According to PJ, there's a new commercial involving both The King and the Double Thumbs-Up. If anybody can find it online, please send me a link. I'm dying to see it.

How 'bout that heat? It's about all anyone can talk about these days and understandably so. It's miserable out there. There's a reason I live north of the Mason-Dixon Line and it's so I don't have to deal with crap like this (in addition to other loathsome things like grits, drawls, and sweet tea). My brother also had a few choice words to say about the heat:

"Trying to sleep when it's hot is like trying to sleep when somebody's punching you in the face."

"People who say that it's better when it's hot out? When I'm president, I think I'm going to have them executed."

Any other thoughts on "the heat"?

Oh, and I received a great forward from PJ yesterday that made my day. It simply read:

Some people are like slinkies...

Not really good for anything but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs.

Ha!

Burger King keeps getting wackier by the day. And I think I like it.

First it was that creepy plastic king from the commericials that eerily keeps showing up everywhere. 5 points for that one. The King (not Elvis) is way cooler than Ronald McDonald. Heck, he's even cooler than The Hamburglar. (What ever happened to him, anyway?)

Next came my favorite, the subservient chicken. 15 points. There's something delightfully devious about making a guy in a chicken costume do push-ups or dance on command.

Another 5 points to BK for the sack that my food came in today. It reads:

Official Baggler Procedure

French fries that have attempted to escape from their container only to strand themselves in the bottom of the bag are called "bagglers." Bagglers are fair game. The first to open the bag and retrieve the baggler gets to eat the baggler. Therefore, it is in one's best interest to be the keeper of the bag.

I am still suffering the effects of the dishwasher incident. Apparently there was enough soap left in there to cause the thing to suds up all over again the next time I ran it. So I was forced to keep running the rinse cycle until I saw suds start to leak out, then stop it until the the suds receded. Rinse. Stop. Rinse. Stop. Until the dishsoap was finally purged.

On the bright side, my kitchen floor is literally clean enough to eat off.

In further weekend film foibles, Sunday afternoon I decided to finally watch Doctor Zhivago for the first time. So I popped in the disc, "widescreen" side up, to catch the epic movie in its fullest form. The main menu pops up and I hit "Play Movie". So I'm watching the movie and it's a little difficult to follow, but it's playing along nicely. Then, before I know it, it's done in only 80 minutes. So, I'm thinking, "That movie is WAY overrated. And what kind of 'epic' is only 80 minutes long, anyway?"

So I browse through the chapter menu to see if I somehow skipped over something and there it is: "Chapters 1-37 on Side A". D'oh! In my defense, though, neither the menus nor the DVD itself were in any way marked to indicate side "A" or "B".

Anyway, with this revelation, I was able to watch the movie in it's entirety and I must say that it is much better with the first 120 minutes than without.

Saturday evening Beth and I went to check out Control at the Dryden Theater at the George Eastman House. The film society holds a continual film series there. We knew nothing about the film, but the museum's description included the words "Ray Liotta", "Willem Dafoe" and "vicissitudes", so we figured it was worth a shot.

So we walk over to the theater and settle in to enjoy the film. The film society's chairman comes out to briefly introduce both the film and its director who is in attendance as a guest and to answer questions after the film. After briefly discussing director Tim Hunter's body of work, Mr. Chairman begins to talk about Control and its "indictment of the pharmaceutical industry". He then talks about the movie's themes and the "startling revelation that doctor may be more in need of treatment than the patient" or something like that. And with that he welcomes Tim Hunter to the podium. Mr. Hunter thanks the audience, then proceeds to tell that audience that "any 'themes' contained in the movie are purely accidental." (Ha!) He continues, saying the film is "one of those movies actors do for the paycheck", instructing the audience to just sit back and enjoy the film for what it is.

Beth and I had a good chuckle over this. And I was glad the director made these statements to sufficiently lower my expectations so I could enjoy the movie. And it was rather enjoyable. Quite honestly, the plot was fairly predictable and many of the characters cliche, but it was a lot of fun to watch Ray Liotta. The performance was quite good and he's just a fun guy to watch. ...and he has, quite possibly, the most malevolent laugh known to man. It cracks me up every time.

I just recalled a fascinating incident from several months ago.

My mother and sister had come to visit me and we all went out to dinner. My sister had a little, brighly-colored cocktail umbrella from one of our dishes that she was twirling around in her fingers. Suddenly, this look of sheer malevolence spread across my mother's face and, with a speed and reflex as only seen on the Discovery channel, snatched the umbrella from my sister's hand smashed it to splinters in her clenched fist.

It was by far the most maniacal thing I'd ever seen my mother do. I didn't know she had it in her. It was quite funny.

It is inevitable that whenever one asks, "What's the worst that could happen?" the worst will happen. This is why it is important, before uttering this phrase, to ensure that "the worst" is an outcome one is prepared to handle.

Saturday afternoon I didn't remember I was out of Cascade until after I had loaded the dishwasher and was ready to run it. So I decided to give regular dishsoap a try. Beth, who was visiting for the weekend, questioned if it was a good idea to which I, of course, replied, "What's the worst that can happen? The dishes don't get clean? That's no worse off than I am now. Or maybe the dishwasher gets too sudsy spews bubbles onto the kitchen floor. But come on. That only happens in sitcoms." So I close up the dishwasher and set it running.

Well, I think by now you know where this is going. Beth and I head off to the living room to chat. 30-45 minutes later I head back into the kitchen only to find the kitchen floor half-covered with suds leaking from the dishwasher.

I felt like I was living in an episode of The Brady Bunch.

Hmmm. Why is it I feel like I've been working for 14 hours when it's only been 9?

I'm not a very emotional person. I don't get choked up by Hallmark commercials or chick flicks. But for some reason, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition gets me all teary every time.

Today I got stuck in the proverbial "battle of wits with an unarmed man". A guy I work with decided to assert that no good music had been written since 1988. And the whole thing just spiraled downward from there.

Unarmed man (UAM): Yeah, all the music from the 90s sucked.
Sara: (trying to be nice) I rather liked a lot of the music in the 90s.
UAM: No, it sucked. Name me one good band in the 90s.
S: Off the top of my head? Ummm... Pearl Jam. Nirvana. Soundgarden. Smashing Pumpkins. Alice in Chains.
UAM: Alice in Chains?! Who likes Alice in Chains? Who was even IN Alice in Chains? I bet nobody besides you even knows who was in Alice in Chains. But Poison, man, they ruled. EVERYBODY knows the guys from Poison.

At this point I knew that getting this guy to see the light was a lost cause so I just let him continue.

UAM: Dude. All those guys in the 90s were just a bunch of poseurs, man. They couldn't write a melody AND they were fake. Those guys in the 80s? Van Halen, Guns 'N Roses, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Billy Idol? They were the real deal.

How do you even respond to that? If I didn't know better, I'd assume the guy pulling out some hard core sarcasm, but alas, he was not. The only thing I could do at this point was throw in the towel. I conceded that I DID think Slash was pretty cool and we made nice talking about how much fun it was to watch a guitar being played by a Cousin It-like nest of hair with a lit cigarette jutting out of it.

I had another grocery store experience this evening. Once again, I was in the checkout line. I was waiting patiently for the lady in front of me to finish, when from behind I heard an astonishing series of belches. I expected to turn to find a youngster but instead found an elderly gentleman with a comb-over and polyester pants. Surprisingly enough, he apologized and looked sheepish so I decided shelve the disgusted look and smile and shake my head instead. I say "surprisingly" because seldom do guys seem to be embarrassed about these things and generally speaking (I may be getting myself into some trouble here) the elderly tend not to get embarrassed about much of anything. But I was inclined to smile and chat with this guy since he had the decency to look sheepish...and because I can't really expect much more from a guy whose $50 purchase consisted almost entirely of baked beans, jello cups, orange soda, and Mylanta.

Sales clerks are useless. Whenever I need one, there isn't one to be found. Otherwise they won't leave me alone. Or when I do finally throw them a bone and ask for help, they can't help me. Either they have no idea how to help, or they're just plain clueless. For example, a couple of weeks ago I went to the music store to try to find etudes and exercises for guitar. The guy manning the section asked a couple of times if I needed help finding anything. After "just browsing" for a little while, I finally asked if they had any "books of etudes and exercises for guitar to increase strength and dexterity, kind of like a 'Hanon' for guitar". The guy nods solemnly like he knows exactly where to go, then proceeds to walk me through the guitar section and point out the various sections ("Classical Guitar Method", "Fingerstyle Method"...) and then walk away. Thank you, Mr. Obvious.

For my birthday my brother and sister gave me the best gift you could ever give an engineer: the complete first season of MacGuyver on DVD. Nothing makes a geek's weekend like a MacGuyver marathon.

Last night I dreamed I was playing Gin Rummy with Ice Cube. And there was something about a Lexus with throw pillows in the backseat. Figure that one out.