Half-Life and Times

There seems to be this idea that guys over the age of 12 are hard to buy for. Nothing could be further from the truth. If nothing else, we certainly resonate with the words of Charlie Brown's sister Sally in her letter to Santa suggesting that he make it easy on himself and just bring cash, "preferably tens and twenties". If that doesn't do it for you, try some of these below (this is not MY Christmas list as I already have most of these things). I DIDN'T do hyperlinks to Amazon or anything, but I think these are all pretty easy to find.

Books - these are all things that I've read in the last 18 months or so that I highly recommend:

The Verb, To Bird, by my friend Peter Cashwell. If you're a birder, you'll fall out of your chair laughing hysterically (so I'm told). If you've ever met a birder, or you've ever seen a bird, you'll do the same.

Dixie Lullaby, by Mark Kemp. I talked about this one a few weeks ago - for the Molly Hatchet fan in all of us.

Theodore Rex, by Edmund Morris. The first and last US Presidents of the 20th Century are my favorites - this'll explain the first one.

The Years of Rice and Salt, by Kim Stanley Robinson. How would the world be different today if the Black Plague had wiped out 99% of Europeans and Islam and Buddhism had emerged then as the dominant religious and political forces throughout the world? The last 700 or so years, as they might have been.

Dogland, by Will Shetterly. I'm going to keep suggesting this book until everyone I know has read it. A Northern family opens a roadside attraction in Florida in the late fifties - full of racial tension, hidden magic, the Fountain of Youth and disguised Norse gods as told from the perspective of the young son. It really is beautiful.

CDs - this section's a little thin cause I haven't been buying all that much lately:

London Calling, by the Clash - the Legacy Edition. 25th Anniversary Edition with demo tapes and a DVD. I don't have this extra special crunchy edition yet, but the original album is one of the best rock and roll albums ever recorded. Still on my "desert island" list...

Por Vida, a tribute to the songs of Alejandro Escovedo - I've already blogged about this one. It's a tribute album where the performances don't suck - what more could you want?

Joe Strummer and Warren Zevon's last CDs - I know these aren't new anymore, but if your giftee doesn't have 'em yet, they should.

Rock and Roll, by Ryan Adams - his thumb-in-the-eye to anyone that wants to peg him as only an alt.country performer. Yeah, he's an asshole, but he's OUR asshole, dammit!

Some of the biggies are out or just coming out - Spider-man 2 (best comic book movie ever), Shrek 2 (almost as good as Shrek), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (better than the first two Potters put together) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Extended Edition (better than anything ever in the history of the universe except for sex and beer)

The Star Wars box - yeah, I know, we all agree that Lucas is a serious asshat for not putting the original, unfucked-with versions of these in the box, but you still have to have this. I mean it.

The Big Sleep - for God's sake not the Robert Mitchum one! The one with Bogie and (slurp!) Bacall - it was released on DVD with the original version on one side and the one that finally made it into the theater enhanced with more Bacall scenes to take advantage of her growing popularity on the other. For once the mucked-with version of something is actually better than the original. Martha Vickers' scene-chewing turn as Carmen Sternwood is out of this world. There's also a boxed set with The Big Sleep, Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon and Key Largo (wow!) but I'm not sure if it has both versions of The Big Sleep.

Firefly boxed set - we're still working our way through collecting all of the Buffys and Angels on DVD, but we started with Firefly - as JennySlash says, another example that the business to have in the distant future or after any apocalypse is making drover coats. This is what television could be, should be, and seldom is.

Underworld - if you didn't get it last year 'cause you weren't sure, be sure. Vampires and werewolves (oh my!) and Kate Beckinsale looking better in a black leather cat suit than anyone since Diana Rigg last donned hers as Mrs. Peel.

Note: There's a rumor that The Loved One is finally coming out on DVD soon. If you're not familiar with it, it's got to be the darkest black comedy I can remember seeing. Cast includes Robert Morse, Jonathon Winters, Rod Steiger, John Gielgud, Dana Andrews, Tab Hunter, Liberace, Roddy McDowell and on and on. So far available only on VHS.

Dick's Sporting Goods, Eddie Bauer, R.E.I. - if it weren't for these three stores, I'd be running around naked. And Dick's and REI have lots of non-clothes stuff as well for us manly outdoors-y types.

Best Buy - yeah, I know, I hate them with a passion. But I also buy stuff from them because they have what I want and it's cheap. Scruples and a buck fifty'll buy you a cup of coffee, but not much more than that.

Borders/Barnes and Noble - lot of people hate them too, but I don't have the same antipathy towards them as I do Best Buy.

Lowes - if you have a house, you shop at DIY stores. If you live in North Carolina, you ought to shop at NC-based Lowes instead of GA-based Home Depot (and the stores are better). This one's a no-brainer.

Pressure Washer - Dad bought me a 1750 PSI pressure washer a couple of years ago and it is cool as hell! Reminds me, I need to go clean the siding...

MP3 player - doesn't have to be an expensive hard-drive type like an iPod - I'm very happy with my USB-key type 128M flash drive. Just drag and drop and you're ready to run (or walk or cut the grass or whatever). After JennySlash saw some guy drop his iPod at the track a few weeks ago and he stood there staring at $300 down the drain, it made me very happy with my $70 job.

A bigger hard drive - who doesn't need one? 120GB minimum - gotta have room for all that ~~Internet pr0n and pirated DVDs~~ music.

Coin sorters, musical electric tie racks, singing plastic fish, novelty golf desk accessories - if they only put stuff out the weeks before Father's Day and the weeks before Christmas, chances are we don't want it and don't need it. If we did, they'd sell 'em all year round.

Luggage, wallets, briefcases - maybe other guys like to get them, but I think most of us are very particular about what kind of luggage we have, whether we want a traditional or knapsack-style briefcase, whether we like a bi-fold or a tri-fold and so on. The problem when some well-meaning person gives us one of these things is that we feel obligated to use it rather than going and buying the kind we really want. Think hard about this one.

Now go and spend money! It helps the economy and somehow keeps the terrorists from winning!

Posted by Tony @ 7:15:00 pm |

How in the hell did those guys lose to Santa Clara? The three games in Hawaii have to make you question how they can lose at all. In reality, I suspect that this is still a team capable of beating itself, which is what I can only suspect happened in that Santa Clara game. Neither Tennessee or Iowa are bad teams, yet when's the last time you can remember a UNC team hitting the 100 point mark with 5 minutes left in the game as they did in the championship against Iowa? The Hawkeyes did manage to pull within 14 points a couple of times in the second half, but every time the Heels responded with a flurry and the difference quickly went back to 20+. This team has more experience and more depth than any I can remember since maybe '93. The first seven guys in are all good (and McCants and Felton are likely to go down in history a couple of the best to ever wear the uniform) and are all juniors or seniors. Add Marvin Williams, who had an excellent tournament, to the mix as front-line depth and Quentin Thomas and Wes Miller (who appears to be a pretty decent ball handler) to spell Felton and you've got some serious depth. They've got a couple of good challenges over the next couple of weeks before getting into conference play - let's hope the team that lost to Santa Clara doesn't resurface.

Posted by Tony @ 10:40:00 pm |

Wednesday, November 24, 2004

Carolina Football Weeks Ten through Twelve

Here's what I said on Halloween the day after Carolina's win over Miami - "If they manage to win out - hell, if they make it a close game against Va Tech and beat the Deacs and the Devils - I'll sign up as a believer." A missed field goal in the final minute is all that kept them from winning out, so by definition it was a close game against the Hokies. Combined with wins on the road against admittedly worse than expected Wake Forest and Duke and we ended with a winning record, an unblemished record in the mythical state championship and an invitation to the Connie Bowl in Charlotte. That equates to currently a 5th place in the conference which could end up a tie for 3rd if Virginia Tech wins out. Pretty damned good after Lex's comment of September 13 - "Man, I'm not giving Bunting a day past Halloween." I'm not picking on Lex - I was convinced after the first four games that Bunting wouldn't last the season. Frankly the only guy that appears to have had a decent idea of what was going on (and you have no earthly idea how fucking painful it is to type this) is dear old Dad, whose prediction of 7-4 was a helluva lot closer to the truth than mine of 3-8. But he still owes me $5.

So I guess I'm a believer. And Bunting's job is safe - safe to the tune of a two-year extension to his contract which will now run through the 2009 season. More than that, I guess Dick Baddour's job is safe for a while longer - with Roy Williams having finally assumed his rightful place at the helm of the basketball program and John Bunting maybe finding the right combination of players and coaches, I'm betting the pumpkin pie is going to be tasting mighty sweet at Baddour's house tomorrow.

Posted by Tony @ 7:40:00 pm |

Dreams

I went years without remembering whether I dreamt at all, then a few years ago started having these very vivid dreams almost every night. They're not nightmares - more like action-adventure movies in some cases - and I usually don't remember any details after being awake for five minutes or so, just that I dreamt. I'll admit that they sometimes have me waking up feeling pretty drained (they do seem to often involve an inordinate amount of running around), but on the whole my main regret is that I don't remember more of them.

I've only had recurring dreams a couple of times. The first I recall was when I was about six and a number of times I dreamt that a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon of Underdog went floating by the picture window of my grandmother's house. That was pretty much it until the last few years, when I've had a recurring theme (if not actual recurring details) about realizing that it's a week or a month into or almost the end of the semester and there's a class (or a whole schedule of classes) that I haven't attended or that I totally forgot about and now I'm in the class and have no freaking idea what's going on.

All of which only partially explains the dream that I had while on vacation and actually wrote down just after waking up. I was in high school, which was being held in a converted barn, and I realized it was being taught by President George W. Bush. As usual, I realize that I have no idea what we're studying and am totally lost. Somebody in the class (not me for a change) makes some crack about W that gets him all upset and offended. Then it gets interesting. We move outside to the front of the barn and we're all sitting on the grass while W holds forth from a few feet away. As he's talking, Gene, the guy that hired me 14 years ago, walks by and sticks his hand out to shake but then does that fake-out hand-through-the-hair thing that leaves W standing there with his hand out like a doofus. Gene walks on past us and sits down next to someone that I then realize is Bill Clinton. (I'm not sure if it's weirder that Clinton and Bush were in my dream or that Gene was.) W's looking pretty pissed when a couple of limos pull up and start discharging passengers. Condi Rice and Karen Hughes get out of the one near W and start walking towards us, while Donna Brazile and Maureen Dowd get out of the other one and start walking past us towards W's gals. I should explain here that none of the women looked like themselves - they all looked like those administrative assistants that are paid to take shit from their bosses and tell the rest of us "no" to whatever we ask. Okay, that is actually a pretty good description of Karen Hughes. Anyhoo, I make some comment about not getting caught in the crossfire before realizing what a terrible pun that is - everyone groans. That's about the time I realize that W's not going to be doing any teaching for a bit, that this is a girlfight that I probably really can afford to miss and it's a good time for a bathroom break. And then I woke up and took a bathroom break and wrote this down.

I have no idea what to make of this.

Posted by Tony @ 5:15:00 pm |

Sunday, November 21, 2004

We're Back in 5... 4... 3...

... and we're back! Had a wonderful time! Spent the most of the week at Old Salem staying at the Augustus Zevely Inn right across the street from the old tavern (I didn't even know there were accomodations within the restored area until JennySlash found it - we HIGHLY recommend it!), doing the tour for the first time in years and enjoying the fall colors. And let me take a moment right now to apologize to Mother Nature and take back everything bad I was saying a few weeks ago about the beauty (or presumed lack thereof) of this fall. As usual, I jumped the gun when some of the trees just turned brown and ugly earlier in the fall - let me say that this week, in Old Salem and in other parts of the state later, has been absolutely magnificent! The scarlets of the dogwoods and of the Bradford pears that survived the ice storms of the last few years, the day-glo orange of the sweetgums, the yellow and reds of the maples, even the rusts of the oaks are all pretty damned unbelievable this week - I hope I captured some of that in the pictures I took in Winston-Salem. We also went down to Charlotte for a visit this weekend with my sister and her family and had a great time with her and my brother-in-law and my nephew. Today has been recovery day and laundry day as I've got to dive back into work first thing in the morning.

I paid absolutely no attention to the news or blogs or politics all week long and I'm feeling quite refreshed!

Posted by Tony @ 9:45:00 pm |