I saw ”The Butterfly Effect” on Satuday while Chew had his monthly Top Dog stink cleansing at Petsmart. I loved it! The movie — not the stink cleansing. The reviews for ”Butterfly” have been mixed at best but I blame The Ashton Kutcher Factor given that he’s so well known for playing a doofus. Any turn at a serious role elicits lots of eyeball rolling and disbelief. He’ll have to work harder to distance himself from his ”That 70’s Show” character, not to mention his ”Dude, Where’s My Car” character. Hosting ”Punk’d” doesn’t help, either, because all of these shows focus on his ability to make you laugh. You don’t go to see ”Butterfly” to laugh. The premise they come up with to explain his time traveling abilities is ingenius. It’s genetic, in fact. You could say that this movie owes a lot to ”X-Men” in that the audience must accept that the natural process of evolution will result in what Kutcher’s charcter can do. So, go see it. My quicky review (which was written as I was inching my way out of the theater, down the stairs, around the corner, and back into the grubby waiting arms of Cherry Hill, New Jersey): Kick ass.


It’s tangent time boys and girls. I’ll start. There’s a pretty girl that works the Petsmart Grooming counter named Priscilla. I think she’s pretty. My first piano teacher was also named Priscilla. I hated her. A lot. She used to smack my hand whenever I made a mistake. I hated piano lessons as a result of this unchecked piano abuse. Dreaded them. I can’t recall what precipitated the sale of the old upright piano that I practiced on. Moving, perhaps? It ended the lessons, however. I later took piano lessons from Mrs. Baron and Mrs. WhatsHerName. I can’t remember Mrs. WhatsHerName’s name. Maybe my sister can as we both attended piano lessons there for a few years. Boring. I still didn’t like the lessons. I blame post-traumatic piano disorder. Those lessons ended when Mrs. WhatsHerName moved away for Personal Reasons™. Two friends of mine later inspired me to want to practice and learn complete songs: Trey D’Amico and Carl Manning. Trey mostly was a guitar super genius, whereas Carl was into the piano. Trey would play something on the guitar and I would do the same thing on the piano. Calr had a nice upright that he’d play around with and was kind enough to share some of his sheet music. Trey got me into Van Halen and Led Zeppelin. Carl got me into Chicago and Phil Collins. So, now I can play a lot of songs by those guys. I don’t have a piano here in Philly, but I always try to work in a little practice time whenever I’m in Houston. I thought that I could use my piano playing to woo girls, but it’s hard to find a public place where you can pimp your piano skillz. Joining a band would make this a lot easier. I don’t know where Priscilla The Petsmart Grooming Counter girl hangs out or if there are any pianos there. Maybe I should follow her. No, no… that would be stalking. That’s wrong. Maybe if I tip her and put my name and phone number on the money… and then change the voicemail on my phone so it says ”Hey, I can’t talk right now — I’m playing my piano…” Yeah! That’ll work. Okay, tangent time is over. Your turn.