Notes (Media Edition)

Last week was our monthly catalog deadline at work, meaning I spent two days and one night out of town. When I'm there, I stay overnight in a house owned by our company's owner - he and his family used to live there, but they've moved, and as they try to sell it he allows me, our company's traveling salespeople, or other guests to stay there when we're in town. At any rate, I took advantage of my night of solitude by reading "I Am Legend" (the story - still making my way through the rest of the stories in the book of the same name). I find that the effect of horror stories is increased slightly if you read them in unfamiliar surroundings, and this was nearly perfect - a huge house, almost entirely empty, full of all kinds of strange and unexpected noises. Afterward I went out onto the back patio, overlooking a golf course (which, at night, was deserted) and contemplated what it would be like to be the last man on Earth. In those circumstances, I could almost imagine it, and it was a little creepy.

Also on the short story front, I have, at long last, posted the second part of my short story "Scarred" on my fiction blog (click here to re-familiarize yourself with Part 1, if necessary). I hope you enjoy it. Look for the third and final portion on July 1, and yes, you can count on it.

After I got back into town following deadline, Brandi and I finally managed to sit down and watch Juno. Hilarious. In terms of comedy, this is what I expected the incredibly lame Knocked Up to be. As disappointed as I was in that movie, that's how delightfully surprised I was by Juno. Ellen Page and J.K. Simmons were phenomenal.

The week prior to that, Brandi talked me into seeing Sex and the City with her. If you missed it (as I'm sure all of you did), here's what I wrote about seeing it: "Yes, mine was the only penis in the room. But hey, Brandi has gone uncomplainingly along to midnight showings of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings movies, not to mention watching football, basketball, and/or baseball with me practically every night of our lives together. So going with her to see this was the least I could do. And to be honest, it wasn't the worst two and a half hours of my life - those probably came at some point during my bout with chicken pox a couple of years ago. The movie was surprisingly decent, actually. I probably would have worked Jennifer Hudson into it more if I had written it, but that's just me - she was the best part of the whole thing."

One thing I neglected to mention, however, is that Sarah Jessica Parker is SEVERELY ugly. I mean, yowza.

One day this weekend I happened to flip over to VH1 Classic and was extremely surprised to see a video for Def Leppard's new single, "Nine Lives." First off, I had no idea that any channel was still showing videos, even occasionally. And given that...who still makes videos? Weird. Also weird was seeing Tim McGraw cavorting with Def Leppard, but his part in the song is minimal, so it wasn't too jarring.

Tonight Brandi and I are going down to Cincinnati to see Edwin McCain in concert at Bogart's. I've lost count of how many times I've seen him perform; this will probably be #12 or so. He has a new album coming out next week, Nobody's Fault But Mine, a collection of covers of Southern soul songs. The one song I've heard from it so far, "I've Got Dreams to Remember," is pretty awesome, so I'm looking forward to hearing the rest of it. I'm not thrilled, though, that two different stores will be selling "exclusive" versions with different bonus tracks. I may or may not be able to pick up one of those, but I'm absolutely not buying two copies of the whole CD just to get one track I can't get otherwise. If those tracks aren't available via iTunes or Amazon, I guess I'll just do without (or seek some other means of obtaining them), which is really freakin' irritating. Why try to rip off die-hard fans, you know?

On the video game front, right now I'm obsessed with MLB '08 The Show. It had been quite a while since I played a baseball video game, and this one is pretty good. As far as the gameplay goes, at least - the commentary is very repetitive, and quite often it doesn't even accurately reflect what's going on in the game. My lovely wife did buy me a copy of GTA IV, which is really cool and fun, but I haven't yet been able to get beyond my baseball jones enough to give it the attention it deserves. It'll have its day in the sun, though.