Land of Shad & Sonia

I could watch Robert Downey Jr. attack Jack Black’s nuts all day.

Pork and Beans

I have a new song and video. I have always loved Weezer, and have b favourite een digging the single Pork and Beans on the radio. But I finally saw the video for the first time today and it was so awesome. How could I not love this…geek rock + a video featuring a barrage of internet memes. Who wouldn’t love it.

Sonia and I had a bizarre conversation last night. It all stemed from the fact that we planted a couple of new apple trees on Sunday. After a good hour or so of digging we had two respectable apple tree holes. And that got me thinking…

In movies and television, characters sometimes need to dig a grave and/or dig up a grave. This is usually done in the dead of night. Sometimes drunk. Often with one or two standard shovels. In the matter of a couple of hours they have a near perfect square hole that is six feet deep, give or take a few feet.

Now I know the ground in Sooke is pretty nasty. Down a few inches you hit the hard clay and rocks that require you to get out a pick-axe and whack away. But even your fictional coffin were burried in the finest top soil, I seriously doubt that you’d ever be able to dig such a perfect hole so fast.

Or maybe I just need to hire some burly actors the next time I want to plant trees.

The other day I was at work and wanted to take a look at my blog for some reason or another. I was aghast to learn that our corporate Websense filter flagged http://www.regnier.ca as a sex site. To the best of my recollection, there is no porn on my site. No references to sex at all. And hardly any swearing.

I had our Websense admin submit the URL for a review. Hopefully, they won’t find it too offensive and downgrade me.

So we’ve been immersed in our flooring project for the last week. It’s coming along nicely, but I managed to hurt my rib while snapping boards together. That’s slowed us down a lot.

We’ve had two brunches this weekend. First Friday with our friend Christine. Then Saturday with Sheldon and Laurie, and our neighbours. It was fun. Lots of food. Lots of Rock Band. The kids were all having a good time.

Tonight we’re going to Sonia’s mom’s place for a turkey dinner. Then more flooring tomorrow.

So as it stands today I have four people following me on http://twitter.com/landofshad. Not a huge number. There’s my friend Mark. There’s my friend Jim. It’s good to have friends. There’s cnySrettiwT…who isn’t really a person, but the TwitterSync application that talks to Facebook. I don’t want to have to update my status in two apps! Oh yeah. There’s also Barack Obama.

Yes, that’s Senator Barack Obama: Democratic presidential hopeful. Now I know that Obama is following some 13,000 other people. And I know that it is probably some lackey handling his twitter. I’m sure Barack is sitting at his laptop saying “Cool, Shad’s playing Rock Band again”. But somehow, it’s still cool to me. Maybe if I had hundreds of followers I wouldn’t notice so much. But with four, he sort of stands out.

I’m following Hillary Clinton too, but as of yet she hasn’t taken an interest in the land of shad. I looked for John McCain, but he’s not on the twitter bandwagon. I think he still sends out his status updates by Wells Fargo telegraph.

Well, Sonia and I are feeling a bit better now. Still not 100% thought. It’s 8:00PM and I’m sitting in a Starbucks downtown sipping a honey latte and feeling like a wannabe urban-hipster. Sonia is at a tea class (you’ll have to ask her). Living so isolated in Sooke I don’t get to do this very often. So I’ve got my MacBook Pro out and thought I’d do a mind dump of my random thoughts to the blog…

New Floors
We’re starting a big project this weekend. We’re putting laminate flooring throughout the first floor. It’s sad, since the carpet they put in is only three years old. But Citta pretty much put the cheapest of absolutely everything in our house, so I’m not surprise that they’re ruined. Having two dogs doesn’t help. I’ll be posting pictures of the progress. It’s a little bit of a daunting task, but I think we’re ready for it.

Rock Band
The think that I’m most hesitent about pull up the floors is that it will cut into my Rock Band time. I absolutely love that game. I never thought I’d like Guitar Hero…and I thought Rock Band was just way over top. But once I played both of them I was hooked. I also have to post some pictures of us rocking out with Maia.

Patrick Swayze
I was watching Google Trends yesterday and witnessed the “volcanic” interest in the National Enquirer article stating that Patrick Swayze has pancreatic cancer and only had five weeks to live. The FOX News website had an article citing both the Enquirer and Perez Hilton as sources. That is some rock solid reporing right there. I knew that FOX News was more or less a joke, but I had no idea that they were that bad.

I almost feel sorry for Hollywood publisits. I mean, withing a three hour span this story exploded with hundreds of website reporting the story with no “credible” sources. How do you combat the internet when shit travels that fast. What do you expect when you’re in that industry. I did say I “almost” felt sorry for them.

Who I do feel sorry for is Patrick Swayze. As it turns out, he actually does have pancreatic cancer. And even though his condition isn’t as grave as the NE made it out to be, he most likely won’t make it. Pancreatic cancer is one not may people walk away from. Godspeed Patrick Swayze. I’ll never be able to watch Red Dawn the same way again.

Okay…this is really lame. The only hotspot I can find here is a pay-for site from Bell. That sucks, I’l have to post this when I get home to Sooke. Bah

We’ve had long crazy weekend. First off…we’re both sick. Sonia was had a cold first. I caught up with her on Friday. The Regnier house is not a happy house this weekend. It suck when we are both sick at the same time. You always rely on having the other to take care of you when your sick.

Where to start. On Thursday KC cat came home to us. She’s been living with Sonia’s grandmother because she didn’t get along well with Annie. It’s been good for KC and good for Gran. But Gran had to go into the hospital, so the kitty came home. So far things are going okay.

Friday we lost our TV for the weekend. Our 50 inch TV has been acting up for the last couple of months. Figures, the warrantee was up in August. I called to repair shop, but of course they won’t come out to Sooke to fix it. I had to bring it into their shop. Which is not easy for a TV that size. So the dude at the shop gave me direction on how to disassemble the TV so I could just bring in the light box. It was a little nerve racking, but I manages to get it apart without destroying it.

So not only were we sick…but we were without our nice big TV. We brought out 27″ down from the bedroom, but it’s just not the same. We had to watch the Oscars on this…

Luckily I got a call today to say that the TV is repaired. We should be able to pick it up after work tomorrow.

We managed to get a cute picture of almost all of the animals in the cat tree. Oscar is getting brave and can climb up the the forth rung, which I’m sure kills his back when he jumps off. Here we have Monster, KC, Oscar and Annie in the tree. Only Lily is missing. She was busy doing her own thing.

As I was cleaning the kitchen, the TV happened to be on a channel broadcasting a Charlie Brown Valentine’s Day special. I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen it before. It didn’t seem familiar to me. When I was a kid I used to love the Peanuts specials. Charlie Brown Christmas. The Great Pumpkin. But now, watching them as an adult…they’re kind of crap. This one in particular.

You see. Much of the episode deals with Charlie Brown pining for the fabled “Little Redhead Girl”. Now he’s obviously got it bad for LRG, but his personal problems and low self esteem keep him from doing anything about it. Despite all of his insipid whining she remains oblivious to his wonderlust. If he doesn’t bust a move soon, he’ll regret it for ever. I’ve heard stories of people finding out that the girl they loved in high school but never asked out actually had a crush on them too. It’s never happened to me, but I can imagine how cool that would be.

Perhaps I have too much in common with old Chuck. As my wife, or any of my past girlfriends can tell you hesitation, insecurity and self-doubt plague me too. I think that’s why I feel qualified to give Charlie some helpful tips to improve his live life and mental state.

Shad’s Life Advice for Charlie Brown

1. Forget about LRG. She’s obviously out of your league. It’s never going to happen.
2. Peppermint Patty obviously is into you – go for it. Sure, she looks like a dude and has that butch lesbian vibe. But are you really going to do any better?
3. Stay the hell away from Lucy. Being around a horribly negative and mean person like that is deadly to a kid with esteem issues. She’s an emotional vampire.
4. Stop playing baseball…you stink. Of course his father may be pushing in into teams sports to force him to “man up”. But why pitch. Play left field. Or maybe be a benchwarmer.
5. Buy a new shirt for Christ sake.

If Charlie Brown follows my advice, he could end up living a much happier, fuller live.

It’s that time of year again…Christmas. Which means it’s time for Christmas movies. Sonia and I have a list of our favourites that we pull out each year and have to watch. Here is a breakdown of my best and worst Christmas movies…

Shad’s Best Christmas Movies

5. Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)
A true holiday classic. There are a lot of reasons to love this movie. For starters, Santa is pretty much a huge prick in the movie. He craps on the elves when they don’t sing well enough. He berates Donner for having a child that is “different”. He’s a bigot. Sonia loves Yukon Cornelius’s tongue licking he pick axe.

For some additional fun, we sometimes watch this movie with the Spanish audio track turned on. It’s pretty funny.

4. The Year without a Santa Claus (1974)
This is one of the lesser known Rankin/Bass stop action Christmas classic’s but I like it. It’s pretty cheesy. I love Snowmeiser/Heatmeisr, and their song and dance with their little clones.

Sadly, this show was perverted to a live action monstrosity starring John Goodman last year. Hopefully this version will die forever, leaving only the original.

3. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
One of our favourites. It’s funny. Can’t say too much more, except maybe: “The shitter’s full”.

2. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Okay, this is my sappy addition to the list. I really have know idea why I love this movie so much, but I have to watch it every year. There’s something inherently appealing to me of being able to see what live would be like if you were never born. Although I never understood something. In the normal world Mary (George Baily’s wife) was pretty and vibrant. In the world where George was never born, she turns out be be the spinster librarian: mousy looking, with bad hair and glasses. Why does she need glasses in the alternate world and not the real one? Does marrying George Baily prevent myopia?

Other then that, it’s a great movie.

1. How The Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)
My all time favourite Christmas movie. I’ve had to watch this one every year since I was a kid. The Grinch is a bad ass. Dr. Seuss’ story. Boris Karloff’s narration. Thurl Ravenscroft singing “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” – the greatest Christmas song ever. It’s perfect.

Shad’s Worst Christmas Movies

5. Olive the Other Reindeer (1999)
Honestly, I don’t remember much from this movie. Only that I hated it. I must have blocked the rest out of my mind. It’s become a running threat between Sonia and I – that we’ll make each other watch this stinker.

4. Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey (1977)
Now I’m a pretty big fan of the Rankin/Bass stop motion animated Christmas movies: Rudolph, Year without a Santa Claus, Santa Clause is Coming to Town. They would have to try pretty hard to make a movie that I would dislike. We’ll in Nestor, they’ve done just that.

It’s the story of a donkey with massive ears living in the Roman empire. I mean really massive ears. All the other animals hate him because he looks absolutely retarded, and the Romans banish him. He sets out wandering where he meets a fallen cherub, who takes him to Bethlehem, where they hook up with baby Jesus. Now JC was close to freezing to death in a blizzard, but Nestor saves him with his ridiculous ears.

I’ve seen lots of footage from the Middle East, but haven’t seen many snow storms. And I don’t recall the bible mentioning a deformed ass saving Jesus’ life. I guess they glossed over that bit.

What a piece of crap.

3. Frosty Returns (1992)
Here’s another fine example of how the movie industry can take something good and wonderful and regurgitate it into a video vomit. The movie stinks. It’s a veiled environmental message wrapped around a bunch of lame songs.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that any Christmas movie starring John Goodman is going to be trash.

2. The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006)
We just rented this one last week. I didn’t mind the first Santa Clause. The second wasn’t horrible. This one was double dumb. Maybe I was just pissed and the “elves are just little Canadians” thing.

Do the world a favour and let this series die already.

1. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
Grinch number one one the best list. Grinch number two on the worst list. This wasn’t about the Grinch…it was about Jim Carrey in a rubber suit. They did the same thing with the Cat in the Hat. And what is with the bullshit love story. I don’t really care that the Grinch was mean because he was tormented as a child. Who cares!

Honorable Mention Best…
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)
This is one of those movies that is soooooo monumentally bad that it good. I actually saw it featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 back in the day. That probably made it more enjoyable.

Honorable Mention Worst…
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie (1998)
We caught a bit a most of this one on TV the other day. It may not have seemed so bad if they hadn’t made the original one. And Santa wasn’t the hard ass he was in the original. He was a pussy. Rudolph: “My nose is different, nobody will like me.” Santa: “It’s okay Rudolph. Being different is wonderful”. Bit me, hippie.

Someday they will learn to stop messing with classics. They can rarely be improved.