GO SEE THIS MOVIE...

IMMEDIATELY! YOU DO YOURSELF AN IMMENSE DISSERVICE IF YOU MISS THIS.

Anyone lost a computer...

If you have, I just might have found it. While walking home today, I found a briefcase (priced at $99.99, it's super-nice). Within there is an $1800 laptop and confidential papers regarding a risk management meeting for a large, local banking establishment. Sure would be nice to keep it all, but there's that whole integrity thing...

Mmm....Toasty...

So my wife and I went to hang out with some friends the other night. We ate, saw another friend play some cool music, and had a good time hanging out. We got home a little late, but not obscenely late, and went straight to bed in anticipation of the busy work day the following day.

Around 11:15-11:20 the smell began. It was a bold, heavy scent reminiscent of burnt hair. Thinking it was someone barbecuing on the patio next door, we tried to ignore it. As time went on, the smell got worse and worse, to the point where my wife was checking the stove and I was closing all of the windows. It was foul. As if someone who owned a hair salon decided to take a year's worth of clippings and sacrifice them as a burnt offering right outside our window.

Suddenly we hear a huge crash from what we think is the apartment above. This was a tad odd, however, it is not uncommon for our upstairs neighbors to periodically drop free-weights at odd hours of the night. By now it is around midnight and I was lamenting the fact that I kept getting woken up.

BANG BANG BANG on our door. The dog goes off. I jump out of bed and make it to the door only to realize that I don't have my glasses on. Without glasses, I'm as good as blind. I run back to the bedroom to grab my glasses and run back to the door. Before I open it I hear a deep voice, "There's a fire downstairs, we need you outside now!"

It was in this moment that I thought, "Oh, a fire. That's new. Never had an experience like this before." Throwing on some clothes, grabbing the dog, we run down the back stairs. Of course, being curious I have to open the door to the second floor to see what's going on. I saw firemen outside of the apartment directly below ours and smoke billowing out of the doorway. Sweet, it really was a fire!

Upon getting outside and talking to our building manager, we found out that the little old lady who lives under us (who also constantly has her tv cranked to 11 and on SoapNet) put some eggs on the stove and fell asleep. Fire's out. Go home.

Let that be a lesson to all you little old ladies out there, eggs+stove+11:30pm=DANGER!

Penny for your thoughts...

"You cock sucker piece of shit!"

How did I get here? Was I out of my mind? Maybe I was somewhere within trying to understand how this all had come to take place? Somehow I was both in my head and looking over my own shoulder trying to understand what I was saying and what was being said to me. The moment was a blur, a vivid, colorful, weighty blur of human interaction.

Maybe it was the heat, maybe I was tired or frustrated from working or going to school every day this week, maybe it was the sugar high from the 40 oz. Slurpee. Maybe it was an endless list of things that lead up to this moment of heated interaction. Whatever it was, I was in it and I wanted to remember everything. Part of me saw it as a science experiment, if I say this will you do that? If I push you will you push back? Yet another part of me fought to be mindful of him respecting him and his condition.

On our way to meet up with friends yesterday, we stopped in at Blockbuster to pick up a movie. For the past three or four weeks it's been hot here and I'm sure it's wearing on many, or maybe it's just wearing on me. Leaving the air conditioned coolness of Blockbuster, I opened the door of the car (curbside) for my wife. Shutting the door I walked to the back of the car and waited for traffic to pass. As I got to the back of the car, a disheveled man with long, dirty, greasy hair and layers upon layers of clothes caught my eye as he walked past. In his stained hands he carried a blue walkman, earphones resting around his neck.

The request, the denial.

"Can you spare some change?"
"No, I'm sorry. I can't help you."

End of interaction? Hardly. He's a warrior.

"Come on, just a little bit of change!"
"No, I'm sorry."
"Give me some change! I know you've got it!"
"Sir, I'm sorry. I can't help you."

I've been in similar situations, though not to this degree. After the second request, many people asking for change simply say something like, "Thanks anyway," "God bless," or "Thanks for nothing," and walk away. Not this guy, remember, he's a warrior.

(voice raised) "What about in the console, maybe you got any change in the console you can give me?!?"
(firm voice, slightly perturbed and feeling the heat...both heats) "Sir, I don't. I'm sorry."

(he begins to walk away, still holding my gaze) "Alright then you cock sucker piece of shit! Keep your money! Am I the only one around here who still believes in the Constitution?!? Am I the only patriot here?"
(still firm) "Sir, good luck."

"Luck? You know, I'm just about tired of vandalizing all you people's shit! Cause you know that's what I'm gonna do! I'm just gonna tear it up. I'm gonna keep vandalizing your shit till I get some money!"
(entering the car) "Good luck, have a nice day."
"Fuck your nice day."

I guess it's true...

So I'm pretty pumped about my 1,000 films challenge, and with that in mind I eagerly opened my mail box today to discover 2 Blockbuster envelopes with movies on 'the list'. The first movie? Swingers, a movie I've heard great things about and have wanted to see for a few years now. But the movie I actually sat down to watch was the other film, Reality Bites. This was another film I've heard great things about and really wanted to check out.

The problem? This film bites. I spent 1 hour 33minutes and 8 seconds watching a movie that totally blows. But at least it's on 'the list,' right? There is some comfort in that... I mean I was going to get around to seeing it someday, but the excitement of inching closer toward my goal had me just short of giddy.

So I open the list to mark it off as watched, only to discover that the waste of celluloid known as Reality Bites is not on the list as I thought it was. Disappointment? Understatement?

I guess it's true, Reality Bites.

Beware...

Devil Egg