Uniquely Iowa

We went down to the Iowa State Fair tonight--which, incidentally is celebrating its sesquicentennial. 150 years of the fair is pretty cool. The thing you have to realize about the Iowa State Fair is that it is the state fair to rival all others. Other states look at Iowa's fair and just turn green with envy. There is nothing more uniquely Iowan than the fair. And I'm so glad I get to experience it.

The funny thing about the fair is how predictable it is. I mean, even the midway rides were in the same place as they were last year. Of course, this did not matter to Anna who just wanted to ride rides until she passed out from pure exhaustion. The only trouble is you can hardly ride the midway rides unless you're independently wealthy or just don't want to eat for the next week. Although after you've eaten fair food, you may not have to eat for a week, so maybe I'm on to something there.

Fair food is not what you would call healthy. Pretty much any kind of food they can put on a stick they will. In fact, this comes from the Iowa State Fair's trivia page.

Approximately how many types of food can be purchased "on-a-stick" at the Fair? More than 20. The list includes pork chops, dill pickles, corn dogs,
cheese, Cajun chicken, caramel apples, German sausages, beef, cotton candy,
veggie corn dogs, turkey drumsticks, nutty bars, chocolate cheesecake, hot
bologna, chocolate covered bananas, taffy, fried pickles, honey, wonder bars and
deep fried Twinkies. New in 2004, meatballs-on-a-stick!

We had a deep fried Milky Way on a stick (also known as heart attack on a stick) but it was quite yummy and totally worth it. Last year I sampled the deep fried Oreo cookies which were good, but not as exciting as you might have thought. The yummiest thing you can buy on a stick though is pork chop on a stick--they sold 60,000 of these suckers in the 10 days of the fair last summer! And technically, they're not really on a stick--the "stick" is just a conveniently cut out bone--but dang they were good.

But perhaps the oddest thing about the fair this year was the weather. Granted it was just opening day, but it just didn't fit expectations. Here in Iowa, we have what we call "State Fair weather" which everyone knows is the hottest, stickiest, muggiest possible weather you can imagine and then multiply it by 100. When we went last year, it was definitely State Fair weather--you can tell because you're seriously tempted to go naked rather than have to deal with any layer of clothing. This year, I not only wore jeans, but Heidi and Anna were both wearing sweaters by the end of the night. That's right--it was 69 degrees in Des Moines today. While it was a welcome change, it was simply bizarre. There's just no other word for it.

The Iowa State Fair--it made the book of 1000 places to see before you die. Don't you think it's time you showed up?

Stuck On You

Normally, I don't like Matt Damon, but I have to admit, after watching The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and most recently Stuck On You, the guy is starting to grow on me. I watched Stuck On You last night--you know, the one where Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear are conjoined twins. I remember just laughing myself silly to the teaser trailer which featured "Academy Award Winner Matt Damon, Academy Award Nominee Greg Kinnear, Academy Award Winner Cher and 4-time Academy Award Watchers the Farrelly Brothers."

Of course, I was mostly sucked in by the Cher factor. And for the little bit of time that Cher was actually in the movie, she sure camped it up. That's the thing I just love about Cher--she just refuses to take herself all that seriously. It was definitely a goofy turn--she played herself stuck in a contract for a TV show called "Honey & The Beaze" where Cher is a lawyer and Greg Kinnear is her partner. Perhaps the funniest line of the entire film was during a scene from the TV show where Cher is being held captive and the kidnappers demand the "smegma from that dead hooker's perineum." It was one of those things that went by so fast you almost missed it if you weren't paying attention.

So yeah, Stuck on You was a fun little comedy. Endearing and it's always fun to see movies about brothers.

Oh, and hearing Cher use the word "buttplug" in one of the deleted scenes was definitely worth the price of admission. :)

Inclement weather in New Canaan, CT

Watched The Ice Storm last night on DVD. It was on sale at Borders for 8 bucks or something like that so I bought it a few weeks back and just got around to watching it again. That's a movie that really defies easy definition and description. It's cool for a lot of reasons. One, it takes place in 1973 and the trouble the filmmakers went to to recreate the time period is just astonishing. They have a reference to The Crying Indian ad, Watergate, macrame vests as well as all the free love and sex that seemed to be creeping into the suburbs during that time period. Cripes, it's probably the only movie I know that has a key party in it.

I think one of the things that really made me think last night was the idea that The Ice Storm really is a period piece. Usually, you think of period pieces being movies that take place in Victorian England or during the Revolutionary War, but the simple fact of the matter is that 1973 was 30 years ago! And a movie made today about that time period qualifies as a period piece as much as anything else. But what struck me is the difference between a movie like The Ice Storm which was made in the late 90s looking back on a time in history vs. movies like Taxi Driver and Saturday Night Fever, which are movies that really are slices of the time during which they are set--the difference being that the latter movies were actually made during that time period. How do they differ? How are they the same?

For one thing, I think that movies that look back on a time period are always going to overdo it a little bit. Saturday Night Fever effortlessly captured Brooklyn during the disco era whether that's what it set out to do or not. The Ice Storm deliberately sets out to recreate an era, and in so doing, goes a little bit over the top. I can forgive this of the movie--it's still a great re-creation of an era, but it's still only that; a re-creation. And ultimately, there's something false about it.

You have to hand it to Christina Ricci in the movie though. She is, without a doubt, one of the most talented young actresses we have. She'll always have a little bit of Wednesday Addams in her for me, and of course, she'll always be my sister Wendy's celebrity double, but she's a very good actress who plays a wide variety of roles quite well.

I love the history of the late 20th century (mostly 1960 on) and this movie appeals to me on that level. Definitely worth a watch if you get a chance, but the book, of course, is better.

Meet The Fockers

Admittedly, I wasn't a big fan of Meet The Parents. I thought the jokes were lame and I really am not all that crazy about Ben Stiller. But Jeff told me about the trailer that he saw for Meet The Fockers which comes out in December and said I had to go see it. Maybe you have to have followed Barbra Streisand's career like I have to truly appreciate it, but I laughed my ass off.

Watch it here. I never thought we'd see Barbra in a movie that wasn't written, produced and directed by her as well. And she's cutting loose, if just a little bit.

More Bush/Republican insanity

Hmmm...let's see, since Bush has already passed three extremely irresponsible tax cuts what else does the Republican party have to say about taxes? Why, let's eliminate income tax altogether! Granted, the link is from Drudge, but it just speaks to the complete and utter alternate universe the neo-cons and their following are living in. Although they propose a national sales tax or a value added tax. I'm no economist, but this just seems totally ridiculous.

It likely won't happen, but the fact that it's even being entertained is just insanity.

The Murder of Scarecrows

A really cool (and morbid) Flash game that I stumbled across via Metafilter.

The Murder of Scarecrows

I can see it getting old really fast, but it was very Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark--which, by the way was illustrated by Stephen Gammell who is from Des Moines. Who knew?

Single parenthood

Heidi's been in Dallas since Wednesday for the Romance Writers of America National Conference. She called tonight and she's having a great time which is really good because she really needs some time to not be Anna's mom and be just Heidi. So I took Wednesday and Thursday off work to be home with Anna. My folks came over tonight to watch her while I worked which worked out well.

Anna and I have been to the zoo, the library and the ISU campus (which is the home of two swans--Lancelot and Elaine which Anna just adores, but I find rather unnerving because they have no problem coming really close to you.) We have a good time when we're out together, but she's very demanding of your attention and time. It's not like last year when Heidi went to National and Anna was very content to sit and watch TV or other less strenuous things. It also was nice that she took naps last year and she's pretty much given those up except when she's really tired.

As usual, I have new appreciation for the things that Heidi does while she's home with Anna. I also understand why sometimes even though she's home all day, the house is still a mess and the dishes don't always get done. Anna wants attention (which is normal) and I'm always going to choose to give it to her. I figure there'll come a time when she doesn't want my attention, so I'm going to take advantage of it now while I can. She's a good little girl, really. She's just high-maintenance at times. And I love her so much.

I have a baby monitor going down here (I'm in the basement, she's in her second floor bedroom) and I thought I heard her stir, which caused me to just bolt right up out of my chair and check on her. We had to go out and buy a baby monitor especially for this as we never really had much need for one when she was a baby--beings she slept in our bed from birth.

Never thought one little girl could make such a big difference in my life. But she sure has. But there's definitely a reason she has two parents! :)

Audioscrobbler

Via my friend Scott, I've discovered Audioscrobbler, which is a really cool music application for your computer. You download their plug-in and it keeps track of what music you're listening to on your computer. Then, it takes that information and collates it and matches you with other people that listen to similar music, as well as making recommendations for other music you might like.

Check out my page here.

And to no one's shock or surprise, Scott's pretty high up on my Musical Neighbors page.

Yahoo! News | Unhappy Workers Should Take Prozac -- Bush Campaigner

Yahoo! News - Unhappy Workers Should Take Prozac --Bush Campaigner

I don't care if this was a joke. You don't joke about things like that.

Not exactly placebo controlled

Today I had a root canal on one of my teeth that had been giving me some trouble for about a week now.  While I was in the dentist's chair, they had Fox News playing on the TV.  Now the root canal was no picnic, I can still feel them pulling the nerve tissue out of my tooth (OUCH!) but once it was all said and done, I managed to tell the dentist that I appreciated a head-to-head trial of a root canal vs. Fox News to determine which one was worse.  He laughed and asked if they were neck in neck.

My response?  It was the root canal by a hair, but only because the sound was muted on the TV.

Who says Toys R Us is just for kids?

We all went to Eden Valley Nature Center today for a picnic with Heidi's dad's side of the family.  It was a dang long drive--about 3 hours by the time it was all said and done.  It's just south of Baldwin, Iowa which I think redefines the word "podunk."  It was a pretty good time.  Not being much of an outdoorsy type guy, I spent a lot of time reading and chit-chatting with various family members while Heidi, Anna and her sister went for a hike around the place.  That just wasn't something I was in the mood for today.

On the way home, we stopped at Toys R Us because we'd never taken Anna there before plus the fact that we needed to wake her up if we ever hoped for her to sleep tonight.  We walked around for a while and I must say that I find the current state of kids' toys deplorable.  But I did run across something pretty cool that I picked up for myself.  It's an Alien figure, complete with egg and two facehuggers.  Here's a picture.  Heidi kind of looked at me like I was on drugs for wanting that, but hey, it's cool.  Anna, of course, is fascinated by it.  She talks about how it's a "scary guy with sharp teeth."  The facehuggers are "spiders" and the alien is "angry now."  She's my daughter, that's for sure.

 

Definitely not Joss Whedon's vampires...

I watched From Dusk Till Dawn tonight and it was quite the movie.  Besides the fact that George Clooney is just so damn cool in almost anything he's in, it was fun to see a bank-robbery-brothers-on-the-lam movie get turned into a vampire movie.  When the vampires showed up about 2/3rds of the way through the movie, I found myself thinking--"what would this movie have been like if we hadn't known there were going to be vampires in it?  What kind of kick-ass surprise would that have been?"  Too bad we always have to have movie trailers that give away all the best bits of movies.

But perhaps I've seen too much Buffy The Vampire Slayer because the vampires were really bloody and gross and not at all what I've become accustomed to a certain plucky blond staking.  For one thing, the makers of the movie obviously subscribed to the zombie theory of vampirism--which means that all it takes is a bite from a vampire (and not necessarily in the jugular either) to become one yourself.  Hello!  These are neither zombies nor werewolves and most "authoritative" sources (i.e. Buffy and Anne Rice) require the vampire to drink the victim's blood and then the victim to drink the vampire's blood before the transformation can occur.  Otherwise, think of all the vampires we'd have running around!

And when they staked these vampires, they didn't just crumble into dust leaving behind no trace of the monster.  These things melted a la the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark and exploded right and left leaving blood and guts all over the place.  Not appetizing at all.  But I guess that wasn't exactly the angle they were after. *shrug*

So it was a good movie, but it's going back to Netflix.  The next three movies coming are The Matrix: Revolutions, The Bourne Identity and The Butterfly Effect.  Have I mentioned how much I love Netflix?

And check out this site for some more good stuff on vampires and zombies.

Pinball Counting

Anna and I just got done watching "The Pinball Song"--one of those classic Sesame Street clips from my childhood on one of her Sesame Street DVDs.  I'm sure you know the one--it's the "one, two, three, FOUR, FIVE, six, seven, eight, NINE, TEN, eleven, twelve" song that takes place inside the pinball machine.  It's pretty funky.  And come to find out, it's the Pointer Sisters doing the vocals.  Who knew?  Click here to walk down memory lane.  It's not quite the original, but it's good in a pinch.

Of course, I'll always love that orange haired piano player that breaks his piano while playing "Eight Balls of Fur."  Not sure what his name is, but I think he also sang that song that goes "tell me why do you always do the opposite of what I do."

And I also never realized that Roosevelt Franklin was retired because he was considered a negative stereotype.  According to one book, he was the only African-American muppet (although he was purple) and was mostly seen in detention!  Who knew?

UPDATE:  Here's the orange haired piano player.  Chrissy of Chrissy and the Alphabeats.

AtomFilms - This Land

AtomFilms - This Land (static)

Forwarded to me by John, my former boss and partner in crime for liberal politics and Lord of the Rings discussion.

Early morning griping

Well, it's raining to beat the band this morning, so I guess I'll be driving to work.  That just figures.  It's not been the best start to the day.  Anna woke up at 4:45 AM and wouldn't go back to sleep.  She always seems to do that when I have to be to work at 7AM.  Never when I'm the 10 o'clock or 2 o'clock.  So consequently I'm already exhausted and I haven't even been to work yet.  Add this to the fact that today I have to go around and check outdates on the floors and I was trained in that exactly once so I don't really know what I'm doing and I'm just so worn out that I don't want to think about having to ask for help.  Sometimes, I think it would have been easier to stay at Washington.

Easier, yes.  But definitely not the right thing to do.

So I'll just muddle through as usual.  Dang, I'm not very positive this morning, am I?

Updated All Music...

...and it's not all it's cracked up to be.

All Music Guide is one of my favorite sites on the web. And it got a spanky new look and complete site makeover. Only trouble is, now you have to register and log in to access the information on their site. No problem, I've done that a million times before on other sites. So I put in my email address and get my password and go back to the site and try to log on. Zilch. Oh, not exactly zilch, I got "INVALID LOGIN; TRY AGAIN." Changed my password to one of my tried and trues and tried again. Still nothing. Changed the e-mail address I was using. Still nothing. So I sent them a little love letter asking for their help. I'm sure they'll work the bugs out, but as it stands it's not that great.

Gee, I wonder if all my links that I've used in previous posts work. Hmmm.

Summer Upbeat Mix Volume 2

Here it is...as promised.

1) Cher -- "Dov'e L'Amore (Video Version)" (What a kickass version of this song. I had to use sound capture on the DVD to get this version. Surprisingly, it's not one of the remixes on the maxi-single.)
2) KWS -- "Please Don't Go" (This song always reminds me of my college roommate Kim. She loved all those house dance songs. It was almost disappointing when she pretty much went cold turkey on them toward the end of the time we lived together.)
3) Toby Lightman -- "Devils & Angels" (I heard this song for the first time on my way to Ankeny the day before I started my new job. While I'm not all that impressed by the rest of the stuff she does, this song is still pretty good.)
4) Prince -- "Sign 'O' The Times (Mr. Aurel's Loud Club Mix)" (This is undoubtedly a bootleg remix of this song, but it's a pretty good one at that. Those DJ remixes are pretty hit and miss, but every now and again you get a good one. Not super different from the original, but different enough.)
5) Heart -- "Make Me" (I always forget how much I like Heart until I listen to them again. This song is from their new CD, Jupiter's Darling, and sums up all that is good about Heart. The fact that Ann Wilson can still use her voice like she does after all the years she's been singing is amazing to me. That woman can truly belt.)
6) Carl Perkins, Duane Eddy and The Mavericks -- "Matchbox" (An odd choice, yes, but it's a fun little country-blues song that if from the Red Hot and Blue CD. I always thought that it'd be a good song for my former brother-in-law, Rad, to cover at his shows.)
7) Nellie McKay -- "The Dog Song" (I owe my friend Scott for introducing me to this song. I doubt that I'd have ever thought to listen to it if it hadn't been in his "Heavy Rotation" section on his blog. A great little summer song, even though my jazz vocal heart really does belong to Diana Krall [see below].}
8) George Michael -- "Flawless (Go To The City)" (Another last minute add because I was feeling like the mix was weighted a little bit more in the past. Of course, George Michael hasn't had a true hit in years, but it's a good dance song from his latest CD, Patience.
9) Loretta Lynn -- "Mad Mrs. Leroy Brown" (This song just makes me laugh--it's in the grand tradition of country story-songs that can only be done by the grand dames of country. I haven't listened to much of Van Lear Rose, but this is definitely a highlight. I predict that we'll be hearing about this album again come Grammy time.)
10) Bananarama -- "I Can't Help It" (Contains a classic mishear on my part. In the chorus, the girls sing "I'm captivated by you honey." My young ears heard "I got debated by your heartache." Yeah, like that makes sense.)
11) Celine Dion - "Faith" (I have a soft spot for Celine. Especially for the stuff since she came out of her "retirement." She doesn't seem to wail as much as she did before and her songs are more upbeat and fun. Taking a break was the best thing she ever did.)
12) Cyndi Lauper -- "Primitive" (Ever since I saw Cyndi open for Cher a couple years ago, I have new respect for her. She's doesn't have the world's greatest voice--exceptionally nasal--but she sang her heart out at that concert. I remember how surprised I was by the strength of her voice.)
13) Blondie -- "Shakedown" (There's something oddly credible about Deborah Harry's rapping. If it were any other 58 year old white woman doing this, it would just be laughable, but since she pioneered rap in pop songs with "Rapture", I'm inclined to cut her some slack. This song is very female Eminem and the vocabulary just kills me. "Mediterrnean lassitude?")
14) Dave Matthews Band -- "Grey Street" (As I've said before, I'm a bit of a fair-weather fan of Dave Matthews, but this song is definitely one of my faves.)
15) Maroon 5 -- "This Love" (This dang song gets stuck in my head so much recently that I figured it had to go on here. Usually, I'm not much of a fan of the Matchbox 20 style rock because it seems so homogenized and similar, but I do like this song.)
16) Diana Krall -- "Love Me Like A Man" (Diana covers a Bonnie Raitt song and succeeds. Her CD The Girl In The Other Room is one of my favorites of the summer. It was so refreshing to hear Diana ditch the orchestra and elevator music and try something like her early stuff, but yet completely different.)
17) Madonna - "Vogue (Live from the Re-Invention Tour)" (I just had to throw this on there. It was the first time Madonna's ever sung "Vogue" live--all the other times have been lip-synched, and her voice is in fine form. A great closer as well as a great memory from the summer or 2004.)

Well, that's it. Hope someone out there enjoyed reading it.

Telegraph | News | Schlesinger blamed heart failure on Madonna

One last bit of blog before work.

Telegraph | News | Schlesinger blamed heart failure on Madonna

Great, now Madonna's getting blamed for a 75 year old guy's heart problems. Damn her! How dare she!?!? ;)

Summer Upbeat Mix 2004

Over the weekend, I managed to put the finishing touches on what I call Dan's Summer Upbeat Mix 2004. It's a CD that I make every summer which basically sums up what I've been listening to during the summer. I try to get some actual current songs so that it's not all oldies and Madonna and things like that. Last year was the first time that I've ever had so many songs that I made two CDs, and wouldn't you know it, this year is the same thing. Just thought I'd share the songs with a few comments here and there.

Volume 1:
1) Nick Lachey -- "Shut Up" (I know, I should be shot for listening to Nick, but this song is so damn infectious!)
2) Kylie Minogue -- "Your Disco Needs You" (put on there for my friend Jeff who really liked this song and went out and bought Kylie's new CD Body Language and was thoroughly disappointed. He ended up giving that CD to me.)
3) Madness -- "Our House" (one of my favorite little 80s ditties. But it always makes Heidi ask, "what is this song about other than a house?")
4) Janet Jackson -- "You Can Be Mine" (from her 1986 Control CD back before she felt like she had to have everything dripping in sex before she could record it.)
5) Eurythmics -- "Here Comes That Sinking Feeling" (this was always my theme song for going to work when I worked at Drug Town. For some reason, it's crept back into my life, although I don't usually have a sinking feeling when I go to work now. *shrug*)
6) Stevie Nicks -- "Stand Back" (probably my favorite Stevie Nicks song ever. As Stevie says, it just has this energy that comes from out of nowhere and just takes you away. Plus it's the only song you can sing "Little Red Corvette" over the top of.)
7) Clay Aiken -- "Invisible" (gotta love Clay. My folks are going to his concert at that Clay County Fair. Clay county. Heh.)
8) Madonna -- "Nobody Knows Me (Mount Sims Italo Kiss Mix)" (a great remix of a fantastic song from the Re-Invention Tour. As near as I can figure, this mix closely approximates the performance at the show. A little heavy on the vocoder, but we'll forgive her just this once.)
9) Bonnie Tyler -- "Holding Out For A Hero" (since it was so prominently--and successfully--featured in Shrek 2 this summer, it just had to make the cut.)
10) Sonny & Cher -- "Baby Don't Go" (a clip of this song is in one of the montages of Cher's Farewell Tour, and Anna just loves Cher so much I put it on there just for her.)
11) Counting Crows -- "Accidentally In Love" (another Shrek 2 song, but more importantly, it was a free iTunes download. It's a cute little song, I can almost forget "Mr. Jones" and "The Long December.")
12) R.E.M. -- "All The Right Friends" (a last minute add when I saw that I had room for one more on the first CD. I heard this song on my iPod one day walking home from work and more importantly, it's one of my favorite types of upbeat songs--a kiss off.
13) Basia -- "Drunk On Love (Downtown Radio Edit)" (Basia is a Polish born singer that started out singing with the group Matt Bianco but has had a fairly successful solo career. She's probably best known for the songs "Time & Tide" and "Cruising For Bruising" but "Drunk On Love" comes from my favorite of her CDs--The Sweetest Illusion.)
14) The Corrs -- "Summer Sunshine" (I really like the Corrs first CD Forgiven Not Forgotten, but after that, they pretty much trashed all the Celtic influences in their music for a go at mainstream success which made me less excited about them. While I did like that song of theirs from a couple summers ago--"Breathless"--I tend to agree with Entertainment Weekly when they said that they kind of went all Wilson O'Phillips.)
15) George Michael -- "Amazing" (A should have been hit for George Michael. Although I kinda think George Michael's a little bit pretentious, this was a fun song.)
16) Blossom Dearie -- "Rhode Island Is Famous For You" (Probably the only song that will ever make a CD of mine that I heard while on hold at work. I've already blogged about this song, so I'll let that entry speak for itself.)
17) Nsync (and others) -- "On The Line" (Yes! Yes! I admit it. It's cheeseball and it's silly, but it's damn fun. And no, I didn't see the movie.)
18) Eminem vs. Michael Jackson -- "The Real Slim Shady (Billie Jean Remix)" (I love mashups, but Eminem mashups are the best. This one is basically what you would expect--"The Real Slim Shady" over the beat from "Billie Jean.")
19) Blondie -- "End To End" (from Blonide's woefully underrated new CD The Curse of Blondie.)

Volume 2 later--I have to start getting ready for work!!

A new blog to the blog roll

I stumbled across a new blog in my attempt to collect a complete set-list of mp3s for Madonna's tour. Sadly, I didn't find what I was looking for there, but what I found was even better. I love discovering new blogs and this one is definitely one of my favorites. It's written by a guy named Scott and the blog is called The SaltwaterPizza Blog. He and I have a lot in common--like me, he's a die hard Madonna fan, but has somehow never managed to see her in concert. So check out his blog, it's great!

Oh, and I finally did manage to get the last two songs for a complete set-list of the Re-Invention Tour. Now I just gotta put them on CD.

Spiderman 2

Heidi and I made it to Spiderman 2 this weekend. And wow, the popular consensus was right. It's probably one of the best comic book movies ever made. It was just out of this world enough to be a comic book, but the superhero and action really took a backseat to the human element of the story. It doesn't help that I think Tobey Maguire is just about one of the coolest actors + whenever you have a sensitive, vulnerable hero like you have in Peter Parker, I'm always sucked in. Peter Parker is almost more interesting than Spiderman, as it's in Peter Parker that we get all the human, emotional drama. Sure, Spidey can swing through the streets of Manhattan and kick general butt, but it's the more human Peter Parker that really sells the story.

Ultimately, the story is about self-sacrifice and it's worth the 2+ hours in the theater to get to a very satisfying ending.

Of course, whenever I go to movies like that, I wish I knew someone like Peter Parker--or at least what my perception of Peter Parker is--someone who isn't afraid of their emotions or afraid to talk about real stuff. There just aren't enough of those kinds of people out there. Even here in Ames, I feel like I've stepped from one lonely place to another. Theoretically, there should be a larger population of people like me here because, well, there's a larger population. Granted I haven't exactly been really eager to join things because my schedule is all over the place and the general stress of the move has caused me to not want to be anywhere else but at home. Still, it would be nice to have a buddy to go hang out with. But then again, I think about how that would drain time from being with Anna and I will always choose her over anything else.

It just sucks to feel so lonely sometimes. It's not like I'm totally freaked out about it, but it just seems like there's no sense of community anywhere anymore. I mean, my job is good, but I don't see myself socializing with them. That's just not where I see the relationships going. And we have some nice neighbors, but I just don't think that there's anyone in the world that's like me and feels like I do and would be willing to talk with me like I want to. I'm a lot less obsessed with trying to find friends than I used to be. Mostly, I just figure that it'll work out if it's meant to and if it isn't, no big whoop.

Well, I'll get by. And I'm probably gonna go see Spiderman 2 again. The first movie of the summer that's merited going twice--I'm not sure even Fahrenheit 9/11 is a movie I'm going to go to twice.

The song remembers when...

I was listening to a CD while I was in the shower this morning that I made a few years back. It's amazing how it used to make me feel so good, and now when I listen to it, it really just makes me feel bad. When I made the CD, I never thought I'd ever feel quite like I'm feeling again, and that really makes me sad.

Oh well--chin up, young person. Day 7 of 9 today. The end is in sight.

Salon People | Cher

Salon People | Cher

This is a pretty good Salon article about Cher which unfortunately, isn't entirely current. But I thought I'd blog it anyway. *shrug*

Bizarre News Story

Patients Die After Getting Rabies-Infected Organs

The Very Best Of Cher: The Video Hits Collection

We got the DVD of The Very Best of Cher: The Video Hits Collection via Netflix the other day and now, it's all Anna wants to watch. I have to admit, the videos are pretty good. I'd forgotten how much fun videos used to be and Cher made some good ones. No, none of them are stellar like some of Madonna's videos are, but they are fun and cheesy and everything in between. I was especially surprised by the inclusion of the "Main Man" video which I think I saw all of once on MTV back when it was released. Cher complete with leg warmers. Hmmm. How good is that.

The one thing I had completely forgotten about was the omnipresence of the Rob Camilletti (a/k/a Bagel Boy) in the Cher videos. I wonder how he feels about being immortalized in all his 80s big-hairness by "I Found Someone", "We All Sleep Alone" and "Main Man"?

But perhaps the biggest surprise of all was the "Dove L'Amore" video which features a dance remix and Cher in her drag queen best. And the glittery eye shadow was just too much. I, of course, thought it rocked.

Anna's turning into a good 3rd generation Cher fan (after my mom and then me.) She was even trying to sing along to "A Song For The Lonely" which was just precious beyond words.

Sometimes the ace, sometimes the deuces

Ugh, today is my last day off before a 9 day stretch at work with no days off. And it was kind of a crappy day. It started with the news from a tree guy that the tree in our backyard is dying a slow death and really needs to come out. The likelihood that it will probably fall into the house if the right east wind comes along. Trouble is that the cost of getting rid of the tree is estimated at $1500. May as well be 15,000 at that. So then we take Anna to her dentist's appointment at 10AM which was good because she has no tooth decay (although she does have a slight open bite thanks to her continued use of the pacifier.) The bad thing was it took nearly an hour and a half for that whole thing to get over and done with. So by the time we got back from that, the morning was shot and I still hadn't gotten a shower.

We get home and Heidi announces that she's gonna go up and check her e-mail and deprogram for a little bit. Not five minutes later, I hear a rather urgent "Dan, I need your help RIGHT NOW!" I go upstairs to find that she's spilled iced tea on her laptop keyboard. After initially thinking that it was going to be okay, it is completely not working and has to be sent back to Toshiba for repair. Lord knows how much that will cost.

So I guess while I have that guy out there cutting down the tree in the back yard, I better have him plant a money tree as well. Because it looks like we're going to need it.

Is this the United States??

Bush Can Hold Citizens Without Charges

As my brother so uncouthly (and ironically, considering he married a Russian girl) said years ago, "Did I just wake up in Russia?"

"My Heaven"

...written by the incomparable Mary-Chapin Carpenter. And yeah, I haven't journaled or blogged song lyrics in forever and a day.
----------------------------------------
Nothing shatters, nothing breaks
Nothing hurts and nothing aches
We got ourselves on helluva place in my heaven.
Looking down at the world below,
A bunch of whining, fighting schmos
Up here, we got non of those, in my heaven.

There's pools and lakes and hills and mountains
Music, art and lighted fountains
Who needs bucks here, no one's counting
In my heaven.
No one works, we all just play
We pick the weather everyday
If you change your mind, that's ok, in my heaven.

Grandma's up here, grandpa too
In a condo with to-die-for views
There's presidents and movie stars,
You just come as you are.
No one's lost and no one's missing
No more partings, just hugs and kissing
And all these stars are just for wishing
In my heaven.

There's little white lights everywhere
You childhood dog in Dad's old chair.
And more memories than my heart can hold
When Eva's singing "Fields of Gold"

There's neighbors, theives and long lost lovers.
Villains, poets, kings and mothers
Up here we forgive each other, in my heaven.
For every soul that's down there waiting,
Holding on, still hesitating
We say a prayer of levitating in my heaven.
You can look back on your life and lot
But it can't matter what you're not
By the time you're here, we're all we've got
In my heaven.

The Lovely Bones

Just got done reading Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones on Saturday. It was a book that had grabbed my attention thanks to Mary Chapin Carpenter, of all things. She has a song on her new CD, Between Here and Gone, called "My Heaven" which by all accounts is inspired by The Lovely Bones. It paints this great picture of heaven from the eyes of the narrator--a heaven filled with all the things that she loved in life and what would have been a paradise had she had the option to create it on Earth. It's a gorgeous song in it's simplicity, mostly because MCC hardly ever overstates anything. But anyway, I picked up the book at the Ames library a couple weeks ago and it has a beginning you just can't stop reading. There were drops in the narrative toward the middle, but by the end, I was mostly just tired of hearing Susie Salmon be so self-involved. Plus when she was able to inhabit people a la The Exorcist I found myself just kind of sighing and waiting for the book to be over. It's too bad, because it could have been really good because Sebold is an excellent writer and is capable of telling a good story.

Don't get me wrong--I'm not sorry I read the book, but it just wasn't everything it could have been.

Jinkies Fred! It was actually tolerable!

Anna and I went to Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed this weekend at the dollar theater here in Ames. I have to admit that I wasn't all that excited about it because from what I was told about the first Scooby-Doo movie, it was pretty much bound to suck. But it was a 3 bucks for the two of us to get in (plus 7 bucks for popcorn and pop) and it was a night out with my daughter. Plus, she was all psyched about seeing "the big show" as she likes to call it.

And wouldn't you know it, the movie wasn't half bad. No, it's not high art or fine cinema or even especially good cheesy guilty pleasure type stuff, but it was passable entertainment that didn't bug me half as much as say Episode II: Attack of the Clones did. Freddy Prinze, Jr. did sleepwalk through most of the movie and sadly, Daphne was played by Buffy Summers played by Sarah Michelle Gellar. I'm afraid until SMG gets a little bit older, she'll have the Buffy typecast to deal with. Scooby was a pretty awful CG character, but the monsters were cool. There was Miner 49er, the 10,000 volt ghost, and some crazy scuba diver ghost that I never caught the name of but remember from the cartoons when I was a kid. To these, Anna would turn to me every now again and say "Ooh, that's a scary guy, Daddy!" and laugh uproariously.

But perhaps the best part of the movie were the times I caught her looking up at me lovingly or giving me these spontaneous hugs that told me, in her own Anna way, that she loved being at Scooby Doo with her dad.

39 degrees

Yep, it's 39 degrees on June 25th. Granted, it's 6 o'clock in the morning and we're headed for 75, but it's still surreal. I had to change to a long sleeved shirt this morning because the short sleeved one I had picked out was just too damn cold!

So I work today, and then I'm off for the weekend. This is so essential to my mental health, it's impossible for me to understate it. I feel better today than I did on Wednesday when I went to work. Wednesday was mostly just treading water until 3:30 rolled around and I could go home. I think I'll do better today but I guess that remains to be seen. I hate being so damn tired all the time but I'm not sure what to do with that, y'know?

I bought the new Heart CD, Jupiter's Darling, on iTunes last night with the gift certificate that Julie gave me for my birthday. I didn't even know that they had a new CD out!! From what I've heard so far, it sounds like pretty classic Heart. It's more 70s Heart than 80s Heart (i.e. relatively few power ballads and more guitar rock-ish) and that's great because Ann's voice is perfect for that kind of thing. I'll post more about it after I've had a chance to listen to it.

We're also going to Fahrenheit 9/11 tonight at the Varsity Theater here in Ames. We were thinking that we might have to drive to Des Moines to see it, which complicates child care tremendously, but having it here in town means we drop Anna off at Tim & Sally's and we're gone for a couple hours as opposed to the entire evening.

Father's Day

My only association with Father's Day is "IT'S FATHER'S DAY, BEDELIA!! Where's my cake?" OK, not my only association, but the one that I always think of whenever Father's Day rolls around.

And it figures--it's a zombie father.

Post-Madonna Post

(Note: This is the transcript of an e-mail I sent to a group. I don't have time to compose a brand new blog post. I'll maybe write more about it later bur as of now, I'm dead tired.)

A little bit light-hearted, but I just wanted to let everyone here know that I managed to make it to Washington, D.C. yesterday for Madonna's Re-Invention Tour. Yes, flying out of Iowa to D.C (via Detroit, which was only fitting) to go to a concert did border on insanity, but I figure it's not any different than people paying boatloads of money to go to sporting events all of the place. It was a quick trip--left on Monday, back early today and I think I'll probably be paying for it for days to come, but it was so worth it.

I can't get over how good she sounded and how much fun she seemed to be having. Whether she's faking liking her old songs or not I don't much care--if she is faking it, she's doing a good job of it. I went with my buddy Jeff who has been my partner-in-crime for all things Madonna for almost 20 years now. We went to Madonna's last tour in Chicago in 2001 (my wife was pregnant at the time and the dr. wouldn't allow her to go so she stayed back at the hotel.) This time, she stayed in Iowa with our 2 & 1/2 year old daughter.

All the hits were there--"Vogue", "Into The Groove", "Express Yourself", "Like A Prayer", "Crazy For You", "Material Girl"--such a welcome relief from the last time she toured. I told Jeff that it was totally worth every last cent just to be able to stand in an arena full of Madonna fans and scream (along with everyone else in the arena) "GET UP ON THE DANCE FLOOR!!" The crowd was electric and so excited to be there. A lot of the people that sat around us had been at the show the night before which just killed me because it wasn't like the seats were cheap.

A funny mix of people were there as well. The crowd was definitely an older crowd--meaning not many teenagers. But that's not too surprising as her fan base has aged right along with her. I commented to Jeff that this was probably one of the few places where you could see PTA style moms, grandmas, couples, gay guys, black, white, Asian, whatever. All linked by the common thread of they were there to see Madonna. It was kinda fun. And I'll tell ya one thing, the straight guys at the concert would be wise to follow the lead of the gay guys at the concert and just not think about who might be watching them and just cut loose. They looked like they were having so dang much fun!

The thing that always gets me about Madonna is that when you're listening to her music or watching her videos, you really forget what an excellent dancer she really is. And it showed in this concert. Singing (only a little bit of lip synching that I could tell--the Vogue rap and some of the more vocoder heavy songs like "Die Another Day" sounded a little bit too much like the CD) and dancing combined in a show so intricate and detailed that if anything got off by just a little bit, it could really screw things up. But she was also light hearted and engaged the audience and oddly human. During "Express Yourself" she's all "HELLO WASHINGTON, D.C.!" and then she starts singing to which she says "Oh shit! Boys and girls, do you believe in love? Cuz I got something to say about it." It was very endearing.

All in all, I loved the show. It was fun to spend time with my friend (although he's such an incredible extrovert and I'm actually quite introverted that sometimes he can be a bit tough to handle non-stop--he's *always* on.) and D.C. was not entirely unfamiliar so I felt comfortable there. Truth be told it was probably worth the extra money to fly there rather than having the hassle of driving into Chicago and parking at the United Center which is in a crappy part of the city.

If you've read this far, thanks for reading. It was the closest I'll ever get to seeing Madonna at the top of her game. She's not nearly as relevant as she used to be, but she still puts on one hell of a good show.

Once More With Feeling

We watched the all-singing, all-dancing episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer tonight. "Once More, With Feeling" is what it was called and it was a stitch. And surprisingly enough, it wasn't just a throwaway episode, but it also substantially advanced the story arc for the 6th season. It's all weird not having seen this season but having seen the 7th (and final) season. A lot of the things that kind of made you go "hmmmm" in season 7 now make a little bit more sense. And watching Willow go over to the dark side of magic is like watching an alcoholic unwittingly destroy their life and the lives of those around them.

So there's only tomorrow to work and the Jeff and I are off to D.C. to go to the Madonna show. I'm pretty excited, but I wish that I weren't so damn tired. I told Heidi this morning that I'm just sick of being tired all the time and she says not to discount the fact that I'm still learning my job. This in spite of the fact that they're going to let me work alone a week from tomorrow which has me pretty much scared shitless because I just know that I'm not going to be able to keep up with the workload. I mean, today was a prime example. If there hadn't been another pharmacist there today, I wouldn't have gotten to eat. Simple as that. And it sucks because I'm afraid of what I might miss in all the craziness that can be hospital work. It's not like I'm reading tarot cards or painting a house--people's lives really are at risk when I'm working. Not like I'm incompetent, but yet I am human nonetheless. If I screw up in a big enough way, that can directly impact someone's life--even to the point where they may no longer have a life. I always thought that at Washington when I was there, but here in Ames, it's even more relevant. I don't know if it's because people are sicker or if it's because we use higher powered drugs (I mean, please, like we were ever gonna use Natrecor at Washington) but it really bothers me sometimes. I try really hard to be accurate but you can't be so slow about it that you don't get anything done. And on the other hand, you can't be so fast that you're not accurate. So what's a guy to do?

I don't know--mostly I'm just feeling kind of overwhelmed these days so I thought I'd write it here into the void where I'm pretty sure it won't be read. It sucks to feel alone when you're some place new and could really use the external validation. A lot of the things that once were are no longer and who knows what the future holds. Mostly I'm just being cryptic, it's not as bad as it sounds. Thank goodness for Heidi and Anna. Without them, I'd be crazy.

On a lighter note, I went out and spent some money (birthday money) on some DVDs at Best Buy last night. I bought The Godfather (which I am so glad is available as a single disc and not just with The Godfather collector set--do I really need a DVD of The Godfather Part III?) and the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead. I was funny, I started watching NotLD and it reminded me a lot of those TV shows that were on on Saturday nights on the local Fox affiliate (or independent channel--not sure if there was such a thing as Fox TV) like Freddy's Nightmares or Friday the 13th: The Series. I used to watch those shows all the time--and I remember thinking a lot about how everyone else was probably out partying while I was watching them. The production values were pretty low for the most part and sometimes the stories were lame, but all in all, you can't beat a good scary flick. But what I wouldn't give for those to come out on DVD. Instead of those, we're getting Punky Brewster. *sigh*

But perhaps the horror anthology show that gave me the biggest willies was Tales From the Darkside. I'm thinking especially of the Christmas episode with the Grither. Scared me half to death as a kid and now I'm thinking I'd *love* to see it again. :)

Leaders Dead and Otherwise

I'm so tired of the whole Reagan thing. So the guy is dead. So freaking what? I mean, he was president, not God. And the thing is it's probably a blessing that he died. More than likely for the last five years or so he's been pooping in diapers and not able to remember any of his family members. What kind of life is that? Not much of one in my book. And everybody's going on and on about how great he was. I mean, he was a charismatic leader and all, but is he deserving of a National Day of Mourning? My friend Brian linked to a list of things to think about when you get to thinking Reagan was the greatest man to ever walk the face of the Earth. I'm sure you can come up with similar comments for just about any President, for after all, they are only human. I think Judson Frondorf over at Ack Ack Ack puts it best--"it's about as close as you can get to necrophilia without actually f***ing the corpse." Harsh? Sure. But this is a freaking circus. Call me callous or uncaring or whatever, but I've never seen such a fit thrown over a guy that lived for 93 years.

Personally, this has been my favorite take on the whole thing. A new Republican presidential/vice-presidential ticket for 2004.

Birthday ramblings...

I'm 32 years old today and it was a pretty good day. My mother-in-law got me a 15 dollar iTunes pre-paid card which is pretty fun to try to spend. I bought this cute little song that I heard at work while I was on hold one day--it's called "Rhode Island Is Famous For You" by Blossom Dearie. What a funny way to come across a song, but I remember writing "Rhode Island--famous for you" on my hand so that I could Google the lyrics when I got home. Only today did I remember to do that. So I'm down to $14.01 on my iTunes account.

I didn't do anything too spectacular today. Jeff came up tonight after I got off work and he, Heidi and I all grilled out. He watched the first two episodes of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" and is now hooked--so much so that he had to borrow the DVDs of the first season. Heidi and Anna bought me some new shirts which I was really needing for work. I don't have enough short sleeved shirts to wear and man, I get warm in long sleeves, especially when I walk to work. After supper we went out to Wal-Mart (for the first time since we moved to Ames) and looked for some stuff for Jeff's show this weekend. We ended up at Borders where I read the first chapter of The Lovely Bones while Anna ran around the children's department. I'm going to have to check that book out from the library or borrow it from Mary--it really had an intriguing beginning.

But for now, I'm reading Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers which is just freaking hysterical. This lady knows how to write a thoroughly enjoyable book about a subject that might not be too terribly engaging.

So another birthday come and gone. It's probably for the best anyway.

I've walked to work the last three days and I'm really starting to like it. I don't know how much I'll like it once it's 98 degrees at 6:30 AM which I figure it'll do sometime next week, but for now, it's a good thing. I haven't started the car for two whole days! Even last night when I went out to Walgreens to get some stuff for Heidi, I rode my bike. I want to get to the point where I take the car as the last option, and with the price of gas as it is, that'd probably help us save a little bit of money. I've been taking my iPod with me while I walk and it's always interesting to see the mix of songs that comes up as I go to and from work. Tonight on the way home, I heard 4 songs:

+ Dave Matthews Band "Digging A Ditch"
+ Janet Jackson "Escapade (Shep's Housecapade Mix)"
+ Debbie Gibson "Between The Lines"

Quite the eclectic mix--not many songs as it's just about a 15-20 minute walk depending upon how fast I go.

The Day After Tomorrow

So we went to The Day After Tomorrow on Saturday. All I can say is wow. I expected special effects to beat the band and the random destruction of both east and west coast cities. But what I didn't expect was to actually care about the characters. Nor did I expect to think about it much longer than 5 minutes after I left the movie theater. But I did care about the characters and I have found myself thinking back on it several times in the last couple of days. While it wasn't the most intelligent summer blockbuster to ever be made, it is a lot better than the mediocre reviews it's getting might indicate.

Sure, the science is totally whacked. This kind of scenario could never happen in the time frame that is set up in the movie. But what did reviewers expect? Did they expect this to happen slowly over the course of 20 years and by the end of the movie all the characters that we were introduced to hadn't aged at all or were played by other actors? It was the fact that it did come on so fast and that it was a life or death type thing that drove the human element of the story. It was so nice to see that the story of the people being affected by the storm was not ignored.

It was also great to see that they didn't blow all their great special effects shots in the first 20 minutes of the movie. I mean, hell, the famous frozen New York City scene didn't even show up until at least an hour into the movie--and it was probably later than that. Heck, it took a long time for the storm to even affect NYC. I thought for certain that would be the first thing to happen. But thankfully, it wasn't. The pacing was, if not perfect, pretty damn good for a summer effects picture.

But according to Wendy, Jake Gyllenhaal has lost all his indie movie cred now that he's been in a big summer movie like The Day After Tomorrow.

So it's Memorial Day and I work in an hour. Still getting used to the schedule and I'm kinda irritated about not really having a day off this week because my day off will be Friday and we'll be flying to Arizona that day. It'll be okay though. I'm going to try to walk to work today because it's a totally beautiful day out and I'm wondering if I could do that and drive less. Plus that'd be a way to get some much needed exercise in my life. So who knows. We'll manage, as we always do.

Oh, and here's one more cool link. I'm not sure how this works, but it's a blog that's blogging 1,000,000 love songs. Take a look. This week's are pretty interesting. If what they've done so far is any indication, at 30 songs per week, it'll only take 641 years to finish. Guess they better get crackin'!

Average Everyday Sane Psycho...

Yeah, the Liz Phair song "Extraordinary" is stuck in my head today. Funny how it ended up on the Queer Eye For The Straight Guy soundtrack CD, but I suppose if you listen to the lyrics closely, it fits in pretty well. Heck it was probably used in one of the episodes and that was the only inclusion criteria that it had. I haven't bought that CD and I think I probably won't because I just don't know what kind of shelf-life it might have. It could easily be one of those things that you buy and listen to a lot initially and then you never listen to it again.

So here I sit listening to some bonus tracks from Fleetwood Mac's Say You Will CD (which is a CD that has really grown on me a lot) and it's been a pretty good day overall. We're going to The Day After Tomorrow at 4:30 today with Jeff and Wendy while my folks babysit so it'll be nice to get away for a while. I'm reading some of the reviews of The Day After Tomorrow on Rotten Tomatoes and it's making me wonder what some of these reviewers were expecting. I mean--it's a freaking disaster movie! I don't think anyone is going to this movie expecting fine cinema. It's a Roland Emmerich picture, for God's sake!

Back later with my impressions on the movie

FOXNews.com - Foxlife - Fox411 - Madonna Tour: Does She Need the Cash?

Of course, I would expect nothing less from crappy old Fox News.

FOXNews.com - Foxlife - Fox411 - Madonna Tour: Does She Need the Cash?

And here's another article I found interesting this morning. It's about blogging. It's not very nice.

Must work.

Today was another day off and my back hurt like hell for reasons unbeknownst to anyone. It's right between my shoulder blades and from the way I feel it in my arm muscles I'd swear it was cardiac pain only there's none of that crushing chest pain as if an elephant were sitting on your chest thing going on so I'm thinking it's just stress coming out in a really bizarre way. We went to Blank Park Zoo which wasn't anywhere near as big as I was expecting it to be, but it was still a decent zoo. Most zoos just kind of depress me anyway because it seems like every single animal is endangered. It made me sick to think that there are only 300 Siberian tigers left in the wild. That's just insane! I wonder what it's like in Africa where elephants used to roam free about the plains but now I imagine theres all sorts of habitat encroachment and other such stuff. Don't misunderstand me, I'm no expert on endangered species or wildlife preservation or anything like that. But it just made me kind of sad to see a lion sitting in a cage in Des Moines, IA.

But the giraffes were really cool--they were the only animal that we took more than a cursory glance at. I'm afraid zoos just don't do for me what they did for me when I was a kid. Heidi pointed out to me that zoos really are for kids anyway but that didn't really help too much. Plus it doesn't help that Heidi doesn't have much of an attention span for zoos either. And then there's Anna--the one minute attention span wonder. Well, she is two, so that's not exactly something to be worried about.

All in all a good day. Stopped and saw Jeff on the way home which was fun as always. It's so nice to come back to Ames and be able to call it home. Wendy's going to be coming up this weekend and we're going to take advantage of my parents as babysitters so that we can all trek out to see The Day After Tomorrow which looks pretty decent. On Sunday, we're headed back down to Des Moines for the Iowa Renaissance Faire which we went to a couple years ago and had a great time. Good thing I went to their web site--otherwise I would have likely ended up at Water Works Park!!

The Re-Invention Tour kicks off

Tonight was the first night of Madonna's Re-Invention Tour--and from the pictures I've seen on the web, it's going to be pretty spectacular. For one, just get a load of this track listing:

The Beast Within
Vogue
Nobody Knows Me
Frozen
American Life
Express Yourself
Burning Up
Material Girl
Hollywood
Hanky Panky
Deeper and Deeper
Die Another Day
Lament
Bedtime Story
Nothing Fails
Don't Tell Me
Like A Prayer
Mother and Father
Imagine
Into the Groove
Papa Don't Preach
Crazy For You
Music
Holiday

Some very odd choices, but nothing as odd as "Mer Girl" from the Drowned World Tour. There's still talk of "Love Profusion" alternating with "Crazy For You" depending upon which concert your at, but it's just so good to see Madonna embracing her past a little bit rather than trying to run away from it as quickly as she possibly can.

The blog roll is back!

After much tinkering with the html code in the new Blogger templates, I have finally resurrected the Blog Roll. There are two new additions--one is The Amazon Iowan which is written by my wife. It's a lot more political than mine--I can't even really remember the last time I waxed political here, but she's mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. The other blog I added is my friend Ian's blog. Not updated nearly enough, but he's busy because he has a toddler and just graduated from college, but the world would do well to hear more of what he has to say. Smart man, that Ian.

Tonight is the last evening that I have to work for a week, which is nice because I'm getting a bit tired of them, as I imagine Heidi and Anna are as well. I'll be off work on Wednesday so I'm looking forward to sleeping in and spending the day doing what I damn well please.

Another day off...

...but then I have to work the weekend. And weekend evenings no less. 12PM-10:30PM. It might be a long shift, but it'll be okay.

Anna's in the living room right now watching Toy Story for the millionth time in 3 days, but this time she's watching it from behind her eyelids. That's good--she really needed to sleep. I think later today we're going to plan to go out and see Shrek 2 even though I really didn't like the first Shrek all that much. Too many fart jokes, which are the bottom of the barrel as far as humor goes. But I suppose that appeals to every 8 year old boy in the world and I'm not exactly the target audience for a movie like Shrek 2 anyway.

This day hasn't exactly been what I thought it would be, mostly because I got up a lot earlier than I wanted to thanks to some as-yet-unidentified noise that sounded like a cross between a wood-chipper and a lawn mower. It woke Anna up so consequently there was no more sleeping after about 7:30 this morning. Heidi wrote most of the morning which is good. Anna and I watched Finding Nemo and she got her bath and I eventually got my shower at about 10:30 or so. I'm thinking that later this afternoon before we go to the movie I might start making a new CD or something. There's all sorts of songs that are out right now (and oldies from my past, of course) that are potentials to make the cut. I was listening to this Loretta Lynn song last night on Rhapsody called "Mad Mrs. Leroy Brown" which just cracks me up. I was thinking about going out and buying the new George Michael CD Patience but I just don't know that it's good enough as an album to merit purchasing the whole thing. Rather buy a few of the good songs on iTunes and go from there. Same thing with the new Alanis Morissette CD So Called Chaos. Should just take about 5 bucks and go down to the computer downstairs and buy them on iTunes.

So the toilets backed up today for no apparent reason and we had to call Roto-Rooter to unclog the whole mess. And for all the mess that it was, it could have been a whole heck of a lot worse. It wasn't a bad day off, and all that went wrong was softened by the fact that I have another day off on Thursday. However, that means I have to work the weekend. This isn't all bad as I really need to figure out how to work the weekend routine but that'll all come in time. I'm feeling pretty good about my job right now--like I really fit in well and that's a good feeling. I don't have this terrible sense of impending doom when I go in to work like I did at first. That was mostly a function of being so unsure of myself and not knowing what I was doing and never knowing what each day will bring. But now I'm a little more sure of myself and I don't feel quite as green as I did when I started. I still don't know what each day will bring, but I feel like I could work there a hundred years and still feel that way.

I'm listening to this bootleg Madonna remix that I downloaded probably in the Audiogalaxy days. It's called the Erotic Bedtime Mega Mix (Love Zone)--whatever that means! It's mostly a mix of ballads from the Erotica/Bedtime Stories era, but also throws in "Crazy For You" and "The Look Of Love" + others for good measure. It's 26 minutes long, so it's probably the only thing I'll listen to tonight while I blog.

I gave up on The Corrections--I just couldn't take it any more. As I was telling Kevin, I would have probably enjoyed it a lot more 10 years ago when I was in my John Irving phase, but I just couldn't handle how pretentious it was. The characters inspired irritation rather than sympathy and I just didn't care what was going to happen to any of them. As far as I was concerned they all deserved whatever they had coming to them. It wasn't even that engagingly written. Too much hype and too much press for a book that really wasn't all that good to start with. He probably gained more noteriety from being an Oprah Book Club selection (only to spurn it, which probably gave him even more good publicity.) I have a feeling that book won't really be remembered 50 years from now.

So instead, I picked up an old Jay McInerney novel that's been in my possession for about 10 years but has just never been read. It's called Brightness Falls and it isn't too bad. I'm convinced that McInerney had only one really good novel in him (that being Bright Lights, Big City--which is one of my all time favorite books) but this one's not half bad. I haven't quite figured out where the story's going yet, but it takes place in 1987 in New York, so it'll at least appeal to me on that level.

And while I was surfing for links on Jay McInerney, I found this one from The Guardian where he describes his 9/11 experience.

Troy--so disappointing

We went to Troy last Saturday night in Carroll. We left Anna with my folks for a few hours and even though we'd heard bad reviews for the movie, we went thinking that surely it couldn't be that bad. And it wasn't. But it was what it wasn't that made me so frustrated with it. Yeah, the thousand ships CGI shot was cool and it was sort of pseudo-Gladiator in a lot of respects. But there were so many things wrong with the movie.

The biggest problem was the casting of Brad Pitt as Achilles. His character was so damn annoying that I almost applauded when he died (sorry if that's a spoiler--but doesn't everyone know that?) He was more like a California surfer dude rather than an ancient mythic Greek hero. Also, the CG was pretty shoddy, perhaps moreso because it comes so quickly after The Lord of the Rings. Even the Trojan Horse was a little bit of a let down, but at least it made structural sense. The only real building materials they would have had would have been the wood from the boats, so it couldn't hope to look like a lot of the popular art depicting the Trojan Horse. (like this or this.)

There's a picture of the Trojan Horse from the movie on the movie's web site if you want to compare (I can't manage to link directly to it.)

Man, I hope the summer movie season gets better! And quick!

13 Going On 30

Heidi, Anna & I all ventured out to the movie tonight--13 Going on 30. It was a great little flick and it completely removed the bad taste from my mouth that Van Helsing left. I'm such a sucker for those happy endings. It always renews my faith in the human race when I see movies like that, even though I realize it's just a movie and not really based in reality. People aren't as beautiful in real life as they are in the movie and things don't always end happily in real life like you can almost always count on in romantic comedies. It's kind of like no one would be for want of love or friendship if everyone in an internet chat room were Meg Ryan or Tom Hanks.

I had a really good day off today. Incredibly productive--got the new e-mails set up, got a whole slew of phone calls made and my dad and I even finished fixing the garage door (it works again! Yay!) I think I'm going to like having days during the week off even if it does mean working on the weekend. It was kind of an un-day all day today and I keep thinking that it's Sunday night and that I need to get the trash together. But no--it's Thursday and tomorrow's Friday but Friday doesn't really mean what it usually does. And that's okay.

Well, I best be getting to bed. Morning will come all too soon and I was up way too late last night.

Jamie Cullum

I'm listening to this new CD by Jamie Cullum (via Rhapsody) tonight as I heard that he was this up and coming jazz artist from the U.K. and plus when we were going to Iowa City tonight, we heard a blurb on NPR about him and the CD called Twentysomething. I'm not entirely sure what I think of it. It seems like it's a little overdone, which is really too bad for a debut album. I know that it was a huge hit in the U.K., but I just don't see it doing much here. It's jazz vocal in only the most abstract way. In fact, it's annoying me so much I think I'm going to have to turn it off. That's too dang bad, really becaus I had heard a lot of good things about it. Guess my jazz vocal heart really does belong to Diana Krall. And the more I listen to her new CD, the more I like it.

The awards banquet that I went to tonight in IC was fun although I think Anna had the longest attention span of any of us, and given the fact that she's two years old, that's really saying something. It was good to see John again and it wasn't at all like visiting with an old boss but instead it was like seeing an old friend. Come to find out as well that my stupid Yahoo! e-mail address doesn't seem to be working. Dawn's been trying to e-mail me and John can't get anything to go through unless he replies to something I've already sent. Stupid Yahoo.

I also talked with Kevin tonight on my cell phone. After finding out that my e-mail was so screwed up, I wanted to get back in touch with him in case he thought I'd fallen off the planet. It was fun to chat again--but then again it usually is.

Preceptors of the Year

John and I are the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy's Preceptors of the Year. It's something that we joked about ever since we started taking students--but now we actually are. I guess having a kick-ass rotation site actually paid off. So I'm going down to Iowa City tonight after work to go to a banquent at the Holiday Inn to be recognized. That should be fun although with the price of gas I'm not sure that it'll be cost effective. It'll be fun to see John again--at least I hope I he's coming. He didn't really say in his e-mail, but I presume that he'll be there. It'll be a little bit awkward if it's just me and a whole bunch of people that I don't know.

I'm reading The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen right now. It's interesting and Irving-esque in a lot of ways, especially in the fact that he has about 10 million things going on at once and has sexually dysfunctional characters. It's kind of off to a slow start though. It's infinitely better than Cold Mountain was, although I suspect that my disinterest in Cold Mountain might have more to do with my mood rather than it's failings as a book. I'm falling for the whole Borders advertising campaign and their "summer reading list" and it's making me want to go read all the titles on their list. (Sadly, I can't find a trace of it online and when I Google "summer reading list" I get stuff for high schools which I suppose wouldn't be all bad, but just not what I'm after at this point.) So I'm going to try to set time aside each day for reading and see how many books I can read this summer.

And thankfully, our DSL seems to be working this morning after working sporadically last night. You never realize how much you depend on that until you don't have it.

I'm eager for tomorrow and being off work even though it means working the weekend. It'll be okay. I'm really doing well at my job even though there are things that show up daily that I have no idea how to deal with them. Fortunately (or unfortunately--I'm not sure which) it seems like most of the other pharmacists have those days too. So we keep on muddling through. And today's a 7-3:30 shift anyway so the day will zip by. We hope. *crosses fingers*

Brand Spanking New Blogger

The newly relaunched Blogger looks great and it now has a ton of new blog templates. Amazingly enough, I found one that I like. Now I just have to figure out if I can upload pictures and then I'm set.

I've been meaning to post for a long time but I just haven't had the chance. And now I'm supposed to go upstairs and watch a show with Heidi, so I won't be writing for long. One thing I will say: I was at Borders yesterday and I saw that May was "Bluegrass Month" or something and it had a CD by Rascal Flatts in that section. I was all geared up to listen to them on Rhapsody, and when I finally did this morning, imagine my disappointment to find out that they're pretty much new country. Bluegrass, yeah right!

But speaking of country songs, I have to admit that that Gretchen Wilson song "Redneck Woman" is pretty cute. It's totally cheeseball and really appeals to the lowest common denominator, but it's fun to see someone having fun with their music again.

A couple things:

1) Watched Big Fish the other night and for all the hype that it got, I don't think that it really lived up to it. Ewan McGregor was good (as always) but a little too Forrest Gumpy and it's always a plus when he keeps his pants on in a movie. It was very much a Tim Burton movie in lots of ways with touches of Sleepy Hollow and even Danny DeVito practically reprising his role as Penguin from Batman Returns. Worth a watch but I'm just not sure I ever need to see it again, which was kind of depressing because I was hoping for so much more.

2) I'm reading this book called Nickel & Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America. It was mentioned on a listserv that I'm on, but Heidi picked it up at Borders independent of that and it just makes you want to be mad at somebody somewhere because I can't believe people have to live like this. Basically, the author (who is a Ph.D.) goes undercover to see what it's like to work in what would typically be termed "low-end jobs" that pay a "living wage." She quickly finds out how much living can actually occur on a living wage--and it ain't much. Heidi finished it a few days ago and she just couldn't put it down. She compared it to a train wreck--something that you don't really want to see but can't help but keep watching. It's really sad and it's really not a piece of leftist propaganda because she is very disappointed with Democrats for not doing anything about this when it's supposed to be "their" issue. (She did all her research in the late 90s during the waning days of the Clinton administration.) An interesting read.

Muddling through

Tuesday is done and man I feel like I've been through the ringer already. But the good thing is that Heidi completely finished painting my office today and even got it all set up. I guess she thinks that since she can't help me much with how I'm feeling about all the change in my life she can at least help me get some place nice to be when I'm at home. And really, it is great. I feel a little bit like it's my dorm room or something.

I'm listening to Dave Matthews tonight which is kind of fun because I don't really know many of his songs, but they're good background music. I'm trying to find a replacement for Claire, and I think I might have found someone. Now I just have to figure out how I'm ever going to get an appointment. I'm feeling really bad about taking all the time off work that I am. I mean, I have to go to Ryan's wedding but did I really need to go to Madonna? How am I going to swing it as I know for a fact that I won't have enough vacation time accrued by the time I need to take that trip. I know that it'll just work out and that worrying about it will accomplish only ulcers, but it's still hard. I still feel like a big dork at work despite all evidence to the contrary. There are times I wish I were back in the comfortable confines of my job in Washington, but I know that's not an option. There are so many things that are right about Ames that make it worth uprooting ourselves from something that was "comfortable." It really is amazing when you think about it--how quickly we uprooted ourselves from all that we knew to move to a city where we really didn't know anyone to a job that was a huge change from what I had. But things are working out. Anna has a little buddy a couple houses down and we're working on trying to get a babysitter lined up in case Heidi and I ever decide to have a life again.

It's times like these that I really feel like my depression is an unfair burden. I get mad because days like today were days where when I left in the morning to go to work I was as disabled by my depression as people who suffer from migraines or chronic back pain or anything else like that. But I didn't have the option of calling in sick just because I wasn't able to "pull myself together." So what do you do? You pull yourself together as best you can and get through the day. I remember Rick H. telling me something like that in regard to high school classes once--"those are the classes where you just sit in your chair and wait for the period to be over." I don't count minutes or anything like that at work so I suppose that doesn't really apply. But I guess I'm feeling a lot like if it weren't for Heidi no one would be interested in what's going on in my life, which I know is patently false, but it's hard to tell your brain things like that when you're feeling like I've been feeling these days. I know this is intensely personal and that I'm probably crazy for posting it in a blog, but what the heck? I'm trying to be more myself and I have to say that I'm more myself than I have been ever in my life, but I was much more comfortable in my Washington skin than I am in my Ames skin, but I'm sure that had a lot to do with the fact that I knew exactly how to react to people and situations in Washington, whereas here I'm still learning.

I think that depression is one of the reasons that I can listen to Dave Matthews. Knowing that he went through depression too and what with him being a public figure and all it had to take guts to admit that on the pages of Rolling Stone or whatever. I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, but you know.

A new week

Can't blog much this morning as I forgot to get the trash out last night and I'll need to do that before I go to work. I am so freaking tired but what the heck--I'll go to work anyway. I painted this weekend and put iTunes on random while I did it and boy, did I get a motley assortment of music. For example--I was listening to a really funky mix of "Sign O The Times" by Prince and suddenly, Dolly Parton was singing "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town." The other really odd transition started with the song "On The Line" by NSync, which was followed by "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" by Julie Andrews before morphing into a dance remix (bootleg obviously) of Fleetwood Mac's "Sara." Perhaps the funniest thing about it all was that I had a cloth tarp down over the computer so I couldn't skip past songs. I heard songs that I haven't heard in eons. It was kind of fun.

So we'll see how the week goes. I'm sleep deprived because Anna woke up in the middle of the night and didn't seem to see the importance of going back to sleep.

All Music Guide: Van Lear Rose

All Music Guide: Van Lear Rose

This is the latest CD by country legend Loretta Lynn and I've heard nothing but fantastic things about it. It's produced by White Stripes guitarist/singer Jack White and when I heard about the pairing of aging country legend with upstart young rocker I just had to laugh. So I queued it up on Rhapsody and wow, it's good stuff! Not exactly the stuff you tap your toes to, but I just might have to go out and buy the CD. It reminds me a lot of Dolly Parton's return to her roots with her bluegrass albums although it has a much different sound than that--it's earthier and grittier, more like Bonnie Raitt-ish type. And there's no beating Dolly's glorious soprano either so there's that.

It's been a good week for CD releases. Diana Krall's The Girl In The Other Room has been getting decent reviews and it is excellent. It sure beats The Look Of Love and it's so good to hear her playing piano again--thank goodness the orchestra is gone. It's invigorating to not hear her singing old standards this time around (at least not as many standards as are usually on her albums.) I also picked up a copy of Mary Chapin Carpenter's Between Here & Gone which is not Come On Come On or State Of The Heart, but is definitely her strongest recording in years.

I don't have much time to blog this morning. It seems that no matter when I get up I don't have time to do anything other than get ready. I would love to get on a walking regimen but I can't figure out how to work that into an already busy day. And you can forget about having time at the computer. I don't know how things got so crazy for me. It's not like my schedule deviates all that much from what I had at Washington. I just have so much trouble getting up in the morning.

I know a lot of how I'm feeling this morning is just Monday morning "oh-crap-the-weekend's-over" stuff. But it sucks because since I moved I don't really have anyone to talk to about it. Not like I did in Washington, so I don't know why I'm bitching.

What is my major malfunction?

What am I doing listening to Nick Lachey on Rhapsody this morning? Have I finally lost all my sanity and sense of self-respect? The music's not bad apart from being the syrupy slow boy-bandish ballad type song, but it caused me to look up his solo album on Rhapsody which has some more up tempo songs.

Settling into the new job and the new house. Ryan and Olenka are coming to Ames tonight along with my mom and dad. We'll all be going out to Hickory Park tonight where I'm sure Anna will eat nothing because whenever we take her to a restaurant lately, she doesn't want to eat but would rather run around. It's easy to get frustrated with her, but she's just a kid and a pretty good one at that.

Brian pointed out how the city of Ames sure trotted out the welcome wagon on our first "real" weekend in Ames. Truthfully, we didn't even notice anything and I wasn't even 100% positive that there had even been a riot until I got to work on Monday morning and people were talking about it. I sure hope that it doesn't spell the end of Veishea because it really is a good celebration for the university and does draw a lot of business to the city. Veishea has survived riots in the past, so I imagine it'll go on, but I completely expect them to take the celebration off of Welch Avenue and put it out by the Iowa State Center or contain it all on the campus.

More on Taxi Driver

TAXI DRIVER: 20th Anniversary Edition

Now I don't usually agree with much of what Roger Ebert says any longer (although he still writes really good movie reviews) but there's something in this review that made me sit up and take notice.

This utter aloneness is at the center of "Taxi Driver," one of the best and most powerful of all films, and perhaps it is why so many people connect with it even though Travis Bickle would seem to be the most alienating of movie heroes. We have all felt as alone as Travis. Most of us are better at dealing with it.

Yeah, I'm better at dealing with feeling alone than Travis but I still wish I didn't feel alone. Being at home is easy. It's going out in the world that's hard.

And on that note, it's time to venture out into the world.

Top 100 Movie Characters

Ran across this while surfing tonight:

The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time

Reading through the list got me to thinking about Travis Bickle and Taxi Driver. Now that's a movie that I haven't seen in a long time--I should dig out that DVD and watch it sometime soon. Taxi Driver is a great movie because, like Saturday Night Fever, it captures a sliver of time for all eternity on film. And De Niro is just so dang good as Travis.

Funny, I never knew that it had this association.

I'm not really used to my new schedule yet, and it's not even all that different from my old one. Who knew what a difference an hour would make in the morning? Instead of going in at 9, I'm going in at 8 (for now) but it just seems like I don't have any time for anything. But I vowed that I was going to take a walk this morning (which I did) and that I was going to blog for a little bit this morning (which I am) so I guess I'm not doing too terribly bad.

We survived the last of the move and now it's just down to getting things unpacked. It still feels weird to say that Ames is our new home. I still feel like I'm living someone else's life, but the alternative is to go back to my old life which is just not what I want to be doing right now anyway. I know that my depression has been flaring a little these days--I've been tweaking my meds a little bit here and there and it's just not as smooth of sailing as it has been. I'm not stupid and I'm not naive enough to think that all this change wouldn't cause some mood instability so it's not like I'm unprepared for it.

Still, it's a bit of a let down. Here we are moving into the best time of the year for me depression-wise and I'm having troubles. It's times like these that I understand the allure of being depressed--it's a ready made excuse for everything that goes wrong in your life. You're not doing well at your job--blame depression. You can't get along with your friends--blame depression. But that's too pat of an answer, really, it is. It is somehow oddly comforting to do that though, and that's what you have to constantly be on guard against. You always have to understand that it's your choice whether you are wallowing in the depression or not. There's a point before you sink down into it that you can consciously free yourself from it, but that window is small and you have take it when you see it.

On another note, I've been reading Cold Mountain which has great potential but for some reason I just can't really get into it. I've been reading it for a few weeks now and I haven't managed to crack page 100 yet. The style of writing is very descriptive and there's precious little dialogue (other than internal dialogue) so that makes it a pretty slow read. I'm *this* far away from setting it aside in favor of something a little more upbeat, but so far I haven't managed to unpack enough books to have something to choose from. Tonight Anna and I are going to go to the Ames Public Library and check it out. I can't remember the last time I was there!

Mostly, I'm just missing the familiarity of my life. The comfort of going to a job each day that I know how to do even if I was bored senseless. I also miss Washington in a very abstract way--I miss the people that I did know. I'm idealizing what life was like there now that I'm away from it. I miss my friends a lot. I miss the Real Men list even though I'm still subscribed I don't have the time to read it. I found myself thinking about Kevin last night and wondering how he's doing. Dang, I miss that guy a lot.

Well, life will continue, and it'll be a good day today. I'll know more about how to do my job at 4:30 tonight than I do now, and that's how things are supposed to be. I better go start getting ready.

Moving

Haven't been blogging like I did last month, but I didn't expect to since we're so crazy with moving and what not. We're back in Washington for a day to get the rest of our stuff, and then there won't be anything here but the house that we're really looking to get rid of as soon as possible. I haven't the slightest idea how I'm going to move anything as my back is in knots and looking over my right shoulder to check out the right lane on the interstate last night nearly killed me every time I did it. We'll see.

John Ashcroft--as you've never seen him before

This is courtesy one of my favorite blogs--Ack Ack Ack--which links to all sorts of cool stuff around the web each weekday. Today there's a photo mosaic of John Ashcroft made completely out of porn. It cracked me up.