Hows my little Parade?

Happy Independence Day!
Don't forget to be thankful for the liberties you take for granted daily, like choosing where you work and what you can eat!

Yesterday Laura and I hit up the Oakwood Parade in the morning. boy was it great, our candy dish was pretty much empty and we took care of that thanks to the paraders. Here are some pictures of a small town parade. Also note, I've never seen that many people in Oakwood to date.

The head of the procession, Laura liked this part the best can you tell?









Of course a community nestled in a bunch of corn fields needs to have a mini parade of these:

We had mom and dad over for dinner last night and we were pretty ecstatic that we were going to be able to watch fireworks from the front porch, but after 45 minutes of no explosions I walked to the park to find it deserted, all the people we heard and saw were at a party in front of it. Screw you Fourth of July rain!


Of course I told everyone when the garden looked acceptable I would take a picture of it, here it is! It looks great! Laura is going to pick a cucumber soon and I bet tomatoes will be ready for pickin in the next weekish. Fresh onions taste outstanding!

Hows my little day to day?

[Edit UPDATE!] I can't believe I forgot this one! The bank I used to bank at (just a couple of short months ago) failed! Thank goodness for the FDIC because Laura would be many dollars fewer, I'm sure my parents would be as well. The recession has hit home!
Scary?

Lately:

Visited Laura's Family in Milwakuee, Wonderful. Her family is full of great people, just like mine!

Garden is currently kicking ass, If you call me to chat on the phone expect to hear about it. Cucumbers are weird looking as runts.

We have a pepper thief.

Our green beans are delicious.

I have recently acquired the missing parts to my old PC, a lost love has been brought back to life...much to Laura's dismay.

Twister is a pretty good movie still.

Started Reading The Return of the King, Forgot that it left off with ridiculous amounts of potential excitement. Very excited.

Using two mouses on the same desk for two computers gets confusing.

Today the word Whim was redefined for me.

An echo will do it's thing not before 56.5 feet. Unless in a space with parallel walls.
Last week I learned all about echos.
Consider this statement:

Myth makes Echo the subject of longing and desire. Physics makes Echo the subject of distance and design. Where emotion and reason are concerned both claims are accurate.
And where there is no Echo there is no description of space or love.
There is only silence.

Hows my little informant?

As many of you know I would consider going gay for this man. This photo is the only hint I've seen of Tim Burton's Alice in wonderland. God I'm excited, I'll have to reread the book because I remember it being a little weird, a tricky read, and not at all like the animated movie we have all grown to know and love.

Our garden rocks!
Last night we had our biggest meal from it yet we picked some small onions, beans and basil it was great! We have tiny little tomatoes, Some peppers that will be pickable soon, small onions, nearly ready green onions, who knows about the potatoes or carrots, the eggplants have suffered a major infestation setback but thanks to my opposable thumb I've managed to keep the pests under control, its a shame my public bug executions do not scare them away. Altogether I'm pretty stoked for our garden. Its been ridicoulsy hot lately since I got back and Laura the gem on her day off weeded a big chunk of the garden, we were a month or two overdue. She is pretty great. Also! I built a trellis for our cucumbers! its made of bamboo and rope, thank you boy scouts! Check it out:Its actually in the garden right now with the Cucumbers growing all up its business. The half it rests in is the part Laura didn't weed, so when we get that done I'll take a picture of our super sexy garden and show yall.

Books!
My parents and I road tripped up and halfway back to MN so we listened to James Patterson's Honeymoon. Really good, it was exciting the main character was a nympho and I imagined her to be pretty foxy. It got kind of awkward at times because mom and dad were sitting there listening to the reader describe his prodigal sundial on the bed. eeehh.. Rollerskates. I just finished the last book in the twilight series, breaking dawn. I loved ..... all but the end. The book was filled with really exciting and interesting twists and unexpected surprises. WTF is how I described part of it at one point. All until the end. It was like The author ran out of creativity and realized it was already pretty long and took the easy way out. Very expected. I keep reminding myself that I truly did like the book, yet wasn't impressed with the finish. Book 3 was my favorite in the series.
I've also begun a book that is pretty hard to describe called The House of Leaves. It begins by saying on the dedication page "This book is not for you" Obviously it is. So far what I can gather it is a Story about a book, the "story" as it were is a guy's reaction (and clearly plotted story) within footnotes of a book which he has found. Now that book was written by a strange man about a movie about a house which is larger on the inside than the outside, interesting. Also worth noting this movie may not have actually existed yet the book within the book is a extremely detailed account. In reading the synopsis on the book beforehand I still don't think I had a grasp on what it was truly about. I'll let you know how it plays out. It sounds promising. Every time the word house is printed it is blue not black like most of the other words in the book.

This was much longer than I had anticipated.

Hows my little moviegoer?

Up!
Two Thumbs Up!
The end?! Oh my gosh! He did what? To who? And then that thing! Oh my goodness. I would say tragic, but then some other stuff happened...wait, yeah that would still be when you think about it. I liked the camping museum (wall-e anyone?). Anyway...

I liked Up, personally I read far too many headlines from reviewers exulting Pixar on another job well done to actually encourage me to see this one in theaters (why does my brain work that way?). That was until I thought to myself, I wonder if our local multiplex will have it showing in 3D? Sure enough! Reason to see it on the big screen materialized.

First off. I'm writing this with the hopes that the interwebs are still around in the future when we have 3D ads driving down the road so that I can laugh at my old (not blue and red) 3D glasses wearing self. [HA! - Future Tony]

3D movies are the shit. Let me tell you. First off, those ridiculously (apparently sort of) stylish glasses (circa 1991) we purchased. They were pretty hard to keep off on the drive home =). Next the 3D previews were AWESOME! they made the screen look like I could reach out and help scrat grab his acorn and the far off things were actually way out out of reach. My only complaint, fast moving things looked extra blurry like my eyeballs couldn't quite fill in the blanks or something.

Back to Up, as I was sitting there enamored by the increasingly amazing amount of detail animators are putting into these films I would gawk at things that looked as if they were actually right there in front of me as if I were a part of it (even though it was animated). I couldn't believe it. After the movie I realized I was getting excited about a fake reality. I was getting excited about my everymoment perception of the world, only this time it was in a movie theater! Which also had depth. Hm. Either way. 3D movie = Awesome. You must experience this fake reality while it is still fresh.

Probably my favorite experience from the whole deal was forgetting that we were wearing these ridiculous glasses and looking over at Laura during a funny part and laughing even harder because this is what I saw:

Hows my little round-up?

Wow I have lots to fill everyone in on so Bullets are going to be the form today.

* Last week Laura and I saw Wicked. Holy cow it was great! I wasn't sure what to expect but it exceeded it for sure.


* I got Green Day's New album 21st Century Breakdown - I was genuinely disappointed with it on my first round of listening, but after I gave it a break and tried again I found that I really liked a lot of the tracks. They could have probably left out like 4 or 5 songs and still had a good lineup at 13ish tracks.

* Unrelated - I really hate secret tracks on albums now. I hate even more when they are stuck onto a really good song that happens to be last. So to that I want to give a big Fuck You to The Black Eyed Peas for that shit at the end of My Humps, Velvet Revolver for the twangy bullshit at the end of Gravedancer, and Dave Matthews for Tacking on that nice yet unrelated little jazzy thing at the end of You & Me. Ugh.

* Related I also got the New Dave Matthews Band Album, I'm a fan, I think. I haven't given it that break and listen again yet so I'll do that soon and get back to those who care.

* My headstone I made a while back apparently was a big hit and they cut it and it's in Colorado! There is a certain someone I know who lives nearby who should check it out.

* On Friday night I hosted my very first intro to wine/tasting! I rocked! Lots of people said they enjoyed it and it made me pretty happy to hear that. Though the most rewarding thing was later at dinner one of the tasters ordered his favorite flavor from the tasting to drink with his meal! Yeah!

* Port is still not my favorite.

* This weekend Laura and I headed up to Mad-Town for some rockin' good times with some good folks up there. I climbed a tree. It was also kind of weird to see people out running around since it is such an active city. Pretty sure there are only 2 runners here in Oakwood.

* The garden Looks Great!

* My Rain Barrel is complete and it rocks!

* I feel old because I'm trying to tend my lawn.

* There are no peach trees in Peach Tree City.

* Tonight I fixed our toilet, I kid you not these were the instructions for Installing the new flusher valve thing: Insert the Ballcock into the hole after you have fitted it with the rubber seal and Screw. This was before I chained up the flapper to properly cover the exit hole.

Hows my little busy bee?

Life?
Grand.
No Complaints.
The lady in my life is excellent.
The things in my life are excellent.
If all we need is love, than consider me all set.

Last weekend I did the traditional memorial weekend with my excellent pals from the glory days. There seemed to be more shenanigans than usual. For example...I still can't get over this one. One of my best friends pushed me off his deck into a bush just for laughs:

I know its weird to say, my best friend pushed me off his deck into a bush. Many people would say, are you sure he is a friend? I can only answer with, 'it's a weird friendship...' crazy huh? (if he was here he would be playing an imaginary fiddle)

I played paintball yesterday for the first time, that is a great time! I've always loved FPS games but putting those skills into real life where you STILL don't die. Even better. Laura for some reason opted out for some reason I couldn't imagine her in the mask/gun regalia, it must be because she is such a sweetheart, so I understood. I was going to post pictures of my "kills" but I'm a bit vain and think I look farther out of shape than I am (which is saying something) so just imagine 6 nice round little welts on one side of your body and go wow neat ouch!

Books:
I want everyone to know that if you are ever on a 6 hour+ drive, audio books are probably the absolute best form of entertainment next to peeing into a bottle. (which you can simultaneously do.....if you're good), I managed to survive a 9 hour drive (533 miles) to Justin's cabin with the book called Stardust by Neil Gaiman (a phenomenal movie by the by 9 [Hear that Twilight!?!]) and another called The Book of Lies. Which was also pretty exciting and recommended. For you twilight folks, New Moon was about 30 pages away from me folding shut and giving up. Thank god for some real live excitement and plot advancement. If you decide to read the Twilight series I will strongly advise you to skip the entire second book pass go get your $200 and dive into the significantly better third one. No time wasted and 100% love for the series upheld. I have now started on Stephenie Meyer's 4th edition of what Laura and I have affectionately begun to call Edward, because really, who cares about anyone else? So far my interest level has been maintained, in all fairness I'm not too far into it though.

I found corn (High Fructose Corn Syrup) in my ketchup today and nearly shat a brick. WTF corn, Ketchup?

I bought Pepsi throwback today only because it is made with real live sugar, I'll bring one to work tomorrow to tell you it tastes the same.

As a US citizen I do not want any stake in owning the shitty automobile manufacturer GM especially since they are the masterminds behind such successful brands such as Hummer and...uhh GM? Wait, does that mean since my EARNED money taken from me via taxes will be deducted from a new GM (government motors) vehicle? Who is to say that the president in power will NOT be able to hold restraint in the vehicles being produced? Imagine if a new bush was elected, I bet cars would be cross shaped and throw Jews at imports that cut you off. Fuck that.