The greatest time of the year!

I decided that if it was possible to freeze the weather of one day to use over and over forever, that day would have been yesterday. Just a few small puffy clouds in the sky to admire. The temperature was cool yet not too cool to wear a t-shirt. No strong winds. Great sunshine to breeze ratio to keep your body completely comfortable. I’m not nearly as outdoorsy as some people but not to be outdoors yesterday evening would be a total waste!

It’s sad how short that perfect transition between Utah’s freezing cold winters and blistering summers are. The next 4 months might as well be named “hot,” “hotter,” “hottest,” and “no seriously it gets even hotter than that.”

I’ve had the strange urge to surf lately. I’ve never surfed in my life and have never been that crazy about beaches yet now I want to go live in a summer home by the beach and surf all day every day all summer long. I think I’ll do that. Oh wait… I live hundreds of miles from any beach and have a wife, three furry children, a job and a mortgage. My summer plan is foiled!

Blockbuster Time!

I’m a big fan of midnight premiers for huge releases. There’s just something about the energy in a crowd of superfans that makes you enjoy the movie, even if it isn’t very good. I was going to midnight premiers even in the days when it was a pain in the ass and you had to wait in line for hours and hours followed by a sometimes nasty rush for decent seats with jerks trying to save large rows of seats by themselves.

Now, reserved seating makes it about 10 times more convenient to go to premiers because you can show up whenever you want. It’s so nice to show up at the theater 15 minutes before the show rather than like 5 hours. Lack of seat reservations is the main reason that I think Century 16 sucks aside from more uncomfortable seating and crappier screen resolution and Megaplex is the way to go. Unfortunately Megaplex is far away and Century is literally a couple blocks away.

The last two times I’ve been to Megaplex were for very uncrowded shows and there have been people sitting in the seats we reserved. Something about this is extremely aggravating to me so maybe I don’t have road rage but I have theater rage. It would have been very silly to kick them out of the seats since most of the theater was empty but seriously, they reserved their seats before us and obviously selected different seats so are they just going out of their way to be a-holes or what? I wouldn’t be surpised with teenagers the way they are these days. I’d be willing to bet 10 bucks right now that our reserved seats will be occupied for the next show we go to on Friday and I’m getting to the point that I don’t care whether all the seats around them are empty, those people are getting out of our seats because someone needs to take a stand! It’s out of control and you don’t see it happening at classier theatres like Capitol and Pioneer.

Anyways, it seems like it’s been a long time since a movie came out that was big enough to get me excited. But now it’s getting close to summertime again and it’s blockbuster time! Wolverine, Harry Potter, Star Trek, Transformers 2, G.I. Joe, there’s just too many big movies coming to name and I plan on seeing lots of premiers this summer. I’ve already bought tickets for Wolverine and IMAX Star Trek, oh yeah!

It's a conspiracy!

I’ve been obsessed with this movie for a couple days now. It all started a few years ago when I saw in the news that the actor playing Andre the Giant in his biopic, Matthew McGrory, died during filming. So this project seemed pretty much cursed from the beginning but I wanted to see it because I’ve read about Andre the Giant’s life and it is pretty fascinating and would make an interesting movie. Then I heard they cast a new lead actor who is like 7 foot 7 named Daniel Gilchrist and resumed production. I just recalled the other day that this movie ought to be finished by now so I checked IMDB and, sure enough, it came out last October.

But here’s where the mystery begins- it seems no one that has seen it has lived to tell of it. I’ve googled it extensively and there are no reviews and not even a single legitimate claim that anyone has watched it. There is more mystery surrounding this thing then Roswell. Netflix has the movie in their database but it can’t be rented. The trailer for the movie can be found all over the place, including YouTube, yet no one is actually able to verify the full film’s existence. This is a full-fledged conspiracy! I have a few theories of what the explanation could be:

1- The movie is so horrendously bad that all viewers died of disgust in the theatres and the government had to step in and plan a huge cover-up operation to protect those related to the movie and their families from a bloodthirsty public.

2- Everyone who had seen the movie was secretly killed by hit men hired by the movie’s producer in order to keep them from spreading the word of this horrendous movie and ruining his reputation.

3- The movie was so horrendously bad that all theatres refused to offend their patrons by showing it.

4- It’s an enormous hoax that managed to fool film websites all over the internet.

I just don’t know, but someday I vow to uncover the truth behind Andre: Heart of the Giant!

Weather Report

It's exactly halfway through April and it is snowing outside. That's all.

The True Story of the Easter Bunny

Everyone seems to think that the Easter Bunny is as fictional as Santa Clause. Yeah right… like your parents could hide eggs that well. No, the Easter Bunny is completely legitimate. The reason he doesn’t make public appearances is simply because he doesn’t quite have that gentle and compassionate appearance that Santa does. The fact is that a cute little bunny is cute because it is little. But a bunny the size of Shaq is scary as hell! I researched the Easter Bunny well and the fact is that there was a time when he did like to visit the kiddies face to face. But it never seemed to go well. Kids were pretty traumatized and parents were too. The following picture was taken at the Easter Bunny’s last public appearance ever. The most popular theory is that the United Nations got a hold of this photograph and sent a secret communication to the Easter Bunny that he could hide all the eggs and candy and baskets that he wanted but if he was caught hanging around with any children ever again, they would have no choice but to arrest him and imprison him at the local zoo.

I really have to feel sorry for the Easter Bunny because he really does love the kids but he will always have to do it from a distance.

Smoking

I’m feeling like doing a bit of philosophical rambling today. It all started with a coworker, who has been going on and on for a month about how she is finally going to quit smoking starting the weekend of April 4. She really seemed to be getting the word out and psyching herself up for it. I’ve been trying to encourage her as well.

Actually that brings up another rant. I’m surrounded by smokers at work and I have no problem with smokers as long as they are respectful enough to only smoke outside or other designated places where non-smokers don’t have to breathe their smoke. After all, most people seem to do something or other that is detrimental to their health (myself included) and smoking just happens to be theirs. I’m just really thankful I never got into it because I’ve heard how damn hard it is to quit. I don’t think smokers should be punished in any way for their habit but I certainly don’t think they should be rewarded either. Well it’s hard to ignore the fact that the smokers in the office are probably on break at least double the amount of time I am. They go out and smoke at least 5 times per day and they are gone for a good 15 minutes. I only get two 15 minute breaks per day. How is this fair?

Anyways, back to the coworker. Well she claims that she went all weekend without a smoke. Yesterday, she actually went out with the other smokers and watched them while she chewed her gum, which was a bad idea in my opinion. This morning, I ask how she’s doing and she said she had to give in last night because a cigarette sounded so good with her beer. A whopping 2 and a half days! Now she says she is going to smoke the rest of the week and start again this weekend. Sure…

Yet I can’t really blame her. It’s just like any other habit in life that is so damn hard to quit. And one little misstep and you figure you might as well jump off the wagon for a while and start again someday. It’s ridiculous self-defeating perfectionist thinking that many of us just can’t seem to escape. Take diet for example. I’ll decide that I’m going to start eating really healthy tomorrow, meaning several small low-fat, high protein meals per day. But then I’ll be halfway through the day and find out someone brought a big tray of cookies to work. Since I’ve never been able to turn down free food, I’ll have to help myself and then I’ll say “Oh well, I’ve already had a cookie, the day is shot. Might as well get pizza for dinner and have some Ben and Jerry’s for dessert.” It’s so stupid because it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal if I’d just gone on eating healthy but I make it a big deal by blowing the rest of the day.

I wonder whether it is more difficult to quit smoking or to quit eating food that is bad for you (meaning food that tastes good)? Even though I’ve never smoked, I’m guessing that quitting the bad food is more difficult because you have to eat something and every time you eat your boneless skinless chicken breast and carrot sticks, you’ll be reminded of what you’re not eating—a big yummy bowl of mac and cheese or big juicy cheeseburger and a heaping plate of salty fries.

Like having a smoke, there also seems to be a big payoff in giving in and eating badly. They don’t call it comfort food for nothing. I notice that there is a distinct difference in the way I feel after a healthy meal or a bad meal. Unfortunately, there are drawbacks to the healthy meal as well as the obvious benefits. I have more energy for sure but it’s more restless energy than productive energy. I’ve noticed that it’s more difficult to concentrate and I’m just not as relaxed after a healthy meal. I’m guessing this is mostly withdrawals that a smoker would get after replacing a cigarette with a nicotine patch and it will pass after enough time. Unfortunately, food seems as much a part of a social life as conversation. If you think about it, every date, every party, every family get together, and every social work gathering always centers around food. The second question after anyone is invited to anything seems to be “What will we be eating?” At least someone trying to quit smoking doesn’t run into a platter of cigarettes and lighters everywhere they go and they won’t starve to death if they quit cold turkey. Just saying…