Today I went to luch with my mommy. It was for her birthday. We went to this nice little restaurant that gives you a free pizza whenever you have a birthday. We decided to share. We also had an order of brocolli-cheddar nuggets. The waitress was nice and brought mommy a sundae covered in hot fudge with a candle in it. We were both stuffed so we decided to share that too. Then we went home.
A while after going home it was time for me to go to work. I work in a grocery store. It wasn’t very busy when I got there, so I was in a good mood. I worked for a couple of hours, and then I went on break. I’d started to feel a little sick, so I picked up my pay-check and sat down for the rest of my break. Then a concerned co-worker asked if I could go home early. They said yes, but I decided I should try to stick it out. This wasn’t the first time i’d felt sick at work, and it had always turned out ok before.
After a little bit, customers started to look at me funny. I was feeling really nauseus and hunched over while I was bagging groceries. I probably looked like a cripple. In the mean time, I wasn’t over-friendy to the people. I just did my job, handed them their receipts, and told them to have a nice day. I guess one lady didn’t like this. She snapped at me because my printer wasn’t working. After i’d been at work 3 hours I started to feel very, very sick. Finally I just clocked out and left.
Driving home was hard. Every time I had to stop for a red light, I thought I was going to be sick. Finally, I pulled up to my house, and waddled to the front door. I wasn’t feeling very good. I let myself inside and my mommy asked me why I was home so early. I started crying and told her I felt like I was going to vomit. Then I ran to my room and laid down. That was stupid.
About 5 minutes later I had to get up and run to the bathroom. The next 45 minutes consisted of a couple trips back and forth between my room and the bathroom. I vomited a lot. I don’t like vomiting and this was the first time I had in 9 years. There went the family record. Finally I gave up and just fell asleep on the bathroom floor. My mommy brought in a blanket and a glass of cherry coke. I fell asleep for about 45 minutes and then I woke up.
Anyone who knows Carolyn & I know we are fans of alternate lighting — especially blacklights. I am looking for blacklights that fit in traditional light sockets.
HELP ME FIND THE LIGHT I WANT! [UPDATE: well, looks like I may have found it, actually]
What I am looking for is what I think would work best — a blacklight version of the circular fluorescent lights, such as these:
^^^^^^ HELP ME FIND THIS IN BLACKLIGHT ^^^^^^^
These would fit in (most) traditional light sockets, and would cast the blacklight out equally in all directions. It’s also the largest fluorescent that goes into a normal light socket, and larger blub area means more blacklight effect — my goal. Carolyn’s grandma Lib had these in her kitchen and they worked really well.
I tried to order one of these from HD Supply (1-800-431-3003, manufacturing part#28927MBK, HD part#KB198, $11.74 shipped), but ended up getting a non-returnable compact fluorescent version instead
(special thanks to Home Depot for taking 30 minutes to supply me with what turned out to be the wrong part number)
Although these are nice and compact, and thus cannot be broken as eaily… I have a feeling that the form factor of a NON-compact fluorescent blacklight (for normal fixtures) would probably create more blacklight glowing effect:
Of course the compact ones would use less energy, but I am willing to expend plenty of energy to light things the way I want them lit. The compact ones are at least usable for our built-in fans (the cicular ones wouldn’t fit without removing the casing). However, I still think the non-compact ones would be better. And the circular ones would be better for unenclosed sockets, such as ceilings fixtures or tall lamps.
SO I NEED MORE LIGHTS. These should end up working really well with my blacklight pool ball set that my sister Britt got me for Christmas a few years back:
I just watched the video on Firefox’s new “Ubiquity” browser-command-line interface, and I gotta agree with my initial thoughts that told me not to watch the video. The whole thing is a big waste of time for me. I don’t need this functionality. It seems like most new “cutting edge” web-glue software are either packages of solutions looking for problems, or substitutions for what can already be done very easily if you know how to do it. I addressed each functionality in the video below: (more…)
It’s good to see that our police are helping serve and protect our country’s interest in preserving free spech! (That’s sarcasm.)
Alicia Forrest was arrested outside Civic Center Park after confronting officers and asking them questions about another arrest they were making, said Sally Newman, legal liaison and spokeswoman for the group.
[IMDB link] [Netflix link] Being a big fan of human perception and the senses, this movie had an appealing “What If” gimmick. Two, actually: Super-senses, and losing 1 out of 5 senses at random. The low 5.3 rating on IMDB is not a compelling deterrent these days, as most movies we watch are rated low.
QUIRKS: This was simply a gimmick / what-if comedy movie, along the lines of many such movies. The main character (Marlon Wayans) is an overworked college student who is also trying to support his mom and siblings at the same time. Because he is so strapped for cash, he will do anything for money. Taking experimental drugs? No problem! It turns out that they give him super senses. At first, he doesn’t know how to handle it. Everything is amplified — so his ass itches so bad he has to use a scrubbing brush on it. Finally, he learns how to focus it. But then he doesn’t listen to the instructions, and over-does it. Bad things start happening. Randomly losing 1 out of 5 senses (and having the lost sense change every few minutes), his quest for a money-making job becomes very challenged. David Spade plays a total douchebag prick, who he is working against to get the magic money-making job — including joining the hockey team to try to have some extracurricular activities on his resume. The super senses help make him look like a much better candidate than David Spade, but loosing his senses makes him look like an assinine fool. He has to recover, get the job, and save his family’s home all at the same time. Oh, and get the girl too.
BAD STUFF: It takes a good ~75% of the movie before he starts losing senses randomly. Considering that the title is Senseless, I think this should have happened earlier.
CONCLUSION: A fun exploration of a “What If?” scenario, with Wayans-influenced comedy. That’s a recipe for success, even if said success is not outstanding. I give it my generic pass of 3 stars on Netflix. On IMDB, that would usually mean a 6, but I would actually give this more like a 6.5 for creativity. I certainly don’t regret watching it.
RECOMMENDATION: Wayans Brothers fans should see this, as should people who enjoy zany “what if?” scenarios, or people who love hating on David Spade. If you’re overworked and supporting a family, you might identify with the main character as well.
MOVIE QUOTE: Marlon Wayans: “Doctor, three thousand dollars? I’ll be your little outbreak monkey…”
[Wikipedia link (most informative)] [Official site] [IMDB link] [Torrent of Season 1] [Not available on Netflix] [MP3s of all songs in the show]. Cartoon Network’s AdultSwim division brings us yet another in a seemingly-infinite series of adult-targeted 11-minute animation series. This one is rated 8.4 on IMDB, and is an instant cult classic. Fire up the angry Christians, because one of the main characters is Satan, and he is painted in a very human light (he likes Appletinis).
PEOPLE: Lucy and Becky (the devil’s advocate) are played by Melissa Bardin Galsky (aka Melissa from Home Movies, Abby from O’Grady, also in Hey Monie!, and worked as an associate producer in Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist). Her voice is not as cheery as it is in the other shows (Home Movies, O’Grady). Her character Lucy’s personality reminds me of a slightly warmer Laura from Dr. Katz. (If you don’t remember, Laura was Dr. Katz‘s secretary — played by Laura Silverman, Sarah Silverman‘s sister in real life and in The Sarah Silverman Program.) She basically seems somewhat uninterested in her “Antichrist destiny”, and is a bartender who went to art school. She is sort of in a relationship with D.J. Jesus (pronounced “hey-Suess”), who is the 2nd coming of Christ, but who is mostly concerned with DJing and publicity stunts.
DJ Jesus (and Judas) are played by Jon Glaser, a 5-time Emmy nominee in Conan O’Brien‘s writing staff who has also been in such popular cartoons as Aqua Teen Hunger Force and such underrated cartoons as Freak Show and Stroker And Hoop. He likes to perform “nearacles” (“miracles, but not quite”) for publicity.
QUIRKS: Like most AdultSwim shows, it is very strange. The 3 clergymen (2 fathers and a sister) spend every episode trying to hunt down and kill Lucy (unaware to Lucy and everyone else). “Special Sister Mary” tends to kill innocent bystanders in every episode — all in the name of God and destroying the Antichrist. A certain amount of every episode is spent laughing at her hardcore murder in the name of God. Even the “special fathers” that she travels with often quip, “Was that really necessary?” Her level of viciousness reminds me of the Knights Of Templar in The Da Vinci Code.
BAD STUFF: The only bad thing is that by virtue of being an AdultSwim production, all episodes are limited to 11 minutes. There needs to be MORE MORE MORE, much more.
CONCLUSION: An absolutely great series that was over too fast (110 minutes total = less length than your average movie). Of course, that can describe most 10-episode AdultSwim runs (Xavier:Renegade Angel comes to mind). Every one of these shows needs 1,000 episodes! This show is a near-perfect 10, and I am greatly looking forward to Season 2, slated to start in October of 2008.
RECOMMENDATION: Anyone who likes adult cartoons, AdultSwim, religious parody, Satan, or H. Jon Benjamin should be checking this series out using whatever means necessary (including the torrent link). (more…)
[IMDB link] [Netflix link] I’d been meaning to watch this movie for… years? I may have seen it as a kid, but have no recollection. My parents got me a VHS for Christmas recently, but this was years after I stopped using VHS. Finally, I snagged a copy and Mark convinced us to watch it with him, which definitely enhanced the experience. IMDB rating = 5.9.
PEOPLE: I was not familiar with main actor Peter Weller, but it was nice to see John Lithgow, Christopher Lloyd, Jeff Goldblum, and Clancy Brown.
QUIRKS: This movie is ALL OVER THE PLACE, and quite ridiculous. This is good. It’s important to remind us that this is entertainment, not deep, meaningful, profound art. Buckaroo Banzai is a brain surgeon. He’s a rock star in a band. He test-drives experimental vehicles for NASA/DARPA/the govt/science. He’s a samurai. He has a group of sidekicks. He’s just… EVERYTHING. They’re ALL everything. It’s a ridiculous combination that can only be explained by the huge amounts of cocaine everyone was doing in 1984.
BAD STUFF: First and foremost: NOT ENOUGH 8th Dimension! They say IN THE TITLE “Across The 8th Dimension”. Bad implication. You actually see about 10 seconds of the 8th dimension in the entire movie. I’m a bit disappointed. Also, the studio that made the film went out of business right afterwards (too much coke?), so the sequel alluded to in the end credits was never made. Finally, since the movie is ALL OVER THE PLACE, sometimes it’s not clear that the movie knows where it is going. Sometimes it seems to lose focus a bit. But that’s okay, because those are forgivable traits for a movie that is supposed to be zany. The ridiculously-long title should immediately tell the viewer: “This is not to be taken seriously.”
CONCLUSION: As ridiculous cocaine-induced 1980s sci-fi adventures go, this is a cult classic that should not be missed. While not a great film (it was a box office dud), I think it would be a mistake for any movie buff to pass over this one. I gave it 3 stars on Netflix, my “generic pass”, though I’m tempted to give it 4 stars for uniqueness. On IMDB, I’d probably rate it in the 6.75 – 7 range.
RECOMMENDATION: This movie goes really well back-to-back with Howard The Duck, a similarly ridiculous interdimensional box office dud. The 2 movies are about as similar as the band Gwar is to the virtual band Dethklok (and about 5 people are going to understand that statement.) But anyway — if you like sci-fi, ridiculosity, and cheesy 1980s flicks — this is a must see!
MOVIE QUOTE: Buckaroo Banzai, while performing brain surgery: “You can check your anatomy all you want, and even though there may be normal variation, when it comes right down to it, this far inside the head it all looks the same. No, no, no, don’t tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to.”
COINCIDENCES: Buckaroo Banzai & Howard The Duck – 2 movies that we watched with Mark that were both ridiculous, and involved beings coming from another dimension to mess up the Earth. Also, I could have SWORN that we watched TWO movies that had aliens hiding on earth, with all of them named “John”…. But I can’t remember what the other movie was, so it might not have existed.
FRIENDS’ RATINGS: Ian really liked it. Benj liked it.
My Parody Religion Is Better Than Your Parody Religion … or: How I Survived X-Day XI [2008]
Days Four and Five
DAY FOUR: X-DAY
OH SHIT!! WE MISSED THE END OF THE WORLD!!! Attending The Rupture is sort of the point of going to X-Day! And it happens at 7AM on 7/5/1998. (But when is 1998? Obviously our current calendars are wrong.) And we didn’t get up until past 9… DAMN! (more…)
As mentioned in day one … we went to bed the drunkest we have both been at once all year. Maybe all decade. And woke up at 4:30AM to save our stuff from the rain…. Then slept… Then: (more…)
My Parody Religion Is Better Than Your Parody Religion … or: How I Survived X-Day XI [2008]
PROLOGUE
I first heard about the Church Of The SubGenius on a national WWIV syndicated message board, on some BBS, way back in the late 1980s. The ridiculosity of it all intrigued me, as did the parody of organized religion. It is a parody religion, like Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, but superior in every way: Actual depth, substance, philosophy, and even truth. Superior art, superior video, superior radio shows, superior events. (Um, FSM doesn’t have any of these, does it? FSM is basically like parodying the Holy Bible with a knock knock joke or a single middle finger; CotS is like parodying the Holy Bible with a more ridiculous bible.)
Read the wikipedia page HERE; it explains things adequately). (more…)
An article about how America is actually, pretty much, the leading country in the world for killing people with nuclear properties. No, I'm not talking about Hiroshima. Even if you don't count Hiroshima, our contamination of the environment by using depleted uranium in countries we fight against is far more than a dirty bomb. With a half-life of 4.5 billion years, we are ensuring that our "enemies" (at least for now–Saddam Hussein was a big ally in the 1970s) have higher rates of cancer for quite some time now. So, because Iraq might have had nuclear weapons (it didn't), we leave nuclear waste all over their country. Gee, that's not hypocritical, is it? And Obama's not talking about it either.
Stupid moralists trying to control other peoples' behavior. When will they stop? Yea, zone it as an adult business, even though nobody from the public comes in. What is so wrong with our society that we are scared of sex, but not violence?
Use this to get the full-size photos from people who suppress the 'all sizes' button.
Of course, if they actually upload it in the 500px "small" size, you're SOL.
It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people.
It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us.
If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them.
No-one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.”
-audio rant overheard during Hour Of Slack radioshow. Googled it, and found it as a blog comment on a foreign language blog, with Terry Pratchett mentioned. (more…)
So… I like how Vicky blogs a lot of her flickr photos, but I’m too lazy!
It requires you to open the photos up on flickr, go to all sizes, go to the 500px width (wordpress width) size, switch the editor into HTML mode, paste the HTML (which you have to scroll down to get to) into wordpress, then go back out of all sizes, copy and paste whatever caption/title you want, make sure the justification for my caption is centered, and ensure that the paragraph following doesn’t also accidentally become center-justified. FUNK DAT.
So I wrote a perl script (get it in TXT format here) that takes a tag as an argument and searches my photos, generating the proper HTML to embed a 500px-wide photo with the link to the original flickr photopage (as required by terms of service, and in my own best interest anyway). I also ensure that the title for the photo appears when you hover over the link. A caption is automatically generated from the title of the photo. A few regular expressions are used on the title. For example, all my photo titles start with a date. It strips those off. I will probably add more code to strip it more various ways, but that is completely cosmetic.
I solved the “damn centering paragraphs” problem by having it create a “stub left-justified paragraph” after each picture.
So, when run with ‘rainbow’, for example, I get HTML that pastes like so: (more…)
[IMDB link] [Netflix link] We rented this due to seeing the preview and loving the gimmick! I had previously twitter/LJ’ed a micro-blog stating, “When I die, I want to be able to see the deleted scenes… From my life.” (Read the LJ discussions that evolved here.) Angel had mentioned that she thought the director’s commentary might be even better. Well, this movie had exactly that! He turned on audiocommentary mode while reviewing old moments of his life — and the audiocommentary voice was James Earl Jones. (“He does a lot of voice over work.”)
PEOPLE: Adam Sandler, Christopher Walken, and Kate Beckinsdale (who I thought was Mary Louise Parker until we looked at the Netflix sleeve) are the 3 main characters. There’s also David Hasselhoff as the 4th-most on screen character. Walken was great, as usual, and Sandler was his usual self — almost the same guy in every movie that he’s in, except this time he’s a stressed-out workaholic. Also, Julie Kavner (aka Marge Simpson from The Simpsons) plays a bit part. I almost didn’t recognize her.
QUIRKS: Adam Sandler typically implies comedy, and even the trailer for this movie made it look like a comedy with a bit of conflict. In fact, I would not call this a comedy at all. It’s a comedic (in a fantasy/sci-fi kind of way) for the first half of the movie, but the movie as a whole is NOT a comedy. It’s more of a black comedy dramatic horror. The 2nd half of the movie is NOT FUNNY. And this is fine; Hollywood optimizes its marketing to make money, not to properly inform you of the movie. The Truman Show came off as a comedy too — but I’d consider that a black comedy dramatic horror as well. (And, to a lesser extent, Teeth fits the bill as well, but with Teeth, it’s only the premise that is comedic, not the content of the actual movie.) So…. Don’t go into this expecting to laugh past the 50% mark. Carolyn even called it — she said, “Uh oh! I think this is where the depressing stuff starts!”, and was right. You see, the “magic” remote control is like a Tivo, learning its user’s habits. So if you always fast forward through a shower — eventually it will fast forward through all showers automatically. Things get really bad with the remote behaving automatically, at one point [highlight for spoilers]→he loses 10 years of his life due to an automatic fast-forwarding.
BAD STUFF: I think a lot of people were disappointed in this movie due to the way it was portrayed. The Hollywood marketeers will say anything to get people to pay up for a movie ticket, and pretending this movie isn’t sad is just another corporate lie. This was a tear jerker by the end, plain and simple. Ian convinced me rather quickly that drama is actually much easier than comedy, because it is quite easy to manipulate viewers into having strong emotions. Be that as it may, this movie was the epitome of regret. Forget The Last Unicorn — the regret here is much deeper, and the fact that it takes place in the real world (and not a unicorn-filled fantasy world) makes it easier to identify with the very real human emotion of regret. The scene near the end where Adam Sandler [highlight for spoilers]→basically sacrifices his life in order to get ONE message to his son to GO ON YOUR HONEYMOON and not waste his life working all the time, was incredibly touching, as was the scene [highlight for spoilers]→where he realized he fast forwarded through the rest of his parent’s life, rewind, and views the very last time he ever saw his father, during which he regrettably acted like a total dismissive douchebag. I feel a little dirty because Adam Sandler was involved, but Carolyn & me both agree completely on this movie being profound.
CONCLUSION: We both rated it 5 stars on Netflix! Perhaps all these people telling us Be Kind Rewind would be better to watch — and that they want to avoid this movie — helped lower our expectations such that they were exceeded. But honestly… This was way better than we expected. Carolyn had some problems with the pacing near the 40% mark, but that did not dull her opinion that this is a 5 stars movie. I’d probably give this at lest an 8 on IMDB. This should have just been a straight comedy, but as a drama is was probably more intense than it ever could have been as a comedy.
RECOMMENDATION: Unless you are automatically repelled by all things Sandler, you should probably check this out. If you like “What If?” scenarios and the “magic remote control that does anything” gimmick, you should probably check this out. If you’ve ever felt regret, or thought that at times life may have passed you by — or if you work more than 40 hours a week — you definitely need to see this. It may provide some perspective that would help you set your priorities. Above all, when you think “Adam Sandler movie”, know that this is about as typical of a Sandler movie as The Truman Show was for Jim Carrey. That is to say, both movies are atypical for the actors involved.
MOVIE QUOTE:Christopher Walken, metaphorically talking about the Lucky Charms leprochaun: “He’s always chasing the pot of gold, but when he gets there, at the end of the day, it’s just corn flakes.”
COINCIDENCES:Date Movie & Click – two movies in a week with lucious hottie Sophie Monk.
We crashed elsewhere Friday night, and woke up around 7:30 to drive home. Since it was yard sale prime time (Sat 7AM-12NOON), we decided to grab some breakfast and do some yardsaleing. We got a Spider-Man action figure/walkie talkie that we did not realize was a walkie talkie. When it was accidentally turned on, we spent 5 minutes looking for the source of white noise. This included opening up the car’s hood and looking for leaks and such. We were totally freaking out. Anyway:
Total spent was $42, counting $2 of gas (~12 miles). Estimated value of our take is **~$337**. ~$37.50 of that was free, though $0 of it was stuff that was most definitely need, and $0 of it was stuff that we would have had to buy in the next few years. In total, we “made” $337 for $42, a profit of $295 for about 2.5 hours work. That’s $59/hr per person, or $118/hr as a couple. Also keep in mind, that $337 profit is equivalent of earning $481 before taxes. Some people don’t make that much in a week, let alone 2.5 hours.
Yard saleing is also for the environment — to re-use stuff, rather than have it rot in a dump. And you often find unique things that can’t be bought, period — though we did not buy the hand-made pagan-themed wooden ashtray we ran into because one of the ‘wings’ to one of the legs was broken. Many people need the same thing at different points in their life, and corporations make a lot of extra money banking on the fact that their items will go to a dump, rather than a potential future customer. Re-using is good. Yard saleing saves resources, including [most importantly] your own wallet.
So here was our take:
$10: leather jacket, women’s (smaller belt, zipper on opposite side), red zipper trim. The red zipper trim makes this good fodder for a future Andrew Dice Clay halloween costume (EV:$100+?)
$6: camouflage pants – possibly slightly too big for Clint, but a belt should fix that (EV:$25)
$5: lava lamp, purple lava, purple water (EV:$30)
$4: cat litter box (enclosed, with handle) (EV:~$12)
$3: fan – adjustable, Honeywell, black ($11.50 @ Target)
$2: pillow, Nerds candy box, tiny beads filling – awesome that it’s a replica of a Nerds box. They also had other candy pillows at the same sale. ($16 @ various stores)
$1.50: Batman action figure – BIG – ~15 inches, 10 pts of articulation, a bit dinged up, torn cape, non-standard uniform (chrome breast & shoulder plates) ($15/$22 @ Ebay)
$1.50: Spider-Man action figure/walkie talkie – BIG – ~11 inches – ($20,$50,$100 for various sets of 2 that include this, but this is just half a set,so we’ll say $10)
$1.50: movie: DVD: Dirty Love [unrated] (Jenny McCarthy, Carmen Electra b-comedy) ($12)
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We crashed elsewhere Friday night, and woke up around 7:30 to drive home. Since it was yard sale prime time (Sat 7AM-12NOON), we decided to grab some breakfast and do some yardsaleing. We got a 
So here was our take:
$6: camouflage pants – possibly slightly too big for 
$1.50: Batman action figure – BIG – ~15 inches, 10 pts of articulation, a bit dinged up, torn cape, non-standard uniform (chrome breast & shoulder plates) ($15/$22 @ Ebay)
$1: bowling ball, ~6 lbs, bright colors (EV:~$20)
$0.25: hat, hard-hat, ERB Safety (~$7.50) – we need these for going into our attic
FREE: 
FREE?: map, Northern Virginia & the beltway street map (2001) (81 pages, 1275 square miles) ($3.67 @ Allbris.com)
Claire's blog 