The WAY to celebrate a birthday
2:15 – I had many things that I’d planned to do today; laundry, CHP office then court, rotate tires, grocery shopping (maybe), nap, bridal show & party. I got a bit of a slow start but I’m about to check off #3. A nap is looking more and more unlikely, maybe I can still do an hour or so… I will have to do a little shopping first.
3:45 – Home now, finishing up this week’s The Cape. Had a couple hot dogs for lunch and a nap is pending.
6:05 – Got less than an hour of sleep for a nap. 🙁 Ah well.
Currently standing outside Mistlin Gallery with about 50 other people waiting to get in for the bridal show. It’s ok that they haven’t opened up yet as I am not yet in possession of a ticket. I anticipate the arrival of same any time.
Uh oh. They just announced that doors will be opening momentarily. Carp!
Joy! My ticket arrived!
9:13 – hanging at Surla’s with Betty, Brian, and Jaime (and dozens of others) now that the fashion show is over. I liked it! I hope I get to go to more! I did feel that the models were a little inexperienced but it was ok. I think that the show is viewable online at www.bridalcouturemag.com.
I need to head home now to try to catch another nap before heading down to Irvine.
Ciao!
Que linda esta la manana
So, I’ve been watching a lot of old television lately. I’ve watched several episodes of The Rockford Files, two entire seasons of Magnum PI, and tonight I watched four episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man and one of The Bionic Woman. I have Emergency and Simon & Simon ready to view on Netflix. These are all shows from my childhood and it’s definitely nostalgic. It’s interesting to see how things were portrayed back then.
Tomorrow is my birthday. I’ll be 41. Birthdays to me are so very unimportant. I guarantee I won’t feel any different tomorrow than I did today. I rather dislike my birthday actually. A month ago, I requested the day off work so that I wouldn’t have to be there for everyone’s birthday wishes for me. My supervisor asked if it would be ok if I was given a card (which is what we do for everyone). I told her that I would prefer not. Well, I was given a card anyway. As I read it, I was nearly overwhelmed with loneliness. But this year isn’t as bad as last year was. Last year, a girl I was dating decided to break it off the evening before my birthday (hey, that’s today!). It was really hard on me. And the next day I had to go into work where my coworkers had decorated my work area for me. It was my 40th birthday so they tried to kick it up a notch. I did expect that they were going to do something so despite feeling like crap, I put on a brave face and attempted to cheerfully go along with it all. So the crappy part wasn’t turning 40. Big whoop. The crappy part was being dumped and especially that on my birthday, I had to act happy in order to make everyone else feel good.
So let us all agree that I do not care to celebrate my birthday. It’s nothing special. I think it’s much more significant to celebrate my conception day. Good luck figuring out when that was. 🙂
O.P. WestdaleCo
Oscar nominations were announced this morning. I was up to watch it live. Yay me! And yay Modesto Ambadassadors! That’s what we’ve named our movie group.
So far, I’ve seen 15 of the 56 movies that were nominated in one category or another. I’ve seen 7 out of 10 of the nominees for best picture. I plan to see The Kings Speech with Jamie and Betty next Tuesday evening. Anyone else want to come? During my lunch today, I watched the first half of one of the movies nominated for Best Documentary Feature, Exit Through the Gift Shop. I’ll finish it tomorrow.
Tonight I watched Restrepo, another of the documentaries. I liked it. I liked it way more than Inside Job. Resptrepo told a story; it gave an account of a group of people in a period of time. What it did not do was beat me about the head with it’s heavy-handed message. Whatever conclusions are to be drawn from Restrepo, I get to come to those conclusions on my own, thank you very much.
Ok, so I feel like I should be much more tired than I am. I’ve been up since 4:30 this morning and it’s almost 11 PM. Either way, I’m going to bed very soon.
Oh, yeah. Pastoral Council was tonight. Nothing Earth shattering, but it’s always nice to see people. One thing that came up was that this Feb 15th is going to be the 2 year anniversary of the dedication of the church. I’m going to see if I can video record the Mass. Man alive do I need a video camera!
The week in preview
Tonight I plan to go to bed around 8:00. This is so I have the best chance of waking up at 4 AM to make it over to the Holiday Inn Express for the Morning Matinee. Apart from that, today is just a work day.
Tomorrow, as I said, I’ll be up well before dawn to go watch the Oscar nominees being announced. Then work all day and a pastoral council meeting in the evening. Then I’ll probably collapse into bed.
Wednesday is a regular work day made special by the fact that it will be my last work day until Monday. This will be the only evening of this week that I will be able to watch any television. I’ll try to squeeze in as much as possible, but it won’t be enough.
Thursday I need to go have a police officer sign off on a ticket I was issued back in November then go to court to settle everything and possible pay a fine. I’ll also use my time off this day to do laundry and pack for the weekend. In the evening, I’ll be going to a party at Surla’s with Betty, her husband, and another friend, Jamie. I’ve been promised socialites in pretty dresses, food, and booze. 😉
Friday (payday) I will have to be up even earlier! I’ll need to depart at 3 AM or somesuch to make it down to Irvine in time for my uncle’s funeral. I love long drives by myself; I get to listen to books or podcasts and no interuptions from chatty travel companions. After the service, time spent with family then spend the night at my cousin, Danny’s new place.
If prior plans to game on Saturday hold, I’ll have to leave to come home at around 8 AM, otherwise, I may stay a second night and drive home on Sunday.
Ok, there’s my game plan for the week. Any questions? Suggestions? Plot holes? (You KNOW how I hate those!)
Disjointed thoughts on friendship
A recent topic suggestion for the post-a-day was (loosely) about the meaning of friendship.
I know people, I think I used to be one of them, that called everyone with whom I was friendly, a friend. It didn’t matter if we’d known each other for years and spent time together every day or if I’d only recently met you and spent only a short time in the same room, you were my friend.
I am much more strict with the definition these days. I think I have numerous acquaintances, relatively few friends, and only a handful of good friends. For me, several things are contribute to the state of existance called friendship. Shared interests, ongoing maintenance, common history, reciprocity in attention and effort, mutual caring about and for each other. The more elements a relationship has, the stronger, and more likely, the friendship.
There are people in my life that exhibit only a couple of these characteristics. Truly, these people are not really my friends. If you are never interested in what is going on with me, you are not my friend though I might be your friend. If we haven’t seen each other or communicated in years, even if we are ‘friends’, the friendship is unlikely to be very strong.
A couple of years ago, I posted some thoughts regarding one’s (my) capacity for relationships. I reprint it here.
I have a particular way of conceptualizing my capacity for relationships. I see it as a zero-sum game. I have a finite amount of attention, energy, and interest in pursuing, improving, and maintaining relationships. If one person’s allocation of my time is to increase, that portion must come from somewhere. And if a new person is to enter my life, other relationships must be downsized in order to make room. Here’s an illustration.
This graph shows how much of my attention is spent on the various members of the Brady family. The numbers add up to 100%. Now, when I am forced to add another person to this pie, the numbers have to shift.
In discussing this imagery with friends, I have had some respond by saying that they don’t need to reduce what they have in order to add a new person to the mix. Poppycock, I say. I do think that people have differing capacities for relationships. 100% to one person is a different quantity than 100% to another.
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Potpourri
I participated in my first raid ever tonight. It didn’t go well. Heck, we didn’t make it past the first room/boss. However, there was a feeling on the part of many that it was a successful night in the sense that many newbies to the raid now know the mechanics for this fight. Perhaps we’ll try again tomorrow.
My friend, Betty started The Challenge last year. I joined in then and we are doing it again this year. This go around, we’re taking it up a notch. Bam! So the first of several scheduled events will be the Morning Matinee, wherein the most dedicated (crazy) among us will meet at 5 AM on Tuesday the 25th to watch the Oscar nominees announced live. The awesome part of this event is that Betty, with help from her husband, has secured the dining room of the Holiday Inn Express for the viewing. It will be up on a big screen and breakfast will be free! w00t! So I plan to go to bed VERY early on Monday so that I can make it up well before the crack of dawn. Perhaps some of you will come join us for the viewing…..
I have tendered my resignation from the percussion group I was in. It had started to become clear that it was going to be much too serious for me. I just want to have some fun. I wish them the best and I anticipate that I’ll still sit in and play with them sometimes. I hope so.
The funeral for my uncle will be on Friday, the 28th. I already had planned to be off work that day so hopefully I’ll be able to make the drive down to Irvine. But I’ll have to leave at O’dark in the morning. The drive should take about 6 hours and the funeral starts at 9:15. So I need to leave by 3 AM. Ugh. I’ll plan to stay overnight at my cousin’s then come home on Saturday in time to play with my gaming group at 2 PM. Busy? Yeah.
Yeah, when I get where I’m goin’, don’t cry for me down here.
My uncle passed away this morning. He had been ill for some time but as recently as one month ago, there was hope that he might soon be well enough to be eligible for a lung transplant. Sadly, over the last two weeks, he deteriorated rapidly. And then this morning, surrounded by those he loved most, he slipped away.
I don’t get too bugged by death. I’ll miss my uncle; he was one of my favorite relatives. I feel bad for my aunt and my cousins; his absence will be felt so much more acutely in their lives. But death, to me, is just part of life. It happens to all of us at one point or another. I believe in heaven and I hope and pray that my loved ones will be there should I squeek through. But no matter what exactly waits for us after we die, our earthly worries are over. No, I don’t feel bad for the deceased. I feel bad for the living.
Goodbye uncle Doug. You were a heck of a good guy. I will miss you.
All my heroes are dead and gone…
…killed by bad writing.
Once upon a time, there was a brilliant, shining star of a show called Heroes. Heroes tried to explore how people might really behave/react if they suddenly acquired super powers. Anyway, I do not take it upon myself to try to give you the entire premise and backstory of the show. No, I am here to rant about how bad the writing got and about glaring inconsistancies and torturous plot holes that never, ever got explained. Verily, the writers never tried.
Here are just a couple that I’d like to point out.
#1 This is the biggest for me. In the first season, the ‘boss’ bad guy was Mr. Linderman. His power was to heal others. Well, he dies at the end of the season. At the end of season 2, one of the main characters, Nathan, is shot. So at the beginning of season 3, he’s taken to the hospital, hovers near death, yadda, yadda, yadda. All of the sudden, we see Linderman is back! Whoa! He heals Nathan and is a recurring character for several episodes. Then we learn that it really isn’t Linderman, it’s a character who has telepathy powers, including planting thoughts in the minds of others. This whole affair is important to the story the writers are trying to tell. But they never go back to explain how Nathan healed! It’s like the success of the show depended on viewers not paying attention! Crimeny!
#2 A popular character from season 2 is Adam. We meet Adam back in feudal Japan. His power is that he heals from pretty much any wound. This also allows him to live for centuries, maybe longer. In season 3, Adam has lived long enough to be in the present day. Ok. The big bad boss man in season 2 is Arthur Petrelli, father of Nathan. Arthur’s power is to steal/take for himself the powers of others. But Arthur has been lying in a hospital bed for a couple of years, on a ventilator. Adam is brought before Arthur, and Arthur takes Adam’s healing power. Which causes Adam to crumble to dust due to extreme age. Later in the season, there’s an eclipse which takes away the powers of all the Heroes (and Villains). You see, it’s sort of implied from the beginning of the series that an eclipse is the way that people got powers in the first place. So the eclipse giveth, and the eclipse taketh away. Silly to begin with, but whatever.
So, my question is, why didn’t Adam crumble to dust during any of the hundreds of eclipses over the past several hundred years??? Again, the writers must think that we the viewers are complete idiots!
I have more, but I’m too disgusted to continue.
Ciao.
Blatent attempt to generate traffic
From time to time, I take photos.
I’m no professional. Don’t want to be. But I do have fun with it.
I post my photos at flickr.
This is my most viewed photo.
Now, I find these ladies to be very attractive; quite lovely, one and all. But I’m not sure why this photo has been viewed about twice as often as the second place pic.
Any idea?
Is there something I’m missing?
Puccini deux
I mentioned before that I was in an opera a few years ago, Gianni Schicci. I want to relate a couple more anecdotes from that experience.
The first one I find amusing, but I wonder if anyone else will. I do often crack myself up and I often suspect that I am far more impressed with my witicisms than are others.
Anyway, I was receiving some acting instruction from the assistant director. He was telling me that as he watched me perform, he could really see the inner dialogue that my character was having, but that my gestures weren’t large enough for the rear of the house to see. I asked if what I was doing was somehow wrong. He said no, but my gesticulations (Good word!!) needed to be bigger if the back row was going to see them. I replied that my more subtle movements were a gift to the front rows.
Well I found it amusing.
Second story. There was a line that I was to sing, “They’re the cream of the crop!” My first note was the same as the last note of the preceding line, which someone else was singing. To make sure that I came in on key, I would sort of hum along with the line before mine. Well, I was doing it quietly, but I didn’t think about the fact that I was essentially leaning over another actor’s shoulder such that my mouth was very close to his ear. So, unknown to me, my fellow cast mates took to poking fun at me by mimicking me, “mmmm mmmm mmmm, mmmmmm mmmm mmmmmm THEY’RE THE CREAM OF THE CROP!” When I found out, I thought it was hilarious! And in a way, I felt like I belonged to this group.
So, a few months later, when I went to get a tattoo, I had that phrase of music applied around my left bicep.
