Sonicrusk Blog

Today the annual Oscar nominations were announced. I haven’t seen all of the movies, but there are some new faces (no Hanks, Nicholson, or Keaton) this time around. Who do you think will win? Who do you want to win?

Best Motion Picture of the Year

Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Crash
Good Night, and Good Luck
Munich
Best Actor

Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote
Terrence Howard for Hustle & Flow
Heath Ledger for Brokeback Mountain
Joaquin Phoenix for Walk the Line
David Strathairn for Good Night, and Good Luck.

Best Actress

Judi Dench for Mrs. Henderson Presents
Felicity Huffman for Transamerica
Keira Knightley for Pride & Prejudice
Charlize Theron for North Country
Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line

Best Supporting Actor

George Clooney for Syriana
Matt Dillon for Crash
Paul Giamatti for Cinderella Man
Jake Gyllenhaal for Brokeback Mountain
William Hurt for A History of Violence

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams for Junebug
Catherine Keener for Capote
Frances McDormand for North Country
Rachel Weisz for The Constant Gardener
Michelle Williams for Brokeback Mountain

Best Director

George Clooney for Good Night, and Good Luck.
Paul Haggis for Crash
Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain
Bennett Miller for Capote
Steven Spielberg for Munich

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An ancient link to a defunct band. One of my army instructors at Goodfellow AFB, Texas played in this band. My classmates/fellow soldiers and I saw it play at various non-descript venues around San Angelo, Texas. I wish I had some pictures of some of these places: Scrub Pub, Checkers (or was it Characters?). Nothing really remarkable about the band, but what else were you going to do in San Angelo?

Link

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1. Go to office max and buy some nice paper

2. Open Microsoft Word

3. Create letterhead the way you want it to appear atop the page. Use a favorite font. Add a border or don’t.

4. Save as document template (dot). Name it as you would like.

5. Done. When you want some of your official stationary, in Word click file > new > the name of your dot. make sure the bottom right corner of the general tab says new document, and not new template.

6. Voila! you have your own letterhead. Print it to your fancy stationary, or type what you would like onto it using Word, and then print it all out. You can even save it to your computer’s hard drive without disturbing the existing template.

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It’s been a while since my last rant. This is one in which I cannot point to an exact time and place where I was pissed off. That’s why it is so annoying; it happens all of the time.

Minivan drivers. It seems that all Minivans on the road are shitboxes. I’ve owned a few shitboxes in my life. I know about how disappointing they can be in performance. But, for God’s sake, at least drive the speed limit.

These vans drive ssslllooowww. It is not surprising for them to drive 15 miles below the speed limit. Not only that, a lot of times they have no problem driving this dawdling speed in the fast lane. When you finally get a chance to pass them up, you give a dirty look over to a minivan driver with a blank, expressionless face. Someone that looks like they could barely spell his or her name or read the local newspaper, let alone drive a vehicle in society.

About a year ago, I had to do this teaching project at a school around the corner instructing kindergarteners how to brush their teeth. This school is maybe a 3-5 minute walk from my house. I met up with my two classmates, gave the presentation, and then got in one of their cars so they could drop me off at home. Even then we got stuck behind a minivan sitting in the middle of the street. I used my usual profane language when in such situations. My classmate said that of course they are going to run slow. They don’t have any power and usually run like crap.

I don’t know what the reason is, but I do know that minivans, and their drivers, are the scourge of the roadways.

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There are some stupid people on the game show Family Feud.

Do you know that end part where two people are asked five questions and they have to total 200 points? Here are some of the answers in today’s game:

Person #1

The maximun amount of money you could afford for a gallon of gas?
Answer given: $20/gal
Points received: 0

Something that changes colors?
Answer given: Face
Points received: 2

Something you buy at a stationary store?
Answer given: Water
Points received: 0

This guy only earned 32 points. His counterpart was not a whole lot better.

Name a country that begins with the letter “B”
Answer given: Bostonia
Points received: 0

As far as I know, there is no country named Bostonia anywhere on the globe. But she was able to give the number one answer to the stationary store question: Notepads.

The host Richard Karn, formerly of the crappy 90’s sitcom Home Improvement, did not reveal the “#1″ answers to the five questions. The family ended up with 111 of the 200 points they needed.

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A few years ago, my brother worked for a short time with a construction company. He got the job through our cousin’s now ex-husband. A group of these guys took a trip to Las Vegas for a weekend.

He ended up getting into some type of tiff/argument with these guys, offending them. He either became separated from them or was simply left behind when they came back to Bakersfield.

He was stuck in Las Vegas with little money and no car. My brother called various family members, including me. I suggested that he take a Greyhound bus. He claimed to have no money. I talked with my mom, and again suggested that we could Western Union him the money to buy a bus ticket. He said that wouldn’t work, since he had no ID. Greyhound wouldn’t sell him a ticket without one, Homeland Security and all.

My benevolent sister and her boyfriend ended up driving the nine-hour round trip to Vegas to pick him up. But I remember thinking that this is at least one way that bums are made. I wonder how many poor jokers end up getting stuck in some strange city with zero resources or support. People with no ID or cash. They end up as bums. If it wasn’t for my kind sister, and if my family was even more resistant to my brother’s despondent phone calls, he would’ve been stuck in Vegas with zilch.

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Let’s share, shall we? (since I am too tired for a real entry).

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I’ve talked about my friend Hoat and the fact that he has no Internet access at home. It was just a matter of busting balls. While I couldn’t see going for months without the Internet, not everyone is like me.

But to be a senior in college without Internet, or reliable Internet at least, that’s just unfathomable. I have to do a project with three girls in my class. Only one of them has reliable email access from home. One of them has zero access and has to go to the campus to do all of her email transacting. The last one has, ugh, AOL.

This creates a pain in the ass with correspondence. I email something regarding the project, some information or even a portion of the paper I wrote. These two girls don’t check their emails. When they do, they don’t respond.

I had an ex-girlfriend that didn’t have Internet access either in 2002. She owned her own house, and had a good job, so I don’t think it had to do with lack of income. She thought that the $15/month would be a needless extra expense. Hell, just using the Internet as a TV Guide will save you $6/month. $15/month for crappy Internet access in 2002 would’ve been well worth it. But, I wasn’t going to pay for it. Maybe that’s the core reason why we broke up – lack of money hemorrhaging.

Teamwork on projects with people lacking reliable Internet access is a pain.

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Chris Penn, who played Nice Guy Eddie in Reservoir Dogs, is dead. They found him in a Santa Monica condo. No foul play is suspected.

I recently saw him on an episode of Law and Order: Crinimal Intent. He played a chef and a pedophile (standard acting fare for CI). He had really ballooned in weight. Too bad.

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On days I work at the hospital, I have to be there at 0700 for the beginning of a 12-hour shift. I usually wake up at 0500, have some coffee, take a shower, shave, and try to get into the mindset. Some people balk at this (why so early!), but I find that I have just enough time to get what I need done waking up two hours before. I’ve never been the type to get up 30 minutes before I have to be somewhere, stumble into my truck, and speed away. It just doesn’t sound appealing at all, groggy and smelly, just to get a little bit more sleep.

But I digress. Even though I wake up early, I am not eighty-years-old, so I do not go to bed at 9PM in order to get my eight hours of sleep. I try to get into bed by 11PM. I usually get between 4-6 hours of sleep. Kind of sucks but I get over it.

Last night, I ate a late meal of Frosted Flakes and two oranges. I was lying in my bed, still awake, at 12:15AM. I finally drifted off.

About an hour later, I woke up with a stomachache. That late meal, and particularly the oranges, did not agree with me. I tried to get to sleep but with no success. I eventually got up and took some Alka-Selzer. This was near 0300.

Between 3-5AM, I tossed and turned before my alarm went off at 0500. Actually, I heard the automatic coffee maker’s alarm sound at 0450. So, as I write this to you, I am going on about two hours of sleep. I feel fine, my eyes a little heavy, but I know that as soon as I crawl into my bed, it will be like a baseball bat hit me.

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