Triceratops Central

I had forgotten to mention that the night before the funeral there was snow. I thought it was funny in a bizarre sense. Not really funny funny, like Ha Ha funny... more like creepy funny.

I mean, it took all winter for there to be any snow. Winter ends, and we get snow. To go to his funeral in 8 inches of snow, I think he'd be laughing at us. We only got about 2 inches, and it was pretty much gone by the time we got to the funeral. But it was odd nonetheless.

Not much to report really...

Doug took all the clothing to the Salvation Army yesterday. He was on a mission. He has had a hard time dealing with this, and his hurried and was rather brusque while getting the items out of the house. It is just him trying to deal, he's not being an asshole. I was rather slow and pokey in going through what remained... and he got snippy with me. I got defensive. When I'm down, I'm slow. And yesterday I guess I was too slow. So we griped at one another for a while, and he and I both apologized and I sped up and he got less snippy. It worked out rather nicely in the end. We went out to lunch at the tavern in Georgetown, had a beer and a burger. Geoff was charming to the waitress.

I kept two flannel shirts of his, one of which he outgrew in 1999, the other of which I never got the chance to see him wearing. They're both nice, and warm... and I'll think of him every time I wear them. Doug retained his leather jacket, which is too big for him, but still looks nice on him.

He asked me "Do I look like the Mack Daddy of Merrimack Valley in this thing?"

Yes Doug, you do, and it's giving mad props to the man who left it behind.

We've only got the CDs, Magic cards and books left. Doug will do some research on the Magic cards to make sure we get a good deal on them. They are entire sets from the beginning. They look really nice... I wish I'd learned how to play Magic.

I said the other day that having no regrets is a nice thing. I guess I have only one. I wish I'd learned to play guitar or bass while I had him here. We would have made a kick ass ensemble. But for me, the desire to jam with was outweighed by the desire to just listen. I'll always have that.

---

Getting back to life is going slowly.

I forgot Jessica had a field trip today to Olde Sturbridge Village or some crap like that. She reminded me last night. Oy. She also didn't do her book report which was due yesterday, so she hurriedly finished it last night.

I was angry with her because she knew it was due... but on the other hand, I know that the last Monday of every month is book report day, and so I dropped the reminder ball.

I've been rather forgetful. We have bills that were due yesterday, and some due in the next 2 days, that I hadn't written the checks out for, so I hurriedly did that while she hurriedly did her report.

She had to be up to the school at 7:15 this morning to meet the class and go on the bus. I got her there in time after stopping for a pop-tart and Gatorade and snack for her lunchbag at the local Kwikiemart. Doug didn't look like he was going to go to work again today... he was slow to rise, slow to decide whether or not, and slow to ready, but he got out the door only 10 minutes late and I'm proud of him. He is taking this all extra hard. And there's nothing I can do but be nice. He just called, found out he has a meeting this afternoon that will run until 5:30 so he's kind of pissed and whiny. Nothing I could do but be nice.

I'm on the verge of pissing people off by not meeting my web design obligations. I have to find a good e-commerce host for the dart people and do a ton of work for the catering guys, so I have to get snapping. It's been so hard for me to focus. When I sit down here, I just stare at the PC. I actually got sick to my stomach last night when trying to research e-commerce sites, so I walked away. Tonight I have to nail that down. And I have to spend time today doing cateringman's stuff. I'm glad it finally stopped raining. Perhaps Geoff can play outside or with the neighbor girls while I work. I have to buckle down and concentrate.

I promised Geoff we'd run errands today. Don't ask. He loves errands. We have to go to the market, and pick up a prescription for me and for the dog, and I have film to be developed, so there are plenty of errands to do. I just don't feel like it just yet. I want to go back to bed or just sit and watch tv. I could use another day of nothing. But that would make me feel like I want another day of nothing. I want to call his sister and say hi and see how she is. Pick a time for that dinner in the city she wants to make for us.

Oh, and watching "The Sixth Sense" the other night was a BIGassed mistake, I should add.

I cried and cried my ass off at the end. I love Haley Joel Osment, and he is so good in this movie as the "I see dead people" kid. The whole character evolution, how sweet and lovely he is. It reminds me why I need to rail about A.I. (Dave B. said I didn't get the ending but oh I did. It sucked)... but I'll do that another day. The movie also takes place in Philly, and I remember watching it with him and having him point out all the places he'd been, and how this place and that place were so cool. So seeing them all again just made me cry. I tortured myself, it is true. I didn't have to watch, but it is such a good movie. If you've never seen it, I highly recommend it. Wonderful twist at the end... I didn't see it coming.

---

Geoff has been in nerdy little boy heaven with all of CAL's Triceratops figures... what's left of the original collection that he had.

He'd gone through a phase where he collected Triceratops related items. Why? Good question. We never figured it out. He did a website on "The Mighty Triceratops" which has vanished due to Geocities being dopes, and his IM id was MightyTrike, or MyTTrike... depending on which he wanted to use.

Triceratops was his favorite dinosaur, as if one needed to pick one, because it was the only one that could stand up to T-Rex and win. Plus, he said he was built like a Triceratops. Big and slow and smart. So he was into it.

A little too into it I might add. We'd talked a lot about how he had an addictive personality... if it wasn't fantasy baseball, or Magic, or D&D, it was the Triceratops... and then other things.

Geoff is oblivious to what people are going through right now, and I'm glad he is. He is so over emotional about stuff at times, so I think if he were 10 and dealing with losing his big buddy, he wouldn't do well.

He's happy to have the Triceratops, and asks about Ivy and how she's doing because she was sad when she was at our house this weekend, and he wants to see her again and give her a painting.

Jessica is dealing well, but it has been so long since she has really spent time with him that the impact on her is a lot less than what one might think. The important lesson here for her is the drug lesson... what happens to people when they slip into addiction is very serious. And it leaves quite a mess behind. So her eyes are open... her understanding is clear. I'm glad she's my kid. She's amazing to me.

There are a friggin ton of Triceratops (Triceratopses? Triceratae?) in my house right now and it is making me laugh.

Well, I'm going to save this and post it. I'm going to eat breakfast. Geoff's watching Bob the Builder, and we need to get going.

Time to live. Time to run errands.

relax, unwind, blow off steam...

It has been kind of a rough assed week. Two major projects had deadlines this week. And it hasn't been my usual "Nothin' but Net" kind of week either.

One of the projects has serious issues program philosophy-wise, but the tool itself works fine. It's going to require some user training so people know what to do and where to click. I am frustrated with the project itself, so sick of it, and it HAS to be released on Monday because it was SUPPOSED to be released YESTERDAY, but because of all sorts of issues and the fact that any stake in the ground that had been planted for tool features had moved so many times, we kind of lost control of the thing and how.

The other one was also supposed to be pushed yesterday but due to server problems it was pushed back to tonight. Now it is pushed back to Friday. So I have a tiny bit of time to tidy up shit and make it all work better. I just spent the better part of 3 hours cleaning up the findings from a QA report on a huge section that my intern did for me. He either didn't realize he was leaving shit undone or just sucks, but the whole 5 page report was stuff he messed up. And I blew up. He is of course gone for the rest of the summer and hurried through this because he was SUPPOSED to do this section of the site while I was on vacation but says that was never put on his list of things to do, so he had no idea... and he got defensive and mean about it. I'd kill him, but he's like the CEO's only son and I may go to jail for the rest of my life and it just wouldn't be worth it.. so I'll go home and have a beer.

I hate projects that feel rushed so I absolutely LOVE when there is an extension and the extension has nothing to do with the fact I have not yet completed my shit. My 2nd project is like that. I got all my ducks in a row today, busted my ass. Came in early, stayed late every day this week so far, and I am caught up on that shit. So the fact that there is a delay simply means I have more time to focus on Project One now. There is still some help and training documentation that I have to finish writing and get up onto the portal.

Another thing that pisses me off about both of these projects IS our portal. We are switching servers, and the new server is currently serving as a QA site... which is great, so we can check all our new shit before the world gets to see it. I can't get, or I get but cannot maintain, an FTP connection for longer than 2 minutes, or, 2 files. So I have to disconnect, restart Dreamweaver, send things one file at a time (a bitch and a half when you have to send 50 files). Then we find our our UNIX group changed our password on us due to some security issues... and never told anyone, so none of the WebDev team could get in for like a whole day until we finally got it figured out.

My boss is out of town... and normally if I went in there and asked her to go kick someone's ass she would. I like that about her (except when someone asks her to kick mine. ouch.) But there was no upper level command chain person to go scream to this morning, so one of my co-workers on the WebDev team went to the director of the Helpdesk area and let him have it because his team sucks at communication, does shit without sending out a message and is just generally no fucking help. I'm glad he went instead of me. I would have gone house on the dude. (ha.)...

Okay enough bitching about work. I am done. Done with bitching about the projects, deadlines, interns and lousy UNIX eunuchs.

---

We have an update on movie rentals... We rented 3 Wallace & Gromit movies, for my son really but they are lots of fun to watch. I enjoy the aardman animations. Geoff is a funny 4 yr. old... I've never met anyone like him.

We also rented Clay Pigeons, which Doug watched but I didn't because went to Maine for the weekend with the kids (Doug was at a conference so I spent Saturday and Sunday at the Hyde-A-Way, ha ha ha, in Maine... home of Marcia, Wayne, Pete, Natalie and Mary Hyde...). He really liked it and said I would have liked it too, but it had to go back to the store so we could avoid getting our collective movie-rentin' ass hit with a fine.

And last night, after being beat to crap tired, we went to Newburyport, MA for their "Yankee Homecoming" suare, and saw the Boogaloo Swamis... kind of a zydeco meets Jimmy Buffet band. And when we got home at 10pm, Doug popped in the movie rental for that night, which was "Gone in 60 Seconds."

I have a LOT to say about that flick.

1. It was corny and stupid. It took forever to establish that the brother was a reluctant hero. He was sent away from "the life" of stealing cars by his momma, and came back to save his brother, but only with his momma's blessing. What a tool.
2. I didn't like Nick Cage's performance here. Mind you, he stars in my ALL TIME FAVORITE MOVIE IN THE WORLD, "Raising Arizona." And his character is supposed to be slick, and clever, and witty... I found him dull, boring and unconvincing.
3. What is the attraction this world has with friggin Angelina Jolie????? She can't act her way out of a sopping wet paper sack. Someone do something with those googly eyes and them big ugly flappy lips. She makes me sick. Stupid hair on her too. She's a doorknob.
4. The "Low Rider" scene where they all stand there and crank that hackneyed alleged classic rock song before going out. Was it a beautiful prayer like ritual, focusing on their family of car thieves with a moment of prayer, or was it just fucking retarded. I say the latter.
5. The snake scene... where Sphinx and technogoober, Chris Tucker wannabe, stupid glasses, freaky black kid dude are riding in the Hummer and the snake is in the kid's lap... there were so many opportunities for that to be funnier by the dude throwing the snake into the cop car or the booth where the garage attendant sat, or, Sphinx could have picked it up out of the kid's lap and bit it's head off, thus appearing as homo-erotic and super on edge! But no. A great lost opportunity.
6. Not enough good driving scenes. The one good scene at the end, I had to wait almost 2 hours to get to. Gone in 60 seconds isn't a driving fast movie, it's a stealing cars quietly movie. So it wasn't nearly as great as I had hoped.
7. Goofy white cop needed a smack in the face.
8. The dialog was pretty horrid... Especially the fact they had to establish that Calitri loved to build wood furniture. Every bad guy has a hobby. We know that. And the dialog between Cage and the dude that comes to get him was pretty horrid. It was almost laughable.

This movie wasn't a complete waste of my time.
The stuff I liked is heavily outweighed by the stuff I didn't like though...

1. The Sphinx is Vinnie Jones, who stars in "Snatch" and "Lock, Stock..." and he has the best line in the movie. He also is one fun to watch, crazy summabitch so I did like that. He is awesome.
   
   "If his unpleasant wounding has in some way enlightened the rest of you as to the grim finish beneath the glossy veneer of criminal life, then his injuries carry with it an inherent nobility, and a supreme glory. We should all be so fortunate. You say poor Toby? I say poor us."
   
   
2. Nick Cage's retarded and hopeless asshole of a little brother was played by Giovanni Ribisi, who I loved in the X-files, when he was in the episode "D.P.O" as the kid who could channel electricity and do all kinds of crazy messed up stuff (note also that Jack Black is in this episode too, and he's cool...). He sucks in this movie though and you so want him to either get crushed in the car by the crazy Irish asshole who forces Nick Cage back into the life...
3. The Irish bad guy, Calitri, was truly hateful, and your arch-nemesis has to be truly hateful. He made good furniture. And he had a great accent.
4. Robert Duvall. Need I say more.
5. Nick Cage's face when he jumps over the traffic accident in the GTO. Usually in movies, or the Dukes of Hazard, the driver is like "yeah! cool!" or way too calm about it. Cage's face was that of a man stunned that he was still alive, driving and going to make his deadline. It was the most convincing scene in an unconvincing movie.

What movie is on tap tonight at the Way Out Inn? Who knows. All I know is I've been typing for an hour straight, I feel much much better about my horrible day... I have funny pictures to pick up at Osco, and I am outta here. Hurrah!

make it a blockbuster night...

We enrolled in the Blockbuster Video 30 movies in 30 days for 30 bucks program. Doug figures with the summer free, he can watch 30 movies. So far, so good. We have rented, with my Roger Ebertesque comments:

1. 102 Dalmatians: Unwatchable. My kids asked to fast forward over some of the parts of the film that were SO stupid and boring that they felt their brains were going to rot out of their heads. Once I realized one of my all time favorite people, Eric Idle, had been reduced to being the voice of the retarded, stupid, annoying parrot who thinks he's a dog, I gave up watching. Oh, how the funny have fallen.

2. The Cell: Doug watched it, I didn't... I fell asleep. He said about 20 minutes of it were some of the best cinematography he'd ever seen. Jennifer Lopez keeps her clothing on... but there's a nice shot of her ass as she's bending into the fridge to get a snack. Those were the highlights for him. I am sure he has a more intellectual angle and synopsis of the film, but didn't offer it to me.

3. Legend of the Drunken Master: I like Jackie Chan flicks. I think he's funny, and always has a lot of good action... even when the plot is ridiculous. Well, here's a ridiculous plot, and a ridiculous cast, and Jackie in the middle of them all. The movie goes a long way to establish the family relationships, and show what Drunken Boxing is... Jackie gets in a shitload of trouble from his dad for doing the forbidden martial art, but in the end, it is his forbidden martial art that saves the day! Hurrah! The first 20 minutes are boring as all get out. The film doesn't pick up much more from there, but there are two amazing fight scenes... one where he and the master are fighting "the Axe Gang," which is a hoard of 200 axe-wielding maniacs out to kill them. Of course, Jackie wins, but the master ends up getting shot by the head of the bad guys who hired the axe gang. And then he fights the two lead bad guys... eventually winning, but it's some good choreography and fighting. Jackie saves the day! I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone per se, but if it was all you had, you'd want to watch it more than 102 Dalmatians.

4. Billy Elliot: Aside from the fact that watching any English movie is like watching a Shakespearean play where it takes about 20 minutes to get used to the accent and figure out what the hell they're talking about, this was a damn fine little movie. Happy ending, sad plot... more domestic violence than I've ever seen in a movie since "Mommie Dearest." The lead character has one of the best lines: "Just because I like the Bally (ballet) doesn't mean I'm a Poof." I enjoyed it greatly.

5. Snatch: Damn fine fucking movie. Again, the whole british accent thing is a tad troublesome, and the ones I can barely understand can't understand the gypsies (pikers), the chief character of which is Brad Pitt, who does a nice job of being one sneaky bastard. I enjoyed how the plot just twisted around itself, and things collided and got messy... Guy Ritchie directed/wrote this, as also he did "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrells," and I am really liking this guy's work. The stuff he does with the camera (card scene in "Lock, Stock" and the diamond vault invasion scene, boxing scenes in "Snatch") are so cool. He's a talented writer and director. Can't wait to see what he does next. Highly recommend this movie.

6. Garden of Evil: (aka: the Evil Gardener). This was an accident. I wanted Gladiator, and so I reached for the box behind the sample picture box and pulled a video out without checking to see what it was... it wasn't Gladiator. I had gone to bed, feeling wiped from the day, so Doug popped the flick in, and was shocked. He said it was one of the worst movies ever. Malcolm McDowell is chasing people around trying to kill them and plant them in his garden. And there is a police chief who is like the chief on "McBain" on the Simpsons, only he isn't the least bit ironic... which made him horribly funny. Doug fast forwarded over a lot of the film and was grumpy with me for not checking to see which film I was picking up. But hey, I made a one dollar mistake... not a $4000 mistake! Ha! Get over it. I'll rent Gladiator for him tonight.