Vacation

I think that the Gogos may have said it best: “vacation is all I ever wanted, vacation is how to get away…” while the aforementioned band did go on to say other things, I like the sentiment of that particular verse. It is, unfortunately, pretty hard to pull off.

As I sit here now it is 12:34 AM according to the clock at the bottom right of my screen, and we only just started, and finished, packing for vacation. My “official” last minute at work was at 8 PM tonight, but I can never assume that I won’t be callled back for various reasons long after that. It took me about four hours of waiting for the call from work (which thankfully never came) to actually start packing my bags. I think that I might actually be on vacation tomorrow…I may be somewhere that is away from here, sweet!

I will be on vacation in Laughlin this year; Laughlin is basically Las Vegas without the advertising, not to mention a bit closer to home. I hope they have the same buffet prices as Vegas though, else the 19 dollar room rate might not seem quite as good.

I am so amped up about vacation that I doubt I will get a wink of sleep tonight. I just want to get in the car and go. I am desperate to spend some time away from work, anywhere. I still fear that I might get that call about something else that is broken and I will have to go back to work. I wish that my wife was not so tired from spending her whole Friday and Saturday cleaning up the house, then we could go right now!

We only started to select clothes for the vacation at about 11:30, and we are now done. A few vacations under your belt can certainly help you to find the correct clothes, but, a good rule of thumb is that you aren’t going to wear pants if you don’t have to. If you have no pants in the suitcase, you aren’t going to wear any. Pretty sound logic, and also pretty good advice. You know that you aren’t going to wear the pants, why throw them into the suitcase?

This year my wife made it a point to make sure that I had a pair of shorts for swimming purposes, I guess she heard my cries the last few years about not having a swimsuit when she wanted to go swimming. Now I might actually have to be at, near, around or otherwise in the presence of a swimming pool…Then I might have to actually get in!

For all of the wonderful things my wife does for me it is hard to fault her for anything. Yet, when she wants me to be in swim trunks, thus showing off the fact that I am trying to hide the planet “Nepture” within my stomach… That is pretty harsh… I never ask her to put on a bikini and parade around a bunch of 20 something observers, I doubt she would get a negative comment though; Along with her slightly larger stature, she got an attitude to match. You really don’t want to piss her off…Trust me…

Anyway, the vacation… It really started about five hours ago for me, it doesn’t seem like much of a vacation yet. Once Ray gets here, in the morning, I guess I will finally concede that it is time to leave work behind for a few days.

Thing is that you never can…At least I can’t…

Categories

Music Lost to History

Metallica - One

Citing Metallica's song 'One' as 'music lost to history' probably doesn't make much sense to most. In this case, I don't think the song is lost to history, but the video is.

When this video dropped (I'd guess it was about 1989) I thought it was the most powerful video I had ever seen. Now, nearly thirty years later, I still believe it is the most powerful music video ever made.

The story may not be completely unique (the imagery is recycled -but from a film that was so old that my -then fifteen or sixteen year old- eyes had never seen. My now forty-five-ish year old eyes had never seen it either) but that video is shot and edited so well that you will be crying by the end. If, that is, you have a heart.

The video for Metallica's One surpassed all expectations for music videos, set the mark for what music videos would, could, and should be. It rocketed the group from garage band to the biggest group that ever lived. This single video defines not just that band, but the entire genre.

No other video has ever had such an impact on on the world of music. Not Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video (which I believe to this day gets far too much credit) not The Beastie Boys song Sabotage which was a wonderful throwback to the seventies era cop show, but which I believe, also gets credit far beyond it's worth. Metallica's video for One, on the other hand, didn't try to look like anything more than it was. It was a hard-rocking song and Metallica used some masterful movie clips to add to the morose feel that the instruments generated. That video, for that song, was absolutely perfect.

It is without any form of doubt that I say the video for Metallica's song One was, and ever will be, the best video ever made. Don't take my word for it though, watch the video above (with low light and in a dark room) . If it doesn't move your heart, you're living this life all wrong.

Wildly inaccurate, yet shockingly precise, predictions based completely on happenstance and arbitrary universal fluctuations. – I Mean Horoscopes:

July 2017

Cancer: 6/22-7/22
For 34 years you have been painstakingly removing a single hair from the head of each of woman you murder -with plans to weave them into a belt. A mishap involving a a candle-warmer, a vacuum cleaner, and the police breaking down the door to take you 'dead or alive' will bring your collecting days to an unfortunate end.

Leo: 7/23-8/22
Your plan to rook your boyfriend into marrying you by faking a pregnancy will fail this week. There are several reasons why this plan will fail: 1) you have denied him sex for your entire relationship, promising him that flower on the honeymoon. 2) You actually are pregnant. 3) You've been wearing a T-shirt that says 'Gold Digger' on it since the day you met him. 4) The single strand of hair that the Cancer (horoscope above) pulls from your head will be the one and only time he leaves his own DNA at the crime scene.

Virgo: 8/23-9/22
Okay, maybe the stars have been a bit harsh. They know you are a good guy, but you've made a lot of mistakes. The stars are willing to meet at Gina's Coffee Shop on July 12th at noon. If you aren't there, you may as well write off visitation of your kids.

Libra: 9/23-10/22
98% That is the specific number you will give your wife before you jump out of the plane. That optimistic chance of survival will slowly fade as you realize that gravity doesn't care a great deal if you have your arms out or not: Terminal velocity is terminal velocity. Your attempt to recreate the famous scene from the movie Point Break will end just as it should have in the movie: A horrible mass of flesh and bone several miles away from the guy who actually did have the parachute.

Scorpio: 10/23-11/21
The stars have a huge "to do" list. As such, your childhood wish to have sex with Anna Nichole Smith will finally come true this week. No, there's no way to stop it. The stars do apologize for the lateness of the fulfillment of this request, but they think your friends will count it anyway.

Sagitarius: 11/22-12/21
You've seen the movie The Number 23 exactly twenty-two times. You've built your life around avoiding that number. You''ll feel supremely confident when you leave your house on 07/12/2017. But, on 07/12/2017, you will step onto the sidewalk only to be struck and killed by a drunk driver. The time of impact? Exactly 11:01:00am on 07/12/2017. You will have exactly enough time to add up the digits of the date AND time: 1+1+0+1+0+0+0+7+1+2+2+0+1+7=23. Your realization that any date, time, or irrelevant number can be made to equal 23 will be moot.

Capricorn: 12/22-1/19
The stars have been watching you. And your daughter. Oh my, how we have been watching your daughter... Blah, blah, something about a star rising in Orion, blah, blah. The stars will definitely offer you better guidance once that daughter is of legal age.

Aquarius: 1/20-2/18
Every man wants to die a hero. That's human nature. But you have obsessed about it. When little Johnny accidentally starts a fire in his trash can this week, you should calmly walk out of the house with everyone else. If you happen to stand in Johnny's room screaming "take me, I'm the one you want!" That action may be ill-perceived by the police. The firefighters aren't even going to respond; the trash can fire burned itself out without even melting the plastic of the can.

Pisces: 2/19-3/20
Billy-Ray has been wearing that mullet for thirty damn years, so you figured yours would be fine, too. You'll soon realize that Billy-ray can rock that hairdo because he doesn't have to get it near the shake machine at Dairy Queen. You, on the other hand, have to get those lovely locks right up in there. Or, your now-naked scalp did.

Aries: 3/21-4/19
While the police report will read "failed attempt to jump the Grand Canyon", and the coroner's report will read "severe blunt-force trauma", everyone who knows you will know that they should have read "Eh, I think I can make it."

Taurus: 4/20-5/20
Rape. It's a big, scary word. It will also be the most appropriate word for what the biggest guy in jail is about to do to you. Please confer with a Cancer for advice on how to handle it.

Gemini: 5/21-6/21
Yeah, your Lyft driver is also carrying a knife. Unwanted advances will also result in removal of the penis. Keep it in your pants. Unless, of course, the Uber driver already handed it to you. In that case you can wave that thing around like a flag. You're probably not going to get a ride, but you are going to be one in a very exclusive group of men who can 'wave it around like a flag'.

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