smacky and bucky

I have a dentist appointment late this morning, and since it's been... quite a while since my last appointment, I suspect he's going to find an excuse to drill, cut, hammer, or smack me around. I'm going to go ahead and take the rest of the day as a sick day and plan on returning home to the couch.

I had every sign of a migraine last night except one: actual pain in my head. My eyes got slightly blurry in the periphery and sounds got suddenly loud and quiet. I felt a little dizzy when I stood up. I took two pills and washed them down with a bottle of water. We went to dinner, and instead of getting worse, it slowly ebbed away. By the time we finished browsing in Borders, I was all better. It was nice to dodge one of those. I get them less than once a month now, but they can be freaking horrible.

If you're an astronaut currently in space, it can't make you feel good when NASA announces they are grounding all further shuttle launches after you have already taken off. Amazing how much safety relies on the material used in Styrofoam coolers.

My friend and his wife are expecting a baby. He (the baby) is supposed to leave his mother's womb in about two weeks. I told him (my friend) there's still time, and sent him (my friend) a list of possible baby names. What do you think of Bluto, Popeye, Dawson, Magnum, Higgins, Flip, Elvis, Peter Parker, or Rick James? What kid doesn't want to be able to say "I'm Rick James, bitch," 15 years from now when the joke is as obscure as "Where's the beef?" Of course, if he's Peter Parker, he could recite my favorite lines from the first movie: Who am I? You sure you want to know? The story of my life is not for the faint of heart. If somebody said it was a happy little tale... if somebody told you I was just your average ordinary guy, not a care in the world... somebody lied. Whatever life holds in store for me, I will never forget these words: With great power comes great responsibility. This is my gift, my curse. Who am I? I'm Spider-man.

We watched four episodes of The Oblongs last night. I'd forgotten the awesomeness of that show.

Helga Phugly: You look so hot mowing the lawn, why don't you take your shirt off?

Milo Oblong: With so many rocks in your yard, I'm scared of losing a nipple.

Helga Phugly: Oh you! You're giving me the vapors!
Milo Oblong: I've smelled your vapors. That's my cue to leave.

ME: I need to mow the grass.

WIFE: Not tomorrow.

ME: Why?

WIFE: Because it's going to be 100 degrees with a heat index of 110!

ME: Oh, right.

WIFE: And you're giving blood at work tomorrow.

ME: Oh. Right.

(I shake off the image of me passing out in the yard from heat/lack of blood and the mower somehow running over my legs.)

ME: Guess I'll just relax inside after work then.

WIFE: Duh...(smile)

We were at the river this weekend (surprise!) and my parents stopped in Saturday afternoon on their way to Virginia Beach for a Sunday wedding. I hadn't seen them since...Easter I believe. We grilled chicken and Laura made a million side dishes. Her parents wandered over from next door (don't worry, they were invited) and it was dinner for six. After dinner we went out in the boat and watched the sun set.

Sunday was basically into the pool, then a nap before the drive home.

And that's it. A restful weekend.

I'm going to keep an eye on the iHome system (basically an alarm clock with speakers to which you can attach your iPod) and see how it reviews. It's an interesting idea to wake up to iPod music, but I've been waking up on time without an alarm clock for several years now. It's called owning a cat that demands feeding.

The internet still amazes me now and then. I had a song going through my head today. It was a ballad, and the chorus went "We should just pretend that you are leaving.." and that's all I had. I knew I had the cassette when I was in about 9th grade, but I couldn't remember the name of the band, or their hit (it was a minor hit, not even top 20). The lyrics I did remember weren't even from their single. It was just a random track from the tape, so a google search for those lyrics did nothing. I finally managed to noodle out the title of their hit: Kiss You (when it's dangerous). Two seconds later, I knew more about the band than I ever did (like they were from Canada, and the band members names, and that they broke up in 1990.) Remember this was in the dark ages of 1987: No internet, no CDs. I probably heard the song on the radio, or saw their video on MTV (back then they still played videos, and not just rap and angry white rap-metal!) and decided to buy it, never learning a thing about the band. Weird times. The story ends two minutes later with me buying a used copy on CD from a seller on Amazon for $10. We live in an amazing time, where even the most obscure piece of trivia can be tracked down and reclaimed from our past.

I went over to the other house after work yesterday and cut the grass and weeded the garden and bushes (freaking vines and thorny plants grow like mad!). I returned home at 4:30, sweaty, tired, with legs covered in mosquito bites (I put on sunscreen and forgot the mosquito risk in the tall wet grass). My wife greeted me at the door, saying "Get cleaned up! We have to leave in half an hour for dinner." Huh? It was her sister's birthday, and we were all going to meet for dinner at 7. Why did we have to leave at 5? They decided to change the reservation to a place in Ellicot City, Maryland. We live in northern Virginia, and Ellicot City is near Baltimore. With rush hour traffic crawling in DC, it took an hour and 45 minutes to get there. Return time was less than half that and we got home at 10:45.

Dinner was...okay. The menu was ridiculously overpriced. Have you ever seen this on a menu? Beside each steak were two prices, one labeled "choice" and one labeled "prime." I know what prime beef is, but what the hell is "choice?" Does anyone ever order the cheaper piece of meat? Certainly not on a date, unless you want to look like a cheap bastard. Very strange. Also, I don't care how good the food is, a steak is not worth $50. Thank goodness her mother paid for everything. No meal is worth that. The steak was good, but it wasn't noticeably better than any other steak I've had at half that price (or less).

The funny thing is that my sister-in-law doesn't really care about fancy food anyway. And she's an incredibly fussy eater. She drains salsa to remove the vegetables from it and only eats the tomato sauce in it. Freak. So a big fancy meal doesn't mean a damn to her. Her mother picked the place.

My brother-in-law and I had a few laughs over the prices on the menu. A glass of 50-year-old port cost less than the cheese plate appetizer ($25 for the cheese plate, FYI). We pointed out a long list of things cheaper than the cheese plate. What is so special about this cheese plate? Is it made with Britney Spears' breast milk? (Sorry for that nasty image.)

I received a record in the mail yesterday. It was the first single release from my other sister-in-law’s band La Laque. I can’t listen to it until this weekend (record player is at the other house) but the cover looks cool, and the single is pressed on translucent blue vinyl, which is also pretty cool looking. I somehow sliced my finger on a pair of scissors opening the package. I’m not sure how, but one of the blades sliced across the knuckle of the middle finger on my left hand. It bled and bled and bled. I had to change the band-aid because it bled through the first one. To quote John Cusack in Sixteen Candles, “Real smooth, Cliff.”

I don't consider myself a huge fan of Star Trek. I'm familiar with the characters from the classic show, but I haven't read much background (novels) or memorized any details (such as dialogue, alien race names, etc.) about it. I didn't watch any of the Treks until Enterprise, and even that one I missed the entire last season of when they moved it to Friday nights. Still, the classic show is fun to watch when I catch it on the SciFi channel.

I just read that James Doohan (Scotty) from the original show and the first five or six Trek movies died this morning. He was 85 and had Alzheimer's disease. From all accounts, he was a genuinely nice guy who appreciated the love of the fans and gave it right back. He has a very interesting obituary here. Did you know he fought for the Canadian army in WWII and landed on the beach in Normandy? During the battle he was shot SIX times, including losing his right middle finger (wow, all those episodes and they hid that somehow). How about that?

Of course the obit also includes the obligatory "Shatner's a prick" line:

He accused Shatner of hogging the camera, adding: "I like Captain Kirk, but I sure don't like Bill. He's so insecure that all he can think about is himself."

I imagine if Shatner outlives all his Trek castmates, that comment will appear in everyone else's obits too, because they all pretty much find him insufferable.

[You can enter a line here about God beaming up Scotty if you want. I avoided it because it will be said about 5 million times in the next few days.]

Been sort of busy and lazy at the same time, so I haven't posted. I was inspired by Kate's Favorite Albums of the Last 15 Years and decided to make my own list.

A few explanatory notes about the following list: (1) The choices are albums that meant a lot to me at that time, when they were new. I may not listen to them anymore, or even own a copy anymore, but they meant something to me in that particular year. (2) Some years I couldn't pick just one, and since it's my list, I allowed myself to list alternate choices as well. (3) I was out of the country from 1997-1999, so my choices are limited to items that were sent to me in the mail.

Here we go:

1990:
Jane’s Addiction, Ritual De Lo Habitual ("Stop," "Been Caught Stealing")
Depeche Mode, Violator ("Personal Jesus," "Enjoy the Silence")

1991:
Nirvana, Nevermind (It's a cliché now, but when I first heard that opening chord progression to Smells Like Teen Spirit, I definitely had a "Holy shit, what's this?!?" moment.)
Divinyls, I Touch Myself (or at least the memory of watching someone sing that song)
REM, Out of Time ("Losing My Religion," "Shiny Happy People")
Matthew Sweet, Girlfriend (A great "I'm in love" album, but also a great "she dumped me" album, thanks to the song You don't love me.
U2, Achtung Baby

1992:
Soup Dragons, Hot Wired ("Diving Thing")
Spin Doctors, Pocketful of Kryptonite
They Might Be Giants, Apollo 18 (particularly "Spider" and "I Palindrome I")
Cracker, Cracker ("Mr. Wrong")
The The, Dusk ("Love Is Stronger Than Death," "Slow Emotion Replay")

1993:
The Breeders, Last Splash
Smashing Pumpkins, Siamese Dream
Björk, Debut ("Venus as a boy")

1994:
The Cranberries, No Need to Argue ("Ode to my Family," "Empty")
Weezer, Weezer

1995:
Allanis Morrissette, Jagged Little Pill
Elastica, Elastica
Oasis, (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
Poe, Hello ("Trigger Happy Jack," "Fingertips")

1996:
The Cardigans, First Band on the Moon ("Lovefool")
Luscious Jackson, Fever In, Fever Out ("Naked Eye")
Eels, Beautiful Freak ("Novocaine for the Soul")

1997:
Blur, Blur ("Song 2" [the WOO HOO! Song])

1998:
Garbage, Version 2.0

1999:
Sixpence None the Richer, Sixpence None the Richer
Scritti Politti, Anomie & Bonhomie

2000:
Robbie Williams, Sing When You’re Winning
Duran Duran, Pop Trash (Was I the only one that bought this?)

2001:
None (Sorry. I looked the release list over, and apparently in 2001, I only bought older CDs. None of the music released that year means anything to me.)

2002:
Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head
Kylie Minogue, Fever

2003:
Puffy AmiYumi, Nice

2004:
Franz Ferdinand, Franz Ferdinand
Interpol, Antics

2005 (so far):
Gorillaz, Demon Days

Agree? Disagree?

We were going to go see Fantastic 4 yesterday evening, but on the way we got in a huge argument and I ended up walking 2 miles home in the rain. Sigh. We made up 5 minutes later and ended up having a nice evening, with dinner at a Mexican place and an episode of CSI. I don't feel like rehashing the argument right now but apparently I have a rage issue that pops up at random, blessedly rare moments. It's not me at all, and no, I never get violent, though I will admit sometimes breaking things (in the last decade, and in completely random order: a coffee mug, a picture frame, the cheap plastic mounting piece on the XM radio, and two bones in my hand).

I'm a very laid back person (I think that comes across here), so I'm not sure exactly what pushes my buttons. I know I hate being talked down to, and can get really defensive if someone speaks to me like I'm a child, or mentally deficient. I'm not sure why that is either. I spent a good long portion of my school years slacking off and cruising by on average grades and minimal effort. I suppose when I started giving a crap and trying, it became personal if someone started showing off with intellectual snobbery. I'm not really explaining this properly. I have no problem with explaining something to me; I just can't stand when the person does it with the smug attitude of "I can't believe you don't know this."

There's so much knowledge out there I'll never have. It's the reason they make you choose a major in college. Otherwise you'd go insane with depression when you realized at this rate you'll never have more than a surface knowledge of everything, so you'd better pick one subject and start digging in.

Thought of the day (from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus): You can never step into the same river twice. I like its simplicity, and its simple truth. The weekends we go out of town, I watch the river flow into the bay, the tide rising and falling, the waves, and it's zen. I'd add that you can't even LOOK at the same river twice. The ripples on the water, and the way the sunlight hits it, constantly change. By stepping into the water, YOU change it. You become part of it. If this were a motivational speech, I'd conclude by pointing out the obvious: The river represents life, and you can't always sit on the shore watching it flow. But you must also be aware that when you step in, and how, can have long term effects. Watch out for jellyfish, and don't dive in headfirst if you can't see the bottom. That's enough fortune cookie philosophy for today.

Since my own life is just chugging along with work, errands, and chores, I'll just mention a few things happening in the world:

Brad Pitt has viral meningitis. He was in Ethiopia last week with Angelina Jolie while she was picking up baby #2. (Are they dating? What's the deal?) Here's a great quote: "His publicist Cindy Guagenti declined Wednesday to say if Pitt contracted the illness while in Africa." Duh. I'm sure he didn't catch it at a Starbucks in Manhattan.

Relatives of patients who received lobotomies want the Nobel committee to posthumously revoke the Nobel Prize from Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz. The creepy part is this: "Other doctors used a more primitive version than Moniz, punching an ice pick into the brain above the eye socket and blindly manipulating it to sever nerve fibers." Considering how little we still understand about how the brain works, the idea of poking blindly with an icepick is horrendous.

The guy who played Cooter on Dukes of Hazzard doesn't want people to see the new movie because of "constant sexual innuendo and some very clear sexual situations." I guess he doesn't watch reruns of his own show. As a young child, Barbara Bach in a bikini seducing Enos is one of the first "sexual" scenes I'd seen in my innocent life. I guess he also doesn't know that hoochie cut-offs are called "Daisy Dukes" because of her outfits on the show.

So the army is admitting to doing all sorts of things to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay:

Interrogators told him his mother and sisters were whores, forced him to wear a bra, forced him to wear a thong on his head, told him he was homosexual and said that other prisoners knew it. They also forced him to dance with a male interrogator, Schmidt added, and subjected him to strip searches with no security value, threatened him with dogs, forced him to stand naked in front of women and forced him onto a leash, to act like a dog.

Still, he said, "No torture occurred."

You've gotta love how mad the White House got when Newsweek reported interrogators put the Quran in the toilet, huh? I repeat what I said in my post in May: [Interregator]: "Hey man. Put the Quran down. That's their holy book. We don't do that here. Attach this wire to that man's balls and run it to this car battery instead."

And Karl Rove...ah Mr. Rove. He didn't leak the woman's name to the reporter. He said "Wilson's wife." Not the same thing at all. I never want to hear a republican mention Clinton's legal-speak double talk again.

I'm sure every section of America has their radio talk shows that are popular, if only on a regional level. I hate "wacky morning zoo" radio shows, with the moronic talk and stupid "bits." The only time I turn actually turn off the iPod and turn on the radio is at 3pm weekdays for the Don and Mike show. If you haven't heard of them, this post won't mean much to you. I first heard them in 1989, when I moved to the DC area. They were a local show out of Fairfax, Virginia, and for some reason they clicked with me. Since then, they've gone national, syndicated in over 50 cities across the country, they've tried switching to middays (and tried to get into the NYC market, ultimately failing and returning to DC) and moved back to their regular 3-7 spot. No matter how big they got, I still felt some connection because they were local guys, and they did the same things and went to the same local places we did. They could get raunchy, but that wasn't the basis of the show (like some), and they easily adjusted to the post-Janet Jackson's boob FCC stricter regulations.

The heart of the show is that these guys basically just talk about their lives. It's not a political show, thought they've discussed politics on the show. It's not a sports show, though they've discussed sports on the show. Mike is more hesitant to discuss his private life on the air, but Don pretty much discusses everything, sometimes including his wife or son on the air. His wife Freda is more than a match for him as far as wit, and he's conceded many times that she's smarter. They have a 21-year-old son named Bart who attends Clemson.

Monday shows are always the best, because they discuss what they did over the weekends (always something hilarious). Yesterday was an even bigger Monday, because they were returning from a two week vacation and were sure to have great stories. The show began with Mike announcing that Don wouldn't be in today. Freda was killed in a car accident Sunday afternoon. She was driving alone and an SUV crossed the median and hit her car head on. She died hours later at the trauma center in Baltimore.

Mike and the others came in an did the show at Don's suggestion. They turned it into a celebration of Freda's life, telling stories and playing clips from when she was on the show. She was an amazing woman, and a good writer too. She wrote a column on their website (currently down for obvious reasons).

As I said above, most of you probably don't know who these people are, but I wanted to mention this. My thoughts are with this family that I never met, yet feel I know so well. When I started listening to them, Don's son Bart was four. He would cry on the air when his mom made him get off the phone. Now he's graduating from college. Don and Freda recently celebrated their 23rd anniversary, and Freda had turned 50 less than a month ago. She was a big part of the show, and the center of Don's world. I don't know how he's going to find the strength to come back on the air and be funny.

My wife and I often have different tastes in movies. We accept it, and regularly compromise ("I'll see _______ if you'll go see _______ with me.") I'm happy to see two movies coming out this month she will definitely want to see: The Wedding Crashers and Must Love Dogs. The first one I have no problem seeing, as it has Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. The second one is a little less appealing. A romantic comedy about a woman posting a personal ad to meet a man. But it has John Cusack, so maybe he can redeem it. Seeing these two movies ensures I have a date to see Fantastic Four and one other, maybe Batman Begins.

The above examples aren't very extreme. It's not like a few years ago when I was the only guy in the audience for My Big Fat Greek Wedding ("You must buy popcorn and leave penis with usher for this movie.") My idea of a good romantic comedy is High Fidelity, another Cusack film. That's a guy's version of a romantic comedy: Lots of music, Jack Black, Catherine Zeta Jones, and Tim Robbins getting kicked in the face. Ah, love...

Well, on Wednesday our realtor called and said a guy has seen the house three times and loves it. His wife was going to see it after work Wednesday and they would probably make an offer Thursday. We waited all day yesterday and the realtor never called, so either the woman hated it, or they're really taking their time writing up an offer. Not the best show either, with inches of rain coming down today. At least the weekend will be sunny.

I'm sick of thinking about it, and I have nothing funny (to me) to talk about today.

It was only a matter of time before a subway got hit. I'm surprised it was London and not somewhere in America.

One last thing (added hours later). I can always depend on stupid celebrities to pick me up. This is from an AP story about an interview Katie Holmes did for W magazine:

During the W interview, the actress wouldn't part from Jessica Rodriguez, who is described as her "Scientologist chaperone." Rodriguez's role in Holmes' life remains vague, though Rodriguez says they're "just best friends" since meeting around the time Holmes met Cruise.

"You adore him," Rodriguez told Holmes when the actress was at a loss for words to describe her love.

Can you spot the four creepy items in the above quote?

(1) She stayed with her the entire length of the interview.

(2) She's called a chaperone(!) WTF? That's the most tactful way they could describe it? A chaperone watches a child. Why not call her a guide, or something less... controlling and authority-figurish? (And if that's the best term they could use, imagine what she must really be. Guard, maybe? Handler? Watchdog? Get he folded into the flock and make sure she doesn't answer uncomfortable questions until she signs on the dotted line and takes the vow of secrecy.)

(3) She says they are "just best friends." (Katie was apparently issued this "chaperone" immediately after meeting Tom Cruise.)

(4) The chaperone answers for Katie: "You adore him." Technically she doesn't answer FOR Katie. If she had done that, she would have said to the interviewer "She adores him." No, her statement has a definite cult overtone: YOU ADORE HIM. YOU WILL WORSHIP THE LEADER. YOU LOVE THE LEADER. THE LEADER KNOWS WHAT IS BEST FOR YOU.

We returned last night from our five-day weekend. Very relaxing. We played water volleyball, caught crabs off the dock, went out in the boat, swam, walked on the beach, played poker, watched movies, and read a book (Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams). I didn't think about work once, but since I got into the office this morning I read about 30 e-mails, answered seven, edited cover copy for four books, proofed catalog copy, and circulated a cover design.

I won't rant too much about the television coverage of the Live 8 concerts. Others have already done it with more venom than I can muster this morning: Critics rave over AOL's coverage, rant over MTV's. If you wanted to see Madonna's performance in its entirety, you were out of luck on MTV. They constantly cut off performances to interview artists (mostly boring) and (even more appalling) morons in the crowd! I don't care to hear what Bobby Frat Boy thinks about poverty in Africa (He thinks it's a bad thing!).

How could they screw it up so badly? Turn the camera on the artist, and let it roll. Simple. Vee Jays got more coverage than artists! Even Pink Floyd, reuniting for the first time in over a decade, had their performance cut off. Should I even mention the irony of the commercials aired during the concert? A concert about poverty and starvation in Africa, and every other commercial is for WEIGHT-LOSS PRODUCTS! Way to go, fat vain Americans! At least the concert footage is available--unedited and moron free--on AOL. They actually did something right. Some folks are saying it was done this way on purpose, so no one could record the entire show and sell DVDs on e-bay, but the BBC showed the concert without commercials (state-run vs. big conglomerate, I suppose).

Oh! Forgot to mention: Our neighbor down at the bay ended up hosting the fireworks this year. This was the big fireworks display for the entire county. Next door! Over 50 boats gathered for the show. We brought chairs down to the dock and watched on the water. Amazingly close, and they went on forever.

Oh again! We got an offer on the house last Thursday! But they tried to lowball us. We countered and they wouldn't come up any more, so we turned it down. Augh! Bucking Fummer!! So guess who has to go cut the grass after work today? (Sorry to be a broken record about this.)

And in mundane news, I replaced the hubcap that fell off/ was stolen. I found a place online selling them for $25 with free shipping.