Don't worry, I didn't

An Inventory of Chairs

6 deck chairs
2 lounge chairs
1 beach chair
2 wicker chairs
2 easy chairs
1 piano bench
1 captain's chair
2 office chairs
2 children's desk chairs
1 bee chair
1 rocking chair
12 dining chairs
1 drum stool

Not bad for a family of three.

P.S., we also have 6 spatulas.

At the Movies

Skeletor wants all the power in the universe. He has to, his name is Skeletor. And he's mad. He gets on the holographic phone and his face threatens everyone on planet Eternia -- all 12 of them. He-man watches the message from on top of a mountain, then turns to the camera and tries to look worried.

Then He-man, another man, and a lady show up and go to a dwarf's house to get a secret weapon made out of tuning forks that sends you across the galaxy if you play it like a synthesizer.

They do, and Skeletor gets even more mad. He sends his best stunt men in rubber alien masks to go find the weapon. They use radar.

He-man and his friends land in a small town on Earth and steal some fried chicken. It's supposed to be funny but it isn't. Who wants to see someone try to figure out fried chicken? Take yourself seriously, movie.

Enter Courtney Cox, very cute and almost the best thing in this film. She's going to leave her boyfriend because he's in a band, which we never meet. (Years later the boyfriend will become Tom Paris on Star Trek Voyager, a much better sci-fi show.) They go to the graveyard to visit her parents who were killed in a plane crash, and find the weapon. He wants to keep it, but the high-school principal from Back to the Future wants it to be evidence. They all meet the bad guys and run around.

Skeletor, who has been watching the whole thing from the other side of the universe, finally gets pissed off enough to come over here himself and throw down. He zaps Courtney Cox in the leg, melts the weapon, and takes He-man back to Eternia so he can enslave him before he kills him. He actually does succeed and becomes a god, but all the power in the universe isn't enough to stop the good guys from following him back and winning. The end.

I wanted this movie to be bad but it wasn't, it was just boring. I recognized 1.5 people from the cartoon version. Orko was replaced by a dwarf who's stiff mask made all of his dialog look like "mama." Even Battle Cat was missing.

Skeletor was easily the best thing in the whole movie. He was just nuts. Good skull make-up too, especially for 1987.

This movie gets 1.5 stars for each character I cared about.


P.S., When the dwarf sends everyone back to Earth he makes it so that Courtney's parents aren't dead after all.

Thank you

Barefoot in the Park

Not the best quality, but here's a glimpse of us as Paul and Corie Bratter from Barefoot in the Park. Don't we look happy.

Liberties abused

You know those online ads for refinancing that show images of people dancing like drunken children? I was on weatherchannel.com trying to check what degree below zero it would be that day, and the little lady in the ad wouldn't stop. Normally they do after a few seconds, but she kept going. I tried to ignore it. I tried scrolling down past her, but then I couldn't see the temperature. Then I moved the cursor over the ad to see if that would do anything.

Nope, she kept going. She wouldn't stop. Her arms jerked. Her legs contorted. Her torso heaved. I wondered if she was about to vomit, but her expressionless face showed no sign of nausea. Her short red skirt and high heels just went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. She looked like a horny marionette with Parkinson's disease. Soon I forgot which Web site I was on.

I finally snapped out of it and wondered if I had accidentally refinanced my mortgage.

Are advertisers so lazy that they're just showing us their fantasies? If so, gross. They're creepy, like how clowns are creepy.

I have no idea how cold it was that day.

Hardee's Chronicles, Part VIII

This is me on my way to work at Hardee's during Crazy Days back in 1989. Apparently the regular uniforms weren't crazy enough. And those glasses are a perfect fit, for the doors of our '74 Oldsmobile.

Remembering Fargo

The Seven Days of Christmas

12-24: Seven pups a-peeing
Drive home, have lovely meal and open gifts. We meet Stella, John and Jen's awesome dog. She lays down a playful poker-hand paw for our neurotic pup Sophie. Sophie pushes herself into low orbit with her own pee. Luckily we're outside. Both Johns tell their respective dogs to stop it.

12-25: Six birds attacking
Lovely ham dinner. Watch birds duke it out over new bird feeder.

12-26: Five great ideaaaas
Get buzzed on coffee. Then go to Scheel's and spend more money on a sled and snowshoes for the girls. Then see Enchanted at the Princess theater. Then watch The Shining. Then stay up so late that we see mom get up for work.

12-27: Four games and booze
Play Family Feud, Outburst, Taboo, and Cranium over snacks and alcohol with Dave and Kelly. Every other joke must involve anatomy. Do not go to bed before 1:00 am.

12-28: Three late nights
Grab the "L" book off the shelf and make up a game called "Encyclopedia." Ask what the name Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch means. (It's a village in Wales.)
Stay up until 2:00 am.

12-29: Two extra gifts
Home to celebrate anniversary.

12-30: And a mall half the size of the staaaate
Go to Mall of America and buy Batman Lego people.

Geese

I saw a big "V" of geese fly overhead on my way home from work tonight. It's like 1 degree out. I thought to myself, Man, those geese must be fricking freezing.

Hardee's Chronicles, Part VII

To our young minds, Hardees was not only a peek at the outside world but a laboratory as well. At one point we had become obsessed with straws.

At the height of our obsession, Mark and I once linked about 30 of them end to end. The resulting superstraw was so mighty that it bowed under the low ceiling, a beautiful plastic arc blossoming from our meager cup. Then the ladies behind the counter said that was enough straws for now. But we could have jousted them if we wanted to, and I think they knew it.

The Last Blog of 2007

I should really change my profile photo, but I haven't taken a better picture in the last year. Or the previous 35.

One point of interest though: the night that photo was taken -- December 24th, 2006 -- I flossed a small chunk of filling out of one of my teeth, making it impossible to enjoy the many Christmas treats with both sides of my mouth. And since it happened at the start of the happiest dang holiday on the planet, all the dentists of the world were at home with their families and I had to wait until January 2nd to get it fixed.

And that's how I secured my place among the greats at the Library Table.

[Sporty theme music here]

Happy 2008!

John's Brain

Christmas, 1972

Here's what I like about this one...

1. The couch and the power outlet have just as much frame space as the Christmas tree
2. Mom's arm in a non-Christmas-y pose
3. Mark's pajamas, the most festive thing in the whole picture
4. The giant gray wall

Hardees Chronicles, Part VI -- starring dad!!

Years ago dad was in Rochester on business, and he went to a Hardees for a fish sandwich. So he went inside and placed his order, and asked if they could give it to him in a napkin instead of Styrofoam.

When the girl at the counter asked why, he explained that it kills ozone molecules.

Then she went back to ask her manager, who craned his neck like an idiot. Then she came back and said it would be fine. So she gave dad the fish sandwich, wrapped in a napkin, and the battle for the environment was...not won. Because then the fry cook took a Styrofoam container from the stack and tossed it.

Not only did they serve the food in Styrofoam, they also used it to count how many sandwiches they sold each day.


Epilogue

A woman waiting in line behind dad had been listening to the whole conversation. When she placed her order, she asked not to have Styrofoam too.

At the movies

If you've read Posy's latest blog, you know that we like Netflix. You also know that I ordered Short Circuit. In fact I just finished watching it for the first time since I was 15 years old, the approximate maturity level of every actor in the film. Except the robot.

Even if you haven't seen this movie, if you spent any time in the 80s you can guess where it's going:

1. To be a vehicle for Steve Guttenberg and/or Ally Sheedy
2. To introduce audiences to the concept of a misunderstood robot that could love
3. To turn you, the viewer, into an empathy-retching machine

Here's what I think.

The robot was actually the least-annoying one in the whole movie. First it gets hit by a stray bolt of lightning from a storm passing through some distant mountains and gets a robot soul. From there it wastes no time out-classing all of the people actors by escaping the compound and not swearing every third line of dialog. It also displays an emotional understanding of its situation. It also deflects bullets with a hubcap, and pushes one of its evil twin robots into an outhouse, which then explodes poop everywhere.

Am I asking too much? Is there a story in this? Sure there is. All you do is take away Steve Guttenberg, because he really can't act. Not even poorly. Then you take out his greasy, sweaty-palmed East-Indian colleague who exaggerates his own accent and uses the English language for target practice by saying things like "Well the cat sure dragged in a sight for sore eyes." Then remove Ally Sheedy, who instantly becomes so attracted to the unfamiliar robot that when they cut to the next scene it's morning, and he's making pancakes, and I'm officially worried. (Maybe she's just so repelled by Steve Guttenberg's plappiness, if I might coin a phrase.)

Finally, get rid of the gravy-thick Army guy who wants to blow it up, even though it cost 11 million dollars, along with his scientist boss who nags at him not to. You have now eliminated all of the formulaic characters, and the robot is free to discover life, and I am free to not go looking for a hammer.

I give it two stars -- one for the robot's tolerance of idiots, and one for its laser gun that can blow up tanks. **

Concordia, 1989

Paul -- any idea why you and dad came up to see me freshman year?

Dad -- is that your shaving kit on my desk?

Birthday, 1987

I got a new walkman, the kind that could play a cassette tape.

Check out the look on Dave's face.

Return of the White Ludwig

For Paul, who wanted to see the restored set

For Mark, who helped me get it home

For Dave, who might think it's cute compared to the one he has now

The Hardee's Chronicles, Part V

During my first week on the job my manager, the rotund Betty, gave me some sage advice about how to properly wash dishes. She said to me, "Make the water as hot as you can stand it, and then make it even hotter."


What?

First Day of School, 1978