Tangled in a World Wide Web

The videos didn't work very well.  The audio was horrible.  Not going to post anything with audio because of it.  Here's a link to some pics .  They were all taken with my old flip phone so...

I haven't been to a real concert in ages. I have seen some live performances, some very good ones, but I haven't actually gone to a serious ear-bleeding concert in more years than I can count. This was a choice I made consciously, a supposed informed decision. As of this moment, I cannot remember what logic I used to arrive at that decision. Last night (Monday), I went to a concert in Columbus, GA. (I know, right?) For just over forty dollars, I was privy to Papa Roach, BuckCherry and Avenged Sevenfold, along with newcomers Burn Halo. Now, I know that A7X was the headliner with BuckCherry but I was most looking forward to Papa Roach. Either way, for forty bucks, I couldn't miss. If it wasn't bad enough that I was the old guy at a concert definitely not targeted to my specific demographic, but I had to go alone. {collective awww} (I know, right?) My buddy had to back out because of some work entanglements. I almost didn't go myself because I wasn't sure I wanted ...

Let me say, without any bias at all, that my niece is a budding actress and a damn fine one at that. All of my sister's children have participated at one time or another in plays and skits and such. Spenser, at 14, has decided he prefers behind the scenes work now, usually with lighting and or sound. Reed, 10, won an outstanding student award this summer, after attending a camp sponsored by the Springer Opera House, an honor for sure. Sydney, 7, and Macy, who just turned 6 last week have each had small roles in several productions at Family Theatre . My sister and her husband Jason, have acted, directed, written and everything else you can name from snacks to photos. Last night, (Saturday) I saw Macy in her first lead role; it was the title character in Heidi. Now, I'm no actor, nor am I a critic. I consider anyone who can get onstage in front of a bunch of people without wetting themselves darn talented and darn lucky. However, Saturday night, in a show of about 14 characters ...

A friend invited me over on the pretense of returning a borrowed book. I say pretense because, I am convinced the ulterior motive was good, old-fashioned torture. When I arrived, it was already in motion. Seemingly innocuous, it stood off to the side like a wallflower, like the middle school student who came to the dance without a date. "Would you like to play a game?" I'm reminded of an old movie with Matthew Broderick and Dabney Coleman. "No, I have to get home." It was true; Grey's Anatomy was not a repeat and besides, I'm a proud couch potato. "Just one game... it's awesome!" Finally, I relented to try baseball, because "all you have to do is hit a home run". Yeah, like point and shoot with an M1 Abrams Tank. No problem. Thirty balls later and I'm breathing like a pervert with a burn phone. "Let's try bowling." Bowling sounds good... no real athleticism involved. My kind of game. Turns out, I haven't bo...

I am not naive. I know how the real world works; I just never lowered myself to that standard. I guess I have come, once again, to that crossroad, the time to make a decision about myself, my work and my ethics.  This is not hard for me. I am forty years old and never once have I wavered on certain things. I do not go to work to be popular, and ambition is a younger man's game. I try to stay within the guidelines of the company I work for - which can be hard when they are ever-changing. I do not brown-nose or suck up. I speak my mind no matter who it offends. I do not say anything privately that I would not say publicly and most importantly. I say what I mean and I mean what I say. One of the lowest forms of life has two faces. It is the most vile and disgusting creature that slithers across the planet. It is not very smart but it is cunning. It has long been my belief that these filthy critters were ephemeral, flitting in and out of the periphery of life and finally dying slow and...

I guess it truly is inevitable. One day, we all wake up, look in the mirror and see our parents... I grew up in a single parent home and while I was certainly aware of the difference (back then, most of my friends had two parents living at home), I never felt as if I were missing anything important. I never felt deprived or underprivileged, neglected or abused. I knew that we didn't have everything that we wanted and that my mother struggled constantly to make ends meet but we had everything we needed. There was never a time when we were hungry or cold or naked.  My father's contribution, beyond the initial biological donation, was mostly empty promises. I suppose, on some level, as a child, I hoped for more occasionally; but by the time I was a teenager and working, and as I became more aware of the tenuous balancing act that my mother had been performing for my whole life -- as I began to understand the sacrifices she had made over and over again to keep from having to always...

OK, so most people who know me, know that I have only had 2½ channels for years. One that always comes in great, one that comes in pretty good most of the time and one that comes in sporadically at best. You know, on a cloudy day, if I open the front door and hold onto the doorknob while touching the antenna, I can almost tell an elbow from a knee. Yeah, that's the half. Well, unless you live under a rock or in a cave, you can't help but know that television is going all digital. It was supposed to happen on the 17th of February but, thankfully, I got a reprieve from the President.  Now, I have a 19 year old TV with a cheap rabbit ears antenna and an almost equally old VCR. I already had to buy a box to allow me to hook up a DVD player a few years ago.  It is no secret that I am a procrastinator but early on I decided to send off for the coupon offered by the government to offset the cost of the digital converter. I got them in the mail but it became a contest of which would ha...

I don't believe in the perfect woman. I don't believe she exists and if she did she certainly wouldn't waste her time on the likes of me (or any guy I know). Maybe Clooney would have a chance.  I think that there are a lot of good women, a lot of gorgeous women, plenty of sexy women, smart women, funny women, even a few that might have more than one of those qualities. I just read an article that announced that in a poll of nearly 2,000 film fans, the late Audrey Hepburn took first place over Angelina Jolie, Kiera Knightley and Halle Berry, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th favorites respectively.  Now only a fool would argue the sexuality of Angelina Jolie, or the sweet, innocent looks of Kiera Knightley, and certainly Halle Berry is gorgeous. So why is it that a woman, dead for 16 years can displace these young, popular stars as Ultimate Screen Beauty? That is hard to say with precision. She was definitely beautiful but with an elegance and grace that is now extinct from our stars, a...

So I was doing laundry and watching as the washer filled and started washing and I began to notice an eerie similarity to my life. You know, going through the same motions over and over and getting no where, while occasionally, someone dumps a load on me. The agitation, the roiling, the feeling of being tossed about and out of control. It was all very eye-opening in a disheartening kind of way.  Now, before somone starts passing out Prozac ® , Paxil ®  or Zoloft ® or whatever name the latest 'happy-high with a child-proof cap' goes by, let me just say that I am neither suicidal nor overwhelmed with despair. I have my moments, for sure, but this was just an observation that cried out for blog time and, well, my blog was feeling a bit neglected. Besides, if I wrote a blog entry and wasn't bitching or moaning, either no one would read it (which is only a slight drop in readership as it is) or those who did would believe that I had been abducted and replaced. For anyone who is...