Tag: Movies

Monday?

Did that weekend even happen?  How is it Monday already?

Saturday saw softball try outs, piano lessons, a trip to the mall, playing with the computer set up in the living room, two kids who are over 10 years old but still discovering a new (very silly) fascination with Disney Junior, the younger of the two kids finished reading the first Hunger Games book and later that night we watched the movie.  Just before the bloodbath (if you know the story, you know what I’m talking about) he came over and sat on the chair with me (his big sister has already read all three books and had already seen the movie) and later he was a little freaked out by the mutts (again, if you know the story you know of what I speak).

On Sunday I was on call.  As mentioned yesterday, I usually don’t get calls during update coverage, but the phone rang three times.  Fortunately only one required me to log in, and that was just to go in and look at something quick.  I didn’t actually have to do anything.  I feel fortunate, although each time the phone rings I die a little inside.  I’m not joking.  I panic, just a little.

Somehow the day blew past without making a blip on my radar.  There were baseball try outs, but dad had to take care of that as Jen was working and I couldn’t be away from a computer for that long.  Honestly, I was crushed by that.  I felt awful.  It was our weekend, and I was unable to be the baseball guy who showed the support for the baseball player.  I really feel terrible about that.

Now it is Monday.  My foot is starting to bother me again, but only a little so far.  I wonder if my sneakers are involved in the problem.  I have two pairs of shoes; sneakers and work shoes.  Because my feet are HUGE and oddly shaped, I have a difficult time finding shoes that fit well.  My work shoes do not fit well.  They are a touch too long, and slightly more than a touch too wide.  I also can’t seem to tie them tight enough to make them snug enough.  On the other hand, my sneakers fit perfectly.  They may be the best fitting shoes I’ve had since puberty.  Why then is it that when the foot pain starts it is always on a Monday morning, after two solid days worth of wearing the shoes that actually fit?  Next weekend I am going to try staying barefoot whenever I’m indoors.  Let’s see if that helps.

Musically I have beds down for three songs.  One is a Prime Meridian song from 1997, another was played by Prime Meridian but originated when Mike and I played with a drummer named Dan back in oh… 1994 or 1995, and the third goes all the way back to 1992 and is probably the one song I’ve monkeyed with the arrangement for more than any other song I’ve ever written.  It’s also the only song I’ve ever written about a Sports Illustrated swim suit calendar.  All three are ready for guitars and vocals, and one will get some sax as well.  Maybe I’ll have something to post to alonetone.com by next weekend.

If only this past weekend hadn’t come and gone in a blink, I might have gotten more done.  Where does the time go?

Nothing Going On

There is nothing going on at all.  Work during the day, spend the evenings with my love, go to sleep, wake up and do it all again.  I’m coughing a little more than normal over the last couple of days, but this time I can feel something getting loosened up.  Hopefully I’m a few coughs away from having a clear throat and a clear head and not being sick at all.  I would guess I’m about 85% healthy.  Last time I said that I relapsed, so I might just be a moron.  Who knows.

Over the weekend we finished watching The Lord of the Rings with the kids.  They were really into it, mostly.  Sheelob the spider weirded them both out, but that’s sort of her job.  I have been listening to the audiobook of the Lord of the Rings during my commutes.  Frodo and Sam are in Mordor >insert creepy music here<.

So on that note I will leave you with the one (wedding) ring!
photo

The photojojo macro lens is kinda cool, but I haven’t really gotten anything terribly clear with it yet. I’ll keep trying.

New Years Eve

We are currently 22 minutes away from 2013. I hope everyone is having a great time and managing to stay safe.

My wife and I stayed home and watched a couple of movies, both of which I already forget the names of. Was the Adam Sandler flick where he is a Somerville douche bag who crashes his son’s wedding called, “That’s My Boy”? I think so. It was crass and stupid and awful and I absolutely laughed my fat ass off. After that we watched a Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Edward Norton movie that I think was called, “Moonrise Kingdom”. It was weird and bizarre and quirky and I really liked it a lot. I’m a sucker for weird. The relationship between the two run aways was one of the most genuinely romantic things I’ve seen in a movie in a terribly long time, even if they were only about 12 years old. It reminded me a little of Pixar’s “Up” without the devastating heartbreak. I really thought it was a good movie.

Tomorrow is New Years Day (actually 12 minutes from now) and the entire free world has the day off. Except me. I’m on call for work. There are three on call situations for me. One is when new customers go live with our software. Those happen regularly, but rarely do you receive calls. Another is when updates go live. Those are rare and are also usually free of calls. The third is extended business hours coverage and the phone often rings the whole time. On holidays it’s a 24 hour shift and it can be so busy that sometimes you work the whole time. Guess which of the three I got saddled with tomorrow.

Yup, New Years Day is going to be 24 hours of suck for me, beginning at 8:30am tomorrow.

It’s six minutes to 2013. I’m sitting up in bed typing this while my beloved darling wife sleeps next to me. The only way I could be happier right now is if the kids were with us. I’ll try to remember this feeling when I’m buried in work shit tomorrow.

11:56… Four minutes left…

11:57… Three minutes left… Someone near bye is lighting off fire crackers…

11:58… Two minutes left…

11:59… One minute left…

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

The Incredibles

Today has been a movie day at our house.  I ran some errands in the morning, and then the kids and I ran another errand, and then we came home to movie bonanza.

First we started with disc one of The Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers.  We’ll watch the rest tomorrow.  The kids said they wanted a movie watching break after the first disc so they went and did other things.  I took advantage of the rare moment of being in charge of the television by throwing on the blu ray version of Return of the Jedi.  Within seconds of the flick starting, both kids were glued to the tube with me.

After that my gorgeous, beloved wife declared that after two guy films she was taking over and picking a super chick flick.  She and my step daughter stayed in the living room and watched Beaches (OMG!) while my step son and I went down cellar and watched The Incredibles.

Pixar has never made a bad movie, have they?  I don’t think so, but every time I watch The Incredibles it gets better and better.  That movie just plain rules all animated movies.  It’s the best, really.  I want an Incredibles 2.  How could they have made Cars 2, but not The Incredibles 2?  Cars was a great movie, but it’s not fit to fold The Incredible’s underwear.  Really.

Pixar… make The Incredibles 2.  It’s time.

Make it so.

The Hobbit: An Expected Worry

I’m worried about The Hobbit.  I’m afraid it’s going to end up as nothing more than a visual sleep aide.  I’m afraid it is going to be to the Lord of the Rings trilogy what the Star Wars prequels were to the original Star Wars trilogy.

The Lord of the Rings is a seriously long story.  Three books.  A massive amount of information.  Almost every character is developed in detail.  Most of them are dealing with deeply personal issues on top of the whole end of the world crisis.  There is just so much there.  If they had shortened the films at all an enormous amount of important story would have been sacrificed.  Even more than there already was.  The story required three ridiculously long movies.  There’s no way it would have worked otherwise.

The Hobbit is, what… 400 pages?  For the most part it’s a light weight tale of short people wandering around a fantasy land.  Compared to the intricacies of Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit is kids stuff.  The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, no one except Bilbo does any growing or changing throughout the story, and Bilbo only does in that he acts in ways that are unexpected.  He doesn’t so much grow as a person as roll with the punches.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the book.  I just think it’s a little insulting to have this story ballooned into three, three hour films.  It’s going to result in exactly two things.  One, a shit load of money in the studio’s bank account.  Two, lots of really bored movie goers.

There, I said it.  It’s going to be boring.  Really boring.  Even if they add in mountains of content from the Lord of the Rings appendixes and what not, it’s still going to be hours on end of a bunch of Dwarves walking around with a Hobbit.

I still want to see it, but as the reality sinks in… we’re looking at nine hours of movie to interpret a 400 page book.  Even if it’s decent, it’s still never going to live up to the Lord of the Rings.  It’s never going to live up to its own hype.  This whole thing is a disaster waiting to happen.  I hope I’m wrong, but somehow… I don’t think I’m going to be.