Good News

Dad's lymphoma is apparently only limited to his lymph system. No cancer in any organs. However, the pathologists disagree on what kind he has. One is attending a Texas convention this weekend and may take the biopsy with him. He won't know for a week perhaps. Until then, the Super Bowl party is so very on.

We lost power from an ice storm, and we might not get it back until midnight. Your Sis is with me in Asheville. Here's how accustomed Your Parents' cats are: The silver one meets me at the door now.

The season premiere of Lost was kick-ass.

Picture of the Day
Russian missile launch, I think.

Pins. Needles.

A lot happens today, and I'm helpless to move any of them along.

We'll know what Dad has tonight. They sit down with the doctors around 5, and then they'll call me. We already know that Dad has some good news about this; this isn't the worst-case scenario. But what Dad hears tonight will literally affect the rest of his life, and that's daunting.

Today is the deadline for the comic contest, and the ever-possible slam-dunk proposal that will knock mine out of contention might still be out there. I've seen some art by the guy assigned to draw the comic, and I'm not sure what I suggested would work with his cheesecake style. I could try to write to his strengths, but my proposals don't immediately shout "cheesecake."

The new season of Lost starts tonight. The "enhanced" rerun of the season finale last night was brutal. The pop-up information was meant to win over new viewers, but was so dense that it doubled the amount of information they had to process. I don't know how new people could process it. We couldn't watch the whole thing, and, for the second night, we watched American Idol.

Today will drag by like some horrible dragging thing.

Picture of the Day
A new pic from this year's Indy film.

Good News

The system didn't save my response to your comments earlier, and I wanted you to know I appreciate your regards. And the Star Wars link.

My Mom called me last night to say that the doctors called them with the results of My Dad's MRI and announced "there's nothing between his ears." It was great relief to My Mom, who needed some good news. We've already talked about a possible Super Bowl party at their house (doesn't hurt that they have HDTV), and both seemed up for it depending on the diagnosis on Thursday.

Your Sister has another cold and is relegated to the sick bed.

Stupidly, I'm already planning my next step for the comic contest, as if my progression is a lock. I should hear something by Monday.

Picture of the Day
Maybe so.


In the News
Giuliani's campaign may take on epic stature as an example of how to blow an early lead by going into cruise control. Once again, the Democrat candidate won more votes than the leading GOP candidate, but more Republicans voted overall. Edwards and Rudy are to formally quite the race today. I don't get the theory that Edwards's endorsement would cement the race for Hillary or Barack. He's not doing that well to wield such alleged power.

The McCain win is interesting for what it does to the mighty talk shows. The major voices -- Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Savage, Drudge, Bennett -- have made their bones by riling up their fanbases against McCain. He's considered too moderate for their ideal of conservatism, and he's been the anti-Bush since the 2000 campaign. Now, however, he's the front-runner, and they find themselves on the fringe which ruins their notions of political and cultural savvy. They backed the wrong horses, and they have to eat crow.

Things Happen in Batches

Dad is still undergoing tests to determine just what variety he has, but the doctors said he has Stage 4. This means it's spread throughout the lymph system. There's no sign yet that it has hit any organs though. Already, they know his lungs are OK (I don't know how this is possible; he's smoked for 40+ years) . The tests he has today through Thursday (CT, MRI, PET) will verify there are no tumors in organs, but the blood work already suggests there are none.

Mom is taking it hard. I'm not sure she understands that Stage 4, while daunting, doesn't mean he has the worst diagnosis. If this is Hodgkins, he's still in good shape. If it's not, he's still potentially salvageable. There's no way to know until Thursday night, when the doctor sits down with them. They know that treatment wouldn't start until Monday at the earliest. He is cycling off antibiotics as they're making him nauseous, and he needs to eat. He's already pretty thin (132 pounds at 5'6"), but he can pack on pounds over the weekend. I'm hoping to throw him a Super Bowl party at his house (just us four) so he'll have a reason to eat all day.

The best thing now is that Dad is still up and about, eating, and spreading the news through his church's prayer lines. Mom says he's already decided to pursue all the medical options, which is a relief. We've argued over science vs. God before. Also, Mom has now put her foot in the pro-stem cell camp.

Other Stuff:
1) Your Sis went to the eye doctor after suffering a localized headache. The doc says she's OK despite the laser pointer. The moron who lives across the street is known as a harmless dumb-ass, and the school isn't postponing the fire drill. There's little likelihood this will develop beyond Sunday's stupidity.

2) I sent off my superheroine submissions yesterday and received the automatic email receipt. I slapped together 6 proposals and should find out before the end of the week if I'm one of the ten semifinalists.

3) The next local play auditions are this weekend. The director asked me back in December to read for it. I don't think I can commit to this now. I may audition just in case, but my heart isn't in it. Still, it might be a needed distraction.

Picture of the Day
This looks like a good idea right now.


In The News
The State of the Union address was weak, weak, and weak some more. The first third as a list of pie-in-the-sky bill proposals, the next third was a defense of the Iraq policy, and the last was a broad appeal to come together and play nice. I was nodding off, and I usually love these things.

+ + +

The Florida primary is today. Finally. This is make or break for Giuliani, and he's banking on the already submitted absentee ballots to give him the win. He's polling in third place.

An Odd Weekend

On Friday night, we visited Kathy and Travis and another couple for what Kathy is calling Cuisine and Conversation. This will be the first of four monthly meetings where we gobble grub and sit around answering questions from a book of them. It centers on spirituality, and it's not as stuffy as I worried it would be. It went fine. The next nights will probably move from house to house.

When I got home I found a message from My Parents. Dad officially has lymphoma. A Friday test and a Monday exam should tell us which kind it is. I looked it up on WEBMD, and read all the varieties of Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's and survivability rates and treatments. I think we'll know by the end of today which kind it is and what medicine they'll consider. Dad, except for the lymph swelling, says he's OK. He's still going to work, still getting groceries. He unfortunately is a prime candidate for lymphoma: He's an older male who worked around chemicals all his life. He may also have used black hair dye (a strong precursor). We'll know more later in the week, and we'll visit him this weekend, maybe watch the Super Bowl with them.

We watched I Am Legend Saturday night. It's a strong movie that has almost nothing to do with the original novel, and Your Sister is a bit obsessed with both now. We talked about the film throughout the weekend and then hit Blockbuster to rent the first two film adaptations of the story: The Last Man on Earth and Omega Man. It appears that the Will Smith movie is based more on those two films than the original novel. We watched Last Man Sunday night, and it's a surprisingly good, cheapie horror film starring my beloved Vincent Price.

But what happened earlier that night was really strange. I picked up Your Sister from the school around 6:45 so we could drive for pizza and the movies. She was standing outside talking on the cell phone, and as she hopped in the car, she said someone from the house across the street was aiming a laser sight at her. She was warning the remaining teacher in the building. I stopped the car out of sight and called 911. We told the officer what was going on, and as we waited for him to arrive, Your Sister noticed people were leaving the home.

We drove back around through the parking lot, told the last teacher what we were doing, and drove in front of the house. Your Sis wanted their license plate numbers, so I turned around in the road. They saw us and hastily hopped in a truck to leave. We parked in the road to get the number of another car in the driveway and to keep them from leaving. The truck pulled into the school parking lot and drove around to the back of it, obviously to hide. The cop car pulled up next to us, we told him about the truck, and he gave chase. With the other car's number, we drove after the cop, saw him pull over the truck, and we parked in the lot to wait for him. He drove up a few minutes later and said he was going to talk to the folks at the house (who had not left yet). He said we didn't need to do anything else, and we left for dinner. Your Sis called the principal and suggested he follow up on it.

Later in the night, she remembered the school has a fire drill tomorrow, and she wants to request it be canceled. We don't know if that sight was attached to anything, and it may have just been dumb rednecks playing with toys. But we're in mountain country with a high percentage of gun ownership and a disproportionate number of dumb yokels. Why not play it safe for a few days? Along with pizza, she downed a few beers to calm down. I can't blame her. I suggested she wear a different jacket and hat and drive to school just to be safe. She was standing in the dark, and there's no way they could have seen which teacher was out there. But now they might be stupidly offended that we called the cops on them. Oh, and we drive past their house every day.

Picture of the Day
The spacesuit of Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell.

Back to Comics

I narrowed down the causes of my recent back agony to my new office chair. When I grabbed the former corner office of our most recent departure, I kept her chair and desk set. The chair, I realized, is a four-wheeled torture device, and I traded it out for my old chair, and now my back is in bliss. No more pain.

I've narrowed down my comic proposals to five, keeping the weaker option among them just in case. The trick with that one was coming up with a catchy heroine name after I crafted my snazzy premise. And I'm not sure I've done that; I've settled on a moniker for now, but I don't think it will catch fire for the judges. I've reduced them to smaller paragraphs, and after running them past Your Sister, I'll email them Monday. The problem is that these ideas are practically fully formed (with designs and names), but the proposals need to be small. I'm cutting out the meat to make the platter prettier.

Picture of the Day
Bionic contacts lenses that might replace certain surgeries.


In The News
Kucinich is giving up today on his presidential campaign. His fans are loyal to a fault, but what skunks his chances isn't his ideas but his stature. He simply can't rile up support from casual audiences, and if it wasn't for his Irish wife, he would have received zero mainstream coverage.

The S.C. Democrat primary is tomorrow, and everyone's tired of hearing Obama vs. the Two Clintons. And, barring a second-place win, Edwards is perceived as a lame runner trying to finish a marathon. He can't even get enough bad press to help his cause.

The NY Times endorsed McCain and Hillary, but this comment about Giuliani was the most eye-catching:

"The real Mr. Giuliani, whom many New Yorkers came to know and mistrust, is a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power. Racial polarization was as much a legacy of his tenure as the rebirth of Times Square. Mr. Giuliani's arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking. . . . The Rudolph Giuliani of 2008 first shamelessly turned the horror of 9/11 into a lucrative business, with a secret client list, then exploited his city's and the country's nightmare to promote his presidential campaign."

The stimulus package might not get the Senate rubber stamp that would send it unscathed to the president's desk. If the Senate decides to tinker with rebate amounts, the bill would have to go back to the House and then might not pass Bush's standards. I like the idea of getting $600 from the government, but one wonders:

1) How much this adds to the deficit?
2) How much better the economy would hum along if we all paid less in taxes to begin with?
3) Isn't this a form of welfare?
3) Why are we having to ask these questions during a Republican administration?

Bonus
Making the rounds today is the comprehensive list of reasons why David Banner became the Hulk on the TV series. Trivia: The name was changed from the comics' "Bruce Banner" because the first name was considered gay. It's also my middle name.

Avoiding the Draft

One of Your Sister's coworkers has restarted her effort to recruit me as a teacher. The last two times she's called, she's given me the hard sell. But she also mentioned an option I'm not so averse to: Reading storybooks at the elementary school. Her husband teaches there, and he likes to bring in guests for storytime. Not only would it give provide a small theatrical outlet, but it would get me out of work.

Picture of the Day
Last year, the U.S. Army paid for subtle advertisements in Marvel comic books. Instead of buying regular full-page ads, they paid instead for army logos and placards to appear inside of comic panels. This year, ABC is doing the same to sell Lost. Below, you'll see a pic of Kate and a drawing of someone who appears to be modeled after Hurley.


Recent comic artists are also drawing celebrities as characters in comics, and Sawyer is obviously starring in a current Marvel comic, probably without the actor's knowledge or permission. You can see more examples from just one title here.

Also, keep in mind that Lost runs on Thursdays starting next week.

In the News

My dad's having a health scare involving his lymph nodes. The doctors think it might be MRSA as his bloodwork doesn't suggest any tumors. His tests were supposed to come back yesterday but didn't. Hopefully, he'll find out something on Friday. He's taking medicine that doesn't affect his diet or sleep. His side of the family has multiple cancer problems, and Mom's worried about this flaring up in him. He's lost a lot of siblings (but then, he had 12), and unlike the majority of them, Dad stayed thin. Then again, Mom and Dad smoke like chimneys.

Two Three biggish news items hit yesterday.

1. THE OSCAR NOMINATIONS

Performance by an actor in a leading role
George Clooney in “Michael Clayton”

Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood”

Johnny Depp in “Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”

Tommy Lee Jones in “In the Valley of Elah”

Viggo Mortensen in “Eastern Promises”

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Casey Affleck in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”

Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men”

Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Charlie Wilson’s War”

Hal Holbrook in “Into the Wild”

Tom Wilkinson in “Michael Clayton”

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Cate Blanchett in “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”

Julie Christie in “Away from Her”

Marion Cotillard in “La Vie en Rose”

Laura Linney in “The Savages”

Ellen Page in “Juno” (Fox Searchlight)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Cate Blanchett in “I’m Not There”

Ruby Dee in “American Gangster”

Saoirse Ronan in “Atonement”

Amy Ryan in “Gone Baby Gone”

Tilda Swinton in “Michael Clayton”

Best animated feature film of the year
“Persepolis”

“Ratatouille”

“Surf's Up”

Best documentary feature
“No End in Sight”

“Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience”

“Sicko”

“Taxi to the Dark Side”

“War/Dance”

Best foreign language film of the year
“Beaufort” Israel

“The Counterfeiters” Austria

“Katyń” Poland

“Mongol” Kazakhstan

“12” Russia

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
“Falling Slowly” from “Once”

“Happy Working Song” from “Enchanted”

“Raise It Up” from “August Rush”

“So Close” from “Enchanted”

“That’s How You Know” from “Enchanted”

Best motion picture of the year
“Atonement”

“Juno”

“Michael Clayton”

“No Country for Old Men”

“There Will Be Blood”

Achievement in visual effects
“The Golden Compass”

“Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”

“Transformers”

Adapted screenplay
“Atonement”

“Away from Her”

“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”

“No Country for Old Men”

“There Will Be Blood”

Original screenplay
“Juno”

“Lars and the Real Girl”

“Michael Clayton”

“Ratatouille”

“The Savages”

I haven't seen a lot of this, although I adored Ratatouille. No Country For Old Men is playing in town, but I don't think I'll get to see it before it's ultimately replaced by Alvin and the Chipmunks. I'm glad to see Blanchett nominated, and I think this is the second straight year she's been nominated in the lead and supporting categories.

2. FRED THOMPSON QUIT.
Shocking only for the fanfare that precluded his campaign. He was the GOP savior, the star coming off the bench to win one for the team, the new Reagan, the rare celebrity Republican who could turn his fame into political success. But he entered so late into the race that he never got his sea legs, and his alleged fame didn't play with the young crowd. Also, his heart wasn't in it. I mean, look at the guy. What in his bearing suggests he's gonna wear a dumb smile and wave to the crowds? He's a cranky old man. That kind of figure can't win an election. This is why Cheney didn't run for the top spot. I enjoy the debate about who he will support now as if he has any clout he can bestow onto another candidate. Thompson ran because the other guys supposedly couldn't win; why would he back one of them?

3. HEATH LEDGER DIED
I only saw the guy in Brokeback Mountain, but I marveled at his created voice and mannerisms. He deserved an Oscar. Of course, we geeks are shaken because he's the new Joker in this summer's Batman film.

Picture of the Day
For just £100,000, you too can reserve your seat aboard Virgin's space plane.




From ThisIsLondon.co.uk:

The Virgin Galactic spacecraft, which was being unveiled in New York today, is already under construction. Test flights are expected to begin in June, with commercial flights starting 12 months later.

More than 200 potential astronauts are believed to have already paid deposits for the 100,000 flights, including actress Victoria Principal, scientist Stephen Hawking, and Princess Beatrice.

Flights will last for two hours and will include four and a half minutes of weightlessness.

The 60-ft ship is expected to reach an altitude of 110km - 68 miles - and will be launched from underneath a mother ship called White Knight.

Once the mother ship reaches 50,000 feet, which was the cruising altitude of Concorde, the spaceship is released and its rocket is fired, accelerating the craft up to 2,500mph, and taking it to 110km, officially making its passengers astronauts.

There's no way I'm going up on the first flight.

We Saw Shows

I spent some hours pounding out and refining proposals for the super-heroine contest. I now have five really good stories, and I'll spend the next week refining them further. I don't think I'll get a full ten complete, but I'd rather not dilute my submissions for the sake of numbers. Your Sister is pushing me to apply for the creative director job, but I don't have the necessary experience. They want seven years of book publishing, a very different creature from magazines and newspapers.

A daylong snow shower didn't postpone the Saturday production of Top Secret, a reading theatre play about the Washington Post fighting the Nixon Administration to publish the Pentagon Papers on Vietnam. This is the show featuring Your Sister's crush guy, but it also gave us a pack of Those Guys, supporting actors you see constantly without knowing their names. It was a good show, and it flew by within ten hours. Your Sis sneaked over to Mast general to buy me a sack of Krackle. We spent Sunday watching quality football.

I had Monday off, and I managed to see Cloverfield, the NY monster movie shot like Blair Witch. It's good. It's not much more than an experiment of style, but it succeeds in being both harrowing and cool. Maybe a bit better than The Mist. Including those two films and 28 Weeks Later, I've had good luck with horror movies lately. Once again, I shared a theatre with an idiot who brought along a child too young for this kind of film, and naturally the kid freaked. I don't blame him one bit, but that father should be strung up.

Picture of the Day
A new picture of Mercury



In the News
The Democrat campaign ads are breeding like rabbits as the local weekend primary approaches. Edwards has no chance. None. The Huckabee campaign has ended the press transportation to cover its events, and the Florida events have been scaled back. Giuliani, who is banking on his first win there, is still an underdog to Romney. Thompson may pull out of the running as early as today.

Snow Day

We got hammered by snow Thursday, shocking everyone because the weathermen got it completely right. They said the snow would start about 7 pm Wednesday night, and by 8:30, our deck was completely white. We both had Thursday off, and we moseyed about town. There was one restaurant open -- one -- and we had Hawaiian pizza, the traditional winter feast of tis modest hamlet.

I called work this morning and discovered Asheville got virtually nothing compared to us, and yes the office was open. I shoveled the driveway in record time (wrenching it into utter agony, I must admit; I'm getting old) and drove in. We're expecting more snow tonight, threatening tomorrow's play starring Your Sister's high-school celebrity crush.

I had two opportunities drop in my lap.

1. A writing contest for a new creator-owned super heroine. A large publisher wants to start a new series with a brand-new character, and they're taking brief descriptions from applicants. Then voters will determine whose proposal becomes a comic. It's comics version of American Idol. I have plenty of these characters ready to package this way, and I'm giving myself a ten-proposal quote to fill.

2. A local book publisher needs a creative director, and the job sounds right up my alley. Unfortunately, it's also in Asheville, so unless it pays much more than the current job, it does me no good to apply. The commute would still be a problem.

I'll keep you informed.

Moving Picture of the Day
Your Sister says hi.

In the News
The GOP primary in South Carolina is tomorrow, and Huckabee is courting the locals by equating homosexuality with bestiality and supporting the state's right to fly the Confederate flag.

Watching American Idol

As Your Sister's semester winds down, a few students and teachers are letting the pressure get to them. One kid still owes her the final pages of his research papers after pretending he didn't know how to send an email attachment. Another has her mom ask Your Sis what could be done to help her grades, but she asked on the last day of classes. A teacher decided she wasn't going to help in pre-exam remediation despite the standing order from Your Sis.

American Idol started its seventh season last night, and I asked her if she wanted to try it. Maybe give her some conversational ammo for the students. The auditions are my favorite part. I appreciate the quick movement from applicant to applicant, and I enjoy the assurance that there are people who sing worse than I. In contrast, the second half of the show is a parade of whining and griping, both from the contestants and judges. The first part of the season is a game show; the second is a reality show.

We saw the usual stream of variety. Some incredibly, unfairly talented people were also gorgeous. These people are the next evolutionary advances ,and we poor Morlocks can only scheme to steal their fire. Some people were clearly seeking TV time: One guy dressed in the Slave Leia outfit and was allowed to come back after he promised to wax his chest hair. He did. Sang about three notes before getting yanked.

But the ending was a singular oddity. There were two girls left: a brunette and a blonde. The brunette went first. She dressed up in her costume from the Los Angeles Star Wars Convention -- Star Wars belt buckle, clip-on hair rolls, tight black dress, silver platform shoes. In her pre-singing interviews, she bragged she wasn't wearing make-up, made a Star Trek insult, and impersonated Chewbacca. She galloped into the audition and made nervous conversation (I can't imagine how anxious that scenario must be for the borderline talented). Then she sang. And she wasn't bad. A little soft, maybe (again, nerves), but she had a nice, even sound. The problem was that she was jittery and socially awkward. She was a nerd.

And when she lost, she went off to the cameras. Complained that the show only wanted cookie-cutter looks and voices and needed an "oddball" like her. But while she was ranting, the show aired a montage of the previous two hours' winners, and she had a point. I couldn't tell if the show was trying to prove her wrong with the majority of petite women and their blinding white smiles or if we were supposed to nod in silent agreement, that yes, it's unfair that society wants pretty things to stare at for six months at a time.

Ultimately, her adamant goofiness was her poison pill. She set those judges up to see her as an insincere applicant, and she dared them to give her a pass. Anyone who's seen the show -- anyone who knows of the show -- is aware that applicants are prepared to be pop stars. And even pseudo-punk pop girls wear makeup. Presentation is crucial to your audition. Her outfit was a protest to the show's bread-and-butter. She was borderline, and if she had slipped off her high horse and met them halfway, she might be in Hollywood right now instead of becoming another failed contestant bitching on camera into her cell phone.

She wasn't as offensively stupid as the veterinarian student rocker who went apeshit against Simon despite what might have be the most pleasant rejection from all three judges. Clearly, when she got on camera to curse him out, she had a prepared speech. Unfortunately, she scrambled it and came across as a loon.

Oh, and the thin blonde after the Star wars girl was approved after offering a weaker audition. She won on personality.

I don't know if we'll watch again. It's entirely Your Sister's call. I'd be curious to watch more.

Picture of the Day
The latest picture from this year's Indiana Jones film.


In The News
Even though Romney took Michigan, the GOP is only accepting half the delegates as punishment for the early primary. He may have taken the state, but he doesn't get the full benefits.

South Carolina comes an even bigger primary now that Romney, Huckabee, and McCain have all won at least one state. All three, Thompson, and Paul are running ads here. Giuliani is a non-entity, betting on Florida for his first primary win. Obama and Edwards have TV ads, but I don't remember any for Clinton. To be fair, we don't watch much of the local affiliates. American Idol and Terminator are both on FOX, and only football and Lost make us watch ABC.

The GOP primary in SC is Saturday, and the Democrats' is a week later.

A Short Meeting

The education board held its regular meeting at the local library to recognize the new nationally certified teachers. We knew two of the three. Your Sis also got to stand up as one of the county's 40+ certified educators. There were snacks.

Before we slunk away, one of the board members noted that they would visit school campuses to personally see the items needing repair. He made a point to address all the principals (absent and present) to say he only wanted to see those items and not be subjected to a "dog-and-pony show." I can appreciate a non-nonsense approach. I'm sure these folks have to glad-hand their way through weekly needless and time-consuming formality.

(In fact they instigated some last night. The meeting began with the Pledge of Allegiance. The only flag was the outdoor lighted banner, and no one could see it from our room. We all rose, covered our heart, turned to the nearest door, and pledged allegiance to the buffet bar.) Anyway, this particular board member's delivery suggested a cowboy attitude I'm sure he cribbed from his favorite radio talk-show host. Maybe he was hoping to impress a newspaper reporter.

We watched the second episode of the Terminator series, and Your Sis loves it much more than the weak Bionic Woman reboot they tried in the fall. Penny from Lost (Desmond's girl) is now a supporting character on the series, and I don't know what this will mean for her Lost character.

Picture of the Day
Is this thing on?

Catching Up

Your Sister spent much of the weekend grading papers as the semester ends this week. I used the quiet time to try my first run of 2008, and I'm feeling it a bit two days later. I ran about 2 miles with s small walking break, and it was my best chance to try the new running shirt. It's incredibly tight. Indecent, even. But it helps me stay upright while I run.

The comic script is moving well. I take breaks to step back and see if this is developing into what I want instead of organically blossoming into crud. So far, so good, I think.

The NFL playoffs this weekend brought some surprises, and Your Sister wasn't happy to remember that I picked the two remaining AFC teams (New England, San Diego), the latter beating her Colts yesterday in an upset. This leaves next weekend's games as:

AFC
San Diego vs. New England
San Diego's game yesterday left them beat up, and they might limp to their game against the Patriot machine.

NFC
New York vs. Green Bay
New York has gotten hot at just the right time and have to play in front of the most rabid fanbase in the league.

These will be good games.

Your Sister proposed a double-event Valentine's date: We'll catch a play at her old college in the afternoon and see a wrestling PPV in person that night.

Per her request, we watched the first episode of the new Terminator series last night, and she seemed to like it. She's a big fan of the films.

Picture of the Day
A big shuttle photo.

In the News
I watched some C-SPAN Michigan coverage. McCain isn't offering much but assurances that he'll encourage young people to join the military, and he'll get Bin Laden. He's doddering, and it's a shame that he missed his best chance to win the White House because of dirty politics in South Carolina in 2000. The state's largest paper endorsed him this weekend.

The current Edwards TV ad for South Carlina (his home state) is a weak bit of pandering to the blue collars. I haven't seen an Obama ad since Christmas.

Rumors say Giuliani has stopped paying his campaign staff. He has no presence in South Carolina.

The talk-show hosts are clearly backing Thompson and were giddy over his performance in the Thursday debate. He's running on a heavy immigration platform, and that's essentially it. He's now bickering with Huckabee to make headlines.

Going to a Show

Maybe, like a lot of high school kids, you watched a TV miniseries of The Scarlet Letter. It was produced by the Boston PBS station back in 1979, and many English teachers rely on it to help kids dig the Hawthorne book. I saw it in 10th grade. Your Sister saw it around the same time and fell madly in filthy, pagan lust with the guy playing the preacher.

Well, guess who's coming to Asheville in a touring play? When I heard the radio ad for the show Wednesday morning, I left her a message asking if she wanted tickets. Five hours later, through spooky willpower, I heard her reply even before my phone rang. We're going next weekend. I may be asked to walk around the theatre so she can be alone with him. And the other 300 audience members, of course. She's fully aware that he'll be thirty years older now. Don't think it matters.

Picture of the Day
Timing.




In the News
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is allegedly leaving the campaign later today. This is surprising; he said earlier this week that he had high hopes for winning western primaries. I thought he'd stick around a while to bolster his case for a cabinet position. Presumably, he simply doesn't have the money to continue. Three states have issued delegates: Iowa, Wyoming (GOP only), and New Hampshire. In five contests, there have been five different winners. Richardson can be seen as a solid second-place candidate. But I suspect his Hispanic heritage works against him. Too many yokels will fret he'll be kind to illegals.

Romney expects/hopes/needs to win Michigan next Tuesday because his dad was governor there. The Democrats are boycotting the state because the local party chiefs broke ranks to move the primary up the calendar. FOX is hosting a GOP debate tonight. It's seen as a last-gasp measure for Thompson and Guilani, who is gambling on winning the Florida primary later this month to jumpstart his campaign.

NY Mayor Bloomberg is still rumored to debate a presidential bid, but he has to hop in quick to get onto ballots of states for next month's multiple-primary Tuesday or he'll dig himself a delegate hole.

+ + +

Radiohead's In Rainbows was last week's best-selling CD even though the entire album was released digitally a few months back. I bought my copy after downloading the album without paying. The CD only sold 120,000 copies, but still came out on top.

Watching New Hampshire

After watching the Monday Daily Show and Colbert Report, we expected to call it a night until I flipped to CNN to check on the primaries. Then we watched it for about two hours.

Obviously, the Democrat vote turnout was huge. But the discrepancy between party votes and placement is stunning. Check these out:

1. Clinton beat McCain by almost 30,000 votes.
2. McCain got almost 20,000 fewer votes than Obama, the second-place Democrat.
3. Edwards, the third-place Democrat, beat Huckabee, the third-place Republican, by almost twice as many votes.
4. Fred Thompson, the drafted candidate meant to save the party from mediocrity, not only came in seventh (and two spots behind write-ins), but he had 1,000 votes fewer than Kucinich, a marginal Democrat candidate.

I found the honeymoon photos you left at Your Parents'. I think Sausage Kitty ate the other cat.

Picture of the Day
Vampire Kermit.

Let's Hear It For Drugs

I applied the synthetic tears (milked from the ducts of android children forced to watch Iron Giant for hours on end) throughout the day, and, while the eye felt better, the real test was how my eye would behave overnight. I have no idea about this because I popped OxyCotin before going to bed and slept like a mummy/log/driveway. I only use the stash if I have some torturous sleep deprivation, but I can certainly see the appeal of continued use. I feel fantastic. But I did dream about going deaf, like Limbaugh actually did during his Oxy days.

I decided not to audition for the Schoolhouse Rock musical after reading the audition requirements and realizing I didn't know what the musical terms meant. My pie-in-the-sky notion of waltzing in for my first musical and winning a singing role can't stand firm against my sheer ignorance of the lingo. The weekday matinees might not have gone over well with work either. Still, yeah, I would like to have tried it. There is the Mayberry theatre offer still standing, but I'd like to read the script and see the performance space before signing on to that show. I'm also making real progress on my comic script.

Your Parents' house is also still standing. The larger cat devoured the food before the other one could emerge from the shadows. The bathroom sink pipes have lit light bulbs over them to keep them from freezing. While I was given no note about them, I'm tempted to turn them off during this freakish warm spell.

Picture of the Day
Fire up the grannies.

Eye eye eye.

We took advantage of freakishly warm weather to work in the yard Saturday. She pruned while I went under the house for the first time. I expected to find a slim crawlspace leading to a bog, but found a manageable area that was bone dry. So our house foundation is secure. The previous owners wrapped the pipes in a plastic tubing I had never even heard of before, but it looks very sturdy. I also used my lawnmower to slice and bag the yard leaves. It worked great, proving again the boon of technology to those of us with mysteriously achy backs.

Unfortunately, a chunk of yard drifted inside my eyelids, laid eggs and died, and those eggs hatched, unleashing their young around 5 in the morning. I thought I had cleared out my eye, but the same problem developed this morning around 3. I went to the eye doctor this morning, and he found nothing, saying the foliage had left me eyes, but the scratched cornea is achy. he gave me synthetic tears to help my eyes heal. This happened to me in my childhood too. I mowed a neighbor's yard and spent the entirety of Back to the Future (in the theatre, so this was like 1935) dabbing my eye before I was taken to the emergency room. If I have trouble sleeping tonight from the lingering pain, I'm digging into my wisdom tooth medicine which I could have sold at the high school for a eleventy thousand dollars.

We named the Matrix this weekend. I had noodled with references to its football shape, and then I realized the paint is the same shade of silver as the New England Patriots helmets and out sprang "Brady." Your Sis approved. It only took us eight months.

We hosted Kathy and Travis last night for a pizza dinner, and we caught up on holiday events. Hard to believe it's only been a week since Tim and Orange Peel and the Krewe.

Picture of the Day
Madness.




News of the Day
Between playoff football games, I watched a lot of C-Span's coverage of New Hampshire.
a) Obama looks as confident and solid as a front-runner can.
b) Hillary's new tactic of accusing Obama of being hollow looks like she herself has no substance to hawk.
c) Bill Clinton spoke without notes, answering questions for an hour and utterly eclipsing every current candidate. The man is a machine.
d) Obama's wife spoke mostly to youngsters, and she has a casual air away from the podium.
e) Huckabee talks a good game. Too bad he denies evolution.
f) Rudy looks tired. I say he drops out within a month.

The Day After

The office ordered a new Adobe software package the week before Christmas vacation. FedEx delivered it two days later to the wrong address. We realized this yesterday, and I spent hours trying to figure out where it went and if it can be retrieved. FedEx sent it to a similar address: the Sears down the road.

Sears signed for it and apparently never looked at the recipient address when they realized it wasn't theirs. This happened three years back, and we lost an entire shipment of magazines. Neither Sears nor FedEx would recoup our loss. I called FedEx's national claims line (there are no local or regional numbers) and received apologies and assurances.

I called Sears and was told the package is not to be found, probably wasn't thrown away, but there is no idea when it will emerge. In other words, they threw it away. Just like our magazines. Adobe sent us another bundle when I called them, but as they are sending it through FedEx again, the same scenario might unfold. Also, Adobe uses India operators for order-service calls, and the folks I talked to understand me about as well as Your Mom.

Four hours to clean up this mess, and it might all happen again.

Your Sis and I are giddy that it's Friday already. We have a wide-open weekend that hopefully will include a movie and fresh doughnuts. I broke in the new Starbucks near the office for my new favorite: caramel apple spice. I think it's just apple juice and hot milk, but it tastes good and is half the price of my usual frappuccinos.

Picture of the Day
Spruce up your freighter with nifty noodle slurpers.



The "Wow, How Long Has It Been" News of the Day
We watched caucus coverage on C-Span last night. The Dems and Repubs had distinct methods. The Dems would gather in small circles for their choices and count the number of people in that meeting space. Any candidate with less than 15 percent representation would be disqualified, and his voters would have to join one of the larger groups. Those in the room would have 30 minutes to make their sales pitches to those choosing again. The GOP simply wrote one name on slips of paper and counted up the totals.

I, the independent, preferred the GOP method. Your Sis, the registered Republican, likes the Democrat method. And we talked about that for a while.

In the end, we got Obama, Edwards, Hillary, and Richardson for the Dems, and Huckabee, Romney, Thompson, and McCain for the GOP.

Edwards was the surprise winner for the left. Hillary represents the Clinton/Bush 20-year dynasty, and folks want a fresh face.

Huckabee got lots of religious support, which might help in South Carolina. Paul and Giuliani came in behind McCain, who ignored Iowa for New Hampshire.

It's still incredibly early to divvy up the national ballots and only those who came in fourth or worse should panic.

Spider Music

Because the snow delay kept me at home Wednesday, I was able to get in more Guitar Hero and unlock two encore songs: Sabbath's War Pigs and Guns N Roses's Sweet Child of Mine. And oh did my fingers cry for mercy.

We attended a surprise birthday party that night for a former student of Your Sister. Requests were made for dance CDs, and I chose to make her a mix CD of teen-girl dance songs. Some mash-ups, some stuff parents wouldn't like, but I didn't think they'd listen to the music much anyway. When we arrived, we heard the Disney soundtrack playing and saw the Disney-themed cake. This was a party for a younger mindset than I expected and I debated throwing away the CD. I did give it to her but warned her to play it when the old people go to sleep.

Picture of Chaos of the Day



Joe Quesada, the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, took over about eight years ago. He was a writer/artist who inherited the mantle during a massive editorial shakeup. His trench work prior to becoming the big cheese helped him draft big names to long-dormant comics, and sales shot up. A lot of good ideas came out of the new administration, and Marvel movies took off during this period.

But one idea that Quesada hated is a Spider-Man married to Mary Jane. This happened about 15 years ago to help stagnant sales. Quesada claimed younger readers couldn't relate to a married Spidey. Spidey evolved quite a bit in the last ten years. He developed organic webs (replacing the original mechanical web-shooters), Aunt May and MJ found out Peter was Spidey, his powers became magical in nature (kinda like the midichlorians in the first SW prequel), and, just last year, he went public with his identity.

Quesada decided that, of all these changes, the marriage had to be removed, but he didn't want to taint the character with a divorce. So here's what they did: Aunt May is again on her deathbed and MJ/Peter can't afford the bills. From nowhere appears Mephisto, Marvel's devil, and he makes Spidey a deal. May will be saved but Peter loses his relationship to MJ. In an issue that was just published, Peter and MJ agree, and Peter wakes up with no memory of the deal and finds himself with mechanical shooters and his long-dead pal Harry Osborn back as his roommate. Also his ID is secret again, removing the biggest moment of the 2007 comics. And oh how the shit has flown.

Here's how many people like the idea: Quesada.
Here's who hates the idea: Everyone else.

Even the writer of the comic wanted his name removed because Quesada altered his scripts. The fanbase is up in sweaty, virgin arms over it. Marvel, after promising there would be no magic reboot button to fix the marriage or the public identity, used just such a conceit. It also invalidated a decade of comic stories. This isn't the first time Marvel has done this with Spidey. About ten years ago, the company revealed that Peter had been a clone since the mid-'70s, and the real Peter was living under a different name. Catastrophe. Sales plummeted.

Marvel is following up the event with a brand new fleet of Spidey creators and has to hope the same sales disaster won't happen. But I don't see how they plan to keep loyal readers who are now jerked around again. I dropped the comic about three years back, but this change does nothing to bring me back as a consumer. Marvel presumes that consumers and readers are separate audiences and that the monthly customers won't alter their shopping no matter what happens in the regular titles. Maybe not. I know people who inexplicably buy comics they don't enjoy just to be completists. Not me. I don't have that kinda money. Well, I do, but I also have a wife and house.

Maybe I'm not the kind of reader Marvel considers in its equations, but as a longtime fan, I can't respect a Spider-Man who makes a deal with the devil. That's a stupid Spidey, no matter what benefit he thinks he'll earn. And I don't see why young readers would relate to a stupid bachelor Spidey more than a happily married one.

Sick Again

The cold sandbagged me, and another medicated night was spent in the guest room. I'll be sure to clean it up before you visit, don't worry. I'll hose down the bed. On the good side, I was given Friday off, and I've spent the day so far eating oranges for the vitamins and drinking coffee to dehydrate myself. I think we'll have soup and bread tonight (Your Sis calls it "prison food") to bolster my revolted tummy. I'm taking long soaks with magazines and novels to warm myself up.

I finished My Mom's CD and wrapped it for the tree. Except for you, I think we're done giftifying.

You'll be in town starting tomorrow night, and we'll try to make the vacation as spoiled as possible. And I'll be healthy by the time you arrive at the house.

Picture of the Day
We've got the tree lit for you.