The Weekend

Saw Brent Butt on Friday night. He's funny. I believe I had a tear of laughter roll down my face at one point. Funny, weird looking man. What's scary is Carla and I went with HER PARENTS to see him. That's a little off-putting. I was wondering if maybe I was starting to loose my edge, if maybe I was no longer what the kids call, "hip".

Later on that evening Carla and I went to The Freehouse and met up with Trev and James and Nate and that annoying girl whose name my brain doesn't feel the need to learn. When she heard where we had been she ran her yap about how much she hated Butt and his show. That made me feel better. I don't much like her.

Watched some Full Metal Alchemist over the weekend. Anime is weird man. Scenes of bloody horror followed immediately by wacky humour.

See, now, Carla just stopped by and is totally distracting me from blogging. Yet she complains when I don't blog. Well, I'm gonna stop now and it's all her fault.

I had a nap, but I am in no way refreshed

So unrefreshed that I didn't capitalize the title. Yeah, it was intentional. So. Zombies. I like 'em. Gonna make a movie about them someday. Not exactly sure what their allure is. Werewolves have that whole man v. beast thing going for it. Dracula is just sexy. Zombies are... I don't know. My movie is also going to have one werewolf and one vampire in it. Maybe I should have put a spoiler warning on this post. Too late now.

Zombies are like us, just not. They look like us, just not. They move like us, just not. I've read a lot on the subject of zombies, but I won't go and recap all the crap I've read. In spite of all I've read, I'm still not sure why they are so appealing. One of my film theory profs talked about how zombies were like... hmm... I forget what he said. Or exactly what he said. All the zombie stuff I know is becoming one big shit pile.

But yeah, I like 'em. And others do to. My friend Eric wants to make a zombie movie. Dawn of the Dead is doing well in the theatres. Maybe I should just talk about that. Sure. Why not?

But first: Abenobashi is a crazy anime in the best tradition of crazy anime. Plus: BOOBS!

I'm not sure why they called this movie Dawn of the Dead. I mean, sure, it borrows a fair bit from Romero's original, but not all THAT much. They spend a lot of time in the mall. That's the main thing. Oh, and there are zombies. Other than that, not that much in common. All the subtext and satire of the original has been dropped in favour of... nothing. This film has no agenda other than providing some tension, a few scares and a lot of death. And it does. And I liked it. But this remake, or re-imagining, along with that Texas Chain Saw remake, I think... What does it say about today's audience that both films are just slick, highly polished redo's of the superior originals with none of the thought, wit or charm that made the originals superior? Does it say anything about today's audiences, or does it say something about the directors involved, or about the fact that the originals were independent visions put out as independent films and these new ones are studio products?

Not that I care that much, I just think it is interesting. Romero's juxtaposition of zombies in a shopping mall was witty and clever and not really touched at all in this new one but I like it better that way. Cuz why bother remaking something if you're not going to change things up? It's just that they took out a whole lot and only added fast zombies. And I prefer slow zombies. Something about their shambling adds an air of inevitability to everything. The zombies ain't going to chase anybody, cuz they'll get them eventually. But the fast zombies worked in this film. This was a fast film. It started off fairly quick and never really slowed down. No time for love, or satire, doctor Jones. But the acting was good and there were all sorts of little touches I liked. Like the sarcastic rich guy's uncanny resemblance in both look and attitude to Bruce Campbell. If it had actually been Bruce, it wouldn't have been as cool, cuz then we'd like the character. As it stands now, we laugh at what he says but still think he's a dink and have no problem with him getting shot in the head. There were other things that I wanted to mention, that I DID mention in my post that got erased but damned if I can remember them now.

Some of the effects looked fake, like when zombies got run over and stuff. But not blatantly fake. Just fake enough to be fake. Same with that one overhead shot that follow Sarah Polley out of her neighborhood, when that van hits that car and they both crash into the gas pumps? Fake. Well done, all of it but not perfect. But that zombie baby made Carla laugh out loud. It made me think of Dead Alive. Yeah. I'd recommend this movie because what it does what it's supposed to but nothing extra. Yeah. I sound more negative than I meant to, but such is the nature of the internet.

SO Tired

Carla and I ended up going to her Grandma's for lunch. I swear that old lady put something in the food because I am plum tuckered. Must nap.

This Is Where The Title Goes

Instead of writing about Dawn of the Dead or Abenobashi Magical Shopping Arcade, two good and enjoyable things, I have spent the last couple of days whipping up a review of Breakdown, a truly ungood and unenjoyable game for the Xbox. It is just so much easier to talk about the bad rather than the good. Especially when the bad parts are just so obvious. Breakdown is probably one of the easiest reviews I've ever written (not that it's done yet), so full of bad things is it.

But that's for my other site. This is the site where I don't spend all my time bitching about video games. Here is where I bitch about everything else. Which I will do.

Soon.

First Imma go lunch wif Carla.

Also, blogspot has the worst spellchecker ever. I typed eveything instead of everything up there. The spellchecker caught it but everything was not one of its suggestions, not even close.

Dead People and People What Should Be Dead

Okay. Fuck. I had just typed up all kinds of stuff about the new Dawn of the Dead. Mainly mindless filler, but with some (I think) good stuff as well. But I'm typing this up at work. With the weird keyboard, the laptop type keyboard. With the faux-mouse buttons scrunched up against the space bar. So if you are not the best typist in the world, there might be times where your finger brushes against the buttons instead of or at the same time as the space bar. There is the chance that you can, in one accidental thumb brush, highlight your whole chunk of text and space over it, erasing it all. Yeah.

Fuck.

A Good Weekend

It was. Cuz it was almost filled with Carla. I mean, how could it be any better. Well, Triplets of Bellville could have NOT been sold out. But other than that, I have no complaints. I really, really, really dig that girl.

Eep

Yeah. Sorry about the lack of blogging. Someone I work with just found out he has a tumour on his fucking brain. It's pushing on the stem. I'm a little weirded out.

Notice how I took Bernie's tragedy and somehow made it all about me.

I'm a massive fucking jerk.

Crap Day

This day, Tuesday, was just an utter waste. I was surly and full of crank all day. Not fun for me or anyone around me.

Also, in reference to Carla's blog about that there I, Robot movie: I don't care if it has nothing to do with the book of the same name. I didn't care for the book. Found it annoying. However, I've never disliked a movie directed by Alex Proyas. Yes, Eric, that includes Garage Days.

Some Stuff happened

Don't it always seem to go....

The times when you don't blog are the times when you have the most to blog about. Not that I have all sorts of momentous life-altering announcements to make, I just have actual topics of conversation. This isn't the usual mindless getting to know you chit chat. Or maybe it is. Whatever. Let's try to do this somewhat chronological like.

Thursday (I think)
I slept in. Thusly, I was late for a late lunch with my ex-girlfriend Cara. I stepped under some hot water and then out the door to pick her up. I met her dog, whose name I forget. Nice dog. A bit bigger than I was expecting. Saw some of Cara's new sculpture pieces which I can only describe as upholstered eroticism. Yeah, they were interesting. We went to Newtown for lunch. I had the Curried Beef Hot Pot, she had the Budha Tofu with Mixed Vegetable. Both tasty. We talked. Talking to people who are actually doing stuff always make me feel bad. About my lack of stuff doing. I forget which parcel delivery service did this, but some driver delivered a package to Cara minus a whole lot of expensive tools. She wasn't home at the time, and didn't sign for it, but instead came home to an opened package. Nice.

We bummed around down town for a little bit, not doing much of anything and that was about that.

Also, she gave me a CD. By an artist called Geoff Berner. He plays the accordion and sings odd songs with nice titles like, "We All Have To Be A Prostitute Sometimes".

Even though I slept in I was still quite tired, and my late lunch could have almost been considered an early dinner. So I wasn't in the best of mind frames for cooking with Carla. We had agreed to get together on Thursday night to make a heaping helping of Padh Thai. When she called up, I begged off. As soon as I had hung up my mind began to race. Canceling a dinner date with my future wife because I was to full and tired from spending the afternoon with my ex-girlfriend would be a VERY BAD IDEA. So I called her right back and told her I was coming right over.

We went shopping for food. Whilst shopping I picked up Armed and Dangerous for cheap. And Carla let me! It was a good deal, how could she not? It took a while to get all the shopping done and we were both tired by the end so we just went to bed instead of making the food.

At 11:15pm I woke up and went to work. Saw Wonderfalls during my shift. I liked it. I thought it was cute and quirky and so was the lead actress.

Friday.
What the hell happened on Friday. Oh, we rented So Close. A Hong Kong action movie starring three hot chicks. Well, more like one exceptionally hot chick (Hsu Chi, the gorgeous Taiwanese actress from The Transporter) a hot chick and an average chick. The movie wasn't as good as I had expected. It was directed by Corey Yeun (who also helmed The Transporter), who usually does great action. The action in this was okay, but not up to his usual caliber. The story was nonsensical. Which is standard in a lot of HK movies, but especially so in this one.
You don't need to train to be a hit(wo)man in Hong Kong movies, you just need someone close to you be killed. The rest just sorts itself out. Really the only thing that kept my attention was Hsu Chi. Man she's good looking. Then she dies. Damnit. I had trouble paying attention after that. All in all, I don't recommend it.

Saturday.
I worry sometimes that me and film are growing apart. I haven't shot anything or written anything in quite a while and the last film I did shoot, I've done nothing with. Plus there's all these films out that all sorts of people are raving about. Raving. And I see them and am unmoved. Return of the King? I still like Fellowship of the Ring best, as a movie. The Passion of the Christ? I cried, but I found as many faults in that film as virtues. And now City of God. One of the few foreign films to ever get nominated for a best picture Oscar. Critics the world over fought over accolades to heap on it. I liked it. But that's it. I didn't leave the film drunk on its majesty. Maybe it's me. I really fucking hope it isn't though.

Sunday
Wrestleania XX. I enjoy wrestling. I totally understand why people don't. I'm somewhat embarrassed by my liking of it. But still I do.
Cory and Gayle came over and watched the big show with me and Seve. We had fun. I'd go into detail, but if you were interested in such things you already know everything that happened and if wrestling holds no sway over you you'd skip it all anyways. Suffice it to say I thought it ended on the best note it possibly could. The last match was the best of the night, the most dramatic and Chris Benoit's win was the most deserved. I loved that all of the fans at MSG were cheering for him and that he and Guerrerro closed out the show.

Later on that very evening...
I discovered some naked pictures of Hsu Chi (hahahaha! No link for you!) on the internet. Hot damn she's foxy!

Monday.
Nothing much happened. Went out for lunch with my dad. Then cooked lunch for Carla.

The end.

A Moment of Weakness

I wasted $8.47 tonight. There was a lull at work (OMFG!!) and instead of studying Japanese or writing any number of reviews I drove to 7-11. I bought a maxim and a couple bags of Doritos. I was going to buy some Taquitos as well, but the clerk wouldn't let me. Said they were too old. That's a first.

I remember back in my high school days I used to live on Doritos and Dr. Pepper. I still am all about the Dr., but I couldn't finish a single bag of Doritos. Why the hell did I buy 2?

Contractual Obligations

Carla doesn't like it when all I write about is how I have nothing to write about. But I have nothing to write about. An idea for a story or show just popped into my head about a man sent back in time who can't remember why or how or from when he was sent. Probably a nothing idea, but hey, at least I wrote something.

Eurotrip

Saw it. Didn't mind it. Wouldn't watch it on T.V., cuz the boobs are the best part. Without boobs, this movie ain't that great.

What A Fantastic Fucking Day!

Seriously. We've had some pretty decent weather for the past little while, but today was the first time it really felt like Spring. And as such, I had to help push someone into their driveway. I didn't HAVE to, I chose to, cuz that's the kind of guy I am. The roads around my house are absolute shit right now. They're always shit actually, but even moreso right now.

RCMP

My cousin Ben is in training to be a Mountie. It does not sound like fun. He spent the last weekend polishing his boots. His hands were stained and ugly looking. The boots were looking good though. After dinner on Sunday he had to leave early as he still had to shine his other boots and go for a three mile run before going to bed. Don't think I'll doing that, thank you. Although... it sounds like the pay is pretty all right.

My Sunday

Started off with waking up next to Carla. Can't get much better than that. Except maybe waking up feeling fully rested and refreshed next to Carla.

Most of the day was spent sleeping. A little of it was spent playing some Crystal Chronicles. That was followed with a delicious meal at my aunt and uncle's house. I actually ate, and enjoyed, beans. Murray (my uncle) is a hell of a cook. It was SO GOOD! Although the apple pie tasted to me like it had a hint of licorice to it.

The day looked like it was going to end as it had begun with Carla and I in bed. But then I received a rude awakening. At around 10:15 someone from work called to remind me that I was supposed to have been at work at 9. Luckily I'm SO GOOD at what I do that I managed to get everything done before we went to air. Actually, most of the credit should go to Dan, the sports anchor. Anyone looking for a sports anchor out there? Dan Plaster is about as good as you can get, he's a nice guy a damn funny drunk and better at his job than any one else I've ever met.

My Saturday

I could just change the date of this blog. Change it back to Saturday, make it look like I wrote it earlier. I've done it in the past. Or maybe I've done it in the present but changed back the date so that you only THINK that I've done it in the past. But not no more. I didn't blog all weekend or Monday. Nor did I go to the gym. I suck. But starting now I'm trying to decrease my sucking. No more misleading all my millions of readers.

Right. My Saturday. Right.

It was good. It was a good day. It had lots of Carla in it, that always helps. It started with a bunch of Ninja Gaiden (WTF? The spell checker doesn't recognize ninja. That's just wrong. Gaiden I could see not being in there, but ninja?) playing, that always helps as well. The I showered and Carla and I did some very brief shoe shopping, which is the best kind of shoe shopping. We also stopped in at Chapters. Carla offered to buy me a magazine and I deferred. What the hell is wrong with me? A couple years back I was probably spending more money on periodicals than food. Not anymore. Ever since Carla made me start keeping track of my money, I've been a lot more careful with it. Odd how that works.

After my non magazine getting, and Carla's massive magazine and manga getting (oh how the tables have turned!), we went and saw Broken Lizard's Club Dread. I like comedy and I like horror and there is a distinct dearth of film making comedy troupes these days, how could I NOT go? I liked this movie. More than Super Troopers. I found Troopers to be intermittently funny. I also found Club Dread to be intermittently funny, but the dry patches were not as dry nor as long. Plus this movie had boobies. Gotta like that. I like that the members of Broken Lizard probably wrote this movie for the express purpose of getting paid to spend a couple months in a tropical paradise surrounded by topless chicks. More power to 'em. I'd do that too, if I could.

The film's title comes up over a close up of a recently decapitated body spasming, shot from the point of view of the head and the movie ends with... nah I won't ruin the last shot but it nicely bookends the film. I really liked that title shot though, it set the tone for all that followed. I also liked that the guy who played the biggest prick in the last Broken Lizard film got to play the hero in this one. I liked a lot about this movie.

I liked almost nothing about Dreamcatcher which a group of us rented Saturday night. I can think of only two redeeming qualities. The first is that it only cost a buck to rent. The second is that the film looked pretty nice. The woods where most of the film takes place are well shot, especially some of the panoramic shots. Every thing else? Shit. And not just any kind of shit. Bloody shit. Accompanied by unpleasant farting noises. Seriously, who the hell thought that this film was a good idea? There were a fair few recognizable names involved in this travesty, what attracted them to this film? The book wasn't any good, and I'm normally a fan of Stephen King's work. It was overlong, poorly paced and seemed like King was stealing from his own previous works. It was like a poorer version of The Tommyknockers. With shit weasels. The film version was even worse. The child actors were horrible, there was no real flow to the tale being told. The tale itself was rediculous. The effects were not all that great. The sound effects were sometimes laughable. As was the sudden appearance of a british accent. Most annoying was the fact that I think they changed the ending from the book, but I can't remember for certain and I don't plan on re-reading the damn thing to make sure. But it was fun to watch at least. There was a group of us, and we were drinking, which always helps.

I usually think that Roeper, of Ebert & fame is a waste of skin and air and idiocy (I mean there are other, much more amusing idiots who could put Roeper's idiocy to better use) but I grudgingly admit that when he voted Dreamcatcher the worst film of last year he wasn't horribly, horribly wrong.

Why

Why is it that when I don't go to the gym, that's the day I consume one of the greasiest, fattiest dinners known to man. It was good. Guiltily so.

And why does Ninja Gaiden play with my mind so? When I think I've done rather well, killing all sorts of things in all sorts of ways while avoiding death in a stylish way, I get a crap rating. But when I die, and use a scroll to come back to life and consume all sorts of health potions all in the name of barely beating a level, I get the best rating possible. Japanese game developers are inscrutable. INSCRUTABLE I SAY!

Toffee makes my jaw hurt

I think the title pretty much says it all. Ow. Also: Mmmmmmmm!

Ninja Gaiden

I played the hell out of the demo that came out last week and now I'm playing the hell of the full game. I quite likes it. But the demo spoiled me in a way. You start out much more powerful in the demo. In the real game, the first boss raped me multiple times. No cheap powerful moves to defeat him this time. Seve doesn't seem to be having any problems. Fucker. He can go to hell on the youth he rode in on.

Grrr

I thought of at least a couple of things to blog about while at work. Now that I am home, however, I find myself at a loss.

Dear God, The Internet Sucks

Seriously! I wanted to get all sorts of things done today, while at work. I wanted to learn some Japanamese. Finish off a review or two and post a couple days worth of blogging. Instead I spent three hours at gamefaqs, reading a bunch of posts about which console is better. My brain, my heart and my faith in my fellow man hurt. The sad part is I'll do it again. And, since every one knows that none of their faults are their fault I blame the internet for my procrastination. Fucking internet. I'm going to sue for damages!

The... Something... Of the Christ

I have no real idea of what I think of Mel's new movie. Not that I think that he cares. He made the movie that he wanted to make and it's going to make a pile of money and it might even change some people's lives. Not mine. Let's see if I can try to write down some of my impressions of the film.

While in New Zealand I overheard a couple of film snobs complaining of LOTR:FOTR and the fact the Peter Jackson made an uber-orc to lead the orcs in the final fight of the movie. "Stupid Hollywood movies NEED an easily identifiable enemy, so the audience knows to cheer when he dies." I thought they were annoying whinging prats back then, but now I kind of see their point. The devil didn't need to be in this film. S/he made for some neat visuals (especially with that freaky evil baby. That baby was freaky and evil, man) but didn't add a whole lot to the film. I typed film there. At first I was going to write movie, but then I thought film was more appropriate. Back to Satan There are scenes of horrific violence in this film. Scenes that made my eyes leak. Scenes that made me despair for the human race. But I only turned away from the screen once. A scene with no violence or anything like that. After Jesus dies/ gives up the (Holy) ghost the film cuts to Satan in hell screaming in rage. I couldn't watch, it was just so lame. Why not have Satan shake his fist and go, "Curse, you JEEZUUUUUUUSSS!!!!!" or "I'll get you next time Jesus, next time."

And the stuff with Judas was kinda crap too. The evil apparition under the bridge rubbed me the wrong way. And the evil children that chased him to his death were lame too. They weren't necessary. The dude sold out the Son of God/ the Son of Man. That would guilt a lot of people to their death. No demon kids necessary. Get rid of all the cliched representations of evil. You don't need to see the devil gliding through the crowds that are cheering Jesus' prolonged death to know that they are under the sway of not nice things. Groups of people are scary things, easily swayed to violence. No pale androgynous beelzebub is needed.

And the scene where Jesus carpents a tall table? Lame. Forced humour. Also not needed. The rest of the flashbacks are well done, shot in an entirely different way. And it nicely contrasts the beaten and bloody Jesus of the bulk of this film with the magnetic messiah that so frightened the high priests.

Good God does this guy get gorey. Jesus is beaten. And beaten. And flayed. And flayed. And FLAYED. Then beaten some more. And more. Then crucified. And the audience is treated to graphic close ups and details of all of the above. There is some cringe inducing stuff here. Like I said, it made me cry. But. BUT. That's the point of the film. That Jesus suffered and died for us. Was crucified, died, and was burred. Those were just words before this film. This film does a great job of showing what Jesus went through. That's what Mel's goal was, so yay him. But he added a whole bunch of stuff that I found silly.

And yay for this film inspiring actual debate and intelligent discussions about religion. Not everybody likes religion (hey Carla!), but I'd much rather hear about The Passion than a nipple.

I Want A New Drug

What the world needs now, in addition to love sweet love , is a pill that combats procrastination. I know I sure as hell needs some of that. Think about it, fat people would stop putting off going to the gym, addicts would stop putting off rehab. I would stop putting off the rest of my life. God damn I wants some anti procrastination pills. Someone should get on that.

I'm Gonna Miss This Place

I like where I work. I'm easily satisfied, but still. I like that it's in the middle of a big field. There's rabbits around and great sunrises and sunsets. The refinery across the way also looks nice at night, or in the morning. I often times just take a moment or two after finishing my shift in the morning just to soak it all in. I'm gonna miss that. I don't work with a bunch of fuckwits. Which is nice. There are a couple of dimwits, and one real moron, but the rest are some of the good ones. And you need at least one idiot in any work place, otherwise what would you have to talk about. Yeah, knowing that you only have a few more months left to work makes a lot of things seem more momentous. Or maybe this situation is just making me more pretentious.

More Gaming

Went to a Halo party tonight. Didn't do too badly either. I was in no danger at any time of coming in first, but I never came in last either. I stayed hovering in the middle, and that's okay by me. Bob and Jim are way better Halo players than me, and I am okay with that. Luckily I was on their team for most of the night. So the experience was much less frustrating than it could have been. Much better than the few times I've played with Seve and his friends. Those kids are animals. Shooting you as soon as you spawn. No honour amongst them. Little bastards.

Gaming

Yeah, so Carla's brother and sister are in town this week so there was some visiting. And some game playing. Mario Kart. I didn't do all that much winning. Laura's boyfriend Devon is a dick. I mean that in the nicest possible way. He plays games almost exactly like me. Except he is not nearly as good at losing on purpose without actually looking like he's losing on purpose. I got a couple of those 'gimme' wins and a part of me died inside. I am over the hill. My best gaming years are behind me. Hell, even Laura beat me on more than one occasion. To be fair, Devon always used the cheapest characters in the game. The two turtles. They get three red shells on a regular basis. Being on the receiving end of those is enough to knock you from first to fourth in a heart beat. So that bastard Devon had six shells at his disposal. Jerk. Which happened to me on more than one occasion. And Laura picked the other unlockable characters. Not that it would change my character choice all that much. I always go with Wario. Because he's a'gonna ween. And I always pick his purple pimp caddy. Of course Wario's special attack is not all that useful and the pimp caddy doesn't handle so good. But still... I don't know...

RE-DO

All this recapping of meaningless crap is kinda pointless, don't you think? I'm trying to think of witty stuff to write, but it's been so long since I've written anything even resembling good. Damnit. Also, I seem to be having trouble sleeping, more to the point, trouble waking up. It's getting to be very annoying.

Out of Order

I have all sorts of stuff to write about from Monday to now, but right now all I can think of is what the hell am I going to do with my life? I just found out my job, and many jobs at the place where I work is/are going away at the end of June. My brain be broke.

Longest Post Ever

And about wrestling of all things. Huh.

Inter the View

Free continental breakfast this morning, and another free paper. This Comfort Inn is all about the free. And free high speed internet, luckily Carla brought her laptop along. As she was surfing, I noticed something odd. CFQC, the Saskatoon Global station was one of the channels in our room. What up with that, dog?

We had to be out by 11, and Carla's interview wasn't until 3:20, so we had plenty of time to kill. We drove around for a bit, poked around in a couple of stores and then went for lunch.

We thought it would be fitting to have Japanese for lunch. Masa is a nice little Japanese restaurant about five minutes from campus. I really do enjoy the Japanese food. I always think I won't be full when the food is set down in front of me and then I am always full before I'm done. Deceptive, ninja-like food. I had a New Zealand roll, there was lamb in it. Interesting.

U of M has a nice campus, with a river running alongside it. Probably looks even nicer when the river isn't frozen and the trees have a leaf or two on them.

The parking experience was quite an... experience. Carla wasn't sure her van would fit in it, so I had to get out and reassure her. So I did, and I did. There was plenty of clearance. Yet, from inside the van, it looked like we were going to scrape the roof off the van. We both scrunched our necks down and tensed our shoulders up even though we knew that there was no problem. It was a freaky experience, man. My brain knew that there was nothing to worry about, yet it worried all the same.

One day at work a few weeks back, I heard a couple guys talking about how Winnipeg had the highest ratio of good looking girls of any place they had been to. They both swore they were serious. And they were. Most of the girls on the U of M campus were well put together. I would have liked to spend more time looking around.

Maybe Regina is just really ugly.

Eventually it was time for Carla to have her interview. I waited for her as she was grilled. I saw some of her competition, I think she was better than all of them. I also watched some JET promotional videos. Gotta love those promotional videos. Especially the synth scores. Actually, one of the girls in the videos looked strikingly similar to Kierra Knighley. That was nice.

Carla didn't seem to think that she did to well on her interview, but that's just the way she is. I had to be even more entertaining than usual to keep her mind off the interview. Luckily, the weather turned to crap, so that kept her mind occupied. Have I mentioned that I'm glad I ain't driving? Cuz I am. The roads looked pretty horrible to me, but Carla didn't seem to have any problems. Until we couldn't consistently see the road. That's about when we decided to call it a day. We stopped in a little town called Moosomin, and checked in to the Prarie Pride Motel. Carla called her parents to assure them we weren't dead, and I checked out the weather channel. The highways around Regina were all closed. The Ring road in Regina was closed. There had been a twenty car accident in the city and a fourty car accident just outside of it. Good thing we had decided to stop when we did.

We set up Carla's laptop and watched a movie. Comic Book: the Movie to be Precise. Let me consult my notes to see what I thought of it. Here's exactly what I wrote down after watching it: meh. That about sums it up. A lot of geeky cool people in this movie, a lot of cool cameos but the stuff that holds it together doesn't really do a good job of holding it together.

Then we slept.

Road Oning

Drove up to Winnipeg today with the lovely and talented Carla. She has an interview with JET. I do not. I am tagging along to provide moral support and such. For I am the most awesomest of fiances. Not so awesome that I did any driving. I hate driving, especially in the winter.

I have never been to Winnipeg before. I'm so very excited.

We don't actually plan on doing anything other than go to Carla's interview during our stay in Winnipeg. I'm so very excited.

The national highway becomes non-devided for a good long stretch between Regina and Winnipeg. Sure glad I ain't driving.

We stayed at a Comfort Inn in Winnipeg. Nicer than I was expecting. We got complimentary soup when we checked in. Cream of Mushroom soup. And a copy of the National Post.

Being tired and lazy, we just ordered in some pizza. From Big Time Pizza. We don't have a Big Time Pizza in Regina. Oh, the many splendoured delights of this Winnipeg. The pizza was good, I especially enjoyed the spicy sauce.

That's about it.

John Cena did not come to my arena.

Which is about the only bad thing I can say about last night's wrestling event. All of the radio ads promoting the Smackdown show last night had John Cena rapping about how he would be at our arena. Generic, to be sure, but still. Also, some other ads referred to it as Paul Heyman's Smackdown, but Heyman was also a no show. Cena I can understand, he screwed up his knee at the Royal Rumble, but why no Paul?

We pulled into the fairly full parking lot, found a spot nowhere near the entrance and made our way to the Cena-less arena. Nothing makes you feel more attractive and smart than a live wrestling crowd. Boy there are some fat, ugly, stupid looking people in this city. There were a few normal looking people scattered about but they were in the vast minority. Where were all the skanky wrestling groupies? I didn't see any. At least, I hope I didn't see any. If some of the girls I did see were groupies, I feel sorry for the wrestlers' penises. We, my brother Seve and I looked around for a bit at all the stuff we wouldn't buy. I am not that picky when it comes to clothing. I wear t-shirts with comic book characters on them (lesser known characters, so most people have no idea that I'm wearing a comic book shirt), I wear a Man Whore shirt, I wear an offensive shirt that has a crude drawing of a flying me throwing eggs at a terrified pope who runs from me and swears. What I'm trying to say is that while I aint that picky when it comes to what I wear, I don't think I'll ever wear a wrestling shirt. In addition to the shirts, there were thongs and belts to buy as well. And a big poster of Torrie Wilson in a wet t-shirt. I was tempted by that poster. I know that Torrie's boobs are fake, and I usually don't like fake boobs (actively dislike them to be more accurate), but I like Torrie Wilson's fake boobs. Any wrestling girls fake boobs to be completely honest. I guess it's all about context. If I'm going to choose to invest myself in fake fighting, I have no real reason to object to the fake boobs. Our tickets were for row 27 down in the floor section. It turns out our seats were in section two row seven, so we were WAY closer than we had first thought. Seated next to us was a very old lady with a thick accent (Greek, maybe?). She talked to us about wrestling for a while. This was her first live event although she never misses it when it's on the TV. Seated in front of us were a bunch of young kids. With signs. Worrisome. Behind us was a perfect example ugly. Group ugly. An ugly guy and three ugly girls.

The show started with the announcer making all kinds of announcements about how to behave, and what behavior would get you escorted off the premises and what behavior would have you facing criminal charges. Then we all rose for the national anthem. The entire crowd, (the Agridome was more than half full, but less than three quarters full) stood silently as the music to Oh Canada played. When the music was over, we all cheered.

The first match of the night was Nunzio, of the FBI(Full Blooded Italians) versus Billie Kidman. Billie Kidman is a little lightweight wrestler (and I believe the lucky bastard is married to Torrie Wilson), whilst Nunzio is much bigger. One of the ugly girls behind me lusted after Nunzio quite vociferously. If she could, she would have ripped off and thrown her vagina at Nunzio's crotch. I was mildly disturbed by her comments. The match was pretty decent. Lots of power moves and a few high flying moves. And the good guy (Kidman) won.

A word now on cheering: I had planned on cheering for the heels (bad guys) through all the matches. But the old lady liked all the good guys and seemed to not like it when I booed them. But at the same time, the kids in front of me also didn't like me booing the good guys. I felt bad for bothering the old lady but pretty good for bothering the little kids. I gave up and cheered for the good guys pretty early on.

The next match was... damnit I forget. That sucks. It was another singles match between some undercard guys. Ah screw going through the card match by match, I'll just recap the pertinent points. Rey Mysterio is very short. The Big Show is Very big. Bradshaw took a beer from a girl in the audience and drank it. It was like spinach to Popeye and he was able to push the Big Show around for a bit. But then Big Show chokeslammed him. Wrestling seems much more violent and painful in person. Watching it on TV you sometimes take for granted the risks that they take. And somewhere near the beginning Dawn Marie, the WWE's resident crack-whore announced that by order of Paul Heyman, John Cena is suspended. Then she showed off her ass and left. I don't like Dawn Marie's boobs. They frighten me.

During Chavo's match the crowd chanted "EDDY! EDDY! EDDY!", it seemed to bother Chavo. That was fun. Chanting along with a stadium full of people is fun, even if most of the people are ugly and stupid. I love Tajiri, even though he didn't get to do much during his match. No Tarantula, no Green Mist, no Buzzsaw Kick. Tajiri didn't get to do much, but he was still fantastic. Kurt Angle wrestled Hardcore Holly and Kurt mostly dominated and gave Holly the finger fairly often. The crowd cheered whenever he did. Either Shelton Benjamin or Charlie Haas screwed up a spot. We, being the polite crowd that we are did no start chanting "You fucked up!" The Airline lost Rikishi's luggage co we were spared the sight of his ginormous be-dimpled ass as he instead wore a much more reserved track suit. That said Big Daddy on it. Rhyno wrestled, but didn't gore anyone. Thus, the crowd booed him.

The last fight of the night was Eddie Guererro versus Brock Lesnar for the title. LOTS of chanting at the beginning of this one. The wrestlers didn't DO anything for around ten minutes, they just let the crowd work themselves up. Instead the crowd got all confused. Some sections chanted "EDDIE!" some "YOU TAPPED OUT!" still others "GOLD-BERG". Sometimes the crowd would settle on one and chant their little hearts out but then it would degenerate into the unintelligible mess again. Eddie just reclined on the top rope, seemingly loving every minute of this while Lesnar stalked around the ring, telling everyone to shut up. The wrestlers stretched for a bit and then got down to it. That Brock Lesnar is a big boy, boy howdy. But Eddie is crafty, and not above the occasional thumb to the eye. Brock dominated the bulk of the match but Eddie managed to reverse an F-5 into a DDT and land the frog splash, but that wasn't enough and Brock came back, hit his finisher and that was that. I wonder if that's how they're going to finish the match at the PPV? Probably not, Goldberg needs to be in there somewhere. Anyways, great match. Most of the matches were fun to watch. Live wrestling is a good time.

For the audience at least. I wonder what it must be like to go from working sold out massive arenas on a regular basis to a definitely not full Agridome in Regina/Middle of Nowhere. That must do things to a man's mind. Some of these guys are millionaires and still they're busting their asses in Saskatchewan. I don't know, man, I don't know.

In other news

I had a wonderful lunch with Carla today at the new Japanese restaurant in town. Best Tempura ever. The rest was pretty good too. I want to get back there soon to try out their evening menu.

Please Just Fucking Stop

I work at a TeeVee station and I have had more than enough of this breast related scandal. What's so scandalous? It was a boob. The nipple was covered. It wasn't an accident. It was carefully calculated to generate publicity for Janet (she's got a new album coming out this month doncha know), the Grammies (this week on CBS) and every network operated by Paramount. Will Janet go to the Grammies? Do actual real people care about this trivial shit? I mean, I get paid to watch Entertainment Tonight and I don't watch it. The older I get, the more Hate Filled I get.

Training Is Fun

I don't like being trained at new stuff, that isn't always fun, but training someone to do your job is great. You teach them the basics and then let them do your job for you. Occasionally, you give them disapproving looks or cluck your tongue and watch as they try to figure out what they're doing wrong. Man I love being an ass.

Damnit

I had something I wanted to talk about, but I totally forget what it was. Hmm... In other news, shooting things in slow motion is a fantastic basis for games. I played a fair bit of Max Payne 2 over the course of the weekend and loved most of that time. The gameplay is tight, and there are a lot of weird little touches that I very much liked. All the stuff that played on the televisions in the background was gold, Jerry, gold. And now I'm all talked out.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

Whooo! Superbowl!!! I could really give a crap. I worked during the game, at a television station that aired the game, and I don't think I could name both teams that played. Maybe the Colts and Patriots. I'm not 100% sure who won, either. And I sometimes edit the sports. Crazy, man, crazy. And how about that tit? Man, wow, man. I feel like a tool for even mentioning it, because that's what they want for me to do. So never mind about Latoya's tit or Marky Mark's grabbing of it. Let's talk about something else, like doggies. I like doggies.

I Think It's Pewter

What do you get for the nine year anniversary? It doesn't matter till you actually get married, I guess. It's our anniversary today, and what did we do to celebrate? Stayed in bed for a long while and then shoveled some snow. And then I went to work. Fun stuff, kids.

brrrrrr

I woke up today to the soothing sounds of the wind howling and screaming and whipping around. Waking up like that, it's hard to work up the motivation to do anything that involves leaving the house.

Yeah... It's Blizzarding

Carla and I had planned on going to see The Eye and maybe grabbing some sushi. Instead we had some overcooked and bland spaghetti and meat sauce and then went to her house and watched many hours of Firefly.

I had really wanted to see The Eye, but spending a night in with Carla was pretty nice. We don't get to do that too often.

Not Much

I'm not really a big Oscar type person but I just wanted to mention a couple of things.

1) Yay! Depp got nominated for best actor! For a big time summer action movie! And Yay! for Bill Murray as well.

2) The Matrix sequels got skunked. No nominations. Not for sound design or effects or editing or anything.

And that's about it.

What's Cooler Than Being Cool?

-52 Celsius out there right now. That is really damn cold. My car couldn't move because the transmission fluid was frozen. That only happens when it's really damn cold out.

The only good part about it being so cold out is that it's neat to take a mug of boiling water outside and toss the steaming water into the air. It turns to snow and ice before it hits the ground. True story.

The Glory of Love

http://www.lanceandeskimo.com/flash/quest.html

I'm still not used to refering to Carla as my fiance. I'm sure I'll get used to it.

Anyway, my fiance threatened to charge me a dollar for every day that I don't blog. So I'm updating.

In other news, my fiance hasn't updated her blog in well over a month.

My fiance also said she'd make me give her a dollar for every day I don't go to the gym.

In other news, my fiance hasn't updated her blog in over a month.

20 Days Later

Hmm... Meant to update this damn thing sooner. Carla sent me an email bitching at me to update this thing last week. Or was it the week before? Dunno. Doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm here now and we're together again, sharing a special moment.

So, let's try to think of all the stuff that's happened since last I loosed myself upon this page.

I've gotten less sick. Which is good.

My JET application was rejected. Which is not as good. I don't know if I'd call it bad. There's plenty of other jobs just waiting for me over there, with better hours AND pay.

I received an invitation to submit my film to the Sex and Death film festival. I'm always well pleased when stuff like that happens. My film has been in a grand total of NO festivals, (or is it one?) and yet people still know about it. How does that work? It's like there's some kind of weird film... thing that people know about and I don't. Whatever.

I should submit my film to more places.

I finished reading the latest of Stephen King's Dark Tower books. Wizard in the Glass is still my favourite, But The Wolves of Calla is still a mighty fine read. I'm off the opinion that this series of books is easily King's best. I'm know in the process of re-reading the previous books in the series. Backwards. I still have volumes 2 and 1 to go.

Saw Paycheck. Woo continues his descent. Wait, let me take that back. I just said that to sound like a cool internet type jaded film critic. The truth of the matter is that I really enjoyed Face/Off. It's probably in my top 5 of Woo films. And MI2 was enjoyable, the last half hour is just good, slick fun. And I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for Hard Target. I'll admit that none of his American work comes close to his best Hong Kong stuff. But now I'm way off topic. Paycheck doesn't' feel like a Woo film. At all. Sure, there's a dove, but it looks fake, like the studio put it in after the fact just to reassure people that they were in fact watching a John Woo film. The action is almost strictly by the numbers. More importantly, the characters are... meh. Ben Affleck does a serviceable job except for when he's called upon by the script to be charming and spontaneous. He comes across as a confused and annoying lunkhead. Uma Thurman looks like a crackwhore. A crackwhore with a radiant smile. And the script doesn't' have anything for her to do other than look like a crackwhore with a radiant smile. There are some interesting ideas raised but then they are just dropped without a second thought.

The best part of the film, and by best I mean most laughable, is near the begining when Ben gets his memory wiped. There are pictures of these memories on a computer screen behind him that get deleted as the corresponding memories get zapped. All these pictures have Ben Affleck in them. His memory takes place in third, not first person. Maybe that's why he looks so all the time confused.

Also saw Return of the King. Very good. Very impressive but not the be all and end all that other people are raving about. There are definite pacing issues. But who the hell cares about little stuff like that when you've got such neato looking effects?

I'm supposed to be keeping track of my spending, but I'm doing a real piss poor job.

Hey, I know. I'll use this web page to help me remember what I spend on what. How inconvenient for me and terribly exciting for you. Spent 24.40 on pizza yesterday. 20 bucks on food on Chinese New Year's Day. 5 bucks the night before. 9.50 on Paycheck. 9.69 on ROTK. 6.48 on a combo from BK. I forget how much I've spent on comic books. See? Isn't that exciting?

Other stuff: beat Prince of Persia (great game), beat Beyond Good and Evil (really good game), beat Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga (fantastic game).

That is all for now.

Shout

I finally figured out what they sing during the chorus of 'Shout' by Tears For Fears. Today I am truly a man.

Gigli

This movie was made the way it was on purpose. The director was also the writer. This was his vision. That's just amazing. And as a director, he had done some decent work in the past. His Beverly Hills Cop helped Eddie Murphy become the superstar that he once was. His Scent of A Woman revived Al Pacino's career. And Midnight Run is just a fucking funny movie. So what went wrong with Gigli? Imma gonna go out on a limb and say: "As a writer, he makes a decent director." Brest Had no hand in writing Beverly Hills Cop, Scent of a Woman or Midnight Run. Gigli is a horribly written movie. Character motivations are never clear. Affleck and Lopez are supposedly two hardened thugs, but they balk at cutting of an annoying character's thumb. More to the point, they think that cutting off someone else's thumb will be just as good. Cuz who the hell fingerprints a thumb right? Characters show up for no reason and then leave never to be seen again. Christopher Walken walks in, rambles about pie and then leaves. That was the highlight of the movie for me. Al Pacino appears, yells a bit, shoots a guy in the head and then vanishes. The movie is filled with awkward pauses in the dialogue. The dialogue is so bad I almost think it's that way on purpose. That vagina monologue? Gobble Gobble? Dear Christ in heaven. And it's all held together with some of the worst music ever. An annoying acoustic number for the most part that turns to weepy string music almost at random.

In spite of, or maybe because of all this I can honestly say that I enjoyed watching Gigli. I laughed on multiple occasions. It inspired discussion afterwards. One of the most interesting failures I've ever seen.

Again

Once again I've found myself awake at 2:30 in the morning. I work in a little over three hours and those few extra hours of sleep sure would be nice. Maybe tonight I'll stay up until three and see what that does.

For Christmas this year, I got clothes (including a nice suit and a suede jacket from the lovely Carla) some CDs, some other stuff and one game. Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga for the GBA. It's a very good game. Very cute graphics and sound and easy to control. It's an RPG but every battle is a little test of skill because you can avoid or reverse every enemy attack. Good times. Carla got me that too.

Odd

So I've been really quite sick for almost two weeks now and tonight was/is my first real chance at getting a good night's sleep. It ain't going so well. I'm doing the whole in and out of consciousness thing. Never a good time. But it makes for some interesting (?) dreams. I had this dream about reading an article/interview with Nicholas Brendon, the actor who portrayed Xander Harris on Buffy. This article/interview was in some kind of non-specific entertainment magazine. For some reason I want to say Premiere, but I'm sure I never actually saw the cover of the thing. On the opening page of the article/interview was a picture taken with a fish eye lens of Nicholas on a lawn chair on some green, green grass under a blue, blue sky in front of a small portion of a somewhat boxy one level house whose colour I forget. The picture changed slightly to the door being open a crack with some faces peering out. The faces of Nicholas, his wife (I have no recollection of what she looked like), and his two kids (not only do I have no idea what they looked like, other than both being blond, I have no idea what sex they were. The wife was blonde too. And pretty). Then the article began and the picture changed again, by beginning to move. Nicholas opened the door, welcoming the interviewer and apologizing about the hectic scene, but they were trying to get the kids off to school. I have a sense of the article kind of flowing like the usual puff fluff that is in such publications but also of it jumping around a fair bit and I'm not sure if I actually remember reading any words. From the intro it went on to very briefly allude to Brendon being very busy during the recent pilot season in L.A. and then moved very suddenly, almost awkwardly to the end of Buffy with Nick being both diplomatic and a little untoward towards Sarah Michelle Gellar (it seems to me he made a point of not mentioning her name. Maybe it was just me). He also cried and then apologized saying "That question got way more personal than either of us intended."(referring of course to the interviewer) The article then moved on to Nick's wife and how they met. (Here's the thing: I got the sense that this was the first marriage for both and that neither of them had kids prior to the wedding. How did they become old enough to be ready for school?) He said something that I wanted to write down because it made me think of Carla. He said, of his wife and why he decided to ask her to marry him (or to go out on a date with him, I'm not sure, but the following sounds like the trivial stuff you learn while dating, not before), "I know I liked her, that we owned the same CD and DVD machines, that we had a very similar CD collection. That we both liked stuff." See that sounds like something I'd say about Carla at our wedding. Except most of that stuff doesn't apply to us. The facts don't match but the flavour does. It was right around this point that I realized that I was awake. So I went downstairs, grabbed a drink of water and began writing this blog entry and now I'm done.

Except I'm going to go upstairs and grab my Buffy box set and make sure that I spelled Nicholas Brendon's name right.

I did.

Happy thing with the day and the year with the new

How did Carla and I ring in the new year? We were at my friend Trev's house. Carla was asleep on his couch while the rest of us (myself, Trev, James, Kim) watched Gigli. We didn't even notice when midnight came and went. Yeah, we're cool. That Gigli movie is a little bit of amazing. The mind boggles. It's just so... wow. And it was made that way on purpose. I'd go into specifics but now it is time for my nap.

Crappy

Last night was not a good night. Actually, it WAS a good night for the most part. But the sucky part really sucked. Went out for a Christmas dinner with some friends. The food was okay, but the conversation was quite nice. Afterwards we went over to Leanne's and had a few more drinks and talked some more. That whole part was fine. Then Carla and I went home. To my place. Which is really my parent's place. Carla started feeling really ill from all the smoke. I tried to cheer her up but she eventually retreated to the bathroom. She REALLY wasn't feeling well. While she was away Odie (a dog) trotted into my room and proceeded to loudly lick himself. I swear that dogs hips act as a sounding board or something because DAMN is his crotch loud! THEN, my parents started doing it. Yep.

I'm 28 years old, living at home, surrounded by crotch licking dogs and randy parents.

Needless to say, Carla and I went to her house. Her parents have the common decency to have really quiet sex.

Let's See

Lets' see how long I can keep this up for. Jerry just got home, and he's a'smokin'. My eyes hurt already, so I don't think this one will be that long. Which sucks cuz I was all ready to chat about the Last Samurai and Amores Perros. But too smokey!

Bunnies

I like bunnies. Where I work is in the middle of an open field, so there are always lots of rabbits around. They cheer me up with their fluffy white cuteness.

uh-huh

I worked for 24 hours during the last 48 hours, yet I found no time to post here. I had plenty of spare time, mind you, I just never posted. That seems to be a problem I have. I should get that looked at.

Saw Reign of Fire The Other Day

Slightly better than I was expecting, but my expectations were quite slight to begin with. The little touches were nice. The Star Wars play, the flaming drool, the attempt at shoe horning dragons into our history. But I didn't like the way that, half way through the movie Woody Harrelson comes along and says, "There's an Uber Dragon, if we kill it we kill 'em all." Or words to that effect, but gruffer. Just kind of comes out of left field. And, really, just one male dragon on the WHOLE PLANET? That just doesn't make sense. And how did humanity defeat such a formidable foe during the dark/middle ages? Or were they just myths then?, that wasn't all that clear.

The dragons looked really cool, though. Really nice looking Dragons.

Yep.

How's This For Irony?

This blog's spell checker doesn't recognize the word blog.

Good Googly Moogly

I am quite adept at doing nothing. I mean, how hard can it be to write in this blog during a nine hour shift containing maybe two hours of actual work? Yet I read magazines, surf the web, do all sorts of nothing. And I don't blog. I'm such a lame-o.

And I'm getting worse at video games. It's scary I met up with Kelly today and we played a fair bit of Mario Kart and I didn't beat him. I was lucky to tie him. What the fuck is up with that. And living with Seve just rubs my face in how much my skills have slid. It's a sad day when your baby brother beats you consistently.

Yerp

So I finished work at seven thirty in the AM. I thought I'd stop by the gym on the way home. I did. Not that great an idea. I didn't have a lot of energy left, which is slightly weird because I don't expend that much energy at work. You'd think I'd have lots left over. So I change and go out to my car, the locks are frozen. Not what I need before going to bed. The radio tells me that it's minus 21 with the wind chill out there. It also tells me that the shit it transmits is today's best music, so I don't put a lot of faith into it.

Long story short: D-icer is really good at de-icing locks.

Carla's new webpage title and discription made me laugh.

I was going to talk about Reign of Fire, but my arm is starting to hurt. Maybe later.

I've Been A Bad Boy

I haven't posted to my blog or gone to the gym for a few days now.

In my defense, I AM pretty lazy.

Can't Really Think of Anything

There's an episode of Angel on. There's all kinds of ballet going on.

I had a Dr. Peppr float.

Carla had lost all sorts of stuff, but then she found most of it. In the lost and found.

I still don't much care for sports editing.

The End.

Sports Editing

Is hectic. We get most of our footage from the Toronto Sports cast. It comes down at 10:30. Our show is at 11:00. SO I have aproximately NO TIME to get everything pulled. Yet somehow I do it. I am like unto a god.

I almost Forgot

I almost forgot to do my daily update, but then I didn't.

Phew!

Mike Bullard

Is not all that funny. He just isn't. There's gotta be a better Canadian talk show host out there.

Yeah...

That Home Movies show is kind of funny. In that odd kind of non laughing way.

You're Listening To The John Tesh Radio Show

I had thought of a couple things to write about, but I didn't write them down, so I've forgotten.

Here's a random thought: I think Nintendo's games could look better. It's like they're using the simple premisesisisisises of their games as an excuse for simple graphics. I'm kinda dissamapointed by the graphics in the latest Mario Kart. I'd go into more detail, but I'm tired and my contractually obligated entry for the day is done.

Fresh Claims May Not Be Applicable In All Areas

So there's this new KFC commercial out going on about how 2 KFC chicken breasts have less fat than 1 Whopper. There's a disclaimer at the bottom, of course. It reads (in part) "Not a low fat, low sodium, low cholesteral food."

Why even bother making a commercial about how healthy KFC is. We all know what the F stands for.

Yeah

I don't really have anything to say, but I'm trying to stick to this daily update thing. Hmmm... Hawksley Workman is better suited to the exchange. His Warehouse show was his least enjoyable. Still very enjoyable. That bastard puts on a hell of a show. Could have done without all the hysterical fat chicks who undulated grotesquely and stepped on my feet.

Yeah

I hate the media. I just saw a news story about the horrors of Grand Theft Auto. Let me quote the nice, trustworthy newslady, "Players must beat up prostitutes, run over pedestrians, and kill as many people as possible to get the highest score." God damn does that piss me off. Change one word and that would be a true statement. Must. MUST. There ain't no must about it. The game doesn't force you to beat up prostitutes, run over pedestrians and kill as many people as possible. That option is there. If you choose that option, you will most likely end up dead, but it IS an option. If she had said GTA is a game where players CAN beat up....." she would be right. As it stands, she is very much wrong. The story then went on to detail how popular the game is with young kids never once mentioning that it is rated M and is not meant to be played by children. Cuz that would be telling the whole story.

People suck.

Teeth

Thank god I have dental coverage. Not that there is anything wrong with them, they're just expensive things, teeths is.

Pussy Farts

Saw George Carlin this evening. Funny man, he is. Quite the potty mouth on him, too. And he has so much hate, for so many people. No wonder I enjoyed his act so much. The opening comedian, not so much. Obvious jokes delivered with not much panache.

More Grey Cup

And Sam Roberts was much better at the Pump then during half time. I was really saddened by how few people sang along with Sam and how many sang with Bryan Adams. Saddened, but not suprised.

Montreal Can Suck My Balls

So Carla won us some Grey Cup tickets yesterday. Yay her!! (the secret to winning things? Buying me stuff) So we went. It was, like, cerazy busy baby!! Our seats weren't that bad at all. Not as far up as I was expecting, and the wind was not a problem at all. I felt a little chilly through most of the game, but never really cold. The game itself was fine, the parts of it I saw. I left about five minutes before halftime to grab some hot food and drink and missed a lot of action. How much? When I went to get food, the score was 14 - nothing, when I finally got back it was 21 all. And there was still a minute left in the second quarter. Grrrr... And the food wasn't that good and the hot beverages were all sold out by the time I got my food!

And there were, suprise, a fair few annoying drunk people about. They were chanting today's title over and over and giving the finger to everyone around and throwing not quite empty beer cups at the television cameras.

All kinds of crap

Seen lots of movies, and musical acts and read books and proposed and stuff. I have plenty to talk about. But I don't remember most of it.

Soon

See, I was being ironic.

hey

It has been a while. And all sorts of stuff has been happening. Stuff that in theory I should be blogging about. And I will. Just not right now.

Soon.

Sunovubitch

I was listnening to the CBC on the way home from work and it was playing some really interesting music. Like Pink's vocals from 'Get This Party Started' on top of Bowie's 'Let's Dance'. It hurt my head to listen to it. In a good way. So I got home, ran upstairs and got my music playing device, brought it downstairs and started listening. Two minutes later, it broke. I went to the CBC website in hopes that they have live streaming webcasts. They do. I don't have the plug in for it. And I can't seem to find one that is for this stupid mac o' mine.

Sometimes life just gets really annoying.

Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino, genius director and writer, can't spell to save his fucking life.

Tarantinonstop

There was a Quentin Tarantino "festivel" at the Galaxy Cinemas today. All three of his movies back to back to back. This city ain't all that big, so when something cool like this happens, you have to support it. The films were sceened in reverse chronological order, first Jackie Brown, then Pulp Ficion, finishing with Resevoir Dogs. The fest started at three thirty and lasted till about twenty to twelve. Five bucks to see any one movie, ten bucks to see any two, thirteen to see all three. And if you went for all three, you got a free mini poster amd a free regular popcorn. Plus with every ticket, you got a lottery ticket, they drew for prizes before every show. Good deal, all in all. I talked to one of the managers during one of the intermissions and it sounds like this is going to be a quasi regular occurence. Cool beans.

The day didn't start out so cool. I muct have either slept in an extraordinrily uncomfortable position last night or had an extended body tensingly terrifying nightmare, because I woke up this morning the sorest I have ever been. Plus a little nauseous. I started to feel a little bit better during lunch with Carla (at the Normanview Gardens. Remarkably average. Not worth the trip). Carla is just good for me, that's a medically proven fact.

I didn't think I'd get to see Jackie Brown as my movie buddy Trev was working and my ride is busted. But Trev took off work early and we made it there just in time. If the movie had started on time. It didn't. We sat in the theatre for a good quarter of an hour before anything happened. Then it was time for some prize drawing. Up for grabs: Kill Bill Posters and free double passes to see Kill Bill next Thursday. We didn't win nothing. Fucky.

I liked Jackie Brown much better the second time around. Now that I knew not to expect Pulp Fiction I could appreciate it on its own merits. And it is a very meritous film. As are all of Tarantino's movies. Full of great music and perfect performances. Plus I love the way the man moves the camera. He has a distinct visual style (and a thing for trunks) that both pushes my buttons and pulls my levers. And of course the dialouge. Which is not to say that all of his films are the same. They share similarities, sure, but they're all very distinct. Different. Jackie Brown is adapted from a novel, for one (don't tell me about how Resevoir Dogs is an 'adaptation' of City on Fire. I've seen them both. They're very different movies. It's like saying Titanic stole from Speed 2). And JB is a much more mature film. Not that his other films were immature (Mr. Blue looks ancient), but JB is about characters in their fourties and beyond taking stock of their lives. Which sounds boring, but is actually captivating. Plus there's a caper near the end that is gone through thrice just so you can see all the angles. I really dug this film. Also, before the movie they showed a Kill Bill trailer plus trailerd that I imagine were attached to Jackie Brown when it actually played in theatres. I was reminded once again that I still need to see Good Will Hunting. And Ben Afflec appears to be the bomb in Phantoms, yo.

Pee break. Trev got his free popcorn and a refillable drink. We had to change theatres because they sold so many tickets for Pulp Fiction. Jackie Brown was pretty full too, a lot fuller than I was expecting. Our seats weren't as good, but I was sitting right next to cute Asian girls, so I weren't complaining. More prizes. I won tickets to Kill Bill. Luckily I booked next Thursday off of work for the express purpose of seeing that film.

Pulp Fiction was Pulp Fiction. Still amazing even after, or maybe because of, being subjected to countless Tarantino wannabees direction Pulp Fiction rip-offs. You can say Quentin ripped off City on Fire, but at least he did it well. People still gasp and giggle at all the fantastical goings on and violence and such. But I'll get back to that. Pulp Fiction is great.

Pee break. I got my free popcorn and a refill of pop.

The film print of Resevoir Dogs was pretty damn beat up. Ot was hard to see all of what was going on at times and almost inaudible at others. But still, this was the first time I've seen it on the big screen. It's held up. Hard to believe that it's been over ten years. Fuck I'm old.

But yeah, there was a lot of laughter from the audience in places where it shouldn't be. This happened throughout all three films. I suppose it was mainly deffensive laughter, but still. Kind of distracting.

Money well spent. In fact, if you factor in the free passes, I made money on this endeavour. I mis-spelled the fuck out of that word.

Hell No I Won't Slow Down, It's Gonna Go... Down!!!

I sure do like The Rock. I liked him when he was a wrestler, and I think he is now my favourite action star. Not of all time, or anything, he's just better than all the other options available. I mean, who is his competition? Segal and Van Damme are video buddies, Stallone is... I dunno what he's doing, but I'll bet you dimes to dames it ain't good, Schwartzeneger is off politiking. Ummm... who else? Jet Li keeps getting teemed up with rappers, and Jackie Chan's last outing was The Medallion. So, the field was pretty open. The Rock didn't have to do much to claim the crown. And claim it he did. The Rundown was the most fun I've had in film form in quite some time.

The plot was fairly flimsy: The Rock (Beck) has to fly to the Amazon and bring back Stiffler. Cristopher Walken tries to stop The Rock. You can't stop The Rock, can't stop the rock. Hilarity and violence follows. In fairly equal masure. This film has action scenes that make you laugh in disbelief. At least the audience I was with did, and the theatre was packed. I was scared at first, because the fight scenes were a little too quick cut and close up for my liking. Either the fight scenes got better as the film wore on or I just got used to them.

This is the kind of film where you want to talk about all the cool stuff that you liked but at the same time you don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. Alls I can really say then is that there was no part of the film that I didn't like. Well, maybe the ending felt a little off, but that's about it. Hell, this is the least annoying Stiffler has ever been. I even liked the monkies.

Go see it.

Holden McGroin

So I've been on hold for like ten minutes now. What the hell is going on down at the CBO? What hot new show has just been announced that would cause such a log jam of calls? Or maybe someone is taking an extended lunch break. I wish they would just be honest: We can't be bothered to answer the phone, please call back in like half an hour and maybe we'll talk to you then.

There. I've actually talked to a human being and got my tickets for Hawksley Workman for Oct. 8. I knew I'd get helped as soon as I started bitching/blogging.

So we saw Once Upon A Time In Mexico a few days ago. I haven't seen the last two movies recently, so this opinion may change, but I think OUATIM ranks third out of three. But, then again, it does have Johnny Depp.

Robert Rodriguez is an interesting film maker. And the "El" trilogy is a perfect example of why. The first, El Mariachi was made for like 12 bucks and some food stamps. It looked cheap, mainly because of the film stock, but it was full of energy and invention. Desperado was next, with a budget roughly a trillion times larger. It looked beautiful (due in no small part to Selma Hayek), but the action seemed familliar. Still good fun and enjoyable, but it was as if the extra time and money afforded Robert robbed him of some of his spark. Also, he kind of rejiggered his El mythos. In the first film, the main character, a mariachi, was mistaken for El. Desperado is about the real El, but he has memories of events from the first film. I think. It's been a while and it wasn't that clear to begin with. Which leads us to Once. Basically, it's like a marriage of the first two films. A decent sized budget, but shot on video. Rodriguez is now something of a video zealot. He loves the ease of use. You don't have to worry about lighting and blocking a shot. You just shoot. If you have something you want to try, you try it. Quick and dirty film making. But this is both good and bad. If you have nothing but cool ideas, with no thought of how to tie tham all together, you end up with chaos. Once is one step above chaos. Actually, with Once Upon A Time In Mexico, Robert Rodriguez reminds me of another Once helmer: Once Upon A Time In China's Tsui Hark. They both have tonnes of neat ideas, and neither of them care too much if they make much sense within the context of the movie. Once... Mexico has double and triple crosses, maniacs wrapped in bandages and stylish shoot outs out the wazoo. It works only because it works. I can't explain it. But the shoot outs are not the elegantly choreographed ones of Desperado, they're even more frenetic than the ones in El Mariachi. But they're not exactly easy to follow. They would have been much improved, I imagine, if Robert had taken the time to plan them out ahead of time. He could still also shoot whatever caught his fancy, but then he would be forced to think about how to fit it in with the rest of the fight and still have it flow. As is it plays out like: "Wouldn't it be cool if Antonio... and then... and then... and then a truck will run over these guys... and then... and then... so Cooooooooool... and then... kneecaps!!!

And I still don't think stuff shot on video and then converted looks as good as good ole film. Sure Episode 2 looked real good, but must of that wasn't shot so much as coded. There ain't much digital trickery in El Mariachi. And of the few instances where CGI Is used, it looks fake. Mainly bullets hitting flesh, which looks about as realistic as shooting that liquid metal T1000 only less so. But the kneecap thing was cool. So I mentioned Rodriguez mentioned lack of lighting set up as a plus? In this film it is more like a minus. This film is too damn dark. A whole lot of back lighting = a whole lot of obscured faces. This is a dark film, it made me sleepy. The one really bright scene looked like it was shot on video, so maybe that's why. And every once in a while, some quick shots had the unmistakable look of video. But I was looking. My movie going companions didn't mention anything so I guess it's not that noticeable.

Wow. That was a lot of words. I'm done for now.

Stuffs what i like

That Daily Show makes me laugh out loud on a consistent basis.

So sue me, I like wrestling. That Smackdown show last Thursday was one of the best I've seen in quite some time.

I forget everything else. That is all for now.

oops

I got distracted by a really crappy Chuck Norris movie.

Title Goes Here

The goal for today: finish my shinai.

The goal for this evening: finish my Buffy review for STUFFS and start my Wrestlemania XIX one.

Carla's parents took us out for a meal in honour of Carla's birthday. Carla chose Neo Japonica, Regina's only Japanese restaurant. It's award winning, donchaknow. It's been quite some time since I've been there. It's been even longer since they've changed the decor. The place is starting to look somewhat shabby. But the food is still good. I got the Japanese Roast Chicken, just to see how those wacky Nihon-jin roast their chickens. Would it be better than my award winning beer butt chicken? Yes. Yes it would. Man, them Japanese know their spices! The skin on the outside was nice and spicy, with some heat going on, but the meat on the inside was almost sweet. And it was so tender, I ate the thing with chopsticks. The succulent meat was nigh falling off the bone. One of the best roast chickens I've ever had.

Plus Carla really liked her gift, so, like, yay!

Regina actually has more than one Japanese restaurant. It has two. More if you count all those little food court dealies.

My Weekend, as if you care

I had a nice weekend away from this stupid blog. I didn't make it to kendo, but I did make two chickens. The kind that you rub with spices and then put on the barbeque over low heat with a can of beer shoved up its ass. They took longer to cook than expected but still tasted pretty damn good in my opinion. Carla didn't agree, but then she's crazy. Who cares if the chickens were in honour of her birthday!

I'm sure there was other crap I was going to write about, but it's late and I'm tired. Oh yeah, I actually did something almost productive: I wrote a review for Stuffs and jotted down notes for another.

Lets see how long it takes for it to get posted.

My Computer Sucks.

It really, really does. I can't seem to do anything without it freezing up. And then, when it freezes up, I follow the instructions in the manual for forcing the computer to restart. But it doesn't force the computer to restart, it just opens up a command window that I cannot close. I eventually end up unplugging the fucking thing. That's happened to me three times this evening. An evening where I was planning on doing some actual writing. Fuck. I could have been playing video games.

And the mouse sucks ass too.

Carla's Birthday

I should really figure out what to get her.

Today

I went out for lunch with my dad today. Had all you can eat ribs. I ate all I could. I'm still full. And I feel fat.

A tale of souls and swords eternally retold

Stupid Soulc Calibur 2! I've been playing it for the last few hours instead of doing important stuff. Like surfing the web. Or this. Plus I HAVE to wake up on time tomorrow so's I kin hab lunch mit me pa.

I had lunch with Carla today. I fine time was had by all. I sure do like that Carla. Yup.

I should get to bed.

Not Much To Say

Other than I like that Firefly show very much a lot. Joss Whedon is a television God. But I ain't as crazy about any of the films he's written.

Really, that's about it. Other than Mat Ruff is a literary God!

Movies I Done Seen

Just last night Carla and I watched Dog Soldiers. Pretty nifty, but I have a soft spot for such films. Low budget horror films that is. Cuz that's the kind of film I want to make. Considering the budget, this was a very nice looking little film. The werewolves were obviously men in suits, but I have yet to see a werewolf in a film that didn't look like a man in a suit. Except for that one about that American in London. That one looked like a big dog. The Heads of the wolves were quite well done, and that's the most important part. They're never onscreen for all that long anyway. They get the job done is what I'm trying to say. And they're not CGI, which is a plus in my books. Not that CGI always looks bad, but low budget CGI is usually not the way to go. Especially when it comes to hair or fur.

But enough about the werewolves, they're not the focus of the movie. "The werewolves aren't the focus of a werewolf movie?� I hear you ask incredulously (and by you I mean no one). That's right, the real focus of the movie is the soldiers. The way they interact with each other, the way they react to the situation they're in: THAT"S the focus of this movie. And that's why this movie works. All the actors do a fine job. They come across like soldiers and like friends. I can't remember any of the actors' names off hand, but I liked them all. Cooper, Welles and Spoon in particular (even though Spoon is so named that in service of a fairly lame bit that nonetheless made me laugh). Spoon going Coo Coo crazy apeshit bananas on a wolf with a frying pan (Spoon had the pan, not the wolf. Although... the only thing more terrifying than a werewolf... is a werewolf... with a FRYING PAN!!! The only thing more terrifying than a werewolf with a frying pan... is an overlong parenthetical aside... with too many ellipses!!!)

The script is... okay. As a low budget flick, it wisely confines the bulk of the action to one main location. I don't know how to cleverly segue into the other thoughts I have about the script so the rest of this paragraph is going to be somewhat non-flowy. The surprise twist near the end is kinda lame and nonsensical. The bit right near the end, after the big kablooie was shot too dark and too close, so I'm not exactly sure what happened. Actually, those two points are about the only bad things I have to say about the script. Otherwise, it's pretty good. The characters don't do stupid things. Well, they do, but for non-stupid reasons. They act and react like normal people might, if put in the same situation. Oh yeah, one other slightly negative point: the film jumps around a lot, time-wise, near the beginning. Not that it's hard to follow; it's just kind of distracting. It settles down fairly quickly, so no biggie.

As I mentioned, bits of the film were too dark. Or shot too close. In addition, some of the editing (usually during the dark and tight portions of the movie), makes the action hard to follow. I don't know if these were stylistic choices or due to the tight budget, all I know is I asked, "What just happened?" on more than one occasion.

Still, all in all, I recommend Dog soldiers.

Best in Show = funny.

See? I can be succinct when I want to be. Also, I dig that Eugene Levy.

The Streetfighter. I'm not sure if there is a 'The' in the title, but I write it that way in the attempt to differentiate it from that Van Crap movie. I'm talking about the Sony Chiba 1974 classic. Hell yeah. I picked this bad boy up for five dollars, having never seen it, and it was SO worth the money. The music, the nonsensical plot, the dubbing, the makeup, the fights, the gore; these all add up to make one kick ass movie! Ass kickingest of all is Sony Chiba as Terry Tsurugi. He is the original bad motherfucker. He beats up chicks, forces himself on them and sometimes sells them into prostitution. He beats the shit out of anyone who even THINKS about getting in his way. He has no qualms about gouging people's eyes out or ripping out their throats. Sometimes, just for kicks, he'll rip their dicks off. Yeah, that's right, their dicks. And in between all this brutality he makes really weird faces and emits odd, odd noises. He's like Bruce Lee on crack. There is so much good stuff in this flick; I can't urge you enough to check it out.

On With the Show...

Kendo hurts. Not in the way you might expect. Not in an "Ow! I just got hit in the head with bamboo!" kind of way, but in a "My knees are shot!" kind of way. Kendo, you see requires that you keep your feet straight at all times. That ani't natural. Try walking around whilst keeping both feet pointing perfectly straight ahead. It ain't that easy. My whole left leg region is unhappy.

But I am enjoying the kendo class none the less. There's just something inately satifying about hitting things with a sword.

And Another Thing

Another reason why I feel the need to post more often is because Carla, my girlfriend, has been posting more than me. That emasculinates me somehow. Well that all ends now!

I Just Don't Know

I can't decide how I want my posts to work. Should they Should the most recent post be first? Or should it be last? One would think that the new stuff should go first, but I reference stuff all the time. Whatever. No one reads this shit anyhow.

Here Begins a Noble and Grand Experiment

I'm going to try to post to this stupid thing daily. A novel approach to blogging, I know. I've always said (or, more acurately, whined) that I just need to get into the habit of writing on a daily basis. Hopefully this stupid blog will do the trick.

Why do I need to get into the habit of writing on a daily basis? Cuz, depending on what day you ask me, I'm a writer. I've got all sorts of crap in me that needs to get out. None of it will make it onto this page of course, but that is not the point. The point is this: cheese is furry.

Holy Shit I Just Bashed the Shit Out of My Knee

It really, really hurts!

I have Not Brought My Specs With Me.

My eyes ache and I'm having a fuck of a time staying awake and there's still three hours left on my shift.

Just thought you should know.

Relax, You're Two Tents

So I had this dream the other night...

I was trimming my pubic hair, and somehow cut off the back part of my ball sack. I could see my testicles. They were grey and wrinkly.

The thrill of the unknown

The previous post is predicated on the assumption that the blogger's identity is a known quantity. I just realized that I haven't really mentioned my name yet.

Hello. My name is Herve Butswanna Kakakadu. I loves me the sex.

Pondering the Blog

This must be one of the most self-aware blog out there. I mean, can I WRITE a post that doesn't refer to the act of blogging? Could I BE any more annoying? As a side effect, I think way too much about blogging. Way too much meaning a couple minutes a day. What exactly is the line when it comes to pesonal stuff. I mean there's a good chance someone I'm related to might read this stupid thing. I don't exactly want kindly old Aunt Mabel reading about how I railed my girlfriend for four hours yesterday. How I ate her out until my jaw ached. I think that kind of thing is crossing the line. But that's just me. There are others, I've read them, that post in graphic detail. They probably get off on relating their sexual escapades. As they're laying there, fucking or being fucked, they probably can't wait till it's over and they can blab all about it. The thought of blogging about the sex that they are having (that word never looks right to me. I always want to add an e) probably gets them that much more excited. There are some sick people out there. I wish i knew some of them. I hear they're easy.

Me? I just want some sex.

If my mom is reading this, by "sex" I mean a new TV. I just want some a new TV.

yep

I do not lead a life exciting enough to warrant regular wed-based updates. Nor am I conceited enough to think otherwise. But I feel like I'm a lazy jerk if I don't post to this stupid thing.

So...

I'm now enrolled in kendo lessons. I taped a new show with Kelly for Stuffsradio, it should be up some time soon. Also wrote a review for the site. Saw the Weakerthans at the State. They were good. But the acoustics weren't the best and I was fairly hosed, so keep that in mind. That is all.

Wedding without the delightful contrast of a funeral

The wedding was good. The drive wasn't so bad, except for the strange odours emitted by the middle aged ladies in the van, and the strange noises they emitted whenever they heard an oldie they liked on the radio. Apparently, they've never met an oldie they didn't like.
We stopped off in Lethbridge on Friday night, because the delightful Jane and Bob offered to let us stay at their house. They have a very nice house, with a very nice chair. I'd go into specifics, but I don't want to sound gay. "Oooooohhhh!" You say angrily, "Why do you perpetuate such hurtful stereo types?" First of all, I respond, while gays being good at home decorating is in fact a stereo type, I wouldn't call it hurtful. Gays like to attack kindly old ladies with rusty cheese graters, now THAT'S a hurtful stereo type. Secondly, I continue, in a world where that Queer Eye For A Straight Guy is so successful, how dare you bitch at me. There are larger fish to fry. Alls I knows is I wants me a nice long chair when I gits me own place.
We didn't get up to much on Friday night. Just enjoyed the travel bar. I also need a travel bar. It's a big hit at small, out of province gatherings. Saturday, we drove out to Pincher Creek for the big wedding. Had a decent lunch and met up with a lot of relations I haven't seen in a while. Gatherings like me are always fun, but they always remind me how un-good I am at makeing small talk. I was a fairly anti-social teen, so now the onus is on me to initiate conversations cuz my relations now assume I just don't want to talk. Damn me and my stupid teen years!
I sure do like casual weddings. The ones you can wear sandles to. It was an outdoor affair. And it was a wonderful day for a wedding. Hot, clear skies, with a bit of a breeze. And no smoke, which was both a suprise and a delight, seeing as a good portion of Alberta a still burning away. Still, it was on a farm type thing, so my asthma and allergies were getting a fair bit of a workout. The Service was nice and short, the whole wedding party looked great and a fine time was had by all.
We then retired indoors for the reception. The BarBQ dinner was awesome. The Bar ran out of Ceasars way too fast. And there wasn'r nearly as much country music played as I would have thought.
Wow. I'm really pratling on about stuff no one cares about, aren't I? Even though that is the whole point of a blog, I'ma going to cut this short. I'm starting to annoy myself. A fine time was had by all. There was a lot of drinking and eating and superficial socializing. The Riders lost. And I forgot my raincoats so I couldn't do the hibbity dibbity even though My girlfriend and I ended up with our own room