Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Saturday Round-Up

Yesterday I realized this week is going to be exceedingly nutty. We're finally seeing Lincoln on Tuesday, Thursday we've got tickets to see Louis CK, and Friday we head to San Antonio where, on Saturday, I'll be officiating a wedding.

Friday night we stayed in and didn't do much. I was tired, man. I wound up sleeping til very late in the morning. I did walk the dogs and then we headed down to where Northcross Mall used to be (I had no idea that place had just sort of disappeared).

We went down to go see Superman collector and purveyor of finer super-objects, Tim Gardner, at the Chemical Toy Fare.  I picked up a really cool Superman clock and a handful of nice prints from Tim.

There, I also met Batwoman:


and Jamie spied a pretty fancy Batmobile.


It was a small fare, but reminded me a LOT of the "comic conventions" that we used to see in town back in the mid-80's when I was getting into comics.  Two mid-sized rooms, tables set up and lots of people who know each other.  Friendly, but not particularly crazy.

Also, we inadvertently and briefly met the actor who played the voice of John Redcorn on TV's King of the Hill.  He's a very nice guy.

Last night we headed out for Violet Crown Social Club here in town for Mikey's birthday.  Part of the East 6th Street scene that I'm a little too old for, but is still pretty welcome.  If you're familiar with Austin's "6th Street", it's not really what it was 10-15 years ago.  It's worth seeing, but it's different from what it was and not as much of a destination for music fans or even for just going to get a drink.  East 6th doesn't really have a music scene, but it does have decent bars where you can get a seat and a cocktail.






Friday, December 7, 2012

Answering Your Questions - Part B

So, yeah. Questions! You asked them, I'm answering them.

Not many of you asked questions, so here goes.



Paul asks:  Nachos?

SW:  I will refer you to my upcoming monograph "Nachos!", due for print in 2014.


Randy asks: I have a deep fear that I like "Online Ryan", but not necessarily "Real Life Ryan" (as I've spent very little time with the carbon-based version.) How much alike are the two?

SW: I think what you're saying is "I probably wouldn't like you in real life", which... thanks, man. I needed that.

Happy Birthday to The Doug


Happy Birthday to Jamie's brother, Doug.  He's the Torgo of our family.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Answering Your Questions - Part A


I'm off to watch Skyfall with The Admiral this evening, and then I've got a thing afterward.  I think it's another night of no blog posting.

Rather than leave you with nothing, I thought I'd turn the tables.  I have a small but regular readership.  I put it to you guys to send me your questions, and I will do my best to answer them when I return to blogging.

Just post questions to the comment section, or email them to me at the contact link above, and I'll answer whatever you got.

The guidelines:


  • I'll do questions of a personal nature up to a point, but be good.  Don't embarrass yourself.
  • Ask the question in a complete sentence.  
  • I don't read minds, so don't hint around.  Ask whatever it is you want to know.  (ex:  If you want to know what design elements I like about the movie costume for Superman, do not ask "how do you think Cavill looks in the suit?".  Ask "how do you feel about the design of the current movie suit for Superman?")
  • You can submit as many questions as you want.
  • I reserve the right to ignore or fail to respond to your questions.  You can take my failure to respond however you like.
  • Feel free to express your own opinion as part of a question, so I know where we're starting from (ex: I think sandals and socks are a sexy combination.  How do YOU feel about this combo?)

Okay.  So.  Tell me about your mother.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Holiday Party 2012: Wrapped

If I kind of disappeared the past few days, we've been prepping for, and then having, our mostly-annual holiday party.

When we moved back to Austin from Phoenix, we decided that we wanted to have a Christmas party to catch up with friends, many of whom we see all too rarely these days.  The first party was both a great "welcome back" party, with a completely packed house, and also, as it turned out, served as one of the last parties before babies, etc...  as evidenced by the fact that I dismissed the last guest at 4:00 AM.

We've had the party almost every year since then, with, I believe, only one hiccup.  We try to have it early, before December is really in full swing and you're in competition with a thousand other parties.  We try very hard not to be jerks about it, but it's a cocktail party and while we adore your kids, this is not the house nor party for having the wee ones running about underfoot.  This is grown-up drinking time.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Thanksgiving Weekend Round-Up 2012

Well, so that was the long weekend for Thanksgiving.

that was a really, really good white.  No idea what it was.
The Thanksgiving Holiday is over, and we head into the Christmas season.

Before we bid adios to Turkey Day, here's some quick views...

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Trying Not To Be Dead: I have been sick a lot this year

Well, I am sick again.

It's been a strange year.  It used to be that I'd get one bug for two or three days per year, then be back up on my feet.  The past twelve months, if I haven't been sick, I've been injured or had some other issue.  This go-round the symptoms appeared at a particularly bad time as I was about to get on a plane to Lubbock, then drive 100 miles to Canyon, TX, do a major presentation, then turn around and drive back to Lubbock, then present again this morning.

I pulled it off.  I have no idea what I said for the three hours I presented yesterday or during the meeting with Texas Tech today, but I think I kept it together.

Mostly I feel bad for the hotel staff who will walk into the Hot Zones I've left behind in two hotels I stayed in, and a bit for whomever gets the rental car I had.  Those things are germy time bombs.  That's not to mention the two airplane rides where I have no doubt I was patient zero.  Who knows when I was first contagious?  Maybe leaving Tallahassee.

Anyway, I will set a new rule for myself:  if I think I might be coming down with something like that, I'm rescheduling.  Sitting in a hotel room with no meds but NyQuil and Afrin and watching syndicated reruns on TBS is no way to be.

I do feel marginally better this evening.  I'm hoping a night of solid sleep that I'm hoping for will help.

I had already taken a few weeks off from working out with all this travel, etc...  and I was really looking forward to getting back into it.  But now I get to wait a few days again.  And then Thanksgiving...

Here's to figuring out how to stay healthier in 2013.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Thing not to do:

leave for a three day road trip when you wake up before your flight thinking "I might have a cold.  Oh, well, how bad could it get?"



Monday, November 12, 2012

I am returned, briefly. Also, Jason's front page story.

I just got back from visiting family in Tallahassee, Florida where a good chunk of my relatives dwell.  Nice weekend, great town.  It's a blur at this point.

Tuesday I depart for the northwesterly regions of Texas, and will return Thursday.  And I sort of refuse to travel again until after Christmas.

By the way, Jason was on the front page of the Austin American-Statesman!  As some of you know, my brother is a prosecutor in Travis County, Texas.  As such, he does sometimes put away bad guys or deal with crooks, but the last few years he's been working in a Veterans' Court assisting former service men and women who are having issues, primarily associated with PTSD.

there's ol' Beard-Face himself on the left, making JUSTICE
You can read the story here, which doesn't really mention Jason or his role, but it's all about his office.

Friday, November 9, 2012

And then I left for Tallahassee

In the morning I leave for Tallahassee.  My dad's brother, Unky B, is turning 70 and both of my second cousins (my dad's cousin's family is also in Tallahassee) have had children of late, and we're to attend the baptism Sunday morning before departing.

It's a mini-family reunion of a family that is not particularly stellar at expanding.  My Uncle never had children, so I've no cousins on that side, and Jason and I are also failing to carry on the family name.  Much like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, I am a seemingly successful evolutionary dead-end.

Truthfully, I am wiped out.  I have no idea how this is going to go.  Right now my gameplan is to stay upright until I am released back into my hotel room.

Then Monday I'm back at work, and Tuesday I'm off to Lubbock.  I am a little worn out.  If I can just make it to Saturday the 17th, I am slated to see SkyFall with a pack of British people led by our own SimonUK.  The Austin Brit ex-pat group loves their James Bond.

Get me to SkyFall, and all will be well.

No blogging til I return Sunday night.  I'm leaving my computer behind.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Well, so I'm back in Austin (for a bit)

I don't know how I did this to myself this fall, but my schedule somehow got filled up right up til Christmas.  Not totally full, but it sure feels like it's going to be jam-packed.

Friday I fly out for a family reunion of sorts in Florida.  I return Sunday night and then next Tuesday (the 13th) will be flying out to Lubbock, returning Thursday the 15th.  And then Thanksgiving.  And then December 1 we're having our Holiday party (you, yes YOU, are invited!).  We'll follow that with me cheerleading a wedding in mid-December, and then we're pretty much in Christmas.

Christmas, people.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

FYI: A Personal Note

Today is the "dating anniversary" of Jamie and myself.  Today marks 17 years of together-ness, at least as Jamie marks it.

We don't make a big deal out of it anymore.  Wedding anniversaries are generally seen as more important.

Here's to 17 years of love, true love.

what I think she was saying was "oh, thank you for taking my picture, my love!"

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Gungan Style: The Internet Video That Sums It Up

Of late, you may have noted a slight change in tone around The Signal Watch.

I think this video more or less sums up my feelings as I head towards my tenth year* of blogging on comics and pop culture.

Give the video about 2 minutes before giving up on it.




*yes, 10 years in April of 2013.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

No Post Wednesday

I had an impromptu dinner with a pal from out of town, and then came home and started watching the very-not-Halloween-themed movie, Test Pilot.

It will surprise you to learn this movie is about a pilot who tests planes.

We have recently hung new art around the house.  We've never lived anywhere this long together, and I am on track to have lived in this house as long as I've lived anywhere, the previous record held by the house I lived in from 1984 - 1990.  Time for some changes.  Its cheaper and easier than moving.

After watching Looper last night, I realized this movie will be remade in 15-20 years with someone who is currently a child actor and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  But you can't get hung up on remakes.

Anyone who tells you that all Hollywood does these days is remakes is missing the part where all anyone has ever done is remakes.  This is from Arthurian legend to most mythologies, to Hollywood adapting books and plays during its pre-Hollywood days in New York, to the fact that A Star is Born is remade approximately every seven years when an actress decides she's found her vehicle for getting some Oscar attention.*  Remakes are a Hollywood tradition.  Truly new movies are the exception, by far.  Or, at least new movies worth slogging through.

Tomorrow night, Jason and I will delve into the cartoon movie of The Dark Knight Returns, Vol. 1.  DC Animation finally took on this massive project, and I am not exactly thrilled.  It's a work of its medium, and I'm not sure even the talented folks at DC Animation can pull this off.  But they did break it up into two movies, surely a marketing ploy as much as breaking up the last, plotless Twilight film into two parts, but at least my usual criticism of worrying about cramming too much story into 80 minutes shouldn't be a problem.

I have a lot of travel planned for work.  I will actually be in Houston, if anyone is there.

Then Lubbock(!) and then Denver.

Help me.



*I wrote this as a joke and then checked, and, yes, there's one on IMDB listed for 2013.




Monday, October 1, 2012

Nothing in Particular

I have nothing new to add.  Nothing to report.  The weekend was fine.

Friday night I stayed in and watched opera and worked out at home on the elliptical.  Saturday I got up and saw The Time Machine, then had to run around and buy things as Paul and Juan came over to watch the game.  I didn't go to bed til 1:00 AM, and then had what Ruiz (one of the guys I chat with on Twitter) would call "The Odin Sleep".

I didn't rise til almost 10:45 on Sunday, and I was having a bizarre dream in which I was driving cross-country in the endless plains of South Texas and came across a small park (about thirty feet by thirty feet) in the middle of nowhere dedicated to George W. Bush.  You could put a coin in a slot in a metal box about four feet high and find out how closely related you were to our 43rd President.  My dream ended as I was disassembling the machine with a flathead screwdriver and stealing the quarters, intending to use them for gas money.  There were ten or twelve quarters in the machine.

Today I went to the gym for the second time in a week as I try to bounce back from my late-summer hiatus.  I really missed not just the weight maintenance associated with the gym routine, but that I genuinely am less irritable when I get to hit the gym.  I suppose it burns off whatever petty annoyances do that make you coil in on yourself.  I'm not sure the treadmill or elliptical do this for me, but the weight machines most certainly do the trick.

I was also starting to finally make some nice progress with the weights in June and July, and now I have to start over like it's last spring all over again.  I suppose it's fine, and I seemed to have my endurance back today (unlike when I went to the gym around Tuesday), but it let's me know what time and the slow decay of the body after 35 is doing to me.

This evening my folks picked us up and took us to San Marcos to see Jamie's mom, who is now about a month out of the hospital and doing seemingly better with every visit.  The progress is still on a demonstrably upward slant on the non-existent graph, and I think we all have reason to be impressed.  We also watched video of Dick and Judy's trip to Cuba from earlier this year, and the footage is absolutely mind-boggling.  When Cuba opens up after the Castro Bros. die, you're going to want to get there early, before the American construction companies come in and bulldoze everything.  It's a truly time-warped place, and it is going to explode once American dollars are flowing in.

Anyway, happy Monday.  Happy start of October.  Happy start of the last quarter of the year.


Tuesday, September 25, 2012

How's Everybuddy Doing? Rambling about nothing.

I don't really have a topic tonight.  We've been all over the map of late, when it comes to content, and it's been a wild ride watching the hit count on various posts.

We did curiously great on the Christopher Reeve birthday post, the Amanda Palmer coverage got RT by Ms. Palmer herself, so we're at 460+ hits right now (a normal post gets between 20-40), and the Oreo Candy Corn taste test did shockingly well with almost 200 hits.  And some comics stuff does okay, too.  Opera?  Not so much (which is weird on a site that's usually about movies and science fiction and comics).

But, as has often driven followers of this site nuts, I have no specific agenda with The Signal Watch, so you're not going to see me talk a whole lot about one thing.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

So, sometimes I work on this manuscript

Hey, it's the weekend, which means nobody is paying attention.  So I'm going to talk about something that has nothing to do with anything we usually cover.

When I was a college freshman I wrote a 140 page manuscript in WordPerfect, I believe.  It's since been lost to time, formats and a lack of what we in the digital libraries world refer to as "forward migration".  And, frankly, I'm totally okay with that.  I gave up looking for a copy of it as far back as 2006.

I don't even really remember what the manuscript was about except that when I finished it I didn't really feel like it had actually been about anything at all.  I was just coughing something up.  Sure, it was a sort of novel-like thing, and it featured characters and had a beginning, middle and end.   Characters grew and changed, had conflicts, and resolved them amicably or otherwise.  But even as I wrapped it up, the lead character started echoing my own thoughts about the pointlessness of the narrative itself and the whole thing sort of ate it's own tail, which I'd like to report was a brilliant twist or comment on adolescence in the suburbs - but it was not.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

No Post Sunday Night

Y'all, I was pretty pathetic this weekend.  I accidentally knocked myself out with Benadryl on Friday night and slept (more or less) from 8 PM until 8:30 AM.  I'm also still sick, but in this weird, pathetic way that just involves a dry, wheezing cough.

Because I can read the boxes on over the counter medications, after 5-7 days of persistent symptoms this being day 6, I have sought medical help, and I am now on an antibiotic, because that's what they do when "go home" doesn't sound very good.  The good news is that I don't have pneumonia, which I was glad I had not thought about until the doctor said "pneumonia, you don't have it".

Anyway, I have a very early meeting at work tomorrow, and I'm going to bed super early, and I didn't really do anything worth mentioning over the weekend, so, there you go.

this would be a meeting worth getting up for
Also, congrats to the UT Longhorns who waited for me not to watch them to win a game 45-0 against Los Lobos of New Mexico.