May 31st - Sleeping in, puppy smell, movies, toilets and Dad...

I woke up late today at about 9:30. Usually, I have to get up with Julia since Laura insists that she needs more sleep, so I am up at about 7:30 or 8. I should go to bed earlier, but I feel like I'm wasting valuable time if I go to be earlier.

Last night, I watched the movie Sleepaway Camp, which is a slasher film from the early 80s. It's very low budget, but has an interesting twist at the end. It's not something I'd recommend to someone though. I just wanted to see it since it's considered a cult classic.

Julia spent the night at a friend's house last night, which is why I got to sleep in. Before she left, Julia smelled like a wet puppy from her day's playing. When she got back at 11:30 this morning, it was obvious that she hadn't bathed because she absolutely reeked. It was like following Pig Pen from the Peanuts gang around. She thought we were joking, because Laura was waving her hand in front of her nose and going, "Julia! Oh God! Get in the bath tub!"

Julia was like, "I don't need to take a bath."

"Oh, yes you do!" Laura said.

Julia reluctantly walked to the bathroom. All the while, Laura was waving her hand in front of her nose as she followed Julia.

"Man!" Laura said.

Later, we went to see the movie "Up", the new Pixar movie, which is in 3-D. I've mentioned my love of 3-D movies, so I opted to see the 3-D version instead of the 2-D version. There were some really cool 3-D trailers for movies, including a live-action movie about these hamsters that are genetically engineered spies.

Up was pretty good. Like all Pixar movies, it has a good story with a good heart, but unlike past ones that were 20 minutes too long (Cars and Ratatoille), this one was just the right length at one hour and 36 minutes long. There were good laughs, especially when the dogs that have collars that let them talk appeared.

After the movie, we went home and I used the bathroom, which normally wouldn't be anything to write about, but I have had it up to here with my toilets in the house because you severely run the risk of clogging up the toilets every time you use it for... bulky deliveries. I used to keep tabs on who was clogging up the toilet more (since it happened about once a week). I'm not going to say who was winning that contest because I'm under orders to keep the results confidential. Promise kept!

This last time was the last straw as even though I flushed several times during the 'bulky delivery', it still clogged and I had to plunge the bowl.

Super-powered toilet, here I come!

Ever since we moved in, it's been my fantasy and my mission to replace our toilets. Our builders installed what have got to be the cheapest toilets. I had to replace the hardware inside them less than a year after we moved in. They clog at the drop of a hat, which I've mentioned, so I'm afraid to have people come over lest they leave an unwanted bulky delivery behind.

Last night was the season-finale of Breaking Bad, the AMC original series about a chemistry teacher who starts cooking crystal meth when he finds out that he's dying of cancer. Well since the show it doing quite well in the ratings, it's been renewed for a third season. Coincidentally, Walt, the teacher, has had his cancer go into remission after miraculous progress from the cancer treatment. The finale was excellent as Walt's calculated lying for the past 19 episodes all seemed to collapse. His wife laid into him in her most calm voice, which made it all so great. Walt could only stand there speechless.

I ended the night by listening to a few mp3s I made of my Dad. I have a couple of phone calls from 2007 that I taped when I was sort of planning on writing a book about my childhood. The plan was to interview Dad, but it felt weird interviewing him without him knowing. I was thinking of asking him if he'd let me dictate family stories, but we felt that he might have been insulted. But I'm glad that I have these two phone calls. There are pretty funny in parts, especially when he talks about Hillary Clinton.

He said something like "If I lived with her, I would sleep with one eye open because she'd kill you in your sleep."

I'm glad I have them to remind me of Dad. I'm going to post the eulogy later this week after I edit it some more.

Trekkies bash film

I've seen the new Star Trek movie twice now. I wasn't really enthused to see it before it came out because I wasn't really a fan of the series or movies. I then saw the movie. I liked it, but a lot of Star Trek fans that I work with didn't think it was so good. Here's a video from the Onion that reminded me of it.


Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

Print media gets a lifeline....

What with the newspaper industry slashing jobs left and right, this video shows what happens when a blog hires some old-timey newspaper workers. Pretty funny.

More music...

The Doves - Kingdom of Rust

Mid-tempo melancholy rock from the UK. If there was any justice, these guys would be big in the United States, but they're not...

PG pron - Roadside Assistance

Here's part of a series of videos where they make pg-friendly adult movies. It's mostly safe for work save for a little bad language.

PG PORN: Roadside Ass-sistance | Celebrities | SPIKE.com

Music I'm liking as of now...

Silversun Pickups - Panic Switch



I once described this band as sounding like a shoegazer band that drank a bunch of red bull before hitting the studio and then cranking up the vocals. It's a sort of harder rocking dreamy-sounding rock.

Passion Pit - The Reeling



My Mom was scanning my Zune and started listening to this band. She said that she liked it. Well, Mom, here's their new song from their upcoming album. I guess you would call this synth pop with more melodies.

Audiobook - Rant by Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck Palahniuk is not exactly one of my favorite writers. In some ways, he is new and exciting in that he has some pretty out there ideas for a plot, characters and dialogue. His books also have the weird humor in them that I find funny, but not in a rolling-on-the-floor way, but in appreciative way. In other ways, he can be predictable in that many of the characters in his books have weird fetishes of some sort, spout endless tidbits of information on various subjects and seem to sound the same. Also, almost all of his books have a really interesting start and then die a slow death as it meanders to an unexpected conclusion. While the conclusions are usually never in the direction that I anticipated, they are disappointing in that they don't draw you in like the beginning does.

Chuck Palahniuk is best known for his book called 'Fight Club' in which the main character of the book, whose name you never hear, has insomnia and finds a way to sleep by going to various support groups for people dying of various diseases. Along the way, he meets Tyler Durden, a man almost his opposite. Whereas the narrator is unsure of himself, Tyler seems to know it all about everything. Together, they start Fight Club, an underground club where guys fight bare knuckled. As the Fight Club culture grows, so do Tyler's ambitions and the narrator is drawn into an even more underground club where corporate mayhem is the game.

I saw the movie first and it's one of my favorite movies of all time. It's very dark and slyly funny, but it's a definite guy's movie for the younger set. The book is not as good. I liked it, but liked the movie's interpretation of it a lot more.

Rant is the oral history of Rant Casey as told by friends, neighbors, co-workers, bosses and enemies. It's a series of recorded statements. I think as a text, it would be a little frustrating to read, but in audio form, it's great. Each character is voiced by a different voice actor, so it's easy to tell who the character is before they finish their name.

Rant is not easy to explain. It's the story of a boy, knicknamed 'Rant', who grows up to be the carrier of a deadly rabies plague. As a boy, he became fascinated by the rush he would get by getting bit by venomous spiders and animals. Some of these animals were rabid. Rant became immune to rabies and started a small outbreak in his small town. Then in the city, a much larger outbreak was started that almost ground society to a halt. In between this, Rant gets involved in a group of people called 'Party Crashers' whose main goal every night is to drive around in the night's costume (like a wedding party or student drivers) and crash into other 'Party Crashers' to earn points. The world also deals with virtual reality brain porting and time travel.

All in all, it's a very different audio book that worked for me. Not sure who I'd recommend it to, but if you liked Fight Club and appreciate movies like Pulp Fiction and the Big Lebowski, then this may be for you.