Part 2

My hopes of tranquility were shattered, almost literally when I arrived home,  went to get a glass of water, and the ceiling started shaking. I ran upstairs to find three boys playing nerf basketball and beating the crap out of each other ( but not necessarily in that order).  I chased them into the basement where they continued to beat the crap out of each other, this time while playing pool, but at least I didn't have plaster in my drink.

Along the way I passed the girls in standard formation....braiding each others hair, listening to base laden music on a devise with no base, and compulsively pouring over facebook making duckfaces.

I headed back downstairs and cooked myself up a California kitchen frozen pizza.  It's the spiciest, toppings laden, cardboard crust frozen pizza, completely devoid of all nutritional value but heavy with carcinogens.  It's delicious.


My wife and her mother sat in from of the TV which was turned up to ear shattering levels, projecting the insights and emotions of one home makeover show or another.  The programming was periodically interrupted by commercials for other home makeover shows, estrogen replacement therapy products, and some god awful Seth Rogan/Barbara Streisand movie.  These ads are all implausibly louder than the program, but since the women only talk to each other during the breaks, they're forced to scream at each other at the top of their lungs.






I moved onto eating little tiny cheese cakes with cherry topping that I hid  way back in the fridge so no one else would eat them. Then I found where someone else had hidden some whipped topping and stole just enough that they might not notice that any was taken.

I yelled  at the women to turn the T.V. down during the commercials and get yelled at back for being unreasonable.

Then I ate the rest of the whipped topping and buried the evidence deep in the trash.

At some point during all of this my third daughter facetimed ( if that's even a verb) in from my parent's house.   The girls came down and the boys came up and a fight broke out over the iPad as everyone tried to talk to Sophie, who was thoroughly excited to be the center of chaos and attention. When it was finally my turn she makes it a point to tell me that I still l look like I'm losing my hair and I have a unibrow "even on the Internet".  I faked outrage and she laughed uncontrollably then told me she loved me before she was snatched away by the girls who took over the iPad as the boys wandered off to the kitchen.

I became concerned that someone would start looking for the whipped toppling.


That's when total pandemonium hit,  " A mouse, a mouse, we're all going to get the plague.....ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. "  Kids started screaming and running in place and a little mouse scampered across the kitchen floor and up under the cupboard.

Four goddamn cats....I'm halfway to being a shut in, with all these stupid cats... and we have a mouse.



I chased everyone off and went out to the garage to find a mouse trap. After 20 minutes I found 3 hidden keys I'd forgotten, an almost empty bottle of sambuka from 2004, and a Polaroid from a friend's bachelor party that might have gotten him divorced if he wasn't divorced already.

By the time I admitted defeat and came in, the ladies had shuffled off to bed and I laid on the coach alone.  I watched one of the cats repeatedly try to climb the Christmas tree only to come cartwheeling back down in a rain of ornaments and fall into the tree stand moat.

As I sipped my vintage sambuka and drifted off to sleep, I mumbled to myself, "They're never going to get respect from the mice at this rate."

Just a typical Thursday ( part 1)

I was greeted home last night by a house full of teenagers.

Downstairs in the kitchen were a gaggle of 14 year old girls who were drinking hot chocolate after coming in from the snow.  After, " Hello Mr. Flick" I pretty much lost the plot.  They talked non stop and despite me knowing it was English, I couldn't understand a thing in a sea of acronyms, high pitched babbling and snorting laughter.

Then the three boys rolled in from sledding.  Somehow the figured out a way to get a days sledding out of one inch of snow, but failed at any time during a the day off to shovel the driveway or put the trash out.  They flew through the door in an explosion of hats and gloves and headed right for the refrigerator smashing into everything on their way across the house.

It was 4:15.  I'd never make it the whole night.

After setting the boys upstairs with a video game, and the girls downstairs with a couple of bags of popcorn and a teen movie ( Pitch Perfect, and apparently its not about a baseball pitcher....omg Dad you're soooo weird !) , I got the hell out of dodge.

I headed directly to Schwartz's house.  Schwartz's house is the set of Leave it to Beaver as painted by Norman Rockwell.  The boys are well mannered and calm, his wife, looks like she just stepped out of a Lands End catalog and is always smiling..... smiling !, and Schwartz is a pipe away from being Ward Cleaver in slippers and a sweater doling out sage  advice in earnest tones.

Upon diagnosing my condition, Dr. Schwartz took me out to the garage for a game of washers.  Washers is both an amazing horseshoe style game of dexterity and finesses, and a very good excuse to go into the garage to get drunk. We played a lot of washers.  And if that wasn't enough to fix what was ailing me, on cue Mrs. Schwartz then called us in for a bowl of ice cream.

"Chocolate syrup ?",  she asked rhetorically.

I stood in the Schwartz's kitchen and I knew how Eddie Haskell must have felt.  Wally and the Beav sat at the counter politely enjoying their ice cream , Schwartz ate basking in the glow of his recent washers victory, and Mom doted over all of them in soft lighting and the quite hum of holiday music in the background.  At any moment I expected us to fade to commercial for Tide.

I contemplated the possibilities of conking Schwartz over the head and moving myself in caveman style, but dismissed the idea as I always do, out of a deep seeded love for Schwartz and the fact that I can't seem to figure out how to get away with it.  But, eventually, and after staying my standard 10 minutes too long, I had to depart my island of tranquility and head back home.

Driving home, I hope that a few hours would have things settled down, and at that the washers and ice cream would leave me better prepared.


 ( part 2 to come)

My Christmas Theme

On Christmas morning my mother in law just asked me to help her take the turkey out of the oven.

I picked it up and turkey grease poured out of the side, onto my left ass cheek and down the left leg of my pajamas.

I threw the turkey down and in a panic ripped off my pajamas. I then ran a full lap of the kitchen naked, howling in pain, trying to swat the grease off with my left hand and cupping my package as best I could in modesty with the right.
 
As I ran up the stairs, I heard my son wander into the scene and ask my daughter, " what happened to Dad, did he burn his dick ?"

That's a far cry from, " god bless us everyone "

enoyable old race footage

phoning it in

I have a retired part time secretary who comes into the office twice a week to help out with some filing and correspondence.  On days she comes in, whichever of the two of us gets to the coffee shop first buys coffee for both of us.  The last couple of times we've crossed paths and ended up with 4 cups of coffee.

With that in mind I sent her a text on the way in this morning COFFEE SITUATION ?

A minute later I got a phone call from her number.  "Good morning," I answered in a cheerful voice.

" mmmm, good morning," she responded pleasant but somewhat groggily.

"  Do you want me to being you a coffee ?" I asked.

" mmmm, that would be nice....especially if you're going to deliver it." she purred.

" Deliver it ?  Where are you?"

" I'm still in bed silly...where are you ?", she asked.

"  I'm on Marietta Ave.  Are you coming into work or not ?"

" Wait....ummm.....Robert ?"

" No.", I answered.  " Suzanne ?"

" Oh my god, you have the wrong number"

" So you're not going to want that coffee ?"

click.

Apparently, someone was assigned Suzanne old cell phone number.

So farcical

I just saw this...l




..and it seemed to me to be the epitome of false choices.

To frame the issue as " who should pay for education" totally ( and purposely) ignores the larger issues which face students and parents each day.

1.  Quality of education.  It sucks.  From top to bottom, the fallacy of universal education is the promise to feed everyone steak, then serve them steak-ums.   At the high school level guys like Bush and Romney were going to places like Phillips or the Hill School and learning through the Harkness method or some other system that taught them the process of learning and rhetoric and all the other skills to be successful...while you were making posters and dioramas.

2. Effectiveness of education.  Places such as Stevens Tech in Lancaster find a post graduation market for their students.  They only offer courses aimed at those end markets and then place 95% of their students in jobs with an average starting salary of $50,000 a year.  Meanwhile, down the street, Franklin and Marshall graduates 50 English majors a year with a budding future as cashiers at Kohls paying off $200,000 in debt.

3.  Which brings us to the final point of the cost of education in the first place.  These two shills atop this post are talking about who/how to pay for education, but never talk about the ridiculous cost in the first place.  Posts secondary education is hyper-inflated because its supplemented by grants and loans.  Its not as if without those subsidies to quality of knowledge isn't going to diminish.  But perhaps a reduction in the torrent of debt raining down on the heads of 20 year olds might be bad for the banks, and credit card companies.  And of course there's always the risk that debt free students might spend some post college time contemplating the system instead of assimilating into it, and that's never good for anyone....especially the Ivy League alum above.

John Prine

In Spite of Ourselves She don't like her eggs all runny She thinks crossin' her legs is funny She looks down her nose at money She gets it on like the Easter Bunny She's my baby I'm her honey I'm never gonna let her go He ain't got laid in a month of Sundays I caught him once and he was sniffin' my undies He ain't too sharp but he gets things done Drinks his beer like it's oxygen He's my baby And I'm his honey Never gonna let him go In spite of ourselves We'll end up a'sittin' on a rainbow Against all odds Honey, we're the big door prize We're gonna spite our noses Right off of our faces There won't be nothin' but big old hearts Dancin' in our eyes. She thinks all my jokes are corny Convict movies make her horny She likes ketchup on her scrambled eggs Swears like a sailor when shaves her legs She takes a lickin' And keeps on tickin' I'm never gonna let her go. He's got more balls than a big brass monkey He's a wacked out werido and a lovebug junkie Sly as a fox and crazy as a loon Payday comes and he's howlin' at the moon He's my baby I don't mean maybe Never gonna let him go In spite of ourselves We'll end up a'sittin' on a rainbow Against all odds Honey, we're the big door prize We're gonna spite our noses Right off of our faces There won't be nothin' but big old hearts Dancin' in our eyes. There won't be nothin' but big old hearts Dancin' in our eyes. (spoken) In spite of ourselves

my feets is hurtin

This morning I couldn't figure out why my feet hurt and I have blisters all over my toes.

Then Wayne reminded my that we played 4 kids a game of basketball in our bare feet.

When you forget shit like that, its the sign of a good weekend.

can i be really honest with you ?

Upstairs from Shawn Wines on Vimeo.

pretty

This is a cat 3 race. The kid who won it started racing in 2010. He won his first Pro 1/2 race last weekend. You'll see why.

Breitbart

I don't know a thing about Breitbart, but I do know that 43 year old men in good health don't typically fall over dead for no reason.

My Own Private Tarrentino

My daughter found some app and has been making movies on the ipad.

They're surprisingly funny and good. Most involve an ongoing war at our house between the Kingdom of Calculators and the Kingdom of Oranges. I've noticed a continuing theme where the Oranges seems to get killed whenever the director is hungry and the calculators get killed right after math homework.

I've encouraged her to branch out and come up with an entry for a local " 60 second film festival". I told her to come up with a few scripts, we'll review them, and then I'll help her put a movie together for submission.

I came home from work last night to chaos. Apparently my daughter, excited, went into school and started recruiting classmates as actors and sharing her plot idea. Those kids, excited, went home and told their parents they were going to be in a movie. It all sound good, right ?

The working title of the movie...." Colored Girls".

Apparently its an examination of racial strife ( and fashion) in suburbia, as seen through the eyes of a 9 year old girl. And already there's quite a buzz about it.

the new math

4 days + 500 volleyball teams + 10 hours a day, + 350 miles traveled + 2 metro transfers each way + 9 14 year old girls, all on their period = no blog post today.

Actually the final part of the equation was pretty much enough.

On a positive tip

For all my ranting and complaining I have never lost notice that this country continues to provide tremendous wealth, opportunity, and freedom.

And in Lancaster/Central Pa we're especially fortunate to be surrounded by a beautiful landscape and a community that takes advantage of those benefits in some amazing and often simple ways.

As a reaction to the increase in domestic and world tension and division, I've noticed more people are dropping out. Sometimes it manifests itself in small ways, such as buying habits or choices in media consumption. Other times it takes form in more aggressive approaches...people homeschooling their kids or quitting their jobs.

And I don't mean to suggest that these folks are dropping out in some sort of fearful way, or that they're hostile or paranoid. I'm suggesting that they're coming to a realization that the "system" is bullshit, that it can't be beaten on its terms, but that the best way to beat the game is just not to play it. And once that's been realized, it brings with it great relief.

I outlined an example of that in a post that I made last year sharing the video of Johny Knoxville in Detroit.

Those example are popping up all around us closer to home.

They include places like Sterling Farm The Farm is run by a young couple with two kids who are organic farming on a County sponsored cooperative. They supply . 22-24 weeks of fresh, chemical-free produce for $450 for a full share/$250 for a half share.



There's Mike Wann. I guy who two years ago was a financial analyst disgusted with the system and inspired after helping his son with a kindergarten art project. That turned into THIS.

and this:



Even within the system we have companies such as Two Dudes Painting in Lancaster who contribute their space, money, time an influence to starting projects such as Lancaster Bike Works The idea is simple: create a bike repair shop, fill it with unclaimed bikes, and give youth in the city a great work experience, while providing some sort of bike library to the community. Check out a bike as needed, return it. Take your own bike to the shop for a repair, and help out around the shop for a few minutes in exchange.

And those example don't even touch on the churches and non-profits who have been quietly and selflessly maintaining this community for years without seeking any attention except for the causes and the people that they help. Places like Milagro House, Philhaven, and the Water Street Rescue Mission.

There is a balance between what's essentially entertainment and the real world consequences of national politics. But ultimately, I'm starting to realize that its our own actions and the relationships within out local communities where are energies are best served.

That being said, fuck Santorum. muahahaha.

Santorum

Santorum is against birth control because its harmful to women and society and because it encourages young married women to have sex out of marriage.

Somehow he overlooks the fact that there are, in fact, married women who use contraception. He might also be surprised to find that, with or without contraception, people have been having sex out of wedlock for quite a few years now.

Most ironic is the view women using contraception are " irresponsible".

The again, this is the same Opus Dei member who blamed Catholic priest raping boys on Harvard liberalism when he said it was "no surprise that the center of the Catholic Church abuse took place in very liberal, or perhaps the nation's most liberal area, Boston."

And he's the same guy who was proposing legislation limiting malpractice suits to $250,000 while his wife sued ( and he testified on her behalf) a chiropractor for $500,000. His excuse is that he doesn't always agree with his wife.

I'm less surprised that a self-serving douche like him runs for president than I am that he somehow garners the support and attention of more than 2% of the population.

Anyone have any idea on how easy it is to emigrate to Iceland ?

not to be a bummer...

...but its quite simple.

The decisions on how to best spend your tax dollars and how to manage this country are being made by a group of people ( meaning the lawyers and banks that support the candidates/politicians) who work within a different paradigm than you and I.

There's some saying that I can't remember, but goes along the lines of 'if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail'.

If you're a bank that deals in municipal bonds, then your solution to a budget deficit isn't to decrease the budget. Hell, your solutions isn't even to raise taxes. Your solution is to refinance the existing debt.

If you're a land sales attorney, your solution is to have the municipality sell of their assets ( ie privatization of the turnpike, or sale of the incinerator)

I tend to think that the world isn't nefarious as much as its pragmatic. Everyone works in their own self interest.

The balance to this is supposed to be the voting booth. Instead of the being beset upon by the lobbyist, the politicians are supposed to be lobbyist themselves, working as advocates for their own constituency.

In an interesting twist, I had a chance to meet a high powered political consultant recently. He said, " I'm usually referred to and introduced as a political consultant. But to be accurate, only 20% of my income is derived from consulting with politicians. I've found it to be much more effective to go right to the source. 80% of my time, money, and efforts are spend on shaping public opinion. The public is far easier to influence, at less cost, with longer lasting results. Why am I going to spend my time courting congressmen one at a time ? Once I have the public, then I get all the politicians".

Oh yeah.....I met the guy because he's in town working on behalf of marcellus shale drillers.

The Machine

Today, I met with FEMA for the 4th time in a week to review a reimbursement form for a disaster that occurred in August.

Basically, this guy's job is to fill out boxes on a 34 page form, so that they add-up from left to right and up and down. He then gives the boxes to a woman who gives them to Ellie.

Every time he's been back here he tells me, " Ellie found a problem with the numbers", " Ellie rejected this form", " Ellie wants you to redo the numbers".

And all of the stuff he's bringing back is picky bullshit stuff and I'm starting to get more than a little frustrated. So I told him, " I'm about done with this bullshit. If this doesn't work, rather than have you drive back here again and us do this shit over and over, how about I come to you, I'll meet with Ellie and we'll hash this out."

He and the woman with him looked at me like a dog that just farted.

It turns out Ellie is E.L.L.E. its a computer.

These people go into the field, gather information, take it back to a building, and a fucking computer tells them if they've done their jobs correctly, and every morning the computer gives them an assignment sheet telling them where to go and what to do like their own private god.

Once ELLE accepts their data, it pats them on the head and then takes care of the rests of the process of releasing the money etc etc etc. The only human role in the process are these minions who scamper around mindlessly filling out boxes without any though or consideration of their accuracy....only that they don't get rejected by ELLE.

They talk about the computer like its their boss and have a distinct fear and reverence for it.

That is some freaky shit.

Weekend roundup

Finally saw Drive. I think it will take me 2 weeks and one more watching to know exactly what I think. All I now so far is that there's something to the movie, I'm just not sure what.

Far less time to form an opinion about Sex is Comedy. Great movie.

I had someone land on my foot during basketball this weekend. I finally got my answer to the age-old question " what's under your toe nail". Some things are better left unknown.

Why is MIA's little finger obscene, but the half naked teen girls humping the floor behind her ok ?

I'm not sure what all the hub-bub about Whitney Houston is. Yeah, she had a great set of pipes, but except for one album 20 years ago, and one decent rendition of the national anthem, what had she accomplished ? To me her death is just another indication of unfulfilled promise.

And I don't get the freaked out singer chicks in general....Whitney, Mariah, Any winehouse, Britney, etc. These chicks aren't even creating their own music. If you have a nice set of pipes and are easy to look at, all you need to do is show up, sing a few songs, then arrive at an awards show is a tight dress once in a while. WTF is with all the drama. Take a look at this list. You've got to go all the way down to Joan Baez before you find someone who hasn't died and/or lost their friggin mind.

All I have to say is thank god for Adele.

naked chicks and graffitti

Tumblr is almost entirely comprised of naked chicks and graffiti. I can, and have, looked at naked chicks and graffiti all day long.

I rode the trainer at the gym so hard last night that one of the people next to me left. I can't really blame her.

I went skiing over the weekend. I ski like I downhill mtb...terribly. I know that I need to look further down the trail and relax, but I always feel like I'm on the bad side of the groove. In between sessions, I laid in bed, aligned my body symmetrically, tried to determine where I was out of balance, and then relaxed those areas so both sides of me were evenly balanced. I got up, went out and killed it. Twas very cool.

About ten years ago Adam Myerson told me that he considers organizing bike races to be performance art. I JUST go it, and he's right.

I know some of my friends aren't going to like this

you may not agree, but this is at least worth reading.




The war on democracy «

anticapitalist:

Since the Second World War, the United States has:

1) Attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, most of them democratically elected.
2) Attempted to suppress a populist or national movement in 20 countries.
3) Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.
4) Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries.
5) Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.

In total, the United States has carried out one or more of these actions in 69 countries. In almost all cases, Britain has been a collaborator. The “enemy” changes in name - from communism to Islamism - but mostly it is the rise of democracy independent of western power, or a society occupying strategically useful territory and deemed expendable, like the Chagos Islands.

The sheer scale of suffering, let alone criminality, is little known in the west, despite the presence of the world’s most advanced communications, nominally freest journalism and most admired academy. That the most numerous victims of terrorism - western terrorism - are Muslims is unsayable, if it is known. That half a million Iraqi infants died in the 1990s as a result of the embargo imposed by Britain and America is of no interest. That extreme jihadism, which led to the 11 September 2001 attacks, was nurtured as a weapon of western policy (in “Operation Cyclone”) is known to specialists, but otherwise suppressed.

While popular culture in Britain and America immerses the Second World War in an ethical bath for the victors, the holocausts arising from Anglo-American dominance of resource-rich regions are consigned to oblivion. Under the Indonesian tyrant Suharto, anointed “our man” by Margaret Thatcher, more than a million people were slaughtered in what the CIA described as “the worst mass murder of the second half of the 20th century”. This estimate does not include the third of the population of East Timor who were starved or murdered with western connivance, British fighter-bombers and machine-guns.

These true stories are told in declassified files in the Public Record Office, yet represent an entire dimension of politics and the exercise of power excluded from public consideration. This has been achieved by a regime of uncoercive information control, from the evangelical mantra of advertising to soundbites on BBC news and now the ephemera of social media.

It is as if writers as watchdogs are extinct, or in thrall to a sociopathic zeitgeist, convinced they are too clever to be duped. Witness the stampede of sycophants eager to deify Christopher Hitchens, a war lover who longed to be allowed to justify the crimes of rapacious power. “For almost the first time in two centuries,” wrote Terry Eagleton, “there is no eminent British poet, playwright or novelist prepared to question the foundations of the western way of life.” No Orwell warns that we do not need to live in a totalitarian society to be corrupted by totalitarianism. No Shelley speaks for the poor, no Blake proffers a vision, no Wilde reminds us that “disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue”. And grievously no Pinter rages at the war machine, as in “American Football”:

with this, good night.

every day the news is the same
via anticapitalist

great images

Stairwells strewn with debris and walls crumbling slowly to dust, it is the island that New York forgot for 50 years.

Now, in a series of extraordinarily eerie pictures, the lost world of North Brother - quarantine zone, leper colony and centre for drug addicts - has been brought back to life.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2094823/New-York-leper-colony-Eerie-pictures-inside-abandoned-world-lost-island.html#ixzz1lEfWDGKT



abandoned New York leper colony

Lovin the Tumblr

but I think its making me lazy

flicklives tumblr

movies part duex

Last week I listed some movies that I watched that I enjoyed.

Now here are the rest.

Movies that I'd give a B to C :

Oxford Blues - Documentary about Oxford boxing club. Very good.

Black Swan - Natelie Portman and Mila Kunis making out. You need more ?

Crazy, Stupid Love - Decent date movie if you need to sit through one. I'm a sucker for all things Emma Stone.

Norm McDonald Stand Up - funnier than I expected.

Adjustment Bureau - Eh, OK.

Contagion - I'm usually a fan of anything with Matt Damon. A bit predictable, but passable. See Adjustment Bureau.


C to D



The Tourist - I like Depp and Jolie. This is fine for what it is.

Salt and Hanna - Same movie essentially. Both OK.

Waking Life - I little wordy and long. Good effects, nice message.

Johnny Mnemonic - Old dystopian film. A little hokey

Ghost in the Shell - Inspiration for the Matrix. Animated.

Poolhall Junkies - Boy this was close to being really good, but just never got there.

Chloe - eh.

Notorius - The story of Notorius B.I.G. This was pretty bad, but if you have the flu and nothing else to watch. Slightly worse than Get Rich or Die Tryin.

F - Don't bother watching

Cedar Rapids - drivel

Easy A - even Emma Stone can't save this

Battle LA - horrid

Outsourced - likeable characters going nowhere and doing nothing

Tapeheads - This is supposed to be a cult classic. That's got to be one unfunny cult.

Player 5150 - Apparently the producer was some rich son of a sheik and flipped out in the middle of filming and took over the entire project. After watching, I believe it. Total crap.

The Pornagrapher - Nice try, falls flat. No pacing.

The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick - Worst production of any documentary I've ever seen.

Greatest Movie Ever Sold - Not to bad, but could have been 15 minutes long in total.

Bah-stun

I won a Red Sox had in a wager with a friend from Boston.

Occasionally I wear it. Not because I like the Sox, but because my hair is thinning ( thinning, not balding goddammit ), so I tend to wear a lot of hats.

Anyway, every time I've worn the thing, random people have come up to me and said something. Occasionally it's a Yankees fan walking past who says something like " screw you homo" or " ha ha C.C. smoked you last night" , but I'm used to Yankees fans randomly yelling at me so I really never notice.

But most of the time its Boston fans who pull me aside and ask, "what ya think about next year ? As I usually forget that I'm wearing the hat, having a stranger acost me and ask me random questions usually freaks me out. I don't know what it is with these folks, but when a Boston fan sees a Boston hat it makes me feel like I accidentally flashed a gang sign at a rap concert. It's like they just realized I'm the grand master at a Masonic lodge.

In the end, I usually reply, " same as last year." because even when I do realize what they're talking about, I don't know shit about baseball. And for whatever reason, that seems to do the trick.

Getting there

270 plus watts today for 30 mins. Best in two years. I'm slowly getting there.

Played basketball for the first time in an eternity. I was sore everywhere for 2 days, but had fun.

I can name 6 species of trees and can tie 9 different type of knots. My car is clean.

Not drinking is going to make me insane.

I've gone tumblr

http://flicklives.tumblr.com/

although this guy does it best

http://christian-diordenimflow.tumblr.com/

Adam Crazy Pants

Everything good I steal from tumblr

Westerners are fond of the saying ‘Life isn’t fair.’ Then, they end in snide triumphant: ‘So get used to it!’

What a cruel, sadistic notion to revel in! What a terrible, patriarchal response to a child’s budding sense of ethics. Announce to an Iroquois, ‘Life isn’t fair,’ and her response will be: ‘Then make it fair!’ This is the matriarchal approach to learning.

Barbara Alice Mann, Iroquois woman

Then again the Iroquois, for all their wisdom, haven't fared all that well over the last couple of hundred years.

Movie Review

I'm a movie nut. I watch at least two movies a week. I subscribe to crackle, netflicks, blockbuster, and rack up the charges on comcast pay-per-view.

Insomnia is a bitch.

The inherent problem is that I've exhausted the number of watchable movies, burned through most of the rentable foreign films, and am well on my way to making my way through the classics. Along the way, I've spend far too many hours watching pure shit. Sometimes you need to dig through a lot of dirt to find a nuggest of gold.

I figure I'd share with you some of the better films I've seen lately.


The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy. A-

Swedish with subtitles. I enjoyed all three of these movies. The pacing of the movie was such that the subtitles we not distracting in any way. The first of these has been redone win English starring Daniel Craig. I haven't seen that version, but word is that it's pretty consistent with the original.


Ides of March. A

George Clooney, Ryan Goslling, Phillip Seymore Hoffman, and Paul Giamatti. I figured that this was either going to be excellent or self indulgent drivel. I was happy to find it the former. Timely movie with the election cycle in full bloom.


Knuckle. A

IMDB descibes this as: An epic 12-year journey into the brutal and secretive world of Irish Traveler bare-knuckle fighting. This film follows a history of violent feuding between rival clans.

Need I say more ?

Pearl Jam 20. B+

Great interviews, footage, and background stories. This movie gave me a greater appreciation for the grunge players and a fun trip back into the 90's. It ran a little long for my tastes, but work the rental.

Thumbsucker. B

Fun little indie film from 2005, just coming out as a rental. This is Mike Mils full length directorial debut. Its just about what you'd expect...a nice little coming of age story. Tilda Swinton is, as usual, amazing.

Moneyball. B+

Fun. Brad Pitt is solid. Jonah Hill plays Jonah Hill. Good flick.

nut magnet

I spent 30 minutes at the lunch counter with a crazy guy this morning.

For a crazy guy he sure made a lot of sense. I hope he thought the same thing about me.