A Howling Good Tune

Today I was cleaning up around the apartment and I had iTunes cranked. The song, "Shine," by Collective Soul played, and it brought back a funny memory for me. I looked for a clip of the song for you to hear if you're not familiar with it, but didn't find one. And besides, why risk offending the RIAA gods and get sent to prison for "stealing" music? You can probably find it yourself. ANYWAY….

In 1996 I was living in south Georgia, and making very little money. I was only able to make it home to Chicago twice a year, once for vacation and again at the holidays. I couldn't afford to fly, so I drove the approximately 900 miles each time. I would leave as early in the morning as I could muster in order to make the 14-hour drive and get home by early evening. I had a ten-year-old Jeep Cherokee with a tired 4-cylinder engine, and I was never certain which trip would be its last, so I never pushed it too hard, making the trip even longer. At highway speeds, the engine seemed to be screaming, so it was usually quite a noisy trip.

I would pack the night before, and Angel, my Dalmatian who loved car trips, would go absolutely crazy in anticipation — or fear that I was going to leave her behind.


Angel For Now

Once we got in the car and she was certain I wasn't stopping off at the place where the sweet-talking people stuck things up her butt and poked her with needles, she would settle down and sleep pretty much the whole way.

On one trip I had the stereo playing, with a borrowed personal CD-player plugged in through a cassette adapter. I was somewhere in Tennessee or Kentucky, music blasting, and I was singing at the top of my lungs to stave off boredom and stay awake. Suddenly I heard this awful sound coming from what sounded like the undercarriage. It was a horrible, deep, moaning, whirring kind of noise. I quickly punched the pause button on the CD-player, and when the music went silent, so did the noise. I slowed down to hear if the noise came back. I sped up to hear if it came back. Nothing. Not one to panic, I drove in relative silence for a while, but the sound did not return. Maybe I blew a speaker? I turned the music back on, but turned the volume down. It sounded just fine, so I cranked it back up.

And there was that sound again! I paused the player. Sound gone. I checked my windows to see if one was cracked open a tiny bit. Nothing. It was pissing me off. So I decided that if I heard it again, I would just listen as well as I could to try to identify it. I started the music again, and within just a few seconds THERE WAS THAT SOUND! I cocked my ear toward the engine. I couldn't tell. I cocked my ear to one side of the Jeep, and then the other. Tires? Couldn't tell. I was getting desperate. I was getting angry…I was getting CREEPED OUT! And then I looked in the rear view mirror. Angel was sitting, and appeared to be sniffing the ceiling of the Jeep, then lowering her head and then sniffing again. But when she lowered her head, the sound stopped. And then it dawned on me. Angel was howling!

I reached over and paused the music, and she immediately stopped. I started the music again, and she immediately resumed howling. I began laughing so hard I nearly went off the road! I looked quickly over my shoulder and she looked back at me, the picture of innocence!

The song finished and the next one started, but she went quiet. I turned it up even louder, but she had no reaction. So I backed up the CD to the beginning of the song that had been playing when she howled – "Shine." Angel remained quiet until the chorus of the song, where the instrumentation saturates, and the vocalist sings,

Oh-h! Heaven let your light shine down…

over and over again. Then she started howling again! I zipped forward and back to other songs, but Angel howled only at "Shine!" This tickled me no end.

I thought it was maybe a fluke, but on the return trip I put the Collective Soul album, Hints, Allegations & Things Left Unsaid, back into the player. Sure enough, when "Shine," the first song on the album, hit the chorus, off Angel went! I was certain I had played the song in the apartment before, and she never had such a reaction, so I thought maybe it was the acoustics of the Jeep, maybe something about it bothered her ears.

Back at home I did a little experiment, and put the CD on the big stereo (big for me at the time…). A peculiar thing happened. As soon as the song started, Angel stared at the speakers intently. Did she recognize the song? Did she like the song? And when the chorus began, so did Angel.

"Shine" was one of my favorite songs at the time, so I played it a lot, and Angel "sang" along with it just about every time! It was the only song that achieved such a reaction. She didn't seem to be irritated by it. She stood, lay, sat wherever she was and just pointed her nose toward the ceiling and bellowed. I imagine there must have been a harmonic tone in the chorus that tickled her ears, or that resulted in a wail much like a siren that causes other dogs to howl. But she sure seemed to know it was coming!

God I miss that old girl!

Thunder No Blunder

Four lethargic, prima donna actors on location in Vietnam to make a movie about an American war hero get into a jam with their studio because they're too focused on themselves to care about the story or the script or the director or the budget. Threatened with being fired, the young director is despondent, but the author of the original book, a disabled war hero who is on location as a consultant, suggests to the director that they shoot the movie guerrilla style out in the jungle, that they put a real scare to the actors to let them feel the sense of war, of panic, of despair in order to get their heads back in their game. What could go wrong, right?

Soon after they launch the plan, something "happens" to the director, and the actors have to sort out everything on their own, and there ain't just a movie shooting out in the jungle!

I saw Tropic Thunder Friday night and quite thoroughly laughed my ass off! Starring Ben Stiller – who also directs – Robert Downey, Jr., and Jack Black, with supporting roles as supporting actors by Brandon T. Jackson and Jay Baruchel, Tropic Thunder takes no prisoners where the comedy is concerned. They spare no ethnic group, no race, no disability or personality type from the wrath of their humor, taking special delight in poking the Hollywood system, and poking it hard. Nor do they pull any punches with language or the depths of the gutter from which they retrieve material.

Stiller has a knack for getting A-list actors to appear in his films and take great chances at spoofing themselves or playing extreme roles. Robert Downey, Jr., does a wonderful job as a credentialed, multiple-Oscar-winning actor so wrapped up in his characters that he no longer knows who he is. And Jack Black is finally in a role where the top is too high even for him to go over. He has probably the most outrageous – and the funniest – lines peppered throughout the whole film.

The clearest victim of this film is the film industry itself. Originality, or the lack of it; the ridiculous vanities of the actors and the studios' pandering to their quirks; and the selfish, cut-throat nature of the industry movers and shakers are all sent up in epic, blockbuster fashion.

Tropic Thunder is far-fetched, profane and at times extremely vulgar, but figurative tongue is so deeply inserted in figurative cheek that even the profanity and vulgarity seem hollow and fake, and when that's done on purpose, it's a good thing! For as outrageous and far-fetched as the story itself is, I have a feeling that the behind-the-scenes scenes hit the nail squarely on the head.

Not since the original Star Wars have I walked out of a theater so entertained by a film that I have considered returning to see it again. I was weary from laughter, and found myself hours later — a day later — giggling over scenes that played in my memory.

On my Numb Butt Cheeks© scale, I give Tropic Thunder an 8.5.

Rules

Below is a piece I received from an office worker of one of our clients. I found it fascinating and asked her for a copy, which she then e-mailed to me.

You may have seen this before, and seen it credited to Bill Gates in a speech he gave to some graduating high schoolers, but that is not true. According to Snopes.com, it was written by Charles J. Sykes, author of Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can't Write, Read or Add, 1996; and of 50 Rules Kids Won't Learn In School: Real-World Antidotes to Feel-Good Education, 2007. The list below is taken from the latter book. Sykes talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings have created a generation of kids with no concept of reality, and how this concept sets them up for failure in the real world.

I'm sure it has made the rounds of e-mails and blogs and other whatnot postings, and in various iterations and versions, but it still resonates with me, as I now work with some Generation Whiners (my phrase) now.

Rule #1: Life is not fair. Get used to it. The average teen-ager uses the phrase "It's not fair" 8.6 times a day. You got it from your parents, who said it so often you decided they must be the most idealistic generation ever. When they started hearing it from their own kids, they realized Rule #1.

Rule #2: The real world doesn't care about your self-esteem as much as your school does. It'll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, kids complain that it's not fair. (See Rule #1)

Rule #3: Sorry, you won't make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won't be a vice president or have a [company car], either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn't have a Gap label.

Rule #4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he's not going to ask you how you feel about it.

Rule #5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger-flipping. They called it opportunity. They weren't embarrassed making minimum wage, either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.

Rule #6: It's not your parents' fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of "It's my life," and "You're not the boss of me," and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it's on your dime. Don't whine about it, or you'll sound like a baby-boomer.

Rule #7: Before you were born your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your bedroom.

Rule #8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn't. In some schools, they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone's feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life. (See Rule #1, Rule #2 and rule #4.)

Rule #9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don't get summers off. Not even Easter break. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And you don't get a new life every 10 weeks. It just goes on and on. While we're at it, very few jobs are interested in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself. Fewer still lead to self-realization. (See Rule #1 and Rule #2.)

Rule #10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs. Your friends will not be as perky or pliable as Jennifer Aniston.

Rule #11: Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.

Rule #12: Smoking does not make you look cool. It makes you look moronic. Next time you're out cruising, watch an 11-year-old with a butt in his mouth. That's what you look like to anyone over 20. Ditto for "expressing yourself" with purple hair and/or pierced body parts.

Rule #13: You are not immortal. (See Rule #12.) If you are under the impression that living fast, dying young and leaving a beautiful corpse is romantic, you obviously haven't seen one of your peers at room temperature lately.

Rule #14: Enjoy this while you can. Sure, parents are a pain, school's a bother and life is depressing. But someday you'll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now. You're welcome.

Does My Blog Appear Upside-Down Down There?

Weeeeellllll! The 5,000th visitor has visited the ol' Farrago blog site web place page link, and it looks like I'll be paying a visit to…

Australia?

Put the shrimps on the Barbie, and the steaks on the Ken! I'm-a heading south!

W-A-A-A-A-A-Y Sou…. ah, the hell I am!

You know how long it would take me to get there? By the time I'd arrive it would be past time for me to leave again to get home before the weekend is over, even with the extra day!!

But it is strangely ironic – and sad – that the 5000th visitor is a one-time, flash-in-the-pan visitor who didn't even google "farting keyboard" to get here. An anomaly, I tell you! And then the bloke didn't even read while here! CRIKEY!


The SiteMeter page that bears the truth. The 5,000th
Visitor prize was snatched away by a gawker!
(Click to biggify.)

And it's almost cryptic, this visit. Check out the time stamp: 9:29:29 am on the 29th. If it was one year and one month later, it would be really creepy! Twenty-one years and one month later, and it would be AWESOMELY creepy, but then if it took me that long to get up to 5,000 visitors, that would be awesomely sad.

So Mr. or Ms. Downunderer there in Melbourne, Australia, I'll just owe you a visit for...oh...the rest of my life.

And for you disappointed to have missed the golden mark, be not sad. If you want me to come visit you, just say so. I'll be sure to bring my Speedos™ and my back comb.

The New Best Corned Beef Hash & Eggs Breakfast In America

Heading to the airport in San Diego Wednesday morning, I gave myself an extra half-hour for breakfast at a place I passed on the day I arrived. I was unsure as to the official name of the place, as huge letters across the slanted roof line read “The Breakfast House,” while smaller, lighted signs over the doorways read “Perry’s Café.” Upon entering, I noticed that the bus staff’s t-shirts are emblazoned on the back with “Perry’s Café, The Best Breakfast In Town.”

I checked the menu and decided that this place was a satisfactory entrant in my nationwide quest to find The Best Corned Beef Hash & Eggs Breakfast In America. They offer just about the same portions and serving style of the current leader, Mac’s Diner, in Park Ridge, Illinois: Two eggs to order (in my case, over medium); corned beef hash, of course; potatoes; and toast. Perry’s Café offers the potatoes done two ways – hash browns or home fries – where Mac’s offers home fries only. I ordered the hash browns.

The meal came quickly, almost as quickly as it comes at Mac’s. I did my usual, dunking my rye toast into the egg yolks until they were dry, and then chopping the egg whites and folding them into the corned beef hash and potatoes to make a greater hash. It was all very tasty and filling, on a par with Mac’s, and the waitress who served me kept my coffee cup full.

The bill came, and this is where I noticed the weird things. The cost of the meal came to $9.10, which is currently the exact same amount the same meal at Mac’s comes to. And then, the other weird thing occurred to me – the realization triggered by the amount of the bill: the name of this place is Perry’s Café, and the owner of Mac’s is named Perry.

Hmmm. A restaurant doppelgänger.

While both restaurants serve practically the same meal of the same quality with the same attention to service at the same price, Perry’s Café does offer a choice of potatoes. So the very slim edge goes to Perry’s Café, at the corner of Pacific Highway and Taylor Street in San Diego, and so goes the title as the current purveyor of The Best Corned Beef Hash & Eggs Breakfast In America, which does not mean that anyone passing through Park Ridge, Illinois, should pass up Mac’s Diner, by any means.

(Hint: If you’re ever in the city of Chicago and you’re heading to O’Hare Airport or back on I-90, you’re passing through Park Ridge. Mac's is on Higgins Road on the northeast corner of Higgins and Cumberland Avenue, next to the 7-11 or whatever gas station.)

5K Run

My blog is rapidly closing in on its 5,000th hit! I'll have to really come up with something special and thoughtful this time around, as the prize for my 3,000th hit -- an autographed photo of me in a pair of Speedos™ one size too small -- was for some reason sent back marked, "Addressee Does Not Live Here...or ANYWHERE."

So, maybe for visitor number 5,000, I'll take a trip and visit you where you live! That's it! "The 5,000th Farrago Visitor 'Win A Weekend With Farrago!' Weekend!" I'll come to your home-town, force you to take me around to all the sights, make you stand beside me in cheesy tourist photos, and sleep on your couch -- or with your over-the-legal-age-of-consent teenage daughter(s), whichever is most comfortable for me.

Or maybe your prize will be that I won't come visit you. I'll just drop in on the 299,999,998 other people in the country that weekend, and leave you be.

And rest easy. I offered awards for my 1,000th, 2,000th and my 3,000th visitors, but skipped to the 5000th as the next milestone. The next award will come to my 10,000th visitor...but I'll be elderly by then, if not dead already. That'd be a creepy visit!

Tuesday At Sea

Monday morning I flew out to San Diego to carry out an assignment as producer/shooter of a video for one of our clients. They’re a membership organization which I shall leave nameless, and they operate a charitable foundation that gives to many different charities and needy organizations throughout the year. They give often to organizations that help children. One they wish to highlight this year is Friends of Rollo.

Named in memory of an avid sport fisherman and boat captain, Friends of Rollo focuses on providing fishing trips for inner city- and other economically challenged or underprivileged children. The charity works with the owners of sport fishing boats and charter companies, and gets tremendous discounts on day-and half-day trips they purchase for the groups, as well as on the rental of rods and reels and the purchase of bait.

While out to sea, the boat crews feed the groups on Friends of Rollo’s tab, and provide expert instruction on fishing techniques and tricks, as well as helping the kids reel in some pretty big fish!

We headed out at noon after I conducted some interviews, and we were barely underway when we stopped at the bait “store,” an extension off a pier that housed an untold number of bait pens. The boat’s crew leaped down to one of the pens and lowered a huge net to lift the sardines and anchovies (no pepproni or mushroom (nyuk, nyuk!)) and hold them captive, and then they grabbed smaller nets on poles and performed a “bucket brigade,” carrying netfuls of bait fish from the large net up to the bait tanks on the boat.

Out to sea at full throttle for about 20 minutes and we stopped for some fishing. After some brief instructions and the laying of some ground rules, these kids ranging in age from about 5 up to about 15 were each responsible for catching their own bait, baiting their own hooks and reeling in their own fish! the crew did help out a lot, especially when the fish weren’t biting so well, and it called for a little know-how.

The biggest frustration all day long was the presence of the sea lions. They chase the boats out to sea and loiter wherever the people are dropping or casting their lines, and then they go for the bait on the hooks. Worse, when someone catches a fish, the sea lions chase the catch and eat it before the fisherman can reel it in! The sea birds – sea gulls, cormorants, ospreys(?) and pelicans – hang out over the fishing lines, too, diving in after the bait when it’s cast out there. The boat captain hooked a fighter on the line and handed the rod to one of the kids, but then took it back when he realized that he had hooked a cormorant around its beak and through the roof of its mouth and one eye-socket. It was unnerving to watch as he used a pair of wire-cutters to sever the eye, which dangled from the socket, and then worked the hook out of the poor bird’s beak. He threw the bird back into the water where it then dived out of sight. I don’t imagine that bird will live much longer.

The last time I was out on a boat of that approximate size – a 75 footer – I did just fine, but, for some reason today, I could not get my sea legs and spent much of the time trying to shake the spinning from my head. I can still say I’ve never gotten seasick, but today I was close. A couple of the kids were looking over the side of the boat, but I don’t know if they fed the fish….

We changed locations a few times and, finally, the sea lions had thinned out enough that the crew were hooking good-sized yellow-tail, bonito and barracuda, and then handing the rod & reels to the kids to bring in. It was sometimes funny to watch as the crewman would bring the fish over the rail. Some kids – boys as well as girls – were absolutely freaked about seeing or touching the fish. But one girl, about age 9, was absolutely fearless. She was snatching her own bait, baiting her own hook, and when the boat captain hauled in a yellow-tail (about 20 inches long and maybe ten pounds) for her, and he told her to hold the fish and smile for the picture (my video camera), she was all about holding that fish! And then she carried it to her bag to keep it.

Around 4:30, after the fishing was done, we headed back for San Diego. One of the crewmen began prepping the fish for the kids to take home, and I videotaped him at work. It was amazing to watch as he deftly gutted each fish species in a distinctly different way, keenly aware of each fish’s anatomy. At one point, as he cleaned one of the yellow-tail (which, I guess is a type of tuna(?)), he sliced off a small chunk and held it up for me. “Here,” he said. “The freshest hamachi you’ll ever taste!”

It was fantastic! If I had never had sashimi (not “sushi,” which actually refers to how the rice is prepared), I would have begged off politely. But I knew better, and probably seemed too eager to chomp on that little morsel! Then I felt guilty…what if the kid who was taking that fish home saw me munching on his family’s dinner?

When we docked, every kid walked off that boat with a small bag containing at least one fish, and others with several pounds of fish to bring home to their families! Some of the kids seemed a little perplexed by the cleaned and dressed fish they had, wondering, I think, what happened to the head, and why it was all cut up!

And now, as I sit here and type, the room seems to be rocking to and fro, as now I can’t shake the motion of the sea, and I fear I’ll get seasick sitting still!

This post begs for photographs, but I was not tasked with shooting stills. It was well enough that I had to conduct and shoot interviews and all the other footage by myself while fighting off seasickness; I would never have had the time to take photos!

Friends of Rollo certainly seems like a worthwhile cause if you're into supporting charities that provide disadvantaged kids with interesting, horizon-expanding, possibly life-changing activities. Give them a look.

Did That Monkey Just Fly Out of My Butt?

NEWS FLASH!! HOLD EVERYTHING!! NEWS FLASH!! STOP THE MUSIC!!

Jews and Arabs will find peace together. The pope will allow females into the priesthood – on birth control. The Republicans will see the Democrats as pretty swell folks, and vice-versa. Oil will mix with water. And, most unbelievable of all, the Cubs will win the World Series.

“Why?” you ask? “How does he know this?” you ponder?

Because hell has frozen over, my friends.

A woman has asked me out on a date…sorta.

It happened Friday. The client representative with whom I worked most closely on the project I produced in May, and which has been editing in July and this month, asked me out for coffee “sometime,” on a weekend when she is free.

Coffee. That’s a date, right?

It’s odd in that I was planning on asking her out, if I ever got the balls together, only I was going to wait until the video was finished and approved, just in case my gesture was unwelcome, and we would each have a year to forget about it before we had to work together again.

She’s tall, slim, around 36, gorgeous – no one will believe me when I say that she is a former model – but she apparently needs glasses because … well, have you seen me lately?

So one might surmise that I am quite fairly floored by this.

One would be quite fairly correct.

Cutbacks

Too much of a good thing may not cause any harm, but sometimes it can make us grow tired of the stuff. In my case, it's coffee.

I have waxed poetic about it in the past, and, to be honest, I have not grown tired of it. But I think I have been drinking too much of it, and my body is rebelling.

The shame of it is that I just got a "new" coffee maker. My old-fashioned pot suffered a major injury a few months ago when the handle broke off, perhaps from washing the pot in the dishwasher. Just as I was about to start looking for a replacement, my s2bx brother-in-law mentioned to me that he had an extra single-cup coffee maker that he had been trying to find someone to take. I went over to take a look at the Philips™ Senseo® that he had just replaced with…a Philips™ Senseo®. Don't ask. I don't get it either. He made me a cup with his newer one, and I decided that this was the one for me. …And it was free. So, no more boiled coffee for me, and no more stretching a seven-cup pot to three days worth of coffee.


The Philips™ Senseo® 1-2 cup coffee maker.

As I am wont to do – and as I have written before – if there's coffee available, I'll drink it, and I was doing that to the point, I'm most certain, of dehydration: a mug in the morning, with or without breakfast, before I left for work; a mug when I got to work, drain it and get another mug; and sometimes a cup with lunch. If there was coffee in the pot after lunch, I'd have another, and then sometimes in the evening at home, I'd have even more.

Then, over the past few months, I've been feeling like crap much of the time. I've also been very inactive, and I know it's not helping things. That, and not drinking much water, and I fear I've been mere moments away from collapsing in a pile of dust.

So, I'm trying to make a change. Over the past week I've cut back to one cup of coffee a day. I don't have any coffee until I get to work (I don't have to pay for it that way!) I pour a mug in the morning and then I nurse that thing all day long. It's cold by 10:00, but I keep sipping at it until it's gone, sometimes not until 4:00 or later!

I used to have a boss like that at my first TV job, at the start of which I was on a no-caffeine kick. He would say to me in the morning, right after I got in, "Hey, ya wanna go get coffee?" We'd head off in his car to the Hardees™ drive-thru about a mile away.

He would ask me what I wanted, and I would tell him, "A large decaf."

Every time, he'd look at me and ask, "What's the point?"

What can I say? I like the taste of coffee.

Then we'd return to the station, and I'd see him sometime around 2:00 in the afternoon sipping from the Hardees™ to-go cup. The first time I saw it I asked, "Did you go to Hardees again?"

He said, "Nope."

"Same coffee from this morning?"

"Yup."

"Isn't it cold?!"

"Yup."

So now I've become my old boss, and proved that I truly can drink coffee any freakin way.

I'm still drinking coffee all day, but I'm only having one mug. I have been stretching and can touch my toes again without bending my knees. I've reduced my intake of potatoes, the great high-glycemic carbohydrate monkey I can't quite shake off of my back. And I've been on my bike twice this summer.

Things are moving forward.

Gotta Love Benny Hill

Poor old Prunella
Was built like a fella
So she went 'round to see Dr. Kerr
He said, "Now then make haste,"
And when she stripped to the waist
He could hardly stop calling her "Sir!"

"Don't worry your head
"I'm a surgeon," he said.
"I'll graft two on just like that."
And then he went and got plastered,
The silly old fool
And grafted them onto her back!

Now Poor old Prunella
She can't get a fella
To walk or to talk or romance with
'Cause no one wants to chat
When a girl looks like that,
But by golly she's sure fun to dance with!

Laugh 'Til Liquid Leaks From You

The following is in response to the instructions by JillJillBoBill to recall and share an occurrence in my life that incited uncontrollable laughter to the point of tears and/or peeing the pants:

It was May of 2004. I was on the job, shooting a highlights video for one of our clients whose annual sales meeting that particular year happened to take place on a HollandAmerica cruise ship in the Caribbean. A chartered cruise ship, no less! The only people on the ship were HollandAmerica crew, the client's people (about 600), and the four of us on the video crew.

Despite the low number of people on the ship – the passenger count was half the ship's capacity – we still had designated dinner seatings, and the crew person who organizes such things seemed to think that, after working together all day, the guys making the video would want to spend even more time together by sitting together for dinner.

So there we were, the four of us: Mr. Graceful, our boss; Stud-boy, our editor; The King of Comedy, our producer; and I. We had finished dinner and were waiting for dessert and the floor-show, which we were told was not to be missed. A waiter brought a small plate with four small cookies on it.

The King of Comedy – if you can't tell by my nickname for him – is an attention whore who thinks every word he utters is pure Comedy Gold. Don't get the wrong idea…he can be clever, he is often pretty funny, but rarely is he original, and turn it off once in a while! And though he has good common sense, has great organizational skills and seems savvy about politics and dealing with people, he's a geographical moron who is prone to utter malapropisms due to his shallow vocabulary, and so often comes across as kind of dumb. Anyway, the King of Comedy looks down at the small plate of cookies and he says, "Oh! It's…" He points at the cookies and then looks at us. "They're…" He's stuck for a word. He gestures with one hand in an effort to encourage one of us to read his mind.

"Cookies?" I say.

"No!" he says, still gesturing.

"Dessert," says Mr. Graceful.

King of Comedy closes his eyes and shakes his head in frustration. "You know. They're… they're…" More gesturing follows.

"What?" says one of us in mild exasperation. This has already gone on too long. I'm anticipating another wisecrack, but his own dysfunctional vocabulary is delaying his punchline.

"You know!" He starts pointing violently at the cookies.

"No, we don't!" I yell back.

Finally King of Comedy gives up, slaps the table and, in frustration, asks, "What's in a meringue pie?"

In unplanned unison, Mr. Graceful, Stud-boy and I, each of us thinking we're being funny, say, "Meringue?"

Suddenly a stunned, sheepish look comes across King of Comedy's face, along with a quickly spreading pink tint. Just as suddenly, I realize that he was not trying to make a joke, and that "meringue" was indeed the word he was trying to come up with.

In the same instant I realized it, Mr. Graceful and Stud-boy figure it out, too, and we start laughing hysterically. A few moments later, King of Comedy is also laughing, and none of us can stop. We can't even pause long enough to tell the waiter we want coffee.

We must have laughed non-stop for a full half-hour. The next day Stud-boy placed a videotape adhesive label above the screen of his video monitor and wrote on it, "What's in a meringue pie?" When the rest of us saw it, we were laughing yet again, for almost as long. It became the catch phrase for the rest of the trip, and King of Comedy has not been able – or allowed – to live it down.

Oh, and the floor-show? It was worth missing.

I'm Going Through the Hay to Your Home

Somebody googled "Vanilla Sky," wound up at an old post of mine from 2006, but apparently didn't read. I backtraced their google query and got to the same Google page they had seen, and I clicked through a couple of headers...

And I found this...

And I nearly shit myself laughing... (stay with it...)



And doesn't that one guy look like Doug Henning?

Knight Falls

I've never been a fan of comic books, so the past decade's slough of comic-book-character-inspired films has left me unimpressed.

That said, I went and saw The Dark Knight last night (finally!).

And?

Meh.

Maybe it's the down-side to so much hype for a movie. Maybe it's that I don't understand the character the way a rabid comic book fan – nay, a fan of "The Batman" – does. Or maybe it isn't really all that great a movie, despite what just about every other last person on the planet has been saying.

Don't get me wrong; I enjoyed the film. I found it engaging and entertaining, intentionally funny at points, delightfully macabre in parts, and, despite my comments here, I thought Heath Ledger did a fine turn as The Joker. Will it define his short-lived career? I doubt it. Should it? Definitely not!

I wanted to enjoy this movie more. I really wanted to. But the film lacks something that, in my opinion, a fantastic film must have. What that is, exactly, I've had trouble putting my finger on. There are spectacular fight scenes. There is gunplay. There are explosions and car wrecks. There is believable dialogue – the main plot element aside. It has a plot…always a good thing! There is a definite direction the film took me. There is no female nudity…is that the missing element? No. I didn't find myself yearning to see Maggie Gyllenhall's tits at any point in the film.

So what is it?

I think the film fails in its utmost responsibility as an action-adventure/fantasy/escapist film: the suspension of disbelief.

For instance – and despite the fantastic make-up/CGI work (WOW!) – how is "Two-Face" able to form plosives and fricatives in his speech with half his lips missing? And am I the only person in America who was waiting for The Batman to say, "Do you feel lucky, punk?"

Again, this probably goes back to the whole "I'm-not-a-comic-book-fan" thing, but at no point could I buy into the premise that an infinitely wealthy young playboy would – for any reason – devote so much of his time and fortune to the research and development of a relatively impervious suit of futuristic armor, not to mention the development of his mind and body into a sharp reflex.

So, while the film is entertaining and certainly watchable, and dark and evocative of old B-movie villainy with a distinctly 21st Century edge, I really think it misses the mark. Any film that requires the viewer to have a foreknowledge acquired outside the viewing of the film – an earlier film, perhaps, or immersion in the character's original medium – in order to understand or appreciate it fully, is incomplete.

So, on a Numb Butt Cheeks scale of zero to ten - zero Numb Butt Cheeks indicating such a disregard for the film that one could get up to go to the bathroom at any point without worry of missing anything exciting or important - or of returning - and ten Numb Butt Cheeks indicating there is no way one would get up and leave, save for a distinct tearing of bladder tissue - I give The Dark Knight 6.5 Numb Butt Cheeks.

Wii Need To Talk

Have you ever made a funny without realizing it? I don't mean being the butt of a joke, but saying something clever and humorous – or what others perceive as such – when you were being serious?

Scene: Saturday afternoon at Brother #2's house during the graduation party for his older kid.

Sister #3: Hey [Farrago], guess what I just bought.

Farrago: You got me… what?

Sister #3: A Wii.

Farrago (after a brief pause): Really….

Sister #4 (laughs and slaps my arm): "Wii-lly!" You and your jokes! You just don't stop!

Farrago: I didn't say that! I said, "Really."

Sister #4: Yeah, right. You're such a nut!

I couldn't even deflect credit for making my sisters chuckle. Quietly I thought to myself that "Wii-lly" was pretty darn funny, something I would've been proud of myself to have come up with so quickly. I wasn't even quick enough in that moment to take credit for it. BUT THEY DIDN'T BELIEVE ME!!

The above scenario reveals two things to me: 1) I have comedically cried "wolf" too many times, and now my sisters never take me seriously; and b) still, 25 years after emerging from adolescence, I mumble.

Sunday's Project

I spent most of the day dealing with this.



It's actually two different pieces from the same design set at IKEA – BESTÅ. The bottom piece is simply a two-section shelf that can be stacked on another piece to make a taller bookshelf, or can stand alone as a TV stand, or can be mounted on a wall as a floating book shelf, or – as I've done – can have another piece stacked on top of it.

The larger, top piece is designed as a TV cabinet, and turned out to be a bit of a bitch to work with. The shelves are just deep enough to put electronic components in them, but when you have cables attached, suddenly those shelves aren't quite so deep.

I spent three hours at IKEA last Sunday trying to figure out which piece(s) I wanted, and then, when I figured that piece wouldn't fit, I had to come up with another solution. I had every intention of going back to IKEA to pick up the items during the week one night after work, when the place wouldn't be so crowded, but I never made it back, so I went today right as they opened their doors, scooped up the things I needed and zipped back home.

I hadn't quite finished the larger piece when I realized that IKEA's placement of the hole for cables and cords – right in the middle of the back wall in the TV space of the cabinet – rendered most of my cords and cables too short, as the TV's connectors are on the bottom left of the unit. So I ran to the local hardware store and bought a cordless drill and a hole cutter assembly, and cut a new hole where I needed it…. There'll be no returning this item to IKEA!! And now I have a new cordless drill!

And, yes, seeing is believing… those are old vinyl LP record albums in the bottom piece. They had been stored in a couple of plastic milk crates for about the last 15 years, and had been cluttering up the living room here in the apartment since I moved them here. Finally they're in a real cabinet, and I have my floor space back, and a view of my gas fireplace that I never even used last winter because of all the stuff in front of it!!

While sorting through the albums I contemplated the duplicates. Last fall when I was moving my stuff out of the house I had shared with Mrs. Farrago, she and I sifted through the LPs, as we had stored hers and mine together. Mysteriously, some of the albums had multiplied. Now there were two of each of Van Halen's first album, Fair Warning, 1984 and 5150, as well as Billy Joel's Glass Houses. Even more mysteriously, two Rod Stewart albums and another by Billy Squier had appeared spontaneously. I had only one of each Van Halen album and each Billy Joel album, and never had any Rod Stewart or Billy Squier. Mrs. Farrago had never owned any of these… EVER …as she made clear to me.

So I did the best thing I could think of… of the duplicates, I compared the condition of each disc itself, taking the one with the cleanest, most blemish-free surface, as well as choosing the jacket in the best condition of each pair.

Back when I was collecting the vinyl, I adopted the practice of playing any disc only once, and at that playing I recorded it onto audio-cassette. I could then play the crap out of the audio-cassette and never remove the LP from its jacket again until the tape gave out. I never had a tape give out. So it was pretty easy to tell which of the duplicate LPs were mine originally: they look brand new.

The plan now is to someday buy a turntable and record each LP record to a CD and once again be able to take that music with me, though I doubt Rod Stewart will ever see the light of day.

$760.12

...for those of you who asked who are still interested...

Chocolate Milk, Vanilla Sky and Leopard Prince

[Professor!! GAG ALERT!!! Don't read this! Skip down to Tom Cruise where it's safe and milk-free!]

On a fairly recent mission to get my favorite milk, I discovered that Whole Foods Market now carries Farmers' All-Natural Creamery "Dutch" Chocolate Milk.

Just writing that makes my mouth water. As a matter of fact, I had to leave the store quickly when I found the milk for the trail of drool that people were slipping on in my wake.

If you can imagine the wonderful lactic goodness that freaky-cold, unhomogenized, whole cow's milk is, just imagine how impossibly exponentially better freaky-cold, unhomogenized chocolate milk must be! If there's any natural, healthy drink I like better than a glass of cold milk, it is the same milk with chocolate added to it!

When I was a kid I was a Nestlé Quik™ addict. I couldn't make a glass of Nestlé chocolate milk last more than about a minute. A typical 12-ounce glass I prepared for myself usually included about six spoonfuls of Nestlé Quik™ powder – and that's after I ate two to three spoonfuls of dry powder(!!) – and, if left unsupervised, I could probably have downed a full gallon of milk and a whole tin of Quik™ in an afternoon! As a matter of fact, the last time I had access to any Nestlé Quik™, I still helped myself to a couple of spoonfuls of powder before putting any in the glass.

(I used to think that chocolate added to anything must mean it made it better, but then I met "mole chicken," and thought the better of that perception.)

Today I'm bothered by the amount of sugar that's added to just about everything, and Farmers' All-Natural Creamery "Dutch" Chocolate Milk is no different. However, all the ingredients in FANC "Dutch" Chocolate Milk are organic: grade A whole milk, organic sugar, organic non-fat dry milk powder and carageenan.

I looked up carageenan. Bleeaah! I'm glad they call it "carageenan!" Frankly, with as thick as the unhomogenized milk is, I don't think they need to thicken it. But, who cares? It's still wickedly good, and I still can't keep any in a glass for more than a minute!


Open Your Eyes

A few weeks ago I watched Vanilla Sky on DVD. I'm no fan of Tom Cruise by any stretch of the imagination. I've appreciated him in a few roles he's had and I think he's just fine as an actor. While I'm watching any of his films I try not to let myself be bothered by the fact that he's wacked-out loon.

I'll try not to bore with the plot details of the film while at the same time not spoiling for anyone who might be left who hasn't seen it, now that I finally got around to seeing it myself, because this isn't a movie review…sorta.

Directed by Cameron Crowe (with a supporting role performed by Cameron Diaz…how weird is that?), it's basically about a man who has it all – looks, money, gorgeous women pining for him – who loses it all because he's a vain, womanizing lout. It touches on our own vanity and shows how self-destructive we can be if we value ourselves only by how we look. It seemed to me to drag on a bit by the middle, but the last 30 to 45 minutes are riveting. I was very moved at the end.

I saw in the DVD extras that this film was a remake of a film from Spain called Abre Los Ojos or "Open Your Eyes," written and directed by Alejandro Amenábar. With as moved as I was by the American remake, I just had to see the original, if only to see how many liberties Cameron Crowe took with it.

Finally this past weekend I watched Abre Los Ojos. Wow. If there has ever been a more faithful remake of a film than Vanilla Sky is to its original, I've never heard of it. Crowe made only a few embellishments, a few changes in his version: Cruise plays the reluctant heir to a successful publishing company where Eduardo Noriega's character in the original is the ambivalent heir to a successful catering company. Stuff like that. There was no bigger surprise watching the original than realizing that the ending was absolutely acceptable to Cameron Crowe, and he recreated it almost cut for cut without trying to make his "better." How better to pay the utmost respect to the original writers and director, to the original effort, than that?

That said, if you haven't seen either of them, see one of them – depending on your Tom Cruise gag-reflex -- now. Tonight. You won't be disappointed, or your blog entry fee refunded.

And now I'm in love with Penélope Cruz…or at least the 2001 version of her. And that's just wacky weird: Tom Cruise and Penélope Cruz. Cameron Diaz and Cameron Crowe. Did they do that on purpose? (Penélope Cruz also starred in Abre Los Ojos)


Taming the Leopard

I've been wanting to get a backup hard-drive for my computer pretty much since I moved into my apartment. Last week I finally bit the bullet and bought an Apple® Time Capsule™ 1 terrabyte drive. And I bit a couple other bullets as well, picking up a new, sleek 'aluminum' keyboard and, in order for Time Capsule™ to work with my old iMac, an upgrade to Mac OS X v. 10.5 "Leopard."

This may not sound like much to anyone, but, considering that the last computer I possessed as a single man was a 1994-era 520Mb Compaq PC to which I couldn't afford to add anything, and considering that anything Mac-oriented that needed upgrading or fixing during the marriage was done by ts2bx Mrs. Farrago, I was feeling a bit trembly at the thought of tinkering with that which already worked swell. If it ain't fixed, don't broke it. Or something like that….

The biggest technical hurdle I faced was getting my printer back in action after sitting for many months with near-empty ink tanks and no cables connecting it to a computer. I have a slightly funky office setup here at the apartment, with the printer on a bureau behind me, too far away from the computer on the desk to run a USB cable to it. Also, the old AirPort Extreme WiFi router, which Mrs. Farrago let me take with me when I moved out, didn't seem to like the new digs and refused to function properly here. That's why I bought the Time Capsule™. It's a combination back-up hard drive and WiFi router! (And the old AirPort Extreme is back at the house and working like a charm for ts2bx Mrs. Farrago. Go figure! I guess we know who it likes better. HMPH!)

I had a plan that no one I spoke to seemed to have any confidence in (or they didn't understand my fekakteh explanation of it), and I had no choice but to just see if my idea was going to work. First I had to install the Leopard upgrade, which took about an hour…during which the second wave of a thunderstorm rumbled through, with about 10 minutes left on the install. I was so afraid the power would go out and that my computer would cease to exist. Fortunately everything went smoothly. Then I plugged in the new keyboard. If I can ever find the interface cable for my camera, I'll take a picture of the keyboard and post it. I LOVE THIS KEYBOARD!

After that I powered everything down and set up the new Cisco™ ethernet router, plugging the broadband cable into it from the modem, and then running another ethernet cable out to the iMac, and yet another, longer ethernet cable from the router, along the floorboards and around the room to the bureau and into the Time Capsule™. And, finally, I ran the printer's USB cable from the Time Capsule™ to the printer.

Then the moment of truth. I plugged in the Time Capsule™ drive. I turned on the cable modem. I turned on the iMac. I had forgotten to turn off the printer, so it was already on…. and?

Everything worked! Who knew? I then fired up the laptop to see if it and the WiFi could find each other. They talked happily for the rest of the evening!

The resident Mac weenie at my office was on Blue Moon emergency standby for me. In case anything – or everything – didn't work, he told me that he would come over later in the week to help me unfuck it up. I asked him what kind of beer currency he accepted and he told me that it would cost me a Blue Moon Wheat Ale or two.

The next morning I told him of my success at setting up the WiFi and the printer, and he told me that I had set up my own LAN!

…whatever that means. Who wants a Blue Moon?

Does a Bear Poop in the Woods?

I found this while cruising the Information Side Streets. I almost pooped myself!

(EDIT: OOPS! Actually, I saw this over at kenju's blog a few weeks ago, copied it, and then promptly forgot where I found it!

Thanks, Judy! And my apologies for the five hours it sat up there on my blog without crediting you as my source!)