Pockets of Sanity

It Blows

So here's a statement that'll probably piss some people off...

Saxophone solos (or hell, just saxophones in general) ruin perfectly good rock and roll songs.

There, I said it.

Jump!

Every so often, when you're outside, take a brief moment and jump up into the air with your arms outstretched.  You never know when you might suddenly develop the power of flight, and wouldn't you rather know sooner than later?  I would.

Snowball a Friend

I was a little bit disturbed by the title of this new AOL advertising campaign that arrived in my email inbox the other day.  Once opened, the actual email seems innocent enough.  Still, I couldn't have been the only person with my initial reaction...

An Open Letter to Female Strangers, Friends and Co-Workers

To whom it may concern:

This past weekend I attended a Halloween party and became aware, first hand, of a trend that people have joked about for years.  That trend being the shift away from Halloween being a scary holiday and instead towards Halloween being the day where you can release your inner slut.

This letter is to inform you that if you insist on dressing like a hooker this Halloween with your Grand Tetons hanging out... I will be staring at them.  Forget chivalry or good manners or people paying any attention to those pearls of wisdom that are coming out of your mouth.  All that matters, if you're dressed like a whore, is how big your boobs are and if you jump up and down a few times will they fall out of that sock you're calling a costume.

Now I can understand wearing something that's emulating something slutty, like say a Fergie, Madonna or Courtney Love get up.  But it seems like costume makers now will produce anything that lets ladies show off the goods no matter if it's appropriate or not.  Look, I'm a ladybug... with bewbs!  Check it, I'm a bumblebee... with bewbs!  Make way, here comes Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor... with bewbs!

Don't take my rant the wrong way ladies.  If you're over 18 and insist on dressing like a tramp that's your decision and I support it wholeheartedly.  That's why America is the greatest country on the planet.  My point though is that if your knockers are on display, don't get offended when that's all people pay attention to.

And don't think it's just me.   Every dude out there is thinking the same thing I am.  No dude out there is going to say "Gee, that's a cute bug costume you have there Sally."  They're going to be thinking how they can manage to find a way to trip and fall face first into your cleavage.

I'm just nice enough to write you this letter ahead of time.

Sincerely,

dvdguy
Executive Creative Director - The-Watercooler.com

Happy Friday the 13th!

A Friday occurring on the 13th day of any month is considered to be a day of bad luck in English and Portuguese-speaking cultures around the globe. Similar superstitions exist in some other traditions. In Greece and Spain, for example, Tuesday the 13th takes the same role. The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia, a specialized form of triskaidekaphobia, a phobia of the number thirteen.

Here's a rather interesting memory of a series of events that, at the time, seemed perfectly normal.  When I was in the fourth or fifth grade I started writing my own version of the Friday the 13th series, using my fellow classmates as characters/victims.

The story took place at Camp Gonnawatchyourmama.  I have no clue how my elementary school brain came up with something like that.  Anyway, I wrote the stories as cliffhangers.  Every so often I'd write a few paragraphs (on my wicked awesome TRS-80 Color Computer!) and then end it with a big surprise or shocking development.  It was all ridiculously over the top (at one point I think I started time traveling) and continuity wise it never made any sense (much like the movie series), but it was a lot of fun to work on during downtime in class.  One of my buddies even did illustrations.

While I was having Jason (who was my brother in the storyline) kill these kids off left and right in horrific ways, it was all done for laughs and my friends really seemed to enjoy the stories.  But can you imagine if someone was doing this in school now, in today's post-Columbine society?  My teachers were aware of my story but they thought nothing much of it, seeing it as the harmless fluff that it was.  But today?  I would have been expelled and sentenced to counseling for "targeting" the poor, innocent children.

Random Wednesdays No More

That's right, I'm killing off the Random Wednesday feature here at The Watercooler.  Why?  Well, I'll tell you why.  Just calm down and get off my back.  Sheesh.

I first decided to do Random Wednesdays because I thought I had a bunch of ideas that weren't worthy of an entire post, and so I'd lump them all together into one weekly thing.  There are several flaws in that logic.  First, even if I wrote a two sentence post about backgammon you people would be thrilled that it wasn't in any way associated with a YouTube video.  Secondly, in the struggle to come up with things to talk about every day, Wednesdays now demanded that I think up two or three topics.  Well that just doesn't make any sense now does it?

So it's gone.  Outta here.  Viva la bye bye.  It'll be replaced with Focused, One-Topic Wednesdays, which from here on out will be known as Wednesdays.  Enjoy.

Well, enjoy it next week that is.  This is all there is for this Wednesday.  Sorry.

Random Wednesday XVIII

* WTF?: I noticed the other day that my DSL provider was charging me $16 more per month than the advertised price for the very same service.  So I called them to find out what was up.  I was told that existing customers had to call to request the new, reduced price.  So if I'd never noticed that they reduced their rates, they would have just kept pocketing my $16 per month and never would have said a word.  Excellent business practice there.

* It Sinks!: Over the weekend I got the chance to watch Poseidon, the wholly unnecessary remake of 1972's The Poseidon Adventure (a film that wasn't much to speak of in the first place). 

The sole reason this film exists is to torture Richard Dreyfuss' character.  Dreyfuss, clearly needing some cash because quitting acting to become a teacher just doesn't seem to pay the bills, plays a gay architect on the doomed ocean liner who has just been dumped and is about to commit suicide when he sees the giant wave heading for the boat.  For whatever reason, the impending doom inspires him to live.

For the rest of the film he is tormented at every turn.  He manages to kill a young Hispanic couple using only his ankles, he gets smacked in the face by a flying steel door that he tries opening (in a completely laughable scene), he's conflicted that a small cross might save his Jewishness, and is always not helping the group of survivors by generally being old and unable to keep up.  Plus every time the camera cuts to him he's make either a ridiculous face or an even more ridiculous sound.

Now, all this exists solely to make the character's death tragic, but then the movie goes and DOESN'T KILL HIM OFF!  He's one of the 3 or 4 survivors in the end.  The hell?  You don't completely torture your characters unless you intend their death to have some sort of emotional impact.  Instead, he survives, and the character will no doubt be killing himself minutes after the credits roll.

As for the rest of the film, every time it takes a step forward it then runs five steps backwards.  For example, fuel falling from the ceiling which ignites and creates a column of fire, preventing our heroes from escaping = good stuff.  But when a character takes all of 10 seconds to figure out how to defeat this crazy obstacle and doesn't bother telling anyone else about his idea just so he can act smug about it later = retarded.

Good effects, laughable everything else.  Final Rating: 1.5/5.0.

* Essentials Expansion: Watching Poseidon inspired a revisit to a much better underwater movie, The Abyss.  Everyone watching agreed that it's a solid flick, but the original ending leaves a bit too much to be desired and the E.T. butterflies almost wreck the thing.  The special edition ending makes much more sense and is preferred.  Luckily, both editions are part of the same package and it now takes it's place on the DVD Essentials Shelf.

Also joining: Beavis and Butthead Do America: Special Collector's Edition, Star Wars: Limited Edition, The Empire Strikes Back: Limited Edition, Return of the Jedi: Limited Edition, and Seven (which I will never, ever refer to as Se7en).

Random Wednesday XVII

* Change is Bad: A place I frequent for lunch has a habit of not giving you your coin change when you pay your bill.  For example, if your meal was $10.50 and you give the waitress a $20, she'll return with $9 in change, mysteriously pocketing the 50 cents in some sort of pre-tip presumption.

In a way I can understand this practice, but then again, not really.  I'm always inclined to tip the person a little bit less when this happens simply because of the nerve to assume you're getting a tip.  It's not up to you if you get a tip or not.  It's up to me.

What say you?

* Mr. Bucket Update: A mint condition Mr. Bucket popped up on Ebay the other day and I was tempted to get in on it, but bidding has risen to 51 bucks!  This thing must have quite a following.  I figured I was the only one who wanted one as a goof, so I could put it in my office.

* House of Cosbys: (from Wikipedia) House of Cosbys was the first Channel 101 series ever to go three consecutive months at #1, however it was cancelled when series creator Justin Roiland and channel101.com site administrator Dan Harmon received a cease and desist letter from Bill Cosby's attorney in June 2005:

Dear sirs, we are counsel for Mr. William H Cosby, Jr. We have just learned that you offer a deeply offensive animated film that you created, entitled "House of Cosbys". [...] As you are certainly aware, none of you are licensed or in any way authorized to use Mr. Cosby's voice, name, or likeness. [...] Therefore, we demand that you immediately cease and desist from any use of our client's name, voice, and likeness, including the development and distribution of the "House of Cosbys" series.

One of the issues under contention is whether House of Cosbys is covered under the fair use, as parody. Supporters point out that many TV shows like Family Guy and The Simpsons have used Cosby's likeness, and have not been sued.

The cartoon features main character Mitchell Reynolds (voiced by Jeff Davis) who invents a cloning machine in order to create his own personal Bill Cosby to entertain him. He then begins cloning several more Cosbys to help him around the house, much like in the plot of the 1996 film Multiplicity. However, the quality of the clones seems to deteriorate as the process is repeated, and he decides to stop using the machine, but when one of the clones subversively activates it, he discovers that every tenth Cosby he clones has super powers. At the suggestion of Data Analysis Cosby (the first super-powered Cosby) they decide to continue cloning Cosbys so that their super powers can be used to help the world.

Random Wednesday XVI

* New iPods: Of course, less than 30 days after I rejoin the nerd club and buy an Apple product, Apple goes and revamps the damn thing making it both better and cheaper.

There was all sorts of iTunes and iPod news yesterday.  Basically as it relates to me, if I'd waited a month I'd have an iPod that's brighter, has better battery life, and is 50 bucks cheaper.  Oh well, I'm still happy with what I have.

The new iTunes 7 is pretty damn cool, adding even more options to make your music management a snap.  Plus Apple has added downloadable games for the iPod.  I've added Texas Hold 'Em to mine already, and have my eye on some portable Pac-Man.  The only drawback to the games is that you have to have the headphones on to hear sound, which goes against everything we know about portable gaming.

* Rifftrax News: Over at Rifftrax, downloadable commentaries for both Cocktail and XXX have been added.  As always, they're well worth the measly pennies you'll be throwing in Mike Nelson's general direction.

* Another New Toy: So I've entered the world of digital photography with the purchase of an inexpensive Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S600, which appears to be a model Sony was closing out to make shelf space for the Cyber-Shot DSC-S500.  I'm not sure why the model number goes down for a new product, but I digress.

Sure it's not as cool as Lesliedotcom's new kickass Sony camera, but we really don't use our cameras for the same purpose.  My main interest in my new camera lies in its ability to record MPEG movies in fairly good quality.  I wouldn't make a full fledged movie with it or anything, but my primary goal was to have something handy for when YouTube worthy hijinks break out around me.  And the video resolution recorded by the camera works splendidly.

Random Wednesday XV

What do you do when you don't even have anything random to talk about?  You turn to the Web Journal Entry Generator.  You give it a keyword or phrase, and the script searches old random entries from other online web journals to come up with something appropriately random.  So here's mine:

* I used to speak more fluently but with the Recession and all that back there in the 1980's I had to give up stuff, you know, lighten the load.

* Yeah, so there were people from all sides jumping in and giving unwelcome advice. I wore an all black suit with a white dress shirt and a black and white patterned tie. I got pics of Josh dancing with Angelo and Steve.

* I told him about Friday night, and paying for Andrew, and he yelled at me a bit but surely he should realize better than anyone how your head and heart don't always match up? I kept telling him I was busy, and today when he called I told him not to call and I'd get back to him. However, trouble was on the horizon for the whole store, and I probably knew it long before she did. She probably wouldn't want to, but I think that would be awesome.

* Things like this give a person the will to hope for the best.

* She said that she didn't know, but that if she was in my position, she'd probably be really upset.

* Fuck it, she was bad crazy as hell, anyway, and did bad things to me. She isn't planning on touching on it, and as these kids have no social studies classes, it is pretty much being glossed over in the school.