No Strike

That's the way it looks, at least. The union members still have to ratify the new contract and then the state has to pass the budget. Fortunately, since it is an election year, the budget should be passed by the end of the month, which is close enough to on time for most politicians (especially since their constituents don't have a clue when the budget is actually supposed to be passed). It's only fifteen days late, who cares? Right?

Basically, the new contract give all the workers a pay increase (The increase isn't retroactive; instead they're paying the workers off with a one time lump sum. If I get the lump, I'll be getting more money than I would have gotten in the past nine months. For most workers it's probably a few hundred dollars less. Of course, for the most part, they don't realize that, they're just happy to suddenly have extra money in time for summer.), health care costs will stay the same (My employer pays a percentage of any health care premium, they wanted to make it a flat rate, which would have screwed us as health costs went up.), retirement contributions stay the same (They would have been cut in half if the contract presented to us had gone through.), the unpaid "furlough" days are gone, and a raise in pay, based on the consumer price, index but not lower than 2%, next year at the same time. The contract expires on June 30, 2008, which is three years from the date the last contract expired.

I'm relieved that there's not going to be a strike. I would have been out there holding up a stupid sign, but not chanting the stupid slogans, to support getting a real contract, but I'm glad I don't have to.

In other news, my allergies decided to go psycho yesterday. (They probably would have on Saturday as well, but I was else where.) I asked around the office this morning if maybe there was something sprayed on the fields this weekend, but was told no.

Here's what I was told and my internal response to each:

I was told that it was due to the heat.
Two weeks ago it was just as hot, maybe even hotter, and my allergies didn't go nuts. And on Thursday it was about 95 out there and my nose was fine.

I was told it was the wind.
It's been crazy windy for the past month (with the exception of the hot day), why was it only on Sunday when I couldn't stop sneezing?

I was told that we didn't have a spring, so everything is coming in now.
No. Spring started a while ago. The massive amount of rain stopped at least six weeks ago, probably more, and plenty of things were blooming before and during the rain and in the last six weeks.

I was told that it's just because this is the worst place in the world for allergies.
I can believe that, but it's not a reasonable answer for why Sunday was total an utter misery when before that I was doing okay.

Today, I am leaky, but not as leaky as I was yesterday.

Strike?

On either Monday morning or Monday night the strike votes were counted. 85% of the people, who voted, voted in favor of the strike. The rest of this week has, according to the union's website, been full of "around the clock negotiations continue under news black out." Apparently negotiations have also been "intense."

What does this mean to me? I have no fucking clue.

What will I be doing this weekend? Worrying about how the negotiating team is doing whether or not a rolling strike will begin next week.

If I knew one way or another this weekend, I think I'd feel a lot better.

Streaming

I'm sure if I just start doing a stream of consciousness thing here I'll find something interesting to write about. Well, maybe not "interesting," but I'll at least write about something.

Was it just yesterday when I complained about baby gifts? It seems like I did that so much longer ago. It's only been a day. Is it just me, or has this week just crawled slower than a baby that's taken a Valium? At least sleeping lets me know another day has passed because if I didn't have that to break-up the week I wouldn't be able to tell the difference from one to the next. Actually, I could check to see if the pants and shirt I'm wearing are different from the ones I wore yesterday, but since I can't ever remember what I actually wore yesterday I'd never be sure. Unless my socks got hard. Do socks get hard on your feet in your shoes if you wear them for 72 hours? I'm sure someone out there has tried it before.

Yesterday was the farmer's market thing here. (They call it something different, though. I think they do it so people like me, who sometimes take things too literally.) It's mostly built up of boothey things that have people selling jewelry or where local, sometimes chain, restaurants are selling food at prices higher than they sell the food for at the restaurants' physical locations. Anyway, I actually remembered that it was farmer's market day and brought some money with me. For the past two (three?) weeks I've been walking through it with no money and therefore don't buy anything, but yesterday was going to be different. I was going to buy some smoked salmon. Each time I walked through, it's in the middle of a street I can walk down to get to my apartment, I've seen this guy sitting at a card table with a cooler and a sign that said "Home Smoked Salmon" and I wanted some. He wasn't there yesterday, though. Maybe he ran out. Maybe he'll be back next week. I can only hope he will be and that I'll remember to bring my money.

Tonight, I'm going to watch my Arrested Development season 1 DVD, eat some chocolate Teddy Grams, read a book that I've read before, and sleep. How about you?

Baby Blues

About three weeks ago, right before Memorial Day, I think, The Supervisor's daughter gave birth. The supervisor became a grandma. I did my thing; I congratulated her, and pretended to be interested in her family. I smiled at the picture she showed me. And when she said, "Isn't he cute." I just smiled and nodded rather than saying he looks like a crustacean without its shell--all pink and squishy with bulbous eyes. Yuck.

That Thursday, I was handed a card by SHTK and told to sign it. I asked what it was for. She said it was to congratulate The Supervisor on her grandchild. SHTK told me, again, to sign it and then pass it on to the next clerk for more signing. I sighed and rolled my eyes. It's not like The Supervisor had to do any work in getting this grandson. Her daughter is the one who, hopefully, had fun making it and had to do the bulk of the work during the incubation period. (The son-in-law did the rest of the work.) Sure, The Supervisor visited her daughter after the due date came and went, but before that, she complained a lot about her daughter not bringing the baby belly to North Bay, like her daughter and her daughter's husband didn't just move into a new place so there would be room for the baby and they didn't want everything set up and ready by the time the incubation was over. I sighed again and signed the card. I didn't write anything clever, because, honestly, I didn't care.

On Friday, SHTK came to work carrying a bag. It was the kind of bag presents are placed in. When I looked closer, I saw little plumes of tissue paper coming out the top. I didn't ask what it was. I didn't want to know. It was none of my business. TMSV, on the other hand, decided that it was her business. "What's in the bag?" she demanded. SHTK slid her hand in and pulled out started to pull out something fuzzy. It was a stuffed stegosaurus, exactly they kind of stuffed animal who would have terrorized all the stuffed animals, but was really a coward and a nice guy, if I had it when I was a kid. "Who's it for?" demanded TMSV. SHTK said it was for The Supervisor, to go with the card. TMSV got excited. I wanted to pound my head into my desk.

Ten minutes later, SHTK poked her head around the partition that blocks my view of the front and said, "Everyone else is giving some money for the gift. You don't have to if you don't want to." And she turned away.

I don't bring cash with me to work unless I'm planning on going out to lunch or cruise the comic shop. If I have it on me, I'll spend it. So, I couldn't give her anything, but I saw the production that was made when the others gave her a few dollars. I went on my break.

As I walked back to my desk after my break ended, SHTK came around a corner so fast she almost hit me. "Hurry up," she said.

"Why?"

"We're giving her the dinosaur and the card now," she said in a hushed voice and turned around, walking quickly away from me.

I rolled my eyes again and followed her.

The gift and the card were received with much thanks. And I slinked back to my desk as soon as I could.

Last week, Monday or Tuesday, NPWH's oldest daughter produced a spawn of her own. This time, I wasn't subjected to pictures and inane questions. NPWH has her own office-esque area and stays pretty private. (I didn't even know her daughter was carrying until Monday morning because her daughter had been in the hospital over the weekend with labor pains.) She doesn't foist stories of her life on the people of the office to prove that she has one, like The Supervisor does. (Remember, people, you choose to come here and have my "life" forced on you. It's not like being stuck in the break room trying to read and hearing about the same damn car trip down Highway 49 her and her husband took five years ago.) So, after the announcement, I congratulated her and said that I bet she's extra eager to get to her vacation now to see the little one. She agreed that she can't wait to go. And that was that.

Until yesterday, when SHTK came at me with a card, "Sign it and pass it along," she said. "It's for NPWH."

This time, I signed it and passed it along without the sighing and eye rolling.

Today, a Piglet toy, that rattles when you shake it, showed up in a party bag. That's when I rolled my eyes.

I got up to hunt down files and SHTK chased me around the same corner we nearly collided at two weeks ago. "Where are you going?" She was flustered.

"I'm doing my work." I waved the papers I had in my hand at her.

"But we're giving [NPWH] the card and toy now. Come on." She hurried away.

I sighed and followed.

I Have a Bad Headache

So, today you get a recommended website, pointed out to me by the Televisionary himself.

Visit Superdickery.com. My favorite, so far, is this one.

Enjoy.

Talkin' Cars

When talking to people, like actually speaking with them, using my voice and hearing their voices and sometimes seeing their spittle fly out of their mouth, many of them said they didn't want to see this movie because the trailer makes it look bad. I, personally, can't remember when a Pixar trailer ever looked good. Can you? So, when deciding whether or not to see a movie made by the Pixar people I think about two things: The first is their record of making a stream of wonderful and fun movies. When I can only compare one Pixar movie to another Pixar movie to try and find fault with it, which means they're always better than the average film out there. When I think about their movies and A Bug's Life is the worst one they made, but I still think it's charming and fun and better than most things that came out that year, it means they've made a bunch of good movies. The second thing I think about is the fact that they take classic plots, plots that we've seen on TV and in the movies more times than we want to count, and do them better than anyone else has in recent memory.

Cars is about Lighting McQueen (Owen Wilson), a big shot racing star, who gets stuck in a nearly dead hick town on Route 66. He destroys property and is sentenced to stay in town and fix what he destroyed. While there, he learns that not life in the fast lane (HAHAHAHAHAH!) isn't everything and that sometimes it's better to slow down and find something to care for other than winning.

Sound familiar? The basic plot reminds me of Doc Hollywood. (I'm sure that there are older movies with the same plot, but Doc Hollywood was the first movie I remember seeing with this plot and it has a naked girl rising from the lake, which left quite an impact on my young mind when I saw it.)

The thing is, the movie is so much more than its plot. It's all the wonderful side character. There's Doc Hudson (voiced wonderfully by Paul Newman) who's the little town's sharp doctor and judge and he has a past that no one in town knows about. There's Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) who's as dumb as the tractors he tips but the most loyal and trusting tow truck you could ever meet. There's Ramone (Cheech Marin) the low-rider who runs the body shop and changes his paint on a daily basis and Flo (Jennifer Lewis), his wife, who runs the diner. There's Sally (Bonnie Hunt) who used to live in LA but fell in love with the small town and want to bring it back to what it was. And on and on. Each character in the town has enough personality that I was able to build elaborate back stories for them that told me why they live there and why they didn't leave when the town dried up.

Then there's the way the film looks. The animation is stunning. I found myself captivated by the shadows cast by the cars in the racing scene at the beginning of the film. The backgrounds (I'm talking landscape here) are full of visual car jokes that it took me way too long to see and when I did, I couldn't help chuckling at them. Mater looks like he's made of rust and if someone sneezed on him he'd just blow away. The reflection on Lightning when he's in bright light is amazing. And the paint job he got near the end, the fact that Pixar could do it with a moving object, blew me away.

For the most part, the voice acting was superb. Paul Newman blew me away as Doc. And Jennifer Lewis cracked me up when I heard her speak. Owen Wilson was the only disappointment. It seemed to me that he was just phoning in his performance by playing character's he's already been. (Hansel from Zoolander and Roy O'Bannon from Shanghai Noon seemed to be the big influences.) His performance wasn't bad, just not as good as the others. There were also a bunch of cameos by famous car people, but I didn't recognize most of them, since I'm not a race fan, but I did recognize Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, who host Car Talk on NPR. (I am such an NPR geek.)

One question that I kept coming to throughout the movie was, why are there sidewalk? (See this comic for a similar thought.)

The only problem I had was with the ending. (I usually have a problem with endings, don't I?) Yes, I knew it would end happy and I was pretty sure how it would end and I was thrilled at how the final race was concluded, but the final ending was just too pat, too sickly, gooey sweet. A little realism there would have gone a long way with me, but it probably would have left the rest of the audience a really bad taste in their mouths.

So, I say go and see and enjoy Cars. It's not their best, but it's certainly better than most of the other things you'll see this summer.

Randomness

Yesterday was one set of grandparents' 62nd anniversary. If I double my age, I've been alive less than half the time they've been married. (And I'm their oldest grandchild.) My other set of grandparents have a ways to go before they catch up, and I hope they never do because that would mean that one out of the four has gone missing, and I'd rather not have to deal with that until I'm so old I'll forget all about it the next day. Too bad that won't happen, but it's a nice wish.

---

I saw a file with the name Jeffrey Johnson Junior. I couldn't help thinking that his middle name is Jackson so when his mom would get angry with him she'd yell, "Jeffrey Jackson Johnson Junior get over here!"

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You scored as Suicide. Your death will be suicide. What more can I say? Fact: Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. If you want to know how you will commit suicide, take a look at your second highest percentage on the bar graphs.

How Will You Die??
created with QuizFarm.com

My second highest percentage was "disappear." So, you've all been warned.

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When I saw A Prairie Home Companion the other day, I was sitting next to this older woman who was busy chatting away with her husband, before the movie, about how much she liked their seats because it was right under the light and she could read. She reached into her bag and pulled out her book and noticed that I was already reading. "You brought a book, too," she said.

"Yup," I said.

"See what I brought." She turned the cover toward me. It was one of those new Little Lulu trades. I smiled.

"It was my birthday present."

"It's a good gift,” I said.

"Can you imagine a 67-year-old woman wanting this as a birthday present?" she asked. "But I did."

"It's a good gift," I said again. "Anyone who doesn't like Little Lulu deserves..." I paused. I wasn't sure if saying "deserves to die" is the kind of thing one should say to a stranger. "Well, I'm not sure what they deserve, but it should be something painful."

She laughed and said, "You are absolutely right." She opened her book and started reading.

I went back to my reading.

Every minute or so I heard her chuckle.

---

At lunch this week, I've been heading out of the office, going to the south stairwell, climbing to the landing between the fourth floor and the roof access, and sitting there to read. So far, it's the best place I've found for privacy in this town that isn't my apartment or has a toilet to sit on.

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Here's a cartoon that I wish were animated and played in every movie theater worldwide.

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And now I'm done. Have a decent weekend folks.

A Prairie Home Companion

"We come from people who brought us up to believe that life is a struggle, and if you should feel really happy, be patient: this, too, will pass." --Garrison Keillor

That's not the whole quote, just the last part. The first part is just as funny, which makes the last part even funnier. Unfortunately, I can't remember the whole quote because so much was going on in the movie.

That's right. Last night, I saw the movie I was most looking forward to in a "special sneak preview." All the other people out there who are looking forward to seeing it (not enough people, if you ask me) have to wait until Friday. (Or, if you come from a place like my hometown, you'll probably have to wait until it's available through Netflix. *sigh*)

So, what is A Prairie Home Companion? It's a movie about what goes on backstage, and onstage, at a radio show broadcasting its final show. The final show part is always there, but I got the feeling that a the backstage would have been just as chaotic it if the film was just about putting on a radio show this size.

The cast is star studded and they all do an excellent job. Altman's direction is sure and he keeps the camera moving to show the frantic pace. And Garrison Keillor's script is hilarious.

Fans of the radio show will not be disappointed. Guy Noir is there with his classic opening about "a city that knows how to keep its secrets." Also, there's Dusty and Lefty fighting and singing right there on stage.

Oh, and the show is brought to you by Powdermilk Biscuits, Bebop-a-reebop Rhubarb Pie, and The Catchup Advisory Board, which bottles a little bit of sunshine just for you.

Good-Bye Everwood

I watched the series finale of Everwood again last night. I'm really going to miss the show. Not that (m)any of you would understand. You didn't watch it. You don't know how well acted and scripted and directed it was. You missed out. From now on, I'll be missing out, too.

While I was thrilled that Everwood was able to have a final episode, I was disappointed with the end. I know that the writers and produces and the whatnots wanted happy endings that tied up the major romances, but, to me, that was far too simplistic for this show. Since it's beginning, Everwood has been about people making mistakes and learning from them, only to realize that in the process of learning nothing is completely fixed, nothing comes out perfectly. The life of these characters was messy, most of their endings weren't. If I could change the finale, I'd make the Amy/Ephram ending closer to the Bright/Hannah ending. That's just me, though.

To read a pretty good review of the last episode, check out what Matt Roush wrote.

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On another note, I don't know what's wrong with me. I still don't feel too well. My stomach is achy on the top part and my head feels like it's being pressed in on five sides.

Here

I'm not feeling very well, haven't been since last Friday.

Today, you get a link to a funny animation.

Enjoy.

Too True

This comic shows part of the truth of what X-Men: The Last Stand is.

What was their problem with Cyclops?

Ruined for Everybody: X-Men: The Last Stand

For a more spoiler free review of the movie read the one that Stephen Notley wrote. Mine is all about the spoiling.

When, within the first half hour of a movie sequel, one of my favorite characters is vaporized in a way that doesn't allow for any emotional connections, I tend to disconnect from the rest of the movie and throw all expectations out. Which isn't to say that I had many expectations because I'd read the headlines of the early reviews over at Ain't it Cool News, all of which were negative. In the end, I'd give the movie a rating of "blah." If you liked the first two and can disconnect from the problems, like I did, you'll survive unharmed. If you're one of the people nearly cream your pants every time you read a rumor about the Wolverine solo move, you'll probably love it.

So, here’s how the movie goes:
It opens with Xavier and Magneto twenty years ago meeting a young Jean Grey who is powerful enough to lift all the cars on her block (as well as steal Chris Claremont's lawnmower and make the water from Stan Lee's hose slow down and start falling up). Can you all say "retcon"? I knew you could.
Then we meet a kid using a rasp on his back to shave his budding wings.
There's a useless Danger Room sequence that "reinforces" the fact that Wolverine is not a team player, even though he keeps coming back to the mansion to spend time with everyone and he even helps out in a class when he's asked to. Yeah, he's a real loner, isn't he? We get to hear a Sentinel, and see its head. I'd rather there wasn't a Sentinel at all because if I can't actually see the team fighting a giant robot, it should be kept out of the film all together.
Scott Summers is still depressed over Jean Grey getting crushed by tons of water. Wolverine chews him out for not being in class. Scott runs away to the lake (A lake, really? Do these people understand how reservoirs work? They block the water from a river filling up a natural valley. When the damn breaks, it all turns back into a river, there's no lake. If only this was the worst part of the upcoming scene.) where Jean died. He cries a little. He yells at the voice of Jean in his head a little. And he takes off his glasses and zaps the water. A hole forms, Jean rises, they kiss, strange lines appear on Scott's face, and it looks like the life is being sucked out of him.
Professor Xavier sends Storm and Wolverine to find Scott. Instead, they find Jean and a pair of red Ray-Bans.
Oh, somewhere in there, Mystique was captured and a "cure" for mutants was announced. That's important because it allows Magneto, along with Pyro, to gather an army of mutants. Magneto sets out to rescue her. This scene has him standing in the middle of the road, crushing cars and flinging them away. Pretty awesome. It also has Mystique getting shot with the "cure" and abandoned by Magneto, but he does rescue Juggernaut (a crappy character, no matter what) and Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man.
By then it's revealed that Xavier had blocked off portions of Jeans mind, which severely limited her power and created a second personality which calls itself Phoenix. (This, I thought was cool because Xavier has fucked with everyone's minds in the comics, closing off portions for some, opening portions for other, or planting false memories for everyone. It's just too bad an earlier film hadn't mentioned this, even in passing, it would have been more effective then that the blocks he made were breaking down.)
Jean eventually wakes up and decides to make out with Wolverine, who is into it at first, but changes his mind for some reason. Jean asks him to kill her before she kills again. He says no and shows her Scott's glasses. Jean goes nuts, disintegrates the glasses, throws Wolverine across the room, and runs to her childhood home.
The X-Men and Magneto's people all go there to convince her to be on their side. Xavier upsets Jean, who throws Magneto across the room and uses her brain to lift Xavier out of his chair. Wolverine and Storm get their asses kicked. Jean disintegrates Professor X. And another of my favorite X-characters is killed.
Jean goes with Magneto and his crew to the woods.
Somewhere in there, Rogue sees her boyfriend, Bobby "Iceman" Drake, ice skating with Kitty Pride on the fountain in the yard and decides to go get the cure so she can finally touch her man, proving that Rogue believe that the only way to keep a man faithful is by putting out. Also, Angel escapes from the cure and flies from San Francisco to New York. (Later, he flies from NY to SF, almost as fast as the X-Men's jet can fly.)
There's a cool scene where Jamie Madrox becomes a whole camp of mutants to screw with the government.
Wolverine goes by himself, to once again reinforce that he's loner, to save Jean. He fights a guy who throws pointy bones. He kills the guy who throws pointy bones. Magneto throws Wolvie against a tree. Magneto throws Wolvie across the forest. Wolvie limps his way back to the mansion to ask for help to save Jean.
Magneto, literally, takes the Golden Gate Bridge to Alcatraz. It was very nice of him to lay one end of the bridge on the peninsula so the US army could get across later in the movie.
Magneto sends his "pawns" in and they all get shot with the cure.
Some mutant, I couldn't tell if it was a guy or a girl, claps his or her hands and destroys the guns. The army guys get scared. The X-Men (although I hate calling them that without Cyclops there) arrive and fight. Storm gets to beat up the chick who beat her up earlier. Wolverine uses his claws on lots of people, but never seems to get them bloody. Beast bounces, throws bad guys, and partially quotes Churchill. Kitty runs away from Juggernaut. Iceman makes a wall of ice. And Colossus does stuff, but I don't remember him being shown much. (I guess he was too expensive to show all the time.)
After a long, wall crushing chase, Kitty saves the mutant who is the cure by having Juggernaut run into a wall. Yeah, it's stupid.
Iceman fights Pyro and finally ices up to... head butt the guy.
Colossus hurls Wolverine, in a "fastball special," at Magneto, who stops Wolvie in mid air and pontificates a bit. Beast jumps up from behind and pokes Magneto with the cure.
Jean goes even crazier and starts disintegrating all the people who didn't have speaking parts.
Kitty appears with the cure kid and no one thinks that if they can get him close to Jean, she'll stop turning people to dust.
Everyone runs across the bridge to the peninsula, except for Wolverine and Jean and all the dead people.
Wolverine gets close to her, trying to talk to her so she'll stop being crazy. She doesn't stop and she can't disintegrate him as fast as his body regenerates. He gets close to her, stabs her in the stomach, she dies, and he cries.
There are three headstones in the lawn at the mansion, which doesn't creep any of the kids out, right? Storm hugs the cure kid. Rogue is back, touches Bobby's hand and kisses him.
Magneto is sitting in a park at a chess board. He puts he had near a piece and it wiggles toward his hand. He smiles. The movie ends.

First, in my opinion, a story about the Dark Phoenix doesn't work if the audience hasn't seen the Phoenix be good. If the Jean had come back with all the power of the Phoenix and help the X-Men and slowly go insane until she becomes the Dark Phoenix it would have much more impact on the audience. There's a reason Claremont and Byrne set the original story of the Phoenix up that way: They knew what they were doing.

Second, did anyone really believe that Wolverine loved Jean as much as or more than Scott? Scott was the one who loved her, openly, in the last two movies. Scott was the one broken-up over her death. Scott was the one who found her at the lake. He should have been the one to hear Xavier's mental block story. He should have been the one who tried to rescue her in the forest. He should have been the one to kill her in the end to provide the most emotional impact. Instead, he was killed off screen. Just thrown away.

The best thing about this movie was Kelsy Grammer as Beast, it's just too bad he's not that important to the movie. (Sure, Ian McKellen was fun, again, as Magneto, but there were points where he seemed bored with what he was doing.) I knew when I'd first read about him being cast that he'd be wonderful. He has a voice that sounds kind and intelligent, just like the voice of Beast I hear in my head. With Grammer as Beast I could see the joy Hank McCoy got out of reading a book, visiting with old friends, or ripping enemies apart. He was the only character who brought a smile to my face. Hearing him say, "Oh my stars and garters!" made me grin from ear to ear. I did have two problems with him, though. (Neither had to do with the actor.) The first was the lack of a furry face. Without the furry face he looks too human, not beastly enough. It shouldn't have to have long hair, like they put on his body, but hair that looks like a freshly buzzed head, where it's less than a half inch long. That, I think, would have made his make-up perfect. The second problem was not showing him being acrobatic in any way. Yeah, the first shot of the guy is him hanging upside-down reading in his office, but it would have been cooler if he had been told his meeting was delayed a few minutes and he said, "Fine, that gives me some time to catch up on my [pretentious Russian author]." Then he grabs the book, bounces off the wall, flips, and grabs on to the ceiling with his bare feet. And the fight at the end would have been a lot more fun to watch if he had been more talkative and less beastly.

The movie has lots of missed opportunities like those:
We didn't get to see the whole Sentinel.
Iceman only sprays a mist to freeze things; he doesn't make anything with his ice. Why couldn't he have thrown an icicle? And he ices himself up only to head butt Pyro? What was that about? Why not have him ice up as he steps out to duel with Pyro? Pyro mocks Bobby, Bobby ices up, Pyro take a moment and realizes that he has some respect for his enemy. It would have been ten seconds of screen time that lets the fanboys drool and give Pyro some characterization. The characterization actually fits because at one point Magneto explained to Pyro that he had a deep respect for Xavier, even though they worked differently.
Speaking of Pyro, he only throws fireballs. Where is his artistic flair? In the first movie he made something out of his flame for Rogue; I think it was a flower. I'd have liked to see him using his control over flame to amuse himself and others when he wasn't fighting. But that would be considered more characterization, which was forbidden in this movie.
Where was the Phoenix raptor? I thought it would appear at the end just before Jean was killed by Wolverine. I was waiting for her to be surrounded by the giant flaming bird.
And then there’s the end, which I think would have been better if Magneto was sitting at his chess board and human Mystic walks over, and sits down. Magneto looks up at her. Her eyes change back to the Mystic yellow and the skin surrounding the eyes turns blue then change back to normal. She smiles. He smiles. The movie ends.

So, there you go. I hope I've ruined it for everyone.

If you're no longer interested in seeing the movie, I say you should do one of two things:
1) Do as my brother is doing, save the money and put it toward a ticket to see Superman Returns in 3D at IMAX.
Or 2) Go see Art School Confidential instead. It may not be as good as Ghost World but it's a damn good movie.

Superman Returns

I've been listening to clips of music from the new Superman movie.

It sounds wonderful.

Which worries me.

Why? (Someone out there must be asking that question.)

It worries me because I don't want to get too excited and expect too much out of this movie. Like I did for Star Wars.

When the original Star Wars trilogy was put back into theaters as the special edition, it was amazing, for me at least. I had spent most of my life watching and re-watching those three movies with my brother on a video tape that was wearing out, but still played. Sitting in the dark theater, seeing the words "A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away", and then hearing the fanfare gave me chills. I never thought I'd see these movies on the big screen. It was everything I'd hoped for. (Except for the Jabba scene, which I did my best to ignore.) Later, I found out that the prequels were being made and I thought that there would be a new Star Wars for my generation. There wasn't though. In general, the prequels sucked and that moment of euphoria I felt seeing the original was gone.

When I saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire last November, the euphoria returned. I heard Jor-El offering his son advice. I heard a play on John Williams's original score. I saw the greatest superhero of them all hanging over the Earth, watching and then streaking off to save someone. I had the chills again.

I've never gotten to see Superman on the big screen. I wish Warner Bros. had sent it to the theater when they released the DVD. I would have been there just to see him catch the helicopter and to hear Lois say, "You've got me. Who's got you?"

I hope the new one is worth it. I hope it's everything I want it to be and more.

Saturday the 27th

I woke up at about seven. I rolled over so I wasn't facing the window and thought that I should really sleep more because it was my brother's birthday and I was going to The City with him and his friends and my other brother to see a band and there was no way I would get back to my apartment before the early morning hours.

I didn't fall asleep, though. I just lay there thinking that I should sleep more and questioned the existence of a God who wouldn't allow me to sleep a few more hours so I'd be relatively lively for the music.

Eventually, I rolled out of bed, pulled on some clothes, and stumbled out to turn on the TV and toast some waffles for breakfast.

The waffles were decent eating. I smeared them with peanut butter and drown them in fake maple syrup. (I think I've written it before, but to have a body like mine, you have to work for it. Most people think you can get one just by sitting, but there's work involved. Somedays I worke hard.) I don't remember what was on TV at first, but eventually I found Kill Bill vol. 1 and vol. 2 shown back to back and watched those. Excellent.

I left for The City at two-something because I was taking the bus from here to there. It's a long ride, but adding in the toll for the bridge, gas, and parking, I save at least five dollars, more depending on where I park. Plus, I don't get lost as easily on my feet as I do in my car. (I once drove into The City and circled it for three hours getting more and more lost. Eventually, I saw the sign that pointed me on my way out of town and I escaped. That's why I don't drive in The City anymore.) Along with saving money, I left so early, since the music didn’t start until nine, because I was meeting Heels, Johnny Logic, and their baby (who Heels calls peanut in real life, not piglet like she did in her blog in the pre-birth time) at Heels's sister's place (her sister and her sister's son were also there, so I guess I was meeting them, too) for dinner. The plan was to meet at six, but Heels told me that they'd probably be finished with the zoo and back at the apartment around five; so I aimed for five.

I did pretty well, too. I think I got there ten or fifteen minutes after the hour. Thirty or so minutes later all of us were on our way to Thai. And it was good Thai, too. (For those who are curious, it's near the corner of 40th Ave and Taraval Street. I have no idea what its name is, but it's with the trip to Sunset.) I had faith that it would be good from the moment we ordered because I've found that the Thai places that are only so-so warn you when you order something spicy. ("It's spicy." "Yeah, I know. I saw the little pepper next to the name. I like spicy." "But it's really, really spicy. Are you sure you want it?" "It's fucking Thai food! It should be spicy! Yes I'm sure I want it!") I got no warning at this place and by the second bite, my nose was running and my eyes were watering, but that's what happens when you eat huge chunks of red pepper. Yummy! And the breaded and fried yams were simply scrumptious.

Eventually, we finished and headed back to the apartment where we talked, watched weird internet videos, and laughed.

I warned the baby about the dangers of playing Risk with his parents. I don't think he understood, but I think that the earlier he hears about it, the better. Plus, the one time he does convince them to play the game with him and things go... wrong, I can say I warned him. (No, I'm not that cruel, I plan on warning him when he's old enough to actually understand what I'm saying.) It's not that his parents are evil when it comes to playing Risk, it's just that when it comes to the ethics in the game, they don't see eye to eye on what's ethical: one plays the game more like it's the real world and the other plays it more like and idealized world. The one time I played the game with them reinforced why I had making non-aggression pacts with other players, just like the real word, betrayal comes around eventually.

Anyway, I thought we were having a good time and was surprised to look at the clock on the wall and see that it was after nine. Heels's sister told me the easiest way to use the public transportation to get to the club.

I got there about quarter to ten. My brother and his friends and my other brother weren't there yet, but that was okay. He told me that they were all meeting at one of his friend's apartments at nine and planned on getting to the club around ten.

A three piece band (one guitar, a drummer, and a piano) was playing. They sounded a lot like the B-52s, but more rocky. (Now, of course, I have the "Rock Lobster" running through my head. That's the way it is with the B-52s, isn't it? Just think of the name and one of their songs traps itself into an endless loop in your head. Not that it's a bad thing.) I liked 'em. I wish I could have heard more of them, but I only heard three or four songs before they left the stage. That was a little after ten.

The lights came up and I could see the place better. It was small, very small. The stage barely fit the three people who were carefully disassembling their equipment. I think there were about twenty people then and, to me, the place already felt crowded. And it started to get hot. There were also two TVs and a projector that showed the band while they were playing. I didn't, and still don't, understand the need for these, the place was so small that you could see the stage fine from almost anywhere.

My brother and his friends and my other brother showed up about twenty minutes later, which was about ten minutes before the next band started playing. I gave him his gift (Robot Chicken) and was reintroduced to many of his friends.

The second band was made up of two guitars and the drummer. This band's music was very punk, but the girls weren't dressed very punk. I liked them. Their biggest problem was the long pauses between songs, even though they had a play list taped to one of the mic stands.

At one point, I turned to my brother, who wasn't celebrating his birthday, and asked him if he missed bass guitars as much as I did. He did, and he said he also missed it when having two guitars on stage meant one played lead and one played rhythm. I agreed with him about that. I hoped the next band wouldn't have those problems, but they did.

Watusi Zombi was their name and from Japan they came. The make-up of this band was like the last, except they were guys. They started the first song with a sound that reminded me of Radiohead and then blasted their way into a Slayer sound and flopped back and forth for a while. That was awesome. The problem was that each song was structured that way and, to my ears at least, got boring. Although I did really like one of the songs, it was either three from the end or two from the end, by that point I stopped paying attention to the transitions between songs. They ended the set by moving the drum kit off the stage into the audience and giving the drummer a solo. The two guitarists joined him there kinda dancing and kinda playing. Most people seemed to think this was the greatest. Me? I thought it was like bad sex: there was movement and noise and even though the climax lasted a decent amount of time, it was ultimately a weak one that was totally unfulfilling. I think I'm in the extreme minority, though. (Probably a minority of one.)

The final band of the evening was the one I came to see: The Dead Hensons. This is a band that covers songs from Sesame Street and The Muppet Show. They were both amazing and a disappointment. Amazing because they played all sorts of wonderful songs that I haven't heard in a long time. When was the last time you heard the classic "We All Live in a Capital I"? I bet it's been a while. Disappointing because the eight members didn't really fit on stage (especially the guy who plays trombone), there were several minutes between each song, and most of them seemed to have a bit too much to drink. They sounded great, though.

My brother who celebrates his birthday later in the year left before the set was over, I think at about 12:45. I should have left with him. When I started to think that the show was almost over, I pulled out my bus schedule to see what time I had to be at the stop. 1 AM. I pulled out my watch, it was 1:15. The next bus? 6 AM. Shit.

The music ended twenty or so minutes later. I hopped in a cab with some of the others and we rode to the apartment building they all met at earlier in the day. We took the long ride up the elevator and sat around talking for a while. (We also watched internet thing (which had the caption "Oh, internet, you've done it again.") that shows one dog screwing the other and as the one on top pulls out it vomits, then it reverses itself so you see the vomit fly up into the dogs mouth and the humping begins again. Very odd.) Eventually, they all decided that they wanted to sleep.

At that point, 2:30 I think, I figured sleep wouldn't really help me because I was ready to get out of the city and back to my place. I walked with my brother and his friend to his friend's car so she could get her sleeping gear and walked them back to the apartment building. We parted there. They went back in and I started walking down town.

I saw bodies in doorways covered with blankets and/or sleeping bags. I saw a couple on a corner shooting up. I was offered pot, twice, and crack and a diamond bracelet. Some guy on the other side of the street tried to get my attention by calling me "fatty" and "fat boy." I saw a girl with her hands down the front of a guy's pants while he was on the phone shouting, "I need you to tell whoever has my keys to get them to me! I gotta get in, man!" I couldn't blame him for being eager.

A little after four, I made it to my destination, an all night diner that's not Denny's, but may as well be. I had some water and pancakes and read my book for the next hour. When I was through I walked to the buses earliest stop, which picked up at 5:45. I tried to read some more, buy I was tired and my eyes wouldn't focus properly. I listened to music, instead.

The bus was on time. For as long as I can remember, I haven't slept well in moving vehicles, but I dozed. I'd hear the beginning of a song, drift off, and come back for the end. I did this for two and a halfish hours.

I opened the door to my apartment sometime after 8:30, but it still wasn't nine. I dropped my bag on the floor in front of the door and pulled my shoes off, throwing them into the kitchen. As I stumbled toward my bed, I stripped off my clothes. I climbed into bed and pulled the covers up over my eyes, there was too much light coming through the blinds.

A Couple of Things

I'm letting you know that I have next Monday off and want to remind you that I don't have the internet at my apartment. There can be no new post, of any kind, from me until Tuesday.

In other news, it's been two weeks since I e-mailed you (you know who you are); do I have to get someone to force you to write back? Or do I have to start all over again by drastically changing the subject?

*sigh*

Some Stuff Off My Mind. Beware.

A week or so ago, the writer of one of the blogs on my daily crawl asked her readers how personal they get in their own blogs. She asked that because she had recently decided to break one of her blogging rules. She posted a picture of herself. In reading her blog for the past... several months, I'm pretty sure that she uses her real first name and posts pictures of the place where she lives; she had never posted a picture of herself before that one day; and she doesn't post the real names of people she knows. (At least I don't think she posts the real names. Maybe she has and I just haven't noticed.) (Oh, you won't find her linked to the right. I don't really feel comfortable linking to the blogs of people I don't know without their permission, and I don't like writing to people who I don't know to ask. It's a strange system which really won't lead to a growth in links. Oh, well.)

This got me thinking about my blogging taboos. I don't use my real name, although I know I've used it a few times, once to find pictures of other people. I don't use the real names of anyone who isn't me; I use acronyms with no explanation instead. I don't post pictures of my real self, but I did, once, when I got my glasses, which seems like a long time ago now. I don't post pictures of other people, ever. I don't explicitly state what city/town I live in, but I think, for the most part, there are plenty of clues (like links to newspaper articles) if you know this state well enough, especially for Cowcity.

I guess my taboos are about honesty through anonymity, which is ironic because nearly everyone who reads this is someone I know personally; someone I've eaten a meal with; and, in many cases, someone I've seen drunk.

So, why the need to be anonymous?
I'm not sure.

The thinking about blogging taboos started me thinking about blogging purpose. (Which was another question that the blogger from the first paragraph wanted answered, but I didn't think about it at first. I had to get through that thought process first.) Since I don't do anything that would upset or disturb the people who created me (and, aside from the occasional "fuck" or "shit" placed in posts, wouldn't upset the people who created my parents), I try to use my blog to let the people I know and who know me know what I'm doing. (I think I used "know" too many times in too short a span in that last sentence, don't you?) Usually, that means bitching about work since that's all I do. (Okay, it's not all I do. I do watch too much TV, go to the occasional movie, very rarely see a play (although I think plays may be the most magical thing I'll ever be able to experience in my life), read books, and read lots of comic only me and one of my brothers care about. I doubt many of you would find me rambling about those sorts of things all the time very interesting.) So, I guess my blog accomplishes what I set out to do, sort of.

See, I don't always post how I'm feeling. Usually, when I'm not feeling very good, I either post something that is lightly informative that isn't about me, something funny to throw people off, or nothing at all. (It's there, if you're willing to cruise the archives, but I'm pretty sure that I'm the only person who does that.) Me being depressed and writing about it does disturb and upset family members, which I don't want to do. The worst thing is that the family members who get disturbed or upset about those posts don't contact me, they contact my parents. (To my knowledge, this has only happened once because after I was told about it, I began some major censoring. My mom told me about letters and phone calls suggesting that I go see someone for help. She was told that there are pills out there that may help me. One person asked her if I may be diabetic which could cause my mood to swing so low. The one time I was actually confronted in person by a relative about some depressing posts, I smiled and played it off as a joke, even though they weren't. I didn't want to be lectured and it was at Easter, which is always one of my best days and I didn't want to ruin it for me or him by having to explain why I always fall into a funk when spring starts.) My posting tends to be like me in real life, I've found that no matter how I feel, if I put a smile on, people just assume everything is okay. Blogging that way is even easier because I don't have to worry about if you can see how the smile isn't really reaching my eyes. People reading really have to assume that what I'm writing is what I mean and how I really feel.

Sure, I'll occasionally write something with real emotion behind it. (Read the post I made about why I'm not a Democrat anymore. Even more, check out the conversation between Johnny Logic and myself. I was hoping there would be more just to give me more of an opportunity to vent, but it was not to be.) But that emotion is usually anger or frustration. (There's at least one that's me being afraid, but I don't think anyone but me knows about it.) I'm not really an angry guy, but I am often frustrated. I'm more sad than people know. The stupid things that happen in the world make me sad, especially when I know I can't do anything about them, which seems to be all the time. I like to laugh as much as I can; I'm one of the few people I know who will laugh at the TV when I'm the only one there; more than once I've been in a movie theater and the only one guffawing at the action. I don't think I put enough of those things in my blog. I should. I'm not sure how to do that though. Wouldn't that make my already too random blog even more random?

Which lead me to my next thought, should a blog be more coherent or topic related? I look at the ones that I read a lot or stumble upon, and most people seem to be much more focused than I am. Even the ones to the right on this page seem to have more focus than mine. Heels has really become about being a new mother. Johnny Logic, although not much recently, has always had an underlying desire to discuss computational philosophy (I think that's what it's called. It's something that has to do with theoretical machines and the logic used to create the machines and some of the possibilities of using these logic machines in computers to increase processing and creating artificial intelligence, I think. I could be wrong. I've had him explain it to me before and I go away thinking I understand what's going on, but I don't have the basic knowledge to safely build to the peaks he's reaching for without having them collapse. Does that make sense?) as well as keep his friends and family informed a bit, but some of the searches that have led people to his blog, in the past at least, had to do with the philosophy thing. The green apron monkey used to be, almost exclusively, about his working at 'Bucks, after he quit, he hasn't posted much. Slackbastard used to be about slowly killing yourself with booze (and drugs, but he didn't post about the drugs much, even though it was, and probably still is, a big part of his life). SuziFitz is my mom and she writes about her life, but also about making beads because beads are the whole reason she started her website. JustLetMeRead is green apron monkey's sister, she was friends with my youngest brother, she writes about general mish-mash of things, but she's pretty funny. Altered Ego and Purplehobbit are my brothers, they write a general mish-mash too...

I've gotten off topic.

Really, my thought on focusing ones blog down to a more specific topic probably increases readership. I know that the only people who read this stuff on a semi-regular basis are people I know. Most of the time, I'm okay with that. Some days, I do dream of gain Wil Wheaton sized readership, but I know that's not going to ever happen. Maybe just a little bump in the numbers of readers. Someone accidentally stumbles on my blog and finds it interesting enough to come back. I don't think that's happened, though. No new lurkers here, that I know about at least. Which, like I wrote before, is something I'm usually okay with. But, honestly, who, occasionally, doesn't think of being well known by much of the public? Who hasn't imagined people hanging off your every word and waiting with bated breath for the next post, or speech, or whatever? I think that one way do that, or come closer to doing that would be to focus to a more specific blog topic. That'd let you find a group of people interested in that one thing who like the way you write about it and spread the word, or it'd make it easier for the search engines to hit your blog (as long as Congress votes correctly on Net Neutrality, that is).

I'm not going to change the way this blog is, though. If I did, it wouldn't be mine anymore. I'm not a specific topic kind of guy. To put it in ultra-geek, if I were forced to be a class in Dungeons and Dragons, I'd be a bard because they are (or were, I'm not up on the 3rd edition or the edition 3.5 rules) the only class that isn't a really a specialization. They play music and tell stories. They can cast spells. They have thieving skills. They're decent fighters. A Bard is, to coin a phrase, a jack of all trades. (Which sort of makes them useless in game play.) I'm a bard in that I don't want to specialize and become so specific that that's all I'm good at. (Does that make sense?) I find myself wanting to go to school to continue with the 3D animation I started with when I moved to Cowcity, but I also want to go to a culinary school and learn how to do all the fancy cooking, but I also want to just be settled and done with all that schooling. Those things don't really jive, do they?

I don't know what I'm doing. Period. (Funny?)

My life hasn't turned out anything like I thought it would from when I was little. When I thought that sitcoms and movies were fairly accurate reflections of life. When I thought hard workers and nice guys ended up with the good job and the right girl. I learned pretty early on that that isn't true, but I still wish it were or that I still believe it. That's not life at all, though, the hard workers are really only rewarded with more work while the assholes get by and the nice guys are all thought of as gay until they shave their heads, get a leather jacket, and learn to say mean things to women. (Those may be generalizations that aren't really true, but they feel true. As Stephen Colbert might allow me to say, those generalizations are full of truthiness.) At least, in the end we're all the same: dead. Death is the one thing we all work toward without even trying.

You want to know something that's sort of contradictory? I don't like to lie, but I don't like worrying people. Rarely are those two things exclusive. So, I have to ask: is it a lie if you don't tell everything?

My favorite answer, really the only answer I give, to the question "How are you?" is "Okay." I like "okay" because it covers from "I'm feeling the best I've ever felt!" to "This is the shittiest day of my life, but I'm alive." The best part is that the listener is the one who interprets what "okay" means. The listener gets to decide if "okay" means "better than the best person ever" or "I may as well be dead" or what ever is in between the two. Rarely does a listener want to interperate "okay" in a negative way. So, is it a lie?

I'm not sure, but I know I say "okay" a lot when I mean "Well, I'm still alive."

I keep thinking about times when I go out. Of which there aren't many.

I also keep thinking about an old friend who supposedly lives in the city and works somewhere near the park. I don't know if it's true. I sometimes think that I should take a day and just wander around that area hoping to see her or dropping into the stores and asking for her. I doubt I will, but I'd really like to see her and speak with her again. I trusted her and, although she may not have completely trusted me, it'd be good just to visit. Well, good for me. The last time I saw her, it seemed like I was part of her past that she didn't want to revisit. Is possible for two old friends to become friends again without the past getting in the way? I'm not sure.

---

Okay, that's it for me. If you actually waded through all that, why?

Summer Movies

I'll admit to looking forward quite a bit to Superman later this summer. (Enough to seriously consider the midnight showing.)

And even though the early reviewers of X-Men seem to think it's offensive garbage, I'll be seeing that this weekend.

The movie I'm really excited about, though, is A Prairie Home Companion. (Check out its trailer here.) It has an amazing cast and Robert Altman (with some help, so the rumors say, from Paul Thomas Anderson) it'll either be deliriously good or the best disaster of the summer.

I can't wait.

Wednesday, Purpleday

On Wednesdays, to show solidarity, our union suggests that all members wear purple.

There are two colors I hate wearing, yellow and purple. (I suppose that sort of makes sense since they are complimentary colors.) Having them covering a large portion of my body makes me uncomfortable, for some reason.

Out in the regular world, I like yellow and purple. I lived in a house that was painted yellow. I lived in a room that was painted a light purple. (I was in fifth grade. I wanted my room painted a color other than white. My parents didn't have any money and neither did I. There was a can of free purple paint my mom could get from school. We added semi-gloss white that was left-over from when my parents painted the inside of the house three years before. My mom and I painted my room. C'est la vie.) Those two things never bothered me. I just don't like wearing them.

I wore the damn purple shirt when I went to Cowcity for the rally. I did it to try to be a part of the experience. As soon as the rally was over, I pulled the shirt off and changed back into what I was wearing before.

Which brings us back to the beginning. It's Wednesday and the ladies in the office who support the union are wearing purple. (Some wear purple regular clothes and some wear the free purple t-shirts the union hands out.)

I am not.

Each Wednesday I'm asked where my purple is.

Each Wednesday I say I don't like wearing purple.

This has been going on since last November.

SOL

Right now, I'm reading a document sent in by a lawyer. It's trying to argue something about Statute of Limitations and calls them SOL everywhere except for the first sentence. I can't help reading that as "shit out of luck," which really hurts the argument.

"Asprin Commercials Give Me Headaches."

Yesterday, I woke up with a headache.

One of those headaches that wakes you up before 6AM on a Sunday and won't let you go back to sleep.

One of those headaches that throbs and with each throb you get more and more nauseous.

One of those headaches that hurt so much that you lay in bed and seriously consider peeing there rather than walking to the bathroom because any moving will only make your head hurt worse.

Eventually, I got up and out because I'd rather be in pain than wallowing in my own waste.

After the bathroom, I dragged my feet to the room with the TV, settled down on some pillows and watched the CBS Sunday Morning show. (The only morning show that I can stand watching even when my head is fine. P.S. The website sucks. I was hoping that it would have a simple elegance to it, like the show does. Instead, it just looks like every other CBS News site.) I watched it from start to finish without recording it first. I don't think I've ever done that before.

I don't remember much. Stuff sold at Target. Some weird boxy houses. A toilet. Cute puppies.

The website says the show was about design. I don't understand how the puppies fit into design, but the other stuff makes sense.

I don't remember moving for the entire hour and a half of the show. I probably shifted my body from time to time, but I didn't get up. I tried to not move my head.

After the show ended, I remember that my mom gave me some super pills just in case I got a headache of horrendous caliber.

I pulled myself up and staggered around my apartment looking for the bag I brought with me the last time I visited Cowtown. I knew that that was where the pills were.

I searched for what seemed like an hour, but was really about ten minutes before I, literally, stumbled over the bag. In the little pocket without a hole, I found the handful of pills my mom gave me, wrapped carefully in pairs by the company. I grabbed one serving of the pills and lurched toward the kitchen for water so I could swallow my little chemical saviors.

I gulped down water and pills and once again settled myself in front of the TV. This time, I watched my bootleg Daria.

By the end of the third episode, I was feeling better. My head still hurt, but very lightly. I no longer felt nauseous. I could function.

I just thought you all might like to know all that.

"Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)"

You ever have a moment where a song that you've heard all you life and you've enjoyed suddenly becomes... new?

As I was walking to work this morning, trying out a new route, "Norwegian Wood" started to play and I was captivated. It was the second song I heard after leaving my apartments, and the only song I played on the rest of the way to work.

I've heard this song all my life. Rubber Soul is probably my favorite of the Beatles's albums. I've always enjoyed the melody and clever rhyme scheme of the song. But when I heard it earlier, there was something... more.

I'm not exactly sure what the more is, but it made the song have a physical impact on me. Like I was hit in the stomach.

Huh?

How would you react when a coworker asks you if you knew he and his wife were separated and are getting a divorce? Keep in mind that you don't know this coworker and he's actually in a totally different class than you; you work in a different area than he does (he has his own office and secretary); you don't hang out with him, ever; Oh, he also makes about four times as much money as you do. How would you react?

My reaction this morning (He told me as we were walking to work. He spotted me and hurried to catch up with me. I had changed the way I walk to work once so I wouldn't walk with him. I guess I'll have to do it again.) was just a blank look. I didn't know what to say.

I didn't want to say that it was horrible new. What if it's good for him and his wife and his kids?

I didn't want to be sarcastic and say that it was lovely news. What if he didn't catch the sarcasm?

I he had been paying attention to me, he may have realized that the look on my face was all about trying to figure out what to say.

"Did you know my wife and I are separated?" he asked.

"No," I said.

And I didn't know. I tried my best to stay out of the non-work-related gossip while I worked at 'Bucks. It was hard, there, because there are so many younger employees who like to shout their relationship woes from the Frap bar. Here, there's no effort involved in staying out of it. I see a group of whispering women; I turn around and scoot out in a hurry. The less I know about these people, the better.

"Oh," he said, sounding surprised, which struck me as odd because why would he expect me to know such a thing. "Well, we're separated and getting divorced." Then he went on about... well... I don't know what. I was still trying to figure out what my reaction should have been.

Maybe it'll help you to know what we were talking about before the divorce came up.

I was walking down the street, listening to music, when I heard my name from behind me. I, foolishly, turned around and saw... I'll call him JWSC. He smiled at me and asked me what I was listening to.

I pulled my usual dodge and said, "Anything, really: music, comedy, poetry, radio shows, whatever." (I was listening to the trailer for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Tertiary Phase at that moment. Because it's funny, people.)

"Oh, do you have Sirius?" he asked, smiling again.

"No," I said, "just my 'Pod."

"Ah," he said, still smiling. "Do you use iTunes?"

"No," I said, "it all comes from my CDs, CDs I scammed from my dad, and music I pulled from my old roommate's computer."

"Oh," he said, frowning quickly and then smiling again.

"Besides," I said, "I don't have the internet at my apartment."

"Yeah," he said, his smile sagging a bit, "I know what you mean." That's when he said, "Did you know my wife and I are separated?"

How's that for a seeming non-sequitur? (I say seeming because he eventually found a way to connect the internet to his impending divorce.)

And that's why I didn't know how I should have reacted. I still don't know, for that matter.

On a different note, here's a cropping of a picture one of my brothers sent to our mother for Mother's Day:

I'll be back tomorrow somewhere between the beginning of work and the end.

'Night.

Norma Rae, I Am Not

As I crouched over to change the paper in the (dot matrix) printer, my supervisor asked, "So, ahhh, have you guys voted yet? You know, to strike? The union strike thing?"

"No," I said. "I don't think the ballots go out until the end of the month."

"Oh," she said. "Well, ahhh, I just wanted you to, ahhh, know that I... don't strike. Ever. My, ahhh, husband and I are... strike breakers."

I was about to say that she had nothing to worry about because she's part of a different union when she said, "It happened, ahhh, when my husband was working for a car... dealership. There were these... horrible letters. They, ahhh, threatened my husband. My house, they... came to my house and, ahhh, threatened my kids."

I stood up to adjust the paper in the printer.

"Unions are... just evil, ahhh, things."

I rolled my eyes and asked her how to reset the printer, even though I know how, but it stopped her talking. Thank goodness for that.

---

I don't know much about the strike or how the vote works.

I do know that on Saturday, there's a meeting somewhere in town to "discuss" the ballot and the potential strike.

Supposedly, if the union does decide to strike, it'll be a rolling strike. That means that only certain groups of employees in certain cities will be out on the line, not everyone in the union.

Supposedly, my office won't be affected since it's very small, compared to almost all the others (I can only think of two that are smaller.) and, adding together all the people who are in this union in the building, the number isn't very large.

Sill, I'm worried that if the strike is approved that my office will eventually be called upon to strike. I think this because the governor wants to be a hardliner, especially during his election year, and wants to look responsible by cutting pay to state employees.

If the strike does come here, I'm worried about how long it may last. I have the money saved right now to pay one month's rent and maybe my electric bill. Not my student loans. Not my car insurance. (Of course, I could pay the full amount of my insurance this month, but that'd leave me without enough to have that cushion of one months rent.) I'd be completely drained of cash.

Is it possible a strike could last that long? Yes. Is it probable? No. Isn't it better, though, to hope for the best and prepare for the worst?

Like all the other employees in this union, old and new, I'd like to see a contract that doesn't eliminate two holidays, force five furlough days, and make it so the employer pays a fixed amount for doctor visits rather than the percentage it pays now. Personally, I'd be happy with a contract that keeps me at the level I'm at, but I'm a newbie just trying to get away from working pay check to pay check. I'm not the single mother whose husband died last year. I'm not a newly wed trying to start a family.

I'm just a guy, you know?

So, I have no idea how I'll vote.

Policy?

So, the President is planning on sending the National Guard to "defend" the southern boarders of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas from the influx of immigrants, among other things. I have some questions.

First question: Who's going to pay for the National Guard moving into these states? Will it be the federal government, who made these plans, or the states, who I don't think actually asked for the National Guard to get involved? Will it be funded through the Boarder Patrol and give the nation an approximation of how much 6,000 new people in the Boarder Patrol will cost?

(Ultimately, I know, the people who pay are the people who aren't actually making big decisions, but there are a lot more people to spread the fee around to if all the tax payers in the nation are involved as opposed to the tax payers of four states.)

Second Question: Will the National Guard rotation now be one year Iraq, six month to work, one year boarder patrol, six months to work, one year Iraq?

Third Question: Why is it the job of the National Guard to keep people out of the country, but not evacuate cities in the path of a hurricane?

Fourth Question: How is creating a path for "illegal immigrants who have roots in our country and want to stay ... [by paying] a meaningful penalty for breaking the law, [by paying] their taxes, [by learning] English, and [by working] in a job for a number of years" not a form of amnesty?

Is it just because it will take several years to achieve and it has more steps than the general amnesty granted in the '70s?

Fifth Question: What, exactly, is a "temporary worker program" and will it extend to workers from any nation or just Mexico?

Sixth Question: Bush said, "We need to hold employers to account for the workers they hire." Yet he only spoke about making it easier to verify legal immigrants and harder for illegal immigrants to get phony documents. How is that holding employers accountable for hiring illegal immigrants? Doesn't it just make it easier for employers who like to hire illegal immigrants to find the cheap labor?

Shouldn't employers be held accountable through harsh fines or boards of directors being thrown in prison? Wouldn't that slow the hiring of illegal immigrants and, probably, slow the influx if illegal immigrants?

Seventh Question: What good will a "high tech" wall do? Allow us to count the number of people who enter illegally more accurately?

Eighth Question: Wasn't the Republican Party once for shrinking the size of the federal government and being financially responsible? What happened? (And saying "9/11 happened" won't work. All those men came to this country legally.)

Ninth Question: Isn't immigration policy just a convenient and easy way to rile up Congress and make it look like they're actually doing something constructive before the mid-term elections this November?

Tenth Question: Since this immigration thing is all about getting Republicans elected (or reelected), when is the Strategic Oil Reserve going to be tapped to make Republicans really popular?

Click this sentence for a transcript of the speech.

Sentences

Something light and airy is what's called for, right?

I don't have that in me.

Right now, I don't have much in me.

Except for the average human insides, that is.

We all share those, I think.

As usual, I should be looking for something to do that involves work, but I'd rather play Flow.

It's not that I think I'm wasting the State's time and money by playing games rather than working; it's that I'm wasting my time.

I'd rather waste my time away from work.

At least then, I'd waste my time reading something, watching something, sleeping, or walking.

Instead, I waste my time trying to look like I'm busy doing work so my supervisor doesn't "find" me something to do.

Several someones told me that I should write a story or a novel during my "down" time.

I don't have that in me right now.

Not here.

Not at my apartment.

The ability to create a world or words for an extended length of time just isn't in me.

When I was young(er) I thought that I did.

Maybe it's all about growing up.

Maybe it's all about confidence.

Maybe it's all about knowing your bliss.

Maybe it's about nothing at all.

Is No News Good News?

Would it surprise you to know that I don't follow the news anymore?

When I lived in Cowcity, I'd watch the network news (usually CBS because I like the way Dan Rather sounded, there's something soothing in his drawl) every evening. (There's something comforting in his voice.) I read The New York Times online to find out what had happened in the world and nation. When I was at work, I'd swipe a copy of The Sacramento Bee to keep up on what was going on in the state. In my car, I had the station tuned to NPR (except after midnight, because I didn't care for the SF based shows) so I could get some breaking national and international news every hour (or half hour, depending on the time of day) as well as hear their take on events.

When I moved back to Cowtown and lived with my parents, I had lost the TV, but continued with the Times. I rarely perused the local paper because it didn't do a very good job reporting state news. I still listened to NPR each time I got into my car.

During that time, I started to get sick of the news I was reading about or hearing. There were lots of reports on things to be afraid of. (Avian flu was the new SARs.) Neither state nor federal government seemed to be able to do things to actually help the people, well, anywhere. Stories were starting to break about Congressmen being corrupt. (Did that actually surprise anyone?) The Scooter Libby thing was underway. Wave after horrible wave of Iraq news washed over me. On and on it went.

About a month before I moved, I stopped checking out the Times. I just couldn't take the news anymore.

After Christmas, I quit listening to NPR, except for Fresh Air, Talk of the Nation: Science Friday, and A Prairie Home Companion, when I can.

All the news seemed so repetitive, so negative. Like it was trying to force to close my eyes, cover my ears, and stop thinking, just fear. I couldn't deal with that anymore.

So I quit the news. I know it's still out there. It's right at my fingertips at this moment, but I don't need it.

Today, I get all my news from comedy: The Onion, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, Real Time with Bill Maher, and Weekend Update. (The NBC site is really out of date.) It's not real and it's not substantial, but it's also not about making me afraid of living and next month, it'll only be The Onion.

I know that doing this to me is like sticking my head in the sand, but I can't care right now.

I'm sick of the fear that's thrust upon people.

Maybe, in a few months, I'll start looking at real news, but for now, I don't want to.

An Evening Story

Once upon a time, I was a political junkie.

It was, oddly enough, during the 2002 mid-term elections. I could have told you all the hotly contested seats in the house because I was hoping that some how the Democrats would be able to capture the house and delay or stall the, then, upcoming "war" in Iraq and Afghanistan. (I couldn't now, though.)

Daily, I was on the internet checking out The New York Times and CNN and even Fox News (to get a different perspective, I scoffed a lot in those days) to find out what was happening. I probably tracked the polls as closely as the DCCC, although I didn't have access to as many polls as they did.

I may have gone a little insane, but that was my business.

One thing I didn't do was get involved in the election in my district. That district is redder than the blood that pours onto the ground each day in a war. So, there was no reason. Besides, I'm not a people person.

In the end, the Democrats got crushed. I was crushed, but not surprised. I knew the runoff and spin and fear mongering after 9/11 would push the Republicans into office, but I was hoping that, for once, the public would vote with their hearts or head instead of their fear.

That was the day I decided not to be a Democrat anymore.

It didn't happen until this year, though.

I feel a little lighter because of it.

Monday, Monday, Monday. Been There.

First, I forgot to mention that I watched the entire debate between the Democratic candidates for governor here in California on Sunday. It made me happy that I'm not longer a Democrat.

* * *

Monday, I got in my car and drove to the shopping center with Rite Aid and Kragens to meet the bus to take us to Sacramento. Yes, the union supplied us with a bus. It's only fair since everyone who went had to take the day off from work.

There were probably about thirty people who got on the bus, here. We were all warned that we'd be making stops along the way to get workers from other towns.

We were supposed to stop and pick people up four times after leaving here. We only stopped twice. The second stop, at a place that I got a call to interview at the same day I was offered this job I now sit at, had seven people. The third had enough to fill all but two seats on the bus (minus the four that held the coolers with fruit and snacks and water). A wise man decided that our bus shouldn't make anymore stops and should just head on to Cowcity.

We arrived at our destination an hour and a half early. Joy.

I signed in, got a shirt and a cowbell, and did some wandering. Nothing extensive. I've been there before. If I knew where Jess worked, I might have tried to visit her, but I have no idea if she even works near the capital anymore. (The last I heard, though, she worked in the treasury department. One of the idiots at the debate is the treasurer of the state, for those who didn't know.)

After an hour of wandering, I made my way back to the grassy area and stood in the crowd. A lady stepped up to the mic and announced a bad made up of state workers and they started to sing folk and protest songs. The crowd started to get energized.

The energy grew quickly when it actually hit noon and the speakers started.

To me, being there was a lot like being at a sporting event. The energy of the crowd builds in cheers and other noised every once in a while releasing pressure with a united holler in glory or boo in agony.

I could feel the energy all around me and watched as it flowed through the other people, pumping newcomers into the same bizarre frenzy the others were in.

It didn't infect me, though. Sure, I waved my bell at the appropriate time and booed when the governor's name was mentioned, but I didn't feel it like the others did.

I knew going into the rally that it was all a PR stunt, but I was hoping for something real. All I heard were sound bites carefully crafted to be played on the news and written into newspaper stories. There was nothing of substance presented. And there was very little news coverage.

The union estimates 5000 people showed up. The Sac Bee estimates 2000. Whatever the number was, the question on my mind is: Was it enough that the governor and his bargaining group take threats of a strike seriously enough to not cut pay, force furlough days, and increase our co-pay rate?

I don't think it was.

PS Governor Arnie was in SF raising money that day. Is anyone surprised he wasn't actually doing the job he was elected to do?

I Was Right.

Last week, I posted that I thought Cassidy "Beaver" Casablancas was the person who crashed the bus. I can't believe that I was right. I'm usually way off. Although, he turned out to be a much bigger creep than I ever could have imagined.

I can't say that I was happy that I was right.

I liked Beaver.

Too bad his brother is stupid. I'd have like to see Dick Jr. take a dive.

Weekend

Friday, after work, I went to see the final show in the Josh Kornbluth's Red Diaper Trilogy, three one man shows. Here's a quick rundown:
Red Diaper Baby: Both of Josh's parents are communists. His dad wants him to lead the American communist revolution.
The Mathematics of Change: Josh goes to college as a math major and gets run over by calculus.
And Ben Franklin: Unplugged: Josh discovers he looks like Ben Franklin and is told he can make money at it.

My thoughts:
Red Diaper Baby: Really, really funny. Too bad it ends on a tone that's nothing like the tone of the rest of the piece; the theme is totally different, too. That sort of ruined it for me.
The Mathematics of Change: My favorite. It's funny. I suppose anything that has a human get mouse cancer is funny though. It ends on a different tone than it started with, but the theme is still there.
And Ben Franklin: Unplugged: Not as funny as the first. Not as meaningful, to me, as the second. I enjoyed it.

* * *

When I got back from the show, I pulled my mail from its cubby thing and found a check in it for me from my car insurance company. It seems that Proposition 103 has actually been put into effect. (Well, not into effect, exactly, but a lawsuit has been filed against some companies.) Now, I'm richer than I was a week ago. (You may applaud, if you wish.) Before Friday, I had never considered that a law passed in 1988 would earn me some extra cash today. I was only nine when the law passed. I didn't have my license for another ten years.

Thank you, weird universe, for punishing my insurance company.

* * *

Saturday, I did something, but I can't remember what.

* * *

Sunday, I made some kick ass ribs, drove around this city here, got some new comics, and watched the last disc of the first season of Bewitched.

* * *

Yesterday, I went to Cowcity to a union rally. It was interesting, but I don't think anything was accomplished. I've got to get going, so I may write more about this tomorrow.

GROW Answers

Since no one asked me not to, here they are.

Grow
Cube
Ball
Ladder
Egg
Hills
Pipe
Propeller
Tornado
Widget
Coaster
Plate
TV

Grow RPG
Village
Tree
Castle
Water
Tower
Rock
Chest
Stairs

Grow Cube
Person
Water
Plants
Pot
Tube
Fire
Plate
Bone
Spring or Ball
Ball or Spring

Grow Ornament
Present
Cloud
Heart
Light
Ribbon
Star

Has Anyone, Besides My Mother and Brother, Enjoyed the GROW Games?

I've been trying to write something here for the last hour. I don't just want to post a link to some other page (I know that I have done that before, but it's usually to something that I really like. See the GROW stuff.) or the text of a song copy and pasted because I don't think I can express how I'm feeling and what I'm thinking in my own words. I want to cover new ground or at least ground that's interesting to the few people I know who read this silly little site on a semi-regular basis. I try to do that every time I write.

Today I can't.

I don't know why.

Little thoughts flitted through my head that I thought would make a good post. I tried. I wrote a sentence and then nothing for most of them. One time, I wrote a whole five sentences, but I couldn't go on after that. So I hit backspace and decided to start over again each time.

I don't know how many times I restarted. Six? Seven? I can't be sure.

What did I even want to write about? I don't know anymore.

I have a horrible idea of how to get enough troops into the armed forces that Iraq may actually become secure and Osama bin'Ladan may be caught, without resorting to a draft, but the idea has probably been floated out there and was deemed to frightening.

I have an idea of how to slow the deterioration of Social Security without raising taxes (for now) or privatizing it, but it's an idea that's been out there for a while and it's an idea that the people in government will never use.

I have an idea to help improve California's school system without raising taxes (since raising taxes in this state is nearly impossible), but most of the people in power would never go for it because their scared of losing their jobs.

I don't think any of my ideas are new. I know that one of them was talked about on the news a couple of years ago as a theory, but that was all. I also know that, in the real world, what I think and any ideas I may have really don't matter.

From My MySpace Blog

Four

I got another bullshit bulliten:

WHY AGE DOESNT MATTER!!

[1.] Age is nothing but a number.
[2.] You fall in love wit a person for who they are not their age.
[3.] Age doesn't describe who you are.
[4.] Love isn't a certain age.
[5.] You can't really control who you fall in love with cause their age is the last thing on your mind [[cause when your in love you don't think]]
[6.] If you still think age is important, Romeo was 17 and Juliet was 14.

[1.] Age is more than a number: it's the way you feel. I may be 27 according to my bio on the front page of this MySpace thing, but I sure don't feel that age. I feel 65. That's just me; maybe you feel younger than your age. I don't really care.
[2.] First, it's "with" not "wit." Wit is either something to do with a person's intelligence/sense of humor or it's a wonderful play/movie, depending on how you see it. Second, we hope love has nothing to do with age (Of course there's NAMBLA, but we want to ignore that, right?), but love is rarely a problem between people. Lust is the problem and most people lust after certain ages. (Once again, there's NAMBLA.)
[3.] Yeah, it does, more and more. Once upon a time, there were three groups: babies, children and adults. Eventually, there came to be six groups: babies, toddlers, children, teenagers, adults, and seniors. Today there are too many to list, but I'll do my best: babies, toddlers, preschoolers, school-agers, pre-tweens, tweens (AKA middle schoolers), pre-driving teens, teens, college age, drinking age, post-college age, semi-adult, adult, early middle age, middle age, late middle age, pre-retirement age, retirement age, senior, and so-fucking-old-why-aren't-you-dead-yet age. It seems to me that the longer we go on, the more we try to label age groups with labels that seem more specific, but the less people there are who actually fit the description, but they try to fit it anyway.
[4.] "Love is timeless," right? Wrong. Love comes and goes. It growes and fades. Sometimes it lasts for a while; sometimes it's over in less than a day. Deal with it.
[5.] Okay, this one makes me think the whole thing was written by a member of NAMBLA or it was written by Brian Doyle. Creepy.
[6.] Romeo and Juliet are fiction! Up until the 1960s film, they were always played by people in their twenties or older. Maybe back in the 1600s Juliet was played by someone under the age of sixteen, but she was played by a guy (GASP!). PS if you think Romeo and Juliet is about love, you're fucking fooling yourself.

Damnit, wake up to the bullshit being thrown around this place. Don't send it as a bulletin just because you want it to be true. Don't send it around just because you're one of the younger people who feel "trapped" because you can't do all the stuff you see your "heroes" do on TV. Eventually, as long as you don't do something too stupid, you'll get there and discover that it's all pretty overrated, no matter what it looks like on the idiot box.

Book and Mars

So, I'm reading this book, House of Leaves, and it's just plain weird, but really good at the same time. I'm not that far into it (Only about 100 pages, more if you count the forward, I guess.), but the book is built like a textbook for school. I don't just mean it has lots of pages, but that's in the shape of one two. And the text, for the most part, goes from almost one side of the page to the other, which makes it hard to read, which I'm pretty sure was the point. The book is built to be difficult to read. There are pages and pages taken up by footnotes written by the guy "editing" the book mixed in with the regular text. Really weird. And I'm still not to the pages with Braille on them, or the pages that are in columns, or the pages that look like they were taken from an actual text book, or the pages with text on a slant and in the corner of the page, or the pages with music on them. Oh, and the word "house" is always printed in blue in my edition. (On the page where the copy write information is shown, it says that there's a full color edition that has all the struck words in red (except in chapter XXI, where they're in purple) and the Braille can be felt. How cool, but expensive, would that be to have.)

Anyway, it's a weird book. My brother got it for me for my birthday and I didn't start reading it until last Thursday, I think. When he gave it to me, he said that the first time he heard of it was when his old roommate was reading it and got freaked out. He got so freaked out that he went to my brother's room and asked if he could hang out there for a while because he didn't want to be alone.

Just thought I'd share that with all of you.

Watched Veronica Mars last night. (If you didn't, shame on you! You're one of the people who will get it cancelled before its time!) This morning, I thought:

Wouldn't it be horrible if Cassidy "Beaver" Casablancas was the person behind the bus crash? He was probably molested by Woody. It's not too much of a stretch to guess that he was the third person on the recording in Woody's e-mail, the voice that was erased. He was in the limo following the bus. He's smart enough to find out how to build a bomb, or get someone else to do it for him. (His brother did hang out with Lucky, and Kendal is a psycho of a step mom.)

The question, then, goes to his motive.

The other voice was erased off the message probably because that person was trying to convince the others not to out Woody. Why? Because that third person doesn't want to be dragged around by the cops and asked about being molested by Woody, which would happen to anyone who could be found from all the teams Woody coached over the years, as well as all the bat boys for the Sharks.

Cassidy seems to be pretty sensitive about anything that has to do with sex. I don't think he'd want to be forced to talk about it. I'm sure that he doesn't want his brother or father to find out, either; they already think he's girly enough.

If that seems like enough of a motive, then is Cassidy capable of killing?

I'm not sure. He pulled a pretty nasty trick on Dick when he hired the transvestite, but that certainly isn't the same as killing.

I'm not saying that Cassidy Casablancas is the killer (I don't want him to be. I like him.), but, to me, he's a strong possibility, even if it seems that the evidence is pointing to Woody Goodman.

If you didn't understand that, I'd recommend buying the DVDs when they come out this summer, or at least putting them into your NetFlix que when they get there. The show's damn good.

Cowtales?

I headed up to Cowtown this weekend to get the hell away from here. Here as in The Bay Area. I could have gone into The City or visited my brother in The East Bay, but it simply wouldn't have been enough.

It was a nice trip. There were cats to pet, parents to visit with, and a birthday celebration to go to. I really wasn't expecting the celebration, but it was there and so was I. Who was it for? Why it was for Green Apron Monkey. Also in attendance was The Girl (as Green Apron Monkey calls her in his blog, although Slackbastard once told me that she had a Jennifer Tilly-esque voice, so I always think of her as Jennifer), Johnny Logic, Heels, the person formerly known as JustLetMeRead (now simply known as her name), . . .

(I just watched the new Superman trailer, twice. Cool. Very cool.)

. . . and the Heels-Logic spawn (there were others who I still don't know, although I think I knew the brother of one of them), who was actually as well behaved (non-fussy?) as Heels says he is, which surprised me. Not because I think Heels is a liar, it's just that I have found, in my limited experience, most parents think their babies (and children) are well behaved, but they're wrong.

Last night, I finally watched the Battlestar Galactica miniseries. I was only going to watch the first half, but by the end of that one, I had to watch the second half. Can I simply say, "WOW!"? I remember reading some of the gossip about it as it was being made. Cast members said to skip it and stick with the original. I guess they just didn't get what they were making at the time. For those of you who like science fiction and haven't seen this stuff, watch it. For those of you who hated the original, watch this version. For those of you who like good military and political show, watch it. For those of you who just plain old like good TV, watch this show. It's simply outstanding.

The rest of the episodes are quite excellent, too, but it's always best to start at the very beginning, right?