Remember my blog?

It was pretty cool. I want to come back to it. I think I'll work my way slowly.

Where to start? BerryBird tagged me with a meme. It involves posting my desktop. My desktop is not the slightest bit cool. I need to cool it up a little before I participate.

A research study was done that showed that of all segments of the workforce, direct care staff at mental institutions and nursing homes are the most likely to suffer from depression. You know what's hard? Seeing your coworkers being depressed and feeling useless. You know what's harder? Actually taking care of people while you're depressed.

What else we got here? I'm sort of kind of dating someone now. It's my coworker Rachel. She was dating someone else when she started working at the hospital, who is also employed at the hospital, which has made for several uncomfortable moments. Also, the other interested party was perusing my blog for awhile, looking for dirt to dig up on me. Most people, it turns out, publish all their dirty laundry on the internets for the whole world to read. When I told Jeff this, he said, "What was he going to find out? Your new awesome method for ranking your favorite bands?" I told Jeff to shut up. This was another reason I didn't care to recount my life adventures for awhile. I felt it would keep some wounds open a little too long, and I don't particularly enjoy hurting people. In fact, I don't enjoy hurting people at all. Ever, really.

But, Rachel has a daughter, which means when I'm sort of kind of casually seeing her, we have to be at her house, which means we mostly watch movies, and since Rachel has a soft spot for low-budget B movies that went direct to DVD, I get to see quite the eclectic mix. I've watched a few zillion movies over the past couple of months. I could easily turn this into "Andy Comments on Movies, Both Silly and Serious." Here are a few vignettes:

A Beautiful Mind: Dad recommended this. I really enjoyed it, which surprised me, as it stars Russell Crowe. However, it's about a subject near and dear to me, so I got into it.

Cheerleader Ninjas: You know, I don't ask for a lot in movies. They don't need to be smart, or particularly funny, or even good. They just need to entertain me for at least an hour if its your typical 90 minute movie. You'd think a movie called Cheerleader Ninjas could accomplish this meager task. After all, how hard could it be to make Cheerleader Ninjas. You take cheerleaders, give them katanas, send them on a mission, and zany sexy hijinx ensue. None of that happens in this movie. For that matter, nothing happens in this movie. At least, nothing that makes a damn bit of sense. The cheerleaders aren't even frickin' ninjas, for pete's sake. The movie ends up being one long in 'joke' about how bad and stupid the movie is. Gyah. I can't even write how bad this was. All I wanted was some cheerleader ninjas.

Frankenfish: On the other side of the low-budget coin we have this gem. Do we have giant, man-eating mutated fish? Why yes, we do. Do we have a creepy locale for these fish to hunt near helpless humans? But of course. Do we have easily recognizable character archetypes, allowing astute observers to try to predict order of death? We certainly do. Were the deaths gruesome, yet memorable and creative? You know it. Was there at least one decent actor in the cast? Actually, yes there was. Was there at least one absolutely terrible actor? Yes, but she was hot, so we forgave her. See, Cheerleader Ninjas people? This movie making stuff isn't so complex after all. Frankenfish even managed to work gratuitous nudity into the plot more smoothly than Cheerleader Ninjas, and there was nary a cheerleader in sight for the entire course of the plot. All of these pluses let me forgive the fact that the ending was a bit rushed and anti-climactic. Oh well.

Rain Man: When I tell people I saw Rain Man for the first time a couple weeks ago, they look at me like I'm crazy. I think it might be in contention for my favorite ever, up there with O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Benny and Joon, which is surprising since it co-stars Tom Cruise. You know what my favorite line is? "Definitely trapped... in some sort of box... with no tv... and 10 minutes 'til Wapner." It's followed up by "They're making legal history in there, Ray, and you're missing it. LEGAL HISTORY!"

In other Dustin Hoffman-related news, I saw The Graduate for the first time ever, and the ending of Wayne's World 2 is suddenly much more entertaining.

Ok, that'll do for now. I'll try to keep up a little better now.

How Did I Not Know About This?

So considering video games and rock n roll music are two of my all-time favorite things, with ironic mocking sarcarsm coming in at a close third, how did I not know that Journey had its own terrible arcade game in the early '80s? Apparently, it was conceived to be released at the same time that their American tour was happening in 1983. You control the five members of the band as they fly through the galaxy in a spaceship, traveling to different planets to recover their lost instruments. Then you play a concert while an actual tape deck in the machine plays "Separate Ways". Working machines are very hard to find.

Here's an action-packed clip, because I don't think I would've believed this without proof.



You'll notice that once Steve Perry recovers his microphone, it turns into a high powered auto-cannon.

The Question On Everyone's Mind

"Andy, if you met a space alien visiting Earth and he wanted to know what Rock 'n' Roll was, who would you instruct him to listen to?"

Glad you all asked. You certainly would not send him toward ELO, what with the uncommon emphasis on the strings. You wouldn't tell him to listen to The Beatles, either. At the beginning, they have too much of a stripped down pop sound, and towards the end, they venture too far into arcane psychedelia to be considered representative. Warren Zevon is too weird. Elton John is too piano-centric and soft. Journey is too ridiculous.

Instead I'd point him in the direction of Jackson Brown. I'm not familiar with the entire Jackson Brown canon; in fact, my knowledge is pretty much limited to his cover of "Stay", "Runnin' on Empty", and "The Pretender," but I feel pretty comfortable recommending him. See, when you listen to Jackson Brown, the piano does exactly what you'd expect in a rock and roll song. The guitar follows suit. The vocal line doesn't try anything too daring and relies on the singer's warm low baritone to fill out the sound. Some simple but entertaining solos might pop up here and there. The tempo stays at a fair, mid-tempo clip. The lyrics are thoughtful without being shocking or relying too heavily on dumb cliches. The female back-up singers come in at appropriate times and sing the expected words.

In short, the song never deviates from the formula. It sounds exactly as you'd expect a rock and roll song to sound. Not that this is a bad thing; just an example of beauty found within the form.

Anyone have a different suggestion?

Remember when I used to have a blog?

Well, now I have something that I've heard of, but never experienced firsthand. It's called a "social life." Apparently, it involves having people known as "friends" who invite you over to "hang out."

And it's the bane of bloggers everywhere. I hang out with people all night, then come home and sleep all morning, then get up in the afternoon and work. I used to be a bloging wunderkind, but these friends have turned me into just another person with better things to do than write dumb crap on the internets. Like talking about dumb crap with my friends.

So, posts might be a bit more sporadic in the near future. Until this new-fangled friendship thing loses some of its luster.

My Original Favorite Band

The year was 1990. I was in second grade. The world was in love again. We were marching hand in hand. The ocean levels were rising up. Then there was a brand new record: They Might Be Giants' brand new album, Flood.

And my sister Jessica bought it, and played it for me for some reason. I'm not sure if she ever got to listen to it again, because I remember playing it for myself, pulling out the tape liner notes, reading the lyrics, and wondering what the crap they meant. Little did I realize that even if I knew what the actual words meant, I still would be fairly clueless about the song's true meaning. Nonetheless, I pressed on, and soon I became the only second grader to know what an Argonaut was.

Flood supposedly hasn't gone platinum, but I find this difficult to believe, considering I have bought 4 copies of it over the years, as copies got lost, destroyed, or never returned. The last part didn't bother me; how could I begrudge someone for liking They Might Be Giants so much that they never could bring themselves to return it?

My interest in TMBG would wax and wane, but every couple of years I come back to them and find them just as awesome as they were when I left them. In high school, I expanded my collection to Apollo 18, Factory Showroom, and John Henry. I'm certain I bought their debut album too, but it has been lost. I bought A User's Guide and The Spine when they were released. When my nephew Simon, Jess's son, turned three, I bought him the DVD version of Here Comes the ABCs. I pointed out a conifer to him last Labor Day, and he was able to sing "C is for Conifers" to me, although he said that he didn't like it, he liked Pirates of the Berry Bean, but mom always makes him watch ABCs.

Now, They Might Be Giants has a new album out. It's called The Else. How did this happen without me knowing about it? I must be off my game.

I nearly purchased it, but then I realized the time commitment required to buy a They Might Be Giants CD. Odds are good that I haven't heard any of the songs from it. It takes hours and hours and hours of listening to fully absorb it, to entangle one's self in the lyrics and work one's way out, to catch all the subtle instrumental effects. I bought Factory Showroom at the same time I bought John Henry, and never put the time in that it required until I started working at Shell, seven years later, when I bought The Spine. Instead, I'm going to spend a couple weeks listening to all their CDs again, and probably insert their lyrics in everyday conversation to subtly show how awesome I am.

They also have a really cool wiki that I'm going to read, www.tmbw.net Every song they released is rated and ranked by users. I correctly guessed the consensual favorite. My personal favorite is surprisingly ranked #2.

Shirts

Wednesday:

Description: Ash 2001 Indiana Key Club Convention shirt. Slogan is Channel Surfing for Service. I was too tired to get a decent picture of it.

Origin: This was after I left Key Club due to graduation, but my sister was the Governor, so I went to the convention to hear her speech, I think. Either that, or it was Aaron's.

Decision: This one can go.



Thursday:

Description: Dark blue, with light blue collar. No picture.

Origin: Presumably a Birthmas gift.

Decision: I wore this to work one day and immediately a patient realized that he was wearing the exact same shirt. Lots of hilarious jokes were made at my expense. That bit of serendipity is enough to get me to keep it.

Friday:

Description: Wabash College Blood Tour 2001

Origin: There was a blood drive.

Decision: Probable keeper. I like my blood drive shirts, plus it also has Wally Wabash, who does not look anything like Purdue Pete, on it, which is a plus.

I should've mentioned this a couple days ago

SuperBad is awesome. Really really funny. I laughed very loudly. Everyone else in the theater, which was nearly full, did too.