Don't worry. This happened during squirrel season.
With summer finally over, it’s time for me to drunken recollect some of my camping highlights. Outside of drinking, eating, being in the water, being on the pontoon, drinking, eating, sitting by the campfire, beach volleyball, drinking, eating, and peeing in the water, this is all I can remember:
1) Asquirrel fell out of a tree. It happened in front of a few of my family members as they were walking. When they reached to check on the immobile rodent, it sprung back to consciousness and took off.
2) Some cyclist had this shirt on, as well as a bushy beard:
A Whopper of a beard, in fact...
3) There was a plan to tie me to a chair if I passed out drunk. It didn’t happen on the earlier summer trip, but it did happen. At least the dumping me in the lake didn’t.
4) I pulled a boat via a rope in my teeth. There is a picture out there I do not possess. I do remember my jawline aching, though.
5) There was a strange song playing on the iPod we took out to the sandbar. Turned out it was from the film, Music and Lyrics. Here it is for your, um, pleasure?
Remember the Alamothe Titans that Coinkydink stands for Coincidence, and that Coinkydonk sits for On Purpose. Comprende?
"She's soy sauce, and I'm Worcestershire," Juno might say of Jennifer, apropos of nothing.
I feel like writer Diablo Cody is a kindred spirit. We’re both from the Midwest. We’re both Children of the 80’s. We’re both bloggers. We’re both screenwriters (I’m just not yet produced). And we’re both exhibitionists (she was a stripper; I enjoy walking around the mall in a long brown trench coat… that’s all I’m saying).
But of late, I noticed something about Ms. Cody’s produced works. So far she has three: Juno, Jennifer’s Body, and United States of Tara. And they all share something thematic in common.
Tara with her Id, Ego, and Superego
Let it be known, I was fortunate enough to see Juno before it became the Incredible Hype, and I was knocked a bit off my feet by its sentiment and reality, despite the strange language that filled the characters’ mouths at the get-go. I’m still not sure if the movie laid off the weird speak as the movie progressed, or if I got used to it (and who am I to knock weird speak… Coinkydink or Coinkydonk?), but I never held it against the flick.
Jennifer’s Body, on the other hand, felt like a misstep. There was a lot of potential for homages, over-the-top zaniness, and ironic parallels to real high school life that never came to fruition, but this film spurned my thought processes. Then I recalled her Showtime series, and it clicked:
All Diablo Cody’s characters are women dealing with things inside their bodies.
Juno – a baby
Jennifer – a succubus
Tara – multiple personalities
There’s an old adage about writing: “write what you know.” It’s not surprising (and it’s actually quite refreshing) that Ms. Cody’s scripts would center on female leads, but it is interesting to note the duality involved in each of the above characters, considering the duality of Ms. Cody herself (if that’s her real name). Until she inevitably directs and becomes a true auteur, we’re left to wonder how her adaptation of Sweet Valley High will end up, or her future original works.
Those that claim to know me might say that I’m a child at heart. Those that really know me would call me an overgrown child. According to my subconscious, I have the mind of a child. I prefer to say I’m living the 13 year-old me’s dream…
This set of dreams involved a pair of toy collections that I’ve previously mentioned on this post, but were sort of blended together. It was the Lego Batmanvideo game, and though I haven’t played it in a while, that did not prevent me from dreaming that there was a Batman toy collection that was kind of like a model train town set (Exhibit A) and a bit like Playmobil (Exhibit B).
Tiny figurines representing each of the characters could be purchased, as well as scenery components, and you could assemble a miniature Gotham City similar to Exhibit C. I guess there’s a toy line called Imaginext that’s kind of like what I envisioned (Exhibit D), but I still imagine(xt) something much darker…
Where the other half of the Lego Batman connection ends up has nothing to do with a Lego town (Exhibit E). It’s more like the Marvel Legends action figure collection (Exhibit F). Every Lego set you purchased could be put together (or should I say combined because of course Lego sets are put together) with other Lego sets to make bigger predisposed items. Again, not like Exhibit E, but like how Galactus is assembled in Exhibit F.
You see, Galactus’ head comes with Professor X, and other pieces of him are packaged along with five other figures in that series. So if you buy all six figures, you can make Galactus. That’s how the Lego sets worked…
Don’t let the pectacular stud on the poster fool you, this ending is full of non-sequiturs. Apparently, this film featured like 100 characters and required as many asides, glances, and incidents of closure. Don’t believe me about the amount of reaction shots? Look out for:
the creepy coach with dentures
moustached gymnasts
a mentally-challenged (?) wolfman-ish brother (?)
an 80’s rocker girl
Ocean Spray logos
smoking hands
the bad kid from Karate Kid
a Santa Claus biker with his child sidekick
lots of thumbs-ups
the return of an absentee (possibly recovering alcoholic) father
Made for CBS in 2005, at first viewing, you would think this film was intending to be a tongue-in-cheek comedy. According to iMDB IMDb, these are the categories it falls under:
Action | Sci-Fi | Horror | Drama | Thriller
With scenes like this it’s hard to believe, but with an ending like the one below, I’m thinking IMDb is full of kidders.
What can I add to the splendor of the horror that is this inept piece of cinema. Oh yeah. R.O.T.O.R. stands for: Robotic Officer Tactical Operation Research. The flick’s poster is more robotic than the robot in the film, and it’s made of paper.
This one already made it’s way around the TripleDoubleU, but it has to be included in this Awful Battle. Creepy must hang in the air around any of the Jackson family… in this case, it’s Michael’s brother, Marlon.
It’s been awhile since I’ve checked out the notes on my old phone (mostly because I’ve since purchased a new phone), but I was going through transcribing the tips and ideas. I understood most. These left me clueless:
loren lion
stat based
rhett butler flog
phlattline.com
face movie pix
2 24th cleo arrest
kangaroo
barely hear my own horn
First off, loren lion. Was this a clever name I feared I would forget? Was it a particular lion I needed to look into? Maybe the answer was based in statistics.
Face movie pix could have been an invention, or a story idea, or a… picture of faces in a movie?
I think the cleo arrest might have something to do with Miss Cleo getting arrested, but I don’t think she was ever incarcerated, 2 times, let alone a 24th time.
Um, yeah… he exists:
Yeah... so whattaboutit?
And I guess it’s true: I can barely hear my own horn. I’m glad I made a note of it.
Perviously used in this post, it goes along purrfectly with this edition of Musical Musings. If you dove into this post willy-nilly without reading the above title, or if you have an aversion to reading large letters in bold typeface, allow me to introduce you to two of the most fascinating felines ever to grace the music scene (not counting Keyboard Cat or Josie and the Pussycats*, ‘natch).
The Classical Approach:
The Modern Take (wait for the breakdown at the end):
The Interpretive (Canine) Dance:
*It’s a shame, but I forgot how cute Tara Reid actually was, and I really do miss Rachael Leigh Cook. Wha’ happen to her? And look how young Rosario Dawson, um, looks. Eight years really makes a difference, I guess. And that’s my deep thought for the day.
Established in 1775 by Benjamin Franklin, the United States Postal Servicewas a necessity. People wanted to get messages to each other, and due to the Great Falcon Shortage of 1772 and the Mass Page Suicide Pact of 1774, providing this service was a must. Though many people who “know” history will “claim” the Great Falcon Shortage and Mass Page Suicide Pact never happened, this truth remains – the US Postal Service was The Shit.
"Get yer hope right hyere..."
Think about it. How else did people communicate? By talking face-to-face and… um, by telling somebody else to send a message.
Sometimes they ring four times...
In our modern age, we forget how essential the USPS was to building our country, and I don’t want to go into specifics (mostly because I don’t feel like looking them up), but according to – who else – Wikipedia:
Employing 656,000 workers and 260,000 vehicles, it is the second-largest civilian employer in the United States (after Walmart) and the operator of the largest civilian vehicle fleet in the world.
So the question that remains – how have they become Just Shitty?
Is it a sense that they aren’t as vital to our country anymore, given that we have other methods of communication, bill paying, and package sending?
Or are my feelings strictly personal? The USPS was afterall responsible for these deliveries:
Anyzaxxon, when I was a kid, the arcade games were really what it was all about. Paperboy, Tron, watching somebody else play Dragon’s Lair. These are where my memories truly remain.
So imagine my surprise (I think this is my catch phrase for all my InASense, Lost posts) when I visited Chuck E. Cheese after a long hiatus (it was my friends’ offspring’s first birthday), and this was their game selection?
It's a virtual jump rope game. And my fantasy?
The joystick placement made me feel uncomfortable. As did the Hungry Dragon's face.
"Canning Master" makes me think of "sodomy." As does "Mr. Brown."
Nothing too bad, I guess. But again with the fantasy?
While on vacation a couple weeks ago in Mehico, I picked up a few things other than the Spanish language (and The Clap… you all know The Clap… it goes with this song:
and… end parenthetical).
Anyquién, I also decided I loathe the above remake, but that’s neither here nor there. Well, it was there, at the resort, where my dislike upgraded to loathe because they played it every day at the pool. Now onto the mysteries!
MYSTERY 1) A fair amount of time ago, a friend was telling me about a documentary he watched on Animal Planet or Discovery that was about “cutie fish.” He told me about how they are amongst the smartest invertebrates, and about their survival methods. Interesting, thought I, and I preceded to look them up… and found nothing.
In Mexico, some friends went snorkeling and mentioned that they saw “cuttlefish.” Which look like this:
MYSTERY 2) In my relaxing vacational TV viewing, I stumbled across a cartoon featuring a bunch of eggs that were battling, while some eggs were tied to a roller coaster track. One of them was friends with a strip of bacon, and one guy looked like this:
(Not So) Artistic Representation
It didn’t help that it was in Spanish, but I’ve not been able to find anything like it on Google image search.
BONUS MYSTERY: There was some CGI black and white movie that was in English, and it had a fairly intense shower sex scene. The main character’s name was Don Hudson, and he was being hunted by people the woman he just slept showered with called. There were reed accents throughout. Google search? Nada.
MYSTERIES – UNSOLVED
MYSTERY 3) In other TV viewing, there was some crappy Danny DeVito movie (I found out was entitled, Other People’s Money), and his character’s name was Larry Garfield. Now that’s not much on its own (although it was weird I had just watched Stand and Deliver and the school it took place at was also named Garfield High School), but after watching Shoot ‘Em Up, I theorized Odie meant “hate.”
Got home and Babel Fished it:
Boo-yah! Mystery solved! But a newer mystery remained. Did Garfield creator Jim Davis name his yellow dog this because his feline star hated him?
Apparently, no:
Odie was based on a car dealership commercial written by Jim Davis, which featured Odie the Village Idiot. Davis liked the name Odie and decided to use it again.
MYSTERIES – (UNSATISFACTORILY) SOLVED!
MYSTERY 4) Um, Boston Legal was called Justicia Ciega. What did it translate to? I figured justicia = legal, but what did ciega mean? Well on another show or movie (I don’t recall which one), a car accident almost occurred and a woman screamed, “What are you, blind?” Ciega flashed on the bottom. Boston Legal = Justicia Ciega = Blind Justice.
MYSTERY – SOLVED!
MYSTERY 5) Why did I spend so much time watching TV?
I often find myself debating the big questions of the universe. The biggest?
Am I a nerd, a dork, or a geek?
This pair of dreams that I had in one (count ’em, one!) night might mean the answer to the overhead head-banger is:
All of the above
DREAM SEQUENCE ALPHA
"Why so blue...?"
Life was going on as normal, if you consider normal being tormented by a Blue Man (not of any particular Group, it seemed). Determined to destroy my life – and possibly murder me – this Blue Man turned up everywhere.
Work. Home. Bars. Family and friends’ homes.
I couldn’t escape his attacks (unfortunately, as it is with dreams, the details are a little fuzzy). When I finally stood my ground and confronted him, he acknowledged that I passed his test.
As it turned out, he was an Omnipotent Immortal and indeed belonged to a Group of like-hued fellows. Their numbers were diminishing, and all the hell I had went through was like a hazing process.
Long story short, I became a Blue Man and started tormenting my friends and family with all my new found powers…
DREAM SEQUENCE BETA
I was standing in a dim room full of floating dust, dander bouncing and dancing in the narrow beams of sunlight.
A friend turned to me and said:
The entire Star Trek universe is in this room. Like how that entire galaxy fit in a marble in the first Men in Black film…
I'm squishing your head, I mean, universe.
Then he corrected himself:
Well, not the Delta Quadrant. I didn’t really like Voyager that much.
I looked closely at the soaring particles, and this is what I saw.
INGREDIENTS: Peanut butter on a bagel back in the mix. Yeah yeah!
monkeyBLOG monkeyDO 