Some Positivity, For Once ... Apparently

So Kristin tells me that while she enjoys my blog very much, apparently all I do is bitch about stuff. Well, I will do my best to throw in some positivity, if only to get her off my back. Her life is all roses ... well ... except for her penchant for constantly banging her head into things. Thanks for keeping me in check, though. Much appreciated.

A Snow/Ice Rebuttal, If You Please

For those outside the DC area, you need to know that our fair leader of the free world caused a bit of stir when he announced yesterday that DC, as Kelly put it, full of snow pansies. This is because the entire city and region halted to a standstill when a wimpy amount of snow fell, followed by some icy stuff that ruined all the potential sledding/snowball fun we could have had.

Now, I'm down with Obama, and being a Bears fan, I have no problem with him pointing out how strong-willed the Chicagoans are in dealing with harsh weather. I'm not denying that, but if I may, I am going to point out a few things to Kelly that he may want to consider.

1) Chicago gets about 9,000,000,000,000 inches of snow and ice per year, which means they are used to seeing it every damn day. DC gets like one foot TOTAL in a winter season, and before Inauguration Day, a good chunk of those residents were stupid Texans and other like-minded fools who probably thought the snow was the Roland Emmerich prophecy fulfilled.

2) Since Chicago sees nearly 5 million percent more snow than we do, and have since the dawn of time, it's no surprise that they have built up quite the infrastructure to deal with such matters. Let's compare this to DC, which can't even manage its own budget or put together even a meaningful school system. You think they can seriously organize more than 5 snow plows? Please.

3) I'm no rocket scientist (even though Kelly thinks of me as a pseudo-deity). But I have to think that once you get X amount of ice on the road, sidewalks, etc., everything becomes impassable. Chicago is all strong because they don't close even if a foot or more of snow falls? Well la de frickin da. When ice coats surfaces, nothing can grip or walk/drive/ride on it. Why? Because it's ice. Maybe DC residents are just smart enough not to bother driving on roads that aren't safe driving on. OK, that does imply wisdom in DC people, and that probably isn't right, either.

4) DC residents are complete morons, and can't trusted to brave the weather if they could. Yesterday, during the peak of sidewalk inaccessibility, I did my best not to slip a disc taking my dog for a walk. What did I see but not one, but two women poorly handling the ice while texting on their cell phones. So we close the city down to (in some effort) keep the stupid people from hurting themselves and others. But Chicago people can't be called too smart either, they did elect this moron to two terms.

So in the final verdict, I say it's a wash. Yeah, Chicago gets a ton of crappy weather. But just because the schools don't always close don't make them He Man in waiting. DC doesn't get a pass, however. They cannot be properly defended because Congress won't give us statehood, and when we just kicked out a president who took more than 900 days of vacation while in office, snow or rain or sunshine. When in doubt, remember ... we'll all idiots.

Creepy And Cool All Over, Part 2

It's been awhile since I last shared some of my HDR photography, so here is another gallery for you all to enjoy. You may have seen my first gallery from the abandoned asylum in Maryland that Bill and I got some great shots from. Well, here is a second batch of photos. As always, feel free to use the drop-down menu on the right-hand side of the page to access from of my other galleries that I have posted.

Greening My Mother

For Christmas this year my mom got my sister and I "green gifts." Because she knows Chelsea and I embrace the green movement fervently, this seemed to be her attempt to show that she pays attention to us when we talk. I don't blame her, most of the time my sister only talks about drinking with her friends and I am usually going on about how much I hate W and why living in DC is fun. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to imagine her zoning out every once and awhile.

But when she gave us our green gift, she made the point of saying this was her first foray into the green lifestyle. I spent the next few days looking around the house and realizing my mom has indeed not embraced the movement. And that is when I knew I had a project for the year. I've got other projects and things planned as well, but this one is of top priority, because I subscribe to the mantra that movements start from the ground up. And there is no better way to keep the green movement growing than by simply helping those closest to you embrace it as well.

My first task is a simple one ... get my mother to replace all her lightbulbs with the energy-saving compact fluorescents. As far as I could see, she didn't have a single one, and there are a lot of lights in our house. Completely unacceptable. Plus, for pete's sake, she works for General Electric, and they MAKE the damn bulbs. She can probably get them for free by stealing them out of a supply closet where all the pen, paper clips and notebooks are kept, for all I know.

So get ready, mom. Greening you is one of my projects for the year. Yes, I have no problem shaming you into change.

What I've Watched: The Wrestler

This movie struck the right tone for Dan and I because we were in fact the best type of people to see it. Look, we're both guys who were raised primarily by TV in the '80s. Tom & Jerry, GI Joe, Transformers (not the over-the-top, unrecognizable Michael Bay stuff, the real thing), The Muppets and Saturday morning wrestling. Before it became the Monday Night megacraziness and McMahon changed the name to WWE and stuff like that, Saturday mornings were the best time watch Ric Flair and others in shoddy VFW halls banging out would could not have been more than $150 paychecks.

So watching Mickey Rourke play a washed-up '80s wrestler trying to keep the dream alive is just very real for me, because it's a story Dan and I can see when looking today at the faces of Flair, Sting and others whose prime has long since past. When Rourke plays with a toy figurine of himself 20 years later, you can feel the passion slowly being sapped from him. And in the climactic scene when he must make a potentially fatal choice, you know there is only one real choice to make, even if its a false one. Plus, and many others have noted this, it's Mickey Rourke, a washed-up '80s actor trying to keep the dream alive.

The film is not all perfect, though. The storyline with the daughter (an always reliable Evan Rachel Wood) would have been a lot better had it had more room and dialogue to breathe. It just starts and gets wrapped up much too quickly and easily. The relationship with Marisa Tomei's stripper character is much stronger.

The movie is at its best when you are behind the scenes with the wrestlers plotting out the matches. Nothing seems fake during those scenes, and the improvs and pain they experience comes across exactly as we all thought it did when we watched wrestling in high school and college. Even those of us who have long abandoned it because of age, maturity and exhaustion from the steroids and offensive nature permeating throughout it, you cannot help but get wrapped up in the nostalgia. And when The Ram climbs to the top rope, there is no doubt we all want to jump off with him.

Keep Your Head On a Swivel

For those of you who have still missed the boat on The Office, shame on you. If you were not able to catch last week's The Duel episode, it was a classic. Two totally ludicrous characters, Andy and Dwight, fighting over the love of Angela, perhaps the single strongest example of a wet rag if there ever was one. Here's a deleted scene from the episode, where battle rules were being drawn.

In the Spirit of Things

Good timing perhaps, but today is MLK Day, and our new leader of the free world made repeated pitches to Americans to do something of service for those less fortunate or for the better good of the nation/world. Thinking that our participation in a birthday pub crawl for Maggie was not going to cut it (though it was damn fun and nice to hang out with some new people), we thought we should do more.

We cleaned out our closets and filled up 7 bags of clothes to donate to a global clothing charity. Donating the clothes to a local dropoff now means that some people in Africa, Asia and Latin America will be clothed, though in an odd way they will be looking awfully good in some of the clothes we donated. The organization is Planet Aid, so it's cool that our clothes are going to help people in other nations, not just those who are visiting the local Goodwill store.

The final tally in the 7 bags roughly came out to around 30 pairs of shoes, 4 suits, 3 coats and a huge ton of pants, shirts and sweaters I didn't bother counting. But I'm proud of us. Felt like we did our part, as our new lord and master commanded.

Someone Check His Pulse

Hey, wha ... wha ... where am I?

You stay classy, Dick(head) Cheney.


Yes, that was him dozing off less than 10 minutes into W's farewell address to the nation. Not the Insomniac's Society of America, the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Good lord, just go away.

Sinking the Boat

Yeah, that picture is of a boat full of sushi. A boat. Of sushi. The wife and I met two former colleagues of hers (from her law firm days) at our go-to neighborhood sushi restaurant. Everyone was craving sushi, and while I have seen the gigantic containers they give you the sushi in, I always thought that the boats on the shelf were a big tease, or for people who order an inordinate amount of sushi.

We did exactly that. And we sunk that bastard. Not a single piece survived.

What I've Watched: Wall-E

To call Wall-E a love story would be too trite. To say it's an environmental wake-up call to a generation of young viewers and their parents would place undue burdens on it. But to ignore that both of these themes resonate and are so strong and breath-takingly done would be to ignore what makes Wall-E a profound movie, something that you would expect from a Soderbergh or Spielberg or Scorcese, not an animated film.

I missed this movie in the theaters, and I am now ashamed of myself, because I can imagine how amazing this Pixar movie would have been stunning on the big screen. Watching it on Blu-Ray was kick ass, so I'm getting over that. For now I just want to strongly impress upon everyone to see this movie, even watch it a second time because it's basic messages of urgency in the environment, over-consumption of commercial goods and friendship/love are clear and enduring.

What is best about Wall-E, and other Pixar films like The Incredibles and Finding Nemo, is that they are not (in my opinion) kid's films. They are actually movies for adults that happen to be colorful, funny and timed so that children can enjoy them as well, and learn something from them at an early age. The send-ups to 2001 and Alien are of course out there for us to enjoy, but there are statements made throughout that just make this such a fun film to watch, and makes it a favorite for me to compete for Best Picture with Slumdog Millionaire.

Things I loved: 'you may have lost some bone mass' ... the cockroach ... learning to walk ... the cleaning robot ... the wall of captains ... VCR ... 'tell me about the sea' ... a fire extinguisher ... the fully charged tone ... remembering to hold hands ...

You have to be some kind of heartless beast to not get choked up at least once while watching Wall-E, and it's not cheeky sentimental moments. Wall-E hits the right notes at the right times and it's straightforward message is beautifully directed and scripted. Don't miss this movie. You'll be the poorer for it.