Going to Egypt makes my list of things to do.

Egypt. Land of the Pharaohs. One of the cradles of civilization... a center of learning and human development.
I love watching anything about Egypt on the History channel.... any movie, anything. With a world in turmoil, I had always thought that travel to Egypt would be unwise. TV news and general ignorance make such areas seem malevolent... unreachable.
I performed a google search for "safe to travel in Egypt". And the one search result I read said that it was decidedly safe (feeling as safe as any other U.S. city), people were friendly, and the trip was incredible (over the span of 5 weeks).
I will go to Egypt and see the past greatness of man's ingenuity. That's what I loved about Italy... I felt as though I had seen much of our Western culture's greatest artistic accomplishments. Modern design is impressive, but doesn't capture my imagination like the great things that have come before. Egypt is the other place that I absolutely must see. Italy, and now Egypt. Then I think I will be able to say, "I've seen what I have wanted to see." I'll be able to tell my children, "I was there." And they will say, "Yeah Dad, you've told us like a hundred times." And then I'll continue to tell them regardless.
I want to walk through the temples. Check out the Nile. Go in a tomb. I'd climb the pyramids, but apparently you're not supposed to do that, and I don't need to break my neck.
Napoleon was a real tool for shooting the nose off the Sphinx. You see this giant old thing out in the desert, and you just have to shoot your cannon at it. Idiot.

The Olympics

You know what? I don't care about the Olympics. I don't care about any of the sports, I don't care about nations all coming together to compete... I don't care. Growing up I remember just being frustrated that half of the channels on TV were broadcasting sporting events that aren't interesting enough to watch daily- in fact, they are uninteresting enough that they don't bother televising many of the events on an annual basis. Also, it would be the time of year that someone in my family would say, "Oooh, figure skating is on!" Thus, any hope of watching a terrible B movie on the Sci-Fi channel went right out the window.
Some people love the Olympics. Good for them.
I hate that the Olympics have stupid sports. I don't hate sports; I hate stupid sports. I hate the events that have somehow snuck into Olympic competition based on a pity vote. Curling? Please.
And how about this? Olympians of the past would compete in the nude. There simply is no respect for tradition.
The Olympics have nothing to do with Star Wars or zombies.
The Olympics have five rings of different colors for their symbol.
But... how cool would it be to say you were an olympian? That would be pretty sweet. Maybe even for curling.

Free Original Tattoos

With a friend I have now gotten two tattoos in my lifetime- we refer to one another as "tatt-bruthaz".

Few things are as outrageously funny as someone with an awful tattoo. It's permanent proof that you have been a complete idiot at least once in your life, and you may still be. Looking at pictures of the worst online has inspired me to occasionally draw up what I think could be a totally awful tattoo, combining the worst elements of the worst tattoos into one awful piece of potential skin art. Of course, all of these ideas will be available for anyone's use, and totally free. If one inspires you... please- go ahead and take my idea. Send me a picture and I will be laughing for a long time.

In creating the worst tattoos ever, I would need to draw from some of the most standard awful subjects of ridiculous tattoos. I will try to generate a list of what those are.


-stupid personal nicknames
-poorly rendered images of celebrities and /or relatives
-Looney Tunes / cartoon characters/ television characters
-anything that could be described as "psychadelic" or "mystical"
-commercial slogans and soon-to-be-outdated catchphrases
- anything on your head
-cliche Native American designs including things like the dream catcher
-anything with the Confederate flag
-anything involving the words "Mr", "Cool", and "Ice" in any combination

Well, that's enough of a list for now. Soon I shall have some designs ready to share.

Movie Review

We went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at 12 am Wednesday night, so that it was technically May 22nd. We really liked it. I can see people's potential criticisms of the film with regard to its place among the other I.J. films, and upon hearing that Harrison was in pursuit of a "crystal skull", I thought it would be a significantly less epic pursuit in comparison to the ark or the grail. Not many people know or care much about crystal skulls in our culture- it doesn't dig as into our collective cultural background. But, I thought the movie was great, and I can hardly imagine a better ending for the series.
I can look past all the corny jokes and over-the-top action sequences due to training- I've watched all of the Star Wars movies many times, and once the new ones were released I was let down. Some stuff was just lame. Seemingly unacceptable. BUT... I watched interviews with George Lucas who reminded his audience that these movies were based on vintage action serials... complete with implausible plots, sketchy acting, and cliche moments galore. Understanding that this is the foundation grants the viewer a new-found appreciation of the resulting movie... er... at least it did for me. I can accept Jar Jar Binks. I can accept lame acting in Episodes 2 and 3. I can accept Shia Lebouf's monkey scene in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
I guess the ending of KOTCS was a little abrupt... but I thought the visuals throughout were fantastic, and the plot moved things right along. There were some great lines (even a Han Solo line misplaced) and a plot I was unable to completely predict before I walked in. Just about any mysterious lore from the 50's was satisfyingly combined into one cohesive storyline. I thought it was clever and fitting.
The movie did take Indy a lot further into the sci-fi genre than he had previously gone, but my question would be... where else would he have gone? I tried to think of some possibilities.

Indiana Jones and the Quest for that Lost Ark With the Animals- Too redundant.

Indiana Jones and the Search for the Fountain of Youth- Appropriate and necessary at this point, but he already knows where the grail is, which essentially works the same way. And, if he followed Ponce de Leon's hunch, he would have ended up in Florida like most other people his age. The ending might only have been him retiring frustrated to a trailer community somewhere in the interior of the state. A little anticlimactic.

Indiana Jones and the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day- George and Steven would have been sued for sure.

Indiana Jones and the Attempt to Apply for Government Healthcare- The younger generations wouldn't see it.

Indiana Jones and the Fight Against Advanced V.D.- An adventure years in the making!

Apparently, members of what exists of Russia's communist party (which apparently is still about half of their government) are furious over the movie, which has Russians as the heinous villains, due to the cold war era it is set in. They have gone so far as to make statements threatening Harrison Ford, stating that he will be beaten if he ever tries to step foot on Russian soil. Well, it's easy to make threats against Indiana Jones, but it's difficult to carry them out. Everyone who messes with him either gets shot, or thinks that they get exactly what they want, and then they get destroyed by some wacky supernatural force. Death is certain. Even that monkey (who betrayed Marion) got what was coming to it- no one is excluded. I looked online for information about what Germans thought about the first and third films, in which the Nazi party were the antagonists. What did modern Germans think if that? I'd like to know.
I think one of the things that amazes me about Indiana Jones is that he looks like a bad mamma jamma, and you don't even realize he's wearing a pair of Dockers. He's got dress pants on all the time. He wears the kind of pants a real professor or archaeologist might wear... but he takes care of business in them. When I was little and I wore dress pants, I didn't feel like I could take on jungle natives or the Nazi party. Even now I don't feel that I'd be up to the challenge in dress pants. I'd just look pathetic. They would probably have those stupid pleats in the front too... but even Indy could pull those off... maybe.
Apparently Indiana Jones' simple state of being has offended many modern archaeologists. They consider him a misrepresentation of what they do and stand for. I think I realized this before they ever decided to mention it. If political evil reared its ugly head, I doubt that I would call for the aid of one or more archaeologists- I know that they don't all have whips and guns. Some probably carry slingshots, machetes and other blades, or even light explosives. I think the real reason that modern archaeologists have beef with Indy is that they got into the field because they thought they would be leather-clad chick magnets with a devil-may-care attitude and a free pass to travel to exotic locations to meet exotic women and find "booty" (treasure). Class after class, degree after degree, they thought all of these things would eventually just fall into place... and they never came. Oops.

I liked it!

23rd Psalm for Jazz Bassists- Tom Gale?

The Lord is my drummer, I shall not rush.
He maketh me to lay out in tasteful places.
He leadeth me beside cool meter changes;
He restoreth my "one".

Yeah man, though I read through the trickiest of charts,
I will fear no train wrecks;
For You are with it.

Your ride and your snare, they comfort me.

You setteth up a solo for me
In the presence of mine guitarists.

You annointeth my lines with drive;

My groove overfloweth.

Surely good feel and swing will follow me

through all the tunes of each set,

And I will dwell in the pocket the whole gig long.
Amen.

telephone

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