Yawn

I saw "The Guard" today, which I enjoyed well enough, but which was marketed as a kind of comedy, but which was really more of a cop buddy movie. Except that the leads aren't really buddies so much -- they come to respect each other, but there wasn't proper chemistry or characterization to make it fully gel. Similarly, the villains were underdeveloped. The movie ate up too much time following the lead, to the detriment of the other characters. The Irish setting was nice enough, but I think they could have worked the script a few more times, to sharpen the story better.

Sleepy. Need sleep!!!

Crashing

My frickin' computer is FUBAR. The computer is fine, in truth, but there is something screwing with the Net, causing those damned browser crashes. I have done a suite of things to try to fix it, but no dice. I am going to call Comcast next, just to rule
that out.

Tried to watch SYTYCD last night, but had no
sound. Melanie rocked as usual. She so should win. I am thinking Caitlynn and Ricky will go home.

So far, so good

Wow. No crash on the Chrome, yet. I've got Browser Crash Stress Disorder, I think. Hah. Another annoyance -- for some reason, a few channels on my cable are mute. The picture is fine, but there's no sound. Comcast needs to get their heads out of their asses, and/or take a break from all the money they rake in to actually look after the service they're supposedly providing.

Gruh

Still not 100% sure what's afflicting my system; I ran lots of antivirusware, but am unsure if that's what's fragging my browsers, or whether it's some Malware. Gotta beware of Malware, to be sure. Hah.

Chrome appears more amenable to non-crashitude, versus Firefox, which just melted down on me. Still sleuthing it out. I'm actually surprised this post has gotten as long as it has without crashing.

I was pleased with B1 today -- he helped out some kids who were being picked on by a bully. The bully was annoying kids by shooting them with a super-soaker, and he shot B1 with it, and B1 said he shouldn't be shooting the kids because it was upsetting them, and the kid tried to shoot B1 again, and B1 actually grabbed the gun and turned it on the kid and shot him with his own gun, which apparently made the kid swear at B1, which then got the kid in trouble with his and some of the other moms who were around. B1 said he felt bad for the little kids, getting sprayed by the kid. I know the kid who did it, and he's a creepy, nasty kinda kid, so I told B1 that he did the right thing by standing up to the kid. You can't let bullies have their way, or they'll walk all over you. But I was especially pleased by B1's empathy and compassion toward the little kids being picked on by the bully -- his sense of justice is strong, and his gentle nobility is integral to that.

Crashing

I'm not sure why, but my Firefox browser has been super-crashy the past few weeks. Very irritating. Crashtacular. I've actually taken to using Google Chrome now and again, just because it's usually less likely to crash. Usually. Something changed the past few weeks, that's for sure, because I went from zero crashes to several a day, maybe more.

Lightning

Wow, another Midwestern monsoon blasting through the city. We've been having some wicked storms lately. This one hammered through here around 1:30 a.m. CST, lotsa lightning. We just had a big storm the other day, too. They keep coming through. The lake's levels are growing -- it's definitely higher than I've seen in years.

Apparently all these storms in the Midwest are causing problems in the Gulf with dead zones -- all the runoff going down the rivers is leading to tons of nitrogen and phosphate agricultural runoff (something like 70% from agriculture) that is causing algae blooms in the Gulf, which then sucks out all the oxygen in a region, creating a vast dead zone (last I read, the biggest dead zone down there is larger than Rhode Island and Connecticut, something like 3,300 square miles, I think). Yikes.

Great. Oceans getting more acidic, and dead zones spreading. Just one more thing to worry about on our road to extinction as a species.

And on that note, back to sleep for me! Hah!

SYTYCD

They had Lady Blah Blah on SYTYCD as a judge, although, to her credit, she seemed to be enjoying herself, for what that was worth.

The dancing was very strong last night. Melanie, my favorite, was running away with it, as ever, although Nigel was also keen to talk up Sasha, who is a good dancer, too, although I don't think she's in Melanie's league, although when they paired them in the final routine, it might've been to undercut Melanie a bit, because the lithe and nimble Sasha makes Melanie "the Rock" look a bit stocky and ungainly by comparison (not in her moves -- she's a magnificent dancer and performer -- but just in her appearance, relative to the elfin Sasha)...



It gets tricky at this point, because so many of them are so good, and are dancing their hearts out.

Tadd has managed to really shine among the guys, curiously enough. He's got a natural fluidity and has keen performance chops that make him a natural for the stage. I don't think he's got enough support behind him to dethrone Melanie, who seems so well-placed to run away with this season, but he's very likely to be a finalist. So much at this point depends on who can motivated audiences to call in.

If Melanie wins, it will be an unsurprising thing, because she has shone from so early on. She killed last night in her first routine, which was just perfection, got a standing ovation from the audience, and made Lady Gaga go ga-ga...



I imagine Caitlynn, Jess, Mitchell, and Jordan will be vulnerable this week. I just see them as being the ones less likely to get enough support to carry them through. Jordan is very good, but she's overshadowed by Melanie. Caitlynn is very good, but is overshadowed by the other women. Mitchell and Jess are good, but the former lacks the performance chops to distinguish himself onstage, and Jess just feels overshadowed by Tadd and Marko.

I loved Tadd's routine, which was just smooth, and certainly took cues from Jacko without being derivative of him...

Da Bills, Da Boys

I love online bill-pay. It rocks! Chicago's got a hit-or-miss postal service, and has for years, so bill-paying is sometimes a dicey proposition (usually at the worst possible moments). But online bill-pay, barring, say, some nasty solar flares or other EMP-related shenanigans, lets one neatly bypass that. Love it.

I got the boys haircuts the other day, and the stylist gave B2 a fauxhawk with some gel, and he loved it. It cuted me out. He said "I LIKE my fauxhawk, Daddy!" He's already a little fashionisto, it cracks me up.

He's also amazingly sharp. He doesn't miss a beat, and he draws interesting comparisons between things. A few times, he's made some kind of kid-point about something, and his logic is impeccable, and I say "You know what, you're right." I'm impressed at his ability to connect the dots on things in novel ways. He loves books, too -- loves the interplay of stories and words. His vocabulary is already far ahead of his peers.

I'm going to work on teaching the boys some languages. I think that'll be a useful summertime project for them, get their feet wet on that. B1 is already learning a language at his school, but I think the boys need to be multilingual, like people used to be in the old days. It's a real asset, and in this globalized world, it may be a vital thing to know. So many Americans can barely speak English, let alone know any foreign languages. Anyway, that's something I'm going to work on with them.

I've got the boys tonight; Exene was supposed to, but had something workish to deal with, and asked if I could have them, offered a day trade. I said "Sure." I'm always happy for more time with my guys, and made a point for Exene to note that I banked a day swap with her, so she doesn't forget. The boys'll be stoked.

SYTYCD tonight! Woo hoo! This season has been comparatively tame on the routines; they haven't gotten too weird (yet). Hopefully they'll do some wild ones, because those are always fun to watch.

Beautiful

Picture-perfect summer day today. Just gorgeous. Right amount of warmth and sunlight, and breezy-cool off the lake. Much better than the crazy-hot stuff we had the past several days. Downright pleasant.

I've been working on assorted writing projects. Summer is never ideal writing time, in my book (pun intended), relative to fall and winter, but it has to be done, and so I'm doing it. It doesn't hurt that the piece I'm working on right now is set in the summertime, so I can just feed the heat into the pages. Heh.

Prickly

My boys were wanting cactus plants, so we went to the plant store and I had them pick out a cactus plant they liked. B2 originally picked one cactus plant, then settled on another, and B1 suggested I take that plant, too, so it wouldn't feel bad at not getting picked. Anyway, it's cute how much the boys are loving their plants. I put'em on the sill, and named my plant Stickler. B2 named his "Giant Red Spikeler," and B1 named his "Spikeless."

Left to right: B1's, mine, and B2's cacti.

It's cute how much B2 loves his cactus. Also, the lemon seeds I planted are sprouting, so we have some seedlings growing, too, along with the other plants. I like for the boys to have their own lil' plants like that. B2 keeps checking out his cactus, told me its nickname is "Jabber."

Amazing that my boys have grown so much over the past couple of years -- B1 has grown 5 inches in the past 2 years; B2 has grown 4 inches in the same time. They're growing so quickly.

Endgame

So, we're about a week from economic helter-skelter, yes? Kinda curious how this all pans out. We have the neofascist Tea Bagger faction hell-bent on killing Social Security and Medicare by any means possible, and clearly willing to destroy the economy to do so (and adopting the oddly contradictory stance that raising the debt ceiling will destroy the country, but failing to do so will cause no problems whatsoever -- so, paying our bills is cataclysmic, not paying our bills is fine?? Right, guys.) We have the establishment Republicans squirming, trying to deliver results their Wall Street masters wish for them, and we have the ever-keen-to-appease Democrats bowing and scraping to this rabidly partisan faction, trying to offer a number of sweetheart budget deals that would eviscerate the Democratic base and screw poor folks in general, and still the Baggers turn their noses up at it. It's a curious situation. I know the GOP's strategy of keeping Obama from getting anything accomplished they pursued when he won is central to this approach, but it's still curious to see how far they'll take it.

Because I think the political fallout of their recalcitrance in the face of Obama's supine negotiating posture (to date) is going to make them look like the neofascist dogs that they are, and will banish them to the electoral weeds for a generation. I mean, the worst thing they could do to Obama would be to approve the invidious budgets he offered them, because they would scuttle everything Democrats still pretend to stand for -- it would tar the Democratic label worse than ever. That would be a political deathblow. But the reactionaries are so partisan that they are willing to frag the nation's economy in an effort to get at Obama.

I mean, they lose their shit over Obamacare, which is the most pro-corporate, pro-private insurance "reform" ever foisted on the American people. It's no illusion that it's Romneycare under a new label, which says everything about how pro-industry it is. Obama isn't a socialist, isn't a Marxist; he's a right-center Democrat, which is effectively Republican Lite -- Obama is governing like a Reagan Democrat, circa the 1980s. He's nowhere close to LBJ, JFK, Truman, or FDR. He's far closer to Reagan or Eisenhower in his governing approach, sorry to say. But the Tea Baggers have goose-stepped so far off to the right that they can't even see it -- because Obama is to their left (and, at this point, only the Nazis stand to the right of these Tea Baggers), they cry "socialist" without a shred of evidence behind it. Ludicrous. Insane.

The financial markets of the world have to be watching this and thinking "America is losing its fucking mind." And we are. The country is having a nervous breakdown. Needlessly, I might add -- the Baggers are a loud, media-manufactured minority with an incoherent agenda centered only on seizure of power, nothing more. They want "less government" but favor "more military" (FYI, dumbshits: the military IS government), they want their piece of the action but don't want to pay for it through taxes, they favor lower taxes for the rich (and, sadly, the vast majority of the Baggers aren't even among the top 1% they worship), blah blah blah. Pathetic.

They are a faction, and, as Madison pointed out, long ago, faction is deadly to a republic. What a faction wants is contrary to what the rest of the country wants, and that is exactly the pickle they find themselves in. Their ideas run counter to what the majority of Americans actually want, so the Bagger solution? Destroy the country, rather than change their tune.

Anyway, should be interesting. Will the Democrats come up with an even more craven, conciliatory slab of gristle to offer the American people in their effort to please a rabid minority that only wants Democrats to be destroyed? Will the various establishment Quislings find some way of appeasing their corporate masters with some "compromise" the Gliberal Media will solemnly pimp to Americans as a statesmanlike way out of the headlong charge into the abyss? Will Obama show some leadership and either nix the debt ceiling unilaterally and/or come up with a ballsy budget that raises revenue and sticks a thumb squarely into the eyes of the reactionaries? Or will we actually plunge into the abyss? Stay tuned.

Cap'n America

I saw "Captain America: The First Avenger" last night, and enjoyed it. It was just a fun summer "popcorn movie," that was entertaining without taking itself too seriously, but which had the right amount of explosions and grand CGI graphics to make it a fun bit of fluff. After so many overblown blockbuster type movies, this one did what it had to do well. Hugo Weaving was great as the Red Skull -- he oozed venom, and it's another notch in his villain case, to be sure (he and Mark Strong really excel at playing villains). I wished that the Skull and Cap had crossed paths a little more -- for a 2-hour movie, it went by pretty quickly, was well-paced, although there wasn't a real sense of the Skull and Cap really properly crossing swords enough for my tastes -- they jump to a montage sequence too early, which advanced the story maybe too much. But the quality of the actors sprinkled throughout it (like Stanley Tucci playing a dissident German scientist in American employ -- didn't see that coming), and the general retro sheen to it made it entertaining. I already know my boys will love it -- B1 will love the Red Skull's apocalyptic Flying Wing. I haven't seen all of the Marvel lead-in movies for next year's "Avengers," but the audacity and scope of the effort is impressive -- I just really hope the story and writing is there to make up for it. We'll see. But as the latest link in the chain (figuratively and literally), this one was a good effort. I was amused by the appearance of the Cosmic Cube -- that's a bit of Marvel lore that only folks who read Marvel Comics might have a clue about (in fact, I've seen some reviewers wonder what that cube was). That's a nice tie-in with the Red Skull, who was in possession of a Cosmic Cube at one point. It's the kind of a comic geek detail that they didn't really have to even put in there, but I was tickled that they did. I purposely didn't see the 3-D version of it, not wanting to pay extra money for it, and being annoyed at 3-D mania, anyway.

It's kind of weird to have Cap coming to this day and age -- his "Aw, shucks" and "Gee whiz" kind of Americana persona up against late-era, decline-and-fall Amerika? Kinda ironic, and beyond the scope of what these movies can even be about, but Cap would look at today's America and think "Holy Moly, the fascists WON World War II??" The Red Skull has the last laugh, I guess!

Its Your Loosing Lightening

Alright, people, seriously, it's time for the Grammar Police. I just see these way, way too often:

Its vs. it's

Its = possessive

Example: Our political culture has lost its mind.

It's = contraction, it is

Example: It's crazy how often people fuck this up.

Your vs. You're

Your = possessive

Example: Don't lose your marbles.

You're = contraction, you are


Example: You're making me angry by getting this wrong so often, people.

Loose v. Lose

Loose = not tight

Example: You've got a screw loose if you use "loose" when you meant "lose."

Lose = to not have something


Example: You're going to lose your ability to speak and think clearly if you keep fucking these words up.

Lightening v. Lightning

Lightening = to make lighter, whether by weight or by color

Example: Lightening the load makes the car drive better.

Lightning = giant arcs of electricity shooting through the sky during storms

Example: Lightning will fuck you up if you're not careful.

Proper use: It's amazing how often you're going to find people lightening their cranial loads with the greased lightning of bad, loose grammar, which wends its way through people's speech, causing them to lose the ability to express themselves with clarity.

Improper use: Its amazing how often your going to find people lightening their cranial loads with the greased lightening of bad, loose grammar, which wends its way through people's speech, causing them to loose the ability to express themselves with clarity.

Makes my teeth ache, seeing that -- and, if you actually parse that second sentence, you'll find that the meaning is different from the proper sentence!