Rantings of Stu

This July 4th, I remember all the normal things you are supposed to remember. Like the fact that New York held out for 5 days before signing the Declaration of Independence, that South Carolina refused to provide soldiers to General Lincoln to defend their very own Charleston from the British, that it took those geniuses in Congress 165 years to finally make the nation’s birthday a legal holiday (guess they just wanted another paid day off), that it took nearly 90 years to open freedom to every American… uh, oh yeah, and the sacrifices of our forefathers that make it possible for me to pursue happiness.

To show my gratitude, I’m going to repost my response to my friend’s 4th of July special Four for Friday meme here on my own blog. Please enjoy!

Q1 - Holiday Travel: Retail gas prices rose overnight to a record high for the fourth day in a row, ahead of the July 4 holiday weekend — one of the nation’s busiest weekends for travel. Have you changed your July Fourth plans because of rising gas prices?

My plans were to drive to the local Burger King and get me a Whopper combo. But now, I’m not so sure I can afford the gas to do so

Q2 - Neighbors: On the afternoon of November 14, 2007, 61-year-old Joe Horn shot and killed two men burglarizing his Vietnamese-American neighbor’s home in Pasadena, Texas. Despite how you feel about Horn’s actions, would you choose to defend your neighbor’s home in the same way?

Well, if I were in Texas (where it’s legal to lethally defend property) and assuming I didn’t hate my neighbor (in which case I’d probably join in on the burglarizing), yes I would. In Utah, the laws make it much more difficult to defend yourself (much less your property or your neighbor’s property), so there’s no way I would. Hey, Texas being Texas, I figure if you try to rob a man’s house you better be expecting to get shot.

Q3 - Gobble Up: Now that the European Large Hadron Collider is completed and ready to fire up in August, a slew of articles have popped up on the Internet and in newspapers around the world quoting doomsayers. An AP article from last weekend was the most recent example of critics warning that the 17-mile, $5.8 billion supercollider–which will slam protons together in an attempt to learn more about the building blocks of the universe–will inadvertently create a black hole that will gobble up planet Earth. Are you worried?

A black hole? I’ve always wanted to see one of those things close up! Actually, I’m more distressed over Schrodinger’s cat. Where’s the Humane Society when you need them?! I’m pretty sure it’ll take more than a couple of protons colliding to create a black hole. And if it does… man, what a way to go!!!

Q4 - You Choose: We all know that there only 12 months in a year. But what if I gave you the ability to add a 13th month to the calendar! What would you call this 13th month and where in the calendar would you place it?

I would call the month “Stusmember” and make it the first month of the year. It would be the AWESOMEST month EVER… every year!

So there you have it folks! I edited the questions for space. To see the full, unedited version, visit Mikal’s BeliBlog and answer the Four for Friday yourself.

In the never-ending scientific research to better understand why some people are stupid, a lot of attention has been focused on road ragers whose logic seems, well, illogical.

Road ragers are often hypocrites — tailgating others then slamming on their brakes when they are tailgated, cutting people off then giving the bird when honked at but giving the bird and honking if they are ever cut off, trashing Utah drivers when they themselves are a Utah driver (yet all the while proclaiming their immunity to the “Utah driver” moniker), not using their turn signal but throwing fits when others do the same… the list is endless.

And thanks to the great American tradition of spending money on pointless studies, scientists at Colorado State University have discovered and revealed in a recently published paper that drivers who plaster their cars with bumper stickers are more likely to have issues with road rage.

Come on now. Is this really news? You’re driving down the street and you see a car with something like, “I Brake for Nekkid Chicks” or “Keep Honking, I’ll Deal With You When I’m Done Yanking My Chain,” and you instantly understand the dope-hat behind the wheel isn’t particularly bright.

Now, while I don’t believe those geniuses down at CSU included this bit in their publication, I’m fairly certain that their research found that anybody with the bumper sticker of “We Love Stu!” is a happy, content, loved-by-everybody-and-would-never-commit-road-rage all around awesome person.

So… I stopped by the Macey’s on my way home from work today to pick up a bottle of some sweet Pace Picante Sauce. It was on sale for about a third off. Wow! Could there possibly be a better deal to be had anywhere in the universe? I think not!

Anyway, let’s get to the conversation part shall we?

I hit the express lane. Ten items or less, and I’m second in line. I’ll be out of there in no time! Unfortunately for me, the older gentleman ahead of me was using an archaic payment method. I think they call it “writing a check”?

Okay okay… I know. The conversation.

Okay, so the gentleman ahead of me takes a look at me and says, “Too much basketball?” and pointed at my slung-up arm.

“Too much motorcycling,” I respond.

I was about to continue the conversation when the man’s wife walks up and informs the man that he wrote his check out for the wrong amount. So he tears up his check and starts anew.

Now, this is where things get interesting. After the man finishes writing his new check and hands it to the amazingly hot cashier (yes, as you’ll find later on, the hotness of the cashier is an important factor to the story) he turns to me and says, “You know, six years ago they found a tumor in my colon that was this big,” and he holds his hands up to express a tumor that is roughly the size of an orange.

Okay. Now for some people, that might be a perfectly normal thing to say to a complete stranger that you meet in the checkout lane of the local grocery store. But for me, not so much.

My first thought was to respond with, “Wow, that is really gross!”

I managed to get out, “Wow…” before catching myself and realizing the rest probably isn’t very socially acceptable. Yeah, talking about your gigantic, cancerous, stage three colonic tumor is okay. Saying that talking about your gigantic, cancerous, stage three colonic tumor is gross is a bit inappropriate; or so says Miss Manners.

A bit taken aback, I’m not sure how to respond, so I say, “You know, I write for a living and I’ve written a lot about cancer treatments. It’s amazing what they can do these days.”

So after I learn that after 6 months of chemo treatments — no radiotherapy! — the tumor disappeared, the cashier has rung up my picante sauce and, looking quite apologetic for interrupting our stimulating discussion about cancer in the 7th planet from the Sun (Uranus… get it? Hahaha! It never gets old!), tells me I owe her $2.05. I hand my cash over.

The man then says he’s gotta go and bids farewell. Of all the places to get tongue tied! I wasn’t sure what to say. I almost said, “Good luck!”

Then, realizing that would be stupid (we’re in Orem Utah, not an unregulated whore house in Reno), I stammer out, “Have a good one!”

I turn to the amazingly hot cashier, who I would normally have been quite charming with, and simply thank her for allowing me the pleasure of spending my money

The end.

Remember the Family Guy episode where Peter accidentally locks his keys out of his car at the grocery store parking lot? He yells at passersby to hand him his keys which are lying on the ground just outside his car, but nobody helps him.

Something quite similar happened recently. Luckily the girl who locked herself in her car had a cell phone. That’s good because with all her windows rolled up — her battery dead, making it impossible to roll them down — she couldn’t hear the instructions from the cops who were there trying to help her, so she signaled them to call her on her cell phone.

See, with her battery dead, she couldn’t roll down the windows and crawl out, and the electric door lock switch didn’t work either. So when she finally got the cops on the phone, they were able to give her instructions on how to use the manual door lock override. Yeah, they told her to use her finger to slide the door lock to the unlocked position.

I wish I could say that this was Paris Hilton or some other equally useless “celebrity.” But alas, this actually happened in Utah, right here in my home town of Orem.

Here is an excerpt from the story, taken from the website of local news station KUTV:

Automatic car features are supposed to make life easier for motorists, but they may be leaving some people without the know-how to do things the old-fashioned way. That’s what happened to a driver in Utah County who became trapped inside her own car.

When police arrived, they found the woman sitting in the car, unable to get herself out.

Once officers were able to talk to the woman on the phone, they were able to tell her how to manually operate the slide lock mechanism on the inside door panel to open the door and free herself.

“I’m just glad she had a cell phone to call for help,” an officer said.

Uh, yeah. Good thing she had her cell phone, because it would have been so unfortunate to lose one of this century’s greatest minds!

Read the actual story on the KUTV website.

Alright. I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life, so I’ll cut the lady a little slack. Then again, no. I’m sorry, but that was just really, uh, how you say… stupid?

I’m a bit embarrassed that I forgot to blog about Memorial Day. No, let me say that I am ashamed. I took advantage of the day off from work to play some poker and didn’t bother paying homage to those unto whom I am so indebted that I could never possibly repay them.

Rather than rant at length about this nation’s haters — especially the domestic ones — I’ll simply refer you to my previous year’s post on this subject and repeat these lines from it:

A true soldier serves to honor himself in the service of his country, and respects his enemy for doing the same. And when he kills his enemy counterpart, he remembers to respect the enemy soldier for his bravery, courage, and willingness to sacrifice in a time when the willing are so few.

So this Memorial Day I call upon all Americans to take a few moments to remember our fallen who served with courage, distinction, and most importantly honor. May God forever bless you for your service. I shall always remember your sacrifice.

This Missing Man Formation is an aerial salute in which four planes fly in formation. One plane breaks formation by going vertical, representing that not everyone made it home. It is a salute to those who fell.

The plane goes vertical, heading towards heaven, because to die in the service is to die with honor and in my book, that gets you an automatic ticket into heaven.

And when he goes to heaven
To St. Peter he will tell
Another Marine reporting, Sir
I’ve served my time in hell

So a few months ago, my old TV started to go on the fritz. It started with the speakers, then the on/off switch started to fry. Just the excuse I needed to go out and finally hook up with a brand new HDTV.

Now, normally I’m an early adopter. I bought my first DVD player for $350 (and that was the cheap one!) way back in 1996′ish. I believe me, I’ve wanted an HDTV ever since 1988 when I first heard of their use in Japan, and I REALLY wanted to get one when they finally introduced them in the states. Unfortunately, I didn’t happen to have $10 grand lying around begging to be spent, so I waited.

Well, I saved a few bones by waiting. Thanks to James, Best Buy area manager in northern Utah, and Johnnie, manager at the Best Buy in West Jordan, I totally got hooked up with a sweet 1080p 42″ Panasonic plasma screen.

Am I happy with my purchase? Incredibly so. The picture is awesome and, uh, big. Not as big as the 70-incher that I hope to someday have (oh man, that just sounds so naughty!) but it will tide me over until the day I take over the world.

Next step? A Blu Ray player. I already switched my Netflix account over to Blu Ray… I better buy one soon!

So my fellow blogger, Girl in the Crosswalk, had this great idea to create a list of dirty secrets. It seemed like a pretty therapeutic idea, so I decided to steal her idea and create one of my own!

Now, to all three (or so) people that read my blog, don’t even think about visiting Girl in the Crosswalk unless you are going to be nice! That said, here is my own laundry list of dirty little secrets:

1. I was born with a natural ability to shoot guns accurately. I was my platoon’s top marksman in boot camp. My shooting instructor told me the first day he met me, “You are one hell of a good shot, you know that recruit?” I tell people I love guns because shooting is something I’m good at, and I like to show off my skill. The truth is, I’m just keeping myself prepared for the end of the world when I’ll have to shoot all the crazy people trying to come and steal my sweet 70″ HDTV – which I haven’t bought yet, but will someday.

2. I have this crazy desire within me to raid drug houses and steal all their money and guns. Seems like a great way to make a living, don’t you think?

3. I think Rocky Road ice cream is nasty. But in my defense, I love chocolate and peanut butter ice cream!

4. My youngest son, who is currently five, has turned out to have a very logical-thinking mind, yet at the same time he is quite creative. I’ve decided to start preparing him to become a dancing astrophysicist when he grows up. It’s what I would like to be, so I’ll precariously live my dream through him.

5. I love cats, so I went down to the local Humane Society and adopted a couple of them. About two days later, I learned to hate cats. But I still love my cats… I just wish they would stop shedding, crapping, and barfing all over the place.

6. Starship Troopers is one of my favorite movies. Yeah, I know. The directing sucked and the acting was cheesy. But man, I just LOVED it!

7. I’m a lazy bastie. Oh wait, that’s not really much of a secret.

8. Even though I’m half Filipino, I used to want to join the KKK – which I’m pretty sure I could accomplish being that I look totally white (unlike the KKK member in the photo… what the–?!) – because I think those big dunce cap lookin’ things they wear are totally stylish and awesome looking!

9. After meeting a few KKK members, I realized they are a bunch of numbnuts, so now I want to join them because I know I’d be the smartest guy there.

I remember seeing the following headline on Yahoo! Magazine many years ago: “On the Internet, you can be a dog and nobody will know.”

Which leads me to the biggest secret of my life…

I might be a dog!

I was speaking with my friend Elwon Bakly yesterday. Elwon, for those who don’t know, is one of the most talented actors the world has ever known! Well, he would be if the world knew of him.

This speaking with Elwon lead me to consider watching a movie he was in called The Basket. He plays a returning WWII vet who is one pissed mofo at the German Nazi basties who messed him up somethin’ fierce while he was trying to free Europe.

Anyway, so I logged in to my Netflix account to watch the trailer for it. That’s when I realized that I could watch the entire movie (well, the important parts anyway… the parts with Elwon in them) just from the trailer.

So to honor my friend Elwon, I decided to put together this Eltage… or Monwon? Er, I’ll just say Elwon montage. Thus, you can now enjoy the greatness of Elwon Bakly.

So there you have it folks!

Now, Elwon normally plays comedic roles. However, The Basket is a drama, and Elwon has played the part of Jesus of Nazareth in the past. Nonetheless, if you want to waste your time watching the parts of the movie that don’t have Elwon, well, I guess I won’t hold it against you.

Why do ninjas make me cry you ask?

Is it because they appear in a choking black cloud of smoke to cover me in ninja throwing stars, then disappear while leaving me on the floor to suffer in great pain as I slowly bleed to death?

Or perhaps because they covertly conceal themselves silently in my bathroom waiting patiently for the perfect moment to strike me through the heart with their expertly crafted ninja sword as I relieve myself?

Is it for all the times a ninja has performed the “vibrating palm” death touch (or def touch for all you Bloodsport fans out there) on me, sending me to my grave only to then give me the life touch, pulling me back from heaven’s grasp?

Maybe it’s just because I feel so sorry for them because they have no sense of true style?

No… no, none of these is true. The real reason they make me cry is revealed in this image below.

Crying from laughter… shameful.

It’s come to my attention that there are a lot of people out there claiming to be the man behind the iron mask. Well, I’m here to put all those rumors to rest. Conspiracy theorists need no longer concern themselves with what the real identity of Iron Man is. Donald Rumsfeld is NOT, in fact, Iron Man.

I had hoped I wouldn’t have to do this, but I’m just tired of other people taking credit for all my superheroing, world saving, cat-rescuing-out-of-trees and so forth. Yep, you guessed it. Iron Man is… ME! And here’s an actual, undoctored photo to prove it:

That’s me holding the very first comic book I ever bought, the May 1987 issue of Iron Man, purchased from a Safeway supermarket.

As you can see, the cover showed my demise. I had to check myself, because as far as I knew I was still quite intact. I had no choice but to purchase the comic book which was based on me. It was kind of weird having them call me Tony Stark and what not, but whatever. I guess they wanted to avoid getting sued by me.

Now, I know what you’re saying…

“Stu, how do we know you didn’t just create an Iron Man mask in your garage and put it on to fool us?”

To that, I respond with this recent photo taken by the U.S. Military when I accidentally wandered into the air space over Area 51. My helmet was in the shop for repairs that day, so I just flew without it. And to answer your question before you ask it, yes I got a lot of bugs in my teeth that day.

Also, don’t forget to catch my movie coming out May 2nd. Unlike the comic book, I actually personally endorse it. Because, you know, me and director John Favreau are good pals. Maybe not as close as J.J. Abrams, but almost.