Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday, to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday, Chris,
Happy Birthday to you.

The Post Man

I'm feeling pretty bored/boring lately, sorry. I know it's been a while. My inner narcissist wants to whine that almost no one has mentioned any lack of writing. . .but my inner narcissist is a douche bag.

My last post was written while I was on my vacation. Pretty much every day and night of vacation went very well for me, very pleasant, mostly enjoyable, spending a lot of time with the kids, Denise and Chris, playing Rock Band, taking naps, visiting Chrissy, having sleepovers, etc. Good times.

I both saw and read Wanted for the first time in the past two weeks. Dare I say I prefer the movie? The comic just read as more of the same anti-hero, celebrate the villain deconstructionist bullshit we've already had too much of in comics since Watchmen and Dark Knight came out in the 1980s. The movie, while a far cry from being awesome, had more redeemable qualities and characters.

Speaking of Watchmen, I'm supposed to get out and see it this Friday with Chris for his birthday. Right now I still don't know if my work schedule is going to permit this. We're hoping. Right now there are other considerations weighing on me as well. We'll see. I wonder how many people are going to ignore the fact this movie is R rated and take their kids to see it because it's a "superhero" movie and then wail about the damage Billy Crudup's giant blue penis did to their kids' psyches in public. My warning to you: parents don't take your kids to see Watchmen.

Work frustrates me so much I'm constantly on the verge of walking off the job. The only thing that stops me is my responsibilities to my family and the continuing lack of other prospects in the area.

I've lost a few pounds, but I don't know where--as I don't look a single bit leaner.

What else. . .

You've Got Mail

My next door neighbour just delivered mail of mine that was delivered to her on accident. Except the mail is 3-4 weeks old (as what she brought me was a cable bill that's now 3 weeks past due) and it's been opened. This particular neighbour has never given any sort of problem before, but I think this is going to have to end up being a call the cops sort of infarction.

The kids are on vacation for a week again, starting today, and have way too much pent-up energy. Personally, I wish this vacation were a week earlier or later. I'm taking four of my five vacation days this week and was looking forward to some peace and quiet interspersed between being available to help some friends out if they need us.

Microsoft decided it would be cheaper for them to send me a new Xbox 360 rather than repair my broken one, and included a one month extension of my Live Gold account. I'm ok with this. The only downside, I had to re-download the 14 or so gigabytes of downloadable content I had in order to assign the license for them to the new console. Everything else is upside.

The past week saw Chris & Chrissy's 15th wedding anniversary and Aeia's 9th birthday. Happy Anniversary to the Taylors and Happy Birthday to my daughter!

Across the Universe

I hadn't realized how much more "down" seemed to shadow my last two posts until reading Shel's comments. Yes, very much, there have been down moments lately, and someone close to me but displaced who has been finding me downer than usual. That all said, however, while often tired and whatnot, I am a good deal more happy than not. And I thank you, Shel, for also reminding me that there are others who share care with me.

Pressing on.

Just finished watching the eponymous movie of this post. I'm a big lover of modern musicals; I have a soft and tender spot for them. As much as I loved Moulin Rouge, I think the conceit of using contemporary music (ALL Beatles in this one) to help narrate the story really helped to make the movie more moving, rather than just more pretty. Not a perfect movie by far (while arty, post-modern, etc.) it was still a little too Hollywood happy ending, but it left me happy, which isn't the typical for me with the typical Hollywood ending.

Pressing on.

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday, dear Chris,
Happy birthday to you.

And a slightly early happy birthday to Joey, Misty, Carly and Robert too.

Danny Boy

So yule has come and gone. The kids had a fantastic holiday, and we dealt with the Santa issue and Lash after-all, inducting him into the Santa Corps with all of the other adults and older siblings who are members. Ironically, despite my worries, he already knew, claiming to have figured it out approximately a week before we broke the news to him. Hmph.

Last night Chris, Brian and I stayed up 'til about 6:30 am this morning playing Guitar Hero II (thanks, grandma); I had to play on a harder difficulty level against them. Much fun was had last night/morning and I'm glad to have gotten the guy-time with Chris before he ships off for eight months again next week.

I called in sick to work Saturday, but started feeling a lot better by about noon. I think I'd been more exhausted than anything and it was keeping me from kicking my cold. Now my head's all mostly clear. Huzzah. I have to work New Year's Eve, which is no huge deal (I'm off early) but also have to work in the morning New Year's Day which is a bit more aggravating, as it means I won't be enjoying the Eve as much as I'm potentially able--me not being the sort of person to go to work with a hang-over or still tipsy, not even Burger Land. We'll see what we'll see, eh?

Funkytown

Apparently, I'm not allowed to share my problems here.

In Love With the '80s

Spoilers of 28 Weeks Later below.

Yesterday I finally got around to watching 28 Weeks Later (far too long since its premiere). Like it? Yes. Love it? Not so much. I really dug on how the severity of action was kicked up a notch from the last one. It has the best helicopter vs zombies scene in film to date. Up until the final reel it had a good amount of the social commentary I expect from good zombie movies: there were allegories for the fall of man in an "every man for himself" mentality (and the requisite examples of the importance of caring for others), overdone examples of the American way of handling problems by squashing them. And therein lies my first dislike: just how absolutely retarded did the writers have to make the US military in order to pull off the sequence of events in their plot? What idiot lets a civilian in alone with an infected? Why wasn't there automated containment? Although, I think my first uneasy feeling came about when I realized that the soldiers highlighted were pretty much the soldiers that would include Chris in their ranks: the medical squads. I actually had a momentary worry that Chris was going to end up getting attacked by zombies. Social commentary disappears in the final reel though, where the movie veers directly into the territory that Adj hates about zombie movies--it becomes entirely nihilistic as the plague of zombie infection is now spreading beyond England. The score for this film (which is the same as that of its predecessor) is one of my favorites as well. I really dig on that music.

Dig dug.

Remember when we were kids and most of the cool video games were two-player jobs? You'd have your pals over after school and team up to take down aliens in Contra or take turns trying to save Princess Peach? Lately I've been finding myself more and more displeased with the state of the multi-player video game industry. Nowadays it seems that all of the best games are single player (by best I mean most popular or best produced) or multi-player online only; the interaction with your pals aspect of gaming is dying as any human connection is weeded out in favor of ethereal connections with strangers on the internets. Yesterday this hit me hardest when Brian was over and we wanted to Xbox 360 and all we had available for two-player action was Tetris (which was still great, but not for hours of fun). Sure, the occasional rare GOOD multi-player game does still come out now and again--about one per fifty single player jobs and it's disheartening. Why even have 4-player capability built into the machine if most of the games won't even accommodate two?

Pride (In the Name of Love)

Today I was doing a little ruminating on the seven deadlies, particularly pride, on my way from the van to the taco shack before class (which I am still being: before class). Maybe it's just because I'm just not a good enough Christian (heh), but I just don't see the problem with having a bit of pride in your life (everything in moderation, mind you, see later).

I'm proud of the fact that, through both hard times (of which we're having now) and easy times Denise and I have persevered these past ten years despite all predictions to the contrary and despite absolutely no support from her family and almost none from mine.

I'm proud of how intelligent and articulate my children are, and I'm so proud of Lash for his bravery in facing Bryan in court and doing his best to make sure justice is handed down his way.

I'm proud of Chris because, while I am so vehemently anti-military and anti-war, I can see the impact Chris' enlistment has had on his life and the positive personal changes it's brought his way and will bring his way in the future.

And so on.

I don't get what's wrong with that. And anyone who actually would tell me that it's wrong to feel proud of these things can stick a thick splintery broom up whichever orifice would be least comfortable (and that, my friends, is wrath, coming your way later).

I get the idea of how it's wrong to be prideful over such trite things as materialism or how very awesome I am. But I don't think pride and humility are necessarily mutually exclusive.

While I've got your attention, I don't have a lot of problems, so long as laws aren't broken and people aren't harmed, with lust, envy or wrath either. Avarice (though I love the word), Sloth and Gluttony are pretty lame, sure. So I'll give you yur three deadlies.

Without lust there wouldn't be people. Without envy, most of us would be so unmotivated as to be slothful and without wrath we'd care a lot less about the wrong things people and governments do against us. So I'll keep 'em too.

Now, what are you proud of?

And a moment of avarice. . .I so want this shirt:

Blah-ditty-blah-blah

For some reason (the day is DULL), I'm watching Tyra Banks. It caught my attention as I surfed--she was telling the media off for the way they make women feel about their body image; told them to kiss her fat ass. So I stopped. . .and then dealt with her self lovefest over her recent photoshoot, pointing out how imperfect she is. . .though she, to her credit, did spend the rest of the time defending heavier as healthier than too-thin. Bleh. It was a bit vapid; not my thing.

My vapidity: I'm hating on my profile photo, but have no good self-pics (no one uses my camera but me, so few shots of me...). I'd love to replace it with a photo headshot of me any of you might have, or even an artistic rendering. Help me out. E-mail me a new profile pic and we'll get a new me on.

Yesterday we had to write a ten minute Cento in my poetry class (I'll be evil and make you look up a definition of the form). It was more fun than I expected.



This Is The End Of Them

(a Cento)
by D. Evan Peterson



The sea was a botch of red and whites,

the heavy surf still breaking violently,

spouting out blood and water as it rolls

where mariners had fabled news of its corruption,

stretching beyond us to the blue beard of God.




With you, my cousin, guns cradled on the tide,

this is the end of bilge and backwash,

hurdling muscles heavy with sand,

of the red flag hammered in the mast-head.

Cry out in the long night: "If God Himself had been by our side."




This is the end of running to these Atlantic shoals

the entangled, screeching mainsheet,

sailors who pitch its hell-bent deity

if God Himself had been on our side.




So, it's a first draft, and Denise doesn't get it.

Supporting the Troops

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