Movie Review: The Hangover

I was kinda wanting to see a movie this weekend. When it is ridonkulously hot and humid, there is something satisfying about sitting in a cool, dark movie theater for a couple of hours.

Thought about it yesterday, but a competing urge for a nap completely kicked the movie's ass.

But today, I got the kitchen cleaned up (it having served as the Staging Area for Absolutely Feisty and her friend L's night of Big Fun.), and I got my laundry done, all before noon. I decided a movie was in order.

I texted AF and invited her along. I knew she'd be hungover after her night out on the town, so I chose "The Hangover".

We grabbed a quick and tasty bite to eat at Smokehouse BBQ and hit the AMC 20.

Jesus H. Christ In A Motherfucking Chicken Basket Covered With In-A-Tub Powdered Cheese!

This was the funniest movie I've seen since Rat Race!

I don't want to say too much. Most of you have already seen it (it came out in early June) and know what I'm talking about. For those who haven't, I don't want to spoil it.

I'll just give you the set-up.

A guy about to be married and three of his buddies go to Las Vegas for a bachelor party.

They wake up the next day in a completely trashed hotel room, with a Siberian tiger in the bathroom, a baby in the closet, missing a tooth and missing the groom with absolutely no memory of what happened the night before.

Hilarity ensues!

Seriously, I haven't laughed this hard for this long since The D Rules claimed to have a date. With a woman. Who wasn't a relative. That he didn't have to pay.

Seriously, if I had this movie on DVD, I'd be watching it again right now.

Great fucking movie. Go see it!

The Remco Years - Chapter 3

The people.

It would be easy to form a less than flattering preconception about the type of people who would be renting TVs and stereos. And some of those preconceptions would be accurate. Some wouldn't.

Might surprise you to learn that some of my customers were Kansas City Chiefs. Couldn't name any of them, but I had a few. Think about it. They were only in town for the season. As I recall, this was when they still had their training camp at William Jewell College in Liberty.

Didn't make any sense for them to hire a moving company, haul all of their shit from Texas, or Florida or wherever they lived all the way up to KC for a few months and then haul all of that shit back. Easier to come up here light, rent what they needed for as long as they needed, then send it all back and travel home light. Not like they couldn't afford it!

But admittedly, that was the exception. For the most part, they are on the lower end of the economic spectrum. Maybe not quite poverty level, but they could swing a dead cat at arms length and hit poverty level.

Could be a guy who is recently divorced and trying to start over. She had a good lawyer. She got the house, the newest car, judge awarded her generous maintenance and child support for their three kids. He finds himself working just as long and hard as he used to, but left with nothing. He's living in a shitty part of town because it's all he can afford. He just needs a TV to watch in his crappy little roach hotel to distract him from his desire to blow his brains out.

They could be a couple who don't have a lot of education, no marketable skills and maybe started a family a bit too soon. They are together. They're struggling mightily to do the right thing and raise their kids. They just can't get a break and they can barely...just barely, pay their rent and buy food. They can't take their kids to Worlds of Fun. Fuck, they can't even afford to take the family to McDonald's for a "night out". But by God they can have a TV. The family can at least watch TV.

And this was back in the day when you only had 3 channels! ABC, CBS, NBC. That was it. KSHB might have been available on the UHF spectrum by then, but all they had were re-runs of "Love American Style" and Uncle Ed Muscare. If you weren't watching one, you were watching the other. And they both sucked ass.

The rental business was pretty brutal. Probably still is.

You know how when you owe money for something or have a credit card, the company sends you a bill. The bill tells you how much your payment is and when it's due. They even tell you how much more you will owe if the bill goes past due.

The rental business ain't like that.

Here's your TV. Sign here. Your payment is $XX.XX a month and payments are due on the 16th of the month. Best be remembering that. We don't send no stinking bills.

If the 16th rolls around and we don't have your rent payment, I'll be at your door on the 17th. The money or the TV are your only options. There is no mercy, there are no negotiations, no deals, no bargains. You give me the money, or I'm taking the TV. Period.

It doesn't even matter if the 16th was a Sunday or a holiday. We have a mail slot in the front door. Better fucking be an envelope with cash or a money order from you waiting for us on the floor. Or you go on My List.

People used to say "Man! That has got to be rough! You show up on a Sunday afternoon, the renter and his buddies are drinking beer and watching a Chiefs vs. Raiders game and you're there to take away the TV! Dayum! That's cold!"

It was rough and it was cold. I won't lie to you. I was cleaning out my van one day and found a slug. A bullet. Did a walk around and found the entry point just forward and above the rear driver's side wheel.

Somebody could have been targeting me. Or maybe I just caught a bit of stray gunfire. Have no idea. But I kept it for years as a sort of good luck charm. It didn't kill me. That's good luck, right?

I also remember showing up on a collection run to find the po po on sight intervening in a full-blown domestic disturbance. Maybe over the fact that somebody forgot to drop off the Remco payment. Who knows. I just need to grab this TV and I'll be out of your way. Won't be a minute. As you were.

Those were sensitive situations that had to be handled delicately. But it got a whole lot worse than that.

Try getting an early start on a Saturday morning. Your first collection stop of the day doesn't have his rent payment. Just lost his job. He can probably borrow it from his folks. He can have it Monday. Promise.

Sorry man. Sucks to be you. I gotta take the TV.

You walk into the living room to retrieve YOUR rental property and there are 3 or 4 kids, still in their pajamas, eating dry, stale, expired "Best Choice" knock-off Cheerios right out of the box, watching their favorite cartoons.

They look up at you. Wondering who you are and why you are there. One of them smiles.

You look at their dad. His head is hanging, eyes closed. Wondering how he's going to explain to his kids why the man had to take the TV away. They don't know daddy lost his job. He'll have to explain that part to them. Again.

BOSS: "How did it go today? I don't see a TV. Did you get the payment?"

ME: "Nobody home. I'll try again. On Monday."

Sir Shridath hurt me bad, bad

Hey, peoples. Hope all is well with you and yours. I would like to extend a hearty welcome to my first follower, Bajan Gossip Girl. Thanks, chica!

I don't have a lot of time to blog these days, so I keep things bottled up till I get an opportunity. What I want to talk about today has been bothering me for a while, so I'll try to calm down and not vent so I can write coherently.

I've always admired regional integrationist and former Commonwealth Secretary General Sir Shridath Ramphal. I met him years ago and considered him gracious, intelligent and down-to-earth. Imagine my surprise then when I read in the media that Sir Shridath was likening Barbados' recent immigration policy to "ethnic cleansing!

A lot has been said about the policy, both good and bad, but the reason why Sir Shridath's comments hurt me bad, bad, is because he of all people should know better!
He is no stranger to Barbados, and actually he has retired here now - I saw him strolling through the supermarket just the other day, but I digress.

As someone who lives in Barbados and has long been associated with Barbados, Sir Shridath knows that Barbadians are some of the most welcoming, accommodating people in the world. We're more likely to be "cleansed" out of our country than the other way around, we're that nice.

So for him to equate the Government's long overdue decision to manage immigration and especially halt illegal immigration with someting as vicious and sordid as ethnic cleansing is grossly unfair. Frankly, he should stand up in Heroes Square with a loudspeaker and apologise to the people of this country.

We can't be that bad if you chose to retire here, Sir Shridath.

My First T-Shirt

Get the T-Shirt here.

Bank Teller Stops Alleged Robber, Loses Job

"(CNN) -- Jim Nicholson could've just handed over the cash. Instead, he gave the would-be robber a run for his money -- and paid for it.

The 30-year-old bank teller said the suspect, dressed in black and wearing sunglasses, walked up to his counter at the Key Bank branch in suburban Seattle, Washington, demanding he fill the man's bag with cash.

"So I grab the bag ... I threw it on the floor," Nicholson told CNN Radio. He said he demanded the robber show him a weapon. When he realized there was none, Nicholson said, he lunged at the robber, chased him down the street, pinned him down and waited for the police.

That was Tuesday of last week. He lost his job Thursday.

Why?

"Policy violation," Nicholson said. "Basically, we are supposed to comply with any robber that would come in. We're supposed to just give him the money and let him go -- and obviously I did not do that."

Probably sounds counter-intuitive and unfair, right? The guy prevented a crime, risked his LIFE to protect his employer from being robbed and his reward for his bravery is to get FIRED?!

Goddamn right he got fired, and he deserved to.

Every bank has that exact same policy for a very good reason. If the employees "just give them the money and let them go", NOBODY GETS KILLED!

The banks are insured! When a robber holds up a bank, the only loser is the insurance company!

The customers don't lose any money.

The banks don't lose any money.

The shareholders don't lose any money.

It's just the insurance company who loses money when they reimburse the bank for the amount stolen. Why do they lose money? BECAUSE THAT'S THEIR FUCKING BUSINESS MODEL! The insurance companies go to a bank and say "Look. For a recurring fee, we will bet you that you will never be robbed. We are so confidant that you will never be robbed that we will cover your losses if you are robbed."

In casino terms, the insurance companies are The House. They win 99% of the bets by having a steady revenue stream without having to do a goddamn thing! Occasionally, rarely, they have to pay off a bet. They don't give a fuck. They still make an assload of money and they get to raise the insurance rates on the victim!

In fact, it is the insurance companies who INSIST that the banks they insure have a policy to "give them the money and let them go". As long as the banks adhere to that policy, the insurance company is only on the hook for the amount in the teller's drawer (heh heh) when the robbery occurs.

But if the bank has a policy of resisting robbery attempts, or some Rambo-fucktard-wannabe-teller decides to be a movie star hero, a whole lot of bank employees and customers could get killed dead! Not just "merely dead", but "really most sincerely dead!" Or permanently disabled. Or distressed, ya know, emotionally.

Do you have any fucking idea how exponentially the civil lawsuits explode when collateral victims of a bank robbery gone bad realize that they can sue A BANK?

This guy was a fucking idiot. The only thing he was doing was risking the lives of everyone around him to protect the most microscopic, infinitesimal, minuscule fraction of a giant insurance companies assets.

I'll bet you he's a gun owning, conservative, Republican.

Real Blogger Journalism

There are a lot of ego whores in this small town blogosphere who fancy themselves to be cutting edge, new wave journalists because they post gossip and float stories that have no basis in fact and don't have the education or discipline to verify their information.

They rank their importance in their self contained worlds by the number of visitors they get to their blogs and the number of vicious, anonymous commentors they attract. The more of both they get, the more important they feel.

This town is full of them and they all blend together. It's hard to distinguish one from another. They engage in an endless incestuous warfare of vacuous masturbatory banter that dulls the senses and lowers the collective IQ of anyone who reads them.

They subscribe to the Manjooian philosophy of a post-fact society and claim newspapers are dead, and that this new, loosey-goosey, say-it-enough-times-and-it's-true propaganda are the wave of the future.

That's bullshit.

In stark juxtaposition to these local rumor mongers and wannabes stands the Midtown Miscreant.

He doesn't waste his time or blog space on meaningless drama or insider politics that doesn't impact anyone and that no one gives a shit about.

Instead he uncovered a truly dangerous and frightening case of a guy who used to be "kind of a big deal" in this town, the host of a local afternoon children's show, and later convicted child molester of a 14 year old relative.

That part was fairly common knowledge.

What we didn't know, and what Mark discovered, were the extremely creepy YouTube videos that Ed Muscare had been posting while still under probation for his child molestation conviction.

You can see the Fox 4 News story that was spurred by Mark's original blog journalism here.

 

Mark uncovered a true story about a dangerous man who posed a real threat to children. As a result, the police have seized Muscare's computers and are conducting an investigation.

I think Mark only posted about the subject once or twice, and he got results.

That's a pretty stark contrast to other local, shrill, one-note-wonders, who hammer away on the same, tired subjects hour after hour, day after day, month after month and continue to come up empty handed every time.

It's like watching a bunch of spastic chihuahuas dry humping a couch and coming away with nothing more than tiny sore peckers.

Mark, on the other hand, did some good solid investigative journalism that had a positive result.

This is Darwinian blogging.

The best blogs will survive because they are relevant.

The worst ones will paint themselves into a corner and implode like a supernova when their incoming traffic exceeds their compelling content and they become a critical mass of anonymous intellectual vacuum and create a black hole of stupidity from which nothing of interest, not even their anonymous trolls can escape.

Fulfilling My Destiny

I have a birthday coming up. September 16th. I will be 54 years old and I think it's about time that I fulfilled my destiny and became the Super Villian I was meant to be.

Lex Luthor.


It occurred to me that I am being rude to my readers by not giving you sufficient notice of things that I would like to receive as birthday presents to give you time to get them for me.

Again, this isn't about me, it's about you. Trying to save you that last minute scramble and having to rob from Peter to pay Paul or go further into debt just to get me something nice.

I know, I know. I'm selfless like that. Always have been! Call it a character flaw. And you're welcome.

So here is my gift registry.

The first thing I will need is a Lair. All Super Villians have Lairs. This is the one I want.

1. Necker Island

"Necker Island is located in the British Virgin Islands, 2 km north of the northeastern flank of Virgin Gorda. Sir Richard Branson purchased Necker Island more than 25 years ago.Â

Totally private, Necker island has only one residence, a magnificent villa of breathtaking Balinese design. Necker can accommodate up to 28 guests and can be booked as a complete private package, or for certain weeks of the year the villas and rooms can be rented individually.

Previously uninhabited, Necker has now been developed into a superb private hideaway, now with several buildings including the Great House, five Balinese villas, a spa and a beach pavilion.

The Great House, an airy Balinese villa, has 9 bedrooms including a Master Suite. All rooms have balconies and stunning ocean views. Amidst the tropical flora and fauna you’ll find 5 Bali houses. Each alfresco style house has several tiers and access to a pool.

Varied amenities include a barbecue, two whirlpools, a lighted tennis court and three beaches. The magnificent freshwater pool features a cascade set amid boulders, and lounge chairs beckon nappers."

Of course, I'll need a way to get there! Duh!

2. The Oculus

"The interior features of Oculus focus on a 12 foot high ceiling in the main salon, a cylindrical double height dining room, central stair and elevator tube, and seemingly anatomical ceiling and floor lighting extensions giving definition to the seating areas.

The second level is the dedicated Owner’s suite. Living areas and bedchambers are divided by a series of four freestanding tubes, which house bath and storage necessities.

In addition to the main common stair, the second Owner’s stair connects to the third level aft private salon and deck / water feature.

The third level also contains the forward pilothouse and separate captain’s quarters. The generous open decks with separate water features are located forward and aft for convenient guest use."

Once there, I'll need something to do.

3. Deep Flight Super Falcon

"Super Falcon has a state of the art fly‐by‐wire flight control system (finger tip). Pitch, roll, and yaw flight are controlled by micro‐controllers and are connected through to powerful electro‐mechanical actuators that manage rudders, elevators and ailerons – all identical to our 37,000 foot Deep Flight Challenger.

Super Falcon also raises the bar with its highly advanced piloting and navigational and life support electronics, which includes a head’s‐up combined graphics navigation and flight display ‐‐ all quite familiar to military pilots – but a first for privately‐owned submersibles.

Another first is the navigation module which includes an on‐board computerized track plot that enables the pilot to mark way points and will guide the sub back to its launch point etc.

Deep Flight Super Falcon is incomparable to other submersibles in terms of safety, comfort and experience. The sub can provide its owner with a graceful, balletic flight beneath the waves, but has the performance for, among other things, barrel‐rolling with dolphins, spy‐hopping with whales, or searching for sunken galleons."

Of course traveling over the ocean can be so tedious. You can't go very fast, and let's face it, the ocean stinks because fish fuck in it. No one wants to smell that.

Sometimes, I need to get places fast. So I need my own plane.

4. XO One

"...special cylindrical elevator that comes out of the bottom of the plane...relaxation comes from a steam room, Turkish bath, concert hall (with a baby grand piano) or in one of the five private quarters, complete with king size beds. Less fortunate guests will have to spend the night in one of the 20 "normal" first class sleeper suites...the "well being" room has a floor made from a giant screen, showing what the plane is flying over."

I'm particularly fond of the "Well being room".

This is how XO rolls.

Of course, once XO One lands, I can't be rolling out of the onboard garage in a Ford Fuckus! I need an XO-worthy ride. And that can only be...

5. Bugatti Veyron

"A W-16 engine that can produce 1,001 horsepower
A top speed of 250+ mph (400+ kph)
A zero-to-60 time of three seconds
A zero-to-180 time of 14 seconds
A price tag somewhere in the $1.2 million range

Seven gears
A dual clutch system
Sequential shifting
A paddle-driven, computer-controlled shifting system

At maximum power, the engine is consuming 45,000 liters of air per minute.
At maximum power, the engine is burning 1.33 gallons of gasoline per minute and needs to dissipate all of that heat through its radiators.

The engine has four valves per cylinder, for a total of 64 valves.

It has a dry sump lubrication system borrowed from Formula 1 race cars, along with an intricate internal oil path to ensure proper lubrication and cooling within the 16 cylinders.

It has electronically controlled, continuously variable cam timing to create optimal performance at different engine rpm settings.

It has a massive radiator to deal with all of the waste heat that burning 1.33 gallons of gasoline per minute can generate."

"The Bugatti Veyron is a car built around an engine. Essentially, Bugatti made the decision to blow the doors off the supercar world by creating a 1,000-horsepower engine. Everything else follows from that resolution."

"The interior is swathed almost completely in leather -- the dash, seats, floor and sides are all leather. Only the instruments and a few metal trim pieces interrupt the leather experience."

I just can't decide on a paint scheme.

Should I go with a classic black and red Batmobile style?



Or should I go with a more modern, anodized red and gold Iron Man look?



Whaddaya think?

Oh, one last thing.

I need a Lex Luthor costume.



kthxbai!