Regarding work tonight, “Never before have so many stood around for so long for so very very little.”

Best advice I’ve ever recieved? “You’re not the center of the universe.” Thanks, Z.

… came across this guy’s website. He’s a Lego builder living in Japan, and I love some of his “micro-scale” starships. LOVE.

Which reminds me that I haven’t posted much on Zeus lately. I’ll follow up with some pictures today or tomorrow, but the lower hull is finished, and the engines are coming along nicely. I need to resort some of my pieces and clean up the room before I start on the interior stuff.

I buy new bed sheets a lot like I buy shoes — what’s on sale? In this case, I got a set of 200 thread count black sheets for a full-sized bed (er, futon) for $19.99 at Target. While I will vary my parameters if the cheapest bed sheets are bright pink, and will in that case consider a more expensive bed sheet set of a more acceptable color, in this case, they happened to be black, so, all good.

And once again, like last night at Giant, I’m forced to curse myself and wonder why, why, why, do I keep forgetting the drain-o?

(I also bought a bike helmet. They were all priced the same, so I didn’t feel my decision was influenced by cheaps pricing, which, of all things to purchase, is probably one thing not to go by price on.)

… and I still can’t figure out who the hell Enrique is.

The opening sentence for this story on USA Today is amusing: “A marriage-minded man ran naked through his neighborhood, trying to show his hesitant girlfriend that taking risks is important.”

When you consider the title, however, of the article, it’s downright hilarious (and maybe a little sad): “Man runs through neighborhood naked, gets shot at“

The incident occurred about 2 p.m. Monday on Interstate 70 near Clear Spring when the driver of a Chrysler PT Cruiser refused to let the driver of a Chevrolet Suburban pass him in the eastbound lanes, police said.

Police said the driver of the Chevy sport utility vehicle neared the passenger side of the Chrysler and fired three shots from a 9-mm semiautomatic handgun, nearly hitting its female passenger and the male driver, whose names were not released.

Congratulations, dorkhead. Hope it was worth spending the next two decades of your life in prison for. You should be thankful your bullets didn’t hit anyone.

Self-defense? Moron.

HT: Baltimore Crime. Choco, do you know you’ve got the wrong link to that story? I actually had to go look it up myself! :O

I’m not going to go into a rant about studios re-releasing films on DVD with new special features, and restored footage, blah-blah-blah, all in an attempt to get the DVD consumer to “double dip.”

As it was, I didn’t own a copy of Crimson Tide on DVD until I saw it on sale at Target el-cheapo and picked it up. I enjoy the film, I think it’s a solid action film with a decent cast. I think the plot is plausible, and I think it is executed well. If you’re neither familiar with the film, nor the extended DVD cut, be warned … this post contains spoilers!

The plot:

A Russian political rebel leads an insurrection and siezes numerous military bases in the former eastern nations of the USSR. Fearing he might gain the secret launch codes to deploy nuclear missiles in his posession, the US scrambles the nuclear-missile submarine USS Alabama as a potential “first strike.” Gene Hackman is Captain Ramsey, the commander of the Alabama. Denzel Washington is his second-in-commander, Lt. Cmdr Hunter. The sub recieves an “Emergency Action Message” stating that the Russian rebels are fueling their nuclear missiles, and that the Alabama is to fire her nuclear missiles to destroy the Russian bases before fueling is complete. As Alabama prepares to fire, a second EAM is recieved, but the transmission is lost when the Alabama is attacked by a rebel-controlled attack-sub, designed for the sole purpose of sinking nuclear missile submarines before they can launch their arsenal. Ramsey is ready to disregard the second EAM, but Hunter refuses to concur on the missile launch until the second EAM can be confirmed. When Ramsey threatens “to find someone who will [second the launch]“, Hunter is in within his authority to relieve Ramsey of his command and places him under arrest. Of course, a bunch of the officers on the sub side with Ramsey, a bunch side with Hunter, and what we’ve got her is essentially “mutiny on the Bounty” with the nuclear anhilitation of the human species as the possible result.

The New Stuff:

There are three major extended segments. The first occurs when the officers and crew begin arriving to board the Alabama. Instead of just seeing Denzel Washington in a scene saying goodbye to his wife and kids, several of the key officers have quick moments with thier loved ones, and the ill-fated mess chief tells his wife “he’ll be just fine.” There’s also a longer scene on the bus between Tony Soprano and Aragorn discussing The Enemy Below.

The second is a scene where Denzel Washington must confront the “Chief of the Boat” about his weight.

The third is a sequence at the end of the film before the trial board.

There are also some smaller additions scattered throughout the movie. It’s been a few years since I saw the theatrical cut, so I might just be misremembering certain things.

The Cast:

In addition to Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman and Viggo Mortensen and James Gandolfini, the cast also includes Lillo Brancato as a young radioman who has to fix the sub’s radio in order to get the full text of the second EAM. If you can’t picture Brancato, do you remember The Soprano’s second season? He’s a wanna-be-mafioso who tries to put a hit on Chris, then gets popped by Tony and Big Pussy. In real life, he’s the scumbag who is facing trial for his participation in the shooting death of an NYPD officer.

The Run-Up:

While the extended cut doesn’t hurt the film, it doesn’t really help it either. There’s no big “OMG!” moment about character development that the reintegrated scenes clarify. It’s interesting to watch, but it’s not a big change from the original, so I’m a little surprised why they bothered. If you want a copy of the film, you might as well pick up this extended edition. If you’ve already got one, I wouldn’t bother.

Wednesday I started out with a quadruple, which is to say I had four deliveries on one run. It was one of those situations where they went together perfectly, and as I was the only driver in the store, I mayhaps neglected to ask permission of the managers to take it, and was very sly about bagging them up and taking them to my car, because I’m a dick like that.

In any case, it was a great run. Of the four houses, one is an excellent tip, two are medium to good tips, and one is a poor tip. Unfortunatly, the order in which I could deliver these runs was hampered both by geography, time, and experience. Geography dictated that I take the runs in the order in which they are on the map — they were essentially a straight shot down Sweet Air, with detours off Patterson Road and Carroll Manor. One stop on Sweet Air past Patterson, then a fourth on Baldwin Mill. From a time and geographical perspective, Carroll Manor had to be my first stop — upsetting, because the address is a pretty cheap tip. Whatever, I had to take the house first. From there, the next stop should’ve been Patterson, then Sweet Air, then Baldwin Mill.

Urk! Here’s where “experience” trumps geography and time. The time of the last three runs was all about the same — they all called in within five minutes of each other (whereas Carroll Manor was twenty minutes ahead of those). The problem with Patterson is that, and I’ll come back to this in a minute, they can take forever paying for their food, and they’re probably about a mile and a half round trip off Sweet Air to boot.

I decided to drive past Patterson, hit Sweet Air, run down to Baldwin Mill, drop that, then down Baldwin Mill to Long Green Pike (out of our delivery area), to Patterson (which connects through), drop that run, then back to the store. So that’s what I did. I got stuck at a bottleneck at Sweet Air and Baldwin Mill, but it didn’t last too long, and before I knew it I was on Patterson, making the left onto the poorly paved mostly gravel road that leads back to a cluster of houses, barns, and apartments-converted-out-of-barns at the end.

The driver info on the ticket reads, “left around barn, house with red tin roof.” Nowhere does it mention that the couple who live here are, if not the nicest people we deliver to, at least in the top five. Nowhere does it mention that they insist on shaking your hand before they let you leave, or that they will kid each other relentlessly about the other’s habits. Nowhere does it mention that they’re also amazingly excellent tippers who ALWAYS leave the checkbook in the truck.

It’s always a bit tricky navigating back to their house. Between the houses and the apartments, you’re probably talking half a dozen buildings and at least as many families. While kids running around usually aren’t a problem, one must worry about dogs, cats, roosters, hens, and the occasional befuddled cow. In addition, the confined lanes are often cluttered by farm equipment, cars, and the occasional befuddled cow. Generally, you’ve got to park a distance back from their house, which is nice, is adorned with a simple red-tin roof (really, it’s more of an awning over the porch), and has a white picket fence around the yard. One of the odder features of the house is the massively huge Newfoundland Terrier named after a big ape who comes padding up wanting his head scratched. And also for you to feed him the contents of the pizza boxes.

The husband is a big bear of a man, who invited me right in and wrote a check while explaing to me that the reason they’d ordered was that the Newfoundland had apparently seen their dinner ready to go into the dinner, and then they saw their dinner, going into the Newfoundland’s mouth. “Oh, it’s my fault,” he continued. “I spoiled that dog sooo much. No one to blame but myself.”

He finished the check, handed it to me, shook my hand, and thanked me once again for coming all the way out to deliver him his dinner. I’m constantly amazed by folks who thank me so profusely for doing my job, who apparently think its a huge inconvenience to drive to their homes. Y’know, it’s sort of the job description. I enjoy it, often, sometimes I hate it, but thank you very much. I felt guilty, of course. I could have had it to him much quicker (at least ten minutes), and looking at the check — and the $12 tip — I felt incredibly guilty for leaving this for my last delivery. I hope the next time he orders, I’ve got his run as a single so that I can provide the service he deserves — not just for his always amazingly excellent blow-my-mind tips, but for how his and his wife’s attitudes so make up for the dickheads and the bumfucks.

Zebulon, apparently, lost his big-V. This happened Friday night, but I just found out tonight. I was quite surprised that it took this long for me to learn as well, as I was quite certain it would never happen for him. Dude, used condoms are no good. I can’t believe you actually paid money for them. Doofus.

I stopped by Giant Food for two purposes — the first, I needed to make an ATM deposit to the convenient Chevy Chase Bank branch located right next to the produce department. The second, I needed milk and a drain-clog removal for my bathroom sink, which lately likes to take three-and-a-half-forevers to empty.

Deposit done, I hunt the aisles for what I need, and make my way to the lone open register.

Lightning has been crackling outside for over an hour. There’s an occasional rumble of thunder. There was a brief splatter of rain when I first arrived at the store, but it stopped and is still, at this point, dry.

The woman at the register is round and plump with gray hair and a big smile. I joke about the huge glass windows in the front of the store and the wonderful view she has of the lightning outside. She looks at me. “Lightning is God’s bowling balls striking home. I do wish Jesus would take me home, soon.”

Either she’s a total religious freak, or she enjoys completely random, off-the-cuff comments to shut people up. The guy behind me probably got, “Oh, lightning reminds me of the time I banged every member of Duran Duran… at the same time.”