The Denver Trip - Part one, The ride out there

We weren't really going to take a vacation this year, but we had an opportunity to take a short vacation relatively cheaply. So we decided to drive out to Denver for a few days to do several things: go to Casa Banitas, go to the Water World amusement park, go to the Rocky Mountain National Park and go to the Denver Natural History Museum.

Laura was afraid that Julia would be impatient in the car, so it was decided to split up the trip into three legs.

Leg one was to drive from Omaha to Kearney and stay the night, which we did.

Leg two was setting out for Imperial, Nebraska.

Imperial is where Laura grew up from second grade on. She has said on many occasions that she really loved growing up in a small town and misses it a lot. She has also said that she would move back there in a heartbeat if she thought we'd both be able to live there with jobs. I, on the other hand, am very ambivalent about moving to the middle of BFE.

I grew up in Grand Island, which isn't exactly the mecca of awesomeness, but it did have a lot to do. It had seven screens of movies. There were two malls, a roller skating rink, many parks, an arcade, bowling alleys, and many more things to do.

I've been to Imperial before and not to knock it, there wasn't much to do. I'm sure if I had grown up there I'd be fine with that. But I didn't, so I'm biased.

Laura had me take pictures of the fields as we were approaching Imperial. She said she missed the scenery.

As we got closer to Imperial, I mentioned to Julia that her Mom said that she'd love to move back to Imperial.

Julia looked a little dubious at this.

"Does it have a Burger King?"

"No," Laura said.

"Does it have a Target?"

"No," Laura said.

"Does it have a Walgreens?"

"No," Laura said.

"Does it have a Walmart?"

"No," Laura said.

"Does it have anything?!" Julia exclaimed.

Laura laughed, "Yes! It has a Subway and a Pizza Hut."

Julia still looked a little dubious. I thought about giving her the impression that we were going to move there, but didn't want to scar her.

We stopped and ate at a local eatery that was pretty good.

Laura warned me not to post this on Facebook because a lot of Imperial people are on Facebook. My feeling on this is that it's not my fault that she and others lived in a town that was so soul-crushing boring that they're that sensitive about it. Just kidding!

As I mentioned before, Grand Island isn't exactly good time central. It's all based on what you're used to and what you missed. I regularly mock my home town.

I wouldn't exactly be against moving there if we had that rare opportunity to do so, but I've said only on the condition that we have a big acreage with plenty of room to do stuff on. Not sure how realistic that would be.

The third leg was to drive from Imperial to Denver, which wasn't as easy as it sounded. Julia and I finally had to prod Laura away from Imperial. We were very impatient to get back on the road and get to Denver.

Paper Chase - What Should We Do With Your Body? (The Lightning)

New song by one of my favorite bands, The Paper Chase, who make music so weird that you'll either love them or hate them beyond belief. The album is supposedly about natural disasters, so keep that in mind when listening to this song with is subtitled, the Lightning.



http://www.thepaperchaseband.com/WhatShouldWeDoWithYourBody_TheLightning.mp3

Harold Ramos talks about Ghostbusters 3...

http://makingof.com/filming_now/media/ghostbusters-3/harold-ramis-on-ghostbusters-3/63/231

Recent movies I saw...

Last week, I watched a movie called The Room. If you've never seen it, you're really missing out. It's one of those movies that is so bad that it's good. It's kind of gained a cult following for the midnight movie crowds. Kind of like the Rocky Horror movie set, people talk to the screen, throw things and dress up like characters from the movie.

The Room centers around a man named Johnny who seems to have everything. He's a "banker", which he mentions a lot. He has a "beautiful" girlfriend, which is mentioned a lot. He has a pseudo-son that he's putting through school. Everyone seems to like him. Then without warning, his girlfriend Lisa decides that he's too boring, even though she never seems to leave the apartment they live in, and starts sleeping with his best friend, Mark. You know Mark is his best friend because he says it all the time. Lisa's in the "computer" business because that's what she says even though she doesn't seem to own one. People come and go at odd times and some characters are never introduced. The football is tossed several times and not in the 'go deep' kind of way, but in a 'let's-stand-five-feet-from-each-other' way.

I recently got the Riff Trax audio for The Room. Riff Trax is a commentary joke track you can add to DVDs to watch alongside the actual movie. It's pretty funny.

I also watched, Choke, a movie based on a Chuck Palaniuk book. He's the author of Fight Club, which is one of my favorite movies. It stars Sam Rockwell, who you might have seen as Guy, the extra crew member in Galaxy Quest. Choke concerns a man who is a sex addict and funds his psychotic mother's nursing home stay with money from people who have saved his life. He deliberately shoves food down his throat so a kind-hearted stranger will save him. They in turn give him money every now and then because it makes them feel good. He also works at a real-life colonial villager that's like a living museum.

I really wanted to like this movie more, but it's not that funny. I wouldn't recommend it unless you really really liked Fight Club.

Lastly, we saw the movie Public Enemies last week. It's directed by Michael Mann, who directed, Heat, Hancock, the Aviator and other bigger than life films.

Johnny Depp stars as John Dillinger, the notorious bank robber. Depp plays him very well as a low-key, muted gangster with a swagger. From what I've read, this is like how Dillinger was as he'd blend into crowds due to his not-so-unique features. Christian Bale plays the man that's tasked with bringing down Dillinger. Bale does a decent job with what he's given.

The movie was pretty good. It had good action scenes, but the movie gets run down by the slow scenes in between. Near the end, I forgot who one major character was supposed to be, so I had to ask Laura to remind me. That's not a good sign. It's a fine picture if you like seeing films about the Great Depression era. Otherwise, I'd probably stay away.

Metric - Sick Muse

Good song by the band, Metric. Kind of Garbage-like, which is obvious, but I think they have their own style.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEz8N8AT-yo

2012: It's a Disaster!

This is someone's response to the 2012 movie trailer that I posted a while ago. It's as if it's a 70's disaster movie!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW2qxFkcLM0&feature=player_embedded

My secret shame...

When I worked at my last job, which was a suit-and-tie place that had really strict rules, I had an incident that I always refer to as 'My Secret Shame'.

When I got laid off from my dot com job, I basically had to take any job that I could get. The SATP (suit-and-tie place) was my only option. I went from a place where you could not only wear what you wanted, but you could pretty do much anything as long as your job was getting done. We would even play touch football in the courtyard every day.

At SATP, I had to deal with a litany of rules that would make any military academy proud. You were supposed to be at your desk by 8 am and you couldn't leave any time before 5 pm. You couldn't have food or drink at your desk. You had to keep chit chat to a minimum. You couldn't walk on the grass. You couldn't lean against any walls. There were no microwaves or refrigerators, so you had to either bring a cold lunch or leave for lunch.

My friend from the dot com place, let's call him Hank, also got a job at SATP.

Lunch was a problem for us. Eating your lunch at your desk was not doable at all. The closest I had ever gotten to eating lunch at my desk was casually reaching into my bag to pull a chip out of my ziplock bag full of chips. Then I would try to silently as possible munch on the chip.

Because we were bored and because we had nothing better to do during lunch, we started eating lunch at Hank's house. Hank lived fairly close by, so it was pretty convenient.

Sometimes we'd sit and eat and talk. Other times, we'd surf the Internet for something we both were interested in. We even had a short-lived attempt at playing a collectible card game of a famous cult television show. After several boring attempts at trying to play a game, we decided that it just wasn't our thing.

One day, Hank mentioned that he had a game that we could play. It was a game that he and his friends used to play years ago, but they all kind of stopped playing it and they gave him all of the cards. He said that he would divide the cards up into 'packs' and we could all start building decks to play.

The game was the collectible card game, Shadowfist. Just to brief you, collectible card games are games in which you have a basic deck of cards, but then you are encouraged to buy booster packs to fill you deck with better cards. Think of it was boosting up a regular deck of cards with super jokers and wild kings.

Now my only exposure to collectible card games was the game of Magic: The Gathering. During the summer when I was in college, I would hang out at some friend's house and him and his roommates would play it. I attempted to play a game with them with one of their decks, but all I knew was that I didn't understand it and I got my ass kicked.

Magic was played with an array of cards that allowed players to generate magic, or mana, and then attack their enemies with a variety of magic creatures.

Shadowfist is of a similar nature. Let me try to explain it simply. In Shadowfist, you lay out sites to generate power. Think of it as a power plant that generates a piece of power every turn. From there you bring out characters and attack your enemy's site to take control of it. After you take control of 5 sites you win the game.

That's basically it... Well, you can bring out many characters to attack other characters. Or you can defend your sites with your characters. Or you can join in attacks when someone else attacks. When a site is taken it is burned for victory... Or burned in general... Or burned for power... You can also put out non-character cards like Edges, which grant special powers. Or you can play events, which can perform a certain one-time action like removing a player from play. Or you can put weapons on characters.

So once a player starts attacking you can defend with your character, or someone else can defend you... or you can play an event card to stop the attack... or you can use your sites to send the attack to another target... Did I mention that sites do more than just generate power? Well, they can...

Sites can generate power, cause damage, absorb damage, cancel events, cancel characters... basically anything!

So the game was difficult to learn. The instruction booklet was over 100 pages long in and of itself.

We started collecting cards and playing the games at Hank's house from that day on. There in lay a problem: Hank's house.

Hank's house was not exactly a mess, but it was not immaculate. It looked like a house lived in by people that do a lot of activities. The whole family had a lot of activities which left them little time to clean. Because of this, it was Hank's job to make sure that the trash was taken out and the dining room/living room/kitchen area was clean. Seeing as how Hank was a guy who did not dress that neat (neither did I), the house was usually in a state of disarray.

When we'd come to play, we all took turns microwaving our dinners in Hank's kitchen. Usually, there were dirty dishes in the sink and on the counter. To combat cleaning a lot, Hank had resorted to buying a lot of bulk plastic silverware. The household seemed to have no formal silverware of any kind and if it did, it was hidden.

Also seeing as how the trash can was usually overflowing, us stuffing our dinners into it left an even larger heap that I'm sure didn't look too good when his wife came home.

So every day, we'd hang out at Hank's house playing Shadowfist. Most games took several days, so we resorted to putting our cards on pieces of cardboard so we could just pick them up and put them out of the way so we could start where we left off from the last game.

This system seemed to work out just fine until someone, that person being me, ruined it all.

One day, Hank's wife was home during lunch. One of the guys said something like, "Don't mind us. We won't make a mess."

Then I said something that was meant as a slam on Hank, but it didn't come out that way.

"Yeah, if we really wanted to shock you, we'd clean up the place."

As soon as I said it, I knew it was the wrong thing to say.

"Whoa!" someone piped up.

"I'm sorry," I said quickly. "I meant it as a slam on Hank, who is supposed to clean. Sorry."

The damage was done. The next day, Hank informed us that we could not play at his house anymore. So we resorted to playing in the break room at SATP, which wasn't ideal, but it was better than nothing.

Things were going along fine until I got busted for playing the game by Laura.

Now Laura is certainly prone to geek tendencies. She loved the X-Files and even watches Heroes and Fringe, but she also seems to think that she's above geeky things.

After the incident below happened, Laura said almost sadly, "I didn't know you were such a geek. What happened?"

When I got busted for playing Shadowfist, there was no talking my way out of it. I was busted worse than the VCR Bill and I bought in junior high for an ungodly $330 back in the mid-80s. We had just bought this VCR and was fiddling with it on the shelf when it flipped over and smashed to the ground. Oh sure, the VCR still worked, but the front was now cracked and the auto-eject window didn't flip up when a tape tried to eject. You'd have to put your finger into the slot, flip the window up and grab the tape in one sweeping motion. It still played, but you never looked at it the same way again.

That must be how my wife saw me that day...

This incident occurred when Julia was just a toddler. Like most toddlers, Julia was into everything. She'd pull stuff off of tables, counters, couches, you name it. It was annoying, but you just got used to putting everything away. I guess I didn't realize that my work bag would be a target to incriminate me, but it did.

Julia was playing on the floor and was pulling things out of the side pockets. She had reached into one of them and had pulled out a metal Band-aid container. Julia opened the lid and pulled a card out of the container.

My wife strolled over and asked, "What do you have here, Julia?"

Laura took a look at it and her eyes got wide. She screamed at me, "OH MY GOD! ARE YOU PLAYING MAGIC!?"

I was busted, but it wasn't Magic the Gathering card game that I was playing. Just as geeky, but not Magic.

So as if I was having to explain to my wife that I was living a secret life as a con artist. I tried to explain why we played the game, but apparently, 'We were bored' wasn't a convincing argument.

I also tried to explain that I've always had these geeky tendencies, but when she started dating me, I was full on into my trying to be cool phase. I was trying to grow my hair out, trying to work out and just in general trying to be a cooler guy than I actually am. I also pointed out to her that when I first met her, she loved alternative music. I thought I was starting to date a full on alterna-chick. Of course, now she listens to country music a lot, a music for which I have a huge disdain for.

She couldn't let it go.

"This is really worrying me. I mean, you really are freaking me out right now," Laura calmly said.

"Would it help if I started to put up pictures of women in bikinis on my wall and computer desktop?" I retorted.

"It might," Laura said.

In the end, we compromised. Laura demanded that I get rid of the Shadowfist cards, and I agreed to keep them out of her sight and pretend that I had gotten rid of them. I put them all in a box that was hidden in our crawl space, which she'd find if she only would open the crawl space, which she never did, and reached for a box just to the side of the door, which I knew she wouldn't.

That night my secret was discovered, however, we had company coming over. My friend, Jeff, and his wife were coming over.

"You're not going to tell Jeff about this are you?" I asked.

"Hell, yes I'm going to tell him about this," Laura exclaimed.

"You better not! I'll never hear the end of it!"

"Oh, all right. I won't tell him," Laura said.

Cut to later that night when Jeff and his wife were over. Barely 30 minutes went by when Laura said, "Oh. Wait until you hear what I caught Bob doing?!"

"You promised!" I exclaimed.

She proceeded to tell them the whole sordid story. I guess promises aren't easily kept.

So to end this story, I promised Laura that I would give the cards back to my friend, which I didn't, and stop playing the game, which I didn't.

What's funny is that I may end up playing another collectible card game because now Julia is into Pokemon cards, which baffled me at first because I couldn't believe they were still around. Julia and her friends don't play the game, though. They just look at them. Weird...

Minesweeper: The Movie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHY8NKj3RKs&feature=player_embedded

My devious Harry Potter plan

I'm a fan of the Harry Potter books. I was a late comer to the book series when I started reading them after the fourth one was already out. I was skeptical at first, but got drawn in to the world. I finished the first book in a day. Then I devoured the next 3 books in just a few weeks.

They're for children, of course, but considering their length, they have some definite appeal to adults. The plots in some of the books are very involved. Sure the author, J K Rowling, tends to fall back on the familiar outline of Harry is unhappy before school starts, school starts and something weird happens, and then the plot is resolved right about the end of the school year. You can be sure that certain characters will be mean and some will be his friends. By the end of the series, J K Rowling had introduced a mountain of characters, most of which she manages to carry through to the final book. While the books are for kids, there are deaths in pretty much every book. There is suspense and some scares.

In addition to reading all the books, I've also listened to all the audio books, which includes the UK versions. The US versions are narrated by Jim Dale, who has done a lot of voice over work for TV and movies here. Most recently, he was the narrator for Pushing Daisies. He does a pretty good job. While he's good at varying his voice, some of his character voices are rather grating. Voldemort sounds too whiny and hissy. Hagrid sounds like he's a rejected pirate. Draco Malfo is supposed to talk in a drawl, but he's too drawly (if that's a word). Stephen Fry does the narration for the UK versions and he's very good. Pretty much every character sounds like you'd think they should. It's a personal preference for the most part and I prefer the UK versions.

Harry Potter world is going to be opening next year in Orlando and in anticipation of that, I've decided that I'm going to read the books to Julia. I think she thought they were too old for her, but then I pointed to the sign at the bookstore. They were in a section that said "Ages 7-12".

My devious plan is to get her hooked on the books, so that she and I will be begging Laura to go to Orlando. I'm not saying I need to go there the first year it opens, which might be packed, but sometime after that.

I started reading the other night the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (aka Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in the UK). I'm doing my best to vary my voice when characters speak. It's not as easy as it sounds.

After four days, I'm through 50+ pages. I keep asking Julia if she likes it and she enthusiastically nods her head. At times, I wonder if she's paying attention since she lays her head on a pillow by my lap, but each night when I've attempted to stop at a certain point, she'll urge me to go on. Tonight, she asked if we could rent the movie. I said that we would after we read the book.

I guess I don't mind reading the books, but it's going to be a haul to get through the last four books in the seven book series since they are rather long.

Fourth of July weekend - restless sleep, an okay movie and in-laws...

This weekend, we went to spend time with Laura's Mom and Dad, who were watching Julia for the week. The week was filled with all sorts of fun and activities for Julia, but it was starting to take a toll on her when we got there on Friday.

Maybe it's because she doesn't like sleeping in a strange house by herself or because she was off her usual schedule, but she insisted that someone sleep with her. Grandma slept with her for a few days, but because she wasn't sleeping well with Julia's squirming and how hot Julia is to lay next to, the duty went to Laura.

Laura thought that Julia had fallen asleep, but soon after she left the room, Julia came bounding down the steps wondering why Laura had left.

So I was tagged and told to lay down with Julia. I grabbed my Zune and resolved to listen to one of my audiobooks while she fell asleep. About 40 minutes later of tossing, turning, requests for water, complaints of being hot and all around not sleeping, I resolved to just act like I was falling asleep so she'd fall asleep. I closed my eyes.

The next thing I knew, it was 4:30 in the morning. I had to go the bathroom bad. I got up and went, but I decided to go to where Laura was sleeping, which is a much comfier bed. I laid down and tried to sleep, but Laura was breathing heavy and had this soft snore going on. I couldn't sleep. I went back to Julia's bed, but still couldn't sleep. It was 5 am and my stomach was growling, which was part of the problem why I couldn't get back to sleep. I left the house and drove to McDonalds. I got there just as they were unlocking the doors and ordered a Bacon, Egg and Cheese McGriddles meal.

I got back and chatted with Laura's Dad for literally 3 hours until finally Julia got up. I then went back to bed and slept for 3 hours. When I got up, Laura announced to me that she was going out with her Mom and I was to get some cake pans out of the oven. I was warned not to forget. I didn't.

She also said that she was going to go see A Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian with some family members. I suggested that I could go see The Hangover while they were at the movie. I had no desire to see the second A Night at the Museum movie. It looked rather unnecessary to have a sequel.

Well on the way to the theater, Laura strongly urged me to see her movie. I refused. Then she said that I was being selfish. I said I wasn't. She accused me of isolating myself from her family. I reminded her that I've talked to her Dad more than she had this weekend. She said that I was being an asshole. I protested that I was not. With rising vocals, Laura said that I would be viewed as a rather selfish bastard (not in those words) if I went to see a movie by myself while She, Julia, Her grandma, her Grandma's sister, her Aunt, her Aunt's husband, her cousin, her uncle, and her nephew went to see A Night at the Museum 2.

I sighed and relented. Jeez, it's as if you can't make a selfish choice during a family weekend without crap coming down on you!

So we saw the movie. It was okay. It had some funny moments, but for the most part, it's what I thought it was going to be. The movie centers around Ben Stiller's character from the first film no longer a security guard, but an infomercial pitchman. He's successful, but his absence leads to the exhibits being shut down and sent to the Smithsonian for storage. They call him for help (not sure how they managed to get a hold of a phone, let alone his number). He shows up and steals a security badge from a guard, dresses up as a guard and attempts to save the living exhibits and the Egyptian artifact that keeps them alive.

Along the way, he encounters some new exhibits like General Custer and Amelia Airheart, played by Amy Adams.

I guess what got me through this mediocre movie was wondering about the plot loopholes. He manages to infiltrate the Smithsonian and no one notices that all the exhibits have come to life. I kept thinking, "Where are the guards? Shouldn't there at least be video surveillance?" At several points in the movie, giant windows are busted through. No one thought to turn on the security alarms, I guess. After all, it's only the most important museum in America with lots of priceless artifacts and memorabilia.

After the film, it was time for people to come over. With that many republicans in the room, I was treated to a lot of Obama conspiracy theories and general complaining about the state of America and those idiots that voted for Obama. I am always under strict orders not to argue with Laura's family. Seeing how I value my life, I never get in arguments with her relatives. It's amazing how much you can tune out when you fear reprisal from your wife.

It wasn't bad, though. It never is. I like my in-laws and look past their views. I'm sure they know mine and look past them as well as I'm quite the catch.

The fourth ended with me lighting off a mountain of fireworks bought by Laura's uncle.

Julia was ordered to take a quick bath, while I was ordered to get some benedryl to try and knock Julia out. I gave her two of the chewable kind.

At 9 am the next morning, Julia was still not up. Laura's Mom asked us, "Jeez. How much did you give her?"

Finally, Julia walked out groggily at 9:30 in the morning.

"I'm up!" she announced.