For the People Who Appreciate Movies

From the July Issue of GAMES Magazine



I found that covering up the second and third columns gave a few of the first words a couple title options. Interesting and fun.

Ooh, bubbles!

I saw JC sitting on the counter, facing the corner. I couldn't figure out what he was doing until he batted at the soda bottle. Adam must have just poured some into a glass so the bottle was still bubbling. This is similar to JC's reaction to the water bowl filling.



So cute!

More Movies

Whew, lots of movies lately.

I watched Happy-Go-Lucky in sections while Adam was busy doing other things. I'm not sure what the point really was. It was kind of a strange movie. Very unbalanced. The opening sequence did remind me of the end of Amelie though. I was just kind of annoyed by the perpetual happiness and then confused by the anger in the second half. Anywho, one more Oscar movie down.

We also saw two movies at the Drive-In on Saturday. We finally made it there! We saw Monsters Vs Aliens and Taken. The first was cute, but could definitely have used more BOB. Funniest character in the movie. The second was, uhm, violent. Big fight/action sequences don't really translate so well to a ginormous outdoor screen so it can make you a little nauseous. Overall, not a horrible movie, but nowhere near as scary as I expected. Which is good. Because I'm a wuss.

Yesterday while Adam was out playing with his new RC truck I watched Bride Wars. Tis the season and all... I was ok with the whole premise and various plot points until the very last second. That pretty much ruined it for me. I said, "That's so dumb" and turned it off. And played Jeopardy! And got my butt kicked by a computer player named Angie. But really, a whole category about boxing and another about poetry? I had no chance.

The Great Outdoors for Cats

The weather this holiday weekend has been pretty good. Kind of windy, but sunny, nice temperatures. We've had all the windows open and the patio door as well for most of the day. The cats love this. Especially when the sun hits right.

Take Ted, sprawled out in typical cat fashion:


Of course, JC can't let him enjoy it solo, so he has to squeeze himself in the space between the screen and Ted:


Luckily Connor was distracted by a spider, so he didn't add himself to the mix:


They do occasionally all hang out together:



Carly, of course, wants nothing to do with it. We even put her in front of the door when the other guys are eating. She just runs back up to her spot by the Lego cars:



Grrr. Nature.

Mostly about movies

In the past two weeks or so, every time I try to write a blog entry, it turns into some whiny, complainy thing so I just delete it. Things have been busy at work, the weather has been up and down, and perhaps I have a bit of a combination of ennui and cabin fever. In any case, here’s another attempt.

On the Oscar front, I’ve “watched” a few more on the list. I use the word “watched” lightly. Bolt I actually did watch. All the way through. And I liked it. It’s kind of an animated combination of The Truman Show and Homeward Bound with some Spiderman thrown in. Cute, not at all the disguised propaganda of other recent animated films, fun to watch. But also sad – I almost cried.

The Pan’s Labyrinth of this year was In Bruges. I fell asleep for about an hour of it but I don’t think I really missed much. I looked up the plot afterwards and I think I pretty much got it even though I entirely missed the middle of the movie. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. In any case, definitely not a baby bunnies and butterflies kind of movie. Spoiler: everyone dies.

The Cinderella Man of this year was The Wrestler. In all honesty, I didn’t really want to see it anyway. But it was on the list. So I tried. I lasted until he got stabbed in the forehead with a fork. After that I was done (excuse the obvious pun there – it was kind of unintentional.) I retreated to the bedroom and watched something much more my style – Hannah Montana.

So, I’m left with nine films to finish up my list:

Australia (was going to rent this instead of The Wrester but it’s THREE HOURS LONG)
Benjamin Button (I’m guessing my expectations of this movie will surpass its actual merit)
Defiance (don’t even know what this one’s about)
Frost/Nixon (I’ll probably be bored, but should be able to watch it)
Frozen River (I’ve heard good things about this one from multiple sources)
Gran Torino (uuuugh. I’m predicting I don’t make it through this one either)
Happy-Go-Lucky (not sure about this one)
Last Chance Harvey (looking forward to this one)
Revolutionary Road (this one should be ok as well)

After those there are quite a few other movies in the queue that I’m looking forward to.

We didn’t end up going to the Drive-in this past weekend. It was so windy that part of their screen blew off and they had to fix it. It should be good to go for this coming weekend so we’ll see what the weather does. The same movies are playing so we’ll try again. Adam went to see Angels & Demons on Sunday. I was disappointed in The Da Vinci Code so I didn’t buy into the hype of the prequel/sequel at all. I didn’t hear much from him about it so I don’t know if it was good or bad.

The last IMA meeting of the season was Tuesday so I am now officially VP Membership in addition to all the other director positions I hold. I’m hopeful that the directors under me will like the ideas I have to make our chapter more welcoming and appealing. We’ll see. I’m looking forward to the planning meetings.

Aside from our trip in August, we don’t have much planned for the summer. We didn’t reserve any campsites. I don’t know if we’ll try some impromptu weekends or not. Perhaps we’ve just resigned ourselves to the fact that camping doesn’t work for us despite our numerous attempts. We also rented a pontoon boat for the whole day on June 6. We’ve invited Adam’s parents, Mark and his son, and my dad and Cheryl to come along and cruise the lakes and rivers around Fremont with us. Hopefully the weather will cooperate. We’ve got our party lined up for the 20th. Not too much response, but we didn’t ask for RSVPs so who knows. Given our track record, if 10 people show up I’ll be happy. I’d love more, but I have to have realistic expectations or I’m just setting myself up to be mad and disappointed.

On the kitty front, no changes in Carly’s helplessness. I resorted to putting a dish with food and water on top of the fridge since that’s where she wants to spend the majority of her time. (It was predictably knocked off during a toussle between JC and Carly the next day.) I’m thinking about stashing another one in my bathroom and when she jumps on me in the middle of the night, throwing her in there instead of trekking to the cat room. I don’t know if that’s a good idea or not, but I’m kicking it around. The other guys are enjoying nature. When it was so windy last weekend, JC was just going crazy with all the random stuff that blew by the windows. We also have a ballsy squirrel who enjoys pacing back and forth on the deck even though it has to know it has three cats intently staring at it. We were able to open up the deck door for a while during the afternoon last weekend and they loved it. Even Carly expressed some interest in what was going on outside.

Nothing planned (that I’m aware of) for Memorial Day. We’ll probably cook out at some point during the day. It will be nice to have a day off. Last week I was tempted to just take a random vacation day but I ended up not doing that. I’ve got 6 days still unscheduled so I’ll have to see what to make of them.

I had some fun with JC earlier this week when I realized my headband fit perfectly around him. He probably could have just reached his paw in and yanked it off, but he decided to walk around with it on for a couple hours. So cute.



That's about it.

Unexpected Discovery

It's been a while since I revisited my "Cute Overload" daily calendar. I've got a pile of cute/funny days to share, but this Thursday's really amused me:



Not because of the dog, although he's cute. It's the fact that the dude is watching Strongbad in the background. I love Strongbad!

Here are a couple of my favorites...
Techno
Trogdor!

A post full of unrelated thoughts

Not really much substance in the posts lately. Oh well. Sometimes I'm just happier posting a picture. I'll make up for it now with a gargantuan post.

Anyway.

So, Celebrity Apprentice. Anyone watch it? We DVR it and usually get around to watching it on Tuesday or Wednesday. It's been rough with all the episodes being 2 hours long this season. I was rooting for Jesse the whole time so I was kind of bummed to see him fired this last week. I think they took the easy, exploitative way out to have Joan and Annie in the final. But that's what's "entertaining" I guess. It will be interesting.

The task last week, the whole Chicken of the Sea thing, got me thinking. Is their catch phrase really that great of a marketing plan? "Ask any mermaid you happen to see, what's the best tuna? Chicken of the Sea." Hrm. First of all, how original to rhyme see with sea. Second of all, mermaids are mythological creatures. They don't exist. So it's like having Bigfoot represent Nike or the Loch Ness Monster shill for Guinness. Why would you want to base your whole brand on an endorsement from something that doesn't exist? Then again, I'm a left-brained accounting dork so I guess I don't know anything about that kind of thing.

In other news, I watched Doubt last weekend. Adam lasted about half an hour and got bored. I didn't get bored, necessarily, I just wasn't riveted. Meryl Streep sure had some zingers there though. The overall subject wasn't really interesting to me and I'm generally bothered by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. (I always get the feeling he's overacting...) So, one more down. We've got Bolt on the end table waiting to be watched this weekend.

On an entirely different subject, Cosmo had an article about kitchen must-haves ("what you need to cook, entertain, and look chic".) As Cosmo is my guide for pretty much everything (pause for laughter) I figured I'd see how I stacked up:

Cast Iron Skillet - check
Fondue Set - check. I actually had TWO at one point but I gave one away
Pepper Mill - check
Espresso Machine - nope, but we do have two different coffee makers, including one of those one-cup thingies with the pods. They make espresso pods. Does that count?
Sandwich Press - check. It's one of the interchangeable plate sets on the waffle iron.
Cocktail Shaker - check

And three things every chick should know how to do:
1. Pass off Takeout as a Home-Cooked Meal - Uh, how about you just cook something? If you order Chinese it's obvious you didn't make it. And why lie to your guests? They really don't care how the food got there as long as it's edible...
2. Uncork a Bottle of Wine - I still struggle with this one. I think it's my low center of gravity and wimpy arms. And the overly complicated, scary corkscrew that we have. Seriously. It could probably coordinate a rocket launch it's so high-tech.
3. Make a Quick Bite - It's easy to throw all kinds of things together. I'm partial to pasta, but I can make pretty much anything (as long as it doesn't require cutting in butter or phyllo dough. I draw the line there.)

So, I did pretty well on this one. Whew! I'm not a complete failure!

This weekend looks to be pretty crappy weather wise so we'll probably stay in for the most part. The bells play for the last time tomorrow evening and Adam might try to go see Fast and Furious. Nothing much else going on. We plan to try and head to the drive-in next weekend.

I've been doing a lot better at keeping the cooking blog updated these past few weeks. Some interesting new recipes. I also revamped our personal website last weekend. The wedding thing was a little outdated now. It's totally boring, but I'm still thinking about what else to do there.

It's been a long month-end week and I'd love an uninterrupted night of sleep. Carly seems to go back and forth between waking me up every hour and a half and waking me up just once during the night. Last night it was just once, around 3. The night before it was at least 4 times. It's annoying, but if I try to ignore her she just knocks stuff around and jumps on me. And either Adam is totally oblivious or he's playing dumb. So I'm stuck carrying a cat (who is perfectly capable of walking) to her food bowl multiple times each night. *sigh* Hopefully she'll grow out of this phase eventually.

That's about all I can think of right now. Time for bed.

Holy Tree Leaves, Batman!

Maybe spring is finally coming...

I feel like the baby bear from Goldilocks

There's a cat sleeping in my bed!

Carly's Going Green

Shower, Interrupted

Scene: Martha's Bathroom

Martha has just gotten into the shower. Carly is sitting on the toilet as she usually does. Just as Martha gets her head soaped up with shampoo, Carly starts yowling.

Martha: What the!? Carly, what's wrong?

Martha sticks her head out of the curtain, whereupon she sees Carly laying on the toilet seat. Carly looks up at Martha like nothing is wrong.

Martha: Grr.

A minute later, the same events repeat. This time when Martha sticks her head out of the curtain, Carly is stretched out with her front feet on the wall, pawing at the curtain.

The events repeat themselves, with Carly eventually sticking her head into the shower. Martha thinks perhaps Carly needs to go pee and is desperately trying to communicate this. So Martha rushes through her shower, grabs a towel and the cat, and sprints to the litterboxes.

Upon arriving in the cat room she puts Carly down in front of a box and tries to cover up in front of the open window that faces the neighbors who have small children.

Carly saunters around the room, sniffing at the food, and finally jumping up on the window seat to watch some bunnies who are running around in the yard. Her tail begins to flit around in excitement.

Martha: Are you kidding me?

Then, reconsidering this opportunity, Martha decides to move a litterbox and some food to the computer room and give Carly a chance to observe and enjoy nature undisturbed.

Martha sets Carly down on the window seat in the other room. And what does Carly do?



She looks back into the room, completely ignoring the cardinals buzzing by the window. She then runs behind the bookshelf and refuses to come out.



Martha: *sigh*