Bacon?

BACON!

Baa, Baa. I Have No Wool.

I’ve always tried – the best I know how – to be a good son, grandson, uncle and family member. Sometimes I mess up really bad. I’ll freely admit I’m not that good with birthdays. I may call late, but eventually I remember. I usually don’t send cards or gifts, but I know how to do Christmas. It hasn’t always been that way, but now I’m no slouch. My parents frequently accuse me of being too extravagant where my nephew is concerned. The Major also gives me warnings every year not to spend too much money. So, you might only get a call (belatedly) for your birthday, but you can count on a nice Christmas present.

I’m seriously trying to love the parents I have, and not the parents I wish I had. But it’s getting really difficult these days. It seems like they always need a black sheep in the family, and I’m the new one. From my point of view, my parents’ tendency to play favorites is the crux. My sister has always been their favorite. This hasn’t always been the easiest thing for me to deal with, but I have been more or less able to overlook it. It’s been harder since my niece was born. As she’s grown, she’s become the apple of my parents’ eye and my nephew has become a very distant second fiddle.

I’ve seen my parents fawn over my niece, but only offer negative feedback to my nephew: “sit down over there and play quietly,” or “not now, I’m holding the baby.” They’ve babysat her every workday, to help my sister out, but they haven’t made much of an effort to see their grandson. Unfortunately, my nephew and his mother have noticed this trend and are understandably very upset. It’s getting pretty bad; my sister-in-law is getting to the point where she doesn’t want to have anything to do with my parents.

In the interest of family unity, I’ve tried to explain to my parents how their behavior is perceived, which they have dismissed. I’ve made my trips home as much about my nephew as possible; I want my nephew to know that he’s got at least one family member that hasn’t forgotten about him. My parents have told me that I’m just spoiling him.

I’m completely at my wits end here. My parents have made their granddaughter so much the center of their lives, that any discussion on the matter puts them immediately on the defensive. Any perceived slight to the baby is met with retalition; they didn't send me a birthday gift this year because I hadn't done anything for my niece's birthday. I truly wish that they could see that this isn’t about right or wrong, my opinion or their opinion; it’s about one child being lavished with praise and attention and another being criticized and ignored. My niece isn’t old enough to be hurt by this behavior, my nephew is.

Addendum to the Booksplosion

In the great list of books I've read to keep me from going crazy 2008 edition, I completely overlooked one: Marley and Me. Everyone should read this book. Part biography of a young family starting out, part memoir, part story of the world's worst dog, this book was so good I read it in one sitting. Even if you're not a dog lover, you will be extremely touched by this book. Grogan adeptly captures and relates how dog-owners feel about their 4-legged fur children. You'll laugh at Marley's exploits, you'll groan with embarrassment at some of his more public misdeeds, and you'll share the overwhelming grief that comes from having to say good-bye to a loved pet. But I think most importantly, Marley's story will have you fondly (and probably tearfully) recalling memories of those pets that have came and brought so much joy into your lives.

Extra! Extra!

Somehow, despite all the crazy that has been going on my life lately, I’ve been on a major reading jag. Since the start of my trip to LA on June 25th, I’ve worked my way through quite a number of novels.

The Well of Ascension: Second in a trilogy, what I liked best is that the characters are very well realized. Also, Sanderson uses standard fantasy elements but they don’t yield the standard fantasy result. This bodes well for A Memory of Light, which Sanderson has been asked to write due to the untimely demise of The Wheel of Time’s Robert Jordan.

The Last Oracle: A good, but not great action/adventure novel. It’s got a great premise, but it’s not as well realized as some of Rollins’ other books and ideas. Still, Rollins is one of my favorites, so it made for a fun summer read.

The Innocent Mage/The Awakened Mage: This was a great find, and I’m glad Tor Books has been bringing Australian and Canadian authors to American audiences. Great world, interesting ideas. What I liked best was Miller’s revealing of plot secrets – elements that could have added a mystery-like feel to the novels she reveals to the reader almost immediately, while holding off on other more explosive elements (that you can’t see coming) for quite some time.

The Wheel of Darkness: An OK entry into the Agent Pendergast series of novels. Another good summer read, but nothing to really write home about.

Infoquake: Sci-Fi isn’t my usual thing, and this novel didn’t exactly set the sky on fire for me. However, I can recognize that this is a superior example of the genre. It’s like Donald Trump got set loose on the Virtual Reality Internet of the future.

El Juego del Angel: Ok, I know most of you probably can’t read Spanish, but luckily for you this is the 2nd novel in Zafon's Library of Forgotten Books series. (It’s not so much a series as stories taking place in the same world.) What this means for you is that you can read The Shadow of the Wind (his first novel) as it’s been translated into the English. Just do it, these are easily 2 of the best books I’ve read in years.

Finally, the Malator has gotten me hooked on Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series. I’ve read Twilight; I’m halfway through New Moon, and I’ve got Eclipse waiting in the wings.

Oh, I’m also reading Watchers and The Host. If only I could have read this much during Grad School.

200th Post - From The Depths of Doom

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know there’s been a lack of posting going on here lately, and I’m sure you all are well nigh sick of staring at the cat that swallows souls. Although, it is kind of cool to start scrolling up and down as the image loads so you get cat eyeballs streaks on the page … Yes, I really am that easily entertained.

While I’ve been off the grid, incognito, skulking about in the shadows and generally just not being around, there’s been a whole lot of crazy going on. I got the flu in the early part of June; vomiting at the Pentagon Metro/Bus Station was definitely one of my life goals. I had a minor neck relapse in the middle of June that was easily remedied with some flexeril. I finished the month out with a 10-day business trip to Los Angeles.

The trip to LA was just crazy. All I did was work, eat and sleep (in that order.) I also got to see some of my co-workers behaving rather poorly. I won’t go into great detail, but I will say I was completely mortified by much of the behavior I saw. Oh, and I accumulated 40 hours of ‘overtime.’

I flew back to DC on the 4th (yes, there’s yet another story there that I’m not going to touch on.) And to account for the rest of my missing time, I somehow managed to throw my back out. I have no idea what I did or how I did it, but after 5 days of intense pain I finally got over myself and went to the Urgent Care. Their bedside manner could use a whole lot of improvement – I read my diagnosis on a sheet of paper they gave to me. However, they sent me home with Valium and Vicodin. As you might suspect, the last couple of days have been a smear in my memory. But I’m healthy, sober, and calm now so regular blogging will resume.

Dead By Dawn

more cat pictures

Supernova Suicide

This Primary season has been particularly painful to watch. Partially because it’s been drawn out unnecessarily (like the results of Dancing with the Stars or Idol), but also because we’ve been witness to the implosion and self-immolation of one of the Democratic Party’s top luminaries.

Sen. Clinton never had my support in this Primary. As much as I might have respected her, I had deep concerns about her electability. She, unfortunately, is the most polarizing Democrat out there. Republicans may not be all that keen on Sen. McCain, but they will definitely go to the polls simply to vote against Sen. Clinton. Throw in her vote for the Iraq war, the Flag burning amendment and her tepid response to gay rights and she became a candidate that I didn’t want to support.

I’m not sure at what point in the campaign she went from being a serious candidate to a hollow parody of her former self, but I deeply regret and am very ashamed of her actions in this Primary. Politics can be a very dirty business when you’re in it to win it, but there are some lines that shouldn’t be crossed. It’s been painful to watch a Democrat actively courting and being proud of getting the racist vote. It is even more painful to watch a Democrat say “I’ve still got a chance – if my opponent is assassinated.” But I think the worst thing in this whole situation is watching a very capable and respected woman destroy her credibility, reputation and future. Especially when it's clear -- and it has been clear for quite some time -- that the race is over.

Free Lobotomy with Movie Stub

Holy crap on stick, the new Indiana Jones movie is awful. The Major says it’s not as good as 1 or 3 but better than 2. I say it’s the worst of the lot.

Cate Blanchet and her Hair Piece of Doom are absolutely ridiculous as the ‘bad guy.’ If you can ignore the fact that she’s some super secret Soviet psychic spy (who can’t even read Indy’s mind), you probably will be able to get past the fact that her ‘accent’ is all sorts of wrong. Sometimes she sounds like a Russian, sometimes she sounds British, the rest of the time she sounds like a Briton trying to speak with a Russian accent. At any rate, we’ve seen the template for this villain before – and it was done much better in The Last Crusade.

I’m not going to bore everyone with a detailed break-down of archaeological and historical problems with the movie, but NOTE to Speilberg: The Maya lived in Mexico and Central America, the Inca lived in Peru. The people that lived in Amazon were not Inca and they certainly didn’t speak any dialect of Maya. And they also weren’t known to build temples, and most definitely not temples that look like Chichen Itza got dropped into the rain forest.

There’s not much of a plot, and what there is isn’t very compelling. They’ve also seemed to do away with any and all real world physics. Surviving a nuclear blast in a lead-lined fridge that gets rocket launched across half of Nevada. Really? Didn’t Punky Brewster have a special about killer fridges? Super magnetic items (made from non-magnetic material) that are selectively magnetic and attract other non-magnetic metals? WTF? Is that you Mo-Dean, inter dimensional outer space being? As an added bonus we’ve got really pissed off BulletAnt-ArmyAnt hybrids attacking and a car chase that looked lifted from the chase scene on Endor – I was seriously expecting Ewoks to pop up singing “yub-yub” while slinging rocks at things. Finally, the last time I checked a constrictor snake of any stripe is not going to take well to being used as a rope.

There’s only so much good actors can do with a crappy script and premise. This movie had the potential be so much more … all the elements are there. But it seems someone left this in the blender on puree for way too long. Indy 4 is a real lemon of a movie, and there’s no lemonade to be made from this very, very bad thing.

One Bad Trip

It’s official: topamax is the Devil’s drug. For the last month, I’ve been taking it as a migraine preventative – and it works well. While I was on the medication, I didn’t have a single migraine. This is a great thing, because as I’ve gotten older my migraines have become a lot more frequent; a typical month for me averages 3 to 5 migraines.

BUT, and this is a very large but, the side effects of this drug totally outweigh any benefits I’ve gotten from it.

• Short-term memory loss: I’ve found myself forgetting words, and things that I’m supposed to do. Often, I’d find myself staring into space wondering why I was somewhere and what I was supposed to be doing there.
• Insomnia: Most people experience the exact opposite while on topamax, and have problems staying awake. I, however, frequently had many sleepless nights. For someone who already has difficulty falling asleep, this side effect really pissed me off.
• Depression/Apathy: I really just didn’t give a crap about anything while I was taking this medication. Wake up 50 minutes late? Whatever. Big deadline at work? Meh, I’ll do it tomorrow. I was also very uninterested in things that I normally enjoy. In short, I just didn’t feel like me anymore.

Call me crazy, but I’d rather deal with the migraines than be forgetful, constantly tired depressed space ranger. I think it’s time to go back to the doctor and try something else.

Descontroladas

Hot Track? Check!
MerenBooty Girls? Check!!
My new favorite song? Check, check and Check!