G. Bob the Family Guy

Skating With the True Star

2006-01-22T09:09:00.000-05:00

How about this for a day? Wake up, and coach pee-wee floor hockey with my friends Mike and Katie. Watch as the kids run around with sticks and pucks and then head home for a round of playing video games with Joe. Head out to lunch at Panos with my Aunt Claire, then end the day with taking the boy out to ice skate for the first time.

That's right, his first time skating. Forget the first time he walked. This is the first time on skates. My retirement plans are simple. Teach him to the the next Wayne Gretzky, then sit back and watch the checks roll in. It's the perfect plan. Nothing can go wrong with it.

Well, we have a way to go, but he enjoyed his time greatly. He has pronounced ice skating "better than skiing" and suggest that we go every day. Who can argue there? His ankles were strong, and once we work on balance he'll be the king of the rink. A good day, indeed.

New Years

2006-01-11T11:07:00.000-05:00

My name is Joe, and just because I'm 5 doesn't mean I don't like a good party. I got my natty duds, I got my bling, and I'm the only one who seems to be carrying around a party robot. What kind of person doesn't bring a party robot? Time to teach these big people how to party!

Not a party unless you dance. Shake it!

Don't you hate it when you go to a party and someone wears the same outfit you do?

Time to throw down some cards with the ladies!

Christmas Time

2006-01-11T11:06:00.000-05:00

Break out the loot. It's Christmas time!

Review of the Tuesday Screening of Serenity

2005-09-27T23:02:00.000-04:00

Either you get why cowboys in space are cool or you don’t. It’s just that simple. If you need to make a decision on if you should see Serenity or not, then that’s the question you’re going to have to ask. There are some who will groove on the mixed up pop culture jambalaya that makes up the world of Firefly. For them, the mixture of Mandarin curses, evil space empires, cute girls, tough guys, six shooters and space ships clicks, and for them Joss Whedon made this movie.

Serenity is a movie based on the canceled television show Firefly. The show was created by Joss Whedon, best known for bringing Buffy the Vampire slayer to life. It’s the story of a jaded space captain who was on the losing side of a civil war. Picking up the pieces after the war, Captain Mal Reynolds assembled a crew, found a ship and set off to make a dollar any way he could. Along the way he picked up a young girl on the run from the government, and her brother. The actors from the television show resume their roles, and story picks up where he had left it. Browncoats, as fans of the show call themselves, helped to keep the show alive, and if pop culture wasn’t broken, it never would have happened.

The tragic flaw of pop culture is that in the digitized, on-demand world of the twenty first century, no aspect of culture is really all that popular. It hasn’t been for years. Gone are the days where a generation might find a voice in a single band, like the Beatles or where a nation might all tune in to see who shot JR or how Mary Tyler Moore is going to end. "Popular" is no longer 75% of a generation, but instead only a small part. What we have in it's place is a post-post modern culture where every individual finds his or her own voice, and what resonates for them will either bore or repulse the person down the street. It’s a culture built upon the trash heap of a hundred years of American culture, where we all scavenge bits and pieces that we find shiny, and assemble something cool out of the results. Writer and director Joss Whedon is the personification of a broken pop culture. He’s also an example of why a broken pop culture isn’t a bad thing at all.

The mind of Joss Whedon is the mind of “geek culture”. It’s a world that’s created when you grow up on comic books, Star Wars, the information age and television. It’s a world where you can be ironic, campy, deep and shallow, and sometimes all of them at once. It’s a world where you have all the accumulated knowledge of the human race at your fingertips, but odds are you’re just going to use it to debate the meaning of what Han Solo meant when he said that he “made the Kessel Run in under twelve parsecs”. It’s a world where you can make television shows about vampires or cowboys in space, yet even if you can't take the subject matter seriously, you can still find the emotional center of the characters and tell a story that’s as deep as anything you’ll find in “high culture”.

Serenity is all these things. If you’re on the same wavelength as Joss you’ll laugh, cry, be scared and be entertained. It’s a movie that will shift its gears in a heartbeat, and if you’re not hanging on to the concept it’ll knock you right off. Those people who stay on will be rewarded. Serenity is shock and awe, and somehow it manages to be something better than it really should be. Still, if you didn’t have a love of both space battles and cowboys in the first place, there’s no way you’ll make it to the end of the line.

Audience reaction in Buffalo was a strange thing. Everyone laughed together. Everyone jumped in fright together. Everyone cheered together, and yet by the time the credits rolled everyone had a different reaction. Some walked out in disgust. Some scratched their head. Some cheered. Like some bizarre cinematic Rorschach test, how you feel about the movie may depend more upon how you view the material than the quality of the material itself.

Universal may have made a brilliant decision by inviting bloggers to the review. It’s really the perfect medium to review a movie where the perception of it hinges so much on the individual. It’s a movie for a segmented audience, so a segmented media might be the perfect place to advertise it.

Will you like the movie? Who knows. Do you like sci-fi movies with cowboys?

spoilers in the comments section

Harry Potter and the Half-Finished Novel

2005-07-17T12:04:00.000-04:00

There are those who knock J. K. Rowling as being a pedestrian writer, cranking out predictable drama that resides in the ranks of literature somewhere slightly above the average comic book. With the novel "Half Blood Prince" it's clear that Rowling has accepted the gauntlent, and created a piece of post-modernist avant garde surrealism for her latest novel. How so? By Pushing the boundaries of what makes for a great novel. You see, in most works it's assumed that the main protagonist will, at some point, engage in some activity that puts him or her in the center of the plot. Cliches such as this are avoided in this book, where Harry Potter manages over the course of nearly 650 pages to do absolutely nothing other than to follow people around and complain about his life.

When reading "Half Blood Prince" I would propose the following thought experiment. Imagine Harry being replaced by a puppet. Would the plot change at all? Let's give it a shot, shall we?

"Harry! Voldemort is on the loose We need to examine the memories of those who knew him so we can discover his weakness."

"...."

"You know there's a Quidditch match this weekend."

"....."

"Right. Hey, Dumbledore is about to go on an amazing adventure. Care to tag along?"

"...."

With the exception of taking a luck potion that allows him to stumble upon a little bit of information that Dumbledore should have had anyways, poor Harry Potter is relegated to the role of being "Mr. Exposition boy" where his only job is to stand still while other people explain what's going on the world. One wonders if Ms. Rowling is simply tired of the character, or can't quite figure out how to move the plot along to get to the end of the series.

Then again, this may be the point of the whole novel. It's really nothing more than a set-up to the final book. Why give us in two chapters what you can drag into a 600 page book that will sell millions? For the next three years we'll be debating minor plot points, and placing our book orders in advance. On the bright side, however, Ms. Rowling can now roll around in a brand new pile of money, since her old one must be smelling a bit rank by now.

Despite all this, it's still a fine read for the summer. Making fun of Harry Potter might be the "new black" this season, but it's impossible to ignore the fact that with each book she crafts a corner of the universe that provides more entertainment than most novelists create in a lifetime. Like all great entertainers, there is something intangible she posses that elevates the material. You can study the book page by page, and still not find what it is that makes the books so enjoyable.

Laugh at the Harry Potter fans if you must, but I doubt you'll find many who will care. I'm a chain smoking, bitter cynic and even I will admit that one of my highlights this week was picking up my copy at midnight and reading it before the sun came up. I can point to a dozen faults with the book, but in the end that doesn't matter when weighed against the joy I get from reading it in the first place. It's just that good.

In other words, despite all my complaints, let's gather 'round and discuss that spoilery stuff. If you haven't finished the book yet (and to be honest, why the heck not?) then stop reading.

Ready?

Good.

Damn. We all knew Dumbledore was going to buy it in this book, but who saw it going down that way? When first reading the book, I was impressed with the way that J.K. made us distrust Snape again. Let's face it, it was starting to become old hat. Harry and crew think Snape is working for the Dark Lord. Every assures them Snape has changed. Harry and Crew find the real bad guys and it turns out Snape was innocent all along. With that early chapter, we begin to have doubts. With the end of the book, he's back on all of our bad guy lists....or is he?

Dumbledore was always firm in his conviction that Snape was a changed man. The story now is that Dumbledore was just blinded by his trust in human nature...but does that fit? Dumbledore was many things, but it was clear that he wasn't half as dim as most of the characters in these books. He's supposed to be on top of this sort of thing. What if Snape is still working for the good guys? What if Snape was following orders?

Let's look at the death. What are his final words? "Servus....please..." We know that he's not a man who would be begging for his life. He doesn't ask Snape "how could you?" Only the request "please".

Snape doesn't kill Harry after. There's no reason to think that Voldemort had standing orders to leave Harry alone, otherwise it would have been mentioned during the battle at the Ministry of Magic in the last book. Snape has sorts of reasons to want to kill Harry, and yet he doesn't. He merely deflects Harry's curses and wanders off.

So why would killing Dumbledore be part of the plan? Well,, he knew that in the end it would be Harry facing the Dark Lord on his own. Could his dying have been to release some kind of magic that will help Harry in the next book? Could it have been a plan that not only helps Harry, but makes sure that Snape would be in a position to help in the end? I would bet money on it.

hat else have we learned this book? Well, for one thing that Voldy has split up his soul for immortality. The soul can be placed in an object either living or dead, and all must be destroyed for Voldy to die. A living thing, eh? What living thing do we know of that is connected to Voldemorts soul?

Yeah, good ol' Harry. It's been established that a bit of Voldemort remained behind in Harry after the attack. It's also been established that to split off your soul it requires a human death. What if the attack on Harry's parents was really a sacrifice to transfer his soul into some other object? What if it backfired, and Harry is the seventh horcrux? What if Harry has to sacrifice himself for the enemy to be defeated.

Good way to end of the series dontcha think?

As for the mysterious RAB...my Aunt Claire writes the following;

Re RAB's identity -- gotta be Regulus Black. Remember how Sirius told Harry that his brother had become disillusioned with Voldemort and had tried to leave the Death Eaters, but it's like the Mob, you can never leave, so Voldemort ordered him killed. I think what disillusioned Regulus -- besides the absolutely stunning level of violence, depravity, murder, and torture required of Death Eaters, of course -- was when he discovered Voldemort's secret, that he was trying to make himself immortal by the use of Horcrux. I mean, it's bad enough to finally realize your sworn leige lord is a genocidal psychopath, but if you think he's found a way to make himself IMMORTAL ...

Also, I suspect Regulus discovered that Voldemort was a Mudblood, and he(Regulus) was going to be damned before he let some Mudblood rule forever as the wizarding world's king. It also must have really galled him to think that one of the wizarding world's most sacred relics, the Slyterin necklace, had been polluted by the piece of soul of a Mudblood. He'd want to either rescue the relic or destroy it just for that reason."

No argument there....except one wonders why the brain trust of Harry and crew didn't notice it in their search for the identity.

Is it 2008 yet? Get off your rump, J.K. and start writing.

Joe and Dad Explore

2005-06-26T16:32:00.000-04:00

The weather was in the 90's and the humidity hovered at around 75%. While others lounged around the house under their fans trying to get cool, Joe and I decided it would be a good time to go hiking. What a trip. We followed the stream that runs behind our house and into the industrial wreckage of Blackrock, an area of Northern Buffalo. Along the way we discovered a small hole in a fence and a trail leading into an empty lot. There's no way a person can ignore that kind of invitation. Stepping over torn up green carpeting, we soon realized that this was an abandoned miniature golf course. It had been taken over by skateboarders, as graffiti and used bongs littered the ground.

What was the course doing here? It was connected to a gigantic field, with rolling hills and knee deep weeds. A rusted metal fence extended around the area. We would need to find a trail if we were to get to the bottom of it.

Joe never ceases to impress me. Marching his little legs as fast he could, we covered close to two miles of trails, weeds, and abandoned buildings.

We finally found our answer. A quick peek at the satellite image of the area confirmed that this area was once a golf course. More research is needed, but it looks like a failed eighties land development attempt. The miniature golf course was once connected to a larger golfing complex. I'm halfway tempted to buy some carpeting, a weed wacker, and make myself my own private course.

Joe was just happy to solve the mystery of abandoned Putt-Putt.

Scenes From Summer

2005-06-26T10:58:00.000-04:00

Can there be any, and I mean any, better season than summer? Baseball games, bike riding, berry picking, exploring, parks, zoos and cramming as much fun in as one can.

It's the 21st century and that means being safe. No unsafe playground equipment, no fatty foods, and be sure to be protected if you're doing dangerous activities like going outside. The safety vest is for, I assume, the dangers of flash flooding.

Sitting in the stands as the Buffalo Bisons played the Durham Bulls. A warm summer night, with a cool breeze coming off the lake. A boy on the lookout for foul balls, and a beer in hand. There's a reason, you know, why this kind of evening is classic Americana.

I'm jealous of kids sometimes. When I'm driving to work and I see a sprinkler, my first thought isn't to hop out and get soaked. My loss. Doesn't it look refreshing?

This is what really matters. A day spent with my son. Good times.

Living Here in Allentown....Well, the Art Festival At Any Rate

2005-06-12T19:52:00.000-04:00

For 48 years now, Buffalo has held the Allentown Art Festival. For a city more known for it's decaying beauty, it's food and it's blue collar work ethic, it may come as a surprise how active the local art scene is. I've lived in a number of cities, and few do art festivals better than Buffalo. Despite oppressive heat and sweltering humidity, hundreds of thousands of Buffalonians headed downtown to view art and listen to music. That, and eating from one street booth to the next. It is Buffalo, after all.

How can you tell it's Buffalo? Well, one booth advertised psychic readings, new age wisdom, palm readings and doughnuts. One stop shopping for the overweight and gullible. Now, I didn't ask, but I assume they must have been really good doughnuts to lead one on the path to spirituality. Only in this town could Homer Simpson be a guru.

Joe, armed with his lightsaber, helped us to part the sweaty mobs. Even a 4 year old jedi comes in handy. We walked for hours, seeking shade and rest.

Buffalo is a town that often gets knocked around. Our next door neighbor summed up the city for many when she said "I love Buffalo! It's just like Bosnia!" Now, to be fair, she was from Bosnia, and I think she meant it as a compliment, but it's not like anyone would think it odd if we put it on our street signs. The town is just in that kind of shape.

Still, there are days when the city is out in force and you can't help but love this town. The buildings are falling down, and we don't have money for even basic civic needs, but at least we can still celebrate a summer afternoon with the arts.

Plus our policemen have horses. Think of the gas savings!

How Fast They Grow up

2005-06-12T19:27:00.000-04:00

Graduation day. The day where a person enters the world of adulthood, armed with a diploma and ready to take on the world.

Unless it's Pre-K graduation, in which case he receives a balloon and we eat cake.

Either way it's pretty cool.

This week Joe took his first steps on his journey as he graduated from Pre-K. Joe has only been going for about half a year, as his parents suddenly realized that in New York State he would be entering kindergarten a full year older than we had been anticipating. Not having spent any time in day care, Joe would not have been ready for school, so we turned to the local YMCA for some much needed pre-school experience.

The very first morning he tried to skip school, informing us that he would rather sleep in. Only 14 more years of that to go. Seems he takes after his Dad in that regard.

We celebrated his graduation with a cook out and Star Wars toys. His Grandparents and his friends came over, celebrating the whole day until we turned off his video game machine....then he melted down and freaked out. Time for the guests to leave. Wait until he finds out that he doesn't get a graduation party at the end of every school year. We'll never hear the end of it.

Memorial Day Cookout

2005-06-02T10:19:00.000-04:00

It was Memorial Day, and we had an invitation to our friend's house for a cookout. We arrived to find that the poker game I had left the night before was still going on into it's 17th hour. Not many had remained, but thanks to booze and the promise of money, the chips were still flying.

For Joe, visiting Mike and Karl beats Disneyland. Joe has a ball, playing hockey and playing with action figures. He's one of the guys, although the crowd made him feel a bit uneasy. Everyone enjoyed the jar of BBQ sauce we had whipped up together earlier in the day.

Good eating and good friends. You gotta love the start of summer, no matter what the weather is like.

Joe even scored a goal on Nick, who used to be my main nemesis at the poker table.

Don't Judge a Man Unless You've Walked a Mile in His Pumps

2005-06-02T09:28:00.000-04:00

When I was used to make video games, I never gave much thought to what it must have been like to be a female working in a male dominated industry. Video Game companies are the ultimate expression of a work environment where the boys never had to grow up and give up their toys. Now I work in the Romance publishing business, and it's clear that the high heel is on the other foot. Our customer base is predominately female, and the makeup of the workforce reflects this.

Let me give you an example. When we had a company meeting at Origin, we would roll in a keg of beer and finish up the meeting by dropping pumpkins off a roof, watching them explode. How do we end a company meeting in my new job? By knitting blankets for kids with cancer. One may debate the relative virtue of charity vs. produce destruction, but at least with alcohol fueled vandalism, a man knows where he stands.

After an overview of company performance, one of the companies more well known authors introduced a winner of a public service award, which recognizes women who make a positive difference in the world. After hearing the tragic tale of her daughter's fight with cancer, and how she turned the tragedy into an opportunity to do good, we retired to the cafeteria where we were given yarn and some needles. For reasons beyond my knuckle dragging male comprehension, we were given the opportunity to make squares of a blanket that would be donated to a teenager with a deadly disease.

On the bright side I managed not to poke my eye out on the darn things.

Like many of the male employees, I sat there dumbfounded as the process of knitting was explained. Like listening to a magician explain how his slight of hand is performed, the theory makes sense but the practice of the theory is where it all breaks down. Having failed miserably at my first attempt, I decided to pick up a knitting manual that had been brought in. The instructions made computer manuals look like Dr. Suess. The first row failed as I tied it together too tightly. Look, if you're going to tie a grill on to the top of a car, you make sure the knots are nice and tight. Tying something together loosely just feels wrong. By the time I got to the second row, I began to have fantasies of hiring some cheap Malaysian workers to finish the job for me.

The knitting project now sits on the computer desk, it's unfinished state taunting me.

I work for a company that is caring and sensitive to the needs and well-being of it's employees. A company where people ask questions about each other's personal lives, and show interest in the families of their coworkers. It's a company where people are considerate, honest and hard working. It gives me the creeps and makes me feel downright uncomfortable. For a bitter, chain smoking cynic it's a bit odd at times.

Give me booze and explosives any day. I may have to go buy a pumpkin just to feel more balanced.

Time for a Little Baseball

2005-05-28T23:42:00.000-04:00

Our Friday Morning Outing

2005-05-28T23:34:00.000-04:00

With Julie working, Joe and I get our mornings together. There's just no better way to spend it than with a little bit of exploring. Buffalo may be a rotting industrial corpse, but damnit, it's my corpse. Unlike the popular impression of the city, we're surrounded by nature. Buffalo sports numerous parks, and interesting places to explore. This is a trail behind our house that follows a small creek. Perfect for packing our bags and having a picnic.

The Dark Side: Review of Star Wars

2005-05-23T09:32:00.000-04:00

Star Wars fans are the abused husbands of geekdom. George Lucas treats us like dirt, and while we're whimpering in a corner nursing our black eye we whimper to ourselves "he used to be such a good man". We think back to when we were younger and in love. Everything was flowers and candy. He gave us lightsabers and space battles. Wookies and scoundrels. He left us for a long time, and when he came back things just weren't the same. Oh, we tried to fool ourselves into thinking that the relationship would get better, but it never did. We tried to excuse his behavior to our friends. "you know, Jar Jar wasn't that bad. Besides, it's not like dialog is really important in a movie." We didn't believe it in our hearts, and neither did our friends. They shook their heads and wondered if we would get the help we need.

George Lucas must have been visiting Dr. Phil or something, because after two movies or treating his audience like dirt he actually gave us a pretty decent film. Really.

I'm part of a generation that grew up on Star Wars. As a wee lad I remember my Star Wars t-shirts, my action figures, the board games and every other single bit of memorabilia that I could get my little fingers on. There wasn't an internet back then. We would scrape and beg for even the smallest scrap of information about Star Wars. We would get excited about Mark Hamill appearing on the Muppet Show. We would argue on the playground for hours about plot points and what was going to happen in the next movie. I even watched the Star Wars Christmas special for christsake, and that had Bea Arthur singing.

When the prequels came out, there was electricity in the air. It was the end of the nineties and the geeky Star Wars kids had conquered the world. The kid with the Darth Vadar lunchbox had become the computer designer driving the economy. The prequels were going to be a vindication of a whole generation. IT departments across the nation were shut down the day of release. This was going to be greatest moment of our lives.

Then we saw Phantom Menace and boy did it hurt. We walked out of the movie trying to find it's redeeming qualities. Perhaps Jar Jar wasn't that bad. You know, it's not like C3PO wasn't annoying back in the day. Hey, it's for the kids. We were just jaded adults, and the movies weren't really meant for us. Perhaps the first three Star Wars films weren't that good either.

Eventually we accepted the truth. They just weren't very good films. Cringe worthy for adults, and too boring for kids. The first two movies forced us to accept that Star Wars was dead. No worry. We always would have our memories.

I was going to skip the third movie. Wait until it came out on video. Then something happened. My son discovered Star Wars. Watching a borrowed DVD he watched as the Star Destroyer crawled along the screen in the opening, and jumped for joy as the Death Star was destroyed. Everything he held became light saber. He would echo lines from the movie, telling my wife "help me mommy. You're my only hope." Sometimes we live through our children, and watching the movies with his eyes, that old love came back. We watched the Clone Wars cartoon, and both cheered as Yoda swept away armies of droids. Here's a boy not much younger than I was when I first discovered Star Wars. I didn't have a choice but to buy a ticket to Revenge of the Sith on opening weekend.

The first hour and a half of the movie isn't really much better than the previous two. The actors are still wooden, the story muddled, and it offered not much more than gratuitous eye candy. Moments of the film were unwatchable. Natalie Portman sucked the life out of every scene she was in. My hope is that in the directors cut they replace every scene she appears in with a picture of a puppy. It couldn't be any worse is all I'm saying.

Then something happens to the movie. In the final hour it suddenly becomes everything that the kid inside of me wanted to see on the screen. We watch the descent of Annikan and the rise of Darth Vadar. The echoes of previous films ring loudly as he's seduced by the dark side. We know how it's going to end, but we don't care because we're captivated by it. The performances become gripping and you finally get a sense of the tragedy that Lucas is trying to tell.

It ain't prefect, but it works.

There are faults. For one thing, it's not fair to the generation of young fans my son's age. It becomes far too dark for children to see. When the anti-hero slaughters a room full of children, it just isn't something I want to have to explain to my son.

Yet in the end, the final film provides a justification of my childhood love of Star Wars. You're still a bad director, George, and I'm still waiting for you to give me back the six hours of my life I wasted watching the first two prequels, but at least you stop beating us up long enough to give us a big wet kiss at the end.

Now I just have to explain to Joe why we have to leave the theater before the movie is over when we see it next weekend.

Pictures from a darn nice saturday

2005-05-21T22:31:00.000-04:00

Julie vs. the paparazzi

Didn't you used to be somebody?

Yum

Better luck than his dad

Picnic In the Park

2005-05-21T09:15:00.001-04:00

There are days when the term "thank god it's Friday" just makes perfect sense.

After a week of work, surgery and poor weather, it was time for a break. With the sun shining bright and warm, Joe and I got into the car and headed down to Delaware Park for a father/son picnic. Joe was excited as he opened his happy meal and saw that he had gotten a Yoda figurine from his Happy Meal.

Laying on the grass I had a moment of perfect clarity and peace. Offer me the world, and I wouldn't trade it for being right there, right then. There was nothing else that could have been more perfect than sharing a meal with Joe, soaking up the sunshine and the surroundings. It just doesn't get any better than that.

Sadly for Joe, he lost Yoda while playing in the park. The boy is good. Instead of crying or screaming, he simply retraced his steps and sadly accepted that Yoda was gone. He's a good boy who handles disappointment well. Somewhere, Somehow I'll have to get him another one.

Now it's the weekend. A time to kick off the shoes and enjoy my family.

Odds and Ends

2005-05-17T06:54:00.000-04:00

There aren't many things me and Buddha can agree upon. I like to eat meat. I think there are many problems that can be solved with a baseball bat. One thing, however, I think he was on to was the concept of suffering coming from desire. Separate yourself from desire and you're on the road to a content life.

It wasn't that it was a bad weekend or anything, just not what I had hoped for. It was going to be a springtime weekend with my family, a concert with my wife and friends, and hours and hours in front of a card table. Instead it was a weekend of cold weather, a boy recovering from surgery, and a poker session that lasted one single hand.

Joe is recovering from his ordeal, but not as quickly as we had hoped. On Saturday the continued bleeding and the swelling concerned us enough to bring him back to the hospital. You have to hand it to Children's Hospital. They arranged for a nurse to meet us at the door so we wouldn't have to check in and pay money. They conducted the examination in the bathroom and gave the boy a clean bill of health.

Julie convinced me to go the Asylum Street Spankers concert anyways. I can't say enough good things about the band. If any group puts on a better show, I haven't seen it yet. The Spankers are not your typical band. They don't fit into any real category. They play swing, blues, country, hip hop, punk, classic rock, bluegrass and three or four other styles...Often at the same time. You can see a video of them here.

Had a great dinner with my parents on Sunday. It was good for the boy to get out of the house. Poor kid is going stir crazy, and dragging his parents into it with him. By Yesterday I was climbing the walls, looking for something to do. Keeping a four year old still is much more work than keeping him occupied. If not for video games, we would have had to use handcuffs to keep him down.

As for poker.....well, the less said the better. It's the only game where you can make the right play, your opponent makes the wrong play and yet you still lose. So much for playing nice and tight on Sunday.

Bits and Pieces

I sent this story to my Aunt Claire last week. I would like to assure people that no actually midgets were hurt in the making of the web page.

This is why I'm not seeing Star Wars on Thursday night.

What a bad year for journalisim. The "Newsweek Lied. People Died" meme is overblown, but adds to the growing distrust of the mainstream media. Trust and objectivity is the only thing the media has going for it. When you risk those things to make headlines, you risk your whole business. The scenario of EPIC 2014 doesn't seem that far off the mark. Smart search agents and firsthand blogging may very well be the way that Joe gets the news when he's an adult. The newspaper business kept a roof over my head and fed me as a child. A world without newspapers doesn't appeal to my sensibilities. Then again, I'm sure people felt that way about town criers as well.

It's E3 time. This is the first year when I'm not sad about sitting it out. It took about 4 years, but my love affair with the game industry has come to an end. I've written about the game industry and it's problems before, and they don't seem to have gotten any better. If it's a bad time to be a journalist right now, it's even worse for people who make video games. Between outsourcing, low profit margins and ballooning budgets, it's amazing that any decent game is produced.

Speaking of games, here's a timewaster.

Another Year Older

2005-05-14T07:46:00.000-04:00

As every cranky ol' SOB can relate to, birthdays become progessivley less fun after the 29th. Instead of spending the night closing down a bar with a tattooed wench on your arm, you instead spend the evening going over retirement plans, and making checklists for the year ahead.

Recently I've been making a list of goals for the coming year. Digging out the one from last year, I didn't do too shabby.

Find a better job. Check. I had some help with this one. I tip my hat to the lying, cheap scumbags at Adelphia for letting me go. The new job is much better.

Become a better husband. Well, I made some progress on this one. I no longer spend the night browsing Filipino mail order bride catalogs, so I guess I'm doing better. I also stopped beating Julie for minor infractions. I save it for the big issues, like making the coffee too weak.

Take over the world. I have to be honest. The plan to train Joe's hamster to lead an army of small mammals didn't work out as well as I planned. You can't win them all.

Well, here we go again. Another year where I can sit back and just enjoy the fact that everything is working out pretty well. I have a great family, a roof over the head and a full stomach. As soon as I get the kinks of worked out of the that whole world domination thingie, I should be fine.

The Boy Did Good

2005-05-13T19:45:00.000-04:00

The alarm went off at five, and in the back of my mind I thought"why is the alarm on? I have the day off!" Then I recalled why I had the day off. It was the day of Joe's surgery, and that's never something to look forward to.

Joe needed a circumcision to take care of a case of phimosis. Just thinking about it enough to make any man a bit queasy. Joe had been pretty mellow about the whole thing. In our best imitation of good parents we tried talking to him about it and reassuring him that everything would be alright. He would just shrug and go on about his four year old business. Did he really understand how serious it was?

Apparently so. He went to the hospital without a single complaint. Although not thrilled by the prospect of the IV tube, he didn't mind it too much. We arrived at seven and were checked in. One child, waiting for surgery, was wailing in the corner. Another was being berated by his father for playing with girls toys. Joe, on the other hand, was simply delighted that the hospital had video games, courtesy of the Starlight Foundation. The nurses were delighted to have Joe. On of their easier patients. As one nurse came in to talk to Joe to calm his fears, he pushed her aside so he could keep playing video games. Truly his father's son.

Joe was put under for about an hour. He awoke asking not where his Mother or Father were, but instead where his gameboy was. The little junkie. The doctor warned us the patient was not to engage in physical activity or sexual relations for a week. The neighborhood girls will be so disappointed.

He was a little woozy, and his male member was bloody, raw, and wrapped in bandages.

Now he's home and playing Spiderman on the PS2. For our little trooper it was just another day of adventure. Me, I could use a drink.

Twas the Night Before Surgery

2005-05-12T20:25:00.000-04:00

Twas the night before surgery
and all through the house,
not a creature was stirring....

Well, that's not true. Right now the cat is going nuts and the hamster is running in a wheel. I'm unable to sleep, but aside from that it's pretty still.

Tomorrow Joe goes in for his surgery. He's fine. It's just his parents who are nervous wrecks.

Today my Mom came over for a combination Pre-Surgery/ My Birthday dinner. We had a good time. Mom sat down and Joe went right up to her to sit on her lap. It's either the love of a grandson and his nanna, or he was just really happy to get books and baloons. With a four year old it's tough to tell.

Poker Night

2005-05-10T05:35:00.000-04:00

There are many things that weren't too great about being unemployed. One of the things that bothered me was the lack of card playing. Since moving back to Buffalo, I've been throwing down cards every Sunday with my friends. I sat out a number of weeks before I was convinced to take a marker. Turned out to be a good move. Poker wining during March paid the bills until I landed my latest gig.

"Casino Buffalo" was looking ratty. Mike and Karl have been hosting the game for over ten years now. The Poker table has seen a great deal of action over the past decade. The green felt was worn, and there was a seat where some nasty nails tended to snag your sleeves. Over the weekend we put new felt on the poker table, added a finish to it and replaced some broken boards.

"Casino Buffalo" has it's charms. The mini-bar is full of beer, and liquor bottles line the mantle underneath the painting of dogs playing poker. The dining room the house is dominated by the poker table. A police portrait of ol' Blue eyes looks down from his poster, and signs warn new players that the casino is monitored on cameras.

Mike is an aggressive player who, a couple of years ago, decided he liked playing poker better than working. Karl is a chef at an upscale restaurant, and a methodical player. It's a good group. Usually there are two or three full time card players who show up, and chumps like me who like to throw money at them.

I wasn't about to turn down a chance to play on the refinished table. The only problem was that it was Mother's day, so the game started late...and I had to work early the next morning. Pity. Blood was in the water. We had a new poker player that night, two drunks, and my favorite walking bag of money showing up that evening. Blood was in the water, and the chum was making us all a little giddy.

I had told myself that I wouldn't stay past midnight. We didn't start playing until 11:45. Dragging myself away was pretty rough. After a series of bad calls and mental errors I managed to finish slightly up for the night. I caught myself trying to justify staying. After all, I reasoned, I was making more money per hour there than I do at work, and with everyone drinking it would only get better. Fortunately I have a wife who would kill me if I blew my new job. There's a reason why most full time gamblers are single.

There's allays next week.

Why summer is great

2005-05-08T16:53:00.000-04:00

Joe chillin' with his lady friends.

Taking a break

2005-05-08T10:48:00.000-04:00

Joe reading a comic book, while taking a break between our adventures yesterday.

We needed it. Yesterday was one of those glorious, busy days that leaves a person tired and smiling after. The day started off with Joe and I getting chores done. Going to the bank, doing some shopping and getting ready for T-ball. Joe was exhausted and it wasn't even noon.

We continued on with a drive to Lockport and then to the comic book store for Free Comic Day. We stopped back home to see if Julie wanted to join us on adventures (she needed her sleep and her quiet so the answer was no.) then visited Mike and Karl's house for another cookout.

Mike and Karl had decided that the poker table was in bad shape and needed to be fixed. We disassembled it, re-felted the table and put a nice dark wood stain on it. Joe helped out the whole time, following behind us with a bag to collect the screws and stapling the felt on the table. Joe took the remnants of the felt and created a costume for himself. With a green felt hood and cape he took a handful of cards and was dubbed "the Green Gambler". Someday in the future, when Joe is competing in the 2020 World Series of Poker, we'll have to take the picture that Ian had taken of Joe in the getup and give it to ESPN to embarrass him.

For ten hours Joe and I explored, adventured, worked and played. It's why I love summer time so much.

Free comic day

2005-05-08T09:59:00.000-04:00

Saturday was free comic book day.

Free comic day is an attempt by publishers to revive a dying industry. We went to Queen City Comics in Buffalo, where they had set up boxes of back stock for kids to grab as many books as they wish. Children crowded the tables, lured by the promise of free stuff. Great idea, right? Well, sorta.

The comic industry is in bad shape. When I was reading comics as a kid, an issue was canceled by the publisher if it sold under 500,000 copies. Today a best seller is an issue that sells 100,000. Today kids are more aware of the characters than they ever have been. Just not from the comics. Every kid can name Spiderman, or Wolverine or Batman. They've seen the cartoons, they've played the video games and paid big bucks for the movies. Why aren't they buying comics then? Well, many reasons have been offered. Some suggest that kids just don't read any more. Of course, you would have to ignore the sales of Harry Potter or a Series of Unfortunate Events if you wanted to believe that. Another suggestion is that kids don't have the disposable income to spend on comics. They cost 3 dollars after all. Is this the reason? Well, take a look at video game sales. Kids plop down sixty dollars without thinking every week. Kids today have more cash than ever. So why are comics dying?

The real reason is that comic book writers are making comics for people my age and they need to stop it. Read an article about any comic book writer. They all dismiss the notion that comics are just for kids. They'll stick their nose up and sniff that graphic novels are an artistic and mature art form and it deserves respect. Most of us in the real world will scratch our heads and wonder why if it's a mature art form everyone wears spandex and carries a big gun, but don't expect that to stop the comic book writer. Superman has become a murderer, Batman an unhinged psychotic, Spiderman a married man and every single other beloved character a dark vigilante driven by sinister urges. Whatever happened to the colorful spinner racks in the 7-11 proudly screaming "Hey Kids! Comics!"?

Comics today are unfriendly to casual readers. They're even more unfriendly to the people who should be reading them...children.

So was Free Comic Book Day a success? Well, Joe loves his comics. He's excited by a promise that once he can read I'll buy him a comic each week. I just don't have the heart to tell him that there really isn't a comic each week that's available for him to read. I don't have the heart to tell him that even if he can read he wouldn't be able to find an issue of Spiderman written for someone under the age of twelve. Because of that, he'll never have the box of comics. He won't have the hours spent reading comics under the covers of his bed with a flashlight that so many kids have in the past. He'll never be a regular comic reader, and it's the comic book industry's own fault.

Ten years from now they'll still be scratching their heads wondering why sales have fallen even more than they have today.

First Ball Game

2005-05-07T12:20:00.000-04:00

First Day of T-Ball

What do you get when you combine a horde of parents, a mob of four year olds and one harried instructor? Why, you have T-Ball, of course! Despite the gray sky, the weather was warm and the day perfect to hit the field.

This is the first team Joe ever played on. He got the hang of it like a pro. He would hit the ball and head to first base in a blur of frenzied activity. Of course, figuring out which direction to run is the tough part.

How My Brain Works Pt 1

2005-05-06T22:29:00.000-04:00

I'm tired. I need to sleep. I have to wake up early tomorrow.

I won't go to bed because I want to watch the rest of a rebroadcast of a hockey game that took place over eight years ago and that I'm currently recording on my DVR. It's not like I don't know the result, or that I couldn't finish watching tomorrow. Nope. I need to stay up to watch.

2005-05-06T07:34:00.000-04:00

Joe on a cannon at mount hope cemetary last summer....what a guy.

Any excuse for BBQ

2005-05-06T05:33:00.000-04:00

We celebrated Cinco De Mayo last night. Not because we're big fans of Ignacio Zaragoza or anything. It had more to do with the fact that the cold spell is over and spring has returned again. If that isn't a good enough reason for a BBQ, I don't know what is.

The party was over at Mike's house. Mike is a poker buddy and Joe loves to visit him and his roommates. It might be the action figures around the house, or just Joe's conviction that my friends are nocturnal creatures. In his words, "they're always asleep during the day. They must be nocturnal!" To him, visiting my friends is more fun than going to the zoo.

As always, the boy was on his best behavior. Roxy, who bartends as at my favorite watering hole, couldn't get over him. Her small dog, Mr. Pickles, was a bit less in favor of a 4 year old boy running around the yard. Of course, we're talking about a dog who is also afraid of sudden movement, people talking or gravity so being afraid of Joe seems mild in comparison.

The boy ate his meal at the poker table. He should feel comfortable at it. It's where most of his toys and his bike came from. He should learn the lesson that money doesn't grow on trees. Instead it has to be extracted from suckers drawing to an inside straight. Or something like that. I'm not too good at the fatherly lessons.

The New Bike

2005-05-05T22:21:00.001-04:00

When spring first hit Buffalo, it was clear the boy needed a new bike. The problem? Well, I was out of work and a bike just wasn't on the budget. The solution?

Poker.

Here it is!

2005-05-05T22:01:00.000-04:00

So I'm still playing around with the photo options. I have to admit I'm liking google software a great deal.

Here's a picture of Joe from Steamboat Springs.

2005-05-05T21:57:00.000-04:00

Joe Vs. The Snow Monster