working from home today, listening to the rain tap on the skylights while I take care of a bunch of system admin tasks before the holiday weekend. Should be a nice and quiet today, if all goes well.

A few things on for the weekend – tonight I’m supposed to help the kid finish up principal photography on her short film project for theater/drama class (I get to fill in as one of the villain’s hired muscle since one of them dropped out), and tomorrow I’m hiking a section of the AT in Shenandoah with some friends.

Otherwise, I’ve got some reading to catch up on, and since Amazon’s so good at delivering quick (the closest distribution center is only about five miles from the house), I’m going to make time to watch the low-budget Menahem Golan-produced 1990 Captain America film that never really got a theatrical release (like a lot of license-maintaining Marvel productions at that point in time), but got released to Blu-Ray recently, I’ve never seen it, though I remember when I went to that Star Trek convention in 1989, there was promo all over the place for it. I’m sure it’s pretty cheesy, but it fills a nice hole in my collection of Marvel Comics memorabilia, right next to the Hasselhoff Nick Fury and direct-to-video Man-Thing films.

Anyway, here’s the soundtrack of my morning from Pandora, though #8 eventually inspired me to just let the 80s Hair Metal channel spin, which is what’s been backing my keyboard tapping all morning since:

1. “Walkin’ In Memphis” – Marc Cohn
2. “Never Mind” – The Replacements
3. “Upside Down Frown” – They Might Be Giants
4. “My Only Swerving” – El Ten Eleven
5. “I’m On Fire” – Town Mountain
6. “Code Monkey”- Jonathan Coulton
7. “Seven Nation Army” – The White Stripes
8. “Seventeen” – Winger
9. “Heartlines” – Florence + The Machine
10. “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” – Simple Minds
11. “Aquaman’s Lament” – Mark Aaron James
12. “Ain’t No Use In Tryin’” – Trampled By Turtles

I’m off of work today. Just because. Might clean some things up, run some errands. Otherwise, nothing.

Once I finish a couple of necessary tasks, I’m off the computer the rest of the day. Don’t bother me.

Yeah, I’m broken and beaten. Not by anything sinister, but rather the simple act of getting from one piece of life to another, and finding things in my way, be they a 100 mile drive, or a pack of cackling teenagers filming a movie (which wasn’t as bad as I’d expected), or a pile of stuff all over the bed when all I want to do is go to sleep (which was much worse).

Have enough of that stuff happen, and stuff starts to crack. I’m starting to crack. However, I hope I’ll find a little bit of a break coming up – I’ve got two long weekends in the pipeline (and probably 11 more come summer, although I won’t be paid for those) here, and I hope I can find some rebuilding time.

Oh, and I watched Point Break for the first time last night…can’t believe I’ve never seen it before. It’s just about the perfect example of the late 20th century testosterone-fuelled action movie. Patrick Swayze thows a pitt bull at Keanu Reeves at one point – it’s just amazing and ridiculous, and I watched the whole thing with a stupid smile on my face.

Oh well – tunes.

1. “3am” – Matchbox 20
2. “Left of the Dial” – The Replacements
3. “Under Pressure” – Queen & David Bowie*
4. “Float On” – Modest Mouse
5. “Someone Is Crazy”- Jonathan Coulton
6. “Radioactive” – Kings of Leon
7. “What I Like About You” – The Romantics
8. “2082″ – They Might Be Giants
9. “From a Window Seat” – Dawes
10. “Kids” – MGMT

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*- let’s completely ignore the fact that I double-taked it for a minute, wondering why Vanilla Ice came up in my Pandora shuffle…

It’s not every night that ends up organically devolving into an impromptu lazily shuffling rendition of Lady GaGa’s “Poker Face”, performed on guitar, concert ukulele and hammered dulcimer, but when such a thing does happen, it’s kind of magical.

Of course, as it happened organically, nobody was in a position to capture a recording.

Damn.

Coulson Lives.

Lola better be one of those classic SHIELD flying cars.

Update: three whole minutes worth of trailer for this program!:

The real question now is who’s J. August Richards playing? Luke Cage? Rage? Cloak? A CW/”Arrow” style Black Panther? Sweet Christmas, people! We need to know theses things!

So, it was a weekend. Thankfully, not much going on. After another five hour drive home from work on Friday, I wasn’t up for much anyway. However, I kind of expect this, and have more or less built it into my expectations by now. The job, it’s myriad drawbacks and frustrations considered, has, at least started to become routine. I’ve developed a feel for what to expect, and what’s expected of me. It’s still not optimal, but I’ve become okay with that, for now. There’ll be other opportunities in the future; I just need to be alert for them. The last month or two has been easier. Part of that, I think, is the combination of finding a couple of non-work outlets to release some stress and frustration, the welcome addition of an additional scheduled telework day, and the welcome knowledge that I’ve got a boss that’s supportive, understanding, and has my back, despite all the crap the organization throws at us – that sort of thing counts for a lot.

The actual weekend was otherwise uneventful, beyond a couple of trips to the store for basic essentials (Friday being payday and the cupboard being bare), and a trip with the boy over to the local cineplex to take in a screening of Iron Man Three, which was, as they say, a lot of fun, and a decent ride. I didn’t mind the Mandarin “twist”, because for me, a comics guy of the old school, the Mandarin is a Fu Manchu simulacrum with ten magic rings he stole from a crashed alien spaceship, and who occasionally hangs out with a giant space dragon wearing purple underpants – I knew going in I wasn’t going to get that, so my expectations were dampened. The Extremis storyline wasn’t one of my favorites from the comics, but at least it was a story that didn’t boil down to two guys in powered armor wailing on each other, which is where most Iron Man stories eventually end up. The new director, Shane Black, brought a lot of himself and his particular buddy action comedy sensibility to this one, though for my money, his best work is the excellent and underrated Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (also starring Robert Downey Jr.), a film you should seek out right now if you haven’t yet had the pleasure.

The other movie I saw this weekend was A Talking Cat?!?, which has become something of a low budget underground classic, largely because it’s so unintentionally hilariously awful. It’s about 10 minutes of pedestrian family fare plot within a 90 minute movie with laughable special talking cat effects, starring a couple of former porn “actresses”, the grown-up child star of Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, the (perhaps literally) phoned-in voice of Eric Roberts as the cat, and looks like it was shot on the set of a porn film, because it was. However, the pre-schooler seems to love it, and has been turning it on the Netflix box whenever somebody turns away long enough.

Sunday was Mother’s Day, and having spent the last couple of days telling the spouse she wasn’t allowed to open that box UPS delivered on Thursday until the weekend (and watching her squirm a bit, which is always fun), we presented her with her big box of Doctor Who stuff from Thinkgeek, which is exactly the kind of thing my wife wants for Mother’s Day, which is, frankly, one of the many reasons I married her (beyond, of course, the biggest reason, which is that she consented to actually do so). After the usual morning rituals, we had lunch with some friends, and then spent a quiet afternoon at home, with Colleen playing video games, and me reading some comic trade paperbacks and drinking some good beer from Center of the Universe Brewery.

All things considered, I’ll take it.

Had two different people tell me that I looked like, um, that up there ↑ at different points this week, unsolicited. Both did it out of concern and sympathy. I’ll concede that I’m tired as all get out, thanks to life the last couple of weeks. I’ve been busy.

Hasn’t been all bad, though – I put a new car audio system in this week, which allows me to avoid using tweezers to eject CDs, and gives me the option of plugging things into it like mp3 players and such via USB port or ¼ inch audio jack. It’s cool, but is taking some getting used to, and I think I want to have it reseated in the dash in order to satisfy my OCD and minimize an aftermarket gap (although my wife says that’s just me being a little insane).

Also, I got together with a couple of folks, friends old and new, for an old-fashioned jam session the other day. It was fun, and I hope we’ll do it again sometime.

But this weekend, I don’t think I’m going to do much of anything: I need to not look so awful next week.

In the meantime, here are some tunes:

1. “Shoe Box” – Barenaked Ladies
2. “Never Enough” – The Cure
3. “Wild In The Streets” – Bon Jovi
4. “Hopeless Wanderer” – Mumford & Sons
5. “Rocky Raccoon” – The Beatles
6. “Someday We’ll All Be Ghosts” – Jonah Knight
7. “Hot” – Avril Levigne
8. “Sweet Malinda” – Earth to Bob
9. “Condemnation” – Depeche Mode
10. “Beetz in my Salad” – SJ. Tucker and Big Bad Gina

Just wanted to take a moment of mentorly pride for the efforts put forth by Alicia, Michael, Selene, and William over the last couple of weeks. Things really came together, and I think all those present took something positive away from the experience. Thanks for making my volunteer gigs so easy and rewarding.

You guys continue to amaze and impress me.

When I see stuff like this, I think there’s a chance humanity might still have a shot at sticking around a while, especially if there’s folks like you leading the charge.

because, it’s Star Wars Day.

Also, it’s Free Comic Book Day, so why don’t you go track down your local indie comic shop, get some free books, and make a friend?

Given the day, you all kind of expect this by now (audio is, as they say, NSFW):