Penn State

A comment online says that its 'pitiful' that Penn State alumni are upset about the NCAA penalties imposed upon the school, saying they should "put the welfare of the children first". These penalties do NOTHING to protect the victims or ensure their well being, unless the funds will be used to fund a time machine to go stop Sandusky in 1998. It's just grandstanding for the cameras, and its hurting the innocent players and students, NOT the monster in jail or the authorities who let him skate.

Wildly Divergent Thoughts:

A) A summary of Slumdog Millionaires says it DOES end with the dance number I remember from the trailers; apparently it was edited for broadcast TV. B) Lisa says I was wrong about the apple cake and that it turned out perfectly. C) People need to STFU about the parents of that six year old killed in the Batman massacre. Whether the kid was too young to be out that late or not, the parents are no more to blame for the death than if he'd been the victim of a random home invader. The idiot with the gun is at fault, and NO ONE ELSE. Putting blame on the parents is just a backasswards way of blaming the victim.

The 2012 Dance Recital

My kids take dance classes every year and participate in a massive recital each May. This year the owner of the studio asked me to write a brief series of skits for the show, to string together the dances into a coherent narrative. My salary? At my insistence YaYa was given one of the two main parts, and she did great!

For those of you close friends and family who failed to properly support my children by attending the performances - shame on you. But here's a small taste of what you missed.

ps - sorry about the picture quality but I forgot my camera and made do with my phone

Good evening/afternoon, and welcome to ***  Dance Studios production of 'Up in Grannies Attic'. Our students have worked hard all year to bring you the very best show possible, and they're excited to see all their family and friends in the audience. Please, remember to shut off your cell phones, and for the safety of our dancers no photography will be allowed. And now, enjoy the show!

Girl 1: Grammie Miss Barbara, we're bored!

Girl2: Yeah, there's nothing to do while it's raining outside. Can we pleassse use your phone to text our friends?

GMB: I've told you girls before, Grammie Miss Barbara doesn't do text messages. If you're in such a hurry to write your friends, mail them a letter. [sizzle]. Besides, there's plenty to do in this old attic.

Girl2: Like what? There's nothing up here but cobwebs.

Girl 1: Yeah, and these old trunks.

GMB: But that's exactly what I mean! These trunks aren't just boxes, they hold a lifetime of fun and memories. Go ahead and open one. You'll see.

[the kids do so. Girl 1 lifts out a wedding dress.]

Girl 1: Wow!

Girl 2 [now wearing an eye patch and waving a rubber sword] Look at me, I'm a pirate! Arrrrr!

[both girls laugh].

GMB: I bet if you girls take your time, you'll find plenty to keep you busy up here until dinner.

Girls: OK.

GMB [begins to walk offstage, then stops and turns back, as the girls begin playing with some dolls they've found]. Oh girls?

Girls2: Yes?

GMB: While you're up here, it wouldn't hurt to clean up some of these cobwebs either.

[music begins]

SCENE:

[the girls are digging through a trunk]

Girl1: Hey, will you look at this! [holds up a string of LP's]

Girl2 [shaking her head] : Who would ruin a perfectly good CD by punching a hole in the middle?

Girl1: [puts the 45's back] Did you find anything interesting?

Girl2: Sure. [Shows off a poodle skirt she found]. How do I look?

Girl1: Neat. But check this out. [takes a hippie outfit out of the trunk and holds it up to her chest, makes peace sign]. Peace, man!

[both girls laugh].

Girl2: Do you think Grammie Miss Barbara actually wore this stuff?

Girl 1: I don't know. But if she did, I'm glad she stopped. This stuff is embarrassing. It's not half as cool as our skinny jeans and hair feathers.

[music starts]

(Ginger danced to Itsy Bitsy Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, Smiley did a Mambo, LuLu did See Ya Later Alligator and YaYa danced to Cotton Eyed Joe and Tutti Fruitti)

SCENE: 

Girl 2: What are you looking at?

Girl1[holding a photo album]: It's an old photo album of Grammie Miss Barbara's. It has photos going back generations.

Girl2: Family is important to Grammie Miss Barbara.

Girl1: You bet it is. Did you know that every year her dance studio has a very special dance? It's called the Family Dance, and everyone you see on the stage has a relative that goes to the studio. There's Mom's and Daughters, sisters and brothers, even Grandma's and grandsons. It's a tradition that's important to Arabesque, and it happens every year.

Girl2: Wow. I wish I could see the Family Dance. I wonder what it would look like . . .

[music starts]

---

Girl2 [by an open trunk]: Oh! I found the Christmas decorations! Come see!

[Girl 2 holds up a string of lights, Girl 1 grabs something else from the trunk].

Girl 2: Do you think this Christmas Grammie Miss Barbara will let us put out a stocking here? Just in case Santa stops here too?

Girl1: I don't see why not.

Girl2: Good. [reveals what she took out of the trunk, a super large Christmas stocking as large as she is]

[music starts]

(We bought all the kids roses and personalized them with a note, but somehow YaYa's was packaged MINUS the rose! She took the oopsie with uncharacteristic grace).

SCENE:

---

[Girl 1 is sweeping the floor with a broom]

Girl 2: What do you think you're doing?

Girl 1: Grammie Miss Barbara asked us to clean up some of the cobwebs, remember?

Girl 2: Since when do you do chores without someone nagging you? [suspicious] Did she pay you when I wasn't looking?

Girl 1: No. I just think it's a shame that these trunks have been up here so long. There's too many great things in them to just let them gather dust.

Girl 2: [skeptical] Hmm. If you say so. Go ahead, keep sweeping. But Grammie Miss Barbara said we could play up here until dinner. As far as I'm concerned, it's the weekend, and anything goes.

[music starts]

(after the recital I treated the family to dinner and dessert at Kopp's, and YaYa and Lisa shared a touching hug)

SCENE:

---

BEFORE 'WILL YOU BE THERE' AND STRING OF MOVIE SONGS

Girl 1: It's almost dinner. We should start putting this stuff back.

[the girls are putting items away]

Girl 2: Grammie Miss Barbara was right, her attic is a great place. There's so many memories, and so many things to explore.

Girl1: I know. I'd almost wish it would rain every time we visit, just so we could play up here.

Girl 2: Every time??

Girl 1: Ok. Every other time. Come on, let's ask Grammie Miss Barbara if we can watch a movie after dinner. [they close the trunk and begin to walk off stage]

Girl 2: Sure. Anything in particular?

Girl 1: Oh, I don't know. Have you ever seen Free Willy?

Quote

"A pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.” 

― Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance

Psych

In between the lines there's a lot of obscurity

I'm not inclined to resign to maturity

If it's all right, then you're all wrong

Why bounce around to the same damn song

You'd rather run when you can't crawl

I know, you know, that I'm not telling the truth

I know, you know, they just don't have any proof

Embrace the deception, Lean how to bend

You're worst inhibitions tend to psych you out in the end

I know, you know

I know, you know

I know, you know

I know, you know

FB - the 2nd week of March *2011*

March 9th:

Yo, if news reports on the chaos in Madison interrupt or pre-empt American Idol, I'm gonna be pissed.

Breaking news: from what I understand the collective bargaining measure has been removed from the budget bill and pushed forward on its own; since it ISN'T a fiscal bill the GOP can vote and pass it w/out the Senators that fled to IL. I guess it'll happen tonight.

Last night I finished "Instant Replay", Jerry Kramer's classic diary of the 1967 NFL season. It's a fun read, with a clear and intelligent voice. (not to spoil the ending, but the Packers win the SuperBowl)

Now this Madison mess has interrupted The Wendy Williams Show. Have they no decency?

March 10th:

Five years ago I couldn't have imagined a day when I'd respect France as much as I do as of late. Sarkozy is a courageous, straight-ahead leader, and France is lucky to have him.

594K people living in Milwaukee as of 2010, the lowest total since WWII - all while the state's population as a whole grew.

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact - William James

(Gov. Scott) Walker just finished his press conference. He was well spoken, calm, reliant on acts not emotion, and I'm pretty confident he has balls the size of watermelons. A striking contrast (no pun intended) to the cliche ridden tantrums outside the Capitol.

March 11th

I have no problem with having to watch commericals on a news site. I just think the site should be more conscious of the context in which they're placed. I'm sure Company X doesn't want their happy-happy jingle to be followed by a story of abuse and torture, as was just the case on CNN.com. It's poor taste, and the fault is CNN's, not the advertiser.

I've got this all backasswards - the busier I am in the day, the more I post. Instead of stopping for a cigarette break, I spend a few minutes clogging up your news feed. Yay for you. Just finished Morning Glory, and was shocked it was so good. I LOL'd 11 times - I counted - and Harrison Ford was superbly funny as the crochety old anchor. Loved it.

RIP Iowa Blackie. RIP.

Kate Winslet. #1 on my List of Five for 13 consecutive years.

"DO NOT bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it." 
--Thomas Jefferson

[Japan was hit with a massive earthquake and tsunami, resulting in horrendous loss of life]

I took the family out for a fish fry to celebrate the 1st Friday of Lent. The kids were good - good enough to get a compliment from an elderly couple nearby. Now Lis and I are about to sit down and watch 20/20's report on the horrific earthquake in Japan . . .
 [several links to earthquake relief agencies and news articles on the tsunami followed]

March 12th

In the wee hours of the AM we watched "Life as we Know It", a rom-com with Katherine Heigl & Josh Duhamel. It was pleasant enough, and Heigl is always good, but all in all it's a collection of cliches stapled to a formulaic script. Some good moments though. [I was a little shocked to see Josh Lucas; he seems to have aged quite a bit since Wonderland]

March 13th

Just got home. Worked til 530, then went immediately to dinner/auction/dance at my kids school. Lots of fun, lots of food, lots and lots of drinking. Good time. And best of all, it's the first time since July 11th 2010 that we've gone out w/out the kids (other than an hour here or there w/ a deadline arouind our necks). Thanks Anne for the invite!

@ wrk I had to deal with a Truther & his loudly stated beliefs - see T-shirt reading "Investigate 9/11!". Like all Americans he is entitled to his opinion, based on the absurdly tiny amount of information he bothered to learn before he formed it. But I did enjoy the fact that someone so obesessed w/ conspiracy was apparently 'taken' - a Visa gift card he accepted as pay was empty.

March 14th

While I was at work Lisa took the girls on a Scout trip to the Symphony, where Olivia won a copy of Lemony Snicket's "The Composer is Dead".  Grace said she enjoyed the music, while Olivia said it was boring (but she was tired when I asked her). Then, a miserable night of subpar Sun TV, w/ no movie on hand. It was down to The Nanny (good) & '3 Ninjas' (suicide inducing).

Any guy dumb enough to label Jean Harlow and Carole Lombard as 'average' while worshiping Julia 'Secretariat' Roberts should have his man parts removed forthwith.

"in this country, it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others" - Voltaire, satirizing the execution of British Admiral John Byng by his own country (this day in 1757). RIP.

A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read by William Rabkin

Watching a Japanese pro baseball game on Channel 8 . . .

Meanwhile I finished reading another Psych tie-in novel, " A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read" by William Rabkin. When I stop to think about it the plot, or at least its resolution, was nonsensical and patched together by happenstance and wild leaps of faulty logic. But it was great fun to read, and I literally LOL'd at several scenes. I grade this one an A

Slumdog Millionaire

You may have noticed the movie/TV drought of recent weeks. We broke that streak with "Slumdog Millionaire". I know this sounds stupid, but I thought it was going to be a Bollywood musical. [I swear to the heavens there was a railroad yard dance number in the trailer, no???] Instead it was dark, sometimes violent drama that still managed to resonate with hope and the power of love. Grade: A-

The Bro Code by Barney Stinson

Today on break I finished reading "The Bro Code"  by Barney Stinson ( of How I Met Your Mother). It was funny, but book length funny? No. Not even skinny book length funny. But it had its moments. Grade: C+

Windows Pinball

My first computer was an all-in-one Compaq given to us by my brother-in-law in 1996 or '97, and this ubiquitous pinball game is fondly cemented in my memory - although it couldn't hold a handle to the real thing. 

Also mastered: Windows Solitaire and Minesweeper, In the latter I would craft my own 100 mine puzzles and figure them out, something I was really proud of at the time lol

Bye Baby Bye by Max Allan Collins

On Saturday I finished reading "Bye Baby Bye", a Nate Heller mystery by Max Allan Collins. In this one Nate, PI to the famous and infamous, is drawn into the last few troubled months of Marilyn Monroe's life. As with all/most of Collins' work it's a good, enjoyable read, and I certainly learned a few facts about MM along the way. I doubt I'll remember this book in twenty years, but I'm still glad I read it. Grade: B

Annoyed

Very annoyed. Had a doctor's appt scheduled this AM, called ahead to see if he was running on time and was told he was out of the office for the day. He'd "tried" to inform me but that I was "unreachable" by phone. Uh, noooooo. I have my cell on file, why not call that when I didn't answer the land line? The only plus is that I'm spared a cross-town trip.

LOL

(referencing my post about how putting away the kids footstool marked a milestone in our house): 

You're in the years between the bathroom stepstool

and the walk-in bathtub! - Fred Bryan

In Cold Blood

I finished reading "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote, and unlike other "classics" that alternate "suck" and "bore" with every page, this was a thing of beauty. Not one word was wasted and his prose sings. His description of the handwriting in Nancy's diary, equating her different styles with a teenage search for identity, demonstrates perfectly his ability to dissect a moment and reveal its truth. Great book, and all praise to Capote. Grade: A+ (with extra credit on the side)

A Minor Milestone in the Slapinions Home

On June 26th I posted the following tidbit on Facebook:


A milestone reached today with the kids, the 2nd event in less than a week to reduce me to a depressive mess. It is not fair. When the youngest gets too old for something, it is time to make a new kid . . . but no new models for 5 years :(

What was this milestone? This:

Moments before Lisa had announced the removal of our footstool from the bathroom. I balked - clearly Ginger wasn't old enough to reach the faucet without it. Lisa promptly rounded up the lil' one and proved me wrong. 


:(


It's bad enough that my youngest is growing up waaaay too fast, but her milestone meant the end of an era. The footstool was one I remember fondly from our old house on Windlake Ave (circa mid to late '70's) and it has served all four of my children well. Until that day. 


Here's a picture of the stool. You'll have to excuse the stuck on Pokemon cards Smiley left on our table that day. I assure you, they aren't a normal part of our decor. 








Yes, I know it looks like dung in its current state. But when new, oh so many decades ago, it was lime green and featured a white line drawing of a lamb leaping through a field of flowers. Sadly the lamb lost his top half many moons ago, long before my kids inherited it. 




What I always felt was neat about it was that in addition to being a footstool it instantly converted to a toddler sized chair, one that's supported the behinds of two generations of Slapinons. 







So, my little one isn't so little anymore, and a battered but beloved icon of our time as parents is going into storage. Someday, Lisa claims, we'll take it out , restore Lamby to his proper dimensions, paint the whole thing, and let our Grandkids use it. 


I hope that comes to pass :)

On Jeter

i think this community [Baseball Think Factory] sounds stupid when we claim that jeter was/[is] a horrible defensive shortstop given that:

--flies in the face of how he has been perceived by his peers/other baseball people his entire career

--that in his career he was and is one of the smartest players in baseball

--he was in the center of the action of what could easily be argued was the best team in baseball over the past 15 years

--he's still playing an every day ss at age 38 and he's not embarrassing himself by any stretch. there are no willie mays moments here

i want to believe in the metrics. and i understand the origins of how jeter is assessed 

but i think jeter and the metrics clash and we are missing something

- Harveys Wallbangers

Eureka: Brain Box Blues by Cris Ramsay

I finished "Eureka: Brain Box Blues" by Cris Ramsay, a novel based on the Scyfy series. In brief, I thought it captured little of the series charm, had a weak plot, and failed to find the 'voice' of the characters. I was not impressed. Grade: C

Mr. Polk's War

A week or so ago I finished reading "Mr. Polk's War: American Opposition and Dissent, 1846-1848" by John H. Schroeder. This was a book I bought at a UWM library sale years ago and finally crossed off my TBR list. 

It's a story of the domestic opposition to the Mexican American war. It's a work strongly influenced by the era in which it was written (early '70's/Vietnam) so you have to allow for some bias in his POV, but overall I thought it was well written and informative. 

I will say it'd be a hard book to follow w/out some prior knowledge of that war, as Schroeder dang near *ignores* the war itself while still referencing domestic reaction to those events. 

I'd grade this a pleasant B+

A Great Quote

Progress doesn't come from early risers -- progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things. 

~ Robert Anson Heinlein, Notebooks of Lazarus Long )1973)

Struggle

I continue to struggle with a two week long wave of depression, more accurately described as a wall of bitter despair crushing down on my chest. Yes, I continue to function as normal - I am, after all, Amazing - and yes, it is slowly diminishing, but for a day or two there . . . yowee. What's the cause you say? Maybe I'm stressed about the state of independent film-making, or the plight of the endangered kittywampus rat of the 12th moon of Jupiter. Or maybe it's biological. But I do know this: if an attention-whore like me wanted to discuss it, it'd have been plastered all over FB for weeks now. TY for your concern, but this will be the last discussion about it, online or in 'real' life.

YaYa

Scuba

After work I took Gracie to a 3 hr SCUBA class at Juneau High School offered by the Milwaukee Rec Dep't. She LOVED it. No sooner was she out of the pool than she said it was a lot of fun, thanked me for suggesting it and signing her up, said she wanted to take the full certification course and - AND - on the way home said "I'm proud that you're my Dad". :)

Andy Griffith

A much belated RIP to Andy Griffith. I was too busy to notice his passing on the 3rd, so my apologies. Matlock remains my ideal choice if I ever need a defense lawyer (with Perry Mason as his second chair.)

*****

Oh, and according to Redbox this is the 3rd anniversary of my first rental with them. 

Ernest Borgnine

RIP Oscar winner and Circus Parade fan Ernest Borgnine

The Rockford Files is Still Fun to Watch