Tommy's ABC's

Tommy's ABC's

I'm sitting here watching the State of the Union Address. I got off work, didn't have plans. Remembered that Scrubs comes on Tuesday. And then I remembered that el Presidente must speak tonight. Can't he do it on a night when I'm not looking to watch Sarah Chalke?

But I digress....

I'll do this while I listen....

These are the ABC's of me, right now:

[a is for age]

I'm 28. I'll turn 29 in about three weeks.

[b is for booze of choice]

I've always been a beer guy, when I'm drinking. I like Labatt's, if I'm buying for me. Killian's or Sam. I jumped for joy when I saw Spaten at Fresh Market last week.

[c is for career]

I like to think of myself of a speaker of truths. Also, I've been playing shortstop for the Brooklyn Tip Tops for the last several years.

[d is for dog's name]

There is a black lab named Sally and a pug named Max.

[e is for essential items you use every day]

The toilet. And my writing pad. For the same thing, essentially.

[f is for favorite songs at the moment]

I pulled out the South Park movie soundtrack the other day, and I've had "Blame Canada" going through my head ever since.

[g is for games]

Trivial Pursuit; I also like Scattergories; and I'm stuck on Hot Shots golf for Playstation.

[h is for hometown]

It's a little town called Vladivostok

[i is for instruments you play]

I can still do a bit on the piano. I been tinkering with the harmonica, too.

[j is for jam or jelly you like]

Last summer, I got a cantaloupe jam from the Amish community near here, and it went straight at the top of the list of favorite jams or jellies.

[k is for kids]

It really is, isn't it?

[l is for last kiss]

Dang, dude. I need to get out more.

[m is for most admired trait]

In others, I admire those who are able to do what is right in the face of adversity; I admire people with good memories; I admire those who are organized by nature, but who are not obsessive or demanding about it; I admire those who can speak easily at all times to all people; I admire anybody who can laugh easily, but not maliciously. I'd like to be those things, and I try (except with that whole organization thing--that's a pipe dream....)

In myself? I think I tell a good story. I'm dreadfully loyal. I think I'm a good listener. Good to laugh with. I can take a punch.

And my shit doesn't stink. I've worked hard on that. But I've gotten to a point where I can say that, without fear of being proven wrong. Folks, my shit don't stink.

[n is for the name of your crush]

Don't know. Don't really have one. Unless you count the celebrity crush, like Sarah Chalke or Maura Tierney.

[o is for overnight hospital stays]

Never had one. Unless you count when I was born. Hell, it wasn't until a couple or three months ago that I had my first emergency room visit.

[p is for phobias]

Snakes. I can handle them if I need to get rid of them. But otherwise, I don't want a thing to do with them.

And here lately, I've had a problem with enclosed spaces. That's just popped up in the past three or four years.

[q is for quotes]

I like the one from Tom Robbins Still Life with Woodpecker on the sidebar.

I also like:

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them." ---Mark Twain

"To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious, but the stupid have an answer for every question." ----Edward Abbey

[r is for biggest regret]

You know, I've spent too much of my life regretting shit. I've done a good job the past couple of years ending that trend. I've made my choices.

[s is for sweets]

Black Licorice. Also, the Peanut Butter Take 5 candy is very good.

[t is for the time you wake up]

If I'm left to my own devices, and I don't have to open the store, I'll usually sleep to 9 or 10. Here lately, I've gotten back to writing, so I'll make myself get up around 8.

If I've gotta open, I'll get up around 5:30.

We don't like those mornings here at Casa de Stupid.

[u is for underwear]

I certain is.

[v is for vegetables you love]

tomatoes and carrots are high up on the list. Broccoli's pretty good. And there's this comatose lady at the retirement home that I've been confessing my sins to. She's pretty awesome.

[w is for worst habit]

I'm forgetful. I do my best to write stuff down to remember to do it. But I promise to do stuff, and then forget to do it.

Eating late at night. That's bad, too.

[x is for x-rays]

All the dental and orthodontic stuff aside, the only x-rays I've had are when I strained my knee a few years ago. The doctor who looked at them pointed out that I have a very large femur. I now think he might have been coming on to me.

[y is for yummy food you make]

I make a good hamburger. I can grill a good steak, too. I make pretty good cornbread. Around Thanksgiving, I make a really good pumpkin pie.

I can't do a whole lot else.

I have a hard time with chicken, which is a shame, because I love chicken so much.

If I had more time, I think I'd like to start fiddling around a bit more in the kitchen.

[z is zodiac sign]

I come from Pisces.

Huzzah.

Stole this time killer from Sheila, who who got it here....

Today's Funny

Today's Funny

I dunno. Tired. Sleep Deprived. I thought this was funny as hell:

A man rushes into his doctor's office and says, "Doctor! Doctor! You gotta help me! I've got a carrot in my left ear and a banana in my right ear and a chicken wing up my nose!!!!"

"Well, son," the old doctor says, "it's quite obvious you haven't been eating properly...."

In Which I Link to Another Blogger's Post

In Which I Link to Another Blogger's Post

Great post over at Mike Toole's Blog. It has contains a quality that I like to call "greatness."

It has many things I enjoy. A pronunciation of Pittsburgh as "Pittsboigh." An Arrested Development reference. Johnny Damon being a prick. And a tale of attending a taping of American Gladiators.

It's funny that it came up. Sunday, I was really hating the fact that there was no football on my television. I actually had the Sunday off, and my brain was crying out for some football to watch on the TV. (And not Arena Football, which doesn't look much different than the game my cousins and I played with a Nerf football in the basement of my Aunt Brenda's house).

I found myself wishing that Sunday that American Gladiators was still on.

If only so I could see some dude getting hit upside the head with a tennis ball shot out of an air cannon. That's a pretty fair substitute for football, in my book.

Goals/Things I Don't Know

Goals/Things I Don't Know

I've always wanted to knock a building down with a wrecking ball.

Do they even do that anymore? Or do they implode it, or just take it apart piece by piece?

Do you have to have a license?

I'm sure there's some training. I mean, you don't want a building falling on somebody, least of all yourself. There's probably some class you have to take to, like, not do that.

Do you think the guys who do that get bored of it? Do you think there's some guy who runs a wrecking ball, who just hates the shit out of it? I'd bet so. I figure he's probably dreaming of playing the oboe in a symphony, somewhere.

I think I've just stumbled onto a money making scheme. I'd bet people would pay good money to knock down a building with a wrecking ball?

I would. I'd pay a pretty good fee.

Along those same lines, I'd like to bulldoze a house. I watched part of Forrest Gump this weekend, and saw the part where Forrest has Jenny's father's house bulldozed. I thought a fellow could derive a great deal of enjoyment from such an endeavour.

But then, that time the guy ran amok with the tank in San Diego (was it San Diego) a few years back? That looked like the most fun of all.

Anyway. If I ever get a good deal of money, I think I'll invest in a crane and wrecking ball. And buy buildings, just to knock them down.

It won't be a wise investment, but I figure I'd enjoy it all the same.

Tommy's Royal Rumble Thoughts

Tommy's Royal Rumble Thoughts

I watched last night's Royal Rumble with my brother-in-law.

The good:

The six-man cruiserweight free-for-all was decent. A good way to start of the show. Nice pacing. Could have gone a little longer, but this is the WWE, where cruiserweight matches don't count for much in Vince's eyes. I really liked Paul London's standing dropkick into a moonsault. Paul London's being wasted in the WWE.

(BTW, the WWE was a bit wrong. A Texas Tornado match is a tag team affair. This was more of a free-for-all).

And I kinda liked the whole Ashley/Micki/Trish women's match. Trish has become one of the best in-ring story tellers in the business, and Micki/Alexis comes from on older school of training. It's good to have her in the ring with Ashley (who wasn't exactly a novice when she started, but is still green around the gills) to learn a few things from.

The bad:

The rest of the show.

Boogeyman? Puh. Leeze. We get 9 minutes of a six man cruiserweight match, but Boogeyman and JBL get 15? What the hell? I like storytelling, not theatrics. Somewhere along the line, the WWE has gotten the idea that easy storytelling = bad storytelling, and the two are indistinguishable from the other. The Boogeyman is cheap theatrics, and bad storytelling.

Speaking of bad storytelling. What's this crap with the Royal Rumble in the middle of the show? You call the show "Royal Rumble" but have the match in the middle of your show?

Lots of bad in the Rumble. It shows that you don't think much of the match if you don't have your pre-eminent announcers out there. Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler are second hat to Joey Styles and Tazz. Yet we get the second stringers. One of the things I was actually looking forward to was hearing Styles and Tazz call a match together. I haven't gotten to hear that since Tazz was just Taz and was injured in ECW, and called a couple matches with Joey before his re-debut.

They front loaded the Rumble with stars this year. If that doesn't telegraph the whole coast-to-coast thing that Rey Misterio ended up doing, I don't know what does. I mean, I didn't know that they'd let Rey win, but I figured Rey or Hunter would be there at the end of the show.

Didn't like Ric Flair getting thrown out like an afterthought. I'm not looking for a 20 minute performance, but a minute in the ring before elimination doesn't do Ric or the Intercontinental Championship any favors.

Chris Masters is going to hurt somebody. And having him in a throng of people doesn't help. He doesn't know where he is in the ring, 9 times out of 10. Mark my words, he will end somebody's career.

Tatanka? What a bunch of crap. I can't think that anybody was feeling nostalgiac at any point for Tatanka. At least he's in better shape now than when he first reappeared a couple months ago. But how does Tatanka get 12 minutes in the ring, but Ric Flair just gets 1?

Rey Misterio wins the Rumble, right? I was honestly surprised about it, given the short shrift that the cruiserweights get.

But here's my thing. I don't buy Rey Misterio. Never have. I mean, he's 5 feet tall and 110 pounds. Even against a lot of the cruiserweights, that's TINY. And against heavyweights? The first thing that pops into my mind when I think of Rey Misterio Jr is Kevin Nash and the rest of the N.W.O. flinging Rey against a transfer truck trailer like he's a lawn dart.

I don't buy Rey against Kurt Angle. Let alone Undertaker or Mark Henry, or any of the other wrestler much taller than 6'0".

Wrestling, for me, is much about suspension of disbelief. And I just can't buy a 110 pound guy out wrestling a 240 pound guy with a foot's reach advantage.

I just don't buy it. That's why I'm not looking forward to the Road to Wrestlemania with Rey running toward a title shot at the biggest show of the year.

Moving on:

I feel really sorry for Edge. Dude was being built toward main eventing, at some point between the last Wrestlemania and the next. It shows a real lack of forethought on the part of the WWE that they give Edge the "Money in the Bank" title shot at the last Wrestlemania, without having a means for him to take the title for any length of time, other than for the sake of saying "he won the title."

Losing it to John Cena last night, after having held it for 3 weeks, it doesn't elevate John Cena. It makes Edge look like an opportunisitic candy-ass. Which might be fun for a month, but it automatically weakens the entire storytelling universe you've created. Suddenly, you've got one less realistic sales and storytelling avenue, because Edge can't beat John Cena without him first having been beaten down by five other guys.

It makes Edge look like a chump.

What it does, too, is this: With Shawn Michaels locked into his story with Vince McMahon, and Kurt Angle on Smackdown now, it leaves Triple H pretty much the only viable World Title contender on Raw heading toward Wrestlemania.

Makes me wonder how much of a hand Triple H had in the booking.

I assume, of course, that Rey Misterio will use his Wrestlemania Title Shot to go after Angle, since Edge lost his World Title....

But I digress.

The worst? To close out the show with a turd like Kurt Angle vs. Mark Henry?

Kurt Angle's probably my favorite wrestler, right now. But unless he's got superpowers and a tranfer truck, there's no way to carry Mark Henry to a good match.

And Undertaker bullcrap at the end?

I gotta think Angle's winning that little feud at the next PPV.

I dunno.

Little tired of talking about that turd of a show last night.

It has to get better, right?

What a rambling post....

Royal Rumble Deadlist

Royal Rumble Deadlist

The WWE is holding it's annual Royal Rumble pay-per-view tonight. It's traditionally my favorite pay-per-view and match of the year.

This'll be the 19th Royal Rumble.

Did a little research. I was wondering whether we've had a Royal Rumble match that still has all its participants alive. Given the short lifespan of the modern professional wrestler, combined with last November's death of Eddie Guerrero, I was willing to be that there is no previous Royal Rumble match in which all 30 (or 20, in the case of 1988's rumble) participants are still alive.

The results:

1988: Dino Bravo is dead

1989: Big John Studd, Andre the Giant, Big Boss Man, Hercules Hernandez

1990: Andre the Giant, Dino Bravo, Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig, Hercules Hernandez

1991: Dino Bravo, Hawk (of the Road Warriors), Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig, Davey Boy Smith, Hercules Hernandez, Kerry von Erich

1992: Big Boss Man, Hercules Hernandez, Davey Boy Smith, Kerry von Erich

1993: Owen Hart, Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig

1994: Owen Hart

1995: Davey Boy Smith, Owen Hart

1996: Owen Hart

1997: Owen Hart, Davey Boy Smith

1998: Owen Hart

1999: Owen Hart, Big Boss Man

2000: Big Boss Man, Davey Boy Smith

2001: Crash Holly

2002: Big Boss Man, Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig

2003: Eddie Guerrero

2004: Ta Da!

2005: Eddie Guerrero

We now see that out of all the Royal Rumbles, only 2004's Rumble has all its 30 participants still alive.

I'd have lost the bet.

Sunday Morning Re-Run

Sunday Morning Re-Run

We part the mists of time to find this post, simply entitled "Chief."

Chief

I call people "Chief."

I don't know exactly where I picked up the habit. It was sometime before (but not too long before) Letterman had a segment with either Rupert or the Mail Room Guy called "Stop Calling Me Chief," in which the guy would talk to people, and call them "chief" until they asked him to stop.

But I call people "chief." Strangers, mostly.

Hey Chief, how's it goin?

Thanks, Chief.

I'll call people I know "chief," too. It's kind of a catch-all in that way, I guess. But for people I know, sometimes I'll reserve a special title. A specific title isn't necessarily reserved for a specific person. But I'll generally call someone I know a different title. Doctor, is one that's come up lately. Also (in the order I most use them): Captain, General, Admiral, Colonel, and Professor (reserved for the special occasions).

But mostly I call people "chief."

One time, I was afraid it had gotten me into trouble. I was at the convenience store buying the gasoline and a cold and tasty soda pop, and I paid, and I ended the transaction by telling the fellow behind the counter "Thanks, Chief."

As I turned away, I realized I may have accidentally used an impolite phrase, when you consider that the man behind the counter was of the Asian Indian persuasion. Such a phrase might have been used in an insulting kind of way, taking the Indian thing a step further.

Either he didn't notice, or he decided not to call me on it. I was kind of thankful that another customer had drawn his attention by their possible attempts to steal beer.

I call people "chief."

Don't know why.

The incident at the Kwik Sak didn't cure me of it.

I also call people "boss," sometimes. Usually the people I supervised. I like irony. (Except that it wouldn't have been ironic, really, unless one of those I'd supervised became my boss. Stupid Tibor.)

One time, one of the people I was supervising called me "Skid Row" in greeting.
I killed him for it.

No I didn't.

But he's still breathing through a machine. He'll never call anybody Skid Row again.

I call people "chief."

Just because.

Maybe it's testament to just how lazy I truly am. I see you. I know you. But I'm just too self-involved and friggin' lazy to think up your name. I've got those neurons firing on some other brainial activity. Too busy to think up your name, chief.

Actually, sometimes it takes me a second.

And usually, how much do you use a person's name when you're talking to them?

Hey John How are You John I sure do like pudding John.

So, chief is a way of mixing things up.

I call people chief.

And I think you should, too. I think it would unite us, as a people. Heal this nasty wound left by the election season. I would respect both candidates, once they sort this whole mess out, if they said something like this:

"Chief, I'm sorry for dragging this mess out."

"That's alright, General. 'tweren't nuthin...."

And then they would smile and laugh and the frame would freeze, and the credits would roll.

And then one of the cartoon G.I. Joes would teach us about not touching live electrical wires, thus robbing all of us the beauty that is natural selection.

Now you know.

And knowing is half the battle, chief.

Saturday

Saturday

I don't have anything for the blog today. So, for now, you'll just have to be satisfied with a picture of a guy putting his finger through his nose.



Ta da.

Trivia Time

Trivia Time

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Big Stupid Tommy!

1. Only twelve people have ever set foot on Big Stupid Tommy.
2. Women shoplift four times more frequently than Big Stupid Tommy.
3. Big Stupid Tommy is the world's smallest mammal.
4. Only one child in twenty will be born on the day predicted by Big Stupid Tommy.
5. A lump of Big Stupid Tommy the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court!
6. Czar Paul I banished Big Stupid Tommy to Siberia for marching out of step!
7. The ace of spades in a playing card deck symbolizes Big Stupid Tommy.
8. Scientists have discovered that Big Stupid Tommy can smell the presence of autism in children.
9. The moon is 400 times closer to the Earth than Big Stupid Tommy, and 400 times smaller!
10. The colour of Big Stupid Tommy is no indication of his spiciness, but size usually is!

I am interested in - do tell me aboutherhimitthem

I knew most of that already.

That thing about the tennis courts? They'll play the U.S. Open on me, this year.

Seen at Straight White Guy's and Acidman's

Drop Him Like a Toilet Seat

Drop Him Like a Toilet Seat

My favorite Chris Penn movies:

1. Reservoir Dogs
2. True Romance
3. Short Cuts
4. Pale Rider

with honorable mention going to

5. Best of the Best

Best of the Best is the best bad karate movie. Ever. It features not only Chris Penn (the lesser known acting sibling of Sean), but also Julia Roberts' lesser known acting sibling, Eric. And they're both part of a team of karate fighters who will be fighting Korea in a contest.

They're coached by a guy who just screams "Karate," Mr. James Earl Jones.

It features Chris Penn's best line reading ever, in any of his movies, when he eggs on a team-member who's fighting a Korean screaming: "Drop Him Like a Toilet Seat!"

It's great cinema.

Check out TBS or Spike TV around 2 in the morning, and you're liable to find Best of the Best.

Or you borrow my VHS copy, on threat of being dropped like a toilet seat.

Today's Funny

Today's Funny

It's been a shitty week. Just one of those weeks where you gotta pray to God or Superman or The American Dream Dusty Rhodes (whichever deity is on his shift rotation) for the wisdom to know what you can change, the strength to change what you can and the serenity not to blow everybody to hell with your very own bazooka.

I think these couple of days off have done me some good, and I'm feeling better.

I will say that Sloth's joke put me over the top....

Wednesday

Wednesday

Yep. Not a fuckin' thing to say today.

Go watch this, and it's about the same as what you'll get out of me, today.

The NFL, and whatnot

The NFL, and whatnot

At this point, I like Pittsburgh in the Super Bowl, though my mind may change in the 17 year period between the Conference Championships and the Super Bowl.

If I ran the NFL, I'd do one of two things. Make it just a week between Conference Championships and the Super Bowl, or I'd leave the two week break, and move the Pro Bowl to the weekend between.

Personally, I think the two week break kills momentum. I think that hurts Pittsburgh, coming off the highs of knocking the top three teams in the AFC on their asses. If the game were next week, I think Pittsburgh would get to keep some of that energy. Two weeks sucks it out of a team. So, my first choice would be just to cut the week break.

Failing that, I say play the Pro Bowl the Sunday Between. Excuse any players from teams who are in the Super Bowl, replace them with the multitudes of deserving players from your conference. I think you get higher rating for the Pro Bowl itself. Two weeks is a long time, and people are Hungry as Hell for football at this point. You can use it to work the fans into a frenzy for the upcoming championship. And you can use it as a last hurrah for those players not in the Super Bowl/Post Season.

I'd also move it out of Hawaii. Do it like baseball's All-Star Game. Different venues every year. Use it to create a huge fanfest, like baseball, and do it to thank the fans for another great season. Stop this shit where "we're congratulating the players on great seasons." They have millions of dollars congratulating them on great seasons.

And, honestly, who gives a shit about the Pro Bowl in its current incarnation?

I guess my problem is this: I'm, at best, a casual football fan. But I've been worked into the playoff frenzy, and after a couple of crappy games yesterday, I get to sit for two weeks and watch Sean Salisbury, Steven A. Smith, Tony Kornheiser, J.T. the Brick, Jim Rome and Chris Mortensen analyze these two teams to death. By the time the game's been played out on paper, I'll be so Steeler vs. Seahawked out, I won't care about the game itself.

Not that playing the Pro Bowl in between would lessen the talk, but it would give me something else to think about in the interim.

And isn't that what's truly important?

Sunday Morning Re-Run

Sunday Morning Re-Run

I wrote this one a couple of years ago, today, about a terribly violent sneeze:

The Most Violent Sneeze Ever

I was writing an e-mail to my friend Jill a little while ago, and I let loose with the most powerful and violent sneeze I've ever sneezed in all my life. It was really horrible. It hurt a little bit. Mostly my sinuses and my throat, because of the sudden and horrible expulsion of air and mucus that had to pass through those areas to get out. It scared me a little, because it just came on me all of a sudden, too.

I was sitting there, writing to Jill about a mutual friend living in New Orleans, when Bam! I had to think for a second, and check myself just to make sure I hadn't been shot (or perhaps hit with a ninja throwing star).

I didn't even have time to get my hands up to cover my mouth and nose. I'm not going to check the carpet, but I'm sure the detritus of that horrible explosion is still there, soaking in.

That was gross.

You ever get a sneeze caught in your head? Where you have to sit there and wait on the little sumbitch to come out? And you just kind of sit there, doing nothing, with a ridiculous look on your face, waiting to sneeze?

Aid: What are you doing Mr. President? They've launched the nukes. You have to return fire, before we're incinerated...

The President: I'm tryin' to sneeze, you assbag....

And sometimes, nothing happens. You wait. For seconds, or days. Teetering on the brink of madness. Anticipating the payoff. And it's all for shit. The sneeze decides to tickle the backside of your sinus cavity for a few minutes, and then retreats back into your soul (which is where sneezes live, and, as we've discussed, you can find your soul in your gallbladder).

Do you count when you sneeze? I do. Because I don't sneeze just once (this violent, horrible, brainbursting sneeze I just had notwithstanding). Working under the premise that anything worth doing is worth doing 7 times, I sneeze a lot when I sneeze. At least 3 times. And I count. One. Two. Three. Five. I don't skip four when I count. Because I like to keep track of these things.

I have a notebook. That I carry with me. It's where I list my sneezes, and I rate them. (It's different from the notebook where I keep track of the People's Court case verdicts and also my violent injury log [Charlie Babbitt squeezed and pulled and hurt my neck in 1988]).

And other times, you sneeze like 14 times in a row. Maybe not 14. 14 would probably denote something's wrong with you. Perhaps you have an odd venereal disease. Sneezles.

(What's wrong with Jim...why isn't he at work? He's got sneezles! He got it from a hooker).

But this one sneeze I just had? Horrible. Absolutely tremendous. I consider myself lucky that I have a mouth and a nose to expel these things from, otherwise I might have blown off the top of my head with the force of such a thing. Or popped out my eyes.

Did you ever have the conversation with the weird kid in class who claimed he could keep his eyes open when he sneezed? He was lying, right? I always kind of thought that if you tried keeping your eyes open when you sneezed, they'd shoot from your head like pinballs....only to stop about a foot out, tethered in place by your optic nerve. And there they'd dangle, for the rest of your life. Unless you were able to fashion some makeshift stalks for them to rest upon....

What about that weird kid in class? Wasn't his name Kenny? And he got in trouble once for eating a pincher beetle on the playground. I'd guess he's in prison now. Or he's a preacher.

Yeah. That was a violent sneeze. I know, because after I sneezed it, the people downstairs pulled out their guns and shot 9 rounds into the ceiling. They missed me. Except for the one that hit me. Right in my elbow. Sorry Can't come to work tonight. Shot in the elbow.

How violent was the sneeze? It got an R rating just for violence....which is rare, because they only seem to save the rating for nudity nowadays. No nudity in my sneeze.

How violent was the sneeze? It apologized to me when it finished: I'm sorry, baby...I'll never do it again...ya just made me so damn mad.....

How violent was the sneeze? Phil Mushnick and the Parents' Television Council picketed against it. They're still here, and they won't let me watch professional wrestling, either.

But I'm mostly better now. (No I'm not, if this post is any indication....)

My Favorite John Candy Movie

My Favorite John Candy Movie

Steven's finally pointed out the glaring question in all the blogworld. I've been wondering what Steven's favorite John Candy movie is. And there have been several times when I've been close to asking that question. I think I came closest when I was Best Man at his wedding, as we were in the back, waiting to go out to the altar for Steve to get hitched. Steven, the preacher and I were talking, and I started to ask...."Steven, what's your..." and then the music started, and Steve had to go out and get married.

So, he's answered now.

To be fair, though, I wonder what everybody's favorite John Candy movie is.

But it's gotten me to thinking.

What makes a movie a "John Candy Movie." Is it a movie that has John Candy in it, if not necessarily in a lead role? Or is it a vehicle that focuses on John Candy's character?

So, I'll answer both questions.

To the first point, I'll say that Stripes is my favorite movie with John Candy in it. He's not in the lead, as Ox, but he's definitely got some of the movie's best moments. I think my favorite's when he's teaching cards to Cruiser, and he takes a look at the novice's hands, encourages him to bluff, and takes all his money.

My favorite movie where he is the focus? Definitely Planes, Trains and Automobiles. The conversation he has, as Del Griffith, with Neal Page, about what bugs him about Neal Page..."you fidget with your nuts a lot...Larry Bird doesn't do as much ball handling in one night as you do in an hour..."

There's one more.

John Candy's in Nothing But Trouble, with Chevy Chase, Demi Moore and Dan Aykroyd. It's a stupid, stupid movie, but one I kinda like in spite of myself and Chevy Chase's misguided attempts at being funny.

There's a scene where Dan Aykroyd's demented Judge Valkenheiser is sitting down to dinner with Chevy Chase's and Demi Moore's characters, as well as John Candy's Deputy Dennis. The Judge asks loudly, "How about a Nice Hawaiian Punch?" And he pulls out one of the old style oilcans of Hawaiian Punch. As he cracks it open with a triangular can opener, he waxes on how, some days, there's nothing that eases the pain like a nice glass of Hawaiian Punch.

The look on John Candy's face, as he nods in silent agreement, is the look of a man who does not need nor is used to waxing philosophic on such things, but his whole heart says nothing short of "preach on, brother."

Comic gold.

Any others?

Futbol (Amerikaan)

Futbol (Amerikaan)

Tommy's picks for this football weekend:

I think the Steelers will down Denver, in Denver.

And I believe the Seahawks will win over Carolina. Because I'm just too dumb to learn to stop betting against Carolina. Honestly. I think I'm something like 0-12 picking against them in the playoffs.

Clothes

Clothes

While reading Fark this morning, I happened across this page, which says the way you remove your clothes says boatloads about your personality.

We learn that:

1) If you throw your clothes all over the place, you are a friendly, life-of-the-party type. You are free with your thoughts and opinions, not caring much about what others think of you. Your parents might think your room looks like a cyclone hit it? but it actually represents your happy, individualistic nature!

And also:

4) If you get out of your clothes as quickly as possible, you are concerned about others and what they expect from you, but you're worried about your own needs. You are family-oriented, and stay extremely busy. You often feel stressed, but most of those heavy expectations come from your own head! Give yourself a break; you don't have to be perfect.

I point these two out because I fall simultaneously into both categories. But I don't think it's because of the reasons listed.

See, I burn my clothes off. At the end of each day, I'll douse myself in gasoline and burn my clothes off. Sure, it's expensive on the wardrobe budget, but I really feel that this is the only effective way to get rid of all the germs.

As a result, I take my clothes off as quickly as possible, because we want to burn the germs, and not the Tommy. And I throw the clothes everywhere, mostly because I'm on fire and more concerned about not being on fire than where the charred remains of my apparel land.

You might think it runs opposite to my no-germs-on-the-body stance, but you'd be wrong. I'm not going to explain why.

Recognition

Recognition

Ain't much to report from this neck of the interweb.

I will say that I'm proud of myself recognizing Elizabeth Daily, from The Devil's Rejects, as playing Dottie in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Especially since I am OCD enough that playing that game, where you say "Who the Hell is that?", can ruin a movie for me. I'll start obsessing over what else I've seen them in, to the point where I actually miss parts of the movie trying to think of the answer.

But it's all good this morning.

Debated Planets

Debated Planets

A couple of days ago, in its first glitchy fart in months, Blogger ate a post.

Well, retrying, here's one of my favorite bits from John Hodgman's The Areas of My Expertise, in which he talks about Debated Planets:

Many of what we term "Planets" have been observed since antiquity, beginning especially with the Mesopotamians, those dreamers. But especially since the discovery of Uranus in 1781, there has been resistance to admitting new bodies into the "Club of Planets."

The Club of Planets, as you know, is headquqrtered in a town house on East Fifty-first Street in New York City. Its charter maintains that serious people with withhold final judgment until a body's planethood may be personally verified by a visit froma club representative. Thus, Saturn, Earth and Venus are currently listed as "Undeniable Planets." But several others remain up for debate. For example.....

PLUTO: Some scientists now consider this to be a remote planetoid of the Kuiper Belt.

SEDNA: A recently discovered body of ice and rock, most agree this is not a planet, but part of the Oort cloud at the dge of the solar system. It is believed that the Oort cloud is the source of all comets, though no comet factories have yet been observed.

URANUS: Is it a planet, or just a bit of hobo myth?

NEPTUNE: The residents of its thirteen moons believe religiously that Neptune itself doesn't exist. When they purify it from their minds, the "Great Blue Insult" shall disappear.

JUPITER: Possibly just a moon of the largest planet, Gigantor

SUPER-GIGANTOR: A hypothetical mass designed to annoy Jupiter.

MARS: Probably a government conspiracy.

MERCURY: Zero axial tilt? Please. Most agree that this is either a space station, or a self-aware supercomputer.

Postscript: since the Club Verification Committee verified Saturn and Venus via rocket expedition in 1959 and 1967, respectively, each has been granted its own room in the Club of Nations. The Solarium is now called the Saturnium; The Hall of Venus is on the third floor, to the left of the Game Room, and is, in deference to the Venutians, kept at roughly 500 degrees Celsius.

Mostly I am just happy to have my own suspicions about Mercury shared by others. I have always taken that Zero Axial Tilt thing as a personal insult, like when you get a backhanded compliment that is meant to embarrass you.

Book Quiz Thingamajig

Book Quiz Thingamajig

You're Catch-22!

by Joseph Heller

Incredibly witty and funny, you have a taste for irony in all that you
see. It seems that life has put you in perpetually untenable situations, and your sense
of humor is all that gets you through them. These experiences have also made you an
ardent pacifist, though you present your message with tongue sewn into cheek. You
could coin a phrase that replaces the word "paradox" for millions of
people.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Seen over here....

Beard

Beard

Last October, I was on vacation. My buddy Steven and I wandered up to New York to see baseball's Hall of Fame, and just, you know, not work for a few days.

Well, I decided that something I didn't want to do if I wasn't working, was shave.

Shaving's a hassle, in my book, and possibly dangerous to me. I'm not coordinated, and I can't think of much that I do more dangerous that wake up, and while still groggy, scrape a razor sharp pieces of metal across my face. I'm lucky I haven't sliced off my nose.

So, while on vacation, I did not shave.

When I returned from vacation, I also did not shave.

Being male, I grew hair on my face and (in an instance not unlike when Pinocchio realizes that he's a real boy) I realized that I had a beard.

So. No shaving. I do groom the thing. I try to trim it, and I manage to pick most of the food that falls from my mouth out of it.

I think I look fairly dapper.

I may be wrong. I probably just look like a guy who hates shaving.

Either way. I think I'm cool with it.

Anyway. There is a fringe benefit I've found.

People who know me solely by appearance (i.e., customers) don't know me. In the past three months, people that I have seen shop in my store on a weekly basis will have to ask a question or get some other sort of assistance (more often than not, it's some short person needing help getting something from a shelf), and after the transaction is complete, they'll say "Are you new here?"

"No," I'll say. I'll explain how long I've been there, and that maybe I've been working night shifts, or something along those lines.

But these are people I see on a weekly basis, and they don't recognize me.

It's the beard, I think. That, and the fact that I've let my hair grow out a bit more than I have in the past few years. Usually, I'll stick with a buzzcut, or something fairly close to it. But I've let my white man's afro grow out a little bit, too.

So, I have longer hair and a beard than a lot of people who have previously seen me remember.

This has convinced me that I could probably embark on a crime spree. I'll shave my beard, shave my head afterward, and nobody would know that it would be me perpetrating the misdeeds. Because they wouldn't be able to recognize me.

"The guy who robbed us had a beard. And an afro. That guy had no beard, and no afro. Completely different guy."

Nobody would ever know. Except me and my sevens of readers.

You guys wouldn't rat me out, would you?

There are a couple of lawyers who read this. Would the "No Beard/Different Guy" defense stand up in court?

What if I could prove that with a beard, I am in fact a complete different person than I am without?

I ask only because I've really been wanting to knock over the Hardee's I pass on my way to work. Out of spite, mostly. And I don't think I'd steal money. Just steak biscuits.

What if I said I'd give the steak biscuits to the poor?

Except for the couple that I'd eat.

Poor people shouldn't eat my steak biscuits.

Anyway. Just something to think about.

Scrubs

Scrubs

Really glad Scrubs is back on my teevee. It's good to have some old-fashioned silliness on. The bit with Elliot and her driver's license photo, complete with Gary Busey cameo. That was comic gold.

Also, to see Dr. Cox come running to the staff photo trap, based solely on the knowledge that J.D. was getting his ass kicked...

What a great show.

Tuesday Morning

Tuesday Morning

It's been literally months since blogger ate a post of mine. Don't know what happened to the fine, fine post from yesterday morning, but it was one for the ages.

In it, I:

• Called bullshit on the scores of people who hollered how they picked Pittsburgh over Indianapolis this weekend. Show me proof, buddyboy. Me? I got one out of four right this weekend.
• Talked about Steve Turner's Johnny Cash biography, how I liked it, though its writing didn't flow. I did like the look at Johnny's evangelical phase, and the fact it would bring up contradictions from Johnny's previous autobiographies. Also, it didn't treat the June Carter romance as a heaven-sent fairy tale.
• I recommended John Hodgman's Areas of My Expertise, and quoted a passage from "Debated Planets." Perhaps I will do this again for the future, because it is terribly funny. Anyway, the book? Imagine that post about ranking the Monkees, the tone of it, and stretch it over 250 pages.
• I started Edward McPherson's biography of Buster Keaton. It's gonna be a quick read. A little too many plot synopses of his early two-reelers, but you do get a feel for Buster's personality with the section on practical jokes....
• I also talked about how I'm watching the first season of Smallville, on loan from my brother-in-law, and how in the first seven or eight episodes, there are about a dozen cars crashed, blown up, set on fire or have something thrown through them. I don't think I would want to live in Smallville, if only because auto insurance rates for that zip code have to be through the roof.

It was a great post, and I'm sorry that you missed it. Like I said, blogger's free, and it doesn't mess up much.

But it did. And now I get to wander into the day with a mildly angry buzz.

But that might just be the coffee and the three hours of sleep.

Only my barber knows for sure.

Huzzah!

Supreme Court vs. the Brady Bunch

Supreme Court vs. the Brady Bunch

The question was whether I could name as many Supreme Court justices as I could characters on the Brady Bunch.

Of course I could name all 9 Brady Bunch characters.

I was figuring I could tie.

I only got seven. The two most mundane names, I think.

I forgot Stephen Breyer and the new chief John Roberts.

I got Anthony Kennedy, though not by first name.

I think I said "One of them friggin' Kennedys is there."

And I was right.

Amen.

Ranking the Monkees

Ranking the Monkees

I've been thinking long and hard about this.

If I were to travel back in time, to the time when their television show ran, and had to make the TV musical group The Monkees fight, hand-to-hand, UFC style, this is how I would seed them in an single-elimination format

1. Mike Nesmith
2. Davy Jones
3. Peter Tork
4. Mickey Dolenz

Mike Nesmith is the easy choice for the one seed. He's bigger, stronger, smarter, and from the South. Plus, he wore the toboggan. He's got not only the brains to train smarter for such a venture, but also the vast Liquid Paper fortune to rely on to pay for the very best in trainers. But when it came down to it, I just don't know how you could compete with his reach. Michael Nesmith had a wingspan measuring some 78 feet.

A lot of people will argue with Davy Jones being seeded at #2. I stand by my choice. I think there's a wiry, tough, drunken longshoreman underneath that Moe Howard haircut. He'd fight dirty. He'd have to. I mean, what was Davy, 4'10"? He's right at nut-punchin' level. I think Davy Jones is a cannibal.

It was tough for me to seed Peter Tork at #3, and I think he may surprise us all in the long run. I think he's probably got that unbelievably strong carny muscle on that drifter's build of his, and I think he's got just enough lack of sense to know when to stay down. I think fighting Peter Tork would be like fighting a zombie. May be easy to stun, slow to learn, but relentless in his goal to eat your brains.

Mickey Dolenz is, was and always will be a pantywaist. He would fold like a lawnchair in the opening seconds of just about any bout. In the first bout, I think Mike Nesmith would grab him by that Afro of his and knee him in the face until the refs stopped the fight.

However.

Such a thing would never come to be. Let's set aside the whole implausibility of my traveling through time, and the improbability of the whole idea of crafting a tournament with UFC rules and finding an Athletic Body to license such a thing in the late 1960's. I think it would be impossible to break up the team, for any reason.

We all know that the Monkees were put together for a lot of reasons. TV appeal. Believability as musicians. And their cohesiveness as a fighting unit.

Little known fact? The Monkees were the United States' top fighting squad in Viet Nam.

Littler known fact? The TV show The A-Team is actually a chronicle of The Monkees' adventures after they were convicted, in 1972, by a military tribunal for a crime they didn't commit. The Monkees promptly escaped to the Los Angeles underground, where they survived as soldiers of fortune. For several TV seasons, if you had a problem, and no one else could help, and if you could find them, you could have hired, The Monkees.

Mike Nesmith drove the van. But you knew that. He's the badass. (Think about it...Peter Tork=H.M. Murdock; Mickey "Pansy" Dolenz=The Faceman; Davy Jones always did love it when a plan came together....)

Sadly, the Monkees were killed in 1989 by Col. Decker and his men, who had been specially trained to actually hit the targets they were shooting at. It was very sad. It happened the same weekend the first Tim Burton Batman movie opened.

None of the Monkees ever got to see the movie.

Stuff and Things

Stuff and Things

I've never posted about somebody else's interior decoration, but I'm thinking Rob's self-described Childish Underground Bunker Sanctuary needs a look.

Go look at the C.U.B.S. basement....

Real Conversations from My Life

Real Conversations from My Life

I don't know why I thought about this one today, but it happened one night when I was working nights, a couple of years back:

The co-worker's name was Derek, and he was deliriously tired, and for some reason, we were talking about cartoons:

Out of the blue, after a long silence:

Derek: If Spongebob Squarepants was real, do you think I could whip him in a fight?

Me: What do you mean if he was real?

Derek: Man, you know what I mean.

Me: No, you couldn't whip him. He'd tear you apart. It wouldn't even be a close fight.

Derek (a little dejected): Yeah. You're right. Spongebob's a badass.

------

Several minutes later, I had a George Costanza moment. Derek had left, and I had to hunt him down, to drop this little bit of wit on him:

Me: Spongebob would wipe the floor with you.

Derek: Huh?

Me: If you and Spongebob got into a fight. He'd wipe the floor with you.

Derek (not following at all): What the fuck you talkin' about?

Me: When you were talking a minute ago about....Oh never mind.

Derek: Yeah. You never mind and go back to work. Quit talking about Spongebob.

----

I was really proud of my ironic statement.

Derek got fired a couple of weeks later when they found out he'd been convicted of a felony, and had failed to mention it on his work application....

The Dumbest Man in America

The Dumbest Man in America

You know, when I screw up, I'll usually declare to no one in particular, that I am the Dumbest Man in America.

But tonight, I see that statement just cannot be true.

Ron Mexico's little brother, like a kid with a bicycle horn who just cannot get enough attention from anybody, was arrested in Virginia for waving a gun around and pointing it at teenagers.

You know, somewhere deep down inside me, there's a rant about how these personality traits that have earned Marcus Vick a certain amount of notoriety these past three or four years aren't exactly new personality traits. And in this rant, I'd go on and on about how we've set up a system in this country that, even from a young age, gives preferential treatment and the occasional blind eye to the bad eggs, if they can throw a football or dunk a basketball, and how this is a problem that should have been nipped in the bud way back in the day.

But the rant usually ends with me crying and/or concussed after I've beaten my head against one sociological wall or another, so I won't get into it, too much. I'm much too lazy for that.

Suffice it to say that today, at least, I am not the Dumbest Man in America.

In other news, I've reached my Marcus Vick newsbit quota for this year. I want to hear no more about this thug for the rest of 2006. You guys work on this, okay?

futboll

futboll

3 and 1 in picking the winners this week.

You have understand that in my football predictions from yesterday, I incorrectly assumed that the Giants would actually show up to play football this afternoon.

Seems the Giants thought it was Amazing Collapsing Pansy Day at the Meadowlands.

The Rule of Four

The Rule of Four

Everybody else is doing it. Why can't I?

Four jobs you’ve had in your life:

Grocery Bagger, hotel bellman, Donations Supervisor, Assistant Manager.

I am a superhero in my spare time, and I do not receive financial compensation.

Four movies you could [and do] watch over and over:

Star Wars, the Shawshank Redemption, Blazing Saddles, Dr. Strangelove

Four places you’ve lived:

One house, another house, a dorm and an apartment.

Four fiction books you can’t live without:

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain;
Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole;
The Bottoms, by Joe R. Lansdale;
The Stand, by Stephen King

Four non-fiction books you consider essential:

Ball Four, by Jim Bouton;
A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson;
Rock of Ages, by Stephen Jay Gould;
Shelby Foote's narrative history of the Civil War (which is several books, but is some fine reading nonetheless)

Four TV shows you love to watch:

The Simpsons; The Daily Show; the Colbert Report; Arrested Development

Four places you’ve been on vacation:

Wildwood, New Jersey
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
Orlando, Florida
Cooperstown, New York

Four websites you visit daily:

Fark
Boing Boing
Coast to Coast
Internet Movie Database

If not daily, almost daily.

Also, a goodly number of the blogs on the sidebar.

Four of your favorite foods:

A grilled cheeseburger with bacon;
the fried pickle chips from Toot's;
A nice medium rare New York Strip;
sweet potato casserole...

Four places you’d rather be:

Somewhere where it's baseball season;
Up in the mountains;
the year 1947;
I'd like to be at a movie theater today, but it ain't gonna happen.

Four albums you can’t live without:

Today we'll say:

Johnny Cash, Live at Folsom Prison
R.E.M.'s Out of Time
Robert Earl Keen's Gravitational Forces
Allison Krauss and Union Station's Lonely Runs Both Ways....

Saturday Morning

Saturday Morning

Somebody ate the last of my kettle chips. I have been in mourning for the past couple of days.

The Sloth has added his opinions on the whole kettle chip issue. I have to second what he says. If you're going to flavor your kettle chips, bring the noise. Go all out, put something with a kick on your chips. Otherwise, just stay home.

Now, when I eat kettle chips, I'm generally a plain jane type of feller. I likes them salty and oily.

But on occasion, I'll get a hankerin' for something different, in the kettle chip arena. When I want a flavored chip, I want something that'll ruin a shirt, something that you have to use gasoline to burn the excess off your hands.

In that area, Cape Cod makes a fine barbecue, and Hanover's used to have a pretty good Cheddar and Sour Cream, but those have proven hard to find.

Now, if you ever go to Quizno's, some franchises have a pretty decent jalapeno kettle chip that they serve alongside their toasted sammiches.

-----

My picks to advance in the playoffs this weekend?

New England, Washington, New York and Pittsburgh.

Just my gut, saying so.

-----

This one's stupid, but it made me laugh. Maybe because I ate a bowl of oatmeal this morning:

A cowboy has lived to an extremely old age, and one day his grandson asks him to what he attributes his long life.

"Well, you know that every morning, I have a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast." says the old timer. His grandson nods.

"Before I eat it, I sprinkle a little gunpowder on it, everyday." The ancient cowpoke adds.

The grandson decides to follow his grandfather's breakfast regimen, and each morning of his life, he has oatmeal with gunpowder sprinkled on it. Sure enough, the grandson lives to the ripe old age of 97.

When he died, he left seven children, twenty one grandchildren, eighteen great-grandchildren, and a fifteen foot hole in the side of the crematorium.

I just put a little brown sugar and some pecans in my oatmeal.

Futurama

Futurama

Fark links up this story...simply, talks have started on getting new episodes of Futurama back on the air.

Something I don't like

Something I don't like

Number 38,712 on the list of things I don't care for in this life:

I don't like the way they're doing the instant replay in the college bowl games this year. Even when the breaks for the officials to check the replay are short, and even when the outcome is overturning a mistake, I find they take quite a bit away from the flow of the game.

As a casual football fan, who just wants to sit and watch a football game, I find it very distracting.

Tommy Trivia

Tommy Trivia

I have an irrational, unconditional love of kettle cooked potato chips.

It's not one of those things where I'm constantly eating them. I can go several days, even weeks or months, without eating them.

But if I get an urge for them, I have to have them. I will search high and low until I find them, too. Sometimes, they are not so easy to find. Why my store does not stock them always, I do not know. But they don't. I tend to think of this as mounting evidence of God's vendetta against me.

Most times, I can find them, though. When I do, I can eat an entire bag of them without batting an eye.

I don't realize it. I sit down with a full bag of kettle chips. And then before the third act of the very poignant episode of Head of the Class, I realize that I've managed to stuff 9 ounces of kettle chips down my maw.

I will eat that many even if they're not mine. If I come over to your house, and you offer me kettle chips, and if you don't want me to eat the whole bag, you'll have to take the bag from me. You may have to stun me, or perhaps startle me with a bright light, or distract me with the theme to "Dukes of Hazzard," in order to get the bag from my grip. I've got strong hands, and a deep and true love of kettle chips. But you have to get them from me. Otherwise, I'll eat them all.

What's worse, I may keep coming back to your house, looking for kettle chips. I'm like a bear, that way. If I've come to recognize your house as a source of sustenance (in kettle chip form), I'll keep coming back.

And you'll have a conversation like this:

"Maude? Who's at the door?"

"It's Tommy, and he wants kettle chips."

"He wants what?"

"Kettle chips. He keeps asking if we have any kettle chips."

"Tell him to go home."

"I did. He won't go. He's having some kind of fit, kinda like Rain Man when he can't watch People's Court."

"Dammit, I'm watching Guiding Light. Where's my machete? I'll chop that man to death...."

I love kettle chips.

I once destroyed a Hess gas station in South Carolina because they didn't have any kettle chips. I tend to think that's why there aren't any Hess stations near my house. Because they don't carry kettle chips, and the loss they might incur from the resulting destruction (caused by yours, truly) would be greater than any monetary gain they could get from the sale of gasoline.

And you've seen the price of gas, right? They make billions of dollars selling gasoline.

That's just how much I love those crispity crunchity chips. That a billion dollar company cannot compete with the destruction I would rain down upon them because they do not carry kettle chips. They just choose not to come anyplace near me.

You think it'd be easier just to find a vendor that sells kettle chips.

I tried the Lay's foray into the kettle chip arena tonight.

I find them a touch salty, and a little greasier than I generally like my kettle chips. But they are crispy, and the salt doesn't overwhelm the spud taste. On a scale of one to ten, I'd give Lay's a solid 6, with a 7 not out of the question. Definitely edible.

Separated at Birth?

Separated at Birth?



Richie Cusack, A History of Violence

and



Chancellor Gorkon, Star Trek VI: the Undiscovered Country

Memory problems...

Memory problems...

Eric's having memory and gastrointestinal problems.

I'm thinking my New Year's Resolution, to eat less Fast Food, will help me in this. My memory seems to have a particular hole involving the Krystal hamburger.

See, if I eat even one Krystal (the southern, mustardy cousin of the White Castle, to those of you Mason-Dixonally Challenged), I'm pretty much guaranteed at least one Race with the Devil the next day, because the digestive tract gets all greased up.

But still. Usually once a month, I decide that I'm man enough to eat a Krystal hamburger without having to buy a pack of Depends to use the next day. Because I am an id-driven creature with selective memory.

But it gets worse. Every now and then, I'll tell those nice folks at Krystal to add jalapeno peppers to my little square hamburgerific treat. Tasty, spicy and greasy going in. In short, it's a perfect drunken food.

Problem is, more often than not, I haven't even been drinking, so I can't blame that for my toilet trevails the next day.

Still. Id. All my mind understands is "Tasty," "Spicy," and "Greasy."

Problem is, 12-15 hours later, when it ends its journey through BSTommy, it is still greasy and spicy.

Stupid Jalapenos.

Stupid Tommy.

The Producers

The Producers

Note to self: Never make the pronouncement "it probably won't be crowded" before going into a movie, ever again. Because you're worse than the guy on the FedEx commercial. You're always wrong about it.

Honstly, though. Who'da thunk it? I figured everybody'd still be off seeing Narnia, or Kong, or even Munich or Memoirs of a Geisha. Fuck Me, though. I think everybody decided to see a musical to chime in the New Year.

The Producers was Packed.

But I was apparently not the only one who thought it wouldn't be so crowded. Judging from the huge parties that showed up, and then stood confused in the darkness trying to find an empty row to seat their group, we all thought it would play to an empty theater....

Can I make a suggestion for a resolution for the general public for this brand New Year? For 2006, could some of you try showing up to a movie on time? How about it? I realize that none of us thought it would be crowded, but it's a bit of a distraction for you people to stand in the front row, trying to find Six Together for you and your brood. Bite the bullet, and sit in six different seats. Whaddaya expect showing up to a 3:05 flick at 3:18?

As for the flick?

I liked the movie. I give it a thumbs up.

Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick grew on me, after my initial bad reaction (it seemed like Lane was channeling Zero Mostel at 2/3 speed, and Broderick was doing a bad Gene Wilder). But they grew on me. I think it was the Broderick fantasy scene in the accounting office, where it diverges from the original flick, that let me accept the two as their own characters.

My alternating love/hate thing with Will Ferrell continues. Maybe it's an alternating year thing, like what Bret Saberhagen used to have....everything I saw Ferrell in 2004, I laughed my ass off. In 2005, he did three things I hated (Anchorman, Melinda and Melinda and Kicking & Screaming), and a fourth that I refused to see (Bewitched) on the grounds that you can fool me once, twice, even three times, but I refuse to be duped four times....

But even if it's hours old, it is a New Year. Keeping in mind it is not so much when the movie is made as it is when I see it....maybe 2006 will be a positive year for me and Mr. Ferrell.

But I digress.

A Couple of the numbers even illicited applause from the audience. I personally enjoyed Bloom's solo number in the accounting office, and Ferrell's Liebkind becoming insulted at one Hitler's performance of a German shownumber that he shouts him offstage, and reprises the number himself.

And while I can't say how this one compares to the stage version, never having seen the stage production, this Producers is a good flick. Not as good as the 68 original, which is in my personal top 10. But a fine flick in its own right. Definitely one of the better I've seen in a little while....