Letters to Holly

Friday, May 4

Nuttin'

Between research papers and eating, not much is going on at Chez Debacle. I watched this week's "Lost" with Your Sis last night, and the show is barreling toward the season finale with much greatness.

The Eats anthology is officially released tomorrow. Go to an area comic book store (Comicopia near the Fenway Citgo sign or Newberry Comics at Harvard Square, and I can't believe I know where the comic stores are in Boston) and you'll get a stack of free comics.

Draw'ring of the Day

My website needed dusting off, so I redid the text for the art section, streamlined the photo section and changed the frontpage picture to a drawing. Here's what I slapped together in Illustrator. It'll go on the front page Monday. I should probably do a self-portrait once a year like the great painters did.



In the News
Spider-Man 3 hits domestic theatres today. The reviews are mixed, but that won't stop it from becoming the second hit of the year after 300, another comic film. I'm boggled that there's a third Spidey film. My geek brain can't grasp the idea or the fact that the franchise has made so much money and the character has become even more popular. It's like everyone is catching up to what we all knew 20 years ago. Even my dad admitted to seeing why I bought so many comics month after month, when he would drive me to the local convenience store, after seeing the first film. We're seeing it this weekend. No matter what.

And in honor of such geekiness, Entertainment Weekly has posted their top 25 scifi moments of the last 25 years, and it's a damn good list.

Wednesday, May 2

Deep Breath

Monday was fairly quiet. I started another level on "Guitar Hero" and discovered that extended metal songs are designed to kill fingers or us mere mortals. They're songs designed purely to one-up the guitarists in other bands. Artistry has nothing to do with it. It's technique porn.

Yesterday, on whim, I ran. First, I did not run down to the main road as before, and that solved my shin problems. But it was wildly hot and windy. A tailwind may have helped me run a nine-minute mile uphill. Or it may have been the inspirational power of "Disco Inferno." One can't diminish it's cosmic force. I alternated running and walking for an hour and eventually made myself run up both giant hills, the one downtown and the one near our house. I would walk for a few minutes, telling myself, "OK, that's enough. You don't have to do anymore." After a few minutes of walking, I'd hear myself say, "Well, this is a manageable stretch to run" or "I bet you can't run up that hill." And off I'd go like a moron. I think this worked best for my cardio as I still feel like I grew a third lung even this morning. This may be trick to prepare for the race in two months.

Your Sis made a great pork and potatoes dish last night, and she claims you gave her the idea for roasting the side items. If so, thank you. The apples and onions and potatoes were fuhntaztik.

I'll be able to post a link to the Eats comic anthology this weekend. The preview copy I saw looks solid. Apparently it will be printed in some fashion.

Picture of the Day

Here's the garden as it stands now. The right side is the one I dug up and leveled off. I researched potatoes and found that we can probably start planting within a week. And then we'll boil 'em, mash'em, put 'em in a stew.


In the News
This is cool. Tobey Maguire spoke to kids with a spider scientist at the American Museum of Natural History. In the alternate dimension where I was the right age and look to play Spider-man in a movie, I'm not sure this field trip would be worth the money and fame. Some of these spiders on display are huge.

Monday, April 30

Eye-Yi-Yi

We enjoyed the suddenly great weather with an outdoor Mexican dinner Friday night. I got up early Saturday to work on the garden. I chopped up a good quarter of it while listening to the NPR lineup (Morning Edition, Car Talk, Wait Wait). I hit dirt after days of chopping through clay. I found wood planks, no doubt used as a border for an herb patch or maybe composting. I also found chunks of concrete which looked like parts of an old driveway. I bet this was from the first homeowners before the drive was paved. But why bury it here?

We grabbed pub lunch and started talking through various marital matters, and unfortunately this led to an hourlong Serious Talk about things that were percolating between us. I'll take the heat for this one. There were comments I should have made earlier, and I didn't deal with them well. But we cleared the air and realized we had interpreted things distinctly, and then gave mutual apologies and that was that. Then we worked on school papers for the majority of the day. Your Sis had the hungers for pizza, and we grabbed two movies as well.

The Devil Wears Prada is a film I wanted to see when it first came out. It looked snarky and quick, and I worship at the feet of Meryl Streep. I was worried that it would be a teen girl's film, but while it wisely holds off on the language and sex, it isn't hollow. It is light. It's almost confectionery, but it's not stupid. I enjoyed it. I didn't buy Anna Hathaway as the former editor-in-chief of a major university daily newspaper, but she doesn't have much heavy lifting here. She doesn't have to act, just react. Streep gets exactly the right amount of screen time for her role. I wouldn't own the film, but I'm glad to have seen it.

A Scanner Darkly is the second animated Richard Linkletter film after Waking Life. It's a nifty small scifi film built mostly on scenes of people who sound like they're improvising their dialogue, and that degree of affecting performance goes a long, long way. I like Robert Downey Jr. as an actor, but if he were onscreen any longer in the film, I'd want to strangle him. Keanu Reeves does well as does Winona Ryder, but Woody Harrelson almost steals the film with some sharp comedy work. The animation is done on top of filmed performances, and it does add to the feel of the film. It also looks a lot like my cover work during the Greenville days (except I didn't outline in black). This is good, heady stuff.


I unfortunately woke up early Sunday morning (at 4:44, oddly) with what felt like a wisdom tooth in my eye. It took half an hour to get it out from my upper eyelid, despite using water, contact lenses, contact solution, a Q-tip, and my fingers. I don't know what it was. I couldn't get back to sleep, and I killed time until 7, when I went to finish my tilling.

We decided to only dig up half the garden. I finished my half a little before 9. Almost two hours of digging left a 29 x 6 foot mound that stretched at least 8 inches down. I raked all that back down to level the dirt. Once again, gardening builds muscles. Seeing development on an anatomy model is one thing, finding it on yourself is another. Also, I am sore as hell. We lunched on leftover, and I bought groceries while Your Sis tackled more school stuff. Later in the day, I mowed and weeded the yard. I am beat as beat can be, even this morning. We bought seed potatoes to plant maybe this week. We also got chicken wire to lay down around the garden. Supposedly cats won't walk on it. I also want to plant catnip away from the garden to distract them.

I killed time playing more "Guitar Hero," including a Rage Against the Machine song that I forgot about. I love this game. I'm convinced I can move almost laterally to playing real guitar when I finish this.

I filled up the gas tank today for only the second time. I got 440 miles on less than 13 gallons. Also got my crackuccino.