I need a vacation...   or maybe a new job.

I think I'm burned out at my job.

sigh...

My First Best Friend

Writing about bust the bag got me thinking of more memories from elementary school.

When I was really young, we had to stay with my grandmother while our new house was being built. While I was there, I went to a small school near her house. I was in first grade I think. I don't remember much about the school because I was only there for a short time, but there are a few memories that stand out. The playground at the school was located under a bunch of pine trees. This meant that the ground was completely covered with pine needles and there was no grass, just dirt. The older kids would take the pine needles and make long piles in the shape of a square to make a wrestling ring. Then we would all get handfulls of dry powdery dirt and dump it onto the pine needles all the way around the ring. Then a couple of guys would get into the ring and wrestle. They would grapple and roll around on the ground, and whenever one of them fell on the pine needles, clouds of dust would poof up. It was very entertaining to a first grader. Eventually the teachers made us stop doing the wrestling matches because they were afraid someone would get hurt. After that, there wasn't much to do at recess.

There were the usual swings and monkey bars out there, but someone was always using them. Recess wasn't much fun until one day I met a boy from another class. The only time I ever saw him was at recess. I can't even remember his name anymore, but we were best friends every day during recess. We'd play tag and run around in circles all the time. Each day when recess started, I'd walk around looking for him and he'd walk around looking for me until we found each other. The first thing we did when we got together was grab both hands together facing each other and start jumping up and down as fast as we could. We'd try to bounce at opposite times, it was funnier that way. We even had a little song we would sing while we were bouncing. It wasn't much of a song, but I guess it was good enough for a couple of first graders. He'd be singing "White buddy, dee dee dee" and at the same time I'd be singing "Black buddy, dee dee dee." As you might have guessed by now, he was black and I was white. Growing up in Memphis, I've seen a lot of racial division, but to a first grader on the playground it doesn't make any difference what color someone's skin is. Kids don't see color the way adults do. People learn prejudices by example. Lucky for me, I didn't grow up in a household that was prejudiced. Otherwise I would have never met my first best friend.

If you get bored, here's a site with lots of fun flash games

If you need a good laugh, check out this year's 101 Dumbest Moments in Business

Bust the Bag!

I was reading through some of my old entries and I ran across a story from when I was in sixth grade. Reading that made me think of another interesting story from those days. It was a game we played every day at lunch time called Bust the Bag. The format of the game was like a gameshow. There was a host (the class clown Mark) and three contestants, there was even an announcer guy who did the voice overs. The tables in the lunch room had three seats on each side so there could only be three contestants every day. The game started with everyone collecting all of their leftover food into one paper lunch sack. Then the contestants sat on one side of the table while the host sat in the middle seat on the other side with the bag in his hand. The host would ask each contestant a question, and if the contestant got the question wrong the host would take the bag full of food and hit it on the table right in front of the contestant. After a few rounds the bag would start to tear and eventually the bag would bust and someone would end up with a lap (or face) full of food. The game was pretty amusing to a sixth grader and the longer we played, the more people ended up in the audience. Kids would come over from all of the other tables to watch.

One day, Mark got in an argument with another friend of ours Steve right before lunch. It just so happened that it was Steve's turn to be a contestant that day. When the game started, Mark was gunning for him. He would ask really hard questions every time it was Steve's turn. For some reason, that day the bag was especially tough and Mark was having a hard time getting it to bust. Lunch was almost over and Mark wanted to make sure the game was over before we had to go back to class so he put water on the bag to soften it up. When it was Steve's turn again Mark asked some impossible question and then held the bag back over his shoulder and swung it as hard as he could. But instead of the bag busting when it hit the table, it busted in mid-air and a giant ball of wet food went sailing through the air across the lunch room. Everyone started laughing hysterically at this point. As luck would have it, the mass of food landed right in the middle of a table full of eighth graders. They turned around and saw us all laughing at them so they started throwing food back at us. It all erupted into a full-fledged food fight before the teachers could break it up. It was hilarious. I think most of the people at our table got sent to the office for that one, but somehow I managed to escape punishment.

So that's the story of Bust the Bag. It still brings a smile to my face whenever I think about it.

Teena and I went to a free screening of the movie Pan's Labyrinth the other night. I heard on the radio that they were giving away free passes at one of the local record stores so we went and picked them up. I actually wanted to see this movie anyway. I had read some reviews of it last week and it sounded like something I'd like. The reviews said it was like a dark and twisted adult fairy tale. I have to admit, it was a really dark movie, but there was much more violence than I thought there would be. Even with the cringe-inducing torture scenes I thought it was actually a good movie. It blended fantasy and reality into something very disturbing, but captivating. People actually applauded at the end of the showing we went to. Definitely don't take the kids to see this one, but I'd still reccommend it to anyone who likes fantasy type movies.

Speaking of movies, I was reading some news stories over at Wired and I came across this article. I think it would make a great movie. hahaha

6 Weird things about me

This is for Brenda. I got tagged a long time ago to do this and the weird things are still true so here they are.

1. I can't stand it when the phone cord is all twisted up. My boss at my old job would let his phone cord get so twisted up that it was like a ball and he'd have to bend over to talk on the phone. That bugged me so much that I would actually go over to his desk and untwist his phone cord sometimes when he wasn't looking.

2. I talk back to the TV sometimes. Especially when a really dumb commercial comes on, I'll make sarcastic comments and make fun of it even if there's nobody there to appreciate my fine sense of humor. Or when there's a show on, I'll yell at the people on screen like "Don't go in there you idiot! There's a monster in there!" You know, stuff like that.

3. I can't sleep with the closet door open. I don't know if there's a closet monster in there or not, but I have to make sure the closet door is closed before I can sleep. Even if I'm only taking a nap.

4. I like to make up words to songs I hear. I walk around the house singing my new versions of songs all the time. Songs from the radio or songs from commercials on TV, it doesn't matter, I am always rewriting the lyrics. I don't sing in the shower though.

5. I'm a computer geek for a living but I don't really care about having any of the latest cool technical gadgets. I never owned a cell phone until I got married to Teena and I've never owned a PDA. I bought an iPod to take on the plane ride for my vacation to the Philippines but I haven't used it since I got back. I don't care anything about having a laptop computer either, and I've never owned one of those.

6.Once I went an entire year without watching tv.

Is anyone out there good at movie trivia?

I found this movie trivia site and I'm stumped. I got 16 out of 20 right, but I can't figure out the others.

I still need to figure out number 2, 8, 9, and 18. I thought I knew number 9, but I guess I didn't.

Any suggestions?