My little boy turnes 2 today!

This here is Joey. He turns 2 years old today. Jennifer swears that it took a lot longer for Jackson to turn 2 than it did for Joseph, but I sometimes think the whole five years of us having kids has flown by. Though sometimes I think it feels exactly like five years.

Modest Mouse has a lyric: The years go fast, but the days go so slow.

Joseph is so very different than his brother in a lot of ways, but almost exactly the same in others. Joe is friggin' fearless for one thing. He'll jump off of things, run right up to wild animals, eat anything we put in front of him, and I think Jennifer just signed him up for bungee-jumping. He's a lot more rough and tumble. more active, and really really funny. He cracks everybody up including himself.

He also likes to hit things with other things. Anything you hand him, he will take and hit something with it. He talks non-stop. He is stone-cold crazy.

The past two years in the Powers house have seen a lot of fun, a lot of moving, a lot of hardship, and a lot of awesomeness. Through it all, Joseph has remained a smart, funny, happy little kid, and I'm totally glad he's around.

Happy Birthday, buddy.

I love you.

-Dad.

Busy Bees

Best. Doctor Who. Ever.

A friend of mine from Europe once told me that over there, nobody every says that they are busy. "Busy" to them implies that one does not have control of the situation. If you have everything in order, you shouldn't be busy. So if you say you are busy, they will respond with "that's too bad,". Americans love being busy. If we had everything right where we wanted them, we'd have to sit down and relax, and then you're just lazy. I don't know what it is about Americans that they think they can't stop. Our ambition seems to be what defines us(to ourselves anyway), not what we actually accomplish. Even in retirement, everybody had goals and planes and they want to re-do the bathroom or see Alaska or whatever. We have to DVR our TV because we're off doing something more important, and when we eventually do sit down to watch, we zap the commercials.

•••

Keeping the European definition of "busy" in mind, I have to say we are very busy. We went to Denver, we had house guests here from Austin last weekend, my dad will be here tonight, we have a Christmas party in the OKC to attend on Saturday, and that leaves just one weekend left before Christmas. This on top of everything else we do every day.

I'm actually looking forward to Christmas this year, so I can just sit there for a while as the kids play with their new toys, and just stare off into the distance.

•••

The Valentinos were here from Austin over the weekend. They are awesome. Probably my favorite people. I did name my second kid after Joe Valentino, after all. I love it when they come because I don't feel like I need to talk up Tulsa or spend the whole time running around trying to show off the town. Really they just want to sit and visit and eat good food and watch the kids run around, and I love them for that. Good people.

•••

If you want to get me a gift, I kind of want an old-school Ramones T-shirt. Black. XL

-JP

The trip went well

Phillip K Dick. You should read his stuff if you haven't already. All of it.

1) So the trip to Denver went really well. We all had a really good time. The boys did amazing during the 12 hour drive. Thanks in large part to Pixar. The main meal was delicious as always. I saw some great friends.
There will pics soon. I loved how I could walk or tram it where ever I needed to go. I miss that aspect of a bigger city.

2) I haven't owned a cat in over a year, and yet I keep finding hair on my clothes.

3) I have a cold. I hope to stave it off with a constant barrage of Advil, coffee and whiskey.

4) I took a week off, and returned to a rather intimidating hulu cue. I'll muddle through, I guess.

5) I'll go ahead and say it: The Pixies have lost it.

-JP

I Finally Watched This (1)

The Spirit

I resisted this for a long time. But the magic of Netflix brought it to my door. I have a Love/Hate relationship with Frank Miller these days. I respect his earlier work a great deal, and I like about 50% of what he done since about 1995. But that other 50% infuriates me to my core. It's more disappointment than anything else. Like a parent who know his child can do better, but the kid just won't out of some misplaced sense of privilege. It's the same sort of disapproval I have for trust fund kids and lottery winners.

While I enjoyed certain aspects of Sin City and 300, there were more aspects that I didn't like. The good, we now realize was the the doing of the Directors. 300 managed to make a decent movie out of a so-so book, and Sin City was awesome just for the novelty how it was made and the dream cast it managed to secure. This film manages to only take what's wrong with the first two (mainly extreme misogyny and horrible performances) and leaves out all the good. Oh, and it manages to trample one of the best written and iconic comic characters of all time in the process.

Eisner's Spirit was essentially a very long love letter to New York. Eisner loved all of the breadth of culture and temperament and diversity of so many people crammed in such a small space. His character reflected that. The Spirit has it's problems, don't get me wrong. The chief among them the racism that would poke through from time to time. But it was always fun. Miller's version takes this expansive city and localizes it so much by over-use of small sets and tight shots, and very strict lighting that it actually feels very cramped. Miller took this wonderful, campy fun character and sprayed Sin City all over it, then presented it to us like a cat with a dead bird. While the cat thinks it did something awesome, in reality it's kinda gross.

People keep defending it by saying that it is visually stunning. And while I agree, and indeed Millers visual style is what I like most about him and his work. But this movie looks so much like Sin City that it could have been a sequel. But it isn't. But it's really close. But I don't like it for some reason. It's like that time in 1984 when I was expecting Transformers for my birthday and got Go-Bots instead.

The acting is phoned in. Pure and simple. Sarah Paulson seems to be the only one even trying. I have a feeling that the actors spend some time researching and preparing for their roles, wanting to bring depth to them, only for Miller to tell them, "Yer a dame, that's as deep as you go," and then the actor thinking: Fine. Be that way. And not putting any effort into it out of spite. The sad thing is that these are decent actors for the most part. The plot is basically nonexistent, and the characters seem to have no motivation for anything they do.

I think Miller would be wise to take a step back. I don't think he should give up on movies, because I think he has a lot of potential. But he may be able to really shine as a cinematographer. Robocop 2 and 3 showed us what happens when he writes a screenplay from scratch, and The Spirit has shown us what happens to actors when he directs.

He needs to just stick to visuals.

1) We will be in Denver for the Thanksgiving holiday. Unfortunately we are driving. This will be the first really long road trip for the boys. We decided to break it up, and we found a hotel about half what that has an indoor pool with a water slide. That should help.

2) Why is it that a train can block 4 consecutive intersections for hours on end, but I can't park in a fire zone for 5 minutes?

3) My good buddy Joey V has re-launched his web radio show. Friday nights he spins Goth and Industrial for an hour. Check it out:

4) For an hour yesterday, Jackson and I were the owners and operators of an imaginary restaurant. The main dish we were serving to his mom and brother(and the dogs), was something called Chompwurst. I don't really know what's in it because he did all the "cooking", but it sounds delicious.

-JP

None Shall Pass

Has anybody else been watching the 6 part documentary on Monty Python on the IFC Film Channel? I have, and I have to say that it is wonderful. Most Python docs try to cram the last 40 years into a one hour show, and there is just so much missing. This one is in6 parts, and separates them into projects. The first being how they all met, and what they all did pre-Python, the second being The Flying Circus, the third being Holy Grail, and so on.

I have been a Python fan my whole life. I'm trying to remember how I got into them, and I think I came to it gradually. For years and years, on Sunday nights, I used to listen to The Dr. Demento Show, which I think is still actually on. In the early '80s, it came on way after my bed time, like 11:00 or something, so I used to set my digital clock radio* to wake me up. Then I would pull the radio under the covers and listen to the show at a very low volume, so as not to let my parents in on what I was doing, as they were in the room next door. Sometimes this back-fired when I fell asleep again, having forgotten to re-set the alarm, and my mom would come in to wake me up and wonder why my clock was in the bed. The excuse was always that I was fumbling with it, trying to turn off the alarm, and fell asleep with it after hitting snooze a few hundred times. My best friend Sean would do the same thing, and we would always be excited to see each other Monday morning. Singing our favorite songs from the night before, always made funnier by crackling voices, mis-remembered lyrics and sleep deprivation. Anyway, in addition to introducing me to Weird Al, Spike Jonze, and many many other weird novelty acts, Dr Demento also played a lot of Python. I think at first, I thought it was one guy named Monty doing a bunch of different voices.

Years later, my uncle Roger, who kept me in a good supply of cool music via dupes and mix tapes through out my formative years, let me on to the fact that PBS was showing The Flying Circus late at night on Thursdays. By this point, I was living in the basement**, and had inherited a computer when my dad upgraded. But not just any computer. It was the TRS 80 Color Computer. The TRS-80 ran off of a normal TV, and used normal cassette tapes to store data. It also had an insanely loud, 35lb daisy wheel printer which I wasn't allowed to use during football games, while Dallas was on, or if anybody in the house were asleep. This meant that I had a legitimate reason to have both a cassette player and a TV in my room(score!). My parents were naive enough to not realize that these things also worked outside the confines of the computer. So under the guise of studying, I would watch Python(and a ton of other quirky British shows like Dr Who, and whatever else) with headphones that since the TV was mono, sound only had sound out of one ear. This was just as well, because I needed the other ear to listen for someone coming down the stairs to make sure my "homework" was done. Often, I would hold the cassette player up to the small speaker and record the whole show onto an audio cassette, so Sean could at least hear it if he couldn't see it.

When the video age descended on suburban Denver, Sean had a sleep-over movie party to show off this new thing called a VCR. One of the movie we got was Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and our lives were changed forever. Sean and I made it our mission to collect every scrap of Python we could get our hands on. Sean recorded The Flying Circus off of the TV, I slowly purchased all of the albums with paper-route money and allowance, we saved up and bought a copy of Holy Grail after having rented it enough times to buy it several times over.

We would be able to insert a Python quote into every situation possible. I once got in big trouble when I was on a vacation trip to my grand parent's house in KY, and was running around their gigantic house singing "Sit on my Face" at the top of my lungs. By 1989, when Graham Chapman died, they hadn't done anything as a group in such a long time, that everybody figured they were over, at least as Monty Python, and this turned out to be true.

I have followed every member's career, post Python as well. Some have had great sauces, like Terry Gilliam, and some less so, although I still count Erik the Viking among my favorite movies.

Every time I see John Cleese in a move I get excited, and he's everywhere these days.

The group will always remind me of Sean. Sean and I lost touch when he went to a different middle school than did due to district lines, but I would run into him or his parents from time to time. He died tragically in a construction accident some years back. I hadn't spoke to him in several years, but his mom made an effort to find me so I could go to his funeral, which I am very thankful for. He was a good kid, and from what I hear, an even better adult.

I'm glad those guys are (mostly)all still around and still being creative. They seem to be settling down nicely. I'm completely excited for The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.

-JP

* The first real luxury I remember having. I only got it because when I mom married my second step-dad, he already had a clock, so I got hers. Having access to a radio in my room was a big deal for me.

** As is every suburban weirdo's right by law.

Sickies.

Hunter. If only he looked that good when he died.

It doesn't seem that long since a posting but I guess it has been. Not for lack of material, mind you.

A few weeks ago, Joseph started having pretty bad diarrhea. after about 4 days of it, and after he started refusing anything to eat or drink, we took him into the doctor, who promptly admitted him into the hospital. He was severely dehydrated, though we couldn't tell. As the doctor was telling Jennifer that he had to be admitted, he was at the time, swinging from the back of the exam chair and making monkey noises. "They're going to think I'm crazy, for admitting him," the doc said.

So after a little more than 24 hours in the hospital, they let him out and he has been slowly recovering ever since. He seems to be all better now. Turns out he had some kind of fungus in his digestive tract that the doctor actually had to go look up, as she'd never heard of it. Who knows what that kid gets into.

Jen and Jackson were thankfully spared for the most part. Jennifer was a little messed up, and Jackson was perfectly fine. I got it full on. I see why they admitted him. It was nasty. I had to take three days off of work, and do nothing but sleep and stay very near a toilet. No fun. I lost 16 lbs, and am not fully over it even now.

Now we march into Flu season!

I saw the Decemberists at Cain's Ballroom. That was an awesome show. Creeping up into my top five the more I think about it.

Other than that, Not much.

I think I may have a family of rabbits living in my shed.

-JP

Moving and Other news.

Poe. One of the best. Not one of the best drawings of him, I mean one of the best writers. Well, maybe not one of the best, but one of my favorites. Anyway...

So we moved. We now live within the Tulsa city limits and it has made all of our lives easier and our petrol budget lower. The house is pretty much where we want it for now. There a re some project looming for the spring maybe, and a few that are waiting on cash flow. Oh, and Jen decided to re-paint the kitchen cabinets after we already painted them. They look way better.

We are on the look out for an orange couch for some reason, so if you see one for cheap, let me know. Jennifer's dad gave us his ginormous television when he purchased a flat-screen LED hybrid dilythium crystal something or other, and we had to cut out the back of our entertainment armoir to fit it in. It was worth it , though because boy does Zula Patrol look cool when the aliens are the same size as the kids watching the show.

Things we are going add to our house, and may need help with:

-A deck

-A fence

-French doors leading to the above mentioned deck

-Another Bedroom(maybe)

-New Windows

-A half-pipe(Never)

-A hot tub

-An underground Lair(definitely)

If you are experienced in building any of these things, and would like to help, there will be a sign-up sheet outside the drama room after 3rd period.

As promised, I have posted a bunch of pics from my trip to New York, but they are on my facebook page, and I'm too lazy to re post them here. So if you want to see them, go there. Friend me if you want.

Jackson started pre-school at Channing Day School, and he loves it. They do a really good job there. Hopefully, he will then go to Eisenhower, and some day take over the world Evil Genius style. No pressure though. The best thing they have taught him so far: "You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit." I love them.

It has been raining in Tulsa for like a month now. I LOVE it! It kept the beast that is late summer in Oklahoma at bay. I haven't had a sunburn since Memorial day. The mold allergies can go screw themselves, but it is a small price to pay.

Powers out.

Sore hands.

Been a while...

I've had a couple of busy weeks. We bought a house, we're selling the old one, I went to New York for a week, and am knee-deep in renovation. Oh, and work. And the other work.

New York was mostly fun. Every flight was delayed in some way, and the Airline lost our luggage. Well, they didn't actually loose it. They knew where it was, they just refused to send it to the correct city. We arrived in NY on Sunday night and didn't get our luggage until Wednesday. I have pics, but the camera is in the tool box at the new house, as we are semi-documenting our remodeling efforts.

So I'll post those along with a better wrap-up of New York in a couple of days.

Here is a pic of Tom Waits to hold you over:

In other news:

We've got a Nerd on our hands. Jackson has become totally obsessed with space and the solar system. He has a DVD that his Gramma C. got him and a few books, and he can recite them all word for word. When he's in the car, he'll spout off information and facts and what not the entire duration of the trip. He aunt Jenny got him some flash cards and he is loving those too. It's completely cute.

Joseph, who we now call Joezilla the Destroyer! has deiced that he is certainly not into the solar system because he cannot break it, throw it on the floor, or stomp on it. That's how he rolls. On Friday night, we were going to go out for once in our lives. When we were getting ready to leave, I reached into the fridge to get the six-pack of beer we had purchased earlier in the day, set it on the counter, and turned to close the fridge door. In the .03 seconds by back was turned, Joe grabbed the beer and threw it on the floor. One of the bottles exploded, showering us all in beer and broken glass. Then DHS showed up. Not really. But it would have been a good time to show up. It took for ever to clean up, and the house still smells faintly of malted hops and barley. Not in a good way.

Then last night I pulled a chunk of glass out of my foot that had apparently been there for three days with out my knowledge.

Um... That's it. New York pics are coming. Home renovation pics are coming.

-JP

So then we threw a party

We held a joint birthday party for Jackson and Zane on Saturday. We learned our lesson last year, and it started at 10:00 am rather than 2:00 pm. Last year it hit 112° and everything melted. Last year was in a park, and we couldn't go anywhere to escape. This year was way more pleasant. We held it at the Grandparent's house, and could go inside whenever we wanted.

Way better. Also this year, we had a Super-hero themed Jupiter Jump. That was a big hit. The cup-cake train was also a big hit, thankfully, as we stayed up until 1:30 the night before decorating them. Jackson and Zane once again made out like bandits. The biggest hits being a pedal-powered John Deer tractor for Zane and (surprisingly) a book about the solar system & a toy lap-top for Jackson(nerd!). We were all exhausted by the end, but it was so darn hot that we still had to go to the mall to cool off and to buy a stuffed bear in a Spider-Man outfit. Her are pics:

More here.

Rock.

#6

"what do you want?"
"Information."
"You won't get it."
"By hook or by crook, we will"

We lost a good man back in Janruary. Patrick McGoohan will always be remembered as #6, but his role as the evil evil king in Braveheart was awesome as well.

Ball-point Pens & Highlighters

So I feel that I have been remiss in posting artwork. Most of what I do is commercial these days, and I can't seem to update my Zombie story for whatever reason (mostly writer's block).

What I am capable of doing, however, is doodling on my calendar. Some of you know this already, as I have collected them from time to time. Well, I'm going to start posting them a little more often, starting with this one:

I remember this as G-Force: Guardians of Space. It was also Battle of the Planets. In it's purest(and best) form, it known as Science Ninja Team Gatchaman.

think that since Hollywood seems to have a hankerin' for making mediocre movies out everything I laid eyes on as a child, they are really missing out on some serious coin by overlooking imported Sandy Frank Manga. Especially since Transformers proved that you don't need any kind of plot to make millions of dollars a second. Imagine a live action Robotech(Macross) movie. That would be awesome. And given that there actually is an interesting and lengthy(read: high sequel potential) story behind it, along with transforming bots and aliens, and the fact that Manga is at it's most popular in America right now, it could be Hollywood gold in the right hands.

I'm just sayin'.

-JP

News and Accolades

Well, we just hit the two year mark. I think I have mentioned before, that every two years, Jennifer and I need to totally upend our lives and make some sort of crazy change. Move to Tulsa, move to Stillwater(and have a kid), move back to Tulsa(have another kid), each time with a job change of some sort.
This time is a milder change. We are moving back into midtown, but I'm keeping my job this time. Actually everything else should remain about the same except our gas bill. Everything we do is downtown. Both my jobs, Jackson's school, the church, and all of our friends. Every time we wanted to do anything, it involved a 20-30 minute drive from Glenpool into town. No longer.
The house is a block away from Whiteside Park, where there is an awesome play area, tennis courts, a walking trail, and a free pool. We can walk to the mall, and work is a hop and a skip on the BA.
The house is cute. Full brick. From the 50's. It hasn't really been updated since then, but has been meticulously maintained. A few coats of paint and some new tile here and there, and it will be golden .Three extremely small bedrooms, but two living areas to make up for it. There is a shed and a huge back yard.
The move will be in the middle of August, and I'm still trying to figure out if that will be better or worse than the frigid late January/early February times we usually move.
I think it will be nice to be back in mid town.

In other news:

Attention NY peeps: The TW is sending me and my good friend Brandon Rowland to New york City for a week of ad serving training with Yahoo! inc. I'll be there the last week of July. The days will be full 9-5 with training, but the evenings are mostly free. So if you want to do something, contact me in some way.

Um... that's it.

In which our hero gets a new car.

Finally.
Thanks to a small financial windfall, I am now the proud owner of a 1996 VW Golf. Its black and is a stick-shift has manual everything. No frills, except the sunroof, which I actually quite enjoy.
I'm excited about it. It is zippy and gets way better gas mileage than the gigantic farm truck Jennifer's aunt graciously lent me that I have been driving since my other car blew up.
Happy day!

I took Tuesday off so Jennifer could have a break. She stayed the night at her mother's house in order to get some uninterrupted sleep, and spent the day shopping and generally relaxing.
The boys and I had a great time. I think that with me having two jobs and busy as all get out all the time, they were needing some daddy time. We made scrambled eggs and apples and bananas for breakfast, played some video games, went to the library for story time (along with Grace and Zane), ate some gourmet PB&Js at McAllaster's, went to Jackson's favorite park (along with Grace and Zane), which Joseph slept through, watched WALL-E for the ten billionth time, built a massive train track around the living room, and made Beef Stroganoff from scratch for dinner.
Everybody was well behaved and had a great time.
Every time Joseph asked for mommy, Jackson would say: She took the day off, Joe!

At work, we are switching to a new ad server. Ad serving on our website is one of the many duties that I have. When I first got here, one of the first projects I had was to swap out our really ancient ad server for a way better one. Two years later, we have outgrown even that one and are implementing an even newer one that can do way more. The new one is so involved that I have to go to NYC for a week to get trained on it. Compare this to the last guys who sent us the software and a manual, and told us to call them if we had any problems. The new people are way cooler. And as excited as I am to travel to NYC since I never get to go on business trips, being away from The Fam for a whole week, and sitting through 5 days of all-day training does not sound fun. I do have a lot of friends in the City, so I can probably amuse myself at night, and we were even thinking of having Jenn fly up for a few days so we could hang out at night. So maybe that will work out. Still. Should be fun.

Powers out.

Ira at the Synagogue

So we went and saw Ira Glass speak at the Congregation B’nai Emunah Synagogue on Sunday.
I have to say that it was one of the most interesting nights I've had in a long time. It was part of a new lecture series being put on by the Synagogue called: Talking Heads: Conversations with Interesting People. And the series is aptly named. If I were to make a list of the most interesting people in the world right now, Ira Glass would be in the top 5. He was there to talk about his radio show, and how it is made. But what his talk was really about was how to tell a good story.
Ira was introduced by the Rabbi, who offered a brief biography and some very kind words. Ira came out to thunderous applause from the thousand or so people who turned up to see him. It was a large room, and given that it was this particular speaker in this particular venue, the collective IQ of that room must have been off the charts. He started off by telling that he hadn't spoken in front of a crowd at a Synagogue since his Bar Mitzvah, and that since then, this was the Jeweyist thing he'd ever done. Then he told us that the last time he'd worn that suit was when he'd accepted the Peabody Award on behalf of This American Life, and that he still had a little chocolate version of the medal in his pocket.
On to the show. Armed with his wit and a bank of CD players, he provided for us, live, what can only be described as if This American Life dedicated an entire episode to the inner workings of This American Life, this would be what they would have done. The point of the whole thing was that TAL works because of a certain type of storytelling they employ, which, as Ira told was the result of years and years of experimentation and trial and error. Armed with this new knowledge, he and his staff embarked to spread the word and tell interesting stories that people might just learn something from. A while later, he found himself home for the holidays, sitting in a Synagogue with his family, and as the sermon was being read, he unconsciously began analyzing the structure of the sermon. To his horror, it was the exact same structure that he had come up with on his own, and the same structure that had been in the employ from every pulpit in every religion for 5,000 years. I guess he should have gone to church more.
Ira Glass has become one of the nerd Gods in recent years, and proved his street cred several times over, first by describing a tenacious young girl from one story as "very Buffy, season 3" then again by going on a little rant about how launching Kirk out of the ship and onto an ice planet full of deadly creatures made no sense what so ever. "The Enterprise has jail cells. They used them in almost every episode of the show!" he said.
All in all a great time and the fact that I was in the company of adults who don't need their diaper changed, or their hand held in the parking lot made it all the more enjoyable.

-Powers out.

So we went on vacation...

...and had a pretty good time. We went to Abilene, TX where a good portion of Jenn's family live.
It was a lot of food and a lot of talking and a lot of wondering where Jackson and Joseph had run off to. The kids loved the hotel. We bunked up with Grace and Zane, which was extra fun because we had dueling scream sessions all night. As soon as Zane would finally get to sleep, Joseph would start in. Jackson slept through everything.
On the ride up, somebody told us that the drive would take 8 hours. Because we would have 3 toddlers in the car, we decided to leave at night, and let them sleep through it. So we left about 9:00, figuring that with stops for the potty and food and whatnot, that we'd be there around 6:00 am, and could just go to one of the cousin's houses for breakfast. The problem here is that the drive is actually 6 hours, and I drive fast. So we showed up at 3:00 with nothing to do. We decided to go where you go when there is no place left to go. IHOP. After a pile of eggs and funny face pan-cakes, we decided to call the hotel and see if they would take pity on us, which they did, and let us check in early and get a few hours sleep, which we did.
So. The way back would have to be in the daytime. there was no going around that. I figured we could leave at 9:00, do three hours, stop for lunch and some running around, then the other three hours, putting us home around 5:00, just in time for dinner. Wrong. We had to stop many many more times and for much longer durations because general child craziness, and we didn't roll in until 11:00pm. By that point we were all sick to death of the sight of one another, that we just dumped our stuff in a pile in the garage and went to bed.
Good times.
In other news...
I have gone viral. The animation I made for an interview the paper did with Ira Glass of This American Life fame, has hit the blogs, and made it to Ira's Wikipedea page.
I'm Internet famous.

um... that's about it.

Powers out.

Pop Culture

Star Trek:
So the new Star Trek movie is awesome. I, like a lot of people I know, was iffy on the franchise for a number of reasons. After DS9 ended, Voyager went down hill, and I was unengaged enough by that point from the world of Trek to not take much of an interest in Enterprise. I tried but couldn't make it through season 1.
Also, even though Abrams is a genius, the whole thing had a very Phantom Menace/Superman Returns feel to it. I had a weary optimism.
Then they went and knocked out of the park. Good job. The cast was perfect, the acting on target. The writers deserve kudos for making each character three dimensional and believable. Scotty*, Sulu and Checkov weren't given enough to do, but this story wasn't about them. Hopefully future movies will remedy that.
What this movie got right was something lacking from Trek for 43 years, and lacking from a lot of sci-fi in general.. I don't quite know how to explain it. In the past, every Klingon was a carbon copy of the one standing next him, right down to the outfit. Same with the Romulans, Cardassians, etc... Every race was a stereotype. If an alien race came to Earth, they wouldn't find a whole planet of similar looking people with similar outfits on, who all have the same basic belief system. The writers of this Trek added that element to the alien races in the Trek canon. Even the Vulcans were given depth and breadth, with racism(specism?), ambition and a few new haircuts. The Romulans now have a class system and 4 separate languages. The Orions have slutty sorority girls, though that may be the one that actually extends to the entire race.
This may be a small point, but it opens up infinite possibilities. Suppose not every Klingon wants to die in battle? Suppose some of them want to start a country band? I'm just saying.

The Dollhouse:
A lot of people don't like this show. I like this show. It is so very different from the rest of Joss Wheadon's stuff, but you can still totally tell that it's him. This show should not be cancelled.
A side note: Alan Tudyk is awesome and should really be given a lot more work.

Lost:
I think John IS the Island.


There it is.

-JP


* Pegg was an inspired choice for this role. He's so expressive with his face and with his body movement that once the line does come out, it's more like a punch-line.

Big news from the party boat.

Well, not really big news. Or interesting, really. Nor is it from the party boat.

The news:
1)So Joseph seem to be all better, but has somehow turned into the most accident prone kid ever. I don't really think he all that clumsy or anything, but lately he just seems to be getting knocked around a lot. Yesterday, he was coming over from the couch where Jennifer was sitting, to the chair where I was sitting, and slipped on a copy of Goodnight Moon. He then hit his chin on the coffee table and bit his lip pretty good. Poor guy.

2) Swine flu, Schwine flu. Looks to be about as bad as the bird flu pandemic, which barely left rural China.

3) I started picking up a few shifts at another coffee shop, The Coffee House on Cherry St. The shop is lovely, and they seem like good people. I was hesitant to get back into coffee after so long, but it all came back to me lightening quick. It's easy and I know it by heart and I need to save up for a new car. So come see me. I work nights. Part time. Maybe text me first to see if I'm there. Or not. You should go there anyway, actually. They serve good stuff. The meatloaf sandwich is the poo.

4) They keep cancelling, or are threatening to cancel some really good shows. The ones that make TV tolerable with Idol running around screaming all the time. Chuck, Life, The Unusuals, Castle, Reaper, Kings and several others all might get axed. This in addition to ER, Boston Legal, BSG, and few others ending that were actually supposed to. Seems like fall will be truly all new.
A lot of shows deserve it. I think the world will be a better place when Carlos Mencia no longer has a show.

5) Speaking of... Life on Mars ended after only one season, and I have to say, it had the worst series finale I have ever watched on purpose. (I'm talking to you, Seinfeld!). The original British version was way better, and was way more esoteric. Even the ending had several different possible interpretations. The American version gave us a definite answer, and it sucked. Spoiler: Echoing the "who shot JR? Oh golly nobody because it was all a dream! bullshit, the whole thing was a freaking video game! LAME.

6) We are turning into commune hippies. We have a garden, Jen bakes all our bread now, and she successfully served three children smoothies this morning that contained spinach and cucumber and soy milk. Peace, dude.

7) I find it laughable that after living in Colorado in the '90s and having Blues Traveler crammed down my throat for so long, they now have to play casinos. Bite it, fatty.

8) My computer caught a virus, and destroyed itself. Everything gone. Luckily, most of the family pics were on Flickr or on my work computer. The movies are gone, but I hear you can move music back to the computer from the ipod, so I'll have to mess with that a bit. The shit thing is all the graphics programs that I acquired through "completely legitimate" means. I cannot acquire such programs in such a way now. So I have to save my pennies now, I guess. bummer.

That is all.

-JP

Over a month!

My longest time between posts, and for that I apologize.
What ever has been happening? I haven't had a car in almost two months, and it turns out I don't really need one. I have two colleagues that live close by that I can bum rides off of, and since Jennifer works from home, as it were, she can usually take me to work when I need it. I guess I won't go get a second car until either I can afford one, or it get too irritating to not have one.

Joseph is recovering nicely from having double pneumonia. He isn't healing a quickly as the doctors would like, but he is healing nonetheless. He's been a little dope, but other than that, he's in great spirits. If he hadn't had a fever, we wouldn't have known that anything was wrong.

That's about it. I guess I hadn't posted anything because I haven't been doing anything interesting.

-JP

The Human Torch was denied a bank loan.

Well, since the car fire, not too much has happened. It turns out that we don't really need a second car right now. I was car-pooling with my boss anyhow, and now that Jenn keeps his daughter during the day for a little extra cash, it is even easier to get around without a car.
The fire car was only driven once a week anyway, and was basically taking up space in the driveway and sucking money insuring it. So we're just gonna deal for a while.
...
We toured a private school last week that we decided to try to put Jackson into. As far as private schools go, it's pretty inexpensive because it is fairly new. Hopefully he'll get in. He's very smart if I do say so. I wonder where he got that from.... It wasn't me.
...
I have been doing a lot more Illustration for work, which is cool. They are even comfortable enough with my work to assign it even though they may not use it, which sounds bad but really isn't.
...
I entered a poster contest, but didn't win. :(
...
Did any of you watch the Will Farrell special this week. I think I peed my pants at one point.
...
I think that's it. Happy St. Patrick's day!

-JP

Car on Fire!

This is what is left of my car after it caught on fire this morning. I'm fine as it was a gradual thing and not an explosion.
What happened was: I was driving along and the car died. I couldn't get it started again, so had to push it into the center of the highway. I called Jen, and sat and waited. I noticed some smoke, but I had just had the car worked on twice for two separate fluid leaks, which were dripping onto the exhaust, and the mechanic said that it might take a few days for what was still on the exhaust to burn off. So I didn't think much of it. Then another motorist stopped and said that the grass had caught fire, and i noticed stat a lot more smoke was coming from under the hood. I then decided to call 911. While on the phone with them, a passing cop noticed and stopped. They called the fire department, and for a while until the FD showed up, we just sat there and watched it burn. It got worse and worse, and by the time the firemen showed up, there were 8-10 foot flames and a hell of a lot of smoke. They shut down both sides of the highway because my car was taking up one side, and all the smoke was blocking the other.
The fire moved into the cab, an they had to bust out a window to spray down the inside.
Eventually, they got it under control. A wrecker came and hauled it off, and my father in law, who lives about a mile away from where this all happened, gave me a ride to work.
So everything is fine. The wrecker is going to buy it off me to part out the back end, and I can probably get a new car with my tax return.

So there you have it.

-Jason.

Stolen from Facebook

Here is my list of what I believe to be the 40 (or so) best and/or most important (to me) albums of all time (and sometimes why).
(I'll TRY to do this in chronological order, not the order that they were important to me. I don't know why.)
1977 The Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks
1979 Joy Divison - Unknown Pleasures
1984 Repo Man - Soundtrack (this movie/soundtrack pushed me into my fascination with punk)1985 Weird Al Yankovic - Dare to be Stupid (The first album I ever bought, and the first concert I ever went to.)
1986 The Beastie Boys - License to Ill
1986 Firehose - Ragin', Full On
1987 The Cure - Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
1987 Love and Rockets - Earth Sun Moon (I was the only skater in my middle school with a L&R sticker on my board)
1987 The Pogues - If I Should Fall from Grace with God
1988 The Pixies - Surfer Rosa
1989 The Vandals - When in Rome/Peace Thru Vandalism
1989 Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine (I wore out a cassette and a CD of this album.)
1989 The Cure - Disintigration (I'm pretty sure this was playing when I lost my virginity :P)1988-1995 Everything Wax Trax/Nettwerk/TVT put out (All Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Pigface...*)
1988 Bauhaus - In the Flat Field (reissue)
1990 Peter Murphy - Deep
1990 MC 900 Foot Jesus - Hell with the Lid Off
1990 My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - Confessions of a Knife
1992 Morphine - Good (I met Mark Sandman about 3 weeks before he died while working a festival.)
1992 Tom Waits - Bone Machine
1993 Beastie Boys - Ill Communication
1994 Portishead - Dummy (Memories of drawing comics in St. Marks with Tony Leonard and the crew.)
1994 Blur - Parklife
1994 Dead Can Dance - Toward the Within
1995 PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love
1995 Radiohead - The Bends
1995 Pulp - Different Class
1996 Luna - Penthouse (Luna was one of the first things that Jennifer and I realized we had in common)
1996 16 Horsepower - Sackcloth and Ashes (Other than the Psychedelic Zombies and Foreskin 500, this was one of the few Denver bands I followed.)
1996 Belle & Sebastian - Tigermilk
1997 Radiohead - OK Computer1997 Stereolab - Dots and Loops
1997 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Boatman's Call
1998 Belle And Sebastian - The Boy With The Arab Strap
1999 Built to Spill - Keep It Like a Secret(This album will always remind me of Heather O. and Pandora Jewelry)
1999 Rushmore - Soundtrack
2000 Modest Mouse - Building Nothing out of Something
2000 The Black Heart Procession - 3
2001 The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
2001 Gorillaz - Gorillaz (Where pop music and comics meet)
2002 Interpol - Turn On the Bright Lights(They picked up where Joy Division left off, albeit 20 years later.)
2002 Rilo Kiley - The Execution of All Things
2006 The Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
2007 Kings of Loen - Because of the Times2007 LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
2008 The Ting Tings - We Started Nothing


*After Filth Pig came out, I totally lost interest with both Ministry and the Genre as a whole.

Overheard on the police scanner:

"Black male, mid twenties, wearing a red jersey. He's on crack, standing on the corner exposing his penis to the cars driving by. Apparently, his girlfriend didn't like that, and she's now chasing him down the street with a baseball bat."

Discuss.

A real post. Long overdue.

So I have been posting Internet memes and videos and crap like that for a while, and not telling you anything of substance. Sorry about that.
Well, 2009 is off to an odd start. Following the layoffs at work, I've been given extra duties to help carry the weight. Which is fine, I guess, but since right before the layoffs, they froze wages and raised our health insurance, I basically took a pay cut and am doing a lot more work. But I have a job, and a good one at that, so I can't really complain.* Also, some of my new duties are way better than the old ones. Like the Illustrations.

See Here and Here

So that's cool. Truthfully, since illustration is my actual background, if they want to steer me that way a little more, I'm just fine with that. People around here seem to like what I've been doing, so keeping me around in that capacity is definitely a possibility.
In other news:
Do you guys remember the argument clinic skit on Monty Python? That pretty much sums up our everyday dealings with Jackson these days. Three is definitely the new Two when it comes to pushing boundaries. Anything we say to Jackson is immediately met with contradiction. A friend suggested that we offer choices instead instead of just telling to do something, like do you want to wear this coat or that coat, so that it's hie decision, we get "I don't wanna wear a coat!"
Time outs and the like just make him laugh, and neither of us are willing to use physical punishment, because we both know from experience that it doesn't work. That doesn't mean we don't loose our tempers from time to time. I've wanted to throw him out the window on several occasions, and one night last week, we had to take him to his grandparent's house so we could get a break. He's still a total sweetie, and the awesomest, smartest kid I know, but I sure hope he grows out of this soon.
Jen may start watching a boy almost Jackson's exact age two day a week, so maybe that will distract him a little.
Joseph, on the other hand is being totally awesome. He started really walking in earnest this week, and I am getting a lot more exercise chasing him around the house. He friggin' fast!

Um... That's it.

-JP









*The old punker Jason is screaming inside right now.

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it)

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

RIP #6

Patrick McGoohan has died

Jan 14, 2009, 01:29 PM by Ken Tucker
Categories: '60s mind-blowing, Television
Patrick McGoohan, the man who embodied hope over despair in the coolest way imaginable in the 1960s cult TV classic The Prisoner, has died--he was 80 years old.

The Prisoner was a British TV series that aired in America starting in 1967. Only 17 episodes long, The Prisoner was a strikingly original show about a former British spy who wakes one morning to find himself in a psychedelic fantasy-land that's not all candy and sunshine--it's a combination British village/futuristic prison, and McGoohan's character was stripped of his identity and known only as "Number Six." McGoohan (who'd starred in an earlier spy show, Danger Man, which was titled Secret Agent in the U.S.) had the rugged good looks and clipped accent that leant The Prisoner a gravity its giddy alternate-worldliness might otherwise have lacked. Number Six's famous cry, "I am not a number, I am a free man!" became both a counterculture catchphrase as well as an anguished plea for freedom. The Prisoner was James Bond for acid-heads, and McGoohan's straitlaced image made his small-screen version of a hip spy all the more appealing.
McGoohan also appeared in many films, from Ice Station Zebra to Braveheart, but for TV fans, he'll always be The Prisoner.

I lost 7 lbs in 3 days! Ask me how!

It's called: Debilitating Stomach Virus! Horay!

I woke up Saturday night, I guess actually early Sunday, around 2:00am and started throwing up. Around 4:00 it started coming out of the other end, and this went on until yesterday. I had some pizza last night and that was the first solid food I'd had since dinner Saturday, which I threw up, so it doesn't count. ugh.

Don't worry, I'm fine

Tulsa World announces layoffs of 28 employees

It was a hard day yesterday. Some really awesome people were let go.

-JP

Year in Review 2008

And what a year it has been.

In 2008:

-I turned 33
-Saw a lot of good movies based on comics, and a few not so good ones.
-I obsessively followed the Election, which not only made history several times over, but both renewed my faith in humanity while simoultaniously destroying it.
-I finally got on board with LOST. A friend lent me a copy of season 1, and Jennifer and I couldn't stop watching until the end, to the point where we would cancel plans to watch LOST.
-I put my kids back in daycare, only to take them out again after only 2 months.
-I realized that daycare sucks eggrolls.
-I helped Jennifer nanny for a sweet little girl who later ended up dead under mysterious circumstances. (not because of us)
-I had to deal with an ex-stepfather's death.
-I did not attend his funeral. I sort of... dealt from afar.
-I had to put my cat of 7 years down.
-I only went to Denver once. Sorry, guys.
-I did, however, host many more people in Tulsa than ever before. Thanks, guys.
-I was severely dissapointed by Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas. Again.
-I helped Cody and Grace (seperately) move to Tulsa. YAY!
-I watched a shit ton of weird drama develop around Jennifer's step-brother.
-I watched Jackson Turn 3, and Joseph turn 1.
-I watched Jackson come to terms with actually having a little brother. Well, start to come to terms with it.
-I got really pumped about the 2009 movie schedual, especailly for Watchmen and Star Trek.
-I doodled a lot at work on my desk calendar:

Happy new year, everybody!

-JP