Thanks to Canadian Chip for finding this and sharing it. What a great montage showcasing my adopted home.
Around the world Jim is best remembered for his appearance in Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon. With Austin and me, it’s his starring role in Black Belt Jones which is one of the better Blaxpoitation movies. There are two great fight sequences. The first has him beating up a gang in a dojo while his friend turns the lights on/off. The second is the film’s climax with a melee in a carwash. Beyond the kung fu/karate, Jones has numerous corny lines that you can tell were written by people who didn’t really know American Blacks. I mean, c’mon, even in the Seventies, did anybody celebrate upsetting Mr. Big by going to McDonald’s?
He will be missed and I hope Alamo Drafthouse, the place where I first learned about Jones plans to recycle his “don’t talk during the movie or Jim Kelly will take your ass out.”
Whoops! I thought the 150th anniversary of Canada becoming the nation as we know it was yesterday, figuring it happened in 1863. Nope, 1867, when the “clear and present danger” of a US takeover wasn’t going to happen.
Take over? Invasion? Are you kidding? No.
Back when the American Civil War broke out, key European powers took sides but didn’t get involved. Oddly France and the UK rooted for the Confederacy which was puzzling since they were openly against slavery. My personal theory? A successful Confederacy would weaken the US as an economic rival. They probably told their constituencies the same BS Neo-Confederates say now, “it’s about sovereignty, not the immorality of slavery.”
Meanwhile, the UK “subjects” living in the North got worried. Should the Confederacy defeat the US, the US might invade northward to compensate for all the land and revenue lost in the conflict. Their fears were not completely unfounded. When the US Navy boarded a British ship transporting a couple Confederate ambassadors, the UK mobilized 31,000 soldiers to the US border. Things grew tense but cooler heads prevailed. Lincoln ordered the Navy to release the Confederates and leave foreign vessels alone if they’re transporting Confederate representatives. He closed with the flippant remark, “One war at a time.”
Then there was a little dust-up called The War of 1812 which was only 40 years before the American Civil War. Early on US forces invaded the Great White North yelling “54-40 or die!” Future Canadians never forgot this, hence their apprehensions.
Despite the mobilization, the UK took their colonists aside and said, “We can’t defend you all the time, we have an empire to run over in India and Africa. You need to draw up a plan on becoming a little more independent.” So the three territories were reorganized into provinces and the whole area became Canada. Gradually Canada went from being a colony to a completely sovereign nation by 1982. Sure the Queen of England is on their money, the governor general remains their (figurative) head of state and they say things like, “The Crown charged Todd Bertuzzi with assault.” Yet Liz 2 or Prime Minister David Cameron telling Canada what to do is comical.
Personally, I like Canada. It has given the world great comedy (except for Jim Carrey), developed hockey, sold millions of Rush albums and is responsible for this correct list of inventions. My favorite exchange between Texans and Canadians comes from King of the Hill, too bad the writers didn’t do their homework. I knew an American invented the Zamboni.
Gordon: Ah, now, this is a beer. Why can’t America make a decent ale?
Hank: Probably because we’re too busy making medical breakthroughs and blockbuster movies and going to the moon!
Gordon: Yeah, well, we invented zippers, penicillin and the Zamboni!
Bill: I love Canada’s national anthem…too bad they don’t play it much at the Olympics!
Kahn: And your money has a girl on it!
You think Central Texas is hot and unbearable, my friend here is celebrating his birthday in his adopted home of Phoenix. Texas has nothing on Arizona.
I got him a really cool card this year, now to confirm his address.
Wish my friend well. Rad’s a great dude and if he has endured me for 20 years, he borders on sainthood.
Due to the first half of the year being plagued with illness, I was really behind the proverbial eightball with my exercise as June began. So I took a more aggressive push with running and attending. Before I knew it, I was on the verge of 100 miles in 30 days by Friday (6/28). I tried even harder and achieved it.
What’s next? Another 100 for July plus I have been running for 36 days straight. I’m going to see if I can achieve 50 days straight.
I think ever since I was invited to his birthday party 10 years ago, which occurred on the 30th, I continue to mistake his birthday as then, it’s really the 29th.
It still slipped my mind anyway. Fear not, he’s my main concert-going buddy so I’ll make it up to Mark pretty easily. The bigger obstacle is narrowing down the show because we have so many to choose from; we usually buy tickets to a concert as a gift. I’m open to other suggestions too. One thing that is out is physical music, aka vinyl, CDs, etc. Mark has made the move to digitizing his collection to save space.
Borrowing the joke from Animal House, I remembered this ol’ gem from high school when Toaster Strudel first appeared in the Eighties. It was on sale at HEB this week so I scored a couple boxes to reminisce what Brian, Cousin Jason and I did with ours one Summer morning in 1985. We usually wrote curse words. I think Brian drew a hand giving the finger. Gotta’ act quickly since the icing melts quickly.
If you lived in Austin, you’d have a front-row seat to what an asshole Lance Armstrong is, his phony-baloney “charity” and the stench of his political ambitions which I’m hoping are derailed by the doping scandal. Maybe he’ll go hang out with Barry Bonds.
A co-worker’s new daughter who is just too adorable! Here Julia is sporting the new onesie we bought for the parents from Wrybaby.com.
A project that was over five years in the procrastinating after I made the shift from Blojsom to WordPress. There was no easy way to convert so I undertook the tedious process of literally copying and pasting the text in. It was worthwhile though because I had the opportunity to clean up typos, errors and rewrite some awkward sections. Uploading the pictures was necessary too. All your comments have been moved over; what a nuisance thanks to comment spammers.
Speaking of comment spam, with all the my entries from July 2005 – November 2008 now updated (mostly), I would to get you all more engaged in the conversation, maybe have you shy people post something. Fear not. I don’t allow trolls, jerks or anyone insult each other on my watch. They can take their cheap shots at me, as one did about protesting the Right’s whitewashing of History; he’s entitled to his opinion, not facts is my rebuttal and his mindset tends to get Ds in History, Civics and Economics. However, I am in this camp with posting comments. The “free speech” argument doesn’t hold up anymore than allowing someone to take a dump in my living room.
I digressed (surprise!).
As I am nearing 500 comments (legit), I am now having a contest to see who will be the poster of said number 500. The prize? A $25 (USD) iTunes card or something equivalent. The rules? You have to be someone I actually know and if I discover just arbitrary, weak commenting, similar to how some people just keep downloading free stuff from Apple, hoping they’ll be the one-millionth customer (what we called prizewhores in my radio days); I will delete it or put it in limbo.
Good luck and thanks!
So far the Summer Movies of 2013 have been rather mediocre. Monsters University was one film I was stoked about seeing because I loved Monsters, Inc. Sequels are often cynical ploys by Hollywood’s accountants to make a quick, lazy buck but Pixar proved this criticism wrong with Toy Story 2 and 3. Then Disney’s poison took hold with the unbearably dull Cars 2 and disappointing Brave; too much Larry the Cable Guy who isn’t funny and a princess flick sans musical numbers respectively. I thought Pixar would regain its mojo by bringing back Mike, Sully and their crazy world on the other side of the closet door.
Nope. They stuck with the Lowest Common Denominator tent-pole strategy.
In Pixar’s defense, they didn’t make a horrendous insufferable prequel aimed at the Wal-Mart crowd, aka Cars; and divorced dads needing something to anchor their weekend with the kids. It’s way better than Ice Age‘s ad nauseum tripe yet Pixar was the studio that raised the standards on storytelling with animation so its computer-generated stuff wouldn’t be a novelty.
What made Inc. memorable and unique for me was the immensity of the door storage facility. Remember the frenetic pace as the characters jumped from door to door? All the locations they popped in and out of while pursuing Randall? Even in 2-D it could give you motion sickness.
University is Revenge of the Nerds without the sex, drugs, racism and toilet jokes. It doesn’t introduce any new technologies to demonstrate Pixar’s innovation. It doesn’t show anything new about the Monster world. There was nothing to differentiate University from the crap churned out by Dreamworks. With Planes on the horizon in August, I must sadly agree with the other reviewers that Pixar’s golden touch is gone, even the opening short is lame; if you saw Paper Man, you’ll be experiencing deja vu with Blue Umbrella.
Alamo Extras: A couple Pixar shorts, Billy Crystal and John Goodman’s appearances on Sesame Street, the Inc. blooper reel and the predecessor of Cookie Monster eating a computer from a Sixties TV show. My Monsters shake wasn’t as gross as Somara feared, it was just vanilla with Gummi Bears at the bottom.
The surnames Mothersbaugh and Casale are often what everyone thinks of when Devo is mentioned. For 35 years, the Spudboys have been mostly those two sets of brothers. Alan was the drummer who backed them throughout the salad days, the hit years and when it appeared Devo hit bottom (most say the mid Eighties with Shout).
According to a tweet from Gerry Casale, Alan quit after Shout because he felt the band’s drum machine usage made him obsolete. I wish he didn’t feel that way. When Somara and I saw Devo a couple years ago, they were a multimedia rock show. The current drummer was essential to the others’ performance.
As I’ve learned, electronics and computers still require skill in order to make music. They’re not replacements for talented musicians. Alan’s incredibly drumming on hits like “Freedom of Choice” demonstrated it.
Yesterday was 19 years of marriage for Tammy and Nelson. I clearly remember the weekend in Milwaukee too because whenever I hear someone complain about how damn hot it is here, I quickly have flashbacks of how cold I was. Several months in Austin erased my memories of Midwestern Summers; usually wet and cold at the beginning, then blistering humidity closer to the end. Texas skips the first part.
Skimming over various Internet sites regarding what people receiver or buy for 19 years of marriage.
I’ll let them figure it out or better yet, their kids will think of something.
Matheson is mostly remembered for being the author of I am Legend, the only Sci-Fi book I can recall being made into a movie three times; I’ve only seen the Seventies version known as The Omega Man (it’s very Seventies). For me he is the man responsible for memorable Sci-Fi television: “The Enemy Within” episode of Star Trek, “Terror at 20,000 Feet” for The Twilight Zone and the teleplay for The Martian Chronicles.
Recently we’ve been watching the Science Channel’s Prophets of Science Fiction which is a bright spot in the cesspool trend known as “reality” television. If Ridley Scott is continuing the show, he should include Matheson. It’s not an unreasonable idea especially when the finale to season one (or the whole thing) was George Lucas whose Star Wars is not Sci-Fi, it’s Space Opera or Space Fantasy because it has little-to-no Science.
I’m glad Matheson lived to see his work adapted unlike Dick, Heinlen or Wells.
Mostly everyone’s favorite evil, crazy, lovesick henchman Harley Quinn stars on her own Converse Hi-Top Chuck. I’m not sure why Converse chose purple as a primary color when Harley’s costume uses red with black. The artwork is reminiscent of Alan Davis’s style.
Like the Joker’s shoes, these came with three sets of laces: black, purple (again red would’ve been better) and playing card suits.
Harley received her own logo on the tongue. Too bad Catwoman didn’t. I am very grateful Converse and DC chose to keep this villain’s original look derived from the Nineties cartoon. Sadly, DC comics went with her new video game makeover in Suicide Squad and other titles she appears in. Personally I hate it because I’m not a horny 14-year old who doesn’t know how to talk to females. I knew there would be a downside to the Nolan Brothers’ Batman flicks but I did get my shoes, I’ll call it a draw!
