Not much news to report – the kittens keep getting bigger and bigger. But you already knew that. A while back I was mentioning that I had yet to get an “after” shot of Taxi to show how much smaller she is. I think I finally got that shot today – observe: … Read more
Once upon a time, back in my radio days, I dramatically announced “My dear friends…”, held out my hand like a Shakespearean soliloquoy was right around the corner about to collide with me, and emitted a massive belch. I thought it was kinda funny, perhaps even a little too calculated for sheer incongruity. It sure brought the room to a halt (yes, there were other people there). … Read more
Sorry, I seem to have fallen off the blogwagon here lately.
One thing I take great pains to not do with my blog – not that I’ve always been able to stick to this and censor myself at just the right times – is bitch and moan about stuff. Sadly, that’s really all I feel like doing lately. I don’t like listening to/reading that sort of thing, and I don’t want to be the guy who decides that everyone else is entitled to listen to him whining. So…I just haven’t said a lot lately, anywhere.
I’ve got a new DVD out, which I’m in the process of writing a semi-technical post about for the 0.8 people who are interested, and I’ve already loaded raw footage into the trusty Avid so I can start editing the next DVD very soon. In and around that, I’m writing, editing and re-writing a book, and getting ready for OVGE this October in Tulsa.
All of this while looking for a job, which has really been the thing that’s had me in a deep blue funk lately. I originally had a big spiel written here, and then remembered that the first part of this post as about not venting uncontrollably in all directions. Oops.
One thing I’m really looking forward to is Evan’s second birthday. It falls on a Saturday this year, and I’m planning a “boys’ day out” to the Tulsa Zoo. Maybe the planetarium if he’s still up for it. I’d like to pick up my dad on the way, but I don’t know what his schedule’s like. I think it’d be neat to get all the Green men in one place…probably at the monkey exhibit, appropriately enough. I’ve never been to a zoo before – talk about a sheltered upbringing – and Evan loooooves animals, so I’ve been looking forward to this to the tune of actually having dreams about it. I just love the look on his face when he’s discovering stuff and figuring it out, and I’m sure this trip will give him plenty of chances to be “wowed.”
Amazing how a trip to someplace two hours away full of animals is becoming the light at the end of the tunnel for me. As long as little E is with me, that’s what makes it a good day.… Read more
Is it possible that my son may not have the experience of channel-surfing at home? That might sound like a crazy idea, but at the very least, we’re giving it a try. After a great deal of deliberation, we’ve decided to have our cable subscription reduced to internet only. No cable TV service at all. Our television “diet” is already pretty slim – what we want to watch, we either get on DVD or we download. Evan’s got a surprisingly hefty DVD collection already, so very little channel-surfing is done on his behalf at the moment.
It’s an entirely reversible decision, of course, and the funny thing is that the customer service rep at Cox lied like a dog until I pointed out that I knew other customers of theirs who had done the same thing (and had also reported that Cox would lie through their teeth about whether or not such a tier of service existed). Such a tier of service does exist – and at $45/month, it’s still plenty profitable for them – but it doesn’t help Cox report that they have X million cable TV subscribers when they negotiate with entities like Viacom, Time Warner or the corporate entities that own local TV stations (who try to put the screws to Cox when negotiating a contract for how much they’ll be paid for the privelege of having those stations carried on the cable). Since the internet-only tier doesn’t benefit Cox much aside from a bit of income, they actively deny its existence.
And then when a nice guy like me adamantly but politely calls them on their BS, they roll out a few lame reasons why you shouldn’t go to that tier: you’ll lose your local stations! It’ll cost you to reinstate TV service! No more breaking news on CNN! And, my personal favorite: you’ll be depriving the world of income accrued by the taxes paid on cable TV service! Holy crap, I’m not doing my economic duty to the state! Off to Room 101 with me.
As long as it has an internet connection, that’s okay. The only real major misgiving I had about dropping cable TV was severe weather coverage…but even there, I’ve got a weather alert radio, and access to the National Weather Service (including warnings and radar) via the ‘net. If the power goes out, there’s plain old radio – in other words, we’re no worse off than before, other than missing out on excited live TV chatter about rotation…which still brings me back to “no worse off than before,” frankly. (Besides which, nearly every local TV station has deals in place to have their live severe weather reports rebroadcast on specific radio stations, if I really need my rotation fix.) And as for local news…well, if you’re not north of the Bobby Hopper Tunnel, you practically already have to turn to the web for that; the TV stations have collectively all but abandoned all points south because of the perception that northwest Arkansas is where the money is.
Never mind not doing my economic duty to the state – I’m not doing what everyone’s expected to do: I’m not propping up the dry, frail skeleton of the pre-broadcast information economy. I’m failing to give a crap about the DTV transition. I’m putting myself in a position to be, more or less, completely bypassed by advertising.
Enough stuff streams, or is freely available, that I don’t think we’ll succumb to the “cut off from the world” effect.
I can think of worse things to give my son than a home where being a couch potato really isn’t a frequent-flyer option.… Read more
How much can go wrong while you’re trying to take a picture of a freakin’ inanimate object on a table? Just ask Olivia.
Look at that face. You know what that face says to me? Wii are not amused. … Read more
I think Benjamin Franklin once said that about beer. Today, I’m saying it about this yummy discovery:
Hopefully I’ll have some other good news to report soon too. Keep your fingers crossed.… Read more
[nocrosspost]This is a song that always kinda got me “right there,” and unusually, it gets me “right there” more and more as time passes.
[/nocrosspost]… Read more
As I sit here, mini-waffles (and a few little graham crackers) are being consumed, stories have been read, itchy butts have been cleaned, and all is well. … Read more
A little update from the plague house: my diagnosis was a nasty sinus infection …plus strep throat. This basically translates to “get the toddler and anyone else who isn’t a cat way the hell away from me.” The “alpha site” has turned out to be the in-laws’ place, so I’m sitting here with Olivia and Oberon, with occasional visits from the dog during bad weather. Supposedly we get a break from that weather over the next week – a pity I don’t feel like getting back out there and tackling the lawn (on the other hand, when I still have no appetite and my body temperature fluctuates between freezing and a brain-boiling near-104-degree fever, I’m not sure how trying to mow could actually significantly increase my physical discomfort).
For some reason I’m totally jonesing for Dr. Pepper right now. Not sugar free, not caffiene free, just good old Dr. Pepper, that same stuff that’s two molecular bonds away from being antifreeze. It’s the only thing that tastes “right” to me right now.
I really miss my kid, but I understand he’s having a blast at his grandparents’ place, and can already call all of their kitties by name (and they have twice as many kitties as we do here, and many more doggies!). He’s being a little angel over there. But I’ll be more than happy to have him back over here.
I completely skipped one week’s worth of update on theLogBook this week because I’ve been going around and hack-proofing – to the best of my ability – the various WordPress installs that make up the site. I’ve really about had it up to here with the explots and script hacks – I keep my WP isntalls up to date, but sometimes it just seems to have the security coverage of a mesh shirt from the ’70s. WordPress is becoming common/popular enough to be the de facto hack magnet – a position shared by phpBB and Windows/Internet Explorer. I’m not sure I’m crazy about that. I spent most of last night un-junking Phil’s 365 Films A Year blog after getting a Google warning about it via e-mail, and most of that “most of last night” was trying to unbreak the damage I did trying to fix it. :embarrassed: (Sorry, Phil.)
I’ll see if I can get it back in gear for an update on time this week. It seems like any time I put my foot down and say “this is the month where theLogBook.com is going to start kicking ass again” is precisely when it manages to avoid happening at all costs.
Back to the doctor’s office: my wife got us both in for appointments at a new doctor’s office, and apparently we’ve both been thinking the same thing without discussing it: we need a new “doctor of record.” With no disrespect intended toward the doctor we have been seeing for the past 2-3 years, because it’s someone who has put in their time over the years, but it seemed increasingly as though our old doctor was more interested in the golf course of late. Appointments were hard to get, and sometimes, it seemed, only begrudgingly given. This is why I’d been avoiding seeing that doctor for the past year-and-a-half and going instead to a walk-in clinic where one of the staff doctors is one of my best friends from elementary school (!). So finally it seems that we’re looking at this place as the new home base for medical needs…which suits me just fine, because the nurses are just hellaciously cute. Even the one who gave me shots in my butt, including one with a huge needle that was left in for so long that I thought she was drilling for core samples of ancient Antarctic ass-tundra or something. (But I kid – I’m sure having to stick needles in my fat butt was hardly the highlight of her day.)
Anyway, I’m on a whole cocktail of meds right now, including, for the first time in my life, an inhaler. I’m feeling kind of woozy, but a little bit better. I found out very early on that taking all of the meds right on top of each other was a very bad idea – we’re talking hearing-the-soundtrack-from-Heavy-Metal-inside-your-brain, effed-up bad idea. (And no, it didn’t work like “cheesing” on that South Park episode, else I’d be taking the meds like that all the time!)
That’s all I have to report. I have to go break up a fight between the only other two living creatures in the house. Bye bye.… Read more
This explains how my head feels:
I’ve got a hellaciously nasty “machine gun cough” that kicks in at random, even if I’m asleep, and keeps going until I can get control, or until I start to black out. Either way, my head hurts like hell afterward. Evan spent several nights over at his grandparents’ house (being a perfectly behaved angel if their reports are to be believed) because my wife and I both have this and it is not pleasant. I’m going to the doctor tomorrow to get this looked out – we’ll see what it is, if there’s a cure, or if they’re just going to put me down because it’s the humane thing to do.
I hate feeling like this. Ugh.… Read more