Happy Halloween from...

Mua HA HA!

I got my cat back.

And a big thanks to Leslie for cat-sitting for the last month or so. She seems to not really give a shit about the house, which is fine. It's the mark of a well-adjusted cat. I heard a great quote somewhere once: A house can be a home if there is no cat, but how would it know?
Most of our stuff is moved in except for us. We just had to go and move right close to a holiday, and our favorite one at that. Lots to do around Halloween when you have a kiddie.
Last night we went to the Zoo, with B&G, who brought Gavin, and Carissa & Brianna (sp?). We had a great time, an more importantly, the kiddos had a great time. The Zoo is fun. It marked the first time Jackson has had a large amount of candy all at once. It also marked the first time he crashed and fell into a sleep that could rival some comas out there. I expected him to have a long white beard when he woke up. But alas, he woke up at 6:00, rearin' to go. Next week will be better. Daylight savings will have taken effect, and he will appear to wake up at a proper hour.

In other news:
I really don't have any other news.

-JP

Homo(ner) Again!

We closed on our new house today! It is a bit far out into the 'burbs for my taste but it is also a bit big and new and still under warranty for in-town, so whatcha gonna do? The guy who owned it before us was a contractor which worked to our extreme advantage in two ways. 1) He did a massive amount of updates to the house, and he did them WELL. 2) We got way more bang for our buck, as it were, when they agreed to pay up to a thousand dollars worth of repairs needed per the home inspection, because he did them himself, and saved on labor, meaning more repairs. Rawk for us.
So we will finally be out of the In-laws house. They are great, wonderful, giving people but I am ready to leave. I am ready to have my own space.
I will miss Norm and his weird OCD quirks, though. Like how the trash gets picked up on Tuesday morning around 9am, yet we have to gather up all our trash on Sunday because he places the trash out at 7am Monday. Or how he believes that our dog's urine contains miracle plant-growth properties, because there are random spots in the back yard that grow a little greener than the rest of the lawn. Miracle dog urine is the ONLY explanation, he says. I suggested aliens, but he said I was full of shit. Or how he's on that awesome drug that makes everybody quit smoking, and readily admits that the actual craving to smoke is long gone, but he still smokes about a pack a day. And takes the extremely expensive drugs to quit smoking at exactly 7:00pm every day, because "They don't work otherwise". Or how even though he goes through a $10.00 "mega-pack" of beef jerky each and every day, he'll drive to a completely different wal-mart if the one in Sapulpa only has the smaller, and thus somehow gayer, "mighty-pack", which he won't buy because "That's just throwin' your money away".
What I won't miss is the uncanny ability he has to magically be standing where ever I happen to need to be. Or how he'll eat more of Jackson's food off of Jackson's plate than Jackson does, causing me to make a second batch of whatever it was that I made. This after I, not 15 minutes ago, offered to make extra so he could have some, to which he always answers no. When he says yes, it's actually worse because he'll stand over me, telling me how to cook microwave bacon properly, which I can't do because he's standing in front of the microwave. And, of course, how he's always up in my shit.
The good FAR outweighs the bad, however, and given some of the relationships I've seen with in-laws over the years, I have one of the very best. They have given me and my family a roof over our heads rent-free for several months, and their hospitality is more generous than I would have ever guessed.
Now I have to get the fuck out.


That is all.

In Rainbows...

So my good friend Sarah has this post, in which she asks weather or not Radiohead ripped her off in some weird dollar to Euros and/or hidden fees fiasco when she bought their new album. My friend Brandon had a similar problem, and he figured out that since Radiohead were in England, they were using pounds instead of Euros, or the other way around or something, and yes, his transaction was a little higher than he expected. But he still got the album, and he got it for cheaper than he would have in a store or on itunes, so he's okay with that. It's all about the art, right?

Now, I didn't have those problems because I got it off a friend from work, so I really didn't pay anything for it. I think it was all an elaborate marketing ploy, but it worked. People seemed to love the concept. I know it did, and I had every intention of buying it. I was going to give them about $10.00, but when a guy at work waltzes up with the thing on a flash drive, what are you gonna do? I am weak willed, everybody knows that.
On to the album: I love it.
OK Computer is arguably one of the best albums ever made ever, and is the benchmark I use for all other Radiohead albums. Kid A was close. Amnesiac a little further away. Hail to the Thief and The Eraser were complete let downs. I don't hate them, but When I have OK Computer and Kid A sitting there in the same pile, I'm gonna reach for one of them. I do the same thing with The Pixies. Bossanova and Trompe LaMode always take a back seat to Doolittle and Surfer Rosa.
In Rainbows, especially when compaired to The Eraser, really lets you know that Radiohead is a group effort, and not the All Thom Yorke Show, unlike some bands like The Cure or Coldplay*. The mellow, guitar-driven tracks are like seeing an old friend, back to their usual self after getting out of rehab. And I an sure Phil Selway is happy to be able to actually drum again.
They keep the ethereal, psychedelic aspects that remind me of bands like Tones on Tail and Galaxie 500, back in the '80s, and are what made Radiohead great, like a rock band conceived completely under water. And there are some solid lyrics in there. All in all, I think they are back on the right track, and I'm happy for it.

In Geek News:

Wil Wheaton is interviewed for BoingBoingTV:



He goes into a nostalgic narrative, summarizing a story he's written for his new book, about that time in many of our young nerdy lives, when we had our allowance in our hands and found ourselves staring up at the wall of action figures at the local K-Mart (back before they were ghetto), trying to decide weather to save our cash for something big like the Millenium Falcon, or to go ahead and get the instant gratification of holding Greedo in our hands right then and there. I have to say that he hit the nail on the head with that one, and this was something my brother and I struggled with every weekend of our lives until we discovered girls.
I was always the saver, my brother the spend it now type, and I would hold that over him every chance I got. Like when I pulled out some Halloween candy sometime after thanksgiving, or when I bought a rare back issue of Groo the Wanderer that one time. It made him furious. He ended up stealing a good portion of stuff from me over the years because he just couldn't stand it. We are still like that to a certain extent. I can't wait to get a copy of Wil's book.


That is all.

-JP





*Let it be known that I cannot stand Coldplay. Overrated and dumb.

Just like everybody else does....

Things like this make me happy that the interwebs exist.

You know what else makes me happy the interwebs exist? My friend Joey has a radio show that broadcasts from a public radio station in Austin. He has a Jazz show on Wednesdays, but on Friday nights he has a goth, industrial, new wave show that is as awesome as they come. So I sitting here listening to the Smiths on my computer and i didn't put it on. YAY! He even gave me a little shout-out. Awww...


Jen failed the first test for gestational diabetes. SUCK. Now she has to eat this awful all-carb diet all weekend, and she gets to do another even nastier test next week. I hope she passes. The same thing happened with Jackson and she passed the second time so everybody cross your fingers.

In Geek news: The new Star Trek movie is getting cast with the best people ever so far. Oh, you want proof? They cast Simon Pegg as Scotty. Satisfied? I am. We also get Harold as Sulu and Sylar as Spock. Can't get much better.
Also, Captain America is back from the dead and he has some spiffy new duds.

Um... that's it.

Feuling My Silent Rage

So....
Jackson has a new thing. Well, actually 3 things. 1) He's been waking up in the middle of the night and not wanting to go back to sleep until we leave for school, and he gets a nice 30 minute nap while I get to dodge road raged South Tulsans. Sometimes he's visibly upset, and cries for while, but sometimes he's ready to party. Or wrestle a bear. Or go bungee jumping. 2) He has found his whine. This eluded him for some time, but now that he has it, he's decided to make up for lost time and whine loudly and with much feeling. About everything. 3) A natural progression from #s 1 and 2, he has decided to test the waters concerning the length and intensity of fits. Screaming and ranting and yelling for hours at a time. Last night he scored a hat-trick, and nailed all three. You have never seen anything more pathetic than your own kid crying at the top of his lungs in the dim light from the microwave in the wee hours wearing no pants or diaper, as he had torn them off in total frustration. All this adds up to me feeling a little more empathy with Alec Baldwin. I don't agree with what he did, not by a long shot, but I understand it. I'm cranky in the morning anyway, and adding an extra three hours to my morning is not a good idea. In a weird bit of coincidence, TAL did a story about just this phenomenon this week. I was happy to hear that Dan Savage was having the same problem. If we were in our own home it would be one thing, but we are still with the in-laws until the beginning of next month, and they invariably wake up and stick their noses in our business. They are just trying to help, I know, and they do, but sometimes I wish they would just shut their door and let us work it out.

In other news (about time, ya whiny bitch!)

Heroes is back, and although I do love it so, NBC has decided to add what seems like an extra 10 minutes of commercials to each episode. I actually timed it, and at one point there were 4 minutes of commercials, 4 minutes of show, and another 6 minutes of commercials. SIX! Get back to the show. I'm not buying a friggin' Swiffer!
I have given up on Bionic Woman and Journeyman. They failed to hook me. Journeyman will never be as cool as Quantum Leap was, and Bionic Woman makes me feel like I'm watching the actual '70s version, though unironically. Starbuck isn't even cool anymore.
The one new show I actually like, Reaper, is going strong, but I don't think it will last. Not OC enough for the CW, I think. Hopefully Sci-fi will pick it up, where it can live happily for years to come.

In still other news, we just had a river development plan here in Tulsa shot down. I have mixed feelings. I really think the city needs something like this, and though I am unsure if this particular plan was the best they could have come up with, at least it was something. The opposition was angry and fierce, and was mostly along the lines of "no more taxes" and "let's not give anymore power to the government" and "just use the money he already have more responsibly", and I can understand that. But now all bets are off and I have a sinking feeling that Tulsa will continue it's downward spiral to becoming a ghost town. I look at the river every day as I drive in and I keep thinking that there should be nothing but bike paths, Frisbee golfers and smoothie stores littering the banks, not old mattresses. But I'm used to Denver, I guess. I love Downtown Tulsa, I really do. If there were decent parks, some awesome condos, a good school, and a grocery store down there I would totally live there. But I guess I'm just used to Denver. I could go months with barely touching my car. I miss that feeling that the inhabitants of a city actually cared about it. I just don't get that here. I'm sure they do, and a lot of them will tell you that that is exactly why they voted down the river tax, but still. I've never been anywhere where the people seem to hate their own city so much. I think the river will get developed anyway. It will be slower and more at the hands of private entrepreneurs, but it's too good of an idea to ignore.

-JP