Back then

Reading my archives, I always find that I was funnier/wrote better/more coherently/more interesting in the past. The thing is, at the time, I always think, "This sucks. Nobody wants to read this."

But, seriously, go check out, say, January of 2005. There's some good stuff there.

Which makes me wonder if, in 2009, I'll look back at this and be all, "Man, I was great back in '07. What happened?"

... that is probably the most depressing thought I've had all day.

Damn kids. Get off my lawn.

Since it's the end of October, and 6 o'clock at night, and still 74 degrees outside, there are a bunch of children in the parking lot next to our house playing ball. Which, fine, if I were young and energetic, I'd totally be doing the same thing. But they keep bouncing the ball near our fence, and eventually it's going to go into our yard, and that's only going to end in tears.

I guess my point is that they should go find somewhere else to play. Or, you know, go inside and spend time staring at a computer screen. Like normal people.

What? Huh?

Update? Blog? Yeah. I guess I do remember how.

How much does this look like a blog entry?

Yeah, I don't really have anything to say, but blogger was up, and so here I am.

Here's a ...kinda pointless site: "Mutating pictures"

Although the gamesforthebrain site is pretty fun.

And lastly, even though I've read all the posts regarding the latest episode of Chuck at TWOP, I'm not seeing anyone state my theory -(tagged just in case you want to remain spoiled)

Morgan is totally a spy.
"Proof" -
1) The gov't agent's line, "At least [the info] wasn't sent to his friend."
2) Morgan's line to Chuck's sister - "Chuck tells me all his secrets."
3) Morgan's look when Casey showed up to dinner. (Yes, he's scared of Casey [rightfully so!] but there was more to it, I supsect.)
4) It's how I'd write the show.

So, if I'm wrong, tell me why. Otherwise, in about five months when this is revealed to be the case (just in time for sweeps!) just remember who told ya first. :)

8 = 10

Ha! Take that, logic!

A few random things:

I've given myself a self-imposed deadline regarding the Project. I'm torn on whether I should talk about it, though. (Um, the deadline. I'm *not* talking about the Project [in detail] on my blog until it is complete.) I think I know myself well enough to know that I probably shouldn't. But overall, the feeling of the Project is a good one. I suspect that I might actually finish this. Shocker!

Monday nights are pwned by NBC now. Chuck, Heroes, and Quantum Leap 2.0 are the lineup of the night. Although the good thing about these particular shows is that they are all being fed on nbc.com as well, so, if ever there comes a time when I don't have 180 minutes to kill, I can still be up-to-date on my 'stories'.

Watched Bug yeseterday-into-today. Meh.

I know that I am amazed every year when October rolls around at how fast the time has gone by, and this year is no different. 2007 is almost over with! "Aught Eight" is just around the corner. Before we know it, it will be the teens. Scoopy.

Scoopy

adj. - "Sorta cool, sorta creepy".

See: John Locke from season 1 of Lost, Hush (season 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer), advertiser tracking [like when you go on Amazon.com and they totally know what type of things you want based on previous clicks], Mad Eye Moody, and the universe in general.

The word was coined on Saturday during our camping trip by yours truly. When we went on a walk and I looked up and saw the clouds moving at a much faster pace than normal, I commmented that it was "Scoopy."

During the same walk I noticed a rock on the ground that resemebled a brain. I dubbed it, "Brain Rock: The smartest rock in the wilderness.", much to my own amusement.

I think the fresh air was making my brain (rock) go into hyperdrive, because while on the trip I managed to get a lot of work done on The Project. Yay!
And the creative kick has stuck around for a bit, because I did a little more work on it at work yesterday.

Sadly, today I did not get a chance to even look over the previous days notes because work was too busy. Hopefully my muse will stick around and I can continue tomorrow. For now, though, I need to run (drive) to the grocery store to buy materials for dinner. Good thing, too. I'm starving.

Puzzling.

Over the past two weeks or so, I've managed to watch all 3 Saw movies.


And...I kinda liked them.

I still won't see the new one(s) in the theater, and it's not like I'm going to go out and buy the box set on DVD, but they weren't horrible, either. (Okay, #3 was by far the most visually disgusting, but I've seen far worse movies at work. Speaking of, I actually have to watch Armageddon. For content.)

I'm also a little less than half-way through Dean Koontz's latest, The Good Guy.


I believe the lesson to be learned from this post is that I seem to attract less than stellar entertainment into my life... and that I'm kinda okay with it. "Why have steak when you can have hamburger?"

[Pro]

-fessional.

I know appearances are highly important, but I truly don't get why I need to 'dress up' for work. I rarely, if ever, interact with the public (at least in person. I still have to field irritating phone calls, emails, and letters), and wearing jeans and a t-shirt won't make me perform my duties any differently than if I'm wearing casual business attire. (Except that I would feel much more comfortable in jeans)

-test.
I'm sure by now, everyone has heard about the student who was tasered at the John Kerry rally at the University of Florida. In case you've not seen it yet -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bVa6jn4rpE

When I originally saw the footage, it made me physically ill. Yes, the student was being a dill-weed (he spoke longer than is shown in the link above, apparently). However, the cops most certainly did not have the right to taser him. Well, okay, I guess they did have the right. That's the problem.

Eh. More intelligent minds have undoubtedly analyzed this better, so I'll summarize with what has been said several different places that I've seen: Tasers are meant to be used as an alternative to using a gun. Does this mean that had the police present not had tasers, that they would have shot the student?

-tagonist
Everyone should be reading Y: The Last Man. Yorrick, 355, Dr. Mann, Ampersand... even Hero. All of them are just amazingly fun characters.
There's supposed to be a movie, with Shia LaBeouf being the top runner for the role of Yorrick. I suppose he could do all right. But Hollywood has mixed results in comic-book to movie adaptations, so I'm nervous about them screwing it up.

-jects
So many ideas for creative endeavors, and not just writing. But that brings me to...

-crastin@ion.

[sigh]

Just.... [sigh].

[SIGH]

Periodically, and with increasing frequency, I find that I get this annoying anxiety-attack type of feeling when I'm not working on one of the aforementioned projects. (And because of my laziness/fear of not succeeding/whatever, I'm never really working on them.) These anxiety-attack type of feelings are a feeling of extreme restlessness and all around unease in my skin. Like I should be doing something.
I probably should be.

Got to get a j-o-b...

So, there's this career-test-meme thing going around. I like bandwagons!!

Rules:
1. Go to Career Cruising, www.careercruising.com
2. Put in Username: nycareers and Password: landmark.
3. Take their "Career Matchmaker" questions.
4. Post the top twenty results.


1. Website Designer
2. Cartoonist / Comic Illustrator
3. Writer
4. Data Entry Clerk
5. Graphic Designer
6. Film Editor
7. Artist
8. Researcher
9. Special Effects Technician
10. Technical Writer
11. Cartographer
12. Animator
13. Political Aide
14. Director of Photography
15. Makeup Artist
16. Illustrator
17. Musician
18. Biologist
19. Camera Operator
20. Film Processor


Political Aide?? Really??

Funky.

Anyone care to explain how (or why), exactly, a brick house is supposed to be analogous to a woman with an hourglass figure?

Yes, I'm being vague. Humor me.

Question the 1st --- 5 or 6? (Or 10? 10 might not be really feasible, but it is possible, so I'm still throwing it out as an option. But, mostly, 5 or 6?)

2) Name several large vehicles. SUVs or RVs or Limos or Buses. Those types of things.

3) What are some cliches/stereotypes/must-happens for post-apocalyptic survivor scenarios and/or horror movies? (In particular, zombie/werewolf/vampire/alien invasion stories. Like how there's always* a pregnant woman in the group. And the baby always provides a symbol of hope. ...Or sometimes a symbol of how f-ed the survivors are.)

I...think that's all I need hive-mind assistance with right now.


In other news... Steph covered most of it. Boogie is extremely fun, and we haven't even played it two player-style yet! Tomorrow I'm going to go spend an inordinate amount of money repairing the van. The brakes have been squealing for about 2 months now. I took it down to be fixed about 3 weeks ago, and they gave me an estimate of 691 dollars, saying that the drums needed replaced. I said, "Well, okay. That's a nice opinion." and haven't checked anyone else sense.
But, seriously. The van is an '03, and has less than 44,000 miles on it. There is NO WAY that the drums need replacing. Besides, drums thump, they don't squeal [/lame].
But, we'll see what happens tomorrow. The brakes are only one of the things that is wrong with that ...machine. Hopefully I can find someone who will repair them all (or most of them) and for a fair price.



*not always

Vampires and werewolves and zombies, oh my!

Lots of things on my mind, hopefully I get to them all, undoubtedly it won't be in any logical, coherent order.

So, obviously I've given up on the whole 'blog everyday in September' thing. Along with the keeping track of what I had been watching on TV. As with so many other things in my life, it can be summed up with the following 4 words: Nice idea, horrible execution. Truly, if I were a better writer, blogging about what I watch on telelvision could be riveting stuff. Or at least, more entertaining than...television. [side note... no, never mind. I've got too much to cover to get distracted this early on. Besides, if posts are too long, they cause people to not leave as many comments as they would if the post were shorter. maybe.]

That being said, I watched a movie at work today that warrants being talked about! It was "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1978 version). I had somehow managed to go 32 years of my life [okay, 29, since it hasn't been out for 32 years] without having seen this. And even though I knew the ending (again, just how long is the shelf-life on spoilers?) but the movie itself (and the ending) was still really quite good. You know, in that 70s cheesey type of way. Also - does Jeff Goldblum always play the same character in every movie or what??

But. This brings me to the main point of this blog post:

Monsters.

Obviously (unless it's not, but we'll get there) the top 3 monsters are:
1. Vampires
2. Werewolves
3. Zombies

Now, I'm not really comfortable putting them in that particular order. I picked alphabetical order, really. Because, really, you could call it a three way tie with that trio. There are many times when the idea of freakin' living dead hordes totally trumps the idea of immortal bloodsuckers. And of course, we all know about my obsession a few months back with werewolves.

My question is - what is #4?
Possible contenders:
Robots. - Namely, Terminators. Killer robots that are from the future that have the ability to blend in with normal humans, but will totally kill you if you interfere with the mission.

Pod people body snatchers. - Yeah, this is due to seeing the movie today, but the fact that a version of this story is made about once a decade or so proves that the alien invaders who steal our bodies is a powerful monster meme.

Frankenstein's Monster. - I think the Monster has fallen out of popular favor lately, and that's mostly due to a) that he's just one guy and b) he's pretty much just a reanimated corpse, which is more or less just a zombie.

Ghosts - Sure, they're popular, but really, are ghosts frightening enough to be labeled as monsters? I tend to think that ghosts fall more into the angsty category myself. They just need to get some therapy and move on.

CHUDs - That's really just a catchall for mutated humans that live underground. Plus, are they well-known enough to make it to the coveted #4 position??

Republicans - Dude.


So, my question(s) to anyone that wants to comment, and feel free to interpret them however you see fit:
What are the top four monsters? Do my top three even fit into your list? And if so (or not) what order?

all work...yada yada... dull boy

Another day of being way too tired to blog anything of interest. Sorry. I suspect after Sunday that will change. Well, I mean, I'll probably still be tired, but there will be much more to report on. (We're going to go camping for in the RV for the first time over the next two days...)

So, yeah. Busy day at work. Didn't do a lot of TV watching - an hour at home (The Simpsons & an episode of Mork & Mindy [dude. That show... really really unfunny. I loved it as a kid, but, then, I would've been about 5 or 6 and probably didn't care that I didn't understand the jokes.]Anyway, I have been thinking for a while that a movie-ized version of Mork & Mindy might be half-way decent {or, more accurately, half-way inevitable} but I think what would be better would be a re-imagining of it.
You know, like they did with Battlestar Galacta and Bionic Woman? They should remake Mork & Mindy, but make it all dark and sinister instead. If done correctly, I'd totally watch that.)
And at work I watched the news for 30 minutes, Dr Phil for 20, and about five or so of just random catching stuff on the screen.
Grand total, including the ten minutes of news I watched when I got home that I had forgotten about at first, comes to... oh, let's say 2 hours and fifteen minutes.
Month to date total is now 11 hours. Whee!

Almost didn't blog.

So. Very Tired.
Watched an episode of The Shield ("A Thousand Deaths" - which had a laugh out loud moment when Corrine told Vic that she has been dating Dutch), the usual Dr Phil stuff, all of who wants to be a millionaire, about ten -fifteen minutes of last night's MyNetwork lineup (special episodes of the new game show "Temptation", folllowed by that "Revealing How Magic Tricks Are Done" special from a few years back) and then about two minutes (if that) of the Kabalah DVD when I got home.
For a grand total of 1 hour and 47 minutes (approximately) of tv viewing time today.
TOtal for the month so far 8 hrs 45 minutes

So glad tomorrow is friday. and that it's bedtime now.

Let's give it up, ya'll.

Bill Bellamy might just get paid per "let's give it up" or "ya'll" or "one more time".

TV tabulation time!

15 min for Dr phil & commercials (Head On! Apply directly to the forehead!)
+
20 min of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (Tennessee was the last state to secede from the union, and the first to rejoin. Or vice versa, I forget. "Sorry, Tennessee!")
+
10 minutes of The F-in' News (More Chinese toys being recalled. Apparently lead paint shouldn't be eaten. Who knew?)
+
10 minutes of an episode of Family Feud (100 men were asked, "of a women's day-to-day activities, what are you most relieved you don't have to do?" Surprisingly, "tolerate men" didn't make the survey.)
+
50 minutes of 2 Simpsons episodes ("Selma's Choice" & "Brother From the Same Planet")
+
15 minutes of TV's Most Outrageous Moments (OUTRAAAAAGEOUS!!!!!)
+
45 minutes of Last Comic Standing (Gerry Dee is totally going to win. As he should. Canadians are just instinctively funnier people than anyone else. If there are any Canadian P@riots still reading my blog [Lucas? Vicki? Iago?] they know what I'm talking aboot. Let's give it up for our Canadian friends, ya'll!!)
=
2 hrs 45 minutes for the day
month to date total = 6 hrs 58 minutes

Control issues

I was also considering titling this entry, "Anger management".

It's time for another installment of Church Sign Wisdom!

WHEN HURT BY ANOTHER
YOU MUST FORGIVE
TO RECOVER

Hmm. I don't know if you *must* forgive. I mean, sometimes a good kick in the nads helps, too.

"Oh look, the Americans are resorting to violence to solve their problems."


And on the other side...

THE PEOPLE WHO
ANGER YOU
CONTROL YOU

Perhaps.
But what if you find the people who anger the people who anger you, and you make THEM angry?
And that, in a nutshell, points out the truth to what I've said for years - control is simply an illusion. It's a very attractive illusion that many people exert a lot of energy trying to capture, but an illusion nonetheless.

Discuss?

never underestimate the power of coincidence

1st things 1st - i have a sleeping baby in my arms, and i'm utP@, do typing is not easy, and typos will most likely occur.

surprisingly little tv viewing today, again. only 45 minutes )more or less) done at work, and only the 30 minutes to watch Maarge vs the Monorail at home.
work tv was 15 minutes of Dr. phil A& his commercials (a daily thing. mayve i'll explain it in detaul tomorrow when i'm not so tired), 15 minutes of a Lifetyme Television Movie that was on during lunch (Tori Spelling got stabbed by some other actress that loooked fam,iliar, but i can't id her. I think the mnovie may have beeen called "Death of a Cheerleader", snd if not, it should be.), and 15 minutes of here and there catching glimpses on the monitors in the control room or on Art's tv in his office.

ANyway, total for the day, approximately 1hr 15minutes.
total 4 the month so far - approx 4 hrs 13 minutes

The other big thing of the day- As I was leaving work, I backed into a parked car.
I considered, briefly, simply leaving and not doing anything, after I got out of the van and saw that the damage to both vehicles was extremely minimal (a small amount of paint had come off the car i hit). Instead, i parked the van, and went into the builddng where the car (a shiny silver newish looking Ford Magnum, in case it matters) was pareked.
The business, by the way, is a Kabbalah center of something or other. They, like, selll Kabbalah-related merchancidse or something.
Anyway, I went inside, and there was a young blonde woman on the phone behind the counter. After five minutes or so of waiting (not really an exaggeration, but maytbe?) for her to get off the phonbe and talk to me, i ask her if that car out front is hjers. "Yeah. Kinda?" she responds. (She's driving i t, but it's actually her teachers car, she tells me)
I told her that i backed into her car, and does she want to see the damsage, yada yada.
We go outside, and she looks at it, and i get the insurance info, and she makes a copy of it, and then as she's handing it back to me, she says, "since there's no such thing as coincidence, here's a free kaballah dvd, so you can know what we're all about."
???? The hell?
I simply said, "ok, thanks".
i gave her my contact numbers (cell phone and home phone) so she could give them to the car's ownder, and ...well, that was,m like, 6 hours ago. In a perfect wrold, the guy would just say, "Oh well, no big deal," and not even bothher calling the insurance comapny. Maybe he still will. I know if the situation were ferversed, that's what i'd do. [shrug]

in other news, there's some new church sign wisdom to share, but i'll do that tomorrow.

And lastly, we went rv-material-shopping today. our maiden voyage in it will be this saturday. Let's hope i don't back into anything.

It's not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in 8 hours of TV a day.

Mr. Plow and Lisa's First Word were on today. We watched them both, adding up to an hour of television for the day.
I suspect that when the fall season starts in a few weeks, our tv viewing will increase exponentially.

Nothing really to remark on the episodes, except that Mr. Plow isn't all that amusing anymore. I've actually seen it so many times that I didn't laugh. Except during Homer's rap. "I got a big plow, and I can move a lot of things. Like a cow, if you had one..." Heh.

Lisa's First Word, on the other hand, was much funnier overall. Even though I've seen that episode probably as many times as Mr. Plow, it just had more laughs to it.

Lisa - "Remember, 'It is better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.'"
Homer's brain - "What does that mean? Better say something or they'll think you're stupid."
Homer - "Takes one to know one!"
Homer's brain - "Swish!!"

Krusty - "You people are pigs! I'm going to personally spit in every 50th burger."
Homer - "I like those odds."

And of course this episode brought us, "Can't sleep. Clown'll eat me."
A true classic.

If KTUD continues in order, that means tomorrow night will be my all time favorite (well, one of them, anyway) - Marge vs the Monorail. ...and I just checked, and yes, they are airing that episode tommorow night at 7:30pm. Sweet.

Total tv viewing for today - approx. 1 hour
Total tv viewing for the month - approx. 2 hrs. 58 minutes.

I'm having a mild-to-severe case of "why do I even bother blogging"-itis right now. To be honest, I've been in a sour mood since 5 or so, and I'm not sure why, exactly.

Anyway. Not a lot of tv viewing today, either. I turned on the television around 8:45, and Irina and I watched the last fifteen minutes of an episode of Maya and Miguel on PBS. After that ended, an episode of Nature came on (it was from 2004, "Chasing Big Cats" with the narrator being Michael Gross - whom Steph knows!!)
I always find these nature documentaries pretty interesting, but, since it was so early in the morning, and I had woken up around 5am, I actually fell asleep about 15 minutes in. (Doh!)
I woke up for the final ten minutes or so, in time to see a lioness go on a suicide run against some water buffalo and get gored in the neck. Ouch! [apparently, her tribe had recently died except for her and one other lioness. I missed the backstory on how that took place, though. So they were pretty desperate for food, and she attempted to attack the water buffalo alone. My interpretation, though, was that she knew she'd get killed doing it, and that she wanted to be reunited with her family.]

After that episode of Nature ended, we turned off the tv. I turned it back on later, to play some Metroid, but we haven't watched anything else all day.
Later in the afternoon, we drove down to an indoor mini-golf place called King Putt. It's all decked out with an Egyptian theme, and blacklights throughout the entire place. It's a bit pricey, and the course is very very difficult (especially hole #5), but it was still nice to go out and do something as a family.

TV Viewing for the day - approx 45 minutes
TV Viewing for the month - approx 1 hrs 58 minute

It's still early, though.

Maybe it's because I know I'm planning on documenting my tv viewing for this month, or maybe it's because today was unusually busy for us, or maybe iiiiuiu9iopopi <-- Irina typing there.
Or maybe it's because Saturdays have less interesting programming than any other day of the week, and we have no Netflix I'm supremely into right now.

Whatever the reason, I have done amazingly little television viewing so far today. In fact, the only thing that has been on was the DVD of Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus. I watched most of it, after the first ten minutes or so.

Nothing really groundbreaking to say about it. It was another Barbie movie, so, it had all the pros and cons of the typical Mattel outing. Although this one did have the main character named Princess Annika, so there's that.

Anyway. Not a lot of tv viewing done today. (There was probably about 45 min- 1 hour of youtube viewing/surfing, however. I discovered the monkey-fied videos, which are 1 minute vignettes of famous movies, all performed by chimpanzees. I guess they aired on TBS a few years back, but since we don't have cable, they were new to me. And, of course, we had to watch the Potter Puppet Pals videos ("Mysterious Ticking Noise" and "Bananaphone" and several of the spinoffs as well.) And probably another 15 or 20 videos that I can't recall right now. Luckily, youtube videos don't count toward the blogging goal/gimmick/whatever of this month, so I don't have to remember them all. :)

Total amount of tv time for the month - (approx.) 1 hour, 13 minutes

shuffle!

Or, Memep3 take 2.

Remember this meme? (Which led to this one that was also cool, but sadly, never seemed to catch on...)

Anyway. Time to do it again. Just because!

Meme rules:
Step 1: Put your MP3 player or whatever on random.

Step 2: Post the first line from the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.

Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.

Yeah, I'm not doing 20 this time. I think, oh, 8 or 9 is a better number.

While I fire up iTunes, I'll talk about something. Um.
Huh. I guess not. Here we go!!

1) "Happy Jack wasn't old, but he was a man." (oh, way to start all easy!)

2) "Well you've got the perfect disguise and you're looking ok."

3) "So long to this cold, cold part of the world."

4) "So you say I need to consider this." (finally start getting harder)

5) "I'm losing speed, trying to keep up with you."

6) "Just living the way I live, the faces in the crowd."

7) "Howard, the strangest things have happened lately"

8) "SPEW!!!"

9) "I know, I know, I said that I would quit!"

Oh, here's an iTunes related question - does anyone know how to make it stop skipping the final five seconds of songs when playing a playlist? Sometimes it's cool, but mostly it's kinda annoying.

Good luck, everyone! (And if you want to do the meme on your own blog, let me know. I suck at the guessing, but I do like getting the peek into what's on everyone's playlists.)

I'm only happy when it rains

I was going to blog about how last night between 1:30 and 3:30 in the morning there was an incredibly powerful thunderstorm that passed through the Las Vegas valley, waking up everyone. (Seriously. Everyone in the house, and everyone I've talked to about it at work, plus all the news anchors and radio djs stated how the storm woke them up.)
And I was going to blog about how, during the storm, I had fears of the house's roof falling in.
And I thought about blogging about how that didn't happen, but when I got to work this morning, I discovered that the lobby was completely flooded and the ceiling tiles were soaked and collapsing. And I'd blog about how that was due not to the rain, surprisingly enough, but because the upstairs urinal in the men's bathroom was broken (probably on Friday) and kept flowing all weekend and flooded the upstairs which soaked through to the downstairs lobby.

I was going to blog about all that, then I realized that it's late, and I have to wake up early tomorrow morning, and there's a chance for another storm tonight, so instead, here's a silly little quiz.

Your Score: Starbucks

53% personality, 24% politics/class, 78% intelligence

You're a Starbucks whore. Spread those lips.

Link: The Which Evil Corporation Are You Test written by memoriesrewound on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

She turned me into a newt!

Warning: This post will contain spoilers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, untagged. If you have not read that book completely, just know that the discussion might not make sense to you, and may ruin some elements of the novel if/when you do get around to reading it.


J.K. Rowling is a witch.

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry, Ron, and Hermione spend a good portion of the novel in the woods, on the hunt for the remaining Horcruxes that belong to Lord Voldemort. (A Horcrux is, as was determined in the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, an object that a (dark) wizard uses to store a part of their soul. In order to fragment your soul, you have to murder someone. Tom Riddle, AKA the Dark Lord Voldemort, has created seven horcruxes. In order to completely kill him, all of the horcruxes must be destroyed. Otherwise, as long as a horcrux remains, a part of Voldie's soul still lives on, and thus, he manages to be somewhat immortal. [/backstory for anyone that needed it])

One of the horcruxes is a locket that Harry, Ron, and Hermione take turns wearing/guarding while they search for a way to destroy it. This locket, which contains part of this powerful man's soul, actually begins to affect the young trio if they are around it for too long.

When this particular event took place in the novel, I came to my horrible realization:

The Harry Potter books are horcruxes.

Ignoring for the moment that souls don't exist (or that I don't believe in them, if you want to be all picky), the stories that J.K. Rowling wrote do, in a very real way, contain a part of who she is. She put her thoughts and memories and ideas into the stories, and if thoughts and memories and ideas are NOT what a soul is supposed to be, well, then I don't know what is.

Additionally, the stories go on to affect people who spend an extended amount of time with them. By reading Rowling's stories, you change your own soul.
And the fact that she has printed them into books means that she has, in a way, achieved Voldemort's goal: Immortality.

Coincidentally, both Voldemort and J.K. Rowling created seven different vessels.

But I'm 99% certain that Rowling didn't have to kill anyone to create hers.

TV in September

I'm going to attempt to blog everyday in September. (With the exceptions being the days we go out of town)

The 'blog everyday' thing has been done before, so this time, I'm bringing a P@ypical twist to it.

I am going to review/document/talk about/snark on everything I watch on television during that month. Whether it be broadcast on the air, watched on DVD, or screened at work, I'll blog about it. (I might even include videos watched on the computer, but we'll see how the tv angle goes first)

I may not be able to document *everything* I watch (I mean, how many times can I include the HeadOn commercial?) but I hope to get at least 90% of my boob-tube interaction blogged. I want to see a) exactly how much television I watch and b) hopefully provide some entertaining insight into what I'm seeing. (Plus, I can talk about movies that everyone else saw years ago, and I'm just catching up with thanks to Netflix!)

The ungoogleable

There are some people - probably quite a few, actually - who, it appears, can NOT be found using Google.

On a whim, I've googled several of my old friends from time to time, just to see if they show up, or what they might be up to. Bits and pieces show up for most of them, but there are instances where putting in the person's name wields zero results.

Who are these people? Why are they not showing up on the internet? Have they gone on to become modern-day Luddites? Are they in the Witness Protection Program for having seen the truth about Pat Sajak? Do they have some sort of google-shield magic working?

I'd find out the answers to those questions, but, alas, google isn't helping me.

Top Ten

Heh.

Today being Saren's decade-mark, here are the top ten events of the day (in no particular order).

10. Seeing a rainbow
9. Riding the 'tomato' at Las Vegas Mini Gran Prix
8. Getting rained on, while at Las Vegas Mini Gran
7. Getting cards and presents from her sisters
6. Getting cards and presents from her friends
5. Playing for hours with her friends at the park
4. Cake!
3. Taking pictures with Steph's camera
2. Turning ten! Certainly doesn't happen everyday.
1. Being awesome. But then, she does that on a daily basis.

Happy 10th Birthday, Saren!!

I can name ... in six words

Who's up for a little lyrical game?

I will post the first two words, an ellipses, and the last two words of a song. Your mission is to identify them. Artist and title, if you're really good. ;)

I'll post the answers after a day or so.EDITED!

Decided the game was a little too difficult, so I'm adding a word to the beginning and the end. Plus, the ones that have already been IDed are no longer in the running. Answers will be up..probably the day after tomorrow.

Here we go!

1) "I'd like to ... garden with you."

2) "Came in from ... is my world."

3) "There are places ... love you more."

4) "I want ... my atmosphere." Soul Meets Body by Death Cab for Cutie [IDed by Kirk]

5) "Some say the ... all come down."

6) "On a dark ... can never leave."

7) "Can you feel ... what is it?"

8) "Hello I've waited ... when she sang."

9) "Is this ... wind blows." Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen [IDed by CosmicAvatar]

10) "In my ... just disappear." Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden [IDed by Kirk]

11) "Are you ... of mine." Scarborough Fair by Simon & Garfunkel [IDed by Cosmic Avatar]

12) "An old man ... helping you out."

13) "What's with these ... care about that."

14) "Spent my days ... as it seems."

15) "Don't you ever ... never never change."

Good luck!

Eight eight I forget what eight was for

Yeah, I should really use that title next year. I'll have to try to remember that.

Random ness.

1. I read The Big Question by Chuck Barris. God only knows why I finished it. Very very badly written stuff. Chuck Barris, in case you don't know, and don't feel like wikiing him up, was the creator of The Gong Show, The Newlywed Game, and the author of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which was recently turned into a movie.
Anyway. We rented CoaDM from Netflix a few weeks back, and when I saw that Chucky Baby had written a new book about a game show wherein the final question is a matter of life and death (answer the final question correctly, win 100 million dollars. Get it wrong, and you're executed live on tv), I figured, that might be a fun read.
Um. Not so much.
Interesting, if not completely original, idea. Horrible horrible execution. (No pun intended)

2. I'm now reading (about 100 pages in) State of Fear by Michael "Jurassic Park" Crichton. I have a feeling this book is going to piss me off. It's interesting so far, but I just suspect that the anger will eventually come.
Why do I read things again?

3. Here's a youtube video that is quite catchy, and pretty fun. Plus, it's Harry Potter related. Harper loves it. And I find myself singing it at random moments in the day. Dumbledore!


4. I found a site that you can watch movies, tv shows, cartoons, music videos. Not sure if it's legal or not, but, anyway, I'm about half way through watching The Host. I bet that Annika and or Will have seen it. It's a Japanese (?) horror movie that came out in 2006 about a gigantic mutated ...monster attacking people. Surprisingly good so far.

5. Dinner? What should we have for dinner?

6. Stateris. It's Tetris, using the United States. (There's also a European countries version, if you're so inclined.)

7. Dude, it would be nice if I finished a project once in a while, wouldn't it? Lately, I've been wanting to go back and work on/add to/finish (ha ha ha ha) the Perth story. You know, the one that I started as my nanowrimo novel back in 2005. I left it in a spot where I had written myself into a bit of a corner, but recently I've been thinking about ways to get out of it. Of course, I haven't found time to actually do any work on it, but, at least it's reemerging in my mind.
The ironic thing is that *new* story ideas have begun to invade my imagination, claiming for the attention that rightfully belongs to other, older, more neglected stories first. [sigh]

8. I had something to say here, but I've forgotten what it was.
(See what I did there?)

Sadly, I neglected step 4

Million Dollar Plan!

1) Grow hair for, oh, say a year or so.
2) Get haircut quite short.
3) Go to work sporting new do.
4) Charge everyone who comments on your new appearance one dollar.
5) PROFIT!!!!

Hallows, Hallows. I'm in a place called vertigo

Huh. That title isn't the best, but, eh. I'm rusty. It's been a while since I've blogged.

It's been a week since we finished reading HP&tDH, so it's (beyond) time that I discuss it, no? I mean, a week is plenty of time for me to accio thoughts. That being said, I'm guaranteeing now that a) they won't be presented in a logical flowing manner and 2) there's most likely not going to be anything uniquely insightful or groundbreaking discussed. But, you know, read it anyway, because it's my POV and I'm asking nicely. :)

I probably don't really need to tag this, but I'm going to anyway, because how often does one get a chance to genuinely use spoiler tags? Also, I have more integrity than the New York Times.
[this was cross posted on the WD]
[begin spoiler for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - highlight to view]
As Steph pointed out in her review (go read it! It's really good!), this book was the most 'human' of them all.
As such, I have complex feelings about the book. Just like I do people I know. There is good and bad in all of us, and there is good and bad in HP&tDH.

One of the things I thought was very well done was the interweaving of all the previous book's occurances. Rather than having a bunch of backstory at the beginning (the 'previously' section that took up a lot of time in all the earlier books), it was worked into the narrative throughout. Clever!

The downside to that, though, was that it seemed like Rowling wanted to tie up *everything* that she'd had in the previous books. Which, um, you know, is good, especially since this was the final installment, but ...I'm not explaining myself very well. Let's see, how to put this? It seemed that some of the callbacks were ...gratuitous? And of course, I can't think of any examples right now, so, just pretend that this whole paragraph never happened. *casts memory charm*

I still find it hilarious that a good portion of the heroes are high school dropouts. Harry, Ron, Hermione (!!!!), Fred, George, Neville... all left Hogwarts prior to graduation.

It bummed me out having Dumbledore's memory tarnished, but it was also a very brave thing of JK Rowling to do. It made him more human, more real, more flawed, and in a lot of ways, more respectable as a result. Although I have qualms about the fact that Dumbledore would be looking for the Deathly Hallows when he had access to the Sorcerer's Stone all along. (And that makes me wonder if he truly did destroy it as he claimed he did at the end of Book 1. [eyebrow])

Deaths. [sigh]

Freakin' Hedwig, man. The two things that upset me about this (other than the death itself) was that Harry & Hedwig didn't end on good terms. Hedwig was pissed at Harry for having kept her cooped up, and they didn't get a chance to make-up. Also, the grieving stage seemed awfully brief. I mean, yeah, there were Death Eaters chasing them, and the Order may have been infiltrated, and nobody knew where half the Order was or who was still alive, but ...dude. She's been your companion for 7 years. Show some respect.

Dobby. Dobby, Dobby, Dobby. [sigh] This death had the right touch to it. The mourning stage was adequete, the death was touching and shocking and ... Freaking Bellatrix, man.
It was interesting, though, that both Dobby & Hedwig were killed by things that were intended to kill Harry, and that both of the characters were as innocent as you can get. There is undoubtedly a lot of symbolism about sacrifice in there that I will leave to smarter folks to analyze. [up]

Fred's death, strangely, didn't really bother me. I think because Amy had predicted it, and I was expecting it.

Tonks and Lupin, however, did. I mean, it was bloody obvious as soon as they asked Harry to be Godfather that they were doomed, but when it happened, my reaction was still, "But they just had a baby!!!"

Snape's death hit me about three days after the book was done. The fact that he looked into Harry's eyes - which were Lily's eyes - as he died simply made me unbelievably sad.

What else?
Weird theories/ideas time:

Umbridge was totally in love with Frank Longbottom.
I mean, if Snape was in love with Lily Potter, then obviously, Dolores must have had some unrequited love as well, no?
Well, I'm sticking with my Umbridge/Longbottom ship until I hear proof otherwise from Ms. Rowling herself.

Also - Dudley? He totally grew up to become the next Dark Lord. I don't care what ANYONE says, or how much canon it goes against. Dudley Dursely eventually performed magic. And eventually, that magic was Dark Magic. And eventually, he began to raise an army of Death Eaters. Oh yes. It happened.

And lastly, wand issues.

1) Why don't wizards have more than one wand? I was trying to think what wands would be analogous to in the Muggle world - cell phones? Pencils? Guns? Car keys? Probably something near all of those, but really, don't you think that a wizard would want a spare wand or two just in case something happened to their main stick?

2) Underage wizards don't need wands to perform magic. So why do older wizards? I *think* it's because the wand helps direct the spell, and therefore acts as a sort of tool that the wizards use. But still, doesn't that mean that a spell *could* be cast without a wand? (It would just be ...diluted, I guess? A curse intended for one person would kinda spread out and might hit the target, might not, and even if it did, it wouldn't be as powerful as if it were cast with a wand in hand.)
That being said... Voldemort's killing curse rebounding makes absolutely no sense. The wand doesn't control the spell. And even if it does, it doesn't control the spell after it's been sent. Guns don't control the bullets that they shoot once they're in the air. So the Avada Kedvra should have, at the very least, have simply not effected Harry. Bouncing off and hitting Tom Riddle is not really plausible. (Also, it makes for a highly tragic book. I said many times that Book 7 would be completley sad if Voldemort died. And lo and behold, he did. [crying])

But, of course, the answer to any inconsistencies is "A wizard did it."
[end spoiler]

Feel free to discuss the book/my thoughts/your thoughts/whatever in the comments. Anyone that has gotten this far, and looks at the comments and expects to NOT be spoiled is asking for a bit much, in my opinion.

Borders lines

(If you're anything like me, you now have Madonna in your head. I'm sorry. Actually...If you're anything like me, I'm sorry.)


So the other day we went to Borders, and I used their restroom.

Bathroom graffiti has always been interesting to me. Complete strangers leaving (usually profane) messages for each other, really bad spelling, pictures of naked body parts ...it's like the computerless internet!

Here's what I saw this time around:
Someone had drawn (a pretty good likeness) George Bush's face, and given him a Hitler mustache. Next to it, they had written FUCK BUSH.

Someone else (I assume) had drawn a body for BusHitler. Except that it was a female body. And it was, of course, naked and spread eagle. Near the vagina, they had written FUCK THIS BUSH, with an arrow helpfully pointing.

On the far wall was written (and painted over, but still visible) the words: WORK IS SLAVERY

Below that were two other notes:
"Whoever wrote that is a lazy fucker"
and
"He must depend on the gov't 4 cash"

I need to remember to start bringing a pen into the public bathrooms...

Oh my god, you look like a frog.

Movie status: Awesome. Left a lot of stuff out from the book, of course, and ultimately, nowhere near as great as one's imagination from reading the words, but still a very very enjoyable time.

We got there an hour early (!!!!) and there were STILL about 80-100 people in line in front of us. Muggles are crazy!

Spoiler tag time!
[begin spoilers for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - highlight to view]
Best scene straight away, without question - the fight in the Ministry. Totally. Awesome. Dude. Voldemort vs Dumbledore is the fight of the century (um..to date, anyway. [wink])

Other great and/or memorable things:

"Nice one, James!" = Aww.

Snape's worst memory was not seen through a Pensieve, but it worked pretty well the way it was shown.

Umbridge you're going down! (Hee!)

Actually, the casting choices and/or acting for Umbridge, Luna, and Bellatrix LeStrange are inspired. Great jobs, all around.

Huh. I just realized that there were no ghosts in this movie.

The Dementors have changed their appearance from last time. Unsure how I feel about this development.

They also changed the way that the fireplace communication goes on. Not really for the better.

Bellatrix is wicked.
Her 'escape' from Azkaban was goosebumpy.

Grawp actually looked pretty cool. Although I got flashes of Alfred E. Newman for some reason a couple of times.

Kreacher, despite only being onscreen for a few minutes, gave me the creeps. He gives off the 'ticking time bomb' vibe very well.

The Black Family Tree was shown for a while, and I spent the time looking at the background, trying to find Regulus and/or any other "R" name. Where's the pause button when you need it?

Ron's "fight the man" fist thing? Um. Not in the movie!

Neither was Hermione! (Hee.) Yes, she was, of course. We joked beforehand about all the things that they would not be able to include from the books, and I said, "What if Hermione's not in this one?" And then said that I would have to include that joke in my blog. Done and done.

Fred & George's fireworks scene, while pretty damn cool, still didn't quite measure up to the images in my mind. There were sinister wheees, though! When the decrees exploded, I have to admit I felt like cheering.

Hilarious lines:
"He's back!"
"You may not like it, but you have to admit.... Dumbledore's got style."
"That's clever, Ron." "It's been known to happen."
"Oh, there are plenty of things I'd like to say."
"I may vomit." (heh. Snape.)

[end spoiler]


And now, it's pretty late at night, and I have to wake up an ungodly hour. But in the end, I think having seen HP&tOotP [2 days before it's release, even!] was worth it.

Did I mention

Things I've been meaning to blog about

1) The heat
2) Harper's birthday
3) The heat
4) The heat
5) The heat
6) The trip to the Kwik-E-Mart
7) Work
8) The unbearable, excessive heat
9) Harry Potter
10) The Simpsons
11) 7/7/7
12) Story ideas, and the lack of doing anything about them. (aka business as usual)
13) The heat. Oh god, the heat.
14) Things I've been meaning to blog about

I'm the cult of per-sa-nal-TV

Ha!

So, on Friday, TV Guide came out with a list of the "top 30 cult TV shows of all time".
[aside - why do these lists even bother saying "of all time"? Shouldn't they wait until ...I don't know, the end of time, before compiling these things? Especially since they composed a 'top 25 cult TV shows of all time' about 5 years back.]

ANYWAY.

The article is here.

And here is the list:
Bolded show numbers are ones that I have seen, bolded titles means that I greatly enjoyed them.

30) Strangers with Candy (1999-2000)
29) Absolutely Fabulous (1994-2003)
28) Stargate SG-1 (1997-2007)
27) H.R. Pufnstuf (1969-1971)
26) Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1975-1978)
25) Firefly (2002-2003)
24) Twin Peaks (1990-1991)
23) Dark Shadows (1966-1971)
22) Doctor Who (1963-present)
21) Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000)

20) The Avengers (1966-1969)
19) Quantum Leap (1989-1993)
18) Veronica Mars (2004-2007)
17) Beauty and the Beast (1987-1990)
16) Babylon 5 (1994-1998)
15) Family Guy (1999-present)
14) Battlestar Galactica (2003-present)
13) Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1989-1999)
12) Pee-Wee's Playhouse (1986-1991)
11) Jericho (2006-present)

10) Xena: Warrior Princess (1995-2001)
9) Twilight Zone (1959-1964)
8) The Simpsons (1989-present)
7) The Prisoner (1967-1968)
6) Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969-1974)
5) Lost (2004-present)
4) Farscape (1999-2003)
3) Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003)
2) The X-Files (1993-2002)
1) Star Trek (1966-1969)

Notable missings:
Futurama, Alias, Angel, Smallville, The Star Trek spinoffs [maybe they were included with Star Trek?... but, no, they only put 1966-1969, so they meant only the original series as #1 on their list. Weird.], Heroes, House [I'm not a fan of it, but I know it's got a huge cult following], V, Alien Nation, and Dead at 21. [Someone should revisit this idea. It really wasn't given a chance. I guess maybe NBC's upcoming Chuck might be sorta like it, but I'm skeptical of that show at this stage in the game.]

Questionable inclusions:
#30 - Strangers with Candy. What? I've never even heard of this show.
#29 - Absolutely Fabulous. Sucked beyond the telling of it.
#20 - The Avengers. Really? I never saw the original series, but the movievized version was horrible. (Of course, most movievized versions of tv shows past are.
#17 - Beauty and the Beast. Again, huh? I'd think that The Adventures of Lois and Clark would be more apt here. I mean, at least Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher both still have careers. Linda Hamilton and ...um... whoever the Beast was? Yeah. Nowhereseville.
#11 - Jericho. I keep hearing that it improved after midseason, but I gave up after the first 3 or 4 episodes. It was just too ...not good.

Anyway, when they do this list again next year, or whenever, I bet that Reaper will be on there. I've seen the pilot episode of it [and also Aliens in America and Life is Wild, which were...less impressive] and I can totally see this show catching on. It's very funny, and it has the supernatural twist to it, and it has enough plot potential to last for a while without getting stale. I even came up with one of my trademark way out theories! But, after giving it a little more thought, I've decided that it's most likely totally wrong. [Just like always! Yay!]
But, for the sake of prosperity, here's my theory. If it turns out that they use it, remember where you heard it first....

[begin spoiler for Reaper theory that is quite certainly way wrong CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE PILOT EPISODE OF REAPER! - highlight to view]
The Devil is actually God.

Why I thought this - 1) His comment, "I've seen how this ends. God wins."
2) He's having Sam do "good" work.
3) Sam's friend's comment about how you can't sell someone else's soul.
3a) The fact that Sam wants to continue to work for the Devil.
4) It would be an awesome twist, and something that I would appreciate.

Strikes against it
1) The Devil does watch as the guy gets killed by the Zamboni. [granted, the guy was a bad guy [so he said] and the god in the bible is a vengeful ass, but the vengeful ass thing is usually ignored by media portrayals of the Almighty God.]
2) The DMV worker.[see below]
3) Why would God pose as the Devil? That just doesn't make sense.
[/end spoilers]
Regardless, the show was still fun, and Tuesday nights at 9pm, we'll be watching.
Edited to add - Here were some of the best parts of the pilot ep of Reaper:

Highlight at your own risk!

1) The fact that the DMV is a portal into hell. Sure, the DMV is an easy target, but it explains so much!
2) "The winner gets a ham."
"I'm Jewish, you jerk!"
"..or a gift certificate."
3) "Sam tried college for a month, but it made him sleepy."
4) "It takes a charger."
5) The DMV worker having horns. Hee!
6) Their address is 667.
7) "How drunk are you?"
"Totally sober."
"How drunk am I?" [as with so many of Sock's lines, it's more his delivery than anything. Sock is awesome.]
8) "DMV!!" [another Sock line, and the messing up of the clerk's desk that goes along with it]
9) Eyebrows.
10) "I can be nice."

Endless Summer

God, this month has dragged. It has seriously felt like June forEVER.

And there's still another day to go!

I blame the 107 degrees that it is, even at 8:00 at night.

Open to interpretation

Pop culture is chock full of things that have ambiguous endings. I really enjoy when artists create such things, because it provides us nerds with something to argue about.

Examples follow (and I'll include my interpretation for each example, because it's the correct one)...

The ending of Angel:

Not Fade Away ends with ...um, I guess I should spoiler tag this, just to be on the safe side:
Angel and his crew have spent season 5 working for the bad guys, trying to take them down from the inside.
In the final episode, they set forth into motion a plan that seriously weakened many of the higher-ups in the bad team's hierarchy. This pissed them off, so they sent an entire army after Angel, Ilyria, Spike, Gunn [badly wounded], and Wesley [who did not survive].
The show leads up to the final battle between an army of evil and the final 4 good guys.
Angel and his team know that the odds are against them, but they are determined to go down fighting. Angel says, "Let's go to work." and the show goes to black.
So - did they survive? Did the army wipe them out? Did the earth grow tired of it all and hurl itself into the sun? We don't know. That's for us to decide.


My interpretation: When I first watched it, I felt for sure that Angel and his crew died heroic deaths, but that Evil won in the end.
Years have gone by, and maybe it's because I know that there are plans for a continuation of the series via comic books, or maybe I've just grown more optimistic, but I now feel that they beat the odds and ended up surviving against the army. Yay!

Here's the Youtube video of the last 5 minutes of the show, along with the WB's "goodbye" that shows some of the clips from the previous years.


#2) The Sopranos


I've never actually seen an episode of this show, and that includes the controversial series finale which just aired, but I've read all about it.
Basically, the final scene is set in a diner, where Tony is with his family, and the tension is building as to whether the next people coming into the diner will "whack" him or not.
His wife is outside attempting to parallel park, and it goes to black - midscene.

My interpretation: Tony bit it. If the show is from Tony's POV - and I guess most of it was - then it makes sense that once he's dead, that it would go to black. Also, apparently, the line of "you never see it coming" was used several times, which leads credence to that idea.
I was trying to find the clip of it on youtube, but I can't seem to find an unedited version of it.

#3) "Jeremy" by Pearl Jam

Video that came out in the early 90s.

I almost didn't include this "debate", because it's so obvious that he shoots himself, but when it was first popular, I had a friend who believed with all of her heart that he shot his classmates. Um...no.

#4) Han shot first.

#5) "That's where I'm a Viking!"

In the Simpsons episode "Lisa the Vegetarian" - a classic episode, from, like, 15 years ago - Ralph Wiggum is told by the teacher to go to sleep while the rest of the class tries to learn. He exclaims, "Oh, boy, sleep! That's where I'm a Viking!"
He then promptly falls asleep.
My interpretation - Ralph dreams of being a Viking each and everytime that he goes to sleep.
For years I thought that that was the only way to interpret that line. And then, a few weeks back, I saw that there was a different way to perceive it. That "viking" was a metaphor, and that Ralph was excited because he was going to be able to do something that he excelled at.
When I began reading that thread, I asked Steph, "The line 'Oh boy, sleep, that's where I'm a Viking!' means what?" and she instantly said, "That he's really good at sleeping."
And I was all, "WHAT!!!???!!!"
After having read all 467 comments in that thread, and talking to Steph (and Jupe) about this matter, I can see that way of thinking, but ...it's still wrong.
(And, sadly, the link to the youtube video of that particular clip of the show has been removed.)

And now, it's later than I had expected it to be, so I'll just end it there. I didn't even get to lyrics and/or book interpretations. So I'll open up the comment section - what books/movies/tv shows/songs/whatever are ambiguous and unclear enough to warrant debate and discussion? And/or, what about the above 5? If I'm seeing things in a completely erroneous matter, please, show me the light.

ETA- a few more examples:

The Wizard of Oz - it was all just a dream....or was it? [see also, about a million other copies of this idea. *Normal Again* from BtVS, for instance]

American Psycho did a similar riff.

The ending of FlashForward by Robert J. Sawyer - highly recommended, btw - has one of the most awesome ambiguous endings ever. "I must be getting old."

Modest Mouse lyrics are ripe with double meanings.
I couldn't remember
I couldn't remember
If I tried

being one.

Long Live Ambiguity!

So I says to Mabel I says

"What should I blog about?"

And she says, "........Harry Potter?"

So, we just got back from the book store, and the grocery store, and while at Borders, I saw a bunch of books that had my interest, so I'll be making stops at the library shoonish. ['shoon' being a combination of 'shortly' and 'soon', and meaning in an unknown amount of time, but not too far from now.]

While at the book store, though, I realized while in the children's section that everything for kids now is a Harry Potter clone. It's all "Jack-a-mo and the Fee Non Ay: Book 1 of 6" or "The China Chronicles" or "The Adventures of Whoozitdog". Which, you know, cool, but I wonder what the next big thing in children's lit will be, because right now, it seems all... the same.

Also Harry Potter related, but in a [grr!] type of way: Harry and the Potters were performing last night at the Sunrise Library, which is just down the street from our house. WOO!, we thought, That would be so awesome to go and see!, plus, the tickets were free, which is totally within our price range!

But, then, comes the grr! aspect.

The concert was for adults only.

Grr!!

That makes ZERO sense. I mean, hello? They're a band that sing songs based on books written for children!

Harry and the Potters are totally a thing that children should experience and would enjoy. Also the girls have been listening to the H&tPs CDs the past two days, and really liking them. Plus, some of their youtube videos displaying other performances of that band had youngish people in the crowd, so I don't know what is up the butts of the Sunrise Librarians, but the result was that we did not get to see the band. Boo, hiss. Maybe next time.

Oh, and the song "Dumbledore" gets added to the list. It's got good company - "The Day the Music Died", "Cats in the Cradle", "Still Fighting It",... "Vogue"

And lastly, it's nearly July! Which means movie 5, and book 7 are, like, days away now!

And the world is beautiful, just look around

Went to the libe during my lunch break because if I didn't get out of the office, I was going to have a complete and utter nervous breakdown. Hey, maybe I did anyway! [insert crazy laugh]

ANyway, I faced the quadruple digit temps and picked up a bunch of comic book/graphic novels/books with pictures and 3 cds by Harry and the Potters, because I'm lowbrow, and easy to please. Also, my attention span is just not up to reading full length novels anymore. Or writing them, either, apparently! [insert crazy laugh]

[sigh]

Today was a ...not good day at work. I'm trying to let it go, though, so maybe I shouldn't blog about it. On the other hand, perhaps getting it out will allow me to stop thinking about it. Let's compromise, shall we?

I'll blog about it in a moment, if I still feel I have to. First, other things:

We (well, Saren and I - Steph & Harper were smart enough to stop at various midpoints) watched Napoleon Dynamite last night.


HOLY FUCK that was the absolute worst piece of garbage I have seen in a LONG time. What the fuck is wrong with people that that movie has been so hyped? It was the opposite of funny. It was the epitome of UNfunny. I sat there, for an hour and 36 minutes, thinking, "It's got to get better." "It's going to get better, right?" "Maybe it'll get better."
It doesn't.

In fact, I realized something last night, anytime I've watched something thinking, "Maybe it gets better" ...it doesn't. Season 7 of Buffy didn't. Napoleon Dynamite didn't. I'm sure there are other examples, but I can't remember any right now. But the "maybe it'll get better" line is a fool's trap.

At some point, I realized that ND was NOT going to get better. I don't know when that was, but instead of turning it off, or finding something better to do, I opted to stick it out to see just how bad it could be.
Bad.

But after watching it, and after thinking back to all the hype that surrounded it, I had two thoughts:
1) The hype must be an elaborate prank. It's some sort of complex meta-joke, in which people know that it's an awful unfunny complete waste of time, but they say that it's great in order to see if anyone else will really buy into it. Those who do, are just as ...challenged mentally, shall we say? as Napoleon is himself.
2) Maybe I just don't get it.

Anyway, if it were possible to rate negative stars on Netflix, this would certainly deserve them.

Hmm. Urge to post about work is fading, but still somewhat here.

I'll suffice to say that work sucks. People expect me to be a mind-reader, and also don't take into consideration a) how much work I already do and b) that piling on more work on top of that won't be a problem.
Also, I'm vastly vastly underpaid.

On the bright side - I'm taking July 2nd and 3rd off, and the 4th is a holiday, so there's a five day break coming up at the end of next week. Cool.

s.o.c. it to me

Thoughts:

How the hell did SkyNet come up with the idea of time travel to begin with? The computer system was designed to monitor defense systems, it became self-aware, and when humans decided to shut it down, that's when it opted to kill us. So ...when did it develop time travel? I mean, if there truly were a nuclear war, wouldn't most of the materials have been destroyed to begin with?

Dear Area 108,
1) It's Area One-oh-eight. Not one-oh-seven-nine. I refuse to accept this change. Refuse!!
2) I do not like (green eggs and ham) Icky Thump by the White STripes. It is not a good song, and will not become a good song no matter how many times you play it during a day. (eg, 832)

Dude. Gremlins 3 would so rock, if done conrrecltly.

Oh, yeah, I'm UTP@, in case that was not of the evident ...material?

Um. Wow. I just keep on blanking. It's ...sorta scary, honestly. But. Oh, you know, at least, something.

Heh.
Um. Oh! You know what wiuld suck? If you died, and went to heaven, and when you got to the gates, there were three celebrity judges.

Actually, not only Gremlins 3, but I'd like to see Grease 3, Bill & Ted 3, and ...no, that's all. Are there any other movies that stopped at 2? Everything goes to 3 now. Or gets redone. And then goes to 3. Or 5. Or 11.

Oooh! Pizza! I'm starving like a marvin.
Tommorow is Summer. Pizza time!

Half a minute birthday

I am such a dork!

Anyway. 32's good so far.

1) No Zombies. (Which was a lot of fun participating in. The site responsible is already planning a sequel. It's still being worked out whether the next apocalypse will be another zombie infusion or something more (or less) sinister. Personally, I'd love to see a world-wide version of Wolf go down. [um...in the blogosphere. Real life werewolf attacks - not so much.])

2) Awesome gifts from my family and coworkers and cards from the same, as well as from some internet weirdos.
Here's the breakdown:
A 24 pack of Pepsi (hee!)
20 dollar gift card to Best Buy
20 dollar gift card to Del Taco
Pursuit of Happyness on DVD
Gremlins on DVD
The Goonies on DVD
Willow on DVD
2 bags of Beef Jerky
1 handmade book about cats from Harper
6 birthday cards total (3 from family, 2 from internet weirdos, 1 from work)
2000 extra points on the Wii Virtual channel - I haven't downloaded anything extra from there yet, though.


3) Um. I guess there isn't a 3. Oh, except that tomorrow is Friday. And payday. So, that's of the good.

ZOMG

Everyone should probably first read this.

Man. I am self-absorbed. It is, for all intents and purposes, really the end of civilization going on, and I decide to post on my blog.

People are dying - seriously really freaking dying and god, Las Vegas - hell probably the world, if reports can be believed - has turned into a motherfucking warzone, and I decide to make a new blog entry. Hell, it's doubtful that anyone will survive long enough to read this, and even if they do, it's unclear how much longer the grid will maintain operation...so I suppose I should hurry my shouting to the void.

God. I'm shaking. It's been a weird ass day. Oddly, typing the story is calming me down some. Helping me bring some order to the impossibilities of the horrors I witnessed today. So maybe there is a reason for me to blog about this - it will preserve my sanity.

I'll start at the beginning.

Next door to the station is a VA hospital. Lots of elderly veterans are around all the time. Every so often, there's an ambulance that comes in. Or, on very rare occasions, one that leaves. In the 12 years that i've worked at the station, there have been 4 deaths there that I am aware of. Well, before today, anyway.

The day had been normal enough up until lunch time.
Around 12pm, we heard sirens as an ambulance arrived at the VA clinic. Those of us in the lunch room at the time - myself, Claire, Ann, Todd and Regina - looked out the windows to get a better view of what was happening. We could see the employees gathered in a small crowd near a man who was lying on the ground. The man appeared very old, and pretty frail. A walker - his, presumably - was nearby. One of the employees moved it out of the way as the paramedics arrived in the ambulance and readied the stretcher.

We watched with morbid fascination as they picked his body up and put him on the stretcher and began to put him into the back of the vehicle. We wondered aloud whether he was actually dead, or if he had simply collapsed, or what was going on.
As they began to load him into the ambulance, we figured our lunchtime excitement for the day was over, and began to refocus on eating, and talking, and watching the news. Todd made several off-color comments and "jokes" about the guy, and about getting older, and that was when we heard the scream. Apparently, although we didn't see it happen, we all quickly looked at the VA's parking lot, and saw that the elderly guy had attacked one of the paramedics.
"Whoa!" was my initial reaction.
"Guess the guy wasn't dead," said Todd.
"I bet he's on drugs," Regina opined. I found the idea of a senior citizen being on the type of drugs that she was implying rather dubious, but was too immersed in watching the scene to really say anything. And the man's actions sorta lent some credibility to that idea.

The paramedic who had not been bitten was pushing the older man down, attempting to control him, as the man himself railed violently against him. Fortunately for the doc, the man was easy to contain, since he was so frail to begin with. Holding him down with one arm, he used his free hand to radio in the situation. Several of the VA employees aided him in strapping the man to the stretcher, although they had extremely worried looks on their faces. I at first thought it was due to the violent outburst, but they were probably more shocked than we were because they knew the man shouldn't've been moving to begin with.

As for the paramedic who had been bit, his arm was bleeding pretty heavily. The man who had attacked him had taken a good sized chunk of flesh, apparently. He stumbled to the back of the ambulance and began self-administering first aid to his wound.

The lunch room was buzzing at that point:
"Holy crap, look at all that blood."
"Drugs."
"Man, is he okay?"
"That's crazy!"
Etc etc etc.

You know, I'm not sure where I fall in the whole ESP debate, but it was at that moment that I had a sinking sensation in my stomach. Perhaps it was a reaction to seeing the blood and the old man - whom I had gotten a good look at, and trust me, wish I hadn't - or the look on the faces of the employees who knew that the man was previously dead or the sounds of the sirens that I heard in the distance indicating trouble elsewhere in the city or maybe it was a kind of precognitive flash that the world had forever changed somehow. Either way, at that moment, I had to sit down.

Channel 3's news was on the tv as usual, and they interrupted the weather ("Hot. Reapeat ad infinitum.") with their "BREAKING NEWS" font and music and the knot in my stomach grew tighter.
Mitch Truswell looked grave (ha ha, gallows humor pun there) when he appeared on the screen. "We have some breaking news to report just now. There are... several reports of mass disturbances..." not having a script to go off, and obviously not wanting to sound ridiculous about what he was reporting was leaving him slightly flustered. He went on, however, "...throughout the valley, police are being inundated with phone calls from all over regarding ...gangs of people commiting random acts of violence. The most reported areas right now are all, ...all appear to be near local hospitals and cem.."
There was a loud crash off camera, and a bunch of shouting of people. Mitch looked up toward the commotion and did the first nonprofessional - and last, for that matter - thing I've ever seen him do. He yelled, "Hey! Get the hell out of here before..."
A lot more crashing and yelling before the director of the news had them switch to the "Techinal Difficulties" slate with accompanying - and eventually annoying - Channel 3 music.

At this point, we had turned our attention back to the television. I mean, how often is there 1) Breaking News 2) a scuffle on-air!!
But when they didn't come back to the news - or take down the Technical Difficulties slate - after about 30 seconds...and then a minute...

I reverted to denial stage. "This has been a weird day," I understated.

More sirens.

We switched the tv over to CNN.
If you're reading this, no doubt you've seen the footage... I can't talk about it right now. It's ...too unreal. But I do remember gagging when I first saw what they were reporting...

Channel 3 is located right across the street from the Woodlawn Cemetery (really! 1500 Foremaster Lane if you want to google it yourself), so it was really just bad luck that they got hit first. As Mitch had started to say, and as we deduced later, hospitals and cemeteries were the first hit. The "hot zones" as they were first referred to, and "dead zones" as the term evolved. There are 3 cemeteries in Las Vegas. I don't know how many hospitals. They're all deserted by this point, no doubt. I mean, there is very little doubt in my mind that all the Las Vegas hospitals are most likely dead zones now. And I certainly don't envy anyone who happens to still be alive and trapped in one. Ugh. What a horrible thought.

So. We stayed watching CNN for a while. The reports were still pretty sketchy at that point, but it was obvious that whatever the hell was going on, it was worldwide. From what they were reporting, people had started randomly attacking others. Hospitals and cemeteries were the 'hot zones', where most of the attacks were beginning, but from there, the violence seemed to be spreading. Police forces were being dispatched to control crowds and martial law had been declared in many US cities. There had been no word yet from Bush.
As a political aside here, while the undead uprising that has happened over the past five hours or so has been really horrible, and I wouldn't wish that fate upon anyone, I sincerely hope that Bush and all politicians do get munched. The last thing we need is someone with 'nuke-you-lar' capabilities to get the brain-dead (heh, more puns) idea that there is only one solution.... Hell, I heard rumors that a (small, obviously) nuke was detonated somewhere in India. Again, God. What a horrible thought.

It was being reported on CNN that staying indoors was the best course of action, and to leave everything to the authorities. [sigh]

I excused myself from the breakroom, saying that I didn't feel well - which was true - but mostly, I didn't want people to hear my phone call to Steph. I called her to make sure that she was okay, and that the girls were as well. She said that they were, but that she wanted me to come home now. I agreed, and told her I would be home as soon as I could. "Be safe, and I love you, Pat. I love you so much."
"I know. I love you too." I was fighting back tears at this point. It felt way too much like this could seriously be the last time we spoke.
"I'll see you in half an hour."

I shut down my computer - I avoided going online and checking the news sites. I knew that would not be productive - and put my phone on do not disturb, then walked out. Heh. Of all the times I've dreamt about walking off the job, I never figured it would take the end of the world before I would have the guts to do it.

I wondered how long everyone else would stay. I mean, when the world is dissolving around you, how long do you attempt to maintain the illusion? Seriously - it could be your last moments on earth, and you're going to spend them trying to make money for a company that doesn't care about you? God, maybe we deserve this fate.

But there are some people at work I geniunely consider friends, so as I was pulling out of the parking lot, I phoned Dean, and said, "Hey, Dean."
"Hey. What's going on, Pat?"
"I'm leaving. And... you probably should too. Or at least ...have you called Darla, yet?"
Dean could tell something was wrong by my tone, but he had obviously not seen any of the news footage yet. (How sad is that? Of course, since we are technically a non-news having station, it's not out of the realm of possibility. Often we are the last to know anything. I mean, what if we hadn't been watching Channel 3 at that time??)
"What's going on, Pat?" Dean repeated.

"I...um." As I was sitting at the exit of the parking lot, waiting to turn onto Jones, I saw that the paramedics from the VA hadn't left yet. In fact, the one who had been bitten seemed to have gone...well, rabid, maybe? And he was attacking - or trying to - attack anyone who had been nearby. He was being given a wide berth, and he was making his way toward the station.
I've seen plenty of zombie movies, of course. So in my mind, it played out that he would make his way to the building, and begin to kill everyone there.
But, in reality, there was no way he would be able to get inside. He wouldn't have a door code, and it was highly unlikely that the receptionist would buzz in someone who was bleeding profusely and... Channel 3 had door codes, too, though.

WHat to do? I realized that Dean was still on the phone. I said quickly, "Dean. There's some bad shit going down outside. Check out CNN. It's serious. And... there's someone outside the station right now, and I'm going home. I'll try to call you later. Good luck."
"What are -" but I hung up before Dean could get any more answers out of me.

I may have condemned everyone working there, but I didn't care. Or don't. I guess. I wasn't thinking. I was scared and wanted to be home.

The traffic cleared up enough for me to pull out of the parking lot. I began the drive home.

God. Right now, one of them is stumbling through our yard. Thank god they aren't bright. They're like freaking automatons, set to "eat". Anything that is living flesh - they go after it. Fortunately, they don't have super strong senses of hearing or smell, so as long as we remain quiet, we should be safe in here. For a while, anyway.

Ugh. It's making me nervous. Go away, abomination. Just go away. I really don't want it to attract other zombies (they do seem to have some sort of way of communicating - with each other at least) or, maybe worse, for it to attract someone wanting to kill it. Like the authorities. Or someone who thinks they're an authority.

There are reports of - and I saw an instance of it on my way home - these ...vigilantes, I guess is the word I'm looking for, but that seems weird since they're not hunting down criminals per se. I mean, unless the undead are guilty of breaking the laws of nature. Which they are. (I'm getting loopy. Apologies.)

Anyway. There are roaming gangs of zombie-killers out there. They seem to be armed, and generally travelling in big trucks and SUVs. Or at least, here that's the flavor they're coming in. No doubt there are similar groups in other places, that have developed their own particular styles. [sigh] Humans.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Back to the narrative.

As I drove down Jones toward Desert Inn, I saw indications of trouble elsewhere throughout the city. Sirens were sounding pretty much nonstop, at differing decibels, depending on how far away they were. There was smoke visible several miles away. Impossible to tell exactly how far from where I was. And I heard the first pop of gunfire. Not the last, sadly. And even sadder - in the past few hours, I've grown used to it and pretty much tuned it out.

But the biggest sign that things were hitting the fan was the radio. Area 108 was playing U2's "One", which I thought might've been a sign of gallows humor, but after listening to it for a while longer, I realized had simply been pre-programmed. Because after the next song, there was a commercial break, and after that, there was nothing on that station.
I scanned the dial a bit more, and found a lot of the stations were off the air, or were pre-programmed, or just playing music like it was business as usual. There was a Spanish station that came in, and had a person talking. I listened for a bit, not knowing what the person was saying, but I certainly heard the word muerta a lot.
106.5 had a CNN feed piped into it, which was more or less the equivalant of the SPanish DJ - fascinating to listen to, but not really relevant. It was there that I heard that the zombie uprising had hit, among other places, Pittsburgh, LA, New Jersey, and even Sweden.
Finally, I found a live person on an AM station. This was much more informational for me. I discovered that the Strip had been shut down - which meant that going home would have been impossible if I had not gone through Desert Inn. Unfortunately, Desert Inn was much more crowded as a result...

The guy on the AM station also informed me about the other tv stations. Channel 3, according to this guy, was, as I had figured, shut down. Nobody was answering the phones there, and they had had their "Technical Difficulties" slate up for going on half an hour at that point.
Channel 13 had switched over to a CNN feed, and Fox 5 was carrying the national Fox News feed. Channel 8 was running the national CBS feed as well. Our stations were running normal programming, so they said, which meant that our master control guys were still there. Huh.
I thought about calling the control room, when I saw a throng of zombies at the intersection of DI and Decatur. They were stumbling in the direction of my car, but I wasn't really worried. There was a lot of room between us, as well as a lot of other cars. And people. There were a bunch of pedestrians who saw the zombies approaching. This, of course, caused them to panic. Which meant that they ran. Into the street, generally.
Which caused vehicles to swerve. Or not. Someone got hit, and went flying. Two of the zombies turned their attention toward the accident victim. The rest of the horde continued to advance.
My light changed, and even though the intersection was blocked by flocks of people and zombies and hit and run victims and vehicles, i somehow managed to get through it all.

As I drove over the freeways, I looked down and saw that 95 Northbound was ...empty. That was unusual. Southbound was jampacked, of course, as people attempted to flee. But why was the other direction shut down? It was then that I saw the military tanks barricading the freeway. They were beginning to lock down the city. Soon they'd shut down the other direction, as well as all the other major arteries into and out of the city. Or at least, they would try.

The rest of the drive home was slow going, as the road became more and more congested. My phone rang three times - each time it was from work - and I ignored it.

Around Eastern & DI was when I saw the vigilantes that I mentioned earlier. A huge white pickup truck packed with men carrying pistols and shotguns was speeding up and down Eastern Avenue, and they were shooting at anyone that was simply walking. (The logic, apparently, being that living humans would duck and cover, or not be on the road to begin with.) I witnessed them take out four different zombies (I hope) in the few minutes that I was within their sight. [I just found myself thankful that they were ignoring people driving. Seemed to be encouraging us to pass through, actually. Honorable hoodlums, I guess.]

Anyway. I got home around 3:45 - even though I had left at 12:30 - which has to be a record for longest commute time ever.

I unlocked the front door and came inside. I exchanged hugs with the family, and we started making plans on where to go from here.

The original plan was to drive up to Utah, and hide out in the spare house up there. But with the freeways shut down, that won't be possible. Instead, I'm going to finsh blogging this, and then we're going to drive down the street to the Wal-Mart. I don't know what we'll do, honestly.

But, hey, at least we have blogs still. So, if anyone out there managed to survive the uprising, and is still reading this, feel free to let me know you're alive and well. Keep fighting, friends. And stay safe.

In the beginning

This site lists the first line of random books. Attached are links to Amazon.com, in case you want to know what book it is they're quoting.

There are some great first lines there, along with a number of meh ones. It's interesting (and a little disturbing) how many first lines are about murder, though.

An opening sentence of my own creation that I'm quite fond of:

First, all the birds died.

(And, see, I guess I'm guilty of the "death at front" trick as well...)

So, first lines that have stuck with you? Please share.
And, in P@ypical fashion, I have to ask - what about last lines?

blogging in 60 seconds

We're getting ready to leave, so I've given myself 60 seconds to get as much blogging done as possible.

Here we go!
The Shield is a great show, but it also puts me on edge everytime I watch it. Why is that? And why do I love it so? And what other sshows are out there like it? (i'm up to season 3 so far, btw)

Y or C? C makes more sense, but Y is

Monday grin

As I battle a "not enough sleep" headache, I will provide some youtubes that will hopefully provide a grin or two.

First, a Pearl Jam video with a unique interpretation of the mumblings of Eddie Vedder...


Now, on a related note (heh), here's a song composed entirely of random words. Sour kraut brainwash!!

cash in now honey

I've sat here for the past half hour/45 minutes trying to think of what to blog about. I've started an entry a couple of times now, and deleted the text part way through. (Will this be the one that survives all the way to publishing? Only people in the future know for sure!)

The point is - my heart is just not in it right now. For writing of any kind, basically. I did start on a screenplay today. 84 words. And they're cliche and trite and completely uninteresting to me. (And at this point, I'm the one that matters)
And while it's true that 84 words is 84 more than I had before today, ... um. I don't know.

I do know this. Sometime this month, I'm going to take a step toward getting that ...other project going. [/purposely vague because that's what I do] I've been sitting on that idea for ...a year? A year and a half? Jeez. Too long, whatever the case. Anyway. I'm ready to stop just thinking about it. Hopefully when inspirations knocks again, I'll actually answer the door this time.

On a completely unrelated note, one of the episodes of The Shield that we are airing this weekend is #3-11, "Strays", in which, at the very end of the episode, Detective Dutch Wagenbach [begin spoiler for Strays - highlight to view] strangles a cat to death.[/end spoiler]

Nothing unique in this observation, but it struck me again how absurd it is that we can't allow women (or men) wearing thong underwear to be shown on the air, but the above action is perfectly acceptable.