My nephew told me about sitting up late waiting for the pope to die. We talked on the weekend in the basement of the house where everyone in my family lives except me. That makes for very efficient visiting sessions.
I sat on a deep blue exercise ball. 65cm and covered in rubbery spikes that poked into my bum.
Jack sprawled on a bright yellow exercise ball. 75cm with a pattern of expanding circular ridges like radar pings across its surface.
He told me about getting to stay up late to watch television because the people on the television were all standing in front of a building and when the light went off in the room then it would mean the pope was dead but even though it got really really late and he was tired the light wouldn't go off.
He said he kept hoping somebody would just go in and flick the light so then the tv would show something else and he could go to bed.
I asked him why he didn't just go to bed if he was tired.
"Because I got to stay up late. I just wish they shut off the lights sooner because I had to go to hockey in the morning."
He rolled back and forth, arms spayed in a hug that barely reached halfway around the ball. I bounced a little, but only a very little because of the spikes in my bum.
2005 Apr 04 // Link // E-mail
Song in my head: "Switchin' To Glide" by The Kings
Hidden band name idea: Ridges Like Radar
###
It's interesting that different types of beauty can have different effects, different attractions. Take, for instance, uber-beauty Zooey Deschanel and her amazing eyes. She makes me not blink. There's a scene about a half an hour into the movie Elf in which Deschanel sings in the shower. Definitely no blinking then.
It's not just Movie Girls. Some gals here in the real world make me blush, others make me preen, and still others make me show off in the most transparent ways. It's interesting (by which I mean "pathetic") that I can be so affected by something as simple as facial geometry or a hint of curve. My entire body chemistry can be turned upside down by an image or a smell. Isn't that a design flaw?
This isn't apropos of anything in particular, just musing on being male.
P.S. I selected Preen as the "sounds like a band name" bit from this post, but I was going to go with something else because I was so sure Preen had to be the name of a real band. The UBL said otherwise so Preen go the call, but I'm very surprised there isn't/wasn't a band called that already. Maybe it's because it could be applied to just about every lead singer in history they've all agreed to share the word equally?
P.P.S. Can you have a P.S. on a blog post?
P.P.P.S. It bothers me when people add extra S (e.g. P.P.S.S.) or two for multiple post-scripts. So, you know, stop doing that. Thank you.
2005 Apr 11 // Link // E-mail
Song in my head: "29" by Gin Blossoms
Hidden band name idea: Preen
###
The Canadian Filmmakers Festival filled my weekend schedule with filmly goodness. I saw both shorts programs plus a number of the features. I missed some stuff that I'd really wanted to see, but Real Life has this habit of interfering with Play sometimes.
I caught Childstar again, which I'd seen during its initial run. Don McKellar was there to introduce his film, and I still think it's a much better movie than the notices it got. One of the things I enjoy most about a festival like this is the after-film discussions with the filmmakers. The tight schedule didn't permit very long talks, but there was ample opportunity to catch (and sometimes release) the filmmakers in the lobby after each show.
Bern Euler and Deana Beltsis, who run the festival, are such nice people that I'd be plugging their shindig even if it wasn't so much fun and filled with such interesting flicks. But it is, so I don't know why they're wasting all that time being so friendly. ;-)
2005 Apr 11 // Link // E-mail
Song in my head: "The Music Next Door" by The Lucksmiths
Hidden band name idea: Such Nice People
###
I get homework calls. This is a new thing for Uncle Cary, officially the Greatest Uncle In The Universe. (Yes, there was a poll. No, you didn't get a vote.)
Now that my nephew Jack is well into his homework-getting school years, I'll get the occasional call that launches right into some grammar or algebra question without the typical (by which I mean tedious) social pleasantries:
ring
This is Carrington.
Why is there an i in ponies but not an i in boys?
The y in pony comes after a consonant. If you put an i in boys you would have B O I S E and it'd be pronounced "bo-zee", which would sound funny.
Thanks
click
aside:
Yes, I answer the phone by saying "this is Carrington." I take some flack for it, as most of my friends snarf a laugh or adopt a CNN announcer voice to announce their own names right back at me. But I stand by my answering technique because it makes it clear to the caller who I am and we can just get on with it. Naturally, tele-salespeople miss what I say completely and inevitably follow up my "this is Carrington" statement by stammering a request to speak with "Mr. or Mrs. Carri—Carringto—Caring Town Vans Tone." Just as inevitably, I say no.
end of aside
Sometimes, I won't answer the homework query straight away. If I think I'm being used as a crutch or an excuse not to think about the problem, then I'll just end up throwing questions back.
ring
This is Carrington.
What is the adjective in "The black cat is in front of my house."
Well, tell me what an adjective is.
A word that describes a noun.
Okay, so what are the nouns in the sentence?
House is a noun.
Yes, house is a noun. Very good. Are the other nouns? Remember the rules: a noun is a thing, something real. Anything you could pick up and throw at your daddy is a noun.
I can't pick up a house.
If you were a superhero you could, but that's a good point. So let's make it, a noun is anything that you can experience with one of your five senses. Remember what your five senses are?
Smell, taste, hear, see, and touch.
Good, so in the sentence "The black cat is in front of my house" what can your senses experience?
Maybe I can smell the cat.
Maybe, but we aren't told it's a stinky cat. But you're instincts are good. A cat is a noun. You can see a cat and you can touch a cat, so a cat is a noun. And you already knew that a house was a noun. The nouns won't give us any problems. But your homework is about adjectives, so remind me: what is an adjective?
A word that describes a noun.
Right, an adjective tells you about the noun, it answers the question "What kind of whatever this is." If the noun is a bear, an adjective might tell you it's a BIG bear or an SMELLY bear or a SMART bear. So let's ask the "what kind is it" question for the nouns in the sentence. What kind of house is it?
I don't know.
That's right. We don't know if it's a BLUE house or a CLEAN house because there are no adjectives describing the house. What about the cat? What type of cat is it?
It's a black cat.
Aha, very good. It's a black cat. The word "black" tells us what kind of cat it is.
Black is an adjective.
Right. Very good. Are there any other adjectives in the sentence?
No. The only noun it tells me about is the cat.
Perfect. See, you know all about adjectives.
Thanks.
click
Tonight I'm heading up to the house that holds the rest of my family. I'm going to bring my bicycle so that this Uncle Cary can go riding with his Nephew Jack. I'm sure there will be homework to do, and I'm just as sure I'll want to do it with him. I'm beginning to get a reputation as the Uncle Cary who loves school and even loves homework. He thinks I'm a bit off that way, and I probably am. But I love being associated in his mind with those things.
And when we ride around the neighborhood at 8 year old biking speeds (which means, I'm sure, picking up my normal pace considerably) he'll be doing his best to talk about video games. And I'll be doing my best to give him a pop quiz in grammar.
Being an Uncle Cary is the best thing ever.
2005 Apr 15 // Link // E-mail
Song in my head: "Violent" by Concrete Blonde
Hidden band name idea: Throwing Questions
###
How was Carrington's weekend, you ask?
Well, he nabbed himself two count 'em two Infocom text adventure games for the vintage Apple IIe that's sitting on his kitchen table: Hollywood Hijinx and Bureaucracy, both in near-mint boxes with complete sets of "feelies" (the goodies that came with those classic games). Welcome to the short shuttle, destination Nerd Heaven.
And he set up a recording studio (ok, it's just a mic and a mixer in his bedroom, but leave a guy his rock star fantasies) for a comedy variety show he'll be doing as a weekly half-hour podcast starting in a few weeks.
Plus he saw Oldboy, which is a wonderful (if shudderingly creepy) film. It's been called "mind-blowing" by critics, and his mind was indeed blown. Honestly, you could hear the wind whistle right through it.
Finally, he posted a blog entry in this annoying third-person voice as if he was some sort of unedumacated sports star or vacuous Hollywood actor slash hand model. So, there's that.
A very excellent weekend indeed.
2005 Apr 18 // Link // E-mail
Song in my head: "Down" by Metric
Hidden band name idea: The Vintage
###
I may have been burgled. Or maybe there's a man from the future hiding in my apartment. Or a cat. Or I'm crazy. I realize that these are not mutually exclusive options.
It happened like this:
Last night I ate dinner while watching some of Grosse Pointe Blank on DVD. Dinner was leftover spaghetti, eaten right out of a tupperware container. Yes, I live the high life. It's okay to be jealous.
So that's the scene to keep in mind: me sitting on my couch, eating spaghetti and drinking water while watching a DVD, with a small stack of books beside the couch. The Best of Robert Benchley on top, deservedly. Can you see the scene clearly? Good.
What you can't see clearly, because I haven't mentioned it yet, is me not finishing the spaghetti and setting it and my glass down in front of the couch. I then let the movie run as I worked on the web site design for my upcoming podcast.
It was late, and it continued to get later. Once the movie finished I set aside my laptop and picked up Benchley. He made me laugh. Later turned into very late, and I eventually set Benchley back down and went to sleep right there on the couch.
So that's the new scene to keep in mind: my laptop, two remote controls, an empty glass, and a bowl of unfinished spaghetti on the floor before the couch; Benchley's best bits at the summit of a paperback pile; and me, curled up on the couch asleep. Still clear? Excellent, you're very good at this.
Four hours later, I woke up. That might not sound like a lot of sleep, but it's pretty typical for me. Even so, it felt like I had been awoken by something rather than just waking up naturally.
Just as I woke up, I thought I heard the sound of a door. It's not a rare sound in my apartment because the long curve of a hallway leading to my door is a very echoey one, and the doors in this building don't have those "slowy-downy" things that stop them from slamming. My first thought when I awoke was that I'd heard the sound of my neighbor's door closing across the hall.
My second thought was: hey, where's the spaghetti?
On the floor beside the couch was a pile of books. In front of the couch was my laptop, two remote controls, and the empty glass. Beside the empty glass was not a bowl of spaghetti.
I concluded that one of five things had happened:
Somebody broken into my apartment, stealing my spaghetti but leaving my laptop and wallet because he is insane.
In the future, complex carbohydrates have replaced gold as a world monetary standard. I invent a time machine, and I start dropping back on myself to yoink away my sauce covered wealth. I probably figure I owe me, and I'm probably right.
At night, the C.H.U.D.s attacked. It was only the fact that I'd set out a "sacrificial bowl of child intestines" that soften their hearts to my plight such that they delayed until this evening my painful death by gnawing. The big cannibal softies.
A neighbor's pet, such as a cat or a different cat, had become locked in my apartment. The tasty spaghetti treat and my obvious asleepedness brought it out from hiding, then it yoinked away the rest of my dinner like some time traveling carb thief.
Same as number 1, except instead of being insane he's just really hungry.
I searched my place thoroughly for the spaghetti, or for the cat from #4. No dice. No spaghetti, either. I looked in the garbage, in case I had been sleep-cleaning (though why I'd clean up the bowl but leave the glass I don't know). I searched the cupboards, the closet, the sink and tub and desk. I searched under and around and in the couch. I searched in and under everything I owned, but that bowl of spaghetti was definitely gone.
The only trace I found was the lid of the tupperware container, sitting beside the microwave where I'd left it the night before. It still had traces of sauce, so perhaps I can expect my time traveling future self to snatch it up as pocket change. Or maybe the C.H.U.D.s will baste me with it. Who knows?
So that's my maybe burglary. Did someone come in my apartment, stand right over me as I slept, and then take away the spaghetti as a trophy or a clue? Or did I sleep walk all the way down to the basement to toss it in the building's garbage bins?
Strange times in Carringtonland. If the C.H.U.D.s get me, tell the world my story.
2005 Apr 21 // Link // E-mail
Song in my head: "Five Good Reasons" by King Apparatus
Hidden band name idea: The Long Curve
###
Oh my shit, I have finally been shown The Way when it comes to Christmas ornaments.
Longtime readers o' this blog will be well aware of my family's need to hang oysters, outhouses, and pickles on our Christmas tree each year.
But we have nothing, NOTHING, that can compare to the sheer eyemeltingness of … of … oh, I just can't say it. You'll have to see for yourself. It's hilarious, wonderful, terrible, and shames my family's pickle.
I bet none of you have ever used the phrase "shames my family's pickle" before. I may have just made etymological history. Go me!
"Thanks" to Derryl Murphy's excellent Cold Ground blog for the link.
2005 Apr 25 // Link // E-mail
Song in my head: "Down" by Metric
Hidden band name idea: Need To Hang
###
The whole Thin Man film series is coming to DVD. Huzzah and hooray, these films have been on my DVD wish list since I first thought to combine the idea of DVDs with the idea of wish lists. Yup, that was me.
Yup as well to the fact that the first of the Thin Man movies (coincidentally called The Thin Man) has long been available on DVD, but that ain't been enough for this fan of Myrna and Bill. Now all six films will finally be available in a seven disc set.
aside:
Just like you, my first thought was to worry that they've made the six films span all seven discs so that the end of each film was on a separate disc. Wouldn't that be funny, in an I'd Have To Kill Everyone At Warner Home Video sort of way.
end of aside
I'm delighted I'll be able once again watch the whole series for the first time since I prematurely dumped my entire VHS collection under the misguided assumption that DVD replacements would soon be available for all cassette-bound movies. I'm looking your way Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, don't think that I'm not.
