Random Thoughts: Tales from the bedside

Sore backs can be tough.  Really sore backs that keep you home from work are even tougher, so here I am with a RT blog for Ragnar.

There's a whole lot about Miley Cyrus in the media these days.  While her MTV performance left most of us a bit, well, disgusted -- I'm a whole lot more sickened that this Robin Thicke creep played along with it and shoulders no responsibility for his creepiness in the matter than with Miley herself.  And for the record, her 'Wrecking Ball' video is beautiful to me.  I don't see a slutty girl licking a phallic symbol.  I see a sad girl baring her soul after hurting from a deep relationship.  The timing after the MTV thing is just a little tragic, but people will think the worst sometimes.

I try not to comment on U.S. politics online as much as I used to, because I have a lot of American friends who disagree with my views, and I find my own comments to be a little soap-boxy.  I don't think it's my place to tell friends in another country what they should think about how their country is run.  But, it's hard to hold back sometimes.

Doesn't anybody stay together anymore?  Not just talking about celebrities.  I see people all around me breaking apart from their significant others after long relationships.  It saddens me, truly, that people have such a hard time finding happiness.

As I write this, my Red Sox are on the verge of winning their first World Series at home since 1918.  I got to see Fenway Park with my family this past summer, a dream come true for me after a lifetime of being a Sox fan.  The little boy in me came out in full force, and made me feel thankful for all of the blessings in my life especially this year.  I thank God every day for all I have.

It seems my wife is turning a corner on some major health issues these days, one of those many things I'm thankful for.  It was discovered recently she has IBS, and is being very successfully treated accordingly.  This makes her very happy, and concurrently makes me happy too.

How could I not have tuned in to 'Breaking Bad' sooner than I did?  One of the best shows to ever grace television.  Solid acting and writing and production value throughout the series.  It's refreshing to see a show bow out while still at the top of its game rather than fade into obscurity.  The success of 'BB', I believe, just may revolutionize how TV shows and even movies are written.  This is the first drama I've seen in a long time with such respect to the intelligence of its audience.

After a maddeningly disappointing few seasons of 'The Walking Dead', or all of them since the stellar first season, it seems that there is hope for the show after all.  This season is finally showing that there actually can be substance underneath all the style.  All they had to do is let the actors show their depth, rather than just do constant gross-outs with no meaning whatsoever. 

I do like watching pro wrestling, but WWE is probably the worst it's been in a long time these days.  It's become so dumbed-down that it's kind of insulting to watch.  I long for the old Bret The Hitman Hart days where the lines between fantasy and reality were much more blurry.  TNA has self destructed under the weight of Eric Bischoff's ego and mismanagement.

I love where I live and my province in my country, but it's just about unrecognizable under the 'leadership' of premier David Alward and his equally inept provincial goveernment.  I knew this all would happen too, as did many of us.  Skyrocketing taxes, cuts to health care, ballooning deficit, and minus population growth have quickly made New Brunswick the tin cup territory of the country.  An election to get these buffoons out of office can't come soon enough.

While I do love my baseball, I have equal disdain for bloodsport these days.  It's hard to watch things like UFC, football and hockey, which seem to thrive on destructive practices against fellow human beings.  My views toward a lot of these things have changed since becoming a father 17 years ago.  But, it seems only that it's all become worse as time goes by.  At least the violent nature of these 'sports' is beginning to get more spotlight coverage via their consequences, so that perhaps in due time, measures can be taken to restore the sporting aspect to these activities.

How about that Pope Francis?  This man may very well bring the masses back to the Catholic church, at least to some degree.  I'm happy to see the Catholic leader finally ween the spotlight off of topics like gay issues and abortion and shine more on suffering and poverty.  Not that abortion isn't deserving of its notoriety.  But there needs to be more attention focused on the poor and unfortunate.

I'm almost distressed at how little I care about music these days.  Rock and roll truly is dead, and has been for a long time now.  We're left with great music of the distant past to fall back on, because great music isn't really being made anymore.  In this era of karaoke singing contest TV shows and artists that have to 'feature' other artists in their songs to get sales, there seems to be little to no hope for music in general.

It's been a pretty good year for movies.  I've seen more shows this year in theatres than I have in a long time.  After seeing 'Gravity' here in town, we ventured out to Halifax to see it in IMAX 3D, where we've heard the experience is intensified.  We found this to be very true.  The movie is front-loaded with how-the-hell-did-they-do-that effects, and documentary style storytelling that left me gasping for breath at times for the two characters.  I don't want to spoil anything, but there is a Nolan-ish question about the movie's ending that begs debate not unlike 'Inception'.

It's going to be interesting to see where the Canadian senate scandal takes the nationally governing conservatives, with said party splintering apart with lie after lie being exposed from our prime minister.  This government has been so secretive and underhanded over the years that it's become scary.  Every single government has its scandals, make no mistake.  But this one is the worst I've seen in my lifetime.  We'll see how good the memories of Canadians are in the next election.  The trick is, is there a party competent enough to take over the reigns?  I don't see one single party in Canada right now that shows promise for our future.  Not one.

I guess that's enough tales from the bedside for now.  Chime in on comments if there's discussion to be had.  Thanks for reading.

Random Thoughts 12

It's a good day to post some random thoughts.

The TomKat has been spayed and neutered.  Bob Barker would be proud.  Seriously though, is anyone else surprised that the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes marriage lasted THIS long?  Just how long did she endure being creeped out by His Highness of Scientology?  Don't get me wrong, I love Cruise's work.  But something just doesn't quite ring true with this scientology nonesense.  Starting with everything. 

'The Amazing Spider Man' is out tomorrow from the time I type this.  I hear I'm not the only Spider Man die-hard that's shrugging his shoulders over seeing it.  I really wanted a 'Spider Man 4', not this, another origin story with a guy pushing 30 playing a high school teenager.  I will see it though.  Maybe it's a good thing my expectations are low.

On the other hand, the buzz is all good for 'The Dark Knight Rises'.  Of course there will be detractors, like I am for TASM, but there's only one director named Chris Nolan out there, and he hasn't misfired yet.  His weakest movie was 'Insomnia', a movie he had no real creative control over.  All the rest kicked some serious tail.

Heard the new KISS song, 'Hell or Hallelujah'.  Good riff, though it reminds me an awful lot of 'Danger Us' from 'Sonic Boom'.  I don't think KISS should shun outside writers for material so quickly and maybe get with Bob Ezrin for one more album.  My dream team for a writing partner for Paul Stanley would be with Moe Berg from TPOH or Lenny Kravitz, but there are no snowflakes in hell either.  I would LOVE to see Kravitz produce a KISS album.

On the upcoming U.S. election... there are worse Republicans than Romney, that's for sure.  I would prefer him over either of the Bush's or Reagan.  But, seriously, Obama has done far more for that country than anyone else could have following the extremely crooked regime of Dubya.  Honestly, who would want the task of cleaning up the mess that jackass left behind?

Really looking forward to season 3 of 'Game of Thrones'.  My nephew Chris and his wife Jana told me I should take a look at that show a year ago, and I've been stuck on it ever since.  It takes balls to have a show so full of stuff that 'GoT' has.  And it challenges its viewers to pay attention and go back and watch again.  'The Walking Dead' is another one I'm waiting to come back.  The most watched show on cable ever is going to break its own records when it comes back this fall with a rip-roaring season with promises of more zombie-riffic tension and thrills, with real characters and real storytelling.  Some don't know that TWD is adapted from a comic book.  Comics are real literature in this day and age.  Don't believe me though.  Time Magazine lists 'Watchmen' as one of the top 100 novels of all time for good reason. 

It's hot enough to make an egg explode like a popcorn kernel outside, let alone fry one.  Not complaining though, until it's bedtime when the heat is too stifling to sleep.  The fan blowing is good, except that it's blowing hot air, which is not so good.  It's almost like a hair dryer.

I haven't had pop in something like almost a week now.  I didn't set out to not have it, but it just turned out that way.  Not saying I never will again either.  I didn't stop drinking it because of the aspartame, because it's a complete and utter load of nonsense that it's as evil as it's made out to be.  You want evil?  Try regular pop.  It's not even real sugar in that stuff anymore.  It's concentrated sugar in the form of HFCS.  You won't see people getting diabetes from drinking diet pop.  In fact, my blood sugar was borderline, around 7, when I last checked it when I was drinking regular Pepsi many years ago.  I switched to diet and it's been in the 3-4 range ever since.  I don't need lectures on aspartame consumption either... not until you've punched it in at snopes.com and done credible research on it.  Trans fats, high sodium and salt, and nitrites have all gotten a lot of dubious press in recent times, legitimately, in the news.  All with real experts telling people to cut them down or out.  I've yet to see Lloyd Robertson or Lisa LaFlamme tell me anything similar about aspartame.  And no, I haven't experienced headaches or any kind of withdrawal from drinking Diet Pepsi.  None of it.  In fact, my weight's gone up since I started drinking water!

Nickelback is going to be playing the Magnetic Hill concert site soon.  I'm not a hater.  I'm not a liker either, though.  I guess people assume you hate them if you don't like them.  But I have a feeling that they're going to be a Bomb Jovi type thing, where they'll probably have one of the smallest crowds at the concert site yet.  BJ drew 25,000, which is a lot, but consider that tickets were 2 for 1 in the final week leading up to the show and they just let people in for free on show day, mostly women.  A real act will draw people from all ages and both genders, at least for a concert of the magnitude of the 90,000 capacity Magnetic Hill site.  We got 40,000 for a weekend festival thing that started it off with Lynyrd Skynyrd (sp?), Pat Benatar, Peter Frampton, Foreigner, etc.; 40-50,000 for a couple of big name country acts like Alan Jackson and Faith Hill, 50,000-ish for The Eagles, 55,000 for AC/DC, 80,000 for the Rolling Stones and 75-80,000 for U2 last year.  I think Nickelback should have been at the new stadium on the University grounds, which is open for concert business now.  Maybe even the coliseum would have been more appropriate.  But, I hope it does well.  They are rock and roll after all.  I'm interested in seeing what kind of numbers Springsteen will pull in this year.  After that, who could come?  I'm guessing Eric Clapton, Bob Seger, Coldplay, or some kind of package deal.  There aren't a whole lot of monster bands left to come to these parts for a first time show.

My Boston Red Sox look like they might've finally found their mojo, after a rocky start to a season that saw an injury riddled team struggle to reach .500 with a brand new coach and general manager.  My feeling from what I've been hearing, though, is that things are less than harmonious in the clubhouse.  When you've got someone like David Ortiz, who gets along with everybody, talking about leaving when his contract's up at the end of the season, and cornerstones like Kevin Youkilis getting shipped off along with Jonathan Papelbon and guys like Dustin Pedroia calling out team management for less than orderly conduct, you have to wonder.  One remedy to right the ship, if it needs it.... get Terry Francona back.  I bet the team would behave a lot better now that they've seen how it is since he's been gone. 

I guess that's about it for the time being.  For a more personal blog, or 'log', see my facebook page, where I post one every day about mine and the families typical goings-on. 

A mighty 'thank you' to Tim Churchill for being the lone commenter on my last blog here on Ragnar.  Always good to hear from you sir, especially since I have a faulty e-mail address of yours!  Ditched Rogers, did you? 

Thanks for dropping by.