The Eighth Wonder Of The World

Finally a movie that lives up to the hype. "King Kong" is fucking amazing. Action, adventure, romance. A monster movie with heart and soul and a really, really big budget. Peter Jackson should just be given truckloads of cash and allowed to make whatever movie he wants at this point. (Everyone repeat after me, "The Hobbit," "The Hobbit," "The Hobbit.") You guys all know me. I don't cry at movies. I got through "E.T." and "Steel Magnolias" and all those chick-flicks designed to make girls all weepy and whatever and I never shed a tear. No, apparently it takes a special FX giant ape to get me all teary-eyed. This is really a great film. It's worth seeing just to watch the fight scene between Kong and the T-Rexes, but there's so much more to this movie than just action sequences. It definitely doesn't feel like a 3+ hour film. You all know what this movie is about. I don't have to tell you the plot. The cast is great. From Naomi Watts, to Colin Hanks, to a very subdued Jack Black, but this movie is all about the monkey, and the monkey delivers. I'd say Kong is unbelievable, but that's not the case. He's totally believable. Like the "Jurassic Park" dinosaurs that came before him, you just know that he actually exists out there. Peter Jackson convinced us that Middle Earth is a real place and now you just know that he went out and really found Skull Island and brought Kong to us. Thank you for that Peter. All I have to say is, go see it. Go see it. Go see it.

"If you really loved it, you would have jumped." -- Jack Black - "King Kong"

Day Five

On the fifth day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
A Five-picture deal...
Four botox injections,
Three pilot auditions,
Two Sundance passes,
And an agent at a major agency.

Dear Ms Scrooge...

It was pointed out to me that my quote from last night was not particularly cheery. Mea Culpa. I didn't mean anything by it and didn't mean to trample on everyone else's holiday spirits. I just liked the quote. I for once am sans men problems. I have decided I'm happy how I am right now. I haven't given up the quest to find the right guy; I'm just taking a break from it until further notice. In fact, I'm thinkin' of asking Santa for a pretty boy for Christmakah. Ho. Ho. Ho ;)

Day Four

On the fourth day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Four botox injections,
Three pilot auditions,
Two Sundance passes,
And an agent at a major agency.

I've Got Your Candy Cane

Today sucked. I don't want to talk about it. I'm going to pretend it didn't happen. Wednesday was better. Let's talk about that. Sometimes even guys can surprise you. My absolute favorite Texan came by the store. He brought me a Christmas card and two Christmas CDs that he burned for me. They're great. He picked my favorite versions of a lot of songs. I had fruitlessly been trying to download some songs to put together a Holiday playlist for my iPod and I hadn't been having much luck. I couldn't find a lot of the songs I was looking for and it was really starting to piss me off. So he saved me hours and hours of frustration. It was very sweet of him. He also gave the CDs cute titles. (See blog title above ;) Yesterday I also found out that I officially got the photo gig I mentioned a couple weeks back. I'm headed to Seattle in March as the official photographer for the Ronald McDonald House/Microsoft Hockey Challenge. Woo Hoo! I'm pretty psyched about it and it should be a lot of fun. Two days of hockey, hockey, hockey. It also justifies the new digital camera I'm buying myself for Christmas now ;) Friday night is my company Christmas party. We're going to a swanky Italian restaurant so that should be fun. Then for the weekend I plan to go to a movie theatre and watch as many movies as I can. Not very exciting for most of you out there I'm sure, but I think it sounds like a perfect way to spend a day (or two). Nothing else to report. I just felt the urge to write something (aside from my developing Christmas carol), but now I feel the urge to sleep, so it's off to bed for this little girl. Just need to write this day off and start over tomorrow... Happy thing for today is TNI. I miss him terribly, but just hearing his voice helped to make my day seem less horrific...

"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love." -- Neil Gaiman

Day Three

On the third day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Three pilot auditions,
Two Sundance passes,
And an agent at a major agency.

Day Two

On the second day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me
Two Sundance passes,
And an agent at a major agency.

Day One

Ok, as promised here is Day One of my rendition of "The 13 Days of Christmas" (LA-Style)...

On the first day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
An agent at a major agency.

LA Days of Christmas

We do things a little differently out here in the City of Angels so I figure that should go for Christmas carols as well. So starting tomorrow I'm going to regale the Blogverse with "The 13 Days of Christmas." Call it Christmas Hollywood style. Yes, I know that normally the Twelve Days of Christmas start with Christmas Day and finish with the eve of Epiphany on 5th January, but like I said before, we do things a little differently out here in left field :)

"The holiest of all holidays are those kept by ourselves in silence and apart; the secret anniversaries of the heart." -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Memoirs Of Another Kind

Days like today are one of the reasons I moved back to California. Here it is, the middle of fucking December, and it was 70+ degrees and sunny and beautiful. There was no smog, just big puffy white clouds in a clear, blue sky. That's definitely my happy thing for today... On the movie front, I only got one seen. I was wide awake at like 8:00 this AM and so I got up and went and caught the early showing of "Memoirs of a Geisha." That's another great thing about LA. Weekend matinee shows start at like 10AM. If I time it right I could conceivably get 4 or even 5 movies seen in day. Today was not that day though. It was too nice to spend indoors, but Geisha was a must-see on my list. I was not wrong. It's a truly remarkable film. Spielberg planned for years to direct this movie and it may prove to be an unwise decision on his part that he never got around to making it. I think it will be the biggest competition that his film, "Munich" has come Oscar time. It's beautifully shot and the cast is amazing. I never read the book, but the story is great. It's all about sacrifice and loss and what lengths people will go to to attain what they love. Ziyi Zhang is one of my favorite actors out there and she was perfect for this role. Yes, I know she is Chinese and not Japanese and that has a lot of people up in arms over her casting, but fuck them. She's awesome and she was born to play this part. The rest of the cast is equally as good. Everything really falls into place in this movie, from costume design, to music, to make up and cinematography. Expect to see this one on a lot of "best of" lists at the end of the year. It should bring home a slew of award nominations as well. Is it the best picture of the year? I don't know. So far, I'd have to call it the front runner, but with "Munich," "Brokeback Mountain," and "King Kong" still on the horizion, the competition may still heat up.

"We create another secret world, a place only of beauty. The very word 'geisha' means artist and to be a geisha is to be judged as a moving work of art." -- Michelle Yeoh - "Memoirs of a
Geisha"

Just A Little Off

I've been a little outta whack the past 2 days. It started on Friday morning. I rolled over and looked at the clock. (Let me mention that it was the analog clock on the wall, not my digital one. That makes me look slightly less stupid.) I saw it reading 7:15 and although I normally don't get up until 7:45 or 8:00, I was wide awake, so I got up. I checked my e-mail and downloaded some stuff from iTunes. Then I logged into EQ to see if I'd sold anything. Basically I just fucked around for 45 minutes. So at 8:00 I turned on KTLA to see what weather and traffic were looking like and was briefly puzzled as to why they were signing off. Then the little light went on and I looked at the digital clock on my dresser. It sat there all blue and glowy and reading 9:13. (I set my clock ahead 13 minutes. It's just a thing I do. Don't ask.) So there I was, not dressed, no makeup, not remotely ready for work and it was 9AM. The time I'm normally walking out the door. I had gotten up at 8:15, not 7:15. Dammit. So I threw on some clothes, slapped on some makeup and ran out the door. Blissfully there was no traffic, which for a Friday is something of a miracle and from the reports on the radio, I was the only one who hit no traffic jams. The 10 and the 110 were particularly hideous apparently. Still, my whole day was just a little "off" and it has continued into today. I have written on my calendar that I'm supposed to get my hair cut next Saturday at 1:00. Cool. Except that apparently my appointment was for today and not next week. Fortunately my hairdresser had another client cancel this morning and so she called me to see if I wanted to come in earlier. So I did, but that totally fucked up my plan to go into the city and see "Memoirs of a Geisha" this afternoon. Ok fine. I figured I'd go see "Syriana" at a theatre near my house instead. No such luck. I missed the showtime at one of them by 15 minutes and the other theatre was sold out. So no movie for this girl today. I'm going to try and get both seen tomorrow instead. If I do, I could conceivably get 5 movies seen in like a week and 1/2, which is more than I've seen in the last 2 months. I saw "Narnia" last Wednesday. I plan to do "Geisha" and "Syriana" tomorrow. Then some friends and I are talking "King Kong" on Wednesday. Lastly Steven Spielberg is hosting a screening of "Munich" on the 20th that S-boy has said he can get me into. Nifty. I love the holiday movie season, but it's a bitch trying to get everything seen. Speaking of S-boy, I had a really bizarre conversation with him on Thursday. He and I have got to stop drinking margaritas together. Every time we do, it turns into some kind of fucked up truth-or-dare session. I was bitching about the guy who blew me off for the Narnia screening and he was bitching about this "clingy" chick who keeps calling him (and no, it's not me :P) and that she driving him crazy. He's very much an outdoorsy kinda guy and this girl is more a shopping-at-the-Beverly Center type. He's finally just stopped returning her phone calls, but that hasn't stopped her from trying to reach him. He's really annoyed. At least I'm not the only one who seems to attract psychos. So anyway, he said something about confident women turning him on and I told him that was bullshit. Guys claim they want confident, assertive women, but when it comes down to it, they don't. They want quiet, submissive girls who do what they're told. Otherwise, I would not still be single. S-boy found that amusing. He told me that there's a difference between being assertive and being aggressive and that I may be a bit too aggressive for most guys out there, but that the real reason I'm still single is because I want to be. He says that I know exactly what I want in a man and until I find exactly what I want, I'm not going to be happy. That's why I get bored with men so easily. I haven't found one who challenges me enough. I need someone who will stand up to me and most men don't have those kinds of balls. He may have a point. I can be a bit demanding and it's definitely going to take a certain kind of guy to convince me to give him a real chance with me. On the bright side, S-boy seems to think I will eventually find that guy. Well, at least one of us sees some light at the end of that particular tunnel of mine :) The convesation then got a bit more goofy as we discussed what else turns us on. (Him - driving fast, women in boots, redheads. Me - storms (thunder and wind), having the back of my neck kissed, guys in black turtlenecks.) We also somehow got on the topic of my licking fetish. Like I said, it was a bizarre conversation. Tequila'll do that to ya. Still, we had a good time. I really like hanging out with S-boy. He doesn't put up with any bullshit and has no problem telling me when he thinks I'm doing something stupid. He definitely speaks his mind and doesn't care what anyone else thinks about his opinions. I wish we could hang out more often. It's not the same as having TNI around, but I have to say that S-boy has certainly been a welcome addition to my life... Although once pilot season gets cranked up, I suspect that I won't see much of any of my boys. Ah, the joys of hanging out with actors. Actually though, I'm sure I'll be just as busy as they are, if not more so. That's ok though. Work goes by a lot faster when we're busy... Enough for today I guess. Happy thing for tonight is being able to see the stars. The nights are so clear out here. It's beautiful and I never tire of looking out my window and seeing stars. Must be the dreamer in me... Enjoy the rest of the weekend :)

"Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives." -- Bertrand Russell

Hang A Left At The Lamppost

This is supposed to be my review for "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe," and it will be, but I have to do a mini-rant first... I lack communication skills. I'm aware of that. I've spent most of my life being referred to as "the quiet one." Ok fine... but even I am better at communicating than most men it seems. I invited a friend of mine to go see this movie with me. He seemed excited to go which was cool. This particular guy and I haven't spoken in a few weeks and so I decided to be the one to play nice and break the silence because I figured this was a movie he really wanted to see. He was supposed to call me yesterday afternoon and let me know if he could go or not. I mean how hard is it to pick up the damn phone and press the little numbers that make it dial? Think I heard from him? Hell no. Not a call. Not even a fucking e-mail. I was not pleased. Oh well. Fuck it. His loss. He missed a hell of a movie and he missed out on a chance to hang out with me for a few hours... So as far as the movie goes, it was beautifully done. Was it true to the book? No. Not totally. I'm writing this review under the assumption that anyone reading it knows this story. Either they read the book or saw the previous film incarnation or something. If you don't know the story then feel free to stop reading now. I've talked to several people who told me they are going to re-read the book before going to see the movie. I had the same thought and re-read it over Thanksgiving. For those of you planning to do that let me tell you to stop. Put it down on the table and back away from the book. Read it after you go to the movie. (If you really feel you have to read a Narnia book, then read "The Magician's Nephew" instead.) I hadn't read the story in probably close to 20 years so I knew what happened, but the smaller details were lost in my memory. If I had not just re-read it, the changes the filmmakers made would not have annoyed me nearly so much. The changes were generally fairly small and were done to place the children in danger sooner and more frequently. I get why they made most of them. I still found them irritating. The one that annoyed me the most was changing the name of The White Witch's head wolf, from Fenris to GrimWald. Why? There was no reason to do it. It was a stupid change. As far as the cast goes, the kids were good. The casting is not as dead on as it has been for say the Harry Potter films, but it was still acceptable. The kids who play Edmund and Susan were fine. The little girl who played Lucy was the best of the four and the boy who plays Peter is very charming... of course I may just feel that way because he really, really reminds me of my friend Stann, but he still definitely has screen presence. Then there is Tilda Swinton who plays The White Witch. She is perfect. She is one of the reasons to see this movie. She is creepy and convincing and is exactly who I would have cast. Mr. Mentor (aka Liam Neeson) was also a great choice to voice Aslan. This is a movie that needs to be seen on the big screen. The special effects are outstanding. They don't rival those of "Lord of the Rings," but then most movies don't, and I think maybe we're wrong to expect them to. (Except for "King Kong" of course. The FX in KK better fucking rock.) Still this is a beautiful film visually. It flows well and is amazing to watch. The battles are violent and the "crucification" scene is disturbing. I would not recommend people taking small kids to see this. But it's a good film (and did I mention that it needs to be seen on the big screen?) There are a ton of potentially huge films coming out in the next couple of weeks, but you should still take the time to go see this one. If you loved the book, then the movie does not disappoint, and if you've never read the book, then the movie will probably blow you away... Happy thing today is LA movie theatre audiences. They don't talk. They turn off their cell phones. They seem to understand that seeing a movie in a theatre should be a pleasant experience for everyone...

"Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained" -- C.S. Lewis

Victory Is Mine

Today was a good day. I got my New Year's Eve plans all squared away and I did it all by my lonesome. I didn't have to drop any names or anything. I got reservations at one of THE parties to go to all on my own and I'm pretty fucking proud of myself. I won the anuual Los Angeles New Year's game just by being my sweet, charming self. (Ok, everyone stop laughing. I CAN be sweet and charming when I want to be.... No really... I can...) Go figure. Granted, I had to go in and meet with the "reservations team" at this club and it was like going to a fucking audition, but it paid off so yippee skippee. I don't have to stress over that anymore... I also had a surprise visit from S-boy, which is always a welcome distraction. Unfortunately he's going out of town again next week and will be gone until after the New Year. That kinda sucks since I'm not heading back to the ATL until the 23rd... I need some more friends in this town, especially since the few I do have always all seem to be MIA at the same time. Then I'm left to my own devices and get bored and we all know how badly that can turn out... However, I do have another cute friend who may be going to see "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" with me tomorrow night, so we'll see how that goes. Hopefully he'll be able to go. If not, maybe I can talk S-boy into going with me. I'll go by myself if I have to, but I'd rather have some company... The day did take a slightly weird turn on the way home though. My car got hit by a bird or a bat or something. Seriously. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and then something fairly sizeable banged off my passenger-side window. No damage done to the Pony aside from a nasty bloody streak on the window, so hopefully whatever it was died instantly and didn't suffer. But ick. Call it Darwin's Law though. Anything stupid enough to fly into the side of a car probably shouldn't be reproducing.... All right. Time to call it a night. Review of "Narnia" tomorrow if I don't get home too late... My happy thing for today is that the Holiday movie season is officially in full swing now. Lots of good stuff coming out between now and the end of the year...

"If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." -- C.S. Lewis

Coming Unglued

I don't even know where to start. The rain blew through overnight and it's bright and sunny and beautiful here in LA today... and my day couldn't suck more. No, that's not true. It could, but let's hope it doesn't come to that because then I would just come completely unhinged. Technology continues to be my bane. Last night I couldn't stay connected to save my life and today my laptop just up and died on me. That's a very, very bad thing. My whole life is on that fucking machine. Yes, I have some of the info backed up in various places, but bad me, I haven't backed shit up lately and so there's A LOT of stuff I'm going to lose if I don't get the damn thing back up and running at least long enough for me to pull some stuff off of it. This also totally fucks up my plans for buying a new digital camera to use for some photo gigs I have lined up. Looks like I'll be spending that $$$ on a new laptop instead. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. I totally flipped out on the poor Geek Squad guy at Best Buy. Me. Who very rarely shows anything even resembling emotion (especially in public) and I just lost it. The poor kid didn't know what to do. I'll feel better if I can at least get my stuff off the hard drive and backed up to my desk top. I know it's my own stupid fault for not having done that on a more regular basis, but knowing that didn't stop me from having a little meltdown this afternoon, in fact, it probably made things worse. So yeah, I kinda lost my mind there for a bit today. You'd think I'd be used to fits of maddness by now, but they still tire me the fuck out. I came home and hugged my dog and had a really good crying fit and I'm feeling better now. Really fucking exhausted, but still better... at least until I get on the AlienWare site and find out just how much this new little toy is going to cost me... That well-to-do pretty boy I mentioned last night is sounding better and better all the time...

"A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free." -- Nikos Kazantzakis

Happy thing for today... at least my dog loves me and doesn't care that I'm a raving, fucking lunatic sometimes...

Game Playing

True to my word, I came home from work tonight. I did not go out and consort with The Devil. (See, I'm getting wiser as I get older.) He was not at all pleased with that decision. I thought he only had my cell phone number and so once I got home to my canyon I would be safe from his increasingly angry calls... forgetting that my current cell message contains my home phone number. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. He kept calling and calling and calling. Why can't I attract a normal guy just once? Grrr. Arg. I know. I know. I know. I brought this on myself. I'm a fucking idiot sometimes... All I really wanted to do was come home and play some EQ and watch some TV and basically just veg the fuck out. That was not in the cards for me tonight though. Traffic SUCKED. It took me like an hour and 1/2 to get home. The only good thing about the trip was that TNI was kind enough to entertain me for part of the drive. Once I got here, I kept getting kicked offline and there was nothing good on TV. So now on top of being stir crazy and horny, I'm also annoyed... What I really should have done tonight was go to the World Without Sundays show at The Roxy. There would have been at least two very cute Hobbits there I could have flirted with. But it's an ugly, rainy night here in SoCal so I decided not to go. I sorta wish I had though. It would have been fun to drool over Frodo some more, even though he's way too young for me... and that's saying something, since my "Star Wars" rule got thrown out the window some time ago :) So I'm thinking I need to just go to bed and enjoy the fact that it's Friday so I have 2 days of freedom ahead of me. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with those 2 days, but at least I have them... I do need to work on getting my New Year's plans finalized. NYE in LA is proving to be an adventure. Getting on the list anywhere good is something of a game to these people. It's all about name dropping and kissing the right asses. So I've dropped the few names I've managed to collect and am waiting to see where they get me. Maybe next year I'll be able to get in somewhere on my own merits. Surely it won't take this town too long to figure out how fabulous I am, right? If nothing else, maybe some well-to-do pretty boy will figure that out and I'll just give in to the shallowness like everyone else in this town and live richly ever after... Ok, maybe not... not yet anyway... I'm still holding onto the crazy romantic notion that I might still find "that" guy, ya know? Granted, in LA that's probably a long fucking shot, but what the hell? I'm a gambler at heart. I like long shots... and I must admit that I have a long shot that I'm sure tempted to put my money on at this point. I'm just not sure if he's quite ready to race yet though... Wow. I suddenly miss my horse. I wonder why that is? Hehe. Maybe I just need to make a trip to Hollywood Park to watch the ponies run... Or maybe I need to get some sleep before I start to make even less sense that I already am... My happy thing for today is rain. It makes sleeping so great. There's nothing better than being curled up in your nice warm bed when it's dreary and grey and rainy outside... ok, well maybe having someone else curled up with you would make it better... Have a great weekend everybody!

"When I say, "I love you," it's not because I want you or because I can't have you. It has nothing to do with me. I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I've seen your kindness and your strength. I've seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You're a hell of a woman." -- James Marsters - "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"

Moral Support

Well, I talked to all three of my favorite guys today and they seem to be united in the opinion that I need to stay the fuck away from The Devil this weekend. I have to say that when I think about it (and honestly I don't have to think about it too hard), I don't disagree with them. I've just been feeling bored and restless and a little stir crazy this week and the thought of going out and getting into a little bit of trouble has seemed kinda appealing to me. But as TNI so rightly pointed out to me, that's my self-destructive side talking and I need to not listen to that part of my brain when it starts whispering to me. Oh all right. You guys win. I'll behave myself... So, with senseless debauchery off the menu, I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with my weekend. I'm sure I'll play some EQ and I want to go see "Syriana." I need to get to work on my Christmas cards too... Happy thing for today is the fact that I have three really extraordinary men looking out for me. I don't deserve any of them...

"Curiosity often leads to trouble." -- Lewis Carroll -- "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

Hellbound

This week had been going along just peachily until about 6:00 tonight. Then all of a sudden the assholes came out to play. I had 3 guys in a row who wanted to rant about stupid shit. They quickly turned my happy, sunny attitude into a dark and stormy one. Grrr. Arg. So by the time I left work I was in a really pissy mood... but then I ran into Frodo at the gas station. We admired each other's vehicles and discussed a band that we both like and he helped to turn my mood back around. He was really nice and super cute in person. Those blue eyes of his are something else... and speaking of baby blues, to cap off the day, S-boy called me just as I was about to get on the 101 to see if I wanted to go grab a bite to eat. Not one to turn down a free meal and a chance to spend a couple of hours with one of the sexiest men I know, I said, "sure." We decided on Mexican and a few margaritas later found ourselves immersed in a fairly serious conversation about past relationships. (Tequila = bad). That was how I found myself telling him about some of the drama I'd been through with The Devil and then mentioning that The Devil was going to be in town this weekend and that I was actually considering at least going to see him. Well, according to S-boy that is absolutely "not a fucking option." He basically forbid me to go. Apparently he doesn't know me as well as he thinks he does. I don't like to be told what to do. In fact, I often do the exact opposite just to prove that I can't be told what to do. Still, to appease him, I told S-boy I would think about not going. Honestly though, I don't know what I'm going to do in this case. I had pretty much talked myself out of going to see The Devil, but I don't know. I mean, I KNOW I shouldn't, but the temptation is still there. I'm bored and I'm horny and I'm kinda in the mood to be bad... and time spent with The Devil is always bad... but often times in very good ways... Things could go either way here. Maybe I'll just flip a coin on Friday and see where it sends me... Then I can blame anything that happens on Ka... Don't get me wrong. I love that S-boy is looking out for me. I know he's a good guy and he's very rational and normal and he's trying to keep me from being psychotic and stupid. (And he really has no clue how truly psychotic and stupid I have the potential to be.) I've just never been very good at taking other people's advice, especially when it comes to The Devil. I have a blind spot for him that gets me into all kinds of trouble... This should have been (and was) over a year ago... Dammit... I shouldn't be at this crossroads again... And yet, here I am... thinking very bad things... about a very bad guy... Grrr. Arg... I need to check in with my Guildies on EQ. Maybe we have a raid planned or something. That could swing my decision to stay home. I know it's a stupid reason, but maybe a stupid reason is exactly what I need here... since nothing else (like rationality) seems to be working :P Pardon me while I bang my head against the wall... So I forgot to include my happy thing in my last post. So today I'll put in two. Thing # 1: 'Nilla wafers. They rock. Thing #2: Free movie passes. I'm going to see "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" next week... of course, that's assuming I survive the weekend...

"When you dance with the Devil, the Devil don't change. The Devil changes you." -- Joaquin Phoenix - "8mm"

Ho-Fucking-Ho

My sister and I have a long-standing tradition in which we venture out to the movie theatre on Thanksgiving night to take in a flick. We've been really hit-or-miss with our choices over the years. This time the plan was originally to go see "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." I was kinda looking forward to seeing that one again, but the plans changed and we elected to go see "The Ice Harvest" instead. Bad decision. On paper this should have been a good movie. John Cusack. Billy Bob Thorton. Connie Nielsen. Oliver Platt. Directed by Harold Ramis. The potential was there for an intriguing black comedy, but this movie did not live up to its expectations. John Cusack did a fair enough job with his part, but this was not one of his better roles. Connie Nielsen tried too hard to play her role as an old-style Femme Fatale and came up short. Billy Bob's performance was just plain bad. There were a few funny moments, but overall the script was weak and disjointed. The violence was senseless. Oliver Platt was the only bright spot in an otherwise dismal film. He was hysterical, but the 20 minutes he spent on screen could not save this movie. I'm so disappointed in Harold Ramis. He's a good director. He has no business turning out a movie like this one...

"There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere." -- Jane Austen

Random Act Of Kindness

There are days I love being me and I love that I have the people I have in my life. Monday was one of those days. A friend of mine whispered in the right ears and helped to land me a really nifty photo gig. More info to follow once I get the details ironed out, but it looks like a done deal at this point. Woo Hoo! This shoot is going to fucking rock! I will now do the Snoopy dance of joy :) Happy thing for today is people who unexpectedly do nice things for the people they care about...

"You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Dark Lord Returns

So despite starting out badly, Sunday turned out to be a pretty good day. By the light of day my dream (while still disturbing on so many levels) seemed much more irrational. It's amazing what those night terrors will do to you when they get a hold of you. Brunch with S-boy went well. He really is a good guy. I know he's just looking out for me and trying to protect me. It's all very chivalrous of him. In this case we just sorta agreed to disagree and left it at that... After brunch was "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." Great film. Absolutely a great film. I figured there was no way I'd like it better than the last film. "Azkaban" remains my favorite book so far, but I have to say that while I loved the 3rd film, "Goblet of Fire" was even better. It's also much, much darker. The PG-13 rating is well deserved and for a "kid's movie" it was really long. It clocked in at a solid 2 1/2 hours and the kids in the audience barely moved the whole time. They were totally enthralled. The movie stayed true to its source material. There were some minor changes and a few things left out, but otherwise it really followed the book. I have to say that I'm impressed with the way the producers are handling this franchise. Chris Columbus did a great job with the first 2 films, but they were right in replacing him after that. Nothing against Chris, I think he's a good director, but as the stories got darker, he was no longer the right man for the job. It will be interesting to see if Mike Newell gets the job for "Order of the Phoenix." I hope he does. I think he really proved he knows the way these films are supposed to look and feel... So after the movie I came home and got on EQ. I put together a really rockin' group and we did some major damage in Chazic-Thule. I dinged 39 and 40 and am almost halfway to 41. That's pretty impressive for an afternoon. I picked up some decent loot too... So yeah, Sunday turned out much better than I thought it would... Let's hope it's the start of a trend for the rest of the week... My happy thing for today is blue corn muffins. They are yummy...

"Oh well. What's life without a few dragons?" -- Rupert Grint - "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"