Random Acts of Thursday - (not so) Free Samples

Samples?  Yes, please.  My grocery store (curse upon my life though it is) has started passing out samples of brownies on my last few visits.  Doesn't make up for them raising all of their prices, but still - free brownies.  Anyhow, it got me to thinking and I thought I'd regale you all with a little quiz about samples.  (You're all excited and tingly, I know.)

Below are songs that were sampled into other music, name the artist and song.

It's a hard-knock life (The Cast of 'Annie')
Under Pressure (Queen/David Bowie)
The Ocean (Led Zepplin)
Good Times (Chic)
We Will Rock You (Queen)
Thank You (Dido)
I'll Take You There (The Staple Singers)
I'm a Man (Bo Diddley)

The following films are sampled in song as well.  Name the artist and song.

Full Metal Jacket
Performance
Young Guns
Animal House

Even Mr. Spock got sampled!  Name the song.  You know you know it.

The following bands and artists are mentioned by other bands in their songs.  Name the song where each of these artists is referenced:

Anthrax
T Rex
Falco
Moby
The Beach Boys
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Jimmy Page

Bonus question: Why bother to sample when you're great on your own?  Name three bands that mention themselves in their song titles.

As usual, you don't win anything, except maybe some fine musical trivia knowledge to try out on your friends and family.  Aren't you lucky?

A long-awaited, highly-anticipated review.

So, kids, how was that for a build-up?  I know it's been a while since you've gotten such a coveted rental car review from me.  What can I say?  I haven't been traveling much.  However, last week I had a new Chrysler 200, and it was a mixed bag.  

Pros: Great pickup, automatic headlamps and auto climate.  The car has a nice roadfeel.  For basic seating it was still relatively comfortable.  Compass on the dash with the temperature, not something I expect in a basic car.  

Cons: Rear visibility sucks.  The seats are so high and the headrests are fixed so you can't do anything about it.  At slow speeds like the parking lot, the steering is cumbersome.  It feels like there's no power steering at all.  When I shut off the car at night, the headlamps look like they project the Chrysler wing logo.  Maybe that's not a con, but it's gimicky and it's blatant product placement, to which I'm opposed.  I don't like how all the doors unlock at once when you open the car, but that's probably a setting somewhere.  The trunklid is heavy to open, like the little air pistons are fighting you instead of assisting.  Plus, the liftover is quite high.  Not a candidate for long-term driving, for sure.

It's not one of the cubish little cars my boss gets from time to time, so that's a plus.  I don't know that I could take myself seriously in a Kia Soul or one of those little Nissans.  But it's also not the new 200, a beautiful departure from the 2011 model I had.  

Overall, I could be nitpicking because it's not as cool as the 300.  I still think the car is quite drivable and not bad looking in its own right.  Once I figured out the climate control, it was a polar excursion for me, a nicety in hot, humid weather.  I give it a tentative B-. 

Which Side Are You On?

I have always been a bed hog.  When left to my own devices, I sleep diagonally or even across the bed sideways.  Lori keeps me in check and usually on my left side, facing away from her so the snoring is slightly less locomotive-like.  However, if, nay, WHEN I go to bed early, I'm sure I spread out and need to be moved.  I know when I'm traveling for work, I revert to old habits and take up the whole bed again. 

Some years ago, probably about the time we got married, I got switched from the left side to the right side of the bed.  I don't know exactly how it happened, but what probably started as a whim so I could be near the fan has become permanent.  I suppose I don't mind this, but that might have something or another to do with why I gravitate back to the other side of the bed when left unchecked.

A cursory search of the Internet shows studies to determine if you sleep better on one side versus the other (right versus left, not top versus bottom), or if it matters in a relationship, which seems to dictate that the man sleeps closest to the door, which I usually do by virtue of the room design.  There's no feng shui of bed side that I can find.  I don't even understand the feng shui diagrams available on Google, though admittedly I didn't try very hard.

How about you, dear reader?  Do you have a preference of side?  Does the person with whom you share a bed have a side preference, thereby relegating you to the other side by default?  Do you sleep on a side when you're alone?

Blast from the Past - The Other Organ Donor

Times continue to be busy around here at CDS Enterprises (A wholly-owned division of NFG Worldwide, Ltd.) and despite recent posts, I still feel compelled to share past musings and crotchety posts from the ether.

In light of my repeated musings on the subject of pork and pork products, I thought I'd share this little gem with you from May '07. 

I've been thinking about the news stories reported below HERE and HERE and the possible implications for the last few weeks, since it ran on our local news (actually, we just looked it up on the station's website, since I can't sit through 58 minutes of human interest drivel just to get to the one potentially significant news story of the evening…). I've had diabetic family members, as has Lori. Our friend was just diagnosed at age 35. One of my clients is active in the state's chapter of the ADA, and we've ridden in the 'Ride for the Cure' pledge drive. However, it doesn't mean I knew anything about the disease, and especially that 20 million people in the US alone are afflicted with it. I can't even imagine 20 Milwaukee-sized cities full of people (or, as it turns out, 20 Cleveland-sized cities). In a world of 6.7 billion people, and even in a nation of over 300 million, the number suddenly seems insignificant. (Actually, the US Census Bureau projects that the US gains one person every 11 seconds, between births, deaths, and immigration, and our planet gains approximately 60 million people each year.)


The medical community has been breeding immunosuppressant swine for years now, to develop xenotransplantation-safe organs since we're wearing ours out faster than we can donate them. For my further thoughts on organ donation, click here.
I may be a selfish bastard, but if we keep curing diseases and cleaning up pollution and driving smaller cars and buying organic vegetables, how long will it be before we've outgrown the planet? Surely a topic for another blog entry would be the exponential loss of farmland in our nation to housing developments, and at the same time the fact that we produce more food on fewer acres thanks again to the scientific community. But that is, in fact, a topic for another blog so that's all I'll say here.

Yes, this is a disjointed commentary, because I have so many unanswered questions. Anyone who knows me understands that this is how my brain works. So, without further ado or segue, what do they do with the pigs once they've donated their bodies to science? If the islet cells are taken from the pigs, do the pigs become diabetic, or can their bodies manufacture more? If the pigs give their lives for this process, does the research lab at least have a nice pig roast the following weekend? I can't imagine such a waste of resources if the resultant meat (as long as it remains immunosuppressantly delicious) were just thrown away, instead of being consumed. Unless, of course, once you've received porcine cells, that eating a pork chop would be tantamount to cannibalism. And what about the Muslim and Semitic populations of the world? Religious dogma for these groups dictates the consumption of pork is taboo, what does it say about having the swine's cellular makeup inserted into the very makeup of our genetic profile?

Like I said, I have so many unanswered questions. And now I'm hungry, too.

Movie Mania Monday - Everybody's a Winner

Happy 2011, childrens, and Auld Lang Syne and all of that! 

Time to announce the winners of our second annual trivial trivia giveaway!  There was much work involved, and in the end, only three brave souls dared enter the squared circle we call the NerDome.  (We do.  Really.  I didn't just make that up.)  For those of you looking to expand your education, keep reading.

Tied for first place are Daisy and Kari, who worked their internets to the bone coming up with these answers.

Third place goes to Frank, and really, doesn't everyone win when bacon is involved?

For the curious among you, here are the preferred winning answers:

1)  Name two films that featured two future state governors.  

A)  "Batman and Robin", "Predator" and "Running Man" all starred Jesse Ventura (MN) and Ahnuld Schwartzenegger (CA).  "Predator" also starred Sonny Landham, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for governor of Kentucky, and there is currently a Facebook campaign to elect Carl "Apollo Creed" Weathers to a governorship just to make the 'Governor vs. Predator' argument.  

2)  Name another that featured one future governor and a chimp.

A)  This could only be the Gipper.  Ronald Reagan, then future governor of California co-starred with a monkey in "Bedtime for Bonzo".

3)  Hal Holbrook has never been a governor.  Hal Holbrook has never been president either, but he's played two on TV as well as helping to topple a third in film.  Name two films where his good-guy role turns out to be a front, and he's exposed as the villain (Scooby-Doo style, if you will.)

A)  I underestimated this one, as Hal Holbrook seems to become the villain more often than not.  I was thinking of "Magnum Force" and "Fletch Lives", but I was also given "The Firm" as an option.  Sure, it's just opinion, but somehow I doubt Hal's role in "All the president's men" changed from beginning to end of the film, and it seems that he was an asshole from the start in "Capricorn One". 

4)  Speaking of Scooby Doo (in an offhand sort of way), explain the significance of September 14, 1985 in music history.  (It has to do, marginally, with the Pointer Sisters and one of their 'upbeat' songs, if that helps.  It went to eleven.)

A)  A day that will live in infamy, this was Casey Kasem's 'Snuggles' rant, about having to do a dedication to a dead dog coming out of the Pointer Sisters song.  The rant was later edited into U2, a song by alternative band Negativland.  One would hope you're not asking what this has to do with Scooby Doo.  If you are, go check out Casey's IMDB page.  I'm not giving you a link, that just encourages your laziness.

5)  Also on that day, one of the greatest premieres in all of television occurred, that being "The Golden Girls".  The theme song was originally released by Andrew Gold in 1978.  Name two films to feature Gold's previous hit, 'Lonely Boy'.

A)  Both "Boogie Nights" and "The Water Boy" included this tune on their soundtracks.

6)  Now that you're all sexed up thinking about the television show mentioned above, maybe thinking about baseball would help.  Who followed Jimmy Blake to the plate, possibly in Massachusetts but just as possibly in California, depending upon who you believe?

A)  Jimmy Blake was second at bat, right before Casey in "Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888" by Ernest Thayer.

7 & 8)  Speaking of geography, how far is Winnipeg from Montreal?  Who told you that distance?

A)  While driving distances would be 1470 or 1711 miles depending upon your route, we weren't talking about driving but actual geographic distance.  Currently distance from airport to airport is 1136 miles.  However, according to Mr. Memory, from Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps", the distance is actually 1148 miles.

9)  Why is that distance in miles instead of kilometers?  Burma!  (Sorry, I panicked.  I'm not Doctor bloody Bernofsky, you know.)

A)  "The 39 Steps" was released in 1939.  However, the metric system was not universally in use in Great Britain until 1965, and Canada until 1973.  Presently only three nations worldwide have yet to complete 'Metrication':  The United States of America, Liberia, and Burma.

10)  What do they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in France?

A)  Official spelling on the McDonalds website lists the 'Royal Cheese' as an offering in France.  However, were you to be a Tarantino fan, you'd know this to be the 'Royale with Cheese' of "Pulp Fiction" fame, because thanks to the Metric system, the French don't know what a quarter pound is.

11)  Finally, which actress was born on the anniversary of the Mexican Revolution, and became a global sensation after starring in one of the late Blake Edwards' films?

A)  Bo Derek starred in "Ten", and was the subject of my most popular blog post to date.

I'd like to thank everyone who participated, and I'm looking forward to far more entries on future give-aways.

And of course, what would Monday be without a movie quote to identify?  No Googling or using any other search engines on this one, either you recognize the quote or you don't.  Identify the original source of the quote, no movies within movies or characters quoting past films.  Should you guess the quote correctly, you'll win the peoples' fame and ovation forever, along with the title of 'Iron Quote Guesser'.

The army couldn't afford drapes? I'll be up at the crack of dawn here!

Allez Guessing!

If it's Monday it must be snowing...

Alright, kids, we've got white-out conditions here in Cleveland, and somehow when The Boss compared his pink Cadillac favorably to a Subaru, I'm sure he wasn't referring to this kind of weather. All-wheel drive might be nice about now.

(And yes, I know people have said, I'm sure rightfully so, that the song has nothing to do with an actual Cadillac.  But you take my point, I hope.)

We're going remedial today, because there are still unsolved quotes in our past.  Go back and take a look, test your luck and venture a guess!  It's almost a Christmas season tribute, since two of the films feature little people, and two of them involve actors who've been in holiday movies in recent years.

Meantime, I'm going to hunker down and imagine I'm curled up with Lori on the sofa, watching the snow from beside a crackling fire. 

Stay warm, kids, and allez guessing!

Movie Mania Monday - Delays, delays.

So Cleveland has been hit with the first significant snowfall of the season.  It's been snowing more often than not since Friday, I think. 

As such, Movie Mania Monday is closed for the safety of our readers.  In the meantime, click here for some helpful advice, in the event you've never seen snow before or have lived in sub-tropical climates for the last three winters.  For true-to-life advice, I prefer this one.

Cheers.

Fun Fact Friday - Bluffin' with my MacGuffin

I figured we could start off the return of Fun Fact Friday with a little story from one of the great film directors of all time, Alfred Hitchcock:

Two men are riding in a train compartment together.  One man says, “What’s that package up there in the baggage rack?”  And the other answers, “Oh, that’s the MacGuffin.”  The first one asks, “What’s a MacGuffin?”  ”Well,” the other man says, “it’s an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.”  The first man says, “But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands,” and the other one answers, “Well then, that’s no MacGuffin!”

In short, the MacGuffin is a literary device.  Unlike a red herring (like Communism, for example), the MacGuffin does not aim to mislead but instead it serves to drive the plot of a story while being unimportant of itself.  The MacGuffin puts a story into action, like Janet Leigh stealing forty grand, then leaves the story faster than you can say "Oh God, Mother!"

Hitchcock was a master of the MacGuffin, like Harry in 'The Trouble with Harry', or the original theatre scene in 'The 39 Steps', and the unnamed government secrets in 'North by Northwest'.  Also widely regarded as MacGuffins are the briefcase in 'Pulp Fiction', the Maltese Falcon in 'The Maltese Falcon', the egg salad recipe in 'What's Up, Tiger Lily?', and my favorite, the gold in 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly'.

someone has too much time on their hands...

So remember kids, go out and drive a plot line.  Even if it turns out, in the end, you're really not important at all.

Random Acts of Thursday - Will the real Act of Thursday please stand up?

So yesterday, in my infinite absent-mindedness, I posted, thinking it was Thursday.  That was because I was so convinced that Tuesday was actually Wednesday, I left work having prepared for Wednesday to be Thursday.  Even my not getting up at 5:30 so I can drive to Columbus (like I'm doing today, maybe even as you read this) didn't trigger that it was still Wednesday.

Quick trivia for you kids today.  As you've figured out already, I love film.  Don't have much respect for awards shows or, for that matter, the awards themselves.  However, film and trivia?  Sign me up. 

All of the following actors have won academy awards portraying real people.  The added bonus?  Each of them portrayed a person who was still alive at the time these films were released.

• Spencer Tracy - Father Edward Flanagan in Boys Town (1938)
• Gary Cooper - Alvin C. York in Sergeant York (1941)
• Patty Duke - Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker (1962)
• Jason Robards - Benjamin Bradlee in All the President's Men (1976)
• Robert De Niro - Jake La Motta in Raging Bull (1980)
• Sissy Spacek - Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)
• Jeremy Irons - Claus von Bülow in Reversal of Fortune (1990)
• Susan Sarandon - Sister Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking (1995)
• Geoffrey Rush - David Helfgott in Shine (1996)
• Julia Roberts - Erin Brockovich in Erin Brockovich (2000)
• Jim Broadbent - John Bayley in Iris (2001/I)
• Jennifer Connelly - Alicia Nash in A Beautiful Mind (2001)
• Helen Mirren - Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen (2006)

Now, the quiz.  You didn't think I'd let you off that easily, did you?

1)  Two of the actresses listed above have released albums - one a compilation from one of her films, the other a novelty album released under a fake name.  Identify the actresses and albums.

2)  Which two of the actors listed above actually died before the characters they portrayed?

See?  Two questions.  Easy-peasy.  Show your work, kids, and spelling counts.

Random Acts of Thursday - I'd rather fight than switch...

I am important. And not just self-important, but other people rely on my knowledge and insight. I have a lofty important title at work. I have a corner office. A real office, not just a glorified cubicle, my desk and door are both made of wood (or wood particulate...let's not split hairs.)

All that said, I find it necessary to share that yesterday, I wore baby blue boxer shorts covered in flying pigs. Monday, little race cars.

I haven't always worn boxers, I grew up tight and white, snug as a thug. Cool white cotton, softly cradling my 'personal area'. Somewhere along the line, I started the slow transition to boxers (briefs with loose dress pants, boxers with jeans), and once I made the final transition in my mid-20's, I haven't looked back.


Sure, I could still wear tighties, and I could also tuck my tee shirt into them like they do in the ads. But really. Briefs and I had a parting of the ways, and never again will we meet. Can you see me in my BVD's, gloriously parading like King Fahd on some Saudi beach?

You can now, I'm sure.


I've tried the Switzerland of undergarments, the boxer brief, and while I could see the appeal while wearing loose-fitting shorts at the gym, said gym membership was also 'brief', and back to boxers I went.


What about you, dear reader? What fantastic or failed experiments have you experienced in the fine world of undergarments?

Fun Fact Friday - Well, well, well.

Melissa and I were watching an episode of 'Holmes on Homes' the other day, and if you're not familiar, it's the kind of show that will make you second-guess ever hiring a contractor again.  Especially if you live in Canada, apparently.

They were replacing the entire septic system on the house in this episode, and the contractor was using dowsing rods to find the pipes.  Walk over the pipe, the rods cross.  Oooh, dowsing, it's some cool, magical stuff, lemmie tells ya.

I was all set to post about the science of dowsing, a form of divining (like throwing chicken bones to predict crop yields, and such.)  Sounds science-y to me. 

Turns out it's all just hooey.  Dowsers with rods or bendy sticks have the same success rate as anyone with dumb luck.  In some cases, it's even less accurate than dumb luck.  This is just compounded by people using the same method of dowsing or 'witching' to find just about anything.  Looking for gold?  Try dowsing.  Rubies?  Dowsing.  Water?  Dowsing.  They probably even use the same stick for all of it.

However, there is some science involved in the process.  In our brainy subconscious, we can cause things to happen just by thinking them.  Like the Ouija board pushes to 'No' every time you ask your dead grandma if she loved you best.  For experienced dowsers, knowing the lay of the land and where water typically appears, minute muscle twitches can cause the branch to turn, a slight twist of the wrist can make rods cross when your brain is convinced this is where water should be.  

And even then, you could be wrong.

When I was in college, I had a bit part in a play called 'The Diviners'.  It was about a young boy with 'the gift' of divination, using a rod to find water so critical in depression-era Indiana.  And of course, there are skeptics.  We were all small-town rubes in the play, especially me, my role called for it.  But it calls to mind the following movie quote.  Since we didn't have a Monday quote this week, I'll let you guess on this one instead.

"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons."


It shouldn't be difficult. 

Fun Fact Friday - It's not easy being green

I've never shied away from planting trees.  In third grade, we were sent home with elm seeds, a new variety reportedly resistant to Dutch Elm disease.  That little seed grew to a massive 30 feet or more by the time I saw it last, probably ten years ago.  

A few years ago, I started taking an interest in bonsai, the Japanese art of miniature trees.  I haven't found the appropriate outlet for this interest, never found the group here in Tampa.  Killed my first tree, but that doesn't mean I won't try again once we move next.  We planted a Japanese maple at the corner of our home in Wisconsin, and it's still strangely exciting to drive by and see how it's doing.

I saw a headstone in North Carolina a while back that had a beautiful Japanese maple growing from it, maintained lovingly by someone to keep it in perfect scale with the planter built into the stone.  I would love such a thing, if that isn't too morbid.

We were cleaning out the flower beds and continuing our mulching efforts last weekend, and I noticed a foot-high oak sapling, just taking root perfectly in the corner of the yard.  Away from mowers, perfectly spaced where it could be a feature, I can only hope the next owners decide, as I did, to leave it be. 

The next step, of course, is arborsculpture.  Rather than emphasizing the natural form, trees are made to do unthinkable contortive feats, to great effect.  I've seen some works of this in the past, gazebos made entirely of living things, and I love whimsy in the garden.  These are some cool pieces, and some things I hope to mimic the next time we have a permanent garden of our own.

However, planting trees has become more politicized in my lifetime.  Growing up exploring the forests of Wisconsin, with all the pines in straight rows where the paper companies reseeded fifty years earlier, I never thought of reforestation as 'politically correct', I just took it as something that one does.  More recently, the term 'carbon footprint' has been thrown around, and I'm being encouraged to buy 'carbon credits' any time I book travel or buy electronics (and no, I don't actually buy electronics, but bear with me).  

I never thought that suddenly my blog, the most ethereal of non-tangible things, could have a carbon footprint.  Adrienzgirl, over at Think Tank Momma, posted Wednesday that a blog receiving 15,000 hits a month produces eight pounds of carbon dioxide in that time.  (Would that I could get 15,000 hits a month, better start posting more pictures of Danica McKellar and Bo Derek, since those get the most hits of anything I've done.)

By posting this button in the sidebar, and telling the nifty people over at Machs Grun (which I assume is German for 'more green', but what do I know) about this post, they will plant a tree on behalf of your blog.

How simple is that?  And who doesn't like wood trees? 

Random Acts of Thursday - Pick a Side

What, me worry expound on the glory of the James Bond series of films, or the spaghetti westerns graced by Clint? You're shocked, I know. No quiz today, either, dear reader. You have plenty of work to be done on past Thursdays where you've feigned ignorance, so today is simply about adding to the growing trivial knowledge of the mundane that is Cheesehead Displacement Syndrome.

Growing up, my father would always point to someone in a movie and tell me "he's a great character actor." I didn't understand that as a kid, either you were famous or you were just there to give the famous person someone to shoot. It wasn't until I got a little older that I saw these actors again and again, filling role after role without much fanfare, and realized just what he meant.Danny Trejo has never been a marquee name, but he's everywhere in film and you know him when you see him. Same thing with Brion James. Keith David. W. Earl Brown. Anthony James. All actors who make (or made) a living working, not taking down $20 mil a picture. This started to make sense to me after a few years. What still threw me, though, were the actors who assumed assorted roles in a single series of film or television. Gian Maria Volonte played, essentially, the same character in Per Un Pugno Di Dollari and Per Qualche Dollaro In Piu. (That's A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More, in case you were wondering.) In both films, Clint Eastwood played, essentially, the same character as well. However, The Man With No Name was timeless, and could easily have taken part in both settings. Even his wardrobe followed him through the films. Add Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo to the list, and you have Lee Van Cleef playing, again, a similar enough character between For a Few Dollars More and this film, despite having different names (and dying in G,B,U). Can you see how this could be confusing to an eight-year-old?

Similarly, watching the entire catalog of James Bond films, secondary characters have been played by repeat actors for years. M, Q and Moneypenny, until those actors retired, were played by the same actors for decades, in many cases appearing in more films than the actors playing Bond himself. What gives me more pause, though, are the actors who switched identities and allegiances between films.
Walter Gotell started his Bond career in From Russia With Love, as the S.P.E.C.T.R.E. training camp leader, Morzeny. Then, beginning in the Moore years and carrying through several subsquent Bonds, Gotell was featured as Soviet General Gogol. This portrayal began in The Spy Who Loved Me, and continued in A View to a Kill and The Living Daylights, to name a few.
Charles Gray similarly took a break between Bonds, first showing up as Connery's quick-to-die informant in You Only Live Twice, before taking on the role of villain-to-end-all-villains Ernst Stavro Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever. (And then going on to do the Time Warp. Again.)
Joe Don Baker showed up as the unscrupulous arms dealer Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights, then after an eight-year absence, suddenly turned up as CIA agent Jack Wade in Goldeneye, reprising the role in Tomorrow Never Dies (the only film, near as I can tell in all my film-watching history, where the sinister, world-dominating character gets to be named Elliott, instead of the simpering, nerdy loser.)
Finally, Maud Adams. Oh, sweet Maud Adams. Succumbing to Roger Moore's charms (SERIOUS ACTING ABILITY!) in The Man With The Golden Gun, she's killed by her lover for turning to Bond. She then turns up in one of the rare 'empowered woman' roles in Bond films as Octopussy and coming to Bond's rescue not once, but three times in the film.

Hopefully this has shed some light on things you didn't know you wanted to know, this knowledge might come in handy for past or future quizzes, too. If nothing else, at least it builds character.

Oh, and I finally figured out how do do strikethrough text. My mad HTML skillz is growin', yo.