#10: Chapter 3: "I Know...Right?"

In the past 2 blogs I have told you about the statement that has affected my daily life for over 15 years, and I told you about the person that was most crucial to my growing up. So where did the affects of said statement and the loss of said person take me? Well for that, we need to discuss VIP #2.

I had been working at Blockbuster for about a year. When I started we had a store manager that everyone just loved and respected. However he had finally reached a point where driving way out of his way to reach a store that was extremely stressful to run finally got to him, so he asked to be transferred. They then brought in a new store manager that was younger then everyone that was working there and really shook things up. By the way, when I say the store was stressful, I mean well over 2000 rentals and returns every weekend day. If I'm not mistaken we would make at least $10,000 every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

This is the actual Blockbuster we worked at. It's amazing what you can find online.

One of the things that the new manager did was put me on the day shift. This sucked a little because all my friends worked nights. It was shortly after this that we hired 2 new girls that were seniors in high school. One of them was going to the high school that I went to (I was a senior when she was a freshman) and the other was the sister of a guy I had been in band with. She went to a different high school though. The ironic thing about them was that they were born on the same day, one in California, the other in Colorado. However that being said, they really couldn't have been much different. The girl from California that I essentially went to school with was named Denise Robb. I never really worked with her much because she worked nights. We would do inventories together and occasionally work together on the weekends, but I really didn't get to know her to well. One of the major times we worked together was on New Years Eve 2000/2001. Little did we know what that year was going to hold for us. Well, the end of it anyway.

In August of that year I went into work and she told me that we had to hang out outside of work. I having had no life (wait, having had no life like things are different now?) was fine with that. So we made plans and on August 15th 2001, we had a lunch date. We went to a hot dog restaurant she really liked called Chicago Mike's. We then went to the Denver Aquarium (Which has Tigers for some reason). Then we went bowling. I learned something that day. I had been working with the most fun girl I have ever known in life, and I was completely oblivious to it. It wasn't until later that I found out what the reasoning behind her saying we had to hang out was. Apparently, she would complain a lot at night about the fact that I was a horrible assistant manager. She actually rather despised me. Chris (my best friend, remember, from chapter 1) told her that she should get to know me as I wasn't as bad as she thought.

This is one of the tigers at the Aquarium. No they don't make them swim all the time.

Well she ended up learning that, and we ended up hanging out a lot after that. We really liked each other and I would dare say we ended up borderline dating (although we tend to debate about this to this day). We classified it as an Amish relationship at the time though. Everything was going quite well until about October. Her mother got laid off from her job, and not being able to find a new one in Colorado, had no choice but to move back to California. Denise had no choice but to go with her. I was devistated. For the first time in my life I had met a girl that I really liked, and who liked me back, and now she was leaving. In December of 2001 she moved back to California, and I had lost her. It was the hardest thing I'd ever gone through in my life.

Two months later the universe showed me what true devastation really was (that's Chapter 4, which will be written tomorrow). For the next year, I just kind of went away into an emotional haze. At some point I ended up going to California with my family, and I hung out with Denise for the day. She was dating a guy I really knew nothing about at the time. That ended up being a really bad relationship in the end. She came back to Colorado once to go to a friends graduation and we hung out. We'd talk online every now and then, but we weren't really as close as before anymore because we'd drifted apart.

Then in 2004, she invited me and Chris to go to Vegas for her 21st birthday. She was single at this time and I was finally back on the planet from my haze. I had it in my mind that we were going to pick up where we left off. Of course, that wasn't the case. She was a different person at this point. Still the most fun girl I've ever know in life, but things were just different. We did however end up seeing each other more after this though. She came to visit and stayed at my house in January 2005, (which was hard to explain to a grandmother with Alzheimer's) and I went and visited her in the summer of that year.

Chris, Denise, and I in Vegas. She's drinking out of a skull.

She had recently started dating a new guy when I went out there. While I was visiting I caused a few problems because he was a little jealous of me. I always find that hard to understand because if there was ever going to be anything between us, he wouldn't have existed in her life. But I digress. The two of us went to Disneyland and had a blasty blast. It was on the way home from that trip that I decided I couldn't keep saying goodbye to her. I knew I had to figure out some way to see her more often.

We got dressed up and went to Hollywood to see Dane Cook on Jimmy Kimmel Live. We didn't get in and ended up going to hooters and Ripley's instead.

It was then in December that my grandmother passed away. Two months later Denise came out to visit. On February 24th, 2006 our bond pretty much became cemented with each other. The two of us and Chris were going to go to an adult convention that was in town just for a few laughs. However when she woke up that morning, her stomach wasn't feeling to well. We went to a med center that her insurance was associated with, but they were getting ready to close so they gave us the run around and wouldn't see her. She was so upset about it that she just wanted to go back home. I called my mom and she convinced me to take her to the emergency room. We went to the hospital I was born at. An hour or so later I was on the phone with her mom telling her that her daughter needed to have her appendix removed.

Denise is an only child, and the most important thing in the world to her mother. She was flipping out and telling me to go tell them she needed to get on a plane and get home before any surgery was done. I did my best to calm her down, then went back in and stood by Denise's side. That's where I stayed until she went into surgery, and as soon as she got out, I resumed my post. Her family is forever greatfull for that, and her mom will always love me for it. For me the thought of leaving was never an option. Who would do that? Her mom ended up getting to my house about an hour after we returned from the hospital, and the next day they flew back to California.

Now we've reached the point where I needed to find a way to move as I had decided to do. Well if you remember I said my aunt bout me out of the portion of the house I had "owned". It was with this money that I made the move. So in July of 2006. I packed up my car, and with Chris's help, drove to California, with a stop over in Vegas.

Chris took this picture as we were driving to California. It's the reflection of my car in the hubcap of an 18 wheeler.

I ended up living with her and her mom for my first year and a half here. I will admit that I had the hope that things could go back to the way they were in 2001, but that just wasn't possible. Especially once August of 2006 rolled around.

This is one of the first pictures taken after I moved to California.

It was in this month that she went on a blind double date her friend had set up. It was on this date that she met Justin Hewitt. They got along quite well. In fact they started dating. I, being a bit more immature and delusional at the time, had a problem with this. We ended up having what I think is the only fight we've ever had because I was being a bad friend and not being supportive. Once I started to get to know Justin though, I really had no choice. I don't think I've met a nicer more caring person. After getting to know him is when I finally realized that there is no way a relationship could have ever worked between me and Denise. I'm nowhere near the man he is, and she deserves no one other then him.

When I moved out of their house, I actually ended up living with Justin in two different places over the course of two years. They are now engaged and will be getting married in October. I'm going to the bachelorette party...Jealous?

So, wait, what? Oh right. You see, once again if that whole Chapter 1 thing hadn't happened, I never would have worked at Blockbuster, never would have met Denise, and never would have been sitting here right now in an apartment in Long Beach. And if my Grandmother hadn't passed away when she did, I wouldn't have had the money to move here and bare witness to what is easily one of the greatest relationships I've ever seen in my life, and I wouldn't have been able to hang out with my bestest friend ever in life for the past four and a half years. Her, her mom, and Justin aren't just friends anymore, they're my California family.

This picture was taken just a few months ago outside the Irvine Improv. I just noticed I'm always on the left and she's always on the right.

P.S. Oh, yeah. So she is the first person I ever heard say "I know...Right?" Just one day her and her friend started saying it at work and I ended up adopting it as a result. It was after that that I started hearing it everywhere! That's not the first time I've hear her say something then a few months later it's everywhere. Coincidence? Well, yeah. That'd just be weird if it wasn't.

#9: Chapter 2: "Hallelujah!"

When I was 6 months old, my parents had their differences and ended up getting divorced. My mother then found herself as a single 25 year old with a 4 year old and a 6 month old. What choice did she have but to move back in with her mother. 4 years later she met the man that would be my common law Step-Father (they've yet to get married but they might as well be). Needless to say, my grandmother was pretty much a major part of my life. When my mom ended up moving out, my brother and I stayed since we were in the best School district in Colorado. My brother left when he was 17, so it was just me and her. But in all honesty, I've never known a better person.

My grandmother grew up during the great depression in a house of 4 kids. She had 2 brothers and a sister. The 3 of them, plus her father all ended up being alcoholics. My grandmother was very much against drinking as a result, and believed that a majority of the country's problems were because of FDR making alcohol legal again. That's where the majority of my never having a desire to drink comes from, her constant hatred of what alcohol does to people. She married my grandfather who got polio in WWII. They had 2 daughters, my mom and my aunt. They didn't exactly have the most happy of marriages. I heard many times the story of the day it ended. My grandfather had fallen in love with his nurse at the VA hospital. He left a note on the kitchen table one day telling my grandmother that he had left to go be with her. As she would always tell the story her reaction was that she raised her hands in the air and yelled, "Hallelujah!"

My family pretty much consisted of 2 sides. I never met her older brother, and the other one died when I was young. Her sister though was the other side of the family. She had 4 boys who between them had I think 8 kids, give or take. Even though my great aunt had the most kids and grand kids, my grandmother was still the matriarch of the family. She was the strongest of all of us. No one ever met her that didn't like her.

I'm going to be honest right now. I have no idea where I'm going with this blog. I came up with this idea last week, but really didn't think it all through. I wanted to talk about my Grandmother, and what a huge influence she was on my life. About how she was really the most important person to me growing up, and how she was the strongest person I've ever known. But sadly, all of that is hard for me to remember. You see, all of that is very unfortunately overshadowed by one of the worst things that exists in this world. Something that I truly hope someday is cured.

It started slowly. In the 90's it seemed innocent enough. She would forget little things here and there. I was in high school by this time, so I wasn't as dependent on her as I had been. She was long retired by this point and was living off of social security and retirement benefits. She would go to all of my band competitions with my mom, and a lot of the football games at my school as I didn't get a car until I was 18 (my mom wouldn't let me until I had a good enough GPA for an insurance discount, and as I said in my last blog, not the best student). Slowly it seemed like more and more little things would slip her mind.

Once I graduated I had no idea what I was going to do. The summer after that I ended up spending a year at the Art Institute of Colorado in hopes of becoming a computer animator. One day in my Color Theory class (yes, that is a thing) when we all turned in a project we'd been working like a month on is when that all ended. I looked at my project, this weird pipe cleaner creature thing. Then I looked at everyone else's. There were paintings and sculptures and just all these amazing pieces of art. It was at that time I realized that I would be competing for jobs with these people, and I wasn't the artist I thought I was. I dropped out, and just kind of concentrated on working at Blockbuster.

My grandmother had always said that when she died, I would get her house, the house I had lived my entire life in. Since this was pretty much the plan, we all decided that I would just stay there, especially since it was becoming obvious that she needed someone to be there. Well, I say it was decided, but really, non of this ever came up because at no point did I ever consider moving out.

As the years went on, her memory got worse and worse. In the early 2000's it started to reach the point where she would repeat questions minutes apart from each other because she didn't remember asking them. In 2002, the most devastating event in my families history occurred (we'll be getting to that 2 blogs from now) and we all just went numb for a while. 13 months and 4 funerals later, we had finally leveled out for a while. We really didn't want to deal with much more. Luckily we got a little break from sorrow. My grandmother had basically stayed at the point she was at for a while now. It was frustrating yes, but you kind of get used to it after a while, and you just have to be patient. She didn't know she had a problem and she was happy.

It was in 2005 when things took a turn. He memory really seemed to be slipping worse. Then one night, well, I can't write about it. It's a very private and sad moment in my life that shouldn't be shared in a blog like this. I'll just say that dementia started to set in. I called my mom hysterical. I didn't know what to do. She ended up eventually calling my aunt, who was living in Florida at the time and told her that she couldn't deal with it on her own anymore. Since my aunt had had her world destroyed in Florida (that is part of 2 blogs from now also) she decided to move back to Colorado to help out. (By the way, these are the events as I had understood them to take place. That may or may not be exactly how things occurred, but the end result is all the same.)

In November of 2005, things really started to take a turn. My grandmother started spending a lot of time in the bathroom. I mean a lot. I probably shouldn't talk about this part, but it's kind of important because it was the catalyst for the end of this story. For some reason, in her mind she seemed to think she had to go to the bathroom, however she'd forget that she was already in there all day. This went on for 2 days before I said something to my mom about it, (I know, maybe to long). My aunt ended up coming over and trying to figure things out. Finally at the beginning of December they took her to the hospital to get things figured out. They ran tests on her, did a few procedures on her, and for whatever reason, this ended up being too much. The next day when I went to see her, her mind was pretty much gone. No longer was the strong matriarch of my family in front of me. She had finally been fully claimed by the disease that had been eating away at her for 10 years. Essentially what had happened was her body started forgetting how to work properly.

It was then we all decided it was best to put her in a hospice care facility, and take her off any life support. It wouldn't be fair to her to live in this condition. I believe she was there for less then a day when, on December 7th, she passed away.

I was, for the first time in my life, left all alone in the house I loved. I knew however, I was by no means ready to be a home owner, and it didn't really matter anyway, as the house was owned by not just my grandmother, but my mom and aunt as well. It was shortly after this that I came to the decision that I wanted to move to California (the reason for which is next blogs topic). My aunt wanted to move in, so she bought me out of the share of the house that I theoretically owned.

I try to remember my grandmother as the woman who was always there for me when I was growing up. As the woman who, really is most responsible for raising me. As the woman who was so strong and was the head of our family. But it is very hard to do at times. Alzheimer's Disease is a horrible thing to watch someone die from, because it takes a very long time. By the time they finally do pass, it becomes a blessing. The person you loved died years before that. If I were to ever become wealthy, that's the charity I would donate to the most, for no one should ever have to experience that. Alzheimer's is unfortunately one of the few diseases that in the long run effects the people who love and care about the person who has it more then it does the person themselves. It is a psychologically traumatic thing to witness, and I fear everyday that it might be hereditary. I do not want to see the same thing happen to my mom or my aunt, because they have all the best qualities of my grandmother, and to see them slowly wither away like she did will be so heartbreaking. I strongly hope that anyone who is reading this never has to go through that, and that someday a cure can be found.

Ok, I don't know how to end this one. It is a little different because I didn't post any pictures. I don't really have any that would fit this blog. As I was writing the blog last week I just got this urge to write about her. Once I sat down to actually do it, it didn't turn out exactly how I thought it would, but it came out how it needed to.

Next time we will get into a roller coaster of a relationship in my life that might end up being hard to publish. If I end up writing it as well as it needs to be though, it shouldn't end up being awkward at all...Oh just wait and see.

#8: Chapter 1: "Then I'll play Clarinet."

I am going to spend the next few weeks writing blogs about 3 of the most important people in my life's history. However, today I'm going to write about the statement that completely shaped almost all aspects of my future from that point forward. There isn't a day that goes by that isn't touched by the path that was set fourth when I made this statement. If I had never uttered this phrase, there is no doubt in my mind that my life would be completely different. Friends, experiences, future decisions, careers, every aspect of my being stems from one four word answer.

Now, to reach the point in my life where I made this life changing event, we need to talk about something I had when I was in grade school, a brother (VIP #3) who was in high school. When you have an older brother in high school, they tend to start changing their wants. They have things they will have bought on impulsive whims, but later decide they want money for it. This happened quite a few times, and I would always end up buying things from him, with my mothers help of course as I was 11. One of the things I bought from him was a large keyboard. We had had a 17 key one made by Casio for years, but this one was much larger then that. I always wanted to learn how to play piano as a result of it. In the 5th grade my Elementary School had a band. I went to the audition or try out or interest meeting, whatever it was, and asked if I could play piano. They said they don't do piano but the instructor gave me the number of a woman that teaches piano. Nothing ever came of it.

The one from when we were kids was a step below this.

The next year I entered Middle School. We were given a choice of what music class to take, band or choir. I once again wanted to sign up for band in hopes of learning piano. My grandmother (VIP #1) asked, "well what if they don't teach piano like in grade school?" We had an instrument sitting on the top shelf of the closet in the living room that had been played in school by my mom, my aunt, and my brother. So, not realizing what I was about to do to my life I said something.

At that moment, 2 new realities were created. In one I said, "I guess I'll do choir then." I was in choir for 3 years of middle school, had no friends the day my social structure came tumbling down, had no where to fit in once I got to high school, never made any new friends, became a complete and total loner and ended up committing an act of violence that wouldn't even be overshadowed by the horrible massacre that occurred a few years later in the same state of Colorado... I am of course just taking wild and dramatic guesses as to what happened in that reality, because it's not the one we live in. All of this of course is only believed if you accept Einsteins theory of multiple realities caused by every decision made. I do because I've watched "Sliders".

Jerry O'Connell at his best!

No, my response to the question was, "Then I'll play Clarinet". This didn't really do anything major to my life until the second year of middle school, but we'll get to that in a moment. First we have to talk about the aforementioned crumbling of my social structure, as that really did happen in this reality. My best friend growing up was a kid that lived on the corner of my block. We hung out a lot at school and sometimes outside of school. It was really a friendship of convenience. When we got in the first grade, 2 sets of twins moved into our neighborhood and started riding our bus. We all ended up becoming friends. By the fourth grade, the two twins I was more friendly with ended up moving to Florida. The remaining twins ended up becoming close friends with a kid I really didn't get along to well with. I didn't know that things were starting to change.

As I've heard it called, "The Wooden Penis".

I had always been kind of an outsider. I was a painfully shy child and didn't talk to much until I got to know people, I still do that. Since I got glasses in Kindergarten, everyone assumed I was some kind of book worm. Actually that couldn't be further from the truth. I hated homework, and never really cared about school work. I was always an average student because I just really didn't care...I'm really getting side tracked here. Where was I? Ah yes, the day the Angry Birds hit the Pig fortress that was my social structure. One day at lunch during my first year of Middle School I walked up to my "friends" at recess. As I approached them, they all turned to me and said in unison, "Shawn, Fuck off". I questioned what they meant, they told me to get away from them, followed by the kid I didn't get along with mocking me. OK, so how does a sensitive shy 12 year old process this? By briefly trying to attack the kid, then running to a teacher in tears. This was actually the second time I had run to a teacher in tears as the first time involved a little incident.

Ya, that's exactly what happened.

It's actually kind of hard to explain but what it basically boils down to is my "friends" were spitting on this other guy for whatever reason, I don't know cause I came to the party late. Then I walked away from them because I really didn't want anything to do with it. It was at this point that the kid ran up to me, grabbed me, and spit directly in my face. Again, tears, run, teacher, dean. That's probably what made them not like me anymore.

Don't ever Google image search "Spitting face" with safe search turned off...Trust me.

So anyway, the next day when walking home with my "best friend" of 6 years (he was sick the day before) I got the strong impression that he was taking their side of it. So it was at that moment I was left with no one. I spent the rest of the year eating lunch by myself, and trying to ninja my way into groups I really didn't fit into. I got along with the popular kids and would sit at their tables sometimes, but I was never really part of the group. I was truly alone. Cut to the first day of the seventh grade. I got on the bus and there was a new kid who had just moved from Greece. He had a Fido Dido (remember him) backpack and a Clarinet. I started talking to him and we hit it off pretty good. We sat next to each other in band and eventually I ended up sitting at lunch with the other friends he had made. They were D&D players and were major outcasts. I really didn't feel like I fit in all that well with them as they had a made up god named "Horde Slayer" that they, well, didn't really worship, but they liked. (That is a pretty cool name though now that I think about it. I think I have my next City of Villains character.)

This is Fido Dido, not "Horde Slayer". Although, maybe he's both.

Finally it came to the end of eight grade. The band teacher from the High School came in and talked to us about the band program. It sounded like fun so I signed up. The first half of the year for High School band is devoted to the state marching band competition and various parades. I spent a lot of time dealing with that and getting to know new people. The biggest change though happened one day at lunch. I would eat lunch in the West cafeteria (known as the snootier of the 2) with the popular kids from my Middle School. One day as I was heading there I ran into a band guy (Jon Parker) that I had gotten to know for reasons that aren't important. (Editing for time, figured I should start). He asked where I was going, then said I should go to the other cafateria with him. I did, we sat at a table of other band kids, then did something I didn't know you could do, we went to the band room. It appeared that everyday band kids just went there to eat lunch. In the Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth grade, you got to choose where your locker is. 95% of the band kids had their locker right outside the band room so it really was like a clubhouse. It was on that day that I met another guy, Fred Garlington. We started talking and really made each other laugh and liked a lot of the same things, most importantly he was a gamer. He quickly became my best friend. I finally found a place that I fit in.

Now, cut to the beginning of tenth grade. I walked into my first class, World History, and noticed a guy I had seen in band. I sat down next to him, found out his name (Chris Horan) and we started talking about the Simpsons and various other things. Two periods later I walked into Bio-Physical Science, and there he was again. Having two classes sitting next to the same person really bonds you together. So finally I had four close real friends, and a place I belonged, and it was all because I chose to play Clarinet.

This is my senior year band picture I was recently tagged in on Facebook.

Now, lets fast forward out of High School (Someday I may tell some stories from then, but that's really not the point of this blog...I know, "What is?"). Fred and Jon went off to College, and Chris and I spent the summer not sure what our futures held. It was really at this point that he took the title of my bestest best friend. He got a job at Blockbuster Video during the summer. I started working at the Cherry Hills country club answering the phones on the weekend. I hated that job though because it was a lot of pressure. Dealing with people who are paying over $100,000 a year to be a member was a little more then I could take. Plus it was only 2 days a week. I went and applied at Sam Goody, and got the run around with them until finally they said they hired 8 new people and didn't really tell me. I was pissed so I went to Blockbuster to vent. While there, the assistant manager overheard me and asked if I'd like to apply there. I did and about a week later I started my new job. This was in 1999. About a year and a half later, I was an assistant manager myself. It is at this point that I need to put the story on hold, for you see in 2000 a girl started working there that would eventually become VIP #2, so I will have to save it for 2 blogs from now when I get to her.

Needless to say, if not for making my life changing statement, I never would have been in band in High School, thus I never would have met Chris, thus I never would have worked at Blockbuster, thus I never would have met her. You will see how all of this resonates in my everyday existence once I get to her story, but for now I am done with part one of this loose four part blog ark that will culminate in a re-posting of a blog I wrote on February 6th, 2005 on MySpace. It will be an emotional end to this series.

Anyway, next time we will discuss Betty McDonald, my grandmother and VIP #1 in my 3 person VIP bloggy tribute. So until then...Um...I'm gonna go work on a sign off.


P.S. In High School there was a class called Piano Lab, which it never really dawned on me to take. I kind of regret that now what with Rock Band 3 and all.

#7: "What's this? What's This?!"

As we are currently in the transitional period from Halloween to Christmas, it is time for one of the greatest movies of all time that has to do with both holidays to start appearing on Television. There are really not a lot of movies that can be equal parts Christmas Joy, laugh out loud funny, and at the same time have some of the scariest classic movie monster types that have ever existed. The movie I am talking about is of course...Home Alone


"But Shawn," you're probably asking, "are you sure you don't mean Nightmare Before Christmas? There aren't any horror movie monster types in Home Alone." Ah, but you see, that is where you're wrong. This dawned on me just recently when Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (Which by the way is tied with Die Harder as my favorite sequel subtitle) was on television at some point on ABC Family back in like May. I watched as Kevin McCallister set traps that he used to severely and physically punish the Wet Bandits, Harry and Marv (Known as the Sticky Bandits in Home Alone 2). Much as he had done in the original, he would cause countless blunt force traumas to the head that would kill you're average human being. It was at that time I finally realized what was going on. Harry and Marv are ZOMBIES!!!!!!


There have been plenty of articles that come out every year about the injures that would be sustained by someone if they actually did have all the things happen to them that does in Home Alone, and usually there's about 5 things that would kill you. So it is obvious that the Wet Bandits are the Walking Dead Bandits. "But Shawn," again you ask, "it's just a movie. None of it is real so of course they survive all of it." Well there in lies the problem. The Home Alone universe is set in a basically realistic universe. At no point are we to believe that there is some kind of magic or sorcery involved. Heck, they even sold the Talkboy in Home Alone 2 at toy stores. But these guys just keep coming after this little boy, and they will not die no matter what he does. He burns them, he punctures them, he smashes their faces with heavy objects, and still they keep coming, and why? Simple, he doesn't take their heads.


Seriously though, how awesome would that have been if at the end of Home Alone 2, he realized that the only choice he was going to have to finally be rid of these 2 immortal criminals that have now tried to kill him in 2 different states would be to decapitate them? He has them chase him into a pawn shop and he goes behind the counter, picks up a katana, and as they come storming in he's on the counter and just slices both of their heads off. Everyone would just be sitting there stunned. But really, is that all that bad. I mean, they're 2 grown men who are literally trying to kill a child, well, 2 grown zombies anyway.


When I was watching this earlier this year, it got me interested to look up something I never had before, the other sequels. Did you know that there are in fact 4 Home Alone movies? Home Alone 3 was originally meant to be made at the same time as 2, but that idea didn't pan out. In 1996 they decided to make it with a teenage Macaulay Culkin (who would have been 16/17 at the time. I know because he was born a year to the day after I was) however, he had retired from acting by that point. So instead they just started over, with a new character and story. Surprisingly enough, it was actually written by John Hughes as well. However, it didn't do so well. Really nothing to interesting in this one except that Scarlett Johansson plays the sister. Oh and that the song "Tub Thumpin'" by Chumbawamba was used in the trailer. I always found that odd since it's a song about getting drunk and "pissin'". Now we get to the really strange one.


Home Alone 4 was a TV movie made in 2002. It is about Kevin McCallister again, but it's not really a sequel. But it's not a remake either. Basically what happens is his parents get divorced (probably because they keep losing their kid) and he visits his dad who is currently living with his super wealthy girlfriend. Marv, one of the wet bandits, has teamed up with a female criminal to rob the mansion (I guess Harry had had his head removed by this point). However he runs into his old nemesis Kevin. So in theory this is taking place after Home Alone 2, but Kevin is actually younger then he is in Home Alone 1. Plus it's all new actors playing the parts, with French Stewart playing Marv instead of Daniel Stern. So this is more of an alternate reality (or maybe they're all Time Lords!)


So wait, what? Oh right. This Christmas if you happen to be flipping through the channels and you catch one of the Home Alone movies on, stop for a second, and just think about the fact that Nightmare Before Christmas wasn't in fact the first Christmas movie to have monsters in it, because 3 years earlier the biggest comedy of all time up to that point came out and was chock full of some would be child murdering zombie action.

#6: Tears for America 2.0

So this weeks blog is going to be super long because I'm going to start off by pasting a blog I wrote on MySpace on July 8th 2008 in its entirety which is super long in itself. It reads as follows:

Let me start off by telling you about a little movie called "Idiocracy", in case you haven't seen it. "Ididocracy" is a movie that was made by Mike Judge, creator of "Bevis and Butt-Head", "King of the Hill", and the writer/director of the cult classic "Office Space". "Idiocracy" is slowly turning into a cult classic within itself. It stars Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph of "Saturday Night Live" fame (whom by the way the song "Loving You" is written about, that's a little tidbit of knowledge that is stuck in my head for all eternity that I felt should be stuck in yours as well, enjoy). In "Idiocracy" Luke Wilson plays the world's most average soldier. He is selected by the military (along with Maya who is deemed the most average woman) to be put into cryogenic freeze. Because of budget cut-backs, the project is scrapped and what was supposed to be a 1 year cryo freeze ends up being a 500 year cryo freeze. That is very much like the pilot episode of "Futurama". However, where as "Futurama" paints a picture of a utopian future, "Idoicracy" paints a picture that I fear, may not be to far off. Due to the fact that the smart people of the world take their time to reproduce so that they can become successful, and some don't even at all, intelligence slowly dies off. On the other hand since the red neckish trailer trash of the world spreads their seed like Fabio is endorsing it (Anyone? Anyone at all), the average IQ of the nation has dropped. That's as far as I'll tell you about because really, you should watch it. It's entertaining and it makes you think.

So why do I bring this up? Well it's simple, that movie has everyone being pretty stupid in 500 years. I believe that it will actually be far less then that. What is it that occurred today that made me believe that? Well, at work during lunch someone was watching a movie in one of the rooms that I never had any desire to see. I sat down and watched it for about 10 minutes, and I seriously felt a small piece of my soul die. Let the longest set up in blog history now come to an end as I tell you that movie was.....Epic Movie.

Now let me set the record straight and say that I by no means hate parody movies. My most favorite movie of all time is a parody movie, "Spaceballs". Mel Brooks has made a multitude of fantastic parody movies from "Blazing Saddles" to "Robin Hood: Men in Tights". (I stop there and don't count "Dracula: Dead and Loving it" because, well, people that excel at their professions tend to make mistakes every now and then). In the 70's and 80's the Zucker brothers and Jim Abrahams put their spin on the parody movie by creating the comedy classics "Airplane!" and the "Naked Gun" series. Unfortunately they also made Leslie Nielson shoehorn himself into a career that has resulted in, well there's no better word, crap. In the 90's the Wayans brothers took their turn at the parody movie making "Scary Movie". At the time I really enjoyed it. It's really funny. A few years later "Not Another Teen Movie" came out which I also enjoyed. Little did I know that this was the beginning of a plague that was going to descend upon us as a nation.

Over the next few years "Scary Movie" 2, 3, and 4 came out. Next was "Date Movie". Followed by "Epic Movie", "Meet the Spartans", and then "Superhero Movie". When "Epic Movie" came out, it would seem like these movies were being made in such a short time that it didn't make sense how they could make them, "spoofing" movies that had just come out.

Case in point, "Epic Movie" came out on January 26th, 2007. It "spoofs" "Superman Returns" which came out on June 28th, 2006. That's 7 months later. As absurd as that is, "Borat", which was also "spoofed", came out on November 3rd, 2006. That's 3 months. How could they "spoof" something that came out only 3 months earlier? Simple, they "spoofed" a scene they saw in the trailer.

Now, why do I keep putting "spoof" in quotes? Well because a spoof is "a mocking imitation of someone or something, usually light and good-humored; lampoon or parody" (Dictionary.com). These aren't imitations. They're direct quotes and scenes ripped from movies, with 1 or 2 words changed.

So why do these movies keep getting made? Well it's quite simple. "Epic Movie" was made for $20,000,000 (Estimated). It made $39,737,645. "Meet the Spartans" was made for $30,000,000 (estimated). It made $38,232,624. "Superhero Movie" was made for 35,000,000 (estimated). Thank God it only made $25,815,447.

What's next? Well, someone today mentioned they saw the trailer for "Disaster Move". When I got home I looked it up on YouTube. After the 1 minute and 30 seconds of the trailer, I was so full of venom and spite that I had to spew it out onto the internet pages of my MySpace blog. The trailer for "Disaster Movie" basically shows in about 6 different scenes, someone dressed as Iron Man getting crushed by a cow, someone dressed like Hannah Montana getting crushed by a boulder, someone dressed like the Hulk having his pants blow away, the princess from "Enchanted" getting hit by a car , and someone dressed like Hancock flying and hitting his head on a lamp post. Then there is some sort of bizarre "Sex and the City", "Juno", "Don't Mess with the Zohan" hybrid "spoof" that just makes as much sense as the American people saying, "You know who I can't get enough of, that Steve-O guy" (which by the way I'll never understand).

Here's where it all ties together. If you watch the movie "Idiocracy", there's a scene were you see Dax Shepard's character is watching a show called "Ow! My Balls". This is a show where a guy basically keeps getting hit in the balls over and over in extreme fantastical ways. The trailer for "Diaster Movie" is basically nothing more then, "Ow! My Balls". So really, Mike Judge may think that "Idiocracy" is 500 years off. I say, if "Disaster Movie" ends up not losing at the very least $15,000,000, then it's about 10 years away.

Ok, back to 2010. So what happened? "Disaster Movie" was made for $25,000,000 (estimated). It ended up making $14,190,901. This was such a disaster (pun intended) that the 2 guys responsible for all of these atrocities didn't get to make another movie...Until this year.


On August 18th 2010, their latest movie came out, "Vampires Suck". Going after the popularity of the "Twilight" movies and the popularity of hating the "Twilight" movies, it would appear they had the perfect idea. Which it turns out they did. People went to see it because they wanted to see what they hate so much decimated, and the "Twi-hards" went to see it because it still had cute emo vampire and werewolf boys. What did they get when they saw it? Nothing but dissappointment. How do I know this? Well, it's really quite simple. On RottenTomatoes.com "Vampires Suck" has a 5% from critics, and from the 50,000+ audience members who rated it, it is at a 37%. But all of this doesn't matter.


You see, because of one simple fact. "Vampires Suck" was made for $20,000,000 (estimated). It made $36,658,108. That's right, it made a profit. It was even the #2 movie the week it came out, behind "The Expendables". This just means that they will now get to continue making these things. However that's not the most painful thing about all of this.

The same week this movie came out, so did the exceptionally superior "Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World". How can I make a claim that it is superior? Well it's simple, on RottenTomatoes.com it has a critics rating of 81% and an audience rating of 86% with 72,000+ votes. Meanwhile, that movie was made for $60,000,000 (estimated) and only made $31,494,270. This is how I know that America is getting stupider.


What do you think the average American thinks when they see "The Jersey Shore" or "Keeping up with the Kardasians" or "Rock of Love" or any of the countless reality shows that are populated with the most moronic, unintelligent wastes of human flesh that have ever crawled out of a back alley bar and in front of a camera? Do they think like we do and just look at them for the simpleton parasites that they are? No, they look at them and think, "I want to be them!" They look at the girls on "16 and Pregnant" and think having a baby as a teenager will make them famous. They think being stupid and outrageous will make them millions of dollars, and unfortunately, there's a good chance they're right.


But now here's the real kicker. I feel that I have an above average intelligence. I feel that I'm smarter then these morons that I see on TV that just disgust me with their unending inane prattle. I feel that I have more mental capacity then the entire cast of "The Jersey Shore" combined. However, what am I doing with it? It's simple, nothing. I'm not becoming a multi-millionaire like "The Situation". I'm sitting in a crappy 1 bedroom apartment in Long Beach, bitching about how stupid Americans are becoming instead of doing something about it. There in lies the problem.

The internet has given the intelligent members of our society a place to go and complain about things that are bothering them. A place where they can go and vent about how stupid these morons are that our dominating our movie goers and TV stations. But while they sit at there computers and let out all of there angers on the screen in front of them, the very people they're complaining about are out in the world, taking it over. It's time that the intelligent members of our society unplug from the internet, and get out there and take this country back, before it's to late and there's nothing left to save. Or at the very least, get a little fist pumping in at the club.

#5: "I am this close to raping you!"

So there is a potent element out there that causes some of the most evil, angry, and just outright horrible things to be said in this world. It will make normally smart individuals lower their brain patterns to that of a neanderthal, and for really no good reason. It will make those that are usually the most sensative of us say things that only a jerk would say. It is one of the most infuriating things we live with today. It is not alcohol, it's much much worse...It's nerd rage.



Nerd rage is one of the most prevalent things on the internet. Whereas 95% of the internet may be porn, the other 5% is, well, it's links to porn. But in the comment sections or forums of said pornternet, that's where the land of the rage filled lives. Nerd rage comes from a place deep in the heart of someone who is a bit of a social outcast. Who likes things that in the outside world have made them that way. They like these things so much that it turns them into shut-ins, and they will fight to the death to defend it. One of the topics that has caused the most instances of nerd rage in the past 30+ year, but most notably in the past 10 years, is Star Wars.

In 1977 George Lucas made Star Wars: A New Hope. He had based the idea on Saturday afternoon serials he had seen when he was a child. He had an idea for a 6 movie saga that would follow the life of a man from childhood, to becoming a hero, to falling and becoming a villain, to eventually redeeming himself. Realizing there was a chance of it failing, he picked the 1 of the 6 that would be best to make, in hopes that some day he'd be able to complete it all. That movie of course went on to be the biggest movie of all time. He then went on to make 2 sequels to it. Children, teenagers, and twenty somethings alike all fell in love with these films. For years and years they worshiped at the alter of Lucas because of the joy he had brought them.

Then in 1997, after his company had made the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park, Lucas felt that digital technology had finally reached the point that his vision had always seen. So to test out if they could do what he envisioned for the prequels, he made the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition. Using computers he made changes to the original movies so that they would be how he always wanted them to be, but couldn't accomplish with 1970's tech. The most controversial change that he made was in the cantina scene. Greedo, a bounty hunter for Jabba the Hut, sits with Han Solo at his table. They have a conversation and then...the incident. In the original version of the film, Han Solo shoots Greedo and walks out. After 20 years Lucas decided he didn't like having Han Solo murder someone for no reason, feeling it didn't fit with his character. So he made Greedo shoot at Han first. Later on the DVD release, he made Greedo shoot 2 frames sooner then Han.


Now in 1997, I don't recall hearing much about this. I remember seeing it in the theater, and I realized he had added Greedo's shot, but I really didn't think much else of it. Other people, not so much. The nerd rage began with that. Chants of "Han shot first!" rang out over the then early days of the internet. People seemed outraged. How dare he? How dare he change things. As the other 2 special editions came out, there were more changes that enerdraged fans. The added things in those 2 also seemed to not sit well. In Empire Strikes Back he added Luke screaming as he fell from the Darth Vader fight, and in Return of the Jedi he added a dance number in Jabba's Palace and changed the song at the end (all of which I will admit, I'm not a fan of). A majority of people didn't care. But the people who were so in love with Star Wars, it angered them. This is when the early rumblings began.

Then, in 1999, Star Wars episode 1: The Phantom Menace came out. I saw it opening night. For me, from the first shot to the last, it was a Star Wars movie. I loved it. It had everything I like about Star Wars and more. To this day the pod race is my most favorite thing in any Star Wars movie. I always use it to check on my speaker set up when I move to make sure everything is working right. Other people, not so happy. People started the complaints. Suddenly people were finding continuity issues with the original trilogy. Questioning things like why C-3PO never told Luke his father built him, or why Jar Jar had to exist. People seemed to forget there were 2 more movies left that could easily answer all of these questions. Once the other 2 came out, all of the questions were answered, yet still people complained. (In case you're wondering Jar Jar needs to exist because it is due to his gullibility and easiness to control that the Empire even exists. If he were such a simple minded fool, Chancellor Palpatine wouldn't have anyone to suggest in the senate giving him complete control thus creating the empire.)



It was around the time the 3rd of the prequels came out that I first heard one of the worst lines that has ever been said due to nerd rage. "George Lucas raped my childhood!". Anytime I hear someone say that all I can think of is an actual rape victim. They must be thinking, "You know, when I was held down and forcibly sexually assaulted in what was the worst moment of my entire life, something that will haunt me until the day I die, forever changing me and making me never feel safe again, ya I can see how that is exactly the same as you seeing some movies". To me, this is the darkest part of nerd rage, making comparisons to horrible events that actually happen to people in order to complain about pop culture. It's the same as when people compare things to the holocaust and Hitler. It really makes me wonder about just how shut in these otherwise rather intelligent individuals really are that they feel that a statement like that is completely valid.



Then comes my other favorite argument caused by the nerd rage. Once the Revenge of the Sith came out, all I ever heard from people that hate the prequels so much was, "George Lucas is a horrible writer" and "George Lucas doesn't know how to make movies". However the thing that has always confused me about this statement is that, the movies that they're comparing them to that they love so much were written, directed and/or produced by...George Lucas (Yes Irvin Kershner directed Empire Strikes Back, hence "directed and/OR produced"). How is it that he's a horrible film maker and writer when making one set of movies, and a god when making others. Well it's really quite simple.

When most of the people that experience nerd rage towards Star Wars saw the original movies, they were children. They didn't care about writing and directing, they just cared about how cool everything was. X-wings and TIE fighters and Jedi and Lightsabers and Wookies and Droids. It all captured their imagination. Children today that see the prequals love them, you know why, they're children. They're the target audience, just like the originals were. They're the ones that want the toys and the merchandise. They're the ones that have the imagination to be captured. There the ones that the serials that George Lucas saw as a child were aimed at, and it worked then too. People put too much of themselves and claim almost an ownership to things that aren't really theirs. George Lucas owns Star Wars, not the people who watch it. If George Lucas wanted to replace all 6 movies with nothing but CGI and destroy the masters of the movies as they are now, guess what, he can. Like I said, I didn't like Luke yelling as he fell from Darth Vader (which they actually removed from the DVD release) or changing the yub jub song at the end of Return on the Jedi, but I'm not going to attack him for it. Like Bobby Brown says, it's his prerogative.

I'll admit, there's things that I get enerdraged about (that's twice now, I own it!). Take the Spider-Man reboot for example. The producers of the film couldn't come to terms with Sam Raimi on the villain for Spider-Man 4, so they decided instead that they wanted to reboot the franchise. They didn't like that by having a 27 year old Toby Maquire (now 35) they had to take him out of high school quickly because he was to old to play an 17 year old. So they wanted to get a younger actor instead so they could spend more time with the high school days. I could completely understand this seeing as I'm a huge fan of Ultimate Spider-man which for 10 years, has been set in Peter Parker's high school days. Also they need to work him into the new Marvel movie continuity. I was excited for the potential. So then what did they do? They hire 27 year old Andrew Garfield to play Spider-man...Um, what? Isn't that doing exactly what you did before? They have also done the same thing again by hiring a red headed Emma Stone to play the blond Gwen Stacey. They did the same thing when they hired the blond Kirsten Dunst to play the red headed Mary Jane Watson and red head Bryce Dallas Howard to play Gwen Stacey. Yes, all of this makes a little part of me enerdraged, but I don't get to crazy about it. The movie is 2 years away, what am I going to do, stew in my anger until it comes out? No, I'll wait and see how it is. When I first heard Toby Maguire was going to be Spider-man, I wasn't to happy about it. I would have much rather it be Topher Grace. But when Spider-man 1 and 2 came out I loved them. I thought Toby Maguire did a good job. Spider-man 3 not so much, but that was mainly for emo Peter Parker and the what could have been with Topher Grace being there.



Anyway, so what is the point I'm trying to make here? Honestly, I don't know. I guess what I'm really trying to get at is, don't take things that are meant to entertain us so personally. Liking a movie or book or comic or video game is one thing, but to compare it to one of the worst events in human history or a moment when someones life is shattered is so extreme and insensitive.



That being said, next blog I revisit one of my old MySpace blogs, "Tears for America" in which I discuss the horrors that are the "Movie" movies, thereby negating everything I just typed in this blog.


Oh, and if you're wondering where the title of this blog came from, click this link: http://tinyurl.com/67oeb9


Have a good however long it is until I talk to you again.

#4: You live! You die!

So this blog is going to be about something you may not know about me. In 1997 I was in my senior year of High School. I was in the marching band and every year if there was a home football game on Halloween or the weekend of, we would wear our costumes to perform during halftime and throughout the game. I had an old suit of my brothers that was this gray tweed sort of thing that wasn't anything I'd ever wear. I got the idea to dye half of it and go as my favorite comic book villain, Two-Face.


I always have liked Two-Face since the 90's animated series days. He was the district attorney of Gotham City who from an early age had always kept his anger inside, never letting it out. When he grew up, it caused him to develop a second personality that would come out whenever he got pushed to far. Finally one day when trying to get his psychiatric file from a mob boss, he was caught in a chemical explosion which ended up scarring the left side of his face and his left hand. In the original comics and Batman Forever, he had acid thrown in his face in a courtroom. In The Dark Knight, he had half of his face set on fire. This ended up twisting his mind completely, and caused him to start making decisions in a new way. He decided to go with chance. He had carried a lucky two headed silver dollar with him throughout his career. In the comics when he got the acid thrown at him, it scarred one half of the coin. In the cartoon, the explosion did. In the Dark Knight, his fiance had it with her when she died in an explosion, causing half of it to get charred. So he would make all decisions by flipping this coin. The clean side would be the good choice, the scarred side would be the evil choice. He's just such a fascinating character to me because I too tend to bottle up my anger. I haven't developed a separate personality because of it though. I also like the number 2, which is often a theme of the crimes he commits.

Anyway, where was I? Oh right, Halloween. So I went to Michaels craft store to get some fabric dye with my grandmother to dye half the suit. She asked how I planned to do that, and when I said I really wasn't sure, she offered up a better idea. She bought some black fabric and sewed it over half of the suit, which really was no easy task. She almost gave up 10 times while doing it, but knowing how much I wanted it, she did it anyway, thus proving why she was the greatest grandmother ever. I ended up wearing a normal dress shirt and tie, and painted half my face and hair. As the final cap on the costume, I got a silver dollar, and tried to scar the back of it, which is actually very hard to do.

Now here is where we reach the point of the blog. Ever since that night in 1997, I have carried that silver dollar with me every day. I always have it in my pocket when I leave the house. And yes, on multiple occasions I have made decisions with it. It has never been something as drastic as say in The Dark Knight when he's at the bar and he decides rather the guy will live or die. Usually it's in stores when deciding what to purchase if I'm torn between 2 things.

However there was actually about a 2 month period where I didn't carry it. I had gone to Texas to visit my brother and dad. When I got back home I couldn't find it anywhere. I eventually started to carry another one, but one day my brother told me he found it under the couch and sent it back to me. So yes, other then that time, I have carried it for 13 years today.

You may be wondering why I never tried to find an actual double headed silver dollar. Well it's very simple, I have. I went to the only two magic shops I knew of in Colorado (one of which interestingly enough was next door to Casa Bonita for you South Park fans) and they both said they had never seen one before. They had double sided quarters, nickels, dimes and half dollars though. Since then I have checked online multiple times. The only thing I could ever find was a replica set from the Dark Knight. I did end up buying it but it was very disappointing because the coin is obviously fake as it's thicker then a silver dollar, and the "bad" side is just painted black.


By the way, a little side story to my costume thing. In 2002, (which was the worst year of my life, but that's for a blog in February) I was working at a Blockbuster with this girl who was around my age that I had become really friendly with. I would go to this bar with her and her roommate every now and then to help me get my mind off things. As Halloween was getting closer she was telling me that her and her roommate wanted to dress up in a joint costume that was comic or movie related. About a week later she told me they were going to dress like whores. I was all like, "What?!" and she said they decided to go as sugar and spice from Batman Forever, but since they didn't have anyone to be Two-Face, they were just going to be whores. Holy crap, are you kidding me. I explained that I had a Two-Face costume and I'd gladly be their Two-Face. I wanted to beef it up though. So once again, having the greatest grandmother in the world, she sewed together 2 old collard shirts, and covered half of a red clip on tie that I got with black cloth. I then went to the Wizards chest which is the place to go for Halloween in Colorado and got some face makeup and a burned face mask. I really did it up right. So for that Halloween, which I still consider the best one I've had yet, I was a much better Two-Face, with Sugar and Spice by my side.





P.S. (Or again, whatever you call it in a blog) I ended up working a ton of overtime this past month which is why I ended up slacking off on my goal of writing a blog every week. I'm going to make a major effort to get back into a grove and doing it every week now. I've got some good ideas lined up for the next few ones, but as always, I'm taking suggestions for topics if you have any.