cutdown! countdown!

In less than 24 hours 54 and and I are heading to the Far East. We’ll be spending 10 days in Shanghai with her parents (who live there) executing a laundry list of things to do. Seriously, the list is long, and it contains errands that may surprise (teeth cleaning, to name one). We’ll be there over the Thanksgiving holiday, though as much as we like to think of the U.S. being the center of the world, the Chinese don’t celebrate that holiday. Next week will host just another regular ass Thursday and Friday. I digress.

If there ever is a day for cruise control at work, it’s the day before a 10-day vacation. I love this feeling of anticipation. Sure, today’s work day is going to seem like forever and I’m going to glance at the clock in the corner of my screen every 30 seconds, but it’s a good thing. Today has a different feel to it than almost any other day (except, of course, other days before a decent vacation or some other event to which you’re looking forward). My mind is sluggish, my body feels tired, my legs are heavy…oh wait, that’s just the fact that I’ve crammed 17 hours of training into the last week when I’ve been doing 13-14 hours/week for the last month-and-a-half. I hurt. This is another plus, though. It means that I’ll be able to enjoy…no, that’s not the right word…SLEEP for the majority of the 17-hour flight to China. The wine and muscle relaxants won’t hurt either.

+

 

Anyway, it’s not as though I post regularly enough for anyone to miss these delightful ramblings (and it’s not as though my readership extends far and wide), but I will have plenty to say upon my return (we’ll see if it actually makes it to post). Tsai chien…

movie club: big meat eater

It was my turn to pick the movie and I thought I had a winner. But Blockbuster failed miserably and I had to limit my options to what was available on Netflix watch instantly. However, I’m pretty sure that my second choice was even better than my first. I chose Big Meat Eater (I hope you could figure that one out by the title of this post) purely because, well, just look at it! Seriously, if you haven’t seen this movie, you need to do so as quickly as possible. It’s well worth your hour and 20 minutes that it will take. With that, I don’t want to ruin too much for you, but I still need to put something up about it.

 

 

Come to think of it, I don’t know if I could really ruin anything for you. I fell asleep about 40 minutes into this gem (not because it’s bad – it is, but in that “holy hell, I can’t not watch the rest of this amazingly awful kind-of-a-musical-but-not-really-even-though-the-characters-break-into-song-every-now-and-again” way – but because I have a hard time staying up past 9:30p and we started watching it at 8:45p), so I don’t know how it ends. Don’t worry, I’m going to watch the rest of it tonight.

Getting back to the meat and potatoes of this little write-up, I found myself at a loss of words while watching this movie. From the nerdy butcher who has invented a universal language for humanity to adopt in the event (which turns out to be more likely than one would postulate) that aliens make contact opening the film by talking into the camera to the enormous B.B. King look-alike wearing a fez hat diving into a nearly incomprehensible song while working in a boiler room and the all-too-skinny belly dancers who apparently reside in the boiler room come out during said song for an exhibition, I was thoroughly confused and delighted (as I hope you are, too, by the time you reach the end of this sentence). The best part of the half of the movie I watched was the morbidly obese homicidal B.B. King being offered a job at the butcher shop by repeatedly grunting “hungry” to the shop owner (which, I guess, could be read as an extremely racist part of the movie) and subsequently turning on (sexually) two little old ladies by grinding a flank steak by hand (and while breaking into song about being a meat-eater and wanting ham!) when she ordered ground chuck.

 

 

There was also some sub-plot line about the son of a corrupt gypsy trying to be the first to the moon and aliens, but this is when I started to drift. Perhaps I’ll finish this after watching the rest tonight.

Rating so far: Two very tired eyes trying desperately to stay awake for more hilarious confusion!

Now go check out Tiniest Sprinter, emmanation, and SoSoVelo for their reviews!

tang of the dog

There was a movie club meeting of the minds last night. We invented a horribly wonderful new drink sharing the namesake of today’s post title. It involved Mad Dog 20/20 of the Orange Jubilee sort and orange juice. Mix ratio is to taste. We also discovered that the “MD” on the label does not stand for “Mad Dog”. Rather, according to BumWine.com, it stands for Mogen David.

Drinking PBR and inventing new stomach-coating goodness were not the only purposes of the meeting. We had originally set our sights on viewing Blood Freak in its glorious entirety. We were unfortunately derailed from the outset, though, by Blockbuster. You see, I had signed up for Blockbuster’s version of Netflix because Netflix does not carry this title. Blockbuster offers a two-week free trial and I opted to sign up for this with every intention to cancel before my two weeks were up (directly after returning the first rental) without charge. However, Blockbuster seems to be having some serious quality control problems. The disc that I received on Monday and failed to remove from its sleeve until movie-watching time was cracked from outer rim to the center hole. The fucker was broken! So now I have an actual reason for canceling my service with them.

There are few things I enjoy as much as writing letters to companies detailing why I refuse to use their services any more. There were some gems in this one, involving quality improvement and advising that whoever received and read my letter begin actively looking for new employment as Blockbuster is failing miserably in its competition with Netflix.

Anyway, I am going to try to find a copy of this movie locally. If it can’t be located, another will be laughed at in its stead.

join the fight! help find a cure for hangovers

Today I am at work. Last night I decided to go out drinking with a good friend from college who is in Portland for a very limited amount of time. Drinking and weeknights are not good bedfellows. I have recently discovered that I can no longer drink the way that I did when I was at university. I know, this should be something that I figured out a long time ago, but I’m a late bloomer. Someone please stop the vice from compressing my head any further. Thank you.

than is comparative; then is sequential

Ugh, WordPress automatically signed me out because it’s been so long since my last visit that I figure it’s high time for a new post. Away we go! Today we’ll be discussing (complaining about) an increasing problem that is emblematic of a sea change presently in our midst: the misappropriation of then/than, and the systematic slaughter of the English language. This may sound hypocritical coming from someone whose favorite author bends and breaks the rules governing our backward-sounding Germanic language while inventing new words, but then (see, an appropriate use of the word) we’ll just get into a debate about what is and isn’t art and/or literature. There’s even a recent book reprimanding those who join me in a defense against the all out war being waged against grammar:

However, I think even the author of a book advising me to remove the knot from my ever-so-tight panties would agree with me that using two words interchangeably that don’t mean the same fucking thing is ridiculous. It’s really quite simple: “than” denotes a comparison, while “then” sets up a sequence. Shall we look at a few examples?

Than

• Five is greater than four.
• G.W. is a bigger jackass than Kanye, which says a great deal.
• “Man, her head was gooder than a music.” (While this is not grammatically sound or even comprehensible, at least Common used  “than” correctly.)

Then

• If a, then b.
• I closed the stall door then I dropped my trousers.
• If you misuse the words “than” or “then”, then I will think you’re an idiot and I will probably tell you as much.

Got it? Ok. Along with that, can people please stop saying “could of” when they so painfully mean “could have” or “could’ve”? FUCK. Thank you. I don’t think the above mentioned author will have a problem with this either.

Anyway, it’s my turn to choose the movie for the rest of us in the know, and with Thanksgiving around the corner (and I suppose because Halloween is this weekend, but that has very little to do with it) I have picked Blood Freak. It’s the only vaguely Thanksgiving-themed horror or sci-fi movie I could find. I do mean vaguely. As far as I am aware, the only tie it has to this holiday is a poultry-type monster. Find it. Watch it. Throw tomatoes in the form of biting commentary at it.

operation: snip & tie

So, as of late I’ve been neglecting this thing with the exception of movie club write-ups. Total blog fail. A concerted effort will be made to write more regularly but, in all honesty, it will probably fail. These sorts of things are cyclical for me and I’m on a real down swing when it comes to penning tongue-in-cheek (or otherwise straight forward) insights into my life. To hold you all over until this ebb concludes, though, I’ll drop a whopper today (that euphemistically sounds like I’m having a brutal BM).

Until last Thursday when I made the call (literally made the telephone call – the actual decision had been made two weeks prior), the vasectomy that I had scheduled for December 18 has been postponed until next September. I’m not getting cold feet about this issue (although my balls feel as though they run for cover in my stomach every time I think about the local anesthetic needle); the decision was made due to – you guessed it – reasons pertaining to bicycle racing. While it scares me that I will still carry the potential to produce offspring for 12 more months (don’t worry – we use reliable birth control), I don’t want to take what the doctor said would be at least three weeks off the bike when training will become more specific and intensive.

You see, I’m afraid that I won’t be able to sit, stand or walk without resting a bag of frozen vegetables on my nether regions, let alone ride my bicycle and/or otherwise train. While I’m sure that all of you are familiar with vasectomies and their relationship to sensitive nether regions, let’s go over the generalities for the sake of thoroughness.

This is what will happen to my innards.

This is what I sit on 14-16 hours each week, not including my daily commute and other errands.

Do you see the problem I face? I certainly do. At times, it’s as though I can feel it.

Why, you ask, am I undergoing such a procedure at my relatively young age (we’ll say mid to late 20s) without having ever spawned any precious miniature progeniture bearing an odd likeness to 54 and/or myself? Let’s begin with the downside:

Cons

• Babies that turn into kids who grow up to be teenagers and then become young adults are ridiculously expensive. I’m fairly certain that responsibility for those things dictate that you see them through (read: pick up the tab) to adulthood (and beyond) as opposed to quitting and moving on when I would inevitably grow exhausted of him/her/them and his/her/their endless invoice.
• I am incredibly selfish. I see no reason for dividing 54’s attention with anyone else. Before condemning me to a state of anti-feminism, go ahead and ask her if she’d like to see my attention stray. This can be read as possessive or devoted. I care not which term you use. We’re happy.
• To be repetitive, we’re happy. We like the way things are now. With the exception of our (her) cat and financial restrictions, we can go where we please when we see fit. We can throw sexy parties that devolve into drunken train wrecks. We can do what we want, bitches!

But don’t you think that someday you’ll change your mind, you counter? Why must you do something so drastic and permanent? Yes, people change/grow/move on and sometimes end up regretting past choices. One need look no further than the current state of my black leg for evidence of that. However, this is a decision that was reached after years of thought and discussion between the parties affected. This is simply the next step (after years of less-than-permanent stop-gaps, i.e., birth control shy of tubal ligation).

What about all the pros that you didn’t list? Aren’t there positive things related to producing sad attempts to correct all the mistakes you made in your life, you ask? Goddamn, you people ask a lot of questions. I suppose there are pros, but when we talk about them they always end up on the con side either circuitously or rather logically and straight forward. So, harumph! Take your expensive little messes out to restaurants with kids’ menus. Mind them conscientiously while on a shared-use path. We may volunteer occasionally to help babysit your doughy, defenseless voracious consumers, but be warned that I may try to fuck up its vocabulary for my entertainment.

movie club: the orphanage

Uno, dos, tres. Quana mara res. Or something to that effect. What a creepy movie. While the phantom children from the orphanage didn’t rotate their heads 360 degrees and vomit pea soup, I was definitely freaked out a bit. It didn’t help that 54 made me watch it in the dark. I begged to keep the lights on. No dice.

So this woman was adopted as a little girl and, fulfilling some fucked up life-long dream of hers, with her husband and HIV+ adopted son she bought and moved back into the orphanage in which she grew up. I think Freud addressed this issue somewhere. Look it up. Anyway, if that isn’t enough, it turns out the ailing child has five of the least fortunate imaginary friends, who aren’t so imaginary. There’s Martin, Victor, Alicia, Guillermo and Rita, all of whom were poisoned by this lady:

because they killed her son, Tomas:

Tomas is pissed because, well, wouldn’t you be pissed if you looked like that and were born before the rise in popularity and surgeons’ skill in plastic surgery? He was also a little slow and got duped by the other five into getting trapped in a cave while the tide was coming in and he drowned. All they wanted was for him to take off his god awful mask:

Tomas’ mom met her maker, which happened to be the front of a rather large truck, and it scared the shit out of me. It was a jumpy part of the movie. Anyway, plastic surgery can’t fix this:

Interestingly enough, I found this rendition of the same scene, and I can’t tell if they spliced it with a snuff/gag porno:

I’m getting ahead of myself. HIV+ disappeared and his mom, understandably so, takes it less than lightly. Tomas makes a house call on the day of HIV+’s disappearance and makes the kid’s mother lose a fingernail, which in turn almost made me lose my dinner, and break her shin. She goes to what I would call stupid/crazy lengths to find her son (but what do I know? I don’t have a kid – those things are expensive!). She even hired some professor/lecturer who was teaching Carl Jung to a captivated audience of six, who hypnotized a tritely named clairvoyant (Aurora) in an attempt to communicate with the past inhabitants of the orphanage.

The mom ends up playing a crazy game with the dead, parentless children in a frantic search for HIV+, who has been missing for over nine months. They lead her to their remains first, and she gets the remains all over her. Gross. Then they lead her into Tomas’ old stomping grounds in the basement and she is fooled into thinking she’s found her son alive. Boy was she wrong! She found him alright, but nine months too late. She offs herself and her husband moves back into the orphanage, which is the craziest part of the movie. But then again, he was the guy who attempted CPR on the lady whose jaw was stuck under a truck 20 feet away from the rest of her head.

This movie wasn’t all bad. And for our club, that means it’s a winner. For creepiness, it kept me sweating for its duration. I suppose that’s what they were going for. I give it two sweaty palms.

you’ve reached the end of…

It’s been some time since I put something here that didn’t relate to our super amazing movie club. And with that, why don’t I tell you that we’ll be reviewing The Orphanage on Monday. Leave a comment with a link to your review if you want in on the action. You know you want to.

In the meantime, enjoy this in all its glory:

movie club: gingerdead man and gingerdead man 2: the passion of the crust

Whoa, that’s a long title. I’m a tiny bit late (again) with my review, but I’m going to take a page out of Serena’s book and not apologize. I like that she didn’t apologize. It was a bad call and she calmed herself almost immediately.

For this one I’m going to go back to typing random reactions/thoughts I have while watching the movies. Also, 54 is watching and I’ll be sharing some of her thoughts as well. Here we go.

These titles are horrible. And sweet fucking christ are they taking forever. It’s a 70-minute movie with seven minutes of opening credits.

54: What the fuck did they use to shoot this movie? It looks like they used digital.

“I hope they have strippers in heaven.”

Me: I hope they have strippers in heaven, too. Actually, I hope they have strippers in hell because we all know atheists don’t make it to heaven.

Me: What kind of delivery person wears a fucking bear skin parka?

Zissou: Meow!

I keep finding myself looking at the elapsed time on our DVD player to see just how much of this movie is left. Damn, only 17 minutes have gone by.

“Six thousand dollars goes a long way at Wal-Mart.”

Me: And how! Six thousand dollars DOES go a long way at Wal-Mart.

54: How is this supposed baker not noticing the blood tint in her dough?

Bingo! A random character shows up (out of nowhere at minute 24) wearing a “pull my finger” t-shirt! My money says he dies first. Oh, his name is Amos. That’s fucking p-e-r-f-e-c-t. What do you think this actor’s name really is? Blake? Craig? Chaz? Todd? And he even likes puns! “How much dough could you make from a talking cookie? Haha! Dough!” Ok, back to fitting names for this jackass…maybe it’s Brett.

Whoa, I just got super distracted. I did a Google image search for “gingerbread man blood” and, speaking of appropriate names, I found a woman who named her baby Awsumb Kenneth. OH MY GOD. This kid even looks like Amos! I change my mind. I think the actor who plays Amos is named Awsumb.

I have completely lost interest in the movie. I can’t tear myself away from Awsumb.com and his amazing scrapbooks. Ok, I found out that Awsumb is this kid’s mother’s maiden name. This is ridiculous.

Oh, Ryan Locke played Amos. I’m putting in the Passion of the Crust now, but I can’t promise anything. This lady’s blog is too good.

If I had known that the second installment of Gingerdead Man was just going to recap the first one, I wouldn’t have wasted all that time. Seriously, there are parts in the recap that neither of us caught when we were supposed to be watching the full length of the movie.

Ok, we already like part 2 better. Sweet hat tip to Joan Jett. I don’t give a damn about my bad reputation! Second wind.

And I’ve lost my second wind. The camera shots are giving me a headache. The huge brawl on the set is going to cause a seizure. “The End of the Rainbow Last Wish Foundation” is stretching it a bit thin. If 54 falls asleep, I’m turning the movie off. She’s close to shutting down. Fuck, the cat just woke up her back up. It’s now just me waiting for rhythmic breathing. And that’s it folks! She’s asleep and I’m going back to watching Arrested Development.

Update: I forgot to rate these two movies. 54 gave the first one one squinty eye open and one eye closed. GDM2, however, received two eyes shut. I concur with her assessment.

party on, wayne. party on, garth.

Holy party success, batman! We did it. 54 and I are the sexiest hostess and host ever. Let’s run through the list quickly.

Does the kitchen smell like PBR?

Check.

Was there a fake sneezing contest? (Miranda, we have the BEST photo of you winning this contest.)

Check.

Were shots taken using ice cream cones as the shot glasses?

Check.

Is there photographic evidence of my ass?

Check.

Did the host and hostess experience incapacitating hangovers the following day?

Ugh. Check and check.

Was the food enjoyed by all?

Check.

I must now apologize to my movie club mates and anyone else expecting a review from me today. Due to the large size of my hangover, I was unable to remove myself from the couch yesterday. I was supposed to meet up and watch Gingerdead Man and Gingerdead Man 2: The Passion of the Crust in a colossal double feature of a good time. It will be delayed. Don’t worry, though – I’m picking up the movies tonight and will force 54 to watch them with me. Who knows…maybe we can even talk her into writing a review where she normally lists what is currently being digested by her tummy.