There's no place like home...except maybe Vegas.

My buddy Jason is getting married soon, and his bachelor party is tonight. Would you believe that this will be the first time I've ever gone to one of these? (Don't everybody leap to say "yes" so quickly; you'll hurt my feelings.)

It'll be good to hang out with some friends I haven't seen in a while. However, I'm sure this will be nothing like the bachelor parties you see on TV and in the movies. Of course, that's definitely a good thing. The impending party tonight has me thinking about one of the better movies from last year: The Hangover.

I went to see it because I figured I could stand to shut off my brain for a couple of hours, and I thought this would be something along the lines of Dude, Where's My Car? or SuperBad. I was pleasantly shocked to find that The Hangover is suprisingly smart, well-written and the acting is top-notch. Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms play off each other remarkably well, and keep the audience laughing and fascinated for the whole time.

Later, I realized that The Hangover is more than just a well-written and excellently performed buddy comedy about a bachelor party gone horribly, horribly wrong. I felt I'd seen this story somewhere before, but couldn't quite put my finger on it. Later, I realized where I'd seen it, and that made me laugh myself silly all over again...

The Hangover is a modern retelling of The Wizard of Oz.

Now bear with me, readers; I've given this a good deal of consideration. (This goes to show the weird places my mind goes to when I get lost in my own thoughts.) Anybody who hasn't seen The Hangover yet, be forewarned: spoilers ahead.

First we meet Alan, played brilliantly by Zach Galifianakis. He is the Scarecrow. Just listen to him talk for 30 seconds, and you will agree that he definitely needs a brain. Even his unkempt hair and beard look like the straw that is poking out everywhere in the Scarecrow's body.

Next, we go to a school where we encounter Phil, brought to life by Bradley Cooper acting like...well...Bradley Cooper. He is the Tin Man. You can hear in his smug, cynical ramblings that he needs a heart. He swipes his students' field trip money to add to his gambling funds, and refuses to help a kid who wants to ask him a question. Phil even jokes about leaving his wife and son, and never returning from Las Vegas. The silvery gray vest he wears symbolizes the Tin Man's hollow metal chest.

Third, we meet the hapless Stu, played by The Daily Show's Ed Helms. Stu is absolutely the Cowardly Lion. You can't help but feel bad for this poor schmuck, being picked apart by his soulless harpy of a girlfriend, Melissa. If anybody needed courage, it is Stu, who doesn't have the cojones to stand up to Melissa or dump her.

After a wild night, which nobody can remember at all, Stu wakes up to find, to his horror, that he is missing a tooth. This is a perfect metaphor for the Lion's lack of courage: he's toothless.

Doug, who is missing for most of the movie, is Dorothy. He just wants to get home.

After our reluctant heroes go through many trials and tribulations in Las Vegas, (what better location exists to portray the magical and terrifying land of Oz?) they are ordered to return a misplaced $80,000 to Mr. Chow, who apparently has Doug held hostage. The guys band together and hit the Blackjack tables to win the money. In true Hollywood fashion, they win big and give Mr. Chow the cash. He releases Doug, but there's one problem: it's the wrong Doug.

Mr. Chow is now revealed to be the Wizard of Oz: a supposedly powerful man who does not truly come through with what the heroes are expecting of him. But then, thanks to an offhand comment by the other Doug, the fellows realize that Doug was on the roof of the Caesar's Palace hotel, mere yards from where they slept, the whole time. This is even alluded to early in the movie, when we see the mattress that Doug threw off the roof, in an attempt to signal somebody on the ground.

After Doug (the original Doug) is rescued, everybody heads back home, and we realize that our heroes had everything they thought they needed, from the very beginning: Alan had the brains to count cards and take the Bellagio Casino for $80,000 at the Blackjack table; Phil has a heart when he realizes at the wedding just how much he missed his wife and son; Stu shows his courage when he finally mans up and dumps Melissa.

And as for Doug? Well, as Glinda the Good Witch said in The Wizard of Oz, "You had the power to go home all along!" Dorothy just had to click the heels of her Ruby Slippers together and say "There's no place like home." The Ruby Slippers are presented to us in The Hangover in the form of the silver 1969 Mercedes 280SE Convertible they borrowed from Doug's soon-to-be father in law. (In the original book of The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, Dorothy wore Silver Slippers, not Ruby Slippers.)

There are many more parallels to The Wizard of Oz that pop up in The Hangover, but I think this shows with plenty of certainty that there is a definite correlation between these two excellent movies. The next time you watch The Hangover, I hope you spot some of these similarities, and that it adds to your enjoyment of a very funny, clever and well-acted film. And to those of you who plan on going to Sin City, remember these two famous phrases:

"There's no place like home."
--Judy Garland as Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz

"Remember, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Except for herpes. That shit'll come back with you."
--Jeffrey Tambor as Sid, The Hangover

This is an office, not an Applebee's!

I will admit this right off the bat: a lot of the time at work, I can be a grumpy bastard.

There are several things about my office that annoy me. Among these are the unnecessarily long training sessions, computer systems that seem designed to spike my blood pressure, and the rare occasion that I am instructed to take Tech Support calls instead of doing my normal work. (If I wanted to do Tech Support, I'd work in Tech Support.)

However, at the place I go to pay the rent, one of the top events that makes the bile rise in my throat is the way the managers celebrate birthdays and anniversaries of employment. Any time that somebody has been with the company for a number of full years, or if their birthday is that day or during the coming weekend, a dozen managers show up with balloons and bellow out: "Attention everyone! We have a birthday/anniversary on the floor! Mr./Ms. So-And-So!"

These managers, to whom we look for leadership and advice, then all start to sing.

Together.

If it's a birthday, it goes:

Happy happy birthday, today's your special day
Happy happy birthday, that's why we're here to say
Happy happy birthday, may all your dreams come truuuuuuueeeee.....
Happy happy birthday, from all of us to you!

Ick.

And as saccharine as that song is, it can't even hold a candle (Ha! Candle! Get it?! No? Moving on...) to the Anniversary song, sung to the William Tell Overture, with lyrics that seem written by Rain Man:

Happy Anniversary, Happy Anniversary, Happy Anniversary, Haaaaappy Anniversary.
Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy Anniversary,
Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy Anniversarreeeee!

I hate this.

My coworkers are very aware of my dislike for this corporate celebratory nonsense, and understand why I immediately reach for my headphones to drown them out with Metal or Techno music any time I see someone carrying balloons. However, one of them remarked to me the other day that she hates hearing me complain about this irritating distraction from...you know...work. I've been on the phone with clients before, who have to wait until this off-key bellowing is finished before I can continue with actually doing my job.

She can't stand my bad attitude about what is "supposed to be a celebration." Okay, she's a good person, I like working with her, and she has a point. I'll admit that grouchy curmudgeons are annoying. But do you know what's worse, in my opinion? Chipper, happy-slappy optimists who go around all day vomiting sunshine, insisting that everyone act as if we live in a sugary fairy land, filled with puppies, kittens and unicorns that fart rainbows.

And to those of you who think I'm making a big deal out of nothing, and that a few songs once in a great while are not something to get stressed out over: let's do a little math, shall we?

I crunched the numbers on the people who dwell in my workplace. There are 83 within immediate earshot. That means 83 birthdays and 83 anniversaries a year. That's 166 celebratory songs in a year where there are about 253 working days (52 weeks x 5 days a week, minus 7 paid holidays.)

That means, on any given day, there is a 65.6% chance (That's nearly 2 out of every 3 days at work) that I will have to listen to an off-key, ear-splitting rendition of a song that makes me want to take an ice pick to my eardrums.

And several times a month, it is the birthday and/or anniversary of several people at once. Like last week, when the denizens of my cube farm celebrated 6 anniversaries and 1 birthday, within the space of 10 minutes.

Go to YouTube, search for the video "Happy Anniversary!!!" submitted by ViddyBarbarino, and play it 6 times, back-to-back. See if that doesn't make you willing to listen to some other song, any other song, just to get it to stop.

So yes, I am a grumpy bastard. I like being angry about things that anger me. To sum it up, I leave you with a quote by Aldous Huxley, from his excellent novel Brave New World...

"I reserve the right to be unhappy."