Cut to the Chase – Death Tunnel, the Tunnel that Eats People
August 10, 2009
I recently had the privilege of watching the film Daylight, a late 90’s film starring Sylvester Stallone which I’d describe as “Cliffhanger but in a tunnel.”
I knew in the first ten minutes of this film that it was going to be awesome. Why? Because the writer kept packing things into this tunnel. These include:
- Several toxic waste trucks
- Jewel thieves in a high speed chase
- A bunch of snooty-sounding rich people
- Viggo Mortensen
- Sylvester Stallone, playing a cab driver
- A bunch of tunnel workers that appear really happy
And in the first ten minutes, the word “tunnel” was used at least once every 15 seconds. So you know what this is like, I’ll use the word “tunnel” in every sentence in the next paragraph.
So what happens in this movie about the tunnel? The jewel thieves are in a high speed chase trying to escape the cops, so they decide to try to take the a tunnel. They then crash into toxic waste trucks which cause the tunnel to explode. A bunch of people are trapped in the tunnel. Sylvester Stallone finds all of the survivors in the tunnel and leads them into the tunnel’s wine alcove. Behind the wine alcove is a tunnel that leads all of the survivors into John Malkovich’s head. After about 15 minutes, the tunnel survivors are dumped out onto the side of the New Jersey Turnpike. Everyone dies a little bit after their experience with the tunnel. The end (of the tunnel).
Cut to the Chase – Rookie of the Year
July 15, 2009
It’s the last inning of the most important game of the year, and you have just one inning to pitch. The only problem is that your arm isn’t letting you pitch 100% anymore. Do you:
- Call a time out, tell your coach, and get replaced by another relief pitcher? OR
- Intentionally walk 2 players, then get your team together, come up with two trick plays, and then toss the ball underhand across the plate to the best hitter on the opposing team?
For Henry Rowengartner of Rookie of the Year, the right answer was #2. And apparently the entire team was okay with it.
Henry is a 12 year old boy whose tendons “healed a little too tight” after breaking his arm. He then gains the ability to throw a baseball really fast. The owners of the Chicago Cubs, who at the time needed to sell out every baseball seat for the rest of the season in order to hold onto the team, likely because they have the worst bank in the world, decide to exploit 12 year old Henry, and bring him onto the team.
Henry pitches well, and most players cannot hit his fastball. The exception is nemesis Butch Heddo, a power hitter on the New York Mets that likes to taunt children.
Eventually, the Cubs start winning, and in the last game of the year, the Cubs play the Mets for the division title. Henry pitches two solid innings until he trips on a baseball, falls on his arm, and loses his ability to pitch 100mph fastballs. So what does he do? He intentionally walks two players and relies on their being incredibly stupid to get them out with trick plays.
The third batter up in the inning is Butch Heddo, Henry’s nemesis that has never had trouble hitting Henry’s pitches even when Henry was able to pitch 100mph. So what does Henry do? AFTER INTENTIONALLY WALKING TWO STRAIGHT PLAYERS, HE DECIDES TO ACTUALLY PITCH.
Which, okay, would be fine… except for the fact that his team, fully aware that Henry can no longer pitch fast, still insists that he pitch his fastball, a pitch that, contrary to popular belief, is actually only effective when thrown fast.
Under a lot of stress, Henry takes a second and steps off the rubber of the pitching mound. He then peels back a piece of tape on what he thought was his dad’s baseball glove, revealing that it was actually his mom that played baseball. (Now, you may think that I as the blog writer just neglected to explain the significance of Henry’s glove, but rest assured, this is the first time that the audience of the movie is introduced to it as well). Realizing that it was really his mom that was the baseball player, Henry shares a telepathic moment with his mom in which his mom instructs Henry to “float” the ball over the plate. What’s the significance of “floating” the ball? I don’t know. This was also left out of the movie. However, Henry does it, Heddo strikes out, the Cubs win, and players of Major League baseball go on strike the next year in 1994. The end.
iPhone 3GS vs a Gun
June 19, 2009
Today, I concluded that:
there’s nothing you can do with an iPhone 3GS that you can’t do with a gun"
This can be interpreted in two ways:
- Any task that can be performed with an iPhone 3GS can also be performed without an iPhone 3GS and instead with a gun that you use to coerce people into accomplishing the task for you. For example:
- Getting directions on the fly
- Finding out where the cheapest local restaurants are
- Any task that can be performed with an iPhone 3GS can also be performed while carrying a gun in addition to the iPhone 3GS.
However, both are flawed as they’re affected by local gun laws.
Taylor Swift’s “You Belong with Me”
June 17, 2009
I was originally going to write a post comparing the iPhone 3GS with a gun, but then I saw the new Taylor Swift video and had to write about it:
First, this video is adorable. As usual!
But what I find interesting are the parallels between this video and Avril Lavigne’s video for Girlfriend. In Girlfriend, Avril plays a bad girl with black hair covets a guy who’s seeing another girl, also played by herself, but with red hair. She eventually wins him over by terrorizing the other girl.
In You Belong with Me, Taylor Swift plays a girl with blonde hair who is in love with a guy that’s dating a girl, played by herself, but with black hair. She eventually wins over the guy by showing up to a dance with a nice dress and a makeover.
I also like the video for Taylor Swift’s Love Story as it parallels Romeo and Juliet. The only difference is that in Love Story, the problem is resolved when the guy talks to Taylor’s father, and they resolve their conflicts, whereas in Romeo and Juliet, Romeo and Juliet both commit suicide.
A note to all you young single guys/gals out there
March 28, 2009
To all you folks dating in the new millennium — I know you’re young and have plenty of time to make mistakes before you find what you’re ultimately looking for. But let me impart some wisdom on you.
A lot of you are looking for a significant other that is:
- smart
- witty
- unique
- successful
But let me warn you — though it may feel like the right thing to do at the time, you’ll regret it. The truth is that all of these qualities are fleeting. The smartest girl you know became a conspiracy theorist. Your witty boyfriend makes jokes that are only funny to himself and his friend Mike. The unique girlfriend is unique in a way similar to the way everyone else is unique. Your successful beau gave all of his money to Bernie Madoff.
What lasts a lifetime, however, is good looks. No one obsessed with the fitness stops going to the gym. Because it eats at them. Like a brain disease. Forever.
Have the Green Police gone too far?
March 6, 2009
My apartment complex people hired the Green Police to go through all of the apartments and make energy-saving optimizations. I was absolutely thrilled to get new, energy saving light bulbs at no additional cost to me. However, in the following cases, I think they may have gone too far:
- They replaced my personal halogen reading light with a CFL that isn’t as bright.
- They replaced the pre-existing CFL light bulb in my personal floor lamp with an even weaker CFL light bulb.
- They replaced my Sonicare electric toothbrush with a non-electric toothbrush.
- They removed the motor from my blender.
- They replaced my Hungry Man TV dinners with Healthy Choice TV dinners.
- My toilet no longer flushes.
- They replaced my TV with a hamster cage.
What do YOU think?
I’m always ready to say "Samosas"
March 5, 2009
I recently brought 5 boxes of Girl Scout cookies to bring into work to share. And whenever someone asks me what kind I got, I’ll always take a second to think, and then I’ll respond, “I got 5 boxes of Samoas.”
Why do I always take a second? Because this logic always gets called:
whatYouGot = “Samosas”;
if(whatYou’reTalkingAbout == “Girl Scout Cookies”) whatYouGot = “Samoas”;
Which is a fancy way of saying, I’m always ready to say “Samosas,” but I’m always aware that could be wrong, so I have to think about it to figure out if what I mean to say is actually “Samoas.”
Here are some other scenarios that are affected:
Question: What do you want for appetizers?
Response: …Samosas!
And additionally, there’s some extra logic in my head for this:
Question: Who was that baseball player that was in the home run race with Mark McGuire?
Reponse: …Sammy Sosas!
"…but I don’t want to look like Al."
March 1, 2009
There’s one phrase that I seem to hear way more than anyone should, and that’s, “…but I don’t want to look like Al.”
Why do I hear it so often? Because whenever the topic of physical fitness comes up, it ends up resulting in someone trying to convince someone else to try lifting weights. And one of the reasons always ends up being, “and if you do, you can look like Al.” To which everyone replies, “…but I don’t want to look like Al.”
So for those of you that want to convince your friends to lift weights, can we all agree on two things: they probably don’t want to look like me, and I don’t want to hear them say that they don’t want to look like me?
Thanks.
Al makes another mistake
February 27, 2009
In the following sequence of events that occurred today, I made exactly one mistake. See if you can identify which one it was.
Thursday, February 26
8:59 AM – Wake up. Look out the window and see snow.
9:00 AM – Check work email to see if people are going to work today.
9:18 AM – Head to work
5:40 PM – Head home from work
6:30 PM – Walk to the bar to meet people for drinks.
9:30 PM – Walk home from the bar.
10:55 PM – Make myself some instant Ramen. Crack in 3 eggs.
11:00 PM – Take my contacts out.
Al makes a mistake
February 26, 2009
I am not perfect. Nobody is. The following is a short tale of a mistake that I made. You will be given the opportunity to think about what you would’ve done in this situation.
Sunday morning, 10:00am – I take out the trash and replace the trash bag.
Sunday evening, 7pm – Upon making dinner, I realize that my meat has gone bad.
What do I do?
Obviously, I should throw it away. But if I throw it away, it’ll likely make my apartment smell bad.
But if I throw it away and then take the trash out again, this will be a waste of a trash bag. My current trash bag is completely empty!
What would you do?
Looking back, I would’ve just eaten the cost of the wasted trash bag and just taken the trash out. What I did instead was:
- Take out a new trash bag
- Throw the bad meat into the new trash bag
- Roll up the new trash bag to make it harder for odor to escape.
- Toss the rolled up trash bag with the rotten meat into my trash can.
- Called it a day.
So I managed to find the solution that both stunk up my apartment and wasted the trash bag.
