Quote of the Day

This past Thursday, after each of the kids had their weekly dance class, we treated them out for dinner at an Italian fast food restaurant. Near the end of the meal Ginger asked Lisa the following question:

"Do you like piss?"

Everyone stopped eating in shock. "What did you say?" Lisa asked.

"Do you like piss?" she repeated. LuLu started giggling and Smiley was living up to his nickname.

Ginger, for her part, couldn't understand what all the fuss was about and was getting angry. "Do you like piss? Lot's of people like piss. Stop laughing! Dad likes to eat piss, lots of people eat piss!"

LuLu and Smiley were laughing outright by that point, and Lisa, mindful of the people dining nearby, was frantically trying to quiet Ginger while at the same time understand what she was saying.

(YaYa was involved in a frantic text back and forth regarding an upcoming school dance and was oblivious until we repeated the story. Pre-teens. Sigh).

Finally, it dawned on me.

"Fish? Are you trying to say 'fish'?"

Ginger's shoulders sagged with relief. "Yes. Piss, like the little pissies that swim in the ocean."

Yes. Just like the little pissies that swim in the ocean. :)

Bleep the Refs

Well, that was a crap job of officiating.

Man, I don't know what's worse. The officiating, or having to watch Stephanie Sutton struggle to ad-lib on the news afterwards. It's damn near a toss up.

Everyone please send your comments about the game tonight to:

officeofcommissioner@nfl.com 

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell at (212) 450-2000 

Walking Home from School

'Tis True

Here's a quote, completely unrelated to the show, that addresses the only flaw in the marvelous Dr. Who episode "Vincent and The Doctor": 

"Vincent Van Gogh (pronounced Van-GOCK by the Dutch, and sundry pretentious . . . twits)   - Victor Lavalle.

My Thoughts - In defense of UWM

I notice the Journal is running yet another article blasting UWM students and listing the alleged grievances of neighborhood residents.

 A - UWM will always take a hit in the local press while Marquette would earn a pass even if their students lynched their neighbors. 

B - If you buy a home two blocks from a college, you lose all rights to complain about the inevitable fusses of *living two blocks from a college*, you idiot.

C - if you are a resident around UWM, you and your whining has led to the restrictive parking regulations that plagued me and everyone else for years. Ergo, FU.

Katy Perry: Part of Me

I rented "Katy Perry: Part of Me" for the kids Friday night and caught most of it myself on Saturday. It was a good, uplifting concert film/career documentary, and I'd easily grade it a B. Unusual bit of trivia: the pivotal artist that inspired Perry, leading directly to her abandoning a gospel career for pop? None other than the great Alanis Morissette.

The Broken Ones by Stephen M. Irwin

In "The Broken Ones" by Stephen M. Irwin, on a day forever known as s "Gray Wednesday", every human being on Earth found themselves haunted by a ghost only they can see. Three years later society has nearly crumbled, plagued by alarming suicide rates, spiritual confusion, and economic collapse.

In this landscape Detective Oscar Mariani is assigned to investigate murders that are said to be the result of people driven mad by their ghosts, and he stumbles upon a ritualistic murder that no one seems to want him to solve. The case will threaten not only his career, but his life and the lives of those he loves. 

What did I think of the book? Eh. I'm ambivalent. Great premise, but the ghosts didn't have all that much of a role in the book beyond ruining society, and I'm still not clear on how they did that. The writing was solid but didn't 'zing', but, BUT I think the mystery itself was really developed well, and I liked all the emotional baggage Mariani carried around. 

My grade: B Book#77 of the year.

I'm Moving Shifts

A sad day at work(s) today. At FT job it was my last day on 1st before moving shifts, so it meant saying goodbye to a lot of people I'd grown surprisingly fond of seeing every day. Oh, sure, Justin F I could do without, but I'll miss Kim, Jenny, Kristin, etc. I was also 'traded' from one management team to another, which was a shock. Then at PT job it may/may not have been the last night of work, unless I can find a last minute sub for some of the hours that conflict with FT. So, melancholia abounds.

The Amazing Spider-Man

On a recent Sunday I took YaYa and Smiley to see "The Amazing Spider-Man" at the budget cinema. I wasn't keen on seeing it, despite being a Spidey fan all my life. Why bother, I thought, when it was a reboot of a franchise that ran its course within the last decade? How many times do you need to see a guy bitten by a radioactie/mutated spider? Pass,  I thought.

Man, was I wrong. It was great. Much better, in my opinion, than the Tobey Mcguire version. Why?

a. They kept the timeframe compact, starting and ending with Peter a high school student (presumably in the same school year). So instead of the mandatory regurgetation of the origin story, followed by what feels like a seperate good vs evil story a year or two down the road, it felt like a single, cohesive storyline.

b. Gwen Stacey. I can't tell you how peeved I was that the Tobey movie retconned her away.

c. The script was more mature. Not 'mature' in a 'violent/sexual/brooding' way, but fleshed out beyond the basic respect due the mythology. Uncle Ben dies, yes, and he dies in a roundabout way because of Peter's inaction (although no indication is given that the guy is armed or violent at the time, which I thought should have been foreshadowed ). But unlike the prior filmed version Peter's inaction seems well, natural, and Ben isn't killed as a bystander, but as a man living and dying by the code of responsiblity he instilled in his nephew. Likewise, I liked that Ben called him out on his revenge against Flash; later that insight comes back to shake him out of his narrow pursuit of Ben's killer and gives birth to the true Spider-Man.

d. Sally Field. Martin Sheen.

e . Somehow the script manages to bring in Peter's parents and their (presumed?) deaths, hint that Flash may become a friend, leaves Ben's killer  still on the loose, and has Norman Osborn in the background yet still controlling all the  bad karma of the film, and yet I never got the sense that they were setting the table for sequels. Of course that's what they were doing, but it was integrated well enough where this one stands as a legitimate one-off.

f. Spidey is sarcastic and talkative in a fight. Man I missed that.

g. I never bought Tobey as Spidey. Yes, he played the geek well, but remember, Peter was a geek only in high school. By his mid-twenties he was a confident man (barely) making a living in the city and dating a model. I could never see that transformation taking place with Tobey. But Garfield? Brother I buy that hook, line and sinker.

h. SPOILER:  At the end of the film Peter has promised Gwen's dying father that he will no longer see her. The two are now estranged. Peter arrives late for class and takes a seat behind her, and the teacher chastises him for being late. He promises it will never happen again, and the teacher says he shouldn't make promises he can't keep. Peter replies, just loud enough for Gwen to hear: "But those are the best kind," signifying that he will break his word and resume their relationship. Without turning around Gwen breaks into a small but lovely smile, and I just about said "awwww". What a wonderful, subtle, heartwarming scene.

Grade: A

Change is Needed