The Cold, Asian Wife Run; I Should Have Known

Currently Reading: Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World by Haruki Murakami

I saw something REALLY funny this morning. It's the sort of thing you see that's just proof there are certain universals in the world.

I was up on the balcony outside painting the wood for the picture frame (see last blog entry) According to the weather reports, it was about 52 at the time with a wind chill of 44. That's cold no matter how you look at it.

So there I am, painting away and over the rail I see a man and his wife (a Japanese couple that lives on the first floor) walking arm and arm towards the parking lot, talking. It's the sort of thing some couples do. CC and I do it all the time, especially outside and in malls. Anyway, they get maybe, say 3 or 4 parking spaces into the parking lot and a gust of wind blows. In one fluid movement the wife unthreads her arm from her husband, turns and does what I like to call the Cold Asian Wife Run. She heads right back across the parking lot to their apartment, husband shaking his head a little as he follows.

I've seen that run before. CC does it quite often in the fall and winter. Arms down at the sides, shoulders tensed up, head down but not all the way, nose crinkled up.

CC's not the only one I've seen do it though. I've also seen it in a few Japanese movies and a few Chinese movies. So what I'm thinking is that it's not just a Filipino thing, which was my first theory. It's got to be some sort of Asian thing. Right now I have it just limited to wives because everyone I've seen perform this little run has been married. Maybe women run different when they're single.

'Tis the season. Keep an eye out for it. You'll probably see it too :-)

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What was I thinking? I had TWO "should have know" moments, both sports related. The first one was during the last two minutes of the Cowboys game. Once again they managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. All they had to do was get the ball down into field goal range. They had two time outs, they had fairly decent field position but what happens? Guys from Seattle bust through the line and chase Bledsow. He throws into DOUBLE coverage, UNDER throws it and it's intercepted.

So then I'm thinking well, they're still a long way out. There's only a few seconds left on the clock. Overtime. Still have a chance. Or DO we? Damn that kicker. No, I shouldn't be hard on Seattle, they were just doing what they get paid to do. Guy nails a 50 freakin yard field goal. No time left on the clock. Game over. Seattle wins.

To recap, in the last two minutes of the game, Dallas goes from being up by 7 to losing by 3.

The other "should have known" you probably already guessed. That's right, I didn't bother to watch the end of game 2 of the World Series even though I KNOW better than to turn off a baseball game that soon. Hell I even blogged about it last week when the Cardinals homered in the 9th to force another game. But did I listen to my own advice? Oh hell no, I turned that game off because the Astros were so far ahead and Chicago wasn't playing that well. Figured they were going to tie the series up at 1 a piece.

Should have known better.

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I Was FRAMED: Murphy's Law From Turtle To Crane

Currently Reading: Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World by Haruki Murakami

It has NOT been the best of weekends. Oh don't get me wrong, I've had plenty of weekends that were worse and I was probably warned that a bad moon was rising but that's hardly any consolation when you're having a bad weekend.

Saturday was when the warning came I think. CC and I were heading over to the Farmer's Market to do some shopping when she happened to notice there was a turtle trying to cross the road. She told me we had to go help it before it got squished so I turned around and she got out and put him in the grass. See? Good deed for the day right? No, actually that was probably a warning. Turtle crosses road, that means "Hope you got your shell on cause you're gonna need it."

CC got the letter from INS that she'd been worried about. Prepare to roll your eyes. INS pretty much wants a fresh, updated copy of EVERYTHING. Keep in mind that if they'd actually moved on this thing when they were supposed to, all the paperwork would have been accurate but now, over a year later, everything moved to California, they want us to re-submit all the forms and supporting documentation that we already sent in. Oh yes, it's the start of a great weekend :-)

Saturday night, or rather very EARLY Sunday morning I'm back in the bathroom sick again. I have NO idea what it was. CC said I was sweating pretty bad, which I sort of remember. What I remember most was the abdominal cramps. It was like someone hit me in the gut or something. The weird thing is that I was fine after an hour or so. You probably never would have known anything was wrong. See? Right there, another sign :-)

Well today I finally got a chance to work on that frame for the Japanese print over the fireplace. Oh MAN did Murphy's Law kick in. Seriously, if it could have gone wrong, it did. Well no, actually the cutting of the wood went just fine. So did the painting. The problems started when I attempted to join the wood together. I had picked up some corner pieces, little L's with screws, to do the job only to find out that the screws were too big. If I put them in, they split the wood. Ok, scratch idea # 1.

Next idea was to use some nails and corner brackets but, again, same problem. Then I tried to just nail it together the old fashioned way. Same problem. Well no, not quite. I had nails that WOULD go in without splitting the frame but they weren't long enough to hold the thing together.

At that point I just stopped to think about it.

A little while later, we decided to approach the problem from a different angle. I cheated it :-)

Yes, it's true, I cheated the frame. Instead of making a proper picture frame what I'm doing is pretty much nailing the whole thing to the wall. It works like this. I mount the plexiglass to the wall the same way you'd mount a mirror. Behind that is the print. Now all I have to do is nail the wood over the plexiglass. Ok, granted the thing is fixed. It's not going to be moving any time soon and it'll be a chore to change the picture if we decide to go with something else. But it'll be up, and it'll look good and that's what we're aiming for right now :-)

Things have started to settle down now. I think maybe the worst is over. We were out walking the dogs and a crane flew over us. How weird is that? A crane. Not a goose. We saw a definite long, pointy bill. And just one. No other birds were even in the area. I figure, ok, turtle tells me to duck in the shell, crane is telling me it's ok to fly now. Let's hope so cause I'm not really in the mood for more examples of Murphy's Law :-)

Actually I may have been wrong about the crane. I just tried to publish this blog entry and it froze up. Then again, I was able to retrieve it this time. Better not take any chances.

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Bunny Discovers Corona With Lime; My Man Murakami; What The Hell's Wrong With People?

Currently Reading: Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World by Haruki Murakami

CC had an office party last night. One of the guys is leaving so they threw him a party over at a pub up the road from the office. Not a bad place actually. It was fairly well-lit which is a pleasant change over most sports bars where they keep the lights down low so you don't notice just how much your draft beer is watered down and just how nasty those nachos look.

After polishing off our fair share of food, CC decided she wanted a beer. She drinks, well I'm not really sure what to call it. It's light beer, that's for sure. This stuff is like, FEATHER-light beer. You've probably seen it. Aspen Edge is one version. Michelobe has one too. It's low carb, low everything sort of beer. I mentioned, while we were playing pool, that her beer is a bit watered down. She didn't really know what I meant so I explained that, compared to normal beer, light beer and feather-light beer tastes like you just poured water in real beer.

I decided, at that point, that I'd have a beer myself. I don't drink very often and when I do, I don't drink much. But given that we were in a pub, the placed smelled of stale smoke and nachos, I dunno, it just seemed right. So, what did I order? Well they're not going to have Lone Star in Memphis (and I probably wouldn't order it anyway). I'd seen some of the other guys order and it brought back memories. Corona, with lime :-) Hadn't had one of those since college so that's what I ordered.

Took my bottle, pushed my slice of lime through the neck (with CC's help, it was stubborn) and had a drink. Naturally CC wanted to try it too and she really liked it. Keep in mind though, by this time she's had probably half a beer so she's feeling good :-) The whole discussion about watered down beer never came up again. She just kept taking swigs of my beer saying how the lime makes it not taste like beer. I dunno, tasted like beer to me :-)

Oh yes, that wasn't a cheap shot about her having half a beer. She really can't hold her beer very well. Since she doesn't drink and never has, it doesn't take much for her to get a decent buzz, even on a full stomach. Fortunaty, she has me and I don't let her drink so much that she ends up falling-down drunk or that she'll get a hangover. That's what bear's are for :-)

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Now, a word or two about my man Murakami. He's one of the best damn writers out there these days. Better still, he's alive :-) This is a big selling point for me because most of the books I read tend to be by dead people. That makes it REALLY frustrating when you finish reading everything the author wrote. It's the end, nothing more to follow. Damn annoying.

One of the other things I like about Murakami is that his books don't suffer when you re-read them. With some stories, if you go back and read them again, you notice things that you probably shouldn't have. Maybe it's a plot hole, or maybe reality gets stretched a little bit too far. You may not have noticed it the first time you read it through because you were so engrossed by the plot or the characters. But knowing where the story is going, you're more observant the second time around. In the case of Murakami's books, it's a GOOD thing to notice the background. Every time you read one of his books you end up picking up on something different.

Anyway, it's not the sort of stuff everybody likes but if you're out at the bookstore and you're needing something to read and you want to try something REALLY different, head on over to Fiction and Literature and browse through the books by Haruki Murakami. He's got several, including two books of short stories and one no-fiction about the Tokyo Subway Gas Attack.

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What the hell is wrong with people? No seriously, I wanna know. Those of you out there who have something wrong with you, you know who you are :-) What the hell's wrong with you?

I was over at the Fox Sports website earlier. It's a HUGE weekend in sports you see, and I wanted to read over the latest news. One of the things they have there is a little poll. Today's question asked what you were most looking forward to this weekend. Among the choices were The World Series, Texas vs Texas Tech, etc. Do you know what was in the top slot? The answer most people chose was the start of SOCCER PLAYOFFS!

What the hell is WRONG with you people? Soccer playoffs? Metric football? Am I suddenly in Europe? Did reality shift? Metric football playoffs over The WORLD FREAKIN SERIES???

You folks out there better be drunk and were voting for soccer as a joke or I swear I'm gonna come down there and smack the lot of ya :-)

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A Quick Read

Just Finished Reading: The Colorado Kid by Stephen King

I don't think I've done that since college. Just finished a book in 2 days. Well no, that's not entirely true. There was a stretch a while back when I actually made it through a book in one DAY but it wasn't a particularly difficult book and I finished it so quick more because I wanted closure on the story (which was pretty weak).

This was no great feat. The Colorado Kid isn't a very long book. At 178 pages, it's really more of a novella. But it sure does hold your attention if you like reading mysteries.

I started reading it last night. Had more than half of it read by the time I went to bed. I probably would have stayed up and finshed it but it was getting pretty late and it's never a good idea to read mysteries when you're tired. You miss things and that can make solving the mystery impossible.

I finished it a few minutes ago. It's a great read, even if it is a short one. It's the sort of thing I wish King would do more often. There are no monsters in this one, no ghosts, no aliens. So if you like that aspect of Stephen King stories, it'd be better to just leave this one on the shelf. But if you like a good mystery, and you don't require your novels to be a certain length, pick it up.

Now, if you want to know the ending, you'll have to highlight the big empty space. I'll tell you all about it, but I'm going to color the text white so it won't show up unless you want it to. To read the rest, just use your mouse, hold down the left button and drag the cursor over the next section.

The book starts off pretty simple. You've got two old newspaper men and their intern finishing off lunch. They just had a meeting with a reporter from the Boston Globe who's looking for "unsolved mysteries" in the area. This leads to a long conversation regarding a mysery the two old men DIDN'T tell the reporter. It's the mystery of the Colorado kid.

I'd LOVE to tell you who done it but I can't. In fact, no one can. It's one of the things I kinda like about the story. There's no ending. They never solved it. Dead guy is found on a beach. Lots of little clues but none of them lead anywhere. It's a year and a half before they even ID him and that raises more questions than it answers. Even after you find out who this guy was you never find out enough to figure out what happened.

King, himself says in the afterward that you could come up with a dozen different possible ways end the story. Some would be good, some would be bad. He left it open anyway because, as he sees it, solving the mystery isn't the big deal. The big deal is the mystery itself and the characters trying to uncover it. And he's right. When you read a mystery novel, after the first few plot twists, you don't really care about the actual solution. You care more about the detective or the doctor or the reporter trying to REACH the solution. Besides, let's face it, we've all read mysteries that left us a bit underwhelmed when we got to the last page.

So there you go, my take on The Colorado Kid. Your choice to read or not the same way it's your choice to read my thoughts on it :-)

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What's Wrong With Kong; Astro-NOTS

Just Finished Reading: King Kong by Marian C. Cooper

Ok, one of the big movies slated to come out this Christmas is the SECOND remake of King Kong. The original featured those really bad "cutting edge" special effects. It's the kind of movie you watch in the middle of the night, chuckling to yourself, wondering how in the hell something that fake-looking could scare anyone.

The first remake improved on the special effects, have to give them credit for that, but the plot was so screwed up it ended up being just stupid. They tried to throw in all sorts of little messages and warnings about the environment and something to do with oil consumption. And don't get me started about the acting. At least the ape looked a little better.

Now we've got the second remake and judging by the little brief trailers and pictures that are making the rounds on the Internet, it's going to LOOK fabulous. That ape is pretty damn scary looking and Jack Black and Naomi Watts seem about as perfectly cast as you can get. Still, all that aside, there are some serious problems with the whole King Kong idea that Peter Jackson would be wise to deal with in his film.

These first three actually came from an episode of Robot Chicken on Cartoon Network. It's a claymation show done in little clips that parody other shows and movies. Runs at 10:30 cst Sunday nights and again on Thursday.

1. Ok, the natives have that big wall to keep their village safe from Kong and the other critters. They make regular sacrifices to him. Ok so far. But why did they make the damn gate big enough for him to get through? He's got no REASON to come into the village, why not just keep the gate small enough for people?

2. He's an ape for crying out loud. They make a HUGE point in the book and in the movies about how he likes to climb things. Do you honestly think he can't just climb OVER the wall?

3. You know there can't be just ONE giant ape out there. They don't live forever you know. The only way this works is if there's a FAMILY of giant apes. Better still SEVERAL families of giant apes so they can breed between families and last longer.

(here are some I thought of while reading the book)

4. When they capture Kong, they use three gas bombs. Throw bomb, bomb breaks, gas puts Kong to sleep for 6 hours or so. Works great. So how come no one had any gas bombs on hand when they were showing him off in New York? Seems to me that'd be a pretty elementary precaution, just in case.

5. How'd he manage to break out of those chains so damn easy? The Broadway show takes place MONTHS after his original capture. They had to drag his big ape butt onto the boat, carry him half-way around the globe, build a cage, put him in it, get the cage to a theater and on stage. All this time he was chained up and those chains held just fine.

--Ah BUT--

6. you say that it was the flashbulbs from the cameras that got him all worked up and that's what allowed him to break free. He was so worked up into a fury. Ok, fine, in that case A. Do you expect me to believe, seriously, that NO ONE photographed him at all, ever, in the entire time between capture and exhibition? And B. You think he wasn't pretty damn pissed off when he woke up on the boat? Or when he woke up in the cage? No fury there?

7. Earlier in the story, while they're on the island trying to track him down, they get off a few shots on Kong. The bullets don't do a damn thing other than piss him off a little. Given that this takes place in the 1930's, you have to remember that the guns they put on air planes aren't all that powerful. They're really just mounted versions of the guns people are carrying around or have on tripods. So . . . if the guns they use on Kong on the island don't work, if the bullets seem to just bounce off and maybe sting a little bit, why all of a sudden are these bi-planes able to mow him down on the Empire State Building? And why weren't the cops able to do any injury to him while he was getting there?

8. Seriously, are we supposed to believe that buildings in NYC are built SO well, or were anyway, that they took almost no damage when this HUGE ape goes climbing? I think a few of them should have fallen down. Certainly when he's on the rooftops, jumping from building to building, ONE of them would have given way and he'd fall straight through. He's a freakin HUGE MONKEY!

9. He got hit by a bus. A bus. Who is driving this thing? This guy has got to be the WORST bus driver in the history of busses. Think about it. You're cruising around the theater district, following your normal route when suddenly this giant ape just APPEARS out of nowhere? He's been throwing cars around and smashing things in general and this bus driver fails to even SEE him? If that guy survived the crash, I think he ought to get his walking papers or at the very least, an eye exam.

10. And this is really important. Who cleaned all that mess up? And what a HUGE mess it would be too. First you got all the monkey blood splatter up on the Empire State Building. This is the 1930's we're talking about. They can't just send up a helicopter with a high pressure hose. You've got Kong blood oozing down the side of the building at its highest point right? And all that fur too. Must be giant ape fur all over NYC. And then there's the point of impact. Monkey falls . . . a LONG way down. SPLAT! Somebody's got to clean it up right? Hmm, and now that I think about it, I don't recall anyone saying anything about monkey poo. Even on the island, no monkey poo. Lots of references to things eaten. And lots of references to Kong flinging stuff. So why no mention of the universal monkey motion of poo flinging?

You know, now that I think about it, maybe I'm not in such a big hurry to see the new King Kong afterall :-)

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Ok, somebody has to say it. The Astros once again managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory! You check out the morning paper or read about it online, they don't paint nearly as bad a picture. The Astros were ONE OUT away from going to the World Series. Oh no, it was worse. They were ONE STRIKE away from going to the World Series. How demoralizing was that? It's right there, in your grasp. All you need is just one more strike or a wimpy grounder or a pop-up. But no, the pitcher sends a fast one within range of the bat and BAM! Now we go back to St. Louis.

Just goes to prove what the FOX commercials have been saying all along: You can't script October.

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