The Dow Is Up!

The Wife and I had a very unusual night on Saturday. We had a “date.” I don’t know if you know what a “date” is. Apparently, it’s what people with lives do. They go outside the house. Then they go somewhere and do something. With nobody else. It’s quite a novel idea. I’m told that people without kids go on these “dates” quite often. At one point, I didn’t have a kid, yet I don’t remember these supposed “dates.” They must have been a LONG time ago.

Anyway, The Wife and I got a babysitter and decided to head over to Buffalo Wild Wings (nee BW3) for some dinner before hitting the movie theater to see Pirates of the Caribbean II. We figured that the movie had been out about a month and made a billion dollars. Thus, it met a few of our essential criteria. (A) In theory, it must be entertaining. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have made so much money. (B) It’s been out longer than 10 days, which means are AMC movie passes are actually valid. Yay! Free movie! (C) It’s been out long enough that the movie shouldn’t be too crowded. Well, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.

We walked into the theater right as the previews were starting. We couldn’t believe it. The movie was PACKED. The only seats remaining were in the first three rows or in the handicapped seats. I looked at The Wife and decided that we’d be fine in the handicapped seats. (In her tired-pregnant state, she can easily pass for mentally challenged any time after 7:00 p.m. And frankly, I’m no genius at any time of day.)

I’d never sat in the handicapped seats before. One nice thing is that there are no seats in front of you, so you get to spread your legs out. I can’t tell you how nice this is for someone as tall as me. When you’re 5’7”, you don’t comfortably fit into the “average” seats they have in movie theaters. So whenever you get a chance to grab a little extra legroom, you seize it.

The seats turned out to be cursed. (By pirates, of course.) Shortly after the movie began, these two kids behind us decided to start talking. They were about 7, I’m guessing. (That means they were anywhere from 3 to 18.) Now, it’s one thing to talk a little here and there. But this was incessant talking. And it was LOUD. These kids needed to learn what whispering is. And what made it REALLY annoying was that their guardians (who I think were their grandparents) said absolutely NOTHING about it. The Wife and I did, though. (Yeah, it made me feel REALLY old.) But the kids didn’t get the hint. They were completely oblivious, as many kids tend to be.

This went on for the first 30 minutes of the movie. Eventually an usher came in and told them to shut their yaps or they’d have to leave. Apparently, the woman in the handicapped seats next to us (which is about 30 feet from where we were sitting) had had enough and told the usher. I was quite appalled by this behavior. Not that she would have the cajones to tell the usher, but that it never occurred to me that I could do the same thing. And then what REALLY annoyed me was the realization that I’m such an old fart now that I would have told the usher and was sorry that I didn’t.

Oh yeah. The movie was good. It had an Empire Strikes Back type of ending where things really aren’t fully resolved. That’s always annoying. I give it 4 out of 5 stars. It might have gotten more if it weren’t for those two stupid kids. Let that be a lesson to Jerry Bruckheimer when he releases Part 3 next summer! (By the way, that has to be the longest Pirates review that said absolutely nothing about the actual movie.)

By the way, everything I said earlier about how great it is having a child is complete nonsense. That was before Luke insisted on driving my truck every time we go out. I know what you’re thinking. It’s a bit irresponsible (even for me) to let Luke drive my truck. (Believe it or not, some woman actually let her DOG drive her car. Shockingly, it got into an accident.)

For some reason, Luke thinks it’s incredibly fun to “drive.” So he sits behind the wheel and tries to turn it side to side. He’ll even touch the gear shift (in The Wife’s car). He thinks it’s the best thing since, um, his choo-choos.

Luke and I have a routine in the morning. We go outside (he walks out himself). He runs to my truck screaming “TRUCK!” Then he’ll run over to the passenger side so I can put him in his seat. Well, now he’s breaking the routine. He’s now climbing into the front seat, hopping over my center consol and “driving.” (Note, my truck is NOT easy to get into. The floor of the truck comes up to Luke’s armpits. Yet, somehow he manages to get all 30 pounds of himself up there. The WIFE can’t always get herself into the truck, but Luke can. He’s what you might call “determined.”)

Both last night and this morning, Luke put a major hissy-fit when I took him out of the driver’s seat and put him in the child seat. The only thing I can compare it to is when Moxy managed to jump into our attic when I was working on the wiring in our master bathroom. He was not happy when I tried to get him back down. So trying to fit a 20-pound cat through a 2-foot by 2-foot square when he does NOT want to go through it is something like trying to get Luke into his car seat when he wants to drive the car.

Last night, I got many a funny look from the people in the Sam’s parking lot. I’m sure most of the looks were pitiful ones. But I also noticed that nobody told me what a great dad I was. Probably because I was about 2 millimeters away from twisting Luke’s arm right out of the socket. Or rather, HE was 2 millimeters away. And this morning, Luke almost made me late for the train because (a) he refused to get into his seat, then (b) he refused to enter the room at daycare, and then (c) he refused to let me leave once he got into the room.

So to all you parents out there who have kids that get into cars without any major fuss or muss, just wait. Now excuse me while I go punch myself in the face.

According to this article on Yahoo, Jessica Simpson has been ordered on vocal rest. Can I get an "amen"? All of a sudden, the world just seems a little bit smarter....

Awhile ago, I got Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. I finally gave it a good listen today. I can’t believe what a great album it is. I have to admit that I was quite skeptical about it. Bruce is known for rocking the house and this album an acoustic album. That just makes me think of Bob Dylan, who always makes me go “ick.” So I really hadn’t given the album a good listen because I figured it would suck. Well, I was completely mistaken. It’s a GREAT album, quickly jumping into my Top 50. (That’s quite a feat, given how many albums I have right now.)

I’d heard a few songs off Nebraska before and I really liked them. So I don’t know why I hesitated so much to listen to the full album. Maybe it’s because the songs that I’d heard came off Bruce fantastic Live 1975-1985 album. And with those songs, it was more about immersing yourself in the whole Springsteen concert experience. I didn’t realize how great those songs would be in a completely different context.

Nebraska is pretty much Bruce, his guitar and his harmonica. Like I said, I’m not into that bare-bones approach very often. But the sparseness of the music really made the lyrics stand out. I usually couldn’t give a rat’s ass about lyrics. (That might explain why I like the Pixies so much. Their lyrics are frequently unintelligible, and when you can understand what they are, they don’t make any sense anyway.) But today I played the album while I was trying to figure out a spreadsheet and I just really got into the songs, which are incredibly depressing. I guess that seemed really fitting since the spreadsheet I was working on was a complete mess and I just wanted to shoot myself in the head.

What I like about the songs is that they reminded me of Johnny Cash songs. They’re depressing. They’re about criminals. But most of all, they’re just really good stories. A lot of people find it weird that I like Johnny Cash, especially when you consider how much I hate country music. But Johnny Cash had a way of telling a story about a criminal or a jerk that made you empathize with him. And like any great story-teller, what made Johnny Cash great wasn’t the story so much as how the story was told.

On Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen managed to become the same type of story-teller. By keeping the music simple, you focus on the story. And Bruce’s gravelly voice perfectly conveyed the desperateness of the stories’ characters. And for a little while, you feel yourself transferred from your bleak cube and your stupid spreadsheets to Nebraska. Where hopefully, just hopefully, one of those criminals will shoot you in the head.

I’ve got a new addiction, which is just what I need. I’ve started listening to old Phil Hendrie shows that I downloaded. You’re probably asking who the hell Phil Hendrie is. I can’t blame you. He’s had quite possibly the best radio show on the face of the earth. And this is coming from a huge Howard Stern fan. (Phil Hendrie retired from radio last year, so sadly he has no new shows. But fortunately, the internet is awash in dorks like me who gladly taped and then posted his shows online.)

What makes Phil Hendrie so funny? Quite simply, he has the best guests. Just today I was listening to a show where the guest was this father whose daughter convinced him to adopt a weiner dog. Well, when he picked up the weiner dog, it peed on his shirt. So, the dad is suing his daughter for $200 for a new shirt. He’s also trying to sue the dog. Oh, and he’s trying to have the dog evicted from its dog house, but according to him, California law stipulates that he has to give 30 days notice before evicting.

Sure enough, the listeners call in and get on the dad’s case. They call him an idiot and a jerk. He only goes on to say more moronic things. And that just makes the callers try harder to convince him that he’s an idiot. And so it goes for 30 minutes or so.

Now, that alone would be funny. But what makes it hilarious is that the “dad” is really Phil Hendrie. He uses a fake voice and a fake “phone” sound effect so it sounds like he’s calling in. And Hendrie purposely has the “dad” say outrageous things to egg on the audience. (It’s doubly funny to hear Hendrie tell the “dad” that he’s being inappropriate.)

I lost it at my desk yesterday as I was hearing Phil talk to his friend, who donated a few of his courtside Lakers tickets to Phil so he could use them to take some underpriviledged kids to the game. Well, once the friend found out that the kids were deaf, he reneged the offer and said they couldn’t go to the game. The friend is a successful restauranteur and he didn’t want the kids to be associated with him because then people would stop eating at his restaurant for fear that they too would go deaf.

And so the calls came pouring in. One old lady called to chastise him and then you hear “whump” and she says, “I’ve crashed!” And no, this wasn’t Phil faking another voice. The old lady was so upset that she managed to crash her car.

Anyway, I’m going to look into how to post some of these clips up here so you too can join in the joy that is Phil Hendrie. And I have a feeling that I’ll be posting some of his ridiculous calls here because they’re just too damn funny to keep to myself.

Last night, I had my fantasy football draft with all my homies from UIC. Yeah, that’s right, my “homies.” I’m all urban now. Maybe they just rubbed off on me last night. You see, they’re all (for lack of a better term) urban. By that, of course, I mean that they live in the city.

I won’t bore you with the details of my draft. If you ask me, there are three things that people should never talk about: poker hands they’ve played, rounds of golf they’ve played, and anything related to fantasy football. That made our draft a little difficult last night because I insisted that nobody could say a word about who they were drafting. We ended up using semaphore to signal in our picks. Unfortunately, nobody knew how to either give or receive the signals. So nobody knows who picked whom. I like it that way. I don’t see how I can possibly lose this season.

This was the first time I’ve seen my UIC Homies in months, so it was nice to catch up with them. One of them had a kid about 5 months ago. So we were exchanging child-raising stories, much to the chagrin of the other Homies. All I could think of was “just wait.”

Do you know about “just wait”? Perhaps you’re a Just-Waiter. A Just-Waiter is someone who has the uncontrollable urge to respond with a “just wait” story after someone tells them a story about their child. For example, if I told a story about how Luke just started sitting up, a Just-Waiter would tell me, “Just wait until he starts crawling. He’ll be all over the place!” And if he starts crawling, a Just-Waiter tells me, “Just wait until he starts walking. You won’t be able to sit still again until the day you die.”

You see, when I was talking to Brian last night about his son, I kept thinking “just wait.” Only, instead of thinking of all the horrible things that go along with having kids, all I could think about were the fun things. For example, Brian was telling a story about taking his son to CostCo and how much he enjoyed it (as an amorphous blob). I just wanted to tell him, “Just wait until he’s old enough to help you load your car up with groceries.”

Maybe I’m just an optimist or maybe I just really enjoy having kids. (Or in truth, it might have something to do with how easy Luke has been to raise thus far.) But having Luke in my life has been nothing but positive. And when people tell me stories about their kids, all I can think about is the fun things that Luke does. And it’s sad to say, but I actually look forward to other people encountering those things with their own children. It’s like having a talking dog. It’s just wicked cool. (As long as he doesn’t turn out to be one of those talking dogs like they have in cartoons that talks in front of you, but then as soon as you’re around someone else, he won’t talk at all. And then you get him alone again and he won’t shut up. That kind of talking dogs sucks.)

Anyway, if you know a Just-Waiter, do yourself (and the rest of humanity, really) a favor and punch that person right in the nose the next time you see them. And if that Just-Waiter happens to be none other than you, feel free to punch yourself. (If you think it’d be weird punching yourself in the nose, just let me know. I’d be happy to help you out.)