Watched Paranormal Activity 2 or as I like to call it...

Parasnoremore Activity 2.

Laura and I saw the first one in the theater. For me, it was okay. For Laura, she was freaked out by it. Admittedly, it was a little creepy sometimes, but I think that was more the effect of seeing it in a theater full of people. Laura grabbed at me several times when something would go bang, so she was interested in seeing the sequel.

We rented it and watched it this afternoon.

If you haven't seen either Paranormal Activities, the story goes like this. Both movies are presented as if they are found footage of real events, but actually actors portray the real people. The first movie centered around Katie and Micah (pronounced Mee-cah), who were being disturbed by some sort of ghost in their house. Micah is, of course, skeptical, but he buys a video camera and sets it up in the bedroom to film themselves sleeping. You see time lapsed videos of some weird stuff going on, like Katie getting up and standing by the bed for over two hours.

Spoiler Alert....

The first movie ends with Micah getting killed by a possessed Katie. In the second film, the action takes place a little bit before the first movie's events. Katie's sister, Kristi, who has a one-year-old boy, along with a husband and a step daughter, is being bothered by some strange events in her house.

It's a pretty expensive house with a pool so when someone breaks in and trashes the house, but only takes Kristi's necklace that her sister gave her, the Dad does what any rational person does, he has a whole house DVR surveillance system installed. Logic would tell you that a normal person would probably get a surveillance system that is only tripped by movement, but these babies film 24 hours a day!

So things start to get a little weird, but my God does it take a long time to get there! You see multiple shots every night of the front yard, the pool area, the living room and the upstairs baby room.

Every night goes like this:

(Cue quiet noises of the house and outside)

The front yard camera (nothing happens)

The back yard camera (nothing happens)

The kitchen camera (nothing happens)

The living room camera (nothing happens)

The baby's room camera (nothing happens at first)

Then something weird will happen like the baby stands up and looks at something that isn't there, or a door will open, or the dog will bark at something that isn't there.

After a while of this, I almost fell asleep with all the soothing sounds of night.

The movie has a "script", but you could tell a lot of the dialogue was improvised. I mean, some of the Dad's dialogue is awful. He's told about some weird stuff going on, but he doesn't believe it. He always says things like "That's the last I want to hear on the subject!"

Their live-in nanny, a Hispanic old lady who can understand English, but doesn't speak it for reason, senses some bad spirits in the house, so she starts praying and making signs. The Dad is not down with her burning some strong incense to keep spirits out of the house, so he fires her.

All the while, weird stuff is going on and I'm practically yelling at the screen, "Why in the hell did you install that whole house DVD if you're not going to use it!?"

Finally, the teenage daughter shows her Dad some of the footage of weird stuff happening, but even after that, the family checks the DVR sporadically. If this was my house and weird things were afoot, I would be checking that puppy every freaking day!

At one point, the daughter shows her Dad some of the weird stuff. She asks him, "Now do you believe me?" Even after this, they still miss a lot of the weird stuff. The plot takes a rather odd turn when one of the members of the house gets possessed and there is something about a deal with the devil that would mean that the first born son would be taken. Even after these details, no one things to call in some paranormal investigators.

All in all, it was an okay movie with about 2 whole minutes of some freaky stuff. I don't think that's worth the 90 minutes of improvised dialogue.

Playing Video Games With Dad Builds Better Daughters

Here's an article about how girls that played video games, especial with their Dads, were better behaved, felt more connected to their families, felt less aggressive, and demonstrated decreased levels of internalizing, which can lead to depression. Granted, the study was for girls ages 11 to 16 and Julia's been playing for two years now, but it's time well spent!

Playing Video Games With Dad Builds Better Daughters

I can understand that, but...

I’ve had a lot of jobs in my day. I’ve been a dishwasher, cook, delivery driver, maintenance worker, welder, sports reporter, video game tester, book warehouse worker, book buyer and probably a few other ones I’m forgetting, but the worst job that I’ve ever had was my telemarketing job.

My stint as a telemarketer only lasted five weeks, but it was five of the worst weeks of my life.

It all started one day when Bill and I were working at the Captain’s Table in the kitchen, which is now the Garden Cafe. It was discussed that him and our friend, Brian, would be applying for this job at a new company in Grand Island. I had no idea what the job involved, but when I heard that it paid 6 something an hour, I was intrigued. Since I was earning around minimum wage at the time, I immediately took notice.

Bill and Brian had already landed their jobs, but I didn’t want to get left out, so I headed down to the telemarketing place and applied. I was taken in to talk with the manager, who was the mother of a classmate of ours, but whose name eludes me. She talked to me about the job. It would involve calling people and offering them a service let’s call Traveler’s Rebate, which is basically the extent of the service. TR would give you a five percent rebate on all you travel expenses if you sent them in to them. Our job was to sell the service.

I had never had a sales job before, but it didn’t seem like it was hard. We ran through a script where I pitched TR. Then we went through a part of the script where the interviewer acted like she had doubts, so then I read a rebuttal that started with “I can understand that, ma’am, but...” followed by another pitch to convince her to take our glorious product. She said, “Great.” and I had the job!

When my brother, Bill, told our Dad that he had taken a job at the telemarketing company, my Dad said that he was fine with it, “As long as you don’t call me.”

I told my boss at the Captain’s Table that I was quitting. He told me that he could keep my position open because “I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

I insisted that I probably would like it. It had to be better than getting all sweaty and greasy in the kitchen, right?

I probably should have listened to him. He was right about that and another thing in my life. I once told him that “I’ll be listening to heavy metal until the day I die!”

He said, “I don’t know. I think your tastes will change. You’ll be listening to something else.”

“No way!” I said.

Of course, he was right, but he was wrong about other things like when he told me that punk music would rot my brain, which it didn’t, although some people that know me may disagree.

So back to job. Here’s what I thought the job would entail.

I thought I would be wearing a nice shirt and tie. I’d be shown to my office where I would sit behind a desk and make some calls to people that were already interested in the TR service I was offering them. I pictured them saying “yes” to my sales pitches followed by big pay checks that I already had money spent. I pictured steady, calming work free of stress.

What I got was far from that. Like all the way in BFE far way.

Bill, Brian and I started on the same day. We went through several days of training in a nice office conference room where we talked about the job, went through scripts and discussed how to be successful in telemarketing. I honestly don’t remember what any of those tips were, though. The only thing I remember about that week was that I got paid, it wasn’t stressful and we got to watch a video of Geraldo Rivera getting smashed in the face with a chair.

Out of the blue, our trainer asks us if we’d seen it. He then showed it to us. It was a pretty good video that you can find easily on you tube if you haven’t seen it.

That was the highlight of the week that is still etched in my brain. Otherwise, I’ve pushed it all out.

Then on the last day of the week, we were ushered into the call room, or what is often referred to as a boiler room, which is a room full of salespeople on the phone trying to sell questionable goods or services.

There’s a good movie called The Boiler Room that does a good job showing this. There’s also a documentary called Anvil The Story of Anvil where the lead singer of this band, Anvil, takes a telemarketing job to earn some extra money. The guy who hires him is a fan of the band, and his company sells sunglasses over the phone. I cringed at that scene because he felt like I felt.

It wasn’t like I had pictured it at all. There were sectioned desks that each had a phone in them. It looked like a long table with mini walls to block the person from the left and right of you. We sat down in one and shadowed a person in the fine art of the script we were given. After a while, we switched and then I had to do it.

To say I was nervous was an understatement. I was really nervous. I hate talking to people I don’t know as it is, even when I’m calling them to have them help me for something. But it suddenly dawned on me that I would be calling total strangers from across the country.

Up to that point, I had never experienced telemarketing. My Dad usually answered the phone when it was a telemarketer. You could always tell when they called. He’d answer the phone with a loud, “HELL-O!” Then he’d just stand there and listen. Quickly, he’d get a irritated look on his face. I’d soon be facing people like my Dad.

I don’t remember the exact script we used, but it went something like this.

“Hello, my name is Bob, and I am calling about Traveler’s Rebate. May I please speak with So and So?”

(Wait for affirmative)

“Hello, Mr or Mrs. So and So, I wanted to talk to you tonight about Traveler’s Rebate. It’s a service that gives you five percent off of all your expenses when you travel.”

(Right here, there would be some more information describing the service and its “benefits” and then)

“So now that I’ve told you about the TR service, I’m offering you a 30-day trial to TR during which time, you’ll pay nothing and you’ll be able to use the service for all your travel expenses. If at the end of the 30 days you decide you don’t want it, all you have to do is call us and we’ll cancel it for you. Should I sign you up for Traveler’s Rebate today?”

(I waited for a response here. If Yes, we’d go to the part of the script where I turned on a tape recorder and got the mailing address for the sucker, I mean, customer.)

(If No, I asked the following question: “May I ask why?” then I used the following rebuttals)

“I Can’t Afford It”

“I can understand that you are concerned about the cost, but it’s 30 days free to try. After that it’s only (some amount) a month. So can I sign you up for the 30-day free trial?”

“I don’t travel much”

I can understand that you don’t travel much, but...

“I’m not interested”

I can understand that, but I would hate for you to miss out on this opportunity.

And there were other rebuttals for anything the customer would argue against.

From the start, I knew that I probably wasn’t going to like this job. I stumbled through my first attempt at the script while impatient people, who I had interrupted during their supper or TV time, were waiting on the other end.

I don’t think I sold any that night. You could chalk it up to nerves or you could chalk it up to that fact that I just didn’t have what it takes to be a telemarketer. Very quickly, I started to notice the qualities that one needed to succeed.

1. A great phone voice.

I don’t have a great phone voice at all. It’s not bad, but not great. If you were to call me, you might accuse me of sounding aloof or disinterested. Maybe you’d think that I sound bored. Other times, I’ve been accused of sounding rude. You might be right on all counts. What was so very frustrating about this liability was that a lot of fat people around me (not really exaggerating) were hauling in the sales night after night. I firmly believe it’s because of their phone voice.

Every night, the company would put up some prize to those who sold the most that night. I shouldn’t have even bothered to keep track of my paltry totals because I got no where near to competing for the prizes. I’d be stuck at 2 sales after 2 hours and a lady at the end with a great voice would be sitting at 16 sales! 16! I think the most I ever got in one night was about 5. That’s it!

2. No fear

It’s very true that showing fear is a sign of weakness that all forms of life can detect. If you are petrified that the people you are calling will answer the phone, that’s another sign that you shouldn’t be a telemarketer. Every number I would dial would be like a shot to my self esteem. The phone would ring, and I would dread the inevitable pick up. Not getting an answer was nice because you didn’t have to speak to anyone. The bad news was that the less people I talked to, the less likely it would be for me to have a good sales night.

The best nights were when they’d hand me sheets of people they couldn’t get to answer the phone. Most of the calls would go unanswered with me having a great night with very few people yelling at me.

We had a process that we could go through if the caller not only didn’t want the product, but had been called before and now TR wouldn’t leave them alone. If they asked to not be called again, we could take them off our lists and they’d be put on a Do Not Call list. Usually, people would ask us. Or if you were like me, you would pitch it to them.

Usually, those calls would go like this:

Me: “Hello Mr. So and So, I’m called on behalf of TR and... (insert sales pitch here).

Customer: “I know about the TR service. I’ve told them several times that I don’t want it. I just wish you guys would stop calling me!”

Me: “Well (with a huge sound of relief) I can help you with that! I can take you off of our calling list if you’d like!”

Customer: (Sounding much friendlier) “Oh yes! Could you!”

Then we’d have a nice 5 minute chat of verifying information followed by thanks galore by the grateful customer. This felt great! Then I hung up. This was followed by the crushing realization that I would have to start the whole process over again as I looked at the next number on my sheet and proceeded to dial.

3. Personality

Some people have natural personality on the phone. I do not. I tried and tried to sound cheerful and confident, but failed at every attempt.

I was fairly miserable in this realization until a classmate named Joel got a job there. He was confident and cheerful. Plus, he had the balls to stray from the script. We’d sit there and hear him yucking it up with a customer with phrases like “What I’m going to do is send out this packet to you. You can take it, look it over and if you think to yourself, ‘Hey! this isn’t what I want!’, then you can just call us up and we’ll cancel it for you. No problem!”

This was similar to the script, but it in no way was close to the script’s cold delivery. We were always told to stick to the script, so I reminded Joel of that.

“We’re supposed to stick to the script!”

I was always a little anal retentive. Besides, if I was miserable, he should be miserable, too!

4. No shame.

It’s hard to be a salesperson when you have shame. If you feel bad when you call someone, that should be a very good sign that this may not be the job for you.

As I was reading my pitch, I would think to myself that if there was no way I would ever pay for something like this service, then how would I expect another person to buy it?

I would start my script and try to sound cheerful, but I couldn’t keep it up. I knew they’d probably say “No” and I knew that it was a crappy product. So I was resigned that they would say no and then die slowly inside when I’d have to flip to the rebuttal section and try to change the customer’s mind when I didn’t have the heart to get them to change it.

I think it would be different if it was a service that I believed in or was easier to sell. I remember running into a guy who was a telemarketer in college. He loved his job, which was getting people to sign up for a credit card. He said people just jumped at the opportunity to get the card. Must have been nice!

The people we called ran the whole spectrum of customers. Some were nice. Some a little angry. A few were really angry. Some would just hang up. Some would just set the phone down and then walk away. Others would tell you that the person in question was “not home right now” and “could you call back later”? I’m sure that a lot of these were just people that didn’t want to talk, but we were just going to keep calling them back at another time. Why not just tell us not to call?

Besides the customers, what made the job even more stressful were our managers. I’m sure they were under pressure to get more sales from us, so they would often listen in to our calls. You could always tell when they’d start listening because the line would suddenly have an echo and a delay on it. You’d start talking and hear “I-I-I can-can-can understand-understand...” in your ear, which made trying to make the sale even harder.

As one of the least productive employees there, I had to talk to the managers a few times to work on my sales technique. If they offered anything instructive, it obviously didn’t stick because I don’t remember any advice except for when I told them that I sometimes affected a southern drawl when calling people in the South.

You’d get these sheets of names, addresses, and phone numbers every night. Usually, you’d stay in the same area all night. I noticed that a lot of times, I’d be stuck in the South where I’d hear a definite Southern drawl. After a while, I started to talk with a slight drawl to fit in. When I told the manager this, his response was “Well I hope you’re not making that too obvious.”

At that point, I really didn’t care what they thought.

I mentioned the “Nice” people I sometimes got. In almost every case, they were nice because they didn’t want the service, didn’t need the service or couldn’t afford the service.

I talked for what seemed like 15 minutes to a nice Southern elderly black man who sounded interested in the service, but he already took bus tours. I tried and tried to get him to see my way, but he’d argue back to me about how great a deal he was already getting. He would make his point and argue, “You can’t get better than that, can you?” I finally had to concede that his deal sounded better. He should have been selling these deals.

Then there were the people that liked the service, but didn’t need it. I pitched to a man that sounded pretty interested, so interested that I started to lean forward to hit the record button on my tape recorder so I could record the sale. He said, “That sounds great!” I leaned forward even farther to hit the record button. “But I’m a student and I don’t travel!”

Rats...

Then there were the people that didn’t need it at all.

You’d pitch and hear, “I’m unemployed.” Sorry...

“I’m in a hospital bed and can’t travel.” Oops...

“We’re dealing with a death in the family right now.” Ouch...

I’m not making those up. They all were responses to me.

My brother, Bill, was actually one of the better sales people, but he hated it. He told me that he lost ten pounds while working there because he wasn’t hungry and his stomach always rumbled with acid at the thought of calling people.

Bill averaged about 5 sales a night, which was good enough for a promotion of sorts. This didn’t involve any pay, though. He was recruited to start selling a new product that didn’t involve the traveler rebate program. He doesn’t remember the full extent of it, but he said it was similar to Amway where you’d have to order your goods through a catalog, but you had to pay a fee to have the right to order through the catalog.

It was much harder to sell this service.

Bill said that after several nights of not selling anything, he called a woman that clearly didn’t want the service. When he asked, “May I ask why, Ma’am?”

She said, “Because I don’t want it. It’s Christmas and I’m trying to watch a Christmas special, and I can’t because you’re interrupting me!”

At this point, Bill said he felt his stomach gurgling with stomach acid from nerves.

Bill quit a day or two after that. Our friend, Brian, quit almost at the same time. Surprisingly, I was the last man standing, but I quit a day or two after Bill left. The paychecks were nice, but the stress was just too much to handle.

A friend of ours in college told us he worked a summer at a telemarketing place. He really hated it, but instead of quiting, he just reached a point where he started messing with the customers. If they gave him more than one excuse, he’d go through the rebuttal script for each excuse until it got to the point where people were screaming at him. You’d think people would hang up at this point, but some people just don’t like to hang up on someone, even if it’s a total stranger that you will never meet.

You would think that I would have sympathy towards telemarketers because I’ve been there and done that, but the opposite is true. It’s because I had this experience that I have no patience for them. I know when I get a pitch, that I’m going to get a rebuttal if I try to give excuses, which kind of irritates me. I know that they are just doing their job, but I know it’s something they probably don’t believe in. I have trouble pitching things people actually want, like Julia’s Girl Scout cookies. I sometimes feel bad when people give me money and they actually want the cookies!

I’ve just resorted to “I don’t want it” and hanging up if they try to give me more than one rebuttal.

Years ago, I was pitched AOL, which I didn’t need because we got free Internet from our apartment building. After getting a few “I understand that, but...” lines, I finally said, “Look I HATE AOL ok?” That finally did it.

I don’t think I’ll ever get a job involving a phone again unless it’s a job where people call YOU and want YOU to do something for them. That I can handle. I was so scarred by my telemarketing experiences that I put off learning how to answer phones at Pizza Hut when I worked there in college until finally a manager forced me to answer the phone. It’s amazing what a difference you get in attitude when the “customer” actually wants to talk to you.

New story to come soon...

I'm putting the finishing touches on a story that Laura may indeed call long winded and rambling, but I hope you'll like it. It's about my stint as a telemarketer when I was in high school.

I had been working on it for many weeks. I was looking through my old archives and didn't think that my writings were as good as I remembered them. So I'm attempting to take my time and write something that has more depth and takes more time.

I would have finished this earlier, but this past week has been brutal with travel, car problems and other headaches.

The car problem occurred when Laura decided to take my car to work since it does better in ice and snow that her Mazda 3. I got into her car and the damned thing wouldn't start. So I convinced a neighbor of mine to use her husband's tow tether rope to pull the car to the auto shop, which was only 1.5 miles away.

After a few missteps on tethering the car to her SUV, we finally got going. I told her to go 15 to 20 on the street. She went at least 25 to 30 miles an hour. Considering the car didn't have power brakes at this time and the tether was insanely short, all I could think was that she was going to hit the brakes too hard and I was going to slam into the back of her SUV. That stretch was the scariest 60 seconds of my life as I white knuckled the steering wheel and rode the brake for all it was worth. Thankfully, we got to the intersection, which was also thankfully on a slight hill. And in another stroke of good luck, the light was red. I opened my door and yelled at her, "Please slow down!!!! Only go 10 miles an hour!!! I don't have power brakes!!!"

We turned the corner and she indeed only went 10 miles an hour down the next street. The ride ended shortly after that and I heaved a huge sigh of relief.

Hopalong...

I’ve written about my childhood before, and it’s caused some tension in the family. Some have accused me of highlighting the bad stuff to make it look like I didn’t have any fun when I was a kid. I did have fun, but as anyone that has older siblings can verify, you are sometimes subjected to things that border on cruel and unusual punishment.

I can laugh about these things now, but at the time, they didn’t seem so funny. So when I write about these things, I’m not trying to throw a pity party, I am merely conveying how bad I had it when I was beaten on by my older siblings. I mean, I am just trying to say that I may have been subjected to some bad things, but it doesn’t mean that I want sympathy now or that I hold it against the people involved.

With that said, here’s a story about how my oldest brother almost crippled me for life... :)

My older brothers weren’t the most predictable siblings to get along with. For 10 good times with them, there were the times that weren’t so good.

For example, you’d just be standing there and then, for no good reason, they would slug you in the shoulder. Hard. It would sometimes get to the point where they wouldn’t even hit you. They would slug you as if they were going to hit, but hold it back so that you’d flinch. I think that was more enjoyable for them.

You never knew when the next hit was going to occur, but it would inevitably come. I’ve written before about how my older brother, Paul, asked me to put my nose to the screen door. When I said no because he’d hit me, he said he’d pay me five dollars if he did. So I put my nose to the screen door and was promptly punched. Some blood and crying (both from me) later, I was five dollars richer after my Mom made him pay me.

Another incident occurred the summer of 1980 I believe, and I was just a innocent young boy when I was injured by my brother, Joe.

Every weekend of the summer, we would pile into the van and head to Clarks, Nebraska for a weekend at a place called Bucktail Lake. It was right next to the Platte River. We had a trailer that was yards away from the river, so we had some nice scenery and access to the river. The river access was nice when it was low because you could go out and explore. When it was high, you stuck to the lake in front of our trailer, which was Bucktail.

There were about 40 trailers at the time. My Uncle Bill had a trailer about a dozen trailers down from us. We would walk over there to see what our cousins were up to. Or we’d just swim there for something different to do. Like a lot of trailers there, Uncle Bill had a dock in front sitting in the water. Docks were nice because you could jump off of them when you were swimming.
I was standing on my Uncle Bill’s dock one day that summer when my brother Joe came up behind me. Without a word, he picked me up and threw me off of the dock. I don’t know why he did it and if you asked him now, he’d say that he doesn’t remember doing this, but I remember.
I hit the water and felt a pain. I swam towards the shore, but something felt wrong. When I kicked, it didn’t feel right. I got to the shore and started to walk up. I gasped, fell down and screamed. My left foot was on fire.

Joe, being the helpful brother that he was at the time, tried to pull me out of the water, but I screamed again when my foot hit the ground. I sat down on the shore and held it.

He said, “You’re okay!” in that tone that parents say when their kid is exaggerating a trauma. As a parent, I’ve found myself saying this to my daughter on more than one occasion.

I cried, “I broke my foot!”

I have never broken a bone in my body, but I’d seen enough kids with casts on at school to know what it means to break a foot. Clearly, my foot didn’t feel the greatest. I looked at the evidence, although at the time, probably not this rationally. My foot hurt. It hurt even more to stand on it. I couldn’t walk on it. Plus, it seemed to be growing in size as I was looking at it. It was no longer slender. It had grown a big lump across the top. It throbbed.

Joe still tried to insist that it was fine, but I protested that it was not fine. To his credit, he could have left me there, but he believed me and carried me all the way back to our trailer.
I was taken to the hospital by my Mom once it was determined that my foot was possibly broken. The Homan family and some of the residents of Bucktail Lake have had a few visits to the hospital. There was the time when my brother Joe injured his leg trying to jump all the way down a sand hill and into the water. He only made it to the shore. Then there was the time when my brother Paul burned his arm by picking up a homemade M80, which blew up right before he picked it up.

A quick story about that. Bill and I had heard about making an M80 by combining a ladyfinger firecracker and another firework. Bill and I had tried it by lighting it in our driveway. Sure enough, it was a ear-splitting explosion. We told Paul about it. He lit it. Nothing happened. I was on my way to go pick it up to see if it had maybe gone out, but Paul stopped me. He then went over himself to pick it up. So on one hand, he was smart to stop me from doing something stupid, but then proceeded to do the stupid thing himself.

Now that I think about it, it’s a wonder that we didn’t injure ourselves more at Bucktail Lake. We would often run around with just shorts and no shoes on 3-wheeled ATVs or Motorcycles, which resulted in more burns on hot exhaust than I’d like to remember. Or we’d swim in the very deep lake with just a life belt to keep us afloat. Nowadays, 3-wheeled ATVs are banned because they were dangerous and kids are practically required to wear life jackets when swimming.

But back to my injury...

When we got to the hospital, the doctor of course pushed and poked at it with me wincing all the time. The x-ray had some bad news for me, though. It wasn’t broken. The problem was that the bones in my left foot had separated, so they rolled some tape around my foot, told me to stay off of it for three weeks and sent me on my way.

I protested this.

“Do I get crutches?” I asked.

I had seen kids at school who had broken a leg with crutches. Surely I could get some crutches, too? If I can’t walk, how would I get around?

It was explained to me that they thought that I might hurt myself more by giving me crutches if I was to slip and fall. It was true that I was and still am uncoordinated, but I wasn’t sure how they knew that.

It was suggested that I either crawl or hop on the other foot.

I did both, but it wasn’t without a lot of mocking on the part of my older brothers.

I even had a nickname, Crip, which was short for cripple.

“Hey Crip,” my brother, Paul, would say to me all the time.

If I had to get anywhere in the house I’d have to put one arm on a wall to guide me and just hop along. Getting upstairs was an adventure at first, but I got quite good at hopping upstairs one stair at a time without stopping.

One good and bad thing was that I was allowed to rest for three weeks. The good news was that I could sit around and watch television or read all day long, which I did. The bad news was that I had to sit around and watch television or read all day long.

I remember watching the movie with Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees, Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. This movie was someone’s bright idea to have the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton, both the biggest artists at the time, to do a whole movie based on songs from the Beatles. I loved the movie. In my defense, I was a kid and now that I have one of my own, I can confirm that kid’s have lousy tastes in movies.

After a few days of seeing it every time it came on HBO, I got kind of tired of it.

I loved going to the library, but seeing as how I couldn’t walk, that was out the window.

I started to worry that I was never going to leave the house again.

On top of that, showering and bathing became a huge hassle. Seeing as how I had bandages around my foot, either I had to take a bath with my foot hanging over the side or I could take the tape off and try to retape it every time. Showering was out because I couldn’t exactly stand on one foot in a slippery shower.

I didn’t think my foot was ever going to heal, but finally I was able to put pressure on it. The only lasting effects is that my left foot has a slightly pronounced hump to it, so when I tie my shoes, the left one bulges out slightly.

Even with incidents like this, I look back fondly at the days at Bucktail Lake. Granted, there were bad things about it like no cable tv, no shelter from storms, sweating at night in the trailer when it was hot or shivering in the trailer when it was cold, sunburns from being in the sun all day, rashes from crawling on inner tubes, stepping on stickers, getting pierced by fish fins, getting hooked by fish hooks, bitten by fish, sleepless nights when it was storming, bad dreams about storms and various other things.

Although getting injured does tarnish good memories, it was nice to have a place to be able to explore, to swim, to ride ATVs and to just have fun.

Got bored and watched Species II...

So I was bored the other night and was flipping through the cable guide when I noticed that Species was on the new Epix channel we have.

I first saw Species in the theater. I was working at Pizza Hut at the time and I kind of oversold certain aspects of the movie. I was amused at the amount of nudity in the film by star Nastasha Henstridge. She spends an good amount of time in the film in a bra or topless.

I noticed that after Species was its sequel, Species II. Both films star Marg Helgenberger of CSI fame and Michael Madsen of a lot of violent movies fame. Nastasha Henstridge also stars as Eve, a clone of the original Sil.

The movie was released in theaters, but has the look and feel of a direct-to-video movie. Helgenberger is fairly solid as Dr. Laura Baker, but Madsen, whom I read thinks the movie stinks, looks like he's in pain most of the time as Press Lennox. I don't blame him.

Species II has a lot of nudity, too, but it didn't help the box office. The movie bombed when it was released, yet has spawned two more Direct to DVD sequels.

The movie starts with a mission to Mars. One astronaut goes to the surface to collect soil samples and apparently that's all, because after traveling months to get to Mars, all NASA is interested in is a 2-hour Mars walk to get 3 tubes of soil samples. Why spend more time there studying the planet? Time is money people!

So they are ready to leave after storing the soil samples. One tube warms up and a gray ooze falls out to the ground, which appears to infect the crew. No communication is available for 7 minutes, but then everything appears fine. So the crew makes it back to Earth, given a quick check over and sent on their merry way while being reminded that they are "quarantined" and NOT to engage in sexual activity for a few more days.

I have a question here... Wouldn't you keep the astronauts there for a few days while evaluating them? They just spent almost a year in space, which can affect your bone density for one thing. Wouldn't you run through a lot of tests?

So one of the astronauts, Patrick, the one who walked on the surface, starts to have all sorts of unprotected sex. In one scene, he sleeps with two women in a hotel room one after the other, which apparently was in those new sound proof hotels that can muffle the sound of two women screaming at the same time because after Patrick has sex, the women he impregnates each immediately give birth in a rather grisly fashion to a kid the size of a four-year-old.

Soon Patrick is amassing a large brood of alien creepy kid offspring in his father's shed at an old summer home as he has continued to sleep with women of all sorts. Dr. Baker explains that soon, the offspring will go into cocoons and transform into adult aliens so time is running short to find them.

Meanwhile, Eve offers to help find Patrick. She's given radiation to awaken her alien mind (of course) to link to Patrick. While linked to Patrick, Press Lennox and the other uninfected astronaut, Dennis, race to stop Patrick from impregnating another woman that he's kidnapped in the grocery store they've just entered.

I say "race" loosely here because it's more like a casual stroll. They hear a scream and are told which way Patrick has dragged a woman and stroll that direction as if they are checking out an art museum walking tour. He's gaining ground while they casually stroll into the back of the store, glide down some stairs, meander through the basement and lope up the shipping driveway to the parking lot where Patrick has forced the woman into a van and is attempting to procreate. Meanwhile Press and Patrick walk even slower past the van to a van that's already rocking, which turns out to be some teens. They tell them to buzz off and then still show no signs of haste to find the alien, which we've established has just kidnapped a woman and is in the process of trying to make another creepy alien!

Patrick gives himself up when he senses Eve's existence. He's taken to the same lab where Eve is. They make hot glass faces at each other. He escapes again while they try to keep him away from Eve. Eve then breaks out to go and have some sex with Patrick.

The movie is filled with a lot of stiff and eye rolling dialogue. A good example of this is when Eve escapes, she steals an Army hummer and drives away with it.

Someone asks, "I thought she didn't know how to drive."

Dr. Baker says, "Her favorite show is the Dukes of Hazard!"

I watched that a ton when I was a kid, but I didn't really have a sense on how to drive. Besides, she didn't jump across the hood and slide into the door through the window. She also didn't jump a gorge, but I'm sure if it was there, she might have attempted it.

They follow Eve to the location of Patrick's brood of kids. While she runs off to have weird alien sex upstairs, they spray the cocoons with a mixture of Dennis's blood, which they figure out will kill the alien because Dennis has the sickle cell gene and the aliens won't mate unless the host is disease free.

In the end, the aliens are killed, even the brood of creepy kids. The ending predictably sets up a sequel, but good luck getting me to watch it.

It was an okay movie though. I'll probably never watch it again, unless the Riff Trax guys make a commentary track for it.

We used to communicate so well...

We used to communicate so well...

It goes without saying that as a twin, Bill and I are on a higher plain than everyone else around. Because we spent so much time together growing up, there is a bond between us that was pretty strong. We could have conversations in half sentences, and we wouldn’t be the wiser.
Growing up, my Dad told us at an early age that we were going to have to start talking right because no one could understand us. I never really noticed it until, once when we were in college, Bill and I were engrossed in a conversation when our roommate stopped by to listen in. He started to chuckle and said, "Are you guys talking in your secret twin language?"
While talking to other people, we don’t exactly finish each other’s sentences like you often expect thanks to television and movies. Rather, it’s a fight over who can tell a story the best.
It’d usually go something like this.
One of us starts to tell a story, but start to falter or the other twin doesn’t feel he is telling it right.
"But..." the other twin interjects.
The one telling the story waves a hand away.
"Don’t forget the part..." interjects again.
"Oh. Just let me tell it!" the other twin finally yells in exasperation.
Lately, it seems like Bill and I are starting to lose a bit of our communication skills with each other.
For example, I was telling Bill about an article in the Onion’s AV Club that listed shows that had characters that stopped the show’s plot to a halt. That is, an annoying or bland character that the writers of a particular don’t know what to do with anymore. An example of this would be Dwight Schrute from The Office. The article reasoned, and I agree, that for the first few seasons of The Office, Dwight didn’t get act like a control-freak jerk just for the hell of it. In later seasons, it seems like they make Dwight be Dwight just to give him something to do.
I told Bill about one episode that I watched where Michael Scott, the boss, had a suspicion that his girlfriend was cheating on him. So he had Dwight go and spy on her. Dwight proceeds to go to the gym where she’s working out and rather than dress like he belongs there, he works out in his suit pants and undershirt while getting way too up close and personal to her. I felt it was too exaggerated and was an example of just using Dwight Shrute because they could, not because it made any sense.
While telling this story to Bill, he misunderstood a key part of the description. Instead of cheating on him, he thought I had said, "Michael Scott thought that his girlfriend was peeing on him, so he has Dwight spy on her to find out.
Bill said "Why would he need Dwight to tell if she was peeing on him? Wouldn’t that be easy to figure out?"
I thought Bill said "cheating" so I asked how that was easy.
"Cheating? Oh! I thought you said that she was 'peeing' on him!" Bill exclaimed.
"What?" I asked laughing. "That wouldn't make any sense!"
"I know!" Bill said. "I was thinking that would have been hard to talk about on network television."
A week or so later, and Bill and I are talking about shows that we’ve watched, which is a thing we do often. We'll call each other up and ask if we've seen a certain show or movie yet. If the answer is 'Yes' then we'll talk about our favorite parts and favorite lines in what we watched. Laura calls it "reminiscing". I sometimes try to "reminisce" with her, but she usually shuts me down before I can start as she says, "I'm not Bill."
So that night I mentioned to Bill that while Laura was out exercising, I had turned to How I Met Your Mother, which is a show she can’t stand. Mainly, she hates main character, Ted, who she says is a giant douche. She feels that it’s hard to root for him to find love when he’s so unlikable.
Also, Laura doesn’t like me watching the show because of the character of Barney, played by Neil Patrick Harris. Barney is a walking libido that lives to get women to sleep with him. Because of this trait, Laura doesn’t think Julia should watch the show. Julia has seen a few episodes and loves Barney, but the shows she watched were tame in the sex talk, so she doesn’t understand why we won’t let her watch all the time.
So that night, I turned on How I Met Your Mother.
Julia said, "Daddy, I don’t think I should be watching this."
I said, "It’s okay, Julia."
Julia said, "I really don’t think I should be watching this."
I assured her that it was fine by saying directly, "It’s fine."
I held up a hand to accentuate this point.
The episode was one I hadn’t seen before. It was about the gang crashing a high-class party where everyone is bored except for Ted, who is douching it up with academic big wigs.
The next day, I tell Bill that I watched the show. I mentioned that Laura doesn’t like Julia watching it.
"But she likes to watch Barney" I said.
"Why doesn’t Laura let Julia watch," Bill asked.
"Because Barney always tries to sleep with women."
"What?" Bill asked.
"You know," I said. "He’s always talking about sex."
"What are you talking about?" Bill asked.
"What do you mean 'What am I talking about?' You know. Barney likes to have sex and talk about sex."
I was taken aback. I didn't understand what was so confusing. We were talking about the show, How I Met Your Mother, which has a character named Barney. Barney is a single guy that lives to sleep with as many women as possible. What was so confusing?
"What?! Are we talking about the same thing?" Bill exclaimed while laughing.
"I’m talking about How I Met Your Mother. What are you talking about?" I asked.
"Ohhh!" Bill exclaimed while laughing harder. "I thought you were talking about Barney the dinosaur."
"How did you get on Barney the dinosaur?" I asked. "We were talking about How I Met Your Mother." I retorted.
He laughed again.
"Well you had said 'Julia likes to watch Barney' and I thought you were talking about Barney the Dinosaur," he said.
"No," I said. "I wasn't talking about Barney the Dinosaur. I don't think there has ever been a Barney the dinosaur show where he talks about sex and sleeping with women. That'd be a really weird show."
"That's what I was thinking!" Bill laughed.