Girl Birthday Guerilla

The wife was up and running early this morning, so I only heard her briefly before my alarm finally roused me at 9:30. Five hours of sleep proved to be less than what was needed, so after a slight stirring, I found myself dozing again for the better part of an hour. I finally got up and opened the house up, then dressed and headed out for Odessa, as yesterday's shopping surprises at the books, music and video outlet had me wondering if anything interesting had turned up at their sister store.

I booked over to Odessa, arriving just shy of the lunch traffic, then spent around an hour prowling through their shelves for any bargains that might catch the eye. I wasn't able to turn up anything out of print this time around, but a small selection of Blu-ray stuff ended up making the trip worthwhile.

The wife had called as I was getting into Odessa, so I made plans to call her about whether or not she was interested in a bit of late lunch when I headed back home. I called and took her order, then grabbed some chicken at a place near the house before heading home. The wife and I caught up a bit, then I ate in the den while she and the Yorkie watched their normal afternoon trash TV. I watched this week's episode of Comic Book Men, a show that still holds a morbid interest for me from the hobby level, in that you don't see a lot of stuff specifically about the hobby on network TV, but it also continues to annoy with the manner in which these people conduct themselves at the business. The snark factor makes me want to slap someone at least once per show and I honestly can't imagine dealing with these guys in person, because I feel like I'd end up on the news. Oh well, if you told me as a young dork that there'd be a weekly show devoted to the nerds who enjoy comics, I'd have thought you were crazy.

The evening would bring the youngest Nephew's birthday party with the family, so I figured I should try to squeeze in a quick movie in the afternoon. Girl Boss Guerilla was a film out of the Pinky Violence collection that I had a podcast on tap to review, so I popped that in for a quick watch. I've only had minor experience with the Pinky Violence films, so this seemed to fit into that genre pretty well, in that it features tough chicks who have no issue with scrapping in various states of undress and who are every bit as rough and tumble as the men in the film. In this one a group of girls relocate from Tokyo to Kyoto and start to encroach on the turf of the existing gangs. This eventually leads to a subplot involving a boxer in training and the gang leader falling in love, which is complicated by the Yakuza and other elements. It's a good little flick, sleazy and fast paced, so you never have any time to get bored with anything before we're off to another scam or brawl. Well worth a peep if it sounds like your cup of tea.

There was still a bit of time to kill before the evening commitments, so I popped in the first disc in The Addams Family set, as I've gotten this wild hair to watch the series lately, and just figured I'd tackle it one episode per day. That made for a fun, nostalgic 30 minutes or so, during which time the wife drifted in and was pleasantly surprised to see the show. We eventually headed out to dinner with the Mother In Law and the Beau before the party, as we didn't know exactly what to expect as far as refreshments would go.

Dinner was decent, we visited a bit and compared notes on the dinner for tomorrow night, which was something that the wife sprung on me at the last minute but gave me the option of passing on, as she has something she has to make an appearance at afterward anyway. I'm taking the out on this one, as the 'big' party was meant to be this evening, with tomorrow being the actual day of birth and being more of a family thing. It's also at a Japanese steakhouse where they cook in front of you and could very well drag out for who knows how long. Sorry, but I'll pass, I'm doing my time this evening, thank you very much.

The party was at a nearby venue, actually the building of one of the wife's non-profits, who are willing to rent it out to help cover their own overhead. The only downside was that the Middle Sister had scheduled the party at 6:30 on a school night, when most folks are likely sitting down to dinner, or out at church, so let's just say that things could've been better attended. The MS is still palling around with the random cousin (or 2nd or 3rd cousin, I honestly don't recall) of mine and his family, so I ended up doing that weird "hey, we don't really know each other and have absolutely nothing in common" dance, which wasn't as unpleasant as it could be, as he seems equally disinterested in catching up, so that's a blessing. We kinda visited for a bit, were surprised to see the Druncle turn up to say hello and drop off a card for the birthday boy, then the MIL and her Beau split and we watched the kids play a bit, then some folks who were using the room tomorrow morning turned up to start setting up, which naturally puts a cramp in the festivities. The MS seemed flustered by their presence, as she was under the impression that she had the room for the entire evening, so we cleaned up and cleared out, though as it turned out the wife knew the next group, so she kinda smoothed things over a bit and tried to find out what kinda lack of communication had led to this situation. It seemed that honestly neither party was at fault, but rather the owners of the building, so the wife gave them a call on the way home, just to make them aware of the situation, and offered advice as to how they should deal with it, as an ex-president of the organization.

Back at home the wife and I watched tonight's episode of The Soup before calling it a night.

I put the wife to bed, took some time to list a few items for sale on Amazon, then got started on this post.

Be seeing you.

Crazy Stupid Paranoid Love Park

I woke with the alarm this morning, after staying up a bit to finish reading Charles Burns' Black Hole last night. The wife was getting ready to leave for her morning meetings and errands, so I told her goodbye and sent her on her way, then got the house opened up for the day and made the bed.

I spent a bit of time on the web and then grabbed a shower and loaded up the recycling that I wanted to drop off on the way to meet EL for lunch, assuming he texted me back in time. I stopped into the local books, music and video outlet to poke around for that elusive copy of Drive on Blu-ray that I was hoping they'd clearanced out of their rental section. I naturally couldn't find one, but did turn up a copy of Attack The Block, so I spent some time looking for that elusive 2nd item that'd make the purchase worthwile, as they still have the 'buy one used, get one for a buck' deal going. I was able to find an new copy of a movie that I know is now out of print, so I was carrying that around and hoping against hoppe that I would finally find something, anything of interest when I suddenly spied with my little eye: a copy of Drive on Blu-ray that was out of the normal place that they'd shelve it.

Boom, we're done.

I killed a bit more time, then checked out and met EL and DR at our usual Thai place that was just down the street. Lunch was good, we visited and caught up at length with DR, who I hadn't seen in a few weeks, then went our separate ways so that the fellas could get on with their days.

Back at the house I found that the wife was home briefly to change shoes after a lunchtime meeting, then she left again to be at another meeting. The Yorkie and I gave each other that same "You again?" look and settled into separate rooms for a bit, as she likes her privacy from time to time. I went into the Office and listened to a couple podcasts while replacing the DVD cases on a few recent purchases, as they were either covered in stickers or slightly cracked in the mail. This ended up eating up more time than I anticipated, as the cases I wanted to swap them out for ended up having those after-market UPC codes stuck on them, which are always a pain in the ass to get off the plastic.

When I finally got all that squared away I moved into the den to watch what I thought was a movie that a podcast I've been saving did a review of. As it turned out, I was about 30 minuntes into the Paranoid Park when I realized via a Twitter message from one of the podcast hosts that I thought I was watching Punishment Park, an entirely different film from the early '80s. Fuck me in the goat ass. I am a fan of Paranoid Park's director Gus Van Sant, so I figured I'd ride it out. As it turned out this might've been a mistake, as I found the film amazingly dull. There's not a lot going on as far as any action goes, and aside from the death of a security guard, not a whole helluva lot really happens except that the kid who is involved does nothing about it, and acts aloof and disenfranchised from everyone around him for the 90 minute running time. The film has an arty look to it that's somewhat interesting to look at, but it's not enough to hold my attention for an hour and a half, as I was just expecting more of a story here. Oh well, it's behind me now, let us never speak up it again.

The wife returned while I was watching the movie, so she and I caught up while I made myself an Old Fashioned and then I finished the last half hour or so while she spent some time on her Mac with a few last minute details for ...something. Frankly, I lose track. At any rate, we ordered in a pizza and I popped in a little selection from Netfux to try and keep that queue rotating.

Crazy, Stupid, Love. stars an ensemble cast, but the main hook is that Steve Carell is dumped by Julianne Moore after she has an affair, so he finds himself taken under the wing of a local Lothario played by Ryan Gosling, who starts teaching him to dress better and not be a middle aged schmuck with the ladies. It actually turned out to be a really cute little movie, has some genuinely sweet moments and a lot of laughs. Plus Ryan Gosling looks sharp in his suits and you get some cute Emma Stone action, so what's not to like?

We rounded out the evening with the latest episode of Justified, then called it a night. I put the wife and Yorkie to bed and then got started on this crapulence for the evening.

Be seeing you.

Movie Shame Of Horrors

The wife had a full day planned for her today, os she was already getting ready for that in the bathroom when my alarm went off this morning. I lay in bed for a few minutes listening to the sound of her hair dryer, then rubbed the sleep from my eyes and pressed on.

I spent some time in the kitchen picking up a bit, getting recycling sorted out, listening to a podcast while I did so, then went to say hello to the wife and try not to startle her, as the loudness of the hair routine makes not scaring her a dicey proposition. We chitchatted for a few, then I left her to her routine and headed into the Office to fire up the PC and get the blog updated. It was around this time that I happened to notice that I had published the wrong post late last night, so I had to revert it into the draft option and polish up the correct one just to keep things chronological. God, I'm a fucking idiot sometimes.

We were edging into the 11:00 o'clock hour by this stage of things, so I decided to get out and hit the Post Office to mail a couple things, then grab myself something to eat.

The weather had turned from sunny and mild yesterday to misty and gray today, so I said goodbye to the wife and headed out into that to run my errands, with the wife close behind me to make her meeting on time. The Post Office was pretty painless, then I grabbed some Thai food from the alternate place and headed back home, detouring on the way to drive by a house that the wife and I had noticed in the classifieds, which proved to be about a block South of a school (bad in my mind) and in a state that would require either hellaciously extensive renovations (also bad) or possibly even a wrecking ball and a fresh start, so I'm hoping she's not in love with that area, because I'd have to argue against it. I really have zero desire to have that much proximity to any school, especially for a house we're planning on living out our lives in with no kids. Why would I want everyone else's shitty kids trailing by every day, throwing trash on our lawn, etc? Hell, the owner of this house probably got tired of watching it happen and killed themselves in the tub, which is why it's on the market now.

Or maybe I'm prone to hyperbole.

Settling in with food I decided to take a different approach to the Movie Shame Monday idea, in that I wasn't really feeling the typical 'classic' cinema that I might normally try to give a day in court. Today I was feeling the weather in particular, so I ate while watching the Dan Curtis film House Of Dark Shadows, which had been on the TiVo since late last month. I want to say that the film seemed familiar, but this may be due on no small part ot the fact that the story has been told at least twice before. The general set-up is the same as the original storyline that introduced the Barnabas Collins character to the Dark Shadows soap opera, but with a re-worked plot to allow for a finite ending rather than the ongoing saga that people loved when the show aired back in the late '60s. What I found really interesting is that it's the exact same Goddamned storyline that I watched back in the early '90s when NBC tried to revive the show, so apparently they will continue to beat this one scenario to death until it loses all meaning. Barnabas arrives, pretends to be his own ancestor, arrived from England, wants to bang the governess or whoever, tries to become human with help of family doctor, who is also falling for him as she tries to cure him. Oh and he generally abuses the dim-witted handyman who acts as his lackey after freeing him from the crypt. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Oh well, all that bitching aside, it's an enjoyably Gothic looking tale, with the sets playing as large of a role as some of the actors. Good looking stuff, but they're definitely not reinventing the wheel.

Next on the docket was Horror Of Dracula, also on the TiVo, also something I wasn't sure if I'd watched before. This was the first Hammer foray into the Dracula series and it's a rousing little adaptation. Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are both in top form and this actually put me on the hunt for other vampire-related stuff on the To-Watch Pile, as I figured now was as good of a time as any to plow through some of this stuff, since I had a bit of a theme going.

I ended up re-watching Blacula, followed by Scream, Blacula, Scream, pausing in between to greet the wife and visit about her day. She was so kind as to bring some takeout home with her, so we had dinner and enjoyed the kinda corny plight of Prince Mamuwalde, a man cursed by Dracula himself to walk the night and drink the blood of man. Fun, corny stuff all the way, especially when they get into some voodoo stuff in the 2nd film, which just so happens to co-star the always delightful Pam Grier. One thing I had to note about both films was that I was 100% interested in them for the first half, but both seemed to linger around longer than they needed to in the last act, which left me kind of looking at the time more often than I would like to. The opening set-ups are all interesting and engaging, but the cat and mouse stuff leading to the resolutions kind of left me a bit cold. I suppose this could be because you pretty much know that this won't end on any note other than the defeat of the vampire, but that doesn't bug me when watching the Hammer film earlier, so I don't know what the issue might be.

We rounded out the night with another episode of Life's Too Short, which was as uncomfortable and ridiculous as the first one had been, so that's moving along right on schedule.

The wife and Yorkie headed to bed while I found myself fished into a Family Guy re-run, then eventually moved into the Office to work on this post.

Be seeing you.

Attack The Sunday, Bruv...

The wife was up before me this morning, but my bladder drove me from the bed around 10:30, so we both enjoyed some coffee and chit-chatted over a couple magazine collections of house plans that we'd picked up Saturday morning. We spent a bit of time sticky-noting pages of houses that exhibited some element we'd hopefully like to see in our own 'imaginary house', which is kind of what I feel that we're talking about until I see a foundation being laid, or until I can finally walk in the front door of that bitch myself.

The wife baked some cookies while we did this, then we eventually got dressed and ran a plate of the cookies by Grandmother's house, where we happened to run into the Mother In Law and her Beau, who were visiting with Grandmother and the Uncle. We found out that Grandmother had managed to fall after she got home from her party yesterday evening, which skinned up her nose a bit and left her with two swollen and puffy eyes where her glasses dug into her face. She seemed embarrassed that we "had to see her" with her face all messed up, even though we were just happy that she wasn't hurt any worse than she was. We visited a bit, then finally split as I was getting kinda peckish for some lunch and the MIL and her Beau were leaving as well, so it seemed like a good time to make a break for it.

We picked up some deli stuff, then headed to the house to eat and relax with a couple shows off the TiVo.

We came to a stopping point between shows and I asked the wife if she cared if I spent some time on the web, as I wanted to get the blog updated, so she and the Yorkie crashed out in the bedroom for a nap while I hopped on the PC in the Office for an hour or so.

The late afternoon was fully upon us by this time, so I shook up a martini for myself, then settled into the den to watch something that'd been hanging around from Netfux for longer than I wanted it to.

Attack The Block is a movie that all the movie nerds went kinda nuts over last year, but I had never seen on sale for a decent enough price to prompt a blind-buy, so I finally said the hell with it and just gave it a rental. The set up is that you're thrown into a lousy neighborhood in London with a bunch of street punks for your leads, then they are your defense against an alien invasion. The kids' dialog is heavily accented and littered with slang (as reflected in the post title above), which makes some of the faster paced scenes a bit of an adventure when you have some rapid fire stuff happening and may not catch 100% of what's being said. There are funny bits and they're thrown onto the same side as a young woman that they mugged earlier in the evening, who learns that the kids aren't as bad as she might've first assumed, and it gets borderline Hollywood ending-ish, but never takes that final step, like having her fall in love with one of them and then they freeze frame on them kissing or something cheesy like that. That said, it's a fun movie, but definitely has some predictable moments, but makes up for it with the somewhat unique setting and creature design, which looks like large black masses loping at you with nothing detailing them save for their glowing greenish teeth. It's a fun little film, I'm happy to have finally given it a look after hearing people go on about it for God knows how long at this point.

The wife and Yorkie joined me for the last half of the movie (I was honestly trying to squeeze it in before she got up, as I didn't think she'd get anything out of it to be honest), then we watched the normal selection of Fox animation re-runs, enjoyed some leftovers from lunch for the evening meal, and then watched the new episode of Eastbound And Down before wrapping the evening with The Walking Dead. The Walking Dead currently feels like a show that's just fucking with me as a viewer who's kind of on the fence with the series as a whole, as they had an entire episode set around our two alpha males arguing over whether or not they should just kill a living person who might later endanger the group, and back at the farm another character debated suicide. And there was a bit of a zombie attack in there somewhere, but absolutely NOTHING happened or changed about anything, except that the contrived situations that turned up for this episode were sort of resolved, but next week we're essentially back where we started, we have one guy too many in camp, do we kill him? And I guess someone still might wanna top themselves, so who knows if that'll happen? Seriously, absolutely nothing important happened this week, and they pissed away an entire episode for it. I understand that the show isn't following the comics in any grand form, but for Christ's sake, at least it had a sense of pacing. This television program feels like it's happening in 'real time' and we're riding out the Goddamned summer in Georgia with these people, beat by boring beat.

Oh well, maybe something interesting will happen next week.

We called it a night shortly afterward, and I hopped back online to poke around and see if anyone interesting won something at the Oscars, which evidently aired tonight and I completely avoided by staying away from Twitter and Facebook.

Be seeing you.

Family Pancake Celebratory Day Of The Year Festival

The wife and I had made plans to meet the Older Sister and her family for a late breakfast at a fundraising event that a local charity holds each year, so I set the alarm for 9:00-ish this morning, figuring that the wife and I could perhaps go poke around at a couple garage sales beforehand. The recent garage sale visits held true today, as the two places we stopped that alleged to have books or DVD's had nothing of any real interest, but we killed a little time, then popped into the little Library thrift store to see what they might have, since it was on the way to the breakfast spot.

This charity thing is a yearly event that I've always kinda scoffed at, as it is in a kinda sketchy older building that used to be a movie theater (one of, if not the first one in our town, as I understand it), but has since been maintained as a meeting hall by this organization. The idea is that they serve pancakes and sausage from morning 'til night, so you come and pay $6 a person and can graze for as long as you'd like. The 'all you can eat' vibe attracts a very *ahem* diverse crowd of people, so when we arrived early the wife and I spent some time in the foyer just people watching and wondering aloud how the Older Sis and her family had gotten into the habit of attending, as she seems a bit more...well, let's say she's a bit more 'elegant' than the average customer that we saw shuffling past us. Maybe I'm just getting kinda snobby, but this seemed like the last thing I would imagine her doing.

Once the OS and her kids arrived (her hubby is out of town) they ran us through the routine, then we settled down to eat and one of finally had to ask how we came to be here this morning. It was, as it turned out, a rather sweet story, in that she has fond memories of attending the event when she was a little girl, before the other sisters were born, and she wanted to start the same tradition for her kids, so that they could have the same experience, which we had to agree was really sweet.

Even if we occasionally felt like we were trapped in that 'People Of Wal-Mart' website from time to time. The food was good, and we visited for a bit, then headed out, as we would see one another soon enough at Grandmother's birthday party in the evening.

We headed home and chilled for a bit, though the gusty weather left me with a headache kinda threatening to peep in from around the corners, so I took some Advil and left the wife to catch a nap while I blew through some shows on the TiVo.

I caught up on the last couple episodes of Fringe (which were pretty awesome, if you care), then I hopped online and got the blog updated and played around with the various movie nerdlists a bit before it was basically time to start heading out to the Uncle's house in the boonies to celebrate Grandmother's birthday with the extended family. If I saw most of these folks any other time besides a Grandmother-related event, I might be interested or excited to see them, but as it stands it just makes for another quasi-boring evening after you get past all the "oh, hey, how've you been?" type of chatter. I say this feeling the exact same way about my own family for the most part, as there's little in common with most besides "...an ever diminishing amount of blood", to quote one of my favorite lines from Igby Goes Down.

Which reminds me that I need to re-watch that film; it's amazing.

Anyway...

The Uncle lives out in the boonies, actually in another county, which is kind of saying something in Texas, because it's fucking big and spread out, so to get all the way into another county, you almost have to be trying to hide from someone. The wife and I arrived shortly after things had kicked off, but still ahead of a few different folks, so we didn't feel all that bad about misjudging the amount of time it'd take to get there. And to be honest, the last...oh, 10 miles of the journey mostly consisted of me repeating "This is fucking ridiculous." over and over again, because who in their right mind lives this far away from the other humans? And then hosts a party? That's like those people who have 'destination weddings' and expect their friends and wedding party to find a way to fly to Prague or some shit instead of a church downtown. We found the mingling in full swing, with both Sisters and their families in attendance, but in separate corners because the Middle Sis evidently can't be asked to even hug her Older sibling, so I suppose that weird Cold War will continue for the foreseeable future. On the upside, they both seemed in good spirits otherwise, and the wife and I each spent time visiting with them at various stages, so that was nice. Grandmother was visited with by her grandchildren and great grandchildren, and seemed to really enjoy her evening, so that's what counts, right?

The party showed no signs of breaking up even after we'd eaten and had some cake, but I kinda started nudging the wife around 7:30, since we had that Godforsaken drive ahead of us, and so we said our goodbyes, then slowly made our way outside to find that we were boxed in, because no one knows how the fuck to deal with the parking situation, which included a circle drive threatening on virtually all sides with Mesquite trees that want to take the pasture back at the first chance they get.

We eventually got on our way and the drive back seemed even longer, as it was dark and the speed limits drop a bit. Oh well, according to the Mother In Law's Beau the drive is roughly akin to driving to Odessa (about 25 miles), so there's no way that it's actually as bad as I'm making it out to be, but I think the desolation of the area adds to it dramatically in my mind.

Back at the house we got into our pajamas and fed the Yorkie before retiring to the den and catching up with this week's NBC stuff, The Soup and the last couple episodes of An Idiot Abroad, which I have to say may just be the wife's current favorite show.

We called it a night shortly after that, then I put the wife to bed before working on this post.

Be seeing you.

Realty And Dinner

The alarm was set for 10:00 this morning, which actually afforded me a whopping 7 hours of sleep, most of which was largely uninterrupted, something of a rarity these days. So yay.

The wife was supposed to have a lunch meeting today with some friends, but that had been canceled, so I suggested that we have an early lunch at the cafe that a local greenhouse has opened, wherein you dine inside the greenhouse and take in the quasi-outdoor ambiance and try not to wet yourself while listening to the trickling water of their numerous fountains. It's a quaint little place that we haven't been in quite some time, so it seemed like a good time to get back into the habit.

She seemed game for this, and also made an appointment with another Realtor, who seemed more interested in talking to us about actually buying a plot of land than selling us a house we aren't really interested in. We had a nice quiet lunch, then killed time before meeting the Realtor by wandering through Barnes & Noble and picking up a couple home design magazines for possible inspiration. We still had time left when we got out of there, so we also took a stroll through the local books, music and video outlet just in case they had anything we might've missed.

We eventually met the Realtor at the address he'd given us, which was a house that he and his company are in the process of building, having secured the land for the buyer. It was around this point that I realized that this guy is a borderline contractor, as his company deals in real estate, but they also have a hand in the construction portion as well. The general idea was that he wanted to show us what they were capable of as far as the high end real estate goes, so we toured this house pretty thoroughly, then took a look at a couple floor-plans that they have available, neither of which are exactly what we're interested in, but gave an idea of what his people are able to do. We made plans to check out another area this coming Sunday, though upon reflection we both started to reconsider that whole idea, as it may just be a big waste of his time and ours, because it's in a much more remote area than either of us would care to live. We're both still on the fence about checking it out regardless, just to see a few more houses and see if any certain design grabs us.

We headed home afterward, and the wife and Yorkie chilled with some trash TV in the bedroom, so I retired to the den and watched a few things off the TiVo to pass the time until we had to start thinking about heading to a friend's house for dinner.

Dinner was hosted by a sweet couple that we know via the museum, and also attended by the museum's executive director and his boyfriend, plus another couple that we know because the husband is also on the board with the wife. This meant that a lot of the conversation turned to the museum, but we did manage several different topics over the course of the evening while eating some really amazing Greek-themed food, carefully prepared fresh by our hosts. We ate and visited and got to know one another over the course of about 4 hours (!), then finally had to start calling it a night. The wife always notes that we'd like to be like our hosts when we grow up, as they throw a rather elegant, yet simple dinner party and make it look fairly effortless.

We got home around 11:30, so the wife pretty much headed straight to bed and I settled into the Office to decompress a bit and get this post knocked together before calling it a night myself.

Be seeing you.

The Gator With The Crystal Plumage

The plan this morning was that I would sleep until 10:00 for what I was praying would be an uninterrupted 7 hours of Christing sleep, but this naturally didn't happen because the Lawn Guys arrived and set to it at the crack of 8:00 AM, so between all that Goddamned racket and the Yorkie voicing her displeasure, both the wife and I were tossing and turning for the better part of an hour hoping that it would be over soon.

The wife was getting up at 9:00 anyway, so she eventually gave up and started looking at e-mail on her iPhone, but I was pretty desperate to shake off the trend of the week and get more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep, so I forced my head further into the pillow and tried to get some more rest. When I finally surfaced I'd naturally slept longer than I wanted to, so I sprang from the bed and went to get the house opened up for the day before it had completely gotten away from me.

I fired up the PC and spent a few minutes online looking at e-mail, then decided that I just wasn't feeling it, so I decided to spend the afternoon with a couple movies off the To-Watch Pile. I fed the Yorkie, who was still in bed and seemed very uninterested, then dressed and stepped out to pick up some lunch.

When I returned with some Mexican takeout the dog seemed slightly interested in what I was doing, but otherwise kinda moped around during the afternoon, which made me think she might be trying to get ill. She didn't seem to want to eat, which is certainly never a good sign, but I kinda crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

My To-Watch Pile selection was the Claudia Jennings film from the year of my birth called Gator Bait, in which she plays a Cajun known to poach gators in the swamp, which is largely ignored by the local law until an idiot deputy accidentally kills someone and tries to pin the death on our ratty looking heroine. Soon enough the sheriff, his idiot son the deputy and the hillbilly family of the dead guy are combing the swamps looking for her, and at this point I realized that this plot sounds a lot like the Jerry Reed song Amos Moses, right down to the titular character being 'used for alligator bait' at some point in their youth. Very strange. The film also had a weirdly arty sheen to certain scenes that played up the beauty of the swamp and the way the sun hits the waters, etc. That said, this was a grotty VHS rip to DVD, so there's some tracking issues here and there, as well as a sleazy tone that feels very much at home in the low budget fare of the mid-'70s. Fun little film, happy to have it in the collection.

The wife came and went while I was watching this, killing some time between a meeting and a pedicure that she had scheduled in the mid-afternoon, so she and I caught up a bit before she left again, then the dog settled on the couch in the sitting area off the kitchen to growl at the occasional UPS vehicle that passed and made enough noise to draw her attention.

Eventually the wife returned and spent some time on the computer in the Office before she had to head out for an evening engagement. I was finally finishing up my movie around this time, having been distracted by some laundry that I'd been ignoring for the past 24 hours or more. The wife headed out to her evening 'thing' and after I finished up Gator Bait I made myself a cocktail and grabbed another film for a quick re-watch before listening to a certain podcast cover it.

The Bird With The Crystal Plumage is something I most recently watched around this time last year, so I wanted a refresher before digging into someone's spoken review of it. It holds up amazingly well as Argento's first Giallo film, and the opening attack scene, in which our hero finds himself trapped in the glassed in foyer of an art gallery, unable to help the woman that he's just witnessed being accosted still looks amazing. I like that it also plays around with your memory of events in much the same way the set-up of Deep Red does, in that you're shown things that you may miss in the confusion and shuffle of what's happening.

As we got into the evening I watched this week's Whitney (which actually made me laugh a few times, but still isn't blowing up my skirt), then was in the process of watching this week's Person Of Interest when the wife called offering to pick up a little something for dinner if I was interested. I put in my order and when she got home we enjoyed a little Mexican dinner while I finished out my show, then we plowed through tonight's episode of Archer before calling it a night at 10:00.

I put the wife and pup to bed after we gave the Yorkie a bit of medicine to settle her presumably upset stomach, as it was making the tell-tale burbling noises that signal a bad time for everyone in the household.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Chronicling The Hordes Of My Nightmare

I slept pretty well last night, just not long enough, so after waking when the wife and Yorkie were leaving this morning on a trip to the Groomer, I ended up falling back asleep for another hour and change, until the doorbell woke me.

The Maid arrived at 10:00, so I let her in and tried to get the sleep from my eyes as she got started on her normal routine. I spent some time on the PC in the Office working on getting the blog up to speed, then got dressed and headed out to pick up a burger for my lunch.

I ate in the Office while watching another movie that I wanted to return to Buckaroo Banzai when I saw him this afternoon, as I've had some of his stuff for what feels like forever at this point. I watched about half of the French zombie action film The Horde before the wife and the Yorkie got home from the Groomer and the other errands that the wife had to run. I caught up a bit with the wife, then we both chilled in the Office for a bit while the Maid finished up her stuff. I finished the movie while the wife worked on a few things online and did some printing of various and sundry things that she will need for later in the week.

The Maid split and the wife caught a nap after her fairly early morning, so I spent some time in the den making certain that the TiVo wasn't trying to delete anything important, and even dozed for about 20 minutes myself, as I'm still not 100% caught upon my rest.

Around 4:00 we headed to the theater to meet Bucky and Pookie, who were supposed to watch Chronicle with us. We arrived about 10 minutes ahead of showtime, and a text from Bucky told me that they were already seated inside. The wife and I spent almost that entire 10 minutes before screen time watching as the only couple ahead of us in the concession line ordered food and drink as if they hadn't eaten in a week. What a weird place to load up on snacks, at three or four times retail pricing. Yeesh.

Chronicle was a pretty decent twist on the standard 'found footage' genre, and I enjoyed it for a 'Spider-Man meets The Hulk' kind of take on the material, as one of three kid's naturally starts to lose it when he and his friends gain telekinetic powers. It's a lot like a more concise version of the TV show Heroes, brought to a head much faster and without the threat of anyone really policing or discovering them, as we're meant to follow the fairly sad story of one of the boys who uses his powers to his gain, as his previous life has been one of bullying and ostracism. It's a good time and didn't feel overly long or anything, though there are (as expected) the few moments here and there that stretch the plausibility of why certain things are being filmed, but that's what one has to accept with this type of movie.

We reconvened at a local steak house and visited over some dinner, then eventually made our way back to the house, where the wife made coffee for the group, as well as showing Pookie how to use the machine, as she's keen to start doing something similar at home. I made Bucky a couple CD's and he and I visited about movies and other nerditry before finally settling down in the den to relax and watch some television.

UPS made a bizarrely late delivery of some things that I had ordered from Amazon, so I ended up popping in a blind-buy movie called Nightmare, which I've only recently become aware of due to some chatter on Twitter with the Code Red DVD company and some of their fans. The film is a slasher from 1981 and actually turned out to be fairly entertaining, though it's filled with flaws and corny moments, so I'd definitely suggest watching it with friends and possibly other shit going on in the room.

Our guests split close to 11:00, which I kind of felt bad about, as it is a 'school night' so to speak, and I know they both work in the AM, but they seemed on the fence about when they had to be there tomorrow anyway, so I just enjoyed the visit and left it at that.

I put the wife and Yorkie to bed afterward and then started a final load of laundry before I got started on this post.

Be seeing you.

Quarantine Birthday

Neither the wife nor myself slept very well last night. Both of us tossed and turned, got up an down numerous times during the small hours of the morning, which was really irritating, as we'd planned to be up and doing things at a reasonable hour. The Yorkie slept through it all, like the jerk that she is.

The wife got up at 8:30, dressed and staggered off to meet her day, which woke me briefly, but I fell back asleep for the crucial 30 minutes until my own alarm went off at 9:00, then got up and made the bed after starting some laundry. I got the house opened up for the day and fired up the PC, then spent a few minutes going over a list of things I had to do today, as I didn't want anything to slip through the cracks.

I got a blog post ready to be published, swapped out laundry and the grabbed a quick shower before gathering our recycling to hopefully get rid of while I was out having lunch with EL. I happened to notice the time and realized that this wasn't going to happen, so instead I got a couple of Swap A DVD trades ready to mail and headed to the restaurant where I was supposed to meet EL, as I was actually running late by this time.

As it turned out EL and I were joined by BR, as our standard companion DR was unavailable, so that worked out well enough. We visited and had some good food, then said our goodbyes as the fellas had to get back to work. I hit the Post Office on the way back home, then went to see what the wife was up to back at the house. We visited briefly, then I started loading up all the boxes and bags of plastic shit that I wanted to get rid of.

Happily, the recycling area at the nearest grocery store was clean and picked up, indicating that the bins were not overflowing, which is always a concern since it seems like we're only half-ass committed to the project. I stepped into the local books, music and video outlet to poke around since I was in the neighborhood, coming away with a handful of my normal monthly periodicals, so that's another thing ticked off the list.

Back at the house I fiddled with laundry a bit more, then decided to try and squeeze in a quick movie before we were supposed to be at the country club in honor of the Beau's 70th birthday. Since we're set to see friends tomorrow afternoon and they loaned me some (still unwatched) movies several months ago (like, last year months ago), I decided to blow through Quarantine 2: Terminal while some pants I wanted to wear for the evening were in the dryer.

The movie was decent enough, filled with the 'infected' style of zombie rather than the typical undead, and the twist of setting it on an airplane is interesting enough, but they're barely in the air for a few minutes before we're trapped in a (duh) terminal, where the government quickly (duh) quarantines them and chaos ensues. It's a decent little timewaster, though I honestly prefer the films that inspired these ( the REC series of Spanish films), as they go into more of a religious possession direction with the explanations for the outbreak, where these films have had more of a virus vibe to them.

The hour was growing late at this point, so the wife and I both dressed and headed out to the country club, where we met the Mother In Law and her Beau and visited for a few before the other guests arrived. Dinner was good and it was nice to get to know some of the Beau's former business associates and friends a bit better, then we finally started calling it a night around 9:00 or so, as the club was closing down and the employees were starting to do that not so subtle milling thing that they do when they want their table back.

We said our goodbyes and headed home, where we got comfortable and then watched tonight's episode of Justified before calling it a night.

I'm off to bed, as we have the Maid in the AM and I'm freaking exhausted.

Be seeing you.

One Shamed Over The Movie's Nest

Last night I went to bed to read and unwind a bit around 2:00 in the morning, then finally bedded down around 3:00 or thereabouts. I would soon find myself awake roughly every hour or so for the nest few hours, just because I couldn't get comfortable for any extended period of time. This naturally left me sleeping in until near noon today, which sort of worked out since the wife had President's Day 'off' so to speak, with no meetings or other nonsense to take up her time. We both spent about half the day in bed, though I did finally force myself to get up and move into the Office to get a blog post published just so that I could feel like I wasn't falling even further behind with all this bullshit as well.

The wife and Yorkie soon followed and we all debated the options for the rest of the day, and since it was well after noon by this time I offered to go and pick up salads and sandwiches for our lunch/dinner, as I figured if we got some deli goods it could serve as two meals with leftovers. This is how I know I'm getting old, I've started taking the time to order a certain way at restaurants to allow myself two meals out of one and thus screw them out of a second meal. Get off my lawn! **adjusts robe**

We spent the afternoon with a few things off the TiVo to try and stay roughly current with a few shows, then the wife spent some time experimenting with the coffee machine, as she's getting better and better at making the white chocolate mochas that we'd normally be throwing down $5 apiece for at Starbuck's, but now we're wasting like 30 minutes of our lives every time one of us wants one, so I guess it all comes out in the wash: time vs. money.

As we got into the early evening I suggested that we watch a little something off the To-Watch Pile that I'm pretty sure the wife herself had bought once upon a time: Milos Forman's adaptation of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. I know that I read the novel at least a decade ago, but I honestly don't recall if I've seen the film in its entirety, or just truncated versions on broadcast television over the years, so I figured that this would be a great selection for Movie Shame Monday as well. The film was great, as expected, but the weird part was that I could recall most of it, save for a sequence outside of the hospital in which Nicholson takes the inmates on a joyride in a bus, then out fishing for an afternoon. The really weird thing is that I noticed that I had already rated this film (as with Asphalt Jungle yesterday) on IMDB, which is something I'm obviously not doing unless I've already seen the film. Very weird, as I don't know when I would have had occasion to watch this, unless it might've been with friends at some point. Oh well, it just bugs me when something slips away from me so easily.

We spent some time after the movie kinda reflecting on the various messages that seemed to be coming across, most of which are fairly depressing, quite frankly. The '70s certainly seemed to be an era for cinema that had a rather defeatist tone to it: that you could go on and be whatever kind of individual you wanted to be, but eventually someone will turn up and kill you for doing so, which I'm sure a lot of people were feeling as the free love thing faded and the realities of the decade set in.

To kind of decompress from that material I suggested an episode of something fairly light and formulaic, so we watched Hawaii Five-O to kinda bring us into the 10:00 PM hour, which is when the wife generally beds down for the night.

I got her and the Yorkie tucked in, then got started on this post.

Be seeing you.

What A Way To Jungle!

My late night coffee had me up until the wee hours of the morning, so I finally shook my way out of the pillows around 10:00 today. The wife and Yorkie were up and moving, with the wife making coffee and chatting away on the phone in the kitchen. We visited a bit once she got off the phone, then I got the house opened up for the day and fetched the newspaper from the driveway for later perusal.

As we got closer to noon we discussed our lunch options a bit and then the wife ordered some hot-wings from a place across town, which I dutifully dressed and went to pick up in an effort to beat the rush of all the church people. The line was a little ridiculous, but on the upside they gave me a couple of free sodas rather than take the time to hassle with adding them to the order, so I've got that going for me.

Once I returned and we unpacked the food and then settled into the den to eat, I started a little something off the TiVo called What A Way To Go!, which is a Shirley MacLaine film from 1964. She plays a woman who has been widowed by four different men, all of whom have inadvertently become driven to success once they married her, only to fall stone dead from over-work or exhaustion. These hubbies include Dick Van Dyke, Paul Newman, Gene Kelly and Robert Mitchum, plus you gotta know there's a new guy on the hook for the typical Hollywood happy ending, right? It's a fun little slap-sticky flick that both the wife and I enjoyed quite a bit and seemed perfect for a quiet Sunday afternoon at home.

The wife napped a bit afterward and I popped in something from Netfux so that I can get it back in the mail sometime soon. The Asphalt Jungle is one of those iconic Film Noir outings that I have had on my mind recently, so being that I'm working my way through the Out Of The Past podcast in order, it was next up on the list. The movie was really enjoyable, following the behind the scenes of a jewel heist that's put together very carefully but ends up slowly falling apart in the last act due to sheer happenstance, from alarms at other buildings accidentally being set off even though the jewel store's is not, to a dropped gun that fires randomly, it's a series of things that no one could have planned for and it is the thieves eventual undoing. The weird thing is that when I went to add the movie to the list I'm keeping over on the IMDB it already had a rating starred in, which confuses me, as I'm pretty sure I've never seen this movie before, and I'm only rating stuff as I watch it, so that left me stumped. Unless I've somehow managed to watch this and then completely blot it out, which I highly doubt...I dunno, it's odd.

The wife spent some time picking up the dining table area and writing out a few bills, and we spoke about some therapy that she's been doing with the Older Sister that ostensibly was to help repair the relationships between all three sisters, but has recently begun to feel more personal, as the Older Sister feels that the wife is 'all surface', which I find odd, as the wife is one of the most honest, open people I've ever known. She doesn't have any weird agendas (unlike some family members) lurking beneath the surface, which I suppose may seem hard to believe if you're constantly looking for deeper meaning, but she tends to wear her heart on her sleeve, which can make her own life harder when people start to dig at it. All I know is that I'm happy to be an only child and have almost zero contact with relatives, because as I've always said (and firmly believe), 'once you stop caring, life gets so much simpler'.

The evening was spent with the normal Fox animation fare, including the 500th episode of The Simpsons, which is crazy to think about, since I obviously recall the first iterations that appeared on the Tracey Ullman show before it became its own program. We caught up with Pan Am (which had its season finale this evening, as well as The Walking Dead (as always, to prevent spoilers on the web) and the season premiere of Eastbound & Down, which was as offensive and fucked up as expected, so that's cool. I also had to record a ton of other shows for later consumption, as it feels like 75% of our weekly programming airs in conflicting schedules on Sunday night. Thursday and Friday account for another 20% of things, with the rest of the week rounding things out. The weird thing is, we don't watch just tons of television, as I tend to shun most reality stuff and a lot of the more popular shows that I know are big with everyone else, so if we watched any of that shit I might as well just buy a second TiVo to try and handle the overflow.

But that's crazy talk. If anything, I'd be happy to divest myself of a few shows I've been watching out of habit and then bitching about, I just haven't found the will to do so.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

The White Ribbon Date Night

The wife and Yorkie were up before me this morning, as the wife's coffee routine was calling to her and I had been up later than intended reading in bed after an extended night of blogging and other interweb time wasting. As it turned out, they were both coming back to bed to relax as I was waking up, the wife having finished enjoying her cup of coffee on the Guest Side of the house in the front lounge area, so the three of us snuggled up and visited for a bit, then the wife was so kind as to make me a cappuccino as well, so we all moved into the kitchen area so that she could work on that and the dog and I could watch expectantly.

I looked at Twitter and Facebook via the iPad while the wife and I chatted, then I eventually took my tasty caffeinated beverage and moved into the Office to get another blog post published while the wife re-organized her coffee area on the counters.

The wife and Yorkie finally did move into the bedroom to relax, so I spent some time in the den making sure that about half the stuff on the TiVo wasn't going to delete itself, then watched a few things that I had missed over the course of the week, including the last episode of the season of The Life & Times Of Tim, which aired last night. That show continues to crack me up each week, and I sincerely hope it gets another season, as it's well worth the 30 minutes of your time each week.

We were supposed to go and visit my friend Shioda, his new bride and infant son this evening since they were in town and staying with his mother. With this in mind, I had told the wife that I wanted to take her out to dinner beforehand, so I started weighing the time we needed to leave the house vs. the remaining hours in my afternoon and figured I would try to squeeze in something off the TiVo that'd been on there for some time now.

I started watching Michael Haneke's film The White Ribbon pretty much cold, just knowing that it was supposed to be about mysterious accidents occurring in a German village, just before the outbreak of World War I, but I had no idea what to expect. The film is shot in black & white, in German and has a fairly slow and deliberate pace, but I still found myself engrossed by the various curious situations that become apparent, sabotages by persons unknown that hospitalize the village doctor, the brutal kidnapping and torture of a child of the local Baron, who is responsible for the livelihood of roughly half the local populace, it's all very interesting and almost soap operatic, but then I happened to notice the running time and realize that this turkey is a whopping 2 hours and 24 minutes long, so I won't be able to finish it before we have to leave for the evening.

Rats.

The wife was getting dressed when I finally came to what felt like a reasonable stopping point, so I suggested a restaurant to her, then shaved quickly and got dressed myself. She and I dined at the Mexican place we went to on our first date, which seems somewhat timeless, even down to the Gawdawfully uncomfortable chairs that I know have to have been in use since the mid-'70s. The table behind us provided inadvertent entertainment, as the girl was chirping along a mile a minute about all the drama of finding out that her husband had been cheating on her: "...and then I found a receipt for two dinners at Chicken Express and I knew he was busted!"

Holy shit lady, if this is a date, I doubt he wants to hear a blow-by-blow description of you Sherlocking your way into divorce court. Or maybe he does, because it'll help him cover his tracks better to know what you'll be on the lookout for...

Anyway...

We grabbed a coffee afterward, as I was enjoying our 'date' night vibe, then we made our way to Shioda's mother's house, which I have to say was kind of a pain in the ass to find at night, especially since I hadn't been over there in close to a year. We visited with the extended family that was assembled, a move that always makes me feel slightly out of place when people invite you to what is obviously a family gathering and you're the one or two people there who don't have the same last name; just feels weird for some reason. Sort of like you're an interloper, regardless of invitation. We met the young baby, oooh'ed and aaww'ed appropriately, and visited a bit in between Shioda shooting pool with his uncles and cousin, which to be honest doesn't make for a relaxing visit, so I didn't feel all that bad about calling it a night about half past 9:00, as we'd caught up a bit by this time and were mostly feeling like third wheels since we weren't involved with the family shenanigans.

Plus, that baby has to go to bed sometime, right?

Back at the house I put the wife to bed and then settled back into the den to see what other twists this film had for me in its final hour, which turned out to be a fair amount. Haneke's films are generally made to flummox the casual viewer, with no easy answers being made apparent, he's much more interested in giving you just enough information to start forming your own theories about what happened, then leaves you to get into fist-fights with your friends over whose interpretation is correct. It's a good film, but honestly I don't know when I'll re-visit it to try and glean further information from it, as it is 2 and a half Christing hours long, which is something of a commitment when you're talking about information you're already familiar with.

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

Be seeing you.

Terminal Rollers

The Yorkie and wife were up this morning when I finally pulled my head from the pillows, so I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and went to see what they were up to. The wife was working on her new morning coffee routine, so I visited with her as she did that, then we lined out plans to grab lunch with Brian and JH at a deli across town just before noon. We both dressed and piddled around the house for a few to kill time so that we wouldn't be standing around twiddling our thumbs waiting on people, then finally headed out into the gray, depressing weather.

We still managed to arrive ahead of our friends, so we went through the order line just to be able to secure a table, as this particular place fills up rather quickly, then we spent the meal visiting, kinda decompressing from the week and catching up a bit.

After lunch I dropped the wife back at the house and then ran by Big Lots, as I was curious if they had anything new, which was a resounding 'no', and I'm frankly starting to wonder if they have given up on re-stocking anything, as the existing merchandise in the store seems to turn over slightly, but the DVD selection remains the same crap, week in and week out.

I headed home and spent some much needed time on the PC, getting bills paid and the blog updated a bit, as I have been slacking as far as what I've published in the past week or so. I gotta be honest, the writing itself is still a pleasurable (if pointless) habit, but as far as getting it published and out there for the world to read; I barely care anymore. I'm sure this will pass, as my interest in writing in general seems to wax and wane. Hell, for all I know it may be this lousy weather bugging me these past couple days.

The afternoon successfully killed with the interwebs, I eventually drifted into the den and fired up the Blu-ray player, figuring to check out something off the To-Watch Pile. I made myself an Old Fashioned and popped in the Code Red release of a film called Terminal Island, which is filled with a ton of B-List actors as well as an early role for Tom Selleck, so it was interesting to see him in a supporting role rather than as the typically heroic lead. Long story short, the film is about a prison island where murderers are left to their own devices, both men and women, and the resulting conditions leave them split into two factions, one cruel and sadistic, the other slightly more appealing as they don't overtly want to use the women as sex slaves, which is a step in the right direction, right? The movie is nothing special, but it's interestingly of its time (1973), when we assumed the world would be on the brink of destruction soon and we'd all be reverting to crazy, animalistic lengths to survive. It's worth a peep if you like women in prison stuff or things of that nature, though it never got as sleazy as I kind of expected it to, possibly due to the female director?

We ordered in some dinner and ended up watching another early '70s flick called Unholy Rollers, which stars Claudia Jennings (who reminded me of Bridget Fonda quite a bit from certain angles) as a disgruntled, hot-headed factory worker who ends up joining a roller derby team and becoming something of a star. I wasn't very familiar with the sport, so this vintage presentation was pretty amusing, as it appears to be played out in much the same manner as professional wrestling, in that there's elements of it that are legitimately dangerous and real, but there's also a lot of planned stuff and things that play to the audience. I enjoyed it quite a bit, though I don't know what the movie was really trying to say, as our star basically gets full of herself as things go along, becoming as obnoxious as the people she has to deal with on her rapid rise to fame. It's a fun little flick though, I'm always interested in these types of things for the background details of an era that I barely remember, it's a sort of nostalgia for me. The wife seemed to dig this one pretty well too, as we both had fun kinda making cracks at the angry attitudes of virtually every character onscreen. These folks had issues, that's for sure.

We wrapped the evening with this week's episode of The Soup, then I put the wife to bed and got started on this post for the day.

Be seeing you.

Thursday Ballou

The wife was up around 9:00 this morning, and while I had set my alarm for an hour later in a desperate attempt to grab 7 hours sleep, I pretty much woke up with her as her various movements around the house kept creeping into my drowsy state. I finally gave up and lay in bed looking at Twitter on the iPhone for a bit, then joined her in the kitchen as she was putting the final touches on her morning coffee. We compared notes a bit on plans for the day, noting the weirdly gray and foreboding weather that had descended upon us overnight.

The wife split for a morning meeting and I got dressed and decided to press on against the pissing, shitty English weather outside and take a pass through the Odessa Big Lots and their books, music and video outlet, as I hadn't been over there in about a month. The Yorkie seemed content to have us both out of the house, as it allowed her to go back to bed instead of being forced to keep an eye on us.

Big Lots was fairly uneventful, though I did turn up a couple items that I hadn't seen there before, nothing all that exciting though, just a few things that made the cut because they were cheap. It had actually begun to rain a bit by the time I finally made it through their always ridiculous check out line, so I made my way to the books, music and video place in the drizzle and lunch rush traffic, which in Odessa is akin to taking your life in your hands, so I was grateful to be in a parking spot again, away from the rush of the crowds.

My prowl through the store turned up a magazine and a used book, as well as four used movies as part of their 'buy one, get one for $1' which is about the only way I ever shop there anyway, so this was a productive trip for me.

I hit a drive-thru on the way out of town for a couple chili-cheese dogs for my lunch, then braved the steady drizzle on the way home, which died out between the two towns, then returned with a vengeance as I hit the city limits. The really strange thing is that it kept up fairly solid until I got near our house, then promptly stopped altogether. I figured I could live with this, as I wasn't looking forward to making a mad dash for the house from the garage with both my food and a couple shopping bags flailing around me.

Once I was safely inside I calmed the excitable dog down a bit, then settled in to eat my lunch over a few things off the TiVo, like last night's episode of Whitney that actually made me laugh here and there in spite of itself. I just wish to GOD I could find it funnier. I enjoy her snarky humor, but it feels like they're just hitting the same notes over and over again, there's nothing all that new or different to the show.

In an effort to continue clearing out the TiVo a bit, I decided to watch Cat Ballou, which was something I had grabbed on a completely wild hair Lord knows how long ago and had all but forgotten about. What I wasn't expecting was a comedy, so that kinda fucked with my head as I started watching, and I sure as hell didn't know that there were odd musical interludes interspersed throughout with songs to bring the audience up to speed, so this was a weird viewing experience for me all the way around. I wasn't ever totally put out by the film, it just wasn't what I was expecting at all, which was more of an actual 'straight' western, so I kinda made my way through it just to say that I have seen it, but I doubt I would ever come back to it.

The wife and I had plans to meet the Middle Sister and her family over at the Mother In Law's place, so I killed the last half hour or so before that with part of this week's episode of The River, a show which the wife has officially 'tapped out' of, in that she told me the other day that she wouldn't be offended if I watched it without her. Oh well, I got about halfway through it before it was time to head over to the Mother In Law's place, then the wife arrived to pick me up.

Dinner was take-out barbecue again, and when we arrived the MIL greeted us while the MS was setting the table in the formal dining area, where the wife went to say hello to her. The MS's husband was in the living room on his iPad, while the new Beau was on his phone, so I left them to that and the MIL and I chitchatted in the kitchen until the Nephew came walking through, completely ignoring me when I said hello to him. This made me wonder why the fuck I had bothered to come, since children and animals are usually who you can kinda count on for an enthusiastic greeting, but thankfully the evening warmed up a bit as we settled in for some food. We eventually retired to the den and visited a bit further, though the wife was kind enough to call it around 7:00-ish, as I had told her in advance that I wanted to be home for the majority of our NBC television fare this evening, as Thursday is one of our 'busy' nights, along with Sunday, in which numerous shows stack up on top of one another and make recording slightly difficult.

We headed home and got into our comfies before settling in with the pup for some television and a little dessert item leftover from Valentine's Day. We blew through the normal NBC stuff, then watched a particularly enjoyable Person Of Interest before the wife headed to bed and I wrapped the evening with a new Archer.

And now I'm here doing this crap again.

Be seeing you.