Above and beyond

Last year, following my little sister's example, I started an Amazon wish list. Basically a list of books/DVDs/CDs/etc. that I would like to someday own. I found that this came in handy for a couple of reasons: 1)I could use this as a reminder of things that I would want to eventually read, (whether I actually bought them, borrowed them, or got them from the library), and 2)I could direct my mother there when my birthday/Christmas came around and she asked for ideas.

A year goes by, and sure enough my mom starts asking for birthday/Christmas ideas. And I direct her to the wish list. I figure she can pick out a couple of things there.

Well, last Wednesday there's a box from Amazon in my hallway. Cool. I open it, and there's about a dozen books from my wish list in there. But, wait, there's more. Yesterday, another box shows up and there's another ten or so books. Needless to say, I was a little taken aback. That's some seriously above and beyond going on there. My parents bought me pretty much my entire wish list (with the exception of one book that wasn't out yet.) I really can't fathom why. If I had to guess I'd attribute it to a combination of feeling bad that I wasn't available for Thanksgiving, that they're not around for my birthday, and because they just came into a chunk of cash in that they finally received the rest of the money from selling their Weymouth house. I can't see any other reason why they would have spent so much.

But now I have plenty to read, including:

- 2 books about porn. (Jenna Jameson's autobiography and a history of the porn industry in general.) Thanks mom and dad!

- A bunch of Raymond Chandler

- 2 books about zombies.

- 2 books with "Make Love" in the title. The aforementioned Jameson autobiography, "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star", and Bruce Campbell's, "Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way."

- A book about how Houdini might have worked as a spy for Scotland Yard. Non-fiction.

- A book about how things are tough in the Middle East. Syriana was based on it. Non-fiction.

- A book about the film industry that I don't really know anything about other than my little sister reccomended it.

- Some of my requisite sci-fi and fantasy, by such folk as Neil Gaiman, Tad Williams, and the awesomely named (and apparently quite mysterious) John Twelve Hawks.

- Some regular old fiction.

- And Enrnest Hemmingway's collected short stories.

I'll be busy for a while.

Make sexy time

So yeah, I've seen some movies recently.

Borat - Is it the funniest moive ever, as advertised? Not quite. But it's pretty damn funny. And what is not shown in the previews is that it's can also be pretty damn offensive. Not that this bothers me personally, but there were definitely a few moments during the movie where I was cringing a bit as I was laughing, (including a unbeliveable fight scene that was more disgusting than it was offensive, and that's all I'll say about that as you really need to be surprised when you see it to get the full impact.)

One thing I was surprised to find/hear about after the fact is that apparently no one in the film knew what they were being filmed for. Essentially this was a giant Candid Camera moment. There were a couple of situations/scenes that I thought had to be staged, but overall apparently not, as evidinced that a couple of people are suing based on their representation in the film.

But overall, damn sexy time funny.

The Prestige - The set up: Two magicians around the turn of the last century rise to some prominence and feud with each other, trying to destroy each other's careers. It's a film largely about obsession and how it can destroy lives.

Great movie, unneccessary last 15 minutes. At least, that's my opinion. And here's why. If you remove the last 15 minutes or so, the ending becomes a lot more vague and debatable, something worth discussing, something where different people are going to have different theories. Unfortunately the last 15 minutes are pretty much all exposition, explaining way too much of what happened. Since this is a movie about magicians, it is tantamount to a magician performing a great trick and then afterwards coming out and explaining to you how he did it. Truth is, you really don't want to know. You'd like to see if you can figure it out for yourself.

However, that's my take on it. Although I would have preferred those last 15 minutes not be there, it's really a storytelling preference on my end. It's not that they were poorly done. And to be honest, if you remove that section of the film, it also does end vastly differently.

But still, another great film.

Casino Royale - This is a different Bond film. The thing with all the previous Bonds (except maybe Lazenby, since I never saw the film with him in it), is that when you first meet them (Connery, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan) in their resepctive first films, they've been Bond for a while. This is the first time you see Bond as a "new" Bond. By which I mean Daniel Craig's Bond has only had his double-0 status a short time. (If I was watching correctly, the main plot of this film is only his second mission as 007.) As such, he is not the smooth, suave Bond you've seen in other films, he is what M refers to him as a "blunt instrument". The plot behind this film is somewhat disposable. It's not important, as the main thrust of this film is watching Bond become Bond. Even at the end, he's not quite there, but he's closer than he was at the beginning. Some examples: The first car you see him driving is not his usual Aston Martin (or something similarly classy that showed up in later films), but a rented car. (Although the Aston Martin does make an appearnce.) There are no spiffy gadgets. You see Bond invent his martini shaken not stirred drink in the movie. He's not particularly smooth with the ladies. He doesn't play baccarat, (in fact a decent portion of the action revolves around a Texas Hold Em poker game.) He's not sly, slick, or surgical. He's rash, impulsive, and brutal.

This is a Bond origin story, and for the most part it looks pretty well. What you're seeing here, as mentioned before, is Bond becoming Bond. The one aspect where it could have been a little better was the Bond and his women facet. In all the other films, women are interchangeable to Bond, but the thing is that he loves them. In this film they are, as Bond girl Vesper puts it, "disposable pleasures." Also, this is evidinced by the fact that Bond prefers his women married as it cuts down on complications for him. Now, without spoiling abything, knowing where Bond's attitude towards women ends up, which is much more caring and generous, there is a very definite story arc for this particular Bond girl which I saw coming a mile away. Not the exact particulars, of course, but where it was going to end up and roughly how. And that was the part that could have been written/handled a little better. It wasn't as seemlessly intergrated into the story as it could have been.

But most importantly, speaking of Bond girls....Eva Green? Wow! No, really. Wow!

Also, one other little thing. And I won't know if this is a quibble or not until there have been additional Bond films. It wasn't exactly tied up at the end. But, I don't know if that was because of the writing, or if perhaps they're setting up a shadowy villianous organization to appear in later films. If it's the latter, then bravo. If the former, then not so much.

Oof!

Friday night I'm out doing some errands and suddenly, out of nowhere, I hear my brakes making a sound that can only be described as bad. You know the sound of a snowplow scraping asphalt? That's what they sounded like. It's the type of sound that doesn't inspire confidence in your car's health.

So, the next day I immediately take it in to the shop. Discover that the front brake pads are totally gone and that sound was the sound of metal on metal. It was also the sound of what turned out to be $788 in car repairs.

Oof!

$545 for the brakes, but while they were in there they discovered a cracked fan belt and an air filter that looked like a smoker's lung. And while you're at it, since I'm long overdue, might as well change the oil.

You know, looking back over my vast history of car problems, I think there's only been one instance where the cost of fixing that problem wasn't a total gut punch shock. Only once did I ever say, "Wow, that wasn't that bad." And every time recently this has happened I find myself thinking that I should really learn more about cars, so I can fix this stuff mhyself and save myself the money.

That was the low point of the weekend.
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There were some better moments though.

Friday night was the Little Hearts Pub Crawl afterparty at the Irish Pub. That was a good time. Spent the evening chatting away with some of the lovely ladies from the crawl. Hooray for lovely ladies.

After being bent over and invaded by the auto repair industry on Saturday, I had a much more important decision to make. Should I go to Matt's cover band show at the Bus Stop or to a different rock and roll show at the Linwood. This matter was still undecided even as I left the house that evening to make my way to the as yet unknown destination. I ended up deciding going with the Linwood show. I didn't know of anyone else I knew going to the Bus Stop, so I opted with the option of the show where I knew I would have friends not in the band hanging out. And I gotta say I think I made the right choice. It was a night of spectaularly awesome big, dumb rock. Two of the bands, RPG and The Brought Low I had never seen before, but now would definitely see them again. The third band, Pete (from Lamont and Motherboar) I didn't even catch their name, but much like Lamont I didn't much care for, based almost entirely on the fact that I don't like Pete's guitar sound. And then Cocked and Loaded closed out the night with more excellent rock, accompanied by beer spitting. 3 out of 4 makes for a good night in my book.

Sunday was a day for quiet contemplation. Well,it was a day for sitting on the couch and watching football, playing video games, playing guitar, and finishing a book. But, you know, mostly quietly.

Bad With Names

Let's start this one on a downer note....

I was driving home from the gym last night, via the liquor store to buy a 6 pack, and I called my uncle to ask if I could use his washing machine today after work. Well, it was during that phone call that I found out that my grandmother had a mild stroke yesterday morning. Mades the washing machine, liquor store, and thoughts of the perfect ass of a girl that goes to my gym seem a little trite. Thankfully, she seems to be OK, as much as you can be for having a stroke. When I talked to my dad later, he said he'd just left her at the hospital "devouring her dinner." I'm taking that as a good sign. Also, the fact that he said the doctors think it was very mild, and while her speech is slightly slurred right now, otherwise she seems OK.

But it made me think, as these types of things invariably do. My nana is someone who I've (subconsciously until now) felt was my only real grandparent. Both my grandparents on my mother's side passed away before I was born, so I never knew them. And although my grandfather on my dad's side is still alive and vigorously kicking, we've never been nearly as close as me and my grandmother are. So, yeah, this was pretty scary. But fingers crossed, everything seems fine.
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With that in mind, I did still go out last night. Went over to the Revolution Rock Bar to see Munk play. RRB is a new rock club that's in the odd location of the financial district downtown. It's also way too nice inside to be a rock club. And really, what respectable rock club charges $5 for a Sam Adams? Don't they know we musicians are poor? But the sound in there is good, it's a good sized room (even if it is filled largely with late after work suit and tie types, and the bartenders and waitresses...well, let's just say cream of the crop.

Munk was good, but that's no surprise--he usually is. However, during the show, I ended up chatting on and off with a couple of people that I've obviously met before. But, as per usual, I didn't remember. I'm notoriously bad with names/faces. First the guy starts talking to me, and it's obvious I must know him through Dan and by extension probably the Arden St. house. And Andy knows him as well, and since he also lived at Arden, I'm wondering is this gay roommate Scott? He is acting a little flamboyantly. So just as I decide that yes, it probably is, he mentions how the guitar player from the band after Munk had been hitting on his wife all night. So, no, it wasn't gay roommate Scott. His wife also recognized me from Arden (she said so) and I have no idea who she was either. But if it was from Arden St. then that's really no surprise. Milk was not the drink of choice during those late night parties. No one was too concerned with strong teeth and bones.
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Ha! You know as much as my job is really only a job to me (as opposed to a "career" or anything), I do still feel an absurd sense of pride when I do something well. And I totally kicked ass on someone's XML this morning. I was all like, "Your delayed reports aren't coming in as delayed reports? Others have been working on it for a day or so and can't figure out why? Let me see that. (5 minutes later) Your problem is (explanation.) BOOYAH! Where's my raise? Send in the pleasure girls, I have a love explosion for them!"

OK, yeah. It's been a long week.

Be patient, Italy. I'll get there.

OK, so yesterday I was looking through a vacation and travel deals website, as I'm want to do. And I came across a great airfare price for a rountrip ticket to Italy. I'm talking close to half the usual price. Now granted this was for a winter trip, but it stretched to the end of March, where I figured there could be some good weather. And even better? The price was the same for a round trip ticket as for a multi-leg (if I wanted to fly into Venice and home from Rome, for example.) That's pretty unheard of. Problem was, the sale ends today. So I had to decide pretty much on the spot if I wanted to go.

Now, I've been thinking for a while that I really want to go to Italy. In fact, it was the reason I got my passport a year ago. I was hoping to go this year. Obviously it got pushed back, but this seemed like the ideal deal. Cheap airfare, decent time of year, but still out of tourist season, so the hotels were cheaper. I came very close to buying my ticket right then and there.

But I didn't.

I had emailed some friends to see if anyone was interested in going. Since it was so last minute I was pretty sure there wouldn't have been any takers, but I figured I'd give it a shot anyway. Of course, I have no problem going alone. I decided a couple of years ago that if I wanted to finally go see some of the places I wanted to that I'd probably have to start planning my vacations by myself, and not at the whim or willingness of others. But I decided to hold off for another reason. I had previously discussed with my parents going to Italy with them in September of next year. So I called my mom yesterday to ask if they were still planning on that trip, and if so to tell her that I might bow out in lieu of an earlier trip. She said that not only were they planning to go, but that now she was trying to get the rest of the family to go (my sisters and brother in law.) And to sweeten the pot, she said that they had planned to pay our airfares. Now I feel a little conflicted about that, because they're retired and I thought shouldn't be spending their money on us like that, but she said that they just got a pretty good windfall in that they finally received the rest of the money from selling their house in Weymouth. And she seemed pretty sincere and adamant about doing it. So, I'm holding off until September, and the family trip.

Now, I'm not sure that I totally want to do a 8-9 day family trip in Italy. That was the other issue. I don't necessarily want to do the entire itinerary she's talking about (Rome-Tuscany-Venice-Amalfi Coast-back to Rome). For my first trip I'd rather skip the middle parts and just do Rome and Venice and perhaps get an extra day or two in at either end. Also, I'll probably want to experience some Italian nightlife and such. So I think I'll wrap a separate itinerary for myself around theirs. I might get my own room (instead of sharing with the family like we did a lot on our last trip to the southwest), although that may be dependent on the prices. And instead of driving via Tuscany to Venice, I may stay an extra day in Rome and take the train to Venice and meet them. And vice versa for the Amalfi Coast back to Rome. Of course a lot of this is yet to be determined. Their itinerary was not very solid yet, so neither is mine.

But anyway, yeah, I'll be in Italy next year. Finally.

Of course, now I have a vacation on the brain though. I'll have to find another option for a different vacation. Something else in Europe? I definitely have a jonesing for getting over there. London's not terribly expensive, relatively speaking. Amsterdam? You know I have to get there eventually. Prague holds a certain fascination, but that could maybe be attributed to my love of the eastern European female. A weekend in the NYC? Or Montreal? Portland (OR) is still high up on the list and will definitely happen; it's just a matter of when. Yep, I definitely need to get away.

Friday afternoon

I'm getting antsy. You know? You get past lunch on a Friday afternoon---a Fuji apple, in case you were wondering; sparse, sure, but I had a big breakfast, and besides, these Fuji apples are damn tasty---and it just starts to happen. I've got some happy feet going under the desk. legs bouncing like I'm practicing some double bass. Heart rate's probably a little elevated. I can't really seem to concentrate on aything. We're not taking very many calls right now, we never do on a Friday afternoon, so I'm trying to keep myself occupied: surfing the interent, reading a few pages here and there of my book, writing a blog. But the sonsistently running undercurrent is It's almost the weekend.

Two hours to go. I've already gone through the club listings for tonight to see if anyone good is playing (they're not), and checked my voicemail in the unlikely event that anyone called with some awesome plans for tonight (they didn't). This happens every week at work, even on the occasions where I don't really have much going on over the weekend. Like this weekend. Yet even the thought of going to the supermarket on my way home is mildly exciting right now.

It reminds me of those days of grammar school. Watching the clock tick away those last few minutes before Friday's final bell. That sense of excitement. Sure the teacher's still trying to teach us something, but is anyone really listening? Books are creeping closed, pens and pencils finding their way into their boxes. The tipping point has already been reached, and there's no backing out now. The weekend is coming.

For me, today, it's less than two hours. And much like back in those far gone school days that Monday seems almost an eternity away. Funny how Friday does that to you.

Updates and such

Not a whole lot of big going on right now, but some littles...

Got Final Fantasy XII last week. Which means I'll be spending a lot of time in front of the Playstation. We are talking about the game franchise that has determined my console buying tendencies over the past 10 years.
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Good music playing week. Me and Matt look to have found a drummer. That was Sunday and will hopefully be a good shot in the arm. Nothing helps the motivation like progress. And then I jammed again with Eric last night for some of my "solo" stuff. Even after only two jams it seems to be coming along well. I have to get off my ass and get some lyrics written for these songs so that I can nail down the arrangements a little more permanently. But there are some ideas flowing that I'm really digging.
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A couple of people were let go from my work this morning. When this happens it always makes you concerned about your own position, but this one hit a little closer to home as it was two people from a department that used to be under the same umbrella as mine. Not that I'm seriously concerned for myself right now, but you can never fully banish that worm of worry. We no longer live in the days where you can work for the same company for an entire career, and the 'B is also coming in line with that philosophy.
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So the Democrats hold a majority now? And Rumsfeld's gone? Wonder what this means for the old US of A. I'm thinking the hindsight will be a lot more balanced than the "shock and awe" of the past few days.
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New music? Mostly old music. With a few exceptions---the new Sloan album, a Patterson Hood (of the Drive By Truckers) album that's a couple of years old, Edwin---most of the "new" stuff that's been making its way on to my iPod is old stuff. Billy Joel, Boston, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Van Halen, Motorhead. Getting my fill on the classics.
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So, yeah....ummm....I really got nothing else. Christmas is coming. So, tis will be the season and all. Another birthday on the way. Whee. Slow days here.