Plaid shirt zombie

Although this sounds like it could be a post about me in college, sadly, it's not. (or perhaps, happily, it's not.)

I will blog my experience at the Casey Stratton show on Friday eventually here - but it's a long post and this is an easy one-off. I spent most of Saturday morning walking around Boystown in Chicago. It's an incredibly vibrant neighborhood with so many different kinds of shops and restaurants and I swear, a Starbucks (or Caribou Coffee) on every corner. But it also has some really cool things you'll not find anywhere else. Perhaps one of my favorite places to go in Boystown (aside from Borderline Music) is Gaymart Chicago. And while it does have a lot of rainbow souvenirs and what not - it also has some of the coolest pop culture stuff ever. I got two of Anna's birthday presents there (Corpse Bride figures - Victor and Corpse Bride) and found an Elizabeth Swann figure to add to Heidi's burgeoning collection of strong women.

But it took me going into Chicago Comics to find something that I was looking for. Originally, I was going to pick up this Medusa figure from Clash of the Titans to add to MY ever burgeoning collection of figures of movie monsters:

It was 30 dollars, and I was all set, but then, I saw this:

It's "Plaid Shirt Zombie" from the original Dawn of the Dead!!! What a perfect, and I do mean perfect addition. Hard as it might be to believe, in all the figures I've managed to collect over the last few years, not a single one has been an honest to God zombie. And that just seemed wrong. And plus, he was half the price, so it seemed like a real no brainer to me.

Anna already thinks he's pretty cool - she is so gonna be my scary movie watching buddy when she's older.

All in all, I probably would have rather had Fly Boy Zombie. And now it appears that he's sold out, so perhaps eBay may be my only hope on that front.

Back in Iowa

I made it back from Chicago tonight - I've spent 14 of the last 36 hours in the car, but it was so worth it. Casey's show was great, but I'll blog more about that this tomorrow, I'm wiped. Until then, here's a picture I got from the show. I took the red eye out of it - with it, Casey looked like he was possessed!!

Train tickets cancelled, Chicago here I come.

The train won't get into Chicago until almost 9PM tonight, so I just decided to say "screw it" and drive. I'm making a playlist filled with Casey, the best of British pop from Mike, John & Danny, and some other surprises in the middle. Heidi's making me a Kate Bush playlist for my iPod. I should be set.

This is so exciting!! But so much to do before I can leave. I'll report back here on Saturday night/Sunday morning.

Wish me luck!

One if by land, two if by land

This is a follow-up post to the one I did just a bit ago. The more I think about it, the more I know in the deepest part of me that I will be driving to Chicago tomorrow. Yes, that makes me nervous. However, the trick is to let go of the fear RIGHT HERE and RIGHT NOW. This has the potential to be an incredibly great adventure - and I just can't say "Oh, I'll just stay home." I don't like that option in any way or form, so I'm discarding it immediately.

It's frustrating, because I've never really had this kind of trouble with Amtrak. I know that there are horror stories galore about how awful it is and how it always runs behind and it's never on time and yeah, there is certainly an element of truth to that. It's frustrating because I was being all responsible and not driving and, damn it, they let me down. This is the exact reason why people don't take Amtrak. And while I understand that they do everything they can to provide service, it's sad because really, the government tries to cut their funding every time you turn around. As they said in that movie The End Of Suburbia, we have a rail system that Bulgaria would be ashamed of.

So I'm going to go to bed now, and get excited about how I'm going to be able to spend all that time by myself. Granted, it won't be alone on a train reading my book, but it'll still be Dan time. It'll be fun and Doug doesn't live that far away from Uncommon Ground so it'll be really easy. And besides which, I'm not high maintenance (really!) and all I really need is a place to put my weary head. There are some things I haven't figured out yet, but I'll cross those bridges when I get to them.

It's going to be great. And I'll leave you tonight with a quote from Frank Herbert.

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind killer.
Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

Aggravation

So we're about 24 hours from the Casey Stratton show in Chicago and unfortunately, some bad news has already come calling (literally.) I got a call tonight from Amtrak telling me that the train is RUNNING 5 HOURS LATE!! (Mechanical problems, so they told me.) I had logged on and checked the web site earlier in the day, and already, at that point, the train wasn't going to arrive in Osceola until 11:30AM or so - some 3 hours late. I wasn't too nervous because it still showed us arriving in Chicago around 6PM. The show's not till 11PM and my reservations are for 10PM, so y'know really, anything no later than 9PM really is ok. However, the lateness is starting to trickle down and now the train is arriving in Osceola at 12:15PM and in Chicago at 6:45PM. There is a chance that they might make up some time overnight, but they're certainly not going to make up 4 hours.

*sigh* So I'm going to get there late. No big deal. I'm really just going for the show + I have some time on Saturday to do some other stuff. However, if the train gets a whole lot later, I may have to do the previously unthinkable and drive to Chicago. It's a 6 hour trip +/- an hour or so, depending on how fast you drive and which route you take and all that. It's not an option I savor as that is a HELL of a long drive by yourself and I'd be a bit nervous driving in downtown Chicago by myself. I mean, I've done it before, but it's just not something that I really relish the idea of. But if it comes down to it, I will. I've only been planning this trip for a month now and to bail would just be a real let down.

I finally got a hold of Doug, my friend who I'll be staying with, so at least that's done. I had started doing a preliminary search for hotel rooms with no luck whatsoever.

And another check of the Amtrak web site shows the train getting into Chicago at 7:04PM now. Much later, and I'll definitely be driving. Time will tell, I guess.

Alien Sweetberry

OK, as most people who read this know, I'm definitely what you would call an Alien geek. And I can't help it. There's so many places to totally geek out over the Alien, be it it's complex life cycle or the WTF physiology (acid for blood? what does it eat?, etc.) that I can't really help myself. What helps me cope with this is to know that there's people even more geeked out about it than me. Case in point, the Anchorpoint Essays.

But this, truly takes the cake. It's a perfect amalgam of my normal Dan geekiness over all things Alien and the "Dan's the father of a 4 year old girl" part of my personality. Anyone who knows anything about the Alien knows that when it gestates inside its host, it takes on characteristics of that host. That's why most of the aliens in the first two movies were bipedal (after gestating inside human hosts) and why the one from Alien 3 was a quadraped (after gestating inside a dog, or, in the alternate version, an ox.) It also explains the end of Alien vs. Predator as well. So, for those who have wondered about what would happen if a facehugger found itself around a My Little Pony, wonder no more.

OK, now HOW COOL IS THAT?????

Now I wish I had one.

(via Metafilter - and if you think I'm geeky, check out the comments! Although, of course, I'm right there with them.)

(photo credit -- check here for making of pictures!!)

Death of two things near and dear.

I have no doubt that Heidi will blog this later, but her iPod has died. May it rest in peace. It's going to Best Buy today and it will either come back fixed or it will come back as a new one as it's still under warranty (at least Best Buy's warranty.) Sometimes I really hate iPods, but I love them more than I hate them. The fact that I can carry 3000 songs in my pocket is just so damn cool, but I hate how the battery eventually dies, and I think that Heidi's is likely a hard drive failure as I tried to restore it and it froze up her iMac after appearing to successfully restore.

And for me, the thing that died for me today was my Confessions Tour mug. I had been very good about not putting it in the dishwasher, but a few times when I'd been lazy, I'd snuck it in there. So yesterday, when I'm loading the dishwasher with about a million dishes, I get lazy and stick it in there. I get it out of the dishwasher this morning and my heart just sank, for this is what I saw:

You probably can't see it all that well, and you can click on the above image to enlarge, but the decal on the black cup is all wrinkled and now it's pretty much wrecked! Goddamn cheap tour merchandise. As Jeff would say, "I can't have nothin' nice!" I'm probably going to order one from Fanfire because I really really liked that mug.

*sigh* Things in life are so fleeting. I guess that's why we're not supposed to get attached to things.

Must clean the house now as my folks will be here soon.

Casey Stratton turns 30

A mere 4 days before I trek to Chicago to see him in concert, Casey Stratton is hitting the big 3-0. In his honor, it's all Casey, all day on my last.fm page. I'm even going to let it play while I'm at work tonight.

And how did I come across Mr. Stratton in the first place? Well, it was through the music blog, arjanwrites.com. There was a post on that blog about how Casey Stratton seemed a lot happier now that he wasn't signed to Sony and was releasing music on his own terms. Naturally curious, I clicked on the link to Casey's MySpace page to listen to what kind of music he made. I downloaded the track "Fission" and listened to it. I was spellbound. At first, I had the (very common) reaction of not knowing whether it was a man or a woman singing. But it was beautiful. And it was at that instant, I was pulled in.

As of this minute, I have 18 hours worth of his music on my computer, and I haven't even bought everything yet. Not bad for an independent artist. If you haven't heard of Casey, heard over to his web site and he has some free audio - including "Fission", the song that roped me. And play a few tracks for him as he enters his 30s.

O Brush! O Hush!

Tonight Anna and I read one of our favorite books before bed - The Color Kittens by Margaret Wise Brown. And surprisingly, it's not a book that I ever had read to me as a kid -- it's a book that Heidi remembers. Most of the books that I love reading with Anna are ones that I read growing up, but this one, well, it's just so darn cute that you can't really resist it.

Basically, the book is about how the color kittens, Brush and Hush are trying to make green paint. And in the process of mixing paints, they make all sorts of different colors - pink, orange, purple, brown. It's great for kids learning their colors and it has a gentle not-quite rhyme that makes it great fun to read aloud.

Anna always has to point out to me which one is Brush and which one is Hush (Brush uses a paint brush to get paint out of a bucket, Hush uses his paw.) But I think my favorite part is the part where the color kittens are sleeping and they dream a dream of a purple land by a pale pink sea.

Every time I see that picture, I wish I lived on that little island. I'm not sure why. It's probably pretty ridiculous, but it just seems like a nice place to be. So peaceful and serene.

Probably not what the author was after when she wrote the book, but that's what it does for me. Whenever we read it, I can't wait to get to that part.

Blogging Basia

It's been quite some time since I've sat down and listened to Basia. She is one of those acts whose music should be so cheesy, because it hems so close to "smooth jazz" *gags*. And when I say "smooth jazz" I'm not talking things like Diana Krall (who is much more in the vein of classic vocal jazz) but I'm talking things like Kenny G and Dave Koz and all those other things they would have played on the Jazz Patio on whatever radio station that was out of Cedar Rapids. But somehow, she manages to pull off the style of music that she does - and not only does she pull it off, she pulls it off with panache.

I first heard of Basia one morning when I was in high school sitting at the breakfast table watching "Good Morning America." She was a guest on there and sang the song "Time & Tide" which I immediately fell in love with. I got her debut CD through one of those "buy 9 CDs for the price of 1" CD clubs that were all the rage then. And initially, I didn't like it. But as it turns out, it was a rather slow burn.

By the time her second CD came out - London Warsaw New York - she had actually eked out a minor radio hit in "Cruising For Bruising" and I was really into her. It took her an ungodly 5 years to put out her next (and, so far, last) CD The Sweetest Illusion which, well, ranks in my top 20 favorite CDs of all time. Like most good music, it's made even better by memories from the time and this is no exception. I was in the last little bit of my 4th year of college and was breaking out of some pretty negative social situations that I had gotten myself stuck in. I was learning how to enjoy just being by myself, and Basia's great CD made that so much easier. Not that it was easy - it involved separating myself from people that I thought had been good friends and iin actuality, weren't. But listening to songs like "Third Time Lucky" and "An Olive Tree" were just the antidote I needed at that time in my life.

And of course, there's also the copious use of song lyrics as saved games in Wolfenstein 3D which my sister and I played relentlessly that summer. But that's another story altogether.

You can imagine my excitement when I realized that Basia was coming back, sort of, with a Matt Bianco CD. I've already blogged this CD once, so I won't bore you with the long harangue, but it was great to have new Basia music to listen to. And surprisingly, I keep coming back to Matt's Mood despite the fact that really, it's only mediocre -- certainly, I like Basia's solo stuff better.

So I don't know what the point of this entry has been, other than to go on about an obscure Polish singer. One that I happen to like a lot, and one that I frequently forget about.

Two can play at that game...

Heidi posted a great stupid picture of herself yesterday, so I thought I'd reciprocate, because a lot of the people that we having a bad day yesterday were mutual friends. So, why not do my part?!?!

Here's a picture that Heidi snapped of Anna and me in my office the other night after work.

There I am wearing my Donkey Kong shirt that Heidi bought for me at Target (I really wanted that shirt!!!) and Anna eating her peanut butter sandwich - the staple of her very limited diet.

And this was two days pre-haircut, so sadly, it's not the best picture ever of me, but what can you do?

Shower scene

(I just realized that the subject line of this post has several pop culture references. OK, maybe two, but still!)

Today, my biggest accomplishment has been the recaulking of the shower. As many here may recall (and if you don't scroll down two entries), I braved Lowe's the other day and bought this tape like substitute for caulk (love?) that we had previously put down in the shower, but was unfortunately too wide for the corners of the shower. Well, after one of the sides fell down, Heidi went to pull it up and THE ENTIRE rest of the substitute for caulk came up as well. It was at this point that she realized that we would have been in exactly the same situation had there been nothing in the shower. She detailed all the information to me in an e-mail while I was work Monday night. The subject line was "argh!" And whenever I get an e-mail with the subject line of "argh!" from her, I take a deep breath and then click open.

So since today was my day off, I ended up going back out to Lowe's (insert violins playing here) and buy regular caulk (3 tubes even!) and a smoothing tool. I bought three tubes because I thought I would need two, and there was certainly no way in hell that I was going to get 90% of the way through the job and run out of caulk. Plus it was only 3 bucks a tube, so what the hell?

I spent about 45 minutes this morning caulking -- using the precision of a surgeon as this is seriously the last time I want to be doing this for a while -- and overall, it wasn't that bad of a job. It was mostly the anticipation of having to do it that was driving me crazy, as is the case with most household chores that I don't want to do.

But it's done, and now all I have to do today is get my hair cut. And then the rest of the day, who knows. The possibilities are endless.

(photo credit)

Nine years

Today's our anniversary. And I was going to just post something like "Happy Anniversary to the old ball and chain!" And then Heidi one ups me and posts this. I could never ever in a million years ever write anything better (there's a reason she's the writer in this family) so I'm not even going to try.

Instead, all I'll say is that I'm the luckiest guy in the whole wide world. I love you too, honey.

(OK, I wasn't really gonna post that about the ball and chain.)

Home Improvement Warehouse

I had to go to Lowe's this morning to buy some of this pseudo-caulk stuff for the shower as the stuff we bought the last time was too wide for the walls, and it officially fell off this morning while Heidi was in the shower. And I'd have sooner hacked up my own body into little pieces than have gone to Lowe's. I pretty much can't stand Lowe's, which stands in stark contrast to almost every other American male that I know. For one thing, it's huge. And I never know where anything is. They call it a home improvement WAREHOUSE for a reason.

And for as big as Lowe's is, I can never seem to find anyone to help me find what I'm looking for. I walk up and down the aisles aimlessly, trying to find someone with the red vest and a name badge, but either they have all run away, fearing my completely ridiculous question, or the ones I can find are helping other people, who very likely need help less acutely than I do.

When I finally get someone to help me, I spit out something barely intelligible, "Can you tell me where the caulk stuff that's like tape that you lay down in showers is?" The guy doesn't even respond to me but starts walking away from me and I'm all like "Did he even hear me?" but I chose to follow him anyway. And his only words to me were, "You were walking right past it." Gee, thanks. Nothing like already feeling like an idiot and then having it pointed out.

But I have the stuff to fix the shower which helps, and I also have the entire Saint Etienne Foxbase Alpha CD to take with me on my iPod to work. Plus new Ace of Base, well, 2002 Ace of Base that's new to me. Talk about a guilty pleasure!

Wisdom of Starbucks

I have never really paid all that much attention to those "The Way I See It" quotes on Starbucks cups -- my biggest recollection of them is how the religious right got all up in arms about Armisted Maupin's quote about being gay, and suddenly, Starbucks was promoting that "nasty homosexual agenda." *rolls eyes*

But today we got a coffee at Coral Ridge Mall in Coralville and this was the quote on it:

The Way I See It #150

All unhappiness and stagnation result from a feeling that you are at the mercy of the world and the people in it. But what a joy it is, what a major shift to strength and power, when you no longer wait around for others to favor and love you, for others to flatter and reward you. Reward and flatter yourself, favor and love yourself.

– Kira Salak, Writer and National Geographic Emerging Explorer

For me, this really hit home. Of course, it didn't hurt that Heidi and I were just talking about this kind of thing not 3 hours earlier at her mom's and also in the car on the way to Iowa City. I need to print this off and pin it to my computer monitor or wall or somewhere where I see it every time I look up because it ever there was sage advice, this is it.

It's good to be home. The traffic wasn't the greatest on the way back - a lot of semis out and lots of people just trying to get back home from wherever their weekend destination was. But it's good to be back in my own house at my own computer where I'm a little more in control of my environment.

Nothing too terribly exciting

That pretty much sums up today in a nutshell. And it's been so nice. I've spent most of the day doing absolutely nothing of any importance and I have really needed it more than I knew. I started out the day by doing my now-required pilgrimage to the Washington square to look at the Goodwill store for cheap paperback books. It was a gorgeous morning and the sun was out so that was a great therapeutic substitute for my light box. Sadly, there were no books that I deemed worthy of even 88 cents, which is pretty sad because just about any book is worth at least that (except for anything post Owen Meany John Irving - ew! He's really lost it--or at least lost me, it's hard to tell which.)

I also hit the public library to see if it had improved any since we lived here -- an no, it really hadn't. They had increased the size of their DVD collection - to a whole 3 shelves! But overall, I was reminded at why, when we lived here, I had a reciprocal library card to the Iowa City Public Library and drove 30 minutes to go to the library.

And that reaction was pretty much typical of all my reactions to being back in Washington. Although it's infinitely easier to come and visit here now that we no longer own property here, it still feels very much like we dodged a bullet by leaving when we did. The town is simply too conservative for us. Not like Ames is a liberal bastion (that would be Iowa City) but it's a pretty good fit for now. Heidi always talks about wanting to move some place like a little seaside cottage in England or something like that, and while that, admittedly, is attractive, it's also completely unrealistic at this point in time. Although it is fun to dream, no?

I also walked past our old house this afternoon, and I found myself wondering when I would walk past it and not feel like it's my house with strangers living in it. I saw a lot of the things we did to it - like the fall mums that we planted in full bloom, the clothesline in the backyard, the place to hang the garden hose and I felt a little twinge of, not really regret, but mostly what was a simpler time. It certainly was cheaper to live in Washington, but the cost to my psyche was overwhelming. I told Heidi, in typical four fashion, that living in Washington any longer would have killed my soul (no drama, once again!) and while that's not entirely true, like most exaggerations, there's a kernel of truth at the core of it that rings true.

You can't really look back on decisions you've made in your life -- well, you can, I guess, but it doesn't really do you a whole lot of good unless you're going to draw some kind of life lesson or conclusion from the things you've done or experienced. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life and I try not to dwell on them. However, there are invariably those nights where I'm feeling especially melancholy or introspective that the parade of "Dan screw-ups" marches by and I have to look at them, almost relive them in many ways. Those are hard times - and I'm not always certain what to do with them.

Learn from them, I guess. And don't repeat them. After all, you should never have to learn the hard way twice.

The best meal ever

Tonight we're back in Washington, IA to visit Heidi's mom and her husband. We got here around 8PM tonight and we immediately took off for the square, ostensibly to go get Chinese food. However, we got sidetracked along the way and ended up at Cafe Dodici which I've always wanted to eat at and well, we figured what with our ninth wedding anniversary coming up on Wednesday, why not go out and celebrate?

I've always thought that it was an Italian restaurant, but in reality, it's not. It's more of an international cuisine type place, and man, was it ever good. We started off with a bottle of red wine called Cinnabar merlot which really hit the spot and complemented the food very nicely. The main entree was a filet mignon with a raspberry sauce and potatoes and vegetables. And Oh. My. God. How good was it? I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Of course, it didn't hurt that the wine was really starting to affect me by that point. Good thing we walked down because I was in no condition to be driving!

We also had some creme brulee which was exceptionally yummy (I've never tried that before) and then some coffee to cleanse the palate -- coffee is good at just about any time.

The damage? One hundred and nine dollars. Plus a thirty dollar tip to the absolutely fab waitress that we had that just made the night all that much better. Did I have the money? Hell no! It went on the credit card. But, as Cybill Shepherd says about L'Oreal hair color "I'm (we're) worth it!"

Happy anniversary, honey. Here's to ninety more.

When it rains, it pours

Disclaimer: This is not a depressing post.

I just got an e-mail from the library that World War Z is in and ready for me to pick up!! YAY!! I probably would have purchased that book had I had a single dime to spare out of the last paycheck, but truthfully, I'd rather read it first and see if it's any good -- although all the reviews have been great.

But as is usually the case when I have multiple books on hold at the library, I just picked up The Road which I had also placed on hold and am only a measly 50 pages into that. So what to do? I know I pretty much suck at reading two books at once (one inevitably gets neglected) and if I take The Road back, chances are I won't ever check it out again. Do I try to read both at the same time? And then this whole dilemma is complicated by the fact that I have YET ANOTHER book on hold that will probably be coming my way soon which I want to read equally badly - This Is Your Brain on Music.

The only factor in this whole thing that's making it easier - and this pains me to say - is that The Road is really not that good. Never has post-apocalyptic fiction been so boring. At least so far. The book is getting raves but for me, it's got about another 20 pages before I bail. I'm going on the fact that it was on the "must-list" in this week's Entertainment Weekly. But the further I get into it, the more I feel like it's a book I should be enjoying, rather than one I actually am.

So I guess it's off to the library for me. Zombies!! YAY!!

Sheryl Crow update!

So while I was in the midst of a Sheryl Crow listening binge this morning brought on by "All I Wanna Do", I was reading her page on Wikipedia. And I came across a most interesting bit of knowledge -- she was actually an elementary school music teacher before becoming, well, THE Sheryl Crow. This absolutely floors me - I mean, she was "Ms. Crow" at one point (but only if you're nasty?) She had the potential to become Ellen Severin (my elementary school music teacher) but instead opted for multimillions and international renown. Who can blame her, I guess.

And as I was telling Heidi this tidit this morning, I came up behind her and, being my usual goofy self, started singing "This ain't no disco, this ain't no country club either!" To which she replied (quite cleverly, I might add) "This is I-A! (Iowa)" Which is how I'd sing it if I ever did that song at karaoke. That is, if I did karaoke.

And besides, we all know that the world began in Eden, and ended in Los Angeles (that one's for you Mikey.)

And now, I'm officially done blogging about Sheryl Crow, but I'll probably have to listen to her a bit more to work her out of my system.

Laziest lug in the world

This is how I feel this morning.

I am so lazy today. I've been listening to music on the computer for the last 2 hours and I haven't made even the slightest move toward eating breakfast, (so maybe the Jabba picture doesn't completely represent my state of mind today) getting showered or doing anything remotely productive. Today has to distinct possibility of just floating by, with nothing of any consequence being done. My goal is to NOT let that happen.

I'm not sure what I want out of today. I imagine at some point I should attempt to mow the yard (that lovely job) and I know that Heidi and I want to watch either "Angel" or "Life on Mars" later today which sounds good to me. I stayed up watching "The X-Files" last night and let me tell ya, they're starting to lose me a little bit. One of the episodes I watched ("Grotesque") just had really bad writing, and the next one was the first of a two parter ("Piper Maru"/"Apocrypha") which didn't even tempt me to stay up and finish the set. *sigh* That's too bad - part of the problem is they're splitting Mulder and Scully up too much. They need to get back together and on the same page. Fear not, I shall persevere.

For now, I think I'll attempt to joing the land of the living and get something done.

"I like a good beer buzz early in the morning..."

For reasons completely and utterly unexplained, I have rediscovered the Sheryl Crow song "All I Wanna Do." It was stuck in my head the other day at work - so much so that I shared this fact with one of the techs and it was immediately stuck in her head (although it displaced some other song, the identity of which I can't recall, so perhaps I did her a favor.) The part that was stuck in my head was very specific - it was like it was going on repeat or something. It was the part where Sheryl sings:

"Apropos of nothing/He says his name is William/But I'm sure it's Bill or Billy or Mac or Buddy."

I remember when this song first came out - it was hugely popular my last year of undergrad at Iowa. I even had the cassette single of it! It is one of those songs that suffered horribly from the huge amount of overplay that it got at the time - so much so that for years, I couldn't bring myself to listen to it. Plus there was the whole overselling of Sheryl Crow based on that album (Tuesday Night Music Club) which ultimately I believe was much more representative of what the record company wanted Crow to do, rather than what she wanted to do. Her follow-up album, Sheryl Crow, is one that Heidi and I both like immensely more than Tuesday Night Music Club, even though Jeff says that the whole thing sounds like she's playing the garbage cans.

Here's a little blast from the past courtesy of the folks at YouTube.



Truthfully, I enjoy this song quite a bit. The rest of the album, eh, not so much. But this is a great slice of nostalgia. And the fact that this song is nostalgic really makes me feel damn old.

Gutters and cement

So today was actually a pretty productive Saturday, even though I wasn't certain that it was going to be that way when I woke up this morning. My mom and dad came over today and my dad and I cleaned out the gutters on the house - they were totally crammed with leaves and dirt actual growing tree saplings. You don't believe me, see for yourself:

I don't know a lot about things like this, but I'm pretty sure the gutters aren't supposed to double as window boxes.

But anyway, I was actually up on the roof and digging the crap out of the gutters. I was like a baby learning how to walk because I don't usually walk around on roofs (and yes, this is the correct pluralization of the word - I looked it up and yes it still looks weird) all that much so I was certain that I would tumble to my death. It didn't help when my dad showed me how easy it would be to step on a twig and fall to said death by demonstrating how easily they roll down the roof. Overall, it wasn't too bad, even though it was a dirty and wet job that needed to be done and will likely need to be done again this fall once the leaves drop completely.

My dad also had Anna do Grauman Chinese Theater thing and imprint her hands in cement. He did this with all of us when we were growing up and it seems only right that Anna carry on the tradition. He brought a bag of dry cement which he mixed up with water and then poured into a mold. Here's some paparazzi shots of the ceremony.

Prepping for hands in the cement:

Hands in the cement:

"Dad, look at my dirty hands!":
She had a good time doing it - I mean, what kid doesn't like getting their hands dirty?

iPod sharing

The other day at work, one of my co-workers asked if she could borrow my iPod for her break since the battery in hers was dead. And my initial and immediate reaction was "absolutely not!!!" although the part of me with proper social graces overrode that reaction and said "Oh, sure, why not." I did my usual by warning her that you never saw a weirder collection of music than my iPod, which is, to quote my 6th grade confirmation class, most certainly true. I also did the bit of self-depracation warning her not to listen to Bert & Ernie's Greatest Hits, a selection of which is on there for Anna's benefit (she even has a whole playlist of "Anna's Favorites" on there.)

But even though I agreed to it, I felt almost violated, exposed in a way I hadn't had time to prepare for. Like if I had known she wanted to borrow my iPod, I'd have erased everything remotely embarrassing on it (and screw up my play counts! For shame!) so as not to be exposed for whatever it was I was afraid of being exposed as. And I admit it, for most of the 15 minutes she was on break, I wondered what embarrassing thing was playing. Geez, am I a four or what? Because, after all, it is all about me.

Well, she came back from break and asked me what I was worried about because she's revealed some of the improbable things she's listened to on XM on the way to work. And in the end, nothing too terribly embarrassing played (I scrolled back through what had played before turning off the iPod.)

And it's at times like these that I remember that I have to own who I am. Warts and all, I am what I am, I am my own special creation. You gotta be it and love it and own it.

If only I could remember that a little more often.

Rampage

Anna and I have discovered the joys of Rampage - the 1986 coin-op video game where you play one of three monsters wreaking general havoc on a city. You can either be George the gorilla, Lizzie the lizard or Ralph the werewolf, and while in the original arcade game you could easily do three player action, when you're at home playing it on MAME where the only input device you have is a single keyboard, you're just a whole lot better off playing one monster at a time. So we usually play George.

She's obsessed with the fact that you can grab a girl in the game and hold onto her for awhile (until she starts punching you in the face at which point you can drop her and gobble her up.) And the entire fact that you can eat the soldiers makes her laugh uproariously.

My biggest memory associated with this game is actually not playing the original arcade game but a port for the PC back in the early 90s which didn't look too bad. My sister and I would play it all the time together - one using the keypad and the other using keys on the far left side of the keyboard. I always wanted to play the lizard as I thought she was the coolest of the monsters. Of course, this opened me up to no end of teasing from Wendy who simply accused me of wanting to do female role-playing (as it is Lizzie after all.) The other thing I remember vividly is that sometimes when you punch an open window, poison will appear in the window, and if you eat it inadvertantly, you get hurt and you spit it out. Everytime this would happen, one or the other of us would always ask "You ate the rat poison?" which just proves beyond any reasonable doubt that any life situation can be satisfied by a quote from 9 to 5.

Zombie superheroes

Because you know I can't resist anything remotely zombie related. Marvel zombies. Via Metafilter.

(click the image for larger view)

Even more zombie goodness here.

Genius. Pure genius.

Geek out moment

This post needs a disclaimer before I even start. I really don't consider myself a Star Wars geek in the true sense of the word. I collected the toys as a kid, but what kid at that age didn't? I saw the movies over and over again. I have the original trilogy on DVD. I have not purchased, nor do I plan to purchase, the prequels. And while I have a lot of toys out for display in my office, none of them are Star Wars toys. The only one that I was even tempted to put out was Jabba the Hutt, but he's missing an arm (likely at my parents' house in some bizarre place that we'll never find) so I really didn't want to put him out in that disabled state.

That being said, my brother, Ryan, called me the other day and asked for my address. He said, "I'm sending you a present in the mail. Do you want me to tell you what it is now or be surprised?" I elected to be surprised, as I NEVER get packages in the mail and I figured, why not double the pleasure? This was Friday, or maybe Thursday, I can't remember.

Well, Monday arrived as did the package. And it was filled with Star Wars toys. And the kicker was, Ryan had put a note in there that said his assistant's daughter had found these while cleaning out a relative's house and THEY WERE GOING TO THROW THEM AWAY!!! The thought! Anyway, he thought I might like them as he knows I have the whole 12 year old boy theme going in my office (pictures of that later.) And yes, I was overjoyed to receive this - mostly because someone else in the world understood, if only for a brief moment, my mindset when it comes the things that I totally enjoy.

Here's a brief overview of some of the highlights of what he sent.

The first item is Chewbacca being escorted through the Death Star by Han Solo and Luke Skywalker dressed as stormtroopers.

And check this out - it really is Han and Luke.

Secondly are a few Yoda related items. The first is a simple figure of Yoda, complete with his Jedi Council chair.

The second is a Yoda stamper, which delights Anna to no end.

And the final Yoda item is a pewter key chain, which I immediately attached to my keys. Yoda and Madge, what a strange combination!

And finally, the piece de resistance is one of the band members from the Cantina sequence. He has kind of creepish hands and actually, would fit in well in an X-Files episode, so he's really not all that out of place since Scully and Mulder have a place on my shelf as well.

Perhaps the funniest part of the whole thing was looking closely at the description of the Cantina guy on the box - Ryan had tipped me off to it in his note, something to the effect "check out what kind of band that cantina guy plays in - ha, ha!" I love it - me and Ryan, eternal 4th graders in so many ways.

So there it, is. Ryan, I know you read this blog. Words cannot describe my gratitude. Now I just have to figure out how I'm going to display all this stuff. I'm running out of real estate.

Livvy's birthday celebration

Today started out just like any other day would (OK, except that I'd worked all night which I don't normally do so maybe today didn't start out just like any other day would.) I got home from work, checked my e-mail, listened to a little music, caught up with a couple friends, took Anna to preschool and then suddenly realized (thanks to Mike) that today was Olivia Newton-John's 58th birthday! And I'd plum forgotten! My 12 year old self would have been shocked speechless.

My Olivia Newton-John fandom was probably the first pop music obsession I had. And she was almost certainly, without a doubt, my first celebrity crush. I remember seeing her in Grease and just loving her, maybe it was the innocent thing then followed by the ultimate bad girl at the end of the movie. (Livvy smoking! *aghast*) And then there was Xanadu that I remember begging my mom to take me to in the theater. She did call the theater to make sure that it was appropriate for me at age 8 or 9 (which it was - the called it "a great family movie!") Looking back on Xanadu, it's pretty bad when measured by the traditional movie quality barometer, but when measured by the guilty pleasure barometer, it's off the charts. Granted Michael Beck as the leading man is pretty insufferable - I've seen toothbrushes with more personality and acting ability. In a way, I'm glad that Xanadu is appreciated now more than ever - although the fact that it is the last movie Gene Kelly ever starred in is probably not something he would be particularly proud of if he were alive today. And then, Olivia came to Ames when I was in 5th grade and I desperately wanted to go see her, but my folks just either couldn't or wouldn't come up with the money for me to go, even though my 5th grade teacher, Ms. Hindman ended up going, much to my great envy.

So anyway, in response to Olivia's (or as Mike refers to her, Dame Livvy) birthday, we had a little virtual listening party on last.fm today. Mike got as many people as he could to listen to at least one ONJ track, and, as those things usually go, if you play one track, you're very likely to play more than one. I, of course, didn't take much convincing to contribute to the party. I played around 15 tracks of hers today, and I could have played more, but unfortunately, real life took precedence. It was so much fun playing ONJ with all these other folks who can appreciate her music. It was, for a little bit, community in the true meaning of the word -- people coming together for a common interest and sharing that for the good of all. I know, it's "just music", but in my world, there's no such thing as "just music."

And last year at this time, I finally saw ONJ in concert at the Paramount in Cedar Rapids. I went with Wendy and we had a great time. Olivia's stage presence is so good and she sang so many old hits, even though she was pushing a new CD at the time. The audience was fantastic - mostly older people but also a lot of people my age as well. She seems genuinely down-to-earth and a very warm person. While I know that a lot of stars just seem that way, I think there's only so much of that you can put on. It was a great night.

Then we hit a deer on the way home from Cedar Rapids, and although no one was hurt, we had quite a difficult time getting back home that night. It totalled my sister's car, and we ended up getting back to Ames in the back seat of a tow truck. Craziness. And oh yeah, the deer's hoof must have hit the window because this is what I saw the next morning when I got up to survey the damage a little more.


I realized that that deer hoof could have bashed the left side of my head in! Egads!

But even though the car was totalled and I nearly died (no drama there!), we decided ONJ was worth it. Like there was any doubt.

Cover heaven

I was reading Casey Stratton's blog yesterday and HE COVERED "LIVE TO TELL" AT HIS SHOW IN DETROIT THE OTHER NIGHT!!! I have always thought that Casey should cover "Live To Tell." In fact, I had a dream when I first discovered his music that he and Madonna did a duet version!

According to people on the message boards, it was brilliant. Add one more song to my wish list for his concert in Chicago. Or, at the very least, release that darn Detroit show in the digital music store.

Shake it off

For whatever reason, I'm having a hard time shaking it off today -- the funk, that is, Mariah Carey. It almost undoubtedly has to do with the weather and the time of year. But I must for I have a stretch of evenings ahead of me, followed by one overnight which was rather unexpected as the overnight person had a friend of theirs unexpectedly die. It did break up my 7 day stretch of work, but it is akin to missing the piano recital you were scared to death of because you broke all your fingers. Truthfully, though, it's not a big deal.

However, the site Alien Loves Predator went a long way towards helping me shake it off today because the strip is freaking hilarious today. I discovered this site not all that long ago, and it never fails to make me laugh, mostly because of the absurdity of a xenomorph named Abe sharing a New York City apartment with a predator. And today's strip is great if for no other reason than my friend Mike who lives in London always uses these great British idioms in e-mails and they always bring a smile to my face.

And oh yeah, that graphic on the right side - they actually make a T-shirt of that. How I would love one of those.

Much ado about something

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Stuck in a loop

My iTunes has been stuck on Casey Stratton tonight, which probably means I'm feeling introspective and quiet which is a good thing. I really am getting excited to go to the concert in October. I have no idea what he'll play - and he has so much back material that he's never played live. I'm hoping against hope for a live version of "The Ash Grove" which is from his album of folk songs, but I'm thinking that probably won't happen. I think I'd settle for "Dog's Mercury" as far as out of left field songs go. I imagine we'll get the usual suspects "The Hardest Part", "Blood", and "Opaline" which are all fine and dandy, so basically, whatever he plays will be awesome.

But like I've detailed in a previous post, I'm mostly looking forward to being there by myself, walking around downtown Chicago for a while, hitting Borderline Music again (and hopefully not spending as much this time as I did last time! Holy buckets!) I'm also looking forward to the 7 hour train ride, which will be fun because I'll probably just sit in the observation car the whole time and look out the window while I listen to my iPod.

Hopefully the weather is decent.

But I think I'll give Casey a rest for now and go watch my Netflix.

Officially sick of feeling sick

OK, I've had whatever this bug is for the last week, and now, I have to say, I'm seriously tired of it. I'm still feeling kind of crappy -- not crappy enough to miss work or anything like that, but it's certainly not the 100% I'm used to.

I have to wait practically two hours after getting up for my head to drain, and I still feel achy in my legs and in my head. It's the getting up in the morning that sucks the most. I just can't handle feeling so crappy first thing in the morning.

Fortunately, Sudafed seems to help, as well as ibuprofen. And at least I was off today, but I'm headed into a 7-day stretch at work (thanks to a weekend trade) and I really was hoping to feel better by then.

Oh well, who knows what will happen. And there's also a good chance that I'm just being dramatic. Heh, never done that before.

Jump goes to preschool

So today is the day Anna has been waiting for - she has the sharing bag, and true to her promise, she's bringing Confessions on a Dance Floor. She's been talking about it non-stop for the last 48 hours at least. She's agreed that the only song she'll share is "Jump" which is one of her (and my) favorite songs on the CD. She told me this morning that first, she'll tell them about the CD and then she'll play the song for them while she sings and does her jumping to it. And then, they'll all dance with her.

Bless her. She's so my kid.

I told the teachers that this was entirely my doing (not by design, mostly by example) but they seemed ok. I have to admit that I was a bit perturbed when one of the teachers said "OK, which one is appropriate" like Madge is still stuck in the Erotica phase of her career and she's cavorting around nude on stage or something. But I can hardly expect people who don't follow the minutiae of her career to be up to date on what she's doing these days. Personally, if it were me, that kind of public perception would bug me infinitely more than being called "the Material Girl" but whatever she wants, y'know?

Since "Jump" is the next single (with an unreleased track called "History" - I can't wait!) I figure that Anna is doing her job of roping in the preschool demographic. And given the relative absence of Madonna on American radio these days, whatever it takes.

Get your pirate on

I was reading Metafilter today and came across this web site. I have to laugh -- seriously? September 19th is the International Talk Like A Pirate Day? You've got to be kidding me. Would it actually be okay to call someone a "wench" that day? It reminds me of that Pizza Hut cup that we got once that had pirate jokes on it, all of them being variations of the same joke:

Q: What's a pirate's favorite pizza?
A: Pepp-arrrr-oni.

That's the only one I can remember. Of course, I immediately emailed this to a friend of mine whose husband once accused her of talking like a pirate when she was doing an imitation of something (I can't remember what.) And then that naturally led me to remember the Ergonomic Keyboard for Pirates that Heidi showed me once.


I was never much into pirates as a kid. I would have rather played with the 18" Alien doll my folks bought for me one Christmas than dress up with an eye patch.

Heading to Chicago...

...in a month or so. I bought my train ticket to go to Chicago on the weekend of October 20th to see Casey Stratton at Uncommon Ground. It should be fun. I'll be staying with a friend (more a friend of a friend - I haven't seen the guy since college, but that'll be half the fun!) and only staying for a day. The train ticket was 98 dollars round trip, which is still cheaper than gas or flying. Plus, I can hardly leave Heidi and Anna without a car. I'm really looking forward to it. It'll be fun just being me and doing what I want. Not that it wouldn't be fun with them along, but it'll be just me to worry about and that'll be big time fun.

I figure if I give myself roughly 100 dollars of spending money for the two days that I'm there, that should be more than adequate. I know that I have to make reservations at the restaurant in order to guarantee seating, and I'm not quite sure how that works out, but I'm going to try to figure it out. It's an adventure - and I haven't had a true adventure in a long time. So that'll be fun.

And by going to this concert, I'll have travelled to both ends of the concert spectrum this year. One end being characterized by the Confessions Tour - a huge arena where you're really far away from the performer, to this one, where Casey will likely sign my DIVIDE CD and all that. (at least I hope so!)

Lumberjack zombies

It's been so hard for me to string two words together into a cohesive sentence recently -- so sorry for the lack of blogging. I chalk it up to the first plague of the fall/winter which seems to have somehow only affected me. I'm not sure where it came from, but it was bad enough to make me miss work on Friday, and I hardly ever miss work.

But I did work all day yesterday and the 10 hour shift was a near killer but I did have enough energy to stay up and watch Severed which I found rather randomly one day when I was surfing around Netflix. It looked like a pretty low-budget zombie flick, complete with bad acting and a clumsy script. In other words, right up my alley.

And surprisingly, it wasn't all that bad. As usual, I had pretty low expectations, but they were higher than they were for, say, Freddy vs. Jason - and that actually ended up being a pretty good movie too. Basic plot of the movie: a money-grubbing logging company genetically engineers a substance called GX1134 that causes trees to grow at lightning speed - giving you old growth trees in 1/3rd of the time. It also, unbeknownst to the logging company, causes an infection in people that turns them into flesh eating zombies.

So what happens is there's a group of environmentalists that have spiked some trees and when one of the loggers goes to cut the tree, his chainsaw backfires, cutting him and mixing in some of the sap from the tree in his bloodstream. Voila, instant zombie!


There's some great scenes in the movie - among them a son of the CEO of the logging company's arrival at the camp only to be attacked by zombies, environmentalists chained to trees only to become zombie food and a pretty good antagonist in one of the main characters. That's not to say that there aren't plot holes you could drive a truck through, but I managed to look past those. For a B-movie obviously shot on a shoestring budget, this movie surpassed my expectations.

The only real complain I'd level against the movie is that it tried way too hard to be 28 Days Later, which is a really good "zombie-ish" movie. I say "zombie-ish" because there's significant debate as to wheter 28DL really qualifies as a zombie movie as the monsters aren't dead, rather, they are infected. The shots of the zombie attacks were very like 28 Days Later, although I'd say the zombies tended more toward the lumbering (heh! lumbering!) zombies of Romero rather than the "fast zombies" we've seen lately.

It gets a recommendation from me, despite it being a bit uneven.

Death by poison

I usually hate these things (as most of you know), but I couldn't resist this one. Gakked from Casey Stratton:

You scored as Posion. Your death will be by poison, probably because you are a glutton and are around so many people that it would be easy to get away with it. Several important people in history share your fate. Posion 87% Bomb 73% Suicide 67% Natural Causes 53% Suffocated 53% Disease 40% Eaten 33% Gunshot 33% Accident 27% Stabbed 27% Disappear 7% Drowning 7% Cut Throat 7% How Will You Die?? created with QuizFarm.com

Not your typical 9/11 post

The blogosphere is ripe with remembrances for 9/11. I have no problem with this - it was a watershed moment in the history of this nation, certainly in the recent history of this nation. It affected everyone and brought everyone together for a brief period of what I consider to be some of the most divisive times ever seen by this nation. But rather than focus on the death, destruction and the political divisiveness that was also born that day, I decided to look at a few of the songs that were inspired by 9/11.

It was inevitable that songs would be written about this day. Some were good, some decidedly awful (the Daryl Worley song "Have You Forgotten?" springs immediately to mind.) I mean, Madonna may have rhymed New York with dork, but this guy actually rhymed "bin Laden" with "forgotten." Ugh. I found a few really good ones I thought I'd look at.

1) Fleetwood Mac - Illume (9/11) (iTunes)
Stevie Nicks' stab at remembering 9/11 comes off pretty much like I'd expect it to for her. It's nearly incomprehensible, but she's so darn sincere in it. Here's what she has to say about the song, because, God help me, I can't really figure it out.

"Illume" is a very interesting song actually. I wrote it after September 11th, you know, so it was one of the first I wrote after those tragedies. It’s just about making it, you know. I was sitting there, thinking about those horrible tragedies in October of 2001, and I was sitting there with just me in the room, and the candle was lit. I love candles, you know. And my heart was still so heavy from everything, and I didn’t know quite what would happen, and we were all like that, confused. I didn’t set out to write a September 11th song, it just happened. It goes “Illume, says the candle that I burn, a reflection in the window,” and that’s just about the inspiration for the song. And I tell you, my heart was so very heavy and full at this time, I was so confused. And then there are some other parts…( Pause) “And I am alone with my thoughts, And how we could make it – And what we have been through, all of the trauma.” I also wrote one called “Get Back on the Plane,” and a song called “The Towers Touched the Sky,” but it was just too depressing.

2) Mary Chapin Carpenter - Grand Central Station (iTunes)
This is perhaps one of my favorite songs about 9/11. It's so tastefully written and beautifully sung. One the first anniversary of 9/11, Chapin heard an NPR story about a ironworker who worked at ground zero. So moving was his experience that he walked to Grand Central Station every day after his shift was over to guide the lost souls to their trains home. You can listen to NPR talking to Carpenter about this song here, but to be honest, I couldn't get the audio to load. Maybe it's just my computer.

Here's the lyrics:

Got my workclothes on full of sweat and dirt
All this holy dust upon my face and shirt
Heading uptown now just as the shifts are changing
To Grand Central Station
Got my lunchbox, got my hard hat in my hand
I ain't no hero mister, just a working man
And all these voices keep on asking me to take them
To Grand Central Station
Grand Central Station

I want to stand beneath the clock one more time
Want to wait upon the platform for the Hudson Line
I guess you're never really all alone
Or too far from the pull of home
And the stars upon that painted dome still shine

I made my way out on to 42nd street
I lit a cigarette and stared down at my feet
And imagined all the ones that ever stood here waiting
At Grand Central Station, Grand Central Station

Now Hercules is staring down at me
Next to him is Minerva and Mercury
I nod to them and start my crawl, flyers covering every wall
Faces of the missing all I see

Tomorrow I'll be back there working on the pile
Going in and coming out single file
Before my job is done there's one more trip I'm making
To Grand Central Station, Grand Central Station
Grand Central Station, Grand Central Station

3) Tori Amos - I Can't See New York (iTunes)
This one I recently came across. I wouldn't classify myself as a Tori Amos fan, but I've been listening to more of her music ever since I started listening to Casey Stratton. It's a little more along the lines of the Fleetwood Mac song in the fact that lyrically, it's not very straight forward and you could completely miss the 9/11 allusions unless you are, as this blog's title demands of you, pay close attention.

Yuccacentric.com had this take on the song back in 2002.

I've had a few debates as to whether or not this is in, in fact, a 9/11 song. The conclusion? I don't know. The parallels are there. The concept of the album was a journey around and across America and each song has a location on a map. "I Can't See New York" is mapped as a flight from Boston to New York, the same taken by several hijacked planes on 9/11, and the obvious sight of a missing landmark in the skyline could be the reason for an inability to see New York as could some form of role-playing on the part of Ms. Amos as one of the passengers so blinded by fear that they cannot see anything, let alone New York. Then there's the Native American theme. In this song it's played out with the metaphor that borders are not really visible from a plane, so that the land is really everyone's. Hence, not being able to see New York as lines on a map are not the same as that seen from a plane. All that being said, it is a beautiful song wonderfully arranged and performed. 9/11 storyline or Native American or something completely different it has an underlying driving power to it. And it sure as hell makes up for the last album, Strange Little Girls.

Music, for me, is a great healer. Hopefully, 5 years out from 9/11, healing can continue.

Confessions of a 4-year old

Here's another one for the "Stop the paternity test!" file...

Anna comes up to me this morning as she's getting ready to leave for preschool and says "Daddy, I really hope that I get the sharing bag today!" (sidenote: the sharing bag is a bag that one kid each time gets to take home and put something in it they'd like to share with the class -- kind of a version of show-and-tell.) So I ask her, "What do you think you'd like to share if you get the sharing bag." To which she replies "A CD."

I'm a bit suspect because I'm not sure that's exactly what the teachers had in mind. But I decide to go with her down this road. "Which CD to you want to bring?" I ask her.

She thinks for a minute, and replies "Like 'Hung Up' or 'Jump' or...." "'Please don't say you're sorry.' They'd love to hear me sing to it -- but it's really loud!"

Some days, my 50% of the genes really shine through.

One down, one to go

I survived the first overnight shift and only have one left. Then I have 3 days off! (well, really two since you really can't count tomorrow as I'll be leaving work then and recovering for most of the day.) Overall, it wasn't too bad. However, I am quite tired today and will definitely be napping tonight around 5:30 or so. I'm telling you - that nap is the key. At least it was yesterday because I felt like shit before I napped and then I woke up a couple hours later and felt all shiny and new.

But there's no denying that this kind of schedule just messes with you. I'm all restless and not able to sit down and do anything for more than a couple minutes. I've been watching The X-Files this afternoon, but I have to say that the couple of episodes that I've watched have been pretty subpar. So that's not helping.

TV openings

Heidi, Jeff and I all started watching season 4 of Queer As Folk last night, and we've been eagerly anticipating the use of "Cue The Pulse To Begin" as the new theme song. And it lived up to all of our expectations. It's so much better than the opening credits used on seasons 1-3.



And while goofing around on YouTube last night, we found some classic (and some not-so-classic) TV show openers. For example, one of my favorites is "One Day At A Time" which I used to watch faithfully in syndication every night at 10:30 before my freshman year of high school (yet another example of me watching a sit com instead of having a life back then!)



Some would argue that it hasn't aged all that well, and I would argue THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT!! And you gotta love Mackenzie Phillips in those bell bottom polyester pants.

And Jeff and I came across a show he hadn't thought about since it was on TV - the show "Angie" which I remember because I always loved the theme song.



And then, just for kicks - "Alice"



They don't make these like this anymore, I tell ya.

Graveyard shifts

I'm up late tonight as I'm trying to prepare my body for the shock that is working overnights. Sunday and Monday night I have to work the overnight shift at work and it's not the worst thing in the world, but it sure does screw my body up after it's all said and done. At least I have 3 days off after I'm done doing it.

I'm mostly wiling away the time on the computer, listening to music, although I am pondering going up and watching Night of the Living Dead which I haven't watched in forever. Or maybe just the special features -- I can't decide. I know that if I try to read, I'll surely fall asleep, and I just can't fall asleep yet. I have to try to stay awake until about 3AM so that I can sleep until around 11 tomorrow (or so.) The first night is never all that hard -- you usually run on pure adrenaline and the night goes so fast because you're so pumped and it's so different from your usual routine. And after it's over, I go home and immediately crash into bed and sleep. That's one thing I suppose I should be thankful for -- I've never had trouble sleeping during the day. And if I take an Ativan, it's even easier.

The second night gets a little bit harder. I never have the adrenaline rush on night two that I have on night one. There's also the impending end of the run of overnights so you kind of start anticipating the end way before it's over. Of course, all bets are off if you have a really busy night. There's nothing like a really busy overnight to keep you moving, and truth be told, I've only had one that even comes close to really busy, so I'm not even sure I can speak definitively on that subject.

And while it's fun getting ready to work overnights (the staying up late is a lot of fun because I'm kind of a night owl by nature), it's the recovery that's really the hardest part. What I try to do is sleep as little as possible on the day after the last overnight shift. It's impossible to not sleep right when you get home, but I try not to sleep as long as I would when I'm preparing for another overnight. So usually, I walk around the house like something out of a George Romero movie and get kind of cranky. I inevitably end up falling asleep right around the time that Anna does and I sleep for something like 13 hours or some insane thing like that.

And then I'm usually fine.

And why exactly is it a graveyard shift? My favorite thoughts are here.

(top photo credit)

The subjects of spam

Casey Stratton is obsessed with the subject lines of the spam he's getting. And what's even funnier is that I've been laughing my head off at some of the ones I've been getting recently.

The best one I've had recently is "incriminating trough." And, being in the profession I am, it makes me immediately think of vancomycin or aminoglycosides.

It makes me glad that Gmail has a spam box so that I can look at them without having to get all excited that I got e-mail, only to find out it's about a "postmortem golf course" or something.

And the funny thing is, I keep on thinking these insane subject lines sound like Googlewhacks, but sure enough, I type them into Google and they get something like 50,000 hits.