Alex Carrick’s Blog

There are few things in life much more fun than taking the kids to a movie in an actual theatre. You load up on popcorn, Pepsi and Twizzlers; the lights go down; the sound starts to reverberate; and the fun begins. You look over and your youngest ones are looking up at the screen, wide-eyed and enthralled.

But that’s when we’re out on the town and the movies are blockbusters. These are the big-name films, full of action and comic-book characters. Based on reviews and the ratings system, you pretty much know what you’re getting into beforehand.

Watching movies with the kids takes on several different dimensions when this takes place at home – as a result of renting DVDs, downloading videos or simply watching an old movie that fortuitously appears on TV.

I would say that the problems of home viewing can crop up in four main areas:

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My wife, Donna, writes crime novels, five of them so far. It’s hard to get published these days, for a variety of reasons, and Donna is self-publishing.

She has an Internet site, but also knows how important it is to network. As part of this effort, she attends functions of Sisters in Crime and Crime Writers of Canada. Sometimes I go along as well.

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In an earlier blog entry, I discussed how “P” is the funniest letter in the alphabet. Today, I’m going to argue the letter “L” is the most serious.

“L” is used for Legal and Licenses. People speak about obeying the Letter of the Law. Hopefully, the best-made things Last. When we’re enjoying ourselves, we want to Linger over the good times.

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It’s fun to take a well-known phrase, one that is crying out for a punch line, and see what you can do with it.

It doesn’t have to be too literal or necessarily even make that much sense, as long as it brings a smile to your face.

Free associate and see where it leads. This exercise aids in loosening up one’s writing style. The following are tag lines to the saying, “She’s been around the block so many times, …”

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The following is an old joke that I have expanded, embellished and tried to make more visual. It helps if you stand up and run around the room, as described below, but I’ll leave that up to your discretion. Here goes. 

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There is a symbiotic relationship between me, my wife and my blog that tells me I have a really special mate.

Here are ten ways in which the three of us interact.

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The one spectator sport I am still really interested in is the NFL on television and I have to admit it may not be for the best of reasons.

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I have a story from my workplace I think encapsulates an awful lot of what is so crazy about the modern business world.

It involves computers and automatic updating processes and the vast potential that exists for things to go sadly and sometimes hilariously wrong, despite our best intentions.

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We all live such fast-paced lives these days. How do we fit everything in? I have reviewed my daily routine and come to the conclusion that what I resent most is the time I give over to shaving, bathing, brushing and flossing my teeth, clipping my nails and nose hairs and applying deodorant. I get tired just thinking about it. Therefore, in the interests of freeing up some spare time, I have decided to forego personal hygiene. That way, I’ll be able to take up a hobby.

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Cities rise and fall. Currently in Canada, Calgary and Edmonton are bursting with commerce and energy as a result of the construction boom in the nearby Oil Sands. However, events can pass a city by more easily than might seem possible. The story of Venice presents a cautionary tale.

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