This Should Work

Saturday I was in an 80’s state of mind.

It started early in the morning when I woke up with Eddie Murphy’s Party all the time stuck in my head.

As I’m walking down the stairs “My girl wants to party all the time, party all the time, party all the tiiime!”

Making coffee “My girl wants to party all the time, party all the time, party all the tiiime!”

As I was flipping through the channels drinking my morning coffee, I came across a show about the Mike Tyson/Robin Givens divorce. Seeing the old Mike Tyson, not the crazy-looking current Tyson, reminded me of a video game I used to play when I was younger, Mike Tyson’s Punch Out. With a quick Google search, I found a website that allows one to play classic video games through the web browser.

So for a while I was playing classic video games from my past like Punch Out, but also , Rolling Thunder, Rush N’ Attack, and Kid Icarus. I briefly considered looking on eBay for a cheap NES system that I could hook up downstairs, but I didn’t follow through (maybe later this year I’ll pick up a Wii).

I also caught a few moments of Beverly Hills Cop on Comedy Central. While watching it I was thinking ‘hey this is a really good movie. Why don’t I own it on DVD?’

We also went to an 80’s themed birthday party this weekend. Everyone was supposed to get dressed up in some sort of 80’s outfit, so I hit Goodwill and picked up some Don Johnson/Miami Vice inspired clothing . The ten dollar investment paid off; I won a contest for “The raddest outfit.” The prize: a Tiffany record.

But now it’s Sunday and the 80’s vibe is now starting to fade. As I’m writing this post I’ve gone from listening to A Flock of Seagulls to Jay-Z. But it was fun to revisit the past.

image from gamespy.com, video from youtube.com.

[tags] 80’s, Eddie Murphy, Mike Tyson, Miami Vice, Nintendo[/tags]

Yesterday on the way home from the gym I saw a man playing with a remote control boat in a downtown water fountain. I watched this man putter is little boat around the fountain until he tried to be cute and steer it under the waterfall. The force of the waterfall capsized his boat and floated away behind the waterfall.

The man then called a small child (his son?) over who was walking along the edge of the fountain and pointed to the boat. After a few more gestures at the kid and then at the boat, the kid reluctantly stepped into the fountain to get the boat for the man. As the little one approached the waterfall, he looked back at the man, who kept waving his arms encouraging him to go under the waterfall.

The kid tried to reach the boat by stretching his arm under the waterfall, but it was too short and he had to stick half his body under it. He emerges from under the waterfall soaking wet with the boat in hand, but the man motioned to the boy to put it down, which he does. But the father keeps motioning to the kid with his arms. I finally realized that what the dad wanted: He wanted the boy to place the boat right-side up behind the waterfall so he can try to drive it out.

The kid final caught on and placed the boat behind the waterfall and as the father tried to drive it through the waterfall-you guessed it- the boat capsized again.

At this point the stoplight had been green for a few seconds so I headed home asking myself which would make me feel worse saying “Hey, kid! jump into this fountain and get my boat.” or “Hey, Kid! Watch this!” followed by the failure of driving a boat through a waterfall-twice.

Two of the foster pugs, Lexy and Otis, were only supposed to be at our house for two days before going to a more permanent foster home. We told ourselves “we can do anything for two days.”

Well two days has turned into a week and a half. Three foster homes that agreed to take these guys fell through and no takers are in sight. The Pug Rescue coordinator has said if we can’t handle them any more to send them to the local kennel until they can find a permanent home.

The thought of sending these guys to the kennel is really hard for us. On the one hand, it’s tiring having five pugs in the house-they’re whining during the nights, barking during the days, it takes two of us to care for them, etc. On the other hand, they are now comfortable here, they’ve bonded with us, and we are starting to see their personalities come out. Yesterday, we found out the Otis likes to nod his head to classical music; last night we found out the Lexy likes to play fetch.

One of the reasons we agreed to help Pug Rescue was to give a good home to needy dogs, and Lexy and Otis qualify (especially Otis who’s a skinny and not feeling well), but it’s really disturbed our daily routines.

We’re leaning toward keeping them for a little longer and just trying to get them to adjust to our schedule instead of reverse. Besides, they’re really sweet dogs.

Last Friday, I received four pounds of Jelly Bellys from my mother (God bless her).

Today, they’re all gone.

My wife uploaded a couple of pics to her flickr account. Now you can see all the madness in still photos. Hopefully we can get the movie feature on the camera to work and you can see them in action.

On another note: Robyn, I don’t know how your cousin’s two friends do it. 22 pugs! I couldn’t imagine trying to feed that many little mouths! Not mention the clean up.

Last week our house was officially approved by Kentuckiana Pug Rescue to be a foster home for pugs. Yesterday, the first pugs arrived.

That’s right pugs, plural. Including our two pugs Spike and Yoda, we now have five pugs running throughout our house. It’s a little crazy with the three new ones in our house, but it’s also alot fun. Two of them, Lexi and Otis, will be leaving us tomorrow for another home, while the other, Charlie, will be with us for an indeterminate amount of time.

The five dogs are getting on as well as could be expected-a couple of spats have occured and it took them fifteen minutes to stop whining and go to sleep- and we’ll only have five until Tuesday. We’ll survive.

Hopefully, pictures of the pugs will be up tonight.

A couple weeks ago, a small but violent storm ran through parts of Lexington knocking large trees and power lines. Our house was mostly spared from the destruction except for two things: A large limb broke off a tree in our backyard and this:

The winds were powerful enough to almost rip one of the gutters from our house. Guess what house project we’re doing this summer?

Every summer the local independent theater, The Kentucky Theater, hosts a classic movie every Wednesday night. Usually, I’m not a classic movie buff, but this week they were showing Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train so I went with some folks from my church.

I thought the theater would be half full at the most since it’s an old film; also every time I’ve been to the Ketucky Theater there were about twenty people to see the main feature ( I was 1 of 5 people at Don’t Come Knocking). Thank God we bought tickets early because the line was around the block for this movie. There were more people in line to see this movie than when my wife and I went to see the last Harry Potter movie.

The theater does it’s best to try and bring back the classic movie experience. They started out by showing a classic Looney Tunes cartoon with Elmer Fudd which had the crowd laughing. This was followed by serial short from The Shadow, which also had the laughing (more because it was cheesy).

As for the feature, Strangers on a Train is amazing. It’s a tense thriller with little blood or violence while also having a good sense of humor. The line that got the biggest laughs was “Daddy doesn’t mind a little scandal-he’s a senator.” And only Hitchcock could make a Merry-Go-Round scary.

The overall experience of sitting in a packed theater laughing along with everyone else while watching a great movie is something that I look forward to doing again.

image from en.wikipedia.org

[tags]Ketucky Theater, Strangers on a Train, Hitchcock[/tags]

According to a reporter on ESPN, the buzz in this town over Roger Clemens pitching is similar to that of the UK Basketball team returning to the Final Four. One report had tickets for the Lexington Legends baseball game going for $400. You can usually get tickets for under $10! This makes no sense to me.

I really don’t understand all the hype around Roger Clemens performance tonight for our local Single-A team.

Maybe it’s because I’ve seen him pitch before when he was with the Red Sox and feel no need to see him run it up on some 20-year old kids.

Or maybe it’s because I’m not star-struck by celebrities. I once saw Eddie Murphy in San Francisco and thought ‘He looks skinnier on the big screen.’ Another time I met A.C. Green when he was playing for the Lakers; all I said to him was “Hey, man it’s cool to meet you” but what I really wanted to say was “Um, I thought you’d taller.”

Or maybe it because there are no professional sports in Kentucky and this as close as it comes to having a legit professional ball player (let alone a soon to be hall of famer) in this state. Therefore, everyone around here wants to be a part of this moment.

Having stated all that, I still watched it TV. But I’m still asking myself if I was watching it because it was on ESPN or because it was happening a few miles from my house.

Oh Yeah! Clemens pitched a solid 3 innings giving up only one home run and striking out 6. Not bad for a 43-year old.

Image from ESPN.com
[tags]Roger Clemens, Lexington Legends, Baseball[/tags]

When I was younger, there was a commercial that starts by showing a young boy getting ready for school- putting his books in his bags, lacing up his shoes, getting his lunch box, etc. Just before he walks out the front door, his mother says something like “Sweetie, down forget your gas mask!” as she loving places it over the boys face so he can go out the front door.

I think the point of this commercial had something to do with pollution, but I could be wrong.

There’s also a interesting Sigur Ros video with children outside with gasmask after a nuclear fallout.

ANYWAYS, the point of all this is right here:

Yes, you too can now buy a gas hood for your children from Spycatcher for the low price of $631. What’s $631 to not only keep your child safe during the nuclear winter, but entertained as well (just look at the joy the kid’s getting from his air purifier)?

Over course this is only for children ages 3-8, so new-borns and 9 year-old are SOL.