So, I mentioned it in Twitter and on Facebook, but neglected to say anything here. But as you can tell by above, we’ve added on to the family: second girl, third kid overall in just a bit over four years.

Yeah, we’re just that crazy.

Her name is Alexa Marie and she was born June 16th. She’s adorable and healthy and lovely.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

Way back when sometime, Soul Asylum of “Runaway Train” fame recorded a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on the (a) Wire.” Since then, I’ve been on the verge of believing I hallucinated it, since I can’t find it anywhere. No iTunes, no eMusic, not even in the list of covers acknowledged by the Wikipedia article about the song. I remember hearing it on CIMX 88.7 in Windsor, ON back in the early 90s, but nothing since then.

I’m still pretty sure I didn’t hallucinate it. But does anyone have any idea where one could find it?

For reference, here’s Adam Cohen singing it live:

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

So, I’m really kind of bummed. This last year, there were only three actual television shows that I watched with any regularity, and two of them have been canceled: The Unit, the unfortunately named show about a team in the US Army’s Delta Force and their struggles in fighting unconventional war at home and abroad, and Life, a show about a cop wrongly imprisoned for murder for twelve years, only to be exonerated, get his job back, $50 million for his troubles, and new sense of zen. The Unit got axed after four years, Life after only one-and-a-half (really, given the writer’s strike).

I think Life suffered from what I call the Band of Brothers curse (which is related to the Firefly curse, and for which the short-lived show Standoff is my combo thesis, but I digress). In that, I don’t think any show starring anyone from Band of Brothers has survived for any meaningful duration. ER is the only notable exception, clinging to life with Scott Grimes in the title sequence for five whole seasons. But I think that’s both the exception that proves the rule, and a demonstration of how ER’s momentum and popularity was enough to power it through any albatross… for a time.

So, I wasn’t surprised that Life didn’t last, especially given a few guest appearances from Michael Cudlitz who could well ride yet another series into the ground, assuming Southland conforms to the curse. But I am pretty disappointed. It was a consistently entertaining and interesting show that jammed on the random weird button just enough for me.

Oh well, at least I still have Burn Notice, which is actually coming back with new episodes in a couple weeks. I found myself wishing last night that both Life and The Unit had been quirky summer cable series, like Burn Notice, just because those seem to have little trouble surviving many multiple seasons. And Stargate: Universe will be starting up in the fall, which I’ll give at least a few episodes, just because I like Lou Diamond Phillips.

So what else is out there to watch? No thanks on Heroes, they lost me after the first season. And I’m honestly waiting on LOST until they’re all out on DVD. No idea if that’ll make a difference or not, but it’s how I’ve decided to go at it. I should probably watch Psych more, because it’s just my kind of show (and Dule Hill is just awesome).

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

Related stuff:

First, is that Roger Ebert criticizes the new Star Trek movie, in part, for its poor and imprecise grasp of science… and uses imprecise language to do so. Such as: “Consider, at light warp speeds, how imprecise it would be to say “At my command … 3 … 2 … 1 …” Between “2” and “1,” you could jump a million galaxies.”

A million galaxies, Rog? Light Warp speeds? Thanks for clearing up their terrible grasp of science.

If I were inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, I’d suggest he was doing so deliberately as a sort of shot at the imprecise science; but if so, it was poorly executed, and thus no better than honestly sloppy science.

And speaking of boldly going where no man has gone before, etc. There’s this bit about ongoing mysteries from New Scientist; not so much anything to say about the article itself, which seems to be a recently updated retread from circa 2005, but just the notion that there are still all these fundamental mysteries out there that could radically change our perception of the universe (and, in Star Trek tie-in, our ability to manipulate it). I’m just bummed that I feel like I need an advanced degree in science to grok most of those questions.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

The vast majority of my WordPress comment spam comes in to this post about Howard Tayler. Don’t know why–maybe because of his overwhelming popularity on the internets.

In other blog housekeeping news, I’m going to add a Twitter plugin for the sidebar. And I upgraded to 2.7.1 on Wordpress without a hitch. I’m digging the new back-end lay out, an improvement over 2.5, which itself was a vast improvement over prior versions.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

As an old pizza guy (managed a Hungry Howie’s for a time when I was in college), I think this is damn nifty:

Green and convenient!

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

Okay, I’m going to try it again: going to bed early and getting up early. Get stuff done in the morning, get the kids up and ready at my leisure.

The last time it failed for me, it failed because my daughter would wake up and start crying as soon as she heard me moving around. Got to the point I despaired of getting anything done in the morning because she was always awake and demanding attention. Well, now she’s a little older and a little more cool with just chilling out in bed in the morning, even if she hears me moving around.

This time, it will probably fail when #3 comes along in a month or two and disrupts the ever-lovin’ heck out of our schedules. But maybe I’ll try it again when things settle down again in the fall (ish).

The trouble with this whole thing is that I’m really a night person at heart. Given my choice, I’ll stay up until 6am and sleep all morning. Sadly, I don’t have a job that’s really cool with that kind of schedule. And too often I give in to my choice and stay up waaaaaay later than I should. (Which is the other thing that has killed such efforts in the past.)

So anyway, that’s the plan for now. Sorry if I’m not up to chat with you until 3am. I’ll probably crumble and go that way again some day, but for now I’m going to try for productivity in the early morning. Wish me luck.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

My son’s favorite new game is to tell us what he can’t do.

“I can’t eat spaghetti,” he says, when we tell him it’s time for dinner.

Usually followed up with, “I want to eat spaghetti!”

Kind of maddening, but it’s also easily defeated by just telling him to go ahead and do whatever it is he says he wants to do; and happily, he only uses this particular tactic with stuff that we want him to do in the first place. Sometimes he’ll go ahead and do it, sometimes he won’t.

Right now, after having been sent to bed once already, he’s eating a peanut butter sandwich in his pyjamas.

Silly childrens.

By a collection agency.

For someone else.

The robo-caller called herself “Chelsea.”

In a total robot voice.

OMGWTFSkynet

Crossposted with klech.net

1. There's something about the Great Stargate SG-1 Rewatch that has sparked odd false memories of Saturday afternoons watching in syndication. I don't think I've seen more than a few episodes that way. Including, hilariously, my first viewing of "Window of Opportunity" on a bar television, with no sound--despite that, and despite it being one of the first few episodes I'd ever seen, I knew that it was the show's timeslip/Groundhog Day episode, and followed the action pretty well.

Anyway, what's interesting is that it's a rather pleasant false memory, of easy weekend afternoons and episodic science fiction with medium-grade production values (especially in the first season). The first season, especially, brings that syndication-friendly easy interchangeability about it, with very little story carryover from prior episodes (unlike later seasons and other genre shows). Something about that, with the more self-contained episodes, also makes the show a little more homey and comfortable.

2. Apparently, either Brent Spiner has gone nuts, or he seems to be writing Twitter fiction. It's been pretty interesting so far--he's got a flair for both the comedic and the dramatic, and it certainly beats reliving my breakfast.