Ultranormal

Author: Kevin Lawver

  • It’s Spread Out Before Me…

    My vacation is spread out before me like an unspoiled field after the winter’s first snow. Sixteen days of no conference calls, no urgent submissions to QA, no last minute changes to implement someone’s 11th hour bright idea, no changes because someone finally read the contract. I have sixteen days to finally write FlatCat, play with Max, cook, go to the aquarium, eat meals with my wife, watch movies, stay up late, laugh, go out with friends , take naps and when that all gets old, do nothing at all.

    Tonight, I’m going to stay up as late as I want doing nothing at all important. After everything was done at work this afternoon, I downloaded some new games for the Powerbook, so I may play those. I rented a movie, I may watch it. Or, I may watch all the stuff stacked up on TiVo. Who knows? Who cares? I have nothing to do, and I love it. For the first time in about three years, I have a stretch of time in front of me with no urgent things that need to get done. I’m almost unsure how to handle it. We’ll see what happens.

  • Oh, Maybe It’s Not So Bad

    I’m not sure where the author’s loyalties lie, but this article doesn’t paint the same doom and gloom picture of AOL as the Post did.

  • Yo Yo Yo, Crackers In The Hiz-ouse!

    Dave’s found the world’s funniest picture. The comments will be priceless.

  • Pepsi Spew

    I just tried Pepsi Blue, the new cola variant from the folks who brought you Code Red. I’m a big fan of Code Red. I love it so much, you could call it an addiction.

    Pepsi Blue, on the other hand, is crap. Think, carbonated blueberry Kool-Aid with all the sugar removed and replaced with vinegar. It’s that bad.

    The cola industry is batting 0 now on their new cola “fusion” products. Vanilla Coke tastes like cough syrup and Pepsi Blue is even worse. When will they learn? Cola is best when it’s just cola. Cherry and Lemon are acceptable variants. Blue is not. Vanilla is only acceptable if fresh.

    Why didn’t they ask me before they did this? I could have told them.

  • Bloggers Unite (or not, it’s up to you)

    An interesting article from the Washington Post: How Weblogs Keep the Media Honest by Howard Kurtz (who has one of the only shows on CNN worth watching). Read it for yourself, but it’s interesting to me that while the web has loudly turned into the world’s strip mall, it has quietly turned into the world’s op-ed page and town square. And it’s great that we’re not all voices in the same camp. There’s room here for everyone to say anything, and up to the readers to decide for themselves. If the “regular” media gets it wrong, you have a good chance of finding the right out here somewhere (oh no, not here, go some place else).

  • The Royal Tenenbaums

    I can’t believe I didn’t blog about this right after we saw it. Jen and I watched The Royal Tenenbaums a couple weeks ago. If you haven’t seen it yet, drop what you’re doing, rush to your local video store (as long as it’s not Blockbuster) and rent it. Heck, go to your favorite purveyor of videos or DVD’s and buy it.

    Ok, wait, come back. I loved this movie. Better yet, it has the most joyful scene I’ve seen in a film in a very long time. Gene Hackman plays Royal Tenenbaum, a real bastard. He left his family 22 years ago, is out of money, and tries to ingratiate himself to his abandoned family by telling them he’s going to die. One of his ploys is to win the love of his two grandsons. I won’t tell you anymore about the storyline, except this scene. The two boys are extremely sheltered by their father (Ben Stiller). Royal thinks this is a tragedy, and takes the kids out to commit some mischief. There’s a three to four minute montage of them committing several misdemeanors around town, driving go-karts around (I think) a high school football stadium (it could be a track), hitching a ride on the back of a garbage truck and throwing water balloons at passing cars. Gene Hackman deserved the Oscar for that scene alone. He and the boys were full of uncontrollable joy and vitality.

    If you like True Stories, Bottle Rocket or Magnolia, you’ll love this movie.

  • And Then, The Screaming

    So, I kind of lost it today. I’ve been in the process of losing it for over a month. I was in an emergency meeting for four hours today and was a raging ass. I couldn’t stop myself. I had to yell and point and turn red. I got a headache that’s now ten hours old and shows no sign of slowing down. I’m exhausted and sick to my stomach.

    When I signed up for this job, I knew it would be more reponsibility. I had no idea how much, most of it unplanned, and thrust on me by circumstances.

    Three more days, and then I think my pager will have an unfortunate accident in the toilet. Rest in peace, pager.

  • More Love For HBO

    There’s more to love about The Wire. Last night’s episode was TiVo’ed, and I got around to watching it tonight. The opening scene with McNulty sending his kids off to follow Stringer Bell around using the old “front and follow” method was incredible. It was really funny, and just perfect.

    It’s such a great show, well done, well written… just about perfect. I’ve talked about it before, so I won’t keep going on about it, but you should definitely watch it.

    In other news, there is no other news.

    It seems that all the pain at work has been worth it. Things are fast, people are happy, and it’s just nice to know that something is working out of all this mess I’ve had to deal with for the past three months.

  • Ok, It’s Not Bad…

    Last night’s episode of Sex and the City completely made up for last week’s snoozer. It was funny, snarky and back to the quality I’ve come to expect from the show. I retract my previous comments about the show. I was worried, but I think the girls will be just fine.

  • Wow, I DID Get Something Out of Church Today!

    Church today was fairly tedious. The youth just got back from an apparently moving trip to Ohio, and the first half of the meeting was some teenagers being called on to come up and give their impressions impromtu-like. It was deadening. My favorite was a teenage guy who got up and said “awesome” about 30 times. He mumbled through the rest of whatever he said. The general point thought could be summed up as, “It is my testimony that it was awesome.”

    And that made the rest of it all worth it. I will be using that line until the day I die.

    “I do solemnly swear that the testimony I am about to give shall be awesome, the whole awesome, and nothing but awesome, so help me, dude.”