Kaiser The Great
The official site for the lackluster goings-on of Michael Kaiser
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Let’s Dance!
God, I almost skipped another month! What is the point of this thing anymore? Stupid Twitter and Facebook! I need to challenge myself to write daily or weekly or something, or come up with something column-like to write about. Or not care and do what I’ve been doing. Hmm, that sounds easier!
I have been riding my bike to work lately because we have decided to be a single-car family, in addition to being a single-income family. My car was sounding horrible and wasn’t worth the price it would probably have cost to fix it, so I donated it to Cars For Kids and got a tax write-off (theoretically). I was only really using my car to get to work and back anyway, so using my brand new bike that I bought years ago and never used seems just as easier. I can’t say it’s much exercise, since the distance from home to work isn’t that far, but it does feel nice to get the blood flowing a bit after sitting at a desk all day. Maybe I should get a motorcycle or something. Oh wait, those cost money, huh?
In-laws are in town, and the families went to watch The Kid perform at the San Jose Center for Performing Arts with her dance class. Three hours of show for about three minutes of Kid time, but it was pretty cool, if not a bit long in the tooth. Those kids are really talented though, and a lot of them could easily go on to dance professionally in theater…or as strippers or something. (Man! they sexy those kids up young. Gah.) Over 100+ people watching the show, and no nervousness from The Kid, so that was impressive. I’d have been hawking up a liver backstage. She’s either too young to know better or she’s destined for stardom. Time will tell. Afterward, early dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Need I say more?I don’t think I accomplished any of my to-do list I wrote about last entry, so that’s consistent of me. Working on the garage again today though. Good thing it’s hot outside!
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Get To Work!
Things I Worked On
The account for our wedding site through eWedding.com was going to expire, and rather than renew a site we do nothing with, The Girl asked if I could convert it to a family blog. I have done so, and she has not used it. Bug her. (Have I already plugged this? I feel déjà vu.)
Things I Am Working On
Running, running, running. Not sure what the next event will be, but something next month probably, and it will be a 10K. I can run that now, but I’m pretty slow. I’m currently at three days a week, hitting a treadmill across the street and following a program I found at Runners World. I was going more than three days a week, but my right heel kept hurting, and slowing me down even more, so the new schedule seems to be giving me the right amount of healing time for my aged carcass.
Worked on cleaning the garage last weekend. Got the garbage and donation stuff out, minus funiture. Have to borrow a truck for that. Now I just need to sell or organize the remainder. Almost there. I can see the ground, at any rate, so that’s a good sign. Hopefully The Girl will be able to park in there by the time the weather starts frosting up windows in the morning again.
Been updating the genealogy site more frequently. Love that new Family Tree Maker!
Things I Want To Work On
Drawing, drawing, drawing. God I’m lazy.
I want to make a Wordpress theme. I feel ready.
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Ultimate Star Trek
Went to see Star Trek opening day last week (or course) with my buddy. I found, going in, that my enthusiasm wasn’t that high. I think I mostly went because I didn’t want everyone asking me if I went, and also it just seemed obligatory. But I was honestly feeling kind of burnt out on it already, what with all the news, trailers, footage leaks, etc.
But after watching it…WOW! My Trek enthusiasm was revitatalized! The movie was one awesome moment after another, and me and my buddy were all nerd-giddy as we went over the movie scene by scene in the parking lot. Seemed like all the other theater goers loved it too, as all the right laughs and shouts of excitment were heard in all the right places. (Unfortunately, I didn’t see any Klingons or Andorians walking around, but lots of Trek shirts and guys who looked like they don’t get laid much, so the experience still had that nice feeling of home.)
Then…as the days progressed, the flash and pop of the movie started to fade, and the actual plot became more prominant within my brain, and now I realize the movie sucked. It’s one of those horribly lazy screenplays where nobody earns anything. I hate those! But what’s weird, I still kind of like it even though it really did suck. Maybe that’s the secret of Abrams power. He’s tricking me into liking it somehow. Or at least trickED. I don’t know if I would enjoy it again now that I’m onto him.
But yeah, it’s a really bad story directed really well. I’ve recommended it to people, even after realizing I’ve been conned. Not sure why. Damn that Abrams. I feel so Lost!
(Get it? Ouch.)
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Slow and Steady Loses the Race
WOW, I think I skipped an entire month. Perhaps Twitter is ruining my blogging enthusiasm. So much easier to write a one sentence thought rather than construct entire paragraphs. Da horror!
So what have I done? A bunch of stuff. In-Laws came and went again. (They still think I hate their visits, but I really do like it because somehow I end up watching way more of the TV I want when they’re here. Not sure why it works out that way, but I am not going to question it.) Went to Seattle on business. Been there once before, and like last trip, ate at the Space Needle and did not have time to hit the Experience Music Project nor the Sci-Fi Museum and Hall of Fame. Must visit that city when not working someday. (I managed to peak inside the Sci-Fi Museum when it was closed and saw a huge Gort in the lobby. Coool!)
But inbetween all that I did something worth doing, for once. As I may or may not have stated before, a buddy of mine and I agreed to run a 5K, 10K and 1/2 Marathon by September of this year. We set this goal last September, giving us a year to do it, so of course we’re just getting started now, because lazy is our M.O. We settled on the Mission City 5K Run for Fun held at Great America. It was their first year doing this, and it was pretty cool. You run through the park, which was nice, but then the last half of it involved circling around many a parking lot, which wasn’t as nice, but by then I was so tired I didn’t really care about the ambiance. The cool thing is they close the park down for the runners to enjoy after the event, and the price of admission is included in the race price, which was all of $20, so that’s about as cheap as Great America gets. Of course, I didn’t have time to stick around and enjoy the park, but perhaps next year I can drag the family with me and make a day of it.
I can’t say I trained for this very hard. I knew about for a month and started running at the gym a week prior. (See M.O. above.) It hurt, but I did better than I thought. I only stopped once, about half way through it, for about a minute. Legs hurting me didn’t stop me, a mild asthma attack didn’t stop me, feeling the contents of my stomach crawling up my neck stopped me pretty quick. There were children present, I didn’t want to scar any of them for life. After a brief catching of breath and a quick shot from my inhaler (I know ladies, could I be more sexy?) I finished fairly strong. That is to say I finished #338 out of 560, so not strong strong, but winning wasn’t the goal at all, just completing. Considering how little I trained, I’m fairly happy with my 12 minute mile average.
Time: 37.23. Beat that losers! (Sooo sad…)Next stop is the 10K. No plans yet on which one, but I don’ t think I can get away with no training this time, so I signed up at Snaps Fitness, which is a 24/7 gym literally right across the street from my house. If I can’t make that work, well…that would be sad.
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Funny Books
It smells like comics today. I say or think that often, especially around this time of year. I’m not sure what comes first, me thinking about comics and then the smell, or the other way around. It’s probably the weather. It’s comic convention weather. It’s “riding my bike to the local comic shop after school with my backpack straps digging into my arm pits and my no-longer-needed jacket tied around my waist” weather. Most days I’m cool with my decision to quit, but some days I feel the jones. Days that smell like this, in particular.
So just for fun, here are the first two comics I remember owning: Detective Comics #527 and The Flash #257. (I just realized right now that the numbers are virtually the same, only the first two inverted. Crazy.) I did not buy them. I believe they were given to me by an aunt or some other collateral relative. I also think there were more than just these two, but these are the only two I remember with any sort of clarity. They had a bumpy, water damaged feel to their covers. I remember really digging Batman art, but was confused by why Robin was a blond (didn’t understand there were more than one Robin and the Robin featured in this issue was an up and coming Jason Todd). I also remember thinking the super power of the Golden Glider was fairly weird and no match for the Flash. (But what is?)
I do not think either of these comics were my first exposure to superheroes. I watched Superfriends like every other kid. I played “Super Mike” in the backyard sporting the cape my mom made me from extra fabric she had lying around. I woke up at 5am to watch reruns of the West/Ward Batman tv show. (Which I took quite seriously at the time!) But I’m pretty sure these were my first comics, not counting some kiddie Disney stuff or something. When did I get them? No clue. On or after June of 1983 (Detective cover date), which would have made me 8. Sounds about right.
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Event of the Year
Went to my father-in-law’s 50th birthday last weekend. It was in Lake Havasu, and normally we drive there (and by “normally” I mean the one time I’ve gone before) but this time we decided to fly cheap on Allegiant Air. Cheaper than driving? I think ultimately not. Faster than driving? Two hour delay spells not. Easier than driving? I’ll go with yes, though it’s a toss up whether being bottled up in a car or bottled up in a terminal is better, but at least you can stretch your legs in a terminal.
The party was fun. It was a James Bond theme, so everyone dressed up, and there were little gambling tables outside and I had printed a bunch of Connery movie posters that were taped up everywhere. I think Bond posters might be the coolest movie posters every made. Bond or anything painted by Drew Struzan, can’t decide which. Learned how to play craps, and won second place, which meant I came out with $20 more than I put in. I don’t know why I’m wasting so much time with the 9 to 5 when I could be out on the road making a fortune.
The next day we toured a bit of Lake Havasu and had brunch at a place called The Turtle Beach Bar. Great view of the lake and decent food. Spring Break was just getting started, so lots of kids running around in their bathing suits, but I won’t talk about that because my wife reads this journal.
On the way home we took a wrong turn and missed our flight, so ending up driving the rental all the way home. So now flying was definitely more expensive than driving, as of course our tickets were not refundable or transferable. Oh well.
The Kid was sick the last couple days. I think The Girl is going to get in trouble for missing Monday. I missed Tuesday, but the company survived, even though I hear it was touch and go for a while.
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The Trilogy Meter
Swiped from Dan Meth via Veronica Belmont, I agree with this, give or take a few minor adjustments. Oh and I still haven’t seen any of the Godfather series. I know, I suck and don’t deserve to live!
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Who’s Watching the Watchmen?
I am. Or was. Or did. However it works. It was okay. I’d like to see it again, now that I know what it is and isn’t, to see if any of my objections are simply from divergences they took from the original material or if they actually have merit. All my comic loving brethren seem to love it, but then I didn’t love Dark Knight, and I thought Spider-Man I was better than II, so maybe my homes and I don’t see eye-to-eye on these things. I was going to go into my objections further, but eh, I don’t feel like it. If you love it you love it. No one needs me explaining why they shouldn’t. And like I said, I’m not sure what I think of it, so itemizing its “faults” might be premature.
One of the reasons I went was to catch the new Trek trailer on the big screen. (I would have seen it anyway, but yes that was a motivating factor – I am lame!) Of course, my theater was one of the many that did not show it, so thanks for that. I have and had seen it online of course, but I wanted to see it biiiig. Oh well. Again, like the last trailer, I’m torn between “oh god that looks awesome!” and “hmm…that plot point might be dumb…”
Lots of people are saying, “Finally Trek with a budget!” and I guess I agree, although I have to admit, not counting New Frontier, I never noticed Trek needing a budget before. I guess I’m old school. But comparing what has gone before to the shots in these new trailers, the differences in effects is staggering. IMAX here I come. But…is it just effects?
I’m intrigued by the Kirk story the trailer hints at, but will it be all that? I’ve read the movie adaptation is a whopping 197 pages. Hopefully the font is small! The line, “We have no Captain or first officer to take his place” appears dumb to me without context as ranking takes care of situations like that. It’s called a Second Officer, Bones… If they bump Kirk up from nothing to Captain I will probably hiss and boo a bit. But no no, let’s not judge until we see it. Stay the course. As you were.
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Twitter
It seems slightly more complicated than it needs to me. Or perhaps not so much complicated as user-unfriendly. It’s a status changer, I get it. But the reply function is just weird. Unlike Facebook, for instance, where you can click the little “comment” link underneath a status, and then it actually shows your comment (and everyone else’s) underneath the status, Twitter doesn’t really thread anything. You’re just supposed to follow who’s talking to who somehow.
You get used to it after a while, but I think it could look more intuitive on their site. It really helps to change the setting “@ Replies” to “@ Replies to the people I’m following”, so that you don’t see replies from the people you’re following to people you don’t care about on your main page. (You still see their replies on their main page, but that’s what you get for going there. Confused yet? I am!)
I was going to dismiss Twitter, but is seems like every site I go to has a twitter application option. And I can sync it to my Facebook status changes, so it’s not really going out of my way to use it. And John Cleese is on there, and if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for me. So anyone reading this got a Twitter page? I do! Let’s follow each other!
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My Wittle Blogs All Growed Up!
Eh, not really, as I’m still the writer, but I did change the theme to something less geek-tastic. I guess I’d rather brand myself these days, rather than Paramount properties, especially when I’m not feeling said properties lately, anyway. Why plug something that hasn’t excited me for some time, eh? Besides, this way I don’t have to pay LiveJournal for the pleasure of customizing my theme and allowing me mucho userpics. Wastes of money in these trying economic times must go. Just ask the news, they’ll tell you!
Well it’s February already, and I almost didn’t post. Whoops! The in-laws were staying at our place for a while. They worked on our place while we were at work. Part of me feels guilty that they didn’t just relax, part of me is happy that there was less laundry and the crown molding got painted. Hey, I didn’t ask them to work, so I guess I’m guilt free!
My birthday came and went. I don’t feel different, except maybe more lethargic, but that’s lack of exercise more than lack of youth. My parents and uncle came over and The Girl cooked everyone a great dinner, then we showed off wedding pictures for the umpteen time. (We should have had a wedding pictures viewing party or something.) On Valentine’s Day, both sets of parents, myself, The Girl and my sister’s family went to a fancy grill across the street from my house. Good food, good booze, a nice time was had by all. Maybe next year The Girl and I will do the more romantic route with just the two of us, but the goal this year was to be thrifty and sociable.
Got money back on taxes this year, so w00t! But daddy needs a new car, so boo. Seems like this is going to be the year of money issues, but then we’re not alone on that front. Just ask the news, they’ll tell you! My goal this year is to be smarter and tighter with the wallet, but then I say that every year, so what do I know?
The Girl is thinking about going to wedding planning school, or whatever it’s called. Apparently planning one wedding created a junky and now she wants to do it all the time, only with other people’s money, so that’s good. I’m thinking about going back to school too, but per usual, am torn as to what I would like to accomplish.
I think I might be abusing the comma.
