Heaven is a stranger place...

Time to breakdown modern life…

1) I can’t believe that Boston Rob choked when the money was on the line tonight in The Amazing Race. He had the thing won and then he lost it. Unbelievable. I thought Boston had ended all of its curses. However, Boston Rob and Amber due pull off the greatest back to back performances in reality television history: finishing 1-2 in Survivor and in second place in The Amazing Race. (Though the fact that The Miz has been able to make an entire career out of Real World/Road Rules challenges definitely needs to be taken into consideration.)
2) First comment on the Gen X film list. I’m a little torn as to the John Hughes movies. They are quintessential and part of my youth but for some reason I want to distance myself from them. Probably because the less I remind myself about high school the better. Plus there is something inherently unrealistic about those films, it’s the reason why Jay and Silent Bob are searching for the city in Dogma. Still, if you’re talking about films that everyone in Gen X knows about, those definitely have to be on the list.
3) Props for including Real Genius, which is infinitely better than Weird Science in terms of capturing what all of us science geeks were hoping our lives to turn out. I really wanted to be Val Kilmer, the smartest guy who also happened to be the coolest person on campus. Of course, everyone knew that I was essentially Anthony Michael Hall, which is quite possibly the most depressing thing that I have ever written.
4) Anyway, the reason I still remember Real Genius is an incredibly minor plot point. The character of Lazlo was another person who I really resembled: the insanely intelligent science guy with no social skills but in possession of a warped view of the world. He came up with the brilliant plan of mass producing contest entries to some bad promotion (I almost want to say it was a Frito-Lay giveaway or something). He had set up his entire dorm room to be dedicated to continually printing out the forms so that (by his calculations) he would win seventy three percent of the total prizes, including the motor home. And the movie ends with him driving off in a motor home filled with stuff with his last lines being, “I must have miscalculated, I ended up with eighty four percent.” I still don’t know why I haven’t tried a stunt like that, I’m one of the few people who actually think that I can pull something like that off.
5) I’ve seen a news item floating around where a guy whose apparent legal name is Jesus Christ is having a hard time getting a driver’s license with his name on it. I so want to meet this guy and hang out with him. Just think of all the fun that you can have with him. “Dude, you’ll never guess who I drank with last night? Jesus Christ.” “Hey Jesus, who do you like in the Pistons game tonight?” “Jesus, I need you to be my wingman tonight.” The possibilities are endless.