Brady’s Blog

here we go again with the weather..

i’m especially annoyed today because we were supposed to get two to eight inches of snow today and basically got zilcho..

so let’s have a look at tonight’s forecast..

and.. let’s start at the top..

the little pictures tell us to expect snow.. and the same graphic goes way out on a limb and predicts darkness for the overnight hours..

next is the temperature.. thirty one going down to twenty five by one a.m.

so that’s how cold it will be.. ok..

but wait..

the wind chill, which tells you how cold it will feel, says it will feel about five degrees colder..

that is unless you take into consideration the heat index, which tells you how warm it will feel.. which brings us right back to the temperature.. so that’s helpful..

now.. let’s analyse the precipitation predictions..

take a look at eleven p.m. for instance..

at that time we have a thirty percent chance of precipitation..

and an eighty eight percent chance of snow..

so, that means if i stay up until eleven, i have a fifty eight percent chance of seeing some rare kind of snow that is not precipitation..

man..

such science..

i’m beginning to wonder if i can count on the darkness..

claire..

on heroes..

she regenerates right?

and not just when she wants to..

i’m pretty sure it’s involuntary.. if she gets hurt, her body just fixes itself..

like all the way down to restoring the fingernails or toenails to the exact length they were before..

i have a couple of questions..

how does she clip her fingernails?

or cut her hair?

does she shave her legs or would the hair just pop right back out?

arm pits?

what if she needed some dental work done?

a root canal or an extraction?

safe to assume her teeth have always just straightened themselves i guess..

or what if she wanted to lose weight?

or gain weight for that matter?

i mean, if her body is constantly returning to a certain state i think these are all fair questions..

and wouldn’t she necessarily have perfect memory of everything that ever happened to her?

i mean, those memories are stored in the brain somewhere.. as are the neuro-connective synapses responsible for memory..

and that’s all tissue that would presumably regenerate..

of course the most obvious question is this..

how does she keep those earrings in her ears?

i briefly mentioned this about two and a half years ago, but while telling someone about it yesterday i realized the more detailed version might be worth a chuckle or two..

so here goes..

i went through a period in my late teens and early twenties where i dealt with some rather weighty personal issues.. identity crisis, etc.. the usual male angst peppered with some ‘dad’ issues..

as a result, i basically despised most of humanity..

so naturally i entered the service industry..

specifically, i waited tables and tended bar..

i was a really good waiter and was even better behind the bar where a little extra attitude was allowed.. even expected..

i really didn’t mind the restaurant industry that much except for the customers and most of the people i had to work with..

oh and the work.. that wasn’t great either..

and the hours.. also bad..

but i survived, often by finding little ways to take out my frustration on others..

which brings us to today’s subject..

for some reason, my section always seemed to be a magnet for “event” tables..

the birthday party..

the reunion of old friends..

the anniversary..

which means near the end of the meal, the inevitable cameras would start popping out all over the place..

and for some reason, it was cracker’s job to play photographer for fifteen minutes in the middle of the rush on a friday night..

so..

being a vandal at heart..

i would happily accept all cameras, smile, ask everyone to say “cheese” and then take tons of pictures of them..

and cut off every single head in every single shot..

i enjoyed so much the idea of all those poor folks picking up their prints at the photo lab and having nothing..

like i said.. it was vandalism..

plain and simple..

look.. i’m not proud of it..

and i certainly wouldn’t do something like that these days..

not with all the digital cameras they have now..

i just checked the weather to see what it would be like when i step outside at 0530 tomorrow morning to run..

here’s what i saw..

so..

here’s what we know from that..

at that time it should be around 53 degrees with a wind chill of 48..

and a heat index of 53..

cloudy..

and humid..

with a 3.5% chance of snow..

and then at 0900, when it’s 55 degrees with a wind chill of 50 and a heat index of 55, it will be about 3 times more likely to snow..

perfect..

last night my wife watched the miss america pageant..

i caught a little of it as well, over the top of my laptop on which i was watching some of the bloodiest UFC fights i’ve seen in a while..

disgusting i know..

but what can i say, the lady likes to watch a pageant..

the point is, they need to merge these two events right away..

here’s the deal..

the UFC is probably drawing about one woman for every three thousand male viewers..

and the male viewership of the miss america pageant consisted primarily of.. well.. me..

so.. duh..

you put the peanut butter with the chocolate before the writers strike ends and you’re golden..

i would set it up like this..

you do all the pageant stuff first - just like normal..

this lets the tension build, because the audience knows no matter how good miss georgia looks in a bikini, if her cardio is weak or she drops her hands, she’ll end up with a mangled face..

so you boil it down to two contestants..

and they have to step into the octagon..

regular UFC rules - no biting, no head-butting, no eye gouging, watch the back of the head..

three five minute rounds unless someone is submitted..

and then you crown your champion..

and you have a cut man standing by to work on the winners face as they’re putting the crown on her head - you know.. so she looks good on camera..

and joe rogan can come out and ask her the same question they asked her in the interview portion of the competition just to see what kind of funny stuff she says when her brain is scrambled..

and miss d.c. and miss puerto rico can finish out the night with a wrap-up undercard bout..

as usual, i have set out to purvey some ridiculous, outlandish scenario and ended up with something that will probably actually happen..

and i can’t wait..

i went to see cloverfield last night..

this will serve as my review..

i promise this will be the best review of cloverfield you will ever read..

i make that promise because this morning i heard someone described as a “promising young writer” and i thought that sounded like a good thing to be..

since we’ve established the fact that i am indeed a writer, and i just promised something, i guess that makes me a promising writer..

two out of three ain’t bad..

now, onto the review..

like all of my reviews, this one will assume way too much about your knowledge of the film, spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it, not include any kind of useful information at all, and be completely on the money..

first of all, at our theatre they made people read a sign that said “cloverfield can cause epileptic seizures, etc” before they’d sell you a ticket.. that’s always a good sign for a movie..

hint - SIT IN THE BACK

secondly, i should say i agree with this person who has a problem with the opening..

he’s right - if you are the person in the future watching this camera footage, and you tell us the camera came from “the area formally known as central park”, then you’re implying there is some new name for that area..

if so, why wouldn’t you just use that name unless you’re trying to speak to the audience of a movie theatre in your distant past who would only know it as “central park”?

if you instead said “this camera was found in ‘monsterguts park’ under a bridge”, and then showed us a shot of central park, guess what would happen?

we would know you meant central park.. and we would know you’re from the distant future..

and here lies the real problem with this movie..

the movie is not set in present day..

it’s set in the future..

we know this not only because of the “park previously known as ‘central’” tag, but also because we’re watching footage which was previously taped..

so by definition, we the audience, are positioned post event in the timeline..

and, i must say, as a member of that audience.. if these events have happened - if a seven hundred foot monster has indeed attacked manhattan..

if the army, navy, air force, and marines have successfully counterattacked..

and if these events were well documented by thousands of cameras all over the city including every major news organization..

then why.. please tell me why..

are we watching this shaky, crappy, poorly thought out reel of one guy trying to find his girlfriend?

SHOW ME THE MONSTER!

give me the cnn feed, fox, msnbc..

the network shots.. ALL OF IT..

i want to know what happened!

i don’t care about rob and beth AT ALL..

i might.. later.. after i’ve had my fill of monster..

maybe then i could take some time for a little personal interest story surrounding the catastrophic event..

but let’s not use that as the one single historical reference point..

pretty slick monster though.. i will give them that..

big..

and nasty..

which is exactly how i like my monsters..

the little drop-off midget monsters were underachievers i thought.. not sure what that was about..

i’m guessing there’s a lot of those creatures littering the cutting room floor..

anyway, not the worst movie you’ll ever see, but definitely not the best..

i promise..

i thought of a great bit for a standup act..

if anyone out there wants to buy it from me it’s $9.95 per show..

here’s the gag..

you show a video of someone feeding a baby - or better yet bring a real baby and feed the baby on stage..

baby food out of one of those little jars.. mushy stuff..

and you have a flash camera rigged up to get a shot of the audience as they are watching this..

you surprise them..

then you show that photo on a big screen and everyone laughs at how everyone’s tongue is sticking out..

if you think this won’t work, just look around the room the next time you see a baby being fed baby food..

every time the spoon goes to the kid, everyone else’s mouth will open as if they’re eating..

or maybe this only works on the slack-jawed people i hang around with..

but if you pay the $9.95 i’ll make sure at least one of them is at each show..

bonus post plus feature removal..

the whole “comfort food” thing is not working for me..

sounded like a good idea at the time..

i think the problem is the name - it just doesn’t ring and it certainly makes zero sense to anyone coming in after the fact..

so i’m pulling the plug..

ok..

one last one..

Comfort Food: half of a sheet cake with an employee’s face printed on it in honor of an award she received - it’s been out there for fifty plus hours now and it is still getting smaller.

stewart (eight years old and supposedly my son, referring to my new glasses): “those make you look like the geek you truly are.”

we have been having family night at the library lately..

every other monday..

it’s really quite a bit of fun..

our library is very high tech - computers everywhere, automated checkout, lots of dvds..

and books.. they have books there..

which i thought was a little old fashioned but actually works out ok..

anyway, last night we missed our trip to the library because of a birthday party..

so tonight we stopped by barnes and noble on our way home from dinner..

the kids drug mrs. cracker to the kids section while i browsed the geek aisles - computers, history, audiobooks..

i wandered around for about five minutes before this:

some guy: “hey! how’s it going?”

cracker: “hiya..”

some guy (still looking at me, searching my face): “you look really familiar.. do i–”

cracker: “um.. not sure..”

some guy: “do you go to church around here?”

cracker: “yeah.. i do..”

he asked me a couple of generic questions about my church and then my job before it occurred to me he was one of those infamous amway stalkers that like to frequent book and music stores trolling for victims..

i had experienced this once before a number of years ago - and i’d heard more about the phenomenon but not recently.. so it took me a minute to snap out of it..

he was still yapping at me when the fog lifted..

some guy: “.. yeah so.. you have to travel some for work then huh?”

cracker: “no.”

some guy: “now you said you–”

cracker: “uh-huh.. right..” i was letting him know with curtness and body language the jig was up..

and then boom.. nothing..

he realized he’d been made and just walked off - not another word..

not a “well.. nice meeting you..” or a “bye now..”

just gone..

it was hilarious..

as i took a minute to reflect on our conversation i realized every word out of his mouth had been scripted..

“if sucker says yes i go to church, ask him if that’s that non-denominational church”

“if sucker says i work at such and such place, ask how long he’s been there - if less than two years, ask if so and so still works there”

just amazing..

it really is just con-artistry for people who are too dimwitted to do shortchange math..

and the thing is - no remorse..

that’s what gets me.. these are people who think they’re actually doing something..

they think it’s totally ok to try to trick people into doing so called business with them instead of working for a living like the rest of us..

in fact they have an attitude of superiority..

like everyone who’s not in the pyramid is just so blind and foolish..

look, if you sell amway, or quixtar or whatever it’s called now - that’s fine..

i think the whole thing is a bit shady and everyone who knows your name wants to stab you in the eye.. but if that’s your thing, go for it..

but seriously..

if you are hanging out in bookstores trying to snag your prey.. come on..

go find something more respectable to do..

like kidnapping crippled orphans and selling them into slavery at a slipshod toxic waste removal facility and using the proceeds to fund terrorism..

after you’ve harvested their kidneys..