Bringing the Drama

the other night i went to the store on the way home to pick up some milk and bread. it’s weird when those are the only things i need to get, because when that happens, i wonder if the cashier is thinking that i’m worried it’s going to snow. i’ve heard the stories of milk prices going up, but the other night was the first time i actually noticed. i had noticed a gallon of milk was $3.20 or so, then $3.79….but then the other night FOUR DOLLARS AND FORTY SIX cents! wtf? ridiculous i say, but what are you going to do? you can’t carpool to save on milk. everyone needs their three daily servings, so really, what can you do other than pay the insane milk tariff?

speaking of bread, have y’all had the sara lee soft and smooth bread? i’m one of those people who can just eat one slice of bread at a time, but this stuff makes you want to eat more than one slice. i don’t know what they do to it, all i know is that it’s the best bread ever. thankfully it’s not some crazy price like milk, and i hope things stay that way.

folks, when they announced a live action Transformers movie, i threw up in my mouth a little bit. i had already had memories from my childhood tainted because Hollywood wanted to make a buck. does anyone remember the Dukes of Hazzard movie? I played with Transformers, i watched the cartoons, and hearing they were going to make a movie with live action robots just didn’t seem like a good idea to me.

fast forward to tonight, and after having seen it, it was TOTALLY AWESOME! sure the story had some holes and there was some needless politics, but seeing Optimus Prime in all his CGI glory ordering “Autobots….ROLL OUT!” made me smile. the amazing computer animation, the genuine robot transforming sound, the screechy voice for Starscream….it all worked. If only Mute Math’s version of the Transformers Theme would have made it into the credits, we may have had a near perfect movie. it was way better than i thought it would be. i was even able to forgive them for having Megatron not be a gun, Jazz not be a Porsche, and Bumblebee to not be a Beetle. i totally caught all of the references to the cartoons, which i’m still not sure if i should be proud or afraid of. either way, the imperfections in the movie were made up with the computer generated robot war going on, and i loved it.

I celebrated America’s 231st birthday in style on Wednesday. yes, that is the American flag bandana which last made an appearance last year at Kelly Clarkson. I went to a family cookout during the day where we ended up playing the Wii since it rained all day. then that night, the AG had a get together which involved fireworks, fruit pizza, and corona tasting American beer. i think the plan is to have more frequent AG get togethers since they always end up being a good time. The middle of the week holiday threw me off though, and I spent Thursday and Friday thinking they were Monday and Tuesday.

I’ve been going to a non denom church that usually I would just go once every couple of months. I actually have not been going to church much because my home church is pretty boring. All I do when I go is sit there and think how I’m not getting anything out of it, and how i wish everything was better. Anyway, so I’ve been going to Church of the King, and it’s been great. I know there are some aspects of it that my friends don’t like, but I’m actually enjoying the sermons and the atmosphere. Plus, going at 9 am gets me up early and I feel productive when I’m out early on a Sunday, and I’ve been in a great mood all day. I have been late both weeks though (I’m almost always late to church), so imagine my relief when they announced in today’s bulletin that starting in August the start time will be pushed to 9:30? Of course, that probably means I’ll start getting there at 9:45.

Has anyone been keeping track of the amazing music coming out right now? I have been blamed for a few people breaking down to buy Easy Tiger. I’ll gladly take that kind of blame. As opposed to the lack of good concerts coming to New Orleans for pretty much the rest of the summer, there are going to be a couple of albums i’m going to be on the lookout for. The new Eisley drops in August, and they put up one of their new songs on their myspace called “Invasion”. Y’all, you need to go listen to it. You can thank me later.

just got back from the new die hard movie and it was great. except for the one part where he took on a plane that isn’t in production yet, i chalked everything up to creative license. i highly recommend it if you’re looking for a good action movie this weekend, or in the next few weeks. one thing though, don’t let your little cousins go to the movie. we were in line buying tickets, and there were these kids being dropped off by their mom to go see the 9:40 showing. wtf? it’s die hard, not disney for crying out loud.

so i meant to post some of the stories from the conference and wedding. first of all, i learned how to peel a banana backwards….which actually is a better way to peel a banana. we were sitting in a class one day, and one of the guys at my table started peeling a banana backwards. we all asked what he was doing, but after he explained it, this new way made perfect sense. go ahead, next time you go to eat a banana, peel from the bottom. no fighting with the stem, no squishing the top unnecessarily….just a perfectly peeled banana. i’m telling you, and it’s a good conversation starter also. when i met up with my friend heather for coffee last weekend, i bought a banana just so i could show her and talk about it.

i went to the conference last week not really looking forward to it because i’ve been to two before, and not really made friends with people from other sites. this time though, i did. we played darts and hung out, and now i’ve kept talking to new friends and might even go to their pirate party in the fall. the networking worked this time!

the wedding was great. the decorating of the car was the one thing i wish i could have had a better handle on. you know the drill, the wedding party decorates the car of the newly married couple as they drive off into the sunset. i told one of my fellow groomsmen (not a groomsman) the night before to get some white shoe polish. as the honorary best man, i was with the groom the whole time providing protection and assistance, so i wasn’t going to take the groom himself out to find supplies to decorate his car. lame, right? so i asked someone to get some shoe polish, and anything else he could think of. he was already married, so i figured he could carry out this task…no problem. so the post wedding activities are going on, and i negotiate time with the wedding planner to decorate the car. our supplies are a pack of oreos, some canned whipped cream, and these face painting pencils that you have to have water for. you can see where this is going. i chose the face painting pencils which worked less than stellar…..actually, they sucked. i actually just started finger painting on the car because the pencils were not working. the rest of the groomsmen (not groomsmen) used the oreos and whipped cream. of course, it being a summer day, by the time the bride and groom got to the car, the whipped cream and oreos had melted. other than that, we were all able to perform our duties without falling down, tripping on something, or not having the right sized tux.

the speech i gave actually came off pretty good. i was a little nervous before, but the guy who went before me kind of rambled on about stuff, i lost what he was talking about (partly cause i was trying to remember what i was going to say), and made things a little awkward by saying he and the bride’s father used to go after fast cars and fast women. (i laughed for him) i forgot to include a few parts of what i thought about saying, but i totally went without notes and winged the speech. well, maybe not winged, i remembered what i had written, but i didn’t have anything written to look at, so i did it all from memory. it came off pretty well i think….i mean, i was still in the wedding the next day so i must have done something right.

it was a really great week/weekend and i’m glad i took so many pictures to remember it by. i think i’ve finally broken through taking a lot of pictures. i used to be awful about taking pictures with film cameras. it would take me a couple of months to finish one roll of film. i am taking my camera with me to both cookouts tomorrow as i celebrate America’s birth. should be a great day of family, friends, and good brew. so this july fourth, be a true patriot, take pictures of yourself in an american flag bandana…such as this one of me from last year.