Quick Comic Work

I'm going to the local annual comic convention in Charlotte next month. My anthology publisher will have a table, and I'm going to whip together a mini-comic for sale. I won't make a profit here. I'll print maybe 50 copies and sell them for a buck each. I luckily have notes for a smorgasbord comic -- a mini-anthology by itself -- and I can produce it before the convention weekend, I'm sure. I have an extended story in the works, a few actually, but will need much more time to flesh it out. The trick for the immediate project is to not worry about making a classic, just get ideas on paper and get my name out there. There's an anthology title I worship called Dork! produced by Evan Dorkin, and it will be my template for this very sudden project.

I may sit behind the con booth and sketch for passers-by, a notion that gives me the holy-shit giggles. Me, sitting alongside pros and other indie guys, hawking my spindly brain gunk. I guess I'll need personal business cards too. I've been to this con before, a few times as a reporter for the daily paper. Most professionals there are quite nice to talk to. Lou Ferrigno, the TV Hulk, was not. An utter jerk. But there are a few regular attendees who have drawn comics forever, since before even Your Sister was born.

Now that I think of the usual attendance of 20,000 people, maybe I'll print 100 copies.

Picture of the Day
No idea where this is from.

Spidey Luau

I got home early enough on Friday that we zoomed to the local stadium-seat theatre to watch Spider-Man 3. I won't spoil anything for you, but it's a big, fat Spidey movie that will appeal to longtime comic fans more than casual moviegoers. The movie reviews seem to concur as critics are hitting the film hard for being dark and weighty. But that's what we loved about the Spidey comics in the '70s. I knew the reviews wouldn't keep audiences away, and the film made almost $150 million in three days. We scarfed Krispy Kreme doughnuts while we debated the film. There was quite a bit Your Sis felt she needed to know about how the film compared to the comics.

I ran at the gym on Saturday and outlasted all the poorly dressed seniors who flocked to the treadmills once I arrived. I don't know if my stamina or my funky doughnut sweat intimidated them, but they did ultimately peel away, leaving me along to run my 5k. We spent much of the weekend again poring over research papers, but we did catch the four hours of Kentucky Derby coverage. That night, we attended a retirement luau for local teachers. Good food, good atmosphere. We wore garish tropical shirts. We picked up a Smirnoff Green Apple 6-pack on the way, and man is that good hooch.

On Sunday, we worked over more papers, and I watched some playoff basketball. She tried a pork soup dish at the local Mexican restaurant, and we believe they used the entire pig for the dish. The bowl was huge, and it had various sizes of pig chunks within. We went to Pizza Hut for dinner, a place we haven't been to in ages, and made a run to the grocery store for cookies for her. No, she's not pregnant. I also had my very first Twinkie. No, I'm not pregnant. It's good. I expected a bland, muddy snack, but the cake is so tasty and light, you don't need the creme filling.

Picture of the Day
Neptune and its moon Triton.




In the News
You can download the anthology comic here.

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The photos from Greensburg, Kansas, are similar to images from The Day After.

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ABC announced that "Lost" will end in 2010 after three more seasons of 16 episodes each. The shows will run in uninterrupted blocks each year. I'm OK with that and relieved to hear the show will end on TV and not on the movie screen as rumored.

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.

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.

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.

Last Night

So, yeah, I was in bed when you called but not fully asleep. I may have sounded odd when I answered because I thought three things all at the same time:
1) It's another prank call.
2) It's bad family news.
3) Your Sister, who sleeps next to the phone, isn't moving. The girl can apparently sleep through explosions.

Don't hesitate to call us when you wish. It was just the rare early night for both of us. Usually, yeah, I'm awake.

There are no grand plans for the weekend. She has to compile school information, and I find myself curiously, um, curious about the NFL Draft. That will last approximately 34 days starting tomorrow. I will also till the garden some more.

Picture/Geek Babble of the Day
Yet another comic-book movie is in the works. Robert Downey Jr. plays Iron Man, and these are the first decent pics we've seen from the set. The story from the comics is industrialist playboy Tony Stark was captured by guerrilla forces (originally Korean, then Vietnamese, now maybe Al Qaeda) to make high-tech weapons. In the capture, his heart was damaged, and he made a supertech pacemaker. Then he built a suit of armor around the gadget, fought the captors, escaped the wilderness, and returned home to run his billionaire empire and fight crime.


Here's what I spy with my geeky eye. First, Downey looks the part. Stark always had some type of facial hair, and his got the right age and complexion. Second, the boy is cut. I don't think I've ever seen him in such good shape. Third, that pacemaker design is nifty. I like that he can't fully disguise the device, unlike in comics where its subcutaneous. This makes him an obvious "iron man" even outside the armor. Iron Man is, essentially, Batman in armor. He's a sex mo-sheen with more money than God. Unfortunately, he drinks like a fish, and he gave up his armor to a sidekick while he dried out. But he's smart without being a geek, and he saves the world from such threats as the Mandarin (A Chinese tyrant with ten power rings), Crimson Dynamo (the Soviet/Russian Iron man), and a slew of c-level thugs with gadget-powered evil schemes. I loved the book when I was young but haven't picked up an issue in decades. The writers always seemed to overthink the premise, and it wasn't fun or engaging.

This appears to be the film version of the classic Iron Man armor. The design has radically changed over the years, but it started off in the early 1960s as what you see above: a bulky, gray boiler with limbs. He's an old-school Marvel character, working alongside Captain America and the Hulk.

Digging for Mud

Working in the garden right now is a simple task. I'm just moving the soil. The upper row is the driest, and digging through that took some time. As I move closer to the compost bin, the soil is looser. And down the slight hill, the soil is fine. I used a shovel to churn the soil when I got home. Just me and the iPod and the shovel. I'm still finding a surprising amount of rocks. For a garden that appeared well tended when we bought the house, it should be clear of the quartz I'm finding. I found one rock, close to the surface that was almost two feet wide and 10 pounds heavy. How did they plant anything on top of that? It's not a decorative chunk, either, although I did find what appears to be a stake yesterday. It's developing into backyard archeology.

Your Sister pointed out that we have accidentally grown asparagus. I turned around, and there were the stalks, about a foot tall from the dirt. We'll let it grow a bit taller. When I finished, I had a 4 x 7 foot gouge in the ground, with fresh, moist clay piled atop of the pinkish topsoil. It looked like I just buried a body. I expect to do this to varying degrees in our delineated patch, but I can save some time by simply watering the dirt. I expected rain this week, but we've gotten nothing so far.

After that, I washed up, made dinner, and helped her look over school papers. Unfortunately, the digging had strained my wrist and I couldn't grasp the pen with my thumb. I hope she can read my notes.

Picture of the Day
This is a billboard for The Economist. It has a motion sensor, and when someone walks underneath it, the bulb lights up.

Space Veto

Did some floor exercises when I got home. Today, I plan to work the garden soil for a while to aerate it and work various muscles. Gardening is not a passive activity, I'm finding. Your Sister made a fantastic curry sirloin dish, and we threw back some wine with it. The end of the school semester is driving her crazy. Short deadlines, papers to grade, exams to prepare for -- this is the roughest patch of work this school year. I want to take her hiking, but I'm not sure we can spare the time. As it is, I'll be looking at papers with her tonight before "Lost" comes on.

Picture of the Day
Factory for WW2 bomber nose cones. If we were serious about waging a war, we'd ration resources and employ the citizenry in such activities.



In the News
This is the reason you don't have a presidential line item veto: Bush will either accept a withdrawal timeline or reject generous Iraq funding. The Democrats say they can outvote the veto, which will make the bill into law. That's pretty rare, but then Bush himself has rarely used his veto power.

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The news that a possible inhabitable planet has been discovered means very little to me. I support deep-space exploration, but we're not employing enough development or budgets to consider it seriously. And by the time we're able to look at this second earth with any reliable technology, we'll see something that throws our theories into chaos. It's inevitable with space research. We're still learning about the sun, and it's literally 1 million times closer to us than the new planet. Our sun is 8 light minutes away; the planet is 20 light years distant. It would take you 20 years to get there if you traveled at the speed of light.

The Running Cycle

I follow the same running route because the sidewalk follows the road so I'm not out of public view in case something goes wrong, but I'm not in the road either. It does cause some problems. The traffic drafting is tough if the construction vehicles belch thick smoke at me, and the route is peppered with intersections, so I have to watch out for people turning in front of me. Also, this route is all hills, and if I can manage that, I can manage the flatter sections of a 5k race.

I walk from the house to the start of the next road and start to run when I get to the speed sign. This is all downhill to the main road. I turn onto that road, and start a slow uphill, and this is where my shins start to hurt. Every time, regardless of stretching or eating habits. The downhill also curtails my stride, and the uphill combines with that to give me the first big lung hurt. Before I go half a mile, I'm already huffing. The sidewalk breaks in front of the school, and I have to run on the uneven grass. This does not help the shins. When the sidewalk starts again, so does a stronger incline. The cemetery is the halfway point. If I can pass that, I can make it to the first big intersection. This is one mile from the house. But I'm always hurting by then. It becomes a test of will, really, and the iPod helps a lot. If I get a good song to crescendo here, I can push myself.

Yesterday I made myself push pass the intersection and run a bit further. (Right before the last race, I was able to run for another mile before turning around.) I walked around the library park, turned around, and started walking back home. Before I got to the cemetery, I made myself run. My shins were killing me. I tried different walking patterns to shut them up. They calmed down a bit as I started to run, and I made myself run back to the first school entrance. I walked another 200 yards, and then made myself run all the way back to that speed sign. That's the sharpest incline of my possible run route. It's even harder than the notorious downtown hill. I'm gonna start making myself run this house hill every time, sometimes more than once. I want to be able to attack that downtown hill in a race, and I want to beat my time from the first race.

Sometimes I have to look down to avoid staring at my running benchmarks. Sometimes I imagine people I detest mocking me. Sometimes I imagine I'm in a musical montage like in a Rocky movie. Whatever makes me keep it up.

Picture of the Day
Every picture tells a story.

Fast Breaks and Shirtless Gardening

I got home Friday to learn that I was allowed to play in the faculty vs. seniors basketball game. I learned this 30 minutes before gametime. We talked on the phone briefly, and then I changed and ran all the way to the school. I had about 15 minutes of shoot-around time and introductions before we started. It was a loose game. Set up as a fundraiser, there were maybe 50 people watching in the gym as the nice weather kept everyone away. Each team had to play two women at all times, and I worked the game as a back-up. Two volleyball girls refereed, and neither knew the rules all that well. Also the scorekeeper was constantly confused as to which team was which, and another student gave play-by-play over the PA for the whole game. A tad distracting. I was happy with the time I had on the court, but it had abeen a while since I had even touched a basketball, so I didn't expect to hit all-star numbers. Didn't make a shot, mad a few bad passes, but I did block well (always my specialty), and I made a fast break or two. I was referred to by the announcer as Your Sister's Husband for the game. We won on a last-second shot. The team was carried by the basketball coach, who was throwing down threes all game. After, the faculty went to the pub for beers. I was sore. Your Sister stayed on the court for much longer and played hard. I was impressed with her effort. She did good. I wish more students were there to see that.

On Saturday, we took Your Parents out for lunch and to visit downtown. They like the new car, and we had a good time with them. After some coffee at Malaprops, we bought them some snacks at the Chocolate Fetish. It was oddly warm, and we got home early enough for me to attack the weeds and garden, and, per her request, without a shirt. I never do this, but a husband has to keep the missus happy. I also got to work our some of the soreness for the previous night's game. I have to say that I'm shedding the winter shapelessness, and I'm toning up a bit. I hope to run today to get over the last of the basketball soreness. I picked up a to-go order in the new car and discovered that driving it at night is like being in the Red October. It's black and silver and red and very, very cool. We filled up the car with gas for the first time since buying the car, and we got something like 425 miles on one tank. If we had decent gas prices, this would be quite a bargain.

We had lunch with Kathy, Travis, and their baby on Sunday. She's a good child, attentive, and happy. This led to a short conversation about us having kids, and we're both of the same mind: No. The good weather continued, and she declared I would grill steaks for supper. And I did. Again, happy missus upkeep.

Picture of the Day
I'm sure this says something about his ego.

Two Days

I cut the lawn on Tuesday as soon as I got home. Literally. I changed into the yard pants, grabbed the iPod, and made with the mowing. We're under siege by slow-moving, methodical dandelion weeds, and the weather prevented me from siccing the weedeater on them after work Wednesday. Your Sis ordered pizza for dinner Tuesday, and we ate the leftover for dinner last night. She went to bed early, and I watched "Lost." We're both working on her first round of student papers.

I also started writing a mini-comic for distribution at conventions through my unofficial publisher, the guy who prints the anthologies.

Picture of the Day
This is an obelisk chair sculpture. The chairs are lightweight, and the whole thing retail of more than $8,000.


In the News
The Supreme Court decision on partial birth abortions seems like a ruling that would only temporarily infringe upon those who don't want to carry to term. Even if this particular procedure is no longer available (and how many medial procedures are banned by Congress anyway?), others will be developed to replace it, and the legislative process will have to start all over again. I understand that the decision is seen as the first of incremental steps to make abortion illegal altogether, but I don't see that happening. Not so long as conservative lawmakers' daughters also find themselves with child at inopportune times.

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I have spoken to people who knew one of those killed at Virginia Tech. Jamie Bishop, an artist who taught German there, previously worked at Chapel Hill in the IT department. He was the first person I heard identified in Monday's attack via a message board. NPR presented a small report on him and his hometown friends this morning.

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Secretary of Defense Robert gates visited Iraq today and pointed out that the administration's military commitment is not open-ended. That sounds similar to the Democrats' rallying cry of a withdrawal time table which the administration very vocally denounces.

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I have no idea if you like Nine Inch Nails, but he/they have a new CD out, and it's pretty good. It's his first attempt at making commentary on current affairs as he usually writes about personal business and sexual interactions. Year Zero is his American Idiot, and his resistance to administration policies fits right in with his bailiwick of domination and resistance. It's a sparse production and somewhat light and poppy. He even commands his audience to sing along in one track, the first time I can remember him breaking the journal format of his writing and acknowledging his position as a performer. I loves me some NIN. This was the band I discovered and embraced when everyone else was worshiping Nirvana. When grunge took over, I was marinating in industrial.

It's a Bouncing Baby Toyota

The dealership called back Monday morning to say they could find no Matrix models with side airbags left unless we started looking at electric blue or white cars. We didn't want either, so we agreed to take the car they showed us on the lot Saturday. The still-turbulent wind knocked out power at the office right before 3, and I killed time at Barnes & Noble. I met Your Sis at the dealership at 6, and we emptied out the old Contour before trading it in. It was appraised at $1,000, a shock to both of us. I figured it would maybe fetch $200.

The salesman we talked to this weekend took our insurance information and the Contour keys and handed us to the finance officer for the billing. Then we signed about ten forms for contracts, registration, and warranty agreements, right before handing over the check for the down payment. Then we were handed to the service chief who showed us our manual and warranty paperwork. And he walked us out to the new car. Your Sis hadn't bought a new car before, so I made sure everyone was clear on what they were telling both of us. We moved the Contour contents to her sportscar, and I drove the Matrix home. I'd say we were there about 90 minutes.

It's a manual, and it's has been a few years since I drove one, but the gearbox is nicely built, and I had no trouble getting back into rhythm. It likes to go fast. Really fast. I like this car a lot.

Picture of the Day
The language makes it funny.


In the News
It didn't take long for the usual desperate blame-throwing to emerge on talk radio. It's the media, it's the liberals, it's a national move away from God, it's the anti-gun crowd -- everyone except the gunman. I almost understand the need to assign accountability. We face an boggling amount of mass shootings and have for decades. The California McDonald's shooting, the post office deaths, the office shootings, the school shootings. And the only way to make everybody safe is to also invite more danger. Arm college students? Arm teachers? Insert draconian safety measures (as if students didn't protest authority before)? Likewise the calls to fire the college president are in hopes that someone will face punishment when the gunman has escaped it through suicide. This, like 9/11, happened in the alignment of dark stars. A certain person on a certain day acted a certain way and did certain things. You can't escape chaos. By definition, you can't prevent it.

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The Pulitzer for fiction went to a sci-fi novel, The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I have to dig and see if the genre has won before.

Sedaris and A Funeral

David Sedaris, author and This American Life stalwart, came to Mayberry today in what must be the smallest stop on his 36-city tour. It's incredible that he held a two-hour reading just two miles from my house. Of course I attended. Of course Your Sis didn't. She doesn't find him funny; I think the voice annoys her.

Sedaris is a small man who looks like a cross between Anderson Cooper and Ben from "Lost." He read a short story about his Chapel Hill days called "The Heart Is A Lonely Menagerie," and then told us that he had never read it to an audience before. It showed. He was editing as he read, and he became stuck over word flow at points. But it was funny, and it was poignant, and it was good. It just was. Then he read a story published in the New Yorker called "All the Beauty You Will Ever Need" about how a water shortage in his Normandy house made him flashback to buying pot in a trailer outside of Raleigh.

He read a little bit from his diary concerning a recent trip to Japan. Many jokes were made about Engrish. He read some dog poems (The neighbor's pitbull named Cass/Bit the mailman in the ass/His lower teeth damaged his sphincter/ And now his walk's more distincter.)

But then he recommended a book for everyone to read, and it was the Zombie Survival Guide. Not only did he read the Q&As from the book (do zombies digest? how fast can they run?), but he went on to praise World War Z. Turns out, our gay nerdy New Yorker writer is a zombie-phile. Can't get enough of them. But you have to imagine the scene. This is a 500-seat house filled with couples over the age of 50, and he's going on for half an hour about zombies. He finds the book funny, but he's not sure if it's supposed to be. But he genuinely enjoys what each book does. And the audience is laughing in a mix of horror and habit. By this point, he could have read a soup can, and he'd get laughs. His rhythm was established, and he was working the room.

He mentioned that Night of the Living Dead was so good that it changed his life, but he was frustrated with those holed up in the house. He said he still gets annoyed that they didn't think to go upstairs and then destroy the stairs. The zombies couldn't climb. They'd be safe until the zombies got bored. He also complained about a woman from an earlier reading declaring that she'd be a vegetarian zombie. He was incredulous that anyone could think a zombie would have a choice. What would be the problem if we had zombie vegetarians? We could cut of their legs, chain them to the fence, and use them to cut the lawn. We'd sell them in garden centers. I tell you, the man has given this much thought. Somewhere in him lurks a definitive zombie story.

He went on to gripe about a recent letter to the editor in our fishwrapper. His publicity photo ran a few weeks back, and in it, he has a cigarette behind his ear. A reader complained. He's setting a bad example, she said. He'll be the funniest man with cancer, she said. And he went off. How dare anyone prohibit cigarettes in pictures, he asked. And he noted he's been smoke-free since January only because hotels are going smoke-free.

The two hours flew by, and I'm glad I saw it, but I can't believe that this guy was this close to my house.

Just as I left, Dad called to say my uncle Ray had died. He was my mom's oldest brother, I believe. He was diagnosed with cancer while back and beat the life-span estimate. He was a good and decent man. Retired Air Force too. His funeral was Sunday, and this was the first chance to catch up with some family for years and years. He received a full military funeral with taps and the flag given to his widow. I can't say I was close to him -- the family fell apart when my grandfather died 20 years ago, but the military honors and ritual hit me hard. I visited with my parents for a bit and drove back up the mountain during a small hurricane. The storm you're getting now hammered u for two days with big wind. It howled all night and driving through it was like hitting air turbulence. I don' recall being in a sustained storm like that before. There were reports of snow here and there.

We tried to buy the car on Saturday, but they didn't have a model with side airbags. A regional search turned up nothing, and I think we're going to break down and buy a model they have on the lot. By this time tomorrow, we may have a new car.

Picture of the Day
A most bridge-aceous bridge.

Let's Get Newsy

The Imus scandal has crafted a national dialogue on race and free speech that quickly became an abstract argument on propriety and fairness. "Why can they say those words but we can't? Isn't this the creeping fascism of political correctness?" The most often repeated argument I hear is that it's OK for rappers to say this stuff. That's a question that removes all context. You can't say that stuff on broadcast radio music. All such words are edited out on my local radio channels, anyway. MTV certainly removes it. If a rapper uses it on a CD or single, and you hear it, chances are you paid to listen. You know what kind of language to expect in that rap. You know what the intended audience and message is. Chances are you paid to hear it because the radio stations bleeped it out. If you hear it in concert, chances are good you paid to attend.

But free broadcast, syndicated radio like Imus -- whose show was also simulcast on MSNBC -- has two things rap doesn't: media credibility and a predominantly white audience. Imus's show, while it does feature broad humor, plays host to journalists and politicians. He has a cache of respect that, say Howard Stern, doesn't. And, yes, Imus has said similar things in the past while still retaining this clientèle of guests. It could be easily argued that Imus didn't go one step too far with his comments about the Rutger's team but that his cumulative commentary finally caught up with him. And let's not forget he said this during a news segment, not a comedy skit. Context is vital. A 19-year-old black rapper lives in a different realm of obligation than a 40-year white veteran of talk radio.

I still say this is a matter of chivalry. These women did nothing to earn such remarks. They didn't hire a stripper, they didn't throw a kegger, they didn't do anything that college kids could do to garner national news and catch flack from comedians looking to score easy laughs. A 70-year-old man taking potshots at a women's college athletic team is rude. But would the backlash have gathered such career-ending momentum had he called them lesbians? I doubt it. He played the race card, and he got bit by it. You put your neck in that guillotine, you can't whine when you get cut.

And, you know, if a double standard does exists -- "those people" can say "those words," but "we can't" -- I can live with that. The civil rights act isn't 50 years old yet. We're not that far removed from federally-approved separate facilities. I can live with consensus-mandated separate vocabularies. I don't feel in any deprived by a polite inability to call someone a crude slang word. This is hardly a cruel yoke which we can deem a white man's burden.

To all those talk radio people who decry such censorship and call out for a universal patois, I say this: If you think your shtick is hampered by a lack of access to such language, you're in the wrong business.

+ + +

As mentioned here a few weeks back, the administration has employed a shadow email server to avoid federal laws denying the deletion of official communications. Some of these emails apparently dealt with the prosecutor scandal, and despite White House claims, the Democrats say those emails haven't been deleted. They still may exist on a Republican party server, they say, and should be subject to subpoena. This expands further the argument of executive privilege and Congressional checks and balances. The administration claims previous White House staff as have done the same, an obvious admission of guilt that one usually outgrows after elementary school. At the center of this growing ugliness is whether the justice department and White House discussed the firing of prosecutors because they were investigating Republicans connected to lobbyists or voter fraud.

Picture of the Day
Everyone needs a home-security octopus.

Small Stuff and Death

I ran a soil test yesterday, and I'll spare you the nit and grit to say that we have passable food-growing dirt. Chicken alfredo was made and devoured and "Lost" was watched and beloved. We checked the regional inventory of the Matrix that we want to buy, and only two popped up. We may have to pick another color, but I believe we're going tomorrow morning to put in the order. None of the cars on the lot were what we prefer, but we might be tempted to buy one if we get a good offer.

The rehearsals for Romeo & Juliet start Saturday, and the auditions for Much Ado are next weekend. I want to do the latter much more now that I'm relegated to spear-carrier for the former. I'll read the play starting tonight, and get ready to have a more successful try-out. Maybe I can move out of R&J to do Ado.

Picture In The News
Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday. His works have stuck with me, including a short story from our seventh grade lit book. I remember reading Slaughterhouse Five on an airplane, and that must have been while I was flying to Michigan so often in college. As I mentioned a while back, he had a great cameo in Back to School.

His legacy is one of fierce cynicism, and he may be the closest thing to Mark Twain that the science-fiction genre could boast. His material was fundamental in reshaping literature after World War II, along with the Beats and the Northeasterners (Mailer, Caopte, etc.)

Thwack!

Tuesday was the big day for Your Sis. After a little under two years of care and delicate pruning, she decided to cut her hair for a cancer charity. I went with her to take scrapbook photos of the process. She didn't show anxiety, but her many thank-yous for support afterward revealed she was feeling it. I think she likes it a lot. I know I do. She's on Spring Break and made a nice stir-fry dish and apple pie for dinner. I could get used to this.

I got home and worked over the tilled garden. We have a number of roots from various weed shrubs, and I spent at least an hour raking the garden and digging out the weed roots. I also gathered dirt for a Ph test. I don't think we're too far from putting something in the ground, be it seeds or fertilizer.

We tried out a new wine with dinner, and after emptying the bottle, the evening drew to a quick close.

Picture of the Day
Ta-dah.


In The News
Don Imus is an idiot. The scandal has nothing to do with free speech or racial sensitivity. He insulted a successful women's basketball team. This is a matter of chivalry. You don't knock college women for succeeding in their sport. Someone as old as he should know better. Unfortunately, morning radio shows seems to exist to create controversy/free publicity with stupid humor and pranks. We're not a year removed from the death of the West Coast woman who wanted to win a Nintendo Wii from a radio station. The local shows here are unbearable, and thankfully, one station (one!) has no morning show and plays music I can handle.

Snow, Movies, Cars

I watched three movies this weekend.

City of God, a Brazilian street gang movie I TiFauxed a year ago. This took two viewings as it's a mighty long film, but it is stylish and energetic. Also, the soundtrack is fuhntaztik. This is Romeo and Juliet without the romance as we watch kids grow up and dominate the slums of Brazil.

Grindhouse, a marinade of every bad film our parents won't watch. The first half, Planet Terror, is gory and camp, and it starts to wear after a bit. But Death Proof decides to forgo mocking the targeted genres of car stunts and female revenge flicks and actually IS a car stunts and female revenge flick. I prefer it much more, and it's a shame Your Sis will in no way watch the first film to get to this, a movie she will adore. Rumors abound that the startling BO failure of Grindhouse may lead to separate releases of both films. However, each film must include all the fake trailers as they brought the house down when I saw them. There's so much to love here, but Kurt Russell as the bad guy is just dead perfect. The combined z-movie glory of Jeff Fahey and Micheal Biehn is almost too pure a dream to capture in the measly flesh of the human brain. This is crap-movie nirvana.

The Host, a South Korean monster movie that brings dignity back to its genre. It's very, very good and in no way shrimps on the monster or the suspense. But it doesn't try to make the monster sad or misunderstood. I liked this a lot and was shocked when Your Sis suggested we see it. She caught the trailer for it while watching The Namesake and knew I wanted to see Host. Maybe the most satisfying monster film since Jaws.

Amid the films, we shopped for a car. On Sunday we hit the Land Rover dealership and laughed out loud at the prices and accompanying gas mileage, but were momentarily distracted by the used BMW Mini Cooper for $18,000. But we need more cargo space not less. We needed a four-door hatchback, preferably not an SVU. The BMW lot was also a herd of cars out of our range and on we went to the Saturn dealership. However, not only was it cold as hell, it had snowed, and all the outside cars were covered. We couldn't even read the sticker prices. The nearby Nissan dealership had a showroom Versa, and it charmed us with a small price and good space. Unfortunately, it has a thin candy shell. We tried the Pontiac dealership to look at Vibes (a car we noticed years back in a mall show), but the cold drove us away. As the snow melted, we enjoyed a fabulous Chinese lunch and browsed for garden plants. We then hit a Subaru dealership for our first look at those cars. We went back to the Saturn place, and the salesman tried to sell us a tank of a car called the VUE. I told him it was just too big for us. Next door was the Toyota lot, and we checked the Scion (too small), RAV (too big) and Matrix (just right). But the lot was closing, and it was cold, and we went home.

On Monday, we went back to the dealerships. Online comparisons made us reconsider the Vibe and Versa. We checked out a Matrix in the showroom and took to it. We tried to find something wrong with it but couldn't. We moved on to the Nissan dealership to see the Muranos, but man are they expensive. We liked the luxury options (such as the rear-view camera), but the price removed it from our list. The Subarus looked rather old inside, like late '90 cars, and the price wasn't comparable to the front-runner Matrix. So they were out. Once more to the Toyota lot and we actually drove a Matrix. Here I have to commend sales guy Allen who talked with us just barely and gave us time and room to browse. The perfect car salesman, I think. He gave us the Matrix key and an hour to try it. It runs great, sounds great, handles great. But we checked a used model for price comparison, and really the used prices aren't that much different. We'd rather spend the extra money and get the color and options we want. But that's for another day. We also looked at a Prius, the Toyota hybrid. It's sharp to look at, but it doesn't seem any safer than a economy sedan. The Matrix has traction control. We killed time at Barnes & Noble and had Chick-fil-A before seeing The Host. And then it was time to go home.

And this morning ... well, that will wait for tomorrow's entry.

Picture of the Day
The Toyota Matrix, a wagon on the Corolla chassis. Palm trees not included.

Plow, Plow, Plower Wheels

I ran Wednesday and again experienced the unusual leg pain. I stretched out well (I thought) and eaten well enough to avoid cramps (I thought). But my shins kill me before I go a half mile. I wonder if my stride was gone out of whack. I also wonder if my weight is more than I thought. The scale says I'm just a little heavier than I was when I ran the 5k. I'm not experiencing the side pains yet, but I don't think I'm running that much slower to cause a paid reduction. I'm confused.

I got home last night to find Your Sis tilling the long-dormant garden. We talked about starting it back up since we moved in, and we even tried to rent a tiller last year but the weather confounded us. She got out of work and decided to plow the ground, and so she did. She mentioned that the renters gave her a full procedure and that she had never even cranked up a lawnmower before. We'll fix that next week. I want her to be able to use all our equipment in case something happens to me. As she tilled, I did my exercises. She showed Unbreakable for the school movie room was was surprised by how many kids didn't know about it.

As we make our way through the last 25 episodes of "Six Feet Under," the characters are currently in a stretch of universal bad stuff. No one is happy, and everyone is getting bitchy. I need a drink after deleting each finished episode.

We got some surprising news from Your Aunt yesterday, and it's the kind of revelation that knocked me off my feet almost literally. She said she had talked to you as well about her plans, and I'm still not sure I can put into words just what I'm feeling. It certainly will help this here at Chez Debacle.

I'm working today and will be off Monday. I uploaded the Saturday Night Fever CD to my iPod so I can BeeGee my way to work.

Picture of the Day

We Got Movie Sign!

As Spring Break approaches the Mayberry district, Your Sister's school holds its occasional "screw it, we're not getting any work done" day on Thursday. She is in charge of a movie room but doesn't know who's supposed to bring movies. I recommended some of ours, but she reminded me that you can't show Disney movies in schools, or they'll sue you. Yes, they sue over large-scale babysitting viewings. That knocked out Incredibles and Pirates of the Caribbean. I suggested maybe Star Wars or Casablanca. The kids will dig the latter if they give it a chance. It's got Nazis, smart-ass humor, the French Resistance, a venal police chief exploiting the desperation of female refugees, gunplay, gambling, and drinking. It's a family-friendly parade of vice with a hundred quotable lines. I thought about Serenity as well, and I can't think of any major objectionable scenes from that film. I'll let her decide obviously since she'll be accountable. She's buried under school projects (which is why I commandeered the tech display), and this week is gonna be rough on her. She got out of school late yesterday, and we hit the local sports bar for pizza.

Picture of the Day
A new still from the upcoming FF2 movie. I wasn't fond of the first film for a lot of reasons, but it wasn't the blasphemous attack the vocal majority of comic fans would have you believe. I mean, the X-Men film franchise takes just as much liberty with the source material, and most people dig those films (except for those who think it fashionable to be grumpy killjoys). But this FF picture retains the sad resistance to go with the comics' outrageousness. The costumes are needlessly adjusted from the classic designs, and Thing is just too small. He must be broader, more inhuman, so we can immediately acknowledge the difference between being freakishly removed from the rest of us and merely inconvenienced by his new form. He should be CGI. And if I can nitpick, Sue and Johnny's hair don't jibe with what we seen for more than 40 years on paper. But the new film possesses the potential for a big-screen Galactus the World Devourer, and if the producers can just trust that original, cosmic-crazy design, then the movie will get my ticket money.

Victory of Creativity

I met up with Your Sis at the local library to view the technology displays. It was larger than we thought, featuring teachers from the entire district. The dedicated room was packed with displays, laptops running PowerPoint, and students of all sizes. Our display did indeed stand out. But another teacher brought a giant mess of props for her sewing demo, and those items were blocking our display. We simply turned the display around to be read from the other side, a vantage that had more traffic and better visibility. As soon as we moved it, people started reading it. I overheard her talking to another teacher that some students jokingly planned to steal and burn our display because it blew theirs out of the water. The lesson for all: Don't fuck with art majors. We will stylishly bury you. The whole affair was like a mini-convention -- slowly strolling attendees, a corner for heavy food, both vendors trying to make eye contact and hawk their material. Not that I'm slamming the event. I'm shocked it was that well populated. The parking lot was a mess, and folks left their cars anywhere they could find ten feet of asphalt.

After this we went to the recently reopened eatery for bar food. It's just so weird eating a languorous supper and exiting the establishment to encounter bright daylight. And yet I'm surprised by this every year. When will it become old hat?

Picture of the Day
And just how can this be done, anyway?

I Assemble Things

I walked out of the office Friday to discover the back left tire was dead flat. As I walked up to it, I saw the embedded metal shard that caused it. No problem, I thought, I'll get the spare. I had to call Your Sis to find where the jack and wrench are located in the car, and when I finally did replace the tries with the spare, I find the spare is also dead flat. It's almost falling off the rim, and there's no way I can drive it to a garage for a fix. Now it's right at 6 p.m., and tire stores close at that hour on Fridays. There's a tire garage within eyesight of the office, and the garage bay doors are still open. I write down the tire numbers, and run flatout to the front door, nor their posted hours indeed say it's practically closing time, and plead my case. The very nice clerk says they can help me. He looks at my tire numbers and notes they have a similar tire in stock. I run back to the office, grab the dead tire, and run it back to the garage. Yes, I'm running with a flat, wide, sports car tire in my arms. They confirmed it was dead and beyond repair, but sold me a new one and put it on the rim. They clerk then drove me back to the office, and I put the new tire on.

As I'm driving home, I take the back roads to break in the tire and witness, in the opposite lane of traffic, a dramatic arrest involving a running K9 unit, guns, and two shouting cops in all-black gear. So, yeah, my day could have been worse.

Your Sis got home late from work, and my hops for working on the tech fair display were dashed. We briefly talked of my ideas, but shelved it for the next day. I got up Saturday to reassemble the lawnmower. The manufacturers recommend winterizing the mower -- sharpening the blade, changing the oil and air filter, and cleaning the spark plug. I did all that and put the mower back together, and, to my shock, it cranked up and ran fine. But the grass was too wet to mow, and I went to work on the display.

After getting the picture files from her classroom, I showed her my idea on the home PC in a page-making program. We went with a Frankenstein theme, narrated by Igor from Young Frankenstein. I wanted it to be light-hearted. These kinds of display are usually so dull, and I always advocate the use of humor to present potentially dry material. Because she had to work on research papers, this became my project to assemble, but she checked off on all facets. After raiding K-Mart and Wal-Mart for the last 3 bottles of rubber cement and getting Igor images through Google, we started the tight design work. After getting the package ready on the PC, we let it sit for the next day. That night, we went to a local house party, drank some, ate some, and listened to a teacher couple play the gee-tar. It was a good break from working on the display.

I got up early Sunday to make the text. She proofed it after I cut out the header text and images. We ate, got groceries, and went back to the school to grab sound file samples for a CD to play along with the display. I printed out the text with the accompanying classroom pictures and we glued the whole thing together. Then we prepared for the night's WrestleMania PPV party by putting out a spread of eats and cleaning the house. It was a great time. We had four guests, gave a tour of the house, and they watched most of the show before heading out. The short report: It was a good show with some standout matches amid a few utter crap bouts. But the spectacle was worth it. I drank so much that I'm still a little bleary this morning.

Tonight, we go to the library to see the other tech displays. There's no way anyone can beat ours.

Picture of the Day
See? The white spaces around Igor's head were cut away in the printed version, and the final topper includes lightning behind the text.

Another Race to Run

Mayberry will hold another 5k race on July 4, and I was sent a package asking for registration. It's a few weeks before the Orlando trip, and I want to get back into the regular running. So, I'm doing it. I now have a definite goal for my exercise. I have almost four months to prepare. This is muy feasible.

Fried up some chicken last night, and we found ourselves, somehow watching a ballroom dancing competition on PBS. It's just like figure skating without the ice. The dancing has little to nothing to do with the music. It was apparently filmed at a convention. A short segment allowed us to watch a guest commentator shop at various booths set up in what appeared to be a hotel floor, and all the vendors were hawking clothing and accessories.

I have a question for you: One of my printer guys has a daughter or niece who's thinking of the Peace Corps. He wants inside info. He wonders if he can get your email address so you can talk to him/her about it. Barring that, he thinks I can give enough dirt to satisfy them. I don't know about that, but I'm willing to try. She's not out of high school yet, so she has some time to mull it over or grow out of it.

Picture of the Day
I know nothing about it, but I found it yesterday.


In the News
It's quite despicable to suggest that Press Secretary Tony Snow timed his cancer surgery and chemo so he could miss out on the media attention on various administration headaches, but, man, did he excuse himself at a good time. Interim secretary Dana Perino has her hands full learning the job amid all these swirling questions on Iraq, Gonzales, Iran, Congress, and the usual crazy questions coming from the back of the press room. But she seems like she's doing a good job. I like her attitude and willingness to concede a "fair point" made by reporters when citing inconsistencies. Snow's going to be gone awhile, and she might talk her way into a full-time gig. By the way, this would be my dream job regardless of who was the president.

Running for the Border (Eats)

I took a day off from exercise Tuesday and made up for it by running last night. I was worried again about my rib cage flaring up on me, but instead my legs started to ache. That never happens when I run. I even stretched out for a decent time beforehand. Anyway, I got a mile run, before I walked for about a hundred yards and ran another half mile. This put me right at downtown Mayberry. Then I walked back home. Well, I walked toward home but saw Your Sister leaving the school, and I hopped in the car with her. She drove us back downtown for a Mexican dinner. I don't know if eating Mexican ruins the benefits of a run, but I was hungry and the food is always good.

Picture of the Day
The U.S. cover to the last Harry Potter book. The book is scheduled for release the same weekend I'm in Orlando for a wedding.

In the News
Because Congress has subpoenaed emails sent throughout the administration, White House employees have started using a different email server, a private server not covered by public access regulations and also possibly exposed to industrious hacking.

WrestleMania: The Sales Pitch

No plants were missing when I got home Tuesday. And since this is a a brief entry, allow me to extol the virtues of watching a four-hour wrestling pay-per-view.

Watching wrestling on TV used to be a big deal. You only got one pre-recorded show a week for each company, and you rarely saw any champions defend their titles against credible challengers. The TV shows were designed to get people to the live events. In the last 10 years, however, TV shows have evolved to sell PPVs. Because, at one time, there were three wrestling companies on national TV each week, the two big dogs (WCW and the WWF/E) started broadcasting live, head-to-head, to outdo each other in the ratings. This included putting their champions in matches on a weekly basis, effectively diluting the appeal of slapping down $30 for a title match on a PPV.

In another way of out-gunning the competition, WCW and WWF/E started monthly PPVs. Each company had their A-level, annual blow-out PPV, and WrestleMania is the WWE's. This is the culmination of months of writing and plot development. Feud end at this show, and new ones kick up in the subsequent weeks. WrestleMania is the season finale for the company. This will be the 23rd 'Mania (I've seen at least 16 of them), nd it takes place in front of an estikated 70,000 fans in Detroit's Ford Field. While it doesn't look on paper like a potential showcase of skill and maneuvers, it does have a lot of intrigue.

United States Champion Chris Benoit vs. MVP
Benoit is an underrated showman. He's attained virtual sainthood from devoted fans of effort and technical skill as he busts his ass in every match. He doesn't phone it in. Never. He's not an acrobat or a brawler or a freak. But the crowds love him because he looks like he can legitimately cripple you with leglocks and armbars. MVP is very new, very green, and not very good, really. He has no beef with Benoit; he just wants a belt. The consensus is that the company will give him the title to see if he can develop into a marketable personality. Benoit's been here before; he put over a guy named Orlando Jordan who was dead weight in the ring. The guy had no charisma or flow, and the title eventually went back to Benoit in a match that lasted about two minutes.
Benoit Finishing Move: the Crippler Crossface, a neck wrench that also incapacitates the shoulder.
MVP Finishing Move: The Play of the Day, a silly-looking neck twist using a leg.
Why You Should Watch: Benoit will often make you think the match is real.

Kane vs. The Great Khali
Kane has gone through a lot of refinement as a character. He originally was the mute, scarred brother to the Undertaker. He wrestled in a bright red bodysuit and mask. Then he was given an electronic voicebox, and his suit was pruned here and there. Then they took his mask, and let him talk. Now instead of an evil, sadistic, depressed hermit, he's now a popular, feisty brawler. He's a little under seven feet tall. He's also a great big-guy wrestler. He jumps off the turnbuckles, he works the crowd, and he's not afraid to make his opponent look good. Khali is a legit 7-feet tall tree of a man. He can't wrestle for shit, but at his size, all his has to do is slam opponents and yell a lot. Kane is being asked to carry Khali to a decent match all by his lonesome. The freak is a tradition in wrestling, and this is a freak parade.
Kane Finishing Move: The chokeslam. Pick a guy up by his neck and throw him to the ground.
Khali Finish Move: The same, but with both hands.
Why You Should Watch: The sheer spectacle of it. But no one's expecting much from these guys.

Women's Champion Melina vs. Ashley
Ashley is the newest WWE gal to pose for Playboy. Melina has the belt and envy for Ashley's new prominence. Neither woman is any damn good in the ring.
Finishing Move of Either Woman: Removing her clothes, screaming.
Why You Should Watch: Because you're a 14-year-old boy who has no access to a Victoria's Secret catalogue.

ECW Originals vs. New Breed
The WWE bought ECW a few years back and has recently revived the franchise for a spin-off wrestling company. But they've watered down the appeal of ECW by populating it with WWE castoffs. This is an eight-man tag match between the castoffs and the old guard.
Why You Should Watch: To see new guy Marquis Cor Vonn unleash The Pounce, my new favorite finisher. This is him nailing Sabu with it. Every time I see this move, I laugh like a child. It is eight shades of awesome.


Money in the Bank Ladder Match
Eight men try to climb a ladder and grab a suspended briefcase with a contract inside guaranteeing a title shot at any time between this match and the next 'Mania. The match includes two daredevil brothers, an Irish brawler, a straight-edge martial artist, a guy from Houston who acts like he's British royalty, a toothy iconoclast, an arrogant weasel, and a guy from Wisconsin.
Why You Should Watch: If any match can steal the show from the title bouts, this is it. The stunts will be amazing.

Battle of the Billionaires
This is the event of the night. WWE owner Vince McMahon and Donald Trump are each betting his hair that a handpicked representative will win in the ring. Vince chose Umaga, the wild Samoan Intercontinental champ, while Donald chose ECW champ Bobby Lashley, a man entirely composed of muscle. Anything goes. The losing billionaire is shaved live on TV right after the match. The match is officiated by WWE legend Stone Cold Steve Austin.
Umaga's Finishing Move: The Samoan Spike, a taped thumb to the throat.
Lashley's Finishing Move: a running body slam.
Why You Should Watch: It's going to be an all-out train wreck.

WWE Champion John Cena vs. Shawn Michaels
Cena is the young-stud kid who loves rap. Michaels is a WWE stalwart from the early '90s. This is a match to prove, simply, who's the best guy on the Monday night show. Cena is polarizing; the kids love him, but the adult men hate him. He's not very good in the ring, but he's got a lot of charm. Michaels is this generation's best wrestler. He can do it all, and he can turn any match into the best match of the year.
Cena's Finishing Move: The F-U, an over-the-shoulder body slam.
Michaels' Finishing Move: Sweet Chin Music, a standing side kick to the chin.
Why You Should Watch: No matter who wins, Michaels will earn your applause.

World Heavyweight Champion Batista vs. Undertaker
The match with the most invested appeal. Undertaker, a tall guy who might be a magical druid motorcyclist, is 14-0 at 'Mania. He's ever held this title (there are two top titles because there are two rosters with their own shows -- one of Monday, one on Friday). Batista is the classic WWE champ, a muscular powerman, and he thinks he can beat the Dead Man in a title match. That's essentially the hook. Can Taker beat this hulk of a guy to win the belt and keep his streak alive? 'Taker is the old proud lion of the WWE, and he's such a good performer, he's made this cartoon gimmick work way past the golden goofy days of the WWF.
Undertaker's Finishing Move: The Tombstone Piledriver.
Batista's Finishing Move: The Batista Bomb, an elevated body slam.
Why You Should Watch: The Undertaker's entrance. Darkness, smoke, organ music. It's like a kick-ass Phantom of the Opera.

Picture of the Day
There's a hexagon on Saturn. It's 15,000 miles across. It's a geometric cloud formation at the north pole. Weird.

A Stern Fern Talking To

After receiving no return call from the suspected plant pilferers, I called them back yesterday as soon as I walked in the door from work. They were home. I asked to talk to the husband, and when he heard "something's missing from the yard," he got his wife on the phone. I explained politely that we discovered a hole in the yard, and she immediately blamed moles. When asked how big the hole was, I said it's exactly as big as the plant that's no longer there.

Then I just said it: we've been told by more than one person that you take plants from this yard you used to own. She shouted it was a lie but then offered a rationale. She said she got permission from the second homeowners' gardeners to take what she wished. I said we are not those people, and we want the plants that we still have. She asked if she could buy saplings from one of the trees, and I said it was a decision Your Sister needed to make. I said we'd call her back to say yea or nay. She said she'd come over, and I repeated, no, we'll call you back first.

I think my point was made, and I think we all knew what happened. The husband wanted clarification from his wife as to who gave permission, so I suspect he didn't know she had not asked us. She did try to use the "we paid for all those plants" card, but I reminded her that they subsequently sold them all when they put the house on the market.

I don't think this will continue to be a problem. I hope not. Your Sis said she would indeed call and work out an arrangement. She doesn't mind splitting offshoots of any of the plants, and she's willing to divvy up the batches of flowers. But we don't want unsolicited pruning. We have plans for the yard, and they don't include arrogant, elderly plucking.

Your Sis has to create a small presentation for a local technology committee about her classroom equipment. She doesn't have to present it to them but instead at a display at the library that the public will be encouraged to browse. She's been given one of those science-fair triptychs to decorate for the project and an absurdly short deadline. So, like the parents of a lazy fourth-grader, we'll slap together a design this weekend. We have some ideas, but the lack of a Kinko's in the area means we have to rely on our desktop printer. I told her I can help as much as possible so long as we finish before 6:30 on Sunday in order to prepare for the PPV party.

I did some small exercises after the phone call, and I intend to run a little tonight. I have a wedding to attend in July, and I'd like to tone up before then. I have plenty of time.

Picture of the Day
From a Russian LiveJournal:


In the News
The Fifth Amendment is a good thing and a necessity at the time the Bill of Rights were created. But today, really, if you plead the fifth, you're admitting guilt by escaping accountability. And a Gonzales aide says she'll do this if called to testify in front of Congress, and then she declared she was taking an indefinite leave of absence. Now that's quality stonewalling. Monica Goodling is the the Justice Department’s White House liaison. Her office is the conduit that makes this scandal noteworthy. A lot of left-wing folks are comparing this scandal to Watergate and even Al Capone's arrest on tax evasion. It's much too early in this new scandal to start saying that, but we are seeing something possibly more offensive than lying to a committee: a steadfast refusal to drop pretense when documents expose a lie. Not that this is solely a Republican tactic, mind you.

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Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, has learned his colon cancer has returned. Hopefully, he'll again defeat it with chemo and return to his job. Although, if he had to resign to fight this, no one would blame him. He's looked a bit haggard lately, and I was among those who assumed the rigors of the job were getting to him. Looks like, instead, his health was declining.

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This blurb was on my favorite sports writer's blog today:

"I wanted to write you without my name or anything, just as a student of UNC. Our loss last night was tough -- some might say heartbreaking. But what's worse is that it may overshadow the death of a true Tar Heel. Jason Ray, our mascot, died this morning. He was the very first person I met at UNC. He was helping freshmen move into the dorms as a part of Intervarsity (a Christian ministry on campus). The elevators were all jammed up, so he helped me cart a refrigerator, futon, and all my other stuff (and girls have a lot of stuff) up NINE floors in the 100-degree heat. And he did it happily. We became friends and I spent a lot of time around him. He let me wear the ram head one time because I thought it'd be funny (even though I'm sure he wasn't supposed to). You've probably gotten a lot of e-mails about yesterday's game, but could you maybe mention Jason in your article, if only for a second. The world deserves to know who this person was. I don't just want him to be a 'UNC mascot dies' blurb on ESPN.com. He was such a good person. A true friend. What every Tar Heel should aspire to be."

I heard about the injury Friday night. He was hit by a car near his hotel in New Jersey. This was a few hours before the game.

Things Are Gone

I picked up my car from the dealership Friday afternoon and discovered to my utter amazement, shock, and suspicion of reality that the actual cost was lower than the estimate. This never happens. This is the equivalent of finding a nine-leaf clover that plays saxophone. Once Your Sister scooped me off the floor, we drove into downtown Mayberry for an early supper. There, another shock awaited us: A favorite restaurant, closed due to fire last year, had quietly reopened. In we went, and eats was ate. That night we watched some more of Lord of the Rings, and we're halfway through the approximately eight-hour extended cut of the last film. When this is finished, Your Sis has decreed we shall watch the Matrix trilogy again. And who am I to argue?

On Saturday, I arose early for a much needed haircut. I arrived a bit early and walked to the local boulangerie for croissants. They have a chocolate croissant that is light-years beyond 'indulgent'. I got back home, and we prepared our documents for the annual tax appointment in Asheville. Not only was it relatively painless and quick, but we are getting a nice chunk of change back from Uncle Sam. Also, while strolling the town, I showed Your Sis the R2D2 box (see below). She hit Tops for Shoes while I killed time in a variety of stores, including a record shop where I picked up a Nurse With Wound CD I haven't heard since college.

We stopped by some other stores on the way back home to buy her warm-weather school clothes, and, of course, crackuccino. The night ended with a surprise birthday party for Kathy. Travis called me about two hours before to ask if I would bring CDs, and we got in time for me to burn some mix discs for her to keep after the party. It was a fun time, and we invited a handful of folks to our place next weekend for the WrestleMania PPV.

But earlier in the day we noticed one of the roadside plants was missing, and a large hole was where it used to be. We were stumped as to why anyone would take a plant, but I suspected the neighborhood kids. Nothing else was missing.

On Sunday, I bought a New York Times and read on the back porch. It was great weather for it, and after the read, I ran around the neighborhood in my newly purchased wicking shirt. It's the first uniform-like outfit I've worn since high-school basketball. I did pretty well for a long run, but my diaphragm was hurting, and the afternoon heat was killing me. I usually run later in the day. After I cleaned up, Your Sis said she talked to a neighbor about the new lawn hole and was told that the original house-owner would return to reclaim plants. She did this after selling her house to the couple we bought it from. We called them, and they confirmed it. Well, now I was pissed. Vandalism is one thing, but taking items from a property sold years ago is almost crazy. I called the couple and left a message on their machine to call me back. I don't expect to hear anything, but if we did contact them, we have arranged a proposal. When Your Sis is off for Spring Break, she will host the woman, and they will divvy up the plants. She can have what she likes. But this is a one-time offer. Anything happens to our yard before that, and we call the cops. Anything happens after, and we call the cops. And I don't want to call the cops to complain about a plant-pilferer, but what else should we do? The theft is petty, but it's theft. We ended the night watching both Kill Bill films on cable TV. They had some really nice edits throughout, nothing ridiculous at all.

This morning, I sent off the food comic, and that project is now done and over and finished and ended. When the editor gives the OK, I'll post it here.

Picture of the Day
Send this to Postmaster General Kenobi.


In the News
After the weekend revelation that Attorney General Gonzales sat in on personnel meetings he claimed to have never attended, it seems his resignation is inevitable. But Gonzales is a longtime buddy of Bush, and the president may be determined to keep him no matter what. Again, the cover-up eclipses the event, and had these folks simply told the truth about what happened, we wouldn't face a constitutional showdown to force people to 'fess up.

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The UNC loss to Georgetown wasn't shocking after hearing their game on Friday, but their collapse at the end was. The team seemed to be replaced by randomly selected fans. Also, my brackets are all but ruined. I could still correctly pick the final between Ohio State and UNC with Ohio State winning, but I really hoped to have the Final Four right.