Cue That ABBA Track
So I say “Thank you for the music!” to Mark, an old high school buddy who’s been reading this site for the last few weeks. Yesterday’s post about music and Fiona Apple prompted him to send send me an email, along with an iTunes gift certificate. To say that I was pleased to hear from a friend I haven’t spoken to in years would be an understatement.
Thanks, Mark. You are ever the gentleman. Glad to see that some things don’t change!
If You Ain’t Fiona Apple, I Don’t Give A Rat’s A**!
I don’t blog much about music because I rarely find myself the time to listen to music uninterrupted. I don’t commute or work at a desk, which seriously cuts into my listening opportunities. In general, I find that CBC Radio One fulfills my ambient chatter requirements.
It’s gotten to the point where I haven’t bought a CD for myself in over a year, and I can walk through a record store with only minimal browsing.
I was sorting through my CD collection last week and wondered how many of my favourite artists have released albums that I don’t own. The list is surprising:
- Tori Amos (two albums and a Greatest Hits)
- The Tragically Hip (one album)
- Sophie B. Hawkins (a Greatest Hits package)
- Joan Osbourne (one)
- Jeffrey Gaines (two, plus a Live album)
There are other artists that I didn’t bother to look up because I think I’ve moved on from them: REM, Holly Cole Trio (although that’s on the edge), Melissa Etheridge, and Jann Arden are the notables.
Which brings me to Fiona Apple. I was really into her first two albums, and I still think they hold up despite my fading interest in her flaky artiste-naif persona at the time. I think it’s the whisky-tinged voice, which shouldn’t sound as good as it does.
It’s been ages since I heard anything new from hers. A quick search produced this article, titled “Who Will Free Fiona Apple?”
Apparently, she does have a new album ready to go, called Extraordinary Machine, but the suits at her record label have been sitting on it for over two years. All of the sudden, “unofficial” releases have been popping up all over the Web, so if you want hear what she’s been up to, you can sample her new songs.
Maybe it’s an album I would buy.
Sunshiny Day
It’s bright, sunny and warm outside.
Today, Ben and I are walking to playgroup.
Dormant Writing Bug
It started off as a simple blog post summarizing some idle thoughts about a role-playing game system that I’d been mulling for the past 20 months. It turned into a 6-page PDF.
The Last Word LITE is an experiment in game design and a writing exercise. It is, in fact, the first bit of non-blog, non-work related writing I’ve done in a long time.
Take a look, if you’re interested, and leave comments on that post.
How many other writing ideas are stirring at the back of my mind?
Happy Birthday, Dad!
Have a great day! Raise a glass for me!
Hoppy Birthday!
Mom’s 60th birthday coincided with Easter this year. To celebrate, Ben made his first visit to Windsor for the weekend. We had a terrific visit.
Rather than take a ten to twelve-hour train ride, where the parents would be stressed and Ben would most likely be bored to tears, we flew. We left for Windsor at noon on Friday. The staff at Trudeau airport was the most helpful and courteous we’ve ever seen: not only were they all smiles, but they unfolded Ben’s stroller at the security checkpoint. Perhaps they were cheerful because it was still early in the day, because traffic was light, or because they were earning triple-overtime; whatever the reason, they helped us get a good start on the trip.
Ben behaved perfectly on the flight from Montreal to Toronto. He read a book, played with his little toy pirate ship, and did very little fussing. Just as the plane was landing, he decided to fall asleep. Poor little guy didn’t stay asleep for long!
We grabbed a quick bite at an airport restaurant, and then piled into a little Dash-8 turbo-prop for the flight to Windsor. We wondered if the sound and vibration from the propellers would bother him, but he hardly seemed to notice. However, he didn’t fall back asleep. The nap for the day was done.
Scott and my parents met us at the airport, helped us divide the luggage and then drove us home. We hadn’t been back since Christmas of 2002, and we wanted to see the changes. There weren’t many, except for the addition of many, many pictures of Ben throughout both apartments and, of course, Dad’s new leather recliner. Comfy!
Mom had a full slate of meals planned. Friday’s dinner was home-made pizza, which was quite yummy. Ben sat at the table with the grownups and thoroughly enjoyed his booster seat, which brought him tantalizingly close to the mysteries of the salt and pepper grinders. He also loved the place mat, which was perfect for folding, sliding, covering his head and waving around. Occasionally, he’d use the place mat to help crush his Shreddies.
Ben’s lack of a nap caught up with him in the evening, though, so we brought him downstairs to Scott’s apartment and tried to get him to fall asleep in a playpen that Mom had borrowed from somebody else in the apartment. The surroundings were too strange, so we devised a strategy of having Ben fall asleep in bed with us and then transferring him to playpen later. This worked pretty well for the entire weekend.
Saturday was a busy day of shopping and touring and eating. The meals began with a huge bacon and eggs breakfast. Ben, taking after his father, took a particular shine to the bacon.
Then, Mom started taking Ben for a tour of the apartment and showing him off to all her friends. Ben loved running up and down the halls, around the laundry room, around the pool table in the rec room and he especially took to pushing the buttons on the elevator. Not the big red button, though, despite his best efforts.
Over the course of the weekend, Ben figured out the route between Uncle Scott’s apartment and Grammie & Grandpa’s apartment: run down the hall, turn left at the elevator, grab a big person’s leg while the elevator moves, run out of the elevator, turn right, run down the hall and wait by the door with the big paper bunny. Oh, and yodel the entire time. Works great!
After the initial tour, Mom, Dina and I took Ben for a tour of the mall to pick up a few little bits and pieces. No trip to Windsor is complete without a trip to the mall: take away the bingo halls, Tim Hortons doughnut shops and strip clubs (the Windsor Ballet as my Dad so neatly describes it), there’s hardly anything else to do. I was disappointed to learn that the local EB Games outlet had closed, so I spent most of my time wheeling Ben around and, later, chasing him around the mall. Ben loves to run, and we have to give him as many opportunities as we can.
For dinner, we settled down to absolutely huge plates of Mom’s famous lasagna, followed by her equally famous apple pie. Yum! After dinner, we were all too stuffed to move, so we clicked around the hundred-odd channels on TV, watched some college basketball along with some episodes of The Wiggles that Mom had taped for Ben’s enjoyment.
Sunday was the big day: Easter and Mom’s birthday all rolled into one. First, we gathered around and watched Mom open up all her gifts. Then, we watched Dad open his gifts, because his birthday is on the 30th (unfortunately, we couldn’t have stretched out the visit that far). After all the excitement, with gifts and Ben playing with the wrapping paper, it was time for the Easter Bunny with just what we needed: chocolate!
Oh, it was a busy day. After breakfast, we all retired for naps. Well, nearly everybody napped except for Scott and I: we played around on his PS2: multi-player Ratchet and Clank 3 (there’s a reason why I don’t like first-person shooters, and a reason I don’t like having the targeting reticule locked into place); Star Wars: Battlefront (Scott has much improved since we first rented the game, and he gave me some good pointers); and a cooperative game of Champions of Norrath, which worked right up to our first boss fight. That one ended badly.
Over the course of the day, Mom took Ben for more visits throughout the building. When he wasn’t visiting new friends, he was running around the apartment while chewing on a strainer, a plastic mixing cup, or some of his new toys. The highlights of his playtime were rolling around on the family footstool (actually, an old nail keg that my grandfather had upholstered, and a favourite playtime apparatus of my own) and figuring out how to climb up on other footstools, couches and coffee tables.
We’re going to have to watch Ben all the more closely now!
Dinner was a huge ham extravaganza, replete with green bean casserole, parsnips, glazed carrots, baked potatoes and raisin sauce. So. Very. Much. Food. Easter is the Big Feast for us for some reason – I always feel more stuffed after Easter than after Thanksgiving or Christmas. I don’t know why.
Monday was the return trip home. I spent the morning tracking down missing socks and packing our bags, and we left for the airport just after noon. Despite our best efforts, Ben fell asleep on the drive, which meant that he was likely to be cranky at the airport.
Fortunately, he wasn’t, but he was clearly tired. After our farewells and goodbyes, Ben and I ran around the waiting area at the airport while we waited for the pre-boarding call.
The flight to Toronto went pretty smoothly. There were lots of kids on the flight, and Ben was well-behaved for the whole flight. Only when we were taxiing to the Toronto terminal did he start to screech.
Toronto was hot and humid, but, despite that, he wanted nothing more than to run. So, I followed. Ben developed an especial fondness for the moving sidewalks. On his fourth time around, he figured out how to step on them without falling. Good boy!
We boarded the much larger jet for our flight home to Montreal. Ben immediately started playing with the mobile phone embedded in the back of the seat in front of us. When Dina transferred him to my lap for takeoff, he started to fuss again, so I gave him my watch to play with and chew. My watch has one of those accordion-style bands, and Ben has always liked teething on the band. Well, he wriggled and chewed so much that he separated two of the links!
Ben fell asleep on my lap shortly after takeoff. The exhaustion was writ large on his face, so Dina and I weren’t surprised. He stirred only when I ate some of the complimentary snacks, but even then we was tranquil. Eventually he went back to Dina’s lap and resumed playing with the mobile phone. Not only could he take the phone out of the cradle, but he figured out how to snap it back into place! The flight attendants were amused.
We arrived home in good time. While I unpacked, Ben ran around the apartment to reacquaint himself with his favourite things: the cushion, the chair, the toy box, the cats…everything! He was obviously pleased to be home. Dina and I were just pooped, but happy.
Ben fell asleep in his crib all on his own. When I came in to say goodnight, I found him lying on his back, staring happily at his familiar ceiling and night light. I touched his forehead, told him I loved him. He hugged his stuffed hippo tightly and rolled over to his side.
The photo album of our trip is ready. Just click the picture at the top of the post.
Arrowsmith: So Smart in Their Fine Uniforms, by Kurt Busiek & Carlos Pacheco
In this alternate history, the Great War is fought among flying mages and demons as well as the trenches. Fletcher Arrowsmith is an American volunteer mage fighting the Prussian demons in Gallia. Part coming-of-age story, part military fantasy, part political yarn, this is a world I want to revisit soon.
They Failed to Remember the Fifth of November
I found this line in a report about Natalie Portman’s fluent German on Movie & TV News @ IMDb.com – WENN
“V For Vendetta explores how different life would be if Germany had won World War II.”
No, no, no.
V for Vendetta is the story set in a future, fascist, super-Thatcherite Britain. It’s a story about a democracy gone horribly wrong in the face of an external threat, and how that government finally falls.
This film could have been a stern warning in our frightening political times, and now it becomes something … obvious. The real terror in V for Vendetta was that ordinary people enslaved themselves and have to be shown the way to their freedom. Having Nazis running the show is a familiar trope in speculative fiction.
I’m not giving up all hope on the production, but it’s certainly not a promising start.
The History of the Future, by David A. Wilson
A survey of the manifestations and uses of prophecy in the Western world, from the recurrent millenarian cults to the utopian fiction to the Judeo-Christian theology of Marx. Two things are certain: the Second Coming can always be conveniently postponed, and the future always looks very much like the present.
Car Knob
The mechanics at my garage gave my car starter, alternator and battery clean bills of health. They have a curious theory about the cause for the intermittent stalls.
Apparently, I haven’t been switching my console lights completely off. I’m not blind – I turned the knob until the lights were no longer on, but that evidently doesn’t mean that the lights aren’t drawing any power. So, the battery has been draining slowly, and my short driving trips to playgroup, the grocery store, the mall, etc., haven’t been enough to recharge the battery.
So now I’m taking extra care to turn the knob all the way to the left, whether it needs it or not. We’ll see what happens.