Video Answering Machine

That’s right, the Hot Comma Momma and I are going to be away in the mountians and off the interwaves this week celebrating our big two- oh.  I asked Her Punctuated Hotness if I could take you all with us on our trip, but she wouldn’t let me.

It’s hard to believe how selfish she can be sometimes, however, I don’t think she’d mind if you got caught up on these previous anniversary exploits:

• Anniversary 19 – This Is Spinal Grip

• Anniversary 18 – The Central American Escapade

• Bonus Relationship Therapy – Powersaw Poetry Of Love

If you haven’t done so, please subscribe to my exciting new YouTube Channel and bestow my videos with the Stars of True Love.

Happy All-Week

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Happy Fourth of July from everyone here at The Ominous Comma

Be safe

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The bad news is that it is so hideously, fiendishly hot here now, that your primary mode of transportation will be to swim from place to place in a pool of your own sweat.

The good news, however, is that if your travels have you paddling past midtown, you can get in on Ben Cumming’s new weekly lecture series Further Up and Further In – A Deeper Look at the Chronicles of Narnia.

Each week for four weeks Ben will explore the different themes and elements of C. S. Lewis’ classic fantasy series.

• July 1 -Dragons and Dryads: Magic, Myth, and Poetry -
  “Eustace had read only the wrong books. They had a lot to say about exports and imports and governments and drains, but they were weak on dragons”

• July 8 -Loyal as a Badger, valiant as a mouse: Honour and Duty -
  “Peter did not feel very brave; indeed, he felt he was going to be sick. But that made no difference to what he had to do. He rushed straight up to the monster and aimed a slash of his sword at its side.”

• July 15 -Talking Beasts: Coronation & Kingship, Unveiling of Identity -
  “something was happening at last”

• July 22 -A Very Serious Thing: Narnian Warnings -
  “But kill me, and the burnings and torturings in these northern lands shall become a tale to frighten the world a thousand years hence. Beware! Beware! Beware! The bolt of Tash falls from above”

It’s all going down at Lifelink Memphis from 7-8pm
Located at:

1015 S. Cooper
Memphis TN 38104
See map
For more detail call 901-377-3372

Scuba tanks and flip-flops optional.

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What Brent Says -coming soon to a video screen near you. Don’t miss a single episode, subscribe today.

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Especially if it’s not yours.

Especially if, to pick a purely and totally hypothetical case, the wedding in question belongs to your daughter, your baby, the one you didn’t just watch grow up, but actually grew up alongside of. The always changing, yet comfortingly consistent part of your adult life.

The preparations are tiring and time consuming. The task oriented part of your brain begins to look forward to the completion your labors, “Just seven weeks to go,” it says.

And the rest of the brain is comforted by the news…until the slower moving emotional part catches on:

That’s when she leaves.

That’s when everything changes.

You remember earlier challenging times: diapers, tantrums, naps, and the fuzzy, unfocused wish for her eventual autonomy.

But as the moment approaches you realize you didn’t mean it. You never meant it.

And you scrape together your sanity for the fifteenth time.

And you play captain to the undisciplined mess of your emotions, calming them with a confident sounding command:

“Steady as she goes boys,

steady as she goes…”

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The first ever Ominous Comma Bad Idea of the Week award goes to the Tennessee State Legislature for their enthusiasm to allow concealed firearms into bars and restaurants.

It’s just hard to imagine any recipe that starts with “Add one part firearms to two parts alcohol…” that doesn’t somehow end with “…serve chilled at your favorite morgue.”

What’s your take?

Is the inebriated ignition of projectiles an inalienable right or a pub-brawling public hazard?

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That’s anticipation.

It occupies the atmosphere tonight, not for any of the usual reasons like air-traffic gridlock or chronic Phil Collins exposure, but because tomorrow my daughter returns home.

That’s right friends and neighbors, in just a few brief hours¹ Little Miss Ominous will return from her five month Gone and Exceedingly Absent world tour.

To celebrate her homecoming, the Hot Comma Momma and I have procured a fine meal, released Dwayne the engagement rock from the vault, and enjoyed a long delayed nervous breakdown.

As you might imagine, we’ll be a little busy this weekend and will be leaving the interwaves to their own devices. Feel free to chat among yourselves and I’ll see you again soon.

Happy Friday

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If you ever wanted to know why there is a church and drug store on every corner in Memphis the answers is there.

Even if you don’t want to know, the answers is still there.

And by there, I mean here: Ask Brent.

Happy Wednesday

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And for good reason.

The original Star Trek was a thing of beauty, so loaded with adventure, romance, and courage under fire, that young viewers never realized it was really an exercise in philosophy, exploring the violence, racism, and social conflict of its times.

But as deep and exciting as its storytelling often was, I think the real strength of the series was in what it didn’t tell. Unlike its successors, classic Trek usually resisted the temptation to over-explain.

As a viewer, you were always left wanting more. Wondering how transporters really worked, what powered an android, and what all those other little buttons on the console went to.

Unfortunately, starting with The Next Generation, the Star Trek franchise started shedding the adventure and wonder of its heritage and began a relentless journey deeper and deeper into its own head.

Where mystery once flirted, exposition now abounded. Every action got saddled with what seemed like hours of pseudo-scientific technobabble, to the point where roughly 25% of all available screen time got dedicated to the theoretical science behind any current crisis.

You couldn’t get fifteen minutes into an episode or feature film without one of Star Fleet’s finest saying something like,

“Maybe if we triggered a graviton pulse inversion with a double pike and served it with a side order of chronoton fluxuation in the aft sensor array, we could eventually find some action or at least return to speaking English sometime before the credits roll.”

Which brings me to my point.

Despite my earlier doubts and suspicions to the contrary, the new Star Trek movie officially rocks.

The action is back, the passion is back, and the wonder is at full strength.

This film takes the characters that we’ve loved for years, pays proper respect to their origins and motivations, and then breaks them free of the accumulated baggage and “fate” (i.e the accepted storylines of the Star Trek cannon) launching them into new and uncharted adventures.

This film has left me seriously stoked.

Final rating: Two thumbs on phasers set to “amaze.”

The last film Brent mentioned in these pages did not do so well. Check out this fair and balanced review of the most hideous waste of film ever spawned: Dragon Wars.

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And the people rejoiced, for they had secretly feared that the voting might continue unto their children and their children’s children and their children’s children’s children until all posterity cursed them for ever starting the thing in the first place.

And the beloved scribe came forth to announce the winner to the people that peopled that land and when he looked upon those people he took a long and thoughtful pause.

And the people began to plot together how they might stuff his head into a large bucket of gelatin dessert, but the scribe awoke before they could act and with haste announced the winner.

And he said to them:

“The winner is Wonderboy.”

And the people rejoiced again and ate the half-set gelatin and returned to their homes very pleased for Wonderboy.

The end

—

Congratulations Wonderboy, for your fine caption writing skill you shall be awarded your very own copy of DangerCouch and the Tinsel of Doom, a stunningly exciting DVD of happiness. Contact me to claim your prize.

Happy Saturday everyone

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