Rambling Rhodes

Perfect Strangers

Ryan says: Hey, you know what?

Caroline says: buuuuuuuuuurp

Caroline says: what

Ryan says: Sometimes the world looks perfect

Caroline says: um, ok

Ryan says: Nothin' to rearrange

Caroline says: lol

Caroline says: gotcha

Ryan says: Sometimes you just

Ryan says: Get a feelin' like you need some kind of change

Ryan says: Standin' tall

Caroline says: where'd you find that?

Caroline says: Sometimes the world looks perfect,
Nothing to rearrange.
Sometimes you get a feeling
Like you need some kind of change.
No matter what the odds are this time,
Nothing's going to stand in my way.
This flame in my heart,
And a long lost friend
Gives every dark street a light at the end.

Standing tall, on the wings of my dream.
Rise and fall, on the wings of my dream.

Caroline says: The rain and thunder
The wind and haze
I'm bound for better days.
It's my life and my dream,
Nothing's going to stop me now.

Ryan says: Ah, you found the lyrics, too, I see.

Caroline says: yes sir

Ryan says: You know? I was just thinking, about the Perfect Strangers lyrics. . .

Ryan says: The whole "standin' tall, on the wings of my dreams."

Ryan says: They never really accomplished much.

Caroline says: No, they really didn't, did they?

Ryan says: They worked in a mail room.

Caroline says: I mean, they moved to some place and got girfriends, which I think is kind of an accomplishment given their characters.

Ryan says: And in some store somewhere with a grumpy boss.

Caroline says: yeah

Ryan says: We never heard much about their "dreams."

Ryan says: They lived in a small Chicago apartment. Wow, big dreams there, guys.

Caroline says: No, the moved eventually, didn't they?

Ryan says: I think they were in that apartment the whole time.

Caroline says: oh.

Ryan says: If anything, Balchi really held his cousin back.

Caroline says: why do I remember them moving into a place with the girls?

Ryan says: They may have. I didn't follow the show much towards the end.

Note To Journalists

Dear journalistic community:

I am here to inform you of something vitally important to our writing discipline. I know many within our ranks differ in opinion on all matter of issues, from bias, to editing standards, to the best type of fonts and, to a lesser extent, whether something is less filling or whether it tastes great.

However, there is a growing controversy that I think needs to be put to rest before it boils out of control and we journalists take sides until we pour out into the streets weilding extra-sharp pencils, intent on battle.

In the old days of journalism, you see, newspaper type was set in lead. Also, in the old days, the opening sentence of every article was called the "lead." Alas, the similarity in spellings caused newsrooms no end of strife. Were they talking about the metal, or the opening paragraph? No one could seem to keep them straight. Lead paragraphs ended up getting mixed in with the type, and little metal letters kept landing on the opening paragraphs of countless news stories. Chaos was only a matter of time.

Something had to be done.

To keep Armegeddon out of the newsrooms, it was decreed that the opening sentence was to be henceforth called the "lede." And, lo, the clouds did part, and the sun broke through, and those in the news business gazed in wonderment at their newly-minted word. They had created "lede," and it was good.

Except that "lede" looks really gay.

Thus began the controversy.

On the one side, there are the conservative journalists, like myself, who think, since the opening sentence leads off an article, it should be called the "lead." It just makes all sorts of sense. Those of us who believe in "lead" are a hardy bunch. We take our coffee strong, we swear a lot, we think about sex every five seconds and we're all smoking hot specimens of journalistic beauty.

In the other camp are the elitist snobs who prefer the "lede" spelling. They like "lede" because it signifies to others that "hey, I went to journalism school." Those who use "lede" are a pansy bunch of milquetoasts, usually with pasty faces and an inflated air of self-importance. Most of them prefer "lede" because it looks suspiciously like a French word, which makes them feel worldly and intellectual. Typically, "lede" users aren't ugly, but their looks are usually decidedly plain.

Such are the battle lines being drawn, and I think it's high time we set the matter straight. Simply stated, since newsrooms no longer utilize lead type, it's pointless to have a made-up word to distinguish between a metal and an opening sentence. The time has come to sweep "lede" aside like so many little lead type letters. We should divest ourselves of "lede" and never speak of it again. It was a mistake, and one that should have never been allowed to happen in the first place.

We will accept you back into our "lead" ranks, oh "lede" proponents, but first you have to agree never to use "lede" again, not even in the privacy of your own homes. You can't even write it down and put it in a little box and look at it from time to time.

"Lede" is dead. Move on. Come back over to our side, where the beautiful journalists live. And we party like crazy. In that respect, we've taken the "lead."

Gifted At Romance

So, I was flipping through the cable stations last night, and I came to a startling conclusion. Namely, Hollywood makes it really tough on us guys when it comes to buying gifts for the other gender.

Now, I've gone off, at length, about the problems I have with movies and television when it comes to romance and how they prop up this belief that everyone can fall in love in a few days and then get married within a week and then roll the credits, leaving the audience thinking that everything worked out happily ever after.

What they don't show, of course, is when the girl walks in on the guy in the bathroom, vigorously pounding his pud to the latest issue of Maxim, or when the guy happens to discover that the girl picks her nose and eats her boogers, or the secret horde of human ears she keeps under the bed.

In other words, Hollywood never shows all the stuff you just learn over time that colors your opinion of a significant other and you decide whether their many human idiosyncracies still don't decrease your love for them. This goes a long way, I think, in explaining why celebrity marriages last about as long as a popsicle on a hot day.

Like I've said, it takes a few years, two at least, before you even have an inkling of what the hell is truly going on. So, if you're engaged after a year? Good fucking luck. See you in divorce court, folks.

Anyway.

My gripe today is centered more on how Hollywood sets the bar too high for men when it comes to gift buying. Because, I'm here to tell you, the movies just aren't fair in this regard.

Now, I should point out here that I'm a crappy gift buyer to begin with. I can do the flower thing, and I can do the wine thing, and I can do the dinner thing. Those basically represent my strengths.

Yet, according to the movies, my strengths are pretty minor league stuff. In the course of my channel surfing last night, I saw men buying women expensive necklaces, gaudy bracelets, ornate dresses, cars, exotic pets and on and on and on.

Now, I would normally have no problem with such fictional gift-giving. They're just movies after all, right? Well, the problem is that, gradually, such egregious displays of gift-giving start to work their way into the female subconscious. Such gifts start to be considered rational and a true expression of love and devotion. An expensive necklace means you really love a person.

I imagine it didn't use to be this way. I imagine that, back in the days of our cave-dwelling ancestors, gift giving was probably a far more pragmatic exercise.

Og, the village elder would, perhaps, kill a deer, drag it back to the village, and present it to Oglette in an attempt to win her favor. Oglette, in turn, would skin the deer and make a nice jacket out of the hide and present it to Og in an act of acceptance of Og's affections. I miss the days of Og and Oglette because they knew what really mattered.

If Hollywood movie writers had any common sense, or felt any obligation to make the human dating and mating process just a bit easier, they'd stop setting such impossible romantic expectations. They'd sit back and think, "you know, building a love boat out of trees planted as a child sure is a gigantic romantic gesture, but do I really want to contribute such craziness to an already horribly difficult and unrealistic dating realm?"

Instead, I think writers should step back and start lowering the bar a little. I think it would refreshing if Hollywood started showing the reality that even simple gifts, like wine, flowers and dinner, actually cost a whole shit of a lot, especially over time.

Instead of showing a guy dramatically unveiling an expensive music box that's about as useful as an ingrown toenail, it would be nice to show a guy giving a girl something a bit more pragmatic, like maybe a tee-shirt or possibly a Britta water filter, and then flashing over to the girl, who is beeming with gratitude.

Eventually, if movie writers play their cards right, within a decade women the world over will think that getting a bar of soap and some toothpaste represents a wonderful display of affection and love from their significant other. Hopefully, we'll get back to a time when dinner, wine, a movie and flowers represent the high end of gift-giving and people will really start to recognize how valuable and thoughtful such acts are.

And with a little more time, we'll get back to the deer-killing aspect of dating, which would be sweet.

Worst. Movie. Ever!

I just came home from the movie Anchorman, with Will Ferrel. If you have not seen this movie, do yourself a favor and DO NOT see this movie. In fact, to avoid contamination from this movie, you should probably not go to any movie theater complex that is even showing this movie. It is THAT bad.

I laughed, maybe, twice during the flick, and once was during an erection scene that was only nominally humorous, and the other was when a dog got punted off a bridge, which you shouldn't really laugh at. This movie was just abyssmal. I can't say enough bad things about it.

I mean, I can appreciate that they were trying to produce a movie that was so over-the-top, it was ludicrous. Fine. But, for the love of God, please try to make it funny! As it is, Anchorman is just annoying and utterly irritating and perhaps the biggest waste of money I spent on a move since Rush Hour. Along Came Polly was pretty bad in its own right, but at least I caught that on cable, so it was basically free.

My girlfriend was actually angry after the movie, and towards the last 10 minutes, we were seriously pondering walking out. The only other people in the theater were a bunch of teenagers, and even THEY rarely laughed.

My faith in movies has been seriously shaken by all of this. We're supposed to watch I, Robot somewhere down the line. Please don't let that movie stink as incredibly as Anchorman.

Okay, I suppose the character of Brick, played by Stephen Carrel, was kinda funny, but if you want to laugh at a guy with a low IQ and be watching a good movie, you could go watch Forrest Gump, or Sling Blade. Pinning your hopes on Brick and his one-liners simply will not save you the anguish of watching Anchorman.

Christina Applegate still looks good, I guess, so there that.

Caroline says: Why didn't you like Anchorman?

Ryan says: Why DID YOU like Anchorman?!!

Ryan says: It was the most ham-fisted, over-acted, mass of totally-awful sight gags ever conceived. It was just. so. stupid.

Caroline says: I think you took it too seriously.

Caroline says: I guess I needed a stupid laugh last week.

Ryan says: No, I didn't. I went in fully realizing it was supposed to be over the top.

Ryan says: And it was over the top, but it just wan't funny.

Ryan says: I flirted with leaving after the dog got punted off the bridge.

Caroline says: uh huh

Ryan says: I mean, the Brick character was sort of funny, but laughing at stupid people with silly one liners isn't a new or compelling sort of comedy. That kind of thing has been done to death.

Ryan says: And the whole Kodiak bear scene? Could that have been any dumber?

Caroline says: Okay, this wasn't supposed to be a ground-breaking, Oscar-worthy movie. The movie was supposed to be dumb. You took it too seriously.

Ryan says: No, no I didn't. I like Kentucky Fried Movie, for crying out loud, so I know when a movie is supposed to be dumb and to just sit back and enjoy its dumbness.

Ryan says: But Anchorman wasn't even enjoyably dumb.

Caroline says: Then you didn't watch it with the right attitude. I didn't like Kentucky Fried Movie, but whatever.

Ryan says: It was one extremely lame joke after another. Right attitude my ass.

Caroline says: Okay, that's your opinion. But there are a lot of people who did like the movie, including the critics.

Caroline says: I'm not going to argue anymore about a movie that was supposed to be dumb. Sometimes people just need that kind of movie.

Ryan says: Agreed. If you're content to defend a movie that insults your intelligence, then great. I simply asked what you found funny about it, and you said, "because it's dumb." I pointed out that, yes, it's dumb, and it's supposed to be dumb, but it doesn't bring any fresh humor to the table, it just recycles old comedy tools that have been done to death.

Caroline says: No, I didn't say I liked it because it was dumb.

Caroline says: I said I needed a good laugh, and that's what it did. I didn't feel as though my intelligence was insulted. If you go in knowing it's not a serious movie, then you won't be insulted.

Ryan says: Oh for crying out loud. Listen very carefuly, Care, and I'll type it this time extra slow so you can follow along. . . I . . . went. . . in. . . knowing. . . it. . . was. . . not. . . a . . . serious. . . movie. That does not change the fact that the jokes were atrocious, recycled gags that relied on cheap and easy softball style humor. Ooh, an erection in plaid pants! Oh ha ha ha.

Ryan says: Ooh, a dog getting punted off a bridge. Oh ha ha ha. A super-stupid guy delivering over-acted one-liners. Oh ha ha ha. A 13-year-old could trot out tired crap like that.

Caroline says: the horse is dead, Ryan. Stop beating it. We have different opinions.

Ryan says: Ah, the dying yelp of someone who can't defend their position. Very well. I'll carry on.

Caroline says: My position is I liked the movie because it made me laugh.

Ryan says: Yet you can't come up with any reason why you laughed beyond "I went in knowing it was supposed to be dumb."

Ryan says: Let me ask you one final question, and then I'll be on my little way. Could you sit through that bomb again and laugh?

Caroline says: Listen, I just liked the movie. I needed to laugh and the movie made me laugh. Yes, I could laugh again at the movie. I don't need to have a reason for why I laughed. The movie made me laugh. Leave it alone, man.

Ryan says: Spoken like a toddler explaining why they still like their blankie.

Caroline says: Whatever, Ryan. It's just a movie. It's not like we're arguing about something important.

Ryan says: We rarely argue about anything important.

Caroline says: Exactly.

Ryan says: And I still make the arguments far more compelling.

Caroline says: Not really.

Caroline says: Ryan, you don't know it all. Deal with it.

Ryan says: I acquiesce that I "don't know it all." Thanks for dealing out such blanket generalizations though. That demonstrates solid mental dexterity on your part. Top notch, really. I have cited specific examples, in detail, why Anchorman sucked the royal wang, as per your question as to why I didn't like it, and you respond with "I liked it because I laughed. You don't know it all. Deal with it."

Ryan says: Pretty weak, Care.

Caroline says: it's a movie, Ryan. I don't come out of every movie saying why or why I didn't like it. I just leave it at that. I liked it.

Ryan says: I have a ball. Perhaps you'd like to bounce it?

Someone's Going To Heck

The funniest part? I found the cartoon in the Extended Entry at an Egyptian blog.

My House Lies Here

Ever since I went and bought my house, I've noticed that I sit and wonder what the insides of other people's houses look like. I wonder if they have as nice of floors as mine. I wonder how they make use of their available space. I wonder what kind of furniture they have. I wonder if they have a daughter, and if she's hot, and if she's into guys with shaved heads.

To appease all the conjecture wrapped within my wonderment, I've discovered the wonderful world of open houses, which allow me to wander aimlessly around homes that are for sale. My girlfriend and I spend a considerable amount of time on the weekends visiting open houses to see how other homes compare to my own.

One of my favorite aspects of visiting open houses is conjuring elaborate lies about myself when talking with the realtors who are conducting the open houses. I create wonderful fantasy worlds in which I'm a Mayo Clinic doctor who makes $500,000 a year, or I'm an IBM junior executive who makes $800,000 a year, with stock options. The more wealthy I make myself out to be, the more giddy the realtors become. It's great fun.

My girlfriends, sadly, is incapable of such big-time lying. She gets uncomfortable when it comes to spewing whopper tales like the ones I relate to ambitious realtors. She understands that it's all harmless good fun, but she just can't do it.

So, she'll stand there and nod while I explain that I'm a 3M manager looking to buy a Rochester home to live in on the weekends to "get away from it all."

How grandiose and elaborate my lies are usually is determined by how grandiose and elaborate the house I'm looking at is and how in-your-face the realtor may be. For really irritating realtors, I'll concoct stories that no-doubt leave them breathless.

REALTOR: Here, take my card. This is a beautiful home, and the asking price, I must say, is a steal. Here, sign the guest book, and be sure to write your address and phone number! You should really buy this house! Why are you looking now?

ME: Oh, I just came back from a mountain-climbing trip on Everest. I very nearly died, but my life was saved by some other climbers who just happened to come by at the right time. While I was recovering, I spent a lot of time thinking about my life, and my personal fortune, and I realized that life's just too short, and that I need to settle down in a nice neighborhood and start a family, and disconnect myself from the harsh realities of the work world and just spend some time enjoying my wealth rather than trying to add to it.

REALTOR: Well, this home is just perfect for you then!

ME: Yes, I agree. I'll probably call you next week to make a bid!

REALTOR: Excellent!

GIRLFRIEND: *nods*

And then we go tour another house, where I become a successful stock-broker from New York who is escaping the big city for a more simple life.