November 2006 Archives

I tried to watch Showtime's Masters of Horror last year, but got entirely too distracted. I think the only one I managed to watch was the first one, "Incident on and off a Mountain Road". That was pretty decent. Oh, I did see Joe Dante's "Homecoming", which I found kinda cheeseball and just reeking of "I'm making a statement!". I enjoy zombies, but I'm going to have to draw the line at voting zombies. Zombie suffrage. (Side note- the Wilhelm scream was featured in that one..from a zombie...) I've added Dario Argento's "Jenifer" and Takashi Miike's "Imprint" to my Netflix queue, but that sums it up for my interest in Season 1.

This season, I've been a little more diligent about watching all the episodes so far. Unfortunately, none of them are very good thus far:

-"The Damned Thing" - Tobe Hooper : I have no idea what was going on. One moment, I'm feeling bad for Sean Patrick Flannery, and the next I'm wondering why the hell he just went nuts.

-"Family"- John Landis: So far, the most entertaining one of the bunch. I call it the "Norm" episode.

-"The V Word"- Ernest Dickerson: Um. The dude directed Demon Night staring Billy Zane, and that makes him a master of horror? Actually, this wasn't bad, per se. It just seemed to go on and on. And it wasn't scary after a while.

-"Sounds Like"- Brad Anderson: WTF. Times two. (This is the same guy that directed Session 9 which, if I remember correctly, was also a whole wtf Xs 2 experience.)

-"Pro-Life"- John Carpenter: Hmm...Turns out, if you mate with a demon, your baby with have crab legs. And then there was the "let's perform an abortion on the dude" scene. Believe me, it was as disgusting as it sounds.

Mediocre so far, but I'm looking forward to tomorrow's episode, "Pelts". There may be some hope yet.

In order to help save money, China Southern airline is asking that passengers drain the weasel prior to boarding

This made me remember the good ol' portable urinal I used to see in those miscellaneous catalogs as a kid. I was always fascinated by the concept. Having siblings and going on the whole family vacations thing, I couldn't understand why the hell anyone would want to relieve their bladders while amongst family members. What part of the country has ridiculously long stretches of road deeming pulling over for a bathroom break impossible AND lacks bushes?

Maybe a traffic jam. I could see a portable urinal being useful in one of those really bad multiple hour long traffic jams.

It came to my attention this evening (i.e., Scooooot was kind enough to mention) that one of my email addresses had a fucked up reply-to address. And by fucked up, I mean it was going to a domain I haven't owned in about 4 years.

What's really bad is that it happened sometime on June 25th, @ 12:35pm and I just now noticed. This explains so much. Except for how the hell it happened in the first place.

The 25th was a Sunday, so I'm not completely ruling out that I may have been drinking at the time.
And somehow, in the minute between normal setup and fucked up set up, I managed to go into my options and change the address to something I would never be able to check. Yeah, that sounds about right.

I can see you...

To hell with it. I don't have the attention span to write a decent review with more than two sentences tonight. So I'll just compress the rest.

Thank You For Smoking Perhaps the last Katie Holmes movie ever?

Unbreakable Yeah, I know, I'm delayed. And I honestly knew barely anything about this movie. So when the intro about comic books came up, I had a "Is this the right movie? What the hell?" freak out. It is the right movie.

Winter Passing I dig Zooey Deschanel. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what the hell was going on in this movie.

The Chumscrubber Before doing this film, Justin Chatwin was in SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2 with Jon Voight and Scott Baio. Just a tidbit.

Art School Confidential I didn't go to art school, but I imagine this is what it would be like if I did.

I've liked Josh Hartnett more overall since he decided to fix his hair.

Anyway, the setup is a basic mistaken personality but mistaken by two crime bosses, which is a suck situation if you think about it. Boss A wants him to do a job against Boss B, who also recruits him for a job. Plus, your basic twists and turns along the way.

It was enjoyable, but I did get confused at first when I tried to multi task while watching it. The cast was excellent- Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Gandhi, Stanley Tucci....

I loved Ben Kingsley as Gandhi. So much so that I refuse to acknowledge him as anything but. I gotta tell you, Gandhi is a bit of a hard ass in this movie. What the hell.

IMDB link To use imdb's summary,

"A teenage loner pushes his way into the underworld of a high school crime ring to investigate the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend."

What I enjoyed most about this film was that it was a very "grownup" story in a teenage setting. Yet it manages to still feel very adult. It's part detective, part gangster, part thriller, and part drama all wrapped up in a very solid package. And it was definitely one of those movies you have to pay close attention to. I almost wish I would have watched it a second time before returning it.I have to admit, I was a bit surprised seeing Joseph Gordon-Levitt being able to pull off a role that was so crucial to the film's structure. I didn't think he was a bad actor before, I was just to surprised to see that he was that good.It was also good to see Lukas Haas again, who I haven't actually seen in anything since Mars Attacks! (he's been in stuff, I just haven't seen any of it.)

Definitely an owner.

A haiku to express my feelings.

Ahem...

dear loser fuck face-
i think you should fuck your mom.
she just might like it.

I was feeling bad earlier today and considered going home for a bit. But then I thought "Well shit. I can't go home. There's a bomb over there."

Yeah, it's one of those days.

Well, I managed to get most of my old movie reviews up, in their respective dates. That was a tedious task. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I did it for the most part so that I could remember whether or not I liked a movie. I have a horrible memory. I blame the propranolol that I used to take for headaches. It's quite obvious that it can't discern which memories to block. Yeah. That's a good excuse.
One thing I did notice about these old posts...I can't spell for shit. Thank god Firefox 2.0 has the built in spell checker, cause my internal one doesn't work.
I also noticed that I like the 3 banana rating a lot.

Poltergeist up next on the remake list

Total shit biscuits, that's what it is! Fuck a bunch of that shit.

Funny enough, I actually found an article dated last year saying Hilary Duff was going to play Carol Anne in a new Poltergeist movie. And Craig T. Nelson was reprising his role. I'm glad that appears to be fake, but it was worth a giggle.

Truce called in that whole peace wreath fiasco

The association apologized and withdrew the request for her to remove the wreath, as well as the threat of a fine.

...
You know, I don't think my dry sense of humor is really evident in that title. I don't want anyone to think I'm sappy or some shit.

Alright, I admit it. I watched again. I couldn't help it. The promo reeled me in.

Two things about this episode.

First, at the end with the dad getting all emotional....holy shit, I must have replayed that scene ten times. I could not stop laughing. Overall, this was a pretty soaked episode in terms of useless crying. But that end. Wooo. Wish I could find a clip of it. Nothing says entertainment like a grown man getting himself into that high pitched squeak sob.

Second- One of the families were the "hands off" type (i.e., kids? what kids?). Thus, they didn't seem to mind who their daughters were hanging out with. Enter the "hands on" mom into this environment. She asks the 15-year-old daughter's friend how old he is. He was 21. Veintiuno. My mouth just dropped. There's so many things wrong with this. Aside from the creepy and the obvious perv factor, there's a definite loser factor. What 21 year old has nothing better to do with his time than hang out with 15 year olds? Shouldn't he be at work or college? You know, with other young adults? Hell, I would have found that creepy even as a 15 yr old. (On a side note, when I used to do theatre in high school, we had some guys who were college students who became somewhat regulars in the musicals/plays. Sure, they were nice guys, but I couldn't help but wondering what the fuck they were doing trying out for high school plays. Did they not have anything else to do? It was just weird. And sad.)

I gotta say, if someone significantly older (who is not a blood relative) even thinks about hanging out with my kids when they're that young...well...first I will kick them in the shins for being a loser. Then I think I would have to kick them harder, perhaps in the nuts/twat.

Yeah. Wife Swap, getting all the issues in the air. *sob*

In other news, the Charlie Brown Christmas Special is airing tomorrow. HELL YEAHS!

Today was one of those days.

I had never wanted to bitch slap so many people in my life.

You know how you're in a situation (not necessarily bad, yet noticeable), and everyone + their mom finds some way to make the same goddamn Captain Obvious comment, yet each one thinks they're being funny or witty or cute or charming or whatever. Except they're not.

I swear to fuck, after hearing the same comment for the 10th time today, I was ready to man someone with my hand.

More things to warm my heart this season.
Lisa Jensen decided to hang up her wreath this year. Her wreath happens to be in the shape of that widely known peace symbol. You know, peace. That GOOD thing. We like peace, right?
Apparently not. Her home owners association, run by a Bob Kearns, has told her to remove the wreath or face a $25 a day fine . Why? Because apparently we don't want peace when the boys are away at war. We want WAR. And supporting the troops! Because peace would mean no war for the troops to go away to! And then how the hell could we support them? GODDAMMIT, WE NEED OUR YELLOW RIBBONS!
At least, this is what I imagine is going on through Bob Kearns' head. Cause you apparently can't support the troops and be pro peace. And you can't wish for peace without making an Iraq statement. Despite the fact that this whole peace concept wasn't suddenly invented in the past few years.
Oh, and some people allegedly think the peace symbol is satanic. Not sure what that is about.
Whatever. I just hope Lisa Jensen tells them all where to stick it. It's not like she's got a whole "Bush is an ass" sign or "WMD are for fools!" sign hanging around. It's a freaking wreath. If she had a "Peace on Earth" banner hanging out, would they make her take that down too? Talk about overreacting.
If I had a spare $25, I'd send it to her to cover the cost of one more day.

I wrote this several years ago for USA Today's haiku contest.
Needless to say, I did not win.

Poodle: Purebred shit

See its funny ass

Well, I had a pretty uneventful Thanksgiving, which means no fires. Now I get to enjoy the long weekend in peace.
I made the mistake one year to actually try to shop on "Black Friday". Poor naive me had no idea that people were crazy and greedy and just overall bastards when it came to Christmas shopping for good deals. After that experience, I decided there was nothing worth going through all that for.

MSNBC.com had an article this morning on the shoppers (no surprise there. They have the same damn story every year.)
This particular bunch of paragraphs just made me all warm and fuzzy inside:

Even those who arrived early Friday and waited in line for the doors to open at 5 a.m. were not guaranteed success. Brian Clark, 27, of Bristol left empty-handed after the televisions and computers he’d eyed as Christmas gifts were snatched by earlier shoppers.

Alarmed by a recent shooting of a customer waiting outside a Connecticut Wal-Mart store for Sony’s PlayStation 3, which are almost impossible to find, Clark had tucked his Glock pistol in a holster under his jacket and put extra ammunition in his pocket before heading out early Friday.

*sigh* Nothing says "Tis the season" like a Glock.

It's officially Thanksgiving. Almost 2 AM, actually. I have an overwhelming amount of work to get done to make sure the place is both ready for company and ready for turkey.
To stay focused and calm, I've revisited the incident that occurred last Thanksgiving:

It would be unheard of for Thanksgiving to have gone by smoothly. I planned the meal for 2pm. Around that time, the smoke alarm began to go off. I noticed smoke was quickly filling up the apartment. I knew it wasn't the turkey as I had removed it about 30 mins ago. But I went to the oven which I figured could be the only culprit. Upon opening the door, I saw a rather large fire had started inside the oven, thanks to the drippings that had accumulated by the heating element. My immediate reaction was to think "Hmmmm" and close the oven door. I sat there for a few seconds thinking this situation could not be good when my husband came back in the apt. He saw the fire and freaked, telling me to get water quick. I filled a cup of water up and began to try to figure out why I had this overwhelming feeling that water would not solve things. I took a few steps back and tossed water onto the flames, only to see the fire double in size and shoot out the top of the stove. While my husband ran downstairs to get the fire extinguisher, I closed the oven door again and turned the oven off. That seemed to do the trick, actually, and by the time he returned with the extinguisher the fire was out. So the moral of the story is- don't use water on fires in an electric stove (which makes so much sense now) and sometimes pretending things don't exist will help....

So, basically...as long as I don't set anything on fire this year, Thanksgiving will be a success.

While doing absolutely nothing, I stumbled across a blog post about the "Moms for Modesty". To sum this "movement" up, it basically has to do with moms who object to the production of, well, slutty looking clothes for girls. Now I may not have a girl, but I can understand. Some of the clothes available for little girls are ridiculously inappropriate. Add that with those fucking Bratz dolls and the ol' hotel heiress who got famous for sucking dick on camera, and what the hell are girls supposed to think?

However...
While reading the "pledge" of the Moms for Modesty, this particular bullet caught my eye...eventually (I skimmed the list the first time around) :

I believe that it is unwise and unfair to taunt boys and young men by permitting my daughter(s) to dress in an immodest manner.

Ahem. Unfair? Say wha? Since when are members of the opposite sex not responsible for their actions? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this in the same vein as the "Bitch deserved it, dressing like that" rationalization for rape? One's manner of dress still manages equates sexual desire and how bad a person must want it? Still??
Reminds me of my ex-asshole, who was convinced that any shirt I wore that was shy of being a turtleneck must have been a deliberate step on my behalf to show the entire male population my tits. For the sole purpose of cheating on him, of course. In reality, I can't stand anything too close around my neck. I could never wear turtlenecks or high collars cause I feel really claustrophobic with something too snug. I prefer anything that does not creep too high above my collar bone else I feel like it's going to eat me. (That's the best way I can describe the feeling.)
But no, I must have been trying to get everyone to look at my boobies.

(I just had a thought. I wonder how effective it would be to respond to those "I can't make eye contact. Must talk to boobs" people with a nice, friendly, crotch stare down? Someone must try this and tell me what happens.)

Anyway, I recommend that bullet point be rewritten to read:
I really don't want my daughter to be a cock tease just yet. cause that is essentially what they're saying.

Wolf Creek

Below is the old review I did for Wolf Creek:

I attempted to see this the other day. Granted, I didn't read much about it or really know anything in-depth about it. The premise is simple: three young folks go camping/hiking in the Outback and shit goes all fucked thanks to a crazy mofo. Think Wrong Turn, minus the inbred mutants. I like crazy mofo movies...usually. But before I get into that, I'll explain more on the actual film.

I've read people complaining that nothing happens in the first 45 mins. Basically, that's right. It's these 3 people and their shenanigans as they go on this camping/road trip expedition. I suppose the purpose is to give the audience a chance to somewhat get to know these characters. I say somewhat cause we never really know these characters' stories. I suppose it's irrelevant and the background that we have is enough to give us some sort of emotional connection for when the shit goes down. Right? Er...

The trio eventually makes their way to Wolf Creek, a meteorite park. It's a 3 hour hike to the crater and when the group returns their car doesn't work. Of course.

Note: If you are ever in some remote location backpacking, camping, etc., and your car suddenly doesn't work when you step away from it for a bit, take this as a warning that some crazy bastard is fucking with you.

Enter the crazy bastard. Sure, he seems like a nice guy. But we know he's crazy. They always are. He tows the group back to crazy town to "fix the car".

Another Note: If said crazy bastard magically appears out of nowhere and claims to not only know how to fix your car, but happens to have the parts at his crib, don't believe him. First of all, it's too coincidental. Second, real "sane" people don't actually have random auto parts laying around. (And if you're reading this and saying "Bitch please! I do!", you're probably a crazy car breaking mafucka in the making.)

Okay...crazy man...crazy town...broken car. This is when shit gets crazy. Not to spoil the element of surprise, it is soon revealed to the 3 guests that this man is fucking nuts. And then we get treated to various torture and killings and craziness.

Now this is precisely what caused me to walk out. I can handle the killings. But to see long, extended torture scenes is just too much. There was one particular scene that did me in. I felt physically ill. At this point, I no longer cared what happened to the characters. (Later, I did do a search for spoilers to find out what did happen in the end. I would have been disappointed. )

The film quality seemed grainy, which actually helped the feel of the movie. But for the lack of character development, extended torture and fucking pointless shots (such as filming from inside the car at the actors outside of the car) that were probably done to "look cool", and for the fact that there were 3 morons who sat by us and talked the entire time, I'm giving it one banana. ("That last one has nothing to do with the movie", you say. It sure fucking does. Obviously, the movie wasn't entertaining enough to distract those bitches from the shiny bright lights of their cellphones.)

I've given the movie another try while it was playing on Starz. Gore level, it didn't affect me as much. I still cringed at the scene, but I was a little more interested in seeing it all played out. Plus, I was able to watch this in the comfort of my own home as opposed to becoming embittered by fellow movie watchers and spewing out a diatribe. It got under my skin, which I think it really intended to do. I'd like to see more in terms of character, but to look at this as strictly a horror movie, did it fulfill it's purpose to disturb and scare? Yes, it did. I've adjusted my rating to 2 and a half nanas.

One thing I've noticed about the new kitten (Sake), other than what an adorable little bastard shit he can be, is how he seems to possess the ability to be wherever I am at any given time, yet I never see him move from one place to another. He was in the living room, hanging out. I got up, went into the bathroom and closed the door. A second later I jumped as I felt something hit my leg. It was Sake. After I left the bathroom (and thus opening the door to let Sake out), I heard a bang in the kitchen. I went in to find him messing around in one of the cabinets. How the hell is that even possible? He was just in the bathroom! He'd had to have dashed passed me in a hallway full of laundry, yet I never saw him.
He does the same thing when we go to bed. He'll manage to sneak in the room and hides out until some time has passed. Normally, when I'm ready to drift off to sleep, he crawls up on the bed (from the headboard) and sticks his purring head in my face. It drives me nuts.
And now I've convinced myself that he has some sort of superpower.

The Tooth Fairy Not sure what happened here actually. I got distracted. Very gory. You know, I remember during a certain scene thinking about how it was a trend to chop off the whole man bits, but they never actually show it other than blood in the crotch. At that precise moment, they showed the offended man bit and I thought to myself "Oh. That's why they don't show it. That's fucking gross."

The Notorious Bettie Page Not a bad film at all. I dug the whole feeling the director was going for (black and white in that 50s feel for the majority of shots, vivid Technicolor feel for the Miami shots). I just felt the film was lacking something, but I can't put my finger on it. Gretchen Mol gave a great performance. I spent the whole movie trying to figure out where I saw her from (The Shape of Things). Amazing what a different hairstyle could do. But I felt she really captured the character. Actually, what the hell do I know? I never met the woman (Page, that is).

The DaVinci Code I cheated. I totally intended to read the book first, but I fell into the temptation of being able to get it off my Netflix. The movie was still entertaining, so I can only imagine how the book is (cause I hear the book is better). Shit like this makes me wonder though.

Alright, so Friday I saw some flicks that were supposedly too graphic and horrifying or whatever. Actually, let's summarize the start of this adventure. I had to buy tickets in another state, which may as well be another country for me. Once I cross a body of water, my natural orientation gets fucked up and I become susceptible to getting lost. And then I convince myself that people in the other state speak some foreign language and have foreign laws...okay, I have issues. I'll admit that.
I'm lucky I leave my home ever. Anyway, tickets in the other state. Of course the lovely parking garage built for the enormous structure housing the complex was full, leaving us to find alternative parking solutions in this foreign land. I had to deal with one way streets and men of no authority giving me the "hand" as they attempt to direct traffic for their personal advantage. After a few quick turns, we found parking in a nice cozy lot across the street from a strip joint. I figured it was lit well enough, so it should all be good. And the theater was in walking distance. Plus, I got to try out my new coat. (I didn't mention the new coat before. So, here it is: I got a new coat and it's fantastic but it wasn't cold enough to wear up to this point.)
We get to theater, get the tickets, find the auditorium just in time. First movie- Dark Ride.

Dark Ride
This is your typical slasher film. A location with a shady past (a carnival in Asbury Park, NJ) + youths in the wrong place at the wrong time (staring that chick from The Sopranos and that one guy from The Sandlot) + vices (drugs, sex) + whatever else (mental patient). This movie started out good enough. The background killing was disturbing and I thought compared to bad movies I've seen, they usually don't start off this strong. I was wrong though. The acting was mediocre and some of the characters were just flat out annoying. Actually, pretty much all of them were. And I kinda guessed the ending on accident. The camera work was shaky and led to confusing scenes- confusing in "hey, wait a min...I thought they died 5 mins ago." Lame.

We followed this up with Rinne.

Rinne (Reincarnation) Now this was more like it. From Takashi Shimizu, this film was just creepy. We missed the first few minutes of dialog, thanks to the projection not being set up right (the subtitles were off screen), but it didn't affect the movie much. Another creepy back story here- It deals with a hotel setting in which a guy goes nuts and kills 11 people, including his kids. A few decades later, a man decides to make a film out of the incident, which is when all the creepy shit happens. Given the title of the film, it's easy to figure out that SOMEONE must be related to the incident in terms of past life, but that's all the details I'll give about that. There were several scenes that freaked me out (the truck driver's incident in the first few minutes of the movie, the library scene), and it was good to see that Shimizu can deliver a good story beyond the Ju-On series (cause I really did not like Marebito at all). And the doll? Just freaking creepy.

Of course, after leaving the theater at 2 AM and walking back to the car, we noticed cop cars all around the parking lot. Never found out what went down, but so much for my theory. I'm looking forward to the rest of the film fest movies being available on DVD. Hopefully that will happen soon.

You're on a boat..way far away from the dock...when suddenly, the shit plague breaks out and you can't go anywhere to escape. Because you're on a boat. In the middle of the ocean.

Boat docks with 700 sick passengers

That would make a good horror movie.

That's right, this is the weekend for the After Dark Horrorfest

Most of the movies look watchable to me, but it seems to me that spending $160 to see 8 movies (2 tickets to each) is just damn silly. Especially with the holidays coming up. (Don't get me wrong, I totally would if I could. And if I could get a babysitter for all 3 days.)
Anyway, I narrowed it down to 2 movies, both which happen to be playing tonight. I wanted to see Rinne and Unrest, unfortunately I couldn't find a reasonable schedule for that. (I had a reasonable schedule. Then Rinne started selling out. So I had to rethink. It came down to Dark Ride and Rinne.
Hopefully, they won't suck.

Woman practicing Elimination Communication wonders if shitting in a sink is a bad thing

It's not so much the emptying of the child's potty in the sink as opposed to, oh I don't know, the TOILET, as it is this statement:

"I worry a bit though, because when we're out and about I do hold her over bathroom sinks because she likes that better than being held over the toilet"

So next time you go to wash your hands in a public restroom, you can wonder if some whack job decided to let her child SHIT IN THE SINK.

(And if you don't know, Elimination Communication)

I'm so freaking bored lately. I have no interest in doing the usual things. I have less of an attention span than usual. Hell, I'm lucky I can pay attention to the things I NEED to get done on a daily basis. I guess I'm just in a funk at the moment. I love this time of year on one hand, and on the other I don't. I'm still shocked how quickly a year can go by and I feel like I've done nothing. In fact, if someone asked me what I did this year, my answer is nothing. Same with last year.
Of course, I am broke, which puts a hamper on doing things.
Maybe I did something. I don't remember it though.

OJ's book, If I Did It, Here's How It Happened set to go on sale Nov 30.

How is this not funny, in a sick yet surreal way? It's the title that has me shaking my head. I liken it to those movies where the bad guy tells you his master plan and how he executed said plan. Yet in doing so, he gives the hero enough time to foil the plan.
Minus the hero part.
Although I think a better title would have been "I Didn't Kill Them And Am Still Looking For The Real Killer, But Let's Say I Did Kill Them (I Didn't, By The Way), Here's How I Would Have Done It. You Know, If I Killed Them. But I Didn't. And I'm Still Looking For The Real Killer."

I used to be all into watching Wife Swap. Call it a guilty pleasure if you must. It was simple, trainwrecky entertainment without an audience voting people off. But lately, the craziness is getting dull. It's formula now. Usually one of the women (if not both) will start crying over the STUPID shit ever. (Ex: "They put their kids in school? Oh my gaaaaaaaaawd!") Second, they never have normal people anymore. It's the same layout: one family has a wife that loves being a doormat, the other family has a wife that treats her husband like a doormat. Sure they may be pirates or cowboys or s&m practitioners, but it will work out in that setup. They switch and oooh the drama. Not really. One of the husbands is usually a dick about the change and the other cries.
It makes me think that either they keep digging up the same shit, different states, or there are no normal families out there.
That being said, I would be a horrible person on the show. I don't think I could take it all seriously. Or I'd end up kicking someone for being a wuss/asshole/really lame.

I'm a big fan of Firefox since I made the switch several months ago. I love the tabbed browsing and overall, just feel better using it. I know, some hell of a technical analysis. I guess what I mean is IE always seemed buggy to me. It is too often hijacked and the pop ups are ridiculous. Fuck, sometimes I would get pop ups even if I wasn't browsing the internet but my connection was active.
Around that time, I gave a hearty "Fuck a bunch of this shit" to the thought of depending on IE and downloaded Firefox. (I've used the IE 7 recently, but it just looks suck. And I don't like the GUI.)

I'm not sure what the differences are with the recently released 2.0 (I'll admit it, I skim release notes. Unless it says "THIS DOES SOME KICK ASS SHIT!" in big red letters, I won't notice.) But this does some kick ass shit. I'm really jazzed about the built-in spell checker. As I'm typing this entry, a dotted red line shows up whenever I misspell or make up a word- which happens quite often, actually. It's not a MT thing either, cause I've seen it in bulletin posting, etc. You know what this means? There really is NO excuse to misspell anymore.

I love it.

New Gwen Stefani video.
I'm so confused.
I saw The Sound of Music just once in my life. But that was enough. This sound samples that one song...with the goatherd...who was lonely. And I want to hate it. But it oddly does not sound bad. I'm thinking there must be subliminal messages in the song, cause there's no freaking way this should sound "good" when you think about it.

I miss No Doubt.

Landscapers refuse work for gay couple

Here's the basic story. Garden Guy is a Christian-owned landscaping company in Houston. They recently refused to work on a couple's house based on the couple's sexual orientation and even said so in their refusal letter. The couple, understandably, gets upset over this and word spreads like wild fire.

Now, I obviously can understand why the couple is upset. I mean, hell...if I got a letter from a company refusing me service cause of any of the dozen of things a Christian company could take offense to, I'd be irritated too. Yet, it should come as no surprise really. It's no secret how a big section of Christians feel about homosexuality. While it seems fucking ridiculous to me to discriminate on something that really is no one's fucking business, if that is their religious beliefs, it's their religious beliefs. They believe they are upholding their faith and convictions this way. It would be fruitless to attempt to convince them that it's silly, especially if they think they are being "warriors of God" or whatever. At least they're not taking the Fred Phelps route.

So yes, it is so trivial and stupid to not be accepting of all people, but as a private business, do they have that right? Maybe. I don't know. It seems like such a gray area. And I know nothing about business law. But then I think in terms of "Could I patronize a company that I knew to be this discriminatory?" I don't think I could.

Fuck. Too many deep thoughts for 1 AM.

Last week, I became aware that a local radio station was going to be switching format. Being an iPod owner and an XM radio subscriber and an Internet radio listener ( WOXY! WOO!), this really doesn't affect me much in the grand scheme of things. Still, it was a station that recently went to a shuffle format and was playing good alternative music, the alternative music that I listened to in high school. (Actually, it sounded much like another radio station from that time period, which had since switched to a CHR format. Bleck.) It seemed like there was a station that was actually interested in feedback again. At least, that's what I took from all those listener surveys going out. But the music mix was kick ass. (You know, when I actually listened to them). While listening the weekend before Halloween, they actually tossed in some Johnny Cash. It was awesome.

And as of noon today, the station will be COUNTRY. A sad day indeed.

Sure, there's a new station to listen to. Several days ago, it started one of those "annoying yet can't turn off" countdowns involving a computerized voice....uh....counting down, naturally.
I've plugged in online to this new radio station and it would appear they've started their broadcast with Green Day's "Welcome to Paradise".

Whatever. I'll just go back to not listening to terrestrial radio.

(Okay, so it doesn't actually sound too bad, fourth song in. Check that. They're playing Nickle"every song sounds like that other one"back now.)

I think it would be cool to know what dinosaurs really looked like and what really happened to them. Or how life began. Or how Stonehedge was made.

But right now, I'm focused on a deeper mystery.

I'll be the first to admit, I don't understand toddler language even from my own toddler. Sure, some words are very distinct and clear, and we can get the jist of what he's saying. But other times, those times where he's seemingly having a long, intent conversation, I have no freaking clue. And sometimes, I think he's speaking Japanese.

Beyond the babbling, there's a phrase Connor has picked up- "Elmo doe" (pronounced Elmo dough). I haven't a clue as to what it means. He says it while watching Elmo videos for the 10th time today, while taking a bath, while playing with a million Elmo toys, while in the car. And I CANNOT figure out what it means. Everytime I think we've zeroed in on its translation, he says it in a seemingly different context. I've tried the "Show me. Where's Elmo doe?", and he gives me this look like there's something wrong with me for even asking that. My husband tells me to not get so worked up about it, but I can't help it. It's like a code that I need to break. It'd be one thing if it was just babble, but this is the same repeated phrase, said in a manner that obviously suggests I'm a damn fool for not understanding.

What does it mean? WHAT IS ELMO DOE? AGGH!

I have to admit, I'm very enthusiastic about voting. I suppose one day, I may get voter apathy, but for now, I really love Election Day. That's not to say I have any idea what's going on. I mean, I know things suck, but when there's suck in your own life, you tend to focus on "local" suck moreso than national suck. I wasn't even aware the ballots had changed till I went to the polls today. (And I didn't even get to use the REAL ballot machine thanks to my inattention to updating my name in the voter's registration prior to today. I had to get a provisional ballot, which means they put it in an envelope and threw it away. Or sent it somewhere. Who knows. All I know is that someone other than me got to look over my ballot today.)
So the Monday before election day I use to catch up on what the issues are/who the candidates are. I do a pretty good job of filtering out all those stupid ass campaign commercials. I mean, isn't the mudslinging old by now? At least they should do it in an interesting way and say "Don't vote for Mary Smith! She's a crack whore with VD!" Okay, that's not legal. But it would be funny. Don't even get me started on the "I'm so-and-so and I approve this message" crap. Now where was I? Oh yeah, getting acquainted with the ballot. This year I actually took a voter's guide with me, as I realized counting on my memory for anything is crap.
And I voted. WOO.
Then I told my husband he was voting. Sure, he didn't feel like it. But I didn't give him the option, cause I'm all pro-vote and all. Of course, I didn't consider that he had no idea who was running for who and what the issues were, etc. So he voted based on who had the cooler name. I can't get on him for this. When it came to the judges, I voted based on who didn't have a stupid campaign sign. I don't get the whole voting for judges thing. Being not employed in the legal industry, who the hell am I to say whether or not someone would make a good judge. Do they have a law license? Did they go to school? Do they know shit? Okay, fine, you can be judge. (And on a side note, I never want to be picked for jury duty as I don't feel I possess the qualifications for such a position. I know nothing about the law. Minus the obvious stuff.)
Anyway...I voted, and hopefully the people I voted for won, because I like feeling like I won. And then maybe shit won't suck.

So apparently the CMA's were on last night. Yay. CMA's. THE music night of all nights. WOO. Okay, enough with my country music disdain.
Anyway, Faith Hill's blowup is making the rounds. (Short story in case, like me, you WEREN'T watching the CMA's- Faith Hill lost Female Vocalist of the Year to Carrie Underwood and did not respond well to it.) Now she's saying it was all jokes. C'mon. Just freaking admit it. If I was a veteran country singer (and there's no way in hell I would be, but let's just say hell froze over) and I lost a big award to someone who won on a freaking TV show and sang about Hershey bars or whatever, I'd be pissed as hell too. Of course, if I was a veteran country singer I think I'd know how to compose myself after... I dunno...10+ years of these award shows.

Any time I see a movie that was based on a comic, a book, or a graphic novel that I most definitely did not read, I feel a little guilty. I feel like I'm only getting a portion of the experience and I'm cheating on that portion at that. Eh. Oh well.
I didn't read the graphic novel for V for Vendetta. But I enjoyed the movie. Ha. I win.

Basic plot- It's future Britain, and there's a fascist govt in place. How the citizens didn't say "Hey, these people kinda remind me of the nazis" is beyond me, but for all intents and purposes, the fascists have gotten by with shit. There's censorship, bans- you know, all the crap you'd expect if the fundies one day took over the government. Enter V, a man with a plan. A plan that involves taking down THE MAN. WOO!

Initially, I felt V's dialog was a bit verbose, but I was just getting over my stomach trying to off me for the billionth time and thus was a bit woozy at the time. I warmed up to it. Visually, the movie was gorgeous without feeling flashy. I really enjoyed Natalie Portman's performance in this as well. And hell, you can't watch a movie where the government has become a monster without thinking "Hmm...I wonder..."
I'm definitely putting this one down on my list to own. It was a nice break from all the horror movies I've been watching lately...none of which I've reviewed. So I suppose I'm a bit behind. Damn.

I stumbled across this shirt . Unfortunately, I never was good at the whole "picture instead of words" thing, so at first glance I was thinking to myself "I love rooster and cat?? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

Ehh. I'm smarts.

Another Halloween has come and gone, yet neither of my kids were recruited for witchcraft or asked to experiment in the occult . What the hell (or lack, thereof)? In fact, they had a rather safe, fun-filled, candy goodness of a time.
I suppose my kids aren't "cool" enough. Psssht. Whatever.

I stumbled across this entry on the whole issue of stores decorating for Christmas before Halloween is even over.
Word. It's cool to see someone else who's not happy about the rushing of holidays.
(Seriously people, what is so wrong with Thanksgiving? Turkey, pie, mashed potatoes. It KICKS ASS.)
That's not to say I don't love Christmas. But I love Halloween and will dedicate Oct for that. Most of Nov goes to Thanksgiving. When Thanksgiving is over, THEN I will be all Christmas-like. But not a day sooner.
I would suck badly in the retail business.