Just watched Flash Gordon a bit ago. I haven’t seen it in many, many years, and have no wish to seet it for another many, many years. The movie is just so damn hokie with the special effects and the writing and the acting. The only saving grace is that everyone didn’t seem to take themselves *too* seriously in the movie, so it all had a very tongue-in-cheek feeling to it.

What was pretty sweet about the movie was the soundtrack and score as performed by Queen. It’s pretty badass — in a silly sort of way — when the movie opens into the credits and the bassline is whumping, and then Freddie Mercury starts singing Flash! over and over.

Okay, so that’s not badass in the least, but it still made for an entertaining accompaniment to the movie.

Oh! I have to go watch The Daily Show’s coverage of the Bush/Kerry debate now!

Ciao!
JAB

UPDATE: After watching George W. Bush respond to some of the questions posed to him, bungle out responses to those questions, and then follow up with really long silences, I think his new nickname should be Chimpy McBlinks-a-lot.

Apparently this is making the email rounds (via Tom Tomorrow):

“A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE REPUBLICAN”

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer’s medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance – now Joe gets it too.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn’t think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that his in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax-payer funded roads.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans.

The house didn’t have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn’t mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: “We don’t need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I’m a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.”

[sarcasm on]
Man, by posting shit like this, liberals just reinforce the fact that they hate America to the rest of us smart people who love freedom and wish all liberals would contract Ebola.
[/sarcasm off]

JAB

The problem with remembering phone numbers — for me at least — is that I sometimes mix similar ones up in my head. Take tonight, for example: I was calling Bill so we could go over our MIS homework, and instead of dialing his number, I dialed another number almost exactly the same. Except instead of “8″ I pressed “7″ and didn’t realize it. Unaware of my error, I let the phone ring until a woman answered.

“Hi, is Bill there?” I asked.

“Umm…no. I’m afraid you have the wrong number.”

I frowned. I could’ve sworn I’d dialed the number right. This woman’s voice did seem familiar though…and then I realized exactly whom I’d dialed.

“Oh, sorry,” I quickly said, and then hung up.

The number I’d dialed was my ex, Erin Walker’s number, and her mother was the person I spoke with. Thankfully, Erin and I haven’t gone out for several years, so there’s no way her mom would still recognize my voice. Still, it was very eerie for me because there was a time when I’d call that number almost every night and her mom would pick up. I’m just glad Erin didn’t answer or anything. That wouldn’t have been awkward in the least.

So…damn it, Bill, you need to change your fucking phone number, so I don’t make any more silly blunders like this again.

JAB

I’m sitting at Barnes and Noble currently, waiting for my committee member to arrive. It has occurred to me that I have no idea what this person looks like, except that she is my age and a woman. Fortunately, Barnes and Noble isn’t very crowded right now. At 1:05 or so, I’ll start randomly asking the girls here if their name is Melissa.

The band competition went okay last night. The weather was just perfectly cool enough to be comfortable, and I only had to see seven bands or so which, for the most part, were interesting. Northmont’s show, “The Mission,” consists of selections from Mission: Impossible and The Matrix Revolutions. The latter surprises me, because I wasn’t aware that Revolutions boasted a score, let alone a good score. The band performed it well, too, so that was actually enjoyable. Certainly the most enjoyable band show Northmont has ever had that I know of.

There was another good band following Northmont, doing some show which I am unaware the name of or what the music was. It was very good, though — good enough to win the contest. One of the last bands I saw — which possesses the chuckle-worthy name “Licking High School” — did awful selections from the movie Moulin Rouge. So bad, in fact, it wasn’t until the latter half of their show that I actually realized what it was.

So all in all, it was a pretty enjoyable night. And now, it’s 12:59. In a few minutes, I’m gonna start asking for names. Here’s hoping this meeting doesn’t blow up in my face or anything like that.

UPDATE: The time is now 1:16, and the first ever Dayton Ohio Habitat for Humanity Donate a Phone Committee Meeting is officially over. Heh — if I really cared enough to keep the minutes of the meeting, at least it would be really easy.

I found Melissa relatively easy as she was the only girl my age in the cafe area. She seems to be really nice and interested in helping. Incidentally, she works at Fox’s and Hound’s, a bar where I’ve seen a band play before. I recalled that they had very good seasoned fries, which Melissa confirmed.

The meeting itself, though quite short, went well. I didn’t feel like an idiot talking to a pretty girl, and she has agreed to help find homes for Donate a Phone boxes. Melissa didn’t get off work ’til 4 am, and we pretty much covered all we needed too, so I felt no real need to drag it on. I was half hoping one of the other Members Potential might show up, but no such luck.

This does remind me: if anyone who reads this paltry site — and lives in the Dayton area — knows of a business or store that would be willing to host a little box and collect phones for a Good Cause, please contact me and I’ll be glad to hook you up.

JAB

I’m taking a brief break from the myriad of school work I have to do…I should have stopped earlier since my head has been pounding for the better part of five hours, but I’ve been on a roll and reluctant to stop.

This is turning into a very busy couple of days. Adam was in town last night, so Jason, Bill, and myself hung out with him. Today I had a group meeting for one of my classes, which went oh so well (note sarcasm). Tomorrow I work and then go to some place called “Grove City” to see my sister and the marching band perform. At least the weather has been nice, so that won’t be too bad. And since Northmont is one of the last bands to perform, I don’t even have to see that many other bands perform, ’cause every knows how much I love to watch bands perform.

Sunday I have my first Donate a Phone committee meeting at the Barnes and Noble in Beavercreek. If you’re going to be in the area, feel free to stop by and point and laugh at me. It’s really a committee meeting in the loosest sense of the word, because it’s only going to be me and one other person, as the other two members can’t make it. Well, maybe Anna will show, but I don’t even know if she remembers it’s happening. At the very least, it should be a short meeting.

Jason has been writing a lot this past week, and I’m horribly jealous. I had been making pretty good progress on my short story, “Perpetual Motion,” but I’m getting slammed on school work this week and weekend, so it’s gonna be put on the backburner for the foreseeable future, as will anything else fun in my life.

Okay, it’s time to take a break from the computer…not only does my head hurt, but now my eyes are joining in on the fun too.

JAB

So what can I say about school this quarter that I haven’t said before? Well, for starters, it’s my last. Quarter. Ever.

That is, unless I decide to do something really stupid in the future, like going back to get my Master’s. I’m praying that Future Josh will have the presence of mind to never, ever do such a thing. I dunno, though; Speaking as a former Past Josh, I can say with some certainty that Future Josh has done some ri-goddamn-diculous things in his day.

Really, though, school is pretty okay. I’m vaguely interested in some of my classes, even though one of them is all about the concepts behind operating systems, which is sorta like trying to understand Greek. ‘Cept I think I would have a much easier time trying to comprehend Greek than some of the byzantine notions governing operating systems.

I don’t even mind the four papers I have to write. Admittedly, this isn’t so bad when one considers that two of the four are team papers. Still, the workload I have ahead of me would have floored me even two years ago, yet now I’m not fazed at all.

Perhaps it’s because I know this is my last quarter, and that soothing reminder, always not far away in the back of my head, helps me retain my sanity and calmness this quarter. Or maybe I’ve just snapped and don’t know it yet, and only will know it when I start murdering my family and friends while they sleep. Or perhaps not.

One semi-humorous anecdote before I depart: On Monday night, the professor of my public policy class, a short, dumpy man, probably in his fifties, who speaks very precisely and fussily, was explaining to us that our class is included in the “Writing Across the Curriculum” category, and as such entails a lot of writing. As he was talking about it, he shortened “Writing Across the Curriculum” to “WAC,” and pronounced it as such.

Keeping this in mind, I had a terrible time of keeping a straight face and not busting out laughing as he said, “So since this is a wack class, a great deal of writing will be involved. As per the wack guidelines, I will be grading this heavily on structure…”

JAB

…At least for the most part. For the first time in several years, I get to actually take advantage of Labor Day and don’t have to work. Usually, since I go to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I work Mondays. Lamentably, Wal-Mart doesn’t believe in shutting down for Labor Day, so I generally find myself working on it. But since I have school on Mondays this, my final quarter at WSU, and thus no work, I get today off.

But I do have to labor today, unfortunately. In between seeing The Bourne Supremacy and finishing a book, and probably before I watch some TV, I have to mow the lawn. How cheap and unfair is that? This is Labor Day, for Christ’s sake! I’m not supposed to have to do anything. I swear, I think the whole world is out to get me sometimes.

JAB

P.S. – Just in case there’s anyone really obtuse out there, that whole part where I complained about mowing the lawn was entirely tongue in cheek.