Morris' Birthday Extravaganza Day Three

We awoke this morning to find the sun shining on our lovely view of the rooftop of the next building and a pigeon taking a shit. Our view also looks out on a storage rental building and not a lot else, which is a big selling point on the hotel, I assure you.

This being a nice change of pace from the past two days off rain pissing down our collars, we of course didn't really leave the building. Morris and K had planned a spa day for themselves and I had fallen for it as well, allowing them to schedule a pedicure for me just because I figure that it's Morris' weekend and I should try to do what he wants to do.

While they went down to the spa this morning, I put in an hour or so with the graphs, just to feel like I have accomplished something towards the next pay-check while we've been out of town, and then took a shower and walked up the street a few blocks to Keith's Comics, and actually found the newest Rue Morgue Magazine, and a compilation of Evan Dorkin's comics.

I made my way to meet the folks at the Exhale Spa around noon, and had my first pedicure ever, which turned out to be pretty cool, thought nothing I could see myself doing on a regular basis, but it was nice for a change of pace. The women who did Morris and I's feet were amusingly gossipy, and apparently had the scoop on a co-worker of theirs who'd died somewhat recently in a car accident, including intimate details of her personal life, which I found entertaining/appalling at the same time. At the urging of K and Morris, I had my toenails painted black, which was apparently quite a stir for the nail women, as the girl who painted them said that she'd be pissed off at her husband if he did such a thing. I'm married, and don't give a shit, and neither does my wife, so it wasn't a big deal and my toenails looked cute in my sandals this evening.

Once we were all done with the spa, we went to have a late lunch at Ozona, which proved to be a grueling ordeal, but wasn't so bad once we finally got seated. The entire place has a rambling compound feel to it, but they apparently had about three waiters to keep up with all the tables, and therefore were very behind from the get-go. Morris even had to excuse himself once we'd ordered and go to pick up his cake for tonight's party and drop it with the generally uncooperative pricks we've been dealing with at The Samba Room, so his meal was cold when he finally got to enjoy it.

We left the restaurant and dropped by Morris' apartment long enough to get him showered and changed for his party, and then swung by the hotel so I could feed the dog and change clothes myself, and then we dropped by a friend of his house for a bit for a quick visit, since it was quite literally just down the road from the party location.

The restaurant manager proved to be the short weaseally little fucker I was expecting, a guy who seemed to think that just telling us that everything was taken care of and smiling would somehow make it so, but I maintained a pissy demeanor with him throughout the evening, just out of spite. We had to re-arrange the tables these fuckers had set up in this weird common area in a courtyard behind the restaurant rather than the front patio area Morris had wanted, but our waitress was great and she took really good care of us, and the evening was a lot of fun, in spite of the shitty management at The Samba Room.

Afterwards a group of us went to some random T.G.I.Fridays in the West End that a lot of our locals seemed to know pretty well for a few more drinks, and then drove through Jack In The Box on the way home, which was surprisingly easy to eat and wonderful as always, and went back to the hotel to go the fuck to sleep, because we were all buzzed and tired.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Personal, Travel, Dallas, Exhale Spa, Samba Room, Annoyance, Exhausted

Morris' Birthday Extravaganza Day Two

We woke up somewhat late this morning, after sleeping pretty erractically, which for myself I chalked up to the hours of boozing last night, I don't know what everyone else's excuse was.

We went to drop off Morris' Jeep at his apartment and let him change, and as we left the complex, K paused on a large hump that you have to pull over on the incline that leads out of the complex, and when we accelerated, we heard a strange scraping/grinding sound, which I chalked up to the vehicle possibly bottoming out on the pavement as you enter traffic. Once we stopped to fill up with gas, however, I noticed a scrape down the ass end of the rear passenger side of the car, meaning that either something unknown to us had managed to hit the car as we pulled away, or the wife scraped along something as she drove off, either way, I'm bummed, as I've only had the Maxima for less than a year. I'd also had nothing to eat, and was irritable, as is my nature when I don't get fed in a timely fashion, so the day is off to a wonderful start.

We visited a store called Sur La Table, and were eventually waited on by grouchy queen who didn't see the humor in their selling of a Cuisinart food processor with two settings for seven hundred fucking dollars when Morris questioned him about it. I had to walk outside, as I was already in a bad mood and didn't want to deal with his fucking attitude, and my sweet wife apparently turned to Morris after their transaction was finished and announced "Well he was an asshole, wasn't he?", reassuring me that I married the right woman.

We met Morris' friend S at Primo's Bar And Grille where we had a long lunch and a few drinks at the bar. The wife almost got to meet Big Al Mack from the Kidd Kraddick show, but our host S was unable to discern whether or not he was having a business meal or just hanging out with friends, otherwise he would've introduced us. How he knows the man, I have no idea, but it was an amusing brush with fame. After lunch the four of us went shopping in the gay district, which included several clothing stores and a porn place with more cocks and gay porn than you can shake a stick at.

We found ourselves back at JR's for an hour or so, and chatted it up with several of S's friends until we had to drop S back at his car and make it back to a tattoo parlor so Morris could get his newest tattoo touched up. All this while it's pissing down rain and making our lives vaguely miserable to get in and out of the car to find out that the artist has run out of time and wants to try to squeeze him in Sunday instead.

We end up going to Northpark Mall so K and Morris can check out Neiman Marcus for a couple of Louis Vuitton items for her mother. The LV people just generally suck at their job, which included ignoring us to wait on other people and having an item in their cases that they won't sell us because it's not officially relased yet, and after the battle we get the dog leash and collar purchased and were on our way without my resorting to violence against snooty clerks. As I've said many times before, you don't own the boutique, you work at it, bitch, get over yourself.

We find a few other items and are actually waited on by a very gracious and efficient clerk, a first for the day, which makes us feel pathetically grateful that he treats us like human beings, a sad statement about retail service these days.

We finally brave the pissing down rain one last time and have dinner at Houston's, which is swamped as hell and a great meal as always.

Morris is staying with us again tonight, so we just retire to the hotel and chill out, K and Morris watching television while I sit down to write.

More tomorrow, as well as Morris actual birthday party.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Birthday, Travel, Dallas, Shopping, Northpark Mall, Louis Vuitton

Morris' Birthday Extravaganza Day One

We left this morning to celebrate Morris' birthday in Dallas this weekend, and I drove us the five hour drive through what turned into drizzling shitty weather for the last two and a half hours of it.

I'm not exactly comfortable driving amidst such heavy traffic to begin with, being the small-town boy that I am, but to have some fucker pass me when I have the windshield wipers going as hard as they can and am already doing five miles over the speed limit, and can barely see the tail lights of the semi in front of me really freaks me out.

The entire drive wasn't overall that stressful, but damn if there weren't a few stressful moments, always relating to other drivers and the erratic way they drive.

The wife kinda napped on and off during the drive, which left me free to concentrate on the road and try my damnedest not to get us killed.

We checked into the Hotel Palomar in the mid-afternoon, which is an older, recently refurbished hotel that actually looks quite nice since the overhaul. The Yorkie made the journey on doggie downers, which actually allowed her to not barf when we finally arrived in Dallas, which was quite nice for us, considering her travel history.

Morris snuck out of work early and we went to JR's, a popular gay bar here locally, where we met a friend of his and had a few drinks. Since I have been having such miserable mouth pains, I had already started drinking from the mini-bar at the hotel, and the drink I've been fond of recently, a Vodka & Diet Coke was termed a 'Skinny Black Bitch' by our bartender, and then abbreviated to a 'Whitney Houston'. The only item of note from this visit was a random Asian guy, who seemed to be just generally cruising the entire clientele, circling the bar like a buzzard, which was just a little creepy.

We later met another of Morris' friends at his place of employment, Hattie's Restaurant, where we had yet another drink, and eventually dinner, which was pretty amazing, and then after his buddy got off, the four of us went to a place in Oak Cliff called Barbara's Pavilion, which was a bit packed with a mostly lesbian crowd singing karoake. We had another tasty beverage, and at some point a couple different women flashed the assembled crowd thier boobs, which was about the last thing I was expecting to see tonight, but what the hey, strange boobs are usually amusing and welcome.

Morris ended up spending the night at our hotel on a roll-away bed after we dropped off his friend at his house, which works out okay for us, as I understand we have a pretty strict shopping agenda tomorrow.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Personal, Travel, Dallas, Bars, Drinking, Birthday

Perfect Timing As Always

We leave tomorrow for Dallas for Morris' birthday weekend extravaganza, so in preparation for this we did absolutely nothing today.

Okay, the wife went through a bunch of charity event related paperwork that she had to sign before we left so that they could be mailed, but I did nothing, save for visit the orthodontist who gave me the okay on the cease and desist order for turning the stupid expander thing. That's right, I'm finally done turning this freaking torture device that's lodged semi-permanantly in the roof of my mouth.

Daveyyojimbo and I had a bit of lunch and watched his recently purchased copy of Kevin Smith: Evening Harder, which was way cool since I've been reading so much of his stuff recently, both online and in his book which I'm pretty much finished with.

During the second disc of the set, I found myself unconsciously clenching my jaw, still trying to acclimate myself to the new position of the teeth, and when I opened my mouth, there's a crazy popping on the left side of my jaw, along with the sharp little jab of dull pain that one would associate with such a noise. I immediately yelp a curse word in pain and go to investigate in a mirror, which confirms what I was pretty certian of: The damned expander attached to the molar band had popped off the fucking tooth, and was now not allowing me to even close my mouth comfortably.

It's also after business hours at the orthodontist's office, and I need to get this shit fixed before we leave town for about 4 days. I call the office to no avail, so I try the Doctor we know at his home, it's a good deal that the we're friends with them outside the office and happen to have the home number, as their answering service has apparently had that information removed.

I get ahold of his wife and she gets him back in touch with me, and I can meet him at the office at 8:00 in the evening. With nothing to do but live with this random piece of metal kinda floating around in my mouth, we resume the film and it's all quite amusing and vulgar and then Davey splits, the wife works on her stuff at the table and I actually try to catch a catnap to make the two hour wait pass a little faster.

Once I meet him, he has to remove the expander entirely, and in removing the cement to free it up, it pops loose rather violently, shocking him (no shit, he jumped back when it popped loose) and hurting me only slightly, he cleans the teeth up, removes the wire on the upper braces and gets ready to re-set everything.

The fucked-up-edest part? I can't speak clearly with the expander in the roof of my mouth, and when it's removed briefly, I can't speak clearly then either, because I'm accustomed to my tongue hitting this thing in the roof of my mouth, so my speech still sounds weird.

God must hate me.

He sets about jamming this fucking thing back into my mouth, which I swear to God made my eyes tear, because the teeth are sore already, and then having something shoved back over them was making me see spots. Then he asked me to bite down on the little bite stick that helps settle the thing into place over the molars, and it actually got worse.

And then we're having the teeth extractions done next Wednesday, so I have a bit more misery to look forward to before it may get a little better.

The final insult to injury?

Every time we go to Dallas, I finally get to have something disgusting and heart-stoppingly greasy from Jack In The Box, but since I've had this crap in the mouth I've been forced to give up anything sandwich-like, sticking mainly to anything I can cut up into tiny, tiny pieces and chewed on the back molars, because aside from the tenderness in the front teeth required for biting into stuff, the expander just mounds up any bread item in the roof of my mouth until it nearly chokes me, so I won't be enjoying my customary treat this weekend.

I will however, be drinking like a fish if only to dull the pain in my fucking mouth.

Be seeing you (at the bar).

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Personal, Bitching, Braces, Expander, Pain

Good Consumer

The wife was tied up with entirely too many meetings today, so left to my own devices I got some work done in the morning, and then made plans to have lunch with my friend B, who I hadn't seen since we ran into her at a charity event last September. Hell, I called her last week to put the bug in her ear about lunch this week just to see if her damned phone number was still the same.

I'm not kidding when I say that I'm a shitty friend, people.

B is a friend from way back, and used to be my hairdresser before the one I have now, I can still recall when I ran into her and had to sheepishly acknowledge that I'd been 'cheating' on her with another stylist. It was a lot of fun to run through all the various movies and crap that we thought the other needed to see, and to hear that things are well with her and her family. She and I went and did a little running around to a few of my usual haunts, and then I dropped her back at her car.

I spent way more money than I probably should at Best Buy today, but fuckit, the movie thing's obviously my hobby, so why am I going to beat myself up about spending money that I can afford to spend? I've had a bit of a running argument in my head for the past few years, but in relation to the sheer amount of crap I used to collect simultaneously, which included comics, books, a helluva lot of CD's, DVD's, as well a a lot of random collectible comics related items. I have come to the point where the DVD's aren't as much of an issue as they could be, especially when you consider what I used to spend on 'hobbies' each payday when I worked in a retail store.

I'm quite realistic about this, that I don't need any of this stuff in the actual sense of the word, and I know that all this shit will just be something for our eventual kids to sell or shitcan once I call it quits and hang myself in the garage in a decade or so, so why worry about it so much?

Eventually it simply won't be my problem and will be the fruit of my loins garage sale fodder, so who cares? Maybe I'll start buying even weirder shit, just to mess with them.

Speaking of depressing things like suicide, I watched a French film called 13 (Tzameti) this evening, which was a grim black and white story of a guy who overhears his employer speaking about a get rich quick scheme, and when the boss overdoses and dies, he nabs an envelope with information about it and tries to assume his role in the plan, which gets him in way over his head. I'll try to knock out a review over at Big Suck Loser later in the week, and speaking now of the BSL, there's a few new items up for your boredom over there as well, so go check it out and rent some movies.

I'm off to read some more of my ragged 'new' copy of Kevin Smith's book and get some sleep before I have to be up at the crack of dawn to go to the orthodontist.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Personal, Shopping, Consumerism, Movies, 13 Tzameti, Big Suck Loser

Whoever Dies With The Most Toys Wins

I was able to polish off the latest set of graphs this morning, which is way cool, and will give me a jumpstart on the next project befroe we go out of town, so I'm quite happy. Turning it in to the old bossman was the usual misadventure of odd silences and weird exchanges, for example, when I tell him I want to drop this off he asks when I plan on coming by, I say "Oh, after twelve or so." and he comments that's only twenty minutes from now.

"Okay, when would be a convenient time for me to come by?"

"Well, I can have something ready for you to pick up in an hour."

"I'll have lunch with the wife and then drop by later, give ya plenty of time."

If you need an hour, why not say drop this off in an hour, don't pussyfoot around the subject with questions that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things. I think that's what is hard to read most of the time, is the odd angle at which he approaches even the most mundane of subjects. The man spends too much time alone, I swear to God, he doesn't know how to mix with the other animals.

The iPod gave me a new Monster Squad Terrorcast after a month long hiatus, which was pretty cool, and I listened to a good chunk of the newest Night Of The Living Podcast before I finished off the graphs for the day.

I had mentioned a magazine I discovered called Hi Fructose a little over a week ago, and after a lot of searching online, I could only come up with the first issue from the nice folks at Last Gasp, which I dutifully ordered, along with a new Suicide Girls book that came out this month. Having received my order and begun digging through it, I again found myself running through dead end after dead end via Google looking for anyone who still has issues 2 and 3 for sale. both of which seem to be a virtual impossibility. The magazine's website has links to a few places that are now out of stock, and the few vendors I found on eBay wanted $20+ dollars for a magazine that is honestly a novelty item for me at this point (as I'm not particularly a toy collector), so I'm not sure I'm taking that kinda financial plunge.

Yet.

The first issue is quite fabulous though, and has a great spread featuring the work of one Brian McCarty, who stages fairly elaborate photos of toys in real world situations, the image laid out to set the vinyl creation into a forced perspective that is at times kind of unnerving. I spent a lot of time looking around his site, and from what I can tell, aside from having his work featured in several magazines, he's not had any sort of collections of his work published, so the best place to check out his art is via the site linked above.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Bossman, Podcasts, Night Of The Living Podcast, Magazines, Hi Fructose, Brian McCarty, Photography

Tonight's Bullshit And A Plug

I worked a helluva lot today, especially considering that it's supposed to be a day of rest, but I guess I fucked off enough during the week to make up for that. I'm pretty close to finishing the latest set of graphs, and will ink things in tomorrow and drop that off so I can pick up something to work on while we're out of town this weekend.

The wife was out of the house most of the afternoon with some volunteering crapola, so I actually put in a cumulative 5 hours today, which allowed me to get caught up on several podcasts, including a new Cinemaslave, Mondo Movie, and Mark Kermode's Movie Reviews from this past Friday.

I also dicked around with a lot of household chores, dishes, laundry and that sort of thing, wrote a few items to send to sKincarver for the Big Suck Loser, all in all I had a pretty productive day, but I have to admit a nagging 'why bother' feel for the blog the past few days. This is a little odd to me, because I've been pretty productive in other areas, and have been working out the past week or so, and have lost about 6 or 7 pounds just doing the rowing each night, with no real significant change to the diet. Hell, I had a big fat bowl of gelato the other night after dinner, so it's definitely not reflecting a change in diet, but I'm happy to be weighing in at 248. That's the real frustration, with my body type and metabolism being what they are, if I'm lifting weights or rowing, doing something physical each day, I can eat pretty bad and get away with it, but if I'm not, holy shit it doesn't take any time at all for it to catch up with me.

Perhaps this coming weekend's trip to Dallas will renew my zest for the blogging, as we celebrate Morris' birthday with a dramatic four day weekend away from it all.

The wife and I watched several Tales From The Darkside episodes that the TiVo was good enough to grab for us last week, as well as the Animation Block on Fox this evening, and not much else. The lousy weather managed to flip the power on and off just long enough for me to miss the end of The Simpsons while the TiVo re-set itself, which is about par for the course, maybe I can catch it online somewhere.

Anyone reading this (all six of you) who has that income tax refund burning a hole in their pocket should look into the Cafe Press store that Robbb of Sweetcandymarys fame has at long last set up, and purchase bulk amounts of the items that are now emblazoned with his ninja-cool artwork. Clicky clicky, you won't be sorry, and if you are, e-mail me and I'll give you his address so you can sue him for fucking up your dreams.

I'm shitty at plugging things, huh?

I'm out.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Podcasts, Cinemaslave, Mondo Movie, Mark Kermode, Workout, Television, Tales From The Darkside, Simpsons

Charity, Movies And Porn

The wife had a weird charity thing this morning that had her leaving the house to be somewhere at 7:30 in the AM on a Saturday morning, basically reiteration of my party line that charity sucks. She was a out of the house from 6-ish until 2:00 in the afternoon, which left me to do a little work at the old kitchen table and listen to the latest Stomp Tokyo Podcast, which have been few and far between in recent months.

The wife got home and was already debating bailing on the second charity event of the day, which was some sort of concert/beer drinking quasi-redneck affair at one of the local cow smelling venues, and I mean cow-smelling in that they hold rodeos there and shit, not that you go there with the express purpose of smelling cattle.

'Cause that'd be weird.

We watched last year's Hollywoodland, which was pretty well done, even though I felt it meandered a bit in the third act. As I said a couple days back, it's always nice to see Robin Tunney getting work, and I don't hate Ben Affleck as much as a lot of people do, so I really enjoyed the cast and watching them do their thing, Diane Lane and Bob Hoskins are especially good in their respective roles as George Reeves' lover and her cuckolded husband and studio vice president.

The TiVo had randomly recorded Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 a few days ago, and we watched that just for the hell of it, only to relaize that we'd seen the damned thing before. This is pretty sad to me that despite a screenplay by splatterpunk Godfather David Schow and an appearance by genre vet Ken Foree, the film is obviously pretty damned forgettable.

Topping off the evening was the latest Debbie Does Dallas Again because holy shit, who doesn't wanna watch a weekly show about the wacky goings on behind the scenes at a high profile porno company? More silly diva-esque behavior from the girls, and the director guy is completely out of his fucking mind, he's directing porn for Chrissake's and is talking to his financer/CEO-type/boss guy about wanting to make a musical (!) with these porn people, just crazy shit like that, it's absolutely hysterical. If I had to deal with this guy coming into my office asking for money for the next ludicrous thing that's popped into his head every day, I'd probably end up having a stroke.

I'm planning to try and get most of the work project done tomorrow afternoon, and try to write up a few new things for the Big Suck Loser, which actually has a few new pieces up as we type, so check that out and come see us again soon.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Podcast, Stomp Tokyo, Movies, Hollywoodland, Ben Affleck, Leatherface Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3, Television, Debbie Does Dallas Again, Big Suck Loser

All Of A Sudden I Can't Think Of Anything Remotely Funny To Say.

I know, I know, yer thinking "So what the fuck else is new?"

Or, if you're a comic nerd type, you might be thinkning "Geez, now he's cribbing lines from Grant Morrison's almost 20 yr. old run on Doom Patrol."

Seriously, I even left the house today, and absolutely nothing really interesting happened to me, and if you have the misfortune of reading this shit with any regularity, you know I love my daily minutiae, but there's nothing to say today.

I went this morning and got a haircut, went back home, paid a few bills, watched part of a movie on the TiVo before the wife called and said that Bella was ready at the groomers, so I ran and grabbed her, then met the wife back at the house and she and I went and ate supper like an elderly couple at about 5:00 in the afternoon.

The only thing noteable about that is that it's the second time we've done it this week, I fear we're already slipping into our Golden Years in our 30's.

We eventually visited Anastasia Beaverhouszen's house and got caught up with she and her husband and their good friend who's in from out of town, making our way home around 10:30, which is actually past the wife's bedtime.

I hop online and try to come up with something at least vaguely entertaining, and about all I can find after opening with a comic book quote is, ironically, other comic related stuff. TMNT seems to have opened today to pretty disappointing reviews, and in spite of looking a great deal like the original B&W comics I remember really loving from way back in the day, I was able to not completely dork out and catch a matinee of it this afternoon. Film Rotation had an article today leading to a very Venom oriented new trailer for Spider-Man 3 available exclusively from Comcast, and it looks absolutely amazing, give it a look.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Comics, Doom Patrol, Grant Morrison, Movies, TMNT, Spider Man 3, Trailers

Things That Suck; Mail Order And Movie Theaters, Specifically

"Shit, son-of-bitch."

There was a customer of some Middle Eastern extraction who used to shop at the comic book store I once worked in, and when he and the owner would get into heated haggling over the pricing of sports cards, he would mock-curse at the owner in the most entertaining broken English possible, and it kind of sums up a lot of the day today.

I recall mentioning that I picked up a cheap copy of Kevin Smith's book Silent Bob Speaks from a used book dealer awhile back, and by awhile back, I mean what feels like a really long fucking time ago. I purchased the book for a little over half price with shipping, the description was 'New', the book allegedly shipped two weeks ago from the Thrift Books people, the Monday after I ordered it, finally arriving today, the 'New' condition now somewhat questionable because of the one inch corner of the back cover of the book that seems to be torn off. Not worth fighting them about, I have a copy to read which was what I wanted, but it is annoying that the thing could've been walked to my house from their shipping facility faster, and arrived in less than the condition described. I suppose shit like this is why my eBay feedback was always so good, because I mailed shit out fast and didn't sell damaged stuff.

The real kicker here is that I ordered a magazine and a book from Last Gasp, people who I would probably stereotype as a buncha slacker hippies just going by the Underground comics that are their bread and butter, and my order from last Saturday night arrived a day before the damned Smith book, and packed better for that matter.

You go, hippies, let your freak flags fly!

Moving swiftly onward: I did my time with the graphs this morning, and then took a planned afternoon off to meet Daveyyojimbo in Odessa to catch a movie or two.

Lunch was interesting, our pretty boy athletic waiter (in the loosest sense of the word) basically ignored us in favor of chatting it up with his three other tables which were fully stocked with females, which I can't really fault, were I in his place, I wouldn't give a shit if the two hairy-legged old boys at that other table got a damned thing if it meant cutting into my flirting time.

Because I'm a slut.

The theater in which we saw Black Snake Moan was packed with Davy, myself and one other guy, so when the film started and was out of focus, we waited it out while the other guy walked out and bitched, then it focused for a time, and then went back to fuzzy edges of everything. Other guy leaves for good, Davey goes and bitches another two seperate times before they get it fixed for good, and the rest of the film is great, but what a struggle, y'know?


Davey bows out of the second film I'm planing on squeezing in before it leaves theaters for good, so I take him home, visit with he and the wife for a time, and then head back to the theater, buy my ticket for The Messengers from the same ticket guy, who seems to still be having the same ticket problems he was earlier, writing the name of the film on a generic raffle ticket and telling me which way to turn when I go inside. Ten minutes later I'm wondering what the hell the deal is with this film, since they haven't started it and it's about 7 minutes late, so I go out and ask what gives. The girl at the concession apologizes, saying that they've been having computer problems, which I assume means that there's now a sweaty projectionist hand-cranking the film platter like some kind of slave shackled in the booth due to the technical difficulties they're experiencing. The movie is finally started, and is actually a little unsettling at turns, the Pang Brothers know their spooky ghost stories quite well, even if there is a good deal of predictability here.

Tired, the Yorkie wakes us like a newborn lately, I'm off to bed kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Mail Order, Books, Movies, Movie Theater, Black Snake Moan, The Messengers

Dork Reference And My Overloaded Bookcase That Shudders Towards Collapse

I own what could only be described as a shitload of books about movies, most of them somewhat genre specific, and a good deal of them unfortunately unread A lot of them were bought in lump chunks here and there when we've made trips to Dallas where I was able to find piles of different movie guides fairly cheap at used bookstores the likes of which we'll never see here in West Texas.
While I do regret that I haven't given these tomes their full use, suffice to say that they're all a great form of entertainment and reference for all my varying film interests, from horror movies to foreign cinema and even just general movie knowledge. In an effort to add to that stack of unread and occasionally thumbed through tomes, I had ordered a book that I had been eyeing for quite some time from FAB Press which arrived in today's post. It's called DVD Delirium Volume One Redux, and made me sorry I'd put off buying it for so long. This book looks to be the best thing I've invested in for quite some time, covering all manner of films, from fringe horror and Giallo films to Hong Kong Action and Indie film. There's two other volumes available as well, so I have bedtime reading for the rest of my unnatural life, I will be ordering them to read while I lay in bed and pray for death after the teeth are removed next month.

Check out the link above for an exhaustive list of the eclectic mix of films covered in this volume.

I finished the last set of graphs and dropped them off with the bossman, who seemed chatty today, which was interesting to have what amounted to an almost normal conversation about our past week. He did manage to tell me something he'd already told me before, which leads me to chalk up a lot of his erratic behavior to a bad memory rather than full blown batshit craziness, as I'd feared before.

An orthodontist visit mid-afternoon let me know that everything is moving along (literally) just fine as the expander does its work and that I'll need to pop in there before the extractions in a few weeks to have the wires removed to allow easier access for the surgeon and his nutjob crew.

The wife watched another film about The Zodiac this evening while I kept a half-hearted eye on it and thumbed through my new treasures, it looked interesting enough, but had a very TV Movie kinda feel to it, and frankly I think it would be hard to hold a candle to Fincher's Zodiac film, at least in my mind anyway. It is nice to see Robin Tunney getting work, though.

The best part of my evening by far was logging on tonight and finding a Myspace bulletin from the folks at Texas Frightmare Weekend, whose event in June I've already purchased tickets for, letting me know that those same fucking tickets are on sale right now, which is just delightful for anyone else who wants to go, but just kinda annoyed the shit out of me.

Thanks guys, I'll be sure to drop my money as early as possible again next year.

Grrr.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Books, Movies, DVD Delirium, Bossman, Orthodontist, Braces, Zodiac, Texas Frightmare Weekend

Can I Still Get A Second Opinion?

I got a lot of work done today, and will most likely be dropping off the completed projects tomorrow afternoon. I'm happy to be in the home stretch, because I've been annoyed at myself for not putting in more time with it than I have recently, for some reason I've found myself very unmotivated. I'm happy to say that this week seems like I'm finally back on a tighter schedule.

I listened to a couple podcasts while getting things done today, including the latest Night Of The Living Podcast which had a rather scathing review of Dead Silence (which I'm sure I'll still brave at some point, just for the hell of it), new Pickled Embryo and yet another SModcast.

I had a consultation with the oral surgeon who will be removing seven (!) teeth from my skull, and while I found him to be nice enough, his staff kinda freaked me out. The nurse/tech/whatever that took me back to the little consult room was buzzing around the room like she was on speed, practically shoving me down in the chair so she could jam a thermometer in my ear and nearly simultaneously place a blood pressure cuff on my arm on the opposite side of my body like a one woman pit crew. Once I'd been pressured and made temperate, she jogged out of the room, calling over her shoulder that the doc would be in soon.

"That bitch is exhausting." I commented to the wife.

Doc comes in, re-iterates basically what the orthodontist has already told me about all the why's of yanking all these teeth out of my head, but adds what will be causing me the most pain, etc., which is probably good to know. It sounds as though I have another couple weeks of liquid diet to look forward to once we have this done in early April.

He sends us with the speed-freak up to the front desk to schedule the actual barbaric ritual, er, excuse me, extractions, and the counter girl turns out to be the polar opposite of our tweaker nurse. Seated at a desk that has us looking over a counter down at her, she has her keyboard and mouse on a hidden desk level so that it appears as if she's sitting with her hands under her desk staring into a distance somewhere between her monitor and our chests. She doesn't really greet us, but exchanges words with the tweaker and presumably begins looking over a schedule for us.

I say presumably because she stared into space between us for about a minute or so, and then something printed on the desktop printer to her left, and she handed it to us, indicating that it was our bill. As K made out a check, she stared a bit more and I began to feel uncomfortable, then she turns randomly and got involved with a conversation about some sort of phone trouble they were experiencing in the office, then returned to her staring at the middle-ground between us.

K and I shift nervously, wondering if we should leave and try again when the real staff is working, because this is obviously a wind-up of some kind.

She asks if April 4th is okay, we agree because we want to leave, and she gives us some literature about the rules of the surgery morning, I gasp in exasperation that I can't wear my jewelry to the surgery, and we get the hell out of there.

"I think that bitch got into the anesthetic." K commented as we walked out.

K had an evening meeting, and we had an early dinner so I could hit the rowing machine wile she was out doing her thing. I've been pretty good about it, doing curls and rowing everyday since I stepped on the scales last in an effort to get the metabolism moving again.

I'd picked up the re-release of Re-Animator starring Jeffrey Combs and the gorgeous Barbara Crampton, a film which I've actually only seen once, and K had never seen, so we gave that a look this evening, and true to form, her interest in horror films of the 80's held true and she liked it quite well. This particular re-release is a two disc set and came with a syringe sharpie that looks to be filled with Re-Agent, so as a collector of dorky shit I was quite pleased with my purchase, and look forward to digging through the second disc full of special features.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Personal, Dentist, Podcasts, Night Of The Living Podcast, Pickled Embryo, SModcast, Movies, Dead Silence, Re-Animator

It's A Magical World

I tried to go to bed earlier than usual last night in an attempt to force myself to be awake at a reasonable hour rather than simply up because of the alarm, wanting to get some work done rather than putting it off until afternoon.

I got up well enough, my little trick not working one bit, I was still tired all damned day, but I did get a jump on the graphs, blowing through about a quarter of the project before lunch and listening to a few things on the old iPod, including the newest Cinemaslave and a (Cool) Shite that reviewed a film I'm fuggin' dying to see, Hot Fuzz and they also got to interview director Edgar Wright. Daveyyojimbo called and inquired about lunch since he was going to be in town, so they wife and I went to eat with him and popped into Best Buy because I hadn't been in there in about 36 hours.

I watched Jet Li's Fearless yesterday afternoon so when I happened across Cradle 2 The Grave cheap today I picked that up just for the hell of it. I remember it being okay, and I have to admit to being pretty forgiving of Li's films, just because the action sequences are usually pretty amazing. Fearless was visually quite striking, directed in epic style by Ronny (The Bride With White Hair) Yu and not exactly what I'm accustomed to seeing Li do, in that the character he portrays isn't very likeable for a good portion of the film but finally has an epiphany after a horrible tragedy.

This evening the wife and I got caught up on various television shows that TiVo had been kind enough to hold onto for us, including the newest episode of Girls Next Door with all the hot Hef action you can handle, complete with his crazy Crypt Keeper laugh.

The Dresden Files really pulled out all the stops with this week's episode featuring a helluva lot more magic and action than the average episode has had thus far. You really see Harry be a lot more pro-active and aggressive, whereas most of the action in the show is usually him trying to duck and cover and not get hurt, this episode felt more along the lines of your average fantasy film, with a lot more bang for the buck. The pacing seemed so odd in fact that I did a bit of searching online and found out that the eighth episode (the one we just watched) was actually a re-edited version of the pilot movie that's been trimmed down to an hour, hence the action heavy feel that would've been used to really draw the audience in. That's a bit frustrating to know, since I was nursing a hope in the back of my head that this was a new direction for the show, but it was most likely just a fluke.

And to close on a down note, I had filed my taxes last month, around the 25, and have been kind 0f half-assed checking my checking account every now and again, because what little money I'm getting back was to be direct-deposited. Since it's been almost a month, so I checked into things online only to find out that the expected delivery date is by April 17th. Not necessarily even before then, but most likely BY then, Christ I'm glad I wasn't saving for a fucking operation or something.


Damned government.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Workday, Podcasts, Cinemaslave, Cool Shite On The Tube, Movies, Hot Fuzz, Jet Li Fearless, Television, Dresden Files, Girls Next Door, Government Screwing Me On Taxes Big Surprise

I Have No Real Drama In My Life (Or: I'm Just A Big Giant Asshole)

Thus, I figure I'll end up divorced over something like someone else's dogs.

K's Mother is having issues that I don't feel inclined to go into here in any detail, though depression is a major factor as well as pain medication that she's been on since she broke her hip, and the last time we got into any depression issues, we ended up watching her dog for a month, and the dog was a general pain in the ass and used our house for a toilet.

Our Yorkie does this on and off as well, but it is OUR dog, so there's that weird difference of how you can talk shit about your girlfriend, but if your buddy does it there'll be a fight.

K went this evening to have a quasi-intervention kind of conversation with the Mom and her sister's at their Mom's house, and K came home with both of her Mother's dogs, because her mother wasn't in any condition to take care of them.

The last time a dog came here, it stayed for a month, so I'm quite selfishly concerned, because I work here in the house now and am not interested in having two extra dogs up my ass and underfoot for any length of time. K was of course upset because my only concern is the canine interlopers, though I honestly had to counter that with:

"They're dogs, not infants, you feed and water them, and they lay around. No one's playing with them, but there are worse fates than to lay on their ass in a nice air conditioned house with plenty of food and water while your mother sleeps."

The three dogs played and wrestled for awhile and we didn't really talk, just watched television for about an hour, and then K eventually scooped up the dogs and left without a word, presumably to drop them back off at her mother's. After she'd been gone for an hour or so, I call her cellphone, and find out she did indeed drop off the dogs, and then went on to her office to get some work done, not sounding like she planned in being home anytime soon.

I suck, but I barely tolerate one animal at times, so I guess expecting me to be excited about guests is probably asking too much.

K eventually came home about an hour later, and after much coaxing finally talked to me a bit about what happened at her Mother's and listened to my explanations of why I'm an asshole, and we were thankfully able to smooth things over, because I can't deal with feeling distant from her. The last relationship, now that one I could stay mad as long as she could, fuck her, but K is different, I can't stand it when we fight, and I just want it to be over as soon as things get heated.

Bah, I'm out, I apologize for using you people as half-assed priests for my own confessional purposes.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Personal, Drama, Arguement, Depression, Faux Priests

Still Happy To Be Out Of The Race

The wife and I went to run her little 'meals on wheels' delivery route this morning, only to find out that apparently it had been given to someone else and we'd wasted our time.

Charity sucks.

Okay, it sucks when it's ill-organized.

Anyways...

We visited the Mother In Law and made a run to the grocery store for her for a few odd items, and then I worked for a few hours on the next set of graphs while K took a nap, since her sleep patterns have been really screwed up the past few days and she was up last night between 3 and 7 AM unable to sleep.

Her Uncle came by and worked on the yard a bit, which has gotten a bit unruly what with a few rain storms we've had recently.

The wife and I went to an engagement party/couples shower for a childhood friend of hers to basically shake a few hands and drop off a gift before meeting with one of her girlfriends for dinner.

The girlfriend, who happens to be single, is quite charming and we have a nice meal and discuss relationships and why they don't work for a variety of reasons, and I again thank God that I'm not out there trying to con some poor sucker into loving me anymore. We spend a good amount of time talking after the meal, the useless waitress hanging around being much more attentive after we've finished our food than she ever was during the dinner, I assume she was waiting to see if she got a tip or something.

The wife and I got in late, watched the newest Debbie Does Dallas Again on Showtime, which was cracking me up completely. Where to begin? The porn divas and their egos, the 'directors' are crazy as hell, one wants to apparently eliminate the cheerleader aspect of the film in an attempt to con his way into a trip to Europe to film the damned thing, or the other guy who makes 'alt porn' with goths and punk chicks who now wants to make a film about All-American cheerleaders fucking, except using the same alterna-chicks. Huh? This is only going to get more silly, I'm sure.

I'm tired, charity drove me from my bed early this morning, so I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Charity, Personal, Shopping, Party, Debbie Does Dallas Again

255?

Listening to the Dropkick Murphys this evening in honor of the upcoming St. Patrick's Day, and sipping on Absolut Citron and Diet Coke to ease the pain of this information:

I stepped on a scale this afternoon because I'd been feeling slightly thinner after the past few weeks of braces complicating meals and stomach viruses or whatever keeping me away from food, and was curious what the damage was.

255, kids. Two hundred and fifty-five Goddamned pounds; I haven't weighed that much since I was in junior high. I'm lucky that I'm fairly tall (6'0 or so, possibly pushing 6'1) and carry it somewhat well, which has camouflaged it until I suddenly realize I own one pair of jeans and one pair of slacks that fit and start to wonder what the hell's going on here.

Marriage and happiness is killing me softly with inactivity and regular feedings. Thoroughly depressed, I've been back on the rowing machine this evening and also did some lightweight curls with the machine. I want to start doing more cardio type stuff to get the metabolism back up, and see at least a 10 pound drop before I really try to lift any real kinda weight because I hate the weird neighborhood you get into when you feel like you've lost weight but can't discern because you've put on a bit of muscle. It's a situation I've rarely had to worry about, but it has happened to me before and it drove me crazy not being able to tell if I was losing fat or not while pretty much holding at a certian weight.

According to this weight calculator, if I'm 6' and assume that I have a large frame, my ideal weight zone is between 168 and 187 pounds, which I highly doubt could ever happen unless you drop my fucking ass off in a desert Survivor-style and let me walk my ass back. I'm going to be shooting for the weight I was at when I met my wife and apparently stopped caring even slightly about my appearance or health, which was around 200 pounds.

Oh well, in other news:

I've often wished I could find another art magazine in the same vein as my beloved Juxtapoz Magazine that covered the more low-brow or fringe artists, and today I picked up something that completely fits the bill. Hi Fructose covers much of the same territory as Juxtapoz does, but seems to have more of a toy slant with a lot of features about the bizarro vinyl toys that can be found at places like Kid Robot. The newest issue is number four, with a fifth to follow this June so give it a look if you're feeling artsy.

Ran around with the wife to do some oddball shopping today and watched some television, but who really gives a shit, right?
Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Dropkick Murphys, Overweight, Workout, Juxtapoz Magazine, Art, Hi Fructose

Where The Fuck Are Your Shoes Lady?

We made an early morning grocery run for provisions so that we could be back in time to let the maids in and begin this week's scavenger hunt. Once they started about their maidly duties, we left them with a key and dropped Bella off at K's Mother's house, because the Yorkie is usually at the groomer while the maids do their thing, and when she realized that she finally had faces to put with the odd scents that usually plague her house every other Thursday, she nearly lost her shit.

Rather than leave her here with them, barking at them for a couple hours solid, I asked if Bella could come over for a play date with the Pomeranian, so we dropped her off and went to meet Robbb across town for a little Italian lunch.

I took the wife to run a few of her errands and then she caught a nap while I worked at the kitchen table, finishing the current project and inking in the graphs. I started the second one and listened to a few things on the iPod, the funniest by far being the Smodcast again, Smith and Mosier have never failed to make me laugh aloud more than once during a show.

This evening the wife had made plans to take one of her nephews to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner to give the parents some time to have dinner somewhere without a ballpit and large plastic tunnel maze, and I had waffled about whether or not I was up for it, but elected to go after last night's post about trying to subdue my own misanthrpoic tendencies in pursuit of a happy marriage.

My second trip to that damned mouse's place in a month, I almost swallowed my tongue when the wife got a medium pepperoni pizza, three drinks and some tokens for about $33, what a fucking racket. I chilled out in a booth and watched everyone else's children squabble amongst themselves and do shitty things to one another while the wife took the boy around to play a few games. He's only four, so he's content to whack a mole or drive the car in the game into a wall for a bit and K followed behind and picked up his tickets so they could be redeemed for some kind of trinkets as we left. I made the rounds with them for a bit, and then went back to the booth, not sure if they'd just leave our food at a table without letting us know it was there.

My luck, we'd come back to some vultures from some other family scrounging through the remains of our supper.

We ate and they went to get rid of the rest of the tokens, I held down our booth, and people watched.

A group of three hillbilly looking women, each with at least two children apiece tramped by, their tight ill-fitting jean shorts shoveling a roll of fat up to meet the spaghetti string tank top that each wore, sans bra. I struggled with my recently eaten greasy pizza meal, and wondered at who in the world was fucking these women, they all looked at least slightly dirty, and once I heard them bellow at their rampant offspring, they revealed themselves to be as utterly charming as they looked.

I finally had to go and find the wife and get some distance from things, and then the next thing I know, one of these trailer people walks by with no fucking shoes on.

The kids I understand, they're encouraged to remove their shoes before scuttling through the brightly colored habitrail in their socks, and of course these people's children were completely shoeless by this time, but why the fuck is this grown woman walking through a restaurant without footwear?

Again, I had to fight my fucking pizza to a standstill to get it to stay put. Gaaak, what goes through these folks minds?

Oh, and when we're leaving, we redeemed the boy's tickets, got him a handful of cheap junk and head for the door, and none of us have their little blacklight stamp to prove that we're together and not kidnapping him, and the girl assures us that they come off quite easily, which is good to know because after this experience, I'm certianly hot to snatch us a whole litter and buy a fuggin' double-wide to raise our brood of piglets with the cute beady little narrow-set eyes.

Once back at the house, we discovered that the crafty maids had hidden the scrubber that usually lives on the sink in the kitchen. Well played, maids, well played.

I watched the copy of Zach Galifianakis: Live At The Purple Onion that made its way here via those rental throttling pricks at Netfux, who, ironically for me, actually sponsored the DVD. I'd only been aware of his stuff via his appearance on the Comedians Of Comedy special or the odd film role, and was really interested in checking this out. Galifianakis employs the most absurdist of comedic styles, crazy sketches, 'characters' that are little more than a strange anecdote or punchline, and bizarre audience interaction that borders on harrasment, but Christ it's hard not to laugh at the twisted routes he takes. Check it out, it's a strange performance piece unlike any other comedian performing today.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Yorkie, Maids, Podcasts, SModcast, Shoeless Hillbillys, Zach Galifianakis

Glad To Be Out Of The Race

Fair warning, on the job surfers, the video clips are quite sweary, click with caution.

The wife has a friend who is in the middle of a break-up (apparently as of today) with a live in boyfriend who she's been in and out of a relationship with for a little over a year and a half. Her issues stem from his inability to make the effort to get together with her family, a general lack of interest in socializing with her friends and the fact that he's an athiest, which isn't to say that she's all that religious, but she believes in something, y'know?

K has been after me to possibly talk to her a bit about things, just for a male perspective on the issues in question, which I'm somewhat reluctant to do, as I know her friend somewhat vaguely from a handful of times that we've had a chance to get together (she lives out of state) and have only met the guy in question twice. I don't really feel comfortable trying to make heads or tails of the issues at hand, simply because I can understand where the guy is coming from, I'm a reclusive homebody curmudgeon myself.

I hear Chris Rock saying things about being forced to socialize with other husbands and wondering "Hey honey, who the fuck is this? I don't need any more friends!" or Louis CK's riff about his wife dragging him to a party, which was "just a houseful of assholes and I want to kill myself" and all I'm thinking is Right On.

Check it, the houseful of assholes line is around the 5:40 mark, makes me laugh every time
I hear it.



But.

I love the wife and I know when something means a lot to her and I'll make the effort to paste on my friendly face and be social, just because it's the decent thing to do. In return, she's pretty up front about what she is interested in me going to with her and we don't run into too many problems.

I sometimes feel like this guy though:



It passes.

Her friend has been trying to make things work for the better part of 2 years, which to me is crazy, if you can't get on the same page for over a year, maybe it's time to move on anyway, and if someone can't meet you halfway, or at least get onboard for the shit that's obviously important to you, it's not worth it. I'm happy to not be worrying about this kinda crap anymore, I've found that weird perfect fit that I wasn't even sure existed, and now I really feel for her friend.

I'm happy to be out of that game.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Personal, Relationships, Louis CK, American Psycho, Christian Bale

The Neverending Stories

I can happily say that Anastasia Beaverhouszen came through her gastric bypass surgery this morning with flying colors, I'm quite excited for her, since this is something she's been planning for the better part of 3 years and it's finally happened. I would also like to note what a prick her brother apparently is, because he decided to marry the mother of his child who he's been shacking up with for about 3 or 4 years today of all days, rather than next week, tomorrow or any other day that his sister wasn't having surgery.

The kicker of the whole situation is that this was to be a ceremony performed by the Justice Of The Peace, not some elaborate wedding ceremony that has been planned for months on end; this really smacks of some last minute wild hair.

This random marriage successfully distracted their parents from being at the hospital this morning, though they were apparently coming in later in the day to see if everything was okay.

Brother and his new bride presumably couldn't be bothered.

People suck.

Spending time with her husband and best friend during the surgery, and then taking a quick break from the hospital for lunch, we successfully killed most of the day. On the drive back home, the wife said she wasn't feeling very good, and then about a block from the house said she was probably going to throw up.

In the driveway as we waited for the garage door to open, she threw open the door and barfed in a pile beside the car, only splashing the Maxima's inner door a little bit. As gross as that is, I suppose she could've completely lost it in the car, or in the garage once I parked, so I'm counting my slim blessings on this one. I sent her to get cleaned up and cleaned out the car, leaving it with a couple liberal squirts of Febreze to hopefully take away as much of an odor as possible. I also hosed down the driveway so I don't have to drive through things when I leave the house tomorrow, and the wife took a nap and tried to get her stomach back to normal.

I watched a movie during her nap, another of the Coffin Joe films that IFC ran awhile back, This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse, featuring Coffin Joe himself as the crazed undertaker trying to find the perfect female to bear his child. The film started out somewhat interesting but after an hour and a half it became apparent that this film refused to end, scenery is chewed, angry villagers seek vengeance, Coffin Joe rants against everything sacred or holy to anyone, I throw up, the end. Seriously, I could've enjoyed the movie had it been about 30 minutes shorter, but after awhile I ended up just being distracted by the bad production values and checking the time remaining.

The wife and I watched the dreadful Stay Alive because it was on cable and I should know better, but I even killed the lights and tried to let this silly thing be creepy. It didn't work, and event though the kills piled up pretty quickly, the plot was pretty thin and the idea of using video game monsters in the real world but not bothering to make them look even a smidgen more realistic than the pixelated game versions is just stupid. I couldn't wait for this to be over either, I guess I've enjoyed too many of the films I've watched recently and wanted to remind myself how bad cinema can get at times?

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it Baggy Eyes! Gastric Bypass Surgery, Shitty Family, Illness, Vomiting, Movies, Coffin Joe, This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse, Stay Alive

Squirrel Butts Don't Glow.

Today's set of 'why the fuck are we doing this again?' style errands found us in a pack and mail place to ship a box for some charity related shite.

The shite in question was a good sized box of various items left behind by a woman involved in a recent (3 weeks ago) charity thing that the wife, as part of the orginization, had been roped into mailing back to the lady. The counter woman seemed uncomfortable with mailing the items in the box they were in, poking and prodding at the various bends and small punctures that the box had picked up during its shipping life, and K agreed to let them re-box and re-pack things, and after that was all said and done, she paid $60 or so to ship this crap, $20 of it for them taking the items out of the box and putting them into a fresh one, and then pouring our packing peanuts over things and sealing the box.

As with the cable service issues from this weekend, I again decided to stay out of things, because it's not my thing, not my money and I wouldn't want someone second-guessing what I'm trying to do.

So of course once we're in the car and have driven the fuck away, K starts in about how expensive that seemed, did I think it was too expensive, etc, and I finally had to say "Look, the woman left the shit here for you guys to mail back, she obviously wasn't that protective or concerned about her stuff, why the fuck are you paying to re-box it anyway? I wouldn't care if at was strung between here and South Carolina trailing peanuts from a hole they kick in the box, it's not really your responsibility to keep up with this woman's stuff." My final advice, if she was that put off with the service and pricing, don't use this place again and just go to the UPS Store from now on, fuck the Mom and Pop mailing outlet for their $20 boxes.

The wife stews over things while we're at our next stop, and after we pay out there, she says that she's going back, it's just pissing her off, and ends up having them re-box things into the original box, gets her refund for the excess $20 and we're on our merry way.

K had a meeting this afternoon, so while she went to that I squeezed in a couple hours of work, which amounted to half the project done, so that's quite cool. I listened to the latest Night Of The Living Podcast while I worked, which clocked in at a record 2 hours and 8 minutes of horror discussion and silliness.

The wife and I watched Tideland this evening so we could get it back to those rental throttling pricks at Netfux sooner than later and they can hold my next rental until about Friday. What a great film, I've been really impressed with Jodelle Ferland in Silent Hill and she was one of the better things about that anticlimactic mini-series we rented, Kingdom Hospital, and she just blew me away in this film. Left alone in her Grandmother's abandoned home once both of her parents die, Ferland drifts further and further into a surreal fantasy world, which is only goaded along by the crazy neighbors she encounters. This film completely made up for the boredom I suffered through with The Brothers Grimm and is somehting I will probably buy eventually.

I'm out, we have to be up early tomorrow to visit a friend in the hospital.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Personal, Podcasts, Night Of The Living Podcast, Movies, Tideland, Jodelle Ferland

Rainy Sunday

Pissing down rain here, surprising for this area, so we spent most of the day indoors, though I did decide to eventually brave it for a jug of milk.

We sprang forward here with daylight savings time, so everything has been kinda FUBAR'd all day, as far as the timeframe of things, I hope I've successfully adjusted by tomorrow, I don't want to spend the day all sleepy and miserable.

I spent more time than I care to admit debating buying something dorky that I kinda want as a reminder of goofy childhood nostalgia, a Snake Eyes mini-bust that I saw in a catalog. The catalog in question just started showing up in the mail, I've never ordered from them before, and everything in their pages seems to start at about $35, so it's not the cheapest thing to be browsing through, but I have too much free time. I'm not sure where I would even put the silly thing or what purpose it would serve beyond catching dust around the house, but I'm about 85% certian that I'm going to be buying it soon, just because I can. Here's a picture of the item in question if you care, and I'm still not certian how I feel about all the armless busts that are issued of comic book and movie characters all the time, it looks a bit odd to me, but what are ya gonna do?

Since I'm apparently still Trent Reznor's bitch even after all these years, here's a bit of Year Zero excitement that I ran across for anyone who cares: There's now a full video for the new track Survivalism on the Year Zero site, but before you make with the clicking at the job, be forewarned, there's (non explicit) male on male action and brief boobs, so don't do anything your boss wouldn't be proud of.

I worked a bit this morning and then rest of the day chilling out, because in spite of it being Spring Break this coming week, there's always a lot of errandy crap that the wife wants help with, and I'm always game, if only for the story I might get out of things.

We watched The Illusionist this afternoon, which was way cool, and had time for the entire Fox Animation block since the Housewives were a re-run this evening. The wife has discovered a new program on Showtime called Debbie Does Dallas Again, which chronicles some behind the scenes drama of casting an adult feature within the Vivid Video offices, taking the concept of stupid spoiled whores way beyond the usual 'reality TV' levels. The first episode was entertaining, more on that as it develops.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! GI Joe, Snake Eyes, Nine Inch Nails, Year Zero, Survivalism Video, Debbie Does Dallas Again

God+Damn+Interweb

Okay, through the grace of God and no thanks to our shitty Cox Internet or Suddenlink or whatever they're calling themselves now service providers, I'm actually able to post something for all six of you regular readers to skim over this evening.

The interweb became unresponsive last night at about 12:30 AM, and I gave up my blog-reading rounds and went to bed, hoping for the best, maintenance being done, whatever, this too shall pass, right?

The wife was online buying shit on e-Bay when I got up, so all was well with the world, I checked e-mail, bought a book over at Abebooks, I'm happy to say that I'll soon have a cheap copy of Kevin Smith's book Silent Bob Speaks arriving in my mailbox, go me.

I'd made plans to help Anastasia Beaverhouszen decorate the doorway of one of her customers from back in the floral days for the spring season, so she and I boogied on out there as early as we could to try and beat the mid-day heat. We knocked that fucker out in a couple hours, being the lean, mean, floral machine that we are, got our check and split.

The wife got back from a nail appointment and we went and had lunch again at the Thai place that I mentioned earlier in the week, this time populated with small, quieter huddles of older folks eating and discussing various ailments, reminding me of the Bill Hicks line about "Mom, do you know anyone who doesn't have a fucking tumor!?!"

Once back at the crib we found the interweb dead to us again and the wife ended up spending 30 minutes or more on the phone with some tech jackass who had her running a buncha bullshit tests on our computer, in spite of the fact that when she initially dialed in, they had a pre-recorded message saying that they were experiencing problems with their internet service and were working on the problem. I wasn't about to get involved and ask her if she'd asked what they fuck this might have to do with our equipment, but did bring it up later once she finally got off the phone. She was of course annoyed, and told me to call back and ask them if they'd just wasted her time, which I did, and they had, according to the guy I talked to.

"So I don't need to be running a buncha bullshit scans on my end, you're internet service is out, and the last jag-off was wasting our time, because he acted as if he didn't even realize that there was a service outage, is that what I'm to understand?"

"Um, if that's how you want to put it, yes. We're working on the problem and will have service available as soon as possible."

ASAP turned out to be about five hours later, and now here we are, boring you and typing again.

I watched The Prestige this afternoon, deciding that I wanted to see Christian Bale doing magic more than I wanted to see Edward Norton doing magic, as a friend has loaned us both this film and The Illusionist. I was very impressed with the movie, and hadn't quite nailed down all of the twists by the end, so it's not a predictable ending by any means.


The wife and I later checked out one of our movies from those rental throttling pricks at Netfux, a German film called Night Of The Living Dorks, which was actually more in the vein of Idle Hands than the comparisons I've heard to American Pie. Predictably plotted along the same lines as a very average teen comedy that just so happens to have a few zombies thrown in, the main nerd is in love with the unattainable bitchy blonde, and ignorant of the attentions of his super-hot goth girl platonic friend living next door, Collien Fernandes.


Seriously, I don't care how goth you make her, this girl is smoking hot, and any dork-fuck loser zombie kid living next door to her his entire life would be down on her like a buzzard on a gut wagon.

I'm out, more tomorrow, web provider allowing.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Shitty Internet Provider, Movies, Christian Bale, The Prestige, Night Of The Living Dorks, Colleen Fernandes