Night owl

Really, I should just go to bed. I'm up way too late for my own good once again.

I'm feeling better -- my voice is slowly coming back. I'm tired, but I know that if I go up to bed, I won't be able to sleep. I did that last night, spent nearly 90 minutes tossing and turning, trying to get to sleep although I was tired as all hell. I listened to my iPod, trying all differents styles of music, finally falling asleep to the sounds of Casey Stratton's new B-side collection Rescue Andromeda: Whirlwind Medusa B-Sides. I remember hearing "House of Jupiter" but nothing beyond that. The next time I woke up, the music was off. I love it when music that I'm listening to on my iPod at night ends up in my dreams. That hasn't happened in a long time, and I sure wish it would happen again. Perhaps tonight. Man, I sound like my 4 year old wishing she could have the Teletubby dream again, or the dream about the balloon that followed her around telling her that it loved her.

I'll be a single parent this week, and I'm looking forward to it. It's a lot of work, and every year it's different. I look back on the first year that Heidi went to nationals and Anna actually took naps. Well, naps are a thing of the past -- have been ever since we moved to Ames. We have a few fun things planned, but mostly, we're just going to wing it and see what happens.

I was reading some old journals tonight that I kept when I was in college, and I nearly posted a retro-post, you know, same date, only a different year, but I couldn't find anything exactly from July 23rd and everything around it was mostly me bitching about this or that and it wasn't terribly interesting anyway, so I decided against it. One of the entries I read reminded me of the night Kelly came to Iowa City on a whim and we ended up at the Airliner drinking beer with me bitching about my roommate at the time, feeling very drunk as I walked home. I was about to write that those were fun times, but really, they weren't.

And anyway, I recognize the difference between blogging and journaling. Although I don't keep a journal like I used to, if I did, the blog would be for blogging and the journal for journaling and ne'er the twain shall meet.

In lighter news, I found a copy of the new Scissor Sisters song online this morning and it freaking rocks. It's called "Don't Feel Like Dancing" and it makes me very excited for their new CD due in September.

And speaking of Kylie...

I found this video for her absolutely fantastic song "Giving You Up" which I had never seen before. Check it out. I was nearly wetting myself.

Doctor Who binge

I'm taking a break from a Doctor Who, Series 2 marathon. Heidi's already watched the whole thing so this is (at least) her second time through it. You see, I like Doctor Who -- Heidi's pretty much obsessed with it. I especially like David Tennant as Doctor Who. He's so much fun and clearly, he has a lot of fun with the role. I was telling Heidi that David Tennant seems like a guy I'd like to hang out with, have a meal with or something like that. He just seems like he knows how to have fun. Perhaps it's that sense of little boy that he conveys -- something that I think speaks to every adult male. For inside every adult male, there's a 12-year old boy that's been buried by years of adult responsibility and expectations just dying to get out. And I think David Tennant at least does a really good job of pretending to be that way. Of course, I could be completely wrong and Tennant could be a first class ass, but Heidi says that from everything she's read and seen, he seems like a nice guy.

I only have 4 more episodes to go in the series -- unfortunately, I already know how it ends. It was impossible to avoid, but even so, I won't spoil it here for those Stateside fans of Doctor Who who haven't seen Series 2 yet. Anyway, I really do love the show. There's something about the writing, the character, the Buffy meets traditional sci-fi feel of it that really appeals to me. And that's coming a long way from the first time I watched it and was completely unimpressed. Granted it was a VHS copy of a Region 2 DVD that had really bad audio, and once I got a chance to watch them on our own Region 2 DVDs, it made all the difference in the world. I mean, it does take a little getting used to listening to actors speaking quickly in an English accent. At times, it was almost like it was a foreign language which is weird because it's English, for Pete's sake!

But one of the episodes today ("The Idiot's Lantern") had perhaps one of the best pieces of subtle writing that I've witnessed in a while. The Doctor is trying to thwart the plans of the "alien-of-the-week" and has the following exchange with a minor character:

Tommy: You don't even know where to start looking! It's too late...
Doctor Who: It's never too late, as a wise person once said. Kylie, I think.

How many sci-fi shows would have the nerve to put in a pop culture reference to Kylie Minogue? Not many, I daresay.

And because I can't share the "Never Too Late" mp3 (darn DRM technology), here's the YouTube video.

Another sign of age

I came across this article the other day -- or a version of it anyway -- in the Ames paper. It talks about how the younger generation is less enchanted with e-mail and going more with instant messaging and text messaging. And I have to admit that it is probably yet another sign that I'm no longer a part of the "younger generation." I can count the number of times I've actually text messaged on one hand -- and that was several years ago. I find it laborious and annoying and I'd so much rather just type an e-mail as opposed to having to use a phone keypad to send a text message.

And as far as instant messaging goes, I'm a little more into that, but not nearly like I used to be. There was a time that every time I sat down to the computer I had to boot up Yahoo! Instant Messenger. Now, it's not even loaded on my computer. However, I do like Google Chat which is integrated with Gmail -- it helps me stay in touch with a few friends that I don't see very often but also have Gmail.

But overall, I'm pretty happy with e-mail. Of course, I can't remember the last time I actually sent someone a letter via the USPS (although I was tempted recently when I was trying to find a friend that I'd lost track of electronically but had found a snail mail address for.) I don't get tons of e-mail -- as a direct contrast to my wife who can literally spend an hour just trying to sort through all her e-mail. At times, it makes me jealous, as I really wish I had more in my inbox than an occasional Classmates.com spam -- at least on a more regular basis. But the fact of the matter is that I'm not always the best e-mail correspondent as it can take me forever to respond to an e-mail that I get.

So what to do? Who knows. I'm fine with getting older and not being hip and cool anymore -- hell, I never really was so what's to lose. So I guess I'll stick with my e-mail and Google Chat.

Frog in my throat

Somehow or another, I've managed to almost completely lose my voice. Well, I really shouldn't say that, as I can still talk, but I sound awful. But I have, as Anna would say, a definite frog in my throat. Which, of course, made me think of Michigan J. Frog from One Froggy Evening. Although it's not a very original opinion, that cartoon has to rank as one of my favorite of the Looney Tunes shorts. It's hilarious to me that the only words in the cartoon as sung -- not just spoken, but sung -- by a frog that apparently is immortal.

I'm trying not to overreact to my loss of voice -- I keep thinking it's strep throat, even though my throat doesn't really hurt (except when I wake up) and I don't really have any other symptoms of sickness. But it figures that I'm not 100% healthy as I'm about to spend a week off work.

Cords

I don't understand how cords get so tangled up in themselves when they're not even moving. I just got done replacing Anna's computer monitor which was inexplicably non-functional this afternoon. I mean, it wouldn't even power on. So as near as I can figure, it just had sudden monitor death and it'll be headed for the scrap yard. So I swapped it out with one of the old ones we had in the basement, but while I was swapping it out, I untangled the biggest cord mess I'd seen in a while. Are there little Boy Scouts back there practicing their knot-tying abilities?

And no sooner did I finish with that than I came downstairs to replace my computer speakers. The right speaker was as non-functional as Anna's monitor, and I had a spare set of speakers (which I had completely forgotten about!) And the cord mess involved in switching those out topped the one I had just had. After some colorful phrases, I managed to get them untangled and now all is right with the world again.

And I can't believe I just wrote a whole blog post about computer cords. Someone shoot me now!

Lazy and hazy

OK, I've pretty much been inside all weekend as the outside is unfit for human habitation. It's nearly 100 degrees today, humid and the whole thing kind of gives me a headache.

I've been pretty much a bum all weekend -- not doing anything of any great importance, although I did get my Netflix watched less than 24 hours after it arrived. It was Valley of the Dolls. I'd read the book last summer/fall and enjoyed it a great deal as I usually do those campy, guilty pleasurish things. Well, the movie was pretty bad. I mean, if I hadn't read the book, the plot would have been completely incoherent. They pretty much just picked out scenes from the book and filmed them with no sense of narrative or continuity. In the book, the three main women were good friends and all this was very carefully plotted and explained, but in the movie, they were just all thrown together randomly and you're kind of like "how the hell do these people even know each other?" And huge sections of the book were excised, things that were so essential to the story. And Helen Lawson was pretty much non-existant except at the beginning and the end. But it does have some of the best bad movie lines I've ever heard, plus the hour long documentary about the making of the film and its status as a camp classic was extremely entertaining -- especially listening to how when E! correspondent Ted Casablanca cleans his toilet bowl, he imagines Neely O'Hara flushing Helen Lawson's wig down the toilet!

Other than that, I've been listening to music like a madman, watched a little bit of Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure which was entertaining until I grew weary of sitting and went up to fold laundry. Anna and I worked a little bit on our John Hancock Tower Puzz 3D and right now she's up playing Pirates! on her computer with Heidi.

Here's a picture of us being lazy playing Zoo Tycoon at my computer.

So as you can tell, things have been pretty quiet for the most part around here this weekend. Hence, the pretty boring blog entry.

Up way too late

As the subject line says, I'm up entirely too late for my own good. Morning will be here before I know it and I run a great risk of being exceptionally sorry for what is currently so fun (as is common with most really fun things.) I've mostly been up listening to music, reading blogs, and just generally enjoying my space. This is a good thing. The week has been a challenge as people from all sides have invaded my space and it's good to just be me for a while.

Jeff and Caryle came up tonight to watch Mommie Dearest, which was great fun. Anna, however wouldn't stay in bed which proved frustrating, but that's life with a 4 year old. We chatted away until almost 1AM about everything under the sun -- mostly about college days. How I wish I had done things differently, but you couldn't pay me to go back to them at all.

But perhaps the best news of the night is that Casey Stratton is going to be playing a show in Chicago on October 20th!! It's a Friday night, and I might try to go. I'm not sure if Heidi and Anna are going to be able to go, but I definitely want to go. His show, while definitely not Madonna's show (I mean, who else but Madonna could put on a Madonna show?) was great fun when he came to Ames a year ago. I wish he would come back to Ames as it's easier to go a mile than all the way to Chicago, but it does seem that he's only playing bigger metropolitan areas on this tour. I'll probably take the train, which would be cool and then just cab around. Stay someplace relatively cheap and come back the next day or so. Or maybe Sunday. Depends on when I would leave.

But something to look forward to, I guess. If it comes to fruition, that is. I mean, traveling across the U.S. to see Madonna is one thing. But it is only Chicago, which is hardly leaving home.

Dead Man's Chest

Saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest this weekend. I wasn't expecting to like it as I'd heard almost nothing but bad reviews of it in the run up to the weekend. It had a pretty middling 52% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and I just wasn't sure that they could replicate the first movie without either completely redoing it or taking it in a direction that I just didn't want to go.

Well, I'm happy to report that all my fears were for nothing. Even though there are serious pacing problems in the first 45 minutes, it's pretty much just rollicking fun. Nothing serious, nothing overly pretentious, and it certainly doesn't take itself to seriously. Some of the action sequences go on (and on and on and on) for way too long. The plot is a bit of mess and could have certainly used some tightening up, but since it's basically the first part of one big movie, I'm willing to cut it some slack.

The effects are pretty good -- they do what effects should do which is enhance the experience, not become the experience. I think that's where King Kong ultimately stumbled, although I do love that movie as well. It was just a little bit too much in love with its special effects -- cripes, the second act of that movie could have been excised from the film and been submitted to the Academy in the Best Animated Feature category. Pirates probably had one too many giant octopus attack scenes, but overall, I didn't think it was completely overdone.

The movie is basically a live action cartoon, as Heidi said. It's just the kind of summer entertainment that we've all come to expect. Much like my wife, I like it a lot better in hindsight than I did while I was actually watching it. I'll probably catch it again when it comes to the dollar theater.

Random iTunes

I've been really into my party shuffle feature on iTunes -- it picks songs I haven't heard in forever (or, if you were one of Heidi's old teachers, in a coon's age.) The last song to come up was Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" which will forever be associated with Shaun of the Dead for me -- the only movie where zombies get beat up to the voice of Freddie Mercury.



It also played the rarely heard in the last 10 years Spanglish version of Madonna's "You'll See" and "Everything Changes" by Kathy Troccoli which I can hardly believe is 15 years old now. And the song that's currently playing? It's "Diamonds" by Herb Alpert, featuring Janet Jackson.

And this morning while I was in the shower, while my iPod was on "shuffle all tracks"I kept on getting live Madonna tracks, even though they probably make up barely 10% of the songs on my iPod. I think that iPods are actually sentient beings that take on the personality of their owner. Heidi says that the way they're designed, they likely could become "magnetized" by the energy surrounding the owner. Hey, I believe it. My iPod and I have a pretty good understanding of what I want to hear, and it usually complies.

Of course, the fact that it's loaded with music that I like has nothing whatsoever to do with it, right?

(updated with a faster YouTube link)

When Wednesday is Monday, and John Wayne Gacy

Since yesterday was Independence Day, today, which is actually Wednesday feels so much more like a Monday. Wait a second -- didn't I already do Monday this week? Independence Day was a lot of fun. A huge parade down Main Street, large amounts of candy thrown from floats (so much so that some of it was still laying in the street afterward -- a sure sign of candy saturation), a neighborhood block party where we barricade the streets so the kids can ride their bikes up and down the street at the speed of light without fear of being taken out by an SUV and finally, fireworks with Jeff which we don't even have to get in the car to go see. They're a little bit far away, but it beats having to take a 4 year old into a port-a-potty, pluse she enjoys them even though they're so far away.

And based on this picture, do we really think it's wise to let kids play with incendiary devices such as sparklers? Yowza!

So yeah, it feels like Monday this morning and I had a brief reprieve because I got called to change my shift from 8 to 10, which is good and bad, but overall good for this morning as I'm still trying to shake off the Ativan hangover -- last night I was so tired, but couldn't shut my brain off, so I ended up using my little sleep friends -- a prescription of 30 lasts me probably 18-24 months. However, I didn't get enough sleep, so I still woke up in the middle of a benzodiazepine induced haze. But fear not, I'm emerging from it pretty well.

I've been listening to a lot of Sufjan Stevens these days -- I picked up his Come On Feel The Illinoise! CD from the library. It was one of those CDs I'd resisted for a while because it was all over the blogosphere as THE BEST CD OF 2005!!!!! which immediately makes me skeptical. But I came across some free mp3s of his and while it didn't blow me out of the water or anything, I decided to check out the CD from the library. It's quite good, I mean, thematically, it works for me (all songs about Illinois.) The songs have a tendency to run into each other such that I'm not able to tell one song from another, plus they have these amazingly unwieldy titles like "A Short Reprise For Mary Todd, Who Went Insane, But For Very Good Reasons" and "They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From The Dead!! Ahhhh!" But musically, it is interesting and I do enjoy some of the songs a great deal.

One that particularly appeals to me is "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." The reason for this, I think, is primarily because what a freaking weird subject for a song! For those who may not know, John Wayne Gacy was a serial killer who lived in the Chicago suburb of Norwood Park in the 70s. During that time, he killed some 33 young boys, burying the majority of them in a crawl space underneath his house, disposing the rest in the Des Plaines River. They called him the Killer Clown because he frequented neighborhood parties dressed up in full clown regalia to entertain kids.

I think the only reason I even know about John Wayne Gacy is because he was the "favorite serial killer" of a pharmacist that I worked with when I was in college. Not that Jerry was a serial killer or anything, but I think it must have been around the time that Ted Bundy was executed and we were talking about serial killers.

John Wayne Gacy is pretty much an unredeemable figure in my mind and the mind of most people, but Sufjan Stevens throws you a curve ball at the end of the song with the lyrics:

And in my best behavior
I am really just like him
Look beneath the floorboards
For the secrets I have hid

I highly doubt he's buried teenage boys under the floorboards of his house, but I think he speaks more abstractly -- about feelings or emotions. I know I've certainly hidden things beneath floorboards, I think we all have if we're honest with ourselves.

The odd morbid pop-culture connection, plus the unexpected dose of human honesty makes "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." my favorite song on the CD.

Listen to: Sufjan Stevens "John Wayne Gacy, Jr."

I love Wikipedia

The merits of Wikipedia can be argued till the cows come home, but as a fun time waster, you can hardly beat it. Web surfing is so last season, now I'm all about Wikipedia surfing. It's the ultimate in stream of consciuosness, only you actually get educated in the process. My mother-in-law doesn't particularly care for Wikipedia, and since she's an educator, that doesn't particularly surprise me. Apparently, teachers and librarians don't want kids using Wikipedia as a source for their papers, speeches, etc. There's a certain amount of validity to this, since Wikipedia is open source and anyone can edit it -- whether they know jack about what their writing is entirely up for debate at times. My argument against that is that there are enough people that watch it like hawks that most of the crap ends up being removed pretty quickly.

So far, I've only contributed one little piece to Wikipedia. It's in the entry regarding J.G. Ballard's The Drowned World. They had the Madonna song "Drowned World" being released in 1999. Everybody knows that it's 1998. Well, at least they do now that I've edited it.

And just when I think I've seen everything, Wikipedia goes and impresses me yet again. I mean, could there possibly be a better pictorial representation of kitsch than this?
Perfect, I tell ya, just perfect.

Off to see Superman Returns this afternoon -- hopefully it'll live up to its hype. I have confidence in Bryan Singer to do it right.

Filthy gorgeous

Well, the house has been transformed from filthy to gorgeous. I've been in charge of the basement, which includes my office, a bathroom that my sister used when she lived here (and Anna and I use periodically when we're down here) and a spare bedroom. The trouble with the basement is the sheer amount of cobwebs and spiders. So there's a bug bomb going off in the spare bedroom to kill anything remotely insect-like and I've spent a large amount of the morning sweeping up cobwebs into the vacuum.

I've cleaned up my office quite a lot -- it degenerates quite rapidly as Anna brings her toys down and plays and also gets out anything she can possibly find. And before the day is out, I'm going to have hung up my Confessions Tour poster. (Heh, "hung up" -- I'm so funny!)

The steps are swept, all the bathrooms cleaned, the beds all made -- now the only thing we need is for entropy to kick in again.

Dirty weekend

I'm so tickled just to have a weekend where I don't work! I've worked the last couple weekends, and while working weekends isn't all bad (because you do get days off during the week which is always novel) I still prefer not to work the 10 hour days.

But we can't be lazy this weekend because we have large amounts of cleaning to do because Heidi's mom is coming this weekend and plus the house has descended into a filth as neither of us have had the wherewithall to think about it. But now, we're both feeling like it's something we can tackle and the immediacy of house guests has pushed it up the priority list a little bit. So that'll undoubtedly be the job of the day. I cleaned the shower yesterday for the first time in I can't remember so it looks pretty good now. I also scooped and changed out cat litter (or, as Anna would say, cat glitter) after work last night so that dirty job is done.

Heidi's done a lot in the last couple days -- mostly while I've been at work, so kudos to her. But since we're both here this weekend, I guess we'll both be working.

And as a reward to ourselves, on Sunday, we're planning to go to Superman Returns with a couple friends while Heidi's mom babysits. Yay! We get to be adults! Now that's novel!

New glasses

I ordered new glasses today, mostly because my prescription is completely out of date and I need new ones, but also because I'm wanting a change. Changing your glasses is like changing your hairstyle, only worse, because if you don't like how you get your haircut, you can always wait for it to grow back. Glasses are a significant investment, and basically an extension of your personality. It's times like these I wish I could wear contacts (I have way too much of an astigmatism to make contacts even remotely feasible) but it's also fun in a weird way. It's almost like picking a whole new you. These are the glasses I picked out.


They're a remarkable departure from what I have -- they're kind of 1960s NASA scientist, but I love them. They're also very David Tennant in Doctor Who "Tooth & Claw" which means my wife won't be able to keep her hands off me. (if only I looked like David Tennant!) I'm not even going to think about how much the who whole affair cost. (I also got a second pair more like what I have now because they have a sunglass attachment, and for days when I'm feeling more like my old self, I guess) Instead, I'll think about how sharp and sexy I'll be in them.

Level Best

For some reason I can't quite remember, I was thinking about Level 42 last night. It was kind of weird because it's not like they're a band that cross my mind very frequently. But it might have had something to do with the fact that I stumbled across this site that details the 100 best music videos ever made and, while Level 42 didn't make the list, watching all those early to mid-80s videos made me think of them.

In any event, I went to iTunes to buy a couple of their songs, when, lo and behold, their greatest hits collection, Level Best, was on sale for $6.99. Well, as Lynette would say, that was priced "buy me" so I did. (It helped that I'm not even half way through $50 worth of iTunes gift cards that I got for my birthday.) I used to have that CD -- I bought it in 1994 when I was in college -- and liked it enough, but I think it must have been the victim of the great CD purge before we moved to Ames. I'm sure that I ripped the CD before giving it to the library in Washington, but it must have gotten lost or wiped out or something because I no longer have it.

Thankfully, that was remedied last night. What a fun bunch of music.

And here's "Something About You" just for fun.

Annelid trauma

Anna got to bring home an earthworm today from preschool -- well, everyone in the class did, actually, on the condition that they set it free when they got home. Anna's always been a little fascinated with earthworms, which, frankly, surprises me given her whole bugphobia thing. Maybe it's because earthworms don't have the gift of flight and move so damn slow they're a lot less threatening than a boxelder bug or a dust mite.

Anyway, she found a spot in the yard for it and set it free -- we watched it burrow in the dirt a little bit before coming back inside. She went off to play a computer game and Heidi and sat around the dining room table talking about the secrets to the life and the known universe (as usual.) Suddenly, here comes Anna around the corner with tears rolling down her cheeks. Thinking that she'd hurt herself or something like that, I ask her what's wrong, only to have her tell me, "I miss wormy" at which point she melts into my chest and sobs.

Only my daughter.

Kinder and softer

I bought the I'm Going To Tell You A Secret CD/DVD yesterday at Best Buy despite the fact that I wasn't sure I really wanted it. I mean, I have several bootlegs of the entire Re-Invention Tour (audio) and while it would be nice to get high-quality recordings of the Re-Invention Tour, it wasn't essential to my existence. Plus, I wasn't sure that the documentary would appeal to me very much as most of the reviews I've read describe Madonna as being pretty insufferable with her Kabballah beliefs and "look-at-me, I'm-so-serious" attitude. So I wasn't sure that I wanted to spend the money on that, and, quite honestly, Re-Invention is so 2 years ago and I'm all about the Confessions Tour now, so there.

But I bought it anyway because it was on sale for 18 bucks + I had $10 worth of Best Buy coupons to use so I got it for around 8 dollars. And honestly, I'm glad I bought it. The CD has recordings of "selections from the Re-Invention Tour" which sound great and beat the shit out of the best bootleg I have of the tour (Atlanta, for those that are curious.) Some of the songs they selected were fantastic (i.e. "Vogue," "Like A Prayer," "Into The Groove") but some left me scratching my head (i.e. "The Beast Within" (lip synched and Madonna's not even on the stage), "Hollywood" (again, Madonna's not even on stage on this one either.)) It made me wish they'd have released the whole tour on CD, because the songs they left out were some of the best ones and the tour just seems truncated and you don't get a good idea of what the tour was actually like from the songs they did release.

As far as the documentary goes, I'm only about half way through it, but I'm so glad I bought it -- if for no other reason than the concert footage. Even though the songs are edited (bad! bad!) it just made me want a professional DVD of the Re-Invention Tour that much more. Sadly, it may never see the light of day, so I'll have to make due with my bootleg DVD that I picked up while I was in Chicago last April.

However, the behind the scenes stuff was just as interesting as the concert footage. What we have here, for lack of a better term, is a kinder and gentler Madonna. Not that she can't still swear like a sailor or bitch people out like diva she is, but she seems so much more centered. And it was almost shocking to see her children on the screen. I found myself thinking "Oh my God, Madonna's a mother!" as if we didn't already know that. But there's something about her interacting with the kids and Guy that make it all real -- as real as it can be on a documentary like that. She does go on a lot about her spirituality, but it's not offensive to me, actually, it made me wish I was as spiritual as her. As an organized religion alumnus (for now) I have a hard time with religious beliefs in general, mostly because the extreme right wing in this country has co-opted belief in God and has perverted Jesus into something that doesn't even exist in the Bible. But she's found comfort in what she has, which is good. I sometimes wish I had that comfort.

Perhaps the funniest moment in the whole doc (so far) is opening night in L.A. when Madonna announces to the camera "I can't stop shitting! I have a nervous stomach!" And when she goes on about the businessmen playing with their Blackberrys at the Vegas show.

All in all, after what I've seen, I'd spend an evening with the Kaballah Madonna over the Truth or Dare Madonna in a second. She's matured so much (as one would expect) and while there are parts of Truth or Dare that are painful to watch, even as a Madonna fan, I haven't come across one in this one yet.

Mid-week

I'm totally screwed up because I have two days off in the middle of the week rather than on the weekend, so I can't help but feel like today is Sunday. Whatever, I know it's not, but I can't seem to shake the funk that I'm in. I'm sleeping like crazy -- I mean, really hard and waking me up is nigh onto impossible. Plus while I'm sleeping, I dream and dream and dream. I'm thinking perhaps I need to lay off the wine before bed, but it's not like I'm drinking a whole bottle or anything -- at most, I'll have a half a glass or something just for fun. I also wish I could get rid of caffeine, but I'm so hopelessly addicted to it I don't see much hope of that happening.

Of course, it doesn't help that I'm abusing my body by staying up late watching TV or being on the computer, something that I did a few years back much to the detriment of my state of mind. So perhaps I should listen to my body and to my years of experience and just do what it tells me.

Father's Day

It wouldn't be Father's Day if I didn't make some reference to Nathan Grantham.



And just in case you want to know how it all turns out...



Happy Father's Day to all my fellow fathers out there, but most especially to my own dad (who sometimes reads this blog.)

Capitol City Pride

Sunday was Capitol City Pride in Des Moines, and Heidi, Anna and I all trekked down for the event. Heidi and Anna had gone last year -- I was working -- and had a blast. I was so jealous that I missed it we made sure to figure out when it was this year so that we didn't miss it. Miraculously, I didn't have to work and there was nothing else scheduled for that days so we were able to go.

Des Moines Pride probably has nothing on Pride celebrations in say Chicago, New York or L.A. (hell, it's probably not even as good as the one in Iowa City, although having never been to that one, I can't really say) but it's still pretty good. The weather was kind of crappy -- not rainy, but COLD! For June 11th, you would certainly not expect it to top out at 62 degrees. But it did, plus the sun never came out and it was windy. But as we kept saying, at least it didn't rain.

Anna was dressed to the nines in her rainbow sun dress, rainbow tights and ruby red slippers. She even bought face stickers at Target and a new pony tail holder. Originally, she was wearing her tye-dyed rainbow socks, but as it proved to be too cold to go without something on her legs, she opted for her rainbow tights, which techincally clashed with her dress. But it didn't matter to her. She kept on bugging me about when the parade was going to start (we got there about an hour early) and kept on seeing balloons and various floats that were in the parade as they got the parade set up. She met up with a couple little girls there and played with them, giving them each a rainbow lei.

The parade started around 12pm and it was shorter than I expected. But man, could those guys throw candy for the kids. The only reason Pufferbilly Days in Boone (the reigning champion in volume of candy thrown from floats) has more candy is because it's longer -- if the Pride parade had even been 3/4ths as long as Pufferbilly Days, Pufferbilly Days would have been left in the dust.

Here's probably my favorite picture I snapped of the parade (and my current desktop):

After that, it was down to the Simon Estes Amphitheater for entertainment, booths, etc. Amazingly, only one food vendor was there to serve the thousands of people that turned out. We watched as various drag queens lip synched to the usual suspects (Cher, Madonna, Weather Girls) and Anna loved dancing around on the hillside. At one point, one of the drag queens (that Anna refers to as "princesses") was standing chatting with a group of people sitting nearby. Anna (to our amazement) wanted to go say hi to the "princess" and have her picture taken.

In the final analysis, she looks a little freaked out, but she kept on wanting to go up and talk to her. A little bit later, she educated me by saying rather matter-of-factly "Daddy, those princesses are really boys."

It was a fun day, but what I loved the most were the number of straight, young families there as well as the thousands of GLBTs as well. I spotted a straight couple across the street from us with a baby that couldn't have been any older than a few months. What a great way to start life! The atmosphere was so welcoming and accepting and you can pretty much guarantee that anyone there didn't vote for Bush (although Heidi said you might be surprised.) I can't wait for next year.

And here's a YouTube video from the day as well.



Update: I almost forgot to post the link to my Flickr.com photo album of the event. Here it is.

The truth is out there

Today's my birthday! Yay me! I love my 30s so much. I love my graying hair, but what I think I love most about my 30s is I'm not in my 20s anymore. Living in a college town gives me plenty of reminders of why being in my 20s was not the best time in my life. I wouldn't change a thing about my 20s, but as Dolly Parton says in "In The Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)" -- "no amount of money could buy from me/The memories that I have of then/No amount of money could pay me/To go back and live through it again."

Last night, Heidi and Anna gave me my birthday presents, even though I implored Heidi to not buy me anything, satisfied that my trip to Vegas to see Madonna was plenty of birthday present. She (of course) didn't listen to me and bought me a few little things. I got a new shirt from Younkers, a clock for my clockless office wall, and, to my great surprise, action figures of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully from The X-Files!!!

(And yes, that is the Queen Alien bearing down on Mulder and Scully. I really love the Alien movies!)

I didn't even know that I wanted these! I have been so into The X-Files recently. I never watched it while it was on TV -- and now, I'm not sure why because it's right up my alley. Plus Gillian Anderson is gorgeous. I'm only just finished with the second season right now, and I hear that Anderson glams out a bit, dropping weight in a bid to be more "sexy" but she's perfect as she is (although she could be just a bit taller.) I've been Netflixing the seasons but borrowed the last season from my neighbor and can't wait to get season 3.

And although Mulder and Scully are super cool, the card I got from Anna was perhaps the most precious.

What I love the most is the backwards "I love you" which she does not because she's dyslexic but because she's left-handed.

Silent Hill

Last night I went to the late (as in 10:10 PM late) show at the budget theater here in Ames. I wanted to see the movie Silent Hill, even though it had been absolutely eviscerated by the critics. I figured it's hard for a horror film to disappoint me because I always go in with low expectations and besides, a lot of horror flicks I've really enjoyed were mauled by critics. But I think that Roger Ebert's critique said it best.

"Not only can I not describe the plot of this movie, but I have a feeling the last scene reverses half of what I thought I knew (or didn't know)."

It was very disappointing on so many levels, but what mostly bothered me was how much it seemed to revel in its own obtuseness. It seemed to love being deliberately confusing -- always putting the viewer in the position that they have to guess what's going on (with pretty much no context to be guessing from) only to get the Info-Dump about 2/3rds of the way through. And even with the Info-Dump, it still didn't make sense.

Add to this that the characters were just plain annoying. The main female lead spent the first 30 minutes of the movie running around in the fog/ash of Silent Hill yelling "Sharon! Sharon!" until you just wanted the kid to answer simply to shut her up. And how Sean Bean ended up in this mess I'm not sure.

That said, the visuals were pretty good, although not what I would call particularly scary. Mostly, they were just freakish and creepy, but I don't think I was scared even once during the movie -- and that isn't just because I'm a jaded horror movie fan. It simply wasn't that scary. And ultimately, it's because the story wasn't that good. You can have all the great visuals in the world but if the story isn't there, there's nothing to hang those cool visuals on (case in point, the Star Wars prequels.)

And every review that begs us to give it a break because it was based on a video game, not Shakespeare, I say, whatever! You still need to write a story that's decent.

Overall, it wasn't so bad that I want my 2 hours and $1.50 back, but people did boo the movie at the end, and that was a first for me.

Time (not) well spent

I've officially decided to bail on On The Road. I decided that life is too short to spend it reading a book you don't like. Apparently I also thought when I decided not to read The Grapes of Wrath in 10th grade -- the first book I never finished for a class. I'm now reading Anderson Cooper's memoir Dispatches From The Edge which makes me feel a little bit cheap, but it's a good book!

I also spent today weeding the driveway (yep, you heard that right, the driveway.) Our driveway is old and cracked and has a lot of weeds growing up through the cracks in the pavement. Well, it'd gotten so bad and overgrown that it was bothering me even to look out the back window, so I spent a good hour this afternoon sitting on the driveway manually pulling up these weeds and chucking them into the wheelbarrow. The task is basically Sisyphean, because they'll all grow back within a couple of weeks until such point that I decide to spray pesticide on them. That, of course, will never happen as I just don't think it's a good idea to spray poison in an area where Anna plays.

While I was doing this, the neighbor boy came over and jokingly gave me a bad time about how bad the grass behind our house looks. And I mean, he's right, I haven't mowed it yet this year. That's mostly because is just pisses me off because it's a large hill that goes down to a railroad track. It's not even my property -- it's owned by the railroad -- but I'm expected to keep it up. Actually, the only expectations are those that I choose to internalize from the fact that everyone on the block keeps theirs mowed, but I still think it's a pain in the ass. Well, no sooner was I done weeding the driveway than I was out back mowing. And it sucked, let me tell you. I'd have been better off buying a sheep or two.

The grass clippings look pretty bad, but now it's done and it won't have to be done for a while.

That's my exciting life. Weeding the driveway and mowing knee high grass.

Hey Jack Kerouac

So I'm reading On The Road right now, and I'm about 60 or so pages into it. So far, I'm not seeing what the big deal is about this book. Maybe it speaks to a completely different generation. All I can say is that I'm doing some major skimmage -- it's mostly just a motley collection of his rather uninspired adventures out West with some friends of his. And all these friends are so non-descript that they all blend into each other so there's really very little characterization going on.

It's got this distinct feel of a book that I'm supposed to like, but for some reason or another, just really don't. It's got about another 50 pages and if I'm not really into it, I may just have to bail. I hate bailing on books -- it's really the ultimate offense you can pay to an author (ok, maybe a really bad movie adaptation is the ultimate offense, but I'm never gonna be in a position for that to happen.) And I especially hate bailing on books that I was expecting to like.

I have to admit, one of the biggest reasons I decided to pick the book up this summer is because I'm totally into that 10,000 Maniacs song "Hey Jack Kerouac" which is all about the Beat Generation (although you'd never know it without knowing something about the Beat Generation because I think the lyrics are on the obtuse side.) I do love that Maniacs album -- In My Tribe. It's probably the only one of theirs that I really like. I remember having a copy of 10,000 Maniacs Unplugged when I was in college, and Rick loved the CD so much that he totally overplayed it. I basically never need to hear that CD ever again -- and I'm not kidding when I say that. I'm just to the point now where I can tolerate the song "Because The Night." Plus, I never really got into Natalie Merchant's solo stuff. It just didn't have the same punch that 10,000 Maniacs had which is kind of weird because she was pretty much the voice of the Maniacs, but who knows. I have Blind Man's Zoo on my iTunes, but it gets listened to a whole lot less than In My Tribe does.

So I have this feeling that I will go to my grave not having finished On The Road. Oh well, I guess worse things in life have happened.

Why can't you give me the RESPECT that I'm entitled to!?!?

While perusing Entertainment Weekly a couple weeks back over breakfast, I saw an ad for the new "Hollywood Royalty" Special Edition DVD of Mommie Dearest. Heidi and I about fell over -- finally, after being released as a bare bones DVD (trailer + photo gallery being the only special features on the original) it was getting the Special Edition treatment it deserves. Heidi and I love this movie for many of the same reasons many others do -- it's so bad it's good! It's probably the only reason to really watch that movie.

I can still remember the first time Heidi and I watched it. We were either very recently married or about to be married and we rented it one night on a whim because I remember it being on HBO as a kid and, of course, the scene that stuck with me was the infamous wire hangers scene, in which a mud-masked Joan Crawford beats Christina silly with wire hangers that she found in the closet. After the movie was over, Heidi made the comment that it was one of the most bathetic (no, not pathetic, although some might argue that as well) movie she had probably ever seen.

All that said, the movie itself is a complete and utter riot. Faye Dunaway completely overacts her way to a Razzie in this movie, and we love it completely. One evening we made the decision to watch "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane" based on how much we loved Faye's characterization of Joan, only to be utterly disappointed by the real Joan, who (at least in that movie) didn't even come close to Faye's overdone portrayal. (Although the combination of Joan Crawford and Bette Davis did allow for some unintentionally hilarious scenes nevertheless -- "Hello, is this Johnson's? I'd like to order some liquor this is Jane Hudson.")

This DVD has a full length commentary and three featurettes which follow the film's journey from book to movie and its ultimate veneration as a cult classic. Conspicuously absent from any new interviews or the commentary track is Faye Dunaway, who pretty much doesn't want to discuss the movie in any way or form. This is truly a shame because it would be nothing less than fantastic to have her take on the movie and how it's gone from a movie that the studio thought would be a major Oscar contender the year it was released to unintentional comedy.

Although personally, I wouldn't have called this DVD the "Hollywood Royalty Edition." Everyone in their right mind knows this should have been the "Box Office Poison Edition."

Here's a couple of YouTube videos featuring Joan/Faye. The first one uses a great remix of Yaz's "State Farm" over the top clips of the real Joan Crawford in various movies and TV shows. The original version had clips of Mommie Dearest, but for some reason it was recut and uses only clips of the real Joan.



This one is a video mash-up of sorts. Mommie Dearest meets "Mamma Mia." Not much more needs to be said.

Music meme answers

I know...I know, they're long delayed, but here's the answers to the music lyrics meme from about 10 days ago.

1. "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" by Wang Chung
2. "Reverse" by Casey Stratton
3. "Bluer Than Blue" by Michael Johnson
4. "The Climb" by No Doubt
5. "Naked" by Spice Girls
6. "Silent All These Years" by Tori Amos
7. "Baby You're Mine" by Basia
8. "I'll Be Around" by Michael W. Smith
9. "Everlasting Love" by Howard Jones
10. "Key Largo" by Bertie Higgins
11. "Get Together" by Madonna
12. "This Is Me Leaving You" by Mary Chapin Carpenter
13. "Secret" by Heart
14. "For A While" by Trisha Yearwood
15. "Fine Time" by New Order
16. "I'm Gonna Love You Too" by Blondie
17. "Windy" by Astrud Gilberto
18. "Has To Be" by Madonna
19. "I Found Someone" by Cher (I really can't believe no one got this one!!)
20. "Lead The Way" by Mariah Carey

Thanks to everyone who played! It was a lot of fun.

My Confessions Tour loot

Here's a shot of all the stuff I bought at the Confessions Tour. (click the image for a bigger version)

Confessions Tour: MGM Grand 5/27/2006

Madonna's Confessions Tour stopped at the MGM Grand Garden Arena over Memorial Day weekend -- and I can hardly believe I was there. Way back when the dates for the tour were announced, I was going to be all noble and say "Oh, I don't need to go because I went to the last two tours and going again is just excessive." Well, as Heidi says, what a cold consolation my nobility would be if I had missed the tour. I was already pretty excited because I was really impressed with the set list and the Jean Paul Gaultier costumes for the tour, I thought, were top notch.

We flew out of Des Moines around 7:20AM on Saturday and (via Chicago) arrived in Las Vegas shortly after noon. The plane ride from Chicago to Vegas was exceptionally long -- three + hours -- but it was generally clear and it was so cool to watch the terrain change from 37,000 feet. We started out over the farmland of the Midwest, then got to the Rocky Mountains (which were so cool from an airplane! I was afraid they'd look flat but you could really see the contours of the mountains.) And then you got the western desert. They say that Iowa is desolate, but let me tell you, it's got nothing on western Colorado and Utah. You couldn't see any sign of human life for miles and miles. The descent into Las Vegas was a bit on the rocky side, as the winds were gusting upwards of 40 mph.

Because of the windy conditions, we didn't get to ride the Stratosphere. In all honesty, it's probably better that we didn't as it was one hell of a long way from the MGM Grand and, while we did go about half way up the strip to the Wynn Las Vegas, it felt like we traveled quite a long way and going the rest of the way up the strip really wasn't in the cards.

We got to the MGM Grand and I checked my carry on luggage so I didn't have to lug it all over Vegas. After that we got on the Las Vegas monorail (with the "Monorail!" song from "The Simpsons" stuck in my head!) and ate at the Wynn Buffet which one of Jeff's friends had recommended. It was pretty pricey -- about 37 dollars a piece -- but the food was very good and there was just about anything in the world that you could possibly want to eat on the buffet. They had prime rib that was exceptionally rare in the middle (Christina Crawford would definitely reject it!) but it was yummy as were the carrots and mashed potatoes. Fortunately, Jeff insisted on paying for my lunch as he knew it would be expensive and that he was pretty much dictating where we went. It was good and we both felt like we should have been taken out on Jabba's sail barge after lunch.

With lunch out of the way, we started exploring various casinos in Vegas as we still had a good 5 hours to kill before the show. While we were at the Wynn, I came across the slot machine that would eventually steal 4 bucks from me (I know, high roller that I am!) It was the Alien slot machine. You could play it as either a 1 cent, 2 cent or 5 cent slot, and I, of course played it as a penny slot. The aliens were wild, and every time they came up they snarled at you and their secondary jaws came out. Jeff has a picture of me actually playing the machine, but I haven't seen his pictures yet. Needless to say, I had to get a picture of this machine before I left. It was only appropriate that this be the machine that took me for my 4 dollars in Vegas. I was up by a couple dollars at one point, and I should have quit while I was ahead, but that's just not the type of mindset that Vegas propagates.

We also stopped by New York, New York and The Venetian (which Heidi says looks nothing like Venice) -- pictures of which are below.



The thing about Vegas casinos is that while they all look different on the outside, and they're all decorated differently on the inside, they are basically the same damn thing all the way up and down the Vegas strip. After a while, frankly, it gets a little bit boring. Mostly, Vegas is just a den of iniquity, not that that's all bad because if you're looking to be bad, Vegas is the city to do it in. Jeff and I both decided that you could do some pretty bad things in Vegas and people mostly just wouldn't notice.

Anyhow, after getting some Starbucks and sitting in the lobby of New York, New York for a while, we made our way over to the MGM Grand to get set up to go to the show. I checked my camera figuring there was no way in hell that I'd be able to bring it into the concert and we headed for our seats. After passing through the metal detectors (was glad I didn't have my camera at that point) we made our way through a sea of people and I got in line to buy some of the tour souvenirs. I only spent 60 bucks on souvenirs, which isn't too bad because I really thought they had some good merchandise this time around. I ended up buying the tour book (which is an obligatory buy as I have the books from both Drowned World Tour and Re-Invention) I also ended up buying the Confessions Tour coffee mug, which was appropriate because I buy a coffee mug everywhere I go and I bought a 5 dollar key chain as well as a 10 dollar poster. I couldn't believe they only had one poster for sale! Usually they have 5 or 6, but I guess they'd rather sell those online.

Anyway, Madonna was fashionably late (which of course made Jeff and me make jokes about how she had to quick run to Target to get some Lee press-ons.) but when the lights went out and the beginning of "Future Lovers" started playing, the crowd just went wild. I have to say, it was gutsy opening with a relatively unknown album track, but for some reason it really worked. Perhaps it was because Madonna's appearance out of a giant disco ball ranks as one of her best entrances ever. I think that the beginning act of the show, which featured "Future Lovers/I Feel Love," "Get Together," "Like A Virgin," and "Jump" is probably the strongest live set she has ever done. Rarely has Madonna been in better voice than she was during this set. The dancers were spot on and Madonna just seemed to be having a blast which is a far cry from when I saw her on the Drowned World Tour and she looked like she was just going through the motions. Granted, we saw her toward the end of the tour that time, and this was just the beginning of the tour this time around, so I suppose some of that is inevitable. I truly love the version of "Like A Virgin" that she did -- and the crowd loved it too. It was the first time in 13 years she's performed this song, and it was amazing to hear 15,000 Madonna fans all singing the "Woh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh" part along with her.

After a quick change of clothes, she made her now infamous entrance for the second act on the discofied cross to sing "Live To Tell." That sounded pretty good, too. Her performances of ballads like that have always been a little bit hit and miss. It was a powerful performance and I didn't really feel like the use of the cross was out of place. This set was Confessions on a Dance Floor heavy, featuring the songs "Forbidden Love," "Isaac," "Sorry," and "Like It Or Not." "Like It Or Not" is a song Jeff doesn't really care for, and I really love it and Madonna danced with a chair during the performance -- something I haven't seen her do since probably "Bye Bye Baby" on the Girlie Show.

The next set was probably the weakest, as Madonna's guitar playing really does nothing for me. I'd much rather have her dancing as opposed to having her feet planted playing the guitar. But she kicked it off with "I Love New York" which I initially hated but have come to love for the glorious cheese that it is. She changed the lyric (as she did at Coachella) from "Just go to Texas/Isn't that where they golf." to " Just go to Texas/and suck George Bush's dick!" which seemed a little over the top but the crowd (predictably) ate it up. The highlight of this set for me was "Let It Will Be," and album track from Confessions, but Madonna looked absolutely fantastic and her tripping all over the stage was the kind of organic dancing we haven't seen from her on tour in a while. Too bad her vocals were God-awful. That one really needs some work in the vocal department. She was off-key and messing up words, but really, who the hell cares, right? Anyone who goes to a Madonna concert expecting a pitch-perfect vocal performance is really going for all the wrong reasons. Following that, she slowed it down with "Drowned World" and "Paradise (Not For Me)" which really caused the show to drag. She sounded pretty good on both, except the vocoder on "Paradise" really has to go because it just sounds dumb.

After that, we were ready for her crank it back up again, and man, did she ever! When the disco beats of "Disco Inferno" started playing, followed quickly by the tell tale "Boogie woogie/Do you like to?" the crowd went nuts. Not long after, Madonna and her two dancers came out in John Travolta white suits and she performed a great mash-up of "Music" with "Disco Inferno." After this was "Erotica" mixed in with its original demo "You Thrill Me" which was damn difficult to understand because of the acoustics of the arena. I have to say I was a little bit disappointed by it because I was expecting more. However, I've heard a "studio version" of it and I'll admit, it's growing on me. The she sang what must be one of her favorites "La Isla Bonita" which morphed into "Lucky Star." That segued almost seamlessly into "Hung Up" which brought out a huge audience reaction. It was also the audience participation part of the show. Madonna egged us all on to repeat "Time goes by so slowly" and we were all screaming it (especially the girl sitting next to me!) But it was never good enough, and before she launched into the end of the song, she berated us, saying "You guys suck!!" Balloons fell from the ceiling and an electronic "Have you confessed?" scrawled across the screen and it was over. At $4.15 a minute, I got more than my money's worth. I'd say it's probably my favorite tour, even more so than Re-Invention, which was a lot more hit filled. This one just had a great energy from the get go and Madonna just seemed like she was having a great time, even in Vegas which traditionally has tough crowds as most of the good seats go to high rollers.

There's a whole other story about us getting back to Iowa, but that's going to have to wait till later as I'm pooped out and, as a reward for anyone who read this far, here's an mp3 file of "Like A Virgin" from the Confessions Tour.

Madonna - Like A Virgin (Confessions Tour)

(all pictures of the concert courtesy of MadonnaTribe.com)

Back from Madonna

A real post about the concert is going to have to wait a couple days for life to settle down, but just to prove that I was actually there, here's a couple pictures.

Here I am with the obligatory picture in front of the tour poster in the MGM Grand.

And here's a shot of the tour commercial that played periodically on the MGM Grand's sign.

A proper blog post soon, I promise. It was too full of good stuff to not blog about it.

We're off to Vegas!!

So I'm blogging from Ankeny, IA tonight at Jeff's house. His house is just that much closer to the Des Moines airport so we only have to get up at the crack of dawn rather than the middle of the night to make our flight. We leave Des Moines at 7:22 AM and get to Vegas around noon. I'm so excited, especially with all the stuff I've read about the tour. So far I haven't listened to any mp3s from the tour or watched any videos (even though they're all over YouTube.)

While the highlight of the trip is definitely the Confessions Tour, I'm also planning on hitting the Stratosphere Big Shot which, now that I look at it, is not just the 8 bucks I thought it was, but 16 bucks because you have to pay to get into the tower. Nonetheless, I'd still love to do it because I have to do it before I'm so old that if I were to do it, I'd have a heart attack or something. One of my co-workers told me today that she was planning on doing that when she was in Vegas, but chickened out at the last minute. I guess time will tell whether or not I really do it, but I sure would like to!

Other than that, I can't say that I'm exceptionally excited about Las Vegas -- not like I would be by New York City, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., even Phoenix (mostly because that would have been the best date to go but a myriad of factors made that not remotely feasible.) But it'll be fun and I'm sure we'll have plenty of good pictures once we're done. Obviously not of the show, but we'll see.

This'll be my third Madonna concert in 5 years, which blows my mind because I think it's just about the most frequently she's toured ever in her career. And to think Anna wasn't even born when I went to the first one!

I'll miss my girls, but it'll be fun.

The tour opens!

I knew the Drudge Report wouldn't be able to resist a sensational headline featuring Madonna on her jewel encrusted cross. And I'm so pleased they lived up to my (admittedly low) expectations. While I'm not entirely sure that her use of the cross, complete with her "crucifixion" while she sings "Live To Tell" as statistics of poverty played on the screen behind her is entirely necessary (it's always bothered me a bit when Madonna forgets that she is, first and foremost, a pop star) I'll have to wait until I actually see the show on Saturday to decide for certain. You have to admit though, it's a stunning visual and once again, the controversy is not entirely unexpected.

However, it's not the first time she's been condemned by the church. By now, I'm sure she's used to it.

I'm trying really hard not to watch any videos or listen to any more audio of the tour than I already have listened to. I'm telling myself -- "It's only a few more days and then you can look at all the spoilers you want!!" It's bad enough that I know the set list, but I think, in the long run, that's not all bad. I'm pretty pleased with it because it mixes the stuff from Confessions in with just the right amount of oldies. What kills me is that "Ray Of Light" probably qualifies as an oldie now! But as far as Immaculate Collection era songs, there aren't many, but this isn't Re-Invention and she's never claimed that it would be. Here's the set list:

Future Lovers
Get Together
Like A Virgin
Jump
Live To Tell
Forbidden Love
Isaac
Sorry
Like It Or Not
I Love New York
Ray Of Light
Let It Will Be
Drowned World (Substitute For Love)
Paradise (Not For Me)
Music
Erotica
La Isla Bonita
Lucky Star
Hung Up

The only song I really wish had made the set list is "Borderline." It's probably one of my all time favorite Madonna songs, and she hasn't sung it on any of the tours I've been to! But it's a good mix of old and new (ok, mostly new) but I don't think it has Drowned World Tour potential. Of course, it helps that Confessions is so dang good that I won't mind hearing most of the album live.

Saturday night can't get here fast enough

I'm soooooooooo excited for the tour if this is 23 second clip is indicative of the entire show!!

The Music Lyrics Meme

a/k/a Everyone else is doing it, so why can't I?

Probably because I don't have anywhere near enough readers to support something like this, but I'm going to do it anyway. So this is your chance, all you lurkers out there -- I wanna hear from you! If you haven't heard about the music lyrics meme, here's a simple summary of the rules:

Step 1: Put your iPod/MP3 player or iTunes on random.

Step 2: Post the first line(s) from the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song. (I took out any instrumental songs, natch, as well as any song where the title is uttered in the first line, so it's not entirely the first 20 songs that came up.)

Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from. Those guessing the songs should post in the comments or shoot me an e-mail.

Step 4: Strike out the songs when someone guesses correctly and post the title in bold after the stricken song when it is guessed.

Step 5: (for those guessing the songs) If you look up the lyrics on Google or any other search engine, that's called cheating, so don't do it!

So here are the songs --

Song #1: I'd drive a million miles / To be with you tonight "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" by Wang Chung (Comrade Cherry/Cherry On Ice)

Song #2: Somehow I let it slip / My hands were tired / Please turn the car around / I just saw home

Song #3: After you go, I can catch up on my reading "Bluer Than Blue" by Michael Johnson (Cherry On Ice)

Song #4: Step by step, I've come closer to reaching the top "The Climb" by No Doubt (Cherry Red)

Song #5: Naivete and childhood left behind deprived of the goodness of mankind

Song #6: Excuse me, but can I be you for a while? "Silent All These Years" by Tori Amos (Elizabeth)

Song #7: Sitting here and feeling lonely / Had my blue eyes for you only

Song #8: Hey boy - did you find out / What you had to know and what it's all about

Song #9: He wasn't looking for a pretty face / She wasn't searching for the latest style "Everlasting Love" by Howard Jones (Cherry Red)

Song #10: Wrapped around each other / Trying so hard to stay warm "Key Largo" by Bertie Higgins (Cherry On Ice)

Song #11: Down, down down in your heart / Find, find, find the secret "Get Together" by Madonna (Christina)

Song #12: This is your voice of reason / This is your voice of calm

Song #13: We lead two different lives / Just like two lines that never cross

Song #14: Saturday, slept through the morning / Just let the phone ring, now isn't that strange? "For A While" by Trisha Yearwood (Erica)

Song #15: You're much too young to be a part of me / Too young to get a hold on me "Fine Time" by New Order (Scott-O-Rama)

Song #16: You're gonna say you miss me / You're gonna say you'll kiss me

Song #17: Who's peekin' out from under a stairway / Calling a name that's lighter than air "Windy" (the version I have is by Astrud Gilberto, but The Association made it famous) (Rox/Cherry On Ice)

Song #18: Breathe in, breathe out / I say a a little prayer / How the gods above / Could be so unfair "Has To Be" by Madonna (Plantgirl)

Song #19: Don't you know / So many things, they come and go

Song #20: Who would've believed / That you and me would fall and land together

Some of these are easy, some not so much. Have fun! I'll post the answers probably mid-week next week.

Big ship taking on water fast

Now, I haven't seen either Mission Impossible III or Poseidon, but the fact that both of these so-called "summer blockbusters" opened far below expectations does not bode well for the summer movie season, which usually has a lot of good eye candy. Apparently Poseidon only took in around $20 million on its opening weekend, losing out to last weeks loser, MI:3. And while one would be tempted to think that MI:3 actually has legs, unlike most summer movies that blow their wad in the first weekend and then end up on DVD in 3 months, the gross for MI:3 was off the requisite 50% of the previous weekend.

I'm sure that The Da Vinci Code will change this -- you'd think all that controversy being stirred up would do something for the grosses on that movie.

I don't completely chalk this up to bad movies coming out of Hollywood these days, although that's certainly a factor. I think fewer people are actually going to movies -- I know that we can barely afford it any more, and we used to go to everything that came out. Now, we're content to wait until it comes to the local budget theater or wait for DVD.

Jeez, Hollywood, get your heads out of your butts.

Humdrum

So much for keeping up with blogging -- I've gone a whole week without blogging about anything! I've spent the afternoon varnishing a portion of the hardwood floor where Blair continually urinated in his attempt to communicate to any cats who might come to the door that he was the number one cat. I'm actually quite proud of myself because I sanded the part of the floor down (with some help from my dad) and got it all prepped to varnish (I'm not going to bother with staining it for now because it'll be way too hard to match the stain with the rest of the floor.) And today, I put the first coat on. We'll see what it looks like in a little while. And I've also gotten rid of almost all of the cat pee smell from my office -- it had an outside door, so once again, Blair decided he needed to assert himself all over the floor and door. I've ripped up a good section of the carpet (it was crap carpet anyway) and sealed the concrete floor. It's taken several coats, but I think I'm on the right track.

In the meantime, Blair is currently kenneled in a box that my dad made for him. It's all part of a behavior modification program the vet came up with -- he basically needs to learn to use the litter box again. Hopefully, it works. I really don't like the other options we have, so for now, I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

Taylor Dayne

I'm totally into Taylor Dayne right now -- and I'm not even sure what prompted it. But I'm loving it right now. Especially her song from The Shadow, "Original Sin." It's a Jim Steinman song so it's totally over the top and bombastic and I just love the hell out of it.

I'm also listening to the only entire Taylor Dayne CD I have imported to iTunes -- Can't Fight Fate -- which was released in 1989. I bought the CD completely and utterly on the strength of her Tell It To My Heart CD (which, in retrospect, is ultra-cheesy, but I say that like it's a bad thing, no?) I remember not liking the first single, "With Every Beat Of My Heart" all that much, but like all good pop music, it grew on me until I couldn't get it out of my head. The total highlight on the CD is the song "Up All Night" which Jeff and I love and we still trot it out every now and again for mix CDs and what not. At the rate it's going right now, it's likely to make my Summer Upbeat CDs, although it's way too early to tell as it's not even remotely summer yet.

And much like I bought Can't Fight Fate, I purchased Soul Dancing in 1993 (almost) sight unseen (or is it sound unheard.) The first single was a cover of the Barry White classic "Can't Get Enough of Your Love" which I immediately loved (and oddly enough, I'd never heard the original, but I'll chalk that up to youthful innocence and naivete.) Unfortunately, I wasn't as impressed with the rest of the album -- it seemed dreadfully overproduced and it was a shift away from dance to more R&B/soul which I've never really gotten into as much. The musical landscape had changed a lot too and, consequently, Taylor didn't have as much success with this album. Wendy and I always said that the reason the CD was a relative flop was because she didn't have a song where she said "The thrill is gone..." as both TITMH and CFF had songs where she sang that lyric. I ripped a few of the songs on it -- "Can't Get Enough Of Your Love," "Say A Prayer," and "Send Me A Lover" -- but ended up either selling the CD or giving it to the library.

Funny thing is now I wish I had it back because I'd love to give it another chance. Sadly, the Ames Library doesn't have it (they seem to fail me more often than not on those types of things) so I may be forced into re-purchasing select songs from iTunes. Or not. We'll see.

In the meantime, I'm just loving rediscovering this music.

Friday night videos

I've stayed up way too late watching old 80's videos on You Tube. It kind of reminds me of the Friday nights I spent in high school flipping back and forth between Night Tracks, Friday Night Videos and MTV -- watching videos all night. I always forget how good the videos were back then. Not that all of them have aged incredibly well, but it just seems like the videos were so much more original back then. Not that we even see videos any longer, but I digress.

This video of Rhonda from USA's Up All Night was what started it all -- it got me to thinking about the time that late night TV was filled with B-movies and music videos rather than informercials.



What a hoot, huh? So I got searching for all the music videos I would have seen had this been say, 1987 and I was watching Friday Night Videos. Here's a couple that I found.

Kansas City trip -- with a dash of Mormonism

Like I said in my last post, we just got back from Kansas City today. I figure by the end of the month, I'll have been in six different states -- counting Iowa -- which include Missouri and Kansas from this weekend and Illinois, Nevada and Texas when I go to Madonna, so I'm quite the Midwest traveler, I guess. Anyway, we stopped at the official Iowa welcome center on the way out of Iowa and I managed to snap this picture of a sign erected to honor the Mormon travelers who passed through southern Iowa on their way to Utah.

The story of the Mormon trek westward is a fascinating one -- one I read about after I met my friend Kevin who is LDS. Perhaps the best book I've ever read about Mormon history is Nightfall at Nauvoo which was loaned to me by my Lutheran pastor stepfather-in-law and it was a great read. Sadly, it's out of print and expensive as all get out to purchase. The coolest part is that the Mormons actually left Iowa City on my birthday! (granted about a hundred or so years before I was born, but y'know!)

Anyway, we get to the hotel in KC and I'm dead tired and barely able to keep my eyes open. I laid down on the bed to rest a little bit and my daughter comes out of the bathroom where she'd just taken a bath. Suddenly I hear this "Here Daddy, let me tell you a story!" I open my eyes and she has nothing less than The Book of Mormon in her hand! I had to laugh. So I made her pose for a picture.

Mowing

Well, we're back from a whirlwind trip to Kansas City to see some friends of Heidi's and go to the last Jennifer Crusie/Bob Mayer signing at Rainy Day Books in Fairway, KS. It was the last stop on the book tour and it was fun to see Jenny and Bob at the end of the tour. Heidi gave her an altered book of Don't Look Down which Jenny just seemed to love. (You can see pictures of it by clicking here.)

So we get back this afternoon and my yard is just in a complete state of disaster. Now, don't get me wrong -- I'm not one of those guys that is completely anal about how his lawn looks, spending every spare minute weed-wacking and fertilizing and pesticide-ing and what not. Mostly, for all I care it can rot as I really despise exerting the energy it takes to keep it looking even halfway presentable. So the fact that I'm noticing how bad the yard looks is really saying something.

Fortunately, it's only like 60 something degrees out today so it's a perfect day to do it. This yard is a particularly aggravating yard to mow as the backyard defies a simple and repeatable mowing pattern. It seems like every time I mow, I have a different approach. Add into this the fact that Anna has both a swing set and a sand box in the back yard so it's like running an obstacle course as well. And don't even ask me about the front yard. Trying to grow grass out there is nigh onto impossible as it is (due to a magnificently grand old oak tree) and I could spend an eternity picking up the twigs and sticks that fall from the trees. So consequently, I can never tell where I've been or what still needs to be mowed.

As you can imagine, I only mow when I absolutely have to and fortunately today, I did it without even working up a sweat -- no small feat as usually whenever I mow I'm dripping with sweat and completely revolting to anyone with a half-way developed sense of smell. It's not often you can do it and not have to immediately head for the shower.

So that's what I did today. Not terribly exciting, but it's something.

Dan, Anna & Sue

Breaking my own rule of no pictures of me on the blog, but this one's too cute to not post.