Category: random
11/23/08 09:49 - 31ºF - ID#46815
Life, making other plans, yada yada yada
Thought I was reasonably footloose and fancyfree yesterday, so I took Number One Son to go see "Bolt" yesterday at the Market Arcade. I would have preferred the new Bond flick but whatever, Bolt was okay but all the good lines are in the commercials. We ran a couple of errands and arrived at his house at 5:30 or so. I was planning on coming back here and checking on the Lasertron outting. Instead, it got decided on the spur of the moment that we needed to go hang out with an older cousin. Last night was the night picked to gather to eat drink be merry and distract our cousin. He lost his wife earlier in the week. The funeral is Friday, last night wound up being the informal get together for family. Just wish I would have known a little more in advance. There is a small circle of folk who I was looking forward to seeing, others who I had to introduce myself too (Oh, right, the nice white boy XXXX married) and some fools. One of the latter decided it was a good time to give me some flak about what kind of father would let number one son quit Tae Kwon Do. Grrrr. I hate when people especially ones who have no business passing out parenting advice decide to start in for the sake of starting in. Pisses me off to have to stand there, pretending to take things gracefully, when I had a perfectly fine invitation to go shoot stuff from a lovely soul (thanks again, (e:imk)). Apparently, giving my son a voice in his own world makes me an unfit parent. This same jerk was the one who decided that if I was any kind of man the ex wouldn't be gay. Christ on a bike. got home a little after 9, too late to make the shenanigans.
As usual, I would have preferred to be firing lasers with ya'all.
Got up this morning with an eye toward sponging off the folks and doing laundry for free and watching the Bills game with the old man. My folks both got health news (nothing serious, just annoying) and I thought it would be a good idea to have the kids come out. Instead they were booked till 2. Not wanting to be in Clarence all night, I ran downtown stairs and the laundry there was booked. Screw it, packed up the soap, the clothes, the ipod and headed for the laundramat. Got it all done in short order, picked up the youngins and broke bread over a good old starchfest in the burbs that perked everybody up.
The weekend was like a weekday of running around, just no work involved. That will change tomorrow with an educational video shoot at the Zoo. I have to take a guy in a bear suit through the Rainforest. That alone sounds like an old Letterman bit.
Blew off morning yoga to extend the coffee and blanket stuff in front of Charles Osgood, so back on the bike tomorrow night. I was beside myself on the last class. My balance for stuff is shaky at best, but I can start to do the on one foot stuff with some ease and actually held one on the poses for the entire time frame. Nearly made an unmanly noise of surprise.
Bumming over the pistol packing good time last night but the beautiful thing about estrip. There is always next time.....
Permalink: Life_making_other_plans_yada_yada_yada.html
Words: 584
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: tv
11/19/08 11:25 - ID#46754
MNF is better on the couch
That was from the hockey game, but that was also my post for football days and nights. To the left were season ticket holders and pretty consistent in their attendence. To the right was a few season ticket types, walk ups, opposing fan types. Since it was the end zone, they were the last seats sold. Never a dull moment. When ESPN came to town last year, it was for a game with the Cowboys, which brought out the inner asshole in some Bills fans. The fights were clear cut. It's the near fights that put people on edge. The bulk of the stadium is fine, but something about the end zones and near end zones that. Something about somebody wearing the wrong team colors turns the joint into Lord of the Flies.
Game still sucked, but seeing the suckitude from the comforts of home is preferred.
Permalink: MNF_is_better_on_the_couch.html
Words: 262
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: potpourri
11/16/08 11:26 - ID#46710
Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Well, on thursday night, I was dispatched to an affair run by the Buffalo Partnership. Various companies were exhibiting services and the partnership invited companies involved with the partnership and ones they like. So, I got to take my life in my hands and take the 190 after dark to the Grand Island Bridge (not an easy fit) and meander back twenty years down Whitehaven road to the Holiday Inn resort & Hotel that is on the river. It wasn't promising. After you cross the main boulevard on the island, it is full of nothing, light, structures, which was made all the more eerie by the damp evening. I half expected a fog horn in the distance. You're driving and you get to the point where you are sure you took a wrong turn, only off in the distance is the strangely comforting holiday inn neon green light.
I park and schlep my to the conference room where this little party is encounced. After necogiating my way past the check in nazis (who rightly noted that I wasn't Dr. Donna, nothing slips past the partnership crew), I got a drink and set about meandering. The food looked like what if White Castle served beef on weck. Not a wonderful concept, but keeping myself on a coca cola diet seemed the prudent coarse. I saw a couple former colleagues from my Adelphia. One noted that I looked a little thinner. Stories I could have told. The other was a little too amped up about selling tires.
After chatting a little with one of the folks from a magazine I buy advertising in, I was pounced on by a printing salesman. The guy looked like somebody called central casting and said "give us the greasiest, most uncouth, poorly suited, hygenically impaired stereotype and we'll let him talk to the public." Now, in my work, I have perfected the insincere, I really am listening, smile. It looks like I'm there for you, but in reality, I'm mentally out back having a drink.
I had to call upon those skills while this putz complained about how his newspapers publish the zoo press releases, but we don't send him any printing business. While he's making this complaint, I'm mentally noting that I'm not sure if that was a moustache he's sporting or if the nose hair is running amuck, because you can't tell where one stops and the other begins.
I pretend to rifle through my swag bag looking for a card or something and blessedly an announcement breaks up his ethical complaint for me to slip to the bar. A conversation gets started up by a woman from the presenting organization who knows a little too much about my family. Turns out she is a Clarence resident who knows my folks. Turns out she also played a role in my Mom getting squeezed out of the town planning board. Turns out if she was on fire, my mom might write a note to the fire department about coming to put that out....when they had a minute. And so it goes...
By this point, I've filled two hours and done the deed. I even got a potential sponsor for something at the Zoo. The whole exercise makes me feel like I need a shower. I get to my car and place a call for good food from Mr. Pizza who fucks up the order but even with delay, my takeout and I are home for 30 Rock, along with a new collection of pens, flashlights, candies, folders and whatnot.
Had to laugh, because there was a company there who did nothing but sell promo crap that the other 19 booths were foisting on people.
First believable word I heard all night was from the Mr. Pizza guy who offered a pop for the messed up order.
Sometimes you just have those days...
Not good, not bad, just ripe for a scene in a workplace sitcom.
Permalink: Restaurant_at_the_End_of_the_Universe.html
Words: 744
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: potpourri
11/09/08 09:36 - 35ºF - ID#46620
Radio Days
Another questionable fashion choice. 1984 was a kidney stone for such things.
Oh yeah, My eldest needed a baby pic for her senior page in the City Honors yearbook, so this is what is going in, apparently. Brace yourselves for a window into my decay.
She's the clean shaven one....
Permalink: Radio_Days.html
Words: 175
Location: Buffalo, NY
11/07/08 04:56 - 70ºF - ID#46591
Punchline Friday
After about 15 minutes of it, the man finally gets up and says, "Damn,
I wish I had a flashlight!". The woman says, "Me too, you've been
eating grass for the past ten minutes!"
Permalink: Punchline_Friday.html
Words: 49
Location: Buffalo, NY
11/06/08 02:01 - 52ºF - ID#46575
The goal is soul
Phone rang. It was an uncle from my ex's side of the family, euphoric with the election. He's a good guy and has waited nearly 70 years for a moment like Tuesday night, so I was happy to listen to the party for a couple of moments before he moved onto his next celebratory phone call. I hit the pillow and a few minutes later, off in the distance, I could hear some chemically serene young democrats whooping it up, packing as many syllables as is possible into chanting the new president-elect's surname. Part of me wanted them to hush up, part of me wanted to join in.
I think that is what drives people. It's what motivates people to sprint across Grant Park to get a space for everything. Not only do you want to be there for the speech itself, but the experience of being in the park, being part of shared moment is almost as important as the words coming from the podium.
We have family in DC and my ex hatched a plan to take our three troublemakers down in January to witness the big moment. I felt like the Grinch when his heart grew three times when my eldest asked her Mom "Can Dad come with us?" Seriously, moi? I must be doing something right. That too will be one of those transcendental moments.
I was thinking when I was working the Bills games that there was no fun in rousting drunks (which apparently I was pretty good at) or settling seat disputes. The fun came in the silly high fives from goofy strangers, the fist bumps from players' moms, the food offers from tailgators after the games. There are, of course, copious amounts of assholes and knuckleheads in those lots, but there are folk too who are just savoring the moment, losing themselves somewhat in that moment. That's finding unabashed joy on a very minor scale in comparison, but I could see people seeing the forest for the trees on Tuesday Night.
It was a grand unshackling, made all the better by the sense of community in a place where 40 years earlier the same location was such a scene for conflict. It's only a first step, to be sure, but the footprint runs deep.
Permalink: The_goal_is_soul.html
Words: 492
Location: Buffalo, NY
11/04/08 01:18 - ID#46516
Civil Duty?
Geesh!
I think of all the pundits, commentators, reporters who will struggle with finding something interesting to say today. (e:Zobar) 's footnote about the party lineup on the ballot was the first useful thing I've read in weeks.
In lieu of hearing "with 2.5% of the vote counted, we project Guam to be going to...", I think I'll be a no spin zone until after class tonight.
I think if it wasn't for Tom Reynolds, nobody would give a rats ass about Chris Lee or Alice Kryzan. It will be nice when both the national wallets of the democrats and republicans dry up in that regard.
Let's make Joe Mesi and Mike Razenhoffer settle it in the ring.
Shouldn't Dennis Delano have to say something to somebody to get a vote?
Shouldn't Dale Volker be forced to acknowledge that his being in Albany for 30+ years is part of the problem that he is promising to fix? "Vote for me so I can get myself fixed." That's a promise I could almost endorse.
Did Jon Powers ruin it for my political future?
Nobody had enough money to take on Louise Slaughter or Antoine Thompson? That's sad.
Will Keith Olbermann or Bill O'reilly have anything to talk about next week?
Is there cheaper tv out there somewhere?
There's a lot on my mind....
Permalink: Civil_Duty_.html
Words: 324
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: random
11/02/08 09:57 - 42ºF - ID#46479
All Souls and a few in particular.
Helped a good friend move on Saturday and I'm still paying for it (my rationalization for skipping yoga today). A countless series of laps up and down her three stories, culminated in my lugging up a sideboard. Said sideboard spanked a relief map of what vaguely looks like a relief map of Michigan into my left shoulder. Woke up this morning feeling a little beat up. Walk, snap, crackle, walk, fuck!
Missed the hoo-ha at the 24 to be a good guy. I wanted to be there, but I got dolled up as a zombie to escort my young son and a few cohorts up and down Anderson and Lexington. A nice houseparty followed, complete with a firedancer. That was pretty awesome. Met up with some old friends and staggered home around 12:30 where the Zombie makeup was looking a little too permanent. Don't worry, picture to follow.
Hope everybody had a great one, I'll see you for new year's if not before.
Permalink: All_Souls_and_a_few_in_particular_.html
Words: 315
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: politics
10/31/08 09:59 - 48ºF - ID#46442
Follow the yellow brick road
Permalink: Follow_the_yellow_brick_road.html
Words: 13
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: life
10/29/08 11:25 - 36ºF - ID#46418
A Roswell Saga & other strange things
We went over together to the auditorium across from the main hospital building. I was a little taken aback by the numbers of people who turned out. Even more shaky was the amount of people in the deaths column. The service was non-demoninational and very-well intentioned. With the exception of a baby with the Krupe and one woman very much still grieving, it was fairly quiet. A children's choir sang quietly as pictures of the loved ones rolled by. It almost reminded me of that moment on the Oscars when they salute the passing of the dead movie stars. Will people applaud when Pop shows up?
Pretty soon, there he was, big as life. A good family friend placed a photo that I worked on for the original memorial service. My Pop was a denture wearer so for his program, I gave him a full set of teeth. Seeing him blown up to fill an auditorium movie screen made me strangely appreciate my digital handiwork while getting teary eyed at the same time. I didn't hear much of anything till the end of the service when we were directed to head out for a "remembrance gift" and refreshments. Nobody felt like crowding in for refreshments.
Afterwords, I hung out at the house with my younger two while their mom took her mom home and retrieved our eldest from a babysitting assignment. It was nice and centering. Homework was done, prepwork for tomorrow was all set and Edward Scissorhands was on the DVD. After skating the highs of finding costume parts, the lows of a misbegotten Zoo event, the high/low of my final Bell's Palsy check-up, the high of getting a raise, and the real low of what I guess was some left over grief, I looking forward to payday and free and easy weekend.
Hoping to get to the party......
Permalink: A_Roswell_Saga_amp_other_strange_things.html
Words: 396
Location: Buffalo, NY
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