Rucker Blog is now: Can I Please Just Say

I'm not sure if anyone still reads me here at the good old 'Rucker Blog' but if you do, thanks!

I'm now updating and posting at my newer blog: CanIPleaseJustSay.blogspot.com

Please join me there!

Same great, hilarious (in my opinion) blogs you know and love, new page.


-Adam

Disney World

SO as some of you may know, I recently had the opportunity of a lifetime to work at the Happiest Place on Earth, Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida... Some may argue that the "Happiest Place" may actually be at DisneyLAND in California, but I beg to differ..

But people are now always asking me for tips and suggestions on where to go and what to do during their stays at the resort. Or maybe I just like to offer my suggestions to anyone with ears, but never the less, I have them.

First of all, I don't like to talk BAD about any of the attractions there because people have all different kinds of taste and I wouldn't want you to miss out on something you'd love because I didn't like it. So anyway, here are my absolute favorite, YOU HAVE TO DO THESE THINGS, things.

1. Above all else, if you only do/see one thing at any park, it must be Disney-MGM Studios' (soon to be Disney's Hollywood Studios) Nightime Spectacular, Fantasmic.

During my three months at the resort, I must have seen this show at least a dozen times and it never gets old. Part water, part movie, part live action, it literally has everything and has every Disney character you could think of. It is quite a sight to see and anyone I ever took to it left with it being their favorite thing.

Sadly, I never got to be part of Fantasmic, but I pretended I was, so as to look cool among my collegues.

2. Mickey's Philharmagic- Magic Kingdom..

This is a 3D show that I also saw a dozen times or more when I was there. It's state of the art 3D and includes all of your favorite songs from the classic Disney animated musicals. You're fully surrounded by the screen and there are many special effect surprises along the way. And if anything, it's a great 20 minute air conditioned sitting break after spending the day in the park.


3. Wishes- Magic Kingdom's nighttime fireworks show. It doesn't really need explanation.. you just have to go.

Those are only a few of my favorite things to do there and I will surely be back with more...

Oh and one more tip before I go: DO NOT underestimate the amazingness that is Disney's Animal Kingdom.. You definitely have to go there and definitely have to allow at least a full half-day for this park. Usually the park will close earlier than the rest because of the animals, so you will still have time to catch the other parks' nightime shows in the same day..

AND for any of the latest Disney news parks, film, television, or basically anything Disney, you can always go to www.thedisneyblog.com

It's pretty awesome.

The Beginning of the End of Facebook

Let me first preface this by saying: I've been a long supporter/dependent of Facebook. Ever since the second I got my college e-mail address I haven't been separated from it for more than 4 days and I usually check it more than 5 times a day.

With that being said, I'm gonna go ahead and put it out there that I think Facebook has seen its glory days and may become the new MySpace.

Harsh. I know. But hear me out.

A couple of years ago when Facebook started to allow high schoolers into what was once an exclusive college kids club, I just tried to pretend it wasn't happening. And that worked, for a little bit until I finally just accepted it because at the time, most of my friends were still in high school anyway.

Then a year or so after that when Facebook introduced the "News Feed" (all broken up couples' worst nightmare) I looked the other way, allowing it to happen because it was out of my control. But now, with the introduction of all these crappy third party "applications" it's hard for me to take Facebook seriously at all. Do we really NEED to be able to cast Harry Potter spells at each other via Facebook? Do you really care to see my mood visually portrayed by a giant smiley face? The answer to most of the questions these applications pose us is "no."

Facebook used to be the calm, almost somewhat professional-looking place you could go to after being on MySpace and not feel dirty. But now, I can't click on a profile without seeing 200 of their movie reviews, every song they've listened to in the past month, and a giant fortune cookie predicting the "future."

I mean, I guess I'll just have to go with the "Whatever Floats Your Boat" theory on this one..

But for now, I'm happy, and proud to be Facebook Application Free!

Resurrection of El Blog

Well well well, after nearly a year, the Rucker Blog is back.

It has indeed been quite some time and I've got to say, I've missed the blog.

Causes for the long leave of absence?

Exhaustion

Overworking

Gone on Movie Shoots

Attending Red Carpet Events

Running a Day Care

Building a House

and most importantly: going to Disney World.

Only one of those is true. But they would all be very good reasons for neglecting a blog. Though I haven't been writing here as much, I have been keeping up with my daily briefings.. even if they aren't so "daily." But keep coming back here. I'll be updating more frequently and I promise not to let you down.

Road Rules

My newest Daily Briefing and also Season One Finale, Road Rules. My good friend Whitney and I go on a grand adventure and interview one of our friend's mom. It's random.

You Are Not Excused

First of all, what the heck is up with that picture of me -->>>
I'm glad we had to use a sonogram machine to take that because I look like I'm 4 years old. Sadly I don't know how to update that soo oh well. Anyway, to the topic:

There are many things in life that tend to annoy, distract, or bother me. However being the kind and understanding person that I am, I usually ignore or excuse these things and accept them as they are because really sometimes you just have to deal. But I have come to the conclusion on a select group of things that they are simply unexusable (or is it inexcusable(or are those even real words?))

Anyway, here is a list of some of those things:

• People who whisper in movies (and by whisper I mean talk louder than they normally talk because they apparently don't realize they're in a movie)
• Fake smiles in pictures. REALLY people, anyone who's anyone can tell a real smile from a fake. Think it's rude to not smile because you really don't like the person you're taking the picture with? Then don't take the picture in the first place. Me? If I just happen to be breaking out in a fit of laughter when you take a picture, you're in luck.
  
• Insufficient food stock at buffets. This may sound too extreme but seriously, if I go to Luby's I want mac' and cheese. And if I go to Pancho's I want cheese enchiladas. It's that simple.
• People most like me. It may sound weird but some (not all) of the people you tend not to like are those most similar to yourself. So if I don't like you I guess take that as a compliment...?

Hmm... That's all I can think of at the moment. This will be continued...

I'm Horrible/GO SEE CARS!

OK- I'm, gonna say it, I am THE worst blogger EVER.

Seriously, I never update, even when I'm like "CHECK EVERY DAY I'M GOING TO UPDATE CONSTANTLY!" But then I decide that checking OTHER blogs interests me more than writing in my own. Seriously though, if you haven't noticed there are fifty baJILLION blogs dedicated to nothing more than the latest picture of Paris Hilton getting a drink at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. It's getting out of hand. I'm not saying that I haven't read these blogs or anything but seriously, how sad is it that we somehow find watching other people buy graduation cards or squirting water at people entertaining.

Something you will never find in one of my blogs is an important life lesson either. I'm not here to teach you anything (unless it is said in a sarcastic and witty manner). No no, I'm here only to mildly amuse you, if even that. In fact, I'm almost positive that no one even reads this blog besides myself and probably my immediate family.

Before I leave you for the night, I would like to say GO SEE CARS! It's apparently a "thing" to call perfectly great movies "awful" lately. I think the critics are just bitter that they weren't good enough to succeed in their choice entertainment fields that now all they do is criticize good movies in hopes that they will do bad at the box office. Isn't there a saying "Those who can't do, teach"? The follow up to that is "Those who can't teach, become critics." Or something like that. Anyway, the moral of the story is Disney and Pixar's Cars is REALLY good. Soundtrack=amazing as well. Musicians featured in the movie include Sheryl Crow, Rascal Flatts, James Taylor, Brad Paisley, and the one and only John Mayer. But DON'T try and buy the soundtrack at Wal-Mart because they WON'T sell it to you for the $9.78 price that's posted, they'll instead charge you $18 for it. Not joking. Go to Super Target. Super Target never lets me down.

Vocal talent in the movie: Owen Wilson, Bonnie Hunt, Paul Newman, and John Ratzenberger (AGAIN). But Larry the Cable Guy's bucktoothed "Mater" steals the show as the rusty old tow truck. Also Guido, the little tire kid is really funny too. It's just really really good. NOT better than Nemo, but better than Incredibles in my book. Not that Incredibles was very high in my book anyway. Personally, I didn't like it that much, but I still know it was a great movie cuz the world loved it. But anyway, Cars is really an awesome movie that most everyone should be able to appreciate.

Also currently getting torched by critics right now is The BreakUp with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn which is ALSO really good. I liked it cuz it didn't follow the same track of every single chick flick. So ya, that's my bit.

Rucker Classic: High School Paper

Today’s blog entry is a Rucker Classic. What you are about to read is a paper that I wrote in the 11^th grade and I’m still trying to figure out why. I’m assuming the prompt was something like “Write whatever you want and don't worry with correct grammar or punctuation.” Nevertheless, it’s pretty funny so enjoy. And it may look long, but believe me it reads very fast; it's written at like a 2nd grade level.

It was the last day of school. Well, not the LAST day, I had 2 more years to endure, and that was only of middle school. I hadn’t really heard anything about what high school was like, I just knew there couldn’t be anything worse than how it was now.

Middle School. Supposed to be fun right? None of the babyness of elementary school, but not near as hard as high school. My best friend, Jason, had gone to school with me since we were four years old; our moms shopped together, and our dads worked together. Jason and I also played on the same soccer team that both of our dads coached. Both Jason and I were going to attend Aunt Jemima Junior High in May Pearl, Texas. Yes. That’s what I said. AUNT JEMIMA JUNIOR HIGH. What kind of school is named after a food product?! Anyway, with a name like that, the bizarreness of my year was sure to follow. Day one of school, each child’s picture is taken and fastened onto a button the size of a grapefruit which served as our “ID.” Along with our photo was a photocopied printout of Aunt Jemima smiling and pointing at our face. Needless to say, our uniforms also had Aunt Jemima in perfect view. When Jason and I got assigned our classes, we unfortunately weren’t in the same homeroom. He got Ms. Forester, who was apparently the COOLEST person on earth; she was the science teacher, so they go to have experiments all the time. I, not surprisingly, got Mrs. Hernandez-Nyguen-Smith. I’ll go ahead and call her Mrs. HNS to save ink. Yes, Mrs. HNS had indeed been married three times, but didn’t feel like removing her ex husbands from her memory, so she just kept ALL of their names.

The first thing we did in class was listen to HNS struggle through the roll. I HATED roll call because no teacher in the history of my six whole years in school had EVER pronounced my name right. The first part was fairly easy, T-O-P-H-E-R. But my last name was not such a walk in the park. Haizehncleilavichnick. Properly pronounced as HI-ZIN-CLAIL-A-VICH-NICK. You can’t IMAGINE how long it took some teachers to say that. There was a record; one time I had a sub in the fifth grade that took all the way from first lesson until after lunch to get it right, just because he refused to let me tell him how to say it. Apparently he majored in “Word Linguistics” (which I’m not really sure exists at any college) and did not need the help from a child like me to read something. Anyway, back to the real story here. HNS was a CRAZY WOMAN. CRAZY I tell you. Rumor has it she once ate five meals from the lunchroom in one day. No one could confirm, however if she indeed was able to digest all five meals before regurgitating.

After we got through roll call (which incase you were wondering, she only took 3 minutes and 40 seconds to say my name; which was pretty good based on past results, we had our first lesson, mini computers. If you don’t know what mini computers are, think of the most confusing way of teaching a child to count, and then make it fifty times more confusing by using squares and dots. At one point in time, while I fumbled with my laminated “computer” and tissue paper dots, I could see out of the door into Ms. Forester’s room, where Jason was making a volcano out of Playdoh that oozed strawberry smoothie out of the top into coconut-shell cups for each kid. It was like they were having a Luau on the first day of school, and I was drawing on paper like a two year old.

When I got home from school that day, I went to Jason’s house to ride bikes with him. All he would do was talk about how fun his beach party was in Ms. Forester’s class. He also told me that the next day was going to be Dinosaur Day, which they would get to see actual dinosaur eggs and go on a dig to find bones. That was fine! At least I got to have the knowledge of counting with only a piece of paper and four small dots… UGH, who was I kidding. I was seriously ticked off. Needless to say, the rest of the school year was like this. Jason would update me every day of the first semester on how his underwater party went, or what they got for their Christmas present from their teacher (which, by the way, was a gift certificate to my favorite store IN THE WORLD, Comic Warehouse). Sadly, all I had received from my teacher was a four-inch-wide binder of practice SAT tests and a pencil with my misspelled name engraved on it.

I did thankfully make a friend that semester though, Janiqua, whose biggest accomplishment in life was meeting the real Aunt Jemima (I never told her that was actually just our principal dressed up for Halloween). Me and Janiqua were tight. Gradually during second semester, I would go over to her house instead of Jason’s, and Janiqua and I would “flow” with her latest beat that she made with her new computer system. I got so good at it that I gave myself the name, “Topher McFlow.” I don’t think Janiqua thought it was cool though because every time I said it she turned the other way like she didn’t know me. In fact, I really can’t remember her ever actually speaking to me at school, she’d always have a confused look on her face and say she didn’t know me when I would approach her at lunch. Maybe she just didn’t recognize me without all of my cool Fubu clothes on that I would change into after school. But ya, as you can tell, my experience in sixth grade was pretty interesting, and I didn’t even go into all of the times we were evacuated from the school due to “Food Displacement Purposes,” which really meant Mr. Johansen had “displaced” his food in the main hallway, making it a hazard for children to walk in.

As the second semester came to a close, Jason started coming back over to my house, and we were best friends again. Apparently Ms. Forester was now Mrs. Hernandez (YES, she did marry one of HNS’s ex husbands) and was now expecting a baby. Jason had the PE coach Mr. Berg for the remainder of the year, and all they did in class was a combination of Pilates and Yoga to “strengthen the mind and the body.” I had also drifted apart from Janiqua. She stopped returning my calls and ever since I got the bling bling around my neck and spinners on my bicycle, she for some reason wouldn’t answer the door when I came over.

But really, if you’re looking for some life lesson or moral to this story, there really isn’t much of one. It’s more of just letting you know don’t let whatever class you’re in mess up your friendship; you’re still the same people just one of you has a cooler teacher.