Bounty Hunting

My wife likes romantic movies and BBC productions, so I was shocked when she put Dog The Bounty Hunter in our Netflix queue. We have been watching old episodes at night before going to bed since 22 minutes is the perfect length for TV viewing before falling asleep for old people like us.

After watching this series, I've had my eyes opened up to a new career opportunity. I am also a flamboyant, outgoing, tough guy, who loves confrontation and chasing criminals down...NOT! I'll admit I am not bounty hunter material but I do have some questions about this profession.

First of all, how do you sneak up on criminals while being accompanied by an entire film crew carrying lights, cameras and a boom microphone while dressed like Uncle Sam at a parade? I always thought keeping a low profile might help you in this profession, but apparently that's not a concern for Dog and his crew.

At first when I heard Dog give pep talks to his staff, impart his wisdom to viewers, and counsel criminals, I thought he was kind of full of it, but with time, I have actually grown to like his personality.

As cool as Dog may be, I still think he has to play second fiddle to the greatest bounty hunter of all time.

Gravity Anxiety

I am not a scientist, but I sometimes speculate about what might happen if the laws of nature were to change. I've seen disaster movies that feature the sun cooking the earth or meteors crashing into the ocean and causing tidal waves, but I can think of a much scarier situation. I am talking about messing with gravity. I have thought of a couple scenarios that concern me.

The first one is gravity getting turned off. This would not be as fun as people think it would be. You would just kind of float around and stuff would be all over the place. On the positive side, you could probably still air swim or burp like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to navigate around. The next scenario is much more dangerous.

Gravity reversal. Can you imagine how bad it would be if gravity reversed and sucked everything that wasn't bolted down up into the sky? This would be like when you let go of a helium balloon outside. Animals, peoples, cars, dumpsters, boulders, and many homes would free fall upward into the sky. When gravity finally got reversed again, the earth's surface would be slammed with falling debris. People who were lucky enough to be inside would suffer broken necks or would be crushed by their water beds.

Yes, I really think about this stuff. I doubt this scenario will ever take place but I still worry about it enough to not jog in the dessert or in wide open spaces without telephone poles or trees near by.

Why I Don't Like Twitter

I don't like Twitter. I will be the first to admit that this is because I still don't understand it. Writing this post makes me feel kind of like I did when I took a test in high school on the book "How Green Was My Valley" after reading only the first few pages. My teacher later made some comments on my test correcting the gender and pronouns I had used in my answers. That was embarrassing, but they had weird names in that book. How was I supposed to know which ones were men women without reading it?

It is in that same spirit of ignorance that I share my feelings about Twitter with you. I know it has been around for years now, but I hate change. I have had many people tell me how important Twitter is and that I should be on it, but I dislike it for the following reasons.

1. It's just too trendy. I'm afraid I'd not hip enough for it yet.
2. You are limited to140 characters, although I admit this could be a good thing at times.
3. Your mini posts are called "Tweets". I will never say or type that word again. I'm an adult...sort of.
4. People only seem to care about your Twitter input if you are a celebrity.
5. I already feel awkward trying to get people to follow my blogs, so trying to get Twitter followers would only make me feel even more desperate and insecure.
6. I still really don't what it is or how it works. Do you have to do Twitter updates from a smart phone or can you use a computer? Is it like mobile blogging?

Besides the six reasons listed above, I just have too many other pressing concerns to deal with before I can worry about Twitter. I'm still trying to figure out what the Internet is. Seriously, I have never seen a picture of it and don't understand how it works, but since it provides me with Youtube videos and blogging, I will not bad mouth it.

What's Your Favorite Comedy?

I was recently talking to some friends about what movies we thought were the funniest. This made me want to do some research to find out what movies really make people laugh. (Yes, my definition of research is posing a question on my blog)

Feel free to contribute by naming two or three of your favorite comedies in the comments section. Below I have listed some movies that have really made me laugh over the years.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Young Frankenstein
The Other Guys
Dr. Strangelove
This is Spinal Tap
Mystery Men
Take the Money and Run
Dumb and Dumber
Ground Hog Day

What movies do you think are the funniest? I'd really like to know.

Picture of the Month- July 2011

I try not to complain about how hot it is when I'm in the presence of friends from Vegas, Arizona, or Texas, but my air conditioning is broken and I feel kind of like this picture.

The Shoe Shine

I like it whenever I have shiny polished shoes, but I have a problem with letting others shine them for me. I think it is degrading to make another human being shine your shoes, even if you are paying them for the service.

You will never see me in an airport casually reading a newspaper or thinking about my giant stacks of money as a poor soul feverishly cleans and polishes my footwear.

I don't shine my shoes very often, but when I do, I enjoy the smell of the black Kiwi shoe polish and how a pair of recently polished shoes makes me feel. Speaking of Kiwi, I recently came across this add of theirs below.

Does this insinuate if you rub your shoes like a lamp, a miniature genie dressed in a nightgown will appear?

Maybe this is supposed to be a subliminal message that women really get turned on by a pair of shiny shoes? I think someone in the marketing department needs to look up the definition of subliminal before they do their next ad.

At any rate, now that I understand how important it is, I will be shining my shoes every day!

Battle of the Network Stars

One of my favorite shows when I was a kid was The Battle of The Network Stars. It was the most exciting event on TV and featured stars from the 3 major networks. Yes, back then there were really only three channels to watch. It aired from 1976 to 1985 and it was a pioneer for reality TV shows.

How could you not like athletic events featuring your favorite TV stars? It's one thing to watch the Olympics, but it's even cooler to see those same events performed by the cast of Happy Days, Welcome Back Kotter, Different Strokes, Charlies Angels, Laverne and Shirley, Chips, Wonder Woman, Little House on the Prairie, WKRP in Cincinnati, Family Ties, and MASH.



What really added validity to the games was the fact that Howard Cosell hosted the event. You have to laugh when you hear Cosell's serious and dramatic narration of the events as he makes people like Ed Asner, Melissa Gilbert, and Billy Crystal seem like elite Olympic athletes. As much as I enjoyed this program, I don't know that I'd like to see it with today's stars. I'd hate to see the cast of Jersey Shore pollute this beautiful event. There was something more innocent and wholesome about the 70's and 80's. It was probably the short shorts.

Here is one of my favorite SCTV skits where they spoofed the event by featuring The Battle of the PBS Stars. The quality is poor, but it is worth watching.

Ice: Playing with Fire

In honor of the hot 4th of July weather we are having, I thought I'd address the topic of ice. I know it's not a very patriotic subject, but at least it's relevant to this time of year and it's something that needs to be addressed.

I don't drink soda often, but I hate it when I eat out and order a drink and after taking three sips from the straw I'm stuck with a cup full of crushed ice. If I had serious burns or a sprain, I'd opt for the container of ice, but since I buy drinks for the thirst factor, I now go iceless in order to keep from getting the screwgee.

I wish there was a scale for ice in drinks kind of like there is for how many lumps of sugar people take in their coffee. I'm pretty sure I'd be a two cube guy max. I like crushed ice more, but it is harder to measure it and more dangerous to deal with.

Because we've had little kids in or home for so long, we ended up disconnecting our water and ice dispenser after several bad water mess experiences. As a result, we never have ice with drinks during meals. When someone gets a "bonk" or "owee" that requires ice, (yes, those are official medical terms) we usually resort to a frozen bag of vegetables or some other frozen food to cool the injury.

I do like ice, but if you are not specific when ordering a drink it can be like playing Russian roulette (without the possibility of death). I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority, but at least I'm not alone. While researching this subject, I found a Facebook page called "I ordered Coke, not Ice".

Some people are ice dependent and can't enjoy a beverage without filling their glass with ice first. If you are one of those people who love the 80:20 ice to beverage ratio, then I am happy for you because most of the fast food places I've been to are catering to your needs. Have a Happy 4th!