Here is the news of the summer! My daughter is expecting twins, to be born around Halloween. No significance there. (hopefully, or I'm sure her father's side of the family will come into question...)
She's working from home. If you are interested, check out her comments.
http://www.workfrommyhomemom.com
Baby buggy with a side-car?
Maybe!
http://inlandiapress.com
http://mchustonbooks.com
Visit the store!
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Oh, my!
How time flies! Impossible that this amount of time has passed since making an entry. I vow to do better - even if they are shorter notes and totally meaningless. Just like most other blogs!
Here's an observation that occurs to me most evenings - the person cleaning the floors at the house (she knows who she is) has worked that broom so diligently that all traces of friction have been removed from the wood.
Yes, it is no different than walking on a frozen pond. Great for the younger set. Baby-steps for the rest of us.
Rumor is, she is working on removing gravity next.
By the way - you poets may want to visit Inlandia Press to submit poetry for a new anthology!
http://www.inlandiapress.com
Visit the Bookstore!
1603 S. Main Street, Broken Arrow, OK
918-258-3301
http://mchustonbooks.com/
Here's an observation that occurs to me most evenings - the person cleaning the floors at the house (she knows who she is) has worked that broom so diligently that all traces of friction have been removed from the wood.
Yes, it is no different than walking on a frozen pond. Great for the younger set. Baby-steps for the rest of us.
Rumor is, she is working on removing gravity next.
By the way - you poets may want to visit Inlandia Press to submit poetry for a new anthology!
http://www.inlandiapress.com
Visit the Bookstore!
1603 S. Main Street, Broken Arrow, OK
918-258-3301
http://mchustonbooks.com/
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Back After This Commercial Message
No potshots at television commercials here. Sure, there are plenty of really, really, bad ads on TV. For those came the invention of the remote control Mute Button.
I'll admit it here. I shun the mute.
Commercials are as much a part of the popular culture as the programming. (Some shows are only filler material between commercials...)
Some spots (that's what we call them in the business) are a cut-above because of the writing skills, and some are addictive because of their use of graphics or technology. (Think about those truck commercials where only the outstanding brakes keep the thing from driving off the cliff into the Grand Canyon.)
Some are great just because of the fantastic casting of the actors.
The guy on the Verizon ad, the older gent behind the motel check-in desk is an example. When he can't scare off the guest with the cell-phone 'dead zone,' he pointedly admits that the "Towels are kinda scratchy!" He has that Stephen King, man from Maine, New-England-crotchety-thing working perfectly.
Expressions can do it. Another cell-phone ad. The executive is checking with his secretary about the day's agenda, which involves texting his wife, his kids, and just about everybody - until late afternoon, when, she explains, there is a budget meeting. The executive purses his mouth in a Steve Martin sort of way (in fact, I think it is Steve Martin's mouth, superimposed...), and she immediately replies that she can reschedule it. "Let's go with that," he says. There is really nothing special about the spot - but the guy is perfect. I can imagine the casting director. "Let's go with him," she says. "Let's go with that," he replies.
I actually turn around to watch the Sonic commercials (the TV is at my back when I am at the computer), the ads that feature the wimpy guy and his friend/wife. The friend is goofy, the wife is condescending. The car-driver-guy is just wimpy - in a good way. Good wimpy. The spots are inoffensive and sometimes idiotic. Just my type. I loved the one where the goofy friend is eating tator-tots and talking basketball, when suddenly Mr. Wimpy darts out a hand to his buddy's mouth to block the tot. "Rejected," he shouts, in his wimpish way.
Then, there are the esoteric Target ads set to the Beatles song "Hello Goodbye." Maybe its the song. Maybe it's all the red targets that pop up. Maybe it is the manner of the horrid Walmart ads, by comparison. I don't know why you say good buy.
I say Hello.
McHuston Booksellers
http://mchustonbooks.com/
Inlandia Press
http://inlandiapress.com/
I'll admit it here. I shun the mute.
Commercials are as much a part of the popular culture as the programming. (Some shows are only filler material between commercials...)
Some spots (that's what we call them in the business) are a cut-above because of the writing skills, and some are addictive because of their use of graphics or technology. (Think about those truck commercials where only the outstanding brakes keep the thing from driving off the cliff into the Grand Canyon.)
Some are great just because of the fantastic casting of the actors.
The guy on the Verizon ad, the older gent behind the motel check-in desk is an example. When he can't scare off the guest with the cell-phone 'dead zone,' he pointedly admits that the "Towels are kinda scratchy!" He has that Stephen King, man from Maine, New-England-crotchety-thing working perfectly.
Expressions can do it. Another cell-phone ad. The executive is checking with his secretary about the day's agenda, which involves texting his wife, his kids, and just about everybody - until late afternoon, when, she explains, there is a budget meeting. The executive purses his mouth in a Steve Martin sort of way (in fact, I think it is Steve Martin's mouth, superimposed...), and she immediately replies that she can reschedule it. "Let's go with that," he says. There is really nothing special about the spot - but the guy is perfect. I can imagine the casting director. "Let's go with him," she says. "Let's go with that," he replies.
I actually turn around to watch the Sonic commercials (the TV is at my back when I am at the computer), the ads that feature the wimpy guy and his friend/wife. The friend is goofy, the wife is condescending. The car-driver-guy is just wimpy - in a good way. Good wimpy. The spots are inoffensive and sometimes idiotic. Just my type. I loved the one where the goofy friend is eating tator-tots and talking basketball, when suddenly Mr. Wimpy darts out a hand to his buddy's mouth to block the tot. "Rejected," he shouts, in his wimpish way.
Then, there are the esoteric Target ads set to the Beatles song "Hello Goodbye." Maybe its the song. Maybe it's all the red targets that pop up. Maybe it is the manner of the horrid Walmart ads, by comparison. I don't know why you say good buy.
I say Hello.
McHuston Booksellers
http://mchustonbooks.com/
Inlandia Press
http://inlandiapress.com/
Big Stage, Small Town
First of all, there is nothing wrong with small-town living. Nothing at all. Well. . . admittedly, there are a few drawbacks. Restaurants are limited and recreational activities after dark are largely self-prescribed.
The cars on the lot at the true-small-town dealerships look just the same, and the Walmart aisles carry the same products. Music, though? Outside of CD sales, there is only the occasional concert at the high school auditorium. (Rock concert? Heaven forbid! We're talking piano here.)
Tulsa has turned the small town corner. We now have a venue large enough to draw top flight entertainers, and we just can't get over it. We love it. It's our new sandbox. We can't look at it often enough. It gotta be shown off to all our friends. Come touch it!
We're still small-town enough in Tulsa that the TV news crews trot out to the BOK center when a Metallica fan has to wait in line longer than she thinks is reasonable. Cell-phone call to the news hotline.
Fan: Hello? TV News? I just wanted to let you know that we're in line at the new BOK center and we're having to wait!
Reporter: What? You're having to wait?
Fan: That's right! There's a whole group of people here. We've formed a - I don't know. . .I can only describe it as a crude sort of - line. I think that best describes it. A line.
Reporter: You're talking about a line of - people?
Fan: Exactly. A line.
Reporter: Hang on. I'm getting my camera. I'll be right there.
In the end, the reporter is seen, standing in front of the BOK center (it makes a great visual at night, all the glass and back-lighting), where he explains that - should you find yourself with tickets to a show by a popular entertainer, you might need to arrive EARLY to avoid delays.
Now, that's news. Arrive early. Why didn't we think of it? Oh, yeah. We're a little big city and we're just figuring out the new toy. This just in: There are lots of kids. Arrive Early.
Then - the reporter closes the story by mentioning the name of the next artist due to arrive to play in the sandbox. Can you believe it? Coming to our town? Wow.
It is a good thing. Great, even. Just a little embarrassing how we have to keep drawing the shiny coin out of our pocket to look at it.
It's still there. Still shiny.
Check out the bookstore!
http://mchustonbooks.com/
Authors - visit a publisher!
http://inlandiapress.com/
The cars on the lot at the true-small-town dealerships look just the same, and the Walmart aisles carry the same products. Music, though? Outside of CD sales, there is only the occasional concert at the high school auditorium. (Rock concert? Heaven forbid! We're talking piano here.)
Tulsa has turned the small town corner. We now have a venue large enough to draw top flight entertainers, and we just can't get over it. We love it. It's our new sandbox. We can't look at it often enough. It gotta be shown off to all our friends. Come touch it!
We're still small-town enough in Tulsa that the TV news crews trot out to the BOK center when a Metallica fan has to wait in line longer than she thinks is reasonable. Cell-phone call to the news hotline.
Fan: Hello? TV News? I just wanted to let you know that we're in line at the new BOK center and we're having to wait!
Reporter: What? You're having to wait?
Fan: That's right! There's a whole group of people here. We've formed a - I don't know. . .I can only describe it as a crude sort of - line. I think that best describes it. A line.
Reporter: You're talking about a line of - people?
Fan: Exactly. A line.
Reporter: Hang on. I'm getting my camera. I'll be right there.
In the end, the reporter is seen, standing in front of the BOK center (it makes a great visual at night, all the glass and back-lighting), where he explains that - should you find yourself with tickets to a show by a popular entertainer, you might need to arrive EARLY to avoid delays.
Now, that's news. Arrive early. Why didn't we think of it? Oh, yeah. We're a little big city and we're just figuring out the new toy. This just in: There are lots of kids. Arrive Early.
Then - the reporter closes the story by mentioning the name of the next artist due to arrive to play in the sandbox. Can you believe it? Coming to our town? Wow.
It is a good thing. Great, even. Just a little embarrassing how we have to keep drawing the shiny coin out of our pocket to look at it.
It's still there. Still shiny.
Check out the bookstore!
http://mchustonbooks.com/
Authors - visit a publisher!
http://inlandiapress.com/
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Technology for the Young
He is seven years old. He can manipulate the internet like a seasoned computer pro. Although he can read only the simplest words, he maneuvers through the layers of word-oriented menu screens with a rapidity that borders on astounding.
It makes it all the more difficult to realize that there are so many things in the world that remain as a total surprise to him.
Like car windows.
Having personally experienced the drawbacks of electronics in automobiles, I swore that I would never again own a car with electric windows. He saw me manually cranking the glass one evening and asked what I was doing.
Rolling up the window, I replied, not giving a thought to my answer.
Rolling a window? he asked.
I looked over and realized that he had never seen a hand-cranked window.
Yeah, I explained. I turn this handle around and around, and the window goes up.
He grinned broadly, and I could tell he wanted to try it for himself.
Cool, he said.
Friday morning, I was to drive him to school for his day in first grade. Normally, I wake up without an alarm, not having to be at the store until 9:30 or so, to make the ten o'clock opening time. Not wanting to take a chance, I set the alarm for eight o'clock. As it turned out, I awoke ahead of the alarm and it went off just as I emerged from my shower. Never did like the buzz of an alarm. It was on the wake-to-the-radio setting.
He popped in seconds after I shut it off.
Who was that? he wanted to know.
My alarm, I said.
It can talk? Make it talk again.
It's a radio.
I didn't know alarms had a radio in them.
It's a clock radio, I explained. (A real eye-opening bit of philosophy, huh? Remember - it was early in the morning...)
In our video-oriented household, radio is non-existent. Akin to magic, to the uninitiated seven year old.
Then I recall the look on his face when we toured the zoo one Sunday, and he saw for the first time those strange and powerful things that are giraffes, elephants, and crocodiles.
What would the world be like if we could look at things every day of our lives with that same sense of wonder and amazement?
Visit the bookstore: http://mchustonbooks.com/
Authors - Visit Inlandia Press: http://inlandiapress.com/
It makes it all the more difficult to realize that there are so many things in the world that remain as a total surprise to him.
Like car windows.
Having personally experienced the drawbacks of electronics in automobiles, I swore that I would never again own a car with electric windows. He saw me manually cranking the glass one evening and asked what I was doing.
Rolling up the window, I replied, not giving a thought to my answer.
Rolling a window? he asked.
I looked over and realized that he had never seen a hand-cranked window.
Yeah, I explained. I turn this handle around and around, and the window goes up.
He grinned broadly, and I could tell he wanted to try it for himself.
Cool, he said.
Friday morning, I was to drive him to school for his day in first grade. Normally, I wake up without an alarm, not having to be at the store until 9:30 or so, to make the ten o'clock opening time. Not wanting to take a chance, I set the alarm for eight o'clock. As it turned out, I awoke ahead of the alarm and it went off just as I emerged from my shower. Never did like the buzz of an alarm. It was on the wake-to-the-radio setting.
He popped in seconds after I shut it off.
Who was that? he wanted to know.
My alarm, I said.
It can talk? Make it talk again.
It's a radio.
I didn't know alarms had a radio in them.
It's a clock radio, I explained. (A real eye-opening bit of philosophy, huh? Remember - it was early in the morning...)
In our video-oriented household, radio is non-existent. Akin to magic, to the uninitiated seven year old.
Then I recall the look on his face when we toured the zoo one Sunday, and he saw for the first time those strange and powerful things that are giraffes, elephants, and crocodiles.
What would the world be like if we could look at things every day of our lives with that same sense of wonder and amazement?
Visit the bookstore: http://mchustonbooks.com/
Authors - Visit Inlandia Press: http://inlandiapress.com/
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Ancient Moves: Ancient Movies
My mother used to tell me that if you can’ t say something nice, better to not say anything at all. Do they send mothers to mother-school so they will all tell their children these things?
Me in high school, walking out the door in typical teen clothing: Bye, Mom!
Mom, shouting from another part of the house without looking: You are not going out in public looking like that are you?
Me pausing at the door, mumbling a smart-alecky reply that – if heard - will get me grounded for the rest of the semester: Mblxmaofoiajef…
The nice thing, I suppose, about the movie 100,000,000 B.C. is that it is available on Netflix, and so it technically cost me nothing to watch it. I say technically, because if it was the only movie I watch all month, it cost me $14.95. But – if you are like me, and watch movies on DVD on fast-forward just to get them back in the mail and swapped for a new one – you’re watching 75 to 80 movies a month, just like me. Averaged out, they’re practically free.
There was a previous movie starring then-hottie Raquel Welch called One Million Years B.C., but Director Griff Furst (his real name) could not be satisfied with a simple million, what with inflation and all. In 100-Million B.C. (I get tired of all the zeroes), time-travelers go so far back in the past that they cross the believable-barrier.
The premise is (I’m still saying nice things, aren’t I?) that shortly after World War II, a prodigy-science-kid invents a way to travel through time, and sends a group – including his older brother – back in time. Way back. Way, waaaaaaay back.
Oops! Equipment trouble, and they can’t return to the present. So, the prodigy-science-kid spends the next 60 years refining his invention to rescue his time-lost brother. A crack team of Navy Seals enters the machine and shoots back in time to find the previous party – who haven’t aged a bit.
In fact, the only thing about the WWII vets that ages is their clothing, and not in terms of wear. The wartime duds have somehow transformed into spaghetti-strap blouses (on the women) and other non-military wear, that have held up amazingly, despite having been worn every day of every year since the failed experiment sent them back. I won’t even mention the difference in women’s undergarments (visible in the movie) when comparing today with WWII, the stuff YOUR GRANDMOTHER WORE! Think about it. Thongs? That’s what your grandmother wore on her feet. You know, flip-flops. That’s right.
It never ceases to amaze me how much money can be thrown into a movie. I always wonder when watching movies like these, if the people involved believed they were creating high entertainment.
100,000,000 B.C. is fun, even if only for the slow-mo chuckles. It’s a laugh to watch the little computer-generated cave-people perform 30-foot vertical leaps to get to safety. (Did they think we wouldn’t notice?) And when the two women jump out of the hovering helicopter, couldn’t they find some pillows or mattresses and film a real jump? The little computer-characters look so much like Mario Bros. effects, you half expect to see a running game score total in the corner of the screen.
It is nice that there is work for Christopher Atkins (Blue Lagoon 1980) and Michael Gross (television’s dad to Michael J. Fox on Family Ties), and a training ground for special effects creators. The big dinosaurs are actually pretty well articulated. It’s just the little details that seemed to have slipped.
It may be in the year’s Top-10.
(Movies to freeze-frame and slow-motion.)
Me in high school, walking out the door in typical teen clothing: Bye, Mom!
Mom, shouting from another part of the house without looking: You are not going out in public looking like that are you?
Me pausing at the door, mumbling a smart-alecky reply that – if heard - will get me grounded for the rest of the semester: Mblxmaofoiajef…
The nice thing, I suppose, about the movie 100,000,000 B.C. is that it is available on Netflix, and so it technically cost me nothing to watch it. I say technically, because if it was the only movie I watch all month, it cost me $14.95. But – if you are like me, and watch movies on DVD on fast-forward just to get them back in the mail and swapped for a new one – you’re watching 75 to 80 movies a month, just like me. Averaged out, they’re practically free.
There was a previous movie starring then-hottie Raquel Welch called One Million Years B.C., but Director Griff Furst (his real name) could not be satisfied with a simple million, what with inflation and all. In 100-Million B.C. (I get tired of all the zeroes), time-travelers go so far back in the past that they cross the believable-barrier.
The premise is (I’m still saying nice things, aren’t I?) that shortly after World War II, a prodigy-science-kid invents a way to travel through time, and sends a group – including his older brother – back in time. Way back. Way, waaaaaaay back.
Oops! Equipment trouble, and they can’t return to the present. So, the prodigy-science-kid spends the next 60 years refining his invention to rescue his time-lost brother. A crack team of Navy Seals enters the machine and shoots back in time to find the previous party – who haven’t aged a bit.
In fact, the only thing about the WWII vets that ages is their clothing, and not in terms of wear. The wartime duds have somehow transformed into spaghetti-strap blouses (on the women) and other non-military wear, that have held up amazingly, despite having been worn every day of every year since the failed experiment sent them back. I won’t even mention the difference in women’s undergarments (visible in the movie) when comparing today with WWII, the stuff YOUR GRANDMOTHER WORE! Think about it. Thongs? That’s what your grandmother wore on her feet. You know, flip-flops. That’s right.
It never ceases to amaze me how much money can be thrown into a movie. I always wonder when watching movies like these, if the people involved believed they were creating high entertainment.
100,000,000 B.C. is fun, even if only for the slow-mo chuckles. It’s a laugh to watch the little computer-generated cave-people perform 30-foot vertical leaps to get to safety. (Did they think we wouldn’t notice?) And when the two women jump out of the hovering helicopter, couldn’t they find some pillows or mattresses and film a real jump? The little computer-characters look so much like Mario Bros. effects, you half expect to see a running game score total in the corner of the screen.
It is nice that there is work for Christopher Atkins (Blue Lagoon 1980) and Michael Gross (television’s dad to Michael J. Fox on Family Ties), and a training ground for special effects creators. The big dinosaurs are actually pretty well articulated. It’s just the little details that seemed to have slipped.
It may be in the year’s Top-10.
(Movies to freeze-frame and slow-motion.)
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Record Time for Sleeping
Should I be embarrassed to admit I had to look up the name of the Olympic gold medalist, Michael Phelps? Apparently, he is everywhere but in my memory.
As a general rule, I don’t check the swimming results in the sports pages, and the Olympics – while an event that interested me in the past – for some reason didn’t have that same allure this go-round. In a shameless fit of backslapping during the pre-football programming, the announcer who called the races won by Phelps was given a tribute and highlights of ALL the medal races were shown.
That’s my supposition.
I bailed out after the third race or so. He was in the water, he was swimming fast, but we already knew he won. The announcer sounded excited, as I’m sure he was at the time.
So. Why am I thinking about Michael Phelps, anyway?
It isn’t so much him as it is the timing clocks of swimming events. They measure time in the thousands of a second. That’s .001 – one-thousandth of a SINGLE SECOND.
The original proposition was: What is the correct answer to the question, “Are you asleep?”
Naturally, the question is posed at sporting event decibels. The sleep-state is thereby ended. Officially. As a sleeper not inclined to practice the art at sporting events (the decibel level of the question, you remember…), I naturally wake up (un-naturally) at the very first breath of the very first syllable of the very first utterance.
My waking is in swimming-time.
And awaking in thousands of a SINGLE SECOND, means that the delightful REM moments are completely gone by the time the –A- is sounded in “Are” and long before the question is finished. In fact, it’s a full-eye opener for me by the time the little foot-extension on the letter A is sounded, the one on the left.
Her: Are you awake?
Me: Sure. I’ve just been laying here in the dark since you started that sentence.
Her: I just wanted to remind you that we have to get up early, so you’d better get some rest.
It’s lucky that I don’t have reactive military training, the sort that produces involuntary karate-kicks in a thousand of a SINGLE SECOND. I’d have to have Michael Phelps on stand-by to dive in between us - in gold-medal time - to keep us breaking the blessed silence instead of kneecaps.
Check out the bookstore:
http://mchustonbooks.com
As a general rule, I don’t check the swimming results in the sports pages, and the Olympics – while an event that interested me in the past – for some reason didn’t have that same allure this go-round. In a shameless fit of backslapping during the pre-football programming, the announcer who called the races won by Phelps was given a tribute and highlights of ALL the medal races were shown.
That’s my supposition.
I bailed out after the third race or so. He was in the water, he was swimming fast, but we already knew he won. The announcer sounded excited, as I’m sure he was at the time.
So. Why am I thinking about Michael Phelps, anyway?
It isn’t so much him as it is the timing clocks of swimming events. They measure time in the thousands of a second. That’s .001 – one-thousandth of a SINGLE SECOND.
The original proposition was: What is the correct answer to the question, “Are you asleep?”
Naturally, the question is posed at sporting event decibels. The sleep-state is thereby ended. Officially. As a sleeper not inclined to practice the art at sporting events (the decibel level of the question, you remember…), I naturally wake up (un-naturally) at the very first breath of the very first syllable of the very first utterance.
My waking is in swimming-time.
And awaking in thousands of a SINGLE SECOND, means that the delightful REM moments are completely gone by the time the –A- is sounded in “Are” and long before the question is finished. In fact, it’s a full-eye opener for me by the time the little foot-extension on the letter A is sounded, the one on the left.
Her: Are you awake?
Me: Sure. I’ve just been laying here in the dark since you started that sentence.
Her: I just wanted to remind you that we have to get up early, so you’d better get some rest.
It’s lucky that I don’t have reactive military training, the sort that produces involuntary karate-kicks in a thousand of a SINGLE SECOND. I’d have to have Michael Phelps on stand-by to dive in between us - in gold-medal time - to keep us breaking the blessed silence instead of kneecaps.
Check out the bookstore:
http://mchustonbooks.com
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