Undefinable

Today was an incredibly beautiful day for the 12th day of December. According to my Dashboard Accuweather widget it was 75 degrees today! It's actually been like that for the last week and a half. I feel a little guilty saying it but I'm enjoying the global warming. I've been driving around enthralled by the feeling of youthfulness. I've been experiencing that phenomenom I refer to as first day of springitis. It's been raised to a a new level though. I've been in a state of heightened euphoria lately. I think part of it can be attributed to a sharp upturn in my understanding of mutual funds and my 401k. I've followed these things on and off for as long as I've had them but until lately I've been taking a hands off approach. A few things have happened in the last few months to change all that. It seems the hands off thing has worked and I've now got enough in the 401k to attract my attention. I've been talking to a co-worker who is pretty knowledgeable and what he's said has clicked and my knowledge elevated by one step. I still don't really know what I'm doing but I'm much more effective at it. So it's good to know that while I won't be retiring any time soon, when I do retire I won't be eating catfood cursing the bankrupt social security fund. I will probably be knee deep in melted glacial water as global warming really heats up.

Guitar Godhood Explained

This article in Esquire by Chuck Closterman encapsulates many of my own closely held beliefs.

One of the first YouTube clips I ever saw was lost footage of a godhead ax solo Prince performed at the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony; just last month, I was sent a YouTube file of a ten-year-old playing Led Zeppelin's "Bron-Yr-Aur" acoustically. Both were semitransfixing. But if these performances had been given to me as MP3 files, I wouldn't have cared about either. (I would have listened to the Prince track once and ignored the Zep kid completely.) This illuminates one of those depressing paradoxes about rock 'n' roll: Very often, profoundly exceptional guitar playing is boring to listen to.2

The article makes many good points. Although I would disagree that Stave Vai's Passion and Warfare is boring to listen to and Poison songs are NOT better than Frank Zappa's songs!

My Project Truck

Thanks to Four Wheeler magazine online and their Project Fiery Redhead truck I've been inspired to refurbish my own red F150, big Pinky. Of course I have no background, skill or inclination in automotive endeavors. I figured this would be a fun project to learn on. Reading through the articles it looks easy enough. I know those words have been uttered before. Usually right before the screaming profanities. Right now I'm in the pre-planning stages which involves laying around looking at automotive catalogs and fantasizing about how cool my truck will be when I do all the wonderous things to it I have planned. I'm very excited as you can imagine. I hope to be posting some of my progress here in the coming months (more likely, years), stay tuned in, it might be entertaining.

Some Things That Don't Disgust Me

The penguins from March of the Penguins.

The Barber Motorsports Museum

Daniel Craig and Casino Royale. The best James Bond movie since Live and Let Die, they were all down hill after that. I like the trend of making old series good again. Batman Begins and Superman Returns really reinvigorated those two franchises.

Hidden River by Adrian McKinty. It's not exactly the Mickey Spillane, Damon Runyon combo Frank McCourt claims on the cover blurb but it's a pretty neat procedural set in Denver.

My current favorite beer, Spaten Pils.

I thought I'd do a positive post to counter my last grumpy post.

Some Things Besides Penguins That Disgust Me

New York's ban on trans fat. Thank God I don't live in New York. Bloomberg seems to feel it's his job to run your life.

Hugo Chavez

The cloying, smug use of "BFFs" by the press when referring to Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. I've heard it from seven different sources in the last two days. The first time was too much.

Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. You're a mother, put on some underwear bitch.

Who Will Dance For The Mackerel?

While we were home for Thanksgiving we took our nieces to see Happy Feet. Thankfully they are teenagers because quite frankly even I was disturbed by this psycho-drama. I have a whole list of things I found unpleasant about the film and after I saw the movie I found a review in USA Today by Michael Medved. Michael is a conservative movie reviewer (the only mainstream one I think) so he has a certain slant on things. I'm a little conservative myself so it turns out I found myself agreeing with a lot of what he said. He goes on about some gay penguin book for kids that I really don't care either way about, it's the whole Happy Feet thing I'm against. First and foremost it's just creepy. The hero, Mumbles's, father and mother are doing disturbing imitations of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe which bothers me. I can't explain why it just does. Second is this eco-Nazi premise that man, evil vile creature he is, is fishing the penguins into oblivion. Is that an actual issue? I haven't heard anything about the shortage of mackerel in the world, at least so much that it's mainstream yet. I mean I know there are always going to be people that think we are killing off everything just by our existence.

My father taught me an invaluable lesson when I was five that I haven't forgotten to this day. It's one of those seemingly off the cuff remarks that has an impact that most parents never realize. During the scene in Cinderella when the mice are helping Cindy make her gown for the ball, my father turns to me and says, "Real mice are dirty and have disease, I had better never catch you playing with them." It was in this oddly timed (and disturbingly threatening) comment that I've learned something that has been a guiding principal in my belief system my entire life. Movies aren't real. They are designed to manipulate you emotionally and this is what pisses me off the most about Happy Feet. I noticed that it was okay for the penguins (and gulls) to eat the mackerel, after all the mackerels didn't have funny voices to scream in anguish with. While the gulls and sea lions were sheer evil. I hope some little kid's father turned to his son and said, "In real life sea lions have babies they have to feed too and penguins are their main source of nutrition."