Thursdays 5 -Tony

BAH Humbug! 5 things i hate about Christmas!

Well, it’s December again. You know what that means right? It means that the beast of Christmas has risen from the sea of consumerism to plague humanity again!

Sure there’s plenty about Christmas to love, people become more giving, family meals, blah blah blah… but trust me, there’s much more to hate! Here’s some of my rants about Christmas:

1) Gift giving obligations

We find ourselves under obligation to give gifts to everyone our lives touch! In some ways giving out of “obligation” is the antithesis of generosity.

Our obligatory gift giving has spawned all sorts of illegitimate products that only show up around Christmas time:

> Deodorant/Aftershave samplers- for those friends/frenemies who you just don’t know well enough to buy anything meaningful for. And maybe they smell a little…

> Those Christmas mugs with christmas “treats” stuffed in them- They are wrapped in festive plastic, filled full of crappy candy/biscotti/other inexpensive (or even better faux-expensive) food items that no one would ever buy otherwise. These pre-packaged mugs are great when you need to buy a 5 dollar present for the 15 people you work with in the office and want to be assured that the crappy gift disbursement is equitable.

> Those $5, $10, $20 gift racks that show up in stores: Here you can find tire-pumps that fit in your glove-box, tool kits that are sure to disintegrate into fine metal powder the first time you try to put them to use, motorized rulers, flash-light/emergency beacon/dog whistle combos, and on and on… All stuff nobody really needs and few people want and even fewer will ever use.

2) Christmas music

The scourge of my tympanic membranes! It’s everywhere! Stores, restaurants, waiting rooms, funeral homes, meth labs, houses of ill repute, EVERYWHERE!!!

Plus every semi-washed-up recording artist vomits out their own collection of holiday tunes to torment the masses with (and make a quick and easy buck).

i HATE Christmas music!!! Maybe if it didn’t start playing publicly in Mid-August it wouldn’t be nearly as bad, which is the perfect segue into #3:

3) That it’s an attention whore

No other holiday is as much of an attention hog as Christmas! Don’t believe me, walk into any store on October 31st! ON Halloween we are bombarded by the first tsunami of Christmas crap! By the time Thanksgiving rolls around trees are twinkling in den windows across the land, strings of energy consuming (and visually garish) icicle lights are dangling from the front gutters of single and double-wide trailers alike, lighted plastic candy-canes are lining the walkways of suburbia! Power company CEOs across America dance a jig of jubilation as their profit margins sky-rocket as December draws nigh!

Some turkey has to lay down his life for us to feast on his tender flesh with our family members in our Thanksgiving festivities and before his mechanically separated head has landed in the tripe box many families have already bungee corded the 120volt 75watt plastic santa to their chimney!

Christmas, at least let Thanksgiving have it’s day before you come strutting in with all your tinsely pomp and demand that we see you!

4) Black Friday:

When GROWN men i know start getting up at 4AM with shopping fever something is woefully wrong! When as a nation we accept a couple of trampled grandmothers as collateral damage to us getting a real deal on a LCD TV from Best Buy, our society is broken! When ANY sale runs from “4AM till Noon”, we have reached a state of collective retardation that needs help!

Black Friday: i hate you! You represent everything that is wrong with Christmas in America! While people who live in rough neighborhoods have to cope with slow police response times YOU, Black Friday, pull a thin police force from protecting the poor to assuring that the middle-class don’t kill one another over PS-3s…..

5) Christmas Garb

It doesn’t matter how “adorable” you think it is, it’s just ugly! Only one piece of Christmas garb has ever brought humanity any real joy! And it is THIS ONE:

God Bless you Cousin Eddie for your Dark Dickie & White Sweater!

So yeah, i’m starting to hate Christmas! Why can’t we just be generous all year long instead of running up credit card bills on stuff people won’t use anyway? If you hate Christmas with me let me know! If you are absolutely in love with Christmas then feel free to wish bad tidings on me.

There are things i do love, watching my kids get stuff they’ve wanted, Rudolf on TV, The Christmas Story!, seeing family, getting Christmas cards…. Ok NOT that last one! Let’s strip a forest bare to produce land-fill fodder in the name of “Christmas Spirit”!

Anyway, happy birthday Jesus! This year we’re giving you unbridled consumerism for your birthday! Hope you like it!

Thursdays 5 -Tony

5 MORE Technological advancements we could do without!

In our world filled with technological marvels some are marvelous, others are just paltry baubles of modern society. Here are 5 i felt like complaining about today!

 

 

1) Blue Headlights

Because headlights weren’t blinding enough when met head-on in highbeam! We bring the world blue headlights, who possess the jarring glare of regular lights set to high even when they are only on low beams. God forbid a driver equipped with blue beams accidentally brights you! The retina searing power is roughly the equivalent to having Lasik Surgery done drive-by style!

 

Please Mr. Blue beams, get some normal headlights!

 

 

 

2) News Networks

We already live in a culture of paranoia! Having 24 hour news networks is like putting in a free wet-bar at the Betty Ford clinic! But, we not only have A 24 hour news network, we have MANY! All carefully tailored to fit your personal political slant on your obsessive socio-political nail bitting! (unless you are an honest to goodness centrist)

 

First off, there really isn’t THAT much news! It’s really just the same 45 minutes of coverage over & over & over & over!

 

Secondly, it’s just plain ridiculous! If you listened to the news networks (and many of us do) you would think the world will be doing good to hold out for December, 12 2012 to fold in on itself!

 

 

 

 

 

 

3) Remote Controls for Computers

One word: REALLY??!?!?

 

 

 

4) 3G networks

i know that my iphone tirade sort of bordered on this complaint but i can’t get away from it. Soon we will be a culture with access to ALL knowledge and retention of none!

 

that said, i’d still love to have a 3G phone, just in case you are looking for Christmas ideas for me! Also on the list: New Road Bike, New Back Pack, I-Tunes Gift Cards…. if you need any other suggestion feel free to ask!

 

 

 

 

5) Pre-Lit Christmas Trees

Honestly, i’m a total scrooge anyway, i have grown to despise the Christmas season! But i do like Christmas trees… sort of.

 

But a pre-lit plastic monstrosity? We, the plastic spoon society*, have become so bloated on satellite television and McLattes that we can’t even wrap lights around a fake tree?

 

*Plastic spoon: We live in a society where it’s “easier” to pump crude oil from the soil, refine it into plastics, mold that into spoons, ship them out where they are bought and used once to be thrown into landfills than it is to wash a dirty spoon when we are done with it.

Thursdays 5 -Tony

5 Best things about living in small town America:

 

Living in a small town definitely has it’s disadvantages; unless a new place opens you’ve already sampled all the local cuisine, God help you if you need some odd piece of technical equipment in a hurry, you have a limited amount of (typical) entertainment options… The list goes on, anyone who has ever lived in po-dunk-ville for yourself could easily add a couple hundred items to that list. But there are some pluses to living in a slice of Americana with fewer bodies per acre, here’s a few of of my favorite things about it:

 

 

 

1) The special pace of small towns:

Over the course of my life i’ve lived in a couple of small towns and worked in many more and one thing that seems to be common amongst them all is the pace that life seems to move at in a small town: s……….l………..o………….w…………….e…………….r…………………

 

There are times when i think i’ll have an aneurism having to wait behind a pair of “good-ole-boys” catching up on hunting conditions! What’s the problem with that my metropolitan friends may be wondering, it may have just a tad to do with the fact that they just stop on almost any two-lane road, back up and sit window to rolled-down-window talking shop; deer-scat, gutting techniques (the new “use your pick-up truck to yank the hide off” method seems to be quite the talk these days), calibers, bans on flavored tobaccos and just whatever other girlish chit-chat they need to catch up on.

 

Trips to Walmart can also wind up playing like something best reenacted by  the likes of Bill Murray. Jet into Walmart in any sort of hurry and you will find yourself practically assaulted by a spirit of Sloth, and i don’t mean laziness- i mean human beings channeling the very essence of the three-toed sloth of South America, moving slow enough to foster a thriving population of moss on their backs!

 

But overall, in a world that seems to be winding itself up to higher and higher speeds, a world where we don’t just want high speed internet- we want it in our pocket! The slower pace can be so refreshing. When i see some old guys sitting in a local eatery, lunch long consumed, just sitting and reading the paper or chatting or hitting on some calloused yet southern-friendly waitress i’m reminded that soon enough, just around the corner really, i’ll be dead and feeding microbes and invertebrates and if i don’t take a breath and drink in TODAY, today will be gone for good.

 

 

2) “Rush Hour”

Yep, there really is none! Sure there is a surge of traffic around quitting time but compared to the flames of tortuous aggression and bumper-to-bumper retardation of the D.C. beltway small town traffic isn’t even a match-flame.

 

 

 

 

3) You have a name:

In small town America, everyone has a name and lots of people know it. In a world where we are striving to live in anonymity (from online shopping to self-checkouts to ATM’s to automated call centers we are steadily removing human interaction from our world) it is nice to NOT be anonymous from time to time.

 

Sure it has it’s own breed of irritations, just try and do ANYTHING secretly in a small town! You have a colonoscopy and they are running the images on page 3 of the paper! Try to be anti-social for a day and you’ll find you have to stay at home to pull it off, go out for a tube of Pringles and a movie (even from the Redbox) and you’re going to bump into at least three people you know.

 

But, it was nice when a few weeks ago the manager of Walmart greeted me by first name. Or when the theater manager let me in for free. Or when i go down-town to grab a cheese-burger at the Grill and if the owner is in there i have trouble paying, he just won’t take my money just because i’m his nephew’s youth pastor.

 

It’s nice to be more than a social security or a debit card number.

 

 

 

 

4) Creative entertainment

i’m sure i’ve mentioned this before sometime but this is one of my favorite things about living in a small town. Life in a more metropolitan area means free time is usually consumed with going out to eat. i think if i lived in a city i would weigh 300lbs, i’d be that guy on the hover-round, heart straining to push my gravy-blood around my sprawling body-mass, lungs working like an asthmatic summiting K-2, ladling au jus over deep fried french toast sticks. Man, i LOVE food!

 

But i don’t live in a city, i live in the dead center of nowhere! Living inside a post-card picture has nurtured my love of the outdoors. And it’s to the outdoors that people in small towns must look for many of their entertainment options.

 

“Going for a swim” for me an my friends doesn’t involve a single drop of chlorine, instead it involves a minimum two mile round-trip on foot, a full fledged “swimming hole”, heck often they become full fledged Huck Finn-esque endeavors.

 

Small town living has to get some credit for my love of back-packing, biking, canoeing, and a flagrant disregard for “No Trespassing” signs!

 

You can have your Ruby Tuesday’s, PetSmarts, Sam’s Clubs and Cold-stone Creameries… give me my abandoned mines, fire-roads and low-traffic black top!

 

 

 

5) Firearms!

Where else can a man who hasn’t been on a hunting trip since he was 13 or 14 years old own an assault rifle and not raise a single eye-brow?

 

MAN! i do love my guns!

 

i don’t own many, but if you’d like to see them just break into my house one night while i’m asleep and i’ll introduce you to at least one of them!

 

Just knowing they are in the house makes me want to wear something that says “Carhart” on it, put the dog in the bed of the pick-up, crank up some Waylon Jennings crooning about “makin’ their way, the only way they know how” and ride to the store for a CASE- yes a case, not a box- of shells! My inner red-neck is cutting donuts in my brain on his four-wheeler as i write this!

 

 

 

 

When i was a kid growing up in a small town all i wanted to do was get out of small town living, but like so many who shared those same aspirations i found that i didn’t really mind living in a small town… in fact i prefer it!

Thursdays 5- Tony

5 Things i got from my first organized bike ride:

 

Last Saturday i loaded up my road bike and headed out for my first organized bike ride. i wish i could say i wasn’t a bundle of nerves with a sack of rabid butterflies for guts, but that would be a bold faced lie. It wasn’t a big ride by any stretch, many of the area die-hards were out of town for a mountain bike race. But i had caught the buzz… the Mt. Airy crowd was going to be there! Now, i realize that means absolutely nothing to the vast majority of the universe but if you live here in Galax it means a-lot. It means you are going to get shown up, you are going to look like a an asthmatic on a bike trying to keep up with Team Astana! Some of these guys are pros!

 

So it was with a low level of brooding dread that i pulled into the parking lot of the Rec Department Saturday morning for the Tour De Grayson (a ride to raise money for the High School’s French program) and took my 25 year old road bike off the trunk rack, and with trepidation made my way down to the registration table to sign in.

 

After what seemed like an eternity we were under-way. Here’s 5 things i took away from my morning spinning out mileage on two skinny tires (2 brand new tires actually, that burnt a $104 hole in my wallet!)

 

 

 

1) Found out where i stand as a biker

To all my non-bike riding friends this seems like a no-brainer. But to anyone who spends hours of their life perched on a tiny seat powering a motor-less vehicle till their quads are burning it’s not so cut and dry. i’m still hauling around 20 extra pounds (YES folks, i said 20. i know so many of you think i’m crazy but i won’t be genuinely competitive till i’m 170 or less- i know you guys think i’ve lost my mind, but i promise; i haven’t).

 

i spent most of the ride cruising along with riders way above my level. Granted they weren’t going flat out, but neither was i.

 

The next time i get an invite to a group ride i will be able to accept with little fear of looking like a chump, even if i can’t keep up at least i know i’m won’t be a laughingstock.

 

2) Found some new routes where i live to ride

i tell people all the time that we live in one of the prettiest places on earth. Sure we don’t have the craggy peaks of the rockies, or sweeping desert vistas veined with cannons; we don’t have white sand beaches with the rhythmic pounding of the surf or amber waves of grain; but we are nestled in the low rolling mountains of the east. The wooded (claustrophobic: as one of my friends who grew up out west calls them) Blue Ridge section of the Appalachian mountain chain.

 

We cranked out some great sections of rural roads through Grayson county. Some so great i went back on Thursday and rode them again.

 

 

3) Learned the power of a pace-line in practice, not just theory

About 15 miles in i got blown away pulling a long hill by a guy named Robert Marion (a pro Mountain Biker) & his 15 year old protegee Chase. i was spinning away pushing 15mph up-hill and they pulled past me with ease, even exchanging pleasantries in a conversational (read: non-winded) manner that left me exclaiming between desperate attempts to get oxygen to my oxygen deprived leg muscles, “Dude! You are a machine!”

 

Later, around 25 miles in, his wife (also a pro Mtn Biker) and two friends came pulling steadily past me as i was struggling against a pretty stiff headwind, riding single-file in a loose pace-line. As the last of the dynamic trio passed me i dropped in behind them and let them fight the headwind for a while. Actually i followed them re remaining 20 some odd miles in to the end of the ride.

 

i’d read plenty about running pace-lines and drafting, and although i didn’t often ride tight enough behind them to call it a true pace-line the difference was still readily apparent. Since i spend pretty much all my time on a bike in solitude it was a pleasant experience for me!

 

 

4) Bummed some training tips

At the end of the ride they provided us all with lunch. i ate most of my lunch  with the three race-team members and their two friends. Mostly i just listened. i was actually surprised by how genuinely nice they all were, mostly i just listened, and asked a few questions. i really wanted to know what folks on their level do to train.

 

Someone once told me, “The best training advice you will ever hear is, ‘ride; LOTS’”

 

Turns out that’s exactly what the bulk of their off-season training consists of, hours and hours spent on a bike. Since i love to spend time on a bike that was actually pretty comforting to me. Now to figure out how to get paid to ride a bike!

 

 

5) Set a new personal distance best

Before Saturday my normal “long” ride was around 35 miles. When we rolled in for lunch i had ridden 48.75 miles and felt like i had barely taken a spin around the block, in fact i went home and cranked out a quick 10 before finally taking a shower and tossing my funk-tified bike shorts into the dirty clothes pile.

 

That record didn’t stand for long, Thursday i took some time off and cranked out nearly 60 miles, again with little fatigue. Ready to spin up my first century as soon as i can carve out a day to do it!

 

 

 

So once again i’ve waxed long about my love of biking. Hopefully next week i’ll have some topic that’s more “generally” entertaining….

Thursdays 5 -Tony

5 movies that were better than the book:

We all know them, heck some of us ARE them, those people who huff as soon as the credits roll and scoff, “The book was sooooooo much better!” Nothing wrecks the after-glow of a good movie quite like that line. OF COURSE the book was better, its a BOOK! There is a level of intimacy you experience with characters in a book that is rarely rivaled via the medium of movies. But there are a few exceptions where the movie really does come off better than the book, here are my 5 picks of movies that are actually better than the books they are based on:

1) Where the Wild Things Are:

Might as well come out of the gate swinging. Yes, i know Where the Wild Things Are is a beloved and timeless children’s book, a Caldecott winner and that Maurice Sendak is an artistic Genius. i love the book! i think it’s great. But when i read the book it feels like the story of a bratty kid who gets sent to his room, spends a few hours fantasizing and returns to reality to find his dinner waiting for him. When i saw the movie it felt much more profound: Bratty kid acts like brat, gets in trouble and embarks on a journey of imagination that reminds us all that our ideal life may not be exactly what we think it is, that we need to face down our inner demons because if we don’t we’ll deal with them till we do.

Book:     93% Awesome

Movie:    95%  Awesome

2) Ben Hur:

One of my all time favorite movies. This movie is an Epic movie in every sense of the word. i don’t think any other movie even touched on the scale of it’s story-telling until Peter Jackson took a break from making horrible slashers and took the risk of putting Tolkien’s trilogy onto film (L.O.T.R.: Book better than the movie: Book 110% Awesome. Movie: 98% Awesome).

Charlton Heston really gets absorbed by Judah Ben Hur in the movie, quite a feat considering Heston’s stature. The movie takes a few minutes to wind up, but then grabs me by the guts and won’t let me go till the ending. The pacing is slower than modern movies, but it’s got that golden age of cinema pacing that makes everything feel so much more grandiose. The book on the other hand has this slower pacing that makes it feel well, just slow. If you haven’t seen the movie watch it! And remember, that chariot race is 0% CGI & cost human lives to film!

Book: 33% Awesome

Movie: 98% Awesome

3) Flowers for Algernon (Charlie)

When i was in High School, for some reason that is beyond me, we were forced to watch Flowers for Algernon in my 10th grade health and P.E. Class. Knowing the nature of P.E. teachers who teach us not only their passion of propelling various spherical & near spherical objects of varying resiliencies through the air for competitive reasons; but also are forced by school boards to teach us miscellaneous facts about how our bodies work*, i’m sure that at least to some extent their motivations were: Hey, watching a movie would eat up 90 minutes of class time OR a week of health class (with the alternation between “Gym Days” & “Class Days”).

i remember it was quite an affair, they herded all the Health and P.E. classes into the auditorium (my school had 3 gyms & therefore i think as many health and P.E. classes running simultaneously) and for three days one week we sat on those dark stained wooden seats and watched Flowers for Algernon. The tale of a mentally retarded man, Charlie (which is the name of the book),  who receives an experimental treatment that augments his intelligence to Hawking-esque levels. But alas- only temporarily. i remember shedding tears as it wound down, and tears in a 10th grade Health & P.E. class are the equivalent to throwing a lacerated hemophiliac into a shark pool. It’s a tough movie to find, but worth the time to watch it, the book on the other hand feels like it was written by Charlie after his experimental treatments have concluded.

Book: (aka: Charlie)  20% Awesome

Movie: (aka: Flowers for Algernon)  75% Awesome

By the way; Algernon is a lab mouse that also receives the treatments in the story.

*why any legitimate educator would pick P.E. teachers to teach  us Sex Ed is beyond me! We take the men who were the jocks in their own school career and task them with laying the foundation for the budding sexual awareness of the youth of our nation? On what level does this seem like a good idea? English teachers are the ideal choice for that job, the same people that teach you to de-code Shakespeare, it’s scandalous some of the things they required us to read, and aspire to be novelists would be much more equipped to share what is euphemistically referred to as the birds and the bees.

4) I Am Legend

The Movie I Am Legend is a great little Sci-Fi romp into a post-apocalyptic world where a modified virus has transformed humanity into a sort of zombie/vampire jacked up on PCP sort of monstrosity. It follows Robert Neville, played by Will Smith* (who is a class A action movie guy- if you don’t hold Wild Wild West against him), as he seeks to find a cure for the virus. In the movie  he has depth and does things that i confess i would probably do if i lived in an abandoned NY city, like set up a small population of mannequins  at his most frequent haunts and do things just because you could, like tearing through Central Park in a super-charged GT Mustang or hitting golf balls of the U.S.S. Intrepid into the city.

Really the movie came of as smart and engaging and i rooted for Neville through the whole thing, crying when Sam (his beloved dog) dies and literally sitting on the edge of my seat earlier when he searches for her in a building packed full of the infected.

The book on the other hand… well it felt like it was written by a 17 year old to target an audience of 17 year olds. Humanity had turned into what is closer to more traditional vampires and well, there really wasn’t anything wildly creative about it. Had i read the book first i would have skipped the movie altogether and that would have been a mistake on my part. When i read the book, instead of rooting for the main character, i found myself anxiously waiting for the vampires to finally get around to killing his boring self. When he finally does die it is boring and inglorious.

Skip the book, rent the movie

Book: 10% Awesome

Movie: 95% Awesome

* Will Smith is also one of the few human beings that if, via a tear in the time space continuum found himself in a no-holds barred cage match against himself, 40 years old vs 25 years old; the 40 year old version would literally break the 25 year old version. Literally. Break. Him.

5) The Princess Bride

For two weeks running one of the greatest movies of all times makes an appearance in my senseless ramblings!

It’s hard to best a master-piece. Honestly i almost skipped this one (although i do think the movie is better than the book) because comparing the movie to the book is like comparing the Mona Lisa (painting) to whoever the real Mona Lisa (the model) was.

Like Where the Wild Things Are, there is nothing at all wrong with the book, it’s just that the movie is so near to perfect that it almost “goes the way of Enoch”- it walked with God and was no more! The book fills in some gaps, and by claiming to be an “abbreviated version of S. Morgenstern’s longer tale” peppered with Goldman’s commentary it pulls off the same schticky feel that the movie pulls off by cutting to a protesting Fred Savage, “Wait there isn’t more kissing is there?”

Read the book and watch the movie; or watch the movie and read the book; or watch the movie, read the book and watch the movie again; or read the book and watch the movie between chapters- over and over again…

Book:   99.8% Awesome

Movie:  100% Awesome (not from concentrate)

Well, there’s my 5 picks for Movies that are better than the books. My fellow humans ; do you have any picks for movie over book? If so let me know (so i can enjoy the movie without feeling guilty for skipping the book it’s based on!)

Mondays 5- Tony (because i was lazy last thursday)

5* Great movies from my childhood that everyone should watch:

(Ok it’s really 9 but who’s counting?)

Not sure which movies my children will look at with the same warm fondness as these golden beauties from my childhood, probably Harry Potter, Finding Nemo, Wall-E, Where the Wild Things Are and the like.

A couple of years ago i picked up some DVDs with episodes of some of my favorite childhood cartoons on them. Listen people; if you have fond memories about how cool your childhood cartoons were do yourself a favor and DON’T re-watch them! i think i literally blushed with embarrassment as it dawned on me that my childhood addictions were really poorly animated, written by studio interns with proven low IQs and honestly just half hour commercials to sell us plastic toys with such high tech features as “battle punch” and “watch my thumbs fall off so i cant hold any guns anymore”.

But i did find some chunks of nostalgia that have held up against the passage of time and my own development of at least a shred of discerning taste: Those great movies that molded my childhood and made me the man i am today… or at least kept me entertained while my frail body awaited the onslaught of puberty.

1) The Goonies

If  The Goonies wasn’t a cornerstone of your childhood i only have one thing to say to you, “i’m so sorry, so very, very sorry.”

Where do you begin with The Goonies? There’s the truffle-shuffle, countless boobie-traps, crazed villains, One-eyed Willie, treasure, Sloth (loves Chunk), gadgets galore and….

Most Memorable Scene:

The broken statue! No other cinematic moment more fully tapped into my funny-bone as an 11 year old potty-humor loving boy than that statue scene. Then when they glue the statue’s “man-bits” back on upside down that was pure bafoonic-genius! Plus the whole thing just felt like something my mother wouldn’t want me to be watching on TV!

2) Stand by Me

i’m not sure if any other movie ever filmed has more accurately captured the heart of boys that are not yet teenagers but no longer “kids”. The dialogue, the interaction between the boys, the telling of bold face lies in the guise of “stories”, the bumbling usage of cuss words…

The main characters probably refer to one another as a part of the female anatomy more than in any other flick, ever. But hey! i remember that’s exactly how i talked to my 6th grade buddies and that’s how they talked to me.

Most Memorable Scene:

This one is a hard core tie- it’s either the scene where two of the boys are running down the trestle as a train bears down on them.

OR

THE Leach scene! That’s all that needs to be said.

3) Dark Crystal, Never-ending Story, Labyrinth

i’ve heaped all these “Puppet Movies” together (even though Dark Crystal is hands down my favorite by far). There is something magical about these classics. They rely heavily on suspension of disbelief, which is a thing of beauty in itself. In the age of “special effects over story-telling”* there is a certain magic about watching characters that are clearly puppets interact and embracing them as reality for an hour and a half.

Most Memorable Scene:

Never-ending Story:

WOW! What do you pick? Rock-eaters, snail races, sneezing turtles!!! But i think i’ll go with the ending, the ending that haunts me to this day! WHAT is the princess’ name????? WHO DID THAT SOUND EDITING? SATAN?

Labyrinth:

ANY scene where David Bowie is doing that thing with those glass balls! Although he could throw on some baggier pants.

Dark Crystal:

You know the most memorable scene if you love this movie. It’s the one you make sure everyone else in the room is paying attention. That one scene that makes brave men flinch and bold women jump! The scene where the critter jumps out of the hole in the log!

YEAH MAN!

Just FYI his name is Fizzgig, how do i know that? Pure nerdyness

*Michael Bay Footnote: Bay movies are a scourge in moviedom. They are the entertainment equivalent to rock-candy: Pure sugary empty calories that entice masses of underage consumers but that lack any real substance. Car chases and explosions are cool, but they DO not a plot make. Michael Bay, from the bottom of my heart i say to you, “Please STOP! You have already maimed the legacy of Transformers (especially with #2, which was well ‘number two’), destroyed G.I. Joe (which never really was all that compelling, it just seemed that way as a kid), and what’s next? Will you slaughter He-Man? Decimate the Thunder Cats? Open up your own CGI company and do what you love, but leave directing to those who can translate a plot to film”

4) Princess Bride

OK, seriously. Top 10 movies of all time material here. Easily THE most quotable movie of all time. i could nearly transcribe the entire dialogue of the movie from memory, Sans interaction between Fred Savage and Grandpa.

Has any movie ever been more ridiculous and more beloved? If you don’t like this movie, we are officially no longer friends… well, we probably never were!

Most Memorable Scene:

Has to be the sword fight! Greatest sword fight ever choreographed and archived onto celluloid.

Inigo: You seem a decent fellow. I hate to kill you.

Westley: You seem a decent fellow. I hate to die.

5) THE Star Wars Movies

To be absolutely clear that means IV: A New Hope, V: The Empire Strikes Back & VI: Return of the Jedi. AND it means them in their pre I-think-I-will-take-the-classics-I-made-and-add-a-ton-of-crappy-CGI-to-them-to-cheese-them-up versions. Thank you Lucas for crapping a big fat computer generated turd onto the movies nerds have cherished since infant-hood!

i honestly don’t have time to talk about episodes I,II & III here. Or how fans complain about Jar-Jar Binks but say little about Anakin’s un-compelling, rushed and unbelievable slide to the dark-side. The one great thing the “pre-quels” did have are Samuel Jackson, who is hands down the baddest Jedi to ever make wielding a purple lightsaber look totally masculine!

Most Memorable Scene:

My favorite scene in all the movies is in the first one (remember this is the real first one aka: a new hope) When R2 gets the trash compactor shut off and C-3PO hears their celebration via the com-linc and mistaking their cries of jubilation for bellows of pain laments their untimely deaths. i just love the way C-3PO’s metallic soul is crushed by his perceived failure

Sure there are other greats from my childhood, but these are the cream of the crop. Think the new Star Wars should be included in the seat of honor with the originals? Well go stick your head in a bucket of herring guts!

Thursdays 5 -Tony

5 negative traits i have that i should probably deal with, but more than likely won’t any time soon.

A couple of weeks ago i explored some of my neuroses with my “5 Things that Irrationally stress me out” post, today i delve deeper into my gray matter and take a look at some of my negative traits. Here are a few Tony-isms that drive people around me a little crazy from time to time:

1) Small Talk, bane of Tony:

i’m not really sure what it is, but making small talk is a tortuous experience for me. i wind up feeling drained and exhausted…

It’s not that i don’t like people, i do like people…. well most people…. ok some people…. ok a few people.

i really enjoy conversations with a group of people, but it seems that small talk is usually that one-on-one conversation with someone when you don’t really have much to say. What’s wrong with a little silence? Plus it’s hard to make snarky comments when it’s just you and one other person, it tends to make you look like like a smart aleck.

2) Money, it’s just paper:

i have this low level dislike of things financial.

i tend to let bills lapse into overdue or nearly overdue states.

i don’t keep my checkbook balanced, in fact i don’t even keep up with check numbers, i have partially used books of checks here and there, some in my dresser, one in my desk drawer…. thanks to online banking the rough idea of my accounts i keep in my head seems plenty sufficient to me.

i probably have the credit rating of a baboon with a Sear’s card and a life-time warrantied tool addiction that surpasses its simian income.

Heck, i have no clue what my credit score is! i’m sure one day, when i find my 400 acres of back-country heaven that’s going to bite me in the butt because i will probably be pre-rejected for a loan, but hey there is always “squatters rights”.

Please don’t misunderstand me, i like the benefits that come from having money, nice things, a dwelling, food, bike maintenance… but for some reason, deep inside, i’m sick of dealing with money.

3) “Hold the Bird”

“Hold the Bird,” it’s a phrase that has become like a mantra my friends chant in my presence. It comes from a parenting strategy. If you have a child who is easily distracted and likes to touch things, regardless of their market value, then you play a game with them. It goes like this:

Parent and child near store where expensive wares are sold. Parent looks at child, “I’m going to give you an invisible bird to hold, hold out your hands… now you will have to keep your hands cupped around this bird so it doesn’t escape.”

The child cups their hands together to make a fleshy dome for said imaginary bird to be safely contained within. If at any time the child gets distracted or tiny hands start to fondle exorbitantly priced products the parent gently goads, “Hold the bird”

“Hold the Bird” has become code for “Tony, stay on task” and is used countless times, especially during long meetings, by those closest to me.

4) Passive Aggressiveness

i’m sure that some of you think you are the kings & queens of passive aggressiveness, and i’ll let you think that since it obviously makes you feel better about yourself.

Honestly didn’t see this as a problem in my life till this summer when some friends pointed it out, to me it had always been more of an asset than a liability, and my internal jury is still out on this one.

One friend summed it up best at summer camp when after a tense meeting, during which yours truly had the floor for a few minutes, he said to me, “You are one of a kind, we were all laughing at what you said then we realized, ‘HEY! I think he just insulted me!”

Go Go Passive Aggressiveness!

5) self-destructive behavior

Maybe it’s a low-level rebellion thing but i have a tendency to do things even when i know they are not really in my best interest.

i do the normal stuff, like speed just because i can, run red lights at 3AM, but sometimes i find myself doing stuff just because i really shouldn’t. And God help us both if you accuse me of doing something i didn’t do but really wanted to do!

But sometimes in life you just have to live a little! You have to wind your car out into triple digit speeds, you have to ride the camp-mattress down the hill, you have to stick your arm through the bars and touch the monkey at the zoo!

Since most of you faithful readers know me personally, please, feel free to unload on me: What are some other negative traits i have? What are the things i do that make me a jerk from time to time? Let em’ fly… OR, tell me some of your negative traits, or even more fun some of Dave’s!!!!

Thursdays 5 -Tony

Disgusting Parent Drivel: AKA: Why my kids are better than the rest of the children in the world special edition of the Thursdays 5:

Yes, every parent on planet is Earth is deluded that their children are somehow more special than others. Fact is they may be special, but mine are the best. They may not be the strongest, smartest, fastest… w/e BUT my children are a special breed, independent, feisty, clever and 100% grade A smart alecks!

Today i celebrate them with 5 great quotes they have uttered:

1) “Hey Mom! Can I use Rees’ Axe spray? I want to do double pits to chesty!” -Ethan

i didn’t hear this one with my own ears but his mother relayed this tale to me. He was rummaging through the boy’s bathroom at his mother’s house and erupted with this. A nine year old product of advertisement.

This quote was made better by the fact that he strode from the bathroom and into the living room and demanded that his mother smell his chest! This may not seem like such a great quote but it really captures the spirit of E. We have always called him “little rooster” behind his back because he really thinks he owns the universe. He is one cocky little dude.

2) “My pants are like a paper towel that goes with me everywhere!” -Alyssa

She was sitting on the couch in the “chair room” (what was once a formal living room but is now an eclectic collection of give-away chairs and couches that serve as a makeshift bunk-room at our house for way-ward teenagers). She was eating something greasy and that was her response to my offer to get her a napkin.

This quote best illustrates the dichotomy that is my daughter. She is, at the same time, both very much a girl and very much a rambunctious tom-boy. Plus she’s just right.

3) “You’re NOT my Father!” -Rees

Rees is my firstborn, the first of the harvest of the fruit of my loins, and undeniably afflicted with the worst case of sarcasm of the crop. This is a staple of his comedic jabs. Often said in a distressed tone of voice as he pulls away like a whipped dog in public places. This always draws the attention of onlookers and elicits the low-pitched butthead-esque giggle that now emanates from his 15 year old pubescent chest cavity.

Just to explain a little of this, it’s typical family humor for us. i often threaten awful physical harm to them, the kind that would cause social workers to descend upon me with tazers and restraining orders:

“i WILL rip your leg off and beat you with it!”

“Don’t make me sic the dog on you!”

“Do you want ‘THE BOX’ when we get home?”

i am convinced that their laughter in response to these public threats is the only thing that has kept me from prison.

(i really don’t beat them….. that much.)

4) “Help, I’m Being Kidnapped!” -Rees

This was Rees was younger and i was taking him out of a crowded room for some legitimate punishment for misbehaving. It may have been at this moment that i realized i was raising a smart aleck.

Awkward moment? Yes

Glaring Looks? Yep

Fatherly pride? YOU BET!

5) “Yeah, dad killed him for doing that!” -Rees

This one was a moment of arrival in my relationship with my eldest. Let me set the scene for you:

i was working youth camp, it was for younger boys, as a cabin leader. Rees was assigned to my cabin and it was opening day.

Day One: the day when you establish that you are more dangerous than a navy seal with rabies. i laid down my “cabin rules” and when one of the more defiant boys asked what would happen if they broke one i glared at him, not breaking eye-contact with this juvenile punk i nodded toward Rees and replied, “Ask Rees what happened to his older brother when he broke that rule.”

The response (filled with trembling fear), “Yeah, dad killed him for doing that.”

Folks, this was un-planned, un-scripted, off the cuff action. my child had tapped into his hereditary portion of sick twisted humor and we had just tag-teamed a comedic moment! He had played his part totally straight-faced and to perfection.

Are there moral dilemmas to using a lie to keep kids at a church camp in line? Sure there are. Does it keep me awake at night? Nope.

So, deceived masses, you may honestly believe that your kids are on some superlative level, but alas: mine are truly superior.

Think your kids are funnier than mine? Want to schedule a cage match to the death of your darlings vs. my spawn? Got a great moment with your kid that won’t make me vomit (aka: if you refer to your daughter as “princess”)?

Leave us some feedback and share your story!

Thursdays 5 -Tony

5 Things that irrationally stress me out!

We all have stress in our life. With work, and bills; balancing checkbooks and kids’ fundraisers from school (Really, how much frozen cookie dough is a parent obligated to buy each school year?).

Life is chock full of things that stress us out. But i’ve noticed something about myself; there are lots of things that are stressful for me that are illogical stressors. These are not just mere “pet-peeves”, these are everyday parts of life that make my blood pressure rise and my neck tense up with anxiety.

1) Phone Conversations

Pretty much any phone. When Samuel Morse invented the telegraph that should have been good enough for human beings. Thank goodness that texting has brought the fine art of the telegraph into the post-modern world.

My dread of phone conversation is not just limited to those who’s company i dislike, not it stretches into the field of all those who i love and hold dear. Those people who i love sitting around a table laden with food and holding long conversations. But there is something about a phone call that can wreck a peaceful morning for me.

Maybe it’s the lack of non-verbal communication…. But then i would surely dislike texting and IMing, my two preferred forms of long-distance communication.

i suspect that it’s rooted somewhere in my adult ADD. My attention span is stretched in just a few short minutes on a phone call, stretch it out over 5 minutes in length and it becomes a herculean effort to focus my attention on the piece of plastic held against the side of my head.

There are times when a phone call is expedient, like when everyone has agreed to go out to eat, then (no small talk included) the call is made, the meeting place set; ready, set…. DONE!

Look it’s nothing personal… i just don’t want to chat on the phone.

2) Interstates

i think this stems directly from my time working in the telecommunications industry. We spent Hours and hours of our lives on these four to twenty-four lane monstrosities of pavement. Those days of my life were filled with long road trips to wherever the work was at. Working up and down the east coast, sleeping in poorly lit motel/hotel rooms (they are ALL poorly lit). Eating out every meal, except the ones where we made ramen noodles in the mini-coffee pot in the room.

Plus, they all look the same, long stretches of road and overpass, with towns  nothing more than a blue road sign informing you which chain restaurants are available to you.

i use them, mostly out of necessity, life is short enough already without burning up larger than necessary chunks of it in transit, but they fill me with a low level dread that thrums in my soul like a tire with uneven tread-wear at seventy plus miles an hour.

3) “Shopping”

Yes, this is the proverbial “Man hate”. But it’s genuinely something that wears on me. i can stroll through the mall with friends from time to time, but it’s not on my “top 10 things to do with a friday night” list.

In full blooded American-Capitalist-Consumer fashion i do enjoy buying things i want with money i have earned. But i get little pleasure out of strolling through shops full of things i have no desire to own or no need of for hours at a time.

Our idea of “Shopping” feeds our false feelings of “need”. We don’t even know that a chair that performs shiatsu massage while exfoliating our heels and projecting golf scores onto a H.U.D. even exists until we stroll into Brookstone. But once we’ve sat in the mechanical monstrosity suddenly our life won’t be complete without it. Then once we max out our credit card buying it, it sits in the basement den gathering dust and old magazines until we part from it at a yard-sale.

On some levels i’m as guilty as everyone else. i see, i want…. Often i see, i want, i spend irresponsibly to acquire my desires. i can burn through a solid hour flipping through used CDs in a record store, looking for the hidden gem i just know is in there. But for the most part i know that if what i have hasn’t made me happy yet, i’m not gonna find happy on a 60% off sale rack .

4) Picking a place to eat

The more people involved in this decision the worse it becomes. Rarely do i have strong cravings for any particular eatery, but on those days that i do it always seems that every one else in the party would rather volunteer to give an rabid elephant an enema than eat at my choice.

It always seems like when in a group you will always wind up eating somewhere where 80% of the menu has been battered and deep fried, where the idea of fresh vegetables is either a fresh sack of frozen steak fries OR broccoli “steamed” into flaccid submission.

Look folks, we’ve got about 2,000 calories a day to ingest and i LOVE to eat, i have a long standing love affair with eating. i just don’t want to blow a big 1,200 calorie surfeit-fest on food that i don’t really care for.

In my solitary existence i make it a point to eat what i like and like what i eat, that becomes very difficult indeed when out with other homo-sapiens.

5) Gift giving/Receiving

i DREAD Christmas time, primarily because of gifts.

i HATE surprises. If you want to give me something, just tell me what it is, i can wait to open it till the appointed time OR don’t tell me you’ve gotten me anything. As a child i ALWAYS opened my presents early and re-wrapped them. Seeing them laying under a tree wrapped in poinsettia printed paper caused me so much distress. i’m sure its some sort of nervosa that is probably cataloged in the DSM.

It’s stressful for me to give gifts as well. i LOVE to give people things. i DESPISE the silly obligation of major gift giving event that cause us to give people things they don’t want or need, and cause those people to do the same to us.

If not for our obsession with having to give someone presents at certain times would anyone ever have assembled the Deodorant/Cologne sampler box?

At the risk of sounding like an ungrateful clod; i don’t like getting stuff i don’t want. If you are assigned (for whatever reason) to gift me something just give me cash or a gift certificate. i know those two are supposed to be cold and impersonal, but as a man who has been a dad for the last 15 years of my life, i am perfectly accustomed (and HAPPY) to pick out my own presents.

What things in life irrationally stress you out? Think i’m a pig because i was honest about not liking gifts i don’t like? Want to join my anti-christmas coalition? Got some cash or gift cards you want to send my way? (Maybe a  2010 model Trek Madone 5.1 you want to donate to the cause?) Leave me a comment, or text me to tell me what a jerk i am (DON’T CALL).

I Don’t Wanna Be Like Mike, I’d Rather Be Like Dave

Ok, this story is a couple of weeks old I know, but I’m just now able to blog about it. I’ve had several discussions with friends and family and thought maybe I need to put in a blog.(plus Tony is hounding me again to blog something)

In case you missed it or you are part of that rare and really weird group of people who don’t follow all things sports, Michael Jordan was accepted to the basketball Hall of Fame a few days ago. If you don’t know who MJ is then please stop reading my blog forever because you are truly detached from society as I see it and would not understand my blogs anyways. I’m serious, go back to iamuninformed.com if you do not know who the greatest basketball player of all time is.

I had the privilege of living in the Chicago area when Michael was drafted by the Bulls and followed his career with great enthusiasm. He was awesome, and those who saw him play know exactly what I’m talking about.

Because of his induction, ESPN was playing his best moments and best games. So I sat down with my youngest son who has only heard of MJ and we watched together the greatest basketball player of all time do things on a court that left us speechless and I had seen all this before.

I forgot just how good he was, and my son realized all the stories about MJ were not only true, but didn’t do him justice. I mean, it was unreal how good he was and it was a special moment to share this with my son and describe the glory days of the Bulls in the 90’s and relive those moments.

This all came crumbling down when MJ gave his acceptance speech into the Hall of Fame. In case you didn’t see this, it was by far the worst speech I have ever witnessed. It was a train wreck and unfortunately erased every good thought I have ever had about Michael Jordan.

What a jerk. Jordan has accomplished pretty much all you could in the NBA. Six NBA titles, five MVPs and two Olympics golds. And yet he sounded like a guy who’s been screwed out of every trophy ever minted. He’s the world’s first sore winner.

In the entire 23-minute cringe-athon, there were only six thank yous, seven if you count his sarcastic rip at the very Hall that was inducting him. “Thank you, Hall of Fame, for raising ticket prices, I guess,” he sneered. By comparison, David Robinson’s classy and heartfelt seven-minute speech had 17. Joe Montana’s even shorter speech in Canton had 23. Who wrote your speech Mike? Kanye West?

Not that Jordan’s speech wasn’t from the heart. It was. It’s just that Jordan’s heart on this night could give you frostbite. Nobody was spared, including his high school coach, his high school teammate, his college coach, two of his pro coaches, his college roommate, his pro owner, his pro general manager, the man who was presenting him that evening, even his kids!

“I wouldn’t want to be you guys if I had to,” he said as they squirmed in their seats.

He even mocked his own brothers, calling them maybe 5-foot-5 and 5-6. Actually, they’re about 5-8 and 5-9. Michael was the one blessed with the height gene, not the tact one.

Jordan had decided that this was the perfect night to list all the ways everybody sitting in front of him had ticked him off over the past 30 years: Dean Smith, Doug Collins, Jerry Reinsdorf, Pat Riley, Isiah Thomas, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, George Gervin and Jeff Van Gundy. It was the only one-man roast in Hall of Fame history. Only very little of it was funny.

The thing Jordan doesn’t understand is, it doesn’t have to be this way. Terry Bradshaw won four Super Bowls and gave one of the greatest speeches in the history of the Hall of Fame. “Folks!” he hollered. “You don’t get elected into the Hall of Fame by yourself! Thank you number 88, Lynn Swann! Thank you, Franco Harris! Thank you Rocky Bleier! What I wouldn’t give right now to put my hands under [center] Mike Webster’s butt just one more time! Thank you Mike!” He thanked linemen, tight ends, everybody but the ushers

It was supposed to be an acceptance speech, but the last think Jordan seems to able to accept is moving on.

I used some of Rick Reilly’s article on this because I thought he summed up what I was feeling so well. But what made Jordan’t speech look even worse was it was contrasted with David Robinson’s speech.

David Robinson who has always been a class act, took time to thank a lot of people, but he spent most of his speech on his family and on God.

He spoke to each one of his three boys and took this public stage to brag on them instead of himself. He built up his sons and poured into their life on a night that was supposed to be about him. It was hard not to tear up. It was incredible. Then he focused on his wife and honored her for her sacrifice and showed the world how husbands should love and cherish their wives, again, it was hard not to tear up. Yeah, ok. I cried, so what.

Then Robinson finished by telling the story of the 10 lepers and only 1 coming back to thank Jesus, and he simply looked to the sky( or ceiling because they were inside) and said “thank you.” He did it in a way that was unassuming, nonjudgemental, and totally sincere. I say that because there are some people, when they share their faith in these moments, you almost feel embarrassed, or like it makes christians look pushy or obnoxious. But this was not only genuine, the whole room was reverently silent and then gave a standing ovation.

Now that was an acceptance speech. So, I don’t wanna be like Mike, I’d rather be like Dave

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