Watch This Wednesday #42: Never ever jam today

Today's video clip is pretty random. Its from a live-action tv version of Alice in Wonderland that I remember watching when I was a kid. For some reason this song about jam has been stuck in my head all those years.

Watch This Wednesday #35: You'll block it every time

In honor of the 4th of July, I bring you Rex Kwan Do's star-spangled pants:


"You think anybody wants a roundhouse kick to the face while I'm wearing these bad boys?"

FSS 5: A fairly low-key weekend

Hello again,

I'm cranking this post out while waiting for a query to finish running. Just trying to polish up some data for a meeting I have next Monday, quite possibly to get my committee to sign off on everything for the last part of my dissertation. I'd still need to write it of course, but at least I'd now for sure what they expect me to write.

Anyhow, this last weekend felt pretty low key. Friday night a friend from the ward invited us over to his parents' house to swim. In the process of inviting people to join in the fun, I got a counter-offer of a concert and movie from a girl that I'd met last week and was interested in getting to know better. Since I'd already invited a bunch of people to come swim, I would have felt bad not going to swim at all (plus swimming sounded fun), so I made a compromise and agreed to meet up with her and her friends for a late movie after they were done at the concert. So I went swimming and it was fun. We played beachball volleyball in the pool and there was a lot of fun people there. Then it was off to the movie. These girls had chosen to see "You Don't Mess with the Zohan", which from the previews I expected to be pretty silly but maybe funny nonetheless. Sadly, it was pretty silly, and at times funny nonetheless, but mostly the movie was way too raunchy and crass to be enjoyable. I wouldn't recommend seeing it, even if you've enjoyed other Adam Sandler movies. Just too much of the raunchiness in this one.

Saturday, the original plan had been to go boating, but given the cool weather, and the high cost of gas these days, those in charge decided it might be better to wait for a more enjoyable day. I was alright with that, and took advantage of the day to clean up the house a little bit as we were having the ward over for breakfast on Sunday morning. That took up only a little bit of my morning and then I quickly proceeded to run out of things to do. After a day full of odds and ends, in the evening I went to dinner at Red Robin with a group consisting of mostly strangers, but it was alright. After that I got a call from another friend and we ended up driving out to Draper to check out a birthday party for a girl he knew. Again, kind of ho-hum...there were about 20 people there sitting around a firepit getting smoky.

Sunday morning we had the ward fellowshipping committee come over to cook our monthly ward breakfast. I was a little nervous about having enough places to sit for everyone, but it didn't really seem to be a problem in the end. I had my regular church meetings, and spent the late afternoon watching USA-Argentina play to a 0-0 tie, which has to be considered a big coup for America. Team USA's goalie made some great stops in the first half and really saved the game for us. After the game I headed to ward prayer, and then went to a friend's house to watch a movie, "Live Free or Die Hard" which I hadn't seen since seeing it in the dollar movies a year ago. I have to say I enjoyed it again.

Now that I've got this new template, I probably should work on getting my camera out again. Luckily, I'm headed to Vegas this coming weekend with some friends, so that ought to be a good excuse for some photography.

Watch This Wednesday #31: Get some rest Pam. You look tired

I definitely would not say that I am Jason Bourne's biggest fan. Yes, I've seen all of his movies and probably like the last one as well as any of them, but I don't own any of the DVDs or anything thing like that. However, one thing I do like about him is his knack for making phone calls from a place where he can see the people he is talking to. My favorite instance of this comes at the end of the Bourne Supremacy when he's talking to Pamela Landy, and then at the very end of their conversation he says, "Get some rest Pam. You look tired." and then the Bourne theme music kicks in. If there was a way I could get my phone to play that song at the end of all my phone calls, I'd end every call that way. "Get some rest , you look tired." and then have that music kick in. I think that would be awesome.

Anyway, for this week's clip, I've included the only decent clip I could find that includes this part of the movie. Its actually a clip comparing what is supposedly the same phone call from the end of the Bourne Supremacy and near the end of the Bourne Ultimatum and nitpicking the differences. Anyway, if you skip to the 1:50 point you can see the part I'm talking about.

FSS 3: Lots of stuff going on

This past weekend was full of stuff, and yet somehow I still managed to feel lazy. Friday night I saw the new Indiana Jones movie, and while I've since read negative reviews that I can understand and somewhat agree with, I did still have an enjoyable time watching it, so I feel like 4 stars (out of 5) is fair given my experience. I probably won't go see it again, but it was still worth seeing. I went with a friend, and it was a nice evening.

Saturday I was mostly lazy during the day, but did make a jaunt over to Wal-Mart to have a key made for our new roommate, who then proceeded to call me and back out of moving in with us. :( We've (and by "We've", I mean "I've", as my roommates haven't done anything to look that I can tell) been trying for the last two months to find someone to rent out our master bedroom to, but have not had much luck in finding people, despite a lot of people wanting to come look at it. I would think that if they had a problem with the price they wouldn't even come look, but that doesn't seem to be the case. If we don't find someone before the end of June I'm going to start thinking hard about moving somewhere else.

Saturday night I went with a group of friends over to the U of U institute for a BBQ/Dance/Drive-in, where the BBQ consisted of hot dogs only, along with generic chips and pretzels. And I managed to spill catchup on my shirt within the first 20 minutes. Luckily I had a sweatshirt with me and was able to wear that over. We hung out for a couple hours and split about the time the movies were starting up, and headed back to my place where we enjoyed some Brian Regan on DVD.

Sunday was fairly full with church stuff, and hunting for roommates, and then Sunday night a large group was gathered at my first counselor's house for movies and fun. The end of the evening featured a fairly awkward situation involving myself and two girls, one of whom said, "Oh, I forgot something in the house", and the other of whom said moments later "I'm thinking you need to take me out either this Saturday or next. Which works best for you?" The whole story along with some other comments on dating probably deserves its own post, but for now suffice it to say that I felt put on the spot and somewhat manipulated into an uncomfortable situation. Also hearing girls complain that "guys need to date more" is starting to get pretty old for a variety of reasons.

Yesterday was Memorial Day and after a lazy start to things I headed out to my parents' house for the middle of the day where we played cards and Phase 10 Dice, and had BBQed chicken for dinner. I made back to SLC in time to catch up with some friends for dessert at Chili's and some Mario Kart Wii to bring the long weekend to a close.

Quick question for those of you who read this far: Are you enjoying these updates? If so, take the time to make a quick comment and say so.

Fin de Semana Stories

I'm having this idea that maybe if I come up with a good title/acronym I can get myself excited about doing more than just showing you a video once a week. So I've of course thought about writing on Mondays something called "Weekend Update" but that name has of course been taken by SNL and who knows how many other things. So I'm going to call mine "Fin de Semana Stories" which if you speak Spanish you'll know stands for "Fin of Semana Stories". :) Kidding aside, "Fin de Semana" actually means Weekend. Plus I figure with that name I can abbreviate it as FSS and maybe someone will thing I've got a new version of RSS going on.

Anyway to kick off this inaugural FSS edition, I'll tell you that Friday night I went to the "Grand Kerfuffle" an annual outdoor concert event up at the U. This year's show had three decent bands: Augustana, Hellogoodbye, and Shiny Toy Guns. There was also a local band that we missed. We only got there about an hour after the offical start time so we were surprised that Augustana was already playing. Personally, their music is my favorite of the three bands that played, but they were having a few issues with their sound and that really seemed to bother them a lot. Anyway, they were interesting and have at least two songs that I really like: "Boston" and "Sweet and Low".

Hellogoodbye was up next and they are pretty nerdy guys and played a fun set of songs that I really don't know. It was during this set that it became clear to me, if it wasn't already, that some people will mosh to pretty much anything.

Finally Shiny Toys Guns, who I probably am the least familiar with, finished off the show with a lot of energy, both on their part and on the part of the crowd. Like I said, I didn't really know any of their songs going in, but they were a fun concert band because they really were rockin.

Now, as for some metadata on the evening, I actually had a date with a long-time friend of mine, and we ended up doubling with her ex-roommate and her husband, who both happen to be good friends of mine as well. The sad part of the date was that about half an hour before I was supposed to go pick her up, my car died and refused to be revived. So, I was happy that this date was with someone I was already good friends with and I didn't feel too ashamed to have to call her and ask her to pick me up. My roommate joked, "You might as well forget your wallet while you are at it." But as I'd already acquired concert tickets it really wouldn't have made any difference.

I spent part of Saturday getting my car towed over to the shop and moving some furniture for my grandpa who's moving from a rehab center to an assisted living center this week. Then we went to a birthday dinner for he and my cousin at the Olive Garden, which I must say hasn't changed much in the probably five years its been since I was last there. It likely won't be breaking into my list of places I want to go out to eat anytime soon either. Just not a huge fan.

After family time, I ended up going to see 21 with some friends. I found it to be pretty entertaining, and it made me want to track down the book of the true story the movie was "based on", or perhaps "inspired by".

And finally, on a non-FSS-related note, a company in Wisconsin emailed last week to say they want to fly me out there to interview for a software developer job. However, when I got back to them with dates that would work for me in the time span they mentioned, they disappeared. Seriously, its been five days since I emailed them my available dates, one of which would require me to fly tomorrow night, and I still haven't heard back from them. Once again proving my theory that Germans love David Hasslehoff administrative incompetence is pretty much a universal constant.

Watch This Wednesday #22: Tom Hanks, Vintage 1986

I know I'm later than usual getting this out, but I've had a pretty full day. Anyway, here's a clip from "The Money Pit", starring Tom Hanks in which he does all but get killed while traversing some scaffolding on his sinkhole of a house.

Watch This Wednesday #17: Happy Birthday Hippo

I kind of drew a blank today, but if you haven't seen this I think you should, and request it next time you are out for a birthday dinner. Much better than your typical restaurant birthday song. Assuming you can find a beatboxing server.



FYI, its from the movie Raising Helen, which I've never actually seen all of.

Watch This Wednesday #16: Show Me The Money!

Back before Tom Cruise was a crazy guy jumping on Oprah's couch, he used to just make great movies. And before Cuba Gooding was pretending to be gay (Boat Party) or handicapped (Radio), he actually made a good movie, too. And "Show Me the Money!" suddenly became the catch phrase for everything. Especially the Utah Jazz PR people, who have never been great with slogans, were suddenly yelling "Show Me the Playoffs!" The "Show Me the [Product Name] lazy slogan method was ultimately topped by the "Got [Product Name]?" model of ripping off of the "Got Milk?" people. But there's a reason everyone loved to say "Show Me the Money!" and its this clip right here:

Watch This Wednesday....or Thursday #13: You Sit on a Throne of Lies

I apologize for not getting this video out yesterday. I thought about posting it last night, but then decided to let this the Christmas Card get a little more time in the limelight. Anyway, here's what may be the last Christmas-themed WTW, a fun clip from the fun Will Ferrell Christmas movie, Elf.

Watch This Wednesday #12: Fa-ra-ra-ra-ra Ra-ra-ra-ra

That's right...its time for more Christmas themed video fun. This week, its the part of the last scene of the classic film "A Christmas Story", which I can't imagine that you haven't seen, especially now that TNT shows it for 24 hours straight (or is it 48?) at Christmas time. I actually know someone whose family actually likes to go out for Chinese on Christmas, an idea they got from watching this movie. Oh well, I guess when its the season to be 'jorry', everyone has their own traditions.

Watch This Wednesday #11: Five Goooo-ooold Rings, Ba-dum-bum-bum

In keeping with the Christmas theme of the month, I found this Muppet version of the 12 Days of Christmas from the John Denver/Muppets Christmas Special. We had the soundtrack on tape growing up, and its forever influenced the way that I think the song, ought to be sung, especially the Five Gold Rings part.

Watch This Wednesday #10: A cowboy who rides...an ostritch

I'm a staunch believer in limiting Christmastime to the space between Thanksgiving and New Years. No Christmas songs right after Halloween, no Christmas shopping until after Thanksgiving, etc. That said, the unseasonably warm weather we'd been having didn't really get my into a Christmas spirit either. Luckily, yesterday a snow storm started here in Salt Lake, and this morning everything is covered in white. And I feel perfectly fine about sharing a Christmas movie with you all today.

This clip is from the stop-motion animated Christmas special "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer", which I'm sure everyone is familiar with. This is when our crew of protagonists arrives at the isle of Misfit Toys. I don't love the song, but I've always loved the crazy toys there. "How would you like to be a choo-choo with square wheels on your caboose?" "Or a water pistol that shoots jelly?

Watch this Wednesday #8: Sweet Home Chicago

I'm still in Chicago for my conference, but I did find this video to share with you from a classic Chicago movie, "The Blues Brothers". One of the best parts of the films is the concert that they put on to raise the money they need to save the orphanage, including the song "Sweet Home Chicago". Enjoy.

Watch This Wednesday #7: You Remind Me of the Babe

This week, I'm throwing you a little clip from the bizarro film Labyrinth. There's definitely a lot of weirdness in this film, but you can't deny that David Bowie really throws himself into the role of the Goblin King Jareth (and also throws himself into those wacky outfits).

Watch This Wednesday #6: This is Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!

For today's clip, I bring you the introduction to Tim Burton's "Nightmare Before Christmas" which is out in 3-D this year, and while I haven't seen it, I heard good things about it from some friends who went. In conjunction with the re-release of the film, there was a special edition Soundtrack released as well with covers of the film's songs, and this clip of the Intro is set to a Marilyn Manson cover of the song. There is also a Panic at the Disco version out there if you search on YouTube.

Watch This Wednesday #4: I'm a miracle man

This week, I bring you a scene from what, to me, is the most re-watchable of M. Night Shyamalan's films, Signs. Unlike some of his other movies, this one doesn't hinge so much on a crazy plot twist, although you could argue there is a bit of a big "reveal" at the end. Anyway, I think its the most re-watchable because of the humorous elements in the film. One of my favorite scenes is the one where Mel Gibson explains that people break down into two categories: those who believe in miracles and those who don't, and asks Joaquin Phoenix which category he is in.

Watch This Wednesday #3: You're The Best!..Around!

This week's clip comes to us courtesy of The Karate Kid. I have a hard time imagining that someone out there has never seen this, but just in case, this is a montage from the All-Valley Karate Tournament featuring a great song by Joe "Bean" Esposito.

Watch This Wednesday #2: Moon Child!

If you grew up in the 80s you've probably seen The Neverending Story, and if you're like me, you could never figure out what the heck Bastien yells out the window at the end, when he has to give the empress a new name. Well thanks to the Internet, I was able to find out that supposedly he yells "Moon Child", although in my memory it was pretty much an unintelligible scream. Well I found the clip, and I'm posting it here, and you can see for yourself, that "Moon Child" actually does sound like what he yells, although why Bastien's mother was named Moon Child, that I can't answer.



Also, as a bonus Watch This, I'm including one of my favorite parts of the movie, which I'll simply call, "They look like big...good...strong...hands...don't they?"

Watch This Wednesday #1: I Said Good Day, Sir!

As promised yesterday, I'm starting a new feature, where basically I find a video to share with you. At least starting out, I'm going to be showing favorite clips from movies, limited of course to what I can find online. I haven't quite mastered the whole getting pieces of videos that I already own and doing something with them other than watching them.

This week, I give you a favorite scene from the REAL Willy Wonka, Mr. Gene Wilder. My only regret is that this clip, of which I found two versions, omits the first part of the rant, where Mr. Wonka spouts some Latin. However, if you click through to the actual webpage on YouTube, the text of the first part of the rant is there. In fact, since that person doesn't actually own the copyright on the text, I feel okay about giving it to you here:

Wrong, sir! Wrong! Under section 37B of the contract signed by him, it states quite clearly that all offers shall become null and void if - and you can read it for yourself in this photostatic copy - "I, the undersigned, shall forfeit all rights, privileges, and licenses herein and herein contained," et cetera, et cetera..."Fax mentis incendium gloria cultum," et cetera, et cetera..."Memo bis punitor delicatum!" It's all there, black and white, clear as crystal! You stole fizzy lifting drinks. You bumped into the ceiling which now has to be washed and sterilized, so you get nothing! You lose! Good day sir!

Some of my favorite lines to quote:
"Its all there! Black and white! Clear as crystal!"
"Build up a little boy's hopes and then smash all his dreams to pieces."