Aug 16

cacoethes

[KAK-o-EETH-eez] n. an irresistible urge to do something inadvisable.

I had never heard this word until reading Jim Shooter’s excellent blog.

Aug 11

Review: Captain America: The First Avenger

I loved almost every minute of Captain America. I had high hopes for it, and Joe Johnston (who also directed The Rocketeer) did an amazing job with it. It was both faithful to the original story as well as new and unique. The cast was amazing: Stanley Tucci, Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving, and that guy that played the Human Torch in the Fantastic Four movies playing the lead. Hayley Atwell, who I had never heard of, was excellent as well. Almost the entire movie was amazing.

And now for my only complaint. Warning: big fat spoiler ahead.

My only complaints are in the ending. You know how the SHIELD storyline in Iron Man 2 was like a tumor on the plot? Same kind of thing, though not nearly as bad. If they had focused on tying up the story after Cap crashed the plane instead of trying to make a segue to next year’s Avengers movie, this movie could have been perfect. They really should have shown the price of Cap’s sacrifice: by crashing Hydra’s plane and getting frozen for the past 70 years, everyone he ever cared about is either phenomenally old or dead. That kind of thing can really affect a guy. How will he be a different person because of this? What will this to do him as a character? As a viewer, I want to find out. Instead, we get, ‘Sorry, Cap, you been froze for 70 years, time to join the Avengers.’

Also, think about Cap back when he was just short, skinny Steve Rogers all the way up to the moment he died. Who did he respect? Who did he want to be? A man in uniform. A soldier. If there was anyone Cap would have responded to when he woke up from his glacier nap it would have been who? A man in green with a bird or a star on his uniform. Instead, in the movie, he listens to who? Nick Fury, agent of SHIELD.

So what’s wrong with that?

My problem with Cap listening to Fury is that ever since Fury, played by Samuel L. Jackson, has been appearing in Marvel movies, he looks like this:

Who was the last guy that Cap saw on this earth? This guy:

THEY’RE DRESSED THE SAME! If I was Captain America, and I see some big guy dressed like my arch-villain, I’m not only not going to listen to a thing he says, I’m gonna kill ‘im.

Anyhoo. If I could recut the movie, I would cut out the entire ending, shift the entire 1940’s story to the beginning, and shift the prologue to the end, and the last thing you would see would be them dusting the snow off of the shield.

Aug 09

I tie my shoes backwards

One day after several years of marriage Heather asked me, “Why do you tie your shoes backwards?”

To that point in my life, I hadn’t realized I tied my shoes backwards. I couldn’t tie my shoes until well into my first grade year. I don’t know why, I just had a hard time learning it.

Learning to read was easy–very easy. Math was also easy. But tying a simple knot? Impossible.

It was finally the school janitor, Kenny, who taught me how to tie my shoes. I don’t think there was a student at Hillcrest Elementary that did not at least like–if not admire–Kenny. He had keys to everything, and he dispensed that mysterious sand when someone puked.

Anyway, one day Kenny got tired of watching me tread on my shoe laces and made me sit down on the steps leading down to the cafeteria. Then he slowly showed me how to tie my shoes. And I got it, just the way he showed me. Just the way he showed me.

I went back to Hillcrest to look up some of my old teachers after I graduated. Side note: I found my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Ryan, who remembered me. When I told her I was going to college to major in art, she said, “I don’t remember you having any artistic talent.”

Anyway, when I went back, Kenny was still there. And he was still the janitor.

Aug 04

Overheard: 25 yr old female

“I need to go feed my frustration monkey a banana.”

Aug 02

The difference

Customer: “What’s the difference between Windows Vista and Windows 7?”

Me: “Vista sucks and 7 doesn’t.”

Jul 29

10 point buck

So this woman I work with had to get a new vehicle, as she and her husband were driving a truck and were getting killed by the gas prices. So they downsized to a Kia. Her husband went to visit a friend, who suggested they go deer hunting. After objecting that, hey, I would, but I have the Kia, they finally decided to go ‘for fun.’

He got a ten-point buck:

Jul 28

Overheard: 36 year old male

On the cargo limitations of the OH58 Kiowa helicopter: “You can’t have a fat pilot and a full tank of gas.”

Jul 27

Brians!

Guys named Brian are afraid of dyslexic zombies.

Jul 26

How a grudge is like a turd

While teaching a lesson on the book of Obadiah to my church youth group , I used the following illustration:

Similarities between holding a grudge and holding a turd

  1. You think it’s valuable, but everyone else sees that it is not.
  2. It makes you unpleasant to be around.
  3. You can’t get clean as long as you are holding on to it.
  4. You think you are hurting another person by holding it.
  5. You look stupid for doing it.
  6. It will eventually infect every area of your life.

Jul 22

Happy Pied Piper Day

On this day in 1376 (according to the poet Robert Browning) the Pied Piper led all the children from Hamelin never to be seen again.