Heroes Season Three Thoughts

HeroesWhile I’m not as ass-deep in the story as I was during Season One I’m still watching Heroes regularly.  I may not catch it when it’s first on the air but I’m usually caught up within a week thanks to either the DVR or Hulu.com.  Last night I actually managed to catch the final episode of season three right after it went off the air (because watching it on the DVR keeps me from having to watch commercials, naturally).  That being the case, I wanted to jot down some thoughts I have on the series so far, the resolution of season three, and where the series might go from here.

Beware the cut tag, for there be spoilers below!

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Muscle Memory

Photo by webhamster

Photo by webhamster

On my way into work this morning I ended up following a tractor trailer that had a flat bed on the back stacked high with wooden pallets, and for a few minutes I was lost in memories of a period in my life where it looked like I was going to end up living the the blue collar world.

After I got back from my largely unsuccessful turn at being a roadie for the Renaissance Festival I spent a few months wallowing at my Mother’s house being largely useless.  When I say wallow I’m being pretty literal.  I slept all day, stayed up all night, smoked like a chimney in my bedroom, and was pretty much an out-and-out drain on her finances and her sanity.  She was constantly on my case to get a job and do something with my life, and I was constantly ignoring her requests and continuing my daily routine of “get up, waste my life, go back to bed.”

One day, however, she knocked on my door at the ungodly hour of noon or something like that and simply said “Come on, Mike.  Get up.  It’s time to find a job.”

My eyes snapped open and the first thought that popped through my mind was She’s right.

Two days later I had a job working as a temp for Skaraborg Invest (USA), Incorporated.

SII was an injection molding plant.  Specifically, we made CD jewel cases.  The job itself was pretty simple.  I monitored the machines as they put out boxes of jewel cases.  I would inspect every sixth box or so that came down the line and make sure there weren’t any flaws in the product.  If there were I’d notify the supervisor on duty so that he could make adjustments.  I would put the finished product on a pallet, load more boxes into the machine, and repeat the process.  When a pallet was full I moved it over to this nifty spinning platform and cover it in shrink wrap for shipping.  At certain points throughout the night I would fold up boxes to prepare them filling.

Sometimes I got to drive a fork lift.  I highly reccomend driving a forklift, or even better standing on the forks of a forklift as it’s being driven, as a recreational activity.  It’s hella fun.

After a while I impressed them with my abilities and they hired me on full time from the temp agency (translation : I showed up on time and sober and wasn’t a complete moron).  Christmas rolled around and as a Christmas bonus they gave everyone who worked for the company an entire weeks worth of pay as a bonus.  This was big money for me at the time, and a pretty sweet reward all around.  This was the early 90’s, you see, and compact disc sales were through the roof.  We really couldn’t make jewel cases fast enough.

Eventually SII announced they were moving to Lake Wales, Florida, to expand their operations.  They offered to let anyone who wished to move over with them do so if they wanted to keep their job.  I quite literally had nothing going on here in St. Petersburg so I decided to go with them.  We spent a few weeks getting the factory ready (note to any of you who do industrial painting : epoxy based paint is evil) and then we moved over.

After a short time in Polk County I started attending the Polk Community College.  It’s this point in my life I reference when I mention the fact that at one time I was working full time, going to school full time, and participating in all of the shows at the college becuase I was on a theater scholarship.  I was pretty much on top of the world.  I was in great shape, had a decent job, was making good friends, and enjoying life.  At the time the job was just a stepping stone towards my acting career.

Of course, as often happens to the aspiring artist, life kind of got in the way of my plans.  I met a girl, we fell in love, and suddenly my highly focused solo life got a lot more complicated.  We moved back to Pinellas County and I went to work for the Home Shopping Network.  I got fired from that job and attempted to make a go of getting a job at another plastics factory in Pinellas county but eventually ended up working in a convenience store.  The girl got pregnant, we got married, and in December of 1995 our son was born.  We were living with my friend Steve in his really small house and I was making six bucks an hour or so working the midnight shift in a gas station.

I caught wind that SII was expanding operations and made a few phone calls.  Pretty soon the decision was made to move back to Polk County.  There was talk of training me to be a supervisor.

At that point I was pretty much convinced that my life path was being laid out for me.  I was going to be a blue collar factory worker for the rest of my days.

Fortunately (although it didn’t seem like it at the time) things didn’t turn out quite that way when I got back to Polk County.  The supervisor position they dangled in front of me wasn’t at their state-of-the-art modern facility but at this piece of shit side project they had running in a building across the street.  They were using a temporary mold to make some kind of flower potting plants they were going to sell at Wal-Mart, and the entire shift was spent pulling these crappy bowls out of the machine and trimming all the excess “flash” from them with a box cutter.  I still have a deep scar on my left thumb from doing that.  This was during a really harsh winter in a building with no insulation and no heat.  The only thing we had to keep us warm was an orange grove heater.  Something like this…

Cantherm EC 200 Indirect Fired Portable Heater

Cantherm EC 200 Indirect Fired Portable Heater

Except ours was about 20 years old.  If you were standing directly in front of it you were blasted by a wave of super heated air that did absolutely nothing in the realm of radiant heat.  You were either boiling or frozen.  There were no other alternatives.

The amount of suck I was dealing with at Blue Chip (the name of the side company) on top of the suck of being a new parent led to me being fired due to excessive absenteeism.  My career in the plastics industry was cut off at the knees.

Which is ok.  A short time after that I got a part-time job working in the business machines department for Staples, which eventually turned into a full-time gig.  That got us back to Pinellas County when I got a lead position at the store in Bradenton, then eventually Clearwater.  My computer experience helped me get an entry level programming job with Auction Broker Software, and eventually (through a long series of events chronicled here) got me where I am today.

But for a brief time it really looked like i was going to be a factory guy, and I really think those years helped define who I am today.  It was, for the most part, mind numbing and tedious work and I’ll never say it wasn’t.  That being said, there was something honestly rewarding about it.  We were creating things from scratch.  We were producers.  It was hard, sweaty, and intellectually unrewarding work but at the end of your shift you could look at the stacks of completed product and say “I helped make that.”  There was something immensely satisfying in that.

I think more than anything those years help me to appreciate what I have now and explain why I’m so shocked over the fact that people seem to just casually chuck off jobs, even with things as bad as they are right now.  There are times when I wish I was doing something else, something more artistic, and there are certainly times when I get a sense of wanderlust and feel the urge to just pick everything up and start over again somewhere else.  When I start feeling that way, though, I remember those years in the factory.  I remember feeling like I’d never amount to anything more than a line man or maybe a shift supervisor and I say “No.  Protect what you have.”

So there you go.  The story of Mike the working man.

All brought on by a tractor trailer carrying a load of wooden pallets.

Hello my friends we meet again

Hey all!

I’ve been having yet another online identity crisis of late. I’ve been delving a lot into the whole social networking thing, and as a result of that my online life and my real life are becoming horribly entwined – particularly in regards to my job. That being the case, I’ve felt a bit stifled at times recently. There have been things I wanted to say and could not, or perhaps it’s better to say that I could but I didn’t feel comfortable with it.

Sometimes you just wanna say fuck, ya know?

That being said I’m probably going to be posting here more under friends tags. Nothing particularly drama-laden. I just want to be able to write about stupid shit occasionally and not worry about whether or not my co-workers are going to get weird over it.

Due to this I’m paring down the friends list. This really needs to be a “friends” list. People I know and trust. If you don’t fall into that category my apologies, but I’m going to be cutting you from my list. If for some reason I cut you and you think you fall into that “real friends” realm please let me know.

Experts Argue For National Sugary Drink Tax

Image by whalesalad

Image by whalesalad

I wrote here a few months ago about how Governor David Patterson of New York was pushing for a 15% obesity tax on sugary drinks (and about how I personally thought that was a pretty lame idea).  In a follow-up to that proposal Kelly Brown of Yale University and New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden have made the case for a national sales tax on sugared drinks in an article written for the New England Journal of Medicine.

If implemented as proposed in their article, the tax would increase the cost of sugared drinks by 1 cent per fluid ounce, which doesn’t sound so bad until you realize that a standard can of soda is 12 fluid ounces.  12 cents per can turns into an additional $1.44 in taxes on a 12 pack of soda!

According to the article, adolescents consume 10 to 15 percent of their calories in the beverages they drink.  The authors, in proposing the national tax, believe that the higher costs of sugary drinks due to the tax will not only cut down on those numbers but will also raise additional money that can be used to battle the costs of healthcare attributed to our expanding national waist line.

I can’t really argue with the logic here.  I personally can attest that cutting sugared soda out of my life was probably one of the largest contributors to my weight loss, and we wouldn’t be writing for this site if it weren’t for the fact that there’s a large number of people out there who want to lose weight.  I also recognize, from first hand experience, that higher taxes can be a deterrent to unhealthy activities.  Krystalle and I recently quit smoking as a result of the federal sales tax increases that pushed the cost of cigarettes here in Florida over $5 per pack.

I get the motivation behind it.  I really do.

However…

I really do have a problem with the mentality that in order for people to make healthy choices about their lives we need to tax the hell out of anything that is bad for them. Personally?  I’d rather see the Government be proactive in regards to healthy living.  Say, for example, by closing the loopholes that allow broadcasters to get away with putting all the Public Service Announcements they are required to run on the air when nobody is watching.  Or how about tax incentives to companies who manufacture healthy foods that would lower the cost of those foods and make them more accessible to lower income individuals?  Let’s actively educate and make it attractive to people to make better choices in regards to health instead of simply trying to tax them out of it.

Frankly, in the final analysis, if you don’t teach people how to live better they are just going to find ways to work those higher taxes into their budgets and all you’re going to end up doing is adding yet another source of income to the government coffers.

Unfortunately, that might be the point.

New York Star Wars Fan Forms Jedi Exercise Academy

New York Jedi

Promotional image from NewYorkJedi.com

If you’re anything like me, the days and weeks (nay, years) after you saw Star Wars for the first time were filled with hours and hours of running around the house making lightsaber noises and basically acting like the Star Wars Kid.  While Luke Skywalker may or may not have been your favorite character, there was still something innately awesome about making running around with a flash light and making those “swoosh” noises while you did battle with invisible hordes of Storm Troopers.

Back in those glorious days of your youth you probably never gave a second thought to the fact that, in acting out your own lightsaber duels, you were burning lots of calories.

Well, New York Fitness Guru “Master” Flynn has, and he’s turned those thoughts into a series of classes designed to not only teach the students how to re-create the fight scenes from the Star Wars films but to burn calories in the process.  According to Flynn, “A 150-pound person can burn more than 400 calories after an hour of fencing and more than 600 through martial arts,” and his lightsaber classes are a combination of both.

He also points out that not everyone in his classes is a fan of the Star Wars franchise and that most of his clients are women.  Sounds to me like a great opportunity to not only get in shape but perhaps make a few social contacts as well.

For more information on the lightsaber classes or for information on how to enroll check out the New York Jedi website.

The Lieutenant Of Innishmore

So.

There are two more weekends left in the run of The Lieutenant of Innishmore at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.  I’m getting a pretty clear vibe from my friends at Jobsite that they could really use some help getting asses in seats for the last eight performances of the show.  We say that a lot (and we always mean it), but it’s particularly important that this show make money for us – or at least break even.  Why?  Because it was hellishly expensive to produce.  Jobsite took a big risk with this production and really made an effort to bring Tampa Bay a show that was unique, and they succeeded.  The special effects alone in this show are totally worth seeing it, and that frankly took up a huge portion of the budget.

But hey, don’t go see it for charity reasons.  In fact, I can supply you with a list of reasons why you should get off your ass and get over to TBPAC to check it out.

  1. All three major newspapers gave the show glowing reviews, as did several local blogs.  This doesn’t happen all that often.  Take, for example, Picasso at the Lapin Agile.  It was one of the biggest hits Jobsite ever had, but the Tampa Tribune absolutely trashed it.  When all the local critics agree a show is worth seeing you might want to stand up and listen.
  2. The writer of The Lieutenant of Innismore, Martin McDonagh, has won several awards and was most recently nominated for an Acadamey Award for In Bruges.
  3. The special effects are totally awesome.
  4. The cast and crew is made up of some of my favorite people in the world who have been working insanely hard to bring Tampa a quailty production.  They spend an hour and a half after every performance cleaning the stage and getting it ready for the next show.  That means that on a good night they are getting home around midnight and almost all of them still have day jobs (Tampa doesn’t really support living wages for actors).  I’ve been watching them like a worried old man for the last few weeks, cautioning them to make sure to eat well and get plenty of rest.  Every show deserves to make enough to let the actors see some extra scratch in the final paycheck, but this show in particular is requiring lots of effort beyond the actual acting.
  5. Kari Goetz and Matt Lunsford have great chemistry.  Seriously.  Such talented actors!  Also, they are both hot (least that’s what I hear about Matt.  Tall, blonde haired blue eyed englishmen don’t really do it for me, though).  Eye candy doesn’t suck.
  6. It’s funny as hell.  I probably should have mentioned that before, but it really is.
  7. Greta will scold you if you don’t go.  You don’t want that.  Seriously.
  8. Tickets to see the show are only $24.50, and if you pay attention to the Jobsite Blog or follow them on Twitter you can often get some great list minute ticket prices.  Considering the high cost of Broadway tickets these days, supporting local theater for the cost of a movie with popcorn and a drink is a great deal.  You can also see said movie at any time when it comes out on DVD.  Once a Jobsite show closes that unique experience is lost forever.
  9. I’m Irish.  This show is about Irish people.  If you don’t go see this show it must mean you hate Irish people and, by extension, me.
  10. Every single person in this production has a better Irish accent than Sean Connery.

Ok, I think I’ve made my point.  Please, go see The Lieutenant of Innishmore.  Support Local Theater!!

Words of +WIS : “I’m a Girl, Damn It!”

10406__mallrats_lYou took me where you went shopping, you jerk! You think I care what store in that shitpit dirt mall has the latest Godzilla bootlegs? Do you call eating pizza in the same dive pizzeria every night eating out? Do I give a shit when two major comic book labels are crossing over characters, selling two editions of the same book in varied-ink chromium covers? I’m a girl, damn it! I wanna do girly things! Like fix up someone’s hair and get phone calls expressing romantic sentiments!

– Rene, Mallrats (1995)

Ok, fellas.  This post is for you.  Ladies, if you’d like to step back for a moment and have a good laugh at the fact that I even felt the need to write this particular post feel free.

Let’s be honest guys.  Despite all of the facts and figures out there that point out how much sense it makes to lead a healthy lifestyle, if you’re on this web site looking for tips and tricks to lose weight and/or get in shape you’re most likely doing it because you’re looking for a girlfriend.  There’s nothing wrong with that particular motivation.  I myself dropped the biggest chunk of my weight during a period where I was single after my divorce.

Getting into a relationship is one thing.  STAYING in a relationship is an entirely different subject altogether, and Rene sums up one of the challenges we (as geeks face) – remembering that girls, occasionally, like to do girly things.  Even if you’re fortunate enough to land yourself a geek girl (which I have…you may envy me now), there are still going to be times when she wants to do something romantic.  Her idea of romantic MAY involve singing Klingon Opera together, but it’s just as likely she may want you to bring her flowers and cuddle up with her to watch Pride and Prejudice.  Hell, if you’re open to the experience you may even enjoy it (although I’m still not seeing what the big deal of “wet Colin Firth” is).

Long story short?  A woman who is willing to put up with all the weird geek stuff you’re in to is a precious thing.  Don’t blow it by constantly neglecting the things SHE likes to do as well (because, believe it or not, not every girl has a “dressing up like Slave Leia” fantasy).