Amusement Park Memory

My buddy Jeff took me to the local (seventy miles away) amusement park today, since he has an odd number in his family and (wisely) thought it would be easier if an even number was going. We had a lot of fun and I was very happy to have been his plus-one for the day.

There's a ride called the Tidal Wave there that's like a pendulum, going back and forth and filling ye olde genitals with a not unpleasant falling sensation. I used to be able to ride it endlessly . . . before the dark times, before the Empire. But riding it today, I was reminded of a time not too many years ago when a couple friends of mine and I went to Six Flags Magic Mountain together and rode their equivalent ride.

It was Matthew, MacDonald, and me, and we spent the whole day enjoying the rides, the California sun, and the idea of wringing the last drops of joy from our youth. Well, not Matthew, since he was a dozen years younger than MacDonald, but still more mature than both of us.

I was delighted to see a Tidal Wave-esque ride there, and demanded we all get on it. We sat down on the farthest seat to the back, since that's where you get the best bang for your buck as it were, and couldn't help but notice a couple of hot young girls sitting in the opposite row on the other side. These were California teenagers, glamorous, well-to-do, as beautiful as any Iowa teen girl, only more sophisticated.

Sigh.

As the ride began to swing back and forth, my eyes naturally went to the girls, and to my surprise, one of them, a brunette with long brown hair (who I choose to remember as an attainable sixteen year old Phoebe Cates . . . since it's my memory and I can do what I want with it), was looking in our direction. Her eyes met mine, and she smiled.

I know what you're thinking, and go to hell. This is my story, and I can tell it if I want to. Just save me a spot there among the demons and Disco gods, I'll be there in due time.

The teen girl whooped when the ride tells you to whoop, but then looked at me again, grinning a perfect orthodontist's masterpiece of a smile. I looked too. She was actually making eye contact . . . with me, Rish Benjamin Outfield, the only guy not to get some at spring break in Tijuana.

Well, to have a pretty young thing give me a smile was every bit as exhilarating as the park ride (as any park ride, honestly). The whole time, until it ended, she would glance in my direction, sometimes smiling, sometimes laughing, and whatever blink-and-you-miss-it pop group playing over the speakers had become the fudgin' Righteous Brothers.

As all things do, the ride came to a stop, and everybody filed off to go their separate ways. I looked for the girl, but she had places to go and other men's hearts to melt. Still, I was grinning like a Smilex victim until my buddy MacDonald said, "Wow, did you see that chick with the brown hair on the other side of the ride? She was totally checking me out!"

Sigh again.

I said it was an amusement part memory, not an amusing one.

Rish "Heartbreaker, Dreammaker, Lovetaker" Outfield

Stupid Thing of the Week

There's a dip in the road leading up to my street that I imagine is there for water to flow through (though it might be there just to punish people who drive too fast), and it has one of those big yellow signs warning people there is a DIP there.

Well, some brilliant young person took some spray paint this week and wrote "shit" under it (and not altogether well). So, you may take this as a stupid thing because some idiot thought it would be cool to deface a street sign like that, or because I found it kind of amusing. And it's exactly the sort of thing I would've done in my teens.

Or twenties.

Or thirties.

P.S. A couple of days after writing this, I grabbed my camera and tossed it in my car, meaning to take a picture of the offending sign. Well, I forgot about it. But driving home, as I crossed the dip, I remembered only to see that someone had painted over the graffitti. Once again, procrastination kicks me where it hurts.

Happy Fathers Day, folks

Stupid Thing of the Week

There's a wedding going on in Vegas this weekend, and my whole family is loading into the car(s) together to head over there. I spent some of today hanging out with my nephew, who is now three, and offered to make him some Kool Aid. I made about two ounces for him, and about twenty for myself, but had to get after the boy to make sure he didn't drink it in the living room, where he could spill it on the carpet. My mom doesn't let the kids drink or eat anything near the carpet, and I was trying to follow suite.

A little while later, though, I scooted my chair back so I could stand up and sure enough, I knocked my entire container over . . . onto the carpet. It was red Kool Aid too, which may actually be worse than the purple kind.

Chris Evans on THE AVENGERS

I saw this little interview snippet and thought, "Hey, here's something I can post on my blog!*" I really hope this movie works. For all our sakes.

Tags: Movie Trailers, Movies Blog

The Cap movie hasn't even come out yet, and I'm already getting used to Chris Evans as Steve Rogers. I saw Evans as a slacker, surfer, California type, and it was hard for me to get over that. Now, though, I guess I've seen him in the trailers and publicity stills enough that it probably won't be hard to identify him with the character for the next several years.

Of course, Ryan "Captain Awesome" McPartlin from NBC's "Chuck" was my first choice. But maybe he can be Aquaman or something.

Rish "Colonel Mediocre" Outfield

*And I haven't had something to write in a blog post in a long, long time.

It's all for you, Damien

This is, according to my Dashboard, my 666th blog post.

I WISH I had something significant to post today.

Heck, maybe I could write a drabble and stick it in here. Something appropriate to the occasion.