It's Halloween!

It's Halloween!  My favorite holiday, hands down.  Normally, I'd be having a party tonight, but as I live at my parents house this year, that's not going to happen.  Diane and I went out to the bar last night with a couple of friends.  As we're old, we started fairly early, around eight, and ended around midnight.  The real crazies didn't even start showing up until about ten-thirty.  One way or another, it's my favorite holiday.

I love it because you don't have to be yourself.  A lot of people out there aren't happy with themselves, and this gives them a day (or a weekend) when they can dress like someone else, and be someone else, and it's ok.  It's expected, even.  And even if you love yourself, and you are totally happy with your life, and you wouldn't change anything for the world, it's still fun to be someone else, isn't it?  And maybe you really, really like Star Trek, or Star Wars, or Battlestar Galactica, or some other show that you'd be shunned for liking as much as you do.  Halloween lets you dress up as your favorite character, because God knows there's nothing else you'd rather do, and do it in public without getting publicly ridiculed.

...Keith Desserich.

I know I've generally tried to inject a little humor in each of my previous posts, but I'm laying off of that today.  I have a two year old son named Aidan.  He is, I swear to you, the best kid in the world.  I have the uncommon (for a father) privilege of having been able to stay home with him every day for the last nine months, since I lost my job.  It's great.  I love it.

But, just recently, I've been wondering if I don't take it for granted.  For the first few months of our days together, we'd spend most of the day playing with cars, or his Word World animals, or just running around the house.  It used to be I could just sit and watch him eat his food and I'd be perfectly happy.  And I just realized that we don't do as much of that stuff anymore.  We still do.  I get down on the floor with him for at least a half an hour every day, and we'll play with his Bob the Builder toys, or his Little People toys, or we'll just wrestle around and tickle and jump on the bed.  But a half an hour is a big change from most of the day.  And I wonder why that is.  And it makes me feel a little bit sad and a little bit like I'm being a bad father.

...so easily offended.

So, there's a new DirecTV ad out.  You know the ones.  They take a clip from a popular movie and hire one of the actors to record some new footage talking about how great DirecTV is (I'm anti-satellite, myself).  Then they adjust the newly recorded footage so that it looks and sounds like it's coming right out of the movie by hitting it with a crapload of magic.  They've done Captain Kirk, Hellboy, Mini-Me, Ellen Ripley, and the T-1000, to name a few.  So when I heard there was one featuring David Spade as Richard Hayden in Tommy Boy, I was intrigued.

See, there really isn't a memorable scene from Tommy Boy that doesn't involve Chris Farley.  Chris Farley, as most of the US population is (hopefully) aware, died in 1997.  It was a sad day when the news broke.  I was a junior in high school.  Numerous people at my school wore black that day.  Chris was a hero to them.  These were the kids that had few friends, and fewer real ones.  I did not wear black that day.  It wasn't because I didn't like Chris Farley.  He was an incredibly funny, if slightly manic, actor and comedian.  I loved most of his work.  Matt Foley, who, if you recall, lived in a van down by the river, is one of my favorite SNL characters ever.  Plus, the guy grew up in Madison, which happens to be the capitol of my home state, and less than two hours from where I've lived most of my life.  He was a hometown boy, and he made good.

...posting random links. Ok, I lied.

Just some stuff I want to do my part to spread around.

How CSI works.
Time travel is dangerous.  Take this.
Bag check.
The Glass Tweet.
Like mashups?
Sweetness.

Alright, I think that's it for now.

EDIT: Last minute addition. So awesome it couldn't wait.

...a person of Walmart.

Don't get me wrong.  I shop at Walmart.  It's not so much because I want to, but more because it's the only megastore nearby.  My stupid little town doesn't have a Target.  I do have a Sears Grand nearby, but it's just Kmart with a few extra appliances.  Otherwise, I have a Kohl's department store which is fine if I need clearance jeans or clearance winter coats or clearance t-shirts, but not so great if I want anything electronic that's not a kitchen appliance.  Oh, and let's not forget Shopko.  I'm pretty sure mine is one of the three Shopko's left around the country.  Mine doesn't even have the updated logo that's supposed to make you feel like Shopko is fancy, when in reality, it's just another Kmart.

Anyway, if you head over to peopleofwalmart.com, you'll see an abundance of "Walmart Creatures" as the site refers to them.  These are people who, through their own poor choices, are out in public, at Walmart, looking like...well...um...click through for a few examples.

...Nathan Drake.

I mean after the events of the first game, you'd think he'd stop accepting invitations to come along on expeditions that will likely involve him leaping blindly off ledges, having shoot-outs atop a moving train, or hiding from a tank on the rooftops of a village, blasting it with rocket launchers dropped by your fallen enemies.  Regardless of my opinions on the matter, Mr. Drake has returned, courtesy of Naughty Dog, and he's shooting for Game of the Year this time.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is the best game that I have played on my PS3. I know that's likely to draw some flak, but I can't deny it.  I simply have not had as much fun, or been so drawn in, playing a game in recent memory. The original Uncharted was a great game, and the sequel improves on it in just about every way.

...Peter Sars... wait, this is awesome!

I've decided I should try to have some regular weekly post kind of things.  Thereby, I introduce my weekly this is awesome post.

I don't know how much more awesome this could be, and I'm not sure how much better this could have been cast, but we've finally got a promotional still from the A-Team movie!

From left to right you're looking at Bradly Cooper as Templeton Peck aka Faceman, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson as B.A. Baracus, Sharlto Copley as "Howling Mad" Murdock, and Liam Neeson as John "Hannibal" Smith.

As it turns out, Congress is currently working on a bill that will actually disallow you from not loving this movie.  It's just going to be that awesome.

Thanks to Movie Line (http://www.movieline.com/2009/10/buzz-break-10-23.php)

...William Easton.

I know Saw VI hasn't been getting the greatest reviews.  Rotten Tomatoes has it at 43% as I write this, and on Metacritic it's sitting at a sad little 34%.  Critics tend to be harder on horror movies than necessary, I think.  A lot of them don't understand where horror fans are coming from.  When we go to see a Friday the 13th movie, we aren't expecting it to have an ultra-compelling story.  We aren't expecting Jason to have some kind of tender moment as he's killing the last victim.  We go to a slasher movie to see murders, we go to a monster movie to see monsters, and we go to a torture-porn movie to see people put in situations that cause them pain or death, and slowly.  Blood and gore are usually an important part of this, although some things (ie ghost movies) can be very effective without them.  If the gory murders/monsters/torture are good enough, the story can make less sense and we won't mind that much.

So, was the torture:story ratio good enough in Saw VI?  I think so.  William Easton is a high-ranking executive at a health insurance company.  It seems that he's actually responsible for creating an algorithm that looks at a potential customer's health history and determines the likelihood of their dying from something under coverage.  If the probability is low enough, coverage is considered.  Maybe he should have paid more attention to whose coverage he was denying.  I'll give you a clue: it's Jigsaw.

...lacking for things to do yet.

So, while I sit here not being employed, I'm taking classes online.  Thought I'd finish my degree which, by my last count, is about five years overdue.  I just had a final today, and I start another session of school on Sunday.  I get a couple days to not think about it.  Not that I spend all day thinking about it anyway, as it's been far too easy so far.

I almost feel like I should be worried I'm wasting my time, since I certainly don't feel like I'm learning a heck of a lot, and my classes, so far, have been easier than a broke meth addict you wave a fiver at.  I guess that on some level, it's not really important that I learn a lot, since it's not that I'm not learning because it goes over my head.  My classes are simply telling me things I already know.  What's important is that I get myself that piece of paper that says I can learn things.  Once I have that, I can probably get a job somewhere.

So I have a lot of spare time.  I spend a good deal of it looking for jobs (online, because I have Aidan all day).  When he naps, I either watch a movie or play video games.  It's really the only time that I get to do these things, as I play violent games that I don't want him watching and I watch scary movies that I don't think he'd care for.

Tomorrow, I'm gonna take him to the in-laws and go see Saw VI.  I've been looking forward to this for a year, since the last one came out.  And then tomorrow night my wife and I have a date.  I don't know what we're gonna do yet.  I don't plan things very well.  I imagine we'll do dinner and a movie.  Maybe she wants to see Zombieland.  That would make my day. :D

Oh, and I just got Guitar Hero Van Halen in the mail (which I got for free, thank you).  Hope it doesn't suck.

...in retail.

I've held a lot of jobs. My longest tenure, sadly, is with Walgreen's. If I do a bit of math real quick here...I can tell you that I've spent approximately 1.14 years of my life working at a Walgreen's store. In contrast, I've spent maybe 7.5 years sleeping, 1.19 years eating, around 2.5 days watching Heroes (it's good again this season!), 64,608 hours thinking about my wife, and 1,026,720 minutes worrying, in some capacity, about my son. Sorry, the math kinda took over there for a second.

The point I was getting too was this: that's a long time to spend in a retail pharmacy. A lot of it was spent wandering, looking for something to do, or something to pretend to be doing. About 20% of it was spent working third shift, while my wife and son were at home sleeping (this accounts for a small portion of the 64 thousand hours and one million minutes). This was the worst of it.

The best of it, believe it or not, was the customers. Those of you that know me know that that's a funny thing for me to say. And while I was dealing with them, I hated life. But now that I look back, some of them were just crazy enough to be funny.

There was Victor. Possibly paranoid schizophrenic. He would come into the store and literally talk your ear off for hours. Hours! He'd follow a certain few employees around the store if he found them working and talk about how he knew Michael Jordan, about how he was moving, and about how he knew Michael Jordan. Then he'd call you Michael Jordan and ask you to help him move.

There was Old Man Eyebrows. He was a gruff, grumpy, incredibly old man with eyebrows like wings. He'd yell at you about something that happened across the street at the competition. Actually yell, like he was mad at you about it. After he'd finished yelling at you, he'd buy a five pack of Muriel Magnum cigars and go about his business of smelling like cigars for the rest of the day.

And then, my favorite of all time, there was the old Russian lady. I only ever saw here one time. It was 2003, I believe. Easter had come and gone, and all of our Easter candy was down to 75% off. Except the Easter M&M's that we'd horribly over-ordered. Those were 2 cases of 12 1lb. bags for $5. We had pallets of them. Not sure what happened there. Anyway, this tiny, frail, old Russian lady comes in and fills a cart until it is literally overflowing with Easter candy, and then fills another one most of the way full. She checks out, and the whole thing comes to under fifty bucks. As she is walking out of the store with her second cart, she turns around, as if to address the entire store, and yells, at the top of her lungs, "This would never happen in Russia!", and turns to leave.

Am I glad I'm not in retail anymore? Absolutely. The hours sucked, the pay sucked (although it was better than I'm making now), and most of the people sucked. But there were some gems of people thrown in the mix, and they always made my day.

...old.

So, I don't work. I haven't since I got bent over by the economy. It's not like I was making a crapload of money anyway. But now I'm not making any. "What do you do, then?" you might ask. I live in my parents basement and watch my son, while my wife goes to work.

Her job is pretty much golden, as is has to do with old-folks homes, aka long term care facilities. She helps get things done when the customers (ie the homes) need them done. You might call her a facilitator. Or, less possible-espionage-implying yet meaning exactly the same thing, an account representative. Her industry is anticipating something called the "Silver Wave".

See, for all you youngin's out there, there are these people called baby-boomers. They are the people that were born in the aftermath of WWII, when all the wives were really, really happy that their husbands came home alive. I guess this joy that wives were feeling lasted far longer than any joy I have ever experienced, as Boomers are, at least by the US Census Bureau, anyone born between '46 and '64. That's an awful long time to be happy about something.

Anyway, the baby boomers are getting older. The first ones (63 years old by my count) are starting to enter long term care. As more of these Boomers enter homes, there's going to be a serious increase in the number of people in homes. This is the Silver Wave. Thus, my wife's job is safe.

So, I don't work. I thought, as I've managed to get a whopping 3 interviews since February, that I'd try another route. I'll give blogging a shot. I make no promises about the quality, the entertainment value, or the regularity of this blog. But I'd like to think I can talk about a wide variety of things for length enough to fill a blog post. So come back.