Highly Obnoxious Villains
Posted on | March 4, 2008 at 9:04 pm | 7 Comments
So, there I was driving to my dad’s nursing home after work down Santa Fe Drive during rush hour, mentally composing my Pet Peeve Of The Day as douchebag after douchebag passed me on the left from the HOV lane even though most cars had only one person in them and were not making left turns. I always see this happening on Santa Fe when the HOV lights are on and single-occupancy cars are forbidden in those lanes. After all, the regular lanes are jammed tight with people trying to get home, and everyone knows that the HOV rules don’t apply to important pricks in their sports cars & SUVs and those busy soccer moms in their minivans. Heck, I’ve used that lane for a block or two once or twice myself when late for an appointment. (They’re talking about opening them up to single-occupant Hybrids too, in which case I’ll have a legitimate, legal reason to use them.) But tonight it was especially ridiculous, as single-occupant vehicle after single-occupant vehicle whooshed past me in an unending line. I spied maybe only two or three that had a passenger in them.
So, like I said, I was cussing them out and composing this PPD blog entry, when… yep, you guessed it. There was a cop parked over by the median with lights flasshing. He went after one of the more egregious offenders driving an Acura and pulled him over. I cheered. There is some justice on Santa Fe (land of trucks and adult bookstores) after all. I just wish they had more of those guys out there.
And it’s going to make me think twice about using that lane when I’m in a hurry…
Latre.
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 35°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Lost Planes” (The Fixx)
- “Rage in Eden” (Ultravox)
- “Retreat” (The Rakes)
- “Salome” (House of Love)
- “Dresden” (Alternate Learning)
- “Our Heads Are Round” (Dave Allen)
- “Spirit” (The Go-Betweens)
Latre.
Beam Me A Copy, Scotty
Posted on | March 3, 2008 at 10:54 pm | 2 Comments
I think I’ve mentioned before that my cubicle at work is very near the network printer/copier. And it’s a very noisy and distracting printer. This printer malfunctions on almost a daily basis, so it has lots of issues. Chief among those issues is that whenever it starts up, the initial sound it makes reminds me a lot of the Star Trek “fight music”. (But then again, maybe everything reminds me of Star Trek incidental music.) When it makes that sound, I can’t help picturing Kirk and Spock going at it in “Amok Time”, or Kirk vs his silver-clad Drill Thrall chick in “Gamesters Of Triskelion”, or Kirk vs the reptilian Gorn in “Arena”.
I guess it could be worse. It could play the Diane Warren-penned theme to Enterprise.
Latre.
May I Swab Your Cheek?
Posted on | March 2, 2008 at 9:21 pm | 5 Comments
In the Rite Aid circular in the Sunday paper today, there was an ad for a DNA Paternity Test Kit, on sale for $19.99. Home DNA Testing! That’s just what America needs! Find out who your baby daddy is without leaving the comfort of your home! Just be sure that he doesn’t notice you’re collecting his DNA! I guess it’s the logical next step – once you could get a pregnancy test at the drugstore, anything else is fair game. Next I’m sure they’ll have home STD tests, if they don’t already. Why get a doctor or lab involved at all?
I thought it must be a joke or something until I noticed it was actually a “collection” kit. Here’s a link to the website for this item. You pay the $20 or $30 for the kit and then send the collected samples to a lab to do the testing for another $120. Why do I have the feeling that the kit contains just a couple of Q-Tips and an envelope with the address of the lab on it? Maybe I should sell my own kits – seems like a money maker.
I’m not sure why this disturbs me as much as it does. I’m not some kind of morality crusader – far from it. I guess it’s just the fact that there’s a need and a market for this that gets to me. If I were dating a woman who had one of these kits in her medicine cabinet, I’d probably run the other way. Although it’s not much different from finding dandruff shampoo in there.
Latre.
What A Lovable Dunderhead!
Posted on | March 1, 2008 at 1:57 pm | 5 Comments
Will Ferrell has another sports parody movie out this weekend, called Semi-Pro. I’m beginning to think we’re going to see Ferrell do one of these movies about every sport in existence. I hope the next one will be about Kabaddi (love to see him in those shorts), but I suspect that after NASCAR, Figure Skating, and now Basketball, he’ll move up to Hockey, Baseball, or Football. His lovable clueless smarmy naked goofball characters have apparently really touched something in the American psyche, but how long can he milk it for? Aren’t people tired of that yet? It’s like he’s remaking the same movie over and over again.
Seriously, what is the appeal of this doofus? I think I hate him. He reminds me of the guys I loathed in high school who I knew would grow up to become car salesmen. I admit he is not without his charm and he can be funny, but the typecasting is wearing a little thin. The parallel career to his of course is that of Jim Carrey, who milked his shtick for as long as he could, and look where he is now. Where is he now, anyway?
If Farrell wants a lasting, diverse career, he should do more movies like Stranger Than Fiction, which was a bit of a break from his usual character and was actually pretty good. Too bad he never got a chance to make that Confederacy of Dunces movie, as that would play into his strengths and had a chance of being entertaining also.
One of Ferrell’s next movies is Land Of The Lost, a remake of an old Sid & Marty Krofft Saturday morning kids show that I have fond memories of. But why remake another old TV show? Didn’t he (or anyone else) learn a lesson from the botched Bewitched remake? (Never saw that one, myself.) I’m trying to figure out what kind of tone they’re going to use for LotL, and I keep coming up blank. It seems kind of pointless to parody a Sid & Marty Krofft show, especially since that’s already been done brilliantly by Saul Of The Mole Men. (I still can’t figure out why Johnny Tambourine has to stay inside that canister, or what he was doing on the Strata mission in the first place, but I digress.) I can’t imagine them playing LotL even partially straight, as a big budget summer actioner or something (Jurassic Park 4?). Plus, it’s already been remade once.
I won’t be rushing out to see Semi-Pro this weekend. I never even saw Blades of Glory, though I kind of wanted to for Amy Poehler and Will Arnett at least. Ferrell does surround himself with talented people. Or maybe he just owes them from the old SNL days.
More cowbell!
Latre.
For The Fallen
Posted on | February 29, 2008 at 8:07 am | 1 Comment
So… I understand today is Leaf Day. I just don’t get it. Don’t we already have Earth Day or Arbor Day or whatever it is? A day for leaves just seems a bit too specialized. At least it’s celebrated only once every four years. And why is it in the dead of winter when there aren’t any actual leaves around? That makes no sense. If this were a weekend, I could do my part and rake up the rest of the fallen leaves in my backyard, which I’ve been putting off since fall because the backyard gets no sun and has been full of snow and ice until now. (Yes, we’ve finally had an extended melting period with warm temperatures.) But no, Leaf Day falls on a weekday this year and I have to go to work.
And when it comes right down to it, I hate leaves. Especially during that raking season. Leaves have built-in obsolescence, and that’s never a good thing. They’re like my iPod battery. They just…
What was that? Leap Day? Oh, sorry. Never mind.
(Bad joke, I know. But when I got up this morning and turned on the TV news like I always do, I thought the reporter said it was “Leaf Day”, and in my just-woken-up half-a-brain state, I thought there really was a Leaf Day.)
Jogged Today: Yes (@ 36°F)
Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Jogging:
- “Closets of Henry” (Guided By Voices)
- “My Lagan Love” (Pledge Drive)
- “Prospects” (Madness)
- “Every Minute” (P. Hux)
- “Rollercoaster” (Mighty Lemon Drops)
- “Touch And Glow” (Bill Nelson)
- “Hellbelly” (Therapy?)
Pet Peeve of the Day: Almost got run over again while jogging by an SUV driver running a stop sign. Luckily, I had already slowed down for the previous car at the intersection (who also kind of ran it) and so didn’t attempt to cross in front of him. But I know he saw me, and he didn’t even slow down for the stop sign – he raced right through it. And yes, the driver was wearing a baseball cap. (But to be truthful, so was I.) And I was even actually jogging on the sidewalk instead of the road at that point! Grrrr. I flipped him off but I don’t think he saw it.
Latre.
See, I don’t even take Leap Day off. I’m a committed blogger.
Behind The Brown Door
Posted on | February 28, 2008 at 10:37 pm | Comments Off
Lately, a sign has been appearing in our office building on the door leading to the parking garage (actually, on the door leading into the first airlock to the parking garage; we have to go through two airlocks and three doors to actually get into the garage). The sign says QUIET PLEASE, DEPOSITION IN PROGRESS and it points to an unmarked door off to the left. I always wondered what was behind that door. Now I know: Lawyers! They’re sneaky and they hide.
I can’t quite figure out the purpose of the sign. Maybe it’s there to keep the architects from the office on the right side from congregating out in the hallway and making loud architect-y talk outside the Lawyer Door. Those architects do know how to party. Or maybe it’s there to keep people from slamming the door to the garage as they go in and out. Except that the door is on a slow-closing hinge and it’s impossible to slam it. Maybe it’s to silence the smokers out there in the parking garage beyond the three doors. They can be a rowdy bunch, especially if they’re also architects.
My personal theory is that it’s there to brag. “We’re lawyers and we’re doing big important lawyer-y stuff like depositions! Don’t disturb us with your watercooler hallway smalltalk about last night’s The Biggest Loser!”
Pet Peeve of the Day: When the instructions in a videogame say “Press [start button] to Pause”, and the start button has an entirely different effect and there doesn’t seem to be a way to actually pause the game. (This is the game in question, although I’m referring to the PS3 version, which I downloaded from the PlayStation Network Store to my PS3. It’s simple but strangely addictive and hypnotic. I bet a lot of people play it while in an altered state.)
Latre.
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