Saturday, November 27, 2010

My Fierce One Turns 11


My beautiful daughter's birthday was today. For the event, those of us who could cook created a fine meal with tacos, guacamole, and other great accompaniments. Instead of cake, we had cupcakes decorated in various custom designs by the eleven year old of the hour and those who came together to honor her. BTW, if I ever want to get a giggle out of folk who know her, I refer to my youngest as "my quiet and demure daughter." For my mind, I think she gets her keen and fierce personality from the one who shares the same birthday (and who influenced her old man growing up). Had he lived, Bruce Lee would have turned 70 today. To celebrate them both, there's only one theme song that fits.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Song for the Holiday: Get Here

With the Thanksgiving Day holiday almost upon us, and being the busiest travel day of the year, it always reminds me of those trying to get home. When I think about my family and the holiday, being home for it means a great deal to me. As it does for others who have to travel to make it happen. Whenever my wife and I roam anywhere, it is my mate who the kids and I follow to our destination. She is the sightseeing one between the two of us, and loves getting us there. Me? While I have a fondness for journeying with the gang, it's my role for getting us home, together.

This post has been updated and moved to my current blog, which can be found here.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

The Lathe of Heaven Film Review

Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it.
Back in September of this year, I put together a post for My Picks for The Greatest... Sci-Fi Film Edition. In it, I placed a little PBS film high up on that loftiest of lists for this genre. There it drew the attention of my NoCal blogging compadre, Rachel (from Scientist Gone Wordy). So, per her suggestion for our next 'parallel post', The Lathe of Heaven novel and film, by fantasy/sci-fi author Ursula K. Le Guin, will have our mutual focus for this the November edition of our little book/film series. As usual, the wordy one will examine the text of the 1972 Locus SF Award novel winner, while I get to go back and relive my 1980 youth by reviewing that now famous broadcast of Thirteen/WNET's adaptation of the sci-fi classic. Rachel's book review can be found here:

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

This post has been updated and moved to my current blog, which can be found here.

Monday, November 15, 2010

I'm Waiting for This


A western, and one that has marauding alien invaders? Sign. Me. Up (says the Firefly fan).

Friday, November 12, 2010

Never Die Young

As close as a personal motto as there is in song for me:

We were ring-around-the-rosy children
They were circles around the sun
Never give up, never slow down
Never grow old, never ever die young

Synchronized with the rising moon
Even with the evening star
They were true love written in stone
They were never alone, they were never that far apart

And we who couldn't bear to believe they might make it
We got to close our eyes
Cut up our losses into doable doses
Ration our tears and sighs

You could see them on the street on a saturday night
Everyone used to run them down
They're a little too sweet, they're a little too tight
Not enough tough for this town

We couldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole
No, it didn't seem to rattle at all
They were glued together body and soul
That much more with their backs up against the wall

Oh, hold them up, hold them up
Never do let them fall
Prey to the dust and the rust and the ruin
That names us and claims us and shames us all

I guess it had to happen someday soon
Wasn't nothing to hold them down
They would rise from among us like a big baloon
Take the sky, forsake the ground

Oh, yes, other hearts were broken
Yeah, other dreams ran dry
But our golden ones sail on, sail on
To another land beneath another sky
Have a great weekend, folks.