The Wacky Adventures of Con

So Close!

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:43:43 GMT

Done with all of my concerts for the year, and they all went well. Now I just have to get through one more week until Christmas vacation. Cannot wait.

This was the year that Facebook took over for most of my blogging here on Livejournal, and I'm kind of sad about that. But really, before I started this journal, I had never been a regular journal keeper of any kind. I've never been convinced that my life is all that exciting, although occasionally cool things happen to me. Those who have both Conatonc and ReviewingChris friended will notice I've been much more diligent over at the review blog, because I like to stretch those writing muscles. Which doesn't mean I'm shutting this down, just that I don't expect to start updating more often again anytime soon.

Oh well, have a good December, people of Livejournal!

Relaxing Sunday

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:59:18 GMT

It's 10 to 4 on Sunday, November 1 and I'm sitting quietly at home watching last night's Austin City Limits with M. Ward (he's pleasant but I'm not feeling the need to go out and buy/download any albums). Today's plan involved grocery shopping, pet store shopping, and a stop at the comic book store for the big Halloween sale. I did the latter two, but grocery shopping has yet to happen. Sometime along the way, I was in the process of getting roped in to help Jenn move to her new apartment just off-campus at Rice university.

This ended up not happening because Jenn (as is typical) didn't get up until 11am (even though she got the extra hour of sleep!). Then there was a trip that needed to be made to Target to get more things for the apartment, while her dad was supposed to go out to Best Buy to purchase a printer and camera for her. This was all supposed to happen while Judy, Evelyn, and I were out at the pet store and comic store. But dad didn't leave for Best Buy until after Jenn and her mom got back from Target and it was getting to be after 2:30. The end result of all these delays is that I didn't feel particularly comfortable heading downtown after 3pm on a Sunday to help move, because I needed to be back home by about 7pm to do the work I need to get ready for school for the week. So instead I'm getting a relaxing afternoon to myself, the first in what seems like a very long time.

I really should clean up my apartment and vacuum because there are cardboard fragments all over the place from my cats' scratching posts. But I think this may be a job that is big enough for Judy to bring the Dyson over from her place.

I finally broke down and bought Rock Band 2 about a month ago. It is a great, great practice tool for the drums, let me tell you. I haven't really done anything else with it, but it's nice to have a game (besides Facebook Farmville) that I can sit down and play for 45 minutes or an hour and not get stuck in a huge level or something like that.

Judy and I have been debating for the past two weeks about our Christmas break plans, but it looks like we maybe (finally) have it figured out. Looks like I'll come up a couple of days before Christmas while Judy and Evelyn will follow on the 26th, and we'll all go back on the 30th. It should be a lot of fun and it will make my mom very happy.

Sorry I don't do real life updates much anymore. Things are generally really good for me, which is great. But it doesn't always make for interesting writing.

This Past Weekend

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:03:18 GMT

Had a very interesting weekend. Judy and I decided to take Evelyn down to the zoo since it's starting to cool off enough to tolerate being outside for a few hours at a time. Well, things started off well enough with a ride on the Hermann Park train. But once we got into the zoo, Evelyn was more problematic. Basically, she wasn't having a lot of fun. She'd enjoy an animal for 30 seconds and then sit down crying because we wouldn't carry her everywhere. In retrospect, we probably should've rented a wagon or something to let her ride as much as walk. But she's been doing this "I don't wanna walk, carry me!" thing for a few weeks. So it was a bit of a trial, but afterward Evelyn said she had a good time.

After that I got to go home and watch Michigan State lose to Notre Dame. Boo! The Spartans better get their act together this weekend at Wisconsin or they could be looking at a long, terrible season.

Then it was back downtown to pick up Jenn at Rice and go to Discovery Green to watch Buffy the Musical with a couple thousand people. Fox officially shut down the burgeoning Buffy Sing-a-long movement a couple of years ago, but since this was a free event for a non-profit organization, I guess they let it happen. I never made it to one while it was going on, so this was a new, fun experience. It was pretty cool to be with so many people enthusiastically singing along. And Amber Benson was there, too. She took the microphone and sang "Under Your Spell" along with the dvd, which was very, very cool.

After that, Judy was all, "We need to go to The House of Pies!" So we checked it out for the first time. At 10pm it was completely packed in the small, old-school, run-down diner. We got seated relatively quickly, but that was the only quick thing about The House of Pies experience. It took a good 10 minutes to get our order taken. Then another 1/2 hour to actually get the food. Food which the waitress, whose words were pleasant but whose body language said "I don't give a damn about y'all!", nearly tossed onto the table. A little bit later, she actually did a walk-by checkup. "You all okay over here," she said as she walked right past us, never breaking stride. Then she gave us our check, trying to hustle us out before Judy and Jenn had even had a chance to order pie.

The House of Pies was definitely a memorable place to eat, I'll tell you that.

School and Stuff

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:25:36 GMT

I have decided that Facebook is mostly responsible for my continuing apathy to update this Livejournal account. It's bad, because I definitely still like writing out longer things. But I often feel like my life just isn't that exciting on a regular basis and so this space gets left behind. It's easier, I guess, to make a quick three-sentence update on Facebook than to sit down and write an LJ entry.

School has started now and we are in the third week. No, we didn't watch Obama's speech to students at school today. But we did watch the inauguration back in January. How quickly the attitude goes from "This is an historic moment and all of our kids need to see it" to "It's just not worth the headache of dealing with the complainers." The conservative muckrakers that set up all these protests should be proud, because they got exactly what they wanted on this. Enough publicity to make it too much trouble for school districts, principals, and teachers to bother to stand up to the jerks and say, "This is a valuable thing to do." All the talk of indoctrination and brainwashing was absolutely ridiculous since none of that went on.

The way the right and the left have divided this past decade, seemingly leaving a vast angry chasm in the middle where rational discussion and debate should reside, is quite sad, I think.

Hmm. In retrospect, I think that's all I want to say right now. I'll let that stand on its own for a bit.

Let's Talk About July

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 02:09:20 GMT

It's been a really long time since I updated this thing. Okay, so the Orff II class was great. This is the third consecutive summer I've taken a class from these instructors and I've liked each workshop better than the last. I learned a lot and I feel much more comfortable trying out the Orff techniques with my students come the fall.

Judy and Jenn and the rest of their family were gone to Colorado for 10 days, coninciding directly with my class, so I watched a lot of Netflix movies during that time. Flightplan, starring Jodie Foster, was a surprisingly well-made thriller. I was not expecting that after the bad bad trailers a few years back. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead was an indie drama that was critically loved a couple of years ago, but I didn't like it very much. None of the characters were particularly likable, so I never really got attached to the heist-gone-wrong-but-really-this-is-about-the-family-fallout-that-results-from-the-failed-heist plot. Frozen River was as good as advertised, though. It's a small drama about a poor mom smuggling illegal immigrants across the frozen St. Lawrence River from Canada into the U.S. Mostly I watched it for Melissa Leo, who was so great for so long on Homicide and I've barely seen her since then, and she was understated and great.

After the class was over, I headed out to San Diego for Comic-Con a few days later. Comic-Con was great as usual, but this year I kept the wandering between rooms and waiting in lines to a minimum. I spent most of my time in the massive Hall H and watched almost all the movie previews they had, 31 in all. I had a great time hanging out with my brother and all the Comic-Con buddies I see once a year and then only see on the messsage board for the rest of the year.

Worst of all, though, was the class I had to take after I returned from Comic-Con for my school. We're implementing a new school-wide program this year and we all had to be there for four days of training. Most of it didn't apply to me as a music teacher, and worse, it felt like it was massively stretched to fill four days and could easily have been done in two.

Oh well. Now I'm finishing up week 1 of my final 2 weeks of summer vacation, and it's been nice to actually get a chance to mostly just relax after the busy July. Although I did get my kittens spayed and neutered. Natasha doesn't understand that she's had major surgery and doesn't know why I'm keeping her inside my bedroom most of the time. It's because you want to run all over the place and wrestle with Victor, silly cat! You can't do that much until you're all healed in another week or two.

I Got in After All

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:40:49 GMT

So I talked about the Orff Level II music ed. class I was supposed to take this summer, and how I didn't get in for a variety of reasons. But asking to be put on the waiting list paid off, because the Thursday afternoon before the class started, I got a call to see if I was still interested. Of course I was. Although it was a week from payday, so the $350 (200 for registration, 150 for materials- there's a lot of books) took a bit of creative accounting to come up with, but I managed.

I was a little surprised when I got there last Monday. Last year, for Level I, we had about 35 people in the class, so with Level I and II going on this year, I expected about 60-70 people. But each class has about 16 people, so it's a lot smaller. The small size makes it a lot more manageable. The other nice thing is that every person in my class took Level I here last year, so I know everybody and it's pretty cool. After the first week, I'm finding Level II of the program is a lot easier than Level I. I think it's because it's a lot of work figuring out exactly how the Orff program works the first year, and the second year is more of an extension of the method. And I'm actually having quite a bit of fun. This is my third year in the program (2007 was just a 2-day workshop, not a full level), and I've enjoyed each year more.

Plus, you know, Judy and her whole family left for Colorado on Wednesday after she finished up her summer class on Tuesday. And they're not back until Saturday the 18th. So it was gonna be a long 10 days without her around and only a few things to do. I'm glad to have something to occupy my days. Although I have to say that this weekend, having exactly zero commitments, has been really nice. Did I mention that Comic-Con starts in a week and a half? I'm excited, as always. That's probably worth another post all on its own.

The Difference Between Me and Pitchfork.com

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:39:45 GMT

I reviewed this album, The Loud Wars by So Many Dynamos, for the website I write for. And I gave it a 6/10, saying that it was fun but the vocal melodies lacked any sort of hooks and that it made the album as a whole fall a little flat. So indie website Pitchfork.com's review of the same album popped up today, and their reviewer gave it a 5.5/10. His review was more of a dissection of the band as compared to the indie rock scene in Washington DC circa 1999. Whatever, not my scene or one I ever cared about, but apparently this guy did. A whole lot.

Anyway, a comparison he makes near the end of the review brought it all home for me- "Stovall's voice seems to be veering a little farther from Travis Morrison (which is good!) and a little closer to that dude from Cake. That is less good." Off the top of my head, I have no idea who Travis Morrison is (turns out he's the lead singer for indie heroes The Dismemberment Plan, who I never got into) but I'm annoyed that the guy can't be bothered to find out that Cake's lead singer is named John McCrea. Or worse, that it was an intentional snub to make sure we know that Cake is not a cool, Pitchfork-approved band. That snobbish, we-are-the-arbiters-of-cool attitude is what has always turned me off about Pitchfork, even though it's much less prevalent now than it was, say, 3-4 years ago.

Downloading vs. Buying vs. Receiving Music

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:14:47 GMT

This is sort of a rant against record companies, particularly the big labels that are still around. But it's not your typical rant, I hope. I've been reviewing music for (you know what? I've just realized this rant could be construed as a problem for the site I work for, so I'm removing their name) for about a year-and-a-half now, and it's mostly been really cool. I get to hear a lot of new music for free and occasionally I'll come across a new band that I really like. And I like to write, so getting the reviews done isn't a problem most of the time.

When I first started, I would get really dismayed when cd's I asked to review never showed up. It was only after a few months that I realized that I would only get about 75-80% of the albums that were assigned to me. The others just...never came. Whether that was because of record company incompetence or indifference or a combination of both I've never been sure. Last summer, I was particularly disappointed when a pair of albums I really wanted to write about never got to me. Jammy string band Railroad Earth and former Phish bassist Mike Gordon both had new albums out and I got to write about them for the site. But I never got either one. So I never heard either of the albums and I never wrote those reviews.

But things have changed a little bit in 2009. Whether it be through good timing or that I've proven myself to be reliable, I've been able to get a lot more "high priority" reviews. These are the albums from artists you're more likely to have actually heard of. And yet, as the profile of the acts I'm reviewing has risen, the amount of actual albums I'm receiving has taken a nosedive. The first culprit was Nickel Creek violinist Sara Watkins' solo album back in early March. I was really looking forward to hearing the album, but I never got it. But I was determined to hear this album, yet I wasn't going to buy it because, you know, Nonesuch was supposed to send me a copy to review. So I turned to torrenting sites and eventually downloaded a copy. About a week later, Nonesuch got their act together and sent the digital files to my editor who then forwarded them to me. Better late than never, but I was already working on the review by that point.

Next up were a pair of old favorites, Ben Folds and NOFX. Both of which I considered a privilege to review. Ben Folds put out a compilation of a cappella choir groups singing his songs, which sounded like a neat idea. Too bad Sony didn't feel like it was worth their time to send me a copy to review. So once again I hit the torrent sites and found it. NOFX, on the other hand, showed up on the website's "to review" list late, after I had already ordered a copy from Amazon. So that's what I reviewed, because Fat Wreck Chords couldn't be bothered to send a review copy. The Mars Volta has a new album out next week, and that review is going to run on time because Warner Bros. deigned to send my editor the digital files. So I downloaded that one legally.

Hey, I still like having a physical cd, but if companies just want to distribute their review copies digitally, that's fine, as long as I get a copy somehow. But I work for an established site that's been around for a decade. They may not have quite the same presence as, say, Pitchfork, but it's a legit place that encourages in-depth music reviews. So it really bugs me when the record labels or the representation for these major acts (whoever is responsible) can't be bothered to send their material out for review. I don't like pirating music, I've never been a person who jumps on the downloadable files when they leak early. I'd rather wait for release day and get a physical cd. But if I'm going to get my "high priority" reviews in on time, that's the only way to get a copy to listen to. Right now I'm waiting for three more high-profile releases, all of which come out in June. Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio's 30-minute orchestral version of "Time Turns Elastic" came out Jun 9, but I haven't gotten it. Björk releases a lavish live package called Voltaic on June 30, but no sign of it here yet. And worst of all, Dream Theater's Black Clouds and Silver Linings hits stores this coming Tuesday, but I don't have a copy. This is the worst because I got to review the band's last DVD at the end of last summer, and Roadrunner Records sent me a review copy of the DVD a month in advance! But now the album is 5 days from being released and I don't have it. It's very frustrating, and maddeningly inconsistent.

Anyway, this is not meant to be me bitching about how I'm not getting free stuff. I will still buy that Dream Theater cd and probably the Trey Anastasio album even if I never get review copies, because I like the artists. What I am bitching about is something I see as unprofessional behavior from a variety of companies who should know better. So, kudos to Warner Bros. for actually doing what they are supposed to do. The Mars Volta review will run next week as the album comes out- the rest of you record companies just don't care, I suppose.

Most Expensive Week Since...well, 2004

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:05:40 GMT

'Cause I just remembered that in 2004 I went to the ER with kidney stones and without insurance and that ended up costing thousands of dollars. Thanks again, Grandma and Pa Conaton, for bailing me out on those medical bills.

Yeah. Anyway, I started the week by buying a plane ticket to San Diego for Comic-Con. Last month, that ticket would've cost me $238 and I could've chosen when to leave and when to come back. On Monday, though, that ticket cost $338 and I was forced into buying a ticket that has me arriving almost too late on Wednesday and leaving at 6:45 in the morning on the Monday after Comic-Con.

On Wednesday, I took my car in for 110,000 mile maintenance. I've been in Houston for nearly 3 years, but this is the first time I've actually taken my car in to a Honda dealer for maintenance. But I figured they would probably be a little more thorough and know what to look for over the shop around the corner. Well, they found some stuff, mostly filters and fluids that needed to be replaced over and above the standard maintenance. So that ended up putting me back $507.

Then, this morning (Thursday), I took the kittens to the vet for the first time. $352 there. Yeah, so just about $1200 on my credit card in four days. Not happy about that, really, but it was all stuff that needed to be done.

Oh, and then I just found out this afternoon that the music education class I was planning to take in July is full and that I am not getting in. Even an appeal to the person in charge, whom I know relatively well, didn't work. So, because my school secretary didn't realize that she was supposed to send in the form and pay for this 2-week workshop, I now have a big gap in my July schedule. Judy suggested that I go to Colorado with her family during that time, but that will set me back another $300 if I decide to do that. Yeah, not sure I really want to do that when I still have to pay the not-insubstantial hotel fees at the end of Comic-Con. At least my car is paid off on July 15, so I will have a little extra money to start paying off my suddenly huger-than-usual credit card bill.

The School Year is Over!

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 17:01:32 GMT

Kittens are doing fine, they're 8 weeks old now and getting into everything. I'll be taking them to the vet for the first time this week, now that I'm off of school. Yes! The school year is over. The last couple of weeks after Memorial Day were very, very long, but as of yesterday afternoon, I'm done. Of course, we ended on Friday and were supposed to have an extra staff day on Monday, but I opted to come in yesterday to finish up instead.

I start my summer music class on July 6, though, so there's only about a month before I'm at it again. That's two weeks long, and then, as soon as I get back from the San Diego Comic-Con in late July, I have a 4-day training. Because my school is implementing a new schoolwide educational philosophy for the next school year and we all have to learn it. Ugh. But still, it's summer and I at least have a few weeks to relax and catch up on reading and tv and video games and hang out with Judy. Well, theoretically. She's taking a summer class all through June that has her in class Monday-Thursday from 2-6pm.

The school year was very good, though, and I've been at my school longer now than anywhere else in my teaching career, and have no intention of leaving anytime soon. So things are good all around. :D Oh, and last night we had a Comic Book Meetup and then we went to sing karaoke (I did Barenaked Ladies' "Another Postcard") and went dancing after that. It was a goooood night!

Kittens!

Fri, 15 May 2009 01:40:47 GMT

Last week Judy and I went out to the house of the girlfriend of one of my fellow teachers to pick out a couple of kittens. I was planning to go out and get a new cat about a month ago, until Andres told me his girlfriend's cat had just had six kittens and they were looking to get rid of them. So we waited. I wasn't actually planning on going out to get them until this coming weekend, but we were given an ultimatum. The kitties were going to the shelter last Friday if nobody claimed them, so we went. I ended up getting a gray, stripey male and a black female and they are tiny and adorable!

Of course, because they are so small, we had to put them on formula even though we were told they were eating solid food. The kitten food we bought was still too hard for them to actually chew. The gray cat did fine slurping up the formula, but the black one kept getting her nose in the bowl and snorting it up by accident. Eventually she started putting her whole head in the bowl and turning it so that her nose was resting on the rim while her mouth was in the bowl, but this also involved paws in the formula and was very messy. So we tried the oatmeal-like formula stage 2 instead, and now both kitties can eat it and are loving it. Now the fun part is going to be getting them weaned off of the formula in a couple of weeks and teaching them to eat solid food and drink water.

Litter box has been fairly successful so far. Both kitties know how to use it, but if they're outside of my bedroom, where the box is, they tend to look for alternatives. So I spent the last 2-3 days pulling the gray cat out from the corner behind my tv stand, which he had decided was his second potty spot. Now I know when he meows and tries to get back there to redirect him into my room, and he'll use the box. Between the bathroom problems and the messes with food over the first few days, I'm pretty glad I've been in this apartment for three years and I don't have to worry too much about the carpet being ruined. They're gonna have to replace it anyway when I finally move.

Oh, and no, I don't quite have names for them yet. We're working on it, I promise, but nothing has quite stuck so far. They are fun and adorable and it's good to have Judy around and done with school. She's coming over in the middle of the day while I'm teaching and giving them food and attention. She's loving that, because she feels like she didn't really get the chance to bond with Anya and was little bummed at all the love that cat gave me. I think she's doing a good job of ingratiating herself with these kitties. :)

10 Years Ago, I Graduated From College

Tue, 05 May 2009 00:24:42 GMT

This post is a few days late, because I graduated from college on May 1, 1999. Man, a lot has happened in 10 years, and I want to talk about it for a bit. I left college thinking I would be getting a job as a band director. Instead, I ended up teaching K-8 general music at a startup charter school a 1/2 mile from the border of Detroit that had enough issues to fill its own book. That was a rough year, made worse by the fact that the school year there went until the very end of June. I left voluntarily at the end of the year, figuring that nearly anything would be better than that place.

Turns out it was. My second year of teaching was doing middle school choir and general music in Port Huron, Michigan. Turns out middle school stuff was not the best fit for me, but it was definitely a step up from the charter school. I ended up on the chopping block that year due to staffing cuts, which sucked because I really liked my fellow staff there. The worst part of that was that the district-level music coordinator told me he refused to put me in an elementary school because he didn't think I'd fit in there. Considering that elementary was the best part of the charter school, I was not happy to hear this. The other part that sucked was that my principal was a good guy who told me he'd really have liked another year to work with me.

Next up was L'Anse Creuse Public Schools. I was hired at the last minute, about a week before school started, and lasted two years at a decent elementary school. My principal there was not the best but she wasn't awful, either. I liked the kids there and liked the job. But the district put a hiring freeze on at the end of year two, and they fired one of the elementary staff while another retired. We went from 9 teachers at 10 schools to 7 teachers. And I ended up being moved to a split position where I was teaching middle school choir for half the day and elementary for the other half. I didn't even last a whole semester at this position. The choir part of the job went to hell when an idiot 8th-grader accused me of staring at her breasts in class every day. She didn't even have breasts yet and I certainly wasn't looking at her in that area, but it still wasn't good for me. The elementary job went to hell, well, pretty much the first time I met my new principal. I was in the building before the school year started and she appeared at the end of the hall, saying "Can I help you?" disapprovingly in her principal voice. She had already made up her mind about me before I really got started. As you could tell from my early posts in this very journal. She would drop by my room for unofficial observations in the last 5 minutes of class, and I would get memos in my mailbox the next day criticizing me for having a "Student choice activity" that wasn't in my lesson plans. Because I finished the main lesson and was letting kids pick one song to fill up the rest of the class time. Ugh. The end result of this principal and the spurious accusation from the middle schooler is that I was given an ultimatum- resign effective at Christmas break or you will be fired before you come back in January. Not much of a choice.

I looked for a new teaching job for the second semester of the 2003-04 school year, but found nothing. After several months of unemployment, I landed at Lowe's. I worked at Lowe's for two full years, moving quickly from being a cashier to the return desk and eventually to customer service. That was a solid job and they liked me and it was pretty easy to deal with. It certainly wasn't as satisfying as teaching, or as lucrative. But luckily I get along with my parents and I was able to move back in with them when my apartment lease ran out in August of 2004. So I lived with my parents for a couple more years, something I never expected.

In 2006, I finally got a break. A new private K-8 school had opened up in my hometown, and my retired dad reached out to them, offering to teach band part-time. By chance, their music teacher had just quit, and dad managed to get them to take a look at me. And they hired me! It was only two days a week for half a day, but it was a lot of fun- small classes and smart kids. I was ready to move to a more part-time gig at Lowe's while expanding the private school job in the fall of 2006, but then I got a second break. I had been down to Houston a couple of times in 2005 and '06, looking for work there because I knew Judy and Jenn's family. I had something like 7-8 interviews over my two trips, but nothing came of it. However, a couple of weeks after I got back, I got called for another interview. I wasn't about to schedule another flight down to Houston for a face-to-face interview, but they offered a phone interview and I took it, not expecting much.

But lucky for me, this principal was a former music teacher herself, looking for someone with experience and confidence. We had a great conversation and I ended up getting hired! Without those few months at the private school, it might never have happened. So now there's about 5 weeks to go in my third year of teaching down here in Houston, and I'm doing great. My teaching ability and classroom control issues have really improved in that time. Turns out that when you have an administration that supports you instead of just saying "fix it", you can gradually work those problems out. This is not at all where I expected to end up 10 years later, but it turns out I'm very happy where I am right now.

I Hate the Detroit City Council

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 02:47:35 GMT

I moved away from the Detroit area nearly 3 years ago, but I still check the online versions of Detroit's major newspapers nearly every day. My hometown is not doing so well right now, clearly, and it needs all the help it can get. And yeah, even though I never lived within the boundaries of Detroit proper, I still consider the city and the surrounding area my hometown. Unlike some suburbanites who wish the city would, I dunno, get swallowed up by the Earth leaving a lovely field of tall grass.

Anyway, despite doing a great job hosting major sporting events (baseball All-Star game, Super Bowl, NCAA Final Four just last week) and having great new downtown areas spring up in the past decade, Detroit has been slowly dying since the early 60's. People have been leaving the city and not enough people have been moving in. The recession that the country is now in started back in early 2004 in Michigan and shows no signs of letting up now that U.S. automakers are in a tailspin. Side note: The arrogance of Ford, Chrysler, GM, and the UAW led them to the situation they're in now and if they had spent time in the past 20 years looking forward and adjusting their business model instead of lobbying easily-bought members of Congress to help maintain the status quo, it wouldn't be nearly as bad for them. Still, this does not make the car companies more evil and villainous than the Wall Street pricks. They just had the misfortune to be the second major industry to ask for a bailout after Congress had their heads up their ass during the first one.

The point is this. One of the major, major events for the city of Detroit over the past 30-40 years has been the North American International Auto Show. It's always been held at Detroit's downtown convention center, Cobo Center. But Cobo Center hasn't really been big enough to accommodate the auto show since roughly the early 90's. It's outdated and in serious need of renovation. But the city of Detroit doesn't have the money to do the needed renovation and expansion, and automakers have slowly abandoned the show one by one over the past decade. It's nowhere near as important as it used to be, but it's still a big deal. So, over the past decade, government officials from all over metro Detroit have slowly figured out a way to work together to provide the funding so desperately needed to fix up Cobo Center. Early this year, they finally hashed out a deal involving the state of Michigan, the city of Detroit, and the three major counties in metro Detroit.

And then Monica Conyers, president of the Detroit City Council, had to get all indignant and pissed off that the deal didn't include special provisions to make sure that a certain percentage of the workers on the project were actually based in Detroit! She went off on some nonsense about how the workers at the auto show didn't "look like her" (weren't all black) and managed to get other morons on the council to veto this deal. Apparently she never took into account that since the money was coming from all three counties plus the State and Detroit, the deal instead provided that people from all over the area, including the city proper, would be hired to work on the renovations. Which only makes sense, since the money was coming from all over. The interim mayor of Detroit overrode the veto because he isn't an idiot, and the council took him to court over it, referencing an obscure piece of legislation that said in certain cases, the mayor doesn't have that power.

The judge's decision came down a couple of days ago, ruling in favor of the council. So the deal is dead. And considering how long it took to get these disparate government bodies together to figure out how to work with each other, it's very unlikely that the deal will ever come back in any form. So the major upgrades to the convention center aren't going to happen, and instead of helping the city like they are supposed to, the council has instead found a way to hasten the demise of it. Who wants to come to Detroit for any sort of convention when the roof leaks and it's too small to have a major event? Nobody. It's really depressing to watch my town continue to crumble, even from the outside.

RIP Anya, my cat for 2 months

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 04:12:43 GMT

*sigh*

Not a great way to end my April Fool's Day. I came home from grocery shopping a little after 5:00 and Anya was not waiting in the window, like she always does when I come home later than 4:00. And she didn't come see me when I opened the door, like she does if she's sleeping when I get home. I put my groceries away and went to look for her. There was thrown-up cat food on my bedroom carpet, some more whitish vomit in the spare bedroom where her litter box is, and a poop on the mat in front of her box. Like she couldn't actually bring herself to get into it and do her business. Well, underneath my bed was Anya, dead. :(

I don't know what happened, and I'll probably never know. She was frisky and happy when I left this morning, and showed no signs of being sick over the last week. Judy came over and we took her corpse into the vet so they could dispose of her, but it's not worth the money to get a cat autopsy. She was a young shelter cat, somewhere between 1-2 years old. They found her as a stray (with two kittens) out somewhere in The Woodlands, and I adopted her via PetsMart in mid-January. She was the first real pet I've ever had (sad, I know), and she only lasted 2 1/2 months. Hmmph. I never did get around to taking her into the vet for a checkup, but it's not like she wasn't examined before they put her up for adoption at PetsMart. A woman at the vet suggested it might have been heartworms, a friend of hers had that happen to her cat. I dunno. It sucks.

But I really liked having a cat, and with all this cat stuff at my place I will definitely be getting a new one sometime in the near future. Hopefully the next one will live a lot longer.

What I did on my Spring Break

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:04:34 GMT

Last week Scott came down to visit for the week. Though he was only here from Sunday-Friday, so he missed some stuff.

We went to see Jonathan Coulton the Friday before he got here, and that was a great time. Especially the opening act Paul and Storm which were awesome, although Coulton was great, too.

After Scott got here we went to the blacklight mini-golf course, which is always fun. The four of us (Me, Scott, Jenn, and Judy) indeed had fun. The next day, me, Scott, Judy, her mom, and Evelyn went down to the Rodeo. Living in Houston for almost 3 years now, I'd never been. And it's a huge event in town. So we went to the Livestock Show and saw lots of farm animals, and we also wandered through the carnival midway. You can tell it's a big event because the carnival company apparently brings in everything they have- about 10 different Funhouse-style things, three different mini-coasters, three giant slides, two ferris wheels- the works. Not that we did any of those things because that section was just me and Scott and he wasn't that interested. If it had been Judy and me, we definitely would've done at least a couple things. Then Scott and I went to a free screening of Knowing, which, if you read my review blog, you'll know I didn't like much.

Then, on Wednesday, Judy got divorced! Okay, it's a bittersweet thing, which I understand. And back when the process first got going in the fall, Judy definitely had some mixed feelings about it. But then there was a delay in December. And then she got completely emotionally invested and actually had a hearing in January where it was supposed to be over, but that didn't work out. So now that it's March and it's finally over, it's mostly a feeling of relief. At least for me. It's almost like it's not a big deal anymore since it's been dragging on for so long. It's good for Judy, I think, that it's over and done with now.

Scott and I spent most of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday just hanging out. We had a small comic book meetup on Wednesday at Fuddrucker's, which was cool.

Friday I hosted a Watchmen meetup. Originally our group was contacted by a guy who claimed to represent Warner Bros., who implied he would send us a bunch of free swag and dvd's if we had a meetup over the weekend. Well, after a bit of back and forth, it turned out that he couldn't even get anything close to what he promised. I ended up with a single dvd that has trailers for the Tales of the Black Freighter and Watchmen Motion Comics. Oh, and a couple of copies of the press releases. No swag at all. So it sucked, but I let everyone know in advance. So we only had a handful of people show up, which was just as well.

Saturday was the start of the Houston Roller Derby season. The derby is in a new venue this year, Kicks Indoor Soccer as opposed to the Verizon Wireless Theater. It's...frankly, it's not as good. I'm sure it's way cheaper, but I already miss the great view from the Verizon's balcony. Also, it was pretty hot in there, which has me worried about what it will be like inside once summer arrives. Still, the derby matches were fun, even though Houston's Bayou City Bosses destroyed the team from Corpus Christi to the point where it broke the scoreboard. The other match between the other two Houston teams was better, although it was still a blowout. We had fun, though, and with season tickets this year, we'll be going to a lot of matches.

I Don't Update Enough These Days

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:52:24 GMT

I think I'm starting to get out of the habit, and I haven't even started using Twitter! Generally I'm not into the idea of Twitter, at least not for me personally. When I have something to say, I usually need way more than 140 characters to do it. Also, I don't feel like my life is thrilling enough to update people several times a day on what's happening. Most days go like this:

Get Up
Shower
Get Dressed
Eat Breakfast
Go to School
Teach school until 3:30
Get home around 4:00
Hopefully run and shower, stretch, from 4:30-5:30 or 6:00
Eat Dinner
Watch something off of my DVR
Hang out with Judy for a couple of hours
Go to Bed

Now of course there are exceptions where cool things go on, but day-to-day life is just not super-interesting. So yeah, Twitter is not for me, despite its surging popularity. For once I'm going to stop right there and make this a short entry. Except to say that I'm on Spring Break for the next week and I'm very, very happy about that.

The Rest of the Song Game

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:50:20 GMT

Results for the unanswered songs:

1. 'Ello. 'Ello! My name's Terry and I'm a law abider.- "The Irony of it All" by The Streets
2. Early one day, I got up the strength, to call you on the phone- "I'm Your Boyfriend Now" by They Might Be Giants
3. Hangin' out, while the monkeys type away- "We Live in a Dump" by They Might Be Giants

5. Eveline grips the railing as her lover calls her to the sea- "Eveline" by Nickel Creek
6. Everything's broken, don't you cry- "Can't Say" by ALL

9. I picked a cookie from the wrong batch- "Cowboy Hat" by that dog.

12. I've got it covered with cans of food- "We Will Become Silhouettes by The Postal Service
13. I never was sad, I never got down- "Down Boy" by Moe.
14. In a small ghost town there's a little arcade- "Hulahoop Wounds" by At the Drive-In
15. Oh someone told me yesterday, that when you show your love away- "So Lonely" by The Police
16. Last night as I slept, I dreamt I met with Behan- "Streams of Whiskey" by The Pogues

18. Sing me a song, you could be- "Vision of Division" by The Strokes

25. Oh Nectarine, you're the one to coax the darkness out of me- "Nectarine" by Mike Doughty

27. Tonight will be, the night that we, begin to ease, the plugs out of the dam- "This is Not an Exit" by Saves the Day

30. I'm your neighborhood spaceman, you don't know who I am, where I've been- "Neighborhood Spaceman" by Peeping Tom

The First Line of the Song Game

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 15:33:37 GMT

So this one is bouncing around on Facebook right now, but I only got limited responses over there. So I'm posing the 30 songs here to see if anybody else can get some of these:

Step 1: Put your music player on shuffle
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 30 songs that play (no matter how embarrassing)
Step 3: Strike through the song when someone guesses the artist and song title correctly
Step 4: Looking them up on Google or another search engine is CHEATING!
Step 5: If nobody gets the song right, then you may post further hints.
Step 6. Make your own list

1. 'Ello. 'Ello! My name's Terry and I'm a law abider.
2. Early one day, I got up the strength, to call you on the phone
3. Hangin' out, while the monkeys type away
~~4. Don't walk the plank like I did, you will be dispensed with~~
5. Eveline grips the railing as her lover calls her to the sea
6. Everything's broken, don't you cry
~~7. That's how it starts, we go back to your house~~
~~8. You're such a mystery, I just wanna stand and stare~~
9. I picked a cookie from the wrong batch
~~10. When John he saw the numbers he lied~~
~~11. I was tuning in the shine of the late-night dial~~
12. I've got it covered with cans of food
13. I never was sad, I never got down
14. In a small ghost town there's a little arcade
15. Oh someone told me yesterday, that when you show your love away
16. Last night as I slept, I dreamt I met with Behan
~~17. I don't mind worry following me like a dinosaur~~
18. Sing me a song, you could be
~~19. Bring your friends, honey, rain or shine~~
~~20. Edna Million in a drop dead suit~~
~~21. You gotta gimme that, gimme that now~~
~~22. Come on, fhqwhgads~~
~~23. The day you move, I'm probably gonna explode~~
~~24. Winter's coming, days die short~~
25. Oh Nectarine, you're the one to coax the darkness out of me
~~26. See me coming to town with my soul~~
27. Tonight will be, the night that we, begin to ease, the plugs out of the dam
~~28. The Horsemen you have brought deserve me~~
~~29. Eyes wide mine, suddenly everything~~
30. I'm your neighborhood spaceman, you don't know who I am, where I've been

So far we've got:
4. Thom Yorke- Harrowdown Hill
7. LCD Soundsystem- All My Friends
11. Elvis Costello- Radio Radio
17. Soul Coughing- So Far, I Have Not Found the Science
19. Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers- I Do
20. Tom Waits- Jockey Full of Bourbon
22. Strong Bad- Fhqwhgads
24. HORSE the Band- Face of Bear
26. Beck- E-Pro
29. The Mars Volta- Conjugal Burns

It's Been a While

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 01:05:34 GMT

Wow, January 25 was my last post. I've been neglecting the personal LJ for quite a while. Let's see. I had a really nice Valentine's Day with Judy. It wasn't exactly traditionally romantic, but it was still good. We went to a birthday party for one of the kids in Evelyn's play group in the early afternoon. Then a quick trip to the grocery store for me went longer than planned, so we didn't make it in time for the 5:25 showing of He's Just Not That Into You. Actually, we arrived (Jenn came along, too) at the movie theater at 5:20, but one look at the packed parking lot told us we wouldn't be getting into a romantic comedy with decent seats by arriving just 5 minutes before showtime. We couldn't come up with anything exciting to substitute, so we went to Barnes & Noble and wandered around for about an hour before heading to dinner at Fuddrucker's.

Yes, Fuddrucker's. No, it's not romantic, but we didn't make any reservations and didn't want to fight and/or wait at a nice restaurant. So we ate and went back to Judy and Jenn's house and the three of us watched the premiere of Dollhouse, which was...okay. Hopefully it will get better as it goes along. Then Judy and I went back to my place and exchanged gifts. I got her (us, really) season tickets to the Houston Roller Derby, while she got me an iPod nano and a cool sport tracker thing that attaches to my shoe but also the internet and does all sorts of neat stat tracking. I haven't really looked into it yet, but it will be excellent when I get it set up.

On Sunday we were going to make another attempt to see the movie, but I arrived slightly late again and then Evelyn looked so bummed after I just played with her for 5 minutes and got up to leave that we decided to skip the movie and take her to the park instead. It was a beautiful February day in Houston, which means it was about 70 with a strong breeze, sunny, and surprisingly low humidity. No regrets there- Evelyn had a great time at the park. Then we (just me and Judy) went out to Chili's for dinner, which was nice.

I also made my annual trip to San Antonio last week for the Texas Music Educator's Association convention. It was fun, as always, and informative. Some panels were really good, some were mediocre, and I stepped away from the Elementary division a few times to see other things. Like a French horn professor from Baylor playing obscure Flemish (Flanders is in northern Belgium- I didn't know that before going to this panel) horn solos, and the U.S. Army Herald Trumpets doing their thing. These are the guys that play for state functions and the inauguration and other special events. They have super-long trumpets that come in four sizes, from soprano to bass. It was very neat, even though their performance was strictly regimented and by the book- no room for personalities to emerge here.

Anya the cat is doing fine. Although she's now completely comfortable in my apartment, which means she will get up on top of pretty much any flat surface and walk around. And if I make any movement in the middle of the night, she tends to jump up on the bed and meow for attention. So she's more annoying now that she's comfortable, but I still like her. Life as a first-time pet owner is going well. :)

Cat Update

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:23:38 GMT

Since I acquired my part-time cat Dexter back at the beginning of the month, a few things have happened. He showed up randomly for a while, sometimes after midnight on weeknights. And he would come in and eat and drink and settle down and sleep for a while. Also, we put a collar on him the first day he was here, which was gone when he came back the next morning. But later in the week, the collar was back, so clearly somebody else was taking care of the cat. Last weekend, when I wasn't doing anything during the days he got into a pattern of showing up in the late morning, coming in and eating, and then napping until about 5pm. At that point he'd want out and I wouldn't see him again until the next morning. This happened through Monday, which I had off for MLK, Jr. Day. He left after his nap and sat down at the foot of the stairs outside. I closed my door and looked back a few minutes later, only to see one of my downstairs neighbors scoop him up and take him inside her house.

So the mystery of who else took care of Dexter was solved. He probably tried to show up during the week when I was teaching, but hey, I wasn't there. On Wednesday and Thursday he showed up a little after 5 and came in to eat and then left, almost immediately. The last straw came later on Thursday night, when he was sitting at the foot of the steps and meowing, but refused to come up and come inside. So Judy and I went out to adopt a cat from PetsMart yesterday. We found a really friendly, adorable, and super-fluffy female cat named Roma (shelter name, her new name is pending), and after some running around and paperwork, I took her home. They wanted us to leave her in the bathroom for 24 hours so she could adjust to her new surroundings, but we put her in the spare bedroom instead. She actually used the litter box, which is better than Dexter ever did around here (he peed in my closet).

By last evening, though, she was ready to come out, so we let her explore the apartment for the rest of the night. I was getting bummed because she wouldn't sleep, and I could tell she wasn't completely comfortable yet. But every time I petted her, she started purring, so it was good. When I went to bed, she settled down on the floor at the foot of my bed and stayed quiet all night and mostly slept. Today she's been much more normal, sleeping a lot and only getting up here and there to eat and use the litter box and get some affection. So she's adjusting.

BUT- Dexter showed up this morning, looking to come in. I decided I wasn't going to let an indoor/outdoor cat mix with my new, permanent indoor cat. So I made up little bowls of water and food and let him eat outside my door. But he still hung around hoping to get in. Around this time, the new cat woke up and I went to pet her (after petting Dexter), and all that fluffy hair stood straight out! So I washed my hands and tried again and there was no problem. Next I opened up the blinds, opened the window a crack, and let the new cat look out the window at Dexter. Instant animosity. She actually started growling at him and even did a brief yowl at one point. That's when I shut the window. But she stayed on the sill growling until he went away. So yeah, glad I did that little experiment first. Dexter is no longer welcome in my apartment, but I have an adorable and friendly new cat! Yay!

Now This is a Meme I Can Get Behind

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:45:52 GMT

The rules, taken from ahestele:

A) Go to Music Outfitters.

B) In the search function, enter the year you graduated from high school. Get the list of the 100 most popular songs of that year.

C) Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you hate, and underline or italicize your favorite. Do nothing to those you don’t remember or don’t care about.

1. The Sign, Ace Of Base
2. I Swear, All-4-One
3. I'll Make Love To You, Boyz II Men
4. ~~The Power Of Love~~, Celine Dion
5. ~~Hero~~, Mariah Carey
6. Stay (I Missed You), Lisa Loeb and Nine Stories
7. Breathe Again, Toni Braxton
8. All For Love, Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart and Sting
9. All That She Wants, Ace Of Base
10. Don't Turn Around, Ace Of Base
11. Bump N' Grind, R. Kelly
12. Again, Janet Jackson
13. I'll Remember, Madonna
14. Whatta Man, Salt-N-Pepa
15. Wild Night, John Mellencamp and Me'shell Ndegeocello
16. Without You/Never Forget You, Mariah Carey
17. You Mean The World To Me, Toni Braxton
18. ~~Can You Feel The Love Tonight~~, Elton John
19. The Most Beautiful Girl In The World, Prince Symbol
20. Fantastic Voyage, Coolio
21. ~~Baby I Love Your Way~~, Big Mountain
22. ~~Regulate~~, Warren G and Nate Dogg
23. If You Go, Jon Secada
24. Back and Forth, Aaliyah
25. Now And Forever, Richard Marx
26. When Can I See You, Babyface
27. Please Forgive Me, Bryan Adams
28. So Much In Love, All-4-One
29. Shoop, Salt-N-Pepa
30. Any Time, Any Place/And On And On, Janet Jackson
31. Shine, Collective Soul
32. ~~Said I Loved You...But I Lied~~, Michael Bolton
33. Return To Innocence, Enigma
34. All I Wanna Do, Sheryl Crow
35. Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm, Crash Test Dummies
36. Can We Talk, Tevin Campbell
37. Funkdafied, Da Brat
38. I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That), Meat Loaf
39. Gangsta Lean, Drs
40. Because The Night, 10,000 Maniacs
41. Cantaloop, US3
42. ~~Whoomp! (There It Is)~~, Tag Team
43. Come To My Window, Melissa Etheridge
44. Stroke You Up, Changing Faces
45. I'm Ready, Tevin Campbell
46. 100% Pure Love, Crystal Waters
47. Anytime You Need A Friend, Mariah Carey
48. Because Of Love, Janet Jackson
49. Linger, Cranberries
50. Loser, Beck
51. Found Out About You, Gin Blossoms
52. ~~Gin And Juice~~, Snoop Doggy Dogg
53. Never Lie, Immature
54. Streets Of Philadelphia, Bruce Springsteen
55. Getto Jam, Domino
56. Endless Love, Luther Vandross and Mariah Carey
57. I Miss You w/ Aaron Hall
58. Understanding, Xscape
59. This D.J., Warren G
60. Cry For You, Jodeci
61. Keep Ya Head Up, 2Pac
62. Who Am I (What's My Name?), Snoop Doggy Dogg
63. Another Night, Real McCoy
64. Your Body's Callin', R. Kelly
65. ~~Tootsee Roll~~, 69 Boyz
66. I Can See Clearly Now, Jimmy Cliff
67. Never Keeping Secrets, Babyface
68. Crazy, Aerosmith
69. Just Kickin' It, Xscape
70. At Your Best (You Are Love), Aaliyah
71. ~~Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through~~, Meat Loaf
72. Amazing, Aerosmith
73. Always, Erasure
74. Groove Thang, Zhane
75. Dreams, Gabrielle
76. Mr. Vain, Culture Beat
77. Mary Jane's Last Dance, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
78. Anything, SWV
79. Beautiful In My Eyes, Joshua Kadison
80. Stay, Eternal
81. Flava In Ya Ear, Craig Mack
82. ~~U.N.I.T.Y.~~, Queen Latifah
83. Prayer For The Dying, Seal
84. ~~Secret~~, Madonna
85. Here Comes The Hotstepper, Ini Kamoze
86. Everyday, Phil Collins
87. Don't Take The Girl, Tim McGraw
88. Got Me Waiting, Heavy D and The Boyz
89. December 1963 (Oh, What A Night), Four Seasons
90. Indian Outlaw, Tim McGraw
91. Always, Bon Jovi
92. I'm The Only One, Melissa Etheridge
93. Back In The Day, Ahmad
94. Love Sneakin' Up On You, Bonnie Raitt
95. I'll Take You There, General Public
96. Always In My Heart, Tevin Campbell
97. What Is Love, Haddaway
98. And Our Feelings, Babyface
99. Bop Gun (One Nation), Ice Cube
100. I Wanna Be Down, Brandy

Wow, by the end of high school, beginning of freshman year of college, I was totally checked out of top 40 radio. Only about 5 "alternative" songs even made it onto the top 100 for the year. Fuck it, I'm changing it up.

100. Rancid - Salvation
99. Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen
98. Pearl Jam - ~~Glorified G~~
97. Sheryl Crow - Leaving Las Vegas
96. Nine Inch Nails - March of the Pigs
95. Toad the Wet Sprocket - Something’s Always Wrong
94. Smashing Pumpkins - Rocket
93. Whale - Hobo Humpin Slobo Babe
92. Cracker - Eurotrash Girl
91. The Cure - Burn
90. Rage Against the Machine - Freedom
89. Sarah McLachlan - Good Enough
88. Pavement - Cut Your Hair
87. Alice in Chains - Got Me Wrong
86. REM - Strange Currencies
85. Tori Amos - God
84. Killing Joke - Millenium
83. Pearl Jam - Better Man
82. Ween - ~~Push the Little Daisies~~
81. Nine Inch Nails - Burn
80. Sonic Youth - ~~Bull in the Heather~~
79. Erasure - Always
78. Nirvana - Verse Chorus Verse
77. Murmurs - You Suck
76. Counting Crows - Rain King
75. Rollins Band - Liar
74. Smashing Pumpkins - Mayonaise
73. Lucas - Lucas with the Lid Off
72. The Prentenders - Night in My Veins
71. Jesus and Mary Chain - Sometimes Always
70. Gin Blossoms - ~~Until I Fall Away~~
69. Hole - ~~Miss World~~
68. Soundgarden - My Wave
67. Blur - ~~Girls and Boys~~ (I hated Blur for years because of this dreadful song)
66. Bad Religion - Infected
65. Cowboy Junkies - Sweet Jane
64. Alice in Chains - I Stay Away
63. REM - Crush With Eyeliner
62. Beastie Boys - Sure Shot
61. Counting Crows - Einstein on the Beach
60. Pearl Jam - Not for You
59. Urge Overkill - Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon
58. Sarah McLachlan - Possession (The only Sarah McLachlan song I ever really liked)
57. Live - ~~Selling the Drama~~
56. Nirvana - Dumb
55. Cracker - Get Off This
54. Offspring - Gotta Get Away
53. Morrissey - The More You Ignore Me The Closer I Get
52. Meat Puppets - Backwater
51. U2 - ~~All I Want is You~~ (U2 is seriously the most overrated band of the past 30 years)
50. Sugar - Your Favorite Thing
49. Stone Temple Pilots - Creep
48. Bjork - Big Time Sensuality
47. Collective Soul - Shine
46. Crash Test Dummies - MMM MMM MMM MMM
45. Soundgarden - Spoonman
44. Counting Crows - A Murder of One
43. Candlebox - ~~You~~
42. Oasis - Supersonic
41. Green Day - Welcome to Paradise
40. Tori Amos - Cornflake Girl
39. Pearl Jam - Dissident
38. REM - Bang and Blame
37. Weezer - Undone (the Sweater Song)
36. Nirvana - Rape Me
35. Toad the Wet Sprocket - Fall Down
34. Beastie Boys - Sabotage
33. Lisa Loeb - Stay
32. Stone Temple Pilots - Big Empty
31. Bad Religion - 21st Century Digital Boy
30. Mazzy Star - Fade Into You
29. Alice in Chains - No Excuses
28. Green Day - When I Come Around
27. Counting Crows - Round Here
26. Soundgarden - Fell on Black Days
25. Hole - ~~Doll Parts~~
24. James - Laid
23. Pearl Jam - Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town
22. Dinosaur Jr. - Feel the Pain
21. Weezer - Buddy Holly
20. Nirvana - About a Girl
19. Liz Phair - Supernova
18. REM - What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?
17. Smashing Pumpkins - Landslide
16. Green Day - Longview
15. Sheryl Crow - All I Wanna Do
14. Candlebox - Far Behind
13. Offspring - Come Out and Play
12. Cranberries - Zombie
11. Pearl Jam - Yellow Ledbetter
10. Counting Crows - Mr. Jones
9. Beck - Loser
8. Nirvana - All Apologies
7. Green Day - Basket Case
6. Veruca Salt - Seether
5. Stone Temple Pilots - Interstate Love Song
4. Live - I Alone
3. Offspring - Self Esteem
2. Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun
1. Nine Inch Nails - Closer

There. Now I feel better.

Sickness

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:37:55 GMT

This is pretty detailed (you know how I get detailed) account of my sicky last couple days, so you may want to tune this entry out.

So Saturday night, I got sick. I don't know why and I don't know what from. I had some Wendy's, but Judy's daughter Evelyn had the same Wendy's chicken nuggets as me, and she didn't get sick. But still, I had an upset stomach after eating. Then later on, I felt better. So Judy made popcorn and we ate it. She wasn't a fan of it, but I liked it, and she didn't get sick. But I once again started feeling bad and had, hmm, intestinal discomfort throughout the night, which turned into full-blown diarrhea by Sunday morning. So I wasn't feeling too great, but I foolishly went out to lunch with Judy anyway, even though I wasn't feeling real hunger despite not eating for 14 hours. I picked at my food for a while and then we came back here and I basically sat on the couch watching tv for the rest of the afternoon, feeling crappy.

Then Judy came back and brought sick food, like jello and animal crackers and 7Up, and some Pepto Bismol for me. None of which I had here at home, because I rarely get sick. A 1/2 hour after eating the chewable Pepto, it all came back up. Not that there was a ton of stuff in my stomach at that point, but still. It was the first vomiting I'd done since October of 2004, when I had my awful bout of kidney stones. But I felt better afterwards, as you'd expect. Eventually I let Judy go home and see her daughter again, and I spent the rest of the evening on the couch. I did manage to eat more jello and animal crackers later on without throwing it up, which was nice. But the diarrhea continued (thankfully not constantly) through this morning.

So all the stuff I was planning to get done yesterday was pretty much not done. Except for the one PopMatters review I tossed off early on before things got really bad. I did watch a movie from Netflix called The Last Winter that was recommended to me. I'm gonna have to say don't bother. It's really slow for a horror movie and the threat is so nebulous that it's only really frightening in one scene. Even with Ron Perlman in a major role, it's probably not worth seeing. But it was well-made, I'll give it that.

Anyway, I felt much better this morning so I went into school and made it through the day without much trouble. And the intestinal discomfort seems to have faded, finally. So now I'm going to try some grilled chicken for dinner, and hopefully there will be no problem. This post would probably seem like not a big deal at all for most people, but I don't get sick like that hardly ever, so it was a big deal for me.

In Which I Rank the Movies I Watched in a Theater in 2008

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 02:31:14 GMT

No comments here on the relative quality of each film, just a simple list, from favorite to least favorite. The numbers to the right side are the scores I gave to each film over on my review blog.

+= Films that were originally released before 2008.

1. Iron Man
2. The Dark Knight
3. Wall•E
4. Cloverfield
5. Speed Racer 5.0
6. The Fall
7. Slumdog Millionaire
8. +The Orphanage
9. Horton Hears a Who!
10. Standard Operating Procedure
11. DOOMSDAY
12. Young@Heart 4.5
13. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
14. In Bruges
15. +Persepolis
16. Zack and Miri Make a Porno
17. Mongol
18. The Midnight Meat Train
19. Rachel Getting Married
20. Let the Right One In
21. Tropic Thunder
22. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
23. Happy-Go-Lucky
24. Wanted
25. Burn After Reading
26. Hellboy II: The Golden Army
27. Get Smart
28. +Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation
29. Appaloosa
30. The Visitor
31. Role Models
32. Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
33. Ghost Town
34. Run Fatboy Run 4
35. Kung Fu Panda
36. +There Will Be Blood
37. Pineapple Express
38. Australia
39. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
40. Priceless
41. Quarantine
42. The Incredible Hulk
43. The Spiderwick Chronicles
44. American Teen
45. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
46. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
47. Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? 3.5
48. Be Kind Rewind
49. Hancock
50. Baby Mama
51. Quantum of Solace
52. Son of Rambow
53. The Singing Revolution
54. +Lovers, Liars, and Lunatics
55. JCVD
56. Death Race
57. The Strangers
58. Saw V
59. How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
60. Hamlet 2
61. The X-Files: I Want to Believe
62. Diary of the Dead
63. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
64. The Foot Fist Way
65. The Ruins 3
66. Eagle Eye 2
67. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
68. Rambo
69. Leatherheads
70. The Happening 1.5
71. +AvP: Requiem 1

New Cat and Bollywood

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 02:45:12 GMT

Happy New Year! I hope everybody is doing well in 2009 so far. My trip to Michigan was great overall, despite ending up with two grandparents in the hospital during the stay. Both are doing well, though, and my grandma is back home now. Judy and I went to the zoo on Monday, which was cold, but a lot of fun. Then we didn't get up early enough on Tuesday to go all the way down to the Henry Ford Museum, so we decided to try the Cranbrook Institute of Science instead. It was our lucky day, because their current traveling exhibit was all about bats, and Judy loves bats. They even had a bunch of live bats in darkened cages flying around. We also saw a presentation (mostly aimed at kids, but still cool) about liquid nitrogen. The guy did all sorts of cool things with it, so it turned out to be a worthwhile day overall.

Yesterday morning, Judy was leaving the apartment and there was a stray cat hanging out on the steps. She immediately started petting it and it took to her, purring and rubbing up against her. Then she started urging me to adopt it, and I declined. Then it snuck inside the apartment while we were talking, explored the place, and decided to hang out there. We got him outside again, but he followed her down the steps and into the parking lot. So we went to Petsmart and got a bunch of cat stuff, including food. He ate and drank a lot, then napped for four hours. He got up later and ate some more, then started meowing at me to let him out. I didn't see him again until this morning, when he was sitting on the steps. He came back up and went right inside, ate and drank again, took a short nap, then came to bug me to let him out again. All in about 60-90 minutes. So I don't know how much of a keeper he's really going to be. It's sort of a wait-and-see thing right now.

When I was up in Michigan, I noticed that one theater in the Detroit area was actually showing Bollywood movies. Although I didn't get out there, I thought that was pretty neat, and Judy thought it was even better. So I started looking around once I got back down here to Houston to see if any theaters played those movies here. Turns out a 30-screen AMC theater is currently carrying a couple of them, but even, better, there's actually a Bollywood-specific theater over on the west side of town. So we made the trek out there this afternoon to see the romantic comedy Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. It was good, and the dance sequences were a lot of fun, but it was a romantic comedy that lasted 2 hours and 45 minutes. Let me tell you, even with the intermission they had, no romantic comedy should ever be close to 3 hours long. Still, it was a cool experience and we'll probably go back in a few weeks to see that Bollywood/Chinese Wire-Fu movie that Gobi posted a trailer for a while back.

Christmas in Michigan

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 05:08:28 GMT

So I'm up here in Michigan over Christmas break. I basically have one day left, but it's been a pretty good week. Got up here on the 23rd and it took me 6 hours to get home from the airport, a trip that usually takes about an hour. Of course, two of those hours were spent waiting for my parents to get to the airport and give me a ride. My brother Steve and his girlfriend had so much trouble getting out of Portland, Oregon (it took them basically 2 days to get flights that weren't cancelled), that my mom got confused and thought I was arriving at 4pm instead of 2. Then it was rush hour traffic and snowing and slushy, and it was slow going all the way back. Plus we stopped for dinner along the way.

Christmas Eve was a nice dinner with my dad's side of the family, then off to play our regular church gig ($150 for a 1/2 hour of playing, always nice). Christmas Day was nice, too. I got some decent stuff (a few video games, some nice gift cards), but then Scott and I cleaned up the basement. Since Scott is moving out at the end of this week, it really needed to be done. And it looks so, so much better now than it did. Then it was off to my aunt's new house to celebrate with my mom's side of the family. Good times. We left about 10:15pm, and went home and went to bed, basically. About 11pm, I guess my grandma (mom's mom) completely spaced out as the party was winding down. She wouldn't respond to anybody for a minute or two, so they called 911 and they took her to the hospital. She ended up spending a couple of days in the hospital and undergoing a bevy of tests, but everything seems to be okay. So that's a relief.

Judy came up to join me on the 26th. It's the first time she's been to Michigan or met any of my extended family. I think she's having a good time so far. We got to see Benjamin Button the other day, and we went to the Detroit Zoo today, which was great. It was sunny and in the high 30's for most of the afternoon, and you really can't ask for more from Michigan in December. She was getting bored hanging around the house and playing Rock Band or watching tv, so this was a good change for her. We may try to go to the Henry Ford Museum tomorrow, before coming back up here to go to the going away party Scott's co-workers are throwing him at Gameworks in the mall.

On the other side of things, my grandpa (dad's dad) has been pretty sick the last couple of weeks. We finally got him to go into see the doctor this afternoon and I guess they told him to go to the hospital. So he's there now and I'm not sure how he's doing. He's been on oxygen for a few years now, and he was having even more trouble than usual breathing when he was sick, so I'm glad he's actually getting help for that now. Hopefully he'll make it through fine. Fingers crossed.