What I've Read: Eating the Dinosaur

My summer of Klosterman is coming to an end. I have only one of his books remaining, and Eating the Dinosaur was his most recent so the topics are a little fresher and his opinions and theories more refined.

There are 13 essays in total in this book, and as is the case with all his previous essay collections they cut a wide swath across the pop culture landscape. There were three that really meant the most to me since I either wildly agreed with them long before I even read them (which was a weird feeling to have to read passages and themes that I've talked about with friends and others long before I ever heard the name Chuck Klosterman). I'm not claiming I had anything as complete and lucid as his notions, but we did have conversations about these things during long days and nights in the Kernel newsroom and also at 278 Rose Street Apt A during our college years.

ABBA 1, World 0 is a deep look into the Swedish disco band. For those who happened to be in Macon, Ga., back in 2001 may have been in the bar that Ellen Lord took me to where we all drank way too much and I may have been coerced by the promise of more free drinks if I participated in the karaoke session by singing ABBA's "Dancing Queen." I got those free drinks, and a loud ovation.

Through a Glass Blindly is an essay about the work of Alfred Hitchcock, but primarily his movie Rear Window, which is far and away my favorite of his films and I've watched it about 45 times at least. He takes a position about voyeurism and the concept of identity and truly being/feeling alone.

"Ha ha," he said. "Ha ha" is total dissection and beat-down of the use of laugh tracks in TV sitcoms. I found myself not so much laughing at his criticism as I was noticeably nodding my head when he was tearing apart the modern network sitcom for its inability to be creative and creating a modern society where we are trained to laugh at even the most inane and meaningless writing possible. I nodded along as I recalled all the sitcoms that I like ("30 Rock", "Parks and Rec", "The Office", "Community" and others that I love which, not coincidentally, are void of laugh tracks).

The rest of the book is filled with awesome essays about Kurt Cobain, the NFL, the Unabomber, Garth Brooks' career and others. I definitely suggest picking this one up. It's a good one.

Friday Funnies

Today is Dan's birthday, and I've been thinking all week of movie clips that make him laugh, and dammit if I can't think of any. The guy just loves his damn French subtitled movies and shit shot in black and white and in the 14 years of knowing the guy I just can't recall a particular movie that made him laugh to the point of no return. So I'm going to go back to a classic scene that, while not funny on its face, once when I was living in Tampa, Dan, Luke and I laughed our asses off to this clip about 40 times in an hour. Ashley was not thrilled. But that is what happens when you mix herbal substances and a great gangster movie when you're in your 20s.



We always loved the two friends who just watch their buddy get pistol whipped. Funny stuff.

Game On column

My recent column reviewing Child of Eden and NCAA Football 12. Thanks to the Seattle Times, Sauk Valley and Northern Jersey papers for publishing.

My Quarter Pig

I have been lucky in many ways, especially financially. I'm no Richy Rich, but I was lucky to have parents who made it their mission to pay for their kids' college education without taking out loans, which meant we all left school without debts to have to pay back. I also was not instilled with a belief of needing a new car, so after my car was stolen shortly upon moving to DC 10 years ago, I figured it was a sign that a car (and its accompanying monthly payment) were just not for me.

I had my credit card troubles just like too many college students unfortunately, thought I happened to marry a woman who beat the piss out of me regularly for not paying them off and now it's a regular habit for me to no balance on those cards. Sure, it means I missed out on fun guy trips or a few extra drinks on a weekend night, but alas I have to think it's made me a better person Somehow.

Four-and-a-half years ago I started working at CFED, a place where saving money and building assets is our organizational DNA. When one of our most successful pilot programs, the SEED initiative, came to a conclusion I snagged one of the small plastic piggy banks that were given to the kids as encouragement tools to save. It was small enough that I was curious how much change could fit in the thing. Being a little more ambitious, I upped the ante by only filling it with quarters because pennies are nice and all but I wanted to play in the big leagues.

Thus Quarter Pig was born. It's not as fun as Spiderpig, but in honor of Homer the wife and I used that goofy song as motivation to fill the pig up as fast as we could.


After about 2-3 months we had it filled. I think we could have filled it faster had we been more aggressive but it wasn't in the cards because there were parking meters that needed filling now and then. It's not a big pig, I know, but you'd be surprised how much could fit in that thing. A buck here, a buck there, it's small but seemed like a bottomless pit that would never be filled. Kinda like Nikki Sixx's cocaine habit. Once it was full, we had the joy of emptying it out to count how much money was actually jammed in there.

I dumped the quarters on the table and figured in stacks of $1 a piece it wouldn't take up much room. I hit a row of 10, then another, and then another again. We had to move the mail. We had to move the centerpiece. By the time we had the rows all lined up, they nearly fell off the table.


Counted up, it came to a surprising total of $133.50. I never imagined that small plastic pig could hold that much money. It's not a fortune by any stretch but it's certainly a solid bit of money that could make a nice difference especially since it's saved and not thought about as spending money. We've emptied the pig and started anew. Looking forward to seeing how quickly we can stuff his green little belly with more quarters. He needs feeding.

Trailer Love

As most people know, I'm a huge fan of the documentary Darkon. And like the funny subplot of Role Models, here is a movie that looks to blend the realms of Darkon and the campy humor of Army of Darkness, which means it could hold promise of delivering laughs.

My Design

One of the great joys of being a mildly competent graphic designer is that you occasionally get to do something special for friends and family. Thus is the case when my good friend Leigh told me that she's getting married.

As I've often done with others, I offered to do the design and printing for their invitation suite as a means for the married couples to get a unique and custom-designed set of pieces, as well as save a little money on the printing and supplies cost. It adds a lovely touch of personality and homemade goodness that takes advantage of the single discernible skill I possess.

So Leigh, David and myself spent several weeks figuring testing and printing and testing ideas before coming to rest on a bunch of materials, many of which are shown below. We settled on a clean look that blended some modern elements with traditional accents. Sounds like I'm describing a bottle of wine, or some bed sheets on QVC. Your call. It helps that Leigh took a picture of them for me since I was an idiot who just printed everything and turned it over to them without hanging on to any copies for my own safe keeping.


It was an honor to put this together and be, even if small, a part of their wonderful day in September. Maybe this will lead to more wedding-related work, or perhaps this will turn people off to the idea of me offering my services to them. Nonetheless it was a joy and privilege. Thanks, Leigh and David.

Friday Funnies

A podcast I listen to frequently talks about movies and moviemaking and inside stories behind how movies were made and such (something I love listening to). One of the topics recently discussed were funny scenes that made it into mainstream movies that were oddly left in despite being just weird. Here's a smattering of some that I found particularly funny, where movies (by accident or on purpose) possess some sly sexual moments if you look close enough.

First up is a clip from Back to the Future III, where a kid in the background gets a little ... instructive ... with the camera.



Dipping back into fanboy lore, even the great Harrison Ford couldn't avoid a little stop-short action with Carrie Fisher in Return of the Jedi.



And it's not just in older movies. Newer flicks, like Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban even slid in a little adult humor into the credits.



A classic comes from another Michael J. Fox film, Teen Wolf. Not sure what the hell this guy was thinking. Or doing for that matter.

UPDATED: My Childhood, Bastardized

I watched the Linda Carter version of Wonder Woman when I was a kid, and have always been amazed that in 30 years no one has been able to figure out how to bring one of the Big Four of the Justice League (Superman, Batman, The Flash and Wonder Woman) to the big or small screen again. If Mulan can pull in $300 million worldwide, for pete's sake you'd think the most famous female comic book character ever could, right?

NBC decided to take the plunge and option a TV pilot of the Amazonian Princess, and they cast an 11-foot-tall girl whose claim to fame was being in a TV remake of that shitty James van der Beek football movie. Never watched the show, so I didn't know her from Eve. NBC saw the pilot and ran as if it were covered in shit and pox-infected sores. Judging by the brief leaked footage, I can't blame them.



I think my two dogs could write better dialogue.

UPDATE: Holy shit, more footage shows this to be even worse than I imagined.

Game On: Week of July 15

My recent column reviewing Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Duke Nukem Forever.

Friday Funnies

Nothing like sports being invented by opium-addicted Chinamen.



But in real life, this dude probably isn't getting her phone number after the game.

My Birthday Drain

You know you are getting old when you are getting birthday gifts that aren't even things you can take with you when you move. This year, I got a drain.

Yeah, fools, you read that right, a drain.

The jackasses who built my house back in the Dark Ages thought it was a wise idea to slope this concrete pad leading to my basement toward the house. I have so many guests come over and say, "Thanks, I enjoyed standing in that lake welling up in your basement." It defies common sense and engineering. Even Luke, who is still in engineering school, took one look at it last year and said it was the dumbest damn thing he's ever seen (other than seeing the Bengals in person).

Every time it rains more than 15 minutes, I had to go downstairs and start bailing water out of the basement. Funny how the house inspector never noticed it on the two inspections he made of the property. It's pretty damn noticeable. Last year I spent $200 on this nifty little pump that helped most of the time, but I feared what would happen if the power every went out in the house, which is never paired with heavy storms, right? That pump and I hung out a lot between the hours of 2 and 5 a.m. I felt like I had a Wilson-level friendship going on.

At long last this year the wife decided to buy me a drain. Three dudes came over, dug up some dirt, whipped out the concrete saw, and in just a half-day's work this beauty was installed. Three of the next 5 nights, as luck would have it, brought huge storms all night long.

I slept soundly through them all. Let that drain do all the work. Ahhhh, nice.

Game On: Week of July 8

My recent column reviewing Cars 2 and Shadows of the Damned. Thanks to the Sauk Valley in Sterling, Illinois, for publishing.

My Favorite Sport

This is everything that's great about soccer, all in the 2.5 seconds from the service to the melodic thwack as the ball hit the back of the net.

Friday Funnies

Today is my birthday, so in honor I'm going to share one of my favorite movies that my mother and I cried laughing at when I was young. She was the woman who gave birth to me, so beyond giving her eco-friendly advice, this is the best honor I can give to the woman who brought me into the world even if it's my birthday and not hers.

I'm not kidding, when my mom and I first watched Spaceballs, I think we had to pay Blockbuster (or Red Giraffe or whatever the hell video store was around in 1988) extra money because we wore broke the tape in the first three VHS tapes we rented from all the rewinding and replaying. This, by far, was the most-watched clip for 4 hours straight:



Not far behind were ones like this:


And this:

On the Menu

Because apparently the restaurant Ketchup offers appetizers, entrees, dessert and then dessert by Asian massage. You stay classy, Ketchup.

My Ireland Vacation

This happened technically in Amsterdam but it was part of the Ireland trip so I'm counting it.

When Dan and I had a layover in Amsterdam from 4:30-6 a.m., we were wandering zombie-like through the airport when we noticed signs saying that a casino had recently been constructed inside the airport. Really? Because that's what travelers need, an airport to throw more money away?

Naturally, Dan and I rushed right over.

Let's be clear, this was not the largest casino ever. In fact, it was the size of something I imagine a basement casino would be only with fancier carpeting and sophisticated security besides a 400-lb dude named Rolly. It had a few slots, two roulette tables and four blackjack tables. Bummer, no craps. So Dan took up a chair at the blackjack table and I stood nearby and watched him begin hemorrhaging money, mainly because in Amsterdam the house wins on any push of 17 or higher, which is probably the worst fucking rule I've ever heard of.

But it led to an amazing 20 minutes of gambling by this guy pictured at right.

He busted out a few hands and was out of chips. Sometimes you're still feeling it, so apparently he was so he dipped into his pocket and pulled out a 50 Euro note.

Lost the hand. Pulled out another 50.

Lost. Reach in, pulled out another 50.

Lost again. The hand went into his pocket, out came another 50.

Which he lost.

At this point, Dan is giving me looks like, "Why the fuck is this guy still playing?" while my mind was saying, "How much fucking money does this guy have in his pockets?" because he kept dipping in.

And losing. At this point, in less than 15 minutes, he's lost at least 300 Euro in starting chips since we had sat down and another 400-500 in cash from his pockets.

I took the picture thinking this was going to be a classic Idiot of the Day post, until this older Japanese guy sits down. You see, in Amsterdam, blackjack has a rule that doesn't exist in America. Besides just betting on your own hand, you can bet on another player's hand. It's a sly way of keeping you at the table and giving you a chance to win off someone else's luck if you're having a bad run of cards. The key is, the payoff is not as high ... unless you hit blackjack.

Sure enough, dude reaches in for his 78th 50 Euro note, and bets on the Japanese guy.

Bang, blackjack.

Guy collects his money, doubles up his next bet on Mr. Roboto.

Blackjack. Guy gets his money, doubles up again.

Boom goes the dynamite, blackjack again.

Now we're getting scared. The dealer looks at the pit boss. Mr. Roboto doesn't say a word. Dan looks at me like a killing might go down. It's rare enough to see a guy blow through 1,000 Euro in 15 minutes on straight losing hands, another to see a guy starting doubling his money back up by winning three straight blackjacks off a complete stranger.

Next hand, dealer busts out, guy wins more money.

Next hand is dealt, and as if karma is out smoking in the parking lot, guy pulls another blackjack.

Dan needs oxygen at this point, because he's only hanging around the table quietly winning some hands here and there just because we don't want to leave the casino and miss out on the conclusion of this guy's run. Sadly, though, we pressed our luck as long as we could before we had to leave for our flight to Dublin. Who knows what happened to that guy, if the House eventually fought back and took money back from him or he walked away a winner.

So you know, when we left, the dude won another blackjack. Five out of six hands he hit blackjack.

I love gambling.

Climate Change Rap

Because somewhere my sister will lock herself in a closet and watch this about 6,287 times. Because that's the kind of geeky scientist she is. I can also imagine her brain wheels spinning on how she could write her own rap based on environmental science as well. MC Chels rapping about soil and water sample testing. Ooooh, that'd be something.

Game On: Week of July 1

My recent column reviewing Dungeon Siege III and Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters. Big thanks to the Seattle Times for publishing.

Friday Funnies

Sorry, but you're not going to convince me that Monty Python is not some of the best comedy still around. Well, I guess still around is strange since it's only around via the Interwebs and IFC. But nevermind, it's funny dammit. And better than anything CBS puts out, including the wretched How I Met Your Mother that the wife won't stop watching.