Dad Update

My Dad's in the hospital again.

You may recall he had a quintuple bypass last spring. It has nothing to do with this. You may also remember that he beat prostate cancer last year. The cancer's gone but the complications remain.

Dad had radioactive seeds planted in his prostate to destroy the cancer. he was told it would be the least invasive way to go. For four years he got worse and worse then completely better.

Well, it turns out having radioactive objects in your body doesn't do it much good. (sorry, Spider-Man). The seeds created a buildup of scar tissue in his colon and now nothing's coming through it. He's been on a liquid diet for a month btu this past weekend even that didn't help. He spent 12 hours in the ER and the last four days on an IV.

But the hospital can't do anything for him. They can't perform the surgery that will help him. That can only be done in Long Island. And they can't transfer him there. He has an appointment next Wednesday with the surgeon. Which is ten days from the time he went into the hospital.

So I called my cousin Johnny who not only is my best friend in the family and Ben godfather but a doctor in Johns Hopkins. He got my dad admitted in Baltimore before he even left New York. My mom drove him down today and now we're waiting. At least something is happening.

I'll keep you updated here.

Ben Thanksgiving

Renee and Ben decided a the last minute to go to the parade. Because when you live in New York, you can do that.

Chinese Democracy on Pop Culture Zoo!

When I met the figures.com staff at Toy Fair, one of the best guys there was Dan Clark. He left soon after to create Pop Culture Zoo, which covers not only figures but movies, tv, comics and music. I loved what he was doing over there and I wanted to do it too. So I'll be writing a few pieces for him.

And here's the first; the long awaited Guns n' Roses "Chinese Democracy" album. I was planning to make fun of this. Then it blew me away.

Read my review.

Writer's Room Tonight!

Jon Clarke (McSweeney's)
DC Pierson (Derrick)
Donald Glover (30 Rock)
Colin Jost (SNL)

And a sketch by Drink At Work

$5.

The PIT154 W 29th St(Between 6th and 7th Aves)

9:30 TONIGHT!

Ben Month 17

FAO has a Muppet workshop. renee took him over the weekend. I should probably take him again. You know, in case he missed something.

Green Lantern review at figures.com!

Some cool characters, lackluster toys and way too many pictures.

All here.

Ebert reviews Indy

Just because I like Roger Ebert and love "Raiders of the Lost Ark", here's why he thinks it's one of the greatest movies ever made.

New Star Trek Trailer!

It's so good Renee almost called Star Trek "cool".

I had my doubts about recasting the original characters. Paramount has always created new characters to further the franchise. But J.J. Abrams seems to have done a "Batman Begins" on this; taking everything taht worked about the original concept and amping it up to 12. I think kids will love it and never want to watch the original series.

I can't embed it yet but I can link it.

Forced Insomnia

I went to bed at 11:30. Ben woke up crying at 12:30. He didn't go back down until 3:30. Then he woke up at 7.

Welcome to useless.

Ben Month 16

It's almost too cold for the playground. Ben doesn't realize that.

The Plastic-Less Office

I just sold my last cd. After twenty years and close to 1000 albums, I now own no music on compact disc.

The idea came to me a couple of years ago. Ed's friend Barton (who used to run an amazing music blog) decided once he had all his music on mp3, he no longer needed the discs. So he sold them in lots on ebay and did fairly well. The idea stuck in my brain until Ben started crawling. Every day, he'd go to the cd bookcase and grab handfuls of records, scattering them all over the floor. The fiftieth time I put my original copy of 3rd Bass' "Derelects of Dialect" back on the shelf, I wondered what the point was.

I'm an archivist. I'm not proud of that side of myself, but it's there. The house is full of stuff that I just HAD to own three years ago. If I'm into an artists' work, I want EVERYTHING by that artist. Season 9 of the X Files. Beatle anthologies. I own Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four run twice in hardcover. I just want to know I have a good copy at my fingertips.

But with music, I always do. I own a 160 GB ipod that's not full. I have 700 GBs of hard drive space for my files. They're backed up on a 500 GB hard drive that resides in Connecticut and a new 1.5 TB drive on the shelf. Why do I need fifth copies of everything on 700 MB cds?

I don't. So off they went. Secondspin.com took almost everything at decent (for this economy) prices. It took three months but now the cd bookcase has actual books in it. Throw in a digitized comic book library (I miss those GIT Marvel DVD ROMs) and my obsession becomes virtual and my space becomes liveable.

Now if I could only figure out a way to digitize action figures.

New NewsGroper article!

I had one more thing to say about George W. Bush. That's because George W. Bush had more to say.

Veteran's Day

If today's a holiday and only the post office gets it off, shouldn't they stop telling us about it?

UPDATE: Apparantly everyone else is off while Renee and I work another 12 hour day. Today just got a lot longer.

Siskel and Ebert and the Worst Movie Ever Made

I'm getting excited for the Blu-Ray release of "The Dark Knight" which will drop in a month (and is already breaking Blu-Ray records). I've watched "Batman Begins" on Blu-Ray and am salivating over some high priced Japanese imported figures.

Thinking about how good this movie is reminds me how bad the George Clooney version was. I will never forgive Schumacher for making such a turd. And it's good to see in 1997 Siskel and Ebert agreed with me.



Nice to see Ebert healthy and Siskel alive, isn't it?

And just for fun, here's their review of the Burton 1989 film. I particularly like where they say it's not for kids and argue if it's better than "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade".

New NewsGroper Article!

George W. Bush forgot to vote.

Hopefully that is the last time I will ever write George W. Bush on this blog.

Thank God!

Looks like I'm going to have to stop hating the President.

Election Day!

Vote for Obama. You'll feel better.