Thursday, August 22, 2013

Another Ancient Artifact Uncovered

Thanks to Billy I searched the Daily Orange archives for my famous letter to the editor about Greek life. I read the DO religiously during my four years, and every semester around rush time there would be a cartoon that was some variation on this theme: fraternities and sororities only want good-looking members.
For example: one year the cartoon showed three sorority houses, the first two had signs saying "Rush [greek letters]" and the sign on the third house said "No Fat Chicks!"
In response some uptight sorority member would write a letter saying how sororities and fraternities are concerned with their pledges' personalities and generous spirits, and a reminding us how charitable the Greek community is.
And it would go back and forth and on and on. Until one day, a lone voiced silenced that debate forever:

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Ready for the World

Chase turns 6 today. This has been a monumental year for him. He has learned how to read, how to ride a bike (that technically came when he was still 4) and how to swim. He played soccer (and scored a goal) and t-ball. He went to his first (and second) Mets game, and his first Knicks game. He went to kindergarten and in just a couple weeks he'll start first grade.
Every day he goes over to his friend's house to play. He gets himself dressed in the morning, he feeds himself dinner and he wipes his own ass.
He's becoming independent, which is great for him, but he still needs his mommy and daddy, which is great for us.
At the NJ State Fair earlier this year we bought both kids an unlimited ride bracelet and let them just go nuts. At a certain point we split up so Chase could go on some rides that Julian wasn't big enough to ride yet. One of them was a roller coaster that most adults would consider tame, but it was definitely daunting to a 5-year old. Chase was a little nervous but begged to go on it, loved it and rode it again, and again and again.
They had one of those cameras to take your picture on the coaster, but we never buy them because they're never any good. But this one we bought.
If a picture is meant to be a moment in time captured, to help you remember what you were doing, how you felt and who you were in that instant, then this one was certainly worth $10.
There's Chase at the front of the roller coaster, hands up, bravely ready to grab what comes next. There's Chase, eyes closed, a little afraid of what he might see when he gets there.

Song of the Week

"Landslide" - Fleetwood Mac
"Well, I've been afraid of changing
Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
I'm getting older too"


Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Breaking Bad: "Buried"

So now we have a little more to sink our teeth into. Skylar stands by her man and Marie stands by hers.

This presents a very interesting conflict, because I kind of think this takes killing Hank off the table. It will be harder to get away with killing Hank if Walt would have to kill Marie too, and Skyler would have to go along with it.

I don't want to spend every second of every episode, and all the seconds in between obsessing about how it's going to end, especially because I have a strong suspicion that everything leading up to the finale will make us believe one thing, and the ending will be something completely different.

But I am speculating about what will happen to Jesse. Despite being two pivotal scenes, Jesse did not have a speaking part in this week's episode. I think all this boredom, apathy, and perhaps loss of millions will lead Jesse to start cooking again with Lydia.

Otherwise that scene with Todd doesn't make sense. Why would there even be a storyline involving Lydia and Todd if it didn't eventually bring back Walt and or Jesse?



I loved her red-soled shoes though. Was it foreshaowing the bloodshed? Were they trying to depict how much money she's making? Did the gay costume designers just want to buy fancy shoes?

Lots of unanswered questions remain. Like, in what lottery can you play number 106?

I read that those coordinates are the exact coordinates of the studio where the show is filmed. And apparently the spot where he buried the money is the original cooksite from episode 1 of the series.

And if he buried 6 huge barrels in the hole, wouldn't there be 6 barrelfuls of extra dirt to disperse somewhere?

I'm pretty sure these aren't the important questions, but I really have no idea when or how Walt is going to get outed as Heisenberg, or what he is going to do with that ricin, so I'll ponder these trivialities until next Sunday.