The Dubbing Game

I've heard of people saying it is like a show that used to run called "Mystery Science Theater." Being that I've never seen the show, save for a few times I saw the last minute of it once, I can't say for sure if it is. Anyway, there's a game that my dad and I play where we watch TV with the volume all the way down and we talk for the characters.

There's a lot of times where it works out weird like my dad will talk for a character when the character's lips aren't moving, then my character's lips will move and I'll say:

"It's weird how I can I hear you and you're lips aren't moving."

"I'm honing my telepathy skills."

"Well, it's starting to scare me but look! I'm talking and my lips aren't moving either. This skill could come in handy."

What's funny is imagining how different our story is from what is actually going on in the TV show. In one show, which featured people from different jobs sitting at a desk talking about politics, the topic we dubbed over it seemed to be a mix of how long you have to work in order to be allowed to hold a fountain pen (each of the members of the show seemed to be holding a pen and yet none of them ever wrote) and the topic became the discussion of the question: "What is the topic?"

Funny things will happen where people on the screen will continue to talk longer than you expect. What I try to do is end what someone says with a question for the other to answer, but when the person keeps talking I might end up rambling what the question is for a few minutes.

The last time we did the dubbing game, we turned a press conference into a discussion about nothing, one time we made a speech at a library into a rap, and sitcoms are always fun because you are trying to make sense out of the whole thing.

We never tried dubbing an entire movie on DVD though, because that would be exhausting. We ended up trying that, and it worked out good. The criteria I had for the movie is that it couldn't be too dramatic, and for our purposes "Monsters, Inc" seemed like a good choice.

And it was. In our story, the one-eyed Monster, Mike, was on bad terms with Roz, the old paperwork lady, because he had entered a cake contest and won with a cake that was similar to a recipe of Roz's. The monsters were going into the doors to get cash donations, and clothing donations were completely unacceptable, which is why they freak out over a sock. The toddler was an Alien to the Monster's world who came in peace, disguised as the young form of their species to appear to be peaceful, but when the other monsters acted hostile toward her, it was fun making her say "I come in peace, but now my planet will annihilate you!" The scream-sucker that the Chameleon-like monster developed became a device that forced people to play a musical instrument. It was fun saying "You will now play the saxophone!"

"But I don't want to play the saxophone!"

"Don't make her play the saxophone!"

"Fine, put in Clarinet mode, muwahahahaha!"

This gives me an idea for a future blog post compiled of funny quotes that don't make sense out of context... that would be one of them.

Ice Blocking, it's like sledding in the summer

Yesterday I went with a group of guys from church do something called "ice blocking." I had never heard of it before. It was a lot of fun!

My small group leader didn't tell us what we were doing when he called to invite us, only that I needed four dollars and clothes that I wouldn't be afraid to get dirt on. My guess was paintball, but he said that I would never guess what it was, and I didn't! The four dollars paid for pizza and for the blocks of ice.

Now, ice blocking is lots of fun, it's like sledding in the summer. It's just dangerous enough without being too dangerous; it's safe enough that I would be okay with taking a girl on an ice-blocking date, depending on the girl.

When my small group leader told me what we were doing, I thought he was just making something up. What you do is buy a block of ice for each person, then you go to the top of a long and steep hill covered in short grass. Then you fold a towel and put it on top of the ice block. Then you sit on the towel which is on the ice block, grip the towel on the back of the ice block (or wherever), and you push forward with your feet and slide down the hill feet-first and try to keep your balance on the ice block.

It is really cheap fun, $1.50 cheap. And the ice block lasts a long time on grass.

There were five us all going at once, doing races, trying to go down different ways. The best way is just to sit on it. Other competitions we did involved seeing who could go the furthest without falling or slowing down, mostly it was just walking up the hill and sledding down continuously, and at the end we had a contest to see who could throw their ice block the furthest, and surprisingly I won!

Ice blocking, it rocks the mullet.