Friday, July 16, 2004

What Are You Searching For?

What Are You Searching For?

Seventy-five percent of my readers come directly from search engines. Here is a sample list of search keywords that brings in most of my business. Since these are the more popular keywords, listing them all in one post might increase my search engine rating, albeit falsely. Sorry.

naked jeeping
squamous cell carcenoma in dogs
movies about king arthur
billie creek civil war days 2004
water power jamie gillis
living venus de milo
samsara pics
driving jeep in rain top down
big head carp video
camp jeep, camping, forum
airwolf vs. blue thunder
samsara television
the car audio live
conspiracy moose squirrel carp
space stormy sealab 2021
cybil, split personalities, the movie
sealab 2021 pictures
sextagenerian

Thursday, July 15, 2004

Brothers Who Care About Each Other

Brothers Who Care About Each Other

If you have brothers, you have a sense of humor.

When I was 9, my younger brother, 7, and I would walk to school. There wasn't a bus system in our neighborhood. The school was in a very old building and seemingly didn't have much of a budget to financially support a fleet for transportation but we did have crossing guards. They could afford crossing guards which were probably just volunteer students picked to hold an octagonal sign and get their peers across safely.

On the path to school, we always had to go over these railroad tracks which were active tracks at the time, so they did get used on a regular basis by trains always heading somewhere. And walking all the way to school can get mundane sometimes, so I thought I'd play a little joke on my brother and make the trip interesting that day.

We came up to the railroad tracks that we've crossed a hundred times before and I noticed a train sitting on the track, probably 1000 feet to the east, pointed our direction. The train was either not moving or moving slow enough that I decided to lay on the track, flat on my back and see what my brother's reaction would be. If only I had some rope and a sinister, mustached man in black to tie me up.

My brother went ape. You should've seen this seven year old screaming and crying for his older brother to hurry up and get off the track before I got squashed or diced into a million pieces, organs strewn everywhere by the train that's a thousand feet away moving at a turtle's pace. I was no where near in danger of getting hit so I wanted to see how long my brother could keep up the bloody murder screaming. Apparently a good thirty seconds before I decided to end it. It took the rest of the trip to school to get him to calm down.

I look back on this memory fondly and it makes me smile.

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Bad Influence

Bad Influence

Mrs. Lock and I were at Target last night. We were in the toddler toy section picking out a gift for an upcoming birthday party for a friend's daughter and we started playing with the various toys, pushing buttons, which caused the toys to talk, play music, or go moo. Then Mrs. Lock happened upon a strange looking toy.

"I don't know what the hell this does," she says after fiddling with it for a bit.

I looked at her, then I looked at the three year old girl standing next to her staring at the shelf of toys below the ones we were looking at, then I looked at the girl's mother standing behind us. Nobody seemed to notice that I'm married to a member of an inner city gang, so I just smiled and walked out of the aisle away from my foul mouthed wife, laughing at what she had done.

She had a good laugh about it too. She's almost three months pregnant with my child. When exactly are those maternal instincts supposed to kick in?

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Like A Train Wreck

Like A Train Wreck



"I couldn't take my eyes off of it, as bad as it was. It was like watching a train wreck."

You've heard this. Do you think that person has actually seen a train wreck? How many people can say they were in a position near some railroad track where they spotted a locomotive coming from one direction, then turned to look in the opposite direction and noticed a second train travelling head on towards the first?

If I were in that position, yes, I think I would stand there and watch the scene unfold because when am I going to get another chance to see two trains collide? Never, that's my point. No one sees this happen. It's a theory, an assumption. When someone uses that phrase, they're describing the calamity of a situation is as bad as something they think they would do if put in the position of watching two giant mechanical bodies in high speed motion collide.

It's not so much like watching a train wreck as it is if you were about to see a train wreck, then you think you would stand there and see the whole thing through. That's what captivated you and your morbid fascination which made you decide to torture yourself to the end by whatever it is you're complaining about.

And I'm not so sure anyone not personally tied to the accident, would complain about a train wreck after seeing one.

"That was just awful. The worst train wreck I've ever seen by far!"

Monday, July 12, 2004

Dreaming About Witches

Dreaming About Witches

My wife insisted I put this dream in my blog. I had this dream Saturday night.

It was a calm, warm day as Mrs. Lock and I trekked through a creepy forest. The ground was covered in brown leaves, autumn was here and as we stepped on the leaves, we crunched our way through and around the bare trees. We were looking for a house we knew to be buried deep in the forest because we had an appointment with a witch of some sort, a woman who lived out of reach of society, very inaccessible.

I actually remember coming to see this witch before so I think she is a recurring character in my dreams. I think this because as we approached her house which looked to be barely standing, a pile of sticks, there were several zombies, for lack of a better term, shuffling about the property. I had it in my mind that these zombies were harmless, more for show than personal protection so we breezed right through them without fear and went right up to the front door.

We went inside and met with the witch where I had a series of questions for her. She did not have the sort of look you'd expect from a stereotypical witch, she was very attractive, tall, dark skinned, long brown hair and very graceful. I had my questions for the hot witch.

"When is our baby due," I started off.

"January 5." This is interesting since the actual due date is February 1. I continued.

"Is it twins?" This is important since twins run on both sides of our family.

"It is not," she replied. "Single baby."

Finally, my last question. "Boy or girl?"

"Boy, most definitely."

Some believe dreams are prophetic. I don't necessarily believe this, not in the oracle sense anyway. Sometimes the answer is there, people just can't see it until their subconscious communicates with them. With questions no one knows the answers to though, it's just a novelty, a lottery. We'll see how it turns out.


Friday, July 09, 2004

Kitten In The Bag

Kitten In The Bag

Ok it's time. Go back and see what you missed. I sneaked an entry in to the archives over a month ago. I'm ready to let it out so I can finally talk about it openly.

Darn you friends of mine who read my blog!

Thursday, July 08, 2004

King Arthur

King Arthur



I saw King Arthur yesterday at the movies, matinee style. Movie matinee prices are higher than I remember evening prices being ten years ago ($6.50). Is that inflation? We haven't had inflation in years. These movies are getting expensive to make though so I suppose expensive to watch.

So I saw this movie because I'm an Arthur nut. I have to see all the interpretations Hollywood does and this one was watchable. It had a very 13th Warrior feel to it which is a good thing and this particular version of the Arthur tale was an interesting one. My jury is still out on whether or not I liked it.

One of the latest theories historians have come up with is that King Arthur was of the Roman Empire, which is very possible given the time and location. The word Arthur was a Roman military position (Artus in Latin I think?) so they're beginning to suspect the famous King was Roman given his dress, chilvary, architecture of his buildings and so on.

In King Arthur, they wanted to keep it realistic, at least as far as medieval stories go. Merlin has a place in the movie but there is no "black" magic at work. Just superior intellect and inventiveness which given time and word of mouth evolves through legend as something of the divine.

Guinevere's character was probably the most creative aspect and greatest division from the usual Arthur tale. She was Picti, though the movie called their race something else I couldn't understand but I recognize them as the Picti race from other Arthur stories and Britain's history. The Picti evolved into present day Scots and in this movie as well as many Arthurian tales were a warrior race indigenous to Britain who were pushed to the far north and behind a wall, probably by the Romans, to slow their advance on the rest of the British island. Merlin was also Picti, same race as Guinevere's, in fact they knew each other.

A third race was introduced to the movie, the Saxons who the Roman-allied Arthur and his knights as well as the Picti called their enemy. Since my enemy's enemy is my friend, the two clashing groups team up against the Saxons who have no regard for Britain or any of its people. See History of Britain for more detail on British History.

I don't have a review of the movie because of my hobby with the Arthurian tale would certainly interfere with my ability to review it as any movie, but of all the Arthurian movies I've seen, I would rate King Arthur second best behind Monty Python's Search For the Holy Grail, which isn't saying much since Holy Grail is meant to be a parody (you think?). I didn't much care for Excalibur and First Knight just plain sucked.

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Why Life?

Why Life?

Where did Life cereal get its name? What kind of egomaniacal company do you have to be to sell your measly breakfast product under such an all-encompassing name? The word life is so inclusive, it's the standard by which we judge amazing things to be larger than. Are we to assume that this mediocre cereal is on equal footing with that which the greatest philosophers have pondered the meaning of? Or are they saying that survival depends on this box of bland
grains and wheats, that it's as essential as air or water for us to sustain the cereal's namesake.

There are no such messages in their advertising. In fact, the product's commercial theme was a couple of kids who didn't like the look of said product and decided to play a twisted joke on a younger boy named Mike to see if he would consume the unattractive morsels, not unlike bullies feeding a victim worms. So what does that have to do with the name?

Maybe it wasn't ego. Maybe they just didn't have much of a creative department.

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

America Turns 228

America Turns 228

Next to April Fool's Day, 4th July is probably one of my favorite holidays. I went out and spent about $80 on some tame fireworks. You can see them displayed in the photo as my cat checks them out too. They were mostly fountains, harmless fireworks because we were spending the day at a family reunion in a heavily wooded area. That meant nothing that can fly off into the tree tops and start a forest fire. Remember, only I can prevent them.
What a busy weekend. It started with my parents coming up for a visit on Thursday. We went out quite a bit Thursday and Friday, they left Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon, I had a costume wedding to attend. It was a wedding where the guests and all members of the ceremony had to dress up in a costume - it looked like Halloween. I'll have some pictures later in the week. It was a lot of fun though. I had a great time as a Viking, the big-horned helmet and axe.

Sunday was 4th of July and we went down south to my mother-in-law's for the traditional holiday reuninon. I got to set off my fountain fireworks and entertain the bunch. We came home Sunday night driving through the worst rain I have ever seen from inside of a car. We got back in time to watch our neighborhood fireworks. It didn't appear to storm in our area.

Monday Mrs. Lock and I were off work, it being the official observed holiday of Independence Day (since it fell on a weekend this year) so we did nothing but relax. We played some video games, watched some TV, watched a movie (Holy Grail) and when dark came, we went outside and watched the discount (day after) fireworks display.

So it was a good (and long) weekend.

Thursday, July 01, 2004

Parents Return, New (Photo) Blog

Parents Return, New (Photo) Blog

My parents are in town once again. They were here Memorial Day weekend to pick up my two nephews, take them back down to Florida for a month and give my brother and sister-in-law a break with their newborn. It's one month later and they're back, coincidentally on another holiday weekend, ready to drop off what they picked up. My parents are in their mid-50s and I think they've had enough of the Manson twins. I'll go out to my brother's after work today to visit.

New month. Welcome July 2004. By the way, I started a new blog, a photo blog actually. I love photo blogs and I love taking photos so it only made sense to showcase what I enjoy doing. Check it out if you like - Lock's Photo Blog. Some of the photos I've featured on this very blog before so they may look familiar.

DJI 10332, NASDAQ 2016, SP5 1127
#1 Movie at the box office: Fahrenheit 9/11
Last movie I saw at the theater: Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (for the second time so saw it two times in a row)
Last movie I saw not at the theater: Big Fish
Books I'm currently reading:
Plan Of Attack by Bob Woodward
On Writing by Stephen King
Paycheck by Phillip K. Dick
CDs I'm listening to:
Ultimate Air Supply
Video games I'm playing:
Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
Empire Earth