I’m not exactly sure why, but I’m just in a great mood today. It’s a bit of everything I guess. Work still kinda sucks and I don’t like my living situation… but everything else finally seems to not be so bad. And there’s a lot of little things that are going right – my mom is in town visiting, so that’s nice I get to see her. A friend of mine started jumping again this past weekend after being out injured for 10 months. Another friend of mine finally got an awesome job after making some life-changing decisions and being out of work for a couple of months (well, actually close to a year of ‘real’ work)

The weather is nice, chilly but sunny. I finally have a handle on some things I’ve been wrestling with as well. So that’s good. I’ve got some definite plans for the future and some tentative plans for the future – all good things to look forward to. All in all, life isn’t bad. It still isn’t great, but I’m much more optimistic than I’ve been in a long time.

BTW – Bob Zany is freakin’ hilarious. So is “Jackass: The Movie”.

Heh… Blogger’s spell check’s suggestion for “freakin” is “foreskin”… Bob Zany is foreskin hilarious!

Amazon.com really freaks me out sometimes. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was just released on DVD and I was thinking of buying it (excellent movie, worthy of buying) After I put it in my cart, it shows the “People who bought this also bought…” It listed Lost In Translation (loved it, bought it) Kill Bill 1 & 2 (loved 1, disappointed in 2, bought neither) Big Fish (loved it, might buy it) Mystic River (liked it, not gonna buy it) and 21 Grams (on its way here from Blockbuster) Granted, I see a lot of movies, but that’s just odd. Anyway, what really freaks me out is they keep track of everything I’ve bought from them (I actually forgot I bought a Stephen King book, seeing it in the list reminded me that I have it and have never finished it) and try to make suggestions. Well, they fail. I’ve even tried to remove some of the items so it doesn’t use them. It still fails, terribly.

For those of you that just love me to death and want to buy me something, here’s my Wish List I wonder if it automatically removes things from your wish list if you buy it or someone else buys it for you. Hmmm… something to try! Although, I just spent $200 on speakers for my house and I’m thinking of taking a trip at the end of November, so toys will have to wait…

Value menu movie reviews:
K-Pax – Slightly above average movie. I like Kevin Spacey, and he does a pretty good job here. From 1-10 I give it a 7.
Man Apart – blech. Someone told it was good (they were wrong) I figured it was going to be stupid because Vin Diesel was in it (sorry Mindy) but I tried it anyway. From 1-10 it gets a 4. And it’s only that high because of all the gun play and gratuitous boob shoots.

The only downside to my spiffy 18″ Dell (NEC) LCD display is that there’s not enough surface area between the screen and the edge of the case to get a post-it note to stick. It happens, I’ll adjust.

The Borg have finally adapted. People at work finally figured out that when I ricockulously busy I don’t answer my phone. So now they take their time to walk to my office, poke their head in the door and start talking. That’d be fine if I was sitting around with my thumb up my backside, or wasting time blogging or something. Bah. I have 5 new voice mails too… once they finally figure out I check my voice mail about once a week, those people will start walking to my office too. Just doing my part to increase the collective cardiovascular system of the company. I’m such a good person…

Online movie rentals I can understand – I’ve even raved about how great it is/lazy I am here before. Online rental of books on CD is also a pretty cool idea, but I really don’t underand Online handbag renting

BTW – help me get a free iPod – it actually works, it’s not a scam. Netflix and Blockbuster are almost always on there, if you’re going to sign up for one of those anyway. Some of the other offers are stupid. If you can get the infone one, do that – it won’t ever cost you anything and you get $10 to amazon.com! I will suggest you setup another email account to register with though, you will get spammed after you sign up on that site.

Superfastmoviereview:
Hellboy – Eh. Couldn’t get into it, wasn’t that impressed.
Man on Fire – Great movie! If you’re in the mood for an action flick, check it out.

There’s 2 or 3 people’s blogs/journals that I check every day or two to see if they’ve penned anything exciting. Not that they ever do – but sometimes something mildly entertaining comes up (like pictures of painted bear sculptures or monkeys sitting on people’s head) Today I had a free moment to look at them. One used the word “craptacular” – which I like. The other had nothing new (which is normal) but has a link to an older sibling’s blog which usually has something exciting – and I see the word “craptastic” I think I’ll use one, if not both, of these words today – they seem to fit rather well.

… but sometimes I can’t help it. I have this fear of being judged by what’s in my shopping cart at the grocery. I think it’s a rational fear – after all, I do it to other people. Last night I went to the store and filled up on frozen lunches, ready-to-make dinners, milk, bread, beer, Mt Dew, coffee, and what ever shampoo happened to be on sale. I decided to forego the frozen pizza – that would have just put me over the top and probably caused someone to stop and remark “Why don’t you just put a sign on your forehead?” Of course, if they stopped they might have noticed the coffee and assumed I had just gotten divorced and my wife left the grinder. Or that I grabbed the whole bean by mistake. In my defense I can and do cook… just not all that often. And when I do, I usually go to the store the day of or the day before to pick up everything I need. Oh well, what can ya do?

Few more to-the-point movie reviews for ya:

Gothika – There I go with Halle Berry again. Pretty good creepy drama kinda thing. Creepy in a Sixth Sense creepy. It’s no Sixth Sense, but it’s still entertaining.

Sling Blade – Some call it a sling blade, I call it a self-serving 135 minutes for Billy Bob. BB, you’re no Dustin Hoffman. If you want to see Billy Bob act like a retarded person for 2 hours (which he does a pretty good job of) then rent it. That’s about all there is to see here… alright then, I reckon I’ll go have some biscuits and mustard now.

Mystic River – Disturbing, sad, depressing… everything you’ve heard is true. Acting was decent, story was decent, directing was ok (hey, I’ll call Billy Bob Thorton a schmuck, but I’m not about to insult Clint… even if he is 80 years old) – it was a well put together movie. Some of the scenes Sean Penn did were just… riveting. I’m actually wanting to read the book on this one. You might want to skip the rest of this if you haven’t seen it yet and are planning to. At one point Kevin Bacon’s character says “… maybe this is all a dream” which is actually possible. I’m not sure if it’s his, Jimmy’s, or Dave’s though. I think Dave’s – I think maybe they all got in the car, and he was the only one that escpaed and has carried all this guilt with him. Ok, maybe not, but it sure seems like a dream – I mean, the 2 childhood friends become polar opposites (cop named Devine & crime boss named Markum) Bacon’s character has a huge black partner named Whitey, Penn’s henchmen are the Savage brothers – the kind of vague/laughable details you have in a dream. Ok, so I’m not saying it was, just that it’s possible. Even at the end the whole “…this is the part you do alone” and “I wasn’t ready” I might watch it again some time or read the book. I would have liked the DVD to have some kind of commentary, that would have been nice.

Ok… so there ya go.

My life is rather dull and boring at the moment… not a lot of jumping, not much riding, not much of anything really. Lots of movies… that’s about it. It keeps me entertained, and should make me a killer Trivia Pursuit player… at least when it comes to movies.

Hidalgo – This is the one about the long distance rider, based loosely on a true story. I guess it’s more based on his life. Anyway, I gave this one 4 out of 5 stars on Blockbusters’ site. Perfect ‘date movie’ if you’re looking for one. I actually got sucked into it – it’s pretty rare that a movie does that to me – where you almost forget that you’re watching a movie and you’re yelling at the screen for the bad guys to leave the horse alone.

Starsky and Hutch, Super Troopers, School of Rock – Freakin’ hilarious, pretty funny, eh – respectively. I actually want to see Starsky and Hutch again, I’m sure it’s one of those where you’ll catch more the second time because you won’t be laughing so hard. Super Troopers had me laughing pretty hard through most of it. School of Rock was mildly entertaining – it’s almost painful to watch Jack Black though… he’s just too over-the-top with stuff. You almost want him to stop acting like a complete idiot.

GMail is way cool. I’ll probably end up with a few more invites – let me know if you want one.

AdSense is just… I don’t know… cool. It makes sense, it’s not obnoxious, it’s fresh. Unlike me or my little site here.

More quick & dirty movie reviews!

Taking Lives – Blah. Started good, had potential, ended up being rather disappointing. It wasn’t a complete waste of time though…

Citizen Kane – Figured I might as well watch it, it’s one of those ‘great movies of all time’ that almost everyone but me has seen. I actually liked it. I really enjoyed it more listening to Ebert do a commentary on it. It was just impressive to put myself in that time period and realize all the things that Welles did that had never been done before. Almost makes me want to be a film student.

50 First Dates – Cute and very funny. I liked it, so did other people I suggested watch it.

Badder Santa – I thought it was pretty funny. Most people would probably be offended. A drinking, cursing, sex-crazed Santa just seems wrong. I’d put it on the ‘if it’s around watch it, but don’t go out of your way to see it’ list.

Monster’s Ball – Again with Halle Berry… I liked the movie too.

I saw X2 and T3 as well – not really worth mentioning, they’re just fun time-waster movies.

Netflix sure is shitty when you cancel your free trial. I thought I’d at least give them a shot, so I tried them for two weeks. The movies for Netflix and Blockbuster are mailed from Lansing, MI (at least for me) so the shipping times were about the same. Blockbuster is cheaper and you get two free in-store rentals a month – which comes in very handy. The little things too, like with Blockbuster I actually canceled a few days before my free trial was over, and it was effective when my trial was up – I just had to return any movies I had out within 10 days. With Netflix, cancellation is immediate and you have to return any movies out within 7 days. I guess Wal-Mart even has an online rental thingy. I saw that when I canceled Netflix, it mentioned it in its ‘why are you leaving?’ survey. Just seems odd… Wal-Mart. I wonder if they have sweat-shops stuff the movies in envelopes.

Blockbuster sucks, they really do. They’re expensive, the movies are never there, and don’t get me started on the late-fee collections notice! (I’ve actually gotten one of those threatening postcards from them over 46 cents before)
I love Netflix… but not because their service is great. I wouldn’t know. I love them because they came up with a great idea that Blockbuster stole and made slightly better. That’s right, I joined Blockbusters’ online DVD rental deal. I got into it Friday – I stumbled into an invitation to try it or something. It’s cheaper than netflix, and I also get 2 rentals a month from my local store. No late fees, I don’t have to go to the store, I can put a movie in my queue whenever it pops into my head… great stuff. Since I don’t have cable anymore, I’ve been a movie watching fool. Some I’ve seen…

This weekend I went to the Drive-In (my next great business idea is to bring back drive-ins – there’s very few left in America)
Collateral — Not bad. Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx did a great job. Tom Cruise plays a great bad guy – you want to like him by the end of it. I was just disappointed in the writing near the end… it just trailed off, like they said “Welp, better wrap this up” Not sure I can recommend spending $8.50 on it, but at least rent it when it comes out.

The Bourne Supremacy — If you liked the first one, you’ll probably like this one. Maybe not as much as the first, but still decent. Good action, good acting, decent story. One part actually lost me a little, but we’ll blame that on it being the second feature at the drive in, so it was almost 1am by the time it was done.

The Virgin Suicides — Maybe my expectations were too high. I picked this one up (or rather, had this one sent to me) because I loved Sofia Coppala’s Lost in Translation … eh. It was just disturbing, with a few uneasy laughs here and there. Maybe it tried to be profound and failed. I didn’t really get anything out of it.

The Butterfly Effect — See this movie. If you saw it in the theater, you were robbed – go rent it and watch the director’s cut. As much as I can’t stand Ashton Kutcher, I loved this flick. Everything about it was just excellent – story, acting, directing.

Amelie — This was based on a friend’s suggestion, and I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I’ll warn you, it’s French. No translation, you’ll have to read the subtitles. I’m no movie aficionado – just give me a Hollywood blockbuster with shit blowing up and I’m usually happy. (which is why I’m starting to worry about myself – I loved Amelie, I bought Lost in Translation, I stayed awake through Waking Life – none of them had a single explosion) So the thought of me watching a French film?! I actually want to watch it again and not spend the whole movie reading – you miss a lot of the visually stunning scenes. Good stuff, two thumbs up, watch it sometime.

Ok, back to managing my queue… I’ve probably gotten $20 worth of entertainment out of the process on online rental alone. I’m a geek… I can’t help it.

I just did something I swore I would never ever do – I spent $100 on a pair of sunglasses. I’ve never had a $100-anything that I wore… at least not that I paid for. Can I help it I have screwed up priorities?

Mmm… Wind…
How I spent the last hour:
(BTW back-flying is way harder than it sounds)