An Arizona Cheesehead's Thoughts

I just discovered a game on my laptop called Spider Solitaire. Sadly, I have become addicted. I had a choice between reading before going to sleep tonight or playing the game. Game won. Over an hour later, I've decided to shut down the laptop or I won't get any sleep tonight...

The topic of the week around here has been whether a woman should pursue a man she's interested in or wait for him to make the move. I was out with a friend on Friday and she told a story about being on a group trip over the weekend where she and one of the guys hit it off. They spent most of their time together and the group was wagering on whether they would hook up. He did proposition her but she said no (what willpower!) because she felt that if they did get together she would rather it be when they're back in town and not on an alcohol influenced weekend fling. When they got back to town, she called him twice and invited him to some social functions. Both times, he declined because of his kids' schedule. I told her she was done, she had shown an interest and now the ball was in his court. The consensus of those surveyed agreed with me. I'll digress a bit on the kid thing. One of the reasons I'm semi-serious about dating someone in their 20s is they usually don...

Committed - Men Tell Stories of Love, Commitment, and Marriage is a collection of personal essays on how men came to be committed to their partner with a few tales of their parents' relationships thrown into the mix. Some of the stories were poignant, David Sedaris' comes to mind, while some are more practical. James McManus, who wrote Positively Fifth Street about the World Series of Poker, states that he's not as attracted physically to his wife as he used to be although he still loves her. He won't cheat, however, and wouldn't consider divorce because of the financial aspect. Sounds cold blooded when I sum it up that way which does a disservice to his tale as he's not as blunt. A common theme through many of the stories was how the man was completely messed up when he met his mate (emotionally and/or physically) and how she (or he) overlooked that deficiency and found something to love. That love turned into being the saving grace that let the man turn his ...

May God bless the souls of all who have given their lives in service to our country, protect the men and women currently serving and give comfort and strength to their friends and families.

The Coca-Cola 600 is one very, very long race. So, when Sugar Daddy said "Let's go out to dinner." around 5, I was happy for the break. Jimmie was in the top 10 and I was confident he would move up. We hit the TiVo to record the rest of the race and went to PF Chang's. When we got home, I started watching the rest of the race. OK, who knew they were going to have 8 million cautions and the race would run so long? My recording ran out with 57 laps to go and Jimmie was in third. I headed over to NASCAR.com and saw the headline: Three Times A Winner with Jimmie's picture. YAY! Maybe I should miss the end of all of the races. Though, it sounds like it was an exciting finish and I am sorry I missed it. I did see Effing Junior punt his teammate, Michael Waltrip which ended the night for Waltrip, Kenseth and Terry Labonte (who ended up in the hospital). What can I say? There's a reason I preface his name with Effing. I've been concerned that Jimmie...

Philip Margolin's latest book, Lost Lake, is an intriguing read with plenty of conspiracies and violence. The story revolves around a member, Carl Rice, of a secret governmental "Unit" set up during Vietnam that engaged in illegal drug running and assassinations. Rice has been on the lam since the 80s but is arrested for assault during a kids Little League game when he defends the coach from a bullying parent. His arrest draws the attention of Vanessa Kohler, his high school girlfriend and the estranged daughter of General Wingate, a Presidential candidate and leader of the secret Unit. Or, is he? While nearly everyone involved portrays Rice and Kohler as paranoid delusional types since there's no concrete evidence of the Unit's existence, their lawyer, Ami Vergano, tries to find a way to prove their story. Good read with an interesting ending. I enjoyed the characters and wouldn't mind seeing more of them in the future.

Sugar Daddy and I just finished watching Sideways . I have to admit it was a let down after all of the hype it got. We both expected it to be a lot funnier than it was. Sugar Daddy said it was like a book and kind of funny, but he also said it was time from his life that he will never get back. Guess you would call that a mixed review. I thought Giamatti was excellent, as well as the rest of the cast, but, eh..., it didn't excite me that much. I did think the pretentious wine talk was hilarious. I've met those people at tastings and they are so full of themselves. You just have to laugh at them. I'm not disappointed that I watched it but I'm glad I didn't rush out and pay $8 for it when it came out.

This second book by Jonathan Safran Foer is really good, if you like quirky and puzzling texts. The hero of the story is an extremely precocious 9-year old Oskar Schell who lost his Father in the WTC on 9/11. As he tries to reconcile to the tragedy, he finds a key in his Dad's closet in an envelope with the word "Black" written on it. Oskar decides to visit everyone named Black in NYC to see if they can identify the key. He meets an interesting cast of characters along the way. There are other tales being told in the book - his Grandfather and Grandmother take turns telling their stories that started in Dresden, Germany prior to its bombing by the Allies. All of the stories tie together at the end, although the ending is a bit open. I have to confess, there were several parts that left me quite teary-eyed.

Not that I want to be one of those American Idol bloggers... but, if Bo needs some consoling after coming in second, I am so there for him!

Man, I am torn. Our own Senator John McCain, along with a couple of others, introduced legislation to deal with steroid use in professional sports. You can get the full scoop at USA Today . On one hand, don't our elected leaders have something better to do with their time? Like finding a winning solution to Iraq and Afghanistan so our men and women can stop dying and will not have died in vain? How about working on the economy or social security? On the other hand, professional sporting leagues have let steroid and other drug abuse make a mockery out of sports. More importantly, because there doesn't seem to be any consequence, kids today think nothing about using steroids to be stronger and leaner. After all, their sports heroes are doing it and allegedly, so is their competition. Who cares about the health risks? And, I'm sorry if you're a Barry Bonds fan and think he was clean, but come on! Get with reality. He was juiced and gets paid a gazillion dollars. What'...

I've had a book on hold at the library for almost a week so I asked Sugar Daddy if he minded a little detour on our way home from work tonight. He said he'd be OK with it if I promised to be away all weekend. I countered with the idea that if I had another book to read, at least I'd be occupied. He then said he'd go in with me to make sure I found lots of stuff to read. Usually, he impatiently waits in the car and demands that I'm out in minutes so I was happy with the strategy. You may remember my comments about our library branch before but it's in a high school and pretty tiny. Sugar Daddy actually thought, from viewing it from the parking lot, that the whole building was the library and the actual library was the kid's section. Um, no. The majority of the building is classrooms and the library itself is teeny tiny. We both think our high school libraries were bigger (I went to Coronado and he went to Saguaro. Even in those days, he had more money than I)...

What military aircraft are you? EA-6B Prowler You are an EA-6B. You are sinister, preferring not to get into confrontations, but extract revenge through mind games and technological interference. You also love to make noise and couldn't care less about pollution. Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests. OK, gotta admit some of it fits (yeah, noise is good) but I do care about pollution. I carpool and recycle for goshsakes! Found this at GTL who got it from Ogre .

I went out last week with Ted, an old high school buddy, and his girlfriend Rhena to Rio Salado for a lot of fun and way too many beers. A little background about Ted: he's an engineer (used to be a rocket scientist which was much more glamorous sounding), an unabashed conservative who used to call me Pinkie because he thought I was a Commie instead of a liberal and he's one of the few people whiter than I am. So, there we were laughing it up and telling stories when Ted said to Rhena, "You didn't like my Forbidden Toothbrush Dance of Love". (Or something to that effect, we were drinking microbrews so it was getting a little hazy.) OK, the first thing that came to mind was that old joke where the couple's house got broken into and when they later developed film from their camera they saw a burglar with one of their toothbrushes up his butt. So, now I have this picture of Ted, naked with a toothbrush stuck somewhere I don't want to think about doing the onl...

Poker Guru Dudley and Poker Princess Kathy Official Photographer Pabla and Good Loser Tom Poker Winners: Tom, Annette and Bernie Poker Loser (but a winner in life!) Mark in the Loser's Lounge The club had its first ever Texas Hold 'Em Poker Tournament on Saturday. As the Poker Princess, my job was to get players, coordinate the evening and collect the money. That was easy. Winning was not. I think I was the third person out (of 27 total). Man, I had crappy cards. I saw one face card the whole night (on the hand that knocked me out) and had a wired pair of 7s which ended up being two pair but lost to a bigger two pair. No respect for the Princess! There was a mixture of club members and their family and co-workers playing so I got to meet lots of new people. Eric brought two buddies from his work, Bob who was the unlucky person to be out first and Bernie, the tournament winner. Oh, that Bernie! He was throwing black chips out there like crazy and he was just freakin' hilario...

Our latest classic book club read was Ernest Hemingway's, The Sun Also Rises. I had tried to read one of his books a long time ago - I think it was The Old Man and the Sea. I have to admit, I couldn't get past a few pages. The prose was just too dense. Ironically, I was the only one who liked The Sun Also Rises. Brooke hated it. Anne hated it. Susan just didn't like it. Their complaint was with the writing style. Almost all dialog, little description and the first half of the book had little action. I thought it was a deliberate style to represent the times. The story takes place in post-WWII Europe and is about a group of Americans and Brits as they visit Paris (to party) and Spain (for the bullfights - so Hemingway). They're displaced and aimless and the writing style is very much symbolic of that aimlessness. I didn't like it enough, however, to go, "Hey, I want to read all of his stuff now!"

What Is Your Animal Personality? brought to you by Quizilla I don't know if this really fits me but I thought it was funny that I was a Badger because, as I'm sure you all know, Wisconsin is the Badger state. I have to admit to that grumpy part. Anyhoo, I got this from Pammy

Sugar Daddy selfishly made plans with his friend Dave to see Revenge of the Sith without me. The nerve! He did tell me they were going to The Pavilions and I could get a ticket on my own and go with them but, by the time I got around to it they were sold out. So, I bought 2 tickets for Steven and me at Esplanade ($10 each!). Then, I emailed my friend Chris to see where she was going and she said the whole group was going to AZ Mills and some of them had been in line since 9:30 AM. Well, I wanted in on that action so I tried calling Morgan's (one of the line people) cell phone but couldn't get through. I then called the theater and they told me there were plenty of tickets available but I had to go through Moviefone. No problem, I was thinking, until Moviefone (after going through the umpteen steps the automated response system made me do) declared that the show was sold out. I finally called Chris' nephew, Ethan, and he got me two tickets at the box office. At least those ...

You scored as Postmodernist . Postmodernism is the belief in complete open interpretation. You see the universe as a collection of information with varying ways of putting it together. There is no absolute truth for you; even the most hardened facts are open to interpretation. Meaning relies on context and even the language you use to describe things should be subject to analysis. Cultural Creative 63% Existentialist 63% Postmodernist 63% Idealist 56% Modernist 38% Fundamentalist 31% Romanticist 31% Materialist 25% What is Your World View? (corrected...again) created with QuizFarm.com I got this one from El Capitan. I have to admit some of the choices were a bit over my head and I'm not too sure of the results since I'm an extreme rule follower and therefore believe in some hard facts. Oh well, it was an interesting way to spend 5 minutes.

Please note the time of my last post. Now, imagine how happy I was to get called by work at 5:50 AM. Sigh. I finally found a way to sleep past 5:30 (by staying up until 4) and they just had to wake me up.

The Phantom Menace - sucked. Attack of the Clones , not much better. Revenge of the Sith , awesome! The dialog was crisper, the acting far above the previous efforts, the light saber fights incredible and the story line did a great job of tying into A New Hope (or Star Wars , as I still prefer to call it). I have to see it again just to catch all of the little plot points that are relevant to the future story line. There wasn't much of the lighthearted humor and slapstick of the other films but it's kinda hard to be light when telling the story of a turn to the dark side. Especially, when the turn is filled with so many violent deaths. There are lots of dismemberments in the movie and a few truly horrific moments among the mayhem. There's also a couple of hanky moments in there, too. This is a fitting end to the saga. The special effects were superb but didn't overwhelm the story. I mentioned the exceptional light saber battles already but there were also so...