Do I Have Issues If I WANT To Be In This Situation?

I've been informed that my comment section wasn't working. It was actually good to hear this because I was noticing I was receiving fewer and fewer comments and I was hoping that it wasn't because my posts sucked. Plus, I thrive on the vitriolic barbs...

Anyways, has anyone seen the stories on CNN and newspapers about piracy?!? Does anyone find this as wild as me? I'm not saying I'm INTO kidnapping on the high seas or pillaging, ransoming, and other forms of terror at sea, but piracy?!? This is real? And more to the point, this is actually the word that we use to describe the overtaking of boats by bandits and robbers who operate in the ocean? We've come up with new fangled words for everything else, but we as a culture have decided to KEEP the words piracy and pirate even though every time we hear said words all we probably think of is "aaaaaargh," peg legs, eye patches, skanky girl Halloween costumes, Johnny Depp doing Keith Richards, parrots on shoulders and maybe Willie Stargell in a "We Are Family" hat? I just don't get this. We haven't transitioned to brigand? Or even Buccaneer? Shouldn't we change the name of this crime to something else just so the general public takes it more seriously? I read the other day that these pirates are well organized, well financed, and heavily armed, but all I picture when I read these stories is a bunch of guys with scurvy on a ship that looks like that swinging ride at Canobie Lake firing cannons at passing vessels.

So, needless to say, I've been sucking up these stories like they were Grey Goose Cosmos. Now, I have HEARD of piracy stories in the past and I saw one in the new Rambo movie, but did you know that last week alone there were nine- NINE!!!- pirate attacks in The Gulf of Aden (don't worry, I had to Wikipedia it too) alone?!? NINE!!! That's as many as Captain Jack Sparrow and The Dread Pirate Roberts would perpetrate in a month! And instead of cruising around solo in wood hulled ships with a skull and cross bones on their sails, they are in fast attack boats which are launched from one "Mother Ship" that apparently is pretty damn big. These pirates are operating on a whole other level! No swords and oversized beards here. These cats are like the Supermen of piracy. And by the way, how does one become a pirate?!? Is there an academy or college or something? Or do you just have to be a generally bad guy with a nose ring and a knack for driving a cigarette boat really, really fast? I obviously feel terribly for all the victims and hostages involved, but you cannot tell me that you wouldn't want to witness this first hand. Imagine crusing through Nantucket Sound on your rich friends boat drinking Coronas, cranking Kid Rock's "All Summer Long," and reeling in the occassional striper when all of a sudden a group of ruffians rolls up in a Crocket and Tubbs speed boat and start waving AK-47s in your face and demanding your money and material goods?!? You'd think it wasn't happening or at the very least, you'd think that one of your friends was somehow famous enough to get you on an episode of Punk'd.

So yesterday, after reading all these stories when I should have been writing an IEP, I chuckled to myself about how life REALLY DOES imitate art. And so that got me to thinking. What would be the ten most outlandish/ridiculous movies that I would actually like to be a part of? Now, even though I would A) Die in ten seconds B) Die in thirty seconds or C) Die when I'm sacrificed by my "friends" for the greater good, let's just pretend that WON'T happen. Let's pretend you get to be part of a whole ridiculous scene like the ones these hostages in these apparently real hijackings at sea are experiencing.

Dying in ten seconds factor aside, here's what I would like to be a part of when it happens, but only if I can be a member of the resitance, become a firearms expert, or die really painlessly. And yes, I actually think about this shit...

10. The Blair Witch Project- Because I would have handled myself so much better than those idiots.

9. Terminator 2: Judgement Day- I don't necessarily need to have a Titanium Bodied, sunglass wearing, Schwarzenegger chasing ME, but I do need to be around when the machines rise up and take over. I just hope I have the foresight to dig a really good nuclear bomb shelter or I won't be a member of John Connor's resistance. That, our move to the north of Maine, which I would not think is a high priority nuclear target.

8. Weird Science (Or Any Movie Where The Huge Nerds Get The Hot Girls)- I know, both from personal experience and from working in a high school, that geeks of the stature of Gary and Wyatt DO NOT GET GIRLS!!! Yes, maybe the kinda hipstery kid who plays the acoustic guitar and has pins of The Ramones and The Stooges on his backpack gets girls. But the kid who picks his nose, already has a beard, and draws pictures of dragons while wearing fingerless leather gloves NEVER gets a girl, let alone a hot girl. He may TALK to a girl, but only about what type of lipstick goes best with his eyeliner.

7. Jaws- Remember when we THOUGHT there was a great white sighting when a half crazed guy said he saw one this summer?!? It was everywhere (likely because everybody secretly- like me- really WANTED this to happen) locally and was even picked up nationally. Now, imagine a bunch of people REALLY go missing off the coast of Wingaersheek and then we see a kid on an inner tube get mashed by a shark 25 feet from shore in a pool of blood?!? Tell me you don't want to be a part of that.

6. Die Hard- Only because I really want to say to the German terrorist right as he was about to shoot me, "Whaddya think I'm fuckin stupid Hans?"

5. Armageddon- Yes, I want to be Bruce Willis not once, but twice!!! But seriously, imagine if news of this hits?!? I think where these movies miss the point is that if they are two hours long, the filmmakers actually make them one hour and fifty-nine minutes too long because there would seriously be a breakdown of society if we knew this was going to happen. Look, it is only because we have laws that this society even exists and so imagine this really was going to happen?!? How do we hold it togther as a culture?!? We run people over who are Yankees fans, so how can we be expected to get along when the world is going to end in a matter of days?!? It just wouldn't happen. But still, it would be fun to see the breakdown. Think I'd live long on a busy street in the Ville?

4. Signs- If you say you've never been at hom with your family and a few friends and HAVEN'T discussed the possible scenario if you being attacked by aliens while simultaneously being cut off from society, then you, sir and madame are a liar. I must say though, Mel, Rory, Joaquin and company were so STUPID for going upstairs that early. I'm NEVER doing that!

3. The Big Lebowski- Because I need to know what it's like to lounge around all day and take baths and drink White Russians. Wait, I think I pretty much do this during February vacation?

2. Cloverfield- I'm sorry, but I just love this movie, mostly because I was so into the thought of a huge monster that fell from the sky massacring a major city. But I just need to see before I die A HUGE MONSTER FALL FROM THE SKY AND MASSACRE A CITY!!! And I feel like I'd have a good chance to live in this situation, but more importantly, I feel like I'd act exactly like some of the kids in this flick and steal stuff from the local Radio Shack while watching a monster tear up Manhattan.

1. Dawn of The Dead/28 Days Later/28 Weeks Later or Any Other Movie Where Zombies Sprint After Me- While Outbreak, 12 Monkeys, and other disease movies are pretty cool, could you imagine having a disease hit where those stricken didn't just drop dead but they got up AND TRIED TO EAT YOU?!? As you're running down the street, you absolutely have to be saying, "This nightmare is really fun and stuff, but it's perfectly okay if I wake up now." I cannot believe how frequently I think about the zombies coming. I'm 90% sure I'll die from a zombie bite way before heart disease or cancer gets me.

This is a true story... Less than one week ago (not when we were 8 or 12 or even 21 and high), my brother and I were sitting on the couch, each surfing the internet on our laptops. What were we looking for? Why guns, thank you. And we weren't looking for them to protect ourselves against burglars or the bookie, we were instead looking to arm ourselves for the potential zombie invasion. Had we had say, nine beers a piece, there's a good chance we would have been driving to New Hampshire to pick up a semi automatic Heckler and Koch MP5 and a 12 Gauge pump action shotgun.

Yes, you are friends with me. And to answer your next question, no, I did not get laid in high school. Shocking, I know.