Big Stupid Tommy |
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An online journal from perhaps the biggest, stupidest Tommy on all the internet. 
Big Stupid Tommy: Jamming French Fries Into Your Mind since 2002 
Newsreader Feed Twitter Feed "Those who shun the whimsy of things will experience rigor mortis before death." --Tom Robbins The Reads Real People that I've Met Bad Bad Juju Back Home Again Bill's Rant Sheet Blog d'Elisson Boudicca's Voice Dax Montana Down in Lucky Town Drunken Wisdom Erica's Blog Grouchy Old Cripple John Cox Oddybobo One For the Road Parkway Rest Stop Redneck Ramblings Southern Martyr Straight White Guy Technicalities People I can only assume are real 15 Minute Lunch 10,000 Monkeys and a Camera Angry Pharmacist Boing Boing Busy Mom Cherie Priest Covered in Beez Cowboy Blob Craven's World Fat Robot The FFOT Give me the Booger Good Ol' J.R. Groanin' Jock GROTA Hacking Netflix Holder of Useless Knowledge Inn of the Last Home It's All Relative KeesKennis Kung Fu Monkey A Large Regular Leaning Toward the Dark Side Mental Multivitamin Missives Anonymous Naked Villainy Newscoma No Silence Here Obscurorant Orbitcast Perfect Blue Buildings Perfectly Cromulent Russ McBee Sergio Leone & the Infield Fly Rule Sheila Variations Smoking Toaster Snotty Dog Stephen Silver Strange Maps Tits List Warren Ellis Watching and Listening Write Lightning Writers I Read Harlan Ellison Carl Hiaasen Stephen King Joe R. Lansdale Christopher Moore Cherie Priest 
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Thursday, July 09, 2009
In which I will see a movie... I've said it before. For all you film directors/movie advertisers: If you want me to see your movie, all you need to include in the trailer is a scene of a famous landmark destroyed, with people running away from it. I'm thinking that, by and large, the technology surrounding the special effects for these movies hasn't improved much since, say Terminator 2, or maybe Independence Day. So all the filmmakers can do is create grander, greater scenarios of destruction. Doesn't matter to me. This improved 2012 trailer pretty much sums it up for me. Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Tuesday? The world's done turned itself topsy turvey. I wake up into a world where They Stole Michael Jackson's Brain, where Ryno gets his ass suspended, and where the sister, brother-in-law and I show an appalling lack of knowledge of 1970's rock hits, thus putting us from medal contention down to sixth in a trivia contest..... Honestly, though, I think I reached Michael Jackson overload the weekend after the man died. I can't tell you when. Maybe it was the twitter comment some wise person made saying "hey, they must have solved this democracy in Iran thing...." Still, I find myself wondering about their cutting the man's brain from his head. Part of me looks back to the myriad ancient cultures, who buried you with possessions (and organs, in jars sometimes) in case you needed them in the afterlife. I'd hate to find the brainless Michael Jackson wandering around the afterlife, mindless husk of a man.... Also, Ryne Sandberg found himself suspended. Had to laugh at the Facebook comments "Ryno was right! Is there a way for me to get video to the league office?" I laugh because I have trouble reading sarcasm online (or in person, for that matter). I laugh because I've heard similar arguments in person, though. As if the end justifies breaking one of the three GIANT ASS Rules in baseball (No gambling, Don't Touch the Umpires, and Bend the Bill of Your Cap, Bozo). And? Trivia? Took in a trivia contest at a local pub. Did well in our debut, but was ultimately sunk by our lack of knowledge concerning 1970's rock hits...or more properly, the order in which they were released. Blame me for being born in 1977.... Thursday, July 02, 2009
Thoughts from the Ass End of the Night, Volume 2 Yay!!!! Insomnia!!!! Went to bed kinda early. Around 9:30. Woke up around 1:30, after a weird dream about plane hopping following the Atlanta Braves around. I can't get anymore specific than that, except that there was a small passage where I was lost in the parking garage of one airport or another, and not really knowing which airport I was stuck in.... Tossed and turned for a couple of hours, and I reached a teeter point. That's the sort of continental divide where you have to decide will actually falling back to sleep bring more benefit, or will it actually work to my detriment, since I'm having to wake with the alarm at 5:15 anyway? So, I got up. I wrote a little bit...had a passage kicking around in my had about the owner of a junk shop attacked by gremlins. It felt like there was more in there, but only got a page or so worth of stuff. I am writing a little bit more, lately. I wish I could say it was all due to some glimmer of inspiration or some newfound bit of determination and will. And there is that, don't get me wrong. It's far too easy to sit down and watch re-runs of Deadliest Catch. Truth be told, I ain't had a lot to do, lately. Besides work. Such is life, I guess. I'll just say that, sometimes, being single in a small town where everybody and their sister seems married, mostly to each other, and working a job that wants to squeeze every turnip for every drop of blood it can get? It ain't beneficial for a thriving social situation, sometimes. It's not always the case. Just seems like that's how it's shaken out the past month or so, though. So, I've filled some of the free time with a story or two. Not sure where they're going. Just good to be writing again. If only because I don't want to work 60 hours a week at a grocery store forever. One of you folks could help out if you have a spare 30 grand or so laying around. Help a brother take a year off to write a bit. Yeah. I could put out a lot of fart jokes if given a year to write them all down. Likely, the grandest fart joke of this generation. And I would dedicate it to you.... Friday, June 26, 2009
Courage Captain EO is dead, and I don't feel so good myself. He made us dream of a world in three dimensions. We must find the strength to move forward. As an aside, let me just say that Celebrity Cull 2009 has outdone itself, though I have to ask if a freak accident that manages to take out Paris Hilton, Rob Schneider and Martin Lawrence would be too much to ask. And, I paraphrase myself...does anybody else, when they hear the phrase "freak accident" think of something along the lines of Andre the Giant driving a transfer truck cab running down Michael Jackson riding a tricycle? Thursday, June 25, 2009
Chapter MMMCXIX: In which he floods the house of the King of Rock and Roll Just a few things running around my skull this morning: I had a dream last night that I was visiting Elvis at Graceland. I think this was brought on by Tivo having captured Blue Hawaii and Clambake both within the past couple of weeks. I'm not sure which keywords my Tivo has tripped that would end up with a couple of Elvis's movies in my suggestions, but I ended up watching both, having seen Blue Hawaii last years ago, and never having seen Clambake. Elvis was pretty cool, though I never saw him much. Very gracious, as I ended up having pretty much run of the house, which I visited in "real life" probably twenty years ago. In the dream, the house was an amalgamation of the real life experience. I remember crazy shag carpeting on walls, rooms with multiple televisions, and getting to step up onto Elvis's tour bus. My subconscious substituted other elements, like the Biltmore house over in Asheville...in my dream Elvis had a large empty swimming pool 20 feet deep (for some reason, this has been the over-riding image I've held since visiting that mansion three or four times now over my 32 years. Elvis also had a skate ramp and a room filled with pinball machines, a'la Bam Margera's home from Viva la Bam. Well, free run of the house didn't end well. At one point, I wander down a staircase, and find the ceiling just raining water. Even for a dude as awesome as Elvis, he seemed a little out of sorts for it to be raining inside the house. The culprit? A refrigerator door that would not shut. Apparently, when the refrigerator door does not shut, it floods hundreds of gallons of water inside the house of the King of Rock n' Roll. Not an interesting story, so much. Just wanted to write it down before I forgot. Kinda dug the dream. (There was also another, where I dreamed I chased down a shoplifter at work. A dream, I know, simply because yours, truly, could not run out of sight in two day's time, let alone chase down somebody stealing beer...) Friday, June 19, 2009
Ten Years? Fight Club came out 10 years ago?!?!?!?!?!?!?! What the hell? I think it came out roughly two weeks before my last post. Don't know why no posting. Need to stay away from the Twitter, I think, a little more.... It caters too much to my attention deficit whatthehellever. One day, I'll be able to write a full paragraph again. Saturday, June 13, 2009
Heh  Yeah. Usually I hate pictures of people meeting celebrities. But, unexpectedly, I had one of those tripping over my tongue moments meeting a guy who pretends to fight for a living. Today was a good day. Transpiration... The problem with having to wake up at 5:10 every day for a week and a half is that my brain wakes up then on its own, come my first weekend off in five weeks or so. It's cool. Heading up to Knoxville today. Heading to Adventure Con. Trying to think of the last comic convention I went to, and I'm thinking it may have been the trip to Dragon Con the Evil Hippy and I made three or four Labor Days ago.... I'm out of the monthly comic game, and have been for a year and a half, now. And truth be told, I'd been doing it out of little more than force of habit for a couple years prior to that. I felt like after 20 or 25 years of comics, I wasn't getting the enjoyment out of reading (or spending a grand a year) on comics that maybe I once had. Still, I'll still pick up a collection or two. I'm not up on current storylines, but I did find a new Astro City collection at the used bookstore a month ago, and I dig The Walking Dead, too. Anyway, wandering up to Knoxville today. Don't know how much I'll get into comics, but I figure I'll get Mick Foley to sign a book. Also? I'll get to meet Gary Coleman. Life may be pretty much complete. Saturday, June 06, 2009
Chapter MMMCIII: In which Tommy sees the Willie Wandered down to Chattaboogie last night to see Willie Nelson headline the first night of the Riverbend get-together. It was a good show, enjoyable, with the weather for the first weekend in June probably the nicest I can recall in years. There is a joke that God knows when Riverbend is scheduled, and that's when he decides to plug the heat in. But I don't know that it got above 80 for the day, and around the time Willie played, we were hovering in the mid 60's. His set wasn't much different from the last time I saw him...in pretty close to the same venue...he played Bellsouth Park with Bob Dylan. AT&T Field (formerly Bellsouth Park) sat over my left shoulder, at Ross's Landing. The crowd seemed pretty subdued. Though I want to take a second to take issue with the fact that it seemed like half the crowd decided to leave in the middle of Willie's set. I recognize that Riverbend's kind of a community get together, and that a lot of people come more to people watch or to be people that get watched. But still, it seemed like leaving a ballgame in the fifth inning. How do you leave before Willie sings On the Road Again? Or did you come to see the shitty cover band named after a shitty beer butcher AC/DC and Guns n' Roses songs? (Though I had images of Slash & Axl being at Riverbend, independently, for no reason and with no knowledge of the other, hearing that craptastic rendition of Sweet Child of Mine, and making up and reforming on the third stage at Riverbend......) Friday, June 05, 2009
And we all shine on.... Yeah. I can't condemn without admitting in the interest of full disclosure that I've dropped dogs into ponds, and had them react like I'd just played the most incredible game in all of canine history. But there's an instant karma attached to the whole "kicking" action, I think. Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Exchange... There's a doin's a transpirin'.... Exchange via text, during a break in which I watched Wipeout. One of the contestants in the final obstacle course quits, after getting pummeled.... Me: "Quitting is Bullshit." Jason Davenport: "You know who else quit? Hitler. That chick is the Hitler of our day." Indeed. The quotable Jason Davenport. Thursday, May 28, 2009
What the hell? Life gets hectic, yo. Plus, I was busy celebrating the season premiere of Wipeout. Just wanted to post a link of reminder to myself....seems Joe Torre will probably have Manny play in the minors for a week or so before he hits the big leagues again.... Chattanooga's their Double A team now.... Thursday, May 21, 2009
Thoughts.... I was walking around the bookstore today, looking at books that I know I shouldn't buy because they'll just sit on the shelf collecting dust until 201-whenever, when I finally make time to sit and read them. And I overheard a person sitting in the coffee bar section of the store say "I miss being your friend." And it struck me, the tone of voice, the matter of fact way it was it was said. That's a thought I've had before. And recently. But that's just one of those things I haven't found wherewithal to say out loud or even in writing to that person (or people, actually, since there are a few), without feeling like I'm putting myself out there on the balsa-wood diving board of vulnerability... I turned to steal a glance at the speaker, just wanting to see what they looked like, more than anything. To see if indeed I needed to avert my eyes in the presence of somebody godly, or merely needed to show my respect to someone just superhuman.... Normal enough looking lady. Blue jeans, polo shirt. With her right index finger two knuckles deep in her nostril. I quote Rowdy Roddy Piper. Just when they think they have all the answers, I change the questions.... Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Netflix Movie Reviews.... Just a couple of my movie reviews from Netflix.... Lord of War (3 stars) Before you watch this movie, let me ask: Just how much Nicholas Cage voiceover do you need in your life? If your answer is "Loads, sir," then this is the movie for you. It's not bad. Funny, in a dark kinda way. At times, channeled a real "Three Kings" vibe. But in the end, it was over-long, and featured entirely too much Nicholas Cage. Hamlet 2 (3 stars) Steve Coogan would be this generation's Ben Stiller, if this generation didn't already have one. I wanted to like this flick, and everything surrounding his performance, be it the co-stars or the writing itself, clicked reasonably well enough for me. Steve Coogan's performance manages to suck all the funny out of the movie, though. Again, very Ben Stilleresque. Awkward and self-effacing does not always equal funny. Californication, Season 1 (4 stars) You want to know what I'm tired of? Shows and movies with kids who have their acts more together than the adults. The little Addams family looking chick who plays David Duchovny's and Natascha McElhone's daughter is simply the latest example of kids who don't get to be kids because their parents are muddling through extended childhoods. It's annoying, it's hackneyed, and though I should draw comfort that there are adults (even fictional ones) who are in much the same developmental boat I am, I instead find myself threatened by the lack of idiocy in these children. So, instead of enjoying their performances, I lash out at the fact that she and her band poop on one the best Cheap Trick song ever. Other than that, the show is fun. Pamela Adlon & Evan Handler are hilarious. The writing is sharp. It's different than 99% of what's out there. On the whole, this is perhaps the most enjoyable of David Duchovny's cries for help.... (3 out of 5 people found this review helpful) Sunday, May 17, 2009
Sunday morning thoughts.... Good morning, yo. Feeling a bit more like myself this morning. I'm thinking the three full nights in a row of sleep has a bit to do that. I joked a few posts back that there's nothing like that first night of sleep after a couple sleepless nights. After three nights of at least seven hours of sleep, I feel completely human, and much less likely to embark upon a series of quests that would ultimately lead me to either the throne of all humanity, or my destruction by a television or movie action hero. As for that hero? I'm thinking someone along the lines of a John McClain, or maybe Jack Bauer. Maybe Columbo. But not MacGyver. Definitely not MacGyver. Not much to report on this end of things. Doing some reading for my buddy Alex. I finished his novel Blood Groove, and dug it. Nice little vampire piece, if you're into such things.... Wandered out to get a new phone Wednesday. I'd been carrying my last one for a year and a half past its contract--it was a good phone, and until mine decided it would start powering itself down at random over the past month, I'd had no problems. But, the powering down was something of a problem, since it would do it in the middle of a text message or phone call. I think my boss at work figured I'd hung up on him on at least one occasion.... Ended up with a Blackberry. I can't think of a great analogy for jumping a few generations. All I know at this point is that there are a lot more buttons to deal with, at this point.... Bowled the best game of my life Thursday, which I figured might come with a bit more fanfare (perhaps a parade, or at least a book deal), but was overshadowed by the fact that two of my teammates still bowled higher than my 235. Had the weekend off. The initial plans were to have taken a camping trip, but our return to the rain forest mode of thinking in this neck of the woods cancelled that out. Instead, we attempted to hit a ballgame and dinner last night. We seated ourselves on the patio at the Mellow Mushroom in downtown Chattanooga...only to watch storm clouds roll in over the river, just past the aquarium. We took a table under an awning, and stayed relatively dry despite the downpour. Trying that again, today. If it rains, we'll find a movie or something to see... All in all, it beats working... |