More Festevaluation

Day two was a much more subdued affair. very mellow. so low key i don't think imma gonna capitalize anymore. the great lake swimmers were very nice, full of wistful, lovely songs n such. as were most of the other acts of the night. the standout f the evening was Suzanne Vega. She gets capitalized, cuz she deserves it damnit! Such a great voice, full of cute and sweet and sad all at the same time, and she writes songs that serve her voice well.

There one big problem with this evenings line up was the host. I forget her name and am glad of it. Who the fuck can render the do do doo do do do doo do part of Tom's Diner unrecognizable? I thought it impossible. Bitchtard proved me wrong. Any time she approached the mic, I started feeling all punchy.

Folk Fest

The39th Annual Regina Folk Festival is going on right now. in years past, we had just bummed around outside, listening to the music for free. Cuz I was a young punk kid. But now I feel motivated to spend money to support stuff I like. And I liked every single artist onstage last night. The Weakerthans, Final Fantasy, Broken Social Scene, plus some lovely local bands like Library Voices and Polymath. And the crowd was great. Not too rowdy, not too pushy, but not too small either. It was just right.

Bits of Blog

So I went to the Exhibition this past weekend. As always, I went mainly for the food. But this time I did not partake of any of the old favourites. No Mr. Souvlaki, no little donuts, no corndogs, no brats covered in onions and peppers. Nope. Too much new stuff. New stuff like deep fried Coke. It tasted like deep fried Coke. And the deep fried Oreos tasted like deep fried Oreos. Those names are pretty self explanatory.

Hot Beef Sundae and Taco in a Bag need some explaining. The delicious Hot Beef Sundae consists of two buttery scoops of buttery mashed potatoes covered in melt in your mouth barbequed beef smothered and covered in barbeque sauce, said sauce sprinkled with grated cheese and topped with a cherry tomato. So good. Delicious as all hell. Only sligtly less delicious was the Taco in a Bag.

Take a bag of Doritos, crush it all up and then cut open the side of the bag. Throw some ground beef, some salsa, some sour cream and some shredded lettuce into the bag. Do all that and you have yourself a Taco in a Bag.

The food at the Ex was fantastic, as was the entertainment. And I'm not talking about the dog show, although that was nice.

I'm talking about Weird Al.

Go ahead and laugh, but that spastic bastard puts on a hell of a show. Multimedia as all get out. Video clips and skits in between the songs. The videos served two purposes: they were funny and they gave Al and his band time to change costumes. There were a lot of costume changes.

The guy played for two hours and then came back for another half hour encore. I was impressed.

I was not as impressed with Hellboy 2. I cannot believe that people are saying it is better than the original. The effects are better, the creatures are amazing, the action is great, but it all added up to less than the sum of its parts. The creatures were cool looking for the sake of being cool looking. Or maybe it was to show how vibrant the other world (the world mankind is greedily destroying) is. But it didn't seem all that vibrant. It seemed ugly. The whole movie seemed ugly. It was a nice looking ugly, but still ugly. And Hellboy seemed less likeable. Everyone did. Blurg.

Movies

It is just like me to start blogging to bitch. I bitched about my broken finger. But what really made me want to blog, before my still twisted finger, was Wall E. But I didn't. I couldn't. I can't. I can bitch. That is easy. But to properly praise such a glorious film? My ironic slacker vocabulary is not equipped to deal with that. All I can say is that it is a truly lovely film. The film is suffused with love and the longing that goes hand in hand with it.

I was going to say that I haven't really seen a disappointing film yet this year, but then I remembered the latest Indy. But for everything wrong in Indy, there was something right in Get Smart. Get Smart was so much more enjoyable than that Crystal Skull flick. The funny parts were actually funny. The action looked real. And the funny and the action were mixed together nicely. It was a good time. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.

I feel like I should write more about all these films, but that would just be me wasting words. New Indy - why? Get Smart - surprisingly good. Wall E - God Damn Wonderful.

My finger

So I broke my finger round about a week ago.  Almost exactly a week ago.  Spooky.  The middle finger on my right hand.  One bone in that finger in a couple places.  It looked gross.  Still does.  I don't think the doctor who fixed my finger actually fixed it.  So I got my family doctor to look at it, to make sure that everything was A OK.

He said everything was A OK.  But he didn't look at my finger.  He X-rayed my finger (said the lady who took my finger X-ray, "That doesn't look right.") and looked at the X-ray.  He said the X-ray looked good.  That may be.  But my finger looks like shit.  Feels like shit too.  Not that it hurts, oh no.  But when I lay my fingers flat on a table, my middle finger feels WAY off.  Only half of the pad, half of my fingertip comes in contact with the table.

I don't care if my X-ray looks good.  I do care if my finger will work right at the end of all this.  And I don't think it will.  I'm kinda pissed off right now.

Uni Qlo

Yeah, there are scads of things I am going to miss about Japan.

But not scat. Won't miss that.

I will miss the commercials. Most are crazy, some are cute and then there is my new favourite commercial.

It is for Uni Qlo.

It starts with a topless lady walking into a room. The lady's shapely back is to the camera as she strides across the modern looking room (all white and bright). She picks a piece of clothing off of a chair in the middle of the room and steps into it. She fixes the straps on her shoulders and then turns around. It is a camisole type of thing, with the bra built in.

The commercial ends with the lady bouncing down the street, all happy like.



I spend all this time trying to describe the stupid commercial when i realize that I could just show it to you. You're welcome. And...

Yeah.  I miss the crap out of Japan sometimes.

Groverfield

That would have been awesome! A giant muppet tearing shit up in New York? Sign me up!

Cloverfield was not as cool as that. It was still enjoyable. It was indeed a cross between Godzilla and The Blair Witch Project. I didn't really have a problem with the Godzilla side of the equation. The monster was freaky looking and did a fair bit of damage. And seeing it from a civilian's perspective really did add to the impact. If I had cared more about the civilians, that would have been nice. None of them were horrible, but I only found one engaging. And the way she went out was awesome. I know they were going for realism, for believable dialog. But believable is not a synonym for boring.

And if they were going for a realistic/natural feel, the film makers should not have made the plot points so obvious.

I had no problem with the shaky camera work, but I had a problem with the editing. So they are running from the monster: fine. The camera is shaky: fine. Hud(the cameraman with the stupid name) somehow stops recording and then starts recording whilst running? No. Fuck that. Maybe he accidentally did it, but it just struck me as obvious editing.

And the sound. If you are going to get out of the boat, get out all the way. Shit or get off the pot. The mic should have been cutting out during the firefights. There is no way that the mic would have picked up a message playing on a cell phone held up to someone's ear, aforementioned someone standing in the middle of an electronics store that is being looted. And so on.

And (and) I can deal with the fact that the protagonists keep crossing paths with the monster, that is fine. But their final encounter with the Monster just rubbed me wrong? They didn't notice it was standing behind them? Can it be really quiet when it wants to? Is it a ninja?

But that final monster encounter led to my favourite shot of the whole movie, the shot that made the whole concept worth it. The auto focus couldn't figure out what to focus on. Loved that bit.

Didn't love the movie. But I liked it.

Hells Yeah

Just the other day I posted about how Wii Fit didn't think I would loose any weight. Well, I just now broke through my revised target weight. Wii Fit seemed quite surprised. Suck it, Wii Fit, suck it down!

It Figures

Every time I try to motivate myself to blog here more often, it always has the opposite effect.
Plus, I was supposed to be talking about my Wii Fit-ing and I kinda slacked off on that for a bit. But not no more. I've been averaging about 5 days a week, and that is pretty good. For me. And I've been loosing weight. Wii Fit told me there was no way I was going to be able to loose the amount of weight I wanted in the amount of time I wanted. So I changed my goals slightly. I changed it to 2 kilos in two months. I've been working away at that goal for 2 weeks now and I have half a kilo to go.

In your face Wii Fit!

It Ain't Gonna Happen

I can feel the negativity, man. I can feel me trying to bring myself down. It ain't gonna happen. I'm not going to let that happen.

So lazy

Too lazy eve to capitalize that lazy up there in the title.

So when you weigh yourself in Wii Fit, you give yourself a stamp for that day. But only if you weigh yourself. If all you do is workout, but don't weigh yourself, you get no stamp. If you were to look at my stamps you would think that I am even lazier than I actually am.

I am so lazy. I've had Wii Fit since January but I've only played it for like 12 hours. I've had Smash Brothers for three weeks and I've put in triple the time on it.

After the ten hour mark my little time keeper buddy changed colour. He is now bronzed.

Too lazy for witty segues or any sort of closing remarks.

Lazy Bones

I didn't Wii Fit at all this week, but I'll be damned if I slack off on the posting as well.

Maybe I Wii fitted once. I haven't weighed myself since last time, of that I am sure.

The main reason for all of this is the new Smash Brothers game. It just got released. And I am HOOKED.

I'll try harder this week, I swear!

Wii Fit/Me Fat

I'm once again trying to be more regular in me posts to this here corner of the blogosphere. Yeah, I hate that word too. I figure one way to make sure I update at least once a week is if I have something to report on on a weekly basis. Say, for example, I was trying to loose weight. Which I am. But I'm not so crazy as to join a gym or anything nutty like that. Heavens no. Instead, I am trying to Wii Fit every day for at least 30 minutes a day. I haven't been so great at the daily thing, but I haven't been all that bad either.

Making yoga and exercise into a videogame seems to work for me. Not that I've lost all that much weight.

I started this grand experiment on the seventh of this month. At that time I weighed about 84.4 kilos and had a BMI of 24.6. (I don't know what that means either). Today I weigh 83.1 kilos and have a BMI of 24.3. considering a person's weight can vary by a kilo a day, that isn't all that promising. But I do feel better. The stretching every day might be helping my back. And I seem to have more energy. But I'm more cranky.

Yay! What a great first Wii Fit post. hopefully I won't just post my weight and such each week. I hope I'll ramble on about other things since I'm typing anyways. That's the theory. We'll see how she goes.

I Don't Want To Be That Guy

Was out drinking with Carla and David and Fernanda last night. Over there at Captain Kangaroo's. The table next to us was filled with older white dudes. And by older I mean they could very well be the same age as me. But they were fatter and wrinklier. And all their efforts at talking with the girls at the bar met with failure.

I don't wanna be that guy.

Love Hotel

Here is a guided tour of our awesome love hotel room in Tokyo.

Grindhoused

For one whole week, one whole movie theatre devoted one whole screen to showing the 'American' version of Grindhouse. I was all over that like mutated rednecks on a stripper's leg.

I'm glad I saw it in the way the directors intended and I'm also looking forward to seeing them separately. Oh hells yeah, I'm seeing them again.

I'm also glad I saw them when I did and with whom I did. A bunch of geeky gaijins and some squeamish Japanese ladies. The fellas all laughed and hooted and hollered at all the same spots and the girls really squirmed. I felt bad for them. especially since I was the one who suggested the movie in the first place. But that didn't stop me from bursting into applause at the end of Death Proof.

And I wasn't the only one. I've never seen or even heard about a Japanese audience applauding and cheering at the end of a movie. So that was cool.

Know what else was cool? Everything.

Yeah, this was totally my kind of movie.

Although there don't seem to be any strippers who actually get naked in Rodriguez's universe. Small quibble.

The only other quibble I have is that the 'ladies' from the first half of Death Proof are way less engaging than those from the second half. Seriously. I found them kind of annoying. In no way deserving of what fate befell them, but maybe not worthy of all that screen time.

That's it. Thems is all the nits I have to pick.

It sucks that it didn't do so shit hot at the cinemas, but I hope they don't abandon this idea. In fact, since Grindhouse was inspired by the 70's, why not make a direct to video spiritual sequel inspired by the direct to video shlock that started popping up in the 80's?

I want to talk more about the films, I want to gush like that guy's black tongue, but it would just be a bunch of exclamation marks and OMGs. I dug it, and people who think that they might dig it will most probably dig it and I would never in a million years let my mom watch it.

Grindhouse

is finally coming here. But not as Grindhouse. It's being released as two films. Nearly a month apart from each other. Death Proof first.

I'm happy that I actually get to see it but sad that it won't be in the original format.

Also, Japanese people do the above a lot. They start typing out a sentence in their subject line and then just continue the sentence in the body of the email or txt message. It takes some getting used to.

The Only Way This Vacation Could Get Off To A Worse Start is if it Starred Chevy Chase

So I woke up this morning not to the alarm clock, but to Carla telling me to shut off the alarm clock. Poor girl, I didn't hear it at all. Next I awoke to the sound of the garbage truck. It was too late for me to get or garbage out in time. Next I awoke to an unpleasant feeling in my bowels. I dashed into the bathroom and spent the next ten minutes making sure no more hot chocolate soup was going to fly out my anus.

Welcome to my summer holidays.

Woot.

Some Kind of Pun Relating to the Movie and Its Relative Merits

Transformers was a pretty movie. All of Michael Bay's movies have looked nice (I assume. I haven't watched most of them. The trailers looked pretty. And retarded), but in this one, the cameras stayed still and the edits were spaced out so that you could actually appreciate the prettiness. Still no continuity once the action started, but I think that's just the way Mike likes it. That's just about it for the nice things I'm gonna mention.

There's an old saying, "An action movie is only as good as it's villain." That's not totally true, but it's a lot closer to right than to wrong. And that is one of the many reasons why Transformers is not very good.

Shut up, internet, it just isn't.

Megatron spends the bulk of the movie in a block of ice and then rips an ebonics speaking moron robot in half and then gets killed by an actor whose name translates into 'the beef'. That ain't much of a villain. Oh yeah, he also screams about hating all of humankind. Spooky stuff, eh kids?

His heroic opposition is Optimus Prime. Prime's actions play out thusly: he crashes into our planet, gets a rad flamey paint job, says a bunch of phony hollow bullshit, cuts the head off a dump truck (that part was kind of cool), gets the shit beat out of him, tries to sacrifice himself honorably and fails. Woot.

Not all the robots were handled so poorly. The opening with the helicopter was pretty sweet. Stuff blew up real good, there was a sense of menace. But it shows just how poorly Megatron is introduced.

Bumblebee, despite being involved in all the lame comedy, was pretty alright as well.

Notice how I singled out the two characters who spoke the least? Don't think that's an accident.

Nothing that comes out of anyone's mouths is any good. Anything that comes out of the humans' mouth is retarded and anything that comes out of the robots' mouth is inane.

Megatron hates humanity for no real reason other than he's the bad guy, and I can accept that. Bad guys are just born bad sometimes. But Optimus Prime loves humanity. He's been on earth for like three days and he's willing to sacrifice his Spark for us. Why? If he learned all there was to learn about humanity via the internet, as he stated, he would have nuked the planet from orbit.

I should have said pwned. Optimus would have pwned the planet from orbit.

There were other robots in the movie but I don't really know why. There was that medic who couldn't fix anything, the Autobot who got torn in half, the dump truck who got his head cut off, the jet and the police car.

Man. Starscream was pretty awesome in the cartoons. He was devious, always plotting to overthrow Megatron. I can't even recall if they had a scene together.

I saw the movie two days ago and I can't remember it. And that's not really a bad thing.

Anything to do with the internet was head breaking. I could hear Carla's eyes rolling.

The action was cool, if a little hard to follow sometimes. The Beef is charismatic. Navel McTits reminded me of Jennifer Connelly, and that ain't ever a bad thing. Plus it had Optimus' voice! I was so happy to hear that voice come out of that blue and red robot. Then I heard the words he was saying. And despaired.

I know that this is a summer movie based on an old cartoon that was nothing more than a commercial for toys, but they really could've done a better job.

That Rat Movie

As I mentioned before, I found it much easier to identify with a talking rat than with a talking car. But there were moments in the film that broke that connection between me and the rat. As soon as there were multiple rats on the screen, I would get freaked out. Masses of rats are gross, they make me shudder. I don't know if Brad Bird did that on purpose or not.