Month: September 2007

3:10 to Yuma

Loved it.  Christian Bale and Russell Crowe are uniformly excellent.  The standout is Wild Assed Ben Foster, whose performance as the “I am utterly devoted to my boss who is secretly a homophobic asshole” Charlie Prince has to be seen to be believed. Intelligent, easily offended and crazier than a meth lab rat, his character is one of those “Yeah, those guys can act but I got the part of a lifetime and I’m chewing scenery with ruminant thoroughness and raptor speed” delineations that will never even make the list for best supporting, and will still have the power to crack people up 20 years from now.

I am assuming that director James Mangold had pretty much total control in terms of the casting.   Oh, what a great sociopath Russell Crowe as Ben Wade makes.  Slimy, charming even when you KNOW that’s he pulling it out for you, possessing lightning fast reflexes, an exceedingly well trained horse, the ability to immediately zero in on the most important part of the environment including sex when it affords itself, he has a lethally committed second in command and not a care in the world but the next theft.  And he’s ‘artistic’ don’t you know, he does heartfelt but not particularly skilled pencil sketches, and you see him first gazing upon a bird of prey. Oh, wow! Sub – til.

I have to go to bed.  Oh, Alan Tudyk plays the doctor.  Except he’s a vet.
I wish I’d seen the movie with Keith – we were both there but missed each other and Keith went home without seeing the movie.

Euphemisms for fire

From the Annals of Customer Service:

We are no longer allowed to use that unfortunate four letter f-word with respect to our products when communicating internally or externally in writing. It’s in all of the user guides, but we’re not allowed to use it…..

Please indicate which of the following euphemisms would be most acceptable to you:
1. failed with prejudice
2. pulled a Rammstein
3. luminesced
4. extra crispy capacitor action
5. boom-lights
6. Mt. St. Helens
7. Toxic bar-b-q
8. Extinguishment event
9. Unanticipated electron migration
10. Plasma and particulate incident
Here’s a couple more (added later)

Exothermically exceptional

Left the operating temperature range behind.

 

Added even yet later

(From a coworker)

Fire – unexpected rapid oxidation Smoke – airborne particulate release
Spark – corona discharge
Arc – see spark

  Hope this helps 
   

http://www.pmichaud.com/toast/

And yet more!!!!
Impersonated a dragon 
Expressed it’s inner hotness
Achieved brilliance 

and yet more still even!!!

1. exothermic event
2. mode transition
3. irreversible failure mode
4. undocumented functional shift

Johnny Cash wrote over a thousand songs

So I guess I have some catching up to do… But you know, it’s the darnedest thing.  Art, that is, or sullen craft….  Anyway, I wrote a love song on behalf of somebody else; this would be about fifteen years ago now.  The song makes out the beloved to be – well, you know, special.

And I s’pose the object of the love, or lust, or alchemy, continues to be perfect, because that’s the way the song portrays her.  But in real life, she put on another 200 pounds, won’t look after herself in other ways, and will now toss you over the side if you so much as question anything about her current headlong rush into oblivion.

It’s one of my daughter’s fave songs of mine.  (Keith loathes them all, and rushes out of the room if I so much as start singing or picking up a musical instrument, even.  He will sit still for me singing something from the soundtrack for O Brother Where Art Thou or Both Sides the Tweed, or songs from WWII, but other than that he makes like a scalded cat.)  I am thinking it’s been a long time since I sang with Katie.

I woke up at 4:21

and now I’m watching “Walk the Line”.  Tonight I’m going with Keith to see “3:10 to Yuma”.  Kind of a Mangold festival.

Ooooh that’s good coffee I made.  Yarr!

Tomorrow, rehearsal for Sunday church.  I’ll see if I can avoid walking out this Sunday – I was most distressed last Sunday.

Keith lost his phone.  This is a message to the karmic beings – kick the ass of the little sod who picked it up and then started harassing everybody on the phone list!!! Got hold of Paul who killed the phone stone dead within instants, thank Goodness.

My apartment is SHINY CLEAN except I gotta take out the trash.

Daughter Katie’s best friend from high school moved back to town.  I detect the possibility of roommatishness.

The Secret Policeman’s Other Camping Trip is now scheduled for the 22nd of September.  I is SO TEMPTED to invite the CEO but that would likely crimp the connections of the other invitees, so I’ll just think about it really hard.  This time I would buy the beer….

Just noticed that the bassist in Walk the Line is the same guy who played the jock in Buffy.

More coffee.

I think I will serenade one of my coworkers today.  Peter A said he would be very happy to accept my serenade, but I told him:

Mandos are LOUD instruments… well they are, for their size.  And no work will get done while I am singing to which his response was to purse his lips and raise one eyebrow, something he does so well he really should get paid extra for it.  Anyway, if I actually do sing to him it will be “Buy me a Beer” aka “The Cougar’s Love Call”.
RobofNine and I ate at the Himalaya last night.  Umm, umm, yum.

Jericho & other natters

Saw Plough at Jericho. I really wish Keith could have been there, they were totally in the O Brother Where Art Thou groove and very very musical and fun, and lively and young and respectful to the audience… and don’t forget banjo and fiddle and guitar and standup bass…..

Katie K took me. Her car is only plated for another week or so; we are making best advantage of this. Consuming burgers and sitting on the beautiful deck at the Sailing Club while sucking back Raven on tap. Singing and playing and having half a dozen people come up to me afterwards and exclaim over my tunes (I played Words Fail (also known as the Telecom song) and Bruise (also known as Green and Purple and Black and Blue)). The rest of the open stage was uniformly excellent, as always.

Tom and Peggy also came out to see Patrick Metzger who in addition to being the bassist for Lesismore is the guitarist/bassist for Plough; Katie and I talked to them briefly; Katie knows them from way back from Beacon when her kids were in Religious Education there.

I’m bagged, suddenly… it is bedtime.