Swayze, Quite the Bad-A

Patrick Swayze died today. We have seen him die before. So, it shouldn't be so hard for us to bear. In Point Break he headed out to meet the gigantic surf. In Ghost, he tries to fight off some thief and gets shot? Been awhile on that one. In Red Dawn, he gets aced, but he led the revolt very well.

He was a pretty fun actor. In the Outsiders he made a convincing big brother greaser bad-A. In Roadhouse, he made a convincing bouncer martial arts bad-A. And, of course, Dirty Dancing, he was an immoral dance instructor bad-A.

I suppose he is more like the everyman bad-A in his movies. He had the great mullet. Can't argue with a mullet.

I think I like him best in Roadhouse. It is such a cheesy movie. Totally formulaic, but he has this general appeal when he comes to town. He is friends with the blind guy musician dude. He scores the hot nurse. He meditates while doing his martial arts thing. And, to top it all off, his mentor is Sam Elliot, the biggest bad-A of them all. But most of all, we trust him to take care of things.

He walks into a corrupt town to fix it. That is some serious opposition. Well, really, he was just going for the job. But he gets pulled in to sticking up for the little guy. I liked it when he was training the other bartenders how to keep their cool and battle the drunkards. As one who hardly ever goes to bars, I think this is a very realistic portrayal of a classic Texas roadhouse.

I am sure many people do not like the movie Roadhouse for precisely the same reasons that I like it. Oh well. Opinions vary.

I'll Take Care of This

I just got pulled over by Ryan Phillipe. Fortunately, Peter Stormare was not riding in the passenger seat and I did not have any extra $100 bills hanging out of my wallet. And, although it crossed my mind, I did not lead him on a car chase that would lead us through the closest mall.

I hate that helpless feeling of knowing they are right to pull me over. Why can't I get defensive and tell the cop boy that he should be out there catching the real criminals? Oh, I guess I was breaking the law so I am the real criminal. I hate that expression anyway. Real criminals. They have to start somewhere. And this was a very young kid. It almost looked like I was his first ticket. He was excited!

We live in an area where there are still a lot of farms, so it is really lame to have these 25 mph roads where horses should be galloping instead of cars driving. So, it angers me that a cop set up in someone's pasture and waited for unsuspecting soccer players to go zooming by. Too fast? 42 in the rural west?

One day I will have to fight a ticket. Go into the judge and come up with all these strange and elaborate excuses. I don't think I could ever win though. I don't have the face for it.

a. I am not female.
b. I have that naturally pissed off look that people cannot wait to get angry at.
c. I don't think quick on my feet.

If I could bring in my laptop and type out my responses and have that go straight to the judge in some IVR kind of way, then maybe I could win. Somehow my own non-written voice does not work as well. I wonder if Biden is a good writer.

Man Code

I just watched the Bachelorette The Men Tell All. I am sorry. I promised myself I would not do this, but...

I don't have a good excuse.

I would like to touch on the concept of Man Code as brought up by David. Man Code covers a lot.

1. Do not be a fruit fly.
A fruit fly as defined by a friend many years ago is the not very attractive guy who somehow makes friends with the hot chick and hangs out with her all the time. He has no chance for her, but his pride keeps him from just letting her go. And, he somehow ruins the chances for any other guy by being around ALL THE TIME!!! Good example of this would be Tucker in There's Something About Mary.

2. Act like a guy.
This could cover a lot as well. But, do not cross your legs one knee over the other when sitting. Use your low voice. And, go to the gym once a week.

3. Do not be phony, cheesy, two-faced, and be a friend with your fellow guys. That should be your number one goal. The dating and girlfriends will fall into place if you can be friends first and foremost with your fellow countrymen.

Hopefully, 2 and 3 do not conflict.

So, the Bachelorette has a certain sort of realism to it. I remember being with a group of three other guys going to visit an apartment of cute chicks, where one or two of them was the target. And, it was really funny to see the previous group of four guys leaving. Like a tag team sort of thing.

And, I was kind of just along for the ride. There was so much wrong with the whole situation to begin with. This girl could not be that interesting. I think I remember being in there occupied with a puzzle on the table after we went in. I was notorious for being a social misfit. That was more fun than being a fruit fly.

So, I really identify with the Bachelorette. The tons of guys all vying for the one girl. It is too bad we did not have a camera there so everyone could give their perspective. Okay, that's the part I hate.

The Men Tell All episode hit the nail on the head when they said that the whole idea of the show is contrary to Man Code. It is! Guys that are friends do not compete for the same chick. Well, they do. It happens, but it shouldn't. And so, Man Code is continually violated and it becomes a frenzy of interviews and stupidity.

An interesting show would be a group of friends like 5 guys and 3 chicks. And, you just film them and their interactions. No interviews. No talking to the camera. Just the situation. And, you could call the show Man Code. And review after each episode. The audience could grade the guys on who violated the most policies of Man Code. But there would be no elimination. You just have scores and silly rules, which is really what Man Code is all about.

So That's What Happened to Sitcoms...

As we babysit some of my wife's cousins' kids, we get a good sampling of the tv shows they watch. The three that I have seen so far are: iCarly, Spongebob Squarepants, and Wizards of Waverly Place. Spongebob is, of course, the best. I had seen that before and having done a 5 foot tall pinata of him and one of Patrick as well, I was much more familiar with them.

iCarly is not so bad although it has elements to it that are borderline. She and her friend run a website called iCarly.com. And they get strange requests from people. Like, one viewer wanted her to show her tongue. And, another bit had them doing dancing while eating bananas. I certainly appreciate the creativity and the fun aspect that goes into it, but when dealing with the internet and little girls, it just seems like we see way too many bad examples of this sort of showing off to the world.

iCarly is pretty bad. The acting is mostly lame, but there is some appeal to it. There are a couple of elements which pull you in. She has an older brother who is a sort of guardian for her while her father is in the Navy. Parents are not in the picture, so I can see how that would draw the children viewers in. But, it is totally a cheesy sitcom. They just took the format straight from the eighties and went with it.

The Wizards show was absolutely deplorable. First of all, the characters are all a-holes to each other. I hate that. No one is likable at all. I can see why they left the parents out of the other show. The plot is that this family are all wizards and/or witches and the kids go to school while the parents are home trying to come up with witty rejoinders to continue the madcap zaniness of this totally original plot.

Back when Tina Yothers would make a smart-alec comment on Family Ties, we would let it go, because we knew that Michael J. Fox was there to comfort us. But there is nothing like that with these shows. We have plenty of Tina Yotherses. Sorely lacking in the Michael J. Fox category.

Oh well! At least the kids of today get to experience tv of yesteryear...

Fashion Update

I take a look at the new shorts, the plaid bermudas, and I shrug. I can do this. It is a look I was born for.

But I also have to laugh, because many of the guys with these shorts do not fit the bill. It's a nerdy look. I don't understand how they do not see it. Maybe they think they are going golfing or playing tennis. I suppose if they get a sweater, place it on their back and tie the arms in front of them, they could be mistaken as preppy. But, I am not seeing that.

I am excited to get a pair though...

Can You Go Over This Area Again?

I used to clean carpet. When a customer did not like the way the job was done, we had some pretty good built-in excuses.

"Well yeah, that is the traffic area... I can go over it again if you like." (Notice the excuse followed up by the true sincerity of a non put-out technician)

Or "That line you are getting under your door is called carbon-filtration. The air floats through there and the door acts as a sort of filter along with the carpet and the moisture." (This is a sort of weird phenomenon that we would see in some places, but not all.)

And "It looks like your carpet is polyester, not nylon." (I don't know if it was actually polyester or what. Some carpet just did not have any fluff to it. They would just get these wear-areas that were like nothing on earth. It was tough telling people that their carpet sucked. But it was even tougher to do the whole job again...)

My favourite was this one: "This spot keeps reappearing, because there is soap in your carpet. And, it looks like it has gotten into the padding underneath." (How could I know if it was in the padding unless I yanked up the carpet? We did do repairs, so I could have. That would have been calling my bluff...)

All these excuses equated to one thing. I have just spent an hour here and I do not want to be here anymore...

We would eventually get down there with our spot cleaner and a towel and work like crazy. And, I think that is all they wanted to see, because up to that point all they saw was us doing nothing but going over the carpet with a floor buffer and raking it.

The key to the whole thing was the carpet rake. It looked better than vacuuming. I knew a guy who moved some furniture, spit on the carpet, pronounced it sprayed, raked it and put the furniture right back. The rake fools all.

People always wanted their sofas and stuff moved so we could clean under it. It was never dirty. Sometimes a little dust, which, I guess if you want to pay us to vacuum your carpet, fine!

I remember having a lady sign a waiver once so we could move her tv. I had just taken business law, so I knew that it would not hold up in court, but the boss hung it up on the office wall anyway. Such a proud moment in small business negligence-avoidance.

I am really embarrassed by my behaviour back then. Like the fact that my voice would change depending on who answered the door. The woman got a nice high pitched hello, how are you. The men would get a professional sounding deep voice. I probably would have never noticed this except for the time someone came to the screen and I could not tell if it was a man or woman on the other side. I think I was confused on which voice to use, so I had to come up with a middle ground voice.

I loved seeing how people all across the county lived. Sometimes, it was so disgusting that we had to spend half our time picking up dog, cat, rabbit poop off the carpet before we could start vacuuming. Other times, the people were so rich that we were afraid to touch anything for fear they would sue our company for items more expensive than the whole franchise. Most of the time, people were nice looking upper middle class folk who had the same basic floor plan, same furniture, same off-white berber carpet.

I think next time the guys come out to clean our carpets I will insist they move the sofas...

Come on!

Why would David tell Michael anything in advance? And, why let him do a skit at the picnic? And who won the volleyball game?

Doggie Don't Don't

While I was bringing in piles of dirt on Saturday, my dog, F, got out. I have been really cautious about letting him out, because as far as I can tell, I have no authority over him whatsoever. He will not come when I call his name. He barely even acknowledges me outside the realm of the yard, so I have been dreading this day. He got out and he was gone. He could care less.

At first, I chased after him, pointlessly calling his name. He would go into people's backyards and since I was trying to value their privacy, I would wait. He would not even look at me. So, I thought: Screw it! I have work to do. So what if he roams the streets all day...

I went back to work on the dirt. After about 10 minutes, I looked up to a child crying and being comforted by her father. There was F across the street. Now, I do not think he did anything to hurt the child. (I asked just in case.) But, I did realize that he is quite a large dog. And, despite his good intentions to explore the countryside and lick people, he could be responsible for some inadvertent accidents. And since animals cannot be sued, I took it upon me to start the pursuit again.

It's a good thing I did, because he decided to go across the busier street. And, then into someone else's yard. And then near the horses. Into the gully. Into the field, through the barb wire fence and down the street.

I was angry, impatient and not looking forward to this sort of adventure. At a couple points I ran up hoping to get hold of him, but at the last minute, he would bolt. We kept going like this and he crossed the street again and went onto someone's property. As I looked around, it appeared that no one was home then, so I shut their gate behind me and went after F again.

As he went around the yard, it dawned on him that he was trapped. I could see a couple of possibilities for him, but I was not about to tell him. After a lap around, he looked beaten. He was also tired. He was not used to running that much.

At this point, I had him. And any amount of punishment would suffice. I could tell him what a bad dog he was as I exercise my authority over him. With a dog that big, a simple swat does not do the job.

But I also thought about my predicament. As a father, is this how I would react as my kid misbehaves? Am I going to get angry and tell them how bad they are? Do they have to know that my word is the law and that when they are disobedient, then I am there to crack the whip? I don't know. But I was not going to do that with my dog.

I decided to lay down, call him and make sure I was approachable. When he got close enough I patted his head and then slipped his harness on. I let him know that I was not mad, because at that point, I wasn't anymore. It was actually kind of fun. It helped me take a break from a rigorous day of yard work. We walked back to the house and I was happy about what I had learned. I think F and I were closer too, which seems kind of silly, but maybe we are better friends.

Now, we just need to figure out how to use that friendship to keep him out of the garden boxes...

My Socially Awkward Burden

My reunion is coming up and I have come to discover that two of my very good friends have no desire to go. So, I figured it was my duty to write about it and attempt to convince them (and others) that the reunion is important and should be attended. Okay, maybe not important. It is an event on the circle.

Now, let's go back to what school is. It is a place where one is forced to go as a kid in order to become assimilated into society. As part of that, one gets friends over the course of 3 to 4 years. When one is in grade school, friends are made, but the maturity is not there, so everyone is a friend. But then high school friends are different. The mentality is different. People are a little more accepting. Girls are getting hotter. It is more fun.

Except for the bullies. And the bullies one remembers the rest of their life. And hopefully, they do not show up to the reunion. I think the bullies represent what is horrible about reunions.

So, now fast forward 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 years ahead. The first thing that runs through my mind as the reunion approacheth is the idea that I suck and I have to suddenly make something of my life (or at least appear like I am). But then that makes me angry because I am going back to high school mentality. So I think: I have to conquer this. I need to go to my reunion because ...

And then I have to think of a good reason.

It comes back to the idea of: What would I want my ideal reunion to be like?

I would like to go back to the actual school and have a day (actually, it would have to be 4 days. Wait! With semesters, it would have to be 8 days. Sounds like Navin.) It would be nice to go in each of my classes and take a look around at all of the people who were in my classes. We could all sit in the seats we used to sit in. And, we could spend the day looking around and remembering. That might be a good simulation to set up somewhere online.

That would be so much fun, because I take my experience since high school and relate to the people around me differently. People are very interesting and everyone has something interesting to offer. Did we have that kind of patience in high school? Hell no. I was too busy dressing weird and coming up with strange projects to demonstrate creativity.

What else could we do?

I would like to go somewhere that would not be awkward. I think dressing up and going to a place that is all formal and stuffy reminds me too much of going to church dances as a kid. I understand that the purpose was to dance, have fun and make friends. But, I spent a lot of time not dancing, not having fun and I made only a couple friends. That was a ton of effort with very little profit. What can I say? I survived. I learned how to sit on the stage and stare at hot girls.

I want to do something that would actually be fun. Some sort of activity where we all get together and throw paint all over each other. Actually, that would be a little awkward. Maybe have a bunch of chess boards set up or some RockBand. Let's do something where we can see the talents people have. How about one gigantic talent show? A week long event. If you have no talents, you could figure something out in a week.

I don't want to not remember people. I don't want to be trolling around trying to look at who people are and feeling like I didn't get to everybody I wanted to. But then again I do that all the time. Every party I go to I come away thinking: Why didn't I talk more to those people? That would have been interesting.

This is not very convincing to my friends who I hoped would show up to this event to ease my burden. My socially awkward burden...

Doodie!!!

I did not really grow up going to a public pool. We went to my Grandparents' house. They had a pool and a trampoline and a big yard with old beat up cars in it. They had olive trees and 7-Eleven was across the street. The baseball park was next door. We only had to share the pool with a couple other kids. And many times we had friends come over. So, we were really spoiled.

So, the idea of a public pool is a little foreign to me. The most public I got was going to the beach. If we had to go to the bathroom, we were told to go out in the water. You can't really do that in a public pool. Of course, lots of kids were doing it last year. So much so that they had to close many of them down to clean it all out and keep everyone from getting sick.

I can still see that a public pool is fun and I will make the best of it for my little family, but boy! There is nothing like that memory of having a pool to go to all summer long. I can still picture it. Its size. Its shape. I had to clean it in later years. But it was a great swimming pool. That was a great house. I could go on and on about that place. Maybe I will dream about it tonight.

Experts and Excuses

Have you ever been really good at something and someone else comes along who purports to be really good as well? And then, when you see them do the action of what it is, they make excuses for why they are not better at it. They seem to feel that if the sun was not in their eyes, or if the grass was not so wet, or the controller was not so stiff then they could easily match your skills. But they do not or they cannot and it is obvious to both of you. What do you say?

I suppose I have been on both ends of this situation. I think the best people in the world make excuses for their shortcomings. But why? Why do we feel it is so necessary? It only makes us look bad.

A few years ago, we had a work party and towards the end of it, the host brought out the Scene-It DVD game. The assumption was that I would smoke everyone because I am the movie trivia guru/dork. I was excited to play. I did not tell everyone I was going to lose or that everyone had just as good a chance. I had never played before. Excuse number one. The trivia portion is just one aspect of the game too. Excuse number two. And, I am not a quick thinker. Number 3.

Our team did not win. I suppose it was my fault. I guess I let a lot of people down. Well, not a lot. But, it was still my opportunity to shine. I feel like I have since redeemed myself at another scene-it dvd gathering. This time I went head to head with my rival, P, who is a well-spring of useless movie trivia as well. His excuse was that he had not seen Backdraft in a long time. I can't fault him for making that excuse. I had just seen it and did a blog entry on it a month previous, so it was fresh in my mind.

I guess we make excuses because we want people to esteem us higher than the situation is giving us. We see ourselves failing when we know we have succeeded before. This goes back to people not knowing us and only getting a brief glimpse at the real us. But why do we care? Shouldn't we know ourselves well enough that we do not have to prove anything to anyone?

Then again, the situation does not care. The situation dictates to us what it will and we have to deal with that. I came up short and this is as good as I am at this particular moment. If only we could be that humble...

Disneyland Delivers

After going through an anti-Disneyland phase, since I went so much as a kid, I discovered that I like it once again. Maybe it was because we went in January and the crowds were so minimal. Maybe it was because my wife loves it there and I was happy to make her happy. Maybe it was because Tigger was so friendly and insisted I get my picture with him. Or maybe it was just because Space Mountain kicks A and is still the coolest ride on the planet...

We had a great time and my wife kicked my butt on both the Toy Story themed interactive rides. I can't understand why I suck so bad. I know that my aim is off because of being the shakiest gun in the west. I will just blame it on that. Excuses...

Haunted Mansion was closed and Pirates of the Caribbean was still good despite there being too many Jack Sparrow references. I say keep Jack Sparrow out of it. The movies were based on the ride. That is the order of things.

California Adventure was fun too. I got my butt kicked on California Screamin' but it was well worth it. Their rapids ride was closed. And, Soarin' Over California broke down when it was over. The cage on our left did not come all the way down so they were stuck there indefinitely. Well, as far as we knew. I am not sure what to think of California Adventure. It has some really cool stuff, but it is almost like they ran out of ideas, so they just threw in more Disney stuff.

We did miss out on Matterhorn and Tower of Terror. Also, Star Tours. I now realize that it has become a multiple day adventure and we need to spend a lot more money to get the full experience out of it. I hate that part of it. When it comes to the expense, I would rather spend a tenth of the amount and go hike Mount Whitney. That is a true California adventure...

Snow Is a Winner

Snow has a way of beating me. It snows. I shovel. It snows again. I shovel again. Then, it snows a third time and somehow, I am busy, so I do not get to it. Then, we drive over it. And it is all over. Snow has won.

My intention at the beginning is to keep up. I watch for the snow and brave it at all hours. I found myself shovelling while it was still snowing one day. We even had neighbors help out, but the snow just keeps coming. It has to win.

And, of course, we used up all of our rock salt right away. So there the snow is piling up on our porch. Then, it melts and later freezes back up. Snow is such a baby. if it does not win, it cries more snow.