Yeah, yeah…I’m supposed to write about what happened the past couple of days. But hey, let’s blow of a little steam, alright?

In case you haven’t known, I think UPS…yes, the United Parcel Service…has a grade of F on my mind. What can brown do for me? How about delivering my packages to me on time, and at times…intact! For me, they have a success ratio of delivering my packages of about 20%, and I am NOT exaggerating ONE BIT.

My coworker’s been in the business for over a quarter of a century, the shipping side of things is something he knows very much about. In the 2+ years that I’ve been working, he has never seen so much bad luck come to one person who is just simply trying to get his package.

Being a military guy, I learned fairly quickly to order things online (of course the online world was also growing at this time, a Cyber Big Bang kind of thing). By the time I got to Dahlgren, my little home out in the middle of nowhere on a small base, I was already well versed in the land of UPS, FedEx and our US Postal Service. Of course, that was a small area so things were fairly reliable. As time progressed on to my ship and Norfolk, I started seeing the reliability of delivery carriers, mainly UPS, on a decline.

Now back in Texas, I dread making orders. I used to try to do my ordering online to keep things simple, even on Christmas. Oh no…not me, I can order a Christmas present in October and have problems having it under the Christmas tree on time! Only a kind company will work hard to make things work for me. I applaud the success that UPS has gained to be the virtually default, almost exclusive, shipper of almost anyone that has to ship something to me. But it has come to a point where I am willing to spend on a more expensive site just to avoid a shipment with UPS now.

My coworker has seen me pull my hair with some items that are time sensitive. I often will spend the ridiculous money to have it Next Day Air shipped to me because I don’t want them handling my package anymore than they should…and several times I STILL don’t get it! I recently had to ship one of my firearms somewhere. With that, I refuse to do business with anyone that uses UPS when it comes to shipping my firearms. Period.

I got a limited edition poster from Glenn, oh yeah…that package barely survived and now one side of my poster has wrinkled and torn edges. Not happy at all. I’ve had a time sensitive product shipped to a commercial shipping facility at another city, and I had to rush there after my working hours to hunt down and chase through security and other personnel to get my issue resolved. Yeah, that one I believe was expedited shipping, I got my time sensitive product about two weeks later.

This one was another time sensitive product, unfortunately with a company that I feel is lazy and hasn’t impressed me. Unfortunately, they’re the only place I can get this product. So let’s Next Day it! That was last Wednesday…by Friday, I called the company and they decided to finally process my order (confirmed by my bank online) and send it out Next Day on Friday. Except UPS decided to go on its own and turn my package into a Two Day Air. So instead of yesterday, it should’ve come in today. So I waited patiently, then had it tracked again. Well, what do you know? The last scan was last Friday, city of origin. Yes! Score another failure for UPS, another failed scheduled delivery…and even the usual, unsurprising, “Gee, we can’t seem to find your package” bit. So I got a call from UPS, saying the usual sorry and sad words. I took them since I knew it was of no fault to her, but her words were worthless to a person who just has no confidence in the company at all.

So I call the shipper, and realize that I got sent to a forwarding company…customer service was now closed. They close at five in the afternoon, Pacific time. To which I glance at my watch, knowing I’m two hours ahead, and see it say 6:15P (1815 for all you military)…man, they must’ve worked REAL hard to be able to close their lines like that forty five minutes ahead. So yeah, as Chip would like to say, “What an utter disappointment!”

Anyhow, I’d like this to end on a slightly light-hearted note, so I’ll just go back to Sunday. We’ll TRY to cover the previous days soon. But I want to keep it short.

One of my coworkers gave me a virus and I started showing symptoms on Friday, my immune system worked really hard to fight it (which it did, today I’m back to normal with no extra bed time except for being lazy!), with amazing success…details to follow, hopefully! So on Sunday I decided to see how well I was and headed to Grapevine and met Chip there. I haven’t been there in a LONG time with the crazy schedule and I made my RX-8 a better car then Chip went to show me a new game that he ran into.

It was also the first time I went upstairs. One of the games, Chip is referring to, I first saw when I was with Sean in San Antonio. You’ve gotta give props to the Japanese when it comes to out of nowhere, off the wall, “creativity.” We came across a game about beetles. I don’t know how you play. I just know you get a card and you scan the card and something happens. Maybe the beetle takes a bit out of a leaf, game over!

Well, they’re newest game…I don’t know. Many of you who know me well will find it almost hard to comprehend that I actually played this game. It was so retarded that I had to play the game, much to the confused horror of many around. The game is called Love and Berry Dress Up and Dance! That’s all I’m going to say, you can go click the link and figure it all out by yourselves and worry about what happens to the thinking patterns of me when I get sick, especially since many of you say my train of thought is just like the mindset of WWJD (What Would Jack [Bauer] Do)…yeah, I agree…I can’t see Jack Bauer playing this game, lol.

And on the subject of 24…Nadia, that new Muslim CTU chick in the cast this season? Yeah, she’s hot…Glenn needs to start drooling there, lol!

…at hacking me off.

I just remember the mention on another site some time ago about writing a lengthy blog, realizing it’s getting long and before you could even try to save it…bzzzzt. I figured I’d do myself a favor and type it on Notepad. I should’ve just kept it on Firefox, at least it would’ve probably restored my lost data…or even used it on Google. Lesson learned, but I’m not even going to try to retype this all over again tonight. We’ll see if things work out better tomorrow. Oh yeah, that’s why you’re getting beat up all over the place, Microsoft. And if you think you aren’t you’re in flat out denial.

*Windows says to itself* “Ha ha ha, Chris is writing a nice long blog this time! He forgot to save it earlier, he’s even using it in Notepad…which is a KISS program made awhile ago, so I’m gonna have to do something about it. Uh oh, he’s about to save his blog. What better thing to do than just freeze up right when he puts the cursor on ‘Save’…”

And Vista? Please, don’t make me laugh. That’s as impressive as Internet Explorer 7…yeah, I guess you figured I wasn’t impressed.

So yesterday just came out of nowhere for those that didn’t pay attention to the weather forecast. After a constant beating of cold, ice, snow and rain…yesterday was a really nice day. Topping out in the mid 50s on a sunny day. So I decided that I would make that my day to go check out the dead bodies exhibit. On a side note, a certain friend contacted me telling me they couldn’t find me over there as I said I’d be there on my website’s calendar. Ha ha! Look at the title, it says it’s my PUBLIC calendar. The public calendar I put to at least show what events I’m going to, but aren’t that accurate. The time I put in was the hours the museum was open that day. I have another calendar which a few people have access to that’s much more accurate. This helps prevent assassination attempts, muhahahaha!

So I get up there and parking is a nightmare! I circle four times and tell myself I should do now what I should’ve done from the beginning, and that’s park somewhere a little further off. Which I did and I laughed at the cars that I recognized that were still circling aimlessly.

So I get in and this lady meets me at the door and asks if I’m going to buy tickets. Well, unless the show is free, I’m here to buy tickets. Well, she tells me, they’re all sold out today. What?!? It’s a beautiful day outside and nobody has anything better to do than look at dead bodies?!? Hey, if my outdoor shooting range is open on Sundays, I would’ve gone there for some long needed zeroing time (hmmm, won’t I look like an idiot if the range IS open on Sundays…). So here’s one of life’s lessons…when it’s a beautiful day outside after days of gloomy cold, don’t go see dead bodies…especially not too long after going to church!

But hey, at least my taxes are filed and the IRS notified me yesterday that my file was approved and after tossing a coin to see whether or not they’ll give me my refund, I should have a bit of money deposited into my account. Awwwww Yeeeah! Oh well, I’m in no hurry…but I’m pretty perplexed at people that go to the tax filing places and spend over a hundred dollars to have a loan taken out because they need their return RIGHT NOW! Um, that’s kinda sad if you’re really desperate to get your tax refund. But hey, I’m just saying…

…and famousness! Yes, on my way home I heard it on the radio and a giant smile came to my face. I never remember one of what I consider one of the best times of the year, usually I realize it when I see those stands by Wal-Mart or other places. But thankfully I had the radio remind me this year…it’s Girl Scout Cookies Season!!!

YES! FOOD! COOKIES! GIRL SCOUT COOKIES! Samoas…mmm! When it comes to buying their cookies, I’m am a Girl Scout’s dream customer. My notoriety of this is well known, especially in the Navy. Because of this, I only do orders in person…if I took orders online or on the phone, I would destroy what money I have in my bank…but I would be a Swiss bank…except with cookies and not gold bars! In the Navy, it was funny having all these different guys come up to me because their daughters were selling the cookies. I would throw $20 bills everywhere and fill our nearly a dozen orders or more per person on the order form. Then it came time to pick them up, I would have made space in my rack for some of them. Space in a cabinet in Radar Room Two for some more. Then even in the Array Rooms for even more space! I think they now have a new brownie cookie…I will be paying attention for that!

So, I find out the Ben has done a little bit of modeling for a line of shirts made by a friend of his. It’s out on the Net, and he’s online famous now! Kind of weird, because the Internet is now just another way how an insignificant person like myself can leave a mark to be seen by many a good time from now. A few weeks ago, we talked of how Christine and I made it on to Glenn’s website.

Well, a few days ago I got an e-mail from one of Glenn’s directors. In the e-mail, this person mentioned that Tania, Glenn’s wife, liked one of my pictures in particular and requested the actual resolution photograph so she could print it. What can I say? I was delighted and quickly sent the full image back to them and let them know that the other pictures I took of Glenn could be seen on my Picasa album. To think…that there is a possibility that the picture that I took, could end up being framed or hung somewhere in Glenn’s house.

Also, on Glenn’s site now…on the Live Events slider, he put another picture there. Oh, and guess what? It’s still one of my pictures!

Awwwww Yeeeah!

Well, let’s see if I can move on without digressing. Throughout the day, my mind has come up with so many things to post. I don’t know if I’ll ever remember most of them. Good luck to me!

Anyhow, last Sunday I went over to go watch a movie that Alicia had mentioned a few weeks ago called Pan’s Labyrinth. It’s a Spanish film with English subtitles, which many years of watching kung fu movies have acclimated me to enjoying a movie and trying to figure out what they are trying to say at the same time. The easy description is to say it’s Alice in Wonderland for adults…but that is way too generic and could throw people off as to the nature of the movie. It is a fairy tale…an adult one, and I say that because it is dark, violent and graphic. Do not let the fairy tail moniker fool you. While it is acceptable for older people to watch the latest offerings of kids movies like Shrek and all, this movie is rated R and I do discourage children from watching this…unless you’ve been a bad parent and have been showing them the numerous videos of people dying disturbing deaths that can be found in the Internet.

I will also say this is a spoiler alert for both this movie, and the beginnings of the fifth and sixth (current) episode of 24. I say that now because I want to give a brief mention of 24 at the end of this blog and don’t know if I’ll remember…hopefully I’ll remember to scroll up to remind myself… I have the safe assumption that not too many of you will be watching this movie…to my knowledge it is only playing at The Magnolia in Dallas here, and it started last weekend…no guarantees further on.

The movie is pretty much centers on a girl, Ofelia. She is a young teenager but is still engrossed in reading about fairy tales. She and her mother are headed up to a Spanish outpost in Spain during the World War II time frame. Her stepdad is in command of the outpost and is tasked with crushing rebel forces that are in the area.

That’s the setting, and the movie sets up the “fantasy” part of the story from the beginning of an underworld where a princess runs off to the surface of the Earth and dies from the pain and misery up there (yeah, we just flat out suck here on the surface world, don’t we?). However, her parents are confident she will return back to them…probably reborn in another girl’s body, but the same spirit.

It doesn’t take long after arriving to the outpost that she comes across the ruins of a labyrinth, as one of the maids tell her. She also encounters an odd insect which she identifies as a fairy right away. Later on down the road, these things down morph into what I guess can accept as what a fairy looks like…just more dark in atmosphere, as with the rest of the movie. For all you Tinker Bell pedophiles out there imagining TB in stretchy-stretchy leather, sit back down…not talking about that. They lead her through the labyrinth where she meets a faun that recognizes her as the princess and to prove that she is, she has to complete some fairly odd tasks.

The conflict between the real world and the fairy tale world are present throughout the movie. I had every bit as much distrust on both sides, the faun was like that sinister car salesman but man that Spanish commander was pretty creepy as well. Creepy? Yes, in the beginning of the movie he is called outside because some of his troops caught two men who claim they were just hunting rabbits…they just wouldn’t shut up and the commander had to make use of a wine bottle to shut them up. I’ll leave it to your imaginations about that.

Before you start asking yourself, “What type of fairy tale is this?!?” Just remember that most, if not all, our fairy tales we knew growing up and a creepy something inserted into it. I remember when I was little when I was actually afraid of that Disney movie The Watcher In the Woods. Since this is for the grown person, we obviously have to have the state of discomfort risen a bit. So yeah, for those that aren’t fans of death inflicted to others through violent means, you probably won’t want to see this. There is also a small torture scene that leaves out the details to be picked apart by your imagination, but you see the result…a torture that would’ve made Jack Bauer proud, albeit more barbaric in nature in contrast to the professionally cold feel that Jack usually does.

There is a somewhat creepy tune. It plays on the movie’s website, and it’s probably the first thing you hear when the movie starts and it is heard a couple of times throughout the movie.

Emo level? Fairly high. Of course, you can’t make a dark, almost gothic atmosphere in this movie without the emo level being somewhat high. That being said, it isn’t annoying…but that’s all relative, as to how open-, or close-, minded you are. I did sit through the credits and listened to the rest of the soundtrack, same with the website…and it really is a good piece.

Favorite part? Hmmm…well, the movie has a sad ending where Ofelia dies…I’ll leave you to the movie to see why (now you’re gonna have to see the movie, muhahahaha!). I’d say my favorite, though it was disgusting for some of my viewers in adjacent seats, was her first task to the faun. She had to crawl under the remains of a massive fig tree that decayed because a toad lived underneath. While I questions this cause and effect, I’m not going to get all scientific…it’s a fairy tale! She has to somehow get a golden key out of the toad’s belly. Aside from the toad, the mud under the tree is the very messy kind and lots of bugs scurry and slither about. But it was really cool, and I think this scene seemed to also silhouette a general theme for the movie overall. Though her second task had a creepy villain, like a Peek-A-Boo Arch Vile (Doom players will know what I’m talking about!).

Bizarre/Sarcasm points? Oh yeah, plenty…but I’ll touch up on some things. First off, Ofelia dies…which kind of sucked. Her death was also her way of returning back to her Underworld and becoming princess. However, it just seems it is left up to you whether she indeed became a princess, or if she was having those out of body mental overdrive moments where she hallucinated it all during her final minutes till she died.

Also, at the end of the movie, I was like…Well, who the heck is Pan? You know, in the movie title. Well, they wrote out Pan’s Labyrinth at the end before the credits in Spanish and in translation and I guess Pan equals “faun” or something like that. Furthermore, the whole labyrinth turned out to be a disappointment. It was not the myriad of tunnels in a contorted, complex maze. Even in the end, the labyrinth just simply parted its walls for Ofelia to run past, and she still died! What type of Labyrinth is that? Finally, when she returns as a princess, in her artisan clothes (and Dorothy Wizard of Oz shoes), she is at a giant palace floor, where her peons fellow Underworld citizens are applauding her from a balcony and the faun is doing Power Ranger poses on the floor where she is. Her mother and father are sitting on their thrones, which are on the palace floor but reach nearly three stories high. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to scurry up three stories just to sit down and demand a banana split. What if the wind blows…or if I make fun of the faun doing Power Ranger poses? What about assassination? Aside from being an easy sniper target, all they need is a push at the base and you’re a Royal Domino!

That said, this was a really good movie. While it bears no comparison to Rapunzle and other fairy tales, it has too…I’m too lazy to make a new category in my mental brain for creepy dark movies like this, unless that becomes new thing around. If you have an open mind and like what you read, then you may want to give it a check.

Now on to small snippets of 24. I got another friend, Don, hooked on it. He watched last night’s premiere, but I told him to quit watching it and to just start from the beginning. I let him borrow my Season One set. I don’t know what’s worse, him seeing the nuclear explosion and Curtis’ death, or Wayne watching the beginning of last season last year and watching former President Palmer get killed. My buddies are also thinking this new Jason Blaine guy will better represent who I am than Jack. That’s crazy, but I guess we’ll have to see. Speaking of…two points from last night. Number one, that assault on the terrorists arming the nuke…why the heck would the President and senior CTU personnel choose to follow the helmet camera of the assault person that is third or fourth in the stack? All you see are two to three people blocking you way! You can’t see anything! What good is that? Also, it is 2007…our digital special effects are top notch. I couldn’t tell anything in Blackhawk Down was fake. Shrek looks spectacular and even though it was a failed movie, Final Fantasy looked really good. So why do we have one of the top TV shows of the time doing something drastic, like a nuclear explosion, and put out the MOST FAKE mushroom cloud I’ve ever seen?!? It looked more like we launched a jellyfish into space! Okay, I remembered! yay…