Yarrrr!

It's Talk Like A Pirate Day, maties.

What blimey bilge-rats be comin up with such blubbering nonsense, anyway?

Oh, these guys.

Happy Birthday, Little One

By the way, it's also my darling little Gabriella's second birthday. Happy Birthday, sweet Tootsie-Pop! Mama loves you!!

Gabbi and me two years ago...

Gabbi and chocolate two months ago...

Never-Ending Story

I think it was in 1995. I worked with this guy, name of Gerry, who was the world's most ultimate nerd. For my birthday, he gave me a training manual for Ham Radios - he wanted me to get my operator's license so we could talk on the radio. Now, we worked together, so we talked every day in person, but that apparently wasn't cool enough for him. He was very excited for me. I got about three pages into the book before my geek-alarm went off and I abandoned the concept.

This guy had been in the Air Force for 11 years at that time. I'd been in for two. He still wore his military-issued BCGs, those clunky-framed, plastic-lensed glasses that you expect to see held together with white tape. He always carried around this rather large book, some fantasy novel that he had his nose stuck in at every spare moment. He talked incessantly about his books and his Ham Radios... but this book was part of a series, and he chattered at me to read it. Did I like works of fantasy? Yes, of course - well, I couldn't continue living and breathing unless I read this series, and he pestered me until I took the damn thing to shut him up.

I was instantly hooked. It was a big book, but as a rabid fan of Stephen King, big books were certainly no deterrent for me. I started the first book rather reluctantly, but in a matter of days had stormed my way through it and was clamoring for the second. At this time, I believe fans of this series were anxiously awaiting the release of the fourth novel in the series, the biggest yet in a chain of books that would get progressively larger and more expansive as the years passed.

The series is known as the Wheel of Time, and "Eye of the World", Book One, was my portal into a realm as instantly addictive and breathtaking as anything I'd read since Tolkien. Of course, to any real fan of this series, that catapulting excitement tended to simmer down a bit by, say, Book Six, and I think it was Book Eight that I actually tossed angrily across the room when the plot-line looped back upon itself yet again, but after we fans slogged our dedicated ways through Book Eleven (not counting the damned prequel that reared its unexpected head at us a couple years ago), it looked like the end was FINALLY in sight. The Man Himself, Creator of the Wheel, Robert Jordan, promised that Book Twelve, halle-fuckin-lujah, was the last one. He said, in fact, that if it had to be 2,000 pages long, that was IT. We held our collective breaths, we crossed our collective fingers, we marked our calendars for 2009. It will have taken 19 years, thirteen books and about 12,000 pages, but we shall have our conclusion, our Final Battle on the slopes of Mountain, and the Wheel will be triumphant, dammit.

So, then, yesterday, Robert Jordan died.

Shit.

Book Twelve is in that lovely novel stage known as "notes." The wails of geekdom can be heard echoing across the internet worldwide. Someone will probably pick up those notes and finish the story, but geez. To be so close. He knew he was dying, too. A little rush would have been in order, methinks - lord knows he dragged everything else out, so we would have been okay with a bit of hurry.

But, what can ya do? My condolences to his family, of course - he was an incredibly talented guy despite his falling prey to the lures of mass-market payoffs, hence the horrendously long saga that could have been tidily wrapped up in maybe six books total. He'll be missed in the mainly nerdish world of Fantasy/Sci-Fi. For all of that, I'll probably never think of him again without thinking, callously or not, "Damn... he was SO CLOSE!!!"

Making Headlines

People, things and stories in the news... and my rather cynical thoughts on the whole mess.

Senator Craig
Shut up and go away. You're guilty, you're not guilty... you're resigning, you're not resigning - no wait, you will probably resign... you solicit for sex in a men's room but you're not gay... Damn, who cares anymore!!??

Britney
Your fifteen minutes of fame were up three years ago. Take a hike, you non-talented ho.

Pavarotti
Was talented. Now dead. Let's move on.

6th Anniversary of 9/11
We've been hearing about it since September 1st, and will probably KEEP hearing about it until September 3oth. What better way to further desensitize the American Flock of Sheep to something important than to hound it to death in the media?

Patraeus
He's a liar and Bush's crony. This war ain't going anywhere, regardless of what this moron says.

Buried Miners in Utah
Oh, they finally had a memorial service. It took them six weeks to decide their guys were probably dead?

Hurricanes
Okay, do we truly need a city-by-city report of what amounts to a big rainstorm as it moves across the country?

Parents of Madeleine McCann
It's one thing to be despicable people who would lie to the world for monetary gain (to the tune of $2 million), you see that all the time. But to kill your own child (of course, this hasn't been proven but there's some pretty compelling evidence) and then play off the sympathy of the entire world? How do you walk around wailing and pleading for your baby's safe return, knowing all the while she's dead and you did it?? What the hell is wrong with people, anyway?

And then there's this...
Why? Who cares? What difference does it make? They died 1,173 years ago, who cares how they were related or what they ate? For cryin' out loud.

Emmy in a Box

SNL's Christmas skit featuring the song "Dick in a Box" is actually up for an Emmy award.

See the uncensored version here (probably not okay for work, unless you use earbuds, like I did): http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/uncensored.shtml

I saw this skit when it was originally aired, in its edited form, and I totally laughed my ass off. It's so cheesy but it still manages to pull off an air of hilarity that is vaguely reminiscent of the early-90s SNL. You know, back when it was still funny.

However, for all of that, I can't say that it's Emmy material. I did have to agree with Andy Samberg, who appeared with Justin Timberlake in the skit, when he said he didn't know which would be better, winning the award or knowing they'd have to engrave the name of the song on the award itself. Considering they won't even print the name of it in most media (settling instead for "D*** in a Box" or just SNL's "Box" skit), I wonder how they will tackle the announcing of the nomination.

Samberg also did the infamous "Lazy Sunday" skit, which was just as funny, I thought. Wikpedia says that "Dick in a Box" already won a Primetime Emmy, which I find odd because I didn't realize SNL, which airs at 11:30 pm Eastern/Pacific time on Saturday nights (10:30 for us Okies and Texans), qualified as primetime.