Two Weeks

Not the thrillingest of movies, by the way. And since "thrillingest" isn't a word, apparently, I claim its invention. Huzzah for me, la la la.

pre-Friday there hasn't been a lot of excitement or difference, that I could necessarily share, so I avoided blogland. Plenty to whine/bitch/moan about work, though (being mis-trained on something and thus spilling half a vat of hot oil on the floor, emptying a toxic homeless shopping cart by hand, kicking out a sleeping homeless guy, the sudden departure of an important coworker, etc.). But that can all be summed up as: work sucks and I am so quickly burning out it's driving me crazy and I have trouble not bringing the stress home with me.

So, Friday, my friend Brian calls: "I notice you don't blog when you're kind of pissed off, and you haven't blogged in weeks. . ."

This line of text will have a link here when I upload new pictures to facebook soon and you can see them there. This line will not be edited for text when these photos are finally uploaded.

Saturday was opening day for Lash and baseball. His team is the Dodgers, which is especially amusing as that is the team that I favoured growing up--because my family were all Giants fans and I would have none of that. He's been getting some practice on the side thanks to my friend John and myself, so I hope to keep seeing him improve more and more beyond just his practices.

Much time was spent opening day helping others travel (and as they've similarly helped us more times than I've ever cared to count, it was never a problem) and sitting around waiting. John bought me an overpriced hotdog because I forgot to bring cash. Opening Day consisted of no real games, save for an exhibition where each inning consisted of each team going up to bat its entire roster twice, and only lasted one inning. Lash struck out, and then got a sacrifice hit and while in outfield, stopped a ball.

Saturday evening my darling friend Cammie came up from the Bay Area for a visit while she did some other stuff and we got to hang out that evening and a great portion of Sunday. Got a drink at the U-Bar, hung out at the parks, discussed my word, some breakfast at Sin of Cortez, more hanging out, some photos, some shopping, etc. It made my weekend.

Dead Again

Been a wee bit, first a reading update:

New family & friend photos.

50 Book Challenge #7: The Harlequin, by Laurell K. Hamilton. First off, holy shit am I reading slow this year. I need to seriously rededicate myself to my reading and unwind a little less with Guitar Hero II & III.

This was something like book #80 in the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series. I've lost count and the ambition to look up which book it actually is. Denise had to bribe me to start and finish this one, as I still have a few other books bucking to be read. She still has to finish bribing me.

That sad, this was a refreshing near-return to the more non-pornographic books at the front of the series. Even when Anita was getting her ho on, it very kindly did not take 200 of 300 pages to get it done. Words can't express how very pleased I was to have sex scenes not spread themselves redundantly across multiple chapters (seriously, one book had a chapter devoted to negotiating the specifics of a threesome, then another to talking out the discomforting ideas about it, then another to foreplay, then another to rediscussing comfort and boundaries, then another to fucking and yet another to dealing with discomforted reactions and then sanctimonious bullshit and then storming out and then another to examining relations and then getting right back to screwing. Seriously).

One of my favourite characters, Edward, returns this book. His presence almost always guarantees a healthy amount of attention will be spent on the more interesting "vampire hunter" aspects of the series. Sadly, his presence felt extremely unnecessary by book's end, as if he was merely written in so that Hamilton could acknowledge Edward fans who'd been clamoring for him since his last appearance 40 books previous. He wasn't actually necessary, or all that useful, to any parts of the plot. Meh.

Moving on.

This week was devoted to spending a lot of work days in classes learning to be a better Burgerworld manager, so that I can then go to more classes to become an even better SpiffyWorldBurger manager and get some serious promotions going--at some vaguely defined and wholly undisclosed time in the future. The amount of avoidance of any real discussion of what they have planned promotion-wise for me and one of the others really irks me, as does other bs about promoting a couple minions and then deciding to hold off on promoting them for no real reason. Blech. My McMorale is down. At any rate, regarding classes--the last day was devoted to learning better customer service. Now I am one super customer servicing motherfucker already. So this day was really redundant, even remedial at times, for me. Necessary steps forward; I just have to keep telling myself that--and keeping one ear to the wind, seeking opportunities for change. Sadly, the wind hasn't been blowing much.

Kids' report cards came. Aeia is, as per usual, the perfect little student. So much her mother in training. Lash got not-so-great marks on social skills and excellent marks in academics, was made to feel bad enough about the former that by the time I was able to see his report card, he had no pride or happiness to express about the latter. That bummed me and I spent a while working to make him feel better about his accomplishments.

This week's Netflix highlight is Gone Baby Gone. After watching this, I've come to some conclusions, some cementing of previous beliefs:
1. Casey Affleck can express better emotional depth and range of character than Ben.
2. Ben should just direct from now on.
The movie was great, far better than I ever would have expected it to be. If that's an indicator of the directorial ability Affleck has in him, I'd be happy to never see him do another Reindeer Games or Kevin Smith movie.

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.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Today has been a bit roller-coastery for me emotionally. I've been told at times, by more than one person, that I can be "such a girl sometimes" and I shudder to say I agree, I can. I'm realizing life could be a lot less complicated, but that same path would make it even a lot less happier, so sometimes complication, and a little heart break, can be a good thing as well. Well, not a good thing, but at least better than the alternative of being nothing at all. Which is me siding with the "better to love and lose" crowd. This is not a divorce paragraph.

As the content is a little sparse today, a little TMI Tuesday questionnaire:




1. Under what conditions would you kiss a stranger?

Simple mutual attraction and being in the sort of place location-wise that wouldn't be inappropriate for such activities. A new acquaintance in greeting, yes. A hot chica in the queue at work, no. Some cutie at a nightclub, yeah.

2. Who was the last person you sent a text message to? If you’ve never sent someone a text message, is there some reason?

I don't own a cell phone slash blackberry or whatever else, so I don't text message. I do chat w/ Google with Cammie and Allpeers with Brian.

3. When was the last time you deliberately surprised someone?

There was a box of chocolates in Aimee's recent past.


4. How often do walk somewhere (hopefully, other than the mailbox)?

I don't do enough walking for leisure or exercise. I actually do a lot of walking at work.

5. What were the longest and shortest durations of your romantic relationships?

With using the broadest definitions of "relationship," we can say the shortest was ten or so minutes and the longest, not counting pining that went very long unrequited then not then badly, we'll say the longest has been with Denise at more than eleven years now.

Bonus (as in optional):What is missing from your life.

Constant happiness, but that's missing from everyone's life, or they're very different than I imagine normal. Loads of money. Reciprocation of all the love I give. A brand new car (I had a sudden flash to The Price is Right there and had to share it). Reason.

loudQUIETloud

This past week has seen a lot of stress for me at work, with my every move every minute of every day under heightened scrutiny as I work my ass off to stay on track for promotion. Things are all still moving forward, but I could really, really use a break, which isn't usually how I get to celebrate my days off either. When I have Saturday off, Denise typically works a full eight hour shift and Tasmia does not like her being gone, and so she wails a lot and won't let me calm her.

Lash tried out for little league baseball this past week, his first year playing. I really hope all of the practices see him improving more and more, and that he has fun. I actually have a lot of worry that in the end he'll spend more time frustrated and upset than having fun. Sometimes he has too-high expectations of himself. His coach says we should get him baseball video games because they'll help him come to understand the rules a little better. I guess I need to try renting at Blockbuster soon, or wherever else might have a baseball game. Hmph.

Tasmia is able to roll and scoot a lot better, requiring a lot more vigilance.

I'm very, very tired and spend too much free time lately brain-deading in front of the computer on Facebook. Just not seeing a lot of motivation to read a book or something lately. I've also been on a higher-than-normal Pixies kick lately.

Recent movies seen: The Martian Child (loved it); The Amateurs (loved it); Bangkok Girl (hated it); The Valley of Elah (meh, ok); Eastern Promises (meh, ok. Cronenberg's last few movies have ended in places/manners not very interesting to me); Eagle vs Shark (decent, too easy to draw comparisons to Napolean Dynamite) and 8mm 2 (awful). If you want spoilers and elaborations on these ratings, let me know.

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday, dear Cammie,
Happy birthday to you.



And a happy birthday to Braz too! I only e-sing once per post though.

Patriot Games

From Peter David's blog:

Monopoly alert: Spread the word

While attending Toyfair, I found out that Hasbro is putting together an international version of Monopoly, and instead of street names on the board, there will be city names. The color coding remains the same: The most valuable real estate will be on blue spots, for instance (normally occupied by Broadway and Park Place), and then green, yellow and so on. There is currently a vote going on that is open to anyone in the world with a computer, and you can vote once a day for up to ten cities. The top vote getters will be on Broadway and Park Place, and the rest will be apportioned to the remainder of the real estate.

Now how, you may ask, is the United States faring in this international voting? The answer: Miserably. Of the twenty eight properties on this quintessentially American game, only two US cities are making any kind of showing, and neither is in prime real estate. New York is #8 (relegated to the much less tony yellow section of the board), while, Las Vegas is an abysmal #23. What's number one, you may ask? The most popular international city?

Istanbul.

Are you freaking kidding me?

Personally, I think this is an abysmal state of affairs. Istanbul the number one city of international Monopoly? The best thing one can say about Istanbul is that it's a catchy song covered by "They Might Be Giants." But "New York, New York" is practically an anthem.

According to the woman at Hasbro I spoke to, the website where the voting is going on--www.monopoly.com--is getting 10,000 votes a day. That's not all that much. A concerted web effort can turn this around.

Obviously I want to see New York nestled in the top spot, with more US cities occupying as many of the rest of the valuable properties as possible. Knee-jerk patriotism? Unreasonable nationalism? Well...yeah. You got a problem with that? If the residents of freaking Turkey should be allowed that indulgence, so should I.

We've only got until February 28th to get it done, so spread the word to all and sundry. Feel free to repost this anywhere and everywhere.

PAD

Hmm. . .not sure I care whether New York is the top spot, but Istanbul?

The Killers

50 Book Challenge #6:
Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay. This book has the distinction of joining an elite club, previously consisting of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, It, American Psycho and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (sacrilege, I know) where I'm of the very unhumble opinion that the film version is vastly superior to the written version.

I almost really liked this book. I have to say that the style of the prose was fantastic; perfect for putting the reader into Dexter's head and taking us on that wild ride. But that same limitation is also a bit of its shortfall, and some other stylistic decisions (the cut between the second-to-last and last chapter especially) are too much neither showing nor telling that they were problematic. I don't expect to be getting the second or subsequent novels when I have the show to enjoy more.

***

A (late) TMI Tuesday for a little filler:

1. Which one turns you on more Ink or piercing? Why?
2. What ink do you have? If none, what would you get and and where?
3. What piercing do you have? If none, what would you get and and where?
4. Any other adornments you like to do for your lover or have then do for you?
5. Of all of the above is there anything that is an immediate Turn-Off?

1. I find tattoos far more attractive visually than piercings. I think the obvious artistry and commitment that has to go into a tattoo vs a piercing play a heavy role in this. Tattoos are more to look at.

2. I have the zodiac symbols Gemini, Taurus, Virgo, Aquarius, Gemini and Scorpio on my left forearm; there is a feather quill with an ink blot and the first of my "grace" tattoos--"venia" (latin) and "charme" (french) on my left shoulder; my right shoulder has a slightly altered gryffon tattoo that the comic hero Jack Knight has on his left shoulder: the coloring is changed a little, the kanji on the inside is changed to shjin "poet" and some of the finer details are a little tweaked.

3. My ears are pierced. I would consider piercings in my eyebrow (impossible with my current job), nipple and tongue.

4. Nah. I'm pretty situational with these things.

5. I'm not a fan of septum piercings, tattoos on hands feet or faces, tattoos that were obviously done to be trendy rather than to show meaning to the wearer's viewers--you'll never find a tat of Marvin the Martian tramp stamped on my lower back.

Waitress

Watching Denise off to work last night and this morning, at those moments my only thoughts: God, I love that woman. And I do.

Valentine's Day. . .didn't do a blasted thing except send an e-mail and kiss my wife. I feel guilty that I can't be more romantic, but cash is better spent on non-romantic things. Monogamous people have it so easy--they only disappoint one person when they skip out on holidays, Hallmark holiday or no, with gifting. Of course, my favourite lesbian thinks I'm more the girl and Denise is more the boy in our emotions and so maybe I should be huffy with Denise for forgetting V-day. . . nah.

I've decided that I really like Juno after-all. I felt as if the movie dealt with its issues honestly and I haven't disliked a performance of Ellen Page's yet. I am still a little bugged by the non-Arrested Development pairing of Michael Cera and Jason Bateman, though.

If I haven't gushed about it, Once is also beautiful musically & cinematically, though Falling Slowly is not the best song from the film (still a great one). Both of these films had fantastic soundtracks.

I took the weekend off from work (really, only one extra day) and I'm a bit ambivalent about it.

50 Book Challenge #4:
Danse Macabre, another Anita Blake novel. This one threatens to be good with Anita facing pregnancy scares, an increase in focus back on supernatural politics stuff. And then Anita just sluts out a whole lot more again and the book really doesn't go anywhere.

50 Book CHallenge #5:
The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes, translated by Alfred Mac Adam. I'm surprised not to have read this book in any of my literature or translation classes in seven years at university. There are frequent times I'm reminded of Hemingway. There are also frequent, poignant moments of poetry in the storytelling.

There was going to be more but, seriously, Tasmia is screeching and I can't think.

Memento

A taste of the pictures taken from New Year's Eve to present. As always, if you want to see the entire album, mosey on over to where I keep it on facebook.

Groundhog Day

Groundhog day has come and gone and I neglected to find out if the little prognosticator decreed we would have a longer winter. I do know it's been truly effing cold and dreary and I am ready for some sunshine already. My favourite lesbian at work was talking about how she hated the movie Groundhog Day and I chimed in that it was to that movie that Denise and I began our relationship (a topic I don't actually think of much, as our getting together was also attached to a bad memory of losing a friend. . .and I haven't seen the movie since). She then made me do a spit-take by asking if we "were what, chasing the same guy?"

Work has been stressful, what with employees constantly calling in sick, various inspections past and pending, and, of course, the customers. Always the customers. I think some of our customers are the craziest lot of mouth breathers in the world, but some of them are fairly nice too, so I'll be ceasing the bitching, for the moment anyway.

If you're waiting with baited breath for news on my cancer check-up: everything was still clear, so I have another yearlong furlough until I have to go in for testing again. Denise was even nice enough to remember to tell me the good news a whole two days after they called and told her for me.

Aeia turned eight on Monday. Eight. Wow. It's hard sometimes to remember she was the baby that the doctors told us to expect to lose. And now she's eight. Fo' shizzle.

I watched Juno last night. I'm still digesting it. I think it bothered me that Jason Bateman and Michael Cera were in a movie together so soon and not playing father and son. I liked the movie, though, just not sure yet how much. I'm still thinking about it (to steal lines from Cammie stealing lines from Lash).

Ugh, there is dried grease particles in my hair. Fucking gross.

Word to your mothers.

Short Cuts

Well, I'm not dead. Crazy employee hasn't come in and shot anyone. Huzzah. I am, however, very tired, and today I got all light headed and nauseous, so I threw up at work and went home early, even though losing the hours is going to suck.

Today I also had the annual oncologist appointment. They did blood work and ordered a chest ct for me (tomorrow morning) after which I'll find out, eventually, if everything still looks good, or not. There were days the past few months that have left me worrying a little, but I think they were just periods of flu battling. At any rate, the yearly visit always amps up the stress levels a little, and I guess my stress levels showed fairly well on my face because I got a discussion with my oncologist about stress and depression and how he thinks I should consider looking into some help with that.

If only I had the time. I work during normal business hours every weekday and can't afford to miss a day of work, so must find other ways to de-stress: ample Xboxing, chatting/e-mailing friends, weekends with other friends and what little Denise & kid time I can get all help a little.

Congratulations to Cammie on scoring the writing gig she applied for!

50 Book Challenge #2 & 3:
Incubus Dreams and Micah, both by Laurell K Hamilton, both Anita Blake Vampire Hunter books (only one more to go...).

Ok, to be clear, I don't read these books for the erotic element (in and of itself, I've no problem with erotica and there is erotica I do enjoy reading for erotica's sake) and the past couple books have been seeing a steady increase in the erotic element and a steady decrease in the supernatural crime stuff. This makes the books not as fun for me. Incubus Dreams devotes more than a third, almost all of it back-to-back smack-dab in the middle of the book, to sex. So much so that it was extremely difficult remembering which other story elements were part of this novel when they popped back in at the end of the book. This was vexing. By my count, I think she added four new lovers to her bed and screwed, on page, three or four previous/current lovers. Seriously, I thought it all could have been scaled back some and more could have been done to attend to some of the other plots in the book (the subplot about the vampire politics of the vampire "Mormons" in the Church of Eternal Life was one I wanted a LOT more of and barely got any off-hand commentary in the wrap-up final chapter of the novel. Sigh.). It took a long time for me to finish this book because there was too much sex and no other plot for the majority of it all.

Micah, on the other hand, while saddled with two chapters of sex, was a lot more bearable and refreshing in how well it devoted a fair amount of time to its non-sexual story elements. Sadly, it was also short, very short (245 pages of slightly larger type and page numbers devoted to blank pages and chapter title pages every chapter) so that I read it in the span of a couple hours this morning. But I did like it, and as I didn't really dig Incubus Dreams or Cerulean Sins, I was glad to have at least this book veer back towards more of what made the series attractive to me in the first place.

I have three brand new books waiting for me (the new Stephen King, the first "Dexter" book and a recommendation via Cammie) after I finish the last in the series (so far) that we own, Danse Macabre, so I need to get to that and get it finished. So later gators.

Elephant

So we let this girl free from employment last Friday after a string of hysterics and verbal assaults against her coworkers. Today I've learned that she supposedly threatened to come back and "go all Virginia Tech on our asses."

This is the sort of girl who knowingly and happily dates a guy whose own history of violence actually includes having shot someone. Do I think she herself is emotionally disturbed enough to be the sort of person who would come into work with a gun and shoot people? Absolutely.

Can I afford to just stop going to work, unsure of how else to bring money in? Absolutely not. So, let's all of us just hope crazy chick is nowhere near as actually crazy as she's capable of being.

Girl, Interrupted

Tomorrow is mine and Denise's 11th anniversary. Wow, it really doesn't seem like eleven years sometimes. Lash is ten. . .I am old (something I'm reminded of at work often).

I took Denise down to Gearhead today so we could arrange for her to finally get her first tattoo, and they let her know they wouldn't do it until she was no longer breast-feeding. It never even crossed my mind that there would be risk of the ink contaminating her milk via her bloodstream. I'm glad they were responsible enough to care about that sort of thing rather than ignore it in the name of the all-mighty dollar, even if it does mean they have months more to wait for her cash and I now have less than a day to think of something else to get her.

Things for me to sleep on.

Same Time Next Year

I stole this meme from a friend in 2005 as a wrap-recap of that year and am resurrecting it for a wrap-up recap of 2007.

Take the first sentence from the first entry of each month for the year and post it again.

January:
"October: messy bedrooms. . ."

February:
"For some reason (the day is DULL), I'm watching Tyra Banks."

March:
"Not much to say right now."

April:
"Allright, so folks may be waiting and wondering how things went at the preliminary trial. "

May:
"At the moment I'm riding on a neighbour's wireless connection because something's wrong with mine and I can't figure it out... as this isn't secure, I won't be on for too long."

June:
"Last night I dreamt that I'm going to have to drop out of school."

July:
"Ah summer. . ."

August:
"I've been going to watch Bandito's band, Fingers of Passion what, three or so years now?"

September:
"Well, the past couple weeks have seen a lot of at home stress and marital spatting, so I haven't been as keen on blogging or writing actual e-mails (so easy to veg it all away on facebook), maybe something interesting to blog about soon (well, I did reconnect with a very long-lost old friend in this time and I should blog a bit about that, and there are baby vat updates)."

October:
"So, this is a meme."

November:
The first post of November 2007 was entirely photographic, lacking in text whatsoever.

December:
"Starting off, a trailer for blog posts to come: an update on CB the cell phone kid, adventures in guinea pigs, McBoomerangs suck, absolutes, shiny photographs, killing Santa and throwing up at the movies."

Smiley Face

New visitors to my ramblings, new friends, dear people have unknowingly spurred me in to re-reading my archives. The past couple days have had me rolling around in the late summer of 2005 posts: new baby, cancer, surgery and recovery, the end of fostering. . .re-reading reader comments from during this time took longer than re-reading my own posts and it brought me much joy to immerse again in so many words of love and support from family, friends, loves, lurkers I hope still read. . .I just wanted to say that you've made me smile yet again. Thank you, and I love you.

Hollywoodland

1) Total number of films I own on DVD/video:
I own +/-1200 DVD titles--some are television series rather than films. I did not account for multi-disc sets either (i.e. Buffy seasons 1-7 counted as seven rather than 39).

2) The last film I bought: Spider-man 3. (for Lash) Season two of Coupling (for me).

3) The last film I watched:
At the theatre, the Mist
On tv, Night of the Comet
Rented, Once

4) Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me:

*Whatever children's movie is on heavy rotation during the given month (this month it's Scooby Doo)
*Life as a House (means a lot to me)
*Stardust (watched a lot)
*Saved! (watched a lot)
*The Big Lebowski (watched a lot)
I imagine a world where, now that I've seen it, I'll be watching Once fairly often.


5) Tag 5 people and have them put this in their journal--the ladies in my life, on some level, who all happen to journalize:
Adj, Aimee, Cammie, Chrissy and Shel.

A Life Less Ordinary

I absolutely love that movie, by the way.

Things have been a bit, ah, difficult at work this week. During three of my last four shifts, there have been money shortages from employee tills. I'm one of five employees that were present during all shifts in question, which makes me technically a suspect (which, please, is ludicrous) though, thankfully, no one in charge thinks it's me. We're all fairly certain of who the culprit is, but lacking the proof have to instead enact a bunch of new safety measures that have had the additional benefit of making the work day more complicated and inconvenient while also making everyone grow more paranoid and distrusting of each other. If only I could just castrate the culprit. . .

Yesterday I was able to be home from work long enough to eat a fast dinner and drop a word down in some Scrabulous before Denise informed she needed me to take her to the doctor. She was having massive gut pains and needed to be seen. Hours later she's x-rayed and they see some things that "are likely nothing serious at all" but, if they are serious "could be life threatening and must be attended to immediately" and so we were kicked out of the urgent care place and told to go to the emergency room, where we were told they'd have called ahead and they'd be waiting for us. The emergency room then made us wait an additional two hours before actually seeing Denise and deciding to test for anything.

The end result is that Denise was just full of shit.

However, the nice long wait and worry for this news had me up 'til about five this morning, and I had to be up by nine in order to make it to work by ten. So Evan is a very very tired boy.

* * * * *

I failed in the 50 Book Challenge for 2007. Book 1 for 2008:

Cerulean Sins by Laurell K. Hamilton. Pretty much more of the same. This time without the poor copy editing work of previous installments. And Anita Blake gets a bit more trampy, if that were possible. Still, including the book I'm on now, only three to go before I've finally finished 'em all.

Daywatch

So somewhere during the six AM hour on Friday morning we lost power. By we I mean 98% of Chico. Unaware of how bad the outtage was, I got up & prepped for work in the dark and discovered that the cruddy Burger World I was on loan to that day happened to fall into that 2% of Chico that still had power. Imagine being trapped in a double-sized elevator for nine hours with six other people and thousands of people queing up to enter. Now imagine you have claustrophobia and the other six people are either brainless mouth-breathers of hundred-mile-per-hour bitches and that was my day. I have to go back to that awful place again on Friday. The first experience made me homicidal.

At any rate, the power situation still blew come clock-out time. More than 500 miles of power lines were downed, 500 power poles (I found it an odd number to pop up twice); more than 30,000 people in town lost power (as I type this, some 17,000 still have no power and I feel thankful I'm not one of them).

Yesterday was an interesting day of driving around and looking at all the carnage. So many of our beautiful trees fell. A playground dead. Street signs on walkabout. Returning home to huddle together for shared warmth and watch the daylight as it receded into candlelight and an entire city gone black.

Blessed gas-powered water heater: one candle-lit mango bubble bath alone with my thoughts and the steam. Reading erotic horror and making love to Denise by candlelight. Making the best of our forced vacation in Lud.

One AM today, awakened by the sudden arrival of our bedroom light. Blessed power. Kiss Denise's laptop hello. I missed you friend, electricity. Camping is a lot more enjoyable when you plan for it.

Return of the Jedi

There are, naturally, many bright sides to any amount of drear in my day or week.

I have a beautiful wife, beautiful children, beautiful friends, all of whom I try my best to enjoy daily (even the one lying beside me this instant wailing for her mother's comforting embrace--Tasmia doesn't quite like me yet), and enjoy them I do.

I've had "Message in a Bottle" stuck in my head since Saturday night and I'm still quite happy to have it there. I'm beginning to annoy people with my constant singing of it at work. Silly people.

Netflix graced my mailbox with three of my favourite movies today: Shoot 'Em Up, Romeo is Bleeding and Millions. Seriously, snob that I am, if you've seen this and don't love them, I think there's something wrong with you. Herein we have the absolutely best mindlessly violent funny movie of 2007 with the best mindlessly violent funny movie of 1993 broken up by the absolutely brilliant PG family movie by the guy who brought us Trainspotting and 28 Days Later and of them all, this is the one that is the mostfucking brilliant. That's right, mostfucking.

Guitar Hero II.

An actual full weekend off to do with as I please.

And, of course, there's you, always reliable to make my day.