Robert Goulet 1933-2007

The passing of a legend is always a sad occasion.

And now, a tribute:

Charles Schultz Got It

I was watching PBS tonight and they had a special on the life of Charles Schultz. They showed a comic that really hit home for me. Unfortunately I couldn't find the strip but I did find the quote. If any one is able to find the actual strip please let me know.

Sometimes it is Charlie Brown who confides in Lucy. He approaches her in her counseling booth. The doctor is in.

Charlie Brown: I'm in sad shape.

Lucy: Good morning, Sir, sit right down.

Charlie Brown: Fine. . . I was afraid I might need an appointment. What can you do when you don't fit in? What can you do when life seems to be passing you by?

Lucy: Follow me, I want to show you something. See the horizon over there? See how big this world is? See how much room there is for everybody? Have you ever seen any other worlds?

Charlie Brown: No.

Lucy: As far as you know this is the only world there is. . . right?

Charlie Brown: Right.

Lucy: There are no other worlds for you to live in. . .right?

Charlie Brown: Right.

Lucy: WELL, LIVE IN IT, THEN! Five cents, please.

Redonkulous!

I'm not sure if this is freakin cool or really sad. Either way its incredibly ugly. I wouldn't want to be at practice in a purple jersey on Monday.

Just Another Thursday Night in Grand Rapids

Somebody mentioned it was a Halloween show, but I couldn't tell.
Apparently the guys were re-shooting The Beastie Boys "Sabotage" video after the show.


Greg spent most of the night trying to arrange a reunion tour for The Cure.

Unfortunately he was unsucsessful and spent the rest of the night complaining to the skeleton.




















Best part of the night though? Definitely the opener, "No More Tears" by Ozzy. Un-Freakin-Believeable!

Cobra Commander Worked for Amway!

Okay, so I got a little bored tonight and decided to do some light reading about GI Joe at GI Joe Character Guide. I have to say I was shocked when I came across the following information regarding the early days of Cobra Commander:

"Traveling the country, he lived in various towns, moving from one motel to another, finding people just like him who blamed their lives' failures on everyone but themselves. He got them involved in pyramid schemes, selling cleaning products and magazines."

Pyramid schemes? Cleaning products? Is there any question he was an Amway distributor? I think not.

"If you can ssssssign up sssssssix other interesssssted partiesssssss you can make thoussssssands of dollarssssssss a year. If you can get those ssssssssix to sign up sssssssix more you can retire long before ssssssssixty!"

Yeah, This Way is Much Better

Words Do No Justice

Thanks to Jenny for Finding This One

And this one is from me.

Mathematics of a Muted Nature

I've said it before and I'll say it again, GO SEE THESE GUYS PLAY! Mutemath puts on one of the best rock shows I have every seen.

He's not part of the show but he takes decent pictures.























Oh yeah, did I mention I won tickets from WGRD and got to meet the band. You're jealous. I know. You should be.




There are more pictures on my Flickr page should you wish to peruse them.

So It Goes

So I just finished Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Wow! What a read! Short but powerful. For those who have not partaken it is the story of Billy Pilgrim, an unassuming everyman who becomes "unstuck" in time. Essentially he lives his life out of order, separated from the constraints of what we would call time. It is Vonnegut's attempt at an anti-war story. It definitely put forth some powerful antiwar imagery but I found, at least on my first read, that the real power was put behind some simple yet intense insights into our world.

One of my favorites:

"Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty d0llar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer. So it goes."

Read that again. Maybe for a third time even. This book is filled with little snippets like this that just stopped me in my tracks. So many times I've been forced to read "literature" in class and made to dissect the imagery and meaningfulness of the prose. Yet Vonnegut continually packs all that needs to be said into just a few well chosen words.

So if you like science fiction, quirky stories, unconventional writing techniques or are just looking for something different, might I suggest a little Vonnegut for some weekend reading? YOu will not be disappointed.

No....No....No....No....F*&#K NO!!!!!

I will not stand for this!

And to make matters even worse:

"Smith's son Jaden, 9, is attached to star in the remake." - IGN.com


So are they going to cast Clay Aiken as John Kreese?


I'm going to throw up.

Brandy Would Like To Say Hello

OK, the weather is really starting to mess with me now. We had a beautiful autumn day today. It was something out of a good novel, the leaves were gorgeous and had littered the sidewalks, which led to a pleasant crunchy texture for our walk. The sun was shining, the sky a bright blue with nary a cloud in the sky. The only problem, the 85 degree heat with heavy humidity. I'm all for an Indian summer but number one, it needs to be cold for a while before we get it and two, I don't need it to get above the low 70's.

But that is as close to a complaint as I am going to go today. Alas, the cold and evil, fluffy white, devil precipitation is just around the corner. I will enjoy the warmth while it lasts.

So, despite the heat we got out and enjoyed the sunshine today. We had a nice little picnic at Collins Park in E. Grand Rapids and walked around Gaslight Village. It's always nice to walk around that area of town, where I can feel the disapproving glares that fall on my Walmart wardrobe from within the windows of passing Jaguars and Beamers. Plus, how often to you get to lunch next to the Yacht Club!?!

Yet the foray into "The Land of Houses I Will Never Afford" was well worth it for one reason, Jersey Junction.



We used to bike to Gaslight Village when I was a kid. I have many a fond memory of Hudsonville Ice Cream consumed on the Junction porch.

Of course, Jenny found something else besides ice cream:


I love that my wife still loves little kid's candy. She definitely keeps me feeling young.

Laughter is the Best Medecine

6 Months Till St. Patricks Day!

So the wife and I, along with the Dornans went to see Lunasa this week. Not only are they a phenomenal Irish band but we got to see them in a small little pub. It was much more of an intimate and personal show than what you get in an auditorium. If you are in to traditional Irish music I demand that you pick up at least one of their CD's. You will not be disappointed.

Here are a few pics from the night. Rie has more at her blog (it's the "Bantam Menace" link to the right).


Lunasa,remember it, write it down, buy the albums, dance a jig



This is Sean. He plays the fiddle. Jenny wants to take him home








You can't tell really well from the picture but this beer was pissed! It kept foaming and there were about 10 times as many bubbles as normal. I think they were mad that Jenny ordered a Miller Light at a pub.

Friends, Burgers and High Strung Canines

I promised everyone some pictures of the new living room so here you go.















We still need to get the carpet down but that's a couple weeks out yet so we decided to move the furniture back into the room and just deal with exposed subfloor for a couple of weeks. The house is finally feeling like ours, not like an old lady's house that we are just living in.















So I'm 30 now. I don't see why everyone makes a big deal about it. Its just another year. But, to celebrate we held a little backyard shindig. I cooked up a bunch of burgers and hot dogs and made a couple gallons of sweet tea. It was a good time having everyone over and just hanging out.




























Simon seemed to have the most fun of anyone. Oh to be young enough to be fascinated by the hose under the table.

We've also recently discovered that Daisy is deathly afraid of the creaky bedroom door. It doesn't latch well and the wind can blow it open when we have the windows open. Of course, once we figured this out we started leaving it unlatched when we watch tv in the bedroom so we can enjoy the hilarity that accompanies her terror.

I mean, how do you not laugh at this? Apparently she's decided the only safe place is inside mamma's shirt.

OY!

Wow, painting sucks.

I just sent the last two days painting the living room and I can barely move. But it is totally worth it. The living room and hallway are no longer colored like a flesh colored band aid. We also no longer have gold paisley carpet on the floors, which also means the living room no longer smells like 40 years of cat pee. Well, actually still does a little. Apparently, if the previous owner of your house allows her cats to pee on the carpet for 40 years the pad under the carpet tends to fuse with the subfloor. So, I now have several large pieces of incredibly disgusting, 40 year old, urine soaked carpet pad that need to be scraped off the subfloor. Luckily Jenny to our only scraping capable tools with her to Ohio on a relief trip, so, hooray for that.

She also took the camera with her so I'll have to wait to post pictures of the new paint job.

Now, it is time to go wash away the stink of manual labor.

Hasta la vista.

Random Thoughts While Home Alone

- Did Data and his family still move to Detroit after the Goonies found all the rich stuff?



- How would you build a snowman? Would you build him tall, or would you build him not so tall?



- Have you ever noticed how a lot of the George Lucas movies reuse the same sound effects. I noticed that Boba Fetts scream from RTJ is used in all 3 of the Indiana Jones movies.




- Why did they have to go change Bristol? Now it's just a short track version of all those boring California, Texas and Chicagoland races.



- Would you name him Bill, or would you name him Beouwulf?



- Why did they have to go change The Bourne stories so much for the movies. I mean, is there a more kick ass character than Jason Bourne? Why did they have to water him down for the movies and throw him into generic car chase scenes.



- Along the same lines, when is John Clarke getting his movie? I'm ready for Without Remorse. We need more Tom Clancy movies.



- I think Andi was a complete slut. I mean after school she was riding around in Troy's convertible, later that day she was jumping all over Brand's jock then that night she licked the chrome off Mikey's braces. Whore.



- The Mines and The Cinematics, September 11th at the Intersection. Please go, support two great bands.



- What's in the boooooooox?!? What's in the f***in boooooooooooooooooox?!?



- Slider or Iceman? Iceman was way cooler but Slider had a much better tan. Wait....what? ummmm.....next question



- If the X- wing is shaped like an X, the Y-wing was shaped like a Y, the A wing sort of looked like an A, then I have one question...........Why is the B-wing shaped like a T? Come on George, you can do better than that. Oh wait, I forgot who I was talking about.



- Spadoinkle

Um.........

Now, I'm a Braves fan; Should I think this is kind of cool or should I be completely embarrassed. I mean the song is not that bad. And it's always fun to see the crazy things people do to support their sports teams.

Ah hell, Go Braves!!!

The Land Without Cable

Jenny and I have been without cable for a week. We finally got sick of dealing with Comcast and decided to go through with the plans we had been talking about for a few months. Let me say, we waited way too long to get rid of the worthless time wasters that come with the cable box.

So we've gotten out a lot more, seen more of the town and actually went to a museum! Of course it was the Van Andel so we paid $8 each for something that took less than 2 hours to get through.

I've gotten some more reading done. I need to get some new material, I started several books the last few weeks but none of them have grabbed my attention. I've started put together a model car, so that's been kind of fun. I've had to relearn a nice little thing called patience, something I typically don't have a lot of. I'm also getting a lot more practice time in on my guitar. I really can't believe how much time we wasted in front of the boob tube.

So today we got to take the nephew to John Ball Zoo. For those that have been there before let me tell you they've added quite a few more exhibits. It's actually worth a visit. And it doesn't smell too much like monkey piss anymore!

Well that's what we've been up to. Now the real test is coming. Can I get through college football season without cable? Time will tell.



And Finally, here's some video that falls under Mr. Chris' "Things that Make Me Feel Silly When I Say 'I Can't Do It'". Thanks to Newmyer for the link

Don't Worry, I'm Not Dead

Wow, I have been away for far too long. I'm sure I wasn't missed too much. Things have been pretty calm on the home-front. After the holiday things calmed down to a pretty slow pace; pretty boring actually. We've been exploring our fine city from our new dwelling, located conveniently close to downtown. I did however get to see The Mullet a week ago. Always good to run into old friends.

I've picked up the guitar again for the first time in 6 years. I want to kick myself for getting away from it for that long. It's like I parted ways with my best friend then crossed paths with them again years later. I didn't appreciate the experience at the time but now that I'm back on board I can't believe I let it get away in the first place. Unfortunately I now have to relearn about 3/4 of the stuff I learned back in the day. I've picked up a few good blues licks this week though and I'm torturing Jenny with a couple of lead licks that I've been practicing every day.

I almost hate to admit it but I finally got run over by the Harry Potter bus. I had conveniently avoided the books and movies all these years until I got sick a couple of weekends ago. TNT had the first 3 films running on a marathon and since there was nothing else on at the time I took a gander. Now I'm hooked. Perhaps I'll even get to see the new one at the theater. I doubt it though. And speaking of movies, DO NOT watch "The Number 23" with Jim Carrey. If you feel the urge to do so have a friend or family member lock you in a dark room full of spiders and shards of broken glass for two hours. It will enrich your life much more than said movie.

Well, I guess that's enough for my boring life update. Hope things are going well out there in the land in which my friends dwell.

Oh yeah, one more thing. We went to a Whitecaps game with the Dornans and my sister recently and you'll never guess what happened.

WE CAUGHT MARIE LAUGHING!


I know, it's rare but it happened. You can see for yourself: