The Equation of Hope

      Hopefully you have seen the movie Super Troopers (if not, what the hell!! Go watch it!). You may remember one of the kids from the beginning, who takes a few drugs in the back of the car when they think the cops are going to bust them.












     He provided one of the most famous lines after he ingested the stuff all at once, and started licking the glass in the back of the cop car, and said "The snozberries taste like snozberries" (like from Willy Wonka, if you're a little slow). You probably thought that would be this guy's last claim to fame, but he has accomplished something so extraordinary, it's almost impossible to believe, and it actually aids to give me confidence in my own life. He still looks about the same, and I mean no disrespect when I say he doesn't look exactly look like the super hero type, but this guy is my new hero and role model:

       Many of you who know me know that I love math. Others of you also know that I think Christina Hendricks is indisputably the most beautiful woman in the world. If you don't know who that is, feast your eyes on this beauty and try not to drool (or get jealous)...














This mathematical equation seems unlikely, but it is true.
Yup, that guy, Geoffrey Arend was dating, and is now married to, the sexiest woman on the planet. One might think that this equation would bring me some grief, since my dream woman is now off the market, but I choose to see the bright side of the situation.

On the contrary, the fact that this guy can marry that gal provides this equation for my life:

                                     =   HOPE FOR THIS GUY:

 

(THAT'S ME)

If he can do it, maybe I can too. Thanks Geoffrey for infusing some limited hope into my presently non-existent love life.
     

Blatant Self Promotion

                             
The ol’ job search isn’t going so well; perhaps finding new ways of announcing my available talents may present some opportunities. It’s sort of like a representation of my business card:


               MATH TUTOR

If you or your child need any help in their math class, from basic math to algebra II, I am fully available as a math tutor [In Long Beach, CA, and neighboring cities]….High Schools have started to require students to take advanced math courses, and many struggle, but I’m here to help!!

Math comprehension has become undervalued, and what some forget is that you won’t always have a computer to figure it out for you, and even if there is one, it doesn’t do any good if you don’t know what the numbers truly represent. People use math constantly in their everyday lives and benefits from mathematics-based science are all around you, in this technological age.

QUALIFICATIONS:
　

My experience is limited, but my knowledge isn’t, and my passion to pass it on to others is immense.

　

Mathematics has been my subject of choice all of my life, and I excelled throughout school, always at the top of my advanced classes, and finishing off my senior year in High School in Calculus. I have been employed as a tutor a couple of times, ranging from a helping a child learn basic addition and subtraction to a college student struggling with intermediate algebra. I have taught other students all my life, when I worked on homework with friends or answered their question during class, and helped them better understand the subject and perform better in class. I firmly believe people can and should learn basic math concepts; I even produced a math lesson for my co-workers to teach them basics about percentages, and other necessary math functions that would help them as a cashier and questions about discounts, coupons, and the like, because many had no idea.

“So what about the price?”…

Because of my limited experience, I am offering a lower price compared to tutoring agencies and other sources….
                            $15 per hour is all I ask  

 Contact Me at Astonboutelle@yahoo.com 
　

Recent Entries to the Complaint Department

  
People (mainly in sports) use the term “unbelievable” way, way too often!! Every time anyone with a microphone asks someone how they feel or what happened, they claim to feel unbelievable (?) or that it was unbelievable. Every great play, idiotic discussion or stupid coincidence revolves around someone saying it was unbelievable, and so on and so forth. Can’t you think of anything else to say, or at least use it in proper context? I’d even settle for a comment like “I feel unbelievably ecstatic“, or “it was an unbelievably fortunate event,” or whatever, but can you at least think of something else to say; use another word from this vast, extensive English language we have at our disposal!… I find it even more, shall I say, unbelievable, that people even use that term at all, since so many people have such farfetched belief systems already. How can that minor event be so unbelievable when you probably believe that it was due to the will of an all-mighty god, who hangs out in the clouds and controls the universe, in the first place?…. Just sayin’




I’m sorry to say this, because I was originally a proponent of him finally getting a show that didn’t involve voice-over in a cartoon, but H. Jon Benjamin’s show (“H.J.B. Has a Van”) on Comedy Central should be removed from television forever; it is truly awful! I like his voice-over work on shows like “Family Guy“, “Archer”, “Home Movies” (or whatever that cartoon show is called where all the character’s hands are the same color as their shirts), and I recently learned that he used to be on Conan’s old show (which is always a plus), but apparently he should have waited for a better opportunity to finally show his face… Because I don’t want to see it ever again. [I would even dare say that show is unbelievably bad, but I would have to scold myself.]




Why are women always complaining about men not being able to pee into the toilet. They have no idea about the stream splitting scenario or other problems that can arise that affect the direction and pressure of one’s flow. If we peed sitting down too, there wouldn’t be any problem, but we don’t. Most often, the biggest issue is the random occurrence of stream splitting, where you aim for dead center, but two streams go off in opposite directions away from where you aim. Let’s just say, that’s not always cat pee in the litter box next to the toilet. Sometimes if we hold it in too long, it’s hard to control the pressure of the stream so it comes out stronger or weaker than was intended, which causes problems too. The real problem is when there is no attempt to clean up after their error, and not the error itself, which is often uncontrollable and sporadic.




I was watching the Cartoon Network, which is one my frequent visits when I go channel surfing, and came across a commercial that I assumed was a joke, but no energizer bunny came out or any other disclaimer. There is actually a child’s game involving a big plastic dog and some play-dough (or at least I hope it is) called “Doggie Doo”. The object is to collect the most dog poo from the dog’s butt. I’m frickin’ serious; this isn’t just some ploy to say poo! Either someone is taking the ‘collect your pet dog’s excrement’ law way too seriously, to the point they want to teach the process to children early, or they were simply out of good ideas for a toy. Maybe I need to get into the toy-making business if that is the kind of crap they produce now (pun intended) .






                These complaints are sports-related but they are still major pet peeves of mine. ----
Sometimes during a game, they will interview a player, coach or whoever or they will show a recorded interview from before the game started. That’s fine, but why do they have to go to a split screen, shrinking the image of the game as it is happening, so I can see the image of this person talking in another small box to the side? I don’t need to see the person talk; just use his voice-over as you show the game on the entire screen, like you do with the announcers; it’s not that hard!! Not all of us have giant 50” screen televisions so we can still see the game footage well enough even when it is shrunken down. More to the point, why would anyone need or want to see the coach or player talking? We don’t! Just show the damn game or better yet, interrupt part of your five minute commercial breaks when the game isn’t being played if you insist on showing someone talking.



The other pet peeve is when a televised game is blacked out, specifically baseball on the MLB network. Local games are blacked out which is typical and makes sense, since local networks are usually going to broadcast them anyway, and I think teams have deals in place so that if the stadium isn’t sold out, games are blacked out on channels like that one because they want people going to the ballpark. What doesn’t make sense is when they offer two different games, depending on your location (labeled regional coverage), one of those games was in Philadelphia and the other in New York (I am in California), and neither involved my local team, yet for some reason they are still blacked out. I pay for this channel to watch things like (believe it or not) major league baseball games, I don’t live anywhere near those two cities and still the many of the games are blacked out? That is what I call bullshyte!
　

Christian Bale: He SUCKS… The End

 Maybe this is just the offspring of my desire to complain about stuff, and I don't know how easy it would be to do, but someone needs to redub [or whatever the term is] “The Dark Knight” [the last Batman movie] with anyone else but Christian Bale doing that character’s voice. When I see any clip or commercial to do with this movie, I start to feel ill, like Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange, and his involuntary reaction  to watching the violent movies with Beethoven accompanyment. I can’t watch any of his scenes in that Batman movie for more than 10 seconds, because I immediately get the overwhelming desire to vomit violently, or at least kick him square in the nuts for being so goddamn terrible. It is so awful, it makes me cringe to even think about the way he sucks in a breath and roars out his lines like a child imitating a monster or something, and when he tries to string two sentences together, it’s worse than someone scratching the chalk board. I hope I'm not in the minority on this one-it doesn't seem possible; if you can stand watching that movie without nausea and discomfort, after the way he grunts and snarls when he has on his Batman suit, I have no idea how (I can only assume you weren’t paying attention or were able to mute the screen, while watching at home to make it tolerable). When my best friend and I went to see it in the theatre, and heard him blurt out his first line using that monotone growl, we both instantly turned and looked at each other as we squirmed and shuddered as a simultaneous reflex action, and I think I said “he can’t keep talking like this through the whole movie” …Oh how I hate being wrong about that... He even did it when he was talking to Morgan Freeman’s character, even though he knows who he is and everything; what the hell?!?
　                                           
         Perhaps the director or some major executive producer was responsible for instructing him to talk like an angry bear, or whatever the aim was there. I suppose it‘s possible, given the fact that letting that guy take the role in the first place was a huge mistake; I mean, he basically just recycled his maniacal character from American Psycho, when he was portraying Bruce Wayne, and even that was disturbingly bad. Then again, acting like an egomaniacal, misogynistic douche-bag probably just comes more natural to him, so who knows how much of that was really acting. Maybe it’s just because I’ve heard evidence of him being a complete a@#hole, and his violent tendencies towards his family, but I can’t stand looking at his face, especially his weird mouth, without wanting to rearrange it with my fists (and I‘m not a violent person really, and he would almost certainly kick my ass in a fight). Of course that stupid mouth is all there was to look at when he wears the batman mask, as he forces out his snarling one-liners, like some Neanderthal who just learned how to make sounds with his mouth



[This is him, from American Psycho, or is it?]

 He completely ruined a brilliant performance by Heath Ledger, which was the main reason I wanted to watch it in the first place, and thankfully they focused on the Joker character enough to make about an hour of the movie watchable (if that‘s a word). Of course, the frickin’ thing was like 2 ½ hours long, and we were ready to skip out of the theatre after about an hour and a half, for fear of being driven crazy by the worst… performance…EVER! [, to quote the illustrious Comic Book Guy, Jeff Albertson, from “The Simpsons.”] The fact that Ledger probably had the best performance of his life does expose Bale’s on-screen- abomination even more, so perhaps the argument could be that Bale was only bad in comparison, and some would say Ledger’s brilliance offsets the disgusting series of throat-clearing-grunts that made me want to kill myself, just to eliminate the sound from polluting my ears.
　
         I (as you may have guessed) strongly disagree, which I is why I hope someone re-edits that movie with a voice-over so I can enjoy it without convulsing vigorously in my seat- a sensation followed by the infinitely growing desire to hurt whoever is responsible. I don’t care who you use as the voice- it doesn’t have to be one of the previous Batmans, but I bet Michael Keaton or Val Kilmer (I’m sure he needs the money) would do it if you ask them. Even Richard Simmons would be better (and hilarious), or how about Wesley Snipes  (to pay back his taxes), and let him talk like he did as 'Blade,' which was raspy and somewhat annoying, but still 1000 times more bearable than Bale’s Batman. Or remove him from the movie entirely and call it, “The Joker and Two-Face: Best Friends Forever”; even that lame and predictable Harvey Two-Face character was 100 times better than Batman. Hopefully my friend and I aren’t the only ones who want it remade, because we can’t really afford to pay anyone to do it… I may just have to record it and edit out all of Christian Bale’s speaking parts; shouldn’t be too hard… and it will make me [slightly] less homicidal when I watch TV.

Off the Cuff...and other probably mispelled comments

Despite my normally quiet persona, I used to have some road rage issues, until I started watching Criminal Minds on television. That show along with my mix of CSI-type shows, my road rage has lessened significantly, for fear of yelling or honking at that one pyschotic driver who happens to have a shotgun aimed out the window or something. I already had turned into a 31-year-old hermit from lack of trust and now these shows make me want to stay inside even more.... Sometimes I think how easy it would be for some maniac to blow up or burn down some random building I'm in, whether it be a store or arena or whatever, because of some virtual reason inside of someone's mind (in other words, a belief); maybe I should stop watching those shows. And I cna't voice my fears when I am in said building, because then I would automatically be the suspect because I mentioned it, but there are so many crazies out there that I can't help but think about the possibility at least a little. Obviously the chances are very slim of some maniac blowing up the movie theatre or grocery store I'm in, but the chances are increasing, because as the overall population increases, so does the number of psychos. The ratio of  'normal' to abnormal may remain the same, but the quantities of both increase as more people inhabit the Earth...


The more I see Coors Light commercials on tv, the more it becomes evident that they are catered to morons. First they use slogans like "The coldest tasting beer" and "The world's most refreshing beer", which are two of the stupidest slogans I have ever heard. Where do I begin?... Cold is not the taste, it is a temperature, and every beer can taste cold when you put it in the freezer, so advertsing yourself as the coldest is downright insulting, or at least it would be if consumers used their brain a little more. When you claim to be the world's most refreshing beer, that seems more like a water advertisement, not to mention the fact I could name about a hundred others that are far more refreshing than that stuff, because they actually taste good. Sounds to me more like an ad for cold water catered towards young children or perhaps the mentally handicapped who use phrases like super cold... Another laughable gimick is the new label on the bottles that tell you if the beer is 'cold' or 'super cold'. What?!? Here's an idea: feel the bottle; is it cold or not? And who uses terms like "super cold"? Oh yeh, people who drink Coors Light... I suppose it's fine, if you like being treated like a moron, in which case you probably don't even realize how crappy that beer is anyway, so feel free to continue enjoying the 'most refreshing beer', but make sure it is super cold first.  One more thing- a note to Ice Cube, the new spokesman for Coors Light. You can no longer call yourself a gangster rapper, a thug, or a tough guy of any sort, after selling out to advertise one of the worst beers in Americ and acting in one of the worst advertising campaigns ever. You can't drink a light beer, that advertises itself as water basically, and expect to keep your street cred... sorry.


I happended upon a trailer for a movie recently and this notion came to mind:
 Julia Roberts' laugh is NOT that attractive; you don't have to stick it in at the end of the preview for every movie she is in. Maybe twenty years ago, it was refreshing and appealing, but now it just seems forced and repetitive, and quite frankly it is old and beyond unappealing. Try a new tactic please.


I don't know what this says about me, but Rocky and 2001: A Space Odyssey are two of my favorite movies of all time. I came to the conclusion that is an odd pair to label together, but maybe I'm not as weird as I think I am.  I characterize my favorites as movies that I will sit and watch, whenever they are on tv, sometimes twice in one day because they are so good.