It wasn't this Aquarium

IMG_5602, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

We took a last minute trip to Gatlinburg this past weekend - we left Friday afternoon and came back Sunday. The drive ( 5 hours ) wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the traffic between Sevierville and Gatlinburg.

We stayed at a motel not too far from the aquarium so we were in walking distance from the main strip. Brenden is finally old enough to really enjoy aquariums - he liked the Believe it or Not museum not so much but I always get a cheesy kick out of it. I always end up thinking about that X-Files episode, "Humbug", especially when we pass the Fiji Mermaid exhibit.

Brenden's favorite thing in town however was an arcade that gave tickets for some of the games. On sunday before we left he spent his tickets (that took about $20 to collect) and received a cup full of trinkets worth about 90 cents. He had fun though so I don't really care.

I once read that The Gatlinburg - Pigeon Forge area is considered to be one of the worst places to go on vacation. I dunno, we have fun. And the people - both the residents and tourists - tend to be nice people and even I don't have a hard time talking to them. Brenden made instant friends several times. Photos soon come.

Boy with Kitten

IMG_6123, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

It has been over a year since NBC cancelled Life. This past weekend I got to thinking about it enough to put season 1 in my computer and watch a few episodes. I was going to watch one or two but ended up watching 17. Yeah, I miss it.

I'm still mad at NBC for cancelling this most excellent series in favor of a 5 days a week 10pm Leno show. Much shadenfreude pie was consumed by us fans the day Leno failed. Anyway, Damian Lewis is back in London, doing theater, British movies, and raising his kids, while Sarah Shahi took a couple of years off (raising her kid) and is now in a USA Network show (Facing Kate) which premieres in January. You know, too bad Life wasn't a USA series. That network practically thrives on oddball detective shows.

And for something completely different: I just added a year or so to my stay in Purgatory: About 8pm last night Jon actually said:"Do you think we should put Brenden down now?"

So I replied (to Brenden) "You smell like cheese and your mother dresses you funny."

Brenden yelled "THATS NOT NICE!!" I gave him hugs and kisses and apologies, but I couldn't help myself. I blame Bill Murray, of course.

This pretty well sums it up:

see more Very Demotivational

Happy Talk Drink Like a Pirate Day, Arrr.

Randomly Random Bits

see more Happy Chair Is Happy

I loves me some pareidolia and if you peruse the amusing photos at Happy Chair is Happy you will see faces in objects all day.

I rescued a full-grown box turtle from our pool. He fortunately hadn't been sucked into the whirling vortex of doom but he may have been swimming around in there for a couple of days. He seemed kind of groggy when I set him down in some shade but hey he's a turtle. Ok, a TORTOISE. I know the difference but the general tendency is to call them all turtles. Any way I brought him some romaine leaves but he eventually left without touching them.

I'm not watching anything else on tv these days but I have really come to enjoy Warehouse 13. It's not perfect, but the characters are starting to gel. I also can't help but like a show that not only passes the Beschdel* test consistently, I could swear that "THOU SHALT PASS THE TEST EVERY EPISODE" is inscribed in marble on the floor of the writer's room for that show.


*The Beschdel test is:
1) Is there more than one woman
2) who talk to each other
3) about anything other than men?

Boo boos R Us

Gatorade, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Saturday afternoon Brenden runs up to me and yells "ICE CREAM TRUCK!!" again so I grab some cash and we ran out of the house, only to see the truck turn the corner out of our subdivision. Brenden was inconsolable. I even offered to take him to Dairy Queen, but he didn't want ice cream unless it came from the ice cream truck.

On the hope the truck had driven into the subdivision across the street from ours, we walked over there and followed the truck's jingle to their location. Brenden was happy again. Yay! Disaster averted!

Sunday Brenden managed to both bite his tongue hard enough to draw blood and cut his thumb with a knife. It wasn't a good day. Fortunately I had a spare ice cream sandwich to console him.

Monday Jon, B, and I went over to Lake Guntersville with some friends and boated around. It was nothing much to write about but it was enjoyable. We all went to a seafood restaurant afterwards and Jon and I both saw 'bacon-wrapped jumbo shrimp' on the menu and jumped. It was the worst shrimp I had ever had in my life. What a shame.

Did I mention that I gave myself some serious 2nd degree burns about a week ago? It involved frying some pork chops in smoking-hot bacon grease. I splashed some on my index and middle finger on my left hand. Yes, not much is happening.

We all scream

IMG_5892, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Last night Brenden was helping his dad wash the Jeep while I was getting dinner ready. All of a sudden B bursts into the house yelling "Ice cream truck! ICE CREAM TRUCK! I NEED MONEY!!!"

Well how could I deny him? I went outside and gave Jon some cash. Yes, just before dinner. What about it?

The rest of the night Brenden would occasionally say "the ice cream truck is SO AWESOME!"

We all remember from our childhood that it most certainly is.


I forgot to mention this: 2 weekends ago Brenden and I went to this day camp thing for diabetic children (no, Brenden isn't diabetic, but a friend is). Despite the heat, Brenden had a great time: he played games, rode a horse (I watched from a good distance), paddled a canoe, and he got to fire a real rifle.

It was a .22 caliber single shot something - the rifle was chained down with the muzzle through a ring bolted to a horizontal beam so it could never be pointed any where except down range. The instructor showed Brenden how to pull the bolt back, un-do the safety, and load the ammo and Brenden took to it like a duck to water. At the end of the day the firing range was almost empty so B got to shoot 5 or 6 times (5 bullets each time) and he only hit a target once. I tried to show him how to line up the sights but he didn't catch onto that. The few times I did see where his bullet hit he was 2 or 3 feet high.

I got to shoot once and grouped my shots (except 1) nicely about 2 inches to the right of the bullseye. I could tell I was hitting the target but I couldn't tell where. I need glasses again desperately!

Picture is Unrelated

IMG_4187, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

We just finished watching all the Star Wars movies, in the order that they were made. I'm of the opinion that episodes I, II, and III are decent movies - the good and the bad level out to ok. Like many I think the movies all have fantastic large-scale and small-scale battle scenes (the opening to episode III, the space battle over Coruscant, has good examples of both) intersped with really bad character scenes (every single scene with Padme and Anakin in episode II). Shame on you, Lucas for forgetting why we love IV, V and VI so much - the characters, not the space battles (though they are nifty).

Yeah, I know: George Lucas has had his butt kicked plenty by many an axe-grinding fanboy. Google is your friend if you'd like to subject yourself to the square miles of webspace dedicated to chewing on him. So I will say something nice about Lucas:

Recently an interview with one of the original movie's producers, Gary Kurtz, circulated the inner tubes. He was bitching about how the original story was different from what they originally intended. For instance, Han Solo was supposed to have been killed in the third movie. Some idiots made comments about how that would have made the movie that much cooler. Bullshit. If Solo had died, there would have been a sudden disturbance in the force, like a billion voices crying out in anguish, and Lucas would have spontaneously combusted from all the psychic hate (it's amazing it hasn't happened yet). So there's that. Keeping Solo alive proves Lucas isn't completely insane.

Also: I've said some good things about fan fiction. I also think I linked to this site before: The Darth Side, Darth Vader's blog. No, seriously, this is good stuff! If nothing else, read the very last entry (the first one you will see on the page, it's a blog after all). I promise you will never be able to watch the scenes between Vader and Luke at the end of Return of the Jedi again without getting a little choked. No pun intended.

I for one welcome our new Swedish Overlords

IMG_4186, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

I hope I don't get Dooced for this. I never mention my work because I don't want to be sacked, but I feel compelled to mention that the company I work for has been sold to a Swedish corporation. No, I won't get relocated - we've been assured it will be business as usual.

That remains to be seen, but I'd rather be working for a company that's publicly owned, even overseas, than one that is privately owned by a hedge fund. There's a reason our roofs leak and our computer equipment is 5 years out of date.

I stop now. Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti.

Speaking of Swedes, I saw The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which is an excellent adaptation of the book. I dread the American remake simply because there's nothing wrong with this one whatsoever.

I had a Teaching Moment with Brenden ( no, we didn't let him watch this movie!) when he poked his head out of the computer room once and asked me if Lisbeth, the eponymous character, was a boy or a girl. "She's a girl" I said.
He asked "Why she dressed like a boy?"
I replied "She just likes to dress that way".
He thought about it then said "Is she a boy and a girl?"
I said "No, she's just a girl. Some people like to dress different, that's all. It's no big deal".
He shrugged and said "Ok" and went back to my computer to trash my farm.

I'm reading a new series of books, The Dresden Files, about a modern-day wizard / private detective who solves mysteries in Chicago. They usually involve vampires, werewolves, demons, angels, more wizards, all sorts of faeres, trolls, and ghouls. Classic literature the books aren't but they're bunches of fun. The series has 11 books and counting and the author, Jim Butcher, is on record that he wants the series to span 20 stories including an 'apocalyptic trilogy' to cap everything off, because who doesn't like apocalyptic trilogies?

Stay away from Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin, Jim. Please.

Happy Birthday

IMG_4188, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

My honey hit the big 4-0 today. Happy birthday sweetie! *Muah!*

I got him a jeep. YARLY.

Catboy

IMG_6173, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Brenden's first day of Kindergarden went off without a hitch. He had a smiley face on his calendar, which means he was well behaved. When Devin picked him up from school yesterday, she called me and let B talk to me about his day. I don't remember what he said except he likes his teacher and he was really tired.

Brenden and I have been playing Rabbids Go Home a lot on the Wii lately. Last night we were playing and I told him we had to stop because it was bed time. He begged me to play one more level but I said "no, you have school tomorrow". That just slipped out naturally; Jon and I both thought it was funny.

B, Jon and Nana

B, Jon and Nana, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Brenden is in Kindergarden as I type. No call yet from the teacher so that's something.

Jon received some horrible news this morning: his grandmother, Virginia, died last night. She was in the hospital for the last month - I'm not sure why. The doctors performed exploratory surgery a few days ago and she died from complications.

I feel bad for Jon. Of all his family he seemed closest to her. She had many grandchildren and oodles of greatgrandchildren yet she always remembered cards for our birthdays, including Brenden's. I don't know what else to say except I'm very sorry.

My little guy

IMG_6194, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

I met Brenden's kindergarden teacher Sunday at a meeting at his new school. She seems nice - I hope Brenden likes her. The meeting was a parent orientation meeting and hopelessly boring. Maybe it's just being in a public school setting that makes my eyes glaze over. I hope I never let on to Brenden about my piss poor attitude towards school. I was bored shitless for 12 long years.

Don't confuse my bad attitude with my attitude towards learning. True knowledge and critical thinking are priceless. I learned how to teach myself (all my computer knowledge is self-taught) and I hope I can find a way to show Brenden how. Or maybe he will like sitting in a class 6-7 hours a day, who knows?

Bad attitude aside, after the meeting I got in the car and cried a little. Starting school is a major milestone and I already miss my little guy.

Swingin' into high

IMG_6297, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

I have the next two Star Trek discs but didn't have a chance to watch any. I did enjoy two movie blasts from the past this last weekend, although they aren't really past because plenty of people still watch both movies.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail In high-def on IFC, no less. I first saw it sometime after my 6th grade teacher had talked about it, on late night TV, when CBS did things like show movies instead of talk shows (cut to ribbons, of course. The Castle Anthrax scenes were totally missing). I was in the 6th grade in 1976. The only new thing for me was I had closed captioning on so I was finally able to understand the Knights of the Round Table song in its entirety.

We're Knights of the Round Table.
We dance whene'er we're able.
We do routines and chorus scenes
With footwork impeccable...

Anyway, it's a silly movie.

Star Wars: A New Hope Since Jon and Brenden play the Legos Star Wars game on the Will a bunch, we finally broke out our DVDs for the first three movies. I mean movies 4,5, and 6, which were the ones first filmed. Thanks a pantload, George Lucas, for the confusion.

You might have heard of it: farm kid kisses his sister, badass pirate likes to pet his wookie, and some huge athsmatic dressed head-to-toe in black likes to torture his children. It's a family film.

More Weekend Blasting

Spock and Uhura from Deleted Elaan Scene, originally uploaded by birdofthegalaxy.

I haven't burned my farm down yet but I did watch some of the original Star Trek episodes this last weekend. I watched the first disc Netflix sent me and they are arranged in the order they were shown on TV, which is not the order they were produced.

I won't go into in-depth synopses - you can browse yourself silly at Memory Alpha, a mind-bogglingly complete Star Trek wiki.

So the first episode was The Man Trap. The things I noticed:

- When we first see Uhura, she hits on Spock! Which I don't blame her but she doesn't do much else .(Were Orci and Kurtzman inspired by this scene when they wrote the new movie? I think so).

- Not much plot but maybe it was setting a standard: shape-changing monster on the loose aboard the Enterprise, a couple of blue shirts and a yellow shirt die. No redshirts!

- I did want to hit Yeoman Rand over the head to see if bees would come out of her hairdo.

- We get the first "He's dead Jim". I'd bitch about McCoy's lack of CPR skills but that's been done to death.

- We see Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, and Rand. No Scotty here. Boo!

Charlie X Poor Captain Kirk has to play father figure to the galaxy's biggest space nebbish, an annoying 17 year old boy who was given super powers by an alien race so he could survive. After wishing the spoiled, confused puke death by fire in the end it was kind of sad.

- I still wanted to attack Rand's hairdo with a pair of pruning shears.

- Still no Mr. Scott.

- Shirtless Kirk in red tights (!!!) practicing an unnamed martial art.

- Oh! Spock smiles and plays his vulcan harp while Uhura sings. SRSLY.

- This is Gene Roddenberry's first "God is a Child" script, something he was famous for.

Where No Man Has Gone Before This episode was the first produced, and the second pilot. It featured 2 guest actors I actually recognized: Sally Kellerman and Gary Lockwood (who? He played Poole, the astronaut HAL kills in 2001. Stay out of space, dude!).

- No Uhura or McCoy. Sulu is here though.

- Mr. Scott! Yay! And he was so thin!

- Kirk gets in a fistfight and gets his shirt ripped for the first time.

- He also does his famous "roll on the ground and shoot the bad guy dead" maneuver in the same scene.

- Spock's eyebrows are insane. He fortunately gets them trimmed for future episodes.

So I'm enjoying my trek (ha!) down memory lane. I'm watching the remastered editions so the special effects are way better than I remember them. Fortunately whoever produced the remasters didn't go whole hog so the new effects aren't jarring within context of the old budget-strapped series. It's fun to see everyone so young again, doing the things I remember, but it's also sad because James Doohan and DeForest Kelley are no longer with us. I'm looking forward to my next set of discs so expect some more updates soonish.

A Blast (of Music) from my Past

IMG_4208, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

I'm having a tough time coming up with things to write about. Those of you who are Facebook friends are probably grumbling that if I didn't spend so much damn time on Zynga games I'd have more time to watch movies. Mea Maxima Culpa.

However yesterday at work I was listening to a mix of old 80's tunes on my iTouch, and "No Thugs in Our House" came on. I suddenly had an urge to listen to nothing but XTC.

I only have 2 of their albums, Black Sea (1980) and English Settlement (1982) both of which I consider brilliant. Their sound is hard to describe - It's mostly guitar, bass, and drums (with the occasional odd instrument thrown in), and they wring the most out of their sound. I'd say it's mostly catcy pop tunes with a ska influence( especially Burning with Optimism's Flame, English Roundabout, Living Through Another Cuba), with some downright anthemic tunes nowhere resembling other 80's anthems ( Ball and Chain, No Thugs in Our House, Senses Working Overtime ) with some good poundy drums. I like me some poundy drums. The lyrics can get melancholy, but lean towards sardonic and even sarcastic more than outright anger (pretty much all of their songs).

XTC had earlier and later albums but they didn't stay with me the way these two have. The songs are timeless and could easily have come out a few years ago.

Anyway, one of the hallmarks of the 80's were music videos and the one below was the one that introduced me to XTC and made me go "WTF?"



I hope I can make Blasts from the Past a semi-regular feature. I have a big desire to plow through the original Star Trek series but I need to burn my farm first.

IMG_6396, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

On Nancy's recommendation we went and saw Toy Story 3. Wow, Pixar is getting REAL GOOD at making me cry! And cheer, and laugh. I've only seen it once so it's too early to say, but I think this one is easily as good as the first two and maybe the best of the three. The funny scenes are Pixar-perfect hilarious, but there are truly bleak, horrific, and heartwrenching (and heartwarming) scenes.

Seriously, someone finally broke the 3rd movie curse (remember Godfather III, Superman III, Terminator III, Alien 3, Spiderman 3, Jaws 3 etc etc etc? Some of these movies aren't bad, but none of them hold a candle to their predecessors).

So here Andy is grown up and going to college. He's preserved his favorite toys (Buzz, Woody, Jessie, Bullseye, Hamm, Mr. and Mrs. Potato head, Rex and Slinky Dog) and they spend their days in a trunk pathetically scheming to get Andy to pay attention to them. Andy's mom insists he totally clean out his room and so he has some hard decisions to make when it comes to his toy collection. They all end up at a daycare that isn't all it seems.

I'm not going to spoil it, but here are some random thoughts:

- This installment seems to have more high-octane nightmare fuel, far worse than Sid's room in #1 and the Airport in #2. Between the cymbal monkey and the baby doll I'm going to have bad dreams for a month.

- I *knew* Care Bears are evil! But typical Pixar, the Evil Bad GuyToy's backstory gives a good explanation of why he is the way he is and even makes him sympathetic.

-I never *ever* thought I would say this: Barbie is awesome! Ken is sweet too, if you know what I mean.

I really can't discuss more without spoiling it. I want to see it again right now.

That's my Boy

IMG_5850, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

What I'm watching, What I'm going to See, Maybe

Movies have been a wasteland lately. I can't remember such a yawn-inducing summer.

We watched The Green Zone, a Matt Damon movie about the decided lack of WMDs in Iraq. It was ok. The thing that impressed me most about the movie was Brendan Gleeson's American accent. Oh, and Greg Kinnear could make a career out of playing dicks.

Jon's mom is coming for a week long visit today. I hope Jon and I can sneak away one day and watch a movie while she babysits Brenden - I'm thinking Toy Story III though maybe B can watch that one. I totally admit I want to see the A-Team, too.

I'll eventually end up watching Christopher Nolan's Inception. His Batman movies have been decent, but I still remember how mindbending Memento is.

I commented on Facebook about Bruce Willis' movie, Red, featuring Helen Mirren firing guns plus Willis and Karl Urban beating the shit out of each other. It comes out in October and I'll be there.

But Predators? Despicable Me? The Expendables? I can't decide if these will be must sees or avoid like the plague.

Other than that I can't work up any kind of enthusiasm for anything. The next Star Trek won't be out until 2012.

Pool Party

IMG_5804, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

I'd better update - the weekend before last Nancy, Mark, and Anthony came for a visit. It was good to see them again - I was happy that Nancy wasn't allergied out of the house by 3 cats. Matter of fact Zoe Mal Owen, the black and white kitty, charmed Nancy and purred into her ear for a long time. And Anthony enjoyed the pool! I inflicted an old MST3K on them - The Pod People - which is breathtakingly sucky.

We left Tuesday for a visit with my Dad and Ilu in Oklahoma. Holy crap was it hot! Nonetheless we had plenty to do including 4 wheeling, fishing, swimming in Sardis lake, and eating and more eating (thank you dad and Ilu!). We visited a ranch and Brenden got to pet some horses and colts. I avoided all horse contact.

I'm always amazed at the variety of animals in Oklahoma. We saw baby deer, turtles, frogs, the fish we yanked out of the water, wild turkeys, hawks, vultures, and some I'm forgetting. Oh yeah, bugs. A very kind neighbor of theirs brought Brenden a bag of goodies for his birthday that included a butterfly net and an insect cage so we bughunted and caught all sorts of bugs including some unintentionally. Boy I hate ticks.

I'm still recovering - I developed a cold 2 weeks ago and I'm still plagued by congestion, stuffy head and plugged ears. Photos soon come!

Fish Day

IMG_5577, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

This past Saturday I surprised Brenden by setting up a 2 1/2 gallon aquarium in his bedroom. It's a nice starter system and fairly durable. I had it up and running, complete with gravel and some Spongebob-related decorations. It was all set up execpt for fish. When we did our traditional Saturday grocery run, I let him pick out 2 tiny goldfish at the local Petsmart. He has named them both 'Sandy', which is adorable. I nicknamed them Ben and Hurley just for kicks.

I took Brenden to Dairy Queen for dinner ( I was scoping out birthday cakes) and he played in the enclosed play yard with a little girl who was maybe a year younger than him. I was pleased to see they were playing 'tag' and he didn't run as fast as he could and he let him catch her. He would run after her when he was it and not go all out. He was very disappointed when she left.

Sunday was his birthday day; Jon, Brenden and I picked up Sierra and Andrew and we drove to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga. Brenden is finally old enough to appreciate the aquarium and he loved it. It wasn't that crowded and I'm impressed with how that area looks considering its age (the aquarium is 18 years old). The kids had fun and Brenden needs to work on his quiet voice because he let the entire aquarium know what he was looking at ("WOW LOOK AT THE FISH!").

After we dropped off Sierra and Andrew later that day we opened presents. See the entry below for what that was like.

We held a pool party Monday afternoon after work with the neighbor and her two boys as well as Andrew and his mom (Stacey had vacation bible school). I was amused with how crowded the pool got with 4 boys and 4 adults. We grilled hotdogs and hamburgers and the cake was a Dairy Queen Oreo cookie blizzard cake. YUM.

A Million Parts

A Million Parts, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

I'll blog a bit later about my Precious Snowflake's birthday celebrations, but I wanted to blog this picture. It's a K'NEX rollercoaster and had about a million parts. The K'NEX system is like an ultra-sophisticated tinker-toy set and the directions are surprisingly easy to follow, but *DAMN*.

I put it together Sunday afternoon for Brenden. From now on Jon has to buy Brenden toys within a year or so of the age recommendation or put it together himself.

The cats like nomming on it, curse their fuzzy hides.