Life gets in the way...

Sorry this blog has been so inactive. Had a lot to say, and then once I got started on Facebook I left most of it there. Not exactly a forum for enriching discussion, but was able to vent most of what I needed. A little more conducive than some other sites that limit to, say, 140 characters. But definitely the wrong place for a manifesto (although I will link it there).

So I am dusting off the ol' blog in anticipation of a post on "gun control." Which I will at least start drafting today, and maybe even get published if it's ready. This is just one of the many heated topics of the day that are so frustrating and I wanted to give a thorough working over to.

Unfortunately, married life with a demanding job, a pet, and even minimal hobbies / interests doesn't leave much time for things like blogging creatively (at least for me - some of the bloggers I have followed seem to balance a lot more on their plates AND run very active and well-written blogs). Add-in the terrific news that I am now a father of two, and that both kids are still under two years old, and I pretty much gave up on the idea of maintaining a blog. [I'll spare you pictures and further gushery here for now - those who know me have already seen them on Facebook or live, or should get your ass on Facebook (hint, this means YOU, MOM!) because of how amazingly simple it makes keeping up with both close and distant friends and their families.]

But just when I thing I'm out, they drag me back in. "Gun control" will be the next big topic I address, and in future months if I can muster enough time and motivation I'll try to keep knocking down my little list of "big debate" issues that have congealed into simple "right or wrong" issues to me, to see if it can help others or at least stimulate a more fruitful debate. Keep reading, my friends.

Bachelorhood, revisited - again

One more time now, this 30-something white boy has been left to his own devices while the wife is off globe-trotting. The last time, my grand plans got derailed by injury, sloth, travel, and pointless political grand-standing. This time around, I am actually gainfully employed, so I limited my ambitions on what I would achieve while she was gone. Until yesterday I was also stuck on the night shift, which meant that all of my time off-work was poorly divided among food, sleep, and de-stressing. And dealing with the cat. My exploits are fairly-well documented here, so I won't rehash much now.


The cat has been quite lonely, and we've been having some good bonding time during her not-so-freaky moments. Here's a pic of her catching some zzz's with me - see if you can find "waldo" amongst the camouflage that is "her" blanket:



Rarely, she assumes a pose that never fails to amuse me - I finally managed to capture this to show you "SuperKitty"!



Besides being my lone companion, she has acted as an instigator in pushing me to get one or two things done already. Prior to the wife's departure we finally managed to pick up a bike for me, but outside of the 10-mile ride home from the store, I had yet to touch it. Under her "careful supervision,"



I finally managed to get the bike in ride-able condition while giving her some outside time. In the past she has been pretty content to stretch out on a concrete porch and enjoy nature a bit, and didn't tend to wander off. Now that she has tasted a bit of freedom at this new(ish) apartment on the ground floor, she has started exploring a bit too freely and keeps expecting to get let out now. Not such a good idea for an indoor cat (no front claws) who keeps hissing at the mere appearance of our neighborhood strays and semi-strays.

Yesterday I finally hopped on the bike for my first time for a local trip - to grab some Chinese food as a reward for having finished my stint on "night float." It has confirmed one unfortunate fact: I am really out of shape. Back in the good ol' days of college, I biked all over campus. Now that I'm back in a reasonably-sized town, I plan to resume that habit and use the bike to get to work, the gym, and nearby shopping. The wife is even finally willing to try out the saddle, so we have hopes of this new joint activity helping us to lose some weight and live a bit greener. Now to actually USE the bike to get to these places ... that's a pattern I hope to start in the immediate future.

Some other "accomplishables" while the boss is gone:

• at least one round of laundry and dishes - I'm not quite bad enough to just buy more stuff to tide me over, although the thought does keep recurring to me.
• cleaning up kitty puke - I'm getting tired of sashaying around the three spots in the hall that kitty has chosen to decorate.
• cleaning the litterbox - as kitty's recent habit of peeing outside the box DOES seem to have resolved after the antibiotics (likely a UTI, not solely a misbehavior), I would like to hose it out and change out the litter to reduce her chances of repeat performances.
• cleaning the bathroom - thoroughly. As if our own wear-and-tear in there isn't enough, it happens to be where the litterbox resides. All the dust and litter-litter that escapes the box has been tracked around in there for ... far too long to actually divulge.
• shopping - need to replenish the stock of essential items like peanut butter, jelly, eggs - the stuff even I can't screw up too badly to keep my stomach full.
  
• reading for work - I've been far too sporadic, I need to set up a pattern of daily reading even if it's only a page or two.
• scrap-booking - amongst the crap I've dragged from apartment to apartment are boxes of items to pour through and harvest for memorabilia. I vowed to the wife that I'd address this collection before moving all those extra boxes YET AGAIN, so hopefully I can make a bit of progress to get us on track for a new place in the late fall.

That's probably enough to work on for today, my last definite day off for a while. Especially since I'm already burning several hours by writing this drivel, and cutting into my sleep time prior to starting the day. At least taxes are done (and not too much after the deadline!) - although I'll be happier once the refunds are in my account.

Miscellaneous stuff for today as well:

• Catch-up on some administrative stuff for work (hours, journal club)
• Finish paying bills
• Relax with a netflix movie the wife doesn't wanna catch (in this case, G.I. Joe)

Something tells me that the netflix one is gonna get falsely-elevated to highest priority. To thine own self be true!!

Spring Cleaning

Haven't gotten to the real productive stuff yet - going through the umpteen boxes of crap that have been dragged through the last 3-4 moves, besides the actual deep cleaning the apartment needs so badly. But my face did it's own version, and shed the beard that has kept my face warm through the winter and - well, the last probably 12 years since I last bared all my facial skin. Did a goatee-thing several years back, but even that is self-defeating when a major reason for maintaining the beard is to avoid the chore of shaving.

Now, despite being mid-30-something, I have been called "babyface" and still can't quite identify fully with the face in the mirror. I guess the beard is gonna have to stay. Then again, I can't really identify with the increasing amount of cranium reflecting back the mirror's reflection - and I have no intention to carpet that or apply chemicals in a vain attempt to look younger. I guess I can just shave the beard again if that urge strikes. :-)

Sorry for the fluff piece - work has been too busy and draining to do any quality ranting. I'll take a hiatus and maybe post a few pics for a while. Check back soon, leave me comments here on the blog, or harass me on facebook. And check out the music section above - updated that as well.

Disney is evil....

My wife and I rarely head out to the movies, although we are both big fans of the movie industry and some TV shows. We satisfy our entertainment needs mostly with what's available on our cable TV (with some tv shows and movies "on demand"), although we are continuing with Netflix (at a much reduced frequency lately) to catch specific shows or at least keep tabs on things we want to see eventually. Thanks to a free offer from one of my credit cards a while back, we were introduced to redbox, one of those vending machine DVD rental dealios.

For just a buck per rental (if you don't keep it more than one night), it has actually been more economical than our current Netflix usage. The downsides, of course, are being somewhat at the mercy of what is in-stock in the machine, and having to get the disc back by a certain time. But it is also good for instant gratification (instead of having to wait for a disc by mail), and for forcing you to peruse a list of titles to choose from that might expand your horizons a bit. Plus, thanks to subscribing to their email list (along with various offers in conjunction with their host stores like Jewel & Walgreens), most of our rentals have actually been free.

Our most recent free rental was Up, the latest Disney-Pixar film. Pixar has a strong history of decent movies, so we figured we'd see if this one lived up to the hype. It was definitely a heart-warming story with some laugh-out-loud moments, but over all it was fairly predictable and a touch sappy. It was a bit slow too - so I dunno if it is a great choice for kids. The animation is great, and the details were a nice touch (note the tennis balls) - but at this point they have already proven themselves, and we should expect good animation... that in and of itself isn't a draw anymore.

The inciting factor for this post, however, was the functionality of the disc itself. Sometimes rental discs are manufactured with different options/settings than the versions you can purchase. Whether that is the case for Up I don't know, but regardless the production company is no doubt directing the standards for either / both versions. When this disc was placed in the DVD player, it autostarted into some previews. That's pretty standard nowadays. What is NOT standard, however, is being unable to skip the previews, and being unable to get to some form of a menu screen. NEITHER were options. Thankfully we could fast-forward manually until the movie started. But our default is to watch with captions on (I think we are both going prematurely deaf), which couldn't be turned on during movie play, and couldn't be accessed otherwise because we couldn't get to any form of a menu screen!! And to top it all off, when the movie ended it was followed by some further previews, then cycled back to the beginning to show earlier previews and then restart the movie. Without missing a beat. Without access to any potential special features, without the choice to play again if desired. For parents that sit their kids in front of a movie and half-listen for the silence when it is over to move the kids to their next activity, that cue is lost. It is especially sneaky to sandwich the movie between previews, as this disguises the fact that the disc has restarted.

Just another Disney fail. Is it obvious that I was a Warner Brothers (Bugs Bunny) fan growing up?

Bonzo's bits

Like most of us, my inbox periodically gets floods of "warnings" about the newest computer virus, or uses for coca-cola, or other unsolicited tidbits. Many come handed-down as-is, with all the headers and comments from the various people it has passed through. Very few are fact-checked, although the worst offenders are occasionally remembering to check things out on "snopes.com" beforehand.

That site is the only one I've personally used for urban legend fact-checking. Apparently they get a lot of verification requests, but I never would have suspected people would send in jokes to see if there was any rumor of truth in them. Either that or people really are dumber than I suspected. Check out their humor section if you want a good forehead-smack.