Bad Guy Without Honor And Humanity

The Yorkie and I slept in until the alarm woke us at 10:00, something that I normally don't bother to set on the weekends, but I figured that I wanted to get up and moving and maybe try to hit up a few garage sales if possible. We got the house opened up for the day and fetched the newspaper, which wasn't enough for the dog, she still whined a bit about going outside, but I had to kinda ignore that after her last escapade of walking outside and eating the first mystery item she found on the ground, because I've finally come out of my funk from last week and want to do as little as possible to agitate myself completely.

The newspaper had an ad about the Boy Scouts having a 'book sale', the directions to which brought me to the little Library Book Store, which I thought was interesting. The sale apparently benefited the store, but unfortunately the books themselves looked as if they'd been dumpster diving behind the building, because the majority of it looked like books that they couldn't sell inside because of age or boring subject matter. I did turn up one book on horror films, which was priced at $.50, so I gave them a dollar because I was feeling particularly generous, then took a browse of the store itself and found nothing. I ran by a couple other addresses that hinted at books, but came up empty-handed as well, so I finally called in an order for Thai from our favorite place and picked it up on my way home.

The Yorkie greeted me warmly and I settled into the den to eat and finish out the second disc from The Simpsons season 6. I also took the time to look in on The Simpsons game, as I'm desperate to finally finish out the various Whacking Day tasks, which I'm honestly not 100% sure I'll manage unless I get more snake eggs from friends, very few of which seem to leave any in my Springfield. That last line could be the nerdiest fucking thing I've ever typed and I'm ashamed of myself on many levels. Y'know, like what a dork I am, and what a fucking idiot for caring about this dumbass game. Yeesh.

Being in the middle of the afternoon, I decided that I needed to tackle a few of the things I'd vaguely planned for myself this weekend, so I popped in some podcast-related viewing off the To-Watch Pile.

So, SO GOOD. Well Worth
The Wait.

Battles Without Honor And Humanity is a Kinji Fukasaku film from the '70s that kicks off the Yakuza Papers series of films, which follows a series of characters in Hiroshima from the end of WWII up to (I believe) then-present day as they form the first Yakuza organizations and double-cross one another in their struggle for power and control. The film was amazing, and I finished it and immediately ordered the rest of the films in the series, as I want to maybe try to watch them while this one is fresh in my mind.

After the film I placed that order and spent some time on the web with the blog, then busied myself in the late afternoon with a cocktail and some painting I've been working on and rearranging some of the piles of DVDs that seem to proliferate around this place.

Feel The Burn? 

Eventually I settled back into the den and gave TV Carnage: Let's Work It Out a first time watch. This was something I'd been putting off because it's the last disc of theirs that I hadn't seen and I wanted to savor it because I don't know when they'll be doing more. It was pretty amazing, well edited and compiling nothing but weird workout stuff from various civilians or celebrities, none of which look all that normal when working out. Great stuff all the way around, and I'm just itching to show it to someone else, because of all the weird cameos. I mean, seriously, there were some really odd choices made when it came to the work-out fad of the '80s, because EVERY B-List celeb seemed to get into the act.

Forced Into Prostitution?
Worst. Romance. Evar.

I made myself another cocktail and popped in Bad Guy for a re-watch, which is a Korean film that Netfux tells me I first watched about 5 years ago. It was being covered by a show, so I figured that I could give it another look to refresh my memory before listening  As it turned out this was a good idea, as I barely remembered anything beyond the basic set-up, which is that a pimp is slighted by a college girl that he tries to make a move on, so to get his revenge he contrives a scenario where she's in deep debt and accepts a loan using her body as collateral, forcing her into his stable of women turning tricks out of a building in the red light district. His obsession grows and he falls into his own twisted kind of love with her, which is just fucking strange, but Kim Ki-duk doesn't make super-normal movies, so this is par for the course.

By the time the movie finished it was pretty late and the Yorkie had even taken herself to bed in the bedroom, so I made a final cocktail and then fell down the rabbit-hole of watching a bunch of music videos on YouTube, pausing to speak to the wife about her day when she called around midnight. We caught up a bit, then I said goodnight to her and lost a couple hours with more music nonsense before finally heading to bed around 5:00 AM with the plan of working on the blog for the day on Sunday morning whenever I might find myself waking up.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Simpsons Killer

The alarm woke me at 10:00 this morning and I checked on the Yorkie, who looked as if she hadn't moved an inch since we went to sleep the night before but seemed to have a decent amount of life in her when I started opening the curtains and getting the house opened for the day. I gave her some fresh food and then we grabbed the newspaper so that I could check out the garage sales and see what was up.

The dog ignored the new food and instead headed back to bed, so I left her to that and worked on the blog for a bit in the Office, then I got dressed and headed out to grab a coffee and hit up a garage sale that threatened DVDs in the description. I picked my way through the now perpetual road work to get to Starbucks, then made my way back through the construction bottleneck to get to the garage sale. I was privy to the typical assholery of those people who think they're some kind of genius for taking the closed lane all the way to the front of the line, where some poor kind soul always feels compelled to let them in, rewarding them for not waiting their Goddamned turn. Shit like that makes you want to follow them to their destination then run into them when the step out of the car, crushing them to death as a reward for being so fucking clever.

On a related note, there's this dumbass tradition of local firefighters doing this 'fill the boot' fundraiser during which they wander around in traffic at certain key intersections, collecting donations from drivers as they try not to run these idiots over. And that's the entire fundraiser. So with this going on, I soon encountered someone casually strolling down the middle of the fucking turn lane I was trying to get into, which is enough to make me not fucking care about whatever your stupid charity might be. I always marvel as this promotion rolls around, because as careless and assholish as our local drivers are, they've still yet to run one of these guys down, which I find stunning.  I know I certainly wig out a little bit as I'm approaching a red light and have that weird moment of "Holy shit, is that some idiot wandering in traffic?!?"

The garage sale was useless, a pile of common, boring DVDs that they wanted $3 apiece for, so I said to hell with that and picked up some Mexican food on the way back to the house.

I ate in the den while catching up on some television for the past few nights, including the new Arrow, Person Of Interest and Elementary. The Yorkie drifted in eventually, and though she still didn't seem 100% back to normal she was showing some signs of normalcy, and her little belly wasn't burbling, so I crossed my fingers that she was going to be okay.

I was also pleased to notice that my general mood had improved over the course of last night and even into the weird frustrations of this morning. I spent some time in the Office working on the blog in the late afternoon, then piddled around with an art project that I've finally decided to tackle again with a renewed gusto, just to see where it goes.

After moving some DVDs around to kinda 'rotate the stock' so to speak, I settled into the den with a cocktail and a sandwich for my dinner and watched some more of Simpsons season 6, plowing through about half of the 2nd disc before finally coming to a stopping point and moving on to a film off the To-Watch Pile.

Don't You Wanna Get
Pumped?

Killer Workout is a film that's also known as Aerobicide, in which a young woman dies in a horrible tanning booth accident, then a few years later a gym is the scene of a series of horrible murders. The movie is something I've been aware of for awhile now, as the films of a man named Ted Prior have a certain cache in the world of cinephiles that I seem to run in, and I'm happy to have finally started to dig into the man's body of work. The movie is joyously '80s, with odd fashions and hair choices, plus some suspect acting here and there, which always makes things all the more enjoyable.

I called it a night afterward, moving the Yorkie over to our side of the house just to make sure that she wouldn't get sick on the couch in the sitting area again. She was agreeable to this, so I gave her a final helping of food, which she ate happily and then settled in the Office with me while I got started on this post.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Simpsons Did It...Again

Fun Read, And Renewed My
Interest In The Series. 

Last night I finished my read of the Maximum Minimum Wage collection, which included the original version of one of the stories, leaving me rather surprised by how much the material has been changed over the various iterations of the book. Hell, I want to drag out my run of the original issues and see what the entire thing looked like originally, as there are definitely a few panels in this current version that I don't exactly love, as Fingerman has made the character's look a little too polished for my tastes, like their eyes look borderline Disney-esque or something, like he's dicking around with it a little too much.

I woke with the alarm this morning at 9:00, as I wanted to have a bit of time to see the wife off and be awake when she split for the weekend. We visited a bit as she gathered her stuff, with the ever-watchful Yorkie constantly underfoot lest she miss anything. I took the pup to grab the newspaper and get the house opened for the day while the wife gathered the last of her stuff, then we all ended up in the Office for a few while the wife checked e-mail and the like.

The pup and I eventually saw the wife off, which actually seemed to calm the dog down a bit when she realized that I was sticking around. I worked on the blog in the Office until around noon, then I got another Amazon sale ready to mail and dressed for the day to go and run around. I was hoping that I'd turn up something at the garage sale out in the sticks, so I hit the Post Office, then made the trek out there, which turned up nothing and did little to lighten my weird mood that I've been in of late. I suppose it doesn't help that my route to the garage sale took me past the area in which I grew up, which has done nothing except grow more depressing looking in the intervening years, giving me no reason to come home again. I don't think I'll ever understand the nostalgia that people have for the area in which they grew up, because it's been my experience that looking back, everything looks smaller and more depressing by comparison.

I ended up picking up Taco Bell for my lunch (a sure sign of depression and vague death-wish kinda thoughts; only half joking, that food is the worst thing I could be doing to my body), then headed home.

The rest of the day was spent with The Simpsons, as I watched the final disc in the season 5 set that I started yesterday, then I piddled on the web for a few before getting into the sixth season in the late afternoon/early evening, which ended up eating up my entire day.

I eventually made myself a drink around 6:00-ish and spent the evening working my way through the first disc in the sixth season, as I figured I'd just save up our usual NBC comedy stuff for the wife's return, and marathon my own stuff (Person Of Interest, Elementary) this weekend since I have no real plans for leaving the house.

The wife checked shortly before 11:00 our time, filling in details about how her plane got diverted back from whence it came (Dallas, presumably) because someone had brought an oxygen tank on-board, a move which is apparently not kosher in today's bomb-ridden, terroristic society. Thankfully she and her two girlfriends are at the spa safe and sound for the weekend, so all's well that ends well, I suppose.

I finally headed into the Office to get started on this post, followed by the Yorkie, who eventually moved back into the sitting area off the kitchen, presumably to wait for her mama to get home. That was all well and good until I notice that she's barfed on the expensive couch that I wish to fucking God we'd never bought, as it is slowly becoming a biological nightmare due to the dog's iffy fucking stomach.

Great, so that's one more fucking thing to worry and fret about over the weekend.

This is doing nothing for my mood, let me tell you.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Simpsons Did It

This morning the wife had errands to run, meetings, etc. including the Groomer for the dog, so I slept in a little bit and then woke without the Yorkie around 9:30 and looked at e-mail on the iPhone, then got up and moving in advance of the Maid arriving at 10:30.

The Maid got started on her routine while I worked on the blog in the Office, then got an Amazon sale ready to run by the Post Office while I picked up my lunch. I was able to slip past her and dress in the closet without disturbing her, which is always a weird thing to consider, me disturbing her in my own house, y'know?

I hit the Post Office, then took a pass by a garage sale location that's supposed to be happening Thursday-Saturday just because I had no idea where the street was, even though I've lived here my entire life and I was curious what neighborhood this thing was in.

On the way back to the house I hit a drive-thru for a burger and fries, then made my way home and settled into the Office again to watch some episodes of The Simpsons while I ate, since the 'Whacking Day' episode of the show is in the 4th season and the current game-play in the Tapped Out game relates to that.

The wife and the Yorkie returned in the early afternoon, retiring to the bedroom while the Maid finished up on the far side of the house, then once the Maid split I moved into the den and finished out my disc of The Simpsons in greater comfort.

I poked around the web a bit afterwards, then the wife surfaced and spent some time on her Mac, so I left her to do that in peace and popped in another disc of The Simpsons in the den, feeling a theme coming on since I was still in a rather unmotivated funk on the whole.

Kinda Hope This Isn't A
Prophetic Title, But I
Wouldn't Be Surprised.

The wife ordered in deli food and since she's going to be out of town Thursday through Sunday evening I decided to ignore the television that we'd normally watch (Arrow and Supernatural), since that's stuff I can watch on my own and instead caught a second viewing of Doug Stanhope's Before Turning The Gun On Himself off the TiVo, just because I was curious if the wife would be amused by any of it.

Plus, to be perfectly honest, I'm really looking for some comedy to lighten my stupid mood these days.

We moved on to Jim Norton's recent special Please Be Offended, which she seemed to like a little better, which I was interested to note, as the levels of bitterness between some of my favorite modern comedians seems to go Louis CK, Norton, then Stanhope as far as the complete 'fuck humanity' message goes, so that was interesting to see her reactions to all of it, as I know she likes Louie the best of the lot.

I put the wife and pup to bed, then I watched another disc in The Simpsons season 5 before calling it a night, heading straight to bed instead of doing my normal interweb fucking around, just because I didn't feel like it.

I really hope I can shake off this depression soon, it's driving me nuts and sapping my motivation completely.

Be seeing you.

The Funk Phenomenon

I woke with the alarm this morning hoping that the weird depression that's been nipping around the corners might've lessened in the night, but things quickly took a turn for the worse, because why wouldn't they? I looked in on my stupid Simpsons game, then got the house opened up for the day and took the Yorkie to grab the newspaper in the morning chill, the result of a cold front that's blown in because apparently it's just never going to be spring here again.

Since the pup was so excited and scenting the air on our little outing out front, I decided to let her have a ramble around the back yard, where she immediately stopped and ate God knows what off the fucking ground, because she's too fucking stupid to realize that she gets ill EVERY TIME SHE DOES SOMETHING LIKE THIS. I was about six feet away from her and she ran like she'd been shot at when I leaped after her to try and get whatever it was out of her mouth, which pissed me off even further, so I finally snatched her up by the back door and tried to see if anything was still in her mouth, then tossed her inside, where she ran to cower under the wife's feet in the Office.

I was so furious at this I couldn't even see straight, so I sat briefly in the Office, explaining what had happened  but when I couldn't seem to calm down even slightly I decided to just leave, go shopping somewhere or just drive around, pick a fight with some random asshole in Walmart or whatever to take my mind off of things. I mean, I was already in a bad mood, so to have the dog pulling shitty tricks just seemed like a tipping point that I wasn't prepared to deal with, so rather than walk around punching any more door facings at the house I dressed and apologized to the wife and just fucking left.

I absolutely hate feeling this way, not being in more control of my emotions, especially when were talking about these weird nebulous feelings of depression. I've been dwelling on Macguffin and his suicide a lot in the past week, and I don't know how to lessen the swell of sadness that wells up within me when I wish I could still talk to my friend about movies, the things we enjoyed together or the things that I've since discovered in his absence, and the fucked-up-edest part of all of it is I don't even know what triggered it. It's not the anniversary of his death or anything like that, so I really have no idea what my major malfunction is.

Pointing the car towards the South side of town, I took a prowl through the Walmart over there to see if anything caught my eye, carrying around and eventually talking myself out of a Mill Creek set of 50 horror movies, as I figure that sort of thing from them tends to stay in print. I hit up the nearby Starbucks for some coffee and then took a pass through the local books, music and video outlet to see if anything caught my eye.

My next stop was Best Buy to take another run at their little 'upgrade and save' promotion, at which point the kid just hands me the coupons back, which I'm fairly sure is a big no-no, so I just thanked him and tossed them into my bag with my various purchases, since I figured I could re-use them later.

EL and I had made plans to meet at a little Japanese steakhouse on the Loop, so I hit up Target to kill some time, then finally made my way across the Loop to meet him for a bite to eat, hoping that my lousy mood would lighten a bit by the time we finally got together. As it turned out lunch was fine, though I felt a little bad because EL was still on a bit of a high about the art show from this past weekend and I was doing my dancing around being depressed shtick, so I apologized for that and we caught up a bit before finally going our separate ways.

On a complete wild hair I decided to run over to the Best Buy in Odessa just to see what (if anything) they might have that their store here did not, since I had the coupons to use again if I chose to. I turned up exactly nothing, so that was a big waste of time, but I did start to feel like the drive might've lightened my mood slightly. I hit the liquor store on the way back into town to replenish the booze at the house, then finally headed home to work on the blog and try to do something of substance in the afternoon.

Once I got home I spent some time on the interwebs, working on the blog for a couple hours before finally making myself a cocktail and settling into the den to finally watch something that'd been on the TiVo forever.

That Must Be One Terrified
Horse...

Death Rides A Horse is one of the best titled Spaghetti Westerns out there and something that came highly recommended from several internet acquaintances, so when I saw it on cable I made sure to grab it and then let it languish there for months on end. The movie was really good, with John Phillip Law plays the adult version of a boy who saw his family killed by robbers, and has spent his life training his shooting skills to hunt them down. He joins forces with a recently released criminal played by Lee Van Cleef, who is looking for the same men for the money that they owe him, and if you have an idea that these two men have more than this in common, well, you're already ahead of the plot. It's a great flick, and both leads give great performances; it was well worth the wait.

The wife finally made it home from her various errands, so we caught up a bit and compared notes on the day, then got into the evening's television schedule, which involved playing catch up on last night's episode of Bates Motel, a show that always manages to straddle the line of "oh, that's neat" and "Oh, C'MON" with the way they seem to write the characters. The wife digs it, so I'm sure we'll ride it out, but there's definitely some bits that I think could bear some re-writes were it up to me.

We caught the recent special Louis CK: Oh My God to wrap up the evening, which I believe premiered the weekend that we were out of town for that wedding, so it was nice to finally catch up on my Louie viewing, then we called it a night shortly afterward. I took some time to file away some books in the Library afterward, then finally headed to the interwebs to get this post dummied up before I lost the details of my day.

I headed to bed in the hopes that I might wake up in a better humor, as this lingering funk is really driving me nuts.

Be seeing you.

Movie Shame Guillotine

The wife had to be out of the house for a couple meetings this morning, so I slept in until 9:30, then looked at e-mail on the iPhone for a few until I dozed for an hour, finally getting up and moving for good at 11:00, which was greeted with much enthusiasm from the Yorkie. I dressed and got the house opened for the day, then the two of us grabbed the newspaper before I settled into the Office to get an Amazon sale ready to mail off.

I headed out to run that by the Post Office around noon, with plans to grab a sandwich or something on the way home, leaving the Yorkie looking betrayed at the back door as I walked away. I knew that the wife was to be home after 1:00 or so, so when I found myself stuck in traffic due to the now-constant road construction on a certain major thoroughfare I passed the time texting with her to see if she wanted me to grab anything for her as well.

We both arrived home at the same time and she was able to vent about the assholes that she had to deal with in the early morning meeting (my wording, not hers necessarily, but trust me, they're assholes), especially the same 'see you next Tuesday' that always wants to throw her weight around as if she thinks that being slightly rude is the only way she can get any respect in the meetings. I feel bad for the wife, as all of this just makes her question why she bothers, if all it does is make her feel bad or frustrate her in varying turns. We ate at the kitchen counter and visited a bit, then she moved into the bedroom to try to decompress a bit and relax.

Seriously, How Many One
Armed Dudes Are There In
This Area?!?

The den was calling me, so I chilled out with my Movie Shame Monday selection off the To-Watch Pile, which was the martial arts classic Master Of The Flying Guillotine, a film that I'd heard nothing but good things about since I first started looking into Asian cinema and listening to podcasts covering it. Jimmy Wang Yu writes, directs and stars as a famous One Armed Boxer who killed the proteges of the titular character, a vicious blind martial arts master who sets out to kill any one armed man he encounters, which turns out to be quite a few for the purposes of the story. The ultimate show down is between Jimmy Wang Yu and this man bent on vengeance, which is all well and good, though I was struck at some point by the idea that I'm sitting here giddily watching these two handicapped people try to kill one another, which is a weird thing to think about, but let's just go with it, right? The flick was a helluva lot of fun, though some web searching tells me that this film is meant to be a sequel to another film (The One Armed Boxer, 'natch), so I guess I have even further homework to do.

I spent the late afternoon in the Office working on the blog a bit and poking around the web to see what could be done about the Amazon vendor purchased DVD that turned up in today's mail only to be revealed as a straight-up bootleg. I sent the vendor an e-mail via Amazon, not quite accusing them of bootlegging, but simply saying that I wasn't pleased and wanted a refund. I didn't bother to mention mailing the thing back, because fuck'em, they shouldn't be misrepresenting themselves like this.

You Sir, Are A Sore Loser.
And YOU Are An Abysmal
Winner.

The wife surfaced and played around in the Craft Room for a bit, so I eventually made a cocktail and popped in Django Unchained for a re-watch. The movie holds up really well on the second look, and I was happy to finally give it another look, as it'd been on-hand for several days at this point and I was surprised that I hadn't made the time for it. The wife came to a stopping point with her project and picked up some burgers for dinner, then we finished out the movie with a few odd interruptions here and there, so by the time credits had rolled it was around 10:00 and we just called it a night. I spent some time picking up a bit in the kitchen while the wife rooted around for a book in the Craft Room, then I settled she and the Yorkie in the bedroom before getting started on this post.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.