Well, it's Halloween and that means time to carve the pumpkins! My 2 little girls are troopers, but they still have some trouble doing much carving, so daddy helps. I'm not much of an artist, but I seem to do my best work in pumpkin. A short lived medium, sadly, but there are always pictures!
So, here are this years contestants:
First, Katie's Kitty Cat:
Next, Ellen's Snoopy:
Finally, Max and Ruby, by me:
Hope you all have a great Halloween!
With every fiber of my being, I want to congratulate all those weary Sox fans who have stuck by the most painful team in sports, year in, year out. I want to congratulate those people who have waited and waited for this moment, the Red Sox winning the World Series. I want to congratulate the people who was sure The Curse would be lifted, and their team would eventually vanquish the Yankees and win it all. And most of all, I want to congratulate the players, the "Idiots," who came back from a 3-0 deficit against the Yankees to win 8 consecutive post season games and the Series.
But I can't. Not even a little. Sorry!
So last night, I'm sleeping and am awakened in the middle of the night by Katie, who is visiting our room for the second time that night. It's probably 3 AM or so and here's something like the conversation:
Kim: Katie, what's wrong with your bed, honey?
Katie: there's nothing real in there.
Kim (lovingly sarcastic as exhaustion can make you): What, are all the stuffed animals imaginary?
Katie: none of them are real. There's nothing real in there.
So, she climbed in for a bit. She was lonely, but needed something "real." I guess it's good to be that, at least.
This courtesy of someone's Flickrblog. The line was "why do you need to carry a cameraphone?" and the answer was, "for moments like these."
Plastic Stormtrooper suit? $90. 7-11 Salad? $3. Filling up right before wreaking havoc on the unarmed planet of Alderan? Priceless.
Bruce Weber, one of our clients, has a new movie out called "A Letter to True", which the NY Times called "A love letter to his dogs." He has a bunch of beautiful Golden Retrievers and I was at his loft today doing some work. And True, star of stage and screen, was all over me wanted to be petted, nudging me with his nose any time I stopped, along with co-stars Rain (who kept batting at me with her paw when I stopped petting HER) and Polar Bear (who spent the day looking out the window).
Isn't he just TOO cute?
Here's some excerpts from a New York Times article:
IS Jon Stewart being coy?In a recent dust-up with Tucker Carlson on CNN's "Crossfire," Mr. Stewart defended a soft interview he conducted with John Kerry. He wasn't a commentator on CNN, like Mr. Carlson, he said, but a host on "The Daily Show," which is on Comedy Central.
"The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls," he said.
Whether he likes it or not, Mr. Stewart's mix of news and satire has become so successful that the comedian is suddenly being criticized for not questioning his guests with Tim Russert-like intensity.
Some critics insist that the size of Mr. Stewart's audience should force him to take a more serious approach. "The Daily Show" now attracts more 18- to 34-year-old viewers than the network news. And the 13-minute CNN segment with Mr. Stewart has been downloaded or streamed from the Internet more than 1.5 million times, surpassing the viewership of "Crossfire" itself.
"Stewart needs to be more self-aware," wrote Dan Kennedy, a media critic at The Boston Phoenix, an alternative magazine, on his blog. "By offering serious media criticism, and then throwing up his hands and saying, in effect, 'Hey, I'm just a comedian' every time Carlson took him on, Stewart came off as slippery and disingenuous. Sorry, Jon, but you can't interview Bill Clinton, Richard Clarke, Bill O'Reilly, Bob Dole, etc., etc., and still say you're just a comedian."
The "Crossfire" conflict supports the charge that the line between television news and entertainment is blurred beyond all recognition, said Darrell West, a political scientist at Brown University and author of "Celebrity Politics."
"Each side is still uneasy with the other because they have a self image that is different from the reality," he said. "Tucker was complaining that Stewart wasn't being funny. He wasn't wanting commentary, he wanted entertainment. And Stewart wanted to take advantage of the show to make some serious statements."
Getting more serious doesn't mean buttoning-up. Mr. Stewart's success and access to the youth vote give him the power to press guests without fearing that they will never return to the show, said Lizz Winstead, a co-creator of the show and now a co-host of a news and comedy show on Air America, the liberal radio network.
"Jon should be the guy who asks the satirical questions," she said. "He wouldn't have to nail someone and make them uncomfortable, but since Jon is so brilliant at being satirical, why not say to Richard Perle on the show, 'Did you ever think of calling your book 'Confessions of a Chicken Hawk?' "
I totally disagree with this premise. Just because you CAN be more effective than those making political commentary, doesn't mean you need to. Look at Dennis Miller. In my opinion, he's lost whatever he had. More people hear the flippant remarks that Jon Stewart drops as jokes, and either believe them (even though it's 'comedy') or at least let them sink in than those who are struggling through Crossfire. And, more importantly, people are open to Jon Stewart as a comedian. They don't go in expecting him to hammer on someone to get his agenda across, a.k.a., Crossfire. Instead, he has a receptive audience who can enjoy what he is doing--being funny while still being smart.
In the wake of network after network thinking that the only thing we should find funny is either a, someone being brutally beaten by police officers, or b, a puppet making crank calls, Jon Stewart is FUNNY in the way Letterman used to be. Witty, humorous commentary can often last much longer, and be much more effective than the "Hard Hitting Interview."
And, Stewart won't GET the guests he gets now if he does start that. People don't come on his show to be ambushed, and once the slogan "5 reporters, 1 news show, 0 credibility" has to be thrown out the window because they're gotten credibility, he just becomes one more journalistic hack.
My 2¢.
OK, the Red Sox won, and honestly, they deserved to win. They played better, especially in the endgame parts of the past few games. Also, Schilling was a warrior of epic proportions last night. I'm not really that upset. I'm mostly tired, and glad that I'm not compelled to stay up and watch FOX for the next 10 days until 12:30 or so, minimally.
However...I have a conspiracy theory. I'm not normally the one that comes up with these things, but this makes an eerie sense.
If you were going to have the Yankees throw the series, who would you approach to do it? Who is the ONE guy that you know will be in there in most of the wins, and who can turn it around subtly? Mariano Rivera, of course. Two blown saves in a row for the best reliever in post season history--by a lot.
Ok, now i think Mariano is a great guy...and he probably is. But if you were an underworld figure, or someone with some resources and wanted to show Mariano that he'd better do what you were telling him to, how would you convince him? Not money, he's already very rich. Would you threaten his family? And to show you meant business if he didn't comply, or threatened to go to the police, would you kill his family? No, you'd kill someone close, but not his family. That keeps the threat alive.
Did we forget that he came back for game 1 from the funeral of his close, but not immediate family, killed in a freak pool accident? In Panama, do you think that sort of thing would be hard to cover up?
So...it's crazy, I know, but it IS a bit scary. It could easily be true.
Well, it's Monday morning and I have no idea how last night's Yankee/Sox clinching game went. I know it was 4-4, and I know it was in the 12th inning at Fenway, but I just couldn't stay up. It was past 1 AM and I just couldn't deal anymore, so, with Tivo (or the cable equivalent) in hand I pressed record on some random show that was listed for the next hour on that channel and went to bed, hoping to watch it this morning before seeing, hearing or reading any news source. However, as a result, I spent half the night with Joe Buck telling me what happened in my head, giving me a play by play about how the Red Sox (or at times, the Yankees) won. Many of them were quite convincing, but at one point I actually found myself telling myself that that voice is not attached to anything that would be attached to anything that's turned ON, so there's no way it knows the score.
NOTE: I didn't say that voice didn't exist...'cause it might have. ;)
Also, a part of me WANTED the Sox to win, so there'd be more baseball to watch tonight's 5 PM game, which is much more managable, especially on a day I'm remaining sick-ish and billing from home).
I've been looking forward to one of my favorite authors to resume his blogging, William Gibson. When I read on Neil Gaiman's blog that "Bill" Gibson had started again, I was very excited. Having read everything "Bill" had written, I was looking forward to the clever, cutting edge thought that I had come to know and love from books like Neuromancer and Idoru.
Well, thus far, Gibson's blog seems to be a simple anti-Bush blogroll. In Karen's words..."meh."
There aren't enough blogs out there, pundits out there who can barely string a few paragraphs of fantasy together to keep a 6th grader interested, but can wrote to the ends of the earth as to why Kerry, or Bush, is a fraud and the worst thing since sliced bread?
But there's only ONE William Gibson, only one who could have put together a Tour-de-force work such as Neuromancer, which had the appeal of Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" for me. And for him to turn his attentions to the political race like this in a forum where we'd like to see insights on WRITING, and the process that only he can enlighten us on, is..well...meh.
With heavy heart, I have to report that, after hearing the doctor's
diagnosis of severe kidney problems and imminent renal failure, we brought
Angel back to the woman we adoped her from for whatever disposition she's
going to do. We were all very sad today.
The kids did not get the real story. For better or worse, I came up with
the following story. I told them that Angel had a sister cat, and that this
sister was going to be adopted by a family. But, I said, everyone thinks
that the two cats would be much happier together, and since we can't have 2
cats we wanted to know if it was OK for us to give Angel to this family.
Their main question was "Can we get another one?", to which we responded "Of
course you can. And you can help pick her out this time, too."
They were pretty happy about this, but sad to say goodbye to Angel. And
when I left and it was bed time, they were both pretty upset. Ellen drew a
very lonely kitten, and Katie took her "Fur-Real" cat to bed and wanted to
change her mind--wanted Angel back.
The truth is, we all do. But she's not coming back. We'll have to find a
new Angel to follow Kim around, to curl up on Ellen's bed, and to run away
from Katie and I.
And this time, Ellen requests, she should be orange with stripes. And Katie
wants one that won't run away from her.
I think we can try to accommodate.
Maybe with my surgery, I can convince someone to get me this to help me...um...recover.
Yankees. Red Sox.
Bring it on, baby.
Yanks in 6.
Angel the Cat: 2
Mice: 0
Who knew we had so many mice? I've never seen any signs of mice, so they must be coming in from outside, but Angel makes quick work of them. And she drops them in the same place for me to find, and makes the same, very specific, meow. I knew before I turned on the light that she had a mouse or some other creature.
Danger: Attack Cat!
Tuesday, October 12th, for anyone who is interested, I'm getting several things removed--My tonsils and my uvula. That's UVULA. That little thing that hangs down from the back of your throat. I can save them for anyone who wants them...
Supposedly, this will help my out with my apnea. I hope so. Supposedly, also, it will hurt for 6 weeks or so. That should be nice.
Last night, an extraordinary thing happened in our house. This thing is in extraordinary in the sense of "this has never happened to anyone before in all of creation." However, it IS extraordinary in that this thing has never happened to anyone in this house before, at least, not that I know of.
We were all sleeping, sort of, at 4:00 AM. Katie has a cough which means that there is lots of "Mommy!" and lots of waking up, and lots of snuggling to get back to sleep, etc. However, at the time this local-extraordinary thing happened, it was indeed 4:00 AM and we were sleeping. Mostly.
But then none of us were sleeping, because downstairs came the sound of Angel "playing", which in this case consisted of her running around downstairs pell-mell, her little bell jingling wildly, things being bumped into that probably assumed they would be left alone at 4:00 AM, just as we, wrongly, did.
The sounds downstairs stopped for a few moments, only to be replaced by Angel, just outside our room, meowing. Now, this last part is not the least bit extraordinary. She meows all the time, especially at 4:00 AM, but in this case, she went on meowing and meowing for what seemed like 10 minutes in a row, even to shouts of "enough!" and "Angel, Stop!" and other useless cat-be-gone tricks.
Eventually, I got up, because it was pointless to continue to pretend to sleep with her essentially calling me from about 10 feet away, and walked over to where she lay, crouched over something.
Yes, you guessed it. We've had 2 mice in the house in the time I've been here (4 years now.) The first raced around our basement for months before we finallly killed it. The second, this poor fellow, probably didn't last a day before our new cat got a whiff of it. It didn't have a chance.
Amazing what instinct can do. When we had tossed the mouse away, Angel lied down on the carpet there and waiting to be petted and cooed at for having done her job--an expectation to which we obliged, having been awestruck at the facts of nature that has, as I mentioned, most assuredly happened before to other people in other places.
But not here.
