U2 3D: The First Live-Action 3D Concert Movie, Featuring U2 -- National Geographic

I haven't blogged about this because I don't know what to say. Do whatever you have to do to see this as soon as possible. The wife and I found a wonderful friend willing to sit at our house while the girl was asleep so we could go Sunday night.

It's a fraction of the cost and hassle of actually going to a concert. You don't have to worry about not being able to see around the 6'11" tall imbecile standing in front of you (although you may find yourself actually trying to see around people...the 3D is INSANE) that keeps farting because he knows nobody can hear him. You don't have to worry about your 5' tall wife being trampled by idiots who were in kindergarten when The Joshua Tree came out and have never even heard Unforgettable Fire. You don't have to deal with the traffic or $10 bottles of water.

I don't know if I'm ever going to actually see U2 in concert, but all of these things make me really question whether or not I want to. Besides avoiding all these downsides to an actual concert experience, you get to pretend like you can fly all over the stage.

The only downside to the movie is that you really want to stand up and scream and blow out your vocal cords singing along with Bono and wave your arms and clap and and dance and cry and exalt in the glorious spectacle of it all but you can't. You're sitting in a movie theater.

(Actually, you can cry. In fact, the 3D glasses you have to wear afford no peripheral vision, so you don't even have to worry about the people you're sitting with seeing you weep...)

cat out of the bag...

I wanted to name this entry "randomnity" again, but thought it my make my plethora of readers confused and just see the title and not read anymore. But just because I didn't name the entry that, doesn't mean that I'm not going to be random.

-On Valentine's Day, H & I and I stayed home and ate and watched Seinfeld. Then we loaded up and took I to the new Coldstone, came home, played with I and put her to bed. Then H & I settled in to watch Chocolate which would lead to regular V day activities for married people. About half way through the movie, H says, "I don't feel very good..." This was proven to be more than just a clever deterrent for my amorous advances when she woke up at 3:30 am puking up all that expensive ice cream. She was in pretty bad shape. I got up and went to school and felt ok until I started driving home and then I started feeling not so good. I didn't have the issues she did, I just felt gross all of friday evening and most of today. I haven't eaten hardly anything just because I don't feel like it. I don't know if we just caught some little stomach bug or what, but I'm ready to be done with it. We're just hoping that I. doesn't get it.

-Speaking of intestinal issues of the little shack: something is going on. She's not acted out of sorts, but she's had the grossest diapers all week. The smell, consistency, volume, and plethora (hey, i got plethora in twice in one post!) would have us worried if she didn't seem in such high spirits.

-So, it's not like I've really kept it a secret all this time, but for some reason, a number of the students at PG middle school have just figured out that I am a musician. I will admit that I've not talked about it much, and when asked directly, I usually answer honestly and then say something like, "do you have your homework done?" But, suddenly I'm being bombarded by questions by a number of students, many of which i don't even know or have in class. Here are just a couple of my favorites, including a variety that are part of the reason why I didn't really want to make a big deal out of it to the students:

"Are you famous?"
"Mr. Shacklett, do you lead a double life?"
"What kind of music do you play?"
"Where can I buy your CD?"
"If you're a singer, how come you're teaching us geometry?"

I've finally landed on my regular response being: "If you're really curious, get on itunes and download my cd for yourself. And get all of your friends to download it too."

Anyway, students have found my web-site which means that they may be finding their way to this blog, too. That has me a little worried, although most would never take the time to actually read this much, so we'll see how transparent I'll be able to remain.

-currently reading "In Dubious War" by Steinbeck. Just found it in the library and since I'd not read it, I thought I'd give it a go. It's kind of weird in that it's about striking apple pickers in there 30's. I am still often amazed at how clueless I am. I really didn't connect unions and striking with socialism. At least I didn't realize that around that time, anybody trying to organize for better wages/working conditions etc. was labeled "red". I figure there's a lot of history out there to know, I'm just not sure how I got by with learning so little.

-forgot to mention that I finally got to see "There Will Be Blood". WOW! very dark and a little disturbing but incredible. It's really not that enjoyable to watch, and I felt kind of wore out by the time it was over. But, it really sticks and rolls around in my head and I kind of want to see it again.

-Speaking of movies. I LOVE my co-teachers. They are some of the best people and I can't believe how fortunate I am to have landed on this team and surrounded by the teachers around me. That being said, I can't believe how different our tastes in movies. I won't even mention the movies they talk about going to see and being excited to go that I don't even want to accidentally be in the room when they come on dvd (or usa channel weekend movie which is where they're destined to wind up). And the movies that I'm excited about, they go running the other way. It's just weird.

-James told me that U23D is supposed to be at the new Razorback starting last Friday. I'm excited and have read a couple of reviews that have me even more excited. But when I checked the listings, the only 3D movie at that theater right now is "Hannah Montana 3D". This does not bode well...

-Still want to see Juno.

what the ?

"...too many people are brainwashed by his message of hope..."

I heard this quote on tv today.

Does anybody else think that this statement is insane? Wouldn't we want to be hopeful about an election year? Could it be that I, of all people, am landing on the side of the line that is wanting to be optimistic? (...fuze....blown...)

I also read an op-ed piece today that talked about the elephant in the room being "could a black man actually be elected president of the U.S."? Through some short/trivial conversations today and Hillary's victory of AR, I guess that's still a pretty big issue.

It's interesting to me to find out that O won the Dem vote in Kansas by a huge margin. It makes me think that 1)my background might have made me even more color-blind than I was aware 2)that inherent color-blindness has engendered my own naiveté.

Basically, I am REALLY NOT southern and I am reminded of it.

...continued...

So, you'd think that I would have continued those thoughts right away because since I went to bed the other night, I woke up and have spent 2 snow days at home. But no: that would be way too industrious...

-Indigo Girls: Great concert, great seats, I'm very glad I went although I'm sad that Holly was feeling so horrible. Throughout the concert, however, I was struck by how arbitrarily fame, fortune and recognition is distributed. Brandi Carlisle opened for the IGirls and sang on a number of songs during their set. She has a great voice and had some good songs and seemed proficient enough on guitar. But, the truth of the matter is that I've heard just as good a voice with just as good of songs numerous times from people that you will never hear about. By some stroke of fortune, she's hooked up with the Indigo Girls and she's set. She's working hard and all she has to do is keep doing what she's doing. Good for her. I think I just keep trying to figure out "yea, but why her?" when there probably isn't any reason.

-So, the total geek in me got excited today when I figured out how to sync my phone's calendar with my google calendar. Since bare-bonesing my computer about a month ago, I haven't re-installed my Palm desktop 1) Because I've not really been using my Palm 2) I did install Outlook and had grand designs to use it and then sync it with my phone. However, I've not spent much time on Outlook because whenever I look at the "month" view, it starts all the weeks on Monday and puts Sat and Sun together at the end of the week. I HATE this! Every time I started the program I'd spend way too much time trying to get it to show me a regular calendar and then when I couldn't get it to show it the way I wanted it, I'd quit. argh! Anyway, I've now got my google calendar syncing with my phone via Goosync. Which means, I don't have to mess around with Outlook at all, and I can start really using my google calendar and still have it instantly mobile.

-Spent a bunch of time trying to decide to buy a new Dell last night because I had a $250 off coupon that expired at midnight. Decided things are running fine for now.

-Can I just say that Snow Days are yet another reason that teaching is pretty cool? Granted, it's a two-edged luxury. My school has zero snow days built into the schedule, so every school day we take gets added to the end of the year. That will suck. However, it's been a lot of fun being home with the girls for two days. I'm even proud of myself that I did some grading yesterday.

I know there were other things I was going to blog about, but that's it for now.