Christmas memories...

I was thinking about Christmas today. It's funny the things that you remember from Christmas. I remember a lot of the presents I got or shared with my twin brother, Bill.

Our present stack represented a large pile of legos. Seeing as we were a family of five kids, things piled up quickly. Looking back on it now, I have to wonder how much my parents must have spent on those presents. It couldn't have been cheap. Well, I'm sure they cut a few corners by giving Bill and I shared gifts. We often got stacks of gifts with both of our names on it seeing as we would be the ones who would both play with them. I hold no grudge over that practice. It was smart economics on my parents part. Two for the price of 1.

As I think back to Christmas from an adult perspective, there are bits and pieces of Christmas that come back to me.

• I remember staying awake one night and falling asleep on the basement steps waiting for Santa to come. We never saw him, but presents showed up anyway. Speaking of which, I noticed we didn't have a chimney so I often wondered how in the hell did he get in our house anyway?
• I remember getting Tobor, the remote controlled robot. This was a big deal back then. He was a black robot with a long wire hanging out of him. The remote control also had a long wire hanging out of it. The range was limited and he could only turn right everytime you clicked the remote, but I enjoyed it anyway.
• I remember some friends of my parents visiting us on Christmas when I was around 4. Their son near my age got a Little People treehouse that I could have swore was supposed to go to us and I was rather upset when they left and it went with them. Obviously, it was the son's gift, but tell a four-year-old kid that.
• I remember asking and getting Stretch Armstrong, the doll whose only purpose was to stretch his arms and legs. We stretched and stretched and it wasn't long before we broke him and noticed that he was filled with jelly.
• I remember asking for and getting a rubber dartgun. My sole reason for getting it was because I wanted to shoot my brother, Bill in the head so that the dart would stick like in the movie, the Toy. I got it, shot my brother, who cried when it hit him in the eye and it was promptly taken away. And who says that we're not affected by the media?
• I remember getting underoos (sp?), the underwear that had your favorite superhero on it. Now these weren't your pansy underroos from later when they had the character designs all over it. These were the ones that actually looked like the costume! We had Superman and Batman. Bill and I ran around like happy little pixies that day.
• I remember finding a Spiderman race track in my parent's closet about a month before Christmas. I'd come into the closet periodically and checked it out. I really can't remember who it was for, but when it showed up on Christmas, it was still a nice surprise.
• I remember not seeing Star Wars, but still wanting Star Wars toys for Christmas. It was a hard sell because there were so many of them. We didn't have a lot of the cool toys like the Tie Fighter or the Land Speeder, but we did end up with the Deathstar! I've talked to so many people who were jealous that I had that thing. It was three stories tall. It had an elevator and a garbage compactor complete with foam and trash monster. Why in the hell did I get rid of that one?
• I remember getting our beloved family dog, Snoopy, on Christmas. He arrived as a puppy. Every year, we would celebrate his birth on Christmas day.

I don't really remember the presents that I wanted and didn't get, unless you count the Atart 2600 the family wanted. Our parents claimed that their friends had one for their family and they hardly ever touched it. I thought back then that there would be no way I wouldn't want to play those games. Although thinking back now, I do remember a reluctance from a lot of friends to play the game system. They were probably bored of it and the last thing they wanted to do when a friend came over was to play it.

As a parent now, I often feel guilty that we're getting too many presents for our child or that we're not getting the right ones or not enough of ones that she wants. Then I realized that it's not that we get everything, it's that we get enough to create lasting memories. We don't have to get Julia everything because there will always be more than she could want. What's important that a child gets at least something, because getting nothing would suck ass.

Computer Broke - In a limbo

My computer is broke thanks to something I did...

My wife bought me a new computer case for Christmas because the old case's power supply is old and the case doesn't have a lot of ventilation. As a result, the temperature inside often ran at a balmy 140 degrees. Also, the computer started to act weird. I spent 30 minutes the other night typing my analysis of the local U2 concert when suddenly the computer reset. I had lost everything because I hadn't saved yet.

So I asked for a new case because I thought the power supply was going wacky. I moved everything over to the new computer, plugged everything in and turned on the computer. The computer chugged, but nothing happened. No beeps. No monitor signal. Nothing.

So the computer is at the computer shop waiting to be fixed.

Thank God the Amazing Race - Family Edition is over... Karma wins again...

I posted about the Weaver family from the Amazing Race - Family Edition last week here. They were the family that lost their Dad to a racetrack accident and then proceeded to go all crazy with their faith. In this season of the Amazing Race, they made sure to ask God for guidance for everything from finding a road sign to finding a red coffee bean in a large pile of other coffee beans.

It's not just the religious thing that bothers me, it's their moral superiority. It'd be one thing if they were nice to everybody in the race and then everybody hated them, but it wasn't that by a long shot. They were the team that didn't speak to any other team, which alienated them from everybody else.

Well, Tuesday night, they crowned a team champions of the Amazing Race and thank heaven it wasn't the Weavers. I feel for their loss, but again, their attitudes were horrible.

You see, the Amazing Race is a game where karma plays a big role in who wins. In all of their seasons (I think they're up to 10), the team that is ultra competitive, but are major pricks to everyone end up not winning the game.

There are always teams that I love to hate during the Amazing Race and they have never one the game. It's a fact. Don't dispute it. Look it up. I'm not wrong.

Last year, they had Rob and Amber from Survivor in the game. From the start, they were the team that messed with everyone. Rob bribed security guards not to give information in airports. Rob bribed cab drivers to not wait for teams. He messed with people's heads at airports. During one leg, one team's car overturned in a desert stretch, seriously injuring that team's cameraman. Every team stopped to either help or ask if they were OK except for Rob and Amber. They just drove on by. So it was of no surprise to me that on the final leg, when he and Amber got a flight ahead of everyone else to the final destination, another team got on the plane even when the jetway was taken away. They ended up losing. Karma.

The previous season to that, there was a former Miss Texas and her asshole boyfriend, who were again ultra competitive and nice to nobody. The boyfriend sneered at locals at every turn and almost got himself arrested when he refused to pay a cab driver in one country. The night before the final flight, the team that ended up winning came in way later to the airport than the other two teams. They found out that the flight that Miss Texas and boyfriend were on was delayed, which made a later flight the early flight. When the boyfriend found this out at the last minute, he attempted to get on the flight, but since he had already checked his bags at the counter on the original flight (on a different airline), they were not allowed to change flights. End result: the team that won gets to the final destination 20 minutes earlier and wins handily. I'm telling you, Karma.

Fast forward to Tuesday night, I just knew the Weavers were in for a date with Karma. They started the first hour way ahead of everyone else until they get to a challenge that involved them driving a golf cart into a stadium by way of the only entrance. They took forever finding the entrance and then fail to find the clue tacked to the back of one of the 55,000 indoor seats until hours later, which allowed the other teams to catch up. Rebecca, the 19-year-old put it very eliquently when she described her frustration.

"This is stupid..." (think of a bored teenager)

"I don't need to find this stupid clue. I've done more important things in my life. This is just stupid..." (think bored with a sneer)

They eventually find the clue, but it's for the last charter flight, which gives the other two teams a little lead. Karma finally caught up and the team that I was rooting for, the Linz family, finally won. You see, they were mostly positive. They never complained about what they were doing, where they were, or how they were doing it. I'm telling you, it's karma. That why I love the Amazing Race (except for this disappointing season of North America travel instead of world-wide, multi-continent travel). It's the team's that remain positive and are at least friendly to other teams or locals that win.

A new direction...

I've lost the heart to do this blog the way I've been doing it. It takes a lot of time and effort to try to think of funny stories to tell. If you've ever stumbled across this board, I apologize if you come back looking for stories and finding nothing. I've been a little lethargic in my updates for several reasons.

1. We moved into a small apartment while we're having our house built. It's nice and all, but very cramped compared to our last house. The closeness also breeds the lethargy.

2. It's winter. I find that I lack the energy to write when it's so dismal outside.

3. My daughter is spending time on the computer. I showed her how to use the mouse for some kids sites and now I have a hard time getting her off the damned thing.

4. I had a sibling yell at me in front of everybody at Thanksgiving because they didn't appreciate being written about for the whole world to see. This person especially didn't appreciate some comments I made to our mother about our childhood, which this person assumed that I was writing on here. I wasn't, but it didn't matter to this person. I have sworn to remove the site, but I think I'm just going to remove any stories people find offensive.

So, I'm just going to concentrate on me, but without the long stories.

Dad gets froze out...

It hasn't always been easy for my Dad. He's had to live an a drafty room. A room in which closing the window was not an option. If he tried to shut the window, the window just opened wider. A room in which he huddled in his bed in vain for warmth. He tried in vain to rectify the situation, but the circumstances are beyond his control. Complaining about it never helped and probably made the situation worse. He was stuck in the drafty room with no way out.

Now I could be referring to my Dad growing up on a farm in Cedar Rapids, but I'm actually referring to my Dad's living situation right now. You see, my Mom always feels hot. She'll try to fall asleep in their bedroom, but will roast unless she opens up the window. Thankfully, she's right next to the window, but the chill is enough to freeze my Dad out.

I've heard them argue about this subject off and on for as long as I can remember.

Usually the scenario involves this: Dad is sitting at his spot at the kitchen table blowing his nose from a cold when Mom walks by.

"Cold any better?" Mom asks.

"No!" Dad exclaims. "If you hadn't had that window open it might get better!"

"Oh Richard! Me having the window open is NOT making your cold worse!"

"Well, it sure as hell isn't getting any better!"

"Oh!"

"I swear you're trying to kill me!"

And then Mom walks away...

or something to that extent... I apologize if that isn't totally accurate. I'm sure there were a few god damns thrown in there for good measure.(Ha Ha)

My Dad has always maintained that my Mom has been slowly trying to kill him by leaving the window open on even the coldest nights and freezing him to death. I can relate since I find myself in a very similar situation. My wife, Laura, loves it cold and is always running a fan even in the dead of winter. There's many a night when I'm practically shivering while getting ready for bed and Laura will ask me to hit the ceiling fan.

I ask her, "You're hot!?"

"Yes," Laura stammers. "I'm dying!"

"I'm freezing!" I exclaim.

I just can't understand how God intended men and women to coexist when their temperature clocks are so out of wack.

The other day Laura, Julia and I were home visiting my parents when I had to ask about the window situation.

"Dad, does Mom still keep the window open every night?" I asked innocently.

"Oh, yes! She sure does!" Dad laughed.

"Don't you get cold?" I asked.

"Oh, sure." Dad replied. "I have to use an electric blanket on my side of the bed."

I laugh.

"We have a similar arrangement at our house. Laura likes it cold so she insists on no covers, so I have a thermal stadium blanket so I don't freeze."

Laura cuts in, "You don't freeze and it's not cold!"

"Yes it is!"

"You wake up sweating."

"I'd rather sweat than shiver," I reply.

By this time, Mom walks up and sits down at the kitchen table.

"You still keep the window open, don't you Mom?" My Dad asked my mother.

"Yes, but you know that I get hot."

"Uh huh." Dad replied.

"Besides, I want some fresh air when I sleep."

"What if I don't want fresh air," Dad asked.

"Well, I do want fresh air."

"Hey!" Dad exclaimed. "If I wanted fresh air, I'd go sit in the garage!"

Mom kind of rolls her eyes and sighs.

"So don't be surprised if some morning that you wake up and find me out in the garage getting some fresh air!" Dad finishes.

Mom starts to say, "I..." then pauses and asks, "Who brought up this topic?"

Dad points at me as I'm saying, "I did."

Mom says, "Then I'm done talking about this" and smirks at me.

My job is done here.

The strangest of all holidays...

Imagine you don't live in this country. You've heard of some strange holidays where you live, but you never much gave it any thought. Usually, they're rooted around parades, heavy drinking, gift giving, giving thanks, bunnies or atonement (if you celebrate Yom Kimpor).

Now imagine that you're sitting at home one night in the fall and the doorbell rings. Kids dressed in crazy costumes come in droves demanding candy. Or if they just stop at "Trick or treat!", you're going to stand there dumbfounded until the kids walk away disappointed, or you figure out the gist of the holiday and scrounge up some treats.

A co-worker of mine, who is from Indonesia, actually asked me about Halloween right as I was thinking about writing this piece.

He asked, "Bob. About Halloween. I think I know the 'treat' part, but what is the 'trick' part about? When the kids come by, are they going to be performing things for us?"

I explained to him that I can understand his confusion and I attempted to explain the holiday to him, but even I'm a little confused about it. I don't know how Halloween evolved from a possible Pagan holiday (I think I heard that) to the holiday that it is now.

I told my friend, "No, they're not going to be doing tricks. Even though, they're saying 'Trick or Treat', they might as well be saying 'Give me some candy!'"

I'm not going to dig up the history of Halloween, but it is the strangest of holidays. Think about it. For 364 days of the year, we tell our kids several things.

• Don't talk to strangers.
• Don't knock on strangers' doors.
• Don't take candy from strangers.
• Don't eat candy in excess.
• Be home before dark.
  

However, on one day, we throw all of those rules out the table and let our kids dress up in costumes, venture into neighborhoods they've never been to, knock on total strangers doors, take candy from those strangers and let them keep it until it's gone. Plus, we let them venture after dark into strange people's homes. Can someone explain the logic to me?

How is one supposed to spot the creepy child molester from the neighbor that has decided to dress up as some serial killer from history? Or is that a deterant for child molesters? If everyone is giving treats on Halloween, what are they going to do? Kind of hard to ask for the kids to come in and wait for candy when everyone else on the block is giving it away for free with no waiting. Maybe that's the beauty of Halloween. It's the one day when your kids are safe from strangers with criminal records... but not always. I don't want to be accused of making light of the situation.

But I digress...

Halloween was always an enjoyable holiday for me. I looked forward to it mainly from the standpoint that it was free candy that you could stockpile. My brother Bill and I used to go out until we filled up our bags, came back home to unload a huge pile in our rooms and then leave again for more candy until our feet got tired. Our parents grumbled a bit at all of our candy hording, but they didn't do much to stop it. It's no wonder that we didn't grow up obese. Oh wait, we did grow up a little chubby, but that's neither here nor there.

Our neighborhood was pretty good with the candy giving. For the most part, you got the mainstream candy assortment, but occassionally, you got the worst ones:

• Popcorn balls - I know people labor over these, but I really don't enjoy them and I don't think many kids do either. Rice Krispy treats are much better to receive.
• Rolled up Pennies - Just because you need to clear out your piggy bank doesn't mean you should give them out to kids.
  
• Apples - We're just going to throw them away or throw them at your house.
• Peanut Butter taffy - Possibly the nastiest tasting candy there is. It's like peanut butter, but more prolonged and less satisfying.
  

If anything was disappointing on Halloween, it was my lack of a good costume. I can remember seeing kids dressing up in full costume as their favorite characters from Star Wars, while I was stuck with the same rubber mask two years in a row. There were just two things that my family lacked: funds and imagination. Being a family of 7, it was generally deemed that spending a lot of money on Halloween was a really bad idea. As a result, my costumes tended to be, how should I put this? Lame...

Now before you call me up and complain, Mom. Let me explain myself. I think it I had a better design imagination, I could have concocted some good costumes. Unfortunately, I don't. I can write a decent story, but I couldn't design a decent costume to save my life.

One year, when we were trick or treating, we saw one of my older brother's friends with the coolest costume. He was dressed a giant TV that he had made out of a big cardboard box. His head was through the top and his arms came out the sides. On the front were the knobs and picture drawn with a magic marker. I was so impressed that I announced that next year, I wanted to be a TV. That next year rolled around and we didn't have a large cardboard box so we made a TV out of a smaller box that went on my head. The screen was plastic wrap and we had aluminum foil attenaes out of the top. It was uncomfortable and there was nothing holding it to the top of my head, so it flopped all over the place when I walked.

Another year, I saw a makeup kit with cool designs, so that's what I got for a costume. I drew up what I thought was a scary design of a creature with horns and fangs. It was only after I actually put the makeup on that I realized that I looked more like a really campy member of kiss with purple and green makeup all over my face. No matter, I went trick-or-treating anyway. On the bright side, my makeup did get noticed because people couldn't figure out what I was trying to be. I got a lot of "Who are you supposed to be?" Even I didn't know. I would just reply, "I'm a monster!"

I've been a little all over the place on this one, but let me end by telling a story of the time I was the most scared trick or treating. I usually didn't get scared at Halloween, but this one caught me off guard.

I don't remember how old I was, but it was a year that my brother Bill was sick, so my older brother Joe escorted me around trick or treating.

We came to this normal looking house and out came a really grumpy old man.

He stared at me and asked sternly, "Well... What do you want!?"

I was petrified. I didn't know how to react. I was scared this guy was going to scream at me for wasting his time.

I kind of stuttered, "Uhh.... Uhhh...."

Behind me, Joe is yelling "Bob! Say 'Trick or Treat'!"

"Uhhh..."

"Say 'Trick or Treat'!"

"Uhhh...."

"Bob!"

I'm trying not to look at the guy and I say it almost like a question, "Trick or treat?"

He smiles and asks, "Well why didn't you say so!"

He reaches for a bowl and hands me... a popcorn ball.

I search for a check that has already been found...

Just another example of the mundanity (is that even a word?) that is my life. The most exciting thing that happened to me yesterday didn't even have to happen.

I'm at work and at about 9 am I get this call.

"This is Bob."

"Hi, what did you do with the check?" asked my wife.

"What check?"

"The cashiers check that we made out to (our builder). (We're building a house out in Millard, just FYI.) What did you do with it?"

"I don't know where it is."

"You don't KNOW." Laura emphasized to me.

"Right. I didn't do anything with the check. How is this my problem?"

"Because I can't find the check and I need to take it to the bank and get reimbursed for it."

I sigh and ask, "Wasn't it on the kitchen ledge (the one around our apartment kitchen)? I know I just saw it."

Laura says, "Well it isn't there now! I'm afraid it might have fallen in the trash."

"How did it fall into the trash?"

"Because it was on the ledge above the trash."

(sigh)

"All right. I'll try to find it tonight."

"Well, look through the trash first before you take it out."

I'm working for a while and a short time later it's bugging me about the check. I know I just saw it. I started to get nervous about my wife throwing out the check accidentally, which has happened before, and I feel that I need to go home and find it. You see, this wouldn't be the first time that a check has been misplaced and by misplaced, I mean thrown away by my wife.

When we lived in California, I came home one day and opened the mail. One of the letters was our federal income tax refund check from the IRS. I place all of the mail on the counter for my wife to see and I go to bed (it was late when I got home). I even told her that we got our refund check in the mail. After a few days, we are talking about depositing the check so I look for it. I can't find it.

"Where did you put that check from the IRS?" I asked. "It was on the counter with the other mail."

"It was? I thought it was junk mail and threw it out!"

I couldn't believe it. Long story short, I ended up digging through our apartment complex's garbage bin for our garbage sack from a few days ago, but I can't find it. We got it about 5 months later after a long process of getting a new check issued.

This was more serious. I didn't know if the bank could just stop payment on the check and give us the money back.

I decided to go home at noon and look for it.

I get home and pull the top off the trash. It's filled to the top! I start to paw through it, but then decide to check a few other places first. I check the ground around it. Nothing. I check the floor around the kitchen table. Nothing. I pull the drawer we keep bills in open. There it is.

Eureka!

I called my wife and assumed she'd be overjoyed that I found it.

"Hey, I found the check that you were looking for."

"Oh, so did I," she said a little nonchalantly.

"What? When?"

"Oh a few minutes after I talked to you."

I get a little irritated.

"Why didn't you call me and tell me that you found it?"

"I didn't want to bother you!"

"You didn't want to bother me!? I stressed about this all morning, which is why I came home to find it."

She didn't want to bother me? Bothering me would be calling me up and asking me to find a check, finding it yourself and then not telling me that you found it. That would be bother me. Not bothering me and actually doing me a favor would be to ease my fears and telling me that you found the check.

No morale here. It's just business as usual...

Saw the Wallace and Grommit picture today... part of it...

I went to the movies with Julia today since my wife has to work on Sundays. We would have gone yesterday to the movie, but we spent part of the time buying a used car.

I purchased a 2003 Hyundai Santa Fe. I test drove it for a few days and really liked it. It gets decent gas mileage for an SUV. It rides really smooth, too.

Today I was feeling really horrible about the purchase. I haven't purchased a car with payments in over a decade as one I bought with insurance settlement money, one was a cheap repo and the other was given to us. I felt really good about this purchase for most of the day, but maybe it was the alcohol I ingested while watching the Baylor/NU game, but started feeling really horrible about it. I kept wondering if it was the right decision and if I really needed that new of a vehicle and if we could afford it (we can). Basically, I had a huge amount of buyers guilt. I shouldn't. We needed the new vehicle because our last car was falling apart. As a bonus, there's a warranty on the car AND our insurance went down. I'm feeling better about it now, though.

So seeing as how I was bummed out, I decided to take Julia to the new Wallace and Grommit picture, "Wallace and Grommit and the Curse of the Were Rabbit"

Julia loves the Wallace and Grommit DVD that I bought for her before she was born (the first one I bought knowing that I was going to be a father), so she was pretty excited to see the movie.

We rush to get to the theater, but I had to stop as an ATM to get some money. We half-run to the entrance and buy tickets. We buy a pop and a popcorn and run to the theater, expecting to barely make the movie on time.

I have no idea why I was worried about being late.

We must have sat through seven movie trailers before the main movie started. There were trailers for Dozen 2, Chicken Little, some new CGI movie about animals feeding off food in the suburbs, Curious George and a movie called Dreamer. Dreamer is a Dakota Fanning movie about a girl who basically begs her father, a horse trainer played by Kurt Russel, to keep a horse that got injured alive. The horse gets better and they consider running it. It's all sentimental and crap... Basically, tears started streaming down my face a little during one part of the trailer when Dakota and Kurt talk about a story she wrote about a king that lives in a big palace with a horse. She says the story is dumb. He says that he loves the story about the king. She whispers, "I love the king, too."

So I'm a real sentimental guy. I was feeling homesick today and thought of Julia telling me that when I saw that scene. So sue me. Hey, I've only seen ET twice and I cried when ET leaves each time.

So the movie starts and it's a Madagascar spin-off with the penguins from that movie doing a Christmas short.

Immediately, Julia is impatient.

"I want to see Wallace and Grommit!"

I shush her and try to explain that it'll start after this one.

"But I want to see Wallace and Grommit!"

Finally, the movie starts not a moment too soon. I was afraid we were going to have a repeat of the March of the Penguins movie. Julia was entranced at first, but then bored silly after 20 minutes. We didn't see the end of it. It's a great movie, but whoever called it the perfect family movie is high.

The new Wallace and Grommit movie centers around our heroes Wallace, the inventor, and Grommit, his dog, in their efforts to rid the neighborhood of the rabbit problem before the annual vegetable festival. They now run a service called AnitPesto. They capture rabbits from people's gardens and house them in their basement.

While experimenting with a new brain modification device, Wallace and a bunny are hooked up during a full moon. He thinks thoughts like, "Veggie bad. Carrots bad."

Something goes wrong and suddenly a huge rabbit is on the loose eating up everyone's gardens and causing rampant destruction.

The movie is pretty charming and it's kind of odd seeing a non-cgi 3D film in wide screen. I started noticing when finger prints would be on the characters as they were doing their actions and when they would disappear.

But then, we had to leave.

About an hour into the film, we see the Were Rabbit transform and Julia was not amused.

She turned to me, "Daddy, I want to go... NOW!"

"What's the matter?"

"This movie is scary!"

"No, it's not. It's okay sweetie."

"I want to go now!"

"Umm.... Okay."

And we left. I guess I'll have to wait for DVD to see how this ends. I could have forced her to stay, but I didn't want to press my luck.

How can I nozt truist thisv email?

I just received this email with the subject line of: "sought Bob resin"

I open up the email. This is the text body.

"We apprecifate your patienceu in the processning of your
Lincoln mohrtgag e request.

We have prepareid 3.4 % ra te for you at thisv time.
Please start here and verifzy your informatiuon so we can
proceedv as planned.
http://www.nxhha.com/vbwn.asp?ev=171652628

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Prince
NE CustomerDepajrtment"

I'm sure some of this scam must work, but I'm wondering with who. Is there someone out there so inane and trustworthy that they feel compelled to respond to every email?

As for me, I did indeed just close on a mortgage, but it was with a reputable mortgage company. I don't think I had a twinge of doubt where I thought, "You know, I already closed on my mortgage, but I'm wondering if I can get this 3.4 % ra te that "Prince" has prepareid for me at thisv time."

Blogging is not for everyone...

I've been told that my blog stories are everything from funny, stupid, inane, boring, meandering, mindless, inciteful, mean-spirited, etc. You name it.

My Mom always asks after I write a Bill story, "Do you guys actually like each other?"

My cousin Mike, who writes at http://michaelhoman.blogspot.com, described my blog as "A blog for those that kind of know Bob well."

I'll admit that my blog isn't for everyone, which is why I'm thinking of starting a blog with my brother, Bill. He and I have long talked about using our blog to write about pop culture.

He actually wrote a story for this site, but I didn't publish it because I felt that my name is a little constricting in that my blog notes that it's a site about me and not anyone else. I'll admit, I didn't think that whole part through.

Besides, Bill's story needed a little work. It's understandable considering he doesn't really write that much for fun. And as a story about our Mom afraid to throw away a street sign we stole when we were in high school, the fact that it went all over the place, including a story about knowing some chick that was in Playboy, didn't help.

We have a name picked out, but it denotes that there is more than one person writing the blog. I don't want to start it unless Bill is ready to go. It would be silly to start a group blog if only one person is doing all the writing.

Then there is the plight of my co-worker Sheri. She was inspired by my blog that she decided to write her own blog, http://theworldaccordingtosheri.blogspot.com. I didn't really read it until the end, but it didn't go well. To put it simply, she wrote some stuff about her family, her family got mad and hilarity ensued. You'll notice that she has removed all of her stories.

After that happened, she decided to write only about me and the arguments that we get into. Being two youngest children, we both like to be right. That lasted one story. I think she got tired of the criticism.

That's the thing about blogging. You have to be open to anyone posting a comment, good or bad. It's just not for everyone.

Not really an inciteful post, but I'm trying to get back in the swing of things here...

A lot of changes this weekend...

I ended up moving this past weekend to be closer to my new job. It was something that we've been putting off for a long time now, but rising gas prices (thank you very much oil cronies making 3 times the profits you have been making) drove us (no pun intended) to look into moving a lot sooner.

Actually, I was working in Lincoln and my wife has been commuting for the past 5 years to Omaha. So the added cost to commuting wasn't worth it anymore. We had to move.

We sold our house about 6 weeks ago and moved into our new apartment this past weekend. It's a nice, quaint apartment, which means it's much smaller than the space we're used to. To make a long story short, it took us about 7 hours to load the truck stretching Friday night to Saturday afternoon. Then we had to drive to Omaha, unload half of the truck into the apartment and then unload the rest of it in storage at friend's house.

Even with all of that moving, we realized that we left some stuff at the old house that we needed: silverware, sheets, towels, etc. You know, non-essential stuff. So we had to make another trip on Sunday back to the house to pick up this stuff. Even with that trip, I'm going to have to make yet another trip to get everything else that we left behind.

Aaahh... I love moving.

The new apartment is nice in that you can't hear any of your neighbors, but for some reason when the air conditioner kicks on, it drowns out the TV so we end up turning it up and down indiscriminately (see the story below about volume problems in our house). As a result, we've taken to just listening to our shows with headphones to avoid that problem.

We had a nice lady that lives across from us. In a span of 24 hours, she's already give us two trays of delicious treats AND a chicken casserole with rice covered with cheese. It was a nice surprise and more delicious than our planned frozen pizza.

Right now, it's impossible to find anything. We still have about a dozen boxes to unload and everything is not where I'd expect it to be.

We'll manage, I guess. Thanks a whole bunch to Joe, Bill, Zack, Derek and Daniel for helping. I don't know how we would have done the move without you.

Not-so-frequently asked questions...

Q: Was this how you intended your blog to be?

A: Somewhat. I had originally thought that I would be writing some cutting edge humor pieces seeing as I love cutting edge humor like Mr. Show, Family Guy, David Cross, etc. Unfortunately, I don't have the spine to back it up and I have a lot of shame. I'd love to be all crass and controversial, but I'm not that crass and controversial in real life, so I guess my persona online is the same. And another thing, many people at my old job and now my new job know about my blog. I told a few people, who then told other people. So now I'm censoring myself from being crass because I love my job (and the money that goes with it) and don't want to lose it. Bill once complained that he would publish something on my blog, but that it probably wasn't the right audience since he was going to do a write up on all of the porn junk emails he gets. He's probably right on that one.


Q: Why don't you post more?

A: I'm a huge slacker and it takes me to get a hair up my ass to do anything that no one is paying me for. If I was getting money for this, I'd be updating this all day long. Also, I commute a lot and time is precious for me. I hope to write more once I move up to Omaha. Oh and getting a newer and faster computer would be nice, too.


Q: Would you like comments?

A: Even if you tell me that I suck, please comment on my stuff. I want feedback, but mostly positive feedback if that's possible. Actually, I have really sensitive feelings so a negative comment will most likely ruin my day.


Q: Are all of these stories true?

A: Unless I mention it specifically, absolutely.


Q: Is Bill really that much of a hot-headed bastard?

A: It's probably a combination of him being a hot head and me egging him on. I can be a hot head, too.


Q: What does your wife think of this blog?

A: She doesn't. I guilted her into reading it once. She said it was kind of amusing, but felt that I took too long to get to a punchline. Keep in mind, she doesn't think I'm funny and equates being married to me living with a 14-year-old as I'm constantly slinging double entendres her way and cracking jokes. She mainly tunes it out...


Q: Is there anything that you won't write about?

A: I haven't even broached the subject of my in-laws. I don't know why. For one thing, they have no idea that I have a blog. For another thing, my wife never reads this blog, so how would she know?

I'm just afraid that she'll kill me if I do. That's the main reason.


Q: Did you read my story yet?

A: No, Bill. I haven't. Working on it right now.

Created a new link section...

Since they seem to be a lot of people's favorites, say someone named 'Bill', I've added a section linking almost every story about Bill. To my surprise, I don't have as many as I'd like. However, I guess I shouldn't beat myself up over it considering that I've only had this blog online for about 8 months (but not a full 8 months). Besides, a lot of the conversations that I have with Bill usually go this way:

"Did you see (some show?)"

If Yes:

"Remember the part when (something funny happened)?

If Yes, this is followed up by an anecdote from the show, which usually involves a couple of memorized lines followed by one of us laughing.

I really love this commercial...

I really love this commercial that I saw on Fox News the other day. I've only seen it once and I only saw it with the sound down (we mute the TV while Julia watches her little TV), but I died laughing when I saw it.

The scene is outdoors. You see a hot 30-ish blond woman sitting with a much older gentleman that is obviously in his late 50s or early 60s. They're sitting outside at a wooden table with green, lush trees in the background. They're smiling and drinking mixed drinks and appear to be having a nice conversation. At this point, the words "VIAGRA" appear as part of the text onscreen.

I do a double take and pay more attention.

The man suddenly starts blink rapidly and rubs his eyes.

The screen shifts to a blurry image of the hot woman sitting with the old guy.

She grabs his arm and I'm assuming mutters something like "What's wrong?"

Text on the screen are for the services of a lawyer/law firm for an upcoming class action suit about Viagra causing men to lose their vision.

I'm dying of laughter at this point. How classic is that? They're obviously going after their chief demographic, horny, old men that has obviously married a trophy wife, but need the Viagra for help in that area. Either that or they're assuming that this could only be the only reason men use Viagra, which can't be true. Still I find it funny they jumped to that conclusion...

I'm a smart ass today...

Today, I've been in smart ass overdrive. I don't know why. I just can't help myself.

I was telling a co-worker about the Hurrican Katrina damage in Louisiana. You see, she's been a little pre-occupied with moving, so she hasn't had cable tv until now. Also, she doesn't read newspapers, so she's been in a little bit of a news limbo.

I got to the part about dead bodies everywhere that are floating in the streets.

Her question: "How did they die?"

My response: "I'm guessing they drowned."

To be fair, I did mention that some died from buildings collapsing, disease and other causes.

Later, I'm getting boxes for my move to Omaha coming up at the end of this month. I'm carry the boxes out to our commuter bus. A guy helps me put them under the bus in one of the storage hatches.

He sees me coming and says, "Someone's moving!"

I get closer and set the boxes down.

He asks, "Are you moving?"

I say, "No. I'm just adding to my collection of office supply boxes."

And Bill calls me cheap...?

I'm moving down the road from Lincoln to Omaha to be closer to my job, which is a good thing now since gas prices are rising to insane levels. My brother, Bill, commented to me that he'd like for us to go to a Nebraska football game this year as a kind of twin-brother bonding thing "since you're moving!" he exclaimed as if he was actually crying, but wasn't.

I said sure, but that Dad hadn't mentioned anything about getting tickets from his brother this year so I wasn't sure if we'd be able to go to any games.

Yesterday, I see a thread on a local Husker football message board that informs me that there are still some tickets available for purchase for the NU/Pitt game coming up in three weeks.

I call up Bill and tell him so.

His response, "Well, I don't want to pay for it!"

And he calls me cheap. He'll try to tell you that it's because his wife is starting a new job and things are tight, but admit it, Bill. You've got a little of the cheap in you. We are twins after all...

See the original Bill calling me cheap story here...

We have reached a few milestones with Julia...

My daugher, Julia, is 4-years-old. Literally, for years I've tried off and on to teach her how to use a mouse for the kids computer learning games we have. Up to this point, it's been fruitless. A few nights ago, she declared that she wanted to play the I Spy Jr. computer game that we have. I pop it in and I'm tired, so I suggest that she does all the clicking. I guide her hand over the areas and show her went to click.

Like a fish takes to water, she started to slowly moving the mouse and clicking the images in the right way. Now she's off and running and managed to not only finish one of the mini games, but to also start several new mini games within the program. It then that I was happy and sad. Happy that she had a achieved the independence, but also sad that she doesn't need my help as much.

I'm already starting to embarrass her, too.

I picked her up from daycare the other day and ask, "What did you do today?" while we're walking through the center and towards the door to leave. Normally, I wait to ask her when we get in the car.

She says quietly, "Stop talking."

I thought I didn't hear her right, so I ask again, "What did you do today?"

Julia responds with, "I need you to stop talking now."

"What?" I ask increduously.

"Stop talking!" Julia exclaims.

It was only until we were driving away in the car that she told me what she did that day.

Thinking it might have been a fluke, I ask her again the next day, "What did you do today?"

She again responds with, "Stop talking!"

"Why can't I speak to you," I ask.

"I need you to stop talking to me!" Julia exclaims.

I don't know if it's a class thing or if she's seen her friends not talking to their parents when they get picked up because it's not something I've seen in any of her movies that she watches.

It's interesting to see her get an independent streak, but it kind of stings when your daughter tells you to stop talking to her.

That doesn't come at a price, though. We're walking to the car and she says yesterday, "I want some Newtons (Fig Newtons)."

I say, "Why should I give you Newtons? You won't talk to me."

She hasn't gotten the correlation between me controlling her food and snack intack and her being nice to me, but we've got years to work on that (heh heh).

Remind me not to sell a house to Mary...

My friend at work, let's call her Mary, is buying a house from these people. I don't know them, but the more I hear about the house, the more I'm feeling sorry for them.

Mary had been renting a house because they're old house in a small town far away from this job had sold a lot sooner than expected. They had moved closer to Omaha and were renting a house while waiting for their old house to sell. When they had bought the old house, it had taken four years. This time, it only took four months for them to sell it, which is very unusual for a small town market.

So Mary and her husband ended up offering on a house close to Omaha. All seemed to be going well when the offer was accepted. That's until the house inspection was done. Radon was detected in the basement. For those of you that don't know, Radon is a colorless, oderless gas that has been linked to giving people lung cancer.

Mary and her husband demanded that a Radon venting system should be installed in the house. That costs over 1000 dollars. Now I'm in the process of selling my house and my liability for fixing stuff on this house is only 1000 dollars. Apparently, the people they're buying for have no limit because they not only have installed the Radon venting system, but they've also made various other repairs to the house to the total of over 2000 dollars.

I swear once a week, Mary comes over to me and says, "Wait 'til you hear what's happening with the house now?"

I sigh and say "What now?"

She'll tell me the new thing and I'll hold my hands to my temples because I'm not feeling sorry for Mary, I'm feeling sorry for those poor people that they're having to fix more and more things. One of them was a load-bearing pole that was taken out of the house for some reason and now has to be put back in. And there might have been some bug spraying, but I'm not sure about that.

The other day, she comes over and says, "Wait 'til yo hear what's happening with the house now?"

I say, "What now?!" again because I'm already cringing at this point.

"It rained really hard the other day before the last inspection and the house inspector detected two roof leaks!"

"Oh no. What's going to happen now?" I groan. I can alreay guess what's going to happen next. Those people are undoubtedly in for it.

She says, "Well, they're going to have to fix it."

"Oh! Those poor people! I can only imagine this happening to us." I'm picturing my wife going "What now?!" and crying everytime a new repair comes up.

"I know, but it still needs to be fixed. They've already tried fixing it, but I guess they just put tar over the spots. I'm like 'That's not going to cut it.' I want a contractor to come and fix it."

I realize that it has to be done, but somewhere along the line, this couple that's selling the house got screwed. They went with the wrong realtor that isn't protecting them or they didn't pick a home warranty like we did or the weather was bad or someone like Mary bought their house (just kidding).

Has it been seven days already...?

I kind of pride myself on getting an update on this site at least once a week to give people a reason to come back. Usually, it's on a Tuesday, but a litany of mitigating circumstances have hindered my ability to post.

First off, I take a bus on my way to and from work. On the bus, there are AC plug ins so I can plug in my battery-less 5 dollar laptop. However, I ended up not typing anything one day because I forgot the damned thing. Then the next day I remembered, but the AC plug ins and the air conditioning went out so I just took a nap since I couldn't type and it was a sauna in the bus. This morning, I was almost late because I ran back into my house to grab the laptop only to find out that the bus wasn't even the bus, it was a mini-bus with no AC outlets, so I was kind of screwed.

So I've got excuses, but oh have I got ideas! I'll probably post some tomorrow, but it's not as if anyone is paying attention. Maybe I shouldn't feel guilty for neglecting this site, but I do feel it's a habit that I need to continue.

Most Haunted is most excellent...

There's a show on the Travel Channel called, Most Haunted that my wife loves to watch. Lately, she's been interested in shows about hauntings, which is a welcome change from the 24 hours of cops and detective reality shows that she usually watches. If it isn't City Confidential, it's something like Cops that she's watching.

Most Haunted is a show show in England and the crew there visit some of England's most haunted places, hence the name. The crew consists of the female host, a historian, a paranormal research and various other crew members. The only one that I really remember the name of is Derek Acorah, a medium who speaks to his contact 'Sam' for information about places they're visiting. He gets a sense of what's happening in places and gets the names of people that haunt the place from Sam. Usually, he freaks out the staff by freaking out at things they cannot see. In one episode, Derek continually yells at a bad spirit, who he claimed was responsible for most of the mischief in the place

They usually hole up in a haunted place for 24 hours. When it gets dark, they turn off all the lights and use night vision cameras. They get in groups to see if they can contact the ghosts or sometimes they split up even more to single camera encounters in dark rooms to try to get in contact with the ghosts that reside in these haunted places.

The Most Haunted crew has visited a brewery, several hotels, a huge opera house-type mansion and a prison. Some have shown more activity than others, but all had something strange happen at one time or another.

One particular hotel in England had activity in room 214 and 217 in which guest have been woken up in the middle of the night to see a woman in white. Other times, people hear someone whispering in their ears or pushing on their chests. The hotel staff said that people come down white as sheets with tears in their eyes requesting another room.

In this hotel, nothng extraordinary happened other than the women crew members that were lying on a bed in one of the haunted rooms felt that the bed was moving. It was only when they reviewed a stationary camera that they noticed the chair and bed moving. Over a six-minute period, the chair turned to one side and then back to it's original position and the bed shifted in place a few times. This was from sped up footage. Pretty creepy if you ask me.

At another location, some of the guys on the crew attempt to contact a ghost that supposedly threw a boy across the room in a haunted hotel. After a long time of nothing happening, one of the men yells that the ghost must be afraid because there's a room full of grown men. It's at this time that a door across the room bangs hard and the TV turns on. The guys turn it off. It comes back on. They keep trying and it comes back on. They unplug the TV and it still turns on. Needless to say, they hightail it out of there and spend the night in one of their crew trucks rather than go back.

Personally, I think that ghosts exist. If I ever saw one, I'd be screaming and running out of the place I saw the ghost like a little girl. I'm that much of a pussy when it comes to ghosts. If I see a movie about ghosts, I usually have to turn on all of the lights when I move from room to room. Sleep that night will usually be restless as I'll relieve the parts of the movie that were creepy.

In most haunted, I have to admire the restraint and courage of the cast members of the show. When they turn out the lights, it's bad enough that every light in the place is off, but some of the members go off by themselves to try to contact the ghosts. I just have to say something to that if that was suggested to me "No f&*king way!"

Oh sure, I might go in there and sit down, but as soon as a gust of wind goes by me, a floorboard creaks or any other strange noise occurs, you'd probably see the camera flying to the ground and me running away like the sissy boy that I am. I mean, what's the point? Why by myself? Send me with someone braver than me that I can cling to? Sure. Send me in the deepest, farthest part of a haunted house by myself? F&*k. That.

I'm sure my days of not seeing ghosts are going to expire sometime. There are too many strange places to visit. Too many hotels to frequent. New homes to buy that may have had a murder committed in them.

The closest I've ever came to seeing or feeling the presence of a ghost was when I went on a business trip to Davenport, Iowa. The guy I went with was a devout Catholic and booked up in a place that used to be an old Abbey. Consequently, it was called the Abbey. Basically, it was a place that used to have a chapel and nuns would live there until they died.

Before we got to the place, the Catholic guy talked about how he had stayed there the year before and he just had such a feeling of peace when he was at the Abbey. He talked about it at length. I'm not religious, so I knew I wouldn't find peace there, but I figured that maybe it was relaxing so I'd be open minded.

We check into the hotel and we each go to our separate rooms. My room was the room closest to everything. The Catholic guy informed me that the rooms on the second and third floors were rooms that used to be part of the rooms the nuns used to stay in, but walls were knocked down and three nun rooms were made into one big room.

I walk in the room and set my bags down. Everything is white. The building was white. The walls were white. The bedspread was white. Interesting...

I sit down on the bed and turn on the TV. It was then that I noticed the pamplet on the table. I start to read. It's the history of the Abbey, which explains that the nuns stayed here until they died and never left. During Sunday mass, they were behind a veiled screen so that people wouldn't see them clearly. After the died, they were buried in the basement, which were ... (say what?) I read that back. Yep, it says the nuns were buried in the basement after they died. The next sentence assured me that all of them were removed and buried in a cemetary during the renovation of the Abbey. Very reassuring. Isn't this how Poltergeist ended? They found out that there were ghosts because the suburb was built on top of a cemetary?

Maybe it was my mind playing tricks on me, but I always felt that I was being watched when I was there. I hated going to sleep because of the whole alone in the dark thing that I mentioned. I would eventually fall into a restless sleep. It was then that every single night I was jolted away to find myself staring at the alarm clock at 4 am. I never saw anything or felt anything move in the room, but I was still creeped out.

Curious, I go upstairs one day to the third floor where I was told that one of the old nun rooms was set up to show people what kind of room they lived in. I walk onto the floor and feel creeped out already. It's not a very wide hallway so I immediately hope I don't see at the end two dead nuns like Danny sees those two twin girls in the Shining that ask him to play with him. I quickly walk down to the middle room and peer through the glass door set up. There is a room the size of a walk in closet with a small bed and some clothes hung up near it. I turn and quickly race to the end of the hallway, all the way not looking back while the hair stands up on the back of my head.

Yes, I'm a wimp and it was probably my mind playing tricks on me, but I genuinely felt creeped out. Not the Catholic guy! He would come to breakfast every morning and ask how I slept. I'd say that I slept okay and he'd go one his usual, "Oh, I slept so good! I feel so at peace here!" spiel.

Okay, so that story wasn't that creepy save for the realization that bodies were at one time buried in the basement, but I have a better one of what happened to a friend of mine on another company trip.

I think it was in Michigan where this occurred. My friend Cody was set up to stay with a few other guys on a company buying trip in a historic hotel. This historic hotel also had the reputation for being haunted.

He had checked into his room and not noticed anything unusual, but it wasn't until they had returned from their first day of work and were sitting at the hotel bar when they started to hear the stories. The barmaid there was telling them that some think the hotel was haunted because strange things happened. She said a few of the rooms had activity in them. Cody asked if his room number was one of them. She smiled and said, "Oh, you're going to have fun tonight!"

Cody thought it was weird, but didn't place much stock in the story. He went to his room and watched TV until it was time for his usual bedtime. At one point, Cody reached for the remote and noticed that he couldn't find it. He had just used it, but now it was gone. He looked under the covers, under the bed and in the desk drawers, but found no sign of the remote control.

He thought he'd look for the remote in the morning and turned out the light. Shortly after turning out the light, Cody was startled by the knobs on the locked double doors suddendly clank hard as if someone had tried to open them. He sat up with a 'Huh!' reaction when he felt something whiz by his head. Bang! Something crashed into the headboard behind him. He quickly turned on the light. It was the remote control. Quickly, he turned on the TV and just sat there... for two hours. It was about 2 in the morning when he finally said aloud, "Okay... I can live with you if you just deal with me for a few days." He shut the light and TV off and went to sleep without incident.

Not wanting to be seen as a total wimp, he didn't mention it to the hotel staff, but he did mention it to his co-workers. They'd say stuff like, "Hey Cody, good luck with your ghosts!" when they'd leave him for the night. Cody didn't go right to his room after dinner, however. He went to the bar and stayed there drinking until the bar closed. Then he'd quickly run into the room, take a shower and go to bed. Cody would then get up in the morning an leave as soon as he was dressed.

The remote control flying by his head wasn't the only incident, however. Cody said that even though the hallway behind the wall that his bed sat against was usually deserted, it seemed well traveled during the night as he heard contant sets of footsteps all night long.

With the week finally over, Cody wearily checked into another hotel for a layover before flying back to Nebraska. When he checked in, the desk clerk told him that all the regular rooms were booked, but they had put him in a suite for the night. He opens the door and there's a room with a hottub in the middle of it. He thought to himself, "Well, this makes up for it."

When a I worked in San Francisco, another friend of mine was telling me about a friend of his in the San Francisco area who lived in a haunted house. He said that this guy didn't really like to talk about it, but would say that there were mainly things that would move, lights that were switched on that shouldn't have been and doors closing or opening by themselves.

One incident occurred when this guy was sitting in his living room by himself watching television. He hears the garage door open up and a car drive in. Pretty soon he sees his wife walk through the living room. He said hello to her, but she just walked on by and up the stairs. He just figured that she had a hard day at work and wanted to rest. He was just starting to wonder when she was going to come back downstairs when he heard the garage door open, a car pull in and his wife walked into the room. He turned white as a sheet when she walked in and said hello.

He had sort of noticed that this woman that walked through looked indifferent to him being there and was dressed in clothes that he had never seen. They looked upstairs, but the mystery woman was no where to be seen.

All of this talk of ghosts tends to creep me out, especially when it's dark and I'm alone, like right now. Granted I have my cat with me, but it still creeps me out. However, part of me seems compelled to read up on ghosts and to someday try to seek one out. I just love to torture myself I guess.

Pop-Tarts winning race for most disgusting breakfast cereal...

I can see how hard it would be to invent new cereals. For that matter, inventing any type of breakfast food seems to be a challenge in an off itself. Does the inventor dare introduce a food that normally isn't reserved for breakfast?

When it comes to breakfast, you have your staples. There are your basic eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, french toast, waffles, pancakes, cereal, etc. Some items you can get away with at breakfast time, others you can't.

Growing up, I always envied kids that could eat cereals like Fruity Pepples or Cocoa Pebbles. I would see the commercials with Fred Flintstone about to kick Barney Rubbles ass for stealing Fred's pepples and immediately I would think that would be good to eat. For some reason, I was never allowed to get these cereals. Was it some vendetta my parents had against Hanna Barbera for commecializing their most famous characters? Was my Mom still in shock over Wilma being the first pregnant cartoon character on TV? Who knows. The party line at my house was that it was too expensive, which I've come to realize now is a complete load of crap.

I shop. I compare prices. It's one of the cheapest freaking cereals in the cereal aisle! Mom has some explaining to do.

So we were limited to the basics on cereal: Rice Krispies, Captain Crunch, Sugar Frosted Flakes, Wheaties and Life. Wheaties were fine if you put a shitload of sugar on them. Life, on the other hand, was only good if you put a shitload of sugar on it AND ate it really fast since it seemed to go soggy within 30 seconds, which rendered it gross to eat. We rarely ate stuff like Pop-Tarts, but I wasn't really that much of a fan of them. Maybe it was because we were limited to flavors like Strawberry, which I didn't much care for.

Fast forward 25 years and the breakfast fare hasn't changed much for cereals. You still have your cereals based on the cartoon character of the month. You still have the selections of healthy cereals like Shredded Wheat which tastes like shit no matter how much sugar you pour on it! You still have the old favorites like Cap n Crunch, Fruity Pebbles, Honeycomb, but there are more variations of them, not that I'm jealous. I still prefer the originals.

Pop-Tarts on the other hand have gone through a sort of whacky transition that one can only guess that the flavors are thought up by a bunch of guys getting drunk, stoned or both the night before and wake up at noon to come up with ideas. I thought Pop-Tarts was getting a little edgy when they introduced a Frosted Chocolate Fudge Pop-Tart. Then came such gems like Frosted Smores, Frosted Chocolate Chip, Frosted Caramel and Chocolate, French Toast and my new favorite, Frosted Cinnamon Roll. Maybe that's why they have the slogan "Crazy Good" now.

I was strolling the cereal aisle a few weeks ago when I came across this:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Pop-Tarts. That's right. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough that is normally cold and used to make Chocolate Cookies. The stuff normally rolled into balls that you used to sneak off of your Dad's kitchen counter when he was out of the room because he'd yell at you for not eating the ones baked in the oven. That stuff. In a Pop-tart.

Maybe I had a sugar rush high that told me to grab it, but for some reason, it sounded really good. Laura made a face, but I grabbed it anyway.

The next morning I grabbed the box, unwrapped the Pop-tarts and popped them in the toaster. I plopped them on a plate and sat down in front of the tv for what promised to be a unique and delicious experience. I took a bite and then another. Then I took bites less frequently. It wasn't long before my hope of a blissful breakfast experience had turned to hell faster than Honeybunny yelling "Any of you pigs f&*king move and I'll execute every last one of you motherf*&*kers!" in the coffeeshop scene in Pulp Fiction. The problem is this. The mind remembers how good chocolate chip cookie dough is, but you don't eat it hot, you eat it cold. Quickly, the Pop-tarts start tasting like sweetened glue stuck in a pastry. I could only eat one. I stuck the rest in the freezer and they do taste okay frozen, but not by much. It's safe to say whoever did the market research for this product picked kids that had no tastebuds. Or they bribed them with better Pop-Tarts.

Should it surprise you that there are several other disgusting sounding flavors ready to be tasted? Let's see the hitlist.

There's Strawberry Milkshake. Aww... isn't that nice. We have the cold fuzzy feeling of an ice cold strawberry milkshake in a tall glass all stuff down in a crusty pastry all set for a warm up in your toaster. The only product with milk in its name and isn't cold that actually tastes good has to be milk chocolate. Any other attempts, and I'm mainly referring to those horrific cereal bars with milk in the center, all make the milk taste like sweetened paste. I can only assume this holds true.

There's Frosted Cookies and Cream, which actually might work, but the Frosted Hot Fudge Sundae sound just as bad as the Strawberry Milkshake Pop-Tart. Memo to Pop-Tart guys. Keep the hot stuff hot. Keep the cold stuff cold. Let's put a McDLT spin on this one guys.

Are you ever going to read the new Harry Potter...?

I must be manic depressive. Sometimes, I get a real hair up my ass to just churn out a lot of stories and post them here. Other times, I need a break and I let the site suffer. I know that I should be posting here every other day to maintain some sort of fan community (all 5 of them so far), but I get distracted. Maybe I have Adult ADD?

Anyway, I've been a little distracted by a new book idea that I've been working on (my third book idea in a years time) and the new Harry Potter book, 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince'.

I never got the whole Harry Potter phenomenon when the first four books came out. I remember reading about them when the third one came out and Harry Potter mania was starting to hit in the United States, but it still didn't compel me to do something about it. It was only after the fourth book was out and I was picking winter movies for our Box Office movie pool that we do every summer and winter when my brother, Bill, chastised me for putting the first Harry Potter movie low in my top 5. Bill insisted that it was going to be huge because the books were really good. Intrigued, I mentioned to my friend, Jim, that I was interested in checking out the Harry Potter books. He lent me the first one, which was great because it was in time for a 3-hour road trip for a work-related software installation road trip. I started to read and I read and kept reading and by the time we were almost to Lincoln on the return leg that I had the whole thing finished.

I came to work the next day and asked Jim for another. He gave me the next two book, which I quickly finished. Bill let me the fourth one. By this time, I was hooked. It's hard to explain. They're long, but the read is very friendly and fast. The characters are compelling and the plots are suspenseful. The fifth book came and I got it the first day and had it finished in a week.

This July, the book came out and I rushed to Target the morning it came out and I snagged it up. Bill also bought a copy at Sam's Club. He said that while he was picking up his copy, so guys snagged up their copies and one of them quipped, "First edition!" Bill was thinking, "Sure, if most of the 10.5 million first run copies get destroyed, this might end up being worth some money!" I guess people can dream.

So I poured through my copy in a few days, which was easy to do because I take a commuter bus to work while I'm selling my house. The drive helped me finish it off quickly. Without revealing too many details, someone dies and there are a few plot twists. I kept calling Bill up every other day when I was reading it and after I finished it. I always had the same question.

"Have you read it yet?"

Bill would reply, "Not yet."

I kept asking, "Have you read it YET?"

Bill: "Not YET!"

Finally, after a week of this, I call Bill up yet again and ask, "Are you ever going to read the new Harry Potter?"

Bill chuckles and says, "I am!"

"When? Next month?"

He laughs. I continue talking, "Yeah, I know what you mean, I'm going to RUSH out to buy the new book, but (with sarcasm) I'm not going to read it just yet. I'm not really ready. I ONLY had to buy it on the first day!"

Bill said he was going to start it this week, but that's one of the distractions I've had to deal with this past couple of weeks. I actually have a few stories almost finished, but the distractions and the fact that I keep coming up with new ideas without finishing them doesn't help either. Damn work and family priorities.

Don't be so glib when you talk about Dad leaving...

I can't remember if I've mentioned it before, but my Dad recently had a pacemaker installed into his chest. Inserted. Stitched. Placed. Installed seems like a good term for it considering he was sent home with a suitcase that you place a phone in, which checks the settings and reprograms it every now and then.

He had it installed because his heart rate was fluctuating too much due to his lung problems, but that's another story and I don't feel like divulging too much about my Dad's health. Bottom line is, though, he's much better now.

My brother, Bill, was on the phone with my Mom recently.

The topic turned to Mom coming up to visit them sometime. She wanted to come and mainly visit Tess, Bill's daughter.

She said, "Well, when your Dad is gone, I'll have a lot more time to come up and babysit Tess."

Bill was taken aback. He was a little stunned at how cold and callous my Mom sounded then on the phone. How could she be so glib about the impending death of our Dad, her husband?

Bill reacted, "What do you mean when Dad's gone? The only person that I know who's going to be gone soon is (someone's) Dad?"

(Someone being Audrey's Dad, who recently passed away. Best wishes to the family by the way)

My Mom said, "No. You're father is going to be gone for 6 weeks in Idaho! I'm driving him up there at the end of July and he's going to look after Taylor while Paul's away at NCO School."

You got to be careful what you say in this family now a days, especially Bill!. He might misinterpret a word to have another meaning. I could say that, "Laura is going to come out." Now Bill might interpret that as Laura is going to come out of the closet and announce her love for women, thereby ending my marriage. However, I think he might have missed the real meaning, which would mean that she's coming out somewhere to visit, for example.

I could say, "I love Bauls!", which is the highly-stimulated energy drink. Bill might interpret that to mean that I love... other balls.

Maybe I could say, "That's too bad. I'll be sure to tape it for you." when I hear from Bill that he can't make my grandma's funeral because he was already going to visit a sick relative in California. Bill would then react with "WHAT THE F^&* DID YOU SAY?" because instead of hearing me say "I'll be sure to tape it for you", he'll hear "Oh, can't even make it to grandma's funeral."

Not that I'm off the hook. One Christmas, my Mom called me to ask how my Christmas with Laura's parents was going. I made the mistake of saying that it was going great and that I had received so many great gifts. I then proceeded to list every great gift. My mother then interpreted it as, "Well, your gifts were crappy, but these gifts are great!" My Mom hung up the phone and cried because she felt horrible that I was having a better Christmas at the in-laws.

The next year, I learned my lesson. She asked me how my Christmas with the in-laws was going and I replied, "Good." and left it at that.

I misinterpret things, too. Two weeks ago, my wife was doing Bills and she asked, "Can you transfer $100 out of savings to checking?"

A week later, we're talking about balancing the checkbook and she asks, "Did you transfer that $100 that I asked you to transfer?"

I said, "No."

She said, "What do you mean? I asked you to transfer it?"

"No, you didn't!" I insisted."But I can right now!" I logged into Internet banking and transferred the money.

She grumbled, "I told you to transfer the money!"

I thought about it for a while and realized what the problem was.

"Laura, when you asked me if I could transfer the money, I thought you were just asking it in general, like if it was possible. So when you asked, 'Can you transfer...', I thought you were just asking if we had $100 to transfer."

She looked at me incredulously.

"At the time, I was thinking, 'Yes, I can transfer that money.' You should have asked, 'Will you transfer $100?'"

She didn't think that was a good explanation.

So be careful, how you say something to me and my family

I find it ironic that a foot doctor is on the second floor for some reason...

I went to the foot doctor today. I finally caved in to my foot pain, which has gotten substantially worse in the last several weeks, and went to the foot doctor. I've been battling what is a dull throbbing pain in my right heel for a few years now. It comes and goes, but it's never too painful to worry about. Lately though, I feel it all over the balls of my feet. Seeing as I found out that both my parents suffer from fallen arches and Billtheeviltwin suffers from it as well, I decided to go see the foot doctor to take care of it.

I get to the plaza where the office is and am struck by something. The foot doctor's office is on the second floor. I immediately chuckle to myself because I picture the scene if the elevators ever stop working.

Patients would be growing up the stairs to get to their appointment. Granted, it's only one floor, but I'm sure they'd be pain.

Maybe there would be a sign that read: "Elevator out of order. Sorry for the temporary pain and inconvenience."

That was pretty funny to me until I got off the elevator. That's when I noticed that the back of the building has doors with a small driveway that gradually slopes down to the parking lot. Plus, it's a way shorter walk to the office door from there. I see someone was planning ahead at the thought of the situation that I imagined.

I guess selling a dirty movie wasn't a good idea...

We were seniors in high school when my twin brother, Bill, received a rather unexpected visitor at our front door, who was carrying an item that he thought we'd never see before and the reunion was not joyful at all. In fact, it was downright uncomfortable.

"Are you Bill or Bob?" the angry looking woman at the door asked. She looked as if she had gotten off work and was not pleased.

"Uhh.. I'm Bill," Bill said apprehensively.

The woman pulled out a tape and thrust it at my brother. He recognized it by the label that was on it: WPINK. Bill's heart sank while his stomach did a flip flop.

"I am Monty's mother!" she snapped. "I found this tape. Monty has told me that you boys gave him this tape."

Bill didn't say anything.

"Do you think this is appropriate for a 15-year-old to watch?" she demanded.

Bill, of course, came up with the most logical answer that he could think of. "Well, he wanted it," he said matter-of-factly.

The woman announced that she was going to be contacting our parents about this and stormed off.

What was the fuss all about? Well, it was about a movie called, "WPINK is Red Hot!"

In junior high sometime, a friend of ours named Matt sold us this tape that had the movie "WPINK is Red Hot!" on it. Matt was a really nice kid that had a very mellow wild streak in him. He wasn't rude or flippant, but he did some inappropriate things from time to time. I'm wondering if it had to do with his Dad being the biggest asshole on the planet. It was an ackward dilemma for sure whenever we went over to Matt's house to see if he was home. We liked hanging out at his place, but then his Dad would come home and start bitching and cussing at Matt for not doing his chores yet or at us for just being there. Once, Matt was showing my brother his trombone so Bill asked if he could try it out. Matt said it was okay. Bill started to blow on it when Matt's father saw it and snatched out of his hands yelling, "Put that fucking thing down!"

Now I don't know what your view of parenting is, but I do agree that some people try too hard to be their kid's friend and not their parent. So a lot of "experts" insist that you can't be your kids friend, which would explain all of those commercials that make it seem like every teenager under the sun is trying to get out to drink and do drugs. My view is that you need a middle ground. Yes, be a hard ass sometimes, but don't make it so unbearable that your kids don't ever want to hang out there! You're really asking for trouble. I think you'd want to be loose enought that your friends kids would want to hang out at your house because you could be a hardass, but you could also be cool...

But I digress...

Now where was I? Oh yes. We got the tape from Matt. How did it come up? Not sure. Did we even know that Matt had this for sale? Again, I couldn't tell you. Basically, I think we were over at Matt's house and he just casually mentioned that he had an adult film for sale. We didn't know what the movie was called or who was in it, but we snatched it up. 5 dollars later and we had our film.

What is WPINK about? Well, it's a tale of a whole crew of news people led by Ron Jeremy, the famous everyman film star, whose nickname is the Hedgehog, who decide to break into their news station and transmit a feed of naughty shows. Before that happens, they make sure to stop the feed from the mayor's house and every cop in town, which is totally possible, even in 1985 technology! They get on the air and produce everything from game shows to exercise with everything having an x-rated twist, of course. In the meantime, the feed has been viewed by the CIA, who send in their own agent, Scorpio, played by Harry Reems, to infiltrate and stop the show. He doesn't get the job done and a great time is had by all.

It's actually a semi-funny movie, if a little stupid.

The film was viewed mainly by Bill, me, Brian and our Vietmanese friend named, Ngoc. Ngoc especially liked the movie. The movie would eventually be watched by many friends that passed by Brian's house, which is where it was stored.

So we had this tape and we knew this kid named Monty, who was two years younger than us and kind of annoying. He'd come over to our friend Brian's house and hang out, but he was always uninvited. Brian generally poked fun at Monty, but that didn't stop Monty from coming over. Maybe he thought it was cool that he was hanging out with older kids.

As luck would have it, we were watching the video one day when the door opened to Brian's basement and Monty came storming down. He stopped dead in his tracks at the sight on the television.

He asked what we were watching. We told him and he stuck around, uninvited again, to watch the movie with us. What was nice about it was that instead of talking incessantly about everything, Monty didn't say much at all. He was nice and quiet, which was a nice change.

A few days later, Monty came over with a request. He wanted a copy of the tape!

We said sure, but seeing an opportunity, we pounced on it. We traded baseball cards at the time and wanted a Brett Saberhagen (a Royals pitcher at the time) rookie card that he had. Up to this point, Monty had steadfastedly refused to trade us the card unless we were to trade several cards that were worth way more. We always refused. Now we had the upper hand and we were going to make Monty pay for it dearly. We requested the Brett Saberhagen rookie card AND ten dollars. He balked a little, but he came through. Money and baseball card was paid and we handed over the copy we had made. We though that was the end of it.

Fast forward a few years and we're back to the situation. I think I was at work at the time when all of this happened with the angry mother. I came home later that night with my brother sitting at the kitchen table with my mom and dad sitting there with smirks on their faces.

"What's up?" I asked a little apprehensively.

"So what's this I hear you guys sold an adult video to a teenager?" my Dad asked while smirking, which was a reaction I didn't think he would have on his face in this situation, but he can surprise you from time to time.

I panicked a little, but managed to keep a straight face.

"What tape?" I asked innocently.

"What tape?!" my Mom asks with a laugh. "How about the tape that you guys sold to this Monty kid. What's it called, 'W - P - I - N - K'?"

My heart sank. I thought I was dead. I had experienced a lot of these types of conversations when my older brothers had gotten in trouble for wearing questionable t-shirts, telling inappropriate jokes or having objectional material in the house.

"How did you guys find out about that?" I asked finally.

"Monty's mother gave us a call," my Mom said with a smile. I look over at my Dad. He's chuckling.

"Apparently, he was using his copy to charge his friends for showings of the tape!" my Mom burst out with as my Mom and Dad started laughing again.

"What?"

"Yep. He was in the middle of another showing when his mother came home early. She walked in on them watching the movie."

That's right. Monty, the ever resourceful kid had resorted to extorting his friends to take advantage of their teenage feelings of rampant horniness coupled with the not-so-unusual circumstances of being able to do nothing about it with the fairer sex.

I pictured a roomful of pimply-faced teenagers that could barely drive all crammed into a dark living room in dead silence watching the movie as if they were studying the periodic table. I also pictured a shocked and angry mother who was probably screaming, scooting the kids out, slapping her son and clutching her chest like Fred Sanford for the shock and awe campaign that had been going on under her nose.

After a little discussion about it, I began to wonder if we were in trouble. My parents smiled and said that our punishment was to watch the tape with them.

I stiffened. Oh, they were good! They knew that humiation would be an excellent punishment. Being grounded for a few weeks would have been heaven compared to the shame and humiliation of having to watch an adult film with our parents.

I'm sure it would have gone along the lines of them watching it with us and them making comments or asking questions like:

"Oh, isn't she pretty."

"Do you boys have any questions about what they are doing?"

"Do you know what that's called?"

"Oh my goodness!"

and so on... It would have been excruciating. I can honestly say that I had never seen or heard my parents in the midst of love or even talk about sex and I intended to keep it that way if at all possible. Watching an adult film with them would have been as close to that as I wanted to get. Once, my Mom saw a commercial about talking to your kids about sex and she asked me if I had any questions. Being that I was a kid that had HBO and the benefits of our seventh grade Health class that went weeks into the subject I said, "Sure. What do you want to know?"

They asked us if we had the tape and we told them that "No" we didn't have the tape anymore, so they were out of luck. Actually, we DID have the tape, but there was NO way we were going to admit it. I may be gullible, but I'm not THAT gullible. Sometimes, I actually think before acting.

Later, my brother Paul grabs Bill and I and instructs us to go with him.

"We're going to rent that video," he said with a big grin.

Uh oh! We hadn't thought of that! What if the video store actually had it?

We get to the video store and Paul goes to the book of adult video titles and starts looking through them. Not finding what he's looking for, he asks the clerk behind the counter if they have WPINK. My brother and I look at each other with that twin look that says, "Oh God. I hope they don't have that tape."

Thankfully, they didn't have the tape. Even better, Paul didn't rent a substitute and force us to watch another title with our parents. We managed to escape this one unscathed, which is still incredible to me. One doesn't often have material that parents would object to, let alone sell a copy to a friend, who then charges admission to his friends to see it and still come out clean, but we did.

Which reminds me Mom and Dad, while I am bragging about this incident since we did kind of got away with murder than doesn't mean it's time to punish us. It's a little late for that.

I may not be a smart man, but I know what cleaning is...

We're in the middle of trying to sell our house, which I think I've mentioned before, and it's a little stressful for us, especially my wife.

We had an open house on Sunday and my wife left it up to me to clean up the house.

Over the course of the morning, she instructed me to vacuum, put away dishes, wipe off the counters, take out the trash, pick up Julia's toys in the living room, pick up my sphere of influence in the living room, open all of the blinds, turn on all the lights, put the cats in the pet carrier in the garage, give the cats food in the garage, put away any errant shoes, pick up anything on the floor, roll up the hoses outside, put away the Sunday newspapers, put away the clean dishes from the dishwasher, load the dishwasher with whatever dirty dishes had accumulated, clean the downstairs shower, vacuum the office, change the litter box, clean the toilets, wipe off any mirrors, dust shelves, swiffer the hard wood floors upstairs, pick up Julia's toys in her room, basically, a whole myriad of chores for your truly to do.

I'm sure that she's rattling off the list to keep her sanity, but it should be pretty obvious to me what needs to be cleaned for an open house. I have lived with her long enough to figure that out.

Obviously, she still remembers the days when I used to live life like a shopping cart guy that wore the same pair of pants for weeks at a time, lived with a brother that slept with so much cat hair on his bed blanket that he could have stitched together a fur coat, collected pop cans so infrequently from the living room that it seems like they were having a convention together, vaccuumed infrequently our extremely dirty carpets from our shoes since we (Bill and I) never took them off, allowed the kitchen to be overrun by mail all over the counter and dirt and grim from our cooking and basically cleaned thouroughly only when we were moving to a new apartment and Mom came to help us. Each time, Mom would swear that this was the last time she was going to help us and swore that she was going to turn us into Health and Human Services.

My friend, Jeff, who lived with us for a short time, used to refer to our cleaning not as cleaning but sporadic fits of straightening up. Not that my wife was any better, her apartment was neat, but her bathroom was way more disgusting than mine. At least I cleaned the toilet every now and then. And don't even get me started on the shower!

So Laura is explaining what to clean throughout the morning and each time I'm saying things like, "Yes", "OK, "Got it", "Gotcha", "Obviously" and "I understand what you telling me completely."

I then remarked that she must think that I am a moron if I can't figure out to put all of the dirty dishes in the sink prior to the open house.

This was followed by the usual reply, "Well, I never know with you..."

Driving with Julia to the YMCA pool, I call Laura (it's about 5 minutes to the open house).

She asks, "Did you get what I asked done?"

I respond, "Which is?"

"The cleaning and putting things away!"

"Cleaning? I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh HA... HA... HA... You are so funny!" Laura laughs sarcastically.

"Aren't I?"

"So funny! You are hiLARious!" again with sarcasm.

"I know! I should do stand up!"

"Oh you should!"

"I should start my own blog!"

Laura groans on the other end.

The open house went well. Laura made sure to call me to tell me that the realtor was impressed by how clean the house was. I can still surprise, I guess.

War of the Worlds is Wo(t)w!!!

This weekend, I saw what is most likely the feel-good-movie of the summer, War of the Worlds. It's a cheery tale of a divorced father who becomes closer to his estranged kids when aliens invade and start terminating the human race.

The story takes place over a few days as Cruise just gets off work at his job on the seaside shipping yards lifting and placing shipping containers on and off of barges all day long. He goes home to have his ex-wife bitching at him a little about being late for his weekend with the kids and then his kids start giving him flack for being a shitty Dad and for having no food in the house.

Like any good father when this happens, he tells his ex-wife not to worry, tells the kids to order in and goes to sleep.

Shit starts hitting the fan when an electric storm starts shooting lightning down to the same spot in downtown Boston, which completely fries anything in a mile or so radius. Cars won't start, TVs are on the fritz. Telephones don't work. Of course, this opens a plot hole for the aliens to arrive and a future plot contradiction, but more on that later.



Here Cruise thinks he's going to get his kids to clean this mess up...

He goes downtown to see what is going on. In the middle of an intersection, through a series of earthquake-like activity, a hole opens up. Out comes a large tripod-like creature that indiscriminately starts shooting (and disintegrating every person in sight.) Cruise and everyone starts running for their lives. Such is the tone of the movie. It's one long chase run and hide sequence with a few breaks in the action to set up the new action.

Spoilers ahead...

Because he's stolen the only car that happens to work, which is a van that just had a fried solenoid replaced, Cruise and his kids make it to his ex-wife's house (she's out of town). Outside of the house, after several jet airliners crash in the neighborhood, he runs into a news crew that is running from the aliens yet still have the moxie to get all of it on tape, which leads to the big plot hole. Cruise is shown a tape of the aliens coming down in the lightning strikes, which is pretty cool except for the fact that the news crew had to be there at the time to record it, avoid their equipment from being fried and escape in a van that was probably fried, too. Oh well, no plot can be perfect.

End spoilers...

From there, they try to flee the area and be safe but mob mentality soon takes hold and it's a frantic struggle to stay alive in every scene after newly introduced characters get quickly vaporized or grabbed by the aliens. The alien's attacks start big and then go small as they get down and dirty to find humans hiding.

Along the way, Cruise's kids still manage to give him flack for doing things to keep them safe, but for the most part are pretty realistic portrayals of regular kids. Dakota Fanning gives an especially convincing turn as Cruise's 10-year-old daughter who suffers from claustrophobia.

So Cruise does everything to keep his kids safe, which got me thinking about what my Dad would do in a situation like that (My Dad when he was 40). I'm sure it would go something like this:

(Fleeing the house)
"Get your asses in the car!"
"Where in the hell did you kids put my flashlight?"
"You've got 60 seconds to get your asses in the car or I'm leaving you. Now one of you kids fill up this box with food and another grab a few cases of Budweiser out of the garage."
"Goddammit don't slam the door! I don't care if aliens are coming!"
"Don't stomp down the stairs!"

(In the car)
"Who fiddled with the radio?"
"Will you kids shut the hell up and do as I say?"
"If you kids don't shut up, I'm going to turn this car around and we'll get killed by the aliens. Now do you want that?"

But I digress (Just exaggerating Dad! Except for the beer part. He doesn'’t drink now, but when he was younger, he'’d buy extra cases if bad weather was coming. I can only imagine what he'’d do if aliens attacked)...

If anything, the film does suffer a little from the lack of characters that you feel any empathy for. The action all follows Cruise, so he's in every scene. This does make you care about his character, but it does make the other characters paper-thin. Only Tim Robbins stands out as a mentally-deranged former ambulance driver who helps Cruise and his family hide out.


"You must believe me! I know about the aliens because I've studied! Don't be glib!"

Tom Cruise does a good job of keeping things afloat. Critics complained that it was a little hard to picture Cruise as a working Dad, but I found no problem with it. In fact, I think that a lesser actor would have had a hard time keeping the audience engaged for the whole picture.

On the downside, the ending is a little predictable and it wraps up things a little too neatly. Also, the movie is a bit much to take. It's like watching Schindler's List with all the executions in front of you, but there is no magic list to keep certain people safe. The constant on the run danger feel got tiring after a while.

All in all, it's a roller coaster ride of a movie about what an everyday Joe would have to do to keep his family safe.