Closure

Today is my 35th birthday. That's pretty old. And while it's not necessarily too old to blog, my life is certainly too boring to write about. A cute kid story here, praise for a TV show there. That's all I've given here for what seems like years. It really is time to wrap it up and let you, the few loyal readers, know that there will be no more posts.

I'm terminally uninspired, plus I'm looking for a new job that keeps me busy and hopefully pays a lot. If I get one of those, I'd have to stop anyway, so it might as well be now. I'm going to keep it up if you want to peruse my archives for a particularly funny post or cute kid picture.

You'll still see me reading your blogs and leaving comments. Plus, I think everyone who reads this is already my friend on Facebook. If you're not, then get on Facebook and become my friend. Email me at "CharlieBravoKilo2000 (at) excite dawt com" and I'll give you my name so you can find me there. I trust you can figure out the "code" to the address.

Cheers and thanks for the virtual friendship.

That's my boy!

Well, we're back from vacation (a couple weeks ago, but I'm lazy). We had a really good, relaxing time. Didn't do too much except hang out at the beach/pool, get sunburned on day 1 (just like every time) and watch the boys play in the water. We went to one of the Golden Isles in southern Georgia. It was a really neat place, with very picturesque oak trees that had Spanish Moss hanging from them, and palm trees, too. I got to play golf badly two days as an added bonus, and also sweat my ass off in the stifling humidity. I actually ran twice, 5.5 miles each time, so that countered some of the excessive eating I was doing. All in all, a good vacation. Just not much to tell about it.

Now back home I'm still struggling to get into my regular exercise routine. We were all exhausted after we came back, partially due to the time difference (that's our favorite excuse, anyway). Yesterday I researched diet pills to try and jump start some weight/ fat loss that seems to have stalled. I need to just exercise more regularly, but it's not always easy on a family schedule. The fall isn't going to get any easier when my wife is in school. I probably won't do the pills, though. Even though they do work for some people, they're pretty expensive without a guarantee that they'll work on me. Plus, I don't want anything to make me slack off my running. If I'm going to meet my goals, I need to be diligent and consistent.

That's about it for happenings around here. I'm enjoying the Olympics, like I always do, and letting all the problems with China and their government slip my mind in the process.

As for the post's title, that refers to my almost three year old son. He's getting so big and saying new words and phrases all the time. It's so cute. A little while ago he came up to me and said "Mommie's nipples is big!" He said it to my wife while she was toplessly getting him dressed, and she told him to tell me. I was so proud.

Sun and Sand Bound

Well, I'm off for a beach vacation soon, so I thought I'd let you know why I won't be posting for a little while. This time it's a legitimate excuse, and not just laziness.

I also thought I'd tell you about some of the things I mentioned in my last post:

- The Police/ Elvis Costello concert was a-MAZE-ing! Sure, there are songs I would have liked to hear from both acts that they didn't play, and Elvis's set was only 45 minutes, but what an opportunity! And neither act disappointed. They played tight, sounded great. The Police are more of a jam band live than I would have thought. And Elvis can wail on lead guitar. Who knew? Very awesome concert.

- Ran 9 miles at an 8:50 per mile pace, which is better than what I ran 8.5 at last week. That's good.

- Watched some of the last Avatar eps (and they're great) but I promised my son I'd wait for him to catch up on the ones I watched before we watch the last ones together. Now we're leaving on vacation and won't get to see them until we come back. Damn!

- My car, in fact, got below 20 mpg on its third and fourth tanks. The fourth tank was the lowest yet. Motherfucker!

Now some stuff I didn't mention in the last post:

- Saw The Dark Knight and it fucking ruled! Best superhero movie I've ever seen. One of the best movies I've seen in a while. Heath Ledger will scare the shit out of you and make you laugh at the same time.

- Saw Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi in concert last night. It was good, not really my favorite kind of music, but Derek is something else on guitar. Incredible slide player.

Hasta la bosta, everyone!

Things to be happy about

1. I'm going on a beach vacation in a little over a week.
2. I'm going to see The Police and Elvis Costello in less than a week.
3. Today is Tanya Donelly's 42nd birthday. Happy birthday, Tanya!
4. I took my guitar out last night and put it in a place where I might actually play it more than once a year.
5. My wife found my stopwatch.
6. I ran 8.5 miles last night and because I had my stopwatch I could determine I ran just under a 9 minute mile pace. Not blazing speed, but I'll take it for now.
7. New episodes of Avatar start again today!!! Woot!
8. I like my new car and it got just over 20 mpg on its second tank. Hopefully it will start getting even better.
9. I wrote another post after almost a month.
10. My life is going smoothly enough to not warrant writing much on my blog.
11. Videos!

One of my favorite Police songs:



In honor of Miss Donelly's birthday something from her solo repertoire, The Bright Light:



And a classic Belly performance of "Gepetto" from MTV's old John Stewart Show. I totally remember seeing this back in the day:

Because it rocks

And because more people need to love this band.

"A Distant History" by Idlewild

This is anything

Someone asked me yesterday to blog something... anything. So this is my anything. Things are going well with me, pretty smoothly. I guess that's why I haven't been posting. Things are just going. My older son finished his lacrosse season, and did really well. He's liking the sport, which is great, since I'm really liking it, too. At the end of the season we had a party and played a game between parents and coaches. I got to play in it and it was a blast.

As for my running, that's going well. I've decided to try for my 22:39 5K in the Fall, probably at my son's school's 5K race. I may try sooner than that if my times are promising. I've been running 3 times a week, with long runs up to 7 miles. This week I'm starting to do four a week, and next week I'll up the long run to 8 or 9. The hills are really working me, so that's good. Sometimes I feel like I'm running kind of fast, but I can't tell until I find my running watch and actually time myself. The weight loss is going okay, too, but I seem to have stopped at a certain weight for the last week. Hopefully the extra running day will help with that. And more disciplined eating. I'd love to lose seven more pounds by July 4, but that may be too ambitious. Certainly by the end of July, when we take a beach trip, should be doable. I've been doing a little weight lifting at home also, and that's going well. Word of advice, though; don't lift while watching The Colbert Report. You're likely to drop the weight on your foot and break it, like I almost did last night.

The only major thing going on in my life is that I'm on the precipice of buying a new car. I've chosen the Mitsubishi Outlander. It's a compact SUV/crossover. It's got the right combination of utility, gas mileage, and styling that I like. The problem is, I can't get the color I want in my state. I can have one delivered from another state, but I'll have to pay the transport cost. I should just get the silver one, though. It's not a bad color. Mistubishi is doing a $1000 rebate on the Outlander through June, but I need to wait until August to buy. They'll probably extend the rebate because Outlanders aren't selling so well, or I can talk the dealer down because the 2009 model will be coming out soon. We'll see. I'm looking forward to it.

On the entertainment front, I'm becoming a fan of USA's Burn Notice. I've been watching episodes from last season in preparation for the new season in July. Monk and Psych will also be coming back on USA in July. Other than that I'm watching Hell's Kitchen and So You Think You Can Dance. We've been recording Last Comic Standing, but only watched one. That show always frustrates me with the awful comics they pick, but I'll probably get into it once we catch up. Movie-wise I thought You Don't Mess With the Zohan looked funny, but I've heard awful things about it, so I'll skip it. I want to see Kung Fu Panda, I've heard good things about that from kids and adults. And M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening looks really freaky. That comes out tomorrow. I love the trailer with that scene of bodies falling off the roof. So eerie. I hope it's as good as it looks.

That's my anything for now. Still alive, coasting along. Talk to you soon. Feel free to drop any recent movie reviews in the comments. Thanks.

Movies, TV, and Pictures

Movies

For the first time in a LONG time, I saw two new-release movies in the span of a little more than a week. It was exhilarating! The first movie I saw was "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" with my wife. I enjoyed it. It had a lot of funny parts, but it wasn't that great of a movie, per se. It was very choppy and awkward as a story, especially in the beginning. And a lot of the funny parts were just jokes thrown in, and didn't serve the story. By the end, though, I was rooting for the main character and left the theater entertained. Another strange thing about it was I went in excited to see Kristin Bell, and left pretty hot for Mila Kunis. I never looked at her that way before. What eyes!

The second movie was "Iron Man". I'm not a comic book geek to any degree, but I've always kind of liked Iron Man, even without knowing any of his back story. Everything I had seen leading up to the movie: casting, pictures, trailers, got me more and more excited. Well, the movie didn't disappoint. It was a great, fun movie. It had great action (although more would have been better), good humor (not too hokey or out of place), and a good, solid story that didn't get ridiculous. The performances were really good, too, with a very classy cast. My only problem with it has to do with the main villain and the final showdown. I don't want to give much away, but the final scenes didn't have the best action of the movie, and were a bit sloppy and quick in getting to the final conflict. Another weird thing: I went in excited to see Robert Downey, Jr. and left pretty hot for Gwyneth Paltrow. I've always liked her as an actress, but she never really "did it" for me that much. But seeing as she sometimes bears a quite striking resemblance to my wife, I wanted to see much more of her on screen. And her red hair looked great, too.

TV

Just a quick note about the returned shows that I'm enjoying. "The Office" has been great, and I'm so loving the impending Jim-Pam engagement. I can't get enough of Jim's psuedo-proposals. "30 Rock" ended really strong after starting kind of slowly for me after the strike. "How I Met Your Mother" has been hilarious the last few episodes, also after an iffy restart. I'm even enjoying Britney's guest appearances. "Reaper" has also shown improvement, with this week's ep introducing a very interesting twist. I hope that show gets renewed next season. And "Lost" is just kicking insane amounts of ass since its return. The next two weeks are going to be epic.

Pictures

We moved into our new house in late Fall last year. It snowed after we lived there for three days, and the ground was pretty much covered until early April. Now the yard has woken up to Spring, and we're discovering new things about our house. There are good things, like flowers and trees, seen here:



And bad things, like several breaks and leaks in the sprinkling system and the largest slug I've ever seen, found on the inside of one of our sprinkler valve boxes:




Man, sucker was huge! He's not even stretched out here. And what's with the spots? I've never seen a slug like that. It's some sort of Jaguar Slug.

My Life Now Has Purpose

It's about time! I set a small goal for myself recently: to lose 4 pounds in two weeks. I thought that would be a nice little achievement that would start the snowball rolling to some significant weight loss. After one week of semi-disciplined eating and decent exercise, I lost zero pounds. I didn't gain anything, but my goal of 4 in two weeks is in serious jeopardy. Now I have a new goal, nay, a vision quest. That goal is to run a 5k in 22:39 or better. Let me explain from whence this purpose comes.

Some of you may know that I have been known to run. I like to think I'm a "runner" but I haven't run very consistently or well for over a year. I posted a personal best 5K time last April of 24:09. I was motivated to beat another blogger's time of about 24:30, and I accomplished it. I'll admit, I was pretty pleased with myself. But now the gauntlet has been thrown down. It's 22:39 or bust! Why 22:39? Well, apparently Mike Greenberg, of ESPN Radio's Mike and Mike in the Morning and ABC's Duel ran a 22:39 5k. Mike routinely mocks himself for not having any athletic ability, and he's 40. I can't call myself a quasi-runner and have Greeny smoke my best 5K time like that. So it's time to train. I've got a pretty good start. My new neighborhood is pretty hilly, so I get a lot of uphill work in my runs, which builds leg strength and makes running a more flat 5K course much easier. The key is now adding more runs into my week, and increasing my distance. That will be tricky with family obligations going on now, but after the first week of June, it should be easier. And the fact that winter has finally left makes it easier to get the good outdoor runs in, too.

Ideally, this will lead me to run consistently for years to come, and not just off and on like I've been doing. Then I can train for another marathon, eventually qualify for the Boston Marathon and run it. That's still my dream. Also, to truly beat Greeny, I'll have to beat 22:39 at age 40, so I'll have to keep it up for at least 6 more years. The great thing about this, too, is that the weight loss I desire should come hand in hand. The only thing I need is a time frame. I think 6 years is too long to achieve my vision quest. I need something shorter to really motivate me. So what do you think? One year? Six months? Three months? Let me know what you think a good deadline is. All reasonable suggestions will be counted in the vote (under 3 months is just not feasible, I think). I'll have to find a race to enter, too, to document my success, so there will have to be a little wiggle room on the exact time frame. Thanks for your help.

BTW, I'll write a bit on TV and movies a little later.

This space available...

For whoring.

I don't have much to write, so if you want me to promote something of yours, I'm game. Just let me know.

My first client is my good friend Daisy Whitney. We met back in my swinging single Denver days, and she's good people. Squared. She's a tech and entertainment biz guru who runs a blog on TV Week.com and does a weekly video journal called "Daisy Whitney's New Media Minute." In truth, they haven't been as short as a minute for months, but they're always entertaining and informative. Here's her latest Minute promoting her new "Who's the hottest male video blogger" poll. The link to her poll on her blog is below the video.



Go vote here.

I'm not voting until at least one female votes. It's a Big Gay Sausage Party at the moment.


P.S. - Before my cruder commenters ask if I ever "hit that", the answer is no. First of all, she's married. Second, she said no.

Let me get a little serious and wistful for a minute

I love Paul Simon, especially his 80s solo albums "Graceland" and "The Rhythm of the Saints". I was thinking about those albums when I read about Paul giving a concert in Brooklyn last week where he performed those two albums with a diverse cast of musicians. I wish I could have been there. With that in the back of my mind, my iPod (on album shuffle) landed on "Rhythm" this morning. The chorus of drums on "The Obvious Child" immediately lifted my spirits. When "Proof" came on, I had a hankering to see the video with Chevy Chase and Steve Martin, so I went to YouTube. In the list of related videos were a number of songs from the album Paul performed in a huge Central Park concert in 1991, so I watched some of those. And now I'm just full of emotions. Paul is such a genius songwriter, and he really did something special with the Rhythm album. To hear and see these songs performed with his huge, multinational band just adds to the incredible experience of his music. Go watch some of them, especially this one. "The Cool, Cool River". It makes me cry.



The Rhythm album always makes me think about a kid I went to high school with, Josh. He was a year below me, and I didn't know him very well. We used to hackey sack together after school and that's about it. One day I ran into Josh outside a record store and we said hi. I asked him what he bought. It was "The Rhythm of the Saints". I was kind of surprised to see a 16 year old kid buying Paul Simon. The year I started college, while Josh was still a senior, he died. I think he got Leukemia, but I can't really remember. While home on a break, I went to my high school's talent show and Josh's best friend sang a song in tribute to Josh. It was "Under the Bridge" by The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Apparently it was Josh's favorite song. The performance was an emotional moment, but frankly, Josh's friend couldn't sing. He was accompanied by a girl, who allegedly could sing, to do the high parts at the end, but she was just shreiking. I prefer to associate Rhythm of the Saints with Josh instead of that Chili Peppers song. It's such a beautiful album that spans the emotional spectrum from joy and hope to sadness and resignation. If you don't have it, I highly recommend it.

Okay, okay, I'll write

Not that you asked me to, I just want to avoid the inevitable clamoring for more Reed. (That's what she said.)

Anyway, here's a short post about things I've been meaning to write about and/or to respond to comments:

1. New show reviews. The two new shows I'm reviewing are either over, or end tonight. How's that for timeliness?

Miss Guided - New half hour comedy on ABC that's already over. Judy Greer is an awesome, hilarious actress. She's also become gorgeous to me, like Tina Fey. Wow, does she shine in a leading role. The show is pretty funny, but some eps better than others. Chris Parnell is hilarious, and really helps the show. I think it's worth a pick up for next season. I have no idea if that call's been made yet, though.

New Amsterdam - Intriguing premise, not undone by the hokey "find true love and the curse will be broken" element. The actor playing John Amsterdam is good at conveying the unnerving yet charismatic immortal detective. Where the show falters a bit is the flashbacks to his life over the last 400 years. Each episode's present-day plot reminds him of an event in his past where he made a mistake, which presumably gives him a shot at redemption. This fails for two reasons: first, his historic occupations of the week are gimmickily (real word?) diverse, like Sam's missions from Quantum Leap; and second, it oversimplifies the human learning process. He learned to respect women who had been victimized by rape in the 1700s, but didn't learn not to cheat on his wife until 1908? I had high hopes for the character's past, but it turns out the flashbacks are the weakest part of the show because they're tied to the plot of the present instead of being plots themselves. The show's still pretty good. Good enough to keep me watching, but not enough to vociferously recommend.

2. Returning show reviews. Loved The Office, very well done. 30 Rock was kind of weak. From the sneak peak in the newest Entertainment Weekly, though, it sounds like it's going to pick up. I haven't watched either of the new Earls, but hope to soon. I love that show. Also, as a plug, if you get the chance on Sunday nights, watch Psych on NBC. It's a really funny show that's normally on USA, but NBC is using it as filler for now. It could use a boost in viewership, and I think it could do well on a main network.

3. Inconspicuous Attack Toad, aka Marisa. Thanks for visiting! Now explain your comment. Absurdist humor, or pertinent observation?

Have a Laugh on YouTube

Found these today via WTF_OMGZ via Thighs Wide Shut.

1. This definitely beats The Viking's Not Gay Waxing System.




2. And with an endosement like this, how can McCain lose in November? Scary!