that now, but because no one questions it.

With Glau and Lena Headey, as Sarah Conner, as the characters protecting a teenage boy acting as the “damsel in distress” in most situations, it could easily be a self-conscious “girl power” statement, which would be just fine. But the fact that its not presented that way, that it’s just that these two characters happen to be women and no one, absolutely no one, in at least the first two episodes, questions their credentials to do so, is completely refreshing.

I also love Headey’s Sarah Conner. She’s significantly less buffed-out than Linda Hamilton in T2, but that doesn’t make her less tough. It’s a quieter strength she brings to bear hear, born of hope and passion, a passion to make the world a better place than she knows it is otherwise going to be. The fact that she knows she’s coming off as a paranoid schizophrenic, and that any ping they make on the system of the world can bring down Armageddon, makes her more than a little bit guarded. But she’s not cold.

Thomas Dekker, center of the gay-not gay Heroes’ Zack controversy steps in for Edward Furlongas fifteen-year-old John Conner, the future savior of humanity. He and Headey have great chemistry together, and he walks a fine line between petulant teenager and heroic young man in a way that completely fits that part. There’s not much else to say about him, as Headey bears most of the first two episodes’ emotional weight.

Bottom Line: Much better than it should be, and a welcome addition to the schedule especially in the Strike Era. I have a few logistics/plot hole problems (no i.d.'s, but they have cel phones already?), but for right now, I’m in. I’ve always a sucker for a band of plucky rebels.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union

2008-01-13T09:31:00.000-08:00

The Yiddish Policemen's Union

by Michael Chabon

Harper Collins

$26.95

There’s a certain moment in some books, a moment when you’re reading along, perfectly content with the story, interested in what happens next, enjoying the language, and then … something happens. A moment, a scene that lets you know that you’re not reading the book you thought you were reading, there is more going on here, not just in the plot, but in the atmosphere, there are metaphysical gears clicking into place around the space the reader occupies in the story and you know the author is definitely up to something.

And it’s glorious.

In Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union that moment comes in chapter 14, about 120 pages in. Up until this point the book is totally fine, brilliant in places, beautiful in the rest, but in chapter fourteen as an elderly Yiddish boundary maven narrates the story of his child chess prodigy and the way he helped a certain woman in his life, the author brings in such larger things that you definitely know Michael Chabon is up to something. And the book transcends.

It’s not like there’s not already a lot going on. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is, on the surface, a murder mystery set in an alternate history venue. Branching off from history during the middle of World War 2, a certain congressman is run over by a car and killed. This congressman is notable in our history for being the primary legislator responsible for killing a bill that would have allowed Jewish settlers fleeing the holocaust to settle in the panhandle region around the city of Sitka, Alaska. In our world, of course, this did not happen. But in this one, it did, and a great many things have changed.

Chabon is not, however, out to give us a review of the intervening sixty years of History. This story is set in the modern day, a day in which the Jewish region is set to revert back to Alaskan hands. There is notstate of Israel, and the Jewish people are once again about to be set free into the world, with no place to go, and not many prospects. A lucky few will be allowed to remain, but for our main characters, their fate is far from certain.

And in this world a man is murdered. The simplest of tragedies weighed against the rest. But like all meaningful things in life, it is connected to the others in ways no one can imagine. Because living in his building is a certain detective, a broken man, weary from the many mistakes he’s made in his life, the people he’s pushed away, the lost loves and lost chances, and this case may – just may -- be his last shot at redemption.

I will say no more about the plot because the reader should have their own chapter fourteen moment, as I did. Let’s just say Chabon, already a Pulitzer prize winner (and one of my favorite novelists of all time) for his 2001 book The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, is up to something. He’s using the tropes of the 40’s detective novels to do it. The language is more spare than his earlier works, written is present tense, the sentences clipped and sometimes terse, but buried within them are metaphor and wonder and the choppier rhythm begins to mimic the waves outside Sitka, the waves the lost jews will soon have to ride in order to find new lives.

I will give one warning. This is a murder mystery and in the end we know the truth about that crime. But the ending may not provide the proper sense of closure some readers may demand. Most of the key issued are resolved, but for many of the characters we have come to love, things have not been tied up with a bright, shiny bow. The future remains an open, uncertain thing, even if some have learned how they might begin to get through whatever is coming next.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier

2008-01-12T12:06:00.001-08:00

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier

by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill

DC Comics/Wildstorm/America's Best Comics

$29.99 Hardcover

I was a big fan of Alan Moore’s first two League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series. The idea of taking various 1890’s British adventure heroes (Alan Quatermain from the H. Ryder Haggard novels, Mina Murray from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde and H.G. Wells’ Invisible Man) and putting them together into what amounts to a turn of the century Justice League had obvious appeal. And like the Harry Potter series, its obstinate British-ness was a large part of the appeal. When, at the end of the second series, the team split up (well, two of them died, Hyde heroically and the Invisble Man … less heroically, is all I’ll say) it seemed like Moore might be done with the concept.

Except he said that he wasn’t. What followed in the real world was an acrimonious split with the publisher DC Comics over the Wachowskie’s V for Vendetta movie. That really seemed like the nail in the coffin. Work had already begun on this current volume and it was under contract, so it continued and was released as the last of Moore’s DC/America’s Best Comics works. Unlike the previous volumes, this one is not the collection of a mini-series. This is a stand-alone graphic novel

Art: I can’t say enough about Kevin O’Neill’s meticulous artwork for this volume. Moore has said he would continue this series with no other artist and it’s easy to see why. Its first impression is one of sketchiness, messiness, which fits with the incredibly outsize, bizarre, glorious but undeniably messy world these characters inhabit. But when you really look you can see how clean the artwork is, not a line wasted. It’s the only way O’Neill can fit the vast level of detail, the little throwaway artistic asides that Moore calls for. And he calls for a lot. Every page, nearly every panel, has some little intricacy that can reward the alert, or well-educated reader. I am not always alert and lack the study in British esoterica that is demanded to understand everything here. But O’Neill is the only reason it works at all. Without O’Neill, this thing would be a complete mess.

Story: And a complete mess it is. That’s not fair, actually, there is a pretty clear throughline. The plot, to summarize, is this. Mina Murray and Alan Quatermain Jr. (I’m just going with what’s claimed. It’s pretty obvious who is really is) return to 1950’s Britain to claim the titular Black Dossier that contains all the information British intelligence has of the various Extraordinary teams Murray and Quatermain have belonged to, as well other counterparts assembled by the French, German, and British governments (but not the Americans, which actually surprised me). Along the way, the are pursued by just vague enough to avoid copyright laws versions of James Bond and Emma Peel. These two do not come off well. We are given a much different view of the history of the 20th century, culminating in a version of Orwell’s 1984 coming to pass in the 40’s and Rockets launching people and robots into space in the 50’s. The worldbuilding is brilliant, and the story really just serves as a way to show all of that off. On that level, it worked.

Interspersed with the graphic novel story, are sections of the Black Dossier itself, which includes intelligence reports, an 18th century pornographic novel, a comic strip history of Orlando, and other bizarre jewels. One of my favorites was the beat novel written by Sal Paradise, hero of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road battling (I think) the Triffids. Just go with it.

And that’s actually my advice to enjoy this story. Just go with it. It’s not actually supposed to make sense, actually. In many ways it is Alan Moore at his most obtuse and self-indulgent. If you understand that going you, you’ll enjoy it just fine. I did. I’m not sure it’s the work of staggering genius Moore and his defenders seem to think it is. There’s a lot of sex, and while I’m not offended it becomes tiresome after a while, especially when the Golliwag and his “friends” show up (just go with it).

Bottom line: I liked it. But it would have been elevated by an actual story to go along with all the histrionics and asides. You’ll probably not understand much of it unless you are a Brit of Moore’s generation or have done some serious study. I had to consult Jess Nevin’s comic book annotations to understand most of it. But it’s rewarding for those willing to do the work. I’m just not sure it’s rewarding enough to pay off the man hours involved.

Meet the new Random Avenger

2008-01-12T09:50:00.000-08:00

After a long absence, I've decided to start taking this site much more seriously. That means, in possible defiance of its title and purported purpose for being, this site is about to get a lot less random. I will soon be posting actual reviews and critical commentary, not just my random reactions and geeky freak outs (don't worry, I'm sure there'll be plenty of those too). I will also be posting occasional essays about current events in pop culture and maybe even (gack!) politics.

What it will not be is my personal life blog anymore. I have myspace for that (yes, I know everyone says Facebook is cooler, and that's probably true. But all my friends are on myspace. See also: reasons we are also still with ATT wireless).

Coming soon: A reviews of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, and even Ghost Hunters International.

Yes, really. I didn't say it would be totally non-random.

Thoughts on the new TV Season

2007-10-21T09:47:00.000-07:00

Ok, I know this is long overdue. I was giving it time to put forward a thoughtful analysis of new and returning shows and how well it was all working for me. Then I got to working on the new book and a short story I’m getting ready for a submission to an anthology project and decided to manufacture the previous excuse for my procrastination, and we got this instead. Anyway, here goes. Night by night, starting with Mondays.

Chuck. No surprise here, we are in love with Chuck. I think the basic premise is a little goofy. I mean, seriously, his value is that he has all the government’s knowledge in his head? How long, given how swiftly things move in geopolitics, is any of it even going to be current? But the charm of the writing and the performances make this easily ignorable. I love the premise, stated elsewhere, that he basically has Jack Bauer and Sidney Bristow working with him. That MUST be intentional. Plus, it’s a Josh Schwartz show, so you know it has good music.

Heroes. No surprise here that I still love this show. It’s meandered and spawled, which is both good and bad. I am actually a little bored with the Hiro in the past storyline at this point and the life/death twins are really doing nothing for me. And the whole Mo-and-Matt as Molly’s two dad’s thing? They’ve GOT to know what that looks like, right? I mean, if they don’t that’s just sad…I don’t really think they’re going there, and it’s just playing with HoYay subtext, but still … it’s pretty funny. And if they ARE going there? Rock on, it’s about time we all just got over it. This show’s writing is still cringeworthy at times, but Noah Bennet is still the best TV Dad of all time, so … I’m still in.

Journeyman. No so much still in on this one. I gave it four episodes. It was good, but that was it. Just good. Not great. And I hated to delete it from the season pass list, but I don’t have time to watch shows I kind of like but don’t love. I Mean Moon Bloodgood is impossibly hot and should be on any producer’s short list to play Wonder Woman (listening, guys?) but this show…meh. This is in spite of the fact that a time-traveling reporter should be the most awesome character ever.

Reaper. This is, basically, Chuck meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I love this one. It needs to sharpen up a bit and develop its mythology, but it’s only four episodes in, so it has time. A lot of reviewers have started criticizing the fact that it’s still basically the same show from the pilot, but I think it’s wise to establish the routine early on, and then start tweaking it when everyone’s invested. I haven’t found any episode boring yet. They might need to tweak the Andi character, though. I think she’s ok, but the chemistery with the main character is a little off. I don’t know. Just not feeling it yet … they either need to ring her in on the team as an ally or dump the character altogether.

Pushing Daisies. I was not disappointed. It is incredible. The whole goofy narrated fairy-tale device, which it took me a few episodes to get in the groove of, establishes a perfect tone, and by the time Olive was taking a face plant into the wall in the second episode trying to spy on Ned and Chuck, I was in deep infatuation, and by the time Ned uttered the most romantic words ever (I’m going to go see if I have any shrink wrap) at the end of the third, it was full-on love. Seriously, Emerson knitting rifle-cozies (even this must have been stolen from Brian K. Vaughn)? Priceless.

Bionic Woman. I came for the Sackoff. I stayed for the luscious Ryan. And then was out when I realized that was the only good thing about it. Although Sackoff’s “Shhh….adults are talking” was worth sticking to, at least, the third episode. But then I was out. Another, it’s good, but not great dropped show.

Life. I made it fifteen minutes into the pilot episode. It just wasn’t for me. It’s probably genius, but … I have enough “quirky detectives solving mysteries” in my life with Monk and Psych, thank you.

Survivor: China. I really have nothing to say, which is sad. My wife loves this, so I’m still watching, but … whatever. I think this show has run its course, and needs another great season to rise to the top again. It’s all in the casting, really, and this bunch is just bland. And depressingly whitebread.

Ugly Betty. Still awesome, andgave us the best line so far of the new season: “I’m black, you’re Mexican, let’s not talk around this like a couple of dull white people! Not much else to say, though I’d seen the Santos-twist coming and was prepared for it.

Friday Night Lights. By all rights, this is not a show for me. It is 1) about football and b) a teen drama. But I am so in love with this show that I have forgotten all laws of logic in listing! Seriously – I discovered it online over the summer and foun the most complex love and hate them at the same time characters. That’s its strength. It’s people are messy, and even the character I hate the most (That would be Lyla – smug little princess cheerleader whose world falls apart) make me feel for them. I have also become a serious Landry-Tyra shipper, which … I’m an almost middle aged male. How did this happen? It’s probably become my new Veronica Mars, brilliant, beloved show always on the verge of cancellation. Figures. There’s nothing better than a lost cause, is there?

America’s Most Smartest Model. The greatest unintentional comedy of all time (well, unintentional on the part of its participants. The producers? You are mean, mean people and I love every one of you). If you haven’t seen it, watch it NOW. Mandy Lynne alone is worth it all.

Hope Springs Geekternal

2007-08-18T08:53:00.000-07:00

It’s almost time for the new TV season to start, and not that I think anyone is really listening, but I thought I would post some things I’m hoping for this year …

Heroes to be more consistent in quality

This was one of my favorite shows last year, but had a maddening tendency to have great dialogue and writing in one episode, and horrible, cheese-tastic crap coming out of people’s mouths the next. Granted, most of the truly groan-worthy stuff (see:Peter’s whining, Claire’s whining, Nikki’s … wait, maybe there’s a trend here) came early in the season and things did consistently improve. This year I want them to start out knowkcing it out of the park and keep it going. Please? Maybe the ability to inspire good writing could be someone’s super-power? Hey, I am willing to relocate.

Survivor: China to have another ethnically diverse cast.

After many, many season’s of mostly white Americans slumming it in various dirty spots around the world, last year’s two iterations of this show, which I Had thought was almost hopelessly overdone, gave us contestants who were from a great variety of races and cultures. Sure, they introduced this concept with that vile “Hey! It’s a race war!” setup, but that was actually the beginning to what I feel was the best season ever. Last year’s promo said nothing about a diverse cast, so we may be back to a bunch of Abercrombie ready wannabe actor/models working in bars and that will just be stupid, and I may be out at that point. Ok, I’ll probably still watch, but complain about it. And blog, obviously.

Pushing Daisies to be incredible.

I really want to love this show. It’s from the same people who made Wonderfalls, which is one of my favorite TV shows of all time. Yes, It’s behind Firely and Galactica and Veronica Mars, but ahead of Buffy. It’s stars Wonderfalls’ witty, laconic, Lee Pace. Its show-runner was a co-creator (I think) of Wonderfalls and was a writer on Heroes.

It’s about a guy who discovers at a young age that he can bring dead people back to life by touching them. He soon finds out, however, that if he touches them again they will go back to being dead. Worse yet, if he doesn’t put them back in the grave, someone else will die. He uses his gift to help solve murder mysteries until his childhood love in murdered on a cruise ship, and he brings her back to life, and lets her stay that way, knowing what will happen if he ever touches her again. It’s been described as a “forensic Fairy Tale” and sounds like it’s right up my ally.

The reviews are mostly positive, but a few have said it can get lost in its ownpreciousness. I hope its wonderful, and a big hit. With my luck, I’ll fall in love and it will be canceled by the third episode (see also: Drive).

Bionic Woman to be really bad.

Ok, this is mean-spirited, but I simply don’t have time for another show, and this one doesn’t look very good, even despite the presence of Katee Sackhoff. The major thing that is bothering me in this revamp is what they’ve done to the main character. Lindsay Wagner’s Jamie Sommers was a tennis pro, adventure junkie injured in a sky-diving accident. She was already a woman of action, which made her a perfect candidate for the experiment. In the new version, Michelle Ryan’s (who I do have to admit is amazingly hot, so its at least got that going for it. See also: Michelle Ryan in Jekyll) character is a bartender injured in a car accident whose boyfriend just happens to work for the project. This seems like a giant step backward.

However, I will feel obligated to want to watch it if it is good. So I hope its bad. I don’t need it cancelled because if it occupies the schedule something else good won’t go there and I’ll still be free.

I make no claim that this makes any sense.

The Amazing Race to come back at some point

If any reality show needs to have a bajillion iterations, it’s this one. Each season is a new voyage through the world, with a variety of interesting characters along for the ride. It’s not starting again this fall, though. I guess it’s being filmed, and held for mid-season. I just hope that’s true and we haven’t seen the stealth cancellation of this show. Honestly, I sort of hope each Survivor is going to be the last. Not so with the Race. Please, though, no more model/bartenders. They make for really vile winners (see: Eric and Danielle, Freddy and Kendra…)

More inspiration for the new school year

2007-08-12T10:23:00.001-07:00

Because the last post got too big for Blogger....these are not by me, unfortunately. They're from despair.com, which has a lot more.

Inspiration for the new school year

2007-08-12T10:17:00.001-07:00

What I learned on my Vegas Vacation

2007-08-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

Sacramento airport has really crappy security.

We had already been through the screening and x-ray process, and were sitting at the gate, waiting to board the plane. My wife was fishing for something in her carry-on bag when she said “What the---? I forgot I had this in here” and she showed me a big pair of blue-handled scissors, which were definitely on the forbidden list.

We didn’t want to take them on the plane, of course, but we didn’t want to be scene throwing them away, either, just in case anyone thought we were depositing them for someone else to pick up later. We thought about handing them to one of the security guards, but that seemed … risky, somehow. Yes, we were paranoid. So, she took the old newspaper someone had left in the seat beside me, surreptitiously wrapped the scissors in it, and then nonchalantly dropped them in the trash can next to her seat.

Not five minutes later, the custodian came by to empty the trash can. We just sat there, hoping he wouldn’t notice the scissors. Sure enough, the first thing he does is pick them up off the top of the pile and place them in a special pocket on the side of his cart. He looked around, then moved on. We were sure he was taking them somewhere, and a few minutes later a guard with a dog came by, sniffing the air.

Kate was certain the dog had smelled the scissors and was now looking for the person that had left them there. Again, we did nothing but sit there and try not to be noticed. Either it was a coincidence, or the bomb-sniffing dog was just as bad at his job as the x-ray screeners, because we were not discovered, and boarded the plane without further incident.

Later, she found a huge bottle of lotion, one that far exceeded the 3-ounce limit, that she had been allowed to carry on the plane. So, we know that we shouldn’t trust Sac Airport security to keep anyone safe. Also, that my wife needs to be more careful when she packs.

Don’t talk to strangers.

I’m from the Midwest. I was raised to be polite. When people say hi to me, I usually at least say hi back. It’s not that I like people. I just don’t want to be rude. Of course, in Vegas, or probably in any big city, anyone who talks to you just wants to sell you something. Like the nice lady offering an afternoon looking at time shares, or the gentlemen handing out credit cards. I’ve learned my lesson now, and I don’t even need my wife to pull me away by the arm with a “keep walking” and an eye roll anymore.

The Treasure Island pirate show is no longer family friendly.

It was my wife’s idea to go see this, honestly, she had wonderful memories of watching the swashbuckling pirate show, which ended with the ship actually sinking in the moat. Imagine my surprise when the Victoria’s Secret models walked out and starting dry humping the mast of the ship. And then the Chippendales arrived, dressed like pirates, and … um … a lot of buckles got swashed, we’ll say. There was even some freaky cirque de soleil reject hopping around dressed like a parrot. It was very weird. The ship still sank, I will say that much. Just remember, I was only there because my wife wanted to go.

Las Vegas does not want your quarters.

We didn’t come to Vegas to gamble. We came to see Spamalot! No, really, that’s why were were there, just like our trip two years ago when we went to see Mamma Mia. What? But, like last time, we brought our collection of quarters to play the slots a little bit. Last time, we turned $40 worth of quarters into about $150. This time, we couldn’t find any slot machines that even took quarters. These were even the quarter slots. We’d gone back to Caesar’s, which was where we’d won the money last time. The machines only took bills and, of course, credit cards. So we spent about $30 in tens and ended up winning $25.25, so we didn’t win anything, but we didn’t lose much either. We looked all around Caesar’s and didn’t find a single machine that took coins. We found a couple in treasure island, but only a couple. They did, obligingly, let us waste all of our quarters in them so we at least did not have to carry them around anymore.

Las Vegas Airport has really good security.

No, we did not try to smuggle scissors or hand lotion onto the plane again. This time, it was the magnetic boards we’d bought for the kids as FAO Schwartz. They had to run my backpack through the scanner several times before they finally pulled me to the side to inspect it because they couldn’t see through it.

Turns out the magnets were blocking the sensors, so the security agent took them out and inspected them, and then had to know where we’d gotten them because she wanted them for her own kids. They are really cool. They’re magnets boards with little illustrated tiles marking various chores the kids are supposed to do around the house with a weekly chart, where they can put reward magnets. Not that my kids have been transformed into house-cleaning dynamos, but my son now at least brushes his teeth without argument. It’s a victory, and I’ll take it.

Spamalot! Was really good, bye the way. But how can you not love a musical that includes both a song called “I’m not dead yet,” and a bovine trebuchet.

1933-2007

2007-02-21T12:26:00.000-08:00

My grandfather was a Titan. he was a creature out of myth and legend, and every time one of us grandkinds were in his presences, it was like being in the presence of a deity. I honestly believed, when I was four years old, that he was the one whose fleet of planes I rode on to come to California every summer to visit him, and it was he who kept the skies clear so that my parents adn I would have a safe passage. I also believed, because he told me it was true, that chocalate milk came from brown cows, but this post is not abou disillusionment.

He's gone now. He died Saturday, February 17th at 3:50 p.m. I would say that it was after a long struggle with cancer, but the struggle wasn't all that long, actually. He was diagnosed in September, went through a few months of chemotherapy and radiation treatment, found out that the cancer was going to be untreatable, and then he suffered a fairly rapid decline. The last week he was mostly unconscious, the morphine keeping him out of pain as one by one his bodily sytems failed. He didn't want to linger. He didn't want to be paralyzed once the spinal cancer broke his back. He didn't want to be a burden.

He was born into poverty in Westwood, Oklahoma, moved with the westward migration to California logging country, started his family there before beginning his own business in the bay area. He built roads. That's what he did with his life. He left a tangible path behind him, as well as three children, ten grandchildren, and seventeen (and counting) great-grandchildren. He worked too damn hard his entire life, but in the end he was a success, mostly through sheer force of will. He began in poverty but he ended his life in affluence, solely through his own efforts. He loved music. He played the guitar. He knew every song Merle Haggard ever wrote, and would perform them in his living room with his best friend, John.

He wasn't perfect. He made mistakes. Some of them huge. But he owned up to them and made them right. He found faith in the latter half of his life, but once he found it he took it seriously. His role in his church was as the head usher, which he expanded to become something like the official host and greeter to anyone who attented First Baptist church in Cottonwood.

I owe him for many things, not the least of which is, of course, my life. He paid for my first year of college. It was his love of Northern California which caused him to retire here, and then, introduced it to me, and I fell in love with it too. He provided a place for me to run to when I needed a change in my life, offering me a home and a connection to family. He helped me buy my first house.

He had a way of seeing through the world's bullshit, mostly because he was a great BS'er himself, as he was proud to tell anyone who'd listen. And then he'd prove it. He was gragrious, and loved people, and if there was anyone my grandfather had no use for, you could be assured that there wasn't much use for that person at all. You could argue with him and tease him, and give his own nature back to him and he'd love you for it, and sometimes he'd even admit when he was wrong and you had a point. In his later years, he even came to be able tyo admit when he didn't know something. The times when we were really annoyed with him, though, was whn we knew he was right and we didn't want to admit it. This happened a lot.

He loved kids. You never had to beg him to babysit, he just loved having them around. He got energy from them, enjoyed their spirit and their adoration. And they did adore him. The picture I have posted is from last halloween. Already sick, he could not resist dressing up in his Superman costume (complete with Willie Nelson hair), simply to delight my son, who had dressed as Superman himself.

When it came time for the end, the Hospice nurse told my family that he was not the kind of man who could leave with us all watching him, so we all went into the otehr part of the house after saying our goodbyes. Then, within ten minutes, my grandmother holding his hand, he left us. My grandmother told us that he squeezed her hand thre times and smiled. He'd told my mother that he was ready to go, partly because he wanted to see my brother, Jeremy again. I got the chance to tell him that I loved him and that he'd always been my hero. He told me that he was glad we'd always been "buddies" and that I was to take care of Sarah and Drew for him.

And now he is gone, and the world doesn't feel like the same place. It's as if Atlas himself is no longer holding up the world. The way he lived, though, he taught all of us to hold up the world for ourselves.

So that's what we're going to do.

Goodbye, Molly Ivins

2007-02-12T20:06:00.000-08:00

This is not written by me, but I thought it was worth posting. While I wait for one of my heroes to pass, it's worth noting the passing of another. At one point in my life, I wanted to be this woman when I grew up.

Best-selling author and columnist Molly Ivins, the sharp-witted liberal who skewered the political establishment and referred to President Bush as “Shrub,” died Wednesday after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 62.

Molly's wisdom:

• The first rule of holes: when you’re in one, stop digging.

• What you need is sustained outrage…there’s far too much unthinking respect given to authority.

• Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous.

• The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.

• Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful.

• There are two kinds of humor.One kind that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity — like what Garrison Keillor does. The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule — that’s what I do. Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel — it’s vulgar.

• I believe that ignorance is the root of all evil. And that no one knows the truth.

• You can’t ignore politics, no matter how much you’d like to.

• It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.

• What stuns me most about contemporary politics is not even that the system has been so badly corrupted by money. It is that so few people get the connection between their lives and what the bozos do in Washington and our state capitols.
Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom that you can decide you don’t much care for.

• I believe in practicing prudence at least once every two or three years.

• I still believe in Hope - mostly because there’s no such place as Fingers Crossed, Arkansas.

• One function of the income gap is that the people at the top of the heap have a hard time even seeing those at the bottom. They practically need a telescope. The pharaohs of ancient Egypt probably didn’t waste a lot of time thinking about the people who built their pyramids, either. OK, so it’s not that bad yet — but it’s getting that bad.

• It’s like, duh. Just when you thought there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties, the Republicans go and prove you’re wrong.

• In the real world, there are only two ways to deal with corporate misbehavior: One is through government regulation and the other is by taking them to court. What has happened over 20 years of free-market proselytizing is that we have dangerously weakened both forms of restraint, first through the craze for “deregulation” and second through endless rounds of “tort reform,” all of which have the effect of cutting off citizens’ access to the courts. By legally bribing politicians with campaign contributions, the corporations have bought themselves immunity from lawsuits on many levels.

• Any nation that can survive what we have lately in the way of government, is on the high road to permanent glory.

• I am not anti-gun. I’m pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We’d turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don’t ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.

Confluence of Events

2007-02-10T09:57:00.000-08:00

The book is done. 217,000 words. 534 actual book pages. A year and a half of my life. And it is done.

Well, the rough draft, anyway.

And at the same time, my grandfather is, to put it bluntly, dying. He's at the end of his fight with lung, liver, and spinal cancer. He can no longer use his feet, there's a rattle in his breath, and his liver has shut down, sending toxins to his brain so that most of the time he doesn't know what's going on.

In October, when the diagnosis came down, he was a relatively robust 74, and still even had his full head of dark hair. Now he is this. It happened so fast.

He's at home. Hospice is helping my Mom take care of him. We're told he has between 2 days and 2 weeks left.

It's strange how things come together sometimes.

The AIAC Awards: TV 2006

2007-02-01T17:48:00.000-08:00

ok, finally done. And with the only real category I am probably qualified to talk about, because I watch so damn much of it, TV! Sorry. Anyway, I had some ambitious plans for this entry, but have novel fatigue has forced me to decide just to name my top 5 shoes and call it a day. Or an entry, whatever.

Anyway, here are my top 5 shows of the years. And Jennie, I am sorry, but Jericho did not make the cut. I hope you can live with the disapointment :P

5. Ugly Betty

Yes, Ugly Betty. Seriously. And I know that I mentioned earlier it needed a new time slot in order for me to watch it, but that was before discovering the full episodes on ABC.com. Awesome! It started out as a whim, something fun to watch while I was folding laundry in the bedroom. (Yes, I fold laundry, because I am the perfect man. I cook too. sort of) and it soon became an addiction. I even forced My Name is Earl off the TiVo and consigned myself to watching the Office online to make room, so my wife and I can watch it together. I realize that loving this show means I will have to give up my Y chromosome, or at the very least promise the Guy union that I will watch an equal number of hours of the Ultimate Fighter (which is its own type of soap opera) but it's worth it. So, why do I love it so much? It is SO over the top and unrealistic, but it's characters are so funny and lovable and bitchy, and it has a heroine that you cannot help but root for. Seriously, if you're watching this show and you're not rooting for Betty, there's something wrong with you. This is the show that proves ugly is beautiful, and there's nothing wrong with that.

4. 30 Rock

I really don't have much to say about this show except that is it sick and twisted and wrong and demented as all true works of genius are. Plus, Tina Fey is every geek's ultimate dream girl, or should be.

3. Heroes.

Yes, I'm writing about Heroes, again, some more. As before, it continues to intrigue me, it shows true promise that its writers really have thought about things ahead of time, and Hiro is the ultimate geek-tastic Avenger, Peter Petrelli the quintesential self-destructive kid on the Heroes journey, and I have a thing for strippers with multiple personality disorder, espeially the kind that can rip me limb from limb. What? I'm a guy.

2. Veronica Mars.

Sun-drenched noir, starring the world's smartest college student and her awesome dad. The series moved to college this year, and the season-long mystery format became a series of linked arcs, but it remains the most brilliantly written (its a tie! see below) show on television, so of course, it's struggling in the ratings and may not see a fourth season. Which would be a shame, because there's a lot of life in these characters and this setting. Seriously, people, watch this show!

1. Battlestar Galactica

What if the world ended, but you didn't. What if you survived armageddon, summoned fourth the will to start again on a new world, only to have the destroyers come again and this time instead of breaking down your body, they broke down your soul instead. That's what happened this year on this, one of the most frak-tastic shows of all time. The new Caprica arc jumped things forward, advancing the conflict between the survivors and the cylons, drawing uncomfortable parallels between both the holocaust and the Iraq War. This is a show that does not run away from how messy life is. There's an old adage for writers: create characters people like and/or identify with, put them up a tree, and then throw rocks at them. Well, executive producer Ron Moore had some incredibly big rocks this year, but still, they keep moving, they keep running, and somehow manage to see one more day. Without losing hope, which is the most miraculous thing of all. This is another show too brilliant for its time, and rumors circulate about its cancellation, so I live in hope of two more years to complete the story. So Say We All!

The AIAC Awards: Music 2006

2007-01-13T09:33:00.000-08:00

ok. This is probably the one topic I am the least qualified to talk about. I would just copy Phil's write-up about music on his blog and post it here (properly attributed, of course) if not for the fact that I am not cool enough to have actually heard of any of those people. So, I am just going to talk about my two favorite albums from last year, and then my favorite ten songs that I downloaded.

Because this was the year my entire approach to buying and enjoying music changed. This was the year of the ipod (yes, cue angellic music). Seriously, has there been a more important development in the music industry (industry, not art) that the proliferation of mp3 players ad legal downloading? No longer do you have to buy an entire album for the one cool song you heard. That said, there are some artists I love so much that I did download entire albums, or albums who had enough I liked I felt same buying them. For the record, here is that list: Jars of Clay, Good Monsters; Snow Patrol, Eyes Open; Jewel, Goodbye Alice in Wonderland; Indigo Girls, Despite our Differences; and Shawn Colvin, These Four Walls. There were a couple of e.p.s in there too, but I'm not counting them as full albums. For the record, I enjoyed all of these albums, there wasn't really a dud in the bunch, but two of them stood out from the rest.

Despite our Differences by The Indigo Girls.

How is it that two southern lesbians can write such truthful songs about love and God and Politics that they actual seem to be writing my inner monologue? These girls tell the truth about life, and they tell it beautifully. There is also in their music an acceptance of people, of loved ones, and even of their enemies that they can, even while they ask for what they want, understand how people are just people, and not every person is capable of truth, or love, or faithfulness, and on a basic level, that is ok. We are who we are.

You run/that's all you've ever done/that's all you know to do/I can't hold that against you
You flee/cause you're born to be free/and if you go, I'll understand/but you better get out while you can

They get political, as always. Pendulum Swinger laments the current state of things, while looking for more representation for women in positions of power in ever place in society.

What we get from you war-walk/the ticker of the nation breaking down like a bad clock/I want the pendulum to swing again/till all your mighty mandate was just spitting in the wind

Their music, unlike in past albums, notably All that We let in, avoids the morose. Nearly every track on this album has a nice drum-bass going on that moves it along. Some of the lyrics are sad, but the music is gorgeous, even on such songs as "Last Tears."

If we're a drop in the bucket/with just enough science to keep from saying "fuck it!"/Until the last drop of sun burns a sweet light/plenty of revolutions left to try to get this thing right...

I hope they're right, and I hope they're around for every one of them.

Good Monsters by Jars of Clay

All the Good Monsters open their eyes/to see the waste and where the home fires rise/and all the people shouting "why? why? why?"/do you know what you are/do you know what you are?

It us probably a surprise to no one that I am drawn to the apocalyptic imagery in this song. But more than that, it asks the question that I think is the most important. Do you know who you are? Answering that question, since we are all of us monsters in one way or another, is the first step in some of us becoming good monsters.

The song Light gives heat tempts the invocation of my "you lose it when you cue the children's choir" rule, but since the song is about Africa, and the way white christians often go in to "help" the natives with a condescending "we'll save you" attitude, and the choir in question is the African Children's Choir, it gets away with it. The song is gorgeous, and its message much needed.

Catch the rain in empty hands/save the children from their lands/wash the darkness from tehir skins/heroes from the west/we don't know you, but we know best/but this is not a test/you treat me like I'm blind/setting fires around the houses on a hill/but light gives heat/you segregate my mind/burning crosses from your fields/but light gives heat

The band, former teen wunderkinds now in their early thirties (like some other people who will remain nameless but who have blogs), write honestly about love and marriage in the songs Water under the bridge and Mirrors and Smoke.

I do not love you the way I did when we met/There are secrets and arguments we haven't finished yet/But it's only that grace has outlived our regrets/we're still here/maybe we can stay till the last drop of water flows under the bridge

There are times meant for breaking/and words to ignore/and we've bent to our souls/when our skin is at war/and if leaving were freedom/we'd both walk right out of that door/but we can stay/till the last drop of water flows under the bridge

and the years roll by/and you hold my hand/while the shdows stretch over the land ...crumble and fall in my arms and we'll struggle to hold on/ waters they rise and the carry our hopes and our dreams away, but we can stay ...

This is my album of the year, and is the best album of Jars of Clay's already long career.

and now, my top-ten songs of the year. They had to be from this year, not older songs that I discovered:

10. The Guy that says goodbye to you is out of his mind by Griffin House
you don't need to change/a thing about you, Babe/I'm telling you, from where I sit, you're one of a kind/relationships, I don't know why, they never work out/they make you cry/but the guy that says goodbye to you is out of his mind

9. Gotta have you by The Weepies
grey/quiet and tired and mean/looking at worry and seeing/tried to make you mad at me/over the phone/red/eyes and fires and signs/I'm taken by a nursery rhyme/I want to make a ray of sunshine/and never leave home/no amount of coffee, no amount of cryin'/no amount of whiskey/no amount of whine/nothing else will do/I gotta have you.

8. Good Monsters by Jars of Clay

7. Hate Me by Blue October
I've got to block out thoughts of you so I don't lose my head/they're crawling like a cockroach leaving babies in my bed/dropping little reels of tape/to remind me that I'm alone/playing movies in my head that make a porno feel like home

6. Here Comes Now by Jakob Dylan
meet me out in the open sky/a perfect storm is on the rise/beyond the city moving/it is planned/something comes from a strange land/the trail of dust on the building tops/it's everything you've wanted....Here comes now/ready or not/the future comes round/much sooner than you thought/here comes now.

5. Tuff Kid by Shawn Colvin
My mama had me, but she didn't get me/I think I broke her at the age of five/My daddy hit me/but he couldn't quit me/we taught each other how to feel alive ...

4. I Believe in love by the Indigo Girls
I want to say that underneath it all you are my friend/and the way that I feel for you/I'll never fall that way again/I still believe despite our differences/what we have's enough/and I believe in you/and I believe in love.

3. Light Gives Heat by Jars of Clay

2. Hands Open by Snow Patrol

It's hard to argue when/you won't stop making sense/but my tongue just misbehaves/and keeps digging my own grave

with my hands open/and my eyes open/I just keep hoping/that your heart opens

Why would I sabotage/the best thing that I've got/well, it makes it easier/to know exactly what I want....

It's not as easy as wearing it all to be right/gotta be more than hope when it's right/I want to hear you laugh like you really mean it/collapse onto me tired with joy ...

1. Half-assed by Ani DiFranco

You start tripping/and I start slipping away/I was taught to zip it/when I got nothing nice to say/and down in the texas of my heart/driving really bug truck down a dirt road/my love is scrunching up it features/through really big eyes, big lips, big nose

show me a moment that is mine/its beauty blinding and unsurpassed/made me resent every moment that went by/and left me so downhearted 'cause I felt it so half-assed

Things I'm looking forward to in 2007

2007-01-10T17:42:00.000-08:00

Taking a break from the AIAC awards for as minute. As in any new year, we have plans. I mean the collective we. My school. My family. The world. These are the things that are being planned that I'm actually looking forward to. I realize by posting these, I am tempting a karmic pre-emptive strike on them almost as stupidly as if I found myself in a horror movie telling the much more attractive main character how I plan to go home, marry my girl, open up that coffee/book shop I always wanted to, just as soon as we kill that fucking monster/undead slasher/alien. so be it.

The February break trip to San Antonio. Just me and Kate. no kids.(believe me, you don't want to spend any time with those two on an airplane). No real reason, we just want a fun trip, and to spend time, you know, together, as a couple, without having to break up slap-fights and referee toy/seat/blanket/TV-sharing. And don't ask "why San Antonio?" Because it's there, ok?
The rest of Season 1 of Heroes. This show has gotten seriously under my skin. Lost? What is this Lost you speak of? (Sorry, Phil.) And I demand to see Hiro and the Dinosaur now! And bring me Christopher Eccleston as the Invisible Man!

Finishing the fucking book. Yes, that is its official name now. And if I continue to meet my deadlines, and the plot doesn't balloon out of control (yes, again. does this story really need to be 500 pages? apparently) I will be done February 10th. I content myself with the knowledge that on February 10th I can just type "and then everybody died" and end it one way or the other.

Spider-Man 3! Does this one really require an explanation? Seriously ...

Continuing to design and starting the plans to build our new house. Yes, it's next to the in-laws. Yes, this frightens me. I'll cope. At least there will be goats to "accidentally" release to trim down the front lawn.

Watching my daughter go through first Communion. As a fairly recent Catholic, it's great having this opportunity to revisit some of my lessons from RCIA back in 2000. And it's great watching her learn about her faith and learn to take it seriously.

Learning about life as an American in the Netherlands from Tuppence's blogs. Of course, mitigated by the fact that we now have to find a new realtor.

Furthering my plan to turn my son into a geek! He has recently, against his mother's wishes, developed a power-rangers obsession and refuses to take off his spider-man boots, even when he sleeps. I couldn't be more proud.

Starting my next fucking novel. Because I never learn ... and this one's even bigger and more epic. Sigh ...

The AIAC Awards: Books 2006

2007-01-05T16:24:00.000-08:00

btw, it's pronounced IKE. My wife doesn't agree, but it's my blog, so there. The IKE awards.

anyway, I wish I has read more this year, but I'm going to go ahead and put up my picks for book anyway. Most of these were published before last year, but I at least read them last year, and they were in recent release when I did, so I'm still counting it. Here goes (as if anyone cares):

3. Blue Shoes and Happiness/Espresso Tales by Alexander McCall Smith.

The latest installments in Smith's two "mystery" series, one set in Botswana, one set in Edinburgh. I say "mystery" because these might technically qualify as those, but the mysteries are not the point here. They're not even particularly mysterious. What they do so well is gently reveal the worlds of the main characters, and present characters that form a community based on a comman sense of morality. These are very life-affirming books, as much about forgiveness as they are about catching people doing wrong things, whether they are dishonest doctors, meddling advice columnists, or self-absorbed wanna-be wine connosoirs. No murders here, just people trying to do the best they can to get along.

2. Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell

Ok, there are some murders here. Big ones. Presidential murders. This is the most hysterical book about Presidential assassinations ever published, I feel safe in saying, even though I have not read widely in the field. Sarah Vowell, historian, blogger, This American Life contributor and the voice of Violet Parr in The Incredibles. chronicles her travels visiting various historical sites associated with the assasinations of Lincoln, McKinley, And Garfield (the president, not the cat. Don't worry, Kim, the fat orange cat is not dead. sadly). Part travelogue, part biography, part rumination on presidential history, part contemplation on the relationship between assassination and memorial sainthood, every part of it is deep and funny, a difficult combination to pull off well.

1. Perdido Street Station/The Scar by China Mieville

I could not choose between the two of these, nor would I want to. In these two books China Mieville introduces a world that is hard to define. Is it fantasy? Science fiction? Arguments can be made for either, but it is all brilliant. Brilliant and dark, not a place I would want to live, but a place I am a better person for having gotten to know. The city of New Crobuzon, where strange creatures live together and even stranger alchemies take place beyond closed doors, and mad scientists unleash their creations on the world and in the process become Gods and Devils all at once. And the city of Armada, that floats with the waves, providing haven for transformed exiles wishing to find for themselves something of a humanity that has been beaten out of them. BOth books involves a quest, the first two destroy a nest of murderous psychis moths, and the second to cross the great dead ocean and find the scar in creation, from where energies can be released that might transform the world. Both novels really defy simple descrpition(obviously) and theose The Scar takes place after Perdido Street Station and involves a character connected to the main hero, it is not a direct sequel.

And with these books, Mieville becomes an author whose work I will seek out and absorb. His writing is so good, it's a joy just to read. He has another book out set in this world, and it will probably be my favorite book I read this year as well.

The AIAC Awards: Movies 2006

2007-01-01T09:52:00.000-08:00

Ok, back to stupid stuff. I always like to pretend I'm a critic,and have decided to institute the AIAC Awards on this blog, which I'm sure will be coveted after for years to come. So, here's the first installment of the AIAC (As If Anyone Cares) awards. First up, movies. Books, TV, and music will follow. And yes, I realize I am not actually qualified for this. But I was an English major and we're used to writing papers and pretending our opinions mean something.

I have not seem very many movies in the theatre because unless it's animated or has some type of talking animal or another we usually don't get to the movies to see them. But that hasn't stopped me from assembling my list of the best movies of 2006. I'm only choosing three this time, because choosing 5 would put an inordinate percentage of the movies I actually saw on the list.

3. Happy Feet

This one is on the list despite the fact that I actually missed the last ten minutes of it because my son was getting a little restless. It wasn't that he didn't like it. He's just ... like that. Anyway, this one received the ire of the baptists for many reasons, so I was, therefore, predisposed to like it on that basis alone. So, basically the child of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe just wants to dance. Only, he's a penguin and he's the type of penguin that mates for life by matching its song to the song of a penguin of the opposite sex, and finding their rhythms blending together. But this penguin CANNOT sing, he dances instead, so he goes on an epic quest throughout Antarctica to find himself, to win his love, and to eventually save the continent from the human oil despoilers. There's also a valuable message in here, both about environmentalism and also about how we treat people who are born differently from everyone else, including those whose differences are found in the mating process (this is the part that pissed off the Baptists. Because ... in a children's movie? How dare people preach acceptance to children! It's an outrage! Oh, come on, Baptists, I kid because I love. Actually, not really. Except for you, Jennie! And possibly Kim! And my parents! )

This movie does have, as a very mixed blessing, Robin Williams as the voice of not one, but two saucy latin penguins, and the most gorgeous animation ever produced for film. And it takes a cuddly sea otter and shows it for the vicious predator is actually it. It's preachiness does get overwhelming at times, especially in the ending, which I missed, but see this one. And no, the lead penguin is not gay. It's a metaphor.

2. Superman Returns

Yes, I finally saw it. And I wished I had seen it in the theaters because the first time i saw it was on our little computer monitor in the bedroom and with the non-visibility and the strings and the sleeping child on my lap, I must confess I went to sleep. Like, a lot. And at first I blamed the movie, but then watched it again and realized that no, it wasn't the movie. And yes, It is probably too long, and bit ponderous, and Brandon Routh is not ... quite ... right somehow, as Superman. It's not the performance, he just looks too young, I guess, but the movie really works for me. Especially as I had recently re-viewed Superman 2, which is this actually a direct sequel to. It takes those first Superman movies, so wonderfully campy, and updates them, and you get to see the tragedy of Superman having finally gotten what he wants, Lois, and having had it taken away, and taken so far away that she doesn't even remember what happened. Hence the kid, who was confusing for a lot of people.

This kid could have been the most annoying part of the movie. I was actually not a fan of this plot development when I first heard about it, but in the movie, the kid works. Mostly, I think, because it provides a reason for Lois not to just go running into Superman's arms. And the actor who played the kid was really good. I usually don't say this about kid actors, but he hit all the right notes. I still wonder how that math works out for the kid to be the age he is, but I am also good at fanwanking, so it's not that much of a problem. Kate instructs me that I am good at constructing bridges so that the massive trucks don't fall into the plot holes. It's a gift.

But it was a good Superman movie. It looks beautiful and there's a lot of emotional heft there.

1. Stranger than Fiction

The ultimate meta movie about the relationship between writers and their characters. It has Will Ferrell, which is usually an umm...no for me, but it also has Emma Thompson. And the trailer did its job of honestly showing me what kind of movie it was. (most of the audience I was with did not pay enough attention and had expected another Talledega Nights. They were annoying.) But the story of Harold Krick and the author who created him, and who is suffering writer's block because she can't find the right way to kill him off, mostly because she doesn't want to, is a hysterical metafiction detailing the relationship between art and humanity. And the performances of Ferrell and Thompson seem totally flip-flopped in their relationship to their regular filmic personas. Thompson is manic, panicked, and over the top and Ferrell is quiet and restrained. And all the characters are named after famous scientists, for some reason, which I sure was a level of commentary I was not getting. It made me feel smart to notice that. Actually, It made me feel smart to understand it when my wife pointed it out to me.

It's a sweet little romance as well, as sweet as it can get between a boring, lumpy IRS agent and a tattooed, angry-grrrl baker, but I will never look at flour in the same way again. (I mean -- who knew there was more than one kind?)

2006

2006-12-29T17:34:00.000-08:00

It's almost over, and I have mixed feelings about it. As does the world, apparently. As I sit here typing this they are waiting to excute Saddam Hussein in Iraq, he may even be dead already, one more bit of grisly business before the world can take a deep sigh and be reborn again. Not that the number on the calendar is anything but an artificial construct really, but it is important psychologically, and if part of what makes up the world is human perception of it, then I guess that does make the calendar important after all.

This was a good year for me in many ways and a really bad one as well. It is the year I finally stopped accepting my own excuses and started kicking my own ass, which I feel good about. I got more written this year than I have in all the years I've been alive combined, so I suppose that is a victory. I also took care of myself better. I didn't lose any more weight, but I did drop another couple of pants sizes and the number on the weights I was able to lift went up. Another victory. I survived a difficult year at school and have welcomed the beginning of a new one under new management, with a principal that gives me hope that our school will be able to become a world-class school, and someone with the skill to possibly mentor me and help me become the best teacher I can possibly become. If that's what I want.

And I think therein lies my biggest problem with this year, an inability to pin down what it is I actually want. This has, to be frank, frustrated my wife and my family as it has made me very moody, very --well, it's dangerous to self-diagnose yourself as intense, but, ok -- intense, and it has driven home to me the fact that the face I present to the world is not usually the face I wear at home or with myself. In public I can seem friendly, jovial, but at home and in my personal relationships I am often quiet, morose even, seeming mad at the world. It's almost a Jeckyl and Hyde thing, my moods swings, which were supposed to balance out with my meds and with my increased fitness level, have actually gotten worse. Oh, these things help, but I think there's just a deeper issue boiling under the surface, which occasionally pops out, and I can feel it there most days, which makes me withdraw. This isn't fair to the people who love me.

Part of it is just the fact that, outside of my parents, and one or two close frinds. Well, one really (Hi Jenny!), I did not grow up with a great deal of acceptance. Everything I liked and wanted was considered weird and stupid, and I just got used to sitting there blandly, thinking my thoughts, and not telling anyone whatI was really doing. Like, writing X-men fanfic in my bedroom and drawing (really bad) covers to go along with it. Or watching TV until 3:00 in the morning because my thoughts were too unsettled to go to sleep. Planning out multi-volume novels in spiral bound notebooks, and then losing interest in them and starting new ones the next day. Creating elaborate sets and solo-game rules for the MARVEL SUPER-HEROES role playing game figures and playing campaigns by myself because there wasn't anyone to play with. These were the things I loved, the things that were always on my mind, and the things that I was always too embarrassed to admit to.

So, as an adult, I'm always thinking that the things I want or like or are on my mind must be stupid or embarrassing somehow. And maybe I'm right about that, but I married my wife and I adopted my children for a reason, and that was not to shut myself in a closet away from them. It was not to build a manequin and call it daddy and paint it to look like me while I went on with my own inner dialogue with people who are not actually there.

This came up a few months ago as we were all settling down for the night and I was doing something stupid on the internet and my wife was in the room and my daughter was and sho hopped over and wanted to know what I was doing and I got really annoyed with her and just said, "nothing, it doesn't matter" and tried to push her down off my lap. My wife just said, (and I paraphrase here) that I was just shutting everyone out as usual and she made me understand that it was ok to share myself with my kid. It was, in fact, required. And whatever I was doing--as long as I wasn't looking at something dirty or anything--was probably not going to be met with judgement. Nobody really cared if I was looking at silly comic book websites and hanging out at the NaNoWriMo forums. If that was who I was, great. She made me realize that my seven-year-old, who really was old enough to understand, didn't even know I was writing a book, that's how far away I'd pushed her. She wanted to know why I felt so little of all of them that I didn't bother to share.

And that wasn't it. It was just that I ... I guess I didn't know how. Very few people had ever not looked at what I was doing with derision, so I just got used to keeping it shut away. Clearly, that wasn't working anymore. Which led me to the realization that it actually was ok to want what I want, without qualifications. Which led me to the question, what is it I actually wanted?

I wanted to strike the word Dream from my vocabulary. I'd been living with it for too long. It was time to replace dream with work and start kicking my own ass, which I did, which accounts for the vast amount of writing work I got done in between work, family, and "service organizations."

I want to develop some career goal besides teaching. This was tough for me to admit to, but .... I really just don't like it much any more. Even with a good principal and a good environment, I';m tired of it. I'm tired, mostly, of being responsible for so many other peoples' behavior at all times. I just want to be. I don't know what this goal is going to be, I would love for it to be a writing career (thus the kicking of the ass) but I do know I need to come to some clarity soon. I just don't feel like, personality-wise, I'm much cut out for it. Call it burn-out or whatever. And I DO NOT want to go into administration. I break out in hives just thinking about that.

My wife and I set our next goal, which is building a house on property next to her parents', which will be a multi-stage, fiscally complicated, process. And I feel good about that but also a little scared too. We also decided we haven't traveled nearly as much as we would have liked to and want to do more traveling while we're young, hopefully international, since neither one of us even has a passport. I feel like I need this experience as a writer, and I need it with her. We do not plan to take the children, at least not yet, and anyone who knows my kids will know why we're waiting until they're older. I love them, but sometimes ... oy. I have no idea how this goal fits in with the house plan.

Since my birthday is in January, I can say that 2006 was the year I was 33. Jesus' age, which felt signifigant somehow, and probably caused me to do a lot of crucifying of myself. I didn't screw up as much as I have in some other years, but I wasn't perfect either. I have a feeling 34 is going to be more of the same, I just hope to have a better handle on it next time.

God, that was depressing. I promise to try to be funny next time. Still not used to this whole Blogging-as-therapy thing.

The 6 Assholes of Christmas

2006-12-24T08:11:00.000-08:00

To the idiot standing outside wal-mart, right next to the "No smoking withing twenty feet of store entrance" sign, smoking a cheap, smelly cigarrette, blowing it at the Salvation Army bell ringer, who was too polite to grab the cigarrette and jam it in his eyesocket ... congratulations, you're a Christmas Asshole!

To the redneck guy in the black-smoking truck who stopped in the Raley's parking lot for the specific purpose of getting the attention of the cold husky dog in the back of someone's else's truck, just to honk at it and scare the bejeezus out of it, then cackle out the window with his friend and peel away with a cloud of smoke and rubber debris spewing out behind him ... congratulations, you're a Christmas Asshole!

To the woman at the outlet mall who wanted my parking place as I was putting my kids inside my Blazer, who apparently decided I was taking too long and decided to hurry me up by honking at me ... Congratulations, you're a Christmas Asshole!

To the gang of teenagers in the mall, standing in the exact middle of the way, oblivious to what was going on around them, glaring at people and giggling profanities at the children who passed by to show everyone how "cool" they were ... congratulations, you're all Christmas Assholes!

To my neighbor, who's complaining that the Christmas Lights across the street look "too mexican" ... congratulations, you're a Christmas Asshole!

And, ok, to the grinch taking the time on Christmas Eve morning to think about this list, type it up, and post it on the web for all the world to see, thus taking advantage of what are probably basically decent people (well, in most cases) just giving in to the holiday stress .... congratulations, you're a Christmas Asshole!

Let's salute all of our Christmas Assholes. May they choke on some fruitcake and die this glorious holiday season. Well, most of them, anyway ...

The Christmas Curmudgeon (warning: depressing content)

2006-12-17T18:28:00.000-08:00

I've never liked Christmas. There. I said it. I just ... from the time I was a little child, the "magic of the holiday season" has escaped me. It's not that I don't get the meaning of Christmas, or that I don't believe in it. I do. The entire incarnation-death-resurrection cycle that makes up the core of my faith is meaningful and important to me. And it's not because I had my faith "educated out of me" as my family was always afraid would happen. I mean, yes, I know that the entire Christmas holiday was just a way for early Christians to co-opt the Roman Saturnalia festival. This is not what makes me ambivalent about Christmas. My favorite holiday is Easter and I totally geek out about that, even though I know if was just a way for early christians to co-opt the pagan rites of spring, only with a lot less sex. (well, a little less, anyway .... I still want to know why that bunny lays eggs.)

I am annoyed by Christmas in the way everyone is. As a TV geek, I resent the yearly "special holiday episode" most shows take (although the "How I met your Mother" one recently was the way to get it right). I can't stand any holiday song written in the last 100 year. I'm looking at you, Rudolph, Jingle Bell Rock, Rocking around the christmas tree, and I think there is a special circle of hell reserved for the writers and popularizers of "Grown up Christmas List" and especially, "The Christmas Shoes." I hate how everything gets so busy and there's so much social pressure around this time. I have never sent out Christmas cards and only decorated the outside of my house once. Don't ask.

And before you say anything, yes I do like getting presents. Always have. And yes, I realize this makes me a hypocrite.

This recently came to a head when I was putting up the christmas tree this year. My children were helping me string the lights, actually behaving themselves. Jewel's christmas cd was on the stereo (shut up!) and my wife was on the couch watching what was going on providing helpful instruction. And I was thinking, "this is a greeting card moment. this is when I should be happy" but I just wasn't, and I was trying to figure out why that was, and why it has always been that way for me. And then I had one of those stunning moments of realization that we have from time to time, the kind where you wonder why you haven't had it before. Some people need alcohol to get there, I only needed Jewel (shut up!).

ok, stop reading now if you just want this to be the geeky-silly blog and not the serious one, because what follows is in no way funny, but may help explain why I am who I am today. I firmly believe that our personalities start to form when we are little, and the things that happen to us then resonate out and affect who we become as adults. I don't think anyone will disagree with that. And when I was two years old, almost three, I lost my little brother. He died (I think) ten days before christmas. Now, I remember him, but I don't remember the specific occasion of his death or how I found out about it. I remember not going to his funeral, for some reason, and I have very specific memories of him when he was alive. But I think that sadness marked me in some way, and got itself forever associated with this season. I didn't share this with anyone, but I've been thinking about it ever since, and its taken me a while to process, but I think it explains why, exactly I just feel so unbearably sad this time each year, and I usually don't start to feel better until January when my birthday rolls around, and while Easter, with its promise of redemption and rebirth and its sense of relief from a cycle of unbearable grief has always been my preferred holiday.

So I hope that this realization will help me have a better christmas next year, as I think i still need this one to process. So, is this a new christmas beginning for me? We'll see. It may just be further proof that I need therapy.

Random TV Geekness

2006-12-10T08:19:00.000-08:00

Ok, they got me. After some initial reticence about the show, I am now a full on Heroes geek! This will probably come as a surprise to no one.

At first, I thought the show was a little plodding and self important. This tone changed with the second episode. I heard this was because they brought in a new show-runner who wanted to lighten the tone. Whatever they did, it worked. Of course, OF COURSE, this coincided with the arrival of Greg Grunberg, who was the best character on Alias for many years, the only one who could convincingly crack a joke while saving Sydney Bristow's life. All we need now is for Kevin Weisman to appear as the techno geek who helps Micah Sanders learn about his powers, and were all set.

Even Hayden Panetierre stopped anoying me, with her stoic "bitch-goddess" face and over coiffed hair. And Bad Glasses Man? The one we all though was evil at first? Well, he may be the most awesome adoptive father of all time. I wish I had some shadowy quasi-governmental agency to help me protect my kids. Go, bad glasses dad!

ahem ... anyway, if you're not watching Heroes now, the previous episodes are being re-run on SciFi and NBC to get you ready for the show to return in January, and are available for streaming online. Oh, and you can get them on itunes too. Yes, I realize I have become a TV Missionary now, but we all knew it was going to happen someday. Any show that includes both a serial killer and an apocalypse will do that to me.

My other TV Geektastic moments so far this season:

The New Caprica Arc on Battlestar Galactica. WIth the fleet evacuated to avoid being killed by the invading Cylons, the civillian population is left on the planet they unwisely decided to settle and are living under Cylon domination for six months. Brutal, brutal stuff, but brilliant. The resistance forms, even utilizing suicide bombers, sacrifices are made, Starbuck is kidnapped and subjected to a Persephone-like internment, which includes making her a mother and then making her scared of losing the child, The Pres and the terrorist bond while waiting to be killed by firing squad, and then, Galactica, which can't live with having left so many behind, literally drops OUT OF THE FUCKING SKY and shows everyone, absolutely everyone, who's in charge. The people return to their home in exile, but have lost 10,000 of their own. Not exactly heartwarming, but brilliant.

The Slap Bet episode of How I Met Your Mother may be the funniest single episode of a sitcome I have ever seen. From the process of slab bets themselves, to the revelation of Robin's dark secret, I was laughing so hard my son came over to the couch to make sure I was all right. Let's just say I volunteer to be Slap Bet commisioner.

The Aitu Four on Survivor: Cook Islands. Rejected and betrayed by everyone, the four left on the Aitu tribe, facing defeat and eventual pagonging from the double-in-numbers Raro tribe, bind together and proceed to KICK ASS! They win every challenge, then Yul, genius as he is, uses the power of the immunity idol to bring the weaselly outcast, who also does all the work and can actually think intelligently about strategy, back over to their side and kick out the RARO assholes, starting with the jive-talking moron and culminating in the sanctimonious Candice, who had betrayed them in the first place. Brilliant, brilliant play for once (i hope you're watching this, Terry) and for once, the good guys win. Of course, from previews, it looks like it all falls apart next week, but for now, good on you Aitu. Thank you for saving this show.

Studio 60 continues to rock for me. Though some character choices have been odd. I appreciate the irony, but is it realistic that Harriett, who's supposed to be this brilliant comedienne, can't tell a joke to save her life. But I still like the show. It's funny and sweet in the right places, and yes, I want to be Matt Albie when I grow up.

Jericho, let' be honest, sucks. But for some reason I can't stop watching. It must be the whole apocalypse obsession.

Oh, and for your homework assignment, Watch Veronica Mars! It's the best show on television right now. Ok, well, it's at least in the top five. The Serial-rapist storyline that started out the season came together so well that I almost slapped myself for not guessing the truth. And the piz-dance? Yikes? My favorite line came from Mac. Paraphrased: I can't go to the Frat party because all the glitter came off my porn-star top. They won't let me in! But don't worry about her, she substituted nicely with an "ask me about my STD" t-shirt.

The Truth, She is a Bitch

2006-12-02T07:04:00.000-08:00

Recently, it seems the theme of my life has been "Facing Unpleasant truths." Here are some things that I've learned:

I am not as smart as I like to think I am. I am not even as smart as other people think I am. ON most days, I am not even the smartest person in my own house (this will come as no surprise to anyone who knows my wife). Yes, this includes days when it's just me and the bunny and the cat. I may be smarter than the fish, since they accidentally ate the little sucker fish that was cleaning up after them. I stress the word may.

Despite the persistent fantasy I have of competing, If I actually were a contestant on The Amazing Race, I would get so hopelessly lost that Phil Kheoghan would not even be able to find me to Philiminate me. This would probably happen on the way to the airport. During the first leg, when I was still in the U.S. and could actually read the road signs.

In spite everything I may say to the contrary, I am a person who needs order and cleanliness around me in order to function. However, because of various issues (thanks a bunch, brain chemistry!) I am incapable of creating or maintaining it for myself. This keeps me in a constant state of freaked out.

Yes, I know I am too old to watch Anime and read comic books. No, I am not going to stop.

The cute barista girl at Starbucks? The one I always think is flirting with me (yes, i flash the ring, honey)? The one who told me I look "like the guy on CSI" who I choose to believe is Eric Szmada and not William Peterson? Yeah, she just wants a good tip. The guy who works the window on alternate days? Same thing.

My personal style, the one I like to think of as a fusion of earthy-crunchy and alternative hipster? It's really just whatever's on clearance at Old Navy and a couple of t-shirts from Hot Topic. And hair gel. Lots and lots of hair gel, because i have thick, straight hair and it will do NOTHING else.

That is all. I go to cry now.

not. dead. yet. (think I'll go for a stroll!)

2006-11-12T10:28:00.000-08:00

I am posting only to assure you I am still alive. It is november, which means it is NanoWriMo and I am doing basically nothing but writing and working. 50,000 words in one month, which means about 1600 every day. I don't know if I'll make the full 50, but should get close. The book may actually be done this year, if I keep on it, which is great because I would love to start developing the next one. I am such a masochist!

Also, go see Stranger than Fiction! It may actually be my second favorite movie of all time! (of course, nothing will ever beat Serenity.)

That is all.

Stuff and Nonsense

2006-10-21T08:42:00.000-07:00

I have several more substantial posts coming, but for now I wanted to get something posted. So, inspired by Kim, I decided just to talk about things that are going well right now, so ... here are 5 things that are making me happy today.

1. Soon, I will be unstoppable!

Ok, so, maybe not, but the other day I ran an entire mile while the treadmill fluctuated between a 5% and 10% incline, and I actually did not die. For someone who's always been so unathletic, it felt pretty good. And my flat mile (well, I usually run at 1%) is way under ten minutes. I think it's at something like 8 minutes now. For someone who started doing this stuff 2 years ago and weighed 200 pounds, I feel pretty good. I also, will probably not die of a heart attack at age 40, which was a distinct possibility, giving my own personal and family cardiac issues. Yeah for not dying!

2. Eating the Elephant

They say you can eat an elephant one bite at a time, and I have kept taking the bites. I've made all deadlines in September and October, and next month is NanoWriMo, with the goal of writing 50,000 words in the month, which may take me really close to the end. Yes, it is still trying to kill me, but I probably deserve it. I actually sent an excerpt to my best friend, Jennie-Fred (who, yes, is an even more important thing about Indiana I miss than the leaves. sorry.) and her response was, "this is well-written, but what the hell?" which was perfect! I will be really glad when it's done.

3. Go Pirates!

Actually, she's not a pirate anymore, but VERONICA MARS IS STILL ON THE AIR! Tuesdays at 9:00 on the CW. Just doing my part, Rob Thomas. This is my favorite show right now, and it's been on the brink of cancellation every single year, but it's still going. Imagine a young, female Philip Marlowe starring in sun-drenched California Noir crime stories. It's just about perfect in every way. But ignore the CW's advertising campaign. They don't get the show, and they make it look lame.

4. Now is the season of ... something

It continues to be fall. The weather, though it has warmed up in the last few days, remains cool. I love the way it's just cold enough to really need a coat in the morning, but it is sunny enough for short sleeves in the afternoon. I'm actually really looking forward to the rainy season this year, but I'll take this for now. It's good hiking weather (as if I have time to go hiking).

5. But what if it is Baroque? Should I fix it then?

I recently found the last two books of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle on remainder stacks. So, two hardcovers for $10. Yes! Now all I have to do is find the time to read them. Maybe when the book is done.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (but not Betty)

2006-10-14T06:55:00.000-07:00

My favorite season is here! Fall! No, it's not the leaves. We don't really get the whole autumnal leaves thing in the same way the midwest does, and which is the only thing I miss about Indiana. Of course, there, the colors are a harbinger of the blinding-white winter, so I can live with the trade. No. The fall TV season, because I, of course, am an overly obsessed TV dork.

This year, however, I am not watching as many new shows as before. Because last year, armed with DirecTiVo, I over-sampled, and tried to love shows not worthy of it (I'm looking at you, Supernatural) and ended up canceling many, many, season passes. So, this year, I was more selective. So, what did I try?

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Heroes (of course!), Jericho ... and is that really it? Wow!

So, how did they rank?

Unabashed love for Studio 60. I love the Matt Albie character, and I usually loathe the portrayal of writers on TV. I love that he makes fun of christians while is simultaneously in tortured love with one of them. I love that they've included a sympathetic christian character who acts like a person of faith while also being smart, talented, and funny. She's not a cliche, which is incredibly refreshing. They really need to make the actual skits from their fictional show be funnier, but that is my only complaint. My favorite part? The giant red-lettered l.e.d. countdown clock of deadline doom that hangs in Matt's office. I so need one of those!

As for Heroes ... well, I watched the first episode, and I have the rest waiting. I like it. I'm intrigued, but the first episode took itself so god-damned seriously. I know its going for an Unbreakable Vibe, but there can be moments when characters crack a smile. I'm hoping the addition of Greg Grunberg to the cast helps it out, because so far ... i guess it just needs to develop. Need to work on the cringe-worthy dialogue as well.

"What did you do at school today?"
"I walked through fire... and I didn't get burned."
"wow, honey, that's deep"

Gack!

Jericho, I'm still finding oddly compelling despite the fact that many of the characters act like idiots, and the people who I'm supposed to find sympathetic, I don't. The kids are smart. They should run the town. I'm with Strega, from Television Without Pity, who is hoping for an army of zombies ... it could happpen.

My biggest problem with the show, is that the main actress, set up to be the love interest, is the most annoying character. She's bratty where she's supposed to be tragic, stupid where she's supposed to be kick-ass. She's clearly going to be who OUR HERO (who is still a cipher, but that's a separate issue which may ending up being part of the point so I'll give it to them for now) is going to end up with, but I'm really hoping he hooks up with the plucky teacher who knows her way around engines. The main girl? I hope she drinks some fallout and has all her skin bubble and peel off before accidentally blowing herself up trying to light a kerosene stove. Could happen! It's a Lana Lang problem from Smallville. You're supposed to love her because she's PRETTY! but she's actually a twit.

later I may post about returning shows I still love (WATCH VERONICA MARS!!!!!!!!), and the ones I dumped (Smallville!) And we kind of wanted to try Ugly Betty, but couldn't because Thursdays at 8:00 are full, with Survivor: Race War and the Earl/Office combo, so sorry, America Ferrera. We love you, but you need to move.

The Unbearable Blogness of Being

2006-10-04T17:10:00.000-07:00

I've been gone a while. Sorry. Not gone, as in sent to rehab or some sort of mental rehabilitation center (although, after the last entry, I can see why you might think that), just busy, with work and writing and family and other stuff too boring to mention. Plus, the new TV season has started, so OF COURSE that must become a priority. (Watch Veronica Mars! Especially if you have a Neilson Box!) But here are 3 random things that I offer for your edification.

1. In Memorium.

Phoebe died today. Phoebe was my old ibook, and she was named Phoebe because she was white like the moon. (no, she was not named after Lisa Kudrow.) This was a catastrophe beyond comprehension, made only slightly better by the fact that I had, strangely for me, had the foresight to back up all of my important files on the school server last week. There were only two important files not there, and these I was able to rescue, by performing CPR on her until I was able to transfer them onto a flashdrive. But she is gone.

And she's seriously gone too. The screen flashed and she started vibrating and making weird noises, and then the screen scrolled for no apparent reason and then the entire computer went still. All the scene was missing was smoke and demonic laughter. I might poke the corpse a bit and see what other files I can salvage, but I really don't think there's much hope of a resurrection.

If anyone's interested (Phil, I'm looking at you) I'm having a memorial service tomorrow in my classroom about 11:00. Bring tissue. I'm also going to need someone to sing "My Heart Will Go On."

2. Tell me you don't have a driver's license. Or Vote.

I have not been following The Lost Experience over the summer, but have heard from people who have, and who pointed me to the YouTube video that revealed the secret of the numbers and of Alvar Hanso. Pretty cool stuff, actually, I was happy that actually paid off in an interesting way. Of course, it invoked the apocalypse, so I was immediately in (see also: Jericho).

What's scarier? The dorks on the message boards saying "Hey, this isnt real? whaaaaa?" Someone actually posted like three pages proving that it was all a hoax, including links to the imdb pages for the actors playing Persephone/Rachel Blake, Mittelwork, and Alvar Hanso. They were outraged, OUTRAGED I SAY! to discover that it wasn't real. Umm ... dudes ... tie in to a TV show, k? step back from the edge. And put away the car keys, because obviously ... yeah. (No, I don't think xnickerx was one of them. she's had other things going on, what with making cream of wheat profile picks. don't ask.)

3. What would Warren (Ellis) Do?

I met every deadline I set myself in September for the book. Yes, I fucking rock, thank you very much. I wrote a Chapter every 10 days, and each chapter is between 6000 and 10,000 words. Hopefully, the book will be done soon. In September I hit 100,000 words, and yestderday, I hit 300 manuscript pages (trust me, you don't need to know the details of the conversion). So, I'm feeling pretty good about that, and about carving out the time to work every day at 5:00 a.m. Not only do I rock, I am also tired and grumpy. But we all must sacrifice, right honey?

I'm happy with the book so far, even if it has tried to kill me on several occasions, and I think it really did kill Phoebe (am now working on Hera, my wife's laptop, who I think likes me better anyway) and I have come to the unfortunate knowledge that the theme of this book seems to be turning out to be, "You know, everyone really would be better off if you'd just kill yourself."

I am not hoping for inclusion in our school library. For several reasons.

What do the chickens know?

2006-09-04T10:22:00.000-07:00

Weird stuff has been happening lately. I'm not really sure how to explain it, maybe it's always been happening and I'm just noticing it now. I will share a couple of incidences with you and let you be the judge.

The last several times I have visited my in-laws, we've had to stop the car because there were, I shit you not, chickens crossing the road. Yes, chickens. The first time, I just looked at my wife and we both chuckled a little and she said, "well, are you going to ask them?" The Red Tornado, who is seven, didn't understand why it was funny, so we explained it to her and now, every time it happens, she starts yelling, "It's the joke! Look, it's the joke!" His dudeness just gets excited because, hey, chickens! And for the record, no, I have not asked them yet, for the simple reason that I am afraid that if I ask them, they will tell me. Who needs that kind of responsibility?

One thing many people don'tt know about me is that I am obsessed with the end of the world (ok, nobody report me to the school district now, PHIL) and the main reason for this is that when I was a young teenager I began to dream about it. I do not know why, maybe it was the apocalypticc Baptist sect preaching about the END TIMES! Gah! That I grew up in (for a detailed explication of this philosophy, see the Left Behind books), or the fact that I grew up in the tail end of the Mutually Assured Destruction Era, but I have dreamed about the end of the world for a long time. Not necessarily about Nuclear war, but about endings, madness, etc. It's infused my writing, even, to the point that there's s an apocalyptic bent to it, which is probably something worth examining someday. In therapy, but whatever. But after an absence of about ten years, the dreams are back, and they are weird. Everything just shutting down. Storms. Disease. Weird, helmeted, super-villain-esque armies in orange jumpsuits and black motorcycle helmets. You know, weird. I know the psychologists are saying this is happening a lot because of 9/11 and the whole terrorist thing, but still. It makes every day seem a little surreal.

And it makes me wonder, what do the chickens know? Maybe I should listen to their cackling as they move across the road, maybe it's a song "So long and thanks for all the seed."

And perhaps the weirdest thing, which is apocalyptic in its own way: my wife called me at school the other day and said that she had to bring the kids by right at three because she had to take her grandmother to the doctor because , and here is a sentence I never thought I'd be typing, in any context, she'd sat on a needle and now couldn't find it, so had to go and get her butt x-rayed. Yes. And then, when she'd had her butt x-rayed and they'd reported, "hey, no needle!" she made them do it again because she wanted to make sure They'd compensated for her fake hip. I'm just going to leave that one as it is, because really, what more could I say?

I am, however, reasonably sure the chickens had nothing to do with that one. Reasonably sure ...

All Your Brains are Belong to Us!

2006-08-22T21:22:00.000-07:00

Well, it's here, and surprisingly, it does not suck. I know that may seem like damning with faint praise, but seriously. Being back at school does not suck. I have good classed, a good schedule, only one subject to teach now. I'm looking at my friend phil whos is teaching english AND history AND leadership AND drama AND nuclear physics AND sex ed AND beach volleyball AND the bible as history AND working as the campus computer tech and i feel very lucky. As i should, he will probably tell me.

His Dudeness and the Red Tornado have started school as well, and HD has not even done me the favor of crying, just a little bit, when i drop him off in the morning. It's like, seeya ... why are you still here? and I go off morosely to the car while he attacks a dog pile of four year olds with wood blocks and dinosaurs.

So far, i'm ok, even if I was suffering with post-migraine syndrome today and was stumbling around like a drunk person. My students, of course, have already come to view me with that mix of bemusement and fear that it usually takes them months to develop. The job that eats your life has started up again, and i guess I'm glad. But I'll be even more glad at the end of the month, when the cash drops into the bank account.

You're On Notice!

2006-08-13T20:58:00.000-07:00

go to the url on the corner of the pic to generate your own list. Kim, Phil, XNICKERX, I Challenge you!

Summer 2006: A post mortem

2006-08-12T10:35:00.000-07:00

At left: While standing on this beach, I thought of the impending school year. Somehow, I managed not to throw myself in.

Well, it's over. The last official day of Summer Vacation has come and gone. I don't count the weekend, so ... that's it? When this Summer began a week ago, it seems like, I had some defenite goals for it. I was going to do a lot of writing. I was going to spend time with my family. I was going to get some books read. I was going to keep up on the house, and the home-repair stuff. I was going to blog more. So, how did I do? Well ... a little bit of good, a little bit of bad.

I did write. I wrote a lot, in fact. I wrote more in a two-month period than I ever did before. I wrote something like 30,000 words. This is not as much as I'd hoped to, but i'm giving myself the win here. I got a lot done, and I'm now within spitting distance of getting the book done by Christmas. (Or at least Dec. 31st. See, I'm already fudging, which is what I do.)

I did spend time with the family. We went on a couple of trips and for a weeka nd a half we had some other houseguests and there was a lot of togetherness, a veritable shitload of togetherness, so ... you know. But it was nice. We actually made it to the ocean, which is a goal of every summer, and brought back photographic proof. I wanted to take my daughter to climb Mt. Lassen, however, and this didn't happen. I actually had the day scheduled for it, but then realized that neither of us had the proper shoes, so I decided to put it off until we could get quality footwear. Yes, you read that correctly, I CANCELLED A MOUNTAIN CLIMB BECAUSE I DID NOT HAVE THE RIGHT SHOES! Yes, I feel properly ashamed. But I did not want a broken ankle.

Both my wife and I re-discovered out love of reading. She's zoomed through all the Patricia Cornwell books and I read a bunch of stuff I wanted to. Here is the list of what I read:

Perdido Street Station and The Scar by China Mieville

A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin

44 Scotland Street and Espresso Tales by Alexander McCall Smith

Scattered Suns by Kevin J. Anderson. (ok, this one is still in progress, but I'm still claiming it.)

OK, the house stuff. HA! and ha-ha! ha-ha! ha-HA! The less said about this the better. It is still standing, is all I'm saying.

I did not blog enough. I blogged more than usual, but did not meet my goal of two entires a week, so ... I'm not sure I had much more to say, though, so maybe that's a good thing. And I never made it to see Superman Returns, so I have been told by the Geek Union that I must turn in my membership card! Never! I am obsessed with Who Wants to be a Superhero so I'm hoping they'll take that as transfer credit.

So, there it was, it was what it was, and was no more. And now is no more ... sniff ... Back to work ... what is this work you speak of?

Everything I really need to know, I learned from Reality Television

2006-08-09T15:18:00.000-07:00

At left: The Patron Saint. I managed to find one with his clothes on. You're welcome.

Yes, I did the research on this powerful cultural phenomenon, and have come back with valuable lessons. Now, who's going to pay my therapy bills?

Every detour comes with its own pros and cons /No matter what load of scraps, trash, and random lawn clippings life has left you with, there's always a way to "Make it work!" /Never go up against a Bostonian when death or, worse, elimination, are on the line/ Dave's not your bitch, bitch. And neither am I/ Make friends. It's important to have alllies. It is even more important to have allies you can blackmail./Charm will get you by for about fifteen minutes, after that you'd better know something. If you don't know anything, you're going to have to rely on crazy/When in doubt, date the host. Yes, even if it's Jeff Probst/ Watch out for Bad Model Karma/If you're headed someplace high, be prepared to bungee jump/Run your own damn race!/It is easier to make up for a total lack of talent with a pretty smile and chiseled abs than it is to make up for crooked teeth and a paunch with amazing natural talent. If you have neither talent, nor abs, sorry, you're screwed/Just because you can't read, it doesn't mean you shouldn't be allowed to sign multi-million dolllar contracts that make everyone a gazillionaire but you/Make sure you're in the finals with people who pulled the same crap on everyone that you did/ It's always a good idea to have a swimsuit that can hold in your goodies while your crawling under a log through sand. Just saying/It can sometimes be difficult to know when it is most advantageous to go for it/There is no word in the English Language with a meaning so malleable as that of Integrity/Just do what Tim Gunn says, ok?/No matter what you do, someone is always watching/If you need to know something, ask a sommelier. They know everything/The government does not care how charming you are, how many fish you caught, or how much time you spent naked. They'd love to throw your fat naked ass in jail anyway, so pay your taxes/When the cameras are off, the lights have dimmed, and no one cares anymore that you once gave a slightly off-camera blow job to a construction worker because you thought he was a quadri-gazillionaire, the only thing to do is find yourself among those of equally fleeting celebrity, look around, hold hands, and hang your heads in shame together.

Carpe grabatus

2006-07-27T10:37:00.000-07:00

I don't know what happened, things were going so well, and then monday .... crash. Well, not crash exactly, since crash would involve some sort of energy and enthusiasm, more like "slump...all fall down." Could be the heat, could be the return from vacation let-down, could be the ennui resulting from the knowledge that Summer is almost over and school will start soon (thanks, letter from my school district, for THAT), could be the fact that next week I will, in fact, be working at a conference, but all my steam ... it is pfft...

I haven't written anything, I only went to the gym once, I have done some reading, and yesterday I made myself clean the house, but for the rest of the time, it is the couch and it is the internet surfing, and it is the reality television for me. yeah! I am a slug, and I love it. I choose, officially, to blame the heat, because everyone else is.

next week I will work again. Next week I will actually have a reason, however annoying, to get out of bed. I have decided that I will stop feeling guilty for being a late-summer slug, and take this one week off. I should probably lay off the cookies, though.

So, everyone join me in my new slogan, Carpe Grabatus, seize the couch (latin-speaking people, do not tell me i translated this wrong. This week, I do not care. See intended meaning of the motto) and let's party like it's the morning after 1999.

The details of my summer are quite inconsequential ...

2006-07-20T15:45:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not dead. I did a stint in rehab, where I met Dakota Fanning, but now I'm back. Sort of.

I've just been busy. I wish I could say that it was with something exciting, but alas. We had houseguests for a couple of weeks, which meant two more kids in the house as usual, and it was fun, but four kids six and under is a lot. We survived. The hardest part was the car trips to and from LA, which ... not fun with that many kids.

Since we've been back from LA (motto: it's smogtastic!) , delivering our houseguests back home, we've just been home. The kids have had kids camp at the gym almost every day, which gives me two hours a day to run/work out/swim, stuff I like to pretend I lopve to do vbut which I secretly hate. And yes, I look fantastic, thanks for asking. Shut up, Phil. I know you're still the pretty one.

Besides that, I've been writing a lot. I've been mostly meeting my goal of laying down 2000 words a day on the book, so the progress feels nice, even though I think this book is trying to kill me. I don't blame it, by the way, it's not a happy little story.

A post is coming soon entitled "What I learned on my summer vacation." So look for that.

In short, I am not dead, I have been working. And there's nothing to report, really. And despite all my gym time, my abs remain in witness protection.

That is all.

My Father ... an Unauthorized Biography

2006-06-19T08:40:00.000-07:00

I promised a post about my father ... and in honor of Father's day, here it is ... a few days late

My father was born in 1949 in a little town called Crawfordsville, Indiana (motto: Way more cows than you're thinking). He was the first of five children, but we'll get to that later. What's interesting to note here is that my grandmother, who gave all of us grandkids "the talk" when we turned about 15/16 (this was much to late for some of us, btw) was only 16 when he was born. So all that "wait until later in your life" stuff was defenitely from experience.

Since my grandfather was a carpenter, he followed the work across the country throuout the fifties and sixties, and my Dad lived in many places, including Miami (motto: where the fashionable castro-exile sends their cast-off children, to be eventually forcibly returned by the federal government. Thanks, Janet Reno!) , where his final two siblings were born, and he eventually graducated from High School in Prescott, AZ (motto: there's an aerospace university around here somewhere). During these years, he worked as a butcher in a Grocery Store. When he graduated, he joined the navy, and expected to work in the galleys because of his experience. However, when they gave his the military aptitude test, he was off the scale in his mechaniacl apritude, so that's what they did with him. They made him a mechanic (and also tore up his wrist, but at least he wasn't sent to Vietnam, so ....)

About the time he joined the navy, his family moved back, permanently, to Indiana (motto: combining the worst of the tropics with the worst of the arctic since 1816!) . Why? I do not know.

In the navy, he was stationed at Treasure Island, in the San Francisco Bay, on a tug boat. While in the Bay area, he would meet up with some family friends who lived in Fremont (motto: yeah, there's a town here) , and he started going to church with them there. At this church, he met a high school Junior (I think) named Kathie Fleig. They started dating and by the Christmas of my Mother's Senior year, they were engaged. And at some point, she gave him mono. But, whatever ... These are the stories my grandmother tells.

They were married the next August amidst rumors of pregnancy among my mother's frieds, and, sure enough, a mere two and a half years later, I was born. (Seriously. These were church kids when that actually meant something. They were good.) My arrival coincided with the end of my father's navy career, and Dad decided to take his young bride and infant son back to his homeland ... the great midwest (motto: come for the blizzards, stay for the mosquitoes!). My mother, because she was young and naive, though maybe he'd stay in California (motto: what? we're' california, doofus) , but reality landed on that dream, and she came without complaint. Or, with complaint, but with compliance, not realizing she was soon to be subjected to a completely flat landscape, and snatched of mid-January conversation like this "Hey, it may even get above zero today. Actual temperature, anyway. Yeah wind chill will still be -20, but you can just tell, spring is coming ... eventually."

After working with his father for a while, my Dad got a job at a bottle-cap factory, and he was there for the next 30+ years. He becamse the head of maintenance, and worked long hours throuout the 80's boom and even longer hours through the 90's bust when they let go all of his help. He kept the place running through accidents (he was almost fried in an oven once. He didn't tell us, Mom found out from someone else), ownership changes, stroms, floods, all of the usual horsemen of apocalypse, and he only left, at the tun of the century, because of me. Again, more on that later.

I grew up during these years ... and, I've always loved my Dad, and I know he loves me, but I was not exactly a normal child, and I think sometimes he'd look at me, and think to himself .... what kind of a weirdo have I spawned. Except, he wouldn't used the word spawned. It was probably more like "what the ... you need more comics? You want a structure in your closet to do what with your action figures?"

I was not an easy child to raise, for a variety of reasons. I was undiagnored distracted type ADHD, way to into "the life of the mind" as I like to call it (others call it "living in the clouds" or, alternatively, "head up your ass syndome") I likes Sci_fi and comic books and read huge book sries and had to travel with about 4000 pages of various tyoes of reading material. I was NOT athletic, and worse, yet, had not inherited any of inherit mechanical skills. He actually tried to teach me, several times, how to fix things or build things, but it just didn't take.

But my dad was there for me anyway. When we'd go to strange towns, Like Indianapolis (motto: hey look, a race!) he'dalways help me find the hole in the wall comic shops and books stores and listen to me prattle on in the car. He defended me against those members of his family who thought I was not to be indulged and that all of these things were going to warp my brain somehoe and make me unholy. Turns out they were right, but ... you live, you learn. My Dad may not have always understood me, but he loved me and supported me anyway, which I think is even more of a testimony to his character. He didn't need to "get it" to be there for me. He stood up for my right to be wierd.

And wherever I have been, when I've had a need, he's been there. When I got sick he moved the world to get what I needed to make me better, when I needed help moved (several times, actually) he dropped everything, usually after having worked a 10-hour shift at the plant, to load of the trailer and haul all my stuff (most of which were really heavy boxes of books and comics, actually, now that I think about it) across the county. When things have broken in my house, he's there to help fix them, include 2 recent removals and replacements of toilets. He an Mom are there to watch the kids almost every weekend, and in 1996, when I knew I needed to leave Indiana and go somewhere else to live, he was sad, but he understood.

and then, in a time in his life when he should have been able to think about retiring comfortably from the factory and living out the rest of his life on the property he'd purchased in the 80's and had just paid off, he instead quit his job, and moved across the country, hoping for the best, so he could be there for me and for his grandchildren. And to, you know, help me fix things.

So now, my father works long hours as the head of maintenance at a nursing home, watched my kids on the weekend, and of course, takes care of the rest of the family. He gave up a lot to make this move, and I never really thanks him properly. So, thanks Dad ...

like he's ever going to read this ...

itunes ... you tunes

2006-06-16T16:05:00.000-07:00

copied from phil's blog. Kim, I challenge you ...

Open iTunes to answer the following. Go to your library. Answer, no matter how embarrasing it is.

How many songs?: 863

Sort by song title:
First Song: 1000 miles away by Jewel

Last Song: "Zero's and ones by Derek Webb. hmm. numerical references both

Sort by time:

Shortest Song: Lion Wilson by Reliant K

Longest Song: Those final feet by Cowboy Junkes. Probably because the bonus track is attached.

Sort by album:

First Album: 6.1 by Out of the Grey

Last Album: You were Here by Sarah Harmer

Top Five Most Played Songs:
1. "A New Law" by Derek Webb
2. "I Hate Everything but You" by Derek Webb
3. "Try" by Nelly Furtado
4. "Don't Dream it's Over" by Sixpence None the Richer
5. "A Sorta Fairytale" by Tori Amos

many songs come up when you search for "sex"?8 ... because i have the Mary Chapin Caprenter album Time/Sex/Love. honest.
How many songs come up when you search for "death"?1
How many songs come up when you search for "love"?49
How many songs come up when you search for "you"?121

Rock/Suck June 2006 : I'm doing this again ... why?

2006-06-13T08:47:00.000-07:00

I promise, no saved by the bell references this time. That meme seems to have spent itself, thank God.

Three Things that ROCK! (god, that sounds lame.)

Over the Hedge/Cars I'm lumping these two things together because I don't want to make it seem like all I do is watch movies and/or TV. Even though I do. I loved these movies, as everyone probably does. I found the most personal connection in Over the Hedge, however, and anyone who knows me will understand that I am now a member of the Brotherhood of Hammy the Squirrel. This weekend, when I was without my meds, It was like Hammy at the end of this movie, after he has sipped the caffeinated soda. I won't spoil it, just ... get the to a theater. I will probably see Cars again this week sometime, because my son, bless his little puddin' heart, fell asleep in the middle of the movie, and the got really upset when he woke up and realized it was over. That's ok. I'll take that one for the team.

Season Finales. This one really belongs to May, but I'll write about it here. I love television. Probably a little too much. I actually prefer TV to movies, and this year several of my shows did not disappoint. Veronica Mars, easily the best show on TV right now, nailed its season finale. I actually had figured out who the murderer was, but it made it no less satisfying. And the season-ending cliffhanger, with Roni being stood at the airport because of whatever Charisma had in the briefcase....sniff. And what can I say about Lost? Yikes! More was revealed in one episode than the X-files ever explained in 9 seasons. The only part I didn't like was how certain characters just wander through the plot at the writer's contrivance....and Charlie....not that I don't understand being glad you're alive and taking some time to mack on Claire, but couldn't you go look for Locke and Eko, you know, just a little bit?

The End of the school year. It's over. We survived. Most of us, anyway. Enough said.

Three things that Suck!

This conversation I had recently with an auto mechanic.
"Mr. Grayson?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I'll start with the good news."
"Um....ok?"
"The brakes? We had a look at them, and they're fine. You still have 85% of the pads left."
"Yeah, but why do they squeak so bad?"
"They just squeal. Some brakes do that?"
"Is there anything we can do about that?"
"No. They'll stop eventually, and we checked out that cooling fan thing you told us about."
"Ok."
"Problem is....you have a coolant leak, which is causing the fan not to go on, and we found the leak, and we can fix it, so your engine won't overheat and explode."
"ok."
"Well, it's not a cheap leak though. We have to replace the manifold gaskets, and that's about $748 for the part and it'll be $968 for that and the labor altogether."
"..."
"But, you know, if we don't fix it, the engine will overheat, and you could lose the whole thing."
"..."
"But we can have it done by the end of the day."
"..."
"Mr. Grayson?"
Sound of siren in the distance.

The check I wrote later that day. Once, you know, the paramedics had revived me.

The sound our brakes are still making. I've just accepted the fact that a pack of dogs is going to rush us every time we stop at a stop sign.

oh look, a chicken ...

2006-06-12T09:17:00.000-07:00

Well, it's over. The school year. Our time in purgatory. Our school has been through a lot in the last couple of years, because we are the last school students attend in a highly disfunctional district. In two years, we're supposed to fix them. Doesn't happen, usually, and the state's noticed and then the federal government, and so we've spent the last two years trying to fix everything in sight without a clear plan and with administration that has bailed on us. But, you know, if we had better teachers...

whatever. change is good, and it feels like we're in a good place now, I actually find myself looking forward to going back to school in the Fall already. There's nothing like a new beginning.

Of course, I always manage to screw those up, don't I?

Anyway...this is a little disjointed because I've been two days off the meds and no part of my brain is currently functioning. What was this supposed to be about? Oh, right. Summer.

I need this break but I have the feeling it's not going to be much of a break. I need to write. A lot. I've been working on the novel since november, and just finished chapter 8. I wish I could spend every day in my friend's copy shop, sipping nonfat mochas and typing on my laptop, which is NOT connected to the internet, which enables me to focus on the task at hand.

I also want to spend time with my family. With my wife, especially, since during the school year --and because of my brain-- we tend to lose track of each other because we get busy and when that happens i go dark. It's like being in the bottom of the Lost Hatch AFTER the idiots went and blew up the ladder. I've yet to find the side door.

see what i mean .... must...stay...on...topic....

anyway...just two more really annoying organizational events this week, and that will be done for a while. And after november it will be done for good, and I cannot wait.

wish we could sell the house and move, but that's not happening yet.

I plan to blog more. At least once or twice a week. In between bouts of noveling and obsessively searching the NANO board (nanowrimo.org ... the website for national novel writing month)

cutting this off now ... hopefully will be more on topic and entertaining later ....

Appliance Apocalypse

2006-05-19T16:32:00.000-07:00

Bad appliance Karma. It’s come home to us, and I don’t know why, exactly, but it has. In a past life, someone in our house must have robbed and murdered an entire family of toasters who were on their way to church. It’s the only explanation.
It started with the coffee maker. Not the maker, actually, just the stainless-steel carafe. I was washing it out in the sink, and thought it was cool since it had been off for two days. I was using lukewarm water, but the glass lining shattered. Seriously, loud pop-explosion, shards of glass erupting from the top, shattered. It was like it had been capped in a drive-by, the damage was so severe. And all attempts to replace just the carafe came to naught. They don’t sell it individually, which stinks of foul play, but that’s the biz, I guess, as you will see later.
Then it was the stove. It just would not shut off, no matter what we did. The dial just kept going round and round and the stove was getting hotter and hotter, so finally I just turned off the gas and called in one of the big guns…my grandfather-in-law who came, looked at it and basically said, “well, it sure is broken, isn’t it?” So I put it back and called a repairman he recommended. Of course, it could not be that simple.
Repairman comes … has to order a part….another three days without the stove, which did give us a handy excuse not to cook…but then he came back and everything was fine, a hundred bucks later.
A week goes by, everything is fine, and then ….
My daughter gets us up on a Sunday morning and tells me that the toilet is running over and that she didn’t do it. sigh …. So I get up, find that she’s telling the truth and that there’s water all over the bathroom floor. Toilet water, with …. You know .. . in it. Thank God it wasn’t the solid stuff. So I try to plunge it with no luck and clean up the floor because-thank God!—the water has at least stopped running by now. And we’re trying to sell this damn house, so I decide to call someone. Since it’s Sunday, no is is open except Mr. Rooter who wants fifteen dollars just to show up, but I ok that because, you know, I’m desparate. The repairman gets here and shows me in his manual where he’s supposed to take the entire toilet out and this will cost me $270.00. When he is done waking me with smelling salts he tells me that he can be nice and try to snake the thing, and this will only cost me $98.00. I knew I was being screwed, but see above re: desparation. So he snaked the thing and it seemed to clear whatever it was out. I paid my money and he left. $98.00 for twenty minutes of work. Lesson learned.
Later that week I found two broken sprinkler heads in the backyard. They made a lovely fountain. Those, I was actually able to fix for a combined total of $3.96. And I didn’t break them further in my attempt to fix them, which means some supernatural power must have been at work.
The next weekend the toilet was running slowly again. It didn’t over-fill, but it took hours to drain the toilet. I called in the even-bigger gun, my father, who is a mechanical genius and will probably one day be the subject of his own blog entry. He agreed that it seemed it was stopped up (uh, thanks) and offered to come by and help me take the toilet off. I should say here it was not simply the prospect of taking the toilet off that kept me from doing it unassisted, I could have done it. It’s just that … I break things, and if I’d tried to do it by myself I’m sure the porcelain would have ended up in four or five pieces and a geyser of feces-water might have erupted to engulf our neighborhood, killing thousands and worse, seriously cutting into the value of our house.
So my father comes over the evening of mother’s day and we take the toilet off, without breaking it or the plumbing system of greater Tehama county, and we find that it is, indeed, hopelessly clogged, but we can’t really get to what’s inside. So, we turn it upside down in the bathtub and use the hand-held showerhead the kids use to wash their hair to create pressure so whatever it is shoots out the top (now the bottom) and what emerges but….
A chicken-little Mcdonald’s alien-kid bobblehead toy. I shit you not.
So, I guess it was an alien plot. Aided and abetted, I’m sure, by my three-year old. He cops to nothing, by the way.
We managed to re-attach the toilet without incident, and it was later that same evening, I noticed the fridge was really not getting cold.
I should mention here that two weeks ago my wife told me the fridge was making a funny noise. I ignored it because who really wants to think about that, and managed to tell myself that it was just the ice tray filling, because sometimes that does make a funny noise.
Well, now the fridge was warm, and the freezer only slightly cooler, so I call Sears and find out they really just want to sell me a three-hundred dollar service plan, so I move on to Scott, the guy who fixed my stove. He comes over on Tuesday and looks at it and finds that –Gack!—the defroster unit must be replaced and he can order the part and won’t even charge me for the second service call when he comes to replace it. So, the part is ordered and I have the job of cleaning out the fridge. You know what’s coming, right? Of course, we had just gone to the grocery store. So there I was, at midnight, throwing away about $200 worth of food.
So, Scott is a good guy and a good repairman, but the repair, mostly for the part cost about 200. Combined with the lost food … it adds up. But everything is fixed, right now. Except the things I know have been broken for a while (I’m looking atYou, fan in the laundry-room and my daughter’s ceiling fan) and I’m hoping it stays that way for a while.
But the microwave is looking at me funny, and I am afraid.

I am a bad, bad person, ok?

2006-05-04T09:15:00.000-07:00

Just a quick observation.

There are few things more heartwarming than a child singing a song they wrote themselves.

There are also few things more excruciating than a child singing a song they wrote themselves. Especially one they're singing in front of an audience....with a microphone...no accompaniment...on the spot volunteering....on the topic of teasing....with a religious theme...

I honestly had to leave the auditorium...and I'd made it through the six-year-olds getting up and mangling jokes for 20 minutes. (what's grey and red and red all over .... a newspaper!)

I told you I was a bad person.

Rock/Suck April 2006, or, how many Saved by the Bell references can I work into one blog entry.

2006-04-28T20:07:00.000-07:00

Ok, quick reviews. Three things that rock, three things that suck this month because...why not? And yes, I'm embarrassed about using the term rock in this way, but...whatever.

Starting with the positive, in no particular order.

Three things that rock!

My new SBC/Yahoo DSL connection. No, we didn't wait to move. My wife got a laptop for work with wifi and suddenly was motivated to switch to a broadband connection with wifi hookup for home. go figure. That, and the endless "website cannot be displayed" messages all the time for everything were getting really old. The internet is no longer set up for dialup. Time to upgrade. We are, strangely enough, too far away from the main line for anything but the express connection, which is the slowest they have. My parents in Lake California, however, are right on the main line. Strange. It still feels like it flied, compared to the dial-up.

The Dixie Chicks' single "Not Ready to Make Nice." I should preface any discussion I have about music with a couple of caveats. I like some edgy stuff. I like mostly alternative, folk, and punk. I try to pretend to be a music snob. That said....I downloaded Kelly Clarkson and Bo Bice, y'all, so anything I have to say on the subject is immediately suspect. But I like this single for its bravery, and for the fact that they were pressured to release a generic country song to appease their fans after Natalie Maine's comments about president Bush. This song is basically a big fuck you to everyone who complained, and for that, I love them forever. It also gets stuck in your head, but in a good way. Bonus points for the video, with its images of Victorian repression, harkening back to a time when outspoken women were often locked up in sanitariums and treated as if they had mental disorders. There was even a diagnosis for it ... hysterical female syndrome. Have a problem with your wife, call her hysterical and have her committed. Even though I am male, I'm still glad we don't live in that world, and I love The Dixie Chicks and this song for standing up for the right of anyone to have an opinion, even when it's unpopular. NOt that their opinion of our dipshit in chief is really that unpopular anymore.

The Wonder Falls Complete Viewer Collection DVD set. OK, recent college grad, 24, with a useless philosophy degree from Brown University returns home to Niagara falls and starts working in a Gift shop. Underachievers of the world unite! After a particularly bad day, one of the little tsotchkes in the shop (it's a wax lion, incidentally) starts talking to her. And it's only the first. This short-lived TV series takes the legend of Joan of Arc puts it in a modern context, with a sublime mix of comedy and pathos. Throw in a supportive (overly suportive) family, a trailer park menagerie, a lesbian sister, a psychiatrist, an abandoned honeymooner, a russian mail-order bride, a sassy best friend, a "atheistic theologian" brother, a boss who's still in high school, Fatsquatch, an obsessive zookeper, an illegal canadian immigrant housekeepr, and the first woman who went over Niagara Falls in a barrell, put in a blender, and drink down the acerbic tone. It's now my second favorite TV series of all time. (If you can't guess my first, you probably haven't read much of this blog). One of my favorite tidbuts about this series... In Canada it airs on the religious cable network, in the US it airs on the Gay tv network. I'm pretty sure you can't say that about any other tv series. This set contain all 13 produced episodes, and brings the story arc to a resolution.

Three Things that Suck!

Being in the emergency room in Red Bluff, CA at 2:30 in the morning. Let me start off by sayig that everything is fine and someone just had a really major gas attack which made us think it was a disease-related liver problem (not me). But the people you share the space with during the three hour wait to be seen are...shall we say...a bit like the Wal Mart crowd at 1o:30 in the morning. Heavy on the grunting and excess redneck family members, light on the personal hygiene. Making this worse, we didn't have the remote control for the television and it was tuned to TBS, which at this time shows marathons of Mama's Family (which was a least entertaining) and the, horror of horrors Saved by the Bell. Even more horrific was the fact that it was that wierd, The College Years, sequel. I still have not recovered.

The new comedy Teachers should rock, but unfortunately sucks. I want to like the show. The characters are vaguely appealing. I've liked Justin Bartha ever since he was in National treasure, and his characetr seems a little, well....personally familiar. The show is well cast. It's just...not that funny. Kali Rocha, who plays Principal Wiggins, was much funnier as a vengeance Demon on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Most of the jokes are just really flat. The show has very little personality and I'm not feeling the chemistry between Justin Bartha and Sarah Alexander (I think that's her name. I'm sure xnickerx will correct me if I'm wrong.) But the thing that is most annoying is that the school does not act like a school. When they actually talk about educational issues, they get it wrong, more often than thought. It's like they need a technical advisor, which they probably have, but whoever they do have should be fired. I really want to like ths show, and will probably watch next week's season finale, but i have a feeling it's doomed. Which is too bad.

Cartoon network has started showing Saved by the Bell in their adult swim block. The hell? That's been the domain of edgy anime and off-color adult cartoons. Why is screech there? PLus, hello...CARTOON network? I guess its a part of their plan to turn themselves into Nickolodeon, but even I can predict how this is going to go. You're cartoon network. Do I need to say more.

Losin' It ... No, not that

2006-04-09T14:43:00.000-07:00

I lose things.

Oh, I know, everybody says they lose things, everbody claims to be scatterbrained and disorganized. Tell someone you have ADD, and they’ll claim “I Think I have that too.” And about that, if you do that, unless you have a medical diagnosis (thus requiring you remove the “I think” from that statement), stop that! It’s annoying to people who actually have the condition. If someone said “I have a brain tumor” you wouldn’t say, “Oh, I think I have one too.

But really. I lose things. I also can’t seem to close cabinet doors, which seems a big enough issue to my wife that it should probably be its own entry. But I lose things. All kinds of things. It is amazing to me that I have not lost one of the children. Permanently.
Anyway, it started, as most things did, in my childhood. I still wonder what happened to my Sallah and Marion Ravenwood figures from my Indiana Jones action set. I looked for those two for weeks. I eventually found the puffy pantaloons Marion wore, which makes me suspect foul play (or fun play!) from Sallah, but I never found either of them. Indy is still in mourning. He and Belloqu have been alone, waiting for their friends for about 22 years now.

I could never keep track of my homework, when I remembered I had homework in the first place. I know all kids have black-hole backpack syndrome, but I think I had the most extreme case. I eventually got used to doing all my work in class because seriously, if it went into my bag, it wasn’t coming out. I would blame gremlins, but I lost all of those as well.

To this day, paperwork is my kryptonite. I cannot hold onto it. Anything in pulped wood form? It is doomed. Checks, money, tickets, important pieces of paper that I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT LOSE such as CLAD test results needed for my credentialing…doesn’t matter what I do with it, what system I put in place, it will be gone.

Car keys? HAH! In addition to the keys themselves, I have lost hours of my life. My wife lives in horror of the groundhog-day-like frequency with which the last conversation we have before one of us leaves is “Have you seen my cars keys?” I’ve started building the time into my day. And yes, I know I need to put things in the same place every time. Can’t do it. Seriously, ask my doctor. I have a note. The Americans with Disabilities Act covers people like me.

The problem has intensified ever since cell phones became the one device we were absolutely, positively never to leave home without. I got through the first 25 years of my life without it, but now … well, If I don’t have it I am officially in trouble, and we all know what that means. And this thing, I swear, I’ve spent more time in the past eight years looking for one of my various phones than I had in the previous 25 searching for keys. Despite the fact that I can call it and have it ring. I have found my cell phone in the following places: between the car seats, in the little organizer, under my seat, under the bed, under the couch, behind the fish tank, in my wife’s purse, on a shelf in the closet, in the freezer (the hell?), and behind a bookshelf.

My daughter, fortunately, is good at helping me find things. She totally saved my ass one time by finding a $3000 check from my school which was meant to pay for a field trip and which I had, or course, put in the chaos blender that is my life. My son? NO help at all. I think he may have been the one who put the cell phone in the freezer. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The upside? While looking for lost stuff I often find a lot of other cool stuff I had lost before, or had not realized I had lost before. In fact, I’ve found the best way to find something is to lose something else and then look for it.

But if anyone knows where our original DVD player remote is, let me know. And don’t worry, my ipod had a clip. The children, sadly, don’t.

Now is the Field Trip of our Discontent

2006-03-22T18:04:00.000-08:00

Learning smells like diesel. That's the observation my teaching partner made to me as we watched about 36 middle school kids re-board a tour bus in the parking lot of the jelly belly factory. Of course, later on in the field trip, after telling everyone else on the bus that they were not to use the bathroom unless it was an emergency because it would make the entire bus smell, we returned to find the driver had taken a massive evacuation of fecal matter in there and we found out just how true that warning was. Then, we were wishing for the smell of diesel back. Actually, the smell of anything else. Seriously, I think my eyes are still watering, and my soul, my soul has not recovered.

But it was a good trip. Four days. Four colleges. A Sharks Game. The Exploratorium. A Fortune cookie factory. Jelly Belly (the factory, not the bus driver, because...ew). Marine World. Me. My teaching partner. Three parents. 26 kids. Pus a group from another school on our bus, but more on that later.

The biggest problem: telling one of my kids on the first day to clean up his potty mouth. I told him to remember that he was to act as if he was at school, then I remembered that he WAS acting like he was at school. But no big. I've been known to drop an f-bomb here and there. IN fact, told that was the bigeest problem, my wife, ever the suportive one, replied with "It was Chad, wasn't it." He was good once I talked to him, and so was I.

At the exploratorium, I showed one of my kids the exhibit where the sound waves are sent into water, making the water ripple and spike like a seismometer. I told him, "that's what's happening to your ear when you're listening to your ipod."
"But I see you listening to your ipod," he replied, to which I responded "huh?" and walked away. I didn't see his headphones on the rest of the trip. Sorry, Thomas. I was kidding. I think.

No one stole anything, no one snuck into anyone else's room for immoral purposes, no one fell off a balcony while trying to shout at the people in the parking lot, no one got left behind, no one got injured. So, that's a win. Except for the kid the parents paid me to lose, because, despite my best efforts, he somehow made it back. Yes, I'm keeping the money. What are they going to do?

The teacher from the other school that was on our bus was "interesting." An older lady, she wouldn't even let her boys and girls sit in mixed company on the bus and at breakfast. She completely ripped a strip off one of my girls because of something she misheard them talking about in a private conversation. She then threatened to write a letter to my school about how horrible my kids were, but I warned the administration that the Mt. Shasta fraternization nazi was firing off a missive, and they don't seem to care.

Speaking of which, while I was gone, the students left behind were actually good, my family seemed to actually miss me, and my principal disappeared. Seriously, completely, witness protection got me, witnessed a mob hit disappeared. The official story is "away on a family emergency" but the office is completely cleaned out, including the posters on the wall. Gone.

I swear I had nothing to do with it.

Random Acts of Blogness

2006-03-08T17:11:00.000-08:00

Shut up, dial-up internet connection, which promises a blindingly fast 56.6 k but can only ever deliver 50.6 on a good day. And shut up all of you telling me I need broadband. I know I need broadband, god how I know. When we get the new house and are moved in, ok? We have a brilliant, kind, generous realtor working on the situation. But for now, stupid dial-up, poking along, like my father on the information superhighway, and the stupid "web site cannot be displayed" message when I try to read my own goddamned blog. It might as well say "Fuck You! You still have dial-up." So, shut up, dial-up!

And shut-up, brokeback cheerleader. Just stop it with the chipper and the sheering and the MOVING YOUR ARMS AND LEGS AS THEY TAKE YOU OFF THE COURT! God, as if cheerleaders weren't annoying enough. It's not AWESOME, It's not OK. IT IS PSYCHO! So, shut up, cheerleader. THat goes for all of you. Unless you're Eliza Dushku in Bring it On. You can say anything you want.

Shut up, noise in my car I cannot identify. You're scaring me, and drowning out my ipod. I think you might actually be some kind of new life-form spawmed by my kids' cast-off fast-food detritus and you're trying to communicate with me. If so? Stop it. I am not interested. I have enough life forms in my life that I have to commmunicate with already, and I suck at that, so this? Is too much pressure. Go find a bio-scientist or something. Shut up, noise in my car.

Shut up peopple trying to spoil last night's Amazing Race for me. I have not seen it yet. I have TiVo, and am not a slave to network schedules, and they moved it to ten o'clock, and we were tired. Shut up, spoiler people.

And shut up sore throat, which made me not go to the gym and run to work out this frustration and which is probably responsible for this bog entry. I know you're there, you can stop it with the going away for a while and then coming back to make my voice squeak like a pubescent 12-year-old when i'm talking to my students, making them laugh at me and causing me to yell, "oh yeah, have you heard how all of you sound?" And then having the principal come in to watch me for the rest of the day because I am apparently "unstable" whatever. Shut up, sore throat.

That is all.

The Random Avenger's Top 5 movies of 2005

2006-03-06T07:30:00.000-08:00

First off, a disclaimer. I have not seen any of the best film nominees this year. I realize that makes me some kind of uncultured buffoon, but there it is. I plead small children. They’re just not that interested in seeing movies about Journalists investigating horrific murders of other small children, racist cops, state-aided vigilantes seeking revenge for Olympic-related murders, Heroic journalists standing up against Michael Savage (wait…, or Gay cowboys, so any movies we see in Theatres are usually the kid-friendly type or we wait for DVD. And then my wife doesn’t like really heavy movies, so… there you go.

We will probably eventually see both Munich and Good Night, and Good Luck. But no promises.

And for the purposes of this list I’m counting movies I saw either in the theatres or as a new release on DVD, so there may be some things that did not technically come out in 2005.

And so….The Random Avenger’s top five movies of 2005 (because I know everyone cares) are:

5. War of the Worlds

I am not a Tom Cruise fan. I am not particularly a Steven Speilberg fan either, but I loved this movie. I loved that it, like Signs, was the story of an alien invasion told from the viewpoint of the people who were not leading the fight against it, but were just trying to survive it. This movie presented the stark vision of a world in which every person has just gone batshit crazy with terror, and that was the scariest thing in the movie. That, and the aliens.
And the scene of the crowd running away from the great machines as they were reduced, one by one, to ash within their quickly collapsing clothing, was a moment of horrific beauty.

4. Fever Pitch

This is the one that, technically, did not come out this year. But I saw it this year, and it was a new release, so it counts. I like Jimmie Fallon. I even liked him in Taxi, and I hated that movie, so I was pretty sure I would like him in this. It couldn’t get any worse than that one, right. And Drew Barrymore seemed like a good fit with him. The fact that it was about baseball…meh, not a fan, but there have been some baseball themed movies I’ve enjoyed. (Not Field of Dreams. Dear God, not Field of Dreams) But this movie wasn’t about baseball. It was about fandom, of which I know more than I probably should about. (Seriously, Joss Whedon has taken out a restraining order) and even though I did not care about the subject of his passion, I related to the passion of Fallon’s character. And, as written, Barrymore’s character reminded me a lot of my wife, so there was that.
This movie might have ranked higher if not for the schmaltzy, tacked-on ending. Not the one with Barrymore and Fallon, but the one where the Red Sox actually won the World Series. I liked the story much better when the object of the quest remained out of reach. But reality intruded, so what could you do?

3. Batman Begins

Yes, this list is kind of geeky. Live with it. I have always loved the character opf Batman, but the movies were always kind of stupid. Miscast (I hated Keaton and Kilmer, and Clooney, please, just…no), they took themselves too seriously in the wrong places and not seriously enough in others. And Gotham City never felt like a real city. Some fantastic elements? Sure, but no observatories an top of statues holding globes, please. And no one has really understood the character of Bruce Wayne.
Until now.
It’s not perfect. The plot wandered in a few little places, but the right things felt real. Gotham felt real. And I loved the elevated train system that worked visually to separate the slums from the towers but also as a visual reminder of the legacy of Bruse’s father. And we met the father in this movies. We got to feel the loss which drove a privileged young man to dress up like a giant bat. Seriously, it actually makes sense, which is something none of the other movies have even tried to do. I like Christian Bale, I always have since he was a twelve-year-old getting slaughtered carrying a flag into battle on St. Crispin’s day in Branagh’s Henry V. He was absolutely the right choice for this role, not a little bit because he was a child actor, and carries with his the gravity of someone who grew up too fast. Like Bruce Wayne did.
What most people don’t like about this movie was the love interest, played by Katie Holmes. I agree that Holmes might have been a misstep, but I actually loved the character of Rachel. She is original to the movies, and I think has been the best attempt at giving Batman a love interest that matches him. Vicki Vale is too much of a Lois Lane clone. Selina Kyle/Catwoman is better, but then it’s a lot of chasing on rooftops and bondage gear. Rachel Dawes was a crusader in her own right, a match for Bruce, working in ways that he wasn’t able to. That’s what I think works about the character, and why she was necessary to the story. Not just as a damsel in distress.
So, I finally have my Batman movie. The same team is working on the next, but I would almost rather they not. Unless they could get it even more perfect than this one.

2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Suck it, Narnia!
Seriously, I have never understood why many Christians adore the LOTR and Narnia movies, with their magical elements, and continue to regard the Harry Potter books and movies as being the work of the devil. Is it because J.K. Rowling does not speak about being a devout Christian? Because she was once photographed holding a gargoyle? Because if you can show me another story series that demonstrated the power of sacrificial love and the importance of faith and friendship than this one does, I may just give you a cookie.
Sometimes I do not understand my people. That may be a good sign.
Anyway, Harry grows up in huge, tragic ways, as do his friends. The actors mature and actually seem to glow, somehow. The story is epic and beautifully filmed, and that gut-wrenching climax stays with you. This battle will have a cost, and with Harry you are just struck by the horror and the injustice of it all, because really, hasn’t he given enough. The movies accomplishes what the book does, it makes you want to know what’s going to happen next immediately. The world is preparing for war, and the worst is yet to come.

And The Random Avenger’s number one movie of 2005 is:

Serenity

This will come as no surprise to anyone whose bothered to click on the profile button. And I must confess, this movie was already pre-sold to me. I was in at Firefly: the movie. And for the TV series, to be honest, I was in at “Space Cowboys” (actually I was in at Joss Whedon, but my lawyer advises me not to mention that).

Love that this presents a Science Fiction Universe where the enemy is truly us, that the bad guys are really well-intentioned, but still wrong, that the heroes are what most people would think of as the bad guys in any other story. The villains of this story come from two directions: a mannered, coldy calculating assassin fighting to create a better world he himself does not feel he deserves to belong to, and a race of savages so gone in blood-lust and madness that everything in their path is raped to death, eaten, and then used for parts, hopefully in that order. And when the two threats are found to be from the same place, and our lovable rogues take stop of themselves and know what they must do, it is a grand moment.

Plus, the best one-liners of any movie. My favorite: “To hell with this, I’m going to live!”

And then, “I am a leaf on the wind…..” sniff.

A Situation Report from the Junior HIgh School Dance -- March 03, 2006

2006-03-05T09:50:00.000-08:00

6:59 p.m. We have reconfigured our supply lines to avoid the catastrophe of the 1/19 Junior High Dance. Specifically, we have made sure we had more soda. I do not know if it will be enough, but I pray to God it will be. After the riot of last time, the administration has requested that we find some way to minimize civilian casualties.

7:10 p.m. Most of the locals have been passed through the checkpoint. My idea to separate lines into “vetted” and “not vetted” seems to have paid off, although I wonder about our security procedures, as the outside light has been going off and on, leaving me unable to check the list for those who do not have the appropriate security clearance.

7:59 p.m. Rival factions have met on the floor, flashed their secret signs, and begun to initiate combat procedures. It has, however, turned into a red/blue dance-off, which my partner and I have decided is a healthy way to work out hostilities. We watche for a while as it draws to a stalemate, and then leave it alone. We hope that this will be all of the hostile action we will see for tonight.

8:10 Several Junior high couples are so desperate to “initiate contact” (get their grope on?) that they are slow dancing to Green Day’s “Holiday.”

8:34 p.m. Our supply chief reports that we have just opened out last case of soda. This worries me, but I am informed that we still have plenty of bottled water. AT this point, we can only pray.

8:57 p.m. Whoever decided that twizzlers were a fine item to sell to Junior High students should be court-martialed. I have broken up several “red-whip” fights and peeled the mashed, tortured remains of the WLD’s (Weapons of Light Destruction) off the hardwood floors. I’m sure I’ll be explaining this to the custodian later.

9:10 Five minutes ago I sent my partner into the middle of a frantic gathering of fourteen-year-old girls fighting over a boy. He has not yet returned, and I grow more and more worried, especially as I’ve seen flashes of one girls waving his striped tie in the strobe-light. Have decided to wait another five minutes and send out a search team.

9:17 p.m. The soda gave out five minutes ago, but we still have water . No one wants it, and there have been some threats made, and one group has set fire to me in effigy, but there has been no outright violence, yet.

9:20 p.m. Just as parents started to arrive to pick up their children, our music specialist decided to play the “My hump, my hump, my lovely, lovely, lumps” song. A massive insurgency erupted and I write this from deep within the cafeteria kitchen, surrounded by the last five of my troops that are loyal. Fortunately, we still have plenty of bottled water.

9:32 p.m. We have left the kitchen and found the gymnasium empty, full of abandoned soda cans and mashed twizzler parts. The music specialist has demanded his payment and the custodian has recently arrived, and seems about to start his own rebel movement. There is still no sign of my partner and we have no word yet on civilian casualties.
10:04 p.m. Have counted the money and determined that the evening had a three-hundred dollar profit. It was worth it.

Meet my blog

2006-02-28T17:32:00.000-08:00

My children are screaming at each other in the living room. No, don't get up, I'll get to it. Eventually. I'm sure that yet another debate over the merits of ennui vs. enthusiasm encompassed in the relationship between Spongebob and Squidward in an episode of Spongebob Squarepants has escalated into shouting and eventual violence. Yes, again.

OK. I settled it by popping in The Incredibles. Yes, I'm that kind of parent. And I'm blogging now, for ... some reason. My wife will say this is just another project to distract myself with, and she's right, but what else is new? This will be an experiment in directed ranting, most likely, a place to get all the nonsense out of my brain and into a public forum where it can be squinted at and poked with a stick. Children can yell "ooh" and be fascinated or run away. If you even let your children read it. There will be cussing. You have been warned.

For those of you who've wandered across this randomly (how appropriate) I'll introduce myself, sort of. I Live in Northern California. No, not Fresno. Not San Francisco. No, not Sacramento either. North. No, still north. Almost Oregon. Hint: A lake. A Dam. You're probably close. Jefferson, as the idealists like to think of it (hi xnickerx!) Or Superior, California. Or Just Northen California for those who don't care what mental image that brings. We have rivers, mountains, and an ocean around here somewhere but you'd never know. God's country, but aren't they all?

I was born along with the collapse of the Nixon administration, though I don't think the two events were related. I think the Exorcist also came out that year, so make of that what you will.

I grew up in a small town in Indiana (motto: a great place to be from!) , population 13,000, and wanted to flee my entire life and have the sick irony of having fled to a small town in rural California (motto: why are all you people here, again?), population 13,000. I teach 7th and 8th grade Language Arts and a college prep program. Yes, people allow me to mold young minds. They even pay me for it. This scares even me.

So, this blog is here so that I can, at some future point, prove to myself that I did have coherent thoughts. Or, as is more likely, give me the opportunity to regret impetuouisity and the easy fix of the publish button. But it will be here and you will be there and who knows where I will be, but somehow we'll get through it all together.

I'm sure the meaning of the title will become obvious over time.

I'd better go. There's shouting again and the three-year-old has demanded to know, yet again, whether Brad Bird paid any royalites to Stan Lee for ripping off the Fantastic Four and the six-year-old, a staunch Birdist, has brought Jack Kirby into the argument.

This could get ugly.