Tired

Stayed upway too late last night to finish It. Liked it more than I expected to. Nobody writes childhood like Stephen King. This one's more about friendship than frightening anybody. Good stuff. Now on to this.

Ellery Alert!

Good stuff here.

Movies

Back in November Ruthie and I signed up for Netflix and we're digging it immensely. I suppose it's not for everyone, but they ought to let me do their commercials. Anyway we've seen lots of good stuff and two recent ones stand out:

1. The Station Agent -- The dangers of letting other people into your Life. (My people, we'll watch this together sometime.) Further proof that labels like "drama" and "comedy" are bogus. Loved it.

2. The Widow of St. Pierre -- Set in 1849, this one's about a murderer in a French colony near Newfoundland who's sentenced to death by beheading. Thing is, in the time it takes for the guillotine to arrive from Paris love redeems him and he endears himself to the town. Then the authorities can't find anyone to perform the execution, (and we all know how frustrtating that can be). It's great -- heavy, but great.

Making an Effort

Okay, so I'm always bemoaning the fact that I can't keep track of where all my borrowed stuff is -- who has what -- and I'm now taking a stab at tracking it all down. Please note: I'm not asking for it back or complaining about anything but my own absentmindedness, so don't feel guilty and don't return it if you're not done, but if you've borrowed a book, DVD or CD from me and could drop me an e-mail (bengregory1@juno.com) or a comment here or a phone call or a visit or whatever you're into, I'd appreciate it.

Thanking you in advance...

Wow.

Okay, Kobe Bryant is on the short list of my All-Time Least Favorite Athletes, (just for the sake of contrast, I'm pro-Allen Iverson,) but this is incredible.

Just for Fun...

Look at this one again...closer.

They Shouldn't be Allowed...

...to make peppersprays that look like flashlights.

Oh Brother...

Worth the Click

This dude's my hero.

Everything's Perfectly All Right Now...We're Fine...We're All Fine Here Now...Thank You...How Are You?

There seems to be a pretty strong correlation between how little I blog and how much I'm digging whatever I'm reading at the time. Currently I've dusted off Stephen King (with whom I grew up) and am for the first time reading It. I'm digging it more than I expected to -- never could make up my mind about King when I read him before. I'm 400 pages of the way in (it's almost 1100 long).

So there's that -- not much going on really. I'd rather change a diaper than put Mr. Hoo-Hoo down for a nap -- it's horrible. Took me an hour and a half this morning to get him to go to sleep.

More later -- I've got reading to do.

Nice Try Berno

For What it's Worth

I love Jerome Bettis.

Oh, Peyton...

Never, never, never blame your O-line.

And I Know it's Only January...

...but this is happy stuff.

Liked this One

"If you cling to an idea as the inalterable truth, then when the truth does come in person and knock at your door, you will not be able to open the door and accept it."

--Udana Sutta

For the Record

Redskins
Steelers
Patriots
Panthers

The Goose is Loose

He's also right.

HOpeFul

Maybe this is the year The Hawk makes it into the Hall of Fame. My all-time favorite player.

Hey Tara

Three more days!

In Case You're Interested

My Top Ten (by which I mean Eleven) iTunes Songs (by Play Count) as of the end of 2005:

1. Cathedrals, by Jump Little Children (54)
2. Life is Sweet, by Natalie Merchant (44)
3. Ashokan Farewell, by Jay Ungar& Molly Mason (42)
4. New Thing Now, by Shawn Colvin (38)
5. Carrying Cathy, by Ben Folds (36)
Latter Days, by Over the Rhine (36)
Nobody Number One, by Over the Rhine (36)
8. For No One, by the Beatles (34)
The Mercy Seat, by Johnny Cash (34)
10. No Children, by the Mountain Goats (33)
Bothered, by Over the Rhine (33)

Back to My Little (?) Black Book

If I felt like it I could probably place these book entries within a few weeks based on parallel blog posts, but I don't feel like it. It's enough that on a Tuesday night about two years ago Tasha asked us each to make a list. (Never have to ask me twice to make a list.) I don't remember now what the specific assignment was, but it was something like, make a list of things you want to make sure you accomplish before you die. Something like that anyway, (Dana probably wrote it down.) At any rate, I ended up with nineteen on my list.

If I took a stab at that assigment today it would look a lot different. Some of what I put down two years ago has been accomplished, (e.g., be a dad,) some of it doesn't seem like such a good idea anymore, (e.g., keeping an enormous fish tank -- who am I kidding, I don't clean the ten gallon tank I have,) and some of them just don't seem important anymore -- getting out of retail isn't as urgent now as it was then, my desire to smoke a pipe has been assuaged by the occasional hookah session, and I no longer feel like I'll die unfulfilled if I never publish a book.

Some are unreasonable -- I'm unlikely to invent a time maching -- some are simply financial: visit every MLB ballpark, attend a World Series game, take a transatlantic cruise, cruise the Nile. Some would be a lot easier with money, but would also involve some luck -- meeting Willie Mays, having a beer with Don Zimmer, attending a no-hitter, meeting Emily.

Others though, are works in process. Number 18 was, "be known," and it's happening in conjunction with number 11 -- "escape the Machine completely." We're getting there.

Still others are merely matters of making the effort -- know Spanish, finish reading The Lord of the Rings, (I quit halfway through The Return of the King). Neither of those seems to matter as much now as they did on that random Tuesday and they, like many on my list, are unlikely to ever happen. The important stuff will though, and has, and is, and that makes it easy to let go of my dreams of hobnobbing with Hall of Famers.

Haven't quite given up on my time machine though.

"Always we hope someone else has the answer.
Some other place will be better,
it will all turn out.

This is it.

No one else has the answer.
No other place will be better,
and it has already turned out."
--Lao-tzu

I Can't Make This Stuff Up

So last night I'm noodling about on the what Shawn insists that I refer to as the "World Wide Web" and I find myself checking out those internet ordination sites, just for shits & giggles. (They make me think of Joey.) Ordination has long been an odd concept to me anyway -- my own took place in '96 or '97 and from here seems very weird -- but this one site was just...too much. Here's a direct, verbatim, saw-it-with-my-own-eyes quote:

"Please only ordain others with their permission. (This includes public figures as well as cartoon and other fictional characters)."

Happy New Year

Now today, moment by moment, realize that each person and event that happens is life for you. Life is not somewhere else. See how fully you can accept the life that presents itself to you now.
-- Brenda Shoshanna

The life that I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.
-- Buechner