August 2007 Archives

Mike and I have been reliving our childhoods and watching Thundercats every night. We've only got the first six-disc volume of the first season (there are three more six-disc sets that make up the rest of the series) and now only four or five more episodes until we need to get the next set. It's an awesome show: surreal and imaginative and often unintentionally hilarious. The writing is totally bizarre; the action is totally bizarre (e.g. Panthro laughing, holding Snarf up in the air and doing a weird-ass jig while Snarf protests... sounds fairly normal until you see it). Nevertheless, it's so much more off-the-wall and entertaining than I remember it -- which is not at all. I only have an abstract notion of watching and liking Thundercats. Mike has all the action figures. I keep on forgetting to ask him to dig them out of the closet so we can play. The animation is sort of run-of-the-mill Japanese animation of 80s American cartoon fare, and sometimes Lion-O just looks really weird (like when he looks up... yowza those are some nostrils), but mostly nothing sticks out at you. Except when this kind of thing happens.... The episode "Thunder-Cutter" features the warrior maidens, one of the many groups and tribes on Third Earth who befriend the Thundercats. Below is a screen shot of one of these warrior maidens as she talks to Lion-O near the end of the episode. As she finishes her spiel, just before it cuts back to Lion-O, something awful happens: KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT! When it happened, I paused the DVD, turned it back, advanced it frame-by-frame... and there it was. I got chills. In other Thundercats news, I've already managed to identify what one of the famous outtakes should have been, in episode "Feliner - Part 2." Suffice it to say there's no swearing in the original. And listening to those outtakes brings me back to freshman year of college, when we'd listen to them and laugh and laugh and laugh. --------

I should probably post, not only because I haven't in a while, but because if I don't, August won't be included in my monthly archives.... Sheesh. So, what have I been doing with myself? An update: The new job... ... hasn't started yet. The last start date I heard was September 4th, but I'm still waiting on more official notice. I didn't give much detail in my first blog announcement, however, so here's the low-down: it's a library position at a college in the area (not going to name names here). The interview was a half-day affair -- not at all as grueling as the full-day one I had at another institution that shall also remain nameless. I felt really good about the staff, which is important to me since I don't want to work anywhere that will make me utterly miserable (of course), and felt pretty good about the interview itself, though I didn't expect to hear anything for a while. The next day, I got a call from the Dean and was offered the job. Huzzah! It's a faculty position, which means that I have to go back to school and continue my English MA, as well as serve on committees and whatnot. This may very well kill me, but I have something like six years to meet tenure requirements. I'll be going back to school in the spring, if all goes as planned. And since I've been waiting around for my new job to start since the middle of July, I've been playing a lot of... ...video games. Probably the worst mistake of my life was to renew my GameTap subscription. There were a few weeks there when I felt truly, utterly addicted to computer games, but thankfully... ...vacation saved me! I drove up to Rockport, MA, without Mike two weekends ago to spend a couple days with my family on the beach. I ate a really good lobster roll, got sunburned, and witnessed my niece Lucy have her first real beach experience (she was a baby and it was raining the last time she was near the ocean). I slept on a cot in Nina & Chris & Lucy's room and, each morning, woke up to Lucy getting in bed with me. It was a vacation of cuteness. I came back last Tuesday and immediately started packing for a second vacation with Mike. We went to... ... Vegas, baby! We stayed at the Monte Carlo for three nights and three days and gambled away all our money. I was a slots and roulette junky by the end of it all. We went to see Ka, a Cirque du Soleil show, which was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen on stage. Seriously... if you can, go. We also walked along some of the strip -- basically just the area around the Monte Carlo since we didn't have a car. I have to say, the weather really isn't too terrible. You can't stay out too long during the day without risking frying your brain, but dry heat will always be much better than wet heat. The cliche is true. And during the night it was only in the 80s anyway. I have to say, I was amazed at how much I liked Las Vegas. I was not expecting that. On our last morning there, as we re-packed everything and checked out of the hotel, I thought to myself, "It'll be nice to go home and get back into a routine." But then, somewhere on our way to Chicago, I thought, "Fuck that. Let's go back." Though... if we stayed in Vegas, we'd probably lose all our money. And then I'd be addicted to gambling rather than video games. --------