EMPSFM.org-Taking Aim-1269977145999, originally uploaded by EMP|SFM.

Alex goes for the grunge look; photo editing courtesy Andrew Furdell Studios.

Now, most people, when you say "common sense doesn't exist," will think that they're extremely clever and say something along the lines of "well that just what you think because you don't have any, ha ha I'm so fucking clever." Wrong, douchebag. You see, it's that exact humorless retort that proves my underlying point: we (only!) use the concept of "common sense" to belittle those who disagree with us.

Think about it: what is common sense supposed to mean? Answers.com defines it as "native good judgment," "not based on specialized knowledge." In other words, good judgment that we're born with. So already we're sidestepping the fact that there's an entire branch of philosophy devoted to the question of whether there's even such a thing as native anything in the human brain.

Was anyone born with good judgment? We had to learn to avoid burning ourselves on hot stoves, right? Sure, we knew how to eat right off the bat, but was that our intrinsic reasoning skills at work, or just physical reflex? And why, when we talk about people without common sense, are we never talking about people who haven't figured out how to eat? Approaching this from the opposite direction, have you ever heard of anyone being praised for having common sense? Probably not, because what the fuck would that even mean? "Man, he sure knows to look both ways before crossing the street, and not catch himself on fire or something." No, common sense is a concept we only use to insult.

Here's what set me off...it's the most recent status of one of my Facebook friends. It's about Ron Paul.

I want to say this man is a genius, but really, everything he ever says is such basic common sense.... I just don't understand for the life of me how people don't get it. Big Government is the Enemy of Liberty.

See what I mean? By "common sense," what she's really saying is "if you don't agree with me, you're an idiot." Which of course is the opposite of true. If I don't agree with her, I'm not a lunatic fringe nutbag with a tenuous grasp of political science.

If I may play Armchair Sherlock for a moment, here's a glimpse at the psych profile the cops have released:

[Investigators] say [the killer's] skills with weapons suggests some prior training, such as previous employment or hobbies involving firearms. The gunman may have practiced for the shooting...

It's probable that the gunman had been outspoken about a deep personal grievance, perhaps involving his employment or position in life. And even though he shot a police officer, he may admire or act like them, investigators said.

This says to me that Seattle investigators believe they're looking for a sociopath who will probably kill again. In other words, they're thinking this is the work of a person who could become a serial killer.

[Statistically, serial killers] are [...] fascinated with the police and authority in general. They have either attempted to become police themselves but were rejected, worked as security guards, or served in the military. Many, including John Gacy, the Hillside Stranglers, and Ted Bundy, have disguised themselves as law enforcement officials to gain access to their victims.

In a serial murder, the killer is usually unconnected to the victim; the murder asserts the killer's power over the victim; the murder is not done for profit; and the victim often has some kind of symbolic value for the killer. Oh, and, of course, there's gotta be three or four deaths, with a "cooling off" period in between.

I have no idea what's really going on, but it seems likely from the Seattle PD profile that they're looking for someone that they think will strike again in the coming weeks.

A lot has happened in those 10 years; for example, I used to watch football in standard def, and now I watch it in HD. But more significantly, Vegas is a kind of personal economic litmus test. It's a reflection of both my personal wealth and my willingness to assume risk, and both have changed a lot over a past decade.

James from 1999 probably took the MARTA bus from his dingy Atlanta apartment to the airport to save a few bucks; he stayed at Excalibur and shared a room with three other guys to make it affordable; he agonized over every red chip lost to the whims of the cards or the dice. 2009 James, by contrast, can afford to drop a few bucks on a taxi in the name of enjoying his vacation time more. 2009 James spends more on fancy dinners with friends and aromatherapy massages at the cushy casino spa, and can withstand a bad day at the tables because it's merely an annoyance. For 1999 James, losing was a seeming indication of my downward spiral toward homelessness and rail-car vagrancy.

I have a ton of great memories from the annual trips to Vegas. In 2000, we stayed at the Luxor in the pyramid for the first time, and one night had a terrific run at the craps table while visiting Excalibur. We celebrated with Krispy Kreme donuts (I wore the paper hat and drank banana milk), and danced giddily down the walkway back to the Luxor. One year, maybe 2003, I departed for the airport leaving Andrew in the middle of a poker tournament, only to find out I had been bumped from my flight. I took a first-class option for a later flight home, returned to the casino and watched Andrew chop first place in the tournament.

In 2004 I successfully petitioned us to adopt Pai Gow Poker, and in subsequent years we would find ourselves six-to-a-table at Paris, pushing almost every hand and drinking as much as possible. That was also the year a few of us tried a hike the mountains and wound up in a hailstorm and Andrew almost destroyed the Gun Store; oops.

Guy Behind Counter: "How can we help you fellas today?"

Andrew: "We'd like to shoot some guns."

GBC: "OK."

Heh.

I didn't think it would be possible to top last year, our first time staying at Mandalay Bay, which had been a long-held dream of mine. We, of course, saw Fake Prince at the House of Blues, and several Purple Rain drinks later, were extremely sick. (Mistakes were made, hotel fixtures were destroyed.) But it was awesome, and after nursing away a hangover at the wave pool on Monday, many of us declared 2008 the Best Vegas Trip Ever. (Or at least Andrew and I did. I think. It's kind of fuzzy.)

(Hey, that dude photo-bombed us.)

However, for me, 2009 will be hard to beat. I expect to lose some money in the long run when I gamble, but when everything turns into red ink immediately and I reach my maximum daily loss budget before noon, that's just not fun. I have previously experienced trips to Vegas where everything felt-top table I touched turned to disaster, and I wound up just walking around aimlessly, or watching my friends gamble while I licked my wounds.

This year was bizarre because I had the Midas touch. With a couple exceptions, every single table I sat down at turned a profit for me, and making the decision at the start of the trip to extend it an extra day with Andrew turned out to be even more lucrative.

I say it's bizarre for two reasons. There's the obvious: after exposing myself to the house edge for days, I was repeatedly finishing in the black, which is mathematically unusual, to say the least. More strange is the way winning affects me now: not much. 1999 James would get an adrenaline rush from walking away with a $40 profit at blackjack or craps. 2009 James walks away up $120 or so, and feels good about it, but it's not like winning or losing that amount of money is going to change my life significantly. The ambivalence is a nice feeling; I can sit at a table with my friends and drink and be social, and even if I lose my buy-in, it won't hurt too much. If I win, bonus, but not so exciting I'm skipping down the corridor like in 2000. These days I'm more excited about catching up with my friends, going to a nice dinner, or drinking by the pool, or getting a massage and a few hours to relax in the spa. I feel like I've seen every possible roll of the dice, every unusual back-door 21, every unexpected pai gow win or loss, every two-out hold-'em win on the river; at this point, the unexpected is the expected, and so maybe some of the thrill of the chase gone. Plus, living in Washington, where we have legal card rooms and plentiful Indian casinos, I can go gamble whenever I feel like it… which, lately, has been less and less.

(Here's the part where I start talking about poker, forever into infinity. You've been warned.)

This is not to stay there aren't still some thrills. These days they mostly come from paying no-limit Texas Hold-'em. One more notable difference in Vegas since 1999 has been the resurgence (and, maybe, fall again) of poker; when we first started learning how to play in the casino, they were more likely to be replacing poker tables with more slot machines. After ESPN starting showing the WSOP, Hold-'em became incredibly popular and casinos couldn't add tables fast enough. (Which is nice, although I miss playing seven-card stud once in a while. Mandalay used to offer both games, and stud has seemingly been retired there.) The advent of no-limit cash games in casinos has been remarkable; you can sit down with a $200 stack of chips and lose them all within a minute, on a single bet, to another player. Nothing will put my heart in my throat faster than going all-in and praying to the gods of probability that my Ace-King off-suit somehow holds up after the flop. Looking back through the blog I was surprised to see that the first time I played no-limit was just two years ago; I thought it was longer than that. Since then I've played a lot of $2-$40 spread at Club Hollywood in Shoreline, which is not no-limit but is similar in a lot of ways, so I feel like I'd developed the tight-aggressive strategy you need to be successful at that kind of a game.

My cash game exploits this time were few and far between but a net profit affair; despite a $140 loss on one hand, a lot of small wins made up for it. Andrew, whose poker game surely would lend itself to being profitable in no-limit, also took a big profit on the final day. But the real surprise was my tournament success.

I've always enjoyed playing in poker tournaments, since your loss liability is limited to the buy-in. I'd never finished in the money, but the guaranteed entertainment for my money made it seem a good buy. My venue of choice has historically been the $40 buy-in tourney, weekday mornings at 10 a.m. at Mandalay. Assuming I can wake up in time to register and grab a coffee, this one has always been my favorite and I never felt like I was throwing away too much money on it. In previous years, this tournament was limit for the first two rounds, then no-limit afterwards; now, with no-limit being the most popular tourney format, it is no-limit from the start (but you can re-buy until the end of Round 2, which those who bust out often do).

And so, Tuesday morning, I found myself in this tournament, along with Andrew, Eric, and John, whom we had somehow convinced to join us before they had to fly away. I was at Eric's table, and of course his unpredictability from playing in the $2-$4 game in 2007 (c.f.: "I an shivebadd") was foremost in my mind. Eric actually may have helped me win this thing in the end, believe it or not. He did his usual Eric thing on one hand in particular. My pocket cards were A3 diamonds, and I limped in pre-flop. So did Eric, but the player to his left raised it way up. A fourth player called, and I thought about calling, but I suspected a high pocket pair, which could be hard to beat, so I folded. Eric called too, and the flop came up mostly blanks, but with two diamonds. That fourth player made a big bet, Eric called, and the original raiser folded. The turn card was another diamond, so I would have made my flush, oh well. Another big bet, another call by Eric. At the showdown, sure enough, the fourth player had a high pocket pair, and Eric had… the 3 and 5 of diamonds!? He made his flush with those awful starting cards and took down the pot, leaving the player he beat shaking his head, and rightfully so. I would have made a better flush had I stayed in, and between him and me Eric only had seven unseen diamonds remaining to make his flush, but of course he did it, possibly a credit to his natural charisma. He is, as I said many times during the trip, the Best Of All Of Us.

Later, I raised all-in pre-flop with something like QQ, and Eric called with J2, perhaps out of friendship. My cards held up, giving me a lot of the chips he had taken earlier. That was one of the few times I actually saw a showdown in that tournament; most of the time I was winning pots because people were folding to my raises, even after we got to the phase of the tournament where an ante was required from all players before the deal so that there was a lot of money to take by being aggressive pre-flop. It was a happy ending for everyone, because Eric was able to make his flight, and I had enough chips to play it conservatively the rest of the way, mostly waiting for other players with small stacks to knock each other out. In the end, it was down to me and one other guy. I had never finished in the money before, as I mentioned, so I was pretty happy about chopping the 1st and 2nd place payouts with this guy and heading off to the pool. I didn't pay too much attention to our chip totals, but I thought they were roughly even; there was some dispute over that (John says I had more than he did). Either way the other player eventually agreed to the 50-50 chop, and I took a payout of $240.

Oh, but there was one thing I didn't realize, and this did make me a little bit jealous; there's a trophy for winning. Not really a trophy, but actually a large disc, with the Mandalay logo and "1st place" and a depiction of some lovely pocket aces. When you agree to split the top prize, they deal one final to determine who gets the trophy, and it was the other guy. Not that the money wasn't nice, but I wanted that trophy. It didn't help that Andrew kept mocking me for taking a deal. "No deals!" he would yell at me for the next several hours, laughing and pointing.

So there you go. For the first time, I had finished in the money in a tournament. The strange thing here is that I barely felt anything. Sure, I had the usual heart-in-the-throat moments during the tourney, pushing all-in in early position and hoping nobody would call. But even when I was close to the money, I wasn't experiencing the thrills or the adrenaline I thought I would. Maybe it helped that I had a comfy number of chips, or that I've played so much poker by now and seen so many goofy things happen that nothing fazes me. Again, as nice as the $240 was, it wasn't going to change my life. I was actually a little bit annoyed because I was not that excited. Where was all this largesse 10 years ago? 1999 James would have been jumping up and down and shouting like a fool to win that much cash in a couple hours. 2009 James was like, "Oh, that's nice." It almost didn't seem fair to 1999 James.

After everyone finally left Tuesday, Andrew and I were paired up for some brotherly Vegas action. Andrew took three hugs pots playing in a cash game Tuesday evening that put him way up. Wednesday, we decided to give the morning tourney one more shot, with an added side bet for our enjoyment: whoever between us lasted longer in the tourney bought the other a sushi lunch. Which could potentially cost more than the $40 buy-in, but that's how I like it.

Immediately, on the very first hand, I doubled up. Normally I hate going all-in on the first hand because I hate being knocked out in less than five minutes, but this time I had the nut flush so I knew I was going to win the hand. I was actually in bad shape after the flop; I had limped in with A3 suited spades, and the flop came with another Ace, plus two more spades, one of which was a Jack. I bet a modest amount and was called by a player across from me. Another spade on the turn meant I had the flush. He checks, I bet, he calls. A blank on the river that did not pair the board, which was a good sign for me because that means no full house is possible, thus I have the best hand possible (Ace-high flush). The player across from me bets into me! I raise all-in. He has to think about it, but eventually calls with AJ, two pair, no good, and is friendly about it but clearly disgusted with himself. He may have misplayed it, though; in tournaments, I always try to be aggressive with high cards to remove the drawing hands from consideration if possible. A raise pre-flop might have gotten me away from those cards; I probably had to stay in after the flop because of the pair of Aces and four-flush, but as it turned out he was still the favorite, and I would have had to think hard about calling an all-in raise. He re-bought his way back into the tourney immediately, and I took more of his chips and knocked him out again later. Poor guy.

A second hand I remember helping me out was one of those few instances where I used a tell to help me out. A tell is when another player either involuntarily or unknowingly reveals whether he has a good hand. They can be subtle; my favorite one that has saved me in the past is to watch for new players' hands to be shaking when the place a bet, because it means they have a big hand. In this case, I did not have great starting cards: Q-10 of clubs. Could develop into something, and I think I just called in late-ish position, but I usually prefer to have more players in the pot to play a hand like that, and in this case there were only three. The flop didn't help me, but everyone checked so I got to see a free card. The turn card was a Queen, giving me top pair with an OK kicker. I put out a cautious bet hoping not to get raised, but instead I got called by the button, which could be even worse if he's hiding a monster hand. The river card was uninteresting; Queen was still the high card on the board, so I had a decent top pair. Just then the player on the button checked out of turn.

This was the clue I needed to let me know I probably had him beat. In no-limit poker, if you check on the river, it's probably a sign you don't have much. There is a move called the check-raise, where you raise the other player after you had previously checked, but this move doesn't make a whole lot of sense playing heads-up no-limit unless you have nothing and decide to make an impromptu bluff. I had thought about taking it slow with my Queens and maybe checking to hope for a free showdown, but instead, because I now was sure I had the better hand, I threw out a value bet. A value bet is a moderate sized bet, some modest percentage of the current pot, decided to be an attractive call for your opponent. You want them to call a value bet, because you think you have them beat and it would mean more chips for you. Too big a bet might mean they fold, which gains you no additional chips besides what's currently in the pot. My value bet worked; the button called and showed a low pair with an Ace, which he was probably hoping would pair up at some point. My Queens were good and I took down some extra chips to boot.

Memorable hand #3 was my favorite, because I beat Cranky Guy. There's always gotta be a Cranky Guy. Usually some old and/or foreign dude who's angry at the world and vaguely threatens other players because he doesn't like how they bet. Cranky Guy in this tournament was not at my starting table, but was at the final table when I made it there. I had seen him earlier barking at the dealer, I believe because he had hit his leg on the table's coin box, or something. Whatever it was, it had briefly caused a bit of commotion. Cranky Guy was older and wearing a Cal (as in Berkeley) hat, but was decidedly un-mellow, and we found ourselves in a showdown not too long after being seated at the final table.

I'm actually disappointed with how I played this hand. Like I mentioned before, you need good cards to win a tournament to cover your mistakes, and that happened here. I found myself playing a not-so-good unsuited Ace-8. The reason A8 is not so good is because if someone else plays an Ace with a better kicker and you both pair your Aces, you might be stuck betting on a losing hand with no easy way to suck out a win. That happened to me here. I limped in with my A8, and sure enough, the board came up an innocuous-looking A-7-6 rainbow. But because there had been no pre-flop raises I liked my Aces, and bet a moderate amount, about four times the small blind. Cranky Guy raised all in. Now I had a tough choice to make; call his all-in with my not-great 8 kicker, or fold and forfeit a decent number of chips.

I was pretty sure Cranky Guy had me beat. I wasn't inconceivable that he would limp in with AQ or AJ and wait to strike against a player with a worse Ace if it paired up. While making my decision, I even said out loud, "I think you have me out-kicked." This would be bad news for me; if that was the case, and it was (he actually had Ace-King), there weren't too many cards left to bail me out. An 8 and no further Kings would give me a win, but there were only three of those left and two cards left to reveal. Two more sequential cards around my 6-7-8 for a straight would also do it, and two more 7s or 8s in a row would give us a push with equally full houses, but those possibilities are barely worth mentioning. I was long shot at almost 5-to-1 if my hunch was right.

"I think you have me out-kicked… but I call." On this hand I was what we call "pot committed." (Note that this is different from being committed to pot.) Cranky Guy's all-in raise was not that much more than what I had originally bet; I think I had bet about 6,000 and he went all-in with about 9,500. With the blinds and all the antes and my original 6,000 bet in the pot, the additional 3,500 seemed worth it; a moderate risk for a big pot, and definitely worth it if I'm wrong and he doesn't have a better Ace.

Of course, he did have a better Ace and my hunch was correct. But the turn card was an 8! "Oh, there's my 8," I said, like it was the express bus I had expected to come along at any minute. Cranky Guy left, muttering, "Nothing you can do about that." No, there's not. The other players at the table did that poker player thing where they say "Great call," when in fact you have made a terrible call, and they just want to encourage you to do it again, for them, when they go all-in. But I knew I had gotten lucky, which was just what I needed. With any tournament you're not going to make every correct call and every correct move, and in order to beat a large number of people (in this case, about 30), the cards have to go your way at least once on a hand where you're a long shot to win.

This time, I didn't chop. I wound up playing heads-up for about 15 minutes or so. Despite possibly being behind to start, I came back and won by being maybe just a shade more patient than he was. In the end, I won, pocketed $450, and most importantly…

A sushi lunch from Andrew. Oh, and the trophy chip:

And now you know the rest of the story. I won two poker tournaments in two days. For the trip, I was in the black for at least $1,000, a new record.

A few more thoughts:

1. Blondie's, a restaurant in the mall attached to Planet Hollywood, is the nuts for watching NFL games on Sunday, and I wish to find myself there on all Vegas Sundays, now and forevermore.

2. The Pinball Hall of Fame, located about three miles east of the strip at Tropicana and Pecos, is fantastic and I'm happy that something like that exists. I got to play Pinball Circus, a stand-up prototype; only two were ever made. Simply that is amazing.

3. Fake Prince at the Hooters (guh) Casino was much raunchier this time around. According to Andrew, newly religious Real Prince probably doesn't play "Darling Nikki" live anymore. So in that respect, Fake Prince is better.

4. I've been going to the Mandalay Bay sports book since 1999, and I love it, but they need to put in High Definition screens, for football. We aren't cavemen, after all. HD in the rooms is a nice improvement, at least.

5. After someone at our Pai Gow table kicked the plug out of the floor, knocking out the shuffler and the bet minimum LCD screen, Andrew and I realized that every gaming table has a very unimpressive looking power strip balanced precariously on a cross beam underneath. Presumably this will play a factor in Ocean's 17.

6. Getting a massage and some solitary spa time is a great way to collect your thoughts and reflect on your life, and get a few Moments of Clarity. It's important to relax, celebrate, and also reflect on what you've done. While I had some time to devote a few synapses to quiet thinking, I decided that as much as I've enjoyed refereeing football over the years, it's time to give it up and do something else. (Of course, I said that before this season too, and then relapsed right back into it, but that's another story.) Assuming that decision sticks, I'll talk about it more after the season ends in a few weeks.

In conclusions, I. Love. The Vegas.

See you next year… in Seattle?

Today while I was playing Ghostbusters: The Video Game -- also excellent -- the Ghostbusters encountered a portrait that they deemed significant, and they identified the subject as a relative of the game's villain. But wait a sec...

That's totally Madame de Pompadour! What are the odds?

Well, okay, given the amount of television I watch combined with the amount of video games I play and my average number of webpages surfed, this is probably more happenstance than coincidence. But still. Anyway after some minor Googling on my part I can't find anyone else who's made this connection, so, there you have it: I've accomplished something in life. Yayyyy.

The third disc is the really hilarious one though. In yet another attempt to get in bed with a woman by telling her he can make her a star, Prince has given us Bria Valente, whose vocal stylings can be described thus: it sounds like she wants to get with you. A lot. Luckily this suits Prince's writing style just fine.

But there's an amusing problem: it seems that Prince went deep into the vault to find songs for Bria. These are definitely the sounds of the early 90s. "Home," I swear, has the same hook as the New Kids on the Block classic "The Right Stuff." And check out these lyrics from "Here Eye Come", a song about Bria Valente masturbating in the shower (I love you, Prince):

Careful, a woman's got to be
In this day and age
That's why I was so elated
When I got your page

When did you get my page, Bria Valente? 1992?

I feel like that dirty blonde girl
In 9 ½ Weeks

"Hold on, baby, I gotta look that reference up. Awwwwwww yeah."

(Thanks to Prince.org for the lyrics. Eye have translated them from Prince to English for ur convenience.)

First of all, Robert was shocked that we somehow forgot "Straight To My Feet", by Hammer and Deion Sanders. Yes, that Deion Sanders. And yes, by 1994 he was just Hammer. He couldn't afford the MC anymore. The video features more than enough cameos from Street Fighter actors, including Jean-Claude Van Damme (as "Guile"). When asked to appear in character in this music video, Raul Julia instead died.

In case you forgot that the 90s sucked, here's "Come With Me" from the extremely-pre-9/11 Matthew Broderick vehicle Godzilla, by Puff "Yes, I was called Puff Daddy At That Time" Daddy and Jimmy "I Will Do Your Soundtrack At a Reasonable Price" Page.

Don't ask me to explain how I forgot "Dream Warriors" by Dokken the first time around. It features Patricia Arquette as the character she played in A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: This One Has Naked Boobs, and also Freddy Kreuger as himself. (Yes, he's real.) I don't know if the creepy girl on the tricycle was the same creepy tricycle girl from the film, but I guess it's likely.

Though easily defeated by the power of rock, Freddy did a lot of promos on MTV back then. Here's one he did when Part 3 was about to be released.

Scary, right? For the next movie, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Shark Jumpin', they did a whole Freddy Kreuger Hour, featuring the Fat Boys' instant classic "Are You Ready for Freddy". Freddy old-school raps ("Well my name is Freddy and I'm here to say...") but I think you should let me bend my own rules a little for this one. (This clip is part 4 of a 5-part collection featuring the entire Freddy hour, which I recommend.)

The year: 1983. The place: Jacksonville, Florida. Little Jamie Furdell had moved there during a cross country trip in his mom's Volkswagen Rabbit with no air conditioning. In the middle of summer. And along the way, I discovered how to fiddle with the radio and find the pop music stations.

Once we set up shop in Jacksonville I really dove into the world of pop music. I was all about American Top 40 and MTV, and I was especially all about... and this is embarassing... Olivia Newton-John. We had her greatest hits two-cassette tape (awesome) collection, and I was a big fan of the whole shebang. And thus, I was especially excited about a movie that came out in December 1983, starring ONJ (I call her ONJ) and John Travolta: Two of a Kind.

I distinctly recall dragging Mom to the AMC Regency Mall 6 theaters (since replaced by a larger multiplex) to see this, in retrospect, dreadfully awful movie. It was clearly an attempt to recapture the magic from previous ONJ-Travolta vehicle Grease, but wound being just an absolute mess of a love story. The main characters are revoltingly unlikeable: she's a bank teller, he's... um... an inventor. That's believable. He is struggling financially and decides to rob her bank; she replaces the loot with teller slips before handing it over and keeps the cash for herself, thus prompting Travolta to pursue her for the cash. Hijinks ensue.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them but knownst to us, a group of angels have wagered with God (voiced by, and I'm not making this up, an uncredited Gene Hackman) that they can get this pair together romantically, in an effort to... keep God from... ending the world? It sounds even stupider when I type it out like that. Basically they were trying to go for something Capra-esque, but it winds up making the exploits of these two dolts seem overly self-centered.

As a kid, I remember liking the fact that that the crew of angels had the power to freeze and rewind events in real time with a simple voice command. After rewatching this as an adult, I realize that the entirety of the film is a difficult experience to sit through and I must therefore take this moment to apologize profusely to Mom. Sorry, Mom. If you're still curious, here's a hilarious clip in which Travolta puts on his hero face and ONJ plays the victim.

The film was, super-sadly, not a hit, despite an all-star cast including Scatman Crothers, who at this point was being typecast as a magical black guy with a cool voice. And it was also the death knell for Travolta's film career... well, the first death knell, until its resurrection in Pulp Fiction and subsequent deathier knell Battlefield Earth.

But the soundtrack was actually a partial saving grace, and before the film came out, I'm pretty sure I succumbed to the hype of ONJ dancing around in her top single from the album, "Twist of Fate", on MTV. I still actually quite like this song, and I rediscovered it listening to an episode of American Top 40 from my collection.

Basically, ONJ, backlit and with super-high '80s hair, is defending her crush on Travolta, in a dark neon-lit courtroom suspended over some kind of body of water, while clips from the movie, including their plainly uncomfortable love scene, are presented as evidence. Then, the coup de grace at the end: John Travolta is there! Except that, hilariously, his scenes appear to have been filmed not at the same time as ONJ's, possibly in an entirely different country. They pretend to look directly at each other longingly, and fade to black.

That's the stuff right there.

OK, here's another one of those ridiculous lists you can help me with. I've decided that the best music videos of all fit the following criteria:

1. The song is from a movie soundtrack; and


2. one or more actors from the movie appear in the video. Preferably in character.

I don't mean like they used footage from the film, I mean the actor or actors actually had to shoot special footage for the music video. And it doesn't count if the actor is the musician (like if Will Smith does a song for his own movie, for example).

Here are the ones I've come up with. Starting with the most obvious, "Gangsta's Paradise" by Coolio from the god-awful Dangerous Minds, prominently featuring Michelle Pfeiffer, in a speaking role no less.

Maybe it's because that video's from the mid-90s, but I generally expect the actor(s) not to show up until the very end of the video, after we've seen a lot of scenes from the movie. I don't recommend that you skip to the end of John Parr's "Man In Motion" -- if you do, you won't get to see the scenes from St. Elmo's Fire, which are hilarious. A character in this movie tries to kill herself by sitting in front of an open window, and this is seen by her friends as a credible suicide attempt. But if you just want to see John Parr interact with the cast of the film, you can fast forward to the last minute.

That's like Julia's favorite movie, by the way. Moving on, here's the music video that I would say is both the cheesiest ever, and the best ever: "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" by Starship, from the motion picture Mannequin. The real stars here are the lead singers, who ham it up in an un-self-conscious way that nobody can in a post-9/11 world. There's a brief cameo in the end by your favorite Mannequin character, Hollywood Montrose.

Here's one I was fond of as a kid: "When the Going Gets Tough the Tough Get Going" by Billy Ocean, from Jewel of the Nile. Michael Douglas, the super-sexy Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito just look like they're having so much fun as Billy Ocean's backup singers.

YouTube is having a two-for-one special on themes from movies about bustin' ghosts. These are interesting, because they also include a ton of cameos by celebrities who weren't even in the movie. The first one, "Ghostbusters" by Ray Parker, Jr. from the eponymous film, has about a dozen unrelated actors who help out with the chorus (Chevy Chase, John Candy, Teri Garr, Carly Simon, Jeffrey Tambor, and even maybe-senator Al Franken, to name a few), and all four Ghostbusters show up in the end. The second song is the completely hilarious "On Our Own" by godfather of soul Bobby Brown, from the terrible Ghostbusters II. It squeaks in a Rick Moranis cameo early, and then manages to include Donald Trump, Iman, Christopher Reeve on a bicycle, Jane Curtin for some reason, and the chick from The Man With One Red Shoe, among others.

I'm so glad I get to include the bizarre 2-part epic that is "Goonies 'R' Good Enough" by Cyndi Lauper. The plot is so complicated that it requires narration and frequent subtitles. When Cyndi and the Goonies get kidnapped by pirates, Cyndi breaks the fourth wall and asks Goonies writer/executive producer Steven Spielberg for a tip on what to do. (He has no ideas.) And, André the Giant shows up for some reason.

I admit it: we're now at the point where I can't think of any more off the top of my head, so I'm having to guess. I'm batting 1000 so far though. Here's El DeBarge's "Who's Johnny" from Short Circuit. Yep, sure enough this one has appearances by both Ally Sheedy, and a cardboard standup of Steve Guttenberg, who I guess was busy with Police Academy 4: Citizens On Patrol that day. El takes the witness stand in a trial against Ally and Cardboard Steve, but the bad news is that footage from the film is admissible as evidence. Luckily everyone in the courtroom is in love with Ally Sheedy.

OK, I specifically said it doesn't count if Will Smith does the song for his own movie. But I'd be remiss if I excluded James's favorite song, "Wild Wild West", from James's favorite movie. It prominently features Salma Hayek (worth, as always, triple the price of admission) and, in a casting move only slightly less distracting than Cardboard Steve Guttenberg, we have someone who is clearly not Kenneth Branagh playing the back of Kenneth Branagh's head.

So those are the ones I can think of. But I feel like there's another lurking on the edges of my brain. Help me out by naming some more music videos in the comment section...won't you?

Story time at the library

Reading a book about mice

Getting a poopy diaper changed

I assume the manipulation of the parents only gets more sophisticated from here.

This is a major milestone, because 5 states is the exact number where I can't remember the names of the individual states without looking them up on Wikipedia. The next major milestone is 7 states, the number it takes before I look at the Wikipedia list and think, "wait, Iowa's on there?"

In the last month, same-sex marriage has become legal in Iowa and Vermont. What do you think about same-sex marriage at a state level?

At a state level, it's up to them. I don't want it to be a federal thing. I personally still think it's wrong. People don't understand the dictionary—it's called queer. Queer means strange and unusual. It's not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we're supposed to do—what man and woman are for. Now, at the same time, we're supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins. I've had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn't have them anywhere near my children. But at the same time, they're people, and they're going to do their thing.