I have my standards

Chad gave me "Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall."

This is probably the most queer CD ever produced. However, if you like old jazz and have ever heard the iconic Judy Garland album, you would love it. I listened to it this morning. It's total bliss.

A Friendly Review

The Friendly Fox is the yum.

The relatively new eatery on South Wayne is a true gem. I went Saturday for a late lunch after doing some holiday shopping. I had the turkey wrap and a coffee. It was the most refreshing meal I'd had in weeks.

The food tasted unbelievable, and while the brewed coffee doesn't quite measure up to my high "firefly or die" standards, it's still quite good.

At South Wayne Avenue and West Foster Parkway, it's only a few blocks from my house. It will be nice to take a quick ride down there on my bike when the weather permits. The cafe is located in an historic edifice with a nice angle-cut front door that evokes days gone by.

The warm wood furnishings and carpet make one feel at home, and there are sofas and tables, with the unique chance to sit on sofa-like cushions in the window sill. Unfortunately, the window faces north and it was overcast, but just imagining basking in the sun on a brighter day gave me something to look forward to.

There was a gentleman taking advantage of free wi-fi and there was a TV graciously stowed above the door and out of everyones way. The unfortunate part was the basketball game on the screen was much too loud for a quiet Saturday afternoon.

In an adjacent room, a half dozen or so armchairs waited patiently for patrons craving the quiet. The location would make an ideal spot for pondering the workings of the universe with a group of philosophers or catching up on the Harry Potter novels.

The staff was helpful but a little slow for people who work in a coffee shop, but it may have been the fact it was late in the day. Another drawback is a single unisex restroom, though it was large enough to divide later, if the extra facility is demanded.


In what has become a very competitive premium coffee society, the Friendly Fox has come armed with tons of tchotchkies for loyal customers to purchase as souvenirs. If you want to flaunt your coffee independence by wearing a Friendly Fox sweatshirt into Starbucks, you may want to bring some extra cash, as they are a little on the pricey side.

Overall, the Friendly Fox's respectable brews and resplendent foods make it absolutely worth a visit. Four out of five stars.

Address:
4001 South Wayne Ave., Fort Wayne, Indiana

For more, visit Cindy Larson's article at The News-Sentinel.

(This review also available on my pro blog, Featured Writer)

The Best Christmas Special Ever

Merry Christmas Everyone. Now Jazz Hands!

Doctor Who or Gay Nerd Heaven

It's late, I'm tired, but I had to blog about this.

Via Towleroad, this may just be the BBC taunting me again about how much cooler the UK is than the US. I have to file this under the "wouldn't it be great if..." category.

Jennifer Saunders might make absolutely the worst doctor ever, but it could be fun. I find it funny that the show has never really taken the forward approach of having a woman doctor, but they must be lauded for their many important stands, especially lately with the new Davies powered themes on sexuality, feminism, racism, and poverty.

Doctor Who is second only to BSG as the best SciFi, so I love to see it take on new directions.

I hope Santa's spam filter blocks her

My sister recently blogged about how she has made the decision not to have children. She has been trying for several years and there has been no luck.

It's kind of too bad. She would have been a much better mother than one of the women in Target today. I was looking for my last present for the bf and as usual, I was strolling around enjoying the sparkling cleanliness and well-appointed designs of the whole store because it was my day off and I didn't want to do all that much besides give myself some retail therapy.

I went past one woman who very politely refused to get her son a Transformers t shirt. "I think that's a little too big for you Ethan." Yeah, she was right. The kid was maybe 8 and it was in the Men's section of the store. No problem there. She was a nice mom for treating her son so kindly. A while later, I ran into them down the snack aisle and she was joking with her kids. The daughter really, REALLY wanted something called Hello Kitty chews. Now to me that sounds completely dreadful, but the mother took her daughter's request in stride. I went down the next aisle because I needed raisins and because the mom was very funny with her kids and I didn't want to seem like I was eavesdropping when I was laughing out loud. For about the sixty-seventh time in as many seconds, the daughter said, "I want some Hello Kitty chews. You said we were getting Hello Kitty chews." To this the mother replied in a sing-song voice "We haven't gotten there yet. Don't get your panties in a bunch."
There was no more out of the little girl.

Sure it was a little off color for a seven year old girl to hear that, but it was rather nice to see kids generally well-behaved. It may have been impolite for the girl to badger her mother so much, but she was really just holding the mother to her word. She'll probably grow up to be a lawyer or an investigative journalist.

Two more aisles over, a mother was letting her daughters choose their lunchables. Suddenly, I thought to myself that Hello Kitty chews didn't sound so dreadful after all. When the girls quarrelled because the older one got the younger one's choice out along with her own, the mother said "Shut up!" She then proceeded to call her daughters ungrateful and throw the lunchables into the cart and said to them, "I'm going to e-mail Santa that you guys suck."

That is completely verbatim what she said. It wasn't quiet either. I'm quite sure Hello Kitty fan and her mom heard them two aisles over. Now I stood there blankly, a few cartlengths away trying to pick out cheese, but bewildered by this inhumane woman. I was so mad that I felt I should say something to the mother. Had I been my sister, I probably would have said something such as:

"Excuse me, but I'm sure you realize I couldn't help but overhear you. I think what you said to these children was inappropriate, quite rude, and in no small way is related to their caustic behavior to each other. Maybe someone should e-mail Santa about you."

Thinking about it now makes me mad that I didn't pay enough attention in science class that I could build a time machine. I am thankful that I have a blog where I can share this with the rest of the world. Perhaps the next time I see any adult mistreating children in this way, I will say something, anything.

Happy Holidays.

And yes, I completely forgot the raisins.

Winter in the City

It's official. Winter has come to the Summit City. I took these last week amid the chaotic ice storms. I was on my way into the paper and thought I'd stop at Freimann Square for some pictures of some of the greatest views of downtown.

Family

I choose not to write about family, most of the time. I have a pleasant enough relationship with them, but I don't want to say the wrong thing and get yelled at for it, so I just choose not to write about them.

That being said, they are really nice people. My parents were especially nice about offering to postpone my birthday dinner due to the blizzard, but I insisted. It was actually a nice time. I had fun playing pool and I got Planet Earth on DVD, among other things.

This is just a post to say that I am thankful for them and their unfailing generosity.

LOL LOL LOL LOL Catz

This is something you can't make up. (From the SFGate's website)

"Red light, green light: Cloning cats is nothing new, but now the clones come in two colors when exposed to ultraviolet light -- regular mint and new cinnamon. The red glow is caused by a fluorescent protein bred into the kitties by scientists at Gyeongsang National University in Jinju, South Korea. The genetic manipulation could lead to cures for human diseases, they say."

31 Flavors

Well today's the day. I'm up, I don't know how. Last night I was up waaaaay too late watching Ratatouille. It's so cute. It's a really great animated film, easily on par with the incredibles.

So anyway, I'm going out to brunch with the bf and then I think I might start the day with a cocktail. I feel like my age, but I feel like I have accomplished something — school is over.

My goal was to graduate before I was into my thirties, and I did it. At least, I finished school before I entered my thirties. Because technically a decade doesn't really start on the 0 year, it starts on the 1 year. Just like the first day of the millennium was actually 1/1/01.

What you don't believe me? Well, fine, it is kind of stupid. But really, I finished while I was still 30, which is pretty good after going 9 years part time.

So I'm off to feast on an omelette and guzzle some coffee. Happy Birthday to me and to my fellow Sagittariuses.

All these things that she's done

I desperately want to believe in a candidate, and I think Hillary has captured my imagination. I am a huge Hillarist. I've admired her since I was in high school because she was so radical. She seems to have mellowed, but I think she still has a spark of initiative to lead a new era.

I support the radical progressivism that Kucinich stands for, but I think Hillary will win. Is it just nostalgia? Maybe, but I think she could really ignite a new era of active politics.

I read an article in Fortune that talked about all of her East Coast and High Finance backers. Since she is a US Senator from New York, they have an idea of what she can do for them. That's encouraging to me. It means she could even get the support of die-hard republicans.

It seems risky for a poor college graduate from Indiana to put all his money on someone who could wind up raising taxes, but I would gladly pay hundreds more each year for the change she could bring to the country.

Another video from Jenny Lewis Weeds Intro

sex, drugs, rock & roll and Hee Haw

This is the most awesome video ever.

The universe is defying my bad mood

Just when I thought my day couldn't get any worse, I found an ABBA video on Towleroad.



Thank heaven for ABBA. Now I am relaxed and rejuvenated.

I have an axe to grind

I'm talking of course about Guitar Hero. Or as South Park called it, Guitar Queero. I know this game is hugely popular, but last night was the first time I ever played it.

Oh my deity, I suck out loud.



I tried both of the basic songs "I Love Rock & Roll" and "Take Me Out." I got booed by the virtual crowd. There's something about being booed by those binary bitches that is most unsettling.

The problem with this game is that it uses both the left and the right hands to play the "guitar," which is actually just a big piece of plastic with five buttons on the frets and a strumming bar. I tend to be more dextrous with my right fingers because of working in retail with the 10-key and using the num lock on the computer. Unfortunately, right hand play uses your right hand on the strummer bar and your left fingers for the fret buttons. So of course, I sucked at it. I wanted to try using it left handed, but the other people playing the game were too good and I didn't really get another chance. I think this will be my new mission in life.

The Golden Compass

Yes, I saw it. I was totally stoked about seeing Daniel Craig, and I loved the idea that the central character is a girl, not a boy.

The girl, Lyra, is very intelligent and utterly fearless. She's a bit of a tomboy, but she knows how to use her wits to get by. She goes into a situation with both mental barrels and she does an impressive bit of quick thinking. She does not wait to be rescued, and she puts her life on the line in virtually every scene. She's a great role model for young women because she's both tough and smart.

That being said, here are some of my other reactions:

• The movie seemed to be very simplistic, it was not anti-faith, but rather the Magisterium is portrayed as a power-mad and power-hungry bureaucracy. The magisterium is concerned about 'freethinkers' and 'heretics,' but there wasn't anything specifically anti-religious or anti-God about the film itself.


• The concept of each person having a daemon, an animalistic embodiment of their souls that walks alongside them is kind of interesting, but I had several problems with it. — The daemons seem to mirror the characters' occupations and personalities. If this was the case, it was very classist that the kitchen boy had a puppy dog daemon, the Gyptian boy had a rat daemon, and the porters and other staff had dog daemons. To me, that was like saying if you have a Labrador retriever, you won't be able to be anything in society that is higher than a butler.


• The bear fight scene was far too vicious for many children. Even though it was CGI, the actions of the battle were disturbing to me, and I'm nearly 31 years old.


• The witches were very artfully done, but their physical nature was kind of inconsistent. If they can fly and disappear into thin air, then why can they be shot?


• Sam Elliot was an interesting touch, but he was very out of place. He was a caricature of an old west cowboy and his aw-shucks dialog was pretty much vestigial and pointless.

Overall, I think it made a great looking movie. The action was very intense, at times too much so for children. Using the concept of parallel universes is always tricky though, and this one had some problems, even for a sci-fi devotee such as myself. I would give this 3 out of 5 stars. Somewhere between see at matinee price or wait for video.

Holiday Cards

To my loyal readers and friends:

I am sending out holiday cards and it's gobbling up a great deal of my time. I will write more soon.

Sci fi supremacy revisited

So I got a little acrimonious about Star Trek and Star Wars. I apologize to the fans.

I enjoy both stories very much, but as I commented to Cbutterb, I think that the BSG universe is much more carefully honed than the other two. It is not without its overriding thematic problems in individual episodes and multi-episode story arcs.

That being said.

I need to eat my humble pie when I forgot to even include Firefly for comparison.



Firefly was a great series, and Serenity was a great movie. In reality, the acting was great, on par with most of the actors on BSG. The story lines were very compelling, though at times they were a bit of a rehash of western themes and archetypes.

The most unjust thing was that the series was never allowed to mature into its rightful place among the uppermost echelons of science fiction space operas. Serenity was the last best chance for Whedon to give us something for the ages. Unfortunately, it was hasty and frenetic, trying to cram all too much of a wrap-up into two hours of screen time. It was as though the baby was half born and the doctors shoved it back in. Then with the movie, the baby shot right out of the womb and grew up in an instant.

That's the tragedy of commercial television.

Of course, pay cable is not without its own faults. Queer as Folk proved that with no commercial sponsors to worry about and no audiences to lure, there is no accountability for taste. That sounds like a separate post, but I think I'm too tired.

Why BSG is better than Star Trek and Star Wars

In a recent conversation, I pledged my devotion to the BSG camp of Sci-fi over the Star Wars trilogy (eps. 4,5,6) and over Star Trek.

Here are some thoughts on the subject. The BSG (reloaded) universe is its own special universe. So far, it is separate from human history, though it may be tied to some far distant future, or past (gods forbid it's some scientology propaganda piece).

The Star Trek universe is a futuristic atheist-utopian fantasy where humans have united in spite of their differences upon realizing that we are not alone in the universe, as revealed in First Contact. Call me cynical, but I just don't buy that humanity can change that quickly. Another reason the Star Trek universe is flawed is that the vision and legacy of Roddenberry was corroded and polluted after his death to where misguided series after series were produced by Paramount to capitalize on the beleaguered, grieved fan base. The premises for each series grew thinner and thinner until finally people quit watching and they canceled "Enterprise" with the dreadful Bakula.

The Star Wars universe was a great piece of mythology for its time, but with the logistical problems of not doing the saga in sequence, it left the whole universe open to abject failure through the chaotic invasion of conjecture. The myriad books that expand the canon through eons before and after the saga of the 6 films seems like a cheap, capitalistic merchandising trick. When one realizes how vast the star wars merchandising universe is, one cannot help but lose trust in the motives of Lucas, et al.

All things considered, Battlestar Galactica is not without its own laundry list of faults. The most obvious of all is the boxing episode of season 3. I would have much rather watched a few more webisodes on Scifi.com than sit through the blood splatters just so we could see the memories of New Caprica come to life in the crews' thoughts.

The second problem is the sexuality of 6 and Baltar. Okay, we get it, she uses sex to manipulate people. Humans are weakest when we succomb to our base desires. yeah yeah yeah. We know you use the sex to get ratings. NYPD blue did the same damn thing about 10 years ago.

The third problem is Admiral Cain's lesbianism. It seemed that this was coming years ago, when we met Cain in season 2. It was hinted at somehow, in her body language with her ship's 6. My friend Chad called this a hackneyed stereotype. I think they should have hired Rita Mae Brown or some other lesbian writer to come up with some other way to talk about the issue. The BSG powers that be have been tempting us with Gaeta since the miniseries when we first see him gush over Baltar.

The fourth, and probably most overriding problem is the logic of posterity. My friend Chad and I argue about this in every, and I do mean EVERY BSG convo. A race of people capable of interstellar, faster-than-light space travel would surely have better records of their deities than scrolls, especially when the gods lived with them on Kobol. The only possible explanation is that the fractured, separatist nature of the colonies, and the fact that they were constantly at war with one another until shortly before the first cylon war, means that their militarism dominated all areas of society, and history and archives were never properly maintained.

All in all, the problems of BSG are ones that I largely can live with. The problems I have with the other universes cannot be overcome in my mind.

I feel like this guy

"Write One Paragraph Per Day."

This was my mantra for this blog, but I seem to be slacking off. Things in my life are amping up for the holidays, and I'm suffering from a rather sullen mood as of late.

My checking account is in the hole, my internship at the newspaper is ending, and work seems to be getting more insane each day. I am grateful for the respite of a week off next week, but I have two stories I need to write for the newspaper before I'm done.

There seems to be a brick wall around every corner, and there is very little I can do to console myself.

So that's enough for the pity party, back to work.

On Racism

So, yeah, this is quite a departure from a review of BSG, but I had to mention it. I went to the battery store and Chad and I found the battery he needed for his cell phone. It's not been holding a charge longer than a few hours, so he decided to try getting a whole new battery.

We matched one at the store in the cell phone battery section to the model number and make of his phone and then went to check out. It was very simple, no hassle.

As we were checking out, the clerk asked us if we were sure. We said that they had the same model numbers as his phone and the clerk said:

"Them Japs make it too easy."

Chad paid the man and we got the frak out of there.

I abhor racism, and it totally freaks me out when people are so flagrant about it. I suppose that flagrant racism is much better than the subtle racism of "White flight" and De facto segregation, but in the twenty-first century, I just don't understand why people are so hateful and mean.

On BSG Razor

[SPOILER ALERT]
[Apologies in advance. I'm using an iBook with a tiny keyboard, so I may have some typos.]

The gang and I watched BSG Razor at Dave's house tonight.

I could do without the negative stereotype of the psychotic lesbian, but it did make sense in the plot. It was kind of as though you saw it coming when you saw how brutal cane was with Inviery in Season 2.

I loved the space action scenes and the original series Toasters were a very welcome homage to the old days.

The hybrid model 1: I am really disliking the direction they seem to be going with the whole matrix loops in time. Of course, it's kind of in keeping with the life here began out there premise.

I miss the ancillary characters like Dee and Geta, but I was happy to see the President put in an appearance.

In which I admit to my Achilles Heel

I was looking for one of my favorite webisodes, Mr. Deity, when I stumbled across this at crackle.com. It's kind of bizarre how they've chopped up a 40 minute show and made it six minutes long, but I guess that way they don't have to pay Pam Anderson royalties or something.

I used to watch this show a lot. I actually miss it now that it's no longer in syndication. I must admit that this does not seem like the show I would be interested in, i.e. the women, but part of it was nostalgia for me. It was a lot like Charlie's Angels with its dopey plots and beautiful women with guns who can kick a lot of butt. It also has a nostalgic factor because it has the hot Asian guy from 21 Jump Street.

Also, sometimes I just want a little mindless violence, like this show, the A-Team, or college football. It's my version of the perfect Thanksgiving.

The Long Grift

Now, I must tell you, I do not support fraud, but I find that criminals can be very interesting and compelling characters.

That leads me to a critique of "Other People's Money," the latest true life scandal from Radar magazine.

Elliot Castro was a working class gypsy/scot from Aberdeen who found his way into the fast-paced life of international credit card, identity, and wire fraud. Sounds kind of dull, right? Wrong.

Elliot Castro amassed an estimated $1 million in a Swiss bank account from his exploits, which included jetting around the world, from Glasgow, to Aberdeen, to London, Dubai, Dublin, Ibiza, Toronto, New York and LA.

He was a loner type of kid who loved looking at maps and atlases and was a geography whiz, and he was gay. He sounds very similar to me. This guy was living the kind of posh life I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams.

The most amazing part of the story is that Elliot had accomplished all of his international crimes by the age of 21. This guy has more chutzpah than I could ever dream of having.

I can't find the story online yet, but Radar is notoriously badly managed. They have gone under twice and come back bigger and badder than before. If you can find the magazine in stores, buy it and save these poor people from themselves.

What have I done for you lately?

The answer is, not a whole heck of a lot.

I have been lazy and selfish this weekend. I forked over $75 for my allergy meds on Saturday morning, and then I picked up breakfast at the BK. I have to say that the sausage croissanwich is still the bomb. Their new BKJoe line of coffee seems to be pretty good.

Then it was off to mom and dad's for my grandmother's 91st birthday party. Oy Vay, so many relatives. I got rolls specially made from the Bagel Station. They were the rosemary parmesan style that Henry's serves. I finally left about 3:45 p.m. and headed home. I forgot the leftover rolls and my iPod, so I called my mom and asked to pick them up today.

Last night, I had tickets to the Philharmonic, which was ghastly. I left with a throbbing headache from the screechiest violin concerto EVER. Then it was drinks at my friend Larry's until 1 a.m.

At Larry's I connected with a lesbian best friend of an acquaintance of my best friend. My Diety this town is sooooooo small. Anyway, Sara the lesbian regaled us with tales of gays openly serving in the military, which was heartwarming in a way. There are apparently several "stress management" support groups in which everyone is totally cool with you being homosexual, so long as you are physically fit and aren't a sissy. That leaves me out. Twice.

Then today, I slept in because of the headache from the symphony and the obscenely cheap wine. I watched a TiVo of Doctor Who from last week that I hadn't yet gotten around to and then I went to brunch. I then headed out to my parents and I explained how bad the concert actually was. I was after all using their tickets. I explained that I probably spared them a fate worse than death because it was not a good piece of music. The violinist is a regular and I knew from before how good he was, but I had to warn my parents to avoid anything by that composer ever again.

I got home and started working on articles for the newspaper. It's going to be hard getting everything in for tomorrow, but I got it. I also finished my essay for my philosophy of art class and watched a surprisingly decent episode of the Simpsons. They have all pretty much sucked out loud for the past two years, but this one saw homer get a stomach stapling, so it was funny.

Then I sat down and read Radar magazine.

They Don't Cry

The Fort Wayne Derby Girls are having the first-ever flat track roller derby tournament in Indiana next Saturday (11/24). I am going to interview someone from the team tomorrow so that I can write a preview story for the newspaper.

I have only been to one Derby Girls event, the first one, Apocalypse Pow. It was back in May of 2006 and it was a lot of fun. I used to watch the TV show Rollergames as a kid, and the DGs are a lot more interesting. Sure it's a bit campy, and the idea of women battling it out may seem anti-feminist, but it was all done for a good cause. They have given over $20,000 to charity.

So check out the Derby Girls' site and get rolling.

Things that I learned at 1 a.m. Tuesday

Thing One: Godaddy.com is annoying as all-get-out.

Thing Two: tomboyer.net is now live.

There is no I in Team

I just had a meeting with my mentor from IPFW. He suggested that I overhaul my résumé.

The first thing he noticed is that there are too many uses of the word I. Of course there are. I am the most important person in the world, doesn't he know that?

Kidding aside, my résumé is completely self-involved. I think I confused self promotion with self affirmation. I think I'm, telling myself I can do all this stuff, not letting them know that the prospective employer has been looking for me all along.

Now I must focus on what I can do to make myself sound better, but not too self important. Onward and upward.

Celebrating Five Decades of Decadent Drag

Fort Wayne's own TULA who really should be written about in all caps, is celebrating 50 years of drag tonight at After Dark in Fort Wayne. The local Whatzup event paper did a story on her and her much less successful alter ego Charles Miller.

I'm including this because I think it's great anytime the local 'press' covers gay events. I recently joined the NLGJA so I'm keeping an eye out for stories like this. Too bad that drag performers are all anyone ever talks about when they cover Fort Wayne, well other than the brilliant Emma Downs who had a 3000 word project covering the growing acceptance of gays in fort wayne. Check the archive of the Journal Gazette to buy the story.

Sill 50 years of drag is quite an accomplishment, especially in this town, so I have to give TULA her props. There are now better drag artists out there, but TULA was out there doing it before most of them were even born. So I say congratulations to TULA.

By the way, if you didn't catch it in the first photo, the article IS next to the rail ad for C2G Coffeehouse, the Christian, pseudo-hipster dive downtown that has bad Christian artists doing their best God rock. I found it deliciously disjointed, so I had to point it out. I want to say that the editors of the Whatzup knew EXACTLY what they were doing.



If you're in town, TULA's anniversary celebration begins at 9 p.m. at After Dark at 1601 South Harrison. Cover charge is $3. Stay away from the pear-flavored vodka. It gave me nightmares, or maybe it was last night's featured drag guest who was a bit lopsided.

UPDATE:
Emma Downs of the Journal-Gazette had an interview with Tula, published on the eve of the party.

New Title

It totally SUX that I had to change Tomorrow's Coffee, but I'll get over it. I'll have to take some photos of some of the more interesting corners in my house and maybe use those in a new header photo.

This is my Working Title for my blog. Keep your finger's crossed that no one has it yet for a title. At least it's not in Google's first three pages of search results, but we'll see. It's kind of appropriate, seeing as how I had written myself into a corner, especially the weary possessive plus noun construction. I doubt I am alone in my thinking that it was getting ever more lame every time I tried to write something.

"Today's aggravation"

this blog's title

Bad news y'all. "Tomorrow's Coffee" is already a podcast.

OH MY DIETY. I thought it was an original title. I didn't even bother with a google search first. I was just in the mood for coffee one night, and I opted to wait for the morning. It was one of those times I wasn't feeling well, but I knew that in the morning, I would have coffee, so it was something to get myself motivated.

I've got to think of a new idea, and fast. At least this time, I will google it before I make the same mistake.

tomorrow's dinner and last weekend's beverage

Tomorrow, I am supposed to go to Red Lobster to celebrate my friend's birthday. I haven't set foot in a Red Lobster since 1998, so help me Diety.

Does anyone have any suggestions for what to order? I at least know that white wine goes with all seafood. Maybe that's why I'm not too keen on it. I prefer red.

Speaking of Red wine, (and I'm not being paid for this) I was at Andy's last weekend for Battlestar Galactica and wine. I picked out a Yellow Tail Pinot Noir. It was sooooo good and it was the first time in a long time I hadn't gotten sniffly from alcohol.

We also watched Torchwood from BBC America. It's the lame spinoff from the reinvented Dr. Who, complete with Russell Davies' over-the-top affectations. I didn't quite care for it, but the plot point that all of the secret agents are randy bisexuals was an odd, literally queer, twist. The name of the episode was, I kid you not, "They Keep Killing Suzie." I must agree with Andy that it's the best title ever for a television episode.

today's legislative victory

The Human Rights Campaign e-mailed me today to let me know that ENDA has passed the U.S. House.

I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that it doesn't include transgender people. I am thinking that we should take whatever we can get.

today's announcement

My Comcast personal website is back online. Check out the link at the bottom of the page or click here.

today's apology

So much for my goal of writing a paragraph per day. Sorry.

Most of my writing has been at the newspaper lately. It's such a nice distraction from work.

Look for the byline S.T. Boyer at www.news-sentinel.com.

Back to the electronic grindstone.

today's news

Excuse me while I brag.

tonight's disappointment

Pink Five has finally released the second volume of Return of Pink Five, the hysterical Star Wars Fanfilm that follows Stacy, the valleygirl Jedi(tm). The fan film series has actually become part of the Star Wars canon.

I will warn you before you click the link, Volume 2 is not the conclusion. It's still hysterical.

my favorite band

The Scissor Sisters and I have intertwined destinies. Last year, Ta-Dah came out just before my birthday. The year before that, Chad took me to see them in Indianapolis for my birthday. Now, "Hurrah" comes out just before my birthday again!

If you haven't heard their music, go get it. I'm not going to burn any CDs for you. You need to support this band.

tonight's diversion

I clicked over to nasa.gov after seeing "In the Shadow of the Moon" this weekend. They have some fun animations about the new lunar program.

It's been days since I saw the movie, but I'm still thinking about how cool space travel was. My earliest memories are of the bedroom I shared with my brother, back when we lived in our old house.

The wallpaper was Skylab and all of the other heroic NASA stuff. Science was cool back then. There is no spirit of wonder in the space program. It as though we just gave up.

These days, we ostracize people as geeks and nerds who dare to dream about space travel. I think there is a rational explanation for this. After the Challenger exploded, the world became too scared to even think about going into space.

But I think my fascination with science fiction arose because of those early images of skylab that I slept under every night. I've never stopped dreaming about space. It still sticks in my head that people actually made it to the moon before. NASA even has probes on Mars, and some have even left our solar system.

I think that society needs to focus on progress, even though it is costly and difficult. We can't just let ourselves become complacent and accept the limits. We have to learn how to reach beyond.

tonight's frustration

Well, I made some vast improvements to my personal web page with Comcast. Now, nothing comes up. I have a sneaking suspicion I chose to do this on the day that they are doing maintenance as part of their swanky new upgrade, so I probably just screwed my whole page.

I didn't get notification that the pages would be down today specifically, just an e-mail two or three weeks ago saying the upgrade would happen and pages would be down "sometime in the next month." I decided I would pester comcast, so I sent them a message asking why I was getting the 404 error.

Yeesh. I hope it's up and running for tomorrow. I really like the new layout. The links should be at the bottom of the blog if you feel like checking tomorrow.

Here's a sneak preview of my improved header. I did the notebook photo myself.

tonight's project

I'm working on changes to my website while "watching" a video for my philosophy class. I don't know how far I'll get, but we'll see. I better get the coffee ready for the morning.

today's fun site

This is absolutely hilarious.

Sorry, I can't post anything more than that right now. I need coffee.

last week's assignment

Last week, I covered the Indiana State School Music Association (ISSMA) Marching Band State Finals in Indianapolis. I had my pocket digital camera with me and I snapped this using the sport setting on the camera while I was driving. Somehow the sun rising on me gave me a good feeling.

yesterday's home

[author's note: sorry for not keeping up with the whole "paragraph per day" goal. I've been really tired.]

I was surrounded by butter cream colored walls and mounds of my sister's school supplies. There was truly nothing left of myself in my parents' house.

We moved here when I was nine, far out from the city, nine tenths of a mile north of Dupont Road, the country highway that wound its way through the sleepy hamlets of Cedarville and Leo. There was a small subdivision near us, and a country gas station that probably looked the same as it did in the 1930s.

Our home was on a sizeable spread of acreage with a shock of pine trees separating our main home area from the flood plain of the creek that had no name, but was major enough to be a direct tributary of the Saint Joseph River.

My parents had the house custom built. It was designed to resemble our old home in the Brookside Park subdivision, but this time with a front-facing attached garage, and larger, more spacious bedrooms and living areas.

The home had many improvements, such as a screened-in porch, and two decks that added plenty of outdoor living space. The biggest improvement was an in-ground swimming pool. I used to love swimming in it. I was typically the first person in the pool every year, no matter if the weather was 60 degrees outside, I was in the frigid water as soon as I got home from school.

But that was all years ago. Twenty one years had passed since we moved into the house. I had since moved out, moved back in, and moved out again. This time, I was in my bedroom looking for something, but I don't remember what it was. I was house sitting for my parents while they were on vacation in Tennessee. I barely swim there anymore.

"Butter cream walls," I thought to myself. "They do not go with the burnt sienna carpet." I never would have picked this color.

I live in the same city as my parents, but I'm deep within the limits of the city, in an historic neighborhood that has tall trees that triumph over early twentieth century houses. My own home is over a hundred years old.

I call it my home because to me, it really is. I've been living here for six years now, and though I've put thousands of dollars into it, it has kind of a hold over me, and I can't quite bring myself to leave it. The modest mortgage also helps. I can't rent a two-bedroom apartment for what I'm paying for the 1,400 square foot three-bedroom house.

I make the thirteen plus mile trip to my parents' house every week or two to catch up with the rest of the family and to check to see if it ever feels like home. It never does. I think it's because of the butter cream walls.

my career

Is it just me, or is the Daily Show like really lame lately? What's with all the reruns? I wish I worked for the daily show. I want to take constant vacations.

Next Week's Agenda

Next Tuesday night is the second time that I'm going to attend the eMentor eVent at IPFW. Cutesy spelling aside, I did learn a few things last year, so I'm going again this year. I'm kind of excited since I know what to expect.

my career

This internship is kicking my literal backside.

I am totally braindead from the weekend, but to be honest, I treated myself to some time with friends, family, and the first night of at least eight hours of sleep in roughly two weeks.

Indianapolis was great. I should sleep on floors more often I think. My knock off tempurpedic mattress is nice, but I think it must do me some kind of good to just be on a flat, hard surface.

Now I'm off to bed, for less than eight hours, of course, and I'm bittersweet about it because I have to give back the newspaper's laptop tomorrow. It's incredibly nice not to be tied to my hulking desktop machine. The laptop experience is so oddly liberating. I think it actually made me write a better story because I didn't have to drive to the paper and all that stuff. I think I'm going to try to check out used laptops and maybe get one after the tax refund season. I'd prefer a Mac, but for writing, which is what I use the computer for most, I would take a PC.

The newspaper's IBM ThinkPad is a very solid-feeling machine. It's heavy, yet light enough that I don't feel overwhelmed. It's amazing how far laptops have come since my dad brought the first one home 15 years ago. They are so small.

Anyway, I've got to get going. At least I know that I must be wicked because I get no rest.

yesterday's assignment

yesterday I covered the ISSMA (Indiana State School Music Association) 2007 State Marching band championship.

I am exhausted. I will write more later.

tonight's movie

Death Proof finally came in Netflix. After being notified of "Long Wait" then "Short Wait" in the queue, it finally came.

In my opinion, this is the superior of the Grindhouse features. I don't know why I like this movie so much, but I really do. It's a whopping 113 minutes with the "missing reels" that were cut from the theatrical release.

The movie could be described as very Freudian. A man using his car to kill women, so on and so forth, but the twist is that the latest group of women he stalks fights back. I don't want to give away too much. Suffice it to say that it's a much bigger head trip than Planet Terror because it's much more plausible. There are no machine gun legs or zombies, so it is much more up my alley.

My one complaint is that I miss both movies together in the theater. I was sincerely hoping for another look at the Werewolf Women of the SS trailer.

today's grammar

I'm in a writer kind of mood today. I actually worked on all three stories I've got in the queue at the newspaper tonight. I found another job site to which I am posting my résumé, journalismjobs.com

I am not pimping them, just myself, really. I am taking a chance on Google AdSense, simply because I might actually get enough people where I'd get a $5 check every six years.

Anyway, I've added Katie, Katie, and Andy's blogs to the links below. You should check them out. (So long as you aren't Katie, Katie, or Andy. That would just be creepy.)

So it's the end of Day 2 for this blog. I'd like your input, is the possessive + noun too pretentious? I kind of like it, mainly for its specificity.

(Oooh, "specificity" that word makes me tingly. I love phonics. Remember "sounding it out"? Isn't it cool how words actually get spelled correctly when you remember phonics? Just don't get me started on asinine words like "women" (wymin) and "thoroughfare." You do not want to get me on the pro phonics train.)

Anyway, let me know about your thoughts. I have to do the dishes.

yesterday's representative and tomorrow's mayor

US Rep Mark Souder (R-Indiana) has officially withdrawn his endorsement of Matt Kelty. Three cheers for good ole Souder. He has a scathing indictment (pun intended) of the Kelty campaign. Check it out on the News-Sentinel's page.

Yesterday's news

So this weekend was the party. It was fun to drink and not have to worry about driving home.

Dave babbles and speaks in ethnic slurs when he drinks. I think he's regressing into Eric Cartman. Dave and Chad are loud snorers. Poor Katie.

Hoaglin's is definitely the trendiest breakfast I've ever had, but the meal was good. It was pleasant on Mass Ave, overcast, but mild. The servers are impossibly thin. One look at the crowd around me and everyone is a hipster. I'm in my loose Old Navy Khakis that got ripped at the party from an errant nail on a chair, accompanied with my two favorite souvenirs from San Francisco -- my purple "PRIDE" tshirt with the pink star and the unbelievably warm and comfy charcoal hoodie emblazoned with "San Francisco" over it. Everything I'm wearing probably cost less than our waiter's jeans.

On the sidewalk outside the café, there are more hipsters who are even thinner. It's getting so creepy. These people must be foreign. I've never seen such thin people in the midwest. They're practically see-through. The dogs that they walk, springer spaniels, a puggle, a cavalier king charles, each undoubtedly weighs more than its owner. I take comfort in the fact that these thin hipsters who weigh less than a podunk phonebook didn't just have the best eggs benedict of their lives.

tonight's bedtime

The Tivo had another suggestion for Frasier. Of course, I had to watch it. I love Frasier, simply because I can feel entertained without being demeaned. So I wasted even more precious time when I could have been reading my library book, or working on my notes from tonight's interview at the newspaper. Chad's been in bed nearly three hours, but I'm still awake. I can't go to sleep. I am too exhausted.

I should check my e-mail for the third time today. Nothing new. More crap from Monster and 1-800 Flowers.com. SSDD. Cool new vid from Dave B from SNL's weekend update. Funny.

Then I check Towleroad. There's a great video of Jake Gyllenhaal on a UK talk show promoting Rendition. I kind of want to see it, but I remember how disappointed I was with that stupid gulf war movie, Jarhead. He hasn't made a decent movie since Donnie Darko. Now I'm sounding too emo for my own good.

Let's open a blogger account and see what happens.

tomorrow's coffee

This is my first post. I got to thinking that I should move to a blog because it seems to be a bit easier than livejournal. We'll see how this goes.