As lame as it sounds, Chris and I watch Chopped on Food Network Channel every Tuesday night as our “together time”. Why? Well, cause we’re old, fat and love food. Well actually, its because I’m a seriously picky eater and enjoy (for some strange reason) getting grossed out by the strange ingredients they are forced to put together to create a perfect dish. Chris on the other hand enjoys seeing the different ingredients and loves the “perfect dishes” they create while dreaming of a wife that would be just a little bit more creative in her : Meat, potato or rice, nuked vegetable dinner. We’ve talked about it for weeks and finally made the decision that Chris would find some “secret ingredients” for me and I would create new dishes. We don’t follow the exact rules of Chopped. He just gets 4 ingredients and I can combine them any way I can as long as they aren’t in their “original” capacity. Sounds fair enough. I don’t have to put licorice in my purple potatoes and cow tongue but I also can just serve him crackers and cheese. OH SAVE ME..

So, today was our first experiment. Chris went out Thursday to purchase the secret ingredients. He returns home with Cuban Crackers, Gnocchi, Bosch Pears and Limburger Cheese. My heart can’t handle these ingredients, my picky palate cringed at the thought of these items – bland, doughy, icky pears and stinky cheese..but.. I’m game so let the games begin. I have until Saturday to research recipes, purchase my necessities and create for Saturday night dinner.

We start off with Baked Chicken with Limburger Cheese. I took thin slices of chicken breasts, layered them with a little seasoning, a small chunk of Limburger cheese and minced onions. Rolled it like a jelly roll, then rolled it again with a slice of bacon. I browned it, created a cool little gravy and then put it in the oven to finish cooking…

My thoughts?? The freaking cheese is disgusting. It smelled like a dirty diaper before I cooked it (and I know all good chefs should taste before using but there was NO WAY IN HELL I was going to taste that cheese by itself). After it cooked it smelled like dried up spit and curdled milk – let me tell you it was hard to swallow that shit though the chicken was pretty tasty – but the stench killed me. Becca ate it so I’m assuming it had to be half way decent as she’s pickier than I am!

Gnocchi – I boiled the Gnocchi as it stated on the bag. I fried up some diced bacon and set aside – and then into the yummy bacon grease I saute’ed chopped onions and broccoli, then stirred in the Gnocchi and bacon pieces.

My thoughts?? My tongue did not like the Gnocchi – don’t know if I did something wrong or if it’s actually supposed to taste like dough – but can I say EWWW? But, with the onions and broccoli..and BACON, it really wasn’t that bad – though I think next time I’ll fry the suckers instead of boiling them.

And on to my pears and crackers. I hate pears!! But, in respect of the game, I went safe and made baked pears. Since I had no idea what the hell to do with those dry ass crackers, I crumbled them up, mixed them with oatmeal, brown sugar, cinnamon and butter and then placed that mixture on top of the pears and baked them. Unfortunately, the pears Chris purchased did not like to be baked. They turned brown but NEVER softened. UGH! Lesson #1 – if you don’t know the ingredient – RESEARCH THE DAMN THING!!

My thoughts?? I don’t know – I made Chris try it – and when I saw they didn’t cook all the way, I chickened out and refused to try it. I’m sure Chris will put his two cents in on this post and let us know his thoughts on tonights…umm, experience. Becca refused to eat them also!!

Becca’s hollering for PIZZA.. and that’s pretty bad since the girl is on a diet… But.. I have to say I kind of enjoyed the meal, I know I made mistakes and I definitely would NOT serve this meal to my friends or the rest of my family until I perfect it a little bit more (well, a lot  more) (and without the LIMBURGER!!) but it was fun and I’m looking forward to Chris searching out our next…. secret…ingredients…

So tell me Chris? Overall.. Taste? Presentation? Creativity?

I was working outside with a contractor on Monday.  We have to escort contractors any time they are on property.  When they took a break, they asked if it was alright if they smoked in the area we were in.  I said it would be fine and they took their break.  After a few minutes one of them asked, “I thought you smoked.”  I told them I wasn’t feeling very well so I wasn’t going to.  After this went round and round for a few minutes it turns out that none of them could believe that I wasn’t going to smoke today.  Any time I’ll be working outside for a while, I enjoy smelling my cigars and they had seen me smoke with them the last few times they were out here.  But this week I’ve been feeling under the weather and chose not to aggravate my body any further.  In fact, I haven’t smoked anything since New Years Eve.  These guys just could not believe that.

A similar thing happened to me a few years ago in Chicago.  When I was on the road I used to smoke clove cigarettes because they smelled good and they were much quicker than a cigar.  I’d take the contractors outside at 3am in the freezing cold and they had their cigarette breaks.  In those conditions, you don’t want a nice 30 minute cigar, a quick cigarette does the trick.  One time I was out of the cloves so I didn’t light up.  One guy offered me one of his regular cigarettes and was confused when I turned him down.  Almost to the point of being offended that I wouldn’t accept his offer.

Another guy I worked with in Miami was surprised to notice that I didn’t smoke on my travel days.  Teresa hates the smell so I wouldn’t smoke for two days before I went home.  I wasn’t hiding anything from her, she knew (but did NOT approve) of my little road habit I picked up.  This guy refused to believe that I didn’t smoke all weekend when I was home.  ”Yeah, but you sneak one out in the backyard or the garage right?”  No.  I just don’t smoke.  He then went on to make fun of me for the rest of the time we worked together.

These people are giving me shit for NOT smoking…  What the hell?  Guys, the bad decision is in lighting up at all.  I know it every time I flick that lighter…  When one of you gets the right idea and decides not to, you should be congratulating him, not dragging him back down into your stinky ashtrays.  I smoke like I drink; I’ll indulge, have fun and then I’ll ignore it for months at a time before going back at it.  For Teresa’s party in September we bought two cases of beer.  Everyone drank the margaritas and we still had one and a half cases of beer left over.  It’s been over four months and I still have one full case.  Half of what’s gone was offered up to guests, two were used in cooking shrimp and brats and Teresa drank one…

Maybe I just don’t have an addictive nature but seriously, I was beginning to smoke pretty regularly while I lived in Chicago.  I had a room on the smoking floor of the hotel, the window was open and I just sat there writing and smoking every day and all weekend long.  Every two weeks I’d crush out my last one on Wednesday night.  Friday morning I’d fly home and I wouldn’t smoke again until Monday afternoon after getting back to O’Hare and I’d pretty much smoke continuously until it was time to fly home again.  When I finally came off the road, the brand of cigarettes I was smoking were banned so I just quit.  It was just that easy for me.  Hell, I didn’t pick up a cigar for over a year and a half after that.  It’s just not addictive to me.  I know it is to most other people but why am I catching hell for this strange “superpower”?

I don’t get it.  It’s like they are afraid one of us is going to get away.  As if lung cancer is lurking out there like a zombie in a room full of people.  Like they think they can hide from it in a large crowd but as the crowd thins, their chances of getting hit go up?  I have no idea what these people are thinking but I have run into enough people that think like this that I’m starting to think it’s some kind of strange cult where they won’t let you quit the gang or something…

Working by the basement breakroom.  The news is always on the television, no one is watching.  The empty voices bounce off the cracked and peeling paint in a near whisper.

Suddenly, I hear a faint voice I recognize.  I wonder out loud, “Is that Neil deGrasse Tyson?”  A quick look around the corner confirms that it is indeed him.

The four men I am working with ask, “So who’s that?”  Before I think I answer, “Astrophysicist”.

Apparently, recognizing the voice of an astrophysicist from the next room is enough of a geek moment to put you out of the “cool circle” at work.

I’m okay with that…

Just when I think I’ve got things back under control, they go askew again.

Control is an illusion, I’ll never have things truly “under control” but I can usually at least gain a sense of “normal”.  I’ve been ill since Thursday.  I feel fine but I’ve got a horrible hacking cough and there is a complete drain of energy.  Along with that has come a complete lack of coherency in my brain.  I have done absolutely NO writing this weekend.  Saturday and Sunday mornings are usually my best times to write but I just couldn’t get my fingers moving.  I opened a page and I’d slam out three or four sentences and they sucked.

I couldn’t even pull off a cogent blog post.  Yesterday was my mother’s birthday and I’ve had this fog of an idea of writing something about mothers in my head.  What better time to post it than on Mom’s birthday right?  I sat there for an hour and couldn’t get three words to make sense together.  So I said, “screw it” and went back to bed.

I tried playing video games, I went to the store, I sat around the house…  Nothing made any sense to me.  I began to fear that something in my head slipped loose.  Today I’m still feeling loopy and I make no promises that what I write will make any sense but I’m posting anyway because it’s been several days since my last…

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Saturday we had to go out to what is left of Regency Square Mall.  I’ve let my conceal-carry permit expire (government job, unable to carry on property) so I was staying alert to everything around me.  It wasn’t as bad as I expected.  We were there about a year ago and I actually felt in danger but Saturday was pretty calm.  As we walked through the food court, I watched everyone.  After a few minutes I started to relax.  I calmed down on my hyper-alert for any immediate danger but I also relaxed some of my regular up-tightness.  I observed two examples of my own bias and bigotry.  Things that I try to capture, examine and minimize.  So I expose them here for you to ridicule me…

Most of you know that I have a pretty bad hang-up about everyone running out to get tattoos and piercings.  It was the cool-hip thing for a while and I despised it.  Most of you know I have dear friends, loved ones and others that have tattoos, some are fully sleeved, and I even have tattoos myself.  Most of you know I spent several years hanging out in a tattoo/piercing shop.  How do I live with this contradiction?  I just do.  I don’t try to explain it, I just accept my double-standard and move on with my life.

But when I saw all these twenty-year-olds with exposed tats and fully gauged ears, I didn’t give my “old man scowl” like I usually do.  This time I smiled.  I’ve been paying attention to all these “occupy” protests and how the numbers are stacking up about how difficult it is to find a job even with a college degree.  I looked over at my daughter, the one with normal looking ears, no tattoos on her exposed flesh and I smiled.  I know it’s my own bias but given two applicants, identical in skill but one has face-tats, I’m hiring the other one.  You can holler at me all you want about how the managers are getting younger and more accepting of “alternative people” but I still say that if you’re looking for a corporate job, or scientific grant or anything other than unskilled labor, the exposed tats are not helping.  Undoubtedly this is changing but in the immediate future, in the age that she’ll be looking for a job, she’ll probably be better off looking “traditional”.

This girl just had a conversation with me the other day about how she went to a party with ten friends.  Nine of them had dyed hair, multiple piercings, gauged ears…  She told me, “I wanted to be different and unusual but after looking at how they were ALL the same, I was the already the unusual one.”  That’s right kid, that’s right.  At 15, she’s already figured out what it took me until my late 20′s to learn.

If you haven’t seen the movie “SLC Punk” and you’re about my age, you should go check it out.  It’s a great slice of 80′s life but there is a scene in it where a girl asks the stereotypical punk-rocker why he’s dressed that way.  (Mohawk, suspenders, Doc Martens)  He says it’s a statement of rebellion, a way to stand out.  She tells him that he looks like everyone else, that he’s wearing a uniform.  Hit me like a thunderbolt.  The day I saw that movie was the day I stopped giving a shit about style and fashion.  And that was late in life, only about 15 years ago.  So all I can hope for is that she remembers just how much “normal” can shift in a few short years.

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So that was a cute story that didn’t make me look too bad.  A little bias against tattoos, a HUGE double-standard exposed.  but I still come off as a decent guy.  I hesitate to expose my next encounter because it exposes something in me that I hate to acknowledge.

We walked into one of the stores and the PA was playing some music.  The last song had ended and the next one was the opening bass riff from the Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer”.  We walked past some of the store patrons and one guy was bouncing to the beat and mimicking the bass line.  The reason I noticed and the reason I’m confused WHY I noticed was because he was black.

This wasn’t the first black guy I’ve seen that was into the Talking Heads.  But it is a bit unusual.  It just made me notice.  But then I thought, “Well, maybe some rapper sampled the Psycho Killer bass line and that’s where he knows it from.”  That’s the thought that made me cringe.  Somewhere in my head there is still a line between “black” and “white” music.  This line exists in a brain that listens to Ice-T, Run DMC, Public Enemy…  What would this guy think if I was singing along with “Straight Outta Compton”?  Truth is, I’d get my ass kicked.

There is still a line between white/black music and it’s mostly balanced on the infamous word “Nigga”.  Spell it any way you like, when I come to a stop light and I’m singing along with Easy-E, I stop singing.  So it’s just fine to have this man bopping along with Psycho Killer and I still listen to some of the early raps.  But I think either side is within their rights to notice…

Ahhh, and we’re back.  I’ve been working odd shifts again and sleep is elusive.  It’s normally during these little hell-weeks that I’m off-line and away from the keyboard.  I enjoy these little respites from the internet.  Especially during election season.  Oh my are you people insane.  Some of you attach all your hopes and dreams on one man and close your eyes.  You’ll follow him into Hell if that’s where he leads you.  No one is perfect, neither is the system.

There, that’s the extent of my political opinions I’m willing to express in public for now.  If you’re wondering where all my opinions on the current or upcoming politicians are, they’re not here.  Or on FaceBook, or anywhere you’ll read them.  I’m not a political commentator.  I don’t fall in line with either of the major parties.  Little of column A, little of column B, mostly just my own thoughts.  Many of which are not politically viable…  How awesome would it be to run for President on a platform of, “You won’t re-elect me but I’ll do my best in the time I have”?

Maybe that’s just the sleep-dep talking.  It’s a strange thing having worked half the week but coming in for the first “real time” on a Wednesday.  Like the week has only begun but it’s a half week.  Midnight shifts somehow don’t count.

Sometimes I wish for a job where I work in an office, M-F 9-5 and no call-outs.  Weekends off the cell-phone leash, able to visit people/places without wondering if I’ll have to leave early.  Able to make plans without the caveat of “If I don’t have to work”.  This weekend I had rather special plans at 4pm.  At 2pm I got called out… to Albany, GA four hours away!  Luckily the problem resolved itself without a dispatch but this is the kind of constant stress I live in…

Baby steps man, it wasn’t long ago that you just wanted a job, ANY job, that got you off the road.  Take it slow.  It’s sad, office drones fantasize about being important, I fantasize about being an office drone.

Adventure, excitement, a fat-man craves not these things…

I didn’t write down my smart-ass play-by-play notes on HP 4, 5 or 6. I thought my comments were funny, others take this shit way too serious. But a couple of you said you were disappointed that I gave in so I went ahead and took notes for the last two movies. This post is exceptionally long. If you’re the type that loves Harry Potter so much that me poking a little fun at it would bother you, move on, there’s nothing to see here today…

Friday, 1-20-12 8pm: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

• The new Minister of magic looks familiar. If only Crispin Glover were British.
• Harry looks younger here than he did in the last movie.
• What. The. Fuck. was that intro all about?
• Ya know, maybe if ValDeMorte went to a plastic surgeon for that nose…
• What’s with the wands? Why are they so scared? If Hitler said, “Hey, I’m going out to kill FDR, I need one of your Lugers.” I imagine half the room would offer theirs.
• The flashback to Dumbledore falling just reinforced how much he looks like Gandalf when he fell.
• Will Dumbledore the Grey return as Dumbledore the White during the final battle?
• One sip of Polypotion is enough? I though they had to drink more than that before.
• Having Hagrid as the protector of the “real” Harry is fucking stupid. Why bother with the subterfuge then?
• So, I missed something, why aren’t the bad guys watching the house?  Oh, so we can get a nice air-battle scene. Fighting on the ground would have been too ordinary?
• If you’re going to do the MIB tunnel scene I want an Elvis soundtrack.
• The baddie killed Harry’s owl, smiled, and flew away… Why didn’t he take a second shot AT THE TARGET?
• But you didn’t make the other guy answer an imposter-proof question.
• And the bad guys don’t know where the Weasels live either? Bad record-keeping at that school.
• I put my soul in seven WhoreCrotches once. Most expensive night of my life.
• “He left you his deluminator, may it show you the light in the darkest of times…” Is Galadriel just off-screen playing Cyrano?
• What we need right now is the evil bad guys crashing the wedding party.
• Holy shit, how many new characters are you going to cram in here!?
• Aaaaannnd queue the baddie wedding crash… Have I been surprised once in 7 movies? Once?
• She had the Mary Poppins purse in earlier films dude, why are you so surprised at it?
• The shootout at the diner was pretty damn cool!
• If Obliviate exists, why do they kill? Why not simply have an “executioner” that obliviates the bad guys and lets them start over?
• Ah yes, his full name on the door giving you the initials RAB, where as the other door simply said “Sirius”. No last name, no middle name…
• I know I made a joke about Dobbie and Gollum but this other elf (Creature?) is lunging for the locket and changes his voice, gets angry when he talks about it (precious), talks about himself in 3rd person. He really IS Gollum…
• I thought that bitch got gang-raped by Centaurs.
• “Magic is Might” Sooo 1984 and they wasted John Hurt in a one shot in the 1st movie.
• Right, out of the thousands of employees at the Ministry of Magic, the one I encountered just happens to be the one on the front page of the newspaper that just happens to be on the floor right here…
• Oh my god, I FINALLY understand the bathroom stall graffitti that says “Enter the Ministry of Magic” with an arrow pointing to the bowl. I thought it was some glory-hole jargon…
• We need to do the cartoon trick of knocking people out and impersonating them. So the first people they come across is a group of three. A ginger, a brunette and a woman; just like the three of them. How convenient.
• Just so I know, we ARE going with the “Nazi/Jews” thing with the Muggles and Mudbloods?
• Distracting the Min of Magic with smoke/horn bombs seems kind of like pulling out a water pistol to hold up an NRA meeting.
• I’m not into “Magic the Gathering” but those cards look very collectible…
• The creatures that were vaporous flying demons a second ago are now stopped by a gate that I could get my entire fat arm through?
• They lie on the ground after escaping to the woods… wouldn’t you worry about one of the hundreds of people searching for you taking the same escape route you took? Maybe hide behind a tree for a few minutes until it looks like you’re safe?
• Unless you’re TRYING to go Lord of the Rings, why else would you insist on wearing the precious around your neck? Especially when you are noticing it makes people cranky and irrational (just like the ring did)
• Okay, I’m glad I didn’t see this in a theater. When she said, “Take it off” in that tone of voice, I actually hollered out, “Oh yeah!”
• We’ll take turns wearing the ring (Just like Sam and Frodo)
• Oh my god damn, will you people get the fuck out of the woods already?
• Harry, it’s bros before hoes dude, you can’t work Herminy like that.
• And Ron pops back in just as Harry and Herminy kiss in 3…2..1… … … Ahhh, I was wrong! For once they didn’t go with the obvious… Someone call M. Night Shamaling, alert the press!
• Overhead shot, pan down over the footsteps in the snow and reveal the kids standing there. Make sure you get that lightpost in the frame. There, now we can finally finish our camera work on “Narnia”. Dude, this is Harry Potter. Oh. Shit. Just stick it in anyway, no one but some cynical fat-ass will notice.
• The old buildings, the empty snowy streets, the “fakeness” of the set. I’d pay a dollar to have someone throw open a window and yell, “Boy, do you know the poulterers on the corner, the one with the prize goose?”
• Yeah, we get it Batman, no parents. You’ve told us this at least twice in every movie. Can we move on now…?
• He’s 17. The attack happened 17 years ago. And the burned out husk of a house is still standing? Must be “magic” snow that doesn’t melt into water and seep into the wood rotting the house from the inside out. No sense of prime real-estate in the Potter universe is there? I barely believed it in Forrest Gump, that place was in the middle of nowhere. This place looks rather centrally located.
• When she started shaking and wailing, why is Harry doing anything OTHER than killing that old woman? She gave him a clear five second warning and he just stood there… Herminy didn’t trust her. You live in a world where everyone has magic wands, You’ve been fooled by polypotion on a number of occasions and in fact have over-relied on that same potion to further your own plot… Why would you trust ANYONE in that world?
• Mother fucker! Back in the goddamn woods again!?
• If you insist on sitting in the woods for two hours, I will insist you shut the fuck up when I mention that that’s all they did in “The Two Towers”, you know, that LORD OF THE RINGS MOVIE!?!
• If the sword appears when it is needed, why the search and why under a fucking lake? Why not just appear in his goddamn hand?
• That bitch has got tents, changes of clothes, condoms… everything in that bag. Maybe should have thought of packing some of that gillyweed we saw earlier so Harry could get the sword without almost dying.
• Hey, um, not for nothing Dark Lord and all but what was the point of goading Ron like that? If you had stopped fucking with him about halfway through, maybe threw in a line about killing Harry, maybe we would have gotten what we wanted. But you were having so much fun with your nude Harry/Herminy puppet show that you pissed him off until he struck it with that giant fucking sword he was holding and defeated the actual purpose of getting “in his head”.
• Teresa’s right, in these scenes Herminy looks just like Bella from Twilight.
• “It’s only a 10 inch wand, nothing special” All three of us in unison responded “That’s what she said!” We’re a fucked up family.
• This “Tale of Three Brothers and the Deathly Hallows”… Very cool. I could have watched that all day long. They should make a short film about that, I’d watch it. Unless they tried to split it into eight movies…
• Ron’s showing some brains, don’t be here when the old man gets back. … And Ron was right. Late, but right.
• Dobbie sounds like that creepy pedophile from Family Guy. Also, the CGI looks fucked up. Did they hit the uncanny valley? Because it looked better in the last movie we saw him in. Now he just looks… fake.
• Maybe that sledgehammer to the forehead would have hit me a little stronger if the “Mudblood” on her arm had been a tattoo… In blue ink…
• Seven people just went into a portal, she threw a knife after them. Who’s it going to hit? Well it’s got to be the guy who just made the rousing speech of being free and unafraid.
• Yup.
• Where the fuck did they get a shovel? She packed “the essentials” in the Mary Poppins purse but how does one decide a shovel is “essential”?
• Nice, he’s grave robbing but he has time to role-play from his childhood, “By the power of GreySkull!”

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Alright, that’s it for Part 1. We took a small break, I got a bowl of cereal and went right on with Part 2.

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• Starts with a clip show. Nice. More Master of the Universe comments.
• Yes I am an unusual wizard, I’m the new world order!
• Ha! I’ve been saying for 6 damn movies that Snape has got to be a good guy! Six damn movies and FINALLY he’s getting some screen time, finally I’m vindicated. Of course, I expected he’d turn out to be Harry’s real father but they keep saying how much he looks like James so… I guess I’ll be wrong on that. But at least Hans Gruber is a good guy!
• Now? Now you bring John Hurt back in? And he’s playing the frail old man straight out of Indy4?
• Okay fuckit, Ron looks pretty damn cool in that henchman getup. (Just after writing this, Teresa says the same thing but uses “hot” instead of “cool”)
• Bank vault ride. Part of the Universal ride? How could it NOT be?
• Barbaric?! How do YOU propose we keep a dragon? PITA bitch, I’ll bet she tries to free the dragon doesn’t she?
• If everything multiplies at the rate those first ones split, that room should have filled up much quicker than that. Especially after they started “swimming” in them.
• Herminy saves the day by opening the garbage chute and telling Han and Chewbacca to get in.
• Teresa and Becca just “awwwed” at setting the dragon free. How do we know this isn’t some rampaging demon of a dragon who was serving time like a prison sentence? Good going Ron, Harry and Herminy; you’ve just set a serial killer free! Hundreds of innocent children will be killed because of your actions. Happy now?
• Bullshit, he looks nothing like Dumbledore. Robes, beard… that’s about it.
• For an educated girl, Herminy’s “She’s your sister?” is about stupid. I stopped giving a shit about keeping track of this jungle of characters five movies back and even I knew it was his sister…
• The pink Centaur git is back at the school and “evil” has taken over but the portraits are still hanging in the halls. They made such a big deal about taking them down last time and they know how they work, why are they still up?
• They fight like idiots. I have this problem in kung-fu movies too. Outside of a tournament, when there is life and death on the line, why do they fight one on one? Why isn’t the ENTIRE student body pulling out their wands?
• Another thing I’ve always wondered; why hasn’t someone shot the bastard yet? Spells, charms, wands… the bad guys are still prone to physical violence. Someone pull a fucking gun already!
• Ha, I’ve been asking why they tolerated the Slithering house all along. ALL the bad guys come from there, why not eliminate the house? Gryphendoor is the Alpha-Betas, Hufflepuff is the stoner house, Ravenclaw never got any screen time for me to know that they do but why do we need a “this is where all the bad guys come from” house? The sorting hat could sense the evil or the midiclorian count or however the hell it works, exclaim “Slithering!” everyone cheers and the kid goes through the door marker “Slithering” and falls in a pit to his death. Problem solved.
• Maybe a stretch but after the underground radio “lightning has struck” scene, the informants turning people over like the Gestapo, you’re still invoking a WW2 mask, and now these pretty awesome stone warriors just look like the Jews summoning golems. Sorry, you’re ruining your own movies here folks. You can’t hand me turd after turd after turd and then ask why I’m not eating the chocolates…
• Nice shield you’ve got surrounding Hogwarts. When you’re done with it make sure you get it back to the Gungans, they’re going to need it.
• Who would have thought the line, “I want to destroy your mother’s precious heirloom” would work?
• And now the countless army of baddies marches on Helm’s Deep. I swear, if Dumbledore returns at the final battle I’ll turn this off. I know I’m 7 and a half movies in to an 8 movie story, I don’t care. If Gandalf the White saves the day, I’m fucking done!
• The Lord of Darkness, the most evil man and powerful wizard alive wants a showdown, in one hour. The outcome of this fight will decide the fate of every wizard in magicland! And where do you want this epic battle to take place dark lord? On a mountain top? On a cliff overlooking a great sea? No, let’s do it in the parking lot behind the high school. Ooookay…
• Two back to back instances of the movie answering us as we comment aloud:
  Teresa asks, “How’d Ron open that door?” As if in answer, Ron immediately says, “Harry talks in his sleep”
  Next scene, Ron and Herminy are splashed in the face with tons of water. I mutter in a bad cockney accent, “Oy, that’s what I’m gonna do to you on our wedding night Herminy.” As if in answer, the two immediately embrace and kiss passionately.
  One of us thinks he’s pretty funny, the other one of us has class.
• Hey, can Herminy use her time travel thingy and cause a do-over if they lose this battle?
• Hey, watch out for those little winged things Harry, they can’t be any good. At least, they weren’t on Geonosis.
• Someone shout “Fireus Alarmus!”
• I get it now, the last three movies is a video game. Each whorecrucks is a level boss and they get progressively more difficult to defeat.
• Am I just noticing or has the music sucked recently? I remember liking it early on but it’s been flat and bland recently.
• “You have your mother’s eyes”  HA! Is this where they reveal Snape as Harry’s real father? I’ve been waiting on this!
• Oh cool they killed a twin without the hokey “I feel the other’s pain” bullshit. Nice!
• I didn’t write anything down during the “Snape memory” sequence, it was too powerful of a scene. But as I remember it, Dumbledore was dying anyway, Snape had to kill him in a very noble Judas Iscariot kind of way.
• I think I had my first “give a shit moment” in the movies. That was pretty sad, depressing and a little pathetic. Watching another man have a child with the woman you love, begging for her life and then having to watch over the bastard spawn for 17 years. So Snape didn’t turn out to be the daddy but he did act like a father figure, protecting from the shadows and in the end, even dying for the kid.
• If I were Snape, I would have played my last card a little differently. He would have taken my tears to the viewer and been assaulted with the thousands of times Snape tossed-off to pictures of Lilly while using his other hand to give the finger to a picture of James. Nothing but repressed sexuality, unrequited love and burning hate for thirty minutes of memories. This may be why I’m not allowed to write children’s novels…
• Harry must die so others can live. Snape is Judas, Harry is the Christ.
• The D&D nerd in me did a flip when Harry said to the snitch, “I’m ready to die” and out popped a D-8. Roll for damage Harry.
• I sill can’t get over “Avracadavra”. No matter how you say it, spell it or allow for historical or linguistic subtleties, it just sounds too close to Abracadabra. Why not have the resurrection spell be “Yapple Dapple!”?
• Gandalf the Grey HAS returned as Gandalf the White. But not during the big Helm’s Deep battle so, yeah, it’s soooo much different than LotR
• Heaven is a train station. A train station where people abandon the bloody fetuses of evil wizards.
• Fuck this, Dumbledore the White just isn’t working for me, bring in Morgan Freeman.
• Is that it? I was told Harry Potter died and came back. It’s one of the few spoilers I knew about in advance. THAT’S his death and resurrection? LAME!!!
• The Lord of all Evil finds out he just killed a child so he celebrates in front of his minions with… a little dance. How cute.
• Draco looks like he’s being forced to hug Aunt Bunny but instead of being freaked out by her mustache, he’s got the whole “burn victim” thing going for him.
• Something is just “off” about this scene. ValDeMorte is popping one liners at Nevil and the crowd of bad guys is laughing. It feels like the out-take credits of a Burt Reynolds movie.
• And fuck this, the Malfoy family is moving to Jamaica.  Smart move.
• Nevil looks like Ed Norton from Fight Club. “I am ValDeMorte’s ruptured spleen.”
• Nice try but Ripley pulled off the “Stay away from my daughter you bitch” line MUCH better in Aliens.
• Would Harry have killed the disarmed ValDeMorte if Val didn’t evaporate? Would it be wrong if he did? Is that why Val evaporated, the writers took that decision out of the hands of a character you are supposed to like?
• Lovegood gets with Longbottom. Seriously, the porn writes itself.
• Why is Riff-Raff pushing a broom? They’ve already shown they can clean up magically like Mary Poppins. I’d figure a broom would be rather difficult to come by in a school of magic.
• Ron: We could be invincible! Harry: Or we could snap it in two and chuck it. Herminy looks like she knows she made the wrong choice in men.
• 19 years later!? No, fuck this, someone promised me a dead Harry. That ten second delirium via concussion doesn’t count! If it does, I’ve died at least three times that I can remember…
• With all the money they spent on these movies, they couldn’t age them any better than this?
• Did I miss a demographic? Is England over-run by red-heads? What the fuck with all the gingers in this series?
• The boy who lived. The boy who saved the world. Now looks like, the boy who will do your taxes.
• None of them teach at Hogwarts? All of them are staying behind on the platform? And after all they’ve been through together, none of them talk or even nod toward each other?  It feels like the morning after an orgy and no one wants to make eye-contact.
• The end. Finally, the kid catches a break. Fight evil for seven years, kick back and relax for the rest of your life.  Not a bad gig.

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Now that it’s all over, some thoughts on the series:

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I think if I was in a conversation with JK Rowling we’d get along just fine. Based on the sheer volume of obvious references in the HP series, it appears we both enjoy the same movies.

But that’s not a fair jab on my part. The failing is my own.

You want to know what cripples me as a writer? You know why I haven’t gone “all-out” and submitted the hundreds of manuscripts I’ve written? Because after I read them back, I see the similarities to other stories I’ve read or movies I’ve watched and I’m embarrassed to call it my own work. Writers do it all the time, it’s natural, nothing is new under the sun. Even when it’s just a slight connection, I file it away and wait for that one original premise. It doesn’t exist dude! So stop using that as an excuse to dislike Rowling’s world. It’s nigh-impossible to write a fantasy novel that DOESN’T invoke some element of Lord of the Rings or King Arthur or any of the other standards. So for me to cast dispersion on the Harry Potter universe for that reason alone would be utterly wrong.

The movies are guilty as sin of suddenly introducing a tool or notion that will become important in the immediate future. No foreshadowing, no planning. It makes it feel cheap and made-up. No world-building just a series of magical dilemmas that we coincidentally happen to be prepared for. I didn’t want to use the term “Deus Ex Machina” because I see it thrown against these books all the time but as far as the movies go, it’s totally appropriate.

I actually liked the core story. I just wish they had pared the entire thing to two or three movies instead of eight. There was WAY too much fluff in there. It was like they couldn’t decide what to cut. If you’re making the movie for fans of the books, you’ve got to include certain iconic scenes I’m sure. But there was SOOOO many unfleshed sub-plots in there. It was like I was being shelled with unnecessary characters, plots, scenes… I found myself just hunkering down and waiting for it to be over.

I think the whole “gay Dumbledore” thing has no bearing on the movies whatsoever. I actually watched for any hints and other than a few “could be” conversations that were really stretching, there was nothing in there. Unless his “less than a year to live” disease was supposed to be Wizard-AIDS. I think his “outing” was an afterthought PR move to cause a stink with some people. If they had the one guy at the wedding pass off the line, “of course I miss him, he and I were lovers for fifty years” or “married” anything like that, it would have fulfilled my rant of wanting to see a gay character in a mainstream movie that wasn’t playing to the stereotype or used as a plot point. As it stands, the character of Dumbledore is not identified as gay. Not in the movie he wasn’t.

I’m glad I watched them. I’m really glad I watched them with Teresa and Becca. But I’ll probably never watch them again. Maybe the last one… That one was alright. But without the exposition of the first seven, it’s pointless. They haven’t inspired me to read the books, they solidified my opinion that this series was not for me. But after watching them, I’m at least willing to admit that I don’t hate them, I just don’t care for them.

I figured something out.  Soon after, I discovered I was wrong.

I’m not dwelling on it, I know some of you don’t want to see me leave Florida.  I will sincerely miss many of you when I go.  But after more than two decades in this heated shit-hole, in spite of my love for you all, I am counting the days (roughly 880 but yeah, I’m not dwelling on it or anything…) until we finally get to plan our escape.  I’m shooting for the Arctic Circle, Teresa wants something just a bit further south.  Anyway, it’s still an open count because if Becca decides on an in-state college, we’ll probably stick around for another few years.

BUT after years of living here, today I finally found the one thing (other than people) that I will miss when I leave Florida.  The smell of fresh-cut grass on the cold winter air.  Oh it was amazing!  I had to leave the dungeon today and when I came topside I found that they had just mowed the grass.  The air was cold and the smell just lit me up from the inside.  It was incredible!  I thought to myself, THIS is something I could miss.  You don’t cut the lawn with three feet of snow.  In all the years I’ve lived in this state I’ve never found one thing (other than people) I will miss when I leave it all behind.  Then this scent, this feeling crept into me and suddenly I can count ONE thing…

After about three seconds of intoxicating bliss, I came crashing back down to reality.  Hey dumbass, that’s the ordinary smell of cutting the lawn in September/October or April/May in the latitudes you long for.  The reason you feel so exhilarated is because it’s a fond memory of childhood, not because it’s a newly discovered yearning.  It’s not a reason to stay in Florida, it’s just one more reason to leave!

Ohh I wish I could have bottled that feeling though.  I’ve burned the Yankee Candle’s “Fresh-Cut Grass” and it was nice but when you put it on that frigid air…  Seriously, it was like getting high…  I’m going home and mow the lawn tonight…

I had no idea just how influenced I am by proper spelling and grammar. It turns out I’m more upset by typos than I thought.  However, it wholly depends on the format.

If it’s a text, I expect bad spelling. Small keyboards, touch-screens, auto-correct… When I get a text that says, “I garfled your Mothra, meat szygne at the cuxrths” I don’t fear that I’ve received a text from the Great Old Ones, I don’t rage about bad spelling, I just remember that I’ve sent plenty of those kinds of texts too. I’ll probably just text you back, “Whst tnhe heeeell wws tht text supooposed to mesan?”

If it’s a comment on-line, I forgive it. Same rules apply, many people are using their phones to respond. Touch screens, small keyboards… I can’t get too upset. But, I can insist that I’m able to understand the comment or you must delete it and try again. If I can’t decipher what you meant, then what is the point of having it online? Get rid of it.

I read a lot of amateur blogs, there are many typos. I tolerate it or at the very least, I get over it. The amateurs are passionate about something but they aren’t the world’s greatest typists. They get excited, type fast and hit “Post” before hitting “Spellcheck”. It’s a mistake but we’re just amateurs, I’m alright with it. I got a bit huffy with one person’s blog. I was just about to give up on reading it when I discovered English wasn’t their first language. Oops, my fault… I mean, if I had to write a blog post in French you’d see a lot more than a few errors.

But then there are the professional bloggers. People who write for a living. I hold these people to a much higher standard. When you make your living being a wordsmith, you’d better know the difference between “your” and “you’re”. I can totally overlook a stray word that snuck past spellcheck by masquerading as a different word. Typos happen and if you’re on a deadline, you rely on spellcheck. “On” looks alright to the spellcheck even though you really meant “in”. But when you misuse “it’s” and “its”… I have to slap your knuckles with a steel ruler. Also, have a proofreader. I’ve been guilty of editing my thoughts and restructuring sentences. When you read your own work you read right past those errors when you read your own work…

Somewhere in between the amateur bloggers and the professional writers are the small businesses. When I go to your website and I see typos, I get worried about your services. Yes, you may just be a plumber or you may just be a party DJ, neither job requires proper diction… But if you couldn’t be bothered to check your work while advertising, how can I be sure you’re worth the money I’m looking to spend. Small, local businesses can afford one, possibly two errors if I’m feeling generous. If I see multiple errors on your website, I take my business elsewhere.

Anything that invokes an air of authority must be absolutely correct. When I read physics papers and medical journals, I don’t see any mistakes. I think this is because they know that if I spot a glaring typo, it will damage the impact of their paper. They take the time to check their work because it is important to them. A text; not so much. When someone asks me to take part on an “official survey” and the question has a typo in it, just how “official” am I expected to believe this thing is? Here at work we have an automated ticketing system. When a problem comes up at a remote site, it gathers data from several spreadsheets and spits it out in a form letter. One of the entries is “Drivining Directions”. It’s been there for four years…

And finally, we get the mix of amateur and authority (and the spark that set off this “misspelling” fire). Nothing screams “dumbass” more than a website claiming to be the encyclopedia of all musical knowledge and referring to “Jimmy Hendricks”… If you don’t know what’s wrong with that, you’re probably not a “music” person and that’s okay. I probably wouldn’t even correct you if we were writing back and forth and you made that mistake. But if you’re a music person, even just a casual fan, you’re probably just coming back into orbit after realizing they got BOTH names wrong…  If you’re running a website that (even just humorously) claims to be the final judge of all music and you can’t spell the name of one of the elder gods of guitar… Wow… just wow.

Sat through three more Harry Potter flicks.  Still not impressed.

They look like they are trying to get darker but they’re not. They simply follow the age of the teenagers and that period of life involves a lot of brooding.  They’re just “exploring feelings” and such… oh, how my weeping ovaries hurt after watching these things!  There were some good parts, some cute scenes but as a whole I’m not interested in watching awkward teenagers fumble with puppy love.  Twilight…  Harry Potter…  Ehhh, not my gig.

Some of the stuff I liked turned out to be the overdone, cliche and expected parts.  The lightsaber duel was pretty cool looking.  Helena Bonham Carter playing a crazy bitch… Umm, haven’t seen that one before…

I’ve still got the last movies (two parts) to watch.  Hopefully it ties it all together.  I’d like to see at least one well-planned and clever turn and not just pulling some Star Trekian magic out of their ass at the last minute.  Consistency in the magic world would be nice too.

I’d also like to care about any of the characters.  I wish I had one single character that I wanted to understand, one person I wanted to know more about.  This thing is like reading the Book of Numbers, there’s a hundred new characters on every damn page.  Every time I start to feel “close” to a character, they take them out of the story to make room for the new ones.  The main three?  Whining bitches all of them, I hope they die.  Dumbledore?  They never made him likable enough.  I didn’t care at all when he died.  Hagrid?  He was my only chance but he’s barely in the damn movies anymore.  I keep thinking Snape is going to get more time but they never give it to him.  To be honest, if I hadn’t promised to watch them all, I could just leave the story right where it is and be just fine.

I’m sure they get plenty of explanation in the books.  (Or at least, I hope so…)  I’m willing to give her credit enough to believe that this universe is fully and properly explained in the books.  But these are movies, not books.  If I have to read the book the movie is based on to understand, feel or care about characters in the movie, then it is a failure of a movie.  It may make money, it may spawn sequels (most of that coming from an existing fanbase) but if you take a ‘great’ book and can’t successfully condense it into a movie format, DON’T do it!  The “you have to read it to understand” excuse is complete and utter bullshit.  A movie should stand on its own.

Whenever we have time, I’ll watch the last two back-to-back.  So far the entire movie series looks like it’s probably a good story to tell in two, maybe three movies.  Not eight.

The three of us were out to dinner.  ”Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” was playing quietly in the background.  During a lull in the conversation I look up at my wife and daughter and say, “I’ve never really liked U2.”

The hurt look on their faces still haunts me in my sleep…