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

On glasses, the decline of the VCR, the Civil War, and Indiana truck stops

Hot dog! After losing her glasses well over a month ago, YaYa called me at work to tell me she found them today! Allegedly they were in her purse all along, which I wonder about, seeing as I searched it pretty thoroughly. But no matter - still a grand announcement!

[upon reviewing the above: my Lord I'm a dorky boring putz. I'd have ended it all twenty years ago if I'd seen this coming]

I can't be too mad at the kid about the glasses. Lis and I are missing two important items of our own. I'm missing a Nirvana bootleg of the 1992 Reading Festival (published as D.U.M.B.) that Lis bought me for my birthday in 1995, less then a month after we met.

Lisa is missing a cheap silver and turquoise 'promise' ring I bought her in Andersonville, Georgia in October of that year. There's a heck of a story behind the ring, from the hillbilly store owner I bought it from (oh, to find the picture I have of him!), to my presentation of it a mere day after Lisa threatened to strand me at a Indiana truck stop unless I committed to her right then and there.

I had been. . . doo dee doo . .not 'the best boyfriend ever' for some of that year. By then that part of our relationship was over and we were again a couple. But while we were back together I publicly refused to acknowledge the fact, instead telling people we were just 'friends'. She'd had just about enough of that,thank you, and rightfully so. Anyhow, long story.

But Indiana?  I had done nothing, have done nothing in my life to warrant such a dire fate.

[cue irate emails from Nutwood Junction ;)]

The ring is AWOL, victim of the kids destructive raids on our jewelry boxes over the last year. The destruction of their contents, or more aptly their redistribution throughout the house, is a vile and un amusing action on behalf of the Spawn, and one they have learned to regret. [I ask that no one show mercy in the comments section. They knew better and did it anyway.]

So the ring is missing.

It was cheap, maybe $25, and would probably have cost me $10 less if I hadn't been a blatant Yankee in the heart of the Confederacy [hometown of a statue honoring the only convicted and executed war criminal of the Civil War]. 

Lisa had long ago stopped wearing it because it was tight on her finger, clashed with the wedding set, and (although she'd never tell me) I think it turned her finger green.

So it  was no financial or cosmetic loss, and it was a 'promise' I delivered on, so it holds no grand emotional baggage except memories.

Still, I hope to find it, and the CD, someday.

** ** **

On to less solemn tales.

You know that animated 'story' that YaYa sent me to post a few days ago? Someone wrote and asked me how I incorporated the .wav file into it, as I guess it must be hard to do. My response: all I did was cut and paste YaYa's work. I called and asked my 6 year old the how of the process and she said she'd have to walk me through it when she returns from her Brownie campout this weekend.

Next thing you know she'll be programming my VCR.

But come to think of it, I don't owna VCR anymore. The kids have a pair, and I guess I still have one (relagated to our bedroom), but we're now a DVD family, what with a 400 disc changer sitting atop the TV.

BUT  - oh, how I like this segue! - I have finally mastered the art of dubbing our VHS tapes to DVD.

Many moons ago I bought this very same computer with the promise to my wife that all the extra doodads were essential to dub our tapes. As the fates foresaw, I never got around to it.

So two years ago or so I bought a DVD recorder/VCR with the same idea. I never got past the 'play' 'fast forward' 'subtitle' functions.

But tonight, with the local library clamboring for me to return a VHS movie I'd borrowed, I figured it all out and burned the movie to DVD.

What does this mean? It means 27 New Kids on the Block tapes soon to be available digitally baby!

The 'test' movie is Dark of the Sun, starring Rod Taylor and Jim Brown. My maternal grandpa and I watched the movie twenty-six/twenty-seven years ago and I've spent years trying to remember the name based on what a 7 year old remembered of the plot.

I'll try to watch it again and write a review (from an adult perspective) soon.

Lost: Something Nice Back Home Season 4/Episode 10

Love or hate him (and I'm definitely one of the former) Jack is the center of this complex and mystifying world of Lost, and Thursday the show finally returned to focusing on his character.

On the island he is stricken with an appendicitis, an unusual occurrence for a place known for its healing properties. Is the island lashing out against the man most responsible for trying to orchestrate the exodus from the isle?

Juliet is able to perform the operation, but Jack is once again leery of surrendering control and demands to talk her through the operation by watching it in a mirror, sans general amnesia.

He starts to feel the pain and react, Juliet sensibly puts him out, Kate fails in living up to Jack's request to keep him awake, and the dang organ comes out.

This scenario, I must say, was stupid. I have a feeling the writers were trying to work in a way to establish trust/love/control issues between Jack/Juliet/Kate at the expense of putting a realistic scene together. 

Elsewhere on the island Sawyer resumes his almost parental supervision of the injured Claire as they try to return to the beach with Miles and Aaron. Along the way they come across the bodies of Rousseau and Karl (thereby verifying Danielle's death) and hide from the fleeing mercenaries.

There seems to be an awful lot of the bad guys left, considering the smoke monster went ga-ga on them last week. Perhaps there were more of them than previously thought, or maybe the monster is not the pure killer we presumed it to be.

In the night Christian Shepard appears to his daughter in the jungle. He was - seeing as he's dead - father to both Jack and Claire, although neither sibling is aware of the connection. In the morning she is gone, and Miles rather flippantly tells Sawyer that she left with her father. Aaron is found abandoned in the trees some distance away.

Let me pause here and survey the field: it is general knowledge that Claire and Jack are half-siblings, right? There were clues galore in the first few seasons, and to top it off the writers themselves outed the 'secret' some time ago.

Anyhow, back to . .well, back to the future.

It is post-trial, and Jack and Kate are now a couple, and a hot one at that. Jack seems to have taken to Aaron despite earlier misgivings and all is well. Later in the show Jack even proposes to Kate, who gladly accepts.

But . . and in Lost there is always a but: Jack goes to see Hurley, who is now refusing to take his medicine in the mental hospital. He is very much a downer this time around, telling Jack they (the Oceanic Six) are all dead and never left the island. He says that Charlie told him Jack is not meant to raise Aaron, and that he will be getting a visitor soon.

This begins to unhinge Jack, who sees what we presume is his fathers ghost in the hospital where he works. Shaken, he requests and receives a prescription to Clonazapam and begins to drink heavily over the next few days.

A short time later Jack comes home early to find Kate mysteriously out and Aaron under the care of a sitter. When she returns he confronts her and she admits to doing a favor on behalf of Sawyer. (let it be noted Jack states Sawyer chose to stay on the island, confirming his future and in all likelihood his survival to that point).

An argument breaks out, with both sides overreacting and nothing happening worth the breakup that seems to follow the fight. The only thing of value I picked up was Jack's admonition that Kate isn't even related to Aaron, which could mean he knows he is, or it could mean nothing more than she isn't his biological mother.

In the Lost chronology, I place the fight prior to last season's finale. I think the prescription and drinking foreshadow Jack's decline to come, and his sighting of the ghost explains his drunken request to see his father in that same finale.

One theory floating around that might have some weight to it. Item One: Miles can legitimately 'hear' the dead. That's a fact, at least in the Lost universe. Ok, fine. He is also an ass, but not one that's overly evil or willing to harm others, at least to this point. Yet when a stranger shows up at the campfire in the middle of the jungle and walks away with a injured woman and her infant son, he does nothing to stop them or raise an alarm.

So . . what are the chances that Claire perished in the bombing of her home last week? The island has been known to grant the dead a brief physical form when it deems it amusing. Is it possible she's been dead since then but unaware of it, as in The Sixth Sense, and that Miles recognized this and therefore wasn't upset when her father came to guide her to 'another place'?

Again, just a theory I heard. I'm not sold on it, but it does have merit.

Take it a step further and I suppose Hurley could be right, and the Six are simply manifestations of their departed spirits. Except I believe that Hurley's just plain sick at that point in the show, and wrong about their status.

Or maybe as the episode's title 'Something Nice Back Home' indicates, maybe the Oceanic Six and Jack and Kate's love affair is nothing more than a nice idea that Jack thought about to take his mind away from the pain, just as Barnard suggested.

Hmm.  A lot to think about, as usual. Wait and see.

Tags: Lost, blogplugs

Walk Hard

                                 

"Walk haarrrd"

"What's wrong with him? Why does he keep saying that?" Chris said.

"It's the name of a movie he rented. He hasn't even watched it yet  but he keeps saying it over and over. Ignore him, he's just a dork." Lisa said.

"Walk haarrd"

"Stop that, you're getting on my nerves."

A minute of petulant silence. Then:

"Walk haaard"

* * * *

We finally got around to watching Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story today.

 I was put off for the first few minutes by how closely it mirrored Walk the Line. Granted, the Johnny Cash bio-pic was an obvious inspiration for the film, but the Scary Movie treatment has bored me for years now. Please Hollywood, let the genre die, and leave Airplane and Naked Gun as it's sole memorial.

And then it had the following exchange between Dewey Cox and his first wife.

"What about my dreams?"

""Edith, I told you, I can't build you a candy house, it will fall down! The sun will melt the candy! It won't work!"

"It will if it never rains!"

And from that moment on, as I sat on the couch desperately trying not to pee my pants from laughter, I was hooked.

The movie mirrors Cash's life for a bit, from the death of his brother and his father's over-the-top lifelong reaction to it,  to his drug addiction and extramarital love forhis duet partner.

It's a hoot. Yeah, I know. It doesn't sound like it should be, but believe you me, from this day on whenever someone says "The wrong boy died!" I'm fit to crack up.

Pay attention to this next clip. It's a fitting summary of our nation's foolish war on pot, and really funny to boot.  FAIR WARNING: one cuss word, drug references.

 

 

Someone please transcribe that for me!

John C. Reilly was outstanding in the title role, keeping the comedy going with a straight face and genuine acting skills that were worth his Golden Globe nomination. (did he win?)

 Jenna Fischer (better known as Pam from The Office) was nearly as good playing Cox's  second wife. Quite aside from her acting skills, 'if' she sang as portrayed in the movie (I know Reilly did) then she's got a very  impressive voice. (btw - this is a useless aside - she is far more attractive than you would think from TV. There she's 'cute', but here, in the scene where Dewey's wife discovers them . . yowsas.)

One of the things that impressed me about the movie was the quality of the songs. Oh, most were tongue in cheek, but they all gave the impression of actual, heart-felt if ridiculous tunes you'd catch on someone's CD. Let's Duet is just plain funny, but Walk Hard is a halfway decent tune quite aside from being part of a movie. Small wonder, since Marshall Crenshaw penned the track.

So 3.5 stars out of 5 if you are looking for an intelligent but over the top, somewhat vulgar comedy. It just might crack my personal top five comedies list.

Because she asked to me to post it, that's why

cats,dogs,bats and bugs too!by [YaYa]  to dad      bats are not birds  bats eat bugs.cats like mouses .    Click to play sound: Cat Meow 1

Don't worry - I'll give you an easy 'awww!' post of kids pics soon enough. 'til then, read this. :)

These kids, are kicking my a**.

As usual on Thursday's, Lisa went to dance class and I put the kids to bed alone. No biggie - I've done it a hundred times this year. (and before that statement starts a fire, let it be acknowledged that yes, Lisa has probably done it a thousand times in our marriage).

So all is quiet and well and I chose to go down to the basement, to read a little Stephen King on the throne and then take a long hot shower in my Fortress of Solitude.

Only the laundry sinks were again backed up, and water was about to overflow. Well bleep and bleep.  I went through all the normal steps, conceded something was again blocking the trap, vacuumed out the water, and tried to dump it down the sewer drain.

I say try, because I tipped it and dumped it over the basement floor.

I mopped up what I could, took the trap apart - yet another sock, and God knows (Smiley) how they wind up there - and put it back together. I took my shower, trod across my bacteria water ridden floor, and journeyed upstairs. Maybe an hour and a half had passed.

All - the - kids - were- up and watching TV in our bedroom. 

LuLu was resting comfortably on a child's patio recliner she apparently dragged inside at some point in the day. Smiley had taken a Pokemon-ish mask and glove set and put them on, realized the gloves squirted water, and filled them with Diet Pepsi. The baby was standing and screaming in her crib down the hall, and YaYa was just lying there watching TV and eating an apple, calm as calm can be.

For the next scene, picture King Kong as he escapes his bonds at the theater. I was the star of the show.

I can handle Smiley finally hitting a delayed 'terrible two's' at three, and LuLu is four, which in my experience is one of the most miserable years to deal with as a parent, and YaYa is just downright Evil by nature, a regular Junie B Jones, but c'mon!

A few years ago I wrote about a behavior chart we had for the oldest girls,one that worked well but was destroyed in the move. I think it's about time it was resurrected.

* * * *

Some positive news of the kids: Smiley can now say a slurred 'one more' on demand, YaYa has been invited by Lisa's childhood dance instructor to do a dance at her studio's recital, LuLu exhibited incredible politeness and self-assuredness while on a trip to the library with me today, and the baby possesses 7 teeth, digs cheerios and has started to crawl.

* * * *

Big day at work tomorrow, with the new owner coming in for a meeting and a big farewell party for the current, long-standing owners. No matter what,  a decade long chapter of my life is coming to a rapid close.

Hmm. I wish I could pop into my grandkid's history books and see what happens next, because the options, conceivably, suck.

* * * *

The appraisal came back on the house, and it was good news, a solid 10% increase in the value of our home in a just over a years time.

* * * *

I tenatively accepted that offer to write a weekly or bi-weekly column for that communtiy newspaper, with details to be worked out on Saturday.

* * * *

To all you commie pinkos out there, Happy May Day!

Window salesmen, drainage ditches, musical beds, and a picture of Socialist! Oh My!

A rare productive weekend for me.

On Friday, with the help of one of my maintenance guys, I moved our new king bed into the house. Getting it in despite 40 mph wind gusts and tornado watches was grand; getting it inside and up our narrow stairs was a downright miracle.

That replaced the California King that we've had for nearly a decade. It was well past its prime and Lisa's back had been feeling the effects. For that reason we've spent much of 2008 playing musical beds. Many a night Lisa would wind up in YaYa's bed, with the kids either taking our bed or sleeping on their 'couches' on the floor. When the kids took our bed I'd grab LuLu's, in part because it put me closer to the baby and, well, because it was the best bed in the house.

Mind you, all was well in the marriage department but you can imagine what news of our 'sleeping in seperate rooms' did for the rumour mill.  

Afterwards, as the rain came down, I noticed the northwest corner of our lot was a lake. That's the same place where the old 1892 wall leaked, but it wasn't raining that hard. It turns out part of the neighbors gutter was blown off by a storm (when??) and all the water from his gutters was dumping out right there. I contacted him and, for the time being, we dug a trench to channel the water away from my house. It worked, as there were no leaks despite heavy rain, but I'm not going to swear an oath that it was the sole reason for our water problems (tho' of course I'm hoping it is).

Then the window guy showed up and gave his spiel. I'm embarrassed to say I signed up for his services (after thinking it over for a day). His product was high quality, his references impeccable, his written guarantees sound,and his face very familar. As it turns out I've met him before, as he's best friends with a radio guy I've done business with at work. Small world and all that, eh?

Pricewise he was about double what it would cost for me to buy standard, over the counter windows at Menards and install them myself. That last part is laughable, because there wasno way I was capable of doing them myself. I proved that on Sunday.

Saturday was spent at a one of YaYa's  friend's First Communion, but Sunday morning Socialist came over at my request.

You might remember that in the fall of last year I took apart Socialist's shed and transported it to my backyard. He told me it was free for the taking, but that if I wanted his help putting it up it would have to wait until spring.

Well, here it is 6 months or so later and all I had completed was the floor and three walls. So I asked for his help.

In 90 minutes we got the walls and roof put up, minus shingles. It would have taken 70 minutes were it not for the fact that I continuously stripped screws, missed 2x4's, nearly tipped over the ladder, and generally made a nusicance of myself.

On rare days, when I'm in the zone,  I could put the pyramids together with my bare hands and a hammer, but 90% of the time I look like the guy in shop safety films that chops his own hand off.

If it wasn't myself I was talking about, I would accuse the guy of intentionally tanking it to get out of work.

Sadly, not true.

In the end Socialist dubbed the shed "Whacky Shack" because no one remembered how the thing went back together, and some parts had warped during the harsh winter.

I remembered it being slightly prettier before the move. Here's some pre-dissemble pics.

Whatever. I'll finish it up, give it a good paint job and a Danny-is-a-paranoid lock of suitable heft, and away we go.

After I finished the shed the window salesman came over to finalize some paperwork and brought his 5 year old daughter along to play with LuLu. I take that as a good sign. I don't think he'd bring his kid into the deal if he had an intention of screwing us over.

Or he could be a sociopath. Either/or.

So, a busy, productive weekend. How was yours?

Cloverfield

    

Saturday night Lisa and I burned the midnight oil and watched Cloverfield, a movie by the maker of Lost that I had been dying to see in the theaters but never got around to watching.

If you saw the previews you saw the essentials of the plot. New York is attacked by some thing and the Godzilla like attack leads to a mass evacuation. A small group of party-goers, one of whom has a video camera, tries to escape but they turn back to rescue a friend stranded in mid-town Manhattan. That places them squarely in the midst of the monster's attack, and the movie goes on from there.

I've never seen a Godzilla/Mothrilla movie that I liked, and I was disappointed when I  found out this movie was in that vein. On the other hand, as you may have heard by now, I have a fetish for 'end of the world in progress, last band of survivors' films, so it earned points there.

The verdict after watching it? I loved it! Even Lisa, who put off watching the DVD in hopes I'd watch it alone some day, wound up staying up later than she'd have liked just to finish watching it.

One reason I think it was well received in this house was the character development. It's a  monster movie and yet I know more about the characters than I do some ofthe people I've worked with for years. 

Rob is a successful businessman, on his way to Japan on the eve of the attaack. Unbeknownst to his friends, he had a one day fling with Beth McIntyre, a friend of long standing. He loves her, she loves him, and naturally neither one will admit it.

Jason is Rob's brother, and he's involved with Lily. Lily feels she's a part of their family, although I got the feeling she's jumping the gun a bit.

Hud, short for Hudson, is Rob's dufus friend and the videographer of the nights events. He has a crush on their goth-ish friend Miranda, who doesn't even remember him when they are re-introduced.

And so on.

I also loved the way the monster is  churning up the world at the center of events, yet barely explained or even seen for much of the film. A bit of the Jaws 'you only see the shark once or twice' kind of effect, and it works.

(Plus the parasitic spiders that hitchike on the beast are nasty. One bite from them and it's Ebola redux.)

Flaws? Well, sure, it isn't Wuthering Heights. It's still a monster flick, albeit a good one. What else? Hm, well the ending is not only bleak but given away in the first seconds of the film, should you read between the lines of the military text. And of course, someone would have either told the guy to shut off the camera at some point, or his battery would have run out. 

But then we wouldn't have a movie, would we? 

[dumbest reason not to see it: Socialist said that if he wanted to throw up from motion sickness he'd ride a roller coaster. That's a pathetic reason, one that referenced the moleycoddled wimps out there who asked for theater refunds because they experienced vertigo at the hands of the 'hand-held' camera.]

On a general scale, Cloverfield ratees 3 and a quarter stars out of 5. On my scale, 4 out of 5.  

Tags: Cloverfield

Lost: The Shape of things to Come. Season 4, episode 9

Lost is back, and so my Thursday nights are once again ruined by my need to sit in front of the TV for an hour :)

The episdoe features 'flashforwards' of Ben as he awakens in the Sahara Desert, mysteriously dressed in a winter coat and bleeding from an arm wound. There is no trail leading to his location.

He overcomes two Bendouin attackers, killing one and using one of their horses to ride into a city.

 The date is October of 2005, 13 months after the crash of 815, yet Ben himself had to ask the year of a hotel clerk; did he travel through time?

He then heads from Tunusia into Iraq, where he encounters Sayid as he buries his wife, Nadia. (from this we learn that the Oceanic Six are 'rescued', at the latest, within months of the 'current' events of the island, and that Sayid is reunited with the long-lost Nadia, however briefly).

Ben and Sayid team up to killl Ishmael, a man allegedly in the employ of Charles Widmore, and  - again allegedly - one of the men responsible for Nadia's death.

Thus the odd partnership of Ben and Sayid is forged, but to this viewer it seemed rather half-baked. Sayid never trusted Ben - why start now? And why take his word on something of such vast importance as the death of your wife?

Let's go back to the island. Jack and the beach survivors find the murdered body of the ship's doctor. A subsequent morse code message to the ship reveals that he is - at that time - alive and well. More evidence of time distortion? After Jack confronts him Daniel admits they have no intention of rescuing the 815 survivors. Jack, who's been ill the whole episode, collapses in deep physical pain.

Meanwhile Alex, Ben's daughter, is forced by her captors to override the fence around the Other's compound. She does so, but types in a distress code that alerts her father. A furious firefight takes place, and the strike team from the ship kills several 'redshirts' - Lost survivors who've occupied background roles for the last four seasons.

 

The team approaches Ben's house with Alex and threatens to kill her if he doesn't surrender. He calls their bluff, only to watch with horror as they kill his daughter in front of his eyes.

"He changed the rules," Ben says in shock. He quickly disspears into a sealed room in his house, only to emerge later telling the rest of the group to run for the treeline. From out of nowhere The Monster emerges, consuming the strike team.

 

Amid their shrieks of pain and terror, the survivors split up. Locke and Ben force Hurley to accompany them to Jacob's cabin, but not before Sawyer warns Locke that he will kill him if any harm befalls Hugo.

Back to 2005. Ben is in London, and breaks into the suite of Charles Widmore. They know each other and speak with a comfortable familarity, albeit one that is stressed and filled with hate for one another.

Ben says he 'cannot' kill Widmore, but that for Alex's death Ben will return the favor and kill Penny, Charles daughter/Desmond's love. Widmore scoffs, saying he'll never find her, Ben retorts that Charles cannot find the island. Widmore says that he knows 'what' Ben is, and that everything he is he took from Widmore, and that it is laughable that Ben blames him for his daughter's death.

Okay, end of episode summary. Aside from the questions I've already raised:

Ben was very specific with his wording, and cannot kill Widmore. I take it to mean the island prevents him from doing so, as was the case with Michael's suicide attempts.

Widmore is very clear that Penny can't be found, not in a cocky manner, but in the matter-of-fact voice of someone who knows you can't find Hoffa because he's buried in the Jets' end zone. So where is Penny, and presumably Desmond?

Did Ben summon the monster, or just lure it to the compound now that the security fence was down?

My theory is this: Widmore owned the island, as much as anyone can own that crazy place, and was involved with or ran Dharma, and therefore knows that Ben betrayed that group and handed it over to the Others. I presume Widmore came in contact with the isle because of the Black Rock, meaning his connection may run back 150 years  (remember, time travel/distortion abounds within this show). It is Penny that Sayid is hunting in the future, and that leads us to my next theory.

I think I see the threads of the show coming together, and I have a glimpse in my head of how the finale will play out. Sayid and Ben will inevitably face off against Desmond/Penny/Widmore, with the rest of the Oceanic Six forced into the fray against their will.

There's more, but like the show's mysteries, the entirety of the concept was crystal clear in my head for a seond, then vanished into the vapor.

As always, we'll have to see how it plays out.

Tags: Lost

What I thought of Juno

Lisa and I sat down and watched Juno recently. Unless I'm forgetting something it was the first of the 2007 Oscar contenders that we've seen.

The verdict? A good movie, but I don't think it was worth all the buzz it received.

The list of what was 'wrong' is short, so I might as well spit it out here.

*  I found the character of Juno downright annoying and her dialouge pretentious, which is a problem when the whole movie's about the girl. 

BUT I suppose I may have  forgotten just how awful teenage girls can be. Come to think of it, they were pretty terrible to me in high school, so maybe the movie is spot on.

* I also found most of the music downright crappy, but obviously there's a market for poorly written soundtracks sung off key, and tossing in an obscure Buddy Holly tune doesn't change that.

* For all the 'he's boss' crud throughout the movie, I thought Bleeker (the Baby Daddy)was pretty much a thoughtless dweeb.

At his age, while a dweeb myself, I would have stepped up and done something right. Not everything, but something. Like maybe not take another chick to the prom while the girl I knocked up stays home alone.

* Rounding off our list, I thought her initial reaction to the pregnancy too blase.

On to the good:

* Jason Bateman rocked, and even if the character gave off some creepy vibes at times you can't go wrong with someone that opened for the Melvins.

* Jennifer Garner looked stunning and gave a heartfelt performance. I was impressed.

* I thought it was a delight to see a decent, loving father. I also thought it was cool that the step-mother was painted as an ally, not a villain.

I thought it was great that Juno considered an abortion, which was probably the first thing she'd have thought of in real life, but then discarded it as an option and faced down her mistake. What's the line? "This is one doodle you can't undoodle?"

* I thought it was a positive thing that the protester wasn't an over-the-top hateful kook, even if she came off as somewhat stupid.

* Best of all - SPOILER ALERT - I loved that the adoptive father changed his mind, splitting apart the potential family, and yet Juno and the mother went ahead with the deal.

Didn't you expect Juno to wind up keeping the baby? I did, and I bow to a screenwriter who threw me for a loop.

Garner's character gave off a palatable yearning for motherhood. It was hard not to root for her, even if that flew in the face of the conventional way these movies handle the situation. I might not have been able to follow Juno's example - I'm pretty much a breeder - but it was probably the 'right' thing to do.

(plus, totally independent of the movie as 'just' a movie, having Juno keep the baby would have made adoption seem like the 'wrong' choice. Worse yet, having her keep the baby could -conceivably - have made someone facing the same situation say 'whoa, no way am I winding up with my baby. Adoption is out'.)

End of Spoilers So in short: good movie, not great. 3 stars out of 5.

Tags: Juno

On Souls, karma, and a whiny monologue by St. Peter

 

I just thought about Nancy, a friend of my sister's who died in a car accident, God, it must be 15 years ago now.

I think of her every once in awhile. She was a genuinely nice person who would have made done right by the world if given the chance - I can imagine her with a house full of kids and maybe a job as a teacher.

It was a horrible waste  - she was only in her teens - so that sticks with me. She also seemed to have a bit of a crush on me, one I never reciprocated, which makes me feel a bit of misplaced regret.

Anyhow, I mention her here because of one of my kooky maybe Christian/maybe not beliefs. I've felt for a long time that whenever a person is remembered after their passing, be it an everyday thought of my Grandma or some obscure well-digger who's name pops up when reading an archived document, well, it does . . . something. Call it my half-baked, inarticulate version of 'every time a bell rings an angel gets their wings'.

[Of course, by that theory, Hitler gets a whole lotta 'something' too. So I guess a caveat - only good or neutral thoughts count]

[And while we're on the subject, when did all this 'angel' stuff get so big? I object to this notion of angels being the recently deceased. So, 'some' people in Heaven rank higher than others? How does that conversation go?

St. Peter, coffee cup in hand: Yeeahhh, listen Frank. I know you lived a good life, and, well the proof's in the pudding right buddy? I mean, you bypassed purgatory and hell and jumped right to the Big Show. Do you know how rare that is in this day and age? You da man!  [hits him on the shoulder]

But, uh, well . .listen bro. You know we have this 'angel' thing, and . . .hey, I just work here ya know? But there are some . . I don't want to say 'quotas' per se, but . let's say 'requirements'. And, no offense, but a guy who had a heart attack is a dime a dozen. Gladys over in Toledo, you know, the one who was cut in half by a cable car? That's the kind of applicant the big guy is looking for right now. Attractive, female, unusual death . . .

I know it's hard to swallow man, but there's always next millenia. Allright? Thatta boy! I knew you were a trooper! Talk to ya later!]

Anyhow, in no small part because I believe it does some karmic good with her soul (the online version of lighting a candle in church?) I just want to say that Nancy is remembered.

That's all. Enjoy your weekend!

A great bit of Disney's imaginative copywriting

YaYa spends time online on a Disney roleplaying game where you live the life of a cartoon animal. Last week her online pet, 'neglected' for a few hours, ran away from her character's home. 

This is the email sent to the site's support staff:

My puffleball ran away. how do i find her?

The response came yesterday, and I reproduce it here because of its imaginative approach to her problem.

Hello,

Oh dear!  I can help you find her.  Puffles are really great pets, but
sometimes they get bored if you don't visit your igloo very often to feed them
and play with them.  When a puffle gets bored it is likely that it will run
away.

The good news is when your puffle runs away it almost always runs back to the
pet shop to be with other puffle friends.  If you go visit the pet shop I am
confident that you will find your puffle there.  You will need to purchase her
again and teach her her name again, because puffles can be very forgetful
sometimes.  Once you re-name your puffle it will appear in your igloo.  Make
sure to take very good care of it this time!

If you have any more questions please feel free to write in anytime.  Have a
fun day!

Sincerely,

Leah F
Club  Support

Wow. By implying that it simply went back to the pet shop the letter calms any fears and guilt the kid might have over the pet.. It encourages you to buy a new one, the only true way you're going to walk away with a pet, but convinces the child that it's the same familiar - if amnesiac - face. It even works in a mild scolding and a lesson on how to take care of their pet.

So YaYa got a new online pet, convinced it was the same one that left her, and all is well.

My hats off to that copywriter. Great job!

Some answers to your Questions

I want to thank everyone who participated in the site survey a few days back. (If you haven't, kindly scroll down the main page and jump right in).

It appears I skew towards an older, female audience that is nicely distributed geographically. Not exactly the coveted 'male 18-39' target group, but even so an audience I am quite happy with, thank you very much.

As for everyone who was quick to jump the gun and assume the paid blogging spot was a sure thing, well it isn't. I spoke to my friend yesterday as we walked a 2.8 mile route - well, tried to talk, between deep, labored breaths - and he admitted it didn't look very good.

He was still going to talk to the company but all the current slots are filled and a new one is unlikely to emerge. Still,  I prodded him to give it a shot and argue some of my strong points - a proven 3.5 year track record, nearly 800 posts proving I have no shortage of filler at my disposal, and the abiltiy to self-edit, keeping private stuff private and my content on-target and appropriate for my average reader.

(such as the post about the bushes. The orginal title was 'way too many pics of a big bush', but you didn't see me run with that title on this  family-friendly blog, now did you?)

So we'll wait and see.

Meanwhile I think I'm going to take that offer to scribble a weekly 'male Erma Bombeck' article for a community newspaper. It doesn't pay much, but it's more than I make writing now, that's for sure. I'd originally turned it down as being charity, but they've hounded me long enough now that I think they have a genunine interest in the column.

Eh, who knows.

To answer some questions posed in the comments and emails related to the survey:

* Do I think my 'style' would change? Nah, not really. By and large I'm rather a cocky wiseenheimer in print. That tends to show through in everything I write. The exception, of course, would be in documents where that would be innapropriate - such as political analysis and eulogies.

* Would I 'sell out'? Heck yeah. Give me a check and I'll write about the glory of the Chicago Cubs and how I think that Kurt Cobain guy was over-rated. It would hurt, but I'd buy something to ease the pain. :)

Mind you, evenually I'd abandon it for 'pure' art, casting it as my 'dark commercial period', like Johnny Depp's years on Jump Street or the skin flick Stallone did before Rocky .

* Do I write for myself or for an audience? Honestly, an audience

Think about it: on Slapinions you don't read about my work, my innermost fears, the names of my kids, my real last name, embarrassing details about extended family, or my sex life (you're welcome). By default, I automatically edit this blog for the eyes of (largely) anonymous strangers.

 I don't think I'll ever stop writing, in some way, shape, and form, even if no one ever read a word I wrote. That's been the case before, was the case for much of my life in fact.

But even in that scenario I'd fall victim to what Stephen King calls 'writing for the ages' - the little voice in your head that says every word you commit to the page will one day be revered, whether read now or not.

Say mankind was about to die out. Before it happened a magic genie appears and says to me that only one document would survive The End, only one scrap of writing to tell the universe 'we were here'.

The choice, says the genie, is between the Declaration of Independence or half the grocery list I wrote yesterday on the back of a matchbook. Now choose.

In which case, rest assured dear reader, the aliens from Gamma 5 are going to be asking what 'Tuna Helper' tastes like.

* Would I still write here on Slapinons if I was paid to blog elsewhere? Sure, I think so. Scalzi kept Whatever running while AOL paid him to do, well, this. I certainly think I can handle the vice-versa.

Again, as always, thanks for reading :)

Bleepin' Home Improvement Salesmen

You know, I'm starting to get a little insulted by all these contractors who stop by my house to solicit work.

Yes, I know the roof is old and has seen better days. That's why wer're looking to replace it. Yes, I also know the windows are old enough to have seen FDR's first term. Thanks for pointing that out. And thanks ever so much for leaving the one thousandth home improvement flyer on my screen door.

But the kicker? The lawn service that stopped by last year with a flyer advertising a $19.95 special,  took a look at my barren and brown lawn, then crossed out the sale price and scribbled 'call me for a quote'.

That was last year, mind you, before a summer's worth of lawn work and seeding.

Tonight I was feeding the kids dinner when Smiley ran in and grunted, gesturing to the front door. There again was a contractor, this one looking to give me a quote on the windows.

As it turns out the windows are one of the three things we are hoping to have done this year, so I asked him to return at a better time - Lis, that means Friday at 7 pm - but geesh.

I suppose just by agreeing to the estimate I validated his approach, but doesn't anyone ever just reach out and slap them?

Even as I was signing up I was nursing a grudge.

"Did you stop at every house on the block, or just the ones that looked like sh**?" I asked.

He hesitated, gauged my temper, deemed me genial, and laughed. "Not every house, but a lot of them. See you Friday."

An American Haunting - review

I like horror movies, which is odd considering I hated them growing up. That had much to do with my coming of age in the Golden Age of Slasher films. Along with the new 'torture porn' phenomenom, slasher films remain on the bottom of my things to watch list.

But I'm all for genuinely scary films, and I'll take a cheesy mid-budget '70's horror flick anyday (think Amityville/Omen/Black Christmas).

I had high hopes An American Haunting would fit one of the bills, despite the boring title.

Yeah, no.

Not a bad movie, don't get me wrong. The acting was good - Sissie Spacek, Donald Sutherland - and there was a wicked crash scene a good way into the film.

It's based on the 'real life' case of the Bell Witch, but much of this film is pure fiction.

The movie dilly-dallies quite a bit, showing us the day to day afflictions without ramping up the fear or our sympathies. The modern day story bookending the tale is superfluous, and, frankly, a lot of folks do a lot of things the exact opposite of how it would go in real life.

Evil creature knocking at your door, then suddenly stopping? Why by all means, take that as a cue to head for the doorknob. Go on, open the door - I'm sure the evil spirit is gone!

Devil child appearing then dissapearing in front of you? Gosh golly, follow that child through the woods alone, and yeaaaah, of course you should enter that dark cave after her! What's the worst that could happen?

All kidding aside, without giving away the ending (one Lisa guessed five minutes in) let me just say the filmakers looked at the situation, thought of it soley in 21st century terms, conjured up a vile, appalling rationale, and used it awkwardly explain away a 19th century ghost.

If they're right, then pi** on the dead. If they're wrong, I'd hate to have to be the screenwriter when he gets to the hereafter and meets the person he slandered from 200 years distance.

Not a bad way to waste an evening, but I wouldn't jump through hoops to get my hands on a copy.

2.5 stars out of 5.