Dave Mancuso dot Com

The second DVD that will come out for The Two Towers will have extra scenes that bring it to over 3.5 hours of running time.

The movie cut version of The Two Towers will be released in DVD on my birthday (August 26), but I’m holding out for the extended edition–it will be released in November. It looks like they have some pretty cool extended scenes. They even promise to explain why they trashed the character of Faramir so awfully (in my opinion, anyway–he was a much more noble and wise character in the book).

This one’s mostly for my dad, who works with a cool airline carrier who owns a brand new fleet of 737s. The guy at this site is making a full replica of a 737 cockpit, complete with original components. Wow. I could never put even a plastic model together without using too much glue. What’s next, the rest of the plane?

Amazing–look at this 360 degree set of view of Parma. (You’ll need Quicktime to do it for Mac or Windows, but it’s worth it. Oh, you’ll probably want a fast Internet connection too).

This one is great–I laughed all the way through the page. It’s a joke send-up about the Nigerian email scam. Brad showed it to me this morning and he’s posted it on his site.

Alyssa may have to rethink her review of Finding Nemo. An AP news story talks about how fish who are flushed don’t actually make it to the ocean–they get chlorinated and shredded by powerful machines. Man, they don’t even make it as fish sticks. Thanks to Metafilter for the link.

Well, it’s time (and probably far past time) to wrap up Denny’s week. I’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg, but the other stories will have to appear sometime in the future (including the one where I was run down by a car–luckily I went over it instead of under it). Thanks for listening (or reading, as the case may be).

It looks like they won’t be making the VW Beetle any more–not the New Beetle, but the air-cooled classic that’s been around for fifty years. Yep, they were still making it in other countries. Thanks to Metafilter for the story; you can check it out here.

There’s a good review of blog post writing clients at MadCow Studios and Frequency shows up as the strong favorite.

I can’t wait until the next version comes out.

Working at Denny’s means everyone deciding to go out after our shift to have a drink or two, and rolling out of the restaurant after our side work is finished to find a local bar that’s open. This is a tougher task than you might think, because you’re working graveyard shift and “after work” is 7:30 in the morning.

Sadly enough, there are establishments open to serve liquor that early, and we tended to congregate at the Secane Station tavern by 8:00 am when we went out.

I can tell you from experience that a drink hits you harder at 8:00 am regardless of the shift you’re working.

Working at Denny’s during graveyard shift means that you sleep from 8:00 am to 4:00pm, if you’re lucky. Sleeping becomes a desperately craved yet torturously elusive concept.

You pull down the shades. You close the door. You even try one of those weird sleeping masks. You isolate yourself in every way possible.

Then the world makes itself known to you.

Do you know how many lawns are loudly mowed daily, even on weekdays? Do you know how many children scream happily in play? Do you know how many street construction repairs go on outside your window while you’re trying desperately to sleep? I am not making this up–I’m talking jackhammers not thirty feet from me going on for hours.

And then the phone. You could take it off the hook, but what if it’s an emergency, or work needs to call you? Eventually you do take it off the hook, but not before sanity has lost it grip on you. I used to answer the phone in my sleep and agree to work shifts without a single conscious thought. I would vaguely remember the call when I woke up, and I’d have to call in to work to see if I’d really talked to someone and what I’d agreed to.

I learned at Denny’s that human beings aren’t meant to work graveyard shift. I don’t think anyone at work in the present knows how much I savor each and every day–how truly precious it is to work a weekday job with weekends off. I came away from Denny’s firmly believing that businesses should be closed late at night–it’s just not a fit life for anyone. This is a hard thing to say, especially for me, but just because we can do something doesn’t mean that we should.