loPEZ Dispenser

hey whats up pezheads. my name is joe. the loPEZ’s have been gracious enough to have me on their site to write the occasional exerpt out of my exciting life. to give you a quick intro, my name is joe williams. im 24 and am a firefighter for the city of sanford. im gonna try to write something every week, but i cant promise it will be interesting. one thing you will find about myself is that i wont be writing about political and world news that steve and dan write of. i wish i could, i wish i knew more about it all, but my life pretty much consists of work, music, sports and family. so my posts will more than likely be on those topics. and you wont see me using big words, punctuation, capitalization, or even correct grammar in my writings either. im a college dropout, what can i say? anyway, hope you all enjoy. holla.

About one month ago my son decided that he did not need quite as much sleep as his mother and I have become accustomed to. The length of his naps shortened, and he began waking up at 6am instead of 7. While on the brink of adjusting to this new schedule, Sunday morning rolled around. My son obviously did not get the proverbial memo that daylight savings time had ended, and was awake and prepared to face the day at just after 5am. It is now Tuesday, day three of the 5am joy that comes through the baby monitor that sits an, oh so close, five feet from my bed. I go into his room, lay him down, tuck him in and politely explain that it is still dark outside and that he needs to go back to bed. Just as I get settled back into my bed the sounds of “ma ma ma ma ma” (repeated infinitely) begin to pour out of the tinny monitor speaker. Some “pre-parents” may say “you should cherish the extra two hours a day you now have to be with your child.” I do cherish time with my son, but sleep is important too; and two hours of an over tired and sometimes cranky toddler (and his Dad) is not that much fun.

While chatting with my brother earlier today he was conveying the same problem to me. His daughter has not adjusted well to the new time that was forcefully thrust upon her. I can now understand the fury in Indiana over the decision to change the long standing policy of not observing DST in many areas within the State. The parents there, who once had it easy during the transition from October to November will soon feel the pain along with the rest of the country. I was joyous back in April when the clocks “Sprung Forward.” I like the additional daylight in the evening. The problem was that I did not anticipate the repercussions come “Fall Back” time. President Bush signed a bill last year that will extend DST by an additional month, beginning next year. That means that we spend nearly 2/3 of the year in daylight savings time. Why not extend it even further so that all timezones within the US effectively move one zone to the East, year round? What are the problems with this idea?

So what are the solutions to our predicament? We could put my son to bed earlier. The problem with that is that I would only be able to see him for two hours in the evening after work. Evening time is better than morning time, we are both in better moods. The other problem with that idea is that it assumes that I would also go to bed an hour earlier. That simply isn’t going to happen with the amount of things that I seem to always have on my plate. I guess we will have to grin and bear it. Hopefully he will adjust soon (back to the original 7am wakeup time) and I can stop my complaining.

I’m sick of hearing all the bad things. How about some good news about what are troops are doing over there.

Tracey Marshall sent me this in an email. I actually think its a good idea…

New Immigration Plan…

Bring our troops home from Iraq to guard the border.

When they catch an illegal immigrant crossing the border, hand him a canteen, rifle and some ammo and ship him to Iraq.

Tell him if he wants to come to America, then he must serve a tour in the military. Give him a soldier’s pay while he’s there and tax him on it.

After his tour, he will be allowed to become a citizen since he defended this country. He will also be registered to be taxed and be a legal patriot.

This option will probably deter illegal immigration and provide a solution for the troops in Iraq, and the aliens trying to make a better life for themselves.

If they refuse to serve, ship them to Iraq anyway, without the canteen, rifle or ammo.

Problem solved.

This past weekend, with my girls tucked away in Florida, I took my freedom and went to the movies…something I haven’t done in quite some time.

I went to see the new Martin Scorsese film The Departed. The previews made this movie look good. On top of that, when I checked the reviews on Yahoo! both the critics and the fans gave this movie an A- rating…something almost unheard of.

First let me say something about the previews. There are STILL lots of crappy movies coming out, however, later this year Stranger Than Fiction comes out. I believe this is Will Ferrell’s first attempt at a serious movie. I liken it to Jim Carey’s roles in The Truman Show and Bruce Almighty in how these movies are dramas but still funnny. Anyways, I’m looking forward to it.

Ok, on to The Departed. This movie has a large cast of famous peeps including:

Matt Damon
Jack Nicholson
Leo DiCaprio
Mark Wahlberg
Alec Baldwin
Martin Sheen

and the less known but familar to me

Chase from 24 season 3
Antwone Mitchell from The Shield

I won’t give away any plot lines here and I am looking to install a spoiler plugin for the site so I can hide text to let you decide if you want to read it. Anyways, the movie takes place in Boston and deals with the interactions of the State Police called Staties and the Irish organized crime (for once its not the Italian Mafia). Basically, the cops are trying to build a case against the crime boss Frank Costello, played by Nicholson. They have a man inside the organization who is close to Costello but soon find out that they have a rat of their own.

The movie centers on each side trying find out who the rat is. This provides for some tense moments and several “Gasps!!” from the crowd. If I had to classify it, I’d say its like Pulp Fiction minus the Quentin Tarantino effect. In other words, It has some dark comedy (and dialoge) and a bit of gore factor to it. There is lot’s of foul language (what do you expect from a bunch of Irish Bostonians) but this adds to the comedy factor.

I was glad I saw it and would recommend it to those with the stomach.

On a side note, there was a big black fellow sitting next to me. He ha done of those deep (and loud) belly laughs and he thought everything was funny. I guess you’d call him jolly. It was just a bit over the top. It was funny, though, near the end. Every time something unexpected happened he would yell out “OH SH**!!” really loud. Like 20 people turned around and glared at him. Very funny.