Jack Bauer, Improbable Commercials, and Other Things Found on the Interwebs

My brain is dead today, along with my arms and back. As such, there will be little to no creative writing. Instead, I bring you the things that have gotten me through the day the last few days.

First is the 100 greatest moments in 24. Not only are there snarky comments on all the events, but there's YouTube clips for all of them. Truly a momentous undertaking, one worthy of all the beer and women that can be thrust upon these fine men. Also, since my mom is inexplicably suddenly into 24, this is her chance to catch up. Or at least know what I'm talking about in when I reference crazy things in that crazy show.

Next, we have the Montgomery Flea Market. Its just like. A. Mini. Mall. And also, completely insane.

Here's an interesting essay from a woman who didn't feel complete until both her legs were cut off. In much the same way that some people feel like they were born the wrong sex, this 'Susan Smith' feels she has two too many working limbs. This reminds me of a passage out of Neal Stephenson's Cryptnonomicon, where one of the characters is commenting that sometime around the age of five or six, your brain patterns just get stuck, and sometimes on very weird things. For example, his wife, for some reason, can't get off sexually unless the sex happens on antique furniture. This Smith seems to have the same problem. It doesn't appear to be sexual, but at six years old, she decided that what really needed to go were her legs.

And finally, I bring you a video from Japan. I don't know how I found it or why I ended up watching it, but this only confirms my firmly held belief that the Japanese are incredibly weird, especially the people who make anime.

Getting From Me to Jack Bauer in Two Moves

I moved into the house my parents currently live in when I was twelve or so. Next door to us were Jim and Nadine. They were pretty nice. Jim liked to surf and windsurf and owned a huge, old yellow truck to take his boards everywhere, while Nadine was more the prototypical suburban wife. But really, there are two things I remember about them: the first is that they had a Jack Russel named Bandit, who wandered around the neighborhood with a jaunty bandanna around his neck and barked at everything that moved. I thought he was the coolest dog ever, but I think everyone else in the neighborhood was glad when Jim and Nadine moved a few years later.

The other thing I remember is that when Nadine's family visited, her sister looked really familiar. Eventually my mom told me that she was an actress, and I probably knew her as the mom in Free Willy. Being twelve, I thought this was awesome. Even though I thought that movie was lame, its still cool to be near someone who is in a movie that I saw when I was nine. Whenever she was visiting, I would point out to my friends "That's the person who played the mom in Free Willy!" I would get some appreciative grunts, but that's about it.

And then I didn't think about that for quite a while. This all came back when I got an email from my mom this morning. She reads the blog, and constantly sends me emails with her responses. Today's email mentioned how she started watching 24 this season, and that the person who plays Karen Hughes is Jayne Atkinson, who is also our old neighbor's sister. It may be my mucus congested brain that makes me think this is cool, but that fact that playing the 'Kevin Bacon' game, you can get from me to Kiefer Sutherland in only two moves strikes me as awesome.