Yes, I miss Battlestar Galactica, even though it's only been a week since the show ended. At first, I felt like the prequel couldn't come fast enough... so I did what any good fanboy does when faced with such a situation... I started looking at BSG clips on youtube. Unfortunately, I found the following clip and will no longer be able to accept any form of BSG until this is made for reals.
So say we all?
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
On getting older...
Originally, this post was going to be all about the fun and festivities at CoastCon this year, but it took another turn when I came across this picture of me and Silverfox on Flickr:
This picture you see, is not the original. In the original photo, my thinning hair is much more prominent. I wanted a picture of us to show y'all, but found myself almost subconsciously importing it into Photoshop for the express purpose of giving myself more hair.
Yes, I feel pathetic... Yes, I feel stupid... And, yes, I feel old.
You see, this has been a particularly rough week on my ego. Early this week, we took a trip to Silverfoxes dermatologist because she had a funny little lump on her back that she wanted removed. Doctors always start salivating when they see us coming because they know that Silverfoxes health insurance covers damn near everything. So we knew that it would be no big deal.
The doc took one look at me and said "Damn, you're ugly. We could help you with that."
Okay, he didn't quite say that, but he did tell his nurses to hurry the hell up and book me for the procedure to remove my acne scars. I tried to tell him that I like my face the way it is, but he just turned and walked away from me like I was crazy to suggest such a thing. He later tried to convince Silverfox that she should talk me into it...
It's enough to give a guy a complex.
Then, last night while watching the Simpsons, I came to the grim realization that my age has caught up with Homer Simpson. I mentioned this to Silverfox, and we realized that I'm also older than Batman, older than all of the people on the show "Friends", older than Captain Kirk when he took command of the Enterprise, and older than JFK when he became president.
To top it off, we also realized that we have several adult friends that i'm easily old enough to be their father. Almost makes me wish that people had stopped procreating in the late eighties... though that would have certinaly spelled doom for the human race, and my ego simply isn't worth that. Not to mention that that means I wouldn't have been getting any for the past 20 years or so...
It's not aging that bothers me so much, you see. Like falling off a tall building, it's just the prospect of the sudden stop at the end that scares me. I had always thought that I would grow old gracefully, not real hung up on my aging apperance or memory loss... but here I am pushing forty, and my subconcious is pushing back with a vengence.
Well, that's not the kind of man I want to be. That's not the kind of example I want to set for my kids, either. I will not try to make myself seem younger than I am... I will not go out and buy a new sports car to make myself more attractive... I will not get the scars that give my face such character "fixed", and I will not be one of those leisure-suit wearing guys that uses spray on hair to cover his bald spot.
In the interests of this new realization, I proudly present the undoctored version of the photo above, of two people very much in love:
Take that, society's definition of attractive.
This picture you see, is not the original. In the original photo, my thinning hair is much more prominent. I wanted a picture of us to show y'all, but found myself almost subconsciously importing it into Photoshop for the express purpose of giving myself more hair.Yes, I feel pathetic... Yes, I feel stupid... And, yes, I feel old.
You see, this has been a particularly rough week on my ego. Early this week, we took a trip to Silverfoxes dermatologist because she had a funny little lump on her back that she wanted removed. Doctors always start salivating when they see us coming because they know that Silverfoxes health insurance covers damn near everything. So we knew that it would be no big deal.
The doc took one look at me and said "Damn, you're ugly. We could help you with that."
Okay, he didn't quite say that, but he did tell his nurses to hurry the hell up and book me for the procedure to remove my acne scars. I tried to tell him that I like my face the way it is, but he just turned and walked away from me like I was crazy to suggest such a thing. He later tried to convince Silverfox that she should talk me into it...
It's enough to give a guy a complex.
Then, last night while watching the Simpsons, I came to the grim realization that my age has caught up with Homer Simpson. I mentioned this to Silverfox, and we realized that I'm also older than Batman, older than all of the people on the show "Friends", older than Captain Kirk when he took command of the Enterprise, and older than JFK when he became president.
To top it off, we also realized that we have several adult friends that i'm easily old enough to be their father. Almost makes me wish that people had stopped procreating in the late eighties... though that would have certinaly spelled doom for the human race, and my ego simply isn't worth that. Not to mention that that means I wouldn't have been getting any for the past 20 years or so...
It's not aging that bothers me so much, you see. Like falling off a tall building, it's just the prospect of the sudden stop at the end that scares me. I had always thought that I would grow old gracefully, not real hung up on my aging apperance or memory loss... but here I am pushing forty, and my subconcious is pushing back with a vengence.
Well, that's not the kind of man I want to be. That's not the kind of example I want to set for my kids, either. I will not try to make myself seem younger than I am... I will not go out and buy a new sports car to make myself more attractive... I will not get the scars that give my face such character "fixed", and I will not be one of those leisure-suit wearing guys that uses spray on hair to cover his bald spot.
In the interests of this new realization, I proudly present the undoctored version of the photo above, of two people very much in love:
Take that, society's definition of attractive.
Friday, March 27, 2009
McStupid.
In the morning, after I've dropped off the kids at school, I usually find myself looking to score a bit of breakfast. While ideally this would mean some time spent lingering in a diner clacking happily away on my laptop while a delightfully haggard waitress brings me cup after cup of liquid peppiness, it usually means a quick spin through a drive through.
Near my home, there are basically three options for morning nourishment... The local Starbucks, with its overpriced mochafrappawhatsis and stale croissants, The local Burger King, and the local McDonalds. The BK and McD's stand nearly opposite each other on the main drag in our neighborhood, and one could almost imagine Ronald on the rooftop of one in a sentry tower, keeping a wary eye through binoculars on King Burger as he readies his seige catapult.
Lately for breakfast I've been favoring the King for two reasons... One, it's slightly cheaper, and two, they now have an iced mocha drink that is just as tasty as anything that Starbucks has to offer down the street. As the local McD's has yet to get on the bandwagon with the rollout of the corporations new gourmet coffee machines, I am left with little actual choice in the matter.
This morning, I roll up to BK and order a Sausage Croissant with egg combo, With hash browns and an Iced Mocha.
Hesitantly, a voice came back to me over the speaker saying, "I'm sorry, sir... but we're out of sausage. We only have bacon or ham right now."
"Okay... I'll just take bacon then."
Another pause... then, "We also have no hash browns this morning."
I was beging to feel a little discriminated against as I asked why.
"Well, the fire went out on the fryer, and we can't get it to come back on."
I thought about it for a second, imagining a guy sticking his head into the darkness under the fryer and lighting a match to see where the gas leak was, then decided I would go across the street to McD's instead. I got through to the second window at McDonalds without incident, but as the girl handed me my Egg McMuffin, I noticed a sign above her window.
The sign said "Picture and Braille menus available on request". Now I ask you dear reader, does the thought of this sign make your head want to explode like it did mine?
Fact one: This sign was situated in such a way that only the driver of an SUV could see it.
Fact two: The Blind rarely drive, and furthermore, can't actually see the sign.
Fact three: It's really doubtful that anyone that needs a picture menu would be able to read the sign.
Now tell me... Who in blazes is that sign for?
Near my home, there are basically three options for morning nourishment... The local Starbucks, with its overpriced mochafrappawhatsis and stale croissants, The local Burger King, and the local McDonalds. The BK and McD's stand nearly opposite each other on the main drag in our neighborhood, and one could almost imagine Ronald on the rooftop of one in a sentry tower, keeping a wary eye through binoculars on King Burger as he readies his seige catapult.
Lately for breakfast I've been favoring the King for two reasons... One, it's slightly cheaper, and two, they now have an iced mocha drink that is just as tasty as anything that Starbucks has to offer down the street. As the local McD's has yet to get on the bandwagon with the rollout of the corporations new gourmet coffee machines, I am left with little actual choice in the matter.
This morning, I roll up to BK and order a Sausage Croissant with egg combo, With hash browns and an Iced Mocha.
Hesitantly, a voice came back to me over the speaker saying, "I'm sorry, sir... but we're out of sausage. We only have bacon or ham right now."
"Okay... I'll just take bacon then."
Another pause... then, "We also have no hash browns this morning."
I was beging to feel a little discriminated against as I asked why.
"Well, the fire went out on the fryer, and we can't get it to come back on."
I thought about it for a second, imagining a guy sticking his head into the darkness under the fryer and lighting a match to see where the gas leak was, then decided I would go across the street to McD's instead. I got through to the second window at McDonalds without incident, but as the girl handed me my Egg McMuffin, I noticed a sign above her window.
The sign said "Picture and Braille menus available on request". Now I ask you dear reader, does the thought of this sign make your head want to explode like it did mine?
Fact one: This sign was situated in such a way that only the driver of an SUV could see it.
Fact two: The Blind rarely drive, and furthermore, can't actually see the sign.
Fact three: It's really doubtful that anyone that needs a picture menu would be able to read the sign.
Now tell me... Who in blazes is that sign for?
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Multimedia message
One of short stuffs favorite songs is 'star trekkin' on my doctor demento cd. Here we see him singing his favorite part. He's saying 'it's worse than that he's dead, jim!'. I love my geeky kid.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
When your past catches up with you...
Because I moved here to the south in my mid twenties, I always have more of a detachment to this city and its people than most of my friends do. It's not that I don't love living here, particularly in a year that saw snow falling in my hometown on the first day of spring... it's just that a lot of the more personal connections that define how natives of a city feel about living in the city they grew up in don't tend to happen to me.
What I mean is that I'm not real likely to run into someone that knew me growing up in say, the grocery store. This is good and bad... bad in that I sometimes feel like an outsider when Silverfox runs into someone she knew from high school... but good in that the odds are astronomically against me ever being forced to uncomfortably introduce a woman I've been intimate with to Silverfox at a cocktail party. Most of the women that I have made it to second base or beyond with are safely 1500 miles away, or in the ex-wife's case probably safely behind rubberized walls.
However, I sometimes forget that I have lived here for a very long time at this point... almost 20 years when you think about it... and that sci-fi and fantasy fandom here is a much smaller group of people than where I grew up. In fact, it's really kind of surprising that Silverfox and I didn't meet sooner than we did when you consider how many mutual friends and interests we have... we even went to the same college at the same time. All it would have taken would be me deciding to check out the local Rocky Horror fandom (with a close friend that was a fixture at it) and Silverfoxes and my relationship might have been very different indeed.
So, this past weekend was CoastCon 32, a local fan run convention that both Silverfox and I sit on the governing board for, and as such we had some advance warning that some Star Wars stuff would be going on there. Knowing that Short Stuff loves Star Wars, we convinced his Bio-dad to bring the boy to the con on Saturday afternoon. We were surprised when he agreed, and said that he would bring his new girlfriend along, as she's a fangirl.
I'm guessing that you can see where I'm going here... his new flame turned out to be a girl I made out with at a con about ten years ago. I told Silverfox immediately about it, but it sill seemed a little awkward when the Bio-dad introduced us. I wasn't even positive about it, but I found out that she confessed the whole thing to Short Stuff's Dad when they got back to the car. She thought that we had slept together, but she was really drunk at the time, and probably doesn't remember that it didn't go that far.
It was a new experience for me, but now I live in mortal terror that Pint Size's Bio-dad will show up with Charity on his arm one day.
What I mean is that I'm not real likely to run into someone that knew me growing up in say, the grocery store. This is good and bad... bad in that I sometimes feel like an outsider when Silverfox runs into someone she knew from high school... but good in that the odds are astronomically against me ever being forced to uncomfortably introduce a woman I've been intimate with to Silverfox at a cocktail party. Most of the women that I have made it to second base or beyond with are safely 1500 miles away, or in the ex-wife's case probably safely behind rubberized walls.
However, I sometimes forget that I have lived here for a very long time at this point... almost 20 years when you think about it... and that sci-fi and fantasy fandom here is a much smaller group of people than where I grew up. In fact, it's really kind of surprising that Silverfox and I didn't meet sooner than we did when you consider how many mutual friends and interests we have... we even went to the same college at the same time. All it would have taken would be me deciding to check out the local Rocky Horror fandom (with a close friend that was a fixture at it) and Silverfoxes and my relationship might have been very different indeed.
So, this past weekend was CoastCon 32, a local fan run convention that both Silverfox and I sit on the governing board for, and as such we had some advance warning that some Star Wars stuff would be going on there. Knowing that Short Stuff loves Star Wars, we convinced his Bio-dad to bring the boy to the con on Saturday afternoon. We were surprised when he agreed, and said that he would bring his new girlfriend along, as she's a fangirl.
I'm guessing that you can see where I'm going here... his new flame turned out to be a girl I made out with at a con about ten years ago. I told Silverfox immediately about it, but it sill seemed a little awkward when the Bio-dad introduced us. I wasn't even positive about it, but I found out that she confessed the whole thing to Short Stuff's Dad when they got back to the car. She thought that we had slept together, but she was really drunk at the time, and probably doesn't remember that it didn't go that far.
It was a new experience for me, but now I live in mortal terror that Pint Size's Bio-dad will show up with Charity on his arm one day.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Why it pays to know me....
It has been said that I have an effect on those around me, and generally it's a good one... case in point: This is a photo of my friend Ducky taken just after we became friends:
And this is a photo of Ducky taken this past weekend at Coastcon 32:
Any questions?
And this is a photo of Ducky taken this past weekend at Coastcon 32:
Any questions?
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Why do I always get the comedians?
Today in a fit of sympathy for my wife, I went to the pharmacy for her... on the way out the door, she also said she needed some "feminine protection".
"A pink flamethrower?" I asked before she batted me in the head. I am a man that is secure enough with himself to buy pads for his woman, but not secure enough not to give her a hard time about it after all...
So I get in the car and head to the drugstore, completely unprepared for the decision that awaits me. In the "feminine hygiene" aisle, there are at least thirty seven new categories and options for these things than I remember seeing the last time a woman asked me to buy them for her. I stand there and stare for a bit... I think about it logically, trying to estimate my lady's potential for heavy to moderate flow... and then just get the cheapest ones they had.
If I'm wrong I figure she'll never have me buy them for her again... A win-win for team Cerio.
I grabbed myself a pint of my favorite ice cream to celebrate my cleverness in the face of female domination, and then went to pick up Silverfoxes prescription for her. The girl behind the counter was really sweet... if a little perky, but she said the following after seeing my purchases:
"Oh, you're so sweet to get her migraine medication, pads, and the ice cream. You know, I had the worst craving for this ice cream before my first child was born... but on the bright side, you know that she's not pregnant."
"A pink flamethrower?" I asked before she batted me in the head. I am a man that is secure enough with himself to buy pads for his woman, but not secure enough not to give her a hard time about it after all...
So I get in the car and head to the drugstore, completely unprepared for the decision that awaits me. In the "feminine hygiene" aisle, there are at least thirty seven new categories and options for these things than I remember seeing the last time a woman asked me to buy them for her. I stand there and stare for a bit... I think about it logically, trying to estimate my lady's potential for heavy to moderate flow... and then just get the cheapest ones they had.
If I'm wrong I figure she'll never have me buy them for her again... A win-win for team Cerio.
I grabbed myself a pint of my favorite ice cream to celebrate my cleverness in the face of female domination, and then went to pick up Silverfoxes prescription for her. The girl behind the counter was really sweet... if a little perky, but she said the following after seeing my purchases:
"Oh, you're so sweet to get her migraine medication, pads, and the ice cream. You know, I had the worst craving for this ice cream before my first child was born... but on the bright side, you know that she's not pregnant."
Friday, March 13, 2009
Uh-oh.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
and for my 600th post... some political humor...
For those of you that don't know or care about such things, John Stewart has been doing an awesome job lately of picking apart the financial advice of CNBC, and in particular their obnoxious financial guru, Jimmy Cramer. I've watched Cramer's show, and have been decidedly unimpressed by his use of sound effects for cheap theatrics, and am really glad that The Daily Show called this jackass out. Apparently, Cramer is intending on coming on TDS tonight to defend himself and his financial advice giving skills.
You know, if you're stupid enough to listen to these jokers on TV about where the "safe place" for your money is, maybe you deserve to have your 401k tank. At least Stewart is honest about the fact that he's just a comic at the end of the day, not a newsman.
You know, if you're stupid enough to listen to these jokers on TV about where the "safe place" for your money is, maybe you deserve to have your 401k tank. At least Stewart is honest about the fact that he's just a comic at the end of the day, not a newsman.
the latest bailout news
Apparently, even supervillians can fall on hard times with the current economic downturn...
I swear, I lost it at the part where Lex curses.
"Lex Luthor Bailout" with Jon Hamm - watch more funny videos
I swear, I lost it at the part where Lex curses.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Beware the minds of the youth...
One of the joys of my new Househubby existence is that I get to spend a lot more time with the kids than usual. After getting Pint Size to his bus each morning, I have the pleasure of sitting in the car with Short Stuff for about twenty minutes while we wait for his school to open. Some of the conversations I have with him during this Father-son bonding time are real mind-twisters... like this morning, for instance...
Short stuff was looking around in the cupholder for loose change when he suddenly held up a penny.
"Hey! This penny has Abraham Lincoln on it!" he said, astonished.
"That's right." I said snickering, "They all do."
"We learned about him in class! He's my favorite."
"Really?" I asked, "Why is that?"
"He was very smart, and handsome." Short Stuff said with an authoritative nod.
"You're right... he was a smart guy." I said, "What else did you learn about him?"
"He was very brave, and died a long time ago."
"Do you know how he died?"
"Old age."
"No, Shorty... President Lincoln was shot. He was the first American President to be killed in office."
Short Stuff's eyes went wide with anger. "What? By who?"
"A very bad man named John Wilkes Booth."
This enraged Short Stuff even further. "Well, They need to make him pay!"
"He did pay a long time ago, kiddo. They killed him for killing President Lincoln."
"Well, I need to find him and kill him again!"
"Son... this all happened a very long time ago. He's as dead as it gets."
"No! I need to kill him again so he won't come back as a zombie!"
Right then I was saved by the school bell from laughing in the poor kid's face.
Short stuff was looking around in the cupholder for loose change when he suddenly held up a penny.
"Hey! This penny has Abraham Lincoln on it!" he said, astonished.
"That's right." I said snickering, "They all do."
"We learned about him in class! He's my favorite."
"Really?" I asked, "Why is that?"
"He was very smart, and handsome." Short Stuff said with an authoritative nod.
"You're right... he was a smart guy." I said, "What else did you learn about him?"
"He was very brave, and died a long time ago."
"Do you know how he died?"
"Old age."
"No, Shorty... President Lincoln was shot. He was the first American President to be killed in office."
Short Stuff's eyes went wide with anger. "What? By who?"
"A very bad man named John Wilkes Booth."
This enraged Short Stuff even further. "Well, They need to make him pay!"
"He did pay a long time ago, kiddo. They killed him for killing President Lincoln."
"Well, I need to find him and kill him again!"
"Son... this all happened a very long time ago. He's as dead as it gets."
"No! I need to kill him again so he won't come back as a zombie!"
Right then I was saved by the school bell from laughing in the poor kid's face.
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