July 2005

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Posted on July 31, 2005 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

This started as a comment on a BlackChampagne post. If some thoughts seem more incomplete than usual that is probably why. I saw the film this morning, luckily for me the children in attendance kept mostly quiet throughout. I have a completely different take on the movie though, as I watched and loved the original version of it. I have seen it several times in the last five years or so and still really enjoy it. It has a great message and Wilder as Wonka is so eccentric that he might actually be insane. After having read reviews for the new version I had pretty low expectations. Much to my surprise I actually enjoyed it. While I have never read the book, the fact that both Wilder and Depp played Wonka in the same manner would imply that that is how he is supposed to act. How can you fault Continue reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory→

False advertising!

Posted on July 28, 2005 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

So do you remember all of those commercials from the 1990’s that said, “A diamond is forever.”? They lied. It turns out that the actual lifespan of said diamond is about four years, seven months and three days. That all being based on the date that I gave my wife her engagement ring (Xmas Eve of 2000) to the day that the diamond was noticed to be missing, which was yesterday. Do you have any idea how bad a diamond ring looks without the diamond? It is not pretty. I thought the diamond was supposed to last forever. Why is it that the ring is still in decent shape (with the possible exception of missing one of the mounts that held the diamond) while the diamond has vanished completely? Is this some strange conspiracy cooked up by the diamond sellers? Diamonds don’t usually just disappear you know. I know the Continue reading False advertising!→

Pass me the duct tape!

Posted on July 27, 2005 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

Kudos to NASA, who released this statement, “NASA: No Flights Until Foam Issue Fixed “. That should be a comforting thought, right? Well, when the article that it leads to is This one, I am not so sure. The last time an American shuttle left the ground heading for space some foam tore away from it, that led directly to the deaths of a bunch of people. What on earth were the people on the ground doing after that? I ask only because, SPACE CENTER, Houston – NASA grounded future shuttle flights Wednesday because a big chunk of insulating foam flew off Discovery’s fuel tank during liftoff Â as it did with Columbia Â but this time apparently missed the spacecraft. So they went ahead and investigated the whole spacecraft, yet neglected to look at the weird foam flying off issue? As if they didn’t have any knowledge that the Continue reading Pass me the duct tape!→

Monsoon at last

Posted on July 21, 2005 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

After a week of temperatures 110+ degrees, while the humidity has been steadily rising, the monsoon is here at last. I am not sure exactly how they calculate when the monsoon finally arrives so I am calling it myself. It arrived at precisely 3:42p.m. today. That is when the black clouds blocked out the sun and the temperature mysteriously dropped about 20 degrees in ten minutes. Not to mention the smell of rain, and not the good kind, the smell of rain that you can only find in an arid region with a lot of pollution. It doesn’t rain much and when it does it smells like the billowing smoke from an enormous industrial furnace, at least for the first few minutes. I don’t know the numbers, and am not going to waste the time to look them up, but I would guess that at lest 2/3 of the annual Continue reading Monsoon at last→

Let’s play some cards

Posted on July 18, 2005 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

With the popularity of the World Series of Poker on television, not to mention my insatiable desire to know everything, and be better at it than everyone else, right now, dammit. I was forced to learn how to play Texas Hold ‘Em Poker. The game is pretty simple, actually it is much easier than any other poker game that comes to mind. There are certain hands that are good, certain hands that are bad, and certain hands that you wish were never dealt to you. If you are not familiar with the game I will break it down for you, in a nutshell; to win you have to have the best 5card poker hand, based on two cards that are your own and five that are common. The highest possible hand is calculated based on your cards (and your opponents as well), whoever has the best hand wins. Really a Continue reading Let’s play some cards→

Something in the shot?

Posted on July 16, 2005 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

My happy, playful, non-aggressive dogs don’t do much other than lay around and eat on occasion, yet there must be something in the shots that they get at the vet that changes all of that. Zelda, the younger of the two dogs, the female one as well, was needing to renew her shot status to get new dog tags (If you own a dog and don’t care enough to get him/her vaccinated once every couple of years to keep their registration current, you should be put to death without a trial) so the wife took her over this morning. It was, in her words, “a really bad experience.” But also, “It only took about twenty minutes.”. Just a quick aside to mention the importance of registering your dogs, if you don’t have them registered you will never know where they are once they leave the confines of your yard. Sure Continue reading Something in the shot?→

A day for reflection

Posted on July 12, 2005 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

It comes along one day every year, without fail, seemingly oblivious to how it will affect me. The recurrence of my genital warts Today is my birthday, well technically speaking this date thirty-one years ago was my birthday, so it is the anniversary of my birthday. The 31st one of them (in case you are really slow). Lots of people seem to enjoy much fanfare on the anniversary of their birth, I am not one of them. My idea of the perfect birthday is basically acknowledgement of it by those close to me and possibly a gift from the wife, though the gift from the wife is generally something useful (shoes this year, as my old ones leave a toe or two hanging out currently). Perhaps if I had a very wealthy family that was prone to giving extravagant gifts I would feel differently? I somehow doubt it, though if Continue reading A day for reflection→

My dogs are getting screwed again!

Posted on July 8, 2005 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

I am getting so damn sick of people punishing dogs for the ignorance of their owners. It’s not like we punish children just because they go around killing other people as a result of poor supervision, well, actually, that might be a really bad parallel to draw. When children go bad and start killing people they get punished, and the parents are looked down on by society (as they should be), while when a dog kills someone, the dog is put to death (without question), and the owner is looked down on by society. The thing is that in both cases it is the lack of proper supervision that leads to the end. Had anyone spent any time with junior (as he was accumulating a cache of weapons in his bedroom) that tragedy might have been avoided. Of course the “might” on this one is up in the air. Similarly, Continue reading My dogs are getting screwed again!→

I have never had so much Pi(e)

Posted on July 4, 2005 by Shadowtwin — No Comments ↓

I had long thought that my knowledge of pi to the twelfth number was pretty impressive, those numbers being 3.14159265359 (rounded of course). It turns out that I am really just a slack-jawed country boy. The headline reads: Man recites pi from memory to 83,431 places; Japanese counselor breaks his own personal best I don’t really know whether to react with fear or awe. Through a bit of cursory research however, I did find that most people do not count the 3 when talking about how far they have gotten with Pi. That means that my meager 12 digits is really only eleven digits (damn those old twelve digit calculators!). On the up side I do have Pi memorized about 1/7,585th as far as that guy, so, woo-hoo, top 10,000 baby! I have never really understood the importance of pi in the first place. Sure it is a computational tool Continue reading I have never had so much Pi(e)→

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.

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'.