Ultranormal

Author: Kevin Lawver

  • The Running Play

    Wow. I never thought fajitas could have such a punch. We went to our local Mexican chain last night before my sister’s play (which I’ll talk about later). I got the lovely and tasty chicken and steak fajitas. Everything was fine until we were on the way back to my parents’ house. The pain in my belt area was like a kick from a small child. It gravitated south until I figured I needed to get back to their house, and more specifically their toilet, a little faster. Needless to say, I was incapacitated for the rest of the evening, and most of this morning. I think I’m better now, but I’m not trying fate. It’s rice and maybe chicken for me tonight.

    Now, on to the play. It was the Sterling Playhouse’s One Act Play Festival, with (I think) all the plays written by members of the playhouse. My sister was fine, better than the rest of the people in the play she was in, and I’m being completely objective here. They put these little skits (they definitely didn’t rise to the level of a one-act play) on in a little rotunda outdoors, a decent distance from their audience without any sound amplification. We were in the fourth row, and I had a hard time hearing most of the actors. I won’t even go into the actual material, because it’s better to say nothing at all sometimes. I had three more paragraphs here I just deleted because I’m not feeling mean today. Support your local theater group – they need all the help they can get.

  • Through a Glass Darko

    I just finished watching Donnie Darko. I kept thinking of Harvey throughout the film. If you haven’t seen it, go rent the DVD right now. This is an intense moving film. It’s dark, beautifully acted and breathtaking to watch. Jake Gyllenhaal (sorry, I know I botched that, but am too ready for bed to go check the correct spelling) did a marvelous job keeping me guessing throughout. Is he crazy? Is Frank real? What is going on?

    I didn’t even really know until I watched some of the deleted scenes; I’m kind of sad that I now know. The movie is better as the journey than the destination. I loved the subtle late-Eighties touches: the music, the clothes (button-fly jeans… oh yes), the references to Back to the Future, the Halloween Costumes (RonaldMania was my favorite). It was so well done, I want to watch it again just for nuance and those little things I missed the first time around.

    Back to the Harvey connection. This movie felt like my generation’s Harvery. We have society’s reaction to the mentally ill, and the societal twist. This is Harvery for the cynical Prozac popping Ridalin kids from the Eighties. This is our search for what’s real and true in a world of 30-second issues, fallen idols and missing authority figures. It’s a great film, and one that may keep me up till the wee hours of the morning thinking about it… and don’t watch the deleted scenes if you want to interpret the meaning of the film for yourself.

  • Jaguars Have Spots

    I feel the need for a redesign. Yes, I’ve said it before, but this time I mean it. I put Movable Type back on the Powerbook, and started last night while watching Big Brother. I’m not starting with the main site this time, but with the Geekery, and a new section that will move all the pics linked to from Max’s page to a family photo album. I never update Max’s blog, which is still hosted at Blogger, and heck, I haven’t uploaded any new pics in a while. So, I’m going to try to re-organize what’s up there now into “albums” (really just Movable Type categories), with each picture as a separate entry in the “album”. That way, it’ll be easier to add descriptions and keep them all organized. And now that I have PhotoShop 7 on the Powerbook along with iPhoto (which doesn’t even try to compress jpg’s on export… grrr), it’ll make all this organizing, exporting, uploading, etc a little easier. It took me two weeks of after-work-tv-viewing to complete my first Movable Type design for this page… hopefully it won’t take that long for this.

    Which brings me to my next topic, OS X. Yes, I’ve talked about it before too, but I just want to talk about it some more. I upgraded to Jaguar a little while ago (which is how my first Movable Type installation got nuked), and am having a lot of fun with it. I forget sometimes about the Unix underpinnings of OS X. But, last night while installing Movable Type, I was going to create an alias in my Documents folder to the Apache Documents and CGI-Executables folders. I was already in Terminal, so I decided to try symlinking to them. What do you know! The aliases in OS X are actually symlinks. They worked beautifully and well, it’s just cool. It took me all of five minutes once I had everything unzipped to install everything, chmod it, and get started. Now, I could have installed AOLserver, Perl and Movable Type on my old Dell laptop running Windows 2000, but that would have taken a good long time, and I still wouldn’t be able to properly symlink anything or use the terminal to do my normal *nix type stuff. With OS X, I have tar, chmod, vi, etc all right there installed on the system with a beautiful user-friendly system on top of it. I can use my new copy of AOL, Mozilla and PhotoShop and still use vi, ls, ln, etc. Heck, once fink has a stable version for 10.2, I’ll have ncftp, xemacs and a host of my other favorite *nix tools.

    OS X has, for good or bad, slightly weaned me from Linux. I was in love with my RedHat Uber-Box until I got OS X. Now, I log into the Linux box from OS X and do what I need to do and then get off. It’s servicable, does what it’s supposed to and I don’t have to worry about it crashing, which is really what I need Linux for. I don’t feel the need for the perfect Linux desktop now. Am I going to hell for that?

  • Toke On This!

    I’ve been thinking about the drunk morons at the Redskins game that I wrote about yesterday. It brings to mind these conversations I used to have with my friend Jim about pot, and how he couldn’t believe it wasn’t legalized. This may sound blasphemous for an guy who lives on the East Coast to say, but you have to remember I’m from Arizona, the state crazy enough to legalize medical marijuana along with California. Why isn’t pot legal?

    I don’t smoke pot. I never have. I don’t drink. I never have. I don’t smoke cigarettes. I never have. I have never taken narcotics that weren’t prescribed to me. I personally don’t get the attraction to making myself dumber than I am. That said, why is pot illegal and alchohol and tobacco aren’t? The long term effects of pot are equivalent to the other two. The personality changes in a pot smoker are a lot less radical than someone who’s drunk. I’d much rather go to a football game with a bunch of stoners than a bunch of drunks. Drunks fight. They’re obnoxious and have a habit of vomitting on themselves. They get belligerent and hostile, or weepy, or overly friendly. They lost inhibitions (which leads to the rest of the stuff already listed). I don’t think anyone ever got married or an unfortunate tatoo after smoking a joint.

    I don’t understand the hypocrisy. The critics point to pot as a gateway drug. I don’t agree with their logic. Pot’s status as an illegal substance is what I think merits its gateway status. It’s a gateway drug because people who use it often have to deal with folks who are into or deal stronger and more illicit substances. Alchohol is a gateway to chee-tos and pizza because it’s sold in grocery stores, bars, quick stops and gas stations. Alchohol and tobacco kill far more people than pot ever will, and cost this country billions in healthcare.

    So, let’s make the hard choice, either people are adult enough to control themselves with pot, tobacco and alchohol, or all of them should be illegal. They’re all addictive to a degree, all cause health problems, and are all pretty much equal in their damage. Pick… I’ll be happy either way. If there were no more drunk jackasses at sporting events, I might go to more of them. If I didn’t have to worry about second hand smoke in bars, I might go see more live music. People will die in car accidents for reasons other than intoxicated drivers. If people could buy pot in stores, the dosage of THC were regulated and we could charge taxes, I doubt we’d have a budget deficit. We could afford to keep school music, art and physical education. I just don’t get it. Am I missing something? Am I wrong?

  • Monday Night Recap

    I’m sure you’ve read all about it already, but I was there. Ok, I wasn’t there there, but I was in the stadium. Yes, we made it to Monday Night Football last night. It took us two hours to get there, a mile of walking past tailgaters, port-a-potties and up four stadium levels of ramps to get to our seats on the upper-deck. That said, we had a surprisingly good view of the field and play.

    Ok, the game sucked. It sucked so bad that we knew it was over after the Eagles’ second drive. We were surrounded by a bunch of Eagles fans (four right in front of us, one next to me), and there were a surprising number in the stadium. As the game wore on, and the outcome became more inevitable, it became less and less comfortable to be there. The exodus began shortly after the second half began. As the third quarter drudged towards the 0:00, every Redskins screw up started a stream of Redskins fans headed for the exit and the awaiting traffic jam. That left the hardcore drunkards rooting for both teams, which led to the pepper spray incident I linked to above. When the referee said, “A foreign substance has been sprayed on the Eagle’s bench,” we decided we’d had enough and headed for the ramps.

    That’s when we saw the dark side of pro football games – the drunk bastards. See, the police used pepper spray to stop a fight. When we got to the first ramp, it was shut down, and we saw half a dozen fans being sequestered against the rail, surrounded by cops and two or three state police directing us to another ramp because they had closed the ramp to clean up the mess.

    On our way to ramp number two, we walked past a small group of Eagles and Redskins fans in a shouting match. As we walked past, the words were heated and slurred and bodies were inching closer to each other, chests thrust out. Yeah, I narced on them.

    We escaped the drunken yells of “E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!!!” and got the car, where we waited about twenty minutes to get out of the parking lot. Surprisingly, traffic was light on the beltway headed home, and we made it home a little before two.

    It was fun, but Jen and I both agreed we don’t need to do it again. I like Pro Football best when I can watch it on TV, with my bathroom handy, my snack food (that doesn’t cost 4 times what it should), and I can flip to other games, and turn off the TV if the game gets boring. It was an experience; one I’m glad I had, but not one I’m ready to repeat.

    And today – root canal. YES!

  • What Would You Say?

    Have you seen KEO? You can go and post a 6000 character message that will be sent up into a satellite will supposedly orbit the earth for 50,000 years before returning to earth to be read by our descendants. Ummm, yeah. Anyway, Jon and I came up with some possible missives for the project (all of these are fake and aren’t self-reflective, I swear):

    • Summer of ’02 was r0xx0r!!

    • I WAS SUPERMAN ALL ALONG! Yours Truly, Clark Kent (Jon’s)

    • Hi, I’m your great-great-granddad. In August of 2002, I lived @ 214 Evergreen Terrace in Springfield, USA. Here’s a topographical map. Please come get me and take me to the future. This place sucks.

    • THE TREASURE IS IN THE {-~~signal interrupt-~~} (Again, Jon’s)

    • Your great13 Grandmother was a slut (because in 50k years, you’ll have to use scientific notation on your greats).

    • I sure hope Jill won Survivor.

    • Dude, do aliens really have three eyes and suckers on their fingers?

    • That letter to Penthouse you never mailed.

    • The lyrics to that touching Dave Mathews Band song so everyone in the future will know what a gigantic ass I am

    • “I’m sure no one will read this, but I have to tell someone. In 1985, I kissed a man, and I kinda liked it.” (or some other equally depressing revelation you couldn’t bring yourself to utter in your lifetime)

    • The lyrics of Allanis Morrisette’s Ironic for the same reason you’d include the Dave Mathews Band lyrics. Pretty much pop song lyrics of any sort would show the future that you’re a gigantic ass.

  • Look At The Size Of Him!

    Jen bought a new digital scale on Saturday and we had a morbidly fun time weighing ourselves (Max included, although he wouldn’t stand still on it long enough to be accurate, he’s around 34 pounds). The most astounding thing to me was that I’ve lost over twenty pounds since my last doctor’s visit. While it makes me feel good that I’m headed in the right direction, it’s depressing in a way that I lost twenty pounds and barely even noticed.

    I’m a fat guy. I’ve come to accept it. I’m not longer bordering on “delightfully fluffy”. I can no longer buy my clothes at Target. I have to go to Tubby Bastard’s House of Vertical Stripes now to buy porno-rated shirts and pants with waist sizes almost eligible for the senior citizens’ discount at Denny’s. The trend started after I got married. I’ve noticed it’s happened to even my most active friends. There’s something about getting married that makes you gain weight. Maybe it’s the “OH, thank goodness I don’t have to try anymore, she’s stuck with me” theory. I don’t know… I gained a couple dozen pounds after the wedding. I was up to 260 by the time we left Tucson. I no longer played volleyball and basketball every week like I was. I hovered around 260 for a good long while until the accident happened. Yes, my knee. I had my ACL replaced in May of 2000, and the recovery was a pain. I didn’t commit to Physical Therapy like I should have, and well, it solidified my indentation on the couch. Since, I’ve slowly expanded around the middle to my high of 326 early this year. Thankfully, my doctor laid out the risks and well, I’ve been slowly but surely trying to cut down since May. So, I’m almost back under 300 pounds (307 this morning), and am not about to give up until I can wear clothes bought at Target (or some other store, I’m not stuck on it, but they don’t have anything larger than XXL and 40″). I figure I have to lose about 80 more pounds. That will get me back to my pre-wedding weight. I have a big-guy build (6′, broad shoulders) and wore 220 pretty well. I’d love to get down to 200, which I haven’t been since my freshman year of High School. My short-term goal is to be at 270 by Christmas and 250 by my birthday in March. Then, it’s down to 220 by the start of the NFL Season next year.

    Jen’s got us on this Carb Addict diet, and it seems to be working. The no bread thing is bugging the crap out of me, but I’ve lost 5+ pounds in two weeks, and it’s not that hard to stick to other than the complete lack of soda (and everyone knows about my caffeine addiction… I’m really grumpy in the mornings now).

    Wish me luck.

  • Short Weekend Roundup

    It’s huge! We got our new big TV on Friday (through an employee discount, I didn’t pay that much really) and spent the weekend ogling its friggin’ huge perfect picture. Watching football will never be the same. I can see everything now. It’s easier to track the ball, and there’s less confusion about what’s happening on the field now that the picture’s so large (can you tell, it’s big!).

    Things are a little crazy today, so I won’t be posting at my normal Monday rate unless things calm down. We’re going to the Redskins game tonight, and I can’t wait! It’s supposed to be clear and in the mid-sixties – perfect football weather!

  • I’m Not Funny

    I was talking to a guy I work with about the Swedish Chef from the old Muppet Show. I’d forgotten all about “bork”. It’s the funniest four letter (what is it, onomatopoeia, word, thing?) in the world. So funny in fact, I deleted one of my screennames on AOL to create a new one: Bork Bork Moo. Watch for me online (not often, but watch nonetheless). It’s not funny, but I can’t stop laughing.

  • Give Me Morphine!

    I’ve ripped all my Morphine albums now except Cure for Pain, which I’ve misplaced somewhere.

    Morphine was my favorite band of the 90’s. Their mellow bass driven lounge rock was perfect. Their first three albums, Good, Cure for Pain and Yes are essential members of any good music library and great artillery for self-indulgent pity parties, rainy evenings at home alone or car-music for a night out cruising the back streets of Tucson looking for a party where you know what street it’s not, but not the address of the house (sorry, that was a flashback).

    Like Swimming was an unfortunate smudge on the library. It’s not bad, but it’s definitely not Cure for Pain. With Mark Sandman’s untimely death of a heart attack at the age of 36 (he looked a lot older than that… played a three-string bass ages you, I guess), I figured I was left with the four albums, and I’d never hear more. But, ‘lo and behold, along came The Night, my second favorite Morphine album. It’s the slowest moving and most morose, but the songs are some of Sandman’s best. All of them are better than every song on Like Swimming, and better than half the songs on Good or Yes. It doesn’t quite stack up to Cure for Pain for sheer impact, but it’s amazing.

    And to finish up, there’s B Side and Otherwise, an album you can skip unless you just want to be complete, and Bootleg Detroit, the band’s only release live album. It’s amazing. In the audio alone you can feel Sandman’s stage presence, and the band’s skill at creating a vibe in a room. The second song on the CD, Come Along sets the mood for the set perfectly and isn’t on any of their other albums. It’s almost the perfect live album. If only it were longer. I’m always left wanting more when I listen to it.

    This has ended up a lot longer than I intended, but I guess you can tell I love me some Morphine. I will be eternally grateful to my friend Kris for introducing me to the band. She made me a mix tape after a rough breakup of the best depressing songs ever. She has the musical Library of Congress in her head, sorted by theme. On the tape were You Look Like Rain and Gone for Good. I wore that tape out, and eventually wore out my copy of Cure for Pain. You will too.