No reason, just a wonderful little scene.
A shout-out to the fine young man who helped shovel out my car
Hey all!
Now I’m blogging from a public terminal at the Orchard Park Public Library. I hope the home DSL comes back on soon. Yeesh!
I was able to leave work today with relatively little fuss, which was nice owing to the large number of horror stories I had heard from denizens of the South Buffalo area regarding travel. The big difficulty was digging out my car, which had been buried in about a foot of snow since parking it seven hours prior. But a coworker of mine came along to help me do the digging, at one saying, “So, are you going to mention me on your blog?”
Well, here he is. Thanks, dude! And in the brief time span I was out there, he helped shovel out four different cars for coworkers. I’m sure there were more, even, than that. Huzzah for helpful coworkers!
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Holding Pattern Delta!
Wow, are we ever getting hit with snow in the regions surrounding Casa Jaquandor. Lots and lots of snow, that wonderful lake-effect stuff that beats the hell out of a region about five to ten miles wide and leaves folks half-a-mile outside of the snow band scratching their heads and saying things like, “What in tarnation do you suppose the fuss is all about!”
I assume it’s weather related, but our DSL connection at home has been extremely spotty over the last day and if it is weather related I expect it to remain spotty, so I’m not likely to be online a whole lot. But don’t just say “Well, screw him!” and click Back on your browsers! I’ve posted some good stuff lately (also on Flickr), or at least I like to think so. Hang out, leave a comment or two, yada yada yada. Meantime, new content will show up, oh, sometime when I can actually post new content. Cheerio, folks!
(I’m posting this from work, which is something I don’t like to do, but duty calls.)
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Wednesday Wickedness
Somewhat along the lines of Sunday Stealing, Wednesday Wickedness offers quiz-things, but with a twist: the W.W. quiz questions are inspired by quotes from famed personages. I haven’t done one yet, but I’m going to start now, with Groucho Marx:
1. ‘A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.”
What is a superstition that many have that you think is crazy?
Just about all superstitions are crazy, aren’t they? I can’t think of one that isn’t. I myself am not very superstitious, except for always saying “Bless you!” when people sneeze.
I suppose I could get political and say that the notion that cutting taxes will raise revenue strikes me as a deeply crazy superstition, or I could call Creationism or climate change denialism “superstitions”, but those seem more errors than superstitions to me.
2. “A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running.”
What were you in the hospital for the last time that you were admitted?
I have, to date, never been admitted to a hospital. I’m sure that lucky streak is bound to end someday, but for now, everything I’ve ever done has been in a doctor office visit.
3. “Alimony is like buying hay for a dead horse.”
What payment do you make that seems ridiculous?
None of my current payments seem ridiculous to me.
4. “Humor is reason gone mad.”
How would you describe your sense of humor?
I guess I’m all over the map, huh? I’m a guy who loves intricate wordplay, complex puns, the types of zany comedic situations that fill the Monty Python movies; I love geeky humor like what you’ll find in The Big Bang Theory, and I got a huge kick out of the raunchy humor of The Hangover. I like oddball, off-kilter humor like O Brother, Where Art Thou?, observational oddity humor like Seinfeld, meta-weirdness like The Far Side and Pearls Before Swine.
Oddly, slapstick humor doesn’t tend to do a whole lot for me, aside from pies in the face (which are more of a participatory thing for me anyway), unless it’s worked into one of the above categories for more comic effect. I don’t care for the Three Stooges, for instance, but there were some inspired slapsticky things that happened on Frasier.
5. “I have a mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it.”
Who was the last person that you wanted to beat with something or other?
I don’t really ever genuinely want to beat anyone with anything. But I do use the beating metaphor on occasion. One of my coworkers and I like to joke about how we’re going to snap one day and run around The Store, beating people on the head with stale French baguettes. Another friend and I like to quote James Earl Jones from Field of Dreams: “I’m gonna beat you with a crowbar, until you go away!”
6. “I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.”
Would you ever like to change something about your face?
Aside from having The Wife hit it with a pie once in a while, I’m generally fine with my face. It’s got me this far in life. (Maybe a slightly bigger chin…but nothing else!)
7. “I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.”
I read an article recently that asked if marriage was still relevant. Other than to raise children do you see the point?
I don’t know about this. I’m not sure that the government should be involved in marriage at all, anymore. But as long as it is, then I think it’s relevant — as a legal matter, marriage is, I suppose, society’s recognition of the commitment of two people to one another. And I do think that to some extent, marriage still implies and helps to create a stability of a relationship. But this may change. I’m not sure how much longer people will be getting “married” in the traditional sense.
8. “If you’ve heard this story before, don’t stop me, because I’d like to hear it again.”
Do you find that you tend to repeat your stories?
Yes, I do, and sometimes it gets annoying when (a) I realize I’m doing it, and (b) other people point out that I’m doing it.
9. “There’s one way to find out if a man is honest – ask him. If he says, “Yes,” you know he is a crook.”
Do you find most people that are in your life to be honest?
I find that most people believe that they are honest. Whether or not they actually are can be open to some interpretation. I don’t think that anyone is 100 percent honest, but I don’t think that there are all that many people for whom lying is as easy as drawing breath.
10. “Wives are people who feel they don’t dance enough.”
Have you ever felt that your significant other did not go out with enough?
Occasionally, yes. But I know she has thought that about me at times, too. We both seem to easily fall into ruts of familiarity and then not realize we’re in the ruts for a bit longer than it should be healthy.
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A Random Wednesday Conversation Starter
Runnin’ off the Rails
Our Thanksgiving modus operandi around here, in recent years, has been to meet my parents at a local restaurant for dinner, after which they spirit away The Daughter for a couple of days of quality time while The Wife and I enjoy some quality time as well. Usually, then, after T-giving dinner, The Wife and I go to a movie. After seeing Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, and The Men Who Stare At Goats on previous Thanksgivings past, we’ve decided that our post-enormous dinner movie is better an action film of some sort. (Well, OK, calling Goats an action movie is a bit of a stretch. But as much as we enjoy a good romantic comedy, we don’t do rom-coms on T-giving.)
So this year’s movie was Unstoppable.
And seriously – that movie is a friggin’ blast.
It’s about as slick an entertainment as you’ll ever see. There’s really nothing that happens in it that is a surprise in any way, and in fact, you can almost feel the cliche’s falling into place, one by one by one. Unstoppable falls into the action movie subcategory of “Race against time toward an unavoidable disaster”. There’s a big long freight train in rural Pennsylvania that (a) is pulling a whole bunch of cars filled with stuff that will either explode hugely or poison half the state, and (b) has managed to get away from the freight yard workers. Oh, and it’s not just gently rolling away, either: it’s under full throttle, with no one at the controls.
Enter, at the other end of the line, another freight train. This one is driven by two guys: the grizzled old veteran of the rails whose career’s end is being forced upon him (Denzel Washington), and the young railroader who is smart and well-trained but who has only been on the job a few months and has the misfortune of being related to someone higher up the coporate food chain (Chris Pine). They’re just kind of ambling out onto their day, taking a train from point A to point B, when they learn that there’s this much bigger train that’s out of control and it’s heading right for them.
So, already we have the old vet who knows everything because he’s incredibly experienced, clashing with the young buck who doesn’t want to feel stupid. We have the lady running the freight yard who proposes an obvious solution (derail the train in farm country), but she’s overruled by the corporate bigwigs who are trying to manage the crisis from a conference room in a skyscraper in Pittsburgh. “Do you know how much money we’ll lose if we derail that train!” comes the typical reply from the guy in the nice suit. And of course, option after option fails until the train is, predictably, nearing a big city that can’t evacuate in time because it’s too big and where the tracks make a kind of curve that no train whipping along at 70 mph could possibly negotiate. Oh, and that particular curve in the tracks is surrounded on all sides by enormous tanks of fuel and such. See what I mean? Every cliché in the book – and I haven’t even mentioned the train full of kids on a school trip.
What I liked most about the movie was the way it got the ball rolling very early on. There is almost no tedious set-up here; less than ten minutes in, the train is out of control and certain disaster is about to strike. What little bits of backstory and character history we get throughout the movie come in little bits, here and there; no long speeches. Unstoppable keeps its eye on the prize, and delivers. It’s a terrifically fun flick. See it!
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Cutting the meat for her? Why not just eat it, too?!
Jennifer Smith posted this photo, and I remember seeing the article in the paper. It cracked me up. Someone wrote in to Miss Manners to ask if the man should cut the lady’s meat at the table; Miss Manners pithily responded along the lines of “only if she’s five”.
When I worked in restaurants, I never saw a man cutting his date’s meat for her. But I did see men ordering for the women, which I found a pretty creepy exercise. Less so at Pizza Hut, obviously, where it’s “We’ll get a large supreme.” But when I worked at Bob Evans, I was always bugged on the odd occasion when I heard a man say “I’ll have the Western Omelet, and she’ll have the Rise-and-Shine Breakfast, over easy, with bacon.” This wasn’t terribly often, but it did happen, and when it did, I invariably looked for some sign that the woman was deaf or mute. Never was.
And then I remember this one guy. As a manager, one of the ways I would handle being in the dining room and interacting with my customers was to grab a coffee pot and circulate the room, offering refills. One time I approach a table of four, with a guy and his lady friend sitting on one side and an older couple on the other. Each had full cups of coffee except the younger lady, whose cup was empty. I asked her, “Would you like more coffee?” Whereupon her Manly Companion snaps his hand down on top of her cup, glares at me, and says, “NO!” I’ve always wondered if he thought I was coming on to his date.
Anyway, the idea that there’s a man out there who insists on cutting his lady’s meat at meals disturbs me. It’s like finding out that there are people who believe that the Earth is flat!
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The Moonraker? Really?
Here’s something cool: a list of the 100 best movie spaceships. I was especially gratified to see that they don’t allow the fact that a lot of those movies are, well, total crap to color their estimation of the ships themselves.
Of course, I do have a quibble or two. Like, the Moonraker. Sorry, but it’s just a space shuttle, and I know, we got a lot of stuff done with the shuttle over the last thirty years, but face it — the shuttle was the Honda Accord of spaceships. Nobody’s excited by one. Frankly, that goes for the shuttles in Armageddon, too.
:: I don’t even remember the ship from Starman, and the photo doesn’t do it any favors.
:: I was also less than impressed with the Narada from Star Trek 2009 — it just seemed like something invented to look threatening on the screen, and there’s nothing from the movie to indicate that it was made with Borg technology or whatever. I suppose this is from the comic book that came out before the movie, but that’s weak tea, as far as I’m concerned. Plus, I didn’t like the way the Narada‘s weaponry was either powerful enough to swat around entire fleets like flies, or wimpy enough to fail to take out individual ships, based on whatever the needs of the plot happened to be at that moment.
:: Space Cowboy’s ship from Battle Beyond the Stars? Among those geeks who have seen that movie, who remembers for a second what Space Cowboy’s ship looked like? If you’ve seen it, you know what ship you remember from that movie. Damn right: Nell, the boobs-in-space spaceship!
:: I always liked the Klingon Bird of Prey from Star Treks III through VI. (I think they might have used it in Generations too, come to that.) Thinking back on Trek, there were a lot of ship designs that I really didn’t like, though — particularly ones from the TNG era, whose Enterprise always looked oddly distended in the saucer section. The Big E on that show looked great from certain angles, and utterly awful from others. And I was never able to figure out which end was up on the TNG-era Romulan Bird of Prey.
:: OK, I know this is geeky fan-stuff, but there are a few Imperial shuttles in use in Return of the Jedi. Only one of them is the Tyderium; that’s the one the Rebels use to penetrate the Death Star shield and land on Endor. The one that Vader uses in the first scene? Not the Tyderium. The one the Emperor lands on the Death Star? Not the Tyderium. The one that Vader uses to bring Luke back from Endor to the Death Star? Not the Tyderium. The one that Luke uses to escape the exploding Death Star at movie’s end (which is what’s pictured in the article)? Not the Tyderium.
:: I’m glad that a little love is given to one of the ship from the Star Wars prequels, which were chock full of fantastic spaceship design. Lots of fans complain that there’s not one single ship in the Prequel Trilogy to root for the whole way through, like the Millennium Falcon. Those fans are dummies.
(OK, maybe “dummies” is too strong a word. We’ll go with “oddly misinformed”.)
Still, a cool article with some surprising entries that I was glad to see on there. Check it out!
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Stop the dreading!
Hey all! I hope everyone has had an enjoyable Thanksgiving weekend. More to come later on mine, of course, but this annoyed me greatly when I went to the Buffalo News website on Friday morning. I saw this headline, with the text right under it:
On Black Friday, forecast is for white Southtowns, at least, are expecting 1st snow as winter makes its long-dreaded return to WNY.
The Southtowns are the suburbs south of Buffalo, as you might expect. (Thus, the location of Casa Jaquandor.) So what’s irritating about this? That qualifying phrase in the sub-head: long-dreaded.
I, for one, like snow just fine. Sure, I get tired of it in March, but I also get tired of hot weather in September but it’s fine in June. Point is, there is entirely too much hating of the snow around here, and there is entirely not enough embracing it. Every time we openly admit that we “dread” the snow, as far as I’m concerned, we’re openly admitting as a region that we really wished we were someplace else.
Well, I don’t wish I was someplace else. I like it here, snow and all, so let’s stop acting like the snow is this awful thing, OK? You know what, Buffalo? Maybe the rest of the country would stop acting as though Buffalo is a godforsaken snowy wasteland all months of the year if we stopped acting like it is too.
Snow rules. Embrace it! And those that don’t want to? Charlotte, NC beckons.
End of rant.
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HE CAUGHT IT…oh. Crud.
Steelers 19, Bills 16 in OT. Sigh….
Well, once again, the Bills lose but they do it in such a way that leaves a weird sense of potential optimism for the team’s future. Usually when a team gets really bad and has to start rebuilding, they go through a progression of phases. First they’re the bad team that everybody wants to play, because they’re terrible and an easy win. (This year, the Carolina Panthers seem to be fitting that role.) But there’s a phase that sometimes gets overlooked, and that’s when you’re the bad team that nobody wants to play. That’s the Bills this year. Their record is awful and they’re still on pace for a pick in the top five of the draft, but damn, they work so hard and play so hard and they just don’t make it easy for anybody to beat them.
But they usually get beaten anyway. That’s because, right now, the Bills’ level of talent just does not match up to their level of heart. When it does, look out. But for now, it’s one painful loss after another.
The main goat today is apparently Stevie Johnson, the Bills’ certifiably “great story” of the year — the seventh-round pick who has blossomed in this, his third year, as he puts on fine receiving display after fine receiving display. But today, in overtime, he was wide open for a long pass, a 40-yarder, that Ryan Fitzpatrick put right in his hands as he entered the end zone. He catches that pass, the game ends right there, 22-16 Bills. Instead, Johnson drops the pass, and then just sits on the ground, in stunned disbelief. It was a clutch situation, and he dropped the ball.
Now, Johnson still has a ton of talent, he’s still having a great year, and he’s still a young player who can learn a valuable lesson here about what it means to be really clutch. And I hope all that happens, because you can’t be considered a great receiver if you drop that pass. (For my money, the worse gaffe was Leodis McKelvin’s fumbled punt return in OT. The Bills recovered the ball, but they lost about twenty yards on the fumble. Those yards might have been the difference between the drive ending in another punt and the drive ending in a field goal attempt. Oh well.
Anyway, the Bills came close to knocking off one of the NFL’s best teams. But instead, once again, it’s Pie Time for Bills fans!
Lots of pie for me this weekend, eh?