My Dearest Apologies...

For the longest time I thought this little corner of cyber space was only frequented by myself until a friend of mine commented that I hadn't posted here in such a long time.

I think most of the problem (besides being so stupidly busy) is that I usually find myself with nothing of importance to write about, and so I don't. Sometimes I'll head over to Movies.com and take a quick gander in their buzz bin to see if anything catches my eye there. Unfortunately the only thing I spotted today was a quick mention of Cloverfield. Of course Mr Abrams has been really hitting the whole viral marketing thing kinda hard, and I think that adds one more brick to the "JJ Abrams Likes to Confuse Foundation" building. All of his work exhibits some sense of mystery in one form or another, which is normally fine, but at some point you have to explain those mysteries, and not in a quick cop out kind of way just to get people off your back so you can go jump on board your next project. Alias suffered for Lost. Lost suffered for Mission Impossible three, or also known as Alias, the movie. Now he's working on this strange viral movie that no one really knows what it's about, and anything new released concerning the film only serves to further the state of mass confusion. Some think it's a Godzilla remake, others, the mighty morphing power rangers. You laugh, but I have seen arguments that this is a more serious take on the power rangers, and sometimes, I actually wonder.

A while back I also heard that JJ Abrams bought the rights to turn the Dark Tower series into a movie as well. I'm still on the fence about this, I usually like JJ's stuff straight out of the gate, but then again, it's not long before I lose interest because it begins to suffer for some other project of his. And while his movies tend to not follow this problem, that is usually because you spend about a year or two pounding the thing out and then your done with it. This a system that tends to fit perfectly into the attention span of Mr. Abrams. But the Dark Tower series is long, really long, and to do it justice it will need to be at the very least, seven films, a project that time wise, will far surpass that which we saw in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Based on what I've seen in the past, I just can't see JJ committing to that kind of time intensive project without it suffering for some brand new shinny project that happens to catch his eye a year into it.

But that's just me.

Fight, Flight, or Act commited....

On two separate occasions yesterday I was reminded how it has been a long time since I have posted a journal. Once by my wife, the other by Qcx918. Incidentally enough, something happened yesterday that reminded me of something that happened to me in middle school that gave rise to one of my most favorite theories.

When people mess with you, act like you're out of your freaking mind. Seriously.

Amanda and I went to go see Disturbia yesterday (Go see Rear Window instead), and before the movie got rolling a thrown quarter nails Amanda in the back of her shoulder. We turn around to see two rich teeny bopper "gurls" sitting two rows back smirking at us. We had no proof it was them, and they knew it. Their faces sent the message "What are you going to do about it?"

We did nothing really, but we decided that if it happened again we would go get the theater manager and raise a fuss, demand our money back, and so on and so fourth. I secretly decided that while Amanda went for the pimply faced manager that I would immediately hop over the two rows of seats, sit next to one of the Paris Hilton wannabes and make them so uncomfortable they would cry every night they closed their eyes to sleep. You don't mess with my wife. And I can be a scary creepy dude when I want to be.

This method arose due to that incident I mentioned earlier that took place in middle school. The players in this saga where myself "Josh" , some fat bad boy dude "John" and the prison bound "I don't care I'll still mess you up in front of the cops" guy "James." Hey.. three J's... who knew? Anyways, I had to pee... like really bad one day, and so I agreeably answered natures call. This particular day all the urinals were full and I was forced to use the stall. Right about when I was unleashing the fury I hear John tell James that I had just that second insulted his "momma." A claim that was entirely untrue and had the sole purpose to serve Johns desire to see James kick my scrawny butt and possibly kill me. Sometimes I wondered if John was a distant relation to one of those fat Jerk Caesars that killed thousands of people just so he could get it up. I have yet to test this theory.

Anyways, James was of the type that he didn't need any proof of what was said, nor any investigation to what was going on, he must have been a Dirty Harry fan. Anyways, James starts to kick the stall door in so hard that it bounces back at him, he repeats this little stunt like seven times. I'm not sure if it was because he knew it was scaring the crap out of me, or if because he though the bouncing door was funny, either way, I was on the wrong end of this stick. James kept yelling at me to tell him what I said about his momma, and I knew what I did next was going to have to be quick and fast in order to get myself out of that dung hole alive.

I turned around and "weeweeed" on his shoes. Then laughed... loudly with my pitiful peewee flailing about. You see I don't know why I did this... no clue.. no idea, but I soon realized that I was doing it and I had better follow it up with something quick or else my fate would be sealed. Before James could get his sweaty bear hands on me to choke the life out of me I began to scream things that would cause even the most serious biker dude to cast down his leather jacket and take up the cross to correct the worlds wrongs. I began to kick the stall wall as well as the toilet (all with my peewee still out.) I allowed myself to hurl spittle everywhere and demand that I be taken to his uncle so I could give him a proper "what for." I slammed my head against the wall prophesying the coming of the next potato king to the sacred garden. I let go of my peewee and flailed my arms about striking everything within distance in that small stall crying that the math books of the world were trying to get into my nails and that I mustn't let them. I was (As Lewis Black would say) two hairs away from becoming a Baboon.

I had become so psychotic, that James decided that it just wasn't worth it, and walked out with the look on his face that stated he had just escaped some undesirable way to view humanity.

Me? I zipped up and got my butt out of there faster than stink. I was never approached about the incident again, no questions, no inquiries, no threats. It was as if I managed to erase any involvement with both John and James, future, past or present. It was as if the event never happened. Well, Lucky me.

And last night these two tabloid reading punks nearly got the same treatment.. well.. minus the yellow stuff. But the result would have been the same. They would have witnessed something so personally disturbing, and yet so entirely legal that they would undergo an entire background check on someone before throwing at stinking quarter at their wife. Dang straight.

The man is on Crack

A little while ago Pringles pulled the whole "We got other flavors too!" bit with Bar-B-Que, salt and Vinegar, and yes, even the Pizza flavor.

But lately I've seen this idea taken to a level that only attic rats usually populate.

So far I have eaten Bacon/Ranch, and Loaded Baked Potato flavored Pringles. And I have seen, yet lack the cajones to try the "spicy guacamole."

I'm waiting for Meatloaf.....

Ages 5-8

One of the biggest things I learned in college is to always be on the look-out for the absurd. In this great country of ours you can never know when something totally ridiculous and completely amazing at the same time is going to jump out at you and slap you a few time across the face. Of course the slapping sorta takes the challenge out of finding these icons of the strange, but I'm sliding off on a tangent here.

Anyways, I was at Target one day just killing some time when I stumbled upon this little Gem;




Thats right....."Twister On Tuesday." It took roughly .005 seconds for me to snatch this thing up and give it much more careful study. I found it was for Ages 5-8. Perfect, that meant that Ms. Mary Pope Osborne felt that children not old enough to get the truth behind Rover going to a "special farm" was capable of handling a story about two children dealing with the dangers of possible morbid death due to what most insurance company's consider "An Act of God." I could only fathom two possible outcomes to this book. When little Timmy is done he is either going to literally piss himself when ever he sees Daddy watching the weather report, or when the Sky's grow dark and the funnel clouds show up he's going to think it's play time. It's win-win really....

At this point I started getting a bit shifty because to me, this book was a gold mine. I look up to make sure that nobody else noticed my facial expressions of confusion and joy, thus cluing them into this vortex of violence, grief, and children's literature. It's at this point that I discovered that this book, was but one of many. And they were all displayed before me like some alter of a strange author god..... Here are some of my "favorites"....







I'm just going to go ahead and wait while you soak this in a bit.

No, you Have to see that again, trust me. You just can't glance at those and get all that there is to get. Thirty Seconds, each cover, at the very least.

Ok, now that you have basked in the glory that is Mary Pope Osborne I must tell you that it is now my challenge to meet this woman. I want to meet her and ask her a whole list of questions. I honestly think that in that cracked out head of hers that the answers to everything may be locked up, if only someone were stupid enough to sit down and force them out of her.

I have to tell ya, If Timmy is a huge fan of the series, then Timmy is so screwed. Chances are he's going to be a Agoraphobic before he's 9.... And thats some awesome and yet terrifying power to wield people....