Label 200!

As of the previous post, I have blogged about over 200 topics! This is cause for celebration! Break out the champagne!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

New Names

Three new rap names: Niko is Jujube Jones; Caleb is Delta Flya, and Ben is Jeevz. This three-day weekend I'll be going to Point Reyes with Delta Flya and possibly also go to my aunt's house in Saratoga to harvest grapes. The point (get it, Point?) is that I am going to the Sandcastle-Building competition on Sunday and that I'll have lots of time to write rhymes with Delta Flya this weekend. That's two Points.

Syrup Suicide

The rap group now is known as Syrup Suicide, featuring Raviavioli, Caleb Foote, Niko Lecoeuche, Sgt. Pepa, Ben Hughes and Vanilla Bean Speck (me). Niko and I have material written, but so far no one else has lyrics to go on. I hope to have at least a partial- if not a full-crew meeting in the future. As you saw, only half of the members have rap names, but that will change. I'm not sure how well Avi and Caleb will get along, but whatever.

NEW RAP GROUP

Well, I didn't quite make it to the street on Saturday (I was busy). But I've started a rap group with some friends and we're going to be awesome.

Angrier Video Game Nerd

I made a YouTube video with my friend Elliott. It was in the style of the Angry Video Game Nerd, except it had a soundtrack of RHCP and the language was cleaner. My YouTube page can be found here.

Wanna Get a Cool Drink and a Sandwich?

If you do, I would advise showing up at Wikiup and Carriage between, say, 10 and 3. This is probably in effect on all Saturdays because those are my days off! If you go and I'm not there, write me a nice angry piece of hate email.

Lemonade Stand

I am going to start my own lemonade stand. I've already got a great recipe (8 lemons, 10 sugar cubes, 473 mL water) and a table. Now all I need are the lemons and the spare time. Perhaps next summer. Anyone who wants to help, just say the words. Hey, I have an idea! I will combine this lemonade stand with Yogi Land, the entertainment store of two years ago, and a sandwich shop. The prices would be like: story for $1.25, lemonade for $0.50, and spaghetti sandwich for $2.25. Then the customers, who are either not carrying change or too lazy to shell it out, will be forced to either overpay or buy the whole deal for $4.00.

Solfest

I couldn't make it to Solfest yesterday, but today I paid Hopland a visit with my dad and Caleb. It was sweet. In case you aren't familiar with Solfest, it's an annual festival in Hopland that celebrates being "green." The hippie vibe was ever present, even more so than last year, but the merchandise was awesome. There was a guy teaching people how to carve wood using a magnifying glass and the sun. A fresh-squeezed strawbery lemonade place. Organic burritos. Insulated housing. Lots of Prii. Solar Panels. A button and bumper sticker shop. And just about more hemp than any other place in the world. There was even hempmilk. Any of that strike your fancy? If so, you should definitely come to the next Solfest. We'd love to have you.

I got lots of great stuff at Solfest: a "Coexist" bumper sticker, a button incribed with the message "Bullets don't kill people. Gaping wounds in vital organs kill people," a Solfest T-shirt, a magnification-engraved stick, and a Call2Recycle wrist strap and T-shirt. Since my dad forgot to bring the camera, I have no photos of the actual event, but check these out. You can't really see the T-shirt or button, but you gotta love that stick.

The Yogipie Rap

Here is the rap, as promised.

Posting some posts to the great tribune
Having zero readers makes me look like a loon
But I don’t care what bird I look like
I only care what you can cook like
Apparently we’re allowed to rip off Mulan these days
But does it really matter the rhymes I say?
Probably two people have ever read one post
Caleb Foote the 27th has probably read the most
I even got a T-shirt to promote my blog
Why do they avoid it like a flaming log?
Yogipie is certainly potent (like a nog)
If it had potential I would read a flaming log
Pay good money for Entertainment Weekly
But my insights on the media don’t plod along meekly
I may not have a great multitude of minions
But I’m not so frickin’ slow to get you my opinions
Well, sometimes the connection gets a little stuck
And I say “Internet Explorer really sucks!”
Then I might not be able to blog for days
But you can still read Yogipie anyways
‘Cause posts in the Archives might give you a laugh
For that feature I’d like to thank the Blogger staff
But there’s also a dichotomy as well as a chronology
For finding tags like camping, airbrushing, and genealogy
I’d like to know the readers I’ve got besides one
If you caught the Disney reference, good for you, you’re not dumb
Write wghoberg@comcast.net
If you read this rhyme, tell me; I’ll see what I get
As for the 27th, I was kidding the fool
Having an old name is actually pretty cool
Farewell, readers (probably only one)
I might rhyme more later, because this was fun

More Movie Reviews

This is late but it is as promised and it includes a bonus review.

Transformers: Transformers starts out in much the same way as Disturbia does: Hot girl is the object of desire, best friend is a weirdo, and of course, Shia LaBeouf in pretty much the same role as Sam, the perv teenage guy. Fun fun fun. Except there's also the part about the army being attacked by giant robots, a conspiracy about the Arctic mission of Sam's great-great-granddad, and a Camaro. The movie is way too long, and the excess of product placement and its ludicrously ginormous budget make me sick, but the talent and production values are all in place. ***

Speed: It was a great, high-octane (?) ride. I can't say action movies are my cup of tea, but this was a good movie. Wait a sec... I don't like tea. ***

The Matrix Reloaded: Where do I begin? This one had a great sex scene, about seventy awesome songs, at least 4 classic fight scenes, The Architect, lotsandlotsandlotsof Smiths, a pair of sunglasses for everyone, a traitorous kiss, and many doors. Everything a great movie needs and then some. Quite possibly the awesomest film ever made. Needless to say I really enjoyed it, would recommend it to anyone, and really want to get my hands on the 3rd installment. ****

Back-to-School Shopping

I did my back-to-school shopping yesterday. I got 12 pens, 60 pencils, 3 Pink Pearls, 1 sharpener, 1 Spanish dictionary, 5 100-page notebooks, 1 stack of yellow Post-Its (I didn't even know they still made those), 1 pack of flash cards, and Icebreakers Sours, which, by the way, make good fake lip piercings.

Movie Reviews

Wow, tough job: talking about every movie I've seen in the past month.



Weird Science: This movie was... really weird. It is about two teenagers who create their own sexpot using a computer. There are all sorts of cheesy special effects and the oddest things happen. However, there were some good laughs in there and it had a happy ending. ***



Stephen Bizer's Otto: A 15-minute sci-fi romp that sets up its own rules for existence, and it doesn't care what you think! It has a complex plot, but if you can follow along, you'll find it enjoyable. ***



Stephen Bizer's Illegal Aliens: Also a short film, and also lots of fun, but this one is animated, and black-and-white too. The drawings are noirish and humorous and the plot fits the style perfectly. ****

Pretty in Pink: Incredibly '80s, Pretty in Pink is a romance tale that is well told through a great script, a talented cast (especially the otherwise-nobody, the guy who plays Ducky), and solid directing and producing work. The story is a classic, but the '80s were really the worst decade ever (except the 1340s or maybe the 1350s), and the film's pop culture is really dated. ***

Men At Work: A comedy about garbage men. The premise is really funnier than the jokes, which I suppose is a good thing because that makes the jokes all the funnier. Definitely a good choice. ***

The Bourne Ultimatum: Probably my favorite action movie ever. The plot twists are great, Matt Damon is awesome and the action is phenomenal. Loose ends are tied up with a pretty bow. It's a climactic adrenaline rush end to a great action series. It's definitely not a problem that they reworked some of the ideas from the first one. My beef is with the directing that overemploys the "raw" camera style. Almost perfect, but not quite. ****

Fletch: Chevy Chase is great in this comedy about a Los Angeles investigator-reporter who digs just deep enough into a drug-trafficking problem to uncover a gusher of mystery, bigamy, and Utah. He has jokes and quips by the gross. The plot and the direction are enough to make you see it again, just for fun. ****

Transformers and Speed are coming tomorrow when I'm not so tired.

I'm Back from my Poconos trip

Yesterday I returned from Pennsylvania and the annual Hoberg family reunion. First I flew to Philadelphia, then drove to my aunt and uncle's house, where I spent two nights before driving to my great-uncle's lodge in the Poconos, where I stayed for a week with some of my extended family, whom I'm sure you would love to hear about, so I'll give you a quick rundown of the tree. ROSA Present at the Poconos were: Jan and Mark Gingold with identical twin daughters Sara and Beth and son Daniel (Beth brought her boyfriend Jeremy and Dan brought his girlfriend Janelle), Rick and Jeanne Hoberg with son Matthew and daughter Mellissa (Mellissa brought her friend Kim), Peter Hoberg with son William (me) and daughter Becca, Chris and Ron Bizer with sons Stephen and Tim and daughter Kate, my father's parents Shirley and George Hoberg, Shirley's brother, Bill Kieser, his daughter Valerie, and Don and Jane, whom I don't really know. ROSA Not present were: bunches of other Hobergs, Areharts, and Harrisons.

The lodge overlooks Silver Lake, of which a picture can be found in the upper right corner of this post. The lake is great for swimming and for catching fish. This year I landed three rather large fish, of which I am very proud, a pickerel and two bass. It has long been tradition for the entire family to converge on this site and cause havoc from sheer numbers. This year had a relatively small crowd compared to other years, but there was still lots of havoc. What was really awesome was that all week long there was a chance of thunderstorms, but it didn't so much as rain until the one night our cookout was planned.

There was a dilapidated pool table there, and I played just about everyone on it. I'm not very good at pool. I was introduced to a new game called Pictionary-Telephone, which is exceedingly fun. I visited two waterfall parks, which were both fun, and managed to skip a rock 4 times. I found out that the fish in Silver Lake are attracted to sunscreen the hard way (they chased me out of the water). And I joined The Woodbumz, my cousins' white-rap group. Their names? Ginga Snapz, Bredd Loaf, 20-Inch D, Ju-C Juice, and Vanilla Bean Speck (Matthew, Tim, Daniel, Stephen, and me). They featured me on the track "Damn, it Feels Good to Be a Woodbum," which I believe will be on their album of the same name. Stick around for rhymes to be published on this blog.

tired

Way too tired. Will blog lots tomorrow.