Greetings, Leaguers!

Well, I had a funfilled week at EduCause 2003. I spent four glorious days in Anaheim, California wherein I spent a lot of time walking around booths and sitting through presentations on technology in education. THis may sound boring to you, but to me, it's really, really boring.

THe upside of all of this is that I was also two blocks from Disneyland, which is, I am told, the Happiest Place on Earth.

I'm inclined to agree, as I had a pretty darn good time within the gates of The Magic Kingdom.

Hopefully I can link to some photos pretty soon.

Instead of dawdling off to Matrix 3 (as I had not seen Matrix 2), I went and saw "Elf" yesterday. THis isn't the best move in the world, nor am I really feeling prepared for Christmas, but it was worth seeing at matinee prices.

This said, the Christmas Season is officially upon us. Last Tuesday, walking into Disneyland, MainStreet USA had already been transformed into a Christmas theme and non-secular Christmas tunes poured out from the PA. While Anaheim is considerably chillier than Arizona, I just finished Halloween. I have Thanksgiving to deal with, and am not really looking to rush into another Holiday season.

Target is prepped with huge cardboard cut-outs of ornaments, the seasonal section is packed with trees and lights and whatever. I went to Barnes and Noble to buy a book, and their PA was also playin non-secular Christmas tunes. On the way to the movie, I was flipping radio channels, and 99.9fm has already switched (I am not making this up) to an All Holiday Song format which will last until January 1. Despite the fact people were at "Elf" in shorts, it still felt, I suppose, somewhat Christmassy, but let's face it, when two weeks ago we were passing out of 90 degree temps, I am still not prepared for Holiday fun.

The truth is, I want to like Christmas, but as I've passed out of college and into the working world, I've begun to understand why my Mum got that look on her face every year sometime around Thanksgiving. The look would grow grimmer and grimmer until around NEw Years Day things would culminate in some sort of scene out of Mommy Dearest with me being grounded for no particular reason other than I was the one relative who refused to leave the house once the festivities were over. My Mom was the person holding everything together for the swarming masses of Steanses who came in like locusts, ate and left nothing behind but a mess to clean up. Every year we played host to family and friends for Turkey Day (usually numbering into the double digits), and Christmas Eve usually saw about 10 people in the house and sometimes a few in a hotel somewhere.



Jamie's family does Christmas right. It's small and quiet and involves a movie on Christmas Eve, which was odd the first year, but I've come to appreciate it's simplicity.

And now that we're in Arizona, I have to board the pets when I travel, and that's no good. Mel shouldn't be spending CHristmas in doggy jail, like some common drunkard dog in the drunk doggy tank.

For some reason, Jamie also manages to get sick around Christmas every year, and now that we're in year #8 of being an item, i've come to dread Christmas just a bit more. I do not want her feeling ill while she's opening her stocking. For some reason "It's a Wonderful Life" seems to trigger the problem.

In itsway, Christmas has become this huge thing on the horizon with very predictable problems, a hell of a lot of expenses and not enough days of vacation in it to make it relaxing.

I've been doing weird things to Jamie, like insisting upon not decorating, but that's kind of crazy. We own a fake tree and all that. I just keep trying to think of ways for me not to go nuts as Christmas comes upon us. But I also want for her to have a good Christmas. But let's face it, Christmas is not like the movies (unless you count Die Hard and Lethal Weapon). The chances of a Magical Christmas occuring are pretty damn slim.

But here's the truth.

The reason we make such a big fuss over Christmas is because some part of us still remembers waking up when we were 6 and going downstairs and getting that train set, or going to church and singing "Silent Night" with no light but the candles, or sitting on the floor by Grandma's feet while she drank coffee, or whatever. And I think we think that if we get it right this time, it'll be like it was then. And we can try and try, but it's not going to be liek it was then, no matter how hard we work to make it like it was.

But this year I'm going to take it easy and try to relax. THis year I'm going to take a page out of 7-Year Old Ryan's book and not get hung up on it all. But I'll tell you this much, Christmas is a hell of a lot better when you wake up on Christmas Morning with Jamie there than when Mom and Dad made you bunk down with a snoring older brother.



In short, this is my long introduction to Ryan's Christmas Movie Contest.

Rules will be being released this week, so get your engines warmed up, kids. It's going to be a good one.

Greetings, Leaguers.

Halloween has come and gone once again.


Here's our house!


Here's Jamie and Mel saying Happy Halloween!

I am going on hiatus for a week. Hope everyone has a good one.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

It's HALLOWEEN, LEAGUERS!!!!!

There are two big reasons why I like Halloween.



Today on my way to work I saw a fairy princess, the Cat in the Hat, a dead Cowboy, a medieval maiden and the property manager for my office suite. AND Tom, my video guy, just showed up with this insane fake nose. It's gonna be a good day.

Oh, and there's candy.



Anyhoo, last night after dinner we carved not one, not two, but FOUR Jack O' Lanterns. I had to handle three of them as Jamie was reportedly "tired." But that's okay. We also made Jamie's traditional Halloween cookies which have orange zested into them, and are way better than I just made them sound. We watched "War of the Worlds" and "Young Frankenstein" and made a night of it.

"Eye-gor!"
"Froderick!"

It works every time.



I am not wearing a costume. I was going to come as my web designer, Eric, but I didn't get my act together. So I put on the Superman T-shirt and am going to have to roll with that again. S'allright.


I didn't carve this. I found it online. I'll give it a shot next year.

I hope all of you have a Happy Halloween, and get lots of treats and tricks.


"I got a rock..."

Hey Kids. Jim D. has sent me the link to a story on Alex Ross which appeared in The New York Times. I'm a big fan of Alex Ross's work, and I have several posters and prints (three of them signed, thank you) done by Mr. Ross.

Examples of Mr. Ross's work include the picture of Superman which appears right upon this page to your left
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The decription of Alex's house makes me want to paint my walls blue, red and yellow and finally get down with my comic-lovin' self. However, Jamie still has some sense of decorum, and I am fairly certain a life sized replica of the Bat-Signal is nowhere in my future.

I do think it's odd that the article seemed more pre-occupied with Alex's knick-knacks than with the tremendous volume and quality of his work. His collaboration with Mark Waid on Kingdom Come and his work with Busiek on Marvels may be the two keystone books which brought comics back to form from the "anti-hero" path that superhero comics were taking in the early 90's. I know a New York Times reporter probably doesn't care too much about that, but at least a mention of the wide volume of Alex's work woudl have been nice instead of a piece on "look at the freak with the toys!" Sigh. Well, he was the one who chose to dress like The Phantom for the interview.

I have watched Rosemary's Baby and Picnic at Hanging Rock. I enjoyed both films and hope to make my way through all the Halloween movies.

BTW, RHPT.com was highly irritated that nobody suggested The Exorcist. And somebody shoudl have, because in addition to being kind of scary, The Exorcist is just plain wrong. Ay Carumba, how that movie scared me when i was 14 and saw it the first time. I saw this the same week I saw The Shining and A Clockwork Orange for the first time. Quite a week int the development of young Ryan's brain.



Mel is doing well and is pleased as punch about the arrival of Halloween. His costume is the pic you can see on this site each and everyday. he will proudly go as Krypto the Superdog again this year.

He is such a good boy, and he stayed up with me and watched all of the 2 hour ender of Joe Schmo, a show I once hated but grew to watch every darn week. Mel gets a 2 cushion spot on the couch (I get one). Poor Mel will be deeply disappointed when the new couch comes and he can no longer ride shotgun while we stay up to late and watch bad TV.

Last night CBS aired "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" which is still a favorite of mine. If anyone else saw it, did it seem like they cut out a lot of the WWI Flying Ace section? hmmm... conspiracies abound.



I have several dozen little comic books to give out on Halloween. One is "Spidey and the Mini-Marvels" and the other is a lame Archie Andrews Halloween comic. I may not like Archie, but some kid might. But don't worry, we will go ahead and assist in the rotting of teeth. We have many, many bags of candy.

About 9:00 I will begin watching The Shining. Please do not call unless you notice the roof is on fire (this may also work if it's the roof is on fire in the funky, George Clinton manner).

Hey, kids! It's up to you to decide who is too extreme! Vlad Tepes, the guy who impaled his enemies on stakes, or Ann "Nude Photos of" Coulter herself! But here's the great part... you can now have them play together!

In addition to the Vlad doll in the post from Oct. 28th at 11:16, one can now obtain this little piece of modern history.

Sure to be a welcome present beneath the tree of every hateful, spiteful little girl in America.

An excellent case for OSHA