News of My World

First, this here blog: the good news is that there hasn't been any issues with my comments. The bad news is that Blogger Beta's new layouts - which cause said problems - are not available to those of us who ftp to our own domain. Phooey. So you'll be seeing this old template here at Obscurorant for some time to come.

Now the season: the holiday is rush is in full cry. On Friday Heather and I went Christmas shopping, which is a whirlwind kind if experience where we purchase gifts with the speed of a mongoose and the precision of a sniper. Trust me, it's vaguely awe-inspiring to behold. That evening I attended two holiday soirees, including the gang's annual get-together to exchange presents and drink lots of cocktails, held this year at The Fox and the Hound. Thanks to my very kind and generous friends I have lots of DVD goodness to look forwards to, what with the Forbidden Planet special edition (six! hours! of extras!) and the Carry Grant box set.

Saturday afternoon the Girl and I took in A Christmas Celtic Sojourn, at the Cutler Majestic, which I highly recommend if you enjoy Celtic music at all. Afterwards we strolled up the street to Silvertone. I hadn't been there in almost a year and discovered I've missed it. The retro feel of the joint, combined with excellent rasberry martinis and Dean Martin Christmas music put me in the spirit.

I played hookey on Tuesday and spent the day in Boston, mostly at the Aquarium. The highlight of the day was undoubtedly the chance to hop out over the giant ocean tank and feed Myrtle the Turtle (thanks Aunt Kate!). Turtle feeding pictures will be forthcoming.

And finally, my coming return to school. I'll be starting a class, for the first time in over ten years, at the end of January. Here's the description for Reference/Information Services:

Covers reference services, searching, and sources. Introduces reference concepts and services, such as the reference interview, customer service, evaluating the reference collection, management, ethics, reference philosophy, service in different institutional settings and for diverse populations, and the assessment of reference services. Students learn how to search in digital and print sources, including full text information retrieval in subscription services and the freely available web. Students become familiar with over two hundred core, fundamental print and digital sources.

Running through the Dog Days

August was one a hell of a busy month. It started with Heather's birthday and then went on to encompass the Bunny's bachelor party, my cousin Stephen's wedding and the Bunny's wedding.

Somewhere along the line my camera decided enough was enough and took it on the lam. I don't miss the camera - it was five years old and due for a replacement - but I had some good pictures in it from the afore-mentioned. Sadly, you'll all have to make due with the contents of my cell phone camera.

You know what I would like to do? Rent a cottage on one of the Boston Harbor islands for a weekend. Is that possible? If not, I'll go find a lighthouse somewhere. New England is a full of them, and either way, it'll make for a different kind of weekend getaway.

Cold Blooded Old Times

Clearly there's not been a lot of posting this month, but at least I didn't miss the month entirely, as happened in March. And hey, posting been sparse to intermittent since, well, since last year.

There's a reason for that of course. In the interest of keeping the story short, it should suffice to say that at the end of last year I was not in the happy place. Now I am. In between then and now I got: a new job, into grad school, a black belt, and a girlfriend. So, I've been busy. And likely to remain that way, so posting is likely to remain as unpredictable as before. But I will try to duck in here from time to time.

Moon Child

As Heather kindly observed, this past Friday was my birthday - thus the cleverly wrapped beer presented to me at the local. Suitable festivities followed.

Video du Jour

Just surfing youtube and feeling nostalgic. I really like this video - it seems oddly innocent now.

By Way Of Sorrows

Today Denton asks:

Other than the Trop, is there a park in all of baseball as miserable as the Metrodome?

My answer is, yes and no.

Yes, and the place was called Veteran's Stadium.

No, because the Vet has now gone the way of the Dodo and free baseball on TV and exists no more.

For the record I have been to the Metrodome, and it has the distinct honor of being the only ballpark I've ever visited that was spooky. As in the place gave me the creeps. Allow me to explain.

I flew out to Minneapolis in 1998 (or maybe 1999 - my recall is not 100% on this) to attend a wedding. While there we - my then girlfriend and I - decided to catch a game. Tickets were easy to come by, because the Twins were playing, er, not so well at the time. Now here's were we start to get to the creepy parts.

We caught a cab from the hotel to the Metrodome and the first thing I noticed was how empty the streets were. No crowds, hell, no people. This shook me - I was used to the crowds of vendors and fans the fill the streets around Fenway and Camden Yards on gameday - there was none of that. The streets around the Metrodome were flat out empty. Ever seen one of those post-apocalptic movies where the hero awakes from a coma or suspended animation or some shit like that, and everyone is dead, and the hero wanders the deserted streets looking for other humans? Yeah, I'm talking that empty. So empty that there was a brief moment when I wondered if the cab driver was lost and had driven us in an entirely different direction from the Metrodome.

So, we arrived at the ballpark and needless to say, the lack of crowds in the street was due to the entire lack of fans at the game. I forget how many were in attendance that night, but I'm sure they wouldn't have filled McCoy Stadium, let alone a major league ball park. And this is where we get to the part that creeped me out.

Since this was a ball game I had some beers, and where beers are had, trips to the restroom follow. So I left my seat, went up the stairs to the concourse, and stopped. I looked to my left. Nobody in sight. I looked to the right. Same thing. I felt like the Omega Man. Even better - or weirder or creepier - was the fact that as I tromped off to the men's room I noticed I could hear my footsteps. Think about it - you can expect to hear a whole lot of things during a visit to the ballpark, but your own footsteps in an empty concourse is generally not one of them.

The men's room was the ookiest part of this trip. For those of you have never been in one, let me tell you what a men's room in a major league ball park is normally like. They are big, crowded, dirty, sweaty, all for the reasons you might guess. What a men's room in a major league ball park is usually not is sparkly clean (because no one had used it) and completely empty. It was entirely too easy to stand at the sink washing your hands and imagine that not only were you the only one in the men's room, but you were also the only one in the giant building that surrounded the men's room.

Now, I won't say that as I washed my hands I used the mirror above the sink to watch the stalls behind me, in case a zombie nipped out of one to jump me from behind.

But I won't say I didn't either.

Forest for the Trees

The place: The Cutler Majestic Theatre at Emerson College
The time: Wednesday, May 17th at 7:30 PM.
The event: A Forest for the Trees, a 'distinctive evening of cabaret celebrating the life of John Beresford'.

Why? It's for a good cause, in memory of a good man.

The Good, The Bad, and The Links

The Good: I'm back, to do the blogging equivalent of spring cleaning, and lay down a bunch of links for my two or three remaining readers.

The Bad: Yes, as Heather noted my posting has been slipshod, to say the least - and likely to remain so for the immediate future. I've got lots going on, details of which may or may not be mentioned here at a later date.

The Links: Submitted for your consideration...

The April issue of Bookslut has a column about alternative histories, a favorite genre (or sub-genre - whatever) of mine. I highly recommend the first two titles the author mentions, The Man in the High Castle and Fatherland.

And some more about books (of course): the Essential Boston Reading List. If you want some Boston-centric tunes with your Boston-centric books, try Boston:The Musical. Now if only I could get my hands on a CD of Tiny Days by the late, great Scruffy the Cat.

I loves me some P.G. Wodehouse.

Parkinson's Law - which will make perfect sense to anyone who's ever suffered at the hands of the RMV.

I love jackets (the more pockets the better) and currently I'm lusting over the Buzz Rickson “Pattern Recognition” Black MA-1 Intermediate Flying Jacket. If only I had $500 or so to spare...

I would also like one of these and one of these. Oh, and one of these as well. Hell, I can get all three for a fraction of the cost of the MA-1.

There will be one or two more items in seperate posts...

Last of the Breed

My grandfather passed away early this morning. This place will be even quieter than normal (is that possible) through next week.

Return of the Drunkard

Well well well. In the immortal words of Jim Anchower: hola amigos, I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya but.....

...but I really have no excuse. Not a terribly valid one anyway, beyond the holidays being an insanely busy time of year, personally and professionally. And the fact that when it comes to this here blog, well, I just haven't been feelin' it lately. I don't think it helps that when I switched hosts the old www.obcurorama.com/obscurorant address ceased to function properly (you now have to add a .html to the end) , leading half of my already meager readership to conclude that I'd vanished.

So maybe I'll try get some more words down in the coming weeks. Or at least finally finish the series concerning the adventures of Bunny and I across America. And finish the short reviews of books consumed in 2005.

Yes, I know I've made similar promises before. What can I say? My word is no good unless I give to you in person. But maybe I mean it this time.

Anyway, speaking of reading, it has come to my attention that some people are in the habit of making New Year's reading resolutions. In that spirit, here are my reading resolutions for 2006.

First and foremost, I resolve to read more of the books that I already own. My 'to read pile' has grown at an insane rate, to the point it could be more accurately referred to as a 'to read wall' or a 'to read fort made out of books.' If I were snowbound in my apartment for oooh, two years, I can say with all honesty I would not run out of books.

It might be wise for me to shrink the ratio of unread to read books, before, you know, buying more books.

On that same note, less trips to the library this year. Borrowed books are still new books, and a distraction from the ones I already own. The bi-annual library book sale should probably be avoided like the work of the devil, since I have yet to walk away from one of those with anything less than a half-dozen new additions to my own library.

That Time Of Year Again

Here are a few more Addams Family holiday cartoons.

I do enjoy the Christmas season. I just don't necessarily enjoy the other people emjoying the Christmas season.

Yes, I'm dreading the coming task of shopping.

(lva)