Titans Together!

Now it's pretty common knowledge that I love comic books. It's also pretty clear I love movies. And so when combined into something like Batman Begins, or the Spider-Man movies, I'm stoked. When combined into something like X3: Don't Let this Get on Your Shoes, well, I take it personally.

News today that could possibly break the Stoke-o-Meter (TM). A live-action Teen Titans Movie is in the works. The Titans are what got me into comics. The Titans are what eventually drew me back. The Titans what got my kids into comics. The Titans...ugh. Never mind, I'll cut the geekgasm short. Let's just leave it at, we here at White Noise are excited about this :)

Laptop

(update from earlier post)

hard drive is toasted, emails, iTunes purchases, photos...everything from this year is gone.

Sooooooooo, send me an email so I can have your address again.

Random thoughts on 5/30/07

borrowing words from others, cuz I'm unable to come up with any on my own...

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
World without end. Amen, Amen.

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,
and I will glorify your name forever.

Ps 86:12

And it's a great day to be alive
I know the sun's still shinin' when I close my eyes
There's some hard times in the neighborhood
But why can't every day be just this good?

oh, and check out the new playlist to your right...

It Couldn't Have Been Jack Johnson?

We all have the ability to really freak ourselves out over nothing--a wrong number in the middle of the night, strange yet ultimately benign noises in the house, having to repeat routine blood tests, and so on.

Last night I'm reading a detective novel about a serial killer--I'd read it before, back when the Love of My Life was expecting Samwise and was too uncomfortable to sleep in our bed. Which worked out well this one evening. The depiction of the ...evil, the insane (literally) depravity had set me on edge. I vividly remember, sitting on my bed not taking my eyes from the page, leaning forward as I read, as if that'd speed things along. It's incredibly rare for a book to affect me like that, I wasn't scared--but I was downright close. When I finally finished the book between 4 & 5 am (371 pages of tense prose and tiny type in one sitting), I went out to the living room, confused my wife by giving her a big hug and went to bed to catch a little sleep before work--purposely leaving all the lights on in the room.

So last night, I'm rereading the same book for the first time, and it's starting to grip in in a similar way--but not as completely as before. About the time that the author really begins to reveal the nature of the killer--later described as "a creature beset by what Coleridge called 'motiveless malignancy'"--I start remembering that night 8 years ago, details from the end of the book, and so on. This gives me a sort of detachment from the book. And as I realize this detachment's existence, I feel a bit of relief.

And then, over my headphones comes the lighting strike of Kirk Hammett's guitar, the staccato thunder of Lars Ulrich's drums, and James Hetfield's guttural vocals

Darkness imprisoning me
All that I see
Absolute horror

Frak.

I put a finger in the book to hold my place, walked across the room...

and turned on another light.

Blog-splosion over...

Well, last week certainly saw a big burst of posts around here, eh? Had some time off, got rested up, had some time to think--and got a lot of inspiration from my friends. Didn't realize how little ye olde brain was workin' 'til I caught my breath. Fear not--am back to busy, so things'll slow down for a bit (have half a dozen more thoughtful posts half-written).

In the meantime, here's a quick picture of The Offspring & me observing Towel Day...not had some issues getting the auto-timer on the camera coordinated with us, this is the best of the batch.

Got this song stuck in my head thanks to The Bob. Had to go out and track down the video, ahhh, the 80s....how I miss 'em.

In (Blog)Space no one can hear...

...you talk like Bob Dylan.

So, here's a catchy video featuring Dylan's vocals. From one of the All-Time Greatest Rock albums, by one of the All-Tim Greatest Rock Bands. (which I'd give almost anything to find on CD/mp3)

I'm It! -- Nah, You Guys are It!

I've been tagged. And not one of those, answer weird questions about yourself tags. Nuh-uh. That'd be too easy for the Rooftop Observer. 7 Random Facts. Thankfully, nothing requires them to be interesting.

So here we go:

Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about their seven things, as well as these rules. You need to choose 7 people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them that they have been tagged and to read your blog!

1. I have a tendency to name my cars/automobiles after SF space-ships. I've driven a Nissan Pulsar called "Phoenix", a Dodge Viper named, "Pegasus", and am currently driving the Ford Aerostar "Serenity." Somehow my Dodge Caravan escaped being named. My first car, a 'Vette* was called Nero. But that was before the trend started.
2. I actually had a poster of Chuck Swindoll hanging in my dorm room (for just one year, maybe 1 semester) in college. It was a promotional thing for Laugh Again, had him on his Harley, wearing a black leather jacket and ugly black shades under the caption, "THE SERMINATOR." (interestingly enough, google can't find that image anywhere...)
3. Have never had two jobs in the same industry (aside from temp gigs, have done a lot of data entry for the state). And only one job has remotely come close to having anything to do with either of my majors in college. My tenure for any one employer tends to be 2 years + a few months (can think of 2 exceptions in the last 17 years). If I don't figure out what I want to be when I grow up, I could be in trouble.
4. On my High School Diploma, the Roman Numeral I follows my name--1. Thought it was funny and 2. Had planned on being the first in a series. Alas, the Love of my Life vetoed that notion, so the I seems even stranger now.
5. My first tattoo is a Luther Rose. Got my next 3 planned--just got to figure out which order to get 'em in.
6. There is NOOOOOO fact 6.
   (What? Oh, right...that's no rule 6. Oops)
   I have probably spent less than 6 or 7 months outside the state of Idaho in my entire life (that number'd be lower if not for 2 winter terms at Greenville Presbyterian)). And honestly, that number's probably not going to change much. I'm totally fine with that.
7. I have a long lost half-brother who looks absolutely nothing like me. See?

The Seven I'm Tagging:

1. Dr. White (to prove centurion's point that only Julie could get him to play along)
2. Susan a.k.a Lucy (so she'll update her blog)
3. Mrs (same reason)
4. Micah (just 'cuz)
5. Credamus
6. Polymathis
7. girlfriday
8. tired--yeah, that's 8, not 7. But I can't imagine #1 is actually going to do it, so figured I'd try a bonus pick. 'Sides, the world has to see what he's going to come up with.

-----

*(a Chevette...)

I can't believe I almost forgot this date

but nothing to panic about...I remembered.

Amen

Preach it, sister...


(there's a sentence you never expected me to say, eh?)

Falling Idol?

There's something wrong when you're wondering if on the last competition night for American Idol, one of the biggest things you're wondering about is if Paula will be sporting any kind of nose splint after breaking her nose. Blake's interesting, I think Jordin's the best teen contestant I've ever seen (not like the seemingly scripted DeGarmo, for example). But...eh. I might buy Jordin's CD, depending on the samples from iTunes; if my kids ask for it or Spidey tells me it's good, I'll get Blake's; I'll consider Melinda's...maybe. But, that's about it.

There's something missing this year, that's been present in years past. Contestants.

I've been thinking about this for awhile...yeah, I'm enjoying it this year, just not as much as in year's past...and yeah, there's some extenuating circumstance stuff involved, but a lot of it is the show. It's having an off year. Whether this is the beginning of the end, or just a blip will be seen next January (or February when the show gets good). Anyway, the always insightful Sepinwall--and the de Moraes piece he pointed to on his blog put it better than I could. So, read them:

At Finale Time, 'Idol' Strains to Hit a High Note by Lisa de Moraes

Critics of this season also point to the eczema of product placement that broke out this year. Wednesday's results show got so bloated with Ford Music Videos, footage of Idolettes going to sneak peeks of new flicks about to open nationwide and pop singers pitching their new CDs or upcoming tours that even cheerleader/show host Ryan Seacrest began snipping about it during the broadcast. One week, when the results show was still a half-hour, the Idolettes got only five minutes of that airtime, while more than 20 minutes was devoted to pitching this and that. [emphasis mine]

Who are these people? by Alan Sepinwall

The biographical clip packages, a staple of earlier seasons and a chance to introduce viewers to the non-musical sides of people who got shorted on screentime in the early rounds, all but disappeared. In their place were the obligatory clips where the celebrity mentors offered advice that the contestants quickly ignored. When the producers finally got around to some biographical material, it was with four contestants left, and the information provided was the most generic possible. (In a shocker, all four love their parents! I know! I couldn't believe it either.)

It's almost like the contestants have become guest stars in their own series, sent to the sidelines for the celebrity mentors, for Ryan and Simon's increasingly-pointless homoerotic banter (which has gone everywhere short of "You're a big queen!" "No, you are!"), for all the product-placement (including weekly trivia questions that even Seacrest is mortified by the simplicity of), even for the otherwise-noble Idol Gives Back charity event.

Given all that, is it any wonder that we've spent so much of this season fixated on contestants with no shot of winning, on Antonella and the photo scandal, on Haley's legs and Sanjaya's hair and the clearly-disproved power of VoteForTheWorst.com?

Shrek the Third

Took the Offspring to Shrek the Third over the weekend.What can you say, really? It's a Shrek movie. I laughed a lot, harder than the kids in many places, not as hard as them in others. I thought it was less "Kid-Blue" than the other two (jokes about bodily noises, gasses, etc.)--or maybe I'm hardened. It's not my favorite of the three, but it was a good time.

Myers was good. Diaz was decent. Loved the addition of Eric Idle to the cast, and the Dynamic Duo of Puss and Donkey stole most of the scenes--with some hefty competition from the rest of the supporting cast. Speaking of which, I think I might've been the only one in the theater to pick up on the Six-Million Dollar Man theme music in Gingy's life-passing-before-his-eyes flashback. How depressing is that?

(btw, how fitting is it that Timberlake's a cartoon?)

Best scenes of the film were the High School scenes..."I know you're busy not fitting in..."

Only suggestion for #4 from this peanut gallery--keep Shrek and Fiona together for more of the film. The characters interacted so well together in the first movie--why not let them keep at it?

the Third incidentally continues the streak of great soundtracks. My kids'll listen to them because they're Shrek, I'll listen to 'em because I like the music--great mix of older tunes, new stuff, great covers, and something by some of the stars. This one has two songs by the Eels (vetrans of the other two), some people I've never heard of, and Led Zepplin and Wings! Could've lived without Macy Gray, but anything that gets the Offspring listening to Zepplin and McCartney is a-ok in my book (it will be mere days before the Princess is singing Ah ah aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah ah w/Robert Plant on "Immigrant Song"). And, I can't believe I'm saying this--Fergie's track is great--dynamite cover of Heart's "Barracuda"--this is the little girl I tuned in week after week to watch Kids, Inc., not that trollop that she's marketing herself as (tho' my heart has always belonged to Martika)

Just how American am I anyway?

You Are 80% American

You're as American as red meat and shooting ranges. Tough and independent, you think big. You love everything about the US, wrong or right. And anyone who criticizes your home better not do it in front of you!

How American Are You?

...only 80%? It was the dark beer thing, wasn't it? That had to cost me some...

(H/T: Bluewoad)

am with Dick the Butcher today...

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers".

- Henry VI (Part 2)
Act IV, Scene II.

Not one to toot my own horn, but....

beep, beep

Shame Erasmus didn't have any Neuroscientists helping him ...

Defending free will: A fruit fly makes choices

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A tiny fruit fly -- without any input from the outside world -- will spontaneously change directions, researchers said on Monday in a finding that just may rescue the notion that free will not only exists but is a basic function of the brain.

There's gotta be a metaphor in here somewhere

There's this strip of red along the back of my neck--reddest at T-shirt the collar line, and then generally decreasing up to the baseball cap line. I picked it up Saturday at the ball game--not the best souvenir of the event, I grant you.

Neither Aloe or Vera are really touching it. Steady little burning sensation. Had to wear a mock turtle neck to church yesterday, a dress shirt would've killed me.

Then yesterday afternoon, my dad and I are putzin' around with my van--keeping an auto running being a 20th/21st century equivalent of pulling your donkey out of a ditch. Sun's at my back, and I can just feel the heat on the burn--like the frakkin' Eye of Sauron bearing down on me. Can't even really focus on the van like I should...it's driving me to distraction.

Back inside, it's a little worse--still burning, but less intently. If I was a Puritan, or just generally more sanctified, I think I'd use this as an illustration about sin and temptation, and the necessity of avoiding those circumstances which aggrivate temptation.

But I'm not. So just thought I'd pass along a little reminder. It's pretty near summer people, "trust me on the sunscreen."

All Rise, Baby

Was inspired by the clip you hear at the into of the new radio.blog over on your right to see if I could come up with something that would fit the bill. Think I did. There was a while where I had 3 songs on the list, then there were about 60. Finally settled on these 10.

1. You Give Love a Bad Name - Bon Jovi. Barney started his playlist with it, figured it work for me. 'Sides, ever since he was the "mentor o' the week" on Idol, my kids (particularly the Princess) have been on a Bon Jovi kick, so it fits.
2. Steve McQueen - Sheryl Crow. Nice little rockin' tune, little kick *ss attitude from the Crow-ster. Good times.
3. Falling for the First Time - BNL. Dunno why, but thought this playlist needed some of the Ladies on it, this tune fit the bill for me.
4. It's the End of the World as We Know It - REM. Never before (or since) has cultural collapse sounded so fun.
5. Blister in the Sun - Violent Femmes. 1. This song probably isn't what you think it's about (even read some "experts" recently who totally got this wrong), 2. Song's got a fun little groove to it, 3. I've got this thing stuck in my head recently, now you have it stuck in yours :)
6. Short Skirt-Long Jacket - CAKE. Same thinking as Track 3
7. I'm Not Afraid - Fleming and John - Great song by one of the most under-rated bands I can think of.
8. Escher's World - Steve Taylor. Great cover of a great song by the most under-rated band I can think of.
9. Rockin' the Suburbs - Ben Folds. This is not the cleaned-up version that shows up in the movie Over the Hedge. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy that version--like the way Folds changed his target from the music industry to suburbia, think that version's funny as all get out. Just wanted to go with the orginal, parental advisory sticker-worthy lyrics and all
10. Fuel - Metallica. For an all rise playlist, gotta end it with a bang. And there it is, baby.
    

What do you think, sirs?

Whyfore White Noise?

Last week, while I was twiddling my thumbs while fighting off insomnia-induced boredom, and started looking through the Noise archives (that's how bored I was, reading my old material...blech). In my second post, I explained the genesis of the blog's name, and a quotation from Don DeLillo which sorta explained my intent for the blog. Not sure how I've stuck to the intent (even less how I'll stick to it once things morph around here next month), but it's a nice quote from DeLillo anyway....

The name for this blog came from one of my favorite novels, Don DeLillo's White Noise. In discussing that novel, DeLillo said:
"In White Noise in particular, I tried to find a kind of radiance in dailiness. Sometimes this radiance can be almost frightening. Other times it can be almost holy or sacred.... Our sense of fear--we avoid it because we feel it so deeply, so there is an intense conflict at work.... I think it is something we all feel, something we almost never talk about, something that is almost there. I tried to relate it in White Noise to this other sense of transcendence that lies just beyond our touch. This extraordinary wonder of things is somehow related to the extraordinary dread, to the death fear we try to keep beneath the surface of our perceptions."

Samwise HOMERS!!!!!

< spot-on Marv Albert Impression > YES! < /Marv Albert Impression >
Samwise, who is generally the slowest person on the field during a baseball game (counting both teams), hit his first mulit-base hit outside of T-Ball! If that weren't enough, it was a home run! And not just any homer--oh no--it was an inside-the-park homer!

Unbelievable. It was simply unbelievable.

I don't know if I've ever seen him so proud. He was giddy. (I was pretty close to giddy myself)

I do have a 89 MB .avi file of it, for the morbidly curious. Tho' I should warn you, the camera is shaky--esp. at the end; he slips off screen a couple times; and there's this loud, crazy man shouting throughout. :)

a couple more for good measure:

< spot-on Marv Albert Impression > YES! < /Marv Albert Impression >
< spot-on Marv Albert Impression > YES! < /Marv Albert Impression >

In related news, it's discovered that 75% of the people make up Three-Fourths of the Population

Love, love the headline here...just so glad that 1. this study was done, and 2. these results were made public, ideas so revolutionary as this...wow!

I believe later in the week, the same group will be announcing the results of another study where the reveal that they love Jerry Lewis in France (still unanswered: does that make him funny?).

Is that Yankee Stadium or Cape Canaveral?

I can't tell--but there's this Big Rocket there...

YAH-and might I add-HOOOOOOO!

yes, those are both tears of joy and tears on conviction...(didn't mean to open that email notice from yankees.com on the Lord's Day)

Oh, not again!

Okay, so the desktop tanks a couple months back, but it's able to be rebuilt. Haven't totally moved back on to it. Mostly being used for something for my kids to play on, and me to download giant files on--I hadn't even recompiled (or copied over) my Firefox bookmarks!

I've been living on my laptop for the last few months (literally it seems)--email, banking, church stuff, writing stuff, html, communications in general, iTunes store, even most of my TV watching...anything I've spent time has been on it. And then last night I wake up and the screen is black. And I was given incontrovertible proof that my health has improved lately--I didn't go into cardiac arrest. Sadly...the hard-drive apparently flat-lined while I napped.

It looks like Dell is going to replace the drive--which I totally didn't expect. (yayyyyyy DELL!!) But the data's fate is still up in the air (I'm being incredibly, incredibly, uncharacteristically optimistic in saying that, actually). Sadly, have a few things with deadlines pending/past/looming. And all of those things--and the stuff I've really wanted to do--are at best pushed back by days. Probably weeks.

If I owe you a reply to an email, a blog, a response to an argument I started somewhere, a website...anything. Sorry, just telling you now, not gonna happen.

If this keeps up, I'll be using a legal pad and #2 pencil by the end of the year.

Spurgeon on Weekly Communion

yeah, that's right, I'm suggesting you read that Baptist on a sacrament (sorry, CHS, just not going to call it an ordinance for your sake).

Anyway, Pastor Shaun, over at Postscript Posthaste posted this nice little quotation from everyone's favorite Princely Preacher, Cigar Smoker, and All-Around Quotable Guy:

...Shame on the Christian church that she should put it off to once a month, and mar the first day of the week by depriving it of its glory in the meeting together for fellowship and breaking of bread, and showing forth of the death of Christ till he come....

Go read the rest...and listen to the podcasts while you're there.

(this should get Pastor Polymathis awake...)