Super Bowl Pick

Pittsburgh will win. However, I'm picking and rooting for the Cardinals.

And that's that. One of these days I will go back and tally my picks.

Rimmi's Cartoon Intro Challenge #15

The long, long, long overdue finale to this little challenge is the intro to The Funky Phantom. I haven't started it yet and already I think I can see everything wrong with the seventies in it.

We start with three teens in a dune buggy. And not a van. Since it's not a van, you can't help but noticed that the kids are dumb because it's raining heavily. The theme starts. My patience ends. Yikes, that's terrible.

Since I've taken way too long to write this, I can't just shut the intro off. Dammit. The theme is sung from the teens poin of view and tells us that because they're morons, they had to duck inside a spooooky castle to avoid the rain. So they ditch Speedy and ... unbelievable. They have a dog. Even when your "scooby" isn't your mascot, you always include a mascot anyway! It's got to be a rule.

Anyway, our hippies or beatniks or whatever notice that a clock is set wrong. WHICH IS TOTALLY WHAT TEENAGERS WOULD DO IF THEY WERE WET AND TRESPASSING IN AN ABANDONED CASTLE! They set it too midnight and the clock goes haywire. Haywire is a word you need to learn if you make cartoons. Out pops the ghost of the title. He gets his name from the teens. Gotta love such a dumb decade that has instantly dated itself so badly.

Look, I slipped and fell on some steps today. Plus the word "funky" bugs me, ok?

The phantom is dressed like he comes from the Revolutionary period. Aww, crap, he also has a cat. I refuse to watch an episode of this show. He opens his mouth and it turns out that he's voiced by the actor who does Snagglepus. In fact, it's the same character, really. I'm sure he exits stage left even if he's a ghost and he shouldn't have to run. Even.

More singing. Rimmi, are you trying to tell me something? The teens insist that he's a friend. He's a friend. A FRIEND, YOU HEAR?!?! We watch the teens run. I bet Hanna Barbara just swapped heads of the Mystery, Inc. Gang with the ... what do you even call these guys? The funky foursome, if you count the dog? Jeez, this thing only lasts for a minute and I'm skipping the lyrics. Anyway, instead of cowering, the phantom actually helps to defeat a monster. I guess that's a different take on Scooby, but if he's not a coward, that means the gang has an invincible partner that can swoop in and save the day at any poin. Don't bother with the mystery you fools. Just capture the monster as fast as you can.

For some reason the funky phantom and (did I mention he has a) cat disappear before they do something that interacts with people or objects. I'm not sure why. I guess it's a cartoon rule that makes kids understand that something ghostly is happening. "Remember dumbkid, he's a ghost and he does, like, ghost things." At the end of the intro the ghost declares that it's Funky Phantom Time. The teens immediately raise their arms and make "Whoooooooooo" sounds. Anybody who claims that the seventies were cool are invited to explain this scene to me. Charts are recommended.


Good old too much information about useless things wiki gives the date of this show as being aired in 1971. So we can blame the sixties as well. Fine by me. The teens are Skip, April, and Augie. The dog is Elmo and the friggen cat (THEY ALREADY HAVE A DOG!) is Boo. Our title character is Jonathan Wellington "Mudsy" Muddlemore. He hid in a clock from the British and stayed their until his ghost escaped. Which means the clock was wrong for about 200 years or the place has been abandoned for as long.

The villains of the shows are people dressed as monsters, just like Scooby. Their was a comic of this show released about the same time where the villains were actually ghosts and they added a female character that lusted after Mudsy. I'm sure that addition has nothing to do with the fact that the teens are interchangeable Mystery, Inc gang wannabes. Nope, they're all such great characters that they got equal time.

I've seen a lot of silly Hanna Barbara shows, either of the Yogi Bear or Scooby Doo variety. I haven't seen this particular show, though. Good for me.

(I apologize for the lack of pictures. I'll add more later.)

Now, did someone say something about a party?

Rifftrax Reminder

I ran my ustream show counter to the Rifftrax Live show and I declare it to be a success. Despite that, Rifftrax is running another show tomorrow.

I have nothing planned for tomorrow, so I will be there and enjoy the show. I'm not the kind to hold grudges.


The short will be Overcoming Fear. It can be found at the internet archive here. I'm tempted to watch the short first but I think I'll just go into the live show unprepared what to see.

Good luck Mike, Kevin, and Bill! And try not to say too many memes, nerds in the chat room!





By the way, the previous post is number 666. Don't read it!

This Week In Entertainment (1/24/09)

My Pick of the Week is this set of America's Dumbest Criminals episodes. I have no idea when this show aired. In fact, I think there were several different versions of this show. The vhs tape of this show that I saw before was great, so I'm sure this set will be funny too.


Also out on DVD this week is the final season of Cheers. Remember how the show got self-congratulatory towards the end? Well, maybe not the show. I didn't watch it. But remember how NBC treated the show like it was the most important thing ever? And remember how they treated "...where everybody knows your name" as if it was so profound? Yeah. That's why I change the channel if I see a rerun of this show.

I like game shows, so here's a collection of game show episodes. I have no idea if these are public domain or not.

I am sure that these 300 television episodes are public domain. You can download any of these off archive.org if you have a fast computer.

I have yet to watch any of these, but here's another animated Marvel movie. Hulk Vs. sounds like a fighting game.

I've lost track of how many Superfriends shows they made.

Or really depressed.

I watched a couple episodes of this show on FOX and I can't remember why. Except I think one episode was advertised as having MANTIS being forced to fight in MORTAL COMBAT! Totally not trying to lure dumb video game nerds at all.

Usually I ignore the hundreds of bellydancing dvds that Amazon sells but this one caught my eye. Look at that cover! You can dance as Xena or Poison Ivy! I'm sure that this is just a combination of cosplay and bellydancing. The fact that I didn't come up with that idea shows why I only have a blog.



Out on the Wii this week is Rygar: The Battle of Argus. I don't remember much about Rygar from the NES. Something about a guy with a super yoyo as a weapon. Looked neat but I'm never played it.

This Week In Entertainment (1/19/09)

Sorry for the lack of activity lately. Here's my late Monday entry. My Pick of the Week is Magnificent Obsession. It's a silly romance movie known for giving us the god of bad movies, Jabootu.

Also out on DVD you can see the latest Saw movie. See? Saw? I've got nothing.


I don't even know what Bikini Royale is about. I just picked it based off its title.

Video Game Character of 2008!

It was a tough choice.

2008 saw a lot of strong candidates....the Hamburger Helper hand from Super Smash Bros. Brawl proved a major challenge, but in the end, one deserving candidate could not be overlooked, so it is with that, I congratulate.......


THE SUICIDAL BEAR!!!!!!!


Yep. Life is tough in the A.C.

You've got that damn racoon bossing you atound, that annoying gay cat bugging you trying to get your personal info (Probably out to spam our inboxes with ads for half priced viagra), that ghost that wants to play hide and seek when you're just trying to enjoy some night fishing....it's all so much, and Nintendo acknowledged the stresses of life as a video game character, and strong parralels to the life of a modern video gamer, by giving us a hero we can all admire and look up.

Honorable mention once again goes to Sleeping Doc Conners, the sleepingest, most Doc Connery character from 1984's Suestprobe II: The Amazing Spiderman. Doc had a strong year in 2008 after some setbacks in 2007, and he's primed to make a strong comeback in 2009.

Tork's Picks Championship Week

I'll take

Steelers over Baltimore
Arizona over Philadelphia



I know I said that the Cardinals were the least likely to make the Super Bowl, but now I'm rooting for them. Even though the most likely thing to happen is for the AFC winner to paste either of its final opponent.

Two Years!

In honor of this blog's second anniversary, I'm going to try something new! I'm going to live-blog!

Don't know what live blogging is? It's blog entry with timestamps.



9:56AM - I'm done for now. Go away.

9:55AM - I wanted to say "Take that, wurwolf!" again. SO TAKE THAT, WURWOLF!

9:50AM - Well, if the good people at Horror.com, Dread Central, Bloody Disgusting, CHUD, and FEARnet all think that My Bloody Valentine is a good movie, than they must be right!

9:46AM - I just added italics to one of the earlier entries. Makes it easier to read.

9:41AM - And no, I won't provide a link.

9:40AM - I'm reading about a controversy over the blog awards. Mainly Eff You, Penguin accused Cute Overlord of cheating. Fascinating.

9:29AM - Now that I think about it, isn't live blogging the same thing as twitter? I guess the difference between the two is that live bloggers attempt to use proper spelling and grammar.

9:28AM - If you run into anybody who screams, "KHAAAAAAAN!!!!" today, please punch that nerd.

9:26AM - Blogs don't talk back. Remember that.

9:20AM - I forgot I had this open. So, how are you doing, blog?

9:12AM - HAW! ustreamer-whatever is gone!

9:11AM - You know, there's a file on my desktop named "backup". I wonder what's in it? Wow, it's backups of my old projects? Cool!

9:07AM - There's an article about scientists talking about planets outside our solar system. Can we name one of those planets Nuveena? Screw any aliens if they named it first.

9:05AM - I was just telling my blog that it's stupid because I was getting frustrated. Now I feel better.

9:02AM - There's a coffee mug that was left near my desk. It says Christmas is sharing on the inside and has an angel baby and angel cat on the outside.

9:00AM - Yeah, you just keep staying there. Pretending like I can't see you. Come on, log in and give us a real user name!

8:57AM - I was spying on the Rifftrax channel, and now there's someone named "ustreamer-70684" there. What's his/her deal? I don't trust anybody who has that many random numbers in their user name.

8:54AM - Ten of the lights in this room are on. The one in the middle of the room isn't. AND IT'S BETTER THAT WAY! I hate it when they turn that light on.

8:50AM - Wondered, "Shouldn't I use full sentence? This isn't a chatroom, stupid."

8:47AM - Finished typing the last entry.

8:46AM - Got bored. Started getting rid of old tags that I never used. Take that, wurwolf!

8:43AM - Started this self-congratulating post.

A look back at 2008.

2007 was better.

The big news of the year obviously is that I brought in four of my friends to contribute to this blog. Lita contributed the most by giving us almost a month of updates, but I thank everybody for filling space on the old blog.

Other than that, there were no big changes this year. I didn't really come up with any new ideas. Nope, I just kept giving you the same old updates that you loved from last year. Except for the crappy drawings from my childhood. Those were a funny idea for a weekend update.

I was going to mention my favorite post of this year, but it turned out to be a post from 2007. So forget it.

Tork's Blog did increase it's popularity this year. First, I showed you earlier this year that alexa had me ranked as one of the 14 million most popular websites in the world. Well as of today, I'm ranked as the 2 millionth, 14 thousandths, 106 website in the world. That's quite a jump in one year. And it's all because I installed the Alexa toolbar on my browser. Err, I mean all because of you, the reader.

I also got a couple mentions from other blogs, and they didn't make fun of me! I think. I'm too shy to actually check the links, but according to technorati, two blogs linked to me this year. One of them is Deep Ape, an authority on MST3k after the cancellation. I believe it was for one of my Cinematic Titanic reviews. Too bad I got lazy and never got around to reviewing episodes 3-5. Oh well.

There was one thing I wanted to do but never got around to it. I went to King's Dominion again this year and took more pictures. Rather than talk about it for two months, I could have at least gone over the highlights of that trip. In fact, don't be surprised if I do get around to it despite being several months after the fact. The same goes for my trip to Hershey's Park, which I could go into more detail. Then again, I'm lazy, so maybe I'll keep updates of that to a minimum and just stick to a recap.


What do we have to look forward to in the future? Well, I predict that 2009 will not be as good as 2008, which wasn't as good as 2007. I predict this because 2009 is going to be a scary year. One, I may have to change jobs at some poin, and if that happens I'll have a great excuse to be lazy and not update. Also, who knows what my Internet status will be this year. Hopefully nothing much will change besides my lack of ideas and updates, but we'll play it by ear this year. I do hope that I can continue my February/July/December thing. Those seem to be my three biggest months of updates. Who knows, maybe I'll be at the library watching music videos and giving my dumb thoughts on them while I try to hide the screen with my shoulders while people look at my monitor curiously. That's the one month that MUST be done if everything else is lost. Heck, I've been thinking of spinning that into it's own blog. "Tork's Ignorance About Music Blog"


I hope we all make it through 2009 without too many big changes. Maybe we'll all make it through the craziness. Good luck everybody, and thanks for not posting an url of my blog at a forum that would mercilessly make fun of me!

Tork's Blog Person of the Year 2008!

And the winner is ... Tad Tadlock!


Sometimes I wonder if she's just a little too awesome.


Runner up: Selma Blair. She looks great in the Hellboy movies.




Umm, that's the first image to appear in a google search. I guess it could be worse given the films she starred in.



Sharing the Runner Up award with Selma is everybody who is now contributing to this blog. You guys and gals rock!

This Week In Entertainment (1/12/09)

My Pick of the Week is for a show I'm not sure I've watched an episode of all the way through. However, reruns of this show are shown on public tv all the time, so your taxes support this! Here's the movie version of Are You Being Served?

In theaters this week is My Bloody Valentine 3D. I wouldn't mention a dumb slasher flick unless something about it amused me. In this case, it looks like Psycho Mantis dropped the telekinesis nonsense and went straight to ax tossing. Or maybe it's The Corroder. Also, is crummy horror movies the only time when modern movies try to be 3D? Seems like a waste.

Hotel for Dogs is really what they call the crazy old man place. Stinks there.

On the Wii we have Jungle Speed. It's a game about... I'm not sure actually, but it's the first Wii game to support 8 players. People share nunchucks and Wii controllers. Sounds like a real pain, to be honest, and that's before I know what the game is about. Presumably a racer.

Moon is a first person shooter for the DS. How come the DS gets first person shooters and the Wii gets more dumb mini-game collections? Why are third-party developers so lazy?

Robot Master Saturday #18

Today's robot will put a smile on your face. It's Hard Man, the robot that give people more giggles than Wood Man.

This is what the bot looks like.



I never knew what the poin of that thing on the bottom was. Here's my drawing:



Man this is bad. It looks like some of the worst I drew from the Mega Man 2 cast. It ranks up their with the Flash Man drawing.

I basically turned Hard Man into a fat nerd with a wedgie. I should have gave him glasses.

His legs should snap easily.

Oh, it's on!

I've decided to fight back against the Rifftrax gang.



That's right! I have ustream account too, and I'm scheduling a show at the same time as their live show! That'll teach them.

I can't wait to see them cry live on the Internet.

Tork's Picks Playoffs Week 2

I'll take:

Baltimore over Tennessee
Carolina over Arizona
NY Giants over Philadelphia
Pittsburgh over San Diego

I guess that's the theme of this month.

Rifftrax is going to do something it hasn't done before. It's going to broadcast a live riff of a short on it's ustream channel. While this is cool, and it will be followed by a Q&A, they picked the 15th as day they're going to do it on.

You know what the fifteenth is? That's the Second Anniversary of this blog, that's what! THEY STOLE MY THUNDER! My Second Anniversary was a year in the making, and now I have to share it. In fact, I bet they just expect me to step aside.

FAT CHANCE!

Tork's Blog isn't stepping down for anything. We're going to fight back. Just you wait.

I'M OUTRAGED!

As a blogger, it is my duty to expose the lies of the mainstream media. No really, I just looked it up. So I must show to you this DISGUSTING webpage at the LA Times.

This tiny, innocent looking page just took a shot at the most important invention of the twentieth century! When will people learn that the compact fluorescent lightbulb will save us from the reckless ways of Thomas Edison? That guy sucked.

Halogen bulb? More like, halogen BOMB! On our society. Which will suffer from it. It being our non use of curly bulbs. Yeah.

I'm keeping an eye on you, Sean O' Connor. You may be a principal, but I think you need to be the student once more. If I had blogger buddies, we would SOOOO be doing a google search on you to dig up all the dirt that is probably everywhere to see.

Sean O'Connor. SOC. More like, SOC...puppet! This is clearly a plant to try to discredit the CLF movement started by California. Note that this is in the Los Angelos Times. In fact, a quick check shows that Sean is not even a member of a lighting company, but is actually a comedian in Brooklyn! This is exactly the kind of lies I expect from the anti-CFL industry, and I'm disappoined that the LAT would print this. shame on you!


Please credit Tork's Blog when reporting on this story.

2008 Blog Awards! update

As you may know, there are several websites that host awards for the blogosphere. (See here, here, and here.)

So to keep you updated on the status of Tork's Blog for the Blog Awards: Tork's Blog wasn't nominated for anything.

Mostly because I didn't submit my blog, but it's all political anyway. I mean, how could I not make it to this category? Hilton Perez has nothing on me!

Next year, you'll never know. I may actually look at one of these award shows before deciding not to enter my blog!

MST3k 25th Anniversary!

Is four years away. Right now I want to mention that I finally sat down and watched the extras for the 20th Anniversary set. The interviews were fun to watch, even if they didn't bring up anything that couldn't already be found at the MST3kinfo.com FAQ. I was disappoined that they didn't have Bill Corbett talk about his Observer character. The coverage from the Convention was also fun, and the host they got was pretty decent. The first question he asked went on for too long but after that he didn't annoy me.

By the way, you MSTies who were there? The answer is The Crawling Hand and Robot Monster. Dopes.

So what does this have to do with anything? Nothing, except I pledge to appear at the inevitable 25th Anniversary nerd thing! Yup, I'm totally saving up my money right now so I can eventually go to it. I figure I have four years to prepare so it won't be like the time I wanted to tour the country right before gas prices went up.

I wonder what the world will be like in 2013. I guess I'll be married by then. We'll arrive at the convention in style in our flying car. Some nerd will show off his Servo and Crow robots with advance AI, and we would all kick him despite how cool that would be. Then a phone would go off and we would pull out our cell phones, but they wouldn't be iPhones. They would be SUPER iPhones! Someone would get a call telling us that the world hadn't ended, and we nerds would all pump our fists. Then we would all discuss things like the latest video game consoles and how we went to a convention despite the fact that the country is broke. The latter discussions would provoke laughter, but it would be kind of awkward after a couple seconds. Then we would talk about how great it is that the cast is still around but we quietly bet on who would be the first to go. Then we would have Rifftrax vs CT arguments, and laugh. After kicking each other. Nerds kick, you know.

Finally we would file into the theater where the MST3k cast interview is being held. Kickings will go to any nerds who brag about being at any of these before. (I think I'll hold the guy while my wife kicks. Seems the best way to do it.) Then, the actual interview thing will be disappoining because it will just repeat the same things from last year, with the inevitable Manos cheering.

Sounds like a plan!

This Week In Entertainment (1/5/09)

We start off a new year with no movies or tv shows to look at. Do I need to start watching television more often before this weekly entry dies? Luckily there's a couple worthy games coming out this week.

For My Pick of the Week, I will choose Kirby's Dream Land 3 for the Virtual Console. I played the first two Kirby games but this was a really late game for the SNES. Worth 800 Wii poins.

The other game out this week for the Nintendo DS is Retro Game Challenge. It seems to be a collection of mini-games based on some Famicon classics. It'd be worth buying just to see what the old unreleased (to the US) NES games were like.

Robot Master Saturday #17

Today's robot has brought a twin with him. It's Gemini Man.



As you can see he has a crystal crown, or something. Let's see how I drew him.



Badly. His face is a simple smiley emoticon.

My attempt to draw his right hand on his knee just highlights how small I drew his legs.

The jewel crown looks decent, actually. Incomplete, but I think it's the best thing I drew.

NFL Playoffs 2009

I did this last year so let's try it again. Here's the final 12 teams, in order of who I think has the least chance to win it all.



12) Arizona Cardinals (9-7)

First Opponent: vs Atlanta

Why they might win this week: They're facing a rookie QB and the Cardinal's coach is not Norv Turner

Why they might win it all: Warner has done it before.

Why they won't win it all: Uh, cause they're the Cardinals. Duh.



11) Minnesota Vikings (10-6)

First Opponent: vs Philadelphia

Why they might win this week: See head coach, Re: Philadelphia

Why they might win it all: They have a decent RB, right?

Why they won't win it all: A shaky QB in the playoffs can not be trusted, and is there a shakier QB then Jackson right now?



10) Miami Dolphins (11-5)

First Opponent: vs Baltimore

Why they might win this week: They're playing against a rookie QB and the Dolphin's coach isn't Norv Turner

Why they might win it all: I don't know. Well placed snipers? Heck, maybe they'll win just to spite the Patriots, who deserve to be in the playoffs.

Why they won't win it all: Chad Pennington? Really? He's a good regular season QB. Also, the last time Parcells ran out on a team...



9) San Diego Chargers (8-8)

First opponent: vs Indianapolis

Why they might win this week: Beat the Colts last year, somehow.

Why they might win it all: The sports pundits LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUV the Chargers this year. And look what sports pundit luv did to the 2000 Ravens.

Why they won't win it all: Norv Turner. "Hey, let's punt it away to the team with the best offense in NFL history!"

By the way, note that I picked all the home teams of the first round to be the least likely to win the Superbowl. The current way of letting teams into the playoffs is broken, pure and simple.


8) Atlanta Falcons (11-5)

First Opponent: @ Arizona

Why they might win this week: I SAID Arizona.

Why they might win it all: The sports media would love to write articles about how this team won a championship after the Vick thing, so they might wish it to happen. Again, see 2000 Ravens.

Why they won't win it all: I just don't trust rookie QBs.



7) Philadelphia Eagles (10-6)

First Opponent: @ Vikings

Why they might win this week: Accept that awful game at Washington, Eagles have some momentum going into this game against a shaky QB.

Why they might win it all: McNabb and Reid may be due.

Why they won't win it all: McNabb and Reid lost three straight NFC championships for a reason. And it wasn't bad luck. Plus this team may be worst than it actually looks right now. I don't trust them past the first round but I will root for them because they knocked Dallas out.


6) Indianpolis Colts (12-4)

First Opponent: @ San Diego

Why they might win this week: See Head Coach Re: San Diego

Why they might win it all: They've done it before by winning three on the road.

Why they won't win it all: This team has a record number of consecutive 12-4 or better seasons, yet they only have one SuperBowl appearance. Plus, the Colts are suspect after losing to the Chargers last year. Add in the fact that some tough teams like Pittsburgh and Tennessee are in their way and it'll be real tough.


5) Baltimore Ravens (11-5)

First Opponent: @ Miami

Why they might win this week: Miami is probably just happy to be in the playoffs.

Why they might win it all: Great defense may be enough to cover for rookie QB. Heck, this franchise won with Dilfer.

Why they won't win it all: I don't trust rookie QBs in the playoffs, and the Ravens can't play against the Chargers every week.


4) Carolina Panthers (12-4)

Why they might win it all: Looks like a tough team in a weaker conference. The AFC may beat each other up and leave it open for the Panthers.

Why they they won't win it all: Between Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Tennessee, and Baltimore, I just don't see the Panthers winning this year.


3) Tennessee Titans (13-3)

Why they might win it all: Experienced QB. Experienced coach. Best record in the league.

Why they they won't win it all: That experienced QB was murdered in his one SuperBowl appearance, while that experienced coach snuck into the SuperBowl after the ridiculous Music City Miscall. I'm surprised Jeff Fischers wasn't fired five years ago, as well.


2) Pittsburgh Steelers (12-4)

Why they might win it all: A damn good team and a QB who's won it before. Somehow.

Why They they won't win it all: I still don't know enough about their head coach as compared to Cowhers. Not that I was a Cowhers fan, but this guy needs to be tested against the likes of the Titans and Colts first.



1) New York Giants (12-4)

Why they might win it all: They did it last year and I just can't fully trust any of the other teams. (Admittedly, I watched very little football this year as you can probably tell.) Maybe another LUCKIEST PLAY EVER will help them down the line.

Why They they won't win it all: I would put my money on the Titans, Colts, or Steelers being better overall teams. Plus, that guy shooting himself in the thigh may be just distracting enough to ultimately hurt this team.

Tork's Picks Playoffs Week 1

I'll take:

Atlanta over Arizona
Indianapolis over San Diego
Baltimore over Miami
Philadelphia over Minnesota

Ice storms suck sour frog ass

E.D. Note: For those who actually aren't us, Mickey spent the majority of December in the grips of the major ice storm that hit the northeast. He lost power for ten days and didn't have internet for another week. I already explained the essentials to those who are us, and if you're not us, I'm not going over it again. Just pick it up as I go along and stop whining. I just watched some of that one cheerleader movie with Marcy Rylan on E!....I'm in too awesome a mood to argue with you right now.


I can't stress this enough:

The neighbors that took us in during the power outage have nothing but my admiration and appreciation.

That doesn't mean they should get it, though.

These people are nice enough, and have always been great to my family. In fact, they took us in during a previous ice storm (Though we only stayed a few hours.....a move that in hindsight, was worth the next 24 hours+ we stayed in our freezing house).

Back in my younger days, I spent some weekends with my aunt Carol and Uncle Eric. I find it hard to remember the fun things (The camping, the bowling, etc. )because these people were insufferable (That, and Uncle Eric was CREEPY). There couldn't have been two people more wrong for each other. They bickered constantly, ruining any possible fun that could have been happening. By the time I was in my teens and the visits stopped, I don't know if I was more relieved that I had those weekends to myself or that I didn't have to listen to those two anymore.

That was pretty much our experience there. My mother said of them to a friend "These people shouldn't be married. They shouldn't be allowed to live near each other. They shouldn't be in the same country". Which ironically enough, that's usually the case (Except for the married part). They're one of these couples that spends the majority of their time apart from one another on different trips (Wonder why?).One particularly memorable moment from our stay: (The names have been changed to protect the Canadian)

Joe: (Asleep and snoring)
Ellen: Oh my god, can you believe this? JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!
Joe (Jumps out of his chair)

(The following monologue rivals anything thats ever been on Letterman)

Was I sleeping?
Yes
Was I dreaming?
Yes
Was I content?
Yes
Was my headache FINALLY going away?
Yes.

Am I sleeping now?
No.
Am I dreaming now?
No.
Am I content now?
No

IS MY HEADACHE BACK?
YES

Yep. He went through the whole list. Unfortunately, none of the other exchanges were as entertaining as that.

Joe wasn't a cranky old man. Just when his wife was around.

I suppose Ellen's biggest problem was she just didn't get it. For instance, when getting water from the lake (As we called it. fetching water from the crick), she'd get enraged when she'd find leaves and sticks in the water. Now, yes, that'd be a huge problem when it's drinking water, but seeing as how this water was for flushing toilets and we had bottled water for drinking, doing dishes, etc....there's worse things that go down your toilet than leaves and sticks... And they usually do.

She had a real problem with the fact that nobody was showering. OK, I guess I can't argue there...no one likes stinky people. But when you're in a situation where EVERYONE stinks and you can't really do a thing about it......you want to go t a public place to shower, fine, do it. But it's not an emergency you should hold people hostage for. Take what you can get when you can get it. I only got one shower in the entire ten days (And it was pretty damn creepy, as I was in my mother's hot boss's bathroom). Oh and I'm also a guy....as much as I'd like to change my clothes every day so at least part of me doesn't stink, I don't have that many clothes.....in fact, I even had to steal a pair of new pants out of my Christmas presents so I had something clean to wear for a couple days.

The lack of noise was driving us crazy. We finally get a hold of a radio, and the first thing that happens when she hears it is she asks for it to be turned off, as she hates background noise. OK, it's their house, fine, there's nothing wrong with that. But guess this: They have a little black and white portable tv that runs on batteries that we've been using just to watch the news to save batteries. Guess what she does? She watches the entire season finale of Survivor and episodes of Entertainment Tonight......I can see how that's important during this time. (For the record, it wasn't the lack of noise driving me crazy, I had my Walkman anyway, it was the lack of actual light. It was making me physically sick).

My least favorite though was her over-bearingness. Now granted, in small doses, that's not a huge problem, and in some cases, like when we first got there, is appreciated. But when the main part of town is back up and running, you want a sense of normalcy. You want to at least partially feel like you're in control of your life again. So excuse us if we wanted to go out for lunch and dinner every day instead of having you cook whatever you can find that hasn't been spoiled or what you were able to get out in the garage in the early hours of the aftermath of the storm on a tiny barbecue that's hard to get going because it's outside in single digit temperatures. Either that or we didn't want to go to the shelter to eat because we feel that things set aside for the less fortunate should be reserved for the people it's set aside for.

As it turns out, that last sentiment Joe agreed with. But (As a sign of how difficult this experience was) he wouldn't dare admit it around her. He would only say it when she left for Virginia three days before the power came back on.

They're nice people and definitely very generous...I feel incredibly guilty for bitching about them. But it's just...you don't know people until you live with them.