We all scream for ice cream

The Springs Preserve, which we have been to once before was celebrating their one-year anniversary today. We heard about it on the radio earlier this week. The festivities were to include, "All you can eat ice cream, free concerts from Celtic bands, behind the scenes tours of the museum, and, of course, the museum itself." All for only 6 dollars a person! (It's normally something outrageous, like 20. [okay, maybe 14? I don't know. more than our family of five can afford is all]
So, anyway. We were all, "Woo! Free ice cream!? Free music (even if it isn't something we'd normally listen to)!? Free edutainmental activities!? We are so there!"

The celebration was being touted as going from 11am to 4pm. A little before noon today we were getting ready to leave, but we decided to see what (if any) food (other than ice cream) was available at the Springs Preserve. According to their site, they only have the one cafe, and it is "Cafe By Wolfgang Puck". ...which didn't exactly sound like it would be in our price range.
We opted to find something nearby (and cheaper) to have for lunch before going into the SP.

After lunch, we drove toward were the SP is. Except we found that there were construction signs and pylons indicating that due to the "Event", that the main parking lot was full, and to park in the parking lot of the Meadows Mall instead. We also saw a good deal of people walking, and practically every nearby parking spot taken. Hrm. This was starting to feel less exciting, and more like 'dealing with crowds'. But. We found a parking spot that wasn't too far from the entrance to SP, and we began walking. Fortunately it wasn't in the triple digits today, and as we were walking among the hordes of folks making their way to the line, we commented that at least the weather was comfortable.

When we got to the end of the line, we marveled at just how long it was. (For those playing along at home... it was long.) We contemplated not going in, but we'd already come this far. Plus... ice cream!

So, we made our way through the line, moving a few feet every 30 seconds or so. ALong the way, we passed a couple of vendors selling "ice cold pepsi", who were stating that the line was "long...and getting longer" (They were putting people in front of us?? How dare they!!) as well as a stream that Irina and the girls dipped their hands in.
Eventually we got to the cashier, paid our money, got our handstamps, and made our way inside. ...along with the other 50,000 people who were there.
We had brought some nature to bring to the nature-trading section of the SP, and so Harper did that. Turned out that some of the rocks she traded in were volcanic, and therefore worth a bunch of points. Hooray!!
All 3 girls used the points to pick out some shells and/or other items, and Harper still has 1115 points in trade left, for (if there is a) next time.

After that we decided to look to see about the ice cream. There were two lines - one labeled 'sundaes' and one labeled 'cones', and both snaked around and around and around pretty much throughout the entire park section and sidewalks of the place. We opted to NOT get in line at that time. (It didn't help matters that I don't think I ever saw the true ending of the line. I suspect it actually looped back in on itself.)
Instead we went into the building with the displays about the history of Springs Preserve, because it was super-air-conditioned.

It was also, of course, super crowded. We made our way through there, not really looking at any of the displays, and instead headed toward the outside zoo-area. I saw some lizards, and the girls got to take a look at a bat. And I think Irina saw a rabbit or two, but I'm not certain.

As we were heading back inside, we heard an employee asking people if they wanted to take a 'behind-the-scenes' tour of the flash flood display. We saw that last time we went [the flash flood display, not the behind the scenes part], and it was impressive. So getting a chance to see how it worked sounded pretty good to me.
We got in line for that, and followed the employee, along with about 20 other people, through a door that I hadn't noticed before, into a large room with two massive pipes and a bunch of computer equipment and whatnot. The employee rattled off a few stats about the flash flood display and how the pipes in this room controlled it all, and... that was it. Um. Oh...kay.

After that, we went to a small park-area, where Irina played on a train, and Saren climbed around on equipment that looked like desert animals.
And then we were all more or less ready to leave. There were just too many people and not enough things to do that were interesting to all of us.
We made our way through the gift shop and on the way out we of course decided that ice cream must be had...from somewhere else.

On the walk back to the van, some of the businesses near Meadows Mall had their sprinklers on. It was hot, and everyone was cranky, so to help cool off - and make everyone laugh - I ran through them like a loon. The girls quickly followed suit, and it made things a little bit better.

We got to the van and cranked the AC, and drove to Dairy Queen, and had sundaes there.

j p q v x z

Some random things.

[-] I've figured out what to do about the high gas prices. Just wait until after they get up to 9.99 a gallon. After that, they'll cycle back around to 0.00. Whoo!! Free gasoline!!

[-] People will watch anything.

[-] I'm reading a very fun novel, "Soon I Will Be Invincible", about superheroes and supervillains. I'm only a few chapters in, but I could easily see this being made into a movie. And it could conceivably even be a good movie. Eh. If nothing else, it's making me even more eager to see Hancock this summer. (That and The Dark Knight are the only two movies I absolutely must see from the aught-eight summer season)

[-] How come 'superheroes' is an acceptable word [to Blogger's internal dictionary], but 'supervillains' is underlined in red? (For the record, the suggestion is just to split it into two words.

[-] Next week is Friday the 13th. It's the only one this year. Yay? I looked it up on wikipedia earlier today, and that was kinda interesting. I knew that there were more Friday the 13ths than any other day, but they break it down in a nifty chart and everything. (Also, reminder to people that they should sign up for that zombie-thing that's taking place that day.)

[-] Today is Simon's birthday. Hope he had a good one.

[-] MarioKart for the Wii is so. freaking. fun. We've had it for several weeks now, and it still hasn't lost any of it's appeal.

[-] Season 4 of Lost wound up being the best one so far. Except, dude. Where's Vincent?

[-] I keep forgetting (and then remembering, and being upset by the fact) that it's Two Thousand and EIGHT. Doesn't it feel like it should still be, I don't know, '04 or something?

[-] Speaking of. I'm going to age again in 8 days.

[-] I'm fairly confident that I've forgotten about 13 other things I was going to talk about in this blog entry. Ah well, fodder for later dates.

Choppin' Barack-illy

I was going to talk about Obama and how, despite my stance on the democratic system and how, despite seeing half of Recount during our vacation [and being impressed and depressed simultaneously by the movie], and how, despite not really knowing what change Obama is for... I might just go ahead and vote for him in November.

Like I said, I was going to blog about all that.

Instead, an awesome related video from The Daily Show:

I'm not dead and I'm not for sale

"Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart" by Stone Temple Pilots


So it's June now.

As you all may remember, last June, around mid-month, there was an outbreak of zombies.

Well, this year, it might just happen again.

Now, I'd normally be all over this (it really was a lot of fun last year, and while my entry turned out pretty decently, it wasn't *nearly* as great as I had wanted it to be)... but, due to the randomness of the year, it has turned out that my blogging every other day has wound up with me blogging on even numbered days in June.
And BLITEOTW2 is happening on the 13th...

I may make a special exception for this 'event' and partake anyway. We'll see when the day arrives, I suppose. But, mostly I wanted to get the word out and urge everyone out there to, on June 13th, post a zompocalypse-related post (or ten) of your own. Even if I don't write my own, I'd greatly enjoy reading about everyone else's dooms. :)

Hey now, hey now

"Don't Dream It's Over" by Crowded House



I think it's hitting me that my vacation is just about complete. We've been back in Vegas for almost three full days now, and I return to work on Monday. My self-imposed challenge of blogging every other day is calling me back too, and after not (really) having blogged for the past ...however many days (too lazy to figure out the math, despite it being really simple), it's difficult to bring myself back into the rhythm, and harder still to type it all out.
I think I'll forgo the month-end word count and movie reviews. I will say that May was another lackluster month for movie-viewing, but I expect June to be much better, especially since all the 'appointment' programs are done now. (Hi, Lost and Survivor!)

So. Vacation.
Steph, as usual, did a bang-up job covering ...pretty much everything already. She even included a youtube video in her post. You can't top video. I mean, unless you're reporting things live, which would...um...not really be a blog entry. (Yet.)

That being said, I should probably report my account of the trip, just for posterity's sake.
As stated before, the Reno-Vegas drive is a highly unpleasant one. I know I said it. I know Steph said it. But it really bears repeating. Out of all the drives in the world, I suspect this is on the top ten of Worst.

The good thing about having it be the first of the drives on the way up is that it got out of the way. (The bad thing, of course, being that it's the final drive on the way back.) What helped alleviate the boredom of the drive up was that we had some audio books of the first 4 "Howie" books - spin-offs of the Bunnicula series. These were entertaining enough to help pass the time. We also had an audio book of Redwall, but we never did finish listening to that...

Medford was good, again, and if we wound up there, I wouldn't complain. It's green, and it gets rain, and it's Oregon, which is an all-around pleasant state. Seriously, I don't know if it's the air, or the water, or what, but people in Oregon are just nicer than they are here. I mean, they pump your gas for you, no matter where you go.

Portland, though, has my vote for 1st pick, now. And I know that people who live there don't really want more influx of people moving there, but, you know, maybe if the place (and the populace) wasn't so damn enjoyable...

Yeah, it rained the entire time we were up there, and the temperature s were lower than Vegas (and even, supposedly seasonally lower than normal) but it wasn't that bad. I was even wearing shorts on ...Sunday? Saturday? I can't remember when, but I was able to tolerate the chill in the air. It certainly beat the triple digits I'm going to be suffering through for the next three months.

The conference was great, as usual, even if, as usual, (and very similar to Steph's feelings - which is why we're such a great match :)), I felt that I didn't really break out of my shell enough. The funshops were entertaining enough, and, really, there is nothing quite like the atmosphere of an unschooling conference. The hotel was fabulous, and was in a great location - right across the Columbia river, literally half a mile over Washington's border. We crossed state lines so many times over the course of 4 or 5 days.

It was also really good to see Chance & Brett - Steph's brothers who live in Portland now. Yet another reason for us to move up there.

After the conference ended, we still had another night in the hotel. It was eerie seeing it all quiet after having had it be constantly filled with unschoolers of all ages and ALWAYS having things going on for the past 4 days. When we checked out on Tuesday, I believe we may've been the last of the Life Is Gooders to leave the Red Lion. :(

But I supsect we'll be back next year. In a perfect world, we'll live in the area. It would certainly save on commuting time. Heh.

...Let's see. I feel pretty strongly that
a) I'm forgetting stuff
b) I'm not expressing the greatness of the entire experience *nearly* well enough
c) I'm too tired to really care (it's much later now than when I originally started this)

but, oh well. I'll have to relay all this info (and more, no doubt) multiple times on Monday when I go back to work. Joy.

Oh, right. Some stats on the vacation:

Stalled vehicle count: 79
Highest gas price seen: $4.75
Highest gas price paid: $4.09
Number of times "Five Dollar Footlong" was said and/or sung: aprox. 5739
Number of times we had a Five Dollar Footlong: Zero.
Greatest meals eaten: Abby's Legendary Pizza, Burgerville (twice), tuna sandwich in the hotel room (I was starving, and it was good tuna)
Worst meals eaten: McMenimamanin's (just not worth it, sorry.), Westside Pizza (meh)
# of people "killed" by the P@inator (that's me being a Terminator): 2 (Harper in Medford, and Harper in Vancouver)
# of decibels emitted by Harper's screams when seeing the P@inator approach: aprox. 5739
Funnest funshops: Let's Build a Fort [resulted in a cardboard fort the size of a small room]; Up, Up, and Away [balloons and foam rockets and frisbees all played with outside in the liquid sunshine]; Cootie Catcher [horrible name, fun craft]; Barefoot Boogie [not a funshop per se, but still a whole lot of fun]; Talent Show [ditto].

And with that, and the fact that it's now 11pm, I'm clicking publish post.

home again, home again

oh, man. so tired.
note to self: never drive from reno to vegas again. (longest, most boringest drive EVER)

conference was good, portland/vancouver [hi, min's state!] is AWESOME, much too much stuff to cover now and much too much blogging to catch up on (other people's.), and there's still the unpacking of our clothing and the resting from the vacation to do. *sigh*

overall, though, no complaints at all. Expect a gigantic post in two days after I've had time to process everything.

Keep watching this one.

I'm doing another CAST. (That's Continue-A-STory, for those of you playing along at home. Wherein, I blog the beginning of a story, and the next installment(s) are told in the comments by readers. Hooray!)

Previous CASTs are here, here, here and here [man. that last one is just sadly neglected.] Any and all of these are able to be added onto, of course...

The interesting thing about this go around is that I'm not actually present to see it posted, or to see how the story develops, and I won't be until Thursday...

that being said, let's begin.

She ached.

That was the first thing she noticed upon coming to. Her entire body ached. Nothing unusual about that, not at her age, but, still, this amount of pain was indicative of something wrong. Additionally, it made it hard to focus. There was a dull throbbing in her head, and when she tried to rub her temples, she was stopped by the handcuffs attached to her wrists.
That was a new development.

She opened her eyes, suddenly much more alert - and frightened - than she had been. The pain was still there, but she was now realizing that it may be the least of her worries.

The room she was in appeared to not be her own. She was still in her bed, which was interesting,and she was still wearing her nightgown, but the room itself was not one she recognized. It appeared, in fact, to be a jail cell. It was quite sparse. No windows, only one door - closed - and nothing on the walls. Another interesting thing she noticed was that there was a ceiling fan with a dimly lit bulb above her head. This appeared to be identical to the one from her bedroom. Odd. Why duplicate some of the materials from her bedroom? She then noticed a small video camera in the upper corner. It was pointed in her direction. She glared toward the lens. She muttered something under her breath. Nothing happened.

She examined the cuffs. They were attached to her bedpost, giving her very little amount of room to navigate. She turned her attention back to the camera. Assuming that her captors were presently watching she addressed them.
"What do you want from me?"
She had plenty of other questions she wanted answered, but this one would do to begin with.

There was no response to begin with, and then, from a speaker in the wall that she had not noticed before, a male voice said, "We know that you are a witch, and we know how to neutralize your powers. You will do as we tell you..."

And all I have to show for it is this awesome vacation

Dude. Yesterday was my 13 year anniversary at the station. Thirteen years.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. So I think I'll laugh. HA!! (Because I'm in Oregon, not thinking about work whatsoever. I'll cry when I get back on June 2nd.)

The Tribe Has Spoken

A Survivor style funshop would be kick-ass fun at an Unschooling conference. We're going to have to give this more planning/thought....

I'm not really here.

Hopefully this is working, and this post will show up after Wednesday at 9:21pm, regardless of the fact that it was actually written days beforehand. (Time is meaningless!!!) This does raise some questions about the nature of time. I mean, everything that is read is actually about things that have already taken place, because they were written in the past, even when it's about things that haven't occurred. Um. Yeah, I'm not sure about what I just wrote. Eh. I'm basically filling for time (heh!) because I don't have anything to say as I type this, but what's crazy is that when you are reading it, that won't be the case any more.

We'll have driven aproximately 1,500 miles, and will be in (or near) Vancouver, Washington. Undoubtedly there will have been plenty of things to have blogged about. Undoubtedly pictures well have been taken. And undoubtedly, I'll be pretty darn tired by that point. (Driving = exhausting) But for now, that's all in (my) future. Bah. Time travel.

Speaking of Time Travel - we bought T2 today. (Um. I mean last Sunday.) It was in the bargain bin DVD pile for only 5.50, so I snatched that sucker up. I then had to give Harper the reader's digest version of the plot of The Terminator. She's pretty excited about the whole thing lately - I suspect because of how often I play "Terminator" with her, and the bits and pieces of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles that she has seen. We haven't yet watched the movie(s) though, but once we do, I'll be sure to let you know what she thinks about it/them.

Lastly, I saw this sign at the mall today (er, again, last Sunday):

"In 2007, American's spent 16 billion dollars on bottled water."

Which led me to wonder - how much did we spend on misused apostrophes? [yeah, probably not what the writer's (HEE!) of the sign were wanting me to think, but that's the way my brain works.]

Whoops!

It's already 9:30 in the morning, and we are just now waking up. So much for being on the road by 9. You know what they say about plans...

Anyway. We should be able to get out of here by 10:30. If, you know, I stop doing non-important things like blogging...
Speaking of, I've got the vacation days covered. I wrote them all out yesterday, and if I can't get to a computer before they post, cool. If I do, then I'll just stop them from showing up. Win-win!

In other news, I really want to take that Death Cab for Cutie song (I Will Possess Your Heart) and create an Indiana Jones video to go with it. Checking youtube, I'm amazed (and disappointed) that nobody's done it already.

Okay! Time to get going!

Dear Michael Bay

Please. Just stop.

Sincerely,

All of Humanity

Super/Awesome/Posting

Three posts in one!

I was originally going to give a recap of the season finale of Smallville as my blog entry today, since that aired this evening. (Just finished about ten minutes ago, actually). However, I only saw the last 30 minutes, and also, it was a pretty lackluster episode from what little I witnessed, so... consider this that entry. All you need to know is
Brainiac was killed (by Clark).
Supergirl is trapped in the Phantom Zone.
Lana is no longer a zombie, but she left Clark a Dear John video. (Which made him give Lois a comfort hug.)
Chloe got arrested by the Department of Homeland Security for doing her illegal computer hacking (because Lex turned her in).
Lex found the Fortress, finally learned the truth about Clark, and in the final two minutes of the show, he & Clark faced each other in the Fortress, and Lex used some crazy sphere to destroy the entire building, leaving the fates of both characters unknown.

Moving on to the next post.

This is the the coolest coffee table ever. It's from the aptly named blog, "Ultra Awesome". The writer of said blog obviously has a lot of spare time and dedication to his projects. I really want one of those coffee tables, though.

3rd post!

Thus far this year, i've done quite well on my goal of blogging-every-other-day. However. We're going on vacation beginning on the 19th (I could still blog before we hit the road that day, so the real 'trouble' won't start until the 21st). I don't know whether I should compose my blog entries beforehand, and pre-date them, since Blogger now has the feature set up that any blog written in the "future" will automatically show up once that date arrives. Meaning I could write my blog entries for the dates that I won't be at the computer and just have them show up... or, I could try to see if I can find a chance to blog on the road. Or, I could just wait until we get back and back-date all my entries.
I really don't know what I'll decide to do yet. But I guess I have a few more days to figure it out.

OMG! It's like, an Upfront!

Ahh, May. Time when the networks traditionally have their Upfronts. I've blogged about upfronts before.

This year's upfront took place in the afternoon (early evening for the East Coasters), whereas every other year (that I have been witness to, anyway) has happened in the morning, so that was a little weird.

Maroon Five was the opening band, and they were, you know, adequate. The main problem with them was that they just kept going. After the 2nd song, I really thought they'd be done. (I seriously thought they'd be done after 1, but two wasn't out of the realm of possibilities) But they played 4. Dude. It's an Upfront, not a concert.

Anyway. After that came probably the shortest Upfront Presentation to date. Dawn Ostroff really just zipped through the lineup, and for once they went in order, rather than jumping around the week, which was nice.
Before they got to the schedule, though, she had to give some blah-de-blah about how the CW is all about the "3D's" - "Demographic", "Desirable", and "Destination".
The CW is keying in on the Demographic of young women (18-34), with Desirable programs for that demographic, and is the best destination for shows for that target audience. (Yeah. I know. People actually get paid to come up with nonsense like that.)
Anyway. The point is that (this year, at least) the CW is going to be going after women pretty aggressively, and wants to be the network known for "OMGTV". (Sigh.)
That being said, here's the lineup for fall of '08 (with new programs in bold):

Mondays:
8pm - Gossip Girl
9pm - One Tree Hill

Tuesdays:
8pm - 90210
9pm - Surviving the Filthy Rich

Wednesdays:
8pm - America's Next Top Model
9pm - Stylista

Thursdays:
8pm - Smallville
9pm - Supernatural

Fridays -
8pm - Everybody Hates Chris
8:30pm - The Game
9pm - America's Next Top Model ("encore" of Wednesdays episode)

Sundays -
????

So. Yeah. 90210 is, as you've probably read about, a spin-off (some 10 years after the original show ended) of Beverly Hills, 90210. From the limited amount they showed of the program, it looks like it's going to be Gossip Girl, just set in California. Five years ago I probably would've tuned in out of curiousity (I did watch the original 90210 in the early years. I was a stupid kid, okay?) but now... no. Just not my cup of tea - at all. And, dude. I'm totally old now, and all this show will do is serve to remind me of that. No thanks.

Surviving the Filthy Rich looks to be another teen-age soap opera, and I guess is based on a novel of the same name? Basic premise: Young 20-something in college gets recruited to be a tutor to some ultra-rich teenage sisters (who are party animals, and are totally supposed to represent the Bush daughters, imo) in Palm Beach, Florida. Bonding and life lessons - as well as bikini-clad women - ensue. Pass.

Stylista is, in a nutshell, The Apprentice set at Elle magazine. A bunch of reality tv contestants try to become fashion designers and magazine editors. ...in a reality tv type of way. Yeah. I don't think I'll be watching that, either.

Smallville will be in Season 8, and has new producers and no more Lex Luthor. But, I'm sure I'll watch it anyway, because I really do not know how to stop. Plus, I'm curious how bad it will get.

Sunday wasn't really touched upon, which was ...troubling. All that Dawn said about Sunday was how the CW has made a deal with ...um...some company that I can't remember the name of right now - and they will be producing the shows that air on Sundays? So basically it was, "We don't know what we'll be airing on the night we have to fill 5 hours, but it's gonna be something!" Yikes.

Reaper is coming back, but not until midseason.

What. Eva!!

Moms are awesome. End of story.

...and there's nothin' on.

Remember when I scrolled through the radio stations and then blogged about it?
Well, today, because I'm a huge ol' nerd, during lunch I decided to do the same thing with the tv.

The following occurred between 11:22am and 12:02pm.

I started with the lowest channel (2) and wrote down whatever was on, then switched up to the next channel. I think I stayed on each one an average of 35 seconds (although I haven't done the math to really figure it out). If I was able to know the station/channel that it was, I indicated it. Here we go!

2 - This is labeled the "Pentagon Channel", and is currently showing cemeteries while stating facts about the number of vererans that are buried each year. Gloomy!

3 - KVBC, the NBC affiliate - a commercial for Amica insurance

4 - CCTV - two old woman talking...about composting?

5 - KVVU, Fox 5 - I changed the channel as soon as I heard someone say, "I'm a life coach".

6 - KVCW, the CW affiliate, and one of the stations I work for - Family Feud was on at this time. It was the lightning round, and the question I stuck around for was, "Name a color of socks a guy should never wear." The contestant gave the answer "Red". (I watched to see if the family won 20,000 at the end - they didn't - and the #1 answer to that question was "Pink")

7 - TBS - an ad. Why choose Ziplock? To stop freezer burn, apparently.

8 - KLAS - the CBS affiliate - some unidentifiable (to me) soap opera. Next!

9 - A Spanish Soap Opera. Next!!

10 - KLVX - the PBS affiliate - the end credits to the program, It's a Big Big World, which I've never watched.

11 - QVC - currently selling a "minimizing bra".

12 - KVMY - the MyNetwork affiliate, and the other station I work for. Ugh. It's Maury. Lots of bleeping as Maury tries to determine the parentage. I quickly change the channel to...

13 - KTNV - the ABC affiliate, which is airing a commercial for the Fantastik Indoor Swap Meet. Ahh, daytime TV.

14 - KTUD, the local station with no network affiliation. When I switched to it, it was the last few seconds of a commercial for Triple A insurance, and then the end credits for The Cosby Show. Jazzy!!

15 - A Spanish soap opera. Next!

16 - WGN is airing a baseball game. It's AZ vs CUB, and AZ leads 1 to 0 right now. (Bottom of the first inning). Next!

17 - HSN (Home Shopping Network) currently selling some sort of body salts.

18 - TNT. an episode of ER

19 - All I can tell is that the Nasdaq is down 24%

20 - CNN - some guy looking at websites. Um. Isn't that what we have computers for? Why would I watch television to see someone surf the web?

21 - Fox News - Iraq is great!!!!!!

22 - Headline News - Myanmar relief

23 - Nick Jr - Um... someone who looks passingly like Flava Flav is dancing with colorful robots. Kids shows today are messed. up.

24 - FX - the movie Dude, Where's My Car?. Um. I'm assuming. It's Ashton Kutcher, and it doesn't look like That 70s Show, and it's not Punk'd, so yeah, I think it's DWMC.

25 - A commercial for the 2008 US Open.

26 - A cat food commercial. Make your cat healthy!

27 - BET - apparently they're in the midst of a countdown. #6 is plaing right now, and it's a song I've, not unsurprisingly, never heard of. But they're rapping very quickly, whatever it is.

28 - Playhouse Disney - a computer generated kangaroo is counting

29 - SpikeTV - Oooh! It's that World's Most Amazing Police Footage or whatever. They're currently showing a burning car on the side of the road. Explosiony goodness!

30 - ESPN - Next!

31 - ESPN2 - Golf. Heh!! People actually did the golf-clap!

32 - A&E - ..I dunno what this is. Something about a trial from the '70's.

33 - A cat food commercial.

34 - USA - a J. G. Wentworth commercial.

35 - CNBC - Oh, look, the Nasdaq is down 24%.

36 - There's a shiny new razor that has aloe and shea butter on it. Mmmm. Shea butter.

37 - MTV - Oh, lord. Reality TV of some sort.

38 - MTV2 - An ad for some music download to your mobile phone thing. Damn kids with their technology and their music ....grumble grumble.

39 - VH1 - Oh, lord. Reality TV of some sort.

40 - A black & white movie with... Robert Redford? (I realized later that it was actually more likely to be Paul Newman. And I'm still not absolutely positive, but the face was familiar). He's playing a soldier of some sort in a wheelchair... this is almost intriguing enough to keep watching, but...

41 - TVLand - a commercial for Hidden Valley Ranch dressing

42 - Food Network - Some dude is preparing corn.

43 - History Channel - Ooh, historical re-enactment... about pirates. If I weren't on a mission to get to all the channels, I'd probably stop here and watch this. Of all the things I've seen so far, it's the most interesting.

44 - Weather Channel - It's currently 83 degrees with wind gusts of 22 mph.

45 - SciFi Channel - Boo!! It's a commercial for Lasik Plus. I was hoping for something good.

46 - A commercial for... binoculars?

47 - MSNBC - Hulk Hogan is in court? Because his son ran someone over? I'm so out of the loop.

48 - A chef is demonstrating something with... fish roe. Yuck.

49 - PSN, whatever that is, is showing a documentary about Joe Frazier.

50 - A soccer (aka football) game. LA vs RSL, tied at 2.

51 - an infomercial about foreclosure.

52 - AMC - some old black & white movie with... John Wayne, maybe? Some guys in snow, and a plane flies overhead... but doesn't see them. It's very sad.

53 - Bravo - a stand up comedienne is being applauded, but I missed the joke. Now she's talking to a guy in the audience about proposals to his girlfriend... and I'm bored.

54 - Court TV - reporters talking about some political hoo-haw.

55 - HGTV - a reality make-over your house, or at least one of the rooms in your house, show.

56 - Comedy Central - the show is Comic Remix. First there was a comic talking about life in the 'hood. By the time I finished writing that down, it had changed to a comic talking about child abuse. Beating kids up is teh funny!

57 - CMT - a video from Trace Atkins... or someone.

58 - Animal Planet - Eew. Animal surgery.

59 - ABC Family? Maybe? It's an ad for the movie Love Don't Cost a Thing, which is airing on ABC Family tonight.

60 - Discovery Health - Some guy is happy...about whatever. Next!

61 - Some home shopping channel....selling a dress.

62 - An ad, in Spanish.

63 - A Spanish soap opera.

64 - Spanish news.

65 - Cartoon Network - Mucha Lucha. This was actually occasionally funny.

66 - Some commercial for Flomax.

67 - a paid program for Food Saver

then it skipped a bunch of channels (the premium ones, that we don't pay for at work, I suppose) to:

95 - the TV Guide Channel.

And that brings us back to 2.
Hooray!

I have only myself to blame

Why do I continue to check out (and read) Dean Koontz books? I'm currently 150-ish pages into The Darkest Evening of the Year, and it is horrid. Like, "hurl the book across the room" bad.

And yet... I know I'm going to finish it in the next day or two. And, undoubtedly will pick up whatever else he publishes. Except for the Odd series. Which, ironically enough, I've heard are not half bad. It's like, "a good Koontz book? I won't stand for that!"

What books/authors/movies/tv shows/whatever do you torment yourself with, despite knowing that you really shouldn't?

Cayenne pepper induced wackiness

Still suffereing from the sore throat from hell. It's been one week now, and despite the fact that it ebbs and flows (and was completely gone this morning around 12-2am [I could swallow again! It was heavenly!]), it hasn't entirely left my body yet. So, today, I decided to look up some home remedies online, and read all about how cayenne pepper being gargled is supposed to be a great fixer-upper.

Once I got home, I tried a little bit, and found myself weaving in and out of consciousness on the couch as it did it's magic. (Verdict seems to be that it is much less severe right now than earlier in the day, but still not the panacea that the website people made it out to be)

Anyway. During my semi-sleeping-state, I had some thoughts/dreams/story ideas, and will now share a little bit of them:

Her final words were, "Do females have souls? I have the eggs!" - the banshee then evaporated.

*****

Let me tell you, once you're turned, you know it's just a matter of time before you're discovered. And when that happens, you better be prepared to kill the unfortunate soul that has found out your secret.

******

Vampire strung upside down in a snare-trap [see I Am Legend]. Hunter guy approaches and angrily asks, "How many? How many did you kill?"
The vamp growls something inaudible and adds, "Plus one." and way too quickly springs itself out of the trap, disemboweling the hunter guy all in a blink of an eye.

*****

...and there were some other dreams/thoughts about Barack Obama that I can't remember now. I don't think that he's a vampire, though.

This day in history

Went back through my old journals. Here's what happened on 5/3 throughout the years...

1998:
So you want my stord story. It's not that unusual of a tale, but it is a remarkable one, nonetheless. It begins, as all good stories do, with

The End.

Um....

I need to start a good story. This is the problem. I'm unmotivated.
I just suck at writing.
It's hot in here. Time for sleep. 5-3-98 10:22pm [607days]

1999:
Mulan was pretty good. I'd give it a 7 or an 8. Maybe an 8.5.
We're 1/2 way = maybe less- thru "The Opposite of Sex" w/ Christinia Ricci. It's a comedrama, and it's funny. But it's stuff you shouldn't laugh at, but do anyway. It has (so far) no redeemable characters, but I still like them. It's weird. Good writing/acting/directing, I suppose.
Steph's back feels a lot better. Whic his good.
I have to work traffic tomorrow. Bad.
Tomorrow is the birthday of both my dad and Cyndee. Small world.
Speaking of small worlds, I re-introduced Cassie into my little universe today. And oddly enough, it was by chance. As I was driving home, I stopped at a red light. The car in front of me suddenly poked out a female head - Cassie.
"Hey, Pat!" she yelled.
I rolled down my window, poked out my head, waved back, "Hi!"
When the light turned green we drove, pulled over to the shoulder & got out and talked for a few minutes (I was giving Troy a ride home, she was going to pick up one of her stepdaughters from school, so we had to make it brief). Got her #, and that was that.
Again, small world.
I made dinner tonight. Chicken & spaghetti. It was bad, but ya gotta eat, even if it's crap.
Saren is takin' a nap bath. Now she's brushing her teeth. We Steph cleaned & baby-proofed the guest bathroom, so Saren can go in there and use the potty as she deems necessary. She's growing up so fast.
It isn't fair.
A naked baby just blurred past me. I gotta go. 8:32p 5-3-99

2000:
Again with the short entry. I thought those days were behind me - obviously not. Went back to work today - it sucked. Apparently nobody covered my shift yesterday so a whole lotta crap was left to do plus today's crap.
Jared was carjacked a few days back! I guess some guys got into his car, pointed a gun at him & told him to drive. They saw someone walking. They grabbed him, beat him up & took his money, then got out of Jared's car. Jared leads the strangest life sometimes.
Well, I guess I'll go get in bed now.
I want a computer. 5-3 11:30pm

2002:
Would I be excused for not writing today since I'm sick as a dog? Well, now I don't have to put it to the test. I called in today. Spidermeh was average. I'm so hot I can't stand it.

2003:
Stephanie moved the world map into the living room, where we have placed all our postcards around it, and put stickers on the places we've received postcards from. Man, that sentence was unweildy. Unwieldy? Gah. Why do I keep saying things I don't know if I mean?

Anywhat, not much to blog about. We went to the library yesterday, and I checked out My Story by Marilyn Monroe. Research! I also got the 2-disc Oingo Boingo Anthology CD. ...Except that it only has one disc. Doh.
But it was quite fun to dance around in the living room today. The girls had a fun time too. I think Stephanie was simply glad that nobody else was able to see it. (My dancing is ...something else.)

I'm nearly done reading The Culture of Make Believe. I wish I had something else in store to read once I'm finished. Nothing really seems to grab me anymore.

Ooh! Email!

2007:
Of the 15 or 23 people who read my blog, the following will only be of interest to maybe 4 or 8 of you. Yep, I'm talking Lost.

It's not a fully developed theory, and I don't know how much of it I buy myself, but ever since the seed of the idea came into my mind (sometime after "Catch 22" aired), it's been growing.


Spoilers for season 3 up through at least "The Brig" are below:

What if Smokezilla is God?
Not exactly the God of the Bible, but still, an omnipotent judging....being.

In Neil Gaiman's books, gods fade out of existence if people stop having faith in them. I really like the idea that god(s) have to survive on faith. What if that is what the island's security system has to live off of as well?

My island time line would go something like this: First, Dharma arrives on the island, and they either discover Smokezilla or create it. Either way, they start to worship it, maybe. And for a while, Smokezilla lives on a strict diet of Otherosity. That is the only "religion" that it knows, and everything is hunky-dory.

Then, Danielle and her crew show up on the island, and accidentally (?) cause an illness that kills pregnant women on the island.

Now, the Others have to start recruiting people to get to the island.

Somewhere along the way, Smoke(God)zilla learns that there are other faiths. So, since it wants to learn more about them, it begins to bring people of different faiths to the island - Desmond was a monk, Eko was a priest (actually Yemi was, and it brought Yemi there first), Jack has faith in science, John has faith ...in the island (which might be why the Others think he's "special"). Maybe the Island/Smokey/God is looking for a religion that it can call it's own. Maybe God is Lost, and wants to be Found.

Eh. Like I said, not a fully fleshed out theory, and I can confidently say that I would be floored if the show did go in this direction, but if it does, remember that you heard it here first. :)

2008:
It's evident to me that based on my past writings I am not a television show, because the stuff I write during "sweeps" is most certainly not my best. :P
It is funny (or sad, depending) how over the course of ten years I was:
starting various stories (and not finishing them)
complaining about work
sick during the month of May
marveling about how quickly the girls were growing up
theorizing on television shows

The more things change...

I can ride my bike with no handlebars

"Handlebars" by the Flobots


Happy New Month!

This, I just realized, is my 1201st post on this blog. Jeezum, Crow, that's a lot of posting. I had more, but a while back I went on a deleting spree. No more of that. From here on out, anything in the past remains there, for better or for worse. (Really, the "better" entry was bloody brilliant, imnsho. Ya'll should (re)check it out.)

Anyway. It's May Day, and the idea of posting a story that had to do with the distress call crossed my mind (the rebooting [hee!] of "Roger" being the prominent choice, natch) but as is always the case lately, my Muse has gone missing.
So instead, I present a little game that everyone can play on their own blogs, if they so choose. (Yeah, it's another meme. Kinda. I guess. Sometimes these things spread, sometimes they don't.)

This is the drop-down-a-to-z meme!

In your address bar, type each letter of the alphabet, and list the first site that the computer selects.

Here are mine:

http://ape10.blogspot.com/ - HA!!!
http://www.blogger.com/home - Heh.
http://crankymatty.com/ - Oh, and look! He's posted again! Hooray!
http://www.defectiveyeti.com/ - only recently discovered, but I like this blog.
http://epigone.blogspot.com/ - Amanda, you beat out ebay! (I don't know why my browser doesn't list the sites alphabetically.)
http://forums.buffyguide.com/cgi-bin/wwwthreads/postlist.pl?Cat=&Board=regular&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=21
gmail.com
http://heathallyn.com/human/
https://ilsweb.lvccld.org/patroninfo~S12 - Heh. The local library website, which we use to order books in, see if they have them in stock, etc. I don't know if it'll load for everyone. [shrug]
http://www.johnniewalkerrvs.com/listings.php
http://kiddley.com/
http://lasvegas.craigslist.org/rvs/
m is mail.google, which is the same as g. I don't think that's fair. Skipping that and going to the next m site listed gets us to http://mothering.com/discussions/ - a site that Steph frequents. I call the people there "Mothering-dot-communists" because I like to pretend I'm witty.
http://noirbettie.com/blog/ - Hi, Annika!!
http://oslowe.livejournal.com/ - Hi, Will!!
http://pierrecoghil.livejournal.com/ - I keep telling Steph that she needs to tell Chance to update more. In case he's reading this himself, I'll just say, "Chance. You should update more." :)
q was listed as 'quikorder.pizzahut.com/phorders2/maincoupons.php', but when I clicked it, the site forwarded me to pizzahut.com. Skipping all the quikorders... we get to http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=3074 which is a "What Lost Character are you?" type of quiz, but it's not a very good one.
http://ranprieur.com/ - One of the many many things to love about Ran's site is how it always just loads automaticaly because there so little there. It's all just text and links. No fancy banners or music or photos or ads.
http://slashingclaw.proboards55.com/index.cgi - One of Saren's role-playing Warriors based websites.
http://televisionwithoutpity.com - Still hate the redesign.
http://unschoolingmama.blogspot.com/ - :)
http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/productSupport/store_locator.cfm?state=ca#
http://wamu.com - sigh
http://www.xkcd.com/406/ - heh.
http://yahoogroups.com/ - 2nd was youtube.
http://zennioptical.com/cart/home.php


Ta-dah!!

Another month bites the dust

I called in from work today, because I have been struck with the mystery disease from hell. I have no energy whatsoever [which is (part of) why I haven't replied to the comments on the free will post. Which I do appreciate. I'll get to that soon. Or maybe I won't! Heh.], and my throat hurts to swallow (or touch, because the inside has swollen so much.) and my lower back is absolutely killing me. Also, moving too suddenly results in a massively killer headache.

Some of this is due to allergies, I know. Still doesn't help in making it go away.
(And I doubt severely that the allergies are causing my back pain.)

Anyway. Can you believe that April is (almost) done? Gahhhh.

As has been the custom this year, month-end means adding up word counts and movie reviews (such as they are)
I don't have the energy to do movie recaps, so instead I'll just say that all of the films seen in April were enjoyable, in their own unique ways. Yes, even She's All That. (Or perhaps I'm just delieroius right now.)

Word count total: 241; 192; 501; 272; 535; 874; 783; 437; 237; 201; 94; 748; 573; 994

And this one is - 236
Bringing the month total to - 6918
And year to date - 23,739

Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go lie down and die [/overdramatic]

How it's supposed to happen

So, yeah. Free will.

I really doubt I'm in the right frame of mind to do this proper, which is how it seems to go each time I go about trying to type up a 'deep thought' type of post.
I'll attempt it regardless. If I jump around and don't make my points clearly enough, well, that's pretty much P@ for the course, isn't it?

After giving the matter of free will some thought, i've decided that it most likely doesn't truly exist. However, bottom line is, we have the illusion of it, which might ultimately result in the same thing. (Heh. I think I just covered both bases there. [doh]) And in the end, it really can't be proven or disproven, so arguing about it is just so much mental masturbation. Which, granted, can be fun, but in the end doesn't really accomplish much.

That being said....

Here's something: For those of you who believe that free will exists... prove it? And, yeah, I know that just three sentences back I said that was an impossible task, but, you know, humor me. Either prove it, or tell me why you think that it does exist.

I'm going to explain why I think it doesn't.

The Universe is, as far as I can tell, a deterministic place. When certain actions happen, you will always get the same reaction. Light always travels at 186,000 miles per second (yeah, yeah, except when it doesn't). The earth always orbits around the sun. Gravity always works (again, yeah, yeah, except where it doesn't... and actually, I think that still stands that gravity remains working, it's just that there isn't any in zero-g. I'm not an expert on the matter [heh. pun.], and I don't need to be, my point stands that these things have no choice in how they work. They just do. If you drop a bowling ball, it will always fall to the ground. So, bowling balls don't have free will. At least in regard to whether they want to obey the law of gravity.)

But, the above examples are all of nonliving things. Life is a different matter, some may say.
Well. Let's take a look at life.
Your lungs will always do the job they were made to do (assuming you don't smoke or develop cancer or whatever).
Your stomach will always do the job it was made to do.
Skin cells always react the same way to cold.
So, by breaking your body down, you can see that individual body parts don't have free will. Your blood always flows. It doesn't make a decision between clotting or not, for example.

So, what about consciousness? The ultimate test. Well, it would help if we knew exactly what consciousness is. I mean, if we're going to say that only conscious things have free will, does this mean that people with underdeveloped levels of consciousness (say, babies) don't have free will?
...I'm not sure where I'm going with that. [shrug]

Here's what I propose, though. That since everything else is deterministic, and is only reacting to events that have come before - that all of the present is effect from the past's causes - then why would consciousness be any different? How could it be?

When you are given a choice, whatever you wind up picking is what you had to pick. Because of everything that has happened from the creation of the Universe up to that point in time. There was no other option, really. You are simply reacting to the weight of history.
In order for the choice to have been different, there would have to have been something different done at the Big Bang (or however the Universe began). Seriously.

So, that's basically it. I don't feel I've explained it very well, but I'm open to dialog in the commenting section. And I'm not set in stone on this theory, either. If evidence of free will comes along, and it's convincing enough, I'll happily change my mind. (Of course, at this point I see it more as I would have to change my mind, because there's no other way that it could've happened.) ;)

Some interesting 'side effects' of this belief of Fate:
It goes a long way toward explaining psychic abilities that some people seem to display. The human brain has evolved to be superbly adept at picking out patterns. If all of life is basically a set of dominoes falling, if you can get a good enough picture of what way the dominoes will fall, you could conceivably predict when the next one would. (Does that make any sense?)
Theoretically, one could know everything that is going to happen (and, by extrapolating, everything that ever did) if you could look at the patterns enough. Perhaps that's what our ultimate destiny is.

Another thing, and it's more a neat idea than anything, is that if there is no free will, and if there is a god, then obviously god doesn't have free will either. Which would explain "why god lets bad things happen", which is one question that millions of people (theists and atheists and agnostics together) have asked themselves. God lets bad things happen (and good things) because God had no choice in the matter. This is how it is supposed to happen.

And lastly, I've found that accepting the idea of fate and predeterminism, bad things are easier to accept. It's kinda a Zen thing, really. There was no way of avoiding it, none of the choices I, or anyone else, would've made any difference, so, there ya go. Paradoxically, I have a feeling that many people don't want to give up the idea of free will. (Because they're enamored with control, is my suspicion.) At first the idea of lack of free will bothered me, too, but I've come to terms with it. Because there's no other way that it could've been. :)

All right. Have at it.

How Thursday Went

Woke up at Early:30, as per usual.
Got ready, then woke Saren and Harper. Made them breakfast, and then Steph woke up too, as did Irina. The whole family was up before 6:30! Mark it on your calendars!

Me, Saren and Harper left for work, with the girls' lunch around 6:45.
The early morning poll on the way in was, "If a co-worker gets one of these, there's a 40% chance you will, too." (The answer was "headache".)
Got to work around 7:15.

Over the course of the 6 hours we were there, we:
(not necessarily in order)

Ate lunch.
Walked to 7-11.
Visited nearly every office in both buildings.
Killed tapes. [not really killing, since they're not alive. It means we removed the labels from tapes that have aired, and put them back in the pile to be reused.]
Added the South Park episode numbers for the 1st and 2nd run episodes for May through September. [the girls did all that, actually. I read the numbers to them, they took turns entering the data into the computer.]
Emailed Steph.
Did the Dr. Phil Shuffle. [not a dance, per se.]
Listened to the Whale.
Played with the transformer at my desk (Starscream)

So, you know, more or less just like any other day at work for me. Except that it was shorter, and I had helpers.

After lunch we left to go back home. We picked up Steph and Irina, drove to Taco Bell for lunch for Steph, and then to Bounce U.

At Bounce U, Steph talked with some of the moms while I played with all 3 girls in the bouncy ...things.
Harper asked if I would "chase her around", and so we eventually all partook in a game of Terminator. There are nerf balls all over the place at Bounce U, and we decided that the balls could be used as "bullets". If you were killed or lost a limb, you would remain dead or maimed until someone else touched you. (Just like in real life!)

Lots of running around (or walking around, on my part. I was not a T-1000, and thus did all my hunting at a casual pace) and dying ensued. (I even allowed some artistic license where if a bullet hit me in the chest or head, that I, too, would be 'deactivated' until I was touched.)

Irina mostly just ran from me, and/or chased all of us with a ball in her hand. But, at one point Saren was "dead", and Harper was also "dead", both lying on the ground. Seeing this, Irina decided to "die" as well.
Upon seeing that all 3 of my targets had been terminated, my mission was accomplished.
So, you may ask, how does a Terminator celebrate a successful operation?

By doing the Terminator dance.

Which, of course, looks suspiciously like The Robot.

:)

After about two and a half hours at Bounce U, we left for Star Nursery where we perused the tomato plants and herbs and tortoises and whatnot.
Then it was home again, home again, jiggity-jig.

At night we watched Survivor (Can Natalie go back to being in the background? It was better when we didn't hear from her) and then 30 Rock and then Lost, and by the end of that we were all super-exhausted and ready to collapse into sleep, which, for the most part, we did.

Overall, a very good day.

When every judgment seems to smack of doom

"Nanci" ~ Toad the Wet Sprocket

Random thoughts from the past day or so. I have a headache (that, plus my tendency to ramble), so I don't know that I'll get to all of them, but I'll try.

On the drive home today, I saw two vehicles with the Superman symbol on the back. Weird.
But I also had the radio on scan (not uncommon) and one of the stations was playing Five For Fighting's "Superman (It's Not Easy)". Weirder!

Every morning on the way in to work, I listen to 97.1 because they have the "Early Morning Poll", in which they ask a trivia question, people call, guess the answer, win prizes. Yesterday the question was, "This is reported every 3 minutes, worldwide."

The answer turned out to be "UFO Sightings". [eyebrow]

I googled the phrase 'every 3 minutes worldwide' a few minutes ago (before typing this entry up, actually) and I didn't see anything about UFOs in my brief glancing at the results. I did, however, see two or three sites claiming that a child is killed on the road every three minutes. Yikes. I guess that's a lot more depressing for a radio show to report in the morning than UFO sightings. (Oh, and when I googled 'every 3 minutes worldwide ufo', I turned up plenty of sites that reported that, yes, there are supposedly over 70,000 a year. So, there ya go.)
Anyway. I know I've seen plenty of stuff in the sky that I couldn't identify, which is the technical definition of UFO. I doubt highly that any of the objects I saw were flying saucers, though.
I open it to the fair readers: Had any UFO sightings? And do you think they were alien crafts? Do you think that flying saucers are real and/or are aliens?

Personally, I don't really believe that there's anything to the whole UFO-abduction/greys walk among us/X-Files were telling the truth debacle, but, just like proof of god, or free will, or ghosts, there's no knowing absolutely 100% either way.
Actually, as I sit here typing this up, and my head keeps pounding, I start to think, "no. I can say that there is no God. That there is no free will. And that ghosts do not exist." Because, looking at those things logically, you can see that they're just silly.

Of course, as I typed that, my brain said, "Yes, and think of all the things in life that defy logic." (Although, um. What?) [Good hell. I am like the definition of 'indecisive'.]

Whatever. The point is, people will believe whatever they want to believe.

Moving on...

Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day. It's "Take Your Child(ren) To Work Day", so, Saren, Harper, and I will go to work for about half the day. Then, sometime after lunch, we'll leave in order to attend the Henderson Homeschoolers Day at Bounce U for a few hours. (With Steph and Irina as well). And then that night, Lost returns! (At 10pm!)
It's a good thing that it's a blog-free day. It'll give me stuff to talk about on Friday. Heh.

We got Disc 4 of Season 4 of Buffy today. I'm shocked - shocked! - that the last episode on there is This Year's Girl. That means Who Are You (part 2 of the 2-parter) is on the next disc. That's just some bone-headed scheduling there.

At work today someone asked me what "kosher" meant. My best guess -not being Jewish and all - was that it had to deal with food and how it was prepared? Something about how the animal is killed or something? I don't really know, but the point is that that's another strike against religion in my book. I don't want to be told what I can and can not eat. I guess if I ever do decide to convert to some religion or 'nother, that that will be among my guidelines: "Must not have rules regarding eating".

Also at work today, the topic of the Mayan calendar came up. 12/21/12, baby!! But, as we get closer to that day (4.5 years and counting!), and after doing a little more looking into the matter, I really dont' think that anything will come of that day. (Um. Apart from the zombiepocalypse, of course.) But it is still a cool date, no matter what happens.

Holy crap. I'm starving! I think that's my cue to Publish Post!

blahmeh

Blah. And. Meh.

I considered posting a list of Stephen King's bibliography, and bolding the ones I've read/seen (mostly because I'm about 1/2 of the way through Duma Key right now) but, after thinking about it, the idea seems kinda lame. (ha! kindalame!! Good times.)

I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to continue doing this 'blog every other day' gimmick for the rest of the year. Part of me wants to stop, part of me wants to continue. We'll see.

This entry is Duh-ll. I blame it on being Monday.

The Harry Potter Code

JK Rowling knows the mysteries of the universe, and they are hidden within her opuses.

Now, for the low, low price of 19.95*, I can reveal to you how to discover your very own personal message from Ms. Rowling!


You will need all 7 Harry Potter books in order to do this properly.

You will also need to know your birthday.

In each book, go to the chapter that corresponds with your birth-month. (Chapter 1 if you were born in January, Chapter 2 if you were born in February, etc.)

Then, pick the word that corresponds with the date that you were born.

Do this for all 7 books.

So, if you were born on April 19th, you would pick the 19th word out of Chapter 4 from each volume.

Here is my Harry Potter Code (June 14th), in case you are curious:

scared from day room straight weeks followed

(What does it mean!?)

If you take the time to work this out, please share. I'm curious if anyone else gets anything that almost resembles some sort of coherent sentence.

*About 19.95 seconds, which is probably about how long it took to read the entry, I suppose.

What god is

On the way into work today, I took the freeway, as opposed to the surface streets I normally traverse. (This was because I didn't go in until later in the day due to the girls having a doctor's appointment. Which Steph wrote about here.)

Anyway, since this was not my normal route, I saw a billboard that I normally would not.

The billboard was all black, with white letters printed on it.

It read:

"I Am." - God

My first thought was... "God is a billboard?" (Yes, I was being obtuse and ignoring the punctuation.)

But. That made me start to think about all the different ideas about god that people have.
I bet if you asked a thousand people "What is god?", you'd get at least 40 different answers. ;)

Hell, I could probably come up with 40 answers to that question myself, and I'm just one person.

God is...
love
a lie
a father
a creator
everywhere
in the tv
a dick
google
no, really, god is google
a guy with a beard up in the sky
omniscient
omnipotent
energy
a dj
music
communication
Jesus
Buddha
Allah
incompetent
dead
imaginary
fictional
money
a concept
on my side
a woman

Well, you get the point.

The better question (or one not asked as often, I guess) would be: "What isn't god?"

So, I pose both questions to you, fellow P@riots:

What is (or isn't) god?

50 tv

One of these days soon, I'm going to write an entry that isn't an internet meme. (Actually, see the end of this post!)

So, yeah, Empire Magazine (again, who??) has apparently issued their "Top 50 Television Shows of All Time [even though none on the list are from the Future, and nothing prior to the 1960s was any good]", and so everyone and their mom has decided to list it on their blog, with the stipulations that you highlight the shows you've seen all the episodes of and italicize the ones you've seen at least one episode of.
Loreley came up with a couple of brilliant additions - crossing out the ones you hate and/or never want to see and coloring the ones you'd like to see some day.

Anyway. I know that reading about other people's television viewing habits (even mine!) isn't the most exciting thing, so there's actually more to this post at the end. It's just a 'yes or no' question, but hopefully it will spark some commentage.

Okay! List!

50. Quantum Leap
49. Prison Break
48. Veronica Mars - [only halfway italicized, because I fell asleep during the one episode I tried to watch]
47. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
46. Sex & The City

45. Farscape
44. Cracker - [um What?]
43. Star Trek
42. Only Fools and Horses - [um...]
41. Band of Brothers - [okay, at least this one I've heard of]

40. Life on Mars
39. Monty Python's Flying Circus
38. Curb Your Enthusiasm
37. Star Trek: The Next Generation
36. Father Ted

35. Alias
34. Frasier [really?]
33. CSI: Las Vegas
32. Babylon 5
31. Deadwood [we're about 6-8 episodes away from this being bolded]

30. Dexter
29. ER
28. Fawlty Towers
27. Six Feet Under
26. Red Dwarf

25. Futurama
24. Twin Peaks
23. The Office UK [the US version is pretty unwatchable, and I have no interest in seeing the UK version]
22. The Shield [again, about 6 episodes away from having this bolded]
21. Angel

20. Blackadder
19. Scrubs
18. Arrested Development
17. South Park
16. Doctor Who (new version)

15. Heroes
14. Firefly
13. Battlestar Galactica
12. Family Guy
11. Seinfeld

10. Spaced
09. The X-Files
08. The Wire
07. Friends
06. 24

05. Lost
04. The West Wing
03. The Sopranos
02. Buffy the Vampire Slayer [well, except I still haven't seen the first five minutes of the episode that shows Giles *not* getting his head chopped off]
01. The Simpsons (although *maybe* this could be bolded by now.)

And, simple question time:
Live Albums: Yay or Nay? [feel free to elaborate if you'd like, of course]

#1 through the years

This could possibly be the start of a meme, but maybe not.

Here's the thing.

1) Go to this site and you can find out what song was #1 (according to Billboard Magazine) on the US Charts on any particular week in history.

2) Look up your birthday.

3) List the #1 songs that have occurred on your birthday throughout the years you've been alive.

4) Cringe at how bad music was, and how bad it is now!

Here's mine:

1975 ... "Sister Golden Hair" by America - Hooray! We're off to a really good start!!

1976 ... "Silly Love Songs" by Paul McCartney & Wings - What's wrong with that?

1977 ... "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac - Huh. Apparently this is the only Fleetwood Mac song to ever hit #1. And it did it during my birthday.

1978 ... "Shadow Dancing" by Andy Gibb - [shudder]

1979 ... "Hot Stuff" by Donna Summer - The late 70s just were not all that good, were they?

1980 ... "Funkytown" by Lipps, Inc. - Won't someone please take them to Funkytown? ....Please?

1981 ... "Medley: Intro Venus/Sugar Sugar/No Reply/I'll Be Back/Drive My Car/Do You Want to Know a Secret/We Can Work It Out/I Should Have Known Better/Nowhere Man/You're Going to Lose That Girl/Stars on 45" by Stars on 45 - Woo! Disco!!... god. When does it *end*?

1982 ... "Ebony and Ivory" by Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder - Man. Paul McCartney is in here again. Three times, if you count the '81 cover/medley thing. Weird. Anyway, I can never hear this song without thinking about the SNL skit where they mocked it.

1983 ... "Flashdance ... What a Feeling" by Irene Cara - I've never seen this movie.

1984 ... "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper - Cyndi Lauper could probably sing the phone book and still give me goosebumps. Be sure to check out the cheesy video!

1985 ... "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears - After seeing the video, I have only one question. What the hell, Tears for Fears??

1986 ... "On My Own" by Patti LaBelle & Michael McDonald - I don't know what I was listening to on my 11th birthday, but I can guarantee that it wasn't this.

1987 ... "Head to Toe" by Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam - See, maybe it's a good thing that MTV stopped playing videos. People actually liked this??

1988 ... "Together Forever" by Rick Astley - There's probably some sort of RickRoll joke to be made here, but I'm too tired to figure it out.

1989 ... "I'll Be Loving You (Forever)" by New Kids on the Block - Steph just walked by and asked me, "Why are you listening to 9th grade?"

1990 ... "It Must Have Been Love" by Roxette - Hee. "Pretty Woman". I actually thought that this song came from "Mannequin".

1991 ... "Rush Rush" by Paula Abdul - We're just going to ignore the number of times I watched this back then, shall we?

1992 ... "I'll Be There" by Mariah Carey - Yeah. Wasn't this song #1 for, like, 985 consecutive weeks or something? Mariah Carey was just unavoidable for a while.

1993 ... "That's the Way Love Goes" by Janet Jackson - Rhythm Nation 1814 was better, but whatever.

1994 ... "I Swear" by All-4-One - There were much better songs coming out in 1994, people. Why was *this* the top of the charts?

1995 ... "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?" by Bryan Adams - You know... this is the second time in less than a month that this song has been mentioned on my blog. I think that's plenty. No more Bryan Adams for me. I'm putting a moratorium on him.

1996 ... "Tha Crossroads" by Bone thugs-n-harmony - ...and just like that, we're into songs I've never heard. [sigh]

1997 ... "I'll Be Missing You" by Puff Daddy & Faith Evans featuring 112 - ...and now we're into songs that I've heard, but wish I never had. ...although the first 16 seconds of the video almost make up for the crappiness of the song. (Okay, they don't, really, but they are pretty good.)

1998 ... "The Boy Is Mine" by Brandy & Monica - WHAT?

1999 ... "If You Had My Love" by Jennifer Lopez - Jennifer Lopez ROCKS!!!

2000 ... "Try Again" by Aaliyah - I have a headache now.

2001 ... "Lady Marmalade" by Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mya & Pink - I like this song, actually.

2002 ... "Foolish" by Ashanti - I think I'm going to just stop commenting, because, really, I am so out of my element with regard to these remaining songs...

2003 ... "21 Questions" by 50 Cent featuring Nate Dogg

2004 ... "Burn" by Usher - NIN's Burn was a LOT better. But then, it came out in '97.... and also, it was Nine Inch Nails.

2005 ... "We Belong Together" by Mariah Carey

2006 ... "Hips Don't Lie" by Shakira featuring Wyclef Jean

2007 ... "Umbrella" by Rihanna featuring Jay-Z

You had all of them on your side, didn't you? Didn't you?

Ha. I'm clever.

A week ago I went and saw The Ruins in the theater.
Today, I finished reading The Ruins - the book on which the movie was based.

I enjoyed both works, but the book was a LOT better. In fact, yesterday, when I was around the 200 page mark, I said aloud to Steph, "Man. I wish they had made this into a movie."

Because while the movie was pretty faithful to the book, quite a bit of the pieces of the puzzle were changed. It's almost like both of them were telling the same story, but the book said, "It happened like this," and then the movie said, "Well, kinda. But I think it happened like this."

And now, it's time for spoilers for both the movie AND the book, so only highlight if you don't mind having the story RUINed. (Hee!)

Movie spoilers:
I enjoyed the movie - there were several twists I did not see coming *at all* (namely: Dimitri getting shot at the beginning [holy crap!], the plants imitating the cell-phone ring [creepy!], the rope snapping), and there was one time where I actually jumped, even though I knew a 'scare' was coming. I think that it was when Amy was down in the shaft and examining the vines, but I can't remember exactly.

Another neat thing about this horror movie was that the 'killer' didn't really do much of the killing. The vine itself really only killed Mathias, after he broke his back and had his legs cut off. (Which, dude. Yuck.) Oh, and the girl at the beginning. But the rest of the deaths were due to the characters turning on each other and being all paranoid/scared/whatever.

The only complaint I really had with the film was that the ending seemed kinda weak. I was really expecting a different ending - an epilogue where it showed Amy getting back to civilization, but showing that she was infected with the vine. (Although had that happened, I would've no doubt complained that it was predictable and lame. [um. because that ending kinda is]) But *not* following up on what happened to her? That's just ...oookay. ?
And then showing the Greeks arriving was just like, "All right. So?" I mean, we didn't really know those characters, and yeah, it was showing that the cycle was continuing, but... I don't know. The entire ending seemed weak.

But up until then, I pretty much enjoyed the ride. I even turned to my coworker at one point (there were maybe 30 minutes left) and said, "I don't think that any of them are going to make it." Which I thought would've been a really ballsy ending. I mean, in horror movies one of the people always survives for the sequel. Right? You can't kill off all your protagonists. (I'm sure there are movies that have done this in the past, and feel free to tell me what they are, but I do know that it must be really rare.)
So maybe that was another reason the ending bugged. I was expecting the mother of all downer endings, and instead was left with an open-ended "she got away and that's all you need to know". Bah.

Book spoilers (with some movie thrown in):

Wow. Killing off all your protagonists really is a ballsy move.
And the vine is a LOT more insidious in the book than in the movie. That plant was just out and out evil. Taunting them. Laughing at them. Using their voices (which was also done in the movie, but much clearer in the book) against them. The trap that it set up in the shaft... The food odors.

And the acid sap was brilliant. They should've had that in the movie, because it raised the stakes a LOT. Not being able to destroy the plant without being physically harmed just makes it that much more formidable a foe.

It's interesting, though, how different characters met different fates. I mean in the movie, Dimitri gets shot before even going up the temple. In the book, he spends most of the narrative being called Pablo - and he's the one who breaks his back and has his legs amputated.
That was another better difference - the relationship between the 4 Americans and Mathias and the Greeks was much more believable in the book. The movie happened too sudden. In fact, until Mathias broke his back (in the movie), I was actually suspecting that he was leading them to the Ruins on purpose, and that he was going to be the bad guy. (Which is hilarious, since in the book they discus a movie version of their ordeal, and they state that Mathias, being the German of the group, would be the bad guy -"Nazi"- in the movie.)

I would like to have more backstory/explanation about the plant. And the Mayans' relationship with it. And how often does it actually get victims?

Overall, the book was quite engrossing, although depressing.
Unless you're rooting (ha!) for the plant. In which case it's the feel-good novel of the decade! The plant totally ate those young jerks! Go, plant!!

Now, though, I don't have anything to read anymore. Bummer.

iTunes top 20.

Idea shamelessly stolen from Jupe.

The following list is the top 20 songs from our iTunes library, sorted by amount of times the songs have been played.

Just for a sense of suspense (ha!) I'm going to list them countdown style.

20 - I'm Giving Santa a Pikachu This Christmas by the Pokemon Christmas Bash (21 times) - Heh.

19 - Don't Let's Start by They Might Be Giants (22 times) - "No one in the world ever gets what they want, and that is beautiful." So, so true.

18 - Look What You've Done by Jet (22 times) - What can I say? This song sounds Beatles-esque, thus it gets played.

17 - Jingle Bells by James Taylor (22 times) - Xmastime is popular around here.

16 - Looks Good (But You Looked Away) by The Helio Sequence (22 times)

15 - Clap Your Hands by They Might Be Giants (23 times) - Dude. It's TMBG. It's catchy. It's totally danceable. It's under a minute and a half long. I'm amazed we've not played it more.

14 - Two-Headed Boy by Neutral Milk Hotel (23 times) - NMH is the type of band that you would think that most people would hate, (and probably do) but it's so good!

13 - Ramona by Guster (23 times) - I like Guster, and probably would've never heard of them if not for Soupy. Thanks!!

12 - Trains to Brazil by Guilemots (23 times) - Oh! I've heard this song plenty (23!) of times, but never really knew what it was. Heh. I always thought it was The Shins. Now I know.

11 - King of Carrot Flowers Part 1 by Neutral Milk Hotel (24 times) - I think this may be my favorite NMH song.

10 - Experimental Film by They Might Be Giants (25 times) - Even though I can't explain it, I already know how great it is. I dare anyone to listen to this song (or watch the homestarrunner-based video) and not be put in a good mood.

9 - Young Pilgrims by The Shins (27 times) - "I know there is this side of me that wants to grab the yoke from the pilot and just fly the whole mess into the sea."
Preach it, brother.

8 - Delicate by Damien Rice (28 times)

7 - Kissing the Lipless by The Shins (29 times)

6 - Don't Look Away by The Helio Sequence (29 times) - Hear song. Must dance.

5 - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel (30 times) - This one's good, too.

4 - Your Attitude Towards Cuttlefish by Paper Moon (33 times) - According to the 'last played' on iTunes, we haven't heard this since November of last year. But it was popular at the time, huh?

3 - My Favorite Things by Nathan (37 times) - Um. Who? But, yeah. Still a good cover.

2 - Meow Meow Lullaby by Nada Surf (38 times) - The ending is a little too repetitive for my liking, but the girls (obviously) love this song. I like it too, I just think that Nada Surf could've cut out a few 'meows' at the end.

and the most played song on our iTunes list...

1 - Spider Pig by Hans Zimmer, from the Simpsons Movie Soundtrack (39 times) - It's only a minute long, so it's easy to do multiple listens repeatedly.

This memoir's just six words long

(I may be too tired to pull this off properly. We'll give it a go regardless, eh?)

By now, you have more than likely seen the original six-word memoir meme, wherein you are supposed to come up describe your life in six words or less.

Now, the goal is to be more creative - write six word memoirs for other people.

They can be for people you know, or celebrities (living or dead) or even fictional characters. There really is no limit. Well, except for the six-word limit.

I suppose to make this meme 'spread', I should list that people need to 'tag' others to play. So, you know, do that. And, of course, it would be great if when doing so, linkage back to here was included.

Here are my contributions!

Harry Potter - Boy Who Lived became somewhat pompous

Darth Vader - I Use Force, and hate sand.

Julius Ceasar - Should have listened to the soothsayer.

George Romero - Great zombie flicks, others kinda meh.

Indiana Jones - Why'd there have to be snakes?

Jeff Probst - Tribe's spoken. Come on in, guys!

John Lennon - Imagine. All you need is love.

Christopher Walken - My voice. Can creep. You out.

I considered doing movie synopses as well, but I really am too tired to create anything beyond what I've just done. But, really, the possibilities with this are endless. I don't really care whether this twist on the meme catches on or not, but if you do decide to play along, leave me a comment and let me know. I'd like to read some of the ones you come up with.

then the devil is six

Simon has tagged me to complete the '6 word memoir' meme. Since my internet circle of friends travel together, you've probably seen the following introduction plenty o' times already, but just for the sake of thoroughness, here's the backstory/beginning of the meme:

The Six-Words Meme was originally started by Smith Magazine.

Legend has it that Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in only six words. His response? “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Last year, SMITH Magazine re-ignited the recountre by asking our readers for their own six-word memoirs. They sent in short life stories in droves, from the bittersweet (“Cursed with cancer, blessed with friends”) and poignant (“I still make coffee for two”) to the inspirational (“Business school? Bah! Pop music? Hurrah”) and hilarious (“I like big butts, can’t lie”).

Here are the rules:
1) Write your own six word memoir.
2) Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3) Link to the person that tagged you in your post, and to the original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere.
4) Tag at least five more blogs with links.
5) Don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.
6) Have fun.

Now. Mine.

I have to admit, this was not an easy thing for me to do. And, in fact, I have come up with several possibilities (how P@ypical of me, huh?). And so, without further ado, here are my six seven word memoirs:

You know me, never could obey rules.

"I am," I said. Just like Jesus.

"I am just like Jesus," I said.

Life summed up in six words? No.

I don't think I'm doing this right.

Okay. Now, some that would actually fall into the 6 category:

God. Where did the time go?

Should have laughed more. Ha ha!

Just six words? Can't be done.

Life is good, beats the alternative.

Blah, blah, blah. Yada, yada, yada.

Stephanie, Saren, Harper, Irina equals love.

So much potential wasted... oooh, TV!!

Not all that different from you.

Happy, then bitter, now happy again.

Life, overall, is really quite good.

I think if I had to pick one to be my 'official' entry, I'd go with either the final one listed above, or the second.
Interestingly, these don't have to be 6 words exactly. They can be less, but most people use all 6 when doing this. Here are some I came up with that are a little more thrifty:

Uniquely unique, just like others.

Wouldn't change a thing.

Well, now what?

Start living!!

Huh?

Heh. The above 'countdown' version almost plays out like a dialog.
Anyway. Time to tag people, huh?
Okay:
Stephanie
Miranda
Will
Matty
Jupe

(how weird is it that the rules say to tag 5 people when the whole theme is six words? Consistency, people!!)

And finally, thanks, Simon, for providing me with material to blog for today. :)

Today was a 2 breakfast day.

I have left the blog post made on the April Fool's Day "blank", just to keep in spirit of the day.

In the return to visibility for the P@rix, I opted, as you can see, to change up the colors a bit. Not sure if I'll stick with what I have now. I've been wanting to change the layout for a while, so don't be surprised if it changes yet again.

Surprisingly, or not, really, I don't have anything to talk about at this time. I *do* have, however, that annoying restless feeling that I sometimes get when I feel like I should be doing something, but I'm either too lazy to, or I don't know *what* I should be doing. I think I need a haircut.

Tomorrow being Friday, I think we might go to the library. Which is (usually) a good thing. I certainly would like to have something to read again. The question is - what? I'm so picky when it comes to reading anymore, and so much of what is out there just does *not* grab my interest. Recommendations are always welcome, though.

What a fool believes

She's like the wind!

So, today is/was April the 1st. I was planning on posting about fooling choices I have made in my life, or at least one of them, but now I've got a headache and am not really up to blogging. Besides, I honestly can't remember which foolish choice I was going to talk about. (I have so many to choose from, you see.)

I was going through my old notebooks though, and found my journal (or one of) from the '92/'93 era. After skimming a few pages, all I can say is, "Yeeesh!" I was very angry at the time, and quite depressed. What is sad, though, is how obvious it is to me now (yay, hindsight!) that all I was truly looking for was attention and acceptance. Perhaps some understanding as well.

Which, you know, is probably true at anytime in one's life, and of just about everyone on the planet. So, way to go with the deep insight there, P@.

Anyway. I believe that one of the main reasons I'm no longer (quite) so bitter and pissed and going around with a chip on my shoulder is that I have Steph and the girls in my life. I've told Stephanie many times that she saved my life, and it's absolutely true. Not only did she save my life, but she helped make it one worth saving. I'm a very lucky man.