Laura-ism #1 - That's how I roll...

I told my wife I was going to chronicle all the great sage advice or words of wisdom she gives me.

On Monday, I was off of work, which I am the whole week. The night before, Laura said to me about the coming morning.

"Oh by the way," she said. "I normally sleep in on Monday mornings (she goes in after lunch on Mondays), so don't wake me up."

She said this last sentence with a flair of her hand.

"That's how I roll..."

I puke all over myself: A touching holiday story...

When I was in college, I worked for Pizza Hut as a delivery driver. I first started there as a cook, but after a few years of toiling in minimum wage hell while my brother, Bill, lavished in tip heaven, I was finally allowed to deliver pizzas (once I had gone two years without an accident).

Delivering pizzas was a pretty sweet gig. We drivers would stand around, fold boxes and wait for deliveries to come up. All you had to worry about as a driver was knowing which way to go, bringing everything the customer asked for and getting there in a timely manner. This is pretty simple, but not as easy as it sounds. Often, you are so swamped with deliveries that you have to decide the best multi-stop route and hope that you didn't forget anything at the store that the customer wanted. Then there are the things that the customer asked for, but didn't make it on the ticket, getting lost, getting stuck behind a train, wrong address given, wrong address typed in by the phone person, slow traffic, the weather, losing your first born, or any other problem.

In the winter, not only did you have to deal with all of that, but you often had to do your job while you were sick.

This brings me to my story for today. It was a very cold December, kind of like this one, in which I had been struggling with a bad cold. I was coughing a lot, but trying not to do that in front of the customer. Usually, I would try and hack up some stuff prior to getting out of my car and delivering the pizza to the door. Or I'd suck on a cough drop while driving.

I was working all day, as I usually did on a Sunday, and I grabbed some lunch at Taco Johns. Since it was Christmas, I thought I would try the Nachos Navidad, which is Taco Johns' annual Christmas special. It's basically just the same old nachos they always serve, but with red and green nacho chips. After all, those are the official colors of Christmas, so it's only natural that you'd want to stuff your face with things of that color.

I ate them at the little break table and coughed a bit while I was doing so. I had a little tickle at the back of my throat, and it was driving me crazy.

I started delivering again. It was cold and windy. I had three deliveries to take. The last one was several miles away and near the edge of our delivery area. I looked at my car's clock and noticed that it was overdue by about 15 minutes. I sped up a little. I finally got to the driveway of the townhouse that wanted the pizza. I stopped the car in the driveway. I coughed. I felt that tickle in my throat again. I coughed again. It was a quick rasp followed by a BLECH! Regurgitated Nachos Navidad streamed all over my jacket, all over my shirt, all over my pants, all over my seat and all over my console.

I had just vomited in the driveway of a customer, and I hadn't even delivered the pizza yet. I looked at how late it was on the clock again. I surveyed the mess all over me. It reeked of nachos covered with bile.

What in the hell was I going to do??

It was already pretty late delivering the pizza. I momentarily thought about turning around, which is what I should have done, and changing clothes at the store. I'd be clean, but the pizza would really be late by then. Also, I was afraid that I'd walk in and have to explain why I had puke all over myself, why I was suddenly wearing a clean uniform, or why I had to go back out to deliver something that I should have dropped off a while ago.

Panicking, I looked around for a stash of napkins that I kept in the car. I had them because there were many times when people would ask for them. Having them on hand almost guaranteed a tip. But on this day, I only had a handful. I grabbed whatever I could find and started wiping off my shirt and jacket. I looked down at myself. I didn't look cleaned up. I looked like a guy that had just vomited all over myself. Now I was starting to get paranoid that the person inside the house had noticed that I was there and was wondering why I had been just sitting there when I should have been delivering the pizza.

I decided to get out of the car. I zipped up my hooded windbreaker to cover up the stained shirt, but the jacket had its share of unsavory stains. I examined it trying to think of a strategy. Then a really dumb idea hit me. The left side of my jacket was clean because I had puked all over the right side. Why didn't I just ring the doorbell and stand there with my left side toward the customer? That way, I could get the money and hand off the pizza without the customer knowing the wiser.

It seemed to make perfect sense to my panicked brain, but the execution was not that smooth.

I rang the doorbell and turned with my left side towards the customer.

A lady answered the door. She took one look at me and got a shocked look on her face. I'm no reader of faces, but it seemed to say, "What in the hell did this guy just roll in to look like that."

Getting paranoid, I decided that I had to get out of there as fast as I could.

I handed the pizza to her. She reluctantly handed me her check (Thank God!), which I'd normally tuck into my waist pouch, but seeing as how I'd have to turn to do that, I just clutched the check in my hand and took off for the car. I jumped in the car and drove back to Pizza Hut.

I obsessed on the way there about how stupid that was, but now I had another problem. What was I going to do with my uniform?

Pizza Hut came into view and I resolved to avoid coming back if other drivers were back. No way in hell did they not notice that I had something all over my front.

Thankfully, no one was there. To my great luck, no one was at the front as they were at the back making a pizza. I sprinted inside and downstairs. I looked in the uniform stash and found a new uniform shirt. I ran into the bathroom and changed.

I came outside to cash in my orders. The shift manager came over. She took a look at my new uniform and asked, "What happened to the shirt you were wearing?"

I shrugged.

"I had to change it because it got dirty."

I try to make salsa...

A Friday night in August was Julia's birthday, so we invited my brothers that live nearby and my Mom, who couldn't come. I didn't want to make a big deal about it, but seeing as how my brothers are within 40 minutes of driving from me, I thought I might as well invite them.

On Independence Day, our Hispanic neighbors brought over soft tacos served traditional style, which entailed shredded pork, corn tortillas, cilantro, onions, red salsa and limes squeezed over the taco meat. It was a big hit. Laura wanted to find out how to make it, so I asked. Turns out the pork was from Famous Dave's (where the husband works), but the salsa was homemade.

The salsa recipe was to get several roma tomatoes, a hot pepper and a clove of garlic.

For the pork, I decided to try it myself using my brother Paul's famous (among our family) seasoning, some mesquite powder and sea salt. At Famous Dave's, they smoke their pork for eight hours, but I didn't have access to a smoker. So I put the pork with the seasonings in the slow cooker and let it go for about seven hours.

I then started the salsa. The recipe called for me to roast the tomatoes and pepper under the broiler until the skins can be peeled off, which I did. I then took my head of garlic and peeled the whole thing. The garlic I stuck in a blender with the pepper and blended. Then I added the tomatoes to the blender.

What was produced was very strong in the garlic department. It was good, but it was like garlic took over the flavor brigade. I think if you look closely in the above paragraph, you can easily tell where I went wrong with the salsa recipe.

I made the same mistake when I made chili one time. I had recently come up with a chili recipe that I modified from one in a cookbook. The recipe called for real garlic, but for the first two times I made it, I used dry garlic from a jar. At work, we were having a chili cook-off for charity so I decided to one up myself by entering my recipe. Then I got cocky and thought about using real garlic. The recipe called for two or three cloves of garlic, so I bought two whole heads of garlic, peeled them, cut up all the pieces and cooked them with the ground beef, as per the instructions. I was immediately done over by the intense garlic smell that smothered the room. I finished the recipe and took a taste. I was met with the most intense garlic tasting chili I've ever tasted.

I thought, "Is this right?"

I added more tomato sauce to try and dilute the taste, but it wasn't helping much. I put the chili in the freezer anyway and decided to test my luck at the cook off. That day came and karma dealt me a huge hand by allowing me to completely forget to bring my chili that day. By the time I remembered, it was two hours until the competition started. Seeing as how I lived 30 minutes away and the chili had been frozen when I made it a few days before. I knew there wouldn't be enough time to retrieve the chili, defrost it and warm it up again. So I gave up my chili table at the cook-off, which as you read later, was a very good thing. Unfortunately, I had made two large pots of it and had to finish it myself.

The problem was, every time I ate the chili, Laura would kick me out of the bedroom. She's very sensitive to garlic and can always tell when I've eaten it. Normally, she just groans and says, "You've been eating garlic haven't you?"

This time, she said as I neared her, "Jesus! What in the hell have you been eating? A garlic patch?"

I assured her that I was not.

"Well whatever you've been doing, you REEK of garlic! It's like it's oozing out of every pore and orifice!"

I would try to kiss her and she'd shy away with a "Aaaggghhh!"

I hate to waste things, so I tried to doctor the chili up some by draining out the juice and replacing it with plain tomato juice, but even that didn't help.

Each time I ate it, Laura would groan and kick me to the other bedroom. One time I managed to talk her into let me sleep in the bed after a bowl of chili, but I was jettisoned in the middle of the night when I turned over and breathed on her. That was too much for her to take.

"Out!" she exclaimed.

As I was walking out the door with my pillow, she grumbled, "And throw out that damn chili!"

So I did...

Back to the near past...

So my twin brother, my two older brothers and their wives came over.

Being a little paranoid about the salsa, I put out two different store bought salsas for the pork taco meat I had made, but if they had any qualms about the salsa, they didn't say anything as they ate it heartily. I barely had any left.

The next day, I was talking to my neighbor who had given me the recipe and I asked her if one clove of garlic meant the whole thing or just one piece of the garlic.

"Oh no!" she exclaimed. "Just one of those pieces."

So instead of putting in one of those pieces, I had put something like 10 cloves of garlic into the salsa, which obviously accounted for the major garlic taste.

I called my brother, Bill, the next day to tell him about my mistake. He told me that when he got home and when he got within smelling distance of his wife, she took one whiff of him and exclaimed, "I don't know what you ate, but I want you to get away from me! It smells like you took a job at garlic factory."

She also said, "In fact, if this was our first date, there would be no chance I'd call you back with you smelling like that."

So it took me 37 years to learn that a clove of garlic means just one piece of the garlic and not the whole head. Now I just need to learn what in the hell oleo is and I'll be set.

Now... where's that crowbar?

There are lots of offers lately for home security by several companies. The commercials for these services seem to imply that whenever you're alone, or whenever it's dark, or alone when its dark, criminals are going to get you!

I'm not sure if it's just one company or if all of them do this, but the ads can certainly scare the crap out of any tentative person out there.

One commercial shows a man kissing his wife goodbye as he's leaving the house to go to work. As he's backing out of the driveway, he passes a man who's jogging. Inside, she closes the door and turns on the home security. Just then, the jogger stops jogging, puts up his hood and kicks down the door! She screams, but he's startled when the loud alarm goes off. She gets a call that asks her if she needs help.

So apparently, if you live in the suburbs, criminals are going to kick your door down in broad daylight immediately after someone leaves their house. Wouldn't they try to see if the door was unlocked first? Wouldn't the criminal try to get in without force? You know, by knocking on the door and asking to use the phone because their car broke down? That's how it usually seems to happen on the news.

Another commercial shows a family getting startled out of their sleep by a hooded criminal with a crowbar that has broken a side window and is trying to get in. The family panics, huddles together and breathes a sigh of relief when the burglar runs away and the security company calls them.

Yet another commercial shows a teenager's parents leaving for a night out. She tells them to have fun and right when she arms the house, she hears a noise. Thinking that her parents have forgotten something, she starts for the door when 'CRASH!' a hooded figure with a crowbar is crashing through the window and starting to climb through when the alarm scares him away.

A few things I notice here. In the suburbs at night, criminals are very prone to breaking into houses with visible activity as opposed to those houses that are obviously empty with the occupants out of town. It must be like flies to a bug light. They can't help themselves but to break in. I'm sure the security sign out front was also like bait for the burglar. They see the sign and figure that it's a house that has a lot of stuff to steal, so they take a chance to break in with as loud a noise as possible.

When our family had a break in when I was growing up in Grand Island, it was not a result of having a security system that we had just armed. Rather, it was a direct result of us not locking our doors. It was at night, but rather than crashing through the nearest large glass window with a crowbar, the burglars seemed to sneak in because we didn't hear them. It was only when morning came that we noticed that something was wrong when the sliding glass door to our patio was wide open. That and the television being gone seemed to send that red flag up. I guess they didn't read the stereotyping manual.

For sure, there are reports of home invasions and of people breaking down the door, but like I said, those seem rarer than a silent break in.

Also, one flaw with all home security services is that if your alarm goes off, they call you first to see if you need help. Now if your door has just been knocked down and the loud alarm doesn't scare off the intruder, are you really going to take the time to answer the phone?

It is a kind of odd way to advertise your product, by showing potential customers the worst case scenario.

Also, one of the things that they tell you when you're pitched by the security companies is that one of the biggest deterrents you can have for a home security system is to have a sign out front that tells the whole world that you're protected. That'd actually be a nice commercial...

I can picture the pitch meeting at the advertising agency. One guy gets up and tells about a commercial that shows a dark street with a family sleeping peacefully in their beds. While the camera pans through the house, a burglar is slowly walking down the street. He keeps seeing the security signs in the front yards of potential houses. He stops in front of our potential victim's house. He sees their sign, thinks twice about it and keeps moving. Meanwhile, the family inside sleeps soundly.

Then you have another guy stand up who says, "Picture this: A family gets the living shit scared out of them by a burglar in a hood crashing through their window with a crowbar! It's only the loud alarm and the security company calling to see if help is needed that saves the family!"

Some people say, "Good one!" and "I like it!"

"The message is: get our security system or your family is going to die!"

The president of the ad agency smiles and says, "Let's run with it!"

I guess it would be too boring to show scores of houses not being broken into. Kind of like having an advertisement for a casino that only shows what's more likely, the people inside losing their asses while gambling. Instead, you only see scores of people jumping for joy at all the winning that's going on.

Two things...

We were at Carlos O'Kellys, a Tex-Mex style restaurant, the other night with Julia.

Julia went to the bathroom, which is not an uncommon occurrence I realize.

When she came back, she sat down and said, "Two things. One, the bathroom smells like the pool at the YMCA. And two, the hand soap in there is dark blue."

I'm not sure of the significance, but we laughed at the interesting observation.

People sometimes do bad things, and here's a perfect example, Julia...

We went to the Children's Museum one Sunday, Julia and I.

After the museum closed, we decided to grab a drink at the local gas station near the interstate exit.

I pulled in, got out, and motioned for Julia to join me.

Julia asked, "Can I stay in the car while you get it?"

Sometimes, I will leave her in the car, but only if I'm parked in front of the windows, so I can see her. I was not parked in front. More importantly, it was a gas station in a not-so-good part of town. It's not that bad really. I sometimes eat at the Burger King next door, and I often go to the Walgreen's across the street, but you can definitely see where people might get nervous based on the shady-looking characters that sometimes frequent the area. Laura can't believe that I go to either the Walgreen's or the Burger King there.

"There was a gun fired at the bus stop there! Did you know that?" she asked as if to say, 'What are you thinking? Dumbass!'

I shrugged and said, "I've never seen anything like that. It's not like bullets are flying all the time. I've never had to duck while running into a store around there."

So today when Julia asked if she could stay in the car, I said, "No."

"Why?" Julia asked. "Someone might take me?"

"That and the fact that this isn't a good neighborhood."

"Why isn't it a good neighborhood?" she asked.

"Well, sometimes people do bad things."

"Like what?"

"For instance, did you see the glass in the parking lot? Sometimes, people break things," I said.

"Why?" Julia asked.

"I don't know," I said. "Sometimes they do."

We rounded the corner and walked inside. It was as hot inside as it was outside for some reason. I realized very quickly why when I looked towards my right. There was a guy there scooping big chunks of glass into a dustpan. There was a lot of it to clean up because the right front window pane was busted completely.

To top it off there was a truck outside of the shop that had its front end bashed in a little bit. There were assorted fluids draining from truck in a multi-colored pool.

I pointed to the broken window and said, "And here's a perfect example."

"What happened?" Julia asked.

"I don't know," I said, but it looked pretty obvious that someone had run their car through the front window.

I heard some people asking the front teller, who filled them in on the story.

Of course, I had to find out, so I asked the teller what happened when I was paying for our snacks.

The story went like this. The guy driving the truck lost control for some reason, sped through the parking lot and crashed into the front window of the store. He stumbled out of the truck, walked into the store, grabbed a diet soda, paid for it, went back to his truck to retrieve his stash of whatever drugs he had on him and ran off.

To top it off, the guy was bleeding from several cuts including a cut from a tooth that protruded from his up lip. That didn't stop him from stopping to get a refreshment.

We got back in the car and I said, "So you see. This is why I don't want to leave you in the car... because people sometimes do bad things."

Boris runs away and returns...

Whew! That was a long vacation!

Sorry about the long delay in my blog my faithful readers, all three of you. I've been absolutely swamped at work.

Here's a story about our cat, Boris, running away...


Boris runs away...

I've written about our newest cat, Boris, the one that's really lazy, that belches, that has chin acne, that isn't that bright, that is a bed hog and so on. Actually, I only wrote that he's quite lazy, but add the other stuff to that.

Boris lived on the streets for months before being picked up by the Humane Society. When we got him, he'd shown some interest in going outside, but we didn't want to start that habit. Our old cat, Moe, used to go outside on a leash in the front yard, so we tried that with Boris. He enjoyed it so much that he'd throw a hissy fit if he didn't get to go outside.

At first, he'd walk around and occasionally get wrapped around our tree in the middle of the front yard. Then he started to get more and more adventurous that he started chasing bugs, which usually congregated by the rose bushes right next to the house. I would come outside and find him wrapped in figure eights in the shrubbery. I'd have to unclip him and untangle the rope once or twice a day. It started to get old.

One day, I came out to get him and I found the rope frayed with no collar or Boris attached.

Panicked, I ran around the corner of the house and found him halfway to the back yard. I grabbed him and threw him inside while I tried to fix the rope. It was at least 10 years old and very weather frayed. I got it tied, but knew I had to replace it with a chain, which I did when I got a dog chain at the pet store. It's the kind that's steel encased in plastic with metal clips on each end.

I was pretty satisfied with this setup for a while because it didn't snag on the shrubbery like the rope did.

I should say that I WAS satisfied with this setup until the other night when I walked out to retrievehim. I followed the rope in the shrubbery to the end clip and found no Boris. He must have tugged on the end and it had enough give that he was able to pull himself off the clip.

I ran to the backyard and found no trace of him. I ran around our house a couple of times. No Boris. I got a flashlight and walked around calling his name. No dice. I got in my car and slowly drove up each street looking for flashes of him, but he was gone.

I broke the news to Laura that her replacement cat for Moe was missing and she took it pretty bad. She had just gotten over Moe and now this new cat disappears. In the morning, Julia broke down crying because she was so worried. I stayed home and put out fliers and drove around the neighborhood a few more times, but still found no sign of him.

I tried to cheer Laura and Julia up by telling them that I had a cat that had ran away when I was in college. In the same scenario, she had gotten outside and didn't came back. I walked around for a couple days all depressed because I didn't think she was coming back, but then late on the second night of her being gone, she showed up all dirty and hungry. I still had a little hope that he was going to return like my old cat had, but it was obvious that Laura had given up hope. I think the fact that she said, "I don't think he's coming back," several times led me to this point.

That second night here came and Laura got more depressed. She had just gone to bed when the doorbell ran.

There on the front porch was our neighbor and he had a struggling Boris in his arms. Apparently, he had found Boris walking around their back yard.

So all's well that ends well, right? Well, there is a small funny footnote to this.

The next night, Julia and I went out to eat while Laura was away at a bachelorette party. My phone rang. I checked the number. It said 'Private."

I answered it.

"Did you put up signs that you lost your cat?" the called asked, referring to my Lost Cat signs that I had taped up all over our subdivision.

"Yes, I did. But he came back last night. I need to take those signs down. Sorry about that."

The caller continued, "Is there a reward?"

"Ummm... No. He came back last night."

The caller hung up. I shrugged and hung up.

I started to wonder what that was all about. Who calls up someone before they found their lost pet asking if they are looking for that pet?

Maybe I was going to come home and find that he had been stolen. In his place would be a random note asking for his reward.

Maybe he's a wanted cat and a bounty hunter was distracting me while he broke in and took Boris.

He was still there, but it still strikes me as weird. Finding a cat and calling someone if it's theirs I can understand, but to call before finding said cat?

The kid sounded like a teenager, so I started to picture a kid like Encyclopedia Brown, a young amateur detective profiled in a book series of the same name. The kid must have been walking around the neighborhood with his trusty side kicks. They see my sign and jot down my number. This probably sounds like the perfect case for them. They probably called it "The Case of the Missing Cat." He calls me up and I hire him to find my cat. He does some searching around, but ends up finding nothing. Then a break in the case! He realizes that there is a secret cat stealing operation with the criminals sending the cats overseas for some secret laboratory experiments. He'll get caught while trying to save Boris, but get away through his ingenious McGuyver-cunning in which he cuts through his binds by using his glasses as a magnifying glass to harness the sun's power to cut through the ropes. He'll get the cops to come, the day will be solved and I'll get my cat back. But because I had already found him, he won't have that chance. Shame...

Laura almost runs a red light and then blames me for it...

I've written a few times about Laura and I driving together. To sum up those past stories, Laura fears that I drive like a grandma, and I fear for my life when I see every car around us slowing down while our car seems to be going faster. To say that Laura is an aggressive driver is doing her a disservice. She brags that she got trained on the road warrior-like freeways of California, and that's how she's going to drive from now on.

I ask her sometimes, "What do your co-workers think of your driving?"

She's admitted that the responses have ranged from a ride in a runaway taxi (not surprising) to a ride in a race car (not surprising either).

Usually, I drive us to work when we carpool, but I talked her into driving the other day. We took her car, the Mazda 3, which Laura refers to as 'awesome' and much better than my 'no balls' having Santa Fe. She got a car that does what she wants. It takes off on a flash and gives her the ability to zip in and out of traffic. When she drives, I've taken to just reading magazines because if I was to watch what was going on the road, I'd have a heart attack. We've gotten into a few heated discussions when I've criticized her tailgating and delayed braking times after I've almost shoved my feet through the floor boards as I'm trying to will her to stop the car in time.

So the other day Laura drove us to work. Julia was with us because she was going to the summer day camp that my employer runs. I picked up Laura, with Julia in tow, at work and we switched drivers. She pulled away, turned left and headed the three blocks that leads to the interstate exit. We started talking. She was telling me something about work when I noticed that the light ahead was red. I anticipated her slowing down, but noticed that she was not slowing down. Laura kept talking.

I go, "Ummm...."

Still no stopping...

"Uh! Stop!" I yelled at the last minute.

"Oh!" Laura exclaimed and hit the brakes. We skidded to a stop just outside of the crosswalk.

"I didn't think you were going to stop," I said.

Flustered, Laura said, "Well... you were distracting me by talking!"

"Yeah, thanks a lot, Daddy!" Julia quipped from the back seat.

"How is this my fault?" I asked.

"It is because you and Julia were yapping in my ear when you should let me just drive."

We got on the interstate, and I started making a few suggestions about Laura's proximity to cars ahead of us. Laura sighed.

I should point out now that Laura is notorious for pointing out at great length how much distance I need between me and the car in front of me, how fast I should accelerate, which lane to take at any moment, which cars to pass and which way to go. If I deviate from that or don't anticipate what Laura would do, I get the inevitable questions of why I'm not doing all the things Laura would do. I often tell her that I'm going to get a bracelet that says WWLD, which means 'What Would Laura Do?"

We got further along in our trip home and I suggested that she switch lanes. Apparently, that was more than enough for Laura. She whipped around towards me and said, "If you say one more thing about my driving, just one more thing, I am going to stop this car and let you out. Then you can walk home. Don't believe me? Just try me."

I smirked and started to open my mouth.

"Feeling lucky?" Laura asked. "Go ahead and try it."

I smiled and closed my mouth.

"That's what I thought," Laura said.

I pulled out my magazine and spent the rest of the journey home trying not to look up when I saw the inevitable rush of a car's rear end coming towards me.

Later that night, we were getting ready for bed and watching a show about surviving car crashes, which of course featured lots of clips of cars crashing. One of the crashes involved a guy running from the police in a pickup truck. The chase ended when he ran a red light, and the truck he was driving collided with another car.

I said without looking at Laura, "Hmmm... I think that guy must have had his passenger and someone in the back talking to him for him to be distracted like that."

I could feel Laura's eyes bore on me as I heard her let out a long angry sigh. I closed my eyes and started giggling hard for about 10 seconds and said, "I'm sorry! I just had to say it."

"Uh huh! You're really enjoying yourself over there! You must REALLY want to sleep somewhere else tonight," she said.

An All-American... ummm...

Laura reminded me of this story the other night when we were watching the Daily Show on Comedy Central. The segment centered on Denny's revamping their late-night menu in an effort to draw in the teenagers. Suddenly, Laura started laughing her head off. After that, she reminded me of this story...

Years back, my friend, Jeff, was moving to Wahoo in an effort to be closer to Omaha so that his commute wouldn't be that long. As it turns out, he could have moved to Waverly or Gretna and been just as close to Creighton University, but that's not my problem in that's what Laura suggested to Jeff...

We loaded up the U-Haul truck with all of Jeff's stuff from his apartment. To show us his thanks, Jeff took us out to lunch at a place called the All-American Buffet. Now I don't really remember much about the lunch that day. It wasn't that bad, but Bill seems to remember it as being particularly awful.

Jeff took his car. I think I followed in a car (so I could get back to Lincoln with Bill). Bill drove the truck. Jeff and I get to Wahoo within minutes of each other. Then we waited with the others at the house for the truck to arrive. We waited. We waited some more. And we waited some more...

Finally, Bill showed up with the truck.

"Where were you?" Jeff asked Bill.

The buffet food didn't agree with him, so he had to make a pitstop on the way.

"Oh, I had to stop on the way to take an All-American shit!" Bill explained.

Hey, I've got that shirt, too...

Last Friday night, Laura and I went to The Dark Knight movie.

As we were walking in, we noticed some teenagers sitting against the window of the movie theater complex. They were probably waiting for their ride from the parents as the theater in our neighborhood doesn't allow teenagers under 16 past 10 p.m. I think they instituted it because they were tired of the damage to their theater, but that's not important to the story.

Seeing as we're going to see a pop culture event movie like the latest Batman movie, I decided to wear a quirky shirt that I had gotten at Target the other day. It's a brown shirt that looks like a skeletal ribcage, but instead of bones, the ribcage is made up of records, record player arms and cassette tapes. It's one of those shirts that supposed to look retro and hip.

As we're walking past the teenagers, a boy with the group says, "Hey man! I've got that shirt, too!"

I smile, raise my eyebrows and give him a small thumbs up as I pass him.

After we buy our tickets and walk past the counter, I say, "Wow. That makes me feel old that he has the same shirt that I have."

"Maybe he thought it was 'retro' and 'hip'?" Laura asked.

"Maybe..."

I thought about it for a minute while we were waiting for the previews to start. Yes, it looks like a young person's shirt, but I'm not that old. I'm only 37-years-old, which would have sounded ancient to me had I been as young as that kid. He sees an old dude walking buy with a belly and a graying beard. To him, I might be the lame old guy trying to act hip.

"You know," I said. "I probably have more of a right to wear that shirt than he does. I grew up with records and cassette tapes. That'd be like me wearing a black leather jacket and greasing up my hair."

I make a motion like I'm styling my hair like Danny Zucko from Grease.

She thought I was referring to the Fonz.

"Aayy!!" Laura said with her thumbs up.

Don't even think about it

The other day, a married co-worker, let's call him Pat, was getting a little weary of work. He sighed and said, "We should all just skip this afternoon and see The Dark Knight", which is the latest Batman movie.

While this was certainly possible with minimal work repercussions seeing as we have very flexible work hours (within reason), I knew Laura really wanted to see it.

"I would, but I can't. Laura wants to see it." I said.

He nodded and said, "Yeah, my wife wants to see it, too. I supposed I could go and not tell her."

"Oh! Don't do that!" I said. I have a good reason.

When you're single, you are the master of your own domain. You basically can call the shots and do whatever you want, whenever you want, to a certain degree. As a single person that's also a twin, you have that luxury of doing those things with your twin, like seeing a movie, but it's also your responsibility to ask that twin if they want to see it with you first.

Most of the time, Bill and I would see movies together, but occasionally, he'd surprise me by saying that the had an opportunity to see a movie without me (because I was working or wasn't around) and so he did. I never came out and said it, but I was always a little disappointed because now I'd have to find someone else to see a movie with me. Usually, this wasn't a problem. Sometimes, it was another friend who was bored. Sometimes, it was Bill, who agreed to see the movie again with me. And to be fair, I would also do this from time to time with a little disappointment, but no long-lasting repercussions.

Seeing a movie that you know that your friend or brother may not like is of no consequence. If they agreed to go, you assume that he was on board and willing to see it. If it was great, you rejoice that you picked the right movie. If it sucked, you could agree that the movie sucked without trying to figure out who actually suggested the movie.

If you drag your significant other to a movie that sucked, you'll proceed to hear about it until the end of time. Laura will usually say something like, "That was a great! (sarcastically)", "Nice suggestion! (sarcastically)" or "Well that sucked! (not sarcastically)."

When we were first dating, I dragged Laura to see Escape From LA, which is the sequel to Escape From New York. Both movies involve the convict Snake Plissken, who was played by Kurt Russell. In the first film, Snake is recruited to rescue the president of the united states from New York City, which had been turned into a city-wide prison in the not-so-distant future. I loved that movie growing up and had high hopes for the sequel, but it sucked so bad that I almost walked out of it. Laura was almost ready to leave with me, but I just had to see how it ended, which was horribly by the way. I apologized a lot that night and was reminded a few times by Laura on how just how bad it was.

About a month later, a movie called Two Days in the Valley came out. Laura wanted to see it. I was up in the air about it because it looked like it was trying to be like Pulp Fiction, and I was afraid that I would be comparing the movie to Pulp Fiction. Laura won out and we saw it. The movie was about a hired killer who likes to give someone a a minute on a stop watch before he kills them (James Spader), his girlfriend (Charlize Theron), a woman who hired the killer (Terry Hatcher), two undercover cops (Jeff Daniels and Eric Stoltz) and various other stars that all intersect in lame plot lines for two days of story. Halfway through, Laura leaned over to me and whispered yelled, "This is dumb! I want to go!"

I shook my head, "I want to see how it ends."

I've never walked out of a movie on purpose (save for when Julia demanded we leave a kid's movie because she was scared), so I just wanted to see how it ended on principle. It was an okay movie all in all, but certainly no Pulp Fiction by a long shot. The ending was okay. As we were walking out, I turned to Laura and said, "We're even."

So back to what I was just talking about earlier...

Laura and I have had this understanding that if one of us says that we want to see a movie together, then it behooves the other person to not see that movie.

I slipped up once on this rule, and I still hear about it.

That was ten years ago...

Ten years ago, I was on a book-buying trip for the Nebraska Book Company. I was one of those guys that would buy back books from the students on college campuses. My trips would occur in December and May to coincide with the end of the campus semesters. Before I left in May of 1998, Laura noted to me that she wanted to see Deep Impact, the movie about a comet that is going to hit Earth unless some astronauts can blow up it up first.

While on the trip, the guys that I was on the road with all said they wanted to see a movie, which was Deep Impact. So I made the decision to just see the movie and act like I hadn't seen it when I got back.

So I saw it on the road. It was a decent movie. I then came home and saw it with Laura. When the movie was over, Laura said, "That was pretty good." What I should have said was nothing, but what I did say was, "Yeah, for the second time that I saw it."

I smiled. Laura did not.

"You've already see this?" she asked.

"Yeah, I saw it on my trip with the guys."

So you would think that this would be the end of that, but now almost every time a movie comes out and she wants to see it with me, she usually reminds me that she doesn't want to me to see it like I saw Deep Impact without her.

She reminded me of this just recently when I said that I wanted to see The Dark Knight, which I was thinking of doing when she was gone in Kearney visiting her parents. She said, "I want to see it. Don't see it like you saw Deep Impact."

"Are you always going to hang that over my head?" I asked.

She walked away and shrugged as if to say, "Hey, you're the one that messed up. Not me."

So back to me talking to Pat, I said, "I still get grief for seeing that crappy movie without her and that was 10 years ago!"

Weezer - Pork and Beans

Hard to believe that there might be no one left that's not seen this video, but here it is if you must.

Weezer - Pork And Beans
by Weezer

Also, here is a link to a site that has embedded videos of all the videos referenced in this song.

The Weezer video explained

Barnes and Barnes videos... Fish Heads anyone?

This will probably fly over the head of anyone older than me, but these videos were on HBO between movies when they were trying to fill space. I believe MTV played them sometimes, too.

The 'Fish Heads' song kicks in around the 2:17 mark. It's a rather strange video about fish heads. Check out the really young looking Bill Paxton!




'Love Tap' is another video starring a young Bill Paxton.

Video Game System... umm... video

I saw this video in 2000, but just finally found it again online. It's an interesting mix of old-school video games with a scene parodying The Matrix. If that's not interesting at all to you, then don't watch it...

Flight of the Conchords videos

In an effort to be 'hip' and 'with it', I'm going to start posting every video that I had sent to me or that I personally liked to watch so that I don't have to rack my brain when I'm trying to remember where I saw them or what they were called.

The Flight of the Conchords is a joke band for people with a fairly dry sense of humor, although they have their moments that have people laughing. My Mom saw this video with me and I thought she was going to bust a gut laughing with me...

This song is 'Business Time'



'Ladies of the World' from their album.

I don't work here, but I know where it is...

I was at Best Buy the other day to look for something to buy. I had received one of my reward certificates, so rather than waste it, I opted to look for something to buy with it. I was looking at the MP3 player accessories when a guy came up to me and asked, 'Where is your software section?'

Now picture me wearing khaki pants with a light brown/yellow/orange striped polo shirt. For those of you paying attention to the vast Best Buy commercials, you'll recall that Best Buy employees wear blue polo shirts. Other times, the Geek Squad, which is the name for their computer service people, will wear white shirts, black pants and black ties. So you have two different uniforms that you see people in, yet I get mistaken for one of the employees.

I say to the guy, "Umm... I don't work here, but it's right over there. I'm heading there myself (which I was)."

The guy said, 'Sorry' and headed over the way I pointed.

Getting there myself, I started looking for cheap computer games, but I was curious what the guy was looking for. He asked on the real employees what computer program would be good to convert a .mov file (a Quicktime file) to an .avi file (audio video interweave file format). He said something about wanting to convert it for use on his phone or some sort of mobile device.

The employee scratched his head, shrugged and said, "I don't know..."

I had to snigger a little because I felt like offering my services, but I restrained myself. I don't work there. Besides, I was running a little late.

This isn't the first time I've been mistaken for an employee, but certainly the first time I wasn't even dressed like one. When I worked at my old job, I was always in suit and tie, so I would often get asked for help at Best Buy, Office Max, Office Depot and Circuit City. The suit threw them off.

Can I use the f-word?

So Julia was getting her pajamas on the other night, and I noticed that the top that she put on barely went past her belly button. She's sprouted a lot lately and clothes that fit fine just a few short months ago are now too small for her. Sniff... They grow up so fast...

I mentioned this to Julia that it looks like it's too small for her.

She looked down and said, "It looks like I'm a little..."

She looked up at me and asked, "Can I use the f-word?"

Now I'm sure we all have heard of an f-word, but the f-word I'm familiar with would be sooner coming out of George Carlin's mouth than my daughter's mouth. But rather than reaching for conclusions and assuming that she was about to drop the f-bomb, I tested the waters.

"Why?" I asked. "What's the f-word?"

"Fat" she replied.

"Oh! That!" I replied in a 'I knew that. I was just testing you' kind of way.

She said that he's a little fat, but it's 'normal fat' she was quick to point out!

Saturday Night Live - The Office from Japan

Sorry I haven't posted in several weeks. I was in the middle of a huge project involving reorganizing my music collection. Considering I have over 1000 albums in mp3 format, it's taken a while to sift out the good songs and to download album art for each one. You see, I've gotten a Zune, which is like an iPod, but for people that don't like Macs, like this guy.

I'm going to post very soon, but in the meantime, here is a funny skit from Saturday Night Live. This is a parody of The Office, which is one of our favorite shows.

That's disgusting!

I rented the movie "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron" for Julia. She's really been into horses lately and fell in love with the movie when her Aunt Jackie showed her and her cousin, Tess, this movie during a family get together.



Julia's going through a horse phase right now, so of course she wanted to watch it over and over after I rented it.

The other day, we had just put it on for her. Laura and I were getting supper ready and she said, "Mom. Dad. This is when Spirit's Mom gives birth to him."

"Oh really?" I asked.

"Yeah. The mother horse lays on her side to give birth. It's the most disgusting thing in the world!"

When Laura and I laughed out loud at this, Julia said, "I'm serious! That's how horses give birth! It's SO disgusting!"

I should point out that in addition to Julia's horse phase, she's also going through a phase where a lot of things are disgusting and she's not afraid to vocalize that.

For example, a few weeks ago, I had to take my wedding ring off because I had a blister that was taking a while to heal because I was itching it. Julia looked at the bandage on my finger and asked, "What's wrong with your finger?"

I explained the problem with my finger was a result of me wearing my wedding ring all the time and that I should probably take it off at night.

Julia stared at me. I thought she was staring because she didn't know what a wedding ring was. I said, "You see, people wear a wedding ring on this finger (point to ring finger) to show other people that they are married."

She stared again and said, "That's disgusting. Thanks for sharing."

I asked her why she thought getting married was disgusting.

"Everyone knows that if you get married, you kiss at the wedding. That's disgusting."

I then declared that not only did we kiss at our wedding, but we kiss all the time. I said, “I even kiss her goodbye when I drop her off at work.”

Julia paused, looked at me with a slight glared and said, "How about this? Stop... being... disgusting!"

To press that point home, Laura and I asked her about it the next night at dinner. She declared that she didn't want to talk about it.

I leaned over and kiss Laura... on the lips...

Julia sighed and exclaimed, “Why do you have to be so disgusting?!”

Dirty clothes can be added to the list of things that Julia finds disgusting. Julia and I went into the master bedroom because I was going to turn on cartoons for her. Laura and I were still eating and wanted to watch American Idol. As I was turning on the television, Julia started muttering, “Umm... ahem... ahem... Dad!”

“What?” I asked a little annoyed because she's been apt to exclaim at me for weird reasons and I weary of it.

“Ummm.... Ummm... (pointing at something on the bed). Ewww!”

I looked around for something on the floor, which wouldn't surprise me if it was cat puke as one of our cats pukes up hair balls all the time. I didn't see anything. Meanwhile, she's still pointing and exclaiming.

“What are you pointing at?”

“That!” she exclaimed and pointed at a bra that was draped on the bed.

“So?” I asked. “That's Mommy's”

“That's a bra!” she exclaimed again.

“So?”

“So that's disgusting!” Julia said.

As a result of this, Laura has maturely started leaving her bras around all over the place for Julia to find them. Julia exclaims appropriately. I'm sure she'll have no hang up about it...

So what started out as a story about the Spirit DVD turned into a weird mix of Julia “That's disgusting” anecdotes.

Tokyo Police Club - In a Cave

I ordered this album from Saddle Creek records and am going to their show at The Slowdown on May 23rd. Here's a song off the new album called, "Elephant Shell".

Daily Show - The meter is running...

The Daily Show slams Fox News in this video. I don't watch Fox News that often, but I will flip to it every now and then to see what insane thing they are talking about now. Whether they are expressing mock outrage for the little things Democrats say or do, while ignoring or downplaying Republican acts of stupidity (or just identifying them as Democrats when it's convenient), getting facts wrong or just plain pandering to the White House, it's always nice to see them get called on it.

While they are the number one news network, I personally believe it's because half their audience tunes in to be outraged.

Hillary's 3 AM phone call from Obama

Some good advice for the kids...

The Never Song.

Movie Review - Right At Your Door

I had seen the trailer for this movie on another DVD, and it seemed like it was a really interesting and thought-provoking movie. While certainly thought provoking, it's only interesting in parts with a twist ending that, while interesting, has plenty of holes in it. I'll be discussing some plot points and the ending, so stop reading if you don't want to know how it ends.



The movie centers around Brad, an out-of-work musician, who sees his wife, Lexi, off to work. Soon after she leaves, Brad hears that several dirty bombs have been detonated in the city (Los Angeles). He goes outside and notices several clouds of smoke in the air. Thinking of his wife, he tries to call her while driving to where she might be. It seems the dirty bombs have a combination of toxic chemicals and an unknown viral agent. Not being able to get through and turned back by police, who he saw kill a man that was contaminated, he rushes back home while trying to call his wife several times. He also stops at the hardware store and steals a boat load of plastic sheeting and duct tape.

At home, he and the next-door handy man seal up the house while they wait for Lexi come home. He waits to do the front door last, but when it looks like she won't make it before the cloud of smoke overtakes the house, he puts clothes, food and water in a box for Lexi by the back of the house and seals up the front door.

What's supposed to be interesting is his decision to not let his wife into the house. She does show up and is mighty pissed when he won't let her in. His reasoning is that Fox News said not to come in contact with exposed people as they may be deadly. Her response is kind of funny: "What the f^&* does Fox News know?" There's a bit of back and forth as they argue about her getting into the house. She also tries to break into the back of the house by throwing her cell phone through a window. In the end, she resolves to her fate of being outside.

The rest of the movie drags and drags with the couple arguing between windows and plastic sheeting. There's also a lot of swear words that really detract from the story. At one point, Lexi says something like, "Well, they're not the f-wording one that's f-wording dying! F-word!" To which her husband pounds a wall and yells, "F-word!" I realize that this is a pretty stressful situation, but surely, they have a bigger swear-word thesaurus out there?

Like any movie out there, there are some head-scratching turns in the plot. As Brad is sealing up his house, I kept thinking, "Why doesn't he just seal off a room for his wife?" Sure enough, he finally does just that, but not until some intense arguing between the couple with F-bombs being thrown around, a character shows up, a character leaves and masked health officials show up a few times.

At one point, Brad stands in his bathtub and dumbs a whole bottle of bleach all over him because... well I'm guessing because he's paranoid about being contaminated. Curiously enough, he doesn't get any chemical burns, nor does his skin or hair turn colors. I don't care how toxic the environment is, washing yourself with a toxic chemical isn't the answer.

The 'shocking' ending comes when health officials show up and drag his wife away. Then the masked health officials inform Brad that the air in his house that they tested (he gave them a sample of something in the house) showed that the house was full of toxic air. Because he sealed up the house, he wasn't getting any fresh air and he's received a deadly dose of the toxin. They aren't letting him out and tell him not to struggle. They nail boards over every window and door and start filling the house with gas. He's killed to stop the possible viral spread of the toxin. Outside, the officials inform Lexi that because she was shut outside, she will likely survive the exposure.

This is where I didn't get the movie. I'm pretty sure health officials aren't just going to kill someone in a house because they believe that he's a goner already. They can probably quarantine someone if they have to. I'd hate to be the official that called for the mass extinction of everyone that sealed up their house only to find out that they might have acted too fast if people survive.

All in all, it's an okay movie. It has a definite point about whether or not we're prepared for a terrorist attack, but it's message is muddled by its plot holes and the coarse language.

An article from the Onion about Dippin' Dots

I thought this was hilarious. Who among us hasn't bought a cup of Dippin' Dots and wondered, "Is this really what they're going to eat in the future?"

Time Traveler: Everyone In The Future Eats Dippin' Dots

NEW YORK—"What is this melting dessert of churned animal's milk?" said the man, who came from a future world where Dippin' Dots is the sole ice cream for sale.

When your love for America goes too far...

In recent years, the American flag has been taken over as a symbol on the right for being a patriot. Apparently, freedom of speech only applies to some people when you say exactly what they want to hear. If you dissent from that, then you are anti-American. That's completely ridiculous I say.

Here's a song that takes that extreme view a little too far.

So you think it's all fun and games?

I work as a software tester, or a QA analyst or a Quality Control Specialist, or whatever you want to call me. Most people have no idea what I do all day. To put it simply: I make sure that the program that I'm assigned to works the way it's supposed to regardless of the person's expertise. That is, if you do something correct, it works correctly. If you do something incorrect, it should stop you.

My first job in the QA industry was when I worked for Sega in San Francisco in their test department. I didn't really intend to make it my career choice, but I kind of stumbled into something I'm quite good at, which is pointing out other people's mistakes without having to explain how to correct them.

Whenever I mention to people that my first job in QA was working testing video games, I'm usually met with the same response: "That sounds like fun." To which I reply, "You'd think that, wouldn't you?"

This usually gets a puzzled reaction.

I've written a story a while ago about how I equated getting a job testing video games like being told that you're going to die, but in a way that starts with good feelings first. Maybe a better analogy is that it's like drinking. At first, it's fun and games. Then you start to get bleary eyed and black out. Then you wake up with a feeling that you wasted hours of your life when you could have been doing something more productive. Finally, the hangover ends and you start over.

Here's a video that describes the video game testing world. From my perspective, it's absolutely accurate with what I went through.

Cartooning under the influence

It has long been my belief that those who create cartoons or kid shows do so under the influence of alcohol, drugs or both. All you have to do is look at some of the old and current shows to see evidence of this. Scooby Doo is an obvious example. You have four young adults driving around in a wildly-colored van called "The Mystery Machine," which is a little pompous of anyone owning a van. They drive around with a dog that can talk to them named Scooby. One of the characters, Shaggy, dresses in bell bottoms, looks like he hasn't bathed in weeks and considers Scooby his best friend. Both of them are always hungry as if they have munchies. They always are the ones that see the 'ghosts' first. No one believes them, of course, and hilarity ensues when pretty soon everyone is seeing the 'ghosts' that always turn out to be fake.

Spongebob Squarepants is another one. It's about a walking and talking sponge named 'Spongebob', who lives in the shell of a pineapple next to his neighbor, a squid, that lives in an Easter island head. Spongebob's best friend is a walking and talking starfish named Patrick that lives under a rock. He works at a restaurant called the Krusty Krab, which serves up the Krabby Patty, a hamburger-like thing complete with a bun, ketchup, pickles, lettuce and tomato. Curiously enough, they also have electricity, televisions and computers under water.

When Julia was younger, she got hooked on a show called Dora the Explorer. The show centers around the adventures of a little girl named Dora. Dora travels around to various places to help animals get home, run errands, getting to parties, etc. She wears a backpack with everything she needs in it and has a talking monkey that wears boots and nothing else, who is named Boots.



Dora gets whatever she needs from her backpack because it's a thinking and talking backpack that happens to have everything you could ever need. Unfortunately for us, Dora can't just take off her backpack and rummage through it. You have to call the backpack and decide what to choose that's best for the job.

Then there is Dora's map. In the backpack, she has a talking map called 'Map'. Like the backpack, Dora cannot just look at the map, she has to have you call 'Map'. The Map then starts singing about how much of a map he is, so you have to wait for him to finish. Once done singing, he starts to give you directions to where Dora needs to go. He repeats it several times so you don't forget. Then you have to tell Dora where to go. Seeing as how Dora is usually trying to get somewhere on time to rescue somebody or something, she certainly puts a lot of trust in the young viewer to tell her where to go. What if you weren't quite paying attention? Then you'd really get her lost. Thankfully, she already knows what you're going to say and repeats what she thought you'd say anyway.

The map's directions are interesting in that it only takes 3 steps to get anywhere on the map. His directions usually go something like this: "To get to the (random thing), go over the (random thing), around the (random thing) and under the (random thing) to get to the (random thing). Who knew that you could get anywhere in the world in just three steps? Dora not only made it to the North Pole to help Santa Claus in three steps, but she has also made it to the South Pole to help a baby penguin in three steps. You can substitute any prepositions into the plot line that runs like the writers were playing Mad Libs. "Let's see. Today, Dora has to go up the chocolate stalks, around the weeping mice and down the screaming slide to get to the monkey fiesta. Sound good?"

After that, Dora and Boots start singing the song with the directions in it like this: "Chocolate stalks. Weeping mice. Screaming Slide. Chocolate stalks. Weeping mice. Screaming slide. Where are we going? To the monkey fiesta. Where are we going? To the monkey fiesta."

Along the way, Dora constantly needs your help. She rounds the corner somewhere and asks you if you've seen the random thing that she's looking for. She'll ask, "Do you see the (random thing)? (pause) Where? (pause)" At this point, any older kid will be screaming "It's right freaking behind you!!!, but then the screen clicks with a pointer showing the right object.

To make that worse, Dora is also constantly stalked by a fox with a mask by the name of Swiper. Swiper "swipes" their stuff, but instead of stealing it like any good thief might, Swiper just throws the object that they need into some bushes or into a group of trees. It's then up to you, the viewer (of course), to tell Dora where all the objects are. And if those objects happen to be parts of the road or something they're traveling on, it's also up to you to tell her where the pieces fit.

On an aside here, some of the evildoers in some of the episodes comment about how smart Dora is, but I argue that she's getting plenty of f&*^ing help from her viewers. I've often remarked that "For a smart girl, you sure are helping her a lot."

Also along the way, Dora encounters some of her friends, which include no humans, save for her grandma, parents or cousin Diego. Her friends include a bull, an iguana, a bird and others. I don't know what they put in the water where she lives, but it seems to be passed along family lines. Her grandmother has admitted to talking to a tree made of chocolate when she was a little girl. Dora's grandmother has also given her a star pocket for Dora's backpack that allows her to catch talking stars.

I suppose I could forgive Dora's parents for allowing their very young daughter to explore the wilderness while giant talking animals try to hurt her or her progress. Or that she's allowed to travel long distances without a guardian. But to allow their child to experiment with hallucinogens? I'm not sure I can forgive that.

I'd love to see the team from social services coming to visit.

SS: "Where's you daughter, Dora?"

Dora's Parents: "She's going to her Grandmother's house with her best friend, Boots."

SS: "Is 'Boots' a nickname?"

DP: "No, that's his name."

SS: "Oh, well do you have a description of Boots in case we find them?"

DP: "Boots is about 3 feet tall. He's gray colored and wears red boots."

SS: "What else was he wearing?"

DP: "Nothing. He just wears boots."

SS: "Okay... He just wears boots... and has gray skin?"

DP: "Yes, he is a monkey you know."

SS: "Uhh huh... I see. So what was she going to do at her Grandmother's instead of going to school today?"

DP: "She's going to pick chocolate leaves from the chocolate tree that her Grandmother used to talk to when she was a kid."

SS: "Oh really? (squelch on radio). Send back up..."

Julia used to love Dora the Explorer. Once it was introduced as a cartoon to watch (not by me) there was no turning back. She insisted that she watch it. Even when she couldn't really talk that well as a toddler, she would point at the television and cry, "Do watch? Do watch? Dor! Dor!"

More recently, Julia has suddenly professed her distaste for Dora the Explorer. One day, she said this when Dora the Explorer came on, "Uggh! Dora? Can you turn it please?" Then it moved on to "Uggghh! I hate that show!"

More recently, she said this when Dora started after her other show ended, "Dad? What about the Dora problem?"

"What problem?" I asked.

"Dora's on. That's a problem."

I can see how some shows just have a natural age limit that repels any viewer above a certain age. I'm not sad to see her lose her Dora fixation. On the other hand, it's a lot more tolerable than the spin off show called, 'Go, Diego. Go!' in which Dora's cousin, who can talk to animals, goes around by himself in the jungles to rescue wild animals. He also has a talking camera and a talking backpack that doesn't just have anything, he can turn into anything. Curiously enough, he never turns into something that could get Diego there a lot faster, like a helicopter.

Cloverfield and batteries...

I went to see the movie Cloverfield two Saturdays ago. It's the new movie from the Bad Robot production group that brought you the shows Alias and Lost. J.J. Abrams is the producer. If you haven't seen the movie and plan on seeing it, which probably includes none of you, then stop reading. If you haven't seen it and probably won't, then keep on reading.

The movie is basically a monster movie in the same general premise that Godzilla was. A monster attacks a city for some reason and things get destroyed. Where it differs from monster movies like that is that it's shot to look like it was filmed on a small camcorder. This has been tried before in other films like the Blair Witch Project and the Last Broadcast. In the case of the Blair Witch Project, most of the 'scares' occur off screen. It's only at the end that we see something that's a little disturbing, but even that loses its luster after a second viewing.

In the case of Cloverfield, the movie purported to be footage found at the site in New York City formerly known as Central Park. The footage with a guy and a girl talking. It's the morning after of a sleep over involving Rob and Beth. It then cuts to a party where a woman named Lily is telling her boyfriend, Jason, Rob's brother, to man the camera for a going away party. Rob has just accepted a job in Japan and she threw the party.

Jason then quickly asks their buddy Hud to man the camera. Hud is a doofus, but he willingly starts filming and asking goofy questions. Along the way, he awkwardly tries to hit on Lily's friend Marlena.

The party is a stereotypical Manhattan party filled with tons of young and pretty city dwellers, filled with lots of indie rock and filled with lots of inane dialogue. I read one review of this movie in which the reviewer complained that the party scene was too long to the point that you wished that a giant monster would drop down on the sky and start wrecking havoc. I have to agree with a lot of that, but maybe that was the point. You really don't care too much for the characters because they seem like spoiled young adults, so when shit starts to happen, you sort of believe the confusion and selfish choices a few of them make.

At the party, Rob finally shows up and so does the girl he likes, Beth, who shows up with another guy! The word is 'ouch' to describe this encounter, but I'm not feeling sorry for this guy. He's apparently had years to describe his feelings for Beth, who he slept with once two weeks prior (the footage at the beginning was the morning after), but is surprised that she'd find someone else when he announced that he was taking a job in Japan. Rob and Beth fight, Beth leaves, and Rob leaves the party to feel sorry for himself. It's shortly after this point that a giant monster starts to attack the city.

Giant explosions happen across the city. A few buildings get destroyed. People start to freak out and run around in all directions. In the distance, it looks like a giant something is tearing up buildings. The people quickly decide to leave the city, but no one thinks to drive. Everyone starts to walk out of town across one of the bridges (forget which). Halfway across, it is attacked and it falls down, so the survivors of that have to turn around and get out another way. During this commotion, Beth calls Rob. She's hurt in her apartment building and is pleading for help. Rob, of course, decides to go find her. The problem is that this is the direction of the giant monster.

Along the way, they encounter the monster and its fight against the Army as well as some of the monster's babies, children or whatever they were. The babies look and act like little lizard spiders. The gang encounter the little monsters and have to run and hide. In the meantime, the monster is still wrecking havoc. The Army is considering blowing up Manhattan, so they only have a few hours to get out of town.

All in all, I thought it was a really good movie. Previous attempts at a first-person perspective movie have been mostly disappointing. This one had enough realism that you could believe that someone was shooting the footage of this event. The camera's narrator, Hud, while a little goofy, has the right amount of humor, fear, cowardice and nobility to save the footage from feeling hollow. You actually get that this guy is freaking out while running away from the monster.

Those with weak stomachs will want to avoid this film. I've heard of people getting really ill at all the bouncing and running around from the first-person camera, but I was fine when I watched it. If you go, don't be one of those people that were warned beforehand that the movie was a shaky perspective. The information is clearly out there that this is that type of movie. So if you're just one of those people that go to see movies without researching what you're getting yourself into, then I don't really feel sorry for you for seeing something you probably didn't like. Do your homework beforehand. Seriously, we live in the information age. If you can yap on your cellphone while you're supposed to be bagging your groceries and holding up the grocery store line, then you can take the time to get on a computer. Sit. Type. Click. Read. Easy. There. I feel better.

What's intriguing to me about this movie are that people aren't questioning the premise that a huge monster can suddenly appear and start destroying New York. I think that's an accepted fact that this couldn't seriously happen at any time. We are the jaded generation after all, or at least my generation is. I don't know about Generation Y, but I think it'd be the same. We've been raised on monster and fantasy movies that have pushed the envelope of what is real and what isn't real. However, when a movie like Independence Day comes along, people my age are more likely to nitpick the viability of Jeff Goldblum hacking into the alien mother ship's computer with a Macintosh laptop and giving their computer a virus than the viability of 13 huge ships flying across the universe undetected until they fly over our cities.

So I guess it shouldn't come as a shock to me that people are nitpicking Cloverfield because of its controversial use of batteries: cell phone batteries and camera batteries.

After the monster attacks and Rob gets his phone call from Beth, he quickly realizes that his cell phone battery is almost dead. So instead of rushing out of the city, he rushes into an electronics store, finds a new battery, slaps it into his phone and tries to contact Beth again. That's it. That's a huge controversy.

I've read many discussions on the internet movie forums where people are declaring how false it is that a person could just get a brand new cell phone battery and use it because the package always tells you to charge it before you use it. Then people that work for an electronics store claim that they have some sort of charge because the batteries have to be tested before they leave the factory. Then other people tell their stories about how they have tried this before and found that they needed to charge their battery. Then other people challenge that by stating that sometimes they lose their charge from sitting on the shelf and other times it still has some of that factory charge left. And it goes on and on.

The other controversy is about the battery in the camcorder that Hud uses. Most batteries that come with a camcorder generally last between an hour and two hours, so it stands to reason that some people don't believe that Hud could be filming for over 7 hours. Now here is where it gets a little stupid in my opinion.

First of all, it's never mentioned how long Hud films for. You get the impression that he either filmed continuously and had it edited out for the flim version, that he was shutting the camcorder off and on during the night. Either scenario will drain most batteries in a few hours. However, it's also pretty obvious that he was shutting the camera off and on as he had breaks in action. Even if you have a low-cost battery, you can stretch the battery life by shutting it off and on. My old camcorder from the early 1990s had a two-hour battery that I used one day at Disney World for almost the whole day. So now over a decade later we have made significant advances in battery life. I've seen batteries listed at Best Buy that last for over 6 hours.

The problem is, it's never spelled out for the viewer in the movie. So this has led to long discussions about the feasibility what type of camera it was, how long he filmed, whether or not he kept the camera on the whole time, whether or not he recorded the whole time, etc. As a result, people are confused.

Even my brother, Joe, was wondering about that. He admitted that he was a little confused about how long a battery should last.

That's the problem with the viewing public. We need things spelled out for us.

My one big question in the movie is the viability of New York clearing out. For sure, there are people scrambling out of the way, but the city seems devoid of running cars, kids and old people. I didn't get the sense that there was a mad scramble for all of New York to leave the city. I would think that this would take days. But again, this isn't spelled for me, so now I'm a hypocrite for even questioning it while I'm mocking people who question other aspects of the movie. So much for my original premise.

Funny video - Everyday Normal Guy rapper

I thought this was pretty funny. Watch out if listening without headphones. This video has several motherflipping curse words in this mother fricker...

If I have time...

It's interesting to me how kids view adults. When I was a kid, I assumed that being an adult was great because you didn't have to go to school, you got to drive a car and you could buy whatever you wanted. Julia seems to have a similar view. Lately, she's lamenting being a kid and wishes to be an adult for some of the same reasons. She's just started Kindergarten and fondly remembers the carefree days of Pre-school when it was learn for a few hours in the morning and play all afternoon instead of the learn all day stuff she's now subjected to.

Before Christmas, Laura and Julia gave Julia's kindergarten teacher a Christmas gift, which included a candle holder of some sort.

I was unpacking Julia's backpack a few days ago and came across a Thank You card. I opened the card and read it to Julia. It was a card from her teacher thanking her for the gift.

As we were getting ready for bed, Julia walked into the bathroom behind me chuckling to herself.

I asked, "What's so funny?"

She said, "Adults like candles a lot don't they?"

I said, "Well, women adults like candles a lot. Men like other things. Do you like candles?"

"Ya," she said.

I should point out that Julia has taken to saying "Yeah" like she was born in Minnesota for the last several years. Her pre-school teachers tried to rid her of that habit, but with little luck.

"Do you think you'll like candles when you're an adult," I asked.

"If I have time," she said.

I paused a second and asked, "What do you mean: 'If I have time.'? Why wouldn't you have time?"

"Because I'll be carrying babies around!" she said in a 'Isn't it obvious?' way.

Laura and I laughed about that one. She seems to think that being a Mom means that she'll have no time for her kids. Keep in mind, she's told me on several occasions that she doesn't want kids.

Julia also has a semi-distorted view of vitamins and medicines, too.

I read somewhere that kids don't get enough Omega-3 since Americans don't eat as much fish. So I decided to give Julia Omega-3 supplements for kids.

At first, I was using a brand that tasted like oranges, but this new one I got, while having a lot more Omega-3 than the other brand, is very squishy and weird tasting. Julia tried one and then gave me a look that screamed, "Are you kidding me?"

I tried one, too and did my best not to look disgusted by the taste. I swallowed and said, "Oh well, they don't taste that good, but they have a lot more brain food in there than the other brand did."

I had told Julia that the stuff was brain food so she wouldn't ask what it is. I'm sure she'd freak if she knew that it was taken from extracted algae and anchovies.

The next night I gave her two of the new ones. She grabbed them and started to eat one.

"Take two of them?" Julia asked.

I said, "Yes. That's what the bottle says."

"I better not take four then."

"Why?"

She said with a wry voice, "Otherwise, I'll be a genius."

"Oh." I said trying not to laugh.

.....................

Julia likes to gab a lot in her kindergarten class room. If you talk or are misbehaving, the teacher will pull one of three crayons on their desk. The first warning is your green crayon, like the 'Go' light on a stop light. The second warning is the yellow crayon like the 'Caution' light. The third and last warning that gets you sent to the principal's office is the red crayon.

The first week back from winter vacation, Julia would have at least one crayon pulled a day. One day, she hung her head as she walked into the house from the bus because she had two crayons pulled. Seeing a trend, we challenged Julia to not get crayons pulled on a Friday. If she did, we'd do something fun. Friday afternoon, she waltzed into the house and proudly proclaimed that she did not get a crayon pulled.

That Saturday night, I was reading a book to Julia called 'Cheater Pants' from the Junie B. Jones series of kid books. In the books, Junie B. is a too-smart-for-her-own-good first grader who bends the rules as she interprets them. In 'Cheater Pants', she forgets to do her homework, so she copies off a classmate that left hers out while she was away from her desk. Junie B. is caught because it was an essay about what you did that weekend. Of course, hers perfectly matched the girl she copied from. Junie B. tries to explain that she was only copying homework and not a test, so it was okay. She didn't realize that she was doing something wrong.

We went upstairs to get Julia ready for bed. As I was giving her vitamins and some allergy medicine, Julia asked if it was lying if you got in trouble in class, but didn't tell us about it.

I said, "It depends on what it is. Why? What happened."

Julia nonchalantly said, "Well, you said that if I didn't get any crayons pulled that I wouldn't be in trouble. I didn't get in trouble with the teacher. She yelled at me once, but she did NOT (throws her arms sideways for emphasis) pull any crayons."

I looked at her surprised and said, "Oh really!" with a tone of surprise and accusation touched with a little bit of sarcasm.

"What did you do to get yelled at?"

"Umm... Nothing." Julia said with a quiet smile.

"Julia... You brought it up. Just tell me."

Julia sighed. "She was yelling at me to be quiet, but she's always yelling!" Julia raised her hands in frustration at this.

All I can say is that it's going to be a challenge to stay on my toes as Julia gets older...

The Bee Movie, Alvin and the Chipmunks and Happy Feet...

Introductions aren't my strongest suit, so let's just say that I had ideas to talk about three different kids movies, but couldn't think of compelling reasons to focus on just one, so I decided to meld them all into one story. That and I had a few of them partly written and was too lazy to finish.

........................

One Friday, Julia and I were on our own. Laura was out of town visiting a friend so I promised Julia that we would see the new movie, The Bee Movie.



We saw the 5:00 showing at the local theater here. Julia was pretty excited to see it. After all, if you've been watching television, it would have been really hard to miss the advertising for The Bee Movie. They were on for the two months before it came out non-stop on the kid channels.

We get to the theater and we go to buy popcorn. Julia really loves popcorn, so we ended up sharing a large popcorn.

Inside the theater, Julia decided that we're going to sit at the very top of the theater so that "we can see better." I tried to tell her that if we sat a few rows closer, we'd see it even better, but she had her heart set on the top row. Once you get Julia's mind set on something, it's hard to change it.

The previews were going and we're eating our popcorn. Julia was holding the huge bag on her lap. After a few minutes, she pulled the popcorn away from me.

I exclaimed in a loud whisper, "Hey! Bring back the popcorn!"

Julia defiantly said, "No, we're saving it for the start of the movie."

I tried to reach across her to get more popcorn.

She pulled away. After a few seconds, she put the bag back on her lap. I reached again. She slapped my hand! I reached again. She slapped my hand again!

I exclaimed, "Hey!"

She said again, "No! We're saving it for the start of the movie!"

I looked at her and then my watch. It's only a few minutes before the movie was supposed to start. I said, "Fine."

I sat there waiting, but I still felt hungry as I had not eaten yet. I looked over at Julia periodically. She was just sitting there watching the trailers, but then I noticed that she was putting popcorn into her mouth every 10 seconds or so.

I said, "Julia, I thought we were saving the popcorn."

She stopped eating for a minute. Then she began again.

I said again, "Julia, I thought we were saving the popcorn."

She stopped eating for yet another minute. Then she began eating the popcorn yet again.

I exclaimed, "Julia! Stop eating!"

She didn't stop, so I grabbed the bag. She slapped my hand again. This time, I moved close to her face and I said in a low voice, "Julia. This is ridiculous. I paid for the popcorn, and I'm going to eat it if I want to. Otherwise, I'm going to take this popcorn, throw it away and you'll get none. On top of that, you'll be grounded. Is that what you want? Besides, we can get a refill on the popcorn if we run out, remember?"

She looked at me for a second as if she was trying to figure out how serious I was. I think she got the message. Without sighing, she gave me the popcorn bag. I proceeded to eat.

Ahh... kids, aren't they precious? I'm sure years later she'll be convinced by her therapists that all of her problems in life can be traced back to the time when she tried to conserve her popcorn for the movie, but I ate it anyway. She'll come home one Christmas and yell, "You bastard! You ate my popcorn!"

So back to The Bee Movie...

The Bee Movie was written by Jerry Seinfeld, who coincidentally starred in the show Seinfeld. In The Bee Movie, Seinfeld plays the roll of Barry B. Benson, a young bee who's just graduated from school and excited to pick his new career. He gets freaked out that he'll get stuck in his career choice until he dies. After all, he hasn't seen anything out of the outside world. While flying with the pollen jockeys, the bees that collect and spread pollen, he gets lost in the big city. From there, he meets a florist, who he falls in love with. There are some funny scenes with her jealous human boyfriend and his dealing with the human world.

I don't really remember a lot about how the movie's plot goes, but it somehow moves to bees suing the human race for harvesting their honey without permission.

I fell asleep a few times during the courtroom scenes in the movie, which should give you an indication on how much I liked this movie. All in all, it was okay. It started out pretty good with lots of bee puns and humor that adults could appreciate. I just thought it dragged a little.

........................

Another movie we saw recently was the new movie, Alvin and the Chipmunks. As with every beloved franchise from our youth, they have to remake it into a cartoon, 3-D animated film or combination action and 3-D animated film. This is the latter.



The movie centers around a guy named Dave, like the guy from the original song (played by Jason Lee). He's a song writer, but not a very successful one. He plays his demo tape to his friend, Ian (played by David Cross), who is a record executive of some sort, or maybe he's an agent. Ian rejects it and tells him to find something new, so Dave does when he inadvertently becomes the guardian of three chipmunks who can sing and talk. How does one acquire three talking chipmunks you may ask? Well, if you are in the process of leaving a record company's lobby with a stolen muffin basket, it's possible that three talking chipmunks will jump in after their tree is cut down and erected as a Christmas tree in the lobby of said record company.

They introduce themselves to Dave, he freaks out, throws them out, they manage to get back in, and he blackmails them to sing his songs for free room and board. He throws them out again for ruining his dinner date with the girl next door, who happens to look like a super model (played by Cameron Richardson, who curiously enough played a teen supermodel on the show House, when she was about 24 years old). The chipmunks high tail it over to Ian's house without knowing who Ian is, what he does or where he lives. They sing for him the Christmas song and he proclaims them new artists on the record label!

Apparently, it's possible to record, produce and release a Christmas song sung by Chipmunks not only overnight, but so fast that when Dave is in the grocery store the next day, he hears the song on the loud speaker.

Fame comes to the chipmunks. Of course, Ian starts to wedge himself between Dave and the chipmunks, Dave loses the chipmunks, chipmunks miss Dave, Dave misses the chipmunks, Dave wants the chipmunks back, Ian won't let the Chipmunks go, yadda yadda yadda... the Chipmunks are back with Dave.

I left the movie twice to get a refill of popcorn and to go to the bathroom. Curiously enough, I didn't seem to miss anything. I even took my time. This should tell you that I didn't think much of this movie.

I joked with Laura when I came back the second time, "What did I miss?"

She rolled her eyes and said, "Nothing."

The movie was okay, but lacked a clever plot or jokes that weren't derived from trashing an apartment or chipmunk bodily functions.

The one interesting thing to me was the phone-it-in performance by David Cross, who has a dual career of corny movie actor and hipster comedian. You could tell that he was winking at the camera the whole time. Hey, I understand. If I was bit player actor, I'd probably be happy for any role that came my way, too.

One thing I'm getting tired of in these movies are the uses of the same plot device of two parties getting together, then one party goes away, which the other party realizes they were meant to be with the other all along. It's been used over and over with these films. Memo to Hollywood: Can't we just have a remake of a beloved pop culture icon(s) that involves a different plot device?

............

The next movie has been out for a while, but I'm finally around to reviewing it. It's called 'Happy Feet' and it's a movie about a penguin that tap dances instead of singing, which I guess most penguins do... This month, it's back on HBO and because it's also available in our On Demand section, we get to see it whenever Julia wants to see it. Yay!!!!



The movie centers around a penguin named Mumble. From the start, Mumble is different from the other penguins because he doesn't have a singing voice. Apparently, penguins not only sing, but they sing various versions of popular songs that include, "Heartbreak Hotel", "Somebody to Love", "Kiss", "Broken Wings", etc. It's like watching 'Moulin Rouge' with penguins. Curiously enough, they both star Nicole Kidman.

Watching this movie or even listening in the background to this movie makes me want to shove pencils in my eyes and ears. The butchering of songs is bad enough, but then it takes a turn for the worse by the two voices that Robin Williams provides for this movie. First off, he provides the voice of the sassy narrator, who turns out to be the character of Lovelace, the sassy love doctor, which he reads kind of like a grizzled Morgan Freeman meets Barry White. Then we hear him again as Ramon, the sassy Hispanic sounding penguin that Mumble befriends. For some reason, the writers of this movie felt the need to have the smaller penguins that Mumble encounters voiced like they came across the border.

The segments with Robin Williams drive me crazy because I personally can't stand him anymore. There was a time when I really liked Robin Williams. My brother and I thought that he was hysterical, and we'd see every movie that he was in. After a while, you start to notice that he's just doing the same voices whenever he's in a movie or appearing on a show. His list of characters include the sassy John Wayne, the sassy gay guy, the sassy southerner, the sassy Hispanic, the sassy preacher, the sassy cop, the sassy kid or the sassy grandma. I'm sure I've forgotten one. It wasn't so bad in the movie 'Robots' when he played Bender, the sassy, kleptomaniac robot made of spare parts, but it was definitely restrained. He's much better in movies when he's restrained like his roles in Awakenings and Good Will Hunting.

Another thing that drives me crazy about Happy Feet is the non-stop use of music for the sake of plot. You see the plot revolves around Mumble being an outsider because he can't sing like the other penguins. Because of this, he's kind of an outcast due to his crazy dancing that he does instead.

Because the plot, voices and music drive me up the wall, I'll admit that I'm not sure what happens in the middle of the movie. I do know that Mumble loves a girl named Gloria, he can't sing, he's shunned and explores a lot because of it, which is where it's discovered that fish are disappearing. Where it gets really weird is when Mumble and others try to figure out what happened to all the fish. In a very weird turn, Mumble is captured and placed in a zoo in which he faces real actors. He's depressed because he's away from his family and Gloria, the girl penguin he likes. He starts to tap dance one day, people notice and suddenly it turns into a save the world by dancing sequence. Mumble appears back home (with a tracking device on his back) and convinces the penguins to dance to bring back the fish. They do and the humans watching are astounded. It ends with real actors yelling at each other about how they must save the penguins!

It's a very weird movie, and I can't believe it got the good reviews it got. Julia seems to love it though, which I guess is the whole point...