IT'S OVER!

TODAY IS THE DAY! I AM FLYING DOWN TO GET BRIDGET!! IT'S OVER!!!

I could barely sleep last night. I woke up several times and couldn't get back to sleep because my mind was racing with excitement. After all, before I went to bed, I had finished with my last Skype conversation with Bridget in San Diego.

The deal: I am flying down today. Bridget's last day of internship is tomorrow. We leave San Diego on Friday, the 2nd, and will get to Seattle six days later on the 8th. On the way, we will stop in 1) Cupertino to visit Elaine and Wes and their new baby Emeline, 2) Eugene to visit Bridget's family and the remaining Eugeneians, and 3) Portland, to visit the many Portlanders!

This has certainly been a hard year. Most of the time, neither of us really thought about it, and gradually made ourselves get used to it. This is an adaptive thing to do, because you really can't function being sad or pissed-off all of the time. But the curtain is slowly rising. We are becoming aware of the unconscious despair as it slowly dissipates. Our regular life is returning! I'm sure that once we're back together, we will never understand how we possibly survived this past year. But the important thing is: We did it! WE DID IT!!!

Two other interesting things:
1) I am flying down in first class. *
2) I am bringing a dozen Top Pot donuts in my carry-on. **

So, this is my last post as a lonely, semi-single man. Karen asked me the other day if there is anything I'm going to have to give up. I started listing things that will change, but none of them really felt like things I was giving up. I will dragonboat much less, but that was just a filler while I was missing Bridget. I will eat donuts less, but they were also filling the void Bridget left. I will probably watch X-Files at a much slower pace, but onyl because I get to watch Star Trek with my B. Bear more often. So, ultimately, I will miss nothing, and can onyl look forward to the joys ahead. Next time I post, I will be writing as Super-Jeph, powered by a continuous flow of mega-love from the ultimate woman of my life and dreams!



* = free upgrade with bonus miles we saved up and needed to spend!
** = these are for the intern's Hail and Farewell Party tomorrow. Bridget's roommate really wants to try out the infamous delectables, and one of Bridget's intern buddies goes ape over these.

Teenage Mother!

Over the weekend, Emily and Karen and I scared and laughed ourselves silly with the movie "Teenage Mother".

I rented this film because I saw the trailer online, and thought it looked hilarious. It looked like one of those morality movies intended to scare kids straight, like Reefer Madness. From the trailer, you get the impression that it's about a pretty darn promiscuous teenage girl having premarital sex who ends up getting pregnant.

However, this movie is not actually about that at all. In fact, the girl does not even get pregnant! It's sort of actually about the importance of teaching sex education to teenagers, for parents. Sort of. Actually, it's really actually hard to figure out what they were trying to do with that movie. Near the end, however, there is very disturbing real footage of a baby being ripped out with forceps, though. Truly horrific.

What is really mind-boggling about this film is the disconnect between the trailer and the film. I really, really recommend watching the trailer to this film, just because it is absolutely hilarious in and of itself. Watch it here.

For those of you who do watch, here are some interesting things. First, she does not get pregnant, so that shot of her fully pregnant in an orange sweater is not real. Second, she is not promiscuous in the film, so all of the voice-over dialogue in the ad of her saying things like "I know how to make all the boys hot" is not in the film, the scene of her in her underwear is not in the film, the scene of her dancing in front of the mirror is not in the film (supposedly getting ready to have sex with the truck driver, which does not happen in the film), the scene of her making out with that boy is not in the film (in fact he is not in the film). Finally, something else which is not in the film, but which baffles me to virtually no end, is the fried chicken scene. I cannot fathom why this is in the ad. Is this supposed to be "sexy" or something? How in the world is eating fried chicken like a caveman sexy?? Why would you film this ever?! Aaaah!!!

But perhaps the best things about the ad is this awesome soundbyte: "TEENAGE MOTHER! MEETS NINE-MONTHS OF TROUBLE!"

Star Crash

As many of you know, I LOVE bad movies. Bad movies of a very special kind: so bad that they actually end up being some of the most entertaining movies you'll ever see. I recently rented Star Crash, which is a prime example of this genre of film. It's probably tied for my second favourite worst movie ever (tied with Troll 2, and THINGS being number 1, of course).

Star Crash is the unbelievably stupid name of a B-movie from the late seventies that is a rip-off of Star Wars. This movie is so frigging hilarious it is hard to know where to start. The effects are so bad and cheesy, especially considering what was available at the time. The plot makes absolutely NO SENSE, but of course makes enough sense that you seriously question the mental states of the people who made it. The characters, dialogue, the acting, the music, the pace; Everything is just so gloriously bad it makes you giggle out loud like a little boy, even when you're watching it alone. This is a MUST SEE movie for anyone who is into this kind of thing (I know we are rare, but we are out there!).

I could describe something hilarious about nearly every single scene in this movie, but that would take forever. However, as an example, here is one. Near the end of the film, there is an epic battle between the forces of good and evil in the Universe. A fleet of the good guys' starships are attacking a giant base starship of the bad guy. There are countless shots of lasers being shot and subsequent sparky explosions. But suddenly, giant torpedoes crash through the window (yeah!) of the bad guys main control center. Two incredible things happen here: 1) the torpedo crashes through the window, exposing the ship to the vacuum of space, but the room remains pressurized and everyone can breathe, and 2) the torpedo does not explode. Instead, soldiers JUMP out of it and start shooting at the bad guys! What a great idea! No, why bother shooting a missile directly at the control center - 10 feet away from the evil emperor - and have it explode, when you can just have dudes jump out of it and try to shoot at him? So what if they inevitably get shot and killed - you can always just load up another torpedo with dudes, and shoot that over. Eventually, one of them will get a lucky shot, right? Right. Holy crap.

What surprises me the most about this film was that it was actually released in theatres. Probably not very many theatres, but still, it was actually IN THEATRES. Even stranger is that they made a trailer for it. Watch it here to get a sense of some of what I am so taken with. And yes, they actually put the torpedo scene in the trailer.

Another thing which I realized as I watched this movie: really bad actresses are way hotter than regular actresses. I have often found this to be the case, but I couldn't really figure out why I felt this way. Watching Star Crash helped me figure out what it is: Because they can't act, they seem more like real people, and are thus more attractive. For instance, when Stella seems a little too happy while some stupid alien caveman is grabbing at her and trying to beat her, it lets you know that she's just a normal person acting a really stupid scene in a stupid movie, and can't contain herself. If she finds it funny, and I'm finding it hilarious, doesn't that make us a good match? Of course it does. Plus, it does help a little that she's actually pretty hot. Wow. If I could marry a movie, it might be this one.

Oh, and one more tidbit: David Hasselhoff is in this movie. Yes, ladies and gentleman, you read that right!

I found this movie at Scarecrow video, the best movie store on the planet. It was in a special new section called "BadMOVIEArt": films so bad, they are good (inspired by Troll 2). Now that's my kind of section! I fear I may rent every movie in that section. I have to go return the beloved Star Crash now, and I may pick up another. Night of the Comet, perhaps?

Grass is like an iceberg

Yup, tell your friends - you heard it right here, from me: grass is like an iceberg. You only see the 20% of a clump on the top, but down in the soil, the rest of the 80% is a thick mass of numerously fine roots. I know this, because I dug up a shit-ton of grass this past weekend, digging vegetable gardens in our new house! I dug out all of the grass and weeds that had invaded the two 10' x 2.5' beds that flank our front steps. The motivation for this project was 40% for myself, 60% for Bridget. I like veggies, and my wife! I planted two tomato plants, a bell pepper plant, a jalepeno plant, and eggplant (plant?), a zucchini plant, and some sweet basil (mmmm). I know that these gardens will be nothing like the incredible luscious gardens we had back in Eugene, but we will try our damndest to make them work!

Also this weekend I went on a 43 mile bike ride. My main goal was to cross the I-90 bridge: a 3-mile floating bridge that connects Seattle to Mercer Island. Indeed, this is a freeway, but it also has a separate bike lane, so you can whiz across Lake Washington next to cars riding at 70 miles per hour in the opposite direction! Pretty neat. After that, I thought I might circle Mercer Island and come back across the bridge, but I got disoriented, and accidentally headed south down to Renton! Renton is certainly not as scenic as Mercer Island :( But it was still a fun ride.

Riding 43 miles and digging two gardens was *probably* overdoing it, so I've been feeling a little beat these past two days. But I'll recover. We Louckses are built from hard stuff.

Speaking of which, I was very excited tonight to talk to my brother tonight (he just got back from a 3 week trip to Spain and Portugal) and hear that he is potentially thinking about coming to visit us out here! Ray, I certainly hope you do: our new house is absolutely built to host guests! We would show you a good time around Seattle fo' sho'.

This invitation goes out not only to the Loucks bloodline, but also to all of you readers! Come and visit our lovely house on the hill!

Finally, unless you *know* what you are getting into, do NOT ever watch the movie Gor. Just don't. Seriously. Just don't do it.

Blog like you MEAN it!

Apologies, apologies, apologies! It has been over 3 weeks since my last post, which is far too long. I could be more regular, but that would require too much fibre.

You may forgive me for not posting if you knew what I've been up to lately: moving! I moved from my one bedroom apartment in Fremont to our new three bedroom HOUSE in Queen Anne. Now, even though I am just one man, I had to move one man and one woman's worth of stuff. This required many days of packing, a few days of moving (and cleaning the old place, ugh), and many days of unpacking (still doing it!). It is all worth it though, cause this place is GREAT. I'm loving the new space, the new neighborhood, the hardwood floors, the LAUNDRY in the BASEMENT! Ooooh, it's good. I'll post pictures for my next post, but I want to wait until the place is set up some more.

One thing that needs to be set up is the NEW FURNITURE! That's right, Bridget and I decided the mostly free furniture and pretty crappy furniture we had just wasn't going to cut it anymore. But, we aren't exactly made of money, so we had to shop on the cheap. I got a really good deal on a pretty cute and comfy furniture set (couch, loveseat, recliner) at Fred Meyer's, and it is being delivered TOMORROW! I am really excited. Again, pictures will come next post.

Other things which have been happening lately, in the order that I think of them:
- 2 more infant studies of mine worked out, and will be written up for publication this summer
- new versions of my dissertation studies worked out also, and so that paper will be resubmitted soon
- another infant study received pretty positive reviews, and will be resubmiited soon as well
- Scott Perrie sent me a copy of the American Justice CD, featuring Barry J. Gillis of Things infamy (without a doubt the WORST movie ever made), which I have been enjoying immensely
- I am playing Super Metroid for the SNES yet again, in order to recapture my youth
- I am going to do a (sprint) triathlon this September
- I got to steer the dragonboat at the last two practices
- There may be life on Titan after all. See here.

And finally, what would a blog post be without discussing my wife? Bridget is coming in two weekends (the 18th), for her LAST VISIT to Seattle! The next time she comes, it won't be for visiting, it will be for LIVING! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY we are almost DONE!!!