i do not expect to win mom of the year. this was totally scarey…and thought i was going to thrown up…and still do.
while emptying groceries the other day, ella was being fussy. (due to the fact that it was nap time and i was trying to get the groceries away.) so like any mom i pick her up and lug her around while putting things away.
well while throwing things in the refrigerator ella reaches for our christmas card on the door. awesome. so i pick it up…and attempt to find the magnet that went with it as well. literally 10 minutes searching for this thing…everywhere…no joke. totally boggled my mind where it went since i did not hear it hit the floor. i looked in the front pocket of e’s dress…not there…in the reusable bags i had on the floor…nope. under things…on thing…nothing. so i gave up. figuring if i CAN NOT find it…she can’t either…
so after all that shenanigans i put her down. and she looks up at me…i could have DIED….hell she could have…it was IN HER MOUTH…the entire 10 minutes. clearly she grabbed the magnet and not the card. i fished it out and all was fine but the “what if” kills me.
i am late telling this story…part of me said not to because i am mortified and fear that my interwebs will think i am a bad mom…but hell…maybe someone else had a close call too. and since this was my first legitimate close call…aside from the choking on smooshed peas…i will be classifying it under “close calls” hopefully there will not be too many posts in this category. ::side eyed::

I was clearing the digital camera in preperation for the trip west and found this little gem.

This was supposed to be an angel but somehow ended up more like the Joker. I didn’t have the heart to leave it for Santa and based on the amount of sleep lost thinking about this being in the next room, I should have just gone ahead and eaten it.

For the record, I mix and bake and leave the icing up to my wife and children.

i just pulled a 2 inch long gray hair out from in between my eyebrows!

2 reasons why i must be getting old…
1. ummmm…it was gray
2. it was 2 inches long…and growing out of my face…between my eyes…apparently my eye sight is going.

so she typically starts out like this…

and ends up like this…

all the while making me think she is going to snap her arms off. she is capable of rolling from her belly to her back…she just chooses to do it contortionist style. hopefully someday she will stop.

(umm and yes my floors are dirty. one drooling baby+two drooling/treat eating doggies=dirty floors with lots of dried up dots of drool. i have given up.)

The day that my cousin died, I came home early from work and I needed something to focus on, so when I saw AMC was playing the first two Alien movies back to back, it was kind of perfect. I could lock into several hours of mind occupying programming. Watching the first two movies, I had three thoughts:

1) There is such a thing as a well thought out and well paced action movie, so people who make excuses for $h!tty ones under the pretense that action movies don’t have to be smart are full of it.

2) The 1986 version of Michael Biehn was kind of hot.

ROWR!

3) I needed to see the following two flicks.

For some reason, whenever there are three (or four) movies in a series, I always managed to miss one. In the case of the Alien franchise, I had missed three and, although I had seen four, I had blocked it out of my mind, so it seemed like a good time for a rewatch.

But before I knew it, the rewatch turned into one of the longest ongoing painful cinematic experiences of my life.

Let’s start with Aliens3. I originally watched the theatrical cut of this and was sorely disappointed because . . .

1. They unceremoniously offed Newt and Hicks right at the beginning, which to me, was like bringing someone to their grandmother’s deathbed only so they can watch you pee in her face. Un-freaking-cool movie!
2. All of the prisoners in the movie were wildly interchangeable, save for Charles S. Dutton, and the pawlty attempts at humanizing them only served to be annoying. Sure, it was a nice idea to allow Ripley’s doctor boyfriend* a moment to sorrowfully recount how he came to be in the prison colony, but since he died almost immediately thereafter, I didn’t give a crap.
3. Even though they had had five years to work on the effects, the alien really didn’t look that good.  In the previous movies, perhaps because of budget or perhaps because of pacing, you really didn’t see that much of the aliens in any sort of detailed or prolonged way and when you did see them, they looked a little softer and more organic like a real life animal would. In this one, you see the thing feeding and running around and practically the entire time, it has that horrible, shiny, hard-edged, George Lucasy, CGI look to it which is no good and made things less believable.
4. The story and the dialogue felt a little uneven. Granted, the director was working without a finished script and the studio was constantly sticking its fingers into things, but this is still a concern with a finished movie.

But it didn’t end there. Upon reading my disappointment regarding this movie, a friend of my friend Henry (the one who works for TIFF and who got us tickets to our ill-fated movie) insisted I watch the Assembly Cut of 3 because it was a far superior movie. Not wanting to be unjust in my assessment, last night I popped the modified version of the movie into my DVD player and gave it a spin. And you know what? It actually worked for me. It only added about 30 minutes to the run time, but just by adding a little more moodiness to the atmosphere, throwing in some extra reaction shots and playing up the religious aspect of the prison colony a bit more, it smoothed down some of the edges and made it a lot more watchable.

The same however cannot be said for Alien Resurrection. About half an hour into that movie, I realized why I had blocked it out: Because it is horrible. No matter what cut of this movie exists for me to watch, I cannot even begin to imagine it being even half way enjoyable.

And the sad thing is, it should have been.

It had Sigourney Weaver back as Scary Ripley. It had a Joss Whedon script. It had the talents of great backup character actors such as Brad Dourif and Ron Perlman (Ron Perlman!). But it didn’t work.

The atmosphere didn’t feel right. The characters sucked and were little more than their props or affectations (Toe Sucking Girl and CSI Guy with wrist guns, I’m looking at you!) and there were so many weird/dumb things going on it was just distracting.

I have come to believe the Christie was a prototype for those dumb dredlocked twins in the 2nd Matrix movie because he looked cool but was similarly useless.

1. The Company’s been bought by Wal-Mart? Exactly when did Wal-Mart become the hallmark for smart, technologically advanced things? Because from where I sit right now, that is a giant leap.
2. Why, when all of them went through the checkpoint and scanned positive for weapons, did no one actually take away the weapons? Did security think that it was no big deal that the scary faced mercenaries were carrying guns and missle launchers with them?
3. If Ripley was trying to be humane to her messed up table clone, then why did she set it on fire to suffer a horrible painful death instead of using one of their handy-dandy guns to shoot it in the head? Torch ‘em later if you must, but cut the poor blob lady some slack!
4. How long can people in the future hold their breath underwater for? Did the movie go all Harry Potter for a moment and did everyone have some Gillyweed with them? Because that scene went on forever and nobody seems to go up for air.
5. Why did Christie kill himself? Sure, he’d gotten some acid to the face, but so did Hicks in Aliens and he sucked it up and kept moving. Was Christie secretly so distraught that his handsomeness was tainted that he couldn’t go on? If the gimpy French wheelchair dude could keep going, he should have been able to too.
6. How could Call fall all the way down the shaft and then get back up to the top and on the other side of the door in like two minutes when the only way up was supposedly up the tube on the inside? Does she have some magical I-Dream-Of-Jeanie blinky power that allows her to travel through metal plated walls through sheer force of will?
7. What was their logic for bringing the infected guy with them? He served no purpose aside from supplying some twitchness and a kill later in the movie.
8. How in the hell did the hybrid actually come to be? Because the Queen that was in Ripley died in her in three so were they crossbreeding backwards into another Queen or what?
9. What was the deal with Ripley and the hybrid caressing so tenderly? I mean aside from the fact that it looked a little bestial, Ripley was supposed to be its mom, so trying to slip her the tongue was creepy and needed to be shut down immediately.
10. If the wind was strong enough to suck the hybrid out the window and into space**, why did it not suck everyone else into space? I don’t even remember anyone covering the damn window***!

It’s like if V.C. Andrews was writing a space soap opera!

My friend Jack has tried to debate the goodness of this movie with me but no matter how he extoles its virtues, I cannot now, nor will I ever be able to see the value in it.

So now that I have watched what feels like an entire day’s worth of Alien movies, I put it out to the audience. What say you of the Alien movies? Do you like them all or, like me, do you find the later chapters taint the legacy of the franchise? Also, as a super awesome extra dose of geekery, who do you think would win in a fight: Sarah Connor from Terminator 2**** or Ellen Ripley?

*I’m sorry, but if she was going to knock boots with anyone, putting aside my weird Michael Biehn crush, it should have been Hicks because he earned it.
** Sorry if I spoiled this for you, but the movie is 12 years old so you’ve had your time to see it if it was important to you.
*** I’ll admit this could have actually happened during the movie and I missed it because I was wildly rolling my eyes.
**** I’m specifying in this case because if it were Sarah Connor in her pink tie dyed shirt and mom jeans, Ripley would be the obvious winner.

Halloween is a holiday of strange appeal. On this day we celebrate the things that we secretly dread and the fantastical terrors that haunt our dreams- the macabre dance of shadows from whistling wind-swept tree limbs, black-clad witches with crooked noses and masked men with shrill laughs and serrated fingernails. For many of us it’s a time to dress in mysterious costumes, impersonate the dead and embrace the night. For others, Halloween is a night to let loose and have fun behind a mask.

In all its many inceptions, Halloween remains a chance to be someone you aren’t. To do things you wouldn’t normally do.

This idea got me thinking, what would people do if they could step outside of themselves and really be another person? What if you had the chance to really face your fears, and it wasn’t all part of some elaborate night of facades, or a scripted ploy built into the walls of a smoky haunted house with strobe lights and bowls of cherry-flavored blood punch?

Would you come out of it with a different outlook?

As you know from this blog, or if we’ve run into each other somewhere in Manhattan, I am running in December for children with Crohn’s Disease and ulcerative colitis. This is a painful, debilitating disease. And for children it is terrifying. If you don’t know much about Inflammatory Bowel Diseases and the effects they have on people, please take a moment and watch the video below from LiveStrong.com.

In this video, Dr. Susan L. McGladdery, the Regional Director from First Med Centers in Hungary, describes the symptoms and effects of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD).

Here are some key points to take away from this video, quoted from Dr. McGladdery-

Inflammatory bowel diseases, either Crohn’s Disease or ulcerative colitis, occur when “the linking of the digestive tract becomes inflamed… they’re very painful and debilitating and sometimes even life-threatening conditions.”

Both Crohn’s Disease and ulcerative colitis can cause symptoms in the range of “pain, abdominal cramps, diarrhea, bleeding, weight loss, and anemia.”

One last point that was even shocking to myself was the likelihood of IBD sufferers to develop cancer. This is an important thing to consider- we spend a lot time and resources fighting cancer, and it weighs a great deal on our nation’s healthcare system. So why not spend more time fighting conditions that likely cause cancers to form? Isn’t that the kind of preventative action should be taking in this country?

According to Dr. McGladdery, “both ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s Disease also increase your risk of colon cancer. Approximately 10% of patients with inflammatory bowel disease go on to develop a cancer, and the risk is greatest after inflammatory bowel disease has been present and active for 10 years.”

Do you want to do the math on 10% of the 1.2 million people with IBD?

Donate today, so a child doesn’t have to worry about those numbers.

I’m kind of feeling out this whole blog situation.

Grandly posting oneself on the Internet is awesomely overrated. I probably already offend enough people on a daily basis, so my Awesome Super Unique Blog will now make being offensive my main basis! I don’t know how long I can keep this up. It’s like being caught reading Twilight. When it comes to said Twilight, I usually say I’d rather be digging out my eyeballs with sporks, but that tends to not go over well with my peers. My super-Twihard buddy urged me to read it, because OHMIGOSH THE MEADOW SCENE IS BREATHTAKING. What?

I told her I’d read it:  if she found me a copy and didn’t mind it dusting over in the backseat of my car for a few months until I decided to pick it up. (Sorry about your Harry Potter book, David). I thought I’d be set for awhile, because what Twilighter would subject their Book to such a horrid hiatus? She got to work quickly, assigning me Midnight Sun as a supplement until she rustled me up some Vampire Love. To my surprise and minor misfortune, she cheerfully returned with (her spare copy) of the Book the next week.

“You’ll just cruise right through it in an evening. I couldn’t put it down,” she said.

I grunted.

And that’s why I’m scared of blogging. It makes perfect sense.

I’ve been breaking in notebooks for the last week, and it feels slightly different this time around. It could be because it may be the last fall in which I go through this life-stabilizing routine. I’m sure life will be good in the long run, but transitioning from one phase to another seems thorny…

Also, I was talking to Elizabeth about the True Blood finale—which ended on a cliffhanger—and she said that the next season starts in ten months. By then, I’ll be, well, not here. True Blood is the first tangible thing that I can say starts after I graduate. What a weird way to mark time.

Anyway. Here are the classes I’m enrolled in right now. I should probably drop one, but I really love them all (except for the one my parents are making me take). And when will I ever have another chance to take such courses? But then again, some sleep is good, I guess. Hit me up with suggestions, given the following constraints.

• Freedom of Speech and the Press. A political science course run like a law course taught by Prez Bo. The reading is short but dense, dense but riveting. The topic is important to me. And, it fulfills a minor requirement for polisci. Awesome!
• Independent Study. I’m working one-on-one with a Chaucer expert instead of doing the regular senior seminar. I met with him today and I am psyched! My first project is to read the Canterbury Tales cover to cover over the next few weeks. Yay! (Note that I meet with him once every few weeks, so it’s a lot of homework with very little class time).
• 17th Century Prose and Poetry. I took this as my last major requirement—aside from thesis stuff—and it turns out to be really, really interesting. Lots of John Donne! And the professor was president of the Donne Society. Perfection.
• Principles of Economics. I am not required to take this course for anything, but my parents are making me. That said, though I’ve never been economically inclined, the professor is hilarious and brilliantly captivating. And it’s generally good to know. Maybe I’ll P/D/F this one.
• Intermediate French. Just for fun—because I love languages and the professor is great. I guess I could drop it but it is a breeze and actually practical.
• Beginning Fiction Workshop. Given the constraints mentioned above, this would be the logical course to drop. But that would be a copout, you know? Since workshops are scary. And I’ve never pushed myself to write fiction. It’s something I’d like to start now and advance in next semester, but it is technically a superfluous course. Hm.

This brings me to a total of 20 credits. Not good. Help.

This is me, confused.

Seriously, they do.

I am scared of licking envelopes.

Possibly Carnivorous

Read This Nonsense. And no, it doesn’t have anything to do with the cyanide or the roach eggs. If a friendly little Diploptera wants to lay its eggs in my tongue, well that’s just nature taking its course.

Yeah, I learned the word Diploptera from my Biology class this week. I’m smart and stuff.

Anyway, the reason I’m so averse to licking envelopes is because I always think I’m going to get a papercut on my tongue. Why am I so worried about this? BECAUSE PAPERCUTS EFFING HURT!!!

In addition to the incredible pain experienced during the initial slice, a papercut  on the tongue would continue to hurt every time I eat. I love mustard, sourpatch kids, and a number of other things which are acidic or otherwise irritating to the tongue (no hot stuff though…if you haven’t guessed from this, I have a whimpy tongue).

So whenever I lick an envelope, I can’t slide my tongue across it. I have to lap upward, toward the edge of the paper.

My wife makes fun of me for this…

I’ve read the first two chapters of The Family, and that’s exactly how I feel. Seventy-two pages in, I already feel like my skin’s going to fall off. Some I was ready for–the admiration for the leadership styles of the Mafia, Hitler, Mao, and bin Laden, the belief that the members of The Family were “the new chosen,” the belief that because of that chosen status, any behavior was permitted–yet much of the rest hit me with the force of a baseball bat.

I had some idea of the love of–the quest for–power around which The Family’s dogma is organized. But the sheer scope of the organization, the brazenness, the audacity; it’s quite stunning.

The thing is, they know exactly what they’re doing and why it is objectionable. They pointedly avoid any use of the term “Christian” when referring to their organization because they know it would raise the proper red flags about their closeness to power and would rightly clue in the uninformed that they are not an innocuous fellowship circle.

Beyond what they are doing, in the first two chapters, I find that it is how they are doing it that triggers the wigged out centers in my brain. Based on a Cold War admiration for Communist organizing techniques, The Family looks to develop regular small prayer groups, or “cells,” among the elite and powerful, who would be unwilling to attend mass meetings. These cells would quietly develop relationships and connections that could not be honed in legislative sessions or the formal machinations of government, and the agreements formed there, Sharlet points out, would then appear to the rest of the world to be unrelated to any centralized organization. This is both brilliant and frightening. Especially considering this is a group that does not believe in rights, believes that secular law should be replaced by God’s law, and provides the members of a cell with “veto rights” over every other member’s life (Say hi, Senator Ensign!).

Notables:

• In a discussion on King David, David Coe, son of The Family’s leader Doug Coe, tells the young men of Ivanwald–something of a frat house for The Family’s next generation–”If you’re a person known to Jesus, you can go and do anything.”
• According to Sharlet, “[t]here is little taste for history among Family members,” which is something that should come as no surprise to anyone who has observed right-wing policy recommendations for the last decade. Or even in the last month.
• Oh, and on page 23, Sharlet introduces us to a man whose name is, I’m not joking, Christian Wright.

This is by no means a complete recap of the first portion of the book. I plan to provide a more complete summation/reaction when I finish. Again, if I’m not too frightened to even leave my room. I have two more sections and 300 pages to go, and at this point, I am both intrigued and repulsed. So, you know, onward.

I’m reading Jeff Sharlet’s The Family, about, well, The Family, and C Street, and the secretive, powerful group of Christian men who have been in the news recently for some decidedly un-Christian activities. I think I’m going to blog about what I’ve read every night.

That is, if I’m not huddled in the corner of the room with a blanket over my head at the end of every chapter.

We’ll see how this goes.

…kinda. Actually, it eats dead “organic matter”, which apparently is strictly vegetarian, according to the company that is producing the robot.
Yeahhhhh. That sounds like an awwwweeesome idea…
Apparently this company has never seen any Sci-Fi movie ever made.

COOOOLLLL…..

So, apparently scientists are studying this freaky example of God saying to the Devil “Hey, watch this” for some perfectly valid reason.
I. Don’t. Care.
This thing is so freaking cool scientists could waste millions of dollars studying it, and as long as they keep putting out videos like this, it was money well spent.
CHECK. IT. OUT.

Also, I would embed these 2 videos, but I can’t find the code for them. If someone is better than reading source code than me, and wants to send me the embed code, that would be greatly appreciated.

Micheletti Entered Through the Roof, Just Like Thieves Do

Luis Alvarenga, Rebelión
Translation: Machetera

The de facto President of Honduras, Micheletti, entered the Presidential Palace on Monday, not through the main doorway but through the rooftop, with the aid of a military helicopter.  He came in the way robbers do.  The loot was democracy.  It was stolen from Honduras this weekend.  Rightwing business and ranching interests, together with the military, took advantage of a referendum called by the legitimate president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, in order to justify what they had longed for, for some time: the re-taking of absolute power.

The justification for kidnapping a leader, humiliating him and sending him into exile, the justification for going after the officials of an elected government and for re-militarizing Honduras is disproportionate.  Calling a referendum is not an attempt on democracy, as the Honduran putschists maintain.  This referendum was a simple opinion poll, without a binding character.  It was no kind of threat to the state of law.  Nor did it imply a departure from the Constitution: rather, it left open the possibility that Honduran citizens might consider whether it would be pertinent to hold a vote at the end of the year about whether or not to convene a constitutional assembly.  If the rightwing had cared to act in a democratic manner, it could have questioned Zelaya’s poll through legal means.

But there’s nothing legal about this.  To speak of a referendum, for the Honduran rightwing, is to speak of the ghost that stalks the nightmares of the Latin American oligarchy: Chávez, just like Castro before him.  A perversely elementary kind of logic: Referendum = Chávez, just as Micheletti’s accusation, made when he was still head of the Honduran congress, was perversely elementary.  Micheletti said that Zelaya’s referendum would lead to parental rights being put in the hands of the State.  To paraphrase a certain fascist, we might put the following words in the mouths of Micheletti and the Honduran putschists: “When I hear the word referendum, I feel like reaching for my gun.”  As is plainly obvious, the justifications are weak, but it’s a well-known fact that Latin American putschists have relied more on the argument of weapons than the weapon of argument.

Zelaya’s crime was to start from a conservative position and then lurch to the left, and through these lurches, arrive at a position beyond the traditional left.  Zelaya’s crimes against the constitution and the laws of Honduras were, among others, joining ALBA, confronting rightwing business on the subject of corruption, approving social measures, encouraging literacy programs and medical cooperation with Cuba.  Of course all of this carries a high price.

The interesting thing in this case is that this coup is taking place in a international arena distinct from the military uprisings of prior decades, behind which was the commanding voice of a Kissinger or other similar puppeteer.  Obama’s government has refused to recognize the putschists.  The scene in Central America is also different, considering that in the past, any kind of military usurper would have felt himself in good company.  What will Micheletti say if he sticks his head out at the SICA (Central American Integration System) under the reproving stares of Funes, Colom, Ortega and Arias, as well as Zelaya himself?

We’ll see if the Central American and Latin American community of nations will have the same ability to influence a situation where constitutional order has been broken, such as UNASUR did in facing the separatist oligarchs in Bolivia.  This will be important in order to avoid the putschists’ consolidation of power and in preventing them from continuing to punish those who oppose them, such as has happened with the cartoonist Allan McDonald, kidnapped by the military from his house as I was finishing writing this piece.  The home of the artist, who continues in the best rebellious tradition of Latin American caricature, was ransacked by the military.  His work has been published in Honduran media and in Rebelión, and can also be seen at his website: http://www.allanmcdonald.com.

Just as in Nazi times, his drawings were thrown on a bonfire.  McDonald was kidnapped, it must be added, with his daughter, a 17 month old.  McDonald’s case may be being repeated every minute in Honduras, with citizens of the widest variety of occupations: Terror has returned.

These violations must cease immediately.  Micheletti and his accomplices have wanted to hide the obvious: they came in through the roof and are destroying everything.  It’s the same rapacious oligarchy that for forty years – just like the Salvadoran military and oligarchy – has exacerbated the worst sentiments with the poison of nationalism, sowing enmity between the two people who amount to more than they want to acknowledge.  But now, neither Salvadoran nor Honduran society is willing to die or to kill in order to defend the interests of these oligarchies.  And from there comes the necessity to resort to force, in contravention of all logic, legal imperatives, and even the international community.  It’s the desperate measure of a dead man walking who wants to drag everyone down with him.

Machetera is a member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, and translator are cited.

Seriously, if anyone can figure out if this movie is going to be good or not, let me know. Because I have no clue. Here’s the teaser trailer, for your enjoyment:

Cut for my conjectures + freaky promo pics

So my basic thought on this is either it is really obvious and cliched, or totally brilliant.
Option a.) (really obvious and cliched): Everything is in Ben Foster’s head, including Dennis Quaid. Or Quaid isn’t in his head, but Foster kills Quaid because he’s all paranoid and thinks he’s in his head or something.

Option b.): Double-double twist. So, we think that Quaid is in Ben Foster’s head, but it turns out Foster is in Quaid’s head, and actually he’s hooked up to a VR machine which is controlled by an evil Ben Foster. Or something insane like that, right? Catch my drift?

Option c.) (which I just thought of): There is absolutely no twist, and it is a straight-up horror movie. This option could go well or horribly, depends. I’m kind of hankering for movies that don’t feel the need to employ a “twist”. Every since Fight Club and The Sixth Sense ruled the 90s, everyone feels obliged to have a twist in their movies. So if this was just a straight-up horror movie, done very very well, it could be a genuinely good movie.

But I still have no clue how to feel about this movie yet. Maybe the trailers are pulling a genre-switch on us, and that’s why I can’t figure out if this movie is good or not. Maybe it’s like The Fountain, where the movie is so esoteric that it’s just hard to market, but a good movie nonetheless. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Oh, and here’s those pictures I promised you: