They call me Hard Corey

Been keeping a pretty low profile this week, gathering my strength after Gabe's visit. Trip and I did go to G-boro on Monday, in hopes of getting his comp. fixed. Of course, because of some tech. support misreporting that did not go as planned and we stood around in CompUSA for two and a half hours. Man that was fun. I, at least, got to sneak away and watch NFL Countdown at the TV kiosk. Trip was on the phone with Apple for most of the evening and, ultimately we left with nothing done. Huge stunner, even moreso for Trip than me.

Hmm, I've been listening to The Hold Steady's two albums a lot this week. Trip made me copies of their albums and they are very good. It's like a blues band with spoken word lyrics about drugs and parties and weird times in the midwest. Sorta. It comes out being good somehow and I wouldn't have thought so from my own description there. I've also been trying to get some more Finntroll, which is what Swedish pirates would sound like if they played metal. It's kinda cool, in a weird way.

Also football season is afoot and that always makes life a little better. I'm gonna do a fantasy football thing with Nick and the gang, but my only hope of succeeding there is if everyone else is as big a noob as I am, which I doubt. It'll still be fun I suppose. Must not draft all Steeler players...

Jojo the Idiot Circus Boy

Things are starting to get back to normal around here. Gabe left on Saturday morning and it's been pretty quiet. I had a great time with him in though and I hated to see him go. We hit up Chateau Morrisette and had a good time while he was in. Nice meal, good wine and beautiful scenery. That's a hard combo to beat.

Gabe had to be at the Raleigh airport early Saturday and I ended up not sleeping at all Friday night and riding down with him and mom. Sucked to see him go, but what can ya do? He's got a real life (which is a stunning contrast to my total lack of one). Mom and I rode back and hit K & W Cafeteria for breakfast. I won't be hurrying back for that. I've never been a huge fan of that place and my biscuits and gravy were quite horrid.

In other news, I watched Million Dollar Baby on Friday and it lived up to the hype. Good through and through. It's happy and sad and pretty much everything you could want. Also Morgan Freeman, man does that guy kickass or what. I'm giving it a filet mignon rating, with no reservations.

Saturday (after I had slept for a long while) I hooked up with Corb and Trip and we watched some Kenny vs. Spenny (a show I've only recently discovered) and some Pimp My Ride. We also watched a show that drove home the fact that I have outgrown the MTV demographic. It's called Trailor Fabulous and it's simply atrocious. It's a makeover show for people in trailors, with horrible, horrible people doing the making over. They have a token gay dude who was obnoxious. He's like Queer Eye's Carson if he was born in a trailor, forced to wear Levi's toughskins and molested by his uncle, Bo Duke.

Moving along, today Trip and I went to see March of the Penguins. It was really good. I love penguins anyway (note the name of the site afterall), but this was well done. Morgan Freeman narrated and again, he's the man. While I'm giving this movie a filet mignon rating, I have to note that I think Winged Migration was a little better film overall, it just lacked penguins.

Social interaction levels reaching dangerous levels

Man it's been a busy weekend. My bro rolls into town and EVERYBODY wants to hang. I've been social for the last 4 days and it's wearing thin. I'm tired, but I'm taking a day of rest. Hopefully that means I'll be more social going to the vineyard tomorrow.

But this weekend was a whirlwind of activity. Picked Gabe up on Friday in Raliegh with the fam. Saturday we hooked up with John, Tony, David and Ben and got a little drunk. Hodges showed up a little later. I managed to drop $20 in two poker tournaments. (I so hate the tourney format.) But it was a good time and good to see everyone.

Sunday we went to Trip's for some Halo 2 hijinks and Danny, Corb and Hodges showed up. After some early technical difficulties we got up and running and had a decent time. We finished the evening with some Robot Chicken, which Gabe appreciated.

Monday Hodges, Gabe and myself headed to the 'Noke and hooked up with David and Ben. We also managed to squeeze into Kevin's schedule and have a little Red Palace dinner with him. Mmm Red Palace. We ended up going all nostalgic and playing a booster draft with the new sets of Magic cards. That was fun and made me want to play again, but I really can't afford to get a new habit.

Well my plans of relaxing may have just come to a halt. Corb invited us to the pool, so we may end up doign that. Although at least that's a low pressure situation. Could be fun.

Nonentity

Now listening to: still more Modest Mouse

I managed to stay busy today. I mowed Trip's yard and did some weedeating in the insane heat. That was fun, but noone to blame but myself. I coulda waited for things to cool down in the evening, but I just wanted to get it done.

After that I came home, drank a gallon or two of water and cooled down. I then went to see a dress rehearsal of Corb's community theater production of Little Shop of Horrors. It was pretty much all I expected. The show was well put together and there were some talented folks in it, there were some technical problems, but it was a rehearsal and not an actual show, so I shan't over critique that. Corb did a really nice job putting it together, the sets look sharp and clearly a lot of work was put into getting everything just right. It did suffer from the same problem all plays in this area are going to suffer from, the target audience. But that really can't be helped. On the up side, there are a coupla cute chicks in the play, none in my age range, but it's nice to look nonetheless.

My biggest problem with going to the show was something I had foreseen, but there is no cure for it. There were loads of people I kinda, sorta know. Not people I wanna talk to, but people I'm obligated to speak to when I see them or I seem like an snob. So I get to have pedantic miserable faux conversation with them, when I'd rather be staring off into space.

I spy with my little eye...

So I actually left the house today. It was ever so exciting. Went to Trip's and then we went to Jerry's Pizza with the intent of dining there. They have been remodeling for what seems like forever and still are. The dining area is incredibly small because of this and so we decided to just take it back to his place as there were hordes of people milling about. Later we went for a Blizzard at DQ and it was also packed. The fun thing about going to places in Martinsville is the sites you see. I'm gonna give you a little list of things I saw that caught my attention.

• White trash family, including mom smoking in line (clear violation of Va. state law), eldest child wearing a t-shirt and filthy underwear and nothing else and younger child who decided that a shirt was too much and just sported a diaper. Altogether charming.
• Surly white girl who seems to wish everyone dead while taking their order.
  
• Surly black woman who seemed to wish everyone dead while making thier Blizzard.
• Annoying white guy who clearly wanted to use the N word on the surly black woman.
• Woman in her 40s wearing an outfit she didn't have the body for when in her 20s.
• Bald black man wearing a hairnet. Why was he wearing a hairnet without hair? Couldn't tell you.

After our adventures in the outside world Trip and I watched The Incredibles. I love that movie, seems to be as good as the first time each time I watch it.

New gig

well I have now started blogging about WoW at a new site. This will come as a relief to some of you who don't enjoy my WoW rambling. To those that do, you can check it out here. Just go to the MOG blogs and look for the WoW listing.

Anyway that's about all I got for now. I only halfwatched the WSOP broadcast last night and it wasn't what I expected really.

Today's the day they're handing out brains

So I've been watching a lot of tv the last coupla days. Sunday I watched the new Pauly Shore reality show. It was ok. I was always a but of a fan of Pauly, despite all the hate he gets. He's just goofy and became an easy target. I concede that his movies were stupid, but sometimes stupid can be good... not always, but sometimes. I do say that Biodome was excellent and will stand by that statement. Anyway that show was interesting, although I'm not sure I'm gonna be riveted by it always.

I watched Hell's Kitchen yesterday. It's entertaining, particularly when the head chef starts yelling. As far as the competition goes I'll be surprised if Ralph doesn't win. He's among the most capable and seems to have more of a traditional chef look and feel, moreso than the others anyway.

I also tuned into a couple of episodes of 30 days, the show done by the documentarian that did SuperSize Me, Morgan Spurlock. They had a marathon on FX and some of the episodes really didn't excite me. Two that did were Morgan and his girlfriend living 30 days on minimum wage. They did ok except that both of them had to go to the hospital for minor ailments. Of course, Morgan ended up working two jobs and they had no creature comforts at all. According to their budgets they would have needed to work three months to pay those bills off. Scary, but not really surprising.

The other episode was this West Va. native Christian going to live as a Muslim for a month in Michigan. That was interesting seeing this guy try to acclimate himself to living as a Muslim and watching how differently people reacted to him when he looks Islamic.

Tonight the 2005 World Series of Poker coverage starts on ESPN and I'm excited about that. I'm sure Nick will be Tivoing that up and watching it when Augustine allows a break in his schedule. I actually don't know who won this year and am eager to watch it without knowing in advance.

Electrons and unicorns

So I've kept a low profile this week, not leaving the house. I reread some Harry Potter books through the week and on Saturday read The Half Blood Prince. The new one is excellent. I'd give it a filet mignon rating, unreservedly so. It's one of the better Harry Potter books and they are all good.

I also finished the Gods of Aberdeen and would give that a definite +1 chainmail. It started out good, then the story crawled to a standstill and bored me.

Back to Potter I have a few thoughts on the book that have some serious spoilers, so I may wait til the end of the week to post them for the few readers I have to catch up with the reading.

I've also been listening to this song Astronaut by Luna, that I downloaded years ago. It's exceptionally good and I would like to get more of Luna's work. I have on of their albums that's not bad, but this song makes me want to hear more.

It's important to remember...

sometimes the bull does win. Anyway nothign going on. I'm preparing to apply for a bunch of jobs, so I got that going for me. I'm now going through and rereading the last coupla Harry Potter books in prep for the upcoming release of the next book. Woo, who's excited?

Well sadly that's about all I have to report. Been getting my nerd on with WoW and watching junk tv.

Sex and crap

Slow week on the posts, I know. What can I say, I'm depressed. Went to Trip's place one night and we watched both Kinsey and Aliens vs. Predator. Now there are two different experiences in movie watching.

I'll start with Aliens vs. Predator. It was horrid. Bad plot, sketchy acting and so not what I wanted to see when I heard the title. I mean I love the original Alien movies and I'm an apologist for the original predator film, but this was inexcusable. Not enough Alien on Predator violence. Somehow through the movie the predators become the "good guys' which seems odd. I'm saying this movie earned its mudbutt rating with a vengeance.

Kinsey was good, not the best movie ever, but good. I have always been fascinated by human sexuality (which is odd considering how little participation with it I have). It was a nice telling of how one man tried to banish ignorance and misinformation and replace it with scientific fact and how he was fought constantly. I find it amusing how his book on men was fairly well received, but when women's sexuality was discussed people balked and thought it was evil and dirty. Just an example of the patriarchal nature of our society. Anyway I'd give Kinsey a foot massage (no foot fetish involved).

I'm reading this book the Gods of Aberdeen and it's pretty good. It's about college life and studying medieval alchemical works. Kind of a Davinci Code vibe, except different.

I also continue giving entirely too much time to WoW. I'm a video game addict, maybe I should do a study of that. I could be the next Kinsey... cept I'd get laid a lot less... than Kinsey I couldn't possibly get...nevermind.

Anyway it's storming now, with some nice tornado warnings so I suppose I should go.

Stenches

Trip and I went to see Land of the Dead yesterday. I'm a big fan of zombie movies, even the silly ones. This, however, was not Romero's best work. I prefer movies where the zombies have just come to life and people are figuring out how to deal with them. This was an established zombie world and the living had created a city to live in and went so far as to use captured undead as entertainment. Really it was less about zombies and more about the abuse of power by man.

Another thing it seemed to be lacking was the cool zombie moment. One of the draws of these movies is seeing really disgusting things happen to the living or zombies with really bizarre deterioration. It had some of that, but not the depth of putrescence that I wanted.

On the up side, Asia Argento=hot. That's all I have to say about that. There was also a cool Tom Savini zombie cameo, but it seemed kinda tacked on. All in all I'd say this movie ranked about Meh. The Dawn of the Dead was soo much better, both the original and the remake.

Here is my brother and nephew in living color. Photo credit goes to my mom. This was an "action photo" compared to the sheer number of Stonehenge shots she took. 

Bombs bursting in air

My back pain seems to have subsided somewhat, which is a good thing. There is still an occasional twinge, but I don't have to ease my ass out of bed now. Three cheers for being relatively able bodied.

So the July 4 holiday is upon us and I'm actually gonna do some of the traditional activities I suppose. Trip is having a barbecue tonight and that should be fun. The speedway is doing it's fireworks (on July 1 not 4, who can understand why they do anything). Honestly I'm not that big on fireworks, they are nice but I can take em or leave em. But since I can watch from Trip's backyard and not have to rub elbows with every slackjawed idiot within 50 miles I can enjoy it.

Doctor says I need a backeotomy

I have to be the only person alive who can hurt his back sleeping. I've just got a knack I suppose. But yes, my lower back is the source of much pain and displeasure at the moment. I think it's a pulled muscle. No idea how I manage to do that while unconscious. The truly sad part is that it hurt some yesterday and is worse today. I'm unthrilled.

Anyway nothing else of note is happening. It's hot as a mofo outside, so I'm trying to pretend it's winter inside.

Mom has returned from England and all is well there. She seemed to have a good time, aside from the actual cost of everything British. She also confirmed what I've always heard about British food, i.e. it's disgusting.

I'm now rereading Stranger In a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. I've been on a Heinlein kick lately and some are better than others. This is probably his best work, certainly among them. Definitely my fav. I think it may fall just short of headcavingly orgasmic, but it's very close.

It's witchcraft

Went to see Bewitched yesterday. I wanted to see Land of the Dead, but Corb isn't into zombie movies and I like Will Ferrell and Nora Ephron so there you have it. It wasn't bad, some funny moments and a nice romantic edge. Not spectacular, but really how many of these movie remakes of old tv shows are that? I'm saying +1 chainmail.

I got a hearty night's sleep, which was nice. I know some of you are shocked, believing that I sleep like a log usually, but that isn't the case. But last night I conked right out, it was marvelous.

Gonna be really lazy today, I think, although I may try to do some writing. I've been meaning to put something down for a while, but I've been uninspired. We'll see if I can get it together today.

Quotables

So I haven't written much this week, because there hasn't been much to write. Little mowing, some hanging out and that's about it. It's been a pretty quiet week overall. I did splurge on sushi on Wednesday. That was good. Mostly I've been goofing off.

I did watch the AFI's Top 100 Movie Quotes special, and I strongly disagree with a lot of the choices. I understand the list is made by stuffy old movie buffs that think the only movies worth watching were made before 1980, but there were some glaring omissions and soms grotesque additions. I'm sorry, "Show me the money!" is not a great quote. I admit it infested the public consciousness to nigh plague levels, but that don't make it good. I mean Austin Powers quotes are unbiquitous as well and they didn't make the list (and rightly so). "E.T. phone home." can suck my ass too.

Six Casablanca quotes also seems excessive. I admit it is one of the truly classic films, but six of 100 is a lot. Especially considering that there was no Pulp Fiction quote. I mean the "Royale with cheese" conversation is golden. I could make an argument for several Resevoir Dogs quotes, but I conceed that it is a smaller movie that has less public awareness. I also felt like The Godfather movies should have had more than two quotes total. I can give you a lot more off the top of my head.

But in fairness some examples of quotes that I feel the AFI was dead on with are "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here, this is a war room." from Dr. Strangelove. That is pure genius. Caddyshack's "Cinderella boy" bit, although I think the llama story is also priceless. ("Hey Llama, how bout a little something, you know, for the effort." I'll finish by saying that "I love the smell of napalm in the morning."

Helobious

So not only am I having issues with my sinuses, but now my wisdom teeth are pushing up through my gums again. This happens every year it seems. A smarter man would go have them removed, but not me. Oh no. But yeah teething at 30 is less than pleasant. It makes mastication a lot less pleasant (you'll note the ticat instead of turbat in that word... so no comments).

Trip and I watched some old episodes of Jon Favreau's Dinner for Five, which was interesting. Just Favreau and four celebs chatting over dinner. We also watched Celebrity Charades, which is exactly what it sounds like... celebrities playing charades. It all plays into America's cult for celebrity, where we will watch famous people do anything.

Home alone

Mom has gone to England for the week to visit her grandson and my dad is hanging out at the old place so I seem to have the apartment to myself. A sad testament to how lame my life is that this in no way affects how I will be doing things. I suppose this is a sign of maturity, although I have so many other things that point toward immaturity that it's hard to believe.

Anyway it's been a pretty good weekend. Hung with Corb and Trip on Friday and we watched the documentary Trekkies. Now I know I'm pretty nerdy, but I can't hold a candle to these people. There is just a point where you have to stop taking your hobby so seriously. There was this one group of trekkies that hold a Trek barbeque each year. To quote "It gets bigger every year. This year we even had a girl come." Sad sad sad.

Saturday we managed to get Danny to come out and hooked up some Halo action. That was pretty sweet. We then played this demo of Flatout. It is a racing game that has a mini game where you launch the driver into the air and see how high you can get him. It doesn't sound like much, but when you hear Corbin cackle with delight at the suffering of the driver it makes it all worthwhile.

Today I woke up feeling like ass. I think switching from air conditioning to sleeping in my non ac room is causing lots of congestion. It's not good. I hate not feeling well.

Everyone is going fetal

Went to see Batman Begins with Trip and Corb last night. I gotta tell you, it may be the best Batman movie ever. I say that with an extreme reverence for both Tim Burton's films and the TV movie starring Adam West. It was dark and delved deeply into why Bruce Wayne would become Batman, his motivations, training and history. It also gave me a new respect for the villian the Scarecrow. My only experience with him before (not being well versed in Bat-lore) was from the old Superfriends cartoon where he was a huge vagina.

Anyway my rating is Filet Mignon and I hope the movie does well and there is a sequel of equal or greater value. So go see it if you have any interest whatsoever.

I read the new Nick Hornby book, A Long Way Down. It was excellent as all his works are. Maybe a little too upbeat for a book about suicidal people, but good nonetheless. I heard an interview with him on NPR yesterday and he seems like someone I'd like to know. We have a lot in common. Terry Gross asked him about his column in some McSweeney's magazine where he lists the books he buys and the books he reads separately. He noted that the books he buys and reads are often completely different. So he buys something and then never gets to it, a habit to which I can certainly relate.

Anyway A Long Way Down I give a foot massage rating. It was good, probably better than his last one, How to Be Good, in my opinion, but not up to High Fidelity or About a Boy standards (which if you haven't read, you should get to it). Still count him among my fav. current authors.

Ohh I also listened to the new White Stripes album and while it grew on me a little more the second time through, it isn't as good as some of the other stuff. It seems to lack so much of the rock element that I love and leans more toward a rooty blues/country sound. Also I don't know who that song that Meg sings is for, but it's not me. It's probably for noone besides Meg, actually.

You got seven kinds of cock breath

Due to an billing oversight on my part I was condemned to spend the weekend with the horror of the "real world." No, I wasn't on MTV, my internet was disconnected and I was left to my own, non-digital devices. It was a challenge filling the time. I didn't realize how addicted I am to the internet. But I honestly can't survive without the ability to interact with cyberspace.

That said, I got to hang with Kevin this weekend for a while. We met up at Trip's and hung out for a bit. Watched some Cheap Seats and played a bit of Halo 2. After Kevin went to play with his band, Corb, Trip and myself played a bit more Halo (the original for some old school action) and then watched an Eddie Izzard DVD called Glorious I believe. It had some moments, but it wasn't really Eddie's best work in my humble opinion.

Sunday we went to see Madagascar, which was nothing special really. It had some moments, but overall I'm saying Meh. It would have been worse without the cool penguin action. Basically Dreamworks took every possible cliche from that type of movie and shoved them into an underdeveloped plot for a quick cash in, or so they hope. I stand by my statement that Dreamworks couldn't carry Pixar's jock with a wheelbarrow.

Ohh I almost forgot. I finally caught the final three episodes of Deadwood... Man is that show great. Viva Wu! I watched them rapid fire on Friday and it had it all. Cursing, violence, Calamity Jane naked and burning her snatch (which was a little disturbing I have to admit). Anyway I am now in agony waiting for next season.