Top Perp Walks of 2015

This will be a short list.

2. Tonya Couch. I’d also like to see her son Ethan in handcuffs but as he’s still in Mexico, I’ll take the mother. She pisses me off just as much as he does. You would think that after her son got probation for killing for people while driving drunk and underage, then violating that probation, she might have him take a look in the mirror and guide him to be a more responsible person. Nah, Mother of the Year dyed his hair and took him on vacation in Puerto Vallarta instead.

What really got me about the “affluenza” defense was that the defense lawyer called it that, like he knew it was a joke. The term has a smirk built into it. If you buy into that logic, that Ethan was too privileged to know right from wrong, then that puts some responsibility on the parents because they should have taught him right versus wrong no matter how much money they had. Instead, four people are dead and Tonya is abetting the whole thing so I will not try to “see it from a mother’s perspective” or any of that nonsense; I will judge the shit out of these people. 

1. Martin Shkreli. I was one of those people doing a jig of glee when this guy did his perp walk. They didn’t get him for raising prices for Daraprim but as long as the guy goes to jail for something, that will be some satisfying Schadenfreude. Not only were his business practices corrupt but Shkreli seems like a really arrogant jackass anyway.

It’s unconscionable to raise the price of a potentially life-saving drug by 5,500 percent. Shkreli did reduce prices after public outcry but the fact that he could arbitrarily lower prices after arbitrarily raising them means that the prices are not based on any actual overhead costs but are instead based on profit. I guess he just needed the extra income to buy that $2 million Wu-Tang Clan album. Martin Shkreli is a terrible person and I hope the judge increases his sentence by 5,500 percent.

Well, that’s enough populist anger for 2015. Have a judgmental 2016!

Execute Steve Harvey

Because misreading a card at an awards show is an absolutely unforgivable crime. Sure, you might think, “Oh, it’s just a beauty pageant.” May I remind you that the name of the pageant is Miss Universe. Therefore, Steve Harvey did not just offend two women and the countries they represent. No, his crime was against the universe itself and the universe will have its justice.

We must put Steve Harvey to death as quickly as possible, by any means available, without a trial or due process of any kind. Those gleaming game show teeth and that boisterous personality will not save him. The man screwed up with Perez Hilton in the audience and I don’t have to tell you the gravitas that brings to his error. After Harvey’s corpse is safely disposed of, the extensive investigation into this massive, profoundly tragic error can begin. I recommend that the World Court take the reins.

The Colombians are right to sue the Miss Universe pageant and demand that Miss Philippines return the crown because reading a piece of paper incorrectly is one of the biggest mistakes one can make and to preserve order in our society and prevent this kind of thing from happening again, the price must be as high as possible. I don’t see how Miss Colombia can recover from this.

If you have a pang of conscience this Christmas week and do not wish for Harvey’s blood, you’re just very ignorant and not seeing the big picture. Colombia and the Philippines may very well go to war over who keeps that tiara. Do you want to see a mushroom cloud over Bogota or Manila? Do you? Because unless you support extreme sanctions, the murder of millions by nuclear fire will be on your head.

Execute Steve Harvey. It’s the price of a sane world.

My Favorite TV of 2015

When I decided awhile back to rank my favorite TV shows of 2015, I just couldn’t decide if Mad Men or The Americans was my favorite. The shows are very different and each had a very strong year and it’s just too hard to rank one above the other. So I was just going to leave number one as a tie between these two.

Then I saw Fargo. Jesus Christ, what an absolutely torrid season of television. So this will be a three-way tie for number one among The Americans, Mad Men and Fargo, with just too little daylight between each to discern. A few critics agree and I’ve seen some combination of all three at the top of a few lists.

This will not include all the TV I watched this season. There was a lot that I still enjoyed, like the finale of Parks and Recreation and the ABC Wednesday night lineup but there just isn’t much I can say about them that I haven’t before. There were some shows we started but didn’t finish, like Better Call Saul and Orange Is the New Black, so I can’t rank them. House of Cards was trashy fun but too stupid to write about. Dishonorable mentions go to Fear the Walking Dead and Scream Queens, which we turned off halfway through the first episode. So I’m just going to focus on a few shows of note.

Transparent. I think season one came out in 2015 so I’ll talk about that. It has a great performance by Jeffrey Tambor as a transgender woman just coming out. The sustained joke in this show is that as in transition as Maura is, she still has it together more than her self-involved, un-self-aware kids. This show also reminds us that Judith Light is a national treasure.

Daredevil and Jessica Jones. I’ve covered these before but I’m really enjoying the look at the uglier corners of the Marvel Universe, well portrayed by two very pretty people.

The Walking Dead. I should wait to judge the season as a whole but the beginning of season six has been uneven, with one of my favorite episodes ever, “JSS,” mixed with boring interludes in Alexandria. I hope the show takes a critical look at the plan to divert the zombies out of the quarry because even though some of the consequences were unforeseen, there’s an argument to be made that the plan made things a lot worse, and the zombies infiltrated the town anyway. Of course, that would mean the show acknowledging that Rick may not be infallible, so I won’t hold my breath.

Game of Thrones. I never thought I’d care for this show but am very glad Steve got me into it as I love the palace intrigue and scheming. The last two episodes stand out to me for a few scenes. In the penultimate episode, I loved the fight scene in Meereen, especially when eagle-eyed Jorah threw that spear from dozens of feet away (holy crap!) to kill the assassin targeting Daenerys. Less awesome was the sick, sick joke of Stannis burning his daughter for, as it turned out, no reason at all.

So many things happened in “Mother’s Mercy” that it’s hard to focus on one thing. Cersei’s naked walk of “Shame!” flabbergasted me, mostly for Lena Headey’s stunning performance as she tried to maintain a stiff upper lip and then crumbled. Oh, and also in that episode, Marcella died, Brienne avenged Renly by killing World’s Worst Father Stannis, Sansa and Theon escaped the Boltons and Jon Snow may be dead. Did I forget anything?

Fargo. The season was about the Massacre at Sioux Falls, which started when a married couple, too different for their union to survive, got in the middle of a war between two crime families and the decisions they made or failed to make, but it was about so much more that I’m still processing it. It was anchored by terrific performances by Kirstin Dunst (engrave her Emmy now), Bokeem Woodbine, Jean Smart, Ten Danson, Patrick Wilson and Jesse Plemmons.

For all the violence of the season, what affected me were the quiet scenes in the Fargo finale. A butcher shop girl quotes Camus, telling a dying mother that living when you know you’re going to die is absurd. “I don’t know who that is,” says the mother, “but I’m guessing he doesn’t have a 6-year-old girl.” Later the mother tells her father he’s a good man. “I don’t know about that but I do have good intentions,” he says. It’s amazing that this violent show could find such humanity and hope in the end.

Mad Men. The back half of season seven started a bit slow with the diversions of Diana the Waitress and Pima the Photographer, but kicked into high gear when the partners lost their battle to keep Sterling Cooper and Partners alive, in a sly subversion of all the previous times they rallied to save the firm from destruction. The whole season was full of scenes that mirrored or contrasted with previous scenes, rewarding people who had watched the whole thing.

After some thinking, I really did like Don’s ending. After sinking to his lowest point (which is saying something on this show), losing his wives and home and career, and confessing his sins to Peggy, he has a breakthrough and realizes he will always be at heart an ad man. I loved how the show suggested that in Don’s mind, even a genuine epiphany was just fodder for the Coke ad. Season seven also had the single best scene the show ever did: Peggy strutting into McCann with that provocative painting under her arm, sunglasses on her face and a cigarette in her mouth, ready to conquer. For anybody who followed the character’s growth, that payoff was almost orgasmic. So ends Mad Men, one of my favorite character studies of all time.

The Americans. WHY AREN’T YOU WATCHING THIS SHOW? It really is a shame that it has low ratings and low Emmy recognition, despite the critical praise. I don’t know if season three was better than the first two but it was probably the most disturbing. The latest installment had some splashy moments of violence, like Annelise’s corpse getting stuffed into that suitcase, the amateur tooth extraction and necklacing that South African.

But the really disturbing moments were more insidious, things the characters wouldn’t be able to shake or reconcile easily. Phillip has a slow-motion breakdown while having to seduce a teenager and remembers his own skeevy seduction training. Elizabeth kills a defenseless old woman who condemns her as evil. Martha wakes up to the fact that she betrayed her country for love and realizes that love is a lie, in that horror movie scene of Phillip pulling off his wig. And of course, Phillip and Elizabeth are in an impossible situation, debating whether to recruit Paige as a spy or lie to their own daughter. As in the first two seasons, the very last scene was stunning: As Paige confesses to the priest that her parents are spies, Reagan calls out the Soviets as “the focus of evil in the modern world” as the camera focuses on the resolute Elizabeth, leaving the wavering Phillip behind. Applause. 

Dear God ... what if it sucks?

Very few people have actually seen it. All we really have to go on is images of lightsabers, droids and Jedi types running around. Critics aren’t getting advanced screenings. We’re taking a leap of faith here:

What if Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens sucks? Not just that it gets mixed reviews and people find redeeming qualities: What if it’s just flat-out terrible and everybody hates it?

What if the climactic scene is Jar-Jar Binks and Ewoks tapdancing? What if instead of lightsabers they all use glitter cannons? What if it’s actually a documentary on Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative? What if there’s a hologram of Bea Arthur from the Star Wars Holiday Special? What if there’s a scene of Leia and Han doing erotic pottery to “Unchained Melody”? What if Chewbacca talks like a normal person with a Cockney accent? What if there are prominent Apple logos on all the droids and battleships? What if the main setpiece is a 45-minute scene of the senate debating the theme for the Life Day party?

People have already sunk so much money into this, taking out home equity loans to afford their IMAX tickets. What happens when The Force Awakens is execrable and you stomp out of the theater and rip off your 3D glasses in disgust and get the nauseous feeling of your hard-earned money vanishing into a Disney-powered void of suck? And you get home and spot one of your new Star Wars T-shirts and you just start yelling and yelling at it? Yelling until you’re blue in the face because you have to take out your anger and disappointment on the closest tangible representation of the movie?

You go online and all the critics give it an F or no stars and people try to sell their tickets on Ebay but nobody will buy them because everybody has heard how bad it sucked. All your friends see it and post “SPOILER ALERT: IT SUCKED!!!1!!” on Facebook.

Then what? What do we do?  

Plays: 0

I had to buy a new laptop recently because the old one was slow enough that it became an incompetent paperweight. In migrating over my iTunes library, I somehow lost the play counts for all my music.

This annoyed me, even though I know it’s a petty complaint when you are financially OK enough to just run out and buy a laptop. I feel like I worked hard on that library and the play counts were almost like a legacy. I was always curious to see how many times I had listened to the most popular songs. I feel like I’ve lost something. Sometimes I wonder how many times I’ve played my favorite songs over a lifetime that stretches back well beyond MP3s. What records, tapes or CDs have I listened to most frequently? Is that what computers have done to me: Made it impossible to tell how much I love art unless I quantify it with a number?

For the record, the final count on the old laptop was 65 plays for “All I Want” by LCD Soundsystem. The runner-up was 64 plays for Madonna’s “Ray of Light.” The listing of my most-played songs was not necessarily my favorite songs because they tended heavily toward my running playlists so there were not a lot of ballads on there.

Now I start over at zero and my library is a virgin territory of unplayed songs. Upgrading a computer is a great equalizer. Years ago it annoyed me that I hadn’t played every song on my iPod at least once so I hit “play” and listened to every song in order. It was kind of fun, if repetitive when I had several versions of the same song play back-to-back. So now I have to do that again. It will be fun again, listening to songs I rarely hear.

Yes, I still listen to music on a plain old iPod instead of a smart phone. My iPod has 160 GB of storage, 40 of which is full. I highly prize the real estate space, which seems much higher than on smart phones, and will give up this device only when it has smoke coming out of it.

The Fog

At an office building in the Delaware Valley, two employees stare out the window at the opaque morning.

Kathy: Wow, I couldn’t see 2,000 feet in front of my face this morning because of all this fog.

Bob: I know. I had to keep slamming on my brakes every time I entered an extra thick pocket of fog. (Whispering) You know, we really shouldn’t even be open today.

Kathy (whispering): Seriously. I don’t know how they expect us to work in this visible mass consisting of cloud water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface.

Bob: They should really offer fog days.

In walks Pat.

Pat: Sorry I’m late. Just … the fog.

Bob: I know, the fog.

Kathy: The fog, yeah.

Pat: Unless I have a clear, panoramic view for at least 10 miles, it’s not safe to do more than half the speed limit on the highway. Oh, Chris called out. Might be in later if it clears up.

Kathy: Really?

Pat: Well, Chris does have that medically documented phobia of water vapor.

Kathy: Of course, yes. Well, it could be worse. It could be … SNOW.

Bob: Uuuuugggghhhh.

Pat: Ohhhhhaaaah.

Kathy: Opsashas99n&FFG%3vb.

They all collapse to the floor and lie there moaning until quitting time.

Waive My Fee

The bank representative, the fourth person I have spoken to after getting disconnected from the supervisor, comes on the line. I quickly swallow the bite of my turkey sandwich.

“So where are you today? What part of the country are you calling from?”

I do not want to have the conversation he wants to have so like a skeptic giving the bare minimum of reaction to a psychic so as to remain mysterious, I give as little information as possible. “Delaware,” I deadpan.

“So what are your financial goals?”

Oh God, I don’t need a financial planner. Please let’s not start this. “Well, my goal for today is not to pay the $15 a month fee you’re charging to maintain the escrow account for my tenants’ security deposit.”

Pleasantries over, I explain my situation. He goes through various options, including changing my type of account and requiring me to maintain an extra $400 in the account to avoid fees.

“No, I won’t do that,” I tell him. “It makes no sense to come up with an extra $400 to avoid a $15 a month fee. Someone needs to waive my fee. I have multiple bank accounts, a mortgage, a home equity loan and a credit card with this bank. The bank is making untold amounts of interest on that home equity loan alone, at a high interest rate that it refuses to refinance. I do enough business with you that you do not need an extra $15 a month.”

Really, $15 a month? I’m not paying $180 a year on an account of someone else’s money that I am legally required to keep. This is insult on top of injury. I absolutely refuse to bend on this. One of the people I spoke to said I might be able to go into the branch and speak to someone and get out of paying the fee.

“If I go into the branch, it will be to close my accounts and take my business elsewhere. Someone, you or a supervisor, needs to waive my fee. Write off that $15 a month because if you don’t, you will lose all the money in my accounts.”

I know what I have in the bank is an electron-sized drop in the bucket but I think the math here is clear: You give a customer a small break in the short term to keep his business in the long term. Companies do this all the time, for goodwill if nothing else. I don't understand why this is so hard and why I have had to speak to so many people to find someone to accept this concept.  

He transfers me to someone else, who solves my problem. The fees are gone. It sounds like it was just an administrative mix-up.

I hang up and can finally attend to that sandwich but my lunch hour is mostly over.

Picky/Discerning

I don’t understand why some view picky eaters like me in a negative light. I prefer to think of myself as discerning. I won’t just shovel any old crap down my gullet.

(If this seems to come from nowhere, it’s really from the place most of my writing comes from: I read an article while I was bored and it struck a chord. And I have nothing else to write about this week, so.) 

I have definite likes and dislikes when it comes to food — sorry, not sorry — and don’t understand why that’s a negative. I am an adult and if I don’t want to eat broccoli, why should I? I’m not just being stubborn for stubbornness’ sake when I won’t go near certain foods. There is a reason for my avoidance. Like the taste and smell of green peppers makes me sick, so I avoid them.

I’m not going to eat something I can’t stand. I’m not going to make a big public display out of hating food (unless I’m trying to get a laugh) but I’ll just tactfully decline. If I’m in a social situation where I can sense that my rejection of a food will hurt the host’s feelings, I’ll suck it up, pretend to like the food, and vent later to Steve on the way home. Otherwise, I’m just not going to eat the spinach.

Yes, most of my dislikes center on vegetables. This is not ideal for health but given that at age 41 I still feel like a million bucks almost all the time, I regret nothing.

My food attitudes may come back to haunt me in our hopefully future parenthood. I’d like to eat least try to promote healthy eating. So if our kid hates vegetables, I’ll have to take one for the team and eat that broccoli, with a forced smile replacing my full-body shudder, and say, “See? Daddy eats it.” My parents will hear about this and laugh their heads off at the karma of it all.

Then, one day when I am on my deathbed, I will confess to him. “I never liked all those green vegetables. I just ate them so you would tooooooo …” (dies)

In summary, I’m the one who has to eat the food on my plate so I’m going to please myself and not other people.

A cheap, tacky Christmas

I have been looking everywhere for plug-in electric candles for our windows and have had no luck. We have a few but I need more for the additional windows. I’ve tried Target, the Christmas Tree store, the dollar store, Lowe’s, supermarkets, etc. Nowhere. I don’t want the kind that run on batteries or have LEDs. I just want cheap, old-fashioned, plastic plug-in candles.

I favor a cheap Christmas — not in terms of cheaping out on gifts for people but in terms of decorations. Since we have more land this year, we are able to decorate outside more so we went out and bought LED net lights for our bushes. They weren’t cheap. We’d like to put up more lights but don’t need to do everything in one year, considering we still have a room that is largely unfurnished and I’d rather save my money for something we’ll have all year than just one month a year.

Sometimes you don’t want LED lights that will last forever. You just want cheap strings of lights that may or may not burn out but it doesn’t matter because they were $5. If you’re using something year round, it does make sense to invest upfront in something that will last and save money in the long run. However, if it’s something you’re only going to pull out of storage once a year, it makes more sense to me that it be cheap.

I don’t need to pay $8 each, not including batteries, for fancy window candles. I’d rather spend less and if the bulb burns out, it’s like 50 cents to replace at any store. LED lights are nice but the glow is cold and sometimes I miss the warmer, cheaper strings of lights from childhood. We had specific strings of lights, long gone, that I still remember and miss. They don’t make them like that anymore.

Christmas décor also should be tacky. That’s where the Christmas Tree store can come in handy. I’ve bought stuff from there that broke immediately (that’s why it’s cheap). But if it’s stuff that doesn’t have an on/off switch, like a knickknack, it’s a good store. There’s a lot of garish stuff there and that’s Christmas to me: An explosion of red and green and blinking lights. Idolize the Victorian Christmas all you want but it’s false nostalgia because those people were basically walking around in an open sewer.

Who is Jessica Jones (of 'Jessica Jones' fame)?

The new Jessica Jones Netflix show is great! We’ve only seen a few episodes but I’m very much enjoying this darker series as sort of a complement to the gritty Daredevil. Krysten Ritter shows some of the dismissive snark I enjoyed in Don’t Trust the B in Apt. 23 and does quite well portraying a woman trying to overcome her past trauma while helping others avoid the clutches of a supervillain.

I never read many Jessica Jones stories firsthand but here is what I’ve been able to glean. The character first appeared in about 2001 in the Alias series as a former superhero who opened a detective agency. The comic retroactively inserted Jessica into early Marvel history, having her go to high school with Peter Parker and have a crush on him. She was present when Peter got bitten by the radioactive spider and in the vicinity when Matt Murdock got blinded and became Daredevil so it was fun to have her retconned into old Marvel history.

Jessica gained super strength and flight powers and had a brief career as the superhero Jewel (for a stint she was also known as Knightress). The Purple Man mind-controlled Jessica to attack Daredevil but she mistakenly went to Avengers Mansion (because most New York superhero activity happens within the same 50-block radius) and attacked the first superhero she saw wearing red, the Scarlet Witch. The Vision (who we all know is the world’s most sensitive synthezoid) defended his wife and with the help of Iron Man, beat Jessica into a coma. Ms. Marvel, who knew Jessica, rescued her and took her to the hospital. Judging by the Avengers membership, this happened in about 1979-80 in our world. Jean Grey, who about that time would have been Phoenix, helped Jessica overcome the Purple Man’s mental domination.

The Purple Man is Zebediah Killgrave, known on Jessica Jones pretty much by his real name. He’s an old Daredevil villain from the ‘60s. In the comics, he’s a Soviet spy with purple skin who gained mind control powers. This was all relatively harmless on his initial appearances but by the time of Alias, there was rape implied in his control of women. In recent issues of Daredevil, I understand that he fathered a bunch of purple children who inherited his mind-control power. With a Village of the Damned vibe, they turned on their father and mind-controlled him into walking in front of a truck. Killgrave had an older daughter, Purple Girl, a hero on the Alpha Flight title in the ‘80s. I hope they use the Purple Man name in the show because it has a creepy atmosphere, almost like a child’s boogeyman.

The relationship to Luke Cage, Power Man, is similar in the TV show and the comic. The two eventually married and had a child in the comics and have athletic sex on TV like they do in the comic. I guess that’s what happens when two super-strong people get together.

I haven’t seen how the TV show plays out but I am wondering about the character Trish Walker, the talk show host. In the comics, she is Patsy Walker, a redhead who goes back to the Marvel romance comics of the ‘40s. In the ‘60s, Marvel revived the character and she eventually became Hellcat, a hero who was briefly an Avenger and then a longtime Defender. Hellcat wore a costume that gave her enhanced athletic abilities and that seems close to Trish’s learning self-defense on the show.

I also heard the character Nuke shows up on the show. He appeared in the Born Again Daredevil story in the ‘80s. Nuke was a Vietnam vet who received super strength from the Super Soldier program. He was popping pills and mentally unstable and the Kingpin hired him to shoot up Hell’s Kitchen and draw Daredevil out of hiding.

I am enjoying Jessica Jones’ look at the more “street-level” stories of the Marvel Universe. 

The Walking Dead S6 E8: Start to Finish

Well, that half-season ended abruptly. As the cast makes its way through the zombie herd in their gross disguises, the one kid notices something offscreen. He tries to get his mother’s attention and then we cut to black. We’ll have to wait until after the holidays to find out what was happening. Steve is familiar with the Walking Dead comics and assures me it will be a game changer.

It was an intriguing end. There were a few stylistic touches I liked this episode. I liked the ending shot of the cast wandering silently among the zombies, like people at the world’s most uncomfortable party of socially awkward people. The Tiny Tim “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” was amusing.

I have to give a shout-out to Maggie, scrambling on that ladder to get on top of that platform and away from the zombies. We knew she was a badass but to do all that while pregnant was really impressive.

Elsewhere, we see people making the same mistakes once again. Glenn is wasting time with Enid. He almost got killed last time he tried to work with a basketcase who didn’t want to live and now he’s risking it again? Carol and Morgan tried to settle their philosophical differences over killing and he knocked her out with a really nasty-sounding body slam. Of course, the minute that happens, events prove Carol right as the Wolf takes Denise hostage.  

I didn’t mind Deanna all that much. She tried her best with what she had and it’s not like everyone in that world is equipped to be a badass. She reacted to her impending death with a “Well, shit,” as one does. The scene with her hunched over Judith’s crib, when for a second I thought she had turned and was attacking the baby, was a horrifying fake-out. I did like her chat with Michonne as this may inspire Michonne to be more of a leader (God knows she’s highly qualified). But if anyone on the show thinks Alexandria can survive as a community in that setting, I think they’re lying to themselves. That place is overrun. It’s all over.

The debate that the fans could have after this half-season is how much of what has happened is the fault of Rick and his followers. Yes, his scheme to herd the zombies at the quarry may have averted something even worse from happening. But from the perspective of the townspeople, they were living relatively normal lives in Alexandria until the new people showed up, and then the plan at the quarry failed, split their forces and left them vulnerable to the Wolf attack. Meanwhile, nobody saw the real threat of that tower collapsing and zombies inundating the town. The show goes to great pains to note that Rick is more competent than some of the weaker-willed people the group stumbles across, to the point where a few people have died immediately after questioning his orders. I know Rick is equipped to survive but it would be good for someone on the show to recognize that he can make mistakes.

And so we begin to wander again to the next fortified setting. The gang has holed up on a farm, in a prison and in a gated community. Where will they go next?

So We're Adopting a Child

Not, like, right this second or anything. It will take a few months or a year or something like that until they place a child with us. But Steve and I have started the process so we thought we’d update people.

We’ve been planning this for awhile but wanted to wait until we moved into the new house and had tenants settled in the old house so our finances would settle down. This way, we can give adoption our full attention (one major life change at a time, please). We filled out an interest form a few weeks ago and the next step is taking adoption classes in January and February. Until then, we’ll be doing research and what not to get ready. Then we’ll have a home study and paperwork galore and hopefully, eventually, we will have a child in our home who will become part of our forever family once we work out the legal details.

We are hoping for an infant or toddler. We’re going through the foster care system in Delaware for a permanent adoption and that means a child who might have special needs. We’re very excited to give a loving home to a child who needs it. While the idea of special needs does scare me a little, since I want to be sure we can provide what a child needs, I also know that birth parents don’t get to uncheck a box and opt out of special needs, so if they can deal with it, so can we.

At this early stage, I’d say we are excited and nervous. I’m excited because I think Steve and I will make good fathers. I have wanted a child for a long time and while it took a back seat to the rest of life for awhile, I am grateful that our lives are in a place where we can do this. I’m nervous because I’m a worrier at heart (with a million questions and anxieties) and the process is daunting and having a child at our house seems far away. But of course, we’re venturing into the world of parenting and we’ll have challenges for the rest of our lives once we actually have a child so I can’t let myself be intimidated by paperwork and red tape. I have fears but am determined to be fearless, if that makes any sense.  

Fatherhood will not always be a walk in the park, I know. For every scrap of wrapping paper happily tossed around on Christmas morning, there will be a tense trip to the ER with a feverish child. But having the chance to give unconditional love and a good life to a child who needs it, and experience love in return, will be more than worth it. It’s time.

I’ll update people on the process as events warrant and as we’re allowed to share things. So mixed in with my usual recaps of zombie and spy shows, obscure comic book trivia, and snarky one-act plays, expect a little baby talk.

So anyway, that’s what’s going on with us. Happy Thanksgiving!

The Walking Dead S6 E7: Heads Up

I knew Glenn was dead. This was not because I am good at predicting plot twists on TV because I never see anything coming. I knew because I went to a non-entertainment website and the first headline I saw at the top of the page was “Glenn is alive.” Thanx. Was it really so hard to wait more than 12 hours to spoil it? Some of us are too old to stay up and watch The Walking Dead live.

The improbable way he survived was a little ridiculous but I suppose I’m happy Glenn is still alive. (To be fair, this isn’t the first time he’s escaped certain death. Remember last season when the cannibals came thisclose to slitting his throat over the tub only to be distracted at the last second?) He is one of the only people in the cast who adds a little humor to the story. I think it would have been more effective to have Enid stay gone. That was a powerful episode she was in a few weeks ago and I would have liked the idea that she would forever be a loose end in a story that doesn’t have many neat moments. She was kind of annoying this week.

Everybody seemed a little pissy. Rosita (or Sarah or Tara or whoever she is because she has little personality) flipped off Rick for criticizing her trying to save Deanna’s son. Rick tore down the signs for the prayer circle. I know Father Gabriel is a terrible person but that was a petty thing to do. In a zombie world, let people have whatever comforts them.

I kind of liked the scene with the big board meeting around the table with the main players. Carol criticized Morgan releasing that Wolf only for him to kill people. Elsewhere in the episode, Morgan pointed out that Rick let a crazed Morgan live when the logical thing to do would have been to kill him.

That was an interesting exchange between Carol and the widow’s son. He asked if killing people will make you become a monster but Carol says killing is the only thing that keeps you from becoming a monster. He said it philosophically but she, in typical pragmatic mode, took it literally.

“Heads Up” seemed like a quiet episode with a lot of talking, another scene setter for later. Glenn released the balloons, everyone knew he was alive and we’re headed for a nice quiet OH CRAP THE TOWER FELL AND THE ZOMBIES ARE FALLING RIGHT OVER THE WALL INTO ALEXANDRIA OH CRAP OH CRAP! Wow, that was jaw dropping.

A Modest Proposal

In looking at the terror attacks in Paris and in trying to prevent future ISIS attacks around the world, we must face hard truths. It’s not pretty but we must recognize and ask hard questions about the one demographic group these terrorists belonged to.

Millennials.

By and large, the murderers belonged to the subset of people born in the ‘80s. Now I’m not saying we should paint all people born in this generation as ideologically-driven murders. I’m also not saying we should automatically be suspicious or discriminatory when we see these people out and about, taking selfies or ordering Ubers or generally acting entitled in the workplace.

What I am saying is that we need increased vigilance for Millennials. We may have to do some things to safeguard our liberty that were unthinkable just a few years ago, but these challenges we face were also unthinkable until recently.

What do I propose? For starters, let’s safeguard our borders against these nefarious Millennials. The screening process needs to be more rigorous so we can weed out people who look like they are in the cast of Girls or who brag that “I don’t even own a television.” An excessive attachment to a smart phone would also automatically bar these people from seeking refuge and keep the American people safer.

For those Millennials who are already here, we may need increased surveillance of this generation to prevent them from doing something terrible. Let’s keep a close eye on anywhere this generation likes to hang out. This would include Drake concerts or living in their parents’ basements while saddled with crippling student loans. We may need to shut these places down.

Perhaps a database or Millennials is also in order, or maybe they should all have some kind of special identifier on their driver’s licenses to register them as part of this potentially nefarious generation.

Oh sure, some people will say this is a panicky, stupid way to confront this problem that flies in the face of what America stands for an also risks driving more Millennials to the arms of the terrorists. But isn’t it worth a shot?

Emoji of the Year

If you heard recently that the people at the Oxford dictionary have named the word of the year to be an emoji of a yellow face that is crying while laughing and were expecting me to react in an indignant manner, you were absolutely right.

I understand that the word of the year is not meant to be entirely serious. It’s a marketing thing meant to drive sales and traffic, like People’s sexiest man of the year. I don’t ask for Oxford to crown a five-syllable word every year and I was fine that the recent Oxford words of the year were things like “selfie” and “unfriend” that people had started using in casual conversation.

But is it so much to ask that the word of the year be an actual word? Like, the kind with letters and everything? Letters that you can write and pronounce and even rearrange to form other words? This is just … this is not a word. An emoji is a type of communication but the dictionary deals with actual words and should stick to those. It’s like People naming a gif or a meme of an animated man as the sexiest man of the year.

It’s just bullshit, is what it is. It’s a cop-out, like when Time names the person of the year and it’s not a person but protestors in general or the year when there was a mirror on the cover and the person of the year was … YOU! (Barf.) This is not Kidz Bop choosing a word of the year; this is Oxford. These are like the word people. Pick an actual word that might say something about 2015. Educate us. Revel in the joy of actual language that we can pronounce. (I guess it could have been worse, since one of the runners up was “lumbersexual,” which would have immediately been embarrassing and dated.)

Yeah, yeah, you’re rolling your eyes at me and saying, “Simmer down, grandpa.” But I think I have a point that I’d like an appreciation of language that goes beyond picture books. Pick a fun word. Pick the word “emoji” instead of an actual emoji. Just make it a word.

I’m not foaming at the mouth about this. It’s just a minor annoyance. If anyone reacts to what I wrote with “Who cares? Get a life,” then point taken, but we can also can add it to the pile of all the other stupid shit people care about in your Facebook feed.

The Debate Debate

At a conference room somewhere in, let’s say Kansas City, the Republican presidential candidates meet with anchors and producers from CNBC to hammer out the terms for their next debate.

Anchor: OK, for the first question, I was thinking we could ask one about ISIS. Something like, “What specific examples can you provide of the strategies you will use to fight the terrorist threat of ISIS?”

Marco Rubio: You know what, I don’t think I like your tone.

Anchor: My tone?

Rubio: Your tone. That whole “specific examples.”

Jeb Bush: Too biased. Way too biased.

Donald Trump: And this is just another example of how the media attacks us candidates. I am yuuge. I don’t have time for political correctness. I should not be subject to this grilling.

Producer: Grilling? But he just asked a …

Carly Fiorina: He needs to tone it down, is what he needs to do. It is patently unfair to ask us for specifics. I blame the media. For everything.

Ben Carson: My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain. Now all the archaeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it. And I don’t think it’d just disappear over the course of time to store that much grain.

Anchor: OK, I guess we’ll scrap the question about ISIS.

Ted Cruz: Another thing: It is way too hot in here. I thought we agreed that we would keep the thermostat at 67º?

Bush: Ohh, I don’t want to sweat. And I don’t want my makeup to run. Oh.

Producer (checks thermostat): Yes, it’s 67º.

Fiorina: Then evidently, it’s still too warm. I think we need to form a committee to investigate the ideal temperature.

Carson: I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed. I'm telling you, there is a reason these dictatorial people take the guns first.

Rubio: I refuse to do anything more until that committee determines what temperature the hall should be set at. I just absolutely refuse.

Chris Christie: I also refuse. I think each campaign should get an equal say in the temperature and then we should average it out. This is media bias.

Trump: No way! Why should we each get an equal say? We all know I’m the frontrunner. My vote should count more.

Fiorina: I think …

Trump: Honey, don’t interrupt me. It’s extremely rude.

Anchor: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Before this gets out of hand, let’s agree to form a committee to investigate the temperature.

Producer: Here’s another thought: Maybe it’s easier to have each candidate take five minutes to talk about whatever and just tell people why they should vote for them.

Bush: I’m for it as long as we get equal time.

Trump: And as long as nobody asks us for specifics.

Carson: A lot of people who go into prison straight and when they come out, they’re gay, so did something happen while they were in there? Ask yourself that question.

Rubio: I’ll do it but I want a legal pad that’s the same as everyone else’s. And I want nicer pens on this podium.

Meanwhile, in New York, Hillary Clinton and an assistant review a book of fabric samples.

Assistant: So I was thinking the gold and blue would be nice.

Hillary Clinton: That’s fine. Whatever would complement the oval shape.

The Walking Dead S6 E6: Always Accountable

Darryl just does not have good luck making friends in the woods. First he falls in with those homicidal bikers and now he meets a bunch of weirdoes who steal his crossbow. This is what Darryl gets after being a decent person and bringing back their insulin? These three people don’t know how lucky they are to have met an old softie like Darryl: Carol would have poured out their insulin on the ground before shooting them in the head.

“Sorry,” the one guy says after taking Darryl’s crossbow. “You will be,” Darryl snarls. I believe it. You took the man’s crossbow.

I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on with the clash of the two groups and the dispute over what the three people had earned but I like when the show just gives us an elliptical idea of what’s happening and makes us fill in the blanks.

The ashen forest was creepy. There didn’t even need to be a backstory to that; it was effective on its own. There were also some very effectively horrific zombie predicaments, like the two people lying in plastic in that ruined house and what looked like a skeletal child wearing a helmet (please never show that again). I like when the show gives us just enough information to be horrified by the person’s death, like when they found a zombie tied up in a trunk and we had to wonder if someone left the person alive in there and then the person starved to death and zombified. That suggestion can be powerful sometimes.

Also effective: that insurance agent locked in a room. It looked like he knew he was going to die and held out to the end. What he wrote on the whiteboard, something like “Proud to have added value, I pray for the world, keep going, stay cheerful,” was darkly comic. This guy died at his desk and expressed his final words in corporate-speak.

If there was a theme to “Always Accountable,” it was what you earn and what you steal. The trio earns insulin and then steals weapons and a bike. Darryl loses his crossbow and motorcycle but finds an oil tanker. Abraham finds some rocket launchers. I like both Sasha and Abraham so I am liking the possibility of a love interest there. I also like Sasha’s incisive point about Abraham having to keep scrambling and tormenting himself to avoid having to think about the future.

And then that voice on the radio: “Help.” Glenn, is that you?

Doesn't It Seem Like the War on Christmas Starts Earlier Every Year?

I mean, it feels like Halloween just ended and I already am forced to get livid over Starbucks’ godless Christmas coffee cups. They’re still selling pumpkin spice lattes over there so it’s just too early in the season for me to choke on my outrage over what these Jesus-haters expect me to put my peppermint hot chocolate in. When it’s 60 degrees in mid-November and I have to passively-aggressively tell some atheist barista to write “Merry Christmas” on my cup, something is very wrong.

And the autumnal displays in the big box stores have already given way to Christmas decorations. Goodness, I haven’t even done my Thanksgiving dinner shopping yet. How can anybody expect me to warm up my throat to shriek at the next cashier who dares to wish me a “Happy Holidays”?

It wasn’t like this when we were kids. The annual War on Christmas never started so early. It used to be that we had to wait until Black Friday to start spitting nails over the public elementary school that put up some outrageous “holiday tree” right before the Christ-deficient teachers sent their kids on “winter break.” And Bill O’Reilly used to at least wait until after the Thanksgiving dishes were done before he started screaming about the correct way to celebrate the birth of Jesus. I used to like it when there was more of a nip in the air, or even some flurries, before my mind went red with rage.

At least give me a few weeks. I just can’t summon up the required bile before the end of November. Then we’ll celebrate Christmas as the King of Peace intended: With the rhetoric of war.