Stuff and Nonsense.

Most of you know that I'm back in school. If you don't, I have been since the summer of 2014. I'm heading into my final semester in January for a piddly little 2 year degree for Multimedia Production: TV/Digital Cinema. This fall term, I jumped into 5 classes; mostly digital editing and photography, but there was also a Creative Writing class.

I have decided to return to this hotdog stand because having words out there and ideas and inspiration floating about in so many ways is important to me. Most of you are creative minds and artists and stuff like that is important to you, too.
You understand that when the Muse speaks, you have no choice but to listen & TCB. My Muse has been strong this fall and she wants me to share her with you now.
So, if you're interested...I'm going to start posting recent stories, poetry, video & photo projects.

Plus, this:

Movie Monday - Ben Hur

So, I'm in a movie group on facebook and we're going through and watching reviewing AFI's Top 100 Films list.
I wrote my actual review here, but also wrote while I was watching it.  Here's that nonsense:

BEN HUR - as I watched it

So appropriate that I’m watching this on Easter Sunday.

I have to remember to quiet my head and pay attention to the movie because I have all of these side thought streams going on surrounding the topic of Jesus this week.

Is that guy’s name really “Sextus”?  awesome.

Judah and Tribune giggle like little girls upon reuniting.

They throw spears and Tribune celebratingly says “Still close...”

Judah says, “...in every way.”

Tribune: “I hope so.”

I didn’t realize it was gonna be one of those kinds of movies.

That was a pretty longing glance Tribune just gave Judah.

It must be the snazzy belt Judah’s wearing.

And Judah gives him a horse!!??

And then they squabble about war, violence, and betrayal.

Tribune says, “You’re either for me or against me.”

Where’ve I heard that before?

There’s a camel trying to steal the scene.

Judah is totally comin’ on to this slave girl he just gave his blessing to marry some other dude.

She really needs to go eat a sammich.

Now he’s wearing a slave ring.

This movie’s kinky.

And now he’s kissin’ on her after he just got done saying how he’d kiss her if she wasn’t already a bride.

Mixed signals much?

And now Judah’s gettin’ busted for roof tiles falling off and scaring the Governor’s horse, throwing him.  The tiles didn’t actually strike anything.

Now Judah's on the run and is really good at hiding in shadows.  Like a lanky ninja!

And he's held up the Tribune with a spear for containing his mother & sister.

Does Tribune have a white t-shirt on under his roman quilt vest?

Looks like it.  Were Hanes around back then?

Weeeeeee!!  Rolling down a sand dune!  That looked like fun.

One of these things is not like the other….

Judah is at least a head taller than any other man in the water scene.

Except the Roman.

And Jesus

Well played, Hollywood.

YAY JESUS stared down the Roman!!

He totally won that water battle with just his looks!

How'd you like to be the guy that hammers the beat for the boat rowing slaves?

I…don't wanna work…I just wanna bang on the drums all day.

That song was written for that guy.

These guys are getting a great workout.

Look, see?  Judah is way hotter than he was before.  The beard totally works.

Loincloths rule.

Does anyone know if there was a "Ben Hur workout" the way there was a "300 workout"?

#41 has a nice ring to it.

I feel like I'm watching Les Mis again.

I'd kinda like it if they broke into song.

Did Roman ever sweep things with the brushes on their helmets?

What were those about?  Is it a horse's mane thing?

This was before white folks ever knew about Mohawk Indians, so its not like it could be related….unless it was an early human/tribe thing, maybe?

YAY!!  The battleships scene just made me happy cuz they filmed it using minis!!  Miniatures rule.

The idiot slaves just yelled "We're going to be rammed" and they all stopped rowing.

Wouldn't you wanna row a lot harder???

And of course Judah saves the day because of his brute strength gained from his slave rowing workout.

He's a good spear chucker, too.

And saves the Roman Consul.

Aw, now its like the end of Titanic, except they're both on the makeshift raft.

and fighting.  Unfairly - NO BITING!!  damn Romans.

They get saved by some Romans & Judah gets to drink some water.

I bet it doesn't taste as good as Jesus water.

YAY A PARADE!!

I wonder if one of those Arabian horses is the same we saw earlier.  The one that Judah gave to Tribune.

Emperor just opened his mouth & made it look like it was supposed to be a smile.

And now there's a Coming To America tribal dance scene.

Judah's sitting next to a lady that looks like Meg from Disney's Hercules.

THAT is a freakin' party.

Judah should've kept the beard.

Consul adopts Judah (renamed some Roman name) as his son and introduces him to Pontius Pilot. (always thought that was a cool name)

Judah goes back home, gets greedy with some water, and takes a nap under a tree and then gets interrupted by a Moses looking' fellow who is looking for his son.

They watch some chariot race training and if this were an 80s movie, I'd feel a montage coming on.

This movie is 3hrs long, so I doubt there are any.

Burping is polite.

I would've fit in great back then.

And one wife isn't generous enough.

Sheik thinks his horses are his children.  He must be a Dothraki.

I would've liked to see the Horses sing "So Long Farewell…" from Sound of Music when they said goodnight.

Judah finds the girl he was kissing' on an hour ago.  Her name is Esther.

Esther still needs to eat a sammich.

She doesn't know where Judah's mother & sister are either.

Neither does her father.

Judah & Esther reminisce about the last time they kiss and then kiss again.

They discuss love and war or something.

Tribune's crackin' his whip with a boyfriend near his bathtub.

Kinky.

Tribune's name is Miss Sala?

Tribune sounds better, but we'll go with it.

He doesn't know where Judah's mother and sister are either.

Judah threatens Miss Sala & leaves.

Miss Sala the Tribune tells his boyfriend to go find Mother & Siter.

They go to fetch them from the jail but discover Mother & Sister have been forgotten about in the depths of the dungeons..

They're shocked with what they find.

Mother & Sister are apparently released and they find Esther and tell her that they're lepers.

They make Esther promise that she's never to tell Judah about seeing them.

BUT HE'S BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU TWO FOR THE PAST HOUR & A HALF!!

They leave and Esther tells them to wait only once.

Then she cries again & goes to tell Judah she did see them but that they were dead in the prison.  She tries to tell him his search is over and his feud with Miss Sala is over.

He leaves to go cry and then stomps off with angry purpose.

INTERMISSION!!  Present day movies should bring back the intermission, imho.

It would make going to see a 3hr movie a little easier & concession stands would make more money, I bet.

When we get back from Intermission, we're in a bathhouse scene.

YEAH!! :)

Sheik interrupts the spa skin slapping and oiling up and throws down a chariot challenge & takes everyone's bets.

Miss Sala accepts the challenge and the chariot race is on!!

Judah talks to horses and goes to the race to kick Miss Sala's ass.

He dresses in a lovely shade of blue, prays for forgiveness and gets a jew star from Sheik.

Miss Sala is wearing black.  Cuz black = bad guy.

He's got some rad axle spikes on his ride.

The crowd cheers, the band plays. THIS IS GONNA BE BETTER THAN THE KENTUCKY DERBY!

Wait….no….they're just parading around at a slow pace…..for at least 5 mins.

I just said out loud…."Fucking race already."

The horses get scrappy cuz they're fucking ready to race already, too.

2.5hrs in and I'm so done with this flick really.

The Judea section wins the crowd cheer award.

And they're freaking OFF….finally.

Some of the scenes are sped up and look funny.

The cinematography is swell and the camera shake is effective in making you feel like you're in the middle of the action.

At some point Judah loses his pretty blue sheet.  I missed that.

The sped up action looks REALLY funny.

Distractingly so.  It reminds me of old silent movie action.

Judah gets thrown - that looked wicked.  Nice job on that stunt.

Miss Sala starts whipping Judah.  That's some bullshit.

The chariot spikes backfire on Miss Sala and his chariot breaks and he gets dragged & trampled a long way before finally letting go of the reigns.

Now skinless, he gets carried off the field and everyone cheers.

Judah gets a leaf crown and everyone cheers again.

Tribune Miss Sala waits for Judah to show up beside his deathbed.

When Judah gets there he takes off his leaf crown and asks where his Mother & Sister are.

Miss Sala says, "the race is not over" and then dies.

Judah pries himself from Miss Sala's not quite yet cold, dead hand and leaves without his leaf crown.

Wasn't that the only trophy though?

Judah goes and find some dudes feeding people in a pit.

Oh!  Its a leper colony.

Esther shows up and it looks like she's going to have a picnic.

Judah gets mad at Esther for telling him that they were dead.

She tells him it was what they wanted.

Judah sees Mother & Sister and hides behind a rock.

Esther knocks some sense into Judah and they walk off and find a gathering of people on a hill.

YAY JESUS!!

Judah decides to not go listen to Jesus on the hill and leaves because he has business in Rome.

Esther goes to the hill.

Jesus looks like a badass.  (I really dig that we never see his face.  Just his lovely locks.)

Judah goes to Rome and confronts Cesar.

He gives back the ring the Consul gave him during his adoption ceremony.

He goes home to see Esther & they talk about love & peace.

And Jesus.

And blood.

Then Judah puts the moves on her against the wall & retracts abruptly.

Esther tells him he's become Miss Sala, that she's lost him & leaves.

Meanwhile, back at the Leper Colony…

(is this movie over yet?….oh, just hit the 3hr mark?)

Esther goes to visit Mother & Sister and tells them about Jesus.

Sister can't go because she's dying.

Judah shows up and Mother gets pissed.

Esther says she's going to take Mother & Sister to Jesus.

Judah goes to find his sister and Esther & Mother go to find Jesus…..literally…..really.

Judah finds his sister & picks up her tiny little body that looks like a puppet.

When they get back to Judea, the streets are empty except for some rock throwers that freak out about seeing lepers.

Jesus is on trial and we still don't see his face.

Judah recognizes Jesus from that water day.

Judah gets Jesus some water.  The water gets kicked out of Judah's hand.

And he didn't stare down the Roman that did it the way he should've.

Jesus & the two other criminals are crucifed and Judah gets sad.

A storm whips up and the women are in a cave.

It starts raining and it flashes to Jesus on the cross.

Back in the cave, Mother & Sister aren't lepers anymore.

The next day, Judah walks through the mud.

He greets Esther with a Jesus quote & sees Mother & Sister are well and healed.

He cries & rubs their faces.

They live happily ever after.

HALLELUJAH!!! THIS MOVIE'S OVER!!

I'm Cranky - Meh Monday

I don't mean to be short or snippy.
Sometimes, I'm stricken with moments of asshole.

The Never-Ending Birthday Week -or- Karenpalooza 2012 Part 1

Monday Day 1 - Nice leisurely trip to the gym to burn off some of the weekend after being hungover and sleeping almost all day Sunday.  While I was there, Trainer Brian was there and we caught up on things.  He looks like a Beatle now.  Hadn't seen him in months...hair's all grown out and he's rockin' an interesting mustache configuration.  Got home and cleaned up and Willie stopped by to give me some shit about something and brought up Dave & Buster's.  So we went.  And proceeded to get a bit of lunch and a little drunk and a lot excited over some pretty silly games....  Like, video lawn darts (my shit) and a Pirates game we fuckin' pwned through all 3 acts, and a Spaceballs game that was a big ticketer that was basically just a rubber ball version of Plinko from Price Is Right (also my shit).  We had some >3,000 tickets and went crazy snatching up cheap toys & candy from the winner's shop.
The next morning I would realize that I'd left my check card at the bar.

Tuesday Day 2 - The night before there were talks of waterpark action.  Aquatica or Typhoon Lagoon?  Typhoon won out because I used to work there and hadn't been since.  13yrs?  So we stopped by Dave & Buster's to grab my check card and cruised out to Typhoon.  After a quick stop by the bar, The Crush'n'Gusher made me dirty giggle and we grabbed a dual tube to jump on the Bananas slide first.  Got a workout up those stairs and jumped in to immediately start screaming down the slippery slopes and yell "SHIT" on turns when I thought we'd flip over.  Zippy bags full of cards were lost & found more than once.  Mayday Falls flipped me backwards.  Gangplank was shorter than I remember and still pretty lame.  Keelhaul was fun and I scraped my foot on the bottom of the Creek in the same spot Pannacakes pool attacked me from the weekend.  The water seemed low.  Terry made green crazy shots. They were tasty.
When I got home, Matthew and I were supposed to dance.  After another couple of jager shots, I ended up passing out in the car on the way to dance.
Being the Awesome he is, he went in to check out the situation (explaining that I was "not feeling well") for a solo dance with Instructor Brian's instructor lady friend, Lindsay but she was busy, so he rescheduled us and had a cider at the bar we frequent next to our dance studio.

Cabin In The Woods

So this is what happens when you take a sturdy base of Evil Dead, throw in a pinch of Cube, a dash of 13 Ghosts, a dollop of Truman Show and stir.

5 lucky "college kids" (they all look to be about 30) go to a cabin in the woods for a weekend retreat.
Once they get there, they're locked into a fucked up sort of reality show.
Behind the scenes, the 'producers' take bets on their fate as the kids explore the cabin and die one by one.
There's a bunch more meat to this story and of course it was done really well.
This is Joss Whedon we're talking about.
I will say, the monster release party is an awesome one.

So fun, I'll give it 4 out of 5 Ancient Ones.

The Kills @ HOB

These 2 were at House of Blues Sunday night.
Allison changed her hair color - now its a bleached out pinkish.  She looked like Animal when she danced/played.
I love how spastic their movements are when the music's got'em.
Their percussionists had glow in the dark drumsticks and looked like robots.  I didn't get any pictures of them cuz they were around the corner from where we were standing by the bar.  Plus, my phone pics usually suck.
Everyone had skinny jeans on.  Out of the 500ish people that were there - I'd say a good 3/4 were in skinny jeans.
Matthew was wearing his kilt.  I didn't see anyone else wearing one.
The merch stand was fantastic!  They rolled up our shirts with the poster we bought into a triangular tube so nothin' got messed up.
Fans blew up and started tossin' around black balloons for when they played "Black Balloon".  That was fun.
They saved my jam for the encore.  Made me happy.
They also did "Fuck The People" towards the end, cuz everyone who comes through HOB at Disney has to throw a finger up at the machine at some point during the show.  Its a requirement now.

The Help

MM - Paranormal Activity 3

By a show of hands, how many of you have seen the first two flicks?
Stop it, turds....I can't see your hands.

So in the first one, we find out Katie's got a demon.
In the second one, we find out that Katie's demon is terrorizing Katie's sister because it wants her first born son.
And in this 3rd one, we find out when Katie's demon first swept her off her feet when she & her sister were kids.  And it has a name.

But I won't spoil it for you.

I don't know about all that crap about how "the last 15 mins will scar you for life" that they've been showing on the commercials, but it was filled with some cheap scares and a few really cool scares.
It made me jump twice & one scene was so good that it gives me chills to think about.
Definitely made me walk out wondering how they did it and I'll admit it: when I went to bed that night, I woke up a couple of times expecting to see a creepy girl child standing there and staring at me.

I give it 3 out of 5 oscillating fan stands.

MM - American Horror Story 2

Finally was able to watch AHS Episode 2.  Ready?
[begin stream]

YAY a Laugh-in clip!!  I love that show.
Don't answer your door.  You know you'll die.
Was that Hitchcock music?
Awww nurse got hog-tied & stabbed in the back.
Is Bobby gonna cry in this episode?  ooooo I hope so.
Tate's a badass.  (I'm gonna try harder to remember names)*.
And wifey's preggers with a rubberbaby.

YAY THE CREDITS!!
They're my favorite part.

Scratchface is in disguise & has white hairs.
I wonder if they'll play Mirah for all the daughter scenes.
James Wong is one of the producers.  I hadn't noticed that before.
I love that the neighbors are always finding their way into the house.
Glad our neighbors aren't like that.
Close.
But not that bad.

I like the elevator chick.  She's groovy.
Bianca the half girl.
Bobby's tryin' to get rid of Tate.
I love the ipecac cupcakes.

BOBBY'S CRYIN' AGAIN!!!  w00t!!!
Cuz he's lyin' about goin' outta town.  What a weenie.

Wait...did she say "Aunt Viv"??  Bobby's knocked up his niece?!
I'm confused.


Constance rules.

OOOOOOooooooh...groovy Bianca is a ghosthunter freak with friends.
Uh oh - shit's crazy when Tate's the one saving you.
HAHA...she's eating the ipecac cupcake.
Constance, you old cougar, you.
Addy's a cockblocker & has a bad girl room of mirrors.
That's not nice.

Bianca's about to lose half of herself.

Yay...ghosts takin' care of their peoples.
"I'll get the shovel.  You get the bleach." is such a great line.
Psssshhh...selling the house.  Riiiiiiight.

[end stream]
---------------------------------------------
*Except Bobby's.  He will always be Bobby.

PreYouTubesday-juliansmith87

Cuz its still Monday and this made me laugh.

Movie Monday - 10 Horror Films

If you're friends with me on the facebooks, you'll have seen that I'm posting a horror flick a day cuz its October and Halloween is creepin' up.

Here are the 10 I've posted to date - Some include choices I considered, but didn't post.

Day 01:  A horror film that no one would expect you to love, but you do - Pumpkinhead

Day 02:  The horror film that you relate most to - May

Day 03:  Your favorite slasher -  Midnight Meat Train

Day 04:  Your favorite werewolf film -  Dog Soldiers, American Werewolf in London

Day 05:  Your favorite monster movie - Jeepers Creepers

Day 06:  Your favorite vampire movie - From Dusk Til Dawn, 30 Days of Night, Fright Night, Hunger

Day 07:  Your favorite supernatural horror film - Poltergeist, House on Haunted Hill

Day 08:  Your favorite anthology - Masters of Horror, Tales From The Crypt/Darkside, Creepshow

Day 09:  Your favorite exploitation / grind house type film - Hobo With a Shotgun, Planet Terror, Last House on the Left (original)

Day 10:  Your favorite psychological horror film  - Antichrist, Jacob's Ladder

You turds can look'em up yourselves, if you're interested in watching any of them.

Movie Monday - Tucker & Dale vs Evil

Some college kids go on a camping trip in the hills of W. Virginia.
Tucker & Dale go to their vacation home they just bought and are fixing up.  The vacation home is a cabin that looks just like the Evil Dead cabin in the woods.
They go out night fishing and see the college kids out for a swim.  A hot blonde gets startled when she sees them, falls into the water, & knocks herself out.  Dale goes in to rescue her but to her stupid college friends, it appears that Tucker & Dale are kidnapping her so they go insane trying to get her back.
Awwwwww rednecks in the woods are just misunderstood.
Once the hot blonde comes to, Dale makes her breakfast & then she & Dale play Trivial Pursuit.  (Dale is absolutely adorable.)
Meanwhile, Tucker's outside working on his property and the stupid college kids start accidentally killing themselves all over the place.
Its friggin' hilarious & a great spin on a classic horror theme.
I give it 4 out of 5 backwoods rednecks.



ps.  I love everything Magnet puts out.  heh.  puts out.

Movie Monday - Red State

WOOHOO!!!  A MOVIE!!
Its only been, what, like 6 weeks or some shit since the last one of these?
Got a good one for ya today.  You turds ready?

We went to see this badboy last night.  One night only engagement followed by Q&A with Kevin Smith via UStream.

First, the movie.
What happens when homophobic jesus freaks are well armed and kidnapping kids they lure with the devil's business?
The FBI shows up at their compound and shoot things up.
Also, the sheriff is gay, which doesn't really help the town with dealing with the religious cult.
Michael Parks as Abin Cooper - the cult "father"....was absolutely captivating on screen.
John Goodman, the same, and looks great after the weight loss.  Its nice to still have him around & lookin' good.  Years ago, I would've thought he'd go the way of John Candy.
Pretty damn good cast all around, really.

Its being claimed as a "horror" movie.  I wouldn't call it that.
I'd say its more of an action thriller - and even using the term "thriller" seems a bit off.

I won't give you any spoilers here but towards the end John Goodman makes an amazing speech about how, when he was a kid, his grandmother had a couple of dogs as family pets.  One day, he was finishing dinner and threw the dogs a turkey leg and they went at each other over this turkey leg like they'd never known one another.
Then he says, "People just do the strangest things when they believe they're entitled.  But they do even stranger things when they just plain believe."

Ruminate on that shit for a minute or two.

Second - the Q&A on Ustream.
While they were streaming and setting things up, they had the twitter feed going and folks were crackin' me up with things like, "WTF, I paid $20 to see Kevin Smith on the computer?" and "I missed Breaking Bad for this?"
Kevin Smith was wearing a hockey jersey that made him look 10x bigger & started answering questions about how they took care of all the investors first, didn't take huge salaries in an effort to get the flick out there, and then the stream glitched out so we left.

There's some fun trivia here and an original ending summarized here with more about how they made it on a small budget and crap.

I loved it and give it 5 out of 5 Gabriel's horn blasts.

Sunday Confession on Tuesday - 4th Class Review

I was cranky before arriving at class last week.  Dayjob was annoying me and then I got stuck in traffic after stopping for gas.
I got there about 10mins late and everyone was already set up and working on that October piece.
Sally, the teacher, had the commission she'd mentioned working on, on display.  You can see it down there on the right.  The dogs.  She likes painting people's pets.

We worked on "October" for a bit after going through "toning" a canvas.....which is basically your primer coat that you build from.

Here's what my "October Barf" looks like after the 4th class:

Everyone was so tired of this one and vocally ready to move on.  My little red-roofed house looks like it needs stick figures outside of it.

The more we work on it, the more I kinda like it.  I'm just gonna keep adding to it and will keep you posted & show it again when I think its done.

In maybe a year, at this rate.

While this has helped to give me a new appreciation, landscapes aren't really my thing.  

Luckily, for me....after our toning dried, we got to work on our base lines for this VanGogh:

Yay.  More landscapes.

Pretty sure everyone will get tired of doing this one, too.  Although, we get to play with heavy medium and will be gloppin' that shit up.

We're all such good students.  Look at us, paying attention and crap.

Here's what my garbage looks like so far:

Kinda lookin' forward to layin' it on thick and smearing that shit around.  Stay tuned.

Media Monday - ArtOrgy

About a month or so ago, we hosted a creative minds gathering & everyone worked on a project.

This is what it looked like.

Thank you so much for putting this video together, Willie. You rule!

Movie Monday BONUS - The Trip

Must be you turds are lucky. BONUS!!!

Last week, I also saw this

I've tried watching Cock & Bull and just couldn't get into it.

Maybe I'll give it another go after watching this one.

Have you ever had one of those types of friends that you find it difficult to have a real honest conversation with because they're constantly doing impressions or trying to make everyone around them laugh??

The Trip is mostly that. Two men (comedic actors, they play themselves) go on an adventure to different restaurants in northern UK.

It has very little to do with the food they're sampling and is more about their relationship and the differences between them and the choices they've made in life.

There's a bit of a downer ending that....just kinda.......leaves things......

.

Overall, I did like it and give it 3 out of 5 Michael Caine impressions.

I'll include the trailer here since I know most of you won't watch the flick & it contains most (not ALL) of the good bits anyway:

Movie Monday - Trolls & Apes

You turds get 2 movies today.

You're welcome.

Friday night, we did dinner at Rangetsu where we ate udon & bacon wrapped things & drank ginger blossoms and then hit the midnight showing of

Norwegians+trolls=SUPER FUN!!

It was made in a mockumentary style - some kids with cameras follow around an old troll hunting vet who has a reinforced hunting vehicle and armored suits so he can use himself (and goats) as bait to control the troll population. The trolls have been a secret kept by aforementioned vet and the head of the Norwegian Park Rangers (or whatever he was called). They cover up all troll incidents by saying they're caused by bears. The kids with cameras are trying to expose the truth behind the cover ups.

Goats and one of the kids die. Trolls are smelly and like to eat rubber and apparently, the bigger they are, the older they are. They don't like light and turn to stone. They also don't like Christians.

This movie was pretty rad.

I give it 4 out of 5 rubber tires.

Then last night, we went to this place and saw

I gotta admit, I wasn't jumping up and down to see this one.

C'mon. Its apes.

But James Franco is in it, it got a fresh tomato, & Matthew wanted to see it, so we went.

The beginning is just as you'd expect. Scientists doing testing on chimps they've pillaged from their homelands, testing goes awry, chimps die, science funding gets pulled.

James Franco is the main scientist who is working on a cure for Alzheimer's, which his father (John Lithgow) suffers from.

His prize, most developed chimp (the one that went awry) has a baby while being housed in the lab. No one has the balls to put it down like they did the rest of the lab chimps, so James Franco takes it home & studies it there, discovering the testing they'd done on it's mother was passed down genetically.

James Franco, John Lithgow, and the chimp, now called Caesar, bond and they're all a happy family until an asshole neighbor effs things up for everyone.

Caesar gets taken away and thrown into an animal control facility (or the Chimp Projects).

And this is where everything gets good.

Remember this guy? The guy who played him, does a fuckin' phenomenal job as Caesar.

I won't give away anymore story here. Go check it out for yourself.

I went in not too excited about it and ended up really diggin' it.

I give it 4 out of 5 chocolate chip cookies.

If you turds are lucky....maybe there will be a bonus later today.

Media Monday - Summer Reading

Switching things up a little bit today.

Was just talking to someone about books and thought it would be good to share my reading list for this summer.

I just finished up Kim Harrison's latest in the Hallows Series. Oh, that Rachel Morgan. Always gettin' into shenanigans. Had a good ending and was a little bit different from recent episodes. I dug it. Its fun light reading - good for pool/beachside*.

Just started Steve Martin's latest. His writing is....quirky & sweet. And you can hear his voice reading it to you in your head (that's how it is in mine anyway). I've read both Shopgirl and Pleasure of My Company and loved them both.

Also on the list:

Carl Hiaasen - Nature Girl. I've never read any of his books and my friend, Sarah, gave me this one after I'd asked if she liked it. She read it in one weekend and said it was "silly".

Tom Wolfe - The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Going back to some classics this year and what better time to read about hippies than summer time!!

Hunter S. Thompson - Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. Never read it. I read Curse of Lono years ago, but never this one for some reason. Thanks to Willie - I'm now craving all Hunter all the time. If you get a chance, watch "Gonzo" and "Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride". Both great documentaries on the man.

In The Blink of An Eye - Walter Murch. Picked this one up as a recommendation from Sean Patrick Flannery and bought a couple copies for my editing friends. Matt Kelland has already asked to borrow it. I'll read it after him, I reckon.

What So Proudly We Hailed - Blaine Staat. This one makes me laugh cuz I worked for this guy on the corporate dayjob floor some years back. Apparently, he's a future seer and there are a lot of things that he wrote about in this book that parallel present day issues. He blogs here, if you're interested in reading. Great guy who makes lots of great points to think on.

5 books.

5 is good right??

If I add anymore, you'll be updated for sure.

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*Unless you get distracted easily like I do when there's lots of primo people watching to be done.

Emmineffin' Monday

This was probably the most annoying Monday in the history of Mondays.

Here are the reasons why:

1. Post-kickass vacation Monday. Those ALWAYS suck.

2. Dumbass customers doing some dumbass things & of course, all of them think their issue is the end of the world and more important than everything else and everything is on fire. Just because something may or may not be an emergency for you, does not make it an emergency for me. Just sayin'. Also, if you bug me every 5 mins about said issue and/or start psycho calling me, you're only interrupting & delaying me from actually putting out this imaginary fire you've punted over to me. A GIRL HAS TO MANAGE HER TIME!!! Jeezus.

3. I got spoiled by not having my phone/laptop/etc. with me all weekend.

Unplugging is fuckin' wonderful. Normally on the weekends, I don't do much with my phone unless we're going out and meetin' up with friends. If we're at home chillin', the phone is not attached to my hip. You know why? Because I don't like being on the phone.

Between having been a teenage girl & spending a good chunk of my "corporate career" on the phone for a full 8-12 hr day.....I'm all tapped out.

LIKE RIGHT NOW!!!

Movie Monday - Hobo With A Shotgun

The title kinda says it all.

You like Rutger Hauer?

You like campy grindhouse splattercore?

If you answered "yes" to both of those: You'll love this movie.

If you answered "no" to both of those: Go back to watching those dumbass Sex & The City movies.

Hobo With A Shotgun is the best movie so far this summer.

I give it 5 out of 5 manhole covers.