Boxing Day shopping with Mom = AWESOME!!

I got a new guitar today, it’s sweet. It’s not a regular style guitar it’s an electric “Hawaiian Style” guitar, also known as the “lap steel” guitar. It looks like this:


I’m a complete beginner in this type of guitar which is played by laying flat on your lap and manipulating the tone with a steel bar slide which you move up and down the neck. It’s called Hawaiian style because it was first used in Hawaii (duh) when this dude was walking down the train tracks with his guitar and picked up a loose bolt and used it slide around on the guitar strings.

There are several people famous for being slide guitar players, Blind Willie Johnson, Elmore James, Bonnie Raitt, Tony Furtado, to rattle of my favorites, but really no one famous for the lap steel. In fact I’ve only see two people ever play it, the front man from String Cheese Incident which was not a memorable performance, and Ben Harper. I’ve seen Ben Harper before live, and he puts on a pretty good show, especially when he plays Midnight Rider on the lap steel.

A Christmas Story

For as long as I can I remember, I’ve had trouble falling asleep on Christmas Eve. Not because I was trying to see Santa, but because I knew that soon another Christmas would be gone, and I’d have nothing to show for it except a few toys I was tired of by noon, a chocolate supply that wouldn’t last until dinner, and a bolstered supply of socks and underwear.

Back at home for only the second time since last the yuletide was gay, things are the same and completely different at the same time. Like for example, there’s a big ass tree in the living room. Also new, is wireless internet, which I am enjoying presently. Our tree is decorated with a nice blend of fancy store bought ornaments, moderately fancy store bought ornaments that were then painted with snowflakes, angels, wreaths, Santa, etc. and hand made elementary school crafts projects (and mardi gras beads, because I’ll use any excuse to get rid of some of those.) The closest ornament to me as I write, is one I made out of three popsicle sticks, blue paint, yarn, glue and red glitter. In the center is a school picture day portrait of me at roughly kindergarten/1st grade. My brother said I had fresh faced optimism, but I recognize the same no-teeth grin I still use today if told to smile with nothing to smile about.

There was a streak of about four or five years recently where every year, my mom says that this is going to be the year that Christmas gets scaled back and the amount of presents is severely reduced, but ended up loading the tree anyway. In recent years, the amount of presents really has declined, but gradually to the point of there being few, if any From: Santa gifts. I blame Al Gore.

I did 90% of my Christmas shopping in an underground music store. From street level you walk down a flight of steps into a basement filled with CDs, DVDs, and LPs. They were giving away free posters for a band fronted by a girl I went to middle school (and sang in chorus) with. I wouldn’t say she’s huge, but those in the musical know would know her. She’s definitely the most famous person I went to middle school with. Anyways, I’ve long been a fan of this music store, their indie rack is as big as their pop rack, and half the store is used CDs. They have concert videos that I’ve never seen in any store or even for sale online.

My original flight out of New Orleans was delayed two hours due to bad weather in Philly, then they boarded the plane and told us that the plane wasn’t going to fly for another two hours. Since the first two hours used up all of the contingency in my layover, I decided that maybe it would e better to try the next day (Saturday.) I called up my buddy to see what his plans were, and then told him I’d be there shortly. He asked what I meant and I told him I intended to get off the plane and he goes: “I like your style.” Me too, we went downtown and got pretty banged up, saw Kermit Ruffins break it down real nice at the new Balcony Club on Decatur, spent an hour looking for my friend’s lost work van, sang Motown songs with a homeless guy, then went to Ms. Mae’s. When the bouncer told me I wasn’t allowed in until I finished my drink, I said “Do you know who I am?” Stupid new guy, needless to say I didn’t go in.

Saturday morning, my brother called about 10:30am to ask what time my flight was arriving/ remind me I was flying/ make sure I didn’t miss my flight. I reassured him I would make it, in fact I had spent the night on my buddy’s couch, who coincidentally I would be sharing a flight with. We got the desk agents to give us seats next t each other, and then went to the airport bar. My buddy had already drank about two pints of sangria, and the sitting next to him thing turned out to be only a moderately good idea. We had a couple drinks at the hotel bar and hopped on the plane. I only had to tell him a couple of times not to point at the person he was talking about, the middle-aged shuffle rocking guy who had the misfortune of sharing a row with us that day. We fired up a couple bloody marys and since it was Christmas the subsequent ones were free.

Upon arrival in Philly, we found our way to the restrooms, where I had sitting business. I hear my buddy say:

Did you just see that? There was just a woman in here. Maybe it wasn’t a woman,
maybe it was it just a manboy… or mangirl.

I am sitting in my stall, absolutely dying laughing, there’s probably 5-8 other people in this bathroom, few of which would have the presence to realize that he was shitfaced because it was only like 4pm.

So we check on our connecting flights and go to the pub for nachos, a hotdog and four or five more drinks. We meet these two English (but actually it turns out are originally South African) girls who are on their way to Miami for “chrimble holiday,” which directly translated means: Christmas break. I think they may have warmed up to us once they realized how drunk we were. What shouldn't take them long to realize, is that there are no two guys in the United States that they could have been luckier to sit with.

I had an extra hour and a half after the girls’ and my friend’s plane left, so I decided I’d stretch my legs before I continued to kill my liver. I got a coffee irished and signed up for a US Air MasterCard and in return received a small teddy bear which spent the rest of the trip on my shoulder, being introduced to everyone he made eye contact with as Boudreaux the Bear, my co-pilot and confidant.

Not to toot my own horn or anything but...

Christmas came early today when I found out I passed this test...
Good thing I studied...
Good thing I didn't go to a massive music festival the night before the test...

I'm going on vacation for a week or so, so I should have some time to write. I'll be in Chi-town for the Saints vs Bears abortion (preseason, tickets for this game were like $150 min. now you can get for like $40,) and New Years, I'll miss Galactic feat. Chali 2Na at Tips but I plan on having some good stories from the windy windy.

Pacem.

Why Sports Blgs are Soooo Popular

Be sure to read the comments.

I could not care less about TO and Jessica Simpson

This is a screen grab of a link someone just emailed me:




What I wonder is how many people who received the same link read the article without noticing the red BREAKING NEWS above it, I'd guess at least two-thirds.

That's $70B that won't be spent on:

• Low income housing for the NOLA residents who can't live in their FEMA trailers anymore because of the formaldehyde coming out of the AC, (or those levee thing-eys,)
  
• Health care for the 10,000 homeless CHILDREN in L.A,
• Renewable energy/cancer/AIDS research,
• or my favorite charitable cause: musical instruments for kids that can't afford them.

Of course the argument has been made that many inventions we use everyday are the product of the war machine. Without microwave ovens we would still be living in the stone age, and without hang-gliders we'd still be... I don't know, zip-lining?

Another Non-Racist Post

World's Biggest Crackers:

Why I Chose to Become an Engineer

Right after I grduated from college, my father set me up with a job interview with the local office of what I think is the world's largest consulting engineering firm. He knew a guy who worked in the company's office in St. Louis, but occasionally did work out of the office in New Orleans, and also occasionally offered his professional opion to my father's endeavors, for a tidy fee, they only knew each other professionally. So I went in for the interview and met with the office manager and then later my father's contact, and it was my first real job interview and I wasn't prepared or loose, and I didn't get the job. Months later I was talking to my dad and he mentioned that he had talked to his buddy, and he had ecounted a funny story from our interview. He asked me if I remembered what I had said when asked why I chose to become an engineer. I replied that I had a couple of canned answers to that question, but I didn't recall which I'd given. Apparently my response had been: "Because I didn't want to be a doctor."

You see, I grew up the son of a doctor and an engineer, who made relentless fun of accountants and lawyers. I considered there to really only be two career paths to upper-middle-classdom. I remember one time my dad telling me something along the lines of: Your mom and I could have made a lot of money with our professions, but instead we chose to live well and have more time to spend with you kids. But don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with being rich. I'm pretty sure he waited to tell me that until after I admitted that I'd never be a rockstar. I never showed any talent for non-waaaayyy-abstract visual arts and I was never more than a B+ guitar student even before I lost part of my finger, and I didn't thought acting was for homosexuals, even though I showed a flair for the dramatic earlier than most. Maybe he wasn't talking about being famous, but rather suggesting I pursue a career on Wall Street (or some other financial endeavor riskier than moving to LA and waiting tables (or worse), trying to get noticed) but to my 12 year old mind he said "rich", and I just added the "and famous."

When I was about twelve I cut my finger carving my Halloween pumpkin (this is not the story of how I lost my finger tip, this was just a good deep gash) and I bled so much that I passed out. My mom said it was because of lost blood pressure, but I wasn’t convinced it wasn’t a weakness concerning the sight of what the inside of my finger looked like. When I did have my finger tip “traumatically amputated” in a door, I saw for a second time the inside of (coincidentally the same) one of my fingers. I passed out a couple times before that one was all said and done, and I ruined one of my favorite t-shirts.

Being an engineer was the rational choice, which coincidentally is what engineering is all about, getting as much information as possible and making the optimal decision within all of the constraints; maximizing the positives, without sacrificing any of the design constraints. Engineering is about pushing the limit of what is possible without delving into the realm of unknown or unsafe. Art professions ask you to not only break boundaries but to stay outside and no compromise your vision based on the criticism of others; not just think outside the box, but live outside the box. As a lawyer or financier, I may have a shot at becoming rich, but, possibly, at some moral or ethical cost. As an engineer, ethics are a big part of the equation. (Sure Westinghouse made a fortune on his air-brake, and Otis invented the brake that stops a falling elevator and both got rich in the process, but they did it saving lives. Every time you drive over a bridge, whether it be the Golden Gate, Brooklyn, a high rise, overpass, or just a short creek crossing, you’re entrusting your life to the engineer that designed the bridge and his/her ethics and “due diligence.”) As a doctor you are also entrusted with strangers’ lives, but you have to be able to deal with blood.

If you haven't signed up at imeem.com, do it now!

imeem.com has signed deals with all the major labels allowing them to share music for free. Advertising revenue sharing will appearently apease the giant blood sucking leaches, who, for the first time since napster got blown up, are off my shit list! Fuck you iTunes!

A couple choice moments with the boss at the office Christmas party

[Electric Slide Playing in the background]
Me: Nice party man, what a room.
HMFIC: It is nice isn't it, way better than last years. (I slept through the party last year because I had been out until noon/1 the night before.) Some day it'll be you picking out the room.
Me: I could be so lucky...
HMFIC: You will be.
Me: So you want to do the Electric slide... it's electric?
HMFIC: No, I don't think so.
Me: No you don't want to, or no you don't know how?
HMFIC: (Smiles) I don't think so.

[Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girl playing in the background]
#2MFIC: How come you're not dancing?
Me: I don't have anyone to dance with.
#2MFIC: Here take my wife.
#2MF'sW: You got me suicidal, suicidal. Beautiful girl...

Pictures that aren't confidential

You can see how this stairway was pushed into plastic behavior. The Katrina waves that did this pushed it past this point, but it flexed back to here. Someone signed off on it saying it was still safe though.

Dear God, please let there be another oil boom, I promise I won't piss it away this time.

I know what you're thinking and the answer is: yes, I did ride on a helicopter today. My friend called me up last night around 8 to see if I wanted to go out drinking, I told him: "Sorry man, I'm going offshore tomorrow which means I have to get up at around 2:30 am." He says "Well, aren't you lucky." I'm can't decide if he was being sarcastic, I love going offshore.

Up at two thirty am in order to be at the heliport for six. Please forgive any spelling, or grammer mistakes I'm really tired right now?

These old guard oil field guys are full of great stories and one-liners, I'll relate one story I heard today and then a few of my favorite one-liners (I never saw the sign I used for the above title, but it's reported to be somewhere near Lubbock), then I'm going to fais-do-do.

So this one well in the field I was in today has been producing oil continuously since 1955. For it's 50th birthday, the operator got an old christmas tree (which is what you call the head of a well string) and had it blasted and painted real nice and had a plaque made listing the amount oil this well had produced in its 50 years. So last year, the field superintendent, who I'm told was a great guy, retired. The guys in the field convince the operator to take this monument and ship it to north Louisiana and put it in this guys yard. Great tribute right? Can you imagine having a big (approx. 3'X3'X5') chunk of iron, painted bright yellow, planted like a tree in your front yard?


"He didn't know whether to scratch his watch or wind his ass."
""___insert any number of unintelligible catch phrases everyone but me thinks is absolutely hilarious here ____."
"There's no such thing as an oil spill at night."
"Your wife's like mine huh, two assholes... one she shits with, one she sends to work."

I've got more, but my brain is too tired to remember any right now.

Stare at the dot, move your head forward and back

More Hating on Bush

Read This Click the Links

Friday Night Part II

So I just got to my neighborhood bar for dinner and the bartender says to me "Zach! How you feeling?" to which I replied "You must have been working Friday." This is not the first time this has happened. Leslie (the bartender) says I sat down at the bar, didn't say hello and demanded a double Leslie and Coke.

I'm in no way endorsing this crappy song but,

even if I was a chick I think this video would give me a boner:

I Probably Would've Given More Than an Ear

A few interesting things happened today, but the two most culturally important would have to be Michael “Ron “Ookie” Mexico” Vick’s being sentenced to just shy of two years in federal prison for his role in the dog fighting corporation he financed “Bad Newz Kennelz,” (Bad news indeed… zing!) and the reunion concert by Led Zeppelin that just ended. They played a strong set list including some of my favorites, ROCKING in with Good Times Bad Times (a song we called GT/BT back in the halcyon Phish days of my youth), Ramble On (two of the top five best baselines ever, in one song!), and Black Dog (played out, but for a reason) to open. Then they played a few songs with which I must admit unfamiliarity, In My Time of Dying, For Your Life, Trampled Under Foot, and Nobody’s Fault but Mine. Then they launched into an EPIC string of ABSOLUTE AWESOMENESS:

No Quarter – My most recent favorite Zepp song.

Since I’ve Been Loving You – The song I lost my virginity to.

Dazed and Confused – Reportedly lasted ten minutes at the end of which Plant clued everyone in as to who was playing the guitar.

Stairway to Heaven – The song I touched my first boob to. (Seventh Grade Dance What What!)

The Song Remains the Same – Classic, aptly named even?

Misty Mountain Hop – The second most underrated song on IV (after The Battle for Evermore which is AWESOME)

Kashmir – Will undoubtedly be in the soundtrack of the movie I’ll probably never make, when the hero is walking towards the villain for the showdown. I saw Galactic cover this on Lundi Gras last year at Tip's and I pretty much lost it.

Whole Lotta Love – Was at one time my favorite Zepp song.

Rock and Roll – Again, aptly named, one of the ROCKINGEST songs ever.

A few weeks ago, a friend and I had a discussion as to which part and how much of our body we’d be willing to give up to be at this show. She said a ear, I said yeah but only after the show.

Three Stories My Parole Officer Would Not Find Amusing

So if you take a look at the comment that was left in the last post, you may not understand, but I’ll translate as much as I can. Basically it says:

Hi, you may not remember me but my name may or may not be Missy. Last night you jumped into my car and forced me to give you a ride to Mae’s where, judging by your condition, you had absolutely no business going. You did however feel bad for hijacking me, so you gave me twenty dollars which I spent on beignets and coffee and It was delicious.

p.s. At some point in the drive you told me about your blog and even convinced me that I should look at it and leave you a note.

To further clarify, I was at a Robert Earl Keen show, after going to an event sponsored by the local microbrewery that involved $1, 16oz, I.P.A.s that I drank about ten of, then went to the show and started drinking redbull-vodka, then, after the show, hitch/jacked a ride to a bar that serves well cocktails for $1, and somewhere in between I stopped remembering stuff.

Thank GOD I didn’t drive to the pub crawl initially.


Saturday was a tough one, even my patented hangover cure, which involves two ten minute walks, bacon, and as much Ice Tea as a man can possibly drink, did not make me feel any better. So, rather ingeniously I think, I came up with a plan to cure what ale-ed me (get it?). I would go to a place that's so loud, you're required to wear hearing protection. I called my buddy who has a gorgeous .357 magnum revolver and took my Browning Hi-Power to the local indoor pistol range. I can put 10 out of thirteen shots through the same hole with that Hi-Power, I love that gun. Afterwards we went to a nearby BBBQ (the extra B is for bbombdiggity) joint (you have to say BBQ JOINT I'm told, restaurant is unacceptable.)


Sunday I drank from noon until about 9pm. The Patriots are sooooo good, but you know who's better? Me, at fantasy football.

And Now For Something Completely Different

I don't usually like to get political but fuck Bush and his continuing crusade in Iraq. Since the war started in the spring of '03, an average of about 17 coalition soldiers have died each week. 120 have killed themselves. Three died yesterday. I can't believe they're still dying.

Not for the Weak

A friend told me a story a few weeks back about how the injured their knee that made me nauseas.
While watching this, I did the move where I covered my eyes but peeked through my fingers. Enjoy!

Getting the Seamen Joke Out of the Way Early

I don’t know if everyone’s aware of this, but if you type in a day (i.e. December 5, 25^th etc) at Wikipedia, it will tell you all the famous people who were born/died on that day, and any historic type event that happened. This Friday is December 7^th (the 66^th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor and) the day before December 8^th, when FDR pronounced the 7^th infamy day, or something like that. The Japanese attack that day should not be cheapened by my bad jokes, or anything else for that matter, it was a vicious sneak attack by a country with whom we were not at war, comparable only to whatever the date was that those planes hit the WTC (again cheap jokes mean no disrespect.)

Odds are, 1 out of every 365.25 people you walk by on the street was born on any given day, except February 29^th in which case the odds are 1/1461. There are three ways a parent could handle a leap-child (besides abstinence around Memorial Day/ Victoria Day if you’re Canadian.) The two easy and obvious ones would be to celebrate on either the 28^th or the first of Feb/Mar. The third option, and I think the best, would be to say:

Look kid, life ain’t fair, you better get used to it now. Bobby gets a birthday every year and you don’t, what are you going to do about it? Cry? Oh, really? You’re gonna cry? (Just kidding unborn kids, I would never say ain’t, my children will have impeccable grammar, usage, and mechanics like Daddy or else they will peel potatoes or run laps.)

That would teach them one of the most important life lessons before they turn four, and make them hard, the better to deal with other disappointments. And, you just make it up to them with more Christmas presents, teaching the other annual-birthday-celebrating offspring a lesson in the process.

I have no idea how to segue that train of thought back into stuff-wikipedia-says-happened-on-Dec7^th-besides-Pearl Harbor but this sentence will have to suffice. Anyway, did you know:

• In 1787 Delaware became the first state to ratify the US Constitution on Dec. 7^th?

• In 1917 the US officially entered The Great War (That’s what they called WWI back in the day) on Dec. 7th?

• In 1928 writer Noam Chomsky was born on Dec. 7^th?

• In 1932 actress Ellen Burstyn was born on Dec. 7^th?

• In 1947 baseball player Johnny Bench was born on Dec. 7^th?

• In 1949 singer Tom Waits was born on Dec. 7^th?

• In 1956 basketball player Larry Bird was born on Dec. 7^th?

• In 1970 cartoonist Rube Goldberg passed away on Dec. 7^th?

• In 1971 pornstar Chasey Lain was born on Dec. 7^th? ed. note: who?

• In 1972 Apollo 17 astronauts took this photo on Dec. 7th?

• In 1973 football player Terrell Owens (infamy indeed) was born on Dec. 7^th?

• In 1976 football player Alan Faneca was born on Dec. 7^th?

• In 1983 baseball player Fousto “no, my name is cooler” Carmona was born on Dec. 7^th?

That’s just the highlights, millions of people who’s name I don’t recognize, even some whose name I would, but only because they share names with people who’s name I recognize, were born or passed on December 7^th including all the seamen who woke up on December 7^th 66 years ago in Hawaii and never saw December 8^th.

Not Really a Racist Thought (per se)

If Martin Luther King Jr was still alive, would we even know who Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton are?

Word of the Year

Last year's word of the year was truthiness, this year's candidates are right here. I am going to try and write something with all 20 nominees, but it may take a while so I'll hit it after work.

That's funny, I always have to steal my kisses from Brian Billick

100 Years Ago, Dentists Made Half as Much as Engineers

This Is Awesome, If You're a Dork

How to Win at Monopoly
Of course, I already knew all of this, having not lost at Monopoly since the first time I played back in 1988.

More Fun Pictures

Good for a Laugh

Watching the BCS selection show, they announce that Hawaii will be visiting us here for the Sugar Bowl. They show the crowd at UHawaii getting fired up (Sugar Bowl is a big deal especially for a small school like Hawaii) and there is this little girl doing the "hang loose" sign.
I go to wikipedia to read a about it, and part of the way down the page they drop this on you.

Because I Feel Like Writing

So I was watching cartoons yesterday morning in about a three-quarter-stupor trying to figure out why I fell asleep on my living room floor armed to the teeth, when a commercial came on for a Christmas album for kids called “Yo, It’s Christmas.” The answer is yes, I bought it: “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way, oh what fun it is to ride in a blinged out Christmas sleigh. Dashing through the snow in a drop top Chevrolet, over the hills we go, bumpin’ all the way, bump bump bump…” It turns out it’s a Disney project, so like all Disney products it’s PG, grammatically correct, and its racism is moderate in both intensity and disguise. My favorite line (I haven’t listened closely all the way through yet, so I’m reserving my right to change) is “Don we now our fly apparel, fa la la la la la la la la, and we roll wit that ancient yuletide carol.” Also, this from Silent Night: “Let’s break it down allright, all was calm and all was bright.” Basically if I had kids, they would not be allowed to listen to this album, but if they asked why, I wouldn’t be able to come up with a very good answer. I don’t have kids though, so I get to listen to it for its cheesy beats and other humorous qualities.

I went and saw American Gangster last night, and I have still yet to see a bad Denzel movie (except maybe The Bone Collector, which only makes the maybe list because Angelina Jolie is in it. Angelina’s been in some moderately bad movies, but she has a free pass in my book because of Hackers.) Everyone loved Training Day, but He Got Game was a far superior movie, although it should be mentioned that I carry a pretty low opinion of Ethan Hawke. One of my favorite movies is Hoodlum, to which American Gangster is something like a sequel. Larry Fishburne’s character in Hoodlum is Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson, who gets out of jail and frees Harlem from the grips of Jewish gangster Arthur “Dutch Schultz” Flegenheimer, and after earning the blessings of the Italian Charles “Lucky” Luciano establishes himself as the most powerful man in Harlem. American Gangster picks up many years later in 1968, with the death of Bumpy Johnson. Denzel (who it turns out is about to turn 53) plays Frank Lucas, Bumpy’s driver and bodyguard. Lucas sets up a heroin importation operation and when he’s finally arrested, the Fed’s seize $250M, which adjusted for inflation is over a billion, and doesn’t include all the real estate etc he and his family bought.

In the only scene where Denzel has an identifiable gun, it's a Browning Hi-Power. According to five minutes of e-research, it appears Lucas was fond of the Hi-Power.

Tricking the Brain is FUN!!!

Click on it and open it, after 10 sec or so the picture changes to black and white, but your tired eyes will see it in color. After you blink, you will see it in its black and white glory.

At Least I Won My Teaser pt II

God I hate the Cowboys. I hate the Cowboys only slighty less than I hate the Yankees or Colts which I dislike equally. Fortunately I am good at hedging my bets, I won my teaser (Packers +13, Over 46 bet 20) to win $19. Hooray, I spent that much on electricty this week. I'd like to win my rent.

I am almost positive that Vegas called that PI after the only ref who was within 20 yards of the play said there was no interference.

Sing Praises

Over a year ago, after my father’s glowing recommendation, and my new found capability for producing disposable income, I signed up for Netflix. As anyone who is not a first time reader can attest, I love movies. I originally signed up for the modest 2-at-a-time unlimited (no monthly limit) plan for about $14 a month. When my “queue” of movies for which I was waiting reached 200, I upgraded to 3-at-a-time for about $17/ month. Do I watch $18/month worth of movies, you’re god damn right I do. I work those Netflix couriers to the bone, and if I don’t hit my full capacity I make up for it the next month. I have been hanging onto one movie: Isle of Wight Festival 1970: A Message to Love, because I am admittedly addicted to hippie music/culture. In between acts like Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, The Who, Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, Moody Blues, etc, there is actually a plot involving the appearance of about 550,000 people who came to the festival with absolutely no intention of buying a ticket. Tickets were 3 pounds a pop (which a rough calculation works out to about $30 today) and the festival promoters ended up having to let them all in, for a net loss on the festival of somewhere in the order of, let’s say $10M of today’s dollars. Anyways, the point is, if I hold onto a movie for longer than a couple days, its kind of like I’m back to being on the 2-at-a-time plan. Due to the changeover time, i.e. mail it to Baton Rouge, process, mail back to NOLA, 3-at-a-time is necessary if you want to watch a movie every day. Who would want to watch a movie every day? Someone with 320 movies currently waiting to be watched, with new ones coming out every week, that’s who.

Netflix has a rating system that allows you to rive a number of stars to movies, and it uses your rating to suggest movies to add to your queue. At 320, I need help adding to my queue like I need a hole in the head, but if I only watched movies I’d heard of, then I wouldn’t be able to watch a movie every day, not that I actually watch a movie every day, but if I could, you better believe I would. I’ve rated 1,457 movies. I’ve only watched about 50 since signing up, and one that I watched I didn’t finish because it was too bad. Anyways, that’s an overall average of 3.5 movies per month, which is way below my goal, but for much of that time I was on that 2-at-a-time plan. Since I upgraded about two months ago I’ve seen 20 movies, at an average of ten a month. Let’s do the math, 12 months of $14 a month saw 30 movies (there was a transition period of about a month when I moved, and they sent a bunch of movies to the ghosts that were living at my house, so we’ll just chalk up those $14 to being an idiot and excuse them from the calculations so: ) 11months X $14per = $154, $154/30 movies = about $5 per movie, which (I haven’t been to blockbuster in years so I wouldn’t know but) sounds about average. Now, since I upgraded, 2 months X $18 = $36, $36/20 movies = about $2 per movie, which is a pretty sweet deal unless you live near one of those cheap theaters that plays second run movies, which we, unfortunately, do not have her in New Orleans.

Around the same time I upgraded to the 3-at-a-time plan, I also bought an HD-DVD player, all the better to see Clive Owen’s milky complexion. What I meant to say was Rosario Dawson’s yoo-hoo-ey complexion (Children of Men was the first HD-DVD I got, Clerks II should be in my mail box when I get home.) The difference between DVD and HD-DVD isn’t quite as dramatic as the jump from VHS to DVD, but its close. What I’m not sure of though, is whether the films shot in the 7/80’s that are being released on HD-DVD were shot in high enough def for it to be worth it. It doesn’t really matter, because Netflix sends you HD-DVDs or Blu-Rays at the same price as the regular DVD’s.

I kind of want to get a Blu-Ray player, likely in the incarnation known as the Playstation III, because this business of a format war is killing me. The fact that there are tons of movies I can’t see in HD because the studio is buddy-buddy with Sony instead of Toshiba is absolute horseshit. I’ve heard that the last format war, between VHS and Betamax, was pretty much decided when the pornography industry chose, for some reason unanimously, to use VHS to distribute their wares (thus ending the prominence of the XXX theaters you see in movies.)

1/2 Man + 1/2 Beast = Meast

It’s been a while since I’ve nominated an asshole of the day, so I’m going to make up for it with an asshole of the year. This year’s asshole of the year is the motherfucker who shot Sean Taylor.

If I may, a short anecdote:

Over two years ago, lets say 26 months, my friend and I were living in post-apocalypse New Orleans, working (semi-) steady jobs, relatively care-in-the-world-less. We’d usually spend about 25% of our paycheck on food and the rest on alcohol, which, you may or may not remember, was hard to do, considering there was 2am curfew in effect back in those days. Anyways, we both liked to play poker, and playing against each other had lost all of its appeal, so we decided to go to the only open casino on the gulf coast, Boomtown. It was about a 30 minute ride to the west bank and Boomtown from our little slice of post-apoc paradise, which duration will become (slightly) relevant momentarily.
So we roll up to the casino and, acting like gangsters, we ask for seats at a poker table. We’re told it could be as much as a two hour wait for a seat, so we meander around the casino a little bit and end up at the blackjack table. I proceed to lose about a hundred bucks in less than a half hour, and my buddy goes down to two chips, a five and a ten. We decide we can’t lose anymore of our hard earned drinking money and that we should have just stayed home and played Omaha HiLo against each other. As we’re walking out the door, the voice comes on the PA saying that our seats are ready. We weigh the cost of the trip already versus the risk of rehitting the ATM and playing poker, and decide that we’ll play the last of the chips on the roulette table and let fate decide for us. My friend puts his $10 chip down on his high-school hockey number and asks me to pick a number for the five. I had spent a portion of the afternoon watching Sean Taylor highlight reels and feeling it, chose 21. At this point you can probably guess the rest of the story, so I won’t flower it up any, I’ll just summarize. 21 hit, at 35:1 X 5 = $180 effectively erasing our blackjack losses, we went upstairs and terrorized the wanna-bes at the poker tables for about $400 bucks and went to the Bulldog, which was one of the only places you could eat dinner after 8pm.

I never met Sean Taylor, I never watched him play in person, but I loved to watch him play. I watched many of his college games, and he was one of the few exciting players on a few unexciting Redskins teams. The hit in the post below from the Pro Bowl will serve as his legacy; he was likely the most feared safety since Ronnie Lott. At 6’-2” 236lbs, he may have been the biggest person to ever run a 4.4 40, born to play football, he died too soon.

More Sean Taylor

This used to be a bad ass movie of Sean Taylor hitting punter Brian Moorman (he was running a fake punt) so hard that his wife shit in her pants. Fucking NFL hates YouTube.

RIP Sean Taylor

Only in Death do our heroes revert to human form, all thoughts should be for Sean's 1yo daughter Jackie Taylor.

Age and other Thanksgiving Thoughts

Every time I see my Great Aunt Sally, she says: “Oh, I haven’t seen you since you were this (makes hands like she’s about to catch a basketball) small,” and I see her like every year. As I was leaving, she says: “It was nice meeting you.” Sally lives with my grandmother Kay, who will be 90 in January. My grandmother’s mental faculties remain intact (“If he’s (Al Gore) going to run for president, he’s going to have to lose some weight”) but she’s shrinking and arthritic. Between the two of them they manage to keep things going fairly well. My Aunt’s father (to whom I’m not related, my Dad has 5 brothers, my mom 3, so all my aunts are by marriage) is 97, and his line is: “The only people interested in living until they’re 100 are people in their nineties.”

One of my cousins is 29, on the cusp of no longer being a “twenty-something.” When he asked his father, who’s quite a character, for career advice his response was: “Propecia.” My brother is also 29 and is wearing his hair longer than he has since high school, and may or may not be attempting to cover up male pattern baldness.

My Uncle got Guitar Hero for his birthday. My mom was amazed that my brother and I were able to pick up the game quickly, and it assuaged her fears that a (relatively short) lifetime of (relatively heavy) abuse had screwed up our nervous systems in a permanent fashion. She was very relieved, until she saw my twelve year old cousin play, and saw just what undamaged synapses could do. My Mom, who’s hooked and will be receiving guitar hero and my old playstation for Christmas, says that since she’s known him my uncle’s always had the best toys.

I heard a few stories I’d never heard before this year, including one that started “The only time I ever took LSD two days in a row…” I love stories about 6/70’s. We had a second thanksgiving dinner yesterday at guitar hero uncle’s house, and the only thing better than thanksgiving is doing it two days in a row. I don’t know if the same is true for a “substance made in the kitchen of a Univ. of Maryland drop out, C+ chemistry student.”

One of the traditional thanksgiving activities is the family band. My brother and I are musically competent and my twelve year old cousin (who’s pretty amazing at Guitar Hero, but he’s had a lot of practice) plays the drums and his older brother, who was a music major at UI-U-C, plays the cello. He has an electric cello and a pretty stout bass rig; bands without cellos are missing out big time. We were working on Eleanor Rigby, which it turns out is a fairly boring two chord song, when I noticed that it was the same as a Michael Franti song called “Time to Go Home,” which is an awesome two chord song. We looked it up on the computer and played it for him, and he picked out the bass line instantly and we were off and rocking. Not present for the jam session were the cousins that are piano virtuosos, my father and his banjo or any of my uncles whose musical talents range from surprising to not bad for an old guy.

An old family friend was talking about music with my father when I walked up and my father accused him and myself of liking “baby-boomer music.” I happen to be a big fan of Jorma Kaukonen, and my response was “I was, after all raised by baby-boomers.” Bruce Springsteen was mentioned and I went into my rant about how terrible his Jazz Fest show was, and I attempted to describe how much I hated that show. It turns out, just before I walked up, my dad was pitched the Seeger Sessions album and I was ragging on this guy’s favorite CD. That ended the music talk and the subject moved to space travel.

In order to travel to the nearest star and back in half of a human lifespan, the energy required to accelerate, decelerate, reaccelerate, and then redecelerate (according to spell check, reaccelerate is a word, but redecelerate is not) a human is more than all the power ever generated in the history of mankind. The necessary energy could, however, be reduced by half if people were half as big, or lived twice as long.

Over Airline Highway and Through the Parking Garages, to Grandmother's House We Go

So, I missed my flight this morning. My brother called me an idiot, but I could’ve sworn that you only need to check in 20 minutes (I was there 25 minutes) before your flight. Oh, right, that’s when they start boarding. I’ll still make Thanksgiving, but everyone will probably be done eating by the time I get there, and someone has to leave to come pick me up. On the (slightly) brighter side, the girl I was sitting next to while waiting for my later flight said that she was sixth on a list of about ten people trying to fly standby on my earlier flight, so to my brother I say this: I may be an idiot, but somewhere someone got home earlier for Thanksgiving because I’m an idiot. I hope he (my brother) doesn’t eat all the turkey. I’m writing on a plane that’s more empty than any other plane I’ve ever been on, and it’s 2:20 pm central on Thanksgiving day, and when I arrive it’ll be about 5 eastern, I hope.

I only ran one red light on my way to the airport this morning, but I think I could’ve made it if I’d ran another one. Following my normal route to work, which is in between home and the airport, I was enjoying the lack of usual morning traffic and the fact that the guy in front of me was abusing the speed limit by almost 20 mph. We were stopped by a red light, for a street that no one uses except doctors and other hospital traffic for one of the bigger hospitals that didn’t get flooded by the storms. I’m wringing the steering wheel, one eye on the deific red light, the other on the dashboard clock, which is set five minutes fast on purpose. Anyway, point is, this light, this morning, served no purpose except to keep me from getting to airport. If there hadn’t been a car in front of me I would’ve driven through the light, but I was also hoping that the speedy fellow in front of me was going to get on the highway and I could follow him at high speeds through Metiarie to the airport. A few blocks after the light changed he slowed and blinked and turned right out of my life. As he turned, another car turned right from the street onto which he was turning and in front of me and proceded to obey the letter (or number as it were) of the law. I was not stopped by anymore redlights on my quest, although I did slow down for one.

The true idiocy of my thinking was that I thought I’d be able to park at the airport on Thanksgiving morning. All the lots were full, so I parked at Denny’s and jogged across airline highway, through the parking garages and to the ticket counters only to be told I was five minutes late, and would be arriving five hours late to my Grandmother’s house.

I probably would’ve gotten towed.

I drove home with my mind on my Grandmother, steelily determined to make my flight 3.5 hours later. I parked my car in front of my apartment, and walked to the only restaurant I’d seen open for a breakfast croissant and a heroically discarded sports page. I called a cab more than two hours before flight time, and he showed up within minutes. I arrived at the airport in time to buy Jay-Z’s new album and do all the work I had intended to do over the course of my 4 day weekend. The final step of said work was to add an MS Paint sketch to the spreadsheet I’d developed. Standby girl was impressed with my Paint skills.

The First (and Likely Last) Time I Take a Topic Request

So a friend suggested that I should put my skills to better use and write about a real movie. Her suggestion, Road House, could be summarized and the extent of its message broken down into three simple discreet statements:

• “[If fighting] the biggest guy in the world, you smash his knee, he'll drop like a stone.”

• Sam Elliot is a bad-ass, and taught Swayze everything he knows (except how to fight and dance, both of which he learned to do on the set of The Outsiders from Ralph Maccio and Tom Cruise respectively. Incidentally, I heard from Charlie Sheen that Cruise lost his virginity during filming to Emilio Estevez, although Sheen was pretty drunk when he told me that, he also said he would sleep with Kathy Bates for a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue. Also interesting and a little more a pros po, despite that software upload BS, it was Swayze who taught Keanu Reeves kung-fu after they wrapped Point Break. Slightly less interesting is that spell check knows “Keanu”, but not “Swayze”.)

• Crime don’t pay, pain don’t hurt, and tight jeans don't hinder your ability to high kick.

I’d like to take this opportunity to announce a new feature: “Things Charlie Sheen Told Me When He Was Shitfaced.” Without further ado:

Things Charlie Sheen Told Me When He Was Shitfaced

• Men can do kegel exercises too.

• Not only is Chris Tucker really funny, but he’s a really good person.

• Women with breast implants are 75% more likely to be stalkers.

• Red Dawn was like a million times better movie than The Outsiders, mostly because Cruise wasn’t in it.

• Michael J. Fox is fakin’ it. (I know that’s a terrible thing to say, but just the mental image of a trashed Charlie Sheen saying that, all bobble-headed and slurry, is too funny a mental picture not to share. To wit: "AND ANOTHER THING… Michael J. Foxsh, whatever the J stands for, if there even IS A JAY, is totally, fuckin completely... what was I talking abo- oh Michael JAAAY Fox whatever the Jaayyy stands for, probably gaaaayyy…" You get the idea.)

Another Sweet Presidential Movie Monolouge

From The American President:

For the last couple of months, Senator Rumson has suggested that being president of this country was, to a certain extent, about character, and although I have not been willing to engage in his attacks on me, I've been here three years and three days, and I can tell you without hesitation: Being President of this country is entirely about character. For the record: yes, I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU. But the more important question is why aren't you, Bob? Now, this is an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights, so it naturally begs the question: Why would a senator, his party's most powerful spokesman and a candidate for President, choose to reject upholding the Constitution? If you can answer that question, folks, then you're smarter than I am, because I didn't understand it until a few hours ago. America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's
gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can't just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the "land of the free". I've known Bob Rumson for years, and I've been operating under the assumption that the reason Bob devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn't get it. Well, I was wrong. Bob's problem isn't that he doesn't get it. Bob's problem is that he can't sell it! We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family and American values and character.

IMDB = Relaxing Saturday Afternoon

I had so much fun with that last one, I’m going to do it again. This time though, I’m going to talk about an old movie rather than a new one. This story starts with a movie I watched hen I was a little kid, not that little, lets say… nine years old. I liked it so much, that I used the old VCR that couldn’t play but could record, to tape the rented tape, so that I could watch it over and over (which I did) and memorize the songs (I still know them.)

So when I moved into my apartment, I decided I wasn’t going to get cable. It was just too expensive, and I don’t watch enough TV for it to be even remotely worth it (I did however end up getting bunny ears, mostly so I could watch college football when I woke up all hungover on Saturday mornings/afternoons.) I do however love movies, at my old house we had full bore cable, with HBO and DVR and even IFC (Independent Films Channel, which rocks.) So I went to the local record store/headshop and bought roughly 25 used DVDs. I bring them up to the counter, and get long looks from the two kids working the register. They start taking the theft-o-bracket things off each one, one by one, and a couple times the dude gives an approving nod. When the girl picks up The Way of the Gun, she goes “Ah, I didn’t know we had this…” and gives me a look like I’m supposed to say I don’t really want it, but that’s not what this story is about. A few theft-o-brackets later the dude picks up Newsies, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move his head, but looks briefly up at me under the brim of his hat. I pretend I don’t see him, and keeps going. Anyway, I got like 25 DVDs for like $100 because they have this buy 2 get 1 free deal.

So yeah, I just decided, not moments ago, to write about Newsies. I just decided, not moments ago, to write about a Disney kid’s musical. But its not like anyone is reading this, so in the words of the venerable rap duo Capone n’ Noreaga, What? Say Something.

Anyways, if you had kids you’d probably know that the musical sensation that’s sweeping the nation is “High School Musical.” (Interesting tidbit that may only be interesting to me, when I registered MS word, I put “School of Hard Knocks” as my “Organization,” I only mention this now, because if I type school, it comes up as an autofill.) Who could’ve guessed that High School Musical would be such a success (as was HSM II and they’re currently making III) ? I could, and I’ll tell you why. All three of the HSM movies are directed by the one and only Kenny Ortega. What was Kenny Ortega’s first feature length project as director you (probably don’t need to) ask, Newsies.

Did you know Cristian Bale won the 2006 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films (Saturn, but I prefer ASFFHFie) Award? I bet you didn’t, but I bet I didn’t to tell you that Newsies was Bale’s first musical. Even more interesting than the ASFFHFie for Batman, Bale actually had an Award (Best Juvenille Actor, National Board of Review) created for his performance in Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun. They created it because they gave best actor to Michael Douglass for his turn as Gordon “Lunch is for Wimps” Gecko in Wall Street (best supporting that year went to Sean Connery for Jim “just like a wop, bringing a knife to a gun fight” Malone in The Untouchables, he says that line right before Frank Nitti, played by Billy “I’m too freaky looking to be in anything but horror movies” Drago, mows him down with a tommy gun, or “Chicago typewriter”. Another interesting fact that only I care about, the Thompson Sub-Machine Gun or “tommy gun” was invented in 1921 by John Thompson and originally sold to the US Postal Service to defend the mail. Also, the tommy gun is a blowback operated .45 ACP rifle that fires from the closed bolt. 86 years later, the most technologically advanced submachine gun, at least my favorite, is the H&K UMP, which fires the .45 ACP from the closed bolt using a blowback operated action. But I digress…) Bale plays Jack “Cowboy” Kelly, the leader of the newsies, and I hardly need to update you on his whereabouts/recent projects. They call him Cowboy, as far as I can tell, because he wears a cowboy hat and a bandana around his neck.

The so-called brains of Cowboy’s operation (far be it from me to accuse anyone of being racist, but I’m pretty sure he’s the token Jew) David Jacobs, is played by a fellow named David Moscow, who, as far as I can tell, hasn’t really had a legit acting job since. He was in the Jessica Alba fest called Honey which I (inexplicably) never saw, and a few other things I’ve never heard of, but it looks like his crowning achievement was getting engaged (and subsequently disengaged) to Kerry Washington, who has been cast a couple times as a token hot black chick (Mr. & Mrs. Smith) but appears to actually be a legit artist: “I try not to let my politics limit me artistically, and you know say like ‘well I can't do that because I don't ever want to play a black prostitute.’” She was Idi Amin’s second wife Kay in The Last King of Scotland.

The kid Jacobs brother is played by Luke Edwards, who was the lead in Little Big League, and opposite Fred Savage in The Wizard (you touched her chest?). If it wasn’t him, then I definitely saw someone who looked like him play Gavroche (eldest son of the Thenardiers, Eponine’s brother) in a Broadway Les Miserables (to which I also know all the songs.)

In the chorus are Max Casella (Sopranos, Bronx is Burning, Doogie Howser MD), Marty Belafsky (A Mighty Wind, Men in Black II, II episodes of Step-by-Step), Arvie “obviously not related to Rob” Lowe Jr. (Sister-Sisiter, Moesha), Aaron Lohr (Dean “Bash Brother #2" Portman from Mighty Ducks II&III, quack), Ivan Dudynsky (who’s hilarious name belies this tidbit from his bio: “He and other cast member of Roundhouse had pierced ears during the hip hop phase of the early 90's, but kept the piercings and grew their hair out for the grunge "renaissance" of the mid 90's.” Which IMDB bio I’d be willing to bet he wrote himself, in fact I’m going to link to it, because it’s pretty much pure gold.), Michael Goorjian (11 different TV shows I’ve never seen including a 45 episode stint on Party of Five, SLC Punk, Leaving Las Vegas), a couple other guys from Roundhouse, and a couple guys from Kids Incorporated (which I’ve only ever heard of because of Aguilara).

Ann (I’m old and have two first names, so I don’t need a last one) –Margaret plays the Newsies’ cheerleader, and Bill Pullman takes care of the father figure image. I’m all IMDB’d out, but I’ll leave you with my favorite Bill Pullman monologue:

Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. "Mankind." That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom... Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution... but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: "We will not go quietly into the night!" We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!

Honestly, goosebumps every time.

I don't like the term chick flick. I think it denigrates a movie... We don't call The Last Samurai a guy flick, do we?

So I’m watching ER, which as I think I mentioned before is the only primetime hour long I’ve ever watched (aside from a brief flirtation with 24, but it’s like if you miss one episode, then it’s easy to lose the thread), and also stars Uncle “John Stamos” Jesse (?!?), and on comes this commercial for “the greatest love story ever told.” The preview touts (btw one of the characters just said “tmi”, LOL!) “another great performance by (some fellow I don’t recognize named) Javier Bardem” who it turns out is the guy I don’t recognize from the other preview I’ve seen recently (No Country for Old Men), which is presumably what they’re talking about when they say “another”. (In my own defense I only ever started watching ER with my Mom who is a doc and a fan, but probably has watched half as many episodes as I have.) Anyways, I’m immediately skeptical of this preview, touting a name I don’t recognize, rocking 19th century mise, and talking about being the greatest love story ever told. (Bardem receives second billing on IMDB to the Law & Order Det. who was in Clear and Present Danger) When the preview gets around to the title of the movie, the words pop up as the narrator says each line: Love(predictable) in the (ok…) Time of (cliché) Cholera (jaw drops… … …)

Love in the Time of Cholera really is (I can count the number of books I’ve read more than once on one hand, and it’s on the list) The Greatest Love Story Ever Told. Florentino Ariza is a telegraph operator who (cliché alert) falls in love with a girl, Fermina Daza, socially out of his league. He becomes physically ill he loves her so much. With the help of her nanny he proposes to her and pledges his undying love. She excepts, but when her father (Lorenzo Daza is a great character, lets see who plays him… it’s Leguizamo!!!!!!!) finds out he takes her on a trip through Mexico (I think, I’m not really sure where the main action is set, but I always had it mentally pictured as Venezuela) to help her forget about the childish crush. Without his knowledge however Florentino Ariza manages to maintain contact through the fraternity of telegraph operators(!!!!).

Anyways, she ends up with Dr. Juvenal Urbino, who is basically the town (and this is the first time I’ve ever used this word, so forgive me if I’m misusing) milquetoast, but Ariza never fails in his promise of undying love. Other recognizable faces in the cast are Cotton Weary/Raymond Shaw from Scream 1-19 and the Manchurian Remake, and Hector Elizondo who is a great character actor most notable for his (uncredited but golden globe nominate-able) role as the concierge in Pretty Woman (give me IMDB and Wikipedia, and I could write you a book). The director, Mike Newell, has some quality on his resume, including Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Pushing Tin, Donnie Brasco, Four Weddings and a Funeral. (you see what I did there?)

Not to whine, but the reason I’m excited about this move is that it’s the perfect date movie, and I don’t have one. It’s such a great date movie that asking a girl who wasn’t already your girlfriend to go see this would just be corny. I’m almost ashamed to be this excited about this movie, let’s recap:

• Greatest Love Story Ever Told
  
• Benjamin Bratt (Miss Congeniality)
  
• Hector Elizondo (Pretty Woman, Princess Diaries 1 & 2)
  
• Live Schrieber (Kate & Leopold)
  
• Leguizamo (Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge)
  
• Mike Newell (4 W’s & a F, Mona Lisa Smile)
  
  

If this movie shows Bardem or Bratt with their shirt off, this movie is going to out chick flick Thelma & Louise. But I’m probably going to go see it. The title quote by the way is from Newell.

Today’s biggest douchebag is, of course, Barry Bonds. Bonds could’ve gotten a free pass for admitting his steroid use if he’d admitted his use and testified against BALCO in their money laundering Grand Jury. Now he’s getting charged with 4 counts of perjury and 1 count of obstruction of justice. I can’t indict him, but if I could it would be with 18 charges of douchebaggery and another 6 of idiocy. More on this tomorrow, I’m going to bed.

(For the record Baz Luhrman is a genius, and both Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet are fucking awesome movies)

All the Fake Reggie Bush's Had the Birthday Right

If you search for Reggie Bush on facebook, it comes back with 7 of them, only one of which looks even a little authentic. Humorously, the one with the most friends (900+) has as a favorite quote:

"Off the field, I'm quiet. On the field, I'm probably the exact opposite of that. Split personality on and off the field." - Reggie Bush
I don't think he's the real deal.
Drew Brees may be for real, but his profile isn't openable.
Will Smith has the most honest page (and a very cute family.)
Roman Harper is blocked.
This group and this group appear to have different purposes, but they're basically the same.

I really like Chris Paul.

Tradition is what you resort to when you don't have the time and money to do it right.

This is one from a few days ago that got messed up somehow:

The above quote by Kurt Herbert Adler, who was a conductor for the San Francisco Opera (not to be confused with Kurt Alder of IGFarben and the Diels-Alder reaction,) applies itself well to the field of engineering. In engineering, time and money are spent researching outcomes to unknown situations, and developing traditions that can be conservatively followed with predictable and safe outcomes.There is no engineering formula that is not the result of countless hours of research, and in some cases, the resulting formu la is simply an efficient but safe guess.

Being efficient but safe is kind of the same thing as being “conservative”, an engineering buzz word. Wrong is okay, if it is conservative. For example, say you’re designing a raod that needs to carry 1000 cars and 1000 trucks a day. You could, conservatively, design it for 2000 trucks, and it would likely never have any problems, but it would be considerably more expensive than it needed to be.

The way you actually solve this problem is to turn the trucks into what’s called “passenger car equivalencies.” I forget what the number used is, but for our purposes, let’s say its 2.5. That is to say, for each 18-wheeler in traffic, it’s the same as if 2.5 cars were in the same space. So in the case of our road, you’d design it 3500 (1000 + 2.5(1000)) cars a day. This versus 5000 c/d-rp (cars per day road price) you would’ve been willing to pay had you not done the research necessary to approximate that one big rig is equal to 2.5 cars.

Approximate (also estimate) is another word kicked around a lot in engineering. Some trucks are heavier than others, some longer. Same for passenger cars, the idea though, is that it’s a best guess based on average car and truck length and weight.

I often say I make up numbers for a living. This is a actually the hardest part of my job. Doing math is easy, I have a calculator and computer programs to the hard stuff for me, it’s when I actually have to pull something out of thin air, that I need to actually put my thinking cap on. Fortunately there is no wrong answer, just varying levels of correctness. Isn’t engineering fun?

For an asshole award I give you Don Shula, the coach of the ’72 Dolphins (the only NFL team to ever go 16-0) suggested that if the Patriots were to go 16-0 this season, they should have an asterisk next to their record in the official annals reminding posterity that they got busted cheating in the season opener, videotaping the opposing teams defensive calls. Let me see if I can get this straight, they wouldn’t be a legitimate 16-0 because in the first game of the season they got caught doing something (that most of the league probably did anyway) that wouldn’t help them until they replayed the team in December. Shula is worried about his mark for being the only coach to ever have undefeated season.

This is pretty sweet.

I just wasted a whole half hour on this aggravating P.O.S.

Yo, I'm one with my gun, I love it like my first son It protects me and makes sure the jakes respect me

My first gun:

The 1911 was the standard issue sidearm for all officers in every branch of the US military starting in… that’s right 1911. It’s not anymore, it was replaced by the Baretta 92FS because of some BS about 9mm vs .45. It's still carried by badass guys like Deltas and SEALs.

Glock 22:

Pretty common to find on the hips of Law Enforcement and Military, no frills, all business. This is a .40 caliber, which is relatively new caliber that's rapidly popularizing, because you get a lot more bang than a 9mm, but this one holds 15 rounds, whereas with a .45 you're lucky to fit 12 (the 1911 carries 8.) I also have a laser for this one. I think I might trade this one for a H&K USP, which was designed from the ground up for the .40.

Walther P990:

The new James Bond has one of these, I had one first. Its small, fits in your hand like a dream, and could shoot bulls eyes out if the trigger wasn't so complicated.

Browning Hi-Power:

Designed by John Browning, the same designer of the 1911, popular in Ireland. I got custom grips made for mine that read “SI VIS PACEM” on one side and “PARA BELLUM” on the other. “If you seek peace, prepare for war.” I think I’m going to get wood though.

My mom has a deal with my dad, if he gets a handgun, he also gets a divorce. My dad came to visit me a few weeks ago, and I think that the main reason he wanted to come was to shoot my pistols.

It may be kind of an expensive hobby, but I like it. I’m thinking about trading in the Walther for one of these:
I have kind of a thing for the two-tones.

I'm Ron Burgundy?

How is USC ranked 13th in all three polls, but 11th overall?
Stupid BCS.

aT lEAST i wON mY tEASER PS, elp ROCKS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HARD.

Today the 0-8 rams came to New Orleans and won a football game. Let me count the ways in which that was not the most surprising result of the day (0 and fucking 8.)
Washington Redskins -3. Oops.
Oakland Raiders + 3.5, my bad.
New York Giants + 2.5 Yeah I should be brought out back and shot for this one.
Detriot Lions -1 How the fuck did I lose this one?
Colts -4 Welcome to my terrible 1-5 week GO BILLS!!!1!!

So, I got into something of a philosophical discussion today regarding homosexuality. My thoughts on the subject are pretty abdstract if my opinion is kind of concrete. I used to think that homosexuality was a mental disorder on the same par as, say for example social anxiety disorder. I’m pretty sure that everyone, to a certain extent, has “SAD.” I’ve heard arguments that everyone is to a certain extent bi-sexual. I’m pretty sure that I’ve, and I can’t speak for everyone but, never even thought about another man in a sexually arousing way. I mean, I like Johnny Depp just as much as the next GUY, but I’ve watched Bend it like Beckham more times than I’m willing to admit. My point, not that I'm very good at making those, is that I'm deeply distrustful of the homosexuals, because I suspect foul play. If that's not the case, and far be it from me to stand in the way of anyone's true love, than I would be the first person to congratulate a GAY, but in the meantime, I'm wondering what prescription could cure homeboy.
Did you know:

• that the main girl from that movie (i.e. the Indian girl not K.K.) is on E.R. now?

• That E.R. is the only prime time TV show I’ve ever watched with any regularity?

• What it means to superman a hoe? Seriously that’s fucking terrible.

• SNL ain’t so L anymore?

• The analysts say oil will reach $120 a barrel in the next 12 months?

• That’s good news to me?

But seriously, so I work for oil money, should I feel bad about that? I like Miles Davis just as much, if not more than you do. I actually enjoy paying taxes. No, but seriously, the higher the price of oil, the cooler projects I get to work on… Are you mad at me, because I will buy you a tank, as long as its not citgo or shell, fucking elitist pricks.

Everyone should see:
25th Hour
The Usual Suspects
The Last Waltz

Equinational Map

Anyone remember the upside down map from National Geographic?
Well here's an even farer out (far outer?) map for you geopoliticistas.

About the Plant/Krauss Album

Although it may be genre-ically unclassifiable Raising Sand can probably be best described as intelligent background music. It did however debut at #2 behind the sales machine that is Carrie Underwood (the girl who knows how to fuck up a 4x4.) I wonder how many of the people who bought either album know who Allison Krauss is?

War on Drugs

I just finished reading this article.
If they legalized drugs, the gangs wouldn't have any money to buy automatic weapons with.
And I doubt anyone would start shooting heroin, just because they legalized it.

Captions from Sunday

This dude kills me.

I would, one day, like to get married. Seriously, why are you laughing?

I went to a wedding on Saturday night, the presiding minister was a Roman Catholic priest, and managed to mention celibacy in the context of a vacation to Cancun witch I thought was nice. His story went something like: he was vacationing in Cancun and he met a couple who tried to set him up with their friend. They were at dinner and the subject of his occupation came up and he told them, and they replied “Oh come on, just because you’re here in Cancun alone, you don’t need to make stuff up.” His point being, that not only does he sacrifice sex, but also companionship, and that companionship, more than sex, is what a good marriage should be about. He then went on to tell a terribly cliché joke listing ways in which a computer is like a wo/men. Priest humor, (not to be confused with priest jokes) you can be sure, has never made anyone blush.

I know that certain words are changed in different versions of the bible, but is there a reason that Catholics don’t say the last part of the Lord’s Prayer (for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever? Does anyone besides me think it’s hilarious that the only two prayers I know (lord’s and serenity) I learned from playing high school football, and going to AA meetings?)

The wedding was for a friend from work, in LaPlace, and according to Mapquest, the church was 40 minutes from my house. I made it in about 35 thanks to fast moving traffic over the spillway, but was still 10 minutes late. From the car I called my Dad:

“Dad, I have an etiquette question”

“Uh… ok.”

“I’m on my way to my buddy’s wedding, it starts in 20 minutes and I’m a half hour away.”

“Keep on going, don’t kill yourself on the drive, be unobtrusive, stand in the back, absolutely, positively, don’t not go.”

This part of the story doesn’t really have a point so much as to point out that I’m way better at estimating how long it’s going to take me to get somewhere than I am at being on time.

As soon as the ceremony was over, I went outside and checked on the LSU-Bama score from my phone (watching the game, by the way, was why I was late in the first place.) They were tied with 3 minutes to play, and Bama had the ball, not looking good. Standing around outside with some coworkers, I checked the score again, and LSU was up a touchdown with a minute to go, “LSU’s gonna win, I wonder how that happened, probably a pick-6” I say. Nothing but raised eyebrows and confused looks, “you know, a pick 6, interception returned for a touchdown…?” (“…?” is how you spell the physical act of confused look and raised eyebrows) I do not understand people that don’t like football. They’re even worse than the (seeming growing number of) people who don’t like baseball. (“It’s sooo boring.” “Eat your peanuts, drink your beer, and shut the fuck up, it’s a full count.”) Even a bad football game is more exciting than a basketball game or a soccer game (too easy and too hard to score resp.) And while I do recognize the brilliance of Tiger Woods I can’t understand watching golf. The only things I can think of that can rival the excitement of football and (important) baseball is high-level tennis, and olympic/playoff hockey. (Cliché alert) But I digress…

The reception was fun (read open bar) and the food was good. I had two pieces of cake. When it was time for the bouquet tossing, only one girl got up catch it, then after some prodding 4 or 5 more joined her. I got tricked into being in front for the girder toss, but it got zoomed right over my head. Let’s just say I didn’t hurt my shoulder reaching for it. More people cranked that soulja boy than did the electric slide.

Music man

Did you know:

• There’s a new album with Robert Plant and Allison Krauss? (I’m listening to right now, so far it’s just ok)

• Like a year ago there was an album with Mark Knopfler and Emmy Lou Harris? (Fucking Awesome)

• Every time I hear the Nickelback song about wanting to be a rockstar, part of my soul dies?

• Every time I hear any song by Creed, Maroon 5, or Lincoln Park I want to shoot myself?

• First in the foot, then the knee, then the face?

• Kanye’s album beat 50’s because it has no Timberlake appearances?

• And because it’s good?

• Spell check recognizes “Timberlake”, but not “Kanye”?

• Yogurt has bacteria in it?

• That’s good for you?

Sorry, I got a little carried away at the end there. But seriously, yogurt bacteria = health, MRSA bacteria = kiss your sweet ass goodbye. And how about that flesh eating strep? Is that some nasty shit or what?

Anyways, where was I, oh yeah, Plant & Krauss, Knopfler & Harris, four people that are all kind of weird looking. Making collabo’s that come out of the blue and rock me gently to sleep. I forget where I was going with this, something about haw far the divide is between people like Allison Krauss and people like Timberlake. Unfortunately since few people over the age of 18 buy more than a few albums a year, (although this may be changing thanks to iTunes et al.) Timberlake could probably buy Allison Krauss several times over.

I went to Voodoo fest last Friday and saw some pretty solid acts, Galactic w/ Lyrics Born and Chali 2na, Lez Zepplin, Toots and the Maytals, Rage Against the Machine, but my favorite was a guy named Jason Isbell (Actually he was probably tied with Toots for best in show.) Jason Isbell is a weird looking dude. He is one of the three singer/songwriter guitar players from the Alabama born Drive-By Truckers. He is undoubtedly one of my top five favorite songwriters, to wit:

I used to go out in a mustang
A 308 Mach 1 in green
Till me and your mama made you in the back
And I sold it to buy her a ring

I don’t really have a point except to say that his second to last song was a cover of Psycho Killer by the Talking Heads, which was awesome, but his last song, called Hurricanes and Hand Grenades, and written about New Orleans, was somewhat soured because people where walking away to go see a band called Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club might be the best name for a shitty band ever. Seriously I was kind of interested to hear a band with a name that bad-ass, but they pretty much ate a fat cock.

Galactic played a pretty good set, but I only got to see a little bit of it. They teased Immigrant Song for a few bars of their closer, but then turned it over to the MC’s for a little off the top session. I have a constantly changing opinion of Galactic, back in the day when they had the Houseman, they were the shit, but he split and they went into a lull. I haven’t heard their new album, but lately I’ve been feeling pretty middle of the road about them, this will be the first year in a while that I haven’t seen them at Tips for New Years (although Kashmir at the Lundi Gras show was ridiculous.) Some of my favorite musical memories are of Raines, Mercurio, and Vogel playing at Le Bon Temps with Simon Lott and Anders Osborne, in the first few months after Katrina, that shit was so awesome.

Lez Zeppelin was fun, in a novelty sort of way. They’re an all female Led Zeppelin cover band, whose sexual orientation was debunked by Chuck Klosterman after interviewing them (for SPIN presumably, I read it in his anthology “IV”.) Anyway, they opened with Immigrant Song, which I think may be a requirement of any Zeppelin tribute act. Even if it is SOP, it’s a fucking badass song to walk out on any stage and rip in to (In case you haven’t noticed I’m a pretty big Zepp fan, I also enjoy a good parenthetical aside.) Jan Bonham and Jan Puala Jones were obviously having the most fun, while Jamie Page was undoubtedly the best musician. Roberta Plant wasn’t quite Robert Plant skinny, but who is? Zeppelin songs lend themselves to a female singer quite well, but I’m almost positive Robert Plant doesn’t have a Long Island/Brooklyn accent (think toned down Fran Drescher trying to casually do a british accent.)

Rage Against the Machine was the headliner, but I couldn’t stay for their entire set. Rage’s first album dropped when I was 9 years old, but they didn’t really hit the big time until ’96-’97, when Evil Empire hit #1 on our charts #4 across the pond, and they won a Grammy for a song celebrating the death of Richard Nixon. In between jumping around the stage and making a fortune, Rage is like the Sean Penn of the music world taking vocal stances on stuff like Mumia, Zapatistas, and I’m pretty sure it was front man Zach De La Rocha who made that ubiquitous Che Guevara t-shirt so popular. Anyways, they opened with their two most poular songs (lame) and the sound/view where we were standing was pretty bad, so I left and went home.

So on Wednesday (Halloween) night, I went down to Frenchman Street and saw a band called The Morning 40 Federation, who are awesome. One of the guys opens the show by greeting everybody, and asking who went to Voodoo Fest, and who everyone thought the best band was. Then he says: “Did anyone see Fallout Boy? I thought Fallout Boy was the best band at Voodoo, and anyone who disagrees with me is definitely a heterosexual!”

Fun with College Football Names

Fortunately there's enought college football players that this is really easy.

Global Warming

My father just sent an email suggesting that to some people, global warming is blasphemous in the same way that evolution is. To those people I say, go rent Inconvenient Truth and Inherit the Wind, and watch them both until God tells you that you can stop.

Not that I do anything to limit my “carbon footprint,” (and I don’t like that term, so it’s going to stay in quotation marks) but I do believe that we’re in trouble. It’s an economic problem though, and it needs an economic solution. I read something in a Good Magazine the other day, about how the key to solving the Israeli-Palestinian clusterfuck, is to make it financially beneficial for both sides to keep things civil, i.e. they need to strike a deal where Israel shares the tourism money with Palestine, and if they scuffle, that revenue will dry up and both sides will feel the pain in their governmental wallets.

I think that the easiest way to get the ball rolling on this carbon business is to put another $0.10 (was there ever a cents symbol on the keyboard, I feel like there used to be) tax on every gallon of gas that will go straight to advanced fuel/carbon recapturing R&D. This is the immediate double edged sword that’ll generate research grant money and may (or may not, Americans are stubborn, maybe it should be $0.50 a gallon) reduce the amount of consumption.

On the corporate side, (and I’m not the first person to make this argument, but I figure that if I read it long enough ago to forget who I’m plagiarizing, than its not really plagiarism) as long as it is cheaper for factories/plants/whatever to burn carbon into the ozone (currently free) than it is to capture it (wicked expensive,) then there will be no change, because it would be corporately irresponsible to do so.

Here’s my idea, and this is going to be central to the plot of the science fiction novel I’ll probably never write, but what we need are photosynthetic cells. You may or may not have heard of photovoltaic cells, but that’s a fancy word for a solar panel. Photosynthetic cells would be made into green solar panels which, using energy from the sun (or any star really) would create both electricity and convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. I doubt I’m the first person to think of this, everyone learns about photosynthesis in elementary school. Mark my words, synthetic photosynthesis may be the answer to all our problems, it could even allow us to travel long distances through space using energy from stars we passed along the way. Now all we need is the research money to figure out photosynthesis, which must be wicked complicated or else we would already have these. Where’s it going to come from? That’s right, taxing in a way that reduces consumption/pollution, and buys time for the scientists to R&D the solution.

I should totally get a Nobel Prize.

Update: It looks like this guy is going to get my Nobel Prize.