I got one of the ugliest Christmas presents from Mary Beth this Christmas. I wasn’t really sure what to do with it, but in the end I decided to hang it up at work. Take a look:
Yesterday I picked up another cheap mirror. I sat it outside for the night. After sitting in the extreme cold for about 24 hours it broke just like I was hoping when I brought the thunder.
I got another mysterious fortune yesterday. I lunched at The Mandarin with Frank and Jesse. We had a lengthy conversation about bathroom etiquette at the Computer Mine. Then I got this fortune:
I have yet to get that offer. I’m standing by and I’ll let you know when I get it.
Jesse came in and gave me the thing in the picture below:
I think this proves that Mentos has realized that as a candy or mint their product is lacking. However, as something to be dropped into a two liter bottle of Diet Dr. Thunder, they are it. I think you know what kind of pictures are going to get posted here in the near future.
A few days back I purchased a small mirror from Wal-Mart. It was designed to hold a candle. I was looking to put a couple cracks in the mirror and use it for a photography project. I got out my trusty hammer and whacked it. Softly. Then a little harder. Then a little harder. All that whacking produced not a crack. I decided I was going to have to get a bit tougher. I cover the mirror with a towel and gave it a harder hit. Then a harder hit. Then I brought the thunder:
The mirror didn’t crack a little bit. It shattered into about a thousand pieces. I’ll probably be going to the Goodwill store to find another mirror to take out this weekend.
This episode is devoted to a movie made by a co-worker’s cousin. There is a prize for any person can figure out what word has been censored.
I am a person who despite appearing outwardly chaotic, is very much a person of ritual. There are several websites I check daily:
However it is one website in particular that has made me think that I should start a daily blog about things that transpire at the Computer Mine:
I’m not saying that I’m going to do such a thing, but if I ever get my FTP problems straightened out and a website suddenly exists at www.thecomputermine.com with a cool clip art graphic of a computer wearing a miner’s helmet, you just might know the anonymous blogger. In fact, I might make it a group effort. There are so many stories about this place that I might need some co-conspirators.
When I explain the Computer Mine to most people they without exception compare the place to The Office or Office Space. I will tell you a story that could a story about something that happened to me yesterday that could have literally been lifted from The Office.
When I first began my tenure at the Computer Mine I was immediately told who the people were that it was socially acceptable to like and who it was socially acceptable to dislike. At the time I was somewhat of a subhuman and didn’t really care to talk to anybody any more than was absolutely necessary.
As I have returned to the world of the humans and become a person with adequate social skills again I began getting to know and learn about the other people in the mine’s employ. For the most part I learned that the socially unacceptable people weren’t really that bad. They didn’t belong to certain social cliques and were less than socially gifted, but they weren’t necessarily bad people. It seemed more of a case where other people didn’t take the time or energy to get to know that person. They found out enough to make a cognitive shortcut and make their judgment about that person so that they knew how to deal with that person as a type rather than as an individual.
However, (not counting the middle aged shrews) there was one person that I have never been able to converse with at any meaningful level. Literally every time that I have had a conversation with him, it has ended poorly. Most people around the mine call him Chode. I have refrained from using this term because I don’t think most people have taken the effort to know what a chode is and what it is definitely isn’t the type of language that is thrown around a professional work atmosphere. Click “HERE” if you have a burning desire to know the definition of the term. I don’t recommend it.
I will call him D-Squared for the purpose of this story.
I feel sorry for D-Squared because I don’t think anybody ever taught him what it means to be a man. I mean to really be a man. I think he has cobbled together an image of what a man is supposed to be through images from television, movies, video games and men’s locker rooms.
Two examples of past conversations with D-Squared. On his work anniversary he brought puppy chow to work. I asked him if he made the puppy chow himself. He told me that he did make the puppy chow himself, while wearing an apron that said, “Suck the Cook”.
I was having a conversation with a co-worker about going to see Hairspray. D-Squared piped in and tried to run down my manliness for going to a musical. The co-worker pointed out that he was a hypocrite because he had went to see Rent. He countered that Rent was cool and perhaps manly because it had a stripper and she did a sexy dance.
To yesterday’s painful encounter.
I was shipping out a loaner computer. The shipping area in the mine is located near the vending machines. As I was printing the packaging slip, D-Squared came around the corner and said, “That’s what she said.”
I ignored him because I was quite certain that he was talking to Paul (who sits nearby) and not to me. I did not know that people actually used that joke in a way that wasn’t sarcastic.
I got down on my hands and knees to tape up the box because it is easier than bending over because I’m something like 64% torso.
From behind me I hear D-Squared: “You look pretty natural in that position, you have lots of experience like that?”
I finished taping the box up and stood up. I cut him off before he continued strolling down Gay Joke Avenue.
“When you were coming around the corner you said, ‘That’s what she said’. What had the person said; that made you think that such a thing would be a hilarious retort?”
“You had grunted.”
“Wow.” That was all that could escape my lips. I pushed the loaner computer over to the pickup area and walked away wondering if I would ever have an experience with D-Squared that wasn’t so painfully awkward. I am beginning to doubt it.
I work with this guy that has a cousin that makes movies. He recently loaned me a copy of his cousin’s most recent epic. It is about vampire and a gang of high school kids killing the vampires. No matter what prism you look through, it just isn’t very good. I have in turn loaned out the movie to a few people here and there with the caveat that if they watch this movie they can then read this thing I wrote about the movie. The thing that I wrote about this movie is a list of my 10 favorite things about this movie. I didn’t go into much depth and I wrote the thing in about 45 minutes. It definitely isn’t a masterpiece, but it is certainly mean spirited.
The guy I work with was asking me today what I thought about the movie. I told him that I find that the movie was an allegory. It wasn’t really about vampires, but about how people choose to percieve the world and how if you see things from somebody’s perspective you may start to have empathy for them, even if they are evil. I wrote this theory up.
Also if by reading this it somehow piques your interest, I’ll loan you a copy of this bad boy.
My Favorite Things
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things
Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things
Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things
When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad”
My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music
I just feel that it is necessary to reference a decent movie before delving into Calm Down.However, I should throw out one disclaimer.I am not going to touch story structure in my list of my favorite things from this movie.I am a firm believer that the most important thing in a movie is story. You can get away with bad acting, poor production quality and the occasional poor line of dialogue if you have a great story.
A friend who knows that there are times when I fancy myself a writer once asked me the following question: Do I consider prewriting an important part of the writing process?
This was a loaded question. The person really wanted me to backup their supposition that real “artists” just did. They just sat down to their parchment or canvas or word processor or block of marble and created.
I told her, “There is an old adage that rewriting is writing. It is my belief that prewriting is writing. When I am done writing something I usually hate it so much that it takes me a little while before I can even go back and begin the process of rewriting. Therefore if I relied heavily on rewriting I would never accomplish anything. I need the prewriting process. Otherwise I have no clue where I’m going.”
She didn’t like this answer, but it is the honest truth. Without a basic structure to tell you where you are going, you aren’t going to get anywhere.Therefore I can’t in good conscience spend much time railing on the story structure of Calm Down when it is painfully evident that they didn’t do any prewriting. They didn’t do any rewriting. It is a debatable point to claim that they did any writing at all.
So rather than going down the paths of completely unnecessary scenes (almost all of them, but in particular the “car borrowing scene” and the “lost my pants” scene), completely unexplained motivations (such as are the cops working for the vampires?), or what the point of any of this was supposed to be; I’ll limit myself to my ten favorite aspects of this movie that aren’t related to story structure. I will include my favorite moments of dialogue.
1.The “sexy” blonde vampire that shows up in the background of two scenes with the leader of the vampires. I don’t know if she was in reality good looking, but it seemed important to them to include her with her funbags hanging out in the background of the first two scenes with the vampire leader. It makes me wonder if they hired a stripper for the night.
2. The vampire leader was wearing light colored shoes. I don’t know why that cracks me up, other than the entire vampire wardrobe consisted of wearing black. Maybe when you are the leader you get a pair of white Keds. It might even be the symbol of the transfer of power.
3. The scene where the main character gives his speech about “walking away”. He calls the vampires “jerks”. Whoa tiger, just because they killed your brother doesn’t mean you have to start name calling. That whole speech is priceless. Including the fact that the “track girl” (that they don’t use for bait even though one character points out that she is the fastest in the group during the scene where they discuss who should be bait) points out that they have gotten this far with him. Is he the leader of the group? He wasn’t even in it at the beginning of the movie and now he is the leader. I also think they missed a golden marketing opportunity by not giving this group a name.
4. There is vignetting in almost every single wide angle shot. This is caused by putting the wrong filter or hood on a camera lens and is something that easily could have been edited out or fixed after they watched the dailies after the first day of shooting.
5. They used that hatchback car to shoot the scenes of people walking down the street. The scene with the brothers at night and later with the main character’s emotional breakdown sequence. I know they did this because the shadow of the hatchback is clearly visible during these sequences.
6. How the hell did they get so many people to make this movie? There are at least 15 vampires in one scene. I like to consider myself a good organizer of people, but I could never get 15 people to do something like that. In fact I would be too embarrassed to ask. “I’m making this vampire movie, but it isn’t really a horror movie, it is more of an action movie with lots of gore. Kind of a tribute to Uwe Boll if you will. Would you be interested in being an extra? The vampire costume consists of any black clothing that you have. No don’t worry about teeth. They aren’t part of the new vampire mythology I’m inventing.”
7. This movie really makes me think about other movies in a strange way. The first 15 minutes of the movie really made me think of Brokeback Mountain. Only there is lots of foreplay. I’m not quite so certain that there wouldn’t have been a little man on man action if the vampires wouldn’t have broken it up. Perhaps that is in the subtext of the movie, perhaps the vampires are homophobic. Not that being homophobic makes you a good person by any stretch of the imagination, but it might explain why they attacked and killed the “cool” brother. It might also be because of his horrible impersonations. I know what you are thinking. They are brothers, not lovers. To that I say there is a kind of incest subtext to another scene in the movie. Although I am not a user of pornography, I know that a movie exists called Taboo. The scene where the mom sits on the edge of the main character’s bed reminds me of this movie. I get the sense that while she is playing with the drawstring on her pants she is trying to work up the courage to ask him if he wants to have a “go” at her. In the end she decides to return to her husband’s bed and see if he can finally quench the burning sexual desire that he hasn’t been able to extinguish since he only began caring about “getting his”. I’m telling you it is all in the way that she is playing with those drawstrings.
8. The scene where the characters get their weapons. The fact that they don’t use guns could have easily been covered with a line like “Guns only piss them off.” or “Guns only slow them down.” or “Guns don’t kill them.” Instead of a line about having used guns in the past, but two of the characters aren’t responsible enough to be trusted with guns. My real favorite part of this scene is that the characters have never tried holy water, garlic, or crucifixes. They haven’t tried anything that would be consistent with vampire mythology. This is covered up (by the guy with the grappling hook I believe) with the line that when you are in battle with a vampire, you want something that will do some damage, “not a glass of water”. Yeah, you wouldn’t want something that would actually be able to terminate the existence of the undead. At least two of these characters have ridiculous weapons. A grappling hook? A tent pole (I think) with a knife pushed through a hole? Then one guy goes off and gets two camp axes. Wouldn’t want to use an ax as long as you have that grappling hook. Although I will give credit to the filmmakers. This is undoubtedly a clever tip of their hat to the scene in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan where they pile a bunch of weapons onto the deck of the ship and the guy that picks last gets the shotgun. Kudos!
9.The entire last battle scene is in slow motion. Good to know that there are still fans of Richard Donner out there.
10. I claimed that I wasn’t going to tackle story structure. However, I think I do have to tackle one aspect of the story. Is it possible that this whole movie is really a clever way to get you to root for the bad guys? There is not one scrap of evidence to suggest that the people the CD5 are killing are vampires. This whole premise is held together with one line of dialogue. “There were bite marks found on my brother’s neck.” Other than that one death, the vampires aren’t responsible for the deaths of anybody else. When the vampire leader has his chance to kill the CD5 he doesn’t. He kicks their ass then walks away. In the final battle sequence he doesn’t kill anybody. He puts one guy in a sleeper hold. Another guy he might be trying a figure 4 leglock on. When he takes out the girl he must have made the effort to miss every single vital organ and then he throws down the sword. It is as if he is saying, “Hey guys, why are you killing all my buddies? I don’t want to kill you, so I’m just going to incapacitate you so you can’t hurt anybody else and when you wake up, we can discuss this like rational adults. Have you seen my girlfriend? She was wandering around out here with her funbags hanging out.”
Even when he gives his speech he never really mentions murder. Only that they need to feed and that could mean that every time these guys are trying to go down to Dairy Queen, the stupid CD5 keeps attacking them. He also mentions the CD5 trying to hold onto their pathetic lives. I don’t think that means literally. Since it is my belief that he is a Youth Pastor, he could be referencing the fact that these guys probably do have pathetic lives. Do you doubt these guys play Magic on weekends? He could also be referring to the belief of some Christian sects that you have to be “reborn” as a Christian.
To me this movie plays more like a gang movie. The CD5 are just a bunch of Star Wars nerds that claim that the rival gang consists of “vampires” because this whole thing probably came about when they starting taking their Friday night D&D game a little too serious. At least a couple of them already had weapons from their Saturday trips to the renaissance fair. That is why the cop is always chasing them. They are murderers.
What is the rival gang? They aren’t vampires. My best guess is that they are members of a radical church group. The type you might have seen in the movie Jesus Camp. Since a few of the characters in the CD5 are homosexual, they probably initially tried to capture a few of them and tried to educate them about the “evils” of homosexuality. I believe that the label “vampires” was attached to the rival gang as a reference to the Christian sacrament of Communion: drinking the “Blood of Christ”. Clearly this is what happened the night that they attacked the brothers. They were trying to capture them and then reprogram them. They must have gotten a little too rough with the one brother and accidentally killed him. The mark on his neck wasn’t a bite. It was just a little love mark from his brother, but his brother couldn’t let the general public know about his incestuous relationship, so he went along with the cover story that it was a vampire’s mark.
Need more proof that the main character is gay. He never once makes a move on the track star girl when he is in her bedroom. I don’t believe that she was gay though. She was a track star. They never mention playing softball or volleyball.
At least 2 other characters of the CD5 are lovers as well. Are you telling me that you believe the cover story of my pants came off because they got stuck on a motorcycle? They were clearly about to get intimate (they had their weapons because I’m sure they were engaged in some kind of role playing where one was Batman and the other was a dwarf) when the Jesus Camp church group busted in on them and tried to capture them and take them in for reprogramming.
This is the only interpretation of this movie that makes sense to me.
So I’ve begun the task of creating the Photography 139 calendar. I printed out a few test images and hung them on my wall at the mine. I took some sticky notes and numbered them 1 through 12. Then I thought about my very general rules for selecting pictures to go with certain months and began placing the sticky notes on the pictures to indicate what month they could represent. After changing my mind and the order of the pictures I felt that I had a pretty fair idea about where each picture was going to go and what pictures had been eliminated from contention. I finished this part of the process on Monday.
I left my rough outline up on my wall. It hung there unmolested.
I left work on Wednesday at about 6:15.
I came into work this morning about 9 am.
The pictures were still there. The sticky notes were gone! I mean, really?
At this time I’m just going to chalk this up as just another one of the incredibly stupid things that our cleaning crew has done and I have put the sticky notes back up.
Me and my two maybe three man crew hope to have the grand majority of calendars churned out on this Saturday. If you would like to order a 2008 Calendar, you may e-mail the address below:
The price is a little bit different this year, but if you have ordered calendars in the past, you have been “Grandfather Claused” in at the old rate.
I’ve learned a few things toiling in the computer mine. The most valuable bit of new knowledge I have gained is how completely worthless UPS is as a shipper. I’ve learned that if you have an option other than UPS, be it Federal Express, DHL, Speedee Delivery, or a crackhead with a mule, you are better off with the crackhead and their mule than trusting anything with the boys in brown.
The most recent thing that UPS has managed to smash into little tiny bits was an HP Laserjet 4100. No small feat considering that this printer is mostly made out of metal. No cheap feat either considering that this printer used to damage a guy’s wallet to the tune of a thousand bucks.
The latest destruction by UPS did allow me to test myself. You see back when I used to work nights at the Dasher Mismanagement dive in Boone I was the master of Milk Crate Toss. I could throw a milk crate into the corral from 70 feet, easy. Nobody could top me for distance and accuracy.
This skill has not come into play much in the last few years, but once I got my hands on that LJ 4100 I knew I needed to see if I still had it. I had Jesse snap some photos of me testing me. It was dark, so these pictures are what they are:
It makes me wonder how I would still fair in events where I was competitive but not dominant. Events like Jug Kicking, Ditch Hockey or Playplace Tag. I already know that if Jeff Vickers and I were ever to walk onto a Paper Towel Football field we would still dominate the competition.
I’m sure I would be remiss if I failed to point out that my near infinite range with the milk crate did lead me to once hitting The Edge in the head with a milk crate from about 50 feet. Although I felt bad and did take him to the emergency room to have staples put in his head, I still have to admire the throw.
One last Kubrick reference for the week and for the people that aren’t sick of Kubrick yet*. I feel when discussing retirement or of quitting a job that one loathes the movie most apropos would be Spartacus. When I had a job I hated I often dreamed of leading my own slave rebellion. A Wage Slave Rebellion. I never got the chance to lead my own rebellion, (even though I am technically still a wage slave) but I do still take the time to enjoy and celebrate when somebody that is dear to me leaves a job they despise. My joy is doubled when their freedom also weakens the evil empire known as Dasher Mismanagement. My joy is tripled when that person is retiring.
This morning I got the joy of attending a retirement party for Vi on her last day chained to the oar at work. It is a great and wonderful day and I look forward to discussing the many things that Vi is getting to do with her new freedom at church on Sundays rather than trying to talk her into retiring. This leaves only a couple of people left that I would like to see escape the demon clutches of Dasher Mismanagement.
Below is a picture of Jay, Vi, and I at the retirement shindig.
I have not imbibed a single morsel of food from a Dasher Mismanagement dive in over 18 months. I confess that I was tempted today to have some milk from their cooler. I looked at it and considered it (because I did not pay for it – I haven’t give them one red cent of my money in years) but in the end I just threw it away. (They still lost about 20 cents by my throwing it away. A little victory.) I did not want their poisons flowing into this temple.
*Warner Bros. did release new versions of Lolita and Barry Lyndon on Tuesday. However, since neither one was anamorphic I can’t quite figure out why they wasted their time. I will not be purchasing these “new” versions. Who am I kidding? It is 50-50 on whether or not I buy them. The fact that they aren’t in snap cases might be motivation enough.
I took my first crack at some fall pictures during my lunch break today. I wasn’t 100% pleased with anything. However, I will go back out for my lunch break tomorrow with a guy holding an umbrella. That guy is Jesse. It is good to have him back at the mine.
Hopefully I will be able to get what I’m looking for tomorrow. I’ve made a commitment to only eat out for lunch one day a week in an attempt to eat healthier and save some scratch. This has been going pretty well and it opens up my lunch breaks to pursue my other interests.
Below is the best of what I captured today.
“Every renaissance comes to the world with a cry, the cry of the human spirit to be free.”
-Anne Sullivan Macy
Jesse has been sitting on his couch for the last eight weeks watching reruns of Hannah Montana and dreaming of a day when he could return to his office at the computer mine. Today he walked into the mine and handed me a note:
You might not be able to read the scribbling of a doctor, but I can assure you that this note says that Jesse will be returning to work on Monday. He is pretty excited to be returning to work, even though he will miss Hannah, Lilly, Jackson, Robbie, Oliver, and Rico.