My novel life

I feel like I am living a Charles Dickens novel; for me it is the best of times and it is the worst of times. So many things are either really good or really bad.

In the best of times, last weekend I was at a retreat at church and it was great and wonderful. Even a week later I am still in a great mood from it. The weekend before that I was in Arizona. It was the latest installment of my trips to state and national parks and produced my most noteworthy hike to date.

However, a few things are terrible. My DSP class is a disaster; nothing is working in it. The people around me at home are going through worse than average things and it is starting to affect me. I am also feeling horrible about being unemployed.

There are so many superlatives around me right now. It would be nice if they all averaged to normal, but instead I am either really great or at the worst I can remember.

This weekend I poured recently boiled simple syrup on my hand. This mishap happened when I was making mint juleps and a derby pie for the Kentucky Derby on Saturday. Yesterday I was grilling hamburgers outside. When I felt something under my bare foot I found I was standing on a rusty nail.

Hobo with a Shotgun
I also saw the movie Hobo with a Shotgun. How the movie got made is a story worth telling.

A few years ago, a movie called Grindhouse was made. It imitated a style of movie from the 70s where there was a lot of violence, sex, or some other overblown theme. Since these movies were often double features, the directors created two separate shorter movies. They then strung the movies together by making fake trailers for other similarly styled movies. People who saw Grindhouse would see a couple of fake trailers, a movie, some more fake trailers, and then a second movie.

The trailers for the fake movies received so much attention, one of them was expanded and made into a full length movie. This was the movie Machete. One of the other trailers was for the fake movie Hobo with a Shotgun. What I watched was a movie based upon that fake trailer.

To understand the idea behind the movie, think about the title and watch the original fake trailer. I laughed a lot watching the movie.