Message To My Loved Ones

This battle to get Anna Nicole’s body buried is really getting ridiculous.

I’ve said this many times to many people, but now I’m going to write it down. I’m not sure how official a blog is, but if I’m gone at least this will be here in case there’s some sort of battle over what to do with my body.

First of all, take anything useful from it and donate it to medicine. If there’s anything left after that, and with all the crap that’s going on with me, I’m sure they’ll be plenty that they won't want, do not bury or entomb it. I’m a firm believer that the dead are taking up too much space on this earth and I don’t want to be contributing to that.

Other than that, I don’t give a flying fuck what you do with it, I’m done with it and I don’t need it anymore. You can burn it and let the ashes blow away in the wind, or keep them in an urn on your mantelpiece if you so desire (although, personally I think that's kind of creepy), or if it’s easier, you can leave it in the dumpster behind the convenience store down the street from my house.

Bridge To Terabithia

Yesterday I took Kyla to see this movie, and I walked out of the theatre with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

My advice to anyone who is planning on seeing this movie is, “DON’T”, at least not if you're expecting to see another version of "The Chronicles of Narnia". If you are not planning on heeding my advice, then I warn you not to read any further until after you have seen it, but I highly recommend that you take my advice and read what I’m about to say.

***SPOILERS***

I did not know much about this movie going in, only what I had seen from the trailer, and from that, I was under the impression that it was going to be another “Narnia” type movie where a couple of kids find their way into a fantasy land and have an adventure.

Why did I think this? Because that’s how it was being promoted. Turns out, that not only is this not what the movie is about, but apparently even the filmmakers were unhappy with the advertising campaign being misleading.

This movie is not about a couple of kids who find a fantasy land outside their back door and have an adventure, instead it is about a couple of kids who imagine a fantasy land outside their back door and pretend to have an adventure. That’s right, the place isn’t real, it’s all in their imagination.

The thing is, this isn’t even what I have the problem with. It was definitely a big letdown to me because I was mislead into believing that I was going to see a movie about one thing and in fact it was something else entirely, but I was actually willing to forgive this, and might have been able to enjoy the movie for what it actually was, if it weren’t for one other fact, the girl dies. That’s right, the cute little girl with the infectious smile and overactive imagination is killed about 2/3’s of the way into the movie, and the movie then shifts from being a movie about 2 kids and how they deal with the problems of normal life by making up a fantasy play land, to one kid learning how to grieve over another kids death, and then learning how to be a better person by learning from the life that she lived and by keeping her memory alive.

The movie is supposed to end on an inspiring note as the other kid does indeed keep her memory alive and brings his little sister into the fold, and the two of them continue to play in the imaginary land of Terabithia, but I did not feel good at the end of this movie.

To me it was gut-wrenching and as I have already stated, I walked out of the theatre with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and a haunting emptiness that lasted all day.

Maybe it’s just me, I don’t know, but with all of the terrible things that go on in this world today, I don’t want to see a movie that involves the tragic death of a10 year old girl. That’s not my type of entertainment. Or at the very least, I want to know going into it that this is not going to be the feel good movie it is being portrayed as.

Hey don’t get me wrong, I love stories that have shocking twists to them, in fact they are probably my favorite types of stories, and a lot of times the best ones are the ones where you’re not expecting anything shocking to happen.

But this is a kid’s story, and I don’t expect to see something like this happen in one of those stories, at least not in a story that I am assuming is safe to bring my 6 year old daughter to.

Sure Kyla’s seen death in movies before. She’s seen and loves all of the Harry Potter movies, The Chronicles of Narnia, Charlotte’s Web, and others, but none of the deaths in any of those movies had the same affect as this one.

The strange thing is, it didn’t seem to bother Kyla at all. As soon as we got out of the theatre she did what she always does after we see a movie and said, “Can we get the DVD?” When Penny asked her if she felt sad, she said no, and we didn’t really pursue it after that, so it doesn’t seem to have affected her at all; which is fine, but it sure had an affect on me.

Finally I want to say that I know that there are probably a lot of people out there who read this book and are going to defend both the book and the film by saying that the book is a masterpiece of great writing and study of human emotion and the film stayed true to it. And that I should be looking at this story for what it is and not what I was led to believe it was going to be.

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. And maybe it is a great study of human emotion, but I don't care, because I did not go to the theatre to see that kind of movie, I went to see a fantasy movie, and I came out of the theatre feeling about as depressed as I ever had in my life.

Monkey Business

What is the deal with the “man in the yellow hat” from Curious George? He seems kind of creepy to me. This guy lives in the city, yet he's always dressed in a safari outfit, and not just a safari outfit but a bright yellow safari outfit.

He doesn’t seem to have any friends, except for a baby monkey that he seems to have stolen out of the wild and is now keeping illegally while trying to pass him off as a child, and strangely enough, he seems to be successful at it. He uses the monkey as a personal slave and who knows what else he’s doing with it. I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.

What I do know is that this is the type of character that I would not let anywhere near my daughter.

Sonorous

In an attempt to expand my limited vocabulary, I have signed up for the email word of the day on dictionary.com.
I probably won’t remember 90% of what I learn, but I figure if they just keep throwing it at me, some of it might stick.

Today’s word is:

sonorous \suh-NOR-uhs; SAH-nuh-rus\, adjective:

1. Giving sound when struck; resonant; as, sonorous metals.

2. Loud-sounding; giving a clear or loud sound; as, a sonorous voice.

3. Yielding sound; characterized by sound; as, the vowels are sonorous.

4. Impressive in sound; high-sounding.

I will now attempt to use it in a sentence.

All were silent as they listened to the sonorous voice of Patrick Henry complete the speech that would make history with the famous words, "give me liberty, or give me death".

Signs That Annoy Me

There’s a sign above the sink in the cafeteria of my office building that says, “please do not throw food in the sink, as it will cause the sink to clog.” I’m not annoyed by the sign itself, but I am annoyed by the fact that there are people in this world who are ignorant enough to cause a sign like that to be put up.

6 More Signs That Spring Is Coming Soon

There are many signs in the month of February that spring is on its way. It starts with Ground Hog Day early in the month. As the month progresses, the days grow longer, for me that means no longer driving to work in the dark.

Also for me, and many other Sox fans, there is the day the equipment truck leaves for Florida, followed a few days later by pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training (I think even most non-baseball fans know what it means when they hear the term “pitchers and catchers”.

And for me, here’s another one:

6 baseball articles in the Boston Sunday Globe.

Shrink Ray Breasts

I like to check the stat tracker on my blog once in a while to see who visited it and what brought them here. One of the items I can check is what key word searches were used to find my blog.

One of the more recent ones was “shrink ray breasts”. On the Google search result page, my blog was the 3rd one down. I mentioned the phrase “shrink ray” in one entry and the word breasts in a completely different entry (probably more than one). I also noticed that on the first page of the search results, all 10 web sites were similar in that the words shrink ray and breasts are mentioned separately.

It has me wondering, just what was this person looking for when he decided to Google the phrase “shrink ray breasts”?

Also, if I was going to have a pair of breasts that I could use as a weapon, I think that I would rather have a pair that shot a death ray, or at least a stun ray. Of course, X-ray breasts would be a hell of a lot of fun too.

Goodbye Old Friends

Variety may be the spice of life, but too much spice can cause indigestion.

Over the past year and some change, since I’ve had my iPod, my music collection has grown significantly; I currently have close to 7,000 songs on it. In general, as has been mentioned here before, I like to just let it play randomly, so I never know what’s going to come up next.

In theory it would be like having my own personal radio station tailored just for me, with no DJ’s talking over the music and no commercials, just song after song of music I like and want to hear.

Recently, I have discovered a hole in this theory, that being that songs keep popping up on my iPod that I don’t actually like. You wonder; how can that be? It’s my iPod, why would I put songs on it that I don’t like.

Well, the answer is very simple; and pretty obvious once you hear it explained. You see, I’ve been collecting music now for over 25 years, starting with vinyl albums and cassette tapes and moving on to CD’s. Back then, when I bought one of the above, I pretty much put it into my player and let it play.

If there was a song that I really despised, I would just skip over it, but for the most part I just listened to the entire album, and songs that I wasn’t sure of eventually just grew on me.

I think that there were 2 main reasons for this:

1. I liked the artist so I gave everything a chance.
2. Like most people, I want variety. I get bored hearing the same stuff over and over again, and back then, there wasn’t as much music so there weren’t as many options, and it wasn’t as easy to acquire all of those options as it is now.

So, I bought what I could afford to buy and continued to listen to it a lot. As the collection grew, so did the variety, but it never seemed to get to a point where I had so many options that I didn’t want to hear things that I was listening to. That is, until now.

Without getting into all of the math, I estimate that with the amount of time I spend listening to my iPod, and the amount of music I have on it, I am only going to hear each song about 3-4 times per year. Back when I was a teenager, I was hearing the same songs 3-4 times per week, and even more with the popular songs that were being played on the radio. It was to a point where I knew almost every word to almost every song I listened to and not only knew what album it was from, but what position it was at on the album.

With the amount of music I have now (and growing), I don’t ever expect to become that familiar with the new music I add, but I would still like to get to a point where, when I hear the song, I know the name of it and who’s doing it. At the rate I’m going now, that may never happen; which brings me back to the topic of songs coming up on my iPod that I don’t like. You see, I have music on my iPod that I have been listening to for years, even decades for some of it. These are songs that I was listening to back when I wanted as much variety as possible but did not have as much as I wanted.

And now that I do have that variety, these are also songs that I am realizing I no longer like, or quite possibly, never even really liked to begin with. Now that I have thousands of songs on my iPod that I’ve only heard a handful of times, and will only hear another handful of times in each coming year, I no longer have (or more accurately want to spend the) time to listen to the familiar songs of my youth that I probably never really liked to begin with, but only listened to because they were there, and as these songs come up on my iPod I am deleting them.

So, as I continue to expand my music collection and to say hello to all of the new and exciting options that are out there, sadly, at the same time I am saying goodbye to many old familiar friends that have been with me for up to 2/3 of my lifetime, but will now be removed from my life forever.

Winter Driving

I understand that there’s a major nor’easter going on out there right now and that you need to drive a little differently during storms like this.

But there’s a difference between the “being cautious” kind of driving and the “stay the fuck home because you have no fucking clue how to drive in this kind of weather, or better yet, move to Florida” kind of driving.

Crash Davis For President?

This morning Mitt Romney made his announcement that he will run for President. I saw a clip from an excerpt of his speech in which he stated the following:

"I believe in God and I believe that every person in this great country, and every person on this grand planet, is a child of God. We are all sisters and brothers.

"I believe the family is the foundation of America – and that we must fight to protect and strengthen it.

"I believe in the sanctity of human life.

"I believe that people and their elected representatives should make our laws, not unelected judges.

"I believe we are overtaxed and government is overfed. Washington is spending too much money.

"I believe that homeland security begins with securing our borders.

"I believe the best days of this country are ahead of us, because…

"I believe in America!

As I was watching this, I half expected him to end it by saying “goodnight” and turning around and walking off the stage as the camera panned to Susan Sarandon breathlessly sighing, “oh my”, as was the scene in Bull Durham after Crash Davis made this speech:

“I believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman’s back, the hangin’ curve ball, high fiber, good scotch; that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap.

“I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

“I believe there oughtta be a constitutional amendment outlawing astro-turf and the designated hitter.

“I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve, and…

“I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last 3 days.

Goodnight.

Truck Day

For as long as I can remember, that day in February when the Red Sox equipment truck leaves Fenway Park to begin the 1,500 mile, 3-day journey down to Florida has been a special day. To me it always marks the beginning of a new Sox season, as well as a new baseball season, and it means that spring is right around the corner, a lot of things to get excited about.

“Truck Day” has always been a big deal to me, and now it’s just a big deal. Before, you always new that the truck would be leaving Fenway a few days before pitchers and catchers were scheduled to report, and if you somehow managed to forget, there was always a note in the local paper or the local news broadcast to remind you that the truck was leaving.

Now “Truck Day” is all the rage. There is an official press release noting the time and point of departure. The truck is accompanied by a procession of Red Sox ambassadors including “Wally The Green Monster” as it makes it’s way down Van Ness Street. It even has it’s own name now, “Truck Day”; before it was just the day the Red Sox equipment truck left Fenway Park for Florida.

I admit I’m slightly annoyed. Back when the Nation was more like a state, the day the Sox equipment truck headed down to Florida came and went with very little fanfare and only the “die hards” even knew it had occurred. Now in the “New Nation”, where membership costs $15 annually, it has become a big production and is being celebrated by people who have no idea of it’s history. I feel like something has been taken away from me.

Don’t get me wrong, for the most part, I’m very happy with what John Henry, Tom Werner, Larry Luchino, Dr. Charles Steinberg, and everyone else has done with the team and the ballpark. Sure I’d like to see this team win a World Championship without spending the kind of money that was spent on the Big Dig mishap, I’d like to be able to get into Fenway Park a few times a year to catch a game without having to give up a limb, or my first born, and I’d like to be able to know that, when I see someone wearing a Red Sox hat, they can tell me that Jerry Remy was an All-Star second baseman for the Sox (they don’t even have to know that he spent his first 3 seasons with the Angels) before he became the legendary RemDawg; but I’ve come to the realization that this is the way it’s going to be, and I can live with it. I’d much rather take this, then be a Kansas City Royals fan.

So tomorrow is “Truck Day”; it is no longer the day the equipment truck left the city, or whatever similar term you want to use to describe it. It has an official name and it is now officially celebrated in Red Sox Nation.

I’m a little saddened by this; however, having said that, it still won’t prevent me from being as giddy as a little kid on Christmas Eve.

Hey, That's My Flag And You Can't Have It!

Penny, Kyla, and I watched from the kitchen window this morning as this little thief tried to make off with our American Flag. After a long, hard struggle that lasted for about 20 minutes, he finally gave up and left it.

iPod Combos

While perusing the list of artists on my iPod, I realized that when I let it randomly select songs (which is most of the time), the possibility exists for any of the following combinations of artists to play back to back:

Alice In Chains/Gary U.S. Bonds
The Allman Brothers Band/Cherry Poppin’ Daddies
An Emotional Fish/The Psychedelic Furs
Audioslave/Barefoot Servants
B.B. King/ZZ Top
The Beach Boys/Great White
Bill Haley & His Comets/The Georgia Satellites
Blues Traveler/Journey
Boston/Chicago
Bush/Robert Plant
The Cars/The Derek Trucks Band
Cheap Trick/ The Dirty Dozen Brass Band
Chuck Berry/Fiona Apple
Cowboy Junkies/Men Without Hats
Def Leppard/Screamin’ Cheetah Wheelies
Dire Straits/Nirvana
Duke Ellington/Earle Hagan
Howlin’ Wolf/Screaming Trees
Little Feat/Big Country
Muddy Waters/Puddle Of Mudd
Our Lady Peace/Violent Femmes
The Outfield/Yaz
Peter Wolf/Los Lobos
The Presidents Of The United States Of America/Queens Of The Stoneage
Queen/King Oliver
Rush/Hinder
Social Distortion/Everclear
Soundgarden/Hothouse Flowers
Stray Cats/Temple Of The Dog
Vince Guaraldi Trio/Bobby Fuller Four
XTC/INXS
Yes/Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Super Blunder? Or Maybe Not

This past Sunday it cost a company 2.4 million dollars for a 30 second ad spot during the Super Bowl. Yesterday, Turner Broadcasting reached a 2 million dollar settlement with the cities of Boston and Somerville and the state of Massachusetts. Add in the $300.00 a piece they were supposed to pay the two guys they hired to put up the signs, the cost of the signs, legal fees, and whatever they paid people to put up the signs in other cities, and the total cost might get up to 2.4 million, maybe even a little higher.

Let's see, you could spend 2.4 million dollars for a 30 second advertising slot in a time and place where people’s attention is already diverted by the main event, they are also getting barraged by dozens of other 30 second ads, many of them will miss your ad as they use the break to take a pee, and many of them are probably going to be too hammered to remember half of them anyway.

Or you could spend somewhere around that same amount to gain an entire week of national media attention to the product you are trying to advertise.

I would say that Interference Inc. got a lot more for their clients money than any other marketing companies who were hired to do Super Bowl ads.

Looks like a brilliant marketing strategy to me.

Super Creep

While watching the Superbowl last night, I came to the realization about something that I think I’ve always known:

Prince is a creepy guy.

You Can Not Drive A Toy Car

Why is it that whenever there is a movie that involves little people, one or more of them always gets into a toy car and starts driving it around like it was real?

Look, I know that you have to have a certain suspension of disbelief when you’re watching these fantasy movies, and I do. I believe that a shrink ray could be invented and really work on people, I believe that somewhere out there, there could be a talking mouse who acts like a human being, I believe that it’s possible for all of the wax figures, including the miniatures, to come to life at night when the museum is closed; but once you put one of those people, or mice, into a toy car and have them start driving it around, I’m sorry, but that’s where you lose me.

This is a toy, it does not have a working stearing wheel, gas pedal, brake, or engine. Sometimes they're radio controlled but that only means that it is controlled by radio waives from a remote device of some kind. I don’t give a crap how fucking small you are, it is physically impossible to drive the damn car.

So, if you want me to believe that somewhere in this world there is a tribe of people that are so small they are referred to as "The Invisibles", or that action figures and other toys are really alive but only do their thing when humans aren’t around, then fine, I’m game, doesn’t sound all that far fetched to me, but please, please, please, keep them out of the toy cars, because once you go there, that’s it for me, I’m out, give me my money back and find someone else to watch your story.

Gottcha

Note: this is not a baseball story.

So Theo Epstein got married recently and Theo’s dad Leslie pulled a fast one on the media and an entire Nation. You can read the article here, but basically what it comes down to is that Theo, as is his right, wanted to keep it as private as possible, but the ever meddling media thought they were getting some inside information when they got his dad to talk.

Leslie Epstein basically told Boston Globes baseball writer extraordinaire Gordon Edes in an email that Theo and his new wife were married at a hot dog stand at Coney Island by an orthodox Rabbi; and Edes took the bait, hook, line, and sinker. Before long the news was all over town and all over Red Sox Nation and no one, it seems ever once considered that it was a joke, Leslie Epstein relayed the news rather convincingly.

In the article I linked to above, you’ll notice that Leslie Epstein apologized for it. What is he apologizing for? I say good for him for giving the media exactly what they deserve. I do feel a little bad for Gordon Edes because I think that he’s a great baseball writer who has a lot of integrity and is well respected in the game, but in his attempt to get a scoop here, he probably acted a little too hastily and really should have verified with Mr. Epstein about how serious he was.

But the truth is that Edes isn’t going to take much of a hit here because once the word got out, every other media outlet in New England jumped on it. Edes probably learned a valuable lesson here and I doubt it’s going to affect his credibility much, but it was really nice to see the rest of the media take the pie in the face like they did.

This is part of what’s wrong with this country, too many people are way to interested in what celebrities are doing in their lives and are not concerned enough with what’s going on in their own lives. It disgusts me at how many rags, tabloids, and TV shows are out there making money on this stuff. If people cared as much about their own lives as they did about some of these people’s then maybe there wouldn’t be as many fuckups as there are.

So Leslie Epstein I salute you, nice job. You have nothing to apologize for and if you can get away with pulling off a stunt like that then I say more power to you.

Songs From My iPod

Information Age- Institute

Institute could also be called “Bush Continued”, because Bush was basically Gavin Rossdale and Institute is a continuation of what he would have been doing had Bush stayed together.

Juke Box Hero- Foreigner

You love it too, you know you do.

Hole In My Pocket- Sheryl Crow

I dig Sheryl Crow. I dig most of her music too, and I’m not afraid to admit it.

Do You Think That’s Fair- John Mellencamp

An oldie from Mellencamp, back when he was Cougar

Dead Flowers- The Rolling Stones

The Stones fucking rock, although this is more countryish

People Who Died- Jim Carroll

A list of dead people on a list of songs from my iPod

Texas Flood- Stevie Ray Vaughan

Blues at it’s best

Bankrobber- The Clash

I’m not a big fan of reggie, but for some reason when it’s done by The Clash it’s okay

You Part The Waters- Cake

I love Cake, ice cream cake and chocolate cake are 2 of my favorites, but my most favorite of all is John McCrea’s Cake