I went to the drive-in yesterday to see what would have been a wonderful double feature Kung-Fu Panda and Indiana Jones. It would have been wonderful if the second feature hadn’t been Indiana Jones and the Crystal Who-Gives-A-Crap.

If you haven’t seen this movie, do yourself a favor and skip it. It’s not worth the let down. It’s badly paced, badly written and plain old just bad.

You couldn’t have put more crap in a movie if you’d edited the thing in a moving train car full of cattle.

The beginning is slow and occasionally stupid. The middle is long and occasionally mind numbingly boring, and the ending. . . OMG! What The Crap!

I adore the Indiana Jones series of movies and I can only pray that this is not the one that they go out on. It will tarnish the memories of every good film Harrison Ford has ever made. I say find a decent writer and start again. Then tell us this one was some strange practical joke and that we should just forget we ever saw it.

Seriously, though, Movie Industry. If you are going to rob us of 12 dollars (which is what most people in the country will pay to see this snot) at least knock us out first, so that we don’t actually have to watch you destroy the fondest memories of our youth.

Anyone who has seen this movie and loves it, please I must know two things. Firstly, what movie were you watching, because mine sucked

Then, what drug and/or alcohol did you take and/or drink before the movie, and is it legal in the lower 48?

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Well, I’ve learned a little bit about myself this past year and one thing I’ve learned is that no matter what my faults and foibles I’m basically just as good as the next person ( and/or blogger ). I’m not college educated, but I’m more or less self educated. (I did graduate from high school with an honors diploma, by the way.) I have opinions that are not completely out in left field. I have several stories to tell that others may very well find to be interesting and/or helpful or at least poignant.

So, why else haven’t I been back in the last year. Being a stay-at-home mother of a three-year-old (turned four-year-old) is not as full of free time as one might believe. I’ve also been struggling with a novel that just will not let me finish it. (It’s just too personal.) I’ve had several computer problems over the last several months. Not to mention the fact that we’ve been more or less tirelessly searching for a house to buy. (A very inexpensive house, please.)

I’m back now though, for a while at least. I have a few new ideas, a few old ones and I basically can’t wait for the election. Hopefully this blog will be updated daily for the foreseeable future. (I say hopefully because who the heck really knows what will happen tomorrow.)

Thanks and stay tuned.

So, that means the youtube stuff is still on hold. (It takes way too long to upload all the stuff I’ve got ready. I might upload one thing. That’s it.) That means no puppy for my kid, for at least a few months yet. (We will get moved sometime this year, maybe.) I’m slightly upset about the whole thing, mostly about the not knowing. But things could be worse. I suppose.

More later.

So, this post is just a heads up, to let the few of you who have stuck around know what is going on and that I haven’t disappeared or had computer problems again. I’ll try to write at least one more post this evening after 6 p.m. and maybe by then I’ll be able to put up some stuff on the site. 

(Oh, yeah. Sorry about the title. It was the most creative thing I could think up at 7:30 in the morning. Also the most descriptive of the present situation.)

I have very few words to write about a man that I admired more than I could admire almost any teacher or diplomat or great man. His novels and essays speak for themselves, and say far more than I could ever imagine.

For those of you who haven’t heard: Kurt Vonnegut, one of the greatest thinkers and writers (in my personal opinion) has died. He lived about sixty years longer than anyone could have ever expected him to. He was a father to many children and a teacher to hundreds of thousands more.

He is often compared to Mark Twain and I would guess that he did not object too long or hard to that. I suppose he was the Twain for the twentieth century.

I have not read every word he has ever written (yet). But it is a thing I will strive to do in the future. I know that as a writer (unpublished, just yet) I have always wished I could write as he does (did). It was not simple for him, but it is simple for us (the readers).

Those who do not understand his writings need not try so hard. Read it twice or three times. It won’t hurt you. (Cat’s Cradle is a good start.) It’s easy to read and it only takes a while for the words to sink in. Maybe it’s like how you feel when you lie down on the ground on a sunny day and can see only sky above you. It’s hard to comprehend that you are basically staring into infinity. Or maybe it’s like the thing kids do when they take a mirror and try to walk around by only looking down into the mirror. (When you do this outside its like your body imagines that you’re flying. You get a tingly, sort of light-headed feeling. I always get that tingly feeling when I’m reading Vonnegut. The feeling I’ve always imagined is my Soul letting me know it still exists.)

Knowing about his life makes me realize that there is still so much in humanity to be proud of, so that we can point to it and say “A person, a man, a human being, did that and something else and even something better.” His passing will leave a hole that not even every word ever written could fill, but the fact that he existed and did things and wrote things and lived things gives us the hope that there are others out there who might have learned at his feet (or at least from his books and stories).

I say to you, whomever may read this, Kurt Vonnegut was a man. He lived a long life. He saw much and lived much that would’ve destroyed another man. He was a writer and a thinker. He has died. “So it goes.”

(Small aside: my kid is talking in her sleep. It’s 5:45 and she’s sleeping in the room down the hall. Yes, my three year old talks in her sleep. Pretty loudly, too.)

I have returned, though, and with some interesting, if not amazing news. I will be getting High Speed Internet at the beginning of next month. Yeeehah!

(Another aside: Does anyone besides myself hate that the updated doohickey here at WordPress implements a spellchecker. — By the by : the spellcheck does not recognize WordPress nor spellcheck. I despise spellcheck. If I want to misspell a word I shouldn’t have to be bugged about it. It can probably be turned off, but I haven’t figured out how, yet.)

Anyway! Until I get the cable internet in May, I’m unable to be on the internet at all during the day, so I’m using this time to totally rework the whole site (offline). By the Big Spring Holiday I should have at least a handful of pages up, including a brand new home page (or whatever the kids are calling it these days) and at least one downloadable file. (’Downloadable’ bothers the spell checker. Is it not a word? By the by, ‘offline’ also is underlined. Hmmm? Seems the spell check dictionary is antiquated. That word looks like it is spelled wrong but it isn’t. Antiquated is a strange word, it sounds unreal and looks even worse, but the spell check accepts it so I will too.)

Does the last paragraph seem strange to anybody? It does to me. I’m not even tired (went to sleep early and woke up early) but that paragraph looks like I haven’t slept in days. Maybe I’m just rusty.

I should have some new pictures up at flickr, under tracelore, by 9:00 my time. Nothing much. Some old stuff. Some new stuff. I’ll write more later, probably after 6:00 pm. For now, good bye, with all that that entails.

Anyway. . . Here it is:

Music Today (Whenever)

Was just listening to “Everything That Glitters” about a mother who deserted her child (and husband, apparently). Sort of puts things into perspective. I used to cry over that one, but its just too real to cry over.

I mean, you cry over that sort of thing you never stop crying. (Hmmm. A mother who doesn’t give a damn. That I understand.)

Sitting listening to Dickey Lee sing “Rocky”. Old memories, there. Heard that one when I was tiny and it always made me cry. I feel it welling up at that second to last verse. One tiny tear. Gives me the slight shivers, but its so old and its been so long. (Bobby Goldsboro’s “Honey” is like that. Still brings a tear. But you feel like you’re too grown up to really cry over it.)

Last real tear jerker on the disc is a version of “Seven Spanish Angels” with Ray Charles and The Highwaymen. That’s a real nice, old sounding song. Like something from a century and a half ago.

It’s later and I’m listening to “The Change” by Garth Brooks. The one with all the sound clips from 9/11. It brings tears, but it’s not sad. It’s uplifting and beautiful, especially in his resonant voice. Always did like Garth Brooks. He’s very unique.

(By the way, the next song was Two Pina Coladas. A fun drinking song. That’s a good way to cheer up.)

Remember how I used to talk about my diet. Well, I don’t talk about it anymore. I’ve tried a hundred things and none of them have worked, so I’m going to try something I did when I was 14 and lost 25 pounds over the summer. (It’s nothing terribly, horrible. I was never anorexic or anything. I just lived on vegetables and water for a summer. —Come to think of it I’m not much taller, maybe two inches, than I was when I was 14, maybe that diet stunted my growth.— But, no matter. I have a couple of weeks until That Fabulous Spring Holiday when the Big Bunny brings tons of chocolate to my house, so I think I’ll see how much I can lose between now and then.) I’m keeping a video log of my progress, starting today. I’m going to be as honest as I can with it, meaning I’m not going to tell my weight, but I will tell how much I lose. (The videos will be up on Youtube — under teddytayl — by Easter, if not before.)[Well, that never happened, and this edit is taking place in 2009. Yikes!]

Anyway. . . I’ve had many things to think about since I last posted and I’ve written many of them down on Microsoft Notebook pages. I think I’ll probably be posting those sometime between now and 10:30 my time. (When I relinquish my hold on the phone line. My birthday wish is cable internet.)

Well, it’s been real and it’s been fun, but it hasn’t been real fun. (Hahaha. Just kidding. Actually heard that on Lilo and Stitch last week and it still cracks me up. Am I hopeless, or what?  — Wait, don’t answer that question. Rhetorical? That’s right. Yeah. We’ll go with that. It was rhetorical. — Oh, no, now I’ve got that scene from “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” stuck in my head. I hate rhetoric!)

Okay. That was weird. I will return. In another post. Not long from now. Pretty soon. See yah.