July 28th, 6:37AM
This weekend, I park wherever the fuck I want
We are scheduled to receive a bulldozer this afternoon, for prepping the back lot for a swimming pool and miscellaneous dirt-scraping and earth-raping. I'll show that back lot the what for (or rather, my wife will) for giving me such a hard time putting in post holes. Revenge is mine, you unforgiving patch of hardscrabble!
July 28th, 6:37AM
Bandwidth, sweet and unreliable
Yet another day passes, and my DSL is the best thing I can think of to talk about. Yesterday, as today, I got up just after 5am to discover that my DSL is roaring right along. If today is anything like yesterday, I will find that sometime between now and noon, the service will crap out entirely, leaving me to flirt with the idea of using my dialup to retrieve the odd e-mail. I don't know what is crushing my throughput, but it feels like I'm a bug, and somebody's out there with a magnifying glass.
I peeled myself out of bed early to work on a new design that has followed me around like a hangover for months now, but once I realized I could surf again, all I did was seek out entertainment. I've browsed artlung.com, petiteanglaise.com, dougstanhope.net, sladeham.com, barryfuller.com, sheckymagazine.com. Lots of stand-up comedy stuff.
July 27th, 5:29AM
Sweet manna from Heaven
Inexplicably, my DSL is up again, and I'm pinging like nobody's business. When it's busted, it's so crippling. I spent yesterday listing things in my head that I wanted to do with a decent Internet connection, but couldn't even attempt. I don't know what's hammering it, but I hope to God it stops boning my connection.
July 24th, 3:11PM
Shoes dropping
If you were invited to my kid's birthday party but couldn't make it, you lucked out.
Oh, it wasn't all bad. Lots of great people showed up. Trays upon tray of expensive food. Gifts galore for my little buddy. A lot of good came of it.
Let me just slip this in
By the way, let me acknowledge one thing: In the 14 or so months I've lived here in Valley Springs, I've never once had second thoughts about the decision to move here. With the beautiful view from our deck, to the more-civilized school system, to the relatively rural setting, my certainty that this move was the right thing to do never wavered.
Now, I'm not saying I regret it, but if anything was enough to crack my confidence in this change of scenery, it was this weekend. First, the DSL crapped out on Friday, and has been tits-up ever since. Saturday, smack in the middle of my son's birthday party, with about 30 of this family's favorite persons in attendance, the electricity ceased to be, leaving the partygoers to valiantly sweat more and more profusely as time wore on, and the less-hearty of the bunch pushing their physical tolerances to the limits before pointing their air-conditioned vehicles homeward. Man, that was really the highlight of the day - waiting until deadline after deadline passed from PG&E's automated outage notification service, while patches of moisture grew larger and more prominent on hosts and guests alike. We were having such a great time, too.
And Sunday evening, our entire neighborhood ran out of water. Like, you go to the tap, flick it on, and nothing but a sucking noise is emitted, where usually life-giving water pours forth. Earlier in the day, a utility truck made door-to-door rounds, advising everybody in sight that the tank in our area was nearing total dryness. By 8pm or so, we knew for sure that they weren't kiddin'.
Luckily, service has been restored late morning today, but it just trouble a person somewhere deep inside to have system after system just go limp, in order of severity. It leaves one to wonder 'what's next?' If you reading this, then the phone lines must still be working.
My DSL company has promised to visit today and swap out some hardware, but has also advised me that it is their strong suspicion that the real culprit is interference between their transmitter and my receiver. At least they're trying to address it. I hold hopeful optimism that swapping hardware will do the trick. It always has before, even when dubious "interferences" have been accused of past troubles.
Here's hopin'. I've got work to do, man.
July 18th, 10:17AM
Talent, youth. I should just shoot myself now
Time.com does a write up on jugglers and the state of modern juggling here. The real fun is the video of two of the story's subjects, showing their stuff as young kids. That's hot stuff. It strikes me as a training video.
July 17th, 9:13AM
Un peu de français en dimanche après-midi
I took a few minutes to get back into some French studies yesterday afternoon. It was only a few minutes, but it felt good. More. I need more.
July 16th, 6:10PM
Jabberjaw, so wrong on so many levels
I just saw they've got a new Jabberjaw cartoon out. I remember watching unenthusiastically the Jabberjaw cartoons of the early 1970's. Something always bugged me about the land-roving, neurotic Great White shark, but I couldn't figure out what it was. Seeing the remake, it finally struck me - Jabberjaw apparently rips off two different comic personalities at once! As JumpTheShark.com succinctly describes:
Like the old saying goes, if you steal from one source, its plagarism. If you steal from multiple sources, its research. H-B not only ripped off their Scooby Doo cartoon for this, Jabber himself stole Rodney Dangerfield's "no respect" line AND Curly's nyuk-nyuk's. I'm am always amazed Dangerfield never sued H-B over the character.
Well said. As if all that wasn't bad enough, Jabberjaw is hack, I mean back, he's got a damned nose ring, and his Scooby Doo knockoff bandmates play some watered-down speed metal. Was this really necessary? I'd link to it, but Cartoon Network's stupid website runs entirely on Flash, and I cannot link directly to any one show. Phooey. And I'm not talking about Hong Kong Phooey, either.
On the upside, I exposed my son to some culture today, when we watched some classic Tom & Jerry. Man, that's some quality stuff.
July 16th, 2:05PM
MantecaBulletin.com continues to disappoint
The front page at MantecaBulletin.com looks like a database call threw up on their web page, blasting meaningless text onto a page where links and leads should be. So much for quality control.
July 16th, 12:37PM
If I was a carpenter, and you were a lady
My wife got inspired yesterday and began sanding the railing on our deck (which desperately needed said attention, by the way). I slinked out to help, and we got a lot done.
Not enough, apparently. 8p.m. rolled around, and my wife just up and resumed her carpentry, largely due to the fact that the heat had dwindled. I really wasn't looking forward to bothering with this gig - most of the time, I felt like I was in the way. But, I just didn't feel right watching her do all the work. Maybe I'm a softy, but to me love means backing your beloved's most insane-looking plays, even when she's busting the civil code for decibel levels with multiple belt sanders and an air compressor at 10p.m. at night like a meth freak on payday. Especially then, even.
The result is that our deck's railing looks shiny and slick, and the likelihood of anyone getting a splinter from them has been drastically reduced. Good for her. I mean us. Us.
The Anti-Midas returneth
Yesterday sucked ass in many ways. Every effort I undertook to clean up, sort out or improve the place worked out diametrically opposite to the effect I anticipated - everything I touched turned to shit. Weedeating? Ruined some perfectly good drip irrigation. Clean the garage? Broke my son's cherished toy. Aw, shit.
This type of thing happens to me regularly, and an intelligent being would simply quit trying, and stem the bleeding. Not me, Jackson. No, no. I just kept trying and trying, and left many creaking, imperfect results in my wake. These types of events tire me.
Pool party
We are teetering on the brink of getting a seriously nice pool installed on the back lot. I titillated at the idea of such a luxury, and gravely intimidated by the cost.
July 11th, 7:49AM
Paris blog, update
Updating my post from a few minutes ago: Atkielski's Paris blog is infuriating! He is surrounded by one of the most beautiful, historic cities in the world, and what does he do? He sits in his shitty apartment, bitches about the bugs and the heat, and plays flight simulator games on his computer, all the time! Bleahhh! He describes walking on a hot day "like walking through hell."
Perhaps he should move back to Toledo Ohio or wherever he's from, and shut the fuck up?!
I feel better - hadda get that off my chest.
July 11th, 7:12AM
Giving the madness form
Every morning, I awake to the stampede of my unrestrained thoughts, which after a night of dreaming and subconscious adventuring inside my head, hurry back into place like new Army recruits rushing into formation at reveille. It is at this time when my nighttime brain nods and hands over the keys to my daytime brain like a night watchman, acknowledging that another shift has ended. During this brief moment, I have a rush of consciousness, like all my thoughts coalesce and pass quickly through one aperture where I can see them and for a moment, I have a glimpse of clarity and creativity. Then they scatter, and I'm left with the mundane state of mind that is my typical operating mode.
The best I can usually do is to jot down the one or two amusing thoughts I snag before they disappear, or make a list of things to do that I otherwise wouldn't have remembered. A pretty meager result from such a mystifying event. Ah well...
Paris on my mind
This guy lives in Paris, and apparently, doesn't really enjoy it too much. I dream of going back to Paris, and through his blog, Mr. Atkielski constantly gnashes his teeth about his alleged poverty, the weather, how his food goes stale, etc., etc., on and on. I can't help but shake my head at the beauty and wonders all around him, and how he disregards it all. I can't help but worry that I am moving closer and closer to his state of mind; bitching and worrying about the perceived negatives all around me, all the while blind and ignorant to the beauty and wonder within my reach.
Just for today, I will resist that stupidity, and actively pursue the beauty and wonder. What could it hurt?
I was born to entertain
I am learning to walk on my hands, and improving my juggling. Somewhere, there's a circus in need of a clown. I am that clown.
Okay, maybe that's going a bit far. All I'm saying is that the entertainment field interests me. That's all.
July 10th, 7:09AM
Comedy night
The wife and I took my brother to a comedy show on Saturday night, and I got that familiar, "I could do that" feeling. I need to find some open mikes...
The fun parts were watching the opening act work through a laugh-drought, and find some funny near the end. Some of his jokes were weak, but I admired him for soldiering through. I ended up enjoying his set.
Rick Pulido (whose website is a technically unfortunate blend of all images, no text, and a broken link to his gigs) headlined, and was funny enough, but I didn't fall in love with his work. Good show, though.
July 10th, 7:03AM
I'm not the only Tom Bickle on the planet
My brother likes to Google things, apparently. One thing he apparently Googles is my name, because he sent this my way:
http://thomasbickle.blogspot.com/
It's heartstring-plucking story about a little kid with my name and a difficult fight with a brain tumor. Cute little kid...
Les Bleus, singing the blues
My team didn't win yesterday, but they came close. The game was enjoyable to watch, and had its odd moments, including a head-butt by the French Michael Jordan of soccer, Zinedine Zidane, which served as the capper for his entire career. He retired at the end of this game.
July 7th, 4:58PM
What a weekend
It promises to be a big one.
First, the UFC boys are at it again, and there's a grudge-match lineup that is not to be missed. I haven't ordered the PPV, but it's guaranteed to be a Hell of a show.
In more entertainment news, Lodi's Movie City Grill and Bar (I'd link to a website if they had one!) are hosting another stand-up comedy event, Saturday at 9pm.
...and finalement, Les Bleus take on Italy on Sunday. I can't wait.
July 7th, 7:44AM
Upturn
Yesterday was marked by the receipt of two checks from two clients, and that ain't bad. It so affected my mood that I went out and spoiled myself with a used book: "Writing and Reporting News - A Coaching Method." It covers journalist topics that have always interested me.
Considering it's taken me about six months or more to pick up the last used book I bought, I can enjoy a similar anticipation/lag time for this one.
July 2nd, 4:59PM
Has the world gone mad?!
Last night Spike TV broadcast Ultimate Fight Night, and two fighters who hold my highest regard, Chris "The Crippler" Leben, and Stephen "The American Psycho" Bonnar were on the ticket:
First Stephen Bonnar: anyone who has been watching has seen this guy fight with the heart of a lion and the tenacity of a crackhead at the welfare office; an incredible talent and toughness personified. I have seen him hang and bang through fights so horrendous that FEMA should have stepped in at the end and given the audience temporary housing. His fight with Forrest Griffin alone put this guy at the top of my list.
Into the ring steps his opponent, Rashad Evans. As was Bonnar, Evans was a contender in the UFC-based reality show "The Ultimate Fighter." Having seen Rashad debut on that show, I was not impressed. Maybe it was just my skeptical eye, because Evans has racked up win after win. Although not all of those wins were decisive, he's been pulling down the W's, and that's where it's at.
With all that said, I'm perched to watch Bonnar pull Rashad's arm off and slap him about the head and shoulders with it. The horn sounds, and from start to finish, Evans stands firm with Bonnar and utterly suffocated Bonnar's striking game and submission attempts. At the end, I was dismayed to see the decision go to Evans, but I couldn't disagree. He had apparently cured the American Psycho's aggressive tendencies. I'm still stunned.
Rock you like a hurricane
And speaking of stunned: Chris Leben's match against Anderson Silva was even more stupefying. Leben, in the pre-fight hoo-ha, had declared a willingness and ability to break Silva's jaw. Understand, Chris Leben is some kind of wildman - his jaw has got to be some complex rig of titanium and hydraulic shock absorbers; the guy is wicked-tough. I've seen him fight enough to know that if he were hit by a bus in the street, I'd call for a mechanic before I'd call for an ambulance. Even commentator Joe Rogan acknowledged Leben's nearly indestructible chin.
And then there was Silva (can you see where this is going?). Silva made his UFC debut here, from another, non-English speaking country, was an unknown quantity. I had no idea what to expect from him; even so, I was thoroughly surprised anyway. From the word 'go,' Silva was on Leben like a Pit Bull on a pork chop, striking at him like a machine. He rained punches and kicks on Leben like, well, rain, except that raindrops are never this precise. Silva landed blow after blow like a laser-guided smart bomb, and Chris Leben soon showed the effects of the powerful, precision pummeling, and hit the ground like a hastily-dropped sack of dog shit. Poor bastard - he was visibly disappointed in this turn of events, if not in himself directly. I have never seen him so soundly rocked. I continue to be amazed, and I've had almost a full day to get over it.
The fall of my ass-kicking heroes, especially the fall of an entire lineup of my favorites in one night, is disconcerting. Not only are my instincts wrong, but if I were to start betting on these things, I would have lost every penny last night.
In other news, Stockton's waterfront arena does these cage matches now and then; although expensive, I'd love to attend those once in a while.