A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

"We just like to dance in our goatskin pants
Around this ancient ruin"

She Who Shall Not Be Named hasn't been on the gluten-free part of her GFCF diet for some time, and hasn't shown any ill effects because of it. It's taken a lot of pressure off of us, obviously, and she's enjoying eating tater tots and bread that doesn't taste like sawdust.

We're still buying Glutino brand pretzels (at $7 a bag, he added ruefully), because SWSNBN really likes them, and they're actually pretty damn good. They're made in Israel (which will come into play later) and have nearly the same consistency and taste as the regular kind. And like most of her other remaining specialty foods (coconut milk ice cream), we can get them at just about any of the larger grocery stores, so that's not a problem.

What *is* a problem, and one the price tag makes even more annoying, is the annoying tendency the foil bag has of tearing all the way down the side. Nine times out of ten, I have to dump everything into a jumbo sized Ziploc, or try to chip clip the thing without leaving a pretzel sized hole. Now, as life issues go, it's a minor annoyance. I mention it here because of the exchange it prompted yesterday:

Me: Son of a bitch.
The Wife: What?
Me: This [hold up torn Glutino bag]. They can make one of the most reliable submachine guns in the world, but they can't design a bag that won't rip apart like a wet paper towel.
TW:...the Germans?
Me: *sigh* The Israelis.
TW: Ah. You realize that was probably two different people, right?
Me: Just get me a Ziploc.

The real reason I wanted to annoy you with all of this was to post a clip of the exchange between Joe Friday (Dan Aykroyd) and Rev. Whirley (Christopher Plummer) in Dragnet '87. You know, where Friday tells the Reverend he's up against the finest fighting force ever assembled, and he says, "The Israelis?" But I couldn't find it, so here's the "Dragnet rap instead. I'm sure Tom Hanks loves that this is out there.

Great movie. Seadogs and I learned the whole dance and everything.

Maybe now she'll read my script for the sequel to Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone

Meet my new soulmate, Molly Ringwald:

Molly Ringwald isn't logging much sleep these days -- and she couldn't be more delighted about it.

"You get up with one of the babies and feed and change that one and get the baby back to sleep, and the other wakes up, and then you feed and change that one," the star of '80s classics "Pretty in Pink" and "Sixteen Candles" says of her nocturnal routine since the July 10 arrival of her twin son and daughter, Roman Stylianos and Adele Georgiana.

"It is exhausting, but it's wonderful," the actress, 41, tells PEOPLE in its new issue.

The twins join big sister Mathilda, 5 ½, and dad Panio Gianopoulos, 34, whom Ringwald married in 2007.

Does she correct others' pronunciation of their last name in the same snotty way she smacked down John Bender with "Molière?" Because that would be totally hot.

And what's that? She has a 5 ½-year old daughter? I have a 5 ½-year old daughter? She just had twins? I just had twins?* And to think, I always preferred Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club.

Though I guess nobody told her about getting them on the same schedule ASAFP.

*Note: I did not actually have the twins.

"I knew Monty couldn't take Caen in D+1...or D+10 for that matter."

Here it's T+8, and the twins are doing well. They're managing about 3 1/2 to 4 hours between feedings, meaning The Wife and I aren't going completely insane just yet. The bilirubin scores have been a little high for the pediatrician's liking (though still short of actual jaundice), so it's been lots of window time for them. We're becoming better acquainted with the neighborhood dogs, and with the occasional neighborhood pedestrians who decide for some reason or another to cut through our front yard.

I'm also - unfortunately - getting caught up on my share of bad TV. You know, every year I find myself saying, "This is the worst show I've ever seen" (I think last time it was in reference to The Cougar), and 2009 is no exception. My sister is in town to help out with the babies, meaning we deferred to her viewing choice and watched Wipeout tonight. Jesus jumped-up Christ...my synapses haven't slowed down that much since I inadvertently let She Who Shall Not Be Named watched two episodes of The Wiggles in a row.

Tale of the Tape, Pts 2 and 3

As some of you probably already know, the twins arrived last Tuesday, July 7. Stats are as follows:

Twin "A" - Weight: 5 lbs, 4.8 oz Length: 19"

Twin "B" - Weight: 5 lbs, 4.8 oz Length: 19"

Yep, identical in everything but actually being identical. "A" has a dimple in her chin, like The Wife, while "B" doesn't. "A" resembles The Wife's side of the family, while "B" looks a lot like mine, and like She Who Shall Not Be Named.

An aside: I hate referring to them as "A" and "B", so from here on out, "A" is Oracle and "B" is Black Canary.

Anyway, we aren't one to second guess doctors, but The Wife is pretty confident she could've gone another week. Considering that would've been 38, her doc can perhaps be forgiven for being a little squirrely about the idea (full term for twins is 36 weeks).

Distinct personality traits are emerging: Oracle is easily comforted by the pacifier, and is prone to hiccups and jet propelled feces. Black Canary is a snuggler, and easily quieted in the crook of your arm. She spent most of last night next to me in the bed.

They're going about 3.5-4 hours between feedings. We're doing our best to get them on the same schedule, and last night both went from about 2:30 to 6:30 without much fuss. Feeding is coming along (there was a gap in milk production, probably thanks to them not letting The Wife eat or drink anything for 36 hours), and both the girls are champ eaters.

Anyway, pics will be emailed to anyone who requests them, either here or at my Gmail address in the sidebar. Trust me, we're pretty much going to be sheltering in place for the next month or so.

"...and I got my cake."

It's June 21, and we're hopefully still a little over two weeks from the arrival of Hecate and Kali (The Wife will be plenty doped up when it's time to sign the birth certificates). There was a bit of worry earlier this month when the doctor said the fluid levels had dropped, but a week of forced couch rest and plenty of water and we're back on track.

I haven't been writing as much as I'd normally like, for what I hope are obvious reasons (I did find time to make some completely pulled-out-of-my-ass box office predictions about the rest of the summer blockbusters at Hair Balls). In a perfect world, there would've been a Worst Movie Dads entry on Friday, but it completely slipped my mind. The short list included Jack Torrance, Dad Meiks (Frailty), and Bill Maplewood (Happiness). Those are pretty standard choices, however, so I'd probably have to throw in Daniel Hillard (Mrs. Doubtfire), because lifelong trauma caused by a cross-dressing father has to count for something.

I'm sure my kids will attest to that in a few years.

Given The Wife's delicate condition, Father's Day here is a little subdued. She got tickets for m and her dad to go the Pirates-Astros game a couple weeks back, and she let me sleep in, even though "breakfast at Frank's" became "Mommy's going back to sleep for a couple hours." She still needs to stay off her feet, so we'll be continuing the summer weekend tradition of Dad taking She Who Shall Not Be Named to the pool for a couple hours, then meeting up with the Father-In-Law for dinner. Would I like to sit on my ass, watching baseball/Deadliest Catch marathons and drinking beer all day? Hell yes, but it's obvious that the best gift I can get at this point is two healthy, full-tern daughters (a magic wand to cure SWSNBN most likely isn't in the cards).

That doesn't mean I'm not going to slip the wedding band off when I take SWSNBN to the grocery store later and try to score some sympathy digits. Certain things are expected of me, after all.

Happy Father's Day, everyone. And Dad, when I call you later, please try to refrain from gloating about the goddamn weather in Maine. I promise to return the favor in January.

"The new phone book's here!"

I didn't get all Navin Johnson-y when Fark linked to my Hair Balls list of the Top Five "Summer Blockbuster" Duds, because I didn't find out about it until two or three days after the fact. Clearly I'm not spending enough time on the internet.

My favorite part is the way the commenters assume I was writing aboutall-time box office bombs then branch off into spirited defenses of The Last Action Hero, which is noble and all...except it wasn't even on the list. As you can see below.

-----

That thud you heard last weekend was Will Ferrell's career settling noisy back to earth. With a budget estimated at over $100 million, Land of the Lost was supposed to propogate the 2009 summer blockbuster season (handily inaugurated by the new Star Trek) and continue Ferrell's successful box office run.

Surprisingly, American audiences seem to have tired of well-meaning doofuses who run into things and holler a lot, even when you throw in a T-rex. Ferrell, however, can assuage his hurt feelings with the millions of dollars already stuffing his California king mattress, and the knowledge that plenty of other would-be summer blockbusters didn't quite meet financial expectations either.

5. Stealth (2005)
Budget: $138,000,000
Domestic Gross: $31,704,416

Stealth proves the old adage that there's no movie so bad that it can't be made worse by an expensive explosion sequence and nu-metal sountrack. Jamie Foxx, who won the Academy Award for Ray a year earlier, can at least commiserate with Renée Zellweger and Halle Berry about their post-Oscar career choices.

4. Catwoman (2004)
Budget: $100,000,000
Domestic Gross: $40,202,379

Speaking of Halle Berry, she may want to consider sticking to ensemble superhero movies from here on out. Already the weakest link in the X-Men films, she actually played chicken with the 20th Century Fox over getting Storm more screen time...and won. To celebrate, she went on to make a Catwoman movie with no connection to the Batman universe where the titular character dresses like an extra from a Winger video.

3. Battlefield Earth (2000)
Budget:$73,000,000
Domestic Gross: $21,471,685

It can certainly be argued that no one was expecting a filmed adaptaion of L. Ron hubbard's thoroughly ludicrous sci-fi "epic" to break the bank. Scientologists, apparently, felt they'd done their part in buying multiple copies of the book (the better to deceive various bestseller lists) that they didn't have to pursue similar tactics at theaters. Books can be shelved unread, after all; buying a ticket means you might actually have to sit through two hours of a dreadlocked Travolta shrieking about "man animals."

2. Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997)
Budget: $110,000,000
Domestic Gross: $48,608,066

It's impossible to ignore the laugh value of this Keanu-less sequel, especially when seeing all the comedy movie shout-outs in this scene, where the ill-fated ship cruises inexorably out of control into the harbor. I personally spotted Al Czervik's runaway yacht from Caddyshack, the finale of Airplane, and the boat jump in Live and Let Die.

1. The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002)
Budget: $100,000,000
Domestic Budget: $4,411,102

How often does Eddie Murphy dream longingly about the years 1982 to 1988 -- when his résumé listed movies like Beverly Hills Cop and Trading Places -- only to wake up to the horrible reality that is the last 20 years? Does he call Steve Martin for a sympathetic shoulder to cry on? And should vast amounts of government funding be set aside to research this descent into suckitude that seems to afflict all comedic actors? Will Ferrell may depend on it.

Ouch

I'm at a local big box store the other day, picking up the dresser and changing table we ordered. This girl - and I console myself by observing that she was 19, tops - processes my order and prints out the necessary documents for me to sign, which I do. Whereupon she speaks:

"So, these for your grandbaby?"

Remember that scene in "Homer and Apu," when Apu moves in with the Simpsons after losing his job and Marge asks him if he wants to go with her to the Kwik-E-Mart to get milk for Maggie and he knocks over the cans of corn in despair? Well, that's sort of what I did, except I was signing my name and my neat if somewhat illegible autograph was interrupted by a long, jagged line.

"Uh, no...they're actually for my kids. Twins, in fact."
"...Oh."

She had to wheel the stuff out to the van, which was an awkward slog. She may have muttered something about her grandmother having gray hair too, which helped. Really. What helped even more was getting home and resting these tired old bones. Land's sakes, I don't rightly get around like I used to.

A college ex-girlfriend of mine used to get on me about dyeing my hair (one of the many reasons for the "ex" part). Times like that make me think maybe I should've listened to her instead of just engaging in frequent and noisy intercourse.

Maybe not. But really, it's great to be thought of as 20 years older than you really are. I can't wait for the first time I'm out with The Wife and somebody refers to her as my daughter.

"This house is [not] clear."

Good Morning America is usually loaded to the gills with eye-opening stories about what kind of salad to serve during Labor Day and firmer buns in 30 days and gee doesn't Diane Sawyer look hot for an older lady, but yesterday they actually reported on something I wasn't really aware of. Namely, the dangers of pet doors in homes with small children.

Of course, this isn't about that, but rather the conversation between myself and The Wife that preceded it:

Still Hot Diane Sawyer: Next up, a household danger that most families have never planned for.
Pete: Poltergeists?
The Wife: Pet doors.
Pete: Ah.
The Wife: I suppose poltergeists are something you would plan for.
Pete: I have planned for them.
The Wife: Okay.
Pete Take a rope if you go into the hall closet.

I hate Good Morning America.

Ann C. Bolin - 1924 - 2008

So you may have heard that hurricane Ike caused some...issues for my family. We were all in Florida when Ike actually made landfall, happily missing out on the ensuing treefall and only returning the following Tuesday to start the arduous cleanup. What unfortunately fell through the cracks in the subsequent months was an explanation of why we were in Florida in the first place: to visit my (maternal) grandmother, who passed away the week before Ike hit. Great month.

My earliest memories of Grandmom were sitting on her lap at the family's house on Lake Lotawana, reading the Sunday funnies. Me trying to sound out "Good grief" while she smoked and offered encouragement. I'm not editorializing. Not just because I smoked (for far too long), but because it was, in a way, emblematic of her personality: she was stubborn, and probably the last person I knew over the age of 40 who still had the habit.

But she was open, singularly intelligent, and refreshingly free of cant. The Wife and I were there shortly after my grandfather's passing, and fielding a telemarketer's call, Grandmom's only words were, "Sorry. He's dead." Always honest, she became brutally (and hilariously) so in her later years. Every conversation contained new observations about long-gone relations as well as pretty much anybody who hove into view. I assume she liked me and The Wife, because even people in her immediate vicinity were rarely spared.

She came from money (the movie Mr. and Mrs. Bridge was based on the Kansas City social circles in which her family traveled), and never really cared about it. If you showed an interest in any of her numerous first edition books, she'd insist you take it. And when you demurred, saying you could easily get a cheap paperback version at Barnes & Noble, she'd express amazement that you'd spend money to buy the book again.

Grandmom was also one of the smartest people I've ever met. She was a Bryn Mawr grad, but met Granddad during WWII and married him. I always had questions about her college days: What ambitions did she have? Had she ever considered the post-graduate work she once mentioned? Is it true what they say about Mount Holyoke girls?

And to paraphrase Warren Zevon, she was one of the best friends my writing ever had. She encouraged my halting attempts to get my shit together in that regard for years, always offering advice without blowing smoke up my ass. One incident stands out, however: I had contacted a somewhat famous cousin of ours, who has achieved a decent measure of success with his novels, and asked for suggestions on getting a foot in the door. His response, in short, was to tell me what a "lonely pursuit" writing was, and to give up if I wasn't willing to sacrifice everything, including family and other forms of employment. Grandmom, in a letter I will save until my dying day, acidly pointed out the cousin in question was a trust fund baby who'd never had a family or day job and was essentially lonely because nobody - including most of his own family - could stand to be around him.

We'd planned last September's Florida trip several months in advance. Grandmom has lived on her own in Ft. Myers for many years, but shortly after our last visit in 2004 (literally, the day we left), she fell and broke her ankle, limiting her already not-so-great mobility. The following summer, when three major hurricanes hit her part of Florida, led to her finally relenting to my mother's and uncles' insistence that she move into a facility where people could keep an eye on her. Unfortunately, and again I'm thinking of Zevon, a lifetime spent smoking, drinking, and avoiding doctors finally caught up with her. She went rapidly downhill last summer, and though my mother and I bumped our flights up a day to try and get to Tampa before she passed, we ended up landing about an hour too late.

Thanks to Ike-related crapola and the ongoing SWSNBN saga, I've been negligent in getting this entry up. I regret that, especially because Grandmom wasn't one for procrastination (except when it came to doctors, I guess). Mom and my uncles went down last weekend to spread her ashes in the Gulf, so I guess this is as good a time as any to say, I miss you Grandmom. You were never anything but straightforward and supportive, and I think you'd have been a great role model for my daughters.

Well, except for the smoking.

Stop the presses

I've been writing for Hair Balls, the Houston Press blog, for a little less than a year now. It's been fun, and they've been remarkably permissive in allowing me to write about pretty much any stupid thing that pops into my head.

One of my latest stupid ideas was attending WrestleMania XXV. Happily, their permissiveness also extends to the print edition, and I actually have a column in this week's paper (page 11, if you feel like picking up a copy...and you live in Houston).

Anyway, here's the link. Hopefully you'll enjoy the Hornswoggle/Kobe Bryant comparison.

"Isn't it interesting how the left - or sinister - twin is invariably the evil one?"

Having met with such great success in the Name That Dog challenge (after all that, they went with..."Milo") and having nothing else entertaining to offer this week, I figured I'd throw the same question out with regards to my own impending offspring. Namely, what should we name them?

We went through this little exercise before, but matters this time around are complicated by their sheer numbers and the difficulty everyone will have in topping suggestions like "Dejah Thoris" (like there's a chance in hell of that) or "Merlena."

As a reminder, they're twin girls (fraternal) and allegedly mine, but don't hold that against them. We already have one name locked down and are about 75% sure on the other, but that doesn't mean another monikier couldn't emerge as a favorite, depending on how much more sleep deprived The Wife gets, or how doped-up she is following delivery.

Oh, and we've already shot down "Cagney and Lacey," "Betty and Veronica," and - for the Bond aficionados - "May Day" or "Bambi and Thumper."

"Drugs?"

The other night I was watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off for the first time in, oh, fifteen years and it holds up reasonably well. Though I must say, the passage of time and my own parenthood has made me sympathize less with the rich, suburban twerp and more with embattled principal Ed Rooney, who wants nothing more than to wrest control of his school from the little shit with the Cabaret Voltaire posters and shower mohawk.

And Cameron is a creepy bastard.

But I digress. The important thing about the movie, and indeed all things, is how it relates to me. To make a long story short, I was hit on by a young lady at the UT Honors Colloquium in 1986 solely because I reminded her of Charlie Sheen's character from the movie. Which is to say, this guy:

Ah, the hair, the leather jacket, the creepy sexual predator gaze...yes, this is what got me the 80s ladies. Though in all fairness, the woman in question proved to be a person of otherwise impeccable tastes who ended up being a friend who reads this blog on occasion and I should probably just shut the hell up.

Anyway...Ferris Bueller...decent flick. Maybe I'll rewatch it in 2024 when I've completely morphed into Ferris' dad.

In da house

Nearly six months and tens of thousands of (insurance) dollars of repairs later, we finally moved back into the ole homestead last weekend. Let's take a stroll down memory lane, shall we?

This, as you'll recall, was She Who Shall Not Be Named's room immediately following Ike:

And here it is today:

And then there was our room:

Months later...

It's good to be back. I fired up Smogdor tonight and grilled a few steaks. It was comforting to discover that while our cool neighbors moved to Amarillo back in August (thereby significantly diminishing their coolness quotient), their replacements also have an annoying dog that barks at me when I'm in my own. Fucking. Yard.

SWSNBN is glad to be reunited with her playroom and her Backyard Expenso-Gym, the middle bedroom is bring prepared for the arrival of the Wonder Twins, and The Wife and I are just glad to be paying a mortgage on a property we're actually living in. All the same, I'd be remiss if I didn't give my regards to the apartment complex where we spent the last 5.5 months...

+ So long you tramp-stamped bimbos and gel-headed mooks comprising 75% of the apartment population - Watching your primitive courtship rituals around the pool probably cemented my daughter's need for therapy later in life.

+ Arrivederci to the poorer apartment complex across the bayou - I never tired of your firing bottle rockets at our building in the wee hours.

+ Farewell to the weird old single guy two doors down with the beagle - You proved that dog owners can be as creepy as their feline-friendly brethren.

+ Buh bye to the maintenance supervisor who looked eerily like Gordon Ramsey - He only cursed about half as much, though.

+ Adios to the apartment office staff - While helpful with the occasional question, you only confirmed the fact that 90% of the time you don't do shit.

+ Good riddance to the 11th Street Kroger - All the ambiance of a rural Stop-n-Go with half the selection.

+ Ciao to the call girls living at the end of our row - I'd say I'm sorry we didn't get better acquainted, but neither my marriage nor my bank account would've lasted very long.

+ Auf wiedersehen to the close-to-my-age couple a few units down that grilled once a week and were always keen to offer a drink - I'll actually miss you guys.

Good to be back. And just think, in a little less than three months I get to start freaking out all over again.

Forcing my hand

Fine...no comments on the porn conversation means I'm going to keep quoting incidents from my personal life until someone tells me to stop.

First, from this afternoon. The setting: Lowe's parking lot, where The Wife and I were picking our ceiling fans for the house (which we will be moving back into this weekend). Being With Child (or "embarazado" as I prefer to say), The Wife has cravings, specifically for Double Dave's pepperoni rolls. Yours truly was, naturally, dispatched post-haste.

Oh, she's also been annoyed with my insistence on running/working out while she gains weight. That comes into play as well.

Me: So how many do you want?
The Wife: Two, I guess.
Me: You guess? Do you want three?
TW: It's buy one/get one free day, getting three would be...stupid.
Me: So get four.
TW: Are you going to eat one?
Me: No (She Who Shall Not Be Named and I had already supped). Just get four and I'll eat one later.
TW: [eyes narrowing] You're going running tonight, aren't you?
Me: [mumbling] I was thinking about it.
TW: Then you will eat a GODDAMN PIZZA ROLL!

Her voice really carried across that parking lot, I tell you what.

Finally, tonight. I've been dicking around with writing a novel, and am constantly being prompted for updates.

The Wife: How's the book coming?
Me: Oh that, I gave up on that.
TW: You can't. You know why? Because I envisioned it, like in The Secret.
Me: The secret what?
TW: It says if you can envision something happening, it'll come to pass.
Me: Yeah, I think several million adolescent boys who masturbated to swimsuit models might take issue with that theory.

I can do this all day, kids.

"A girl's gotta have her standards."

This conversation came up last night while The Wife and I were discussing men she might leave me for, a discussion that occurs often enough to make me question marrying a woman who used to regale me with fun facts she learned in her Marital Property Law class.

The Wife: What was that guy's name you went to grad school with? With the glasses?
Me: That narrows it down.
TW: You went to hockey games with him.
Me: George [not his real name]?
TW: Yeah, he was cute.
Me: For a pervert, sure. The guy had an encyclopedic knowledge of pornography, and this was pre-internet.
TW: If it isn't illegal and doesn't affect me, what do I care what he looks at?
Me: Reeeaaallly...
TW: [hastily] As long as it isn't too weird.
Me: Aha. Define "weird."
TW: I don't know...tentacle stuff, bestiality...freaky shit.
Me: What about scat?
TW: Definitely not.
Me: I mean, being German it's kind of a cultural requirement.
TW: Nein.
Me: Okay, okay. Hey, remind me later that I need to delete my browser history.

I'd like to assure any grandparental units reading this that She Who Shall Not Be Named was safely upstairs playing put of earshot during this inappropriate exchange.

Hello Balls - 2/10/2009

It's great when Friday the 13th comes the same week as Valentine's Day, because not only do I get to do the expected V-Day blog entries for Hair Balls, I also have to whip up something about Mr. Voorhees. APCB traffic will therefore be a little light this week.

In the meantime, here's some of what I've been writing elsewhere.

Film Threat Reviews:

He's Just Not That Into You **1/2 - Ben Affleck looks like he got one of those tooth jobs a la Matt Dillon in There's Something About Mary.
Notorious *1/2 - I eagerly await Suge Knight's competing Tupac biopic.
Marley & Me *1/2 - Am I the only one horrified by a completely untrained dog repeatedly knocking over little kids?
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button **1/2 - Eric Roth takes another Gump on audiences.

Hair Balls:

For February: The Five Best Blaxploitation Epics (2/9/2009)
For Groundhog Day -- The Five Best Movie Rodents (2/2/2009)
The Five Best Super Bowl Movies (1/30/2009)
A New Werewolf Movie Is Out: Can It Stack Up With The Five Best? (1/26/2009)
"I Do Solemnly Swear": Five Best Swearing-In Scenes (1/20/2009)
The Five Worst Best (Recent) Pictures (1/19/2009)
As All Eyes Turn To Austin, We Present The Five Best Austin Movies (1/13/2009)
In Honor Of The Defunct Penthouse Club, The Five Best Strip Club Scenes (1/8/2009)
Top Five Movie New Year's Eve Parties (12/30/2008)
Five Worst Hangovers In The Movies (12/26/2008)
The Five Worst Christmas Parties In The Movies (12/17/2008)
Five Christmas Movies Guaranteed To Get Rid Of Unwanted Guests (12/16/2008)
In Memory Of Mr. Buck: Five Deer Who Fought Back (12/11/2009)

Jesus, I need to post updates a little more frequently. Older entries after the jump.

What History Tells Us: Five Black Presidents (11/6/2008)
Five Types of Horror Movies That Suck (10/31/2008)
Five Scariest Movie Moments You Probably Haven't Seen (10/31/2008)
The Five Worst Basketball Movies of All Time (10/29/2008)
Five Movie Presidents Worse Than W. (10/21/2008)
Ten Possible Reasons for the Cowboys Missing the Playoffs (10/15/2008)
Top Five Beatdowns in Houston Sports (10/9/2008)
The Disappearing Local Film Critic (10/9/2008)
NASA at 50: Five Bad Astronaut Movies (10/2/2008)
When Trees Attack: In Movies & Real Life (10/1/2008)
Houston on the TV: The Top Five (9/11/2008)
Slo-Mo Football Movie Finales: The Top Five (9/9/2008)
Top Five Houstonians as Hurricanes (8/29/2008)
The Top Five Ballsiest Actors from Texas (8/27/2008)
Texas Horror Movies: The Top Five (8/18/2008)
Houston Sports Movies: The Top Five (8/14/2008)
Chuck Norris Reaches Out And Touches: The Top Five (8/11/2008)
It's Freaking Hot - So Watch Some Cold Movies (8/7/2008)
Movies For Your Hurricane Party Tonight (8/4/2008)
A Wish List for Austin's Movie Memorabilia Sale (7/31/2008)
Hollywood Destroys Houston: The Top Five (7/30/2008)
Houston as a Movie Stand-In: The Top Five (7/22/2008)

"Let me give you my hairpiece."

Say it with a Middle Eastern space accent.

I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of. But despite juvenile assholery and a few barely dodged felonies, I seem to have acquired a group of undeservedly good friends. To wit:

1. Everybody who wished me well on the occasion of and/or came to my 40th birthday party. Especially TheDave, peenman, and seadogs, who flew in from both coasts to drink way too much with me for a weekend. I've known these guys for a combined total of 65 years, and I felt every minute of it on Monday.

2. Whichever one of you (and I have an idea) who read between the lines of my entry about Ike losses and realized how much I missed my Terminator poster. The replacement came in the mail about a week ago, and will have a place of honor in my new "man space," which at this rate will be the crawl space over the garage.

3. On a similar note, I can't thank my fellow Film Threat Aggravation Engineer Don enough for sending me a pair of what are arguably the baddest-ass shoes I've ever owned:

I won't be wearing these to pick up She Who Shall Not Be Named from school, but in any event...eat your heart out, Joni.

4. All of you who've sat through my endless Simpsons references and rants about, in no particular order, Wayne Dolcefino, the NLCS, movie audiences, Bush, The Wire, Ike, airline food, and how black people talk like this, but white people talk like this.

You people are all right. But don't worry; I'll be back to haranguing you for your terrible taste in...well, everything in a day or so.

And a one, and a two

I love
Waking up at two
Elbow deep in poo
Diapers without end
And twins:

Look at them there...mocking me.

So we're at the doctor's getting the first ultrasound a little over a month ago, and two of these sacs of impending bankruptcy kept showing up on the screen, almost like mirror images. I'm thinking I'm seeing some sort of electronic echo, so - innocently enough - I ask the guy why it "looks like" there are two of them. He looks at me like I'm the biggest fucking idiot to trod the earth and says, "Because you're having twins."

The first trimester is officially over, She Who Shall Not Be Named gets a couple of siblings of as-yet-undetermined gender in July, and yours truly is quaffing vodka (I'm drinking for three) and wondering how he's going to cram five people into an (almost repaired) 1600 square foot house.

I hear the Woodlands are nice.

EDIT: Thanks for the suggestions, but if I didn't take your advice when naming my freaking cat, why would I let you yahoos name my kids?

Chuck's long-ago suggestion of "Snake Plissken Vonder Haar" is the only one I've ever really lobbied for anyway.

EDIT 2: I live in Garden Oaks now, Seal. If you can find me a 4-5 bedroom of greater than 2000 sq ft for under $400,000 in Oak Forest (or GO, for that matter), I'm listening.

The...Blurst of Times - 2008

So I was contacted about a week ago by one of Hef's people, and he asked me if I ever did any modeling. Now I could point out a couple dozen things I'd change about my body, and so would you if you saw me naked, but they were insistent, so look for me in February's Playboy.

Okay, so it was really a guy from New York Magazine, and he actually just wanted my year-end "10 Worst" list. So here's the entry.

For those of you too lazy to click on the link, here's my list, minus the blatantly-poached-from-the-actual-reviews comments (it's alphabetical, so look for me between Sara Vilkomerson of the New York Observer and Armond White of the New York Press, who's apparently going for Edgy Asshole of the Year by naming Slumdog Millionaire, The Dark Knight, and Wall-E as his three worst). I'll point out that I don't see as many movies as I used to, so some worthy contenders (Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Seven Pounds) are missing.

1. Fool's Gold
2. Vantage Point
3. Drillbit Taylor
4. Street Kings
5. 88 Minutes
6. What Happens in Vegas...
7. You Don't Mess With the Zohan
8. Twilight
9. Marley & Me
10. Sex and the City

I may have been bolstering my own asshole quotient by including SatC, but there's no such thing as bad publicity.

"Snot boogie?"

While She Who Shall Not Be Named is awash in musical instruments, books, and enough new outfits to gag a goat, the Wife and I gave each other one biggish gift. I gave her a Squeezebox jambox that plays Pandora, Rhapsody, and internet radio, and she got me this:

Al I need now are 70+ uninterrupted hours to watch all 60 episodes plus extras. That shoudln't be too hard.

Pics or it didn't happen

I guess the acoustics aren't all that great in Melrose Place East, leading to the following conversation between The Wife and myself this weekend during my attempts to create a Christmas card on the computer.

The Wife: How's it going?
Me: Eh. I'm not going to get anything going with this photo software, I think I'll just use the Walgreens website.
TW: Can we get them today?
Me: Yeah. Oh, and I went ahead and joined Flickr so we can get the rest of these SWSNBN pics up for the family.
TW: Oh no. No you didn't.
Me: What?
TW: You're not a 12-year old girl, are you? Why would you sign up for a Twitter account?
Me: ...Not Twitter. Flickr. Flick. Er.
TW: Ah.
Me: Come on, even I have my limits.

Apologies to my dear friends who are Twitter users.

The upshot being, I now have a Flickr account I've pretty much restricted to friends and family. If you want to hook up, shoot me a line at my Gmail account.

Security deposits are at stake

How does one get yellow mustard out of a carpet? I've already Resolved the hell out of it, but that's just muted the color a bit and spread it around nice and evenly.

Maybe I'll try relish.

You're only as old as you feel

In that case, I'm screwed. Chronologically, however...well, I'll let John Eddie say it for me:

Well I guess I'm fucking 40
I can't say that I'm thrilled
I never dated Winona Ryder
And I probably never will

I did a quick inventory to commemorate some significant factoids at the onset of my fifth decade, and came up with a few hopefully not entirely boring tidbits:

Marriages: One
Children : [Roy Munson]One, that I know of[/Roy Munson]
Degrees earned: Two
Cars owned: Five
Pets: Four - one goldfish (Speedy), one dog (Cinder), one rabbit (Ash), one cat (Ripley)...all but the goldfish were black
Broken bones: Four
Dental fillings: One
Sexual partners: ...unchanged since 1993
Countries visited: 13...I think
Hemispheres visited: Northern
States visited: 37 and the District of Columbia
Criminal citations: One disturbing the peace complaint, one [purged from Williamson County police records], and numerous speeding tickets
Overnight hospital stays: One (ankle surgery in 1989)
Heads of state met: One (George H.W. Bush, 1992)
Visits to Las Vegas: Six
Visits to Los Angeles: One
Visits to NYC: None
Members of Soundgarden met: Two
John Grisham books read: 1/10 (started A Time to Kill, made it through about 50 pages)
Books written: Two
Books published: None

To usher in this new magnanimity, I'll address suggestions for further disclosure in the comments. At least until my 40th is over.

Still no book deal

To prove I'm still generating content - just not on APCB - here are some links to stuff I've written in the last few weeks.

Reviews

I haven't seen a lot of movies lately, thanks to the general insanity of the holiday season and a distinct lack of enthusiasm about most recent releases. To wit:

Twilight *1/2 - I'm no longer convinced "at least they're reading" is adequate when the books in question are as shitty as these.

Hair Balls - I've been a little more productive on this front (amazing what the promise of financial remuneration does for one's output). That said, I went a little apeshit on the whole "James Bond Week" theme:

The Top Five Bond Girl Names (11/10/2008)
The Top Five Henchmen (11/11/2008)
Best Five Non-Villain Deaths (11/12/2008)
Best Bond Villain Deaths (11/13/2008)
Five Best Bond Songs (11/14/2008)
Best Bond Villains (11/15/2008)
Best Bond Movies (11/16/2008)
How Quantum of Solace Stacks Up (11/17/2008)

I also did a couple of lists in "honor" of Twilight and Turkey Day:

The Five Worst Movie Vampires (11/21/2008)
Memorable Movie Thanksgivings (11/27/2008)

Finally, in response to those lousy Sam Houston Comcast commercials:

Top Five Commercials Featuring Political Figures (12/01/2008)

I do have some cool pics of She Who Shall Not Be Named on a zipline that I may have to post here.

Hello Balls - 11/6/2008

Now that the election's over, I think y'all have earned another serving of Hair Balls. Or at least the few entries I manage to bang out for them every couple of weeks.

What History Tells Us: Five Black Presidents (11/6/2008)
Five Types of Horror Movies That Suck (10/31/2008)
Five Scariest Movie Moments You Probably Haven't Seen (10/31/2008)
The Five Worst Basketball Movies of All Time (10/29/2008)
Five Movie Presidents Worse Than W. (10/21/2008)
Ten Possible Reasons for the Cowboys Missing the Playoffs (10/15/2008)

Older entries after the jump.

Top Five Beatdowns in Houston Sports (10/9/2008)
The Disappearing Local Film Critic (10/9/2008)
NASA at 50: Five Bad Astronaut Movies (10/2/2008)
When Trees Attack: In Movies & Real Life (10/1/2008)
Houston on the TV: The Top Five (9/11/2008)
Slo-Mo Football Movie Finales: The Top Five (9/9/2008)
Top Five Houstonians as Hurricanes (8/29/2008)
The Top Five Ballsiest Actors from Texas (8/27/2008)
Texas Horror Movies: The Top Five (8/18/2008)
Houston Sports Movies: The Top Five (8/14/2008)
Chuck Norris Reaches Out And Touches: The Top Five (8/11/2008)
It's Freaking Hot - So Watch Some Cold Movies (8/7/2008)
Movies For Your Hurricane Party Tonight (8/4/2008)
A Wish List for Austin's Movie Memorabilia Sale (7/31/2008)
Hollywood Destroys Houston: The Top Five (7/30/2008)
Houston as a Movie Stand-In: The Top Five (7/22/2008)

Digits

I lost my cell phone and, annoyingly, every number I saved in it for the last three years. If I had yours - and you probably know if I did - could you send it to me at my contact e-mail address? I promise a six-month moratorium on drunken texts.

Except for Don.

Hello Balls - 10/9/2008

Back from my Ike-induced hiatus, I present you with a fresh helping of Hair Balls, You can thank me later.

Top Five Beatdowns in Houston Sports (10/9/2008) - My first entry for the Press' sports blog.
The Disappearing Local Film Critic (10/9/2008)
NASA at 50: Five Bad Astronaut Movies (10/2/2008)
When Trees Attack: In Movies & Real Life (10/1/2008)
Houston on the TV: The Top Five (9/11/2008)

Older entries after the jump.

Top Five Houstonians as Hurricanes (8/29/2008)
The Top Five Ballsiest Actors from Texas (8/27/2008)
Texas Horror Movies: The Top Five (8/18/2008)
Houston Sports Movies: The Top Five (8/14/2008)
Chuck Norris Reaches Out And Touches: The Top Five (8/11/2008)
It's Freaking Hot - So Watch Some Cold Movies (8/7/2008)
Movies For Your Hurricane Party Tonight (8/4/2008)
A Wish List for Austin's Movie Memorabilia Sale (7/31/2008)
Hollywood Destroys Houston: The Top Five (7/30/2008)
Houston as a Movie Stand-In: The Top Five (7/22/2008)

"And when there was no crawdad to be found, we ate sand."

Greetings from Insensitivity, TX:

What are the odds privatizing Social Security comes up in the debates?

The continuing saga

As The Wife said when perusing my mother's list of TiVo recording, "Awesome; she likes the same crappy TV shows I do." In many ways, we're lucky to have been able to spend the last week of Ike exile up in Bryan where there's ample power, fuel, and satellite TV. On the other hand, I got to watch the season finale of The Closer. Twice.

Oh shut up, Pete...what of The House?

True to their word, the crew brought in by our insurance company had the trees cleared out and the roof covered by Thursday morning.

I forgot to ask the guys to save one of the bigger chunks for folks to have something in my backyard to urinate on during cookouts.

It's probably a good thing our neighborhood isn't supposed to get power back until next week, since two of the three connections on the now low-hanging service drop were pulled out of the weatherhead. I'd reattach them myself, except...

I don't think getting electricity back is going to make much of a difference at our house, air conditioning-wise.

He's not pining

Got back yesterday. Given the photographic evidence from Galveston, Bolivar, and our own home, I was a little annoyed at the lack of wholesale destruction here in town. Oh sure, I'm happy all of you were able to escape severe property damage, but jeez...not a downed fence, busted windowpane, or toppled mailbox among you, it seems. That's...that's great.

Luckily, our insurance company kicks ass. They had a crew out taking care of the trees today, and the roof should be covered up tomorrow. We have a meeting scheduled with the general contractor and some other adjusters to get the ball rolling on rebuilding the east side of our house and filing claims on our lost contents. Then again, we'll probably be in an apartment for the next few months, and - I have to admit - that the act of signing the paperwork to put my family back into a fucking rental property is about the most depressing part of this whole ordeal. I know we have it better than many folks, but the prospect of sharing a wall with complete strangers again is kind of a bummer.

And I'll just bet they're hardasses about public nudity.

But enough of that, time for more pictures:

This is an admittedly shitty shot of SWSNBN's room. All that crap in the middle of the pic is sitting on her bed. The only real consensus The Wife and I could reach was, "Well, she might have survived." It's the kind of thing you say when you feel the shakes coming on.

Of course, our own room had some violations of its own. One neighbor called this the "Damien shot. We discussed the likelihood I might have been standing in the branch's path as it plunged through our ceiling and what, if any, implications my apparent disfavor in the eyes of god might have presented for our new Pope. I theorized that the Pontiff would mislead and obfuscate behind a cover of storm-induced confusion. My neighbor countered that he'd most likely have me killed.

Not pictured, my beloved cow skull (which The Wife got for me on a trip to Mexico). It was knocked off the wall of the office by the tree's landing. Honestly, of all the stuff I found myself writing off on the insurance list, the skull and the RCA TV (which my dad bought me for my birthday in 1990) upset me the most. I guess I'm not too troubled by the loss of 60% of my wardrobe.

Finally, for those of you with a taste for the Lovecraftian. This is an overhead shot of the eldritch thing lurking over the back of my house. I can't decide between The Shadow Over Garden Oaks or The Doom That Came to SE Texas.

Our neighbors have been great, by the way. We showed up yesterday afternoon and within 30 minutes, over a dozen had come over to express their condolences/sympathy/half-embarrassed exclamations of awe. They're going to keep an eye on things while we get stuff sorted and try to figure out how to get insurance to pay for a new pool.

On the other hand, it took about an hour for me to get sick of the fucking gawkers. I realize that seeing a 90-foot pine at rest in someone's house isn't an everday occurence, but if you're going to slow down your SUV to take a picture of it while I'm in the goddamn yard clearing branches, feel free to throw me a ten-spot in appreciation for the free entertainment you're going to get posting my house on your favorite message board.

UPDATE: Oh, and a few of you expressed concern for Ripley (the feline hybrid of Mr. Bean and White Goodman from Dodgeball). She sheltered in place at Bed & Buscuits, which never lost power. I picked her up Tuesday and was told by the attendant, "She's very...vocal."

Yeah, that's one word for it.

"Look, Daddy...Todd is stupid and I'm with him!"

Not much new to report. Thanks to everyone for your thoughts.

We're still stuck in Florida. Southwest tells me they ought to be flying a limited schedule tomorrow and that our flight should be a go. Once there, we have a tentative appointment with our insurance person and then - since The Wife's office is closed all week - we'll probably head up to my mom's place in Bryan where I can do some work on her DSL. We'll reevalute our situation once the power's back on and we find out whether or not our house is "habitable."

So that's about it. I guess we're going to spend our last day here heading up to Clearwater Beach and trying to recharge our batteries for what's going to be an ass-tastic couple of months. Looking forward to getting together with y'all and having a few drinks in the coming weeks.

Oh, did I mention I saw Hulk Hogan yesterday? Believe it, brother.

Hello Balls - 9/2/08

You know the drill by now, I write stuff for Hair Balls - the Houston Press' blog - and then link them here to keep from having to come up with more verbiage about what an awful human being Joe Lieberman is.

Most recent entries are listed first.

Top Five Houstonians as Hurricanes (8/29/2008)
The Top Five Ballsiest Actors from Texas (8/27/2008) - A bit misleading, as it's actually the ballsiest "moves" by Texas-based actors, but whatever
Texas Horror Movies: The Top Five (8/18/2008)
Houston Sports Movies: The Top Five (8/14/2008)
Chuck Norris Reaches Out And Touches: The Top Five (8/11/2008)
It's Freaking Hot - So Watch Some Cold Movies (8/7/2008)
Movies For Your Hurricane Party Tonight (8/4/2008)
A Wish List for Austin's Movie Memorabilia Sale (7/31/2008)
Hollywood Destroys Houston: The Top Five (7/30/2008)
Houston as a Movie Stand-In: The Top Five (7/22/2008)

"And all around them, the bestiality of the night rises on tenebrous wings."

I have a question. Don't worry, it's multiple choice:

1. For a straight, adult male, the act of going alone to a screening of Mamma Mia is

(a) gay
(b) creepy
(c) an untenable combination of (a) and (b)

I put this dilemma to The Wife, and she responded it was a little bit (a), but not really creepy. I replied that to really earn a (c) I'd have to go see that Jonas Brothers movie, and that ain't in the cards.

And Brosnan sings, doesn't he? Maybe I'll just go see The Dark Knight again.

"Beanie, you remember Cheese?"

"Oh yeah, Cheeeese."

I almost made it to sleep at a reasonable hour last night, having spent a couple hours drinking beer and trying to decide whether Eli Manning or Brady Quinn best personifies irritable bowel syndrome. Then I returned to my hotel room to find this:

Let's back up. I'm in scenic Reston, VA for work. My original hotel room was right by the elevators, which isn't usually a big deal as I relish creating booby traps for potential burglars, but these particular elevators were exceedingly LOUD. I've slept through hurricanes before, but every time some yahoo stumbled back from the Tap Room, it roused me from my slumber. So the next afternoon, I requested a different room, and the gracious desk person found one for me that was well out of earshot. I thanked her, and that was that.

Upon returning to my (new) room and seeing the above, I did what any reasonable person would and called the front desk to complain about this unordered food which I better not be charged for, damn your eyes. I was informed by the same front desk person that this was simply her attempt to make amends for "inconveniencing" me. Now, if there had been two glasses, I'd be gloating about my Bond, James Bond-like smooveness, but apparently this particular Eastern European damsel wasn't looking for an American husband.

Anyway, I'm not usually one to scoff at free cheese, but I had a baleful vision of trying to make it through my training class the next morning with a GI tract full of Yuengling and expired curd and elected to skip the dairy portion.

The wine, on the other hand...

"Hello Balls" - 8/18/08

With apologies to Faron Young...

Rather than bore you every time I have a post up on Hair Balls, I figured I'd just maintain a listing of all of them, that way I only have to bore you once a week or so. Trust me, it's better this way.

Most recent entries are listed first.

Texas Horror Movies: The Top Five (8/18/2008)
Houston Sports Movies: The Top Five (8/14/2008)
Chuck Norris Reaches Out And Touches: The Top Five (8/11/2008)
It's Freaking Hot - So Watch Some Cold Movies (8/7/2008)
Movies For Your Hurricane Party Tonight (8/4/2008)
A Wish List for Austin's Movie Memorabilia Sale (7/31/2008)
Hollywood Destroys Houston: The Top Five (7/30/2008)
Houston as a Movie Stand-In: The Top Five (7/22/2008)

"Hello balls"

With apologies to Faron Young...

Rather than bore you every time I have a post up on Hair Balls, I figured I'd just maintain a listing of all of them, that way I only have to bore you once a week or so. Trust me, it's better this way.

Most recent entries are listed first.

Chuck Norris Reaches Out And Touches: The Top Five (8/11/2008)
It's Freaking Hot - So Watch Some Cold Movies (8/7/2008)
Movies For Your Hurricane Party Tonight (8/4/2008)
A Wish List for Austin's Movie Memorabilia Sale (7/31/2008)
Hollywood Destroys Houston: The Top Five (7/30/2008)
Houston as a Movie Stand-In: The Top Five (7/22/2008)

"Enough of this running shit."

I am Jack's Pete's impending arthritis...

Broke my ankle in February of 1989. It was a truly impressive 50 foot plummet that caused my talus bone to "shatter" - as the orthopedist put it - into three pieces. The screws in the tibia are from where the surgeon had to reattach the end after sawing it off to get to the sweet, sweet ankle bones.

I was told at the time that I'd probably walk with a limp, but I'm pretty sure the doctor was just trying to scare the shit out of me. I didn't PT 'til I died, as Sgt. Hartman might recommend, but I busted my ass to the point where I was walking pretty normally within 6 months.

And, because I'm an idiot, I started running. It was slow going at first, but eventually I was making it up to 3 and 4 miles at a pop. Thing was, right around the four mile mark, my ankle would just lock up. The range of flexion, only about 45 degrees max on a good day, completely disappeared, and I'd end up limping back to my apartment. The same thing happened when I tried picking it up again about ten years ago.

Rather than accept this as a rather blunt reminder that I'm not exactly built for speed and content myself with cycling and the elliptical machine, I started running again a month or so ago. I made 3.5 miles yesterday, which is the farthest I've gone since the late 20th century, so naturally I'm worried about the dreaded ankle lock. I've been doing some different flexibility exercises and my trainer (okay, the trainer at my gym) has suggested a few things, so we'll see.

I don't really have an ultimate goal. I'd like to get up to doing 10Ks, but I doubt my joints (the non-mechanically reinforced ones) would appreciate much more than that. Mostly I just want to be able to easily outdistance the guys I go camping with should any bears/mountain lions/swamp folk ambush us in the woods.

More Balls for your consumption

My second Hair Balls entry, titled Hollywood Destroys Houston: The Top Five, is up for your perusal. As always, we welcome your comments.

Monday Offspring Blogging

LET it be known that Pete Vonder Haar has sued to disown his daughter, referred heretofore as SWSNBN, for her lack of respect and reverence for the traditions of the Vonder Haar family. Specifically, their long-standing love of pirates.

As evidence, he submits the following three items:

1. On June 20, SWSNBN did willfully and with malice aforethought press the 'Power' button on the family Blu-ray player during the climactic battle between Jack Sparrow and Davy Jones. Restoring the movie to its former state required several minutes and refreshing of beverages.

2. SWSNBN has repeatedly shown resistance to watch the Backyardigans episodes "Pirate Treasure" or "Pirate Camp," even when her father is trying to get work done. Her appreciation for the "Viking Voyage" episode mitigates this somewhat.

3. Consorting with known ninjas. Or at least sitting quietly through significant portions of several Sho Kosugi movies.

Ms. SWSNBN will be represented in these proceedings by her mother, who has her own motions filed against the complainant.

As promised

I mentioned She Who Shall Not Be Named's new nightshirt back when I bought it at the Iron Maiden show. Here's a pic:

Any parent who hasn't outfitted their spawn in a nylon bug costume during an 85-degree Halloween is welcome to comment.

What's in a name?

Since I can only assume my regular readership were shocked into jealous silence by my revelation that I've seen Indy 4, I figured I'd better post something encouraging more feedback. Specifically, naming this gal:

She's 7 weeks old. Mother was a Siamese, father of...indeterminate ancestry. Right now she's snoozing on The Wife's lap.

So we've kicked around a couple of names, but haven't settled on anything. The front-runners are Kali, Liffey, Sinatra, and Starbuck. Several other suggestions of mine were shot down. Probably for good reason.

"48 waist with the balloon seat, right?"

I'm gratified to report that, according to the fine folks at Mossimo Apparel, I no longer wear an XL swimsuit. I was all set to buy one at Target the weekend before we left on vacation, having had the old one for going on ten years, but something seemed a little...off when I took an extra large pair off the rack.

The Wife: That thing is huge.
Me: Is it? [holds suit up to waist] Jesus, I could fit a couple of naked...wives in here with me.
TW: Go for the large.
Me: You think? Gee, this is all so sudden...
TW: For Christ's sake. [throws size L into cart]
Me: Should I buy a few new pairs of shoes as well?

My glee was relatively short-lived, for after arriving in Galveston and plunging into the surf (the better to protect She Who Shall Not Be Named from the hordes of sharks lurking just offshore) I realized this particular clothing manufacturer must be having a laugh at our expense. The suit slipped off my waist so often and so...revealingly I realized I could've gotten away with a medium, which is patently ridiculous.

Anyone who's ever met me knows I'm not a small person. I did learn from my recent physical that I've actually lost about ten pounds in the last ten years (at this rate I'll be down to my so-called "ideal" weight around 2039), no big deal. But thanks to America's apparel industry, which is cleverly misleading our rapidly inflating population by adjusting sizes downward, I'll be proudly sporting an 'S' by my 50th birthday.

Time for another McGriddle.

Married to the sea

APCB is on something of a hiatus this week, as the family is vacationing in a spacious beach house in Galveston, courtesy of the lovely and talented CS family. She Who Shall Not Be Named is up to three visits a day to the beach, where she demonstrates her true loyalties by showing no distress when Mom or me leaves her with The Father-in-Law to be pummeled by the waves.

Dinner tonight was courtesy of the plethora of sand trout we caught of the jetties earlier. Now it's a cigar and a cocktail or three on the deck overlooking the ocean. The Gulf may not be the prettiest body of water, but on a breezy April night it'll do just fine.

See you next week.

"You're going to have to go back and suck the poison out."

Excerpt from a recent visit to the doctor:

Dr. F: So just wear loose fitting shorts for a while. Anything else?
Pete: Nope. Well, actually, I've been getting these twitches around my eye.
Dr. F: Any pain or blurred vision?
Pete: No, it's just like a tic. I thought it had to do with how much time I spend looking at a monitor, but it happens on the weekends sometimes.
Dr. F: Yeah, that's not uncommon.
Pete: How do you treat it?
Dr. F: The usual...get more sleep, cut back on caffeine...
Pete: ...so, you're saying it can't be treated.

I've since discovered that having a couple of extra drinks each night take care of the problem. Take that, Baylor College of Medicine.

"You know how hard is it for me/To shake the disease"

Last month both The Wife and She Who Shall Not Be Named fell victim to illness. I somehow managed to escape unscathed, which - now that I've written that out - means I'll be getting hit with a robust case of malaria any day now.

The Wife had a fairly virulent strain of stomach flu, and outside of requiring a few extra trips to the store for fluids and NyQuil it didn't disrupt things too much. Then SWSNBN woke up one day with a fever and a nasty looking rash on her face and chest. Being internet savvy parents, we initially thought it was chicken pox, which was really great news for yours truly, as I've never actually had that particular affliction and wasn't looking forward to getting my zoster on.

A trip to the pediatrician, however, revealed it was not chicken pox at all, but something called "fifth disease:"

Fifth disease has been called the "slapped cheek" disease because it causes a red rash on the face that looks like a slap mark. A lacy red rash may also appear on the child's torso and limbs. Fifth disease doesn't always make a child feel ill, but it can feel like a cold early on, before the rash shows up.

The cryptic name is a holdover from medical lingo a century ago, when a French physician assigned numbers to the common childhood diseases characterized by rashes. For example, measles was "first disease," scarlet fever was "second disease," and so on.

The Wife mentioned SWSNBN's ailment to her own GP when she visited him the other day, and he said that "slapped cheek" was running rampant in Houston last month. I wish I'd been there, because a malady that resembled physical abuse could be a great boon to parents, and I was really hoping to get some feedback on more of these suspicious sounding "diseases," like "Blackened eye disorder," "Handprint on ass syndrome," and "Mysterious series of neck bruises that look suspiciously like interlocked fingers fever."

Just trying to get a jump on SWSNBN's sass-talking period.

"Are these the things we think of, when we think of the Irish?"

Originally posted March 17, 2004.

St. Patrick's Day, for me, ceased being a 10-hour cavalcade of inebriation around the same time I stopped being enamored of elbowing my way through crowds of what Tim Robbins would call a bunch of "amateur night drunks" to get a pint. In other words, about when I turned 23. I may only be half Irish, but even I know when to throw in the towel.

I still have fond memories of one particular March 17, however. So if you'll allow your humble author to indulge in a bit of wistful nostalgia, I'm going to dim the lights here at APCB and tell you of My Favorite St. Patrick's Day.

The year was 1999, when everyone was eagerly looking forward to that new Star Wars movie and a wholesome young Britney Spears enchanted America. The Wife (who is of sufficiently Irish extraction she knew which ancestral hometown of hers we needed to visit) and I (descended from Protestant Ulster teetotalers) were making our first trip overseas together and, after a few glitches involved in getting lodgings and a cruel joke of a Houston to London flight, had settled nicely into the Irish way of life: do stuff until 3:00 or so, then drink. Repeat. We'd scheduled our visit for the week of St. Patrick's Day more or less by accident, but this still meant we had to bug out of Dublin and drive across the Emerald Isle to Galway, where we'd managed to secure a reservation. That was March 16.

St. Patrick's Day eve turned out to be pretty hairy in its own right, as we careened from Galway to the Cliffs of Moher as fast as yours truly, driving on the wrong side of the narrow hewn-from-the-living-rock road and taking a short cut suggested by the Jury's Inn desk clerk, could take us. We had to catch the sunset, you see. In the end, we survived, even though none of my pictures really turned out to my liking.

The 17th was clear, cool, and dry. In short, a bit of an anomaly in the British Isles. Rather than continue the weeklong tradition of pub crawling for the day, we decided to take a charter flight from An Spiddal out to the Aran Islands. More specifically, Inis Mór. The Aran Islands (Inis Mór, Inis Meáin, and Inis Oírr) are really little more than big limestone slabs, covered with a thin layer of soil, that jut out of the Atlantic off the western coast of Ireland. They're windy, barren, and - once you leave the small town of Kilronan - almost entirely bereft of touristy crap. In short, the perfect place to avoid other drunk Americans.

We rented bikes. Apparently you can also take a tour bus, or walk, but bikes suited us fine. We meandered along the roads and rock walls, admiring the ruins of old churches, and frankly marveling that anyone could live someplace so desolate. At the same time, we were often the only people in sight. Something you never had to worry about in Dublin.

The big attraction on Inis Mór is Dun Aengus, an Iron Age fortress that is slowly but surely being devoured by the Atlantic. Large sections of its outer ring walls have already fallen prey to the implacable sea and wind, which means that visitors can walk right up to the precipice and check out the 300 foot drop into the ocean. Not me, of course. I crawled on my belly like an iguana until I was able to get a look. We hiked around, giving the edge a wide berth, while I commented on how a similar attraction in America would have warning signs spaced every 8 feet, and probably a 10' high security fence as well.

In what seemed like very little time, we had to head back to Galway. We took our time on the return trip, preferring to meander from An Spiddal back to the hotel. We had to get an early start the next morning, so we contented ourself with spending the evening in the hotel bar, where a group of drunken old men serenaded everyone with songs I couldn't even try to name. Yours truly gave his best effort to "American Pie," the better to appease some rather demanding French tourists, but that's probably something better left alone.

The Wife and I have done "Irish" things for St. Patrick's Day since, but - and quite understandably - nothing measures up to that one. You guys feel free to cram yourselves into Griff's or Kennealy's, I'm going to spend the evening with a pint or two of Guinness and look through the photo albums from 1999.

Sláinte.

"No one will want to kiss me after these, eh Smithers?"

The Vonder Haar house is in a more or less constant state of disarray. During the most recent attempt by The Wife (who knows my long standing fear of toothy monstrosities) and me to vanquish the filth goblins in our kitchen, I noticed something amiss.

Me: What is this doing here?
The Wife: What? Where?
Me: On the windowsill. There's a bulb of garlic on it
TW: [not missing a beat] It's to keep the vampires from getting in.
Me: That's...a fucking great idea. Why didn't I think of that?
TW: Just looking out for...where are you going?
Me: To the store. We need 15 more for the rest of the windows.

So now the house smells like Fuzzy's Pizza. She's still balking at melting down the silverware for anti-werewolf shotgun shells, however.

"It's a Major Award!"

Oscar nominations were announced this week, with word being that the ceremony will go ahead on February 24, though in what fashion remains to be seen.

My morbid fascination with Hollywood's annual suck-off is well-documented, so lets get right to who's going to win:

Best Picture
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Just to get it out of the way, Juno has no business being on this list. Then again, neither did Forrest Gump, and we all know how that ended up.

Michael Clayton and Atonement are both the kind of movies the Academy loves. One's a legal thriller that aspires to greater meaning, and one's a period wartime romance of the kind immortalized by the excruciating The English Patient. Unfortunately for them, this category is going to come down to No Country vs. There Will Be Blood. The latter may have the edge, thanks to greater exposure (Blood snuck onto a handful of screens the last week of December) and early critical success.
The Winnah: No Country for Old Men by a Prince Valiant hair.

Best Actor
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

It's easy to forget just how good an actor Daniel Day-Lewis is. He makes a big movie only every five years or so, and then he drops out of sight. Watching There Will Be Blood, you once again get to see a truly great artist at work. He might as well be alone on the screen, as easily as he dwarfs just about everyone else in the cast (the snubbed Paul Dano being an exception) No disrespect to the other nominess in this category, but the only way Day-Lewis loses this is if he's competing against himself playing Christy Brown.
The Winnah: Daniel Day-Lewis in the easiest category to call.

Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno

The Golden Age was a critical and box office bomb, and Blanchett's performance in I'm Not There is getting all the buzz, so no. Ellen Page is the new indie darling, but indie darlings don't win Best Actress unless they're playing a man, so nuh-uh. And as much as I heart Laura Linney, she isn't going to win. Personally, I think Cotillard did the best job of all the nominees, but outside of her performance, La Vie en Rose was crap. Away From Her was topical and loaded with great acting, so there you go.
The Winnah: Julie Christie.

Best Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson's War
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

This and Best Supporting Actress are going to be the hardest categories to call. Three months ago, I'd have said Javier Bardem was a dead lock, but Affleck has been coming up on the outiside, and I honestly thought his Robert Ford was better than Bardem's Anton Chigurh.

But Hal Holbrook throws a major wrench in the works. He's already becoming a sentimental favorite, and this category is a notorious "lifetime achievement/consolation" prize (see also Paul Newman, James Coburn, Alan Arkin). And with recession looming and America entering it's sixth year of war, don't you want to feel good about something, dang it?
The Winnah: Beats the hell out of me. I'm still leaning towards Bardem, but that could easily change.

Best Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

As with the previous category, this was Amy Ryan's to lose up until I'm Not There hit theaters. Right now you have to call them the favorites, with Swinton a distant third. Ronan's a non-player, and Ruby Dee getting a nod for four minutes of screen time when she has no chance in hell is a bad joke.
The Winnah: Amy Ryan. This is the category for breakthrough performances, and Blanchett has already won, and will likely win again.

Best Director
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jason Reitman, Juno
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood.

Schnabel snaked the Golden Globe from the Coens, who are still the favorites as far as I know. Whether or not this translates to an Oscar win - especially since The Diving Bell and the Butterfly wasn't nominated for Best Picture and wasn't eligible for Best Foreign Film, remains to be seem.
The Winnah: The Coens. And there is a distinct likelihood that No Country will sweep the major awards categories for which it's nominated.

Foreign Film
Beaufort, Israel
The Counterfeiters, Austria
Katyn, Poland
Mongol, Kazakhstan
12, Russia

I haven't seen any of these, and the two that I would've liked to see nominated - Persepolis and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days - didn't make the cut.
The Winnah: Beats the hell out of me.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Christopher Hampton, Atonement
Sarah Polley, Away from Her
Ronald Harwood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood

If Atonement has a legitimate shot at any award, it may be this one. No Country is still the favorite, which is a shame, because Polley really deserves more recognition for what she accomplished with Away From Her.
The Winnah: I can see PTA or Hampton coming from behind, but it's hard to vote against the Coens adapting Cormac McCarthy.

Best Original Screenplay
Diablo Cody, Juno
Nancy Oliver, Lars and the Real Girl
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava and Jim Capobianco, Ratatouille
Tamara Jenkins, The Savages

I'd go with just about any of these ahead of Juno (not the overrated Lars, however), which of course means it's going to win.
The Winnah: Cody, now please go away.

Best Animated Feature Film
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf's Up

I should register some sort of righteous indignation over the lack of a Simpsons nod, but come on. And while Persepolis is a better film, there's no denying that Pixar is doing the best animation out there.
The Winnah: King Rat.

Best Cinematography
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Atonement
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

Roger Deakins ran the risk of torpedoing his chances by shooting three movies in one year (Jesse James, No Country, and In the Valley of Elah), but it shouldn't matter: like Best Actor, this category is Jesse James and four also-rans.
The Winnah: Don't make me type that title again.

Huh, I guess that wasn't very quick at all.

So who got screwed? Personally, I thought Into the Wild deserved some love...maybe for Sean Penn and Eddie Vedder's score. Speaking of score, the rules need to be tweaked so that something like Jonny Greenwood's There Will Be Blood composition doesn't get overlooked in the future.

Looking at the Juno fallout, I'm mildly surprised Adrienne Shelley's Waitress didn't get a sniff, especially since, let's face it, she died and all.

Sarah Polley should've gotten a nod for Best Director.

And you could've easily bumped Hal Holbrook in favor of Gordon Pinsent in Away From Her. Or the aforementioned Dano.

But the biggest surprise for me by far was no Zodiac. I'm sure it's early release hurt it's chances, but you could easily have ganked Best Picture, Best Director (David Fincher), and Best Supporting Actor (Robert Downey, Jr.) nominations for it. But I'm not an Academy voter.

"So what were your top 10 films of 2007, Pete?" Well, since you asked...

1. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
2. No Country for Old Men
3. There Will Be Blood
4. The King of Kong
5. Zodiac
6. Into the Wild
7. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
8. Eastern Promises
9. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
10. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

I submitted ballots for the Online Film Critics Society and the Houston Film Critics Society, and I wish I'd seen There Will Be Blood beforehand, 'cause uh, it's really good.

SWSNBN - Update

I don't normally post stuff like this, because we're all about lighthearted jocularity here, but Mom called my attention to this link for Autism Speaks:

The band, Five for Fighting, is generously donating $0.49 to Autism Speaks for *each time* the video is viewed . The funding goes toward research studies to help find a cure. When you have a moment, please visit the link below to watch the video and pass it along to your friends and family. They are aiming for 10,000 hits, but hopefully we can help them to surpass this goal. Click on link to view.

Even if Five for Fighting makes you dry heave, like they do me, go ahead and click the link a few times.

While I was watching the video in question, I realized I hadn't given with an update on She Who Shall Not Be Named in a while. At least, not since I last talked about the passage of HB 1919 and its subsequent signing by Gov. Perry. When last we left our Legislative follies, the bill mandating insurance coverage for ABA was soon to become the law of the land, and all was right with the world, yes?

Yeah.

Let me tell you a story. A story of something called the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, or ERISA. It was originally enacted to protect employee retirement plans, but has since morphed into a body of legislation regulating benefit plans as a whole. One section in particular, Section 514 to be exact, preempts state laws that relate to any benefit plan. Specifically, state law cannot operate on self-funded insurance plans unless the plans opt to allow it. As of right now, both The Wife and I are covered by self-funded plans (as are some 55% of workers in Texas), and as of right now, they're electing not to cover ABA. Quelle surprise.

My reaction, upon learning this, was to go out and cause some severe property damage. All those blog posts exhorting you good people to contact your representatives, all those letters to the editor, all those fucking phone calls...it felt like pissing in the wind.

That was until I found myself talking to another parent at SWSNBN's school. We discussed statistics for a while, when I found myself thinking, Where are the other kids? If we go by the oft-quoted statistic that 1 in 150 children will be diagnosed with autism, and knowing that Houston is a city of over 4 million people, then there must be thousands of kids in this area alone on the spectrum. Where the hell are they? SWSNBN's school has maybe 20 kids in it, and if the number at the handful of other, similar schools in the area are comparable, that means that probably 90% of children with ASD in Houston aren't getting comprehensive therapy.

That put things in perspective a little bit. After all, we still have all the advantages I listed when I first brought all this up: good doctors, unswervingly fantastic friends and family, employers who are very accommodating when it comes to her schedule, and plenty of resources. I'll be honest; I make more money than I ever thought possible when I was waiting tables and tending bar after college, and we're able to pretty much cover the cost of SWSNBN's school through a combination of belt-tightening and loans. Others aren't nearly as lucky.

Which is why I know that all that work wasn't completely for naught. The Wife and I - for now - may not be able to take advantage of HB 1919 (and we remain in contact with our benefits folk) - but somebody out there is able to get their child the help he/she needs because of it. And while that doesn't totally keep us from inwardly wincing when we see our friends buy 50" HD TVs and add on to their houses, it's definitely something.

As for our little girl, she's still making progress. It's incremental to us, but friends and family who don't see her on a regular basis insist she's improved dramatically over even a year ago. We're doing everything we can: ABA, speech therapy, the GFCF diet and nutritional supplements. Her receptive language skills are still just fine, provided you can get her attention, and she's not silent - like the girl in that video - by any means. The frustrating part, for her as well as us, is her continued inability to express herself effectively. The Wife and I continue to hold out hope for another Great Leap Forward in that area, to coin a phrase.

You can see it in her eyes every so often, the kid she used to be. It's so overwhelming sometimes that I almost want to shake her to see if I can get some misfiring synapse to come back on line. Until such actions are proven to have a positive effect I'm not previously aware of, however, we'll just have stick with what we're doing.

Thanks again for all your thoughts and support.

"I wanna live in Los Angeles
Not the one in Los Angeles"

The Los Angeles Times, has an article today about 2007's Crankiest Critics. It's a brief piece, highlighting those annoying movie reviewers who "offer contrarian takes on some of 2007's most beloved films." I was (sort of) surprised to see my name listed, especially in association with the pull quote they used from my Bourne Ultimatum review:

'This isn't us.' It isn't? You mean the Central Intelligence Agency, when not failing to accurately assess the stability of the Eastern Bloc or gauge Al Qaeda's capacity to attack the mainland United States, hasn't maintained a 60-year campaign of destabilization, murder and deception? Wow.

True, I found the CIA chief's attempts to distance herself from the bad guy laughable in light of the Agency's history, but come on...I still gave the movie 3 1/2 stars.

And why do I have a sinking feeling this is the closest I'll ever come to writing for the L.A. Times?

"I was strolling through the gas one day..."

Woo-hoo, a natural resources crime scene in my own back yard:

CenterPoint will be back out tomorrow, as it seems they'll have to replace the entire line coming off the main. Still awaiting word on how much of the carport and garage will be left standing.

And I don't even want to think about the chaos that will ensue if they have to try and move Smogdor.

No motorboating was involved, I assure you

Dear Female Customers at Lowe's Home Improvement,

What can I say, it was a long weekend. Not only did The Wife convince me that the bathroom needed to be painted a different color, she somehow engineered a significant absence on Saturday, leading to yours truly not only taping off the whole room, but putting down one - then two - coats of primer, and finally saying 'fuck it' and painting it today.

So while my spouse's Tom Sawyer-esque plan may have resulted in a totally new color scheme for our salle de bains, it also indirectly led to no small amount of hostility directed at your humble narrator. For as is the case with virtually any home improvement project, one often finds themself making multiple trips to the local home improvement superstore to procure things otherwise forgotten. In my case, I was totally out of brush cleaner and Goop. And so, after putting the final coat of periwinkle...or what the hell ever...I drove to the local Lowe's to make some needed purchases,

Was my decision to wear a "Hooters" t-shirt with the words "Hoops Fever" on it the wisest? Probably not, but consider my situation. Is the very act of sporting such a garment insensitive? That's arguable, but maybe all of you women giving me the stinkeye while I looked for turpentine could take into consideration that fact that nobody wears clothes they like when painting. I was wearing khaki shorts and my St. Louis Cardinals 2006 World Series t-shirt while I was taping, but changed before opening that can of primer. Surely the fact that my shirt was liberally spotted with paint indicated that this was a garment of which I wasn't particularly fond? Did the bombed-out expression in my eyes not give you a clue?

I suppose I could have upended a gallon of Kilz on my torso to make things right, but I think I'd rather finish this drink and hit the sack. To sum up, let me just say: sorry ladies. E-mail me for some coupons for free wings.

"The Rock" - 1919 - 2007

It pains me that I have to begin this with a disclaimer, but I suppose I need to point out that this entry is not, in fact, about ex-wrestler Dwayne Johnson.

I just returned from the funeral of Alvin Joseph Vonder Haar, my paternal grandfather. It was in St. Louis, where he lived the entirety of his life (aside from a stint in the Army during WWII), and was well-attended by family and friends.

Eulogies always start the same way: the speaker goes to great length to convince the assembled of what a remarkable life the deceased led. Grandpa would've been the first to call bullshit on that, and it's emblematic of both the time and manner in which he was raised that he'd do so. I'm probably not objective in this case, but these are the facts: he was a soldier in the United States Army, an officer in the St. Louis Police Department, and a truck and armored car driver. In addition, and no less impressive, he was a husband, a father who raised six children, and a grandfather (and great-grandfather) besides.

It was obviously for this last achievement that I remember him best. We spent countless Christmases at Grandma and Grandpa's house on Sweet Gum Drive, sleeping in their finished basement next to the old potbellied stove and - for a time - my uncle's drum kit (which ultimately helped me realize my aptitude lay with the wind family of instruments). He was never less than indulgent with his grandkids, whether allowing us to shoot BB guns in the backyard, or paying us bounties for the houseflies we killed on the patio so we could go to the convenience store across the street and play Galaga (and so he could enjoy a cigar in peace). He also famously tolerated a certain 7-year old nerd's insistence on dressing like Superman to fight the menace of - no shit - "Supertoe" (Grandpa had freakishly prehensile feet).

I could tell you about his marriage to my grandmother, which lasted almost 70 years and taught me a lot about how to make one work. I could also tell you about the time he and a high school buddy decided to hop a train to South America (Grandpa's knowledge of global geography was a little lacking in his early days), culminating in his getting shot by the Missouri State Police. Maybe you'd be interested to know that he was a voracious bookworm, often reading three at once. Or how about how he earned his nickname? "A.J." was known to frequent a certain bar after a long day driving trucks, and - like so many in his family - was also known to run his mouth rather loudly after having a few. One night, some fellow he antagonized took it poorly and sucker-punched him in the jaw. Grandpa just laughed at him, and he was known as "The Rock" from that day on.

I'm a lucky man in a lot of ways, not the least of which is in getting the opportunity to know all four of my grandparents well into adulthood (The Wife, by comparison, barely knew two of hers). The only downside is how much it hurts when they're gone.

Ultimately, no one ever wins at life. You may be up for a while, but in the end, the house always collects. At the very least, I'm pretty sure Grandpa came out even. I'm pretty sure of that.

Rest in peace, pal.

The Rock and She Who Shall Not Be Named - Christmas, 2004

"Where's this barge headed?"
"Garbage Island."

The third Tuesday of every month is Heavy Trash Day in my neighborhood. Everything from large tree limbs to soiled couches line our street on Monday nights, which - in addition to increasing the resale value of every home in the area - also brings out the hordes of salvage-minded citizens looking for some free stuff. Early evening finds dozens of cars cruising slowly up and down the road looking for fine antiquities. Or a relatively non-stained futon, whatever.

I'm not really bothered by any of this. Trash picking has a long and storied tradition in our culture, and far be it from me to criticize anyone for looking to profit from my castoffs (especially when I still have a few items in my own home acquired in identical fashion). My biggest complaint is that the scavengers often act in such haste they leave crap scattered across our lawns. Right now my neighbor's front yard looks like somebody upended a dumpster on it.

We fared slightly better this time around. I don't usually have a lot to contribute to the occasion, but these days you'd have trouble cramming another bicycle into my garage, much less an actual automobile. This is partly our fault - what with being feckless 21st century consumers and all - but the previous homeowners also saw fit to stash a bunch of shit they apparently were disinclined to move to their new digs up in the rafters. In addition to a battered vacuum cleaner, I moved a bunch of spare cabinet parts and an old Ozarka water dispenser that may or may not still work. Maybe that makes me wasteful, but I know how many petrified rodent droppings I've found in there (I regularly lay out poison and sometimes "accidentally" leave the garage door open so the neighborhood felines can do some housecleaning), and damned if I'm going to drink water slightly more noisome than that coming out of Houston's pipes. At least the folks who liberated them were kind enough to arrange the remaining crap in a relatively tidy pile.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to see if my neighbor's computer monitor has been snatched up yet.

EDIT: It hasn't.

"I say we call Matlock. He'll find the culprit! It's probably that evil Gavin MacLeod or George "Goober" Lindsey."

Old age is a horrible thing.

Friday night I had a dream; one of those intricately realized dreams that seemed to run the course of my sleep cycle in vivid detail. In it, I spent the equivalent of almost an entire day (in dream time) with T.J. Hooker-era Heather Locklear. And what did we do? We talked. I can't recall the subject of every conversation, but topics included home improvement(?) and how to break into television.

She's not exactly my type, but still...

The next day, still smarting from my inability to sleep-score, I met up with some guys at a local sports bar to watch college football. I got there a little before noon, and - not relishing the thought of hailing a taxi at 4 PM - elected to drink coffee at the outset. Here's the vessel it was served in:

That's a soup bowl (replete with soup spoon for stirring). This isn't some pissant little sports bar, mind. The SRO in Northwest Mall encompasses over 18.000 square feet and features 100 TVs. I find it hard to believe they weren't able to find a single coffee cup for we few, we happy few, who might like to get our java on before switching to the Miller Lite. Regardless, I had four of them.

In retrospect, it's no wonder the alcohol I switched to around 4 PM had no effect: the caffeine probably killed it.

"Dogs eat shit, man."

It's great to be back in Houston, where the relative humidity is always around 80% this time of year, and the ambient aroma can best be described as "moldering potato." But a scant week ago we were in the temperate climes of eastern Maine, visiting my dad in Bar Harbor. The beer was cold, the temperatures almost so (we had to retreat to the basement one afternoon when temps reached the mid-80s), and She Who Shall Not Be Named honed her cat tackling skills.

Now let's go to the photos.

The view from my dad's back deck, that's his dog Barbaloot in the left foreground. They have about six acres:

More pics in the extended entry...

Barbaloot is what they call an American "wirehaired pointing griffon," and they do a lot of pointing indeed, especially at invisible prey:

She Who Shall Not Be Named had a fine old time, climbing the treehouse and pestering my younger siblings. Here she is following Dad and the dog into the woods, untroubled by the fact her guide is carrying a beer, or wearing a silly hat:

Then again, if large cracks couldn't dissuade her from jumping on boards, her choice of woodsmen can hardly be faulted:

Barbaloot's predecessor "Roxy" is also buried on the premises. The cairn is either to keep coyotes from digging her up or to make sure she doesn't rise from the grave. This is Wendigo territory, after all:

Or it could just be because Maine is full of rocks.

The Wife demurred when asked to join me in visiting the site. When pressed, I learned that my "interactions" with Roxy were one of the only things that made her doubt her decision to marry me. Something about blowing on the dog's snout to make her cheeks to puff out in what I thought was a comical fashion. How wrong I was. Even Dad, whose tolerance of the tasteless is well-documented, reminded me that "Dogs eat shit, man." Thanks for the support.

Our travels also took us to the Penobscot Narrows Bridge and Observatory in Bucksport:

Our seemingly pastoral visit was not without its dangers, however:

I was a little surprised by this. After all, everyone knows if you just ignore white Anglo-Saxons, they probably won't bother you.

Fort Knox (no, not that one) is also strategically situated at the Narrows. It was built in the mid-1800s but never saw action during the Civil War. This is one of the ways in which they welcomed uninvited guests to the Penobscot:

So is this 10-inch Rodman cannon:

The view of Bucksport from Ft. Knox:

After you check out the fort, there's nothing for it but to go up to the observatory, situated 420 feet in the air. SWSNBN wasn't too impressed with the view:

If the observatory attendant recommends a place for lunch, listen to him. Crosby's was one of the best meals we had on the trip:

No trip to the Bar Harbor-Ellsworth-Trenton area is complete without a visit to the Great Maine Lumberjack Show. "Timber" Tina hosts nightly shows, and the one we attended pitted males against females:

The audience was almost as entertaining as the show itself, many of whom - if incomprehensible accents are a reliable gauge - were from New Jersey. I dubbed the two 13-year olds sitting in front of us the "AJs."

Whatever, here's some log rolling:

Surprisingly, there are still some trees left standing in Maine. For example, those around Witch Hole in Acadia National Park.

Our last day there we went to Bangor for the American Folk Festival, held on the banks of the Penobscot River. We arrived just as the Dixie Hummingbirds were finishing up, but sadly missed the Tibetan Monks. Luckily, there was plenty of time to settle in for the Inuit throat singers:

I also shot some video, but I'm trying to keep what few readers I have.

The festival was also the site of the reunion of the Irish traditional group, the Green Fields of America. I commemorated this momentous occasion by taking SWSNBN to the bathroom, but not before snapping a photo:

The festival winds down:

And there are few places better to kick back after a long day of yodeling and banjo picking than the Sea Dog Brewery:

Sea Dog was recently purchased by Shipyard Brewing. I was informed of this fact by the bartender, and probably made a sworn enemy when I responded, "What's a 'shipyahd?'"

Finally, no trip to Bangor is complete without annoying favorite son Stephen King by taking a picture of his house:

A successful trip, by most accounts, Our flight up was only delayed an hour, while we only had to circle aimlessly above IAH for 45 minutes on the way back. For Continental, that counts as an error-free flight. We've talked about making the American Folk Festival a yearly thing, and if it gets me out of this subtropical sauna for a week each year, I'd share a room with the throat singers.

"Grab a shovel. I'm one skull short of a Mouseketeer reunion."

Okay, so...I went to my 20th high school reunion last weekend. I suppose the sense of dread that had been simmering in my gut for the previous couple weeks could be considered a normal reaction in anticipation of reconnecting with a number of people I hadn't spoken with in two decades, most by mutual unspoken consensus. Exacerbating this was the fact that a number of folks I had been looking forward to seeing had to bow out for personal reasons. That left the aforementioned Peenman and Seadogs, who were shooting in from the East Coast for a drive-by visit. They flew in Saturday morning, and we drove up with The Wife and She Who Shall Not Be Named to College Station that afternoon.

Going up on Saturday meant we missed the Friday happy hour (sorry Tim). At...Wings N' More. The only novelty about that particular gathering was that this particular wing joint had been built less than half a mile from the house I grew up in, which probably would've led to a number of arrests as a group of us drunkenly traipsed through our old neighborhood, angrily (and loudly) pointing out whatever alterations the new homeowners had made to our childhood domiciles.

But like I said, that didn't happen.

We also missed the tour of our old high school and the family picnic. The former might have been interesting, but I wasn't keen on leaving my daughter in the care of some kids handpicked by the guy who keyed my Buick senior year, and while it would've been just peachy to meet the spawn of several dozen Baptists, none of us were really prepared to go into this without the help of alcohol.

Having skipped the happy hour, that left Saturday night's dinner/dance. SWSNBN was left with Gran and remained oblivious to our departure while Beauty and the Beast played and she sat in a roomful of puzzles. Meanwhile, we headed to the Veranda, a banquet facility near Messina Hof winery in Bryan. The Wife, knowing our likely post-party condition, took driving duties, and helpfully swung us by a convenience store on the way there so we could secure warm-up beers. We also had an agreement that, should any of us become unable to continue, we'd bail and reconvene at Duddley's Draw with whomever we could convince to join us.

As it turns out, we stayed quite a bit longer than expected.

Missing the previous festivities meant we weren't immediately recognized and set upon as we arrived, and actually saw some friends we still keep in touch with as soon as we got there. This allowed us to form an observation post of sorts, strategically located near the bar and as far from the band as possible. From there, it was a matter of availing ourselves of the free booze and getting caught up. I won't name names, partly because I don't want to misquote anyone, but mostly because I don't know who reads this and I want to avoid any repercussions involving me getting physically assaulted. A few general observations:

1. For being 20 years older, the general trend in physical appearance was surprisingly positive. Some people had gotten fat, and several of the girls who had been merely slender in high school were nigh cadaverous. I retained some comfort in the fact that I still had all my hair, gray as it might be. Also, it is possible to look 50 when you're only 38, but it helps to have gotten started on the vodka and Marlboros when you were 16.

2. The number of people who actively discussed their "blessings" or Jesus with me became tiresome after the first one. I had to bite my tongue to keep from asking one of the saved if she'd found god before or after that party where she blew a guy for coke next to the pool at Treehouse Village Apartments.

3. I apparently grew taller after senior year. That or a couple guys who used to bully me shrank. This was gratifying.

4. Three out of our class of 300 died. 1% is probably pretty low, and I only knew about one of them. Another girl died of cancer, and one guy was someone none of us could remember talking to, or being in school to begin with.

5. The assholes are still assholes. It never failed to amaze me that - for every time I found myself thinking about a classmate, "Wow, how cool that he/she became successful/straightened out, I'm really happy for him/her" - one of the half dozen or so jagoffs whose skulls I always wanted to crush Roy Baty-style in high school would yell something and I'd be right back to wanting to stick my thumbs in their eye sockets. Fuckers.

6. One girl - a cheerleader and member of the homecoming court, among other things - apparently dropped off the face of the earth. Even those of us too lazy to fill out the questionnaires (*cough*) sent in contact info. Not so this person. The only thing listed was her name, and even her fellow cheerleaders had no idea what happened to her. I chose to believe she cast aside her shallow, materialistic ways and joined Doctors Without Borders and is fighting the good fight in Darfur. But then, why should she be any different than the rest of us?

7. Everyone had three kids. I'm not kidding.

We stayed until...oh, midnight or so. Then we apparently went to Duddley's anyway, though my recollection is hazy. The drive back to Houston on Sunday wasn't much fun, but I have to say I'm glad I went. If nothing else, it was entertaining.

I'll probably be up for more entertainment in, oh, another 20 years.

King of Lame

As mentioned previously, there were a couple Eighties-riffic activities taking place this last weekend. The first (and least mortifying) was the Police reunion concert Friday night.

The Wife and I attended with two other friends, and all of us elected for one reason or another not to get righteously bombed. In retrospect, this was probably a mistake. The row behind us seemed to have opted for this approach, and I have to admit; they definitely enjoyed themselves. Then again, I find that mullet-sporting 40-somethings often have lower fun thresholds.

Fiction Plane opened up. You probably haven't heard of them unless you happen to know more about Sting's family than I did. FP is led by one Joe Sumner, Sting's son. They weren't entirely horrible, but we showed up about halfway through their set and I spent a good chunk of the remainder looking for a draft beer line less than 20 people long.

As for the Police...I really wanted to enjoy the show. They were one of my favorite bands and I've been looking forward to the concert for a while, but overall it was disappointing. I could deal with the nagging fear that 64-year old Andy Summers was going to pull a John Entwhistle on stage, and the obvious boredom Sting showed at times, whether clenching his jaw and shaking his head when Summers missed a cue, rolling his eyes while playing those pan flute notes at the beginning of "Walking in Your Footsteps," or flubbing the lyrics to "King of Pain." He wasn't in it for the money, we were told, but his behavior made it plain the weight of the favor he was doing for Summers and Stewart Copeland had placed on his toned shoulders.

And truthfully, I wouldn't have about any of that if they hadn't dicked around so much with the music. Sure, some Police songs lend themselves to noodling: "Driven to Tears" comes to mind, or even "Demolition Man" (which they didn't play). But "Roxanne?" "Roxanne" is not a seven minute fucking song. "Walking on the Moon" doesn't require melodic structure changes. A little goofing around is to be expected, but they did it to such an extent it was taking the crowd completely out of the show. You could see the fans getting excited during the intros to (for example) "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and "Can't Stand Losing You," then watch their enthusiasm fading as the songs went in entirely new, goofy directions. I even made a "Welcome to The Police, Phase II" comment that went largely ignored misunderstood.

Though I did ask the guy behind me if they'd played "Jazz Odyssey" yet.

We'll get to the reunion in a little bit.

"What am I gonna say? 'I killed the president of Paraguay with a fork. How've you been?'"

The review of last night's Police reunion show (meh) will have to wait until tomorrow, for I am heading up to College Station today with fellow alums "peenman" and "seadogs" for my - sigh - 20th high school reunion.

Expect lots of non-specific snarkery and plenty of self-loathing in my next entry, when we find out if Thomas Wolfe really was right.

"Sometimes Maude - God bless her - she underlines passages in my Bible because she can't find hers."
"Oh, lucky they don't keep guns in the house."

Hold the phone, you're saying marriage isn't always bliss?

The key to a happy relationship could be accepting that some miserable times are unavoidable, experts say.

Therapists from California State University and Virginia Tech University say accepting these problems is better than striving for perfection.

And they blame cultural fairytales and modern love stories for perpetuating the myth that enjoying a perfect relationship is possible.
[...]
The authors, Dr Diane Gehart and Dr Eric McCollum say it is a "myth that, with enough effort we can achieve a state without suffering."

And they say healthcare professionals may not be helping the situation.
"The field of mental health perpetuates this myth with the very concept of "mental health," which implies a state without suffering," they say.

But this belief can eventually cause people to believe that with enough effort they can eliminate suffering.

And experts say this is an unrealistic aim in relationships, and striving to achieve it can lead people to feel they have failed.

First, while he may be a bit Richard Lewis-y for my tastes, I think comedian Marc Maron has an excellent perspective on this fallacy that we as human beings deserve to be happy all the time:

As far as depression goes...folks, I gotta be honest with you: If somebody comes up to you and says, "I think you might be clinically depressed," You should probably say, "Well thank you. That means I'm awake. Is there any indication that I shouldn't be depressed? Are you living on the same planet that I am? Did you every think that depression might be the reasonable human response to the crap we're going through as a species, meant to propel us into the next evolutionary step? Did you ever think that's it? Did you ever think that maybe it's the people who are happy all the time that are really screwed up in the head."

Maybe it's those people, the people who are like, 'God, I don't understand it, I feel great...again!' Really? Well that's creepy and weird. Maybe you should be on medication. Clearly you're self-centered, delusional, and narcissistic.
[...]
In a lot of cases the only difference between depression and disappointment is your level of commitment.

Hyperbole? To an extent, perhaps, but I agree with him that happiness is far from a steady state. I'm usually in a relatively good mood, but that stems more from an awareness and acceptance that certain horrible realities are beyond my control, and that if I can make things better for my little circle of family and friends, hopefully that can do something to improve the greater good.

Second - and back to the article - The Wife and I have what I think is a very strong marriage. If I didn't think that before, the events of the last 18 months certainly made the case. But even before that, we always knew there were going to be rough patches and fights. But kind of like my feelings on overall happiness, the difficult times shouldn't be the norm.

Since I was young, I've heard the adage that "good relationships are hard work." Well, I think that's horseshit. I'm not saying you'll never have to put effort into your marriage, but simply that it shouldn't be the defining characteristic. If anything your relationship should be a haven, a refuge from all real world crap you deal with every day, and going home to my wife is something I actually look forward to. If spending time with your significant other is something you dread or view as a chore, you might not be in the best situation to begin with.

But that's just, like, my opinion man.

Put ABA back in HB 1224

[This is an uncharacteristically long entry, and for that I apologize. I hope that by the end of it, if you last that long, you'll understand.]

HB 1224 - Relating to health benefit plan coverage for enrollees with autism spectrum disorder, passed out of the Insurance Committee in the Texas Legislature earlier this week, and the Committee report was sent to Calendars on Tuesday. The bill is a companion to SB 419, which passed the Senate floor unanimously, with one exception: HB 1224 came out of Committee with an amendment removing Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy from the list of services mandated for children aged 3-5.

ABA therapy as it pertains to children on the autistic spectrum involves teaching social and verbal skills to those not able to learn such things normally, which is to say through observation and imitation. In re-routing these learning pathways, the hope is to get the child back on course to mainstream life. It's intense - 20-40 hours a week of therapy in most cases, much of it one-on-one - and it's expensive, putting most college tuition structures to shame.

ABA is also effective. Half of children who have an early, intensive ABA program are able to function in normal schools with minimal or no support. It's considered the most effective early intervention for young children with autism, and has been recommended by the Surgeon General since 1987.

Finally, it mitigates the cost to the state, estimated at $3 million over an autistic person's lifetime, if they don't receive early intervention. Contrast this with the cost of a .5% increase in insurance premiums.

I'm asking every Texan reading this to call their representative (you can do a search here, calls are more effective than e-mails) and tell them you're concerned that HB 1224 passed out of the insurance committee with an amendment that removed Applied Behavior Analysis, and you want it put back in. You can cite the information I listed above, if you're so inclined.

And while you're at it, feel free to call Rep. Larry Taylor, who authored the amendment in question. His other contributions to the welfare of our state have included authoring a bill requiring elective courses for academic study of the Bible and joint authoring a bill providing for "Choose Life" license plates. After you've contacted your representative about putting ABA back in HB 1224 (especially any Friendswood or League City folks out there), maybe you could ask Rep. Taylor why someone who cares so much about children yet to be born apparently doesn't give a fuck about the welfare of those already here.

But then, I think we already know the answer to that.

[UPDATE: I left a message for Taylor's Chief of Staff to call me back with a reason for his authoring the amendment. You can also call him at 512-463-0729 (his Capitol office) or 281-338-0924 (District office). Or you can click here to send him an e-mail.

And according to his bio, he's an insurance agent. Quelle surprise.]

You may be asking why I care about this. Some of you already know, but for those who don't, I can give you two reasons. The first is that insuring Applied Behavior Analysis is the right thing to do. Autism is at epidemic levels in this country, with an estimated 1 in 150 children diagnosed on the spectrum. ABA is the only therapy proven to be consistently effective in treating it, and the fact that it isn't covered by insurance would be laughable if it wasn't so infuriating.

The second, more pragmatic reason, is that I'm the parent of a child on the autistic spectrum who is currently enrolled in an ABA program. For those who don't want to hear about that, you can stop reading now. If you're curious about my family's personal experience, carry on.

Okay, here goes.

About a year and a half ago, my wife and I noticed some disconcerting things about our daughter, coyly referred to as She Who Shall Not Be Named. At 18 months, she'd been able to count to 20 (and to 10 in Spanish), identify and name all the letters of the alphabet, point to and name just about every external body part, and had a vocabulary of close to 100 words. Some time around Halloween/Thanksgiving of 2005, however, we noticed she was becoming less and less vocal. She also began retreating more and more to her playroom and seemed like she wasn't hearing us when we tried to talk to her. Unsure if we were overreacting, we asked the director of SWSNBN's day care to observe her and tell us what she thought.

I'll cut to the chase, because you can probably figure out where I'm going and I still have a hard time writing it out without breaking down: we were told our daughter was most likely autistic. This was January of 2006, and thus kicked off what was - without qualification - the worst year of our lives. We met with SWSNBN's pediatrician, and also a pediatric neurologist, who in turn scheduled a hearing test to make sure she didn't need tubes (she didn't), an MRI to look for congenital brain malformations, an EEG to look for epileptic disorders, chromosome tests to look for things like Fragile X syndrome and Rett's, and something called the brainstem auditory evoked response test. Everything came back normal.

"Normal" is good, because it means she doesn't have something wholly incurable and/or lethal. It's also bad, because - absent a definable cause - SWSNBN will most likely get lumped in the Not Otherwise Specified bucket for pervasive development disorders. See, the PDD spectrum runs the gamut from classic autism - characterized by self-injurious behavior and retardation - to the higher functioning Asperger's. The "PDD-NOS" appellation, roughly translated, means the doctor can hedge his bets on a final diagnosis until she's older.

In the meantime, SWSNBN has worked with the State's Early Childhood Intervention program and attended the Developmental Building Blocks program at the Parish School, which specializes in children with language issues. She's also seeing a nutritionist, and is on a casein- and gluten-free diet. Before you scoff at that, I'll tell you that the improvements to her behavior and language after we took dairy out of her diet were dramatic and immediate.

Since September, she's also been enrolled in an ABA program. Her improvement since she started has been steady and, frankly, undeniable. Her receptive language and focus have improved, and she seems to have regained some of her interest in her books. Her teachers think she shouldn't have any problem "mainstreaming" into a regular school in the near future. She may always be a little weird, but that hardly makes her unique in our family.

The outlook in our case is relatively good, thanks in no small part to various factors weighing in our family's favor: we live in a city with some of the best medical facilities in the world, and one with easy access to organic foodstuffs. We also have plenty of family close by, and a number of great friends who have given us no end of support throughout this.

We can also pretty much afford everything. ABA therapy isn't cheap - think two mortgage payments a month (and not those wimpy second mortgages neither) - and like just about everything related to treating autism, it isn't covered by insurance. Sure, we were able to get the bulk of her tests paid for, but speech therapy? Occupational therapy? ABA? Not so much.

Which is what makes the amendment to HB 1224 so maddening. After all, if I was feeling a little down in the dumps, my health plan would cheerfully cover the cost of my happy pills. If I drunkenly jawed off to Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipović in a Zagreb bar and he broke my jaw, insurance would cover the emergency room visit and my subsequent weeks of pain meds. Hell, if I was an 80-year old man having trouble getting a goddamned hard-on, insurance would cover my boner pills, but therapy to help my daughter become a functional and productive member of society and not just another ward of the state after her parents die? We can apparently fuck right off.

So we're choosing to tell our daughter's story now, after being quiet about it for the last 16 months: to emphasize how important it is that this bill pass in its original form. If it seems opportunistic or self-serving, well...there's not much I can say about that, except that things like ABA and other therapy programs would seem to be the point of insurance: to insure the well-being of these kids who otherwise would be without hope for a future.

Finally, the only thing that really gave me pause about posting this was something that was said to me about the possibility SWSNBN might read this later on in her life and be mortified. My only response to that is this: I'm not a religious person, so prayer is out of the question, but I hope beyond anything I have ever hoped in my miserable life that my daughter, at some point in the future, is able to read this blog and yell at her father about it. I want that so badly it physically hurts.

Okay, that's all. Thanks for reading.

UPDATE: + Thanks to Chuck for the link.

+ Three Wise Men has (have?) also linked to this, thanks guys.

+ Perry mentions us in his entry about the Republicans' dismal record on the health and welfare of Texas children.

+ Thanks, Greg. And Melanie. And 'stina. And Carol.

To the out-of-staters commenting about contacting family members still in Texas, thank you. I appreciate it.

Hitting the deck

What did you do this weekend? Me, I built a deck.

Okay, really I assisted in the building of my deck. My good friend Sir Not Appearing on This Blog has vast experience in such projects, and had been railroaded/sweet-talked by The Wife into helping my comparatively non-handy ass with the project. Still, I dug many holes, poured gallons of concrete, and drove a lot of screws.

The first order of business - after obtaining the dimensions (8' x 12') and buying the lumber and concrete, was setting the posts. We wanted to dig the holes on Friday, but typical Houston spring weather conspired against us. So, 8:00 Saturday morning, My friend brings over his auger and we commence to perforate my back yard. Several hours later, we have posts:

If they look a little off center in the middle there, it's because the house's previous owner illegally ran pipe off the main water line to the backyard (long since shut off by the City), and we kept hitting it. If it wasn't that, it was 3" thick roots. Love those old neighborhoods.

Anyway, setting the posts took pretty much all of Saturday. Sunday morning, we finally got to put the joists in:

That pail is the mastic we used to seal the bases of the posts. There's still some on my leg, as I'm irrationally afraid of breaking out the steel wool and getting it off.

Still, once the supports were down, laying down the deck boards took almost no time. Hence, the semi-finished product:

I say "semi-finished" because the 2x6"s turned out to be 2x5.5"s. So I need another board or two. And there's still the roof to build, but for now it'll be nice to have a perch to watch She Who Shall Not Be Named as she nosedives down our slide.

Is it too early to call this a phase?

Before she goes to bed, She Who Shall Not Be Named likes to unwind in her playroom in the back of the house, where she has puzzles, books, a piano, drums, a kitchen set, and a hundred other things to toss indiscriminately onto the floor.

The general rule regarding television in our house is that nothing too unpleasant for little eyes and ears should be on display while the nipper is up. This usually means that the thing doesn't even get turned on until she hits the sack, but yesterday was a long one, and I found myself unwisely resorting to one of my comfort movies about 15 minutes before SWSNBN's normal bedtime.

I make no secret of my love for Penelope Spheeris' The Decline of Western Civilization Pt. 2: The Metal Years. Hell, I wrote a column about it a few years back. However I never suspected by particular musical sickness was genetically transferable. It was therefore with a large measure of surprise that I watched my darling little girl rush into the living room and dance to the opening strains of Faster Pussycat's "Bathroom Wall."

Maybe she just made a mistake. I mean, she loves female singers, so she was probably just walking by, saw the suspiciously effeminate Taime Downe and - thinking he was Laurie Berkner's sleazier sister - understandably came in to enjoy what she assumed were more children's folk stylings and...

I really am screwed, aren't I?

"Pete runs afoul of an Irishman"

St. Patrick's Day is rapidly climbing the list of my least favorite holidays. I doubt it will ever supplant Valentine's Day, or the forced jocularity of New Year's Eve, but like the latter it presumes you will at some point be spending a sizeable portion of your evening crammed in with a bunch of amateur drunks. We went to the downtown parade today (my verdict: needed more bagpipe), and I think that's enough for me.

The Wife is off for an evening with the girls, which suits me fine. My liver's still working on its SXSW backlog. She Who Shall Not Be Named is tucked away with Mr. Pig*, and I'm going to watch some more basketball (all my Elite 8 teams are still alive, thus far), last week's Battlestar Galactica, and maybe Casino Royale again.

At least the opening chase scene.

To accompany me this evening, I have some Allagash Dubbel Reserve and this fearsome concoction, given to me by award-winning filmmaker Don Lewis last week in Austin. And none of it is green.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, all. Play nice. Drive safe.

* Want to have fun some time? Let your three-year old daughter pick out a stuffed animal at Target, take it to the register with out realizing it has no price tag, and watch the clueless sales associate yank it away from you and run off to do a price check while your child shrieks at being robbed of her new best friend.

It was like something out of "Guernica."

Love is - indeed - all around you

It's funny. I more or less have my tastes in books, music, and movie engraved in my brain, but when I get to Half Price Books or the music store, it's like my memory's been wiped. I wander the aisles, desperately looking for some kind of visual landmark to remind me what I like. Sure, I have a Wish List on Amazon, but trips to the bookstore are largely a spur-of-the-moment thing, and I don't usually remember to print it out, meaning I'm doomed to roam my local retail outlets, unsure of what I actually like,

A similar problem afflicts me with regard to other things. I have a kind of mental block that goes into effect when I encounter a home repair issue or computer problem I don't immediately know how to solve, preventing me from using the usual avenues of investigation to figure things out.

And then there's the ex-girlfriend.

The young woman I dated shortly before I met The Wife had mentioned to me she appeared in a music video. Okay, maybe "appeared" is the wrong word. It was a live video and she showed up in it for a few seconds. I never saw it at the time, it being the early '90s and all. Not only was MTV not really playing music videos anymore, but the band in question had largely faded from popularity.

Fast forward thirteen years. I'm goofing around on YouTube, vainly trying to populate some playlists, when I come across a collection of '80s metal videos. As I'm scrolling through it, it hits me: Holy shit, I bet [ex-girlfriend's] video is on here too.

Sure enough, it took no time to find it. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "Love Song," by Tesla. I won't tell you who my ex is. See if you can guess, if you actually have the patience to sit through it all. Hint: It's not any of the chicks on stage.

And I trust the two or three APCB readers who actually know what she looks like to keep their mouths shut.

"Now, I'd like to digress from my prepared remarks to discuss how I invented the terlet."

Jeez, I go out of town for a few days and somebody dies. Normally, I wouldn't have much to say on the subject of Bo Schembechler passing away, but it makes sense later, honest:

In the end, Michigan vs. Ohio State might have been too much for Bo Schembechler's failing heart.

The man with half-century-old roots to The Game died at age 77 on Friday on the eve of perhaps the biggest matchup in the storied rivalry's history, No. 1 vs. No. 2, and his doctor said it might have been because of all the excitement.

Schembechler, who became one of college football's great coaches in two decades at Michigan, collapsed at the studios of WXYZ-TV in the Detroit suburb of Southfield, where he taped a weekly show. He was pronounced dead a little more than two hours later at nearby Providence Hospital.

Okay, technically I was still in town when he died. I went to bed early on Friday because I had to drag ass to Intercontinental at 4 AM to fly to Maine and surprise dear old Dad for his birthday (I won't give the age, but he officially predates the Truman Doctrine). I learned of Schembechler's death while watching ESPN at a bar in the Newark Airport around 11:00 AM (don't you judge me…I was on vacation), and I had to get clarificaton from the guy next to me (Steve from Albany) about the specifics:

PETE: Bo Schembechler died? When the hell did that happen?
STEVE: Friday night, I think.
PETE: Heart attack?
STEVE: I think so, he was about to tape his radio show and collapsed.
PETE: Huh.
STEVE: At least he died doing what he loved.
PETE: Yeah, I guess if you can't go in your sleep it's the next best thing.

At this point, the conversation takes a rather severe left turn.

STEVE: After all, he could've died on the shitter.
PETE: What?
STEVE: How awful would that be, taking a shit and dropping dead? I think about it every time I go to the toilet.
PETE: You know, I never thought about that.
STEVE: It's my biggest fear.
PETE: I think you just made it mine, too.

We discussed the statistical likelihood of dying sur la toilette and famous crapper-related deaths (Elvis, Lenny Bruce) until my sister showed up and mercifully dragged me to our connecting flight.

"All this computer hacking is making me thirsty."

So The Wife's cell phone starts going off around 8:30 last night. By "going off" I mean "vibrating madly on the coffee table." Obviously, it's no one she knows, because they're interrupting Veronica Mars. Being the good spouse, I pick it up, only to be greeted by the following:

I naturally assume that my spouse is up to no good, probably with the local pool boy, but as I'm on my way to the garage for the nail gun she reminds me that She Who Shall Not Be Named was mucking around with the cell phones earlier. Considering the unfamiliar calls I made to Singapore last month (including several to certain, uh, houses of ill repute), this seems eminently plausible. She's figured out how to lock my laptop keyboard and freeze up the TV remote with nary a second thought, after all.

But she doesn't get a MySpace page until she's at least...oh...13 or so.

"That's the one that got me."

Or rather, the one that got The Wife.

She was cleaning the ubiquitous pine needles out of the hedge on the side of our house when she came in to inform me she'd been stung on the arm by a hornet. After securing my faithful can of Spectracide (and, uh, donning a long-sleeved shirt), I poked around in the hedge until I found the offending lair. Not a hornets' nest, but rather the domicile of some paper wasps. One good dousing (and a few minutes to let the bastards die) later, and I snapped a photo.

Texas is home to all manner of biting, stinging, and generally ornery fauna. We regularly deal with fire ants, mud daubers, paper wasps, and yellowjackets, to say nothing of bats, wild dogs, possum (that's Opossum to you), and arboreal rats.

I'm quite proud of the missus for bearing up as well as she did (I don't think the sting bothered her longer than a few minutes), considering the paper wasp ranks a healthy 3.0 on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index.

My name is Earl [Dittman]

It's a truism - for self-deluding writer types, anyway - that the most offhand, throwaway comment you make will be the one that garners you any sort of notice. Hence, this:

Given all the ancillary activities, more than one reviewer who took in the Snakes scene came away with a distinct Dr. Frank-N-Furter feeling.

"It has the potential to supplant The Rocky Horror Picture Show as the greatest audience participation movie of all time," wrote FilmThreat.com's Pete Vonder Haar.

Maybe it was the beer talking, maybe I was just drawing preliminary parallels to Rocky Horror's lousy initial box office performance and eventual cult status and that of Snakes. In an event, now I finally get to start my own quote whore file.

Look out, Peter Travers.

"Yarrr, I hate the sea and everything in it."

I have received enough on- and off-line requests for this..."rebuttal" of my Lady in the Water review that I decided to post it. Enjoy.

From: "Ben Simon" [e-mail redacted]
Subject: The sad truth about Lady in the Water

Okay this is my breakdown of this movie. I've heard nothing but bad reviews about it, which is really ironic and exciting actually. This movie is like nothing I've ever seen before. It's groundbreaking, hyper-original and full of messages. It's insane. It's full of bizarre characters, priceless lines, and brilliantly cooky and original ideas. But that's just my praise. Let me explain.
This movie represents so many things. Paul Giamatti's character finds a sea nymph in his pool. She is part of a bedtime story. An evil creature from the story wants to kill her. He has to get all of the tenants in this resort to help him solve this mystery and get her back to her homeland. Simple right? Not exaclty. You see, M. Night breaks down the concept of writing, originallity, finding purpose, and characterization all in two hours. Paul has to find out which characters are supposed to be the key elements in saving this nymph's life. There's so many tenants he must listen to the way the bedtime story goes and figure out what each character's purpose is. Is one supposed to be the nymph's guardian? her healer? or interpreter? He goes through sequence of character searching to discover this, but the point is, that every character in a well written story has a purpose. The movie openly says this. One of the tenants is a movie critic and he mentions the fact that in writing (and in the world) every person has some link to the overall chain of the plot, to reality, to existence. Everyone must be there for some cause, even if it's to hinder the plot. This movie represented the concept of writing and innovation. And the way that it showed you that it wasn't afraid to do something different was through the concepts. The villain was a huge wolf with fur of grass. One character only works out half of his body, so he has one huge arm and one small one. Bizarre enough for you? Or dare I say, daring? The movie critic characters gives one priceless line that apitimizes the entire movie. And here it is:
"There is no originality left in this world. I have learned to accept this sad fact."
That's it. That is the line of the century. That makes the whole movie make sense. And what's brilliant about it is: THIS MOVIE WAAAAS ORIGINAL. This was the first movie in history ever to do something different, ever to break that fourth wall and openly state the fact that people are afraid to go into certain dark waters (pun intended) and try new ideas that nobody else has. M. NIGHT DID EXACTLY THAT. The reason no one likes this movie? They saw it is a movie. This thing is so out-there, so unlike anything you'll ever see you can't even criticize it. It's a message. It's a vessel of new thought, creativity. How can you say it was stupid? You don't even understand the movie. THAT'S WHY. You think "I don't get it." and automaticaly label it a bad movie because you are too retarded and close minded to get the concept of it NOT BEING JUST ANOTHER FREAKIN' LOVE STORY WITH VIOLENCE SEX AND THE TYPICAL DRAMATIC STRUCTURE. How can you not recognize the clear messages that were there? Later this movie critic character confronts this big bad wolf and says. "This is just like one of those scenes from a horror movie." Bingo, he's coming right out and saying that you see scenes like this all the time. THen he says. "This is the part where a less likeable character is confronted with a monster and narrowly escapes death. He returns later with a lesson learned and a humorous moment to make things better. This is the part of the movie where there has been no nudity, no violence or anything to make you believe it isn't a family movie. Now I will turn and run and the monster will narrowly miss me." He turns, and gets mauled and killed. THERE YOU HAVE IT.
M. Night knew nobody would understand this movie. HE KILLED THE MOVIE CRITIC! There's your hint. That's what should make all you people who didn't understand it feeling like effing idiots because he's laughing in your face. If you didn't like it, you're playing right into Shyamalan's hands. EAT IT, you're just like everybody else. But I can take pride in knowing that I saw this movie for what it really was: not a movie at all, but a gateway into a new world of drama. Okay so maybe I'm sensationalizing this a little bit, but do you see what this movie is doing. This movie is pinpointing all the people in the world who lack imaginations. Another one of the lines in the movie is "Sometimes you just want to believe a story is true." This shows that this movie is bringing to life all those goofy ideas you hide in your childhood (coincidentally Paul's character must act like a child in front of an old woman to get the bedtime story out of her, tell me where that's been done before), this movie is showing that if it's in your mind, it can be done. It makes you believe this sort of thing can actually happen. That bedtime stories have a speck of truth that you can apply to everyday life.
I understand that somebody may simply not enjoy watching the film, but they should at least recognize it for what it is. And if you're too blind to see the obivious hints in the movie, then at least take it from me. The movie has action, suspense, plenty of goofy comedy, and tons of entertaining characters. One of the main messages in this movie is how the nymph comes into this resort, this little private world, or planet if you will and changes the people. Paul G.'s character has a stutter in the film (and he does AMAZING with it by the way, and all of his characterization) and around her, it goes away. A writer's mind is cleared around the nymph and he writes a world-changing novel. This is a symbol of an angel, a hero, a change for the better in reality. It shows how everybody has a purpose, and no matter what happens in life, somebody will be there to guide you, but you must welcome her, you must help her (which is the whole thing of protecting her in the film). You have to WANT to be a better person, which I think is a paralell to this movie. You have to accept the movie in order to understand it, and if you do your mind will be opened. Ironically M. Night himself plays this writer character. He has a priceless monologue where he asks "What if people don't understand my writing? What if it angers them?" so basically he's speaking through his own voice saying, most people won't get my work, my messages, but I'm doing it anyway. HAHAHA DEAL WITH THAT!
Not only is all of these ideals and innovations amazing, but the film itself is impeccable. The camera angles are meaningful, the acting is superb (except for a select few tenants) and the production quality is out of this world (out of this world can be used to describe so many things about this movie too). So who cares if it doesn't do well? Classic movies were box-office flops. It's A Wonderful Life, Twelve Angry Men, The Searchers -- all failures at the theatre. Then one day someone saw them again and recognized them for the brilliance that they had hidden inside of them. But who cares if that even happens, I myself can take pride in knowing that I am one of the few people who was imaginative and open-minded enough to allow this movie to make sense, to speak to me. And to me, the message of this movie was, if you are someone like me who isn't afraid of what's never been done, then you can never appreciate life. Paul G's character represented all of you people who can't appreciate life-- that is until the nymph changed his mind. His last line is "Thank you for saving my life." Well thank you M. Night for saving mine. Haha yes that's cheesy but who cares? Forget cheesy! It's all like a bedtime story, all ideas are welcome! All ideas are good an exciting. The movie was supposed to make you laugh. It was supposed to make you go "Wow, I can't believe they did that." It's a beautiful moment in the world of cheesiness. Even so, the movie was not actually that cheesy, but the thrilling parts were intertwined with laughable moments, so it gave you that impression. SOOOOOOOO that concludes my explanation of this film, Lady in the Water. Maybe now some of you will have opened your eyes, but probably not. You'll probably go back to watching predictable films like Titanic, Star Wars, and Pirates. All good films, yes. Excellent films. Original? Not in the slightest.
Thank you for reading this. Now go see Lady in the Water. Support the ideas that people are too cowardly to attempt.
Ben Simon

PS For the record, this was not a review of the movie. It was me slapping the truth in the faces of people who wanted to be critics of their own. But guess what, M. Night killed the film critic, so I guess you're all dead now.

Done yet? It took me three tries. I even made the unwise decision to respond, avoiding the obvious kills shots, such as taking him to task for associating Lady with or The Searchers (or Night of the Living Dead 3, for that matter):

From: "Pete Vonder Haar"
Subject: Re: The sad truth about Lady in the Water
To: "Ben Simon"

> It's insane.

Congrats. That was the one thing in your inexplicably
long rant you got right.

Resulting in:

From: "Ben Simon"
Subject: Re: The sad truth about Lady in the Water

THANKS! :D I knew I'd be able to change your shallow mind. Thanks for reading it.

Followed shortly by:

From: "Ben Simon"
Subject: Oh and one more quick thing

inexplicably long rant.. Hmm inexplicable means unexplainable. It was unexplainable how long my rant was? Let's see: it was long. Exactly such and such paragraphs. That was pretty easy to explain.

I thought film critics were supposed to be articulate and know which words to use...? Heh, I guess that's the scrunt's job to get rid of the ones who don't.

Wow.

Shyamalan fans are like a cult, they leap to his defense in a way I haven't seen since...I don't know...Sofia Coppola (can't wait to see Kirsten Dunst wearing blue Converse high-tops in Marie Antoinette).

Of course, since the box office failure of both The Village and now Lady in the Water, their numbers are more in line with Heaven's Gate than the Church of Latter-Day Saints.

"A marriage can't be reconciled in a few hours, Homer. It takes a whole weekend to do that."

I should set this up. The Wife and I are in the living room of our house. The series finale of Everwood is on, though I'm reading Paul Feig's Kick Me and not really watching it. Honest.

Anyway, this scene comes on where Doc Brown (Treat Williams) is at the grave of his wife (whose death essentially served as the genesis for the entire show, but that's not important). I make note of the setting, and - in one of my more intelligent moves - decide to interrupt.

This exchange gets a little...grotesque.

Me: You know what make this the best show of all time?
TW: Something completely tasteless and inappropriate, I'm guessing.
Me: Come on, think about it.
TW: Okay: if she rose from the grave and ate his brains?
Me: I was thinking "ate his entrails," but that's a good start.
TW: How about, "She rises from the grave, eats his entrails and then his brains, and then fucks him in the guthole?"
Me: [blinking] Uh, how does she fuck him in the guthole?
TW: With the tombstone, of course.
Me: Yeah, that'd...
TW: Oh, but you'd want the double-action, so she'd have to rip off his own dick and use it on his ass at the same time.
Me: Uh...
TW: I've officially been married to you too long. Now shut up.

Ten years, folks. That's all it took to for my sweet young wife to gaze into the abyss and, in turn, have it also gaze into her.

In memoriam

On this day when we commemorate those who have fallen in service to their country, I can reflect on how fortunate I am that all my relatives who served managed to return from their respective conflicts, including both my grandfathers (WWII), one of whom is still alive and giving his offspring lip in St. Louis, the other passed away a few years ago.

The Wife never knew her grandfather "Jack." He was the oldest (and shortest) of six brothers (all were over 6' except Jack, who was about 5'9"). His double whammy came when he passed the Navy math aptitude test, which - when combined with his height - made him perfectly suited to submarine duty. He was assigned to the USS Runner, a Gato-class diesel attack sub. She patrolled the Palau area on her first two attack runs, torpedoing six ships in total, though no kills could be confirmed. Her third run was not so successful:

On 28 May 1943 RUNNER (Lt. Cmdr. J. H. Bourland) left Midway to begin her third patrol. She was to patrol the south and west, until she came into the area south of Hokkaido and east of the northern tip of Honshu, where she was to patrol from about 8 June to 4 July 1943. The submarine was never heard from following her departure from Midway.

She was expected at Midway about 11 July, and not later than 15 July, and should have made a transmission when approximately 500 miles from this base. She was ordered on 112 July to make an immediate transmission, but no reply came. Although a careful, lookout was maintained in the hope that RUNNER was safe but without transmission facilities, results were negative. On 20 July RUNNER was reported as presumed lost.

A summary of Japanese antisubmarine attacks received since the close of hostilities contains no mention of an attack, which could explain the loss of RUNNER. Thus her loss must be ascribed to an enemy minefield, of which there were at least four in the area to which she was assigned, to an operational casualty, or to an unreported enemy attack. Destruction by a mine is considered the most likely of these possibilities.

The Runner's wreckage was recovered about ten years ago.

Jack's death had ramifications on his family I won't go into here. However, one can easily multiply his story by about a million (since the Revolution) to realize the impact war continues to have on us. Maybe the latest draft dodger laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier today should stop to think about it once in a while.

Enough editorializing. Instead, I'll just say thanks to everyone who's made the ultimate sacrifice so we - in return - could become an ungrateful nation of morbidly obese consumer whores who pay more attention to a glorified karaoke contest than we do the state of our own government. It goes without saying that I also offer my profound apologies.

And thank you, Jack. You never got to know your granddaughter, but she turned out all right, at least.

"Tonight, we salute the silver anniversary of the Great Springfield Tire Yard Fire. Twenty-five years, and still burning strong!"

A decade ago today, after taking a couple of pre-ceremony slugs from my best man's flask, I exchanged vows with the woman who would become The Wife. We were married at St. Anthony's in Falls Church, VA. I was a grad student working full-time as tech support at a local ISP, she was a paralegal who'd foolishly followed me some 1500 miles across the country to live (briefly) in sin during our engagement, having taken some pretty long odds that a guy with a Bachelor's in History might actually have potential to be anything but a drunken, hourly wage-earning smartass.

The wedding itself was rather hilarious. The priest was a third stringer; the normal priest we thought we were getting having double-booked and the deacon we liked was going to be on sabbatical, so we ended up with Father Ben. Or as I dubbed him, "The Nigerian Nightmare." His English-speaking was about on par with Fernando Valenzuela, and he'd only ever presided over one other wedding, and that one a full Mass. Luckily, the entertainment that day was a friend from high school who graciously decided to swing down from performing at the Met in NYC to sing at our nuptials. And having many weddings under her belt, she held things together well enough that the entire congregation didn't break out into peals of hysterical laughter.

Just a few chuckles here and there, and most of those from the drunk internet folks I invited.

I can say without hyperbole that the ensuing ten years have been the best of my life. We've gone from sharing a house with three other people and driving a piece of crap Toyota Tercel to owning our own home, becoming pretty damned successful in our chosen careers, and having a beautiful little girl (I'm still driving a piece of crap Toyota, however). I can also say without fear of contradiction that, were it not for my wife, I'd still be kicking around as a bartender and telling people how much I wanted to be a writer while spending my evenings playing video games and watching what remained of my marginal good looks swirl down the drain. The Wife has always been my biggest supporter, and my biggest critic. If I write something that sucks, she lets me know. I don't always take her advice, but I usually regret it when I don't.

The somewhat ironic thing is, we're not doing much of anything to celebrate the big 1-0. Late last year we'd discussed plans for going abroad, but there's been something of an avalanche of bad news and family crises hammering us since January. We remain uncharacteristically confident that this is a relatively brief downturn (optimism, I've belatedly come to learn, is sometimes a necessity), but have had to scale back our celebratory plans.

And having said that, I can't possibly imagine going through the last few months without The Wife. I know she'd say the same about me, but she's always been the sane one in our relationship. Every time I feel like I've finally, inexorably lost control of everything, she's there to smack me in the mouth (figuratively) and bring me back around. One day I might file charges, but right now all I have is gratitude.

So happy anniversary, babe. I know 2006 is shaping up to be one of the all-time worst, but we were probably due, and I know everything's going to turn out all right.

Ten years…not bad for a starter marriage.

"I see you like publicity, Mr. Gittes. Well, you're going to get it."

At most of the screenings I attend, the publicist has roped off a row or two for press and promotional people. I can usually count the number of actual critics there on one-and-a-half hands, with the remainder of the seats taken up by people from the PR company, sponsor radio station, or newspaper folks (the Chronicle and Press coordinate ticket giveaways). As a result, I only occasionally find myself sitting next to a fellow professional complainer movie reviewer, and on most occasions, this isn't a big deal.

Sometimes, however, you have to sit next to the publicist.

I have a couple of guidelines when it comes to meeting people connected with any movie I'm going to review. The most important of which is: "try to avoid it." If I gave a film a good write-up and they want to say 'thanks,' that's one thing, but there are few shittier feelings than meeting the director or cast of a movie you haven't seen, liking them immensely, and then going on to hate the movie itself. It colors the review, however unintentionally, and makes any subsequent interaction exceedingly uncomfortable.

Another one is "don't go the premiere party of a film, especially if you didn't like it." I've broken that one more than once, but the hell with it, I said they were "guidelines."

Sitting next to someone connected with the film during an advance screening is also pretty hairy, because they're excessively tuned in to audience response. You might be able to slump down in your seat and be overlooked, but the publicist is specifically looking for "press" reaction, and if she can solicit your feedback throughout the entire movie, as "Gladys" did last night for the promo showing of Phat Girlz. Some examples of our dialogue follow.

I should preface this by noting that - in a filled-to-capacity stadium style theater, I was one of five white people, and the only one on the press row:[1]

Gladys: "What do you think of [plus-sized star] Mo'Nique?"
Pete: "Uh, she's Mo...Gnificent."

Gladys: "Are you laughing at the movie?"
Pete: "I'm laughing near it."

Gladys: "So what are you going to write about it?"
Pete: "It definitely accomplishes what it set out to do."

I bailed before she could ask a follow-up, thank christ.

[1] Come to think of it, I believe I was the only press person there. Period.

Hetero lifemates

The Bayou City Arts Festival was this last weekend. It's the first of many outdoor events capitalizing on the few weeks of the year in Houston where standing outside doesn't immediately leech all the moisture from your body.

A friend of ours had called up asking if The Wife and I wanted to go with him and his daughter to the Festival on Sunday. His wife had to work, and his little girl had been cooped up with a cold and could use the fresh air. Unfortunately, The Wife also had work she had brought home from the office, and She Who Shall Not Be Named was about to go down for a nap. Seeing the opportunity for a few outdoor beers, I agreed to go along.

Now, I'm not dense. Two dudes walking a toddler around an art festival gives a certain...impression. Then again, this isn't Kabul, so the worst we'd probably have been subjected to would have been snickers at our curious lack of fashion sense. And if any second glances were cast our way, I most likely wouldn't have noticed.

Mostly because there were a lot of women sans bra at the festival. My attentions were otherwise engaged.

"Looks like you blew a seal."

If you were hanging out around the sea lion enclosure at the Houston Zoo on Saturday, you would've heard two things.

The first: a conversation between a group of teenagers (age estimated at 17):
Female Teen 1: "Is that a seal or an otter?"
Male Teen 1: "Do otters get this big?"
Male Teen 2: "I don't know, but I thought seals where white, not brown."
Female Teen 1: "I think these are otters."

The second: a frantic coughing fit brought on by yours truly choking on my Diet Coke during this exchange.

Did I mention their entire conversation took place not 18 inches from the conveniently placed plaque that read "California sea lion?"

Sunday Offspring Blogging

If your parents were like mine, you were probably taught fairly early on that it was impolite to stare. I grant you, there's a wide world of interesting people out there, some of whom deserve a good 30 seconds to a minute of intense scrutiny. But we're adults, who can maturely hide our gaze behind sunglasses or a strategically placed newspaper. Children are incapable of such discretion. They'll just gape, slack-jawed, until a responsible adult grabs their head and swivels it in another direction or swats them on the ass.

Why do I bring this up? Funny you should ask. On Friday, we were in a Family Dollar store for reasons I can't recall right now. She Who Shall Not Be Named had her head wrapped almost completely in gauze (it's a long story, but no - she isn't hurt or anything). She was her normal chatty self, but did have the look of someone with major head trauma.

Enter a woman and four of her seven kids. How do I know she had seven? Because she conveniently offered this information to the cashier after making a half-assed attempt to discipline one of them. Her rationale for allowing the child to knock over a display of potato chips was that, since she had seven, it was hard to keep tabs on all of them.

I had a few thoughts on that, as you can imagine, but kept my mouth shut. I was outnumbered, after all.

Owing to my general sense of paranoia, I knew these little darlings would, at some point, notice the giant head wrapping on SWSNBN. I was counting on it, in fact.

Sure enough, as we were walking out the door, around which the four future meth addicts had stationed themselves, the youngest girl shouted out to me, "What's wrong with her?" I stopped, smiling inwardly to myself, and turned to them. Giving my daughter a nervous glance, I said, "She can start fires with her brain."

We left quickly, so I missed the uproar that followed. The Wife, stuck in line, helpfully clued me in that the girl immediately reported this earth-shattering scientific news to her mother, for which she was apparently rewarded with a thorough dressing down (not for being nosy, mind you, but for telling lies), and a - you guessed it - swat on the ass.

I almost felt bad when SWSNBN set fire to their car.

Bring out the Gimp

It's not too far off.

Seventeen years ago last week I shattered my ankle in a rock climbing accident, an incident that has been referred to by some as "an act of supreme idiocy/insanity" and earned me many plaudits for being one of the luckiest SOBs on the planet. That I didn't end up paralyzed or taking a dirt nap is a credit to my my lifelong love of milk as well as having time - I fell about 50 feet, after all - to twist my body around in midair, thereby avoiding landing on my back. I only broke one bone, the talus (which forms the juncture between the leg, heel, and foot), but it was in three pieces.

One major surgrey, many fun-filled hours of physical therapy, and several years later, you can't really tell anything was wrong. If I'm feeling flirtatious, I might try to show you my scars, but I've been fortunate that my mobility - aside from having roughly 45 total degrees of flexion in the joint in question - hasn't been too impaired.

That's going to change soon, I'm afraid.

It's the little things, like having to favor my leg after getting out of bed in the morning (or after sitting down for extended periods of time), or the way it stiffens up when the weather changes. Sure, walking like a pirate is fun every so often, but the day is coming where I'm going to be seeking some sort of assistance in walking.

Frankly, I'm surprised I made it this long. My surgeon told me - before he screwed my ankle back together - that I'd most likely have a permanent limp after the operation. That didn't happen, thanks in large part to his mad skillz, but more and more it's looking like the inevitable was merely delayed, and I'll be doing some cane shopping in the coming decade. Maybe I can find something with a sword in it.

I just hope House is off the air by then.

Tuesday Offspring Blogging

This kid needs to learn how to write, because I'll be damned if I'm sitting down and writing out a bunch of Valentines to the likes of Quinton and Adrian again next year.

Fortunately, I didn't have to "choo-choo-choose" anyone.

"I think so, Brain, but if the plural of mouse is mice, wouldn't the plural of spouse be spice?"

As I was leaving my screening of When a Stranger Calls (capsule review: "horgh") tonight, I was accosted by Lemmy, one of the friendly local studio reps.

Lemmy (I call him Lemmy because no human being on Earth looks less like the Motorhead frontman than this guy) doesn't do the PR thing full time, having moved on to greener pastures in the media world. He still grabs a screening here and there as a favor and to make some easy cash. At a promo screening like this one, for instance, the rep's job essentially consists of making sure all the press/media people have a seat, and to keep others from sneaking into the designated rows. Then, at the end, he/she asks the moviegoers what they thought so he can pass word to the studio. Normally, he asks me what I thought, and I would've been only too happy to make a retching sound for him this evening, but he had a different question for me tonight.

He asked me, "Where are the fake wives?"

My movie passes are good for two people, and while I usually show up alone, I'm occasionally accompanied by a friend who wants to see a particular picture. My default is The Thing That Walks Like a Man, as he is in the unique position to appreciate some of the more pungent efforts I get to sit through. Sometimes, though not frequently, I bring The Wife. She's usually pretty blase about seeing what I get offered, however, which leaves the door wide open to her friends. AKA The Fake Wives.

Y'see, Lemmy pulled me aside at one point about 9 months ago and asked me about the, er, variety of women I attended movies with. I suspect another PR person regaled him with the story of when I saw War of the Worlds with a friend of The Wife's from law school. It was on this occasion - because we both bore easily - that we told this particular person not to let my wife know I had shown up at the movies with another woman, intimating that we were something more than "friends."

Juvenile, yes. And probably apt to come back and bite me on the ass. But as Lemmy informed me a while back, this heightened my notoriety among a certain segment of the PR crowd. Hence, tonight's joke. I had to confess that even my oily wily charms weren't enough to convince anyone to accompany me to tonight's "film."

Though I may see if She Who Shall Not Be Named has the patience to sit through Curious George.

Snausages

Being single sucks.

I have no immediate first-hand knowledge of this, of course. The Wife and I have been married almost ten years, and have been together more than twelve. I base my opening claim on my own pathetic experience as a bachelor many moons ago and the bar I was in last night.

The place was (and is, unless it was firebombed by angry/horny males) called Deco, and is one of many in Houston that feature poor ambient lighting, cacophonous music, and minimalist furniture. The occasion was my friend Jessica's birthday (I offer her name because she's commented here before). I'm fairly certain a big part of her reasoning behind picking the place was the fact that it was smoke-free, plus it has a fairly diverse clientele. All races, creeds, sexual orientations, and horny eveningware styles were on display.

Then again, it couldn't have hurt that - of the dozen or so people in our group, nine were single females. We got there early (the childless definition, meaning 9:00), but by 10:30 there was quite the sausage party going on. I reckoned the male-to-female ratio to be in the 8:2 range, but either way, the ladies had the advantage. This was a happy coincidence, for if you remember, I referred to the diversity of the patrons. Unfortunately, a Sri Lankan dork is still a dork, meaning a good deal of culling had to be done.

I assisted where I could, occupying the end position on the couch to discourage uninvited gentlemen. I'm not sure if my effectiveness was a result of strategic seating our the generally murderous expression I wear on my face at all times.

One of the more enjoyable parts of the evening was when the only other two males in our ensemble headed next door to BW3 (a local wing joint), leaving me seated with ten good looking women. I got more than my share of stinkeyes from the growing phallic hordes, which was immensely gratifying.

Even though I made an early night of it, I managed to come up with some cogent observations on the state of the singles scene here in Houston. Enjoy.

1. Tuck your shirts in, fellas. Do you not own belts? Last time I checked, a long-sleeved Oxford wasn't meant to flap around your ass. And yes, my shirt was untucked as well, but I'm married. My wife's lucky I have pants on when I leave the house.

2. You ladies really like those low-rider jeans, don't you? Yeah, they don't, uh, really work for everyone.

3. $4.50 is not an adequate price for a bottle of beer unless nudity (partial or full-frontal) is involved.

4. No amount of leather or designer clothing will distract women from your male pattern baldness, or the fact that you're cropping your hair close to hide it.

5. Openly hitting on the waitress does not impress the females in your immediate vicinity.

It's a wonder people get laid at all.

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag

I make a lot of largely unfunny jokes about my family because, for the most part, I'm an asshole. My emotional immaturity and advanced state of social retardation causes me to address situations of actual personal significance with sarcasm and lame attempts at humor.

But I've had two years now to come to terms with being a father, and I can say - without hyperbole or fear of ridicule - that having a daughter has been the best thing to ever happen to me.[1] I knew, from being friends with so many other parents, that it would be a pretty profound experience, but I had no idea just how much your worldview flips when you see your kid running towards you with her arms outstretched.

And because she's happy to see you, not because a dog is chasing her.

I realize this "breeder" shit doesn't mean a lot to [some of] the voluntarily childless among you, and I really don't care. My daughter is cool as hell, and today's her 2nd birthday, so she is the center of the universe as far as I'm concerned.[2] Happy birthday, She Who Shall Not Be Named.

Now get a job.

[1] That, and meeting Batman when I was 6.
[2] And I get to pre-board airplanes.

Tuesday Offspring Blogging

Composed at 6:40 this morning...

Revenge is sweet, little one.

You may not know it now, sleeping there under your Pooh blanket, with your arm loosely curled around Elmo, but the piper is about to come due. And the wages will be dear.

The consequences probably escaped your consideration when you woke up at 1:00 this morning, not jolted out of slumber by a nightmare or sudden illness, but simply because you decided that this particular ungodly hour was the perfect time to practice your strangely off-key renditions of the "A-B-C" song and "Pattycake." Who knows what you were thinking to yourself, sitting there in the sepulchral gloom of your bedroom, as you sang and chatted with unseen hosts. I'd have gone in to tell you to be quiet, except I wasn't convined you were really alone...and your spectral guests might not have taken kindly to intrusion. And so you continued. For two hours.

But dawn is breaking now, and as you slumber blissfully (who wouldn't, after such a marathon vocal performance?) you can't possibly know that your parents come from the most obnoxious wake-up stock imaginable. From the Sudden Sheet Removal, to the Pitcher of Ice Water, to air horns and popped balloons, your mother and I have been through it all with our parents and siblings. Believe me, you'll think twice about robbing me of my beauty sleep next time.

Now where are those cymbals?

Poor self-promotion strategies

Stuff Magazine contacted Film Threat a few months back, wanting to talk to the guy who'd reviewed Bumfights: Cause for Concern. It seems that Indecline, the company responsible for Bumfights, had just released its latest opus, Indecline Vol.1 - It's Worse Than You Think. The magazine was doing an article on them, and wanted feedback from someone familiar with their earlier work. That someone happened to be me.

What follows is the sum total of my e-mail exchange with the article's writer (whom I won't name here):

[Stuff] Thanks for getting back. Have you seen McPherson's latest piece "Indecline Vol. 1 It's Worse Than You Think" and if you have, I have a couple of basic questions.

[Pete] Yeah, I've seen it.

[Stuff] The first is, in your mind, does Indecline have any merit? I mean it seems a little deeper, a little more intelligent than Bumfights, and I want to know if there's any serious significance to it.

[Pete] Honestly, I think the Indecline guys were more worried about getting sued than about attaching any social significance to their output.

Does it have merit? As much as "When Animals Attack 4" or "G-String Divas," I guess. The press materials for "Indecline Volume 1" make it sound like they're ripping the lid off the horrors of modern life, when in reality it seems like an excuse to get their rocks off watching skaters beat the shit out of each other and enjoying the spectacle of a paraplegic taking a dump. If that's what turns you on, knock yourself out, but they shouldn't act like it has any more sociological depth than a Guns n' Roses video.

[Stuff] And do you think mainstream media -- and by that I also mean Hollywood, has shied away from these guys, and if so, why?

[Pete] I think there will always be a market for this kind of stuff, but I doubt Hollywood will ever support it in anything but a largely tangential fashion. Moral outrage against the entertainment industry, especially video games and movies (and even magazines like Stuff), is still at a pretty high level. Companies need to pick their battles, and I don't see anybody willing to go to the mat for guys celebrating hidden camera beat-down footage and half-assed anti-corporate vandalism.

[Stuff] I'm getting close to deadline, so forgive me if I'm being a little brief in my questions.

[Pete] No sweat. Let me know if you decide to use any of this.

Shockingly, they didn't decide to use it. I realized, about halfway through the exchange, that questions about Indecline's "merit" were pretty leading, and that I was most likely giving answers in some opposition to what he was looking for.

Sure enough, I checked out the article a few weeks back and none of my comments made it into the finished piece, and it was pretty easy on Indecline. Truthfully, I feel kind of bad for the guy who wrote it, since I don't imagine he gets much of a mandate from Stuff to ask hard-hitting questions which might distract its readers from the airbrushed cleavage on display.

The sad fact is, I'm not very good at self-promotion. This here blog is where I post most of my so-called accomplishments, and I don't feel too bad about that because all of you are here voluntarily. Or should be (if not, please don't tell me what sort of sick degenerate would force someone to read this crap).

For example, when The Wife told me someone in her office mentioned hearing about the Frigid 50 on Mix 96.5 last week, a small part of my brain piped up that I should let the station know that one of the writers was in Houston and would be happy to discuss it. Shit like that. But I didn't, and I don't, because I have yet to find the happy medium between Salinger-esque reclusiveness and Paris Hilton style attention whoring.

I could have tempered my answers somewhat, just to improve my chances of getting a one-line mention in a magazine famous for featuring grade 'C' starlets on its cover. I considered it, fleetingly, just as I've considered giving a couple 5-star reviews to shitty movies in the hopes of getting my name on the release date publicity. I guess that's just not my bag.

Anyway, the magazine might still be on shelves. Issue #73, December 2005, pages 112-116. The article is called "Guerilla Warfare."

And Mila Kunis is on the cover.

If you can tear yourself away from Grey's Anatomy...

Yours truly is going to be on something called Red Bar Radio tonight around 9:10 PM. From their web page:

Red Bar Radio is two hours of LIVE non-stop talk radio madness. This isn't your average "put-me-to-sleep" talk radio show. We take talk a step further while bashing celebrities, polluting politics, and crushing current events. There's never a moment of "dead air."

I may or may not be on the same program as comedian Doug Stanhope and preteen Nazi folk duo Prussian Blue. I'll try not to put anyone to sleep.

Friday Offspring Blogging

My kid is something else. So's yours, if you have one. You're as convinced of it as I am, because it's one of those things hardwired into us so we don't leave our offspring on a hillside to fend for themselves against packs of feral dogs and Irishmen. You parents know what I'm talking about, that feeling that your child is really exceptional. It's the mindset that says, "I know everybody thinks their kid is something special, but mine really is." It's no wonder people without kids think we're all assholes.

As a parent, I'm no different. I smugly read the child development books and realize, "Hey, She Who Shall Not Be Named clapped her hands a month early! Genius!" Or, "She's arranging those water bottles in a more or less straight line! Genius!"[1]

But they'll mess with your heads. Children will throw you a curveball, usually just after you've smugly told your friends how your almost-two-year-old can count to ten in Spanish and recite the alphabet. For it's at that exact time you'll walk into the dining room and see your rare gem of a daughter hunched under the dining room table like an Australopithecus, eating a Nerf football. I don't think she swallowed any of it, but she had obviously taken several bites, even after realizing it wasn't a big marshmallow. She spat the last chunk out, making the face you make when you've been chewing on plastic foam for the last few minutes, and was in the process of taking another bite before I yanked it from her grasp.

From her reaction, you'd have thought I'd kicked Elmo in the nards.[2]

Maybe I should hold off on those Harvard applications.

[1] Or OCD. Time will tell.
[2] Does Elmo have nards?

Monday Offspring Blogging

We have a cat in the house. It's not our cat, but that of The Sister-In-Law, who is staying with us for the week. So far, the only indicators of "Bagwell's" presence are the litter box and food and water dishes, as he seems content to spend most of his time under the bed in the guest room. Normal cat behavior, yes?

Then again, he may have seen She Who Shall Not Be Named and just decided that spending the whole week incognito was the best bet. Toddlers are not known for being cat-friendly, though ours has never been especially abusive, which is encouraging both from a future pet perspective and from the vantage of someone worrying about raising a serial killer.

Seeing how she behaved last night, however, almost made her old man join the cat in hiding.

SWSNBN is experimenting with new forms of mobility, including - sometimes - reverting to the crawl. The new crawl is nothing like the old one, unfortunately. The old crawl was an expression of joy: bouncy if erratic, and fueled by a sense of wonder. The new one seems more geared towards maximum freak-out. The closest I can come to describing it is Samara's "spider walk" from The Ring. She places her cheek on the floor (we have wood floors), slightly raises her posterior, and extends her limbs for maximum arachnid effect. The first time I saw her do it, I had to be restrained from making a cross out of a yardstick and my official Power of the Force lightsaber and driving the abomination from my house.

Lucky for me, she abandoned this in favor of another favorite: trying to climb into the lower oven. Risky, to be sure, but much less psychologically damaging to her father.

Tales of a 13th Grade Asshole

College was when I really learned to be a prick.

Being singled out as one of the weird ones in the only high school the same town as Texas A&M wasn't all that hard. All it took were some funny colored shoes and a bad haircut. College, on the other hand, was a whole different kettle of Converse. Everyone dressed weird at UT, except for the frat kids, whose standard uniform of khaki shorts, white t-shirt, and baseball cap worn backwards made it that much easier to make rash judgments about their character without having to meet them.

No, you had to go a little above and beyond to get the attention so desperately craved by freshmen, so I - along with a select group of fellow dipshits - took to public displays of obnoxiousness.

I bring all this up because tomorrow is the Great American Smokeout, where smokers are encouraged to give up the cigs for 24 hours. And one of our merrye band's first forays into public assholery was setting up a table on UT's West Mall and giving away Marlboros on that same day way back in 1987. Yeah, not too original, but we made it through about half a carton before our patron (a theater major and fellow freshman who abruptly decided he'd rather smoke the cigarettes he'd bought than give them away). The grateful thanks we got from suffering smokers wasn't quite enough to balance out the sputtered curses of the indignant and the hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach telling me I was acting like a real dick.

There were other shenanigans I may detail at a later date, but that would seemed the most immediately relevant.

Anyway, if you smoke you should quit, because it's bad. And stuff.

Wednesday Offspring Blogging

I have commented, maybe not here, that raising a child from the ages of zero to...oh, five years or so, isn't so much about parenting as it is about death avoidance. Toddlers are essentially suicide machines, and not the cool Bruce Springsteen kind. They seek, unerringly, to find the most lethal items within reach to test their parents' ability to thwart the machinations of the Grim Reaper.

She Who Shall Not Be Named is no different. I've lost track of the number of times she's defeated the cabinet locks under the kitchen sink and pulled the cleaning fluid bottles out to arrange in yet another neat OCD-related row. She's also fond of catapulting herself backwards off our laps to perform somersaults, and opening the lower oven door and climbing onto it.

I neglected to remember these facets of her personality this last Sunday night. In my defense, I'd spent a long day watching the new Harry Potter film, as well as Takashi Miike's Dead Or Alive, so my mental faculties weren't at their strongest when I went to fetch my daughter's final diaper of the night, leaving a full glass of wine on the nightstand as I did so.*

Upon returning, I discovered that my little darling, whom I'd left sitting on the bed watching The Simpsons, had hopped down onto the floor, picked up my wine glass, and upended it over herself. Whether she was attempting to detect the grapes' subtle bouquet, I couldn't say. What was inevitable, however, was The Wife's appearance to chastise yours truly for - in her words - "not respecting" our daughter's suicidal phase,

She was right, I had to admit. To paraphrase Crash Davis, you have to respect the stage. This was cold comfort as I mopped wine up off our bedroom floor, however. And I was left to marvel at my little girl's uncanny ability to seek out the one item in a room that could do her the worst bodily harm.

* A very nice red from Texas' own Becker Vineyards

The Halloween that almost wasn't

Had a nasty squall line of thunderstorms come through here yesterday about 5 PM with 40 MPH winds and heavy rain. The showers continued until almost 8:00, which is when a lot of the younger kids are wrapping up the trick-or-treating anyway. As a result, we still went through about 12 bags of candy, but only because I was giving out handfuls to the few kids who showed up. We finally wrapped things up around 8:45 - a full hour later than we ran out of candy last year - mostly because the only people coming around were "no-good teenagers."

She Who Shall Not Be Named made the rounds with us to a few neighbor homes - she and The Wife shared the umbrella while I dutifully followed behind with the bag, completing my wet rat costume quite nicely. Her costume? It depended on who was asking. To the powers that be at her day care and our neighbors with the "God Listens" bumper stickers, she was Princess Jasmine. To everyone else, she was "Kabbalah Madonna," with red string and everything.

Oh, give us a break. This is probably the last year where we get to pick her costume for her.

Monday Offspring Blogging

While The Wife was getting her booze on with her girlfriends in Austin the weekend, I endeavored to find ways to keep She Who Shall Not Be Named from destroying the house and/or herself out of boredom. To that end, we found ourselves at the Day of the Dead Festival yesterday.

Much as I'd like to tell you this was an even commemorating George A. Romero's 1985 movie, with fun family activities like Bake and Eat Your Own Brain and the interactive Tear Out Capt. Rhodes' Entrails exhibit, that wasn't the case. The festival in question commemorated Dia de los Muertos, which takes place November 1st and 2nd. It was pretty small, but there was a playground where my daughter could annoy the older kids with her trademarked slow-motion creep down the various slides. She also liked the music, which forced me to ask some hard questions. Specifically, would I prefer my daughter playing mariachi music in my home over whatever bland, formulaic pop will be in fashion when she's a teenager? Or should I just puncture my eardrums with sewing needles now and get it over with?

Before the festival, he stopped at Pig Stand #7 for breakfast. Less important than our choice of fare (pancakes) however, was the conversation taking place between a young boy and his parents at the booth next to ours. If you recall the lies Calvin's dad used to tell him from the comic strip, you'll have a pretty good idea how this mother and father operated. This was my favorite excerpt, concerning what Halloween-themed movie they should watch that afternoon:

Boy: Can we get House of Wax?
Mom: Ooh, I like Vincent Price.
Boy: No, not Vincent Price, Paris Hilton.
Dad: Can't say I've ever heard of her. How about you, honey?
Mom: Doesn't ring a bell.
Dad: Say, you know what would be a good movie? The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.
Boy: The what?
Mom: Good choice, I love Don Knotts.
Boy: Who's Don Knotts?
Dad: Heresy.
Mom: He's Mick Jagger's brother. They had a falling out years ago, I hear.
Dad: You can see the resemblence.
Mom: Don Knotts was also the face of the demon in The Exorcist.
Dad: We could always watch that.
Boy: Really?
Dad. Ha ha. No.

I felt sorry for that kid, but it was quite entertaining.

Today's rudderless youth

I had just picked up our babysitter, who is (I think) 17 years old, and was bringing her back to the house to experience the terror that is She Who Will Not Be Named. As we were driving through her neighborhood, we spotted a dog running loose down the sidewalk. A Yorkie, by the looks of it.

The Babysitter: Uh oh, look at that dog.
Me: Yeah, he's gonna be street pizza if his owner doesn't grab him.
TB: [favors me with an odd look]
Me: What, don't kids these days say "street pizza" anymore? What's the new "hep" lingo?
TB: I usually just say "roadkill."
Me: Pffft. My grandfather says "roadkill." How about "extreme puppy pancakes?"
TB: Nope.
Me: "Street pizzle for shizzle?"
TB: I don't watch MTV.
Me: And I'm letting you take care of my kid?

Here's hoping my communication skills improve before my own kid becomes a teenager. I'm not counting on it, however.

And for those of you aghast at the fact I didn't stop to recover the animal in question, its owner was, in fact, overtaking it as we had our little conversation.

Wednesday Offspring Blogging

I give you, the Rocking Horse Whisperer:

The amount of time she spent closeted with her noble steed leads me to believe they were probably discussing a way to distract Dad while she draws on the couch in crayon. Or maybe she was just trying to convince the horse to let her stand on it while she configures the DVD player to play nothing but Elmo.

Return to cromulence

If I ever ride a hurricane out, I'm going to go ahead and have a party, because at least then the clean-up will feel justified.

Came back this weekend. Rita's prudent decision to dodge Houston (and Mom's twitchy AOL account) convinced us to return. No, we didn't heed Mayor White's request to sit tight, but only because we were already to Waco by the time we heard about it. We stayed off the interstates, at any rate, and made it back in only slightly more time than it took to get to Lubbock in the first place.

The best money I spent for this whole ordeal, and that includes the cost of plywood, gas cans, and water, was a $23 power inverter I got in Lubbock that allowed me to plug my laptop into the cigarette lighter and kept She Who Shall Not Be Named happily immersed in Elmo and Barney for the majority of the trip.

With all the crap off the porch and the lawn (which reminds me, Chauncey the gnome needs to be returned to his place of honor) and the windows boarded up, the place looked condemned. Happily, except for branches (a few big bastards, too) and a shitload of pinecones and needles, the house was fine.

Not entirely true; one window pane was broken. By me. When I put a knee through it boarding it up last Wednesday.

The power was off until the morning, necessitating a complete refrigerator clean-out (made all the more entertaining by a loss of Popsicle wrapper integrity at some point). Then there was unpacking the car, cleaning the yard, unboarding the windows, and shopping (I apparently hit the Kroger about an hour after the truck showed up, so we were able to restock pretty well).

I've only been back online for a short period (no connectivity from Saturday AM to this afternoon), but it looks - from my cursory blog surfage - like everyone is okay. I've still got some things to take care of at the house, but APCB will be back wasting your time shortly.

Thanks to everyone (again) for the good thoughts. And thanks to Michael for posting my occasionally coherent ramblings from Lubbock.

Why you trying to second guess me?

Rita hasn't even made landfall (as of this writing) and the finger pointing has already begun: 100-mile gridlock, no gas available for evacuees, contraflow lanes not opened in a timely manner. There will definitely be some serious questions raised in the coming weeks about how all this was handled.

And yet.

I don't regret our decision to take off at all. On Wednesday, we were being told that a Cat-5 monstrosity was potentially coming up the Ship Channel. Maybe, maybe were it just me or The Wife and me, we would've hunkered down with a crate of fine champ-an-ya and some Luther Vandross, but there was no way I was prepared to ride it out with a 21 month-old, especially under 90-foot trees. Will I be sheepishly unscrewing the plywood from my windows on Sunday? Not at all. Given the same circumstances and same forecasts, I wouldn't have acted any differently.

The Cunning Plan now is to head back early AM on Saturday and take super secret back roads as we get closer into town. It was great seeing Mom for an unexpected visit (and allowing She Who Shall Not Be Named to draw on somebody else's furniture with crayons), even if I did have to clean out her garage, but we're ready to come home and loot find some unattended belongings.

I hope our neighbor's boat trailer is still out there.

Copy editor wanted

Did you know the letters 'O' and 'P' are right next to each other on a keyboard?

And did you know how easy it is type a 'P' instead of an 'O,' especially when you're a self-taught typist like me?

And do you know what the word "superheroes" becomes when you commit exactly that error?

Good thing that review hadn't run yet. And why the hell is "superherpes" in my MS Word dictionary?

Anyway, reviews for Corpse Bride and Lord of War are up. Just Like Heaven to follow shortly.

Unfortunately.

Content-free Friday continues

You know those snarky articles in the "real" media that essentially define weblogs as "dorks describing what they had for breakfast to losers?" Well, here's some more ammo for them. I give you, today's lunch:

It helps if you sing the chorus of JFA's "Cokes and Snickers" while you're looking at that.

Really busy today, in case you couldn't guess. Have a good weekend.

Sunday Offspring Blogging

While on a trip to our local mall today, I enjoyed a few brief moments of amusement at someone else's expense. She Who Shall Not Be Named, you see, was running around the kiosks, pointing at the various sunglasses and necklaces and muttering strange and eldritch things.

Due to her diminutive stature, of course, all any of the proprietors saw was yours truly slowly making the circuit of their stands. As you can imagine, I enjoyed watching them moving in for the kill, only to stop short when confronted with a toddler intent on counting off each pane of glass in the display.

That is, until one guy (who apparently specialized in selling sterling silver representations of Jesus) figured out what was really going on:

Shopguy: Cute kid.
Pete: Yeah, she knows.
Shopguy: She has a good eye.
Pete: ...for what, exactly?
Shopguy: Jewelry. Girl knows her bling.
Pete: Did you just say "bling?" What the hell does a 20-month old know about "bling?"
Shopguy: Most don't know shit, but yours really had has a knack for the expensive stuff.
Pete: ...
Shopguy: Yeah, she should really know what she wants by the time she's a teenager.
Pete: Tell me, do these mind games make up for your lousy salary?
Shopguy: Sometimes.

So there you have it: my daughter "knows her bling." Between that, her newfound talent for pouring whatever she's drinking onto the floor, and her love of doing somersaults for no reason, I should start getting trophies made.

The Lost Weekend

Every year, give or take, several of us* who have known each other for a varying number of years (since 1980, in the case of myself and peenman) get together to drink beer and swap tales of ribaldry that become sadly less ribald as we get older. Most of us are married, some of us have kids, and all of us are incapable of letting go of the fact that we can no longer survive for an entire weekend on nothing more than three hours of sleep, a case of Schaefer, and a jar of Vlasic pickles a day.

These are usually camping excursions, alternating between both coasts and the Lone Star State depending on whose turn it is to host. Last year, someone (and I won't take credit unless it makes me look like a visionary instead of a wuss) suggested that we didn't necessarily have to, y'know, camp. As it was TheDave's turn to host, and he lives in San Diego, we ended up renting a beach house in Rosarito, Mexico.

"Roughing it" means different things to different people. In this case, we had to deal with only the basic DirecTV package. And no TiVo. Somehow, we soldiered on. Here's the view from our balcony (check out the sturdy south of the border craftmanship on that railing):

I only made that trip a few times, as visions of my drunk, broken body getting scooped up my seafaring organ harvesters kept playing in my head. The view from the beach was pretty nice, however:

Not visible in this shot are the porpoises lurking just offshore, or the vast armadas of kelp waiting to ensnare our brave heroes.

But you'd rather hear about shameful drunken hijinx, I imagine. True, much beer was consumed, and my own particular problems started when I switched to Bushmills some time around midnight our second night. Whether it was fear of federales, or an unwillingness to compete for space with a gaggle of SDSU freshmen discovering the wonders of Cuervo shooters for the first time, we didn't get into a lot of trouble in town. We went in on Friday afternoon for lunch and to have a look around, and as the below picture indicates, it seems fairly harmless in the daylight:

Our nighttime excursion on Saturday didn't go well for yours truly, as I was suffering from either a) food poisoning, b) pregnancy, or c) delayed reaction to the Bolton appointment. Combine my gastric distress with the locals' love of fireworks, and you had sort of cross between Roy Munson's bathroom scene in Kingpin and the Omaha Beach landing. I don't use the word "surreal" much, but I think that qualified.

As fun as the trip was, my attempts to get back home were less so. Continental booked me and another guy into the same seat for the flight home, than pulled me off that plane and stuck me on one leaving six hours later. Much as I enjoyed numbing my ass at the Terminal 2 bar, getting home at 4:30 AM on Monday kind of sucked. As did the $45 cab ride home. This is only the latest in a long line of screw jobs by Continentnal, and I composed the first draft of my letter to the airline over a few beers, and hope to edit out most some of the profanity before sending it off this week.

Anyway, I'm back now. And relatively sober. We'll see how long that lasts.

* peenman, seadogs, TheDave, and Sir Not Appearing In This Blog

Mexicali blues

At some point in the near future I will regale everyone with stories of my unceremonious yanking from my San Diego to Houston flight yesterday, my experiences vomiting under the rockets' red glare on a beach in Rosarito, Mexico, and my heroic rescue of a canoe full of beauty contestants from Baja pirates, but right now I'm too tired.

To sum up: Continental Airlines suck; churros are good; and I am an old, old man.

Sunday (sort of) Offspring Blogging

Have I mentioned lately what unintentional hilarity child rearing wreaks upon the level of previously intelligible marital discourse? No? Well then, allow me to present the following exchange, which took place yesterday during the umpteenth viewing of a certain taped episode of Sesame Street:

Pete: I just realized something.
The Wife: What?
Pete: That's not Erykah Badu singing the ABC song with Elmo, it's India Arie.
The Wife: What's the difference?
Pete: She's not batshit insane like Erykah Badu.
The Wife: Aha.
Pete: And she's really hot.
The Wife: You're watching too much of this.

It's always gratifying to find something that makes you want to share life experiences with your daughter. Now we just need to get Monica Bellucci on the show.

So what'd I miss?

Back from vacation, if any week spent with not one, but two under-two-year-olds can honestly be termed such. Aside from several baseball games, I pretty much avoided TV and the internet all week (apparently a new Harry Potter book came out and messed up China's monetary system). I did have a great "fuck Continental Airlines" post all ready to seethe over after our flight up (the hard landing at Newark which blew out our hydraulics line was but one highlight), but the trip back today was almost note perfect. She Who Shall Not Be Named actually napped on the plane, meaning my laptop batteries were in no danger of running out when we finally cranked up the Elmo DVDs.

And I suspect nobody in Houston in bitching about inadequate rainfall anymore.

The only other thing I'll point out is that - while I imagine 90 degree temperatures are rare enough to be a novelty in Maine - they really blow when nobody has any damn air conditioning. Fortunately, there was enough Bar Harbor Real Ale to take the edge off. We saw three porposies and a harbor seal on our kayak excursion, and I almost made the newspaper's police beat for loudly (and correctly) describing a group of Icy Hot Stuntaz wannabes at the Thirsty Whale as "mooks."

And after making a lame attempt at it, let me just say that I won't be trying to get caught up on a week's worth of posts from those of you on my blogroll. You guys write too damn much.

I hear that Voice again

Weird.

Got an e-mail yesterday from the host of Voice of America's "Talk to America" radio program, who apparently wants to interview me for today's show about the "enduring fascination with" The War of the Worlds. Seems he saw my review on Film Threat, and I guess Michael Medved had to back out (one of the other guys listed as appearing on the program is the National Review's John Miller, meaning this has the potential to be interesting).

I have no idea how they found me, but I'm going on some time between 11 AM and 12 PM Central time. There's a link to a Real Audio stream on the web site, so if you want to listen to my valiant attempts to sound erudite later today, knock yourselves out.

UPDATE: And...I'm spent.

That went fast. Didn't really talk to anyone other than the hosts, and I think I was on the air for a grand total of five minutes. They snuck a question in about the aliens presence as a metaphor for terrorist sleeper cells, which I sidestepped.

Anyway, I imagine it'll be archived tomorrow. Listen for me around the 30 minute mark, if you're so inclined.

UPDATE: Archive's up (the actual file is here). I'm on at about the 26-minute mark, and I can't believe my voice sounds like that.

Because I never tire of my own "wit"

Excerpt from a conversation with The Wife this morning about taking our daughter to her 18-month checkup:

Pete: So, you've got her for the doctor's appointment and the swim class afterward?
The Wife: Yeah, don't worry about me. Just go enjoy your zombie movie.
Pete: You know, I did take her to her last three appointments.
The Wife: The hell you did.
Pete: 9 month, one year, and the time she had that fever.
The Wife: Yeah? Well I gained [n] pounds and went through breastfeeding. Beat that.
Pete: Hey, it's not my fault god hates your sex.

I was expecting another expert right cross delivered to my already perma-bruised upper arm, but she actually laughed at that one.

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas

Provided you can remember any of it.

I'm half the man I used to be. Literally. Collapsed last night around 1 AM (which is 3 AM Houston time, let's not forget). Mark made it in around 4:30, and in my stuporous condition, I momentarily thought I was back home and he was an intruder, and came close to taking action to defend what I thought was my property.

Which would have been an unwise move. Mark's a black belt.

Fortunately, we made it through the incident and are now dealing with the aftermath of both the opening party - at the Ghost Bar, which is situated on a 40-story balcony at the Palms, which would have been scary as bejesus if I hadn't already been well into the Stella Artois - and the Hustle and Flow after party, where I discovered that Cuba Gooding, Jr. is surprisingly tall. Or I might have been slumping in near collapse.

He didn't answer my question about the status of Snow Dogs 2

Goofing off in the press lounge now (free Area 51!). Movies start for me at 3 PM (Vegas, remember), then there are reportedly several more parties at several more venues that I normally wouldn't be allowed within spitting distance of without my nifty all-access laminate.

Fortunately, no one ever talks to me once I get inside anyway, so the status quo hasn't changed too much.

Place your bets

We're heading out today to CineVegas in, you guessed it, sunny Las Vegas, NV. Since I doubt they have wifi in he McCarran County Jail, posting here will be sporadic until Monday. We're staying...off the Strip, not that it matters. All you need a hotel for in LV is a quick blood transfusion and puke and you're back out on the casino floor. Am I right, people?

And no reviews this week, for a variety of reasons. What are you going to the movies for, anyway? Read a damn book.

So says the movie reviewer.

Damn you, Kevin Smith

An Exercise in Improper Gym Etiquette

Where: A gym. Duh.
When: More recently than I care to admit.
Who: Your humble narrator and an unidentified female gym member.

To set the stage, I'm loitering around the exercise mats, trying to summon up the intestinal fortitude necessary to do my wimpy preacher curls in front of a bunch of guys built like Goldberg, when the aforementioned UFGM emerges from an aerobics class to look for, I assume, medicine balls. Unsuccessful in her quest, she unwisely turns to me:

UFGM: Hey, have you seen any balls around here?
Pete: Biggest pair you ever...*mmmph* [clamps own hand over mouth]
UFGM: [backing away] Never mind.

Apologies to those who haven't seen Clerks.

Wednesday Offspring Blogging: Survivor - Houston

Political intrigue aplenty at my house, as She Who Shall Not Be Named asserts her domicile dominance through the use of her new favorite word ("No," often spoken forcefully while pointing at whatever deadly object we've just removed from her grasp). She's a stubborn one (no idea where she gets that), and her new game is to ignore being told to "Come here" until The Wife or I start advancing on her. She's also quick to try and distract you with a hug if one of her mean old parents commits the sin of actually getting angry with her.

I weep for the men of the future.

Like most toddlers, she also doesn't know her own strength. Or rather, the total lack of it. For example, SWSNBN likes to dance - whether by bouncing on her own or being twirled around the house (usually by The Wife, who has much better rhythm than yours truly). She enjoyed a few spins on Monday, but BBQ preparation called, and her mother returned to chopping vegetables. My darling child decided the best way to convince Mommy of the error of her ways was to (try and) shove her away from the counter. Bad move.

After five minutes in the box, The Wife explained to SWSNBN why she shouldn't push people. She stuck her lower lip out and rolled her eyes, much like our President when he's chastised about prison conditions, then trotted off. And that was that.

Except it wasn't. I followed her down the hallway to the guest room, where she shot me a look, removed the doorstop, and shut the door. I waited a few seconds before she started wailing as only someone stuck in a room and incapable of turning a doorknob can. I opened the door, at which point she reached up, grabbed my hand (finger, actually...she doesn't have the man hands), and tugged me into the room with her. She then let go and shut the door behind us. Pleased with her handiwork, she clapped her hands together and began collecting her Dr. Seuss books.

Finally (parenthood makes you stupid, remember) I realized what was going on. My daughter had placed a physical - if not emotional - barrier between my wife and me. In this way, she was obviously trying to engineer an in-house power struggle wherein I would side with SWSNBN against the depredations of the imperious maternal unit. I guess she figured once Mom was out of the way I'd be easy to dispose of, as she's obviously pegged me as the weaker of the duo.

A bold move for our beloved revolutionary sweetheart, but ultimately fruitless, as I actually have to share a bed with the missus.

And she's handy with a knife.

Dynamite with a laser beam

Friday the 13th probably wasn't the best choice for scheduling some guy to cut my eyes up with lasers, but I'm all about living on the edge. Posting will be sporadic on APCB while I spend the weekend recovering and picking out sunglasses that aren't clip-ons.

In the meantime, feel free to check out my review of Kicking & Screaming over at Film Threat.

Also, today's special date allows me to once again trot out this entry, which should be your first, last, and full stop for planning a Friday the 13th movie marathon with that special someone.

Heave-a Las Vegas

Got my plane tickets for CineVegas a couple days ago. CineVegas is a nine day film festival that I'll only be attending the first three days of, but I fervently hope that one weekend will afford me the opportunity to meet both Ann-"Kitten With A Whip"-Margret and Samantha "I Would Allow Her to Bear My Children if Only That 'Honor' Had Not Been Bestowed Upon Another" Morton.

I'll be attending with TV's Chris Gore, the Internet's Eric Campos, and AM radio's Mark Bell. I anticipate little sleep and less sobriety.

Oh, and apparently we all have tickets to ArenaBowl XIX on Sunday. For those of you who have real football in your cities (i.e. not Los Angeles), arena football is that sport where guys crash into nets after catching a ball with only one foot in bounds. Or something. I have no idea who might end up playing for the championship, but I'll take a page from the Oakland Raiders and be sure to root for the team with the largest number of ex-con fans sitting near me.

And did I mention Bryan Adams is playing the halftime show? I somehow managed to get through all of the '80s and '90s without seeing him perform live, and still the bastard dogs my steps into the next millennium. He's the Max Walker to my Senator McComb in Timecop, the Bele to my Lokai, the Once-ler to my Lorax, the...

You get the idea.

To commemorate "Summer of '69," I'll try to remember to take a picture of Mark giving oral gratification to a 32-oz. cup of beer.

Tuesday Offspring Blogging: Shriekback

We're spoiled by the fact that She Who Shall Not Be Named is pretty well-behaved. With the exceptions of hunger, fatigue, and the TV cutting out mid-Elmo, we couldn't have asked for a sweeter kid.

Or so we thought, for SWSNBN - ever the overachiever - seems at times like she's getting a jump on the Terrible Twos. No longer is she content merely with what is offered, but now all within her line of sight must be presented to her, and every whim, no matter how fleeting, must be catered to immediately.

For a recent example, I had to run to the dry cleaners yesterday evening. The little darling, as she is increasingly wont to do, neglected to take her nap (she appears, regrettably, to be taking after her father's "sleep is boring" philosophical outloook). This only served to magnify her crankiness as we got to the dry cleaners and proceeded to stand in line.

SWSNBN is all about constant motion, so she was having none of this. 60 seconds of immobility? You might as well ask her to sit still when her face is washed, or divulge where she hid the DVD remote. Not wanting to cause a scene before it was absolutely necessary, I set her on the ground, foolishly thinking she'd be content to play with the fake trees in the corner.

Ha ha. No. When in a strange location, her M.O. is surprisingly consistent: seek out, with all haste, the largest, shiniest automobile (moving or not) or; make a beeline towards the loudest and most dangerous piece of machinery in earshot. When I gently tugged her away from the open door of the establishment and the jolly, candy-like Nissan Xterra which beckoned from outside, she immediately bolted for the "Mangler"-style steam ironer in the back of the store.

Belatedly realizing my folly, I scooped her up and resumed our place in line. Cue infernal din. Say what you want about Houston's air quality, my kid has a set of lungs that would make Tenzing Norgay proud. I did my ineffective best to calm her, but to no avail. It soon got to the point where the other customers were having difficulty being heard above her screeching.

This kind of thing is old hat to most parents. Hell, I haven't been doing it all that long and even I've gotten pretty good at ignoring my child's public fits. Not everyone shares this ability, however, and in no time at all the woman ahead of me asked if I'd like to cut ahead of her.

After asking her to repeat herself, I declined, pointing out she'd been there first. She said it'd be no problem, and when I looked at the two people ahead of her, they nodded as well. One out of sympathy, one of out childless irritation at having to endure the shrieking of an unwelcome house ape. With a smile at the first two people and a lip-curling sneer at the third, I headed to the counter. $14 and one slightly gnawed pencil eraser later, we were on our way home. SWSNBN happily bouncing along to Jason and the Scorchers and me contemplating stopping at the local ice house for a cold one.

The worst she could mess with there is the stupid Golden Tee machine.

I have the donor's remorse

Gave blood yesterday, but the persistence of this stomach bug I picked up last weekend is starting to make me wish I could go down to the blood center and get it back. I'm a "Commit for Life" donor, meaning I'm supposed to give every quarter, but I've been doing it every two months for a while now. Might be a good idea to sit the next one out.

Oh, and before anybody spouts off about what a generous person this makes me, you should know I only donate so the vampires will pass me over in favor of someone a little more juicy.

No Sin City review

Not from me, anyway. There's one up at Film Threat by KJ Doughton who - in spite of referring to Hartigan as both Hardigan and Harrigan - more or less confirms what I thought would be the case: Sin City kicks ass.

Long story short: a snafu with the publicist led to my not being notified of the press screening. I learned of this last Thursday (I usually e-mail my studio contact if I haven't heard of a screening by a week and half before the film opens), and was bitching about the situation to frequent commenter Denny over drinks at Downing Street[1] when the following exchange took place:

Pete: So now I don't get to see Sin City, which really sucks since it's one of the only movies I've been looking forward to this spring.
Denny: Well, you don't get to see it before it opens, anyway.
Pete: What to do you mean?
Denny: You can still go after it comes out in the theater, can't you?
Pete: ...
Denny: Jesus, when was the last time you actually paid to see a movie?
Pete: Uh...last year some time. I guess.[2]
Denny: What an asshole.

All right already, point taken. I saw 73 movies in the theater last year, I paid for three of them. I really wanted to see Sin City and review it, but some films fall through the cracks. Screenings are canceled, communications get fouled up, and real life sometimes intrudes on my swinging movie critic lifestyle. C'est la guerre.

But I really wanted to see it.

[1] I am not normally in the habit of taking my commenters out for drinks, in case you felt like hitting me up.
[2] Upon further reflection, it was probably Miracle, in February of last year.

Raising a Pacino fan

She Who Shall Not Be Named is, like her mother, quite the public speaker. I know she gets her excessive verbosity from The Wife's side of the family because I can remember going entire days without talking, living under my bed on a diet of peanut butter crackers and Spider-Man comics. Lacking experience with chatty toddlers, therefore, I naturally feel the need to experiment.

She's got the standard vocabulary down: things like "ba-ba" (bottle), "ma-ma" (mother), "da-da" (annoying prick who won't let me chew on his Rocky and Bullwinkle DVDs). There's also "all right!" - usually accompanied by the throwing up of hands in celebration - and "high five," of which I'm particularly proud. She can say "shoes," "sock," "nose," "baby," "elmo," and "poo poo," which is so goddamed cute I want to puke. But not much has made me as proud as what she said this last weekend.

Friday evening, we're enjoying dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant when the wee one grabbed the bars of the fence next to our table and yelled, "Attica!" Just like I'd been trying to get her do for the last five months, whenever she'd clutch the baby gate and fuss about not being allowed into the kitchen.

Of course, it came out "Appica!", but we all knew what she was trying to say.

I think "You're out of order!" is still a ways off, but I've already started thinking about new Pacino quotes to try out:

"Hoo hah." - Scent of a Woman (she can probably do this one already)
"I want my Cadillac." - Glengarry Glen Ross
"Banana daquiri." - The Godfather, Part II
"Cock-a-roaches." - Scarface (this is actually the only quote from that particular movie I feel comfortable teaching her)

And the ultimate:

"Don't ever take sides against the Family again." - The Godfather

This isn't bat country

It sits there, mocking me.

Finally got around to picking up the Criterion Collection edition of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas last week, and was going to settle in to watch it after putting the kid down for a nap this afternoon. Trouble is, the remote's nowhere to be found.

Sure, I could start it up from the DVD player itself, if it wasn't an archaic model from the mid-90s that is easily foiled by DVD menus, that is. In short, I can't play the film. So I get to watch the Ralph Steadman intro over and over and over again as I throw couch cushions hither and yon and She Who Shall Not Be Named slumbers peacefully, chuckling to herself in her sleep.

I'll get her for this.

UPDATE: The remote has been recovered, turns out she stashed it in the linen drawer in the kitchen. Just for that, I'm making her watch the "dinosaurs in the Mint Hotel lobby" scene.

UPDATE 2: She liked the dinosaur scene. Figures.

Elvis needs boats

And so does Carnival, judging by the "mechanical problem" with the propulsion system that caused us to return to port some 14 hours laster than planned from Cozumel. As a result, I'm pretty much completely swamped. More later.

But first, these observations:

1. Remind me to incorporate my eventual business venture in Panama like Carnival. That way I can hire nothing but people from Indonesia and the Eastern Bloc and pay them jack shit.
2. I refuse to believe, as the Macedonian bartender told me, that I was the "first person in four years" to know where Macedonia was. I got a few free drinks out of it, at least.
3. There was something called a "party boat" shore excursion in Cozumel, which was a 4-hour ride around the island on a boat with free booze. It started at 9 AM. Didn't go on it, though I was surprised at the number people over the age of 30 who did.
And judging by the number of them I saw eating pavement afterwards, I'm glad I declined.

In retrospect, I don't think the problem is that I'm not sedentary enough for a cruise, but rather that I don't like being sedentary around that many other people. Overall, we had a good time, but if they could've eliminated about 95% of the other passengers, yet kept the bartenders and the casino open, I'd sign up every year.

And maybe they could get some oarsmen. We weren't even going fast enough on Sunday to water ski.

L8ter sk8ters

She Who Shall Not Be Named has been packed off the grandma's, and The Wife and I are leaving today for a trip south of the border for sun, suds, and - most importantly - sleep. I'll be back next week.

Keep reading the fine blogs listed over there on the right, and check for my review of Be Cool on Film Threat tomorrow.

Bad dad

Being an acknowledged Expert in all matters regarding child rearing doesn't mean I'm entirely dismissive of the opinions of others. Even so, I thoroughly enoyed this entry about "mothering drive-bys" at Chez Miscarriage (found on Melanie's site). It's geared specifically to moms, but there's plenty info that will be familiar to fathers as well.

The point, for those not up to reading the whole thing, is that allowing a child to drink sugared apple juice or failing to keep their head covered in 40 degree weather does not equate to systemic child abuse or neglect, and please don't make the comparison. Letting your child play in mud isn't the same as this.

So moved was I by this piece that it has allowed me to come forwards and admit some of my own failings as a father. I hope, when she's older, my daughter can forgive me for the following parental transgressions:

1. I let her eat cookies. Not just the baby aisle kind, but actual cookies. Shortbread even.
2. I have let her go more than three days without a bath,
3. I will turn on Sesame Street (specifically, "Elmo's World") to prevent her being underfoot when I have something to attend to in the kitchen or the bathroom.
4. I have let her cry herself back to sleep.
5. Since the radio is usually on in when she's playing in the living room, I'm reasonably sure a couple of profanities have aired within her hearing.
6. And I'm certain I've personally aired dozens, if not hundreds, of profanities within her hearing.
7. I have let her pick up a Cheerio off the floor and eat it. More than once. Hell, more than half a dozen times.
8. I have taken photos of her strictly for future embarrassment potential.
9. I have put her shoes on the wrong feet and not noticed for almost an hour.
10. I have dressed her in Longhorn garb purely to annoy her mother.

My shame knows no limits.

The Origin of the Specious

Some of you may recall the pathetic plea I made a few months ago for biographical information in the wake of severe head trauma (caused by repeated exposure to ABC's Wife Swap). There were many responses, which have cleared up a lot of questions about my past.

Using fragments of histories obtained a variety of diverse sources (the Dead Sea Scrolls, De Furtivis Literarun Notis, Combat Handguns, and Pia Zadora's Necronomicon) and submitted by helpful readers, I've managed to piece together a comprehensive and wholly accurate portrait of...myself.

And I had no idea I'd led such an interesting life. Without further windbaggery, here's everything you need to know about Pete, your host at A Perfectly Cromulent Blog.

First, for those of you bitching about a lack of pictures of yours truly, here you go:

And I think we can put those pesky alias rumors to rest, as detailed in Who's Who Among Unnecessary Pop Culture Bloggers:

"Pete Vonder Haar is the current nom de net of media entity Brian O'Blivion. In the early 1980s, Prof. O'Blivion gained fame as a television personality, but as the Internet gained prominence, he made the media jump to the online world, and in the process, changed his name.

"Prof. O'Blivion once noted that "The television screen is the retina of the mind's eye." As Pete Vonder Haar, he is at the moment uncertain as to whether the Internet is the mind itself, or merely the colon."

Funny, I thought it was "internets." I sure do miss that TV star lifestyle though...the chicks, the mountains of cocaine, the lost weekends with Todd Bridges.

And now, to business.

ORIGINS

The truth behind my ancestry is still apparently a bit hazy, it would seem. Imagine my delight when this bit from the Vanessa Williams issue of Penthouse was sent to me:

"Pete von der Haar (a/k/a the 15th Earl of Dordrecht) was born in 1969, the product of a tryst between a Pasadena, TX hotel cleaning lady and the bass player for Vanilla Fudge. Like Kaspar Hauser, young Pete was often kept in hotel broom closets and boiler rooms, without much significant human contact. A minor genius, however, Pete managed to reverse-engineer the rules of society learn using his Last Tango in Paris action figures.

Then there's this contradicting account, scrawled on a parchment removed from the skeletonized fingers of an explorer found on the Plain of Leng:

"Pete vonder Haar, noted film critic and prune Danish aficionado, was discovered at the mouths of the Ganges by a kindly Flemish couple at the age of six months. He had been floating in a small basket constructed of pitch-smeared bulrushes and subsisting on a diet of Cheez Whiz and beef jerky. His subsequent existence is shrouded in mystery, enigma, and confusion."

Mmmm....prune Danish. That sounds like it would go well with some refreshing beer. From the memoirs of Spuds McKenzie:

"Sometime in the late 1970s, a disgruntled vat scrubber at the Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner, Texas, purchased an untested hallucinogenic compound from an itinerant ElectroLux vacuum-cleaner salesman. In a drunken stupor, he committed a spiteful act of terrorism unparalleled in the annals of fermentation: he introduced the experimental narcotic into the Hot Wort tank. As he fled the scene, however, the hapless saboteur stumbled into Boggy Creek and was devoured by a school of ornery brook trout.

"Unwittingly, the Shiner Brewing Company distributed contaminated bottles of Shiner Bock across the state. A large portion of the tainted brew found its way to the supermarkets and package stores of College Station, where innocent, unsuspecting alcoholics purchased case after case. There, the potent elixir was consumed and the complex chemical compound wormed its way into the necrotic brain cells of thousands of credulous, beer-swilling Texans. And the persistent mass hallucination we know today as Peter Vonder Haar was born.

"Fueled by mysterious alchemy, mob psychology, a rare cosmic alignment, and narrative convenience, the Vonder Haar hallucination seeped into the collective subconscious and became infectious, passing from one diseased mind to another. Few were immune to the pernicious phantasm. Only a rare gene on the X chromosome allowed a fortunate handful of women to escape its influence -- to these happy few, Pete was invisible, and remains so to this day.

"I'm not your woman, I'm not your man, I am something that you'll never understand."

EARLY YEARS

Similarly, my adolescence appears to have been as confused as it was turbulent. Lets look back at that aforementioned issue of Penthouse:

"Pete himself prefers not to dwell on these dark times, and stage II of his remarkable life began when, at age 15, he was dumped in the dead of night on the 50-yard line of Kyle Field with a note reading "He's your problem now" stapled to his chest. Discovered by the Aggie Corps, he was adopted as an informal mascot (never able to supplant Reveille IV) and enrolled at the prestigious A & M Consolidated High School. However, Pete could not read, write, or speak in complete sentences, which meant that he fit in well with the other brain-dead Judas Priest fans yearning to attend the Monsters of Rock at Castle Donington."

I never could compete with that dog. Goddamn goody-two shoes. Or is it four shoes?

Further detail (and confusion) resulted from this passage, written in blood, which appeared on the wall of my basement one dreary morning:

"Pete 'The Hammer' von der Haar grew up in relative obscurity, never dreaming or knowing of the fame he would one day achieve. He got his nickname for his idolatry of Jan Hammer, the keyboardist of Miami Vice fame. Pete's obsession kept him off of the mean streets of Antwerp and rocketed him into near-stardom in eastern Europe. Alas, the early 80s had already whizzed by Pete in a blur, and there was no further need for big keyboard bridges and solos in pop music anymore. A-ha never returned his calls, Jan Hammer sent only an autographed 8x10 glossy in return to his requests for a studio session, and even Yamaha stopped comping him keyboards. Never one to back down, Pete hammered away at his keyboard still and attempted to convert his talents to the silver screen with big movie soundtracks, a la John Carpenter and Brad Fiedel, but the Hammer found his market over-saturated and impervious to his blows as well.

That stupid alligator never returned my calls either.

"ADULTHOOD"

Our first glimpses of my alleged maturation come from these words, translated from writings on a wall in darkest Bukovina:

"Nominated for Secretary of State by a delusional man, Vonder Haar found himself the subject of an official FBI investigation and was subsequently convicted of smuggling marmots, the only felony blemish on an otherwise misdemeanorish record. (The smuggling charge was enhanced by the judge's finding that the marmots were carried in the trousers in a prurient fashion.)"

As if there's any other way to carry marmots. Compare this to what those wiseass blood-scrivening poltergeists had to say:

"It was then that Pete entered his dark years, and he tried to run from everything, even his moniker. He disappeared into the east and rumor has it he trained intensely with the swordmaster Syrio Florel. Pete returned three years later, insisting on being called 'The Needle. His talents now were focused on swordplay and its rise in popularity' on the silver screen. He narrowly missed out on the part to play Conan the Barbarian, even though his swordplay was excellent - better than Mr. Schwarzenegger's - but in the end they were looking for someone a bit more 'Mr. Universe-ish' (Pete bitterly contends to this day that Conan's utterances of 'Crom!' were all based on his own ad-libs during the call-back). Pete then got his big break by playing the understudy for the stand-in for Chow Yun-Fat in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the rest, as they say, is elementary history, dear Watson.

More proof that my writing of movie reviews stems from my failures in the industry itself. Still, this would seem to be at odds with the last words of former President Ronald Reagan who, in a stunning moment of lucidity, uttered the folowing:

"Following the collapse of the soviet union, a dejected young Comrade Vonder Haar wandered across Europe searching for a new homeland. Stripped of his glorious position as head of the Personal Hygiene brigade of the Young Pioneers, Vonder Haar grew depressed and turned to drink."

That sounds about right. But before I could remove myself from his bedchamber and its attendant stench of death, he continued:

"His fate was transformed over night when, in the midst of a 3-day bender at Stockholm's Lydmar Hotel bar, another patron of the establishment tuned the TV in to a U.S. satellite network. The haze cleared from Vonder Haar's head in response to a strange, pleasing sound coming from the television:

"'Before I show you how to make a fortune in real estate, let me tell
you my story. Me and my family came to America broke. I couldn't speak English at the time… I still couldn't speak English now, but I found a way to make a fortune in real estate investment and I went on to teach thousands across America how to do the same. If you want to make a fortune in real estate, come to my FREE seminar.'

"A shot of adrenaline rushed through Vonder Haar. His fate was suddenly clear and that fate had a name: Tommy Vu".

"The hotel owner - eager to have Vonder Haar leave his establishment
before another major fire was started by a cigarette fallen from his
drunken lips - loaned him the money to buy a plane ticket to Houston. The rest is history. Today, Vonder Vu World Enterprises employs more spokesmodels than any other corporation in the entire world."

This would be only the first mention of toothsome feminity I came across in my research, but certainly not the last, as those Bukovinan cave writings would prove:

"Gifted with the ability to travel time and space by a magic pixie named "Autosomic Psychosis", Pete spends his vacations along the beaches of the Niobrara Sea in Kansas, 78 million years B.C., but has yet to report finding anything that resembles Raquel Welch. Who is, it must be said, frankly unto a dog compared to Pete's wife, but Ms. Welch's undeniable influence on young Pete's, let's say, appreciation of film overwhelms his otherwise flawless critical sense as well as his sense of marital danger."

The Wife, unfortunately, always has a convenient excuse to avoid wearing the fur-lined bikini I procured for her. Figures.

THE PRESENT

So, besides being time-traveling real estate magnate, what else is going on in my life?

"Known chiefly for wearing plus-fours and a natty tam-o'-shanter, he spends his working days at the intersection of the West Loop South and the South Loop West pounding out film critiques on an aging Commodore 64, the last of its breed."

I left my Amiga in the Mesozoic Era, it seems.

"The Vonder Haar hallucination evolved over time, becoming louder, more tangible, and slightly wider around the middle. It continues to find new ways to propagate itself -- first via the mass consensual delusion that is the Internet, and most recently through the creation of material offspring (best not to think too much about that).

"The future of the Vonder Haar hallucination is open to speculation, but the consequences for civilization as we know it are certain to be dire."

"You're looking at my gut, aren't ya? I'm working on it!"

And what was that about a family?

Pete currently lives in Houston's historic and scenic Fifth Ward with his wife, the former Mrs. Jeff Bagwell, and their adorable infant daughter, Chardonnay."

Now were talking. And I bet I can share some of that sweet, sweet Golden Palace profit, too.

What was that about a daughter?

Pete's daughter, whose name ("Winter Loveducky Vonder Haar") remains a closely guarded secret, plays the trombone professionally in the Tower of Power.

Casino endorsements? Professional musicians? I'll never have to work again.

Finally, this excerpt - written in John Bonham's terminal vomitus on a snare drumhead made from human flesh and handed to my agent David Kabakov during Super Bowl X - would appear to sum up my life quite aptly:

"Who knows where he came from, and who cares. We're just glad he came, with his shotgun and battered jeep and devil-dog, a blazing hurricane of kung-fu and zombie-fighting action. Thank the sweet little baby Jesus for Pete von der Haar -- lover, philosopher, acrobat and roguish jewel thief, privateer, and pioneer of endocrinology. His record is as long as his arm, and maybe something else is as well -- ladies, investigate.

"They say he's got a checkered past. He's a mystery, this one -- this lonely ghost with a pocket full of dreams and a belly full of bourbon and blues, the weight of a nation hanging on his shoulders, buoyed up only by a heart that's bigger than you or me. You can't walk a mile in his boots, pilgrim -- it's a hot, hot kitchen where he's going, and where he's been is as cold as liquid shade.

"But that's just Pete, breaking hearts and breaking heads, sometimes both at once but never twice in the same way, an elemental force if one of the elements were 'macho'. He's playing through the pain, he's taking one for the team, he's pushing the envelope and the envelope better not push back if it knows what's good for it.

"So forget where he came from. That's need to know, baby, and all you need to know is that somewhere, maybe across the world or around the block or standing right behind you, somewhere there's a man who strikes while the iron is hot, because he IS the iron, and the bad guys are being taken to the cleaners. Let go of the past; let go of the covert work in Burma, the rumors about him and Helen Mirren, those stories about the addiction to barium.

"God Bless Pete von der Haar, bad-ass warts and all."

Yeah, well, barium will do that to you.

portrait of me and The Wife courtesy of my friend Sara

Thanks to Norbizness, Greg, Steve, Andy, Sarah, Karin, Mason, and Brandon.

Ah, me public

So, about a year and a half ago I wrote a column about the William L. Petersen movie To Live and Die in L.A. for Film Threat (you can read it in all its poorly formatted glory here). In it, I went off on a bit of an outdated diatribe about the film's lack of availability on DVD, which is no longer the case. There was also a throwaway line that I didn't really think about after I'd written it:

Then again, if it weren’t for my VHS copy, I’d never be able to enjoy the classic 1985 commercial for Nestlé Alpine White chocolate ("Sweet dreams you can’t resist, N-E-S-T-L-E-S"), but I digress.

This weekend, I received the following e-mail, which I...uh, just had to share with you:

From: "XXX" [XXX@hotmail.com]
To: input@filmthreat.com
Subject: Re: Pete Vonder Haar...N-E-S-T-L-E-S commercial TRIVIA
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 19:00:07 -0500

Here's some trivia on the classic N-E-S-T-L-E-S commercial you found at the beginning of the film, Live and Die in LA.

It was shot in New York City on the upper west side, January, 1986, two weeks before the Shuttle Challenger disaster. The Maxfield Parrish artwork was used as a back drop. The commercial ran for three years until the Maxfield Parrish estate sued Nestle because they apparently didn't ask permission to recreate the art work. The commercial, although timeless, was pulled from all markets.

Darn...I made good money on that one.

I was the second model in the commercial, the young, dark-headed guy. It took 45 minutes for them to shoot my scene. I was in makeup longer than that. This is how it went. I had to stand on a box, take a bite of the bar, then spit it in a bucket, behind me to the right...very glamorous. After multiple takes, a person can get sick on all that chocolate and I'm not fond of white chocolate so I had to muster what few acting skills that I had at the time. The studio was so cold that the chocolate bars would break off in my mouth (not too appetizing) so if you look closely, I don't really take a bite, I just fake chewing. I still have an original copy of the commercial given to me by the advertising agency that produced it. HEHE! What trivia!

And now you know the REST of the story!

Now sing along with your friends...

Sweet dreams are made of this, N-E-S-T-L-E-S
A dream as sweet as this, N-E-S-T-L-E-S
Creamy white, dreamy white
Nestle makes the very best, N-E-S-T-L-E-S
Sweet dreams you can't resist.

Great, now I have to go dig that tape out again.

Oh, and I have a new column (not Footage Fetishes) that will be making its debut on FT next week. Stay tuned.

"It saddens and hurts me that the two young men whom I raised to believe in the Ten Commandments have returned to me as two thieves, with filthy mouths and bad attitudes."

Last night showed me quite conclusively that there are some advantages to doing a little legwork on the movies you're about to screen. The film in question? Diary of a Mad Black Woman.

As a Reasonably Upbeat White Man, I determined right away that I wasn't quite who writer Tyler Perry had in mind for his audience. In fact, the other three press guys and I constituted 80% of the white male audience for the flick (and the other guy was, I'm pretty sure, another reviewer who showed up late). No big deal, as I was only cursorily aware of Perry as a writer and the character of Madea, the mouthy, gun-toting old woman he also plays. I'm (usually) always interested in checking out something new, so this was - I hoped - going to be a learning experience.

Trepidation started setting in when I recognized the call letters for the radio station doing the promotion. KWWJ is a local gospel station that I'm not all that familiar with, to put it mildly. The t-shirt contest consisted of Bible questions, which led to a series of "humorous" muttered responses from the four assembled press assholes, yours truly, "Zeke," "Bubs," and "Bort:"

Q: What is the 2nd book of the Bible?
Zeke: Midnight in the Garden of Gethsemane
Bubs: Exodus: Movement of Jah People
Bort: Which Bible?
Pete: Genesis II - The Wrath of Cain

Bubs got that one.

Q: If you attend next month's Praise and Worship Conference, you will receive:
Zeke: One meeelion dollars.
Bubs: One night with Mel Gibson.
Bort: A ride in the Popemobile?
Pete: An autographed picture of Jesus Christ.

What a bunch of sad, bitter men we are.

My first meme

Finally, a way to avoid coming up with something original. As seen at Big Stupid Tommy's, here comes the High School Interrogatory:

What year was it?

Mid-1980's. Graduated in 1987.

What were your three favorite bands (performers)?

Queen, R.E.M., and the Replacements.

What was your favorite outfit?

Jams and either my Fundamentally Oral Bill or "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" t-shirt. I also had a pair of orange Converse high-tops liberally held together with duct tape.

And I have no regrets about sacrificing my chances with the opposite sex for comfort. Not many, anyway.

What was up with your hair?

I experimented with all the '80s classics: the Corey Hart, the Vince Neil, and the Robert Smith. Thanks to my hair's Freida-like natural curliness, they all seemed to morph into the 1977-era Don Henley.

Who were your best friends?

Infrequent commenters peenman, seadogsinc, and a guy who has now found Jesus in such a way that it's pretty much necessitated his complete severing of ties with yours truly. Our friendship was forged in the kind of alcoholic bond familiar to anyone growing up in towns where the biggest event of any given week is going down to the river and starting fires.

What did you do after school?

Marching band. Fuck you, I was drum major.

Where did you work?

Phew, lessee: a joint in the mall that sold baked potatoes, then McDonald's, then Double Dave's pizza, then Kroger. I tried unsuccessfully for years to get a job at Hasting's, but my Don Henley haircut probably held me back.

Did you take the bus?

Nope. Peenman's brother gave me a ride my freshman year, our student body president my sophomore year. After that, I had my sweet '75 Buick LeSabre Custom. The Brown Battleship would serve me well for three whole years.

Who did you have a crush on?

What, should I go alphabetically? I didn't really learn how to be an asshole, relationship-wise, until college, so there was no lack of young women who had no idea of my existence during those four excruciating years.

That's not entirely true, I guess. Between 10th and 11th grade, I somehow managed to gain 5 or 6 inches in height and get contact lenses, and that helped.

We had a pretty active D&D campaign going, however. And that eats up a lot of social time.

Did you fight with your parents?

I was experiencing a Bacardi-induced blackout during the biggest fight I had with my mother, but I don't think that counts (I had to hear about it after the fact from my sister).

My parents had an interesting theory on curfews. Starting at the age of 16, I got to stay out until 2 AM on weekends. Pretty cool, right? Not really, especially considering all of my friends had to be by midnight, at the latest. After dropping everyone off, I didn't really have anywhere else to go, so I was usually home by 12:30.

That doesn't have anything to do with the fight question, I guess.

Who did you have a CELEBRITY crush on?

Elisabeth Shue in The Karate Kid or Diane Lane in Streets of Fire.

Did you smoke cigarettes?

Started when I was 18. Took me forever to quit.

Did you lug all of your books around in your backpack all day because you were too nervous to find your locker?

What the hell does that mean? I took a course notebook and a notebook of whatever science fiction comic masterpiece we were working on at the time.

Did you have a ‘clique’?

Yeah, the Social Retards. We had jackets and everything.

Did you have “The Max” like Zach, Kelly, and Slater?

Pepe's, now closed, was where everyone congregated on the weekends to find out where that evening's binge-drinking fest was located. And you could get three tacos for a dollar.

Admit it, were you popular?

As noted, I was drum major of the marching band. This means that if the band is at the bottom of the high school coolness hierarchy, I was at the top of that. In other words, I was the most recognizable person in the group that none of the cool kids would talk to.

Who did you want to be just like?

Tommy already took Batman, so I'd have to say Lance Corporal Hicks from Aliens.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

While I told everyone I wanted to be a writer, I really wanted to be Optimus Prime.

Where did you think you’d be at the age you are now?

Long dead. Honestly, I didn't think we, as a civilization, would make it out of the '80s alive. Imagine my consternation when the Berlin Wall came down and I had to actually start seriously planning for my future.

Goddamed Gorbachev.

Sharing is caring

The flu sucks.

I'm over the majority of the really hideous symptoms, except my sinuses are still driving me crazy, and I'm coughing like Jose Ferrer in Lawrence of Arabia.

And while I recognize the necessity of rationing out flu shots to those in the "high risk" category, I can now say I fimrly disagree with it. Sure, babies need to be protected, but the elderly? What about us wage earners? We're the ones who keep this economy going, dammit. If Bush was serious about wanting to fix Social Security, he'd have withheld the vaccine from retired people. That probably would've freed up some surplus money, right?

Sorry. Two weeks of excessive phlegm production makes one a mite cranky.

New Year's Eve 2004: The Drunkening

Last night's homebound New Year's Eve was the second in what looks to be a continuing series of low-key affairs necessitated by our unwillingness to trust a stranger to watch our child while we spend the evening with a bunch of sad sacks forcing themselves to down cosmos while listening to a cover band dredge up "Celebration" by Kool and the Gang one more time.

Even so, it was one of the more enjoyable New Year's affairs we've spent. And if playing cards, watching South Park, and banging pots at midnight (a tradition The Wife assures me has a storied history in her family) doesn't quite measure up in debauchery to the four days we spent in New Orleans over New Year's in 1998-99, at least we didn't wake up $800 poorer.

Everyone cleared out/hit the sack by 12:30 except for yours truly, who was able to justify his umpteenth viewing of The Road Warrior by telling himself, "Hey, I haven't watched it this year yet." This morning was refreshingly hangover-free, and everything was topped off by a win for Texas in the Rose Bowl. As for that other great New Year's tradition, I hereby resolve to track down that rascally Osama Bin Laden. Dead or alive.

UPDATE: I just realized that, contrary to the title of this entry, there isn't much about drinking. So let me just add that I personally consumed seven flagons of mead and a hogshead of ale. Take that, sissies.

I want my five dollars.

Everybody's been linking to the "scared of Santa" gallery on Boing Boing, which reminded me of our own adventures in trying to get She Who Shall Not Be Named, suffering from a runny nose and a bad hat, to sit still for her first picture with the tired old bastard in the red suit. We were unsuccesful, though I did get a much better result from the little portrait kiosk we visited later.

All of this is more or less just a lead-in for two encounters I had last night, both in a zapateria called Phil's Shoes, which is sort of a Payless for the criminally cheap. They offer brand name shoes at rock bottom prices, which is probably one of the reasons Encounter #1 occurred in the first place.

SWSNBN, exulting in her tactical victory over Kris Kringle, was set free to toddle into the store. We hadn't put shoes on her for the occasion, so she was cruising in her stocking feet. This immediately aroused the ire of a large, older black woman on her way out of the establishment (The Wife, typically, had disappeared into the bowels of the place immediately upon entering, seeking whatever elusive big game shoe shoppers pursue).

WOMAN [to SWSNBN]: Why don't you have any shoes on?
PETE: She's not a big fan of shoes. Hats either. Or Santa. You know, now that you mention it...
WOMAN: Boy, go buy that child some five dollar shoes.
PETE: [Boy?] What? No, we have shoes. She just doesn't like to wear them.
WOMAN: They're only five dollars.
PETE: ...well then I guess we better buy some.
WOMAN: All right. Good.

Thusly placated, she departed for the food court in order to harangue some kid for not getting sprinkles on his ice cream sundae ("They're free, you little idiot!"), or something.

This exchange left me slightly confused, but there was no time for that, as my little princess was recreating Attack of the 30" Woman in the ladies' aisle. I kept an eye on her for the rest of the time we were in the store, trying to gauge which patrons would be amused by a grimy little ape grabbing their leg unannounced (not many, as it turns out) until it was finally checkout time. We approached the cash register to pay, and I beheld a nightmare vision of one of my daughter's possible futures.

The girl was maybe eleven, and dressed like Christina Aguilera's slightly less easy sister: miniskirt, platiforms, and a halter top that covered all but most of her abdomen. I felt a little sorry for her, not just for her eventual career as "Booty Girl #4" in a Ludacris video, but because she was trying to buy a purse and obviously conflicted about shelling out the (once again) five dollars she was told it cost. She thanked the cashier and got out of line, and while we were getting rung up, apparently reconsidered and queued back up. The Wife leaned over to the cashier and said, "We'll pay for that girl's purse, too."

I wasn't too surprised, as she's prone to this kind of thing. The rationale in this case being that people always bitch about ill-behaved children, but nobody ever rewards kids for being polite. So the cashier rang up the purse, the little girl thanked me, and walked back to - I assume - where her parents were. Then my wife did a Bad Thing. She picked up the baby and left me to complete the purchase.

"So?" you ask, "What's the big deal?" Let me put it this way, if you had a ten or eleven-year old daughter modeling the latest in pre-teen slutwear and she came back to tell you some strange, scruffy guy just bought you a purse for no reason, what would your reaction be? Be honest, because if your answer is anything other than a form of "call security/kick his ass", you're a stinking liar.

I drummed my fingers nervously as the sale was finished, sweating like Donald Rumsfeld at a VFW banquet, waiting for the inevitable tap on the shoulder before being sucker punched by the local chapter president of the Latin Kings or the H-Town Hammerskins. If I was lucky.

None of this happened, of course. We left the store without incident, and I admonished The Wife never to do something like that and then leave me alone to get my guts stomped out ever again. She said she'd think about it.

On a (mercifully) brief personal note

A year ago at this time I was sitting in a hospital hallway in ill-fitting scrubs, hyperventilating into a gift shop bag, preparing for the stork to deliver my child. Was I in for a surprise, because as it turns out, there aren't any birds involved at all in the childbirth process. The closest thing actually being the pelican-like noises of fear issuing from yours truly as the Abominable Dr. Phibes removed my daughter from my wife's body in sterile yet loving fashion.

My biggest fear at the time - apart from getting any of that stuff on me - stemmed from my utter incompetence in the field of baby raisin'. My fervent hope was that we could make it a year without accidentally crushing/immolating/defenestrating our little girl. Having reached that milestone, I can now breathe a sigh of relief, as I understand the whole parenting gig is pretty much a cakewalk from here on out.

Happy birthday, kiddo. Keep on rockin'.

Happy freaking birthday

Not to sound ungrateful, as I did have quite an enjoyable birthday weekend - capped off receiving the "Mr. T In Your Pocket" from The Thing that Walks Like A Man, and Halo 2 from The Wife (whom I should also thank for the encroaching atrophy in my leg muscles). And I got to watch the the first three episodes of Season 1 of The Wire on DVD. Pretty spiffy.

Or so you'd think. I didn't get online at all this weekend before late last night, and didn't do much surfing, aside from checking e-mail. If asked, I'd be hard pressed to give you a reason for my internet avoidance. Sure, I was busy laying waste to Covenant elites and drinking beer, but there was an underlying sense of dread that hinted at something more distressing than spam and "you suck" e-mails lurking out there.

Sure enough, this morning I discovered my unsubstantiated fears have been validated. My favorite band is breaking up (via Kevin):

There's only one thing, in my mind and heart, that could possibly mar this wonderful four-headed creature that we are about to lay to rest in formaldehyde slumber, and that would be if all of you, our dearest of friends, couldn't take part in helping us to put the lid on the jar. It's a really big jar and will take several people just to lift the giant Sharpie to label it. For this, there will be a small handful of occasions. The first of which is, of course, the NYE show at the Barley, by far our most hospitable and mothering home in Dallas.

After that, the plan is for maybe three or four shows at some of our other most friendliest of ports in the midwest, probably sometime towards or around the end of February, and then of course, a resolute, heartfelt, and final goodbye in the only locale appropriate for such a thing, the loins from which we spawned, Denton, TX. More details on those shows as they become fleshed out. For now, know that the NYE will be the beginning of the end. So in the words of some dearest of brethren, Little Grizzly, "Drink with us now until it ends. It's got to end."

I only get on the band's message board about once every two weeks, so I'd missed the news. I can't say I'm that surprised. They haven't been out on tour in over a year, with precious little news on their web site since 2003.

There's not much to say at this point. I wish they weren't splitting up, but I can't imagine how rewarding it is to play 300 shows a year to support an album that sells maybe 50-100,000 copies. The rent doesn't pay itself.

Anyway, I've been to about 30 'bone gigs in the last four or five years, and I hope I get to check out at least one more before they wrap it up.

Bleah. What a way to start your week.

We're flying next time

For future reference, leaving St. Louis at 6 am will get you back in Houston around 9 pm, allowing for food, fuel, and vehicle changing stops. She Who Shall Not Be Named was unbelievably well-behaved, even though she now regards me with what I'm sure is suspicion that we're going back to the car seat every time I pick her up.

It's not a trip I'm eager to repeat anytime in the next, oh, fifteen years.

Much beer was consumed, and a great deal of secondhand smoke was inhaled. Didn't get to see much of the town, though we did make our obligatory annual cold weather trip to the zoo. To my occasional discomfort, SWSNBN was inordinately entertained by the antics of the Central Asian cobra and the warthogs.

And while I know Houston could probably give Bangkok a run for its money on number of strip clubs per capita, I-44 from Joplin to St. Louis has an amazing amount of adult bookstores, especially considering the number of Jesus billboards.

Signing off

Reluctant as I am to leave all my fans in the KLOL thread, APCB will be pretty quiet until next week, as I load the family up for the drive to St. Louis, where I will gorge myself on turkey and lousy domestic beer and console my relatives over the Cards' World Series loss.

Hope everyone has a safe holiday.

Can't stop the music

I don't post much on the weekends. This is where I should tell you about all the fun I have during that time and how I'm not chained to my computer like I am most weeknights, but that wouldn't be entirely accurate. Mostly it's because I like a break from eyestrain and impending carpal tunnel syndrome.

On some occasions, I am actually doing something fun. And the reason I didn't bring it up earlier is because my brain was still percolating yesterday from the events of Friday night.

For you see, Friday night was karaoke night.

I can count on one hand the number of time I've participated in karaoke. I can carry a tune, but until I find a place that offers me a chance to sing "California Uber Alles," the sidelines are where I'll remain. Usually. This time, I went with some friends to Genji, a restaurant/sake bar/karaoke joint here in town. Now, sake and I are not on friendly terms. I endured the second worst hangover of my life several years ago after a party there for my birthday. I still had a bottle or two this time (which contributed to my participation in a rousing version of "How Deep Is Your Love" by the Bee Gees), but switched to beer after that. Perhaps I shouldn't have done so, because that would have made the incident in question easier to laugh off as alcohol-induced fever dream.

I speak of the Korean gentleman who sang a song by the German metal band Helloween.

Helloween were one of a multitude of bands who enjoyed some manner of success during the '80s Hair Band Golden Age. I was familiar with them, but couldn't tell you the names of most of their songs. For that reason, I can't tell you what the song was the gentleman in question sang. Could've been "Future World," or "A Little Time," or something else entirely. The band's still around, after all, so maybe the guy was offering something of a more recent vintage. All I know is that the guy had an extremely limited grasp of the English language (which, when you're talking about taking a stab at a song written bu gentlemen whose primary language is German, presents an interesting scenario), and - to put it politely - vocalized about as well as Linda McCartney.

Bad singers are nothing new to karaoke. Hell, they're practically mandatory, but this guy was in a stratum previously undetected. I felt bad, because I'd been introduced to him earlier and thought he was quite a nice dude. But wow. Just wow.

So, anyone wondering where I've been the last two days now knows the answer: I was sitting in my bedroom, staring at the ceilings, and marveling at the rich tapestry of human existence.

And drinking a lot.

Say it with Fellini

As I've mentioned here before, I don't want your money. PayPal links and the like are fine for weblog beggars like Andrew Sullivan and his ilk, but if I actually thought I'd ever make money doing this, I wouldn't be on a .org site.

And I might actually take it seriously. Give your money to someone who actually needs it, or to the hardworking ladies at your local Hooters.

Of course, if you love what you read here that much and just have to show your appreciation, allow me to offer this as a suggestion:

Now available for the first time, The Criterion Collection is proud to present its prestigious collection of films together in one gift set! Totaling 282 discs, The Criterion Collection Holiday 2004 Gift Set consists of all of their published DVDs through October 2004 (except for the out-of-print editions): that's 241 titles on 282 discs and includes a Certificate of Authenticity. This much sought after collection of films is the most significant archive of contemporary filmmaking available to the home viewer.

The foundation of the collection is the work of such masters of cinema as Renoir, Godard, Kurosawa, Cocteau, Fellini, Bergman, Tarkovsky, Hitchcock, Fuller, Lean, Kubrick, Lang, Sturges, Dreyer, Eisenstein, Ozu, Sirk, Buñuel, Powell and Pressburger. Each film is presented uncut, in its original aspect ratio, as its maker intended it to be seen. For every disc, we track down the best available film elements in the world, use state-of-the-art telecine equipment and a select few colorists capable of meeting our rigorous standards, and take time during the film-to-video digital transfer to create the most pristine possible image and sound. Whenever possible, we work with directors and cinematographers to assure that the look of our releases does justice to their intentions. Our supplements enable viewers to appreciate Criterion films in context, through audio commentaries by filmmakers and scholars, restored director's cuts, deleted scenes, documentaries, shooting scripts, early shorts, and storyboards.

Among the titles included: Yojimbo, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Amarcord, Brazil, Rashomon, The Third Man, Black Narcissus, My Life As a Dog, Spartacus, Videodrome, The Seven Samurai, and The Seventh Seal. And, as noted, some 220 others.

It's a steal at $5,250. Dig deep, you cheap bastards.

Halloween SitRep

New approach to the trick-or-treaters this year, as no one (especially not The Wife, who was stuck at home while I headed to the Drafthouse for the 100 Kills extravaganza) was in the mood to deal with four hours worth of greedy little bastards. The neighbors had the right idea, coming by around 5:30, commiserating about the unseasonably crappy temperatures (it was around 85 at dusk) and the coming hordes.

The masses descended upon our neighborhood around 6:45 (we'd had around a dozen kids to that point). By 7:40, so I'm told, the $50+ worth of candy we'd bought - about 20 bags - was gone. Lights were turned off, doors were locked, and big inflatable spiders were unplugged. Get there earlier next time, suckas.

Great kills, once again, at the Drafthouse. I'll put my sorta comprehensive list up here in the next day or so.

Confessions if an iPod Widower

The Wife has wanted an iPod for quite some time now, so - being the dutiful husband I am - I went ahead and waited a couple years until I had made all my own vanity purchases, paid off some bookies, and got her one. I opted for the 20 Gb model because, well, what the hell do I know? We have (what I assumed were) bunches and bunches of CDs, so better safe than sorry. Good thinking, that was, because even after loading most of her discs and a smattering of mine, there's still well over 10 Gb on the thing.

Anyway, I can already tell what a positive effect this is going to have on the marriage. Our coversations, for example, are alreadt friendlier. In the past, we've sometimes had contentious discussions over religion and current events. Now, she's much more agreeable, nodding in assent with my sage wisdom, a half-smile on her face, her earpieces snugly in place.

Conversation among married couples is overrated anyway, and we can sometimes go for hours on end without speaking, comfortable just to be in each other's company.

Child-rearing seems to have gotten easier for The Wife, too. Now, our daughter's cries no longer seem to elicit the same feelings of consternation in her, and she's taken the healthier step of letting the baby just "cry it out," which some experts feel is healthier. I had my doubts at first, but the upside is that our child and I have grown much closer as a result.*

Spouses need their alone time, as well. I'm happy to report that since the addition of out iPod to our happy home, The Wife is much more keen on taking long walks away through the neighborhood, sharing her newfound contraption with other technologically enabled people. She's taken up quite an interest with that young Brazilian gentleman who just moved in a few houses down (I think she said he models for Abercrombie and Fitch). Hey, anything that increases our sense of community in our country is all right with me.

I encourage anyone who wants to strengthen their personal relationships to get an iPod for their loved ones. You'll be amazed at the way it improves your life.

*That was a joke, just in case you're reading this and happen to be a sarcasm-deprived Child Protective Services investigator. Or Wayne Dolcefino.

Must Haves - Ramadan Edition

Time once again for a round-up of pointless leisure items yours truly requires in order to give his life meaning.

Left of the Dial: Dispatches from the '80s Underground (CD)

Some people like to joke about how crappy music was in the 1980s. These people are clueless boobs forever locked in a Duran Duran/Def Leppard-centered cosmos. The decade's best music wasn't on Top 40 radio or MTV (except maybe 120 Minutes), but on college stations and in obscure record stores. Admittedly, I have a fair number of the songs listed already, but who can pass up a compilation that includes gems like "Take the Skinheads Bowling" (CvB), "The Mercy Seat" (Nick Cave), and "Lake of Fire" (Meat Puppets)?

Halo 2 (Xbox)

The game's already been pirated, of course (just like Half Life 2 and Doom 3), but we of the dial-up connections (who like our version to be in English) will be buying it anyway. The original Halo was the reason I decided on the Xbox instead of the PS2, and I couldn't tell you the number of times I started playing at 10:30 PM and looked at my watch seemingly fifteen minutes later to discover six hours had passed.

The Wire: Season One (DVD)

To hell with the Star Wars DVDs. Regular readers of APCB know what a big fan I am of this show, which I consider the best thing on TV. Created by ex-Baltimore Sun crime reporter (and author of the book that inspired Homicide) David Simon and ex-Baltimore cop Ed Burns, the show is amazingly written and refreshingly complex. Unfortunately, I didn't get HBO until after the first season had aired, so now's my big chance.

"And you look like a bucket of shit."

Attended the Shark Tale screening tonight. It's what you'd expect, only more so.

Anyway, as I'm returning to the theater with my drink (having taken the time to secure a seat with my trusty notebook), I'm intercepted by a woman who identifies herself as the publicist. We exchange pleasantries, and when I ask why she stopped me, she replies, "You look like a press person."

I wasn't really sure how to take that, so I chuckled and said, "Gee, thanks." And that was pretty much the end of it. As the movie started, however, and Will Smith wowed us once again with his ca-razy antics, I found myself wondering how she so easily picked me out and came up with a list of possibilities:

1. Scruffy in appearance
2. Surly looking
3. Vague air of unwarranted superiority
4. Lack of appreciable personal hygiene and/or fashion sense
4. Lack of partner
5. Lack of children

I comforted myself with the hope that it was those last two, and not something else. Just as I comforted myself during the film's 90-minute running time that there was greater evil happening somewhere else in the world.

Marriage is all about the wagering

The Wife and I have a lot of gambling in our marriage. We bet on the sex of our child (back before we knew, obviously), and I still haven't gotten my new grill, come to think of it. The wagers on the annual Texas-Texas A&M game can also get pretty ugly, depending on which team is in ascendancy (I did a lot of yard work in the mid-90s). Lately, we've sated our competitive natures by betting on politics.

For example, The Wife maintains - as she has for weeks - that Bush is going to dump Cheney and make John McCain his Vice President. I remain unconvinced: they've already made all those Bush-Cheney '04 signs and bumper stickers, after all. And if there's one thing this administration stands for, it's fiscal repsonsibility.

And while it's hard to believe Cheney would step aside quietly, both of us agree that a Bush-McCain ticket would be a slam dunk (to coin a phrase) for the Republicans. Hell, they could probably keep bin Laden's body on ice for a while longer. Until the next dip in the polls, that is.

We'll find out by the end of the week, I guess. Network coverage of the convention starts tonight, and a new VP announcement might actually get half the ratings as Trading Spouses.

And I don't care what the outcome is, I'm not paying up until I get my grill.

Friday Offspring Blogging - 08/27/2004

I don't have a cat or a hamster, and the only birds around these days are grackles and evil blue jays who have an unholy thirst for my sweet, sweet eye juices. As a result, I'm unable to participate in some of the more popular end-of-the-work-week blog phenomena.

Luckily, and for entertainment purposes only, I have a child. I've been kind of squirrely about putting her picture up here, not because I'm paranoid about child predators (I am), but because I dread the day when her technological savvy outstrips mine (in about six years) and she takes revenge for my past exploitation by posting pictures of her old man drunkenly taking a leak off the front porch, waving a machete and singing Sheena Easton's "Morning Train (Nine to Five)."

But if President Bush has taught us anything with his wise stewardship, it's that we can't live our lives in fear. And since I was so proud of this picture The Wife took of our Holy Terror, which conclusively demonstrates how much she shares her dad's love of the cinema, I thought I'd share it with you:

A few things:

- That copy of Spice World was a gift, I swear.
- She's obviously only moving that X-Files tape out of the way so she can get to the real prize: Return of the Living Dead.
- I'm told that soon after this, she went for one of my VHS copies of Raiders of the Lost Ark (I kept a backup, just in case). That's my girl.

I'll be sure to share some equally moving pictures whenever she gets around to destroying my comic book collection.

More High School Confidential

Reading the comments in the entry below, I'm reminded of an amusing episode from my own high school days.

It's amusing today, that is. Back then I was sweating bullets.

The year was 1985. Yours truly was on the cusp of emerging from the cocoon of lower classman geekery to assume the Monarch butterfly status of 11th grade coolness (okay, maybe gypsy moth status...I was still in band, after all). The Cold War was thawing, thanks to the overtures of Mikhail Gorbachev and the music of Rush, whose new album "Power Windows" was changing the world one dateless wonder at a time.

Among the popular styles of the day were the ubiquitous t-shirts of the Corona Beach Club. Even as a teenager, I suspected that Corona beer, an up and coming brew at the time, didn't in fact have a beach club, but I kept such dangerous information to myself. High school is not the place for the malcontent, or the whisperer of secret truths. I kept a low profile, without a Beach Club t-shirt of my own. Publicly, I derided the sheeplike masses who costumed themselves so identically. Privately, I had no clue where to buy one. I was still in the habit of wearing Hawaiian shorts and Star Wars t-shirts, after all.

What I did have was a Lone Star Beer t-shirt. Provided by some friend of my parents, the shirt featured the words "Lone Star" over the front pocket. On the back, running the full length of the shirt, was a Lone Star beer bottle. Attached to the bottle's neck was an air hose, which ran over the shoulder, ending in a regulator over the right breast. I was fond of this saucy scuba sendup, and wore it to school as often as our laundry schedule would allow. Until one day...

I was taken aside at lunch by Coach Terrel (corrected per Tim's remarks in the comments). He was about 6' 5" and fond of wearing those goddamned gray Bike shorts that are issued along with your kinesiology diploma. He pulled me aside one day at lunch to tell me I'd have to change my shirt. The conversation, to the best of my recollection, went something like this:

Pete: Why do I have to change my shirt?
Coach: Because it's got a big beer bottle on the back of it.
Pete: So?
Coach: So, clothing that advertises alcohol or tobacco products aren't allowed in school.
Pete: Can I just wear it inside out?
Coach: Hold on. [He lifts the back of my shirt] No, you can still see it.
Pete: Well, I don't have another shirt here at school.
Coach: Well, then I guess you'll have to go home and change.

Not having a car at this time, going home meant either an hour's walk or calling my mother to pick me up. Neither of which was a pleasant option.

I should point out that this coach was the worst kind of faculty member: bullying, sarcastic, and utterly unwilling to negotiate about anything. I knew it was futile to argue, so I did the only thing left to me: I ruined everyone else's fun.

Pete: Fine. But how come Tracy gets to wear his Corona Beach Club shirt?
Coach: [Looking over at Tracy] What do you mean?
Pete: I mean, half this school walks around all day wearing Corona t-shirts and you don't make them go home.
Coach: ...
Pete: You know Corona is a beer, right?
Coach: Son of a...

The edict came down the next day: no more Corona Beach Club shirts would be allowed. There was a great deal of grumbling and cries of "students' rights" and other such bullshit. I kept my mouth shut and silently entreated the God of Adolescent Smartasses that Coach Terrel would do so as well. To his credit, he never finked me out. More likely, he wanted to take credit for spoiling everyone's fun.

So now the secret's out. My apologies to A&M Consolidated's classes of 1985-88, who were forced to dig out those old Izods and OP shirts to compensate for the ban.

Today's reason to be thankful

As of this writing, I have yet to receive information on screenings for either Benji: Off The Leash! or Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2. Life is good.

Nevertheless, I did spend a little time digging for info on the people behind such highbrow fare, and came up with a few interesting tidbits.

For example, Bob Clark - esteemed director of the original Baby Geniuses as well as its upcoming sequel - also directed the 1972 D-grade zombie classic Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (a film as notorious for actor Alan Ormsby's pants as it was for the subject matter). He also helmed several '80s classics, such as Porky's, A Christmas Story, and Turk 182! (okay, a couple of classics anyway), as well as crapfests like Rhinestone and From the Hip. In fact, it was after the latter that we can see the quality level of Clark's films start dropping precipitously. Eventually, he switched to directing children's fare exclusively (I hear working with Judd Nelson has that effect).

Conversely, Benji writer/director Joe Camp found something he was good at and stuck with it. Namely, Benji. Aside from a throwaway 1979 kid's caper movie called the The Double McGuffin, Camp has focused with laserlike intensity upon furry animal movies. He's made five Benji flicks (and also penned the novelizations), one movie where Benji gets 90% more screen time than top-billed Chevy Chase (Oh! Heavenly Dog!), and one camel movie. I saw that last one - Hawmps! - on some horrible pre-adolescent afternoon, and decades of therapy have yet to help me regain my lost innocence.

Really though, no movie with Slim Pickens, Denver Pyle, and Jack Elam in it can be all bad.

There's not a lot of info about Joe Camp out there. About all I could dig up was that the guy was born in 1939, allegedly in St. Louis (though I think he lives near Dallas now), and wrote a now out-of-print book about making Benji called, wait for it, Underdog. I did manage to find a few pictures floating around out there, and I've decided to share my favorite with the world:

That's former Democratic Presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich with Benji and Joe Camp in 2002, when Kucinich was awarded the Humane Legislator Award from the Humane Society. Rumor has it this was the photo Karl Rove was going to use to spread some unsavory rumors about Kucinich's "love" for canines if he ever got the nomination.

Ha ha, no. I'm sure whatever Rove had planned was much worse.

Not cool

Hurricane Charley jinked to the right and is now bearing down on Ft. Myers, FL.

My grandmother lives in Ft. Myers.

Ordinarily I wouldn't sweat such things. Grandmom's been through hurricanes before, having lived in Florida and North Carolina for the last 40 years. She's a tough broad, but she's been laid up with a bad ankle lately, and stuff like this makes me uneasy:

She's right north of the dot labeled "Sanibel," for those unfamiliar with Florida geography. The local paper is predicting a 10-13 foot storm surge in Lee County.

I talked to her this morning, and she's got the hurricane shutters down in her condo, has her lanterns, and is stocked with gin and smokes. I told her to get some ice into a thermos so she can have a few gale force martinis. We laughed. Ha ha.

Anyway, if y'all could send good thoughts out Florida way (where they'll help infrequent commenter MacinFLA as well) I'd surely appreciate it.

UPDATE: As if 1:30 AM Central Time 8/14, I haven't heard anything. Power's out in her area, and phone calls aren't getting through. We'll keep trying in the morning.

Royal pain in the ass

Disney releases The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement today in an attempt to get a jump on a movie that shares almost none of its target audience: Alien vs. Predator. I can't speak for AvP yet (I don't see it until tomorrow night), but my review of PD2 is up at Film Threat for your amusement/merciless ridicule. Enjoy.

"You killed him?"
"No, I shot him. The bullets and the fall killed him."

I wasn't lucky enough to see Little Black Book this week, and there are already about a half dozen (okay, two) write-ups of Open Water up at Film Threat. So all that was left to me to review was Tom Cruise's latest, Collateral. Enjoy.

UPDATE: Almost forgot: Code 46, which opened at SXSW, is in limited release this weekend. Just in case you cared.

Intelligence regarding my daughter's potential attack on her schoolmates predated 9/11 by months

Sorry for all the family-related posts today, but I just can't bring myself to expound upon the latest "alerts" by Homeland Security chief Chicken Little Ridge.

Anyway, my daughter (She Who Shall Not Be Named) is currently the youngest kid at her child development gulag (her "grade" goes from 6 weeks to 18 months). As she was only a few months old when she went in, there was some concern expressed by the teachers that a few of the biggest kids might pick on her, and this was shared by her old man. I wasn't much of a scrapper as a wee lad, and I was afraid of passing these wussy tendencies on to my little girl. I needn't have worried.

One of the oldest girls in my daughter's class is a child we'll call "Griselda." Griselda and her cohorts rule the toys in that place with an iron fist, even - as is often the case with children - if they aren't playing with them. My daughter has apparently developed a knack for a little toy piano they have there, just like Schroeder. Unlike Schroeder, I think her interest is centered mostly on banging on the thing with a hammer. Of course, it's too small a toy for Griselda and her ilk, but that doesn't prevent them from taking it away from my little girl whenever she starts to play with it. This happened again yesterday.

For the last time.

Did my daughter cry and make a fuss, thereby involving the teachers and marking her as a tattletale for the rest of her days? No. She bided her time, waited until Griselda was otherwise occupied, then stealthily crawled up on the little bully and bit her on the leg.

Granted, my sweet darling angel doesn't have any teeth yet, so the worst the foul Griselda got was a rather slobbery gumming, but it does her old man's heart good to know that she'd rather use vigilante justice than resort to going to the proper authorities.

Now I just have to teach my little Josephine Don Baker how to use a 2X4.

Hell is for husbands

One of the advantages to living in the Greater Paved Swamp, at least as far as Netflix goes, is the rapid turnaround we get on our movies. If I send a DVD in on Tuesday, we'll get its replacement on Thursday. Makes it much more convenient when planning for that big stay-at-home, TV-watching weekend.

But this can also have its disadvantages. Since Netflix processes the returns so quickly, you have to make sure your queue (the order of DVDs you want sent to you) is updated. Otherwise you get something like what happened to me yesterday.

I should preface this by saying that my opinion differs somewhat from The Wife (and the majority of America, it would seem) regarding a certain TV show, namely Sports Night. This will be a familiar diatribe to some, but I always felt the show was rather overrated. Part of it was Aaron Sorkin's fault - the repetitive dialogue, precious characterizations, and the time-honored "will they or won't they?" plot device. Part of it was other factors - some of the actors (*cough*Josh Charles*cough*) come up short in the comic timing department, and then there was ABC's insistence on a laugh track. I've backed off some from my initial hatred of it, but not much.

The Wife enjoyed it somewhat more than I did, and figured out some time last week that the entire series is available on DVD. She naturally updated the queue, bumping Sports Night up to the top on the assumption (so she says) that I would go in and change the order around after mailing two DVDs back on Saturday. Naturally, by the time I got on to the website yesterday, they'd already shipped disc 1 of Sports Night, along with disc 2 of the 1st season of The Gilmore Girls, which at least offers the sublime pleasures of Lauren Graham in cutoff shorts.

In retaliation, Master of the Flying Guillotine is going to the top of the queue today. Followed by, I think, COPS: Too Hot for TV.