Blast from the past Tuesday

Five years ago I was in my last band. Last because it's the last one I was in; I didn't proclaim that I'd never be in another band or anything like that. I just haven't had the time or anything for a number of years.

All of us in the band were active-duty Army. We practiced at an old, empty office building on the installation. The building was being used as storage by the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation folks (the guys who run all the clubs, restaurants, golf courses, etc.). They were using the building to store excess band equipment. We, and another band, used both the space and the equipment.

I have been in several bands, but we probably had more fun in this one than any other I'd been in. A couple of the musicians weren't very good and we didn't really gel together. But we wrote a couple of songs and just had fun getting out of the house doing something we all enjoy.

These photos are from our one and only show, which we performed sometime in April or May 2002. We played three songs before the opening of a youth softball tournament. How hardcore is that? Take what you can get I guess. One of the songs we sang was a the Scooby Doo theme song. It was a hit.

If you click on the photo on the right, behind me, next to the bass player, you'll see a little guy playing guitar. That was the bass player's son. He wasn't plugged in or anything, he was just up there jamming away with us on his dad's old Kramer.

Funny thing is, as much fun as I had with all of this, I can't remember what we named our band.

Happy President's Day

To those who have a day off, I hope you enjoy the time with friends and family.

To those of you who do not have a day off ...


Ha-ha.

Audio Parole

Chris Cornell leaves Audioslave.

To be quite honest, I have mixed emotions about this. I love all the musicians here. BUT, I've never felt that Cornell's voice quite matched Tom Morello's musical tastes. And the songs driven by Cornell didn't synch well with Morello's sensibilities.

Hopefully they'll all go on to bigger and better.

God, children, fools ... ?

Today has been a day. As you can see from the photo here, I may very soon be a former minivan owner.

At around 2:30 p.m. today I get a call. It's my wife. All I get from here is a harried, "We got in a bad accident. I need you now."

I tell my coworkers I have to go as I grab my jacket and head out the door. Man. So little information leaves a mind to ponder as you make the 20-minute drive across town. My foot was leaden, but my attention was sharp even as my mind played out different horrific scenarios. Were my kids OK? Are they going to be at the hospital by the time I get there?

I pulled up and I saw my wife, my oldest daughter and my son standing next to a friend's SUV. The first thing I say as I exit my car is, "Where's S****?" fearing the worst. My wife points to the SUV and says she's inside.

Fortunately, everyone is OK. My wife tried to make a left turn across a busy street. She thought it was clear. It wasn't. My oldest was sitting next to that crushed door. My stomach sickens at the thought of what could have happened.

I will be driving Fords the rest of my life.

That door is crushed. The frame below is slightly dented. The rear fender is trashed. The front door there is messed up. The frame surrounding the front passenger and sliding door is bent. I am thinking it's going to be totaled. I can't imagine the cost of repairs being less than the vehicle's worth.

The irony? We were about to pay off the van with our tax return. We were hoping to get a couple of more years out of it. Best laid plans, eh?

Idol threat 2-14

So we get our final 24 chosen tonight. No live blog from me, though. We'll just check the American Idol site tomorrow to see who they are. I doubt any commenting from me will mean that much anyway.

Valentine's Day redux

Here is an excerpt of my V-Day post last year:

Well, neither the wife nor I did much special for V-Day. This is not really anything new. I am king suck when it comes to romantic gestures. I married a very understanding woman. Thank God.

She is awesome.

And this post from last year never gets old:

Da butt?

A professor of psychology has postulated that the symbol we associate with the heart and Valentine's Day is actually a representation of the female behind.


The, er, money quote:

"The Greek goddess of beauty, Aphrodite, was beautiful all over, but was unique in that her buttocks were especially beautiful," he explained. "Her shapely rounded hemispheres were so appreciated by the Greeks that they built a special temple Aphrodite Kallipygos, which literally meant, 'Goddess with the Beautiful Buttocks.' This was probably the only religious building in the world that was dedicated to buttock worship."

How cool is that?

Idol threat 2/13: Welcome to Hollywood

Twice as many girls ... wonder what that says about the caliber of the male talent this year.

Jory: Not very inspired. Nothing I haven't heard a lot of teenage girls sing.
Geri, Kelly, Lisa: Not memorable
Christen: Horrible
Jeromishia: Not bad

And every one of 'em sent home. I agree with Simon, no originality.

So, Shakinda is going up next. Perla, singing that hips don't lie song, and doing a really bad job of it. She's going home.

Rachel: Decent, I hope she makes it through, but that was pretty nasal.

Awww. Rachel's going home but they kept Perla. I can't believe that. She really didn't deserve.

Wonder if we're going to keep Montage Girl? Of course we are. She's amazing. Baylie makes it with some other folks we don't see. I really think we could see Baylie in the end.

And now we find out that Sarah "I lied to my dad" Chick made her parents proud even though she gets sent home.

Lots of girls getting sent home. I'm kind of thinking this is indicative of the talent we've seen so far this year. Kind of lackluster except for the few standouts.

Nicole gets sent home. Maybe because she sang the wrong song. Who knows. But she's now set herself up to blame her mom for the rest of her life. Oh, hang on, mom's coming out to plea for her daughter. And now the show degenerates again. But she still ain't getting on the stage.

56 sent home. Wow. That's a deep cut.

And now let's see what's up with the guys.

I'm hoping that Sundance sticks around, but who knows. I'll reserve judgment until I see more.

Brian - born by the river? I just don't know if this dude's memorable. Decent enough, clean cut, just kind of, blah.

Navy dude, Jarrod ... I really liked him before. I'm not sure how that went over this time.

Matt - I'm not very impressed with this. Probably going home. Ew, dropped a note or two there.

Wow, Jarrod got sent home. Too bad. Curly hair guy made it through, even though we didn't get to see him. And Matt made it through. I'm surprised by that. I don't think Matt should have made it through.

34 guys made it through. Hey, Fidel made it through, awesome.

Group night

I love this portion of the show. Really separates those who really want it and can do it from those who don't quite have it.

And we start with 92. Heh, don't we lose, like, 60 of them after this? Awesome.

The geeks can't fill in somewhere. Poor Matt.

The cowboy harmony scene was hilarious. As curly hair dude and beatbox boy's choreography is equally funny.

Missing harmonies, dropping lyrics. Heh. Lyrics aren't important. They're just lyrics.

And the first day Simon says, "Don't forget the words." And so many people do. And they shouldn't have kept Matt because, wow, he was very bad.

Man, Gina is very good. This group ain't too bad, but the Shikinda girl shows how bad she is. And Perla's sent home. I mean, that was just inevitable.

Chris, Rudy, Thomas, Blake were fantastic. They came together rather quickly. I look forward to seeing more from them. All through. Good.

L'Paige is really bad, Robyn isn't much better, and Sundance doesn't stand out too much, but he's much better than the girls. He makes it, but just barely. Simon says she was generous with him, and I must agree.

Bailey and crew get up to sing, not a bad start, but Bailey drops her words. As does the next girl. Bailey gets sent home, I mean, because of the words, she deserved it. But one of the best singers of the show (that we've seen so far) just got cut.

Looks like we lost Fidel, too. Darn it.

I love the photo debate thing. They do it right on this show.

Room 1 Chris is there, cowboy is there, Gina is there ... and it's a yes room. As I thought it would be.

Room 2 Senjai (sp?) is there, Sundance is there ... and they're a go.

Room 3 And they know that they're all going home because they heard the first two celebrate. Bad way to go.

The Indian brother Senjai (who made it) rushes downstairs to console his sister who didn't make it.

We get our final 24 tomorrow. Nice.

Editor's note: This is really hard to do when your kids are running around you at the same time. They're going to be tomorrow night before hand.

The awesomeness of my wife

This is a follow-up post to my G3 post below.

I gotta say, this concert thing caught me off guard. As I said below, we don't normally do much for Valentine's Day. But this year I wanted to get something for one another. To be completely honest, I wasn't expecting much more than a card. I wanted to get a nice necklace or something for the wife, but the concert just blew me away.

I just needed to go on record here as saying that I have an amazing wife. Someone who is selfless in ways I could never be and deserves far better than I can give her. I don't know why she sticks around, but I'm very thankful that she does.

I love you, honey.

My fear

I do not fear the future, but I fear that my actions today will not leave me suitably prepared for it.

The wife and I briefly talked about IRAs, the Thrift Savings Plan (for federal employees), and the like last night. The reality is that the federal retirement system is insufficient as a retirement plan (and they are up-front that it is only meant as a supplement to an IRA or something) and I need to hurry up and get something going.

I should have been doing this for the past 10 years. I should not just be thinking about this now. And I'm not. I mean, we've done some stuff in the past, but we've always wound up stopping or pulling the money out for some reason or another.

Now I've got to get going. Or maybe I'll just work until I die. Either way. Maybe both.

On a completely unrelated note, my weekly post is up at Faster Than The World.

How liberal or conservative am I

Stolen from ALa. I guess this is about right. The thing about ethics, I'm a firm believer in charity and helping people out, I just don't think that the government should do it. It's a community thing. I also think that corporations have an obligation to regulate themselves. But that's because of my increasingly unrealistic sense of morality.

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 80% Conservative, 20% Liberal

Social Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

Ethics: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

I’m going to burst

I wish I could hold this in for a full week, but I cannot. I am going to see G3 in Atlanta next month! Satriani, Petrucci, Gilbert. I am so amazingly psyched about this show, the description of my excitement pales in comparison to reality.

We shelled out the money for premium tickets (not the highest level, but the next highest). Seventh row very near center stage. Amazing.

This is a pretty big deal to me for a few different reasons. Most obvious is that these are three of my absolute favorite guitarists. Second is that I hardly ever get out much and haven’t been to a show with my wife since before we were married. Sad, but true.

The last, and most important, reason is that for most of my adult life my wife and I have lived a pretty meager existence. See, this concert is our Valentine’s present to ourselves. We’re going to Atlanta for the show and will spend the night there. A nice night out. But it’s rare that we do anything like this. Rarer still that we get much more than a card for one another for Valentine’s Day.

I’ve spent most of the past 13 years in the Army. And most of that we lived on a single income. Now I work as a civilian for the government, but the salary isn’t that much better. And we’re still on a single income. Most of our excess funds go to our children.

It’s exciting beyond words to be doing something this cool with one of the people that I care about most in life.

And I can’t wait to tell all of you how the show went.

All this and an occasional post too

Life is busy, my friends.

Between work and school, I find it difficult to post anything of meaning here. I mean, I do have free time (I am watching American Idol obviously) but even then, I find it difficult to write anything meaningful. The times I have available to write, I really just don't want to think about things worthy of posting. And it's not going to get any better for the next few months. So, I ask that you bear with me over through this as I attempt to reconcile all the aspects of my life with my desire to blog.

On to a post

It's been '80s week at Faster Than The World this week.

Many of us who were born in the '70s and spent our formative years in the '80s often wax nostalgic about that dichotomous decade.

I was just thinking the morning about some of the heavy metal bands of that decade, not the hair bands, but "real" metal bands like Megadeth, Anthrax, etc. What I remember a lot of is how they dressed. It seems that black jeans, black T shirts (or concert Ts) were the uniform. Along with white tennis shoes. I, too was a victim of the all-black clothing, but thank God I never owned a pair of white freaking tennis shoes until I actually started working out. I was a combat boot kid. I did have long hair (not a mullet!) though.

My question to you today is, what fashion faux pas of the '80s did you fall victim to?

Idol threats 2/7: The final auditions

Man. Now we see where a lot of the talent was. This was a great episode. I do wish we'd seen a lot of these folks during the actual audition stop episodes, though. But man, some of those worst of the worsts were great!

I will never think of Chantilly Lace the same way again.

The astronaut's stalker

OK, the story we all are being inundated with -- and it's pretty good news of the weird -- is the astronaut chicky and her diaper drive.

While you hear a lot about this story and what happened and speculation about this or that, what I wonder about is her children. She has three kids. What the hell do you say to them.

"Oops sorry honey, mommy just went a little spacey there."

How could she possibly win an argument with her kids, ever?

"You kids better be home by midnight!"

"OK mom, you want us to pick up some Huggies for you while we're out?"

She needs to change her name and move to freaking Iceland or something.

Stop-stop, drama, drama

So, I can be a selfish git sometimes and some of that came to a head last night.

I was really looking forward to live blogging Idol last night and being witty and doing a decent wrap up of the episode. My wife was doing some stuff for the kids and I really needed to help do some of that stuff. I wasn't happy about it and it was kind of tense.

Then I realized that all this was because I was wanting to blog about American Idol and that realization kind of stopped me cold. What the hell is that all about? American freakin' Idol. Sheesh.

Anyway, I do expect to write more about this year's Idol trainwreck, but there may very well be some next day wrap ups if the family needs me.

Idol threat 2/6

First live blog of the season for me! Nice to have my wireless up and running finally.

San Antonio - last audition stop. Hopefully we'll see some better contestants this time around.

Why does Simon wear glasses larger than his head? Do the larger glasses offset the size of the hangover?

Camo pants guy is scaring me from the get go here. Ah, Brian, please let your voice meet up with some of your hype. Well ... guess not. At least he can yell. Rebel even.

Jeebus, how did that guy win a mock Idol contest?

We gots us a wedding singer, hopefully she hasn't been listening to a lot of Cure lately. What's up with the pants suit? Haley ... I'm kind of impressed. Kind of shouty in places, but I really like the timbre of her voice. And, considering that Randy and Simon will vote with their tripod, she'll be in ... and they're letting her go. Second chance ... they must not want her to have a swelled head or something.

>>>> Sorry missed some stuff dealing with family issues.

Blonde railroad chicky is singing quite well. She has the potential to be a much better Pickler, perhaps. Bailey ... Simon calls her commercial, a label makers dream. Paula is stuck on cows. I didn't catch if she had a sob story or not. Guess we'll find out.

-- Heh, the "talking trash for the camera" guy was hilarious. Too damn funny. Heck his cousin is pretty good. He is not connecting with his music very well, but he does have a good voice. Glad he's moving on to Hollywood.

Well, I'm getting kicked off here for some other stuff. Might add some more thoughts later.

It's a mad, mad, et al. world

Man. Busy.

We got two new employees in the office yesterday. Both of the new guys seem like they're going to be great. They both have tons of experience and are pretty excited to get to work here. So, it's great to have the extra help on hand.

The downside is that both of these guys are a good bit older than me. It's kind of intimidating, to be honest. Their experience and my upbringing makes it difficult for me to feel comfortable telling to do things. Thank God we're peers, so once they've acclimated it will be a case of us sharing information.

In defense on an unpopular war

I just read this amazing article by Sgt. Eddie Jeffers, USA (Iraq). It is an amazingly articulate, logical and impassioned plea for those who spout anti-War rhetoric to think about the psychological effect it's having on troops abroad.

He says:

Democrats and peace activists like to toss the word "quagmire" around and compare this war to Vietnam. In a way they are right, this war is becoming like Vietnam. Not the actual war, but in the isolation of country and military. America is not a nation at war; they are a nation with its military at war. Like it or not, we are here, some of us for our second, or third times; some even for their fourth and so on. Americans are so concerned now with politics, that it is interfering with our war.

Please read the entire article.

The Weight Wait week 1

Pardon me for this, but if I post my weight loss results here I feel as though I am creating some kind of accountability for myself.

So, week one. First of all, my scale was messed up during some previous weigh ins. Apparently a corner of the scale was on a floor mat which caused to scale to show more weight loss than I had really registered. So, no 15 pound loss in a week. Which kind of sucks.

BUT, I have lost 7.7 pounds since last week. That's still quite significant. Especially considering that I'm trying to do this the "right" way as opposed to adopting some fad which gives you high weight loss in the beginning.

The most difficult aspect of week one? Working exercise into my day. The way my school schedule works, it's very difficult for me to get exercise into my afternoons. So, I'm trying to do it in the mornings. Waking up early enough to do it has been very difficult. It's something I'm going to have to just start doing. Once it becomes part of my routine, it will become easier.

The easiest part of week one? Surprisingly, the eating. I haven't felt underfed. I haven't had any horrible cravings, and I've cut waaaaay back on both the amount of food I'm eating in a meal and the amount of calories I'm eating in a day. By waaaaay, I mean I've reduced my portion size and calories by more than half, so I've been kind of shocked that I haven't had bad cravings.

That's week one. I'll let you know about week two next Friday.

Life imitates art

By now, everyone's heard the story about the Aqua Teen Hunger Force guerilla ad campaign causing a city to pucker up all day yesterday.

On the one had, this is the funniest thing I've ever seen. On the other, it's the stupidest.

How ironic is it that fake LED mooninites caused what the cartoon mooninites crave to cause?

Meatwad make the money, see?

A new light on an old favorite

OK, I'm a big, fat geek, but this is fascinating. It's a look at Star Wars: A New Hope when taking Eps 1-3 into consideration.

Chewie kicks ass.

Idol threat 1/31: Hell-A

I've actually been taking notes this time around. I got a new laptop in today and I've been jotting down as the show was progressing. But to be honest, it's not worth posting here.

The only thing that's worth talking about was the eccentric panther dude, but I don't have the patience, time or energy to tackle that topic.

Suffice to say -- more not talent.

Hollywood better be good 'cause so far the auditions are sucking wind.

Idol Threats 1/30 - It must be the floor

It says something about the state of the show when they only show 4 or 5 passes out of 22 and the rest of the show is spent focusing on the suck that was Birmingham.

The problem here is that I believe there was probably some really decent performances, we just didn't get to see them. The show again aims at the lowest common denominator.

At least we got to hear the genius that was, "It must have be the floor." That's gonna be my new excuse for any problem. Didn't make a deadline? Must be the floor. Got into an accident on the expressway? Must be the floor. Tripped over a broken tile? Must be the ... well, yeah.

It's kind of funny, my ass is on fire

Once again, I am trying to lose weight. Long time readers of my blog know how many times I've begun something only to not comment on it any longer which, of course, means I'd fallen off the wagon.

Sometimes I hurt myself because I was pushing myself too hard. Sometimes I didn't stick to the diet because I didn't have the willpower, or chose an unrealistic diet program. Sometimes it was a combination of the above.

I grew up a fat kid and it really bugs me that I'm fat again.

When I hit 10th grade, I started dropping weight like it was melting off of me. I went from 200+ pounds at the end of my 9th grade year to around 160 pounds at the end of my 10th grade year. When I joined the Army in 1994, I was 155 pounds. I have put on more than 100 pounds since then.

This time is different, though. This time I'm using my plan, my way and it's entirely my motivation driving this rather than (as several times in the past) just going along with something my wife had in mind to do.

Instead of cutting out carbs or drinking beat juice or jumping up and down on one leg and swinging a dead chicken over my head, I'm *gasp* counting calories! I've decided to try and eat healthier foods, but my primary concern is reducing the amount of calories and portion control.

I also got a bike (hence the title of this post). It's amazing how little you have to do to get that heart rate going when you're a big tub o' goo. But that's going to change soon.

Dudes. I started this on Friday and I've already lost 15 pounds. Which I understand is because I was starting from scratch and I had a lot of water weight and toxins and crap to get out. But still, 15 freakin' pounds is pretty motivating.

Not to sound like a broken record here on my blog, but I hope that by this time next year I'll be out of weight loss/conditioning phase and in a maintenance phase.

SO Angry

I had to wait to post this. I was so mad. I'm still mad. But I won't destroy the keyboard typing in anger like I would have Saturday.

I got home from school Saturday around 2:30 p.m. My wife and kids had been out most of the day doing wife and kid kind of things. After I got in, my daughters wanted to go outside. I'm all for outside play (read: noise outside rather than inside, AND they get exercise). They get dressed and pile out the door. Then I hear one of the most heartbreaking things I've heard in my life. My oldest daughter said, "Where's my bike?"

Some coward, some ... asshole ... stole a seven-year-old girl's bike. I mean, WTF?

Fortunately, I had the financial means to buy her a new bike. We went out, me and my two girls, and did a little shopping together. It turned into a good afternoon.

I was so pissed I had to build something. If I hadn't, I would have broken something. So, my wife got a shelf built in a cabinet that she's been asking me to do for months.

Funny how something so wrong can be a catalyst for good things.

Still pissed about it though.

Bring on the funny

Before yesterday, if you had asked me what the funniest thing I had ever seen was, I would probably have come up with a few different answers. If you had asked me when I was active-duty if a sergeant major yelling and going off on someone in your presense was funny, I would have said no. However, yesterday changed a lot for me.

One of my additional duties is taking promotion photos for our Marines here. As you can imagine, I have a variety of people come through the office. Some of these Marines are super sharp. I barely have to adjust their uniform, they are that squared away. Most require some minor adjustments; Marines, by and large, take a good deal of pride in their uniform. Then, there are those that don't seem to care too much. Their uniform doesn't fit correctly, their ribbons aren't right, their shirt or trousers may not be ironed ... you get the picture.

Generally, most Marines show up with their supervisor who helps get the uniform squared away. Sometimes not. Regardless, I almost always have to move some fabric here or there to get it to look right in the camera.

Yesterday, one of hte poor souls who obviously doesn't care too much about his appearance came through. His ribbons looked like they were going to fly off his chest. His shirt looked like it was two sizes too big. His trousers and shirt both needed to visit the iron. But I was going to do my best. I was working hard to get his uniform looking as good as I could. His NCO, however, decided that it was a good time to sit down and watch the news.

It was at this unfortunate time that our base sergeant major decided to walk by. It took barely a look in the room for the veteran devil dog to see that the young Marine's uniform was far from sharp.

He says to the corporal, sitting watching TV, "Hey, corporal. Aren't you supposed to be up there (fixing that uniform)?"

The corporal, thinking the sergeant major was joking chuckled, "Heh."

The sergeant major, not joking in the slightest says, "Heh? HEH!?! Do you think I'm joking with your corporal?"

At which point the corporal shot up to parade rest and I was given the opportunity to reflect on my own service and how this kind of experience had now taken a completely different kind of significance. I actually had to stifle a smile.

Needless to say, the young corporal got yelled at for a good amount of time. He and his junior Marine left my office to get "fixed." I didn't expect to see them again that day, but about an hour before closing time, they showed up again, the junior Marine looking far sharper and camera ready.

I've reality TV happening all around me.

Idol Threats 1/24: So are the days of our Idol

The show has started off strong. A hilarious no. A heart wrenching yes and a heart wrenching no.

I just gotta say, again, WTF is up with the producers this season? And WTF is up with the judges. This is about the fourth or fifth time we've had a very decent singer come through that the judges just completely blew off. I realize that chick had been to Hollywood twice before, but, she could sing.

Oh well. Guess that's why I work for the government and Simon's on TV.

> New break, new comments:

So, BFFs 1 and 2. BFF 2 could really sing and really deserved her golden ticket. BFF 1, not so much. Simon obviously saw himself in a BFF sammich, so both girls made it.

Cowgirl #1: I wasn't expecting this cowgirl, but, man, that was amazing. WOW. That was some crazy, wasn't it? "I can't sing, but you can teach me." WOW.

Little opera girl was amazing. I enjoyed her rock voice a lot. I don't think Randy gave her enough of a chance, but we'll see how far she'll go in Hollywood.

And, dammit, show me the orgasming cowgirl. I'm dying over here.

Julie Isadora did not disappoint. What can you really say about that? She has, perhaps, earned her cowboy-hat tiara as the American Idol queen of people who think they can sing, but really, really can't.

- OR -

It was strange performance art. Something that straddled the lines of pop, rock, porn and deconstructivist criticism. Oh and mysticism too. Let us not forget the on-target palm reading. Would have been hilarious if she'd said something like, "You're boyfriend's name is Raul, Ryan." That would have earned her major cool points. But, no, she doesn't quite have it together enough for that.

Next week, Birmingham. Looking forward to it based on the teaser. Looks like there'll be some singers, and some silly.

As for tonight, my top of the pop was opera girl. I was very impressed. I hope she makes it through the opening days of Hollywood.

Idol Threats: 1/23

By Jeebus that was some funny stuff tonight. I now wish I had taken notes to share some of my thoughts that have by now floated into the ether.

First, I seriously don't think the judges are being any meaner this season than they have in the past. However, I do believe the producers and video editors are. The way they focus longer on individual subjects (as I mentioned last week) makes it more painful, individually. That said, there are some really bad, funny performances.

The poor kid who sang Burning Love, I'm sure he was a high-functioning mentally challenged individual. Which is kind of sad. But (and this is bad of me) he reminded me of that character that Tracy Morgan used to play on Saturday Night Live -- the animal show host? Brian Fellows ... that's it! That dude so reminded me of Brian Fellows.

So far, I agree with American Midol. The level of the passes this year just aren't up to last year. But tonight there were a couple that were pretty good. I'm not sure I'm on board with everyone with Sundance or whatever the hell his name is. I didn't think he was all that hot. The shy background singing chicky was damn good. Fidel Castro Clone (tm) was also very good.

The best scene of the season is forthcoming, though. Orgasming cowboy hat girl is coming up tomorrow night. And we all know that television will never be the same.

BIAAtG: Capitalism Sells ... But Your Music is Suffering

I am a capitalist. In the grand scheme of things I believe that capitalism, tempered with some minor regulation, is best for a country’s economy and, ultimately, society and its political systems.

That said, there are some pitfalls to capitalism. One of the areas that suffer greatly under a capitalist system is the arts. When everything is a commodity, people are more interested in marketing what sells than what may be the newest or most innovative. And one area where this is very evident is in music.

A lot of people complain when an underground band they like goes mainstream. Some people may scoff at this, but there is some legitimate concern. Just take a look at the history of bands like The Offspring, Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and (and I REALLY hate to say this) Henry Fucking Rollins.

It’s insidious, this commercialism.

It starts with better production quality. Think back to Ride the Lightning or Freaky Styley. Then compare those to later releases like … And Justice For All and Mother’s Milk. And then compare those to later releases The Black Album and Blood Sugar Sex Magic. Hear the edge slipping away? Hear the raw power give away to that slick noise gate and compression?

On the earlier work, even though they were studio albums, you knew that under the best of conditions you could expect to hear something similar live as to what you were hearing on these albums. Then you have the transition albums (or albums, in some cases). These albums have better production but still maintain a sense of that raw energy from the earlier studio albums.

Finally, the “Fuck it, lets over-produce the shit outta this” albums come out. It’s the Bob Rock syndrome. Is that album a little too heavy? Lets just smooth it out with some extra chorus and mix it down a little. Let’s over-effect those vocals -- put the singer through some more vocal training first -- and overdub like our lives depend on it. Gotta watch that subject matter also. You have to sound like you’re being controversial without actually being controversial or offending anyone.

While all this is going on, the record label’s marketing team is aggressively pushing the band making them seem like the best thing ever. In the case of Metallica, to your die-hard fans, you’re being sold as “the greatest Metallica album ever,” but to pull in that elusive top-40 audience, you’re being marketed as “a new, edgy voice in this troubled world.” And then everybody and their mother buys the album. And then you hear Johnny McPopCollar singing Nothing Else Matters. And then nothing else matters ‘cept dumping your Metallica collection and forgetting that you ever liked them.

It has nothing to do with them becoming popular. It has everything to do with them trying so hard to get there.

Cross posted at Faster Than The World.

On celebrity *ahem* tapes...

If you film it, it will be leaked.

The latest, a D-list Page three model Keeley Hazell, is upset that a video of her exploits has been released on the internet.

Now, the most telling part of this story? Nowhere in it does she say she'll not video herself in future exploits. No she says, "In future I know I will have to be more careful who I fall in love with."

So ...

Anyone else out there kind of pissed that the new House leadership desires to waste so much of our time and tax money for a stupid, useless, non-binding resolution? This kind of whining is horrible. This is the kind of whining where the whiners not only want everyone to know their displeasure, they must have some kind of acknowledgement of their plight.

You know what, you arrogant bastards, we know how you feel. We know your positions. You can't keep your money-grubbing, power hungry faces off the television for five freaking minutes. You know what's a good allegory for "non-binding resolution?" Here are a few I thought of -- non-operating automobile, wingless airplane, and my personal favorite, empty beer bottle.

When it comes to crap like this, I could care less what your political party is. I could care less what your point of view is. This is worthless. It is a waste of time I'd almost call criminal considering the things you guys should be doing. The only silver lining I can see in all of this is that the longer you focus on this crap, the less amount of time you'll have to fark up something else.

There is a response to people when they waste your time with this kind of whining. You scrunch up your face in your best baby/person who is whining imitation and, using a baby voice, mockingly say the following, "Waaah, my pussy hurts." 'Cause that what all this amounts to.

Heroes: A preview

Given my compulsively demanding fandom of Doctor Who, it was great news when Heroes announced that Christopher Eccleston would be joining the cast.

HeroSite.net published this interview with Eccleston which is so unbelievably cool that I might just have to leave work to recover from this much cool.

Warning: There are some spoilers via implication through the article.

A message to the "man on the street"

I don't care what kind of car you drive or want to drive. If you drive a huge SUV, more power to you. I couldn't care less.

However, if you are approached by a camera crew to appear in a local advertisement for a car dealership, there are some things you might want to keep in mind.

General advice that any person can benefit from:
1. Dress for the event. I mean, you don't have to dress to the nines, but you probably don't want to look like you just rolled out of the bed or like you're going out on the town to go whoring.

2. You might want to practice what you're going to say about said dealership's service or your vehicle. That way you don't come across as a stuttering idiot when the camera is shoved in your face.

And, this one specifically addresses a local ad:
3. If you drive and have bought Hummers, never, ever, say the following: "I just got my second hummer from (Joe Schmoe)."

Jumping on the library cardwagon

With thanks to Sheila, Tracey and Nightfly for prompting me to go ahead and do this myself.



Go create your own catalog card.

Idol threats - 1/17

When are people going to stop coming on this show and, after giving a bad performance, say to Simon: "You don't know nuttin' 'bout myusic. Your opinion doesn't mean nuttin'." When?

I don't get it. He's the freaking judge, people.

Is is just me, or have they been dragging out the pain this year? They've been focusing on individual contestants (the bad ones) longer than before. In past years, the shorter sessions are enjoyable looks into the badness. These longer sessions are painfully awkward.

And yet ... I can't look away.

Idol threats - 1/16

Orgasming cowboy hat girl?

Oh, Idol, how I hath missed thee!

American trainwreck

Yes, the trainwreck that is American Idol begins again tonight. I cannot wait. I hate, in a way, that I am so caught up in this thing, but I am. I have decided to once again indulge my gossippy side and blog it as much as possible. So there will most likely be a semi-live or just-after-the-show blog tonight.

More later.

Send it off in a letter telegram, er, blog post

Day off of work [stop]

Going to Macon [stop]

Hope everyone has a good day [stop]

Regular blogging to resume later [stop]

In the meantime, see my post at Faster Than The World [stop]

Marilyn Manson: Irresistible

Weeks after filing for divorce from his super-hot stripper wife, rumors have it that the Marilyn Mason is now dating Evan Rachel Wood.

I don't get it.

Somebody please explain it to me.

This day in history: Alexander Hamilton

Today is the birthday of Alexander Hamilton. A historical figure I consider a hero.

Hamilton is far more important than "that guy on the 10-dollar bill" or "that guy who died in that duel." Both things I have heard when I've mentioned being a fan of Hamilton.

Please go read Sheila's piece about him. Far more eloquent, more exuberant, and more detailed than I could say right now.

Anecdotally

The great home school experiment has begun. Day two had my children going to a local park for P.E. after completing their morning work.

As my family left the park, my noticed a lady driving with a small dog sitting on her lap. My wife remarked, "That is so dangerous!"

My seven-year-old daughter said, "I hope she has Allstate."

My wife, laughing, says, "Why is that?"

Delivered deadpan, "Because they forgive you if you get in an accident."

I present my present

One of the greatest things man has ever produced is the upgraded video card.

Most of my birthday stuff was stuff I bought for myself. One of those things was a video card I impulse bought while surfing the post-Christmas clearance shelves at the Office Depot near my parent’s home. I’m usually pretty good and not impulse buying but the big, shiny $27 sticker on the front of the package was too alluring.

I picked up the box just to see what it was. It’s not a great card, just a 128-bit NVIDIA, but when I was about to put it back on the shelf something caught my eye. It has both S-video and HDMI outputs. My mind began to plug away at the possibilities. See, I play a lot of videos on my computer. Being able to output them directly to my TV would save A LOT of time, effort and recordable DVDs.

So, I bought the card. What I didn’t buy were the cords and adapters I’d need to run the card to my TV. I knew I could find them cheap online, but I wasn’t sure how long a cord I’d need. When I got home, I measured things up, did my online research and got my cords and adapters in the mail Friday.

Although the card has an S-video out, I needed an RCA, so I had to buy an S-video to RCA adaptor (I found one for less than $3). Then I had to get some RCA extenders (less than a buck a piece) and some more RCA cables. I am particularly proud of my RCA cable purchases. I was looking for single strand RCA cables – just the one cord, not all three, to cut back on cost. I thought I found what I was looking for in a 95-cent a pop 12 foot cord. I ordered five. But when they came in, each package contained three cables, at 95-cents per package! Great deal. Now I have three extra 12’ RCA packages.

Anywho, I got everything hooked up and it works perfectly. I finished watching some videos I was putting off watching until I got this hooked up and was so happy to watch it on TV versus sitting in front of the computer to do so.

Popular listening

There is a great music discussion going on at Tesco's Blank Forever. It has branched from the original premise, to the point I'm not sure what the argument is or has become. But make sure to stop by and add your two cents. Then come back here and think/comment on this:

Do you think music's listenership and popularity are one and the same? How related are they?

What do you consider to be the difference between a band whose popularity is foisted upon us through advanced radio/MTV play versus one whose popularity grows through word-of-mouth? What bands do you consider to be examples of each?

You're not the one that I want

Can you believe that I've never seen Grease in its entirety? I've seen bits and pieces through the years, but it's just never appealed to me. Not my kind of show.

But I did watch You're The One That I Want last night. Very much an American Idol format, but they're really speeding through it so you don't really get the opportunity to form any attachments to any of the contestants. At least not at this point.

At different portions of the show, they would say, "Did your favorites make it through?" My wife and I were both like, "We only seen these people for five minutes, we have no favorites." The format is less personal than AI, it seems, and you don't connect with the people auditioning.

Not sure if I'll be back for the next episode.

My latest entry is up at Faster Than The World. Go by and check it out.

The great nothing hope

A while back I spoke of something big I was very hopeful about. I didn't really want to talk about specifically for this reason -- it never materialized.

I had a shot at a very good job opportunity. It was an overseas position in Japan and would have been a decent promotion. Additionally, in government service, when you accept an overseas position, your current position is guaranteed to be held for you. This is called return rights. You typically cannot work in an overseas slot for more than 5 or 6 years so that return rights thing is pretty important. There is also a thing in federal government service that once you get paid at a certain level, you cannot get paid at a lower rate. So if you get promoted and then go back to a lower position, they have to raise your pay to match or better what you were making.

The upshot of this is that I could have spent 3 to 5 years in Japan, had a guaranteed return, and not lose any money in the deal. You can understand how excited I was at the opportunity.

So, it's a bit disappointing that I didn't get the job. However, as you can tell by the post below, it's not like I'm sweating it. We have decided to settle down. And that's probably for the best.

This ties into things I've been realizing more and more lately. There are things that are meant to be, and there are things that are not meant to be. You can take this how you want to. I am perhaps feeling more spiritual than I have in years -- and that's how I take this -- but it's just as easy to say that you can only expect the benefits you are prepared to accept.

Shocking and perverse ...

... Which is just a headline to seduce you into reading this. Which is going to be pretty much nothing.

Starting this month, I am a "too-many-irons-in-the-fire" kind of guy. I'm in my last semester of school with a heavy class load. Our office still has manning issues. There are also things outside of both of these issues that keep things rolling. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to get through the next few months. It's going to be very interesting.

Last night I had my first class of the new semester. I had a class with this instructor last semester, so things went well. When I told her I was graduating at the end of this semester, she told me that she waives the final exam for students who are graduating. It's her gift to those students. What luck.

Things like this happen to me often. I stress over things that are difficult or seem like they're going to be near impossible to do. Then, they wind up either being far more simple than I anticipate or someone comes along with help I wasn't expecting. I don't know what I've done to deserve this kind of karma, but I'm very thankful for it.

We have intensified our house hunting efforts (which is one of those things outside of school and work that adds to the life tempo). We might have found a place. I am hesitant to say anything or explain any more until I have more information. It's a great place with a lot of land and we're very hopeful. I'll leave it at that.

I hope you all have a great weekend.

Viva la resolution

Having a birthday two days after the new year begins can be a difficult way to keep some resolutions you might have attempted to adopt. To be fair to myself, it's not a new resolution. It's not really a resolution, more of a long-term goal. I just have little self control.

Long-time readers of the blog and those who know me know that I've been trying to exercise more and eat better for some time. There have been some successes, but they always fall away due to something or other. I am committed to doing better this time around. Seeing my family and seeing the health issues they are dealing with because of poor life choices has really lit a fire under me.

My dad has smoked and eaten poorly for as long as I can remember. And now he's sick more often than he's well. He lost his mother, father and younger brother to lung cancer. An older brother has emphysema and pulls an oxygen tank along with him. But my dad refuses to quit smoking and has pretty much accepted the fatality of his decision. He won't even go to the doctor to see why his chronic cough and chest congestion won't go away. I think he's afraid to find out. And my children have invested their love into this fatality. It's very difficult to watch.

On my mom's side, my grandfather has had several heart attacks over the past 20 years. He's in his 80s now and I think the only reason he's been able to carry on is his bullheadedness. He has always been active and is still always doing something and I think that's what has contributed to his longevity. But his heart problems are due primarily to his poor diet through his life.

Looking at both of these family histories has really opened my eyes lately. I quit smoking two years ago because I wanted to be healthier and wanted to stop spending so much money on the habit. It was very hard to do, but putting down a pack of cigarettes and never picking them up again gets easier as time goes on. It's certainly easier than eating better. You don't have to smoke. You have to eat.

Yesterday I tried. I started my new program. I woke up early, went on a walk and did some crunches. I had a V8 (with hot sauce!) for breakfast and ate well through the day. Until the evening. When your 7-year-old child really wants to get you cake and ice cream, well, it's hard to say no.

This morning, I didn't get up early and walk or anything. But I did have my V8 for breakfast (which, I should explain, is a pretty big thing for me to do -- I never eat any breakfast and this serves as a way for me to get nutrients and such to help start the day and not have a bunch of fat and gunk). I have a good lunch and snacks through the day. Hopefully I won't fall off the wagon.

Unto the grindstone the nose is put

Well. I hope everyone had a decent and relaxing holiday break. The family and I got back from vacation Sunday evening and have been taking our sweet time getting around to doing anything. Like updating one's blog.

I have very little to report. Most of our vacation was spent sitting on couches reading books or playing games with the kids and/or family. It was fun and needed.

There are plenty of things to talk about in the world right now, but one of my resolutions for this year is to restrict my political/issue talk. It simply pisses me off too much and instead of being the release that this blog was intended to be, it has really only served to rile me up more. I'd rather just chill for a bit.

This is not to say that I won't ever be discussing politics or pressing issues, but I'm going to be very selective in what I choose to discuss.

Continuing in that vein, I have a new post up at Faster Than The World. Please check it out.

Oh yeah, I turned 33 today.

Checking in

We're in leg one of our journey -- at my father in law's house. He has broadband, so it's not too bad getting on, checking mail, etc. My parent's (where we leave to tomorrow) only have dial-up (darn country livin') and I will not even try and hit certain sites.

Last night the wife and I went to see Rocky Balboa. I mean, if you're in my age group, Rocky was a huge part of your childhood. Like it or hate it, it's nostalgia. I liked it and was looking forward to the movie. Honestly, this was the best installment since the original film. I mean, you have to suspend some disbelief, but in which Rocky installment have you not had to do that?

The thing about this one is that it relies heavily on story and character interaction long before you even get to any fighting or training. The build up is intense and the film delivers. I was very happy with it. Glad we didn't see Eragon.

Want your opinions; vacation break

Part the first:

Happy Wednesday everybody. I am soliciting your opinions. We have decided to home school our children. It has been a long and arduous process coming to this decision. We are very unhappy with the curriculum in our local schools and want to be able to focus more personal attention on their specific education needs.

That said, it is not without some apprehension that we go into this. My wife worries about being able to instruct our kids. You know, drawing the line between mommy and teacher. We worry about having the time to home school and still get all the daily things done around the home.

So, what I'm asking is if any of you have any experience with homeschooling and, if so, what that experience has been like?

My wife and I have both had experience with home schooled children and home schooling families and from my experience, it's kind of a mixed bag. But there's always the fall-back option: If it doesn't work, they can always go back.

Part the second:

Today we're leaving on vacation. After work, we're taking off for a lengthy drive to the Gulf Coast for a couple of days. Then it's on to Louisiana for a few days, and then back home by New Year's Day.

I wish you all the very best this holiday season. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, etc.

For my family and me, 2006 has been both a challenging and rewarding year. We look forward to 2007. So, again, I say to all of you, happy holidays.

Oh, and if you want to hook me up, my birthday's Jan. 3.

Pitching a tent

So, I thought I was just visiting the nothing farm, but apparently I'm setting up camp.

We are preparing to go on vacation soon and life is accordingly busy. There is much to do to get things in order before we leave, both at work and at home. So, posting, among other things, have been light lately.

I do have a couple of things I want to share with you as I'd like to get your thoughts on them. I just don't really have the time to put it down here like I want to, and, since vacation is coming up soon, I doubt I'll have the time to address much of what I want to. But I do hope to get something substantive up later today or tomorrow.

I hope everyone is doing well and I will have a decent update! Someday.

Faster Than My Debt

I'm at Faster Than The World today with an article wherein I detail the upcoming Elf baseball season. OK, not really. I talk about guitars and stuff.

Get thee hence and make sure to leave comments!

I wasn't going to post today, but ...

Today I went out to cover the first day of our Marine Reserve Detachment's Toys for Tots toy hand outs. It was amazing. I can't describe the feeling of watching our Marines (and corpsman) perform this charity task. They love doing it. And the people! I can't believe the spirit.

The line wrapped around the old dilapidated building in which they were handing out toys. But even with the long line and long wait, everyone was cheery. It was the exact opposite of the line at the movie theater. Or the line at the DMV. The feeling of charity was infectious. I gotta tell you. I wasn't in the Christmas spirit this year until this morning. My heart just grew three sizes.

And while out, I noticed some things around the area that looked like great subjects for some quick photography. It's pretty overcast out today and it just casts everything into a cool frame.

This shot just jumped out at me. It really speaks of the state of this town in a lot of ways.

As though it's attempting to put up a good front, but cannot hide the decay and corruption going on within. I wish I could have shot this under better circumstances (without cars surrounding it, etc.). I guess I'll have to shoot it another day.

This is what inspired my little spat of personal photography this morning. This building shared the parking lot with the old department store where the Toys for Tots hand outs were going on. I really love the texture of this building and all the vines. I do not like the fact that I couldn't shoot it without all the power lines and modern-day obstacles, but I just love it. Also, we just got new lenses for our cameras and I wanted to test it out a bit. It an 18-200 zoom and I really kind of dig the circular deformation in wide-angle.

This is a closer shot of one of the windows of the same building. Just look at all that texture!

The minor and stark color contrast is amazing, I think. And in B&W the contrast is just too damn cool. Oh, the first thought I had when I saw this building is how cool it would look shot in B&W. Well, thanks to digital photography, Photoshop and Ctrl+L, we can approximate.

What I really like about this shot is that the window is about 7 feet or so off the ground and I was able to shoot low which gives the foreground the effect that it's bending away from the window. Almost like you could walk on that wall and the window's a door.

Last shot of the day.

This just happened to be on my route to my shoot and I made a mental note to go back and get a couple of shots. Something about trains appeals to men, I think. I never got into toy trains or anything like that. I have no hidden fascination about ever becoming a railway engineer, but I do admit some sort of visceral pleasure from looking at trains and railways.

Well, I had some fun this morning while on the clock. Hope you guys like the shots.

Not so much ado about nothing

I had the weirdest thing happen yesterday.

I wasn't feeing great, so I took the afternoon off (that in itself is weird), but I was having headaches and kind of seeing double. Never had that happen before. Well, not unless I'd been smacked upside the head.

So, the wife had some kind of candle party last night and I man'd up and took the kids out to dinner so she could get things in order. Got home and got the kids squared away and I sequestered myself in my bedroom.

I watched Pulse. Don't waste your time. It sucked.

While my guitar gently weeps

I haven't played guitar in many days. It has something to do with time, but a whole lot to do with pain.

As my job requires me to spend all day on the computer, and a lot of my leisure time is spent here also, I use my hands for keying and "mousing" a lot. And, of course, my posture and typing/mousing habits suck. I have, over time, developed tendonitis in my wrist. Which, because I ignored it long enough, has caused me to put pressure on different areas of my arm and I developed pain in my elbow and lately I have begun to feel some pain in my shoulder.

So, not only does is hurt to stay on the computer for too long, but it also hurts to play guitar and that really sucks.

Guess I should start wearing that damn wrist brace.

Oh yeah ...

Make sure to go to Faster Than The World today to check out my new All About the Guitar column.

I've compiled a nice list last minute shopping items for that special guitarist in your life. Of course, all I want for Christmas is peace and harmony and the end of all banjoes.

A commercial

A local spa here has a commercial that airs often. One of the things they say in the commercial is: "We have a variety of services available for that special person, including massages, facials ..." and it really doesn't matter what they say after that because I'm giggling like a school girl.

What the hell do they think we're going to think?

Relative notoriety

Recently watched The Notorious Bettie Page. Bettie Page was one of those people in the peripheral of my pop consciousness until I read The Real Bettie Page about 10 years ago. Since then, she's always been of interest to me. When I heard that this movie was coming out, I was very interested in seeing it.

It certainly isn't disappointing, but anyone who's read the Foster biography won't find anything here they didn't already know. Rather, it's the performance by Gretchen Mol that is most worthwhile in this pic. She brings a fresh-faced naivety that is hard to associate with Bettie Page through the pictures that made her famous.

The movie is more than a story about her life though. The director uses Page's history to question our concepts of innocence and morality. Even naivety. Was Page really so naive after so many years in the business, or was actively attempting to justify her actions to herself?

Expertly presented in black and white with color scenes in Miami.

Disturbingly, the extra features include a color video of Page -- in what is obviously not one of her more professional works -- stripping down to stockings only. After watching the movie, this video seems contrary to what the film was all about. It just really seems out of place.

Anyone else seen it?

Tonight, but not the rest of my life

Our installation Christmas Tree lighting ceremony is tonight. I have to take photos of the event, but I'm taking the kids with me so it should be nice. It's usually a pretty quick thing -- a little prayer from the base chaplain, some music and carols with some of the brass section from the band, some hot cocoa and roasted peanuts, and the tree is lit. Pretty nice.

Go here, do this

I urge you to go to Faster Than The World today. As always, there is stellar content, but I pimp it today especially 'cause my friend's post is up today: The Fictional Universe.

This is part two of a video Q&A project. Please stop by and let him know what you think.

Today

The flag on base flew at half-staff.

And several people had to wonder why.

And that fact really made me angry.

Us and Them

During lunch today, I took the opportunity to catch up on an episode of Torchwood.

One of the topics they bring up during the episode is the difference between "you" and "we." That is, a new person joined the organization and every time she referred to something involving the organization, she said, "you have" instead of "we have," and the unit chief called her on it twice. I can sympathize with her.

I have worked for the Marine Corps for almost two years now and still find myself saying "you guys" when referring to the way Marines do things. Granted, I am not a Marine nor was I ever. And I spent 10 years in Army, which colors my thinking about "us and them."

But I am a Marine Corps employee and it's weird that I haven't assimilated that into my way of thinking. I really don't think that way, even when I try and force myself to. I think of myself as a Department of Defense employee. I don't know if that will ever change.

I do hope I can stop the, "Gee, you guys don't do that this way? In the Army ..." because even I'm getting tired of it.

Any of you (ever) have a you vs. we issue?

So, I finally saw Clerks 2 ...

And I hated it. And, more than that, I hate that I hated it.

See, I'm a huge Kevin Smith fan. Big, big Kevin Smith fan. Like, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is one of my favorite movies ever, big fan. For someone to admit that in writing out here in the ether, you know I have to be a big fan.

Prior to this movie, there wasn't a Kevin Smith film I didn't like.

To me, Clerks 2 just feels like a shade of his pre-Jersey Girl movies. Clerks 2 is a horrible mesh of the frenetic energy of his earlier films and the sappiness of Jersey Girl and the two do not mesh. And I'm a fan of Jersey Girl.

Jersey Girl works for me in the way that most chick flicks work for the women folk. It pushes the right buttons to make me feel something, it's funny enough, emotional enough and delivers a sappy, happy ending. I fully understand that it's not good film making. But it was, for me, an enjoyable and touching movie.

Clerks 2 fails because it captures none of his earlier manic force or the sentimental sappiness of Jersey Girl. Some of this is because the main roles required more acting ability than Brian O'Halloran or Jeff Anderson could muster. They're fine with all they have to do is deliver witty quips and O'Halloran has to act harried. But when they have to convince us their emotional turmoil ... well, let's say that it would have been nice to have Assfleck. And I hate Affleck.

I avoided reviews of this movie like the plague because I really didn't want them to taint my POV. I just checked Rotten Tomatoes and am shocked to see that it did so well. I mean, I honestly thought this movie fell flat. I didn't laugh once during the entire thing.

Each to his own, I guess.

A Heroic break

No new Heroes until Jan. 22. What's up with the huge break in schedules for TV shows lately? I'm afraid that, for the most part, I don't feel compelled to come back and finish the season. Honestly, I'm seriously considering not bothering with LOST. But, I will with Heroes. And Monk and Psych.

Last night didn't accomplish much, I didn't think. I was very upset that it took the entire episode worth of jumping around for 20-second bytes of what's going on with certain characters to bring us to the anti-climactic cliffhanger. OK, Haitian dude can talk. And he's not going to wipe Claire's mind. So? Tell us something.

There was nothing terribly plot advancing, except for what was almost an aside: "Maybe it was 'save the cheerleader,' THEN 'save the world.'" Which I was beginning to suspect anyway.

So, as the shows go on hiatus, we'll have to revel in repeats or in obscure cable shows. I'm sure there will be plenty of American Chopper and Mythbusters marathons over the next few weeks.

Sell your soul

My new post is up at Faster Than The World.

Make sure to check it out.

Patience is a virtue I possess only in limited quantities

I am waiting for some information that could significantly impact my life in the near future. And waiting has been hard.

Hard. Hard. Hard.

I am not a patient person, but I want to be. I would love to be able to better accept the natural timing of things. But I'm not. I would love to say that I've gotten better at waiting as I've gotten older. But I haven't.

Why won't they just hurry up and let me know something?

I'm a one-man comedy club, over here

My 7-year old (who I said was 8 recently on another blog, but she's 7, she just acts 8) is a fan of "funniest home video" style shows. She has become so fond that she really wants to get a video camera and shoot her own videos.

I once asked her what she would film and she said, "You, daddy."

"Me?" I asked. "Why?"

"Because you're funny," she said.

This exchange (and it's really a paraphrase I'm sure) happened quite some time ago. But last night as I was taking care of some mundane kitchen stuff, my daughter comes in and says, "You are so silly."

I realized at that time that my behavior was the kind of thing she was talking about taping. See, I have a habit. When I'm doing something boring or mundane, especially if the kids are around, I make up songs. And not good ones. Usually the lyrics have something to do with whatever I'm doing and the tune is usually ripped off from whatever TV program is currently on - OR - I sing variations of the show's theme song to different tunes.

I have officially been put on silly notice. Thankfully my 7-year-old digs it. My five-year-old is already acting like she's embarrassed though.

Half a Pica Exclusive:

Scientists praise endangering of North American species

BERKELEY, Calif. – Scientists at the Berkeley University of California released their annual list of the planet's most endangered species. Topping that list was the North American White Male.

"Generally, a species being on the list is cause for great concern," said Dr. Jane Dough, UC Berkeley biology department. "We usually celebrate when a species, through the conservation efforts on the part of liberal-minded, eco-conscious, realists everywhere, make it off the list. However, this is probably the first time in the history of our list that the entire campus, heck, the entire city was ecstatic over a species being on the list."

Immediately after the list's release, conservation groups across the nation began to argue with the findings.

"Come on," said Greenpeace spokesperson I. M. Aschmuck. "I mean, look around you – the North American White Male is still everywhere. Hell, I'm a North American White Male. As much as Berkeley, and any right-thinking person would want the species to be endangered, I'm afraid it simply isn't so."

Defending their findings, Dough said that while the species may still appear to be quite prevalent, the NAWM is actually beginning to exhibit traits of other species. "The species is endangered not so much because of dwindling numbers, but because of their assimilation into other species. We've noticed the North American White Male is beginning to far more resemble the East European White Male; there is also a significant number who are beginning to exhibit traits of the North American African American Male."

"It's truly a wonderful thing," Dough continued. "We all know that the North American White Male is the most destructive species that ever lived."

But not everyone is happy.

"How can this be a good thing?" wondered John Smith, president, Average White Men. "Remember when the East European White Male was distinguishable from the female of the species? It wasn't that long ago, people!"

If the Berkeley findings are accurate, the NAWM may be facing extinction within the next four years.

"The political landscape does have a lot to do with it. Our school system has been stripping our boys of the evil, evil masculinity for many years now. A robust renewal of this system, under the proper political slant would speed along the process," Dough said. "And how can that be a bad thing?"

Smith, and his Average White Male organization have answered the findings with a conservation plan that involves zealous amounts of couch-sitting, football watching, deer hunting and truck driving. Baseball cap and T-shirt wearing are optional, but, according to Smith, can only help.

"This is the preservation of a species. We hope our plan helps reverse the trend, but if we see a continuation of the trend over the next couple of years, we'll have to take more drastic measures. Moonshine production and horrible firework injuries are ready to be implemented at any time."

UPDATE: The story continues to develop. Conservation groups have pointed to this story as evidence that the NAWM is alive and strong in Berkeley itself. However, Dough pointed out that this is a sub-sub-species of the NAWM called Crazy Berkely Ashamed of their Whiteness Male.

© Half a Pica Distance News Service

Oh yeah (Heroes)...

I have been meaning to blog this for a while, and just now have gotten around to it. I swear I almost wet myself because of this news: Christopher Eccleston to join cast of "Heroes."

The Doctor Who from the first season of the revamped season. I mean ... that's cool beyond words. Like, cool in a scanner head explosion kind of way. It's almost too much cool for a head to contain.

More heroics

So ... last night's Heroes. Thoughts?

It was cool to see some Sylar backstory, but it wasn't much of anything I hadn't suspected. The whole "eat your brain for the power" thingy seemed pretty evident.

Nicky's dual personality history was good, and Hiro's lost in time episode was cool. Honestly, I found the Petrelli brothers' story most interesting. Lots of cool motivation there.

So ... thoughts?

Holy Jeebus! I'm busy!

Working with newspapers, it is very common for your submissions to be too short or too long. It's generally not a big problem. It's easy to add some fluff to pad something or to cut lengthy tales. Occasionally, you get extremes. Submissions that are so short, they are barely news briefs. They barely contain the who, the what, the where, when and why. And sometimes you get something terribly long. An essay. Something that the author must have been extremely proud of because he kept going on and on and on for no apparent reason.

And sometimes you get the extreme-extreme. Like when your service branch gets a new chief of staff/commandant and they send down a 14-page monster for you to run in your newspapers. Not negotiable. Must run. And, oh, yeah, you can’t really condense it either.

Holy crap! Today has sucked.

Back to work

I hope everyone had a good weekend and are recovering well from your turkey comas.

We spent Thursday together and Friday we went to Macon. Saturday, I began Fall Cleaning. Yes, I know. It's supposed to be a Spring thing. But I got inspired and had the time. I spent the majority of the day getting rid of stuff in our outdoor storage shed. It took a good quite a while to get it clean and to separate the stuff I was going to keep from the stuff I was going to junk.

We also have a storage shed I have to go through. I pulled out all of our Christmas stuff Saturday and almost everything else in there, in my opinion, is junk. We haven't used it in a year and it can go.

I hate being a pack rat. I'm horrible about it. It's one of the things we want to work on over the next few weeks -- reducing our stuff. We want to make our footprint smaller. There's just so much junk we don't need. And it's hard to get rid of it. Not just the physical labor (although that can be intense) but also psychologically. As you try and get rid of stuff, you think, "Oh, wait, I can use this some day for this, or this, or this ..." and you wind up never getting rid of it. So, my new way of thinking is if I haven't used it, it's gone.

Any advice or sympathies?

Macon rocks

I had never been to Macon before and that's where we went yesterday. There is a very neat Museum of Arts and Sciences we wanted to visit.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was great. Not a huge place, but very nicely put together. There is an art exhibit area, a planetarium, and a kid's learning section. Of course, we spent a huge amount of time in the kid's learning area. It was quite fun.

On the way, I saw a billboard for the Georgia Music Museum, and plan to hit that some time in the very near future.

Check out the Macon MAS website.

Happy Thanksgiving

I wish the blessings of God upon everyone. I am thankful for each and every one of you and for this great world upon which we live.

I pray that we can see past our differences to the fact that we are all human.

Oh, and knowing that a tryptophan coma is coming doesn't make it any less powerful. I'm off to nap soon.

Take care guys.

whistle - whistle - whistle ... wah - wah - wah ... It's a ghost town here

The day before a holiday, this place clears out around noon. An hour after noon and it's dead. There's hardly a green-suiter in sight (the Marines get off at noon) and many civilians took leave (or took advantage of military bosses not being around).

It's funny really.

The internets is flying with no one being on the network :)

Takin' it eeeeeasy ... takin' it eeeheeeheheasy

Nothing. Got nothing.

I mean, Thanksgiving is tomorrow, but I got nothing. I don't even have any good Thanksgiving stories to tell. Most of my holiday memories from the past involve going to my grandparent's house in Louisiana and having a huge meal then going outside and getting cut up by riding the three-wheeler through the nearby woods.

There have been some good ones here and there. The military usually has food collections for the younger, lower-enlisted military folks. I've benefitted from it and, later, have donated to it. It's a great way to take care of your own.

So, thinking about it, I guess I'll talk about something really important to me -- food. I am not a big fan of turkey, or bird of any kind. I'll eat it, but it's not my favorite. Give me a ham.

Even though I've cooked plenty of holiday turkeys, I've never had one come out quite like I would have liked it. I've smoked 'em and baked 'em. Last year, we fried one. I think I'm simply not fond of the meat.

But cranberry sauce! Oh, I love Thanksgiving for the cranberry sauce. Ask me, I think craberry sauce is a underutilized food stuff. I could eat this jellied mash all the time. I don't know why we don't.

Green-bean casserole ... a staple of Thanksgiving around our house. I hated it as a kid (except for the Durky onions, of course!) but I learned to love it when I grew up.

Pecan pie ... how can you not have pecan pie? Pumpkin is all right, but pecan is where it's at.

So, what foods do you like to have?

Exploding tops ... not of the girls gone wild variety

So, we finally did the Mentos and Diet Coke thing. It was cool, but I wished I'd planned it a bit better. I had some problems getting the 4 Mentos in the Coke (the amount the Mythbusters said was the best) at the same time. If I'd rigged up some kind of cylinder ... oh well.

Exploding Coke is always fun.

...

Heroes. I can't say that I'm not happy that there's been some progression. But there certainly wasn't as much as I would have hoped. If they keep this up, they're going to frustrate their audience in the same way Lost has done theirs (which, I guess are about the same).

Going back to explain things in the past is cool though. I do look forward to that. I am wondering if stripper chick is possessed.

Informal poll: Did stripper chick paste her ex-husbands head?

And any comments are, as always, are welcome.

It's getting drafty in here

OMFG. I agree with Charlie Rangel. I should probably have my head checked.

I don't agree with him on the why, but I certainly do believe that the U.S. should have a draft. In fact, I think it should be taken further than that. I think we should institute some kind of conscripted service for EVERY citizen of the country. I further agree that the kids would have the option of serving in the military or some other kind of government service.

Of course, I don't feel this way because I think the government would think more about comitting to a war. I feel this way because I think everyone would care a good bit more about their country if they have to serve it.

I think that if you hit a certain age range you should have two options: Serve or move.

Check it out y'all

I almost forgot, make sure to head over to Faster Than The World today to catch my most recent All About the Guitar article.

Plenty of great things going on over there.

A great weekend

I hope you all had a good weekend.

In the Cullen household, it was hectic, busy and the culmination of a lot of preparation. My oldest girl appeared in her first community theater show -- a production of "Annie Jr." She played "Tessie," the orphan who says the "Oh my goodness, oh my goodness" lines. I was under the impression that she only delivered the line once, but Tessie has about four or five lines throughout the show. It was pretty doggone cool.

I must give props to the Albany Junior Theater group. They put together a great show and a good cast -- especially Miss Hannigan. A senior at a local high school played the evil oprphanage mistress and she was phenomenal.

Performances were in the theater of a local community college. I was also very impressed with the theater. I really didn't think the school had such great facilities. Wish they'd have more productions there. It would also be a great place for a jazz show.

What was really nice is that my parents came in from Louisiana to see the show. My kids were really psyched about that. This was the culmination of six weeks worth of long weeknights for my 7-year-old. I am very proud of her.

Would be a great trend ...

Macon, GA's Fox 24 has decided to drop the OJ Interview from their network.

It makes me sick to my stomach that there are people that still pander to this sick man.

The horizon

Sometimes it's hard to see the forest for the trees. Other times, you get to mow those bitches down and see the good times ahead on the horizon.

Waiting on pins and needles seems to be a theme for some of us blog-folk lately.

I guess, when we're hoping for something good, all we can do is hope and pray and not lose sight of what's going on in front of us right now.

Perhaps I'd better not be too hasty in knocking down those trees.

A tsunami

Wow. I really hope the wave peters out, but that is really scary and particularly topical to my life right now (I'll let y'all know sometime in the future).

I wish the people of Japan (and anyone else who might be in the path) the best. Please obey all safety messages!

UPDATE: Well, that was thankfully a minor event.

Shave the Cheerleader

So ... Heroes.

I am happy that they went a lot further toward answering questions than Lost would have, but it still wasn't very fulfilling. And having memory chick get knocked off was kind of depressing.

My wife and I remarked that in Lost, it would have taken the Indian dude five episodes to open that damn drawer. ;)

It seems to me that the only person who can stop Silar would be the guy who can stop time, you know? Or, maybe, the power-copy guy.

Your thoughts?

Open discussion. Go.

I'm not sure this is going to make sense...

... But please bear with me, I need some advice.

When you're attempting to reach a goal, you set up steps to accomplish along the way. Each step in the process brings you closer to that goal.

So, let's say you have a seven-step process and you're currently at, say, step three. Suddenly, an opportunity to skip to step five falls in your lap. But, not accomplishing steps three and four may come back to haunt you later. But, you can still accomplish steps three and four while at step five, it will just delay things a bit in the short term.

Would you skip ahead?

Don't forget ...

To visit Faster Than The World today. My weekly Because I'm All About the Guitar is up and, as always, there is plenty of other great stuff to check out.

Let me tell ya ...

Even long weekends go by like they're nothing when you all of your time is occupied doing things you don't really want to be doing.

Let me explain.

My oldest is in a local production of Annie Jr. The play opens this coming weekend. The producer asked me if I could do the programs for the play. Not something I thought would be a big deal. However, I didn't take into consideration all the "shout outs" that would be in the program and all of the different fonts I'd be using. It took FOREVER to get this thing done.

On top of that, I had a large research paper to do.

Weekend went flying by.

Dear Everyone Who Does This Wrong:

When referring to U.S. Forces, the term "soldier" is not generic. The term soldier refers specifically to someone serving in the Army.

Here's a primer for you:
U.S. Army = soldier
U.S. Air Force = airman
U.S. Navy = sailor or seaman (snicker)
U.S. Marine Corps = Marine

According to AP Style and all-but recent convention, the only one of these nouns that is proper is "Marine." However, it has become common among the services to capitalize Soldier, Airman and Sailor also.

Generic terms for all services include: service member, military member, troop (which is always refers to more than one person, and is specifically used to define a company-sized element in U.S. Army Cavalry units).

Please listen. Current and former military folks alike laugh at you when you make the mistake.

Two points of note

#1: Happy 231st Birthday, U.S. Marine Corps! Eat cake and be merry Devil Dogs.

#2: I have the day off work. Neener, neener, neener.

A good morning

My boy will be 16 months old this month. Ever since he's been old enough for us to put him in his own crib and go to sleep on his own, I've done the same thing every time I put him down. I giev the sign for "I love you" and tell him "I love you," then I give him the "rock on" sign \m/ and say "Rock on!"

He's been mumbling for a while. He says Moma and daddy and a few other words. He's been giving a mumble "I love you" for a while. This morning, for the first time, he raised his fist and said "Rock on!"

I am so happy.

Magical healing powers

That's the bullshit we're all about to get spoon-fed. The things that have been going pretty well over the past several months, suddenly the MSM is going to start telling us about how, miraculously, the economy's healed, and such.

All hail the Dems magical healing powers!

Man, I wasn't going to post any more political shit for at least another year and a half. I mean, I was going ot wait for the next election stuff. But Rumsfeld, man. I can't ignore that. Too much, too soon. Too damn much.

Guess I need some of that magical healing kool-aid.

Time to buy a gun*

So, votes were cast and the chips have fallen. Not where I'd like to have seen them fall, but that's part of the democratic process. Sometimes your point of view is shared by the majority, sometimes not.

Oh well.

Dean's World commenter Scott Harris made a funny in a post at Dean's:

I suppose that's the difference between Republicans and Democrats. When Democrats lose, the whine, and promise to protest in the streets.

When Republicans see the country going to hell in a hand basket, they go buy a gun.

Oh well, the next two years should be interesting.

*As though we need a reason.

Help us, Kerry-wan, you're our only hope

Stickied through Nov. 7

VOTE!

The front page of our daily fishwrap features the following headline: Low poll turnout expected.

The story, written by a staff writer, never explains how or why Georgians are expected to stay away from the polls. The lead paraphrases the headline and then goes into a lengthy rundown of Georgia elections up for grabs.

This is a case of a bad copy editor. Someone too lazy to look past the story's lead to find out what the story actually says. But it's also the fault of the writer, because he did include the information in his story with no attribution for that fact.

Further proof, to me, that the feeling among the LWM is "Republicans, please stay home."

Don't.

Historic elections

On this day in 1860, one of America's greatest presidents was elected:

Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the United States over a deeply divided Democratic Party, becoming the first Republican to win the presidency. Lincoln received only 40 percent of the popular vote but handily defeated the three other candidates: Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Constitutional Union candidate John Bell, and Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas, a U.S. senator for Illinois.

Your vote counts. Please get out and vote tomorrow.

Insanely thorough music meme*

Name your top 10 most played bands (they say on iTunes, but since I don’t use it, I’m guessing):
I’m doing this at work, so my selection is a bit limited, but that’s probably a good thing.

1. Dream Theater
2. Reverend Horton Heat
3. Ramones
4. Joe Satriani
5. Pink Floyd
6. Motorhead
7. Megadeth
8. SOD
9. Liquid Tension Experiment
10. The Beatles

What was the first song you ever heard by 6?
“Ace of Spades.” Couldn’t even tell you when or where, but I’m pretty sure is was with a good friend of mine who introduced me to a lot of that music.

What is your favorite album of 2?
Lucky 7, but Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em is a very close second. There isn’t much by RHH that I don’t like.

What is your favorite lyric that 5 has sung?
Jeez. How does one pick one favorite Floyd lyric? Um, I always liked “The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older.” Then there’s “Oh, by the way, which one’s Pink?”

How many times have you seen 4 live?
Never, and I feel bad about that. Joe Satriani has long been one of my favorite guitarists. I honestly don’t know why I’ve never made the effort to see him. I will say this – I wanted to see the G3 recently and they didn’t come close enough to me for me to feasibly see a show.

What is your favorite song by 7?
Sheesh, with the hard questions and such. Hmm. "Looking Down the Cross."

What is a good memory you have involving the music of 10?
Sitting by the railroad tracks with two buddies at age 15, drunk on grape Mad Dog and singing “Happiness is a Warm Gun.”

Is there a song of 3 that makes you sad?
Joey Ramone’s version of “What a Wonderful World” is kind of poignant, but I guess that doesn’t really count. I kind of listen to the Ramones because they are the antithesis of sad, you know.

What is your favorite lyric that 2 has sung?
Heh. “When your knees start to squeeze and you open your eyes, my whammy bar shakes and … satisfies.”

How did you get into 3?
Good lord … I had a friend that was moderately into punk and I was really into metal. He would play the Ramones and I just really dug ‘em.

What was the first song you heard by 1?
“Pull Me Under,” their only big MTV hit.

What is your favorite song by 4?
Right now it’s “Just Like Lightening” off Super Colossal. Amazing song.

How many times have you seen 9 live?
Never and I’ll never have the chance.

What is a good memory you have involving 2?
Disneyworld. We took a trip to Mickey Mouse land at the beginning of this year and RHH was a good portion of our road trip music.

Is there a song of 8 that makes you sad?
“Fuck the Middle East” because we have yet to do so.

What is your favorite album of 5?
Probably Animals closely followed by Wish You Were Here.

What is your favorite lyric that 3 has sung?
“Now I’m a guy for the CIA. Hooray, for the USA.”

What is your favorite song of 1?
“Stream of Consciousness”

What is your favorite song of 10?
“While My Guitar Gently Weeps” followed closely by “In My Life.”

How many times have you seen 8 live?
Never and I’ll never have the chance.

What is your favorite album of 1?
Scenes From a Memory

What is a great memory you have considering 9?
I only got into LTE in the past couple of years, so my best memory is discovering this great music.

What was the first song you heard by 8?
“United Forces”

What is your favorite cover by 2?
“Folsom Prison,” a happy version that is odd but very good.

*I picked this up kind of randomly and the person I got it from referred to this meme this way. I have to agree.

The last time we were bombed on our own soil ...

We went in like we were there to kick ass and chew bubble gum. And we were all out of bubble gum.

This Day in History: In 1941, the Japanese Combined Fleet receives the order to bomb Pearl Harbor. 34 days later ... a day that would live in infamy.

Are our wars too politicized now? Of course they are.

Advanced voting rocks

Here in Georgia, you can vote early at a centralized voting location in your county. I went ahead and performed my civic duty yesterday afternoon.

I gotta say, it was awesome. There were already 20 people or so there, but it only took me about 45 minutes from start to finish. I'm very glad I decided to go early 'cause I couldn't imagine waiting for the lines that form on Nov. 7.

Now I've just gotta wait until Nov. 8 to see how my vote panned out.

This day in history, and today

Six days folks. Six days.

Remember what history tells us about unfair taxation:

On this day in 1766, British Parliament enacts the Stamp Act.

In the face of widespread opposition in the American colonies, Parliament enacts the Stamp Act, a taxation measure designed to raise revenue for British military operations in America.

...

Parliament would again attempt to force unpopular taxation measures on the American colonies in the late 1760s, leading to a steady deterioration in British-American relations that culminated in the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775.

This day in history.