The Magical Month of May

So what's new? My last post seemed to be pretty grim in spots but everything has been going quite nicely lately. So my dad's still on the road to recovery but it's good to finally have him home. I lived over at his house for a little while after his return from the physical therapy center and have been driving him around from time to time, but aside from that he's fairly independent. Aside from helping my dad with various chores I haven't been doing too much as of the past few weeks. I found out at BCC that I met my math requirement and was taking a class I didn't need, he suggested I drop the class so my schedules been pretty easy, and I get home at like 11:00 but I still have to wake up at seven in the morning, fortunately I was told that I'm on good path to getting my associates. I probably could of gotten it this year if BCC offered most of the important video production classes more frequently. Due to that I'll probably be there another year before I transfer for anywhere. I feel like I'm on a very slow path but I'm determined and I just got to stay focused.

Our latest Ferret "Steve II" or as my mom has been calling him "Cap Garland" (I think it's from a Laura Ingalls Wilder book) recently had to go to the vet for an obstruction. Meaning he ate something (in this case some rubber tubing) that he couldn't digest which if not treated in 48 hours would kill him. Luckily we got him in quickly and he's already home and in good shape. It was our second ferret to have an obstruction (Don't worry that one was okay too) so we weren't too worried and now it's all good.

On to less pressing issues, what's new in the world of movies? So far May has been pretty "Whatever" for me. Star Trek was fine but I don't understand what all the hubbub is about. It's like when Dark Knight came out and everyone loved it (I include myself) but my dad was like "Yeah it's fine but nothing special. I liked the first one better." I understood his complaints, but I didn't get how anyone could not be blown away. So now it's like I'm in the position he was and it's weird. I love the original show's clever, character driven writing, it was a thinking man's sci-fi, but this new one doesn't remind me of that at all. Seems more like a tongue and cheek action flick than anything else. I've also made it clear that I didn't like Zachary Quinto, I felt he had no presence and was just a prick, oh well.

Soon to come will be Terminator Salvation which thus far hasn't received very generous reviews. Sounds like the consensus is that director McG sucks. Looking ahead there's Drag Me To Hell and Up both being released on my birthday. Both currently have 100%s on Rotten Tomatoes (Though DMH only has seven ratings opposed to Up's twenty) I love Sam Raimi, especially his horror and thriller films, so I hope DMH is good despite it's generic horror trailers. I'm not too interested in Up yet but I bet I'll like it, Pixar rarely disappoints.

I finally tried one of those "3 for $20" sales at Blockbuster that Sean's always telling me about. Was kind of neat but I had a hell of a time picking a third movie. I almost got Zach and Miri Make a Porno but it had this stupid "blockbuster edition" design on the cover, not very esthetically pleasing. I ended up buying Ghost Town, In Bruges and Pineapple Express all three films that I very much enjoy.

Well that's all I got the energy for today, keep on truckin'.

April 21st

It's been a scary week for the family as my dad has been in the hospital since Tuesday. He came over that night with terrible pains around his chest and neck, I never really got a good idea of what he was feeling, but he was in a lot of pain so he asked me to take him to the emergency room. At first no one thought it would be anything serious. My dad frequently goes to the doctor for various ailments and had never faced anything too serious, until now.

We went to Evergreen where they got him in immediately, but had trouble finding out exactly what the problem was. He was having distorted vision, among other bizarre symptoms but it took many hours before anyone could figure out the problem (I'll try my best to describe what exactly was wrong). At about 10 or 11, the doctor came to the conclusion that his aorta (a large artery that sends oxygenated blood to parts of the body) was tearing, calling for an immediate transfer to Overlake Hospital and immediate cardiovascular surgery.

This was a lot to take in all at once. This was a very serious surgery and he could very well die from many different factors. He started calling family members and telling me things if he didn't make it through the night, it was an extremely emotional moment. Initially, the doctor said I should follow the ambulance driver to Overlake, but when the driver came in he responded with "What? No that's insane do you know how fast I drive?" I was a little relieved that I wouldn't have to follow a speeding ambulance, but that didn't take much of a dent out of my worries.

I drove home to meet up with the rest of the family, where we would head out after I filled them in on what I knew. We arrived at Overlake later that night, where we would meet the surgeon that would be performing the surgery Dr. Vu Trong Hoang. The doctor gave us a little more insight on the condition, which apparently in the medical world had become known as "John Ritter Syndrome" after John Ritter died of essentially the same condition in 2003.

After this we went to see my dad one last time before the surgery. He seemed fairly optimistic but I was still freaked out and with good reason. We spent about three or so hours at the hospital and soon enough, my grandma and aunts showed up. We all talked for awhile but later decided that at least Paul and I should go home and try and get some sleep. We did so, but I didn't get much sleep that night. We went back to the hospital the next morning to luckily find that the surgery was a success, but he wasn't in the clear yet. There was about a 48 hour time frame where other things could go wrong. I could tell you of all the other worries that went through everyone's minds in that period, but let's flash forward to today.

It's been almost five days since my dad went into surgery and he's recovering quite nicely. I've missed some school and literally hadn't felt like doing anything for most of the week, this including missing the last Killers concert among other things. Luckily, everything seems to be stable now, it's been comforting seeing everyone in the family come and visit, not to mention some of my dad's friends such as; his best friend Dick, his boss Sam and his old friend Ron, who visited my dad before he could recognize anyone (due to the drugs he'd be given) my dad thought he was a doctor.

That's about as much as I feel comfortable talking about, it's been really hard on everyone, especially my dad. Fortunately this isn't some condition that's going to drastically change his life afterwards, at least to my understanding. Once it is fixed, it's fixed and shouldn't come back in some new form. As a matter of fact my Grandpa went through the same surgery in the 80s and lived another twenty or so years, dying from an unrelated ailment, plus he was older than my dad when he had it done. So I'm optimistic towards the future and as of right now, it appears everything is going to be just fine.

What's Weak this Week?

Well here we are into April and I'm currently on my second week of classes. I've Anthropology this quarter which so far is both fun and fascinating. It seems like most of my favorite classes at BCC have been taught by younger, cooler teachers, I guess they're just more in touch with this go-go gadget modern world. I've also got my typical math class, hopefully this will be one of the last ones I take, it;s taught by your typical Mr. Mabbott-esque old guy educator. I've also got my online class which I like now but really pissed me off at first.


So I signed up for an online class called "American Heroes" just before Spring Break. It didn't really give any specific information regarding the class specifics online, but being that it would give me some of that sweet, sweet credit I signed up. Then I went to go get my books during Spring Break in which I received a National Geographic book called "American Heroes" and a book about Malcolm X. So I figure "Okay this is a class about influential Americans." but that didn't turn out to be the case. The class turned out to be about Western heroes in fiction. Well that's cool, but why the hell did I get these other books? I sent my teacher and email but he never responded. A lot of other people in the class were hella confused but didn't get answer either, so everybody' just went with it. Basically we watch a western every week and than take a quiz and write a brief character analysis along with some reading and essays. The only thing is no one has the actual book yet because everyone got some Malcolm X book. So I just ordered this apparently new book off of Amazon with the dough I got from selling some old books to BCC and here I am now.


Let's see what else is worth discussion? Oh, April Fool's Day was just great last week in our household. My mom usually plays a prank on Paul and myself every year, which I usually don't enjoy, but this year it was pretty good. So I awoke that morning at about 7:00, completely forgetting it was April Fools, got dressed and opened my door only to reveal something that gave me a good scare. For what else was standing behind that door but a life size cut out of Zach Effron. At first I thought it was lPaul standing before me with a large disturbing grin but after I realized it was just a cardboard cut out I had a good laugh. I tried the same prank on Paul leaving it in front of his door for when he woke up, but he wasn't really that surprised. As the day progressed everyone was taking that cutout and hiding all around the house. You'd find it in various rooms, in the shower it was everywhere. That was a good day in my book.


Last weekend the family and I went to the Swedish Cultural Center for it's monthly Swedish breakfast which was good. I'd never felt so accepted with all the old paintings and artwork of tall blonde dudes, I was in good company, though the huge crowds of old people were kind of annoying. It just seemed like every single one of them had a story to tell about the "old country".


I went to Adventureland last weekend with Paul, though we had to go to Crossroads after we noticed Bella Botega was carding people left and right. Luckily we got in safely at Crossroads and enjoyed the movie, though I'm more looking forward to Observe and Report this weekend. In the world of T.V. I'm back watching the fifth season of Oz and the second season of Deadwood which has been pretty boring ever since Ian McShane's character has been somewhat out of commission. Luckily his character is almost back to his dynamic self so I think the show will pick up again. I checked out the season premiere of Rescue Me and was surprised to see I had no problem getting back into it. I'd watched most of the previous season so I felt pretty in check, the show's still entertaining. Animation wise I haven't been too hot on South Park this season and Family Guy has still been more or less hit or miss these days. Hopefully I'll find some more good comedic Television somewhere soon.


Aside from all this I've pretty much been in baseball mode. It's hard for me to take losses early on in a season but I'm real excited about our offense, especially (well aside from Griffey) Franklin Gutierez who I'm all about. Probably just because I love yelling "Gut!" to the T.V. "C'mon Gut, my man Gut!" It's early but I think we have a good chance of dishing out a fairly respectable season. I mean you can only expect so much out of team that's rebuilding.

Keep on Walken in the Free World

Well I got to make sure I write at least a few posts a month, so how about I use Christopher Walken's birthday as a jumping off point. He's certainly a great man and a great dancer like in that Fatboy Slim video. I've been getting more acquainted to some of Fatboy Slim's music lately... Well mostly just the song "Right Here, Right Now" due to it's awesome evolution music video. I also just got Peter, Bjorn and John's latest album so I can't wait to see how that turns out.

I once again start classes this Wednesday and am not looking forward to waking up at about 7:00 everyday, but I'll be done by like 10:30 everyday, aside from my one online class. I'm getting damn sick of buying all these expensive books but I'm planning on selling them back to BCC to get some dough, "Cha Ching! Money Cash!". Anyhow it'll be good to be on a normal schedule after this mostly lazy and uneventful break.

Paul and I have been dreaming up a lot of sketches lately, you know to film. Sean, Nancy and I started working on a video about "Shades" the blind detective but couldn't finish it the amount of time we had. Though I'm gonna try and finish it slowly through the next few weeks because what we did film turned out to be pretty funny. I've been inspired ever since so many people gave such positive feed back to "Losted!: With Badger Stevens" especially a lot of guys at V.N. Graphics (That's where my dad works) who have become real big fans of the Cat Fancy videos and "Losted" is what did it for em. "Losted" has been getting views at a pretty steady pace, so let's see where that goes (Paul and I have already started to brainstorm a Badger Stevens/Pacific Ocean episode.)

Entertainment wise I started watching Oz and Deadwood again after somewhat of a hiatus and most of my free time has been devoted to my latest X-Box purchase. It's a collection of 49 Sega games including; the Sonic games, Phantasy Star series, Streets of Rage trilogy, Golden Axes and more! So far I'm all about Golden Axe III and Comix Zone just because of how 90s it is. You can expect a review of that later this week at Cat Fancy.

Well I'll see you in the funny papers! Happy 66th birthday Christopher Walken!

Gene Rayburn, Go Gene Rayburn!

Apparently I saved this post awhile ago and didn't finish it, so let's see what's been cooking. I'm getting pretty tired of the school work I've been getting lately but I'm hanging in there. My classes have been pretty boring lately and I couldn't believe the lame exercise we did in my digital design/storytelling class. We did this "assignment" where we lined up our desks and wrote stories by passing back a sheet of paper, but the paper had to be folded before you passed it back. Therefore know one knew what the stories were about and the results were really bad stories. For my part I just did a bunch of B.S. character contemplation and stuff like that, I don't know what I was supposed to take away from this experience.


Literature
I finished reading No Country For Old Men last week and it was pretty good but I still prefer the film. It seems rare that the film counterpart to a good book is superior but I think this is one of those instances. Now I'm going back to finish a book about filmmaking of the 60s and 70s, which I originally acquired for a class (though we've yet to use it) but I've been enjoying reading it on my own time, especially all the stuff about Dennis Hopper (That guy is insane).






Family Affairs
Our family cat Junior recently went through somewhat of a health scare with a urine blockage a few weeks ago, but he's okay now. My dad and I had to take him to an animal hospital at midnight on a weeknight but he made through all the treatment. He's doing fine now but he's not completely out of the woods so he's been living mostly in Paul's room so we can keep a close eye on him (him and Paul are like the just like the odd couple).


Music
I've been casually listening to the latest U2 album, but I'm not really that crazy about it. There's definitely some songs on it I really like, like "I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" and "No Line On the Horizon" but I'm just not that into U2 I guess. I like a few albums and have a lot of respect for them but sometimes they just seem kind of boring to me. Oh well, who knows what I'll think of it later in the year, these things take time.


Movies
I was all about Watchmen but I'm disappointed to see all the mixed opinions from critics. I'm probably in the minority of people who like it better than the source material but I was really impressed. I guess I find the graphic novel too sloppy sometimes with all the filler articles, the Black Freighter stuff, the need for excessive back story. Don't get me wrong I like the graphic novel, I just don't love it. The movie definitely has it's fair share of flashbacks and back story in keeping loyal to graphic novel, but I feel the characters can breathe more and come to life in a significantly more compelling way in the filmed adaptation. I really liked Jackie Earle Haley and Patrick Wilson and the art direction, cinematography and visual effects were out of this world. All in all it was a pretty impressive work and I respect that someone dared to take on such an ambitious project... Oh yeah and I saw Godzilla's Revenge on Canadian television, that was awful.


Television
I've recently taken a break from Oz. I'm one episode away from finishing the fourth season (there are six altogether) and it's been harder to find the time to watch Deadwood lately (I'm somewhere in the second season, but I've checking out some other weird stuff in the meantime. Occasionally I go over to my dads to watch Match Game 75" hosted by Gene Rayburn on some game show network. I'm all about old game shows (To Tell the Truth is my favorite) so it's been pretty entertaining. Somehow I also got roped into watching the Celebrity Apprentice which as dumb as it is, is strangely compelling. My family and are all rooting for Tom Green for his lack of a big ego, plus he seems to be the most hard working on the men's team. The women's team just seem to get into big cat fights every episode but they still manage to win every week, I don't imagine I'll be watching this show much longer.

That's all that comes to mind for now, I'll keep you posted if something else pops into my head that I forgot to mention.

Chicka Click, Click Booyah

Figure it's time for an update even if I don't have much to report. I had a pretty good three day weekend despite the fact that I was somewhat hampered by homework and online mid terms and what have you. I saw The Reader on Monday which was okay. It's always kind of fun to go to those movies where the audience is mostly middle aged people trying to explain the movie to each other and strangely enough Lincoln Square was like a ghost town, strange for a holiday if you ask me. I've been listening to a lot of Bruce Springsteen since Working On a Dream came out and when out and bought Darkness on The Edge of Town and Born in the U.S.A. at half price I also downloaded Magic, good stuff, makes you proud to be an American.


I've been buying a lot of books at Half Price lately and have kind of been switching back and forth between a couple. Mostly I've been reading Bruce Campbell's "Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way" (A fictional story about Bruce Campbell being cast in a supporting role in a romantic comedy) and "No Country for Old Men" which has been pretty similar to it's cinematic counterpart thus far. After that I got a copy of "The Road" but I'll wait till after the movie (Whenever it comes out I have no idea) and I got Jon Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven".




Regarding television my times been split between Deadwood and Oz. I watch Deadwood with my dad and brother, definitely a man's man show and but Oz is what I've been all about lately (I'm midway through the fourth season). I really enjoy it and highly recommend it, though I warn you it can get pretty graphic sometimes; male nudity, vulgarity, extreme violence and so on. It really pushes some boundaries but it's a great show.


Hmm what else? All this Griffey stuff has been driving me crazy, I swear I check like every five minutes to check out the scoop but still nothing. I guess I'd understand if he chooses the Braves but remember when he said "I owe it to the people of Seattle and to myself to retire as a Mariner." People don't forget things like that, don't let us down Junior.
(Pictured Left is a box of cereal that I still own to this day.)

Face the Music

I didn't want to upset the flow of "Top Movies of 2008" over at Cat Fancy, so I decided to post this random news tidbit here. I heard on the radio today that 70s rock/blues band Faces of which I am a fan, are reuniting! Not just for a few shows but for a brand spanking new album as well. It's been almost 36 years since the group's last album Ooh La La but word is that Ron Wood has already started writing material for a new album and I can't wait.

Unfortunately Faces bassist/co-songwriter Ronnie Lane died in 1997, so who will replace him? Well it's been announced that it will be none other than Red Hot Chili Peppers virtuoso bassist Flea. This is all very exciting and hopefully they'll be some swell rocking results. Perhaps I'll do a Faces retrospective on Cat Fancy whenever their new album comes out, it's all very exciting news.

If your not familiar with the Faces, here's a video of them playing "Stay With Me"