Dear Diary

Welcome to our lives.



From Ze Frank...wow, I know he's still around, but I haven't seen anything from him in a long time. 

Coasting...

Got an awesome surprise in the mail today from an old blog buddy. Not that he's old, per se. Certainly not when compared to yours truly. Or at least as old as I feel some days. Anywho. He blogged under the screen name Badgerdaddy (although, I'm pretty sure it was a lower-case b), and I'd like to say I have no idea how we found each other in the great big blogosphere. But I actually know. I used to post a lot of comments on the boards over on IMDB. That was my social network in the mid-aughts. And, at the time, I was only guest-blogging over on Slyde's blog. So I would use his web address as my tagline or something. I don't recall. But from there, he started commenting over at Slyde's and then my blog when I started it up.

For a while there, that was pretty much my blog community. Me, Slyde, B(b)adgerdaddy, Kat and Liz. Slyde, B(b)adgerdaddy and myself even started our own collaborative blog, Moviegrenade. The idea was that we would watch bad movies and review them for your displeasure. That was a lot of fun. I sometimes go back to that blog just to read the old posts. Some of my favorite things I've ever done blogging-wise is on that site. But it slowly settled on the un-used blog shelf of my library. Sad.

All of us kinda went our individual ways. Slyde is still blogging. So am I, even if it's not as often. I still get the occasional  post from Liz in my reader, but B(b)adgerdaddy and Kat have stopped blogging. As far as I can tell. But they do comment from time to time.

And we've kept in touch via email and Twitter. Follow him here, if you like. Last week I got an email from him wanting to confirm my address, and, gasp, to ask for my real name because he had something to send me in the mail. After verifying that it was indeed him and not a spam request, I happily replied.

And today, I received a glorious set of Green Man coasters that he had picked up with me in mind a while back. Check it:

That's a shitty image from my crappy cell phone taken with my shaky hands, but you get the idea. This great vibrant, green color with in incredibly hand-drawn Green Man image in glass. If you want a better look at the Green Man, check out the artist's blog here. Her name is Jane Murphy, and she works in glass over in Shropshire in the UK. Brilliant stuff.

It was kind of a crappy day, to be honest. This kind gift made most of that crappiness go away. At least for a little while. I'm gonna put these bad boys to good use. Starting immediately.

Cheers, B(b)adgerdady!

Ramblings

Hey, kids? How's life?

So I made it. One whole month without blogging. It was rough, at times. I'd get that late night itch to tell y'all about some movie I just watched or some meal that I had just prepared. But I stuck to my guns and kept my vow of not blogging for an entire month. Phew! I did it!

Ah, I'm just fucking with ya. There was no vow or even a tiny wish to cut back on posting here. Just fucking happened. As it does from time to time for all of us. No excuses, no reasons. It just happens sometimes.  So I thought I'd just open up a post window and start rambling. Just in case any of you missed me. Yeah, right.

__________________________________________

I think I'd like an even more anonymous platform than this blog or my Twitter account to spew some hatred out at the void. Nothing specific. I just find that there are times when I want to shout out my demons to the world, only to be held back by the judgment of my better angels. A totally anonymous place to do that would be like a tree falling in the middle of the forest. If no one knew about it, would it really happen? Would it make me feel any better in that moment?

__________________________________________

Saw the third Iron Man flick with my gal-pal Slyde. And I'm already placing it at the very top of my superhero movie pantheon. The origin story in the first film was fantastic, but I was deeply unsatisfied with Jeff Bridges as the Big Bad. The second film had all kinds of problems, and Mickey Rourke should have been much more interesting that he actually was. But this third film, while not perfect, really worked for me. Even Gwyneth Paltrow didn't bother me. Yay for Marvel. Two thumbs up.

__________________________________________

Our diet or "life change of eating habits" has regressed a bit. Put back on a few of those pounds that I lost over the winter. Still eating MUCH healthier than we had been, but we haven't been sticking to the plan as much as we want. I'm finding that my biggest addiction isn't bourbon, baseball or beautiful women. It's snacking on chips. The easiest answer is to not have them in the house. Sure, tell that to my reptile brain when I'm food shopping and those things just jump into my cart. I'm a weak man.

__________________________________________ 

It's a wet and stormy day out there today. Lots of rain and thunder and lightning. Got to tell you...I kinda enjoy a day like this every now and again. Eddie Rabbit understands. I just want to sit outside under our deck and watch the weather porn while sipping on whiskey. So there's that.

__________________________________________  

Speaking of whiskey, I had a little Twitter discussion yesterday or the day before about the current fad of white dog whiskey that I've been enjoying. For those not in the know, that's un-aged whiskey. Usually bourbon. Since it spends no time in the barrel, it retains it's clear white color. It's also, generally, a bit harsher. I've enjoyed Jacob's Ghost from Jim Beam along with several local artisan brands. But what bugs me about this fad is that many distillers are charging more for their un-aged product than for the regular aged stuff. That makes zero logical sense to me. It should be cheaper. MUCH cheaper. Jack Daniels released an un-aged white rye. I didn't even know they made a regular rye. Someone tweeted a pic of it with a price tag exceeding $50. That's ridiculous. It's inflating the cost to cash in on the fad. Knowledgeable whiskey drinkers should know better. Shame on JD.

__________________________________________  

I'm a restless sleeper, usually. Always tossing and turning. But some nights I just crash hard and find myself waking up in exactly the same position that I fell asleep in. I usually feel pretty good about it. But sometimes I fall asleep on my left side, and I sleep with a pillow corner or something pressed against my left eye. That means almost a full morning of blurry vision out of that eye the next day. Does this happen to anyone else, or am I just a sleep retard?

__________________________________________ 

Yeah, no apologies for the retard comment in that last rambling. Sorry if you were offended, just not sorry I made the comment.

__________________________________________  

I don't know if you are a fan of Marc Maron, but he's got a new show on IFC and it's the tits. It's basically an autobiographical show about his life. Derp, that's the definition of an autobiography, right? Sometimes I amaze myself at the things that I type/say. But these are ramblings, and I'm not going back to change anything. Back to Mr. Maron. We've only seen one show, but it was just our speed. Sarcastic, angry guy with a lot of cats. Sound like anyone you know?

OK, get outta here and be useful or something. Cheers!