Dallas Day Five: The Strippening

The wife and I woke around 6:00 AM this morning when the Yorkie started randomly whining, rousing both of us. We were able to get her settled, but it took a good amount of time, and she took a couple of weird phantom 'peeps', where she squatted as if to pee but didn't actually wet the carpet or her potty pad, which we both felt was a bit alarming.

She did the same thing again when we finally got up and moving around 9:30 in the morning, so while the wife started inquiring with the concierge about the nearest available vet I got dressed and figured I'd give one last thing a shot. As a last ditch effort, I took the dog downstairs for a walk, during which she actually produced a reasonable little amount of urine, so I called the wife to have her call off the vet search for the time being, in hopes that we'd just been overreacting.

Further investigation revealed that she'd finished her water in the wee hours of the morning (presumably around 6:00 AM, when she woke us), so we kind of did the math on the amount of urine she might actually have in her versus the amount she'd actually left downstairs and we sort of decided that we just might be right on track for the amount of pee that she should be producing.

Fingers crossed.

J From LR and her boyfriend DD met us in the room, then we headed out to grab a coffee at Starbuck's, then take the women to get a spray tan at a place called Tan Bar, which the wife had heard about via a friend. The tan took about 30 minutes, then we made our way out to Plano, where Morris wanted us to meet him and try out a restaurant that he'd worked at briefly called Whiskey Cake. The food was decent, but as soon as we walked in I suddenly flashed to the fact that I was supposed to try to make plans with Robbb about lunch, so I frantically called and texted, only to have him naturally pass on driving to Plano, though to be honest I didn't really get much of an impression that he was interested when we first spoke.

After lunch Morris headed out to go to work and we made our way back to Northpark and spent some time poking around Neiman Marcus, which we'd neglected yesterday in favor of a more thorough look at the rest of the mall. The wife picked up a present for Morris' birthday and I grabbed another Tom Ford scent to add to the collection, then we finally headed back to the hotel to chill for a bit.

I took the Yorkie for a walk downstairs, in hopes that she'd take a quick piss, but she started acting weird when we first got outside, so I thought maybe the heat was making her act weird and went back inside, giving her a lap around our floor of the hotel instead to see if she would settle for that. She did finally leave a little stain on the carpet, which I chalked up to being nothing more than additional flavor added to the place for future dogs to discover, then we headed back to the room.

We relaxed for a few hours, having made plans for dinner with Anastasia Beaverhouszen and Kno1 at Pappadeaux, since they'd recently arrived in town for Morris' party tomorrow. We headed out to dinner around 6:15, then had a great meal over the next hour or so, during which time we somehow (and I mean somehow, as I can't recall how it came up at all) got on the subject of strip clubs, but the next thing I know we're making plans to find one a mere 10 minutes drive from the restaurant.

I think the overall driving force may've been something to do with JFLR's boyfriend DD having never been to a strip club, so after a few hiccups in the directions, we soon found ourselves at the XTC Cabaret, a fully nude strip club in a part of town I'm personally not familiar with. The club was two stories and virtually empty when we first got there, so we settled in and compared notes on the slow string of dancers as they made their way to the main stage. The wife and Kno1 tipped a few gals and we marveled at a couple girls who worked in tandem on a pole, with frequently one sitting on top of the other one or astride her like an animal; it was pretty damned impressive as far as the gymnastics of it all goes. Another girl (who was celebrating a birthday, if the mumblings of the DJ were to be understood) showed an impressive amount of acrobatic skill on the pole, as well as twisting herself into some rather exotic shapes while working the stage, so that made for an interesting visual. Interesting highlights included each husband or boyfriend being treated to a lapdance by his spouse or their friends, and me having a dude ask me (while standing 5 feet away from the bathroom) "say bro, you know where the bathroom is?" I tried not to look condescending while indicating the room full of visible sinks and urinals to his immediate left.

Anastasia Beaverhouszen and Kno1 called it a night while we sat with a stripper on DD's lap, who mooched my last beer and chatted with DD and JFLR. JFLR seemed to be taking the interloper rather well, so that was cool. We followed shortly afterward, after we'd exhausted the last couple beers that JFLR had herself mooched from some dudes at a nearby table, after the stripper had told them that she'd have to pay through the nose for them, so that was funny. I guess stripper gal assumed that a civilian couldn't get free beer without flashing some cash since she wouldn't show them a tit.

Highlights of the night? My lapdance from a supercute fishnetted goth girl who smelled of cookies and sweat. Evidently her cheap perfume wasn't competing well with her hard work on the pole, as she was one of the two who were working in tandem earlier. She had a young Morticia Addams vibe going on, it was hot. Oh, and the wife's body language when tipping a stripper: She had her hand on her hip like "Oh, what's this all about?" Hilarious.

We headed back to the hotel, comparing notes on the evening on the way, then the wife called it a night while I got started on this and downed some antacids to try to calm the food/cocktails/beer combo for earlier in the evening.

Be seeing you.

Dallas Day Four: The Entertaining

The wife had a haircut scheduled this morning at a salon that specifically cuts curly hair, so I chilled in the room with the Yorkie and read for a bit, then finally got dressed and took the pup downstairs for a ramble around the building, as has become our custom this week.

Back in the room, I settled in with a beverage and a magazine while I waited for the wife to return. When he did I ooh'ed and aah'ed appropriately over the new cut, then we headed back out to run around for a bit before it was time to pick up J From Little Rock and her boyfriend D at the airport in the early afternoon.

We browsed a store called CD Exchange that'd been recommended to me by Reel Distraction, which it turned out that I'd been through years ago with Corinthian when he still lived in Dallas. I picked up a few used DVD's, then we stopped into a Barnes & Noble near the hotel to kill a bit of time, as it was on the way to the airport.

We easily picked up our peeps, catching them just as they were coming out of the building, then slowly made our way back the way we had come to have a late lunch at what we'd previously known as Houston's, which is now the exact same restaurant, now known as Hillstone Restaurant. We had a fairly light meal, as there was also dinner plans later to consider, then eventually made our way around the shopping center to the Sprinkles, where JFLR treated us to some cupcakes, then we pointed the car in the direction of the Northpark Mall.

We valeted the car, then traipsed through the Neiman's entrance to find the Louis Vuitton store, where we dropped off the large roller bag that the Cunard people managed to tear the handle from during that cruise last summer, so that it could hopefully be repaired, along with the wheel that's been threatening to come off for quite some time now. After we got that squared away we spent some time wandering the mall and shopping a bit: our guests found a few things for their kids and the wife and I picked up an outfit and some shoes respectively. We eventually made our way back to the valet, who saw us coming and was pulling the car around before we even made it to the end of the sidewalk, which is impressive as hell. I joked that it was probably the only Nissan they'd parked that day.

We got the guests settled in the hotel, then I took the pup for a quick walk before I had to get dressed for the evening. The wife put on her new outfit and we were soon joined by our guests, then headed out to the Hotel ZaZa, where we were to dine at the Dragonfly Restaurant.

The food was pretty great, and I was happy to have some really tasty scallops for a second night in a row, but the dessert was a thing of beauty: a peanut butter mousse in a chocolate cake? Fuck around, it was amaze-balls. When we left the hotel was projecting Terminator 2: Judgment Day onto the wall of the building, just a weird little unexpected thing to catch people's attention that seemed like an interesting touch, especially considering the randomness of the film selection. We headed back to the hotel afterward, stopping briefly to pick up a few things that the ladies needed to have before they spray tan tomorrow morning, then we finally made our way 'home' to relax and chill a bit before bed.

The wife crashed out while I watched some re-runs off Adult Swim and worked on this post before I started to lose any details.

Be seeing you.

Dallas Day Three: The Aquariumening

Since no one week is ever complete without at least one bout with heartburn, I was up and down off and on for most of last night, ruining my plan for a solid 8 hours of sleep. The wife and I got up at 9:00 this morning and got ready to go out and meet the Architect that we'd been researching in our pursuit of this new dream home.

We met the man at his Office and visited with he and his assistant for about an hour and a half, getting a better idea of what we need to be doing to get this ball rolling, and we left feeling very good about him as our selection, though we may still speak to someone else just to be 100% sure before we get too much further into this.

We got in touch with Morris after the meeting and made plans to meet he and his boyfriend Bo back at the Palomar, then let them chauffeur us around on this, the actual day of Morris' birth. Once we got back to the hotel I took the Yorkie for a quick jaunt around the hotel again, then found out from the wife that they would be running about an hour later than we originally thought, which was frankly less than thrilling, as we could've obviously done other shit than rush back to the hotel to sit around for an hour.

Oh, well.

I took the downtime to walk over to Keith's Comics, which is a local shop in an adjacent shopping center. As is the usual case when I have occasion to actually browse a comic store, I saw a lot of things that interested me, but none of which I thought were worth the full retail price that they'd presumably be charging for them. I mean, if I can buy something from Amazon for $16, why on Earth would I pay you the $25 cover price for it?

After returning empty-handed, the wife and I visited for a bit until Morris finally texted that they were getting close, so we headed downstairs to meet them.

We had lunch at the Dakota Steakhouse, which is a fun place downtown, where you take an elevator down a level to an underground restaurant. We ate in their courtyard area outside, had some great food and a few cocktails before a bird eventually pooped on Morris, which we all maintain is a sign of good luck. Soon we moved on to the next stage of the birthday: Morris and Bo were keen to visit the Dallas World Aquarium, which none of us had ever set foot in before.

The Aquarium turned out to be more of an indoor zoo than anything really all that fish-centric, as the first thing we saw were birds, then monkeys and turtles and more birds. Hell, we were well into our self-guided tour before we finally saw any fish. Okay, Morris and I spotted a dead fish in a tank as we came in, but I don't think that counts. We eventually finished out the tour with some penguins, and I'd have to say that my favorite part was seeing these crazy Japanese garden eels in a fish tank, casually waving to the rhythm of the water's ebb and flow. Oh, and the reaction I heard when Morris, Bo and the wife saw a couple of flamingos trying to fuck, that was kind of a hoot as well.

After the Aquarium we headed to JR's for a few cocktails to chill and people watch for a bit. While we were chilling at our table we had this random straight girl who was playing trivia at the bar with her gal pal come over to the wife and I to ask if there seemed to be a lot of gay guys in the bar, or if it was just their perception. We agreed that, as she put it, the 'ratio' was kind of off and just left it at that, though we both wondered aloud immediately after she walked away why the hell these two broads were drinking in a gay bar to begin with? Odd. Did they just Google 'bar' in their immediate vicinity? We enjoyed a couple drinks, then headed out for our final stop: dinner with friends at Tillman's Roadhouse, a place we'd seen featured on Sugar High, who visited them to showcase their homemade s'mores, a signature dessert.

We were joined by SM (alias 'Brown') and his boyfriend LM, but Robbb, who had made tentative plans to meet us but had to bow out, as his job continues to eat his lunch at every turn. The food and company was great, and it was super cool to catch up a bit with Brown and LM, who we hadn't seen in quite some time, possibly last Summer. We wandered down the block to Hattie's, a nearby restaurant where another friend of Morris' works and said hello, then finally made our way back to the vehicle.

The boys dropped us off around 11:00, with plans to see them again this Saturday night, once we get a few other people safely into town.

We chilled in the room while I worked on this, then the wife crashed out while I read for a bit out of the Crime Does Not Pay collection I picked up at Half Price Books few days back. It's pretty interesting, as it's not exactly a genre I'm overly familiar with, having never pursued the crime comics of that era before, but several recent books I've read concerning that time period (The 10 Cent Plague, Kirby: King Of Comics) have touched on them in various ways and got me interested in reading further into it. This compilation starts off with a lot of behind the scenes info about the company and their rise to popularity, which is very interesting to me, then goes into some reprints of the comics themselves, which I'm finding fun for what they are, but haven't been anything as interesting to me as the EC Comics of the same time period.

Be seeing you.

Dallas Day Two: The Eating

The wife and I woke this morning at 9:00 AM, then lay in bed with the Yorkie for a bit before finally getting up and moving. The wife caught a shower while I got dressed, then I took the Yorkie out for a walk around the floor, then for a prowl in front of the hotel so that she could stretch her legs and burn off some energy, as we would unfortunately be leaving her cooling her heels in the room for most the day.

Morris had made plans to meet us for lunch, so we kinda chilled in the room until he arrived and then called for the car to be brought around. We made our way to a pizza place of Morris' suggestion called Coal Vines, which was rally tasty and not very busy in spite of being right at the lunch hour. We visited and caught up a bit, then started making our way back to the hotel so that Morris could go and run a few errands of his own before he had to be at work for the evening.

The wife and I made our way to the West Village, where the wife had an appointment scheduled to have her eyelashes lengthened, a project that I wasn't sure I was 100% behind, but whatever, y'know? I made my way around the corner to a place called the Village Burger Bar, where the kid at the counter tried to bluff his way through an Old Fashioned, which ended up consisting of mostly Maker's Mark and orange juice, which sounded more like a Whiskey Sunrise than an Old Fashioned, so I drank it quickly (once the ice had watered it down a bit), then headed a few blocks down to the Uptown Pub, where an actual bartender was able to make the drink I requested. I ended up spending a couple hours on the patio there, playing around on the iPhone to pass the time. I even went so far as to jot down some notes on the iPhone to 'capture the moment' as it happened. They follow, unedited, for a glimpse into my Old Fashioned-addled thought process.

We open with....

...sitting on a patio, pleasantly buzzed, wondering how these people all meet one another? It's kinda ridiculous to me, but I guess in 'real' cities you have your neighborhood that you rarely leave, so you develop these rapports with folks within your little sphere of existence. Or maybe, like Mindy Kaling suggests, 'everyone is hanging out without me', even in my own hometown.

The chaos of nearby city workers, the shitty cover of Brown Eyed Girl, the incessant traffic & the inevitable honking & agitation that accompanies it...Christ, what a feeling of sensory overload, and we're not even talking about one of the larger metropolitan areas that I could be in. Yikes.

Loud broad at the next table works at a TGI Fridays, because of course she does...

Overhead speakers playing Everclear and now Wrong Way by Sublime, which seems appropriate for my surroundings. God, every asshole drinking here seems to know one another except for me and the old dude at a table by himself reading the local free paper. Kindred spirit? Maybe I should introduce myself, or would that ruin his afternoon in the same way all these fuckers camaraderie is ruining mine? Is that how it works? Their perceived normalcy cocks up my life just because it exists?

Idly watch a passing couple with a baby in a stroller; if it's not a grand baby then it will end up burying those old fuck parents. Soon. If parents, what're they thinking? Selfish assholes, leaving us to deal with their toddler mess.

Dude sat at a table for 12 alone makes me think he's A) a jerk or B) holding a table for tons of people and I should get the hell out of here before his party arrives and ruins my pleasant buzz.

Oh shit, guy talking to TGI Friday's is air drumming 'Peaches' by The Presidents Of United States Of America, which is either adorable or execrable, not sure which.

....and so it went...

I touched base with Robbb and caught up a bit, then got the call from the wife saying that she was done, so I settled my tab and headed back to the car to meet her. We visited a Movie Trading Company that I'd noticed on our outing last night and I turned up a used copy of The Killer Must Kill Again, which urned out to be in decent shape, then we hit Starbuck's for a coffee and headed back to the Palomar.

I took the Yorkie for another walk, making a lap around the entire building this time, as she seemed more adventurous. I dressed for the evening, breaking out the suit that I'd brought since the restaurant we had reservations at sounded pretty fancy. We killed some time in the hotel bar downstairs and people-watched a bit, then headed over to The Ritz-Carlton, which plays host to the restaurant Fearings, which is supposed to be one of the better reviewed places in town. The food was great, and we followed it up with some dessert, the wife had a banana-centric dish and I chose my typical peanut butter selection, which I would end up regretting slightly, as I was painfully full by this time.

I was amused by the crowd of people we had to stand with while waiting on the car to be brought around after dinner, as all of these people waited patiently on their Mercedes and Lexuses, then here comes my unwashed Nissan Maxima. Hilarious.

We headed back to the Palomar, where we were half-heartedly greeted by the same valet that has chapped my ass on a few previous visits. Everyone else is great, but there's this one guy, he acts as if he's doing you a favor by walking out to your car and it just shits me up the wall every time I lay eyes on him. I don't need anyone to fawn over us for a measly tip, but for fuck's sake, at least try to appear as if you care in the slightest, it is part of your job. Jesus H. Christ.

We settled into the room again and I got started on this while the wife watched some trash TV before falling asleep. I eventually flipped over to Adult Swim to see what re-runs were on and thanked God that (so far) the loud people in the next room appear to have either A) left or B) possibly aren't in for the night yet. Got my fingers crossed that they split over the course of the afternoon.

Be seeing you.

Dallas Day One: The Traveling

The wife and I were to leave for Dallas this afternoon, so we both rose with the dawn and got started on the last few odds and ends that had to be squared away before we hit the road. The wife headed out for several meetings that she had to get out of the way and I got the house picked up and the last few things in the Office taken care of, loaded a few movies on the iPad and got the iPhone charged up for the day.

I called EL about the possibility of doing lunch earlier than usual and he agreed to meet at 11:00 for a quick bite, which helped me out a great deal as far as the timing of the day's activities. We met at our usual Mexican place, had some good food in a less than packed environment, which was something of a nice change of pace for our meals. We caught up about the past week, which was unfortunately fraught with drama in EL's household, but it seems to finally be breaking, so that's good news for all concerned.

I got the car gassed up for the drive after lunch, then headed back to the house to start the actual packing process, which naturally sent the Yorkie into a tizzy at the mere sight of luggage. She followed me around the house, watching my every move as I gathered clothes and got some magazines and that sort of thing gathered up.

I was pretty much finished packing when the wife got home, so I let her start getting her own stuff together under the watchful eye of the dog while I moved my luggage to the trunk of the car and got it all situated. We finally gathered up the dog's stuff (toys, food, etc.) and put her in her carrier, gave the house a final once over and then headed out.

I have been chatting back and forth with a guy on Twitter who evidently used to live here and now lives in Dallas, which led to a discussion of a local Mexican food chain Taco Villa and me offering to bring him a 'care package' the next time we were headed to the big city. Since the day as upon us I had direct messaged Reel Distraction for his order and we picked it up on the way out of town and then hit the road about 2:30 in the afternoon.

The drive wasn't bad at all, which always seems to be the nature of things: I kinda dread the time in the car and then once we're on the way it all seems like no big deal. The route was lousy with state troopers though, we actually saw a whopping 16 (!) cops between home and the Eastland area, but then things seemed to open up and we made better time. The only other wrinkle was an absolute asshole, well, check that, what I ASSUME was a total asshole in a Mustang who wanted to drive in the fast lane and do the speed limit and nothing more, boxing in me and about 5 other cars beside a semi that he refused to pass, or was so fucking clueless that he didn't know others were behind him being inconvenienced. This is really why I lean toward him being an asshole, because no one is THAT clueless about their surroundings, right? You have to see a steady line of traffic behind you, right? I ended up tailgating this fucker until he finally got the hell out of the way and all of us were able to pass and get on down the damned road. SO annoying.

We got to Dallas right at 7:00 or thereabouts, so I returned a message via Twitter to let Reel Distraction, alias Micah know that we were at the hotel and would meet him in the lobby to hand off the food. It felt a lot like a drug deal, sitting in a hotel lobby with a bag to pass off to someone we'd never met; all I needed was a Eurotrash accent and a briefcase full of cash to complete the image. We met our guy, visited for a few, then he took his leave, as the food was already 4+ hours old at this point.

The wife and I basically followed him out and had the valets bring the car around, as we figured we'd give the nearby In-N-Out Burger a try. The food was good, but good Lord, what a fucking circus the dining area at the restaurant was. The clientele looked like they must all live under the nearby overpass, it went a long way towards reminding me why I usually favor a drive-thru to dining in at any fast food joint.

We hit up Half Price Books afterward for a prowl, each coming away with a few items, then hit the CVS for a few forgotten toiletries before heading back to the Palomar to call it a night.

The noisy fucks in the room next to ours were out (or quiet), but after about a half hour of chilling in bed with some television, I've begun to hear yammering from them again, what sounds like a chatty group of black women who seem very amused by a lot of things, given the hooting.

This could be a long week.

Be seeing you.

Just Another Traumatic Monday

Since we're on this weird timetable to get things done around the house and here in town before we leave for the better part of a week, the wife and I both rose with the alarm this morning and got moving immediately. The wife grabbed a shower and then split for a meeting, while I got the house opened for business and gathered up the recycling to dump off while I ran a couple quick errands.

I did the recycling against the will of the overflowing bins, shoving our stuff in there because I didn't have time to fuck around with driving around looking for an empty site to drop things off. I hit the bank and then mailed a Swap A DVD trade at the Post Office, with just enough time left to grab a bit of breakfast at a drive-thru on the way back home. The Yorkie was ecstatic, as she's always put off by the two of us being gone at the same time, so she chilled with me while I read through the paper and ate my little breakfast burrito.

The plan was for the wife to pick up some dry cleaning after her meeting, then meet me across town at the Nissan dealership, where we'd drop off the Maxima and pray that the parts would arrive in time for them to get the AC fixed today, as their delivery window is late enough that there was a chance that the car might not get repaired until late tomorrow afternoon. The wife called from the dry cleaners, who had managed to take over a week to not complete her order, as they were still missing a sport coat that I wanted to take on this damned trip, so I told her to forget it and just meet me at the Nissan place.

We dropped the car with no hassle, said a little prayer over the situation and then ran a couple errands that the wife had before picking up some salads & sandwiches for a quick lunch in between this and her next engagement. We scarfed down some lunch, then the wife split and I spent some time working on the blog, as my plan is to get at least a week's worth of posts loaded up and ready to post, so that all I have to do each night while we're away is hit a button to publish stuff. Meanwhile, I can continue to write stuff each night, just with the intention of getting it fully edited and published the week after we return. Perhaps being a week+ behind on this crap will work to my advantage in this case.

By the time I looked up it was around 4:00 in the afternoon, so I decided to try and chill a bit with a random movie off the To-Watch Pile and completely forego my normal Movie Shame Monday idea by watching something really trashy and unknown to me.

I settled in with Dario Argento's Trauma, which I had little hope for since it was from the mid '90s and is one of those Argento films that virtually no one ever mentions. And honestly, aside from his daughter Asia appearing in it and getting her nubile 18 year old boobs out, I found very little to recommend it by the time the credits rolled. It's an okay watch, different from the average slasher/horror flick, but definitely not up to Argento's normal pedigree, or at least the one he once held in the late '70s and early '80s.

The wife returned and spent some time on the web looking at e-mails and that sort of thing while I tried to finish up the movie, but we heard from the Nissan folks just before six to say that they finally had the car ready to go, so we hauled ass across town to grab the car before they closed. After we had the car safely in hand I stopped to pick up some dinner for us while the wife took her car directly to a gas station to fill up, as we got into it with the warning light on and I was concerned about her getting stranded somewhere.

I was in a drive-thru line for what felt like hours, as it wrapped around the damned restaurant twice, but I finally made it safely home with the requested dinner items and we relaxed for the night in the den, catching up on a few hours worth of television that recorded last night while we watched the Mad Men premiere.

We ended up calling it a night just before 10:00, as the wife needs her rest for an early morning tomorrow, while I wanted to get a few more blog posts polished up before I called it a night.

Be seeing you.

The Return Of The Mad

The wife and I were in the market to tour a couple of open houses this afternoon, so I got up at 10:00 to assure myself enough time to grab a shower and get cleaned up a bit before we headed out in the early afternoon.

We left the Yorkie chilling on the couch and then grabbed a bite of lunch since we found ourselves with enough time to make a stop before the open houses were supposed to start at 2:00. Chili's was packed with people and their screaming children, and I would eventually come to believe that if you came without a yowling child that they would supply one for you, because EVERYONE had one with them. We bypassed the waiting game by snagging an empty table in a corner of the bar, so by the time we would've finally been seated we had already had sodas and ordered food, so that was cool.

We toured two homes, the first with the country survivalist vibe of a renovated farmhouse, which sported 7 bedrooms (!) but wasn't laid out anywhere near what we'd personally select, so that was just more of a curiosity than anything. The second house was in a gated community (somewhat desirable to me, as far as controlling how much asshole traffic you have to deal with whipping by your house on any given day), and filled with great artwork and a super modern sleek layout. The wife expressed appreciation for the house, which surprised me, as her style isn't ultra-modern by any stretch of the imagination. We headed home afterward and pretty much spent the afternoon as we did yesterday, watching a handful of things off the TiVo. The wife and Yorkie napped somewhere in there, and then we finished out the third episode of GCB, which continues to amuse but also be almost too close to the truth to be truly funny.

The evening came on with the usual Fox animated fare, then we paused to make some 'breakfast for dinner' with silver dollar pancakes and sausage.

We wrapped the evening with the two hour season premiere of Mad Men, which has been away for a year and a half at this point, but the show really hit the ground running and fished us back in completely. Good stuff.

I put the wife to bed, then stepped into the Office to get this written up and head to bed myself, as tomorrow promises to be a busy one for both of us, as we have to try to get the Maxima's AC fixed and all our various ducks in a row before we leave (God willing) in the afternoon on Tuesday.

Fingers crossed.

Be seeing you.

Good Christian Saturday

The wife was up before me today, so she and the Yorkie bumped around the house a bit, then I finally joined them at 11:00 or so.

We got out for some take-out drive-thru shite for lunch, then honestly killed the entire day watching shit off the TiVo, which was totally not the way I expected the day to play out, but since I recently realized that we'd be gone for what amounts to a full week, I figured we should try to stay ahead of the steady recording schedule, especially since I've realized that we'll be gone long enough for two eps worth of some of the these titles to get backlogged.

I had originally wanted to watch a couple movies over the weekend, but as I started noticing the state of the TiVo I kinda shitcanned that plan in favor of some impromptu marathons of this and that, including a couple episodes of Supernatural and Nikita while the wife caught a nap in the late afternoon.

I made myself a dirty martini as we got into the early evening, then we made a light pasta dish for dinner and then she and I tackled the first couple episodes of the ABC dramedy GCB, which (annoyingly) stands for Good Christian Bitches, though the network doesn't have the guts to just call the show what it's actually titled, so we get this silly acronym that almost made me not watch the damned thing. The advertising campaign was particularly cutesy and annoying, as they used a series of words (pitches, stitches, itches, etc.) that rhymed with bitches but censored the actual word, which I found amazingly annoying for whatever reason. I decided to record it out of curiosity, as it takes place among uppity and judgmental Christian women in Dallas, who find themselves in a position to Lord it over the girl who was mean to them in high school, but is now trying to be a decent person. The weird thing is that the show honestly doesn't seem all that exaggerated to the wife and I, even beyond Dallas as a being full of rich, clique-y people who wanna do their level best to look down on you while throwing Jesus at you as often as possible. Hell, it's even a pretty common vibe you get here locally, and we're way the hell out in the sticks compared to somewhere like Dallas.

Anyway, the show is decently soapy and salacious (as much as you could expect for network television anyway), and we dug the first few episodes pretty well.

As we got into the late evening the Older Sister called to ask the wife to pop in and check on the Niece, who was having a bad day after attending yet another funeral for a kid she knew at school who had committed suicide, so the wife excused herself and headed over there for about a half hour or so, just to touch base with her and see what the mood in the room might be. The OS was out of town for the weekend, so she was a bit concerned after speaking to her daughter earlier and getting into a bit of an argument, so she wanted someone to just poke their head in and make sure things seemed fine.

I made myself a final cocktail and then got fished into about 15 minutes of one of the Kill Bill films on IFC, until the bumped into it with their stupid advertising, so I said to hell with them and turned the Blu-ray player on to watch the two films on DVD with no interruption. I wouldn't be so annoyed by the IFC stuff except that they still bray on constantly about how uncensored their content is, but fail to recognize how disingenuous it is to see their uncensored artist's visions riddled with car and Geico ads every 15 minutes.

The wife returned and we visited a bit about the Niece and the fact that she remains a very level headed person, so hopefully she'll make it through all this stuff relatively unscathed. I put the wife to bed and then finished both movies, a little late night project that kept me up until somewhere in the neighborhood of 4:00 in the AM.

Be seeing you.

Dinner, Valley Girls, Barbers And Bikinis

Last night I stayed up late watching the penultimate episode of the second series of Luther, and I suppose I will finish out the show this evening, but it's definitely something I don't really want to see end.

I woke with the alarm this morning, but after touching base with the wife briefly before she was about to head out for her day, I decided to catch a bit more sleep, so I crashed out again until just before noon.

There was an Amazon sale pending in my e-mail, so I got the DVD ready to mail, then dressed and headed out to hit the Post Office and get the oil changed in the car, just so we're not also trying to get that done at the last minute on Monday. The oil change was fairly painless, though there's always that one antsy redneck guy pacing around because he's put off because strangers are fingering around inside his precious pick-up truck. Those dudes frustrate me, as they are very obviously bothered by other people poking around under the hood of their vehicle, so why don't they just do it themselves?

Since it was almost 2:00 in the afternoon by this time I picked up some Thai on the way home and ate while watching some odds and ends off the TiVo to pass the time, then I hopped online and worked on the blog for a bit.

The wife was expected late in the afternoon, so I filed away a few DVD's in the Media Closet and scanned a few things into the Goodreads app, then caught up with her a bit when she finally made her way home. I got the news sprung on me that both Brian and JH were coming over this evening for a dinner out, which was kind of annoying, as I was hoping that we could have as much of this week in as possible before we're to be out of town for a solid week, but fuck my dreams.

Since the AC in the car is pretty much kaput I figured that we could ask Brian to drive, so I made myself a cocktail as JH was arriving, then the three of us visited a bit until Brian turned up and we loaded into his car and headed across town to a crowded restaurant with the rest of the great unwashed. Brian had actually called ahead, so we didn't really have any kind of wait, which was nice, and Brian was kind enough to treat everyone to dinner, so that was cool of him. I honestly like the place well enough, it's just that the atmosphere is so loud and overpowering it makes a lot of conversation more of a shouting match than anything else, especially when you start getting those extended family tables filled with like three generations of hillbillys and their wailing infant newborn that nobody makes any effort to hold or quiet because they're too busy stuffing their fat fuck faces with free peanuts. How is it that peanuts suddenly become this desirable commodity in a casual dining place like this? In the normal run of things you wouldn't go out of your way to eat a damned peanut, but if there's a large barrel of them and you can throw the shells on the floor people wolf them down by the fistful like they think it's some magical elixir or cure-all.

We took a pass through the development that the wife and I are looking to build in to get a couple fresh sets of eyes on the idea, both of whom were approving, so that's cool. Neither one of our friends had huge objections to the area, or burning reasons that we should for God's sake reconsider before it was too late. The area really seems to be appealing, so I guess after meeting with an architect next week we may be one step close to pulling the trigger in the all important location of the 'forever house'.

We picked up some dessert on the way back to the house, then spent the rest of the evening visiting and relaxing with some random television, including most of Valley Girl, which was showing on the MGM HD channel, then some weird ass show called Bikini Barbershop, in which a witless & rather vain guy runs a shop where hot babes in bikinis cut hair, argue with him and spend their downtime deflecting his alternatingly sexist or insulting comments. Sample dialog from him (preening shirtless in front of a mirror) "Do you think my biceps are too big?" What an asshole. If the show isn't 100% staged I think that everyone involved should be sterilized before they begin to breed, because they're very much what is wrong with humanity.

We eventually called it a night around 11:00 after our guests split, so I put the wife and Yorkie to bed, then got started on this bullshit.

Be seeing you.

Machete Mechanics!

The alarm woke me this morning at 9:00, though I had already been stirred by noise of the wife in the kitchen with the coffee machine, grinding away, and the Yorkie yapping at God knows what outside. I looked at the phone a bit to see what the world had been up to on Facebook and Twitter, then the wife came in with coffee and said good morning.

I dressed and then we drove across town to drop the Maxima off to see what the deal is with the air conditioning, which has been less and less useful in the past couple weeks. We dropped off the car, then ran an errand that the wife had before heading back to the house, where the wife dumped me off and I bid her a fond adieu so that she could head out for her various meetings.

I spent some time on the PC in the Office working on the blog and returning a few e-mails, then heated up some leftovers for my lunch and retired to the den to catch up on some television. After watching last night's Whitney, I decided to finish out the season of The River, so I blew through the last two episodes, which again confirmed that it's a show I'm apparently meant to like but never fully love, as it is just a tad too frustrating. My most recent example is the doctor lead kid cues up video on a laptop that they found, that he's never seen before, then suddenly start's narrating what the doctors in the video are doing, even though all we're shown is a man with a chest cavity opened up for surgery. How's he supposed to have discerned that they are doing some bizarrely specific type of surgery? It's just a silly plot convenience that he's able to talk the audience through things, but it really took me out of things, because how the fuck is he meant to suddenly know what these mystery doctors are up to? For a show so built on everything being caught on camera, they certainly get very lazy at points, that's all I'm saying...

The Nissan people called and told me the damage on the car, which I communicated to the wife via text, then she called me back after 4:00 to see if I wanted to pick the vehicle up since the earliest they'd have the parts is Monday. The wife had further meetings in the late afternoon, then dinner plans with a girlfriend, so we went our separate ways after the dealership.

Back at the house I played with the Yorkie, chased her around the backyard a few laps, then made myself a martini and settled into the den with Machete Maidens Unleashed!, a documentary film that looks at the various Exploitation films that were made in the Philippines in the '70s and I have to admit that I was kind of proud of how many of these films I was already familiar with, though I did come away from it with a list of things I want to check out.

The wife got home shortly after this and was so kind as to bring me a burger at my request, since her dinner plans were adjacent to a fast food place. We watched tonight's Community as well as the finale to the current season of Archer, then she called it a night. I was still feeling my martinis and decided to try and squeeze in something else off the TiVo, so I watched the recent re-make of the '70s Charles Bronson film The Mechanic.

The Mechanic (2011) is a decent enough action film, but it lacks the subtleties that made the Bronson film special, settling for Jason Statham being more of a hands-on bad-ass, which I normally wouldn't mind had they not gone out of their way to conjure the images of the original film by using the title. I just recall Bronson's film being much more methodical than what we're given here, which just amounts to an average actioner; I wish they'd tried to do more with the story than just re-hash the original with bigger explosions.

The wife was having trouble getting to sleep, so I spent some time talking to her about this and that, then finally drifted into the Office to work on this crapulence when she finally bedded down for the night.

The Girl With, Who, Etc...

Last night I started the second series of Luther later than I should've, but considering the cliff-hanger-y nature of the 6th episode I wanted to see what they did to pull things together. I was still able to squeeze in about 6 hours of sleep before it was all said and done though, so that's decent.

The Maid was scheduled for this morning, so the wife and I both got up with the alarm at 9:00 and she hopped in the shower while I got the house opened up for the day. She started making us some coffee and made a couple phone calls while I fired up the PC and poked around the interwebs a bit. The Maid turned up around 10:30 and got started on her routine while the wife joined me in the Office and looked at e-mail a bit before she had to head out to a few meetings for the afternoon.

I got a blog post polished up and ready to be published, then eventually had some leftovers for my lunch while watching an episode of The X-Files on the PC via Netfux Instant Watch. The Maid eventually wrapped things up, so I dressed and stepped out to drop something in the mail, as I suddenly realized that the mail had already been delivered. I ran that quick errand and then returned home to chill with the Yorkie and put away some sheets and stuff that the Maid had left in the dryer when she split.

The wife returned home earlier than expected, which was a pleasant surprise, then she and I tried to chill and catch up on the day thus far, but were interrupted by the Lawn Guys blowing shit all over the yard with their leaf blowers. This gave the Yorkie a project, so I guess she got to burn off some energy while she scampered from window to window after them expressing her displeasure.

We eventually settled into the den and decided to watch the original version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo based on the wife's enthusiasm for the American re-make last night. There are only minor differences between the two films to be honest, and some of the reveals happen before Lisbeth Salander gets involved in the murder mystery, but for the most part it's pretty much the same film. I actually found Noomi Rapace to be a bit more convincing in the role, as she has more of a feral quality than Rooney Mara in the re-make, or at least for my tastes. Mara (left) just had more of a sulky, cornered animal vibe going, whereas I felt that Rapace (right) looks as if she'd be the one to attack you if you made a move towards her. Perhaps both women portray the character at different stages of her development, as she does become more aggressive and sure of herself as the story progresses in each version...

Plus I also get a bit annoyed with Mara because she's the type of actress who suddenly shits on whatever her last project was because the new one is so much better and possibly Oscar-worthy, which I find to be a really lousy way to do business as a human being, regardless of what your line of work might be.

At any rate, we picked up some dinner between films, then dove into the sequel: The Girl Who Played With Fire, which went a long way towards giving Salander more of a back story as well as bringing new threats to the fore. It was enjoyable, but definitely feels like the middle portion of a trilogy, in that we're left with wounded characters who have uncertain futures, not the way you expect a film to roll credits in the normal run of things.

We called it a night shortly afterward and both spent some time on the web. I got started on this nonsense and the wife printed up some stuff for her meetings in the AM, then headed to bed, where I should probably join her sooner than later. We're dropping the Maxima off at the Nissan place tomorrow morning, to see what the deal is with the weird whine coming from the AC vents.

Be seeing you.

The Girl With The Dragon Tuesday

The alarm woke me at 9:30 this morning, but I elected to sleep another couple hours to eke out a full 8 hours of rest. I got up late, and with the wife out running errands and the like, I gave the Yorkie some love and then got the house opened up for the day and gathered the recycling while I made lunch plans with EL.

I dressed and stepped out into the unseasonably chilly afternoon to drop off the recycling and hit up the books, music and video outlet for a browse before I met the fellas. I was shopping for the latest issue of Playboy, as it alleged to have a 6 page feature that tells the back story for the Michonne character that fans of The Walking Dead have been waiting to show up in the series. It also features that wierdly sexless Bruno Mars kid in some feature, which bothers me to no end that I have to pay money in public for a magazine with this Ricky Ricardo-looking asshole on the cover. I'd almost rather buy a straight up fuck book than something as harmless as Playboy with this jackass featured so prominently.

But I digress.

I picked up a couple of periodicals, then made my way to the nearby Thai place that we'd discussed, where DR and I caught up a bit and visited for a good long while before we realized that it was almost half past the hour with no EL to show for it. I finally texted him to see if everything was alright, but he finally made his way in a few minutes later. As it turned out, he'd spent the past half hour chasing someone's dog around their block, because the normally easy-going animal had made a run for it when he came to clean the pool. We visited and caught up a bit, then went our separate ways and I pointed the car towards the Post Office to drop the Netfux movie back in the mail on my way home.

Back at the house I caught up with the wife a bit, then left her chilling in the bedroom with the Yorkie while I spent some time on the web looking for a replacement piece for the metal wallet that I carry, then decided to step back out for a run to the liquor store, as I needed some martini supplies.

When I got home from visiting the Moose & Squirrel (as I've come to think of the little Russian gal working the counter) I shook up a cocktail and then chilled in the den with another episode of The Addams Family, then started in on last week's episode of Supernatural.

The wife and pup eventually joined me, then the wife spent a few on the web while I made our dinner, a quick conglomeration of canned items that amounts to some chicken and mushroom soup jazzed up with peas over rice. It's remotely tasty, but nothing like the 'boil-in-bag' equivalent that I recall my mother making for me in my youth, so it's true that you can never go home again, folks.

We ate while watching today's Netfux delivery, David Fincher's re-make of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which I had been looking forward to, yet resisted the urge to blind buy for reasons unknown. I am very predisposed to enjoying this one, so I guess I figure that it'll get cheaper than it's on sale for fairly soon. The wife and I both enjoyed the movie quite a bit, though I honestly wish I had checked out the originals before we watched this, but we're talking about booking out like 7 or 8 hours of our lives to watch the original Swedish trilogy, which is something more than just a casual commitment, y'know? Oh well, on the upside, I understand the film follows the original pretty closely, so I guess we at least know if we'll like the original now, right?

We wrapped the evening with tonight's episode of Justified, then I put the wife and Yorkie to bed before I got started on this. I'm off to bed soon myself, as the Maid is on for the AM and I want to be up and aware when that happens.

Be seeing you.

Ikiru Shame Monday

Today being the first day of the rest of my life, I had gone to bed at what I would consider a reasonable hour, thinking that I could catch at least 7 or 8 hours of sleep last night. I read for about 30 minutes before I turned off the lamp and bedded down, then was startled awake about an hour late by the hysterical Yorkie, who wasn't responding very well at all to the thunder and lightning, then outright rain and hail that blew through the area for about an hour or more. The dog eventually managed to wake up the wife as well, as the weather makes her inconsolable, so we finally got back to sleep near 4:00 in the AM by the time it was all said and done.

The alarm woke us at 9:30 this morning, then we snuggled with the pup for a bit and discussed the day's plans, then the wife got dressed and ready for the day while I made the bed and then hit the exercise bike for a bit. I got the house opened up for the day while she worked on a few things in the Office, then I published another blog post to stay roughly a week behind on things but not really catch anything up, because who cares anymore?

The wife split for her grocery list of meetings and appointments, so I eventually moved into the den after starting some laundry and fired up the television to see what the TiVo had been up to. I heated up some leftovers for my lunch and watched last night's Comic Book Men to pass the time, then I decided to select my Movie Shame Monday film from the TiVo, as that whole project sort of originally started in an effort to clear a few things off that particular device.

Ikiru is an Akira Kurosawa film that's set in then modern day Tokyo in the '50s, where a low level bureaucrat discovers that he has stomach cancer and has a scant few months to live. He spends several days grasping for ways to cling on to life, including some drunken carousing and trying to follow the example of a perky young lady from his office, who casually quits her office job in hopes of finding something that makes her happier. He eventually finds his way, and the film says a lot about how easy it is to let it all slip by, and how difficult it can be to knock yourself out of that rut unless something truly life-changing comes along and does so. Oh, and since I seem to always remark on the length of Kurosawa's films, this one is no different, clocking in two hours and twenty-something minutes, but I never really felt the time, was instead engaged in the film and the poor lead's plight. Good stuff, happy to be able to check it off the list.

The wife was to be otherwise engaged until nearly 7:00 in the evening, so I spent some time with the toilet in the library that I had noticed wasn't wanting to fill properly last week. After some fighting with that I can happily say that I think it's now working properly, the float just needed a bit of tweaking, so I will now be taking a piss with my fingers crossed the next time I should find myself back there.

For a complete change of pace (and to rest my eyes from two hours+ of subtitles) I popped in the Sylvester Stallone film Cobra in the late afternoon, which I had never seen before but had acquired in a bulk DVD purchase on eBay years ago and just never watched. It's fun '80s cheese, filled with moments that I can enjoy ironically, but have to honestly say are ridiculously staged just because they did shit like that in the Reagan era. Stallone casually wanders around town in a duster with a gun stuffed down the front of his pants like he's about to rob a 7-11 and no one even blinks, shit like that - it's silly as hell. But still fun, definitely fun and worth the couple bucks it cost in a lot purchase.

The wife and I traded a few texts regarding dinner and she eventually returned with deli sandwiches while I was finishing up an episode of The Addams Family set that I've been chipping away at.

We wolfed down dinner, then dove into the season finale of The Walking Dead, which was pretty watchable for a change, though there's still tons of those weirdly staged moments where someone starts demanding the worst possible thing, seemingly to do nothing beyond create a moment for Rick to shout about not wanting to be in charge but that he's doing the best that he can. I have to say that I enjoyed what they're teasing for next season, but the way some of these characters are reacting to the developments of the past two episodes is amazingly frustrating and illogical, but I suppose we'd have no show if things existed in a blissful world of agreement. I just wish it didn't feel quite so contrived every single time.

We rounded out the evening with Young Adult, which had turned up in today's mail from Netfux. From the same creative team behind Juno, writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman bring us Charlize Theron as a fairly sociopathic woman who receives word that her high school flame has recently had a child with his wife. Since our lead is post divorce and working on the last in a series of young adult novels, she naturally decides that to turn her life around she needs to go and reclaim her lover, regardless of his family and life in the small town in which they grew up. It's a film that I think I may like more on a re-watch now that I know where it's headed, but I ended up on the like side of things, but for whatever reason I just didn't love this one as I kind of expected to. Patton Oswalt plays a damaged character that she runs into and starts hanging out with somewhat by default, as she's burned most bridges in the town on her way out, but not even their banter really saved it for me. I think this may be because I kept expecting her to finally wise up a bit, but nothing ever changes in her mindset, or rather not int he way that I was needing it to for me to be on board with this one 100%. As I said, knowing where it ends up may allow me to like it a bit more on another viewing, but for now I'd say it's worth a look, but not a blind buy or anything.

We called it a night after the movie, then spent some time looking at the work of a couple different Dallas architects, as we'd maybe want to try and catch some face-time with them when we're in the Metroplex at the end of the month.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

I Married An Indiscreet Witch

I was up late last night, first with a wild hair re-watch of Drive, then with the blog and finishing out Luther's first series, so by the time I finally went to sleep it was close to 5:00 in the morning. Since I could totally see myself sleeping the day away, I made a point of setting the alarm so that I would get up and about around 10:00, so I could make us some breakfast and get the day started before the afternoon was half over.

The wife and I lay in bed with the Yorkie for a bit after the alarm went off, then broke into our various directions to get the day started. I got the house opened up for the day, fetched the newspaper and picked up the kitchen a bit, then made the wife and I some eggs and sausage for breakfast while she caught a quick shower. The wife and Yorkie eventually joined me in the kitchen and she made us some coffee while I put the finishing touches on the food. We ate and visited over the newspaper, then eventually moved into the den and looked through a book of contemporary Texas architecture that she'd bought for inspiration for our future home, noting what worked for us and what might not.

The wife eventually spent some time piddling around with various stuff in the kitchen that she wanted to pick up or straighten, so I started something off the TiVo called I Married A Witch, which I'd recorded on a whim toward the end of February. It stars Veronica Lake as a reincarnated witch who sets out to torment the ancestor of the guy who put her to death, played by Fredric March. They naturally end up falling for one another, and the film apparently inspired the television show Bewitched, but aside from Lake being super cute (this was my first real exposure to her), there's nothing all that exciting here. I was interested to learn that Lake had a reputation for being a giant pain in the ass to work with, which I assume casts her as a straight up bitch rather than a poor actress who turned up ill-prepared to work. She was a cutie, I'll give her that, bitchy rep or not.

We passed the mid-afternoon with the last episode of Hawaii Five-O that we'd stacked up, then started Indiscreet in my efforts to clear out the machine a bit before we're out of town for several days at the end of the month. The movie was another random grab off TCM, so it was nice to notice that it was directed by Stanley Donen, who had directed Cary Grant in another film I watched awhile back. The film sees Grant romancing Ingrid Bergman, and it was fun to see a mature adult couple going through the courting stage of things rather than the typical young folks in love.

I worked a bit on the current smaller art piece while the movie started, as I wanted to see what laying some straight acrylics would do to accent certain shapes and textures and I wanted to lay it in there so it'd have time to dry. I have to say that I was fairly content with the way it's looking, I'm just not sure what the next step is, as I always fear over-working the piece and ruining the small things about it that made me happy.

We ordered in some deli food for dinner and spent the evening as we spend most Sundays, with the Fox animated block of shows, as well as a few things off HBO, btt called it a night shortly after 10:00, as the wife has an early morning tomorrow. We'll save The Walking Dead finale, Californication and House Of Lies for tomorrow is all goes well.

Be seeing you.

Silent Rushmore Driving

When I woke this morning I expected that the wife would at the very least be up and about the house, but instead I found her back in bed after being up for a time in the early morning. I was able to discern such because the doggie gate was down and the Office door opened, little clues like that, but she and the Yorkie were both back snoozing in the bed. I loved on the dog for a bit while looking at my phone to see what was up on Twitter and that kind of thing, then I got up, dressed quietly and stepped out to drop something in the mail and pick up some lunch for both the wife and myself.

When I finally returned with some hamburgers the wife and dog were up and about as if nothing had happened, so we settled down for some food with some odds and ends off the TiVo, including last week's Life's Too Short and an episode of Hawaii Five-O from several weeks ago.

The wife and I both got caught up in the interwebs for a bit over a coffee, then we moved back into the den and I started a Dean Martin film called The Silencers, the first of four Matt Helm films in which Martin plays a reluctant spy in verious spoof situations, several of which I noted were easily an influence on the Austin Powers films. We both really enjoyed it quite a bit, and were still enjoying it as it was almost over and the Middle Sister and her family turned up unannounced on our doorstep, because fuck my life.

As things played out, they ended up hanging out and visiting for about an hour or more, which felt like longer, though I was already into my second Old Fashioned when they turned up, so I just made myself another to dull the dullness and hope for the best. The Brother In Law bent my ear about The Walking Dead, which, God bless him, seems to be the ONLY thing he thinks that we have in common, and the sisters visited while the Nephew wandered around the backyard and watched his Mother smoke a couple cigarettes while visiting with the wife. They eventually started making noise about dinner, which I steadfastly ignored, as I wasn't in the mood to be fished into an impromptu family dinner situation as well, because I'm an anti-social asshole and that's the beginning and end of that, thank you very little.

Once we got the family out of our hair the wife was so kind as to order in a pizza, then she and I started watching Rushmore on Blu-ray, a film that I'm sure I haven't seen since back in the VHS days. It's a lot of fun, though may not be something I like as well as certain other Wes Anderson films, which kind of surprised me, to be honest. I went into it thinking that it was a favorite film of mine, and as it turns out I like it but would easily prefer to re-watch several other Anderson films before I would come back to this one. Weird how the mind plays tricks on you.

The pizza guy came and went during the movie, so when it was over the wife and Yorkie were ready to crash for the night, but I found myself kinda would up, so I decided to pop in a third and final film for the day.

I decided to re-watch Drive on Blu-ray, purchased a few weeks back and something that I had been kind of itching to give another look at the first opportunity, so tonight seemed like as good a time as any. I made myself a final cocktail and settled in after putting the wife and dog to bed, only to find myself once again blown away by this movie, it's just so well-made and constructed. Stylish and measured, it builds slowly to a very satisfying conclusion that really left me wanting to re-watch the damned thing again. It might easily be one of the best things I've watched in the past few years and is something I'd recommend to anyone who considers themselves a film fan.

I finally started winding down a bit by hopping online and starting this post, before I head to bed to finish out the first series of Luther, which continues to impress from start to finish.

Be seeing you.