Eight Legged Freaks

The Itsy-bitsy spider…

…isn’t so itsy-bitsy, and is more likely to be climbing up a television tower than a water spout.

I just got back from seeing Eight Legged Freaks.

Was it a good movie? Well…honestly, no, it wasn’t.

Was it worth the money? Definitely! Movies like this aren’t supposed to be good movies — they’re supposed to be fun! Which ELF definitely qualifies as. A silly premise, scientific accuracy thrown out the window, sterotypical characters, and cheezy lines, all add up (in my world, at least) to a very enjoyable couple hours at the movies.

It’s not, however, as good as either of the two movies it immediately invites comparison to — Arachnophobia for the creepy-crawly spider jitters, or Tremors for the pesudo-50’s horror movie homage. Arachnophobia had better (though, of course, still questionable) effects, and the more realistically sized spiders in that one were much more freaky for me than the oversized beasties in ELF, and Tremors has a slight edge in the sense of humor — ELF wasn’t bad or humorless, but wasn’t quite as tongue-in-cheek witty as Tremors managed to be.

Still — quite enjoyable, and I had a lot of fun watching it.

…and her head pops off…

I reach down to pull off the condom.

I don’t find it.

I realize that Irene is sitting up.

Indelicately, I reach between her legs and yank out my condom.

And her head pops off and confetti flies out.

It comes from an absolutely brilliant story posted on the Soapbox at WWDN by Rob Matsushita.

The story itself is spread among multiple posts in a fairly long thread — here’s a quick breakdown of all the episodes, in order:

  1. September 27th, 1992
  2. Sometime earlier
  3. Meanwhile, in the present…
  4. Truth or treat
  5. On the couch
  6. The condom
  7. The tape
  8. The big awful
  9. Payday
  10. Lara
  11. Coffee
  12. Halloween
  13. The list
  14. The sign
  15. Epilogue.

Like watching a car crash

Ever driven past a car crash site? You don’t really want to look, but you just can’t help it? Some sort if innate human curiosity about the bizarre and the horrible kicks in.

Reading a log of stories from a video store clerk about her customers who rent porn is kind of like that. Fascinating, scary, and funny all in one…and it completely sucked me in. I just lost about an hour of my morning to this.

We have a new vistor to the porn section. He’s been in twice now. Actually, he’s been in at least three times, as he is a registered member, but he’s only stood out twice.

He comes in, goes down to the straight porn section, and whips out a hand mirror. Then he applies makeup for about an hour.

Seriously.

No browsing, no chatting people up, no whacking. In, mirror, makeup and out. And again, he’s in the straight section.

No one’s sure what to do yet.

Whatever works, I guess.

Church vs. State

Y’know, sometimes — in my more cynical moments — I wonder if this whole argument over seperation of Church and State isn’t a waste of time…flawed in some deeply fundamental way.

I mean, come on — is the belief in politicians who actually work and act to do their best for the people they represent and the country they live in really that much different from the belief in an all-knowing, all-seeing entity who created us and oversees our lives?

Personally, I find it easier to believe in God than to believe that George W. Bush has the best interests of anyone other than himself in mind.

Anyway. Just a random thought.

I was on TV – in Alaska!

My friend Laura just told me that apparently, I was on TV tonight! It seems that Fox 4‘s nightly news was doing a story on teen dance clubs, and used some old footage from Gig’s. We’re guessing it was from the closing night’s TchKung! show, as apparently I had mud smeared across my face — something TchKung! is known for.

Unfortunately, as she didn’t know the story was going to be on, she didn’t get it recorded. I’m thinking about trying to contact Fox 4 to see if I can get a copy of the report, but their website currently has a note saying that “We will unveil a site that will dazzle and amaze in late spring 2001” — somehow, I think they missed that particular deadline. By any chance, would anyone who stops by here have an idea on how to get ahold of the footage? Lemme know!

Another one bites the dust

Well, it’s official — Casey’s hitched!

It was a nice wedding — a lot larger than I’d known it was going to be, between his family and friends and Jen’s family and friends, they had a guest list of around 150 people. Quite the shindig, as it turns out. I’ll get pictures up once I pull them off my camera, which should be an interesting project…since I was playing sound tech during the wedding and dj’ing during the reception, I had Karl take pictures for me during the ceremony, so I’m not entirely sure what I’ve got just yet.

All in all, a good wedding, though. So that’s two of my friends within the past month that have gotten married…any more I should know about?

Sunburnt, but it was worth it

So yesterday I had to get up really early to get the U-Haul I’d rented to move all my equipment out to Casey’s wedding back to the shop by 9:30am. Setting the alarm for 8am was a little painful, but I managed to do it, and got the van back on time. And I even got it for a discount — whichever employee had rented me the van had screwed up when they put in the odomoter reading, so rather than charging me mileage for the 70 miles or so I actually drove, I just got charged for 10 miles total — just under $40!

Once that was done, I started taking the bus back home, but as the bus started going by the Seattle Center, I remembered that the Bite of Seattle food festival was going on. So, I hopped off the bus — and happened to get off at a stop right at Rick’s front door! So, I wandered up to his place, grabbed him, and we spent the rest of the day wandering around the Seattle Center, listening to good music and people watching.

Well, okay — girl watching. Summertime in Seattle is such a nice time for finding eye candy, and yesterday was gorgeous — cloudless with a projected high of 88 degrees. Lots of eye candy!

Anyway…(ahem). At one point in our wanderings, we started hearing a group performing “Papa Was A Rolling Stone”, which has always been one of my favorite songs. We headed over to see who was performing, and it turns out that it was an absoutely incredible acapella group called Kickshaw. These guys can make the most incredible sounds with their voices — one of the five of them can even do an astounding (and practically flawless) imitation of a DJ scratching on a turntable…just amazing to see. We ended up staying there and being blown away by the rest of their set, and I picked up a copy of Superstar, the one CD they’ve released so far. While it doesn’t have the energy that their live performance does, and they’ve added a member since it was recorded in 1999, it’s still not bad at all…and I’m looking forward to having another chance to see these guys.

It was a great day — I made it back home at about 10pm, quite happy — and quite sunburnt. Thank God for Aloe lotion…! It was well worth it, though.

So true…

I like to have a martini, two at the very most — after three I’m under the table, after four I’m under my host.

— Dorothy Parker