Exciting Evening

Well, tonight we went to dinner with Stuart and Hilary down at Threadgill's on Barton Springs. We had a nice chat and caught up a little. Hope to see them at the Holiday Spectacular.

We were departing town via S. Lamar, in the lane to turn west on 6th (and then out to MoPac). We'd pulled up to the light, and I was having a thought I was about o express when I heard two loud bangs. It took me a split second, but I realized the car next to me in the right lane had been hit by the car behind them. Hard. However, the second car was not at fault as the second car had originally been struck with tremendous force by a third car. The third car must not have even slowed down as they approached the intersection.

As Jamie rolled down her window to ask if the woman in the car next to us was okay, for some reason, that lady rolled up her window. Her car was bad damaged, but I honestly didn't get a good look.

The damage to the second and third car was enormous. The second car was, of course, crushed in at both the front and rear. The front of the third car was flattened, the car had bounced back a few feet with the impact, and had some sort of steam seemed to be shooting out of the side of the third car.

It's amazing what you see in a few seconds when the adrenaline kicks in.

You may not know the Lamar/ 6th Street intersection (just South of Waterloo), but it's largely penned in. There is no shoulder to pull off on. There is no way to do anything but remain in your car. I couldn't get out and safely check on the other drivers without blocking traffic and thusly blocking routes for first responders. I was fairly certain the person in the second car MUST have sustained at least minor injuries.

So, feeling more than a little guilty, but grateful we'd been turning left, we drove off. We were glad to see EMS already en route when we reached the turn off from 6th to MoPac, but it definitely left a question mark over our heads as to the condition of the drivers.


We were home for a brief while, and I was talking to Jason on the phone regarding the Holiday when Jamie came bolting down the stairs shouting that Lucy had eaten one of her pills. Normally, I wouldn't care a whole lot, and my first inclination was to suggest we let Lucy ride it out, but this was one of Jamie's big, blood-pressure horse-pills. Jamie has very high blood pressure (no kidneys will do that), so the pill is a fairly serious dose.

We called the 24-Hour vet clinic, who, in turn, had us call Animal Poison Control (who knew there was such a thing?). I then drove to Walgreens and bought a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide, which we mixed with peanut butter in order to induce vomiting.

Lucy, unfortunately, has a stomach of cast-iron, and was having none of our induced vomiting. But she was getting very droopy. We called Poison Control back, and they had us repeat the procedure. Meanwhile, we knew the pill was dissolving in Lucy's stomach, so every time she didn't puke between 10-minute puke cycles, things were just getting worse. Unfortunately, not only did Lucy NOT puke on the second attempt, she wouldn't go anywhere near the Hydrogen Peroxide/ Peanut Butter shooter we'd prepared for her. I tried shoving it under her nose, hoping the smell alone would do the trick, but was getting no luck.

You cannot force feed a dog a liquid without a turkey baster.

Note to self, we're about to have Thanksgiving: go buy a baster.

So, anyway, we called back, and, of course, we then zoomed to the 24 Hour Clinic on Frontier and 71 to get Lucy taken care of.

Unfortunately, en route, I remembered we'd left the last peanut butter/ hydrogen peroxide mix on the floor where Mel could get it (and thusly induce vomiting). So I had to drop off Jamie and Lucy and return immediately home, pick up the bowl (which Mel had missed while he snoozed happily on the sofa), and returned to the Pet Clinic.

They gavce Lucy some injection to induce vomiting. I guess she barfed up part of the pill, and the outlook is good. She's there now being closely monitored.

BUT... for some bizarro reason this clinic does not hold a pet until the pet is better. They hold the pet until 6:30 AM when the pet can go home or go to their usual vet. So, yeah, now I have to be back at the clinic with the sunrise to pick up my dog.

Why did Lucy suddenly eat a pill, which she's never done before?

My guess is this: About two weeks ago Lucy was put on a pill to help with her allergies. She loves this pill. She thinks it's delicious for some odd reason, and likes it so much, she sits for the generic Benadryl I give her in eager anticipation of the other pill.

So, my dog now thinks pills are candy.

Jamie is on, like a hundred and eighty medications. We have pill bottles all over the house. We look like a pharmacy/ pushers'-haven. Now we have to worry about Little Miss getting into all kinds of dangerous stuff. Hurray!

This is, I think, the third time Lucy has been to the vet for eating something she isn't supposed to eat. At least this time it's not a rock.

So, I hope you will forgive the brief list for Interactivity Day 4. It's all I can muster.

I'm going to bed so I can get up and reclaim my ridiculous dog.

Things can come at you fast. Even right before Thanksgiving.


UPDATE:

I went to pick up Lucy this morning at 6:30. She is doing very well. They tell me her blood pressure stayed very constant all night, so she got to come home immediately this morning. Mostly she's just very happy to be home and being a bit of a baby. She's usually a bit of a baby, so I'm taking that as a good sign.

Right now she is outside in very cold weather with Mel. I am hoping they will both go whizzle and go to sleep so I can get a little more shut-eye in this morning before people start to show up.

Interactivity Day 4: Good Movies that Never Really Did Anything for me

The League is not too hard to impress. We're easily distracted by balloons, shiny objects, and once got a "C" in Intro to Italian because there were squirrels in the tree outside the classroom window.

So we're always a little befuddled when a movie comes out that we're supposed to like, but which does absolutely nothing for us. This doesn't mean it was a bad movie, or that I think OTHER people are dumb for liking the movie. Nor does it mean I think I must be dumb for not getting the genius of the movie. Just movies I saw, shrugged, and sort of dismssed.

Gosford Park (I know. Awful timing.)
The Rules of the Game (often said to be the greatest movie ever)
Shrek 1
An American Werewolf in London
The Toxic Avenger
Finding Nemo
Shakespeare in Love
The English Patient
Jumanji
Tootsie
Top Gun
There's Something About Mary
Kingpin
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Clueless
A Beautiful Mind
Dial M for Murder
The Wild Bunch
Sleepless in Seattle
When Harry Met Sally
Apollo 13
Cape Fear (remake)
Jerry Maguire
Scarface
Dazed and Confused
The Truman Show
Chicago
Syriana
Metropolitan
Barcelona
Amateur
Suburbia


What movies did you see which you just didn't think quite lived up to the hype?

Interactivity Day 3: Movies I am only now fessing up to watching and enjoying


Some of these may ruin whatever preconceived notions you have of me, others may confirm sneaking suspicions you've had all along. This list is: A partial list of movies I knew were bad when I was watching them, but which I secretly enjoyed.

This does not include movies that were "so bad, they're fascinating" (ie: ROTOR).

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark
Little Shop of Horrors
Superman IV
The Shadow
The Hulk
Josie and the Pussycats
Smokey and the Bandit
Cannonball Run 1 & 2
Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course
Pootie Tang
Robocop 2
Darkstar
A Life Less Ordinary
Godzilla 2000
Six Pack
UHF
Gremlins 2
Red Sonja
Not Another Teenage Movie
The Last Dragon


Movies I've seen that I'm simply embarassed to tell people I've seen:

American Cyborg: Steel Warrior
Mortal Kombat
Street Fighter (no, not that one. The one based on the videogame. So bad, it killed star Raul Julia)
Man's Best Friend
Jingle All the Way
The Sixth Day
End of Days
Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie
Beethoven's 2nd (but, curiously, not the original)
Hardware
Johnny Mnemonic
Robot Jox (twice)
Freejack
Space Truckers
Barb Wire
Casper
The Flintstones
From Justin to Kelly
No Holds Barred
The Phantom
Dungeons & Dragons
Dude, Where's My Car
Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace
Eurotrip
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3

These lists are just a jumping off point to get you to think (believe me, if I really put my mind to it, there are probably scores more for both lists).

What movie are you embarassed to admit you like? Or what movie are you just ashamed to tell other people that you displayed the poor judgement to actually sit all the way through although you knew it was bad?

Marvel Comics teams up with The Guiding Light

I keep forgetting to talk about this, let alone watch it...

Apparently Marvel Comics entered into some deal with the soap opera "Guiding Light". Now there's a superhero on Guiding Light, which seems weird, but "Days of Our Lives" has had supernatural storylines, "Passions" is full of this kind of stuff, and that's just the stuff I know about...

Anyway, in a post down below, Peabo was pointing out how his mother and I both like to follow serialized stories in which characters don't ever seem to change much (his mother with soaps, me with the comics), and it reminded me of this debacle.

go here, if you dare...

Interactivity Day 2: Movies I have never seen, but probably should
AKA: Stump The League

A very partial list of movies I should probably see at some point. Assembled with some help from the AFI 100 Years of Film lists. I'll revist the lists in a different Interactivity post.

Ben-Hur
The Ten Commandments
The Greatest Story Ever Told
In the Heat of the Night
Gandhi
Alphaville
Sullivan's Travels
The China Syndrome
Silkwood
A Hard Day's Night
Rodan
On the Waterfront
The Hustler
El Cid
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Third Man
Rocky
Roman Holiday
The Conversation
Giant
The Pride of the Yankees
A Raisin in the Sun
Blow Up
True Grit
Cleopatra
The Grapes of Wrath
Double Indemnity
East of Eden
Animal Crackers
How the West was Won
Tora, Tora, Tora
Midway
Badlands
Tommy
Nashville
Sabrina
The Thin Man
The Thing (original. I totally saw the Kurt Russel version)
The Last Picture Show
The Man Who Fell to Earth
Fail Safe
To Sir, With Love
Solaris (original version)
The Sting
Manhattan
Gigli

and pretty much anything made in Europe. Sorry. I've seen like one Bergman movie and one Fellini movie. I have nothing against either filmmaker, I just haven't quite made it through their repertoire as of yet.

What other movies can you suggest? I will let you know if I have seen the movie. Now, let's use some hard-hitting criteria. I'm trying to make these the sort of movies that are award winners (no, "Kid's Choice Awards" do not count), have either stood the test of time, or are such a familiar touchstone to our movie-watching zeitgeist, that it's probably a good idea to see them.

So, you know, it's great that you loved "Legally Blonde", but let's wait a few years before we list that one.

Interactivity: A List of Movies

I am feeling lazy, and rather than going on hiatus as planned, I am looking through my DVD's for inspiration.

Here is a partial list of movies I own that I can always kick back and enjoy, presented in as random an order as I can muster. How many have you seen?

The Right Stuff
To Kill a Mockingbird
Lawrence of Arabia
Superman: The Movie
Superman II
Superman and the Mole Men
Glengarry Glen Ross
The Haunting
The Killing
The Killers
War of the Worlds
The Asphalt Jungle
West Side Story
This Gun for Hire
Vertigo
Singin' In the Rain
Shane
Frankenstein
Bride of Frankenstein
Mars Attacks
Phantom of the Opera
Cool Hand Luke
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Miller's Crossing
Ed Wood
Batman
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Once Upon a Time in the West (God bless you, Claudia Cardinale)
Once Upon a Time in America
Godfather 1 & 2
Batman Returns
For a Fist Full of Dollars
Batman Begins
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Unforgiven
Spider-Man 1 & 2
Fight Club
Kiss of Death (original)
The Iron Giant
Iron Monkey
Airplane
White Heat
Lord of the Rings
The Last of the Mohicans (Michael Mann version)
Jaws
Casablanca
Fist of Legend
The Dark Crystal
Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense
True Stories
The Big Sleep
It's a Wonderful Life
The Maltese Falcon
Terminator 1 & 2
Fantasia
Young Frankenstein
The Sound of Music
The Day the Earth Stood Still
King Kong (original version)
Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark
Singin' In the Rain
Aliens
Predator
The Quiet Man
Raising Arizona
Akira
Fritz Lang's Metropolis
The Lost Skeleton of Cadavera
Fargo


That's probably plenty.

Next time: Movies I have never seen, but probably should

Sorry about the lack of post from last night

I got to answering e-mails I had been negligent in responding to, got sleepy and went to bed.

I have nothing to really post about. Life is good. Weather is great. No job.

Here's some small items:

-Jason recommended a mechanic to me: Lopez Automotive, just off Manchaca and 71. They were shockingly honest and inexpensive. I now hold a grudge against my garage in Phoenix, whom I never really trusted and who never let me walk out the door for less than three bills. But they were also the only garage in spitting distance.

-I hi-jacked Cassidy this afternoon and took her to my house. Her mission: wear out Lucy so she won't spend another night dropping her ball on my foot. Mission was a failure. Lucy has been typically relentless.

-Re: Manchaca pronunciation. I give up. You win. It's Man-tsalk-ah, not Man-shack. Sure, it's been pronounced Man-Shack my whole life, and from what I understand, it's of Czech origin and even "Man-shack" is a butchering of the real pronunciation. But who am I to question the curious pronunciations of Austin streets? Koenig is not supposed to be pronounced "Kay-nig" (it's German and is supposed to be Coh-nig. Sort of), Guadalupe is NOT supposed to be pronounced "Gwahd-uh-loop", and Burnet is not supposed to be pronounced "Burn it". And I-35 is not supposed to be called "The @#$%ing freeway". But there it is. I shall begin calling Congress "Kone-Grease" and see how long it is until that's what they're calling it on News 8.

-Can we get double-jeopardy? Just this once? OJ's new book: If I Did It.

No, @#$%ing seriously.

-Thanksgiving is almost here (gobble gobble). I am excited, but a little weirded out that it's almost here. We're staying here and cooking at home. In addition to the usual suspects, I think Mangum and Juan are coming for dinner. It's gonna be nice. I need to assign Jason to a task. Perhaps wine duty? Usually that's The Admiral's thing. What to assign...?

-I bought my first Christmas present today. That's one person off the list. I do not know what to get Jamie. She was supposed to get a camera, but then her dad gave her his old one, which is better than anything I could currently afford, so I'm sort of out of luck.

Jamie is notoriously difficult to shop for, and unlike when I give other people things and they toss them in the closet and I forget what I got them a week later, I KNOW when Jamie isn't using something or isn't enjoying something. She's polite as all heck about it, but it's probably more disappointing for me when I get her something that never sees the light of day again.

-The new Crest Pro-Health cinammon flavor is awesome. It's like brushing your teeth with Trident gum.

-Also, there's a new Cinammon/Salty Chex Mix. The League says: Delicious.

-PS3 is coming out Friday morning. I saw people camped out at three different stores today. If those people don't know they're advertising the PS3 on Sony's behalf, they should all be told and sent home in shame. The League owned a PS2 for about nine months, then resold it. No gamer are we. I sincerely wish the gamers out there (who wrongfully stole the name "gamers" from the Dungeons & Dragons players) good luck in your purchase. We'll see you next August when you resurface.

-I am once again hooked on Ghost Hunters after the results show from the Stanley Hotel and the Irish Attack Ghost. Now, I'm much more interested in trying to figure out a rational explanation for "evidence" which isn't simply a trick of the eye, but voices, etc...

-For some reason this week there's been a flurry of communication with folks in AZ. Okie, Juli, Maria, Eric P. and even Al have been e-mailing and calling. It is nice to be missed, I think.

-"My Name is Earl" isn't very good this season. Apparently I went to high school with the guy who plays "Crab Man", but I don't recall him. The latest episode was clunky and teh animation wasn't funny enough to warrant its existence. The funniest thing in the episode was a throw-away joke involving umbrellas, a pool and the opening credits of "Friends".

-Tomorrow I venture to Austin Books for a back-issue sale. God help me.

-After the comic shop I have to start organizing all the post-move garbage in my garage and getting it ready for pick-up on Monday. Wheeeeee...

-I'm finally caught up on the Batman titles which I'd fallen behind on. I'm loving Dini's run on "Detective Comics". In "Legends of the Dark Knight", Bruce Jones managed to stretch out a two issue story into a six-issue waste of Ariel Olivetti's considerable talents on art. I hear Legends is not long for the world. That's okay if this is what they're doing with it. But they're just replacing it with "Batman: Confidential", another ongoing series looking at "untold tales from the Dark Knight Detective's formidable career". I tell you, what other medium but comics would you find people reading stories with an absolute certainty that nothing of consequence would happen to the lead character?

-I think I'm finally digging the new "Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis" series. It's just like RHPT underwater. Only different.

-Can anyone recommend any new music? I haven't picked up any CD's in a while. I've given up buying music through iTunes until I get a new computer and I'm going back to disks.

-Erica is getting married. Get your suit pressed and buy some new panty hose. Let's hope there's an open bar.

-That's it. Hope all is well.