Attack of the Brain Cloud...

...or the Revenge of Joe and the Volcano. 

The other day my wife and I were discussing (i.e., arguing; hey, it's our hobby!) about the different ways we handle sleeplessness.

I told her, "when you don't sleep well, you thrive on it."

She disagreed. "Hardly! I don't 'thrive'. I make do and manage."

"Still seems like thriving to me," I muttered. "But when I can't sleep, it's like...a brain cloud lowers down on me."

"First of all, there's no such thing as a 'brain cloud,'" she said. 

"Yes, there is," I insisted. "I might've made it up, but it's very, very real."

"It came from a movie," she said authoritatively.

Humph. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a head jam-packed with worthless and pointless knowledge of movies (which when you come right down to it, probably wouldn't make me a very important and necessary component in the survivor camps during our impending zombie apocalypse.).

But...but...my wife stumped me on this one. "I know of no such movie," I statedtriumphantly. "What movie, pray tell, do you speak of?"

Immediately, she whips out, "Joe and the Volcano."

Silence. Blink. Crickets. More silence. Blinkety-blinky-blink.

"JOE AND THE VOLCANO?" I roar. "Who remembers friggin' Joe and the Volcano? I mean, I kinda think I've seen it, but don't remember anything about it except that it was painfully unfunny and terrible."

"Yes, it was. But that's where 'brain cloud' came from."

Wow. She stymied the Movie Master. This is made more incredible by the fact that at times my wife can't remember the movie we watched last weekend, let alone some obscure 34-year-old bomb  that NO ONE remembers like Joe and the Volcano.

But sure enough, according to Ms. Google, my wife was right (dammit! Gettin' kinda old!). Apparently, Tom Hanks character was diagnosed with an incurable deadly disease known as "brain cloud" which will kill him in several months.

However, Wiktionary (a very, very, VERY credible source, of course) refers to "Brain Cloud" as a very real ailment that causes "the temporary inability to think properly." Other scientists and psychologists refer to it as a nickname for the clouding of consciousness. There's a LOT more boring stuff about this insidious disease that I won't bother you with, but the most stunning aspect of it all is finally--FINALLY!--Joe and the Volcano will be remembered as something other than a terrible bomb and actually contributed to the field of science.

Speaking of really dumb and stupid things, look no further than my Zach and Zora comedy mystery series. If imbecilic humor and outrageous situations and decidedly impolitically correct comedy and  cool murder mysteries are your bag, have a read! Start with Bad Day in a Banana Hammock and spiral on downwards from there! Plus! A brand spankin' new book in the series coming to you some time this century!