Aug 17

Dad’s Volkswagen

As long as I could remember my Dad always drove American cars, so it was a great surprise when my uncle mentioned that my Dad and his twin brother had once owned a Volkswagen Beetle–for a short time.

“They were coming around a  long curve on our gravel road. Our neighbor and his wife were pulling out of their drive. He didn’t see them, and she did, but she talked really slow.

She said, “Les, here come those boys in one of those–”

BAM!

Aug 15

Life at the potato chip plant

My Dad told us he once worked at a potato chip plant. My brothers and I were fascinated at the prospect of working at such a magical place.

“Did they let you eat any of the chips?” we asked.

“They let us eat all we wanted,” he replied.

We were completely in awe.

“They knew that after two weeks of eating all you want, you wouldn’t want to eat any more.”

That made sense, even to us.

“It was the only job I ever quit,” he said, and then he told us the rest of the story:

“Me and my twin brother were working there. I had the task of lifting 80 pound sacks of sliced potatoes and dumping them in the oil to fry. ‘Hurry up before that oil burns,’ the boss would say. Well I’d been lifting these sacks all morning, and I was pretty tired, so my brother and I switched places. The boss couldn’t tell us apart, and he wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t seen us switch.

‘You get back up there,’ he said.

‘No,’ said Dad. ‘We quit.’

“As we were walking out, I looked back and he was up there heaving those sacks of potatoes himself.

I hollered back up at him, ‘You better hurry up before that oil burns!”

Aug 14

Janet Evanovich/Stephanie Plum

I love to read. In fact besides cooking I would have to say that reading is my favorite past-time. I was introduced to the Stephanie Plum series, some years back, by a friend of mine. Since then I have awaited each new novel with anticipation.

15cover_large1In June I picked up number 15 in the series and I would have to say that I was a little disappointed. What pulled me in to the series was sorely  lacking in the last several Evanovich novels.

The clever dialogue between Stephanie and her guys hasn’t been as prevalent or even as clever in this one as the first several. In fact, instead of being pulled into the story and feeling as if I was standing right beside Stephanie experiencing everything along with her I feel like I am sitting outside a window detached from everything.

There are several characters who seem to have dropped off the face of New Jersey never to be heard of again and this makes me sad. Sally Sweet hasn’t made a show in quite sometime (I know that not every character brought in should be in every novel but…) and even though Grandma Mazur pops her head up a couple of times I don’t get the same belly laughs as I used to. Maybe I am being a little too harsh. I know authors evolve their characters and story lines, but I still miss the old Plum pizzaz. In fact I have read them so much that I had to go out and buy new copies.

So Janet, where is the friction between Stephanie and Ranger? Where are the antics of Grandma Mazur? Where is the story that I love so much? I don’t know if it will ever come back but I will continue to read in the hopes of finding it.

Anyone who reads this should know that I wholly recommend this series of books. You will love them as much as I do. Even if I am a little disappointed in the latest.

Aug 13

Mijo

Before you try pronouncing it with any kind of J sound, I’ll tell you: it’s pronounced MEE-ho, and in Mexican Spanish it’s a term of endearment for boys (mija, MEE-ha for girls).

I learned the word from my brother. He heard it from one of his Army buddies, who told this story:

“When I was little, I spent a lot of time at my grandma’s house. For some reason, she was always flipping me off. So one day I flipped her off. She got all teary and said, ‘Mijo, you don’t talk to me like that.'”

Aug 12

My oldest.

I love my children very much but I love them even more when they unintentionally make me laugh.

I had just returned home from picking my oldest up from pre-school. The whole way home she had been intently looking at herself in the side mirror.

“Honey what are you doing.”

“Mom my teacher told me that I have a good personality.”

“That’s good to hear.” I said as I started to leave my car, then I hear this little voice say, “Mom? What does a personality look like? I can’t see mine at all.”

I still tell her every once in awhile that her personality is looking great.

Aug 11

Sandcrawler Steve

One of my more comically miserable memories involves Star Wars nerds, and lots of ’em.

The year is 1997. My friend Dave calls and says he knows this guy named Steve who was trying to put together a big fat Star Wars convention in Kansas City, and the guy needed artists to help. I had tons of sci-fi sketches and the project sounded pretty kewl, so I said I was in.

Soon, our friend Brenton, another artist and Star Wars fan, was in as well. We made an appointment to meet Steve at his house, this guy that was going to put this amazing convention together. Brenton and I rode up together, and Dave rode with one of the other guys who was invited.

Brenton and I followed the directions we were given, and we kept driving into seedier and seedier neighborhoods. We found the house number. While Steve did live in a house, he more accurately rented the upstairs. We walked in.

People frequently caricature Star Wars fans as poorly-dressed nerds living in their mom’s basements, surrounded by scads of expensive action figures and other toys and collectibles. That would be a dishonest and unfair characterization of our experience, as Steve did not live in his mom’s basement.

Soon, we were joined by other fanboys, and anyone who would have accidentally walked into the room would have concluded that we were getting ready to play an epic round of Dungeons & Dragons, not planning a major creative business venture. The three of us were starting to be a little apprehensive, but hey, you never know, give it the benefit of the doubt, it might turn out to  be amazing.

It didn’t.

Steve gave us his spiel: he was going to organize a giant Star Wars convention in Kansas City, fly in all the original stars, and present George Lucas with an honorary Oscar.

I know what you’re thinking: Why would George Lucas want an award from nerds? Why would Harrison Ford want to be involved, when he has distanced himself from so many other Star Wars events? You’re thinking this is the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard.

No it’s not; you haven’t heard the finale.

The convention was just Phase 1 of Steve’s Awesome Plan. Phase 2 was this: he was going to take the proceeds from The Convention and move to Nevada, set up a Star Wars collectible store. In the desert. Built to resemble a life-size Jawa Sandcrawler.

No, I’m not kidding. This idea was the conflation of crossing the Rubicon and jumping the shark at the same time.

We all decided to go get some lunch. Dave went with Steve, and Brenton and I left and went to Taco Bell, where we drew cartoons of Sandcrawler Steve and howled in laughter at his Sandcrawler store.

Aug 09

Pettin’ the zebra

‘Pettin’ the zebra’ is a metaphor for being stuffed and mounted, and, more specifically, dead; it was coined by my brothers.

They were discussing how unwise it would be to ever attempt to burglarize the house of one of our relatives (the relative in question is a hunter and a taxidermist). While he has a number of mounted animals, including fox, badger, alligator, and puma, I don’t remember whether he actually owns a zebra or not. But here is the story:

“You’d break in, and then when you got caught, nobody would ever hear from you again. You’d just be standing there pettin’ the zebra.

Aug 08

Tennis, anyone?

When my wife and I were dating, she was still playing tennis. She said she had an 85 mile-an hour-backhand. I don’t know jack about sports, so I just filed the factoid away. Anyway, we were out on the court, and I was throwing tennis balls across the fence so she could hit them.

You ever watch America’s Funniest Home Videos? You know what kind of clip includes a ding! sound?

I threw a ball, and Heather backhanded it my direction. I would have stepped aside, but it was too fast. Ding!

I dropped to the court, writhing in pain. It was ten minutes before I could get off the court. 

Heather laughed so hard she almost collapsed.

And it was still better than G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.

Aug 07

Review: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Fifteen minutes into the midnight showing of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra the film burned and broke.

That was my favorite part of the movie.

No, I’m not kidding.

If I hadn’t been there with my children and students I would have walked out shortly after they got it back up and running.

I can say without exaggeration that I hated every minute of this movie.

To call it a steaming pile of poo would be to besmirch the good name of steaming piles of poo.

I know I’ve given some movies some bad reviews on this site. Some angry, scathing reviews. All of those movies were better than this. Even The Happening. Even Jumper. Even Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

My friend Clavis was there, and he said that he has been bored enough to rent several of  the cheezy movies at Redbox, and this was worse than all of them.

I went into this movie with low expectations. After all, it’s directed by Stephen Sommers, the guy who gave us Van Helsing back in 2004. I don’t think it’s humanly possible to set expectations low enough.

There are words to describe exactly how I feel about this movie. Those words are called profanity. Speaking of profanity, G.I. Joe has lots of it, so you might not wanna take your kids. I haven’t yet gotten an up-close look at the Hasbro toys based on the movie, but hopefully for the sake of accuracy they have one with a voice chip that takes God’s name in vain.

There are also several graphic scenes that aren’t suitable for children, including one guy who gets giant needles stabbed in his neck, has a seizure, and gets his face eaten off by nanobots, which resemble a flesh-eating green mist.

That’s it for the spoiler-free portion of the review. Now that I have given you how I felt, the following details why:

Duke and Ripcord are a couple of Army guys. They get thrown into G.I. Joe, a secret classified elite fighting force, a group so big on secrecy they bring these two noobs to their secret base.

It’s a good thing, too. Apparently this ultra-elite fighting force consists of people who, unlike Wolverine, aren’t the best they are at what they do. Duke and Ripcord are pretty much better than this entire team, with the exception of Snake Eyes.

That’s OK though–shortly after joining the team the two noobs get special effects accelerator suits that make them almost as good as Snake Eyes. They don’t need special suits to be smarter than alleged smart-girl heroine Scarlett.

For you needless flashback fans out there, this is your Holy Grail.

If you aren’t tired of CGI special effects yet, then maybe this movie will cure that for you. This movie has so many explosions and fireballs it makes the complete Michael Bay anthology tepid and quaint.

Destro and his team use holographs to communicate to each other. Of course the point of a hologram is to be able to communicate with another human, and vice versa. In quite possibly the stupidest point in the movie, three holograms ride on a submarine together with no other humans in the craft. And no, I am not making this up or even exaggerating one quanta.

Also, ice sinks in water. Make a note of it.

Aug 05

Bustin’ makes me feel good

If you were a big fat huge fan of the original Ghostbusters movie (and, mayhaps, ghostbusters_gamethe Real Ghostbusters cartoon), then you will flippin’ love the new Ghostbusters video game. I received the X-Box 360 version as a belated Father’s Day gift, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it (not entirely true–I have enjoyed it to the extent that I have had or made time to play).

The game is set in 1991, and brings back the original voices of all four Ghostbusters, Janine Melnitz, and Walter Peck. The story (written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis) is excellent, the gameplay is a ton of fun, the graphics are amazing, and the likenesses are flat-out uncanny. Ray and Egon’s dialogue provides a good deal of dry humor.

My only gripes are that the open / save interface is pretty cheezy, and only allows one profile per storage device per user. Also, there are some pretty irritating spikes in difficulty for some of the bosses. Finally, the AI can be pretty irritating: on one level, you are paired with Ray and he consistently runs into a room where he will get himself surrounded by hostiles, requiring you to bail him out instead of really partnering with him.

One other gripe can’t really be blamed on the game, per se. The last games I played were Morrowind and Oblivion, so after three years of pure sandbox play where you do what and go where you want when you want, it’s kind of weird to be stuck in a linear story where you can’t just wander around and look at stuff.

Anyway, it’s nice to get a sequel (especially to a childhood favorite) that actually lives up to your expectations. Unlike Indy 4 and Hellboy 2.