Go have fun...or else!

As PLANET3RRY points out, Nolan's note to his mom sounds very familiar...

From 6/21/90


From 6/22/90

What could have been...

Back in September I was one of the many people singing the praises of “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” declaring it an instant hit for NBC.

Well we all know how well that turned out. The final episode of the troubled series airs tonight.

Hercules over at Ain’t It Cool News wrote an excellent article outlining everything that was great about the show and everything that went wrong. Unfortunately, there was plenty of both and little in between. If you enjoyed the show at any point, then I suggest you check it out.

“Studio 60” is a classic example of “what could’ve been.” If you never saw the show, then I still suggest you find a copy of the brilliant pilot episode to watch.

The summer blahs

We’re just over a week into summer vacation and so far Kris has managed to keep the kids pretty busy. They’re taking swim lessons this week, visited a farmers’ market today and have had a few other outings here and there.

However, there is always some down time, like this afternoon. With Thomas in his room for his afternoon quiet time and nothing else planned, Kris insisted that Nolan go outside to play.

But he didn’t want to. He probably wanted to A) bury his nose in a book, B) play video games or C) mope around and complain that there was nothing to do despite the fact his mom had given several good ideas.

Sometimes Kris has been known to pretty much force the kids to go out and play for their own good, and that’s what she did today. She brought Nolan outside with her.

But then he announced he needed something and disappeared back into the house. A short time later he returned and said, “Mom, there’s note on the stairs,” -- as if to say “Wow, where did that come from?”

Kris went to see this note, and this is what it said:

Dear Mom, I do not like going outside. Love, Nolan

Needless to say, we thought that was pretty funny. The note is now hanging on the bulletin board and will probably wind up in a scrapbook.

As for Nolan…he still had to play outside.

My ears are burning

Is anyone else sick of Price Chopper's "House of Barbecue" jingle by now?

Life in Springfield

Here's a post I'm blatantly ripping off from college classmate and fellow blogger Mike Sussman. He pointed out the website for The Simpons Movie is up. It has an option to create your Simpons character, and he posted a picture he made of what his family might look like.

So I've never been one to avoid ripping off a good idea. Here is the closest I could get to me as a resident of Springfield.

I photoshopped the Simpsonized me into a picture of my office. I also had to add the glasses myself, since they didn't give you an option to have your character wearing glasses.

Hopefully I wasn't too generous with my body type. Your choices include kid-sized (Bart, Milhouse), average (Lenny, Carl), buff (Ranier Wolfcastle) and portly (Homer, Krusty). I think there is a little more of me than the average setting. But I haven't quite consumed enough Krispy Kremes to get to Homer-level portliness.

Back to the great outdoors

Our first camping trip of the summer is behind us. We spent the night last night at Cherry Plain State Park.

What was great about this trip was that we went with most of the other families from our Cub Scout den. There were four families there. Counting siblings, there were 10 kids altogether. Everyone had someone else the same age to play with. As a result, they all had a blast.

It was a little too chilly to swim, but there were plenty of other things to do. It was 24 hours of fishing, hiking, skipping rocks, playing ball and just plain running around.

Last night after the kids went to sleep the moms and dads stayed up late chit chatting around the campfire. Wow! Socializing with other adults without kids around! How often does that happen?

It was a quick trip – just one night. But everyone had a great time, and the little campground we discovered is a hidden gem. We all agreed that this might have to become an annual event.

Picking up on 'Potter' clues

I need to start brushing up on my Harry Potter knowledge as we get closer to the release of "The Deahtly Hallows."

One of the best places for all things Potter is The Harry Potter Lexicon. This great online reference guide indexes evrey person, place and thing mentioned in the books -- no matter how seemingly trivial.

I bring this up because an article on Ain't It Cool News about the upcoming "Order of the Phoenix" movie included this juicy tidbit...

In the original draft of the screenplay for ORDER OF THE PHOENIX, they had decided to remove a character from the story. Rowling read over the screenplay and said “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” that they were free to do whatever they liked, of course, but “if you make a 7th movie you’ll have tied your hands.”

No mention of which character J.K. Rowling was talking about. The filmakers are keeping that a secret.

The first one I thought of was Hagrid's half-brother Grawp. But who knows? Maybe Harry's old babysitter, Mrs. Figg? Feel free to post your own theories...

'The man with the hat is back'

This photo will be everywhere before long.

Shooting has begun on Indy IV, which rumor has it will be called "Indiana Jones and the City of Gods."

This photo of Harrison Ford was snapped by Steven Spielberg himself on June 21 and posted on IndianaJones.com.

The new Indiana Jones movie is set in the 1950s and stars Shia LaBeouf, Cate Blanchett, John Hurt, Ray Winstone and Jim Broadbent. It's set for release on May 22, 2008.

Summer kick off

Kris and the kids celebrated the end of school and kicked off summer the other day with a trip to Hoffman's Playland with the Brownells.

As Kris mentioned before, Thomas' pre-school class and the first grade at Nolan's school put on some end of the year concerts in the last couple of weeks.

Nolan's class also recently went on a field trip to the State Museum.

In addition all of that, we had Father's Day last weekend (which was very nice). The next day there was a Father's Day picnic at Nolan's school that included a kickball game for all of the dad's and kids.

Prior to Father's Day, on Saturday, I took the kids and a friend of Thomas' to see "Shrek the Third" (I was disappointed -- it's easily the weakest of the three movies -- but the kids liked it).

And of course, as I mentioned before, we had our last few baseball games.

Anyway, here are some photos of the Hoffman's Playland trip.

'Put me in, coach'

It's been far too long since the last time I posted anything. Sorry, one and all.

We've had a lot going one with various end of the school year activities. Both boys are done with school for the year and the baseball season is over.

Hopefully, I can get back into the swing of things with regular updates on our lives and other meaningless meanderings. I'll get the ball rolling with some highlights from Nolan's baseball season...

'One day to see them all...'

Wow. If I had no life, then it would be fun to spend the day geeking out June 30 at the Palace Theatre in Albany. They're going to be showing all three "Lord of the Rings" movies back-to-back-to-back. It starts at noon and should be over around 10:30 p.m.!

They have some great movies at the Palace. That's where I went to see "Raiders of the Lost Ark" again last year. This week they're showing one of Kris' favorites, "Ghandi." In the past month or so they've shown "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Godfather."

The final stretch

Today is Thomas' last day of Kiddie Car. He had his End of the Year Show a couple weeks ago; well, at least the rest of his class did. They work on different songs and motions to them throughout the year and give a concert for the parents at the end. What I feared happened: Thomas came walking down the aisle for the show and as soon as he saw us, sat right down and that was the end of it! I did get him to go up for a little while but it was really hard for him. Oh well--he'll have another chance next year. It's just so funny. He usually loves being the center of attention but when it comes down to it, he's a softie when all eyes are on him. I'll have to remember this story when he's a lawyer some day. Anyway, they are having their end of the year party today and then he is going home with his best friend Leo to play. So he's pretty psyched.

Nolan is a happy kid today too. Today is his Young Author Day. In a few minutes we will be going to the school to watch his class sing and then read books they've created over the year. Nolan reads constantly now so he's really excited about today. He's been into this series called The Magic Treehouse and he's on the 14th book now. Nolan is done school next Wednesday. He has 3 more baseball games, 2 more school parties and a field trip to the museum before that.

It's been so crazy around here that I crashed a little on Sunday. I fell asleep on the couch and Chris said he was watching me sleep. My eyes were screwed shut and my face was all scrunched up as I slept. I'm even stressed in my sleep! But it's all so good. It's exciting watching them grow up.

Everyone's favorite treat

The doughnut fairy paid another visit to our house yesterday. Yes, our supplier hooked us up with another fix of sweet, delicious Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

What better way to celebrate completing a 25-mile bike ride than by downing a couple of Krispy Kremes?

As you can see, we had some friends over to help us share in the doughnutty goodness.

Tour de Cure 2007

The Tour de Cure went well yesterday. I wasn’t quite prepared to do the 50-mile ride this year. So I did the 25-mile route, which was still enough to leave me a little sore afterward.

The route starts at Stillwater High School and goes north on Route 4. Eventually it crosses over the Hudson River into Washington County and comes back down south before crossing back over into Stillwater. The 50-mile route is basically the same – it just goes farther north.

I really love riding through that neck of the woods. There are stretches where you have a great view of the river and little else – no homes, no docks, no roads except the one you’re rising on. It makes it very easy close your eyes and imagine the history that unfolded in the region (you’re riding very near the Saratoga Battlefield).

I suppose the only downside to the day was the effect the ride through the country had on my allergies. I was a mess for the rest of the day. But it was worth it. It really was a great ride.

And it was for a great cause. I raised $225 for the American Diabetes Association. Thank you to all of you who contributed. If you’d like to contribute, it’s not too late. Just click here.

Surfin' Safari

Ok all you Mac users. Make the case why I should download Safari.

The Mac folks made their browser available for Windows users today.

Right now I'm using IE 7 at work and Firefox at home. Although I still have to use IE when I do work from home -- and then it's IE 6, since I can't get IE 7 to install on my computer.

Anyway, I'm very pleased with Firefox. But I know the Macheads love their Safari. So is it worth my time to check it out? Is it all that different from Firefox?

If Yoda had a blog...

If Yoda did have a blog, what would he call it? Blogobah?

RSS in Plain English

According to The Common Craft Show, there are two types of Internet users: those that use RSS and those that don't.

I've mentioned before that I'm border-line adicted to Google Reader.

If you're not using an RSS reader to read the web, why not? There's a reason why RSS stands for "really simple syndication" The Common Craft Show put together this little video that explains the whole concept...

Margaritaville

The never-ending quest for free stuff continues...

I'm on the mailing list for Garcia's Mexican Restaurant in Colonie. According to the e-mail I got this morning, starting today and for the remainder of the summer, any time the official temperature at the Albany Airport hits 90 degrees or higher, stop into Garcia's for a free Margarita. The e-mail says you just need to tell them that you're "part of the club."

Cheers!

I cannot tell a lie

Retired Gen. George Washington Criticizes Bush's Handling Of Iraq War

I just like the picture of George Washington talking to Tim Russert on "Meet the Press." There is also one of him being interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on CNN.

@#$%ing hillarious!

This is one of the funnier beer commercials I've seen in a while...

'I Am Iron Man,' Part 2

I'm a few weeks late in posting this. Odds are, if you're geek enough to care, then you've already seen this photo of what Iron Man will ultimately look like in his upcoming movie.

But since I earlier posted the first image of his old, clunky gray armor, I figured I should keep up and pass this along. It's been sitting on my desktop for three weeks.

Plugging into 'Unplugged'

I know I just blogged the other day that the MTV Movie Awards are the only thing I watch on that channel (I'm not exactly in their key demographic anymore).

But that may change this summer. MTV's "Unplugged" franchise is returning. Apparently, someone reminded the people at MTV that the "M" stands for music.

The show will return on June 22 with Bon Jovi. Also on tap for this summer is
The Police, which should be awesome to see.

"Unplugged" was an MTV staple in my college days, with great performances from the likes of Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Elton John, 10,000 Maniacs, R.E.M. and of course Tony Bennett.

This time the show will also be shown other Viacom properties like VH1 and CMT.

Wishful thinking from The Onion

Nation To Ken Griffey Jr.: 'We Wish It Were You Hitting 756 Home Runs'

And the winner is...

The MTV Movie Awards are coming up this weekend. It is traditionally the only thing I'll make a point to watch on MTV all year and is perhaps my favorite awards show.

The show is famous for its irreverant categories -- like "Best Fight Scene," "Best Kiss" and "Best Villain," just to name a few.

With that in mind, Television Without Pity has come out with a tongue-in-cheek list of rejected MTV Movie Award categories. Here are some of my favorites:

• Best Original Breasts
• Best Adapted Breasts
• Best Blowing Of The Minds Of Comic-Book Collectors
• Best Reemergence From Rehab
• Best Barely Veiled Scientology Parable
• Best Randy Newman Song About How We'll Be Friends Till The End Of This Cartoon
• Best Ending We Kind Of Didn't Get, But Whatever, Man
• Best Performance By A Person Who Would Appreciate It If You Forgot All About That Last Movie He Was In
• Best Scene Taking Place At Night In The Rain (Yelling)
  Best Scene Taking Place At Night In The Rain (Making Out)
• Best Movie To See Drunk With Your Friends
• Best Scene It's Awkward To Watch With Your Parents
• Best Uninterrupted Stream Of Profanity

Vader Sessoins

We geeked out tonight, watching both "Star Wars Tech" and "Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed" on the History Channel. Both documentaries were good and amounted to Nerd TV at its finest.

And it inspired me to throw on this clip I stumbled upon recently...

Gearing up for Tour de Cure

I've been really lazy in getting ready for this year's Tour de Cure. On my last bike ride I only went about 12 miles. I should have more miles under my belt by now.

I'm hoping I can still do the 50-mile route on June 10. But if I don't feel ready, then I guess I'll just do the 25-mile route.

I've also been slacking off in looking for donations. I only just go around to sending my e-mail message out to people today. I'm sure many of you received it. If you didn't, you can donate here. Thanks in advance!

My growing boy

So this is a first. Thomas is at a friend's house this afternoon and Nolan is staying home. Usually Thomas stays in the car while I'm walking Nolan into a friend's house, but today Nolan had to sit in the car. Wow! It's really hitting me lately how we're a family with 2 growing boys. The groceries just aren't lasting like they used to. No more diapers. And pretty soon we won't even have a car seat anymore. In September, Nolan will be in 2nd grade and Thomas will be pre-K 3 times a week. I'm sad in a way that the baby days are over. I wish we could add a girl to our clan. But I'm confident that our family is complete.

We've had less baseball games lately because of our community field day and this holiday weekend, but we've been filling in the time with practices and other stuff. Chris mentioned going to the USS Slater which we all enjoyed. We've been going to the YMCA a lot lately. Last week, Thomas and I went to see the Albany Symphony Orchestra give a Tiny Tots Concert with a friend. That was great and he was really overwhelmed by it. They introduced all the instruments and played classics that even Thomas recognized. We had Nolan's conference in school last week and he is doing just great. Other than needing to write more neatly, he's really excelling in math and reading. This week, we have 2 games and Thomas' end of the year show at preschool. Next weekend we are volunteering to help install the new playground at Nolan's school. And there is a picnic for his Cub Scout Pack in which we're in charge. So we are all getting sucked in to activities and having fun. Things are finishing up as June approaches and we are excited for the lazy days of summer-

The classics

It was classic movie weekend at the Rooney house.

Saturday night I caught the latter half of “The Quiet Man.” If you have a drop of Irish blood in you, then you’ve likely seen this movie more than once and loved every minute of it.

This was part of AMC’s Jown Wayne marathon Saturday in honor of the Duke’s 100th birthday.

Then on Sunday I watched “The Magnificent Seven” on DVD -- a great western with some of the greatest theme music in the history of movies.

Anchors Aweigh

In honor of Memorial Day weekend, we took a tour of the USS Slater this morning in Albany.

This was originally supposed to be a Cub Scout trip, but most of the families dropped out of the trip for one reason or another. So it wound being just us and one other family.

The Slater is a Destroyer Escort that hunted German U-boats in the North Atlantic during World War II.

In fact, it's the last WWII-era Destroyer Escort still afloat in the United States.

The Navy decommissioned the Slater in 1947. About four years later she was transferred to the Greek navy. Forty years after that the Greeks donated her to the Destroyer Escort Historical Museum. Over the next several years, volunteers -- mostly former sailors -- raised money and faithfully restored the Slater to her former glory. She's been on display in Albany for about 10 years now.

This was our first visit to the Slater. It's an amazing piece of history to have right in our neck of the woods.

Blame it on Dave

According to the Associated Press, presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani thinks the state of the war in Iraq is all David Letterman's fault...

Thanks, Shannon!

'End of Volume One'

I loved the season finale of "Heroes." It tied things up pretty well and left just enough loose ends to keep the show going.

But I'm left with one question (in inviso text in case you haven't watched the show yet)...

Couldn't Peter have just flown up in the air by himself? After all he absorbed Nathan's power way back at the beginning of the season. Why did he need Nathan to fly him up, up and away? Kris thinks maybe he can only use one power at a time and therefore couldn't fly while his radioactive juices were flowing. I don't know.

Anyway, this was still the best show of the 2006-2007 season. I can't wait to see what they come up with for "Volume Two."

100 Movies, 100 numbers

Here's another video I spotted on EW's PopWatch. In the tradition of AFI's "Top 100" lists, here's "100 Movies, 100 numbers..."

Don't rain on my parade

Niska Day was pretty much a washout this year. But at least we were still able to march in the parade and stay relatively dry. It just sprinkled on and off.

This was the first time for Nolan (and Kris, Thomas and Chester) to march in the parade. We walked with the Cub Scouts and everyone had a great time.

I was very proud. I told Nolan and a few other people how I had marched in the first two Niska Day parades in 1981 and 82 with the Cub Scouts. Now here we were coming full circle.

We wandered around at the high school later in the day, equipped in our camping rain gear. The kids played some games, but it was really too wet for the rides or anything else.

I had hoped this would be the year I'd finally convince Nolan to go see the fireworks, but it was pouring last night. I could still hear the fireworks over our house, but I can't imagine there was much of a crowd there to see them.

Oh well. There is always next year.

Rush meets Bill

Brian Williams pointed this out on the Daily Nightly. It's a transcript from the Rush Limbaugh Show dated May 17, detailing what happened when Rush went to dinner at an upscale steak house in New York and bumped into former President Bill Clinton.

What happened is that the two were very cordial with each other and shared some pleasant conversation.

Shocked? So were some die hard ditto-heads, apparently. Here's a quote from near the end of the transcript that you probably never would have imagined coming from Limbaugh:

You people need to relax out there, some of you. Not all of you are uptight about this. Some of you need to just lighten up out there.

Mmm...treats!

A big thanks to our friends the Brownells, who seem to be always supplying us with yummy treats.

Not long ago we came home from a ballgame to find a dozen Krispy Kremes on waiting on our doorstep.

Today they dropped off a bag of "Yankee mix" M&M's (they're blue, white and gray) and this delicious doggy treat for Chester (and Ray is a Red Sox fan even). Thanks guys!

Sting & The Boss

I spotted this on EW's Popwatch blog and thought it was pretty cool. This is Sting and Bruce Springsteen singing a duet on The Boss' "The River."

I have no idea when this was recorded. It looks like it was quite a while ago.

Take me out to the ballgame

Nolan's team played another baseball game last night.

It's really great to see how far these kids have come in a couple of years. They're starting to pay more attention to the game and are getting a much better feel for how to field the ball. It's fun to watch!

Here is a shot of Nolan in action taken by one of the other dads at last weekend's game...

Free Comic Book Day

I further indoctrinated the kids into the world of geekdom last weekend when we took part in the annual Free Comic Book Day festivities.

Free Comic Book Day is an event staged by the comic book industry on the first Saturday of May. They've been doing it for several years now. Marvel, DC and some other comic book companies all publish some books they're willing to give away for free on that day. It's all intended to get people into comic book shops and stir up more interest in the medium.

So I took the kids down to Electric City Comics--the shop where I purchased most of my collection over the years.

The guys in the shop let the kids each pick out two books. So Nolan got a Transformers book and a Sonic the Hedgehog comic. For Thomas it was Spider-Man and Justice League Unlimited.

Springtime hike

We went for an enjoyable walk in the woods today. I can’t tell you exactly where we were, because we were letterboxing—a fun pastime we’ve taken up as a family—and I shouldn’t give away the secret location of the letterbox we were searching for today.

But I’ll share some photos of the hike anyway…

Caught in a tangled web

I got to see the long-awaited “Spider-Man 3” last night. Although I won’t say it was a bad movie, I have to admit I was a little disappointed.

Regular readers will recall I’ve been expressing some reservations about this movie for quite some time. I was hoping I’d be wrong. Oh well.

There’s just too much in this movie. It’s got three classic villains from the comic books. Any one of them could have carried the movie on their own as the single main bad guy. But instead they all get short changed to a degree—especially Venom. He’s one of the all-time top Spider-Man bad guys and yet he barely got any of the screen time he deserved.

And as if the three bad guys (Sandman and the second Green Goblin being the other two) weren’t enough, they also cram in Gwen Stacey (and her police captain father).

I also didn’t care for parts of the “Dark Peter Parker” storyline. This was a deviation from the way the story of Spidey’s black, alien costume was handled in the comics. To me, it was reminiscent of the mid-1990s, around the time I stopped collecting comics, when storylines at the time resulted in the Spidey books becoming much too dark for their own good. The fun was sucked right out of Spider-Man then, and that’s what happened again in this movie.

Like I said, it wasn’t all bad. There were still some moments I liked and some parts that were fun. But overall this movie just tried too hard.

I loved the first two movies so much and was optimistic director Sam Raimi knew what he was doing and would pull this one off. Now I hope whoever does the inevitable “Spider-Man 4” takes a less is more approach delivers a much simpler story. I’m going to start the campaign now for the Lizard as the next featured villain.

SIDE NOTE: That shot above reminds me a lot of the cover of "Web of Spider-man #1." I wonder if that was intentional? If so, then well done. I always loved that cover.

Burning the candle at both ends

Wow. Life has been crazy lately.

It all started a few weeks ago when I took on the task of editing the end-of-the-year Cub Scout slide show for the annual Blue & Gold dinner. I guess in past years the slide show has been a relatively simple presentation. But I wanted to do something really cool.

However, that meant about four or five late nights, working on the computer until about 2 a.m. But it was all worth it. The seven-minute video turned out really nice and people seemed to enjoy it.

I finished the slide show just in time to spend another week of late nights working on getting the new WNYT.com ready. It launched this past Monday. But with less than a week to go to launch day there was still SO MUCH to do. Actually, there is still a lot left to do, but I got enough ready that we were comfortable launching it.

It will never feel completely finished, but that’s just me. It’s been almost three years since our last redesign and I never really stopped feeling like that site was a work in progress.

Anyway, after those two weeks I was just worn out. Then I got sick. I had a nasty cold for the past week.

Oh, and did I mention we’re also knee-deep in the baseball season? We usually have at least one practice a week and two games. And for the first couple of weeks (yes, those same two weeks I was putting in the late nights) our games were all on weeknights. That meant leaving work early despite how busy I was there. And so that meant even more working at home on those nights.

So now you know what I’ve been up to lately and why the blog sort of fell by the wayside.

I’ve fallen WAAAYYY behind on my RSS feeds too. The time was when I was practically addicted to Google Reader, checking my feeds almost constantly from the time I woke up until I went to bed at the end of the day. But these last few weeks I’d be lucky if I’d glance at the reader once. And then I’d usually feel so overwhelmed by the list of unread items that I wouldn’t know where to begin—so I wouldn’t.

Anyway, I hope that in the weeks to come things will settle down some and return to normal a little.

Remember me?

I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth. I've just been mega busy. I promise to get back into the habit of regular posting soon.

In meantime, I like to send out congratulations to my brother Tim who turned 50 earlier this week, my nephew Patrick who was crowned prom king last weekend, and my college classmate and fellow blogger Mike Sussman on the birth of his new daughter Darah Shea.

Baseball is here!

The Rooneys are now in the throws of baseball and spend our waking hours on the field. Nolan absolutely loves it. He is so excited every time he goes out there and has even been hiding his cold so I won't think he's too sick to play. Every year, it is more like the real rules of baseball. This year the coach stands and pitches instead of kneeling, they call outs (but not strikes) and they get to play catcher. Nolan hopes he gets to do that soon and wear the gear (including a cup!). Thomas is also into the scene. He was helping Daddy pitch yesterday at practice. Mostly he has been working the crowd, talking to anyone that will listen to him (and he has a lot to say!). There is one boy that is a younger sibling of a player too but he is 5. Thomas thinks he is IT and trails after him a lot. I love it because he's getting more independent so I can actually watch the game.

But it's not all baseball. Last weekend, we had a great time going to a campground, Cherry Plain State Park. What a little gem that is! We just went for the day to check it out for a future camping trip. It was an old CCC camp that is converted to a campground. There is a dam built to make a small pond, and a charcoal kiln which we didn't find but hope to explore next time. We had a little picnic and went for a walk. There was a thin layer of ice on the water that we had fun throwing rocks at, in hopes of breaking through. Nolan was the only one to do it.

Nolan's class is hatching duck and chicken eggs, so we're becoming embryology experts. We've been learning to ride bikes too. We found a bigger bike for Nolan on the side of the road that someone didn't want anymore (score!) and Thomas got a little bike with training wheels. So we're figuring them out. And of course there is a ton of yardwork. Thomas and I are going to get dirt today. Yesterday I finished cleaning out the garage and it looks fantastic! I keep going out to look at it.

This weekend will be more of the same--yardwork, playing with friends and a birthday party. 37 more school days left!

Universal universities

I spotted this on The News Hole...

THEY KNOW FROM LOSS More than 200 University professors in Iraq have been killed in the past few years, never mind the number of students, making the banner hung at Baghdad Technology University that much more poignant. "We, the students of Technology University, denounce the attack at Virginia Tech. We extend our condolences to the families of the victims who faced a situation as bad as Iraq's universities do. The sanctity of campuses must be protected around the world."

Are there still radios at Radio Shack?

I was going to just link to this in my "Things That Caught My Eye" section. But then I saw that the Onion articles have this neat little "Blog This" button that gives you the code to embed snippets like this on your site...

Even CEO Can't Figure Out How RadioShack Still In Business

FORT WORTH, TX—After a through review of its operations, RadioShack CEO Julian Day could provide no real explanation for the analog-riddled company's staying power.

Honoring Ponch

Hey, I loved "CHiPs" and all when I was a kid, but come on. Is it just me or does it seem like standards are being lowered when Erik Estrada gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?

And if we're giving Ponch a star, then where's the love for Larry Wilcox?

Life moves on

A sign that life is moving on after the Virginia Tech shootings...MSNBC just reported an Anna Nicole Smith story for the first time in several days.

Courting disaster

Whenever there is a tragedy like the massacre at Virginia Tech, it makes me think of one particular kid I went to high school with. Let’s call him “Junior.”

If you asked me to pick the kid from my class most likely to go on a shooting rampage, I’d say it was Junior.

My town is fairly affluent. But Junior came from the “other side of the tracks.” He was quiet, a little awkward and didn’t seem to have too many friends (any of this sound familiar?).

I also remember him getting picked on a lot. And not just by students. Junior was in my freshman math class and was a favorite target of our teacher’s ridicule. I remember he used to poke fun of Junior almost every day right in front of the whole class.

That seemed be this teacher’s schtick. He would single out a kid in each of his classes and pick on him with a variation of his usual set of insults. In my class it was Junior.

Even back then I remember thinking that this teacher was a jerk and kind of a bully—especially for the way he treated Junior. But I never did anything. If I had it to over again, I would go to this teacher and tell him to ease up on the kid. It probably wouldn’t have hurt also to befriend Junior try to get to know him better.

Seeing horrible events like Columbine and Virginia Tech, and given what we eventually learn about the students pulling the triggers, it seems like back then our math teacher—and all of us really, by our actions or inactions—were courting disaster.

I have no idea where Junior is now or how he turned out. I don’t mean to paint him as potential homicidal lunatic—that’s why I didn’t use his real name. I’m just saying that I see certain parallels when these cases happen. High school couldn’t have been easy for him. So when these things happen, I count my blessings—and even though he didn’t snap, I still wish I stepped up for Junior.

'Indiana Jones and the...'

The word on Ain't It Cool News is that the title for Indy IV is...

"Indiana Jones and the City of Gods"

Besides Harrison Ford we know the cast will include Cate Blanchett and Shia Labeouf (most likely as Indy's kid...ugh). They're still in talks with Sean Connery and the fanboys are hoping the rumors are true that Karen Allen will appear.

Goin' to the Zoo

Here are some highlights from our trip to the Bronx Zoo last weekend. For some reason I was having trouble getting video from my camera into the computer. So I made this just using still photos.

That's not a big deal, except I didn't shoot any stills of the gorillas. I just have video of them. So unfortunately they didn't make it into this clip...



The trip was a lot fun. We drove straight to the zoo Saturday morning and spent most of the day there. Kris had been there before, but it the first time for the rest of us. It's really an impressive place!

We spent the night in a Marriott just north of New York City. It was very nice. Our usual standards are more along the lines of Motel 6. We hit the pool and then had some pizza for dinner.

I've already detailed our trip home.

It was a great trip. It's always nice to get away for a little while.

BoSox Betrayal?

A Red Sox-fan friend of mine sent me the link to a funny SportsCenter promo that features a sight that would make most Boston fans cringe.

April showers

We took the kids to the Bronx Zoo on Saturday. I hope to youtube some highlights are at least post some photos at a later date. But for now, it will have to wait because:
A) my computer at home has died.
B) the weather is the more pressing concern right now.

As most of you know, the northeast is getting hit pretty hard. We spent the night in Tarrytown Saturday. I was optimistic we would get home before the worst of the weather hit. That didn’t work out. The trip up the Thruway was a little hairy at times. We saw seven or eight accidents—mostly cars slid off the road. Fortunately we were not involved in any of them.

When I left the house this morning, Kris was still in the basement, armed with a bucket and trying to bail out the water. Our pump just couldn’t keep up with the water as it was coming in. The water never got over an inch deep and it looked like it was slowing down when I left. But with more rain in the forecast for the next 24+ hours, I’m a little concerned.

One of the highlights of the day: I was in the midst of dumping out a bucket of water when the alert sound went off on my cell phone. I checked it and, what do you know, it was a message telling me there was a flood warning. Wow! Thanks for that tip! I would never have guessed!

My brother, a much better man than me, is getting the real raw deal from the weather day. Within the hour, he will be starting the Boston Marathon (I think this is his ninth) despite the horrible conditions there. Good luck, Tim!

UPDATE: Tim's finish time was 3:42:14.

Life after Imus

Jeff Jarvis over at BuzzMachine has some good thoughts on the Imus affair—or as he refers to it, Imus’ “macaca moment.”

He admits he’s no fan of Imus and applauds his firing. He believes that in this case, Imus’ true character was revealed and that firing was something he’s had coming for a long time.

However, he warns against setting black & white, zero tolerance standards. He points out that people are human and make mistakes. Instances like this won’t always demonstrate a fatal character flaw, but will sometimes be just an honest screw-up. The problem is that these screw-ups will be magnified 100 times on cable news and the Internet.

...Imus is a good case for discussion because what he said was truly offensive, it did reveal his essential character, and he met his justice beyond the sin of that one moment. But that won’t always be the case and even in the fast-forward society of internet and cable, we need to be able to judge thoughtfully and independently which are macaca moments and which are merely mistakes.

The fall of Don Imus

Well, this Don Imus thing sure has snowballed, hasn’t it? CBS just announced that the I-Man has been fired from his radio show—less than 24 hours after MSNBC cut ties with him.

Look, I don’t like what Imus said. I think what made it even worse was his comments weren’t directed at a public figure, but some ordinary college kids who don’t live in the public eye.

I completely agree with the decision to pull him from MSNBC. There is no place for comments like that on a news network. Imus’ defense has been that his is a comedy-entertainment program. Fine. Then get it off the news channel.

Personally, I always thought watching his radio program on TV was like watching paint dry. But I know others who enjoyed it.

Now, is it right that he lost his radio show? I don’t know. Certainly, I’ve heard worse things on the radio. I was once a regular Howard Stern listener. I used to tell people that if you don’t like Stern, then don’t listen. I think I would have said the same thing in this case.

But the writing was clearly on the wall. On Mike & Mike this morning on ESPN Radio, the comment was made that this was not a black or white issue, but a green one. Radio is a business. Once the major advertisers start pulling out, what incentive is there to keep him on?

So the powers that be have stood up and made an example of Imus. Okay. Just don’t stop there. Let’s see Al Sharpton and company put the same kind of pressure on the record labels and radio programmers that promote the hip hop music full of the same kind of language that brought Imus down.

As for Imus, I doubt we’ve heard the last of him. Anyone want to place bets on how long it will be before he turns up on satellite radio?

Looks 'Smart' to me

Ok, I can't help but share one more piece of geeky movie news. USA Today has first look at the new movie version of "Get Smart!"

Steve Carell and Ann Hathaway are stepping in for the late, great Don Adams as Maxwell Smart and Barbara Feldon as Agent 99.

I enjoyed "Get Smart!" reruns as a kid and I'm looking forward to this movie version.

Translating classic TV shows to the big screen with new cast members can be tricky business. It seems like there have been more misses than hits. But there's something about this photo. These two really look the parts.

The casting is great. Besides Carell and Hathaway, the movie wil also feature Alan Arkin and The Rock.

The movie isn't due until June 2008.

'I Am Iron Man'

I'm counting the days until the release of "Spider-Man 3."

But in the meantime, Ain't It Cool News has a scoop on another Marvel Comics character coming to the big screen. Here's a first look at Iron Man's first suit.

When Iron Man first appeared in "Tales of Suspense #39" he wore a clunky, gray suit of armor before eventually upgrading to the sleek red and gold outfiit fans are more familiar with.

It looks like he will follow suit (no pun intended) in the movie--starting out with this makeshift outfit.

Jon Favreau is directing "Iron Man" with Robert Downey Jr. starring as Tony Stark, aka Iron Man.

Inner peace

This was passed along to me by a co-worker...

We could all use a little more calmness in our lives. By following simple advice heard on the Dr. Phil show, you too, can find inner peace. Dr. Phil proclaimed, "The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you've started and
never finished."

So, I looked around my house to see all the things I'd started and hadn't finished. And before leaving the house this morning, I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream, a bottle of Kahlua,a package of Oreos, the remainder of my old Prozac prescription, the rest of the cheesecake, some Doritos and a box of chocolates. You have no idea how freaking good I feel.

Happy Birthday, Thomas!

It's hard to believe, but our little Thomas turned 4 years old today!

He had his first, real kid party. We had about four kids plus Nolan and Thomas. As you can tell from the video above, the party had a Superman theme. They played great games like "The Kryptonite Toss," "Ring Around the Daily Planet" and "Pin the S on Superman." The kids also got to decorate their own super hero capes.

All of the credit goes to Kris. She did a great job planning the party and coming up with all of those cool ideas.

My small part was taking care of the party music. I put together a nifty mix of Superman theme music that we listened to over and over.

Thomas had a great time. He went to bed very happy tonight. He's already looking forward to his next birthday--when he can once again eat candy for breakfast, doesn't have to share his toys and can pretty much do whatever he wants all day long!

Easter preps

We had some fun last weekend that was chronicled with the video camera. However, I didn't get around to youtubing it for posterity until tonight.

We took the boys to the annual Easter party at Parsons Child and Family Center, the agency we used to adopt Thomas.



In past years the eggs were scattered around outdoors. Last year it was raining. So everything was contained inside the gym.

As you can see in the video above, everything was in the gym again even though we had nice weather on Saturday. As a result, it took Nolan and Thomas about 10 seconds to "find" 20 eggs each, which they took to the person in the bunny suit and exchanged for candy.

The Easter party didn't take up as much time as we thought it would. So since we were all the way over in Albany, we decided to stop at Washington Park and hang out on the playground.



You can watch some more playground fun here.

Evil Easter Bunny

While publishing my Easter party/playground videos, I stumbled across this. Don't let the kids watch it...they may find it too disturbing!

This reminds me of what happened to Superman after he touched Richard Pryor's faux kryptonite in "Superman III." Maybe there was a bad egg or some tainted Peeps...

Red Planet getting redder?

Global warming isn't just an Earth phenomenon. Scientisits say it's also an issue on Mars.

No one has found a way to blame it on humans...yet.

Know when to say when

You all know how much I love Indiana Jones--and how skeptical I am of "Indy IV" (I hope I'm wrong)...