Three The Hard Way?

Sorry, I don't fuggin' know what to call to night's post, just because with increasingly less going on each day this week, I have less to write about and thus less material to draw a title from.

I got up later than I intended, then gave Macguffin a call, as we'd made tentative plans to see Quantum Of Solace this afternoon, but was unable to get him on the phone. The wife was on the computer in the office, so I took the laptop to the kitchen bar area and started checking e-mail there while I drank coffee and tried to wake up.

The wife had errands to run and was going to run by the grocery store afterward, so I eventually put the laptop away and moved into the office. Mac eventually called me back to confirm that he was indeed canceling on the film, which was fine, as I had originally planned to try and watch something else to review this week anyway.

I got sucked into the interweb for longer than I intended, then washed some dishes and picked up the kitchen a bit while listening to the latest episode of ShowShow.

The wife arrived with groceries, which we unloaded and put away before making a late lunch of hamburgers and fries. We ate while watching the first disc of Sold Out: A Threevening With Kevin Smith, which I'm set to review for Pop Syndicate. The wife caught a nap mid-film, while I finished it off and moved on to the second disc. Smith is as amusing as ever, although I do think some of his more blatant vulgarity in the intros and special at times feel a bit forced, as if he's perhaps pandering to the fans of the dick and fart jokes anxious for him to make the next graphic and leering comment, but maybe I overestimate the man and he's just a genuinely low-brow fellow. Personally, I'd like to think that's not the case.

We watched some television after the Smith thing was over, tonight's episodes of The Office, My Name Is Earl and 30 Rock, then called it a night. Since it's finally getting cold here the wife decided to try out the new gas logs in the bedroom fireplace while I headed to the office to get this over with.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Movies, Quantum Of Solace, Podcasts, ShowShow, Sold Out A Threevening With Kevin Smith, Pop Syndicate, Television, The Office, My Name Is Earl, 30 Rock

Absolutely Nothing To Write About

Yeah, I know, it's never stopped me before.

The wife was up an hour before I was this morning, working on stuff on the computer in the office, so I started coffee and asked her where the hell the maid was. Not that I was really concerned that she wasn't here, but I've just become accustomed to her ringing our doorbell at 9:00 AM sharp before I even have the sleep out of my eyes, and here she was over an hour late today. The wife told me that she had called and was running late, so I started reading the newspaper and drinking my cup of ambition in an effort to wake up a bit.

The maid arrived, the wife finished her stuff online, so I moved into the office as the maid started her maid stuff that she does around the house and the wife moved into the bedroom to return a series of calls.

I wrote several reviews that I had been putting off, clearing the desk of the small pile of notes from the past week or so, pausing in the early afternoon to eat lunch that the wife was kind enough to go and pick up for us.

We had several different people come and go, finally picking up all the junk from the two parties last week, which is nice to have out of the house, and then the lawn guys even came and did their bit, giving the Yorkie something else to freak out about. The maid finally split around 3:30, and the wife and Yorkie retired to the bedroom to chill and watch some afternoon trash TV.

I finally finished what I was planning on getting done today, so I popped in a Blu-Ray that'd arrived a few days back from those rental throttling pricks at Netfux. I'd been excited to see The Fall basically ever since the trailer hit the web, and I honestly can't say why I didn't pick it up when it came out, perhaps money was an issue that week or something, but the film looks simply amazing. The lush, vibrant colors and ample use of the widescreen format really make for an amazing viewing experience. The story, juxtaposing a suicidal actor telling a story to a young girl in the hospital, and the girls' imaginative visual interpretation of the story is very well executed, drifting characters from the real world into the fantasy with interesting results.

The wife woke up midway through the film and seemed to really enjoy the rest of it, I'll definitely be willing to give it another look with her later if we end up buying it.

I made us some pasta for dinner, something we've been doing a lot lately, then we settled in and watched Ghost Hunters and this week's episode of Fringe, which actually managed to build a little more directly on what happened last week, which is a welcome change and has me interested in the next episode, if only to see if they ignore the ongoing mystery and head off in yet another direction.

And now here I am, doing this song and dance again.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Maid, Writing, Reviews, Yorkie, Movies, Netflix, The Fall, Blu-Ray, Television, Ghost Hunters, Fringe

Older, Never Wiser...

So I had a great birthday yesterday, I spent it running around with the wife and doing some shopping for a few winter clothes, which for our area means when it gets into the 50's every now and then for a few months. Our weather in West Texas is generally so mild it makes owning coats annoying, as you can only really get some use out of them maybe a week out of the year.

We caught a matinee of Saw V in the afternoon, which is a franchise I'm still getting some enjoyment out of even as they fall victim to the laws of diminishing returns. The traps seem to stay somewhat interesting, but they keep stretching the believability of their continuity by adding in characters that we're supposed to believe were just off camera in earlier films. While I like they attention to detail and continuity, it's become harder to swallow with each film as they shoe-horn more intricate genius into Jigsaw's machinations, which evidently managed to account for any number of variables, right down to the letter. In short, it's getting increasingly silly, but the tine of the films is maintained, as are the gruesome deaths, so I still figure it's worth a matinee ticket.

Oh, and the wife actually likes these gory fucking movies, I don't know exactly why, but she's been down to watch them since we caught the first one in the theater years ago, so I figure why rock the boat.

Oh, and there's new stuff at the BSL of you haven't been by there lately, check that out if you have lots of free time.

Today was almost more of the same, as the wife actually had some time with no non-profit organization meetings, so she and I took advantage of that again and went to an early lunch together, then hit Barnes & Noble to look around at the magazines. We ran into Robbb, visited a bit with him, then he split, we bought a couple of magazines and then went down the little strip to Best Buy because we needed to exchange the copy of Casino Royale that the wife had bought me for my birthday for the 2 disc version. They were of course out of it, so I picked up a couple cheap Dimension Extreme titles instead and we headed across town to our final stop: the books music and video place that I once worked at that I feel like I incessantly talk shit.

The whole shit-talking thing? Today will be no different, this store sucks out loud.

I was looking to purchase Tropic Thunder on Blu-Ray that was released today. I had a giftcard from selling some DVD's to them, so I figured I could use the $20 or so towards that and pay the difference. I check their new release rack, there's nothing except the standard def disc, so I ask an associate, she begins looking into where it might be. Over the next 15-20 minutes, no less that 6 employees all searched the store for the alleged 9 copies (!) of this film that they have in their inventory, yet can't produce. At one point, 4 employees are all standing together, rubbing elbows in front of the new release rack as if the fucking things will appear if the right number of idiots gather at one time.

This isn't the first time this has happened, most recently I attempted (unsuccessfully) to purchase War Inc. on Blu-Ray from them, another title featured in their weekly ad, which to my knowledge (I even checked the rack today out of curiousity) they have NEVER FUCKING RECIEVED. I eventually gave up, found the single copy of the Casino Royale 2 Disc edition they had and bought it instead, taking time to pick up a customer comment card on my way out so that I can express my frustration to their home office. That's one thing I never do, but to try to shop this store on more than one occasion and be greeted time and again with such ridiculous lapses in service, I mean give me a fucking break. It's one thing to not carry some obscure foreign film that 8 people in America have heard of, but to habitually post ad titles and not even get them into your fucking stores, or to lose them once they are recieved, what the fuck, over? How is this glorified garage sale still in business?

We headed home, I checked e-mail and ordered Tropic Thunder online as part of a discount sale Deep Discount was having right now, because fuck trying to shop locally. I enjoy recieving packages in the mail, it's like a mini-Christmas, isn't it?

The wife caught a nap before her evening meeting and I watched the copy of Beetlejuice on Blu that she'd bought me, a film I hadn't seen in many moons. I'd expressed interest in it because I was curious how much difference the hi-def transfer would make on an older film, and it was noticeably better, but still obviously not as clear as something newer which is shot on digital video.

While the wife was at her evening meeting I watched a documentary I have to review for Pop Syndicate called Larry Flynt: The Right To Be Left Alone, which covered his various battles over free speech, both over pornography and politics, and despite not having a completely clear through-line (it jumps around a bit), I really enjoyed it and want to re-watch the Milos Forman bio sometime soon.

The wife came home in time to finish that with me, then she and the Yorkie headed to bed while I went to the office to work on this.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Shopping, Movies, Saw V, Big Suck Loser, Lunch, Exchanges, Casino Royale, Blu-Ray, Tropic Thunder, Beetlejuice, Larry Flynt The Right To Be Left Alone, Milos Forman

Once More With Increasingly Less Feeling

The wife and I are going to have some lunch after I hit the Chiropractor this morning, then try to take in a Saw V matinee this afternoon. We may also go and poke around at the mall or whatever to do some shopping for some more wintery clothes, as my shorts and flip flops routine will soon run me into a cold or the flu if I'm not careful.

I think I'm otherwise taking the day off today, unless I get a wild hair to come back on here and update this with more details about the day later this evening.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Birthday, Movies, Saw V, Shopping, Clothing

Cinematic Sunday Sixty-Three

The Yorkie woke me up around 10:00 AM, happily showing no signs of problems after tying one on last night, so that's a relief. The wife was also up, though she seemed more inclined to go back to bed than I did, so I left her chilling in bed and made coffee and fetched the newspaper from the driveway.

I started to look at the DVR in the bedroom, which I've been using primarily to grab Hi-Def movies on the upper tier of movie channels and the various HBO and Showtime series that we've been following and noticed that it was getting full, so we watched a couple of things on there in an effort to clear it off.

The latest episode of Fringe was okay, but I'm getting two vibes from the show: A) It's one of those that's better served being watched in a marathon when it hits DVD just because all the cryptic shadow organizations might make more sense if they're fresh in your mind and B) They really need a different shtick than to say that virtually everything they encounter was originated by the crazy old doctor 30 years ago. I can buy that 'easy out' solution to their problems once or twice, but it feels like practically every weeks' conflict is being righted by this old loon when he suddenly realizes that he created the problem back in the 60's, and it's just asinine.

I also watched the new Ricky Gervais special that premiered on HBO this weekend, it was pretty amusing, I wish they'd release the stand-up stuff he's done in Britain over here, I believe there's at least a couple of specials that aren't available with no plans in the works to release them Stateside.

The wife napped a bit and I found myself feeling pretty inspired by the pot of coffee, so I finished cleaning up the house after last night's party, putting away all the borrowed serving stuff (we re-used the items from the caterer from Thursday's gathering, if they aren't going to pick it up, fuck 'em) and gathering up all the various stuff we had to recycle. It appears that I'm the kind of idiot that goes to volunteer at a recycling thing yesterday and doesn't remember to bring his own stuff with him to drop off. I dressed and ran that to the bins at the grocery store, then came back home, started laundry and took out the trash, did some dishes, all the usual household nonsense that needs to get done before it gets out of hand.

I decided to get an early jump on this just so that I'm not up til the crack of dawn fooling around trying to find trailers and whatnot.

Here's what I ran across this week:

First we have the trailer for Giallo, the new film from Dario Argento. The darkness of the trailer isn't exactly conducive to YouTube's already pixelated presentation, so the quality is fairly murky, but I'm getting something about a series of mutilations and Adrien Brody and his nose being hot on the trail. Give it a look and tell me if you can discern anything else, trying to ignore the voice-over guy, I found that really distracting.



Next we have The Lodger, from director David Ondaatje, which adapts the same source material as Hitchcock's original film. It stars Alfred Molina, Hope Davis and Simon Baker as the Jack The Ripper wanna-be in question, and might be worth a look, I'm kind of on the fence with this one right now. Give it a look.



I'm not sure about a release date for Johan Renck's film Downloading Nancy, but I'm intrigued by the trailer, which features some female nudity and strange sexual situations and should thus be considered NSFW. It stars Rufus Sewell as a jilted husband, whose wife Nancy, played by Maria Bello leaves him for a relationship with Jason Patric, a man she met online who is willing to fulfill her more sadomasochistic urges. Beware your spouse's travels on the interweb and check out the trailer below.



Finally, I'm posting another Watchmen trailer, from director Zack Snyder, if only because someone reading this may not have visited any other sites on the web this week, as EVERYONE is posting this fucker. I actually like it a little more than the first trailer, as it gives the lay person more of an idea what the film is actually about, versus the first one which felt geared towards the comics crowd who read it in the late 80's. I'd also comment that I actually like Rorschach's voice, as it's the affected guttural voice of what's essentially a small guy hiding behind a mask, but I can't stand Billy Crudup's silly 'human' voice as Dr. Manhattan. I expected something more grand from that character, hell even something James Earl Jones-ish and I get a voice that sounds like my dentist or something; it's disconcerting.



Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Yorkie, DVR, Television, Fringe, Comedy, Ricky Gervais, Household Chores, Movies, Trailers, Giallo, Dario Argento, Adrien Brody, The Lodger, David Ondaatje, Alfred Molina, Hope Davis, Simon Baker, Downloading Nancy, Johan Renck, Rufus Sewell, Maria Bello, Jason Patric, Watchmen, Zack Snyder, Billy Crudup

When Blogger Opens A Window, It Closes A Door

I'm opening the blog window so that this will post on the proper day, as I'm not sure what the evening will bring.

I had decided to go ahead and show up for the recycling thing at the college today, so I set my alarm for 9:00 AM to give myself time to get up and about before I was supposed to be there at 10:30 AM. I checked e-mail, then dressed and headed out for my first ever gig as a real live volunteer. Everything I've done in the past at the wife's various charity things has been just as a random person helping out, I've not signed up to do anything specific, so I was curious how this would go.

I found the parking lot that the event was happening in, parked and found the woman in charge, who I'd been trading e-mails with. She instructed me to sign in and then drove me in a little golf cart to an intersection on the college grounds, where I was to stand with another gentleman and direct traffic as people came in to drop stuff off. The gentleman I worked with turned out to be the vice-president of the organization, and we chatted about this or that and told people to "Go down to the stop sign, then hang a left, you'll go all the way around the building, they'll unload you and then you come out back here" about a thousand tines over the course of the 3 hour shift. During the course of our conversation I was offered a spot on their board if I was interested, which I kinda hem-hawed around at, as I might like to volunteer a few more times for them before I'm having to go to meetings and shit, but it's nice that he thought I might be a good fit for them. I was a little surprised to watch people coming to a non-profit charity style event honk at one another; kind of a dick move that kills my faith in humanity considering you;re talking about people showing up to help the planet but actively hating that asshole in the next car who isn't moving fast enough for them. I was also surprised to see that people have little understanding of the concept of two separate lanes of traffic, as several people leaving just hauled ass in the wrong lane, ignoring people waving at them frantically as they cruised away. Yikes.

I headed back home after the event wound down at 1:00 or so, caught up with the wife, who had actually been on the other side of the college with her own event during the morning, then went and picked us up a burger for lunch.

After we ate, she ran to a baby shower and I watched some television, then we retired to the bedroom for a late afternoon nap before we got ready for the early birthday party we were having for me this evening. Since the actual birthday falls on a Monday, we'd decided to have people over tonight, so I caught a quick nap then got started picking up the house for the party.

We had a decent turnout, 11 people or so over the course of the night, as well as a few unexpected no shows, which seems to be par for the course if I remember last year's party correctly. The only noteworthy thing of the evening was that we think that Bella was able to get her little Yorkie snout into someone's Bailey's that'd been set on the floor unattended for a few minutes. We noticed that she hopped up into the chair only to slip off the arm a few seconds later. She also seemed very restless and circled constantly, and when she tried to play with you she seemed somewhat sluggish and dull, not herself at all. After the party was all over with, the wife and I gave her a couple of large helpings of food to settle her stomach, I hope the poor thing doesn't get some kind of hangover out of the deal.

Our guests had all departed shortly after 10:00 PM, so I headed to the web to work on this and the wife took the Yorkie to bed to sleep it off.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Charity, Volunteerism, Recycling, Birthday, Party, Drunk, Yorkie