The drain problem we had on New Years Day happened again today. Apparently, the plumbers didn't do a sufficiently thorough job last time. So I have to wait around for them tomorrow. Lovely.
********************
We put the Christmas stuff back up in the attic today (my various illnesses prevented me from wanting to deal with it until now), and while I was up there, I noticed a lot of droppings and that the insulation towards the front of the house has been ripped apart and removed quite a bit. Looks like we had wildlife up there after all! We had some roofers fix the holes in the roof a few months ago, so I'm gonna assume all this happened before then. And that I just didn't notice the disarray when I retrieved all the Christmas stuff last month.
********************
Given the choice, I wouldn't want M to have gestational diabetes, and, in fact, given the chance, I would make it go as far away from her as possible. But I have neither that choice nor that chance, so you just gotta find the silver lining where it can be found. The silver lining here is that as of now, any temptation to "be bad" and eat something unhealthy for dinner is gone. She has a very strict diet, and I'm along for the ride. We've cooked our own dinner more frequently lately than we ever had. The result: every night, when I weigh myself, I'm a little lighter. Between this and getting sick, I'm about 10 pounds lighter than I was at the end of last year (I'm assuming that any weight lost from getting sick would have been gained back by now if it was going to come back.) Once we start exercising, which will be very soon, that should only get better.
Kinda sucks that it took a condition like this to whip us into shape, though.
********************
In another year, under different circumstances, I would cheer for the Bears in the Superbowl. I really don't see that happening after they denied New Orleans a much needed Superbowl appearance, however. Sorry, I know most of my readers here are Bears fans, but I don't expect to be with you this time. Of course, I wasn't planning on cheering for the Colts tonight, after they beat the Ravens, but I ended up cheering for them anyway. Peyton Manning has ties to New Orleans, y'see, and besides, he's due. I'm pretty tired of the Patriots always winning these things too.
The only drawback to the Colts winning - having to hear someone say, "Mr. Irsay, here is your AFC trophy." "Irsay" is a dirty word in this town, even though the specific Irsay we hate is, in fact, dead now.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Friday, January 19, 2007
An All-Baby 2K7 Post
(This is my 100th post if you don't count the "I just started this Blogger account so I could post a comment on someone else's blog" post from July 2005.)
Here's what's happening in the world of Baby 2K7
********************
I felt and saw the baby kick Tuesday night. There was no mistaking it this time. I had my head on M's tummy and, and I got kicked pretty hard. Then I looked up and saw her tummy jump. It was quite impressive. Most of the time, I feel a little tremble, if that. A certain little somebody apparently had something to say the other night!
********************
M has developed gestational diabetes. Luckily, it will go away when the baby is born, and while there's an increased risk of both of them getting Type 2 diabetes later in life, neither of them are in any particular danger. That's what the websites say. But it's noteworthy that the diabetes consultant that M was sent to had her starting the low-carb diet and 4-times-a-day blood testing immediately without delay.
M has a little blood glucose reader, and she has to prick her finger at set times around meals. Each meal has to include specific portions of protein, fat and carbs, and the numbers for breakfast have to be met at breakfast and the snack numbers have to be met at the specific snacktime, etc. - you can't defer a protein or a fat to another part of the day. Quite the pain. My poor Sweetie.
On top of all that, the diet is apparently not doing the job, since her glucose numbers are still high, so she just got prescribed medication that she has to take with her meals. At least she only has to deal with most of this for another 3 months.
I say "most of this" because M and I have decided this is a wake-up call for both of us to start getting healthier. So the diet will probably continue, albeit not as strictly, after the baby is born. I, of course, can start doing the less strict diet right away, and I have.
********************
We're taking a bunch of classes at the hospital, and we went to our first one last night - Infant and Child CPR. The name of the class also mentioned safety, but there were very few safety tips. It was pretty much all CPR and Heimlich for infants, children and adults, though the part about adults was covered only briefly. It was my first ever CPR class, but the teacher said my technique looked very good on the first try, so that was encouraging. I just need to remind myself of the procedures from time to time and hope that I don't panic when and if the need for the skills presents itself.
They had snacks at the class, which, of course, M couldn't have any of. I grabbed a couple of cookies on our way out, but I felt bad afterwards because M could tell that they were, in fact, awesome cookies, just from the smell wafting from the driver's side of the car to her passenger side.
Here's what's happening in the world of Baby 2K7
********************
I felt and saw the baby kick Tuesday night. There was no mistaking it this time. I had my head on M's tummy and, and I got kicked pretty hard. Then I looked up and saw her tummy jump. It was quite impressive. Most of the time, I feel a little tremble, if that. A certain little somebody apparently had something to say the other night!
********************
M has developed gestational diabetes. Luckily, it will go away when the baby is born, and while there's an increased risk of both of them getting Type 2 diabetes later in life, neither of them are in any particular danger. That's what the websites say. But it's noteworthy that the diabetes consultant that M was sent to had her starting the low-carb diet and 4-times-a-day blood testing immediately without delay.
M has a little blood glucose reader, and she has to prick her finger at set times around meals. Each meal has to include specific portions of protein, fat and carbs, and the numbers for breakfast have to be met at breakfast and the snack numbers have to be met at the specific snacktime, etc. - you can't defer a protein or a fat to another part of the day. Quite the pain. My poor Sweetie.
On top of all that, the diet is apparently not doing the job, since her glucose numbers are still high, so she just got prescribed medication that she has to take with her meals. At least she only has to deal with most of this for another 3 months.
I say "most of this" because M and I have decided this is a wake-up call for both of us to start getting healthier. So the diet will probably continue, albeit not as strictly, after the baby is born. I, of course, can start doing the less strict diet right away, and I have.
********************
We're taking a bunch of classes at the hospital, and we went to our first one last night - Infant and Child CPR. The name of the class also mentioned safety, but there were very few safety tips. It was pretty much all CPR and Heimlich for infants, children and adults, though the part about adults was covered only briefly. It was my first ever CPR class, but the teacher said my technique looked very good on the first try, so that was encouraging. I just need to remind myself of the procedures from time to time and hope that I don't panic when and if the need for the skills presents itself.
They had snacks at the class, which, of course, M couldn't have any of. I grabbed a couple of cookies on our way out, but I felt bad afterwards because M could tell that they were, in fact, awesome cookies, just from the smell wafting from the driver's side of the car to her passenger side.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
2006 Movies: The Best and The Worst
Update: I didn't realize it at the time, but this was my 100th post!
As I alluded to in a previous post, I've decided to do the retrospective differently this year. Instead of listing every single movie and writing a well-thought-out mini-review for each of them, I'm just going to address some standouts (you may call them awards, if you like) and then just throw out the complete list at the bottom for those who are interested. I'll probably add a comment to most of the movies on that list, but I'm not requiring myself to do so.
Mind you, as I did last year, I'm only including movies that I actually saw in a movie theater between 1/1/06 and 12/31/06.
Alrighty then, let's get the negative stuff out of the way first.
WORST MOVIE OF 2006
WINNER (or LOSER): Failure To Launch - Easy choice. So very easy. Romantic comedies are, for me, only mildly interesting, and the seemingly necessary need to put in some conflict, usually in the form of a misunderstanding or a bonehead move on the part of one of the parties, usually doesn't sit all that well with me. But I tolerate them and move on. Sometimes I even enjoy them (The Break Up springs to mind, but there are better ones too.)
Failure to Launch took it further, however, by having some of the most reprehensible characters ever to foul a movie screen. I'm talking, of course, of the parents and the soulless harpy that they hire to emotionally manipulate their son into leaving home because they completely lack the cajones to, oh I don't know, actually have a talk with him about their issues with his sponging off them.
Seriously, the mom does his laundry, cleans his room, cooks him his meals, and never says a word to him about it. But when mom and dad decide that enough's enough, do they go to their son and say "Son, maybe it's time you started pulling your own weight around here, or, even better, got your own place again"?
Why, as a matter of fact, they don't. They hire a woman who apparently has made an actual professional career of dating grown men who live with their parents (the syndrome is called "Failure to Launch", which would make for a snappy movie title, don't'cha think?), get them into a meaningful relationship that, for some reason, will, by itself, make them want to move out of their parents house, and then she dumps them and moves on once they've gotten their own place. Nice lady. I wonder if she strangles their dog on the way out the door too, just to put some punctuation on the abrupt end to their supposedly meaningful relationship.
Now, even if our hero (such as he is - he does use his living arrangement to scare off the ladies when they get too close, so he's not exactly a saint either) had been living with his parents non-stop for all of his 30-some years, that would be bad enough. But (I'm getting into spoilers now - I hope you forgive me) he has lived on his own before. He had a serious relationship with a woman before (he might have been married - I don't remember - but I don't think so.) And the girlfriend/wife died. So now he's being manipulated into finally loving someone again. Loving someone who's only with him because she's paid to do so and who has every intention of throwing him away as soon as her mission is done. You can't blame her for not knowing that part, since neither parent bothered to mention that little nugget of info. But the parents know his past, know why he moved back home, know why he's acting like a big teenager, and yet show no sensitivity to that whatsoever. Instead they passive-aggressively trick him into leaving home. And spend part of his inheritance on the project.
Of course, this time the mean lady falls in love with her clients' unwanted growth, and when our hero finds out the truth and sends her on her way, she's so sad. Boo-hoo-hoo. It's a relationship founded on a pretty gorram lowdown lie. It was doomed to fail anyway. Consider it a lesson learned and try to do better by the next guy that you go out with.
But that wouldn't work in a romantic comedy, especially not one with wacky friends who think that the best way to get people to fall back in love is to lock them in a room and force them to talk it out while the friends (and everyone else in the coffeehouse) watch it all happen on webcam. How wacky! Of course it works, making the ending not as good as the ideal ending wherein our hero would tell her that she is a truly horrible person and then take an axe to the door (after repressing the urge to use it on her first, of course) and leave the premises. Roll credits.
M has asked me to note that she liked the movie and thinks that I took it too seriously.
RUNNER-UP: C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America - Lots of potential, mediocre delivery. It came across too much like something you might see on The History Channel or PBS or whatever channel does those "what if there had been TV news in the 14th century?" shows. The writing and the acting seemed a little too forced.
Delivery aside, however, it did make me think about how different - and how similar - actual U.S. History has been. In some ways, it wasn't so much "what would have happened if the South won the Civil War" as it was "what if race attitudes hadn't changed since the early 20th century?" That's especially apparent in the "commericials" that are interspersed throughout the "documentary".
If only it had played more like an actual documentary. I mean, come on, have any of you seen a documentary that illustrates a historical battle with a scene from a movie based on that battle? It's like illustrating the World War I battle in Gallipoli with a scene from the Mel Gibson movie about that battle. That's what they do when they get to the part where the CSA invades South America. This movie could have been much more than it was.
********************
BEST MOVIE OF 2006
Happily, this was a close enough race to include two runners-up. These are the movies that, when I look back on them, I say to myself "Oh yeah, that was a good one!"
THIRD PLACE: Cars - I'm not much of a NASCAR fan in real life, but I love it when it has Pixar cars! A lot of people found it difficult to accept a world populated by cars acting like people and doing people things, and that took away from their enjoyment of the movie. I had no such problem. It had a great opening (with one of Sheryl Crow's best songs in recent years), great animation, it took the story in a better-than-expected (for me - your results may vary) direction, and had a great climax. Plus, NPR's Car Talk guys had a cameo!
RUNNER-UP (co-winner, really): Casino Royale - I'm not a huge follower of Bond movies. Until this one, the most recent one I'd seen was View To A Kill. That, For Your Eyes Only, and the first three Connery movies were the extent of my Bond experience. So saying that this was the best Bond movie I've seen (well, maybe second to From Russia With Love) probably doesn't hold the same weight it would if I had seen all 20 of its predecessors. It's true nonetheless.
Daniel Craig might not fit the Bond mold in the looks department, but man-o-man he's cool to watch. The action scenes are great without getting silly (I hear the Brosnan movies got pretty silly at times). The opening chase scene blew me away completely. How did that guy Bond was chasing move like that? That's worth a re-watch all by itself! Most of the action is just as good, but that opening (post-credits, though the pre-credits scene was no slouch either) was the best chase scene I've ever seen, bar none.
The movie does drag out a bit at the end, though I imagine it won't be as bad on a second viewing, now that I know how ahead of time how much more there is and where it's all going.
WINNER: Little Miss Sunshine - This gets the edge over Casino Royale because I was in the audience at its only showing (other than Sundance) before it hit general theaters a few months later. Thus, I feel like I'm part of its exclusive club. But it's a great movie even without that extra attachment. It's heartwarming without getting sappy. There are characters that are quirky but still realistic. Abigail Breslin does a great job without being anything more than the regular kid that she is (let's see Dakota Fanning pull that one off.) Steve Carrel gives such a great serious performance that I totally forgot that up until now I had only seen him being goofy on The Daily Show and in his supporting movie roles. Actually, he played it kinda straight in 40-Year-Old Virgin, so there's that.
And it's funny as hell at times. The thing with the VW bus is great. The beauty pageant at the end was hilarious. Alan Arkin goes off on some funny rants. Great fun for all! Except kids - they don't need to be hearing some of that stuff.
********************
And now, for the sake of completeness, here is the list of every movie I saw in 2006, ranked more or less from worst to best. I should mention that, with the exception of Failure to Launch, I liked every movie on this list to some degree. So it's really ranked from OK to OMG after that first one. Comments appear wherever I found a comment easy or necessary enough to come up with.
Failure to Launch
C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America
Hollywoodland - The George Reeves stuff was interesting, but I didn't get into the detective's story.
Stomp! Shout! Scream! - An independent movie making the festival rounds. I talked about it a little in my post about the Maryland Film Festival. The only thing I would add to the previous commentary is that the songs were catchy.
The Break Up - Amusing, and it didn't end formulaicly, which I appreciated.
The Eagle - The silent movie I saw at the Maryland Film Festival. It was fine, but I liked the silent movie they had had the previous year (the silent version of Hitchcock's Blackmail.)
Brokeback Mountain - Nice scenery, to be sure. Otherwise, the downtroddenness of their career paths depressed me, and I just couldn't relate to the love story. I don't doubt that it was due partly to the fact that it was about two guys, but I think it was also because I just can't relate to stories about not being allowed to love the person you love. Because I'm totally allowed to love the person I love, I don't know what it would be like to have a forbidden love, and thus, the inability to relate and get into the movie. The man-on-man stuff didn't really bother me, which, honestly, surprised me a little.
X3: Last Stand - It impressed me at first with all the flash, but afterwards the bad plot decisions sank in, and I soured on it a little.
Clerks II - A definite improvement over the first Clerks. The returning actors have learned how to actually, you know, act since then. The Star Wars vs. Lord of The Rings discussion was great, right up there with the first movie's "Contractors on The Death Star" discussion. It's probably Kevin Smith's best movie, in my book. Of course, Kevin Smith movies aren't exactly Casablanca.
My Super Ex-Girlfriend - It was a superhero movie, which I have a weakness for. Otherwise, I imagine this would have been ranked lower.
The Devil Wears Prada
Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby
The Illusionist
The DaVinci Code - Less adversarial than the book (in most ways - in some ways it was more so), and a bit less intricate too.
An Inconvenient Truth - This was one hell of an eye-opener. Were it not for the alternative, I'd almost say it was a good thing that Al Gore lost the 2000 election, because it freed him up to do a lot more good this way.
The Prestige
Pirates of The Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest - For some reason, I don't like this one as much as the first one, but it was still fun to watch.
Superman Returns - Back when I still had a Biggest Disappointment category in this post, this was the winner. But that was due almost entirely to the hype I had built up in my head for it beforehand. Any new Superman movie would have failed to meet my expectations, even one with an interesting threat and an actual Lois Lane.
The Mad Magician - Despite being a 1950's movie, it qualifies for this list by virtue of my seeing it for the first time this year in a theater.
Night At The Museum - Certainly not the most tightly plotted movie, but it was very fun.
The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang - I've said it before and I'll say it again: How is it that Napolean Dynamite got a chance but this movie can't get one?
Good Night And Good Luck - This was my favorite to win Best Picture. I got chills when Murrow made his big speech. It sounded like the sort of thing that a lot of people could stand to hear these days too.
V For Vendetta - I made a point not to read the graphic novel until I saw the movie, which is good because the two are different in many ways. I'm sure I would have liked the movie even if I had read the book first, but as it was, I had one fewer distraction (in that sense, I kinda dread a Watchmen movie, should one ever get made.) I was actually surprised that some shots that were framed in the movie to look like they were based on an image from a graphic novel were, in fact, nowhere to be found in the book. Anyway, I liked the movie a lot.
Cars
Casino Royale
Little Miss Sunshine
Full Metal Jacket - What's this, you ask? I seem to be ranking another movie ahead of Little Miss Sunshine, which I just named the Best Movie winner. Full Metal Jacket, while the better movie, doesn't count because I've seen it many times before. But until this year, I had never seen it in a theater, and so I'm giving it some attention here. Actually, it was almost like seeing it for the first time when I saw it on a huge screen.
********************
And that's that for my 2006 movie list. Sorry it took so long.
As I alluded to in a previous post, I've decided to do the retrospective differently this year. Instead of listing every single movie and writing a well-thought-out mini-review for each of them, I'm just going to address some standouts (you may call them awards, if you like) and then just throw out the complete list at the bottom for those who are interested. I'll probably add a comment to most of the movies on that list, but I'm not requiring myself to do so.
Mind you, as I did last year, I'm only including movies that I actually saw in a movie theater between 1/1/06 and 12/31/06.
Alrighty then, let's get the negative stuff out of the way first.
WORST MOVIE OF 2006
WINNER (or LOSER): Failure To Launch - Easy choice. So very easy. Romantic comedies are, for me, only mildly interesting, and the seemingly necessary need to put in some conflict, usually in the form of a misunderstanding or a bonehead move on the part of one of the parties, usually doesn't sit all that well with me. But I tolerate them and move on. Sometimes I even enjoy them (The Break Up springs to mind, but there are better ones too.)
Failure to Launch took it further, however, by having some of the most reprehensible characters ever to foul a movie screen. I'm talking, of course, of the parents and the soulless harpy that they hire to emotionally manipulate their son into leaving home because they completely lack the cajones to, oh I don't know, actually have a talk with him about their issues with his sponging off them.
Seriously, the mom does his laundry, cleans his room, cooks him his meals, and never says a word to him about it. But when mom and dad decide that enough's enough, do they go to their son and say "Son, maybe it's time you started pulling your own weight around here, or, even better, got your own place again"?
Why, as a matter of fact, they don't. They hire a woman who apparently has made an actual professional career of dating grown men who live with their parents (the syndrome is called "Failure to Launch", which would make for a snappy movie title, don't'cha think?), get them into a meaningful relationship that, for some reason, will, by itself, make them want to move out of their parents house, and then she dumps them and moves on once they've gotten their own place. Nice lady. I wonder if she strangles their dog on the way out the door too, just to put some punctuation on the abrupt end to their supposedly meaningful relationship.
Now, even if our hero (such as he is - he does use his living arrangement to scare off the ladies when they get too close, so he's not exactly a saint either) had been living with his parents non-stop for all of his 30-some years, that would be bad enough. But (I'm getting into spoilers now - I hope you forgive me) he has lived on his own before. He had a serious relationship with a woman before (he might have been married - I don't remember - but I don't think so.) And the girlfriend/wife died. So now he's being manipulated into finally loving someone again. Loving someone who's only with him because she's paid to do so and who has every intention of throwing him away as soon as her mission is done. You can't blame her for not knowing that part, since neither parent bothered to mention that little nugget of info. But the parents know his past, know why he moved back home, know why he's acting like a big teenager, and yet show no sensitivity to that whatsoever. Instead they passive-aggressively trick him into leaving home. And spend part of his inheritance on the project.
Of course, this time the mean lady falls in love with her clients' unwanted growth, and when our hero finds out the truth and sends her on her way, she's so sad. Boo-hoo-hoo. It's a relationship founded on a pretty gorram lowdown lie. It was doomed to fail anyway. Consider it a lesson learned and try to do better by the next guy that you go out with.
But that wouldn't work in a romantic comedy, especially not one with wacky friends who think that the best way to get people to fall back in love is to lock them in a room and force them to talk it out while the friends (and everyone else in the coffeehouse) watch it all happen on webcam. How wacky! Of course it works, making the ending not as good as the ideal ending wherein our hero would tell her that she is a truly horrible person and then take an axe to the door (after repressing the urge to use it on her first, of course) and leave the premises. Roll credits.
M has asked me to note that she liked the movie and thinks that I took it too seriously.
RUNNER-UP: C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America - Lots of potential, mediocre delivery. It came across too much like something you might see on The History Channel or PBS or whatever channel does those "what if there had been TV news in the 14th century?" shows. The writing and the acting seemed a little too forced.
Delivery aside, however, it did make me think about how different - and how similar - actual U.S. History has been. In some ways, it wasn't so much "what would have happened if the South won the Civil War" as it was "what if race attitudes hadn't changed since the early 20th century?" That's especially apparent in the "commericials" that are interspersed throughout the "documentary".
If only it had played more like an actual documentary. I mean, come on, have any of you seen a documentary that illustrates a historical battle with a scene from a movie based on that battle? It's like illustrating the World War I battle in Gallipoli with a scene from the Mel Gibson movie about that battle. That's what they do when they get to the part where the CSA invades South America. This movie could have been much more than it was.
********************
BEST MOVIE OF 2006
Happily, this was a close enough race to include two runners-up. These are the movies that, when I look back on them, I say to myself "Oh yeah, that was a good one!"
THIRD PLACE: Cars - I'm not much of a NASCAR fan in real life, but I love it when it has Pixar cars! A lot of people found it difficult to accept a world populated by cars acting like people and doing people things, and that took away from their enjoyment of the movie. I had no such problem. It had a great opening (with one of Sheryl Crow's best songs in recent years), great animation, it took the story in a better-than-expected (for me - your results may vary) direction, and had a great climax. Plus, NPR's Car Talk guys had a cameo!
RUNNER-UP (co-winner, really): Casino Royale - I'm not a huge follower of Bond movies. Until this one, the most recent one I'd seen was View To A Kill. That, For Your Eyes Only, and the first three Connery movies were the extent of my Bond experience. So saying that this was the best Bond movie I've seen (well, maybe second to From Russia With Love) probably doesn't hold the same weight it would if I had seen all 20 of its predecessors. It's true nonetheless.
Daniel Craig might not fit the Bond mold in the looks department, but man-o-man he's cool to watch. The action scenes are great without getting silly (I hear the Brosnan movies got pretty silly at times). The opening chase scene blew me away completely. How did that guy Bond was chasing move like that? That's worth a re-watch all by itself! Most of the action is just as good, but that opening (post-credits, though the pre-credits scene was no slouch either) was the best chase scene I've ever seen, bar none.
The movie does drag out a bit at the end, though I imagine it won't be as bad on a second viewing, now that I know how ahead of time how much more there is and where it's all going.
WINNER: Little Miss Sunshine - This gets the edge over Casino Royale because I was in the audience at its only showing (other than Sundance) before it hit general theaters a few months later. Thus, I feel like I'm part of its exclusive club. But it's a great movie even without that extra attachment. It's heartwarming without getting sappy. There are characters that are quirky but still realistic. Abigail Breslin does a great job without being anything more than the regular kid that she is (let's see Dakota Fanning pull that one off.) Steve Carrel gives such a great serious performance that I totally forgot that up until now I had only seen him being goofy on The Daily Show and in his supporting movie roles. Actually, he played it kinda straight in 40-Year-Old Virgin, so there's that.
And it's funny as hell at times. The thing with the VW bus is great. The beauty pageant at the end was hilarious. Alan Arkin goes off on some funny rants. Great fun for all! Except kids - they don't need to be hearing some of that stuff.
********************
And now, for the sake of completeness, here is the list of every movie I saw in 2006, ranked more or less from worst to best. I should mention that, with the exception of Failure to Launch, I liked every movie on this list to some degree. So it's really ranked from OK to OMG after that first one. Comments appear wherever I found a comment easy or necessary enough to come up with.
Failure to Launch
C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America
Hollywoodland - The George Reeves stuff was interesting, but I didn't get into the detective's story.
Stomp! Shout! Scream! - An independent movie making the festival rounds. I talked about it a little in my post about the Maryland Film Festival. The only thing I would add to the previous commentary is that the songs were catchy.
The Break Up - Amusing, and it didn't end formulaicly, which I appreciated.
The Eagle - The silent movie I saw at the Maryland Film Festival. It was fine, but I liked the silent movie they had had the previous year (the silent version of Hitchcock's Blackmail.)
Brokeback Mountain - Nice scenery, to be sure. Otherwise, the downtroddenness of their career paths depressed me, and I just couldn't relate to the love story. I don't doubt that it was due partly to the fact that it was about two guys, but I think it was also because I just can't relate to stories about not being allowed to love the person you love. Because I'm totally allowed to love the person I love, I don't know what it would be like to have a forbidden love, and thus, the inability to relate and get into the movie. The man-on-man stuff didn't really bother me, which, honestly, surprised me a little.
X3: Last Stand - It impressed me at first with all the flash, but afterwards the bad plot decisions sank in, and I soured on it a little.
Clerks II - A definite improvement over the first Clerks. The returning actors have learned how to actually, you know, act since then. The Star Wars vs. Lord of The Rings discussion was great, right up there with the first movie's "Contractors on The Death Star" discussion. It's probably Kevin Smith's best movie, in my book. Of course, Kevin Smith movies aren't exactly Casablanca.
My Super Ex-Girlfriend - It was a superhero movie, which I have a weakness for. Otherwise, I imagine this would have been ranked lower.
The Devil Wears Prada
Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby
The Illusionist
The DaVinci Code - Less adversarial than the book (in most ways - in some ways it was more so), and a bit less intricate too.
An Inconvenient Truth - This was one hell of an eye-opener. Were it not for the alternative, I'd almost say it was a good thing that Al Gore lost the 2000 election, because it freed him up to do a lot more good this way.
The Prestige
Pirates of The Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest - For some reason, I don't like this one as much as the first one, but it was still fun to watch.
Superman Returns - Back when I still had a Biggest Disappointment category in this post, this was the winner. But that was due almost entirely to the hype I had built up in my head for it beforehand. Any new Superman movie would have failed to meet my expectations, even one with an interesting threat and an actual Lois Lane.
The Mad Magician - Despite being a 1950's movie, it qualifies for this list by virtue of my seeing it for the first time this year in a theater.
Night At The Museum - Certainly not the most tightly plotted movie, but it was very fun.
The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang - I've said it before and I'll say it again: How is it that Napolean Dynamite got a chance but this movie can't get one?
Good Night And Good Luck - This was my favorite to win Best Picture. I got chills when Murrow made his big speech. It sounded like the sort of thing that a lot of people could stand to hear these days too.
V For Vendetta - I made a point not to read the graphic novel until I saw the movie, which is good because the two are different in many ways. I'm sure I would have liked the movie even if I had read the book first, but as it was, I had one fewer distraction (in that sense, I kinda dread a Watchmen movie, should one ever get made.) I was actually surprised that some shots that were framed in the movie to look like they were based on an image from a graphic novel were, in fact, nowhere to be found in the book. Anyway, I liked the movie a lot.
Cars
Casino Royale
Little Miss Sunshine
Full Metal Jacket - What's this, you ask? I seem to be ranking another movie ahead of Little Miss Sunshine, which I just named the Best Movie winner. Full Metal Jacket, while the better movie, doesn't count because I've seen it many times before. But until this year, I had never seen it in a theater, and so I'm giving it some attention here. Actually, it was almost like seeing it for the first time when I saw it on a huge screen.
********************
And that's that for my 2006 movie list. Sorry it took so long.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
I Jinxed Myself
In my last post, I noted that my recent illnesses were not the type that would affect my ability to think (and thus, write), the way a cold would affect such an ability.
Of course, I have had a pretty bad cold for the past few days.
The only thing that upsets me more is that gorram Ravens-Colts game. I don't wanna talk about that.
M is a New Orleans loyalist, so she was cheering on New Orleans native Peyton Manning. And yet we manage to maintain a peaceul household.
Of course, I have had a pretty bad cold for the past few days.
The only thing that upsets me more is that gorram Ravens-Colts game. I don't wanna talk about that.
M is a New Orleans loyalist, so she was cheering on New Orleans native Peyton Manning. And yet we manage to maintain a peaceul household.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Excuses Excuses
A week into the year and I have yet to post. Good thing it isn't PoMoOftMo anymore.
Here are a few excuses for my absence. You may pick whatever one(s) work for ya. Some of them are true, others not so much.
* Every time I logged into Blogger, a large tiger came out of nowhere and took a swing at me. I don't really care for being swiped at by a tiger, so I held back on the posting for a while.
* I've been working on the 2006 Movie Retrospective, and it's been taking longer than I thought.
* I got sick and didn't really feel like doing much, even though it wasn't really the kind of illness that affects my ability to think (like a cold or a fuller version of the flu would be).
* I was called away to fight crime in Antarctica. I didn't find out that there isn't much crime in Antarctica until I actually got there.
* Sometimes I get into a funk (a malaise, if you will) that pretty much blocks creative thought.
* The dog that my boss brings into work keeps telling me that blogging is for losers.
* Between the Lois and Clark and Quantum Leap DVDs, there hasn't been much time for anything else.
* On my way back from Antarctica, I made a stop in southern Bolivia and led a revolution that ended up failing so miserably that it didn't even make the news.
* You can't post anything during the 12 Days of Christmas. Everybody knows that!
*********************
Between my last post and this one, I've been sick twice. I thought maybe it was food poisoning from a Chinese buffet I went to the night before New Year's Eve, but now I'm pretty sure that I picked up a stomach bug. Nothing too serious (aside from potential dehydration), but it did make my New Year's Eve and, to a lesser extent, New Years Day a bit miserable. The illness was kind enough to go away during the week before returning for an encore performance this past Friday. Happily, the encore was not as bad, and I'm pretty sure it's gone for good now.
*********************
M and I have quit the Y, as neither of us had gone since July or August. We figured it would be best to save some money (about $200 by the time Baby 2K7 arrives) rather than continue to fool ourselves that we'd go work out on a regular basis. Even on my new-found health kick, which came on the heels of my illness-related weight loss, I'd still rather work out at home with a 5 or 15 pound dumbbell and a pair of running shoes than go through the trouble of going to the gym, despite the gym's computer-calibrated weight and cardio machines.
*********************
Our New Year's Day was fairly quiet until the washing machine started shakin' and boogyin'. That, in and of itself, was no big deal. We were washing jeans, and the spin cycle had become unevenly balanced. Easy to fix. The big deal was the high water level I noticed in the adjacent washbin, where the washing machine dumped out. Having seen this sort of thing recently, I immediately checked the drain for blockages. Aside from some lint, the drain seemed perfectly open and ready to let water into the pipes. But it wasn't draining - not particularly fast, anyway. This had all the makings of an outside pipe blockage. The pool of water in the downstairs shower (and, as a result, the bathroom in which the shower resides) supported this theory.
Luckily, I caught the issue before the wash bin had spilled over (if it had been destined to reach that point - it's possible that the drain could handle the volume of water the washing machine was throwing at it), so all that got wet were a couple of bathmats in the downstairs bathroom, rather than the big, recently dried, carpet. Not so luckily, this drain issue chose New Year's Frickin' Day to happen. I called our landlady, and she called the plumber, who informed her that a visit that day would cost her much, much more than a visit on a regular day would be. So we ended up having to wait a whole day to get it all fixed. In the meantime, we had to take one-minute showers and use the bathroom (and only the upstairs bathroom) as little as possible. If this had happened a day earlier, that would have been a problem.
The outside pipe was fixed up the next morning, and there was no evidence that my recent illness was to blame for the blockage, so I had that going for me.
*********************
Throughout my graphics career, my big weak spot has been Illustrator. It's not exactly the most intuitive program. But for almost a month now (minus a week off for Christmas) we've been learning Illustrator in class, and I'm happy to say that I'm finally getting a handle on it. I am quickly becoming a full-featured graphic artist!
*********************
JACK-FM has surprised me yet again. The station that edits out rap and slightly objectionable lyrics from songs played Ozzy Osbourne the other night. Granted, it was around half past midnight at the time, and it wasn't exactly Black Sabbath era Ozzy, but it was still surprising.
*********************
So, about that movie retrospective. I've been approaching it the same way I did last year's retrospective - list every movie I saw in 2006 with a comment about each movie. That has proven to be very time-consuming, and it's probably too much for you, the reading pubic, to particularly care about anyway. So I'm just going to hand out some fake rewards in a few categories. I should have that done in the next couple of days. Whenever I get to it.
*********************
My previous post had the wrong date on it. It has the day I started it, not the day I finished it. By the time you read this, it will have been corrected.
Here are a few excuses for my absence. You may pick whatever one(s) work for ya. Some of them are true, others not so much.
* Every time I logged into Blogger, a large tiger came out of nowhere and took a swing at me. I don't really care for being swiped at by a tiger, so I held back on the posting for a while.
* I've been working on the 2006 Movie Retrospective, and it's been taking longer than I thought.
* I got sick and didn't really feel like doing much, even though it wasn't really the kind of illness that affects my ability to think (like a cold or a fuller version of the flu would be).
* I was called away to fight crime in Antarctica. I didn't find out that there isn't much crime in Antarctica until I actually got there.
* Sometimes I get into a funk (a malaise, if you will) that pretty much blocks creative thought.
* The dog that my boss brings into work keeps telling me that blogging is for losers.
* Between the Lois and Clark and Quantum Leap DVDs, there hasn't been much time for anything else.
* On my way back from Antarctica, I made a stop in southern Bolivia and led a revolution that ended up failing so miserably that it didn't even make the news.
* You can't post anything during the 12 Days of Christmas. Everybody knows that!
*********************
Between my last post and this one, I've been sick twice. I thought maybe it was food poisoning from a Chinese buffet I went to the night before New Year's Eve, but now I'm pretty sure that I picked up a stomach bug. Nothing too serious (aside from potential dehydration), but it did make my New Year's Eve and, to a lesser extent, New Years Day a bit miserable. The illness was kind enough to go away during the week before returning for an encore performance this past Friday. Happily, the encore was not as bad, and I'm pretty sure it's gone for good now.
*********************
M and I have quit the Y, as neither of us had gone since July or August. We figured it would be best to save some money (about $200 by the time Baby 2K7 arrives) rather than continue to fool ourselves that we'd go work out on a regular basis. Even on my new-found health kick, which came on the heels of my illness-related weight loss, I'd still rather work out at home with a 5 or 15 pound dumbbell and a pair of running shoes than go through the trouble of going to the gym, despite the gym's computer-calibrated weight and cardio machines.
*********************
Our New Year's Day was fairly quiet until the washing machine started shakin' and boogyin'. That, in and of itself, was no big deal. We were washing jeans, and the spin cycle had become unevenly balanced. Easy to fix. The big deal was the high water level I noticed in the adjacent washbin, where the washing machine dumped out. Having seen this sort of thing recently, I immediately checked the drain for blockages. Aside from some lint, the drain seemed perfectly open and ready to let water into the pipes. But it wasn't draining - not particularly fast, anyway. This had all the makings of an outside pipe blockage. The pool of water in the downstairs shower (and, as a result, the bathroom in which the shower resides) supported this theory.
Luckily, I caught the issue before the wash bin had spilled over (if it had been destined to reach that point - it's possible that the drain could handle the volume of water the washing machine was throwing at it), so all that got wet were a couple of bathmats in the downstairs bathroom, rather than the big, recently dried, carpet. Not so luckily, this drain issue chose New Year's Frickin' Day to happen. I called our landlady, and she called the plumber, who informed her that a visit that day would cost her much, much more than a visit on a regular day would be. So we ended up having to wait a whole day to get it all fixed. In the meantime, we had to take one-minute showers and use the bathroom (and only the upstairs bathroom) as little as possible. If this had happened a day earlier, that would have been a problem.
The outside pipe was fixed up the next morning, and there was no evidence that my recent illness was to blame for the blockage, so I had that going for me.
*********************
Throughout my graphics career, my big weak spot has been Illustrator. It's not exactly the most intuitive program. But for almost a month now (minus a week off for Christmas) we've been learning Illustrator in class, and I'm happy to say that I'm finally getting a handle on it. I am quickly becoming a full-featured graphic artist!
*********************
JACK-FM has surprised me yet again. The station that edits out rap and slightly objectionable lyrics from songs played Ozzy Osbourne the other night. Granted, it was around half past midnight at the time, and it wasn't exactly Black Sabbath era Ozzy, but it was still surprising.
*********************
So, about that movie retrospective. I've been approaching it the same way I did last year's retrospective - list every movie I saw in 2006 with a comment about each movie. That has proven to be very time-consuming, and it's probably too much for you, the reading pubic, to particularly care about anyway. So I'm just going to hand out some fake rewards in a few categories. I should have that done in the next couple of days. Whenever I get to it.
*********************
My previous post had the wrong date on it. It has the day I started it, not the day I finished it. By the time you read this, it will have been corrected.
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