Random Squeegee

What the Hell Happened: Joe's Revenge

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:35:54 PDT

Continued from yesterday

So who, against all odds, managed to avoid the chopping block?

Joe! Freaking Joe! Suddenly, I didn't feel all warm and fuzzy. Why did I get laid off and this guy's still there?

When we switched from Quark to InDesign a few years back, I was admittedly the last one to embrace it. But once I learned it, I found I really liked it and just kept learning new tricks and shortcuts. Whenever we had a little downtime, I'd explore some of the features and find something new. And if there was something I couldn't figure out, I'd keep trying different things, or look up the problem online until I found a solution. That's what I do. It's like when I couldn't remember the name of that cartoon with the talking fireworks. I FOUND IT! It took forever, but by God, I found it.

On the other hand, you have Joe. Who you may recall from his early work in Highlights for Children as Goofus. Goofus only learned enough to barely get by. Why bother retaining knowledge when you can just yell a question down the hall?

"MR. H., YOU GOT A MINUTE? I FORGET HOW YOU DO TABS!"

"MR. H., YOU GOT A MINUTE? I DON'T UNDERSTAND TABLES!"

"MR. H., YOU GOT A MINUTE? HOW DO YOU GET SMART QUOTES IN ILLUSTRATOR?"

I don't know if the bosses knew any of this or took it into consideration, and even though I'm eternally happy that I don't have to listen to "Remember that show Mr. Nice?" or "Are You my special friend?" anymore, he's there and I'm not, which in a way means he won, which makes my mouth taste like horse crap.

The truth is, the idea that someone might get axed was on all our minds for months, and the first choice, Mr. bathroom hog, was pretty easy, but if there was going to be two layoffs, and I don't think anyone ever though there would be, but to me, the second choice is Joe without question. And apparently Joe's obvious second choice was me. We never expressed this opinions to each other, of course; they were filtered through John T, but when I heard that I just though, "Well that guy's gonna be in for a real shock." And then of course the day came and somehow, against all reason, I'm the one that was laid off. Joe won. Sonofabitch.

I can't prove this, but the reason, I think, that I was let go rather than Joe is as follows:

A couple of months before all this, Joe was getting ready to welcome his wife back home after she'd been stationed in Afghanistan for six months. He had a framed picture of the two of them that he hung in the front hallway, and probably some other asinine gifts, and his 18-year-old son from his previous marriage was there with him, standing in the hall. She walked in, Joe moved in to give her a hug, but she side-stepped him, brushed him off and said, "I don't love you anymore. I met someone else. I want a divorce."

Now, Joe annoyed the hell out of me over the years, and I can't even begin to imagine LIVING with him, but damn, that's cold. That's really cold. She didn't even take him to the side and do it quietly; his son was standing right there. And despite her contempt for Joe, the kid had known her for like ten years. He grew up knowing her. She was supposed to go to his graduation a few days later, and he asked if she was still going, and she just said, "No."

Apparently, she met someone in her unit over there and they hooked up or something. I don't know what the Air Force policies are for that, but whatever. The important thing is she should have told him months ago. Because when you have someone you care about over there in harm's way, you worry about their safety the time. At least if she broke his heart earlier he wouldn't have to spend every night worrying that she might be ripped apart by an IED or something. He wouldn't care, and he'd be able to sleep a lot better. It's common courtesy, really.

And of course he should have seen this coming. While she was overseas, she and everyone else there had to ration their time to make calls and send emails back home, and she told Joe that she spend so little time talking to him because she gave up most of her allotted minutes to a homesick young airman. Right.

Look, I understand the thought of spending your whole life with Joe is like staring into the mouth of Hell, but she was just brutal to the poor guy the way she went about doing this. No tact at all. I mean, for all him many, many faults, that guy really loved her and the way it ended pretty much crushed him.

Anyway, all of a sudden, Joe is in the middle of this big, messy divorce. Again. And maybe the bosses were thinking they can't very well throw him out on the street now on top of all he's going through. I don't know what they were thinking, I know that they don't particularly like Joe, especially after the wake incident. And I know because of his tendency to rape the truth, he got yelled at a lot, sometimes justly, sometimes unjustly. But, for whatever reason, they kept Joe. Remember that.

Because I left on good terms, I still had my keys; one for the front door of the building and one for the elevator. I was allowed to come in any time to work on my stuff. It was a generous offer, but I didn't take advantage of it, because it just seemed like it would be terribly awkward. And I wasn't about to risk hearing that insipid country station ever again. But I did have the keys if I needed them.

One day, John T. called ad asked if I could turn them in. The reason being that the other guy who was let go had asked the boss if he could keep his laptop, and she said no, it belongs to the company, and I guess he was a little mad about that. She got a little freaked out when she found out that he had come in over the weekend to clear out his stuff without supervision, so she asked us to return the keys. We could still come in if we wanted, but there'd have to be someone around. No problem.

So...a week later, John T. called again. This time he asked if the police had called me. I said, "No." He said, "Well, they might."

The night before, someone broke into the office and stole five laptops. Now, I'm not suggesting that it's at all connected to the other guy being angry about not being able to keep his laptop. It is awfully coincidental, especially when you consider that only laptops were stolen; nothing else. No cords, no external keyboards, not even a mouse. (See what I did there?) And there was a CPU in the office that didn't work, but you wouldn't know that unless you turned it on. That curiously wasn't taken, either. You could argue that only laptops were taken because they are small and easy to carry. After all, it's hard to look inconspicuous wheeling a giant color printer down the street.

The truth is, ANYONE could have stolen the laptops, because...you're gonna love this...footprint evidence shows the burglar came through Joe's OPEN, UNLOCKED WINDOW. The studio is on the seventh floor, and on three sides it's a straight drop down to the pavement, but outside of Joe's window is the roof of the parking garage next door. There's not even a gap between the buildings; it's literally right outside his window. There's always cars parked out there. So anyone who was up there could look right through Joe's wide open shades, through his unlocked and open windows, right onto his desk where his laptop is still on, staring back at them. Tempting them. Daring anyone and everyone to just walk right in and take it and whatever else the feel like. Earlier this year, the boss freaked out over an exceptionally high energy bill. Worried that it might have been my from my heater, (because that place was always so frickin' cold) I started to bring in blankets, changed all the lightbulbs in my office to CFLs, and turned off the power strip for the laptop every night. But since it wasn't Joe's electric bill, he apparently felt it was perfectly acceptable to continue leaving his computer and his radio-his radio! on all night, every night. I guess that doesn't really have anything to do with the laptops being stolen, but that still steams my brocolli. Anyway, they kept Joe, he left his damn fool window open, and the place got robbed. That's all I'm saying.

In a way, I'm lucky to have been let go, because when I left, I copied all of my personal files from the laptop onto my external hard drive. But if I had still been there, I wouldn't have had a reason to copy my files and when the place was robbed, I would have lost EVERYTHING; drawings, photos, stories...all kinds of stuff. So if there's a "glass half full" way of looking at this, that would be it.

By the way, the police never did call me, and I'm a little offened by that. I mean, I didn't do it, and I wouldn't have had a way of getting into Boston, and I have an alibi with witnesses, but the cops could have at least entertained the idea. Way to be thourough, guys.

well, T. said all their stuff was insured, so they were able to get all new computers and up-to-date software. So that's good. And I guess they'll be putting bars on the winows, so that's good too, although a good first step might be closing and locking the windows before going home. Maybe even drawing the shades too, if you want. Go crazy.

So, that's what happened. Since I had ben at my job since 2001, I had some money in a profit-sharing account. It took a while to actually get a hold of it, but when I did, I took some of it out to buy a brand new laptop and a ton of programs, and I put the rest in an IRA. So I've been looking for another "office" type job, but so many applications call for prerequisite web-design knowledge, and I'm primarily a print guy. But since I now own them, I'm slowly learning Flash and Dreamweaver, and while I know a little already, I'm nowhere near the point where I can say "Yeah I can whip up a website with CSS and dynamic, uh, whatsits for you no problem." Actually I can say that, but I can't say something that would make any sense.

What I'm hoping for, and I know it's going to be hard, but I'm hoping to go out on my own and do some freelancing. I've got over ten years experience, I own Adobe CS4 Master Collection so I have every program Adobe makes at my disposal. I write, I draw, I take pictures. Not professionally, but I guess if you paid me that would make it professional, right? I don't know if there's a certificate or something you're supposed to ave. I can do brochures, postcards, brand-identity stuff like logos and stationery, business cards...if you've got a band, I play bass. No, I don't actually know how to do that, but I could design t-shirts or posters or those flier things for you. Can't do whole lot of Flash, so lay off that for a while, but I'm learning, and maybe I'll post my progress for you guys, you know, when I make some progress.

So...this degenerated into a commercial pretty quickly. Or desperate plea for help, whatever works. If you guys every do need anything, or know anyone who needs some kind of design work done, email me at jhammel@crea9.com.

I wish that was the end of this summer craptacular, but it was only the beginning, Check back tomorrow to find out what happened next. And you don't have to worry about it not being there because I already wrote it. I'm just trimming this beast into bite-sized pieces so you don't choke on all the depression.

What the Hell Happened: Tell me about the rabbits, George

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 22:40:34 PDT

So...how was your summer? Mine was crap. I tried to write this several times over the past few months, before deciding that the best way to express my thoughts would be in my first ever video blog. But once I started recording, I drew a blank, so I had to write it all down anyway. And then there's the issue of where to look. I tried looking directly at the camera, but the constant stare came out looking insane and a little creepy. So I tried it again, looking slightly off camera, but without any eye contact, it looked like I was trying to hide something. So I ultimately decided to just go back to writing the whole damn massive thing out in sections like I was going to do in the first place, except now I have this needless explanatory paragraph to start out with.

Anyway, it all started on Free Donut Day. If you ordered a coffee at Dunkin Donuts, they'd give a donut for free. Who the hell doesn't like free donuts? So I went there first thing in the morning, got my coffee and my free donut, and thought "This is a pretty good day!"

And damn it, for a few hours, it was. My boss was in early that morning. To give you a little background, the company is run by two siblings; the sister is the art director and the brother takes care of the sales and business end, as well as lending his name to the company. A few years ago, when the lease was almost up on our current office, they spent months looking for a new place. Our old office on Appleton Street was too big, and this one was just a little too small. And only had one bathroom, which was frequently monopolized by this guy, sometimes for an hour at a time. They weren't able to find a new office before the lease was up, so in the end we all stayed put. Except the boss, who decided the best way to give us more room (and, more importantly, himself his own bathroom) was to get a small office a few blocks away and work off-site from there. He still came in almost every day, but for the most part was either on the road or in his new office, and in his absence, his sister moved into his old office, Amy moved into the sister's old office, and after she "left," I moved into that office.

But back to free donut day. The boss was in the office that day, and although it was a bit unusual for him to be in so early, I just figured there was a new project to go over. He called me into his sister's office, and I started to get an uneasy feeling, but still I assumed we were going over a new project. So I went into her office and sat down, and the two of them sat opposite me. He started, "As you know, things have been really slow around here lately." She looked like she was about to cry. Aw, crap.

"We have to let you go." I forget which one actually said it. They're not twin or anything, I just don't remember. You'd think I would, but, I just don't. And I have to tell you, I did NOT see that coming. I knew the economy overall was down, and my timesheets had less and less billable time, and I knew that there might be some layoffs here, but...I don't know, I guess I thought since I was the only one that knew even a little about web design, that it was sort of guaranteed job security. Nope.

I don't know if I was still in shock, but all I said was "Okay." He explained that client billing was off 40%, and that it had nothing to do with job performance, and they really like me, and they wished that they didn't have to do this. In all of their years in business, they'd never had to lay anyone off before. They both said that I could come in anytime and use the computers and printers to work on my portfolio and resume, and they would help any way they could.

And they said, "Just so you know, you're not the only one."

Throughout the whole thing, I just kept saying "Okay". And really, at the time, I was. For awhile, I started to feel like I was going to work a that place forever, spending my whole life there and never advancing. This was my chance for a new beginning. It was exciting, really. But Michele didn't find it as exciting as I did. And with good reason. We were already barely getting by as it was, and with our rental agreement up at the end of August, we were thinking of getting a house. So then I started getting nervous about what we were going to do next, but I still saw getting laid off as an opportunity.

But...

Then I started thinking. There were only four employees there. Four. And they downsized by half to two. Guess who's sill there? Go on...

Find out in the next thrilling installment of the end-of Summer Craptacular "What the Hell Happened"

Quick Update

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:49:56 PDT

Hey, guess what? I don't have to listen to Joe anymore! Because I got laid off! More details when I get my new laptop I'm supposed to be getting with my retirement money, whenever it finally gets here. The money, not the computer. Well, both, I guess. But one thing at a time here.

R.I.P.: Warren G. Skye

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 07:07:43 PDT

Most of you have never heard of Warren G. Skye. To be honest, I never really knew exactly who he was, either. I guess I thought he was one of those quasi-celebrities whose fifteen minutes of fame were up before I was even born, like etiquette guru Annie Cavanagh. He could have also been a politician, possibly British; I just didn't know.

I feel bad now for not giving poor Warren much thought. Did he have a family? What's he been up to lately? It never crossed my mind. Really, the only time I ever thought about him at all was every once in a while when I heard his name on the radio. But no more.

Today, in a Shamaylanian twist, I found out there is no Warren G. Skye. Or, if there was, the Cars never mentioned him in Bye Bye Love, off their eponymous 1978 debut album. I'm still a bit too shaken up to accept that he's gone. All this time, I thought it was:

It's Warren G. Skye...
Oh wait, is it some other guy?

But it turns out the actual line is:

It’s an orangy sky
Always it’s some other guy

Orangy sky? What the hell does that mean? At least mine made sense. A part of me died today.

So long, Warren. Or should I say bye bye love? No, so long is sufficient.

Rise From Your Grave And Sell My Tie-ins!

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:15:27 PDT

I saw a McDonald's commercial over the weekend involving a Monsters Vs. Aliens tie-in featuring Grimace! He didn't have a speaking part, but by God, he's alive!

In honor of this momentous occasion--and because I don't want to write about how we got to the IMAX at Jordan's Furniture at noon to get tickets for the 3 o'clock show, only to discover that every show was sold out until seven so spent all day in Framingham--here's another one of these things...

FWS: Episode 4

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:24:54 PDT

With Steve's offer of a new co-host opening apparently still standing, struggling comedian Chip Newton sees his chance for a new career. But what will become of Fred?

Where's the Rocket?

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:45:09 PDT

Over the years, the internet has helped me find the names of movies, magicians who cut off their legs with a chainsaw to the tune of The Peter Gunn Theme, even the identity of Donald Duck's mother. And yet, one challenge, finding a cartoon about anthropomorphic fireworks has remained unmet. That is, until now.

Yes, I was looking back over the weekend and realized after over three years, I still had not found any evidence of this thing ever existing. So I tried again, I even made the rounds of movie forums hoping someone would have known what I was referring to. Only this time, I tried to remember a bit more. "Fireworks" and "firecrackers" weren't getting me anywhere. What else could you call them? Then I tried "rocket." And the greatest thing happened.

I found this. An animated short called The Remarkable Rocket (1975), narrated by David Niven. Based on a short story by Oscar Wilde. I had a few details mixed up. It turns out it's not about the little runt that everyone else makes fun of--in fact the main character is a pompous jerk--although there are squibs in the story. And it certainly doesn't take place during an Independence Day celebration. And perhaps most importantly, something I should have mentioned when I first posed the question, they aren't so much rockets with faces as they are disembodied cylindrical heads with coned attached to the top.

Well, I think I'm running out of childhood things to find that people didn't believe existed. I'm sure I can think of something else eventually, but I'm going to savor this discovery for a while. This one was driving me nuts.

Anyway, this being St. Patrick's Day and all, why don't you check out Irishman Oscar Wilde's original short story, and as you're reading it in your best stately British David Niven voice, picture the characters as horrifying disembodied cylindrical heads with cones attached to the top.

The Internet...Is There Anything it Doesn't Know?

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:44:59 PDT

Thanks to the internet, I now know the name of a movie that used to be on HBO all the time about a kid with red toy telephone who uses is to talk to his dead father, but it isn't really his father, it's the spirit of an evil magician who has possessed a ventriloquist dummy the boy found in an old mine shaft or something and decided to bring home for some reason.

It's called Making Contact, or Joey for the German version and, among other things, it was the first film directed by Roland "Leno-chinned Godzilla" Emmerich. Everything about this movie is crazy. Emmirich, living in West Germany in 1985, wanted to connect with American audiences, so in addition to being an English language film (which was later dubbed into German for hometown audiences, so the German actors recorded the whole movie in English, then dubbed it in their native language.) every frame of the movie beats you over the head with "Boy, we sure are in AMERICA!"

It begins with a funeral. A nine-year-old boy named Joey has just lost his father. He's pretty broken up about it. He returns to his bedroom, which has to hold the record for most American icons in one movie scene, ever. This kid's got a poster of Yoda, Return of the Jedi bedsheets, a Return of the Jedi lunchbox, a TIE fighter, one of those kick-ass AT-ATs, Sesame Street curtains, board games of the A-Team and Q-bert, a He-Man folder, Smurf stickers, a Pac-Man clock, a plush Donald Duck, in fact lots of Donald stuff, and the EXACT SAME giant stuffed raccoon I had when I was a kid. Oh yeah, and this thing:

Anyway, Joey looks at a picture of his dad. I should mention that for research purposes, I watched both the American and German versions. In the German version, it then cuts to a flashback of Joey and his dad playing basketball. But in the American version, he just looks out his window at the basketball net above the garage. I don't know why there's a discrepancy, maybe Emmerich thought Germans wouldn't understand that Joey used to play basketball with his dad unless they were actually shown a scene of it, or if he just assumed all Americans played basketball with their dads, so a scene depicting it would just be superfluous. In any case, just then, the basketball in the corner of the room rolls over to him, and all the toys start to fly around the room. Just like in Poltergeist (1982).

His toy robot, Charlie, comes alive, and makes a bunch of R2D2 sounds. In the German version, Charlie actually chirps out the thing from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), before extending his little arm and touching fingers with Joey. Like E.T. (1982) To be fair, E.T. ripped off the touching fingers bit from Michelangelo.

Just in case all of that wasn't enough to convince you we're in AMERICA, the next scene starts in the classroom, just as the kids are finishing up "My Country 'Tis of Thee" Yep, this sure wasn't filmed in West Germany. Oddly enough, several of the kids are wearing baseball caps in the classroom. We don't take kindly to that here in America.

The kids all have eggs on their desks for some reason. One kid replaces Joey's egg with a black plastic one. Joey opens it and finds a toy skeleton and a note. The kids around him all start laughing. Really? What a bunch of little jerks! "Ha ha! Your dad's dead!" The one who wrote the note is probably just lashing out on account of his freakishly giant teeth. They're like billboards; he should rent out the space.

Joey somehow makes an egg float. Also, one of the girls in his class looks a lot like Drew Barrymore in E.T.

I was determined to figure out where this movie is supposed to take place. You know, besides AMERICA. While the kid is on his creepy red phoe talking to his dead father, you can see a Terry Bradshaw poster and a Steelers pennant on his wall, so they could be in Pittsburgh. But he's also got L.A. Lakers pennants, so that doesn't help any. Still, there had to be some clues, and sure enough, plastered all over his closet door were bumper stickers for "The Old Country" and Z100. The Old Country is Busch Gardens in Williamsburg and Z100 is a radio station in Virginia Beach. Nowadays it's Virgina Beach's "Blazin' Hip Hop". Yeah, I looked it up, you wanna fight about it? If that's not enough to convince anyone that the movie is set in Virgina Beach, then the guy on the radio newscast saying that all the phones in Virginia Beach went haywire in the next scene should seal the deal. Hmm...I wonder if the phone troubles could be caused by Joey's late night calls?

On top of having every awesome toy from the 80s and a self-aware robot sidekick, this kid has a dog, too. I'm starting to hate this kid. He takes his dog Scooter and the robot outside, and Scooter chases Charlie into the yard of the old Fletcher House, which looks an awful lot like the Bates Motel. Charlie finds an opening into the basement, makes a few more blatant Artoo noises, and discovers a half-opened crate containing a creepy old dummy. The dummy, which looks a bit like George Burns, opens his eyes and says something along the lines of "Blaaah!!!" spooking poor Charlie and sending him scurrying off. Joey goes off and looks for his robot pal, but can't fit in the way Charlie came in, so he opens the hatch and enters the basement. He sees the creepy dummy, picks it up, and brings it home for some reason. Just to clarify, he sees this thing and takes it home.

As Joey rides his bike, I swear to God, they're playing the same music as E.T. According to the credits, all the music was composed and conducted by Paul Gilreath. Apparently, he "composed" the music by tape-recording soundtracks to other movies, and "conducted" it by pressing play.

Joey wows his mom by making his glass of milk slide across the table to him using only his mind. His mother, rather than being frightened, thinks it's amazing and has him do it again. Now, that kind of reminds me of something, but I can't put my finger on it. It wouldn't be that scene in Poltergeist when the mother was fascinated by the baby sliding across the floor, would it? No, no, it must be something else.

His mom starts to change her mind about the whole thing being fun and games when she hears her son talking to someone in his room. He's holding a glowing red toy telephone. He says he's talking to his dad. Joey's happy, but Mom's a bit creeped out.

Joey doesn't seem to know or care where he's getting these new powers, but he knows what to do with them: blow up the toy tanks of all those other jerk kids! It's a bit like Carrie, or that Twilight Zone where the kid could make anything happen simply by wishing it. I should probably mention that episode was made into one of the segments for Twilight Zone: The Movie, since it came out in 1983 and could be one of the dozens of movies Making Contact "borrows" from.

Joey's velcro-wearing teacher has a little talk with Joey's mother about her son's recent behavior, and possibly to score a date. Mom and the teacher go outside to look for Joey in the driveway, and guess what? It looks like the driveway from E.T.! I don't know how a movie that contains zero aliens can rip off E.T. this much, but seriously, this movie can't stop ripping off E.T.. Hell, there's even an inexplicable scene with some sort of bizarre Oscar the Grouch, E.T. hybrid, that doesn't ever appear again or have anything to do with the plot.

They open the garage door, and the evil dummy makes the car drive on it's own. They jump out of the way just in time and the car crashes into a ditch and burns.

Elsewhere, Joey's closet opens, revealing a cave, as music that sound's a bit like the Emperor's March plays. Which is fitting, because the evil dummy proceeds to attack Joey with lightning bolts, just like the emperor in Return of the Jedi (1983)! But Joey manages to subdue the dummy and ties him up in the closet. With E.T. wallpaper. Backwards E.T. wallpaper

Mom and the teacher visit the graveyard. He tells her that he knows some people at the university that might be able to help Joey. Well that's helpful. In the next scene, the road is closed off and there's white trucks parked in front of the house. A bunch of guys in white labcoats pull up to the hose and start putting tubes and computers everywhere. Fucking E.T. again!!! The head scientist is really, really creepy looking. I somehow forget to get a screen capture of her, but it's probably for the best.

Across town, or somewhere, the kids from school, angered that the little fatherless wimp Joey blew up their tanks with his damn mind, are plotting revenge. "This battle isn't being fought for revenge, it's being fought for honor." Okay, sorry kid. I don't know what to say about these kids. They're basically the Virginia Beach chapter of The Goonies (1985). They've got the requisite fat kid, but Data's been replaced with this lil' Lando.

The kid with the enormous teeth is holding a Darth Vader mask under his arm. He's the leader.

Their plans for "honor" are soon cut short, though, when they are trapped by the dummy at the Fletcher place. Sally (the Drew Barrymore-looking girl) tells Joey that the others, the ones who made fun of him because his dad was dead and were in the middle of planning an attack on Joey when they where caught, have been trapped in the Fletcher house and she begs him to use his powers to save them. Riiiight. Joey thinks of the dummy, but assures himself that it's tied up in his closet. The one with the backwards E.T. wallpaper. Right? He opens the closet door and finds the ropes untied. The dummy was gone. Maybe bringing home a creepy-ass dummy from a creepy-ass old basement wasn't the best idea.

Meanwhile, the Goonies are trapped in a system of caves. They decide to split up. The first group sees a giant rock snake. As in a giant snake made out of rocks. The second group runs into the rock snake as well. Or maybe it's a different one. But the third group get a horrifying mummy. The fat kid, who is by himself, opens a door to discover...

A giant, killer hamburger!

The lead kid with the Darth Vader mask sees...Darth Vader. I'm not sure if they're all supposed to see they're greatest fear or what is going on there. And if so why are most of them afraid of snakes made of rocks?

Meanwhile, on the set of E.T., cops and white-coated scientists have flood lights all over the woods. Down below, there's a giant labyrinth. The ground shakes and the dummy's giant head comes up. Oh come on, now they're ripping off The Muppet Movie (1979)!

Joey sees the dummy sitting on the edge of an arm chair facing an Exit. When he comes around to the other side, the spirit of ventriloquist Jonathan Fletcher appears. He tells Joey that many years ago, an evil spirit took over his dummy and trapped poor Fletcher. He said the only way to free himself is to go to the door and into the light. So Poltergeist again.

So Joey opens the door, and he's instantly transported to the back of Falkor the luck dragon, who takes him on a whirlwind birds-eye view tour of Fantasia. Or maybe it's somebody's colon. It's hard to tell. But the point is, by opening the door, he's saved the day. The Goonies find him laying motionless and he has to be put on life support. E.T. again.

The kids, just like their Stephen Speilberg-directed counterparts, give an interview after their ordeal. The main kid said he saw "Him." When asked who, he says, "You know, my hero." Except he doesn't say, "my hero." That part's dubbed, because his mouth is clearly saying something else. Could it be that even though images of Darth Vader, and nearly everything else found in Star Wars, were used extensively throughout the movie, they weren't legally allowed to say his name? Cause that'd be weird. The E.T. girl tells the horror-faced woman, "The light was so beautiful." Now Emmerich's trying to compare her to Carol Ann? Too late, buddy. You already established that she's a rip-off of Drew Barrymore. It's bad enough you threw her in there with The Goonies kids. Now you're just being greedy.

So then there's a Poltergeist-like storm, and the scientists announce Joey is dead. His mother cries, and all the kids wan to see him. They say Joey would have made a good leader because he saved them despite the way they treated him. The girl picks up Charlie, the robot that the movie forgot about since Act 1. The robot comes alive, then a bunch Millennium Falcon two TIE fighters fly out of Joey's room. Joey opens his eyes. E.T. music swells. The end.

The movie is almost done "paying homage" to every American production it can think of, but there's one more left. Check out the fourth line up from the bottom:

And others? Did the Professor and Maryanne work on this movie?

Well anyway, I saw this thing I don't even know how many times when I was growing up. But somehow never knew the name, and as I got older and tried to describe it to people, all I got were blank stares. But now, thanks to the internet, I was able to actually track it down and prove to all the doubters that I didn't jut imagine it. But that's not all, I finally found something else I was looking for, too. But that will wait for tomorrow. I've learned my lesson. You know. The lesson about wads.

Apologies in Advance

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 10:01:03 PDT

A pirate is sitting at the bar, and the bartender says "How'd you get that eyepatch?" The pirate says, "Arrr, livin' on a ship can get a bit cramped, so some of the lads decided we should take a portion of the cargo hold where we store our plunder and convert it ta livin' quarters. Not everyone was open to the idea."

"So they stabbed you in the eye?"

"What? No! So we had a vote, fair and democratic like, to see whether or not we should give up some loot space fer some livin' space. The results were split down the middle, seven men for it, and seven opposed, with one undecided."

"So the guys that were against it broke into your quarters while you slept and plucked out your eye to get you to change your vote!"

"No! Stop doing that! So...I approached the undecided lad and asked if there was anythin' I could do to persuade him ta vote for the extra livin' space."

"And?"

"And nothin', he agreed ta vote in favor of it, and that's why I wear this eyepatch."

"I don't get it."

"You know the old saying, boy. An eye for an 'Aye'."

On another note, I made more xtranormal movies.
First up is a series called "The Fantastic World of Sports:

Then there are the semi-autobiographical ones...

And the ones that don't really fit in any category (the last one is my favorite):

So, there you go.

Random Squeegee: The Movie

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:13:38 PST

created using xtranormal.com

My Heart Will Go On

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 13:34:09 PST

I got the results from those ultrasounds from the other day. The doctor said while she is confident that I do in fact have Marfan Syndrome, both scans showed my aorta to be perfectly healthy. I'm going to have to go back once a year so they can keep an eye on it, but she reassured me that if and when the aortic tissue expands too much, I'd just need to take pills to regulate it as opposed to surgery. I can deal with that.

So as far as dropping dead goes, I think I'm in the clear. but I've still got joint and tissue deterioration to worry about. She suggested Tai Chi, which is supposed to help me avoid things like my thumb or even my whole wrist trying to escape. Conversely, yoga is one of the worst things I could do. I really don't need to be stretched out any more than I already am.

Next up is an eye exam, to see if I have a dislocated lens. She said if I start seeing silvery flashes in front of my eyes, go to the nearest eye treatment facility right away, because it could mean that I have a detached retina. Actually, I don't even know if detached retinas and dislocated lenses are the same thing or two separate conditions. I could easily look them up, but there is sure to be accompanying pictures and I want no part of that.

JMDb Strikes Again

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 07:13:56 PST

Since the day he got here, and probably even before that, Joe's been periodically shouting "Bailiff, whack his pee pee!" And as with everything else that spews from his mouth, no provocation is needed. We'll be sitting in complete silence, then "Bailiff, whack his pee pee!" comes booming out of his office. Perhaps even more baffling is the revelation yesterday that Money claims to have never heard Joe say this at any point over the last eight years. You've got to envy Mooney's acute ability to suppress and/or block out stuff like that.

I guess it made him curious, because today Mooney said "Bailiff, whack his pee pee!" to see what Joe would do.

"Who was it that said that?" Joe asked. "I forget his name. It was a black guy."

"You mean that's actually from something?" asked Mooney.

"Yup. It was a bit on Rowan & Martin's. 'Bailiff, Whack his pee pee!'"

"Rowan & Martin's? They said that on TV?"

"Oh yeah, you could say anything back then." Joe informs him.

I guess when you've done as many drugs as Joe has (by his own admission) it's easy for whatever's left of your brain to confuse the "Here come de judge" skit from Laugh-In with a Cheech and Chong bit about statutory rape.

JMDb

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 11:49:17 PST

Sometimes, you just have to know when to pick your battles. That being said, from my office I just heard just say from down the hall:

"You know what was a movie that was disappointing that got a lot of hype? End of Days. It was Arnold's last movie, besides his cameo in The Rundown."

Against all odds, my brain did not implode after taking in that much false information. 2008 John would have gone down there and corrected him, but 2009 John is just going to sit in his office and pretend it never happened. However, just to purge it from my head, End of Days came out in 1999, just in time to cash in on the Y2K hysteria, but long before Arnold's stint in politics. In fact, over the next four years after End of Days release, he would go on to star in three more movies; The 6th Day, Collateral Damage and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, as while he did have an uncredited cameo in The Rundown, his actual pre-Governator performance was a cameo in the greenlit-for-some-reason Around the World in 80 Days remake. That was five movies and five years after End of Days.

As for the hype, I don't recall any surrounding that movie, no more than the usual Schwarzenegger movie, anyway. When I think of hype, I think of a movie like The Dark Knight. You know, something people actually talk about. If anyone was talking about End of Days a decade ago, it was probably about how bad it was, as it got universally negative reviews. It did a modest showing at the box office, probably owing to the aforementioned Y2K hysteria, but I don't think I'd classify it as hype.

I don't expect people to know movie release dates off the top of their heads, that would be unreasonable. But don't pretend like you know what you're talking about and get every detail wrong. Well, maybe not every detail. It was a pretty crappy movie. At least he got that part right.

Bill Pullman.org. Yes. Dot ORG.

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 07:25:49 PST

For some reason, I was just thinking of a bit from Family Guy about Neil Simon's The Even Couple, starring Jeff Daniels and Bill Pullman.

This isn't spaghetti, it's linguine.
You're right, it is! I always get those confused. Hey, all of us are human.
I'm glad we're friends.
Yeah, this is really working out.

So I did a search and discovered it was mentioned in the 2006 news archives of billpullman.org. Bill Pullman is an organization now? Why isn't it .com, like Kamala the Ugandan Giant's website? What makes Bill Pullman so damn special?

To be fair, the site does state that "Bill Pullman.org is not officially connected in any way to Bill Pullman." So it's not as though Bill Pullman has let all of his many accolades go to his head. And anyway, odds are he would have gone with billpullman.gov, I mean, he did play the President of the United States.

I just hope billpullman.org is at least a non-profit organization determined to enhance the lives of those less fortunate, as opposed to a loose association of Lonestar stalkers. They could follow the example of the Society of Bill Paxton Admirers, whose mission statement vows that they are determined to find cost-efficient and ecological ways of converting their impure Bill-Paxton-related thoughts into clean, renewable energy.

What billpullman.org should do is start some kind of campaign to spread awareness that, while similar in name and shape, Good & Plenty is NOT the same thing as Mike & Ike. I found out the hard way. But there's hope for others.

Does anyone actually like licorice?

An Important Chinese New Year Message

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:08:09 PST

Well, it's a new year, there's a new president, and I'm a new uncle. That's right, uncle, like all those Disney castratos. Michele's sister gave birth to a boy last week, making me an uncle, except we're not married so I don't know if that's an official title or like a gray area. Anyway, to go along with all this newness, I guess I owe a new post. Or at least a new-ish one.

Tuesday I was at Harvard Vanguard Kenmore for most of the day. When I made the appointment in early December, they set up a blood test, and two ultrasounds; one for my heart and one for the abdomen.

Hold on, quick question: What do you call a snowman body without a head? highlight for answer
the abdominal snowman

Sorry. I needed to fast for the abdominal one, so I made the appointment for 11:00 AM, then I could have lunch, and go to the cardio scan at 1:30. That way I get get it all done and out of the way in one day. Less to remember that way.

It turns out that somehow, even that was too much to remember. I left work at about ten minutes to eleven, thinking that my first appointment was at 11:30. I did get a voicemail reminder from Harvard, but after I heard the confirmation DATE, I deleted it without confirming the TIME. Or for that matter, which appointment came first.

I got on the train, found a seat, and waited for the Fenway stop, which was about five or six stops away. I don't know what it is about those trains, but if I'm not reading the paper, I'm out like a light after a few minutes. I already read the morning Metro, and before I knew it, we were at my stop. I got up as fast as I could, just as the doors closed in my face and we took off. I got off at the next stop, crossed the tracks and got on a train headed the other way. I got to the building about ten minutes late, which I didn't think was too bad. Except I was still under the impression that the appointment was for 11:30, so I was in fact forty minutes late. I went up to get the blood test first, because that's why I hadn't eaten since six the night before, right? After the blood test, I went to the front desk and said I have two ultrasounds scheduled, but I wasn't sure which one was first. The woman directed me to Imaging, so I went there, checked in and said I have two ultrasounds scheduled, but I wasn't sure of the order. The guy at the desk took my card, looked me up on his computer and said I need to go up to Cardiology on the second floor.

So I went to up Cardiology, checked in, and told them I had two ultrsounds scheduled, but I wasn't sure of the order. The woman at the desk took my card and looked me up on her computer. She said my appointment was for 1:30. I asked about the second one. She said she didn't see anything scheduled and asked me if I was sure it was for today. I said I was, and she checked again. She found out that the abdominal scan was canceled, and it was canceled today. Crap. Then it all came back to me.

I told her that when I got there, I went right up to get the blood test rather then checking in at imaging. Since I wasn't there thirty minutes after my appointment time, they canceled the ultrasound.

So I went back down to Imaging, told the guy that I went to get the blood test first instead of checking in at Imaging (I conveniently left out the part about sleeping through the train stop and thinking the appointment was half an hour later than it actually was), so he checked the computer again, and found that I did have an appointment which was canceled. He didn't have any openings right away, but he got up and went down the hall for a few minutes to see if there was anywhere they could fit me in today. He came back, asked if I had eaten yet, then asked it I could come back at quarter to three.

The original plan was to have lunch at noon, but I'd already waited this long, so why not wait a little longer. I pretty much hung out in the main hallway for most of the day, reading about the inauguration on my cell phone. At 1:30, I went up to Cardiology, took of my shirt and had this weird goo smeared on my chest. The doctor or whoever administers these things ran this roller thing all over me, and every once in a while, I'd hear my heartbeat, which sounded more like when you shake thin sheets of metal then a heart. When she was finished, I wiped the goo off, put my shirt back on, and went back to the main hallway for another hour. Having not eaten since the night before, and losing a bit of blood in my arm, I was feeling a bit woozy. But I got back to Imaging, filled out some paperwork, and waited for the final test of the day, which was actually supposed to be the first.

two women called me into a room, I took of my shirt, one of them rubbed more weird goo on me, but it was different goo then the kind they used in Cardiology. I had to lay on my side for a while, and one of the women rolled a thing all over my chest and stomach, at some points mentioning how she was trying to push the intestines out of the way. It's totally non-evasive, obviously, but that's still kinda gross if you think about it too much. Anyway, she finished up, but asked if it was okay if the other one tried. I'm assuming she was a medical student. Or that was a really weird Make-A-Wish request. I'm not about to turn away a young person in the pursuit of knowledge and/or the guilt-free opportunity to have some anonymous chick rub a roller thing all over me when I'm covered in gross translucent goo, so she did her thing I wiped the goo off, put my shirt back on, and had lunch.

I don't know why I can remember all that to the most insane detail, but I couldn't remember the simplest thing like the time and order of the appointments. I blame Marfans.

An Important Christmas Message

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 08:02:47 PST

Hello, and merry Christmas everyone. You know, with all the commercialism surrounding Christmas, it can be easy to forget what this day is all about. It's to celebrate the birth of someone who came into this world with a message of joy and peace. Someone who died, rose again, and will return again one day. So happy birthday, Frosty the Snowman!

In A Country Far Far Away...

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 07:00:15 PST

Snit (aka Droopy McCool). Jabba's palace. 1983.

Sara the walrus. Istanbul. 2008.

George Lucas is like Nerdstadamus. Who knew?

Aorta Be in Pictures

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 04:58:49 PST

Remember when I made that appointment to see if I had Marfan Syndrome? Well, I just got back. Did you know that geneticists are located in the same part of the medical facility as the OB/GYN? I didn't. And neither did the lady behind the desk at the gynecologist's office apparently. I got some weird looks when I walked in there.

Can I help you?

Um, I'm here for an appointment.

With an OB/GYN?

Uh, no. Genetics.

She asked for my name, then she looked me up and asked me to sit down. So I sat there for about thirty-five minutes as wave after wave of female patients came in, sat down, were called into the office, and left. The lady behind the desk was talking to her co-worker about David Otunga, the guy from "I Love New York" who's engaged to Jennifer Hudson.

I had already made the co-pay downstairs and this is where the woman there directed me to go. I was starting to think I was in the wrong office, but the lady behind the desk assured me this was genetics, and the doctor would be out in just a few minutes.

The doctor finally came out to greet me. She was wearing plainclothes, like she was undercover. I guess I'm just used to doctors in those white smock things they wear, with a stethoscope around their neck and that circle thing on their head. Come to think of it, I've never seen an actual doctor wearing one of those circle things. She took me into her office and I sat down. The table next to me was overflowing with toys and Dr. Seuss books, and the front of her desk was covered with large, colorful magnetic letters. Near the bottom, someone had spelled out "Youkilis" using sideways "H"s for the "I"s.

She asked for some family history, I answered all of her questions to the best of my knowledge, and then we went into another room where she measured my height, armspan, and leg length. Then we went back to her office and she explained that loose connective tissues, which accounts for my flexibility and occasional hand-popping-out-of-the-socket-ness, is also the reason I had the hiccups for five days and why my throat closes up sometimes when I eat.

I didn't have to give up any of my precious bodily fluids, which was nice. But I do have to go back on January 20 to get 2 non-invasive tests; an ultrasound of my abdominal aorta, and an echocardiogram.

That's all I got for today. I was going to write "aorta" a few more times, but I don't remember everything the doctor said about it. I guess there's medication or something that can keep it from getting too big, because that's what happens. It explodes or something, I don't know. I feel better now that I've looked into all this stuff, anyway.

Wenis Envy

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 10:37:37 PST

Every day we are surrounded by war. The war on terror. The war on drugs. The Battle of the Network Stars. But the oldest of them all, older than the bloody conflicts between Israel and Palestine or even Great Taste and Less Filling is the battle of the sexes. It's been raging for tens of thousands of years, with no end in sight.

Nowhere is this battle more prevalent than in our nation's electronic inboxes. Well, I guess it's much more prevalent in the thousands of domestic abuse cases reported each year, but that doesn't really gel with the light-hearted tone I've established on this blog. So let's stick with the annoying e-mails we get all the time that basically amount to "Ha Ha! Men don't ask for directions! Hee Hee! Women are overbearing!"

While both sides are equally repugnant, I'm inclined to defend my own gender against vitriolic anti-male propaganda, lest the Man Council have me waterborded and, I don't know, stripped of my fantasy football team. By the way, it is not cool to make fun of another man's beleaguered fantasy team. Yes, up until last week, my beloved Crusty Jugglers were 3-9 (the same record as a guy who was locked out of the league in week four due to an argument) and I'm the only person still actively playing in our 10 team league statistically eliminated from making the playoffs. But it's not like I'm the one out there not scoring touchdowns or dropping passes. (Maybe that's for the best.) I'm just having a bad year. And anyway, your team is like your kid. And it hurts when people make fun of your club-footed, droopy-eyed bald kid. He's out there doing the best he can, God bless him! With his helmet and mittens. Heart of a champion.

But back to this man-hating stuff. A list was brought to my attention that soils the pants and baffles the mind. Mostly the latter. As a goodwill gesture, I'd like to state that this list is clearly the work of an extremist, a Femsama Bin Ladin declaring shehad if you will, and is in no way a reflection of the thoughts of your average, non-insane woman. This is a person with some serious issues, who unfortunately left their name off the spiteful, humorless list so we can't all, men and women alike, laugh at how sad and pathetic this person's life must be. Just the same, let's all point and laugh, shall we? Only then can the healing begin.

Here are all the rules every woman must know about men:
1. They look at women as only child bearing flesh, and not humans
Well that makes no sense. If men only see women as child-bearing flesh, how come so many guys skip town when they find out they knocked up their girlfriends? Hmm? Answer that one, Nancy Drew.

2. Men only care about 1 thing and ONLY 1 thing
Well that's awfully vague. Um...is it football? Big screen TVs? Wait, it's video games, right? Yeah, it's probably video games.

3. Men could care less about you, his family, his children
I'm just going to gloss over the fact that she went from plural "men" to singular possessive "his". Okay? Forget about that affront to the English language. It's COULDN'T! Men COULDN'T care less! Cheese and crackers, that really ticks me off. It's like saying this person could be dumber. When in fact, this person couldn't be any dumber. See? She's achieved maximum dumbness. The intelligence meter is at zero degrees Kelvin. She's dumb is what I'm getting at.

4. Men would do ANYTHING even kill you for sex
That's right, sister. Because nothing's hotter than banging a dead chick. You caught us.

5. Men can NOT live without sex
I guess it's true. Mahatma Gandhi took a vow of celibacy, and he's dead. So...there you go.

6. Men are mindless, and useless creatures
René Descartes sounds like a chick's name, but he was totally a guy. I think, therefore I am. Suck on that.

7. Women can live without men, men CANNOT live without women
I suppose women could wipe out all the men on Earth and repopulate using sperm banks, but sooner or later, they're gonna run out of baby formula.

8. Men do not have the ability to think about anything but sex
This is the fifth one about sex, and not the last. Clearly someone can't think about anything else.

9. Men cannot love, and do not have the strengths to love. They only know sex
Jeez, change the record, lady. Maybe you should change it to, I don't know, I Would Do Anything for Love, But I Won't Do That. Know who sang that? A man. A man named Meatloaf, wearing a Klingon forehead for some reason.

10. All men should rot in hell
You know in Revenge of the Sith, when Obi-Wan was fighting Anakin, and Obi-Wan said "Only a Sith deals in absolutes," but that itself is an absolute so by his own definition Obi-wan must be a Sith? Well, that's relevant to this somehow. Maybe she forget a few words and meant to say "All men who set puppies on fire should rot in hell." I think we can all agree on that one, right?

Yes, the anonymity of the internet allows people to get away with saying just about anything, and this is probably the angry manifesto of a woman spurned one too many times. There is certainly no shortage of assholes, so a long string of failures could leave someone a jaded wreck to be pitied and/or mocked for their melodramatic platitudes. Although, this whole list may have just been meant to be sarcastic, and sarcasm, as I've come to learn, can be catastrophic on the internets if you don't pull it off.

However, I can't say it doesn't bother me that this person is walking around somewhere, completely blind to the fact that they are frighteningly stupid, and what's worse, breathing all our precious, hard-earned air. I really hope she gets diarrhea with blood in it. And it happens when she's on a bus or something and no one wants to sit next to her, not even the guy that smells like ashtrays filled with cat pee.

I think Jose was expecting me to write about Thanksgiving.

Get It Off Me! Get It Off Me!

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:52:06 PST

I suppose I should have written this yesterday, since it happened yesterday, and because of this, I got to go home early yesterday. Sure, the power came back on right about the same time I got home, but it worked out for the best because I was still able to get my projects done on the laptop, plus I didn't have to wear pants.

But let's go back to the beginning of the day. Actually, let's go back a year or two, when I broke the zipper on my jacket. It just snapped off when I was pulling it up one day. The zipper itself still worked fine; it just didn't have the part you pull on anymore. Which, incidentally, is called the puller. You don't really need the puller, though. At first I tried to replace it with a bent paperclip, but it was way too pointy at the end, so I wrapped some masking tap around it. That didn't really help at all and looked incredibly stupid, so I just gave up trying to replace the puller and started grabbing the slider between my thumb and index finger and pulling it up and down that way. The skin on my thumb would occasionally get stuck in the zipper, but otherwise it's worked perfectly all this time.

Then on Saturday the slider got stuck midway up the zipper and wouldn't come undone. I could pull it all the way up to the top, but it wouldn't go any further down than that midway point.

Rather than trying to fix it, I switched to my winter coat. It's getting colder anyway. Okay, we can go back to Monday morning again. I put my winter coat on, walked with Brianna and Michele to the car, and bent down to but my laptop bag in the back seat. Just then I felt something land on my head. I immediately reached up to swat it away. It was long and wriggly.

"Ah!! There's something on my head! I think it's a snake!"

"A snake?"

"Yeah. Maybe it fell out of a tree."

Well, a snake could've fallen out of the tree. It's cold out. Maybe he slithered up there, hung out on a branch, but then it got too cold for him and he fell out and died on my head. Stranger things have happened. But it turns out it was just the drawstring on my coat. It flipped onto my head when I bent over.

Stupid drawstrings. I hate those things. And these ones have metal aglets at that end and they always swing around when I walk and smack me in the teeth.

So um, that's what I've been up to. Oh, on Friday, clean-cut Spare Change Guy was at Park Street station and asked me if I had any matches. I did not.

I Can Finally Sleep at Night!

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:49:34 PST

This had been bothering me forever: who are Huey, Dewey and Louie's parents? They always seem to be with their uncle Donald, or uncle Scrooge, who is actually Donald's uncle and their great-uncle. But if Donald is their uncle, then he must have a brother or sister, right? And for that matter, if Scrooge is Donald's uncle, who is Donald's father? And where did all these parents go, anyway? I seem to remember even Mickey had two nephews. How did Disney get this family-friendly image when nearly all of their characters' parents are either seemingly non-existent or die horribly?

I don't want to get off track, but I have to mention that friggin' song is on again. I wish Sugarland was a Disney character's parents.

Anyway, I've always thought it was weird that everyone was an "uncle" and wondered if Duckburg was populated by genetic test subjects who reproduce asexually (which would explain why so many characters walk around pantsless yet lack any visible genitalia) by growing spores on their backs like Gremlins. The truth may be too disturbing to reveal, so the elder Ducks tell the younger ones they were just left on the doorstep one night by shiftless relatives. Oops. I think I just spoiled the ending of M. Night Shyamalan's Duck Tales.

But thanks to the internet, now we know that Huey, Dewey and Louie do, in fact, at least have a mother! Check out Carl Banks' Duck Family Tree.

So now we know that Scrooge is Donald's maternal uncle. Donald's mother's name is Hortense Duck (née McDuck) and his father is Quackmore Duck. He also has a cousin named Gladstone, who was orphaned when his parents overate at a free-lunch picnic. Which leads to the obvious conclusion that Donald is part goldfish.

He has a twin sister named Della Thelma Duck, who is Huey, Dewey and Louie's mother. Finally! Well that's a load off my mind. Curiously, no father is mentioned. Could they have possibly been immaculately conceived from medichlorians? Well, according to wikipedia, there is an unnamed father, but he was sent to the hospital after the little hellspawn stuck a firecracker under his chair, which is how they fell into Donald's care in the first place.

So there you go. Mystery solved. Although none of this explains Mickey's nephews. Or why Goofy wears clothes and walk on his hind legs, but Pluto is a naked mute who drinks from the toilet. Actually, Goofy breaks all the Disney archetypes. Donald doesn't wear pants, Mickey walks around shirtless like he's Matthew McConaughey, but Goofy wears pants and a shirt. And, unlike his sterile and/or sexually repressed friends, Goofy actually has his own kid. Which means Goofy had sex. Sloppy, goofy sex.

But since it's Disney, there's no mother. She probably fell off a cliff got caught in a bear trap or something.

Faith and Begorrah! Me Poor Ears!

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:26:54 PST

A couple of months ago, I got my own office under cartoonishly ridiculous circumstances. So now I'm all the way down the hall from Joe, which sounds nice in theory, but it seems like he's in my office now even more than when I was next door to him. That's mostly because the back-up computer was moved to my office. We really only use it if we need to scan something (which is maybe twice a year) or if we need to pull a job off of--or put a job onto--the archive. By the way, Joe dubbed the backup drive "Hogwarts", which he thinks is hilarious. Anyway, no sooner had I sat down in the new office, Joe's in here saving old jobs to the archive and checking every ten minutes to see if it's finished. I told him I could check for him, so he doesn't need to come down here all the time. The estimated time to finish downloading was 40 minutes, so coming in to see if it's done every ten minutes just seems pointless.

That computer also has the scanner, which we very rarely use, but when I first moved into the new office he was in here every morning using the scanner. Why, you ask? Because his wife checked a sock-knitting book out from the library and it was due back soon. I guess she liked it, but didn't want to pay outrageously inflated book-store prices for her own copy, so Joe was scanning the entire book, page by page, to make full-color printouts. You can't make this stuff up.

But I don't even care. Joe is small potatoes. White noise. The thing that's been slowly driving me insane since I moved to this end of the studio is my boss's radio. Her office is right next to mine, and she's a country music fan. And it's on all day.

I don't know a whole lot about country music, but I guess like anything else, it can be broken into smaller sub-genres. As far as I can tell, the station she listens to is soft-rock staples as sung by today's names in country music, whoever the hell they are. So far I've heard country versions of Boyz II Men songs, Eagles songs (which were practically country to begin with so it just seems redundant), Walking in Memphis, that Aerosmith song from Armageddon...it's like they took MAGIC 106.7's playlist and twanged it all up. Oh, and every day at noon they play the Star Spangled Banner, because anyone who isn't constantly waving a flag until they get carpal tunnel syndrome is a Commie bastard who hates our troops.

It's not all national anthems and adult contemporary hits as performed by guys with giant beltbuckles. About four times a day, Kid Rock (Not country!) inexplicably shows up to sing a song about singing Sweet Home Alabama (Also not country!), sampling quite a bit of the melody from Sweet Home Alabama, and, for some reason, Werewolves of London (Not even the same country!!) But I'd cover myself in peanut butter and lie on a fire ant hill while headphones duct-taped to my head play Kid Rock singing about singing someone else's song on a loop for a month if it meant never having to listen to the most annoying, repetitive song I've ever heard. Even more annoying than Move Ya Body. Well, maybe not. But it's up there. And it goes like this:

"oo oo oo oo oo oo, oo oo oo oo oo oo, oo oo oo oo oo oo oooo"

And continues on like that for nearly four minutes.

After hearing it every day for two months, I had to look it up, just so I'd know who to direct my unbridled rage at. It did take a little work, since the wall between our offices absorbed all the audible lyrics other than the steady burst of 19 "oo"s, which came through loud and clear. What is the secret of the "oo"s? Typing a bunch of "oo"s into Google didn't really help. But adding "annoying" and "country song" yielded some results. So, I hereby direct my unbridled rage at Sugarland, and "All I Want To Do." Congratulations, Sugarland, you just made my enemies list.

In other news, I won't be going back to the doctor to settle this whole Marfan Syndrom kerfuffle until next month. I suppose it could be worse. I could have Foreign Accent Syndrome.

Don't laugh. There are dozens of them. Dozens! Did Madonna suffer so kind of massive head trauma we don't know about? I wonder if Trina's got an Irish brogue now, since her little accident. The thing I don't understand, you know, beside the fact that they start speaking in a different accent to begin with, is why they can't just switch back. Have you ever seen a movie where you didn't realize the actor was British until you hear them use their real accent in interviews? Well, if you can "do" an accent, couldn't you just "do" your old voice if someone threw a toaster at your head one day and you suddenly sounded like Colonel Klink?

I'll bet the dozens of people with Foreign Accent Syndrome get asked that all the time, and it probably ticks them off. It's like when you lose something and everybody says, "Where was the last place you had it?" Wow. Why didn't I think of that? Another mystery solved there, Encyclopedia Brown.

They Should Call this Blog Johnny Deformed

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:59:45 PST

You know how people ask how do you know if the refrigerator light goes off when you close the door, and they think they're being clever or something, but it's a stupid question because there's a button that switches the light off when it's pressed, and since it's right in the door track, the weight of the door turns it off? You can press it with your finger when the door is open, for crying out loud. I don't know where I was going with that. I think it had something to do with what I do when I'm not blogging. I'm not some monkey here for your amusement, I've got a lot on my plate right now. It's not like when I'm not posting here, I go into stasis or anything, in a giant, hermetically-sealed Tupperware container 300 feet below the surface of the Earth, where an advanced society of mole-men monitor my vital signs and flood my mind with gamma rays encoded with subliminal messages, effectively making me a sleeper agent in their quest to take over the Topside. That's just silly. How could these mole people even survive up here, what with their poor vision and their photo-sensitive skin?

No, It turns out I've just been ~~on Facebook~~ really busy at work. For like, months now.

But I'm giving you an update, not just because I've been nominated for something, but also because I got myself all freaked out last week about some genetic defect thing that I may or may not have.

It started last Monday. With so many sto---HOLY SHIT! Sorry. They're doing something to the roof at work. We can hear banging and whirring power tools all day. Just now a big piece of...something...just flew past my window, like a big chunk of Styrofoam or insulation. I don't know if they dropped it by accident or threw it down to the dumpster, but it hit my window ledge, a piece broke off, and it continued on the the ground seven stories below. For a second I thought it was a person. Crap, that was scary.

Alright, what I was saying was, with the election dominating the news pretty much since 2006, there were hundreds of weird little articles coming out that somehow involved presidents or elections. For example, do you know why elections are held on Tuesdays? One of these articles was about Presidential diseases. Michele sent it to me because some people believe Abraham Lincoln had Marfan Syndrome, and from the description, it seemed like I might have it, too. Here's some of the symptoms:

Tall, thin stature with long limbs. Check.
For most people, armspan and height are roughly equal - in people with Marfan Syndrome, armspan is longer. Check. 73" height, 76" armspan.
Long, flexible fingers and toes. Check.
Easy dislocation and loose joints, as well as scoliosis or abnormal side-to-side curvature of the spine. Check and check. When I was a teenager, they told me I had Kyphosis (From the Greek Kyphos, meaning hunchback. Fan-friggin'-tastic.) I had to wear a back brace, which didn't really help my already unnecessarily low self-esteem.
Sunken or pushed-out breastbone. Check.
Vision problems. Check.
Weak blood vessels (especially the aorta) and abnormal heart valves. Um...I don't know. But I did have the hiccups for FIVE DAYS.

Anyway, it was all actually pretty interesting, until I got to the "Prognosis" part, where my life-expectancy was basically halved. So, yeah, it rattled me a bit. It shouldn't have, first of all because I can't even confirm I have this thing, and even if I do, it says with proper medical treatment, the AVERAGE lifespan is increased to about 70 years. 70 is the average, so half the people must live longer than that for it to be the average, right? Isn't that how math works?

Well, it's better to get all worked up over nothing than to suddenly drop dead in ten years, so I did something I hardly ever do: I made an appointment to see a doctor. I figured since I was going to be there anyway, I made sort of a Top Ten list of "ailments" or whatever that I've had for years, but were really too small to go see a doctor for on their own. I don't know, I'd feel silly setting up an appointment to tell a doctor that, despite my narrow build, I constantly smash my shoulder on door frames that I have more than enough space to walk through. But if it's thrown in with a list of other stuff, that somehow makes it easier. So, under threats from Michele and my boss, I made an appointment for last Thursday.

The medical center I go to (which I hadn't gone to since the hiccups incident), is right across the street from the Braintree train station, so I took the train from work and walked over there. On the way, I saw a woman walking ahead of me fall to the ground. It's always tricky when someone falls, because if they're hurt, they're going to need help, but if they're not, the last thing they want is for anyone to draw attention to their hilarious pratfall. She had pretty much gathered herself together by the time I reached her, but to be safe I asked if she was okay. The woman turned around and just gave me this blank, eerie stare. She looked like Morton Downey, Jr., with big coke-bottle glasses. I thought maybe she didn't hear me, so I asked again. Still nothing. Well, nothing but an evil, ungrateful death-stare. Amazingly, though her ankles are apparently made of spaghetti, she managed to hold on tightly to her lit cigarette the entire time. I should have pushed her back down, the crazy broad. I only offered to help in case someone I knew happened to drive by and I didn't want to look like a dick. Jeez. And that face is going to haunt my dreams.

After that, I got to the building and checked in. There was some kind of scheduling conflict with the doctor, so they sent me to a nurse practitioner rather than waiting hours to see my primary care physician, who I couldn't pick out of a lineup anyway. It was a good meeting, but unfortunately I don't have much else to report about it for the moment. She took my list, made a photocopy of it, and said while you can't just look at someone and say they have Marfan Syndrome, it looks like I have Marfan Syndrome. I have another appointment coming up, but it hasn't been scheduled yet. The next one will be with a geneticist. I guess I feel better now. I'm not freaked out anymore, it's not really a big deal either way. It just explains my creepy wizard fingers. At least Michele will stop nagging me about going to the doctor. Now all I have to do is go to the dentist. I may have cracked a tooth last Wednesday. I've been avoiding anything hard or crunchy and chewing with the right side of my mouth since then.

It Puts the Dring in the Basket

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 05:18:40 PDT

Apparently more people read this thing than just you guys. I guess that means I have to update more. Lousy new people.

So here's one that's been in the queue for a while, because I couldn't really think of a good intro. All you need to know is Brianna's school had a fundraiser, so she brought home a catalog for us to bring to work and see if anyone sees anything they might want. There was actually some pretty cool looking things in there, not the crappy magazine subscriptions we were forced to shill. My mom bought a trivet. Here are the instructions that were printed on the back of the box.

INSTRUCTION

1. HEAT PRESERVATION WHILE HEATING

PUT THE MARBLE SIDE UP, HEAT AS FOLLOWS:

POWER OF THE MICROSTOVE

600-900W 3-5MIN

1000-1500W 2-4MIN

NOTE: DIFFERENT POWER AND DESIGN OF THE MICROSTOVE WILL LEAD TO DIFFERENT HEATING
TIME. IF THE WARM PLATE DO NOT HOT AFTER HEATING UPON THE ABOVE MINUTES, YOU CAN HEAT
A BIT MORE TO REACH THE TEMPERATURE YOU NEED.

PUT BOWL OR SOMETHING ELSE WHICH YOU WANT TO KEEP WARM ON THE HEATED PLATE.

CAUTION:

A. THE TEMPERATURE RANGE IS +130C TO -20C. OVER HEAT WILL LEAD TO MELTING OF THE PLASTIC HOLDER.

B. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH STONE ON BOTTOM OF THE PLATE WHEN HOT. ALWAYS HOLD BY HANDLES.

2. HEAT PRESERVATION WHILE COOLING

FREEZE IT FOR MORE THAN 4 HOURS THEN TAKE OUT, PUT THE DRING YOU WANT COOLING ON THE MARBLE.

Now I don't know how to wrap up. There's not really a whole lot to say, I guess.

Oh wait, I found virtually the same description online, except "dring" now says "drink" which is only marginally more coherent. It still says "If the warm plate do not hot enough..."

I Just Blew My Mind

random_squeegee@yahoo.com (John) — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:52:21 PDT

For some reason, Saw V is coming out this week. I guess they're just going to do that every year. The only Saw I ever saw was Saw. Whoa. That's weird. That's a lot of saws. Also, saw spelled backwards is was. And saw and was are past-tense verbs, of see and is, respectively. Si is Spanish for yes, and si spelled backwards is is, the present tense of was, which is saw spelled backwards.

Dick York, Dick Sargent, Sargent York!

I think I need to lie down.