Call Screening and the Boogeyman

I just saw (and coincidentally can hear right now) the ad for that soon-to-be-released new movie "One Missed Call." The ad leads me to believe that the movie's main players get a cellphone call telling them the time of their deaths. Then, whammo! They die at the time they were told. Oooo, creepy! NOT!

Maybe I've seen way too many horror films (er, thanks, Mom) because I told The Zen Master that if I got such a call on my cell I'd say, "Hey, is this counting against my minutes? Or since this call seems to be from me, myself, and I, is it considered part of my 'friends and family' minutes?"

"One Missed Call" seems a lot like every other horror film involving a group of teens or twentysomethings that's been made in the last decade. I just don't see the point of them anymore, but then again I was exposed to what felt like practically every horror/slasher movie (both big-budget and B-grade) of the 1970s and 1980s.

Mother is a big slasher/thriller/horror movie fan. She'd find a new abomination at the video store, like "Silent Night, Bloody Night," and bring it home for a family movie night. "Pop the popcorn, kids! This one has a decapitation!"

So, I'm over horror movies. "Scream" was clever; I'll admit it. But I can't watch most of that genre anymore. I jump in my chair at all the right (wrong) parts, but that stuff doesn't entertain me now. I saw both of the recent The Hills Have Eyes movies in the theaters because someone else suggested we go--during some parts I thought I might lose my lunch all over the people beside me.

Hands down some of the truly creepy, scary, make me jump in my seat things I've ever seen on TV or movies were on that old show "Unsolved Mysteries." So many of those stories were truly terrifying (and fascinatingly entertaining) because I knew they were real. Even some of the more heartwarming tales of folks who passed away and then sent comforting messages to living relatives creeped me out so much I was afraid to get up out of my chair. I never wanted to watch that show unless there was a lighted path from the living room to my bedroom and to the bathroom.

Thinking about that show now gives me the chills! I'm glad the box springs of my bed are sitting right on the floor so there's no space underneath for someone or thing to hide tonight!

Merry End-of-Year Festive Event, everybody!

A co-worker commented the other day on the prevalence of "Top Ten" lists appearing in the media this time of year -- the year's top ten movies, the year's top ten scandals, etc. I told her that top ten lists are popular because they're an easy way to fill up unused column space while munching on snacks from the office Christmas party and waiting for the boss to leave so you can slip out early -- pick ten of ANYTHING, write a couple paragraphs apiece about them, and you're done!

Now, in an entirely unprecedented move, I'm going to actually TEST one of my off-the-cuff pronouncements by doing some top ten lists myself over the coming weeks, months, or however long I can keep this up without lapsing back into my traditional venom-spewing and insult-slinging.

Since it's the day before Christmas, we'll be starting with "Brother's Top Ten Christmas Presents".

The rules: presents have to actually be available (legally) here in the real world... presents have to be within the purchasing power of a fairly-successful but not INSANELY generous individual... presents have to be things I think I'd actually keep and/or use, rather than being fodder for exchanges, store credit, or the dreaded "re-gifting".
Also, in complete defiance of the whole "sorting and ordering" concept of the Top Ten list, these selections are in no particular order.

10. A Playstation, Xbox, or similar device.

Sure, I could buy myself one of these, but I haven't, because past experience has indicated that I'd spend WAY too much time on it. I'm one of those people who has trouble letting a problem lie unsolved, and whenever I've played these games in the past, I end up constantly going over and over them in my head -- "There has to be SOME way to reach the end of that corridor! Maybe if I toss in a couple of grenades, then pick off as many as I can with the rifle before they get close..." So this is number 10 because I'm not sure whether it would end up feeling like a recreation or more like a demanding but unpaid job.

9. A bigger, fancier TV

Yes, movies look better on a bigger and clearer screen. No, they don't look ENOUGH better to justify spending nine years' worth of Netflix dues on one. If somebody GIVES it to me, however, then the only drawback would be how much trouble it would be to move one day, and if I'm already going to be moving my weightlifting rack and 700 pounds' worth of barbell plates, I suspect a flatscreen TV would feel like nothing.

8. Anything with a stainless steel finish.

I'm seeing these kitchen appliances with a really nice-looking brushed-stainless finish in the stores lately. I've always liked stainless steel, and although I already HAVE a toaster and a blender and a microwave (all of which I hardly use), part of my brain keeps saying "This fad isn't going to run for long, then when your microwave finally DOES go bad, the only replacements will be designed in some new fad for Godawful pastel plastics".

Then another part of my brain says "So what? You never look at your microwave as it is, even when you do use it, who cares what color it is?"

Then a THIRD part of my brain (which speaks in the voice of Hank Hill) says "Both of you shut up! We came in here for some 3/16" steel cable and a pack of 250-grit sandpaper! Can we get the job done BEFORE we start worrying about decorating an imaginary house we don't even have?"

Then, yet a fourth part says "Hey guys, does anybody else think that first brain part might be gay? Not that there's anything wrong with that."

7. Hiking shoes

I don't actually hike, as such, but I've been wearing this old pair of leather Skechers that my parents picked up at a flea market one day, and I rather like them. I can step on rocks and crap on the ground and hardly feel it through the heavy soles, they look more appropriate for dress-up and business than the sneakers I always used to wear, and they generally just seem like a more manly thing to wear on one's feet. I imagine they'd do a lot more damage if I have to kick somebody, too.

6. A nice office chair

The chairs at work suck. Some days, I can't even sit in them after a while and I have to work standing, because sitting makes me fidget so much I can't concentrate. Eventually, I'm going to have to go to Office Depot or someplace with a book and just sit in some of their chairs for a few hours, to see if any of them work better. As somebody on the internet said "You spend a thousand bucks for a couch you hardly use, but the chair you sit in eight hours a day for thirty years was thrown together by the lowest bidder".

5. An iPhone or similar internet-access cellphone

All I used my home computer for was internet access, once I got out of school. Now it doesn't even work, and I've been using the library computers. I'm considering getting an internet phone when my current cell contract runs out -- I'm really not sure at the moment whether you buy these, or get them issued with your plan, like my current one, or what. Nor am I sure whether I'd actually use it enough to bother.

Maybe this one doesn't pass the "actually keep or use" test, but every Top Ten list needs one item whose inclusion is questionable, because life itself is, by its very nature, chaotic. The questionable list item helps to remind us that there's much we do not know... especially when it comes to Christmas shopping, as Sister can testify when she thinks back to the ordeal of trying to help our father buy a gift for our mother!

4. If I figured out how to add the image properly, you should be seeing a Heckler&Koch P7



Some of you may know that I shoot. Like many of my fellows, I have a fondness for certain weapons just because they're cool-looking or interesting from a technical viewpoint. This one earns mention here because it's the latest one to catch my attention, and can be considered to represent the whole list. Even the left-wingers out there have to admit that's a pretty stylish-looking piece of gear... and it's European! Tres chic!

3. In keeping with Item #4... ammo. Lots and lots of ammo.

It's gotten annoyingly expensive lately, what with the military using up so much, and the unfavorable position of the dollar on the world metals markets. On the bright side, enterprising Iraqis should be able to make some decent money after the war (around 2038, you think?), by collecting all those spent American ammo casings and selling them for the brass.

2. Exercise equipment

Some of you may know that I lift weights, and also run, when the heat and humidity and blood-sucking bug population permit me to go outside. Oh, and the gators -- I almost stepped on an 8-foot alligator while running a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, weight plates, nice new socks, and other training gear make great gifts for people like me. I'd recommend a couple of good online stores for such items, but you've clearly already waited too long to buy gifts for your gym-rat friends and family, haven't you?

1. Energy

Not an obvious gift choice, but often a very good one. We all eat, and so continue to need our food supply replaced. We all drive, and continue to need our tanks refilled. Most of us have at least a handful of dead batteries lying around, in mute testimony to how many of the irritating little things we use up in our remote controls, flashlights, and toys. I've seen contests in which the prize was a year's supply of gas, or something along those lines, and you have to figure that since about 30 percent of conversation in today's America seems to focus on the price of gas, your loved ones will be telling everyone they meet about how thoughtful your gift was. Something to think about....

(Not So) Zen and the Art of Drive Through Ordering

I don't think I've detailed on this blog nearly all the problems I've had with fast food drive-thrus. I once boycotted one particular "golden" fast food place for a month because of an incident in the drive-thru. I was lured back by the imagined deliciousness of the Ranch Snack Wrap, an item that is surely the world's most perfect fast food. Then there was the night of disco dancing with Satan which involved a nightmarish double-drive through the drive-thru. There have been several other heretofore unmentioned drive-thrus gone terribly wrong. I thought that maybe I just had bad luck or perhaps expectations that were unreasonable. But, the other day The Zen Master and I drove through, and it was bad, real bad....

Sometimes The Zen Master and I can carpool to work together. That's good and bad: good in terms of gas usage, bad for my mental health. The Zen Master likes to arrive at and leave from work earlier than I. I'm not what would be called a morning person, but I don't mind staying at work long after everyone else has left. In addition, I think I'm constitutionally incapable of leaving my house until I've changed my clothes about 5 times. TZM will walk by the spot where I'm staring into the mirror pondering a shoe selection and say, "It's 8:30." I want to say, "Yes, yes, yes, I know it's 8:30!" Instead, I say, "Uh-huh" and go change my clothes again. All this means I usually feel a little rushed in the mornings, and it's difficult to make the nutritious breakfasts that I usually prepare with such care--frozen waffles seem to take forever to pop out of the toaster when I'm in a hurry!

Two mornings ago, I was finally ready to leave the house when The Zen Master said, "Let's stop at ****** **** on the way." Bingo! You read my mind, buddy!

We enter the drive-thru at ****** ****. TZM is driving so I tell him, "I want a chicken biscuit and a large Diet Coke." Mmmm-mmm, the breakfast of champions! Here's how the rest of the story goes:

Drive-Thru Speaker #1: {crackle, hiss, sputter}May I take your order.
TZM: I'd like a chicken biscuit, a sausage croissant, a Turbo coffee, and a large Diet Coke.
DTS1: {crackle, hiss, sputter} Is that sausage, egg, and cheese?
TZM: You have to go through an interview to get food. (said to me)
TZM: The second one, I guess.
DTS1: {silence}
TZM: Do you think she's going to give us our total?
DTS1: {silence}
TZM: We'll get our total at the window.
DTS2: You had a chicken biscuit?
TZM: No. Goddamn.
DTS2: I didn't take your order.
TZM: Where's the woman who took our order?
DTS2: She's mopping the floor.
TZM: She took our order and then left in the middle of it to mop the floor?
DTS2: Just a second. (He leaves the window.)
TZM: What does he mean she went to mop the floor? Who suddenly goes to mop the floor?
Sister: Let's just go to *c******'s. F@$% this.
TZM: I'm hungry. (I think he really just wanted his Turbo coffee--he claims it "keeps him in the game.")
DTS1: Yes, what was your order?
TZM: We gave you our order.
DTS1: I asked you a question and you never answered.
Sister: No, he said "the second one."
DTS1: What else do you want?
TZM: A sausage croissant! A Turbo coffee! And a large Diet Coke!
DTS1: A sausage croissant? What else?
Sister: A Turbo coffee! And a large Diet Coke! (Oh, please don't forget the Diet Coke, lady!)
DTS1: That will be 5.81.
{We wait.}
DTS1: Here you go.
TZM: What about the large Diet Coke?!
Sister: (Yes, what about it. I'm dying here, lady!)
DTS1: {sigh, vacant stare} You wanted a large Diet Coke? That will be 1.81.
TZM: We ordered it before.
DTS1: {silence}
Sister: Oh, just drive away! Forget this!
TZM and Sister: (Drive thru and away.)

When The Zen Master and I got to work--sans large Diet Coke--I said, "Don't forget your Turbo coffee." He said, "No, I certainly can't. We went through hell to get it."

This is why I won't be going to ****** **** anymore. Farewell, Cini-Minis! But those commercials with the huge plastic head on a regular-sized body gave me the creeps anyway.

It's beginning to look a lot like xmas

Tonight I visited a mall for the first time in probably 6 months. The last time I was in a mall I had just had dinner with a friend who wanted to walk off our meal somewhere indoors. I believe our "exercise" inside the mall involved walking very quickly to one of those stores that sells cookies the size of Alabama. But tonight I was on a xmas mission to get a gift for my new significant other. (He needs a pseudonym so I can refer to him: The Zen Master will do just fine.)

I usually avoid malls because I don't care much for crowds, especially not crowds of folks meandering about.

So, what do those pictures above have to do with malls and shopping? Not much, but what else says xmas like a herd of smelly flamingos in front of a holiday light display!

Friday the 14th... well, maybe it's a LITTLE BIT unlucky...

I just got an email from a friend who's a teacher in the large city nearby... the one where we have to go to buy anything that isn't sold in Wal-Mart, or eat at anyplace fancier than Waffle House. Anyway, in the seven years I've known her, my friend has been prefacing her emails with apologies for not writing more, and always says it's because she's so busy due to school stuff.

I also know somebody at work who used to be a teacher, and who was very relieved to escape from it and get into the placid world of building ships for the government. In fact, the only teacher I've known who WASN'T frantic was my high-school physics teacher, who prided himself on doing as little work as he could get away with.

This train of thought causes me to wonder about all those girls I knew in college who wanted to be teachers -- sometimes I was actually surprised to meet a girl who WASN'T majoring in elementary education. I kind of feel sorry for them, because it seems likely they must now be just as harried as my friend and current co-worker. Does anybody warn them about what they're getting into?

The other night, I saw the first few minutes of that home-makeover show, where they pick some telegenic-but-unfortunate family and remodel their house. This is the second time I've seen the start of that show, and I have to wonder: Does EVERYBODY they remodel for have a passle of kids who all have rare and incurable medical problems? Is that the underlying theme of the show, or do they occasionally do a family of earthquake victims or just plain poor people?

I also have to wonder about these parents -- if you, as a young newlywed woman, have a rare and incurable brain disorder which causes you near-constant pain and requires frequent expensive treatment, and which you KNOW is hereditary.... would YOU have three kids? All three of this family's daughters had their mom's brain disorder, as the doctors predicted they would. What the hell is wrong with these people, that they would willfully inflict this condition on their kids?

In the other case, imagine you're a young couple who've just had your first kid, which has turned out to have a rare and incurable immune disorder which causes him near-constant pain, requires frequent and expensive treatment, and carries the ever-present risk of sudden death. I can see you thinking "Well, we should have a normal kid next time -- the doctor said it isn't hereditary".

So you have a second kid -- and she turns out to have the same condition. Now you're probably thinking "Well, maybe it IS at least partly hereditary". You have a THIRD kid, who turns out to have the same condition. Three separate one-in-a-million events are pretty conclusive, wouldn't you think? You make defective kids. Sucks to be you. What's that number for the vasectomy clinic?

Nope, they had a fourth. Same condition. Now the father is going to school to be an immunologist, because, you know, every family with massive medical and child-care expenses needs a way to dispose of all that excess cash they have lying around from Daddy's day job as an motorcycle mechanic.
On the bright side, the time he has to put into school at least helps keep him away from his wife, thus preventing the birth of yet a FIFTH child doomed to a life of constant and unending pain -- assuming another pregnancy, on top of her 24-hour work keeping her kids alive, doesn't just kill her.

I feel sorry for the kids, but the parents should be beaten savagely and then sterilized. That should have been a condition of the house remodel, done in a special live broadcast with people calling in to insult them for their incredible arrogance and bone-headed stupidity. Instead, the show had the nerve to present these people as some twisted sort of heroes. It's too bad Saddam Hussein didn't live just a little longer -- I'd be interested to hear how they put a sympathetic spin on HIS story while re-gilding one of his palaces.

A Whole Sort of General Mish-Mash....

I think Sister's post about peppermint bark has collected the most comments of anything we've done in the past three-and-a-half years.

Anybody see the "Heroes" finale this week? Did it occur to anybody else that instead of giving himself an embolism by pulling the vault door off its hinges with his psychokinesis, Peter could have either teleported or phased himself and Adam into the vault with almost no effort? How stupid IS this guy?

I would up watching "Great Moments at the Met" on PBS a few days ago while eating dinner. Being opera, it was in Italian, although they provided subtitles for those of us whose Italian vocabulary is purely culinary in nature. This reminded me of something I read in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman", the autobiography of the Nobel-winning physicist, Richard Feynman.

At one point, he tells about his realization one day that he could string nonsense syllables together at high speed and make it SOUND like Italian, even though he didn't know a word of the language. Being an oddball sort of guy, Feynman began using this technique where most of us would just use profanity. One day, he ended up being asked to perform in some way at his daughter's school, so he made up a epic poem, on the fly, in fake Italian. He said the funniest thing about the episode was that the kids all realized almost immediately that he was just fooling around, and seemed very amused, while the adults were convinced that he was actually reciting some famous work that they should be embarrassed not to recognize. A couple of them even asked where they could get English translations!

(Incidentally, while you might expect the biography of a physicist to be dull, Feynman was actually quite a character, and the book is filled with his anecdotes of learning to pick all the locks at the Manhattan Project, conning nightclub dancers into buying him dinner, and a parade of similarly un-professorial antics.)

I do something similar -- I curse in made-up Klingon. You might have heard about those obsessive Trekkies who actually LEARN the Klingon language, but like Feynman, I've taken the short-cut of just making up my own sounds that mean whatever I want them to mean.... which, in my case, is usually "Ouch, that's hot!" or "Turn signals, you moron!" I like the Klingon sound for this sort of thing, because it's a very hostile-seeming set of phonetics, much more satisfying than the mundane and sadly-overused words that made up 85 percent of any given episode of "The Sopranos".

(Actually, I do know five words of real Klingon, which I'm not going to bother typing out because they'd look exactly like what you'd see if I suddenly had some sort of seizure with my fingers still on the keyboard.)

One of my co-workers recently married a guy who keeps a samurai sword by his bed in case of unwanted guests. They were very proud of this until that football player got killed down in Florida -- apparently he had a machete, which clearly didn't get the job done against HIS unwanted guests, since he's now dead. They've done a 180-degree turn and now are looking at guns, since a 140-pound engineer with a sword is likely to be significantly less effective than a pro football player with a machete.
I once told him he ought to have a spear and shield, instead of the sword, but nobody ever listens to my advice concerning the relative merits of Bronze Age weaponry.

(Honestly, I can't picture this very placid and already-henpecked guy shooting, stabbing, or even speaking harshly to an intruder... their best weapon would be if the girl starts one of her pompous lectures on the foolishness of not having a proper investment portfolio -- that'd drive anybody away!)