never have so many people done so little for so long

jury duty

part one

this morning I got to sleep in a little later than usual, for today I had jury duty.

well almost, I had to report but my panel has to come back on wednesday. that means I have to miss work for the second time this week. I have to go into work tomorrow and tell my asshole boss that some asshole judge couldn’t get off his asshole to get to court in time to pull a docket out of the clerks asshole.

so on wednesday I will release on an unexpected world jury duty part two.

run, runna

everyone should be forced to watch Logan’s Run, and on their thirtieth birthday everyone should get the dvd.

but not before.

keeping nothing down

sticky is sick. he’s thrown up at least twice times since I got home, but I’ve heard he that he had started much earlier.

sticky goes to a public school, although he just turned three. he had some gunk built up in his ears and that effected his speech development. he hears fine now, but he never really got in the habit of listening.

his school is helping him to catch up with his age group. he’s doing very well.

he’s also catching everything that kids get at school.

just fyi, my brother-in-law(not holbrook) can’t handle bodily fluids. of any kind.

sticky threw up on him. he didn’t not take this very well, I think he might have puked too. sticky then did that thing with his lip, you know the one, and got a bath.

I only had to clean up the second round, can handle it.

puke is easy, comedy is hard.

I hate music

this is the only conclusion I can make, after buying High Fidelity on dvd.

I found this little pre-famous jack black movie(does anybody remember what movie they first saw jack black in. for me it was Bio-Dome, don’t ask.) for ten bucks at h.e.b. I had rented it a few years back with Red Violin and Pitch Black. I liked it back then and kind of today also.

but, back to the topic, I hate music. I must, because after listening to john cusack and jack black rant back and forth for an hour about top ten lists and musical sins in the eighties I was reading to firebomb nashville and l.a. to stop the insanity.

seattle is already damned for nirvana so I’ll leave it alone.

I will excuse a couple of bands, just to prove how much I hate music:
green day
the killers
tenacious d
bowling for soup
fountains of wayne
they might be giants
weezer
my chemical romance
and Chicago
and all the bands on the garden state sound track

a life less ordinary v.1.0.1

welcome to the first big tweak for a life less ordinary.

the tweaks involve the non-blog content and links so almost everything will remain the same. However, if you look down at the bottom right there are two new boxes.

dvds

as the title implies I’m putting in links to the new dvds that I buy, with a featured link to a special recommendation. I’ve also included a link to future dvd buys that I plan to make, sort of a shopping list to keep me from going to overboard.

books

because writing doesn’t mean you can read, look at bush, I’ve also included the title of the current warmer for my gollum bookmark. I read very, very slow so this box might not change that often.

comments, opinions, and recommendations

for the multitudes that do read my blog, I would like to make a request.

please use the comments wisely. say what you like about my ideas, the topic of the log, or make a recommendation about a story you read that I didn’t mention. recommend a dvd, a book, or a movie that you think I should check out. I’m obsessive about dvds and movies, so I will hunt down anything that is suggested.

but, I will also delete anything I think is misplaced. I’ve only done it once so far, and the comment wasn’t even about me or the log I made, or about anything really. It was an ad for another weblog service and I felt it didn’t belong, not because I like blogspot all that much, but because I do not advertise everything on this blog only things I feel have merit.

at least to me.

more to come

right now I’m looking for an easy place to host pictures so I can link them to the blog. I’m planning some additions in the future that will require pictures and I’m not sure yet where I’m going to store them. And I have some other ideas that I’ll work on for the next template update.

and there was silence in heaven

what men hath wrought

Auschwitz
April 1940 – January 1945

all things both great and small

best of the best

this morning before most people are thinking straight the academy of motion pictures arts and sciences announced its nominations for the Oscars.

they all suck

with a few exceptions

after reading the little article at cnn I skipped over to oscar.com and read the full list of nominations and I have to agree with a couple, namely The Passion of the Christ(not linked and shall not be) only got a couple of nominations, none of which it should win. and not because I hate God, but because the Aviator or House of Flying Daggers should get cinematography and Lemony Snicket should get make-up. so score might be a lock, I don’t know I only heard Harry Potter and it wasn’t that great.

and speaking of make-up, where is Dawn of the Dead. they put some time into those zombies. is there a write-in slot for the oscars? dammit there should be!

and where is Garden State? how is the Aviator a more original story than Garden State? there has to be about fifty books out there about hughes, I’ve never seen one about Large. if effing Good Will Hunting qualified, why not Garden State? write-in number two.

hat-trick harry

clint managed to pull one thing off marty couldn’t this year, he got nominated for directing, writing, and staring in the Million Dollar Baby. he won’t win of course. chris rock has already said he’s going to give jamie foxx the best actor no matter who actually wins, marty is going to win for directing, and Sideways has a better story.

but wait who else directed, wrote and stared in a movie last year?

why zach braff of course, if clint was good enough why not zach? at least nominate zach to show the bastard he did a decent job.

we should just skip the actresses this year, only three of the movies even played in Austin, hell Sideways just arrived at the super artsy Arboretum Cinema. and the bening will win again, and I’ll have to sit through another year of, ‘you have to se her in such-and-such,’ and I’m just not going to do it. next.

for animated feature The Incredibles is going to win. I loved Shrek 2, but the category should be best Pixar movie of the year.

and why the hell is Fahrenheit 9/11 not up for best documentary? how many documentaries did you see last year? how many did you pay money to see? how many made a 100 million? or 10 million? or 1 million?

Weeping Camel, my ass.

and while we’re in hell, why didn’t House of Flying Daggers get nominated for best foreign language film? that’s like not nominating Fahrenheit for documentary or the Incredibles for Pixar of the year?

after last year I have decided that the academy doesn’t give out awards for original song anymore. they didn’t last year.

micheal mckean was robbed.

worst of the worst

on Monday, under the radar of most of the world, the razzies were nominated. I had considered last year signing up to vote, but in the end I decided DVDs were more fun to watch than most of what can out last year. so I skipped it.

thankfully I did manage to check out the nominations today, and here’s how it went(this wont’ be as long, I agree with most of it):

Catwoman sucked it the hardest.

but we knew that already, didn’t halle berry win an oscar? well she’s about to get a razzie to go next to it.

my picks:
Worst Movie: write-in The Passion of the Christ
Worst Actor: george W bush
Worst Actress: seven way tie, they all suck
Worst Screen Couple: wayens, White Chicks? why God, why?
Worst Supporting Actor: rummy, all the way
Worst Supporting Actress: Dr. Rice and brittany spears
Worst Director: oliver stone, back and to the left
Worst Screenplay: trick question, none of these movies had scripts

burn

I harped enough about Garden State already, so this one is special.

paul giamatti got burned, hard.

he should have won for his own bio-flick, American Splendor. he managed to pull off Harvey Pekar, with harvey pekar standing four feet away. and he didn’t have to be dubbed.

no matter what I’ve seen him in he’s been good. and this isn’t the b-movie fan in me writing, this is the seldom listened to movie enthusiast that has seen all but 21 best pictures, and can remember the plot of almost every movie I’ve seen in the last fifteen years, and didn’t like Star Trek IV despite the even number rule. true character actors never get what they deserve. would Forest Gump be as good with out Bubba or Lt. Dan? what about Mister Roberts, what would that have been like with out Ens. Pulver?

giamatti just clicks in everything and this time he should have been rewarded.

shame on you academy for nominating clint eastwood, again.

hard bound

the gods are smiling down upon me this day. a comic company published a four issue mini-series about Ash and the Deadites. and now they’re going to sell a hard bound collection. woot!

also by the same company will be a Red Sonja series, sweet.

balls of icy steel

we need a statue to the obvious, and the willingness to say it in public.

we can call it ObviousMan, the last American.

and we can use Senator Mark Dayton of Minn. as the model.

“I don’t like impugning anyone’s integrity, but I really don’t like being lied to, repeatedly, flagrantly, intentionally. My vote against this nominee is my statement that this administration’s lies must stop now.”

I think that would look good on a brass plaque under a marble statue.

because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me; the carriage held but just ourselves, and immortality

go gently into that good night

the supreme court today stood up for the rights of the sane world. by refusing to hear the case the court has made it clear that they feel the law was unconstitutional. I support this ruling not because I want to see this poor woman die, but because right or wrong her husband is her next of kin. the republicans seem to hit marriage from all sides, hindering the rights of gays to marry, and now fighting to undermine the role of a spouse in a person life.

what ever her parents, the state if florida, or even I think of michael schiavo, terri married him and made him her other half. and with nothing written down, or known by her whole family, the choice is left up to her husband.

it’s time we walk out of this family’s life. sleep well terri.

what are these, so wither’d, and so wild in their attire, that look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ earth, and yet are on’t?

I feel Dirty

last night I watched three Dirty Harry movies in reverse order. I think my favorite was Magnum Force, watching Otter get blown away was the best.

I had never actually sat down to watch a Dirty Harry movie before, not that I dislike clint eastwood. The Outlaw Josey Wales is still the best western ever made as far as I can tell, I just never got the gumption to see three long cop dramas. to my surprise the supporting cast was outstanding. in addition to Otter from Animal House, there’s Hutch from Starskey and Hutch, Spencer from Spencer for Hire, and Johnson from the Robocop movies.

prime examples of the ‘70s style of cop flix, sex and violence and I of course love gratuitous nudity and blood, I have a new found respect for the Dirty Harry series. go rent the DVDs and watch them in random order.

good times

random

in a related story, I don’t have cable. not real cable, and the cable I have is controlled by the person that pays for the cable. my sister. my sister does not watch movies on cable, so by extension I no longer watch movies on cable. that is except for the weekend, when I drive an hour to spend a few days with my parents. they have perfect cable, every channel and a few that come in from mars I’m convince.

that is how I saw the Dirty Harry movies, and how I saw a few others. the first was The Rundown. I will admit to anyone reading this I have a fascination with bad movies, I own all three American Pies, Harold and Kumar, Trancers and Omega Doom on DVD and I plan to by a few more bad DVDs. having admitted that I also think the rock and seann william scott are pretty good in the right movie. the rock was great in the Scorpion King and looks like he’s going to be okay in the Get Shorty sequel. and scott was a riot in the American Pie movies and anyone that tells you differently is too damn pretentious. so The Rundown turned out to be the right kind of film, just the right amount of violence and humor, the only downside was christopher walken. usually a great actor, his last few movies have been crap for him. Kangaroo Jack, what’s the deal?

the second movie was Zone Troopers. tim thomerson is a national treasure as far as I’m concerned. Volunteers and Fear and Loathing would have been completely different flix with out him. Zone Troopers is not his best, but it is in his native genre, action/scifi. thomerson plays the sergeant of a troop of WWII u.s. soldiers caught behind enemy lines when an alien crashes and is captured but the nazis. the Americans rescue the alien and beat the germans. what actually made me enjoy this film was that is was basically a reunion movie for the cast of Trancers, minus only helen hunt. and one of the characters gets to punch hitler in the nose. any b-movie fan would love this for the bad acting, missing plot and horrible special effects. one minus is that there is no nudity, nothings perfect.

lastly I saw the last ninety minutes of Open Range. it was long, Wyatt Earp long. I guessed it would be, but there wasn’t anything else on. my dad and I had a discussion about Wyatt Earp and Tombstone, both bio-pics about the same guy, both out in the same year, one was good, one was long. can you guess which was which. Open Range also started with two strikes against it, keven costner and annette bening. I have, for some reason, missed what the world sees in bening and I haven’t liked a costner movie since Silverado(my dad says his best performance was in the Big Chill, draw your own conclusions from that). so strike three was length.

mother fucker's like MacGyver. no, the mother fucker's better than MacGyver

this tuesday season one of MacGyver is coming out on DVD. I have already set aside thirty bucks for it and I’m going to buy it right after work, not that I think there’s going to be a run or anything.

more reason to hide the report card

a bill in the Texas state Senate would require every school to include a Body Fat Index of the student on her/his report card. as if the fat kid needed it in writing, the jock asshole that bullies him every day in PE takes care of that already.

what’s next, how many days in a grading period the poor kids runs home crying because he doesn’t fit in? or how his clothes aren’t cool enough? or his hair? obesity is a problem, but so is childhood depression, and having the Body Fat Index on the report card isn’t going to help either.

what happened to our express lane?

he killed a woman while driving under the influence of alcohol. I thought we were supposed to be for the death penalty is this state? why the hell are his balls still attached?

he must be white, rich and republican.

Kinky ‘06

he’s got my vote, it never counted before why should it now.

no more cool space pictures

once again showing their lack of even the base intelligence that made fish walk on land, the white house has decided the most successful space program since the moon landings is to be allowed to crash into the pacific.

bush sucks big floppy donkey dick

dude, you're totally into spinal piercing!

turns out bush is into satan as well as jesus, way to be well-rounded

fuck, this hurts so much

Garden State

wow

my conscience hath a thousand several tongues, and every tongue brings in a several tale, and every tale condemns me for a villian

Dr. Rice, for shame

Dr. Rice is a Pit Bull. Mean and scrappy, she is not the sort of Politico you want to run into in the back hallways of the White House.

I mention this tonight because I’ve been following, on the out skirts, the confirmation hearing for Dr. Rice to become our new Secretary of State. A position that has been held, loosely, by Colin Powell for the last four years. Dr. Rice has the job, the republicans have the votes to push her through. What had me watching was the possibility that Dr. Rice might be held accountable for just a couple of the things she has done to this world since she became the National Security Adviser.

An expert on the USSR, you know the country that imploded fifteen or so years ago, Dr. Rice has been invaluable in the war against Russia. Oh wait, we aren’t at war with Russia. Maybe that’s why she couldn’t foresee the boondoggle that Iraq has become. OR as National Security Adviser she couldn’t foresee the attacks on New York and Washington. Apparently complete access to the NSA, FBI, CIA, and military intelligence wasn’t enough to figure out what was going down.

Yesterday Dr. Rice stated, "Senator, we can have this discussion in any way that you would like. But I really hope that you will refrain from impugning my integrity."

This woman; a PhD, a scholar(I’ve heard) and a leader of our country, believed that her integrity would not come into question at a Senate hearing. Was she under a rock when Clarence Thomas sat in front of the Senate? What did she expect? Cocktails?

::White House, Four days ago::

::GWB -- Condy, we got this wrapped up like pig in a sombrero
::DCR -- Blanket
::GWB -- Whatever, who’s the King?
::DCR -- President
::GWB -- …
::DCR -- Mr. President what kind of questions should I expect?
::GWB -- The worse they could ask is, “What do you think of Washington so far?” They’re pushovers, we got 16 in our pockets already…

conjecture is fun(I’m sure he doesn’t call her Condy). but, Dr. Rice should have expected the senator’s to question a few of her dubious decisions over the last four years, and the questionable reasons for those decisions.

for that comment alone she should feel shame, and the fact that she does not makes me weep a little for this country.

but only %48 of the country, the other %52 can kiss off.

good on ya’ John

in connection to the story above, John Kerry voted against Dr. Rice for Secretary of State. some might say that he was a little petty, but in the end if John Kerry had felt Dr. Rice was right for the job of National Security Advisor he wouldn’t have run for president.

so good on John, and good on Senator Boxer

it is tennessee

defense attorney Leslie Ballin called it the "jury pool from hell." in the pools defense they are from Tennessee. I know I’m a little regionalist, but when it comes down to Tennessee is not the pinnacle of the american society.

the morphine addict was a hoot though.

good advice is hard to come by

last week I read this story, while I was waiting between calls at my day job. I laughed so hard I actually fell out of my chair. thankfully my boss didn’t see me, so I didn’t get in trouble. what struck me as funny was not the suggestion that the students choose stripping as a career, but that the principal wasn’t going to ask fried back next year.

when asked to clarify his position on the career choice, fried was honest to the students. stripping can be very profitable for young women, and a few men. other careers based on physical attributes and not on scholarly achievements are given much more respect. is a football or basketball player that much more respectable than a stripper? what about a grunt in the army? do you really think they send those guys to college before they send them to iraq?

besides we need strippers as much as we need politicians

how many taps does it take

to appease my multi-pet owning sister: what these kids did was wrong.

that said, how many taps does it take to cause brain damage to a hamster? three? a dozen? how many, and at what point does it become abuse? and how hard did they actually hit the hamster? I’ve disposed of more than a few mice in my time and those bastards go down easy with a head shot. so, unless hamster are radically better built creatures, I’m not sure the hamster is going to take more than one real hit.

that also said, this hamster was a real fighter. it held out to the aide station after chuck norris flew in with the helo extraction. now it didn’t make it but it never stopped fighting. the article isn’t clear on this, but I bet the hamster spit in the vet’s eye when the needle went into its arm

luke, I am your tatter

I have to own this, I hate star wars but I must own the tatter vader.

my desk screams for it.

for in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow...

this afternoon as I was surfing msnbc (a joint venture for two very massive and very profitable companies) I came across these four stories, the headline s have been change because I wanted to

out of town on a rail…

now I wouldn’t call myself a fan of Ali G, I only have a vague idea who he is because of a little bit of tv and the article that I’ve linked above. but surprise, surprise he’s not very popular in bum-fuck Virginia. they obviously didn’t get the underlying satire that the character of Borat represents. he was attempting to show that the stereotype of the middle-easterner perpetuated by the media and the government is laughable to the point of being dangerous….

who am I kidding they were doing it for a laugh and got what they wanted. they proved to themselves what everyone outside of the US already knows. Americans are dumb-asses, who can’t take a joke, that’s us, dumb-asses.

not just for germans any more…

the british royal family shows once again that they haven’t changed since 1189. prince harry, apparently, didn’t know it was in bad taste to wear a swastika. one could make the point that he is of Victoria’s stock and therefore heavily in-bred, but the gene argument will only get you so far. the royals can afford personal assistants and at least one etiquette advisor. someone, somewhere could have said, ‘oi ASSHOLE loose the hate-band.’ not a word.

so the royal family is sorry, and that seems to be enough for some, just like rick I’s holocaustum, you can say sorry enough. but it also seems his worst punishment could turn out to be not going to military school. what the fuck??

and in the beginning the Intelligence in the Sky said let there be light students…

this story came out a week ago, but with another story that came out today I think I can grouse on it. a school district in the seeming advanced northern states stated that science(specifically biology) teachers didn’t have to read a poorly worded disclaimer about evolution.

instead the idiot(and all are) principles of the various schools will read the disclaimer. the teachers can refuse, but the students still have the hear the crap. a few months ago I watched a penn&teller’s bullshit episode on the subject, and I took a moment to look online at the ‘treatise’ that is called ‘intelligent design,’ and anyone that states that id is not faith-based tripe did worse in science class than I did. id requires that the student take on faith, although I will agree it doesn’t use the word faith, that life was willed into existence by who knows what. and just to cover its bases, it also doesn’t have to say whose will is running things.

I say it’s my will, but kerry lost so my will is for shit.

Darwin ‘A,’ God ‘C-‘ hey, it’s transferable…

now onto the good news.

a judge in georgia(yes georgia) said that a sticker placed on biology textbooks in cobb county(that’s two ‘b’s for those of you that want to find the ass crack of hell on a map) was unconstitutional. who says the aclu is useless.

I’ll let my brother-in-law handle the witty retort to the creationists.

the sticker business is just silly, but it has given me an idea, I’m going to print up a bunch of stickers and troll the hotels of Texas placing the stickers in bibles. Let me know what you think on the my wording…

The theories presented in Genesis have not been proven and are in fact just theories, and therefore guesses, not fact or truth. In other words, made up. Lies, all lies.

Also God sees you when you’re in the bathroom. He knows what you’re doing in there, and for that he hates you.

God bless.

oh God, you Devil…

this morning on my way to work I flipped off my usually morning radio blather onto NPR. usually I get rewarded with an interesting story, some decent music and a couple of minutes burned between songs on the other stations. I like NPR, it’s a fun station to listen to because they at least try to be objective.

and my beef today is not about their choice of content, just the crap that God let happen.

and I don’t mean the tsunami.

this morning they played this story. and I understand people have the right to their own opinions, and I could have changed the station back to the mindless rock. I just want to know what that little three year old girl did to piss God off.

according to the Christians, Muslims and Hindus, God killed those people for a reason, and I don’t think it’s a bad idea to hold God accountable for this one.

well God, what’s the deal?

yeah, just a little bit of filler…

this special Sunday update is going to be a little different than what I had planned. originally I had planned to have a review completed and set up, but as it turns out I started writing one last night and it pushed 4 pages before I had finished talking about the movie and I hadn’t even gotten to the extras or the connections to other movies. so I’m going to continue working on that, but in the mean time I going to post a little something about Video games, Reality TV, and Sugar.

dammit you’ve BREATHED!!

first of all I SUCK at most games, I just don’t have the instinctive connection to the story that would allow me to know without a moments hesitation the whole plot of a new video game. it takes me weeks to really get up the want to buy a new game and then it’s usually a RTS or a Fighting game. as a child I begged to get a Nintendo, and after I did I was the only kid that never beat Super Mario Bros. i’ll admit it, I was that bad, and being young I lashed out. I still do. I don’t hate games, I love them. I just suck at them.

my brother-in-law, on the other foot, is a master of all things gaming. Grand Theft Auto, Final Fantasy Whatever, Command and Conquer, and Doom he has them all and can beat them. even if he doesn’t he’s a Hell of a lot better than I am.

and to prove it he bought me a GameCube for Christmas. now I’m happy to get what really is the perfect gaming system for me, small, easy to carry around and still has a bunch of cool games. however, all the games I got with it are multiplayer. I could play them alone, but Soul Caliber and Mario Cart are better with someone else. I just don’t need to be shown how much I suck at video games, especially my own.

actually it hasn’t been that bad, the only game that I got for Christmas that we’ve played so far has been Return of the King and we’re both still figuring it out. it’s not really hard but we just can’t figured out what to do all the time so we have to play some parts over and over.

I give it another week.

a little Drunk, a big Twat, and Peter Brady

I returned home tonight after a weekend at my parents house and started hanging out with my sister and her husband, I got home a little late so the first thing we watch it the new season of the Surreal Life.

I will say right now I did not watch much of the previous season, and not all of tonight’s episode. I hate Reality TV. I don’t get it or want to get it, but I did laugh at some of what I saw tonight.

but, I hope, not for the same reason as the shows target audience.

Mini-Me, Chyna and Peter Brady. need I say any more.

I guess I will. I half expect everything I watch to be bad, that means I hope that what I watch will be great. this was the former, but in its defense I don’t think I gave it enough time really. I only watched a couple of the entrances of the housemates and after da Brat walked in talking shit about Chris Knight I just about gave up on the whole thing I flipped over to Food Network and grudgingly watched the Bobby Flay open a restaurant. a snore-fest, but at least nobody was shitting on Flay but me.

in some rant in the future I will explain the Flay.

I flipped back a few times in my boredom to VH1. I caught the Sushi Bar, very tasteful, no bush. I also saw the skinny dipping and the drunk Verne Troyer. what really turned me off and will probably keep me from watching again was Chyna taking the “Little” room. everything in that room but the ceiling was smaller than normal, and let’s be blunt here, Chyna it the largest person in the house. when Troyer rolled up a light bulb should have click on above her head. HELL, HIS PICTURE ON THE WALL SHOULD HAVE BEEN A GOOD TIP. in the end Troyer got his room, but it should never have been an issue.

I guess I just don’t get Reality TV.

gimme some sugar, baby…

I just finished watching the Vegas Pastry Battle. it was a lot of fun, but of course the pretentious ass wipe won, but that’s the cooking world.

a life less ordinary

as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: silly

this log was a long time coming, well not very long. I've been thinking and mulling a blog for a couple of years now, but haven't had a real reason to get up and make one.

until now.

what actually got me off my butt was the fact that I left a binder of DVD's at my sisters house and her husband started watching them. my brother-in-law has a very small collection of DVD's, but has rented off of Netflix since it got started. after skimming through my binder he discovered he liked a few of my movies that he would not have watched otherwise.

he has posted a blog for a little more than a year now and has bugged me to start one also. so now I have and I just have to come up with reasons to post.

he suggested I post a log of my reviews of the DVD’s I own. though I have to date 145 DVD's, I intend to include more than just reviews. hopefully I'll get at least one review out a week and some other stuff posted as quickly as I can type them up.