Oh My!

Now, regular readers reader, you know I run a family blog here. You know that I’m not the “who’s the hottie” type, and that I’m more likely to post a picture of a good bar-b-que, or a bicycle than of a woman.

I once went out with this woman who, for me, before I met my wife, defined “sexy.” There’s this one image in my head (get your mind out of the gutter! I told you this was a family blog.) that sums that up for me, with her in my t-shirt brushing her teeth.

That said, my goodness, I think I might have a new standard.

Pictures after the jump.

In Germany

So now I’m in Germany.  And seriously, I don’t know what the time zone is, or what the hell I’m doing here.  I really just want to be home.  I got into a fight with my wife in the airport.  I hate that.  We argued because when I called her, she asked me about presents for the kids, and I basically said I’d deal with it when I could.  She got a little pissy about how I should buy real gifts for the kids, and I kind of went off on how I was tired and so on.  Then she went off on how hard she’s had it and so on.  Then we hung up.  She called me back a few minutes later and started in again, so I hung up.  Then I called back a few minutes later and we had an OK conversation.

The whole thing reminded me of the scene from Saving Private Ryan when the guy (I think it’s Nathan Fillian) gets told that his brothers are dead, and he freaks out.  But it turns out that it’s not John Patrick Ryan they’re talking to, but John Francis Ryan.  Then the guy says that maybe it’s a mistake, and maybe his brother actually is dead.  And he just sits there saying “I gotta get home, I gotta get home.”

OK, this is nothing like that.  But it feels like it a little.  I gotta get home.  My kids are there, and my second, a girl now 5 1/2, cries bitterly whenever I’m on the phone with her because she misses me so much.  And my 3-year-old son won’t really talk to me.  All he says is, “I don’t miss you, daddy.”  But the wife told me he was basically sitting by the door for a good while yesterday waiting for me to come through it.  Presents don’t make up for absence.  Whoever made up that term “quality time,” was making up excuses for busy people.  For the last 7 years that I’ve been a parent, the one thing I’m absolutely sure of is the necessity of quantity time.  Just spending time with the children.  Each one.  Lots and lots of time.  And there’s no such thing as too many hugs, or too many kisses.

Whoever says that traveling for business is fun has never done it.  It sucks.

I’m a good parent.  A good father.  And right now I feel like a shitty one.

Au Revoire, Paris

Au Revoire, Paris

Originally uploaded by Hank LNU

Goodbye my friend. I hope it won’t be another 12 years until the next
time I see you.

I was in the Louvre today, and I’m still on beauty overload.

What Time Zone Am I In? Part II

What Time Zone Am I In? Part II

Originally uploaded by Hank LNU

This one should be a bit easier than the last, I think.

What Time Zone Am I In?

Travelling is a bitch.  Pardon my French.

Today:

Hank the Music Critic

Two great songs that you should be able to listen to:

“Tonight is What it Means to be Young,” by Fire Inc.

And “Nowhere Fast,” by Fire Inc.

Navel Gazing and the Dog

You have to admire someone who hates their dog.  And posts a video to prove it.

There’s Nothing Wrong with Going Nowhere, Baby

I once again watched one of my favorite movies in the entire world: Streets of Fire

You can click here for the trailer (I’ll try to upload it later today). And you just have to watch the trailer. See Willem Defoe with a bang. A “bang” as in haircut with bangs, but just one, so a “bang.” Not kidding. In fact, click here for the pic. He looks about 12, doesn’t he?

I think this will post the trailer:

In fact, this is one of those movies with tons of people in it: Rick Moranis, Diane Lane, Bill Paxton, Willem, Amy Madigan, Diane von Valkenburgh, Rick Rossovitch, Robert Townsend, Ed Begley, Jr., and just to let you know how old this movie is, the top billing was given to…wait for it…Michael Paré. Yes, coming off his Eddie and the Cruisers fame and fortune, his next vehicle was this rock fable (although Michael does no singing in this one).

And, truth be told, while there’s a significant amount of campy humor in this movie, it’s just a great, fun movie. And it has great music. The two songs I love are by a two-hit-wonder band called Fire Inc. The only two real songs they had were on this soundtrack: “Nowhere Fast” and “Tonight is What it Means to be Young.” The thing is, Max Weinberg is the drummer for Fire, Inc. He’s also the drummer for the E Street Band (and if you don’t know who the E Street Band is, get off my site now, please). So they have serious cred, as far as I’m concerned.

If you can, rent it. If not, download it (legally of course).

Blast from the Past

The image header has changed from a scene from 300 to a piece of my very old image header from my very old site.  I think I’ll change it every once in a while, just to keep the freshness.

Enjoy.

UPDATE, 10 minutes later: Wow, I went back to see the old site, and got to reading things I posted three years ago. Damn, I was good. OK not so much, but it was a fun ride. For those of you who’ve been reading me for a while, take a tour down memory lane. Click here. The engagement story is there. Some funny movie reviews. My finding MooCow, and VJ, and others.

OK, it was fun for me.

Twas Brillig

OK, so I’m looking through some blogs, and I got to Walking Kateastrophe, which you have to admit is a great name for a blog. And she’s got a great story on there about a proposal. One day I’ll write about mine. Some of my longtime readers might remember that I wrote about it a LONG time ago. When I was still on Blogger, I think. Wow, that was a long time.

But from her, I got to a GREAT name for a blog: Twas Brillig.

For those of you who don’t get the reference (and who I’m sure therefore never took 11th grade English), it’s from Jabberwocky. “Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.” Yes, it doesn’t make sense. That’s the beauty. That, and the fact that Lewis Carroll was likely high on extreme doses of laudanum when he wrote it. (It’s an opiate that was a common painkiller in those days. See also, Tombstone).

The whole poem after the jump.

Ode to My Wife

There’s a great line from Nina Simone’s Wild is the Wind:

You kiss me, and with your kiss my life begins.

I love that line.

The whole song after the jump.

Forever Amber

Yep, another one.

Go read Forever Amber.

I read a post of hers the other day about something having to do with a bathroom (you have to read it). I used to post under the name “Bathroom Reading” so I have affinity for anything bathroom-related.

That sounded better in my head.

So I liked her, and I was going to go back and read some more before I linked or recommended her. But three things bumped her up on the list:

1. She responded to my comment. One of the things I’m a bit of a geek about (and they are legion) is politeness. I think it’s polite, when someone leaves a comment on your blog with a link to theirs, that you at least visit. That, to me, is basic blogging courtesy. To leave a comment back saying thanks, that’s just classy.

2. She likes rants. In her comment, she said she was likely to rant a bit about blog annoyances (hers: text speak and “prolly” instead of probably. Mine: same, plus “Anywho” and “co-inky-dink” instead of coincidence, plus emoticons). I love rants. Going way back to my unrequited love for Rachel Lucas. If you don’t know who Rachel is, just go to google and see. She’s the original ranter.

3. I finally saw her tagline: May contain nuts. I just love that!

Oh, and a fourth. I’m assuming from her domain name that she’s British. And I’m a complete anglophile. Actually, not so much everything British, but I’m a lover of the accent. And red hair, so that’s a plus.

Anyway, go read her.

What I Look For

So I want to get back to regular blogging here, having been sidetracked into the land of video, and upgrades, and other niceties having nothing whatsoever to do with actual blogging.

So since I love introducing people to new blogs, I often get asked, “what do you look for in a new blog that gets you to refer it?”

<conscience attack>That’s a blatant lie, no one has asked me that, ever. A question like that would require something I like to call “readers.” Since I lack readers, I don’t get questions. And even if I had that mysterious thing called readers, I still wouldn’t get that question because to get questions from readers you have to be something I call “interesting.” Which I’m not. </conscience attack>

<beat conscience with a stick> </beating>
<haul conscience off blog> </hauling>
</trying to be as funny as VJ>

So I often get asked that question, and now I’m going to answer it.

I have to admit, when I first look at a blog, the first thing I really see is font size. Tiny is bad.

Then I look at the overall feel of the site. Is it self-hosted? Self-hosted sites aren’t necessarily better, but it shows that the person is a little more serious about blogging. That seriousness doesn’t always correlate to better blogging, but it’s something. Is the banner customized? These are all surface things, but I notice them right away, every time.

Then I read the top entry. You have about 20 seconds to get me interested. I don’t care for serious sites, really. I know there’s a place for sites about cancer, and divorce, and other parading horribles. I’m just not going to spend my time reading them. In the same way, I don’t particularly like “message” movies. If I wanted to get preached to, I’d just watch M*A*S*H on TV. I like movies that keep me entertained. If after the first entry I’m bored, I generally just move on. Maybe, if it’s a cool-looking site, I’ll scroll down a bit, and see if there are good pictures.

Meme=Immediate departure.

If I do leave the site, I’ll also check the blogroll to see if there are any sites with cool-sounding names. If so, I’ll click through. Sometimes, I just go to a site I like and click on the fifth link in the blogroll, then on that site the fourth link down, then the third, then the second, and see where it leads me. You’d be surprised how different things can get after the third link.

Anyway, gotta run.

UPDATE: Re-reading this, I realized that I come across as a bit of what I like to call “an asshole.”  I’m really not.  And I’m not stuck up when it comes to blogs.  But can we just all agree that life is short?  And I frankly don’t have time to spend reading blogs that have…well…bad writing.  Good writing keeps me coming back, that’s all I really meant this post to say.  That’s why I read you, KJ.  You can have all the memes you want.  Because you simply write things I want to read.

VIDEO!!! Take 2; But Successfully This Time

This is a random video, but it also contains the Piccolo Mini song. The password is “Hank.”

from www.vimeo.com posted with vodpod

VIDEO!!! And Piccolo Mini

Hey, I got a video posted! And it has, at the end, me singing the piccolo mini song I mentioned in my last post.

Woo hoo! Video!

By the way, if it asks you for a password, it’s “Hank.”

First Time Out from Hank on Vimeo.

Anyone know how I can actually include the video in the post, rather than as a link? Anyone?

UPDATE: See the post above: I learned how to post videos. Thank you KJ!

Piccolo Mini

There’s this song that I sing with my kids. It’s called Piccolo Mini. The only words are…piccolo mini. You just change the syllable emphasis to make the song:

Piccolo Mini, picCOlo mini
Piccolo Mini PiCO-
-Lo Mini Piccolo MIni piCOlo mini piccolo mini PI-
-Ccolo miNI piccoLO mini piccolo mini picCOlo mini.

I’ll see if I can’t find a way to post me singing it tomorrow.

Anyone know of an easy way to get audio onto your site?

I Do Nothing

Every year, I read the newspaper articles about the Westinghouse talent winners.  These are high-schoolers who do some amazing things, and their winning studies read like the headlines of the New England Journal of Medicine.  I don’t understand even the summaries.

I feel inadequate whenever I read it.  I mean, I was in the Dart club, and the Chess club, and the Newspaper, and Yearbook.  And some other random things.  These people are finding ways to cure diseases.

But just in case I really want to feel inadequate, I look at the following list.

These are the recipients of the Medal of Honor who are still alive: Medal of Honor site.

Go read some of their heroics: click on a name, get a picture and the citation.  Most of them read something along the lines of “while gravely wounded and carrying three enlisted men on his back, recipient killed 43 Germans and took out two tanks using only a paperclip and the contents of his MRE.”  I’m only slightly exaggerating.