Friday, May 24, 2002 Today was pretty cool... I had to get up really early in order to get my mom and sister and myself to my cousin's kindergarten graduation commencement. It was cool! It was of course, a patriotic theme and honored the heroes and victims of 9-11. The three classes of 2014 were presented their diplomas and then sang "Proud to be an American". I was playing photographer as usual, and actually one of the photogs from work was there getting pics for the newspaper. So my cousin is going to be on page A3 of tomorrow's paper! After the graduation, we went over to my gramma's. That's when I really started missing my grampa.Things have changed completely since he died, yet some things stay exactly the same. My uncle's family moved to my grandparent's ranch after grampa died.... to keep an eye on my gramma and take care of the livestock and farming. It's odd seeing their things where my grampa's stuff used to be. But then, my uncle cut open a watermelon and we sat under the shade of "The Parra" (which is a grapevine arbor). It was exactly like summer days when I was a kid. I, along with my other cousin Jason (who is about two years younger than I am), would spend every summer there. We'd ride bikes, help hunt for chicken eggs with my grampa, feed the cows, and of course, sit on the bench beneath the parra and eat slice after slice of watermelon. My grampa would be there cutting it for us while he whistled his polka tunes. I recalled every detail... and it broke my heart all over again... that he's gone... that I'm grown up... that Jason has his own family now and I rarely see him... that the younger kids will never know what it was like back then. God, this all seemed like it was yesterday. I mean, in no way does it compare to what my mom, aunts and uncles experienced on that farm 40 something years ago. But 15 years ago was a long time ago to me. And I'm a very nostalgiac person. Ah... I despise growing up :p Mikey was being stupid at 12:42 AM ::   ......... Wednesday, May 22, 2002 I guess since it's about 5:30 am, it IS officially tomorrow -- tomorrow being Wednesday. Well, in that case, yesterday was a pretty busy day. It was my day off, but I still managed to stay occupied all day. Well, of course, I didn't get up till about 12:35 pm. Went to lunch, went to my mom's, then went to the Home Depot. I found a couple of new shades of color for my kitchen and a fresh gallon of color for the ceiling in my soon-to-be office. I really wish I could just move into that house already. Since I took kinda long at Home Depot, hey it's a big store, I wasn't able to start on any real painting in the house. I tested the colors for the kitchen and they look great. And hopefully I can afford the new flooring. Then I went and sat in the office for a while -- admiring the paint job in there. On my way back to my mom's house, I cruised by some of the nicer houses near my new house. I'm trying to get some landscaping ideas, exterior colors, and ... a wall! Yes, I'm trying to find a house to copy that has a mini wall out front. I'm planning on adding one to my new house because the front of the yard is very difficult to maintain. It's full sunlight, so nothing grows there... it's like desert... and since I don't like "zero-scaping" or whatever it's called, I wanted to mask it by putting up a mini wall. Of course, the wall will have to be planted ten feet back from the street because of zoning crap. Not to mention, I'm going to have to get a permit to build it, etc. SIGH! Anyway, the real highlight of the day was the Season FINALE of BUFFY!!! And let me just say one thing... "XHUPN2 YOU SUCK BALLS!!!" okay... lemme explain. See, our local UPN station is based in a Mexican border town. The Mexican owners rent it out to UPN to broadcast UPN programming. (The same thing was done with our local FOX affiliate -- but the renters evicted them in favor of MORE Mexican programming... so we have to rely on cable for FOX programming now). ANYWAY, because the station is across the border, it's not uncommon to get a lot of interference. At times, we have no UPN at all. Well, wouldn't you know, right at the most important part of Buffy (Willow vs. Buffy, Willow vs. Anya, Willow vs. Giles), we get NO AUDIO -- just a LOUD BUZZING SOUND!!! GRAHHH!! I hate it! My mom was in the living room shouting profanities at UPN, I was in the tv room shouting profanities, my sister running between rooms to see which reception was better was shouting profanities... it was a family affair. If my dad hadn't been checking his e-mail, he probably would have been shouting profanities too. AND had he not been on the internet, we coulda CALLED UPN to bitch em out. Within the next several minutes, the audio fixed and we were home free for the next hour of Buffy. And it was great. Though, compared to the Angel seasonal closer, it wasn't THAT great. If there's one thing Allison Hannigan does not do well, it's sing... but if there's something that follows closely behind that, it's emotional scenes. The last episode, where Tara was shot and she pleaded with Osiris to bring her back, Willow's emotions were displayed somewhat effectively. But coupled with Xander's cheesiness, and Brendon's mediocre performances of late, the climactic ending failed somewhat... I found myself saying, "Okay, now move on to Spike" ... now THAT was a great segue into next season! Like I said though, Monday's Angel was a bit more dramatic in its one hour than Buffy's double decker dose. Okay, I'm done now.. You can go to sleep, Mikey ;) ... gah now it's 6 am! Mikey was being stupid at 6:00 AM ::   ......... Monday, May 20, 2002 On FOX.com's fall line-up, Friday at 8: John Doe From director Mimi Leder ("ER," "The Peacemaker," "Deep Impact") and writers Brandon Camp and Mike Thompson, comes the story of John Doe, a mysterious man who rises from the primordial waters of an isolated island, possessing knowledge of literally everything in the world, yet having no memory of who -- or even what -- he is. Doe quickly finds his way to Seattle, where Sorry... I stopped reading there. In case you didn't notice, this was the time-slot for Dark Angel... a show which was set in Seattle. Like hell if I'm going to watch a show that is taking elements from its predecessor.... does that make any sense? Anyway, the show will fail. Like hell if I'm going to watch FOX on Fridays. Maybe I'll become a Reba fan. They've even cast a latino in that show... though she's blonde, blue-eyed, AND teen-aged and pregnant. Lessee... ABC has That Was Then, CBS has HACK, and NBC has the ever-faithful Dateline. UPN has the usual Friday night movie. Maybe that's where I should be ... at the movies. Chances are I'll like what's showing there better than on tv. Oh wait, I just realized ... I WORK on Friday nights! Doy... I guess I have no reason to set my VCR then. Even better. Mikey was being stupid at 7:35 PM ::   ......... Sunday, May 19, 2002 The Oracle says: Michael (II) Perez has a Bacon number of 3. Michael (II) Perez was in Alone in the T-Shirt Zone (1986) with Taylor (II) Gilbert Taylor (II) Gilbert was in Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988) with Elias Koteas Elias Koteas was in Novocaine (2001) with Kevin Bacon Let me just let you now that the Michael Perez mentioned above is NOT me.... though it IS still pretty cool. Even though I can not stand Kevin Bacon, I find this whole baconization thoroughly eerie. And it's totally awesome that there's a TMNT reference in there (Elias Koteas was Casey Jones). Mikey was being stupid at 11:06 PM ::   ......... I wanna see "24 Hour Party People" !!! Of course, since its a UK movie, there's no chance of seeing in the theatre down here. It's only supposed to be showing in select theatres in US, and well... Harlingen, TX doesn't usually have a selected theatre!! Grrr... I wanna see this movie!! Mikey was being stupid at 9:38 PM ::   ......... Good news! I've got the first of the crappy photo albums up! :D Yeah, I put up some photos that I took at South Padre Island... I'm sure there will be many more as the days get warmer around here. I've also got quite a bit more photos uploaded, but I haven't set up the album for them yet. Stay tuned for more! Mikey was being stupid at 4:29 AM ::   .........