Take Me To Your Leader

Two aliens landed in the Arizona desert near a gas station that was closed for the night. They approached one of the gas pumps and the younger alien addressed it saying, “Greetings, Earthling. We come in peace. Take us to your leader.”

The gas pump, of course, didn’t respond.

The younger alien became angry at the lack of response.

The older alien said, “I’d calm down if I were you.”

The younger alien ignored the warning and repeated his greeting. Again, there was no response.

Annoyed by what he perceived to be the pump’s haughty attitude, he drew his ray gun and said impatiently, “Greetings, Earthling. We come in peace. Do not ignore us this way! Take us to your leader or I will fire!”

The older alien again warned his comrade saying, “You probably don’t want to do that! I really don’t think you should make him mad.”

“Rubbish,” replied the cocky, young alien. He aimed his weapon at the pump and opened fire. There was a huge explosion. A massive fireball roared towards them and blew the younger alien off his feet and deposited him a burnt, smoking mess about 200 yards away in a cactus patch.

Half an hour passed. When he finally regained consciousness, he refocused his three eyes, straightened his bent antenna, and looked dazedly at the older, wiser alien who was standing over him shaking his big, green head.

“What a ferocious creature!” exclaimed the young, fried alien. “He damn near killed me! How did you know he was so dangerous?”

The older alien leaned over, placed a friendly feeler on his crispy friend and replied, “If there’s one thing I’ve learned during all my intergalactic travels, you don’t want to mess with a guy who can wrap his penis around himself twice and then stick it in his ear.”

Even Better The Second Time

Went to the movies last night and got home today, well 2:30AM this morning.

Last night the MMC went to the “local” drive-in, The Big Mo, in Monetta, SC. I use Master’s Miata Club loosely, there were three cars that made the trip. Two other cars did show up at Sonic and eat with us, but didn’t go the extra 35 miles to see the movies. That’s right, movies, for six bucks a head you get to see two first run pictures. A couple years back they added a second screen so you actually have a pick of two double features. Screen #2 was showing What Happens In Vegas and Made of Honor, while on the original screen Indiana Jones and Iron Man were playing. Of the three couples going, one had seen the Vegas movie, one had seen the Indiana Jones movie and one had seen Iron Man. Guess which movies we went to see?

Right, the two that started with the letter I. When we got to the drive in they had already been letting cars in for about 10 minutes and the place was already 2/3rds full. We were parked by 7:15 and only had an hour and a half to kill before the first feature started, so we did what happens at any Miata Club gathering, we broke out the food.

First up was Indiana Jones and the Last Temple of the Lost Crystal Kingdom. My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed the first movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, the next one not so much and skipped the third entirely, so let’s say we were not as excited to see this installment as the other four folks. One, maybe two, cracks about Indy’s age would have been cute, but they got old (pun intended) fast. Don’t get me started on the “thrilling” chase sequence through the jungle… I will have to give them credit as they managed to not fall into the trap of the eternally ready torch (which I have whined about here in the recent past). They had an explanation that worked, for this movie. When entering an ancient crypt deep in a cave below a mountain or pyramid or something in the Andes Mountains, someone yanks a torch off the wall and before he lights it says, “Hey, this is fresh. Someone’s been in here recently.”

The drive in is not an ideal venue for watching a movie (except for the kind they used to show in them in the 70s), so if Donna and I hadn’t seen Iron Man in a nearly ideal setting a couple of weeks ago, seeing it at the Big Mo would have driven me to want to see it in a real movie theater. In spite of a chunk of the bottom right of the screen missing due to the SUV in front of us, the car idling next door so they could run their AC, the steady stream of people passing in front of us on their way to and from the concession stand, the crying baby, the biting ants and knowing what was going to happen next, Iron Man was even better the second time. If you haven’t seen it yet, call in sick to work tomorrow and catch a matinee, you’ll thank me for it.

I wonder if I can pre-order the DVD on Amazon yet? Yep.

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Membata…

…is Indonesian for “doubt” or “uncertainty”.

The last episode didn’t actually jump the shark but it did water ski precariously close. The same thing that really derailed National Treasure for me is one of the things that stretched credibility to the breaking point. Ben blows up the “vault” in the Orchid Station so that he can get to the place he needs to be to move the island. He follows a tunnel for a while then has to kick his way through a sheet of ice and starts to climb down a ladder into a room that looks as if it has been sealed for a very long time. A rung of the ladder breaks because the wood is so old it is dry rotted and Ben tumbles to the icy floor. He then gets up, dusts himself off, pulls some matches from his pocket and lights one. He takes the match to a hurricane lantern hanging on a nail, lifts the glass and the wick lights! That Dharma Initiative lamp oil must really be something.

Another little thing that I need someone to explain to me why the lying. Locke convinces Jack who in turn convince the rest of the Oceanic 6 to lie about the whole island experience. They concoct a story about how they were the only survivors to protect the ones they left behind. Why? The island is no longer where it was, Locke moved it (in space or time or both), how are they going to get found?

I loved the wooden wheel thing that Ben had to turn to activate the whatever that would move the island, reminded me of the Wheel of Pain that Conan had to turn as a child slave that made him the strong man he was. Also kind of reminded me of the wheel that the donkey was chained to in the blacksmith’s shop where Will Turner worked. Or maybe the helm of the Black Pearl. Where’d those last two references come from? TDPM was on USA tonight and I would have watched the whole thing too, if Donna hadn’t make me rewatch “There Is No Place Like Home Parts 2 & 3” at around 9:00 PM.

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We Wish You A Happy Red Hot Deals Day

Can’t blog right now, last hour of Lost is on. Come back tomorrow.

That Ben is such a nice guy.

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Half Clean

On Memorial Day I spent a good bit of the afternoon pressure washing my driveway and got 1/2 of it done. The neighbors on both sides of us have long single wide driveways and no garage access. They both handle the issue differently, one keeps all three cars in the drive with him doing the parking order shuffle each night depending on the sequence the three drivers are leaving in the morning. The other keeps one car in the driveway and two angle parked on the grass to the side of the drive and one spends the night in the street. Donna and I on the other hand have one car that we park in the garage and a 2 car wide driveway that sits empty.

Jack Sparrow: “Funny ol’ world, innit?”

I Want To Believe this will be a good movie, but it has been a long time, maybe too long. When I stumble on an episode, I can’t watch it (unless of course it is one of about 10 of my favorites.)

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Frack

Paint Shop Pro stopped working. The other day I uninstalled the latest version because I couldn’t figure out how get the media cataloger to not work in the background (which was causing things to work slowly) and a couple of other minor issues. I reverted back to version 9. Tonight for some reason I can’t resize an image. Might be time for the computer version of a high colonic.

I’m almost out of Firefly episodes to watch, just 2 left, and the darn show is starting to grow on me. Oh well, add it to the list of Fox orphaned shows that I wish were still on. Though perhaps it is better this way, a half season of brilliance, before they have a chance to began their inevitable decline into mediocrity.

I have been steady in my resolve to not watch any spoilers (even any ABC promos) for this weeks season finale of Lost. I want to be surprised, but I’m worried. I have been reading interviews with the cast members, who can’t give or haven’t given anything away. In one tidbit I read these words: “The finale will change the way you watch the show. It will introduce new variables that would never even be considered previously.” This damn show is already so far out there that I’m worried as to what the heck that might mean. It is either going to be such an awesome twist that I will be stunned into appreciation or it will be so far fetched that it will jump the shark.

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On My Way To Fame (& No Fortune)

About 3 weeks ago I received an email asking for permission to use a photograph of mine that I had on Flickr! called 12-13-2007 Sunrise. It was to be used at the bottom of a page to end a section of a 30 page Executive Summary entitled Savannah River Basin Textile Recovery Plan and Graniteville Area Redevelopment Plan. Yikes, that’s a mouthful. It is a set of recommendations developed over about a year of study for the local economies in Aiken, Abeville, Anderson, Edgefield, Greenwood, Laurens, McCormick, Oconee, Pickens, and Saluda counties that have been negatively impacted by the closures of textile mills and related facilities.

I said go ahead and use it, all I asked in return was that they send me a copy when they were printed. Came in the mail on Friday. Glossy thing with lots of consulting techno-babel that takes up a lot of space and doesn’t say much. I was surprised that mine was the only photograph in the whole thing (aside from the cover.) There were about 250 copies printed up, and the other 249 will be distributed to stakeholders throughout the region (whatever a stakeholder is.) There is a list of them on the back page along with the Project Team, Steering Committee and at the bottom the Photography credit of yours truly.

You can say you knew me when….

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