For the first time in the history of SYNS, I have ten incomplete articles queued up. That means I have ten great tid-bits of wit and wisdom to share with you, but I have not had the time to polish them, finish them, or in some cases, even type them up. I have a couple of articles that, so far, are nothing more than a link to a news story. So what gives?!

The answer is simple. After several months of frustrating road blocks in my day job (long story, don’t ask) the flood gates have opened. Productivity… Yaaay! Finally, my cohorts and I are busy almost all day with projects. We are getting things done. But the successes which put food on my table have come at the expense of the projects for which my only compensation has been personal satisfaction. In short, my hobby projects have been put on the back burner.

Not only is my poor old blog languishing, my Ultima Online world building project has been pushed back a couple of months, at least, and my gaming time has slowed to a trickle.

But fear not, faithful readers. I shall endeavor to forge ahead. I pledge upon my Geekness to deliver fresh silliness and crisp wit once again on a more regular basis.

Thank you for your time. Now I must make up the five minutes I spent on this post by simultaneously debugging a .NET application and designing a drop-dead-gorgeous web interface… AT THE SAME TIME!! Yeah, I’m cool like that. Ph34r my l33t r0xx0r $kilz, noob. (That’s “leet speak” for, “I am better than you.”)

Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.

WBQotW #28 is from the “Worst Analogies Ever”.

As you may know, I am the drama leader at Glenview Baptist Church. Having been in contact with my uncle, a Viet Nam vet, and my nephew, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I wanted to do something special for Memorial Day.

Not to be confused with Veteran’s Day (which honors all veterans, living and dead), Memorial Day is a day to pay tribute to those killed in military service. It began as a day on which the widows of Confederate soldiers would go out and lay flowers on the graves of fallen soldiers.

I contacted Uncle Robert, who is a Legionnaire, about some material for my tribute. He sent me a script called “What Is a Vet?” I took this and adapted it for Memorial Day. The tribute was read this past Sunday, May 29th, by Brigadier General Bill Guy. Click the links below to hear the audio from the service. (These files are pretty big, so you may want to right click on the link and choose “Save Target As”.)

MemorialDayTribute.mp3
MemorialDayTribute.wma (Windows Media)

And the script can be found here: WhatIsAVeteran.doc

WBQotW #27 is from the net lore classic “Worst Analogies Ever”.

“Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.”

I’m a bit back-logged on things to blog about. It was quite a busy weekend.

Tammy and I both got off work a little early on Friday and planned to take advantage of the cool, over-cast weather to get in a bike ride. We didn’t even make it out of the parking lot before I heard the familiar hiss of a tire going flat. I had a patch on one of mine (a “trail repair” from last year) and the patch let go. I tried several things to get it fixed, but to no avail. The tube was a loss, so biking would have to wait.

Saturday, after sleeping in, we head out to Bicycles Inc. (only the best bike store in the world) to get a new tube and lust over the latest gadgets. Then it was off to the Movie Tavern. (If you’ve never been, I highly recommend it. It’s your basic movie theater except that every other row of seats has been replaced with a long table and the theater sports a full restaurant and bar. You order your food when you take your seat and food shows up about the time the previews are over. Best of all… FREE REFILLS!) We went to see Revenge of the Sith (review forth coming).

Saturday evening was spent at the home of our good friends Galyn and Kristen Black. As usual, they provided great food and great conversation. We provided the great root beer.

Sunday, my script for Memorial Day was read by Bill Guy, Brigadier General USAF Retired. It was a very moving piece and once I have the pictures and audio clips cleaned up, I’ll be posting about it.

Sunday afternoon we finally got around to riding our bikes. We rode to Six Flags (about four miles one way) and spent the afternoon riding rides. Right about the time we were ready to head home, I realized I didn’t have my keys. We back tracked and figured out which ride stole them from my pocket. The operator said she had just turned over some keys to a passing security guard. We made our way to the security office and waited for them to show up. After forty-five minutes, we began asking questions. After some detective work, it became clear that the keys they turned in where not mine. *sigh* We gave the situation into God’s capable hands and walked to dinner. Just as we finished dinner and were contemplating how to break into our third floor apartment, we got a call from Angela, my hero, the Six Flags security dispatcher. They had keys matching the description we had left. Thus the lock on our bikes and the screen door on our balcony lived to see another day. We made it to the apartment just before dark, about 8PM.

Monday, Memorial Day, we decided we had not had enough torture the previous night and decided to head out to Trinity Trails, a “green way” type bike/jogging trail that follows the Trinity River out of down town Fort Worth. It was still over-cast and we rode through occasional light rain. If you ask me, that’s the perfect conditions for a trail ride. Coming home (back to downtown and the truck) was pretty strenuous with a stiff head wind, but we made it. I’ve still got a lot of conditioning to do before August and Grand Teton, but I have come a long way.

My history with the Hitchhiker’s Guide (hereafter referred to as the HHGttG) began when I was sixteen. My folks tasked me with delivering a car to my sister who was at Texas A&M. It was a twelve hour drive and my first road trip alone. I went to the library looking for some books on tape to keep me awake. And there it was. The complete thirteen hour BBC radio series, the HHGttG. Perfect! The only think I knew about it at that tender age was that it was supposed to be very funny. Thirteen hours later, I was a bona fide fan.

You can learn more about Douglas Adams, the creator of HHGttG, and the evolution of his work at DouglasAdams.com. There you will learn that the radio series came first (1978), then the books, and the rest followed. He was working on the screen play for the film in May of 2001 when he died of a sudden heart attack.

Now, on to the review!! Anytime I go into a movie based on some other material that I’ve already enjoyed, I adjust my expectations. If you go in expecting something less than the original but still entertaining, you’ll usually come out pleased. In this case I was much more than pleased.

HHGttG the movie did surprise me by encompassing only the first book, which was only the first few episodes of the radio series. But this is a good thing. By selecting less subject matter, the movie was able to get lots of good material in without feeling rushed.

The script did contain a fair amount of “expected” material all of which was done very well. Purists will argue, but I was very pleased. The thing that really made this movie for me was the physical humor. They added a good amount of yuks to make up for the things that just don’t translate from book (or even radio) to screen. A couple of these physical humor scenes had me stomping my feet I was laughing so hard… seriously. Tammy was very embarrassed.

The most important thing about this movie, whether you are a HHGttG virgin or a life-long fan, is that it captures the Douglas Adams spirit; the utterly bizarre, off-the-wall, and very Brittish style that makes any incarnation of the HHGttG so enjoyable. If you don’t “get it” then the author’s goal was achieved. If you laugh because (or even though) you don’t get it, then you have experienced the joy that was Douglas Adams.

On less ethereal terms, the movie is superb. Well written, well cast, well played. I love the special effects, especially the yarn vomit scene. And it was such a wonderful treat to see creatures created by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. I was washed over with nostalgic memories of “The Dark Crystal” and “Labyrinth”.

There’s not much more I can say about this film. It’s one of those that you really have to see to understand. So, let me put my grins where my mouth is… umm… right… and just say that I’m giving it four out of five.

I read in the news today that an ex-radio DJ was awarded a whopping $10 million settlement because she (the ex-DJ) had a co-worker who wore too much perfume.

The story goes that Erin Weber co-hosted a radio show with Linda Lee on WYCD-FM. Ms. Lee wore a bit too much perfume for Ms. Weber’s taste. So much, in fact, that Weber claimed the perfume caused her to lose her voice, resulting in three months of sick leave to recover from the smell. Three months?! Take a shower and get it over with already!!

Weber’s doctor, Martin Charles (aka Doctor Nick), “warned (Weber) that further exposure to perfume could even result in death.” Wha?!

The radio station changed the women’s schedules and asked Lee to stop wearing the perfume, but that wasn’t good enough. After more incidents and more complaints from Weber, the station let her go. Now she claims she can’t find work because the station blacklisted her. Well, maybe it’s because prospective employers called the station to check a reference and found out SHE’s INSANE!

In a stirring tribute to all that is wrong with the world, a six woman jury gave Weber over ten million dollars in compensation. Do you have any idea how much the average disk jockey makes? Let’s just say that Ms. Weber would have be a DJ for around three hundred years to make ten million dollars.

Now, let’s be fair. I’ve been subjected to a few olfactorily-challanged women. I know what it’s like to have your eyes burn in return for politely holding open a door. As a matter of fact about once a week, I walk up the back stair well to my office and smell the lingering cloud from a woman who works down the hall several minutes after she has made the same trek. But GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY! TEN MILLION DOLLARS?!

I’ll bet you ten million dollars you can’t guess what format WYCD-FM plays. Yep! Country!

Contrary to popular belief, I am alive. It wasn’t until I posted today’s WBQotW that I realized my last three posts have been weekly quips. See! I knew that posting my quips would keep me loyal to this blog. Well… to that part at least.

So, what’s been going on the last three weeks? Well, I saw HHGttG and haven’t posted my review. I may have to go see it again so I can remember all the goodies. (Just kidding, Tammy.) Star Wars III was released and to voice my resentment at the suckage of the first two “prequels” I have not seen it yet. (Take that George Lucas!) Tammy and I celebrated our 6th year of wedded bliss. And my office temperature has gone from frost bite to heat stroke.

The review of the Hitchhikers will be posted in the next day or so, honest. I’ll also be posting a review of “13 Going On 30”. Tammy and I have developed a bit of a tradition. For our anniversary the last two years, we’ve stayed at St Botolph’s Inn in Weatherford. They have a couple of cottage rooms each with full sized a hot tub in the room and wall mounted TV/VCR so you can watch a movie from the tub or the bed. Schah-weeet! Last year we watched “Something’s Gotta Give” which is now one of Tammy’s favorites. We also stayed at Botolph for New Years, and watched “Along Came Polly”. Do you see a theme here?

We wrapped up our youth drama season with a really great mime performance. Those kids have a ton of talent and I’m glad God has given me such a rewarding ministry. (Yeah, they get on my nerves and disappoint me once in a while, but hey, they are teenagers, right? The good really does out weigh the bad.) Now I just have to update the drama troupe’s web site, which has been neglected much more than this blog. Time for another digi-cam dump.

Spring has sprung here in DFW. Okay, spring sprung two months ago. Now it’s just hot. Nasty, drippy, melt stuff in your car hot. Yesterday was 100*, today is supposed to be refreshingly cooler… 98.

For the last couple of months, our office has been stupid cold. You know it’s bad when people bring sweaters to work in May… In Dallas! While it was a beautiful 75 outside, my cubicle was hovering around 67 and that’s with my mini-heater running under my desk all day.

After weeks and weeks of complaining, “they” finally did something about it. Turns out the folks in the next office have been broiling. We run on the same AC unit and the vent baffles (thingies that tell the cold air where to go) were broken, so we were getting all their cold air. So, the guys in the heavy work boots got up on the roof and fixed everything… riiiiight. Now the AC unit is on strike. Right now, the thermostat across from my desk reads 85. *sigh* Well, at least our neighbors office is the same temp as ours now. Oh, and all you folks out there who have experienced manual labor in the summer… Shut up. I know I’m a wuss. Leave me alone.

I am helping out with the spring children’s musical at the church. I managed to keep my involvement to a minimum this time around. I have two lines, both or off stage, and I am running the lights, which involves one light cue. Piece of pie! My hat is off to Bill Meers for running the children’s musical every year. It serves as a reminder to me why I do not work with kids younger than fifteen (high school freshmen). Sure there’s a lot more drama (the personal/social kind) working with high schoolers, but at least you don’t have to tell them fifteen times per hour to stop playing with the microphones.

* All temperatures are given in Fahrenheit. Yeah, I know Fahrenheit is the worst temperature scale, totally unscientific. But it’s what most of my readers understand, so you’ll have to convert it to Celsius on your own. C = ((F – 32) * 5 / 9) Duh, people.

Presenting WBQotW #26

Follow your dream! Unless it’s the one where you’re at work in your underwear during a fire drill.

This dream seems to be universal. I wonder if Tibetan monks have dreams were they show up at the temple to meditate and then realize their not wearing their bright orange robes.

25! Wow. That’s impressive.

This weeks quip comes from good ol’ Ren and Stimpy. So put on your patented Stuponitron © helmets and go back with me to the good ol’ days before Comedy Central and SpikeTV when MTV was the only source for good, clean, demented humor.

“Okay Space Cadets! Prepare to hurt’l through the cosmos!”