Say Cheese

Geese, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Speaking of The Stand, the Sci-FI channel is re-running the miniseries as I type. It's a boring scene right now, so I thought I'd make some useless comments:

1) The miniseries is quite faithful to the book, and therefore suffers the book's same problems. Namely, the first part of the book is total kickass horror as most of humanity gets offed by Captain Trips, and the second part has some adrenaline spillover so it's pretty interesting as the survivors try to hang on then band together as they start realizing they share the same dreams / nightmares.

But then the third part is pretty DAMN BORING as we wait for SOMETHING, ANYTHING to happen! The Ad-Hoc ruling committee of Boulder, Colorado just isn't that scary. The fourth part picks up the pace but it ends with a mighty WHAT? when God shows up to put the smackdown on the walkin dude and also destroys some pretty interesting characters in the process.

2) The miniseries opens with Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper". Just like for the generation behind me finds it impossible to listen to the William Tell Overture without yelling "HI-YO SILVER!", it is impossible for the generation in front of me to hear that B.O.C . song and not yell "NEEDS MORE COWBELL!". My g-g-generation, we do both.

3) The Guy who plays Tom Cullen, Bill Fagerbakke, has a very familiar voice. I was in the middle of the third installment when I realized he does the voice of Patrick Starfish. M-O-O-N, that spells YORGYSHMORGIES!

Sorry. Brenden is spending the night with Jon and I'm a little stir-crazy.

unrelated bits

Santiago, Chile, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Jon is away on business(in of all places, Santiago, Chile) this week. Guess where he gets to go in December: Milan, Italy! The most exotic place I've been to on business is Edmonton, Canada, eh. Anyway we talked to John yesterday after he arrived via Skype. Brenden was really thrilled that Jon was talking through the computer. B is making more sense when he talks, but he still doesn't get that no one can see him when he's talking on the phone so I have to interpret.

Before he left, we watched Kung Fu Panda which was cute. That's it, that's the total review. Nothing to see here, move along.

I finally, finally finished Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle, his trilogy that takes place in the late 1600's - early 1700's. All I'll say the last third of the last book I was really getting impatient and was speed-reading (which consists of scanning the first sentence of a paragraph - is it a description? SHEESH! Move onto next paragraph & repeat). I don't care how much you like your characters, 300 pages is too long to try to have anyone executed.

I should tell the worm & rubber mallet story for Helly: While working in the yard I usually give Brenden an earthworm or two to investigate to keep him out of trouble - I know you can sense problems with this story already - but one day a few weeks ago I let him take a rubber mallet out of his dad's toolbox so he could pound acorns littering our driveway. While he was pounding away, I was digging up a shrub and I said "Oh, look, a worm!" Brenden came over, picked it up and I stupidly didn't put 2 + 2 together until I heard the "WHACK".

Quality Time

Quality Time, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Of all things, I watched Airplane II last night. I laughed more from it's creaky lameness than I did the jokes (although I don't think I'll ever be over Macho Grande). It's also sad because of all the dead people in the cast: Raymond Burr, Chuck Connors, Lloyd Bridges, Richard Jaeckel, Sonny Bono, and John Vernon. I'm sure I missed some. But hell, the movie was made in 82. And of all things, it passes the Beschdel Test! Sheesh, if this stupid-assed movie can pass, everything else should.

Also:

Brenden and I had an earnest talk about my breast cancer last night. While he was sitting on the pot taking care of business, he pointed at my chest and said "Mama boo boo?"

To which I thought "Oh, great! The boy has 'boo-boo' and 'boobies' mixed up! Nice job of screwing up your son, there!"

But what I said was "mama had a boo-boo on her chest but it's all better now."

"Mama go doctor?"

"Yes, honey - I had a boo-boo but the doctor fixed it."

"Doctor fix boo boo."

Then all of a sudden he looked down and said "Poo poo yucky!" and that was the end of that conversation.

Laughed until I hacked up a lung department:


more animals

A Little More Life

NUP_131459_0131, originally uploaded by davidouss.

Good news for me and my viewing habits:

NBC moved Life away from the slot-of-death (Fridays 10pm EST) to a more tolerable timeslot (Wednesdays 9pm) and the ratings improved a little. Then I read this morning NBC decided to renew Life for the full season so I am quite happy today.

Yeah it's a standard police procedural but even the guest stars get a chance to be vivid, interesting, and sympathetic (mostly. There have been some dog episodes but I can think of some rotten Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Battlestar Galactica episodes).

To illustrate, I've been watching CSI:NY reruns on Spike for a couple of weeks now, but its totally not that interesting. I've adored Gary Sinise since The Stand became a miniseries and I like his character but he's basically flailing about by himself out there.

Damian Lewis is an amazingly versatile actor (no, I'm not prejudiced - watch an episode of Band of Brothers and then an episode of The Forsyte Saga and I promise your brain will blow up real good), and fortunately is surrounded in this series by talent. I miss the hell out of Robin Wiegert, but Sarah Shahi, Adam Arkin, Donal Logue, and Brent Sexton are good actors who are fun to watch on this show.

So thanks, NBC, for making my weekend! \o/ \o/ \o/ \o/

Avast, Mommy!

Avast, Mommy!, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Brenden rightly thinks that Halloween is the Best Day Ever - he got to wear his pirate costume to preschool and he kept it on until I took him out to trick or treat. A friend called up and wanted to bring his two kids over to canvas our neighborhood because they live in a more rural section of town. So Brenden, Andrew, and Sierra took off together and had the best time extorting candy from willing adults. JK and I were able to hang back and keep an eye on the three of them while they ran around like maniacs.

After the neighborhood was sucessfully plundered I was surprised at how easy it was to get B back into the house. I hurriedly turned the porch light on and opened the front door and hoped we'd get some trick or treaters because I had a honking sack of candy I didn't want in the house. To my surprise and delight, Brenden wanted to give candy out to the kids who came by. It was so sweet! When I was a little kid I'm sure I would have plotted to hoard the candy instead of giving it away.

I closed the door at 8:30 and Brenden had a truly awe-inspiring meltdown. He DID. NOT. WANT. Halloween to end! It took a while but I finally got him calmed down.

Early Saturday Brenden and I drove over to Athens, Georgia, to visit Nancy, Mark and Anthony. Brenden and Anthony got along well, which was great considering B is 2 years younger than A. I enjoyed talking with my old friends but I was somewhat zombiefied by not getting enough sleep the night before. I woke up Sunday with a massive migraine but fortunately I came prepared with my newly prescribed Trexamet so that turned into nothing.

On our way back I stopped at a McDonald's for lunch and it had a play area for kids. Brenden befriended a little boy about 2 years older than him and they played keepaway from the little boy's 2 older sisters. What would happen is the two of them would run up to the sisters, giggle and scream, then run and hide. The two sisters would roll their eyes at each other and continue playing together and ignore the boys. That was our weekend.