This teacher’s story intrigued me. Here is the article I read:
And here is her blog.
http://natalieshandbasket.blogspot.com/2011/02/bloggate-day-1-scandal-begins.html#comments
There is a reason this country falls far short of other developed nations and Ms. Munroe is simply trying to point that out. Of course she is lambasted and ridiculed, but as she says, “The truth hurts.” Yes ma’am it does.
I know I have neglected my blogging duties for quite some time now. I have been super busy at work and with a 1 year old, I have been super busy at home as well. So the blogging, along with the Halo and Call of Duty, reading, guitar playing, and drawing has sort of fallen to the way side.
I am trying to get back on track though. So I might as well start with some pictures of my little angel on her 1st birthday. I CANT BELIEVE she is already 1! It seems like just yesterday Lana and I were in colic hell. Nowadays she is so dang cute that I can’t even stand it sometimes. She makes me grit my teeth! 🙂
Last weekend we celebrated her 1st birthday and it was fantastic. She had such a great time and we so enjoyed having all of our friends and family over. She was a little hesitant to dive into her cake at first, but once she caught a taste of that sugary and creamy concoction, it was on. She ate so much I was sure she would throw up. But like the champion she is she held it together. 🙂 She loved it! So here are a few pictures from last weekend.
I am the champion of all babies and I dominated this cake!
Yea I ate all that and I'm filthy to boot. So...
I think I might just puke.
Sofia Coppola made her directorial and screenwriting debut with an independent film titled The Virgin Suicides. The film was made back in 1999 and starred Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett, James Woods, and Kathleen Turner to name a few. The film was based on a book of the same title authored by Jeffrey Eugenides. For reasons unknown I just watched the film last night for the first time. I have yet to read the book, but after watching the film I will be buying the book this week. A friend of mine loaded my iPod with some music by a French duo called AIR, which is a backronym for Amour, Imagination, Rêv, which translates to Love, Imagination, Dream. The duo actually composed the original score for the entire film and released a full length album by the same name as the film.
I listened to the soundtrack, which is speckled with altered versions of original text from the book and dialogue from the movie. The last track on the album is titled “Suicide Underground” and is such a beautiful song in such a wonderfully ominous and mysterious manner. I cant say enough about this film. From what I gather, since I haven’t yet read it, the book is written in first person plural; and, the reader never really knows the identity and quantity of the narrators. Judging from the fact that Sofia took many scenes verbatim from the book as well as did AIR for the pieces in their music, the book seems to be primarily more prose than dialogue and at times almost poetic.
I cant wait to read the book. The movie is now one of my all time favorites. A movie about suicide is hard to make enjoyable, much less is a movie about the suicides of five sisters, but Sofia Coppola succeeded in making a truly beautiful film.
The following text are excerpts from the book and the film which AIR used as “lyrics” to the “Suicide Underground” track. Scroll to the bottom and listen to the track while you read the lyrics. Or just listen to the track and decide for yourself. The track is so well done. The end gives me chills. Enjoy.
“Everyone dated the demise of our neighborhood from the suicides of the Lisbon girls.
People saw their clairvoyance in the wiped-out elms and harsh sunlight.
Some thought the torture tearing the Lisbon girls pointed to a simple refusal to accept the world as it was handed down to them:
So full of flaws.
But the only thing we are certain of after all these years is the insufficiency of explanation.
“Obviously doctor, you’ve never been a thirteen year-old girl.”
The Lisbon girls were 13, Cecilia, 14, Lux, 15, Bonnie, 16, Mary, and 17, Therese.
No one could understand how Mrs. Lisbon and Mr. Lisbon, our math teacher, had produced such beautiful creatures.
From that time on, the Lisbon house began to change.
Almost every day, and even when she wasn’t keeping an eye on Cecilia,
Lux would suntan on her towel wearing a swimsuit that caused the knife-sharpener to give her a 15-minute demonstration for free.
The only reliable boy who got to know Lux was Trip Fontaine
For only 18 months before the suicides had emerged from baby fat
To the delight of girls and mothers alike.
But few anticipated it would be so drastic.
The girls were pulled out of school, and Mrs. Lisbon shut the house for maximum security isolation.
The girls’ only contact with the outside world was through the catalogs
They ordered that started to fill the Lisbon’s mailbox with pictures of high-end fashions and brochures for exotic vacations.
Unable to go anywhere, the girls traveled in their imaginations:
To gold-tipped Siamese temples or past an old man, the leaf broom tidying the maw carpeted speck of Japan.
And Cecelia hadn’t died. She was a bride in Calcutta.
Collecting everything we could of theirs, we couldn’t get the Lisbon girls out of our minds, but they were slipping away.
The colours of their eyes were fading, along with exact locations of moles and dimples.
From five, they had become four, and they were all, the living and the dead, become shadows.
We would have lost them completely if the girls hadn’t contacted us.
Lux was the last to go.
Fleeing from the house, we forgot to stop at the garage.
After the suicide free-for-all, Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon gave up any attempt to lead a normal life.
They had Mr. Hedly pack up the house, selling what furniture he could at a garage sale.
Everyone went just to look.
Our parents did not buy used furniture, and they certainly didn’t buy furniture tainted by death.
We of course took the family photos that were put out with the trash.
Mr. Lisbon put the house on the market, and it was sold to a young couple from Boston.
It didn’t matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls.
But only that we had loved them, and that they hadn’t heard us calling; still do not hear us.
Calling them out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time. alone in suicide,
Which is deeper than death,
And where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.”
As I sit here at 6:30 in the morning listening to my boss in the office next door chomp on nacho cheese Doritos I realize that I have failed the December blog challenge. I tried, I really did. I just couldn’t find time Friday through Monday to write anything. Then again I couldn’t really find anything to write about on Thursday either, but I got a freebie with a sarcastic post. Anyway, I guess I am going to try and get back on the wagon here.
By the way, I can hear her chomping on those damn chips and I have my door closed. I can add that to my list of things that really irritate me. But that is another post. Maybe tomorrow! For now I will try to take up some space here to talk about my little cheerleader in the picture on last Wednesdays post.
Bella is getting so big it is crazy. I cant believe she is already about to be 8 months old! She is saying momma and da-da and nana and she has been trying to say kitty too. She is starting to try and pull herself up and walk lately! It seems like just yesterday we were in colic hell, now she is just so dang cute and sweet that I don’t know if I can stand it. I find myself thinking about little things she does while I am at work and it makes me smile and laugh out loud some times. I am a very proud dad. Maybe Daina, you will get to meet her soon.
Last night we finally received some stuff we had ordered from thinkgeek.com, which is one of my most favorite websites. We ordered a few toys for Bella, but what I was really waiting on was a few toys of my own. I ordered this cool little plasma ball
that I can plug into a USB port on my computer. Like I said I am a huge fan of The Office on TV and I want a bunch of toys on my desk like Michaels Scott. Of course, I would like to think I get a lot more accomplished at work than Michael Scott does, but writing this entry while sitting in my office says a lot. 🙂 Anyway, that wasn’t all I bought for the office.
I also bought this nifty little device called the Annoy-a-tron 2.0. It is a simple little circuit board that plays annoying little beeps and chirps at different intervals. It has a lithium C2450 battery and will last for a few weeks. You simply turn it on and choose a sound and then stick it in some hidden spot in someone’s office and sit back and watch. It has a magnet built in for convenience. Continuing my role of class clown from high school, I also like to play pranks on people at work and at home. So when I discovered this little gem I just had to have it!
Another guy I work with named Gary also likes to play pranks and it has become a little competition up here at work to see who has the next best prank. So since I get to work at 6:00 am and he doesn’t stroll in until 8:00, I got the cleaning guy to unlock his door for me so I could plant my prank. I set the annoy-a-tron to the cricket sound and turned the volume up. I placed it on the back of the inside of the filing cabinet in his office. It is behind the drawer so you cannot see it by opening the drawer. He will be looking for a long long time. Just like McDonald’s, I’m lovin’ it!
Okay well my great friend Kathy does this thing every year where she challenges her blogger friends to submit a blog post every day from December 7 through December 20. The other part of the challenge is that the title of each entry should be a line from a Christmas song. I have never accepted the challenge, but since I have been neglecting this blog for the past two months, I decided to give it a go this year.
Well as you can already tell I missed the first two days, but I am on board now. So get ready for a bunch of blog posts which I am sure will include some really ridiculous or perhaps even boring entries due either to lack of material or lack of inspiration. I will try hard though not to make them too boring and I will try to stay away from politics. Because let’s face it, this is the time of year when we should all be happy and jolly and politics gives me heartburn. Besides I have become so jaded with the entire concept recently.
Okay, enough about that. Let the blogging commence…
My first order of business is to be a proud papa for a second and give you a glimpse of the cutest Aggie fan known to man:
Seriously, is there anything cuter? I don’t think so.
My next order of business is to tell you how much being a parent has just made my life so much better. I was already a very happy person to be married to the best girl a man could ask for, but becoming a father seems to have grown my heart exponentially.
Your entire perspective on life changes the instance you look at that little person that you and your wife created out of love. That little person that relies on you for safety, food, love, and guidance. What a responsibility and what a gift. I look at her and Lana everyday and thank God for the life he has given me. I don’t know what I did to deserve these gifts but I will take them and be thankful. I love them both more than any words can ever express!
PS I couldn’t help but include this one political item. I dont know anything about this Mike Rogers fellow, but on the face, his points are tactfully and coherently true, in my opinion. I believe by now everyone has started to realize that Obama was and is an empty suit, liar, and typical politician. The shine from being the first black president and giving such wonderful speeches has worn off and the undercoat is bare and bland. He championed himself as a peace candidate but now is sending 35000 more troops to be killed in a useless war that W started and he swore to end. He simply said what he had to say to get to where he wanted to get to do what he always intended to do anyway…whatever he wants. Same ‘ol same ‘ol. Now I’m done.
This, my friends, is the definition of Socialism:
If you think that Obama is not in at least a small way a socialist at heart please please please try and refute this. Try and tell me how this and other of his initiatives dont fall under the socialist umbrella. Am I being a fear monger? I dont think so. I am just pointing out facts.
This is just the beginning.
Just never ceases to amaze me how elected “representatives” in our constitutional republic continue to manipulate the system to benefit themselves. WE are the ones they work for damnit. Both sides are so guilty of using this tactic and it needs to be stopped. How can they make decisions which affect all of our lives when they and we only have mere hours to review, or merely scan through, a document thousands of pages long? It is absolutely unbelievable that this is even an issue. Seriously.
Sorry, I know I said I was going to try and get away from politics for the most part, but I hear things and I just cant resist to comment.
Okay, well I was wondering about what to blog about today since I am feeling a bit uninspired this morning. I have a usual routine every morning of checking several different news sites and a couple of blogs to start off the day. After checking in on Kathy and Sybil, I decided to post a copy-cat entry today.
Since I too take pictures of miscellaneous events and sights on my cell phone all the time, I figured I might dump a few here and let you all in on the fun and triviality. Mostly the pictures are just random and completely unimportant, but I take them nonetheless. (Sorry Sybil, I could post videos of my martial arts events also if I wanted to , but I would have to transfer them from VHS to the computer in order to do so. Wow, that makes me feel old, and I so am not old.) Anyway, since I know you all are awaiting these pictures like you are awaiting your next company physical, here they are:
Everyone in the office knows that I am pretty damn OCD, and that everything in my office has a specific place and I notice if anything is just the slightest bit out of place. Well after returning from one of our Houston sites one day, everything in my office was upside down and opposite. All the stuff on my desk was upside down and on the opposite side of the desk. All of the pictures on thew wall were upside down and all of my color-coded thumbtacks on my bulletin board were disheveled. So I had to pay back the culprit. I put as many chairs as I could find in his office. This picture is halfway through the loading process. I cant go too overboard because if all of the strict safety rules that regulate all DuPont sites, so this is the best I could come up with under the circumstances.
A page from a book we saw in Urban Outfitters called “Stuff White People Like” by Christian Lander. Another memorable quote from the book is, “They love nothing better than sipping free-trade gourmet coffee, leafing through the Sunday New York Times, and listening to David Sedaris on NPR (ideally all at the same time). Apple products, indie music, food co-ops, and vintage T-shirts make them weak in the knees.” I love it.
The Clouds Are Ghosts on the iPod. I love this song by the way. The song is actually about the Obama election and I think the lyrics are very poignant and ring very true. You can listen to the album here to see what I am talking about.
My organized office. I clean my desk off every afternoon before I leave. Eveything on the desk has a place and I will notice if it is moved. Other than that, not much to it. The view out of the window is a nice chain-linked fence with barbed wire and rectifier and quench columns off in the distance.
Okay, so now I guess I should at least put a few of my little angel. Enjoy, because I know that I always do. She melts my heart.
Baby Bella waking up at Nana’s house.
Sleeping on Daddy’s lap. I love this one!
Bath time is fun and froggy towels are even better. She loves her little jingly bug that hangs from her car seat. She always holds on to it when she is in that seat. It is really adorable when she falls asleep with it in her hand. And every afternoon after I pick her up from Gramma and Paw Paw’s house, she looks at me from the back seat and smiles and talks. It makes me wanna pull over and just squeeze her!
Well Lana and I have been big fans of Conan O’Brien for years now. In our opinion he is by far the funniest and the coolest host of any late night show. There were a lot of times we didn’t get to watch him during the week because of his time slot, so we settled for Letterman instead. Of course, Letterman is also funny in his own bitter, overly political, and crotchety old man sort of way. Letterman though, has in recent years become even more and more politically bitter and he is starting to lose his appeal with us. Anyway, the point of this completely irrelevant to life post is to point out a couple of unfavorable aspects of the new Tonight Show with Conan.
Lana and I were excited when we learned that Conan would be taking over for Jay Leno, who we have never thought has ever really been funny. We were also excited about the earlier time slot. The earlier time would completely satisfy the need for an alternative to Letterman in the same time slot. Well we have been somewhat a little disappointed.
The entire ambiance of the set is completely different. I understand the show is in California and earlier in the evening. The set in New York though was more dimly lit and seemed like a smaller and more cozy setting. The quaintness of the auditorium in New York added to the intimacy that Conan seems to have with his younger crowds. The set in L.A. is large, bright and just not the same. 
The demographic that Conan appeals to as opposed to those in Leno’s corner are definitely different. Conan seems to be the indie rocker of the late night arena while Leno fulfills the part of the old rocker still hanging on to that first hit record. If their shows were rock shows, Conan would be playing to a standing room only crowd in a trendy club or converted warehouse in the art district, while Leno would be crooning to mid-lifers and old timers in some fancy auditorium in a downtown metropolitan theater district. The shows are complete polar opposites.
Some of the aspects of the old Conan show that we are missing seem to be the most basic ones. Even Conan’s entrance to the show has become much more subdued than his NY show. He used to run onto the stage and criss cross in and out of the view of the camera. He would get up close to the camera and make his signature faces and gestures. And the infamous “string dance” has yet to be showcased on the Tonight Show as far as I know. 
He seems to have been instructed that “the older crowd doesn’t get all of that young humor.” He used to always refer to the audience in a high pitched voice as “my babies.”
Somehow I just don’t think we will be seeing such great segments as Conan Hates Your Homeland (which gave way to the revelation that Conan’s fan base resides primarily in Finland and that he sort of looks like the president of Finland), Conan Saves Lincoln or hornymanatee.com on The Tonight Show. 
So while I am grateful to have the opportunity to enjoy Conan every night instead of just on the weekends, I am a little disappointed that he seems to have catered to the ratings crowd. I am sure all of this hasn’t been his choice and I am sure that the powers that be at NBC are regulating him closely in order to compete with Dave. I just hope after he wins the crowd over, he can slowly return to the Conan of old. But all in all we still think he’s the bees knees.
Now I know that there are many more important things to worry about in this life but you have to have some fun some time. What do you think?
Welcome to the USSA comrade
Dissent 