May 29, 2009

 

what's so red as strawberries in the summertime




Later this summer I'm going to ride my bike from Seattle to Portland.

In anticipation of this I've been going on 20-30 mile bike rides after or before work a few times a week. It's been pretty great since Cache Valley is more or less breathtaking this time of year.

Yesterday I was cruising through Amalga (or somewhere around there) and a bird that had been sitting on the side of the road flew right into my front wheel. I tried to swerve but it came at me too fast.

At first I was afraid it would lock up my wheel and I would go flying off the front of my handlebars, but all I heard was the small crunching noise of his bird neck fracturing.

On the way back I saw the bird on the side of the road but I didn't stop to look at it. Is it weird to think that killing a bird in the spokes of your bike is kind of manly and awesome?

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May 18, 2009

 

you had to be there

I would suggest that there is a sub-genre of movie that could be described as "beloved child classic." This designation means that if you see the movie as a child, you will no doubt love it and and quote it endlessly, and then later on in your life you will hear someone mention it and you will breathlessly exclaim, "Oh yeah! That movie is a classic! The part with that thing at the place! Hilarious!" Meanwhile, people who saw the movie in their late teens or twenties will wonder why you think the movie is of any redeemable value and will begin to question why they spend time with you.

Sometimes these movies are perfectly fine "family" movies that could be enjoyed by anyone regardless of age, but will not hold up as well as one ages. Examples: The Goonies (I saw this for the first time when I was 16. Not too impressed), The Princess Bride (I saw this when I was ten; I liked it, but not that much), The Neverending Story (I saw this quite young, and loved it. You couldn't pay me to watch it now), Flight of the Navigator (this one actually scared the hell out of me when I was young, but it wasn't that good), Short Circuit (I saw this as a kid and then much later. It sucked), etc...

Then there are the obviously crappy movies that could have only seemed great back when our minds were much simpler. These movies are the ones that the 80's nostalgists will go on about endlessly and will sometimes purchase commemorative TV shirts of. Crappy cartoons (Thundercats, Strawberry Shortcake, Transformers), crappy comedies (Police Academy, Ummm, Revenge of the Nerds), and crappy teen movies (Teen Wolf, The Secret of My Success, Teen Wolf Two, Mac and Me?) will always be crap no matter how much fun you had watching them over summer break with your cousins from Michigan.

Sometimes even really awesome movies that seem to be timeless when they come out can, on second look, turn to crap. I watched Terminator 2 a while back after not having seen it for many years and boy did I not enjoy certain aspects of that movie. The whole thing where Arnold is a killing robot that exists to blow people's skulls open, yet he sensitively asks Edward Furlong why humans cry and then gives young John Connor a thumbs up as he is lowered into the molten metal? Lame. Arnold is not E.T., he is a merciless instrument of destruction from the future. Duh.

Here are the movies I saw as a child and still enjoy:



1. Ghostbusters (AMAZING TO THIS DAY. WHO ARE YOU GOING TO CALL INDEED, SIR.)



2. The Blues Brothers (I just picked this jem up at Walmart for five bucks. That's like 45 crashed cop cars per dollar!)



3. Indiana Jones Movies (Does not include the new one with Shia Lebouf swinging from vines like Tarzan.)



4. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (There are so many things wrong with this movie--mostly Christian Slater--but also so much right with it--mostly Alan Rickman.)

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May 8, 2009

 

Congratulations salesmen, you're officially the worst


I know that a lot of things are the worst, right? Like, going to the dentist is the worst, or having to shoot your dog after he gets rabies is also the worst. But seriously, salesmen are the worst.

Granted, there are probably some salesmen out there that are not so much the worst, but generally they indeed are just the worst kind of person.

This week at work I found out that the "sub-office" I work in with ten other people is being taken over by the sales department and made into an office/lounge for two of the main sales guys. Sure, I'm a realist--I know that office politics dictate that things like this will happen, but these marketing guys make me wish I could go back in time to punch them in the face when they were little kids (it would be more traumatic that way) and then go even farther back in time and punch their mothers in the face before they were born (just out of spite).

You know these guys: always dressed in gym clothes with sweat bands in inexplicable places (really guy, do you need one on your ankle?), always wearing their North Carolina Tarheels ball caps backwards while looking up You Tube clips of last night's ball game, always talking about how sore their lats are from yesterday's workout...

They're so arrogant, but really they don't do anything but answer the phone and lie to old people. Hey good job man, you just tricked an 85-year-old lady into buying a warranty she'll never use and told her that the delivery guys will bring it into her house even though you know they won't. Screw her! Just because her doctor told her she needed to exercise more because of her hypertension doesn't mean you shouldn't employ some of those "closing tactics" you learned last summer lying to old people in Atlanta for APX! Your job is really something to be proud of at the end of the day, you know. You're making a difference!

I guess in the end it proves that people don't really change from the high school versions of themselves. These salesmen guys were scamming good grades out of their teachers and talking about fantasy football while I was drawing cartoons of my teachers getting pooped on by birds. Now, those guys get paid to be the best liars they can be (while sitting around talking about fantasy football), and I draw pictures of birds pooping on my college professors.

Moral of my story: If you are a salesman, don't lie to people because then nobody will respect you, not even your fellow salesmen, and late at night when your wife and children have gone to sleep you will feel a slithering sense of existential dread creeping over you like a terrible leaden blanket, and you will begin to think that underneath all those layers of fake handshakes, expensive colognes, and white-strip enhanced smiles--you have no idea who you've become.

Actual moral: I really don't want to move all my stuff to a new desk.

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May 5, 2009

 

And now for my yearly political post


Here's the problem with people who get upset about "big government" such as those Fox News sponsored tea-baggers:

The government spends most of its money on three programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. These are very popular and very useful programs politicians touch at their peril.

"Small government" politicians know that to actually shrink the government would mean cutting one of the three major entitlement programs. They also know they'd be (rightly) ridden out on a rail for doing so. So they talk vaguely about "waste" or "pork barrel spending" when pressed for details of their budget proposals. I've never seen anyone genuinely concerned about the size of government honestly put forward proposals that would really shrink it. In general, small government rhetoric is sophistry designed to inflame people's prejudices, not a philosophy of governance.

If all these so called conservatives were really serious about less government they would man up and become Libertarians instead of having supported Bush with his "tax cuts" that benefited the wealthiest .05% of the population.

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