I'm Too Normal for This

What the Dickens? (100 Books ... 12 left)

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 03:03:00 +0000

85. Paddington at the Palace by Michael Bond
86. Generation X by Douglas Coupland
87. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
88. American Places: Encounters With History edited by William Leuchtenburg

You ever watch some reality show like The Biggest Loser (which, incidentally, is on while I type this) and there's that "I've turned a corner" moment where the person who is crying on camera realizes that he's finally had that moment that he can really do this?

Welcome to my "I've turned a corner" moment. Although I'm not crying.

American Places was a book that I bought about five or six years ago, when Amanda and I first moved down to Charlottesville. I'd seen it in a local store and thought it would be cool to read essays about American history. I'd glanced at a couple of the essays over the years but never really sat down to read it.

In May, as the school year was winding down and I was working my way through other books, I decided to pick this one up and read it gradually--an essay every once in a while until I finished. Little did I realize that it would be kind of a task. It's not that the book was boring, but it was academic in nature and therefore a few of essays were pretty dry, written by grizzled old professors and historians. However, there were enough interesting pieces (the one on The Polo Grounds, for instance) to keep me going until tonight, when I read the very last one and finally finished the book. I have to say that looking at the list above and how many I have left, I can really do this, even if I'm slightly off pace.

The other books on this part of the list were also pretty enjoyable reads. My mom bought Brett the Paddington book when she went to Europe, and we've had our usual fun time reading it 20 or 30 times. Generation X will be covered in a post over on Stop Trying to Inspire Me, because the reason I reread it (nearly a decade after reading it the first time) came from a few posts I've recently written based on articles I've read in the paper.

And I picked up A Christmas Carol because I'd actually never read the original text. My first--and really, biggest--exposure to it was Mickey's Christmas Carol, which I saw in at the Oakdale movie theater when I was a little kid along with The Rescuers. So it was kind of hard to read Jacob Marley without picturing Goofy or Bob Cratchit without picturing Mickey. But I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. I personally am not a fan of Dickens. I read Great Expectations in the ninth grade (which should be illegal) and again in college and sort of liked it the second time. I read A Tale of Two Cities after college but didn't understand it (seriously ... I don't remember a thing. I may have to reread it). Aaaand 19th Century lit as a whole is not my thing.

But A Christmas Carol? Fun, scary at times, well-written, and very satisfying in the end. No wonder it's been made and remade over the years. In fact, I liked it so much that I gave it to my 12th Advanced English class for extra credit.

So I roll along into the last 10 and I'll be revisiting Holden Caulfield and Macbeth, taking a glance at Hemmingway, and watching Beatrix Potter's theater of animal cruelty.

Idiot Box

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 02:30:00 +0000

This was my Facebook status this morning:

Hey morning news program, I don't need you to spend five minutes reporting on Black Friday and advertising deals. That's what the 10,000 commercials you've
already run and the 20 circulars in yesterday's paper were for. Report the damn
news. Oh wait, the news right now is obnoxious jackasses who crash D.C. parties.
... Uh ... just go off the air and run a test pattern. That's more useful.

I wrote this about five minutes after I turned off Good Morning America, which I did for two reasons: I was getting sick of wall-to-wall Black Friday coverage as if it were the fall of the Berlin Wall, and Brett was paying way too much attention to it. The former is indicative of the attitude I've taken toward the Christmas shopping season lately -- yes, I like shopping for my family and friends, but this insane "BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY" yelling at me every single second of every single day on the television makes me hate America. The latter? Well, I've been finding that a little alarming lately.

Brett, inevitably, was going to like watching TV. And I have no problem with some of the programs he watches on a regular basis. Yo Gabba Gabba! is a lot of fun and I've been able to avoid most of the other shit that's out there (mainly because we're never home all day to watch all of that shit). But as time has gone on and he's started to identify what's on television and ask about it (i.e., when we watched It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown! the first time, we wound up watching it about 100 times ... I've watched the rather lackluster A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving twice already since yesterday), I've wanted to watch television in front of him less, especially things that are violent and/or scary.

That sounds completely hypocritical of me, who grew up on freakin' Tom & Jerry cartoons wherein characters not only tried to kill one another on a regular basis, but also were seen smoking and drinking (that episode where Jerry goes into the city and winds up getting completely shitfaced was one of my all-time favorites as a kid), and I don't want to raise a kid who's sheltered and naive ... but I don't know if it's unreasonable to say that the most "adult" programming he sees is Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!

I don't think there's any reason to panic, though. This isn't Maggie Simpson smacking Homer in the head with a hammer after watching Itchy and Scratchy. Brett would smack me about the head even if he wasn't watching television. But I think there's something to be said about what he watches and consumes; it's just another way in which I continue to be aware just as he becomes more aware.

Turkey!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:13:00 +0000

It's hard not to be all smug right now that I: a) avoided traffic, and b) don't give a shit about Black Friday. But yeah ... we only had to drive 90 minute to my in-laws' house and I don't get paid until Monday so the only shopping tomorrow that I will get done will be online browsing so I can make a list and place a big order at some point next week.

So for today, it's another year of the annual tradition of loafing. Brett and I are up watching the morning news and getting ready for the parade, and then it's cooking and playing and watching three football games. I'm pulling for the Lions and Raiders today, two teams that suck beyond all definitions of the word suck. Then the Giants play tonight. GO BIG BLUE!!!

So Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. May you stuff yourself with turkey and laugh smugly at grainy footage of stupid people crowding a Walmart.

From Sodor to Lilliput (100 Books ... 16 Left)

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:21:00 +0000

78. Thomas Helps Out
79. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney Golden Book)
80. Curious George and the Puppies by H.A. Rey
81. 'Twas the Night Before Christmas by C. Clement Moore
82. My Christmas Treasury (story collection) by various
83. Plans and Other Things That Fly by Richard Scarry
84. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

Back on pace in a way and reading more children's books, but many of those books several times over and always out loud with Brett. So it's definitely a worthwhile experience. There isn't too much to say about the Scarry book or the Thomas the Tank Engine book. One is a book we often read at Little Gym while waiting for his class to start; the other is the book we read together on the potty. The Snow White Golden Book is another Little Gym lobby classic and it's pretty much the story from the movie ... although I never understood why, when she comes upon the dwarfs' [sic] house, her first instinct is to clean. Way to be a feminist, Snow White.

I'm a big fan of Curious George. I had several of the books when I was a kid and I think it's pretty cool that Brett knows who he is, watches the cartoon sometimes, and likes to read his adventures. The same with the 'Twas the Night Before Christmas book -- it's one of my favorite holiday stories and while it's not really that long (in fact, it's really just a poem), the book he has is a pretty cool one. It's vividly illustrated with some moving stuff on each page and he really likes to say "Dash away, dash away, dash away all!" when we read. The Christmas Treasury book isn't as fun -- someone decided to take a bunch of Christmas stories and put them in verse, probably so that little kids could enjoy them. Which I definitely get, but at the same time, I'm not the biggest fan of annoying sing-songy verse.

Anyway, with that out of the way, on to Gulliver's Travels. I picked this one up back in March because I teach the Lilliput and Brobdingnag segments as part of my 12th grade English's unit on satire. I had never read the entire book and was really only familiar with the Lilliput section, having seen some really crappy adaptation of it back when I was a little kid. Anyway, I had read other works by Swift--mainly, "A Modest Proposal" and understood some of the fun satirical things that were in what I had already read of Gulliver.

Too bad the entire book wasn't as fun. Honestly, and I know that this is going to make me sound like a total moron and a bad English teacher, but I was bored and I found myself struggling to finish the book. Granted, the book is something like 300 years old, but Swift's prose and whatever subtlety he is going for doesn't really lend itself well to a modern audience. There was too much ... telling. And I wound up being disappointed. After Malory and this, I think that I'm going to turn my attention to something a little light.

So, up next: Generation X, holiday-themed reading, and Macbeth.

Been there, done that, didn't get a T-shirt

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:55:00 +0000

Is it sad and pathetic that it took 36 minutes for me to run a 5K?

On some level, I'd say it's not considering that since I last ran any sort of race the furthest I'd run outdoors was the distance between home plate and first; however, on another level, when you have friends who always seem to be running half-marathons and marathons, it is.

Ah, anyway, it's done.

We'd signed up for the Turkey Trot 5K this year because it was actually a 5K and not a five-miler, which is what it had been a few years ago when Amanda and I ran the race for first time (and when I had run it the next year solo). With a new treadmill in the house, we knew that training for it would be easier and we wouldn't have to rely on the annoyances of gym memberships, especially those which go relatively unused. That, and we could make our own schedule for training (or Brett could make the schedule for us, considering that's who our training seemed to work around).

We'd been inconsistent in said training until about a month ago when we realized, "Oh, this is coming up!" Since then, we'd been jogging on a fairly more regular basis, so it's not like we were going into this completely cold.

And thankfully it wasn't completely cold when we took to the track at Butler Stadium in Quantico ...

See what I did there? It's called a segue.

Anyway, very little went wrong with the race itself. The worst thing was that we arrived too late to get T-shirts because all that was left was an XS ... kind of like when you go Christmas shopping for someone who wears 36x34 pants and the only sizes they have left are either 54x22 (for someone who obviously doesn't exist) or 32x34 (which is such a tease). But we soldiered on, running for pride.

Amanda and I each had our own iPod playlists for the occasion. Mine was comprised completely of Green Day songs (which proves that it's old, because the "music that spoke to me" when I was a teenager is now the soundtrack for my workouts), and it was kind of cool to start running to "Are We The Waiting" and its anthem-like pounding. In fact, it was almost an inspirational montage (well, as inspirational as you get when you're not listening to "What have you done today to make you feel proud?").

We kept pace with one another for a while but then split up about half a mile in, as Amanda told me to run ahead. This was right in the middle of "Jesus of Suburbia," which is about 1/3 of the way through my playlist, so I was a little off my usual time. I thought I could make it up, though. If I didn't throw up, that is.

One of the things that sucks about running on a treadmill is that they don't come equipped with anywhere for me to spit. Yeah, that's gross, but I hock up--and wind up swallowing--a lot of phlegm whenever I run. Being outside, I was able to get my run on and get my spit on. The first few loogies--right around the halfway mark--were pretty thick and I sent them flying pretty well onto the gross. But around the two-mile marker, I tried to spit again and it smacked me in the chin. So not only did I look like a hot, panting mess, I was dripping with my own saliva. Kind of like a St. Bernard.

But at that point I was running at a decent pace, had definitely made up the time I needed to, and was headed into the last mile with a chance to beat 40:00, which is my usual workout time. Yeah, then the fucking Marines had to make part of that last mile go uphill. Sadistic bastards. I couldn't run the whole hill, as I got a wicked stomach cramp and then nearly hyperventilated because I was trying to "correct" the stomach cramp. But my walking was only about 20 seconds or so, nothing to really kill me, and I headed down into the stadium at my former pace, then kicked it into higher gear as I rounded the track into the last straightaway, which headed to the finish gate.

In retrospect, I should have kicked in later because I nearly ran out of gas before I crossed the finish line ... but three things kept me going: 1) I was almost done; 2) I was coming in at 36 minutes, which was under the 40 minutes it takes me on the treadmill; 3) there was a guy dressed as some sort of mascot offering me a high-five, and you don't disappoint a mascot.

After crossing, I coughed, coughed, gagged, coughed, gagged, nearly threw up, coughed, got some water, coughed, and waited for Amanda to finish, which she did 12 minutes later. I'm sure that at some point this weekend I'll stop feeling sore and on Monday I'll get back on the treadmill so that I can keep up whatever level of fitness I've managed to maintain (although I might go with a different mix--1980s training montage songs, mayhaps), because I've still got some serious weight to lose and I might do the Turket Trot next year ... even if it'll be a 10K.

These are not the best of times, they're the only times I've ever known

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 03:20:00 +0000

I think this is the space where I'm supposed to get philosophical. Or sentimental. Or something. That's the usual procedure when you watch a very old friend walk down the aisle, right? Well, either that or "Oh my God, I'm old!" ... which, quite frankly, got old itself around the time I turned 30.

At the same time, Cathy's wedding was not simply the wedding of another friend. In the great high school drama, it was the epilogue; you know, that last scene, where everyone who is left standing is smiling while some sort of uplifting -- but not too cheesy -- song plays on the soundtrack right before we fade to the credits.

[Top 5 songs on my iPod for this moment? "Stockton Gala Days" by 10,000 Maniacs; "Can't Go Back Now" by The Weepies; "Camera One" by the Josh Joplin Group; "This is Me" by Eddie from Ohio; "Summer, Highland Falls" by Billy Joel]

Of course, life isn't a high school drama, even if sometimes act as if we're still there (or in my case, have to go back there every single day); however, my best friends from high school are far-flung, having moved from Long Island to different parts of the east coast. We rarely see each other for longer than an afternoon every once in a while and have moved beyond the inseparable nature of our friendships at 17 to being the type of friends you'll run into at weddings and funerals.

Considering that I've been to enough of the latter this year, I was happy this was a wedding. It capped a very busy weekend for me -- my sister's engagement party was the day before, and Brett pulled off the amazing feat of actually taking an afternoon nap at home not just one day but all three days we were there. We had a chance to hang out with both bride and groom on Friday, where we caught up and Brett showed them the various toys that we'd hoped would occupy him during adult conversation. But what can you do? At least they seemed to have fun with him (and who wouldn't?).

We weren't able to go to the entire wedding, unfortunately. Since it was Sunday, we took Monday to travel back and Brett's not old enough to be tolerable in the lengthy car ride from Sayville to Charlottesville, so we waited until his bedtime and headed out, arriving at my in-laws' house at around 1:00 in the morning. As a result, we only went to the ceremony. We'd intended to go to the cocktail hour but our timetable just didn't mesh.

But that is without drama. At 32, should you really have drama? If there's any surprise is that I'm surprised that I'm not surprised that my high school friends and I are all adults (I was going to put "mature" there, but that might be stretching it). Besides, that's the only moment -- the one at the end -- that's supposed to be drama-free. We were all genuinely happy last Sunday. Because our friend was getting married to someone who obviously is great for her and makes her as happy as those families we've already started make us.

So I guess that was philosophical and sentimental. Oh well.

Roll credits?

Gods, Demigods, and Butter Tigers (100 Books ... 23 Left)

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:07:00 +0000

72. Golden Books Sleepytime Tales
73. The Nearly-Wed Handbook by Dan Zevin
74. Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss
75. The Mitten by Jan Brett
76. All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
77. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The books continue to pile up in both the "read" and "unread" piles. My pace is a little slower than I'd like, as it seems like I'm getting stuck on a book here and there (in this case it was Frankenstein, which took me a little longer to read than I'd wanted). I know that I'm not going to finish exactly every book that I have in my huge "unread" pile, but if I make my goal of 100, I'll eventually get around to them.

Anyway, onto the books.

I dug up The Nearly-Wed Handbook to give to my sister as an engagement present. I first read this book years ago when I was an intern at its publisher, Avon Books. I'm really disappointed that Dan Zevin hasn't written more because as I mentioned when I read The Day I Turned Uncool, I find him utterly hilarious. The Nearly-Wed Handbook, while it's about 10 years old, is still really funny, even though I've been married for six years. This is a great stress-breaker for anyone planning a wedding, especially when Zevin delves into the intricacies of seating plans, florists, tuxedo rental and dress buying, and other wedding craziness.

The Mitten and Fox in Socks have been sitting on Brett's shelf for a while and made the rounds recently in an afternoon of reading and fun. The Mitten is an update of some Ukranian folk tale; Fox in Socks is a tongue-twister that I almost considered making my sophomores read aloud as part of their public speaking unit (because I'm that much of a dick). But the Sleepytime Tales book owes its awesomeness to Amanda, who has been reading some of the stories (I made sure to go back and read them for real so I get my "credit") to Brett on a nightly basis. Some of the stories in there are pretty famous, such as "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" and "The Pokey Little Puppy." Others are ridiculous, such as one about these tigers who tease an Indian boy who then causes them to run around a tree so much that they wind up turning into melted butter which his mom scoops up and uses to make pancakes for the boy and his family.

Yeah, it's about as weird as it sounds. And that's not even half as bad as the one about the girl and her little baby doll which is really creepy in a "Sally Draper, future serial killer" sort of way.

Anyway, listening to Amanda read these and make comments on how many sentences end in prepositions is hilarious and awesome, especially since Brett really doesn't pick up on our commentary and is more interested in flipping the pages and pointing out that he sees such things as tigers and bears and cars and trains and other implements of transportation.

Turning now to Frankenstein, a book I've read a couple of times before and will be teaching in the spring. This is one of those books that I could probably read again and again, it's just that good. And I'm honestly not a huge fan of 19th Century English literature. But Shelley makes both Frankenstein and the monster complex and sympathetic and layers the story in a way that movie adaptations don't fully get. Yes, Victor Frankenstein (Fronkensteeen?) is a little too tortured and too whiny at times, but at least he's got a reason, especially as the creature vows to kill everyone around him (and does). I love its themes of the consequences of trying to play God and the way the plot builds its suspense with each confrontation between the two.

Speaking of playing God, I have to say that I was disappointed in All-Star Superman. I checked this out of the library at work and read it in a day. Grant Morrison is one of the most famous comic book writers out there and this is his take on the Man of Steel. However, it's a characterization that I didn't really enjoy. For the last 20 years or so, since John Byrne redid Superman, there has been a focus on the character of Clark Kent and how he is the real personality behind the cape and the superhero is an act(this, btw, directly contrasts Batman, who is the real person putting on a "Bruce Wayne" act). Byrne and the writers who came after him gave Clark some real personality and character and bolstered Superman's supporting cast in a way that I felt the Golden and Silver Age stuff, while fun to read, never did.

Here, though, Morrison does Superman as a demigod, the all-powerful being who uses Clark Kent as sort of a convenient disguise. But ... why even have Clark Kent in the story, then? Yes, Ma and Pa Kent are in this story, but I never really got the feeling that the whole Clark aspect was necessary. Quitely's art is impressive, which was no surprise because I liked his work on The Authority. The All-Star line is DC's answer to Marvel's Ultimate universe. But it's somewhat of a misfire. I think I'll stick to catching up with Green Lantern and maybe some mainstream Supes trades.

Coming soon: Gulliver, Hitchhikers, Orwell, and whatever else I can scrounge up as I try for 23 books in 2 months!

A Proper Anniversary

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:23:00 +0000

In reflecting on my sixth wedding anniversary, I can't help but think of two things: first, its coniciding with Halloween; second, the long-ago days of adolescent dating.

The first is one of those inevitable things when you get married on November 1. For most of our first few years of being married, the fact that Halloween was right around the same time never bothered us because we never did anything for the holiday anyway. Once we had Brett, I think we knew that was going to change. This year, he was pretty excited to spend the Halloween weekend at his grandparents'; hwever, next year I'm sure he'll be just as excited to spend it with the two of us doing some truly great trick-or-treating in whatever costume he gets (this year, he was a dragon and had a great time going around and saying "RAWR!").

Thinking back to when Amanda and I first started dating when we were 19 is worth a bit of a chuckle only because I remember being young and dating and celebrating "month" anniversaries. A month seems like a long time to be with someone when you're that young. Now we've been married for six and together for thirteen years. And even that doesn't seem like it's that long. We looked through our wedding album tonight and the day itself is pretty fresh in our minds (this, I think, is partially due to my sister's recent engagement, although our wedding did kick some serious ass, so it's not just that).

We don't usually do huge anniversary presents. We like to do a big dinner or weekend together. This year, we continued to follow the traditional gift list and this year's candy/iron brought me a copy of Iron Man on DVD and a few boxes of movie theater-sized candy (I've already decimated the box of Junior Mints). The weekend was spent at Barboursville Winery, complete with a tasting, dinner at Palladio, and a room at the 1804 Inn, where we stayed in a small cottage that was rustic and almost European in a way. In fact, the whole estate felt like it was a world apart from our neighborhood, even though it was barely a 20-minute drive.

The trip itself wasn't monumental by any means, I guess. We arrived, walked around the ruins of an old mansion once owned by the governor of Virginia that was designed by Thomas Jefferson but burned down in the late 1800s, went to the winery for a tasting and then relaxed for a while before having an excellent meal (complete with a wine pairing, which was exquisite). The atmosphere at the inn was cozy--from the fireplace (which, sadly, was never used because it was too warm last night) to the English breakfast we had this morning before we packed up and left. Actually, it all felt grown-up ... with no television in the room, we spent a couple of hours on Saturday reading while listening to classical music on NPR and then walking around the grounds a little to take some pictures using the digital SLR I'd swiped from my classroom.

I guess some people would have found our day and night boring -- no huge costume parties, no getting ridiculously drunk -- and even I pause to wonder if this is what one's thirties bring. Then again, it's not like we spent the evening playing gin in the room before retiring at 9:00. And I think that a little maturity can go a long way, especially when you have to stand in line at a wine tasting with obnoxious douchebags (which you have to expect, btw).

What I loved about it and what I love about our anniversary every year is that we just get to revel in spending time with one another. We've always valued the experience of a nice dinner or a weekend away because we've always been the type of couple who likes to do things together like that, especially when they're new in some way or another. So while it's a little disappointing to have to return to work tomorrow, it's nice to know that our way of celebrating six years with a look toward many more was more than worth it.

Carving the Great Pumpkin

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 01:22:00 +0000

So Brett has been requesting that we watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! I'm pretty happy about this because I've been watching that show since I was a little kid. That, and it's really cute when he sees Snoopy and says, "It's Snoopy!" He actually sits through the whole thing, which is amazing considering the number of episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba he's half watched while flopping around on the couch like a freshly caught trout (when he knows he's supposed to be sitting still on the couch).

Personally, I find A Charlie Brown Christmas to be of better quality, although Pumpkin runs a close second. The thing that bugs me about Pumpkin is the whole Snoopy storyline. Here you've got this very funny story with Linus and Charlie Brown, etc. and then Snoopy goes off to be the WWI Flying Ace, gets "shot down" and has to traverse across the French countryside in order to make it to the pumpkin patch where he appears to Linus and Sally.

It's a pretty long setup for the gag at the end and what's always bugged me is how it slows down the pace of the show--especially when ABC cuts the whole segment wherein Snoopy gets Schroeder to play the piano in the bar (because God forbid you're not able to shove three more Fisher-Price commercial into the half-hour). You're going right along with what you'd expect -- Linus is delusional, Lucy's a bitch, Charlie Brown's a doormat -- and all of the sudden we have to stop to watch a Beagle play All Quiet on the Western Front.

I did a little research and found out that this is around the time that the WWI Flying Ace persona started in the Peanuts strip, so on some level it makes sense because you've got a popular character and you don't want to relegate him to making weird noises or just kissing Lucy to have her scream about dog germs. But it just throws the whole thing off, kind of like how you're watching The Empire Strikes Back and you're really into the Millennium Falcon being chased by the Empire and then everything slows down so Yoda can teach Luke how to lift things with his mind and go from the whiny bitch he is in Star Wars to the brooding creep his is in Jedi.

Still, I'd rather watch this than some of the other Halloween-related shit on TV.

Buses, Toilets, Knights, and General Tso (100 Books ... 29 Left)

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 01:49:00 +0000

68. Ben's First Ride
69. Potty Time With Elmo by Kelli Kaufmann
70. Le Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory
71. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8. Lee

I usually don't want to count books that come with toys or character-licensed books for this list, but the first two books are the exceptions because I have read them to Brett almost every. Single. Night. for the last week or so. Ben's First Ride is the story of Ben, who is a kid that is getting on a school bus for the first time. It ties in with a Little People knock-off toy brand called Play Town. At any rate, when Brett and I go back into his room every night before bed, I ask him if he wants to read a book and lately it's been "school bus book!" At this point, I wouldn't be shocked if he read it to me. But I do love reading to him before bed.

Potty Time with Elmo is another one that I've read a lot. What makes it irritating is that not only does it feature Sesame Street's favorite attention whore, but it's a book that makes sounds when you press buttons on the cover. For instance, as you're reading, you see a roll of toilet paper and you press the toilet paper button and there's a sound. It keeps him on the potty ... now only if he'd go on the potty. Although lately the batteries have started to go, so the book will make noise at random times, as if it's possessed or something.

I read Le Morte D'Arthur because I was teaching it, or at least part of it in English 12 this year. I'd started the book years ago but never finished. So I picked up a copy from my English department and sat down to read it. It took me the better part of a month and a half to get through it, mainly because so much of it is just so damn boring. I mean, I love the whole concept of Arthurian legend and the details of the stories of Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere, Mordred, Merlin, Morgan Le Fay, et. al. make for some great stories, but Malory isn't very vivid and gets really tired, especially through the huge "Tale of Sir Tristram" section in the middle. But I'm glad I powered through and finished, as I never was able to finish the whole thing in high school.

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles is a book I bought for Amanda for her birthday, pretty much on a whim -- I saw it on the book table at B&N and thought it looked fun. It really was. This is an inside look at the Chinese food industry in America. It has some of the qualities of a "tell-all" because the writer is a journalist (and a pretty thorough one at that), but Lee keeps the book pretty fun for the most part, and the serious parts -- a story about one of the people who survived the crash of the infamous Golden Venture back in 1993 -- are riveting enough, even when they slow down the pace of the book. I honestly found it fascinating how much of the "Chinese" food that we eat, such as General Tso's Chicken, is really American and where all of the aspects of Chinese takeout come from. And it isn't one of those "You'll never eat ____ again" type of food books. In fact, I'm glad my lunch tomorrow is mixed vegetables :).

Next up: Hitchhiking and Gulliver.

Ah, the chill of autumn

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:39:00 +0000

It's been in the mid-40s and rainy here for the past couple of days. Most of the people I talk to are upset at this--October weather in Central VA is supposed to be in the mid-60s and sunny. But I honestly don't mind it. I'm one of those people who really enjoys the cold weather of the fall and winter, as opposed to the oppressive heat and humidity of the summer.

The other reason I love fall so much is that I know that I can go outside without getting sunburned or sweating to death, and for the most part all of the wasps, hornets, and bees that seem to plague my yard (despite my vigilance in spraying) are starting to go away. Plus, Brett can run around in the park and we don't have to worry about him getting sunburned or being too hot.

We've done what we can to take advantage of all of this. We've been going to the playground every once in a while and spent the last two weekends at Carter's Mountain for their apple festival. This is one of those events where people can walk around and pick apples right off of trees and walk through a pumpkin patch and buy apple-related products (especially donuts ... sweet, sweet donuts). It's also one of those places where you barely spend more than an hour doing anything because you see so much and you feel smug driving away toward your lunch destination because you showed up at 10:00 in the morning and everyone else is now stuck in traffic on the way up the mountain.

Oh, that's just us. Sorry.

But seriously, the fall is just one of those times where I feel like being a dad is really fun. It's, like, "Okay, family time!" Because you know, you have the holidays coming up and it seems that just about every weekend there is something to do. Looking at my calendar for the next couple of months, I have my anniversary, a trip to New York to see my parents, Thanksgiving, Christmas shopping, Christmas ... and since he's two, Brett's finally old enough to like this time of year just a little more. Granted, I'm not looking forward to keeping him away from the Christmas tree, but based on the amount of fun he's been having learning about Halloween and asking Amanda and I to do imitations of witches and ghosts, "Santa" is going to be a lot of fun.

Engage!

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:18:00 +0000

Did I say 5/5? Heh. WAY TO KEEP A PROMISE!!!

Anyway, better late than never, I guess, especially when talking about my sister getting engaged. This happened two weeks ago after she and my mom returned from a quick tour of Europe. Her and her fiance, Kyle, headed out for a day together and he proposed. It was one of those moments that all of us had been waiting for and I know that in our house it was definitely happy.

It's weird -- what popular culture has taught me is that I should be jealous or feel lonely or something. Wait, I'm not a woman ... actually, I don't know what popular culture teaches men when a sister becomes engaged. When it's a brother, I've learned that I should go: "FUCK YEAH, BRAH! BACHELOR PARTY! YEAH! WOO! I GET TO BE A DOUCHE!" When it's a sister, it's ... be overprotective? Stare him down and threaten him if he mistreats her? I dunno, they've been together for so long that it's not like I'm intimidating. I can't get 20 sophomores to sit still for 45 minutes; I'm not going to stare down my sister's fiance.

Honestly, I'm simply happy for the two of them and looking forward to the wedding. I'm sure I'll have something nice and sentimental when that time comes, but for now, this is pretty sweet. A belated congratulations!

Ah, it's one of those annoying update posts where I blog that a lot has happened and I haven't had time to blog.

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:57:00 +0000

I just checked this blog for the last time I actually wrote anything and saw that I haven't since September 25, and even then, the last two posts were me bitching about Loyola's name change and writing about recent books read. Well, Loyola's name is still "Loyola University Maryland" and while I am reading about four books at the moment, I have finished none of them so I don't have anything to write about (and I went to the public library to see if there were any decent graphic novels or trades to check out but found nothing, and all the school library has is fuckin' manga. Ugh).

So I definitely want to update but there's been some really cool stuff going on lately:

My sister got engaged last weekend.
Brett is in full-on potty training.
Nuts and Gum is in its fifth week of fantasy football.
Fall is finally here and it has so far been pretty great.
The weight loss campaign is ... well, whatever it usually is.

Part of me wants to just sum up these things in one entry ... but I think I will accept the challenge of posting five entries in five days to catch everything up (and no, this one doesn't count). Be back later, I guess.

They also changed the motto from "Strong Truths Well Lived" to "L-I-V-I-N'"

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:52:00 +0000

Today, Loyola College in Maryland celebrates a milestone. Today, we become Loyola
University Maryland. Since announcing our plans to make this change, I've often been asked why we are doing so. After all, Loyola College in Maryland has an illustrious 157-year history, an established reputation in the Baltimore community and beyond, and an alumni network with few rivals.
But we needed - and need - to do more, to say more, about the institution we've become and what we expect to achieve in the years ahead. The word "university" conveys a depth of intellectual rigor, a richness of cultural engagement, that has long been part of the Loyola academic experience. Here, students learn that the simple
acquisition of knowledge is insufficient. It is the enduring search for wisdom that defines their education.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeah.

That's the big news that's been more or less coming for a while from my alma mater, and Loyola's president wrote the above for the Baltimore Sun. A few friends of mine have posted things on Facebook, as did I. Of course, my status update was more along the lines of not giving a shit. Then again, I never felt the deep-seeded connection with Loyola that other people do (something I've already covered). I don't "bleed green and grey" or anything like that. I got what I wanted out of my experience (to a certain extent, anyway) and then went on with my life (while cracking jokes about how my degree is useless and nobody knows where the school is anyway).

So, anyway. Loyola University Maryland. Welcome to the world.

Waiting ... (100 Books ... 33 Left)

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 02:07:00 +0000

62. The Waiting Place, Volume 1 by Sean McKeever
63. The Waiting Place, Volume 2, Part 1 by Sean McKeever
64. The Waiting Place, Volume 2, Part 2 by Sean McKeever
65. Beowulf
66. Teacher Man by Frank McCourt
67. Richard Scarry's Cars & Trucks from A to Z by Richard Scarry

Wow, two-thirds of the way there! I think I'm close to being on pace (or a few books off). And here I was worried that I wasn't getting anything accomplished because I've been stuck reading Le Morte D'Arthur for the better part of the past two weeks. But sometimes you actually get stuff done when you don't realize it. Like read Richard Scarry books with Brett. And I wasn't originally going to include this one because it's pretty short, but he and I read it at least five times today. His stuffed gorilla even read it for him.

Beowulf is one of the major works that I cover in 12th grade English, even though the textbook exceprts the important parts and the students don't have to read long histories of Swedish and Danish kings. Truth be told, I didn't have the paperback ... I think I sold it a few years ago when I was moving. But I did have it in Amanda's copy of The Norton Anthology of English Literature, so I read the entire text in a couple of days. I honestly don't understand why people groan when they hear the title. It's such an amazing poem that holds up so well even a thousand years and many transcriptions later. I mean, it's not as fleshed out and character-driven as some other epics (The Odyssey, for instance). I heartily recommend reading again.

Teacher Man is actually the first Frank McCourt book I've read (I haven't picked up Angela's Ashes or 'Tis) but I really enjoyed it and may go back to reading the other two. I plan on writing about it on Stop Trying to Inspire Me, so I'll move on.

Besides, I wanted to gush about The Waiting Place, which is a large story spread out over three separate trade paperbacks, written by Sean McKeever (who has been writing Teen Titans) and drawn by a few artists; most notably, Mike Norton. It tells the story of a group of teenagers in a small Wisconsin town, the kind of place that is what I guess you could say is a "typical" small town. People never seem to leave, and as a result can never shake who they were in high school. Hence, the title.

McKeever focuses on several characters, all of whom have different back stories and problems. Jeff is the new kid in town trying to find his way; Lora is his sometimes girlfriend who is, to put it nicely, "experimental"; Jill is a freshman "fashion plate" who dates the school's resident dirtbag, Kyle; Scott is the guy at the video store who graduated years ago and never got over breaking up with his high school girlfriend; Cullen is another new kid who is dealing with being part of the only black family in town.

McKeever weaves a story that will seem very familiar to anyone who has seen teen-centered movies or television series, which I get the feeling he has seen his fair share of. What makes this stand out among well-worn territory is that he really makes you care about the characters. Lora, for instance, shows herself to be a lot more than simply a girl who likes to drink and have sex--one of the chapters details her insecurities as well as a maturity that some of the other characters don't have. Jeff's finding his way, which is one of the two main storylines, is a great "fish out of water" story--even when he makes the hockey team, he is still having pranks pulled on him and made to feel like an outsider. Even Scott, the only "adult" among the group, whose hanging on to a lost love borders on being annoying (and is annoying to everyone in the town), is very sympathetic--his constant struggle to figure out how to move on is very moving.

Sure, the story does have its faults--the first book is a little bit slow, Scott's character does grate on you, and there is a major hanging plot thread involving Lora (the resolution of which I looked for but couldn't find). But it's a solid book. I don't recommend picking it up just yet, though ... The Definitive Collection, a trade collecting all of the stories as well as a new chapter, which takes place some years after the end of volume 3, is due out October 9.

Next up, King Arthur.

River, Woods Redux

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 01:19:00 +0000

Funny enough, it wasn't until I was driving to Stafford this evening that I realized what that trip three weeks ago really meant.

I mean, I know what it meant. We had flown to Long Island for my grandmother's funeral and my family and I had simply piled into the car to drive to the funeral home. I hadn't been there the night before at the wake, as we were traveling and got in too late to drive the hour or so from Sayville to New Hyde Park.

But going to the funeral gave us enough time to say goodbye to her, the 86-year-old matriarch of a very large family. No, we're not the Kennedys or the Rockefellers, just a basic middle-class family. But a close family, one of those where cousins seem more like extra siblings and where not seeing someone for a very long time seems to be erased by just a few moments of hanging out together.

I saw that right away at the funeral parlor before the service and at lunch afterwards when I caught up with people I hadn't seen in at least a year or two. The whole experience was what I expected from one of my family's funerals -- they tend to be oddly fun. Which is the wrong way of putting it, yes, but when you are mourning someone who lived a long time and who enjoyed having her family around, you want to celebrate that person. And my grandmother had spent most of the previous year in pain, so a lot of the grieving process for my family had already started or maybe even completed. The mass, the ride out to the cemetery in Calverton, and the burial was closure. Since then, we've all returned to our normal lives of work and school, and I didn't give my grandmother's funeral much thought.

Until tonight, when we were driving to my in-laws' house, which we have done more times than I can count. Brett was loudly yelling about wheels and buses and farms and ABCs and for a moment I flashed back a few weeks. We'd left the house in Sayville very early, six of us in one car: my parents, me, Amanda, my sister, and her boyfriend. It was two more people than the four of us who'd made that trip from Sayville to New Hyde Park for every holiday and special occasion for the first twenty-two years of my life, but it was the same trip: Montauk Highway to the Southern State to the Wantagh to the Northern State to New Hyde Park road. There's those office buildings, there's the PathMark, there's the park with the tennis courts, there's the bank. From my childhood when we my sister and I bickered with one another while my parents subjected us to 106.7 Lite FM to that day where we all talked about who we were going to see at the funeral, that drive never really changed. And this was the very last time any of us would ever do it.

I mean, we hadn't done it for a number of years anyway, considering my grandmother sold her house ten years ago, but the drive up and then the drive by her house was as symbolic as any of the rituals that were performed during the hour or two of mass and ceremony. And I know this seems narcissitic or something, but at least a few times during the day, I couldn't help but think of how small and quiet death seems. You come into the world with such fanfare and noise and there are moments in your life that are celebrated just as loudly. But along with the quiet respect that comes with your leaving is a general quiet among those who are there.

The quiet won't last long, though. It may have been the last trip out there but the rest of us are still here, and there will be more family gatherings, holidays, and I can definitely say more noise. A legacy, I'm sure, anyone would be proud to have.

Outdoorsy Guy

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:43:00 +0000

I personally love fall. Cooler weather, multi-colored leaves, the run-up to the holidays, football, baseball playoffs, pie ... it just kicks summer's ass in so many ways. The weather for the last week or so has been pretty awesome. The humidity broke a little, and even though it's been raining on and off (something I don't mind because it means that I don't have to get out and water the trees and plants as much), the temperature has been cooler. I know that it's not supposed to be like this for another month or so, but I'll take it.

One of the cooler aspects of this is that Brett will be able to get outside a lot more. I mean, he went outside a LOT this summer, way more than last summer, but there's only so much "out" you can do when it's hot and humid as balls outside. The cooler weather combined with opportunities to go to the park and run around (yeah, I know he's a kid and not a dog, but that's what he likes to do) are going to make the next couple of months really fun.

This weekend was a nice preview. My parents were down from Long Island and after spending Saturday morning at the farmer's market, we went to the park at the beginning of the Thomas Jefferson parkway, where a trail leading all the way up to Monticello begins. It's basically that trail and a lot of grass and trees. We brought his tricycle and he rode around a little, but for the most part had fun running and picking up pine cones, even if they got sap all over his hands.

I always get a little nervous when my parents come down, because part of me feels like I should plan something to do in order to entertain them. Then again, they're coming down to see their grandson and so if there wasn't anything monumental planned it wouldn't be that big of a deal. We'd been doing the farmer's market on Saturday mornings for a while, so that was a given and then Amanda suggested going to the park and hanging out ... and from there we went to Michie Tavern, where people dress up in period costumes and you eat yummy stuff like fried chicken and pulled pork barbecue and mashed potatoes and other fattening yumminess. They have a restored grist mill complete with water wheel on site and Brett took some time out to say "hi" to the water a few times.

The only thing that gets a little rough is that B doesn't nap very well on the weekends. You try and put him down and he fights you. Sometimes, he'll hang out and fall asleep on you (well, on Amanda, anyway), but for the most part you don't get much respite and you're as exhausted as he is at bedtime. No wonder he slept for 2:20 on Tuesday at daycare.

I'm not a baby, I'm a big boy!

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 02:23:00 +0000

It's kind of funny how Brett makes transitions from one stage of life to the next. We're still in the midst of early potty training, but other stuff went really well really quickly. Since coming back from vacation in July we've moved from a high chair to a booster seat, a crib to a toddler bed, and gotten rid of the pacifier that he'd constantly requested whenever he wanted to go to sleep.

Seriously, getting him into a toddler bed took all of a day. I bought a gate, installed it, took the front off of the crib, and then put the guardrail on. When he got home and saw it, he crawled in, and he slept in it that night without ever getting out. Now, he woke up a couple of times and it took about a week to really get him to sleep all night without waking up at all, but I've been pretty happy that he seems to like it. We go into his room every night and read a story and after the story is over, I ask him if he wants to go to bed. He says "Yes," gives me a kiss, and then hops off of my lap and goes and crawls into bed. I say "Night night" and he whispers it back as I close the door.

The binky was a little harder to get rid of, but I think we've officially turned that corner too. It's been more than a week since he's had one at all and this morning when I was getting something off of a shelf, he saw the bink and said, "Big boys don't use bink!"

"That's right!" I replied.

Of course, with all of this cuteness and progress comes the fun of having a two-year-old. Everything is on demand and if I'm late on, say, a cereal bar, it's whining and crying. There's a lot of "Mine!" and the occasional temper tantrum. But overall, he's a pretty cool little guy.

I'm looking forward to fall with him -- playing with leaves, going to the playground, and then ... the holidays! So much fun!

What's a Hero To Do? (100 Books ... 39 Left)

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:59:00 +0000

57. Richard Scarry's Funniest Storybook Ever by Richard Scarry
58. What Do People Do All Day? by Richard Scarry
59. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
60. Infinite Crisis by Geoff Johns, Phil Jimenez, et. al.
61. Justice Society of America: They Kingdom Come, Part I by Geoff Johns

We've kind of gone from Sandra Boynton to Richard Scarry around here, especially when Brett's awake enough for me to read to him and he can point out the stuff that's going on in the book. It's kind of cute to see him point to a fire fighter and say "He's putting fire out with water!"

That's pretty much all I'm going to mention about the children's books in this post, and I will save Wuthering Heights for Stop Trying to Inspire Me, as it's the bookt hat my 12th grade advanced English students were assigned (by another teacher, btw ... I'm "taking over" this class this year) for their summer reading (look for that in a week).

So I want to, as I tend to do, focus on the comic books (what? I'm a freaking nerd). Both Infinite Crisis and Thy Kingdom Come are sequels, sequels that come many, many years after the stories they are sequels to.

Infinite Crisis is the official sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths, which came out about 20 years earlier, and is the conclusion to a very long story that began with the Brad Meltzer-penned story, Identity Crisis. In that story it's discovered that years ago, after a villain named Dr. Light raped Sue Dibny, the wife of Elongated Man (who's kind of like Plastic Man), the Justice League's sorceress Zatanna "mind-wiped" Light, erasing the memories of what he'd done. This also turned him into a total idiot. She did this to several other villains, especially those who discovered the secret identities of the heroes at certain points.

The result was a huge split in the super-hero community and the formation of a Secret Society of Super-Villains who, led by Lex Luthor, set out to more or less take down the super heroes and provide protection to other villains in order to ensure this doesn't happen again. Also important are the reappearance of Eclipso, DC's "God of Darkness," who corrupts The Spectre, a hero who is God's "hand of judgment" into destroying all magic; an interplanetary war between Rann (home of Adam Strange) and Thanagar (home of Hawkman); and the government agency Checkmate creating "The OMAC Project," a nanovirus that turns normal humans into cyborg-ish super soldiers. You can find these in other trade paperbacks ... JLA: Crisis of Conscience, The OMAC Project, The Rann-Thanagar War, The Return of Donna Troy, Villains United, and Day of Vengeance. Most are good if you want to spend the money.

Anyway, all of this distrust and paranoia leads to Wonder Woman seemingly killing an innocent civilian, Max Lord, who actually was a villain who, unknown to the world that watched her break his neck, was able to control people's minds and had controlled Superman to the point where he was bludgeoning Batman to death. But broadcasting the one image all over the world is enough to get the world scared of her and turn the big three DC heroes against one another (in fact, at the beginning of Infinite Crisis, they're arguing and Batman tells Superman that the last time he inspired anyone was "when you were dead." Great stuff).

Watching from another dimension are Alexander Luthor, the Earth-2 Superman and Lois Lane, and the Earth-Prime Superboy, who are the only people left from Crisis on Infinite Earths (aside from a villain named Psycho Pirate, who's in Arkham Asylum) who remember the multiverse and all of the pre-Crisis stuff. Superman pounds through the interdimensional barrier and sets off for Earth in order to "make things right" and restore the heroes' true stature. Little does he know that he's being manipulated by Alexander and Superboy, who are behind the Secret Society (the real Lex Luthor confronts him in issue 3), the OMACs and the corruption of The Spectre. It eventually becomes an all-out brawl that results in the recreation of the universe.

Yeah, it sounds convoluted and to get the WHOLE story you have to buy about $60 worth of trade paperbacks, but for a good comic book fight, you can't go wrong with just buying the Infinite Crisis paperback. It leads up to a clearly insane Superboy-Prime fighting the current continuity Superboy, followed by a two-theater epic battle: Superboy-Prime versus two Supermans and the ENTIRE Green Lantern Corps and every hero you can think of fighting every villain you can think of in Metropolis.

Thy Kingdom Come follows Infinite Crisis in the Justice Society book and is the sequel to Kingdom Come, a story from 1996 where an "alternate" future of the DC Universe is shown (and I really REALLY REALLY recommend that). There was a quasi sequel in 1999 called The Kingdom but it more or less sucks except for a part called "Planet Krypton" which is a good stand-alone story about a waitress working in a superhero-themed restaurant, and the fact that we see the Earth-2 Superman putting the first cracks in his interdimensional barrier. This is the first of three trades (and I have yet to buy the other two) and basically involves the Superman from Kingdom Come (an older, crankier version of today's Supes) coming to Earth in the present day. It's kind of uneven because there are a couple of parts that are just kind of there and don't tie into the overall story, but Superman's showing up and throwing some of the characters for a loop are enough to make me want to get the next two parts when I get the money and when they're in trade. So I guess I'll put off the whole storyline for a bit.

But I recommend Infinite Crisis.

Next up, Frank McCourt, American history, and then I figure out what's next from the huge pile of books on my nightstand.

Never give a dork an iPod.

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 13:19:00 +0000

I wonder if there is some sort of "cool" quotient to keep up on one's iPod. Which explains, in part, why I ripped a bunch of Libertines songs a couple of weeks ago along with a bunch of other stuff from mix CDs compiled by friends of mine who have way more music cred than I do. Too bad I don't seem to be listening to it as much as things related to Superman.

Yes, as I sit here in Panera, sucking off Wifi (this is the first time I've ever done this, btw ... I guess, just for once, I wanted to be one of those assholes. And it's raining out, so I can't do the yardwork I had planned to do), I'm listening to my "Morning Coffee" playlist and while it has its share of good stuff, like the rest of my iPod it has a bunch of stuff on it that shows that I am old, a loser, maybe even both.

Some highlights, perhaps?

"Let the Day Begin" by The Call. This is playing right now, actually. And really, who doesn't like obscure 1980s new wave? (see also: "What Do All the People Know?" by The Monroes)

"Easy Tonight" by Five For Fighting. Yes, that Five for Fighting. While naming yourself after a hockey penalty is awesome, I don't think anyone who didn't drive a minivan still pays attention to this group. This was the follow-up to that "Superman" song that was a hit in 2001. It's one of the only song of theirs I've ever liked, probably because it's way more fast-paced and doesn't have that whiny falsetto.

Mid-1990s Dave Matthews Band. Either I'm old or I'm trying to get laid in my dorm ... in 1997. Maybe both?

My "Training Montage" Playlist. 30 minutes of songs to coincide with 30 minutes on the treadmill that include songs from Rocky IV, The Karate Kid, Over the Top, and Megaforce. Yes, I put "You're the best around/nothin's gonna ever keep you down" on an iPod in 2009.

Jackson Browne. You know, he played here the other night and I kind of wanted to go but reconsidered when I realized that I would probably be the only person under 40 in the audience.

The Main Title to Superman: The Movie. Yeah, the John Williams piece that runs over the credits of the Christopher Reeve film from 1978. I actually downloaded this because ... well, this is going to make me seem extremely unintelligent, but it is my favorite piece of orchestral music ever. I love Mozart, Beethoven, etc., but nothing compares to the soaring majesty that is the Superman theme.

From Crisis to Crisis. Speaking of Superman, this is a podcast done by two guys who run a website called "The Superman Homepage." They are reviewing, month by month, every Superman comic that was published in what DC Comics fans know as the "post-Crisis" era, which spanned 1986-2006 (or, from Crisis on Infinite Earths to Infinite Crisis). This project will take them five years to complete because they each week they're simply doing one month's worth of comics.

I personally find this fascinating and I've listened to about six weeks' worth of backlogged podcasts (I think I have about 7 more to go before I'm caught up) and it's worth it just to hear their take on what was a revolutionary idea in 1986 -- recreating Superman from scratch. Seriously. John Byrne took the character and started over, reintroducing everyone in the Superman "universe" and getting rid of some fan favorite elements (for instance, Superboy never existed, and Superman was the only survivor of Krypton--there was no Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl). He also put more emphasis on Clark Kent, which is the flip side to what had been done for 50 years. Clark was always supposed to be just a disguise, but Byrne made Clark the person and Superman the hero persona he adopts. It's been great listening to these guys talk about the books, especially since I'd never read that many of them (in 1986 I was buying G.I. Joe and The Transformers and the only superhero I bought for a while was Batman. I started on Superman around the time he died in 1992/93). Even from an English teacher's standpoint this is fun. Geeky fun, but fun nonetheless.

So yes, if you have any pretense about music and entertainment, beware who you give an iPod to.

Vacation!

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:02:00 +0000

I think that July was one of the busiest months I've had in a while. Looking at the calendar page, just about every week was filled up with something. I started off teaching summer school, spent a nice weekend with Amanda for her birthday, had Brett's birthday party, was at James Madison University for a yearbook workshop and then we had our first for-real family vacation to Williamsburg.

This was a big deal -- other than visiting the grandparents, we had never really traveled with Brett, and never for longer than a weekend. We'd gotten a suite at Kingsmill, a resort near Busch Gardens, which meant that Brett could go to sleep and we wouldn't bother him while watching TV every evening. Of course, the sleeping arrangements and making sure that he slept and ate well enough aren't exactly the thing that you focus on during a vacation. But being relatively new to this, it was one of the things that we were thinking about and planning around as we packed.

Sleeping did go okay, although neither of us slept that well (who does in a hotel room, though?) but eating was pretty cool. Right before vacation, we bought Brett a booster seat and he took right to it ... so in the span of a week, we've gotten rid of the high chair. You know, even if he is a little messy. Okay, really messy. But then again, he's a 2-year-old.

The core vacation stuff? Pretty awesome. We hit Busch Gardens on our first day and took Brett to Elmo's Forest of Fun. He had his picture taken with Bert and Ernie and went for a ride with me on a boat ride and the three of us rode the carousel together. We did get him on a ride by himself -- a balloon ride -- but that didn't go over too well. Even though it was a kiddie ride that just went up and down really smoothly, B was upset that we weren't with him. He didn't try to get off the ride, just sat still and cried and said "I want my mommy!" I felt bad, but at the same time it was kind of cute.

He's showing that he's a little afraid of some stuff here and there. One thing he hates is shooting water. For instance, he had more fun in the regular pool at the hotel than the kiddie pool, where he didn't like the fact that there were red ball-like things shooting water into the pool (not really powerfully, kind of like an arc). Not that he shouldn't be afraid of things, ever or anything and I'm sure he'll get over it. The challenge for me, in a way, is to not overreact.

Because when I was a kid I was scared of a lot of things -- dogs, roller coasters, bees, swimming, projectiles -- and it took a long time for me to break those fears (okay, I'm still a little scared of bees and while I'm not afraid of the water anymore, I can't swim very well). I know that Brett's going to wind up being scared of some things in his life, so I don't want to try and project all of my childhood bullshit onto him by trying to make him fearless ... kind of in the same way that my shitty play in Little League will not be a motivation for pushing him to be an all-star shortstop. It's weird how you try to avoid projecting weird personality shit onto your kid in the same way you try to avoid cursing around him.

Anyway, enough over-analyzing vacation and child behavior. I'm just happy that Brett's been having fun, and happy to have two weeks of more or less nothing to do before I go back to work on the 17th.

Color Me Impressed (100 Books ... 44 Left)

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 01:07:00 +0000

51. Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krause
52. Clerks: The Comic Book by Kevin Smith
53. Jay & Silent Bob: Chasing Dogma by Kevin Smith
54. Breakfast After Noon by Andi Watson
55. Richard Scarry's Biggest Word Book Ever! by Richard Scarry
56. The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting: An Oral History by Jim Walsh

Still moving along here, grabbing some comics I haven't read in a while and continuing along the children's book track. I continue to enjoy Richard Scarry and it's fun to sit and read his books and have Brett point out all of the things in the drawings. This one is particularly fun because it's a huge book, almost as tall as Brett. So we sit and read it and he's got a lot to look at.

The Clerks comics are tie-ins to the whole View Askewniverse, and I think some of them are considered "canon" by Smith and his fans. Jay & Silent Bob: Chasing Dogma fillis in the blank between the end of Mallrats and the beginning of Dogma, showing how the two characters got to Chicago at the beginning of the latter film. It passes through Chasing Amy briefly (basically, in one panel, they enter the diner and then they leave in the next) and anyone who's seen Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back will recognize the portion with Suzanne, the ape. Clerks: The Comic Book collects three stories featuring Dante and Randal. The two get into the Star Wars toys black market in the first; help Santa in "The Holiday Special"; and go to the funeral that takes place in Clerks. (it's animated on the Clerks X DVD as "The Lost Scene")

The Clerks comics are better than the Jay & Silent Bob series, in the same way that Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back is the weakest of the View Askewniverse films. Chasing Dogma is just too immature in some parts, even for Kevin Smith. The Clerks books feature some great satire of fanboys and comic books and much of the dialogue is on par with the original films.

Breakfast After Noon is indie Brit comic writer/artist Andi Watson's tale of a couple who are both laid off from their jobs at a failing pottery plant and deal with life in a bad economy and how it destroys their relationship. Rob and Louise are the couple and while Louise has her eye on money and getting a new career and being more responsible while unemployed, Rob is in a constant state of denial and obviously has a terrible time facing the reality of his situation. It's a story that's been told quite a number of times on movies and television; here, Watson does it with sensitivity and a sense of realism that makes it one of those classic "comics for people not used to reading comics." It doesn't try to be more than it actually is, which makes it pretty great.

On the other hand, An Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life does. It's a great concept -- the idea that you can write a memoir even though you haven't done anything remarkable with your life -- but the end result is ... well, annoying. Krause tells her "story" as if it were an actual encyclopedia, addressing topics from A to Z and putting no narrative in. That's all well and good but what happens over the course of 200 pages or so is that it becomes too "writery." After a while, her observations on life make you wonder if you're stuck in a Seinfeld loop, and you wonder how much time she does spend with her head up her own ass. I probably shouldn't be that harsh, but I had high hopes for the book because of its unique idea; unfortunately, it turned pretentious pretty fast.

The Replacements: All Over But The Shouting recounts the band's history through the stories of those around them as well as a vast array of media archives--mostly from Minneapolis. There are some great details in here, but what happens after a while is that it becomes obvious that if you weren't a hardcore fan back in the day or haven't done at least a little background reading. And while I own every one of the band's albums, I only bought them in the last decade or so and only have a cursory knowledge of their backstory, mostly through some internet browsing and Michael Azzarad's Our Band Could Be Your Life (which, I highly recommend). But I found this fun and it made me want to listen to every one of their albums in order (I have Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash in my car right now) to see how the band evolved ... well, devolved, really. It's a fun sliver of rock history about a band that was pretty crazy, although it left me wanting more.

Next Up: I'm still plowing through Wuthering Heights and another history-related book. Otherwise, I'll probably pick up the next Green Lantern trade and then figure out where to go from there.

Two!

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:17:00 +0000

I have a 2-year-old.

Yeah, I had to read that again, too.

Brett's second birthday wasn't as much of an extravaganza as his first birthday. We had a party at Amanda's parents house that was mostly family and NoVA friends and then yesterday we had cupcakes (see right) and a couple of presents for him to open from Mommy and Daddy. Then I left this morning for a four-day yearbook workshop in Harrisonburg, which is how things go, I guess.

I am happy to say that he checked in all right at the doctor's this morning. He's still charting in the 75% or so range for both height and weight and it looks like he's still on track to become as tall as his father. Hopefully he'll have a little more attraction to physical activity than his father does; in fact, if he takes after his grandfather that would be great.

And I'm sure he's enjoying all of his presents. The big one this year was a play kitchen, which we gave to him about a week ago after I set it up and he went away for the weekend to see the grandparents while we celebrated Amanda's birthday. Added to that were all sorts of play food and a shopping cart, as well as an apron and a paper chef's hat from the Tilt'n Diner in Tilton, New Hampshire (courtesy of my parents, who go up to NH every summer). This morning, before I left, he was showing me how he pretend peels an orange and eats it, even saying "chomp chomp chomp." Such a fun little guy.

Ah, I'm gushing. But as incredible that it is that I have a 2-year-old I'm kind of glad the big second birthday is behind us. Next week is our first full family vacation--to Williamsburg. After that, I've got two weeks off before finally returning to work.

I need a freakin' team name

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:08:00 +0000

So I went and actually bought a Fantasy Football magazine for this year's draft because I don't want to finish completely dead last like I did last year. I'm a little skeptical about ESPN's love for certain players and their "well, they can't get any worse" philosophy that causes them to put any member of the Detroit Lions in the top 1/4 of any position. But what will be good is that this will make me able to come up with better picks on the fly on draft day, August 22.

That seems to be the easy part. The hard part seems to be picking a team name. Do I keep going with Monkey Trauma Center? I mean, I love the name but its reputation definitely precedes it and I wanted to mix it up a little, declare a fresh start. The rain on my car is a baptism. Ice man, Power Lloyd. My assault on the world begins now.

Or not.

But seriously ... what do I go with? Right now, I've only got a couple of ideas. One of my opponents last season was a team named "Steve Largent's Jock," and along the same lines I thought of "Chris Berman's Comb-Over" but I think that might go beyond the website's character maximum. Still, it's pretty sweet.

Then, I thought of teams that would accurately reflect the suckitude of my effort last year: Epic Fail, Cavalcade of Suck, Terrible. F., The Morgue, Cop Rock, and The Detroit Lions all crossed my mind.

And while I'm all for self-deprecation, it didn't seem that original, you know? Although a team called Epic Fail would be pretty sweet.

I considered references to things from my childhood but I don't know if my friends are that familiar with the works of Marty Jannetty.

So the best team name I have so far? "Khaaaan!" It's fun, it's classic, and it gives me an excuse to use this picture as my icon ...

But the decision is not final.

Just because we play with balls doesn't mean you have to be a dick.

noreply@blogger.com (Tom) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:05:00 +0000

So it's the bottom of the sixth. Up until we started this inning, we've been matching this team run for run and were only down by one. All we had to do was get three outs and we'd be up in the top of the seventh (well, the rest of the team, anyway ... I had been subbed out). Unfortunately, it was time for our one horrible inning and we couldn't get that first out. Run after run scored. We got one out, another couple of runs scored, and we got another out. It looked like we were starting to settle down a little and that third out was coming. But before we could pitch to the next batter, we heard "That's game, blue!" from their dugout.

The guys on the bench and I were confused. The umpire asked for the score. We were down by 10 runs. He conferred with their team member and then called the game. We'd been mercy ruled.

Now normally I don't give a shit about being mercy ruled. It's happened before. But in the very least, the umpire allows us to finish out the inning, especially when we have time remaining. And if he had called it, I wouldn't have been annoyed, but the fact that someone over on the other bench pointed it out? Dick move. Seriously diiiiiiiiiiiiick move.

And that got me thinking. What are the biggest dick moves that you can pull in rec league softball? Like, what are the really annoying things that people do that show that: a) they take the game way too seriously, b) are overcompetitive assholes, or c) are simply assholes? Well, here are my top five ...

1. Taking an extra base when the play is clearly over and the infielder is simply getting the ball back to the pitcher. Thankfully I've seen a crackdown on this, where the umpire will call "Time!" before this can happen, but I have played plenty of teams where a runner will run for the next base while you're getting the ball in after the play is over. Of course, the bad thing to do is actually try to get him out because that will result in an error and another base. I know it's a mental thing, too, in that you'll get really frustrated by having someone do this to you, and I know it technically is legal, but it seems like cheating to me. Like, let your next batter get you over.

2. Taking a walk when you are more than three runs ahead. Look, I get it if you're in a close game, especially one of those "you get two, we get two" games that really comes down to the wire. That's when you go ahead and be patient with the pitches and take a walk, especially when you're in a coed league that allows guys to take second (this way you can't pitch around the guys to get to the girls). In cases like that, every runner counts because that can be the difference in the game. But if you're kicking serious ass and you're taking balls that are only slightly out of the strike zone? That's bullshit. Grow a pair and swing the bat.

3. Chatter that involves making calls or inappropriate banter with the umpire. There's cracking a few jokes with the ump about a call or banter nicely between opponents ... and then there's making jokes with the ump every inning to the point where you wonder if the ump is wearing the opposing team's jersey underneath, or yelling "BAM!" every single time a batter gets a hit. The worst, though, are those who call "SAFE!" or "OUT!" on close plays. Uh, last time I checked ... YOU WERE NOT THE UMPIRE, ASSHOLE!!!

4. Sliding when it's not necessary. I do this. Probably more times than I should. I used to do it all the time in college, but in my defense it was on those days when the turf was wet and if you've ever slid on wet artificial turf, it's REALLY fun. But did the guy in tonight's game really need to beat out the throw to third with a Pete Rose-esque head-first slide? I wouldn't bet on it.

5. Filing a protest. The mother, I think, of all dick moves in softball. Unless the game is a playoff or championship game, do you really need to call the league office and file a protest because a call was too close or one of the people on the other team is actually someone they picked up at the last minute so they didn't have to forfeit?

I often wonder what really goes through the heads of those people who have to go all out like that because they have to win. Can't you just have fun and go for beers afterwards? I mean, I'm kinda glad that next Thursday will probably be my last game.