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It was fun being a bar band for about an hour and we will be doing it again this Sunday as well. I think these turned out pretty well considering we'd only been playing as band for about eight weeks (once a week every week on Thursday nights). Notice on the first video, after the sickening shaky-cam action at the start (it does settle down) how often I forget what the hell I'm doing and have to look at my notes (I'm the dude way in the back next to the keyboard). Rock star I'm not.
Anyway, my job is to lay down the ska train guitar rhythm and I think I do that fairly well. The secret to be an extremely okay guitar player is to be in a band where everyone else is better than you. I wish the sound was better on I Shot the Sheriff because Ramone's guitar solo really was sweet. That guy can play.
Sweet N' Dandy
I Shot the Sheriff
Needless to say Henry cracked me up.
The down side? Henry got so into the show that the fell of the couch. Thundar ended shortly there after in tears. I guess we should wait a few more years before trying again.
Anyway, I thought I'd just post some random developments over here in an attempt to get back in the LJ swing of things:
* At the playground with Henry this week I saw the coolest toy. It was a medium sized blue motor cycle with buttons on the side. When pressed one button made a motorcycle sound and another made a deep gravelly voice announce "It's Ninja Wheelie Time!" at which point some shredding guitar erupted and the bike took off on it's own and, with the help of some little wheels on the side, it started popping a wheelie all over the place. The 3 year old plus gang was enraptured, Henry and the under 2 crowd would rather play in puddles.
* I'm about half way through season 1 of Lost and while I'm can admit that I'm finally enjoying it I still don't like it as much as Fringe yet. I have a feeling over time I'll really like the characters but right now there are just so many of them it's taking forever to get to know them.
* Why, why, why is nobody talking about Star Trek on here? I'll just come out and say it - Best Star Trek ever - maybe, just maybe, better than Wrath of Khan. Hell, it made me not just accept, not just like, but love the funny alien sidekick. What the hell is wrong with me?
* Books read recently: The Road - Really enjoyed it but can't imagine why anyone would pay $10 to see the movie version * The Man Who Was Thursday - Weird book from 1905 about anarchists in England. Very weird but kind of fun. * The Terror - Super fun epic book by Dan Simmons about an English exploration team trapped in ice near the north pole. Featured mysterious eskimos and a terrifying monster that randomly eats people. The end is a little mystical but pretty damn satisfying. I've never really thought about how horrible scurvy is before. * The Serpent and the Scorpion - fun romance/mystery book Rachel bought. Completely enjoyable tale about a gallant English woman who solves mysteries in early 20th Century England. Think unrequited love meets mysteries of the late English empire. It was book two of a series and probably would have been better had I read the first one.
* Was a weird month work-wise. Nearly lost my job since the contract that makes up 80% of may pay vanished. Fortunately I found another government sugar daddy at the last moment to keep me alive for another year. While I really like working at Northwestern this finding work to keep my job stuff kind of sucks. Also, I really enjoyed the last year plus working at CPS and will miss it dearly. I'm back to working on foster kid issues at DCFS now and I'm grateful for the job. I'm looking at this next year as one long opportunity to find another job. One where I don't have to worry about my funding getting cut all the time. I'm not sure such a job exists but I will not rest until I find it.
* Really loved the latest Kills album Midnight Boom. So very good.
*I'm greatly looking forward to my Mother bringing an ax with her when she visits this weekend. There is a bush in front of my building that must go. The ax will make that much easier.
Anyway, I'm feeling better but I've missed two days of work and I still can't pick anything up - including Henry who's just about had it with Daddy-no-pick-me-up.
I've turned them away twice now simply because they show up at the worst time (usually when Henry is either in the bath or trying to take a nap). I'm a little worried this is some sort of scam. Fortunately I have a work friend who used to work for the Nielsen people so I'm going to run this past him.
Big down side to Chicago, there are a lot of door to door scams down here (like, I work for the gas company let me distract you while my partner breaks in the back door and steals shit). So now I'm suspicious.
I think my passion for the Nielsen Family status stemmed from the repeated cancellation of TV shows I loved. I could never understand why people didn't see the brilliance that I saw in Automan, Manimal, Battlestar Galactica (the old skool version), Crime Story (Michael Mann's other brilliant TV show), and countless other beloved TV friends. Once I figured out that some company, the Nielsen company, was in charge of deciding what lived or died on TV I wanted to have some influence, no matter how small, over that outcome.
So while I've done the journal for Nielsen in the past and accepted their $10 payoff for completing surveys several times this is the first time I've ever been offered the thing I really, really wanted when I was like 8 years old. Funny, while appealing in a way it seems too little too late in some ways. I feel like thanks to HBO and a zillion cable channels, not to mention the Internet, most of what I like I get to see now and most shows I enjoy seldom get canceled they just end on their own - a notable exception being Veronica Mars which was a fantastic show done no justice by idiots at the CW.
If I find the time I suspect I'll do this if for no other reason than to cross off a boyhood fantasy. Looking back on it it's really not surprising that I ended up involved in statistics and numbers for a living if my boyhood fantasy involved being part of a nationwide survey. Shouldn't it have been to be a giant robot smashing things or something?
We decided put him down the slide once to see if he'd like it. I put him on the top of the slide and Rachel stood at the bottom to catch him. It was about a 4.5 or 5 foot tall green plastic slide with little side rails - so much safer than the 8 ft tall metal monsters I remember from my youth. He slid down the slide with his little brows furrowed as thought trying to figure out how the whole thing was working. At the bottom he just laid on the slide and had a fairly neutral to blank expression on his face, so much so we decided to put him down the slide again just to see if he liked it or not. On the second attempt Henry started half smiling on his way down and at the bottom he broke into a full grin. With evidence that he enjoyed it we tried it one more time and this time he had a huge smile on the face from top to bottom.
Later we showed him how to climb up the stairs to the top of the slide on his own. After that all he wanted to do was go down the slide. It was pretty awesome. I can't wait for more first this summer.
What made this particular event so unusual was that the alarm kept going off for three and a half hours. What's worse is that this particular car alarm couldn't even have the common decency to consistently keep honking the car's horn. No, it would cease honking every minute or so for some short random interval - like less than a minute. I call this the false hope effect. Why? Because laying in my bed I kept hoping that these silent intervals were the result of the owner finally coming to turn off his/her damn car alarm. Alas, they were not.
During this time I called the police several times to report this problem. I was assured that they would do something the first couple of times I called but by my second to last call the operator asked me what I thought the police could actually do about it. "I guess we could tow it." she said answering her own question. I had no recommendation for her as I was the one who was so tired I couldn't think straight. Frankly I had to suppress the urge to tell her to shoot it since the seemed the quickest way to make it stop.
Finally I remembered some sage advise from my old U of I secretary Sheri. Sheri was a 50 something black woman who was very nice but tough. She'd spent 20 some years working in a steel mill until they'd showed her the door. Shortly there after her husband died of malpractice at a shitty hospital because they had crap health insurance. She lived in one of the worst neighborhoods in the city, or so she told me, because it hadn't always been that way and since she owned her own house she sure as hell wasn't going to give it up to punks and criminals. In the year and half I worked for her she attended, no joke, six funerals for close relatives. Through it all she never got down, put her faith in god, and woke up each day just putting one foot in front of the other. I liked her a lot.
Sheri's advice to me was that should I ever need 911 to actually do something that I needed to make them believe, without actually implicating myself, that I might compound the problem by doing something else illegal. Case in point, if she had somebody creeping around her yard she might call the cops and tell them that she was afraid and she didn't know what she was going to do. "Thanks god," she would tell the police "that I have my two pit bulls. They're man eaters. I sure do hope whoever is out there doesn't come in my house because they will not survive my dogs."
With that in mind on my last phone call to 911 I reminded the operator that I had already called several times, something she confirmed by saying "Oh yes, I see you called the first time quite a while ago. Wow, like over three hours now." I then said, sounding slightly more stressed and crazed than I actually was, that I was "about to loose my mind. I really can't take this any more and, frankly, I'm thinking about going outside to see if there is anyway I can make this stop." That seemed to get her attention.
I waited in the dark for a while longer listening to the car horn and eventually, out of complete fatigue, I fell asleep. I dreamed about a car parked in front of my house full of gang-bangers who kept honking the horn over and over again. All of my neighbors kept telling me that really want to make them stop but that they were terrified of getting shot. We all stood helplessly on my front lawn wishing the car, and the gang-bangers inside, would just go away. Instead they just looked at us and kept honking the horn.
When I awoke it was about an hour later. Henry was crying and I had to get up to get him. I notice the car horn had finally stopped honking so I was curious if the police had towed it. I collected Henry and went to stare out the front window. There was the car, still parked in front of my building, only silent with a big orange ticket on it. That was pretty satisfying to see.
Four days later Rachel called me about Noon to tell me the car was back. It was a Wednesday, I think, and she was home watching Henry. She said she'd called 911 and was waiting for them to do something about it. I told her I hoped they would come soon. She agreed.
I got home from work about 6 hours later and as I was walking up to my building I noticed the car was still out front and it was still honking. When I got inside Rachel assured me that it had been honking the entire time since she called. I really don't know how she kept her sanity. I think I would have set fire to it about hour four just because then the fire department would have had to show up, put it out, and tow it away.
I called 911. "We'll send a cruiser." they said. Rachel told me that's what they'd been telling her all day. Finally, while in the middle of calling them about an hour later, I noticed a neighbor walk out of his building an approach the car. It was clear that he was not the owner since he had a flash light was snooping around the car, apparently looking for the VIN number since once he found it he started to write it down. I told the 911 dispatcher "one of my neighbors just came out. I don't know what they're doing to the car but they are doing something." "The cruiser is on it's way." I was told.
About fifteen minutes later a huge tow truck appeared with a police car. They hooked a chain to the still honking vehicle, dragged it by its bumper out of a tight parking space ("That's going to totally fuck up the front end of that car." I said to Rachel as we both watched), loaded it on the flatbed of the tow truck, and hauled it the hell away.
I was pleased that The Man finally took care of this annoying car and while I worry that whoever owned it might just have had the unfortunate problem of a malfunctioning car alarm and now, added to that problem, they would have a huge towing bill, I still felt they had it coming for not fixing it from the preceding Saturday and for letting it go on for SO long.
In the end it was a fine example of how, if motivated, CPD has the amazing power of just making things go away. They are good at that I suppose.
1. I finished Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman and I enjoyed it a great deal. Not a deep book by any stretch of the imagination but really fun. I suspect I may never be wowed by Gaiman again as long as I live since nothing will ever probably live up to the Sandman for me - and to be fair how to can a novel really match the experience of living with a story for seven years and reading it one little chapter at a time. Anyway, I would say this book fulfilled my desire for light, breezy reading. It will be interesting to see what he does next. I do hope, however, that he is finally done using the British office drone as his lead character. It seems like aside from Shadow in American Gods all of his leading men are always hopeless dopes and nerds. Not that I can't relate to that but lets push the limits a little next time Mr. Gaiman.
2. I started Cormack MacCarthy's The Road last week. I figured I'd try reading a book that was as different from Anansi Boys as possible and it most certainly is. So far I'm really enjoying the book and I'm surprised given its unrelenting bleakness how engaging it is. I hope I like the second half of the book a much as the first.
3. I finished reading the entire Y The Last Man comic tonight. I had no idea I was reading the last volume and I think that's a good thing - I was surprised by everything which isn't always the case when you know your reading the final arc of a story. I have to say this may be the best complete comic book story I've ever read. While the above mentioned Sandman is certain a great comic I think Gaiman and the rest of his team had to deal with a lot of editorial crap that made them change the tone of the story a little bit here and there a long the way. Not so with Y. In fact the comic, with the exception of a couple of fill in issues, even has the same artist for all 60 issues. In the end I loved this story and I found the final volume to be very emotional and touching. I will miss the characters in this story very much but they got a great ending and they are part of a wonderful story and you just can't beat that. If you're looking for a good story to get lost in this is it. Check it out if you haven't.
While waiting I notice the postal employee at the counter is consistently announcing to the customers in front of me how "lucky" they are that their package/letter was just found. I thought to myself "Why are they lucky, isn't it the Post Office's job to deliver our mail? You shouldn't have to rely on luck to get a package or letter." How wrong I was.
I got to the counter and asked for my packages (since I had three different notices) only to be informed that my tickets were old and that my packages were gone. "Old?" I said "How can they be old, this one I just got yesterday?" The employee coolly pointed to the date on the slip which was, somehow, from five days before. "Well, it's not my fault your postman is back dating these slips, and where exactly is 'gone' anyway?" I asked.
At that point the postal worker decided to go the extra mile and actually look for my packages. After about 15 minutes of standing there (the line behind me was now at least 8 people deep) he returns with two of the three things that were supposed to be there. "Your lucky," he announces so everyone in line can hear "I found these. Somehow they were still here." "That's because they were supposed to be delivered yesterday." I pointed out.
"Where is the third package?" I asked. "Gone." he replied. "Gone where?" I asked again. "Just gone." he replied. "What exactly does 'gone' mean?" I say hoping for some idea of where whatever I was sent has gone. "Gone," he says "it's not here." "Any idea what it was?" I ask hoping it was something stupid I didn't want anyway. "No. No idea. Now sign here." "What am I signing?" I foolishly ask. "That you got your mail." "But I didn't get my mail, you didn't deliver one letter." At this point my Amazon package and one letter, which had been placed in front of me so that I could take them and leave at my leasure, are snatched away from me and put behind the desk. "Sign in the box." he says pointed at the little gray screen on the counter. "Can't I have my packages back?" I say getting aggitated. "Sign in the box." he repeats. "What does it say on your badge?" I ask him. He stands there not saying anything. "It's says," I continue "Your satisfaction is my business." I pause for a moment "Well," I announce "you are failing at your business." He gets mad. "Sign the box or I will not give you your packages." "Okay." I say wanting my Amazon order more than I want to make my point with this guy. I sign "FUCK YOU" in huge, all capital print so that anyone can read it. Over his shoulder I can see it appear on his screen. He doesn't look and just hits some random button satisfied that I did what he wanted.
He gives me my package and my letter. "Wait here so that you can talk to my supervisor." I look at my watch, I've already wasted a half an hour trying to pick up a package that should have just been delivered to my house in the first place. The thought of talking to anyone stupid enough to keep this tool on the payroll does not appeal to me. "I don't have time to talk to you supervisor." I say already walking out of the post office wondering if there isn't someway I can pay more the next time I order from Amazon to avoid having to use the USPS.
I'm torn over the current state of the weather in these parts - while I love the snow (and I actually enjoyed shoveling it yesterday as well) I'm sick of how difficult it makes getting around. Frankly, I'm starting to feel a little boxed in the house these days. Oh well, only six to eight more weeks of the really bad stuff left and then the cold wet days of early spring will return to Chicagoland. Man, I miss walking around outside for fun. Not to mention riding my bike.
Tuesday marks our attempt to return to the gym, the YMCA to be more exact. We haven't set foot there since sometime around Henry's birthday. I hope we make it but I fear cold weather, depression caused by a lack of light, and general laziness may prevent it. In theory I look forward to listening to loud music while I run on the tredmill but I also fear a recent toe injury - either slightly broken or seriously sprained - might get in the way.
Why can't there be Independance Day resolutions? It seems like making people change their behavior in the dead of winter is the worst idea ever. I mean aren't we biologically designed to eat too much, sleep too much, and be lazy when it's cold? I don't know but I'm going to try and fight my programming this week and actually work out.
Finally, after talking to four real estate agents I've come to the conclusion that they don't know anything. If you can use Craig's List and list yourself in the MLS I don't think there is any reason to have one. Frankly the thought that some stooge is going to make $7,000 by posting adds on Craig's List, putting me in the MLS, and posting me on their website - about a hour's worth of work - is maddening. I know, I know, they show up for the showings and screen out the crazies... well, I don't care, it's still not worth $7,000. .... and, for the record, I have no idea if we're going to try and sell this year or not. We'd like to but who knows. We're meeting with these agents just to see what they think our place it worth. And to pump them for information on the local real estate market. The consensus is that the market sucks (no duh) and that our place is worth about what we paid for it. We kind of knew that already.
Anyway, the latest cover keeps making me do a double take because one of the feature articles is called "The funnest sex of your life." which I'm constantly misreading at "The funniest sex of your life." Yeah, that one letter makes a big difference. One is self-help the other is like the weirdest Penthouse Forum ever.
So, did it relieve the slump? Yes and no.
The story was a lot of fun (okay, vikings and middle-eastern hordes battle it out several times) and I really enjoyed the main characters with their sly ways and general bad-assery (the one dude has a battle ax that has "mother defiler" written in Norse ruins on it - is that D&D? Why yes, your soaking in it.) However, this book suffered some from Chabon's massively long sentences. I don't know why but they always confuse me and in this case there were a couple of times they made a mess out of the action. I think he wrote this right before "The Yiddish Policeman's Union" which he claims he consciously wrote with much shorter sentences - perhaps that's why I think that might be his best book. Anyway, it sort of pulled me out of the slump but not entirely.
The last book of the 2008 was "The Ice Limit" by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. Tim B. lent me this book like 5 years ago and after several moves and a fire I'm surprised it even turned up again. I figured it looked like a fun plot (crazy industrialist enlists and discredited planetary geologist and an engineering firm that has never failed to complete a job successfully (no matter how crazy) to smuggle the worlds largest meteorite out of Chile and back to his crazy museum in upstate New York) and I was really in the mood for a quick action packed read that wouldn't test the limits of my reading skills. This was definitely that and I loved every page of it.
It was goofy in a lot of ways but satisfying in that better than you expect action movie kind of way - sort of like "The 13th Warrior" which is way better than you would even think it should be. This book definitely dragged me out of "The Hot Kid" slump, so much so I hope they sequel it some day. In fact, I suspect I'll read another Preston & Child book soon since they have a million of them and I can get them cheap at half priced books. If you're looking for a great page turner this is it.
So, with 2008 at a close I'm starting 2009 with high expectations. I have some good books in my stack already but I'd be curious, from you book reading folks out there, what you read in 2008 that left an good impression with you. I know I read a good number of books this year but in retrospect there are probably only three that I still think about on any given day and I'd be curious if any of you have run across a book like that this year. It doesn't have to be a new book - in fact Dicken's Oliver Twist was on my pile this year and I still think about the characters often and I would recommend it - just something that really struck you as a great book.
Alright, I'm off to start "Anansi Boys" by Neal Gaiman.... I hope I like it as much as "American Gods".
1. Watch "Plan 9 from Outter Space".
2. Take a bath.
Then I woke up really confused and totaly groggy to the sound of Henry crying.
Anyway, it wasn't a bad book just disappointing. I think that stems mostly from the fact that Leonard sets up the marshal in the story to be a total bad ass who never really screws up and pits him against a nemesis who never really does anything right. So is it really a surprise at the end that the nemesis make a stupid mistake and gets killed? No, not really. What's more surprising is that this half wit lasts as long as he does and actually rises to the level of being worth the marshal's time.
The worst part is that after spending multiple chapters setting up the ultimate show down Leonard resolves the entire thing in half a page - I'm not kidding. He's like "Oh, and then dude gets killed. The End." That's pretty damn weak.
So now I'm going to sooth my disappointed mind by reading another Michael Chabon book - Gentlemen of the Road. It has groovy Gary Gianni drawings throughout and I'm only on page 40 and there has already been a duel, a flight from an angry mob, and a trek across most of the ancient world. Now that's what I like.
Anyway, I'm glad the conviction came exactly 13 years to the day of his acquittal, I'm glad he's facing at least 9 years (which means he'll be an old man by the time he gets out) and I feel like a little bit of my faith in the justice of the universe is restored. It reminds me of a quote from the book I'm currently reading. In it a character wants to get revenge for wrongs done against him and his family, regardless of whether he gets killed in the process. Upon hearing this one character remarks "Everything ends in death, you know that don't you? Therefore revenge is superfluous. Unnecessary effort. One day (the people you want revenge on) will be bones in the dust. And so will you and I. Revenge is the sole property of God."
While I'm not sure this qualifies as revenge it sure is nice to know that if you're a total bastard, unrepentant criminal, and murder eventually someone is going to get you. Just like Al Capone. I know it doesn't always happen but it's nice to see a little justice now and again.
Unless, of course, this is all part of O.J.'s brilliant plan to find the real killer who happens to be inside the penal system and is unreachable from the outside. Yeah, maybe that's what's going on.
Back to eating Turkey.
1. At Toys R' Us today I thought Rachel was looking for Roadkill Legos - sadly she was not.
2. Rachel decided that her more aggressive shopping skills, honed by a life time of shopping combat in Chicago, make every week Shark Week for her when shopping in Milwaukee.
3. I wonder if a person can consume a toxic amount of Turkey. Only time will tell.
