rustypants speaks

above image came from marriedtothesea.com

and oh. my. gosh. is it a funny site.

several folks asked me today what lise and i did for the 4th of july.

i feel a little foolish. we didn’t go see fireworks. we didn’t go to a cookout. we didn’t get together with the family. we didn’t get hammered at the bar. we didn’t go to a swim party.

we went to the drive-in.

lise and i have been going to the drive-in for several years now. here in the cincinnati area, we’ve got two to choose from. the holiday auto theatre is up in hamilton (or “hamiltucky” as the locals call it) and it’s ok (check out their ridiculously long page on “house rules” and you’ll get the feeling that we get when we go there: Yeeesh!! anything ELSE we can’t do?) but rather restrictive.

the other drive-in we go to is the Starlite Drive-In out in Amelia. the starlite ROCKS. really nice folks, nice atmosphere, good screen (some drive-in screens are dark or falling apart – beware!) and almost always good movies.

so what is it about the drive-in that we like? hmm, well….

• BIG FRIGGIN SCREEN – woo-woo!
• fresh outdoors air
• snuggling together in the car (get your mind outta the gutter)
• cranking the sound in the car however loud we want
• TWO movies for the price of ONE (always double feature at the Starlite and admission is only $6/person)
• first-run movies all the time
• gets us out of the house and into each others arms
• no distractions from people around us, like at regular movie theaters

so what’d we see? Nacho Libre was the first one and, i admit, i thought for SURE it was gonna be a dog. jack black is an idiot and i was doubtful that there was ANYTHING he could produce that i would like. i was wrong. jack, i’m sorry. you’re funny in a very stupid kinda way.

Click was the second movie. again, apologies to adam sandler. i was starting to give up on him. now, this movie isn’t intelligent fare and it’s loaded with predictable dialogue, sequencing and conclusion, but despite all these things: it was funny. and decent. you can take the kids to see either one of these movies.

there’s just something about the drive-in. if you’ve never been, please: do yourself a favor and check it out. you can go to Drive-Ins.com and plug in your zip code and find the closest one to you.

you’ll thank me for it.

and if you’re at the starlite this coming sunday night, you’ll see us – we’re seeing the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie!

one of the things i pine for since leaving Washington DC 5 years ago is the Washington Post. for world news, top political coverage and editorials, it’s just a fantastic paper.

but that’s not all.

they also have THREE PAGES of COMICS!

yes. that’s right. three pages.

one of the strips that they introduced 7 or 8 years ago is called Liberty Meadows. it’s one of the best drawn strips out there and also one of the dumbest. frank cho is a comic book artist who apparently LOVES boobs. his main character is a chick named Brandy who has… well, a sizeable chest. i’ve enjoyed cho’s artistic ability but his ability to write is… less than stellar. his strips revolve around brandy’s chest and the animals at the animal refuge (hospital?) she works at. it was funny the first couple months, but he ought to stick with marvel comics.

at any rate, reading through some of the past strips, i came across the following and it reminded me of my dog, Dolby.

be sure to click on the strip to see and read the whole thing.

to which dolby says:

not for long, perhaps.

my AIM account has been active for years and years. before AIM was cool, i was on it. i may have been the reason AIM became cool in the first place, who knows.

my ICQ account is one of the originals. while membership on ICQ is now numbering in the hundreds of millions, my account number is 744908 – i’ve been on ICQ since the beginning of instant messaging.

my buddy list? hundreds. active? most of them.

so what’s the point?

one of the things about AIM that is both cool and not cool is the ability to lurk – to have someone else on your buddy list but that person doesn’t know you have them on there. you can read all their profiles, their away messages, see when they’re on and off, etc.

over the last year, probably a dozen people have been outed as lurkers because of viruses – you know, the ones where someone “sends” you a message saying something like, “hi!! I just edited one of our pictures in photosuite, you think I should put it to myspace?” and then there’s a URL to click on? and then kaboom – you’ve got a virus because you download something hoping to see pictures or whatever. and the next thing you know, AIM sends a message to everyone on your list who’s logged in.

and i’m always logged in.

and some of my lurkers are then like, “holy crap!” and are embarrassed that they were outed.

and others won’t respond at all.

and a small minority are like, “hey! how’re ya?” like nothing strange is going on.

haha. well, at any rate, this message is a warning to either:
a) beware of messages from people who claim to have edited pictures with you in them
b) out yourselves before you’re outed involuntarily

honestly, i think the whole thing is rather funny, but it does make me wonder… who’s out there lurking and watching…?

besides George W, that is.

proof of further degradation of the franchise.

there’s GOT to be something we can do!

how about this! we’ll set up a perimeter around keifer sutherland and have curtis guard him so no one can take advantage of the poor viewers and thus preventing the public beating to death of jack bauer.

today was the last day of school for both lise and i and what a year it’s been.

lise admits that it was anti-climactic for her: hey kids! last day of school? good! get the heck out!!

for me, i’ve only been at this school since… february? there were some good times, some great people, the kids were cool… but not enough of a connection to really pull at the heartstrings.

we’re looking forward to three months off together. oh, yeah baby!

why don’t you come over and have dinner with us sometime?

interesting.

it’s an anti-war, anti-Bush album from one of the granddaddies of protest songs.

i need to listen to it again before giving in-depth comment.

the season finale of 24 dropped tonight and it did several things for me:

made me angry – when president logan hit his wife in the airplane hangar, i wanted to kill him! we all knew something fishy was going on, but oooOOOoooooh – i hate that guy!!

confirmed my fears – 24 is going down the toilet. lise and i are in agreement: season one and season four – excellent. seasons two and three: ehhh. season five: bleah!

made me feel warm inside – when president logan finally got what was coming to him and the look on his wife’s face? hahaa – PRICELESS!!! oh, that was a good shot!

intrigued me – sad as it is for me to admit: the ending of the show tonight makes me wonder where season six is gonna start from. china? will aaron pierce be the new jack bauer?

oh, and further proof of the shows impossible premises: chloe showed an emotion other than disdain for a fellow human being. c’mon – get real!

my great-aunt nettie died last weekend. she was in her 90′s and had suffered from alzheimer’s for a short while. she died peacefully in her sleep. she was a strong and powerful (forceful?) woman who was much ahead of her time when it came to independence. the stories my mom and my aunts and uncles tell of her are incredible.

i found out earlier this week that my aunt diane wanted to honor nettie by planting a tree. all in favor said “aye” and the motion was passed. the tree (a kwanzan cherry tree – same as the ones in washington DC) was purchased and then it was decided that it would be best to plant it in our yard. how this decision was made eludes me, but it’s beside the point. i found out wednesday that we were having a tree-planting ceremony at our house on saturday. haha.

a small crowd of folks came over to plant the tree, take some pictures, write short memories of nettie on playing cards (her favorite pasttime), hang them on the tree, then go inside and talk and eat the night away. it was a good time.

one highlight of the night was sitting on the front porch with my uncle glen. we talked about a lot of things while we were out there. at some point glen looked at me and asked seriously:

“scott, did you hear that cincinnati is building a new zoo?”

“no,” i said. “i’ve not heard anything about that.”

“yeah, they’re putting a fence up around kentucky.”

and for the next five minutes, glen and i sat on the porch laughing our heads off.

well, the tree is really a nice tree. lise and i are looking forward to seeing it grow and getting to see these gorgeous double blossoms it’s supposed to have in the spring!

by the way: the memories i have most of aunt nettie are when she and her husband, my uncle tony (from whom i got my middle name), would come into town in their green camper. i remember several times them driving from LA to cincinnati and staying with my grandma. all the stories and the card-playing and the cartoon characters she used to knit into signs for the back window of the camper – good memories.