Shorter Days and Longer Shadows

No other season makes me feel as conflicted as fall. Autumn always brings mixed emotions for me, and as I get older that feeling is intensified. Each day the sun is dragged closer to the treetops in its arc across the sky and while I enjoy the traditions of the season I'm also sad at the loss of the warmth of summer. Red and gold give way to brown and tan and I'm reminded that the pale chill of winter will be here soon.

When I was young fall brought the mixed blessing of a new school year. The drudgery of trips to school in the cold, dim light of morning were offset by being able to hang around with my friends. The discomfort of shopping for new clothes with my mom was balanced out by having new clothes to wear. And later in the season the fun of getting free candy just for ringing a doorbell had to be weighed against the fact that you had to be dressed up in a costume to be successful at it.


Flash forward roughly 40 years or so to the present where I'm now a middle-aged man who can't help but see autumn as a metaphor for where I am in life. The bright, warm days are receding into the distance behind me and the chill air and fading light lie ahead. If there's anything worse than living a cliche' it's being aware of just how much of a cliche' it is.


I know there are still lots of good things to look forward to it's just difficult to look past the present and see more than the fading colors. Just as winter has the warmth of family gatherings, the glow of Christmas lights and other good things in store so do the coming years I have remaining to me offer many bright spots. Fall just makes it hard for me to focus on those things.

A Few Good Links

MST3K at 20: Talking to Hodgson and Beaulieu - It's nice to hear that Joel Hodgson & company are still taking out the celluloid trash.

Emoticons from the 1880s - And kids nowadays wonder how people ever managed to waste time before the Internet.

Abrams: There was a role for Shatner in upcoming “Trek” - The line between Bill Shatner and his "Boston Legal" character Denny Crane gets blurrier everyday.

*Spoiler Alert!* (even though it's about a funnybook that's been out for over 20 years)
The Bleak Ending of 'Watchmen' Changed? - This makes no sense whatsoever and is probably unfounded but I had to toss it in so the purists would have something to bitch about. It also gives me a good excuse to wrap things up with the new "Watchmen" footage, courtesy of Spike TV's Scream Awards...

What LOLcats Don't Tell You

Meet Esmeralda, better known as Ezzie. She belongs to my sister-in-law (who currently lives with us) and her complete indifference to humans has earned her a permanent lolcat caption of "whatever." Don't get me wrong, she's not hostile to humans, she's even downright friendly towards us when we're outdoors with her. She just has very little use for human companionship inside the house.

Job has nothing on this little long-haired cat. First came the fleas, then a UTI and now before we could deal with those problems she's managed to attract every tick in central Massachusetts. Ezzie has accomplished all of this in spite of spending every minute she's conscious and indoors grooming herself. She's off to see the vet tomorrow - wish her luck, or wish us luck and wish her "whatever."

Best Political Endorsement Ever

Not safe for work (language)...

See more Hayden Panettiere videos at Funny or Die

Heroes (spoilers) & Other Comics Stuff

While NBC's Heroes has improved much since last season, Mohinder and Peter are still just as annoying as ever. Mohinder is well in the lead for the title of "worst decision maker ever" by throwing scientific method to the wind and injecting himself with an untested power-inducing serum but this week's episode found Peter actually giving him some serious competition.



Future-Peter comes back to the present, messes up the timestream, then takes present-Peter back to the future with him. Future-Peter gets killed, present-Peter finds a reformed future-Sylar. Present-Peter ignores future-Sylar's warnings and copies his power with the intention of using it to save the world but instead tries to get into the brain of his brother, future-Nathan. I'd expect something this impulsive from present-Peter but he was led into all of this by a future version of himself that should know better by four years from now! Douglas Adams was right, the real danger of time travel is grammar.

In other "superheroes outside of comic books" news, Shyamalan Mulls Unbreakable Sequel. Not only was Unbreakable the last one of his movies I actually liked, it was my favorite comic-to-film adaptation by copying the comic genre but not an actual comic book. It was also the only one of his movies I've seen that actually surprised me (I figured out the twist in The Sixth Sense about halfway through that one). Still, it seems like the opportunity for a sequel to Unbreakable came and went some time ago.

Impending litigation notwithstanding, The 'Watchmen' World Tour Preview Hits Manhattan. One way or another this film will be released, even if they have to do it one frame at a time.

Two Things Accomplished, A Million To Go

Not much rest for me this weekend. My step-son Shawn and I spent Saturday at my mom's house clearing the remaining stones from the area where she used to have shrubs along the front of her house. Then Sunday we spent a good part of the day here at home pulling up all of the old carpet that we had put in nearly 10 years ago. I'd like to have another weekend to recover from this one!

Is this thing on?

I freely admit I'm arriving late to blogging. After Al Gore invented the Internet I was busy filling it up with web sites and applications, I just never used personal material as filler until now. I've been away from web development for a few years so I guess this is sort of a refresher course for me.

Am I the only one who has trouble reading those annoying post verification widgets that prompt you to type the word seen in some random image to prove you're a real person? What a pain in the ass those things are! That curving arc of gibberish in some alien font defies all forms of optical character recognition.