MORNING MUSINGS

(sits down with third cup of coffee, slightly lightened with a tablespoon of soy milk)



Saw Zombieland last night. Yeah, about time. The opportunity never really came around after I failed to catch it in the theater. It was badass. Everything I was hoping for. Thanks to Tim E. for the lender. My lovely wife even watched all of it which is commendable. Never thought that was going to happen after the blood in the opening credits alone. Of course, she was sunk in the first sequence in which narrator says, "That's me and this is Garland, Texas. It might look like a zombies have demolished it, but that's just Garland."

She said, "I like this movie already."

From there on, it was just a matter of enduring all of the gory and bloody creative killings of zombies. Some of them were brutal, but you can certainly see the appeal from a zombie lover like myself. Good flick. Worth the wait.

Still in the process of going through my CDs. I'd say that I'm probably somewhere between 75-83% complete. It's been an difficult process. I'm nearing about 1,000 CDs gone and think I can probably lose somewhere around 500 more. That'd take me from about 3,700 to 2,200. A lean 2,200. That might be a little high still. It honestly feels like I'm giving everything away. Once I decide that I want to set it aside and confirm that I want to give it away or sell it, it's difficult to even listen to it. I'm sitting here looking at a Nicole Willis and the Investigators CD thinking that I need to listen to it and make sure I don't want to keep it, but the energy it would take to even make that decision is too expensive to me at this point. I just want to see it go away. It's the same thing that happens on "Hoarders." They get to a point where submission to the process is easier than fighting it and they start throwing away their prized thimble collection and teacups they've been holding onto for three decades. I'm kinda at that point. I've been deligently pulling anything into iTunes that seems meritable, but even that seems hardly worth it.

The feeling of giving it away is incredible. The other day, I set the entire remastered set of Creedence Clearwater Revival on someone's desk and they approached me later and told me how much it meant to them because they love CCR (and, well, I don't). Felt like Christmas morning. The trick is making sure that they make it into the right hands, but eventually, you just gotta start tossing them like throwing stars. I can't obsess too long on making sure that I give the right CDs to the right person. I'll never get it done.

It's amazing how short my loyalty is, though, once I get started.

And it's not like I gotta short fuse, but ultimately, I'm getting rid of CDs to provide for some storage space so that I can clear some furniture out of my current Boom Boom Room so that we can turn it into a nursery for a little baby because, well, my lovely wife is pregnant.

Yep, you heard it here first. Well, unless I told you already. The office space as it's currently known will be dissolved into the guest room (vinyl goes in with the guests...I'll do inventory after every visit). My clothes go in the guest room. The desk, the chair just go. The computer is simply too big for any other space in the house so I'm raising some cash to replace it with a laptop so I can, essentially, make any space an office. The tower's in excellent shape and has never given me any trouble. It's got 250GB of storage and, I think 6GB of RAM. It's a Dell. If anyone's interested, holla. I'll be selling it. Would like to do it locally, but not tied to the idea.

The CD project has been telling, too, of what kinda dad I want to be. Man, some of the questionable CDs of my collection (or, rather, CDs of questionable taste) become quite obvious when you're browsing for CDs to get rid of. I really had very little standards of taste and decency for a while there. Some of them would be like stashing a gun or a collection of porno mags in the house. Like I'd never feel safe with them around. Problem is that most of the guys that I'd like to give them to have also disappeared from my life. Well, that's not really a problem, I suppose. I wanna be a good father. To start, I better get to cleaning up my act a bit.

Getting rid of all of this CD weight (and book and DVD weight too) has really been a liberating experience...as tasking as it is. I even put a autographed copy of Snoop's last record into the giveaway pile. It's like the golden ticket. Someone will find it. Unless they see it, question it's authenticity and then throw it away. Trust me, I saw him sign it. It's real.

Some days I hope that this means I can finally get a minivan because I so badly want one. That's probably far in the future if at all. We're only expecting one at this point.

Warrior Dash training is on like Donkey Kong. Got a little behind last week with all of the audible sensory and the three-day belly ache that followed Sunday's Super Bowl. Man, you put a package of Girl Scout Thin Mints in front of me, they're as good as gone. Throw in a couple of bowls of frito pie (one in the fourth quarter which was the one that inevitably did me in) and you pretty much wipe out the first half of your week. Now that my stomach, intestines and bowels are back to normal, so follows the training.

Had a nice jog with Mason the other night. Somehow thought that dressing in all black for a night jog was a good idea. The weather's starting to warm up nicely, but looks like we're about to get another blast this weekend.

To my fellow warriors, keep that training up. You don't grind, you don't shine. Looks like the second day of Warrior Dash Texas is selling out wave by wave. Those dudes are making cheddah hand over fist. Shirts will be ready soon. Hopefully by the end of the month.

Holla atcha boy.