Sunday, TiVo'd Sunday

The time change completely hosed me as it usually does, so the wife and Yorkie were already up and piddling around the house when I finally pulled myself out of the bed and checked the time. 11:30 in the AM, which kinda means that the day feels half over before you even open the curtains. Bah.

We visited a bit, then I suggested picking up some lunch before all the drive-thru places filled up with the recently released church folks. We dressed quickly and hit up a Mexican place for some take-out, then relaxed back at the house with lunch and a few things off the TiVo to clear things out a bit. We blew through several things from this past week, including Desperate Housewives and the finale of An Idiot Abroad, which seemed to cut off halfway through, leaving me to wonder if we missed half of it for some reason, or if they only had a 30 minute finale. I guess we'll have to grab a re-run of it at some point and see what's up.

The wife enjoys her afternoon naps, so I offered that she might be keen to take a nap while I finished out my re-watch of Archer season 2, and then possibly watched an action flick that we'd gotten in the mail from Netfux earlier this week. She and the Yorkie retired to the bedroom for a bit and I popped in the Netfux disc in a last minute change of plan.

Then I listened to the disc try to load for about five minutes before I finally had to turn the player off and eject the disc before it tried to boot up, as it was even unresponsive to the damned remote. I investigated the disc and gave it a polishing, then repeated the process with the same results. I tried it in the player on the PC and it refused to load there either, so I finally gave it a really hard look and realized that some other helpful Netfux renter had managed to actually scratch the surface of the Blu-ray, which is something I have never actually seen happen before. I'd imagine that you'd have to really be trying to fuck things up, because I've even bought used discs that have no issues, but someone managed to do a number on this one.

Add to the this the insult of realizing that this same movie has now turned up in rotation on cable now anyway and I was fairly annoyed. I reported it defective to Netfux and then made myself a drink and watched the rest of Archer season 2 and looked around at the various bonus materials.

I eventually spent a few on the interwebs, then watched an episode of The Addams Family to pass the time before we got into the usual Fox animation fare, which included the return of Bob's Burgers, a show that always make me laugh, so it's really great to have it renewed for a second season. We rounded out the evening with the new Eastbound And Down and The Walking Dead, which actually seemed to have two decent episodes in a row, shattering my expectations by a long shot. Granted, they could still screw the pooch in next week's season finale, but I'm hoping for the best for now.

The wife and I both feel weirdly out of sorts, so I put her to bed even though she's not very tired and I headed to the web feeling like I'd pissed away another day almost entirely.

Oh well, we'll try to start again in the AM, hope for better results.

Be seeing you.

Garage Sales, Cherry Hills And Something Blue

The new Saturday routine has been to rise somewhat early and check out any garage or estate sales that happened to catch my eye. The wife kinda slips in or out of this routine with me, depending on her fancy, so today I ended up leaving her at the house making some more of the little s'more items that she'd started last night.

The one place I wanted to hit was across town, so I made my way through the misty rain to a quiet cul de sac, where an estate sale offered 'movie video discs', which I was curious about, since a normal person would've said DVD if that's what they are. The items in question turned out to be laserdiscs by the stack, as well as a ton of mainstream VHS cassettes, but no DVD whatsoever. What appeared to be the office area of the house was filled with all of these items, as well as records and CD's, so the man was something of a collector. Then I happened to notice the name that I'd seen in the newspaper was also on a movie poster on the wall, as both a co-star (with Timothy Bottoms of all people) as well as being the writer/director. Who the hell is this person anyway? Then I notice a couple of scripts on the pile of stuff nearby, with a $50 price tag on the cover sheet, so I had to actually not the name to do some research on this when I had a computer and the entirety of IMDB at my disposal, not just the app on my cellphone telephone.

Long story short, tonight, after some digging on the web and around whitepages, I was able to discern that I was likely at an estate sale at the home of this man's father this morning. Why the bio doesn't mention Texas is unknown to me, but it's nice to piece it together who the person is who's all over the movie related stuff at the house, as well as what their local relationship might've been. The really odd thing that struck me was the fact that there were so many movies, yet none of the books even hinted at this interest/hobby, so maybe they left with the DVD's that you'd expect to see in such a media-heavy house. Oh well, I left empty-handed after giving the whole place a once-over, but had a 'mystery' to solve, so I guess that's something.

I picked up some more chocolate bars for the wife's s'mores project, then headed back home. The wife worked on her stuff in the kitchen and I spent some time on the PC and got a blog post published, then ate some leftovers for my lunch while watching another episode of my re-watch of Archer season 2.

The wife finally came to a stopping point with her desserts, then we watched Cherry Hill High in the den, which was a movie that I had purchased from a gray market dealer based solely on the fact that it has the same name as a friend's mother and it amused me that there's a teen sex romp sharing that handle with a good Christian woman. The movie is about five recent high school grads (can't have any underage nookie being passed around) who go on a bicycle tour (?) with their former teacher, who, when she finds that the girls are all virgins, actively encourages them to lose their virginity in the most creative or original manner possible. In a contest that she will help judge. I never had any teachers who were this helpful; I must've gone to a shitty school. The movie is loaded with awful, campy puns and corny dialog, but it was ridiculously entertaining for what it is, and there's even a truly puzzling sequence in which a couple gets intimate in a 'juicing' vat filled with grapes, which half cover their bodies as they feed one another seductively. Over and over again. I mean, they kept feed one another grapes until I expected one of them to barf. It was bizarre.

The wife crashed out for a nap after the movie and I killed a few hours with cocktails while watching one of the Midnight Blue DVD's, which are compilations of a cable program that Al Goldstein of Screw Magazine fame aired from the mid '70s into the early '90s. This volume was themed 'Celebrities', and featured interviews with various folks, including Robert Crumb, Arnold Schwarzenegger and many others. These discs are always interesting, as they have a sleazy tone to any of the interviews, plus a weird capsule look into the sex business of that era, including vintage ads and offers for escort services and things of that nature. It's always bizarre to hear someone open an interview with pointed questions about a person's sexual proclivities, but that's Goldstein for you, unrepentantly sex-obsessed, which is sort of the point of the show.

The wife and Yorkie got up eventually, and I had just finished and put away the DVD when I realized that our guests we're supposed to be at our house at any moment.

Buckaroo Banzai and Pookie arrived just shy of 5:00 and we spoke briefly about the evening plans to be sure that they were cool with the idea of the family dinner with the In-Laws, then headed the few blocks to the Mother In Law's place, where the family had already gathered. We were to be treated to a crab boil, so we made all the necessary introductions and then got down to some dinner. The dining was split up with the men in one room and the women in another, due to the size of the dining tables, so Bucky had a chance to get to know the Beau and two of the wife's Uncles while Pookie got the crash course in an Aunt, Grandmother and the MIL. Bucky seemed to hit it off with everyone ( I can't really speak for Pookie, who was in the other room with the women), and eventually he got the tour of the Beau's lair upstairs after the meal, where I tracked them down and mentioned that the ladies were making noise about heading back to our place.

We visited back at our place and I threw on the Something Weird Video Extra Weird sampler for background noise while we talked, which would go on to eat up at least a few hours of our lives before we finally had to say "no mas!" I'm frankly curious how long the damned thing is, as we sat through at least 2 hours of trailers with no end in sight. We sent our guests on their way and then I put the wife to bed before getting started on this.

I know the time change happens tonight, so I hope that doesn't play hell with my sleep patterns.

Be seeing you.

The Exorcism From Hong Kong

The alarm woke me at 9:00 this morning, as I wanted to get a jump on dealing with the car issues sooner than later. The wife and I visited in bed for a bit, then I got up and got the house opened up for the day and called the Nissan dealership, who seemed pretty casual about the 'splash panel' hanging off the car, but they did say that I'd need to make an appointment to have the air conditioner looked at, so I scheduled that for next freaking Thursday, as they're that backed up.

The original idea for this morning was that the wife would follow me if I was going to have to drop the car off, but since I was likely just going to wait for a bit while they got things secured, I left her chilling with the Yorkie and carefully backed the car out of the garage, lest hitting anything in reverse exacerbate the damage that'd already been done. Surprisingly, the whole dealership interaction was quick and painless, the guy took my keys, had them give it the once over, then within 15 minutes I was walking back out the door, with no charge whatsoever. Very surprising and easy, I hope the air conditioner repair goes as smoothly.

The weather remains gray and rainy, after some sleet last night, so I was still in something of a lousy mood despite my good fortune with the car situation, this kind of weather just completely puts me off and I don't know what to do about it except muddle through. Back at the house the wife was on the phone with the Middle Sister catching up a bit, so I left her to that and spent some time in the Office getting the blog updated.

The wife started making some little s'more treats that she was planning on serving this evening after dinner, and I suggested that we order in some lunch, so we placed an order for pizza, then she got back to her baking while I settled in the den with some re-runs of Archer to pass the time. After the pizza arrived I realized that the wife's kitchen project was making more of a mess than I expected and as a result she and I danced around arguments for the next few hours, but was eventually talked out to something of a satisfying result. I have to say that I maintain that I'm mostly in a shitty mood over the weather, so if it passes I may be less agitated about dumb shit, and that I'm sorry I'm being so crabby. Ah well, this too shall pass.

The wife and pup relaxed with some trash television in the den in the afternoon, so I decided to try and squeeze in a couple films before we were supposed to go to dinner with Brian and some friends to celebrate his birthday.

I spent the afternoon with a Jess Franco film called Exorcism, in which a nutty disgraced priest starts killing the participants who perform in fake Black Masses, created as entertainment for a crowd of Eurotrash couples as a weird foreplay. Yeppers, in this bizarro bit of Franco Eurosleaze, his lady love Lina Romay (recently deceased as I write this post) is the star attraction in the faux-snuff and torture show, existing pretty much to look cute and get nude at the drop of a hat. It's a decent timewaster if you know what you're in for, but as far as the softcore horror mash-up stuff goes, I think I prefer Jean Rollin's weirdly dreamy films to Franco's more sleazy bush-shots and muddled storytelling.

The Man From Hong Kong on the other hand, it's a film that I've heard a great deal about and finally gave a day in court this afternoon: I'm happy to report that it doesn't disappoint. A featured film in the Not Quite Hollywood documentary, it stars Jimmy Wang Yu as a police detective sent to Australia to look into the drug trade. It's a film that starts off with a big action scene and rarely lets up, plus your big villain is George freaking Lazenby (the forgotten James Bond) so what's not to love? The wife and Yorkie actually joined me for the last 30 minutes or so of this one, after a door to door salesman ringing the doorbell woke the dog and got everyone up and irritated. The salesman was bugging me, as he apparently didn't wanna fuck of when I told him that I'd take his card and would call should we decide to upgrade our security alarm. "Well is there a time I could speak to you and your wife about this?" Fuck off, take a hint buddy.

The wife and I dressed for the evening, then Brian joined us at 6:00 and we visited for a few, then headed out to cruise by a house that we'd gotten a tip might be coming up for sale this summer. The neighborhood is desirable, but the house itself we're kinda on the fence about based on curb appeal, and there's that weird thought that we might be buying a perfectly good house just to tear it down for the lot, which could prove to be idiotically expensive and dumb. I guess we'll see closer to the middle of the year, as it's only an idea at this stage of things.

The restaurant was packed beyond belief because it's a Friday in a small town that has little to offer in the way of entertainment, so we got on the list and waited on the other guests to arrive. Eventually Anastasia Beaverhouszen and Kno1 turned up, then once we were seated we were joined by JH and the Hairdressers, who'd somehow managed to tear themselves away from business and family for the evening. We had an extended meal, visiting and catching up a bit, then we finally started making our way to the door, with the original intention being that we'd have folks over for coffee and the desserts that the wife had made. As it turned out, no one was really interested, as they all had plans early tomorrow or other engagements this evening, so we just brought Brian back to the house and had some sweets ourselves, then visited until around 10:00 before sending the birthday boy on his way and calling it a night ourselves.

I put the wife to bed before heading to the Office to work on this post before crashing out and read a bit in bed.

Be seeing you.

Looky Luther

The alarm was set for 10:00 this morning, which I was banking would afford me about 6 hours of sleep. What I was not expecting was the miserable grey weather outside, with temperatures in the '50s for no real reason, so fuck Spring, y'know?

The wife was out and about, off to yoga as I understood it, so I got up and moving, got the house opened up and then spent some time in the Office with a blog post on the PC, as I'm a solid week behind on things of that nature. The wife returned and grabbed a shower in advance of a lunch meeting, then she split for that and I wrapped up on the web and dressed to go and grab a bite to eat.

The weather was sort of doing a number on me, as I tend to find this type of day to be a giant downer, and I honestly don't know how people who live in places like Seattle make it through the average calendar year. I picked up some lunch for myself, as well as something to put away for the wife for when she returned.

The entire drive had me feeling a bit paranoid, as I felt like something was stuck under the car or that I'd managed to do some sort of damage to it when we took it 'off-roading' yesterday afternoon. There was just some kinda odd noise that I couldn't place and I was finding it increasingly distressing, almost irrationally distressing to be quite honest. Once I had the car back home in the garage I gritted my teeth and squatted down, expecting the worst, and that's pretty much what I got: there's a piece of the Maxima's undercarriage that's hanging loose now, presumably yanked free by the large rocks we traversed in our efforts to return to the paving of civilization yesterday afternoon. I don't think it was as bad as ti is now, but when the car was put in reverse to back out, I think that's what pulled it down to where it is now.

Fuck a baby in the mouth.

I really hate this not only because of the hassle and likely monetary outlay, but mostly because I'm not generally in the business of doing really stupid shit, so I should've known better than to drive where we did, but I thought we could slide by without doing any harm.

Guess this is what I get for thinking.

I caught up with Supernatural while eating my lunch, then the wife got home and we visited a bit while she wolfed down her food and then chilled in the bedroom with the dog, who was on my shitlist for taking one of her 'spite dumps' in the front living room while I was gone. I pissed away the afternoon catching up on the past couple week's worth of The River, a show which I continue to like but not love, it just doesn't quite do it for me 100%, I don't know exactly what it is that's not grabbing me, but it't something.

The wife split for a 4:00 PM meeting and I eventually decided to have a cocktail, as the weather and my mood weren't changing, so I figured I could at least splash some Maker's Mark on the situation and see if it did anything to change my point of view one way or the other.

I decided to watch something off the TiVo that'd been on there for at least a year at this point, the Michael Crichton film Looker, which sees plastic surgeon Albert Finney trying to protect his client Susan Dey from an evil corporation who want to kill her after she has surgery to make her even more perfect. They've got a sinister plot to scan her and use her in advertising without any sort of compensation once she's been eliminated, but they've got the amiable blandness of the Finney to deal with, by God, Virginia! It's a passable little flick, filled with Crichton's standard techno-phobia/fascinations, which is admirably ahead of its time but looks kinda silly at this stage of things.

The wife returned, then spent some time on the phone with a girlfriend and a cup of coffee, so I re-watched a few episodes of Archer season 2 to pass the time, then we made plans for the wife to pick up some deli stuff for dinner, which would allow us to get into the normal NBC fare as it aired. This got derailed when the wife randomly took another call from what turned out to be one of her siblings, which annoyed me more than it should've, but what are you going to do? I'd been in a bad mood all day, I'm slightly buzzed and expecting the wife to spend some time with me over some dinner and the next thing I know she's on the phone again discussing everyone else's problems, which actually irritated the shit out of me.

I finally said fuckit and started a show that I had recently noticed was on Netfux Instant Watch, the Idris Elba cop drama Luther that I'd missed when it aired on BBCAmerica. The first episode was decent enough, and I think it will scratch my Sherlock itch for the time being, though as with Sherlock, there's precious few of these to go around, so I may wanna try to dole them out sparingly so as not to run out of more noteworthy viewing material in the interim between series.

The wife finally trailed in about halfway through the episode and said she was going to fetch our food, seemingly baffled at my irritation.

When she returned we kinda talked things out a bit, though I honestly don't think she realized that I might need her to put the other bullshit aside and show me some attention this evening, so I suppose it's somewhat my own issue for not telling her that to begin with, but I've had an off day here. Sue me.

We breezed through the usual NBC line-up, then wrapped things with tonight's episode of Archer before another long conversation while I put her to bed and flipped channels a bit, as I was well in my cups at this stage of the evening and not feeling very keen to hop online immediately. I eventually watched about 30 minutes of Lord Of Illusions off cable before finally getting started on this nonsense.

Completing today's stragely baffling series of events, I do believe that it's actually raining or possibly even sleeting outside as I write this.

Be seeing you.

Maids, Thieves, Knights And Real Estate

The alarm was set for 9:30 this morning, so I naturally continued my weird trend of waking almost an hour to the minute before it went off. I hit the pisser and then dove back into the pillows in hopes of catching those last few precious moments of sleep, which ultimately amounted to almost a full 8 hours of rest, something that I can rarely attest to.

Go, me.

The wife had errands and the like, but was so kind as to make us some coffee before she had to leave, so I sipped on that while looking at e-mail and Twitter, then eventually got up and moving while she got dressed for her day. I finally migrated into the Office and got the PC fired up to start working on a blog post that needed to be published, then sent her on her way around 11:15 or thereabouts. I also put in an order for lunch, as the wife was meeting Brian on this, the day of his birth. I elected to chill at the house to deal with the Maid, because we'll see him again for a night out with friends on Friday.

The Maid arrived shortly afterward, then set to her task while the Yorkie and I holed up in the Office. I got a blog post published, then was in the process of killing time as a usually do when the Maid is underfoot (watching an X-Files episode on Netfux Instant Watch) when the wife returned home with some Chinese take-out for my lunch. The wife spent some time on her Mac while I ate and finished up the episode I was watching, then we weighed our options regarding some various plots of land that we'd been tipped on from various folks.

Since we had anything else in the world to do, we were stuck waiting around on the Maid to finish up her routine, but once we finally got her out of the house we had about an hour and a half to do some running around before the wife was supposed to be at a late afternoon meeting, so we jumped in my car and hauled ass to see what we could see.

We bluffed our way into a gated community with the vague story that we were dropping something off at a certain acquaintance of the wife's, then proceeded to track down a house near the back of the development that may be coming on the market soon, as there was a suicide in there a few weeks back. Morbid, I know, but we're kinda looking at the lot itself, not the house, as we're still in the market to build. I hope that tearing shit down and starting over entirely would shake off any lingering bad juju from the woman's unfortunate demise.

We drove by a couple other addresses, never finding anything that really grabbed us, and one of the sets of directions took us down an unpaved alley that got downright rural before it was all said and done. When we finally hit paving again it was across some rather rough rocks that I fully expected to tear something loose from the bottom of the car. We made it home without any of the emergency lights coming on, so I think the car survived the experience, but Jesus Christ, what a dumbass route I managed to take. Yeesh.

We headed back to the house, where the wife headed back out immediately to be at her meeting, so I went into the house to see what kinda hijinx the dog was up to.

I ended up starting a re-watch of To Catch A Thief on Blu-ray, a film that I had only watched for the first time a few years ago. The movie looks absolutely amazing on Blu-ray, something that I am quite happy to say about a film that's over 55 years old at this point. I had decided to pick up the disc as a blind buy after reading a couple reviews, all of which pointed to this being a great version to own, as it carries over a ton of extras from previous versions.

The wife returned during the movie, then we visited for a bit and caught up with last week's Thursday NBC stuff while we waited on delivery of some deli stuff for our dinner. We watched an episode of The Addams Family, then wrapped the evening with tonight's episode of The Soup.

I put the wife and Yorkie to bed, then watched another movie by myself, just for shits and giggles.

Knight Errant is a Jimmy Wang Yu movie that I had grabbed cheap from some random clearance sale type website, and it was pretty amusing for what it was. A taxi driver finds himself defending his family against three men who have come to attack his father based on something he'd done to their own pop during the war. This set up allows for numerous fight scenes, including a particularly memorable one in a saw mill that involves a lot of logs being kicked around in a large water storage area, and there's also a big scene involving an older woman fighting Wang Yu as well. It was a quick, breezy affair, well-suited for a late night viewing.

I finally headed into the Office to get this post started before calling it a night.

Be seeing you.

What We Do Is Laura

Nightmares are something I really never have (in spite of all the truly fucked up movies that we watch), so whatever woke me this morning on the verge of an audible yell must've been a real doozy. I can only recall something(s) rolling out of a mist in a group. My gut leans towards it being some sort of possessed zombie-ish creatures in what appeared to be wheelchairs of all things, but whatever it was I found it alarming enough to force myself out of the dream, literally feeling myself being pulled up and away from what was freaking me out until I woke up, my breath coming in short little hitches, very much on the verge of crying out. I sighed with relief and realized that it was around 7:30 in the morning at this point and I could already hear sounds that indicated that the wife was in the kitchen puttering around, so I had to guess that she'd slept poorly as well. My intention when I went to bed late last night was to sleep until at least 10:00 this morning, so I returned to the pillow, the dream already fading enough to allow me a fresh start back in Dreamsville, population: me.

Since nothing is ever easy, I woke about 30 minutes before the alarm was to go off and just said the hell with it and stayed up, looking at e-mail on the iPhone for a bit before I finally got moving. I hit the exercise bike for a bit, then got the house opened up for the day and took some time to add another layer of sealant to the collage I'm working on, so it could be drying while I did other stuff.

The blog was calling me, so I got it updated and caught up on e-mail, then confirmed lunch plans with EL and got dressed to go and swing by a few pawn shops before I met them for some food. The Pawn Shops were a big waste of time, which is fine actually, as I need more stuff like I need a hole in the head, then I finally pointed the car toward the usual Mexican place where we gather.

El was joined by his brother SB today as well as DR, and we all arrived within minutes of one another. Food was good and I enjoyed getting to know SB a bit, as I usually just see him at his brother's parties and say hi and bye. Once we went our separate ways I stopped to pick up a little ice cream for my dessert, then headed home to see what the wife was up to.

Having risen so Christing early, the wife was keen to try and catch a nap since she was between 'things' in the afternoon. We visited a bit, then I left her to try to get some rest and moved into the kitchen to add another layer of watered down white acrylics to the painting so that it could be drying while I watched some television.

I spent the afternoon catching up with Alcatraz off the TiVo, a project that was only interrupted by the fact that one of the recorded episodes was pre-empted by fucking NASCAR, and by the fact that the Druncle suddenly turned up, open beer in hand, wanting to shoot the shit. I let him know that the wife was crashed out and he and I chitchatted a bit, but he split after about 15 minutes, as I made it abundantly clear that I had no interest in passing around the standard family gossip, most of which I had already heard anyway and don't give a shit about. Once I got him out of my hair I finished out the show I was watching, then made myself a martini in advance of watching my daily Addams Family episode.

The wife had an evening meeting, so I figured I'd let the iPhone suggest a random film form the To-Watch Pile, settling for a re-watch of What We Do Is Secret to pass the time until the wife got home. A biopic about Darby Crash and the band The Germs, it's something that I had watched a few years ago and enjoyed pretty well, so when I ran across it in a closing Hollywood Video I figured it was time to add it to the collection. It holds up well, and it was interesting to see Shane West as Crash, especially now that I'm watching him every week on Nikita, where he's all grown up. Amusingly, the guy who played Crash's boyfriend in the film has also turned up on Nikita as well.

The wife returned with dinner as I was finishing up the movie, then she and I watched tonight's episode of Justified, then she headed to bed and I decided to stay up on a wild hair to watch a little something that's hanging around from Netfux. Laura is another Film Noir that I wanted to watch before I listened to the Out Of The Past guys review it, so I gave it a spin to see what it was all about. Gene Tierney is the titular character, who is murdered before the film begins, and we follow a detective played by Dana Andrews as he tries to piece together who could've gunned her down. He begins to fall for the girl a bit as he gets to know more about her life, and who can blame him, Tierney is absolutely stunning. Her variously inappropriate suitors are played by the older actor Clifton Webb and a young Vincent Price, neither of whom seem very suited to pursue the lady in question. It's a quick little mystery that has some nice use of shadow and snippets of snappy dialog peppered throughout, a good deal of it coming from Webb. Honestly aside from Price, this was my first exposure to any of the main actors involved, and I really enjoyed them quite a bit.

Since we have the Maid in the AM I took the time after the movie to straighten up the den a bit, just so I don't have her moving my stuff around while she cleans.

I eventually headed to the Office to work on this post before calling it a night.

Be seeing you.