Streakin'

I have nothing to say, but I feel like I've been on a roll lately and it's a shame to stop now.

So, how are you? No really, how are you?

Ok. We're done. Carry on.

Time Waits for No Rocker

Last night I did something I've never done before, and hopefully won't ever do again. I purposefully did not attend a show that I had bought a ticket for.

A month or so ago, when the Flobots show was announced, I was quite excited. Even though the show was on a Tuesday night, I figured I could swing it as I'm usually not all that tired in the beginning of the week. Alas, when the day of the show arrived, I woke up exhausted and it never got any better. The combination of my fatigue, the two opening bands before the Flobots, the standing room only venue and the 45 minute drive home all deep sixed my attendance.

I was disappointed, as I'm always tired, it comes with being a parent, but I'm not usually so tired as to not be able to go out and do stuff. Things have been a little stressful at home though, as we're trying to get Abby the help she needs and keep her from being bounced out of a second daycare. I'm sure that her having a feeding aversion appointment all the way the hell downtown, complete with a multi-hour absence from work didn't help, but it is what it is. Neither me, my family nor the Flobots are well served by me wrapping myself around a guardrail on the way home when I fall asleep at the wheel.

Luckily, while I was bummed that I couldn't go to the show, I don't feel like I wasted my money. The show was relatively inexpensive, something like 22 bucks once fees and such are factored in, and I know full well that bands like the Flobots get money from touring, not from cd sales. Hell, I bought their record for eight bucks, so there's no way they're making a mint off of sales from Best Buy. Live shows is what supports them, and given that I want them to continue making records, I'm ok with having paid for the ticket, even if I didn't get to see the show. Now, I'm not saying that I want to make it a point to bag out on shows in the future, but if an up and coming band that I enjoy is selling tickets to a show with a dubious time, I'd rather buy the ticket and hope I can make it, than not and know that I can't. With the latter no one wins, yet with the former, they can make some more music and hopefully I can attend. I'm not so hard up for cash that I can't kick a little their way. I don't want to make a habit out of it, and I do have an upper limit for what I'm willing to risk, but truth be told, that if a band hits my upper limit, they probably spend their days swimming in gilded pools filled with 50 dollar bills, so they won't miss my ticket sale very much.

I am bummed that I didn't get to buy a t-shirt, but it's not like I need any more of those. Hopefully the show went well, the fan response was exuberant and the Flobots will return in the near future. If they do, I'll be there.

Well, provided it's on a weekend.

Because Bones Demanded It

Behold the new Lancer! This is a crappy cell phone picture because I haven't had time to take a crappy real camera picture, although they are coming. Don't you worry.

I'm trying to come up with a name for it and am starved for ideas. "Bessie" stands out in my mind, as does "Stephanie". I also like "Batman" if only so that I can imagine it saying "I'm Batman, and I can chainsaw Locusts."

A Fly on the Wall

Man what I wouldn't have given to be a fly on the wall during the meeting between Obama and President Bush. I can only imagine the conversation that took place.

"So, I hear that you're looking at repealing a number of my Presidential edicts."

"Yes Mr. President, I am."

"Have you checked with Dick about that? Because I'm pretty sure you can't do that."

"Oh, I think I can. Vice President Cheney doesn't have to approve my actions once I'm President."

"Ok, I know that's not true. Believe me, I asked."

Oh the wit! Seriously though, I'm sure it was all very cordial and such. As much as I would like to think that Obama gave GW a stern talking to and said that under no circumstances was he to invade Iran or any other country without at least first checking with Obama, I'm pretty sure the conversation tended to be much more civil and of the "did you know that they'll make you any kind of sandwich whenever you want" type. Still, I can't imagine what kind of things they'd discuss as I honestly can't imagine the enormity of the task facing the person who in a few short months will be the President of the United States of America.

Me, I'd want to know three things:

1. Where are the space alien corpses?
2. Who shot Kennedy?
3. When you say any kind of sandwich, do you mean any kind, or like any kind from this limited menu?

I'd also want to know what it would take to make it a Federal crime to be a fan of the Eagles, Giants and/or Cowboys, but I think I'd need the help of Congress on that one.

In other news my Lancer has arrived. Oh sweet, sweet geekdom, how I love thee.

30 Days of Sacrilege

I recently took advantage of various Halloween sales to pick up a copy of "30 Days of Night" the movie adaptation of the horror comic of the same name. The premise of the comic and the movie is that there's a town in Alaska called Barrow where, for thirty days in the winter, the sun never rises. Vampires find out about this town and head there to feast on the town in a month long orgy of eating.

The movie ended up being quite good, much better than it was reviewed if you ask me, but there were a few things I wasn't sure about in terms of deviation from the comic. So, in the spirit of research, and in an effort to reread a comic I had enjoyed so much, last night I read the original all over again.

Here's where Bones will probably reach through the screen and punch me, but I have to say that compared to the comic, the movie was much, much better. Spoilers abound, so you've been warned.

In the comic, Eben (the sheriff) and Stella (the deputy) are married and all sorts of in love. In the movie, they're estranged for reasons we never find out about, and she's a Fire Marshall. The change in employment serves no purpose other than giving her a reason to not be living in Barrow, but the tension between them not only gave the actors a lot to work with. At one point, after the vampires have arrived and the survivors are hiding out, Josh Hartnett, who plays Eben shoots Melissa George (Stella) a look after her "I guess it's good you didn't want kids" line that said more than ten pages of writing ever could.

At the end of the movie, Eben shoots himself up with vampire blood so that he can fight the remaining vamps and provide a distraction for Stella to escape. She's trapped hiding under a truck with a kid who somehow escaped, and is in danger of burning to death after the vampires start burning the town down. In the comic, Eben transforms himself so that he can fight the vamps and save the town, which is a noble goal, but in the movie it seemed so much more noble because he was willing to destroy himself to save one woman, and not just any woman, but the woman who had left him. I would expect him to go off and fight in the comic because he and Stella were so in love with each other. I didn't expect it here.

The movie also increased the dramatic tension of the entire experience. We see various townspeople being taken before the town square is attacked. The human familiar that wanders into town before the vamps is sufficiently creepy and does a lot to sow discord and confusion before things really start happening. In the comic, the pacing seemed really off and you never got the feelings of dread and isolation that the movie evokes.

The one area where I liked the comic better is in some of the drama that plays out among the vampires. The vampires invite a head vampire dude to come and revel in the slaughter and he basically shows up and starts smacking fools down, basically saying that the vampires have spent decades making themselves appear to be nothing more than myths, and here these dumbasses come and eat a whole town. The notion of a hidden vampire nation is always appealing to me, even with it having been done to death by now in countless books, tv shows and movies. It makes sense to do it in the comic, as the book is clearly the beginning of a larger tale, while the movie needs to stand on it's own, even though talks of a sequel are being held. I can see why they decided to not go that route in the movie, and if you didn't know about it being in the comic, I don't think you'd think "hey, this movie needs some secret vampire nation infighting", but still.

In both cases, I don't understand exactly what the vampires hoped to gain from this, given that once the town is dead, it's dead and most likely coming back, but I guess they're just really hungry and here's a chance to eat like kings. If there is a hidden vampire nation, the desire to go buck wild for a month and feed out in the open, even if the open is cold as hell certainly would have appeal, but they don't talk about that much in the comic, so I'm not sure that's the motivation. In the movie it's just "we like to eat people and here you all are".

The other thing that neither story explains very well is how for thirty days a bunch of townspeople can stay hidden from a pack of vampires. I mean, come on. The town isn't that large. Neither the movie nor the comic gives the impression that the townspeople move from house to house, so I don't understand why, in thirty days, a pack of vampires couldn't go from hosue and house and basically tear them all apart, uncovering all of the townspeople in the process. It's not like they had to sleep. Besides, gorged themselves pretty heavily when they first attacked, so at some point you'd think they'd get hungry for more blood and start looking. The comic mentions how the vampires' sense of smell is lessened in the cold, which would explain why the vamps couldn't sniff out the survivors, but I don't remember any mention of that in the movie. At the end of the movie, once the vamps were driven out, a bunch of townspeople who we hadn't seen before just come ambling out into the town square and I was like "where the fuck were you people?" It just didn't ring true, but again, that's in both versions.

Complaints aside, I really enjoyed the movie. The vampires weren't the pretty boy, "I just want to hold your hand" or the "I'm so emotional and conflicted" versions we've been seeing so much of lately, and not a one of them had any redeeming qualities whatsoever. They were just brutal, savage, inhumane killing machines. In a word, they were fucking scary. Guess that's two words. Sorry. Don't get me wrong, I like Angel and Spike and Blade and all of those tormented vampire dudes, but the horror fan in me likes vampires to scare your ass off, like they did when I read "Salem's Lot" so many, many years ago.

In the end, I still like the comic, but the small plot changes, increased tension and bucket and buckets of gore puts the movie version over the top in my head. Melissa George being plenty cute, even in a parka, certainly doesn't hurt.

I Should Hope So

So we're all coming back from Wendy's last night, and when we stopped at a traffic light, I noticed that the car ahead of us had a ribbon magnet on it, only this one had what looked like Dalmatian spots. Personally, I think that this whole ribbon thing has gotten way out of hand to the point where I can't keep track of what the hell the different ribbons are supposed to mean. The yellow ribbon means that we want troops back home, but the pink one means we're supposed to fight breast cancer? Shouldn't it mean that we want breast cancer back home? And what's with the plaid one for Autism? One color isn't enough for them or could no one come to a consensus? Who makes these decisions any way? If I decide that I don't like Lupus, can I start selling green and white polka dot ribbons or will I get sued by the ACLU or some other group for ribbon infringement.

But I digress. Thinking that maybe this car wanted to remember their dog, or they lost their dog, or they want to fight dogs, I pulled up a little closer so that I could see what was on the ribbon. It read "I adopted my dog."

Really, hasn't every dog owner in the world adopted their dog or is there a rare genetic trait in some women that allows them to birth puppies? Maybe this is what this woman is calling attention to, the fact that cruel fate left her unable to give birth to dogs. I'm sure she meant that she didn't buy her dog, rather, she got it from a shelter, but whatever. In the end, the dog is a part of your family through non-biological means. In my book that's adoption.

I'm going to get a red and yellow ribbon for my van with the line "I purchased my children" or "I gave birth to my hamster" and really blow people's minds. Either that or a pink and yellow one signifying that I want the troops to come back home and fight breast cancer. They all sound good to me.

The Win Loss

So, Obama.

Woot!

I was pretty damned worried about last night, as all of my coworkers and my spouse can attest to. Despite the fact that Obama was running a masterful campaign, I couldn't help but think that he's a Democrat, and as such, he's storied in the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Thankfully, Obama was a Democrat in party only and victory was his. Now comes the hard part. I have no reservations about the long, difficult road ahead of him, but if anyone in the past few years seems equipped to travel it with grace and competence, he's it. I am incredibly proud to be an American right now.

Unfortunately with a fantastic win comes some pretty shitty losses, namely the various anti-gay measures that passed across the country. California and Arkansas are particularly odious with the former potentially destroying 18,000 valid, legal marriages between committed couples and the latter banning unmarried couples from adopting children or being foster parents. To those in California who voted for Proposition 8, I would say that I hope it's just that you didn't understand the repurcussions of your vote, and not that you're so incredibly dense as to think that destroying thousands of marriages actually strengthens marriage. I would also ask you to think about how you would feel if a religious group were to feel very strongly about a reason why your particular marriage should end, and they lobbied to have your marriage dissolved just because their holy book said that you shouldn't be married to your spouse. I bet you'd be none too pleased about it. I'd also like to think about what might happen if your child grows up to be gay and the joyful conversation you can have with them about why they're not allowed to be married and share the same joy of life long commitment that you do. Then again, maybe you secretly hate marriage. If so, then well played, because you're certainly doing well to fuck it up for the rest of us.

To those in Arkansas, I would say, you're all fucking idiots. Pure and simple. I don't care who the fuck you are, if you voted for the ban, you're a fucking idiot. Seriously, in a country where so many children need good homes and are in foster care, you're going to limit who can adopt or be foster parents simply based on marital status? Do you seriously hate gays so much that you would deny them the joy of parenthood, or more importantly, deny a child the opportunity to be raised by loving parents? Way to live Jesus's words. I'm sure He's thrilled with you right now. As the father of an adopted child and the father of young children, to know that the possibility of them growing up gay means that they could neither get married nor be parents sickens me as it should sicken you.

It blows my mind that in the same day that we elect an African-American to the highest office in the land that we could also write so much hatred and bigotry, because yes it is bigotry, into state constitutions. It serves as a sobering wake up call to the fact that we may have come far, but we haven't come nearly far enough. There is still plenty of work to be done, and not just for gay rights, but for all who have been margianlized or maligned because they look different, practice different faiths, or love differently. Let us not forget that and grow complacent. Instead, let's take a small moment to reflect on what we've done so far and then get back to work.

The Loss Win

Despite having excellent company to watch the game with, last night's complete and utter dismantling of my beloved Redskins at the hands of the Pittsburgh Steelers was a tough thing to watch. My only consolation is that the 'Skins loss at home, all but assures an Obama victory, due to the strange statistical phenomenon that states for the past 17 elections, if the Redskins win the home game prior to the election, the party that won the popular vote in the last election wins. If they lose, the party that lost the popular vote wins. Given that the Democrats lost the popular vote last time around, our 23 - 6 ass whipping means that Obama should win, and win big.

Even with the loss, the 'Skins are sitting at a respectable 6 -3, all the more amazing given that two of those wins were divisional road games, and we have a first year coach, and not a first year Redskins coach, but a dude in his first year as a head coach, so I'm not terribly upset. More importantly, the Redskins loss points heavily in favor of an Obama win, and honestly, if my choice was four years of McCain and a Redskins Super Bowl win, or Obama getting elected and the Redskins never win another game all season, I gotta go with Obama on this one. I'm sure that the Football Gods will understand that there are times when you have to take one for the team, and I'm taking one now.

If you haven't already voted, please go out and do so. Your vote counts, if only as a means to complain bitterly for the next four years over whoever gets elected. The ability to exercise one of the most cherished rights in democratic society is an added bonus, but really, it's all about the bitching. I voted via absentee ballot this year, as did Linda, so we could avoid the lines. I can only hope that the votes were actually counted and not discarded upon receipt, but pressing a button on a computer is as far removed from the vote counting process as filling out a bubble sheet and mailing it in, so we all have to trust that our votes are being counted. Make sure yours is too by actually going out and voting. Again, I'm going with the bitching.

Whoever wins, we will all be witness to a historic moment in America's history having elected either the first African-American President, or the first female Vice President. The fact that the latter is such an odious figure shouldn't take away from the historical impact, but hopefully, she and her ilk will lose and she'll go back to the wild north and we'll only remember her as "that woman that Tina Fey made fun of". I'm sure that there are an equal number of people out there that who wish the same for Obama, but I ain't one of them, so screw them.

As for my Redskins, they go into their bye week and can rest up and get healthy knowing that from here on out their victories are only football victories and that they did their part to secure a brighter future for tomorrow. Hail to the Redskins, hail victory, braves on the warpath, fight for old DC.

Best Binky Ever

Or so my editor says. You be the judge.

Daylight Slavings

Any parent of young children will tell you that the Summer Solstice is not the longest day of the year (or Winter Solstice for those of you in the southern hemisphere). The longest day of the year is that day in the fall when Daylight Savings ends and you have to move the clock back an hour.

Oh, you say, I love that day because I get an extra hour of sleep! Screw you I say. Screw you straight to hell. Daylight Savings time being a harbinger of more or less sleep ended the day I stepped off of that plane with a 7 month old baby under my arm.

The spring clock movement isn't that big of deal. Oh sure, you lose an hour of time during the day, but being that it's the weekend, it's not like there's a lot that has to be done. From a bed time perspective, you put them to bed, they grumble about not being tired because it's an hour early, you say tough noogies and then in the morning you have to pry them out with a crowbar.

Fall is when all of the trouble starts. For one, once you get up, you have to move all of the clocks back, provided that you didn't do it the night before. Either way sucks, because most likely, your kids will be up early as all hell, only with the clock movement, it's even earlier, and even more hellish. Then, you have to fight the urge to put them to bed an hour earlier, as they're probably going to be tired, and if they're like my kids in pissy moods, because if you don't, they'll be up all sorts of early the next day. Oh the horrors.

These are things that they don't tell you about when you're thinking about having kids. I've seen the kinds of things that they teach you in child rearing classes, and frankly, if you don't know which end of the bottle goes in which end of the baby, you shouldn't be having one, but knowing that every year in November Father Time is going to kick you in the balls is of utmost importance. Once my kids are older to where they can either manage themselves in the morning without my assistance, or they sleep later than I do, this won't be a problem, but for now, it makes for a long Sunday.

Luckily, this past Sunday the kids were well behaved, for the most part, not counting the usual sibling squabbles we're so used to refereeing. We did pick Sunday to do a boat load of yard work, on top of my time spent configuring a wireless print server and making the next night's dinner as if we had forgotten that daylight savings was upon us, or worse, we foolishly felt that we could use that extra hour to be productive. By the end of the evening I was exhausted and disoriented to the point that when I woke up in the morning, I spent ten minutes getting myself ready to get out of bed only to look at the clock and see that it was 3:30, a full hour before I had to get up.

Father Time strikes again.

Dude Huge

My epic Rock Band 2 achievement guide is up for your perusal. Ten pages of nothing but the finest in assistance from a guy who can barely drum his way through "Everlong" on easy.

Oooooh, very scary

My take on the scariest video game characters evar is up. This is some stone cold, scary shit. Read it at your own peril.

Fun with Squash

Wednesday morning I get an IM from Linda that says "Ben want's a scary tiger face pumpkin, but it's supposed to be a surprise." My kid has an odd notion of what makes up a surprise. Birthday parties that you don't know about are surprises. Coming home to find your partner making out with your sibling is a surprise. Your choice of a pumpkin? Not a surprise.

More importantly, what the hell is a scary tiger face?

"I don't know how to do that" I replied, because I don't. "Don't worry, he only wants tiger teeth" she said. "Oh, I can do that." Or so I hoped.

When I got home, all of the tools for pumpkin carving were out on the table. Before going to get Abby, Linda told me that she figured that Ben could participate in the pumpkin carving with me. I said he could, but I knew what would happen. See, I'm the parenting version of the Midnighter. I had seen every scenario played out in my head before I even picked up the carving tools, and I knew how this was going to go down.

I removed the top of the pumpkin and Ben and I peered down into the orange cavern.

"That's disgusting" he said. Yep, right on target.

I told him that we needed to scoop all of the innards out and he looked at me like I asked him to scoop his own innards out. To his credit, he did put his hand about a centimeter into the pumpkin, right up until he brushed the goop.

"It's on my hand." Again, right on target.

"Well, wipe it off", I said "It won't kill you." Amazing how once you become a parent the entire world can be broken down into things that can kill you and everything else. He did, and then said that he didn't want to take the innards out.

"Well, you want to do pumpkins don't you?" I asked. He nodded. "This is part of doing pumpkins, so let's do it." Now, I'm not going to make him scoop the whole thing out himself, but he's supposed to participate and it's not like I can tell him to pick up a saw and start hacking the thing up. If he was going to participate, this was pretty much it.

In the end, he managed to pull out about five seeds before complaining so much that I had him wash his hands. As I scooped, I asked him what kind of design he wanted for his pumpkin. True to his word, he asked for a scary tiger face.

"I don't know how to do that" I said.

"You don't know how to or you don't want to?" he asked. When I first heard this, I thought, man, what kind of a dick does my kid think that I am that I wouldn't make him the pumpkin that he wanted simply because I didn't want to? Then I remembered. My daughter has a feeding aversion problem, which means that she won't eat. And when I say she won't eat, I mean that she won't eat anything. At one point, when she was in one kind of therapy, and we would work with her at home, when we gave her food, she would say that she couldn't eat it, and we would always say that she could eat it, she just didn't want to. At least that's what I'm hoping he meant, and not that he thinks I'm a massive dick.

"No, I want to do it for you, I just don't know how to" I said. "Why don't you look through the pattern book and see if there's anything else you want." Seemed reasonable to me. After all, we had like a dozen patterns in there. He was bound to find something that he wanted.

"Nope" he said. "I want a scary tiger face. Or any tiger face that you want. An awesome tiger face is ok too." Oh, well, now that awesome tiger faces are on the table, I can totally do this. Again I told him that I didn't know how to do it and he wandered off into the family room, no doubt to find a father capable of handling his most basic of childhood needs.

"It can have eyes like this pumpkin" I heard him say. Odd. I don't remember having a pumpkin in the family room. Wait! We have a fake pumpkin in the family room! I go in there, take a look at the pumpkin, and the weird thing was that once I saw the eyes, which gave me a place to start, the rest of it all came to me. I quickly sketched out what I was thinking of and showed it to him.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah!" That's his big thing now. "That's what I want. I didn't know you could do that." Me neither.

Once it was carved, I realized that it either needed more tiger stripes up top, or less down below, but I'll let you be the judge. For a freehand sketch, I don't think it ended up looking too bad.


See? Not too shabby. For Abby, she wanted a pattern called "Wink and Smile" which I originally renamed the Palin Pumpkin for obvious reasons, then changed the name to Governor Pumpkin, finally sticking with The Okie-Dokie. As Obama said, we're not going to let them run the okie-dokie on us, except for pumpkins. Here's Abby's effort. Well, my effort and her pattern.


For the sake of reference, here they are in the light. The little pumpkin is one Abby got at school, done up in marker by Linda. It's hard to tell from her effort, but there's a reason that I'm the one doing the carving.

Carnival Games Mini Golf review

Holy crap, what a POS this game is. Crappy swing mechanics coupled with endless grinding and a main character that's mean and a bad sport. Fun!

You can witness the carnage here.

On Funerals and Saying Goodbye: Part 2

Part 1 is here.

Yeah, so this hasn't gone even remotely the way I had planned. As it turns out, I'm not a very good writer, or at least I'm not very good at writing in the style I was going for. I tried, and tried, and tried, writing the second part and then agonizing over it and then rewriting it. It's like having a vision in your head of a grand painting and when it comes time to paint, all you come up with is stick figured and happy little clouds. Unfortunately, you're the one who ends up looking at my crappy painting, but hey, at least I tried.

As we were driving up to the PA, my dad was keeping it together, but I could tell that he really didn't want to deal with his brother's death. Just the fact that he didn't go up earlier than he did spoke volumes, as this is a guy who never needed an excuse to drive a few hours and visit his family. Once we got closer to when we'd be meeting to have dinner and then go to the viewing, I could tell that he really didn't want to go. I totally understood. I mean, once you see your brother there in the casket, you can't deny his death any longer.

Unfortunately, eventually we did have to go to the viewing, and all of us had to confront the fact that Randy wasn't going to be with us any more. They had dressed him in one of his signature flannel shirts with a NASCAR t-shirt underneath, and had placed his riding jacket in the casket with him. I was glad to see that his kids didn't put him in a suit, as Randy would have hated that. As expected, my dad, aunt and grandmother didn't handle seeing Randy all that well. This was the thing I was most dreading. As a child, even when you're a grown adult, you still don't expect to find yourself in a position where you have to comfort your parents. They're the ones that are supposed to be comforting you. I'm not good with the comforting, and seeing my dad so broken up was hard to watch. I think it's normal to feel useless in these situations, which I did, but I did what I felt I could do, namely was there to provide support and hug whoever needed to be hugged and talk to whoever wanted to talk about Randy.

My cousins were similarly broken up, however as they had been dealing with things for days now, they were a little better about things. It's weird how much people seem to grow up in front of you when you know that their parent has died. Seeing my younger cousins get married or have a baby never made them seem older to me, but seeing them and knowing that their dad had passed suddenly made them seem older than me.

Everyone in the family was surprised to see how many people came to the viewing, and everyone who was more than happy to talk to you about how much they loved hanging out with Randy drinking a beer, or going for a ride or just shooting the shit. I think it made my cousins feel better to know that their dad had touched so many people, and that they weren't missing him all on their own.

The next day brought the service and the internment. Randy's friend did the eulogy and he really did a fantastic job. He's a pastor, so he had all of the right passages prepared, but because he was Randy's friend, he was genuinely grieved at Randy's passing, so he struck the right note between someone who understands that God has a plan, and someone who was upset that Randy's passing was part of it. Not being religious, I don't share the same views, but he still did a great job with the eulogy. After that, it was off to the cemetery with my cousin rising Randy's bike, followed by three other bikes to lead off the procession.

After the internment the family headed over to the Moose Lodge, where my uncle used to hang out, and we all got a chance to just catch up with each other as well as look at old photos of Randy and talk about how much we had all loved him. There was also a lot of food, something I'll still never get used to. Sorry for your loss, have you tried the cookies?

The funeral ended up being a good thing, as much as such a thing can be. I never really understood the purpose behind wakes and funerals as I tend to think more about celebrating someone's life once they're gone, rather than mourning their passage. I have a much better understanding of the purpose of these events now, after watching how my family changed between before the viewing and after the internment. For my cousins, they seemed tired, but much, much better at the end of the two days than at the beginning. Ditto for my dad. I still think the whole viewing thing is ghoulish, and maybe that's from a childhood steeped in horror fiction, but the events gave my family comfort and closure and that's the most important thing.

The toy motorcyle that I had spent to much time looking for ended up leaning up against Randy's jacket, and I'd like to think that wherever he is, he's riding it, or something much better than it, given my limited motorcycle knowledge. He was a good man, a great brother and a fantastic father and grandfather. We are all the better for having known him, and we'll all miss him.

Status Quo

Fuck all of this introspective bullshit. Back to the whoring!

My Rock Band 2 Gear Round Up is all sorts of live. Go read it and marvel at my ability to speak effortlessly on topics I know nothing about.

On Funerals and Saying Goodbye: Part 1

As I often do these days, four days after I heard of my uncle's death, I found myself in a toy store.

It was Sunday, and I was leaving for Baltimore the next day so that I could meet up with my sister and then the two of us would join my dad and my stepmother on the drive up to Harrisburg, PA to say goodbye to my Uncle Randy. Randy was my dad's younger brother, the youngest of the family, and four days earlier he had died in his kitchen of a massive stroke. He was 55.

Earlier in the day, as I was mowing the lawn, I got the idea that Randy should have a motorcycle to ride in the next life. Randy was a simple guy. He drove a truck for a living and enjoyed hanging out with his neighbors while they tapped a keg of Old Milwaukee. He also absolutely loved motorcycles. As my cousin would say, if it had two wheels and an engine, Randy would be happy to ride it. I remember Randy telling me stories of riding up the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the pouring rain, stopping under the overpasses when the rain got to be too bad, worrying my grandmother sick in the process because it was taking him much longer to get home than planned. When my sister was real young, my uncle took her for a ride on his bike, jumping some trash cans in the process. My mother was not pleased.

Why I decided that Randy needed a motorcycle, I have no idea. I don't have any firm beliefs about the afterlife, and truly, if Randy was in the Heaven he was raised to believe in, he was either riding the motorcycle of his dreams, or he was so danged happy that he didn't care what he was doing. Alternatively, if there is no ultimate resting place, or if Randy has already been deposited in his new life, a motorcycle was also of no use. On a practical side, getting a full sized motorcycle up to Pennsylvania, much less in a casket was not going to happen, which is why I ended up in the toy store.

This was not the first toy department of the day. As part of our errands we had stopped at a different Walmart, in which I completely forgot about the motorcycle as I helped my son pick out Power Rangers to buy with his birthday money. We also stopped at a Target and a Costco, all for nothing. Here's something I never would have figured, finding a toy motorcycle is much, much harder than you would imagine. The Hot Wheels and Matchbox lines seem to be completely devoid of motorcycles. If you want a station wagon from the 60's, both have you covered, but not so for the bikes.

I found a number of larger sport bikes, but those didn't seem like something that Randy would ride. I was hoping to find a Harley, as that was the bike he had when alive, and when you're looking for a Harley, finding a Honda sport bike, while still an impressive piece of machinery, doesn't quite cut it. Eventually I found a Yamaha and while it wasn't a Harley, it looked close enough to my untrained eye.
After I paid for the toy and got back into my car, I felt overwhelmingly stupid. Here my uncle had died, his children were grieving, as was my father, and I was spending my time looking for a toy to put in his coffin. I tried to chalk it up to just trying to do my part to remember my uncle properly, but I still felt like I wasn't doing the right thing, or enough of the right thing. Over the next two days, this would not be the last time I felt this way.

Sonic review

My review of Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood is up.

Lest you think I only post here to tell you about my reviews, I'm working on a piece about the funeral I just went to, however I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the whole experience. Hopefully I'll have something soon. Joy!

Saints Row 2 review

The long saga of my trip down the PR rabbit hole has ended and my review of Saints Row 2 is now live. Whee.

Books

Behold, the bounty of books being enjoyed at my household as we speak! Huzzah! Most are new, one is not, all shall be explained for your enjoyment and edification.

Starting at the top left we have "Your Hate Mail Will be Graded" by John Scalzi. Scalzi is one of my most favoritest authors, and the majority of his stuff that I've read has been over at his site. I've also read almost all of his books (more on that later) but seeing how I've been visiting his site daily for several years now, most of what I've read has been his internet musings. The best of these musings are compiled into this volume. Oh sure, I could go back and read his stuff on his site, but where's the fun in that? I don't always agree with him but I'm always entertained by him, so I'm very much looking forward to this one. On a related note, Subterranean Press, the publisher of this book, make some really nice books. Check them out when you feel the need to consume words.

Next up is "The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian" by Robert E Howard. These are Howard's original Conan stories in the order that he wrote them and they are completely awesome. I've been reading the Dark Horse comics adaptations of these stories for a while now, but it's still good to read the original tales. The cool thing is how much they jump around. In one story Conan is a thief, then a king, then a pirate. I can see the interest in having the stories arranged chronologically to make things easier on the reader, but this way is so much more interesting. It's amazing how bloody and gory the stories are considering that they were written almost 80 years ago. All of Howard's stories, with all of his character have been assembled in similar volumes and I'll probably end up getting them all. Crom's bones!

After that is "Waiting for Athena" also by John Scalzi. This book/pamphlet thingy came with "Your Hate Mail..." and is a collection of writings done by Scalzi as he waited for the birth of his child. I honestly didn't remember that this would be coming with the book, so yay for free stuff. Having waited for two kids now, I'm sure I can find some stuff in common, however as Scalzi didn't fly halfway around the world for his kids, I doubt that our experiences will be all that similar. Still, I'm sure it'll be a good read.

On the bottom row, left side is "Zoe's Tale", also by John Scalzi. "Zoe's Tale" is the last book in Scalzi's Old Man War universe and is a retelling of "The Last Colony" from the point of view of Zoe, the protagonist's teenage daughter. I quite liked "Old Man War", the first book and absolutely loved "The Ghost Brigades", the second book, finding "The Last Colony" to be the weakest of the three. It was still good though, hence this purchase. The reviews that I've read have said that Scalzi nails the teenage girl thing, so at the very least, this will give me a glimpse of the future with my daughter, minus the roving band of space werewolves. Well, I hope so anyway.

Finally we have "The Great Outdoor Fight", a collection of strips from the absolutely hilarious online comic "Achewood". This book contains the entire "Great Outdoor Fight" story in which Ray Smuckles, one of the cats residing in Achewood finds out that his father was one of the greatest combatants to ever set foot in the Great Outdoor Fight. Ray and his ever present companion Roast Beef head to the Fight to show how a new generation of Smuckles fight. Not only is the book beautifully bound, but it has a lot of extras including a glossary of terms used in the Fight.

In the case of the Scalzi books and the Achewood book allow me to give something back to two incredibly creative and hilarious people whose work I've enjoyed free of charge for years now. I'm glad I can do it, and getting a bunch of good books out of it certainly doesn't hurt.