It's dry under the sink. It's been dry for a week. This is not ordinary, or expected; for a few weeks there was a black trickle of odorous ichor in the back, the sort of thing you chalk up to some mis-thrown piece of trash. But when you notice that it recurs, that means there might be a problem. You could call someone to solve it. You could try to solve it yourself.

You could also sacrifice a chicken and probe the guts for auspices: no, the way the liver looks, any attempt to fix it myself will end in tears, ruin, and floods - and the calling of a plumber who will keep his snickers to himself and fix what I ruined. After all, a few weeks ago I tried to deal with a Clot in Daughter's bathroom. Poured down sixteen gallons of Alien Blood. It cleared it out, for a week; then things backed up again. Yes I used e snake. Yes I poked it down and down until it could be poked no more. Despairing, I asked Jeff, the bathroom contractor, if he could take a look. Since the two week project now stretches into its third month, he agreed. After manhandling the trap apart we got the snake down into the wall, where it met a blockage. Push and turn and drill and push and turn - I was turning the snake handle, jolly good, Jack, you said feed me, and I fed you.

"I can feel air," he said, like we were tunneling out of Stalag 17. Once he broke through, unimaginable gobs were brought up. GIRL HAIR and lots of it.

So that was fun. This was different: upon inspection, a threaded sleeve-type-thing that connected the J-trap to the wall pipe had cracked. Well, this should be easy. First step: remove the sleeve so I can take it to Home Depot and get a replacement. But every attempt to loosen the J-trap at the proper point had one of two reactions: the wrench slipped or the trap moved. It became apparent I would have to remove the trap at a different location, and here I texted the Giant Swede.

He asked: what wrenches are you using?

Okay:

 

He said he would bring proper pipe wrenches, because of course he has pipe wrenches. A man hefts one of those, he knows he's on a long journey, and eventually he will find a pistol

We went to Home Depot, because it was Saturday. We used to go to CompUSA and look at software. They closed. Then we went to Best Buy to look at electronics. That got boring. Now we go to Home Depot for the things you need because it is Saturday. The store should just rename itself SATURDAY, OKAY? I got the sleeve and he got some wood or cement or nails or something, and we went back to the house to have a cool beverage and smoke cigars. Then I went under the sink.

And I fixed it. Took everything apart, cleaned out the traps (which had dark black dreck in quantities that made you wonder how anything drained) and put everything back together, with some plumber's putty to seal it all up. Ran the water. Leakage. Pipe-wrench application; grunting. Run the water.

Dry. It worked. I had plumbed. Best part of the entire exercise: my wife had noticed the black liquid, and asked what that was. I had identified the problem without additional nagging, and fixed it. Huzzah! Husband points!

The garage door is still broken, but that's another story.

 

Before the name got risable, smutty, lounge-lizard connotations, it was something a man would want to be. And hence, would want to have.

The awards bestowed for Fatherhood, from Swank's tireless cufflink / tiebar division.

 

Nowadays we'd say that men are so fragile they think they need awards for doing something they were expected to do.

 

 

 

HOWCO opened a branch in Tijuana, I'm guessing:

Not just any brain: the brain.

To be scrupulously accurate, many brains. But we'll get to that.

Our hero:

Which just about says it all. John Agar, just the sort of guy you see in a movie where strange items appear overhead. Like the microphone boom:

 

That's literally a minute into the movie. We learn that these Scientists have detected . . . radiation. Where?

Mystery Mountain.

After chewing up a few minutes of exposition and driving-around shots, they go to Mystery Mountain with their "Scintillator" and head into a tunnel. That's their first mistake, although it's nicely shot; none of that hideous cheapness you associate with 60s versions of this type of movie. Eventually they encounter . . . well, you know who.

"He's got Johnny Agar Eyes" would have been a good follow-up for Kim Carnes.

Well, it kills Sidekick Bob and inhabits John Agar's body, because it's just too expensive to show the creature throughout the show. Better that the Brain possess John Agar. See, the brain is a galactic criminal, looking to take over everything, as usual.

You figure: no rocket ships. No monsters, except pictures of the brain superimposed on John Agar as he grimaces with the pain of trying to act. His fiancee recognizes something's different, though, because he's horny as a rutting buck, and that makes her worry.

And her dad's worried, too; she's right, he's acting . . . odd.

The fiancee and her dad go to Mystery Mountain, where they meet another floating brain - but it's Val, a Good Brain. He's the police. He warns them that Gor, the bad brain (hmmmmm) has taken over John, and he'll be in touch.

And how does the subsequent meeting go?

You can't hate a floating brain that is good to dogs. You really can't hate a floating brain-cop that decides he will beat by Gor by getting into the dog's body.

The dog is named George.

Well, John has to go see his Fiancee; en route he stops to blow up a model airplane by looking at it:

 

Speaking of which: at the end, John Agar goes after Gor when he's not expecting it, and you want to say: just go for the strings!

 

This gets 10 starts from the people who love cheesy sci-fi movies, and in many ways it's a cut above the typical B, but it's not cheesy enough, not bad enough, not sincerely cheap enough.

It'll do. If it's a drive-in and it's summer, or it's Saturday night and it comes on the late-night feature and it's the only thing between you and the sign-off with the guy who says the poem about slipping the surly bonds of Earth, yeah: it'll do.

 

 

Oh, er, ahem:

 

 

 
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