Phineas Blogg

Scraping wallpaper

Sitting at a stoplight our car suddenly lurches forward. RK thought the battery died and the engine jumped but in fact a girl behind our car rammed* us. We were on a very busy street, a highway actually, but directly ahead was a gas station so when the light went green Rk pulled into and I got out of the car to inspect the damage and to talk to the girl who hit us. One problem with that though...she didn't pull in. Nope, just kept on keepin' on. My wife's car was fine so it wasn't a big deal, I'd have told her not to worry about it anyway. But that's not cool. Way not cool.

I hopped back in the car and we started to drive only to find her a block ahead on the side of the road, another car stopped ahead of her. As I got out of the car to go talk to the girl, a guy got out of the front car came to talk to my wife. As soon as she was close enough to be heard the girl was practically begging me to let me get her insurance info. It soon became apparent why she was so eager, she was scared that someone caught her being a bad little girl- you see, the guy in the car ahead of her's was actually behind her when she hit us.

Upon seeing her try to get away, he zoomed ahead of her and flagged her over. He said as much to RK. The average person would just have gone by thinking that the driver of the car didn't hit very hard so no big deal, or maybe the driver was a burly man with road rage, or maybe just that it was none of thier business, but a kid in his twenties who had a license plate holder and bumper stickers proclaiming 'Army of with another Army reference it, thought only that you don't treat people that way. He pulled her over, told her that it wasn't right. I don't know if he learned that in the Army or not...but I like that we have him there. I like knowing that the person who is supposed to watch my country's back when he's on duty is watching mine even when he's off duty.

*If you were actually there you might think the word rammed is a bit strong but I've read enough of Brando's blog to know that this is a legitimate way to describe things if you write for a newspaper. I don't write for a newspaper so it's probably called lying. She bumped us.

magic playing has been a little slow since I moved here but Brent, Pascal and Chris all made a trip to visit and play cards with me Saturday. It's nice to be loved enough that people want to take time out of their lives not only to hang out but to have to make a trip to do so. That's a lot of the word 'to'. I wrote that sentence and I had to read it twice. Anyway, the three of them showed up and we played a few games of 2HG and then went out for lunch.
We went to Subway where we were told "We are all out of bread". That was kind of wierd. So we got Pizza Hut instead.
I purchased a box of Alara from De which Brent brought with him. The picture above is the aftermath of that. Brent's birthday was just a couple of days before so I got him a couple of nerd chic t-shirts. I wasn't sure he'd like the actual comic book characters on them but I thought the nerdiness of them would be enough for him to enjoy.

Don't make Brent angry.

Braska & Me
Brought Braska to work today during my lunch hour. We went around to a lot of different offices to show her off. She was a big hit. When we were at the Prosecuting Attorney's office she got swarmed by adoring fans which promptly threw her into a screaming fit. We got her away from the lawyers and she seemed fine.

I like the Greatest American Hero as you should know; I've referenced it before. Tonight I saw an episode previously unknown to me called "Wizards and Warlocks". Obviously trying to cash in on the DnD craze of the early 80's this episode takes it past a small gag to a full hour nerd-fest. It was awesome! If Cory was going to make an episode of this show, this would be that episode. They were throwing around dork-eese like Kid Niki throws ninja stars. During the course of the show, Bill, Pam and Ralph, have to play the game to find a kid who had been kidnapped by some people who don't play Wizards and Warlocks, proving conclusively that that people who don't play DnD are kidnappers. And they took the material at face value instead of trying to vilify the game as some gateway to murder and psychotic breaks with reality as some people might- I'm looking at you Tom Hanks.

And yes, they wore hats.

Biggest floppy ever
Found this at work. You may think you know what it is but you are wrong. Who said it's a 5 1/4 floppy disk? I'm sorry that's incorrect. It's an 8-in floppy disk. Maybe you have to be a nerd, but for some reason this thing cracked me up. It's huge.

RK had been wanting to see Mamma Mia and it came to the local cheap theatre so we recently went out to watch it. We sat down amongst about 25 - 30 people, all over the age of 60. I don't know if that was the filmmakers intended audience but that's who we sat with. Apparently the elderly like Abba. So if you didn't know, it's a musical that only includes Abba songs. I'm not normally a fan of musicals but I'm still not.

Sophie (some chick I don't know) is about to get married and wants her father to walk her down the isle but Sophie doesn't know who her father is. After snooping through her mother, Donna's (Meryl Streep), diary she finds that her dad is one of three men- Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Bill (Stellan Skarsgård) or Harry (Colin Firth). This information causes her to sing a song...oh yeah, and invite them all to the wedding by pretending to be her mother.

The guys show up and quickly find out that Sophie sent the letters as Sophie tries to hide them in the goat barn. Maybe I forgot to mention this is all on the island of Mypos where Donna runs a hotel and has an old goat barn. Donna sees the three ex-lovers from her youth all sitting around together so she freaks out and sings a song about it all while "dancing" and trying to figure out how to keep Sophie from finding out about them. Mostly it was Saturday morning fair strung together loosely with some of Abbas biggest hits. One whole character and side plot I believe were only in the movie to get a song in that otherwise wouldn't have made any sense.

I've often wondered if you could make a story with no conflict and this movie does just that. In fact, the only real tension comes when Pierce Brosnan sings and you are trying to make up your mind to walk out or stick with it since you are on a date. Pierce is a really bad singer. Really. I think in a recording studio you get unlimited mulligans so I can't even imagine the cuts that didn't make it must have sounded like. He had two lead songs. It was really terrible. The girl playing Sophie sang well but everyone else was only okay even at their best. I kind of felt sorry for Meryl Streep but that might just be me projecting what I think her reputation is on who she really is. I mean everyone looked like they were having a really good time so maybe I shouldn't judge.

The sets were nice and colorful, the scenery beautiful and the background singers made of peasant Greeks were kind of humorous. I did actually like Voulez-Vous, probably because it was sung by a bunch of people so you couldn't hear any one person mangle it.

Despite all of that, I actually enjoyed it. Was it a good movie? No. But it was entertaining and simple and innocent- something the world needs more of, something I need more of. Part of me enjoyed it for those reasons, and another part enjoys that I will get to make viscious fun of it henceforth...so win/win. Did I go home and immediately listen to Abba? I totally did.

That's about it. Feel free to mock me. I'd mock you.

Oh yeah, they decide they will each be 1/3 of her father and all live happily ever after as a big family or something.