Every so often I remember that I have a blog. It's not even laziness, so much as not really having anything of note to post. Those things that to seem vital I tend to put up on Facebook, since that's where both my friends (as opposed to Friends) and family keep up with me. If I put something there I know that Donna, Kristina or her family back in NY will see it in a short time. If I get abducted by aliens or a drug cartel, I'll try to let you know on Facebook. Let the authorities know, okay?

Speaking of Facebook, if you are annoyed by the stuff on my profile, regarding Snowball fights, mystery eggs, hearts, etc. I apologize. I'm going to try cutting back on some of that. Of course, you are welcome to join my mob in Mafia Wars. :-)

Financial worries continue here in Orange, so nobody really knows (or is willing to tell the staff) how that will effect the libraries. I hear that things in NYC are bad, with both my former employers Brooklyn & Queens Public Library talking lay-offs and shortened hours. I remember surviving the ones back in the early '90s, and sympathize with my fellow librarians back there. Hope Joe, Mady, Barb and the rest of you can get through this!

I have my fingers crossed that a couple of reviews I did for CBG will show up in the next issue. Not a big deal, but I love seeing my name in print. I also got my name mentioned in a YouTube video in connection with a comicbook review. That was a nice surprise!

I"m sure I already mentioned, here or maybe in Shot's Shack that I'm going to be going to San Diego again this year. Already have my room (which I'm sharing with Dan again) and plan on being there for Thursday as well. Maybe I'll actually be able to walk around the con floor without getting hit by a stray lightsaber. More on the con as the time grows near.

Good night and write if you get work! :-)

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego - Rockapella

Just a bit of fun from Rockapella. Got to see them in concert back in NYC. The best they are at what they do!

Haven't been posting on either of my blogs for a while, but Facebook will spoil you for that sort of thing. It's easier, even with Facebook blocked on my work PC, to post there or put up a video than to take a few minutes to log on to Blogger.

I apologize for that, but do recommend you check out Facebook and Friend me over there. I have almost 200 "friends" at this point and most I have no clue how they found me. most seem to have clicked on the link provided in the 'mutual friends' thing on the side, which is fine by me. That way I can annoy or bore over a hundred folks at a time, rather than the dozen people who read either of my blogs. No offense!! :-)

On another topic...

Wow! There is a reason why at least once a week I thank Donna (and Kristina) for getting us to move out here. The view of the mountains, palm trees, beaches and In & Out Burger, to name a few. Of course, when I get up in the morning and turn on the television to see what my friends & family are getting in the way of weather!! Yeah, buddy!! um..I mean..awww...what a shame!

Finally: Did anyone really expect the Republicans to come out of the meeting yesterday and go.."Holy shit! We've been wrong all this time. We apologize to the American people for being assholes and will help the Democrats pass actually health care that will work." Nobody reading this is that stupid. Sadly, there are people who are. They are listening to Rush, Glenn or Bill-O at the moment, I'm sure.

Howard Zinn RIP (w/ December Interview)

The man was brilliant and I had the chance to hear him speak back in New York. Just as witty and inspiring as you would imagine. He will be missed and his work will live on.

The rains have finally stopped and things might have a chance to dry out. Well, at least until Monday night through next Wednesday when more storms are predicted. Except for being messy and lousy to drive in the rain hasn't really had much effect here in Ladera Ranch. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for folks living in the burn regions North & South of us.

The horror stories from Haiti continue to push everything to the background, except for the Late Show Wars Part Deux. How can people being saved from the wreckage of their homes compare with what is happening at NBC after 10:00pm? *sigh*

Well, things are nasty out here this week, at least weather-wise. We have had rain on & off since Sunday night. The worst hit areas were those that suffered fires late last year. Currently (2:05pm PST) there is a tornado warning in effect for the area of Laguna Beach, which isn't all that far from where we live. Donna called to tell me not to worry if I can't reach her later, but that doesn't ease my mind, of course.

Christina, one of our house guests over the weekend, left last night with only a short delay of her flight. Her mother, Fran, is scheduled to fly out tonight and her flight is still scheduled to depart on time. We'll see what happens and if she extends her visit.

Folks reading my Facebook posts already know that I attended the Jets/Chargers play-off game on Sunday. Pretty exciting for my very, first NFL game. Almost got in a fight, and I hadn't even had my first beer yet! Who knew that wearing a Brooklyn Cyclones ball cap would set off a drunken Chargers fan? Probably a good thing I didn't have on my Red Sox or Mets cap! I might not have made it out of the men's room in one piece. :-(

MSF/Doctors without Borders (mirror)

These people are doing good work in the most difficult of circumstances. They need and deserve your support.

Happy New Year! Figured I should get that out of the way pretty quick. :-)

Sorry I haven't posted recently, but to be honest, since I can get to my blogs from work I tend to post on my breaks. On the other hand, I don't have access to Facebook, Twitter or MySpace on my work PC so I tend to spend my online time at home playing around there. I was off since Christmas Eve so I haven't been around. Did I miss anything?

Donna and I played pretty low-key for the holidays. Spent Christmas Day with Kristina and some friends. Donna talked me into going to Bingo with her four times last week, including a pot-luck/New Year's Eve session at a local high school. As usual Donna did pretty well, although I actually did win one game for $125, which was nice.

I got some nice comics related stuff for Christmas, including a $100 gift certificate for Nuclear Comics, a cool HELLBOY figure (from HELLBOY 2), and a huge book called MARVEL UNIVERSE (a coffee table book that chronicles the history of that company and many of its characters in all media). Most of the gift certificate funds were spent this past weekend.

Finally, in the next day or so, I'm going to be posting over on SHOT'S SHACK my reviews of AVATAR (Must see film of the season!) and the last three David Tennant DOCTOR WHO episodes.

Fail Video Game Bin Laden VS USA Hand Held Toy Review by Mike Mozart of JeepersMedia

Something totally distasteful for the Holidays. You really can not underestimate bad taste and the desire to make a buck.

I'll try to post something a bit more cheerful in the next couple of days, but I had to share this.

Guess what I got for my birthday present? Kristina surprised me with this yesterday, when Donna and I went over to help with Christmas decorating. First stop was for bagels, of course, and then later to pick up ornaments, lights and finally a six foot tree from Lowe's. The rest of the afternoon consisted of getting rid of the old plastic tree and decorating the new 'live' one. Finally, we all went out for sushi. A fine evening, but I should know better than to let The Child talk me into drinking two Saki Bombs. Glad Donna was as the designated driver. :-)

Oh, if you have to ask what the gift is, you really don't know me or my favorite movie very well.

Still trying to get things settled after our cruise. Some laundry remains to be done and the suitcases put back into storage. Possibly some Christmas decorations will be put up and the holiday cards just about ready to be sent out. If you haven't gotten yours yet, that's the reason. Unless, of course, we have decided NOT to send one to you since you haven't responded to our last several. You know who you are!!

Hey, is if just me (and it very well might) or is Blogger getting more and more spam replies to posts. There have been some in the past, but this past week (as I have been clearing out older e-mails) I have seen a large number of them posted to both my blogs. Some are for newer posts, but others for ones I put up months ago. The weirdest part is that most are in Chinese (or Japanese, since I can't decipher the type either way). Those in English (if you can call it that) tend to be made up mostly of links, so I expect the ones in foreign languages to be much the same. Annoying, but I can live with it. Trust me, at least they aren't downright nasty or threatening like the replies I get to my comments on YouTube. Those are some scary folks!!

Most of my regular readers tend to be on the East Coast, so I'm sure you have little sympathy for the lousy weather we are having, considering what you deal with. Still it sucks to have spend two weeks in beautiful, if sometimes very, humid, climate to get back and be faced by days of rain and cold. Okay..not cold compared to you guys, but we got rid of our heavy stuff a while ago. Actually, tempted to get out the stuff I bought in Alaska last year! Brrrr...

Baby did seem to survive her ordeal, but the rug and our comforter may never be the same!

Seriously, once Donna and I have a chance to fully unpack and get some domestic stuff done, I plan to download some of the photos I took during the cruise. Some of them look okay, viewed in the tiny view screen of the camera but I'm hoping the look pretty cool seen larger. I especially hope those I took of the crocodiles and the cliff divers come out okay. I really need to make the close-up of that Big Daddy croc my wallpaper at work! :-)

So tell me, did anything of note happen while we were away? Watching CNN International (about the only news you can get via the ship's TV) it appears that there were only four major stories. FIFA World Cup 2010 is being played in South Africa; Amanda Cox was found guilty (became the top story late in the cruise); Venice and much of England seem to be underwater and Tiger Woods appears to have had an accident. That pretty much it?

More about the cruise and other things when I have a chance! Glad to be back, even though we didn't expect the cold and rain. Brrr!! Two weeks of 80-90 degree weather can spoil a guy!

We're off tomorrow for Miami where we will stay overnight at the Embassy Suites. Then on Sunday we will board the Celebrity Constellation. Our home-away-from-home for the next fourteen days. This will be our longest cruise, so far. The previous one, also on Celebrity, was a mere 10-day Caribbean cruise.

Unfortunately, the shore excursion we had booked for Costa Rica was cancelled, so now we're looking for something similar. I was pretty psyched to be taking a boat down a river known for its large population of crocodiles. I mean, who wouldn't be?

We've decided to take along out laptop this time, since we aren't going to be able to use our cellphone most of the time. We hope to be checking our e-mail and I may be posting a bit on my Facebook account just to let folks know we're still safe.

This will be, more than likely, the last posting I do here until I return (Dec.6th), so I want to wish you all a very, Happy Thanksgiving! Take care!

There really isn't anything I can say about the shootings yesterday at Fort Hood and the one that took place in Orlando,Florida earlier today. One may turn out to be a political/religious action and the other the work of a former employee. I'll leave these to greater minds than mine. I will say however, that I would not be surprised if the attack yesterday did not in some way or other influence what happened today. The shooter in Florida was laid-off two years ago, his anger continued to build and it's possible that when he heard about the shooting on the Army base it gave him that 'final push' into an action he may have been contemplating already. I probably should not attempt to psychoanalyze the guy, but it is a possibility.

Sorry, to get all heavy but I can't help thinking about these two very, tragic situationns.

Hug your loved ones or get in touch, if they are far away. You never know what life is going to present to you. Peace!

The Chaput Duo did okay Bingo-wise this past weekend. Donna and I both hit for some nice jackpots. Sometimes the addiction pays off and other times not so much. :-)

To be honest not much else to report on at Chez Chaput. We continue to get things ironed, packed and readied for the cruise in a few weeks. Everything else is pretty much status quo, which is probably a good thing in today's world. The filters are back up at work, so while I can blog the Twitter & Facebook accounts are out of reach. The thing that is really ticking me off though is that I seem to be having trouble with Shelfari, where I actually get to discuss books and such.

Later, folks!

Time flies when you're having fun!
Just posted some comic book reviews over at Shot's Shack and noticed that in about a month I will have been doing SS for five years. In fact, I've been doing this blog since January of 2003, so we are coming up on the seven year mark just after the New Year. Man, where has the time gone?

Back then I had a couple of friends who had started blogging so decided to give it a try myself. To be honest I didn't know at the time if I would be sticking to it, and certainly would not have known that it would eventually morph into two distinct blogs. Not that I post there very often any more but I also contribute on occasion to a third blog, Poplitiko , that always has some nice stuff from much better writers.

Nothing to add or promote, as you can tell but was just sort of surprised by how long I'd been doing this kind of thing. In fact, to make this thing even scarier, i believe that next year will mark the 30th anniversary of my very first zine and my entrance into serious fandom. Somewhere, I think, I still have a copy of PART SHOT (or Cursed Earth, I can't remember which came first) lying around. I should dig it up and see if I was better back then. :-)

WWII Vet talks about Gay Marriage

I know I can be pretty cynical, but this moved me. I hope that you will watch it, think about it and share it.

Have a good day and hug the person you love.

Letter to America

Just some things to think about. I may be posting the second part after watching it myself.

Contact your members of Congress! We need a public option and we need it now!

I figured with the 'Preview Night' session already sold-out for next year's San Diego Comic-con I better not wait any longer to register. At this rate the four-day passes will be sold out easily by the end of the year, if not sooner. It's amazing how quickly this thing gets booked and it continues to attract more folks each year. It really is become almost too big the price of admission has increased to $100 for the four-days. Not including what you have to shell out for hotel rooms it may be becoming too much to attend every year, unless you are a pro.

Not saying that I didn't have a good time, since I did and it was great seeing folks I have not seen in a year or in some cases over a decade. Fingers crossed that a few other people I have not seen in a while can actually attend. I'm hoping that a former pro may be making an appearance and we'll have a chance to chat. There were also a couple of people that I wanted to see, but missed for one reason or another.

You know that I'll be talking more about SDCC, especially next year as it gets closer. Just wanted to give a head's up to the couple of folks I know who do read this and also attend. Of course, this year I'm on both Facebook & Twitter so will try to be keeping up with what is going on while it is still news.

On another topic: I do hate driving in the rain, especially during that first rainfall where the roads are slick.

Just want to thank all my "friends" who have called, e-mailed and posted on my Facebook account the last few days. I would never have known the score of any of those games if it hadn't been for you all letting me know. *sigh* When does Spring Training start?

Not sure if I'll be watching any of the WS games or not. Possibly if the Angels are playing, since I have a lot of friends out here who are fans. Of course, if the Yankees are playing it would be necessary to watch, just to root against them. :-)

We bought another large, suitcase yesterday for our cruise. No way could we get fourteen days worth of stuff in just two, even with a garment bag for my suits and Donna's gowns. We were going to borrow a bag from Kristina, but then she let us know that she'd be heading off to New Zealand for one of the weeks we'll be away. Quite a world traveler, that gal!