Tattoos and America

The tattoo is healing nicely. It still feels weird when I take a shower or when I apply the anti-bacterial. Or when I touch it, which I try not to do. I like it, though. I'm all cool and stuff. I have a tattoo story to tell soon which involves how lucky I am that it turned out so well, because I'm an easily-intimidated little shit.

Happy Civic Holiday to my friends in Canada. I assume that "Civic Holiday" is Canadian for "National Day Off That We Couldn't Think Of A Good Reason For Day". Here in the states, we call that "Columbus Day".

Do Canadians dislike it when people from The States call The States as "America"? I've been told they do, as "America" really refers to the whole Hemisphere. But, really, the Canadians are the only ones I know who have a problem with it. Everyone else just seems to want to disassociate.

I heard an interesting story on This American Life that talks about how "America" got to be called as such. Everyone knows it's named after Amerigo Vespucci, but it started when a drunken cartographer in Paris was convinced by a friend to name it after him. Vespucci was quite a story-teller (i.e. liar), apparently, at least according to this story. Listen to it here: http://207.70.82.73/pages/descriptions/02/216.html (the July 12, 2002 episode of This American Life).

I first heard that episode of This American Life while driving to hang out with vfc. It also has a story about working in a porn shop. It was a good episode.

[Poll #164335]

Movie Reviews: Seabiscuit and Pirates

Seabiscuit - Not a bad little flick. As with most "true story" pictures, I wonder just how true it is. It suffers from the typical ailments of films of its type: Over-sentimental in parts, absolute good and evil, etc. But it is an interesting story and one that I'm glad I saw and got to know a little more about. Joey gives Seabiscuit three stars out of four and recommends it as a good alternative to the typical summer crap.

Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl - I will admit first that this is not the typical summer crap that I just referred to. It was a pretty straight-forward action movie, but Johnny Depp (and Geoffrey Rush, to a lesser degree) make this a movie worth watching. Orlando Bloom, on the other hand, does nothing but encourage my standing belief that he is nothing but a pretty boy actor who can look heroic, and that's about it. He's better than Hayden Christensen, but is that really a compliment? Anyway, the story was interesting enough, and the effects were good enough, but as I said, this is Depp's movie. Joey Hemlock gives Pirates three "arrrrrrrrghs!" out of four and recommends it to those looking for an entertaining summer action flick.

Can we agree that Pirates is based on the Disneyland ride about as much Seabuscuit is based on a merry-go-round? Or that the movie effectively quashed any "coolness" in acting like a pirate? I'm 100% ninja-fan now.

Ow: A Tattoo Story by Joey Hemlock

So, then, my tattoo story:

( It has nothing to do with Hervé Villechaize, unfortunately. )

Musical Smiles

I have thousands of MP3s, but the one that's guarenteed to make me smile is John Anderson's Swingin'.

Her brother was on the sofa, eating chocolate pie, her mama was in the kitchen cuttin' chicken up to fry, her daddy was in the back yard rollin' up the garden hose, and I was on the porch with Charlotte feeling up* down to my toes, and we was swingin'.

C'mon, that's just good songwritin'.

Edit: It's actually "feeling love down..." but 'up' is a much better lyric, and therefore I'm still right. Except kind of I'm not.