Ridiculous Thoughts

I am not cut out for heat. I’ve had the AC going since March when the weather began warming up because I can’t stand being hot in the slightest. Neither can the kidlet. It’s so uncomfortable. Clothes stick to your skin by a thin sheen of sweat and merely walking from the living room to the bedroom requires a stop in the bathroom to splash a bit of cold water on the face. I hate it.

I mention this because our ancient AC has become frozen again as it does from time to time. This means I have to shut it off and let it thaw for several hours. in the meantime the house becomes stifling hot – the kind of hot that makes you long for the deep-freeze of early January even if you do have to scrape the car windows.

So Shan and I are baking and trying not to think about it. Hopefully I can turn it back on before bed because the only thing worse than being awake and uncomfortably hot is trying to sleep while uncomfortably hot.

I hate this apartment.

Anyway, had a nice weekend again, nothing as exciting as a weekend away, but I got to introduce Shan to Gone With the Wind, which she enjoyed. I also was awakened very early Sunday morning by Shan and for a moment I thought she was sick. Fortunately she wasjust coming in with a lovely breakfast she had prepared for Mother’s Day 🙂 She dragged herself out of bed at 6:15am on a Sunday to scramble some eggs and cook some toast and brew some Chamonile tea for me.

Awwwwwwwwwww 🙂 She’s so cool.

Saturday I’d taken her out to Fonner park to practice her parking skills. We’ve discovered she isn’t very confident parking the car so we’re going to work on that until she’s got it nailed. We’re slowly building up her confidence and her skills so that driver’s ed and the big test won’t be a huge shock like it was for me.

Oh I’d driven a little bit before I took my test. My dad painstakingly and patiently taught me how to drive in his beloved Honda Accord (a stick I might add) in the empty parking lots around my high school. But that was after I was cruelly tossed behind the wheel in class and told to drive along Highway 1 in Pacific Grove. A road so precarious and scary I’m still afraid of it.

I didn’t get a lot of time to become confident behind the wheel, which might explain the 6 attempts I made at parallel parking during my test 🙂

Anyway, here’s my baby behind the wheel *sniffle*

The time has come once again to take a look at some of the keyword search terms that bring people to my humble abode here. I do this every now and then because it amuses me to think about the thought process involved in some of these search terms.

In case you’re wondering how this works, whenever you type in a search term into google or some other inferior search engine and ukmelia.com pops up and you visit me, my stats thingie records the search words used that led you here.

Mostly the search terms for my site end up being things like ‘Kiefer Sutherland screencaps’ or ‘Ridiculous thoughts video’ because well, I have a lot of Kiefer screencaps, and I named this blog after one of my fave Cranberries songs.

But every now and then, I get stuff like this:

Time to spank it into high gear and actually blog like I intended to when I started this thing.

I know I don’t often write about interesting things, and this is just some chick’s mundane life out there for the web world to see, but damnit it feels good to write. Even if it’s mostly shite 🙂 Not like I have a large audience. I envy people like my friend Corey who can think up interesting things to blog about and nearly instantly whip up a bigger audience for it.

So what’s going on… let’s see. Currently I’m waiting for the kid to come home from the G’s so I can get her settled, make sure the homework’s done, bath’s taken etc. so I can go watch a vid. I’ve had a craving for the movie ‘Backbeat.’ I love this movie about the Beatle’s early years. Ian Hart is so dead-on as John Lennon it’s freaky. And Stephen Dorff is well.. he’s fecking gorgeous to look at for a couple hours 🙂

So that’s my night planned. I chatted with ‘Gooey’ (that just makes me giggle so much) this morning and he’s safely back in Montana-land now and trying to get back to normal. No residual aches and pains from the marathon so that’s good.

It was mentioned over the weekend that it would be fun for Jo and her crew, and Shan and myself to rent a minivan and head up to Montana to visit which sounds like hella fun to me. Yes I said ‘hella.’ I don’t get vaca though until August which sucks. I’ve only got minimal PTO time to cover the major holidays and that’s not enough for a huge roadtrip. But I’ve got that idea marked in my Things To Do list.

Ahh I hear the kid now. Toodlepip!

Man. Was it ever fandamntastic to get the hell out of Grand Island for a couple of days. It’s been so long that I’d forgotten what it’s like. After a coolant fix and a couple of spanky tires, my car was Interstate-ready once more so the kid and I could make the short trek to Lincoln and watch Gary, his nephew Gunter and best friend Swi run in the Lincoln Marathon yesterday.

Gary and Swi often travel around and run marathons but this was Gunter’s first and he ended up beating the ‘old guys’ 🙂 So well done Gunt 🙂

Here’s Gary running towards us:

Gunter, just about to run out of the shot – he’s too fast!:

All in all we had a lovely weekend staying at Jo’s (Gary’s sister) and just hanging out with everyone. Hannah and her friend Anna stopped by and brought a flick called ‘The Station Agent’ which was a weird, yet strangely gentle and subdued, mellow film to wind down with Saturday night.

Anyway, the thing is that all of these people are so new to me. Jo, Tom, Hannah, Gunter and his wife… It was sort of surreal to go through your whole life with your family and be at ease, and thoroughly comfortable with them all and their quirks and habits, and then later in life find out you’ve got a whole ‘nother family to learn about and get to know. I’m really grateful that everyone I’ve met so far has been incredible, funny, friendly and generally lovely which has totally made everything easier. And I hope the fact that it takes me a bit longer to open up doesn’t put them off.

It’s weird because ever since meeting Gary and getting to know him I’ve wondered how to fit him in my life, and how I’d fit into his. There’s guilt actually because of Dad. Nothing overwhelming, but it’s there. When I speak about Gary to people I stumble a bit when I explain my relationship to him. Most of me just wants to say ‘my dad’ but there’s a part of me that says ‘whoa wait a sec, your dad was Bob and he was a great guy and fab father. Don’t replace him.’

But the sensible part of me says ‘Don’t be stupid. You’re not replacing him and you’re incredibly lucky to have met Gary – in fact you’re incredibly lucky to get to have 2 Dads in your life so just shut up and enjoy it.’

At which point I decide it’s best not to continue carrying on conversations with myself and go on about my day 🙂

Anyway, at the end of the day, Shan and I had a wonderful time this weekend, and both of us are looking forward to getting together with everyone again.

Good times.

Well my editor moved up my deadline to yesterday, and told me yesterday morning when I hadn’t written a single word. Luckily I stumbled across TV Guide’s top 25 Cult Shows and so I blathered on about some of the shows on the list. Good timing that. I had been struggling with the idea of pointing out the different ways the Internet has affected my viewing habits (yes, Yawn-inducing I know) when I somehow got on the subject of an old show I loved called Forever Knight. Man I loved that show, and it happened to be on that Top 25 Cult Show list which is how I switched gears and turned the column into that.

I love the cheesy stuff.

Speaking of cheesy, the other night I took a trip down ‘The Long and Winding Road’ of Nostalgia Lane where I came across George Burns ‘Fixing a Hole,’ The Bee Gees singing in a gazebo, Peter Frampton frolicking in ‘Strawberry Fields’ and Steve Martin banging on ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.’

I’m talking about the 1978 film ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.’ A film so bad it’s good. It’s deliciously campy, wretchedly wonderful and awfully good fun.

I found it at the Library last night and I nearly fell over on discovering the thing is available on DVD. I first saw this as a kid and I remember thinking Peter Frampton was cute, but it was the music that made me really love the movie.

Brief synopsis: Sgt. Pepper’s music has brought people together through many eras. George Burns, as Mayor Kite of Heartland, walks us through a quick retrospective on the band’s legacy. Billy Shears, grandson of the legendary band leader takes on the mantle along with his three best friends, the Henderson’s – brothers who happen to be musically inclined.

The band is discovered by greedy record company, and while the band is away becoming big stars and being corrupted by greed and lust, Billy’s girlfriend back home, Strawberry Fields, misses her boyfriend and leaves home to find him. Enter Mean Mr. Mustard and his creepy fembots who swoops in, steals the original magical instruments from the original Sgt. Pepper band and proceeds to turn Heartland from wholesome Leave It To Beaver-land to seedy, porn ‘n crime in every corner-land. The band must come back, rescue the magic instruments from some weirdos and save the town.

The cast list reads like a Who’s Who of 1978 – Frampton and the Bee Gees of course, Steve martin as Dr. Maxwell, Aerosmith as Future Villain Band, Alice Cooper as the Sun King, Billy Preston as the fix-it-all weathervane, Earth, Wind & Fire… And a finale with more big names than you can shake a fist at: Tina Turner, Robert Palmer, Franki Valli, Del Shannon, Seals & Croft, Sha-na-na, Wilson Pickett, Helen Reddy, Dame Edna, Leif Garrett, Heart, Wolfman Jack, Carol Channing (WTF?), and just a ton more. It’s freaky how they got that many of those celebs together to sing the final song.

Anyway I didn’t mean to blather on this long about this guilty pleasure type movie but I was just so happy to see it again.

Column… due… Thursday… Mind blank….

I need to watch more television. I used to think I watched too much television. It’s always on. It wasn’t until I started writing this column that I realized that the TV is just… on. Background noise. Usually a movie running if I can find one I like, if not then some old sitcom or episode of Whose Line. I can’t stand it when it’s quiet.

I don’t watch CSi, or Desperate Housewives or ummm… I don’t know. Anyway the point is I don’t really watch enough television to be able to write columns about it. So instead I look for some different angle to write from. Right now I’m thinking maybe I’ll take a look at how the Internet has affected television. And that idea just popped in my head as I typed this. I could talk about how fans of television shows can have an outlet for their need to talk about a show they love – especially if they don’t know anyone in their lives who watch it. There’s a niche for nearly every show, new or old. It’s allowed interactivity. There have been internet campaigns to save shows. You have instant access to every aspect of a show allowing your obsessiveness to row and grow until you end up with your own fansite *cough*

Hehehe I’ll think about it. Ok this helped. Gnight 🙂

So I read this book the other week called ‘Sahara’ by Clive Cussler. I like Cussler books for a bit of mindless entertainment. I find them quite fluffy and good page-turners. Anyway I was surprised but happy to discover they made a movie out of ‘Sahara’ and that it was coming out in a week. That one flew under my radar as I usually keep up pretty well with movie news.

Anyway as a bonus, it starred Matthew McCounawhatsit and William H. Macy both of whom I adore.

I never should have gone to see it tonight. opening night. The theatre wasn’t packed or anything. And just a few minutes before the previews I was happy to find myself with only short kids behind me and empty seats behind me. I hate packed theatres because people annoy me at the movies. Going to the movies is an experience for me and I want to take all the nuances in. I don’t want to hear the cell phones ringing, the candy wrappers crinkling or feel the kids kicking my seat. I can live with a bit of whispering and I can even live with having a tall person in front of me if I have to. I mean, I can’t have it *all* my way. But I go out of my way to respect my fellow moviegoers in case they would you know, actually like to watch the movie rather than listen to my commentary throughout.

Just as the previews begin, the seats unfortunately fill up behind me with the most obnoxious, most rude, most annoying women and their dates you could possibly imagine. Turns out the short people in front of me also belong to these people.

I don’t often have violent thoughts. I don’t normally fantasize about grabbing someone’s head and slamming it into my knee. Just when I’m uber-annoyed and someone is showing obvious disrespect and disregard for the other people in the cinema.

This one women in the group. Oh. My. God. First of all, I still have her Fran Drescher-esque squals and shrieks echoing in my right ear. Secondly, my jaw hurts from gnashing my teeth and making elaborate plans to somehow insert my drink down her throat. I’ve never had the displeasure of someone this horrible at the movies, in all my years of traipsing off to the theatre.

During the previews which featured my daughter’s hunk of the moment, Orlando Bloom she actually sat behind me moaning loudly. Either her boyfriend was doing something I don’t care to think about, or she thought Orli was hot. Pretty sure it was over Orli because shortly after another trailer came up for Tom Cruise’s latest whom she also apparently finds hot.

Then during the actual movie that I’d been looking forward to for a week, she carried on with the moaning in between spates of casual conversation with the children sitting in front of me. Not whispering mind you, but actually conversing as if they were outside trying to be heard over a thunderstorm. I shot them a dirty look but it didn’t seem to do any good.

Everytime there was any kind of humourous moment or pivotal arc in the movie, she’d shriek. Right in my fecking ear. Even if no one else in the theatre thought it was funny or scary. Her cackle would echo around. And she didn’t care.

I think that’s what pissed me off the most. She didn’t care she was disrupting the show. No matter how much she was shushed by me, other audience members – even by people in her own group – she just carried on as if she were at home. By the end of the film I was so angry at having the whole thing ruined by her that I seriously contemplated confronting her on it afterwards. Luckily I decided not to otherwise I’d probably be blogging from a holding cell.

I did nearly run her over though as I drove past her. She stared directly at me as if to say ‘How dare you nearly run me over.’ So I smiled as if I didn’t care and drove on. It was very satisfying.

Wish I had though.