Three things today

1. My wife and I went rafting this weekend again. All I can say is that if you ever decide to go rafting on a river, please make sure that it's a damn release weekend. The Delaware River was so low that there was almost o current. We had to row for about 11 of the 11.6 miles!!! With all the floods a few weeks back on this river, you'd think it would still be high, or at least moving, but it was a flat as glass!!
2. I won the Talk Shit contest! Thanks everyone.
3. Does anyone else get comments from "Anonymous" that appear to be automatically generated? They always say things like, "Great format. Check out this link." or "You might be interested in this" What the fuck is that? I'm sorry, but I enabled the word verification on my blog. Does anyone know if this will help prevent this?

Let's talk about shit baby!

One of my daily reads Fuzzbox over at Blugstuff held a contest last week to see who could talk the most shit about three things: ice cream, baby kittens and masterbation. Of course I submitted my random thoughts and wouldn't you know, I'm a finalist! All the details as to why he even held this contest are listed on his site. Click here and vote for who you think is the best out of the three. Don't worry, if you think that one of the other two are better, I won't hold it against you. I'll just hurl a full garbage bag from my daughter's diaper pail at you and whoever is near you!

GET IN MY BELLY!!

Has anyone seen the new DirecTV commercial where they do parodies of Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller, Bill Paxton in Twister, and Peyton Manning mid game talking about DirecTV? I love shit like this since it makes reference to movies. I'm cheesy like that. Well anyway, recently I keep seeing the one with Fat Bastard and Mini Me from Austin Powers.



All I keep saying all day today is "GET IN MY BELLY!! I want my baby-back, baby-back, baby-back.........." It cracks me up.

Used Cars

A friend of mine is looking for an inexpensive used car to replace his old one that was the middle of a three car accident. We’ve been all over the place the past couple of weekends. Let me start off my saying that I used to sell cars a long time ago and worked for an auto manufacturer for almost 7 years, so I know all aspects of the industry.

Last week, we started by going to new car dealers and end up at a Nissan dealer, we get out of my car and before I even close the door to my car……….a salesman comes out of the showroom. We start walking around the lot trying to ignore him, but he’s our shadow. Finally we hear, “Hey guys, what kind of car are you looking for?” Both of us turn and explain the situation, price range and all. He says, “Well we have this Mitsubishi in the back. Let’s go take a look.” We walked back there and the car looks ok, but it’s locked and we can’t see the mileage. The salesman goes to get the keys and disappears for like 5 minutes. We start to walk back to the front of the lot and another salesman jumps on us. “What’s up guys? Let me help you find what you’re looking for.” We explain that Chris (or whoever) is already helping us. He walks away and 30 seconds later another guy comes out and tries to help us. WTF?!?!? We’ve got a salesman! Now were annoyed. Finally, Chris comes back out with the keys. We ask him how much the car is and he doesn’t know. Come on asshole! You were gone long enough to get all the info! So of course he wants us to follow him inside so he can find out. *sigh* Here we go………… He wants all of my friend’s info before he gets the price, this way he can bother us well after we leave. We’re being kind of short with him. The sales manager comes over and starts drilling us since the salesman is about to lose us because I’m giving him shit. I say, “Look, we’re not here to fuck around. We’ve been here for 20 minutes and no one can tell us how much the damn car is.” He finally tells us, we say, “OK, thanks.”.........and we walk out. Of course the two of them are following us the whole way trying to get us not to leave. We just get in the car and drive away. This repeated a couple of times throughout the day.

This past Saturday, we stopped by a Toyota dealer. Here it is, pouring rain, and there is a guy standing by the entrance stopping ever car that comes in. I put my window down and he says, “Hello. Service or Sales?” So I say, “Sales”. He then says, “OK, drive over to the left (*points*) and those two guys in the blue shirts will help you.” I put the window up and pull forward, I look at my friend and we both say “Fuck this place. They’re going to get us BEFORE I get out of the car?” So I do an immediate u-turn to leave and see that this guy is questioning people as they are trying to leave. There’s a line of cars three or four deep. Is he insane? So I drive around him going out thru the entrance and he looks at us in complete shock as we drive past him as if to say, “I don’t understand why they’re leaving?”

I love car shopping because I love cars. I know a lot about them mechanically and since I have professional experience in the industry, a lot of people ask me to go with them. I will never understand the high pressure tactics they use. Not every place we went was like this, and funny enough, the used car lots were the easiest to deal with. Needless to say, still no car…......

More than meets the eye.........savy?

My wife and I got to spend a night alone….or at least a few hours to go to dinner and a movie on Friday. We saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. We enjoyed it, but as with most movies that are the middle of a trilogy, it felt incomplete. I do think that it was a good movie, and I enjoyed the fact that all of the same actors were in it (down to the most irrelevant character). I hate it when people are replaced and the studio just expects you to accept the new person in the old role.

Just as a point of reference, the latest issue of Rolling Stone confirms that Keith Richards will have a small role in the third installment of Pirates:

"............when filming of the second Pirates movie began. Pirates of the Caribbean III, due out next year, will begin filming in August, with a promised appearance by Richards himself, already nicely recovered, thank you, after falling out of a coconut tree in Fiji and undergoing surgery for a head injury. Says Depp, "I didn't have to talk him into it. I said, 'It's up to you, but I think we could have a ball."

As we sat in the theater, watching all of the trailers for the other new movies, some seemed like they could be cool……………but one became a bit laughable. If you saw the “teaser” for the movie Transformers, you’ll know what I mean. Go to the official website and pretend that you don't know it's for this movie. It begins looking like another Independence Day type of movie, but as soon as I saw what it was, it made me disinterested immediately.

Sorry Walt.........apparently you're wrong

My daughter loves this new show on PBS called "It's A Big Big World". It's about a group of animals living in a rainforest. There's a frog, a fish, a bird, a turtle, an anteater, 2 monkeys and the main character is Snook the Sloth. It teaches them about all kinds of things in life. It's a great concept. She loves the songs and regardless of what she is doing, she stops...........turns...........and dances with a huge smile on her face. It's the cutest thing.

I am actually not posting about this because of how cute my daughter is, but because my wife and I decided that Snook is a definate stoner. He moves real slow, sleep a lot, and starts every with a little giggle and says, "Awww, hey..........". If you click here, it will bring you to the show's homepage and you can hear him talk. He even makes reference to "Enjoying the ride", which is metioned in the Grateful Dead song, "Hell in a Bucket".

I know this is a pointless post, but I wanted to share this with you.....

.........may the force be with you. Always.

HBO was showing Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith last month and it got me thinking. The whole Saga and some of the story still doesn't make sense to me and leaves a few unanswered questions. I didn't notice these things so much when I saw it in the theater, but after watching it a bunch of times now, I've come up with these questions/statements:

Before I begin...................I'd like to day that whoever thought Jar Jar Binks was a good idea should be taken out back, beaten to just before death, nursed back to health then shot in the face with a sawed off riffle at close range.

......................and now, on with the rambling list:

1. Episode I - The Phantom Menace was a good movie, but it moved along slowly. I understand that they needed to introduce a lot of characters and a huge story line, so I cut it a lot of slack.
2. Why did Darth Maul die so quickly? I thnk they should have made him more of a central character than Count Dooku. Maul was much more evil than Dooku. I think Dooku they should have told the part of the story where he was a part of the Jedi councel, then have everyone find out that he was a Sith Lord.
3. Since Episode III is so fresh in my head, I have to most questions about this one. How does the Jedi Councel not know that Anakin is married, or at the very least involved with Padme'? The most obvious clue should be that he isn't in the Jedi Temple every night! No one askes where he is or tries to find him?
4. I can understand that when Anakin has the preminitions about Padme' dying during child birth, he wants to do whatever needs to be done to save her life. My problem is with the scene where he stops Master Windu from killing Chancellor Palpatine, and then watches Windu be thrown out of the window by Palpatine. Anakin immediately regrets his decision and says, "What have I done?", then just bows to Palpatine and becomes Darth Vader. THEN he is just willing to go and kill all the Jedi (including the younglings as Yoda calls them) and does it with no emotion. This makes no sense to me. How can he go from regretting his decision of allowing the Chancellor to live, to helping him kill every single Jedi within a matter of three minutes? No remorse, no internal conflict. NOTHING!
5. The next scene shows Anakin running up to Padme', so happy to see her and explains to her that the Jedi are trying to take over control of the Senate. Anakin turns and see's Obi-Wan Kenobi walking off the ship and then yells at Padme' about how he's been betrayed by her, and immediately tries to kill her by using the death grip! He then proceeds have a LightSaber battle with Obi-Wan, with the intent on killing him. If his whole purpose for joining the "DarkSide" is to save Padme' from dying, why does he try to kill her? Once he thinks she's betrayed him and chokes her, why continue? This part bothers me.
6. Once Padme' has Luke and Leia, she just gives up and dies. As the droid says, "She's perfectly healthy.............but has lost the will to live". She just gave birth to two kids and she has no reason to live? Lame, lame, lame, lame, LAME!! (I wish I could find the sound clip form "The Incredibles")
7. I know that C3-PO's memory is erased, but R2-D2's isn't! Why doesn't he tell everyone about the babies and that Luke is Vader's son??!?!?
8. Lastly............Chewbacca obviously takes part in the clone war and meets Yoda. Once he and Han Solo pick up Luke and Obi-Wan in Episode IV, why doesn't he say to Han, "Hey, I've had experience with these Jedi's before."

That's all I can think of at the moment. Of course now I guess I'm being picky with those last two. I guess the story wouldn't work as well if those two questions were answered. Plus since Episodes IV, V and VI came first and that would have ruined the whole thing..............but I just felt the need to get them off my chest. Please don't think that I don't enjoy the whole Saga, because I do. I own the original three on VHS, bought them again when the Special Edition came out..................then all six on DVD.

Anyone else have more to add to this, or an explaination of any of my issues?

Kids love kids

OK, I know the title of this post sounds odd, but keep reading. On Saturday, my wife and I went to my sister and brother-in-law's for a BBQ. My two nephews (8 and 6 years old), my niece (4 1/2 years old), as well as a bunch of other kids were there. When we arrived, all the kids came over to see my daughter (9 months). They were all in her face and touching her and trying to make her laugh. Questions all day were, "Can I hold her?" and "Can I push her around in the stroller?" When they weren't playing with her, she was watching them all playing games and jumping in one of those blow up jungle gyms.......just wanting to run over there and join them, which she can't do yet.............mostly because she can't even stand on her own yet.

Sunday was a family reunion for my wife's family. There were six babies there.........all under one year of age. All the older kids were doing the same thing as the day before, making noises, funny faces and all around having fun with the little ones.

I just think that it's funny how no matter what's going on, babies periodically stop all action.

Yup.........they ARE my brothers!

I've been meaning to post about this for weeks now, so since it's fresh in my head, I'll do it now. I have two brothers that moved from NJ to California a few years ago. My brother Dan moved out there back over the July 4th weekend in 2000 (one hell of a road trip for us). He's into editing for TV and movie's, so that's the place for him to be. He recently edited Greetings from the Shore, a movie staring Paul Sorvino which is now in post-production. My other brother Ken moved out there about three years ago. He's a auto mechanic, and a damn good one too. Long story short, he was working at this place called GAS in Van Nuys, CA. I get this call from him a while back:

Me - "Hello?"
Ken - "Hey Mike, what's up?"
Me - "Hey Ken! How ya doin'?"
Ken - "Good. So listen..........you know that show on MTV Pimp My Ride?"
Me - "Sure, why? You got your Trans Am pimped?"
Ken - "No, I'm one of the tech's on the show."
Me - "NO SHIT!! COOL!"
Ken - "Yeah, just before I got a new job, they filmed about 7 or 8 shows and I'm in them."

The show is on Thursday's at 10pm Eastern and Pacific on MTV. He's the one installing the Turbo on the VW Thing in last week's episode.

So...............there you have it. My brother's are famous............and here I sit looking at spreadsheets all day. Now if only my brother-in-law could get a break like they did and get hooked up with a job in the NYC area in production.

And another thing...........

............that pisses me off:

21. Working the Monday before a holiday when the Holiday is on a Tuesday!! (At least there was no traffic) FUCKERS!!!