I've seen this Stuff White People Like blog linked in a number of places, but Tosy and Cosh helpfully reduce it to a list, with commentary. Which means, you know, I'll go all listy now as well. Basically I'll do as he did and give a "yes" or "no" answer to each entry, with comment. I'm not so much doing this because I'm white (really, who cares) but because it's a list. Note that this is not a "Bold the ones I like" list; I bolded them all to make the post easier to read.
(The original blog, by the way, has updated since I grabbed this from Tosy, so I'll update this in a post down the line sometime.)
Anyway:
Graduate School
I never went, but that doesn't mean that I'm not a fan. I figured that the world might not have needed another Ph.D in philosophy. Or something like that.
The Idea of Soccer
What is the "idea of soccer"? The notion of the world's most popular spectator sport being a fairly boring game that has very little nuance? Bleeccchhh! You could pay me to watch soccer, since I'd do nearly anything for money, but I sure wouldn't enjoy it. (Now, playing soccer is another story, since it's a lot of running and kicking stuff. But things that are fun to do aren't always fun to watch.)
Modern Furniture
Depends. Some modern-type furniture I find appealingly trippy, and a lot of actually is downright comfortable when you figure out how to sit in it. The library at my college (at the time – the library has since been rebuilt) had lots of sixties-era furniture, stuff that you might see lurking in the background of a scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I loved sitting in those chairs, reading.
Multilingual Children
I can't really say as I have a tremendously strong opinion here. If we're going to decide that our children should be multilingual, obviously it's best to do that early, but I don't really know.
Musical Comedy
You'd better believe it! I love a good musical comedy. And even some not-so-good musical comedies.
Bottles of Water
I drink tons of water, so bottles are cool. We buy bottles by the case at The Store, and then after drinking the water that comes in them, we re-fill them and re-use them until they become too worn out to be useful, and then we break out a few new bottles from the case. Few things refresh like good old water.
Threatening to move to Canada
This is what pansy, pseudo-leftie nitwits do. Stay here and fight to make your country better, you bunch of doofuses! (Until the Bills move there, and then I'm outta here!)
Oscar Parties
Not really; I don't take the Oscars that seriously anymore. But to attend one of the "official" parties, when you win one? Sure, I'd love to be at one of those.
When I eventually win the Oscar for Best Screenplay (note to self: start writing a screenplay), my speech will begin with this joke: "We writers aren't Governors' Ball types, so as the winning writer, it's my responsibility to host the Writers' Oscar Party. That'll be at my hotel, Room 337 of the Hampton Inn by LAX. It's BYOB, but we're writers, so we've all got our own B." You read it here first. [Cut to tight shot of Jack Nicholson, grinning tightly because he doesn't get it or doesn't care.]
Gentrification
You know, I hear this word a lot, and I still have no idea what it means. Something to do with city neighborhoods becoming lame, I think. I dunno.
Study Abroad
Never did it, myself. I suppose it makes sense for certain fields of study, like foreign languages or clandestine military activity.
Being the only white person around
I'm not sure exactly what's so great about this. I generally don't care who's around me. Of course, this probably refers to traveling to entirely different cultures, which is a cool idea that I've never done before.
Difficult Breakups
They make for good fodder in romantic comedies and such, but to go through one? Who in their right mind would enjoy a difficult breakup? Especially since as you get older, your breakups can only increase in difficulty as they tend to involve kids and lawyers?
Mos Def
I don't know who he is.
Michel Gondry
I don't know who he is, either.
Standing Still at Concerts
Nah. I prefer to listen to my Berlioz and Rachmaninov sitting down. (I have never once attended a rock concert of any type. I'd love to hear some live Celtic music one of these years, but the proper setting for such is a pub, and those have seats.)
Divorce
See above on breakups. This is one road I have absolutely no desire to travel down, whatsoever, nosiree Bob. I know plenty of divorced people, and they've all (mostly) moved on to happiness in their post-divorce lives, but still, one of these friends described the experience to me in these words: "If you want to feel like throwing up for six months straight, get a divorce, 'cause that's what it feels like." I have no use for that.
Co-Ed Sports
Sure, what's not to like?
Recycling
I do it, but I'm not sold on it as a major part of the solution to our environmental problems.
Expensive Sandwiches
Oh yes! I love a good sandwich, made with good ingredients. I'm not sure about the "expensive" part; I wouldn't be terribly interested in spending $50 for a burger made of Kobe beef. But ten bucks for a sandwich on artisan bread? Sure.
Knowing what's best for poor people
Well, depends, I suppose. I seriously dislike the condescension and judgmental nonsense thrown at the poor in this country, and the constant refrain that it's their fault, the lazy freeloaders. And I seriously dislike the notion that because we aren't in their position, we somehow know what's best for them. Nothing illustrated this to me more than the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when Barbara Bush opined that the thousands of displaced persons living in the Astrodome in Houston had it pretty good.
All that said, however, there's an extent to which any policy discussion over how to help the poor involves a discussion of what's best for the poor. This kind of thing I find helpful.
Bicycles
Bikes rule. I need to get mine up and running this year.
Toyota Prius
I like the idea of the car, but I'm unlikely to be able to get one any time soon, so I'm personally ambivalent. What I really like is what the Prius represents: the notion that it's our technological advancement that will be the largest factor in our solving our environmental problems. People who think that environmentalism translates to returning the world to some kind of medieval lifestyle annoy me.
Natural Medicine
There's some good stuff there, but it does get difficult to separate out the complete nonsense from the stuff that actually works.
Japan
If only they'd ditch their creepy and disgusting addiction to whaling, Japan would be extremely cool. I would love to go to Japan someday.
Juno
Haven't seen it yet, but soon will, and then I will report. I think that Diablo Cody is gorgeous, though.
Lawyers
Necessary and underappreciated, I suppose. The ones that I've met are usually decent people. But yeah, Shakespeare says to kill them all, so off they go!
Apologies
These seem terribly underrated. We really need to see a whole-hearted embrace in our society of the "Ahso Defense".
Kitchen Gadgets
I love good quality cookware, but I find the vast majority of kitchen gadgets useless and stupid wastes of space. Why buy, for instance, a rice cooker when you can just learn to cook rice in a heavy saucepan that will have many other uses besides? Why buy an electric gizmo to grill a sandwich? All I need is some good pans, some good knives, and a few other items and I'm good.
Dogs
Meh. I'm a cat person. A dog can be OK if I get to know it. But it's gotta be a dog. A Pomeranian is not a dog. It's a yipping creature of ill breeding.
Sarah Silverman
I don't know the first thing about her.
Living by the water
I'd love to live by water one day: a lake, a river, even a stream. Water is mythic. As it is, I live a few miles from one of the Great Lakes, which is good enough for now.
Irony
A powerful tool when used as that: a tool. I got very tired of the whole "Irony as overriding tone" thing that dominated everything in the 1990s.
Vintage
As you might expect, I own several pairs of vintage overalls, and I like to troll eBay for more, although the prices are often a bit out of reach for me. (A good pair of overalls will last forever if you use them for casual wear, as I do. No long days out in the fields for me!) It's fun to look at brands that no longer exist with names like "PayDay". I don't have much interest for anything else vintage, though.
Whole Foods and grocery co-ops
Well, this is awkward. Given my occupation, Whole Foods is the enemy and must be destroyed. But that's just a philosophical position, as Whole Foods does not exist in Buffalo, and I've heard no plans to attract them here. The big Buffalo co-op is the Lexington Co-op which I believe is in the Elmwood area somewhere. That's a bit out of the way for me, so I've never been there. I do like the concept of local ownership of such businesses, and I'd probably shop at one at least occasionally if one was a bit closer to Casa Jaquandor. Price isn't the biggest determining factor for me as to where I shop, as a rule, although it's definitely a factor.
You know what I really love, though? Public markets like the famous one in Seattle and the St. Lawrence Market in Toronto. Places like that are just wonderful.
Arts Degrees
I've got one: a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy with a minor in music.
The Sunday New York Times
I used to be a big fan, but nowadays I generally don't have time.
Asian Fusion Food
I don't know anything about it, but when I hear the term, I think of those stereotypical pretentious restaurants where an entree consists of a plate with three bite-size morsels of something upon it. Not a fan of that kind of thing: when I order food, I want a plate full of food. And my favorite Asian food is the stuff that you'll find in Chinatowns like Torontos, something that an Asian person might actually eat as a part of their daily life.
Public Radio
Longtime readers will know that I am a huge fan of public radio. You just have to find your right show. I love Prairie Home Companion, Thistle and Shamrock, Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz, Car Talk, and others. (I'm not a big fan of This American Life, however; something about Ira Glass's voice makes me want to lapse into a deep coma.)
Plays
Yup! Especially the flea-flicker and the Old Statue of Liberty. Those are great plays!
Oh, that's not what this means. I've enjoyed live theater when I've gone, and yet, I haven't gone in many years, which seems a pity given Buffalo's unusually vibrant theater scene (for a city this size facing the economic challenges it does).
Sushi
Yes! I love it. I've never had the "raw fish" stuff, but I find a nice meal of sushi pleasantly nourishing.
Indie Music
If it's good music, great. If not, forget it. Being "Indie" is no guarantee against sucking.
Apple Products
I like apple butter, apple-pie flavor ice cream, and I miss apple-flavored Slice pop.
The Steve Jobs cult creeps me out, though. I'm not in love with the whole "design is everything" ethos, nor do I buy the notion that Apple stuff is that much more robust than anything else. I find the idea of watching movies on an iPhone or an iPod terribly silly; I loved the bit at the Oscars the other week when Jon Stewart was watching Lawrence of Arabia on an iPhone and says, "Wow, the cinematography of this movie is amazing! I should watch in in widescreen! [turns phone sideways] Ohhh! Those are camels!"
And the whole "iBricking" thing really turns me off.
Netflix
Neat idea. We were in Blockbuster's knockoff program for a while, but we don't watch movies frequently enough to make it really worth our while, especially with the public library's movie collection constantly improving, and the access to that collection is free, which stomps all over Blockbuster and Netflix.
Arrested Development
Never watched it.
Renovations
Well, of what? Taking an old building and making it better, whether for a home or a business? Sure, that's great. In fact, I wish more old buildings would get renovated than either torn down for new buildings or, worse, allowed to rot while new buildings are built across the street. But not everything needs to be renovated, of course. And renovations poorly done can be disastrous.
Breakfast places
You'd better believe it. My favorite breakfast places are always the ones that are owned and run by locals in any given town, such as the wonderful Charlie's Diner in East Aurora, NY (I can't recommend this place highly enough, and if you go in late spring, be sure to sit on the porch and eat). And we're rapidly coming up on one of New York State's best traditions, Maple Weekend. We'll be going to Moore's Sugar Shack, which is a fabulous little place in the hills south of Arcade, for all the pancakes with fresh maple syrup we can eat. Oh Mama!
The Daily Show / The Colbert Report
I don't get to watch them very often, because they're on very late where we live (but they're nicely broadcast on a Canadian channel out of Hamilton, ON). I love Jon Stewart. I've never seen Colbert's show, unfortunately, but I did love his speech at the Correspondents' Dinner from a couple of years back, so assuming that's what his show is like, I'd probably love it.
Architecture
Well, I don't know much about it, to be honest. But Buffalo's architecture is wonderful, so I love it on that basis.
Marijuana
I've never tried it, so I don't know. I think it should be legal, though.
Vegan/Vegetarianism
Nope. I eat meat. Nothing ever eats that something else doesn't die, and anyway, if God didn't want us eating animals, he wouldn't have made them out of meat! (I do think that we eat too much meat in this country, but that's not the same thing as saying nobody should eat meat.)
Snowboarding
I've never done it, but it does look like fun.
Wrigley Field
I'm not a Cubs fan. Wrigley looks like a neat place on teevee, and I'm sure it's a great place to take in a game. But to have to do so watching the Cubs seems like too high a price to pay, especially with Harry Caray dead.
80s Night
Where? At a bar? A dance club? A roller rink? I love the cheesy 80s pop music, myself, so I'd probably enjoy the occasional 80s night.
Not having a teevee
Nah. I watch significantly less teevee now than I ever have before, but still, we have to be able to watch movies and stuff as a family. It's not like we can crowd around the computer or the laptop.
Marathons
Gahhh! I hate running. Never liked running and never will. For cardio, at the Y, I use the stationary recumbent bikes, and I love biking in general. But running? Ugh. I don't like running 26 feet, so why would I want to run 26 miles?!
Manhattan (and now Brooklyn too!)
I haven't been to New York City since I was twelve or thirteen. I really want to go back someday; we'd love to be on the street during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and the Hayden Planetarium seems right up my alley, as does that bookstore that apparently has eighteen miles of books. But that's all provisional, so I can't say that I love Manhattan.
David Sedaris
Meh. I read through a collection of his essays once and while I didn't hate him, I didn't grok him either. I don't understand the fuss over the guy.
Wine
I love wine, and I don't drink enough of it. Port, sherry, Asti, Cava, Sauternes, Canadian ice wine, rieslings from New York, Valpolicella with pasta. Wine is wonderful and fascinating. (I'm a pretty non-sophisticated wine drinker, picking my bottles on the basis of price and on that of how pretty the label is. I also try to buy New York wines when I'm in the mood.)
Microbreweries
If the beer they make tastes good, then sure. If not, then no. I'm not of the view that microbreweries are inherently better than larger operations, but they have over the last couple of decades led to a more vibrant beer market, so that's a good thing.
Having Two Last Names
With all due respect, who cares?! This is just silly.
Writers' Workshops
I have no desire at all to attend one of these.
Being an expert on YOUR culture
I'm not, unless we restrict the concept of "MY culture" to those topics I write about on this blog, and even then I wouldn't consider myself an expert on many of those topics, since blogging is in large part opining about that on which we know little.
Traveling
In the sense of "going other places", absolutely. In the sense of the actual physical act of traveling, then maybe; it depends on the mode of travel. I don't like flying; I find it unpleasant to begin with, and our air travel industry has made it a genuine pain in the arse. My favorite mode of travel is to pack some clothes and stuff, get in the car, and drive with one and only one rule: no Interstate highways. There's magic to be found in this country that way.
Awareness
Too often "awareness" can seem an end in itself, but the way I figure it, if you can get one hundred people aware of something they might not have otherwise been aware at all, then maybe a few of them, or even just one, will go beyond awareness to activism, and that's where change can happen.
Hating their Parents
Let me get this straight: we're supposed to like divorce, messy breakups to our non-marriage relationships, and harboring negative feelings toward our parents? Wow, we're quite the prize, aren't we? I can't believe we're still single; who wouldn't want to be around all this emotional angst and dysfunction?
Gifted Children
But it's all good, because we like our children, as long as they read at a sixth-grade level when they're in kindergarten or can speak two languages when they're four.
Yoga
I've never tried it, but it can't hurt, I suppose.
Having black friends
Why? So I can say "Some of my best friends are black!"? I like having friends.
Tea
Yup, I love tea. I recently acquired a nifty little device for brewing single servings of tea which I'll post about some time. I don't drink enough tea, actually; it's really wonderful stuff. I love green tea and mint tea.
Non-profit organizations
This is too broad a category of things to like. The Discovery Institute is a NPO, and I find their existence embarrassing and annoying.
Asian Girls
"Girls"? Can't we call them what we call them in this country: women? But yeah, Asian women tend to be really beautiful.
Wes Anderson movies
I've never seen one.
Making you feel bad about not going outside
What's wrong with inside? Nothing. Outside's cool, but does it need to be the subject of guilt? Not that I can see.
Barack Obama
If he wins the nomination, then you'd better believe it. If not, then thanks for playing and we'll see you in 2012 or (to be hoped) 2016. In truth, I think that either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would be infinitely preferable to John "The only solution to the colossal mess we're in is to ratchet up George Bush's awful policies to 11!" McCain.
Diversity
Again, it depends, doesn't it? But on balance, I think that diversity tends to be a better thing than the lack of it.
Organic Food
I don't know, really. I do know that organic stuff tends to cost more, so I avoid it pretty much on that basis alone.
Farmers' Markets
Ach, I love farmers' markets. The freshness you get is amazing. Here's an example of a place where I find it worthwhile to spend a little more than usual on food. Corn on the cob from a farmers' market, at the height of summer? Or blueberries picked that morning from a group of bushes less than ten miles from where you're forking over your cash? Wonderful.
Assists
Ummm...not knowing much about basketball or hockey, I can't say. But I do like the sentiment expressed by Crash Davis in Bull Durham on strikeouts versus groundballs: "Groundballs are democratic. Strikeouts are fascist."
Film Festivals
I've never been to one.
Religions their parents don't belong to
Does this mean my admiring Buddhism or Taoism is because my parents are neither Buddhists or Taoists? That seems a bit silly. Or is it, say, if I were to become an Anglican if my parents were Catholics (just to make up an example)? I don't know, that seems silly to me.
Coffee
Otherwise known as "the magical elixir without which I become a complete jerk". I love coffee. I adore coffee. I roll on the floor with coffee and massage its...oh yeah, sorry. (This year I'm trying to wean myself off sweetening my coffee. I've already cut in half the amount of sugar I put in it. I love sweet coffee, but I suspect that I don't need that much sugar with my daily caffeine fix.)
And there we have it. I don't like a lot of the stuff our "prototypical white guy" likes, and some of it, I really dislike. Am I still white?
The personal blog of author Kelly Sedinger, chronicling the adventures of one overalls-clad wanderer.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Sentential Links #131
OK, time for some more links. Sorry I didn't have them yesterday, but for one reason or another, time just got away from me last night, and suddenly it was 9:30 pm and I was starting my nightly zone-out.
Anyhow:
:: I know of another family in which a mentally retarded mother has two mentally retarded children she is unable to care for. Would it have been better if those children had never been born? (A question-raising post is always nice. I think about issues like this a lot.)
:: Fifty-five hundred an hour???????? (Tell me about it. How can it have possibly cost that much?)
:: I'm ready Uncle George, take me now!
:: The online feeding frenzy against Hillary Clinton is driving me crazy. And that's despite the fact that I support Obama and, all things considered, think Hillary should probably withdraw from the race.
:: Meanwhile, Anthony is driving ever closer to the secluded clearing where he disposes of the bodies.
:: The induction of the irascible and oft-maligned John Mellencamp into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last night, got me to reminiscing about how much I actually like his music. (Not a big fan, myself, but he's deserving of his slot in the Hall, I think.)
:: They don't make producers like that any more, folks.
:: I failed my save vs. stunning blow, so forgive me if this isn't the most polished thing in the world.
All for now. I'll try to have next week's edition on the right day. But I might fail. You know how it is.
(On seeing this post after publishing, it looks awfully short, because my links are pretty short this time. Don't let that dissuade you -- good stuff abounds, as always. My links are certified Good Stuff!)
Anyhow:
:: I know of another family in which a mentally retarded mother has two mentally retarded children she is unable to care for. Would it have been better if those children had never been born? (A question-raising post is always nice. I think about issues like this a lot.)
:: Fifty-five hundred an hour???????? (Tell me about it. How can it have possibly cost that much?)
:: I'm ready Uncle George, take me now!
:: The online feeding frenzy against Hillary Clinton is driving me crazy. And that's despite the fact that I support Obama and, all things considered, think Hillary should probably withdraw from the race.
:: Meanwhile, Anthony is driving ever closer to the secluded clearing where he disposes of the bodies.
:: The induction of the irascible and oft-maligned John Mellencamp into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last night, got me to reminiscing about how much I actually like his music. (Not a big fan, myself, but he's deserving of his slot in the Hall, I think.)
:: They don't make producers like that any more, folks.
:: I failed my save vs. stunning blow, so forgive me if this isn't the most polished thing in the world.
All for now. I'll try to have next week's edition on the right day. But I might fail. You know how it is.
(On seeing this post after publishing, it looks awfully short, because my links are pretty short this time. Don't let that dissuade you -- good stuff abounds, as always. My links are certified Good Stuff!)
Hookers for me, but not for thee
A rant:
I'm pretty cynical when it comes to politicians. I don't look for moral leadership or role models. I don't expect elected officials to set some kind of moral example over and above what I'd expect from the guy who changes my oil or the person who handles my transaction at Target. I won't refuse to vote for a person because he or she cheats on their spouse; I will refuse to vote for them on one basis and one basis only: whether or not I agree with their policy objectives. That's it. If my choice in an election is between a philandering Democrat and a steadfast Republican, I'll almost always choose the Democrat.
There's one proviso to this, though: I can't stand hypocrisy. This is why I tend to be more nauseated when the Larry Craigs of the world are caught with their hands in the cookie jar: not because I'm offended at what they did, but because their actions make clear that the way they publicly profess we all should live our lives isn't the way they think they should have to live their lives. William Bennett, the great moral crusader who has made his own little cottage industry pratting on about virtue and morality in American life? Whatever...until he turns out to be a gambler.
And Elliot Spitzer. Mr. Law-and-Order, crusader for the little guy. Everything was going to change on Day One. He was going to cut taxes, fix state government, reform Medicaid, finally start making New York work again. This he campaigned to do, on the basis of his tenure as Attorney General, during which he prosecuted corporations for Wall Street shenanigans, and during which he struck against prostitution rings. Caught with a prostitute.
The man's a hypocrite. He was already a disappointment as Governor, failing to accomplish much of anything at all: government spending continues to rise, Spitzer's own political instincts suddenly seemed made of tin, and more than a year into his term as Governor, absolutely nothing has changed in New York. And now he turns out to be a rank hypocrite. The former prosecutor who made hay against prostitution turns out to be a customer.
Like I said, I don't look for moral leadership from my political figures. I've long since outgrown the pleasant notion of our leaders as George Washington types, the "Father, I cannot tell a lie" stuff. I don't look for inspiration from political leaders, unless it's the inspiration that comes from the accomplishment of positive results. So when Spitzer was elected, I wasn't caught up in a massive groundswell of hope.
And the man still disappointed me.
Governor, you need to resign. It's over. You're done. You could have changed things for the better, but you didn't. You had the political will behind you, and you had the mood of the state behind you. And yet you frittered that away on a stupid scheme to take down your political opponents, your budgets which kept the numbers ticking ever ever upward, your refusal to take on unpopular groups like the New York State Thruway Authority, your total failure to present any new ideas at all in the time you've had in office.
And you paid for sex in a state where that is illegal, after you've prosecuted others for the same. The game's over. Time to let the next guy in. Maybe he can get things done where you and your predecessors could not.
Who knows, maybe New York will finally get lucky, and the day of Elliot Spitzer's resignation will be the real Day One, when things actually start to change. Somehow I doubt it, but I can always hope, can't I?
I'm pretty cynical when it comes to politicians. I don't look for moral leadership or role models. I don't expect elected officials to set some kind of moral example over and above what I'd expect from the guy who changes my oil or the person who handles my transaction at Target. I won't refuse to vote for a person because he or she cheats on their spouse; I will refuse to vote for them on one basis and one basis only: whether or not I agree with their policy objectives. That's it. If my choice in an election is between a philandering Democrat and a steadfast Republican, I'll almost always choose the Democrat.
There's one proviso to this, though: I can't stand hypocrisy. This is why I tend to be more nauseated when the Larry Craigs of the world are caught with their hands in the cookie jar: not because I'm offended at what they did, but because their actions make clear that the way they publicly profess we all should live our lives isn't the way they think they should have to live their lives. William Bennett, the great moral crusader who has made his own little cottage industry pratting on about virtue and morality in American life? Whatever...until he turns out to be a gambler.
And Elliot Spitzer. Mr. Law-and-Order, crusader for the little guy. Everything was going to change on Day One. He was going to cut taxes, fix state government, reform Medicaid, finally start making New York work again. This he campaigned to do, on the basis of his tenure as Attorney General, during which he prosecuted corporations for Wall Street shenanigans, and during which he struck against prostitution rings. Caught with a prostitute.
The man's a hypocrite. He was already a disappointment as Governor, failing to accomplish much of anything at all: government spending continues to rise, Spitzer's own political instincts suddenly seemed made of tin, and more than a year into his term as Governor, absolutely nothing has changed in New York. And now he turns out to be a rank hypocrite. The former prosecutor who made hay against prostitution turns out to be a customer.
Like I said, I don't look for moral leadership from my political figures. I've long since outgrown the pleasant notion of our leaders as George Washington types, the "Father, I cannot tell a lie" stuff. I don't look for inspiration from political leaders, unless it's the inspiration that comes from the accomplishment of positive results. So when Spitzer was elected, I wasn't caught up in a massive groundswell of hope.
And the man still disappointed me.
Governor, you need to resign. It's over. You're done. You could have changed things for the better, but you didn't. You had the political will behind you, and you had the mood of the state behind you. And yet you frittered that away on a stupid scheme to take down your political opponents, your budgets which kept the numbers ticking ever ever upward, your refusal to take on unpopular groups like the New York State Thruway Authority, your total failure to present any new ideas at all in the time you've had in office.
And you paid for sex in a state where that is illegal, after you've prosecuted others for the same. The game's over. Time to let the next guy in. Maybe he can get things done where you and your predecessors could not.
Who knows, maybe New York will finally get lucky, and the day of Elliot Spitzer's resignation will be the real Day One, when things actually start to change. Somehow I doubt it, but I can always hope, can't I?
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Sunday Burst of Weirdness
Time to get weird!
:: Down with "Danny Boy"! You know, I've yet to hear a vocal version of "Danny Boy" that I like. But Percy Grainger's setting of the tune is wonderful. I've heard that setting for strings, wind ensemble, and, most hauntingly, wordless chorus. It's one of the most beautiful melodies ever created in Western music, but the words? I can leave 'em, I suppose. (via)
:: Did you ever try to buy beer in Pennsylvania? If so, and if you might have cause to do so again, breathe a sigh of possible relief.
:: Well, it looks as if I'm not the only overalls-clad hippie around. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. Time to cut the hair and start wearing Dockers.
(Kidding, of course.)
:: Down with "Danny Boy"! You know, I've yet to hear a vocal version of "Danny Boy" that I like. But Percy Grainger's setting of the tune is wonderful. I've heard that setting for strings, wind ensemble, and, most hauntingly, wordless chorus. It's one of the most beautiful melodies ever created in Western music, but the words? I can leave 'em, I suppose. (via)
:: Did you ever try to buy beer in Pennsylvania? If so, and if you might have cause to do so again, breathe a sigh of possible relief.
:: Well, it looks as if I'm not the only overalls-clad hippie around. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. Time to cut the hair and start wearing Dockers.
(Kidding, of course.)
Time to go polish the warp drive nacelles
I was sitting down to do some nice, substantive blogging, but then I hopped over to SamuraiFrog's place and found this video:
And then my head exploded.
"I love you, Dream Woman!"
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Bring on the Gelatinous Cubes!
As just about everybody with a blog already knows, Gary Gygax, one of the inventors of Dungeons and Dragons, died last week. I've been too busy to post about it until now, and I also didn't want to make the same obvious joke that everybody else did about Gygax failing his last saving throw. (A favorite geek humor joke of mine is: "Jesus saves! The rest of you take full damage.") I, of course, choose to envision God as the ultimate Dungeon Master, and with regard to Gygax, he did the old DM trick of dropping a bunch of dice on the table behind his screen and then shaking his head and saying, "Ooooh, bummer, dude."
But of course, leave it to xkcd to come up with the best Gygax tribute I've seen anywhere:
But of course, leave it to xkcd to come up with the best Gygax tribute I've seen anywhere:
I was never a huge AD&D player, although there was a period in sixth grade when everybody in school was seemingly obsessed with it for some reason, to the point where cliques formed within our class based on whose character was a God and whose was a Demon. (What can I say? We were a bunch of dumb-assed eleven year olds.) Strange thing was, for all the D&D babble we all indulged, we did almost no actual playing of the game, which was a bummer. I didn't actually get to play the game in anything close to the manner in which it's meant to be played until college, when I was a part of two separate campaigns, the first in our freshman year and the next when we were juniors and seniors.
The DM of our first campaign was hard core on the role-playing aspect of the game. He and his high-school mates had used AD&D campaigns partly as means of honing their improv theater chops (this guy was really into drama), so we had to make a lot of effort in his campaign to be "in character". This occasionally led to interesting results. Our second campaign, spread over the latter portion of junior year and a big chunk of senior year, was run by a guy who was a more action-oriented DM; with him, there was less emphasis on role-playing (although there was that) and more on pacing and excitement. He was really good at managing combat so that the "battle sequences" were exciting, and he was also good at managing the treasure and rewards, consistently finding the "sweet spot" between extreme stinginess ("The red dragon is dead, leaving his horde of one hundred copper pieces to be split amongst the party, after you pay these six NPCs their agreed price!") and Monty Haul ("Your party of level eight characters has slain the duo of bugbears, taking their horde of one million platinum pieces, five swords +6, and eight scrolls with one Wish spell on each!").
Both campaigns took place in the Greyhawk setting, so I never got to play in the Forgotten Realms. My own campaign, had we not petered out as a group in senior year, would have been a Forgotten Realms campaign. I also bought a lot of the "Al Qadim" materials for another campaign, in the style of the 1001 Nights, that never took place.
AD&D was, of course, lots of fun, and we usually had a blast whilst playing. I haven't played a single game since college, fifteen years ago now, and while I don't have a whole lot of desire to play again (mostly because I know that I just don't have enough time), I'm glad I got to play the games that I did, and I do wish we'd had some time to get more playing in there. So, like every geek these days, I owe a certain debt to Gary Gygax.
Limey scum! Limey scum!
Signs that the Irish band you're listening to might not be all that good:
One: Ten minutes into their first set, and they've already played "Tura-lura-lura", "I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen" and "Danny Boy".
Two: Twenty minutes into their first set, they take on that well-known Irish classic, "Puff the Magic Dragon".
I swear I am not making this up.
One: Ten minutes into their first set, and they've already played "Tura-lura-lura", "I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen" and "Danny Boy".
Two: Twenty minutes into their first set, they take on that well-known Irish classic, "Puff the Magic Dragon".
I swear I am not making this up.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Lovers in Bolton
UPDATED below.
I've just watched about twenty minutes of FOX's new reality show The Moment of Truth, and wow, what an appalling show. I can't believe this is on teevee. I'm astonished...and all I can think of is how eerily prescient, once again, Monty Python turns out to have been:
(The relevant sketch comes at about the 1:10 mark.)
UPDATE: OK, just to put Roger at ease in comments, I didn't sit down with the desire to watch this show. It happened to be on after American Idol, so when I sent The Daughter to the bathroom at 9:00 to do her "get ready for bed thing", I had ten minutes to watch whatever was on next, and Moment of Truth was it. Rest assured, I won't be watching this crap again!
I've just watched about twenty minutes of FOX's new reality show The Moment of Truth, and wow, what an appalling show. I can't believe this is on teevee. I'm astonished...and all I can think of is how eerily prescient, once again, Monty Python turns out to have been:
(The relevant sketch comes at about the 1:10 mark.)
UPDATE: OK, just to put Roger at ease in comments, I didn't sit down with the desire to watch this show. It happened to be on after American Idol, so when I sent The Daughter to the bathroom at 9:00 to do her "get ready for bed thing", I had ten minutes to watch whatever was on next, and Moment of Truth was it. Rest assured, I won't be watching this crap again!
To the books!
So, what have I been reading lately? Let's look:
:: It's actually been a long time since I bounced off a book, but damned if I didn't bounce clean off a Stephen King novel. I haven't read a whole lot of King, but what I have read, I've at least liked, and some of it I've found utterly brilliant (The Stand is just a magnificent work). So I didn't expect to find Dreamcatcher a tough nut, but tough indeed I found it. Like many King books, the early going started flying by, and I actually got about a third of the way into the book before a major shift in tone and focus stopped me cold. The early stuff, detailing the lives of our hunter friend heroes, is all winning stuff, vintage King. But something really bothered me in the book's tone once the military guys show up, and then the book veered into a long surreal section with Jonesy, if I was reading things right. Anyhow, my interest in the book dropped like a rock at that point, and I eventually set the thing aside. I'm quite surprised that's how it worked out, and maybe I'll give the book another go someday.
:: I did not bounce off In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. This is one of those books I'd seen any number of times, either in bookstores or at the library, and each time there was something about it that said, "You know you're going to read me sooner or later." So the last time I saw it in the library, I picked it up and read the blurb on the dust jacket, describing the fate of the Essex as being a partial inspiration to Herman Melville in Moby Dick, and claiming that the Essex disaster was as famous in the nineteenth century as the Titanic wreck was in the twentieth. Clinching it is the fact that the book is cited on this list of sea books. I love a good book about the sea, and this certainly is that.
The Essex was a whaling vessel that set out from Nantucket on a whaling expedition and encountered many problems along the way, such as storms and short provisions as it sailed into the Atlantic, down the east coast of South America, around Cape Horn, and into the Pacific to attempt to harvest the whales in recently-discovered feeding grounds there. At that point, the voyage, already difficult, became calamitous when a sperm whale rammed the Essex repeatedly, eventually dealing the ship a mortal blow. The crew then set out in lifeboats to try to return to South America. A handful of crew eventually made it, after many days at sea in which they became starved and dehydrated and eventually resorted to cannibalism.
Tales of disaster like this, in which arrogant man is pitted against heartless nature, always seem to include numerous instances in which everything could turn out differently, and better, if only better decisions were made. Those bad decisions, constantly exacerbated by bad luck, make for a riveting and haunting read.
:: One doesn't explore the world of comics beyond the well-known superhero stories very far before one encounters the name of Will Eisner, who by all accounts is one of the twentieth century's leading lights of comics-as-literature, as opposed to comics-as-diversion-for-adolescents. Such creators as Scott McCloud, Art Spiegelman, and Craig Thompson all spring from the ground seeded by Will Eisner. And yet, until a few weeks ago, I'd never read any Eisner at all. Well, that is no longer the case.
Life, in Pictures is a collection of autobiographical stories, drawing from various aspects of Eisner's life. The term "autobiographical" is meant to be taken somewhat loosely, as apparently the first tale in the book, "A Sunset in Sunshine City", is not autobiographical at all but rather a fictional meditation on the kinds of feeling Eisner experienced when he, like the main character in the tale, moved from his lifelong home in New York City to a retirement home in Florida. Also partially autobiographical is "The Dreamer", which follows the early career of a young cartoonist (a stand-in for Eisner) in the youthful days of the comic book industry (before World War II, and definitely before the disastrous creation of the Comics Code). Here Eisner depicts his young stand-in running across numerous real figures from comics history, albeit disguised with fictional names. (Luckily, this story includes a set of annotations, clearing up the identities of those depicted.)
The largest portion of the book is devoted to "To the Heart of the Storm", in which Eisner, having been drafted into military service and on board the troop train riding to his bootcamp, reflects on his personal history and that of his parents, with particular emphasis on the fact that they are seemingly always on the run from anti-Semitism. "The Name of the Game" traces Eisner's family history through his mother's side, and the book concludes with a very short tale – a vignette, actually – called "The Day I Became a Professional", which is exactly that.
I suppose this is no revelation whatsoever, but Eisner turns out to be that rare item in comics: the complete package, the brilliant writer as well as the terrific artist. His texts and his visuals blend so seamlessly that there were times in reading Life, in Pictures that I found myself literally losing my sense of time in the face of my awe at my first encounter with an obvious master of his form. So yeah, Will Eisner turns out to be pretty good. Film at eleven!
:: Sticking with comics, I thought that American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang would be an manga, but it's not, really. It's just a graphic novel by a comics artist of Asian descent on the subject of a young man who finds himself isolated as the only Chinese-American in his new school. It's also the story of the Monkey King, a monkey who isn't satisfied to be a King but who also wants to be a God. And it's the story of a popular kid named Danny who sadly has a cousin named Chin-Kee, who happens to be the personal embodiment of every obnoxious stereotype of Chinese people that exists. American Born Chinese tells all these stories, and in reading the book, I figured that each tale existed in its own particular space in the book. That assumption turns out to also be wrong, when the three stories become one late in the book in one of the more delightful surprises I've encountered lately in a book.
I suppose there's something about my initial assumption that the book was a manga ("Hmmm, Asian subject matter, Asian artist...clearly a manga!") that illustrates part of the point the book makes about racial stereotypes toward Asians in the first place. We're talking about a Chinese-American comics artist here, after all, and manga is a Japanese medium. But the book is brilliant, and along with the Eisner volume above truly indicative of how powerful a medium comics can be.
:: It's generally taken as a given that political figures tend to exhibit qualities in their public speaking that are often labeled in the colorful way as "being full of shit". However, it can always seem a bit daunting to identify exactly how our politicians are befuddling us with bullshit, since they're obviously not baffling us with their brilliance. Hence a book like Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington: Understanding Political Doublespeak Through Philosophy and Jokes, by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein. It's a brief, breezy, and mostly entertaining look at the various tricks-of-the-trade of political rhetoric. Granted, most of the examples the authors select involve lapses in logic by right-of-center politicians, but there are the occasional quotes by such Democratic masters of BS as Bill Clinton. The book also features lots of regular old jokes along the way, used to depict logical fallacies. It's a fun and breezy read, especially as a kind of refresher course in logical argumentation.
:: I read Sheila's appreciation of a production of Macbeth with Patrick Stewart as the lead with interest, as I had just weeks before finished reading Macbeth for the first time since high school. I remember this being the first of Shakespeare's plays that I really liked, probably owing to its blood-soaked tale of regicide and eerie supernatural content; I remember being especially pleased in discovering the way Shakespeare had made the witches' prophecies come true.
We read Macbeth in eleventh grade English; at the time, the norm was, if memory serves, one Shakespeare play a year. We started in ninth grade with Romeo and Juliet, which, well, I just wasn't capable of appreciating in any way that early on. (I've always had this pet notion that literature should be taught in reverse chronology; dumping a bunch of ninth graders into iambic pentameter can't be the best way to introduce kids to The Bard, I think.) In tenth grade it was Julius Caesar, which I found more interesting, although I still found Shakespeare mostly impenetrable. "Why do they keep talking for so long? A bunch of guys stab Caesar and yet he still manages to get out 'Et tu Brute'?" It wasn't until Macbeth that I started to actually see what Shakespeare was doing, that I started to understand that his language had rhythm and music inherent within it. (I may have been influenced by my discovery the year before of Berlioz, and my further discovery that Shakespeare had been one of Berlioz's greatest artistic influences. I guess that was my first personal experience with being swayed by a celebrity endorsement.)
Anyhow, Macbeth. I don't have anything particularly insightful to say about this work; I only note how wonderfully brooding a play it is, how gloomy. Macbeth himself always seems as though he believes himself to be in control of his own actions, but all along, we know that he is in no control at all. Watching his entire world collapse around him, and seeing him reduced to, in his words, "a poor player" strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage, forms the heart of the tragedy. I love this play, and I should really try to see some Shakespeare on stage someday.
:: Finally, I'm trying an experiment: reading Moby Dick at the rate of one chapter a day. If I can stick to that pace, I will get all the way through the book in 135 days. (Yeah, that's a big 'if'.) I've been planning to read Moby Dick for a while now, but my enjoyment of In the Heart of the Sea influenced my decision to get going now, and it will help that the chapters are all very brief. Occasionally I will post a brief thought about the book as I make my way through it, starting with this: the first sentence of Chapter Two.
:: It's actually been a long time since I bounced off a book, but damned if I didn't bounce clean off a Stephen King novel. I haven't read a whole lot of King, but what I have read, I've at least liked, and some of it I've found utterly brilliant (The Stand is just a magnificent work). So I didn't expect to find Dreamcatcher a tough nut, but tough indeed I found it. Like many King books, the early going started flying by, and I actually got about a third of the way into the book before a major shift in tone and focus stopped me cold. The early stuff, detailing the lives of our hunter friend heroes, is all winning stuff, vintage King. But something really bothered me in the book's tone once the military guys show up, and then the book veered into a long surreal section with Jonesy, if I was reading things right. Anyhow, my interest in the book dropped like a rock at that point, and I eventually set the thing aside. I'm quite surprised that's how it worked out, and maybe I'll give the book another go someday.
:: I did not bounce off In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. This is one of those books I'd seen any number of times, either in bookstores or at the library, and each time there was something about it that said, "You know you're going to read me sooner or later." So the last time I saw it in the library, I picked it up and read the blurb on the dust jacket, describing the fate of the Essex as being a partial inspiration to Herman Melville in Moby Dick, and claiming that the Essex disaster was as famous in the nineteenth century as the Titanic wreck was in the twentieth. Clinching it is the fact that the book is cited on this list of sea books. I love a good book about the sea, and this certainly is that.
The Essex was a whaling vessel that set out from Nantucket on a whaling expedition and encountered many problems along the way, such as storms and short provisions as it sailed into the Atlantic, down the east coast of South America, around Cape Horn, and into the Pacific to attempt to harvest the whales in recently-discovered feeding grounds there. At that point, the voyage, already difficult, became calamitous when a sperm whale rammed the Essex repeatedly, eventually dealing the ship a mortal blow. The crew then set out in lifeboats to try to return to South America. A handful of crew eventually made it, after many days at sea in which they became starved and dehydrated and eventually resorted to cannibalism.
Tales of disaster like this, in which arrogant man is pitted against heartless nature, always seem to include numerous instances in which everything could turn out differently, and better, if only better decisions were made. Those bad decisions, constantly exacerbated by bad luck, make for a riveting and haunting read.
:: One doesn't explore the world of comics beyond the well-known superhero stories very far before one encounters the name of Will Eisner, who by all accounts is one of the twentieth century's leading lights of comics-as-literature, as opposed to comics-as-diversion-for-adolescents. Such creators as Scott McCloud, Art Spiegelman, and Craig Thompson all spring from the ground seeded by Will Eisner. And yet, until a few weeks ago, I'd never read any Eisner at all. Well, that is no longer the case.
Life, in Pictures is a collection of autobiographical stories, drawing from various aspects of Eisner's life. The term "autobiographical" is meant to be taken somewhat loosely, as apparently the first tale in the book, "A Sunset in Sunshine City", is not autobiographical at all but rather a fictional meditation on the kinds of feeling Eisner experienced when he, like the main character in the tale, moved from his lifelong home in New York City to a retirement home in Florida. Also partially autobiographical is "The Dreamer", which follows the early career of a young cartoonist (a stand-in for Eisner) in the youthful days of the comic book industry (before World War II, and definitely before the disastrous creation of the Comics Code). Here Eisner depicts his young stand-in running across numerous real figures from comics history, albeit disguised with fictional names. (Luckily, this story includes a set of annotations, clearing up the identities of those depicted.)
The largest portion of the book is devoted to "To the Heart of the Storm", in which Eisner, having been drafted into military service and on board the troop train riding to his bootcamp, reflects on his personal history and that of his parents, with particular emphasis on the fact that they are seemingly always on the run from anti-Semitism. "The Name of the Game" traces Eisner's family history through his mother's side, and the book concludes with a very short tale – a vignette, actually – called "The Day I Became a Professional", which is exactly that.
I suppose this is no revelation whatsoever, but Eisner turns out to be that rare item in comics: the complete package, the brilliant writer as well as the terrific artist. His texts and his visuals blend so seamlessly that there were times in reading Life, in Pictures that I found myself literally losing my sense of time in the face of my awe at my first encounter with an obvious master of his form. So yeah, Will Eisner turns out to be pretty good. Film at eleven!
:: Sticking with comics, I thought that American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang would be an manga, but it's not, really. It's just a graphic novel by a comics artist of Asian descent on the subject of a young man who finds himself isolated as the only Chinese-American in his new school. It's also the story of the Monkey King, a monkey who isn't satisfied to be a King but who also wants to be a God. And it's the story of a popular kid named Danny who sadly has a cousin named Chin-Kee, who happens to be the personal embodiment of every obnoxious stereotype of Chinese people that exists. American Born Chinese tells all these stories, and in reading the book, I figured that each tale existed in its own particular space in the book. That assumption turns out to also be wrong, when the three stories become one late in the book in one of the more delightful surprises I've encountered lately in a book.
I suppose there's something about my initial assumption that the book was a manga ("Hmmm, Asian subject matter, Asian artist...clearly a manga!") that illustrates part of the point the book makes about racial stereotypes toward Asians in the first place. We're talking about a Chinese-American comics artist here, after all, and manga is a Japanese medium. But the book is brilliant, and along with the Eisner volume above truly indicative of how powerful a medium comics can be.
:: It's generally taken as a given that political figures tend to exhibit qualities in their public speaking that are often labeled in the colorful way as "being full of shit". However, it can always seem a bit daunting to identify exactly how our politicians are befuddling us with bullshit, since they're obviously not baffling us with their brilliance. Hence a book like Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington: Understanding Political Doublespeak Through Philosophy and Jokes, by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein. It's a brief, breezy, and mostly entertaining look at the various tricks-of-the-trade of political rhetoric. Granted, most of the examples the authors select involve lapses in logic by right-of-center politicians, but there are the occasional quotes by such Democratic masters of BS as Bill Clinton. The book also features lots of regular old jokes along the way, used to depict logical fallacies. It's a fun and breezy read, especially as a kind of refresher course in logical argumentation.
:: I read Sheila's appreciation of a production of Macbeth with Patrick Stewart as the lead with interest, as I had just weeks before finished reading Macbeth for the first time since high school. I remember this being the first of Shakespeare's plays that I really liked, probably owing to its blood-soaked tale of regicide and eerie supernatural content; I remember being especially pleased in discovering the way Shakespeare had made the witches' prophecies come true.
We read Macbeth in eleventh grade English; at the time, the norm was, if memory serves, one Shakespeare play a year. We started in ninth grade with Romeo and Juliet, which, well, I just wasn't capable of appreciating in any way that early on. (I've always had this pet notion that literature should be taught in reverse chronology; dumping a bunch of ninth graders into iambic pentameter can't be the best way to introduce kids to The Bard, I think.) In tenth grade it was Julius Caesar, which I found more interesting, although I still found Shakespeare mostly impenetrable. "Why do they keep talking for so long? A bunch of guys stab Caesar and yet he still manages to get out 'Et tu Brute'?" It wasn't until Macbeth that I started to actually see what Shakespeare was doing, that I started to understand that his language had rhythm and music inherent within it. (I may have been influenced by my discovery the year before of Berlioz, and my further discovery that Shakespeare had been one of Berlioz's greatest artistic influences. I guess that was my first personal experience with being swayed by a celebrity endorsement.)
Anyhow, Macbeth. I don't have anything particularly insightful to say about this work; I only note how wonderfully brooding a play it is, how gloomy. Macbeth himself always seems as though he believes himself to be in control of his own actions, but all along, we know that he is in no control at all. Watching his entire world collapse around him, and seeing him reduced to, in his words, "a poor player" strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage, forms the heart of the tragedy. I love this play, and I should really try to see some Shakespeare on stage someday.
:: Finally, I'm trying an experiment: reading Moby Dick at the rate of one chapter a day. If I can stick to that pace, I will get all the way through the book in 135 days. (Yeah, that's a big 'if'.) I've been planning to read Moby Dick for a while now, but my enjoyment of In the Heart of the Sea influenced my decision to get going now, and it will help that the chapters are all very brief. Occasionally I will post a brief thought about the book as I make my way through it, starting with this: the first sentence of Chapter Two.
I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carbet-bag, tucked it under my arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific.
That is just a terrific sentence, isn't it? Our boy Ishmael dreams big. He's not setting out to find a berth on a ship, he's not setting out for Nantucket, he's setting out for Cape Horn and the Pacific. That would be like if Neil Armstrong had risen on that morning in July 1969, kissed his wife, and said, "Bye dear, I'm off for the Sea of Tranquility." Ishmael's a guy who knows where he's going.
So that's the literary activity lately at Casa Jaquandor.
Tales from the Straight Talk Express
In which our hero, having secured the nomination, seeks out the love of his onetime opponent....
Meanwhile, our former hero, is still looking to drag his reputation from the rubble....
How will it end? Tune in next time for Tales from the Straight Talk Express!
Meanwhile, our former hero, is still looking to drag his reputation from the rubble....
How will it end? Tune in next time for Tales from the Straight Talk Express!
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
But it's spelled "FAHV-ruh"!
I don't think that at any point in the last seventeen years I would have named Brett Favre as my favorite football player, but he would have certainly made the cut if I'd ever been asked to name my ten favorite players. That photo above is why: Favre always played with a greater feeling of joy. He always looked like what he was: a guy playing a game. Sure, many times he would try some kind of goofy thing that would only be attempted by a kid in a sandlot game of touch football, and many times those gonzo plays of his would turn into interceptions or turnovers, but...Favre was always fun to watch. I like that. There are lots of QBs who are interesting to watch, or admirable to watch based on their pure skill and mechanics, but Favre made the game fun to watch. You always knew that you were going to see something when he was on the field.
I'm surprised that he decided to retire now, especially seeing as how he seemed to find rejuvenation last year and since he's as fierce a competitor as they come, and with him retiring now, that means that his final pass attempt in the NFL was an interception in overtime of the NFC Championship Game, with the resulting drive seeing the Giants score the points to win and go to the Super Bowl. But still...so long, Brett Favre.
Final Answers!
Bringing this year's iteration of Ask Me Anything! to a close, we have a cluster of queries again from Roger. He put these all into a single bloc, but I'm breaking them up to make them more manageable.
OK, it occurred to me that I don't know that much about your childhood. If you've blogged about it, it was before I found your corner of the Internet.
Well, while it would be nicely poetic if I could claim a childhood full of traumas and hardships, that just wasn't the case. It wasn't a remarkable childhood at all.
So: how many people were in your household growing up? What was the birth order of you and your sibs, and age differentials? What jobs did your father and mother have outside the home? What were your parents' names, and what did you call them? Did you get along with your sibs?
The Main Family Unit included four people: Father, Mother, Older Sister, and Me. Not a huge family, so I can't complain that I was lost in the shuffle of all those kids. No "middle child", Jan Brady-esque histrionics for me. Likewise, no only-child psychological baggage to carry around. Alas.
My sister was six years and change older than me. (Actually, that's not likely to change, is it? That should be present tense.) So, we were far enough apart in age so as not to be close in all particulars, especially since when I was starting to find my own personality and such, she was entering her teen years. One difficult thing in growing up was my failure, understandable though it might have been, to comprehend the degree to which her interests at twelve years of age would differ from mine at six. All things considered, she and I got along fairly well. There were fights and arguments, and moments when I was utterly convinced that everything always went her way; I'm sure there were moments when she thought, "Jeez, Mom, you sure coddle that twit brother of mine" as well.
My sister is now a professor and a Shakespearean scholar in Colorado. She's freakishly smart, way smarter than me. Oh well.
My parents were both teachers, with my father teaching on the collegiate level (except for two years when he worked as a programmer, I think, with a computer company outside Portland, OR), and my mother at the elementary level (although she eventually left the classroom and became a school librarian). I called them Mom and Dad, although (embarrassing admission warning) I'm told that as a very small child, I fancied myself being Batman, which made my mother Robin. I have no memory of this, thankfully.
Both of my parents are still alive and in good health. I got my liberal politics from them, among many other gifts that I didn't realize were gifts at the time.
Did you all have dinner together? Who sat where? Was the table square, rectangular or round? (This may seem like a peculiar question, but I've seen it, in person, be quite revealing.)
We had dinner together more often when I was younger than when we were older, if memory truly serves. We were never the Happy Days style of family, with us-as-the-Cunninghams all sitting down to the meal Mother had made at the same time every night, but we did eat together fairly frequently. My mother is a good cook, although a standing joke is her tendency to cook in larger quantities than our family size would have seemed to warrant; my father terms this as her need to feed the entire Russian army. We also ate out together a lot. I remember my father occasionally making a stew in the crockpot, and he'd also put together an impressively gigantic salad that would sit in the fridge in a wooden bowl for several days afterward while we grazed at it.
Funny food story: my mother attempted making homemade pita bread once. Apparently the procedure involved putting the individual flatbreads on a table, beneath a towel, while the gases inside forced the bread to form a cavity inside. Well, there's a rule of nature that states that given a soft surface freshly laid down, a cat will lay down upon it. So the cat laid down on the towel with the flatbreads beneath, causing the pockets in the pocket bread to fuse shut. Oops. (That cat had a habit of sitting on things he wasn't supposed to, to a degree unusual even for cats, who as a species love to sit on things. A few years later the SOB sat on the box containing my birthday cake.)
We also once lived in a house where the oven's actual temperature was about 125 degree lower than the temperature displayed on the knob, so that year, our Thanksgiving dinner took place at something like 8:30 pm. I remember that night we ended up going to a park in nearby Beaverton (this was when we lived in Hillsboro, OR), where a trail wound around a lake. We'd often go there for my parents to jog on the trail while my sister and I would walk and do whatever; often we'd take bread to feed to the ducks who lived there. Well, there we were, at this park on Thanksgiving Day at 6:00 pm, because at home our turkey was just starting to cook.
(And thanks to the magic of Google, I found that very park!
View Larger Map
I wonder if SDB knows where it is? I think he lives in those parts these days.)
Dining room table shapes? We'd have a rectangular table for a few years, then get a round table, then back to rectangular, and so on. The table they have now is rectangular. "Grace" was almost never said, except on holidays, although we now say it before every meal ever since The Daughter got in the habit of doing so. (No "improvised" prayers, we just say what is apparently for Lutherans called the "Common table prayer". For the longest time I was pretty uncomfortable with the concept of prayer before meals.)
(Our own table, by the way, is rectangular. The Wife usually sits at the "head" of the table, when we eat at the table at all. Lots of times we just dish up food and head to the living room to eat. A bad habit, maybe, but eating takeout at the table feels wrong somehow. A particularly pleasant ritual is to get takeout and eat in the living room in front of the teevee while we watch a movie together.)
On the playground, were you a bully, were you bullied, or did you manage to stay out of the fray? What were your best and worst subjects in school?
Was I bullied? Occasionally, but really, not that often. I never got my ass kicked, although I came close a few times, and I must now admit that my own mouth was often a factor in whatever incidents of possible bullying I may have found myself enmeshed within. I didn't bully, either, although there were times when the temptation was somewhat strong, I must admit. For the most part, I avoided that whole fray, although there were rare instances of fisticuffs.
There was one incident of clear-cut bullying that resulted in me having a broken bone for a chunk of summer; that sucked. Oddly, though, I didn't rat the kid out. In retrospect, I should have, but in my school, there was this odd stigma attached to being a tattletale (or a 'narc' as they called it).
I think I'm done now.
Thank goodness!
And with that, Ask Me Anything! 2008 comes to a close. Thanks to those who asked questions. For reference, here are the questions asked (albeit rephrased slightly) and answered previously, with the links to the posts involved:
Go ahead! Rant about the Patriots! You know you want to! All the cool kids are!
Chrysler Building or Cheops's Pyramid: which was bigger? What fantasy world would you want to live in? Where's the list of beautiful women I post from time to time?
How's your faith journey going? Does rooting for the Giants over the Bills make me a bad person? What's a pie in the face among friends?
Of these two fictional characters from books you haven't read, which one kicks more ass? What time of day are you at your best? Where's that posting series of satellite pictures of places on Earth?
Why didn't you just name this blog Jaquandor's Blog?
OK, it occurred to me that I don't know that much about your childhood. If you've blogged about it, it was before I found your corner of the Internet.
Well, while it would be nicely poetic if I could claim a childhood full of traumas and hardships, that just wasn't the case. It wasn't a remarkable childhood at all.
So: how many people were in your household growing up? What was the birth order of you and your sibs, and age differentials? What jobs did your father and mother have outside the home? What were your parents' names, and what did you call them? Did you get along with your sibs?
The Main Family Unit included four people: Father, Mother, Older Sister, and Me. Not a huge family, so I can't complain that I was lost in the shuffle of all those kids. No "middle child", Jan Brady-esque histrionics for me. Likewise, no only-child psychological baggage to carry around. Alas.
My sister was six years and change older than me. (Actually, that's not likely to change, is it? That should be present tense.) So, we were far enough apart in age so as not to be close in all particulars, especially since when I was starting to find my own personality and such, she was entering her teen years. One difficult thing in growing up was my failure, understandable though it might have been, to comprehend the degree to which her interests at twelve years of age would differ from mine at six. All things considered, she and I got along fairly well. There were fights and arguments, and moments when I was utterly convinced that everything always went her way; I'm sure there were moments when she thought, "Jeez, Mom, you sure coddle that twit brother of mine" as well.
My sister is now a professor and a Shakespearean scholar in Colorado. She's freakishly smart, way smarter than me. Oh well.
My parents were both teachers, with my father teaching on the collegiate level (except for two years when he worked as a programmer, I think, with a computer company outside Portland, OR), and my mother at the elementary level (although she eventually left the classroom and became a school librarian). I called them Mom and Dad, although (embarrassing admission warning) I'm told that as a very small child, I fancied myself being Batman, which made my mother Robin. I have no memory of this, thankfully.
Both of my parents are still alive and in good health. I got my liberal politics from them, among many other gifts that I didn't realize were gifts at the time.
Did you all have dinner together? Who sat where? Was the table square, rectangular or round? (This may seem like a peculiar question, but I've seen it, in person, be quite revealing.)
We had dinner together more often when I was younger than when we were older, if memory truly serves. We were never the Happy Days style of family, with us-as-the-Cunninghams all sitting down to the meal Mother had made at the same time every night, but we did eat together fairly frequently. My mother is a good cook, although a standing joke is her tendency to cook in larger quantities than our family size would have seemed to warrant; my father terms this as her need to feed the entire Russian army. We also ate out together a lot. I remember my father occasionally making a stew in the crockpot, and he'd also put together an impressively gigantic salad that would sit in the fridge in a wooden bowl for several days afterward while we grazed at it.
Funny food story: my mother attempted making homemade pita bread once. Apparently the procedure involved putting the individual flatbreads on a table, beneath a towel, while the gases inside forced the bread to form a cavity inside. Well, there's a rule of nature that states that given a soft surface freshly laid down, a cat will lay down upon it. So the cat laid down on the towel with the flatbreads beneath, causing the pockets in the pocket bread to fuse shut. Oops. (That cat had a habit of sitting on things he wasn't supposed to, to a degree unusual even for cats, who as a species love to sit on things. A few years later the SOB sat on the box containing my birthday cake.)
We also once lived in a house where the oven's actual temperature was about 125 degree lower than the temperature displayed on the knob, so that year, our Thanksgiving dinner took place at something like 8:30 pm. I remember that night we ended up going to a park in nearby Beaverton (this was when we lived in Hillsboro, OR), where a trail wound around a lake. We'd often go there for my parents to jog on the trail while my sister and I would walk and do whatever; often we'd take bread to feed to the ducks who lived there. Well, there we were, at this park on Thanksgiving Day at 6:00 pm, because at home our turkey was just starting to cook.
(And thanks to the magic of Google, I found that very park!
View Larger Map
I wonder if SDB knows where it is? I think he lives in those parts these days.)
Dining room table shapes? We'd have a rectangular table for a few years, then get a round table, then back to rectangular, and so on. The table they have now is rectangular. "Grace" was almost never said, except on holidays, although we now say it before every meal ever since The Daughter got in the habit of doing so. (No "improvised" prayers, we just say what is apparently for Lutherans called the "Common table prayer". For the longest time I was pretty uncomfortable with the concept of prayer before meals.)
(Our own table, by the way, is rectangular. The Wife usually sits at the "head" of the table, when we eat at the table at all. Lots of times we just dish up food and head to the living room to eat. A bad habit, maybe, but eating takeout at the table feels wrong somehow. A particularly pleasant ritual is to get takeout and eat in the living room in front of the teevee while we watch a movie together.)
On the playground, were you a bully, were you bullied, or did you manage to stay out of the fray? What were your best and worst subjects in school?
Was I bullied? Occasionally, but really, not that often. I never got my ass kicked, although I came close a few times, and I must now admit that my own mouth was often a factor in whatever incidents of possible bullying I may have found myself enmeshed within. I didn't bully, either, although there were times when the temptation was somewhat strong, I must admit. For the most part, I avoided that whole fray, although there were rare instances of fisticuffs.
There was one incident of clear-cut bullying that resulted in me having a broken bone for a chunk of summer; that sucked. Oddly, though, I didn't rat the kid out. In retrospect, I should have, but in my school, there was this odd stigma attached to being a tattletale (or a 'narc' as they called it).
I think I'm done now.
Thank goodness!
And with that, Ask Me Anything! 2008 comes to a close. Thanks to those who asked questions. For reference, here are the questions asked (albeit rephrased slightly) and answered previously, with the links to the posts involved:
Go ahead! Rant about the Patriots! You know you want to! All the cool kids are!
Chrysler Building or Cheops's Pyramid: which was bigger? What fantasy world would you want to live in? Where's the list of beautiful women I post from time to time?
How's your faith journey going? Does rooting for the Giants over the Bills make me a bad person? What's a pie in the face among friends?
Of these two fictional characters from books you haven't read, which one kicks more ass? What time of day are you at your best? Where's that posting series of satellite pictures of places on Earth?
Why didn't you just name this blog Jaquandor's Blog?
Monday, March 03, 2008
Sentential Links #131
Time for links, links, links!
But first, lynx:
Har har har! Anyway....
:: Random venting on my blog about the human race? Zero dollars.
That serotonin surge of mindless misanthropy? Priceless. (New blog to me.)
:: So as a public service of this blog (and you know I’m all about public service) here is a test. If you’re thinking of becoming a contestant for MOMENT OF TRUTH you must be able to answer all of these correctly. (spoiler alert: the correct answer to all of them is True.) Good luck. (I have not watched this show. The promos alone make me want to vomit.)
:: That's why Franny and Zooey is on my shelf. (Another new blog to me.)
:: Everyday the same, only books change. (Yet another new blog to me! Hooray!)
:: Blogging is the organization of the important and the ephemeral in the life of a person or organization, ideally in an appealing manner. (As good a definition as I can find.)
:: Before your lack of education becomes too embarassing, just put down the pen. Close the laptop. Be silent.
:: I have a confession to make: pretty stitch markers make me go weak at the knees. (No idea what that means, but there it is.)
:: One of the random things I believe in that I'm not sure anyone else does is the concept of having a bad month. (I always miss it when Mr. Jones starts posting again. And he refers to a girlfriend...I should probably drop him an e-mail and find out what the heck is going on his life. Oh, by the way, my February rocked.)
:: This was rough. (This post made me want to retch. Fair warning.)
And there we have it. Links, with additional lynx. More next week!
But first, lynx:
Har har har! Anyway....
:: Random venting on my blog about the human race? Zero dollars.
That serotonin surge of mindless misanthropy? Priceless. (New blog to me.)
:: So as a public service of this blog (and you know I’m all about public service) here is a test. If you’re thinking of becoming a contestant for MOMENT OF TRUTH you must be able to answer all of these correctly. (spoiler alert: the correct answer to all of them is True.) Good luck. (I have not watched this show. The promos alone make me want to vomit.)
:: That's why Franny and Zooey is on my shelf. (Another new blog to me.)
:: Everyday the same, only books change. (Yet another new blog to me! Hooray!)
:: Blogging is the organization of the important and the ephemeral in the life of a person or organization, ideally in an appealing manner. (As good a definition as I can find.)
:: Before your lack of education becomes too embarassing, just put down the pen. Close the laptop. Be silent.
:: I have a confession to make: pretty stitch markers make me go weak at the knees. (No idea what that means, but there it is.)
:: One of the random things I believe in that I'm not sure anyone else does is the concept of having a bad month. (I always miss it when Mr. Jones starts posting again. And he refers to a girlfriend...I should probably drop him an e-mail and find out what the heck is going on his life. Oh, by the way, my February rocked.)
:: This was rough. (This post made me want to retch. Fair warning.)
And there we have it. Links, with additional lynx. More next week!
Literature! Now good for kids, too!
UPDATED 3-6-08: A correction below where I mis-identify an author.
SamuraiFrog calls attention to this list of the top fifty childrens' books, apparently arrived at via a poll of some sort. As usual, I'll bold the ones I've read, and provide occasional comment. (SamuraiFrog has some good points on the list as a whole, particularly the wide definition of childrens' books they used for this list.)
1 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, C S Lewis (Best? Huh?)
2 The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle (I like Eric Carle, although sometimes his stuff starts to seem the same.)
3 Famous Five series, Enid Blyton
4 Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne (Wow, it's really different to read Milne's original after one has been immersed in the Disney-fied version of Pooh for so long.)
5 The BFG, Roald Dahl
6 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, J K Rowling (OK, why this book? First, although it's definitely good, it's not the best of that series; my vote would go to Prisoner of Azkaban. Weird pick. I wonder when the poll was taken? If it was before Deathly Hallows came out last year, then clearly people are picking the most recent title they remember.)
7 The Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
8 The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
9 Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll (I'm assuming we're including Through the Looking Glass here? Brilliant books, obviously.)
10 The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson
11 The Tales of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter (I love Potter, although I have to wonder how many kids grew up prejudiced against chamomile tea because of it.)
12 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl (I'm not sure that I've read the book, come to think of it, but I'm claiming it on the basis of having seen the two movies lots of times each.)
13 Matilda, Roald Dahl
14 The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett (I need to read this, but a very good movie was made of it back in 1993.)
15 The Cat in the Hat, Dr Seuss (Believe it or not, I actually prefer the sequel, and there are many times when I wish I could unleash the power of VOOM! upon the Federal Disaster Area that is my apartment.)
16 The Twits, Roald Dahl
17 Mr Men, Roger Hargreaves
18 A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (Is this a children's book? Or is it a really good book that appeals to children as well?)
19 The Malory Towers Series, Enid Blyton
20 Peter Pan, J M Barrie
21 The Railway Children, E. Nesbit
22 Hans Christian Fairy Tales, H C Andersen (Not all of them, but quite a few.)
23 The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum (I just grabbed a copy of this for The Daughter yesterday at the library book sale!)
24 The Witches, Roald Dahl
25 Stig of the Dump, Clive King
26 The Wishing Chair, Enid Blyton
27 Dear Zoo, Rod Campbell
28 The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Judith Kerr
29 Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Jan Brett (I haven't read this, but I do love Jan Brett's work.)
30 James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl (I recently blogged about this. We really need to read more Dahl in this household! I love Dahl.)
31 A Bear Called Paddington, Michael Bond (You know, I had completely forgotten about Paddington until just this very minute, while I'm writing this. We read these in class when I was either in third or fourth grade. I don't remember disliking them, but other than that, I don't remember much about them at all.)
32 Black Beauty, Anna Sewell (Another acquisition for The Daughter at yesterday's book sale!)
33 Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak (Yeah, a classic. I saw a Bill Moyers interview of Sendak on PBS once, and I was struck at what a cynical man Sendak seems to be. There's a reason his books have that hint of bitterness and despair in them.)
34 Aesop's Fables, Jerry Pinkney (Not this specific translation, I suppose, but something similar.)
35 The Borrowers, Mary Norton
36 Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling
37 Meg and Mog, Jan Pienkowski
38 Mrs Pepperpot, Alf Proyson (Never heard of this book, but I do love pepperpot soup. There's no better soup for a morning after overindulging in ales and lagers the night before.)
39 We're Going on a Bear Hunt, Michael Rosen 4 (I'm not sure if the one we own is this same version, but it was one of The Daughter's favorite books when she was 2 or 3. I hated reading it, except for the very end, when I could really ham up the bear's pursuit of the family right to their own door.)
40 The Gruffalo's Child, Julia Donaldson
41 Room on a Broom, Julia Donaldson
42 The Worst Witch, Jill Murphy
43 Miffy, Dick Bruna
44 The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery (Maybe I should read it again. I recall reading it and not seeing what all the fuss was about.)
45 Flat Stanley, Jeff Brown
46 The Snail and the Whale, Julia Donaldson
47 Ten Little Ladybirds, Melanie Gerth
48 Six Dinners Sid, Inga Moore
49 The St. Clares Series, Enid Blyton
50 Captain Underpants, Dav Pilke
OK, so I haven't read too many of those, and there are more than a few that I haven't even heard of. I suspect this is because the list was made by a bunch of Brits, and we all know that those Brits don't know anything from literature; seriously, that country's been resting on its literary laurels ever since Shakespeare died. What a good thing we Americans saved the English language from them! USA! USA! USA!
Oh all right, scratch that last paragraph. I was only kidding. But there are a lot of treasured reads from my own childhood that aren't here at all. Nothing by Lloyd Alexander, for instance, appears on this list, and I would put The Prydain Chronicles right beside The Chronicles of Narnia for classic kidlit fantasy. Also, they're hard to find these days (I'm not sure if they're even in print), and they can be terribly un-PC, but John Fitzgerald's Great Brain books are as entertaining a series as you'll ever find; Tom Dennis Fitzgerald is one of the most memorable characters I can remember from any book I've ever read. (And you'd think these books would be popular with the Dangerous Book for Boys crowd.)
(By the way, Fitzgerald also mined his family history in a couple of books for grownups. I strongly recommend Papa Married a Mormon, but I found the follow-up, Mamma's Boarding House, disappointing, although assuming that the events in that book actually happened as Fitzgerald relates them, the fault can't really be his; it's just that Papa Married a Mormon ends on a really perfect and bittersweet note. Reading Mamma's Boarding House would be kind of like...oh, I don't know, learning all about how Andy and Red make out with that boat after the end of The Shawshank Redemption. Some tales just don't need to be told.)
And of course, my reading life would be immeasurably poorer had I not done something naughty in fifth grade and thus had my mother hand me The House with a Clock in its Walls by John Bellairs. Bellairs's death in 1991 is the first time I ever mourned an author's passing. It also seems strange that Laura Ingalls Wilder doesn't appear on the list, but then, her tales of life in mid-nineteenth century heartland America probably don't have much appeal for British readers, either.
Other authors? How about Robert Cormier, whose One Fat Summer was pretty meaningful to me (as a fat kid), and whose Fade is one of the most downright creepy books I've read? Or Beverly Cleary and Betsy Byars? Say, is Judy Blume still a popular childrens author? I'm tempted to read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing with The Daughter, but I wonder if it's aged poorly.
SamuraiFrog calls attention to this list of the top fifty childrens' books, apparently arrived at via a poll of some sort. As usual, I'll bold the ones I've read, and provide occasional comment. (SamuraiFrog has some good points on the list as a whole, particularly the wide definition of childrens' books they used for this list.)
1 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, C S Lewis (Best? Huh?)
2 The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle (I like Eric Carle, although sometimes his stuff starts to seem the same.)
3 Famous Five series, Enid Blyton
4 Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne (Wow, it's really different to read Milne's original after one has been immersed in the Disney-fied version of Pooh for so long.)
5 The BFG, Roald Dahl
6 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, J K Rowling (OK, why this book? First, although it's definitely good, it's not the best of that series; my vote would go to Prisoner of Azkaban. Weird pick. I wonder when the poll was taken? If it was before Deathly Hallows came out last year, then clearly people are picking the most recent title they remember.)
7 The Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
8 The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
9 Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll (I'm assuming we're including Through the Looking Glass here? Brilliant books, obviously.)
10 The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson
11 The Tales of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter (I love Potter, although I have to wonder how many kids grew up prejudiced against chamomile tea because of it.)
12 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl (I'm not sure that I've read the book, come to think of it, but I'm claiming it on the basis of having seen the two movies lots of times each.)
13 Matilda, Roald Dahl
14 The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett (I need to read this, but a very good movie was made of it back in 1993.)
15 The Cat in the Hat, Dr Seuss (Believe it or not, I actually prefer the sequel, and there are many times when I wish I could unleash the power of VOOM! upon the Federal Disaster Area that is my apartment.)
16 The Twits, Roald Dahl
17 Mr Men, Roger Hargreaves
18 A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (Is this a children's book? Or is it a really good book that appeals to children as well?)
19 The Malory Towers Series, Enid Blyton
20 Peter Pan, J M Barrie
21 The Railway Children, E. Nesbit
22 Hans Christian Fairy Tales, H C Andersen (Not all of them, but quite a few.)
23 The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum (I just grabbed a copy of this for The Daughter yesterday at the library book sale!)
24 The Witches, Roald Dahl
25 Stig of the Dump, Clive King
26 The Wishing Chair, Enid Blyton
27 Dear Zoo, Rod Campbell
28 The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Judith Kerr
29 Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Jan Brett (I haven't read this, but I do love Jan Brett's work.)
30 James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl (I recently blogged about this. We really need to read more Dahl in this household! I love Dahl.)
31 A Bear Called Paddington, Michael Bond (You know, I had completely forgotten about Paddington until just this very minute, while I'm writing this. We read these in class when I was either in third or fourth grade. I don't remember disliking them, but other than that, I don't remember much about them at all.)
32 Black Beauty, Anna Sewell (Another acquisition for The Daughter at yesterday's book sale!)
33 Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak (Yeah, a classic. I saw a Bill Moyers interview of Sendak on PBS once, and I was struck at what a cynical man Sendak seems to be. There's a reason his books have that hint of bitterness and despair in them.)
34 Aesop's Fables, Jerry Pinkney (Not this specific translation, I suppose, but something similar.)
35 The Borrowers, Mary Norton
36 Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling
37 Meg and Mog, Jan Pienkowski
38 Mrs Pepperpot, Alf Proyson (Never heard of this book, but I do love pepperpot soup. There's no better soup for a morning after overindulging in ales and lagers the night before.)
39 We're Going on a Bear Hunt, Michael Rosen 4 (I'm not sure if the one we own is this same version, but it was one of The Daughter's favorite books when she was 2 or 3. I hated reading it, except for the very end, when I could really ham up the bear's pursuit of the family right to their own door.)
40 The Gruffalo's Child, Julia Donaldson
41 Room on a Broom, Julia Donaldson
42 The Worst Witch, Jill Murphy
43 Miffy, Dick Bruna
44 The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery (Maybe I should read it again. I recall reading it and not seeing what all the fuss was about.)
45 Flat Stanley, Jeff Brown
46 The Snail and the Whale, Julia Donaldson
47 Ten Little Ladybirds, Melanie Gerth
48 Six Dinners Sid, Inga Moore
49 The St. Clares Series, Enid Blyton
50 Captain Underpants, Dav Pilke
OK, so I haven't read too many of those, and there are more than a few that I haven't even heard of. I suspect this is because the list was made by a bunch of Brits, and we all know that those Brits don't know anything from literature; seriously, that country's been resting on its literary laurels ever since Shakespeare died. What a good thing we Americans saved the English language from them! USA! USA! USA!
Oh all right, scratch that last paragraph. I was only kidding. But there are a lot of treasured reads from my own childhood that aren't here at all. Nothing by Lloyd Alexander, for instance, appears on this list, and I would put The Prydain Chronicles right beside The Chronicles of Narnia for classic kidlit fantasy. Also, they're hard to find these days (I'm not sure if they're even in print), and they can be terribly un-PC, but John Fitzgerald's Great Brain books are as entertaining a series as you'll ever find; Tom Dennis Fitzgerald is one of the most memorable characters I can remember from any book I've ever read. (And you'd think these books would be popular with the Dangerous Book for Boys crowd.)
(By the way, Fitzgerald also mined his family history in a couple of books for grownups. I strongly recommend Papa Married a Mormon, but I found the follow-up, Mamma's Boarding House, disappointing, although assuming that the events in that book actually happened as Fitzgerald relates them, the fault can't really be his; it's just that Papa Married a Mormon ends on a really perfect and bittersweet note. Reading Mamma's Boarding House would be kind of like...oh, I don't know, learning all about how Andy and Red make out with that boat after the end of The Shawshank Redemption. Some tales just don't need to be told.)
And of course, my reading life would be immeasurably poorer had I not done something naughty in fifth grade and thus had my mother hand me The House with a Clock in its Walls by John Bellairs. Bellairs's death in 1991 is the first time I ever mourned an author's passing. It also seems strange that Laura Ingalls Wilder doesn't appear on the list, but then, her tales of life in mid-nineteenth century heartland America probably don't have much appeal for British readers, either.
Other authors? How about Robert Cormier, whose One Fat Summer was pretty meaningful to me (as a fat kid), and whose Fade is one of the most downright creepy books I've read? Or Beverly Cleary and Betsy Byars? Say, is Judy Blume still a popular childrens author? I'm tempted to read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing with The Daughter, but I wonder if it's aged poorly.
UPDATE: OK, I completely bungled on Robert Cormier. While he did write Fade (and We All Fall Down, another book I admired greatly), he did not write One Fat Summer. That was Robert Lipsyte. Bugger! But I did love all those books.
(By the way, The Daughter and I are now making slow progress through the first book in Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising sequence. I'm liking it quite a lot.)
I'm not "tagging" anyone to do the whole "bold the ones you read" thing, but I would be keenly interested to hear what Sheila, Jennifer, Erin, Jayme, Tosy or Cosh, Belladonna, and Mrs. M-Mv have to say on the topic.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Unidentified Earth 29
Hmmmm. Well, the installment from two weeks ago has finally been identified; it's Malibu Creek State Park in California, which is where the exterior shooting for M*A*S*H was done. That square object on the left of the road, toward the left of the picture, is actually a rusted-out jeep that was used on the show. Cool, eh? So, one hundred Quatloos to Aaron, who got the answer. (And yet, Jayme was on the right track in comments to another post....)
Last week's installment is still unidentified, however. Somebody's got to call my bluff here!
And now, this week's entry:
Where are we? Rot-13 your guesses, please!
Last week's installment is still unidentified, however. Somebody's got to call my bluff here!
And now, this week's entry:
Where are we? Rot-13 your guesses, please!
Sunday Burst of Weirdness
Here we go....
:: I don't know what it is about cars versus being on foot, but I can totally see myself hiking this trail, whereas you couldn't pay me enough to drive this road. (First link via Lynn. Oddly, these pages are hosted at a site for a dance studio in Texas!)
:: Need a protocol droid, but all you have is paper? No problem! (via)
:: Save the abandoned shopping carts. This hits me close to home, I must admit! Once in a while, a person will come into The Store with their own cart, rather than using one of ours; and occasionally it will be a cart from a store that has long since gone the way of the retail dodo-bird. That's always interesting, and possibly a little sad. (via)
Keep the weirdness coming, folks!
:: I don't know what it is about cars versus being on foot, but I can totally see myself hiking this trail, whereas you couldn't pay me enough to drive this road. (First link via Lynn. Oddly, these pages are hosted at a site for a dance studio in Texas!)
:: Need a protocol droid, but all you have is paper? No problem! (via)
:: Save the abandoned shopping carts. This hits me close to home, I must admit! Once in a while, a person will come into The Store with their own cart, rather than using one of ours; and occasionally it will be a cart from a store that has long since gone the way of the retail dodo-bird. That's always interesting, and possibly a little sad. (via)
Keep the weirdness coming, folks!
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Answers
OK, time for a couple more answers. Now, when the football season ended, I was content to limit to a single, brief post my gloating over the massive THUD with which my most loathed sports team on the planet hit the ground in their supposed quest for perfection, but since this series is called Ask Me Anything!, I have to answer the questions, two of which dealt with the New England Patriots. So, any Pats fans in the audience, you might want to just skip this post entirely. (Ditto for people who don't give a rip about football, or for people who do give a rip about football but who don't like to read the ravings of lunatics like me.)
Will the loss by the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl have an effect on the sale of hoodies?
I haven't the faintest idea, but since I actually like hoodies (although I hate the word "hoodie"), I hope not. And to be quite honest, the thing about Bill Belichick that bothers me the least is the way he looks on the sideline. I find his hoodies preferable to the gaudily-colored golf shirts that most other coaches wear.
OK, there, I said something nice about Belichick. Now to rip him and his whole rotten disgusting vomitous retchworthy team to shreds!
Should we consider the Patriots as being 0-4 in Super Bowls for the decade? Given the revelation that the Patriots have been cheating since 2000, how happy/sad does this make you feel?
Well...no. Not yet. There just isn't enough evidence right now to make any definitive statements, one way or the other, and in any event, the Patriots' cheating was of the "gain an edge" variety -- meaning, it's not quite on the level of the Black Sox scandal. I don't think they won those Super Bowls because they cheated, although it may have helped a bit, if they were taping the other teams' practices. But really, their videotape shenanigans didn't make Mike Martz decide to pigheadedly stick to his gameplan of having Kurt Warner throw the ball all over the field and ignore the presence of the NFL's best running back (at that time), Marshall Faulk, on his own roster. (It's unforgivable that in a game that close, Faulk only had seventeen carries against a team that was very suspect against the run.) The Patriots' videotape shenanigans didn't make John Fox go for two-point conversions in bad situations, or the Panthers' kicker send a kickoff out of bounds just after they'd tied the game at 29-all. Their videotape shenanigans didn't make the Eagles play a fairly flat game or make Andy Reid lose sight of the most important element of any football game, the game clock.
I don't have any idea how the entire issue is going to play out, but I have few hopes that even if there was a program of significant videotaping in place in New England it will come out and the guilty parties disciplined. The NFL has already destroyed the pertinent evidence that it had at hand, and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of clamoring for this matter to be got to the bottom of. The main sentiment I've heard seems to be "It's in the past and it's settled now." Shockingly, everyone seems to be going for that. I contrast that attitude with that expressed when baseball's Mark MacGuire told Congress that he "wasn't there to discuss the past"; some cite that performance on Capitol Hill as the main reason MacGuire hasn't yet made the Hall of Fame.
I'm also highly disappointed in the media's approach to the whole Cheating scandal, as it illustrates anew the media's fixation these days with narrative as opposed to actual journalism. No one has really done any significant digging into the Cheating scandal. The entire story just vanished utterly after Roger Goodell basically said "Nothing to see here folks, and by the way, I destroyed the evidence the Patriots gave me. Let's move on." Instead, the focus turned, as it seemingly always does, to treating the Patriots with bizarre worshipful reverence, which is why I ended up seeing article after article after article from various sportwriters insisting that the Patriots should be loved by all football fans (case in point). I remember reading Buffalo News sportswriters on the News's blog section writing in one post that their job was to be objective and dispassionate regarding reporting on the Bills, but in another post openly admitting to rooting for the Patriots to pull off the undefeated season. And even when the Patriots had lost the Super Bowl, there was Jason Whitlock insisting that they should still be loved and revered, that they're still one of the greatest of all teams, and that the Giants were merely Super Bowl champions. Okay.
So what's going to happen? I suspect that the extent of the Patriots' cheating will never be known. It's too late, too much has been allowed to slip through the cracks, and no one seems terribly interested anyway. But the scandal, along with the Patriots' loss in Super Bowl XLII, has had one terribly beneficial effect: it's pretty much put to bed the notion that this is the greatest of all dynasties. Put it this way: the Steelers of the 1970s dominated the NFL with one of the greatest defenses of all time. The 49ers of the 1980s dominated with the greatest quarterback in history. The Cowboys of the 1990s dominated with the best running back in history. The Patriots of the 2000s dominated with...videotape.
Setting dynasties aside, here's an article by John Czarnecki listing the greatest single season teams ever. Maybe it's churlish of me, but as a Buffalo Bills fan, I have been told by other NFL fans ever since Super Bowl XXVIII ended that the Bills could not be considered one of the great teams because they didn't win the Super Bowl. Well, if that's the logic, then it also applies to the 2007 Patriots, shouldn't it?
Will the loss by the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl have an effect on the sale of hoodies?
I haven't the faintest idea, but since I actually like hoodies (although I hate the word "hoodie"), I hope not. And to be quite honest, the thing about Bill Belichick that bothers me the least is the way he looks on the sideline. I find his hoodies preferable to the gaudily-colored golf shirts that most other coaches wear.
OK, there, I said something nice about Belichick. Now to rip him and his whole rotten disgusting vomitous retchworthy team to shreds!
Should we consider the Patriots as being 0-4 in Super Bowls for the decade? Given the revelation that the Patriots have been cheating since 2000, how happy/sad does this make you feel?
Well...no. Not yet. There just isn't enough evidence right now to make any definitive statements, one way or the other, and in any event, the Patriots' cheating was of the "gain an edge" variety -- meaning, it's not quite on the level of the Black Sox scandal. I don't think they won those Super Bowls because they cheated, although it may have helped a bit, if they were taping the other teams' practices. But really, their videotape shenanigans didn't make Mike Martz decide to pigheadedly stick to his gameplan of having Kurt Warner throw the ball all over the field and ignore the presence of the NFL's best running back (at that time), Marshall Faulk, on his own roster. (It's unforgivable that in a game that close, Faulk only had seventeen carries against a team that was very suspect against the run.) The Patriots' videotape shenanigans didn't make John Fox go for two-point conversions in bad situations, or the Panthers' kicker send a kickoff out of bounds just after they'd tied the game at 29-all. Their videotape shenanigans didn't make the Eagles play a fairly flat game or make Andy Reid lose sight of the most important element of any football game, the game clock.
I don't have any idea how the entire issue is going to play out, but I have few hopes that even if there was a program of significant videotaping in place in New England it will come out and the guilty parties disciplined. The NFL has already destroyed the pertinent evidence that it had at hand, and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of clamoring for this matter to be got to the bottom of. The main sentiment I've heard seems to be "It's in the past and it's settled now." Shockingly, everyone seems to be going for that. I contrast that attitude with that expressed when baseball's Mark MacGuire told Congress that he "wasn't there to discuss the past"; some cite that performance on Capitol Hill as the main reason MacGuire hasn't yet made the Hall of Fame.
I'm also highly disappointed in the media's approach to the whole Cheating scandal, as it illustrates anew the media's fixation these days with narrative as opposed to actual journalism. No one has really done any significant digging into the Cheating scandal. The entire story just vanished utterly after Roger Goodell basically said "Nothing to see here folks, and by the way, I destroyed the evidence the Patriots gave me. Let's move on." Instead, the focus turned, as it seemingly always does, to treating the Patriots with bizarre worshipful reverence, which is why I ended up seeing article after article after article from various sportwriters insisting that the Patriots should be loved by all football fans (case in point). I remember reading Buffalo News sportswriters on the News's blog section writing in one post that their job was to be objective and dispassionate regarding reporting on the Bills, but in another post openly admitting to rooting for the Patriots to pull off the undefeated season. And even when the Patriots had lost the Super Bowl, there was Jason Whitlock insisting that they should still be loved and revered, that they're still one of the greatest of all teams, and that the Giants were merely Super Bowl champions. Okay.
So what's going to happen? I suspect that the extent of the Patriots' cheating will never be known. It's too late, too much has been allowed to slip through the cracks, and no one seems terribly interested anyway. But the scandal, along with the Patriots' loss in Super Bowl XLII, has had one terribly beneficial effect: it's pretty much put to bed the notion that this is the greatest of all dynasties. Put it this way: the Steelers of the 1970s dominated the NFL with one of the greatest defenses of all time. The 49ers of the 1980s dominated with the greatest quarterback in history. The Cowboys of the 1990s dominated with the best running back in history. The Patriots of the 2000s dominated with...videotape.
Setting dynasties aside, here's an article by John Czarnecki listing the greatest single season teams ever. Maybe it's churlish of me, but as a Buffalo Bills fan, I have been told by other NFL fans ever since Super Bowl XXVIII ended that the Bills could not be considered one of the great teams because they didn't win the Super Bowl. Well, if that's the logic, then it also applies to the 2007 Patriots, shouldn't it?
(A brief aside: it always shocks me when I read articles like this, and I see that the single best team that I have ever seen since I started paying attention to football, the 1991 Redskins, again forgotten. Why does that team get so little love? That team scored 485 points and only gave up 224, which is a staggering differential; both their offense and their defense were in the top five that year; they went 14-2, with their losses coming to rivals within their division, then the toughest division in football, and those losses by a combined five points; their offensive line gave up nine sacks all year (compare to this year's Pats, almost universally cited as the contemporary Gold Standard of O-line play, who gave up twenty-one sacks). The 1991 Redskins were just amazing, and I say that as a Bills fan who had to watch them get blown out in the Super Bowl. I suspect that one reason the 1991 'Skins aren't often remembered is because of their quarterback. Mark Rypien had a career year in 1991, but within two years he was gone from Washington and spent the rest of his career as a journeyman. If Rypien had had a Hall of Fame career, instead of being really good for a couple of years and then fading, I'll bet the '91 Redskins would be remembered a lot better than they are.)
Also, we can set aside the notion, voiced constantly over the course of 2007, that we were seeing the greatest quarterback in history at the peak of his career. Sorry, but Tom Brady is still not the equal of Joe Montana in my mind. Montana never lost on the biggest stage. When Montana twice went into a Super Bowl against a clearly inferior opponent, he blew them out (including the biggest blowout in Super Bowl history, 55-10 in Super Bowl XXIV), and those two inferior teams were themselves quarterbacked by future Hall of Famers (Dan Marino and John Elway). When Montana came into the final moments of a Super Bowl facing a three-point deficit, meaning he had to either score at least a field goal or go home the loser, he didn't just get the field goal; he got the touchdown to win the game. True, he had more time in his score-or-die scenario (two minutes versus fifty-some seconds), but he also had more ground to cover (he took the field with his team at its own eight-yard line). Brady's got rings, but rings don't create football myth. Situations create football myth, and Brady's situations simply don't compare to Montana's.
(But let's be clear: Brady's a clear Hall of Famer and one of the best of all time. I'm not presenting an argument that he sucks; just that he's overrated.)
Another odd notion that seems to be falling aside a bit is the canard that the Patriots are somehow special, that they rise above the fray and that they are just a bunch of humble guys who have set aside their egos to form this astonishing team. Well, having watched these guys for years, I'm not sure where the humility idea comes from. This year I saw Junior Seau dancing around obnoxiously after every play he made, no matter how pedestrian. I saw Vince Wilfork get fined multiple times for dirty plays, including his hit of JP Losman on the knee. (No, I don't for one second believe that he wasn't going for Losman's knee. There's no reason at all for his arm to be extended in that way if he wasn't.) I've seen Rodney Harrison make dirty hits for years. When Richard Seymour was called out for trash-talking at the Super Bowl, when the Patriots were still up 14-10 in the final minutes of the fourth quarter, does anyone seriously believe that such un-humble behavior was really out of character for this team? And then there's Randy Moss, who somehow gets credit this year for being on his best behavior, which is his history as a player, when he is winning. If Moss resigns with New England, and he's still with them in two or three years, let's see how happy he's acting if the team is 10-6 and making an early exit in the playoffs. I have a strong feeling that we haven't seen the last of the "I don't play hard all the time" Randy Moss.
Finally, what does the future hold for the Patriots? Lots of people think that as long as Brady's around, they'll be a juggernaut. Brady himself recently said that he'd like to play as long as Vinny Testaverde did. I think that's unrealistic, and it's more likely that Brady's longevity will be a victim of his success. The problem for him there is the amount of playoff action he's seen. Brady has started all seventeen of the Patriots' playoff games over the last seven years. Since an entire football season is only sixteen games, that means that Brady has literally played the equivalent of eight seasons of football in seven years. That takes a toll, and in football terms, it takes its toll fairly quickly. Brady's still pretty robust, and he's probably good for another four or five years, but there's no way he plays into his forties. (And I'm not just ripping on Brady here, either. The same can be said of Peyton Manning, who has fourteen playoff games under his belt.) Playoff football is just as physical as regular football, and guys who make a lot of deep playoff runs in a short period of time tend to fade quickly when they do. And even the guys like John Elway and Dan Marino, who are poster children for longevity in the NFL, had to pay the same piper. With one more playoff game, which is probably a dead certainty barring injury, Brady will equal the number that Marino had for his entire career. He's got only five more to tie Elway, and six to catch Montana. But those guys didn't pack their playoff appearances into so short a period as Brady has, either; better comparisons might be Jim Kelly (17 career playoff games in nine years), Troy Aikman (16 career playoff games in nine years), and Steve Young (14 career playoff games in seven years, although he also appeared in six playoff games before that in relief of Joe Montana, all of those in late-game, mop-up situations). Basically, I doubt very much if the Tom Brady era has more than four or five seasons left in it, and the more deep playoff runs he makes, the shorter it'll be.
OK, so that should put all of that to bed. There, that didn't hurt so much, did it?
Monday, February 25, 2008
Sentential Links #130
Wow...it doesn't feel like I've been doing these for all that long, but I'm slowly closing in on a two and a half years, if I haven't hit that target already considering that there have been weeks when I didn't indulge this series. Anyway, on with the links. Click them or the puppy gets it.
:: My coworker friend Denise came in the office earlier this week and told me that she heard on the radio that 80’s music was now considered to be OLDIES CLASSIC ROCK. (You know what used to bother me when I used to listen to Buffalo's oldies station on a regular basis, back when Buffalo had a real oldies station? Hearing "Kokomo" as an oldie. Just because the Beach Boys recorded it didn't make it an oldie. But apparently now it actually is an oldie. Yipes!)
:: "Why can't Steve Carrel host the Oscars? He's actually funny." (That's actually a pretty good suggestion, although I thought Jon Stewart was terrific. I don't agree with everything SamuraiFrog says, but he's always interesting.)
:: Please clear any unused time off the microwave when you are finished. Some of us have OCD and leftover time drives us crazy. (My new favorite blog. This thing is hysterical.)
:: So I'm designating this week's condiment of the week to honey. Take time to think of all the little things you daily dose of honey does each day--be he/she a parent, kiddo, lovemuffin, or life-supporting friend.
:: Three cheers Canada!
:: O Sunday Family Circus, why do you insist on the being baffling and totally insane?
:: You know you're a US presidents geek when you accidentally buy the same biography of Chester Alan Arthur twice.
All for this week. Tune in again!
:: My coworker friend Denise came in the office earlier this week and told me that she heard on the radio that 80’s music was now considered to be OLDIES CLASSIC ROCK. (You know what used to bother me when I used to listen to Buffalo's oldies station on a regular basis, back when Buffalo had a real oldies station? Hearing "Kokomo" as an oldie. Just because the Beach Boys recorded it didn't make it an oldie. But apparently now it actually is an oldie. Yipes!)
:: "Why can't Steve Carrel host the Oscars? He's actually funny." (That's actually a pretty good suggestion, although I thought Jon Stewart was terrific. I don't agree with everything SamuraiFrog says, but he's always interesting.)
:: Please clear any unused time off the microwave when you are finished. Some of us have OCD and leftover time drives us crazy. (My new favorite blog. This thing is hysterical.)
:: So I'm designating this week's condiment of the week to honey. Take time to think of all the little things you daily dose of honey does each day--be he/she a parent, kiddo, lovemuffin, or life-supporting friend.
:: Three cheers Canada!
:: O Sunday Family Circus, why do you insist on the being baffling and totally insane?
:: You know you're a US presidents geek when you accidentally buy the same biography of Chester Alan Arthur twice.
All for this week. Tune in again!
Happy Birthday My Love
Today is The Wife's birthday.
We first started dating just days before her birthday back in 1991, so each time her birthday rolls around, it's another year we've been together in one way or another. We've had some very wonderful times together when life was nearly perfect; we've had some utterly awful moments when life seemed completely worthless. But we're still here, on both counts, and I don't want it any other way.
Some things about my wife: her hand fits mine like it was custom made for me (or maybe that's the other way around). She makes perfect Spanish rice and cornbread, amazing pancakes and astounding waffles, and she roasts a mean turkey. Her skill on the sewing machine astonishes me. Her strength during Little Quinn's life was inspiring to me on so many levels. She loves to eat chocolate and drink rum with me. She'd never seen Star Wars when she and I came together. She rides horses and wants to help children with disabilities. I wish she liked whipped cream, but them's the breaks; she probably wishes I liked asparagus. I've loved every hairstyle she's ever had, and the one she has now makes me wild. She wears overalls because she knows I love the way she looks in them, and she looks great in them. She picked out two Persian kittens with me. I wish I could have pushed her in a wheelchair around Disney World for another week, as tiring as that was. (She hurt herself while there.) She loves to try new things. She loves Renaissance festivals and wants to go someday in costume. She loves a good laugh, especially when it's at my expense, and I'm (usually!) only too happy to let her have those laughs on most occasions. She loves cats and dogs equally. She thinks the Patriots are evil. She doesn't like baseball, but then, nobody's perfect and with the Pirates looking to stretch their era of badness into a third decade in a few years I don't much like baseball anymore either.
So yeah: The Wife. I'm a big fan.
Original photo locations: 1. Pumpkinville 07 029, 2. Pumpkinville 07 011, 3. Pumpkinville 07 010, 4. Pumpkinville 07 008, 5. Pumpkinville 07 003, 6. Sept Trip 07 005, 7. Sept Trip 07 003, 8. 092907_14221, 9. A very hippie Christmas!, 10. Sunny day at the Fair, 11. 005_2, 12. GAHHH!, 13. Cutest wife EVER, 14. Mother and Son, 15. Tifft Preserve May 06 (21), 16. The Wife, pensive, 17. GAHHH! part two, 18. biking, 19. Spot the non-family member!, 20. The Wife.
Mosaic created with Flickr Mosaic.
We first started dating just days before her birthday back in 1991, so each time her birthday rolls around, it's another year we've been together in one way or another. We've had some very wonderful times together when life was nearly perfect; we've had some utterly awful moments when life seemed completely worthless. But we're still here, on both counts, and I don't want it any other way.
Some things about my wife: her hand fits mine like it was custom made for me (or maybe that's the other way around). She makes perfect Spanish rice and cornbread, amazing pancakes and astounding waffles, and she roasts a mean turkey. Her skill on the sewing machine astonishes me. Her strength during Little Quinn's life was inspiring to me on so many levels. She loves to eat chocolate and drink rum with me. She'd never seen Star Wars when she and I came together. She rides horses and wants to help children with disabilities. I wish she liked whipped cream, but them's the breaks; she probably wishes I liked asparagus. I've loved every hairstyle she's ever had, and the one she has now makes me wild. She wears overalls because she knows I love the way she looks in them, and she looks great in them. She picked out two Persian kittens with me. I wish I could have pushed her in a wheelchair around Disney World for another week, as tiring as that was. (She hurt herself while there.) She loves to try new things. She loves Renaissance festivals and wants to go someday in costume. She loves a good laugh, especially when it's at my expense, and I'm (usually!) only too happy to let her have those laughs on most occasions. She loves cats and dogs equally. She thinks the Patriots are evil. She doesn't like baseball, but then, nobody's perfect and with the Pirates looking to stretch their era of badness into a third decade in a few years I don't much like baseball anymore either.
So yeah: The Wife. I'm a big fan.
Original photo locations: 1. Pumpkinville 07 029, 2. Pumpkinville 07 011, 3. Pumpkinville 07 010, 4. Pumpkinville 07 008, 5. Pumpkinville 07 003, 6. Sept Trip 07 005, 7. Sept Trip 07 003, 8. 092907_14221, 9. A very hippie Christmas!, 10. Sunny day at the Fair, 11. 005_2, 12. GAHHH!, 13. Cutest wife EVER, 14. Mother and Son, 15. Tifft Preserve May 06 (21), 16. The Wife, pensive, 17. GAHHH! part two, 18. biking, 19. Spot the non-family member!, 20. The Wife.
Mosaic created with Flickr Mosaic.
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