Every year around Halloween I watch The Great Pumpkin. It's my favorite thing about Halloween. Not only has it remained funny after all these years, but it offers some valuable nuggets of wisdom. I've decided this year to compile a list of things I have learned from watching.
1. "Never jump into a pile of leaves with a wet sucker."
2. Signed documents are only valid when notarized.
3. There are three things to never discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin.
4. A person should always choose a costume in direct contrast to his/her personality.
5. If you cut too many holes in your ghost costume you are likely to get rocks instead of candy.
6. Dogs have vivid imaginations, and an oddly profound sense of history.
7. Fury of a woman scorned is nothing compared to the fury of a woman robbed of tricks or treats.
8. Hopeless optimists, like Linus, never get the girl.
That's quite a lot of life lessons from a 30 minute children's program. Hopefully you will take these lessons to heart as I have.
It's 4 am when I'm suddenly startled out of a good dream by an incessant beeping. In my dream I was James Bond and I was fighting against Jaws (the henchman, not the shark) and some Russians. It was awesome! But, alas, it wasn't meant to be as this annoying beeping prevented me from getting to the end. And what was the beeping coming from, you might ask? What else could it be but the smoke alarm telling me the battery was dead! Of course this has to happen at 4 am! It always does. And why is that? It seems like smoke alarms only beep in the middle of the night. But I digress.
So after being woken up, I decided to find out where the beeping was coming from. If it was an easy to reach smoke alarm I would change the battery and hopefully resume my peaceful slumber. But no, it was coming from an alarm high up on one of my vaulted ceilings. I would need a ladder to reach it and the ladder was deep in the garage. I was not about to exert the amount of effort needed to get the ladder at that hour of the night. So I shut my bedroom door and put on some music to try to drown out the beeps. It didn't work. All I could hear every 30 seconds was, 'BEEP!' So I tried to play some games on my ipod to tire my eyes and make me fall asleep. Nothing. Then suddenly, at around 5:15, the beeping stopped. What the hell?! As happy as I was that it stopped I was pissed that it was ever beeping at all. And now after keeping me up for over an hour it just decides it's done?! Not cool, smoke alarm. Even without the beeping falling asleep proved difficult as I spent the next hour and a half drifting in and out of that half asleep-half awake stage until I actually did have to get up to go to work. And to make things worse, during the half asleep phase instead of picking up my James Bond dream I had an awful dream about being asked to stop coming to camp! (Those of you who know me know how much my camp means to me.) So basically, the smoke alarm kicked my ass in all aspects last night.
But, wait, the story's not over yet! Even though the alarm wasn't beeping anymore, for whatever reason, I didn't want it to start beeping again tonight. So when I got home from work I brought the ladder in, climbed all the way to the top, changed the battery, climbed back down, and was greeted by, you guessed it, 'BEEP!' I almost started crying. Apparently, the battery wasn't sitting right. So I went up and tried again. Still no luck. One more time. Another beep. It turns out that little cord that helps you pull the battery out was getting in the way, so I pulled it out completely, put the battery in, and, as of yet, no beeping. Let's hope it stays that way.
I get into arguments all the time with friends about which sport is better, baseball or football. My allegiances clearly lie with baseball, but many of my friends favor football. The more I think about it, though, the more I realize how flawed their arguments are. The biggest complaint I hear is that baseball is slow. Well, I could say the same thing about football. There are so many breaks in the action in football. First of all, the pace of play itself isn't exactly hyperspeed. There's anywhere from 25-40 seconds between plays complete with huddles, audibles, and substitutions. I'll admit that these no huddle, up tempo offenses are making up for that a little, though. But in baseball a pitch is thrown every 10-12 seconds. At least it should be. Some pitchers work much slower than others. But, still, point for baseball. Then there's the penalties in football. They stop the action and take up time. Plus, officials often have to huddle up to discuss what the penalty is. Baseball doesn't have penalties, and umpire conferences are few and far between. Another point for baseball. Next we have injuries. A football game usually has a few injuries which stop the action. It's understandable because football is a violent game, but it still slows things down. Baseball injuries rarely stop the game, and they don't occur during every game like they do in football. Point, again, for baseball.
So far baseball is winning the pace of play of argument. Here's where it gets competitive, though. Timeouts. In football, each team has six timeouts per game. That's twelve times where the action can be stopped. This doesn't even take into account official reviews, which could add countless more stoppages based on the complicated replay rules that I don't understand. Baseball isn't a timed sport so there are no official timeouts. But managers can stop play to go talk to their pitchers. In fact, catchers can do that too. I don't know the exact average of mound conferences per game, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was around twelve or even higher. And baseball currently only has reviews on disputed home run calls, which don't happen every game. This could change though. Based on this evidence, we'll call this one a draw. Next we have commercials. A football game has a lot of commercials. One of my biggest pet peeves about watching football is after a score, they go to commercial, come back for the kickoff and then go to ANOTHER commercial. Why?! Just get on the field and play. I found a stat that said during an average NFL broadcast there is an hour of commercials. During an average MLB game there is 34 minutes of commercials. Advantage, baseball.
I actually found an interesting article about football broadcasts in which the Wall Street Journal broke down exactly what we see when watching an NFL game. They found that the average amount of time the ball is in play during an NFL game is 11 minutes. 11 minutes!!!! The average telecast devotes 56% more time to showing replays. There are 75 minutes of players huddling, standing around, or just waiting for the action to resume. Here is a link to the full article in case you'd like to read it http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704281204575002852055561406 Those are some telling statistics though.
I will admit that the moneyball approach to baseball which encourages running deep counts at the plate has lengthened games a bit, but there's still plenty of action to keep the game moving. But the idea that baseball is a slower game than football just doesn't hold any water with me. There are just so many breaks in the action during a football game. That's why I prefer baseball, because things are always moving. Now this is just one argument that people have against baseball. I will look at some others in future posts. Until then, I will enjoy the rest of the World Series.
Lately I've been having these really weird dreams. A couple months ago I had quite a few dreams in which aspects of my childhood house were showing up in my current house. It was like I was living in my house, but with my old kitchen or my old living room. It was very odd. Even more recently I had a weird dream in which I was living in one of the dorms at UA. But it wasn't the dorm as it was currently built. It was like a futuristic version of it complete with outdoor, glass, Willy Wonka-like elevator. And then I dreamed that I was living in the Full House house. I just find it really bizarre that all these dreams center around where I live. I'm trying to figure out what it all means. When I had the dreams about my childhood house I tried to look up interpretations online and everything I found centered around a longing for simpler times. That sort of makes sense. I'm always longing for simpler times. I have no idea what the other dreams mean. I will admit that I have been watching a lot of Full House lately so that could be the reason for that one. Either way it just seems strange that I keep dreaming about my living situation. I do love my current house, although I do stress a little about paying for everything so that could be it. And I am starting to think about moving out of Tucson so maybe that has something to do with it also. If any of my loyal readers have any thoughts please feel free to share. And in the meantime I will just continue to dream and see how much weirder they may get.
Today is Christopher Lloyd's birthday, so I thought it would be fitting to honor him by remembering some of his most famous and iconic film roles. He has appeared in many movies, but these are just a few of my favorites.
First up we have the cult classic, Clue. In it, Lloyd plays Professor Plum. For those who haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it. It's very funny. Here's a short scene:
Recently, an episode of Psych reunited many of the stars of this movie for a pseudo reunion/homage. Also very funny.
Another of my favorites was his portrayal of Uncle Fester in The Addams Family movie. He really ended up being the perfect choice for the role and brought great chemistry and excellent realism to the part.
This next role is one of the most underrated performances in film history in my opinion. Lloyd's portrayal of Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit should go down as one of the greatest villain performances of all time. He really is perfect in this role, and Judge Doom is one of the most evil characters of all time. I don't think he gets his due as a bad guy, though, because the movie is viewed as a kid's movie. It was really groundbreaking, though, and I encourage all of you to give it another watch. It'll blow you away.
Seriously evil. And here's a second clip because I like this movie so much.
And finally, Lloyd's most famous role as Doc Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy. I have argued the Back to the Future may be the perfect trilogy. And part of that is due to Lloyd's brilliant performance. We can all quote various lines from the movies and have likely all longed to turn a Delorean into a time machine. I was fortunate enough to portray Doc Brown on Universal Studios' Sound Effects Stage and it is one of the shining moments in my life.
1.21 gigawatts!!!! That's the amount of awesome that Christopher Lloyd has brought to our lives. So Happy Birthday, Christopher Lloyd!!! And thank you for your amazing film contributions.
This week in my class we are discussing mission and vision statements. We will be looking at the mission and vision statements of various well-known organizations and then my students will begin drafting their own personal statements. Part of helping my students draft their statements involves me sharing mine. This meant I had to take a closer look at what my mission and vision really is. As a statement of values and beliefs, my mission statement seems very clear to me.
I want to work towards consistently learning new things to improve myself everyday and leave the world a better place than how I found it.
To me that drives my everyday actions. It gives me a purpose and something to work toward. The vision statement is a little more tricky. This is something more specific, more goal-oriented. I'm currently at a loss for a current direction for my life, which makes coming up with a vision statement a little difficult. All the ideas I come up with involve providing opportunities for other people and putting others in the best position for success. What that tells me is that helping others reach success drives my own success. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I do take a lot of pride in helping others and I do feel that I am good at serving others. And that tells me that even though I am frustrated with the state of education in this country, I am still passionate about making changes to make it better. And I'm passionate about it because I want to see others achieve success. So my personal vision is to continue to encourage curiosity and creativity in others so that they may discover and innovate. I will do this by working to put people in the best possible positions utilize their strengths and be successful.
It has been an interesting period of reflection today as I've worked through these two things. I encourage all of you to reflect on your own mission and vision statements. It might be an eye-opening experience for you.
As my birthday passed last week and I aged another year, I realized one thing: I'm getting old. Luckily for me, and you of course, writing has no age limitations. So I put my writing skills to the test to offer up a fun, little jab at my aging self. And I thought what better way to do it than through the guise of Taylor Swift song. Her song, "22", is fairly popular, and seeing as I just turned 32, I thought it was the perfect fit. So here is my Taylor Swift parody song, "32".
It feels like a perfect night to pretend I’m young again
And stay out all night, uh uh, uh uh
It feels like a perfect night to relive my 20s
And search for my true love, uh uh, uh uh
Yeah
We’re balding, old, and fat, and out of place
It’s comical and memorable
Oh yeah
Tonight’s the night we realize we’re too old for this
It’s time
Oh oh!
I don’t know about you
But I’m feeling 32
Everything will be alright
If I can just make it through
You don’t know about me
Nor do you want to
Everything will be alright
If I just stop dancing cuz I’m
32, ooh ooh
32 ooh ooh
It seems like one of those nights
This place is too loud
Too many young kids uh uh, uh uh (who are those old guys
anyway?)
It seems like one of those nights
We go home early and end up achy
What were we thinking?!
Yeah,
We’re sad, pathetic, old, and balding in the best way
It’s radical and memorable
Oh yeah
Tonight’s the night when we forget about the pipe dreams
It’s time
Oh oh!
I don’t know about you
But I’m feeling 32
Everything will be alright
If I can just make it through
You don’t know about me
Nor do you want to
Everything will be alright
If I just stop dancing cuz I’m
32, ooh ooh
32 ooh ooh
I don’t know about you
32, ooh ooh
32 ooh ooh
It feels like one of those nights
What was I thinking?
It feels like one of those nights
Wish I was sleeping
It feels like one of those nights
I feel exhausted
I gotta sleep now
I gotta sleep now
Ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh, yeeeeah, hey
I don’t know about you
But I’m feeling 32
Everything will be alright
If I can just make it through
You don’t know about me
Nor do you want to
Everything will be alright
If I just stop dancing cuz I’m
32, ooh ooh
32 ooh ooh
32, ooh ooh, yeah, yeah
32 ooh ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah
It feels like one of those nights
What was I thinking?
It feels like one of those nights
Wish I was sleeping
It feels like one of those nights
I feel exhausted
I gotta sleep now
I gotta sleep now Here is the original song and video so you can follow along and compare if you'd like.
Let me know what you all think, and, maybe if there's enough positive response I'll consider making my own music video.
I've had the urge to write all day today, but I haven't been able to settle on an idea. Nor have I really had the time to flesh anything out. So here are my thoughts from the day.
First, today is the 25th anniversary of Kirk Gibson's home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series. It is probably one of the most famous home runs of all time. ESPN.com had some really good articles about it. One of them interviewed many of the people involved with the game, on both teams. It was a really great look at everything that went on that night. The other article was a comedic piece about the search for the home run ball, which apparently has gone missing. This story utilized many baseball movie references in a film noir style that I thought was really clever and fun to read. I aspire to write things like that.
Another thought that crossed my mind today was how much I enjoy the music of TLC. For some reason their music really resonates with me. I love the messages in their songs and the music is good too. I'd like to flesh this idea out more in a future post.
Finally, I've started watching reruns of Full House lately. There's something oddly intoxicating about that show. I'm still trying to figure out what it is. I'll just have to keep watching until I do. Don't judge me.
And just for good measure, here's a haiku to finish things off:
Singing in my car
"Baby we were born to run"
Busting out The Boss!
Five years ago today I attended my greatest sporting event of all time. Now, I've been to a Final Four, a World Series, a BCS National Championship Game, an All Star Game, and various other regular season and playoff games for all major sports. But this game was by far the best and the most memorable.
It was Game 4 of the 2008 NLCS, Phillies versus Dodgers. I went out to LA to go to the game with my dad. We went to Game 3 the night before as well. That game didn't go so well for the Phillies. But we had a 2-1 series lead and could put the clamps down with a win in Game 4. The game started off great. The Phillies put up two quick runs in the first inning, silencing the sold out Dodger Stadium crowd. Unfortunately, the Dodgers responded with a run of their own in the bottom of the inning. The middle innings saw both teams trade some runs, and going into the sixth inning the game was tied at 3. In the bottom of the sixth, Casey Blake hit a leadoff home run for the Dodgers to put them up 4-3. The place was going crazy and suddenly I felt really out of place wearing red. The Dodgers would put up another run in the inning to take a 5-3 lead into the seventh. Things were not looking good for my Phillies. The seventh inning was uneventful which brought us to the top of the eighth, the inning that changed everything.
Ryan Howard lead off the inning with a single off a tough left-handed pitcher in Hung-Chih Kuo. We had some life now. The Dodgers made a pitching change and brought in Corey Wade. He got Pat Burrell to pop out for the first out. Then Shane Victorino stepped up to the plate. He lined the first pitch he saw over the fence into the right field bullpen to tie the game! My dad and I were going nuts, as were the other random Phillies fans spread throughout the stadium. On a side note, Corey Wade was the answer to a trivia question on a Phillies broadcast last year. I, of course, remembered who gave up the home run to Victorino, but the Phils announcers did not. I was proud of myself. Now back to the game. With the game now tied, Wade recorded the second out and then gave up a single to Carlos Ruiz. The Dodgers decided to make another pitching change and bring in their closer, Jonathan Broxton. The Phillies countered by sending in Matt Stairs to pinch hit. Stairs worked a 3-1 count and then did this:
I immediately stood up and said, "Oh god!" I knew as soon as he hit it that it was out. I've been to a lot of games at Dodger Stadium and that might be the furthest ball I've seen hit there. The stadium was dead quiet afterwards as Dodger fans sat in stunned silence. But my dad and I were cheering loudly. That was the single greatest sports moment I have ever witnessed live. I still remember it vividly to this day. The Phillies would go on to win the game, win the series and advance to the World Series, where they would defeat the Rays in five games. None of that might have happened without the heroics of Matt Stairs. Even he remembers it fondly as he tweeted earlier today, "5 years ago today is when I started drinking free in Philly. Love homeruns!!!!" I love it!
And that is my greatest sporting event. I remember it like yesterday and always will. Hopefully the Phillies will give me some more memorable moments in the future.
Today at lunch I was sitting at a table talking to some coworkers and I had my lunchbox on the table. This is one of those soft, collapsible lunchboxes. I started moving the lid up and down for no reason in particular and as I looked at it, I saw a mouth. In my head I could hear my lunchbox talking and I quietly started laughing to myself. I thought it would be funny to make a video of a talking lunchbox. When I finally made it back to my office after a few meetings and had a chance to get back to this idea, it had evolved in my head to a singing lunchbox. It then became a matter of finding the right song to have the lunchbox sing as its introduction. I settled on "Say My Name" by Destiny's Child. The video had the song playing in the background as the lunchbox appeared to be singing along. I thought it was fairly funny. On the drive home, however, I thought it might be funnier to have the lunchbox appear to be singing along. So I started thinking about what voice the lunchbox might have. I envision a gravely, gruff voice. Then, the more songs I heard on the way home, the more I thought of potential songs for the lunchbox to sing. So now I have this idea for this singing lunchbox series and already have a running list of songs for it to perform. And the whole time I'm thinking of this I'm just cracking myself up. I don't really know why I think it's so funny, but I do, and I'm so excited to film the next episode. I encourage all of you to give into your own weirdness and don't be afraid to show off the strange things that make you laugh.
I like to keep myself entertained on the drive home from work. Today the Ice Cube song "It was a Good Day" came on. As I was singing along I started thinking that there is a generation of kids who would probably be very confused by a few of the lines in the song. For instance, "The Lakers beat the Supersonics." I bet they're wondering who the Supersonics are. I guess it hasn't been that long since they existed, but still, I wonder how many kids are aware of their previous existence. The other line that I thought might be puzzling is, "My pager's still blowing up." What's a pager? Seriously, these kids have grown up in a world where cell phones do everything. Pagers must seem like the stupidest invention ever. I bet they wouldn't even know what to do with one. Although, in all seriousness, any kids who are listening to this song are probably surprised that Ice Cube is a rapper. They most likely know him as the police captain from the 21 Jump Street movie, which they are probably unaware is a remake of a television show. Kids these days. Well, that's just a small glimpse into my head during a typical drive home. Enjoy a classic Ice Cube video now.
Ok, I get that the government has differences of opinion when it comes to the budget. I don't exactly know all the details, but I can appreciate the debate. What I don't get is this whole, "I'm taking my ball and going home" attitude. An entire government shutdown, really? Is that the only solution they could come up with? And why exactly does the whole government have to shut down to resolve this issue? Isn't this just Congress' issue? What really gets me is that all the National Parks are now closed because of the shut down. Why the hell do the National Parks have to be shut down because Congress is acting like a bunch of babies?! We are now depriving people of seeing the great beauty and history of our country. How many field trips were planned to National Parks that had to be cancelled? How many family vacations have been ruined because they can't fulfill their American dream? How many foreign tourists came all the way over here only to be disappointed, thus going back home to further bad mouth America? This isn't good. This may have been the only chance for some people to see one of the parks. And now they can't because the government can't work out their differences. And in an ironic twist, Tuesday, the first day of the shutdown, marked the 123rd anniversary of Yosemite National Park. Google even celebrated the anniversary on their homepage. But nobody could actually go to the park and celebrate the milestone. What a joke. I have a trip planned to the Grand Canyon next month, so all I can say is, "Get your act together, Federal Government!"
With the calendar turning to October it's time to start thinking about one of my favorite holidays: Halloween! And Halloween means costumes. A couple years ago I wrote a post about obscure costume ideas. This year I'm focusing my attention on Disney costume ideas. And anyone who knows me knows they will be pretty obscure. These are costumes inspired by Disney characters and movies. I present them in no particular order, just a list of ideas that I think would be fun.
Robin Hood disguised as a Stork
This one is tricky because it's like two costumes in one. First you have to dress up like Robin Hood, a fox, and then don his stork disguise from the archery tournament scene.
Darkwing Duck
"I am the terror that flaps in the night. I am the surprise you find in your cereal box! I am Darkwing Duck!" Seriously awesome!
Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers
This would be more of a group costume, but another fun throwback to Disney afternoons.
Tale Spin
Another group costume idea from Disney afternoons. Seriously, I miss these shows!
Steamboat Willie
Complete with ship's wheel and everything. Gotta love the old school.
I'm sure there are many other great Disney costume ideas, but these are my favorites. I like them mostly because they remind me of my childhood and bring back happy memories. Plus, I think they would get the best reactions from other people because they are a bit random. But which ones do you like? What other ideas do you have?
