The New Musings of a Quiet Geek

1. Gave my parents the new Beatles Trivial Pursuit game for Christmas. I thought the 3 of us would have an easy time of it but they added six levels of difficulty to every category. Of course we got a lot of 5 and 6 level questions like where did John go to school or what street he lived on. Yikes! Get this there's a movie category and we watched Hard Days Night . It didn't help. It was good though as my father took an early lead before my mother took over. I ended up winning merely on a dice-roll. 2. Got two big music gifts this year. My parents gave me Tom Petty's Live Anthology which though it's set up as a long concert, it's actually several different concert clips spliced together. You really don't notice. I love it! b. Meanwhile my cousin gave me the John Lennon Anthology which is analogous to The Beatle Anthology as it's a compilation of outtakes, parodies and live tracks selected by Yoko Ono who also wrote the liner notes. This is great too! 3....

We're down to our last piece of pie and we're tossing the turkey carcass out so I think Thanksgiving 2009 is finally over. It may have actually ended when my parents went home on Friday but whatever...Yes, my parents came down and we had the dinner upstairs in my aunt's apartment. It was just the five of us. On Wednesday, I tried once more to get my ID replaced. They were open this time but I forgot to put my birth certificate back in my bag. Because this was a replacement, they had the address on file but I couldn't prove I was born here. Yes, I was born here then but I'm not now? Do terrorists have time travel tech to change this? Anyway, the saga continues... This is my first Christmas using Pandora. I have some thoughts. James Taylor's cover of Joni Mitchell's "River" is the most boring version I have ever heard but it perhaps is the only male version I've ever heard...Apparently, Louie Armstrong put "What A Wonderful World" on...

Fred Claus : This is the story of Santa's older brother Fred (Vince Vaughn). The plot is about an evil efficiency expert played by Kevin Spacey trying to end Christmas because he didn't get the present he wanted as a child; a Superman cape no less. Spacey's character reminded me a lot of Lex Luthor but somehow it worked quite well...Nick Claus was played by Paul Giamatti and his was a combination of Tim Allen and George Wendt. (What? You still have not seen Santa Baby ?) Kathy Bates as their mother was da bomb... I do have a couple nit picks. One: the female elf was much taller than the other elves. Was she only half-elf? Two: If Santa's whole family is immortal, why did the whole family age enough to be gray-haired but not Fred?

My story begins on Friday the 20th. My bus was delayed due to the previous days storm and the inefficiency to get back up and running 100% when shutting down. Later we hear from a father talking to his daughter on his cell. Her bus from Boston, and therefore my bus was broken down in Kennebunk. Alternator was shot or something. Another bus bound for the north finally arrived going a different route but would still get me to Bangor. We had to go through Brunswick instead. OK I was thinking. Fine. First, I have to sit in the very front which, again, is fine. Then the driver asked me my name and tells me though this only the 3rd time he's done this route there is only one place in Brunswick he gets confused and maybe reading the directions out loud will help him. So I do it. I read for him to veer left and he turns left. I will point out here the directions they give their drivers suck ass. No mile markers and very few landmarks. So we drive and drive. I see signs for Bath, ...

Thursday, I drove up to Bangor to see the play "A Year With Frog and Toad," which my second cousin was in, with my uncle and grandmother. My aunt and parents met us there. A drive that would normally take like 2 and half hours took about 5 because, well, the weather was just so awesome... The musical was great, as I still love the stories, with, honestly, the best parts thanks to my cousin as Snail and "The Terribly Huge and Hugely Terrible Frog." The best part of the evening came when we were going to our cars. (I and my traveling companions were going to my parents for the weekend.) My uncle goes to his car and can't unlock the door. We all assume the lock is frozen. My father down the street opened his car just fine so he didn't know what was going on. My uncle kept kicking the door with the side of his foot to no avail. By now, I'm sure you smart readers have deduced that it wasn't his car! Good times... I was intending to drive back down on Fri...

I could've Twitted about 6 times about this but I decided a short blog pot would work better: On the Song "Do They Know It's Christmas Time At All?" by Band Aid in 1985(?): 1. Since Africa is like two-thirds Muslim, the age-old question should be "Do they really care?" 2. My favorite line is "Thank God it's them instead of you..." I assume they were just imitating assholes hearing this song but it still makes it sound like they're saying, "feeding starving Africans at Christmas is a good thing but if it was someone I actually know...that would just suck..." One Final Thought: -The title "The Christmas Song" should only be reserved for the song writing by Mel Torme about chestnuts roasting and knowing a turkey. If bands want to write their own "Christmas Song," which usually is pretty awesome, call it something else because that's just lazy... -

So far, my Thanksgiving weekend has been quite different. My roommate and I had my parents, grandmother and uncle over for the actual meal. My aunt/his mother had to work but she provided the chocolate cream pie and got a plate later. As is usual when my family gets together, we laughed a lot. My father told this story he heard on the radio where astronauts have this machine that turns their urine into drinkable water but it's still being perfected so it's still 10% urine. They compensate by using Tang! Supposedly, it tastes good... Yesterday included going to Applebee's for lunch with more family followed by going to my grandparents for more pie and conversation. That was nice actually and devoid of annoying weirdness so yay! Last night, we went down to see the annual "Lighting of the Holiday Tree Ceremony." They call it thus to be PC but aside from "The Dreidel Song" and the universally accepted "I Love Mud." It was all Christmas. Be acc...

The good news was I got listen to my Ringo Starr Christmas album. I was worried it was too badly scratched but it just needed a massive cleaning. Yay! I received a lot of CDs this year. From my parents, I received Kelly Clarkson's new album, My December . She's at the same place with her third album that Sheryl Crow was with her first. What I mean is Kelly wrote all the songs with the help of one to three other people. (Read the liner notes of Tuesday Night Music Club .) If this holds true, Kelly's sixth album should be pre-ordered now... Clive Davis didn't want this album to see the light of day. Why? While I don't like it as much as "Breakaway," it's very good indeed. I've only listened to it a couple times which is not enough time really like anything (Of course, there are exceptions in either direction.) so this may change. From my aunt and uncle I received Raising Sand from Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. When I had heard of this album, I was...

Maybe this topic is a stretch to be added to my series but I finished two books a couple days ago that I was reading over vacation so I think it counts. First, I finished Star Trek: Federation by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. Written between Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek: First Contact , it tels the story of warp drive developer, Zephram Cochrane filling in the blanks between when he broke the warp barrier, him disappearing in space, and then being discovered on a distant planet by Kirk, Spock and Dr. McCoy. It further allows him to encounter Picard's crew as well. I realize how complicated this may sound but it ties together well. Because it was written before First Contact came out some of the events taking place in Cochrane's own time contradict what is now cannon such as how he developed the drive but that's a very small portion of the book so it really can be overlooked. I was thinking that Generations would be the movie that would really screw things ...

My roommate had a friend from his first college days come to visit starting New Year's Eve and she loves to watch movies so we watched a bunch. She brought Hairspray with her so we started with that. That movie was not as sophisticated as Once but was definitely F-U-N fun. At first, I wondered why Travolta was putting on a Philadelphia accent if they were in Baltimore but maybe it's a Mid-Atlantic accent? Hmmm. I didn't know Amanda Bynes, Michelle Pfeiffer or Christopher Walken was in this movie so that was a cool surpise. Rent it today. We next flipped around the channels and found American Pie Presents: Band Camp so we watched that. As with Girl Interrupted, but perhaps more so with this movie, I was amazed what made it on the air. At the moment, I don't feel the need to rent the full version but, overall, I liked it. As their was nothing on TV, we raided our stash of recorded Christmas movies beginning with Christmas Caper with Shannen Doherty which may have been ...

The night after I arrived home we rented a couple movies. The one we watched as a family was called Once . Some may call it a chick flick. There are two kinds of chick flicks: Comedies which I generally enjoy if Whitney Houston isn't starring in them and Dramas which I generally do not. This probably falls into the latter category but, you know what? I liked this movie very much. Part of the reason is that generally enjoy music movies, like School of Rock and Sister Act if not musical theater. The stars of this movie actually wrote the music they're singing and it's good! The next day, I finally got to see Eragaon . This was about a year in the making as I was scheduled to see this movie with JRRyan in the theater when my father broke his wrist ice skating that very night. Anyway, overall, this was a fun time waster of a movie. What I found fascinating, though, was 16 year old Christopher Paolini didn't get all his inspiration from fantasy novels. He got it from Star...

Two more Christmas movies to discuss. During the snow storm on Thursday, my aunt stayed over and brought a DVD with her: A Christmas Miracle at Sage Creek . I don't want to ruin the whole movie but it has David Carradine as a "Scroogian" rancher who has this beef with this Native American family (Wes Studi and Irene Bedard) living on his land. Technodude went back to painting but I enjoyed it and I think my aunt did as well... My cousin and I later watched Little House on the Prairie: Bless All the Dear Children . Laura and her husband along with Issac go in search of their daughter who was kidnapped by a psychotic frontierswoman. Meanwhile, back in Walnut Grove, we have the hilarious hi jinks of Jason and Nancy, who really is more of a bitch than her older sister, Nellie. What these two storylines had to do with eachother, I have no idea... Of the non-Christmas variety, we also finished the miniseries, Tin Man which is a re-telling of The Wizard of Oz . (Or is it a sequ...

During my dance class reading on Wednesday, I finished another Star Trek book. The Buried Age by Christopher L. Bennett, whose Orion's Hounds was the first Titan book I truly enjoyed, was another Lost Era novel; this one filling in the gap of Picard's life in between the so-called "Battle of Maxia" where the Stargazer was lost and his taking command of the Enterprise-D prior to "Encounter at Farpoint." As with most of the "Lost Era" books, my interest in the actual plot of the book, in this case finding a member of a extremely ancient race and falling in love with her, paled in comparison to the geeky references found within. For instance, you know exactly why Picard gets so irritated with Phillipa Louvois in "Measure of a Man." Another small reference I enjoyed was that the Galaxy -class was supposed to launch on 2361, the bicentennial of the Federation but of course was delayed until 2363-4. Was that Bennett's doing or the Oku...

This past Saturday, I went to a Christmas party held at the home of one of the seminary students. It was a small gathering but fun. We drank homemade hot apple cider and each decorated a gingerbread man for the tree. Mine came out pretty well. After a lunch of pie, (Did I ever tell you the story of going to my mother's cousins? Where I was told their would be dinner and we just ate the pie we brought ourselves?) we put together a gingerbread creche. My sheep sucked. Damn fine motor control problems! As of this past Sunday, I am officially a member of my church. I received a certificate, a rose and a piece of cake for the honor. I also had more than one comment about how they already thought I was a member. It was somewhat funny. I've watched more Christmas movies recently. I watched Home Alone 4 . I don't think I even bothered watching the third film but this one was not bad. Loved Clare Carey now playing Kevin's mom and the kid now playing Kevin wasn't bad althou...

My cousin/roommate is really into Christmas specials and movies so the other day, we watched the holiday classic Jingle All The Way . (Conan O'Brien reference.) Like Jersey Girl , I figured it couldn't be the steaming pile it seemed to be. In some ways it was worse but I ended up watching the whole thing so what does that tell you? I'm way too amiable. That's what it tells you. I love Phil Hartman and miss him and I love Sinbad but Danny Devito needed to be in this movie! Jake Lloyd, playing Ah-nold's son, can't act. If they do a remake of Shane , he should be the kid because, well, watch this movie or The Phantom Menace because that will answer your question. Can I just ask why Rita Wilson appears in mediocre films all the time? (Well, she did once joke that she had to sleep with the director to get in That Thing You Do ...) I mean she's married to Tom Hanks! In summary, watch Batman and Robin instead...

Reading a friend's blog recently, I realized that, despite things in my life going at snail's pace, I've probably never been happier. I love my volunteer job which only confirms two things about me: I want to be a librarian. Too many people in my age bracket don't really know what they want. Some think they know yet aren't happy now that they're doing it, some think they know but don't make the attempt to see if they're right for legitimate reasons like they can't afford to right now or not so legitimate reasons such as they're too scared so I find it satisfying that I know what I want. The trick is now finding a way to make it financially a reality. I'm working on it but, meanwhile, I realized the second thing about me: I don't need money to be happy. Of all the jobs I've had, it was the volunteer jobs and the internships that tapped into my interests. Given how our society works, most would probably argue that I need to change my at...

Here's a blow by blow account of my recent Christmas and subsequent vacation for you all to peruse. Christmas Day-I woke up rather late as my cat decided to spend the night before with me and that is difficult for many reasons. We had our stocking and presents and then hit the road for Maine. When we arrived, we had a present exchange. Tuesday- My aunt, who arrived at my grandmother's just before we did the day before was down and a cousin came over so there was a Christmas party of sorts. The downside was that my intestinal thing from Thanksgiving returned but more on that later. That night, we watched the movie The Upside of Anger . I really can't say you should definitely see this movie or that you definitely shouldn't. Overall, it was very well acted and isn't about time Kevin Costner put out a movie that was at least Tin Cup good? The best line came from the writer/director: "Who should I sleep with, Terry? Women like you? Your age? My age? I don't. Y...

On Friday night, my parents and I went to see a production of A Christmas Carol at Hartford Stage. It was really well acted. This version had some interesting aspects to it. One: Scrooge's housekeeper was a transvestite. In fact, the same actor played Jacob Marley... Two: While the Ghosts of Past and Present were how we have come to expect them to look, the Ghost of Christmases Yet To Come wasn't a Grim Reaper type. He was a guy in a top hat and sunglasses riding a funky tricycle. My mother accurately described it as "Tim Burton-inspired." Yesterday, we had the Christmas Pageant at my church. We did the traditional Nativity story this year after letting the kids write something different last year. The best part of the play was watching was watching our preschool kids as sheep. The best part of the whole experience, however, was not having to be in it myself... Yesterday afternoon, my father and I went out to get the tree. It's now up and decorated! Woo Hoo! Last...

So today at PT, I was put on the bike. No weight and we weren't sure I could do a whole rotation. I was able to do it, however. I was peddling pretty slow at first but, once I got going, I was peddling at a pretty good clip considering. I've been experiencing popping first the on the underside of my knee now on top. I was told my my orthopedist this is just the scar tissue breaking up. Anyway, I experienced a big pop on the bike so this is a good thing I guess. A new stretching excercise was added: while on my stomach, I pull my leg towards my head, holding it for 10 seconds then repeating. This makes a complete ten excercises now but this new one goes into the "just twice" catagory instead of three times. (Making 3 of those now.) Just like when I went to PT this morning, I didn't wear my brace to the movies last night when I went with my mother. We pondered sitting in our usual spot on the first elevated level but we decided I need more space so we sat in the s...

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?: Depends if I want something hot or alcoholic... 2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?: Santa didn't used to wrap the gifts but then he started to and still does... 3. Coloured lights on tree/house or white?: Currently white lights on the tree. 4. Do you hang mistletoe?: What would be the point? 5. When do you put your decorations up?: We've started to but still no tree yet. 6. What is your favourite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?: cheese smokies or Chex Mix. 7. Favourite Holiday memory as a child: Hmm the only memory I have at the moment is having the flu one year and throwing up on my gifts from Santa... 8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?: I received a teddy bear one year labeled "From Santa" but then I was told it was from a family friend. It unravelled from there... 9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?: I used to but now my mother gets so many presents from her office we run out of present...