Fall Classic

Currently Reading: God Emperor Dune by Frank Herbert

Ok, I'm right back where I started with my reading list, at least where the Dune chronicles is concerned. I know, not much of a big announcement right? Just warming up, that's all. You'll have to cut me a little slack.

You see, as September starts to slip away, we're entering one of my favorite times of year: fall. Why fall? Well, the colors for one. I mean, how can you go wrong with all the great orange and red trees all over the place. Yes, there are lots of falling leaves and those leaves will have to be raked up. But not by me, which is another part of the attraction I suppose. Besides that, unlike the spring flowers which color my OTHER favorite season, the fall leaves do NOT leave me sneezing and coughing and wishing I was indoors.

And let's talk sports too because that's another big part of the season. You've got football for real now. The teams are starting to get their acts together, they're playing more like teams, they're not screwing up nearly as much as they were in pre-season. Of course, the games actually count now too, I've mentioned that in a previous blog. You've also got a HUGE array of weather to play football in this time of year. Out on the west coast and in the south, it's still warm if not downright HOT. On the sidelines you'll see those misting machines to cool down players between downs. But up north and back east, well the temperature is slowly dropping and pretty soon, during those night games especially, you'll start seeing long sleeve shirts, the sweatshirts, then jackets and coats and finally, my favorite, snow :-) Oh sure it's too early for snow right NOW, we probably won't start seeing that until November but we're close. You can feel it right around the corner. Just a little nip in the air, maybe a brisk wind from time to time. It's out there.

The baseball season is winding down now as well and the fall classic will start up in October. Looking at the standings, we'll probably see quite a few of the usual suspects in the playoffs. Who knows, we might even see another Yankees vs Red Sox series and those are always great. They're gearing up for one now in fact. Unfortunately it'll be played over the weekend and I'll be working so I doubt I'll get to see any of it. That's another thing I like about the playoffs. To maximize television exposure, they play most of their games at night when I'm off so I'll get to see them. Yes, I know, all you non-fans out there will complain about having to wait a little later for the new episodes of your favorite FOX shows and I can understand that. Just remember, this only happens once a year and hey, overall it means fewer repeats down the line right?

And let's not forget one of the HUGE attractions this time of year: fall temperatures! FINALLY we can shut off the air conditioners and open up the windows. Let the apartment air out a bit so it's not so stuffy. We can go out and enjoy our balcony and our lounge chairs out there and just watch things go by out in the parking lot. Dangerous to do that this time of year though, if you're prone to naps that is. You might just end up sleeping half the day away. I know I've felt like that the past few days.

September also means we've got to finish up the paperwork for the INS. I sent out an e-mail to a lot of people (most of whom read this blog anyway so you already know about it) asking them to write up a little letter telling the INS that yes, CC and I are still married and aren't faking it. It's all part of making sure you don't have people getting married JUST for the green card like they used to in the old days. Now you get a conditional green card for a few years then you can apply to have that condition removed. That's what we're doing now. Next step after that is citizenship for CC if she wants it. She says she's going to go for it but I told her she doesn't have to. It's not like we force it on anyone. I guess she really wants to vote. She's already been called for jury duty so she probably already feels like one of us (no, she didn't have to serve on a jury; she's not qualified under the rules due to her not being a citizen).

We're going to California in a few weeks too, that's sort of our anniversary present to each other. We're taking a nice short vacation and visiting some of her relatives in L.A. We're also going to DISNEYLAND! I could only get 5 days off though. Yes, we'd prefer a longer vacation but the salon can't afford for me to miss more than 5 days. It's just not possible. On the plus side though, it's probably better for us financially to only stay the 5 days. The longer we stay, the more money we spend, the less we have for the holidays and you know the holiday season gets more expensive every year.

I think I'm going to go outside and enjoy that fall weather for a little bit. Maybe have a nap on the balcony while I'm at it. This season only comes once a year you know :-)

Just stuff on my mind.

Currently Reading: A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

We've just passed Labor Day so that means Fall is right around the corner. I'm happy to say that the heat wave has also finally passed. In fact, last night it was actually cool enough for us to sleep WITHOUT using the window AC unit in the bedroom. Let's hope it stays that way. I've had enough of the heat for a while.

I had to work on Labor Day though. Nothing sinister about that, I just work on Mondays. It was REALLY dead. Kinda of makes me wonder why we bothered to open up. It's Labor Day right? That means those of us who LABOR aren't supposed to work. Somewhere along the way we got that all mixed up. Now it's the people who manage who get the day off along with all the office workers. But if you're tied to retail like I am, you probably had to go to work like it was any other Monday.

We're also coming up to the end of baseball season. Looks like there might be a little bit of action going into the final stretch. The Yankees and the Mariners were slugging it out for the wild card slot over in the American league so that might develop into something. We've still got plenty of time to go though for one of the leaders to have a major meltdown and change the playoffs. We'll just have to wait and see.

CC and I are going to see the Shaolin Warriors in November. There's a group that tours the country putting on a show and they'll be stopping here in Memphis. That's going to be a great one. Can't wait to see it. We've already got our tickets and the show is on a Sunday night so there won't be any problems with the schedule. CC will be back from her October training in Florida, it's well after our trip to California at the end of the month. Perfect :-)

Speaking of the California trip, we still haven't figured out all that we're going to do. We're for sure going to Disneyland and we'll be seeing CC's relatives but other than that, we're still open. I told CC I'd like to visit the beach at some point. It's been an awfully long time since I've seen the ocean from the ground. So at some point we'll stop by one of the beaches out there. What else? Who knows? We may not even decide until we actually get there.

Football season opens this week! WOO HOO! It'll be great to have the regular players back in for the whole game and the games will actually have some meaning again. On the other hand, it was nice being able to watch football from Thursday through Monday instead of just on Sunday and Monday. Maybe if the ratings were good they'll spread the schedule out a bit more. Then again, once the regular shows start popping up again on TV there probably won't be as much of a demand for fresh entertainment. We'll have to wait and see.

More Adventurous Than You Think

Currently Reading: Children of Dune by Frank Herbert

Now, over the years I have taken quite a few sarcastic remarks and assorted jibes about being a picky eater. The rumors aren't true. I'm actually not nearly as bad as people say but I have that reputation because some of the things I don't like are very popular. For example, seafood. I'm really not a big seafood eater. I just don't like it. I tend to refer to shrimp as critters and I've never been all that big on fish. I will eat some of it. I like tuna and salmon and from time to time I even eat eel but you'll never have to fight your way past me to get to the all-you-can-eat special at Red Lobster.

Just to give you some idea of what I WILL eat though, to give you some idea of how wrong that reputation is, this is what I had yesterday for lunch:

Keema Matar: minced lamb cooked with fresh green peas, tomatoes and herbed spices
Chicken Curry: traditional dish cooked with boneless chicken, onion, garlic, ginger, tomatoes and curry spices
Aloo Matar: potatoes and green peas cooked with onion and tomatoes mildly spiced
Chana Masala: garbanzo beans with ginger in a specially spiced sauce

Plus rice and some sort of appetizer that I can't find on the menu but seems to be a sort of samosa. If you guessed we were eating out, you guessed right. You may have also figured that we were eating Indian food again. Yes, CC and I hit the lunch buffet yesterday at Bombay House, our favorite Indian restaurant here in town.

Bombay House is one of the places I will certainly miss when we move to Nashville. Everything I've had there has been good, EVERYTHING. Better still, we've been going there for maybe a year and a half now and nothing has changed. The food is still just as good now as it was when we first started going there. We've been to one other Indian place that's also popular but I didn't like it nearly as much. The quality of food just wasn't the same.

So, if you're feeling like something a little different, trek on over to Bombay House. Some of the dishes are spicy but I haven't had anything that's been too hot to eat. Spicy, in the good sense of the word :-)

I picked up the latest from William Gibson yesterday. He's the guy who's credited for coining the term cyberspace. Great author. Writes really complex stuff. Unfortunately, like a lot of really great authors he doesn't write quickly. He's not the type to churn out a new novel every year or every two years for that matter. It's not uncommon to go three our four years between novels, which makes them all the more enjoyable.

His subjects tend to be tech related. The only question is how far into the future (or in one case the past) he's going. His first big trilogy was set in a very high tech future. One of his short stories is the basis for the movie Johnny Mnemonic. You may have seen that one. It pops up on cable from time to time.

Not sure where and when this latest one takes place but I seem to recall it being set in the near-future. His previous one was also set in the near future and I've yet to find out if the two are related. His first three were, so were the second three so it makes sense that some minor character from Pattern Recognition will show up as a major character in this one and will carry over into a third. That seems to be his MO.

But before I get to reading that one, I've got to finish Children of Dune. And after I read the Gibson book, I'll likley head back to Arrakis for God Emperor which will bring me back to where I started some time earlier this year. And from there? Who knows. There are two novels due out in the fall that I have on my short list so I may have some more fresh material to work with soon.

Incidentally, the second of those awful Dune books is out now. It's a freaky attempt to link the whole Dune saga together with the really awful prequel and sequel novels that Frank Herbert's son has been doing. You'd think he'd have learned from the whole Chris Tolkien thing. Never mess with someone else's fictional mythos, even if it was created by your own family. Resist the temptation to try and build on that because it won't work. It would have been better if he'd taken all his ideas and just set them WAY WAY in the future. Use the same fictional world if he wants, just don't try and link up with the past like that. It always bites you in the ass.

Still hot here in the south. I'm seeing forecasts for today ranging from 104 to 107. Tomorrow it's going to cool down a bit. It'll only be 101. Then we get a MAJOR rush of cold air, dropping it all the way down to 96 on Saturday. I remember something like this happening in 2000, about the same time of year too. I was in Manila at the time visiting CC and it was actually MUCH cooler over there than it was here. I missed the entire heat wave. By the time I got back things were normal again. No such luck this time unfortunately. But that's ok. It just reminds me of summer in Texas.

Besides, it's hard to complain too much about the weather when there's actual football going on now. Yes, it's only pre-season but it's still football played by the NFL and not some lower level minor league wannabe kinda thing. I'm even getting to see maybe 4 games a week. They're playing at night and I don't work nights anymore so this is a good thing.

Well, time to crawl into the safety and coolness of the bedroom. I'll probably stay there until the sun goes down or at least until the dogs REALLY need to go out. Place just gets too damn hot here in the afternoon.

Oh yeah, August

Currently Reading: Children of Dune by Frank Herbert

So here we are, August. CC's back from Manila, things are moving at a decent pace at work, not too busy, not too boring. You think I'd be in a better mood as I sit down to the computer to post a blog entry this week.

So, what's got me all fired up this week? The weather for one. It's hot. DAMN hot. It's Texas hot. Hello, Texas? Yes, we have your weather. Please come pick it up and take it home. Seriously, this is how I remember summer being all the time and you know what? I didn't like it then either :-)

Just walking down the stairs to the truck is enough to make you break out in a drenching sweat. And don't get me started on the climb UP. Then picture all that with your arms full of groceries or similar shopping bags. Oh yeah, it's August alright. Thank goodness this sort of thing doesn't last very long.

And just for the record, I haven't gotten spoiled by cooler summers. It really IS hot here. Today it's going to be 99 or 100. Tomorrow, 101, Thursday, 101 then it may cool down to a brisk 97. All of this combines with the usual Memphis humidity. Lordy you'd think with it being this hot, some of that moisture would burn off.

You've also got to remember that we don't have the best air conditioner here in the apartment. I'm not really sure how high it's rated but it can't be rated for anything bigger than our current 1100 square feet. Honestly, I'd be surprised if it was supposed to handle THAT much space. Right now, running the usual appliances, central air on, the coolest I can get this place in the middle of the day is 85. Were I at work, I'd be obligated to shut everything down and move the dogs into a cooler part of the store. Seriously, we don't let it get any higher than 80 back there.

Because of our AC, I broke down last night and went out and got a window unit for the bedroom. I can mostly function in a warm space during the day but I have a hard time sleeping when it's this hot. I get restless and sticky. So I drove over to Target and picked up an AC to keep the bedroom cool. Funny thing is, I wasn't the only one who had that idea. When I got there they had only two left. Just two. Didn't matter what size you wanted, they had two. Now they have one :-) Like I said, it's a bit warm lately.

Now, you might say that it was a waste to get a window AC. It's only going to be this hot for a few weeks. I should be able to tough it out, blah blah blah. Yeah, well I slept good last night and after I finish this up, I'm going to have a shower and take a nap in my nice COOL bedroom. Maybe watch some TV when I wake up. Far as I'm concerned, that little AC is worth every penny we paid for it :-)

Speaking of sleeping, I had my sleep disturbed Monday night. Caught some sort of stomach virus and it really messed me up for a bit. Don't worry, I'll spare you the gory details. Besides, I'm sure at some point you've had a stomach flu or food poisoning or something like that. You know how it goes. Come to think of it, I'm still probably running a little slower than usual right now. Then again, that could be the heat.

All of this awful weather really does add to the whole Dune experience. I'm reading the Dune books again, admittedly in the wrong order, not that it matters. I read the last two in prelude to that awful new one that came out. After I abandoned it, I decided to go back and read the rest. Needless to say when the book describes someone dealing with the heat, I can really FEEL it :-)

Tomorrow is Thursday. Yes, I know, that much is obvious. Who cares right? Just another hot Thursday in August right? No, not quite. You see, tomorrow starts PRE-SEASON FOOTBALL! Ok no, again, not quite. It actually started over the weekend with the hall of fame game but unless you get the NFL network, you didn't get that game. Just as well, that game usually sucks anyway. Tomorrow night though, Dallas plays the Colts! WOO HOO! I can only hope, for their sakes, that they're either playing indoors or someplace where it's not as hot as it is here. You could seriously injure yourself playing in weather like this. Hell you can injure yourself just walking down the street in weather like this.

Speaking of injuries, why didn't anyone bean Barry Bonds before he broke the home run record? Seriously, you'd think someone would have done that by "accident" before he got it. Whoops! That pitch just slipped right off my fingers. Sorry Barry, didn't mean to slam a 90 mile an hour fastball into your knee. Darn, looks like that one might end your career. Aww shucks.

But nope, didn't happen. Why? It's bad enough the single season home run record is in question. Let's face it, even back when Mark McQuire and Sammy Sosa were going head to head for the record we all had to wonder about it. These guys sure do look a whole lot bulkier than they did a few seasons ago.

Maybe we should have TWO sets of records. One for the juiced players, one for the non-juiced players. Then again, at this rate the only non-juiced players are the ones coming in from Japan. You can tell they're not juiced. Same with some of the others actually. All you have to do is look at them when they stand next to one of the juiced guys. Remember, baseball players are NOT supposed to be built like linemen.

Ah well, I'm done with my rant. I'm hitting the showers and having a nap. Stay cool everyone. September is right around the corner!

The Dead Zone

Currently Reading: Moby Dick by Herman Melville

And so we've arrived here in the dead zone. No more football. Spring training for baseball is still two weeks away and the season won't start until April. That's a long time to pretend to be interested in basketball and NASCAR. I suppose I could always pretend to be following hockey too but let's face it, we're in Memphis. Who would care if I was interested in hockey or not? No one ELSE here is following it :-)

I was checking out CC's blog the other day and I got a kick out of her entry about my reading list. Yes, it's true I'm currently reading Moby Dick. Why? I dunno, just felt like it. I've read it before and I was in the mood to read it again. In the first chapter, first page in fact, Ishmael talks about how when his mood gets to be in a certain way, he longs for the sea and heads out on a merchant ship (though this time he decided to try a whaling ship instead). Me, sometimes I'm in the mood to read literary classics.

If you check out my reading list for last year, you'll see I sort of rotate what I'm reading. I spread it around a bit between more modern books, sci fi, and the classics. I don't usually read more than a few in any given category in a row. If I do, they tend to get boring. It's rare that I'll even read several books in a series in a row though I do that if the books are short or I get attached to the characters or plots and need to see how things turn out.

And for the record, even if CC didn't read the full version of the Count of Monte Cristo, honestly, that's ok. Dumas put in so much unnecessary stuff it's almost like he was TRYING to bore readers before they got to the good parts :-)

Hey did you catch the weather reports lately? Did they show what's been going on in up-state New York? Holy COW! There's one corner of Lake Onterio where they've gotten over 10 feet of snow! That's not just since the start of winter or even since the start of the year. That's just in the past week or so! For most of us, that's a bit hard to get a handle on. 10 feet, that's just a bit shy of the height of the ceiling in my living room! And if you're in a standard house or apartment with 8 foot ceilings, well, that's up to your ceiling and then some.


Have you seen the movie The Guru? Probably not. Most people haven't. I'm not sure when it came out and when/if it ran over here in the US but it shows up from time to time on cable. It was on USA this weekend. Damn funny movie.

It's about a guy from India who moves to the US to try and become a movie star. He ends up in New York and goes to auditions, accidentally ending up working with a cheesy little porn studio. He's also working as a waiter for a caterer. They're working this high society party with an India theme and it's supposed to feature a guru who comes in and does some spiritual readings and so forth but the guy gets drunk and passes out SO our hero steps in and takes over. It looks something like this . . .

What folks here might not realize, and which might explain why not so many people have heard of it, is that it's a parody of movies from India, especially the ones that feature music video style scenes, like this one . . .



Having seen The Guru, it's almost impossible for me to watch any of the Bollywood films without snickering a little. Even when we eat out at Bombay House I can't help but think of The Guru. They often run videos and movies from India on the TVs there.

You must admit though, it is rather unique :-)

I owe what?

Currently Reading: Ju-On by Kei Ohishi

It's tax season. It officially starts right after the Super Bowl. That's when we no longer have any excuses to dodge those 1040's and W-2's.

Like every good citizen, I started working out our taxes. Ok, I did it because CC told me to, it had nothing to do with citizenship. Anyway, there I was, happily going down the page, checking off this, adding up that until I got down to the bottom of the page. There, for the first time ever for me, the wrong box had the higher number. Meaning what? Meaning we actually OWE money instead of getting a refund.

Needless to say this came as a total shock. It's not like we're rolling in dough here you know. We don't drive expensive cars, hell we only have ONE car in the first place. And yet, we owe taxes this year.

It's Uncle Sam's way of saying, "Welcome to the middle class. Pay up."


Training is going well. I'm working half a day on Tuesday and we've been spending that time reviewing everything. It's really not that hard. Sometimes it's actually pretty funny. Today, for example, we covered the section on bathing and brushing dogs. Now, I've been doing that for the past year so the questions they ask seem a bit silly. But you know, they ask these questions for a reason and there are plenty of real-life examples in the book of groomers who had a sudden attack of the stupids and messed up something important.

We also had a visit from the corporate offices in San Diego this morning. That was fun. It's always fun when the corporate guys come to visit. Everyone gets so tense and nervous for some reason. I've never been able to figure that part out. Really, the only one who should be nervous is the general manager because it's a test for THEM not for us. We're just the grunts who do the heavy lifting.

Today's visit featured one of the REALLY high up guys. How high up? Well, he's one of the two guys we see in our monthly videos. I forget if he's CEO or Vice President or what, but it's something way up there. He's one of those guys you never expect to see except for on the in-house videos. Pretty nice guy in fact. The whole group came into the salon, asked how we were doing, checked things out. They asked how the training was going, we said fine. Seems odd people would get nervous over a visit like that. I guess it really comes down to whether or not you have something to be nervous about. We're pretty transparent in the grooming salon. We don't have anything to hide. Whether you're customer or corporate, we'll show you anything in the salon you want to know about. That's just how we are.

Hey, did you catch that Super Bowl? Was that great or what? Ok, if you're not a Chicago Bears fan, was that great or what? Tony Dungy and Peyton Manning finally were able to prove to everyone that yes, they really are good. Both of them had a reputation for choking when it came to the big game. I thought that was a bit unfair. There are all sorts of things you have to take into account when you're playing a big game and it's really hard for just one person to blow the whole thing.

On the other hand, that quarterback from Chicago certainly went out of his way to TRY and mess things up for the whole team. I'd heard he was a sort of hit or miss kind of guy. Either he played brilliantly or he was just awful. I figured that was more a matter of opinion. Sportscasters like to blame the quarterback when the team loses. But you know, watching that game, he really WAY awful.

We were watching the game over at a friend's house. Good food, not a big crowd, just an informal gathering really. After a while, especially in the second half, the Bears would get the ball back and I'd ask, "Ok, how's Grossman going to mess it up this time? Interception? Fumble?" And sure enough, he'd mess it up.

Can't be too hard on him though. He wasn't the only guy on the team who didn't seem to be putting in 100%. In fact, the only guy who DID seem to be giving his all was Urlacher. He seemed to be just about everywhere on defense. You could tell he really wanted the win. Can't say the same for all the other guys.

And so we've reached the end of football season. Oh sure there's still the Pro Bowl next week. Right, stop laughing. Football season is over. Now begins the dead zone unless you like basketball or get decent hockey coverage. Me, I usually don't follow either basketball or hockey until the All Star Break and even then I don't follow it very closely until the last week or so of the season.

Instead I'll be waiting for the start of spring training and the opening of baseball season. Such a long way from now.

Grrrr

Currently Reading: Shost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex: White Maze by Junichi Fujisaku

Do you hear that gagging sound? If you tilt your head to the northwest, towards Seattle, you can probably just faintly make it out. No, really, even I can hear it and I'm damn near deaf at the moment.

Well, that gagging sound you hear is the inevitable sound of Tony Romo choking yet again. Right now I bet Dallas Cowboys top brass are saying to themselves, "oh yeah, that's why we never made Romo starting quarterback." This is by no means a new experience for Romo. Twice before he's been pushed aside for the starting qb job because he has a really nasty habit of choking when it counts. In pre-season, for example, he would put on an amazing display. He could hit a flea from 80 yards through triple coverage. Come regular season though, he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn if he was standing right in front of it.

Tonight was another Romo classic. The boys are fighting hard in the playoffs and much to my surprise, they're actually doing well. True, they managed to squander their lead but they're only down by a point and there's only a minute or so left on the clock. They tried to get the touchdown and failed, they tried for the first down and failed so they have no option left but to kick the field goal. This would put them ahead by two and give Seattle the ball back with about a minute left but Seattle wouldn't have any time outs and the pressure would be on them to score. That's what WOULD have happened had Romo not pulled a . . . Romo.

The center hikes the ball. Gramatika is lined up just right and he's been nailing them all day. So what happens? Do they get the easy 3? Oh hell no. Romo fumbles the ball. Just never gets a hold of it. And you know, it's not like the center hiked it freaky or sideways or too high or anything. It was right to him. He just bobbles it. Never gets it down in time so no kick. He tries to run it in but, of course, he falls short.

Now, I will admit I was surprised they managed to hang in the game at all. Given their recent performance, they should have been blown out big time with the Seaharks coasting to an easy win. But to lose the game like that, ouch. That's the sort of thing that used to only happen to Buffalo in the Super Bowl.

Maybe this will be a lesson to Cowboys staff. Romo's not the quarterback of the future for them, not the way he's been playing. He just doesn't seem to be able to handle the pressure. Looks like Cowboys fans will have to wait a little longer.