avablog

My friend Betsy and I sometimes trade music recommendations, as we have a mutual appreciation of Jazz (she can actually perform it, while I can only sit back and listen).

The latest album she’s brought to my attention is the soundtrack for Good Night, and Good Luck, which features the silky vocal stylings of Dianne Reeves.  I never got a chance to see the movie, or I would’ve undoubtedly snapped up this music as soon as I left the theater.

Betsy maintains — and I’m hard pressed to disagree — that Dianne’s voice falls somewhere between Sarah Vaughan and Ella.  She has such a wonderful conversational tone, and her range delivers some nice surprises now and then.  This soundtrack would make excellent background music for cocktails with a small group of friends, and some of the tunes are soft enough to make a nice accompaniment for a romantic dinner for two.

I just installed the latest update to WordPress and thought I’d take a minute to document the process I use for anyone who’s in the same boat as I am (and also to have these notes saved somewhere when I invariably forget what I did).

The official upgrade instructions are here. The important bits are:

• Back up your database. I now use a cool WP plugin for this and mail a copy of the backup to my Gmail account.
• Back up your current WP install. I log in to my server and create a .tgz archive of the /wordpress directory in my Web server and then copy it over to my backup drive.
• You should also deactivate your plugins before you upgrade.
• Finally, delete the current WP files on your server except for wp-config.php, wp-content folder, wp-images folder, and any .htaccess file you may have. On my server, I’ve color coded those files and directories with labels (this is OS X Tiger) so I know not to delete them when it comes time to upgrade.

I haven’t noticed any major improvements with this latest update (yet), but it’s nice to be current.

As magnicifent an experience as having a child is, the whole process really makes you appreciate your downtime. The couple hours between Ava’s bed time and our bed time are really exquisite little pieces of the day when Leah and I most often plop down in front of the tube to indulge in some trashy programming on MTV or VH1 or Fox.

This past Saturday night we hit a new low. SNL was a rerun (natch), so we were flipping through the channels, hoping something would catch our eye. What caught our eye, unfortunately, was John Travolta strutting around a soundstage in a ripped tank top and spandex tights with a Kennebeck spud stuffed down the front.

Needless to say, Leah and I were transfixed. The movie we’d come upon was, of course, 1983’s Staying Alive. To quote IMDB, “It’s five years later and Tony Manero’s Saturday Night Fever is still burning. Now he’s strutting toward his biggest challenger yet – making it as a dancer on the Broadway stage.”

There’s also a sweet love story in all this. Tony is a serial philanderer, which is really hard on his sweet-like-honey dancer girlfriend (she has a heart of gold, don’t you know). When Tony sees the hot female lead of the show he’s auditioning for, his libido strains at the fabric of his crudely-fashioned codpiece, and he begins his quest to make her his own. After lots of dancing and sweating and fighting and kissing and a couple musical numbers by Frank Stallone (brother of the director), Tony gets the male lead in the show, reconciles with his original lady love, and goes on to live happily ever after (at least for a couple years).

Telling someone you watched a movie like this is akin to showing off the scar from a bullet wound.

As mentioned below, I wasn’t as impressed with Brokeback Mountain as the rest of the world seemed to be.

The one thing that did impress me, however, was Michelle Williams, who I am pleased to see has been nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actress.  Given her screen time and the performances of the two leading men — Heath Ledger in particular — Ms. Williams’ work here is all the more impressive.  In a film full of seething desire, angst, and repressed emotion, her presence threatened to steal every scene.

I’ve not seen any of the other performances in Michelle’s category, but my gut tells me Catherine Keener could put up some stiff competition.  We’ll know on March 5th.

Ashley Judd doesn’t want to have any babies as long as there’s starvation, overcrowding, and childhood disease in the world.  I understand completely, Ashley.  And I’m not saying that because I believe attractive women can get away with saying whatever they want in public.  I really mean it.

Actually, I’m like you, Ashley.  Children do seem like an extravagance in a country with so much excess everywhere.  I was never someone who yearned to have children of my own, but not necessarily because I wanted to see the resources my child might use distributed to needy kids in other parts of the world.  I just never felt the pull, never heard the slowly gathering “tick tick tick” of some invisible clock somewhere down in my guts.  I liked kids and got along with them, but I didn’t need one.

This morning Ava and I were lying in our bed while Leah took a shower.  Ava, as usual, was sprawled sideways across the space vacated by Leah, snoring delicately and slowly flexing her fingers as though she was grasping the arm of one of her baby dolls.  Maybe she was dreaming.

After a bit Ava rolled over on her side and let out a big sigh.  I rubbed her back in an effort to keep her asleep as long as possible.  I could feel her little shoulder blade as her ribs expanded with each tiny breath.  It struck me again, as it does these days now and then, what a miracle this child is.  Not necessarily a religious-type miracle, but just a relatively small miracle of biology.  A miracle of miniature bones and organs and ligaments and ears and toes and knees and fine, silken lashes that flutter over her eyes like the frilly fringe on the world’s most delicate, exotic fabric.

Naturally, it’s impossible now to consider life without Ava.  She has been in the world and moved and spoken and touched the lives of everyone who’s seen or held her.  She’s the most obscene extravagance I could ever imagine.  What is a Ferrari or a mansion in the English countryside or a 12 carat yellow diamond next to this?  Ava’s perfect life outshines them all and bathes us in its brilliance.

A while back I added this geo tracking code to avablog after seeing it on Aprille’s blog and being smitten by it.  I hadn’t advertised it at all before now because I was curious to see what kind of hits it would get just by being over there in the menu bar.

So far I have a number of results from the eastern half of the U.S. and a smattering in Western Europe.  What I’ve really been waiting for, however, is a hit from Africa.

Well, I took at look at the tracking results today and was excited to see that I’m getting pretty close…maybe as close as I’ll come.  There’s one lonely hit from the Atlantic ocean off the coast of Ghana, smack dab on the equator.  I guess it could just be a fluke result or a glitch in Google Maps, and that would be sad.  I kind of like the idea of some Ghanaian coming across this site and thinking, “W…T…F?”

Leah claims I have road rage issues.  Nonsense, I say.

I regularly move about town on foot, on my bike, or in the car, and I always see plenty of examples of inconsiderate, selfish, and downright dangerous driving.  Do I get frustrated?  Yup.

The problem is that we live a block from a high school and have to drive through the university campus on the way to work.  So if we can manage to get out of the driveway in the morning without getting creamed by some 16-y-o driving his dad’s Lexus down our street at 50 m.p.h., we still have to deal with 30 or 40 sorority girls curising around aimlessly with their cellphones pressed against their heads.

Great example this morning.  We came to a four-way stop near our house just after a young woman driving a huge pickup.  It was just the two of us at the intersection.  She had the right of way, but she just sat there, staring at me, no turn signal or anything.  Finally, she managed to make her turn, and it became clear why she wasn’t able to signal her intent: She was holding a cup of coffee in her free hand.

Even if her failure to signal weren’t illegal, it’d still be just plain rude and disrespectful.  Am I supposed to pull out in front of her crap hauler with my daughter and wife in the car and just hope she’s not going to plow into us?

Leah’s much more tolerant of this kind of thing, I think because she doesn’t recognize it as an indication of a larger societal decline.  Maybe global warming will get us all before the bad drivers do.

Leah and I watched Ava’s little friend Mack this afternoon while his mom went on a short errand.  Mack spent most of his time at our house trying to keep his trucks and cars out of Ava’s greedy little mitts.

When it was time for him to leave, I told Ava to say bye bye.  She walked up to Mack, pursed her lips, and made her “mmmmm” kissing noise.  I figured she’d just do her usual wave, but she obviousy had other plans.  Mack’s mom was a bit thrown, too.  “Is she trying to give him a kiss?”  She told Mack that Ava wanted to give him a kiss, and Mack pursed his own lips, made his “mmmm” kissing sound, and planted one right on Ava.  It was hilarious and insanely cute.  Ava went to give Mack another kiss, but he’d had enough, so she just threw her arms around him and gave him a hug.

Clearly Ava is going to need a talking to.  Although, she could do a heck of a lot worse than a boy named Mack.

You may have read the post below about Steve Martin. Pretty bland. Nothing terribly provocative.

So tonight we get a phone call from the Dove Foundation. Of course we don’t answer it, since it screams “solicitor.” But I’m curious, so I Google them. From their site:

THE DOVE FOUNDATION is a non-profit organization established to encourage and promote the creation, production and distribution of wholesome family entertainment. The Foundation, free from commercial pressures, awards a blue and white Dove Seal to any movie or video that is rated “family-friendly” by its film review board.

Ah. OK. But why us? Why now? Well, check out the list of Dove-approved films on the site. There, right in the top 10, is Cheaper by the Dozen 2. I guess it could be a coincidence that I mentioned that film on this blog late last night and then receive a call from this foundation today. Just to be safe, I e-mailed the foundation to get my name off their call list. You can do the same.

I just saw — again — the trailer for The Pink Panther starring Steve Martin.

Look: Even if you can’t bring yourself to say that The Jerk was one of the most influential comedies of the last 50 years, you can at least concede that Steve Martin deserves better than he’s had in his last couple films.

It’s amazing to me that someone who can exhibit such pitch perfect comedic timing can end up in crap like Bowfinger, Bringing Down the House, Cheaper by the Dozen, and The Pink Panther. What happened to L.A. Story? Shopgirl? Little Shop of Horrors? The Man with Two Brains?! Not to mention (but I’ll do it anyway) his standup and the years he spent on SNL.

I guess he is still working, and that’s important. It’s more than Dice Clay can say.

Ava came up with a new trick last evening.  My mom and brother came over for dinner, and while we were in the kitchen getting ready to eat, Ava was running around like a crazy person, yelling at the top of her lungs.

Newness and cuteness trumped annoyance last night, but I can see this trend turning ugly pretty quickly.  That said, it’s always interesting to see Ava testing us, the way she watches our faces so closely to see if what she’s just done is going to get a reaction out of us.  This phenomemon first appeared a couple months ago when Ava would pick up a piece of food from her tray, then extend her arm to her side and hold the food over the floor, daring us to dare her to drop it.  She’d stare intently at us as we stared at her, her eyebrows raised a little, waiting to see if we’d shake our heads or say “don’t.”  And then she’d drop the food.  “Uh oh!”

The other neat thing about her screaming spree last night was that you could see her revelling in her own voice.  It was like, “how loud can this thing go?”  It’s just incredible to watch her growing up right before our eyes (and ears).

Leah is a nightlight freak.  I like it dark.

I saw this product on Boing Boing this morning and thought it looked like a really cool way to enable Leah to stumble into Ava’s room in the night.  It uses LEDs, which is nice, and has a dimmer switch and a 6′ cord!  Pardon me, I’ve got to go scrape together $30.

We got beat last night five games to none.  Sounds pretty bad, and it is as far as out team rank goes.  But I think we played better last night than we have so far this year.  We took the other team the full hour; they were all young college guys (no girls on their team) who were clearly pretty hardcore athletes in high school.

In other news, this game really tears a person up.  The problem, I’ve decided, is the lightweight balls they have us use.  If you throw with any sort of velocity at all, you’re bound to strain your neck and throwing arm.  As soon as I walked in the door at home last night I popped a 200mg Wal-profen and stuck an icepak on my elbow.  My arm feels OK this morning, but my neck is very stiff and sore.  Thank God we only play once a week.

On the bright side, we didn’t lose anyone to injury last night.  The team we play next week has only lost two games, so I don’t hold out much hope for picking up any wins.  Who knows….

The family headed up to Madison this past weekend to visit Aunt Rachel (“Rashe”) and Uncle Kevin (we’re still working on that one).

Aunt Rachel came up with some cool activities for Ava.  On Saturday we went to the Madison Children’s Museum and had a great time playing with the different musical instruments and watching all the other kids run around.  Dad even had fun making some music.  Ava found a room full of baby dolls and just about passed out from the excitement.

When the museum closed we walked over to Tutto Pasta for a nice Italian meal (it was a cold walk, which didn’t sit so well with at least one member of our group).  Ava did great during dinner; it helped that there was a large open area near our table where she could go run around when she got antsy.

After we got Ava to bed that night, we watched a couple episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm and then hit the hay.

Sunday morning we headed off to Olbrich Botanical Gardens, which is a nice, warm, humid spot to spend an hour or so on a freezing Madison morning.  Ava had a great time walking around all the lush plants and pointing at the koi that were lazing in the gardens’ water feature.

Lastly, I got a chance to get to Steve’s to pick up a case of sweet, sweet New Glarus Edel Pils, which is going to be discontinued this year.  It’s a shame, as it’s just about the best pilsner I’ve ever had.  Here’s hoping I can make this case last until at least my first cookout this summer.

Leah and I saw Brokeback Mountain a while back. It was O.K. Leah enjoyed it quite a bit.

I tried to go into the theater with an open mind, not so much because I had a problem with the relatively graphic depictions of rump ridin’ (see? I’m down with gay cowboy slang), but because the film had by that time accumulated this disturbing critical mass (pun intended…no really) that you don’t normally see outside of the Oprah Book Club. No film with that kind of buzz could ever live up to the hype.

In the end, I was disappointed (and I wasn’t the only one, eh, Jack? *wink, wink*). The film was very pretty. The actors did better-than-passable work (I was particularly struck by Michelle Williams as Alma Del Mar). But I walked out afterwards with a distinct impression that the screenplay had been mishandled somehow. It just seemed to be too much story for the confines of the film I’d just watched (ironic, in a way, given the story’s original format).

I’d put the experience behind me until yesterday, when Leah related an amusing/sad episode she’d had following a meeting at work. As luck would have it, she struck up a conversation about Brokeback with three very liberal women and one very conservative woman. The conservative woman, in a moment of righteous indignation that obviously overcame any internal warnings she may have felt about spouting off in front of her liberal boss, said she found the depictions of gay sex in the movie “disgusting” “nauseating.”

Ooookay. ANYway. Meeting’s over! I sure don’t fault this woman for expressing her opinion about the movie’s content, but golly gee whiz, you’d think she’d take more care in flapping her gums in a place that once canned a woman for speaking out against sticky mousetraps.

when it hits, you feel no pain.

I was waiting for Leah this morning while she fetched her morning joe from her favorite coffee shop.  I had the iPod plugged in and was flipping through my shuffle of 1,937 songs.

It’s an amazing thing, music, the way it infuses meaning into whatever’s going on outside your window.  The same scene can move from relaxed to frantic to morose to happy with the click of a scroll wheel.

I’m excited that Ava seems to like music so much.  In the morning I’ll put on some Bob Marley for her, and she does her little skank right there in the living room.  That’s about as cute as it gets.

Huge, huge entertainment industry news.  Keep an eye on how this changes the face of Apple’s video content offerings at the iTunes music store.

I was browsing my Webalizer logs this morning like I do every day and was surprised to see that my mention of Steve Carrell’s acceptance speech at the Golden Globes was a pretty hot search topic.

So this post doesn’t come across as too blatant a hit-whoring tactic, I will say that I’m consistently amazed by how the Web works.  When you start looking at how all these packets float and flow around and come to form  patterns only to then fall immediately again into disarray, well, it’s pretty compelling.

Also of note is the fact that the string “steve carrell acceptance speech golden globes” plugged into Google doesn’t even bring up this blog.

There’s a story on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today about Disney being in serious talks to buy Pixar.  This would be a huge win for Steve Jobs.  Absolutely huge.  And not just because it would make his stake in Pixar worth about $4 billion.  Consider the investment genius here, from the WSJ piece:

Mr. Jobs acquired the computer-graphics division of filmmaker George Lucas’s Lucasfilm Ltd. for $10 million in 1986 and financed the company, which he renamed Pixar, throughout the late 1980s and early ’90s out of his own pocket as it produced short films, commercials and software.

That original investment has increased 39,900%.  Pretty good, even spread out over 20 years.

But the real kicker here is that Steve was right, and he loves more than anything to be right.  When it comes to investing, Steve’s got the same genes as Warren Buffet.  Jobs understood that people loved to be entertained, and his experience with the Mac, not to mention what George Lucas had done with ILM, convinced him computers were going to be the way to create this content.

So, you need to wrap your mind around the fact that Steve Jobs is likely going to be one of — if not the — most influential entertainment mogul in the first half of the 21st Century.  I hope he remembers to send Bill a Christmas card every year.

This blog has killed whatever small urge I ever had to learn how to crochet.