October Madness

OK, I know that I am one of three people in the world who cares, but the baseball postseason is awesome.

I'm fine with the fact my Rockies aren't in it (AGAIN) because I have faith in next year (AGAIN!).

But my Oakland A's have FINALLY made it past the first round and will now take on the dreaded Tigers for the AL championship and the honor of kicking the poop out of the NL (AGAIN! But I'm not happy about it).

Go A's!!!!!

Catching up, revving up

I graduated from college in 1991. I haven't seen nor heard from most of my friends from that era since around 1992.

Of course, they all have normal names like Tom, Scott and Cro-Mag (don't ask). Anyway, that makes it nearly impossible for me to Google them. So, I have to hope they find me (the one saving grace for being cursed with two screwy names!).

Well, the other day, I heard from my roommate and best friend from college, Bill. Found out he's married. Has a kid. Hard to believe because in my mind all those folks are stuck in the hardened amber of my memory as the drunk, crazy kids we all were.

Anyway, I've actually been having a fun conversation through e-mail with his wife, Patty. She enjoys writing, so, naturally the first thing I did was try to recruit her for National Novel Writing Month. And my writing buddy, Eric, is back behind the keyboard as well.

All of this has got me pretty excited once again for taking on NaNo. I'm still not sure what story I'll do. If I can't come up with something better, I'll probably work on the novel I started writing when I was back in Chico, going to school. It's called "Deadlines."

I'd love to get my NaNo novel from last year finished. And I'd like to get my pitch letters out to agents as well. I'll try to do that before November, but with work, racquetball, soccer, new TV season (including Lost tonight!!!), playing around with iMovie, and many other distractions, it will be a struggle.

Justice prevails

Saw this news item this morning:

Ex-Kiss guitarist Vinnie Vincent lost his appeal in a dispute over royalties with his former bandmates. Justices declined to consider lower court rulings dismissing Vincent's claim that he is owed royalties for his contributions to the heavy metal band's 1983 album Lick It Up.

All I can say is "YES!"

Vinnie was the worst guitarist Kiss ever had. Paul Stanley used to mock his solo on "Lick it Up" when he played it live. He would play the solo on the lead guitarists' guitar. Worse than being a bad guitarist ... he was REALLY boring.

Macs vs. PCs

OK, I'm back in the fold. I'm sorry I ever considered leaving!

I am a Mac person. Ain't no doubt.

For the past five years, I have learned to deal with a PC for my work life. I have found them to be much easier to use than I expacted. Many of my favorite programs (mostly Photoshop) run very well on a PC.

Because of that, I was considering going the PC route at home, too. I figured I could handle all the PC limitations and have the advantage of actually getting to buy software from a store ... like games and stuff.

But then I got my father-in-law's G4. This thing is sweet. Runs all my programs smoothly and WAY better than a PC. Plus, I recently discovered the absolute joy of iLife. This is the suite of programs that turns a Mac into a video production studio. It's incredible. I'm upgrading to iLife 06 (for an amazingly low price of $79!) and just loving it. I'm turning all of my South Dakota vacation footage into a DVD that will NOT bore other people. Believe it or not!

Plus, the latest Macs now have a chip that allow them to run Windows so we Mac people can buy those games off the shelf.

I was terribly close to giving in, but I have been saved.

Fuzzy

That's my brain lately. Completely fuzzy. Calling people their wrong names. Walking into walls. Watching Oprah (ha! just kidding. I'm not that bad). Not sure what this is about, but I'm pretty concerned (or at least I am until my brain forgets why I'm concerned and then I go back to trying to figure out the lyrics to "Louie Louie".
Hey, we gotta go!

BTS ... post Star Wars

This is so funny! My buddy Ken Mooney sent it...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6021365693605761325&pr=goog-sl

Whining

So, I saw "Last Kiss" over the weekend. This is a follow-up for the Scrubs dude to "Garden State" (which I thought was well done, but didn't have a great plot).

This movie is just as well done with a better plot, but my biggest struggle is listening to these 30-year-olds (and, yes, I'm in this category!) whine about the responsibilities of marriage and parenthood.

Wah! So you don't get lucky every night with a different woman (let's face it that only happens in the movies ... and for my roommate in college) and change a few diapers. Suck it up! It's a hell of a lot more manly to take responsibility for his life and his family than it is to whine about "losing my freedom." Good lord! Next it will be someone doing a movie about having to make a house payment! Oooooh! How do you do it?!?!?

OK, now I'm off my soapbox. It was still an OK movie.

Also, I saw "Everyone's Hero" with the kids this weekend. Despite the reviews, I actually enjoyed this one. It had a good story. If it hadn't been for an absolutely moronic ending, this could have been a great movie (although the animation was weak). And, before you ask, no, I don't like it just because it was about baseball. I will admit that there are very few baseball movies I don't like (MVP would probably be top of the list), this was good anyway.

Preview or just view?

A couple other blogs I've read have talked about the Previews to movies giving away the whole movie or at least the best parts. Gotta say that I completely agree.

Seen the new flick with Ashton "jailbait" Kushtor and Kevin "If it's not a baseball movie, it stinks" Costner? It's not out yet, you say? But let's face it, if you've seen the previews, you've seen the whole dang movie. What more could there be? Think he's gonna have a sled called "Rosebud"? Nope! Sorry.

On the other hand, there have been a lot of movies recently that should have been edited by the guy who designs the previews. This guy took a lot of crappy footage and created a two-minute teaser that makes it look like it won't suck. These are the people who should be running Hollywood, IMHO.

Back at it

Struggling to get back in the groove at work and now it's Friday! Needed badly!

Vacations most of the time are meant to recharge your batteries. But our trip to the Black Hills was just jam-packed with stuff to do and I am just fried.

The kids seem to be adjusting to all of this better than Tracy and I. Of course, all they are focused on is Halloween stuff that's now invaded the stores.

The weather has finally cooled here (I love it!), but I have to admit I'm wanting to get back on the golf course soon. I'm playing in a fun tourney (my first!) on Oct. 6. I just hope I don't embarrass myself (more than normal).

Back from the Dead(wood)

Well, we just got back from our trip to the Black Hills. I had never been there and I gotta say it was one of the best vacations we've done. Really fun, but exhausting.
We had a blast. I got to gamble and geek-out in Deadwood. The boys got to touch snakes, a bear came up to our car window (in one of those drive-thru zoo things). We saw Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse. Saw Mammoth Bones. Saw Wild Bill get shot. Ate a lot of junk. Spent a lot of time in gift shops! Went in a cave and a mystery house. Panned for gold. Swam in every hotel pool in the Hills. Froze our butts off during the lighting ceremony for Rushmore. Lots more.

Here are some pics from the trip:

To the left, Alex tries to beat a chicken at tic-tac-toe at Reptile Gardens. None of us could beat that darn chicken. I'm a little frustrated!

The boys and I hanging with the prairie dawgs.

We ate at Kevin Costner's sports bar in Deadwood. When I looked next to our table, there was Crash Davis' bat from Bull Durham. It's kinda like going to Mecca.

89

Yup, 89! My best golf score to date! And, yes, this score might be sad and depressing to many. But I gotta tell you, it feels pretty amazing to me. I haven't been back to golf very long. I don't get out very often. And when I do, it's usually pretty ugly.

And was it a perfect 89? NO, shut up and quit asking questions like that. Sure, I took a few mulligans. But it was still an 89 in my book.

My friend, Andy, and I took our kids with us on the carts to the Mad Russian Golf Course in Milliken. This is slowly becoming one of my favorite places to play. It has some of the strangest and most fun holes I've played (and after getting an 89 there, I may never play anywhere else again).

Yee-haw

You know when you wake up in the morning and everything just seems right? (I know ... it doesn't happen very often, but still...)

Anyway, when I got to work and saw that Paris Hilton had been arrested for DUI, it just filled my heart with joy. Now, if we could get people to quit writing about anything else she does (as well as the exploits of Jessica Simpson, Lindsey Lohan, Britney Spears and all the other dimbos in the world) I'll be really giddy!

Sign of the apocolypse

No. 2367.
(courtesy of the Dave Barry blog!)

Music appreciation 2

My friend Eric Anderson sent this to complement the Simpsons guitar clip from below. I love classical music!

Am I a bad person?

Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter, died. My wife was very shocked and saddened.
I have a hard time working up sympathy. Of course I feel bad for his wife and kid(s?). Nobody should lose their father so young.
But I have a hard time feeling bad for someone who put himself on death's door for alleged entertainment. I don't feel bad when people who do death-defying feats die doing those feats. They knew what they were getting into and they loved it for that thrill of possibly dying. If nobody died, they wouldn't be defying anything.
It drives me insane that my kids love to watch the shows where some moron crawls under rocks to grab some venomous snake. They film it so they can pretend they are talking about conservation or education. That's bull. It's all about defying death. His name was the Crocodile Hunter, for God's sake!
Anyway, I won't be shedding any tears for Mr. Irwin. You live by the sword, You die by the sword.

Crooks

With no taste.

Infestation

Somehow my two sons, ages 6 and 8, have started to creep back into the parental bed. They come in at 2 or 3 when nobody is willing to put up a fight to send them back to their beds.

Any suggestions for how to deal with this (and we are not above chaining them to their beds, but only after exploring a few other options).

Thanks!

Music appreciation

This is so cool!

Lively

While my kids have been in school now for two weeks, my "other school," Aims Community College where I work, just started this week. It is really invigorating to have students back on campus (and as marketing geek, I'm glad there are more of them). It is so fun to hear voices in the halls and all of that. I'm guessing that is what the folks in my kids' school think, too. But my kids are not so much invigorated (much like the students at Aims). They seem tired and unable to focus as they readjust to a school schedule.

We went to the kids' Back to School night last night and I always enjoys meeting the teachers, but I can't stand the school functions when EVERY SINGLE parent is there at the same time. The halls are crowded and it's just a madhouse.

But then I had my first racquetball class of the year last night also. I absolutely love racquetball. It's one of the few physical activities I can play for hours without getting bored. It is such a mental and physical game. The physical side kicked my butt last night. I played two games and thought I was going to die. I'm hoping that my buddy Dan will be done climbing mountains soon so we can play some games to supplement my Tuesday night class.

Deadwood

OK, so Donovan and I watched the last episode of Deadwood last night. We have been fully addicted to this show for some time now. Honestly, all kudos to 24 and all, but Deadwood has the best writing in all of TV, movies and most novels. It's brilliant.

But last night was the last episode. Literally, the last. Not just for the season. From some stuff I've read, they will make two two-hour movies to wrap up the details, but I have no idea when those will be coming out. Does anyone know? God, I hate this waiting around stuff! I have to know what happens!