Monday, March 30, 2009

Your lounging needs fulfilled

Finally someone has put together a comprehensive point by point look at the Snuggie and it's competitors. Enjoy it.

In other news, the Torpedo sandwich at Quizno's gets a thumbs up from me.

The soul still burns

In years past, after the Super Bowl, I pretty much pretend there is no football until the draft. This season my fervor has not abated. Small wonder really. I mean, I did claim the TLB fantasy title (trophy still MIA) and, of course, Pittsburgh ran the table for their sixth Super Bowl victory. (I gotta tell you I really love writing that past sentence, I could write it every day.) So I've continued to visit the various football sites in the offseason and kept up with a lot more than I usually do this time of year.

Currently I'm watching the 2006 NFL Wildcard game where the Steelers come from behind to beat the Bengals and started their run to Super Bowl XL. Love it! I could watch Jerome Bettis run all day long. Up next on my agenda is the Colts game that nearly caused me to tear down my living room piece by piece.

This weekend I also read Bump and Run by Mike Lupica, which I liked a lot actually. This was my first taste of Lupica's fiction and I might be back for more. I definitely recommend it to Nick, and Adam if he actually read anything besides the NFL Prospectus.

Other things about this past week:
  • Slurpees are yummy! (I actually knew this, but had it reinforced on my drive home.)
  • Anyone who speeds within 100 miles of Martinsville on race weekend is too dumb to live. I saw no less than five cars pulled over today.
  • Shopping for headphones is annoying. All the ones that are rated well are expensive as shit. I saw one pair rated five stars on sale for $995. No thanks.
  • David Byrne and Brian Eno's new album "Everything That Happens Will Happen Today" is pretty good.
  • I haven't decided if I like the new Morrissey album or not. I may, but need more time with it.
  • The Penguins are making a surge into the playoffs and I'm excited. They could be a dark horse if the defense can stop teams catching up in the third period.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Fight and make vampires bleed

Gads what a horrible work week. So damn long and it's only four days. But it's every waking minute for four days. Friday night a depression descended on me and I've only just gotten over it. It was not aided by the fact that my meth-making neighbors were cooking this weekend and on top of that they had some lovely loud-ass music playing to wake me early on Sunday. Nothing like having Ludacris thunder his way into your consciousness to start the day.

Anyway, I'm coming out of it since I got a few hours to relax. Watched the movie Venus, which got Peter O'Toole an Oscar nomination. He was phenomenal as the old guy who falls in love with a crass young girl. Some serious depth that went further than just a creepy old man molesting the youth.

I also watched the Battlestar Galactica finale and was pleased with it, all told. This past season has been kind of sketchy for me, but the finish made it worthwhile I suppose. It ended with pretty much everything settled, but there is still room for more if someone can find a good way (or good reason) to do it. I know it's nerdy, but the first four seasons are really phenomenal and I recommend them to everyone. I know it's a Sci-Fi show and that scares off lots of non-nerds, but it's good by any standard, not just good for the Sci-Fi Channel. (Soon to be SyFy for some godawful reason.)

I also read Phillip Roth's Indignation, which was a good read. That said, I'm pretty sure I did not pick up on the subtext that I suspect was there. I need to look online for some reviews, but who knows if I'll take the time.

As I posted on Twitter (which you can see my feed to the left there and we all know Twitter is the new hotness, just ask any 24 hour news channel) I have finished the first level of Dead Space. It's excellent so far, but it's hard to sit down and play. It's got this creepy atmosphere with horrors jumping out at you at odd times and eerie music playing. It's unsettling and I have a hard time putting myself into that environment for extended periods of time. It's something that's happened several other times (most notably with Condemned) and it's problematic. I should probably try to start playing these games during daylight hours, but that's exceedingly difficult for me. Ahh well.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

You can't take the sky from me

Been a decent weekend all told. St. Patty's Day I spent too much on dinner, then Trip and I had several drinks and I pounded him at various fighting games. Some fun. And today I sat around and did very little. Which was nice. Very laid back, which I needed after such a trying week at work.

I started watching Torchwood, which is the Doctor Who spinoff. Hasn't captured me yet, but I do enjoy it's more mature tone. I also watched Step Brothers, which was quite fun. I gotta say, from watching the trailers I thought I knew exactly what that movie was, but it took an odd turn. Which is to say, it surprised me and I was quite entertained.

I also watched Pineapple Express and damn, that movie is funny. At one point they just dropped all pretense of reality and went funny. Sure it's a weed humor, but it's damn funny weed humor.

I also downloaded a couple of albums that some of you should look into. The first is War Child - Heroes, which is an album full of tracks by classic artists who have requested a certain new artist to record that song. Highlights include Beck covering Bob Dylan's Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat and Lilly Allen sings The Clash's Straight To Hell in a refreshing way. Oh and TV On the Radio doing Bowie's Heroes is also excellent. The album itself is a little uneven, but worth a buy because proceeds go to helping children in war torn areas.

Second on the album tip is Dark Was The Night, a compilation album of indie artists that benefits AIDS research and awareness. Actually the correct term would be double album actually as it's 31 tracks. I'd highly recommend Brackett, WI by Bon Iver. I'd kind of glanced over Bon Iver unimpressed until I heard this. Now I've got the recent album For Emma, Forever Ago and it's very good too. Also the track by Riceboy Sleeps is magic. It's one of the guys from Sigur Ros and it's beautiful. Several other tracks are excellent and I'd say this is the better of the two albums, but it's twice is long.

You can download either at iTunes or Amazon or both for under $20.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

It could happen here

This picture is a sad, sad statement on humanity. The sad thing is that I'm actually surprised I didn't see this live in person in Martinsville

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Roanoke Times fail

I have to say the failblog has brought me many laughs, but scrolling through old entries brought me this gem. It really says so much about our area.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

I will watch the Watchmen, apparently

Finally got out to see the Watchmen movie, which was pretty damn good. I've been a fan of the comic for a long time and the movie held up fairly well. My one beef was with some of the soundtrack choices. They seemed a little hamfisted at times, Simon and Garfunkel's Sound of Silence being the worst offender. Still, definitely worth checking out.

I would, however, recommend leaving your 7-8-year-old at home, because this movie is not for him. But one family in Martinsville did not heed that R rating and I got to watch this with some idiot kid talking through half of it. I thought the intensely violent sequences might have lead them to leave or perhaps the sex scenes, full frontal nudity or even the rape scene may have given these parents pause, but no, they watched all the way through kids in tow. Sad really.

Last night I watched Waltz with Bashir, which was nominated for Best Foreign Language film. It's animated and about an Israeli/Palestinian war, I'm not sure which one. It interviews different people about this war and their experiences and ends talking about this massacre that happened to the Palestinians at the hands of this Christian Phalangist group. This ending is really intense and worth watching. It's heartbreaking.

On a lighter note, if you ever want boobs on your leg, look up this person.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Grrr

So my work schedule is officially changed so that I work Thursday through Sunday. Awesome. My transformation into an antisocial hermit is now complete. I am required by law to grow a thick unmanageable beard and give "crazy eyes" to children. The fact that I had to drive into work today (Wednesday) to find out that schedule made is even better. The only upside was that I had dinner with Kevin, so it wasn't a total wash.

Anyway this past weekend I watched a ton of Dexter, season 2 and finished season 3 of Entourage. I'm enjoying both. Dexter is kinda odd just because you have to root for the serial killer. I mean, I do that a lot when you're not supposed to, but that's just cause I like rooting for the bad guy. In this, you can't help but go for the killer. He's charming and you understand why he's killing people and chopping them up. It makes sense.

Well I'm off to enjoy my last bit of free time since I won't be coming up for air until Sunday.