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
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Archives
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Sunday, December 06, 2009
Why My Army of Giraffes Failed Hindsight being what it is, it should have been an easy decision to make. The money, manpower, effort and irreplaceable time put into this project could well have been spent toward something more worthwhile. But, I am young, yet. A spry 32. There is time, and there is time. Every lesson I've ever learned, I've learned by making a mistake (i.e. wear underwear to all job interviews and check the zipper twice). Here now, are a few thoughts on why the effort was utter folly:
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
You Full Moon People Suck.... Working retail, without even looking up at the sky, I can judge when we're close to a full moon. If only for all the gobshites that get restless, and feel like they need to wander out into the cold December night to hit the store for asparagus, panty hose and Little Debble Strawberry Shortcake rolls some two minutes before we're supposed to close. Monday, November 30, 2009
I Love This Commercial... They may screw a lot of things up, but ESPN still gets the commercials right. Ever since they started running this one early in the season, I'd stop what I was doing to watch. It's just beautiful... Never, though, will it surpass the greatness of this one.... Friday, November 27, 2009
No Luck in Swordfishing This post serves no purpose, except for the possible exorcism of a song from my head, where it's been bouncing flubberously for three days. May it travel with you, and travel well. I blame society. Thursday, November 26, 2009
Thanks.... A brief (and entirely incomplete) list of things I'm thankful for, this November 26, 2009, as I watch the Macy's Parade....:
Monday, November 23, 2009
Top 50 of the decade... Played this game recently with a few people. After seeing it over at Sheila's blog, I figured I'd put mine on paper. Or computer screen, as it were. Simply, these are my favorite movies from the year 2000 until the current day. This is a list that came largely off the top of my head, with some help from the Internet Movie Database to differentiate this decade from the last...surprising the number of movies I dig that came out in the year 1999... There are a few things of note....I didn't put up A Serious Man, which I saw late last week. I'm still mulling that one. It's definitely high enough caliber to end up on this list, but I'm putting it into the same category (for now) as flicks like Hotel Rwanda or There Will Be Blood: I recognize that these are great flicks, each an achievement in the medium. But, I'm never going to sit down to watch those movies on my own, again. That can change (as an example, a strong performance, such as Daniel Day Lewis in There Will be Blood could bring that flick back into the fold of flicks I'll watch again and again. Also: I'm way friggin' behind on my flicks. There are dozens of notable flicks from this year and last that I still haven't caught, owing to a work schedule that eats a lot of that thing men call spare time. Even more, there are a couple (The Road, The Fantastic Mr. Fox and the Robert Downey Sherlock Holmes flick) that I want to see. There are countless others that nearly made the list, but will fall forever to the land of conversation.... Anyway. There may be later discussion, but, in alphabetical order, my Top 50 of 2000-2009: 40-Year Old Virgin (2005) Amelie (2001) Batman Begins (2005) The Bourne Identity (2002) The Bourne Supremacy (2004) Coraline (2009) Cloverfield (2008) Dark Knight (2008) The Departed (2006) Dodgeball (2004) Elf (2003) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) The Foot Fist Way (2006) Gangs of New York (2002) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) The Incredibles (2004) Inglourious Basterds (2009) Iron Man (2008) Kill Bill, volume 1 (2003) Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001) Lost in Translation (2003) Mean Girls (2004) Memento (2000) Miracle (2004) The Mist (2007) Mystic River (2003) No Country for Old Men (2007) O Brother Where Art Thou? (2000) Ocean’s Eleven (2001) Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) Rachel Getting Married (2008) The Ring (2002) Rocky Balboa (2006) The Rookie (2002) The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) Sin City (2005) Snatch (2000) Spirited Away (2001) Stardust (2007) Stranger than Fiction (2006) Super Troopers (2001) Unbreakable (2000) Walk the Line (2005) Watchmen (2009) Welcome to Collinwood (2002) Wet Hot American Summer (2001) The Wrestler (2008) Zach and Miri Make a Porno (2008) Zombieland (2009) (Ones that Almost Made the Cut: The Prestige, Apocalypto, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The Bourne Ultimatum, Ghost Town, Invention of Lying, The Others, Birthday Girl, Little Miss Sunshine, 28 Days Later, Club Dread, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, the Station Agent, Gone Baby Gone, The Specials, Paranormal Activity and The Simpsons Movie).... Sunday, November 22, 2009
Smarter Than the Devil or, Something You Don't And Shouldn't Care About Some days, all it takes to tick the needle over into the "It's a Good Day" category, is to be the only person in my NFL pick'em league to pick a winner in a particular game. In this case, it was Kansas City, which won over Pittsburgh in overtime earlier this afternoon. That's right. Hey. It's Thanksgiving week. It's gonna be a helluva week for this grocery guy. Sometimes, you gotta take the victories where you can.... Sunday, November 15, 2009
2012 Went and saw me some disaster porn today. And Disaster Porn, 2012 is nothing but. Maybe it's a flaw in my character (though I know I'm not alone), but the only thing you need to do to get me to see your movie is include two shots in the movie's trailer: 1.) A major landmark (be it manmade or natural) being destroyed 2.) People running the hell from it. Seriously. If The Bridges of Madison County had featured a bridge getting demolished by a meteor, I'd have paid to see the movie. Twice. There may be another post in me, after I've digested my thoughts mainly concerning Roland Emmerich. It should suffice to say right now that my thoughts on Emmerich took an odd turn during this movie, and I left the movie today thinking that should Roland Emmerich and I ever have occasion to hang out, I tend to think that he and I would likely have very similar sensibilities, as it concerns people in general, and very likely, similar senses of humor. I'm going to have to hammer that particular line of thought out, but there are a couple key points in the flick that made me (and no one else in the theater, that I could tell) laugh out loud. Mainly, there's the whole bit where the final bit of dialogue, paraphrased, is along the lines of: "By the way, I'm no longer peeing in my bed..." Should I have thrown a Spoiler Alert up there? As an aside and bit of non-sequitur: if there were ever a movie that would have me sitting at the back of a theater, laughing my ass off Max Cady style, it would be this one. But anyway. I dug the movie. It is everything that you would think it would be. Vapid, barely-two-dimensional characters surviving horrible disasters in manners illogical in both terms of character's logic and feasibility in general. In short, everything that you've probably ever come to love and/or hate from Roland Emmerich's flicks.... Friday, November 13, 2009
VII Just wanted to note, early this morning, that today marks the Seventh birthday of this little blogamathing. Cool, right? Today is like many days, here lately. It's a busy sonuvagun. Heading out there door by 6:10, and with plans after work, probably won't wander back this way until 11 or so tonight. Did want to take a moment to say thanks for reading, those of you who've been here for a while, and those who've recently picked up the habit. I appreciate you all. Except for Gunny. Gunny is merely tolerated. Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Salute.... I want to quote a I would however like to take a minute to quote from Jeremy Belk's front page story from that November 9, 2009, edition of the Daily Post Athenian, entitled: Napping in Ditch Sends Man to Jail.
The report goes on to note that while Butler appeared very intoxicated, he registered .08 when administered a blood-alcohol test. Was I the only one disappointed by that number? Jeez. Seems to me that the icing on the cake could have been the County Physician saying "This man should have been dead, by all accounts..." But, anyway. Stay far from the moonshine, kids. I mean, I get the machete. Who DOESN'T take a machete out with them when they're drinking? But the firearms? A bit much, I think. I wonder about where, precisely, Butler was going with his full gear in tow. That'd have been a fine sight to see, driving down Highway 30 on Saturday, the man with a rifle, a machete and a mason jar full of courage hiking toward town (the story doesn't make it clear. I wonder if he was headed toward Athens or Decatur...the county line is closer to Decatur....) Highlighting Yet Another Difference Between Big Stupid Tommy and President Barack Obama Today, because I am a man, and the world is my toilet, I took a piss out in the yard. Seemed the most convenient and least time-consuming way to go about things. And trust me, with all the scent-washing rain we've had the past day or so (thanks, Ida), I needed these trees to know just whom they belonged to. President Obama, on the other hand, could not pee out in the yard without (literally, most likely) a federal case being made out of it. If you're keeping score, it's: Tommy 3 Obama 1 Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Milestones.... Two milestones, actually. It pleases me very much, here on the eve of the eve of the eve of this blogamathing's seventh anniversary, that Big Stupid Tommy currently sits at #6 on Google, if you were to search out Channel 9's weatherlady Allison Chinchar. Spent the morning writing. I've got a small writing project going. It's a little goofy, and I'm pleased that I've been able to corral the goofy energy now for 33,000 words. More quickly than I'd imagined, it's reaching an endpoint. That's actually a good thing. I've got more than a handful of projects that wander to absurd wordcounts, never to find a good finish. For me to be able to start and finish a rough draft in a couple of weeks, that's a step in the right direction. Honest moment? I'm 32, and I'm starting to get scared with the whole writing thing. Needing to make myself do a bit more, to make a little more come of it. There's a twin demon of laziness and uncertainty, and it's a daily battle to say "fuck you both..." But, it's going good right now. Current goal is to have this draft done by next Monday. Reasons being, the end point is relatively quick to get to (For once, I think I know where this story's supposed to go), and for two, our busy season at work is kicking into high gear. As it is, I had to come back from vacation, and knock it up into third pretty much as soon as I hit the door. Made me a crabby sumbitch, to be honest, but we'll deal.... Anyway. Just a marker or two. Y'all take it easy. Monday, November 09, 2009
Burn Me Deadly Just want to take a second to give a shout for a buddy of mine. I'm writing without coffee in me, so I'm not particularly verbose this morning. Suffice it to say, a friend is having continued success, and this is a post simply to say I'm proud of the man. I've known Alex Bledsoe for a decade now. He headed up a writing group I joined in college. He's a funny guy with an easy laugh. He tells a hell of a story. He's a cool dude, and he's worked hard toward these goals for years now. It's not hard to believe that he's got ANOTHER book coming out Tuesday. Alex is a great guy who's earned his continued success. I'm proud to call him friend. Burn Me Deadly is coming out tomorrow, and you can order it from Amazon here: Edit: You can read an interview with Alex about Burn Me Deadly here.... Further edit: Corrected the link...had one too many http's in there.... Sunday, November 08, 2009
Friday, November 06, 2009
Highlighting Another Difference Between Me and President Obama Today, I can name So far as I know, President Obama cannot say the same. |