2013 Highlighting the Ups

Matthew and I were at dinner the other night talking & getting excited about what we want to do in 2014 and discussing how we thought 2013 went.
Apparently, I had my cranky pants on because I said it was an "OK" year and he said it was "pretty fuckin' awesome".
I've realized since then that unfortunately, and for some stupid reason, my noggin was choosing to highlight some of the more awkward 2013 moments instead of all the seriously amazing things that happened.

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to write out the rundown of awesome (and skipping over all the not-so-awesome), not to be a douche braggart, but to further reinforce those in my head instead of those less than optimal and maybe it'll help you do the same. I've seen your facebook posts about how crappy the year was and/or how you're ready for 2013 to be over and it's ok if sometimes we need reminders to clear our perspectives.

January was again full of drunken shenanigans at the Scottish Highland Games.  I dove head first into renovating the Dollhouse of Horrors and started building out stage pieces for the Bloody Jug Band...some by request, others not so much. We also saw Charlie Murphy down at the Improv.

February was more Dollhouse of Horrors work and a trip to Helen, GA.  We also went to see Muse at Amway Center and I cried a little bit at how amazing their show was.

In March, we saw the Dropkick Murphys again, I puppeteered for the Bloody Jug Band's video for "Roadkill Boys".  This was also the month we did Whole30 for the first time and I submitted my last photo for the 12month long Inspired class I'd signed up for in January.
Yep...I totally fell out of it for the rest of the year because of shiny new things and being inspired elsewhere.  But I'm glad I went out with a bang.

April started with a trip to see The Marvelous Mehegans up in Corning, NY.  I took a banjo lesson, we finally ate at Cask & Larder and Ravenous Pig, saw Tony Bourdain at Hard Rock, and visited Disney. This is also when I started thinking about a miniatures.com contest entry.

May was, of course, insane with a Mother's Day pool party that got way more rowdy than what was intended, a concert poster design class on Skillshare, a couple of BJB shows, and was capped off by a trip to New Orleans, LA for my & Pannacakes' birthdays.

June included a Glassman show at Peacock that was pretty killer, a visit with Vaughn & Jen to pick up one of my favorite purchases of the year (Betty & Veronica pictured below), jury duty selections for George Zimmerman, and was also when I received my walking papers from the company I'd worked for over the previous 12 years.

July started off with new hair to celebrate my corporate departure, a crazy 3rd of July party at Pannacakes', followed by a rained out pool party at the Merriam's for the 4th, a Khal Drogo costume for Matthew, the 8th Annual Summer Bomb, a couple of visits to DRIP, and Marilyn Manson at Hard Rock.

August had a The Cult show at HOB, another couple of BJB shows, a trip to Busch Gardens followed by a viewing of Blackfish, a Danny Leggett show, Cedric's surprise birthday party, a drunk monologues shoot (shut up, I'll get to that later), and a trip to Ocala to see April and her fam.  Made a fake movie poster for a friend's birthday and finished up a painting for Cedric & Michelle's anniversary.

September we rocked our own logo for a Labor Day weekend pub crawl, went and saw Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes at Hard Rock and then went to see them again during the Gentlemen of the Road festival weekend where we also saw Mumford & Sons and stayed at a dumpy St. Aug beach hotel.  And we attended a lovely DIY wedding.

In October we went to see Terribly Odd's Haunted Mansion inspired show, Ghost at Amway Center where they shook my pants and hair, I made a mermaid costume, had the best weekend at Spooky Empire where I finally met Tom Savini, hugged Bill Moseley & Ve Neill, told Glenn Hetrick that I'd be his huckleberry, fingered Kane Hodder's left gloved hand during a photobomb, and sang "Goodbye Horses" to Jason Mewes. We finished off October in Austin, TX to celebrate my & Matthew's wedding anniversary and dress up like the 11th Doctor and a Reptilian Shapeshifter for Halloween, and met up with The Krutikovs for some kick ass high-end mexican food with the first best mescal drink I've ever put down my neck followed by the best burlesesque show I've ever seen.

November I made a sideshow freak light-up sign out of an old guitar case & built out two rickety crate shelves for the Jugly Art show at Peacock and then Matthew & I left to spend a week in Amsterdam for his birthday where I lost my passport.  If you ever lose your passport in another country...hope you're in Amsterdam.  They were so nice and the whole process was a lot smoother than expected. We also met some great & crazy party people and Matthew gave up a Heisenberg shirt to a loud Scotsman. We spent Thanksgiving in Arizona with Matt's family during which we had a lovely evening strolling through the botanical gardens looking at giant lit up Chihuly glass sculptures in awe.

And so here we are at the tail end of December and I've submitted my Evil Dead Cabin to the miniatures.com contest before deadline and am making a Gatsby-style dress for New Year's Eve. We had a crazy drunken Pannacakes party, and a silly family presents exchange day that included Cards Against Humanity and boxing robots. We spent Christmas in San Francisco where we saw Brian Setzer Orchestra on Christmas Eve, Matthew got his first proper straight razor shave, dim sum in Chinatown, lobster bisque & crab salad at Pier 39, and we ate some pretty awesome food at some pretty awesome hotel restaurants and had The Best gin & tonic either one of us had ever had and the second best mescal drink I've ever put down my neck.

And peppered in throughout the year we were bombarded with Harlem Shakes, BatDad Vines, Breaking Bad, Red Weddings, Doctor Who, A Fox That Says Things, Goat remixes, Miley Cyrus' tongue, Blurred Lines, Twerking, Grumpy Cat & Li'l Bub, and an Astronaut Singing Space Oddity on the freakin' Space Station.

This year, like all other's before it, has included lots of ups and downs and were it not for the downs...how would you know just how up the ups are?
Plus, you'd probably be an insufferable asshole.

Even if you're a generally positive person like me, and incredibly lucky with a shit ton of ups, there are times that the Veil of Crap can fall down over your eyes to muddy your vision.
I am SO grateful for how up my ups were this year and I appreciate having those downs when they came along....but there's No. Possible. Reason. a down should ever overshadow an up....so remember to not let them, ok?

Thank you, Matthew for reminding me of that & helping to remove my Crap Veil.
You're absolutely right....2013 was pretty fuckin' awesome.

Cheers, everyone, to 2014!!  May your ups be fuckin' killer and your downs be valuable lessons to overcome.

YouTubesday!! Tommy Edison!!

For the past year, here's my favorite blind guy on YouTube: 

He has this channel called Blind Film Critic.

That's where you can find him on Twitter and Instagram as well.

And there's also Tommy Edison XP where he talks about his experiences, takes on challenges, and answers questions from the comments section.

The guy is fuckin' adorable and he gives a super interesting perspective on life from his point of view (haha...view).

He held an AMA on Reddit last week that I'd mentioned on Facebook and as happy as I was that one of my questions got answered, it would've been nice if it hadn't been the douchey one that was 3rd in line on this list:

But hey, at least it was answered & didn't surprise anyone at all.

YAY, small victories!!

Anyway, check him out & his producer buddy, Ben Churchill - they're awesome and I'd like to give them hugs & buy them a beer someday.

Advice To Young Bloggers

My friend's daughter, Nae, has recently been makin' some noise about blogging and was looking for recommendations for sites to start her own.
It got me thinkin' about what I'd pass along, or maybe, what I wish I'd heard those several years* ago when I first started putting my stupid voice out there.

Here are some helpful-ish tips:

1. Don't write for other people. They won't read your shit anyway. And I do mean that in the nicest way possible. They just won't. Until one day when you think no one reads it and then someone mentions to you at a party that they've been reading it. And that when they do, it's usually during a morning constitutional. But hey, they're reading it, right? Score!!
There have been a few other times people have owned up to reading my shit -looking forward to it even- and it's a funny feeling. I love you, you fucking creepers. ;)

2. Write for yourself. If you have something heavy on your mind - get that shit OUT!! Right then - write it down on something to type up later, get the mobile app....whatever...just write it down. Get those brilliant thoughts outta your head. It's actually better for your noggin health. Plus, you don't wanna let a brilliant strike slip away only to have a creative block later. I've found that while traveling or in places where I don't have a good connection, actual writing with pen & paper is best. *GASP* I knoooooow!! Who'da thunk?
The other awesome reason to write for yourself, and the reason I write for myself, is so when you're older than you ever thought was possible and your mind has left town, you have some entertaining shit to read or have read to you. Little time capsules & slivers of yourself to look back on or pass through the family. Same reason applies as to why I make the dumb videos I make.

3. Don't censor yourself or be afraid to offend people. Because fuck them.  See #2. (heh...#2)

4. Proofread a shit ton of times before you publish it.  Most of the time you'll come off sounding like an idiot anyway (especially if you're like me and write in a conscious thought stream that includes slang) - typos and easy grammatical errors will only compound that & cancel out any cool points you may have earned in topic.
Plus, simple errors just get on my nerves (ask Matthew) and I'd like it if more people took the time to proofread their shit.

5. Hemmingway said, "Write drunk; Edit sober."

6. If you're stumped and don't know what to write about, reviews and How-To's are always easy go-tos. Music, movies, books, events, travel, cooking, etc. (obviously, I've had no idea what to write about over the past few years.) Even old diary/journal entries are good references in times of blockage.

7. Never ever think anything is going to go viral. I stress this one here, but this goes for anything being shared via social media. "Viral" doesn't work that way. You can't set out one day thinking you're going to make a Viral Something. If you do, you'll only be disappointed and I'll point and laugh and say, "I told you so." If you end up making something that happens to go viral (see the difference there?), it will be a joyous occasion and we'll all be reading/watching it on loop and will help you celebrate.

8. As a follow-up to #3....Don't feel like you have a license to be an asshole to people. Don't make it sound like you're directing your commentary towards any one person. That's just mean. If there is anyone reading your shit, they'll probably think whatever you're saying is about them anyway, so just keep things in general terms. It's classier that way & you won't come off as just another trash talker.

9. Include pictures if you're wordy. How many times have you clicked a link and were assaulted by a giant screen of unbroken paragraphs and more words than you were able to scroll through? Did you read it all? No, you were too busy scrolling, looking for the end. Be nice to eyeballs and break it up into bite size chunks with pictures, lists (like this one), embedded vids, or just simply throw in some good paragraph breaks.

10. There's no number 10. I just wanted to see if you'd make it this far on the list. Here's a small reward if you've only scrolled to the ending because you let the amount of words intimidate you:

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*Yes, I actually have been blogging for "several years". I kept up with one on multiply.com for a couple years starting in 2004. multiply.com isn't around anymore as of May 2013. Go ahead, check. Then I did the myspace thing for a few years until I started spewing all over Blogger in 2008 with this slice of brilliance. And that's only the internet stuff. I've kept journals all my life, too!!

Anyone Hungry? Cask & Larder Review!

I've been hearing about all the yummy wonderfulness going on in this place from some foodie friends for quite a while now - same with Ravenous Pig.
We tried to get a res for the Pig while Matt's folks were in town over Thanksgiving.  They were full.  The restaurant, not his folks.
I thought we might get a spot at Cask.  They were full, too, but we ended up finding a spot at the oven bar and watched them make stuff while we were waiting to figure out what we were going to order.
Right away, I saw 'Holiday Cookie' on the microbrew list and had to try that.
It was lovely and gingerbreadspicy.  It also had the highest alcohol content.  Well played, me.
Everything looked amazing on the menu, but I decided on the chicken & biscuits.  Matt had the ham board which has 3 different shaved country hams.  I think his folks had the same thing and my mom had the mac & cheese.
The biscuits are....(see below)
If they had an entree that was just biscuits, Matt & I woulda been completely happy.
I took a picture of my chicken and biscuits when it arrived & immediately dropped my phone into the gravy.  For a couple days the volume button was effed up.

Since the menu was a damn fine one and my girls were getting together, I threw it out there as an option, and we went earlier this week.
I love going to places twice in one week when I hadn't been there at all previously.  Its like a Karen spamming.
This visit I had a WP Mule while Jess and I waited for a couple other lovely ladies.
I loooooove ginger drinks and this one was de-lish.
When everyone was there, Jess & Martha slurped on oysters while Sarah and I watched.
Then the waffle fries came in.  This one's a must when you go.  We damn near cleaned the plate and it was a good sized portion.
I ordered the duck since I'd been eyeballing when we were there the first time.
Jess had shrimp and grits.  Martha had the cobia.  Sarah had boudin....cuz she's a sweet sweet Louisiana girl.
Everything was holy hell good and I'd gotten maybe two bites into my duck when our server came out to tell me, "Chef thinks that duck breast is too small and has another one roasting for you.  Do you want it brought out or boxed up?"
I fainted in my head and when I came to, I chose boxed.
DUCK FOR BREAKFAST!!
That chantilly you'll see on the menu if you're following along, is like a cheesey, buttery, grits/polenta sorta thing.
We wrapped up with a cute little chocolate silk pie, apple cobbler, and a sweet treats tray.
And I had a most excellent porter to go with it.
The pie was really good (candied orange zest is my new fave), and the cookies on the sweet treats plate were freakin' delightful.  Jess rightfully hogged all the cobbler for herself. ;)
Highly recommended....I'd give it 5 out of 5 food babies.
Everything was AMAZING!


Thank you for existing, Cask & Larder.  You do excellent work.
One of these days soon, I'll make it into The Ravenous Pig since I believe we're the only Central Floridians who haven't been yet.

Autopsy

I just watched this movie the other night via Netflix.

I gotta say, I was very pleasantly surprised.
It takes about the first 15-20 minutes to really warm up, but once you start paying attention, it really pays off.
I mention the warm up part, because while watching, I was like, "Oh, this is just a dumb SyFy Original lookin' flick that I can fall asleep to."  Then I started to notice all the contrasting colors in the hospital and the interesting lighting and was hooked.

Plot: Some dumbass kids get into an accident or something (I wasn't really paying attention at the beginning, as previously mentioned) and they get carted off to a local hospital to get checked out but they seem to be the only patients there.  Horror ensues.

I recognized 2 folks right away - Robert Patrick (shown here):

And that tattooed guy from Nip/Tuck and some other shows/movies where a tattooed gangsta lookin' guy is called for (shown here):

There are a few uncomfortable & really well done scenes and some great gore effects.
And a girl gets punched in the face (which made me applaud from my comfy bed).

Matthew and I used to go to these HorrorFest; 8 Films To Die For shows when they first started up.  We stopped when the movies ended up not being worth the money so we missed the 2009 flicks.  If we'd have gone to this one, I think Autopsy would've turned me around.

Was super fun and there were a few scenes in this movie that I've never seen on screen before and it had a nice ending.

CHEERS TO THEM!!

I give Autopsy 5 out of 5 spinal taps.

Rise of Nightmares - ugh

Remember when I was excited about this game?
I signed up to gamefly a few months back and this was the first one I wanted to check out.
First time I played it...got through the tutorial and opening bit until the charater's train crashed.  Which is probably a good 10mins of game play, figuring out movements and watching little cutscenes.
Then I had to go somewhere, so I shut it off because at the beginning it says the game autosaves and provides no 'save' in the options menus.
Stupid me.
So, the next time I pick it up, I have to do the opening 10mins again.  Which has been cut down to about 6 since I've done it before but still wait through cut scenes.
I get to the train crash again and have to run in place across the top of a train car.
--Shit...I'm wearing the wrong bra and shoes for this, so I throw some gym gear on.--
Then another 4mins spent trying to figure out how the game tracks my running, with dying a few times, and a little frustration.
Then 3 mins in a cave scene, a swimming scene where you flail your arms like you're swimming, and a buncha minutes just walking and looking around.
And then I had to go off and do something else again.
So that 2nd Round of game play was maybe 15mins (minus the time it took to change clothes).
This time, I knew that when I went back to it, and because THERE'S NO FREAKIN' SAVE!!, I'd hafta do the opening crap ALL over again which would be 15mins just to get up to something new and... just....SOMETHING.

Weeks go by, and the other night I picked it up again....got through the opening crap and all the way to the graveyard....
20 or so minutes of gameplay.  With the right shoes & bra on.
I paused it and ran upstairs to look up how to save that shit.
Cuz I had to go again.
Yahoo Answers helped me out a bit.
Not really.
It was mostly just people pissed off about the same thing.

So, because I had to go, I ended up just keeping it paused and upon my return home,
played for another 20mins, got to Act III, yelled multiple curse words when I kept dying, and was getting tired (even the xbox was asking me if I needed to take a break).
So I shut that shit off, threw it back into the mailing sleeve, slammed it in the mailbox, and stomped off to bed.

The End.

1000 Places To See

My mom got us this book a few years back.

I just went through it the other day with a highlighter and a pen and marked all the ones we've been to already.
Out of 1000.....I'm going to say maybe 970 entries are actual places.  The remaining are "local eateries" or "art scene" or "music scene" or "romantic hotels" type entries that cover a handful of places.
Out of those 970, I have about 70 of those highlighted as places we've been to.  Either one or the other or both of us.

Region not even touched: Great Plains
All the other regions are pretty evenly spread with us living in the southeast and traveling up the east coast pretty frequently.  Also, with the inlaws in the mid & southwest.  Recent trips to Alaska and Hawaii kinda round things out, too.

I also think we need one that covers the world....not just the States and Canadia.

Which reminds me.....
Also a few years ago, I bought a wall sized map so we could pin it with our adventures/places we've been to.
Matt's parents have one that I've always loved looking at and I wanted to do one just for us.
So I have the map, but still need to find a big cork board to mount it on and start pinning.
Sounds like a good weekend project, no?

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.

A Discovery of Witches

OMG.  I finished this fucking book today.
About 6 or 7 months ago, my mom was all "this is the greatest book EVAR" and it took me like 5months to get about a third of the way in.
While we were in Hawaii, I made a damn good dent in the story and wrapped it up today while sitting on the toittie.

It started off pretty cool, setting the tone, all dark and moody and Oxfordy.
Its a witch who meets a vampire in Oxford.  There are also daemons.  They're all scholarly and ivy league and shit.
And they live among the boring ass humans no one ever wants to talk about in these stories.
You get to know the main witchy lady who pretends like she's not some all powerful witch.
And she meets some ancient ass french Dr. Vampire whose BFF is a non-political political gay Scottish daemon.
French Dr. Vampire is also a vintner.
He and Oxford Witch fall in love and then there's a shit storm and some time travel.
I'd hardly call it the best book EVAR, but it was pretty entertaining after the stupid crap.
And I don't mean the sappy shit.  The sappy shit was fine.
It was the scholarly witchy witch finding a hidden drawer in her old ass Dr. Vampire's desk and wondering why he'd keep "basic office supplies" in a hidden drawer that pissed me off the most.
DUMB!
There was also her fake bowing up on some random ancient vampire foe, saying "....and if he bothers me again..."....what!?  what, exactly will your dumb inexperienced ass do?!

The only plot mistake I noticed was around the beginning when Diana, the witch, throws her bag in a cubby at the library and then just seconds/minutes later has that same bag with her at study desk/table.
The grammatical errors/typos aren't nearly as bad as Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan/Hollows series.
Of which, Perfect Blood came in the other day and I'm 3 pages in on.
I should probably go ahead and get my red pen out.

The Discovery of Witches/All Souls trilogy continues with Shadow of Night coming out this summer and movie rights have been bought up already.

Florence + the Machine - Ceremonials

If I could be any one else in the whole world, I would want to be Florence.
Even though she doesn't ride rollercoasters.
The music she makes is rollercoasters enough.



There's something magical about the mix of her voice, the drums, the harp, the lyrics....that pulls on you emotionally.  Well, on me anyway.  I can't speak for you turds.
I listened to this first song, "Only If For A Night" and was in tears about half way through.
The song's about her dead grandmother visiting her in a dream and giving her advice.

But it isn't sadness that makes me teary eyed, its an overwhelming amazement & joy that her music (and music in general) can make such an impact on people and evoke such emotion.

I've posted before an excerpt from her website that sums it up perfectly.  Go check that out.

You know how artists who find their niche and particular sound, the music starts to kinda run together a bit and each song sounds a bit similar to the one before it?
Florence doesn't do that.
Yes, you can definitely tell its them, but there's no running together.
I was worried about that with this album...how could they top Lungs?

Well, I'm insanely happy to say, they've done it.

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.

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.

Two Door Cinema Club - Tourist History

This was the first song I heard/saw:


Catchy right?
I was colored impressed about a month or so ago with Pannacakes when we were at a divey bar in Winter Park and they had this song available on their jukebox.*
The band recently got a lot of buzz at Lollapalooza & apparently put on a pretty damn good show.
Their sound is fun and I'm sure its only a matter of time before we get saturated by them being featured in every commercial.
Haha - the lead ginger has another one of my haircuts.  That's pretty rad.
Anyway, enjoy & Happy 1st September Friday the 2nd!!
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*does it still count as a jukebox if it only takes bills and doesn't have records in it?

Themeless Thursday - Book Review

Oh, man....It took me, what, like....7 weeks to get through this one?

That's HORRIBLE.

I suck at reading.

No, that makes me sound illiterate. Let me rephrase.

I suck at focusing on reading a book through to completion.

There are probably at least 2 or 3 books I can think of off hand that I read half of and never finished. This didn't happen much when I was a kid. Where the hell did I pick this habit up??

GAWH.

Anyway, just finished this one. You guys know I've been chipping away at it. Not that it was a shitty book or anything....it was good. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I just get distracted easily.

The book's narrated by a dude, an art journalist, who is fascinated by a beautiful & ambitious friend who gets sucked into the art world in pre-9/11 NYC. The book is basically his confession. He has to get this story of this girl off his chest and goes into telling about how she first worked at Sotheby's, networks, goes to work for a gallery, networks, sleeps with men, buys some art, gets tangled in questionable activities, sells some art, and decides, just before the towers fall, to open up her own art gallery. Its not so much that the story itself is enthralling, its the way Martin tells it, and how the story gets weaved and it leads to great imagery in your head while you're reading it.

There are even PICTURES!!

Full color of some of the works being talked about in the story.

How he only picked those 20+ to include....a sweet smattering, instead of an art overload.....I would've like to have seen his process for that.

This one gets 3 out of 5 Warhol Flowers.

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.

Sunday Confession - Make It Work

Thanks to Matthew, this is how we've been sleeping since Thursday night.

Pretty sure we've completely adjusted.

I don't remember what it was like when the a/c was working.

It will be eerily quiet in the house once it gets fixed (possibly this week?).

If you're ever looking for an emergency a/c unit - these little Frigidaires are about $100 at Lowe's and spit some serious cold air. We even had to cover up with a sheet cuz we got chilly.

Its pretty much saved our marriage.

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros

I have a lot of favorite songs on this album, too. This was the first song I heard and gets stuck in my head a lot.
My other favorite song is "Home" which is now being used in a commercial or 2. That song brought tears to my eyes the first time I heard it. (shut up, I'm a girl. its allowed when something is that stinkin' sweet.)
I think "Janglin'" is in another commercial, too.

That's what happens, you know.
You love a song so much, you get smothered by it with marketing until you love it a little bit less.
So far, the love for these songs hasn't worn off yet.
They have a new album coming out soon, as well.
Advertising folks will be thrilled.

These are probably my very favorite damn dirty hippies.
If you saw them on Conan or any other shows they performed on, you know there's like 12 folks in the band and they have dreads and beards and wear sheets for pants.

We missed seeing them at The Social last October - it sold out pretty quickly by the time we found out about the show. That venue is pretty small, so I bet after the band got in there, they only had room for like, 3 other people.
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IN OTHER NEWS:
We're either going here or here tonight and then to see this.
So, look forward to reviews & shit over the weekend and then for Movie Monday.

Ida Maria - Fortress 'Round My Heart

I've been listening to her a lot over the past month.

This song/album was the first one, out in 2008.

There's a new one that just came out last month (internationally) - "Katla".

But my favorite song is from this album. So go look up the other one yourselves.....

-or-

You can wait for me to post about it on a future Friday Jams.

But I know you turds are impatient.

Ida is Norwegian.

She keeps up with her own facebook page.

And she kicks much ass.

OH!! AND...If you watch Louis C.K.'s show, she does the "Louie" song you hear on it's commercials and crap. Its been a while since I've seen an actual episode so I don't remember if its the intro theme, but it very well may be.

HAPPY JULY 1ST!!

Hope you turds have a good 4th weekend.

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ps. Florence +The Machine were amazing last night.

You know what WASN'T amazing???

The fuckin' feedback. Who ever the sound guy was needs to be kicked in the face and/or ear boxed.

-AND- the dumbass obnoxiously drunk chick that decided to sing WAY too loud (think fratboy* at a Dave Matthews Band show) during my favorite song. People were "shhhhh"ing her.

We were able to elbow her out of the way for a bit but that bitch was determined to stay close to us and continued to dance up on us even though we were obviously there to see Florence and not her toodrunkass.

Usually, I'm not one to be a wet blanket on someone's fun, but when it comes to ruining a show for people and just being an asshole....that's kinda where I draw the line.

She wasn't even funny.

Funny makes up for a lot.

And today, I bet she's waking up and not even remembering an awesome performance that she paid good money for.

Big dummy.

I don't even do that.

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*Matt, if you're reading this, I know you hate that term. But I'm not apologizing for using that here.