Just another fucked-up dream

I think I should start posting about all my dreams. They all seem pretty out there. Take the other night, for instance.


I dreamed I was getting a sex change.

Everyone was pretty supportive. I went into the doctor's office to get kind of a what's what in terms of medical issues, and he said everything was a-ok to go ahead with the operation. Mom was cheerful, and everyone else was happy, too.

And I was all gung-ho about it, too. However, the last moment I remember was a moment of doubt. I was anxious and fearful to do this because I knew there was no going back after it was done, and after it was done, I was very afraid of the new hassles of being a woman.

Namely, having to put makeup on everyday.

Having to put makeup on daily dissuaded me from my sex change.

Awkward moment

This is a work-related story, and kind of makes me feel violated and creepy.

So, earlier today at work, I said hi to two women, probably at least 45. I smiled, as I always do when greeting customers, and immediately one of the women flips out.

"Oh, my god, how cute are you!"
"Oh, uh...thanks. Thank you."
She turns to her friend and says, "isn't he just as cute as a button? Aw, and his eyes sparkle!"
I am growing more and more uncomfortable by the second, each of which seem like a minute. "Uh, heh....thanks a lot..."
"How many girlfriends do you have?"
"Oh, just the one."
"So when are you getting married?"
"Well, we'll be getting engaged soon..."
"Ooh, look at his eyes sparkle, you know he's in love!"
("Uh, no, lady, the sparkle in my eye is fear for my life.")
"Ha ha...yeah..." What the hell do I say at this point? I am hoping that she is leaving soon.

Finally she left, and I was left reeling for a minute. No one prepares to hear that. No one wakes up and says "You know what? Today, some lady in her late-40s is going to tell me my eyes sparkle with love."

Thou Shalt Not Kill...Except

This is for those who have followed the career of Sam Raimi, director of the Evil Dead trilogy and also the Spider-Man trilogy.

Thou Shalt Not Kill...Except (also called Stryer's War) is a perfect example of the saying, "everybody's gotta start somewhere." But that's not to say that this isn't entertaining.

This flick is about a Vietnam vet, Jack Stryker, who gets injured and gets discharged to come back to his hometown. Meanwhile, there's a crazy cult of killers roaming the town, inflicting random murders at their whim (led by Sam himself). So, while Stryker's army buddies are in town, the killers have circled around Stryker's girlfriend. The result is Stryker and his army buddies taking on the entire cult of killers.

I have to say, it's a fun flick to watch. It's low budget and it's got lots of fake blood in it - an equation that almost always attracts me. The performances aren't the best, but they're believable enough not to take away from the film. The strongest, I'd say, is Raimi's cult leader. (While watching it, I point to him on the screen and go, "Amy - you see that guy right there with the hippie wig, the blacked-out tooth and the crazy eyes cutting his had with his sword and smearing his blood on that tied-up guy's face?" "Yeah..." "That's the guy that directed Spider-Man!")

At a short 82 minutes, it's time enough to watch it without feel you're wasting any time on it. It's a fun, guilt-free flick for people interested in seeing the path a now-famous director took to get where he is today. Definitely rent it.

Pictures of Robots, Part III of III

And now, the stunning conclusion to the most epic trilogy since Star Wars Episodes I-III.

This morning I've been pretty busy, actually. I've updated my Record Nerd collection (link to the right!), my DVD Aficionado list (again, link to the right!), and I've been catching up on this. I think it's all to get my mind off of the most fucked-up dream I've had lately from last night.

This perfectly demonstrates how watching something for no more than three minutes can really fuck up your psyche. Last night Amy and I went shopping for her so she could get new work-related clothes for her new job (server at Smokey Bones). When we came home, it was late and I hadn't eaten dinner yet, so I went into the kitchen to make myself a sandwich. While I was doing that, Amy took it as the perfect opportunity to squeeze in some guilt-free "American Idol." When I finished making my sandwich, I came into the living room and it was still on, so I put my sandwich down and put in my new The Prestige DVD (great flick!) so we could watch it. However I had to endure a few minutes of Idol.

Anyways, so last night I had the following dream:

I was a contestant on "American Idol." It felt as though I was being pushed into doing it, so when I was on stage, I didn't try very hard and I didn't smile at all. However, everyone thought I did very well, and made it to the next part, which was, apparently a big musical number with all the contestants singing and dancing. The fucked up part here was that, I started to try really hard. I was really conflicted because I would start trying and smiling, but then I would catch myself doing it and was upset. Then after that, I sat down with my family (of course they were there - every other related public embarrassment my family's been there) and watched a quartet sing. One of the singers was a particular ex-girlfriend of mine. I was like, "What the fuck's she doing here?!"

And then one of the singers whipped out a samurai sword and it turned into him doing a martial arts demonstration.

And then, for some reason, I was suddenly in a school circa 1965 where there was a shark loose. Yes, a shark. The school was flooded and there was a shark in it, chomping on the feet of teachers with B-52 haircuts.

Pictures of Robots, Part II of III

It's always a good time when my brother Nick comes up to visit. We go record shopping, comic shopping and just hang out. Basically, we do everything I usually do by myself, only when he's around, it's not entirely pathetic. First off, here's a list of everything I "acquired" over the weekend.

CDs:
The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
Film School - S/T
David Garza - Overdub
Howlin' Maggie - Honeysuckle Strange
Karate - Some Boots
The Make-Up - In Mass Mind
Mastodon - Blood Mountain
Minmae - Le Grand Essor de la Maison du Monstre
Michael Penn - Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947
Tortoise - S/T
We Ragazzi - The Ache

DVDs:
David Cross - Let America Laugh
Once Upon a Time in the West

VHS:
Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Cave Dwellers
Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Eegah
Mystery Science Theater 3000 - The Gunslinger
Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Red Zone Cuba

Comics:
Army of Darkness #13
Army of Darkness vs. Darkman #3
Zombies vs. Robots #2

While walking around on N. High Street, we noticed that the city doesn't give a fuck about shoveling the sidewalks. We noticed this while trudging through the brown-ish snow, commenting about how we should be wearing those tennis racket things on our feet. It felt like we were competing in the Iditarod.

We also stopped into the McDonald's to use the bathroom and grab a small bite, since neither of us had eaten anything yet, and it was about 4 pm. We had the most fucked-up, David Lynchian McDonald's experience ever. The girl took my order and then walked away and stood back, staring at me. Just eye-balling me. No idea why. The other woman was on the phone with someone she was obviously upset with. There was a probably 70 year-old woman making our food behind the line. The same thing happened to Nick. The girl was eyeballing him. It made us both very self-conscious. And then when we sat down there was a guy eating a Fishwich that would occasionally look over at us and giggle to himself. We finished our food and left promptly.

When we got in, we had began ripping our CDs into our respective laptops, ripping each other's as well. Amy made a fantastic pasta dish with pancetta. After dinner, we hung out. I bought Amy a computer game, so when I was done ripping CDs, she took over and played her game most of the night. Nick and I watched a movie called Thou Shalt Not Kill...Except. It's a very early Sam Raimi movie, which I'll probably write about in DVD reviews. After that we put in one of my MST3K videos, which was, naturally, terrible and very hard to follow.

On Monday, I took Amy and Nick to eat lunch at work. We went for some tempura. We all had something different, and we were all impressed with what we got. It was all amazing and it was a lot more food than we expected. Nothing like fried veggies.

Like I said, I always have a good time when Nick's in town or I'm in Bowling Green. I get a little bummed whenever he leaves or I leave, though. Because I know that I have to return to what's going on with me right now. Not to say that I'm miserable, which I'm definitely not, but it always reminds me of all the good times I had in Bowling Green, hanging out with friends, people I have some things in common with. Watching weird movies, having some drinks. It reminds me of what I left behind when I moved here, because although I do the same things here, I do them usually by myself these days.

Pictures of Robots, Part I of III

This is all going to occur in the order it all happened.

Okay, so last Wednesday was Valentine's Day, and Amy and I thought that it would be nice to go out to dinner. There's this place on Broad Street we haven't tried yet called Tumbleweeds, so we decided to try it. Since it was really bad outside on Wednesday, right after that snowstorm that crippled Columbus, I called to see if the place would even be open. Here's the gist of the conversation that occurred between me and the lady that answered.

"Hello, thank you for calling Tumbleweed."
"Hi, I was just calling to see if you guys would be open tonight."
"Well, so far so good."
"Oh, okay, good..."
(Interrupting) "Ok, goodbye."
"Oh, wait, I had another question."
"Oh."
"I was also wondering if you guys took reservations?"
"Uh, not normally, but how many are in your party?"
"Just two of us."
"Oh. No."
"Ah. Well, do you do call-ahead seating?"
"For two people? No."
"Ok...well, thanks."
click

After I hung up with the woman (to be polite), I immediately called Amy to say we weren't going to that restaurant because of the phone conversation. My thought was, if they're going to talk with me on the phone like that, completely rude and bothered to be talking to me, how are they going to treat us if we actually go in there? Amy agreed, and I suggested we go to that Texas Roadhouse place.

Well, unbeknownst to me, Amy emailed the company with the complaint about what my conversation was like. She said something along the lines of how I normally don't get really mad about a lot of things, but that upset me enough to the point where I refused to step foot in the place (I mean, it's called phone etiquette!). Later on, Amy got a phone call from the regional manager of the company, who happened to be in that exact restaurant when he received that email. He apologized profusely, said that that's not normally how we treat our customers, and how after he got that email he pulled together all the wait staff and gave them all a lesson on phone etiquette. He also offered us dinner on him, if we wanted to come in, to which Amy accepted.

So, they held a table for us at 6 p.m. When we walked in the place, it was very packed. There was standing room only in the waiting area. Amy walked up to the host podium, and the hostess asked, "How many for you tonight?"
"Uh, I think you have a table being held for Amy Kirk."
At that point the head host took over. He grabbed two menus and said, "Hello, right this way."
I noticed all the angry looks that the people waiting there gave us. I mean, this exchange all happened in seconds. It was pretty funny.

When we got seated, the guy Amy talked to on the phone came over and apologized again for the poor experience and told us that anything we wanted was on him tonight. He then recommended a few things, among them being the most expensive steak in the house. This, to me, demonstrated that we shouldn't feel guilty about getting what we wanted, because he offered us the highest priced item on the menu. The waitress came over immediately after and took our drink orders. We got appetizers, some strip steaks, dessert, I had some beer, and everything was on the house. While we were finishing our dessert, we were estimating our expenses. We came up with a figure somewhere between 60 and 70 dollars. Oh, and the food was fantastic. The steaks were pretty much perfect. On our way out the door, the manager caught us and again apologized and then thanked us for giving them another chance. We both said thank you for the fantastic meal, and Amy said that we'd definitely be in again.


The lesson here is, don't be afraid to have your girlfriend complain. I'm kind of a timid guy when it comes to complaining about service, especially since I'm in retail. Amy has always been an assertive woman, and that has equaled out to free stuff for us in the past. When we went to Good Times to play mini-golf, the course was all fucked up. So Amy said something, and they gave me like, 20 free tickets and our money back. This is the reason why I think Amy and I are such a good match. We complement each other so well - she gets worked up about a lot of stuff, and I'm usually a lot calmer and easier to laugh. Meanwhile, I'm afraid to tell someone I'm upset with them, and she will complain and get us free stuff.

The great glove parade

The other day at about 6:20 a.m., I am getting in my car and recognizing how ridiculously, unbelievably, unabashedly cold it is. I am also remarking at how I don't have gloves. Thus begins my intrepid expedition to find gloves to wear.

I finally got some today, after going to two Targets, a Meijer, an Old Navy and finally a K-Mart. Why are winter gloves so fucking hard to find? What is it about them that makes finding them an elusive treasure worthy of some Discovery Channel-style documentary? "Shh...there they are...they can smell your fear, just hide hear and watch them in their splendor."


I went into Old Navy and asked the girl working there, and this is the very brief conversation that took place:

"Hi, I was wondering if you had any gloves?"
She hesitated, tossing her head to the side as a gesture of uncertainty. "Mmm, no, I don't think so, sorry. I think all we have left are some women's scarves."
I laugh to myself for a second, questioning the similarities between a women's scarf and a pair of gloves. "Uh...well, that's kinda close, huh?"
"Well, if you're good at sewing..." She responds with this, while making sewing gestures with her hands.
"Hm. Well wouldn't you know it, I left my sewing machine in my other pants. Thanks anyway."
"Sorry, have a nice evening."


All we have left are women's scarves? How does that help my cause? In what fucking dimension would a woman's scarf be a suitable substitute for gloves?


"Hi, I'm looking for a baseball bat."
"Sorry, all we have are water balloons."
"Ah, well that will do, thank you."