A Few Notes

I was a pretty big fan of horror movies as a kid. I loved the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th series, and I have no idea how many hours I spent watching B-grade movies with my cousins Rachel and Mike. Having gotten away from that interest in recent years, I decided a while ago to dedicate the month of October to watching horror flicks. To that end, I started a 2-week trial of Netflix earlier this week. I got my first movie, 1408, yesterday, and I even managed to get Brandi to watch it with me last night. Needless to say, Brandi's not a horror movie fan; she actually screamed out loud at least once. I enjoyed it. It was pretty creepy, even if it did drag a little bit at times (I saw the director's cut, not the theatrical version, which I've since read was better). I thought the short story was better - I didn't especially care for some of the plot points they had to add in order to make it a feature-length film - and especially in audiobook format. Stephen King himself narrates, and he does a phenomenal job.

That one's being mailed back to Netflix this morning. I don't know if I'll get through them all this month, but still in the queue are The Mist, 28 Days Later, Secret Window, and the Nightmares and Dreamscapes series.

Arriving at some point today should be my new iPod. Well, Brandi's new iPod, I guess I should say. After a history of trouble, my iPod gave up the ghost a few weeks ago. When purchasing a new one was discussed, somehow it was decided that Brandi would get a new one and that I would take over her old one. Not sure how that works. At any rate, we ordered one from Best Buy, who assured me that it would ship the next day. Well, the next day I got an email saying that the iPod we wanted was backordered, and that it would ship within 1-2 weeks. Well, today is 3 weeks...I finally got an email last night saying that it had been shipped, and tracking the package informs me that it's in the area and should arrive soon. So that'll be good. I've definitely gotten used to being able to carry my entire music collection around with me, and losing that capability has been a harrowing experience.

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that I'm a big fan of Dan Dakich, former head coach of the BGSU men's basketball program. Coach Dakich finished up last season as the interim coach at Indiana after Kelvin Sampson was fired, and he held that position until the Hoosiers hired Tom Crean away from Marquette. Earlier this week, Coach Dakich embarked on a new career - he's now hosting a daily 3-hour sports talk show on an Indianapolis radio station. I've listened to it each day this week, and he's really good. He sounds like he's been doing it for years, actually. He's got some hilarious stories, and you can tell he has a blast bantering with callers. It focuses mainly on sports in the state of Indiana (IU, Notre Dame, Purdue, the Colts, the Pacers, etc.), but he's shown that he'll talk a little bit of anything, and there's been plenty of mention of Bowling Green. It streams live online from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 1070 the Fan, and I recommend it highly.

I forgot to mention it, but my celebration of Banned Books Week took the form of a re-read of the Harry Potter series. I intended to read something I hadn't read before, but I'm still working my way through Atlas Shrugged. I'm enjoying it, but for some reason I'm having a hard time making myself and read it for long stretches of time. It's a long book, so it's taking me quite some time to get through it, which is unusual for me.

In these troubled economic times, I'd like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that DVD movies, music CDs, and audiobooks are available to be borrowed from your local public library. Oh, and regular books too, of course.

I didn't watch the presidential debate earlier this week, and I have no intention of watching the next one. I know who I'm voting for. Nothing's going to change my mind at this point, especially not with the tiresome tone the campaign has taken. I'll be glad when this whole thing is over, which thankfully is less than four weeks from now.