Here Comes the Flood

It's almost June and it's 40 freakin' degrees out. We've got some serious global colding going on. Here in New England, we've been in the throes of a Nor'easter the last few days: temps in the 40s, 50 mph winds, sheets of rain. Pretty lousy.

Deb just got back from a few days in Jacksonville for the funeral of her uncle, who died over the weekend. She noted that it was the first time I've been home alone overnight with the kids, which didn't seem possible and yet was true. The toughest part was getting them both ready for preschool/daycare in the morning; usually Deb and I tag team them and it still isn't easy. Then I had to truck them over to Malden to drop them off at Deb's school and then drive to Marblehead to work. Fortunately, a friend and co-worker of Deb's helped out by bringing them home for us; otherwise, I would have had to leave work at 2 to go pick them up. At any rate, it's good to have Deb back in the hizzy.

What is up:

• Getting psyched for the Memorial Day long weekend. We're heading up to Vermont to watch Deb's brother Matt run his first marathon, the Vermont City Marathon. The very same race I had signed up to do before my Achilles problems put me on the shelf for most of the winter. Hopefully, it won't be raining up there. Five straight weekends of rain in enough already.
• The Crue is in a litigious mood after NBC banned them from appearing on the network again after Vince Neil dropped an f-bomb live on the air on New Year's Eve. I don't really get the point of the whole thing. It's not like they're showing up on TV that much, anyway. When was the last time they were on network TV, 1989?
• Phil Spector's trial has begun and he's pulling out all the stops. Dude looks like he was separated at birth with this classic TV character.
• I was glad to hear that the only season of the great unsung series Undeclared will be out on DVD in August. Created by the same dudes who came up with Freaks and Geeks a few years earlier, Undeclared was not nearly as poignant but pretty damn funny in its own right.
• I haven't gotten into the whole bit torrent scene, but it looks like the feds are cracking down on movie downloading through bit torrent sites. Just another case of the Man trying to keep us down.
• A band I want to check out in more depth is System of a Down, who just topped the Billboard charts with their latest album. I caught them on SNL a few weeks back and they sounded pretty good. I had always lumped them into the nu metal camp with Korn and Limp Triscuit, but they definitely have more substance to them than those other mooks.
• The podcasting phenomenon is growing, and it got a big boost this week from Steve Jobs, who announced that the next version of iTunes will support podcasts. Essentially, what this means is you'll be able to locate and download podcasts using iTunes. Right now, I use software called iPodder to do that, and then load the podcasts into iTunes, from which I transfer them onto my iPod. I subscribe to seven podcasts, which means I usually have something new to listen to every day. Since my radio doesn't work in the 98, I use my cassette adapter to listen to podcasts to and from work.
• The yapping continues between the NHL and players' union. Just let me know if you come to an agreement, gents. Rumor has it the league has set a mid-June deadline for cancelling next season because a lot of its big sponsors say they'll take their business elsewhere if there isn't a deal in place by then. So hopefully, the two sides will get their shizz together. All I know is, a year ago today, the Calgary Flames beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1 in game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals. What a difference a year makes.