Year: 2007

A coworker/friend was talking about experiencing déjà vu, and the idea that it’s an indication of us experiencing the path that we’ve already chosen for ourselves. Then she was wondering why she would have chosen the path she did – wouldn’t you pick something better?

friend: Do you think you choose the path, or just points A and B and the path can be anything that gets you there?
me: You mean, maybe I chose to die a millionaire and didn’t care about the path, thinking I’d be rich my whole life? But in reality I’m just going to always be like this and then hit the lottery the day before I die?

The lesson here is don’t try philosophizing with me…

The official “Free Paris” petition currently has 18,152 signatures. The slightly less official “Jail Paris” petition currently has 33,502 signatures. I just can’t make up my mind which side to join, can you? I mean, they both make such excellent points…

Is this a weird topic? Of course it is. But dammit, I’ve got some Pat Benatar blasting in the office, and I need to know. So, tell me: is Michelle Pfeiffer a good actress?

In his The Ten Worst Superhero Movies of All Time, Jess had the audacity to claim that Miss Pfeiffer can’t act. Bah! some people were wont to exclaim. She is dynamic! Well, in reality these were comments on a blog, so they were mostly, “You must be f’ing retarded!” I was torn on whose side to take: on one hand you have typical, mindless, Internet trolls and on the other you have a guy willing to trash Shaq Diesel’s performance in the epic Steel.

Granted, listing Grease 2 as an argument against her acting prowess is like trying to trash De Niro’s career for Rocky and Bullwinkle, but is it merely an exception or the rule? These are the questions that keep me awake at night, people!

As I scrolled down the list of the rollicky catwoman’s movies, I suddenly came to a realization – she really hasn’t done anything. I mean, she’s made a few films to receive notice, but outside of looking hot in black vinyl, I can’t recall anything worthwhile she’s done. Should I be calling her out as a hack, or does she get a passing grade for her looks, the crowd-pleasing “Ladyhawke”, and a bit part in the classic “Amazon Women on the Moon”? Please, I need answers!

As the Woman and I were getting ready for work this morning, she glanced out the window and noticed a deer in our backyard. There’s really no better way to start your morning. Well, unless that deer is followed by two more who wander out to start grazing on your “lawn”. I put the word lawn in quotation marks, because I’m pretty sure a stretch of ground needs to be at least 50% grass-covered to qualify, and I think that may be a little too high for the current state of the back.

Back to the deer. The first time we saw any in our backyard was the Monday morning after our wedding. That’s right, our first morning in our house as a married couple and we saw a deer and her kid seeking shelter on our unkempt property. After I left that morning, the Woman even got to watch the momma deer nurse her young ‘un. Amazing.

This morning, the three deer were moving back and forth between our yard and our neighbors, looking for choice greens. I managed to take some photos after cracking a windows open just a few inches. When I tried to approach down the side path, the lone remaining deer heard my clumsy footsteps and stood up in a completely unmenacing way. Nevertheless, I soon envisioned myself becoming the first person in the neighborhood to be mauled by a freakin’ deer. So I let him be.

Every time I work on our yard (which is, like, twice a year) I think about how much it needs to be cleaned up. Clearing out a lot of the… brush is the only way to describe it… would make it so much more inviting for humans. But for now I prefer it being more inviting for wildlife. That’ll change when we plant some veggies and suddenly we find ourselves chasing off those “pesky” deer. 😉

I used to follow the box office reports somewhat regularly. I was fascinated by what it took for a movie to really make a lot of money. Most people don’t really get what a phenomenon something like Titanic was and that, no matter how many times you read those Harry Potter books, nothing is going to come close to touching it for quite sometime.

But it’s become just silly over the past few years. The fact that the movie industry hates to reveal how many people are actually seeing movies just shows how much of a farce it is. They rely on the total money brought in, and hope that people don’t realize that increasing ticket prices from $9 to $9.50 will increase that number even if less people see a movie. But it must be popular! Look at how much money it made!

This week, as you are bombarded with news clippings about Spider-Man 3 shattering all kinds of records, just take a quick look at the real numbers. Am I really supposed to be impressed by a movie that grossed about $12.5 million more than the previous record holder when it opened on about 1500 more screens? And this isn’t me being bitter or anything – as much as I loved the first Pirates of the Caribbean, I still haven’t seen the “record-breaking” sequel yet. And as much as I dislike Spider-Man, I enjoyed the first movie and want to see this one in spite of the turd-fest second sequel as it’s got the lone awesome character from that comic: VENOM!

Ugh, I hate becoming a crotchety old man, but I sure do miss the days when you had to pick which theater you were going to because not everyone was playing all of the big releases. And when the 10 screen multiplexes finally showed up, they weren’t using 6 of the screens for a single movie. Remember those days when movies laster longer than their opening weekends? And yet the industry wonders why more people just wait for it to hit DVD – the theater experience just flat out sucks these days.

You pull up to an intersection. You find yourself sitting at a red light. The red light tells you not to go through the intersection. But you want to be on the other side of the intersection. You want to go through the intersection even though the red light is clearly telling you to stay put. Surely the red light will change to another color. One that will indicate you are now allowed to pass through the intersection. One that will let you continue on your way.

And so you must be ready. You must be vigilant. You must make sure that you can advance at the exact moment that the light tells you – the instant that it no longer hinders your progression. And so you ease forward. Slowly. Painfully. Perhaps illegally. You are jealous of the people that are already able to proceed, as the red light is not directing them at this time. But you must remain focused for the precise moment at which the time will become yours. Inch by inch you proceed. Past one white line. Then another. Then another. Seemingly in defiance of the red light you are now halfway into the intersection. Perhaps you are breaking the rules, but the timing must be exact. And so you continue.

And then a thought occurs to you: What if the red light isn’t going to change? What if all of this creeping is for naught? What if your path through the intersection was an impossible task? As your brain ponders the possibility that all of your effort will be wasted, you see the person next you speed through the intersection. Hey, look at that – the light turned green!

—
This short story was brought to you by the guy in the car next to me on Bloomfield Ave this evening, who was so anxious to gun the engine during the red light that he forgot to actually hit the gas when the light turned green. I’d be more amazed if I didn’t see this happen so frequently. You know, except when the guy decides that the light actually isn’t going to change and just blows through the red. Yes, I am easily amused (and frustrated) by drivers around me.

Hey, so what have you been up to? Really? That’s good… How’s the wife and kids? That’s good… Oh, me? This weekend was like my coming out as a social butterfly. Partying with the neighbors. Partying with friends. Partying in NYC. Geez, it never stops.

Alright, maybe I’m using the term “partying” a tad loosely. Especially when I’m not even partaking in alcoholic goodness these days (you can ask me about that later). But a full plate for the weekend certainly boosts my self esteem. Along with getting to hang out at the neighbors for a PartyLite show and joining friends for a lovely “couples” dinner in celebration of a birthday, the big to do was getting to see Yo La Tengo Sunday night over at Webster Hall. Now it’s halfway through the week and I’m still trying to get my bearings.

I really want to write more about Yo La Tengo, because it’s been a few years since I’ve seen them and simply couldn’t resist the chance after hearing their superbly-titled, latest effort, I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass. But there really isn’t much I can say to convey the awesomeness that is 2 hours of rocking, noisy pop on stage. I took lots of photos, but I have no idea how they look yet as I refused to use the flash and haven’t uploaded anything. But Monday night, at practically the last possible minute, I decided to plunk down the money while Lightroom was still at the introductory price of $199 so that I can do some real post-processing and… you know… actually post photos for you.

So, that’s what’s going on these day. I swear, I’ll keep in touch better… We’re still BFF, right?

My basement is dry. The parking lot at work is open. The roadways are clear. But not everything is back to normal. I didn’t get to take photos the other day on the drive along Horseneck Road, one of the more frequently flooded stretches in the area, but the scene was pretty depressing. Just about every house on the way had a tower of trash at the end of its driveway awaiting pickup. A whole lot of carpet has been rolled up for the garbagemen.

Even though the storm was over last Sunday night, the Passaic River didn’t crest until Tuesday, which resulted in my company shutting down for a day and a half. That’s when the road in front of the building completely flooded, and remained in bad shape until Friday. Even when we came back on Thursday, the water was high enough that we had to park at Target and cross the street. I didn’t bother with photos of my basement, because that really wasn’t anything special, but I did take some photos of the damage near Unigene:

Doesn’t TV just suck? No, I don’t mean that it’s not entertaining. I’ve got way too many shows I’m following at this point to not find it entertaining. But do you remember the days when a season began in the fall and went through to spring when re-runs would begin? And you got to watch the entire season in sequence, except with the occasional missed week for a sporting event or political speech.

These long breaks anymore are killing me. I don’t remember “Family Ties” ending episodes with the message that it would return in two months unless, of course, it was the season finale. I got to watch “Growing Pains” and “Mr. Belvidere” without having to figure out some convoluted schedule as to when episode 6 would actually hit the air. Because it was right after episode 5!

Yes, I’m just bitching because the wait for “Heroes” until tonight as been painful. I mean, the show delivers in spades. It’s probably the greatest thing on TV, but having to wait over month for it to continue is ridiculous. “Lost” already suffers from a slow enough pace, the two month hiatuseses… hiati… gaps are just painful. And in the meantime, they’re shuffling around promising new shows like “Thank God You’re Here” for new “reality” crap like “The Wedding Crashers”. Honestly, the Woman and I laughed at it, but we laugh at just about anything remotely humorous. Hell, we’ve been laughing at this skit non-stop since Saturday night.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, “Heroes” rocks. Watch it…

I have other things to post about, but man do I need to clear some tabs first.

• Fortunately, the Woman doesn’t read defective yeti, otherwise she’d have a new term to describe my most annoying trait: e-social.
• Things I really want: This foosball table (thanks to kottke) and these http://www.kottke.org/remainder/07/04/13215.html“>glasses.
• King of the Cul-de-Sac – holy crap, who would have thought “white boy rap” could be so funny? And I totally need that “Self-made Hundredaire” t-shirt.
• As for the regular variety of rap, Snoop Dogg reminds us all that it’s still only OK for black rappers to be racist and mysogynist because, you know, they’re speaking from the heart, motherf***er. (thanks to kottke)
• Things are not going well for Internet Radio, but you can check out The SaveNetRadio Coalition to see how to help.
• Then again, after reading an interview with the head of an INDIE label, I’m not sure that I even want to help them. I reiterate my threat, that very soon I will just outright stop buying any and all CDs until that industry can figure itself out (I’ve already stopped buying DVDs).
• But… but… violating copyright laws is exactly like raping a goat, isn’t it? Nice try again, Scott. I understand you like to make money without putting any work into it, who wouldn’t?
• I’m just wondering if Kongo Gumi are going to have really cheesy, late-night commercials celebrating how their loss of a 1400 year-old business means crazy savings for you. “Our ancestors ran this business for a millennium before America was colonized, yet we screwed it up. How lucky for you! All temples must be sold!” (thanks to kottke)
• I readily admit that I enjoyed the Microsoft “Wow” commercials, but “Mesmerized” commercial for Office 2007 is utterly brilliant. The rest of the series (which I still need to watch) is listed on istartedsomething. Of course if these videos had been done by Apple, they be praised long and hard across the Internet – since it’s Microsoft, you’ll see every flaw pointed out in comments.
• And in case you missed the past decade of funny clips on the Internet, here they are.
• Renée C. Byer won a Pulitzer this year for her collection of 20 photographs following single mother of 5, Cyndie Madsen, as she lost her 10 year-old son, Derek, to cancer. One of the most compelling galleries I’ve ever seen, I could not make it through to the end.
• I won’t leave you guys on such a downer, please watch these bunnies over and over again until you feel happy again.

I’ll get back to my real life tonight…