Let's Get Into Trouble Baby!

Our neighbors to the left of the house would seem to have a hidden arbor or orchard somewhere on their modest tract of land, because they had tree trimmers there for most of the day, yet none of their trees are now stumps, so I can't imagine what they were doing. The sounds of their buzzing saws and wood chippers kept the Yorkie on edge all day, so it was somewhat thankfully that the wife and I split to grab some lunch and run a couple errands.

We had Thai for lunch because it's something of a once a week ritual, then hit up Best Buy to pick up a couple new releases that hit today. We'd never got out to theaters to see Up, even though the commercials looked amusing, so I'd been thinking about blind-buying that one anyway, and since they were offering it with additional savings when purchased with Monsters, Inc., I figured why not. Combined with a recently arrived Reward Zone certificate for $20 and a coupon that's floating around the web for an additional $10 off, we ended up getting both Blu-ray flicks for $14 or so out of pocket, which isn't bad at all. Both films are ridiculously packed with stuff: 2 Blu-ray discs, one with film, one with bonus material (I thought Blu allowed us to pack more content onto one disc? Have I been asleep?), a regular DVD copy of the film, and a digital copy of it if you wanna watch it at the bus stop on your iPhone to distract you from the fact that you're stuck riding the bus.

Rather than dig into either of these two packed Blu-ray releases I found myself watching a couple of things off the TiVo this afternoon and evening, since the wife was out of the house at another meeting.

I ended up watching Time After Time, a film starring Malcolm McDowell as H.G. Wells, pursuing Jack The Ripper forward in time to 70's era San Francisco via an actual time machine that he'd created. The synopsis is much more intriguing than the film itself, as there's little blood, little Sci-Fi and some corny acting. For example, Mary Steenburgen is Wells' modern era love interest, who balks at the idea of going back to Wells' time, because 'her job is her life', when she works in a bank changing foreign currencies, she's a glorified bank teller, not the head a fucking Fortune 500 company, why's she married to this job? Anyway, it's an okay watch, but nothing I need to own and re-watch again and again.

The evening brought the early John Cusack/Tim Robbins vehicle Tapeheads, which was gloriously dated fun from the 80's; I even stole tonight's post title from a recurring line in the film. The story of two friends trying to make it as music video producers and getting fished into a political scandal rests heavily on the quirks and tropes of the times, but some of the music was really great, as they focus their attentions on a duo they've always loved called The Swanky Modes, who are pretty awesome, especially in the final musical number. I decided to include the video here for others (like me) who might've missed this one over the years. Small side note: Cusack should stay away from mustaches tho, or at least the Rhett Butler-esque one he sports here, it makes his character exceptionally hard to take seriously.



I'm out kids, as I have to be up at the crack of dawn to go and see what they can do for me with this 'permanent' retainer which needs to be put back in.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Yorkie, Lunch, Thai Food, Shopping, Movies, Blu-ray, Up, Monsters Inc, Time After Time, Malcolm McDowell, Jack The Ripper, Mary Steenburgen, Tapeheads, John Cusack, Tim Robbins, The Swanky Modes

If I Wanted To Come Inside, I Wouldn't Be In Your Fucking Drive-Thru!

Today wasn't an awful day, I mean we've definitely had worse, be it involving deaths in the family, interpersonal arguments or what have you, but man, overall, most of what happened today was just sort of a pain in the ass.

Specific instances: I left the house in the mid-afternoon to drop off the recycling because we were hip-deep in boxes now that the wife is getting into the Christmas shopping, as well as the birthday I have next week. I drive across town for some cheap Mexican food because it sounds good and why not punish my body a little, right? I'm approaching the restaurant when the erratic driving of the guy in the turn lane next to me catches my attention, as he doesn't seem to have any real idea where they fuck he actually wants to turn. After changing his mind about the first entrance to the restaurant, he rolls casually down to the second one and I move into the lane behind him, wondering aloud what the fuck he has in mind as he continues to roll along almost past the turn in, forcing him to make this weird looping drunk turn into the parking lot. I follow, thinking "Great, now I gotta sit behind this asshole in the drive-thru that looked empty when we drove past it". Next thing I know, dude's starting to park to the right, away from the building, as if to go inside and eat, then suddenly loops and pulls a hard left to park beside the restaurant, turning to give me hard looks, staring me down as I drive past! I just give him the same look, wondering aloud what the fuck he's staring at, considering his shitty driving? I dunno if the dude saw me use the fuck word in his rear-view mirror while I was puzzling over his intentions in the turn lane or if he just assumed that since I turned in immediately behind him I was following him or something, but what the fuck ever, I cut him a look as I drove past and pulled into the drive-thru because I have other shit to do besides deal with some dumbass kid this afternoon.

Drive-thru woman mumbles something about the lobby before I even get the window rolled down, so I give her the old "Say again?"

"Our drive-thru is closed but you're welcome to come into the lobby to order." My first reaction was of course tonight's post title, but instead I just said "Super. Thanks." and drove away, because cheap Mexican food wasn't worth this much hassle to me. Seriously, if I wanted the depression of looking at your employees' dead-eyed thousand yard stare, I'd go eat in a prison cafeteria.

I picked up food from another cheap Mexican food place instead, (this is Texas, there's another place every few blocks) just because I was bound and determined to have a burrito before this was all said and done. The food proceeded to nearly fall out of the bag as the woman handed it to me, spilling the half-closed cup of queso into the bag & over most of the contents, which were thankfully protected in their own styrofoam. So I've now got a bag of queso to manage, but at least it's in the bag and not on me or the car, so I counted my blessings for at least getting some food at this place and went the hell home.

I ate and watched some television with the wife, then she had to be at one of her organizations for a meeting/event this evening, so I popped in a bad movie to watch that I figured I could ignore while I updated a few things on the iPhone in the den. I was watching XXX, the Vin Diesel actioner from the early 2000's, a film that we own on DVD and I have absolutely no recollection of ever purchasing. I think we may even have the sequel in the Media Closet as well, which is even more confusing, because I have a passing interest in Diesel as an action star, but the sequel, sans-Diesel is even less appealing to me. I can only guess that these were in some sort of DVD lot I picked up from when I was spending a lot of time on eBay or something, because, my hand to God, I would've never purchased these films on my own. I watched that and was somewhat shocked to realize that it seemed familiar, hell, I may have even rented that turkey when it first hit video!

I was in the middle of that shame when the previous owner of the house rang our doorbell, picking up a package that'd been delivered this past Saturday. The wife called her this afternoon to let her know that she needed to come and get it, and she rang to inquire about some other fucking package that a shipper had said was left here in the middle of last month! I resisted the urge to ask her if she was fucking kidding me and instead assured her that we hadn't seen it, though I pointed out that one of her kids had picked up something else from our doorstep a few weeks ago; she seemed to think it was a different item.

I continued to not give a fuck about her stuff, so I mentioned that we'd refused delivery on a few things over the past 8 months or so if I caught the delivery guy, but otherwise she'd been called or we'd dropped the items at her home, which is true for the most part. There was a box of carpet samples that I threw directly into the dumpster in a fit of irritation a few months back, having lived in this house for going on three years and this bitch still can't get her shit together with the companies she deals with?

The wife would later suggest that I should've offered to let her come inside the house and look around, see if she spotted her fabric, which cracked me up to no end.

"Now ma'am, if you were me: a bored man approaching middle age with an unhealthy amount of free time on his hands, what do you think I would've done with your bolt of fabric? Choose wisely..." **gestures casually around the room and down the hallway**

She mentioned that she would call them back and ask for a tracking number (which means absolutely dick if a shipper's already delivered the item, so good fucking luck with that, detective) and I told her good luck and sent her on her way.

The really funny thing is, I honestly don't know where the hell her fabric is, but felt like she might not quite believe me because FedEx said it dumped it wherever. Oh well, I fully place blame on a person who runs a business out of their home and doesn't bother to make good Goddamned sure that their shippers have the right address, because three years later is just ridiculous to be getting her mail, sorry.

The wife got home with some food, we chilled out in the den, I related my story to her, then we ate and watched Heroes off the old TiVo. Midway through my sandwich, the bottom 'permanent' retainer that was put in when I got the braces removed last month popped off completely, because God hates me and my teeth as well. I'd thought there was a hint of wiggle room in there over the weekend, so earlier today I made an appointment for Wednesday to get it looked at, but it hadn't really come loose for real. Now I have a jagged piece of glue on the back of one of the lower teeth to probe 'til my tongue is bloody for the next 24 hours before my appointment.

Monday sucked overall, being full of odd irritations.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Annoyance, Shitty Drivers, Lunch, Shitty Service, iPhone, Movies, XXX, DVD, Vin Diesel, Frustration, Shitty Homeowners, Television, Heroes, Braces, Retainer, Fuck My Life

Cinematic Sunday One Hundred Twelve

Since the past few days have received exactly two comments, one from a Viagra spambot and another in broken English thanking me for basically being on the web, so I feel a lot less guilty for doing the standard cop-out post that's filled with nothing but movie trailers and ill-informed snark and calling it a night.

First up today we have the promo bit for a re-make of The Killer Inside Me, based on the Jim Thompson novel from the 50's. You may recall the Stacy Keach version from the 70's, but this time around director Michael Winterbottom brings us Casey Affleck as the titular killer, backing his performance with Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson. This is a promo reel, and as such basically gives away most of the film's plot, deaths, etc., so if you're unfamiliar with the source material, I'd suggest staying away. Otherwise give it a peek and see if you think Casey Affleck can pull off the cold-blooded psychopath role; I'm not entirely convinced, but him whipping Jessica Alba's bare ass with a belt is worth a look regardless.

**Edit- Sonofabitch, again, the more interesting trailer is yanked because who wants anyone to talk about their film in advance of its' release. I enjoy looking around for these trailers each week, but I'm also beginning to wonder why the fuck I bother.**



Secondly we have Salt, from director Phillip Noyce, which stars an unknown actress named Angelina Jolie as a Russian sleeper agent. The vibe I get form this first trailer is somewhat similar to the first Bourne film, in that she doesn't appear to know what she's capable of at first, then seems to rise to the occasion. I figure what the hell, maybe it'll be interesting, look for it next year.



Finally we have A Single Man, from first time director Tom Ford, whose name may be familiar to you from the fashion world, as he made a name for himself designing for Gucci before starting his own clothing line. The film is set in the 60's and adapts the novel of the same name by Christopher Isherwood, following Colin Firth through a single day in his life after the loss of his partner. The cinematography hinted at in the trailer looks gorgeous, and the period setting is also a big selling point for me; give this a look in limited release this December.



I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Movies, Trailers, The Killer Inside Me, Michael Winterbottom, Jim Thompson, Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson, Salt, Phillip Noyce, Angelina Jolie, A Single Man, Tom Ford, Christopher Isherwood, Colin Firth

Sir, If You Want To Talk To Those People, Please, By All Means: GO FUCKING SIT WITH THEM

I can happily report that the Netfux Instant Watch option for the PS3 works like a charm, though the only hiccup I encountered last night was that the first thing I selected to watch didn't have any sound. I assumed it was my system, so I made time to update the PS3's software to the latest version, ejected the disc, re-booted everything, just to have the same issue, great picture, no sound. It finally clicked that maybe it was just the one show I'd chosen (which would be typical of my knack for this type of thing, so I tried a different film and sure enough, the sound was working just fine. Very impressed with the ease of use and ability to poke around the Netfux queue and add other stuff or just watch it on the fly, great stuff.

We were surprised that J from Little Rock was as wiped out as she was, but the stress of the travel and presumably the pregnancy as well had her sleeping from 9:00 PM last night until around 10:00 this morning. The Mother In Law called inquiring as to lunch plans, so we were set to meet she and the Beau at a place across town around noon. We elected not to invite Brian because we had the feeling that he'd be around for the evening anyway and you can only entertain him for so long, y'know?

Lunch was good, I visited a bit with the Beau, making a point of sending him 'round Big Lots way, as I'd been meaning to tell him about the bargains to be had there. After dinner I ran the girls by the mall, JFLR bought a few odds and ends, then we headed back to the house.

On the drive home I got a really wild hair to head over to Odessa and poke around a bit at their Big Lots to see if they had anything new. I decided to give El Vox a call on the drive and he was up for a bit of running around, so we ended up hitting a few pawn shops and a flea market as well as Big Lots. I found a pretty neat Mill Creek set called the Too Cool For School Collection, which is comprised of 12 of those corny sex-comedies that were made on the cheap back in the 70's and 80's, it looks like it'll make for light and entertaining fun. I also picked up a copy of Conan The Barbarian (though I doubt that it's the latest version with all the bells and whistles), which sports a commentary and an extended version of the film. For the $3 I figured what the hell.

Our pawn shop travels were much less worthwhile, as I'd sooner kiss a pig than pay anyone $5 a whack for used DVD's that would be a pain in the ass to return if it turns out that they don't work, or $10 for Blu-ray stuff that's usually on sale for $9.99 on Amazon anyway. Pass. We also popped into an indoor flea market briefly, which did little save for reminding me of why I stopped going to flea markets: I don't care for being watched like a felon whilst browsing 'merchandise' that could easily pass for most people's garbage. Your wares look like things I would discard in disgust after it didn't sell at my garage sale, don't blatantly eyeball me like I've got sticky fingers, asshole.

The wife called inquiring about dinner plans as I was dropping Vox back at his place, so I headed for home to take the ladies to dinner. I noted with little surprise that Brian's car was already in the driveway as I passed the house. The cynical side of me thinks that it's simply because he knew that there was food to be had, but I'll try to give him the benefit of doubt and assume that he just wanted to visit further with our houseguest.

The restaurant of choice was a Japanese steakhouse, where they seat you around the table and the chef does the whole visual production while he cooks, throwing food at you, large flashes of flames, that kinda spectacle. Amusingly/thankfully, the place was pretty damned busy, so our guy seemed too defeated to really go through much of the typical pomp and circumstance, settling for a large flash of flames as he started and a loud bang of slapping the metal bowl of rice onto the cooking surface. I would have been relieved by his laid back demeanor had the table behind us not been quite so rowdy. One fat drunk-sounding douche spent the course of the evening speaking LOUDLY across the aisle to people he evidently knew at another table, ordering them drinks, making cheesy jokes and generally being much more rambunctious than I prefer my fat rednecks to be. It was pretty damned annoying, distracting from our conversations at our own table, even the couple next to me commented on it a few times amongst themselves.

The table finally cleared, and the offending party was edging towards the door, but paused to continue their comedy act standing over the friends at the other station, putting off his daughter who kept nagging at him about the movie he was taking her to see. The woman next to me commented to her boyfriend that 'the guy is a comedian' in reference to his running commentary to the help about how they have to 'watch out' for the people at the next table.

I muttered to the wife that I wish I knew when that fucking movie he was going to started, so I had an idea exactly how much more of this we were in for.

Dinner was finally over and we got the hell out of there (though we didn't beat loud drunk guy out the door as I expected, he finally left shortly before we did), then we headed back to the crib to chill out and try to digest the enormous meal.

Brian split early, I don't think he was interested in what we were watching (a TLC show about 3 gay guys in one of the Carolinas teaching cute hill-rat girls how to win beauty pageants), so he suddenly called it a night around 9:00 tonight. Again, the bitter side of me says that he'd gotten his meal and was out of the house for a few hours, so he was over it, but who knows what goes on in his head?

We watched a few oddball things off the TiVo, then called it a night around 10:00 tonight. If I play my cards right and get this turkey posted, I may even be in bed by 1:00 in the AM, which almost never happens.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Netflix, Instant Watch, PS3, Lunch, Shopping, Movies, DVD, Too Cool For School Collection, Conan The Barbarian, Pawn Shops, Flea Market, Dinner, Shitty Patrons, Annoyance, Television

And It Was All Going So Well, Too...

The wife and J from Little Rock were up and away early this morning, so I'd already planned on sleeping in after my week of increasingly less or erratic sleep.

Once the women got home, we caught up a bit on their day, then they both caught a short nap whilst I paid a few bills online, then decided to make a pass through Big Lots to see if anything new had turned up in their bargain bins. I was rather happy to see that my indifference of a few weeks had led to them re-stocking the shelves heavily in an attempt to lure me back in, or they had finally gotten one of their erratic shipments that may or may not have new stuff in it. I prefer to think that it's all about me.

I was happy to grab a bare-bones copy of Touch Of Evil (which I believe is out of print right now), Class Of 1984, a Munsters double feature film set and several others for the now standard $3 apiece. I also found a copy of a flick called Your Friends & Neighbors, which is an early Neil LaBute film and another of his forays into mind-fuckery, in which a group of disaffected friends play casually cruel mind-games with one another because modern life is all misery and vomit, at least in LaBute's mind. I recall really liking it when I rented it back in the day. It was always one of those movies I wanted to add to the collection but never got back around to picking up, so this was fortuitous.

When I got home the wife and JFLR were both awake and talking dinner plans, so we bullshitted about that until the wife and I managed to get into an argument because I got annoyed that she wanted to finish a particular story that we'd skimmed past while jumping from subject to subject, and she was suddenly in the middle of trying to finish another story and just typing this out makes it all sound twice as fucking stupid as it all was anyway, so why don't we just shorthand it, say that I'm kind of an asshole sometimes and leave it at that? The upshot is that we did get into it a bit in front of our guest (which I hate), and the overall mood sort of lingered around for the rest of the night, though we did go and have dinner and pick up a few things at Target with JFLR and Brian. And by lingered I mean we had a normal night out, but I knew the wife was still a bit hurt by the earlier events. I believe it's all smoothed over now, once we got our guests into bed or sent home for the night, we talked it out a bit more and she seems okay.

I'm wrapping this earlier than I normally would, as we also received the Netfux Instant Streaming disc in the mail today for use with the PS3, which I'm curious to try out. I hope it's not something I regret, because testing out new technology at 1:00 AM is probably a bad idea, 'cause I'm already tired, have been in an argument, and if this thing refuses to work I may end up breaking something. Anyway, the idea of being able to access Netfux instant watch function via the PS3 in the bedroom is an intriguing one, and I've been patiently waiting for the option to come to our Blu-ray player of choice, and the announcement was made last week that this would finally happen before Christmas, so I to have the disc arrive this soon is pretty exciting.

Hopefully this will be an easy way to check out a few different movies that I've not felt like watching on the PC or laptop up to this point.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Shopping, Movies, DVD, Touch Of Evil, Class Of 1984, Your Friends And Neighbors, Neil LaBute, Argument, Annoyance, Dinner, Netflix, Instant Streaming, PS3

Planned Parenthood: Not As Entertaining As One Would Hope

Writing this (as usual) much later than the actual posting date, so forgive me if I seem terse, I'm still slightly buzzed from the evenings' dinner out, and rather tired from the accumulated lost sleep of the week. I include a video by Hank III this evening just to liven things up a bit, as very little was going on today. The track is called Crazed Country Rebel and I may've posted it before but if you don't like it I suggest you go and write your own blog, otherwise make with the clicking and revel in the majesty of Hank Williams grandson keeping true country music alive. Then go burn a Faith Hill standee in effigy or kick Toby Kieth in the dick.



I also wanted to post this because of the amusing irony of loving something like this and having to be up early to deal with Interior Decorators, 'cause it's all part of the enigma that is your humble narrator, oh me brothers.

The wife had an early morning meeting, so she was gone when the alarm went off. I got up, made coffee, fed the dog and got the house opened up for business. The Interior Decorators arrived at 9:00, took the measurements while making small talk, the wife arrived home during this process and spoke to them as well; it appears that our furniture has arrived and preparations are proceeding apace.

Once the Interior Decorators split the wife caught up on some calls and I piddled around online for a bit. I've decided that after the number of reviews I cranked out last month I'd like to take at least a few days off and with the arrival of our friend J from Little Rock this afternoon, that seemed like as good of an excuse as any.

We grabbed a bit of lunch at a Chinese place across town, then I dropped the wife off to pick up her car at the dealership, where she'd dropped it earlier to have the tires rotated and headed home myself. She arrived shortly behind me, we chilled out and I popped open the Blu-ray of Road House that I'd bought on a wild hair because of the included standard def disc, which sports a Kevin Smith/Scott Mosier commentary, gave their views on the film a spin. It was as amusing as one of their normal rambling riffs on the SModcast show, a lot of it focusing (understandably) on the ridiculousness of the film and the homoerotic subtext of all the male leads just staring intently at one another. Hilarious stuff.

While this was running the wife fielded some texts and phonecalls regarding our soon to be houseguest, JFLR, who is recently pregnant and was alarmed by some spotting that she experienced during her layover in Dallas. We ended up making plans for her to get a sonogram once she arrived here because the wife knows someone at Planned Parenthood, though once we got there they tell us that their main machine is down, but they're willing to try and see what's up with an older, possibly less sensitive machine. I'm in the lobby imagining a giant metal device that you have to crank like some sort of Frankenstein lab material, which I'm sure wasn't the case.

I was also crestfallen to find out that the religious nuts only picket and bitch on Abortion Fridays (as I like to think of it), 'cause I was hoping to at least get some idiots giving us static for even going into the place for a legitimate medical treatment for the purposes of telling this tale. I was already mulling my own spiel in the back of my mind to try and 'out-crazy' the zealots, turns out I was wasting my monologue.

Oh well.

The sonogram was as useless as they'd feared, but given the efforts taken to get her pregnant, everyone (the nurses there and the recently pregnant friends of the wife's) has seemed pretty well convinced that the situation is pretty normal given the circumstances. We have a doctor's visit scheduled for the early morning, which I'm happy to let the wife and JFLR go along to by themselves, I was only in on the Planned Parenthood trip for the stories I was hoping to get, and that ended up being fairly dull.

We hung out back at the house for a few, then I dressed for the evening, Brian arrived to join us while I was off in the master bedroom. We visited for a time, then JFLR changed and we headed out to meet the Mother In Law, her Beau and the Uncle, who also arrived today from Arkansas because it's a small fucking world, isn't it? We arrived first, later finding out that the MIL's Beau was caught up in a meeting that ran late, so we sat for about 30 minutes, sipping a cocktail and chit chatting with the elderly at a nearby table who used to be our neighbors when we lived in the other house. The rest of our part arrived, we ordered up some dinner, visited and enjoyed ourselves, pretty much closing the place down without even realizing it.

Oh, and the Beau was kind enough to give me a copy of a novel he enjoyed by Walter Mosley, who I've never read but have always been aware of, so that should be interesting. I'm curious to poke through the Library and see if I have a spare copy of any of the Vachss or Lansdale stuff, see if it grabs him.

We headed home, watched some television for a bit, then called it a night.

The women have their own agenda tomorrow, so I may try to sleep in for a change and then go do some running around of my own. I'll close out with some more Hank III, just for shits and giggles, this song is Low Down, another favorite of mine, and it's remarkably well-shot for being at a live performance.



This stuff sort of makes me miss my Father a bit, as I would be curious how he'd feel about the long haired outlaw type singing occasionally vulgar music that fits in with the type of music I was raised on? The general references made relating the boozing and drugging to 'a life of sin' rather than the more modern language of 12 step programs and Zoloft, it's an interestingly dated approach to the subject matter that I find charming and more 'real' than about 90% of the emotions expressed in popular music nowadays. Finally, here's Straight To Hell to get your toes a' tapping.



I started this out thinking it'd be short and sweet, then proceeded to get distracted by the music, which I'd say is something of a testament as well. Time well spent, I'd say.

Okay, I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Music, Hank III, Hank Williams, Interior Decorator, Lunch, Movies, Blu-ray, Road House, Kevin Smith, Scott Mosier, SModcast, Houseguest, Pregnancy, Planned Parenthood, Religious Zealots, Dinner, Authors, Walter Mosley, Andrew Vachss, Joe Lansdale