Project Wolfman: Or I How I Learned to Stop Shaving and Love the Beard

Day 49: Today was my birthday. The beard continues to grow. With each day it looks more and more like an upside down afro.  While browsing the internet I discovered how much I am starting to resemble Kurt Russell from 1982’s “The Thing.”

My hair growth is not as noticeable at this juncture due to the rapid facial hair expansion across my jaw. More updates as the beard thickens…

Project Wolfman: Or I How I Learned to Stop Shaving and Love the Beard

Sometimes in a man’s life he has to make some tough decisions. And then sometimes he make make some really questionable decisions. One such decision is my acceptance of TJ’s challenge to go a whole year without shaving or cutting my hair. I thought to myself, “Why not?” And then TJ upped the ante a little, to make me an offer I couldn’t refuse. TJ and Heather added some brutal stakes into this little challenge. If I maintain uninterrupted hair growth for a whole year, I will be rewarded with a 12 pack of Pepsi every week for 6 months. That’s approximately 288 cans of Pepsi! How could I resist!? There is a downside obviously, should I forfeit and give myself a much needed trim before the year is up, then I will be buying Heather and TJ a 12-pack a week for six months.

So here we are after the first month. April 1st, 2011 is zero day. We’ll see how crazy my hair gets this coming year. The things I do for Pepsi and/or money. One of these days I’m going to get myself into trouble.  Now if you’ll excuse me I have some hair to grow.

 

Until next time true-believers!

“The Erik” Sanburn

I Came, I saw, I F*cking Ate It: KFC Double Down

I decided that I’m going to try and start several “series” on my blog. Like this one called “I came, I saw, I F*cking Ate It.” This combines my strange need to blog and my strange eating habits. I mean if you’re going to be overweight, might as well enjoy it, right?

So to kick off this series, I went for a fast food item that I originally thought was a joke. The KFC Double Down.  I have provided for you KFC’s sales pitch.

“The new KFC Double Down sandwich is real! This one-of-a-kind sandwich features two thick and juicy boneless white meat chicken filets (Original Recipe® or Grilled), two pieces of bacon, two melted slices of Monterey Jack and pepper jack cheese and Colonel's Sauce. This product is so meaty, there’s no room for a bun!”

That’s right, a cheese and bacon sandwich that uses fried chicken instead of buns. All smothered in a thousand island dressing. This is the American dream right here. I don’t know why we haven’t thought of this before!? Why are we still using bread for buns when we can use meat product!? Are we not men, do we not have needs? When you prick us, do we not excrete fatty solution that’s similar to mayonnaise? If you experience that last little bit, you may need to see a doctor.

Picked up the Double Down on my home from work the other day. With a side and a drink it ran me $6.99+Tax. I wasn’t driving, which was a good idea, because this thing was messy and greasy. I won’t lie to you, I enjoyed the taste. The textures played nice together. It literally is just a chicken and bacon sandwich without buns. While I think anyone who eats this should feel ashamed, and I can’t believe KFC actually put this on the menu, but I know deep down that America has dreamed of this. It’s a heavy sitter though. All that meat and cheese put a block in my belly, but I enjoyed it’s crazy wild ride while it lasted. I would only reccomend this for novelty purposes. It was decent, but I couldn’t imagine eating this on a regular basis.

I’m going to give this one 4 Cupcakes and a fat kid.

Another Satisfied Customer!

Give Me Your Money and I'll Do Your Job!

My new ad on Craigslist. I need some extra cash, so if anybody needs anything done or has so money to waste, throw it my way and I'll take requests. Anything for a dollar! I accept paypal as well. Send me a request and how much your bid for the task is and I will do it! Want me to upload a video on youtube of me falling down some stairs? I'll do it for your money! Click the button below to send me some cash!

craigslist: Active Posting -

I live in NoHo and work in Torrance and I need some extra cash. I am trained and certified to fix your computer. I have experience renovating homes and handyman duties. I can draw and paint and act as well. I am willing to do anything for a price! (Within legal reason.) No job is too big or hard, let me save you from having to do household chores. I'll clean your room, mow your lawn, clean your gutters. Electronics are my specialty, laptop on the fritz? No Problem. I'll even do your homework!

I just moved to California and I need some extra cash to pay off some damage that was done to my car. Please help a guy out, I am very willing and eager to earn your money!

Thanks,
Erik

The Unwatchable Movie Challenge: Reel 3

Welcome back to the Unwatchable Movie Challenge after 3 months of emptiness. The move from Kansas to California really took a beating on me. (As well as my car…) But we came back in the third round with a real contender. A movie so bad they didn’t release it for 26 years!

Movie: Death Bed: The Bed That Eats
Tagline: Lost Horror Film of the Seventies.
Director: George Barry
Starring: Demene Hall, William Russ, Julie Ritter, Linda Bond, Patrick Spence-Thomas.
Filmed: 1977
Released: 2003 
This film has no rating.
Runtime: 77 min
Genre: Horror
Writer: George Barry

Length of Movie I Watched:
There was a group of about 5 of us that sat through this whole thing.

Verdict: There was a reason this thing took over 20 years to get released. As far as I’m concerned this thing probably should have stayed buried.

Death Bed: The Bed that Eats. Really? Where does that idea get fun? The writer/director George Barry supposedly came up with this in a dream, and tried to make the movie resemble that. The pacing is really off because of the attempt to make this surreal. But believe me, the pacing is by far not the worst aspect of this film. This movie is jumbled, poorly thought out and the exposition to how and why the bed eats is lackadaisical. So if you can muscle through the structure of the film and really get down to the core, a demonic bed that dissolves people in a frothy brew between the sheets, then you just run into more problems. The acting is obviously going to be sub-par, you wouldn’t want someone coming in and showing up the bed with “Acting Skills.” The filmography is rough and the lighting is poor. Sound design is half-assed and doesn’t always make sense. There really isn’t anything good to say about this movie.

The funny thing about this is the fact it took Mr. Barry 5 years to finish filming this. FIVE FREAKING YEARS! He started in 1972 and didn’t get it finished until 1977. He shopped it around for awhile but surprisingly no one wanted to distribute a crappy film about a bed that eats. Weird, huh? He finally gave up in the 80’s, and then right before the DVD release in 2003 his daughter started getting the word out again. He actually had forgotten he made the movie for some time. If the movie is so bad that it’s creator who wasted years of his life on this project could manage to force the idea out of his head, it might not be a good movie. What I wanna know is if the shooting schedule was really lazy or if he kept going back to redo scenes and improve the movie? I mean the idea that this release may be the 3rd or 4th revision and THAT was the very best he could do, that’s scary. That is scarier than anything actually in the film.

Patton Oswalt, who is a comedic genius, has a rather long bit on Death Bed from one of his albums. That’s where Kyle and I first heard about this film. In fact, they probably owe a lot of DVD sales to Patton’s stand up act.

There you have it. Reel 3 of the Unwatchable Movie Challenge. Kyle’s second pick was much worse than Teeth, but those mutilated penises will forever haunt me. Now it’s time for me to choose another movie. I’m going to try and aim away from the Horror genre, although Netflix did just release Dead Snow on Instant Watch. However I might try and dig deep for some really bad obscure comedy from the 80s or something.

I will leave you all with clips from Death Bed. Watch at your own risk.

--“The Erik” Sanburn

Erik, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more: Part 5

PART V

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The reception was terrible here at home and the phone had never even rang on my end. I got up and wondered around until I found a sweet spot for signal. Phoned into the message system and retrieved something odd.

It was a response to a resume I had emailed in not 8 hours prior to that. The quick turnaround actually made me figure it was a dead end. I called them back anyway. Got their voicemail and left a message. I didn't figure I would hear from them anytime soon. However, I figured wrong.

I received another return phone call a few hours later. They seemed interested.

They were a relatively new company, but were based out of Los Angeles. I had only sent in the application as a longshot. The lady I was speaking to inquired about my location to see if I was looking to relocate or if I already had. I told her how I was willing to relocate and was still living in Kansas at the time. She asked if I could do a phone interview later that day. I agreed. She set it up for 5:30 Central time. I told her that time worked perfect and ended the call.

The time wasn't exactly "perfect" as I did have a conflict. I was supposed to be preparing to go on the air for my weekly radio talk show that went live at 6:00PM. I informed my co-hosts that I may be late for that evenings show as I had a job interview half an hour before the show.

I was excited for the opportunity and the chance to interview with the company, however my hopes were not very high. I didn't know what to expect, and I wasn't sure I could impress any potential employers anyway.

Around 5:00PM I prepared my things for the interview. Then I drove into town. I didn't want the cell reception to cost me a job, so I drive into the city limits to a K-Mart parking lot. I had my 5 bars of cell reception and I was ready.

The phone rang. Caller ID informs me that the company is calling for the interview. I nervously exhale. I answer the call. I am introduced to the Project Lead and the Senior Engineer. They give me a run down of the position and we discuss my experience and my qualifications. Then they inform me that they would like to ask me a few technical questions. I wasn't really prepared for them to call my abilities into question. It only makes sense to verify that I know what I claim to know, but I had never gone through that in an interview before.

I agreed to the line of questioning. They ran me through scenarios of user error, wrong keystrokes, and system settings. I answered the questions at about 98% efficiency. They expressed that they were impressed with me and would try to get back to me by the end of the week after they gave it some thought. I thanked them for the opportunity and ended the call.

I had a confident feeling after the interview. I had a text message from my mother waiting on me. My family was meeting for dinner at Taco Hut and asked me to drop by and get something to eat after the interview. I drove over to Taco Hut, which was only about a mile from K-Mart. I am parking my car not five minutes after ending my interview. I start to get out of the car and the cell phone rings again. It's the same company calling back again. I sit back down and shut my car door again.

"Hello?" I answered.

The lady who set up my interview called back to ask me how I thought the interview went. I told her I thought it went really well. She agrees and says she heard good things about me from the two guys who interviewed me. There is a slight awkward pause as no one says anything for about 10 seconds. 

She chimes in again, "Well, I wanted to call and let you know that we've decided to offer you the position."

I did not know how to react. She asked me if I needed to think about it.

"Yeah, this is a big move, I should probably think this one over."

Yet as the words exited my mouth I thought to myself that this opportunity was too good to be true and that if I hesitate like I do with so many things in my life, if I over analyze this, I may miss out on something amazing.

"Yes! I accept! I want the job." 

A mere 10 seconds of thought and my future was changed so drastically. I was embarking on an incredible journey. The next week was hectic as I was running around trying to secure all the details of my move. 2 weeks in L.A. and then 2 weeks in Kansas and then I was back in L.A. to start my new life. And what a life it has been...

Earthquakes are God's cell phone vibrating...

I like to stay topical in my blogs. That's why I'm currently posting a five part story that took place last year some time about some stuff that no one cares about. So I keep hearing about these earthquakes all over the place. They were all the buzz after Haiti got one. Well Los Angeles isn't about to be topped by some little island, we got our own earthquake this morning! So I thought I would provide some rudimentary knowledge about earthquakes for everyone since these quake things are going around nowadays.

EARTHQUAKE SAFETY TIPS

Earthquakes can strike without warning, and being prepared for such a disaster can mean the difference between life and death. Here are some tips to help you and your loved ones make it through a quake:

• Those living in areas not prone to earthquakes can respond quickly to the plight of disaster victims in quake zones by complacently smirking and saying, "I told you so.
• To minimize loss and damage in a quake, try not to own things.
• Experiencing an earthquake is terrifying, but a majority of people caught in one do survive. During the tremors, try to resist the temptation to have sex with pets or houseplants.
• Practice your burrowing-out-from-under-40-tons-of-rubble skills ahead of time.
• Look out your window often. If you see a large, zig-zag-shaped crevasse moving rapidly from the horizon toward your home, step either to the right or the left.
• Do you have a treasured childhood toy? Perhaps a stuffed animal, such as a teddy bear? Well, let's see Mr. Bear help you now.
• For those who fear earthquakes, it may comfort you to know that a majority of the damage during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake did not come from the tremors themselves. Instead, it was from the raging, out-of-control fires that consumed most of the city.
• A doorway is the safest place to be during a quake. Eat, sleep and work in doorways.
• Be sure to mail your house insurance payments a full five business days before a major earthquake strikes.
• In the event of a quake, get under something heavy, such as a desk, a table or your uncle.
• If you are caught in a major earthquake in Southern California and are part of the entertainment industry, take a moment or two to reflect on how grossly you've wasted your life.

So there are some good tips for earthquakes. I had never felt a "quake", as the cool kids call it, before. I wasn't sure if that was what it was when I woke just before 4 o'clock this morning. Kinda felt like i was sleeping on a vibrating phone. All in all, I'm glad nothing bad happened.

Until next time Donutheads,

"The Erik" Sanburn