in honor of National Poetry Month (that was April), here's a poem for ya'll:

what do clouds worship

is it the sun

no it is not

as that is only some star

how about the moon

no not a loveless rock

and it is not

music

death

a breeze

the blue sky

or earth

what they worship

are our dreams

And, just for old times sake, here's April's wordle word cloud (including this post):

a real cut up

Was randomly searching thru TVTropes.org in an attempt to find something to blog about, and discovered the following video, which is certainly not for the squeamish.

It's a collection of "cut slices" from various movies. The 'diagonal cut' trope is when someone is cut by a wire or a sword or a laser beam or whatever, but don't fall apart right away.  (Trust me, when you start to see them, you'll recognize the trope)

The video itself is nearly four minutes long. And, oddly, makes we want to track down some of these movies to figure out where they came from. (But, then, I am a sucker for stuff that is kinda bad)

Anyway. Here be the video:

Cut Slide Movie Montage - Watch More Funny Videos

today did have good moments.

Free hot dogs (woooo!)
Playing Coin Battle with Harper
discussing story ideas and writing with Harper
walking down to the corner market and getting a pepsi
reading more of my book (Nocturnal by Scott Sigler)
watching Puss in Boots, and having popcorn

however, I have had a headache for the past 6 hours, and I have been a less than ideal father to the littlest ones, in particular, plus, I'm just not happy with the writing sitch and I just got an email from work about missing commercials for Monday (3 of which I KNOW should be there, but will have to wait until I get in to take care of - unless I actually go down to the station and fix it on Sunday)...  my point is that I hope tomorrow is, overall, a better day than today was, and really, the only person in charge of that is myself.

not Death Eaterist

Was a reason ever given in the Harry Potter universe as to why wizards keep their society a secret from muggles?

If the world at large knew about magic...then it would probably end up regulated and watched over (as much as it could be, at any rate. I mean, the wizarding world attempted to do so, with varying degrees of success). But, it would probably be helpful to have EVERYONE on the lookout for someone like Voldemort, rather than just the Order of the Phoenix, no?

On the other hand, Voldy could've very easily taken Harry Potter out of the equation if he had simply gone to the United States Army (or the UK's equivalent, I suppose) and said, "This Harry Potter person is a very powerful terrorist. He lives right here at Number Four Privet Drive." Maybe brought along a video showing him performing some spells as proof.

Just sayin', that if the secret society wasn't so secret, it may have solved a few problems. (Same could be said of any story that has a 'hidden secret society'. Exposing it to the world at large opens up a whole other can of worms, and I guess ultimately makes it a different story.

worka worka work

Today was pretty typical, so it was nice that Harper and Irina got a chance to witness a taste of what I go thru 5 days a week.

Oddly, even though I didn't even work a full day (we went in at 8, took an hour lunch, and left at 330) I am WAY more tired than normal. Of course, I did do a lot more driving than I typically do, because after we got home, we drove out to Henderson (and back home) but I was feeling the exhaustion before then.

Harper helped with some of the filing and putting together of the logs, and I did do some explaining of the actual aspects of my job, so I think she has a better grasp on what it is I do each day (and probably has a little more sympathy for when I come home completely drained). That being said, I'd be kinda surprised if she decided to attend TYCTWD next year.I think she probably feels that she "gets" it enough. Although maybe she'd want to because she'd get a chance to spend more time with me.
It really was cool to have her there, even if she was bored for at least a portion of the day. If I could plan it out better, to make sure that she had tasks for the entire day...

Anyway.  For now, I am going to wrap this up and see if everyone is ready for bed. (Most likely no, since everyone [but me and Steph] had naps in the van during the drive. But, holy majolie, am I tired.)
All in all, an enjoyable day.

8 months til Xmas

Just sayin'.

I have absolutely nothing to blog about, but I'm blogging anyway. Because that always ends so well.

Earlier, there was a kernel of an idea of a story bubbling around in my head (since, yeah, I need ANOTHER story idea to focus on), but it didn't pop. It was something about aliens landing, and offering to trade something we have a lot of for something else, that we don't have at all. For example, they would take the world's population of kittens, and exchange them for unicorns.

I do want to do some fiction writing this month, because, as I stated, that was the whole point of blogging daily, so hopefully this weekend I'll get motivated enough to do so. I also need to figure out which story I'm gonna go with. Which means I should wrangle up a random number generator. (Or, if any readers out there wanna throw out a number between one and ten, that'll work just as well, I suppose)

At least I [should] have something to blog about for tomorrow. It's Take Your Child To Work Day, and the plan is for Harper and Irina to attend the day at the office with me. I should ste...borrow Steph's camera for the day so I could take photos to accompany the blog entry. Hmm.

ache, head variety

Yeah, I ve got a pretty bad headache right now, and I suspect that a lot of it is stress related, and I feel like I should just ....stp bitching, try to relax, and enjoy my time with my family.

And maybe if I did that, I'd relax enough that my headache might disappear (or dissipate, somewhat) but...

This month has been simultaenously way too long, and way too short. How's that possible?? I think blogging every day has [ugh, i can't think of the word i want to use. accredited? accrewed? submitted? accomplished? participated? anticipated? helped? ...for the love of Bon Jovi, it is none of those words, but it's like i'm dancing right around it] to that.

I was going to end this entry with a youtube video, but, amazingly the song I was going to link to does not have a video. So, I just recommend you go to grooveshark.com (or whatever music listening to website you prefer) and load up "Political Statement" by Barnes and Barnes.

did you ever have to make up your mind

oh, goody. the van woes continue!!

Evidently, the van IS a "total loss", based on the estimating powers of the Jim Marsh auto body shop, and the American Family dude.

However, they've given us two choices:

Choice 1) Give up the van, and receive the 80% [grrr!!] of the Blue Book Value (which was five-thousand somethingish), resulting in us getting approximately $4105.

Choice 2) We keep the van, and it becomes labeled "salvage", and we get a reduced amount of money for this - approximately $2800.

If we go with choice 2, we have to get the van repaired, have it pass an inspection from the DMV, and reregister it with them. Apparaently the "salvage" label then gets stuck on the van's title, and it would significantly reduce the value of the vehicle. (Not that it was worth all that much money to begin with...)

Choice 1 would mean we'd have the 4 thousand to shop around for a new (old) vehicle, but the hunting we've done so far has not resulted in a lot of positive leads. If we could guarantee that we could get a vehicle for >2000ish, and that it would not have a buttload of problems...that would be ideal. But, then, life has no guarantees.

And while the van does have ....quirks that bug me, if we were able to get it repaired and back on the road for 1900 or so, then going with choice 2 would be a good way to go, because we know our van does run...

Baaaah. Steph told the dealer to give us a day to think it over, but at this point I still don't know which way I'm leaning. Maybe we'll just flip a coin.

ups & downs

man, today has been freaking crazy. ups and downs galore. and it hasn't really been that busy of a day, just a very emotional one, I suppose.

High (and low!) lights:

Got a little further in Lego Harry Potter (years 1 -4).

Had a date with Stephanie! We went to the bookstore (just like olden times!!), and they had some sort of Star Wars ...thing going on. There were several people dressed in storm trooper costumes, and jedi outfits, and there was even a R2-D2 robot there, which made very loud R2-D2 noises. Silas would have loved it. (or been freaked out)

On our date, we talked about the insurance fiasco, and I have to say, I'm feeling extremely anxiety-filled about how tomorrow is going to shake out. I suppose that my brain is thinking that the absolute worst case scenario is going to happen. And that is pretty much this: That the van is undrivable AND that we don't get any money from the insurance company.

We'll see.

Remember The Project? (No? Yeah, well, that's because the last time I was working on it was 5 years ago.) But today Harper helped me work on it some more!! I'm all (re)excited about it again! So cool.

Went for a drive with Irina in the rental car, and saw two rabbits and a hummingbird. Sometimes our neighborhood is pretty nifty.

One of our turtle peeps died. Irina and Silas discovered it's body in the backyard this evening. It was upside down, near a bush. We're not sure how it got flipped onto it's back - unless a cat somehow flipped it over? - because there was nothng nearby that it could have been crawling onto and fallen. I feel so horrible. Poor turtle peep. The larger one is still alive (as far as we know, we were unable to locate it, but are assuming it was in it's burrow), though, so that's good.

I can't believe it's Sunday night already. Freaking weekends don't last long enough at all.

Vice Versa

I took the van down to a body shop today to get a second, real estimate on the repairs from the accident (that was almost two months ago now. Holy Jesus, have I made it clear how much I DESPISE American Family Insurance??), and wound up driving home a different vehicle. Yup. TL;DR version - we are currently driving a rental car - a compact Nissan Versa, that doesn't fit all 6 of us, and barely fits 5. Hopefully we'll have the van back on Monday.

Now, for the boring details:

I woke up - grudginly - at 7:30, and drove down to the body shop. When I got there, I found out that I had to come back home to get the original estimate paperwork so that they could work from there.
So, after driving back home, locating the paperwork, stopping to put some gas in the van, and then driving back to the body shop, the nice estimator lady took a quick look at the van's damage. She jotted down a few notes, and then  we returned to her computer where she input the info, only to tell me that we were quite possibly looking at a "total loss" factor at this point. But, she said, that they wouldn't TRULY be able to tell without getting the hood off, and looking at the radiator frame.

But, she said that American Family would put me up in a rental car until that could be determined, and basically, I didn't have a lot of other choice, because the hood was gonna have to come off at SOME point, and once it got opened, it might not be close-able again, which would render the van undriveable.
I mentioned to her at this point that American Family was a bunch of douchebag mother fuckers. (I may have used kinder words) and that they were attempting to screw us over by not giving us 100% of the estimate because of Stephanie's statement to them regarding how the accident went down. (They're saying they'll pay 80%, because Steph "didn't look to see if she could see him backing up". Um. Yeah. Why would anyone look that way? You aren't going to be expecting traffic coming down the WRONG DIRECTION.)

Anyway.

She suggested that we call our Insurance company, (which we haven't done yet because we only have liability coverage, so it's not like they're going to pony up the other 20% that AmFam won't pay...but maybe they would?  I dont' know. I'm still waiting to see what happens come Monday, but I might call Progressive just to see what, if anything, can be done.) because they might be "able to go after American Family".  But then she put in the notes that the coverage of the repairs at this point were 80/20, with a note that that might change.

She then told me that on Monday they would open the hood and find out the extent of the rest of the damage inside, and they'd also call the American Family estimate dude, and get his take on the matter.

In the meantime, I was sent down the hall to the rental car company, where I got our way small compact car that has the tiniest cutest little "beep" when the alarm is set. And it has about 40 different blind spots. But, it accelerates super quickly, and has an AC that works on all 4 settings, and has windows that work, and the doors are all shut according to the sensors, and it has working turn signals, and the cd player ejects cds on the first push of the eject button rather than the 2nd or 3rd... so, it's got all those points over the van.

We'll have to see, come Monday, what the latest development will be with the van and AmFam and what they're going to pay.

numerology is a farce

right?

except that earlier today I said "Man, today is a magnet for shitstorms, ain't it?" (In reference to the fact that today is the anniversary of the Columbine shootings, the Oklahoma City bombing* and the Waco disaster*, and Hitler's birthday.

*These two events actually took place on April 19th, which proves...something.

The 20th of April, 2012 has been a pretty typical day, all in all. But the past few minutes I've been grumpy as hell, and it's prob....it IS due to my own choosing...I'm just having a difficult time focusing on things that are good.

 Maybe it's fate. Maybe it's the date. Maybe it's because of something I ate.

blaaaaaaaaank

I really have been sitting here for over 20 minutes now, attempting to come up with something - anything - worth reading. So frustrating!

Of course, I haven't been *just* sitting here, I've also been playing on Jelli, listening to tunes, and skimming wikipedia pages.

None of which, of course, is helping me in blogging.  Eh. Sometimes you just have to know when to quit. And now, I believe is one of those times. I'm just gonna finish up this sentence, hit "publish" and go downstairs and watch The Office.

played hooky

more or less how today went down:

445a - woke up, fed the cats, called in to work
5a - went back to sleep
7a- woke back up, called work again, in an effort to find out how much work I'd be missing out on.
730a - received a phone call from American Family Insurance
830a - called Jim Marsh Chevrolet, determined we'd take the van down there on Saturday for them to take a (second) look at the damage and give us an estimate. (Yesterday we discovered that the hood does not open. Which means that the cost for repairing it is most likely going to be more than the original estimate was)
10a- left to go to Harper's final acting class
1030a - waited, while Harper rehearsed for the play she'd be participating in.
12p - watched Harper's play. She did great!! I was very proud of her, and believe that acting is really good for her. It was great to see her improv skills at work (her deciding to use the spray bottle was pretty funny), and I'm just glad taht I decided to take the day off in order to see her do this.
1245p - drove to DQ for lunch. Had KFC instead. The Colonel was there!!
1:10p - had desert at DQ
1:30p - drove to a park, where the kids and I played. Harper did her maniac-chase thing that frightens me into running away.
2..something pm - headed home. Harper found a switchblade at the park on the way out.
330p - left to go to Half-Cat* Lawyers in order to sign the papers to finalize the bankruptcy
4p - signed lots of papers
430p - left Half-Cats, grabbed some complimentary cookies (laced with something??)
5p- hyper good mood - cookies influence, perhaps?
545p - coin battle with Harper. until dinner time.
6p - went to get Domino's pizza for dinner
7p - ate, and then watched Saren perform in some sort of Starcraft tournament that was streaming online. She won one round, whihc earned her 3 tickets for the raffle at the end that would get her a free pizza (I think the drawing/raffle is this Friday??). Awesome.
...and that was pretty much it.
Sadly, no zombie apocalypse, and it wasn't as exciting as Ferris Bueller's day, but overall, absolutely a good day, and I'm 100% glad I called in.

*not the real name of the law firm

Playing Hooky

If Hollywood is reading, feel free to steal this idea:

"Ferris Bueller's Day Off", for adults.

Have a nearly 40-something year old grown up decide to skip work (I'm thinking Ben Stiller [who is probably nearer to 50, but whatever or maybe Steve Carell, but that's probably because we've been watching a lot of The Office lately] but I guess Hollywood would probably go with like Seth Rogen or something.)
 And perhaps he decides to play hooky with his buddy(ies) (Ed Helms/that one guy that is always with Seth Rogen in his films/some SNL second-tier actor looking for his next break).
Or perhaps he has a healthy relationship with his teenaged son/daughter (God, I don't even know. Chloe Moretz would be awesome, because she is made of win. But I'm so out of touch with young actors/actresses, that I don't even know who they should go with) and decides he's going to have them skip school as well.

Anyway. Everyone is enjoying the day off (while having to, of course, avoid being found out by the boss/principal [is Edward Rooney still alive?]) and then it turns out that the freaking zombie apocalypse is happening.

In my mind, there is a line earlier in the film wherein someone says something along the lines of "Skipping work for one day isn't going to be the end of the world."

Or, perhaps slight variation - Grownup Ferris (or whatever his name would be - this wouldn't be a sequel to FBDO, after all, just a film made in the same vein) skips work, along with at least one or two friends, while trying to keep it a secret from the boss and kids. AND THEN the zombie apocalypse happens, and they have to get their kid out of school... and maybe nobody believes them about the ZA... I don't know.

Anyway. "Playing Hooky" would be the title, and while it would probably suck, I just have to say that I would watch the hell out of any movie that was "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" meets "Night of the Living Dead".

what I'd really like dad is to borrow the car keys, see you later, can i have them please

Steph cut Silas's hair today!! He looks so much older now.
When I came home from work, he ran up to the door to greet me, with his hands over his ears, hiding the majority of his haircut, and then said, in that impish way of his, "Look at me! I'm a boy!"
Irina also got her hair shortened (she & Si really are peas in a pod), so I'll have to see if Stephanie has pictures for me to post later. (She did put some up on her facebook account, apparently, so if you're into that, there ya have it.)

It's crazy how quickly the children are growing up. Time really does go at a faster pace as you get older (or at least has the appearance of doing so) but that doesn't mean I like it. One month from now, Silas will be turning 3, which is just insane. How can three whole years have passed since he arrived in the world already??

scrambled

just a random bunch of thoughts.

I'm getting ready to cook the first  barbecue of the year. Mmm. Cheeseburgers and hotdogs.

American Family Insurance (ha! I originally typed "Unsurance") is irritating as all hell. Just pay us the damn money that we're owed. >: (

Work is cruddy, but a coworker I like is having an even rougher time over hte past few days. I hate that that place can make people cry.

Saw Apollo 18 yesterday, but I can't seem to generate enough of a response to make a haiku review of it. It looked good (except when it didn't stick to it's '1970s camera' gimmick, which was irritating) but the plot was pretty desolate (just like the moon!) and there weren't a lot of scares, for a supposed 'horror' movie. Meh.

We let our butterflies go yesterday. (oh, yeah, for those [nonexistent?] people who read my blog, but not my wife's, we had ordered some caterpillars a few weeks back.)

The month is now officially over half way over, and I still haven't written any [new] fiction, which was the goal of this 'blog every day' exercise. Hmm.

Okay. time to cook dinner.

We're gonna need a bigger boat.

It was 100 years ago that nature pointed out the folly of man thru the use of an iceberg and a giant passenger liner. Crazy!

I think it would be interesting to visit an alternate universe wherein the Titanic did NOT sink. How different would things be, I wonder? Obviously there would be no Titanic movie from 1997. (Or Titanic 2, from 2010 -which is set on TODAY'S DATE!!) And the phrase, "rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic" would not exist. (Also, this blog post wouldn't exist.) And of course, the thousands of people who did perish that night would have survived, and who knows what type of butterfly effects they would have... But it would still be interesting to compare our two universes.

I'd also be greatly interested in reading a story (or watching a [most likely pretty bad] movie) wherein there were werewolves onboard the Titanic. (and thus, the sinking of the ship was a good thing [relatively speaking])
[edit - oh, cool! Someone WROTE THIS!! There's a book called "Fateful" by Claudia Grey that is about this very thing. I *may* have to check it out]

Or, perhaps, I'd like to watch the Titanic super 3d remake...

angry kittens, grumpy chinchillas, and loser accomplishments

According to the stats that google has provided, "angry kitten attacks", "grumpy chinchilla", and "accomplishments are for losers" are among the top keyword phrases that have led to my blog.

The internet is a strange and wonderful thing.

My apologies (to my three readers - and anyone searching for grumpy chinchillas) for the lackluster blog entry today. It's late, and I'm feeling rather uninspired to write. Will attempt to write sooner tomorrow.

true

"Hey there," said the as-yet-undefined character in her (his?) as-yet-undefined voice. "Wanna write about my adventure, parentheses s?"

"Are you speaking to me?" I asked in response.

"That's entirely up to you," the character replied. "But I suppose, yes, I am. So... do you?"

I considered. "Well," I said, "Maybe. I mean, I haven't even defined YOU yet, let alone what type of adventure, parentheses s, you would have that I'd be writing about."

The character (whom, I'm informed, would really like a name....and a gender) said, "Again, that would be up to you, ultimately. But, you know, we could find out together. Just start writing about my adventure -singular to start with - and see where it takes us."

That sounded sorta reasonable. So of course I had reservations. "Let me ask you this, character, why would you want ME to write about you? Don't you know the odds are that I will end up abandoning you mid-journey (or, even one-fourth-journey)? And your dialogue is going to be ... sub-par, at best."

"Witty response," the character wittily responded.

"I don't exactly know what to say to that." I said.  "But here's the thing. I truly don't know WHAT to do with you. Lately, as you are well aware, I have been having an extremely difficult time getting any writing done."

"No problem," was the comeback from the fictional individual, "you've already started, so we're on our way."

I looked it over and said, "Nicely done, but it hardly counts as an adventure - or a story, even."

"No, but it counts as a blog entry, doesn't it?"

Holy MaJelli

On June 30th, 2011, on my drive home, I had hit scan on the radio, like I've been known to do,  and stopped when the dial hit 94.5 and was playing some alternative song that I liked. I don't remember what it was. But 94.5 wasn't something that typically picked up anything, so to hear something on that frequency warranted a pause and listen.

As I listened, the station identified itself as "the new Jelli - 100% user controlled radio". The next song that came on was another that I liked, so I opted to continue to listen.
After the song, an announcement informed me that all the songs were picked by the listeners. ORLY? That could be interesting, I thought. (Yes, I actually think "ORLY?" on occasion. I'm odd.)

But then, the next song was introduced as having been 'rocketed' by "Jelli user, El Guapo Ugly Face". Ha ha!! This station was getting better all the time! And the "person" introducing the songs was an electronic robot voice. Think Stephen Hawking's voice modulator. Or the software used for EAS Weather alerts. No humans, just a machine stating the usernames of people who were picking songs from the website (jelli.com).

I was intrigued.

When the next song was introduced as having been chosen by "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee", I was absolutely smitten. (I also laughed out loud for a good three or four minutes.)

Long story short (too late!), I joined up on Jelli.com the very next day (I would have done it that night, but didn't go online for whatever reason) and have been participating  on the site ever since.

Jelli radio is ...interesting. There are two stations here in Las Vegas that are now Jelli stations - 94.5, which plays "rock" (alternative and mainstream - whatever those terms even mean anymore), and 96.7, which plays top 40 remix... or something. I've listened to 96.7 a few times, but it's truly scary stuff. Dubstep and dance music that is way too repetitive way too repetitive way too repetitive way too repetitive.

And, yes, both stations playlists are (mostly) controlled by the people who frequent the website (or who use their smartphones to get the apps). It does give the sense of being able to control what songs play over the airwaves, which is a powerful sensation, even if it's slightly skewed. The songs played come from the catalog the station has available, so you're not gonna hear REALLY obscure odd things that aren't on other stations (except for when you do. heh.) And the way that songs are picked is thru a voting system, where all the listeners can provide a +1 or a -1 vote for any track. The higher score a song has, the more likely it is to get on the air. A song can get bumped to the top of the list by using a "powerup" they have called "rockets". But there are also powerups called "bombs", which reduce a song's vote total back to 0. (Bombing a rocketed song is a crappy thing to do, but that's one of the flaws in the jelli system. It promotes this type of behavior. More on that in a bit.)

In addition to voting a song up or down based on the # of votes, when a song is actually ON THE AIR, you can vote thumbs up ("Rocks") or thumbs down ("Sucks") and it will move a little meter up or down. If the meter gets completely filled with "rocks" votes, the person who rocketed that song will receive a bonus rocket in their arsenal - presumably as a reward for picking a song that everyone enjoys.
If, however, the meter gets completely filled with "sucks" votes - it will stop playing, instantly.
It doesn't happen much any more (there are way too many people who won't play along) but back when Jelli first started, I recall hearing one of my rockets ("Low" by Cracker) getting "sucked off the air". Midsong, it simply stopped playing, and the robot dj voice announced that the community had decided that that song sucked.

Despite that, Jelli continued to enchant me. I spent a lot of time voting songs up, and picking things to add to my "favorites", and adding people to "follow", and chatting with fellow 'jellis'. Enough, in fact, that after just a month on the site, I had obtained enough activity to be crowned "User of the Week", and earned an audio sigtone. Heh.

It's getting late, and I don't really have a point to this entry. Just wanted to mention Jelli on my blog. Which I've done. I should probably go to bed, but I did have some other things relating to Jelli I wanted to mention. While 94.5 is on the air, the real fun station(s) are the Internet Only stations. Also known as Jelli Green, Jelli Red, and Jelli Orange. (The colors don't really mean anything, near as I can tell) These three stations are "open genres", meaning they have EVERYTHING in them. It's not unusual to hear Seether, followed by Skrillex, followed by Debbie Deb. The color stations have some 6,800-ish pages of songs in them (each page has 20 songs on it, I think), and more stuff gets added all the time. The way that new songs are added is thru the Request Forums (or, if you're like me and have a pretty good relationship with one of the owners, you can send him PMs or emails directly...)

In fact, I dubbed today the Greatest Day In Jelli's History, because for MONTHS I have been wanting "Fish Heads" by Barnes and Barnes to get added to Jelli's catalog. And finally, today, it happened.

Sadly, the version that got added was not the version that I remember, but it was still a good song. (It appears that the version I know and love is not available ANYWHERE [except on the youtube video I'm putting at the end of this]. It's not on any CDs, and more importantly, it's not on Amazon.com's MP3 store [which is, as is my understanding, where Jelli gets their songs added from]. This is truly a crime against humanity, but, hey, we still have the 1:30 version, which is better than nothing.)

In conclusion, Jelli has a good number of flaws, but overall is super fun, and an interesting way to discover new music. I'd be happy to go on (and on and on) about it if there's any interest. Or, if you want, you should join. It's free, and I'm there all the time. Harper and Saren even made accounts as well. (Although I don't think Saren uses hers much.)

Anyway. Fish Heads:

Eat them up, Yummm!!