The Importance of Properly Placed Punctuation: A Musical Example

These are a few of my favorite things:

When the dog bites,
When the bee stings,
When I'm feeling sad.

Spring Sprang Sprung

Yesterday was the first day of Spring. It was nice and sunny with the temperature in the 40's. The last of the snow was just about melted (except in those pesky shady spots and places where it was piled up from plowing, but those won't melt until May). Today...well, I'll just let the National Weather Service tell you:

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN GRAND RAPIDS HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM
WARNING...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 11 AM THIS MORNING TO 8 AM EDT SATURDAY. SNOW WILL BEGIN LATE THIS MORNING AND BECOME HEAVY DURING THE AFTERNOON. 2 TO 5 INCHES OF SNOW ACCUMULATION CAN BE EXPECTED BY EVENING. THE SNOW WILL CONTINUE OVERNIGHT WITH AN ADDITIONAL 4 TO 7 INCHES OF SNOW EXPECTED. THIS WILL BRING TOTAL STORM ACCUMULATION OF 6 TO 12 INCHES BY DAYBREAK SATURDAY. A BRISK NORTHEAST WIND OF 15 TO 25 MPH WILL CAUSE SOME BLOWING SNOW WHICH COULD CONTRIBUTE TO VISIBILITIES FREQUENTLY BELOW A MILE.

Unfortunately, judging by the way it looks outside, they aren't lying.

Now, if you'll excuse me I'm going to try to stop whining long enough to go look for job openings in Costa Rica.

The End of The Odyssey

As I imagine most of you are probably already aware, Arthur C. Clarke passed away recently. Unlike many people whose exposure to Clarke was mostly through 2001: A Space Odyssey, my primary exposure was through the television series Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World and later Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers. These shows sparked an interest (or perhaps helped to kindle a just beginning interest) in understanding the world around me and realizing that there is a why behind every what. To this day, I still remember my father coming to find me to tell me that it was time for Mysterious World to start (this was in the pre-TiVo days...how did we live like that?) and then watching with him as they dealt with phenomena like ball lightning and cryptozoology.

You can agree or disagree with much of what Clarke has said, but there is no mistaking that he was an intelligent man who had a wonderful way with words. As such, I can see no better tribute than to present a few of my favorite insightful and amusing quotes.

"Every revolutionary idea — in science, politics, art, or whatever — seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases:
(1) 'It's completely impossible — don't waste my time'; (2) 'It's possible, but it's not worth doing'; (3) 'I said it was a good idea all along.'"

"Somewhere in me is a curiosity sensor. I want to know what's over the next hill. You know, people can live longer without food than without information. Without information, you'd go crazy."

What is often described as Clarke's First Law: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

"One cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying."

And probably my favorite, from the episode of Mysterious World dealing with the possibilities of as yet undiscovered ape men: "If anyone gave me 100 dollars to bet on it, I'd put 40 on the Yeti, 10 on Bigfoot and keep the 50 for myself."

Things Learned When ABC Family Played All Three The Cutting Edge Movies in a Row

That The Cutting Edge 2 and 3 exist

You can make the same movie repeatedly without changing almost anything.

The law of diminishing returns.

The wealthy over-indulgent father in the original movie is John Locke with a creepy mustache that is far more frightening than anything he has encountered on the Lost island.

Anyone who can skate, regardless of the type of skating, can become an Olympic pairs figure skating champion if given enough time...like two or three months.

People who fall in love at the 1992 Olympics will marry and have a child that is in her mid-twenties by the 2006 Olympics.

Olympic pairs skating is much like professional wrestling: To win you need to have a really cool finishing move.

It only takes one shared character to make a movie a sequel, and it doesn't matter if the same actor plays the role.

Just before a couple goes on ice, there is a 90% chance that one or the other of them is confessing their love of the other for the first time.

We're only one more direct-to-video or cable sequel away from the inevitable Cutting Edge/Air Bud crossover.

Sleep All Day. Party All Night. Never Grow Old.

I'm sure all of you out there have been wondering exactly what my thoughts were on the new Lost Boys sequel now that the first trailer has been released. What's that? You didn't know there was a trailer? Well, here you go. Anyway, back to those questions you had. What exactly did I think when I saw the trailer? I'm glad you asked, here are my thoughts in approximately the order they happened during the trailer.

• The trailer's debuting on MTV. Not a good sign.
• Ok, prepare yourself because this is probably going to be bad, and whatever you do, don't let nostalgia get the best of you and get your hopes up.
• Ugh, this looks like every other lame teen horror movie they try to push on us.
• "Your sister's a suck monkey." 21 years later, Edgar Frog's still got it.
• Whoa, Corey Feldman hasn't aged that much. For a second, I thought some of the footage of Edgar was from the first movie.
• Obviously between 24 and DUI arrests, Kiefer wasn't available, so they got someone that sorta looks and sounds like him to deliver the "No, but seriously...We're vampires."
• Don't get your hopes up, it's just a direct to video movie.
• Edgar's moved up from running their parent's comic book store to making surfboards? At least he's still hunting down blood suckers.
• Wait, we see Edgar Frog in the trailer, but what happened to Alan? Or was he there, but so much older that I just didn't recognize him?
• Ooh, "Cry Little Sister" is in the trailer. Nostalgia rising. Cannot resist.
• Edgar: "Let's go kill some vampires." Stop it, I don't want to care about this.
• D'oh! Too late. I'm gonna be mad if (when) this movie stinks.

You're Embarrassing Us In Front of Chad

So, I'm not the only person out there who sees the new Alltel commercials and wonders what happened to Sprint, right? Right?

You Spread Misery and Frustration Everywhere You Go

The guys from movie podcasting site Battleship Pretension have a special message for all the people out there who talk during movies. Click here for 2 minutes or so of chuckle-inducing audio. (Found on today's IMDB Hit List.)