May 11, 2007

Happy Mother's Day!

Last year at this time we'd been living in the house just under a month and our concrete walk was poured that very day. We chose to mark our handprints in it as a remembrance of all the work that went into the house.

We started at the east end of the walk. I remember Smiley's hands were so light you had to press extra hard on them. By the way, Lisa would kill me if I failed to mention she's nearly six months pregnant in these pictures.

We gave up on that spot, deciding the cement was already too set. A faint imprint remains, however.

We moved on to a spot closer to the front of the house.

Lu was out and about with her Grandma and returned to join the party.

The final result?

We've got NKOTB Tickets!

Whew. Around ten this morning  I got my hands on some tickets for the NKOTB show in Illinois on October 4th.

Crap tickets, mind you. I had told Lis we *could* go as high as $350/ticket for 'the meet and greet/guaranteed first 10 rows' package (mind the 'could', not 'should'), but the IL version was sold out.

We'd always said that if NKOTB or Led Zeppelin reunited, or Kurt Cobain returned from the grave to avenge himself on The One Known as Courtney and return to the stage, then all bets were off. Besides, that's what the economic stimulus  package is for, right?

New Jersey still had some of the packages left, and I was willing to make the trip since I've never been to NY/NJ and might've been able to work the September concert in with a Yankees game, but Lis vetoed it.

(Fly halfway across the country  just  for the New Kids? Don't forget, on Dec 31st, 1999 we rang in the millennium at a Boston bar listening to Joey McIntyre perform live.)

Instead, the second the internet sale for IL started I was there typing away. My wife's friend Jolene wanted to go with us - her man being a Non-Believer- and that 3rd seat proved elusive.

Within 4 minutes the site said the show was sold out of three consecutive seats, so I threw Jo to the curb and tried for two tickets. Nothing. It was selling out. A few minutes later, the same thing, and then on a whim I typed in '3' again and boom, someone had forfeited their tickets and we had ours.

They are about as far away from the stage as I am from being anorexic, but they are tickets. I console myself with the knowledge that  Lisa has been within feet of Joe and Jordan over the last ten years, and that someday Donnie will star in the film version of one of my novels and we'll have the guys over for lunch.  ;)

* * * *

For fans:

On their myspace page, linked to on the prior NKOTB post, there's a very good article about the reunion. I must say they display surprising maturity - yeah, yeah, the youngest is three months older than me - but there's a lot of crap they put up with over the years. The inclination, I would think, would be to spin a good PR tale and get on with it.

But they acknowledge their past, crediting Maurice Starr and once again bluntly stating stating that they were preceded by New Edition. Joe, being Joe, mentions that one of the best things about the reunion is that all the female fans are now of legal age - and then mentions his wife will  tag along to keep him out of trouble.

Here's how the reunion came about, told mostly in the words of the ever-talkative Donnie:

The brand new New Kids album was really sparked when Wahlberg was in New York for a costume fitting for the upcoming film Righteous Kill that finds him living out another life-long dream by acting in a film alongside two of his greatest heroes, Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino . . .  Finding himself around the block, Wahlberg visited the office of his longtime music lawyer who handed him a demo tape  . . .

Putting the CD on while driving a few days later, Wahlberg heard two songs that spoke to him powerfully. “I got in the car in Boston on my birthday and I popped it in,” he recalls. “ The first song was called ..Click, Click, Click’ and from the minute it started, it just grabbed me. . . – I immediately recognized that Joey McIntryre is going to love this record, Jordan Knight is going to love this record and I love this record. The music speaks to all of our sensibilities, but they’re all totally different. It was hip-hop and honest enough for me. It was soulful enough for Jordan and pop and unselfish enough for Joe. It just had it all.

After years of blocking any reunion, Wahlberg was suddenly energized and drove to Jordan Knight’s house that night and played him the songs, “I told him. ..Jordan, this could be the moment right here.’ Jordan heard ..Click, Click, Click’ and he loved it. Then I emailed them to Joe and the same reaction — and more importantly his wife cried. So I pulled out my checkbook and we started going.”

“We’re not kids, we’re just the guys now,” Donnie Wahlberg says  . .Long the hold out from any sort of New Kids On The Block reunion, Wahlberg – who has enjoyed considerable success as a constantly working actor in the intervening years – has long made it clear that he had absolutely no interest in simply cashing in on the Kid’s good name. . . .“We never sold the New Kids house to anyone. And until we got together in a recording studio in Orlando two months ago, I haven’t even been in the same room with these five guys for fifteen years.”

 . . over the years, I’ve often thought I’d like to experience the group with that feeling of self-respect — instead of just the fame and hysteria, so it’s not about just getting something back, but about really doing something.” 

The bit about not being in a room together for 15 years needs an explanation. It's true all five might not have been in the same room, and there is some hint of bad blood in the past between John and Joe because of John's exit from the group. Still, Donnie and Joe have been in contact,  as has Donnie and Danny, Joe and Jordan, and of course Jordan and John. They obviously weren't strangers over the years.

Michael Clayton

You have no idea how badly I wanted to like Michael Clayton. It wasn't just the star power of George Clooney, the glowing reviews, and all the buzz it garnered around Awards time. I wanted to like it because I felt the need  to connect again with The Vast Majority, both critics and viewers, who in this case walked around saying this movie was a grand if somber experience.

That didn't happen for me. If I'm going to be brutally honest I felt it was a predictable, slow, and almost boring film.

Michael Clayton is a 'fixer', an attorney sent out to bury the proverbial bodies and grease the wheels for his law firm. When an old friend goes off his mental illness medication and threatens their work on a multi-billion dollar lawsuit, the firm sends Clayton in to clean up the mess. But lurking in the background is another, more sinister attempt to 'fix' the problem.

As always Clooney shines, and my respect for him continues to grow. Tilda Swinton was wasted in a thankless role as the new chief counsel, but Tom Wilkinson stands out as the mentally ill but morally right lawyer at the center of the mess.

The film itself takes it's time to move anywhere, intentionally so I think, and that would be fine if in the end it delivered an impressive plot or used the time to develop rich, complex characters who changed along the way.

[I don't believe this next bit needs a 'SPOILER' warning, as it's glaringly obvious and even mentioned throughout the film, but there it is]

Instead we're treated to a plot stolen from Erin Brockovich, with a little bit of The Bourne Identity thrown in for originality. As for the characters, they don't change, not to any degree that matters. The mentally ill lawyer is mentally ill when his character's role begins and when it ends. The chief counsel may be troubled by her actions and in over her head, but she charges straight ahead throughout the movie. Even Clayton remains fundamentally unchanged. What he does in the end is not a result of a metamorphosis but as a simple reflexive response to his life being put in danger. If there are deeper, more life changing rationales behind it, then it should have spelled out with more than a brief hint now and again.

I turned off the DVD disappointed, and I'm more than a little saddened by that fact.

NKOTB's New Song!

Tonight 'Summertime' by New Kids on the Block' was the challenger on 103.7 KISS FM's 'KISS Kombat'. On 'Kombat' two new songs battle head to head with the winner chosen by listener votes. 

I've learned some tricks from having lived near Chicago all my life; I personally voted three times.

The boys won, and it's on to battle again tomorrow night against Wiz Khalifa.

It was the first time Lisa and I had heard their new song, and it's pretty damn good. It stays true to their style, seems to work in many of them on vocals, and has a light and playful sound.

Frankly, it sounds like the guys  had fun making the song, and I dig the shout-out to 1988 (a pivotal year for them).

Here's a link to their myspace page with the song, and as long as it lasts, here's the YouTube version:

Tickets for their Chi-Town concert go on sale this weekend, and you better believe we're getting the best tickets available.

Keep Keepin' On, and don't forget to vote for them tomorrow night!

Tags: New Kids on The Block, Summertime, NKOTB

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McCain/Clinton?

I haven't posted about the race for the Democratic nomination because, let's be honest, it's all over 'cept the shouting. Obama is the candidate of choice, and there's very little Clinton can do to change that.

Still, I'm glad she hasn't given up just yet.

A) because I am a Republican and it's kind of fun to watch and B) why the heck should she?

Oh, the 'good of the party'?  Thank you for your opinion Mr. Khrushchev, but no thank you. The party has done its best to finish her off, leaking stories about how the nomination 'must end' by June, hint-hint, nudge-nudge, and about how the math just won't work for her. Thanks for the support fellas, but you set up the nomination process so quit trying to cut it short. She's got the right to keep at it.

What about the idea of unifying the base before the general election? Ok, let's roll with that. If she believes she is the best candidate (and I think she does) and that Obama is woefully short on substance (which I think she does) and is a liabiltiy in the fall (which I again, think she believes) then why give up? Why not dig in, bring this to the convention floor, and hope for an upset?

[and if, as many believe, she is a selfish, self-centered woman who cares for nothing but her own gain, then she has no reason to go quietly, does she?]

I still don't see how you can completely dismiss someone who has taken big-name state after big-name state right out from under the 'sure thing' candidate. There are excuses/reasons/theories that explain away each victory and inform us that it wouldn't matter in November (it will) but either way, doesn't it make a Dem pause for thought? Not even a little?

Here's something else I found disturbing, and not in the racist sense many would be quick to label it in this crazy age. I heard of several exit polls in North Carolina that said Obama took the 'black vote' by better than 93%. (I have yet to independently verify this).

My wife felt that was something to be proud of, commenting that she wished women would have the same solidarity for their own. I disagree. Put 100 people in a room on Monday and ask them what day of the week it is and 15% will argue that it's Tuesday because they are mistaken, and another 10% will say it's Friday just to spite you.

In my experience,when 93% of people agree on anything, it's wise to start avoiding the Kool-Aid..

Conceding the fact that Obama will take the nomination, here's an idea. I admit it's crazy, straight out of 'shoot from your hip'/armchair expert  'ain't gonna happen land'.

McCain/Clinton.

Sure, it would tick off a whole bunch of people, which is never a good thing in politics. But think about it, really think about it.

The far right would point to it as proof McCain leans left, but what are they going to do, vote for the super ultra-left Obama? I doubt it.

Scads of Democrats would cry 'traitor', but if they were that loyal to the party, they'd vote for Obama anyhow, right?

Some folks in the middle would be sickened by the combo and stay home or vote Democrat. Others, however, would bite on the 'bi-partisan, dawn of a new era' slate. 

Most importantly, a sizeable number of Clinton loyalists would be inclined to follow her over. Even if only a handful left, assuming it was enough to balance out the defectors angry at McCain, it would divide the Democrats. It could put HRC a hair away from the Oval Office and without having to grovel like a beaten hound to Obama in exchange for a VP slot.

Certainly HRC seems to have burned her bridges anyway, so what's to lose?

Again, just blowing smoke. It won't happen. But if it did, it would have my vote. I like the woman, despite all her whack-a-doodle ideas and the (D) after her name. McCain-Clinton would be a formidable, if flawed, team.

Playtime, Pee, and Scraped up noses

Today, knock on wood, was a good day. With two days left until the change of ownership at work I spent much of the morning sitting in on depositions for a civil matter. Later I had my own turn in the hot seat. It all went well and I was proud of my staff, who stuck to the truth and refused to get knocked off track by the opposing counsel.

When I got home I was a little overwhelmed by the sounds and chaos of my four kids, all of whom were outside playing with Lisa.

To prevent taking my own life, it is best have at least 5 minutes of transition between Grown-up World and Land of the Demon Spawn.

Yeah, didn't get that today, and that makes a grumpy Dad. But within a few minutes I was chilling with the kids. It was a gorgeous day I wasted inside, so I appreciated being able to read outside and soak in the sun.

Here's some pics I took of the fun:

[BTW, Smiley peed in the toilet today, or rather on and around it. He stood up, As a Man Should, and let loose under his Mom's direction. We'll have to work on his aim, but first reports are it's better than mine]

This next one isn't of the kids, but of the damage done over the winter to the area once occupied by the tarp and miscellaneous shed materials. Mourn for my lawn. I do.

Ok, back the kids. Remember that beautiful little baby girl I posted pics of yesterday?

While she was outside her Grandma started to put her in her car seat, but Little Miss decided to flop out of it quick-like, smacking her face on the concrete (from a distance of an inch at best). Way to ruin the modeling career kid.

Note the fancy cupcake holders/transporters on the table, the things that look like a wire tree. That's what the Mrs. chooses to spend money on, instead of important things like DVD rentals and baseball pitching machines. Egh. Chicks.

The difference between a Mommy Blog and a Daddy Blog?  A Mommy blog would never have pictures of the kids doing kid things - you know, all the stuff now frowned on by the Nanny culture- like climbing railings and playhouses.

Or hanging from a clothes pole

Where's YaYa in all this, you ask? Taking a bath. Here's a pic of her return:

Oh, and we mustn't forget the star of the show

My I look serious and contemplative don't I? Odd, seeing as it was mere seconds after taking this shot:

[redacted]

Sorry folks. I took a photo of the inside of my mouth (since the up-the-nose to see my nose-hair pic didn't turn out) but upon review it is a little too ick for public viewing.

After all this I violated one of my cardinal rules and let the kids go to my Mom's house and play with their cousins on a school night.

Wouldn't you know it, after climbing over this-and-that and jumping here-and-there-and-everywhere at home, LuLu stumbled when walking down the hill on my Mom's front lawn and scraped up her nose and hand on the cement.

"Now [Baby] and I are twins," she told me. I guess so.

Some pics, as promised, of the Baby

I promised you some pictures, (largely) free of tedious text, and here goes. These are the remaining 6 month pics of the Baby. The first part was published here back in February.

Quick notes: the baby now crawls (slowly), but prefers to spider-walk on her hands and toes, as if her she finds being on hands and knees too demeaning. She has 7 teeth and counting. In the middle of the night Saturday she woke up and  I went to her, grabbed the bottle and left to replenish it. Clear as day she yelled 'Dada! Dada!". Of course it has yet to happen again, or on cue, but so what? I still get dibs on being her first word. And finally, I think it's safe to say she is our first blue-eyed baby, and I'm pleased for Lisa that I didn't completely kill off her Sinatra genes.

I think this next one is adorable.

Look at that smile!

LOVE this next pic!

And this one is just simply gorgeous.

Tags: Baby

Cinco De Mayo

 

                    

Today is Cinco De Mayo and for the second year in a row, boy am I ever happy I moved out of the old neighborhood.

Cinco De Mayo in our old Polish-turned-Mexican neighborhood meant a driving hassle, with guys rolling around with a pair of 3' x 5' Mexican flags attached to their car and their buddy's hanging out the windows with flags of their own. It meant illegal fireworks at night,  music blasting all day, and usually some act of stupidity somewhere when the alcohol started flowing.

Ah, on looking that over it sound much worse in print than it was in reality. No one ever bothered me or my family, and there are worse things than listening to songs that  reminded me of the Polka's of my own heritage. Keep in mind, for 90% of the day and 99% of the participants it was always nothing more than a celebratory holiday.

But that rowdy 1% sure screwed it for everyone else, and the city cracked down hard in recent years. Good luck to you if you try that flag setup now, and the celebration has turned more commercial and Americanized, with restaurants scraping together Mexican dishes and Corona for Cinco De Mayo specials.

{You know, one thing I never understood about Cinco De Mayo was the fact that its a celebration, not of independence, but of a victory in battle. Fine and dandy, but it was a single victory in a war they went on to lose to the French.

Okay, sure, just like most holidays the origin is obscured by the celebration itself. After all, who celebrates Halloween and stops to ponder the religious significance, or questions the formation of the calendar on New Years Eve?

But to me it seems like an odd way to kick off a party. It's like Poland celebrating a hypothetical day they stopped the German advance in August of '39. Grand - but rather overshadowed by the defeat and occupation later in the month, no? }

Anywho, there are some things I miss about the old neighborhood. I miss our old landlord and our neighbors on either side. I miss the way the neighborhood seemed more like a family, albeit a mildly dysfunctional one, than the friendly but rather socially isolated area we live in now. I miss the El Rey grocery store with the kick ass Pico De Gallo and skirt steak, and I miss being able to latch onto the wireless signals from the nearby middle school. :)

I sure don't miss the street parking, the punks, the morons who stole my barbeque grill, or the occasional 'shots fired'.   

But I'm still glad we had the chance to live and grow our family there for many years.

Happy Cinco De Mayo!

Tags: Cinco De Mayo

When the ideal just doesn't *quite* cover all the bases . . .

Happy 30th anniversary you spammers you!

I'm sure most of you have read or heard by now about the 30th anniversary of the first spam email.

It occurred on May 3rd of 1978, when Gary Thuerk delivered an email advertisement for a new computer system to 300 addresses along ARAPNET, a government precursor to the Internet as we know it.

Because everything about the net was new, the sender failed in his attempt to reach many of the addresses. In time it became a sore point; those who were missed felt 'excluded' from the controversy that followed. In addition the  message shut down the email systems at a Utah University. They just couldn't handle the 'massive' 56KB links!

Here's the text of the message, in caps just as in the original. The italics are mine. 300 addresses, many mistakenly falling into the message's body, and then:

DIGITAL WILL BE GIVING A PRODUCT PRESENTATION OF THE NEWEST MEMBERS OF THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY; THE DECSYSTEM-2020, 2020T, 2060, AND 2060T.  THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY OF COMPUTERS HAS EVOLVED FROM THE TENEX OPERATING SYSTEM
AND THE DECSYSTEM-10 <PDP-10> COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE.  BOTH THE DECSYSTEM-2060T
AND 2020T OFFER FULL ARPANET SUPPORT UNDER THE TOPS-20 OPERATING SYSTEM.
THE DECSYSTEM-2060 IS AN UPWARD EXTENSION OF THE CURRENT DECSYSTEM 2040
AND 2050 FAMILY. THE DECSYSTEM-2020 IS A NEW LOW END MEMBER OF THE
DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY AND FULLY SOFTWARE COMPATIBLE WITH ALL OF THE OTHER
DECSYSTEM-20 MODELS.

WE INVITE YOU TO COME SEE THE 2020 AND HEAR ABOUT THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY
AT THE TWO PRODUCT PRESENTATIONS WE WILL BE GIVING IN CALIFORNIA THIS
MONTH.  THE LOCATIONS WILL BE:

               TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1978 - 2 PM
                   HYATT HOUSE (NEAR THE L.A. AIRPORT)
                   LOS ANGELES, CA

               THURSDAY, MAY 11, 1978 - 2 PM
                   DUNFEY'S ROYAL COACH
                   SAN MATEO, CA
                   (4 MILES SOUTH OF S.F. AIRPORT AT BAYSHORE, RT 101 AND RT 92)

A 2020 WILL BE THERE FOR YOU TO VIEW. ALSO TERMINALS ON-LINE TO OTHER
DECSYSTEM-20 SYSTEMS THROUGH THE ARPANET. IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO ATTEND,
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT THE NEAREST DEC OFFICE
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE EXCITING DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY.

Reaction was swift and harsh. Don't forget, at this point the net was a government project, restricted to universites, the military, and the like.

ON 2 MAY 78 DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION (DEC) SENT OUT AN ARPANET MESSAGE ADVERTISING THEIR NEW COMPUTER SYSTEMS. THIS WAS A FLAGRANT VIOLATION OF THE USE OF ARPANET AS THE NETWORK IS TO BE USED FOR OFFICIAL U.S. GOVERNMENT BUSINESS ONLY. APPROPRIATE ACTION IS BEING TAKEN TO PRECLUDE ITS OCCURRENCE AGAIN.

IN ENFORCEMENT OF THIS POLICY DCA IS DEPENDENT ON THE ARPANET SPONSORS, AND HOST AND TIP LIAISONS. IT IS IMPERATIVE YOU INFORM YOUR USERS AND CONTRACTORS WHO ARE PROVIDED ARPANET ACCESS THE MEANING OF THIS POLICY.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

MAJOR RAYMOND CZAHOR

CHIEF, ARPANET MANAGEMENT BRANCH, DCA

Or how about this exerpt from another email response:

There are many companies in the U.S. and abroad that would like to have access to the Arpanet. Naturally all of them cannot have this access. Consequently if the ones that do have access can advertise their products to a very select market and the others cannot, this is really an unfair advantage. Likewise, if job applicants can be selected amongst some of the best trained around, or if the applicants themselves can advertise to a very select group of prospective employers, this is an unfair advantage to other prospective employees or employers who are not on the net.

So, basically: keep the net within our current old boy's network and discourage the public from benefiting.

Here's the final message I'll quote. I agree with it, and find the tone, humour, and reaction worthy of praise. The author is Richard Stallman, later to  earn infamy as a world class hacker and advocate for online freedom. The part I put in bold speaks to me, and may just wind up as part of my own personal code of conduct.

1) I didn't receive the DEC message, but I can't imagine I would have been bothered if Ihave. I get tons of uninteresting mail, and system announcements about babies born, etc. At least a demo MIGHT have been interesting.

2) The amount of harm done by any of the cited "unfair" things the net has been used for is clearly very small. And if they have found any people any jobs, clearly they have done good. If I had a job to offer, I would offer it to my friends first. Is this "evil"? Must I advertise in a paper in every city in the US with population over 50,000 and then go to all of them to interview, all in the name of fairness? Some people, I am afraid, would think so. Such a great insistence on fairness would destort everyone's lives and do much more harm than good. So I state unashamedly that I am in favor of seeing jobs offered via whatever.

3) It has just been suggested that we impose someone's standards on us because otherwise he MIGHT do so. Well, if you feel that those standards are right and necessary, go right ahead and support them. But if you disagree with them, as I do, why hand your opponents the victory on a silver platter? By the suggested reasoning, we should always follow the political views that we don't believe in, and especially those of terrorists, in anticipation of their attempts to impose them on us. If those who think that the job offers are bad are going to try to prevent them, then those of us who think they are unrepugnant should uphold our views. Besides, I doubt that anyone can successfully force a site from outside to impose censorship, if the people there don't fundamentally agree with the desirability of it.

4) Would a dating service for people on the net be "frowned upon" by DCA? I hope not. But even if it is, don't let that stop you from notifying me via net mail if you start one.

* * *

Because of the strong reaction to this ($ making, successful) Spam, the practice was stopped for a decade. Of course, it later returned, and the world was changed for the worse.

But even Spam has an upside. Think of how many jobs are created by writing and sending the email, and in all the efforts to stop its distribution.

(AOL btw, for all it does wrong, is wicked in its efforts to stop Spam. Rare indeed is the stray sales pitch that gets through, unlike my swamped Yahoo account).

Tags: spam, email, blogplugs