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.