Lilapsophobia

So, Eyrieville has been pelted by horrific weather recently. Hail the size of Volkswagen Jettas. Winds that tear your shorts off on the way to the mailbox. Thunderheads so dark and ominous that one expects the four horsemen to come galloping out of it, flaming swords in hand.

What's going on here? Honestly, every Thursday night the firmament opens and the Lord allows the bottom to drop out on us for several hours. This has happened for the past six weeks, loyal bloggeneers, and this Bibb is getting a bit twitchy over it.

Have we got a Jonah here in Eyrieville? Is someone trying to hide from God's commands down one of our back avenues? Should I organize a posse? I don't know that I've ever been this freaked over meteorological phenomena before. I've lived through a Texas hurricane, an Oklahoma tornado, a Wyoming blizzard, and the movie Michael Clayton, so one would think I would be past any revenant disaster phobias by now. But I'm not, blogfellows, I'm just not.

Take a look at the following photograph.

Now try to imagine that bearing down on you as you desperately try to drive away from it. No matter which direction you take, the twister follows, even if you make a 180 degree turn. This describes a recurring dream I've had about tornadoes off and on for most of my life. I'm no Freud, but I guess for me, tornadoes represent the unbridled power of God through nature, and my attempt to outrun them or evade them may indicate a latent fear of answering God's purpose for my life.

Good grief...I'm the Jonah?

What should I do, blogpals? Try to confront the twister in my dream? Go Pecos Bill on its ass and rope it into submission, metaphorically speaking? Or have I got things all wrong with my analysis of the dream?

Whaddya say, bloggerinis? Put Bibb on the couch and pick his addled brain.

Tempus Subsisto

Tick, tock, blogowatts.

Lately, I've been thinking how supremely satisfying it would be to have the power to stop time's irrevocable flow. Why hasn't one of our think-tankers figured that one out yet? We've isolated the addiction gene, constructed the Tapei Tower and the Three Gorges Dam, and flown remote control robots to Mars, but we still look like amateurs when it comes to boring old time.

C'mon, eggheads! Einstein gave you a damned good foundation! Where are our chrono-physicists? Where are the tempologists? Where, great Scott, is our Dr. Emmett Brown?!

One-Point-Twenty-One Jigowatts!

Many a time this semester, I've glanced forlornly up at the HUGE clock that hangs above our fireplace (why did I do that to myself?) and I've thought, "My life is running out with each modulation of that insufferable second hand. And what have I done with this precious second? What about that one? And the next?"

Folks, I wrote myself a letter when I was fifteen years old. I sealed it and scrawled "Do not open until January 2025" on the back (along with an incredibly lame clock with lightning shooting through it; I told you people I was nerdy). When that January finally rolls around, I will have reached my 45th year. I'll probably have kids in high school, a tenured position at some modest teaching college (God willing), and the United States Secretary of Education for my wife. And do you know what's really weird? I have no idea what I wrote in that letter.

I think it was some hair-brained teenage dream about inventing time travel (I thought I was a budding physicist in those halcyon days), but I really cannot recall. If only I had invented that most glorious of science fictions, the obsession of every moderately brainy kid who read Mr. Wells's fantastic novel--the first to put forth the suggestion that there exists a fourth dimension, one accessible to everyone with a functioning memory:

"But you are wrong to say that we cannot move about in Time. For instance, if I am recalling an incident very vividly I go back to the instant of its occurrence: I become absent-minded, as you say. I jump back for a moment. . . . and why should [the civilised man] not hope that ultimately he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time-Dimension, or even turn about and travel the other way?"

So you see, in a way I did invent time travel by writing that letter back in 1994. When I open it in 2025, my mind will travel back along the Timestream to that spring afternoon in my room with the green shag carpet on 10th street and uncover the revolutionary scientific aspirations of a lonely 15-year-old. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is pretty cool.

But it would still be awesome if I could get a little of what Joshua got that hot day outside Gibeon.

That's a hint, God.

Stud Within, Nerd Without

Ladies and gentlemen of blogopolis, I think I may be a nerd.

I have attempted to stave off that particular moniker for quite some time now. I'm not sure why, but I have an aversion to the "nerd" stigma. Maybe because so many neanderthals in junior high were so quick to assign that label to me, and maybe I'm not so anxious to admit they were right.

Or maybe it's just that at the core of every guy dwells the soul of an ass-kickin' stud. Ladies, you may not know this about men, but every last one of us thinks he's a superhero. I'm serious. If you could access the inner workings of the male psyche, you would see that we all believe we could beat practically anyone in a fight. Sometimes we size up another guy we see, and we think, "Hmm, pretty big, but if it came right down to it, I could break him in two."

And I'm just not ready to give that inner stud his permanent walking papers. You know? Sure, I admit that I'm overweight. I don't have a rockin' six-pack like certain other bloggers who shall remain identified as FORKULELE. I can't even get in and out of our tiny new Civic without grunting like an arthritic rabbi. But I could still soundly kick all your butts in my mind.

Looking around my office, however, I must concede that the nerd vibe is undeniable.

And that's not the half of it. Sure, they're action figures. But did you notice the absurdly nerdy care that went into their positioning? Did you observe the miniature dioramas that echo scenes and thematic elements from the films?

See, here Anakin Skywalker duels with Obi-Wan in their final climactic battle. Do you notice the shadow of Vader mirroring Anakin's movements? And the tiny Vader between his feet? These things aren't just set up willy-nilly; there was serious thought put into each interaction, into every bend of a leg and every wardrobe choice. I'm so ashamed...

Here, Gandalf the White wards off the deadly blows of a Nazgul, while Treebeard looks on from the background. What's wrong with me?

Trust me, people, the nerdapalooza doesn't stop there, but I'm actually getting embarrassed of myself, so I'm not sharing any more. Nevertheless, I need to know if I'm beyond rehabilitation. Blognerds, can I ever be as cool as, say, this dude?

Probably no hope for that, huh? Well, I suppose I will just have to settle for the nerd niche in society. But I refuse to completely abandon my aspirations toward studliness and ultra-coolness. I am going to start working out, and I'm going to try to wear actual pants a little more often (instead of the nerd's uniform of cargo shorts and Star Wars T-shirt that I'm currently sporting on a daily basis). Any other tips on how to be cool and studly? Do I have to be able to crush walnuts with my pecs? Do I have to lift small vehicles over my head while smoking two cubans? Do I have to go out and maul some monstrous beast for sustenance? You tell me.

In the meantime, I'll just have to settle for this clown.

RinGrudgEye = Sh#tter

You know all about the story.

Some waify Japanese broad with debilitatingly morose emotional problems dies, and guess what! Her evil, stringy-haired spirit harasses an artsy dude with stubble and his anorexic blonde baby of a wife until her mysterious and carcinogenically dull secret is revealed! Such innovation! Such imagination! Such a breath of fresh...wait...

Haven't we seen this before?

And before that?

And before before that?

OMG, blog-peeps. Why do I keep going to these movies? Moses, smell the roses, already. If there's a pasty Asian face on the movie poster, with wide eyes with no discernible irises, the film will shamelessly borrow wholesale from its Japanese ancestors. I mean, are there even any angsty Japanese girls left? I would think we'd have killed them all off by now, but there seems to be an endless stream of them, ghoul-shuffling their way across studio apartments everywhere and frog-crawling through bedsheets to beat the band!

What will it finally take for the movie execs over at Churn-'Em-Out Pictures to realize that their cookie cutter thrillers are as washed up as an unwanted demon-girl at the bottom of a New England well? We get it! Evil never sleeps, eats, pees, washes its hair, changes its clothes, or dies. But can we at least get a different set? A slightly altered wig for the Tokyo ghost? I honestly think the twerps in Shutter went to the EXACT SAME HOUSE they used in The Grudge at one point in the film! For Hitchcock's sake, people, are we that stupid?!! Are we willing to lie back like hogs in our own filthy slop and gobble down whatever odious corn-pone they lob in our direction?

We're on the bus...a Japanese ghost girl appears in the window. We're in the shower...a Japanese ghost girl paws at our hair. We're sleeping next to our ignorant spouse...a Japanese ghost girl crawls out of a closet. We're casually reading the morning paper...a Japanese ghost girl pops up in the crossword. I can't even brush my teeth without a Japanese ghost girl handing me the toothpaste! Where does it stop?

So I've decided to take another imaginary blog-poll. Since the plot probably won't ever change, and since they seem to keep hiring the same two twenty-somethings to play the horrified victims in every one of these wretched films, I'm going to at least hope for a slightly modified ghost demographic.

So, Japanese ghost blogs, which shall it be...

A.) A Mexican ghost grampa

B.) A French ghost chef

C.) A Canadian ghost mountie

D.) A Chilean ghost spelunker

You decide.