I finally saw Episode III, so you can all stop hounding me. The Star Wars law states that I could have gone another week without seeing it and I wouldn't be arrested, so relax.
Overall? Good, a pleasant, even definitive movie-going experience. I had my usual Star Wars-related nitpicks, the kind that I've had since seeing Episode I. Great action, but the dialog was written by soap-opera addicted chimps. I think this has always been the case with the Star Wars movies, but it is painfully obvious in the prequels because Lucas is trying to emulate this Victorian stiffness that, in the end, translates to bad acting. That's my theory anyway.
Nonetheless, it was easily the most enjoyable of the three, although it did not make up for the sins of the past (Jar Jar, Midiclorians).
I'm left to wonder what technology will come up in the next few decades that will allow George Lucas to further alter, and otherwise mess with, the movies he's just made.
STAR WARS! Episode 1 through 3, un-mastered from the digital source so as to be re-mastered to different quality digital format and re-re-mastered to optimum Dolby 12.6 internal sound. Now in SMELL-O-VISION!
5/29/2005
5/16/2005
I am a regular reader of “The Onion.” I hope most of you are too. If you haven’t read it, or if you haven’t read it recently, I suggest you click that link to your right and check in on it. These people are putting out the funniest content on the internet today.
I mention it today because I was reading my favorite section, the horoscopes, and I came across one of the best yet:
Sagittarius:
"You believed being stranded on that desert island put an end to your run of lousy luck, but the natives will soon become strangely inspired and fashion a crude bus to hit you with."
How do they come up with this stuff? After all these years of publication, how do they keep producing gems like this?
My role models, ladies and gentlemen.
I mention it today because I was reading my favorite section, the horoscopes, and I came across one of the best yet:
Sagittarius:
"You believed being stranded on that desert island put an end to your run of lousy luck, but the natives will soon become strangely inspired and fashion a crude bus to hit you with."
How do they come up with this stuff? After all these years of publication, how do they keep producing gems like this?
My role models, ladies and gentlemen.
5/15/2005
I apologize for the dry spell between posts. I’ve been preoccupied with this kind of “Spring Cleaning” mood. During the last week, in whatever after-work time that I actually feel productive, I’ve been going through the clutter in my room, getting rid of what I don’t want, rediscovering the joy of forgotten possessions, and often finding things that are, in one way or another, grossly overdue.
Also in the news this week, my parents went away to Niagara Falls for a few days.
When the parents are away, a child, of any age, is usually prone to taking certain liberties. Those liberties stereotypically involve beer and excessively loud music. Since I like neither of these things, I’d taken the liberty of walking around the house in my underwear, whenever the opportunity presented itself.
I found the experience somewhat freeing. It reminded me of my independent, though financially castrated days in my first apartment, when I could walk anywhere wearing whatever I wanted; towel, underwear, clown pants.
Well, the magic kind of being semi-nude at home died out on Tuesday after I walked down stairs, clad in my well-traveled briefs, and threw aside the curtains of the sliding glass door to have a quick look at the weather outside. I found myself nearly face to face with the ChemLawn man who was treating our yard that morning. It was from across the deck, but he saw me. He saw me so clearly, it would have been rude not to wave hello, which I did, before closing the blinds and scrambling back upstairs into the reassuring comfort of my pants.
Aside from the accidental yet intimate encounter with the ChemLawn guy, my week has been pretty routine. I only found further humor in the random things I think about when I’m driving to or from work. Random things like:
*
Have you ever noticed that “accidentally released,” sex tapes are always from the celebrities you would expect them from? Think about it. Paris Hilton? Big shock, an attention whore “loses track” of a very “personal video.” “Right.” Chyna? Well, what can I say, Animal Planet does offer $100 and a free t-shirt for videos like that. Pamela Anderson? C’mon. Her whole life is a sex tape!
*
I think there comes a point when you should stop going to the gym.
Do you find yourself bench pressing more weights than they have at any one station? Are you asking the guy at the leg press if you can borrow his “50?” Take a break.
Do you need more than one person to spot you? Get up and go home.
Are your waist size and neck size within three inches of each other? Sit down, eat some Ho Ho’s.
*
I have discovered that I, as a normal man, can only eat so much quiche. I find that very few foods let you know you’ve eaten too much WHILE you’re eating them. Most of the time, you finish a meal and say, “Wow, I had waaay too much.” Quiche, on the other hand, let’s you know about halfway through your second small slice. There just comes a point, mid-forkful, that you say, “Ohhh, no more quiche for a month.”
*
If you’re going to design a washing machine that doesn’t have a “Normal,” “Medium,” or “Just always use this,” setting, expect complaints.
*
I am a member of an online personals site. So as not to incriminate myself, I won’t tell you the service’s name (let’s just say it’s a synonym for “Weeeee!”).
Anyway, I’m browsing the ads, as I occasionally do every once in an hour, and I notice something strange. Upon entering certain search criteria (“Female,” “Non-Smoker,” “Outgoing,” “Not Anna Nichole Smith,”) I came across three profiles that looked equally appealing. That’s when I realized they were all the same, to the letter, even the “About me,” paragraph; yet the girls pictured in each profile were all different.
During my time on this service, I’ve gotten many of responses to my personal ad. Unfortunately, they were all ads for porn. I know this because they were all the same, the response says something like, “I saw that you responded to my personal, you seem very sweet, I’d love to talk to you. Please don’t respond to this e-mail address, I’ve put my contact info on this page //LINK// .” Only to click on the link and: “PORN PORN, Undersexed Grannies Want Your Cock!”
It’s a travesty; porn sellers preying on innocent lonely men. It’s like a Lifetime movie of the week, only, they would have to show it on Spike TV.
So anyway, I decide to send a letter to the supervisor of the site saying, “Hey, I could be wrong, but these profiles are identical, but have different pictures. Something in my gut tells me, “Porn.”
I got a quaint, impersonal, automated reply, thanking me for submitting my concern.
A week later I got the usual, “Your matches this week!” e-mail from the service. All three of the previously identical profiles were at the top of my list. The personal information on all three was still completely identical. The photos of all three had not changed. The “About me” paragraph on all three were now different.
“Right.”
Also in the news this week, my parents went away to Niagara Falls for a few days.
When the parents are away, a child, of any age, is usually prone to taking certain liberties. Those liberties stereotypically involve beer and excessively loud music. Since I like neither of these things, I’d taken the liberty of walking around the house in my underwear, whenever the opportunity presented itself.
I found the experience somewhat freeing. It reminded me of my independent, though financially castrated days in my first apartment, when I could walk anywhere wearing whatever I wanted; towel, underwear, clown pants.
Well, the magic kind of being semi-nude at home died out on Tuesday after I walked down stairs, clad in my well-traveled briefs, and threw aside the curtains of the sliding glass door to have a quick look at the weather outside. I found myself nearly face to face with the ChemLawn man who was treating our yard that morning. It was from across the deck, but he saw me. He saw me so clearly, it would have been rude not to wave hello, which I did, before closing the blinds and scrambling back upstairs into the reassuring comfort of my pants.
Aside from the accidental yet intimate encounter with the ChemLawn guy, my week has been pretty routine. I only found further humor in the random things I think about when I’m driving to or from work. Random things like:
*
Have you ever noticed that “accidentally released,” sex tapes are always from the celebrities you would expect them from? Think about it. Paris Hilton? Big shock, an attention whore “loses track” of a very “personal video.” “Right.” Chyna? Well, what can I say, Animal Planet does offer $100 and a free t-shirt for videos like that. Pamela Anderson? C’mon. Her whole life is a sex tape!
*
I think there comes a point when you should stop going to the gym.
Do you find yourself bench pressing more weights than they have at any one station? Are you asking the guy at the leg press if you can borrow his “50?” Take a break.
Do you need more than one person to spot you? Get up and go home.
Are your waist size and neck size within three inches of each other? Sit down, eat some Ho Ho’s.
*
I have discovered that I, as a normal man, can only eat so much quiche. I find that very few foods let you know you’ve eaten too much WHILE you’re eating them. Most of the time, you finish a meal and say, “Wow, I had waaay too much.” Quiche, on the other hand, let’s you know about halfway through your second small slice. There just comes a point, mid-forkful, that you say, “Ohhh, no more quiche for a month.”
*
If you’re going to design a washing machine that doesn’t have a “Normal,” “Medium,” or “Just always use this,” setting, expect complaints.
*
I am a member of an online personals site. So as not to incriminate myself, I won’t tell you the service’s name (let’s just say it’s a synonym for “Weeeee!”).
Anyway, I’m browsing the ads, as I occasionally do every once in an hour, and I notice something strange. Upon entering certain search criteria (“Female,” “Non-Smoker,” “Outgoing,” “Not Anna Nichole Smith,”) I came across three profiles that looked equally appealing. That’s when I realized they were all the same, to the letter, even the “About me,” paragraph; yet the girls pictured in each profile were all different.
During my time on this service, I’ve gotten many of responses to my personal ad. Unfortunately, they were all ads for porn. I know this because they were all the same, the response says something like, “I saw that you responded to my personal, you seem very sweet, I’d love to talk to you. Please don’t respond to this e-mail address, I’ve put my contact info on this page //LINK// .” Only to click on the link and: “PORN PORN, Undersexed Grannies Want Your Cock!”
It’s a travesty; porn sellers preying on innocent lonely men. It’s like a Lifetime movie of the week, only, they would have to show it on Spike TV.
So anyway, I decide to send a letter to the supervisor of the site saying, “Hey, I could be wrong, but these profiles are identical, but have different pictures. Something in my gut tells me, “Porn.”
I got a quaint, impersonal, automated reply, thanking me for submitting my concern.
A week later I got the usual, “Your matches this week!” e-mail from the service. All three of the previously identical profiles were at the top of my list. The personal information on all three was still completely identical. The photos of all three had not changed. The “About me” paragraph on all three were now different.
“Right.”
5/03/2005
The following are excerpts I took from a REAL newspaper article in the Union Leader today:
School locked down in recipe for disaster
Clovis, N.M.
A 911 call about a possible weapon at a middle school prompted police to put armed officers on rooftops, close nearby streets and lock down the school.
Someone called authorities Thursday after seeing a boy carrying something long and wrapped up into Marshall Junior High School.
The drama ended two hours later when the suspicious item was identified as a 30-inch burrito filled with steak, guacamole, lettuce, salsa and jalapenos. It was wrapped inside tin foil and a white T-shirt.
Principal Diana Russell said the mystery was solved after she brought everyone in the school together in the auditorium to explain what was going on. Afterward, eighth-grader Michael Morrissey approached her and said, “I think I’m the person they saw,”
The burrito was part of Morrissey’s extra-credit assignment to create commercial advertising for a product. “We had to make up a product, and it could have been anything. I made up a restaurant that specialized in oddly large burritos,” Morrissey said.
“I have a new nickname now. It’s Burrito Boy,” Morrisey said.
*****
I mean, holy shit. No one’s taking any chances these days, are they? In case you haven’t realized it, this is the world we live in now.
I suppose that we have all the reason in the world to be paranoid, and it is always better to be safe than to be sorry; these people are responsible for the wellbeing of their students. But, it’s incidents like this that tend to make a person think, “Are we being a little too quick to call in the S.W.A.T. team?”
I found the story funny, not because of all the commotion caused for nothing, but all the little things, the things they didn’t mention in the article, the things I like to imagine happening.
Like, when the eighth grader pulled out the burrito to show everyone, did they yell, “GOD HELP US!!!” and dive behind their desks?
What went through the principal’s head when she first realized that she would have to tell the armed officers, “False alarm, it’s just a gigantic burrito!”
Was the student arrested for possession of a weapon of “gas” destruction? (sorry)
What ultimately happened to the burrito? Was it consumed, or booked as evidence? Was it preserved and put on display as a cautionary tale about how we shouldn't jump to conclusions, or as a reminder about how bat-shit loco we, as a nation, have gone?
When will we take action in our communities and pass a law requiring our schools to install burrito sensors next to the metal detectors?
Is the student the least bit bitter about being labeled by the school, nay, the entire nation, as “Burrito Boy,” for an incident that was entirely not his fault? Is there a chance he could salvage his reputation by spinning the name into something cooler, like “El Gigante!” (A big hit with the ladies.)
Why wasn’t there any cheese in this burrito?
Wouldn’t it be even funnier and more ironic if it was later revealed that the burrito was stuffed with drugs?
Feel free to add your own musings about what may have happened behind the scenes of this incident. I know I'll get a laugh out of it.
School locked down in recipe for disaster
Clovis, N.M.
A 911 call about a possible weapon at a middle school prompted police to put armed officers on rooftops, close nearby streets and lock down the school.
Someone called authorities Thursday after seeing a boy carrying something long and wrapped up into Marshall Junior High School.
The drama ended two hours later when the suspicious item was identified as a 30-inch burrito filled with steak, guacamole, lettuce, salsa and jalapenos. It was wrapped inside tin foil and a white T-shirt.
Principal Diana Russell said the mystery was solved after she brought everyone in the school together in the auditorium to explain what was going on. Afterward, eighth-grader Michael Morrissey approached her and said, “I think I’m the person they saw,”
The burrito was part of Morrissey’s extra-credit assignment to create commercial advertising for a product. “We had to make up a product, and it could have been anything. I made up a restaurant that specialized in oddly large burritos,” Morrissey said.
“I have a new nickname now. It’s Burrito Boy,” Morrisey said.
*****
I mean, holy shit. No one’s taking any chances these days, are they? In case you haven’t realized it, this is the world we live in now.
I suppose that we have all the reason in the world to be paranoid, and it is always better to be safe than to be sorry; these people are responsible for the wellbeing of their students. But, it’s incidents like this that tend to make a person think, “Are we being a little too quick to call in the S.W.A.T. team?”
I found the story funny, not because of all the commotion caused for nothing, but all the little things, the things they didn’t mention in the article, the things I like to imagine happening.
Like, when the eighth grader pulled out the burrito to show everyone, did they yell, “GOD HELP US!!!” and dive behind their desks?
What went through the principal’s head when she first realized that she would have to tell the armed officers, “False alarm, it’s just a gigantic burrito!”
Was the student arrested for possession of a weapon of “gas” destruction? (sorry)
What ultimately happened to the burrito? Was it consumed, or booked as evidence? Was it preserved and put on display as a cautionary tale about how we shouldn't jump to conclusions, or as a reminder about how bat-shit loco we, as a nation, have gone?
When will we take action in our communities and pass a law requiring our schools to install burrito sensors next to the metal detectors?
Is the student the least bit bitter about being labeled by the school, nay, the entire nation, as “Burrito Boy,” for an incident that was entirely not his fault? Is there a chance he could salvage his reputation by spinning the name into something cooler, like “El Gigante!” (A big hit with the ladies.)
Why wasn’t there any cheese in this burrito?
Wouldn’t it be even funnier and more ironic if it was later revealed that the burrito was stuffed with drugs?
Feel free to add your own musings about what may have happened behind the scenes of this incident. I know I'll get a laugh out of it.
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