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The Life Before Her Eyes
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO_25i6ZHuk[/youtube] Warning: This review contains spoilers. We’ve all heard the expression that when someone dies, their life flashes before their eyes, right? I’ve always assumed that that meant the life lived up until now, that I would see the life I had lived up until that point, that I would see me as a child, me with my mom and my brother, me meeting my dad, falling in love with Ted, falling in love with Maya, and maybe some memorable times besides. But what if, instead of looking back, your last moments were spent looking forward? This, I believe, is the premise of the new film, The Life Before Her…
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Ugh.
My regular readers know that my mom has had health issues as of late. She had a heart attack in February, which landed her in the hospital, where she received heart bypass surgery (otherwise known as a ‘cabbage’, I hear). She spent some time in assisted living, getting strong enough to care for herself, to the point where she can move to California, and stay with her friend, Kate, regaining her strength. Well, she’s been doing ok, but not great. There was some misunderstanding between the cardiologist in Anchorage, and the doctor at the extended care facility, and she didn’t receive some of the heart medications she should have been…
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Herding Cats Challenge
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8[/youtube] I read about the Herding Cats reading challenge over at Dewey’s blog, The Hidden Side of a Leaf, and I had to join up, because not only do I love to read, I also used to work for EDS, when the ad above aired. So I thought, yeah, I’m on board. Here are the rules. 1. List 10 books you have read and love. LOVE. OK, at least really really like. 2. Pick 3 books you haven’t read before from the ‘favorite books lists’ of other challenge participants. Don’t worry, they’ve put together a wonderful master list, making it much easier than going through list after list after list.…
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Dear Weekly Geeks
Dear Weekly Geeks, I’m officially one of you now! In case you don’t know, my bloggy friend Dewey is having a challenge where she gives a theme, and everyone participating either discusses it (where? probably in her comments, I’m not sure on that one), or posts on their own blogs about it. Sounded like it might be fun blog fodder, so I joined in. I’m starting to think that I’m a sucker for challenges, and that you all might have known that for awhile now. The theme this first week of the challenge is getting to know the other participants. We’re supposed to go visit 5 other participants, comment on…
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Dear Idiots
Dear Idiots, Did you ever hear the expression, “If it seems to good to be true, it probably is?” Well, all you have to do is look at Wesley Snipes to know that’s true. He decided to throw his lot in with the folks that say that the IRS has no right to tax us, and that Income Taxes are illegal and unenforceable, and where did that get him? In big trouble. I’ll admit, I’ve been intrigued to know if anyone was ever dumb enough to go for these schemes…I mean, don’t you think that if there were an easy, LEGAL way to get out of paying taxes, we would…
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The “F” Word
This is a rerun of a post that I originally posted on May 10, 2006. It seemed a good post to rerun during this month of letters. 😉 Warning…this post contains SWEARING I lived in Fairbanks, Alaska, from the age of 4 until I was 9. It was the early 70’s, and it was much more a frontier society than we have down in the lower 48. I haven’t been back since, so I can’t speak to the modern sensibilities, but I digress. In Fairbanks, at that time, everyone swore. I mean, EVERYONE. At one point, we lived next door to a church, and it wasn’t unusual to hear people…
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Dear God
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mRJOXAZApo[/youtube] Dear god, Hope you got the letter, And I pray you can make it better down here. I don’t mean a big reduction in the price of beer, But all the people that you made in your image, See them starving on their feet, cause they don’t get enough to eat From god, I can’t believe in you. Dear god, Sorry to disturb you, But I feel that I should be heard loud and clear. We all need a big reduction in amount of tears, And all the people that you made in your image, See them fighting in the street, ‘Cause they cant make opinions meet, About god,…
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Z End
This being the 26th of April, and Z being the 26th letter of the alphabet, I’ve come to ‘zee end’ of my letter themed posts. Or have I? I’m thinking I may run and oldie but a goodie that was letter based, and perhaps I’ll write a few letters as well. We’ll see. It’s been a fun month, and sometimes a challenge. The NaBloPoMo theme for May is “Voices”. That one isn’t grabbing my interest, so I’ll probably skip it. By the way, I used to think that Zebras were awesome and just pretty horses with stripes, but then I saw one nature video too many, and was witness to…
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Yaz – Only You
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yod7jc8U94[/youtube] The spring and summer of 1986 is when I discovered Yaz (known as Yazoo in the UK and on Youtube), and Upstairs at Eric’s and You and Me Both were in heavy rotation on my boom box. As a matter of fact, I may not have played anything else for weeks on end. Just to give you a picture, my car stereo was stolen from my rag top ’66 candy apple red WV bug, and since I could see myself offering up a series of car stereos to car stereo scumbag thieves, while driving a car that effectively didn’t lock (the rag top was held in place by snaps),…
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X Marks the Spot…
(image found here) Almost finished with my April NaBloPoMo letter theme…we’re nearing the end of the month, and the end of the alphabet. I was thinking about what I could write about with the letter X. Hmmm. There are possibilities, of course. There’s the X-Files, X Rays, X Games, Xylophones, Xenophobia, and the band, X. There’s the X Box, Generation X, and X-Mas. The possibilities are, well, not endless, but there are a few. But none that really float my boat, you know what I’m saying? So, instead of writing about a tv show or a concept or a disease or medication or instrument that starts with the letter X,…
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Welcome Back to California, Mom, and Happy Birthday!
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Virtue
I was thinking about virtue today, thinking about what I would consider real virtues, and those that are pushed upon us by society, and that what is virtuous depends greatly upon your culture. For example, in many cultures, it is considered virtuous to remain a virgin until you are married. I suspect this goes back to a man needing to know that the child he is rearing is his own, that he is carrying his own genes on into the next generation. This behavior can even be seen among animals. It is common for a male duck to kill all of a female’s ducklings before impregnating her with his own…
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Unaligned Films
Unaligned because they don’t have regular distribution…they’re independent. Ted got tickets to the California Independent Film Festival, which was held this weekend in Livermore. He got free tickets because he did the voice for the awards show, and the promo videos on their website as well. You know, the voice that comes on and says the name of the films in each category? Yeah, that was Ted. Cool, huh? Anyway, we spent Saturday watching Independent films that felt much more professional than that sounds. We started with a series of shorts, films that are about 15 – 20 minutes long. We saw 3 shorts, and they were all quite dark…
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TANSTAAFL
(picture found here) That stands for “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch”, and when I was growing up as a Libertarian in Fairbanks, Alaska, it was a term that I heard from time to time. If you’re not familiar with the phrase, ‘no such thing as a free lunch’, the concept is that you don’t get something for nothing. For everything you get in life, you give something up, and it’s important to make decisions wisely, and make sure that what you are receiving is worth what you are foregoing. I was reminded of TANSTAAFL the other day in the car, when I was listening to Forum…
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Spring Photos