Brain Dungeon

I feel as though I owe it to my readers to explain my wife’s comment on my “bloggy ideas” post about dancing monkeys.

In case you didn’t get to see her response, she said, “I think you should blog about dancing monkeys. Because obviously, they are a driving force to your madness. And then blog about how awesome I am.”

You see, I was on the phone with a good friend of mine the other day and I can’t remember what spawned me saying this, but I said, “DANCE, MONKEY! DANCE!” I think we were talking about our respective difficult days at work or something and while he was telling me about his day I said it as if I were the organ grinder making his day so difficult.

Well, he let the comment go, but later on in the conversation he said something that made me say it again. Then he said something that indicated disappointment and I said, “CRY, MONKEY! CRY!” I guess I was in a weird mood, but then he said, “That sounds so familiar! Where did you get that?”

I said, “as far as I know, I made it up.” Turns out – I didn’t.

Ok, so maybe I DID come up with it all my own, because the Google searches I did for the phrase “dance monkey dance” came up with stuff I had never heard of. Over 37,000 hits for the exact phrase “dance monkey dance”!!! Looks like there’s games, videos, all kinds of stuff. I could hardly believe it! I was so very disappointed. I was astonished. I was perplexed. I was driving my wife nuts with my absolute awe over the fact that “dance monkey dance” was such a widely used phrase on the internet.

Oh – and my wife is awesome!

When I say I am not a fan of the Indiana Jones movies, what I mean is I have never seen the Indiana Jones movies. Not sure why I haven’t seen them, but I haven’t. I think I have seen bits and pieces of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” but other than that, I haven’t seen any of the movies. That is, however, until last night.

Now, I am absolutely just not an “opening night” movie-goer. Sure I like going to movies, but I don’t like the big crowds. I don’t like a packed theater. I don’t like having to figure out where I’m going to sit due to few available seats. But when a friend of mine invited me to go see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I decided “why not?” I hadn’t been to a movie theater for a few years (not a theater frequent-flier either). I was afraid it was going to be a crowded event, but fortunately, the showing we went to was not bad at all.

I have to say, even though Harrison Ford is starting to look pretty old, it was still a good fit. In fact when we were leaving the theater, my friend said that the movie was “true to form.” I also have to say that Shia LaBoeuf is really surprising me these days with his acting skills. I am not sure why I am so surprised by how well he portrays each role I see him in, but I am.

I won’t go much into the story line as to avoid giving any spoilers or ruining it for anyone who might actually read my blog (I’m not sure either of you would really care…), but know that the story-line was good, the action was packed, there were a lot of subtle jokes that made me chuckle and several scenes which evoked a good hearty laugh. I don’t think I have ever seen a high speed car-chase sword/gun fight with vine-swinging people and monkeys making their way to gigantic ant hills (both this hills AND the ants were huge!) before this movie.

As a parting note – I was slightly concerned that the movie might turn out to be “crap” but not without good cause. I was flipping through the channels this past weekend, and the Sci-Fi channel was running and Indiana Jones marathon. I couldn’t resist snapping the picture when I saw the following:
I guess the Dish Network is limited to 35 characters on their channel guide for show titles…but why not check something like that before making it public??? They could have abbreviated somewhere else, I’m sure! Anyway, I was not really inclined to tune in to watch anything about a “Temple of Doo” and it made me question whether or not I’d be joining my friend in going to watch the newly released Indy movie.

But it was a good movie. If you’re the type who likes action movies or Indiana Jones movies or whatever, go see it.

I have seen a lot of things that have made me wonder if I was daydreaming or if reality was somehow being spliced into an alternate, less believable reality by some rift in the space-time continuum. I had one such occasion just this week.

I was sitting at a traffic light…third in line in the left lane of a one way street. I have seen plenty of people who push the envelope and speed through an intersection only to go through after the lane I was in turned green. That pisses me off…a lot. If I have a green light, I should not be waiting for cross traffic to stop.

Anyway…there was a car that was not speeding through, but somehow (I think) didn’t realize that the light had turned. It started through the intersection as the first car in the right lane of the street I was on started to go forward. The result – the driver of the car on my street slamming on his brakes and laying into the horn. The other car stopped abruptly, issued a polite “Oops, I’m sorry” honk…the driver smiled sheepishly and waved at the other driver as he backed into his proper position in his lane behind his red light.

The culprit? A SHERIFF!!! Holy FREAKIN’ cow! It was a sheriff! Now I would imagine that MOST of the cops I’ve seen driving around here would have at least turned on their lights and sped through the intersection…as if to make it look like they were in a hurry to get somewhere and that’s why they ran the light. (I have actually seen cops turn their lights on…run a red light and turn their lights off). This guy actually admitted that he was in the wrong and corrected his mistake! Not only that…but I had JUST witnessed someone blaring their horn at a cop and not getting some kind of weird reprimand!

I’m telling you, life doesn’t make sense. I just don’t think that’s something I’ll ever witness again. It took some guts for that driver to blast his horn at a cop…but you know what? Good for him! We shouldn’t be afraid to stand up for ourselves when we are in the right.

After that…the hole in the space-time continuum sealed back up…

for a short while anyway…