The Time Travel Fund[tm]

OK, I consider myself a rational, relatively intelligent individual. I read on someone else's blog about this site and I was intrigued. Talk about circular logic. I found myself considering participating just in case the impossible happens and they are legit. Then I came to my senses. Just to prove that the internet gives everyone a voice. It is how they use that voice that I find the most amusing.

The Time Travel Fund[tm]

Yahoo! News - Kevin Smith Clocks in for 'Clerks' Sequel

Well this is the best news I have heard all day. Kevin Smith is returning to the basics. I can't wait for this film.

Ian

Read about it on Kevin Smith's website: NewsAskew



Yahoo! News - Kevin Smith Clocks in for 'Clerks' Sequel

Paying an old debt...

God this summer has gone by fast. I was excited to see my students come back last week, but it was bittersweet as it signals the end of my chance to breathe.

However the fall is looking great, and I am scheduling a trip to visit my friend Shannon in North Carolina in October. This visit is long over due, as she has been up to visit me 5 times since I left NC 2 years ago and this will be my first visit back to see her. As much as I was excited to move back home, leaving Shannon in Wilmington was very difficult. I am really glad we have stayed as close as we are.

Because I am in a Shannon state of mind, I am finally going to relate a story here that I owe her. Shannon, hope you like it. You waited long enough for it.

One morning, in fall of last year I woke up to a scratching at my window. Scratching noises are not that uncommon as at the time I was pretty sure a squirrel had gotten into a crawlspace above my apartment. I would usually hear little feet scrambling back and forth in the crawl space and quickly learned to tune it out.

This morning the sound was different. It was definitely coming from the window just to the right of my head. I have venetian blinds that were closed. I have to admit I was freaked out as I turned the rod to open the blinds. Half expecting to see a floating decapitated head gnawing at the screen to get in, I was relieved to see that it was only the squirrel, clinging to my window screen. The squirrel however, was freaked out. So much so that he took a giant piss on the outside of my window. My window was bombarded with a yellow stream and I think I stood there laughing for quite awhile.

Can't wait to see you!

Ian

Kevin Smith - Jersey Girl and Clerks X

Here is an interview with Kevin Smith about the 10th anniversary of Clerks.

Kevin Smith - Jersey Girl and Clerks X

Hostile Elders - The Evidence

As requested, here are photos to give you an accurate picture of the situation between my neighbor and I. You be the judge.

As you can see in pictures A,B,&C I am (the jeep) very far away from her car. She has chosen to park on the line to ensure that I can't encroach on it.


Picture A


Picture B


Picture C

As you can see in picture D that I am very close to impeding on the walkway. She wants me to move even further away from her car. Madness, I tell you!


Picture D

Garden State

I really love movies. One of the things that I have really gotten out of the habit of since moving back to New England is going to the movies. In North Carolina, I would go multiple times a month. In Massachusetts, I am lucky to go once a month. I chalk up the reason to 4 things:

1. Much less to do in N.C.
2. Have not found anyone who enjoys going to the movies as much as I do (there seem to be always someone willing to see whatever in NC).
3. Movies are freaking expensive around here ($9.25).
4. Although not a huge factor, have seen a run off crappy movies.
   

Well, things are looking up. My new co-worker, her roommate, and 2 others from work went and saw Garden State tonight. Fantastic movie. I highly recommend you go see it this weekend. It is written, directed and stars Zach Braff from Scrubs. I am not a huge follower of that show, but what I have seen, I think is funny. It is well written and well acted. I put it in the ranks of Say Anything, and very few movies get compared to that film by me.

So if you can find Garden State in a theatre near you, go check it out. It is very good. You would be hard pressed to find a better film out there right now.

Zach Braff's Garden State Blog

Hostile Elders

I am in a long standing feud with my neighbor. I know I am in danger of looking like an ass, but I am going to risk it and give the details. I live in a condo that I rent. They are set up like traditional apartments but have private owners. With the condo, I have two assigned parking spaces. I keep my car in the space nearest my apartment. In my second space, which is across the street, my sister has left her jeep there because all she has is on street parking, which is a hassle.

Now my secondary space is the last one in it's row. The space borders another spot in one side, and a walkway on the other. There is one yellow line separating my space from the next. As the history goes, 2 Christmases ago, it snowed late in the day. My parents decided to crash at my place rather then trekking back to RI in the snow. This is prior to my sister using the space, so they parked there. When they pulled into the spot, there was heavy accumulation of snow so they did there best guess as to where my spot actually was.

The next morning I get up to move their car and this little old lady chases after me, yelling that I had blocked her in. She also went on to say that I had no business parking there because these were reserved private spaces.

I apologized, but also pointed out that it was snowing when we parked and we did our best to park in the space. I also corrected her on the ownership issue and said that I rarely use the space. I then wished he happy holidays and drove away.

The next incident happened a few months later. Again my parents visited. This time they made sure to leave a wide berth between cars. When they went to retrieve the car, a sign was meticulously taped to the window, indicating that her Honda Civic has wide doors and that the car was parked in a manner that didn't allow her to open her doors fully. She then pointed out that she was elderly and handicapped. I went out to examine the car and I swear to you that there was a 4 foot gap between the two cars. More than enough room to open her door fully. So I chalked it up to crankiness and went about my day.

The next incident really started the feud. My sister left the jeep there and about a week later I get a call from my landlord that the condo property management and said they received a complaint from this woman that their was an abandoned jeep in the parking lot and she wanted towed. Since it was my spot Management called my landlord and asked if the car belonged to me. My landlord called me to see if it was my car. I informed her it was and then ran over to the management office to explain that the jeep was mine and it would be there for a while. Management explained to me that of course it was fine to park the car in the spot, but the woman had been making such a fuss and insisting that a. it was too close to her spot, and b. it didn't belong to the owner of the spot that it should be towed. The manager went out, saw that there was plenty of room, but decided to make sure the vehicle was actually supposed to be there. I explained that she has been complaining to me for a while and they said, without going into detail, that they receive a lot of various complaints from her on a variety of topics. So I put it out of my mind.

A month later, a note is on my door, basically calling me unreasonable for not moving my car further away from her spot. How can I be so mean to the elderly? Now I swear the jeep can not move further away with out impeding someone using the walkway and I refuse to park on the walkway itself. So I let it go.

This week, the parking lots are going to be professionally cleaned, so we are supposed to move our cars to the street . (My condo has the most stringent parking rules I have seen. It is almost impossible to have 2 cars, because in the winter, your car needs to move at the last drop of snow following a storm so the lots can be plowed. This is fine unless I am away or say at work. Since there is a street parking ban during snow storms, this makes finding a place for the car difficult. But I digress..) I move the car as instructed. When I go to move it back that evening, my neighbor has parked with her two wheels in my spot! I know this is to make me park the jeep further away, but I still am able to park it with out going onto the walkway. I know this has pissed her off because I am sure she thought she would force my hand, but no! The elderly are no match for my parking ability or my stubbornness streak that borders on obnoxiousness!

A Very Happy Birthday.....

To my Sister, who 29 years ago today, was placed on earth to be not only my best audience but also my biggest tormentor.

Thanks for always being there. I love you!

Ian

Touche!

I have been paying very little attention to the Olympics. I am not very sports minded and most athletic events bore me. Make the sporting event last two weeks and root canal surgery is looking like a pretty good alternative. I do however tune in every once in awhile to see if there is any major developments that I should be aware of. Usually this is not who won or lost, but injury footage, major scandal, etc.

In my daily update, I did see the women's saber competition (fencing). Now, I had always associated fencing with Errol Flynn movies, or for our younger readers, Inigo Montoya in "The Princess Bride".
"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father: prepare to die."

Lance and parry for a while and then disarm your opponent doing that cool twirling of your sword. This apparently is not the Olympic version. Basically it is thrust you sword at your opponent and hopefully touch them before they touch you. Each round last on average .8 seconds. Basically, it is an Olympic version of "Not it". God knows I have no room to judge, but man that is a lot of paraphanalia and hoopla for glorified "Slap Jack".

Boston.com / News / Odds & ends / Bear drinks 36 cans of favorite beer

Boston.com / News / Odds & ends / Bear drinks 36 cans of favorite beer

Even a bear knows that Busch Beer is pretty much undrinkable.

We're taking bets that...

We're taking bets that...

It is official, "We're Taking Bets That..." is back and I am sure it will finally hit a nerve with the American public and become a sensation.

In college, my good friend Greg Madrid published a column for the school paper entitled "We're Taking Bets That..." that was very popular. When he graduated the column ceased to exist. However, he has launched a web version and given back the column's voice.

Check it out!

Call to Inaction

One week down on my vacation and I am feeling very relaxed. I tell you, two weeks is the way to go. After one week, you are just getting into the groove of doing whatever you want. You need the second week to really enjoy it. It takes work to get into the hedonistic frame of mind!

So anyways, I think I could get into the beach lifestyle. Why aren't more independently wealthy people beach bums? It certainly seems to me to be the way to go. In American life, there is shame in not being productive in a day. Whenever I ask someone how there day was, I often get a standard response of, "Great, I cleaned the house, did the groceries, mowed the lawn, etc." When I am asked that question and answer, "Great, I did nothing all day." I get a follow up of "Why, are you ill?" It seems to be totally unacceptable to lay around all day. Except at the beach.

As soon as you hear that someone spent the day at the beach, there can be no expectation that there was something accomplished, with the exception of flipping over to even out your tan. The same people who look at you like you are a waste of space for being a slug on your couch are the ones who are the most envious and congratulatory for lying all day at the shore.

Let me further prove this to be true. At the "House on Stilts", my family will wander down to the beach while I will hang back to spend my day on the porch. While I love being at the beach, I am not a huge fan of putting on sunscreen, laying in the sand, baking in the sun. I don't hate it, but the porch on HOS has the afore mentioned daybed, so I can do exactly the same activities without the mess and with a fully stocked fridge. If the fan on the porch is not doing it's job, I can still run down for a dip in the ocean. However, I get more crap for not going through the ritual.

So I ask why this double standard? Why is it socially acceptable to do absolutely nothing while cooking in the sun, but to do it anywhere else, you are just lazy? Well I for one am not going to take it anymore! In the tradition of "sit-ins" I call for a "sleep-in" to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the beach minded! Who is with me? Snore loudly in solidarity!

LA Weekly: Columns: Deadline Hollywood: Do You IMDB?

LA Weekly: Columns: Deadline Hollywood: Do You IMDB?

The Internet Movie Database is a resource I utilize daily. For anyone who considers themselves a student of Pop Culture, the IMDB is a valuable resource. This article lays down a history of a successful .com start up.

Free signed Cerebus

Free Cerebus Offer

Neil Gaiman has posted a way to get a free Sandman parody of Cerebus (You have to scroll down the page to get to the details. Back my former life of a geeky comic collector (as opposed to the geeky guy I am today) I used to love both Sandman (or anything else conceived by Gaiman) and Cerebus so I am sure that it is a great issue. Cerebus' creator Dave Sim will even autograph it for you! All you need to do is send him a letter requesting a copy and why he should send you one and he will send and even includes the postage. Truly a free offer.

I guess he wants to see, in the age of the internet who would bother sending a letter via snail mail. To be honest that interests me as well, so I am spreading the word.

Here is the info that can be found at the link above:

Amongst many other things, in Dave Sim's Cerebus (which is a story that took Dave and his partner-in-art Gerhard 300 issues to tell) he did, in the Women storyline, easily the best parody of Sandman anyone's ever done, as various members of the Cerebus cast of characters become Snuff, Swoon and the rest of the Clueless. It was wickedly funny, and had the author of Sandman curling his toes when he read it.

Dave Sim has made an extremely generous offer to readers of this journal (and indeed, to readers not of this journal, but just people who simply hear about his offer elsewhere on the Internet. Memes propagate, after all), which is the kind of offer that I found as interesting as he did. It's this:

If you'd like to read one of the Sandman parody issues of Cerebus, Dave will send you one. He'll send it to you very happily, free of charge. He will sign it for you, too. And he won't charge you a thing. Not even postage.

And if you're wondering what the catch is, it's this: Dave wants to know (as, I have to admit, do I) how many of the people out there in internet-land will actually go and do things that don't involve passively clicking on a link and going somewhere interesting. So what you have to do is write Dave a letter (not an e-mail. Dave doesn't have e-mail) telling him that you read that he'll send you a signed Cerebus, and telling him why you'd like him to send you a copy. It's as easy as that. And, quite possibly as difficult.

The address to write to is:

Aardvark Vanaheim, Inc
P.O. Box 1674 Station C
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada N2G 4R2

Dave, I suspect, thinks he'll get a handful of requests. In my more pessimistic moments, I think he's right, although I'd love it if he got deluged with letters, like those kids in hospitals who don't exist but are still collecting postcards...

This ends the geek portion of Me Talk Pretty. We now return you to the regular, self-indulgent prattle that can normally be found here!

-The Mngmt.

House on Stilts

When I was 15, my parents announced that my grandparents were thinking of selling their cottage on a lake in CT and buy a beach cottage in Rhode Island. Before they did it, they wanted the whole family to check it out, as it would be for all of us.

I can't remember what I said at 15, but I am sure I wasn't adamant one way or another. However, now that I am 32, I probably would have had a harder time now giving up Amston Lake. At 15, I had no idea that my grandparents were slowly declining in heath and would eventually stop making the trek to Rhode Island. Growing up, my sister and I spent a lot of time with my mother's parents since they lived down the street. In the summer, when other kids went to day camp, we stayed with my grandparents at the lake and my parents would commute there after work (it was only 45 minutes away from where we lived). Over the last 10 years I have lost both my grandfather and grandmother and the lake house serves as the backdrop to so many of the great memories I have of them.

But the lake cottage was sold and we entered the world of Roy Carpenter's beach. To really get a sense of what this is, I need to give a history. Now I have no idea if this history is true, because I can't remember who told me the story, but it fits so I hold it as gospel. Apparently back in the '30s, the site of Roy Carpenter's was a fishing community. The fishermen would set up huge army tents (like from MASH) for the season and use them as shelters. As time went on, foundations were made for under the tent, then the tents themselves were replaced with four walls and a ceiling. Today, these cottages are owned by individuals but the land they are on are leased through beach fees. There are about a couple hundred units all the same dimensions (because of their origins). There is plumbing for sinks and showers only, but you have to use a community bathroom. The insides vary, but none have more that a couple of rooms. This is not luxury living, but it is right on the water and for a family who lived paycheck to paycheck, it was (and is) paradise.

Our cottage is definitely one of the older ones, and while it is in good condition, it pales to our neighbor's houses as most of them have been renovated within the last decade, with vinyl siding and new decks. As with anything in the Martin family, it looks well used and I imagine we are the cottage that sets the low end bar for the neighborhood. But what we lack in aesthetics, we make up for in rockin good times, so they can all go screw!

As for me, I find this a small oasis where I can go and totally relax. As I write this, I am there now on a two week vacation. I had every intention to do a little traveling and visit my friends in the south, but finances and the irresistible call of the porch and the day bed that I have claimed was too much to resist (on a side note apparently Hurricane Alex paid a visit to Wilmington, NC which is where I was headed. Dodged that!). My last week at work, I found myself to be cranky. It had been too long since I had more than a day or two to hang out at the cottage. It is Tuesday of my first week of vacation and I am already a new man.

I am very glad my grandparents had the forethought to invest in this little house on the southern end of Rhode Island. It really is a focal point in my family, where we all meet when we can to enjoy each other's company. I know one day, I will bring my kids here and hopefully they will have the same experiences with my parents as I had at the lake house with my grandparents.

Until that time, the day bed is mine. I think I will go take a nap.