I'm Crazy __________, Gimme Some CANDY!

We're back from plundering our subdivision...and plunder we did. Our estimate is 6 gallons. And dentists all over the Treasure Valley are punching the air...

Enough of that, on to the pictures...(most of which were taken by my mother, who's a better shot than I am)

My daughter's feminist commentary on marriage. At first, she was just going to make a cute bride (no, not the Uma kind, alas). But then she and her mom got talking...blood, gore, monster masks were considered, but in the end, they went with this. We really should've got some black roses to go with it, dontcha think?

TLomL's getting pretty good at this skeleton-face makeup...maybe the Insane Clown Posse could hire her.

Took us about 14 seconds of shopping before Arnold found this. If only they were all so easy.

The number of kids we passed shouting "Mario!" last night (most of the older boys doing a spot-on impression), I'm surprised our subdivision wasn't invaded by Nintendo copyright lawyers.

Samwise had come up with this idea of a Grim Reaper with glowing eyes before we went shopping for costumes, and had settled on something else after not finding the pieces he wanted to assemble it. Naturally, as soon as we purchased something else, he stumbled on to it in a pre-assembled kit. And then when we found that scythe? Such joy. It's like I'm raising 'Chainsaw' Gremp. Oh, don't call him a Jawa Reaper, he doesn't like it. Even if that's what this totally looks like.

The eyes on that fade in and out...making the whole picture taking experience so much fun.

Frodo's costume's label called this a Gatekeeper, but he looks nothing like Sigourney Weaver if you ask me (even without the mask). So I asked myself, what would Giles or Wesley call this, and decided he needed to call himself a K'col'Yek monster.

No, that isn't the Eye of Thundara in the hilt there (I checked)

I've mentioned before how difficult it is to get a picture of WonderMutt. This is the best I could do thanks to some creative cropping.

My wife, ladies and gentlemen... (it'll help to read that in Peter Bishop's sardonic drawl)

Our Haul. 14 lbs. 14 oz. (and they probably ate a bit more than 2 oz. before it was weighed it.) This is truly embarrassing...when I was a kid, my mom'd have made us quit if we came close to filling up one of these containers. And this is just from strolling around the neighborhood...no real effort.

Me? Oh, I went as an Adam Sandler song.

Too Much to Say

no real post today, just some blather about my process...not that anyone cares.

I have seven or so posts in the draft stage, and I can't decide which one to finish--every time I pick one to work on, all I can think of is the others. So I move on to one of them, and the cycle starts again.

On the other hand, I'm biting my tongue and not publishing a bombastic rant about media coverage, apparently deliberate attempts to misunderstand what others are saying, and other sorts of biases hurting a start-up group I care deeply about. The plan is to tone it down, make it less bombastic, and try to sound sane. Not fun, but probably more productive. But I'm not in the place to do that now.

or I could blather on about NaNoWriMo, but I have all of November to do that, why start early?

To make up for wasting your time, I'll just say that while The Swell Season's Strict Joy album appears achingly beautiful, the best album I've bought in months has to be Phineas and Ferb (Songs from the TV Series). That probably says a lot about me.

Oh, found a new webcomic last night (thanks to Jon Rogers) and spent a fun hour or two plundering the archives of 2009...a couple of must-reads are: http://hijinksensue.com/2009/05/13/a-severe-case-of-scullyosis/, Rebuffed, and The Glee Agenda (which could so totally be about me).

GO YANKEES!

Arnold Kidney Update

Had our regular checkup with Arnold's nephrologist today, on the whole, things are very positive, and look good for now. He's recovered from his recent hospitalization, and bout of Swine Flu well. Everything's about where it should be.

I did learn a couple of things, both about the future and about kidney treatments in general. First of all, the doc reported that his hemoglobin was good. Am pretty sure this is the first time he's bothered to mention that--maybe he's muttered something mostly to himself about it a time or two. He went on to inform me that when his kidney function worsens (about 25% efficiency or so), he'll need a weekly injection to boost that. I'm getting it on the record now that I hereby volunteer TLoML to give that, assuming it's not something a professional has to administer.

His growth rate is slowing, and assuming it continues the way it is, within a year or two we're going to have to talk about growth hormone. Apparently, and this was news to me, it's not that kidney patients don't produce the normal amount of growth hormones themselves. Rather, there's something also produces that blocks the hormone. So, (assuming he gets the hormone) he'll be given a dose equivalent to that given to someone who doesn't produce the hormone on his own, which will be enough to overcome the block. This will come in the form of daily injections. Please see the previous paragraph for my stance on the administration thereof.

His kidney function had been thrown off by the infections/dehydration that were behind his recent hospitalization, but the lab results show that they're back to where they were before. In the past, the doc's been able to do a quick and dirty calculation to estimate kidney function based on those results. But thanks to that pediatric study we've talked about before (here and here, for example), that calculation has been thrown out. The doc was sorta grumbling about that (a diagnostic tool he's used his entire career has been tossed) and sorta informing me about the use of that study. Apparently, they've been able to adapt the calculation to come up with a way to estimate function for girls, but they're still working on it for boys, so his usual rough guess is rougher than normal. We're at 35%-ish. He didn't tell me what the range on that is, but in the past it's been +/- 15%.

The last thing I wanted to mention has nothing to do with Arnold's condition, but when we talked about the hospital stay, I mentioned that the insurance company was hassling us about paying for it. He was incredulous about that and volunteered to help with the appeal. Then he said something about at least when dealing with an insurance company there's a person you can talk to and "if it gets to the point it's the government deciding these things, it'll be a wall." I see him briefly catch himself before finishing his thought after saying the word "government", but then he must've decided he didn't care about opening a potential can of worms and spoke his mind. I know there are exceptions, but I've yet to find a medical professional in favor of the legislation before Congress.

Syfy Plans International Vandalism

Note to the Reader: I do have non-TV/non-Entertainment posts in the works, but sadly, I can't seem to get them to the publish point. Really don't just want to harp on TV stuff...but, c'est la vie, it'll have to do for now.

The Powers That Be over at Syfy are still carrying a grudge over that whole era characterized by The Stamp Act, Taxation Without Representation, Lexington/Concord, etc. (only explanation I can think of, anyway) and have decided to wreak havoc in the fashion of the Boston Tea Pary, but with a Urban Fantasy twist. According to SciFiWire:

The BBC's clever 20-something show Being Human, about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost who end up as roommates, is the latest British series to get an Americanized version. Syfy has ordered 13 episodes of the new series, which it plans to launch in the summer or fall or 2010 as a companion to its show Sanctuary (which also features a vampire and a werewolf).

Being Human debuted on the digital network BBC Three with six episodes and was popular enough that it got moved up to the larger BBC One. A second season of eight episodes is planned for early next year in Britain, and the show also airs in the U.S. on BBC America.

"It turned out great, as we can now do an American version," Syfy president Dave Howe told The Hollywood Reporter. "We've always been keen on vampires and werewolves, and we loved the originality of Being Human, the fact that the fantastical creatures in it are very young, accessible and charming."

Howe said the Syfy version will not just "slavishly replicate the British version."

"We loved the originality..." so, we decided to rip it off...well, that's Hollywood for ya, guess I can't knock that. But then to go on to say they're not just going to "slavishly replicate"? Dude. The only prayer this thing has of being decent is to slavishly replicate...

Syfy would do the show, Syfy's audience, and company's budget a huge favor and take all the money they're planning on spending on the remake and just buy the rights to air the original. A truly great show, with a nigh unto perfect cast. Anything else is just criminal.

USA's 'White Collar'

I'll be honest with you (unlike most posts where I lie like crazy), the promos that USA's been running for what seems like a year and a half for their new show White Collar have left me mostly cold. Oh wow, an odd couple-ish pairing of a by-the-book law enforcement officer with some outside of law enforcement, who plays by his own rules and is the key to solving crimes...where have we seen that one 7,000 times lately? And while I was surprised that Tim DeKay was getting a chance to be the lead on a series, Matthew Bomer's casting left me cold--most of the Bryce Larkin storylines on Chuck were my least favorite.

But I gave it a shot anyway, because hey, it's USA, and that means it's probably going to be better than most of what's on TV anyway.

So glad I gave it a chance. I actually liked Bomer's character, and thought he did a pretty good job in the role. DeKay demonstrated his typical solid acting chops. The rest of the cast and characters were somewhere between decent and good (Willie Garson and Mark Sheppard in particular). The story wasn't the most intricate plot, but it was well-told--which is far more important anyway. Oh yeah, it was fun, too. Not to full of itself, it's escapist fiction and knows it.

There were two things that really sold me on the pilot--1. Bomer's Neal Caffery was cocky to the point of arrogant, brilliant, irreverent, etc.--all the things that the 90% of the consultants that do the actual crimefighting while the TV cops watch are (see Shawn Spencer, Richard Castle, Patrick Jane, etc.), but without being a cartoon like the rest are always in danger of becoming. Gerald So used the word "vulnerability," and I wished I'd come up with that on my own. 2. DeKay's Peter Burke was a competent--make that excellent--agent. He's no bumbler inexplicably in a ranking position, like so many are (see Lt. Disher, Det. Lassiter, Agent Lisbon the California Bureau of Investigation); he could stand on his own, but sees the opportunity to do a little better by using this particular tool. A fairly fully drawn character, to boot. The dynamic--one of mutual respect--should prove to be a fun one to watch.

Now just because the pilot wowed me, doesn't mean it's a lock. USA's In Plain Sight had a great pilot and hasn't come close to being as good since. But I've read that Natalie Morales stars in episode 2, and any show that casts The Middleman's Dubby for at least one episode, demonstrates a level of taste and discernment that speaks well of the series as a whole.

Idaho

My alma mater inaugurated a new president today, which I guess is a good thing. I'll be honest, I've never paid that much attention to the succession of presidents since I left (or before I showed up).

Part of the ceremony was the reading of a poem by Robert Wrigley, a professor in the English department, titled "IDAHO." Here's the text, via an alumni newsletter email from the new president. Interesting piece.

"What's in a name?" Juliet Capulet asked of the night sky.
She was puzzlingly, mysteriously, and beautifully in love
with Romeo, a Montague, and their names made it all go awry.
She could have been asking the stars, or the deep dark above,

the same source Mr. George M. Willing might have inquired of,
in 1861, when he coined the word "Idaho," and claimed it Shoshone.
It wasn't. It meant neither "light from the mountains" nor "gem" of
the same. He made it up. It was, lexicologically, baloney.

And yet, here we have, whatever was meant by it then, Idaho:
a name conjured out of nothing, which even now seems,
some days, sometimes, hard to understand: but from the St. Joe
to the Owyhee, over all its thousands of mountains and streams,

what the word is, is a poem---puzzling, beautiful, mysterious---
that means, as we who live here know, exactly and only what it is.

Constructive Graffiti