More Spam, Belated Happy Father's Day and Time for My Vaca!

OK, where to begin? Let's start with an oversight I made in last week's blog:

So here I was, writing this fun column about my five-minute 'acting career', and ended it with an homage to my dad who spent the last part of his life as a community actor, a vocation you could tell that he loved. I capped it off with a head shot that he took while trying to land parts in various movies.

I published the blog and sent it out to all of you. However, after looking it over, it suddenly struck me that we were just three days from Father's Day. Which I hadn't even thought of!

Now was that my father, reaching down from the heavens and subconsciously spurring me on to write that particular article just 72 hours before his day? Maybe.

Either way, I will use this recap column to wish him a belated Happy Father's Day and extend the same to all of you to whom the holiday is relevant. (I even got best wishes myself, along with a Father's Day gift, since I am the Dad of multiple pets!)

But again, Happy Father's Day to all. I'll try to remember holidays from now on...

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Houston, we seem to have a spam problem again. I've been asked by a few readers recently, "...how come I haven't seen a blog from you in a few months?" And this drives me absolutely batty since I haven't missed a single Thursday since starting this blog almost eleven months ago. And of course, when I advise said readers to check their spam folders--Eureka--they usually find them all!

So once again, I advise everyone to check those spam and junk folders if a Thursday goes by and this blog isn't in your inbox. HOWEVER, this now causes the same existential problem we had last time: if you're not getting my blogs delivered correctly, you probably won't even see this warning...as a matter of fact, you're probably not even seeing this column at all! So the last two paragraphs could be a total waste of our time. Let's move on...

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I try to be fair whenever I can. And since I mercilessly trashed everything you loved from the 1980's. it's only proper that when I think of something I missed I should mention it. Last time I recalled two really good Michael Douglas movies from the decade that I had totally forgotten about. And this week I was driving somewhere with XM playing in the background, when I heard a song by New Jersey's own Jon Bon Jovi.

I've never been a fan of Jon and his band, but their longevity is quite impressive, having released their first album in 1984. And they're still going strong, putting out a new one as late as 2020. And I have to admit that when I'm walking through the halls of the Borgata Casino on my way to work, and "Livin' On a Prayer" comes on over the in-house sound system, I usually find myself singing along. So here's to JBJ. Long may you reign!

(And naturally, this reminds me of a good Bon Jovi story I had totally forgotten about. I'll save it for next time...)

On another note, I also asked any readers who actually enjoyed "Everything, Everywhere All at Once" to write and let me know why. In response, Rachel from Princeton Junction gave a fairly good breakdown of why she thought it was entertaining. I still don't agree, but she probably gave most cogent explanation I've ever gotten on the film.

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And now for the important stuff: I am actually going to take a vacation!

Three of them actually--I'll be attending a large comic book convention in Charlotte, NC today and tomorrow, where I will be spending stupid money on crudely created cartoons from 80 years ago.

Next week I'm heading to Dallas for a SABR convention. SABR is the baseball research group created in 1971, that unfortunately is most known for inventing SABR-metrics, the analytics tools that are slowly killing the beauty and intuitiveness of watching professional sports. Fortunately, the group still also delves deeply into obscure baseball history for four days every year, so I'll be down there soaking up some fascinating, yet highly useless knowledge....

...before spending my birthday weekend in the Atlantic City of the West, Las Vegas! Yes, with this being a 'landmark' birthday, I asked myself where I'd best like to spend the day. And since Sydney Sweeney's bathtub was already booked, I choose Sin City.

I'll be having dinner with a couple of Vegas acquaintances, basking at the city's biggest outdoor sports bar and losing lots of money playing three-card poker, the game that entrapped Mercedes and me for the last ten years that we were together.

Hence, no column for the next two weeks... but hopefully I'll have a bunch of new stories to tell when I return!

Or perhaps not. We shall see.

Enjoy the next fortnight everyone. Next column: July 10th.

IG