Office Arson!!!

Here's the part where I tell you all about the most exciting thing to happen at work, ever. If you didn't already know, I am a Fire Protection Engineer and I work for a consulting company. We have a really sweet office right in Canton (Baltimore) on the water. There are currently 6 people in the office, so it is pretty small, and the office itself is on the first floor of a swanky apartment building. Typically, about 200+ joggers and dog-walkers pass our office front door every day. DOES NO ONE HAVE A JOB?!

I guess a lot of people move in and out of swanky apartments around October, so the apartment complex had a huge dumpster outside for residents to throw away their fancy crap, and this giant dumpster was sitting outside some of our windows. One Thursday afternoon, we hear a lot of noise, and we look out the window, and the giant dumpster is on FIRE. this:

Unfortunately, I did not have the presence of mind to start video taping from the start, and then coworker and I chattered and shrieked through the rest of the fire, so this doesn't really capture just how huge the fire was. Also, literally seconds after I stopped recording, one of the fire fighters accidentally shot another fire fighter in the face with the hose, blowing off his helmet. That would have really made for an awesome and worthwhile youtube video, but NO, I had to get impatient.

So anyway, we all thought it was just perfect that there was a big fire outside of a FIRE PROTECTION ENGINEERING office, so we were laughing and having a jolly old time, wondering about the heat release rates, as our windows cracked from the heat.

After the fire department had taken care of business, the apartment complex looked at the security footage and ... the plot thickens! They saw a figure in a black trench coat and black "Indiana Jones" hat throwing something into the dumpster right before the fire started! ARSON! I should mention that it was REALLY warm outside, as in no coats necessary at all. I have composed this amateur sketch in case you see him:


Could be a crack head got hold to the wrong stuff! O no wait! That is the wrong one... let me see... Ok... here he is:

Note the black trench coat, the hat and the flames. So now if you see him, you can make a citizen's arrest! The thing was that he had the looks of a person who had a rough time in high school... someone like... someone like...

Yeah! That's it. Ok so basically, they knew it was an arsonist setting dumpsters to the torch! They told us that we should keep an eye out, that the guy would probably come back! As if the knowledge that a creepy trench-coat wearing person already was sneaking around, but to think he would come back. Yikes!

Cut to Friday!
HE COMES BACK!
STILL WEARING THE SAME TRENCH COAT AND HAT IN THE BALMY WEATHER. He strolls on by the office, and by the dumpster, then he heads out to the water taxi where he waits. We call the building management people, review videos and confirm YES it's the same guy, so the cops are called. The arsonist is STILL waiting for the water taxi (we can see it from our window). A lone cop comes minutes after he boards the boat, and doesn't want to do any policing, but would rather shoot the shit with my boss. As the arsonist rides across the harbor to a KNOWN docking location; he is the only passenger on the water taxi. This would have been the EASIEST catch ever for the cop, and yet, he explained, he was about to get off for the evening, so there was really no point. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
So this whole situation is really silly, and I understand laziness, I do, but REALLY?
So the cop leaves, and life goes on.

LATER FRIDAY NIGHT
Our friend was in town and the weather was lovely so we decided to go out to Fell's Point and have some dinner at a restaurant, choosing the outdoor seating. So I am relating this crazy arsonist story to the friend, and we are eating, and lo and behold. BLACK HAT/BLACK TRENCH COAT walks by my table. No joke, same exact guy from earlier in the day. He was extremely distinct... it wasn't just any old trench coat, it was like old-timey steam punk living in mom's basement. He was with a friend, a skinny freak dude with lots of piercings and tattoos. So I did what any normal person would do, and sat dead silent until the duo passed, then I absolutely freaked out. FREAKED OUT! I mean really, seeing this guy again, on the loose! I ran up to the hostess, who the arsonist and co had briefly stopped and stood near, and I was all like "DO YOU KNOW THOSE PEOPLE?!" and she was terrified of me. I tried to explain this whole story, and she gave me the eyes that say "you are delusional."

Meanwhile, husband and friend are really annoyed at my histrionics. I don't just get worked up about things, I get really shrill and I talk very fast, and I become unbearable. It's just me being me! So we finish our meal, and we are going to walk over to bars for some drinks - might I point out that through all the freaking out I was uncomfortably sober. And I could not stop obsessing about the arsonist ON THE LOOSE!

As we walk through Fell's Point, there is a gang of FIRE FIGHTERS! I try to control my need to shriek my story at them, but I fail. I run up and start asking if they know about the Canton dumpster fire from the day before, and Yes! These are the very fire fighters who put that fire out! I ask, was there another fire?! Why are they there? They tell me that there is no fire, and that they are just there, hanging out.

"Well," I tell them, "the arsonist who set the dumpster on fire is HERE! I saw him walking around tonight, he is wearing a black trench coat and hat, so if you see him, he's your guy." And then I run away, because oh my god, that sounds completely insane and paranoid.

At that point husband and friend are about to just ditch me - they can't handle the insanity - so I swear that the freakout is over, since telling the fire fighters counts as "warning the authorities."

I have no real end to this story, because the arsonist of Canton is still at large, terrorizing our community's waste collection bins. In conclusion, be weary all ye Baltimorians, for he is out there, waiting, watching.

Twilight: Birthing Demon

I am so ashamed that I went to see the most recent Twilight movie... but I had already set a precedent, so it was inevitable. I missed the first one, and then at some point between the time the first one came out, and the second one, I read all the books. In a few days, which is the only way that it is acceptable if you actually do read them all the way through, if only to prove that you can read and that you read trash quickly because you are too good for it, and you have more important, literary things to be reading. Uch, I make myself sick. But yeah, after the reading happened, I decided that I should probably watch the first one, and then I had to see the second, and so on.

Anyway, I will say what most people are well aware of: they were awful books, like truly awful. I knew this as I read them, and I raged at how incredibly painful and terrible it all was, but it was like this sick thing where I had to read them once I started. I think lots of people can relate to this phenomenon. I even had the bizarre experience of minor depression after the whirlwind of garbage consumption was over. It has happened before when getting to the end of REALLY good books, and it is inexplicable and, again, embarrassing that something so vile sucked me in like that. I know this has been discussed a million times before. I know that the whole Twilight thing has very confusing implications on everything from "teenage love" to "codependent/abusive relationships." I am not really interested in that; I am over caring about why this "appealed" to me (and tons and tons of other lamos) so much. I get it, it is emotional pornography! I am not going there, because I am just going to talk about this movie I just saw tonight (MONDAY NIGHT, to a filled theater!).

The point is, that this latest movie, like its predecessors, was hilarious, bad and amazing in its bizarre camp/creepiness. I think this was by far the creepiest of the movies, which was sort of a plus.

First I need to get a few gripes off my chest. The vampire/werewolf canons were disregarded:

• No sparkling vampires in the sunshine!
• Phasing werewolves are no longer dangerous to be near... wasn't that a big plot point in one of the other movies?
• The movie seems to disregard the inevitable loss of clothing as the shifter people explode into cgi wolves! There should have been more nudity! WTF!
• Obviously, in the Twilight universe, women do get their period! PROOF: unused box of tampax reminding Bella that she is late and prego. However, it is still never addressed how the blood thirsty vampires don't devour every menstruating female around! This is a monthly thing people, it would be a miracle that any ladies survive puberty.
• EVERYONE looks so puffy and weird in white-face. This has been a problem for me from the start, because it's just hard to look at. And everyone looks stupid with opaque colored contacts. HEY PEOPLE: opaque colored contacts make even "hot" movie stars look dumb, so please be advised that it is no longer 1998 and opaque colored contacts are not permitted.
  

First unintentionally (?!) hilarious part of the movie: dream sequence of wedding disaster! Bella in white dress splattered with blood around her womb/lady area! Is this representative of her fear of losing her virginity?! Or is it just very obvious foreshadowing of the fact that Edward will eat a child out of her wombsack?! There was a very relevant facebook fail recently that I feel illustrates what I am thinking nicely:


I will be blunt and say that the first 10 minutes of the movie are completely unwatchable. The acting and writing is so so so outstandingly bad, even for these movies, that I was sort of surprised, even with my non-existent expectations. I guess I thought this new director was supposed to bring something special. The emotionally charged muzak-dramatica behind every stupid interaction between everyone is just mind-numbing. The first half of the movie belongs on LMN (Lifetime Movie Network). It is straight up a terrible soap opera.
Also, it is so sad that Edward gets a bachelor party, but Bella has literally no friends to take her out to party! That poor, doomed girl.

The sexy times are awkward, but it seems like the Bella chick has gotten a little bit of control over her lip-nibbling problem, and she is actually less despicable than usual, but only for a minute, before she gets impregnated with the demon spawn. I was disappointed in Robert Pattinson's physique! I like to see some back muscles in my soft core porn at least! Boo!

Then the mood of the movie shifts into something more... interesting? I can't remember when it happened in time line of the movie, but there is a truly inspired scene where the cgi wolves talk to each other in alarming Transformers voices. The extremes of strangeness in this movie are... extreme. Then we start in on the alien-autopsy of our "heroine." We basically get about 30-45 minutes of this:


Blah Blah Blah... Bella is looking more and more like a holocaust zombie in the family way, and then Edward has to eat through the placenta to get the baby out. Oh yeah, and that is after we watch as Bella gets possessed by the demon, and her back snaps and her knees seem to get crushed. It's pretty horrific! Daddy Edward clutches his baby child with a ring of blood smeared around his mouth. Every father should have to eat his child out of his lady wife.

Alien-autopsy Bella appears to be dead on the table, and they have pretty much forgotten her as they hold up the baby, Simba-style, for a while. Realization dawns that his true love is dying, so Robert P. shoots an enormous, novelty-sized syringe full of sparkle jizz into wifey's chest (nods to Pulp Fiction reference). And she is still sort of looking dead, so he gently bites her all over the place. That is love people, that is love.

Then, when your logical brain is convinced that it can't comprehend anything more insane, you get to watch as the wolf guy and the demon baby lock eyes and fall in love. OMG the whole theater was in hysterics.

Cut back to zombie-Bella on the table. We see a montage cutting between her life and the sparkle jizz oozing through her internal organs, fixing her and making her beautiful, even applying eye shadow and mascara. The movie ends with her opening her EVIL RED EYES! Gasp!

The girls sitting in front of us screamed in agony that they should have to wait for the final installment! People actually clapped at the end of the movie, more proof that it is a modern masterpiece of cinema. This was a Monday night showing at a theater that serves booze. I didn't see any tweens, or really teens either. There were some groups of moms and even some dudes with their ladies (whipped!), but mostly girls like me and my co-conspirator in terrible movies. I am not sure if anyone was there without a certain sense of irony and shame. Or at least I hope not...

Resurrection

Due to your many desperate requests that I bring the beloved blog back to life, here I am! Last night I was laying in bed, drunk, flat on my back, and I had this idea that when laying flat on my back in bed I felt like _____. Someone. Something. Whatever it was that is now a blank was REALLY hilarious to me, and I remember repeating it to myself like 6 times in an attempt to remember it, and I remember also thinking "This is so hilarious! This will be the first thing I write about when I start my blog again!"

Of course, I have literally no idea what it was that was so funny. I briefly thought that I should write it down, a la that episode of Seinfeld (The Heart Attack) that was on the other day with a Larry David cameo as a mad scientist on some sci-fi movie on Jerry's TV...

"Look, Sigmund. Look in the sky. The planets are on fire. It is just as you prophesied. The planets of our solar system, incinerating. Like flaming globes, Sigmund, like flaming globes!"

...but I don't usually keep a pad of paper or writing utensil handy, and I was basically on the verge of blacking out where the thought alone of actual physical movement is too much. It is really good that I had driven myself home only 20 minutes or so before passing out like that. Excellent decision making.*

Anyyyyyway, the point is, last night around 4AM, I had an amazing idea for a first post, and now I don't. So this hungover mess is my lackluster re-emergence into the world of sending out nothing to the nothing. The following items will be covered in short succession, hopefully with some illustrations:

• Croatia & Game of Thrones Season II
• Arson at the office!
• Dog on Prozac/Crazy Vet
• Halloween
• Other

Are we still friends?

*I don't condone drunk driving and I should clarify that I wasn't really drunk drunk when I drove home. I like to front load my evening with a few shots early on, and then dance a lot while holding a prop (in this case can of gross warm PBR, most of which I spilled on myself and others, and hardly any of which I actually drank) to discourage people from buying me more drinks. So really, I was just exhausted and dehydrated, which is also not a great way to drive yourself anywhere, but I was definitely within the legal driving limits! End scene.