One Boring Week!

Well, as you can tell by the title, not too much has happened in the last week. I am in the middle of some tests so I have been keeping busy with studying. Andrea worked last Saturday and I awaited the arrival of our new armoire. It looks great by the way! Miso went in to be spayed on Monday, so she is on the mend now. That's about it for me.

Star Wars

Just because I'm boring doesn't mean that the blog has to be! Enjoy.

The Mayor of the Sunset Strip

Movie Reviews

The Mayor of the Sunset Strip
Rating: 4/5

Would you rather be extremely rich, or extremely famous? I'm sure we have all been posed with this question at one time or another. The documentary "The Mayor of the Sunset Strip" is a bout a man who has chosen the latter.

Meet Rodney Bingenheimer. Who? Don't feel bad, I didn't know who this guy was either. Rodney is the man behind the scenes. He has brought almost every modern rock icon to the mainstream. In his words "I am the designated driver between the famous, and the not so famous." This man introduced America to David Bowie, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, Blondie, Oasis, Coldplay, and Nirvana to name just a few. He is personally credited for creating the LA scene in the 60's and 70's. He had befriended the likes of The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Beachboys, Sonny and Cher, and The Doors when he was just a teenager.

The Mayor of the Sunset Strip attempts to tell the story of the now older man who has been through every bit of the dirty rock n' roll world and has come out of it with his innocence still in tact. From living on the streets, to starting a club, to becoming a writer, to being the biggest DJ in K-ROQ history, Rodney has done it all.

The film spends a lot of time showing the seedy underworld of modern music and some of the unsavoury characters that lie within. Plenty of time was spent with Rodeny's "friend" and record producer Kim Fowley to illustrate this point. It is my personal opinion that this man deserves to be in jail. It frightens me that people like this exist!

We also see the people who genuinly seem to be appreciative of what Rodney has done for them and appear to be his friends. This is a very small circle however. Even some of these people come off as using Rodney for their own personal gain.

At the end of the day, we see this person who is surrounded by so many glamorous people go home alone to a crappy appartment. The only thing Rodey really has to show for his life is the impressive memorbilia that he has collected and hung on his walls.

Although the fim has been shot and edited in a way to portray this man in whatever the director's vision may have been, I feel that it is landing pretty close to the mark. Rodney Bingenheimer's sensitive and loving personality had shone through any filmmaking tricks that are being done, and I really got a sense of who this man is and was. This is a man who did not dedicate his life to a career for money, but instead for love. This move is a good counterpoint to the axiom "Find a job that you love and you will be happy."

We are left with the King of K-ROQ being bumped to the worst time slot on radio (sunday nights 12am to 3am), then being rejected by the woman he loves, and visiting his father who has hung pictures in house of everbody but his own son.

Truly a sad look at a man who deserved so much more.

She's Got Your Eyes

Hello all. Not too much to report this week. I had my good friend JW over last Saturday, and had a blast. Nursed a hangover on Sunday, and most of Monday. I find that nothing humbles you more than a really bad hangover. And was this one ever bad! Other than that, it was pretty much business as usual around here. Enough about me though, I have some rants and grievances to get off my chest.


Chain E-Mails
I know this is something that we can all relate with, and before I go on about this I want to say that I don't think they are all bad. In fact I enjoy quite a few of the funnier ones. It is the e-mails that are just selling superiority, or pretend to be quoting some celebrity (usually a comedian) that really grind my gears! So every time I receive a bad chain e-mail I am going to post it here along with my opinions on what is being said. Here is this week's chain e-mail (my comments are in italic):

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.
I'm not too sure what the author is trying to say here. Do they think women should still drink and smoke during pregnancy, or are they bragging that their mother did? Either way it's stupid!

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.
As far as I know people still take aspirin, eat blue cheese dressing, and tuna from a can. Sure some of the people have health issues that may prevent it, but all of these products are still around for a reason. I also believe that people got tested for diabetes, it's just more widespread now. Probably from poor diet and not enough exercise, but that's a problem that we all have to deal with ourselves.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
Wow! Is the author complaining that people are trying to avoid SIDs! Also, lead-based paint is a known hazard and I don't think parents of past generations would have used it if they had known the potential health problems is could cause.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
Personally, I think childproof medicine bottles, doors, and cabinets are good ideas. I also think that wearing a helmet while bike riding is just good sense. And implying that hitchhiking is safe is just insanity!

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.
And when people got into car accidents their children were either badly injured or killed. Thrown around like projectiles until they smashed through the window and landed in the way of oncoming traffic! Why on earth would anybody not want these added safety features after thinking about what could happen without them?

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
Even though I did this as a kid myself, it's probably not a good idea to continue this practice!

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
We can still drink from the garden hose! All you need to do is buy a garden hose and attach it to a tap. Water bottles are more convenient though!

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
Did anyone actually think that they would die from sharing a pop with a friend?

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank kool-aid made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because. WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!
I still eat cupcakes sometimes! There is nothing wrong with the foods mentioned here, just as longs as they are in moderation. Maybe that's the problem with most people these day (not just kids). A LACK OF SELF CONTROL! Limit yourself to only one cupcake instead of 5 or 6, and everything will be fine. I am going to field the playing outside point in the next part.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on.
Well thre is more of a fear that some person will try to attack or harm our children in some way if we let them out of our sight for too long. There is also a problem with the attitudes in neighborhoods these days. Most cities and towns have passed by-laws banning things like road hockey (and I live in Canada!), and parents are too afraid to let the kids go to the park, or pond, or field by themselves, and are either too busy or lazy to take them themselves. Also kids are being scheduled to death these days. What with things like gym-boree, and play-dates, and the like. I can drone on about this (yes, even longer than I already have), but I feel that I have made my point.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
Actually, I agree with this one! Although I do understand that a cell phone is good for safety reasons.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
I never in my life have built a go-cart, but I am confident in thinking that I would solve the brakes problem after running into the bushes only once!

We did not have Play stations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms...... WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
But it was the people of these generations that invented these great toys! Why now are they complaining?

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
How the hell do you sue a tree?! We have become a more litigious society though, and the people of these generations are 100% at fault for it! We are the governments and lawyers. Sad but true.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
Just for the record, I never willingly ate worms or mud, although we all still have there freedom to do so if we want to.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.
This point is probably hard to sell to someone who lost an eye in a BB gun mishap. Perhaps the world would be a better place today if the parents of yesteryear didn't give us guns to play with like toys.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!
I'm pretty sure people still do this.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
Rep teams still have tryouts. Those who don't make the team can play in house league. I believe that everybody has a right to play organized sports regardless of their skill-set.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
I don't think the people in our jails would be a good influence on our children. Best to keep them out if you can. Still though discipline will be needed. Parents, THIS IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY, not the justice systems.

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
There were also great risk-takers, problem solvers, and inventors before these generations. Just look at Thomas Edison!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
Inventions like video games, surround sound, DVD's, CD's, Mp3s , and all the others ones that the author complained about!

If YOU are one of them . . CONGRATULATIONS! (like being born during a specific period is something to be proud of!)
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good
We did vote them in.

And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave (and lucky) their parents were.
But mostly stupid form the sounds of it.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?
Nope, my parents told me that was dangerous.


Conclusion
E-mails like that one are just trying to make you feel superior. How can we say which way is better if we didn't experience both ways of growing up? Perhaps is is more accurate to say that we grew up in different times, with different activities. And most importantly, we enjoyed it! Perhaps judging today's children for the way they are growing up is wrong. Perhaps we should be looking at the people who are raising the children in an environment that produced these results and notice that they come from the 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's, and 70's. Perhaps these generations made better children than parents. Or maybe, everything is fine. Just different.

Remember Bowzer?!

Looking back at it now, I must say that I am a little embarrassed that Bowzer was my favorite member of Sha-Na-Na. Actually, I am also embarrassed that I had a favorite member. I'm not too sure what image he is trying to get with this pose. Whatever it is, it isn't working.

u2

Last night I heard the new U2 song for the first time. Not the one they did with Green Day, but the one on the upcoming Best of disc "U2 18". I think the song is called "Window In The Skies" and I have a couple of comments on it.

First of all, does U2 really need another best of album? They just released two in the late 90's early 00's. Secondly, can they please reinvent themselves again?! Their post 90's sound is boring and middle of the road. Does anybody remember when these guys were edgy? Every few years they really challenged themselves and recreated their sound. Sure, not everybody liked the changes, but they were never accused of being boring. These last few albums have been mediocre at best. Maybe U2 18 is their way of closing this chapter in their careers. Hopefully the new album will be different.

2 Easiest Jobs in Music

1. Adam Clayton - as the bass player for U2 this guy seems to be putting forth as little effort as possible.

2. Will Champion - playing drums for Coldplay looks like it's easier than sleeping. Just watch a live show and you'll see what I mean.

Pic of the Day

This is a picture of the inside of a wine bottle. I just thought it looked cool.

Video (yip, yip)

Remember these guys!



Anyway, that's all I have. Enjoy the rest of your time online, and play safe.

Sesame Street (not for mixed company!)

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So I have now learned how to post videos. This blog is about to become very interesting! I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did.

Halloween!

Here are a couple of reasons why I don't dress up for Halloween anymore! I swear to you that it seemed like a good idea at the time. A friend (who I will not name for obvious reasons) and I wanted to surprise our wives by showing up to the bar wearing the same costumes as them. The bad idea was arriving at the bar so early that we (my friend and I) were the only ones dressed up. Especially since we were meeting at a sports bar, packed with manly jock types watching the Leaf's game! We quietly found the darkest corner in the place and hid until we saw more people wearing costumes.

The Blair Witch

While on the subject of Halloween, I would like to say a few words about the Blair Witch. I think we could learn a lot from the Blair Witch. You see here is a person who has set a goal, made the appropriate plans to achieve their goal, and then had the determination to follow through. The witch had to first find the people in the woods, then stay up all night scaring the crap out of them, and then stay up all day following and confusing the filmmakers. She didn't let them out of her sight even once. She took total control of the situation and didn't give up until all of her goals were met. I only wish I could have the same kind of commitment to all of my goals. I have the same kind of admiration for Nicholas Cage's character in Leaving Las Vegas. But that's for another time.

Speaking of Las Vegas...

Today is the anniversary of me and AP renewing our wedding vows at The Little White Wedding chapel in Vegas. That's right, Frank Sinatra, Joan Collins, Michael Jordan, Britney Spears, and me and AP. We have all been married in the same chapel! Happy Anniversary baby!



Well I suppose that is all I have for today. Hope everybody had a safe Halloween.


Sit Ubu sit. Good dog.

Shawn