DaddyGeek

In What World Are Salvage Condoms A Good Idea?

Dustin Christian — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:56:41 +0000

One of the things Rhonda has most been looking forward to doing once we got to Lucedale is shopping at Hudson’s. Hudson’s offers incredibly cheap merchandise by buying out salvage sales.

This is normally a brilliant idea, but today I found this in one of their glass cases.

In what world are salvage condoms a good idea?

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The HTC Hero Is Kinda Awesome

Dustin Christian — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 06:26:45 +0000

Just trying out the Wordpress app on my new phone. Updates from the mean streets of Lucedale soon.

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Under The Dome – Not Worth Reading 1,074 Pages.

Dustin Christian — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:40:08 +0000

: Cover of Under the Dome: A Novel

I have tried over and over to write a review of Stephen King’s Under The Dome that sounds intelligent and is full of subtle nuance, but my thoughts come down to one simple opinion – after over 1,000 pages, Under The Dome leaves you disappointed and feeling like King has wasted his time and yours.

A major problem is that King doesn’t seem to know exactly what kind of story he wants to tell. The first chapter sets us up for a story about what has caused a small town to be cut off from the rest of the world by an invisible dome. Almost immediately thereafter, the dome is relegated to a subplot and the book focuses on the a corrupt councilman and his cronies persecuting anyone he deems necessary in order to keep his stranglehold on his personal fiefdom and the growing resistance growing around a drifter who is also a former army interrogator haunted by the things he saw in Iraq. After over 1,000 pages, though, that conflict is never brought to a satisfying conclusion and we finally discover the secret of the dome in a characteristically (for King) hurried ending.

Ok, it’s probably not fair to say that King didn’t know what kind of story he wanted to tell – it’s an exploration of the cruelty we are all capable of, regardless of gender, race, nationality, or even planet of origin. It’s more accurate to say he didn’t seem to know how he wanted tot ell the story, or didn’t trust the story to stand on its own without shoehorning some fantastical element into the background.

The dome could have easily been attributed to a more mundane source, allowing King to focus more on the effect it had on the town and giving the two opposing forces a more satisfying confrontation and resolution, and I not only would not have minded, but likely enjoyed the investment that reading 1,074 pages requires. Instead, King forced a fantastic, otherworldly cause into the ending and I’m left feeling that I read the whole thing for nothing.

Maybe this was one of Scott Landon’s “bools?”*

*Scott Landon was a character in King’s Lisey’s Story, another book that probably didn’t need the otherworldly element to tell its story, but at least it didn’t feel shoehorned in

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How We Saved Money On Our Rental Truck

Dustin Christian — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:42:28 +0000

Just a quick note about something I found useful during the planning of this move.

On Retail Me Not, I found a coupon code that saved me 30% off our rental truck from Budget, which I’ve found is generally the cheapest for these one-way moves that I keep finding myself making.

That code doesn’t seem to be available anymore, but there are more, and any savings is good savings!

PS – Neither Budget nor Retail Me Not paid me anything for this post, though I’d be happy to accept their money if it was offered.

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The DaddyGeek Offices Are Moving

Dustin Christian — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:37:37 +0000

There's never a bad time for Nick snuggles

There have been a lot of changes since the last time I posted here.

I’m sorry about that, by the way. The longer I go without writing, the harder it is for me to actually start writing. I’ve lost count of how many posts I’ve talked myself out of writing by thinking they weren’t “Daddy” enough or “Geek” enough or just plain not interesting enough. Which is kind of ridiculous when you think about it, because since when is anything I write interesting?

And that’s about as good of a segue as I’m likely to give myself since the biggest change will probably result in a slight shift of focus (and, hopefully, a return to regular posting). In light of the sucky economy and a desire to see our boys grow up close to at least one side of their family, Rhonda and I have decided to say “Goodbye” to Orlando and move (back, in the case of Rhonda and Nick) to Lucedale, MS, where her family lives. This will probably result in posts that have less to do with fatherhood or geekiness and more to do with the experiences of a guy who is both a daddy and a geek.

For instance, I’m sure I’ll be writing about the culture shock that a big-city yankee experiences in a small southern town. Or, since Jude will be staying in Florida with his mom, I’m sure I’ll do plenty of whining about how much I miss him.

Most of the other changes (that I can talk about right now) are smaller in scale and more routine. Harper is now pulling himself up to standing and taking steps with help, which will make any parent proud. He also has me half-convinced that he’s trying to say “Daddy”, but that could easily be wishful thinking at this point.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately and I’m working on posting some book reviews. I almost have one done for Stephen King’s Under The Dome, so look for that soon.

Rhonda’s working on a 30-day Vegetarian Challenge and I’ve decided to go along for the ride, while reserving my right to eat a hot dog if I can’t hack it, so there will likely be some thoughts on that and some recipes.

And that’s about it, for now. There will be a lag in posting during the move and for awhile afterward, but you should all be used to that for now. Otherwise, I’ll try to find interesting things to say about the preparation, execution, and aftermath.

For Rhonda’s perspective on all of this, and to just bask in her general witty awesomeness, you should check out her new blog – Hepburn and Houndstooth.

And I’m out.

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Sanjay Gupta Performs Brain Surgery On Board US Warship

Dustin Christian — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:48:38 +0000

: Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I thought this was worth noting for two reasons. First, because his name is incredibly fun to say. Come on, say it with me… GOOP-taa. You can’t do that without smiling.

Second, because how hardcore is this? “So yeah, I just pulled this hunk of concrete out of a girl’s head. On a warship. In between live reports. No big deal.” Hard-damn-Core.

Here’s the write-up, courtesy of The Raw Story:

tar CNN medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta — a practicing neurosurgeon — performed brain surgery on a 12-year-old Haitian girl Monday aboard a US military ship.The girl, whose name was not released, was injured in last week’s devastating earthquake, and was diagnosed as having a 1.2-cm (0.4-inch) chunk of concrete embedded in her skull.

The ship’s surgeon called for a neurosurgeon, which are in short supply in the region amidst the mammoth and often chaotic rescue and recovery operation.

“With the help of a CNN producer, we called CNN in Atlanta who then patched us through to Doctor Gupta in Port-au-Prince,” said the Vinson’s Deputy Public Affairs Officer Erik Schneider.

“Someone got a hold of our international desk,” 40-year-old Gupta later recalled. “They said there was an urgent call from the Carl Vinson. So I put a call in to them and there was something about a head injury.”

Assisted by Los Angeles surgeon Henri Ford and the ship’s surgeon Kathryn Berndt, Gupta pulled off the surgery between his multiple reports for the international news network on the massive quake that hit the Caribbean nation.Gupta and Ford said they anticipate the girl making a full recovery.

“I was honoured to help out,” said Gupta afterward. “I have a profound respect for the capabilities of the US Navy and the medical team on board the Carl Vinson,” he said.

Gupta was considered for the post of President Barack Obama’s surgeon general but withdrew his name in March last year due to family and career reasons.

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Phasers Set To Lame

Dustin Christian — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:08:39 +0000

If I ever try to make my family do anything like this, they have my permission to shoot me.

For further amusement, you should know that I had a brain fart and originally saved this picture as “Awkward_Star_Wars.jpg” Major geek sin!

via Awkward Family Photos

Can I Even Call Myself a Geek Anymore? I’ve called myself a geek for longer than I can...

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hey Jude – Flowcharted

Dustin Christian — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:29:17 +0000

Jude isn’t mentioned very often in this journal, mostly because Harper – being a baby – consumes the vast majority of my attention. But he’s mentioned even less than Nick, and I think that’s because Jude is the only one of my boys that doesn’t live with me. Instead, he lives with his mom and I only see him on weekends. That’s much more than a lot of separated/divorced/whatever dads see their kids, and I’m lucky, but it’s still not as much as I’d like to see him. But that wasn’t my point. My point is that I don’t spend as much time with Jude as the other boys and thus have less stories about him.

But this post … this is all about the Jude bug.

I’ve lost count of how many people have sent this image to me and I smile every time I see it. I imagine I’ll still be singing “hey Jude” (badly and off key) to my little boy at his college graduation and he’ll curse Paul McCartney’s name to the end of his days.

Very witty artwork from love all this.

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Nathan Petrelli Grounded

Dustin Christian — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:40:25 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

Nikki Finke is reporting that Adrian Pasdar, who plays Nathan Petrelli, has been let go from Heroes.

While some people, like my eternally naysaying friend The Notorious RJP (Welcome back, by the way, Robert!) are insisting that this is a terrible move and yet another example of Heroes heading downhill fast, I look at this as a good thing for the show, if not for Pasdar.

I never really liked Nathan, he was always one of the most annoying yet boring characters on the show. Turning him into an even bigger douche last year didn’t help his case at all and the only really interesting thing that could be done with the character has already been done when Sylar killed him and then was forced to take over his personality. With Sylar’s own consciousness reasserting itself in his body, everyone should have known that “Nathan’s” days were numbered.

What makes this very interesting to me is that I was just reading about an interview that Greg Grunberg, who plays Matt Parkman, did where he stated that the upcoming death of a main character was not one of the Petrelli brothers. Thus it looks like we’ll be seeing two major characters leave this season.

Edit: The title of this post originally had a question mark because there was a slight possibility that Nikki Finke was wrong, but I’ve just read an article by Kristin Dos Santos on E!’s website not only confirming that Nathan is gone but that his death is the one that has been rumored all along. This indicates that either Greg Grunberg was either throwing up a smokescreen or that there’s another death that hasn’t been leaked yet.

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Can I Even Call Myself a Geek Anymore?

Dustin Christian — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:44:10 +0000

I’ve called myself a geek for longer than I can remember. It’s always seemed to just…fit. I enjoy science fiction, fantasy, videogames and (most of all) comics, I understand computers, I can produce useless bits of trivia at a moments notice. My credentials were pretty much impeccable. Lately, though, I’ve begun to question if I have the levels of commitment and obsession to truly qualify as a geek.

I like science fiction, but I’ve never sat through a single episode of the original Star Trek and have probably seen only a handful of episodes of any of the spinoffs like New Generation, Voyager, Deep Space 9, or Enterprise. Some would argue that skipping stuff like Enterprise is merely a sign of good taste and my ability to name all of the spinoffs alone qualifies me as a geek, but I’m not quite done.

I like the original Star Wars trilogy, but I realize that they really weren’t all that good. The prequels only made that more obvious.

And I really don’t care who shot first.

I’ve never seen most of the other classic science fiction series. I know what Babylon 5 and Farscape are, but I’ve never seen them. I missed entire season of Battlestar Galactica, including the last one. Twilight Zone may be a classic, but it also bores me to tears. I don’t think I could claim science fiction geekery. Hell, I don’t even care whether you call it SF, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction, SciFi, or even the dreaded SyFy.

I’m probably even worse in fantasy. I read the entire Lord of The Rings saga once, but that was mostly out of sheer stubbornness. JRR Tolkien may be the god of world building, but the man was a boring writer. Robert Jordan was marginally better, but I wouldn’t delve into the Wheel of Time to save my life. My kid’s lives…. maybe, but I wouldn’t count on it. I love George RR Martin’s Songs of Fire and Ice, but I can’t even remember when the last installment came out. I stuck through Stephen King’s Dark Tower cycle, which marginally qualifies as fantasy, but I doubt that it really gains me any points in the fantasy geek department. The only fantasy books I read these days are Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden books and occasionally others along that line (though never again will I touch Laurel K Hamilton’s books), but they’re about as fantasy as Avril Lavigne is punk. You may think that liking that genre means I loved Buffy, but I missed probably three times as many episodes as I watched. I think I may have finally watched all of Angel, but my point stands. In the end, I think my only (miniscule) qualification is occasionally playing World of Warcraft, and even jocks and stockbrokers do that.

Computers? Don’t make me laugh. There was a time when I was on track to being a major tech geek. I majored in Electrical Engineering with a computer science emphasis, worked in tech support, and built computers on the side. Then I stopped really caring about computers all that much. I can still troubleshoot and read tech articles without my eyes glazing over, but it’s just not the same. That’s beside the fact that I now use Macs almost exclusively and thus have to learn alot of stuff all over again. I only learned how to release and renew the IP on this sucker last week.

If anything, I’m a comics geek. I can explain to you the origin of almost any comics character as well as the theme of their existence and usually I’m not even tripped up by the fifty continuity reboots that have happened in DC comics. I still love comics, but I can’t really bring myself to care as much as I used to. When finances went to crap, I quit reading comics and haven’t really been keeping up for the past few months. The other day I realized that it really doesn’t bother me that much to be missing out. I have very little idea what’s going on in comics today and I honestly can’t say that I miss it all too much. Batman’s dead, who knows what’s going on with Superman, pretty much anybody who ever died in the DC Universe is back and eating hearts, The villains run the Marvel Universe, and all I can manage is a resounding “Meh.” I’ll undoubtedly start reading again and catch up with what I’ve missed, but I don’t feel a burning need to do so. That lack of passion makes me think that I may have lost my geek touch.

Which is the real problem. I just don’t care all that much anymore. Keanu Reeves’ performance in Constantine has very little resemblance to the John Constantine in Hellblazer, but I still enjoyed the movie. I may have enjoyed it more if they hadn’t called the movie Constantine, but it’s not that big of a deal. The same goes for Wanted. It was a fun movie. Nowhere near as good as Mark Millar’s comic series, and I still think they could make a very good, very faithful adaptation of the series, but I still kinda liked it.

This, more than anything else, is a cardinal sin of geekdom and I don’t care. I think they just may pull my card.

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