Funniest Thing Ever

Click on the link below for a Christmas greeting from Chloe and Hannah.
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1123941542

Attack Deer at the Movies

Donna and I see a lot of movies, it’s one of our favorite things to do. We probably average a couple of movies a month, and it’s not that unusual for us to see a couple in a single weekend. We’re usually not that critical, but occasionally we’ll see one that throws up all over itself. This was the case last weekend when we went to see No Country for Old Men.

The buzz around this movie has been strong, and it’s got several things going for it that Donna and I were pretty excited about. First, it’s based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy, who also wrote the book that one of our all-time favorite movies, All the Pretty Horses, is based on. Second, it has Tommy Lee Jones playing a sheriff and nobody flexes the long arm of the law like Woodrow Call himself. Finally, it’s a gangster movie and gangster movies are always cool.

But even with all of these promising elements, we left the theatre laughing at the sheer stupidity of it.

No Country for Old Men starts off promising enough. Some dude wanders onto the scene of a drug deal that has gone tits up. Dead bodies are everywhere and in the gory aftermath someone has dropped a bag of money. The rest of the movie is about the gangsters trying to get their money back.

This is when we started to get the idea that this movie might be heading south. Milton from Office Space is the king pin for crying out loud. And the goon they sent to get the money looks just like a goon somebody would send to get the money. To me, the very first qualification of a hit man would be someone who can blend in. But if you saw this guy walking down the street, you’d call the police and tell them there was a hit man walking down the street.
Tommy Lee Jones plays (unintentionally) the laziest (and maybe the dumbest) cop to ever be sworn in. He can’t figure out who in the world is killing every dang thing in town, but in just about every scene he’s just sitting in some diner reading the paper. Actually going outside and trying to find the psychopathic killer never seems to become a real option until it’s time for him to retire.

For good measure, throw in Woody from Cheers as a bounty hunter and an ending that’s as unimaginative as cafeteria meat loaf and you got yourself the next big movie of 2007. Every once in a while it becomes very fashionable to like something. This is how completely horrible movies like Crash win Oscars.

Attack Deer Goes Green

That droning sound in the background is Al Gore, still yammering about global warming. And unfortunately he’s not alone on Mother Earth’s bandwagon. So, in an effort to get all of these prophets of doom to shut the hell up, Attack Deer is joining the crusade by doing its part to save the planet.

First, you should know that all of the words you are reading are composed of 100 percent post-consumer letters. Letters are actually very versatile, able to be rearranged and used over and over again – much like plastic water bottles or Brittany Spears.

Second, Attack Deer is now running on ethanol. In fact, we can be anywhere in the world with the push of a button without using any fossil fuels whatsoever. Plus, deer are naturally vegetarian so by not consuming beef, we are not supporting the culprits most responsible for the production of greenhouse gasses – cattle.

I am all for conservation, but the pendulum has swung so far in one direction that the green movement has started to look a lot like the red scare. Duck and cover. Paper or plastic?

Of course, the ridiculous amount of hand-wringing going on over the environment might be just what the doctor ordered to get us thinking seriously about taking care of what we have.

I actually had an idea of my own that could help stave off the certain death that Mr. Gore assures me is just around the corner. It’s become trendy in Austin to carry a canvas bag for grocery shopping. Use the same bag every time and there’s no need to worry about environmentally-unfriendly grocery bags piling up in your kitchen cabinet. But my idea is even better. What if you were not allowed to carry any bags at all? This way you would be compelled to buy only what you can carry in your hands. This would make people think long and hard about what they pick up.

Think about the benefits. People would be healthier because they would never leave the grocery store with more than a handful of food. Plus, you would naturally eat fresher foods because a bag of peaches is easier to carry than a can of peaches. Less food to take home means less food to store, so you can turn off the refrigerator, reducing your carbon footprint. You would also have to make more trips to the store, so more walking.

This is an irrational approach, I know. But if I were a democrat they would be handing me Nobel prizes.

The Fifth Food Group

Fortunately, I'm past the point in my life when this news would have impacted me. But there was a time when this would have been devastating to both my budget and my health...

Frozen pizzas recalled due to E. coli
Totino's and Jeno's brands may have contaminated pepperoni

MINNEAPOLIS - General Mills on Thursday recalled two brands of its frozen pizzas with pepperoni toppings because the meat may have been possibly contaminated with the bacteria E. coli.

The recall affects roughly 414,000 cases of pizza products in stores and all similar pizza products in consumers' freezers, the company said in a statement. General Mills has voluntarily recalled eight kinds of Totino's and three types of Jeno's frozen pizza, which have pepperoni or other meat products.

The company said it is working with federal and state food authorities, and launched an investigation immediately after learning about the potential contamination. Since July 1 of this year, Totino's and Jeno's have distributed more than 120 million pizzas nationwide. The pizzas were produced at a Wellston, Ohio, plant. The tainted food was uncovered by state and federal authorities investigating 21 cases of E. coli-related illness in 10 states. Roughly half of the individuals who became sick were hospitalized. The first case was reported on July 20. Nine of the 21 people reported having eaten Totino's or Jeno's pizza with pepperoni before becoming ill.

Halloween - Lakewood Style

In college I occupied a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment with my friends Jonathan and Jason. As I've mentioned before, apartment #129 at Lakewood Village was a popular place in 1997 (wow, ten years ago) and we decided to throw a little Halloween party.

Jason was easily the most level-headed of the three of us, so when he came home with glow-in-the-dark crayons to draw monsters on the walls, we didn't object. It was really quite brilliant. You could draw on the walls, then easily clean them when the party ends. The glow-in-the-dark ghosts and goblins were a big hit and though it wasn't as easy as advertised, it did come off (the walls were about the only thing in that apartment that did survive).

After the guests left, I went to bed thinking about Linda Blair's head spinning around. In the middle of the night a large volume of IBC root beer and Yoohoo insisted on leaving my body.

When I opened my bedroom door, headed for the bathroom, I was greeted by the scariest glow-in-the-dark crayon monster of all. It seems in our less-than-thorough cleaning we missed one. Suddenly my trip to the restroom was no longer required, clean shorts on the other hand...

Things That Go Bump in the Night

I like scary movies. I really like them. It's indefensible, I know. I don't have a single friend who shares this interest with me, so this is a hobby I enjoy pretty much alone. Which is ironic, considering this is one thing you don't want to do alone.

My interest in this suspect form of entertainment is clearly the result of having no parental supervision on my television viewing habits as a child. Actually, as long as I'm laying blame, my grandmother is probably most responsible. She was an avid fan of the mystery genre, watching Charlie Chan like he might be outlawed at any moment. She was also the first person I knew with a VCR. And when you're picking out a movie at Bud's Gas-N-Go, the mystery and horror selections tend to overlap. Neither of us were overly familiar with the rating system either. For all we knew, G, PG, PG-13 and R could have been the formula for cold fusion.

So it was that my introduction to this wonderfully entertaining art form came at the hands of my grandmother. And In the spirit of Halloween I want to share my top 5 favorite fright flicks.

5 - The Others - A twist on the classic haunted house

4 - Poltergeist - 25 years later, still one of the most intriguing horror movies ever made

3 - Night of the Living Dead - Zombies are, by far, my favorite monster

2 - The Evil Dead - A completely over-the-top combination of ghosts and zombies

1 -The Shining - You know something is a pop-culture phenomenon when the Simpsons do it

If You Build It, They Will Come

After seven years of marriage Donna and I have gotten pretty good at picking our battles. As newlyweds, what surprised us most about our arguments was not the frequency, but rather the subject matter. Our biggest conflicts seemed to be over the smallest things.

For example, our biggest argument to date was over where to hang a shelf in our first apartment. This shelf, no matter how inspired its placement, was never going to do anything more than hold books. But we fought like Crips and Bloods about where to put it.

However, I am hereby putting my arguing days behind me and forfeiting all future disagreements to Donna.

Why?

Because in her infinite grace and ever-loving wisdom she has acquiesced to me building this in our backyard…