Saturday Night: The Tastiest Night Of The Week

My woman, Holly, she had a song that she sang for the treats that she usually eat...ed...er, back in the day. Unless you're into Sinatra, the joke is most likely lost, but there it is, the weekend that involves the 13-year anniversaries of the loss of Pookie and the adoption of The Woman gets to have the Tastiest Night Of The Week in between. Am I incoherent? Probably due to the Sudafed knock-offs I've been popping like PEZ. It's spring! My skin hurts.

Another side effect of the allergy drugs is that I can't remember when we saw a movie called The Touch, but it was good in a Crouching Tiger, Moulin Rouge! kind of way. The actual title is Tian mai chuan qi, but I couldn't pronounce that even if I could speak properly, so I'll stick to the English title, even though it makes no sense to me. The plot, if I recall, is that The Duke (Richard Roxburgh), is after something only a team of Chinese acrobats can actually reach--that's clever, you know, train acrobats to hide your set of golden statues. Unless, of course, you're in Lhasa, and EVERYONE can fly through the air, even Ben Chaplin, who we thought was Antonio Banderas for a few seconds. It was a fun movie, though, and the Internet Movie Database message boards really make me guilty that I enjoyed it.

Stardust, though...was frikkin' fantastic. I think it's the first movie I thought I should remember to show to any kids I should happen to have the occasion to show movies to, like...ever. As far as I'm concerned, it's up there with Krull and Ladyhawke, and it left me happier than any of those Lord of the Rings movies (which actually isn't hard to do, but I digress). All Neil Gaiman fans are probably wondering what rock I've been living under right about now, and I assure you it is a very cozy rock and I've no wish to come out from under it but you're all welcome to pop in and recommend things I ought to know about any time.

The only other things I managed to do last week was test the Mr. Clean mop handle with those slip-on things that er, clean the floor. As all good mops should. I dig cleaning products. At least with whatever mutation my throat is going though, I can be around cleaning products again. Now my floor is clean for when I fall on it on the odd days when I don't take an allergy pill some people use to make meth. (Don't make meth out of Sudafed, kids.)

Saturday Night: The Tastiest Night Of The Week

How I Continue to Confuse Myself.

Fisherman's Friend is a throat lozenge with capsicum in it. You know, that stuff I couldn't be in the same room with from August of 2004 until about two months ago but now helps me speak? I'm mutating.

I bought the last package of extra strong original formula at the Rite-Aid near the 99¢ store. They worked great! They worked so great I was able to string together a particularly nasty set of compound nouns at the intersection ten feet from my driveway. With any luck my neighbors still think I have no voice, and so couldn't possibly have said what I said to the car behind me as it scared me into oncoming traffic. I hate driving where other people also drive. Have you seen No Country For Old Men yet? That scene at the end is not leaving what's left of my mind so easy.

Unfortunately, Fisherman's Friend also comes in a low sugar, cherry-flavored version that has no capsicum, no sugar, but aspartame. So the extra packages that my Mum found in the other Rite-Aid? No help for the voice and I'm just a little more brainless. I think that may be the plan.

PEZ distributes Fisherman's Friend, and while I highly recommend the original version, I'm planning to hold a grudge against the three bucks I lost to the candy-flavored chemical cocktail Rite-Aid foisted on my mother and aunt. At least until I forget, which should be any minute now.

I wish I could forget the feeling that I'm about to be broadsided by an 18-wheeler. It's annoying. Especially when I'm parked in front of the bank, minding my own business, enjoying the view of the blooming hedges, and an 18-wheeler comes off the highway and blows its horn at me. Those things, they've not got drivers, you know, they just travel around renegade, looking for victims. I'm sure if it had a driver the truck would not have needed to blow its horn at me...like I could do anything about getting out of the way.

I didn't really feel like dying on Nan's birthday, either. I mean, generally people tend to either die or come pretty close to it on her birthday, and the previous night's mouse incident was bad enough, but there's nothing that makes me realize my emo tendencies are crap faster than trying to cross the street in the same general piece.

How I Continue to Confuse Myself.

Movie MADNESS!

A while back we saw No Country For Old Men because hey, we like Javier Bardem! Um. We still like him even though he does award-winning scary. Okay, see, mainstream cinema, THIS is how you do action movies. Maybe some of the scenes were harsh, BUT I COULD SEE WHAT WAS GOING ON and even appreciated the one or two scenes where a handheld camera was used because it made perfect sense. Also, while watching the scene involving the pharmacy and subsequent first aid, Mum said, "Why didn't I think of that?" Laugh, it's funny. I will admit the thing that happens with the car at the end is now tied with that episode of Homicide: Life on the Streets where the car goes under the truck as things I can live without experiencing, but that scene and the whole movie deserved its awards.

We also watched The Kingdom--or as I like to call it, the terror of knowing what shakycam is about--started out as a documentary, took a turn through rah-rah one group, boo another group, and ended up making me fret over Jason Bateman. Jason Bateman fans can relax, though. It's the nice Colonel who you shouldn't get too attached to. It will only make you sad.

To get a break from news, decorating and cooking shows, we end up leaving on a lot of old game shows and what should happen to be on right after all that fretting over Jason Bateman but Teen Week on Body Language, where the celebrity teens were Lisa Bonet and Jason Bateman. I think I said, "It came from the '80s." I totally missed who won, but Tom Kennedy (the host, who is one of those people I spent long nights awake with and therefore I like him) asked Lisa Bonet to explain what her show was about and took a few seconds pronouncing, "Huxtable." Yeah...early '80s.

A week passed. I spent much of it outdoors. I think. I can't really remember. Dancing With The Stars and Idol seemed to feature heavily. Usually I use the time sitting near those shows to write and work on my strips, and I appear to have done some of that, although slower than usual. It's just one of those lunar cycles.

This weekend, we saw a neat little musical called Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street. It was fabulous. As I'm writing this, I realize I've been escaping into Tim Burton movies for about 20 years of my life. They are highlights indeed. Mum said she never would have watched any other version, and that's praise, man, high praise.

Nan put on Emma. No, not Emma with Jeremy Northam, the other one. The one with Sybil Fawlty as Miss Bates. Being I consider myself Miss Bates, and I love Prunella Scales, this Emma was almost as cool as "my" Emma. Each one has different bits of the story, so I wuv them both.

Tonight, Nan came across 300, and left it on. Mum probably would not have liked it, if not for Xerxes' facial piercings, then for when it gets messy toward the end. As it is Gerard Butler is one of Nan's men, so...er...I thought I'd told her how it ends, eh...if you've not been spoiled on the movie already (by, say, history), don't get too attached to any Spartan who keeps both eyes. But it's artsy. Oh so artsy. And I'm glad I saw it. I saw 300! </movie nerd>

Movie MADNESS!

Being There In Spirit Means My Spirit Gets To Have All The Fun.

My cousin Laura's getting married today. As with everything, I'm missing out on it. In a way, this is a very good sign for them because weddings I miss are usually marriages that last forever, whereas every wedding I've ever been to...eh, it's not about me today.

She and her man Eric have had a rough road to get to each other, and I hope from this point on they and my singing, swinging pal Marie have a life together so fabulous that everyone around them just goes, "Argh, the happiness, it's blinding."

I don't know what their song is, so I'm playing one for them, because, well, it makes sense to me.

Being There In Spirit Means My Spirit Gets To Have All The Fun.

The Notorious Potato Gang.

To protest the recent bad idea to can totally free accounts on LiveJournal, almost everyone I know is on strike from midnight to midnight (GMT) this Friday, which is like, now. So I don't get to post anything to mine until 8PM tomorrow. Which is just about what I do, except today I wanted to tell the story of how someone left their potatoes in the parking lot at Met, and I went back in--lost bag in hand--and wheezed, "Dolores, someone left their potatoes in the parking lot."

I assume it was interesting for people around. I'd like to think it was. I'd also like to hope that it wasn't a potato bomb, because my prints are all over that bag now.

After being blown by the glorious spring winds--happy spring, peeps!

This is what my life is like, I'm thinking, "I hope I didn't blow up the supermarket," and BANG, LOLpeeps just appear like that car that ran the red light. The next thing I know, the Chinese are skating to a song I used to play 20 years ago, and all the high-pitched music and spinning on the bright white ice is joining forces with that cup of hot dairy-infused sugar I knew I shouldn't have drank the first time three months ago, much less tonight--but we're celebrating Mum's ability to lift things again! And I completely forget what I was going to say.

After being blown home by the March winds (happy birthday Aunt Janet!), I sat in the relative quiet of my room putting together my papercraft Ceiling Cat, which I found on Tubbypaws, a blog of happy art. Tubbypaws is one of those sites I read in its entirety in one sitting because it did make me happier and happier, until I was weeping with happy at the sight of papercraft Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Silent Hill 2.

I'll end my post with Tubbypaws, because I would be sad if I kept you from the fabulous happy of that blog.

The Notorious Potato Gang.

When Your Name is Racer, That Really Limits You.

The latest Speed Racer trailer is up, and I finally got to hear the guy playing Racer X talk. Not bad. Lost fans are probably trying to figure out how to vomit on me right now, but I haven't seen Matthew Fox in anything, so...oh wait, he was in Smokin' Aces, but I didn't know it was him, because I didn't know who he was then. Don't feel so bad, I didn't recognize Joel Edgerton in that movie either, and he's like, from those Star Wars movies I like so much, so I'm just trying compliment the guy playing Racer X.

I'm going to like this movie. Even though they have flashbacks to Speed's school days and lord knows those rarely go well, but it's nice to see young Trixie dressed exactly the same as legal Trixie. I wonder if all she thought about in her school days was flying helicopters. What is Trixie's last name, anyway? Trixie Avia?

If you just can't get enough of my links away from here involving Speed Racer, there are new posters up at Yahoo! and ComingSoon.net has an exclusive from ShoWest which has a bunch of words explaining why the movie looks the way it does, because I guess there are some people who can't figure that out for themselves, but some of those words translate to sequel. Oh hell yes. As long as Speed doesn't end up dying in to restore racing to the world. I don't trust the Wachowskis.

When Your Name is Racer, That Really Limits You.

There's No Stoppin' The Weeks From Stepping Up.

I usually keep these reviews to movies I haven't seen up until this point. Otherwise they'd go on for a mile and--oh wait, they'd go on for three miles. I just saw Step Up, which I'm guessing is like Breakin' for kids born in 1996. Being there's that history of DANCE! in my family, Nan and I ended up watching it late last Saturday morning. I'm of course tainted by my love for Turbo and Ozone, and Ollie and Jerry, so I kept comparing it to the pre-Electric Booglaoo days. If I continue down this path I will injure my back. Again.

The movie Nan picked for us to watch Saturday night (the tastiest night of the week, you know. Pretzels are involved.) was In The Valley Of Elah, which I really didn't want to see as I saw one bit and it was like, "All the guys torture the chickens!" and really, me watching that is like all those grandmothers on YouTube who sat down to watch Two Girls, One Cup and I didn't mention the mention of chicken torturing, because I knew I would then have to deal with my mother's head exploding, so I just said okay. I've had 300 on tape off Cinemax for two weeks. I want to see 300. I've wanted to see 300 since I heard the word "Persians," because, you know...well, maybe you don't. Someone once told me I...uh...lived...in those times...in a past life. Which explains a lot about me, really, but I'll save that for the week I finally get to see 300. For some reason Nan keeps passing Gerard freakin' Butler over for made-for-tv alien movies and chicken torture cases. Life is not fair. In case you're wondering, gluing my family to chairs and forcing them to watch a movie I want to see never goes well (*cough*The American Astronaut*cough*). But I decided I'd watch In The Valley of Elah, because it's got Tommy Lee Jones, and I once had my hair cut by a girl who was hot for Tommy Lee Jones, so whenever I watch Tommy Lee Jones movies I think of her. And then I watched the whole movie. That scene I saw made sense then. Everyone needs to watch In The Valley of Elah. It's sad. I would even go so far as saying heart-breaking, and I don't throw that term around very often. I would actually glue people to chairs and make them watch the movie, if I had that much glue.

The next night, we watched No Reservations, the Catherine Zeta-Jones remake of Mostly Martha, both of which are about gourmet chefs. Only where the Shakespeare Retold version of Macbeth had me antsy to see what would happen next--even thought I knew--this one was about food. Gourmet food. And death. I eat peanut butter, mainly, and ramen noodles, and I don't quite like death so this was like...I was like the little girl in it who didn't like the fish staring at her from her plate. Then it turns into a chick flick, but no one ever talks about their feelings, they just walk off, so I was torn between the movie being good and...not. But Monopoly is involved, and so anytime Monopoly is in a movie, you can at least give it a shot if you like movies like Baby Boom and all those movies where women living their lives for themselves inherit children and meet a guy (also, Nan loves Aaron Eckhardt, who is in No Resservations) and suddenly they stop being crotchety and everything becomes happiness and pop songs. Oh, and threats of child protective services. I don't recall that part in Mostly Martha. Crap, I don't recall most of Mostly Martha.

During the week Nan found Cherry 2000, which is '80s sci-fi goodness in a hot little mechanical package. I'd never seen it so I enjoyed it, and I got all wistful for red hair again.

Nan found the latest haunted stretch of road movie, Wind Chill, and those are always fun. I have no idea who was in this one, but if you like horror movies, it's fun. If you do a lot of driving on winter roads, it's not so fun.

The rest of the week was gardening and X-Files joy. My furry little Mulders and Scully like to search for proof of UFOs in this one section of the yard, and I decided it was about time to buy some dirt to cover the loads and loads of leaves I've raked into the body-sized hole over the winter...and last fall...and summer...they love to dig there. The Fluffy One and The Puppy helped me distribute the dirt, and they're so adorable when they do it that I overlooked the fact that The Puppy was dragging the bag of dirt across sections of the lawn that weren't in need of any repair. She then ate some dirt and stole my rake while the cats were running in the opposite direction with the sticks I use to cover the dirt so it looks old and uninteresting.

I lost five more games of solitaire, and only drew two strips and added 1,800 words to my great novel. I am not proud of this, but I'm about two weeks ahead on my cartoon, so I could afford to blow off some of my work. That's what I tell the ceiling when I'm not sleeping.

There's No Stoppin' The Weeks From Stepping Up.

An Experiment of the Most Mute Kind

Looking around this Internet thing, there are a lot of hits on searches about losing one's voice. Mainly things like, "I have to sing tomorrow, OMG, what do I do?!" and invariably, there will be at least one reply that will invoke hot sauce.

I'm allergic to hot sauce, you know, once upon a time I ate a pretzel using the same hand that I'd used to rub Capzasin-P onto my arm. Doctors don't technically call what happens anaphylaxis, but for five years, among the symptoms of my exposure to hot sauce is the loss of my voice.

And so it was that I took out a packet of Yi Pin hot sauce that came with some Chinese food we got, and emptied the packet onto a slice of bread. Eating the bread did not kill me. It did not even burn...at first.

I got my voice back.

Ten minutes later, I'd lost my voice again.

The next day, I tried mustard. Mustard, Lowry's Seasoned Salt, and paprika. All together, because I felt like rushing the experiment. I got my voice back for a few minutes.

The next day, I took a spoon. Onto the spoon I put red pepper flakes, and coated that in honey. My thinking was that the honey would slow the pepper down as it went down my throat. It did! It's burning still...but not my throat.

Today, I just left myself alone. My findings are that the thing which could have killed me for five years now allows me to speak, if only momentarily, so I can only conclude that I have been replaced by a replica.

It boggles the mind.

An Experiment of the Most Mute Kind

Doctors Do Not Appreciate Smart-Ass Commoners

Mum had what is most likely the last Unna boot she'll need for Cellulitis '06 put on today. Her leg is, technically, healed. Luckily, we found out the hospital does so take her Aetna card, it was only the blood pressure clinic which didn't (I don't know, don't ask me, sounds rather suspect), so I did not have to turn to eBay for the last few bandages. Not that I would have minded, because I told Mum last year she needed one of those Unna boots when she only had two tiny things on her leg and no odd colors were involved, and that would have brought the total price of fixing her leg to maybe $25, rather than the house-threatening amount the hospital is taking their time figuring out now.

Reading this back, I'm coming off bitter, almost as if I feel no one listens to me. This is not because I have no voice, no, it's because sometime last month Mum asked the nurse wrapping her leg if she was going to need compression socks like the ones I made her get that closed the first two leg ulcers. "No," each wrapper every week since declared, "You won't need those. What did you ever wear those for? Silly!"

Today the medical person of the week told Mum they'd ordered her compression socks that she'll need to wear after the Unna boot comes off. Because it will take two weeks for them to get the socks, they slapped on another bandage and told her to leave it on until the socks arrive.

I will of course let you all know if they're the exact things we could have ordered fresh from the Footsmart catalog a month ago. Because I have the feeling they will be.

Doctors Do Not Appreciate Smart-Ass Commoners

Dear "Safe" Neighbor,

I appreciate that you've taken the precautions to keep disease and children from spreading. I do, believe me, you're a hero in that respect.

But when you're done with that, can you not leave it on my sidewalk?

I'm...impressed, really. But it's not the right way to brag, man.

There is, of course, the possibility that the dog who poops up and down the street is now trafficking drugs, and in that case I'm not impressed by the used condom on the sidewalk in any way. Don't swallow drug-filled condoms, kids.

Kids.

Really little kids walk up this street.

Eh. It's a deceased balloon animal, kids, just leave it rest in peace. That's what I'd tell them, if they'd asked. Or not. I wouldn't want to upset anyone.

Dear "Safe" Neighbor,

I Lost My Mind To A Song I Never Knew.

What does it say about me that I have no fear of letting you all know I just saw I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper for the first time and I loved it?

I Lost My Mind To A Song I Never Knew.

Sunday News.

Part of the reason my writing sucks is that I don't like making fun of things because I know that the odds are good that someone will take me seriously, for instance, I once went off pretending to be jealous of the girls wearing the Queen Amidala dresses in The 2007 Rose Parade, and one of them found my post and it took me a long time to recover from the resulting seppuku, I tell you.

With that in mind, Bow Wow turned 21 today. He is Lil' Bow Wow no longer. This is momentous. Unless he dropped the Lil' a while ago, and I'm just finding this out now. See, the horoscopes I read, they have the celebrity birthdays for the day, and Bow Wow and Mickey Gilley share the same birthday. Mickey Gilley's 72, that also blows my mind.

The typo-afflicted horoscope itself seems like I'm going to commit a heinous crime, but considering I'm not involved in any organized crime or Clone War business, I guess I just have to make sure I don't start writing about things like my deep-seated fear of the house burning down.

You'll find it difficult to separate your personal life from your professional. Don't let your emotions filter into your responsibilities. There will be no room for anger or upset and, if you let jealously enter the picture, you will end up at a point of no return.

Crikey! Looks like I'm throwing Mace Windu out the window with a well-placed adverb to the gut!


A new type of fire alarm in Japan has been developed using the pungent smell of horseradish. According to the study, this works particularly well for deaf people...who apparently can't smell smoke. They tested 14 people, and 13 of them woke up when they smelled horseradish, because, dude, who doesn't love horseradish?

I can't eat horseradish, but...I've been advised not to jealously enter my mental picture of 13 deaf people waking up in the middle of the night and looking around to see where the hell that smell is coming from as their polyester-covered furniture melts across the only exit.

(I love you, deaf people and Bow Wow fans (and if the two overlap, I love you extra)! I'm just making fun of technology. I'm a Bow Wow Wow fan myself...er, and my right ear's a bit stuffy, come to think of it, I don't know what horseradish smells like.)

Sunday News.

The Week From Another Universe.

Last Saturday, we saw Robin Cook's Invasion, which was a made-for-television mini-series starring Luke Perry that I had managed to miss for eleven years. Now that I've seen it, my forehead hurts from being slapped so much, and I'm worried about my rock collection. Oh my...I worry that things I write are too close to stories that already exist, but this mini-series, the author (not so much Robin Cook as the guy who writes a lot of Farscape) obviously had no fears of this. By the end I weas expecting Luke Skywalker or Tom Jones or Will Smith to pop out, start punching people, and saying some regular-TV-friendly things while curing the aliens with farts. Okay, gas, but still, it's funnier to say farts.

Why hasn't an alien invasion story been done yet where the cure is farts? It would be a hit. I'm copyrighting that idea now, unless someone else already has. I'm not saying the special effects themselves weren't pretty good for CBS in 1997, but some of the dumbest people in creation managed to take down a dude in Sith makeup and an army base crawling with people infected by the space tinglies. For the first hour, the main doctor--played by Kim Catrall, who I loved in Big Trouble In Little China and Mannequin--is like, "Gosh, some people died really oddly, but everyone has the frikkin' flu, BUT IT CAN'T BE THESE STONES YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT, I mean, it's not like children were coming in saying stones bit them, or anything."

And then they go to an underground government facility, but the student who knows how to use the Internet has to use his laptop to do stuff. Like they don't already have computers down there...okay, maybe they don't, the scientists would have all been playing Solitare instead of fighting space herpes. Oh wait, the underground government facility was totally deserted. Maybe security was in the other room playing solitare. Unless they were in the desert waiting for the spaceship. Or maybe it was an incredibly clean, yet abandoned facitity and that's why they had "VR microscopes" to show the nasties living in the rocks, which looked a bit like enemies from DOOM, but no Internet.

I can't say I didn't have a good time watching the movie, because I had ball. It was like Rocky Horror, I was rasping all kinds of helpful advice to the characters, it was great. I don't get to have three hours of fun like that often.

I didn't come back here and make notes of what outstanding things happened this week, so much of it is lost. I did bust out the pole pruner and take down some vines that were going to grow even longer and higher and tangle with the telephone lines eventually, but I didn't get to pick them up the same day I did it, so I was treated to the entertainment known as cats dragging a tangle of vines behind them on a leash, looking like, "OMG, it has me!" No, I'm sorry, that's mean, to giggle at my guys when they pick something up and get freaked out by it. Even if it is frikkin' adorable.

I also used the pole pruner and the bow saw and the entire palette of instruments of death to take down a young mulberry tree that was growing in the front yard. Mulberries can get to be about 80 feet high and six feet in diameter, and the driveway with my car on it was one foot away, and the power lines were even closer to the tips of the branches, so I did what I had to do, man. I'm not proud. But now I have a bargaining chip for all those trees I'm growing in the backyard, that are starting to become visible above the stuff I've had strategically placed for the past two years. Oh yes. Never forget the mulberry of the front yard.

The storm we had on Wednesday left me with even more nature to pick up and send off to the happy land where seagulls play, and I wrote a whole post about that with pictures. Some bird who liked to live dangerously was out trying to get worms in 35mph winds. Birds rock.

Although I can't remember the exact order this week, it's safe to say a lot of the rest of my time goes to things like sleeping, not sleeping, eating, working, driving around, gathering food, feeding my furry children, playing with my furry children, watching American Idol, drawing, writing, cleaning, spacing out, listening to music (this week it's Imogen Heap again), watching X-Files and movies I've already seen, and of course YouTube. Lots and lots of YouTube. Remember last year when I'd use Saturday to just post the crazy stuff I found on YouTube? Man, those were the days.

Have I mentioned that I'm crazy about this disturbing video of a Japanese guy wearing a horse mask and little else, cooking toxic mushrooms and dancing? No? YES.

The Week From Another Universe.

At Which Point I Realized I Need To Be Challenged Dentally.

Copyblogger had an article about deliberately throwing the occasional typo or misquote into posts in order to "engage" the audience. Except, as I pointed out (no sense denying what's there in the comments) most of the time I see typos and just think the writer, *cough* like me *cough*, had a massive brain fart and didn't use the spell checker (and depending on how bad, I either barely blink or need to lie down). I also took issue with making mistakes on purpose to get people to write, "Hey, you spelled that wrong," because to me that's a waste of everyone's time and not the way to find out how many people actually like what you write. This opinion of mine stems from knowing I can't turn a phrase like the legends to save my life, but then--also in the comments--was the following gloriousness, and it blew my mind.

The the impotence of proofreading by Taylor Mali.

(Just go read it, it's...really, really great.)

At Which Point I Realized I Need To Be Challenged Dentally.

There He Goes, All Over The Place.

Speed Racer in IMAX! Yes, that glorious format once reserved for panoramic scenery and dolphins also has mainstream movies. I've known about this, it's nothing new, I remember hearing a story about Attack Of The Clones being shown in IMAX without all the mushy love talk of how irritating sand is to fit into a two-hour frame because of technical IMAX platters and things that make me as dizzy as looking up at a huge screen probably would. I don't know if they're still cutting the time of the movies, because some Harry Potters have made it onto IMAX screens and those movies seem long-ish to me.

But now Speed Racer gets to drive all over everyone's peripheral vision, and he'll do it at the same time as driving all over normal screens.

Having never seen an IMAX movie on an IMAX screen, I am indifferent about this news, but I'm chronicling it, because, dude, it's Speed Racer!

(What would really interest me is a DVD release at, or at least a few weeks after, the premiere. I mean a proper one, you know, not the shady kind with the poor color and Thai subtitles*. Come on, studios, adapt to the times! You'd make more money releasing DVDs sooner. Really, I swear, you would. Then you could do what Lucasfilm does and release another DVD with loads of extra stuff later on. Just not 20 years. That's a long time.

*I solemnly swear I have no idea what I'm talking about.)

See, you could just go to ComingSoon.net and get the story (with spoilers!), or you could sit here and listen to me ramble about how cool it would be to see the movies when they're new without having to actually sit in a room with people I don't know. Because they wouldn't understand that Speed Racer is my secret boyfriend, and they'd keep telling me to shut up when I yelled at Trixie. Although I kinda like Trixie too...oh man, you see? IMAX watchers are not going to understand my freaky little love triangle. Then again, I don't have to worry about that, because IMAX watchers will be watching the screen, and not me.

There He Goes, All Over The Place.

Surprise Backyard Blast!

You know I have been reading too many LOLcats when I start titling my posts with certain ones in mind. Last night, I'd just settled down to add to my word total on the book I can't re-read this week because it makes me cringe, and the wind kicked up outdoors. It kicked up so bad that it started knocking things over. Like trashcans and garden furniture, and whatever hit the transformer to the power line that provides electricity to the "new half" of our house.

Nan and I were sitting in the living room (part of the "old half") and so we only experienced a brief blip in the lights, and the TV went off, and the Internet went away. I rebooted the computer in front of me, because that seemed like the most sensible way to get the router working again. After about twenty minutes, I thought maybe I should go see if the router was having trouble synching. Turns out it wasn't on. The entire rest of the house was entirely in darkness. It was sort of like Silent Hill, without the creepy demonic things moving around in the dark. That I could see.

Luckily, there is enough old wiring in the house that each room had at least one working light, and my laziness paid off because those orange power cords I never put back in the shed came in handy for the fridge. Going by ConEd's recorded message, we seemed to be in for a few days of total unbearable darkness, day and night, with vampires and cannibals that would undoubtedly come out if I didn't plug the fridge into an outlet that had power. So I did. I can't stretch like Reed Richards, though. That would have helped.

After the rain quieted down, I ventured out into the yard to take pictures of the damage. I was not the only looney out there:



Okay, so...we didn't have damage so much as much-needed pruning of dead branches that I couldn't reach without a jetpack. That greyish thing there is a shingle, but as of yet I can't determine whose roof it came from. (Note to self: make the roofers put little happy faces on our shingles next time around. Sure.)



This was close. The forsythia's doing fine now, but that branch weighed about five pounds, man. Took me, two cats and a dog to move it.



All of our electricity was back on within a few hours, and the strong winds blew the clouds so far away that the cats thought it'd be a great idea to go out and wallow in the cold mud. I talked them out of it by putting their harnesses on and opening the door. They're not fond of wind that can blow the resin chairs around, so that ended well. I've found that just showing them what it's like out there works better than trying to explain it. They're very wary of humans selling them tales of foolishness like cold and rain and two feet of snow, and who can blame them? Even I've made the mistake of listening to weathermen over the years and ending up with a yard full of wayward chairs that looks like a WWF convention just came through. There were a lot of people who had serious damage done by the surprise storm...but that's not funny.

Surprise Backyard Blast!

The Weakend Reviews.

While it looks to me like I apparently do nothing but sit in front of a TV, I do have memories of feeding cats and playing with cats and feeding cats and playing ball with a dog and all, but that starts crossing the line of telling you how many times I tied and untied my shoes in a week, and unsurprisingly, that number is 7, but that's not what I started a blog for, y'know? I didn't really start it to tell you what new movies I saw, either, but hey.

For Mum's birthday I wanted to get Enchanted because she liked the look of it. It wasn't coming out until the middle of the week, though, so we ended up watching The Darjeeling Limited, which I'm going to go out on a limb and say was the better movie. I mean, some people like singing princesses, I prefer quiet movies with weird stuff going on. Not that The Darjeeling Limited was weird, but it was different. I liked it, but it might be because I saw it at the right time. There's a family drama plot thing in it that might trigger crazy in some people, but no, not me, because I know people like those brothers, so I laughed...oh, how I laughed. I also dug Anjelica Huston's hair, for some reason.

After that long-ass paragraph, I bet you wouldn't believe we watched two movies last Saturday. Wow. They were both under 1:40, though, and we'd had Wild Hogs on tape from cable for like a month, because I knew Nan wanted to see it, because she told me she couldn't wait to see it, because John Travolta and William H. Macy were in it! But somehow for a month, every time I'd say, "We've still got Wild Hogs," it was met with a general sense of hell no I'm not watching that.

Wild Hogs was fantastic. PPPPBT. I was ready to jump out a window during the bit where the annoying children of two of the characters were being introduced, but I told myself that within five minutes Nan and Mum would remember they wated to see the movie and like it. And they did. So this proves I have spent the past three decades studying them well. Apparently they've got me figured out as well, because every time William H. Macy did anything in the movie, they looked at me. Um. Hey, I wouldn't tell crazy bikers to break my legs. Um. Really.

I covered The Oscars in other posts, but yes, we watched them. All day.

Nan took The Puppy for walkies on Monday, and it's admirable to see how well we managed to train The Puppy on our own, that she didn't drag her mother up the street face-first. Nan's good with crazy dogs, though. Our six-foot-tall Pookie bear only walked on a leash without attacking dobermans for her. This walk was part of a plan to get some excercise to go with the diet. It then rained, snowed, or was freezing the rest of the week. Not cool, nature.

I wasn't crazy about the '70s week performances on American Idol Tuesday and Wednesday, but by god when the results were in on Thursday and they kicked off Alexandréa Lushington, I was pissed. Only because they kept a few who sucked. But there's no use blowing my top over it. Here. Again. I think I waved my arms in befuddledment enough on Thursday. Could it be I'm getting attached to the contestants again? I can already name five. Oh dear.

Last night we had more snow, and I got it into my head to pay back all our great neighbors by shovelling the snow all the way up to the corner. Of course, because it was me, you know it was midnight. I didn't tell anyone where I was going, but in my defense I was wandering around the house with a snow shovel and a vest and no one asked me why. Also, it rained after I shovelled and then the sun came out and melted what was left by the time everyone was waking up. Go me, I cleared up ALL the snow! Sure.

I think spring is finally heading our way, though, I haven't slept in three days. Well, I haven't slept until it's time to get up. That's the way that works. Someday, I'll write during one of those bouts of insomnia and it'll be like the old days. But not today. Today I'm sane enough to know it really wouldn't be as funny as I think it would be.

The Weakend Reviews.