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)

Greetings from 30k feet
Well, 30,000 give or take a few. I got my seat switched to an exit row – joy!

I like flying commercial on a day like this, you get a nice view of the clouds. Sometimes you’ll pass a little wisp of a cloud and be like “hey, all your buddies are about 27,000 feet below you, what are you doing up here??”

TN has some really tall clouds right now. If I thought about it, I could remember names… but I’m typing with my thumbs, that takes what little brainpower I have.

Hope this picture turns out…

Exit rows rock – you get more leg room, the seat in front of you can’t recline, there’s no armrest by the window (so you get more room), and you can rest easy knowing you won’t be stuck by a kid or a huge person.

That’s all for now.

In ATL now…

What the heck, one more picture – coming into Ft Myers

It’s all very confusing. Yes, I know, none of this will be interesting. But the three of you that read this don’t come here for humor, literary masterpieces, or entertainment… I gotta give ya something.

Dremel rotary tool has to be in the top 25 inventions of all time. You can do just about anything with them. I’ve used mine to install a camera in my helmet, cut a notch out of a door, sand stuff, cut stuff, grind stuff, drill stuff. Love it.

So anyway, I bought this Dremel Router Table thing. It seemed like a great idea. Well the thing has some serious design flaws. First of all the arm that hold the tool isn’t as sturdy as it probably should be. Second, all the sawdust from the piece you’re working on fall right down into the tool. I don’t think it’d be that hard to have the router bit have a flat disc at the bottom that would help cover the gap. I burnt up 2 Dremels trying to use this stupid thing. Hate it. Don’t buy it.

Dremel gives you a 5 year warranty, but I had no receipt for it (was a gift about 4 years ago) But I decided to send it to them anyway. I sent a little note expressing my extreme dissatisfaction, explaining the flaws I saw in the stupid router table, and telling them what I’d do to fix it (I always have people who know nothing about my job telling me how to do my job, I thought I’d try it once.) It was delivered to their service center Monday morning. Wednesday when I got home from work, there was a brand new one sitting on my front porch. Rock.

Oh, in case you’re wondering about the second one I destroyed – I had bought that one after the first one bit the dust. I just returned it to the store a day later.

In other news… I have a new phone. Well, it’s the same phone, but hopefully this one actually works better.

I’ve gotten 2 phone calls at work today.  These people are really annoying, they start with “Good afternoon” or “Happy Tuesday” or “How are you today?” … no one starts a conversation like that here!  So the first guy is so-and-so from something-or-other imaging.  He says “I understand you’re the person in charge of your printers and fax machines there?”  I really don’t have time to listen to another toner salesman, so I say “We don’t have any printers or fax machines here” … I thought about telling him the truth – that about 10 minutes before he called I had spent $2,000 on toner, but that would just encourage him to call back later.  After a nice pause he says “Uh, ok thank you goodbye”

That worked well.  In fact, it worked so well I decided to try it on the second telemarketer I heard from today:
“Hi, good afternoon.  I understand you’re the decision maker for your company when it comes to telecommunications?”
“We don’t have telephones here”