A Celebrity Spotting

Today I had the pleasure of speaking to Kip Elliott, the CFO of the Minnesota Twins.

Quote of the Day

Quote of the day: Junie's class was singing a song at Mass today, and she was super excited. She found her Easter dress and matching socks all on her own and had Lisa put French braids in her hair. After school Lisa asked the older girls how LK did standing in front of the whole church. "She did great," one of them said. Then she paused and reconsidered. "Well, she did great - until she started picking her nose."

Read this so you can find out what's readable at your local bookstore. Seriously, I know what I'm talking about. I do have my own blog, you know.

There's something about John Sandford's writing style I'm too dense to define. I think its the way he delivers a strong, character driven plot in short stacatto bursts. Those 'bursts' divide scenes into separate and  unique actions, like the panels on a comic page. Sometimes they relate to the subject at hand only perfunctory, but sometimes they're so intertwined you wonder why or how they were separated in the first place.

Or something like that.

Here's all you need to know: it works. And in Stolen Prey, a Lucas Davenport mystery surrounding the brutal murder of an entire family by a drug cartel, it works very well. Sandford deserves to be mentioned among the mythic elite of the genre, alongside names like Ross McDonald, Rex Stout, and Hammett.

Grade: A+

Book #38 of the year

The Third Gate is a forthcoming thriller by Lincoln Child, an author best known for his collaborations with Douglas Preston. The titular gate refers to the opening to the third and secret chamber of the tomb of Egypt's first pharaoh, discovered below the rot and stench of miles of swampland. Unfortunately, the curse on this tomb might be a wee bit more effective than the one's this archaeological crew is used to dismissing. Thankfully though a ghost hunter, er, enigmaologist is there to lend a hand.

Like too many thrillers the novel features scads of space devoted to the characters telling you details of the history/machinery/terminology in use, a practice I think is both lazy and prone to dating a story (ten years from now, when you pick this up second hand at a yard sale, the medical procedures will make this read like the equivalent of Nehru jackets and shag carpeting).

Still, I enjoyed it for what it is - a quick, harmless, but entertaining book. And I'll remember it forever as the book I was reading as I waited with Smiley to have his abscessed tooth pulled.

Grade: B

Book #39 of the year

As a brief break from book reviews let me mention that we watched One for the Money, the Katherine Heigl movie based on the popular book series by Janet Evanovich. Lisa liked it more than I did, which isn't saying much, although she did comment more than once on Heigl's strained (and inconsistent) Jersey accent. Hey, I know the books are super popular, but I didn't dig this as a novel and I sure didn't love it as a film. What a sub-par effort, and the soundtrack - yowsas! Ridiculous music playing at just the wrong time. How Heigl keeps her name in lights while creating dud after dud is beyond me.

Grade: C-

Harry Lipkin, Private Eye is another forthcoming novel I read, this time by Barry Fantoni (release date July 10th of this year). The titular character is an 87 year old Jewish private eye still licensed and practicing in Florida. He takes the case of an elderly widow who suspects her staff of stealing personal mementos from her home. Sounds exciting, doesn't it?

Let's not mince words. The style was fine if not impressive, but the book read heavily like something  constructed by design. Sure, sure, it's good, even necessary, to map out a book length work, but I got the impression he set a goal for himself   - "8 pages in chapter four buckaroo" and then stuck to it, whether that meant the scene was padded or shortchanged. It all felt forced.

Worse yet, I think the main character came off as subtly racist, especially when it came to the Asian butler. Yes, an older man will carry more baggage than one from a younger generation, but then it should come across as a fault, not a source of humor.

As for the mystery . . . if you didn't see that ending coming, shoot yourself now.

I'd give this book a D, but who am I to judge? At least he got published.

Grade: C--

Book # 40 of the year

Memorial Day 2012

It was another good day today - I kind of like having two days off in a row once in awhile. In the early afternoon we got a lot of cleaning and projects done around the house, like putting in the window A/C units. (sadly, one project involved  getting rid of my dishwasher; more on that later). The older I get, the less enjoyable a day is unless I can finish the day saying something got done. 


In the evening Schroeder and our mutual friend JJ came over with her daughter and we had a massive grill-out, followed by a movie for the grown-ups.

Dinner barely concluded before we had a freak storm. It was clear skies one minute, Wizard of Oz the next, then right back to clear skies. I saw a tree limb succumb to the wind across the street, but somehow missed a 15 second power outage that messed with my TV.

Anyway, I still found time to give Smiley a haircut today, and did it outside to minimize the mess inside the house. He and I had a rough day today, with us both rubbing each other the wrong way and saying some things we didn't mean. But you know what he left on my pillow before dinner? A sign, rolled up and tied with a blue bow, that said "I Love You". I got very choked up, I really did, and he made it all the worse by saying he did it so I'd have something of his to post on my cubicle wall. I love you little man!

Oh, by the way:  for desert LuLu baked a cake. And by that, I mean she measured out the ingredients, mixed it, poured it into the pan and baked it without a single moment of adult help or supervision. Well done LuLu!

Here's a parody of The Hunger Games that YaYa and her friend posted on YouTube:



Well, two of them:



It was a good day in a good life. Knock on wood.

LuLu the Baker

For desert today LuLu baked a cake. And by that, I mean she measured out the ingredients, mixed it, poured it into the pan and baked it without a single moment of adult help or supervision. Well done LuLu!

A Freak Storm

Freak storm eh? Clear one minute, then looming clouds and insane wind, followed by five minutes of rain and then back to clear. I watched the wind knock down a tree limb across the street and one on my side of the block, but somehow missed the 15 second power outage that screwed with my TV.

The Skin I Live In

This evening we watched the foreign language film "The Skin I Live in" starring Antonio Banderas. He plays a Spanish surgeon intent on developing human skin impervious to fire in the wake of his wife's fiery car crash. But this is no saint; locked in a room of his mansion is a woman he uses as a guinea pig, a woman who holds even darker secrets of the Doctor close to her vest. It's a well written, well acted film about the dark places of the human heart, but as a heads up: while this is a gore-free zone, there are still whole chunks of this film that are devoted to some sick, twisted sh*t. A little long, I'd grade this one a solid B+

A Quote for the Ages

I should note here, in the dead of night, that YaYa is very much his Daddy's son, whether he likes it or not. On Friday Lisa took him to a festival and he HATED the rides. It wasn't *just* fear, he openly questioned the sanity of anyone who chose to pay for the privilege of being frightened, which, if you ask me, is a darn good point. On the tilt a whirl he freaked and ruined the ride for Lisa, but it produced a line for the ages. I assure you, it was spoken in all seriousness: "Stop it [the ride]! You my mutha, stop it! Take me to da emergency room, I havin' a heart attack!"

Contraband

Tonight I watched "Contraband" starring Mark Wahlberg. Yes, it was an action film centered around smuggling, blah blah (not that that's a bad thing, but I know the premise immediately turned Lisa off - and good. I'd hate to spend my life with a woman who has anything but a grudging tolerance for boy movies). But this is a smart, mostly blood free film (excluding one Panamanian shoot-out not involving the main characters) that has a protagonist worth watching. I greatly enjoyed it. Rent it. Grade: A

How I Spent my Day Off

Had a great day off. Forced the kids to clean the living room and watched part of the Indy 500 with them. Later the grown-ups napped before we took Lu window shopping for her bedroom re-do. Then we picked up tacos for the kids and parked at Billy Mitchell airport to watch the planes. While Lis went over to her friend Nancy's for a bit I got to enjoy a post-bedtime quiet house and watch the last 100 laps of the CocaCola 600. (No, I don't like NASCAR or Indy, but it was sports and the only other alternative was watching golf. Blech.) This was followed by an evening drive, a Redbox movie and some "Don't Forget the Lyrics" on Netflix.

Very late last night I also watched "Nazis at the Center of the Earth" starring Dominique Swain and Jake Busey. It is as tasteless and poorly done as you imagine, with UFO's and cyborg soldiers and prisoners being skinned alive - and even worse, at times you're forced to watch Swain try to act. BUT the Hitler scenes rocked. Grade: C

Reality of Love

The movie to break my string of lousy rentals: 'Reality of Love' starring Bradley Cooper and Jason Priestly. Cooper plays the best friend and manager of fading star Jason Priestly, who in a last ditch effort to save his acting career stars in a Bacheloresque reality show to find his 'true love'. But is the girl of his dream in love with him, or has she fallen for Cooper off-camera? It's a cute little movie made for ABC Family, and I thought the ending showed a fair bit of 'awwww'. Grade: B

Grilling Out!

The Woman in Black

I watched "The Woman in Black" last night, the Edwardian horror film starring Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame. I was eager to see it but was disappointed, which is becoming a sad theme with my recent rentals. It's a bunch of scary music, sleight of hand and horror cliche slapped together under the illusory guise of being a 'literary horror flim'. Bah. Episodes of Scooby-Doo are scarier. 

Grade: C

The Fern

Here's the fern on our front porch

 

Donald Driver for the Win!

If you are not watching Dancing with Stars, you are a soulless, heartless wretch of a human being. Go Donald! Bring that Mirrorball home!

DONALD DRIVER!!!!!!!!!

Smiley pulls his own tooth

In happier news . . . I also came home to find out that Smiley had lost his 'other' front tooth, this time by yanking it out himself. He was ungodly proud of his action and asked if this meant another gift from the Tooth Fairy (which he doesn't believe in). Seeing as I'd bought him a 10 episode DVD of both the original He-Man series and BraveStarr this morning, the answer was heck no. 

The moral of the story: if you intend to perform surgery on yourself for profit, make sure someone's willing to foot the bill first.

My Uncle Chester has passed

Sad news - my cousin Mick reports that my Great Uncle Chester has passed away. Oddly, I just drove by his nursing home an hour ago (a good distance from home) and thought of stopping in. I bought this house from him five years ago, and long ago lost track of how many times I asked him to come over and check out the remodel, but even when his health was stable he showed no interest. I'm sure he'll finally pay a visit tonight.

RIP Uncle Chester, and say hello to my Grandma.

The Gray Tooth is Gone!

Smiley's famous gray front tooth is bye-bye, and the doc says the adult tooth coming in behind it looks healthy and strong. In other news, while in the dentists chair he proudly told me that 'X', a girl in his class, had given him her phone number. Oh, and her Mom's number too, just 'in case' she couldn't be reached at 'her own' digits.

It's a cute pic of Smiley, sure, but I really should cut the grass. . .

Alex Rodriguez hits his 500th Double!

If I'm not mistaken (and really, when's the last time that happened?) then A-Rod just hit the 500th double of his illustrious career. I bow to you sir, and acknowledge your greatness.

Plan Your Summer!

7 Below

Quite possibly one of the worst mainstream movies ever released to the public: Seven Below, a 'horror' film starring Val Kilmer and Ving Rhames. There are some spoilers ahead, in the sense that it mentions scenes in the movie, but praise be to God you never rent this dreck, so read on.

I'm not sure there was a plot, but if there was I missed it, and I sure as hell didn't understand - literally DID NOT UNDERSTAND much of the last half hour of film. The acting was bad, the situations and characters ludicrous (a guy dies & his Dr. *isn't sure* if the handmarks around his neck were there when he was examined an hour ago. C'mon, that's a joke right? Right?). Plus, I still have no bleeping clue what the title means. 

Oh, oh, the best bit!: the characters say they are going to the garage for supplies, which is just what I'd stop and do if a murderous ghost wanted me dead with a ferocious urgency. They enter the garage, mill about for a minute without speaking, find some flashlights, and leave. The next group of characters enters, fiddles around quietly, finds some flashlights, and leaves. The camera lingers on the empty garage and . . . next scene. 

Three or four minutes of absa-freaking-lutely nothing happening on camera. Jeez louise, this ain't a new medium bub. Bleepin' watch a film before you try making one. 

Grade: F

Celebrity Apprentice

I'm not happy that Arsenio won Celebrity Apprentice. The honor belonged rightfully to Clay Aiken. Boooo! However, the finale did give me one more opportunity to gave upon the sexy Ms. Debbie Gibson. Yum. Yum. Yummy. Yum. Yum.

Home Improvement

I spent the morning with Lisa disassembling LuLu and Junie's metal bunk bed, carrying it outside, sanding and priming the surface, and then spray painting it black per Lu's wishes. This is the Year of The Comeback, and as part of that each kid will have a chance to makeover their room. LK/OJ's began today, and will last a week or two. 

 Also as part of the effort today: the 4000 posters of Justin Beiber and Selena Gomez were carefully removed and rolled up to prep the walls for paint, and an old desk and a cardboard JB whatchamacallit hit the trash. {btw, of course she hated the result of the paint, saying we missed too many spots, didn't sand well enough and should do it over. As a patient and caring man I handled the criticism very well and certainly engaged in no retaliation against the ungrateful little monster. Maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh!}

At Subway

The Geyser

There was a big accident across the street from Pulaski HS. A car slammed into an SUV, injuring the SUV's occupants, then went off the street and knocked over a fire hydrant before coming to a stop. The driver then bolted but was stopped and restrained by local residents. Anywho, Smiley, Junie and I were driving by shortly afterward and stopped to chat with residents and gawk at the geyser. The detour took us past an estate sale where we stopped to look for bakeware. No dice on that, but on the way out I asked if I could buy the hastas along the walk and wound up taking two boxes of them home. Yay me.

70 years at the movies

I read and reread this book all the time as a teen.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

When I was a kid I consumed - there's no better word for it - the 'Illustrated Classics'  edition of every classic novel you can think of; ok, maybe not Tropic of Cancer. They weren't the hardcover version you see above, but stout little paperbacks that fit in your hand. On the left hand page, text; on the right side, a full page illustration.

They did a marvelous job of introducing me to literature and the construction of plot and character, but on the down side, given my published aversion to re-reading a book, I found it unnecessary to slog through 600 pages of the (actual)The Count of Monte Cristo to find out  - again - that he gets his revenge.

Cue 2012, when I sat down, NOOK in hand, to finally read the full version of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

The verdict? Eh.

Look, I hate writing this because who gets brownie points for saying they don't like a masterpiece? Might as well say the Sistene Chapel's a doodle of monkey dung, no?

But . . .

I thought there was no coherent plot, just a jumble of loosely tied events. The novel seemed more a collection of anecdotes and sketches than a 'book'.  I thought there were abrupt and jarring divides between material aimed at a young audience and that fit for adults. Worst of all, Twain (at that point in his career) seems to have no grasp on how to establish tension, or keep the reader at the edge of their seat. The characters emerge unscathed, then calmly sit down and tell you how they managed to get out of trouble. You never 'see' the action, and the reader is the worse for it. I mean, really now - the villain dies 'off camera'. Really???

After I worked out those points I poked around a little and discovered my complaints weren't unique. Certainly Twain improved over time (dramatically, I hope) but even if he didn't, the story itself and his talent for dissecting an event and coming to the heart of it were strong even at that point.

My honest grade, independent of its importance to literature: C+

Junie Enjoys a Cookie at Landmark!

The girls driving around Home Depot

A Childhood Favorite

Smiley and Junie at the Park

Smiley is not so smiley today . . .

Smiley  has an abscessed tooth. It's his upper front tooth, the one that's been that's been discolored for most of his life due to a fall as a toddler. In a way it's a good thing it's on the way out because lately at school the dinkledorfs who pass for other people's children have begun to tease him about its appearance.

Anyhow, today he woke up in misery. He'd been nursing a headache, chills, nausea and lethargy since Monday, but we'd chalked that up to a flu bug that knocked LuLu out last week.

Given the urgency of the situation,  Lisa tried to get him into the dentist but Dr. X's office refused to see him because we'd 'missed' his last appointment - meaning the day my sitter crashed my van taking the kids to his office, in a vain attempt to keep the appointment we'd been forced to make at the end of 2011 for the 'earliest available date'. Per the doc and his receptionist, my kids were now persona non grata and no longer his patients.

Lisa tried to reason w/ the receptionist and failed, so he wound up in the ER instead. He had  fever of 101 and was given Tylenol and antibiotics. Meanwhile at work I used my break to call the dentist. Ten minutes later I had an appointment lined up for Tuesday morning, by which time the antibiotics will have brought the infection in check.

Lisa was happy with my result but royally P.O'd about who got the result, calling it a clear example of gender bias. I am not sure I agree, at least as she defines the issue. I do not think I automatically earned more respect (in this situation) because I'm a man, but I do think that had push come to shovel they would much rather have dealt with an angry Mom than a similarly irate (very large) man.

But -

I wasn't there in person, and I never raised my voice or did anything other than firmly but kindly plead my case. In this case - and perhaps it is only in this case - I don't think my gender had anything to do with the result. Instead, I think this can be chalked up to the fact that I can be a very persuasive, very disarming guy when I need to be, and with Smiley's health on the line this was a time when I 'needed to be'.

Besides, a bit of a damned if you do/damned if you don't, when you think about it. Lisa's all about admiring masculinity and the archetypal father figure, but when you fit that image you get blasted.

Ech. Life. :)

Just saw the 4 minute preview of "The Amazing Spiderman" during 'America's Got Talent'. It looks wicked good, with a Spidey that doesn't look like a dough-faced little boy (aka Tobey howyouspell Mcquire?) and some of his ol' fashioned banter on display. I LOL'd at the "ooooo, you found my weakness - little knives" line. A family trip to the movies on July 4th, ala last Christmas??

Gasp! The rare moment when I'm not happy with a Yankee milestone. Today Derek Jeter passed Robin Yount on the all-time hit list with #3,143. 🙁

This morning I heard Nirvana's "All Apologies" playing on a classic rock station here in Milwaukee. I am flattered that the music of my youth is now recognized as some of the best music of all time. I am also deeply disturbed that that the music of my youth is now old enough to share radio time with the Stones and T-Rex. Ugh.

LuLu

Our Garden Beds are ready for planting

Vidal Sassoon

Ugh, I almost forgot - RIP Vidal Sassoon. Your death has gotten entirely too little attention from the media. 🙁

IT Help?

FB - I own a Seagate Freeagent external hard drive that works perfectly fine on a friend's computer but does nothing - nothing - on mine. It worked on my old computer, and the USB ports are good to go (they work fine with other devices) so they're not to blame. I have Windows 7 and have gone to start-computer-manage-storage-disc management but the device doesn't show up there either. I need ideas. Anyone?

The Family Corleone

I am a longtime fan of Mario Puzo's The Godfather and the universe it inspired. I rank the film as my 2nd favorite movie of all time, while the book holds the unique record of being the only - the ONLY - book of the hundreds I've read that I've re-read more than once.

 (Er, it actually might be the only adult book I've re-read period. Why re-read a book when there are thousands waiting to be read for the first time?)

I was looking forward to reading The Family Corleone by Ed Falco, a prequel to the original novel that was authorized by the Puzo estate and supposedly based on an unpublished GF4 script by Puzo himself.

The verdict? Eh.

It's not awful, although I fear any Godfather work carries with it built-in brownie points that prohibit a failing grade. The book is centered around the years '33-35 and the mafia war that brought the Corleone's to prominence. The war was mentioned in the original novel at some (moderate) length, and I was eager to read about it in more detail.

Unfortunately, the book was bogged down by several anachronisms - one literally on page one - , coupled with characters who felt compelled to reference the few pop-culture cliches of the era - you know, to establish "setting" - and who run around talking like dime store hoods. They also voice a ton of  vulgarities in Italian (enough that Falco included a glossary in the back), which is probably realistic but comes off as a bit contrived between these covers.

 There's also a glaring editorial error on the inside cover. Above an an organizational flowchart of the New York families is a title reading "Names and Families" - only it mistakenly reads "Games and Families".

Sigh.

Here's my problems with the plot. I think there's a pretty wishy-washy lead up to the war; not that there wasn't violence and disagreement, but I'm still not clear how this drew every family into conflict. Nor do I think Vito's little speech with Luca was nearly enough to establish his loyalty, and the Irish subplot was pointless. Worst of all, the 'war' seemed more like the invasion of Grenada -some people got hurt, but it lasted a blink of an eye.

And Falco messes with established cannon. Luca killed Capone's thugs with an ax, and one choked to death on his gag in fear. Not here. Vito himself was ill at ease with Luca - not here. Sonny was corrupted by seeing his father kill Fanucci - there's a different victim here. Rescuing Tom Hagen was an act of selfless piety - not here.

Screw that.

I'm not one of those idiots who spent page after page blasting Mark Winegardner's literary sequels of the last decade. I enjoyed them, even if I didn't love what they did to Tom Hagen. But I honestly thought this was a mediocre novel that lacks Puzo's grim brilliance.

I grade it a C.

How can I convince the Slap Family that an Alaskan vacation should be on their to do list? Fred Bryan

I took the family out to El Fuego tonight to celebrate some great news, blowing my entire (part-time job) paycheck in the process. No, I'm not telling you what the news is - if I was going to do that I'd have led off the update with it. Suffice it to say, however, sometimes a burning sensation goes away all on its own. I kid, I kid!

The Journal-Sentinel has officially asked me to stay on for a 5th year as a community columnist. I'm not *unhappy* about it, but I'm long past the point of being awed/excited about the news.

My guilty TV pleasure? Castle. Somehow I find myself watching it every week and enjoying the hell out of it. My not so guilty pleasure? DWTS. Great show, great season!

The Rose

The rose we gave Smiley after the recital bloomed today.

My Godson and his father

Hiddenburg - 75 years on

Today is the 75th anniversary of the Hindenburg disaster. RIP.

Dance Recital Weekend!

Recital weekend here at the Slapinions house! We took the kids to Kopps for burgers and custard after one show!

Mariano Rivera

Ugh. A torn ACL . . . say a prayer for Mariano. He deserves better than to have his career end in such a fashion. Get better Mo!

The Fourteenth Day

I've finished reading "The Fourteenth Day : JFK and the Aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis: The Secret White House Tapes" by David G. Coleman (publication date of 0ct 8th of this year, to coincide w/ the 50th anniversary of the crisis.) I did learn some things, like the extent of the Kennedy administration's legally dubious actions towards the press, and the fact that the crisis (barely) scooped Khrushchev's plans for a November gamble to take the initiative in the Cold War. But as the title states, this book is crafted from secret recordings JFK made (clandestine recordings, vindictive attacks on reporters - JFK and RN were Bobbsey Twins in some regards). So . . . it might have been nice to actually have included more than a few lines of transcripts scattered throughout the book. For 200 pages the author essentially summarizes what's on the tapes, and because of that - and a lack of panache by the author - this reads like a well done but uninspiring research paper. . Grade: C

The Caller (2011)

We just finished watching "The Caller", a bloodless horror/thriller set in Puerto Rico (but with an Anglo cast). Mary is an abused housewife who has finally set out on her own, renting a dingy apartment in San Juan where she is plagued by a wrong # - a caller from 1979 who will change her life forever (and we ain't talking love and marriage here folks). It's a good flick, but nothing outstanding. Grade: B

Quote of the Day

"When you are getting kicked from the rear it means that you are out in front." Archbishop Fulton Sheen

My Blue Eyed Girl

Quote of the Day

"I don't mean to sound cold or cruel or vicious, but I am so that's how it comes out." - Bill Hicks

Cell by Stephen King

I finished reading Stephen King's "Cell" yesterday. A suspected terrorist attack causes cell phone users to have their heads scrambled, and a pretty typical zombie novel follows. However, about mid-way through King ratchets it up a bit and the book is rescued from mediocrity to become a halfway decent tale.

Still, it remains a glorified Luddite morality tale, and has the required # of stale King-isms: 1. The '60's were the highlight of all creation 2. people who believe in Christianity and (gasp!) actually say so are meanies. 3. JFK was Lincoln and Christ all rolled up in one 4. George Bush was evil 5. loudly proclaiming my love for classic rock and disdain for other music means I'm a cool kid, not the awkward, unloved horror geek I am, er, was! 

Grade: C

Goofy little Junie