Merry New Year!

Heh. It must be Eddie Murphy Inspired Title Week around here.

As the year draws to a close an I approach the blog's first birthday, I figured why not sit back and pick the best of various things in the past year.

The nominees and eventual winners in each of these categories are not limited by whether the film, book, etc. was released in 2005, but whether the first time I saw the movie, read the book, etc. was in 2005. Make sense? Really? Well, that's rare.

Best Movie I Watched For The First Time In 2005 (Non-Theater Category):

Finding Neverland

Best Movie (Theater Category):
Sideways

Best Movie (Documentary):

March of the Penguins

Best Book (Fiction):

Two months ago this was not even a race. Life of Pi would have won hands down. Then The Kite Runner was chosen as our book club selection. It was still close, but as much as I loved Pi, The Kite Runner was even better.

Best Book (Non-Fiction):

I'm having a hard time deciding. I enjoyed so many books and there were three that really stuck out: Devil in the Details, Blink and The Tipping Point. The Tipping Point just edges out the other two.

Least Favorite Book:

This one was tough for me. There were books I didn't really like, but only a few I really disliked. In the end, I think I'll go with The Da Vinci Code, simply because it had such hype around it and still really stunk.

Favorite Made For TV Movie:

Locusts, obviously.

Favorite Post I Wrote in 2005:

Leaving on a Jet Plane, The Celery Stalks at Midnight or Das Bat. These may not have been the most interesting or thought provoking posts I wrote, but they were the ones where I felt I accomplished my original intent the best, as well as the type of post I like best, story telling.

Least Favorite Post I Wrote in 2005:

Yeah, as if I could only chose one or even a handful. We're just lucky I could pick anything to go in the favorite category rather than in here.

Until next year...

Musings on Television

Just a few thoughts while searching for something worth watching.

1. I tried giving the show Numbers a try a couple of times. If you aren't familiar with it, it centers on an FBI agent who gets help solving crimes from his brother, the brilliant mathmetician. Any show so nerd-freindly deserved at least a chance. Unfortunately, the show stinks. It's only mildly interesting, the characters are annoying and the attempts at including science and math add nothing and feel forced.

2. I can't believe that we can now get Saved By The Bell on DVD, but there are no DVDs of Iron Chef. If there was ever a show that needed to be released on DVD, that is it.

3. I really can't stand the Smuckers guy. You know who I mean. He's been narrating the commercials for Smuckers jams for years. When I'm at the grocery store looking for jam (or jelly or preserves), I see the Smuckers jars and immediately think of him saying "With a name like Smuckerssshhh, it has to be good." and if there is any other option, I immediately move on to the next brand. I have a feeling that's not the result they're going for.

4. America's Funniest Videos is on television about 20 of the 24 hours in the day. At any point, you can flip through the channels and find it. It's on so much that I don't even know if it's all syndication or if they are still making new episodes.

5. They might as well rename America's Funniest Videos "Stupid People Injuring Themselves, Cute Animals and Guys Getting Hit In The Groin."

6. There was never a good host of AFV, but Bob Saget may be the reason the mute button was invented.

Until later...

Prepare Yourself, for I Shall Unveil The Cuteness

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Chewie.

By The Power of Grayskull!

You know how sometimes you say something and then realize that maybe, just maybe, you should have kept that thought internal? Yeah, neither do I. However, if anything like that did ever happen to me it probably would have gone something like this:

A group of us were sitting around in the snack bar at work during break recently. It was early in the morning, so people were drinking coffee and tea, eating typical breakfast fare. This, of course, means I was drinking a Diet Mountain Dew. As we sat there talking, the subject of peculiar middle names came up, and people tossed out their favorites. Eventually, a coworker said that she once knew a girl whose middle name was Sheera. This correct response was to nod, perhaps give an affirmative "hmm" sound and allow the conversation to move on to the next person with a name to share. Unfortunately, this is not at all how it went. She said "Sheera." My brain said "She-Ra." Then I said (aloud, mind you), "She-Ra! As in 'Princess of Power'?!?!?!" As I looked around the table, I realized that I had indeed said this and said it loudly. There were odd looks from everyone, until finally one person began to laugh. Please, as if they weren't fans of Masters of the Universe as kids, too.

Like I said, nothing like that ever really happens to me. I'm glad, too, because if it did happen, it might end up being pretty embarrassing.

Until later...

Trivial Tuesday

Oh, it's Tuesday, right.

In keeping with the Golden Child theme from earlier today, I have a question for you my dear, sweet brother Numsie. The child Chandler Jarrell had to protect was to bring a specific virtue to the world. What was this virtue that would die with the Golden Child if Numspaa succeeded in killing him?

Post the correct answer in the comments section and you can win this weeks bragging rights "yust like that."

Update: Congrats to MC Etcher (with a bit of an assist from Mikey). The Golden Child was the bringer of compassion.

The virtues were reversed in the first guesses that were made. The bringer of justice had already been killed (thus the unjust world) and if compassion died, the world would become hell.

There's The Ground. There's The Ground, Monty

The weather has taken a turn for the better. We had snow on Thanksgiving day, which melted after a day or two, followed by snow again shortly after that the remained on the ground getting covered by layer after layer of new snow. The temperature stayed low and the snow remained. Finally, just before Christmas we had a bit of a warm up. On Christmas Eve the temperature stayed above freezing, and it began raining, helping to melt down much of the snow still on the ground.

Before enough of the snow melted, the temperature dropped back down and it began snowing on Christmas day. Since then, however, we have had a couple of quite warm (relatively speaking) days in a row and a little more rain. The ground is visible again in many spots reminding me that, yes, there is a lawn that will need cutting under there. For now, I'm too pleased with the slightly warmer weather to be bothered by the lawn. Besides, all the fog from the melting snow and ice hides it well.

In celebration of our mini-thaw, please go back and read the title of this post in your best Eddie Murphy impersonation. "I, I, I, I, I, I, I...want the knife...Please..."

It's All About The Hamiltons, Baby! (A Chronicles of Narnia Review)

First of all, if the title of this post doesn't make sense to you, you really need to check out the SNL parody video, "Lazy Sunday". (Link stolen from Invisible Lizard, who talked about it a few days ago.) The video does assume some knowledge of the books, general pop culture and history, but it is definitely worth a look and few (dozen) laughs.

We went to see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe with my family while we were visiting. The Chronicles of Narnia were written by C. S. Lewis, a friend and contemporary of J. R. R. Tolkien. While never the equal of Tolkien's trilogy in quality or popularity, Chronicles has still found an audience among fantasy lovers for many years and with good reason.¹

The first² novel in the Chronicles of Narnia series, TLTWTW introduces us to the land of Narnia as well as some of the characters that will return in later stories. Four children, Peter, Susan , Edmund and Lucy, step through a wardrobe and into a magical world known as Narnia, where it is always Winter and never Christmas. As it turns out, Narnia hasn't always been this way, but has fallen under the spell of the White Witch. The children learn from various creatures and talking animals³ that the White Witch has been ruling, but that Aslan (who we eventually learn is a lion) is returning to restore Narnia. The story plays out, sampling bits of mythology from various sources and layering them with large portions of Christianity, weaving a tale that is familiar, yet entirely its own.

So, what did I think? I enjoyed it. Unfortunately, just like the novels, its similarities will encourage comparisons to The Lord of The Rings trilogy and those will not be kind. Judged on its own, it is a fairly well told story with good but not great acting (almost all films centering on children suffer from this to some extent) and remarkable visual effects. So, yes I enjoyed it, but I still felt that there was something not quite right. Something missing or out of place. Maybe it was the direction; Andrew Adamson's only previous directing credits are for the two Shrek films. Perhaps, as eventually happens to Susan, I have simply allowed myself to grow up and can no longer access the magic of Narnia as I once did.

¹ To be fair, he may not have been Tolkien's equal, but Lewis does manage to avoid Tolkien's unpleasant propensity for verbosity. Some might call it meticulous attention to detail, but I call it really loving the sound of your own voice. Really, I love Tolkien, but people say that he needs to shut up more often that they say it about me, and that's never good.

² Yes, it is the first novel. There has been quite a bit of debate over this recently. I even heard a discussion on this while listening to NPR. (The December Reader's Review on the Diane Rehm show was for TLTWTW.) While events in The Magician's Nephew and The Horse and His Boy take place before (or in the case of The Horse and His Boy, during) TLTWTW, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was written first and lays the foundation upon which all other Narnia novels are built. It is first, and I will no more argue this than I will allow you to say that the first Star Wars movie contains Jake Lloyd and Jar Jar Binks.

³ The animals in Narnia talk. Yet they eat meat and use animals for transport and labor. Where are they getting the meat? From the talking animals? How do the animals feel about their roles? Am I the only one disturbed by this? I'm not a vegetarian, nor do I plan to be. However, if an animal displayed a level of sentience on par with humans (or greater than some) and especially if the messianic figure in my world was an animal, I think I might think twice about eating meat. I can say for sure that if the horse I am riding starts talking to me, I would at least converse with it about whether its ok with me sitting on its back. "Are you alright down there? I'm really sorry. I've been meaning to lose this holiday weight, but it's just not working." Half a mile later: "You still ok? I can walk for a while if you'd like." Two miles: "Are you sure I'm not bothering you? I really don't want to cause any problems." Another mile or so: "Do you need to stop for a drink or anything?" A quarter mile down the road: "Still doing--" Horse throws me and tramples me underfoot: "Would you shut up!" Bleeding on the ground: "Sorry. I just wanted to make sure you were--" *STOMP*<sup>4

4</sup> Is it bad that I just wrote a narrative that included my own death? Should I see someone about this?<sup>5

5</sup> Is it also bad that I have a footnote to a footnote and now a footnote to a footnote on a footnote? What about the fact that my footnotes are actually considerably longer than the actual post? See what I meant about not shutting up?

From The Home Office in Crazytown

Have you heard about this yet? It appears that some woman in New Mexico has managed to get a restraining order against David Letterman. I don't know that the two have ever met, but she is claiming that Letterman has been harassing her through secret messages, code words and gestures during his show. To prevent this from continuing, Letterman is not permitted within three yards of her and is forbidden to think of her. Honey, I've got news for you: You just found the one way to make sure he's thinking of you. And it's not happy thoughts.

I'm unsure why a judge would possibly give a restraining order, even a temporary one, to this woman. Not because she's insane and thinks that he means her when he says Oprah. Not because if she wasn't insane and this were true, she could simply not watch the show and it would all be over. I'm confused about the restraining order, because this is clearly all her fault. You see, this all began when she started "sending thoughts of love" to Letterman over ten years ago. He quickly became obsessed and, according to her, began harassing her. Really though, what can you expect? If you are going to telepathically give love to a complete stranger, you have to prepare yourself for the potential that they won't be able to draw the line. The last time I attempted something like that Salma Hayek wouldn't leave me alone for at least three years. Why else do you think she took that role in Frida? The acclaim? Please. It was so awkward to see her talking to the press about Edward Norton and know that she was really using her code name for me. The difference is that I didn't go to court and make a big deal out of it. These are the risks you take when you mix ESP and celebrities.

I actually can't understand how she could get a restraining order for this when so many people who need to protect themselves from people like her have trouble obtaining them before things have escalated too far. In my opinion, that is the real crime here.

Until later...

Fatness Not Fitness

Have you been to Arby's recently? The roast beef sandwiches, long the heart and soul of the franchise (at least before the diversification into Market Fresh sandwiches), are now available in three sizes and when you order you have to specify whether you want a small, medium or large sandwich. The typical, and some would argue logical, assumption would be that if you wish to get a regular sized sandwich, the medium would be the way to go. However, when you get that medium sandwich it comes in a wrapper that says "Giant Roast Beef." There are, in fact, not three new sizes of sandwiches; they have just renamed the sandwiches (presumably) to get people to buy the larger size. So now the former Giant is called a Medium. The original Regular Roast Beef is now a Small. Where does that leave the large? Oh yeah, it's the sandwich formerly known as the Big Montana. I'm all for changing the name of that sandwich, because Big Montana might have been one of the worst names for a fast food product ever (right behind Taco Bell's short lived Things We Found in the Dumpster Burrito), but when this is the sandwich that used to be advertised as the 1/2 pound of roast beef for only the biggest of appetites, you might want to keep something in the name indicating that it is approximately the size of a basketball.

Unfortunately, Arby's isn't the only place messing with the menu. I went through the drive through at a Burger King recently and began to order a number three meal: The Whopper Jr. Lo and behold, the number three meal was not the Whopper Jr. but the Triple Whopper. Now, if you are already claiming that your burger is big by calling it the Whopper, do you really need not only a double but a triple version of that? Seriously, I'm fat and I look at that sandwich and think, "That's just not right. It's like a whole herd of cattle on one bun." Who eats the Triple Whopper and how many people ordered what they thought was a Whopper Jr. meal only to find out that they had more food than the Christian Children's Fund gives away in a month? I'm starting to wonder about Burger King anyway. First the Ultimate Omlette breakfast sandwich, which I'm pretty sure is six eggs, three sticks of butter, a side of bacon and a whole smoked hog on a very large bun, then the triple Whopper. I think the King from the commercials might be running things now, and he needs a lot of food support that giant head. (Side note, because I so rarely have those: That dude is just creepy. He's got this huge head and doesn't ever speak. He just stares at you and grins. He's always popping up in places people don't expect him and leering at them. He's like Jason Vorhees on Thorazine.) With these new huge sandwiches, they're either catering to Diamond Jim Brady or to Gaston from Disney's Beauty and the Beast (Go on, sing the song. You'll get it.)

Everywhere you look there is talk of how Americans are getting fatter. I say stop blaming Americans. These companies keep putting out larger and larger sizes and in some cases renaming things so that they do not appear quite so overindulgent. I say it's entirely the fault of the companies and they should be held responsible for my fatness, not me. After all, what are we supposed to do? Order something else? Stop going there?

Oh...right.

Trivial Tuesday

Since Invisible Lizard was fighting the urge to start quoting Grosse Pointe Blank, I figured why not make it worse. This week for Trivial Tuesday we'll play a game of complete the Grosse Pointe Blank quote. It's one of my favorite exchanges from the movie. I'll start it off and you give me the line that finishes the sequence. It's easy, you'll see.

Waitress: What do you want in the omlette sir?
Marty: Nothing in the omlette, nothing at all.
Waitress: Well, that's not technically an omlette.
Marty: Look...

First one to post the rest of Marty's line in the comments section wins bragging rights for the week. Good luck, and remember: You can never go home again...but I guess you can shop there.

Update: Invisible Lizard wins this week's bragging rights. Check out the comments for the answer.

I Killed the President of Paraguay with a Fork. How Have You Been?

It's been a little while since I last posted. I could make excuses, (I was out of town for early Christmas festivities. My grandfather was in the hospital while we were there, so we stayed longer. I haven't been able to get enough energy to post since I got back.) but I won't. 10 days is a long time, so what do I have to report?

Not much really. We celebrated Christmas with the family, and had a lot of people in the house. Really, a lot: 2 Grandparents, 2 parents, 2 sisters, 2 brothers-in-law, 2 nieces, 4 nephews, MK, me, 3 dogs. That's 16 people and 3 dogs if you're counting. It was great to see my family, especially since I don't see my parents that often, and I see my sisters and their respective families even less.

I've become completely obsessed with a little gadget we received. It's a handheld version of 20 questions. I'd played with 20Q.net before, but having a version you can carry around is just downright addictive. I am often surprised by the things it can figure out and sometimes by the things it can't get. Given 20 yes or no questions (technically, 19 plus a category selection), could you identify a capybara? Yeah, I was impressed with that one. On the other hand, I'm not sure that I could confuse "a pair of trousers" with "an oil painting," but it did.

In addition, my sisters introduced me to Runescape, an online multi-player RPG. This is great, because it's always good to introduce people with obsessive personalities to something that can be addictive and possibly consume your entire life. Apparently, this was faster than helping me locate a crack dealer. If I disappear from here without notice, it's probably just that I kept playing and forgot to eat. Don't worry though, it will take a lot of missed meals for me to waste away, so we should have a few months.

We realized after we left that, though we had brought our digital camera with us, we didn't take any pictures. Well, almost didn't take any. We took a few pictures of one of the dogs that will probably show up on here in the near future, but that's not the point. It's disappointing that we didn't take any other pictures (we were just always busy doing something else), because it's amazing how much kids grow when you aren't around. My nieces and nephews now range from about 7 and a half to almost 17. I have been trying to convince them all to stop aging, but they won't listen and keep growing up. It's as if I'm getting older, but we all know that's not true.

That pretty much sums up what's been going on, or at least as much as will get put on here. With any luck, I'll post a trivia question tomorrow and quickly get back into the swing of things. I also have what seems like a million books and movies to review and some of them have been waiting long enough that I'll probably just have to skip them. This may not matter to you, but it annoys me quite a bit. For now, however, this long, rambling, getting you up to date on my life post will have to do.

Until later...

Wait a Minute, Saint Nicholas Would Kick You?

The legends of Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas and Father Christmas from around the world have always been interesting to me. I feel that it is one tradition that most places in the world that celebrate Christmas have kept, yet they have all adapted it to make it their very own tradition. Whether people have a Santa who lives at the North Pole with elves, Saint Nicholas the patron saint of prostitutes and lawyers (nope, no possible jokes there), or Father Christmas, formerly the embodiment of winter itself, we mix and match our mythologies to create the appropriate entity for our very own symbol of Christmas.

It isn't even just country to country differences, families have their own traditions which may not be the same as the other families nearby. In our family, each kid went to sleep on Christmas Eve with a piece of ribbon tied around his or her wrist. Each child had a different color. In the morning, the corpulent chimney diver had not only delivered presents, but had marked each of them with the appropriate color of ribbon. Quite the resourceful fellow, if you ask me.

Even outside of the Santa Claus legend, there are all sorts of holiday (regardless of which holiday we're talking about) traditions that we pick up from various places and make our own. The opening of gifts: Gifts were opened on Christmas morning, but children were allowed to open a single gift before bed on Christmas Eve. Food: With family roots in Texas, dinner on Christmas Eve was often Mexican food, specifically, tamales. We lived in the South for much of my life, so on New Years Day, we had black eyed peas. According to tradition, eating them on January 1st wards off bad luck for the next year. Did we believe it? No, but it is tradition. (The problem with that one is that I hate black eyed peas.)

What about your family? Did you have any special traditions? Since I'm going out of town to visit family (now that we can actually leave the driveway) and may not be around to post anything, post your traditions and talk amongst yourselves. But behave, because Santa Claus isn't the only one watching.

Until later...

Trip, Interrupted

As I have alluded to in previous posts, we are going to be out of town soon. In fact, we're leaving today. At least, that was the plan. We were supposed to be leaving early this morning so that the 12 or so hours of driving to visit my family will not have us arriving in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, Mother Nature (or Momma Nat as those of us on such good terms with her like to call her) had other plans. We already had snow on the ground here. It had been snowing on and off for a week or more. Last night, we had even more snow dumped on top of what was already there. When I got up, I looked outside and declared that it wasn't that bad out. Then I stepped outside.

Looking down and realizing that I could no longer see my feet, or my ankles, or anything to about halfway to my knees, I decided that perhaps this might be a problem. Cursing the fact that I don't have a snow blower, I trudged to the garage and broke out the shovel. Of course, if I ever figure out how to get my car from the garage to the street, we're still at the mercy of the snow plows. With any luck, they will have finished up plowing and the roads will be clear by the time we get going. Unfortunately, we'll still probably end up arriving much later than intended.

Now, if you'll excuse me I've got to shovel more snow.

It's The Holiday Season, With The Whoop-De-Do

As we rocket toward the time of gift giving, or, more importantly, last-minute gift buying, the stores put more and more displays of "special" gifts that you can grab without any though whatsoever for the person you forgot. Tonight we were at the grocery store and as we entered the produce section, I saw a selection of gift baskets that the store was offering. The baskets typically contained a mix of edible items and inedible items like CDs and DVDs packaged together for one low price. One in particular caught my eye. I wasn't able to read the official name of the gift pack, but I think it pretty much speaks for itself.

The basket contained a special collectible Nascar/Coca-Cola tin filled with popcorn or some other sort of snack. Collectible tins like this are common during the holidays, and come with just about anything imaginable on and in them, so that wasn't too surprising. Alongside the tin was the "Unrated" DVD of The Dukes of Hazzard. I'm not really sure that there was much of a demand for this special edition DVD, but then again I'm not sure there was a demand for the movie in the first place. To top it all off...literally, it was on top like the star on a tree...was a six pack of Bud Light. I don't know; maybe it was supposed to make the movie tolerable.

There's no better way to show your favorite redneck you love him than a gift basket designed around his individual interests.

Until later...

Re: Fw: Fw: Fw: Fw: Rant

I don't get up on my soapbox, get on my high horse, claim the moral high ground or any other related cliche too often around here. I usually at least pretend to be funny and clever. Today is going to be different. I apologize in advance for doing it, but not for what I'm going to say.

How many forwarded emails do you get each day? Friends, family, coworkers all send us email after email tagged with a string of Fw: before the subject line. You may read them. You may throw them in the trash. You may be the one sending them on to other people. These emails can be anything from lists of interesting facts to political messages to heartwarming stories to jokes to vitriolic diatribes that might as well be a call to arms.

When you get one of these, or more importantly when you forward it on to the next person, how often do you take the time to check the facts? I read a story recently that really upset me, and it was all because people were sending things along without bothering to find out if it was true. As it turns out, it wasn't true. It seems that someone made it up and then started spreading it through email.

A store owner in Tennessee has been accused via email of refusing to serve a soldier at his convenience store. The email describes how he told the man that they don't serve soldiers there. In addition, the email goes on to tell about how this man had celebrated on 9/11 until someone beat him up. The problem? It's not true. No such thing has happened at this store (which is mentioned in some of the emails). No celebrating during 9/11. No refusal to serve soldiers. In fact, members of the armed forces from local bases have public stated their support for the owners of the store, because they make up a large portion of the store's customers.

The problem is that someone started this. I don't know who they are, so I can't say why, though the fact that the owners of the store don't look like the "Patriotic Rednecks" the author(s) of the email claim to be is a fairly likely reason. Some one started this and every time anyone reads it and becomes upset and then sends it on, the problem spreads. Is getting upset over something like the alleged incidents justifiable? Sure, to an extent. (These people have to fear for their safety, which would be uncalled for even if every word of the email was true.) I can see people being upset by someone mistreating others and not wanting to do business with them. I can even see wanting to tell others so that they don't do business there. But people do not take the time to stop and look for the truth.

This isn't an isolated incident. If you do research on the emails that get forwarded to you on a daily basis, I would estimate that almost as many are misstated or completely fabricated as are true. It's up to each and every one of us to take the few moments necessary to check on these. If we don't, we are complicit with the originators and any of those who intended harm. The next time you think about hitting that forward button, stop to wonder if it is true or not. Remember not to believe everything that you read, but most importantly remember that you can be negatively impacting the life of another human being simply by helping spread someone else's lies.

And with that, I shall get down off my high horse.

More info? Here are links about this story:

From Blount Today

From Maryville, TN Times 1, 2

Snopes.com article reviewing the situation.

Trivial Tuesday

I'm not sure how many Trivial Tuesday questions will be up before Christmas. I already know I'll be gone next Tuesday, but don't know if I'll post anything, and the week before Christmas tends to be slightly insane. Since I am not sure about other chances to do it, I'll make today's category Christmas.

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen as well as all the other guys, but do you recall the most famous marketing ploy of all? The names of Santa's reindeer all come from the Christmas poem of questionable authorship, "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" with the exception of that red-nosed fellow named Rudolph. He was in fact created, along with his backstory, as part of a hoilday book giveaway for a large department store. What store created and distributed Rudolph, expanding on the already well established legend of Santa Claus?

As always, post your answer in the comments section to win nothing.

Update: Congratulations to this week's winner, Invisible Lizard. The department store responsible for the creation of Rudolph was Montgomery Ward.

Puff, Puff, Pass

This week it was time once again to go in for an eye exam. After discovering a couple of years ago that I have perfectly acceptable vision in one eye but am approaching blind in the other, I have needed to wear glasses while doing anything like reading, working at a computer, etc. Well, supposed to wear glasses is probably the better term. I wore them a lot of the time for the these things, but not always. Wore. Past tense. You see, I made a bit of a mistake a while back. I set the glasses down where the dog could get them and then forgot. He eventually decided that this nice soft case they were in would make a fabulous chew toy. I suppose I could wear them now, but if the scratched lenses didn't bother me, the mangled frames poking into my head probably would. I guess I'm fortunate since the doctor told me this time that if I was not left eye dominant, I would need the glasses full time and probably wouldn't even be able to pass a test for a driver's license without them. Instead, I can get away with not wearing them as long as I'm ok with the strain and the constant questioning from everyone who sees me when I've been reading, writing or typing. "What's with your eyes?" "Are you ok?" "Wow, your allergies must really be acting up." "Have you been crying?" And my favorite: "Dude, are you stoned or hungover? What's going on?" I'm not sure whether I'm more disturbed by the people thinking I'm in my office getting high or the ones thinking I'm in my office crying.

One thing I have never really understood during the eye exam is the glaucoma test. For those of you who haven't had one of these, allow me to give you a brief explanation:

They have you put your head in front of this machine that aims what appears to be a small caliber gun at your eyeball. The machine then shoots a puff of air into your eye. It's wonderful that we can test for and even treat glaucoma now, but couldn't we come up with something better than this? From the time the very first human opened the very first eye, we have all been trying to keep things out of them. Every instinct we have tells us to protect the eye from foreign invaders, be they sharp sticks, very small rocks or a blast of air. Now, you lean your forehead against the headrest and brace yourself, because you know what is coming. You think, "I am an intelligent being and I can control my instincts," knowing full well that it's all a lie. You sit there readying yourself for the inevitable, and it doesn't happen. So you wait, and still nothing. Finally, as you begin to wonder if the person performing the exam has lapsed into unconsciousness, the puff of air is unleashed. All of the time telling yourself not to move has been wasted as your instincts kick in and scream, "Save the eye! Quick, close the lids and duck." The feeling of panic quickly fades, only to be replaced by humiliation when you realize that you just threw yourself to the floor to avoid air, and now the test has to be repeated. The way I reacted to this test I expect a full head restraint to keep my still and tape to keep my eyelids open the next time I go in.

When I went in for my test this time, I tried everything I could to keep myself still. When the air was blown into the first of my eyes to be examined, I pulled away, but fortunately not enough to impact the test. I apologized to the technician performing the test and said, "I knew what to expect but jumped anyway." Chuckling, she switched to aiming at the other eye, lowered my head a little (giving me a complex about having eyes that aren't level in the process) and prepared to test again. Once more I braced myself. Whoosh. The air came rushing at me. I closed my eye and pulled my head out of the way. She looked at the reading on the machine as I apologized. No good, we have to do it again. One more try, similar reaction. This time, however, the reading is obtained. Thankful that it's over, I apologized to her once more and sheepishly made my way out to the lobby to wait for the doctor. "Don't worry about it," she said, "You made me laugh." Great, I'm always glad when my humiliation can bring a little joy into someone else's work day.

Until later...

Answer Me These Questions Three

When we went to see Harry Potter, I noticed that the theater had changed the badges that their employees wear. Rather than being simply a name tag, the badges each had three pieces of information on them. The first, obviously, was their name, but it was other two that got my attention. They were "All-time favorite movie" and "Favorite current movie." I noticed a couple of responses to each while in line for popcorn (What? You think I went to the movies without getting popcorn? I might as well stay home.) For favorite all time movie, I saw Back to The Future and Army of Darkness. For favorite currently showing movie, I saw Harry Potter and Good Night, and Good Luck.

This of course, started me thinking about what my responses would be if I were working there. (Unfortunately, the pay is not equivalent, so I won't be changing careers.) What would I say for all-time favorite? Would I go the pretentious route and list Ikiru, my favorite of the Kurosawa films I have seen, but likely one that most people haven't seen (though given the readers of this blog, the percentages may be a bit different)? Would I allow nostalgia to take over and pick Goonies? Would I give in to my inner geek and pick Empire Strikes Back or maybe the Lord of The Rings Trilogy (my inner geek is indecisive)? Maybe I'd go with a Hong Kong action flick and choose The Killer? Maybe I could just pick by genre. A western: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Film-noir: Touch of Evil or The Third Man. Spielberg directed: Raiders of the Lost Ark. Romantic Comedy: Love Actually. Musical: Keep going, no one will notice you didn't pick one. Mystery/Thriller: The Usual Suspects. Silent: Nosferatu (ok, fine. I'm cheating here, because my knowledge of silent films only includes about five movies.)

Once I finally decided on an all-time favorite, I'd have to start in on current movies. This might not be as hard, but it would have to be repeated on an almost constant basis. I can't imagine the pressure involved in making a final decision and having to wear it on display for everyone to see. That's it. It's final. There is no way I'm going to quit my job and work at the movie theater. I just don't think I can handle such a high stress environment.

Until later...