Inside Darren

You may not know this, but my friend Chuck is the official photographer of Larissa and I, as well as the provider of any picture that appears on this page, except for the ones I stole using Google’s image search.

This past weekend, Chuck took some amazing pictures of Larissa and I while we were enjoying the perfect Fall weather.

Updated! You can now view a slideshow of all of the wonderful photos in this set by clicking here. Feel free to leave me all kinds of comments about how beautiful my girlfriend is!

It’s Halloween night. I’ve just arrived home from John Campea’s place, and while waiting at a stop sign to turn a corner, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye that I was sure, at first glance, was a centaur. At second glance, however, it was the side-view of a Great Dane standing in front of its owner, giving the collective impression of a centaur.

Halloween - it can really screw with the mind.

Anyway, on to the topic at hand: The reason I was at Campea’s place was that I was participating in the daily podcast for his website, The Movie Blog. I’ve been joining in on the Monday recording sessions for a few weeks now, and I guess I will continue doing so until enough people complain about my “unique” sounding voice, or until this site grows to the point where I’m a bigger internet celebrity than John is.

I’d prefer option 2, so start telling your friends about this site.

In the meantime, I thought I’d post some of my thoughts about being a part of The Movie Blog: Audio Edition, and let you know a bit of what goes on behind the scenes.

We record in John’s apartment, which is in downtown Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The building John lives in is a unique residence unto itself. When I helped him move into it, we discovered that his new couch was too big to fit into the elevator, and after carrying it up 6 flights of stairs, we discovered that his doorway was too narrow to fit the couch through anyway.

The directory at the front door, where you buzz your friend’s apartment to be let into the building, shows only the name “Occupant” for every single person living in this six-story dwelling, with the sole exception of John’s place, which says “Campea”. That’s a little suspicious to me. And the elevator is always fitted with that “padding” which they put up when people are moving. Maybe there’s a high turnover rate at this building? Or maybe it’s just easier to replace the padding rather than to constantly scrub blood off the elevator walls.

Either way, I don’t think this apartment is the best option for long-term Hamilton living.

After I arrive at John’s, I sit down with John and Doug, pour myself a stiff glass of Coca-Cola, and prepare to do a sound check on the microphones. Doug and John have microphone stands holding their mics at mouth-level. I hold mine in my hand. John sits at his computer, while Doug usually uses a laptop during recording. I stare, transfixed by the recording-levels indicator.

We have some pre-recording banter, sometimes about what we’re about to cover in the show, but more often about Asian women, video games, and the secret struggles of those who seek to make an income off of the internet. It’s all stuff that would make for a great podcast, but which would also get us into BIG trouble with most of the civilized world. That’s normal for when boys get together. I’m sure most groups of women wouldn’t want the rest of the world to be privy to their conversations about contraceptives and Reality TV, right? Exactly.

After sound check, John hits “record”, does the intro, screws it up, and then starts again. As Doug starts into his crazy random interjections, I confirm the fact that 80% of my brain has shut down completely, and try to kickstart the remaining 20% into trying to find an opportunity to contribute without sounding like a first-year college student with a “Bacardi Breezer Tropical Orange Smoothie” hangover. (I actually have more university degrees than John and Doug put together, but when those degrees are in “Religious Studies” and “Linguistics”, it suddenly sounds less awe-inspiring, and more pity-inspiring).

After the recording, we have some more banter, and generally go out for food. Some sort of chicken product is usually purchased (wings, or fingers, or balls), and most of the time we watch part of a hockey game. John cheers for the Leafs, and Doug and I do our best to show we’re Canadians by pretending to be into the game.

On a side-note, I’ve never been into professional sports, and for some reason, whenever I’m watching them with someone who is, I repeatedly ask them questions about the rules of each game. “When can you make substitutions? Can the goalie check people? How do they decide who goes off for the penalty when there are too many players on the ice at one time?” I’m like a 5 year old kid at the movies.

When we’re done our chicken, we all head home, and I do my best to try to get something interesting up on this site.

If you’ve never heard the Audio Edition, check it out, and leave me a comment or two below as to what you think. Personally, I believe my thoughts are best enjoyed in printed form, rather than through audio-recording. Your own inner voice has gotta sound better than I do.

After reading this post over on Defective Yeti, Larissa and I had the following conversation:

Larissa: Little “Bunny” Foo Foo? I always thought it was Little Rabbit Foo Foo.

Darren: I say Little Rabbit Foo Foo too.

Larissa: Lyla says “Bunny” Foo Foo. Maybe it’s just this next generation that says “Bunny”.

Darren: We’ll have to ask the originator of the song. For all we know, it started out at “Little Gopher Foo Foo” or “Little Chipmonk Foo Foo”.

Larissa: But aren’t gophers and chipmonks at the same level as fieldmice?

Darren: No, I think there’s some sort of social hierarchy among rodents.

Then, after the conversation, while I was typing this post:

Larissa: “Chipmonks” is actually spelled “chipmunks”, with a “u”.

Darren: Really?

Larissa: Yeah, what you’ve written is something like “chip-priests”.

Darren: That’s what I think of them as.

Just wanted to send out a quick note of apology for certain wacky crap that’s been going on with this site.

After spending some time exploring my own website, I’ve learned of the following problems:

1. When viewed with Internet Explorer, the picture of Larissa in this post is GIGANTIC. For those users not seeing the post properly with Firefox, I’m sorry. That’s a lot of Larissa for one post. Updated October 30th: Fixed!!!

2. As I mentioned in this post, those using Internet Explorer will also not see the menus at the right hand side properly. I’ve tried to fix this problem in the coding of this site, but I haven’t figured it out yet, since I’m only an “Aspiring Uber-Geek”, and I think you need at least “Super Geek” or “Geek: First Class” standing in order to fix this stuff. Updated October 31st: Semi-fixed! IE users will now see the menus, but the menu boxes are different sizes. Still working on this.

3. The “most popular posts” menu on the right hand side seems to link to one random post, no matter which link you click on in that menu. On top of this, I have no idea how the website decides what the most popular posts are, since most of them all appear on the same page. I assure you, one day I shall fulfill my dream of having “functional popularity”. Updated October 31st: Fixed! Took this piece of the code right out of the site!

4. The first paragraph of text in this post is not supposed to be enlarged or emboldened. This effect is the residual result of trying to make the Elmo picture appear on the page properly. After 2 hours of screwing with the code, I gave up and left it as it looks now. Everyone knows that you have to make some sacrifices if you want Elmo to behave.

5. The “Next Page” link at the bottom of the homepage is completely useless, inoperative, and non-functional. As was my brain’s redundancy filter when writing that last sentence. If you want to see posts that have gone off the bottom of the site, you’ll have to use the “Archives” or “Most Recent Posts” links on the side menu. Thankfully, these links still work.

If you come to this site one day, and all you see is the word “fuck” in gigantic letters, you’ll know that my frustration has finally peaked, and I’ve moved on to other passtimes, like oh… let’s say… Nerf sports.

Shaving is always such a major ordeal. The concept seems simple enough: Drag a sharp blade across your face, cutting each hair short enough so that they’re flush with your skin. So why does this procedure always end with me feeling like I need a chin-tourniquet?

My face despises being shaved. I have some sort of genetic disposition against smooth-facedness. Consider the following:

1. My beard is thick, and is thickly distributed across my entire face (below the nose, of course). If I let it grow, I’m sure it would completely obliterate my mouth, and I’d look like one of those street vagrants who you think could make a great Santa Clause, if only they could get rid of that “rotting cabbage” smell and the beard-lice.

2. The whiskers which grow across my neck do not grow straight up, but come out at an inclined, diagonal angle. This often leads to hairs which come out of the skin, make an arch, then start to burrow back down, which in turn leads to irritated “bumps” which catch on the razor and bleed. Shaving in this area requires working “against the grain”, otherwise the razor passes over leaving the hair untouched. In-grown hairs must be pulled out with a pin.

3. In order to get a smooth shave, I must go over each area with at least 5 or 6 passes. This leads to increased irritation and razor burn. It makes no difference whether I use a razor, or an electric shaver.

4. I bleed. No matter what razor I use, which direction I shave in, or how I treat my face beforehand. I don’t know if I bleed from cuts, or from my very pores, but I can’t remember my last bloodless shaving experience. My styptic applicator “Nik-Aid” is the only thing that prevents me from dying in a pool of chin-and-neck blood on my bathroom floor.

5. Twenty-four to Forty-Eight hours after shaving (no, I don’t shave every morning: I’m not a masochist), I develop several neck-zits in the areas most irritated by my previous shave. I thought perhaps that thorough washing would prevent this development. It does not. I can only assume that this is just another way that my face is telling me: “Let the beard grow - It will help convince people that you’re actually 30 years old.”

Now, there would be some advantages to not shaving. I could avoid all the difficulties listed above, for starters. My face would be considerably warmer in the winter. I would add an extra 20-25 minutes of free time to my “shaving days”. I could apply for movie roles where they’re looking for that “disheveled, unkept hobo” look. And I could regularly use my face to scratch itches on my hands or arms, instead of having to use my other hand (this is especially useful when carrying objects in both hands).

On the other hand (so to speak, ha!), there are some disadvantages to growing the beard. The main one being that Larissa would disown me.

So, it seems as though I am hopelessly resigned to have to bear the burden of constantly razing this shaggy face of mine. And bear it I shall. For we who have been cursed with thick-beardedness are learning a long lesson in perseverance, and if you happen upon us looking smooth-faced, you can now gaze on us with rightful awe at the ordeals we endure in order to appear socially acceptable.

No picture for this post. Just a request to visit this link and read a funny and relatively short post on someone else’s site. Especially if you’re a single Christian looking for pickup techniques.

Yesterday, I made a quick 5 min stop at my parents’ house to drop off my mom’s digital camera (which I had “borrowed” from them in July, and didn’t bother returning, since neither of them know how to use it). Tomorrow my parents are going on a trip, and wanted to finally use the camera for themselves.

I could make an entire post about the craziness of having to teach your parents how to operate a device that they themselves bought because it was a “good deal”, yet never got around to using for at least 2 years after the fact. I could write about how I’m anticipating a phone call two days from now, saying that they’ve pushed some button, and now can’t seem to get the screen to work, or how they can’t remember how to delete pictures. I could write about those things, but I won’t.

What I am going to write about is what my father said as soon as he came lumbering into the front hall to meet me at the door. His first words were “Where’s Larissa?”

“She went home dad,” I replied. “She had some work to do to get ready for Monday.”

“So what?”, said my dad. “We just want to see her, we don’t care about you!”

Now, I know my father is kidding. Probably. Granted, I don’t call them very often, or drop by regularly, despite the fact that they live less than 5 min away from me. But when you don’t move out until 2 weeks before your 30th birthday, you figure that maybe putting some distance between them and you is not a bad idea for both parties.

But the simple truth is that everyone loves my girlfriend. How can I blame them? I myself love her, and so prove myself completely at the mercy of her charms.

I know that if Larissa and I ever break up, I will be severing myself forever from any hope of receiving an inheritance from my family. And not because my parents would write me out of the will. Because my parents already have written me out of the will, and have given everything to Larissa. My only option is to marry her, so that I can claim my share of the spoils.

I found this video while I was browsing through my friend Harcore Joel’s blog today. I had never heard of Sigur Rós before, but this video really touched me emotionally, even though I don’t fully understand it.

It’s interesting how you can be touched by moments of pure beauty that bypass the mind and go straight for the emotions.

The video is in Quicktime format - Tell me what your impressions of it are.

Just over a week ago, my friend John Campea put up a post at The Movie Blog, outlining some of his issues with the modern movie theatre experience. Having scrutinized this list carefully, I’ve come up with responses of my own for each of his 24 items. The original items are in bold, and below each item I offer my own wisdom and advice. John, I hope these responses will help you out:

1. Cost of admission ($10 for a ticket!?!?)

True, but it’s still cheaper than a few rounds of bowling or shooting pool. There’s the even cheaper option of acting out movies in your own home! I know you bought that Hermione Granger outfit for *some* reason…

2. Cost of Concession stands ($14 for 2 cokes an a popcorn?!?!?!)

Just do what the rest of us do: Sneak food in. If you’re dying for popcorn at the movies, here’s a tip: Rip out the lining of your winter jacket, and fill it with popcorn instead. For butter, grab some Swiss Chalet packets and melt it under your armpits during the previews.

3. Huge Concession stand line ups

See response above, or try this: Just push your way to the front of the line. If people protest, just flex and say “These pipes got a date with a bag of Clodhoppers, and they don’t take kindly to people getting in their way!”

4. Commercials running when the movie was supposed to start

Use this time to mentally prepare yourself for the movie you’re about to watch. A good exercise is this: Clench your hands into fists, hold them up beside your temples, rock forward and backward in your seat, and whisper “movie, movie, movie, yes, yes, yes” over and over, speeding up as you go. It really builds the anticipation.

5. No pre-selected seating

Easy. Bring your own fold-out chair. You can pick up one of those recliner ones at Canadian Tire, and it has a spot for your drink and everything. The theatre may say “no outside food or drink”, but I’ve never seen a sign for “no outside chairs”.

6. Parents who don’t take their crying kids out of the theater

Oh John, what you don’t understand is that the parents *want* their crying child at the theatre. It adds to that “this is the same as my home” feeling that people want at the movies. Just think of it as preparation for when you’re a father, and your kid won’t let you finish a single Battlestar Galactica episode in peace.

7. Teenagers who don’t shut the hell up

Think of this as an extra commentary track that you don’t have to buy the DVD for. You can get the opinions of the modern youth-oriented moviegoer as you watch the movie! I think it would be great research info for your website.

8. The guy in the back who thinks everyone wants to hear his oneliner joke

I actually pay that guy to follow you into movies that I think are crappy, so that you can complain and get your money back. Now that I think about it though, you don’t pay for movies, since you’re a movie critic… Sorry, I’ll call Ted and tell him that the arrangement is off.

9. Theaters designed so that line ups are outside instead of inside

A clever marketing tactic designed by the theatres themselves. You wait outside in a hailstorm, so that when you come in, you think of the theatre as a warm, cozy, soothing place of comfort and relief from the elements. Clever, when you think about it.

10. Theaters with outside line ups that don’t spend $500 to set up overhead shelter to protect people in the line from the rain. It’s very simple to do.

Isn’t this the same as above? Also, I hear they have this new invention called an umbrella…

11. Theaters that have the “Ticket checker” set up past the concession stand. There are 30 people behind me waiting to get into the theater because I can’t get at my ticket in my pocket since my hands are full carrying 2 cokes and a bag of popcorn that cost me $14. And they don’t even set up a place to set down your stuff to get at your ticket for them!!!

This tactic is only used by theatres that run a side business of marketing funny videos of customers juggling their food items to those “America’s Funniest Videos” shows. I’ve seen you a couple times now - Boy, that hot butter can burn, eh?!

12. I know this falls under “Concession stand prices”… but it deserves to be mentioned on it’s own: $3.50 for a SMALL BOTTLE OF WATER!!!

Answer: Bring your own bottle and fill up at the free drinking fountain. If you have no bottle, put the water in your cupped hands, but make sure that you put your ticket in your mouth first, so you can give it to the ticket-ripper without spilling your water.

13. Bad sightline design. Theaters that don’t take into consideration that a tall person MAY actually sit in front of you and you may have a hard time seeing the movie you overpaid for. Increase the slope of the seating… raise the screen a little.

Two other options: Bring a booster seat, or grow taller. Whatever is easier.

14. Bathrooms with no paper towels and weak air hand dryers. I hate standing there trying to get my hands dry on the 1 operational dryer with 6 impatient guys standing behind me waiting to use the same one.

First of all, I have never seen 6 guys in one bathroom who all wash their hands. But if so, do this: Blow on your hands yourself. It dries them just as fast, and you get a light cardio-workout in the process.

15. People kicking the back of my seat (this doesn’t happen often… but when it does…)

Solution: If you can, grab the kicker’s foot and bite his shoe while making dog-growling noises. I find this stops them about 80% of the time. If that doesn’t work, use your hands and fingers to give yourself moose antlers. You may block the view of the kicker behind you, and force them to move.

16. Sitting in an empty row with your buddy… and then 2 sweet looking woman come and sit in the same row… and you think “Oh yes”… and then 2 minutes later their bodybuilder boyfriends show up with the popcorn. Well… at least they had to pay $14 for it. Jerks.

I’m sorry that Chuck and I keep stealing your potential dates. From now on, try arriving at the movies *with* a girl.

17. Late shows that start too late. Ok… I can’t get there on time to see the 7pm show… THE NEXT ONE DOESN’T START TILL 10:30!?!! I’ve gotta work in the morning!

John, you’re a full-time blogger! You don’t work in the morning!

18. Early shows that start too early. “Yeah baby, we’ll do dinner and a movie… but we have to have dinner at 4:30pm because the STUPID FRICKEN MOVIE STARTS AT 6:10!

Try dinner *after* the movie - it gives you stuff to talk about. An especially good idea is to watch a horror movie, followed by a nice dinner involving ground beef. You get to eat what you just watched onscreen! Now *that’s* worth the $10 admission!

19. People who stand in line to buy tickets and don’t actually start to decide what they want to see until they get up to the ticket girl… with 50 other people waiting behind them as they go “ummm… how about that one? Oh no… I don’t like that actor… how about that other one?”

This usually happens when you plan to watch something sissy-ish, but when you’re standing in front of the cute ticket girl, you don’t have the guts to say “Can I have one ticket for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants please?”

20. Theaters without free available parking

Three words: Fake Handicapped Sign

21. Seats designed by some guy who really hates people and wants to inflict suffering

Personally, I’ve never had an uncomfortable movie seat. John, have you considered that it might be your own ass that you hate, and you’re taking it out on what’s underneath it? Because I can assure you, nobody that *I’ve* talked to about your butt has been able to offer any reasonable point of criticism.

22. People who don’t turn off their cell phones. How hard is that? DIE DIE DIE!!! (no kidding, I once had a guy whose phone rang 3 different times in the same movie… justifiable homicide your honor).

Sorry, that was me. My girlfriend kept calling to update me on how close the contractions were, but I couldn’t leave until I found out if Batman would re-hire Morgan Freeman. Gotta love that Morgan Freeman.

23. Cup holders that aren’t actually big enough to hold the large cup. WHY!?!?!

Buy the medium-sized drink. It’s still big enough to make you have to pee during the movie, but small enough that you can actually finish it and get one good use out of it as a porta-potty before the credits roll.

24. When the movie you invested $40 bucks in for tickets and snacks and 2 hours of your life ends up sucking.

What you do then is stand up, shout the F-word as loud as possible, and throw what remains of your drink at the movie screen. That way, your $40 investment will also get you a free ride in a police cruiser, and a nice chat with one of our local law enforcement officers. Who knows? She might even be cute.

There you go, no more problems. If anyone else has any issues, feel free to talk about them in the comments section. I’ll be happy to make fun of you too.

It has come to my attention recently that many of you who are using Internet Explorer to view this blog have been seeing a screwed-up version of this page. There are a bunch of menus that are on the right-hand sidebar which get uncerimoniously shoved to the bottom of the page when viewed with IE.

You see, for the past few weeks, and ever since I started this blog, I’ve been browsing exclusively with Mozilla Firefox. Never heard of it? Well, let me fill you in:

Firefox is what all the latest internet-geeks (and geek-wannabees) use for surfing. It’s the Pentium 4 of web browsers, while Internet Explorer is the IBM 386 of web browsers. Why is Firefox so good, you ask?

Well, I’m not about to do a whole comparison here, but the best way to put it is that it does everything that you wished Internet Explorer did, but doesn’t. One example:

I like to open things in new windows. I hate having to keep hitting the “back” and “forward” buttons to switch between webpages, because I have to wait for the page to reload each time. In IE, when you open something in a new window, it opens on top of the current window, and you have to re-size it, or minimize it, if you want to keep reading the current page before looking at the new stuff you just opened…

In Firefox, you can open new pages in “tabs”, which don’t overlap what you’re currently looking at, but will load while you’re still browsing something else. Then, when you want to check out the thing you just clicked on, you just click on the tab, and you’re there. No reloading, no interruption of what you’re doing. I know it sounds like a small thing, but I can’t imagine not having this feature now.

So, the moral of this post is download Firefox (it’s free!) and see this page the way it was meant to be seen! And for those still stuck in the dark ages with Internet Explorer, you might want to take a quick break right now to organize your Betamax tapes, or listen to an 8-track.