Life

Name Change

  • by Drew

I was coming home from work the other day and got behind a ginormous SUV with a number of bumper stickers. There was an NRA sticker, a ‘freedom isn’t free’ sticker and an election sticker. It was for a small, local election in a small nowhere town. Town clerk or chief ball washer or executive director of austin weight loss or something else relatively part time and tiny. The funny part was that the person up for the job chose a bumper sticker style that made all text but his last name tiny (thus my inability to remember any important detail other than last name. But oh, what a last name it was.

Douchkoff – which to me can be pronounced only one way: Douche-Cough.

Borrowing from an old grade school joke I believe it is the sound of vinegar and water crashing together with H1N1. Bacon and balsamic. Poetry. Pure poetry.

Seriously, how did this guy survive grammar school with enough self esteem to eventually run for public office, no matter how insubstantial that office might, in reality, be. Isn’t this someone who really should have considered a legal name change. And I don’t mean that he should have mulled it over casually. He should have seriously considered changing his name. Then he should have contacted a lawyer and got the ball rolling.

He could be a Smith or a Jones or even an Enemasneeze. Why not?

Life

Hello Nurse!

  • by Drew

Not long ago I was more or less reviewing the offerings of Gonzaga University, where you can get a Masters degree online. In that post I mentioned my recent trip to the dentist as my wife’s chauffeur, and a colorful individual I met in the waiting room.

Maybe met was not the right word. This dude was a maniac of extrovertedness. He was loud and brash and…I think the correct word might be garrulous. He was seriously off the wall. He flirted equally with the middle aged receptionist (you don’t drink, you’re not 21 yet, no way) and my 4 months old daughter (oh my god she’s so beautiful). He was 19 and allegedly attending nursing school. He has a 1 year old son with his ex-girlfriend. “Yup,” he said hitching up his crotch-at-the-knees jeans, “responsibility.”

It reminded me of the Rugrats movie when baby Dil was born and little Tommy learned all about “responsitility” from his Dad. Then he used the pocket watch as a compass to get home in the Reptar carriage/wagon…but that’s neither here nor there.

The point was, there was this crazy insane dude in the waiting room at the dentist, and as crazy insane dudes are wont to do, he gravitated toward me. I am somehow a crazy insane dude magnet. Trust me, I have stories lots of them. Like the Vietnam vet who was going to the Peekskill VA when I was in high school who sat with me and Adam and told us, among other things, about mashing a man’s eyeball on his forehead. Or Billy, the verbose traveller who borrowed the bike from the “home” and pedalled his way into the picnic that was my first date with my future wife. Just two of the many, I assure you.

Anyway, I keep thinking about the crazy insane dude and how he chattered on and on to me while he was supposed to be filling out his first-time patient paperwork. Honestly, at the rate he progressed, he is probably still writing. The thing is, he kept speaking about attending nursing school, and while his seemed to be an admirable goal, I have to say I just don’t see it. I don’t want to shoot crazy insane dude down, I don’t want to stereotype him as unfit for a career in the healing arts, but…well…

I guess there is also a fundamental difference between crazy insane dude and the people who pursue advanced degrees. Then again, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the Gonzaga program would be just what the doctor ordered (hee hee, that’s funny because doctors often instruct nurses what to do…I mean, “order” may be a little un-P.C. or whatever, but, well, it’s a funny, just deal with it) for crazy insane dude. Maybe the chance to get an advanced nursing degree from a top ranked school on his own schedule would be just what he needed. Ad in the process he wouldn’t be able to drive other students nuts with his crazy insane verbosity.

I don’t know. In the end, people in healthcare need access to the  best, brightest, and most cutting edge, and if the flexibility of distance learning works for people with extensive other responsibilities (or even responsitilities) then I say rock on!

Life

Speaking of flicks

  • by Drew

I did enjoy the Wolverine movie. That was pretty good, but I had this thought at the end. There’s a shot where they pan hard away and into the clouds. It starts in close up on Wolverine and pulls up and away until he is a speck, and then totally invisible and clouds wash the screen. My first thought as the shot began was, “hey, here’s a nice helicopter shot.” Then I did a mental hand slap to the forehead. Duh, nobody uses helicopters anymore. It’s all CGI, and as a result, a little too pat.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that CGI is an absolute necessity for modern special effects and a movie like Wolverine just couldn’t be great without. I mean, it would require a very different script to make a modern superhero movie without mega CGI effects.

Still, one of the details I loved about the Tom Jane Punisher movie a few years ago was how they handled the action. In the extra features they have a stunt piece in which they discuss their aversion to CGI, at least in that film. If a car crashes in the film, it really crashed. Not just ‘virtual’ crashing. and believe me, if you haven’t seen the movie, you will see what I’m talking about when you do. The success of such feats, of course, require actors and crew that are willing to train and rehearse and work together. Maybe that’s why a guy with a supercomputer and a software development background and a more or less unlimited budget is somehow more desirable.

I should mention that the good Punisher is not to be confused with the more recent War Zone Punisher which sucked for its crappy implementation of special effects and derivative nonsense that just didn’t hold up. Kind of like the awful Observe and Report and my pick for all-time worst waste of film, The Cooler. I will have to blog about that piece of crap some time.

Life

Thug Life

  • by Drew

I just saw Monsters vs. Aliens (very cute) and hearing Seth Rogen as the voice of B.O.B. I had a few thoughts. First, combining this aural experience with a recent viewing of Horton Hears a Who, in which he does another voice, I have decided that, in my opinion, Seth Rogen should not do voices in animated films. I don’t know exactly why, but the voice just doesn’t sit in the mix. In Horton he is a tiny chipmunk-ish creature that scampers around maniacally and in Monsters he is a huge blob that squirms around. Neither works for me.

And while we’re on the topic, Mr. Rogen should probably avoid the pseudo art-house cinema scene for awhile because Observe abd Report was awful. I know it was really the fault of wannabe auteur  Jody Hill in combination with the bad taste of an audience that confuses shock value tastelessness for entertainment, but still. The movie was just a disappointment.

I don’t want you to think I’m a hater. I actually like Seth Rogen. I just think he belongs in movies about smoking pot, working crappy retail jobs, playing PS3 on a pizza stained couch and overdeveloping his jew-fro.

Come on Seth, how about Pineapple Express 2?

© 2026 Drew Bancroft. All rights reserved. Totally.