Happy Holidays

I have been corrected three times in the last two days for telling people(cashiers, waiters, etc) to have a "Merry Christmas". Every time the person has looked at me and snidely said "Happy Holidays". How is that any better? If you dont celebrate Christmas, the day still exists and you have to occupy that time doing something, and I am just saying that I hope it is merry. Dick.

My car

So my car is actually 100% fine. There is a small bar underneath it that is wiggling and making a lot of noise. No big deal, which is a relief. I looked at new cars, but I dont know what I want. I am leaning towards a new mustang or escape. It doesnt matter to me. The ladies go crazy no matter what I drive. And by ladies, I mean the ones with a pre-existing history of mental illness, and for some reason my automobile choice causes them to relapse.

That's my curse.

Yet another video...

This one was featured on Funny or Die for a few hours, so that is something.

New Video

Back in the summer my friends Lynn, Sam, and Aaron helped me with a video. This is the rough cut. We were going to reshoot the majority of it, but scheduling didnt work out amongst our actors and we missed the sunny days to shoot on. So we ended up with a version none of us are that excited about, but why waste the video?

Enjoy.

The Clean Life

I am swearing off junk food starting......now. I am going to give up sweets and fast food for at least two months and that includes the holidays. I dont feel good. Simple as that.

I no longer have my gymnast body and the world deserves to have it back.

The bars are going to go broke.

Do I smell?

So it has been brought to my attention that I have a "scent". At first I thought this might be a slight against my personal hygiene, but considering I take a 75 minute bath in rose petals every morning, I convinced myself otherwise.

Apparently a person named Pam, who shall remain nameless, said that she could smell my scent on a piece of furniture after I was on it. According to WebMD, this is the first stage of lunacy.

Actually, the first sign may be letting me into your house to sit on your furniture. If nothing else, it is bad judgment.

Good news

My car is now fine. I had it repaired in Arkansas and got a whole bunch of other stuff done to it for $102. That included a transmission flush and fixing a tire that had a nail in it.

If I had had this done in St. Louis, we would be talking around $600. Mechanics are a rip off. You know you have gone to a bad mechanic when he has diamonds in his teeth and his chest hair has been dipped in gold.

My poor car

As everyone knows, I drive a piece of shit. Not because I have to, just I dont want to pay $500 a month to drive 4 miles to work, nor do I care about image(Arent I so awesome?). However, I may have broken my car this morning going over railroad tracks to get into my work parking lot.

Apparently a truck managed to snag the tracks and pull them up out of the ground. So when I rolled over, albeit slowly, my front tires suddenly plunged after clearing the first track and the solid iron beam smashed into the bottom of my car. Instantly, it sounded like I was driving a motorcycle, since it appears I broke a hole in my exhaust or muffler.

I am hoping that I didnt damage my transmission or something else, because I dont like shopping for cars at all.

And just to let everyone know, no damage befell my sweet body or face. I can hear the sighs of relief now.

So long Bobby...

I shaved this morning and gave a brief goodbye to Bobby, my beard.

A brief eulogy:

Bobby was three and a half weeks old. He was unmarrried but is survived by three children: two goaties and a soul patch.

He majored in social economics at Purdue University, but dropped out shy of graduation after he became "disillusioned"

He stole my girlfriend from me. I hate him.

Back in the STL

So I am back from Oneonta, NY and what have I learned?

1) The Old Spanish Tavern is a damn fine bar. Labatt Blue flows like water....alcoholic water.

2) 99% of the population thinks that the world revolves around them, especially when they are in an airport and especially especially when they are on a cell phone even when the stewardess told them to turn it off.

3) The 19 to 25 year old female demographic in Oneonta love goofy guys with big ears and a beard. That's right, I mean me.

Also, as I was flying from Albany to Chicago, I was watching DVD's on my laptop with headphones in. The guy next to me asked if I would either take the headphones out and play it aloud or at least put the closed captioning on. I told him the closed captioning didnt work on my computer. He bought it. Idiot.

The Poop Hotel

I am in Oneonta, NY to give a technical presentation for my company and we checked into the Clarion this afternoon. Not five minutes after I got my room key, I had to request a new room, because after I walked into the room, I decided it smelled like poop. I looked in the bathroom and someone had clogged it with their feces from what looked like a wild night at Bob Evans and left it. On top of this, housekeeping missed it because apparently, the smell of excrement is easy to miss.

When I got my new room, my towels had weird pink stains on them and the couch in my living room has white stains on it. I am expecting at any minute for a large collection of bacteria to wrestle me to the ground and french kiss me or at least to find a pube in my coffee mug.

GRRRR

I am in a real bad mood today. I put up with turds that have learned to imitate human beings. They have mortgages, SUV's, and watch Jay Leno. They are convincing. Just like real turds, they are composed of complete waste with nothing of any value on the inside. Also, just like real turds,the fat ones seem to give me the most pain.


Enough frowning. How about some happy news? Right now I have a beard. He is 13 days old and weighs 17 ounces. I have named him Bobby.

Congratulations

I want to congratulate my friend Aaron Lawson on getting picked for a callback at the Webster Film auditions. I am just asking him to not bother the director to make sure he gets his nude scene in. That guy is all about nude scenes.

Halloween Countdown: The Endgame

Number Two

Bram Stoker's Dracula

1992, Francis Ford Coppola












I like the tone of this movie and it sticks to the novel, so I appreciate that. However, Keanu Reeves bugs the crap out of me in this one. I would have settled for Dracula killing him in the first ten minutes and then the movie turning into a spring break, losing your virginity comedy. Unfortunately, Bram Stoker didnt have my vision.


Number One

Treehouse of Horror III

This one has it all. Killer Krusty Doll, King Homer(my personal favorite), and Dial Z for Zombies. One of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life, especially the line "Hey, nice shot Carl". Check out Z for Zombies and tell me I'm lying.



That's it. Happy Halloween everyone.

Halloween Countdown Continued Some More

Number 5

The Scream Trilogy



























Any of these are fun and not in the least scary. But if you want hot girls running full steam from a guy with a paper thin motive, these are the movies for you.

Number 4

Young Frankenstein





I like this movie because it has the feel of the old time movies but is actually entertaining. Plus the use of the word "sedagive".

Number 3

Carrie
1976, Brian De Palma



























The ending is so messed up. I wished this is how Hope Floats had ended. The worst thing is when I typed "Carrie" into Wikipedia to get this image, the first thing it thought I might be looking for is Carrie Heffernan, wife of Doug Heffernan on the King of Queens. Come on Wikipedia. I already have everything memorized about Carrie Heffernan. Like how she changed her name to Stacy Carosi for one summer so that she could date Zack Morris.

Halloween Countdown Continued

Number Eight:

It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.














This one is always fun. I dont necessarily watch it from start to finish, but it is good to have on and catch five minutes of.

Number Seven:

Treehouse of Horror IV, The Simpsons

























Very funny stuff. The Simpsons always do a good job with the Halloweenery and anytime you can mix vampires and a "Super Happy Fun Slide", well, that's just a bonus. This particular episode has Bart on a Bus with a gremlin spoofing William Shatner and John Lithgow from the Twilight Zone show and movie, respectively, as well as Homer and his cursed doughnut, and Mr. Burns as Dracula.


Number Six:

The Shining
1980, Stanley Kubrick

























Jack Nicholson. Enough said. Although the original trailer doesnt make it seem like a scary movie at all. Check it out.

Halloween Countdown

So Halloween is almost here. I love this time of year because there is nice weather and it is the one time of year that I feel like watching crappy, scary movies. However, there are some not so crappy movies that I absolutely love to watch during the week of October 31st.
So leading up to Halloween, i am going to countdown my favorite things to watch during this time. This list is not a "Best Of", simply what I find puts me in the mood for candy-time. Let's start shall we:

Number 10:

Halloween
1978, John Carpenter


















Start off strong, that's what I say. This is such a great movie, because it is so simple. Crazy guy, Jamie Lee Curtis, and a conveniently absent police department. This movie was recently remade, but I refuse to see it. Although I wonder how a guy like Michael Myers would fare in the new world of ADT and bear mace. I'm sure he would adjust.


Number 9

The Thing
1982, John Carpenter

Let's go ahead and stick with John Carpenter. If you notice in Halloween, the young boy being babysat is watching the original "Thing From Outer Space". The best part of this movie is Kurt Russell trying to figure out who is an alien.





Love it.

Edumacate Yourself

I watched a special on PBS' Frontline about the US relations with Iran since 2001. Very enlightening about how the US has operated over the last couple of decades outside of our borders. Regardless of your poliitics, I suggest taking a view and making up your own mind. Here is the link: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/showdown/

Audition Madness

Saturday, I went on the audition for student films at Webster University and it couldnt have gone better. I went in and read a two person scene with my friend Aaron Lawson, which made all the difference. He is such a good actor and willing to bring a lot of energy to the audition and just have fun. Also, we had a really good director running the audition and he had a lot of fun giving us different angles to read the script. I dont want to jinx anything, but the audition went so well, that I expect to be crazy famous in about three weeks. At which point I plan on making a string of romantic comedies with Kate Hudson, because that is what we in the business call a career jet-pack.

After the audition, I saw the movie "Gone, Baby Gone". Very good movie and I must say that both Afflecks did a great job on this one.

What am I doing?

So I am having trouble following through with anything these days. Short films, animations, etc. I cant seem to get motivated to do anything for more than two weeks at a time. That's great for smoking ham, but not for filmmaking. Somehow Spielberg does both. That guy.

That's why I am trying to get back into acting. That way I have to work on someone's schedule and work, work, work. Hopefully, that will set me straight. I have at least a dozen ideas that I want to produce, but they can be so demanding of your time.

Thanks to my friends, Peter, Sam and Janine, we were able to get an improv scene transferred from the stage to the screen. Below is the YouTube.



I should give a solo credit to my chin in that video. It takes up 63% of my face. I measured. I wish I was at least able to use it for storage. That's where I would put my spare bacon.

So auditions for student films are Saturday. This should put me on my path to being the next Haley Joel Osmont.