Celebrity eggs

We colored eggs this morning which, for the record, I don't really like doing a terrible lot. I dislike most of the stuff associated with Easter. Easter candy kind of annoys me. I've never been one for egg hunts or anything like that - probably because I was always too old for them at our church growing up while my younger brother and sister were not. I'm kind of dreading having to fill plastic eggs after Anna goes to sleep tonight because yes, Virginia, she still believes in the Easter Bunny and who am I to crush that? After a bit of obligatory bitching, I kind of got into the spirit of it though. It was kind of fun to blow out the eggs yolks (every time we try to hard boil them, they crack plus no one here eats hard boiled eggs) and I got to go around annoyingly saying the word "PAAS" over and over again until my wife and daughter were ready to hit me with a brick.

It got me to thinking about the time when I was probably in the 5th grade and for whatever reason, we decorated eggs in my Lutheran Sunday School class. We didn't do the dyes as that would have been far too messy for our Sunday best. Instead, there were crayons and markers and little bits of discarded fabric and other crafty items that we could glue onto our eggs.

Amidst all the crap that they had for us to decorate our eggs with was a small scrap of fabric that was a golden band with a little fringe on the edge. To me, it looked just like a sweat band, with hair going over the top of it. Those of you who know me well know where this is going. Yep, that's right...



...it was OLIVIA NEWTON-EGG.

I remember drawing the face on it and putting a little cartoon balloon down by the mouth and it was saying "Let's Get Physical." Oh my God, I took so much grief from my Sunday School classmates. And oddly, I had almost completely forgotten about it until this morning. That's how deeply buried in my subconscious it was.

Of course, I told this story to Heidi and she laughed uproariously. And, as is her standard retort when I tell stories like this, she said "And yet, somehow, you turned out straight." She added "Seriously, Dan, that's the type of story a gay man of our age would tell!" followed by "I fucking love you SO MUCH." It worked out best for everybody involved that I did turn out straight - especially Anna who wouldn't be here otherwise. I chalk it up to having only one functioning copy of the gay gene. It gets to the part where it codes for the sexual orientation bit and it just spits out a nonsense protein. And if that is not geeky humor, I don't know what is.

Now that I've completely humiliated myself, I think I'll just leave everyone with a Happy Easter if you are celebrating it. May you not eat your weight in chocolate eggs.

Through the cracks

There are so many movies that I really, by rights, should have seen but for whatever reason, I missed. I have never seen Dirty Dancing all the way through. Same for Sixteen Candles and Pretty In Pink (must be a Molly Ringwald thing.) I've missed most of the Die Hard sequels, haven't seen a Bond movie since Goldeneye and couldn't be bothered by most of the Coen Brothers stuff. And perhaps most glaringly, I've mostly shrugged my shoulders at the oeuvre of Judd Apatow. Looking at his filmography, be he producing, directing or writing, I've missed most all of them. No Anchorman, no Talladega Nights, and until today, not even The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

So I decided enough was enough. The 40-Year-Old Virgin has been hanging out in perpetual limbo in my Netflix queue forever. I finally decided to move it to the top of the queue and even though I've had it for about a week, I just got around to watching it today. I knew quite a bit about it already and really, it's kind of one joke movie. But what the filmmakers did with that one joke was pretty amazing. That they managed to take what basically has the lifespan of a Saturday Night Live skit and turn it in to a 2 hour, 13 minute film was nothing short of astounding.

I'm not going to bother recapping the movie as I'm sure I'm the last person on Earth to actually see this movie. Suffice to say that Steve Carell is Andy who is the 40-year-old virgin. His co-workers at a Best Buy-ish type place find out about his lamentable state and make it their life's goal to help him shed his virginity. Funniness ensues, some predictable, some not so much.

I found the movie to be funny but not hilarious. I never once laughed out loud. I'm not a huge fan of humor that relies on embarrassing the protagonist so badly that I have to watch through my fingers. This is not a horror movie so I shouldn't be experiencing that mildly uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach. I also think I might have found it funnier had I not known so much about it going into it. The scene with the chest waxing was more ridiculous than funny and knowing what was going to happen definitely took some of the funny out of it. Naturally, the best thing about this movie is Paul Rudd. The man steals every single movie he's in.

It was worthy my time but ultimately, I don't need to see it again. If it was only mildly funny the first time, I can't imagine it holding up well on repeat plays.

I have a feeling that I'll feel this way about The Hangover as well. Everybody has told me it's the funniest movie EVER (my sister would have a field day with that statement) but I just can't shake the feeling that I'll walk away from that underwhelmed like I did The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

Back tomorrow with the NaBloPoMo wrap up post.