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Movieland

We’ve been watching a lot of movies lately, probably due to the whole actually having a TV room thing. Last night we watched The Fifth Element, one of my favorites. Then I went to Best Buy today (had to bring my Gateway PC in…long story and one I’m rather too embarassed to tell, computer geek that I am) and there’s a new Fifth Element out with over 2 hours of special interviews and what not. I hate it when they do that. I want all that stuff, but I’ve already got one copy, darn it!!

Pam, you want a copy of the Fifth Element? ;-)

Night before we watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I still just love that movie. I hope they never remake that one. It would be a shame. Remakes are almost never as good. (side note…why was Mia Sara the only one who didn’t do a cast interview for the new release? everyone else did…it was interesting to see how they’d all aged…though I already knew about Jennifer Grey’s nose job.)

Night before that was Ocean’s Eleven. Thought it was about time, since Ocean’s Thirteen is coming up. It was actually good. I was kind of surprised. In general, there seems to be an inverse relationship between the amount of A-list actors in a movie as compared to the quality of said movie. Take Ready to Wear as an example (shudder — Oh, the horror).

So tonight will be Ocean’s Twelve. Hopefully it is as good as the first one.

Movies are good when you are studiously trying to ignore the news. It’s bad enough reading the depressing stuff; I don’t want to see it too.

Stuffed up

Still sick. Feeling really blah. Would like to hook up a vacuum hose to my sinuses.

There’s another showing of the house tomorrow. Guess Don wants to bring someone by around 2 PM. Chris told him we had a verbal agreement, but I guess since nothing is final yet, people can still come by. Don’t know if this is the same person Don brought by before or someone else. No idea.

I’m not sure if I’ll exit the house or not for the showing. I’ll definitely stay out of the way, but I’m hoping I’ll feel good enought tomorrow to actually get some work done. Keeping my fingers crossed.

I need to start doing free writing exercises or something. Something creative. Have been stewing on some book ideas too. But my head feels too stuffed up and groggy to do any real writing. I suppose that’s just an excuse, though.

What I really feel like doing is taking out my charcoal and a drawing pad. Or painting. But I don’t really want to make a mess in the house right now. Not to mention I need to pack all that stuff up.

Watched Howl’s Moving Castle yesterday. I thought it was kind of strange that, other than the note “based on the novel by Diana Wynne Jones” at the very beginning, she was never mentioned again. All the interviews, etc. all talked about the Japanese fellow that first animated it. Talking about his wonderful imagination, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah. What about DWJ? It was her story first.

Great story too. I’ll have to pick up the book sometime. And don’t get me wrong, the animation was great. Wonderfully inventive. But, in my opinion, he was the one adding to a story. The central seed of it was planted by DWJ.

Am also very excited to see that they are making a movie of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline. One of my very favorite books. One of the only perfect books out there — I wouldn’t change a word in it.

Friends with Money

Just finished watching a movie: Friends with Money (Frances McDormand, Catherine Keener, Joan Cusack, Jennifer Aniston). Pretty good. Kind of one of those movies where there’s not exactly a plot…more like a slice of life kind of thing. Definitely departure for both Cusack and Aniston, IMO…Joan plays someone really normal & adjusted and Jennifer plays a pothead down on her luck.

Still sick with whatever it is that Tony gave me. Still going through kleenex, though not at quite as alarming a rate as I was.

Still in negotiation with the realtors over the house. Too bad the people that came yesterday haven’t made an offer. I imagine it was too soon for them, since I think they just started looking. They seemed to like the house and they were nice. Of course, I guess they still could make an offer. We haven’t signed anything yet. I imagine the people making the offer are nice too, though. Just haven’t met them. I just hope whoever buys it will take care of it. We put a lot of time & money & love into this house. I’d hate for it to go to waste. Man, I wish I hadn’t had those custom bookshelves put in. I love those. I don’t want to leave them. Ah, well.

There was another showing today. It was a good thing I left early since they got here early — I left a little after 4 and noticed them coming in when I drove by. They were supposed to have been here at 4:45. It was just one younger looking guy and the realtor. Don’t know anything about them other than they left muddy footprints in the bathroom and left the linen closet door open.

Oh – anyone notice the pictures I added to the side of the blog? I love that picture of Gracie. Though, honestly, not sure anyone reads this other than Pam (hey, Pam). So, if some complete stranger happens upon this, hey, take a look at my fat cat. Isn’t she funny?

I wish I could shake this illness. I really need to start packing. Also have lots of work I need to do on the website AND I really need to get the tax stuff together before Tony gets home. Not to mention…I’m completely SICK of snot.

Almost human

I’m feeling almost human today. Better than yesterday, definitely, but by no means good. But better.

I posted some stuff on Craigslist last night. Wow! If you ever want to get rid of stuff, give it a shot. Inexpensive stuff, anyway. We gave away our old mattress and sold a CD rack. Both of those are already out of the house. And may have sold a TV and TV stand (waiting to hear back on that) and someone is coming tomorrow to look at the desk on the 3rd floor.

Not sure if anyone will bite on the antiques, though the guy who bought the CD rack might be interested in them. I’m like…hey, what else can I stick up there?

Last night we watched two very different movies: Idiocracy and The Illusionist. The first is a Mike Judge (Beavis & Butthead guy) film staring one of the Wilson brothers (the brown haired one with the more earnest look). The scary thing about that film is how true some of it is — and how true it could be. Basically, if you don’t know anything about it, it’s about how a normal average Joe winds up in a cryogenic sleep for 500 years and wakes up to find out that everyone has dumbed down because (in part) the smart people were having fewer and fewer children while Jerry Springer wannabes were busy popping them out right and left. When average Joe wakes up, suddenly he’s the smartest guy on the planet. You can imagine how it goes from there. Fairly funny movie with lots of gross-out, juvenile behavior. The scary thing, like I said, is how plausible it is in many ways. I mean, the people who go on Jerry Springer scare the bejesus out of me.

The Illusionist is an Edward Norton film. Always like him. Interesting guy. He plays Eisenheim, an illusionist who loves a baroness named Sophie, but she’s supposed to be marrying a real jerk who happens to be royal (how come royalty are always either complete jerks or Prince Charming?). Don’t really want to say much about the film since I don’t want to give any spoilers. It was good. Go see it. Or rather, go rent it. Has some suspense, some romance, some mystery. And Edward Norton playing “intense.”

If it weren’t for that horse…

If it weren’t for Mucinex and Sudafed, my head would have imploded by now. Tony had the flu or whatever it is first and then he gave it to me. Yesterday was probably the quietest Valentine’s Day we’ve ever had. In between the sneezing and the coughing. We have our own individual boxes of Kleenex. All we did was watch two Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks movies: You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle.

In house news, we’ve lowered the price on the house in Louisville to $335,000. And everything is going swimmingly with the purchase of the house in Grayslake. I guess things do get easier with repetition. The first time you buy a house, everything is so confusing. I have to do what when and with who for how much?? But this time everything seems to be going well.

And now I’m going back to bed. Dizzy. Sneezy. Achey. I’ve got all seven dwarves living in my head (and a few more to boot).

Last nights

Bits of randomness…

Tomorrow Tony is off again to Chicago. We have a lot of last nights now — though, on the bright side, that also means we have a lot of first nights when he comes back.

We’ve been watching a lot of Netflix movies lately. The other night we watched Tortilla Soup, which I hadn’t realized was essentially the exact same movie (just Latino vs. Japanese) as Eat, Drink, Man, Woman. Kind of surreal to see them both, especially since it wasn’t long ago that we saw the other one. There were things I liked about both versions, though I’d probably recommend the Tortilla Soup one to English speakers since you don’t have to muddle through the sub-titles that way.

Last night, we watched the Director’s Cut of Bladerunner. I hadn’t seen the movie in so long I couldn’t really point out the differences. Still, a great picture. Someday I need to read the book.

Tony is still working on the puzzle that Lisa got him for his birthday. It’s called the Shipper’s Dillemna. You have to fit 3 different sized blocks of wood into one cube without any left over. He’s gotten close, but not quite there yet. Good thing he likes puzzles.

What was I talking about again?

I had a few things on my mind that I was going to blog about and now I can’t remember what they were. I’m just really tired today. But, Tony is coming home early today (about 6ish) (Yay!) because it is his birthday (34) and because I’d told him he HAD to be home for his birthday. At least he’ll be here tonight, so that’s something.

I’m taking him out to Proof on Main for dinner. He likes the place, it’s artsy, and I happen to have a gift certificate because Stan & Mary (e.g. The Third Street Association) recently gave me one for all the help on the art show. That was nice and unexpected. And worked out perfectly since we need to conserve some cash right now because of some unexpected new expenses and trying to make sure the house is all spiffy so we can sell it. That mostly just means keeping it clean and straightened up. The flyers have been steadily disappearing from the info tube, but no calls yet. We’ll see. I think once we get people in to see it, it will hopefully go fairly fast. After all, I’ve been in other houses around here and I know that ours is in much better condition than probably 80% of the neighborhood. It’s beautiful inside and out and not many of the houses in Old Louisville can say that. Many have really been trashed inside.

I watched A Lot Like Love (Ashton Kutcher, Amanda Peet, 2005) the other night. Thought it was pretty good. Not as good as, say, When Harry Met Sally (the best romantic comedy of all time), but not bad. I even sat through the Director’s Commentary, which they’d recorded before the movie was released. They mentioned how they hoped the movie would do well, but you never know, etc. etc. So that made me curious. So I looked up the box office take on it and some reviews afterwards. It looks like it pretty much bombed. Didn’t do that well at all. The reviews I saw trashed it, though each one trashed it in a different way (no chemistry, good chemistry, took too long, etc., etc.). I guess I wouldn’t make a good movie reviewer. I’m pretty kind to movies. Heck, I’m pretty kind to books. If I really, really hate it, I just don’t review it. I don’t see the point. It’s not going to help the author or the publisher and there might be someone out there that does like it that my review would discourage from reading it. Doesn’t seem worth publishing a really bad review. But maybe that’s just me. Some people just like to vent their anger at other artists.

Not that there haven’t been some self-pubbed stuff that’s come across my desk that I wouldn’t mind taking a stab at it. Some of it is so truly, truly awful you wonder what people were thinking. But, it’s kind of like calling someone’s baby ugly. It doesn’t do any good and just hurts someone’s feelings for no good reason.

The self publishing companies have made it entirely too easy for someone to put out a book. That’s the only bad thing. Some of the really, really horrible stuff out there….all it really does is make it harder for good (or even just decent) writers. It makes it harder to find those diamonds in the rough.

And most of the better self-pubbed stuff could have been published with either some revision or some perseverance. Coming back again to how the self publishing companies make it too easy for someone. Writing & getting something published is work. It isn’t easy. It’s hard. It can take years and years and years.

But that’s not really what I was talking about. Actually, I guess I wasn’t really talking about anything. Same as always.

Trigger, Whoa!

We didn’t do anything for the 4th of July, really. We wound up watching When Harry Met Sally (one of the two best movies of all time, the other being The Princess Bride). It was rainy and gross out anyway.

Tony’s dad and Janet came to visit briefly while Tony’s mom was away visiting his sister Rikki. Poor Janet was really sick, so we didn’t do too much — took them on a brief car tour of downtown and to Churchill Downs. That was about it.

And tomorrow is when I think my mom comes in. Busy times. And today I dropped Tony off at the airport at 5 AM — he’ll be back on Friday. I’m completely wiped out though. I just haven’t been sleeping well at night lately at all. Some of it is my own fault, but some of it is just me laying there going “ugh. So….sleepy.” but not falling asleep. I feel like a zombie.

Today is another nasty rainy day, which makes me that much more sleepy. I did manage to announce the last month contest winners (around 11 PM one night). I really need to get all of the prize mailings together next. Hopefully later today, maybe after my doctor appointment.

Yawn. Double yawn.

The Invisible Girl

We’ve been watching more movies lately (when Tony is actually home) on the “big screen”, though mostly the one in the house, since it is so godawful hot outside right now. Not to mention the mosquitoes….

Anyway, the last two were Elizabethtown and The Fantastic Four. Not exactly movies you’d normally associate together, but they happened to be next to each other in my Netflix queue. Elizabethtown we wanted to see since it’s set (technically) in a nearby town and Louisville is featured in it. Kinda funky to see stuff you see every day in a movie. Orlando Bloom is in it — a very different kind of role for him. And he was very committed to it. The coolest part was the road trip Kirsten Dunst’s character put together for him. Awesome road trip. I wanna go.

The Fantastic Four was better than I thought it would be. If I remember right, I don’t think it got stellar reviews at the box office. But I actually enjoyed it. Jessica Alba (of Dark Angel fame) is the Invisible Woman (or girl, as her brother, the Human Torch, would have it). The best part though, might be the extras that include Stan Lee waxing excited on the whole experience. He’s a guy that would be cool to meet.

I feel like the Invisible Woman sometimes myself lately, especially at home. The MIL almost never directs a question or a sentence to me and when I do speak, she invariably cannot hear me — but instead of asking me what I said, she always turns to Tony for him to translate. “What did she say?” she asks him. Hello? I’m right here! And when she does talk to me, it nearly always seems to have something snide hidden in it (not that I think she does this on purpose (I hope) — she’s just always negative — even when she’s talking to Tony she’s either completely doting on him or completely sniping at him) –lately, to me, it’s been: “Boy, that kid that *you* hired sure did kill *Tony’s* lawn,” though it’s *we* in both cases. And yes, darn it, I know he did. I don’t need to be reminded again and again. (And yes, I realize that this is exactly the kind of stuff I’m not supposed to write in a blog. But oh well. That’s what I get for not having any female friends close by. You can just pretend I’m invisible too. You never read this.)

*Sigh* Our poor lawn. We’d gotten it to a lovely green state, the kind of lawn you wanted to walk in barefoot and curl your toes in (which you couldn’t do in Florida — there’d be sand spurs waiting there for you). Now, it’s green in parts, and scalped in others. Tom’s son cut it way, way, way too short. I guess that’s what you get for trying to do a favor for a friend — his son needed some spending cash for the summer. We’ve been watering it every day, hoping for a comeback. I’m not sure what else to do with it.Maybe some fertilizer or something. Maybe some plugs, since it’s looking like a dog that got into an argument with a hair trimmer and lost.

I dunno. Lately, I just don’t really feel like doing anything. I just want to curl up in bed with a book or just…sleep. Sleep, perchance to dream. I’d go visit one of my sisters for a month, except for the kitties. Gracie is my teddy bear. A teddy bear with admittedly fishy breath and a very demanding attitude, but she’s still quite cuddly when she wants to be. Even Harley is being a good cuddlebug.

The dreams though…been having those weird sci-fi-ish ones again lately. I need to keep a pad of paper by the bed so I can write them down a la Holly Lisle. Especially since I can’t seem to remember them just a few minutes after waking up. I think the one last night had something to do with a penguin…or maybe a civet.

Movies on the Lawn

I guess Tony’d been thinking about getting a projector thingy for a while, but he hardly ever lets on when he wants something, so it was kind of a surprise to me. So yesterday, we’re driving around – I’d suggested we find a B&N so I could get Michel Thomas’ Spanish lesson CDs (that’s how I learned what Italian I know — his stuff is great), and he stops off at a Best Buy.

“What for?” I ask.

“Oh, just to look around,” he says.

Now, this is unusual in itself as Tony is not really a shopper. Let me repeat that. He’s not a shopper. Like many guys, he formulates a plan in his head, goes to the store, spends as little time as possible there, and comes out with just whatever the thing was he wanted to buy. He’s bought an entire wardrobe in, like, 5 minutes. I kid you not.

So we wander around Best Buy for a while. I find all kinds of stuff I wouldn’t mind getting (I am a shopper, I’m afraid). Then he finally admits what it is he’s actually looking for (after he couldn’t find it — they have the projectors hidden in a dark aisle at the back of the store where they were storing a ladder). Pretty pricey at Best Buy and we didn’t really find anyone to give us any input (ha, ha, big surprise).

So we leave, me thinking he’ll just do some research online or whatnot. We go to the Barnes & Noble over in the Summit Center off of Hurstborne, and I find the Spanish CDs (which I really, really need to start today — I’m so behind….) Then he spies an Office Depot and we stop in there “just to see what they have.”

Well, everything the OD has is w-a-y cheaper than what BB had. Even the screens (you know, the white screen thingies on a stand that you pull down, kinda like what they used to have in classrooms) was 1/2 the price. Tony finds an Optoma projector with great specs for 1/3 the price of a comparable thing at BB. And so we get it. Me, I hem and haw over stuff like that, but when Tony sees what he wants — bam! Boom! The good news — besides being so much cheaper at OD, I also already had an Advantage membership, so we should get 10% back in OD gift certificates. Works for me!

So, anyway…we make a pilgrimage…er, stop at Lowe’s and get a large canvas dropcloth. Tony gets that all strung up between the pillars of our back porch and Alakazam! We have movies on the lawn! We watched Star Wars: Episode IV (A New Hope). How cool is that? I so wanna have a movies on the lawn party now. The projector is nice and portable at only 4ish pounds. Now we can watch movies anywhere! We still don’t have cable, but movies are great. Got lots of DVDs that’ll be fun to watch on the “big screen” :-) and a NetFlix membership that maybe we’ll use more now.

Why don’t you tell me something dangerously true…

–oh yeah, that looks much sexier on you
(more of a 90′s reference)

Or…I’ve got a mind full of wicked designs…

Anyway.

When I first started taking the “evil” pill, I spent a good month feeling queasy. Now that I’m coming off it…same thing. Bleck.

On a good note, some of my bulbs are coming up! The daffodils are blooming! Flowers are great.

We actually went to the theater last night and saw a movie. Mrs. Henderson Presents. Pretty good. I love Judi Dench. She’s got balls.

A few nights ago we saw another good movie — Garden State by Zach Braff (who wrote it…directed it…acted in it). Really liked it. Some quirky, almost absurdist humor. I’m impressed. I’d write him a fan letter if I was at all that kind of person.