Top 5 B Movies

Originally when I was tasked to draw up this top 5 list of my favorite B Movies (and I use the term “tasked” very loosely here because it’s a task I’m exceedingly happy to perform) I expected I’d spend the next week revisiting old favorites and foisting my 5 favorite in-the-moment (because I find that “my favorite” is a term that is for me fluid at best) B Movies on the rest of you with a little dash of explanation as to why they’re so great. All right, that is still what you’re going to get here but it’s important to note that as I spent the past week working on this project, it became apparent to me that there are almost as many differing definitions of “B Movie” as there are people. WTF OMG! Right? Seriously though, a decision had to be made: I would either differ to Mr. Coats’ editorial decision on the definition of B Movie and write this article from there or would go with my own definition and expect everyone to just follow along. Well I’m too punk rock to let The Man tell me what to write, so we’re going with the latter here.
Originally, a B Movie was a movie created for the purpose of following the primary movie in a double feature. This was way back in the 1930s and B Movies were often little more than an hour long, very low budget, very untried in the talent department flicks designed to give viewers a little more entertainment for their movie going buck (this really makes me wax nostalgic for the double feature). In later decades it graduated away from “second billing film in a double feature” and became more a low budget genre film (typically westerns, sci-fi and horror films were B Movies, as were exploitation flicks). It’s important to note as well that today a B Movie could easily have a budget dozens of times larger than a B Movie from the 70s.
Enough with the history lesson. Halloween is coming and in honor of my own personal favorite holiday, My Top 5 B Movies (of the moment, and in no particular order) are:

The Rocky Horror Picture Show. So filled with fun horror film cliches the only thing horrific about this horror show is the “corruption” of poor innocent Brad and Janet (oh pish-posh, don’t even tell me that in the days of torture porn flicks like Hostel and celebrated cannibals like Hannibal Lector any of the horror elements in this are scary) throughout the night until their inevitable release. This is Tim Curry’s finest performance and Susan Sarandon is perfect. It also holds the distinction of being the longest running film release in history as it has never been pulled from distribution and has been on limited release i various theaters for 35 years now and counting (yeah, take that, Titanic). And it’s a B Movie. Take the time, watch it again, do the Time Warp. Maybe even dress up a little.

The Night of the Living Dead (1968). This film created the zombie sub-genre of horror movies. Zombie movies existed before this film, but they were all of the variety where the zombie was a human afflicted by Voodoo and not flesh eating undead (truly, the modern zombie should be called a ghoul, but that’s another article). In creating this film, George Romero was himself trying to create an homage to the novel I Am Legend, replacing the novel’s vampires with zombies. Having a black actor play the lead role in a film with an otherwise all-white cast was absolutely unheard of in 1968 (really, it’s still pretty darn unheard of, and that is damn sad, people). I can still hear Johnny’s sing-song creepy voice intoning the classic “they’re coming to get you, Barbara”.

The Evil Dead. This movie launched the careers of brothers Sam and Ted Raimi, Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell, and it’s rare for so many people associated with one B Movie to later find ongoing commercial success for decades to follow (sure Campbell is still likely considered a B Actor, but he’s very much one of the nation’s most beloved of the bunch) which is really pretty darn good for a movie with much of its funding coming from the creators’ parents and dentist. I’ve seen this movie a hundred times and it still doesn’t make any sense. And it’s still one of the most entertaining films I can ever sit down and see again and again.

“One, two, Freddy’s coming for you. . .” A Nightmare on Elm Street came to us in 1984 on a shoe-string budget of 1.8 million (the average budget of films in the mid 80s was reaching ten times this and more) and was the first film role for Johnny Depp. I have a deep fondness for Wes Craven’s earlier, even more B-level B Movies Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes, but neither of these films resonate with me on as much of a visceral level as does Nightmare. To this day, this film (and absolutely none of its sequels) gives me shivers and recently found its home on another top 5 list of mine (scariest movies of all time).

Two movies are fighting it out really hard for this last spot. As much as I love 28 Days Later and want to put it here and as much as I hate gratuitous gore horror films, two words ultimately have the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre beating out those blasphemous fast zombies: John Larroquette.

And those two words are where I’m going to leave you now before I throw in another Blu-Ray and pop me some popcorn.

Paranormal Activity

had a couple creepy/scary moments, especially as I feel I can actually relate to a lot of Katie's anecdotes about the dark presence, paralysis, etc. but once it went down the road from scary haunting to possession, it lost me. It's no Blair Witch and would have been better served by sticking to one genre of horror from start to finish. An invisible monster killing them at the end would have done it so much better--like if it had ended on the scene with Katie being yanked from the bed and out the room with an ending of them screaming off camera and not returning.

Pilgrimage

Eventually I'll get around to writing about all the big events of the last eight months that played so keenly into why I've been so scarce in blog-land, but since all eight of my readers already know all of this anyway, and it would just be for my own need to brain-spew (or to share with the ransom viewer) it will wait a little bit longer until I start being more loquacious about it all. Bear with me, all the important news about my split with Denise, Lash's trial, etc. will find their way here eventually. Today though: mundanity.

Today was the first Wednesday of our court ordered timeshare giving Denise visitation with Rael and Tasmia from Wednesday until Thursday morning. It's been the first time in months where I've even had an opportunity to spend quality time with Lash and Aeia without my youngest darlings and so we three decided to take in a movie. Joined by friends Alex and Josh we took in Scott Pilgrim vs the World (second viewing for me and Josh) and it was just as fantastic the second time through.

I think it's a real shame it isn't doing better in theaters. It needs to do better. Is it not being marketed properly to video gaming boys and manga loving girls? Too bad. Quick people, see it now before it disappears. You will love it.

Daybreakers in Too Many Words

I saw Daybreakers last week. Can't decide how much I really liked it. I think part of my ambivalence comes from this frustration: I am so very tired of the romantic leading guy vampire story who typically saddles himself with a young seemingly innocent girl, often pretending to be a highschool student instead of the hundreds-years old thing he is (I'm looking at you Twilight Saga, Southern Vampire Mysteries aka Trueblood and Vampire Diaries). What I really want is a nice horrific vampire story--one where the vampires are bad guys and so very very scary. 30 Days of Night's film adaptation gets points for trying and Let The Right One In was just awesome to the Nth degree on so many merits, including a bit of strange horror but otherwise I can't really seem to grasp a memory of there being a good vampire film of this sort in over a decade. Based solely on what little I'd seen of commercials on the television, I had high hopes this would finally be a good trip into horrorland. I was wrong.

I knew the movie wasn't going to be a scary one as soon as Ethan Hawke and Sam Neill's names flashed through the opening credits. Neither of them are 'that kind' of actor, though both are quite enjoyable. And I did end up ultimately finding the film enjoyable but not great, and not the scary I wanted. It was cerebral, which can be very nice. But it almost felt like it was also so busy not committing to any one train of thought that none of them ever really saw huge amounts of development, which ultimately just left me craving more.

Home Movie in 217 Words

This movie stars my least favorite actor in Heroes with bad enough acting and dialog as to guarantee its place amongst the sort of horror movies I would usually be watching with Chris (i.e. enjoyably awful) only much more dull. This was the sort of dull that I couldn't maintain my own full attention for the first half hour the acting and storyline was that bad. Start to finish this film, the reactions of the parents, is so absurdly unbelievable as to give this movie an absolute failing grade. You see where this movie is going, there will be no surprise in the ending. Still, 45 minutes or so in, it started becoming harder to ignore the film in favor of Facebook. An hour in, knowing full well that nothing would be a surprise, nothing would be new for this story, the acting no better, the plot as nonsensical, I could not draw my attention away. My chest was, and remains 15 minutes post-movie, tense. Breathing shallow. I became filled with a growing dread. And could not stop watching. I wanted to stop watching, but knew that doing so would somehow make it even scarier--coming to the ending that was so expected would somehow be more amelliorating than shutting off. I may have been wrong. This movie fucking scared me.

Scattered

As I've been lax writing here again lately, I'll likely be a bit slip-shod in this posting as I smooth back into things. I really do need to be less neglectful of this, regardless of how mundane the content.

I've been doing a lot of mental prep for a pitch I'm going to be putting together. I need to get my thoughts down on keyboard so they'll congeal better and turn into something as absolutely groovy as I believe they will be. Then I need to start harassing one of my more artistic friends into taking the pitch plunge with me; as much as I'd love to write and draw myself, my drawing output is too slow. More details as I get more ready to stick myself out there in the comics field again.

As mentioned, I've seen Watchmen and over-all I found it, with the exception of Rorschach, to be soulless, cumbersome and not the best acted. Obviously staying true to the source material 100% is an impossibility, but I find a lot of what they chose to excise was responsible in the written material for making the story more human and relate able.

At my annual physical yesterday, Dr. John discovered a bigeminy arrhythmia in my heart. Apparently if it's just that on its own, then I'm mostly just fine; if it turns out it's a symptom of something else, then it's dire enough that I could drop dead any minute now. Either way, the soonest a cardiologist would see me to find out, will be this upcoming Wednesday. Until then I have instructions not to strain or over-stress myself. Yay! How dare I beat cancer.

More later; I'm feeling a bit scattered.

The Post Man

I'm feeling pretty bored/boring lately, sorry. I know it's been a while. My inner narcissist wants to whine that almost no one has mentioned any lack of writing. . .but my inner narcissist is a douche bag.

My last post was written while I was on my vacation. Pretty much every day and night of vacation went very well for me, very pleasant, mostly enjoyable, spending a lot of time with the kids, Denise and Chris, playing Rock Band, taking naps, visiting Chrissy, having sleepovers, etc. Good times.

I both saw and read Wanted for the first time in the past two weeks. Dare I say I prefer the movie? The comic just read as more of the same anti-hero, celebrate the villain deconstructionist bullshit we've already had too much of in comics since Watchmen and Dark Knight came out in the 1980s. The movie, while a far cry from being awesome, had more redeemable qualities and characters.

Speaking of Watchmen, I'm supposed to get out and see it this Friday with Chris for his birthday. Right now I still don't know if my work schedule is going to permit this. We're hoping. Right now there are other considerations weighing on me as well. We'll see. I wonder how many people are going to ignore the fact this movie is R rated and take their kids to see it because it's a "superhero" movie and then wail about the damage Billy Crudup's giant blue penis did to their kids' psyches in public. My warning to you: parents don't take your kids to see Watchmen.

Work frustrates me so much I'm constantly on the verge of walking off the job. The only thing that stops me is my responsibilities to my family and the continuing lack of other prospects in the area.

I've lost a few pounds, but I don't know where--as I don't look a single bit leaner.

What else. . .

Taken

Mixed reviews for Taken? I don't want to scan any of them, let them accidentally bias my own opinion. Given my love for Leon the Professional, when I grokked their connection, I had to see this one. And so Denise and I saw it today.

I'll just start by saying that Denise, who generally prefers action flicks more than I claim to, didn't think it was her cup of tea: primarily, there weren't enough explosions for her, and the torture turned her off. Me, I found the torture integral to the storyline and felt it fit right in.

For me, there's a visceral response to thrillers that I often will use to gauge my enjoyment of said thriller: time spent either gritting my teeth and/or holding my breath. There is a direct correlation between the frequency a thriller's intensity causes these reactions in me and my pure enjoyment of the film. I did a lot of breath holding.

It's been a while since Liam Neeson's proven himself a bad ass (Qui Gon is bad ass lite), but I think he's finally topped even Darkman for bad-assery.

Tangentially: ADJ, I finally watched Pineapple Express yesterday and it was every bit as good as you said it would be (the best of Apatow's flicks since Virgin, in my not-so-humble opinion), now go watch Smiley Face.

A Christmas Story

The kids all had a very enjoyable, highly materialistic holiday. My highlight in this: Rael going "I want to open another dinosaur" before opening each of his presents (and he was almost always right--the boy had an explosion of dinosaurs under the tree. . .which is all he wanted). This year I got to learn what it feels like from the parental side of things when a kid doesn't get what they wanted and is vocal about it (I got the wrong color item from one of them and heard all about it).

With my grandmother gone, I have absolutely no family who care to share contact on the holidays any more and so it's been leaving me a little more depressed this year for the holiday. Denise's family sent their yearly contact: an impersonal card and small check, continuing the trend of no connection to her family either. Seriously, it's next to impossible to feel very happy during the holidays anymore. Except for when it comes to the kids, and that really is a big joy in itself. It just doesn't fill every hole for me.

The work X-Mas party was pleasant, though there was some melodrama when one person participated in the "secret Santa" festivities by receiving a present without giving one. . .which caused a flurry of mini scenes. Meh. My secret Santa got me Mama Mia, which was a big yay for me--as a lover of musicals and ABBA, I've really been wanting to get to this one.

Watched a couple movies:
The aforementioned Mama Mia. I enjoyed it, but it didn't feel as much a musical as other musicals do. It's hard to describe, but I felt there was not enough actor-voices involved with actually singing their song numbers. Like I could often hear real ABBA harmonized in the back ground with the actors' voices.

Cashback. It's a little quirky, British comedy about a guy who works in a supermarket and his coworkers. . .about what I expected Clerks to be like before I actually saw Clerks for the first time (in other words, not over-the-top with vulgarity, but lightly funny). Worth renting.

The House Bunny. In all seriousness, I think Anna Faris (sp?) is an under-appreciated comedic genius, possibly pigeonholed as "dumb funny" over her involvement with the spoof comedy series of Scary Movies. She is not Leslie Nielson, folks, and it's sad because Smiley Face was probably one of my favourite comedies all year and it had zip for theatrical release (Ian and ADJ especially, I expect you'll enjoy Smiley Face). Anyway, this wasn't as funny, but still very enjoyable and gave me a few laugh out loud moments. Another one (two) worth the rental.

Running on Empty

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday, dear Drew,
Happy birthday to you.

***

Today I have a day of freedom from work so that I can sit with the kids while she tests for the job mentioned in the previous post. I hope to be able to work on some more writing and do a bit of job seeking myself.

If I don't change jobs before then, I've discovered that my next level of burger education will take place during three days in June that include my birthday: June 17-19. Still, though, there's no communication as to what these classes would mean for me promotion and/or salary wise, so I'm not exactly excited or anything, since I don't see a carrot dangled before me.

I've rediscovered my least favorite part of submitting creative work: waiting waiting waiting waiting. Sigh. If I get this it will be a major lift to my morale when it comes to motivating myself to push harder for more creative work. But as the genius of Tom Petty says, the waiting is the hardest part.

I'm not getting along well with a bunch of people right now. Not that any of them are actually putting forth any effort to get along with me either. It makes me a lot more introspective and self-assessing.

Last night I watched the assassination of Robert Redford by the coward Brad Pitt, or whatever it was called. . .it mostly bored me. It was quite pleasant to see Zoe Deschanel in yet another singing role in a film, though. Which reminds me, my copy of Across the Universe is malfunctioning so I need to go visit Amazon soon for a replacement.

So, surely someone has seen it--how is Indiana Jones and the Case of Crystal Pepsi?

Short Circuit

Number five is alive, baby.

Seriously though, I don't have any reason for not blogging lately. My output's been absolutely pitiful the last few months--sorry folks. What can I say? I will endeavor to rededicate my efforts here in order to be a little more entertaining for you. I have, however, been a busy beaver.

I've been working on a writing project that I'm still in the superstitious "too much talk will jinx me" stage, so without giving more information than that, bear with me, and wish me well. When I get out of the jinxy superstitious stage I'll surely be much more talkative about it.

My work at Burgeropolis moves along as it always does. Though I'm happily no longer twice-weekly exiled to the satellite store at Burgerburb. There's a high chance of me going to further burger classes next month too, which will line me up for better pay, benefits, etc. while I continue trying to improve my life beyond Burgeropolis.

Personally, I'm almost entirely a happy guy. There is one, one point in my life where this is quite not the case, and hasn't been for a while, but Denise and I continue to work at that and that is all I can really ask or hope for. Read-between-the-liners can note this is me making it clear that above all things I'm putting life and marriage first here and things are getting better.

The kids are great. Tasmia is a lot more mobile, which is of course nerve-wracking as you have to become hyper-aware of your entire surroundings now, especially when you also have a toddler who actively throws small choke hazards on the floor.

Rael is a lot more communicative, which we know was once a worry of mine. For whatever reason he just decided to take a really long time developing his linguistic abilities. Now he won't shut up. But he's adorable.

Aeia sang at a school talent show last week. Work kept me from attending, but I'm told she did well singing some Kelly Clarkson song. When I let them have Xbox360 time she is also still the clear superior of the two when she and Lash play Guitar Hero II and III. Though Lash is still more entertaining to watch play and acts like he gets more out of it.

Lash is still little-leaguing. His team wins most of their games and he's having a wonderful time. He still isn't fantastically skilled, but I like to think there's some improvement going on. He even stole a base last week. Season ends soon, unless their record decrees they go on to play-offs. I think their record will be making that decree too. We'll see.

Denise has a written exam coming for a new job she's applied for. Not a career-forward move, but better pay, etc. so we'll be finger crossing on that when we're done finger crossing for me. :)

Nerdgaming is nerdgaming and keeps on keeping on. We added a new member to our nerdgaming entourage. Now our chi is a little more in balance.

To Denise and all the other mothers out there, and as years go on I know more and more of you and will now avoid listing names for fear of leaving any out, I hope you have a fabulous Mother's Day. Sure, it's yet another holiday invention for the sake of selling greeting cards, but of them all, I think celebrating motherhood is one of the more honorable and righteous Hallmarkidays.

What else? Movies:
Iron Man: Loved it. Continue to feel RDJ was the perfect casting choice (yeah, yeah Jason, whatever), and am very pleased to announce that The Wooden Girl outright doubled her facial emotive range in this film from one to two. Part of me is afraid, though that maybe Iron Man wasn't really all that fabulous, just that the last 5 or so superhero movies in recent memory have been so displeasing that this one was only good but seemed great. In other words, I fear watching it a second time and feeling as if the origin story drags too long, Paltrow isn't refreshingly new, Howard is more squeekily annoying as Rhodey, etc.

Teeth: I wasn't going to watch this; I was quite clear on this. But I watched it anyway. Somewhat nightmarish. A bit more gruesome (did it also have to spit the bitten parts back out? Really. Ugh). Dug the ending.

I've been watching season 2 of Penn & Teller Bullshit and am now wholly behind the idea of ceasing recycling, other than for aluminum cans, and for after-use restaurant grease as alternative fuel sources. It's (the recycling episode) actually the first episode I went into ready to disagree with and went out of a transformed man. Heh.

You can guarantee that my absolute love for Speed Racer, coupled with my viewing of its various trailers, will most definitely be keeping me out of the movie theatre on that one. Go Speed Go. It looks like it's really just a longish plot-less eyegasm.

Total number of new words Evan's added to the universe's English-language lexicon today: two--Hallmarkiday and eyegasm.

I've come to realize I have a growing resentment for people who offer "help" but never offer babysitting.

lunch is ready and I am hungry, so this is all folks.

Dead Again

Been a wee bit, first a reading update:

New family & friend photos.

50 Book Challenge #7: The Harlequin, by Laurell K. Hamilton. First off, holy shit am I reading slow this year. I need to seriously rededicate myself to my reading and unwind a little less with Guitar Hero II & III.

This was something like book #80 in the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series. I've lost count and the ambition to look up which book it actually is. Denise had to bribe me to start and finish this one, as I still have a few other books bucking to be read. She still has to finish bribing me.

That sad, this was a refreshing near-return to the more non-pornographic books at the front of the series. Even when Anita was getting her ho on, it very kindly did not take 200 of 300 pages to get it done. Words can't express how very pleased I was to have sex scenes not spread themselves redundantly across multiple chapters (seriously, one book had a chapter devoted to negotiating the specifics of a threesome, then another to talking out the discomforting ideas about it, then another to foreplay, then another to rediscussing comfort and boundaries, then another to fucking and yet another to dealing with discomforted reactions and then sanctimonious bullshit and then storming out and then another to examining relations and then getting right back to screwing. Seriously).

One of my favourite characters, Edward, returns this book. His presence almost always guarantees a healthy amount of attention will be spent on the more interesting "vampire hunter" aspects of the series. Sadly, his presence felt extremely unnecessary by book's end, as if he was merely written in so that Hamilton could acknowledge Edward fans who'd been clamoring for him since his last appearance 40 books previous. He wasn't actually necessary, or all that useful, to any parts of the plot. Meh.

Moving on.

This week was devoted to spending a lot of work days in classes learning to be a better Burgerworld manager, so that I can then go to more classes to become an even better SpiffyWorldBurger manager and get some serious promotions going--at some vaguely defined and wholly undisclosed time in the future. The amount of avoidance of any real discussion of what they have planned promotion-wise for me and one of the others really irks me, as does other bs about promoting a couple minions and then deciding to hold off on promoting them for no real reason. Blech. My McMorale is down. At any rate, regarding classes--the last day was devoted to learning better customer service. Now I am one super customer servicing motherfucker already. So this day was really redundant, even remedial at times, for me. Necessary steps forward; I just have to keep telling myself that--and keeping one ear to the wind, seeking opportunities for change. Sadly, the wind hasn't been blowing much.

Kids' report cards came. Aeia is, as per usual, the perfect little student. So much her mother in training. Lash got not-so-great marks on social skills and excellent marks in academics, was made to feel bad enough about the former that by the time I was able to see his report card, he had no pride or happiness to express about the latter. That bummed me and I spent a while working to make him feel better about his accomplishments.

This week's Netflix highlight is Gone Baby Gone. After watching this, I've come to some conclusions, some cementing of previous beliefs:
1. Casey Affleck can express better emotional depth and range of character than Ben.
2. Ben should just direct from now on.
The movie was great, far better than I ever would have expected it to be. If that's an indicator of the directorial ability Affleck has in him, I'd be happy to never see him do another Reindeer Games or Kevin Smith movie.

Across the Universe

I hadn't realized how much more "down" seemed to shadow my last two posts until reading Shel's comments. Yes, very much, there have been down moments lately, and someone close to me but displaced who has been finding me downer than usual. That all said, however, while often tired and whatnot, I am a good deal more happy than not. And I thank you, Shel, for also reminding me that there are others who share care with me.

Pressing on.

Just finished watching the eponymous movie of this post. I'm a big lover of modern musicals; I have a soft and tender spot for them. As much as I loved Moulin Rouge, I think the conceit of using contemporary music (ALL Beatles in this one) to help narrate the story really helped to make the movie more moving, rather than just more pretty. Not a perfect movie by far (while arty, post-modern, etc.) it was still a little too Hollywood happy ending, but it left me happy, which isn't the typical for me with the typical Hollywood ending.

Pressing on.

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday, dear Chris,
Happy birthday to you.

And a slightly early happy birthday to Joey, Misty, Carly and Robert too.

loudQUIETloud

This past week has seen a lot of stress for me at work, with my every move every minute of every day under heightened scrutiny as I work my ass off to stay on track for promotion. Things are all still moving forward, but I could really, really use a break, which isn't usually how I get to celebrate my days off either. When I have Saturday off, Denise typically works a full eight hour shift and Tasmia does not like her being gone, and so she wails a lot and won't let me calm her.

Lash tried out for little league baseball this past week, his first year playing. I really hope all of the practices see him improving more and more, and that he has fun. I actually have a lot of worry that in the end he'll spend more time frustrated and upset than having fun. Sometimes he has too-high expectations of himself. His coach says we should get him baseball video games because they'll help him come to understand the rules a little better. I guess I need to try renting at Blockbuster soon, or wherever else might have a baseball game. Hmph.

Tasmia is able to roll and scoot a lot better, requiring a lot more vigilance.

I'm very, very tired and spend too much free time lately brain-deading in front of the computer on Facebook. Just not seeing a lot of motivation to read a book or something lately. I've also been on a higher-than-normal Pixies kick lately.

Recent movies seen: The Martian Child (loved it); The Amateurs (loved it); Bangkok Girl (hated it); The Valley of Elah (meh, ok); Eastern Promises (meh, ok. Cronenberg's last few movies have ended in places/manners not very interesting to me); Eagle vs Shark (decent, too easy to draw comparisons to Napolean Dynamite) and 8mm 2 (awful). If you want spoilers and elaborations on these ratings, let me know.

Once Bitten

50 Book Challenge 30 and 31: Obsidian Butterfly and Narcissus in Chains by Laurell K. Hamilton. I continue to press onward in my reading of the Anita Blake series; the supernatural bent to the stories and "supernatural manner" aspects of the tales still really intrigue me. That said, Butterfly was both a slower read and a refreshing read in that it very nearly completely breaks from the convention of the previous novels, having Anita abandon her home locale and supporting cast of characters in order to immerse into a case and story that focuses a good deal more on one of the recurring supporting characters, Edward. This really worked for me, but it also made the complete 180 return to form in Narcissus all the more jarring. Narcissus also really amps up the sex stuff (which was already a bit much for me) for the series, focusing a lot on sex and cementing for me the realization that I am in fact reading a series of romance novels about a female detective who happens to be a zombie animator and vampire executioner. Go figure. I need to speed up, having only three months left to finish 19 books.

I don't know if it's the books, my darling wife, certain distractions, or what, but sex is on the mind a lot lately--and if the books aren't to blame, they certainly exacerbate it.

Just came in from watching Stardust at the Taylors'. Beautiful movie. Loved DeNiro.

Ice Ice Baby

In the past week, McBoomerang has grown on me and relaxed a bit, which has made Burgerworld considerably more bearable. ow, don't get me wrong, there were still distinctly sucky moments, the usual really awful customer (this one a screaming ass in front of his little kids over a piece of sausage I tried to give him for free when he complained about not getting it when he hadn't ordered it...long story). Meh. Work is work.

As of ten minutes ago, I have graded, potentially, barring latecomers, my last paper and I look forward to never grading papers again. Huzzah.

Socially, life is in a strange place. I don't really want to elaborate at the moment. There are strands of thought I continue to linger on and mull over significantly.

Denise and I, I think, are doing considerably better, thanks for asking.

Saw I am Legend last weekend. Hated it. I'm not familiar with the original work, so no gripe there, it was just awfully cliched and just so so very bad. The first third, exploring the mindset of a man alone in a nihilistic spiral, was really fascinating, and then it started to blow, and continued to blow, until it finally blew completely.

It's possible I have much to say; I just don't feel I have much to say right now. Sorry.

One Week

Last Wednesday I typed:

Starting off, a trailer for blog posts to come: an update on CB the cell phone kid, adventures in guinea pigs, McBoomerangs suck, absolutes, shiny photographs, killing Santa and throwing up at the movies. Brought to you by the letter E and the number 3.
Now it's time I gave you all the pay-off on that statement for waiting so patiently.

CB the cellphone kid came in to work again the next morning and was very contrite and polite. Seeing as it's safe policy-wise to have someone outside with the garbage during the bright of day, we let him go through all of the compacted garbage and, sure enough, no cellphone present at all. Haven't seen him back since.

I also recently learned that I'm a guinea pig for an experiment between my store owner and regional manager. One believes that all management should be nurtured and promoted from within, while the other believes that, while that's ideal, we should remain open to bringing in new management from outside of the current employee pull when a valid and experiment specimen happens to apply (IOW, I was hired to prove that hiring management from without is a good thing). Absolutely no pressure on me at all now. Thankfully, I've been kicking burger butt from the first day and try to stay in that mindframe without focusing on my guinea pig status.

In a similar vein, we have another new manager who comes from without, though she used to be a member of the management team here some years ago, left, and is newly back. I'm not fond of her. She's been gone long enough to be uncomfortable doing a lot of things on her own ("what? work in the grill alone for ten whole minutes?") and tends to overcompensate by being a bit more bossy-slash-impatient with others, which is effecting employee morale, which comes back to me via complaints and makes me annoyed. She looks a lot like a dear friend of mine too, and I HATE that because I don't like associating the image of someone I like with a personality that has a lot of growing on me to do. Bah, rant mode off on that department.

I've begun to say "absolutely" far, far too often and it's starting to annoy me but I seem absolutely incapable of stopping myself.

Shiny photographs is still to come. Grammatically, that sentence would seem to require an "are" instead of an "is" but in this particular instance, "shiny photographs" is one thing (like Jaws is one movie, even though the word jaws is a plural of jaw). Your grammar lesson for today comes from my annoyance at being immersed in papers to grade this week as well. Shiny pictures is unlikely to see fruition before the holiday season nears its end.

Lash is 10, which is five whole years older than I was when my bastard classmates told me Santa was my mom. He still believes in Santa, which is great, adorable, yada yada, but I've been giving a lot of thought on the subject of breaking the news to him. On one hand, I know he'll be devastated if he learns the truth from a "friend" but I worry that he'd have a lot more and greater trust issues with us as parents if we let him know we've been allowing him to believe a lie all these years. I worry.

A few years ago there was this comic by Ed Brubaker called Sleeper. Issue 9 or 10 of volume two had the origin story of one of the main character's friends, a story that involved a good and loving father finding his young son horrifically eaten by a neighbour's dog, causing him a mental break and a life of violent crime to follow. This book made me physically ill and killed an excellent series for me. Fast forward. . .Stephen King's The Mist is adapted to film. If you haven't seen it and don't want any of it spoiled, stop fucking reading.

This is my favourite King short story (though it's technically a novella, which I should stick with so that I can call something else my favourite short). Based on my memory of the story, I was all set to let Lash and Aeia accompany me to the theater to see the film version (some scary, hidden monsters and giant spiders; some evil religious zealotry). The kids misbehaved at the zero hour and didn't get to go. This is a serendipitous happening that I'm very thankful for. I really dug most of the movie and found it a faithful and enjoyable adaptation, all the way up 'til the altered ending. The story ends with them driving off into the mist and an unsure future, which is perfectly a-ok with me. The movie doesn't stop there. In the movie, the main character earlier promises to protect his very young son from the monsters (and at a time where, thematically, the crazier humans are clearly more monster than anything else when he makes the promise), and so when their vehicle runs out of gas in the film (well beyond the story's closing) the loving and protective dad takes his gun and blows his son's brains out. Everything that followed that was just incredibly cliched and ridiculous, but I was too busy throwing up on the aisle in front of me to care. That scene made me understand a clear distinction between something being horrific and something being terrifying or scary as that was just horrific--and unnecessary.

Crying

Ok, spoilers abound.

Let it be known that I have never read the book Bridge to Teribithia, so I'd had no idea what was in store as we sat down as a family tonight to watch the film version of it. Right now I'm surrounded by a bunch of crying kids and crying Denise.

Part of me is tickled that a movie is making Denise cry; another part of me is pissed that nothing in the way of all the previews I'd seen for this movie warned me it would be a sad movie and make my kids cry. I don't like it when things make my kids cry. Everything I've seen has made this out as a kids fantasy movie, which it is, and leaves out the interlacing of death (which I did see coming miles away).

Hmph.

Read a Book

Brian's introduced me to the following two hilarious Youtube videos. I think they're keen; one's a video originally from the BET channel, the other I believe is a mock ad for Smirnoff Ice Tea.

Enjoy.

My last week went all right. Our friend Terry (previously, I may have referred to our friends "the lesbians;" Terry was half of this unit) finally came out of the closet as single again after keeping her broken relationship from us for a year. In her new openness at singledom she's become a lot more social again and on Saturday coerced me into going out for a couple drinks with her (hoping she would meet someone naturally). While out we ran into the Comic Shop Girl that one of my friends is completely crushing on, and her roommates. The night ended up being very fun, with skipping, dancing and plenty of innuendo (I'm having difficulty washing off where one of Comic Shop Girl's roommates wrote "sexay" on my arm).

Sunday was the second session of my new nerdgame session run by me. Everyone still seems to really be digging on it, which is refreshing. We've needed refreshing for a while; having just single GM nerding the past year was a drain on my creativity that I hadn't realized until I offered to take one of the sessions over again. Now everyone's having fun in all the sessions again.

In last night's Deadlands game at Brian's we've inadvertently set up a situation where we cause the Confederate army to blow up the Mormon army (we're on neither side, even though my character is a Moron Blessed). He left us cliffhangering that so I can't know for sure until next time.

Otherwise I've been just trying to enjoy my days spending all this time with my kids.

Meanwhile, I want to thank Chrissy and John for all the work they put in helping me get our Mustang back on the road--and on the same day we officially retired the van for all eternity. And want to thank Terry for being my ride back into town from delivering the van to the dismantlers.

I also want to thank my mom for sending me a birthday greeting on my birthday that primarily was a message about how horrible a son I am to her. It didn't bring my day down at all. Fuck you very much, ma.

I hated Transformers even more than I thought I would. So much so that I actually look forward to seeing Harry Potter.

Summertime

Happy Summer Solstice (at 11a.m. my time). Go somewhere safe and appropriate and light yourself a bonfire and revel around it, preferably nekkid.

Yesterday Rael got his first haircut. It was done by Denise and looks only ok not great but now he definitely looks like a boy.

I'm watching this ridiculous giant crocodile movie, Primeval with the older kids right now. It's really awful in the Anaconda vein of awful.