If He Dies, He Dies

Monday, June 25, 2007

I mentioned some time ago that I would probably watch Rocky Balboa despite assuming it wouldn't be that good. Oddly enough, I did watch it finally after it was generally very well-reviewed, and I enjoyed it less than I expected to. I actually liked most things about it, but they never really sold me on Mason Dixon or whatever his opponent's name was. It was like they started to develop his character but just gave up halfway through, so the final fight didn't do that much for me. Good movie... just no Rocky IV.

Now, I know that you might not consider Rocky IV exactly the gold standard for movies or even Rocky movies for that matter, but I thought last night (as I caught myself watching it yet again) that it pretty much is the gold standard for building up to the big fight at least. I would say that Cinderella Man is on par (especially given that it's mostly true and a better movie), but Rocky IV threw in probably the best flat-top haircut in movie history and about 40 years of overblown national fear and loathing, and it's hard to compete with that. This played even better in the 80s when Americans were all upset because they couldn't beat the Russians in anything athletically since the Soviets were all doped up (American athletes, of course, have avoided steroids like Halloween candy). It doesn't even diminish the impact that Ivan Drago went on to a career highlighted by a bad He-Man movie and that his wife went on to become Flavor Flav's chain-smoking girlfriend.

Watching this again also helped me realize what real boxing needs to restore its place in the sports world before it's made completely obsolete by Ultimate Fighting. I'm pretty sure that if they somehow made boxing gloves make that wood-chopping sound you get every time a punch connects in a Rocky movie, more people would be interested. Then again, after boxing does that, you'll probably see the UFC start to have lions and bears popping up through the floor, so maybe I'm wrong (wow - all that Game Theory stuff I studied in business school is finally paying dividends).

I also picked up some good workout tips this time around. Since it's about 150 degrees here most of the time, I don't have to bundle up to go running, but I found out that if I ever do have to work out in the Arctic, the best thing to wear is a nice fur-lined leather jacket (it could be faux fur - I'm not advocating killing rodents or anything). I wonder if they sell those at Underarmour? I also don't stop enough while I'm out running to help people with overturned wagons and stuff like that, which in Rocky's case not only took the place of free weights but also helped end the Cold War.

While we're on the subject of Rocky, I highly recommend reading The Onion's take on Stallone's HGH problems - funny stuff.

Playing With Fire

I may have mentioned here before that I'm a sucker for shows about ridiculous things like the Loch Ness Monster (some little part of me wants to believe this stuff I guess). I say "ridiculous" somewhat sarcastically, because after some recent new, highly conclusive footage of Nessie (or maybe the shadow of a cloud or a submerged log), there is really no more doubt. (On a sidenote, I think CCTV really added a lot of good commentary around this, especially the guy at the end - it's too bad the video cuts off just as he was making his main point.)

Now that this one has been solved, I guess it's time to move on to something else shrouded in mystery. I'm not sure if you read this stuff when you're pumping gas, but there are about 800 different warnings posted telling you how to avoid blowing up the whole gas station. Here are some of the seemingly innocent things that could apparently turn a Circle K into a napalm-filled war zone:

• Not touching something metal before pumping your gas
• Talking on a cell phone
• Putting a gas can anywhere but on the ground
• Lighting a cigarette (OK, I believe this one)
• Sneezing
• Smiling
• Paying With American Express
• Leaving your car running (I believe this one, too)

Has this ever happened? I'm assuming it has, but the chances can't really be all that high - I'm sure it's less than your chances of seeing a sea monster, a giant hairy ape man, or a UFO. I mean, if the chances were any higher than that, we should all be much, much more careful since I've never seen anyone bother to ground themselves before pumping, and I see people yacking on their phones all the time. I mean, if there is even a 1% chance of this happening, shouldn't we all be taking public transportation and leaving the refueling to the professionals? Driving through New Jersey once I was quite surprised to find that there is no self-serve there, but maybe they have had a few people spontaneously combust due to text messaging and don't want to chance that happening again.

The best part is actually what it says to do if you do start a fire: go talk to the station attendant. First of all, this might take a long time since gas stations seem to be the only places in the world where they haven't figured out how to scan the UPC and still have to type in the prices, so there will certainly be a line. Even if we assume cutting is allowed in life-threatening situations, I will much more likely run away while screaming at everyone else to do the same. I've seen enough movies (which I'm sure are accurate) to know that all it take is a little bump to blow up most things, so I figure that I have just enough time to run and dive just out of reach of the explosion (also something I've learned from movies). My guess is that this warning wasn't there to begin with, but the gas station attendants added that one on their own.

It may be that this does happen a lot more than I realize, and sometime soon you may see a CCTV (I know you're watching like I am) report with some amateur video of one of these flare-ups. When that happens, I'll drop my skepticism, and I'm sure we'll see a lot more hybrids on the road, since people driving Hummers will be about three more times likely to die a horrible death.

Can I at Least Visit My Pictures Sometimes?

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Some days I have to think a little bit before coming up with something to say here, but then there are days like today when things just fall into your lap. This morning my wife ordered some prints from Costco online, and I went in at lunch to pick them up, which sounds like a simple enough transaction. When I gave the girl my name, much to my surprise she brought back two envelopes, one that she was willing to hand over with no conditions. The second contained some pictures my dad, a professional, had taken of us a few weeks ago. In order to hand those over, she wanted to see written permission from the photographer. My explanation that it was my dad, that he lived in another state, and that I could get him on the phone wasn't good enough.

I understand why they're doing it - it's probably more about protecting themselves than ensuring the livelihoods of people like my dad, but either way, I don't besmirch what they're trying to accomplish. Still, there are a few things about their little FBI system that perplex me.

First, how do they know which pictures are professional? I probably shouldn't say this since they might be watching me right now, but they missed a few professional pictures not taken by my dad and not taken in a studio. At first I guessed that they might have software that somehow flags pictures based on file size or resolution or something like that, but she told me (after I asked out of extreme curiousity) that the professional pictures "just look clearer and have different backgrounds." Does that mean these poor people have to look over all of the pictures and figure out which ones might meet those vague criteria? Are they trained to sniff them out like some wholesale warehouse versions of police dogs? What if I was just really good at taking pictures (which I'm not)?

The other thing I wonder is how they know that the actual photographer is filling out the little get-your-pictures-out-of-jail permission slip they hand you. Sometimes I suffer from extreme honesty, so I'm trying to work through this formal application process, but I still think having them talk to my dad directly would be a more effective solution than having me fill out a form that I could easily just fill out myself or have filled out by any random person (but again, that would not give them any protection in the event that my dad decided to take me to the People's Court or something like that).

So as I write this, I'm working on my strategy for freeing my pictures. Next to our zip code being changed a few weeks ago just after we ordered a bunch of new checks, this is probably the most amusingly annoying thing that has happened to me recently.

But Wait, There's More!

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Sometimes in life, we get more than we bargained for. This can be a good thing if, for example, you buy a Snapple and win a trip to Europe (this happened to someone we know). It is a bad thing if, for example, you jump into the shower only to find that you are sharing your personal space with a scorpion (this happened to me).

At least twice in the last week I've gotten more than I bargained for. On our way back from a family trip, we stopped at a small-town Wendy's for a quick bite. I should have been a little cautious, because we had actually been there less than a year ago with some friends while on our way back from Thanksgiving and ended up stuck in some sort of Biggie-sized purgatory. This time might be different, I thought, because they had doubled their cashiers (to two), so certainly we wouldn't be spending a full hour in line this time. They had also pulled down their hand-written GATOR ("Get All the Orders Right" sign), so maybe they had decided to emphasize "Get All the Orders Right Now" instead.

It was honestly only by pure luck that it only took about 30 minutes to get through. We got the “fast” cashier, who was also the store manager and probably about ready to have a heart attack between doing everything except making the actual burgers (I’m not kidding) and talking to upset people in the drive-through line, which was apparently even worse. Anyone who got the “confused” cashier (she said it, not me) was in serious trouble. You know it’s bad anytime you are at the back of the line and people are walking past comparing the wait to a Disneyland ride. It could have been even worse, since the only reason we really went was for a Frosty and we found out at the end of the line that the chocolate frosty machine was broken, but fortunately they’ve expanded their product line (soon the Wendy’s menu will look like monitors at the New York Stock Exchange).

I can relate to the four people apparently employed there, because I worked in a customer service call center once. When I signed on at 7 a.m. there were usually about 20 people who had already been waiting for about half an hour on a non-toll free line and would have probably strangled me through the phone if that were technically feasible. Still, when you call customer service lines, you typically expect a long wait and a bit of confusion. With fast food, all you expect is “fast food” (and GATOR most of the time) – you don’t bargain for having time to form lifelong bonds with the people around you in line.

Vanilla Frosties in hand, we finally hit the road and returned home later that night to find that no one had broken into our house, which is always a bonus. We did get something else we didn’t bargain for, however. Someone apparently planted a bunch of weeds in my yard (and threw in a basketball and a disposable underwater camera) while we were gone, resulting in a $50 fine from the HOA and three hours in 110 degree heat on Saturday getting rid of them all. I need to reiterate here that my front yard is just rocks and a few plants, and my back yard is just dirt at this point. If nothing else, low maintenance is what I bargained for, but instead I’m doing yard work without a yard (which equates to just “work”). I guess that’s someone’s way of telling me that it’s time to finally act like I live there and plant something.

Don't Fence Me In

Thursday, June 07, 2007

We are on the road visiting family, which has meant a few lengthy drives through long stretches of varying degrees of desert. This is nothing new to me, since as a kid, I rode between Beatty and Las Vegas hundreds of times while my parents tried to keep us entertained in the days before portable DVD players. Despite that, there are a few things that you always see on these kinds of trips that I still can’t explain.

One of these mysteries is the house in the middle of the desert. I’m not talking about any one particular house, because this is something you actually see just about anywhere you drive in the Southwest. I’m talking about abandoned houses that are completely by themselves, with nothing else resembling civilization anywhere in sight.

I’ve only been able to think of two possible explanations for this. One, all towns have to start somewhere, and maybe some person decides that they are going to start the next Las Vegas or Phoenix, but it just doesn’t work out. I don’t know who these people are, but I’m pretty sure I saw their offspring the other day trying to sell lemonade alongside a busy 45 mph road (I think the time for lemonade stands may have passed – if they want to make money now, they should sell $2 gasoline instead). I wonder how long our house builder sits out on their new front porch before they realize no one else is showing up? Maybe it’s the same person building all of these. Maybe they played Sim City too long and thought it was real (if this happens with violent video games, why not with city-building simulations?).

The second explanation is really the opposite of the first: someone goes out there to get away from everyone else, but then people came along and build a highway right in front of their house, so they’re forced to move on. This is the more likely explanation on the surface, but that begs the question of how they built a house there without any roads leading in. Did they haul everything in on a wagon? A helicopter? There are only so many options.

What you actually see a lot as you drive through small desert towns is evidence of person #2 (the loner) accidentally turning into person #1 (the city builder), which apparently makes for a fairly miserable person #2. We were driving through a little town in Utah a few years ago and saw a sign that read something like, “Keep Out! Quit stealing all of my stuff” (“stuff” apparently meaning rusty cars and old broken refrigerators, unless that’s just what the thieves in question left behind). This poor guy built his house in the middle of nowhere, no doubt, and then a town erupted around him anyway. Why this person doesn’t move, I’m not sure, but maybe this has happened enough that they’ve just given up.