May 2006 Archives

I've never been "in" to comic books. This is not to say I don't like them; on the contrary, some of my favorite movies are based on comic book characters. For instance, I'm a big fan of the original Superman movies, or at least, the first two. The third one, with Richard Pryor and the ridiculous SuperComputer, is a bit dated now. And Batman is another of my favorites. Even Judge Dredd has a couple of redeeming moments that, if you time it just right and watch just a couple certain scenes when its on HBO19, make it OK. "I will not obey the law...I AM THE LAW!" Hilarious stuff.

This is not to say all comic book movies are good. Sin City, good. Hellboy, bad. SpiderMan, good. Constantine, bad. I'm fortunate to have as two of my good friends guys who've forgotten more about comics than I've ever known. And whenever one of these movies comes out, I can pick their brain to determine if its worth seeing.

Which brings me to X-Men.

My brother was a big fan of the cartoon years and years ago. He liked Iceman. And Wolverine. But mostly Iceman. So when the original movie came out, we went and saw it in the theater. I was entertained. Good movie.

So when the sequel came out, I wanted to go see it. Only, I never did. Well, not really. Sorta. Kinda. I'll get to that. Anyway, to this day, I still have not seen it. Why? It is one of the great tragedies of my life, and simultaneously, one of my Top 10 Most Awesome Moments.

As I write this tonight, I just want to tell you that playing volleyball in sweatpants when its 90+ degrees is damn foolish. But I had no choice, you see. When your legs are just this side of Pantone 192 (I checked my swatch book and that's the equivalent, or at least, it was on Monday morning) you could scare away any decent person with that stuff.

I mean, the lower ankle that showed beneath the sweatpant bottom was enough to make all three women on our team quesy. So aesthetically, really, it was the only decision.

Then we started playing. And the 30+ MPH wind gusts were blowing sand like a sandstorm in the desert. Slapping your body with little tiny particles of glass-like sand. Grittiness.

Even though I knew what a bad time it would be to dive on my severely burnt legs (and knees), once I got out there I couldn't help it. The first time I did it, I skidded -- the sharp, immediate pain literally smasmodically made me bounce up on impact and then gravity brought me down, and the cycle repeated. Three times. And then the ball was returned and hit me in the face. Good times.

People yelled at me "Don't dive!" knowing that one more of those and I was a done sandwich. So ten minutes later I dove again, this time hitting sand with a force that would have been impressive to Ben Franklin, and was painful to watch for anyone else. Me, I yelled out "Ah, Son of a banana!"

Then we blew a 9-1 lead and lost 17-15. And then I was really pissed. I mean, physical pain is tolerable. But losing? Not so much.

That's how someone described my immense, heinous sunburn this weekend. Seriously, Sunday I was like a damn mummy, unable to bend my legs because the skin was too tight. I had constant chills, my body's way of attempting to cool itself down. And of course, when you get goose bumps on sunburned skin, well, its quite comical.

Ordinarily, it would be foolish merely to be outside looking directly into the sun during the hottest part of the day for four hours with no sunscreen. Ordinarily. But even moreso when you had a possibly-cancerous mole removed two summers ago. Turned out not to be, but still, sorta frightening nonetheless. Plus now I have a nice scar on my back from where they cut it out. Which is kinda cool.

It takes a lot for me to burn. My complexion is pretty dark to begin with, so regular exposure does nothing to me but make it darker. But this was just dumb.

First up today, got to apologize on behalf of my brother to Cliff. When my brother had called to invite him and his fiance to a party they were having, Cliff was busy but thought they could make it later in the evening. So when the party changed locations, we called and left a message. Of course, with our history of leaving multiple messages for him, one could not blame him for not checking the message. We felt horrible when they left one party early to head over, and then found out we weren't there. So, sorry man.

Now then, on to the storytelling. So we're at this party Saturday night, and the ladies are in the kitchen, while the guys are in the living room watching the NBA playoffs on the Flat Panel Plasma. So nice. Anyway, I don't really follow the NBA, but I watch SportsCenter and I read the paper, so I can carry on a conversation about it with anyone not named Magic. Good thing too, as I ended up looking like a genius when I called the outcome of the Spurs/Mavericks game. Basically I just picked opposite of what that loudmouth Stephen A. Smith on ESPN had picked, and of course, I won. Of course.

My brother had brought a 40 of ASAHI beer, mainly because we have a rule: if a beer is $1.29, has a bitchin' label, and its in another language, you have to buy it. No questions asked. Its a tough rule to follow sometimes. ASAHI, dubbed as a "beer for all seasons", treated him well, especially in the paper bag. His wife thought he was nuts, sure, but then again, she was drinking root beer so she probably thought we were all nuts.

With the server problems, several readers (7, to be exact) emailed me Friday wondering what my verdict on The Office was. I'd better answer that before my billions of readers get surly.

So, then, did The Office take The Leap? Well, it certainly was damn funny. I could have done without the "Jim Halpert Cries" scene, although he redeemed himself by getting a long kiss moments later. Major redemption. Simply dominant. You bet, sir. I suppose, the way the storyline was progressing, this is the only logical outcome. But the reason I'm handing down a verdict of "In the Air...leap in progress" is that the show has the distinct possibility of devolving into a soft-edged romantic comedy centering around two main characters in love. And if that happens, I'll stop watching. Seriously. As will all guys in control of the remote. The ones who aren't will keep watching.

This happened to me once with the show Friends. I was dating a girl over the summer that show was poised to take The Leap, only they got Ross and Rachel together, and the rest of the show was miserably unwatchable, like an endless chick flick for 7 more years, week after weak. That fall, I had to watch every episode, cos guess who controlled the remote? If you guessed "Not Max", you win.

Its a pretty rare night that I'm both home and bored enough to watch network TV. Happens maybe once a month. This is why, even though my buddy Cliff kept talking about how awesome The Office was, and how I was crazy for not watching it, and how he bought every episode for his iPod, I never watched it. Remembering to set the VCR to record something requires effort. And remembering. But mostly effort.

Then I got a DVR in December, and started haphazardly telling it to record all episodes of all sorts of things. The Daily Show? That's funny...record it every time its on! Late Night with Conan in HD? Yes please! Saturday Night Live? You bet! And on and on it went, until the hard drive was always so full it would delete shows before I could watch them. This would routinely leave me with a DVR full of Rocky IV and Rambo: First Blood Part Two, because I'd foolishly told it to record these movies every time they're on and well, they're on every weekend. Sometime after the first of the year, when NBC moved both shows to Thursday back-to-back, I told the DVR to start recording My Name Is Earl and The Office. Often times I'd watch them on Sunday afternoons, when I had nothing else going on and could watch three or four at once.

While The Office was funny, I liked Earl better. So inevitably there would be four or five weeks worth of Offices on the DVR unwatched, waiting for room to run out and automatic deletion.

One Sunday about three weeks ago, it was cold and rainy, and I watched all of them in one sitting. While there were some hilarious moments, there was nothing that would scream out "this is the funniest show on TV" or even "this is worth continuing to DVR".

Then came last week.

This is not going to be terribly popular to say. But to me, Cinco De Mayo is a better holiday to go to the bars than St. Patrick's Day. Its simple, really: I like Mexican food a helluva lot more than Irish food. And Margaritas versus Beer is a push. So the edge goes to Cinco De Mayo.

Friday night, we headed out directly from work. Continental, Dick, and myself at first, with others to join us later in the night. Cliff had asked us not once but twice to keep him in the loop as plans changed throughout the night, and he would try to come out later on after some family plans early in the evening wrapped up. This of course led to us calling every time we left one bar to go to another, "keeping him in the loop", so to speak. It was obnoxious, and I felt bad the longer it went on. It was funny though. Gilby had other plans as well, but strangely enough, those plans and our plans intersected unexpectedly later in the evening. More about that later.

We started with dinner, first trying to get into Trini's, but with a 25-minute wait, we decided to try Michaels. No wait. This made the decision much much easier. A no-brainer, really. Two pitchers of Margaritas and plates of food later, almost two hours later, we moved on. Wound up at the Underground, where the special was -- get this -- Bud Light. Ginormous 16 oz bottles were $2.50, while Corona -- the standard special beer for Cinco De Mayo -- was $3.50. Nice. We ordered Bud Light, of course. Not to be anti-celebratory or anything, but when that big a beer is that cheap, well, you drink that.

On the way home for lunch just now (I'm writing this from home over my lunchhour), I was spacing off and started singing along to a song on the radio. About two minutes in I realized it was a Wilson Philips song and the horror was two-fold. First, that such a horrible song wouldn't roust me out of my usual lunchhour drive home space off session to grab the remote and change the channel. Secondly, and perhaps worse, was that I subconsciously knew the words to a Wilson Philips song. You have to believe me when I tell you I haven't heard that song in 15 years, at least. Eighth grade, back when wearing neon green was cool. If I was lying, would I tell the story? Of course not. I'd bury it away. So you have to believe me. You bet.

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Thursday I met two of my buddies, Continental and Dick, for lunch at Indigo Joe's, the new sports bar and grill. Its all smoke-free, all the time, which is pretty dominant.

I got running a little behind getting out of the office, and when I did get out, I got to the corner and a semi-truck was attempting a U-turn. A U-TURN! With an 18-wheeler! A Big-Rig! Needless to say, he nearly tipped over twice, managed to get his tires stuck on the median, and eventually by sheer brute force completed the Uwey. But not before I sat for two minutes in sheer consternation, becoming more and more late by the second.

Coming to you today from Random National Chain Coffee Shop, thanks to the power of Wi-Fi Internet and the iBook. You bet.

So last night at volleyball, I learned what it feels like to have internal organs slam into your ribcage. All I can say is, gnarly. I dive a lot, but usually forward. On one hit last night, I did just that, had barely gotten up, and had to dive sideways. Because I was out of position from the first dive, I had to get up fairly high to dive far enough to get to the ball. I hit it over the net, but my body slammed into the ground full on sideways from about 30 inches up. The sound it made when I hit was loud enough that people were concerned. One guy watching mockingly called for a paramedic.

But in a game we were on the verge of winning -- against a team we had not beaten in nearly two years -- I could have broken a bone and kept going. I do have a pretty good bruise today, and I'm not gonna lie to you, it hurts like hell. Bruises the size of small fruit always do.

After the game, we were sitting and as usual, me and one of the other guys were entertaining the kiddies. Its amazing the bad jokes you can tell a four year old and still get a belly laugh.

"Why don't ducks carry change? Because they all have bills!"

Good times.

Last Monday night, I watched "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", the 1978 musical where the Bee Gees (Robin, Maurice and Barry Gibb) and Peter Frampton use disco versions of Beatles' tunes to tell the story of a small-town band who makes it big. The band just so happens to be called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. There is no dialogue in the movie; everything is sung. Except for George Burns' lines as Mayor Kite. Every character except the band is based on a Beatles song. Its atrocious, and generally regarded as one the biggest flops EVER. It was also on in glorious High-Definition, and when I stumbled across it, I was stupefied into watching. I had to find out who the villian who spoke to Mean Mr. Mustard via very-1978-ish computer graphics, "F.V.B.", was, and what the hell that stood for. When I found I was so upset I couldn't even write a single word here for three whole days.

The evil villian F.V.B.?

Future Villian Band (as in, enemy of Sgt. Peppers). As if that revelation wasn't bad enough, guess who plays the band?

Aerosmith. Blink. Blink.

Their classic cover of "Come Together" is from the soundtrack of this movie. I nearly threw up four days worth of food, two days of which had already been crapped out, making the whole scenario so utterly unbelievable that it quite literally should not have been believed. Needless to say, just because I was born in 1978, not all things born that year are automatically awesome. This movie proves it.

Anyway, the two hours I spent watching that movie sent me into the throes of a creative/grammatical tailspin which I could not snap. No posts for the rest of the week. I'm back now, with a vengeance and armed with stories from a weekend trip back home. Later this week I might even get up the mustard to tear apart that movie in-depth.

You know what I love? A good rhubarb. Not the common practice for a crowd of extras in acting to shout the word "rhubarb" repeatedly and out of step with each other, to cause the effect of general hubbub. Not that kind of rhubard. No, I'm talking about rhubarb the vegetable, and specifically as its used in rhubarb pie.

That's good stuff. I hadn't had a good rhubarb pie for years, so since I was coming home Saturday for my aunt and uncle's 50th anniversary party, we had a celebration of my birthday as well. And when I say celebration, I mean eating rhubarb pie, opening a card that contained a $30 iTunes card, and unwrapping what turned out to be a grill brush (read the Easter post if you wonder the significance of that).

The dinner was held at Marvin Gardens, a nice restaurant in the main floor of the old Boston Centre building in downtown Fort Dodge. The restaurant takes its name from the Monopoly game piece, and true to the game piece's high price, the restaurant is rather upscale. Despite its upscale nature, the prices and menu are fantastic and actually cheaper in many cases than a boring national chain place like Applebees. And the food is much much better. But yet, there's always a wait for tables at Applebees, and never a wait at Marvin's. People are strange sometimes.

Since someone else was picking up the tab, I felt bad about ordering anything too expensive. I was all set to go with the burger and mashed potatoes. But since I was sitting on the end -- having arrived last, not being able to get home until late after helping Nate move in the morning -- I was last in the order line, and had time to listen to everyone else go first. My mind was changed when people started ordering expensive entrees. The burger would now appear out of place, next to steaks and chicken dishes and what not. And I couldn't have that.

So the 14oz Iowa Pork Chop it was. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it. You know, its tough to get pork chops that good here in Nebraska. Beef, sure. But not pork. That's an Iowa thing. This chop was, I'm not even kidding, 1-1/2 inches thick and five inches around. Just a huge, huge piece of delicious.

A couple weeks ago, when my parents were here for Easter, my mother saw my new iPod sitting on an end table in my living room. She asked if I still had my old one, and could she have it?

Well, what are you going to say? No, you may have spent tens of thousands raising me but you can't have my old iPod? Of course not. So even though my plan was to use it as my workout iPod so that if I dropped it while running, I didn't bust up my good one, the new plan became giving it to her.

Still, the original problem -- that new iPods do not come with a charger brick, dock or cables -- would be an expensive quandary if I gave up the whole package. So I told her to give me a couple weeks to figure out a way for her to be able to charge it since she wasn't getting the dock or the power brick.

I had an extra firewire cable laying around, so I ultimately gave her that, and took it home this weekend to give it away.