Month: January 2009

v. nice weekend

Dinner for Tom’s birthday last night was glorious; it was so good to see everybody and share a meal.  I must really try to be more hospitable myself – it’s good to feed people.

I wrote the letter to the Israeli embassador and forwarded it to a couple of people for comments and edits, and will post once it’s back from them.  Me not happy about Gaza.

I watched, in its entirety (I couldn’t sleep, woke up at 2, so it’s good I went to bed so early!) a documentary about demographic winter. It was paid for by a bunch of fundies, but I have learned that one should study one’s enemies.  I am still processing what I learned and may share my thoughts later.

Ha, I didn’t do laundry.  Tonight I must do laundry or it’s going to be harsh strong bad at work…

I did my first working from home this weekend.

I did a lot of cooking.

I saw Keith and Kate, and watched feetsball with Jeff a bit.

And, of course, Sculpey.  I feel rested and refreshed and ready for work.

Sculpey!!!

Katie and I went on a shopping expedition yesterday, and it was a success!  She liked her new camera (her first picture, of me, was the WORST PICTURE EVER TAKEN OF ME and no, I’m not posting it because it makes me look like I’m drinking beer with a face made out of jello (it was tea, actually, but in a beer stein)) and loves her new hat, which has flowers in the pattern so Dax won’t ‘borrow’ it.  It’s a very nice hat, the kind that Gwen Stefani or one of them other stylin’ broads might wear. And I can hear my ancestors bellow “And it should be, for what you paid for it!”  A day with Katie is always fun.

I also picked up for free a replacement feather for Keith’s hat.  I also went to Opus at Granville Island and picked up Sculpey, a clay gun, acrylic paints in zombie heart colours, and then I made this object!  Yes, it needs painting.  I will paint it sometime today.

zombieheartbackzombieheartfront

If your initial reaction is “Blecch!”  Yay me for the win!!!!

Katie’s art work, for which no pic alas, was a beautiful chess piece (a knight).  She’s going to make a chess set eventually.  I’d like to make a chess set too but I have to figure out how I’m going to do it because there’s kind of a technical challenge involved BEYONDS the fact I haz no skills.  I’d like to thank ScaryClown for letting me know about Sculpey.  Clay guns ARE FUN!  I recommend them for insane amounts of stress relief – there are no fewer than 20 discs for the various shapes (which is how I did those veiny things on my Zombie Heart).

Et alors, Biscotti pour Tom.  C’est mon métier!  Then Keith comes over for lunch and then I’m off to the Lunderhaus.

PS it snowed yesterday.  April is NOT the cruellest month.

Movies

So, there are three movies I should mention which have wormed their way in front of me:  Jane Austen Book Club, La Vie en Rose, and Blast from the Past.

Jane Austen Book Club was goodhearted and fun, and there were definitely some good lines in it.  It could also have been entitled “Managing Multiple Fandoms in a Testosterone Reduced World” but that I guess is being too cynical.  I liked it because there was a character in it called Allegra, so every time her mother called for her or a character mentioned her name I’d sorta jerk reflexively.  And she’s a babydyke, just to add to the wonder…. Anyway, nautilus3 recommended it and I finally watched it with Jeff. He likes Emily Blunt (so do I) and there’s a scene where her character Prudie is being a ****ing pain in the ass, and I said, “I’ve been that woman, and Christ she’s annoying” and occasionally Jeff would pause it, waggle his eyebrows and go “That was a classic chickflick moment.”  Definitely a better script than you usually get with these kinds of outings, and the morals are delivered like the bill in a good restaurant, in a leisurely and tactful way.

La Vie en Rose I’m not going to talk about much.  If you like Edith Piaf, see the movie.  It’s great, and the lead performance is nothing short of mesmerizing – I can understand the Oscar nod. One of the best biopics ever, that I’ve seen anyway, possibly nosing out Ray as being the best I’ve ever seen.  And tasteful.  AND THE DUBBED SINGING IS AMAZING.  The lip synch was incredible.

Blast from the Past…. If you like Alicia Silverstone and Brendan Fraser, you’ve probably already seen it.  If you’re looking for a nice little comedy, undemanding, charming and steadily amusing, this will be a good companion.  I must mention the guest spot by Christopher Walken, who was just starting his streak of being in all movies in a supporting role.  I must own to liking Brendan Fraser – he was AWESOME in the first Mummy flick (I haven’t bothered with the others) and I really liked him in George of the Jungle.  He’s a goofy looking guy…  At one point in the movie I burst into tears and sobbed a couple of times.  After the movie I explained what was going on (Brendan did something for Alicia that somebody did for me once, and I lost it) and Jeff just said, “Oh, I just thought you’d gone crazy.”  Thanks, bud.

On another note, have you ever spent a fair amount of time with somebody, on a casual basis – like somebody you eat lunch with – and then one day he comes out and says something that everybody else at the table, including you, finds rather disturbing, and when somebody calls him on it he doesn’t notice?  I had one of those moments yesterday.  Rather than get into details, I’ve decided to turn the spotlight back on myself.  Mocking the afflicted IS NOT A NICE THING TO DO.  I should stop doing it.  I should recognize when I’m doing it.

What a day!

Awake at 5:20 am, poked around the net for a while, then got up and cleaned some pots and next thing I knew I was late for the bus. All quite normal.  Late for work because both the 145 bus and the Skytrain were delayed, who knows why.  At least I didn’t kill myself by falling down that slope – I’ve posted pictures of it, just imagine it covered with a glossy slick of compressed slush.

At 9 the town hall meeting with our new squid overlords.  THEY CAN HAS SWAG!!!  They gave out jackets, and mine is very nice and will probably fit me better in a year.  But I like it. The meeting was full of my coworkers conspicuously signalling to me to get off my ass and ask the new squid overlords some pointy questions like I used to do, but I glued said same ass to my chair.  Besides, I was wearing my “Earth to the Dandy Warhols” t-shirt and I just didn’t look corporate enough.

At work today, Mike McG gamely attempted over three meetings (Patricia was also there) to a) jam Ohm’s law into my tiny pea brain; b) jam info about PV string sizing into my tiny pea brain and c) get my advice/input/loud and unfeigned praise on a totally HAWT Salesforce customization.  This will mean nothing to most of you but when I think of how much time and keystrokes that man plans to save the company I tremble in my granny panties, lemme tell you…

At lunch, Jeff the Queasy (an easily grossed out cowirker) said, “What the hell was with 206, somebody drew Ohm’s law all over the whiteboard?” and Patricia and I are thinking, “Hm, should we tell him?”

Anyway, I didn’t work much because I was in meetings or lunching for like 5 hours.  It was like being an executive, and Tanya took the worst call of the day, honestly, the customer was a jerk to her, and then of course was nice as pie to me.

OH MY STARS.  I have to tell this story, even if it gets me fired.  The marketing department, whom I have been convinced wants to either kill me or slap me into an insane asylum for at least a decade now, put my name on a document….. associated with a phone number which comes to my desk …. and a toll free number that, alas, was one digit out from being correct.  Care to guess what my name was associated with?  A front for a phone sex line. I can die happy now.  All my Dilbert dreams/nightmares have come true.  By all the gods I don’t believe in, this story is absolutely true and I can call witnesses.  And besides, the marketing department has already fixed it.

Our new HR overlord is from Suth Cahlina, and she said You All twice during the town hall.  Not Y’all, that’s trashy, but You All, that’s cute.

Much thanks to Sandy P for the hilarious email about the mighty huntin’ dogs she has, I laughed like a drain.

Then a call from Paul – I’d been expecting to take the bus to his place preparatory for a swim, but he decided to pick me up, and then when I got there it was me, Keith, Kate, Paul and Daxus, and Dan T. dropped by for some soup, and I arranged to spend most of Saturday with Katie, and she plucked my eyebrows (they were raggedy). Katie and Daxus were playing chess when I arrived – Daxus was shellacking Katie. I saw the board and went, Concede, you fool! but they played it out.  After dinner Keith and Paul and I went to the pool and swam and soaked, and then Paul drove me home.  I drove home, but it’s Paul’s car.  You know what I mean.

It was so good to see everybody.  Dan T. said, “I had the strangest dream last night. I dreamed that I ate somebody’s dog, and it tasted like a pear, but I didn’t really like it all that much so I had two bites and threw it away, and then the owners were saying, “Where’s Fluffy?”  I cried laughing, he was so matter-of-fact about it.  I light a candle for his dad, who died recently.  I only met him the once, when I gave a homily at the Comox Valley Fellowship, but I was very impressed with him indeed.  He will be missed.

Year end round up.

I tried to sit down and write out a list of what I accomplished in 2008 so I could work out what was good and what was bad and what I should be focussing more energy on, and there seem to be two BIG THEMES.

The first one is when I look back on when I was happiest in 2008, and I did have some happy moments, for sure, I was either doing something that would last, or having that evanescent, you had to be there, fun of hanging with friends and not doing much of anything at all except by being present. Like Conflikt I, or Baumfest.  I was so happy at Baumfest I’m sure I glowed in the dark.  I am seriously thinking of organizing a company camping trip this year.  I wish I’d been blogging when I went to my first company camping trip.

I posted Youtube videos, wrote some songs, although I feel like my creativity in the song writing department is stuck in a drawer, gave a homily, worked on forgiveness (with some people), established some boundaries (with some people), continued working on an appropriate quid pro quo with Jeff, quit smoking, reduced my alcohol consumption (although I’m going to keep working on that), took my first stammering steps towards exercising regularly, really started addressing some interpersonal stuff with Keith and Paul, gave about a thousand neckrubs, unjammed the photocopier about 16 times (including removing staples from where they ought not be), shoveled a walkway so people could get to their cars here on my street, paid the fare of a homeless person, fed lots of people, got a new fandom, gave more money to charity than I ever have in one year in my life, including money I will not get back on my taxes, and including supporting other artists and bloggers with cash, went to France, saw Dave in Toronto, went to a Pondfilk, paid tuition for Katie (wee!) with help from folks and ex, went to Conflikt and listened to 30 people sing the Tapioca Song, had my bad manners result in the departure of the worst neighbours evar, and learned some very hard lessons about what a dipshit I can be at times.

So 2009…. Inoculate myself against feuds, make up my mind which church I’m going to go to (Beacon is SO far away, and in this weather it might as well be on Mars, but I scarcely know anybody in the Vancouver church), write more tunes, make sure I spend at least one weeknight exercise, and play live music at least once a month.

Re the blog, more long posts and fewer roundups.  Maybe quit worrying about posting once a day…. thoughts?

Snowpocalypse? Snowmageddon? S’no-joke? Snowtastrophe?

Yeah, well I got stuck at Mike’s (big surprise) with a foot of newfallen snow (okay, maybe six inches).  I have no clean clothes, the buses are only marginally running, and the streets are full of morons.  Seeing as how the invite was to watch True Blood and drink beer, I guess that this will continue, although I’m not up for beer at this time of the morning.

Mike doesn’t think there’s going to be a big depression multi years long.  His line of thinking is that the Chinese are holding so much American paper that they will do everything they can to slow things down.  Imagine, the poor people of China get to carry me and my lifestyle a while longer….

The snow removal in the GVRD sucks.  If we get weather like this during the Olympics, we will be the laughingstock of the world. Just another thing to look forward to – it’s only a year away now.

Tom messaged me and told me I have a ride to Conflikt.  If you get this sentence phonetically instead of realizing that it’s about a Filk con, that would be a pretty funny message.  We ALL have a ride to Conflict, know what I mean?

I love Mike’s apartment.  He has a temperfoam topper on his Murphy bed (he slept in the living room like the gentleman he is) with adjustable air settings so I am slavering to get over to where he bought it from and get one for my bed… it’s SO comfy.  I slept better last night than I have in ages, although that might have something to do with the 45 minutes of body work I got last night.  This is the perfect bachelor pad -a room JUST for massage, a room just for eating, a room just for TV and a room just for sleeping, and tons of closet space.  I’ll post pics when I get home, whenever the hell that is.

THERE IS SO MUCH SNOW.

Jeff called, he’s doing snow removal right now.

58 things I learned from being a movie buff

  1. If you call in a robbery in progress, and the robbers have automatic weapons, and you hang around to watch, you will be LUCKY if you only get what’s coming to you. (44 minutes).
  2. If you are cool, your life has a banging soundtrack.  If you are not, the soundtrack of your life is your neighbour’s dog, Viagra come-ons and shills for feminine protection. (all of them)
  3. You can kill a guy with a carrot, more than once, although you’ll need a new carrot. (Shootemup)
  4. You can kill multiple guys while having sex without making the baby cry or breaking your girl’s concentration (Shootemup).
  5. Princesses are grumpy (all of them).  If she’s not grumpy she’s probably not a princess.
  6. People will do really whacked out things to get home (Wizard of Oz, Eric the Viking, ET).
  7. Horses don’t need food, guns reload themselves, nobody needs to take a dump at an awkward time and somebody’s always got a map.  (all of them)
  8. The obesity epidemic isn’t happening. (all of them)
  9. There are no atheists. Everybody’s always thanking god, seeing a priest or minister, or going to weddings, funerals and christenings. (all of them)
  10. I learned to feel sorry for people who aren’t getting money for the product placements in their kitchens. (pretty much all of them),
  11. The walls pull away so you can get a better shot. (all of them)
  12. Natalie Portman, in addition to being able to act, looks fabulous with her clothes off (Darjeeling Limited).
  13. George Lucas should goddamned well retire. (and I need to prove my point because???)
  14. The Wachowskis only had one good movie in them because they STOLE the idea for the first one.
  15. The Wilhelm scream was by Sheb Woolley, and once you know about it, you hear it all the time.
  16. Video games don’t make good movies; they are just an extreme case of product placement.
  17. There are movies that nobody has seen that everybody refers to.
  18. Remakes should all have a generic title “The beancounter, the asswipe screenplay, the washed up actor and the witless director”.
  19. Steadicam oners are da bomb.
  20. Script first, direction second, editing third, lighting fourth, actors fifth, catering sixth.
  21. Whoever’s editing action movies these days needs remedial help. (Notice how bad the fight scene editing was for Dark Knight?  It sucked hair off a mop).
  22. Vancouver City Hall is screwing up the local industry by being chuckleheads.
  23. Not a single movie has been made in the last thirty years that realistically depicted the use of firearms.
  24. Being a science fiction movie fan is a lot like Waiting for Godot.
  25. The ratings system is hopelessly fouled up, and the creeps responsible for it should be bastinadoed with licorice while listening to “It’s a Small World after All”.
  26. It chapped Spike Jones’ ass that the most money he ever made was on Inside Man.  Mind you, it’s the best American caper film in years.
  27. Acting doesn’t run in families.  Doing what your folks did for a living runs in families.
  28. Milton Berle had an enormous penis.  I actually know this because I was working in a hotel he was staying at and he kept answering the room service knock with no trousers on and a big stogie in his face.
  29. Computers are simple to break into and all operating systems are easy-peasy and graphical. (Where do I start?  The Net, the Matrix, Jurassic  Park, Untraceable, and on and bloody on….)
  30. Your phone only rings when that chunk of dialogue is complete. (All police procedurals)
  31. You always have your phone ready to hand.
  32. Bad guys have lousy teeth. (All of them).
  33. There’s a picture of Johnny Depp in an attic somewhere. (It’s not just his bone structure, folks).
  34. Not all actors are gay, but that’s the way to bet. (This is a joke…. based on repeated and increasingly truncated conversations with Jeff).
  35. Set decoration is an art form and I salute its practitioners. (I’m thinking of True Blood).
  36. Heroes drive convertibles (this is actually a family saying, but I thought I’d throw it in.)
  37. If there’s been a movie that realistically depicted aircraft in the last 100 years, I’d sure like to hear about it.
  38. Virtually every actor I admire has a serious, serious work ethic.  Screwoffs burn out or drop dead.
  39. I loathe continuity errors, and I’ve been catching them since I was ten.
  40. It’s just as hard to make a frothy comedy as a serious drama, but you don’t get praised for doing it well.
  41. The risk free life is not worth living.  I would rather have a good bunch of people give me two thirds of a good movie trying to do something unusual than the usual gang of idiots playing it safe.
  42. I wish Charles Laughton had directed more movies. (Night of the Hunter was his only one).
  43. If the people who made SF movies spent more money on the scripts I would be happier.
  44. I really don’t like horror films – even psychological ones like The Haunting – and I only watch zombie movies as a concession to my brother.  I realize my inability to stomach violence is a serious personal flaw, but there ya go.
  45. I am prepared to forgive a movie all kinds of lapses if it’s stylish.
  46. Graphic sex is not nearly as disturbing as graphic violence.
  47. Henry and June was HOT.
  48. Watching people smoke cigarettes is a drag, especially if they don’t smoke and they are faking it (Keira Knightley in Domino, William Petersen in Manhunter).
  49. When I want to watch a movie again, it’s almost always because of the nature and quality of the human relationships in it, not because it was visually stunning or had cool special effects.
  50. I really like long takes.
  51. I really like eating takes.
  52. Most of the time, the critics are wrong.  When they aren’t wrong, they’ve still missed something.
  53. Anybody can walk into your hospital room, get hold of a doctor, get hold of a nurse, and have plenty of room to stand around and chat.
  54. It’s easy to be in the same room as a corpse.
  55. Your closest relatives can die and it doesn’t completely f*ck you up for months afterwards – you just keep on working and doing whatever you were doing.
  56. Work is just an excuse to hang out with your friends (why not, works for me).
  57. Men like to kiss way more than they let on in real life.  Women- at least usually.
  58. Food happens instantly in restaurants.

Exercise and randomness for the new year.

Paul and Keith were supposed to come over here and haul me off to Renfrew Pool, but it’s snowing really hard AGAIN so they bailed.  Jeff and I are thinking of going instead.  A swim and a soak would be lovely.

Pot roast for dinner…..  Amazing how I can be digesting brekkie and thinking about dinner already.

The agnostic guide to surviving the Bible belt (which I append because mOm could probably use it….)

Oh, the me-me goodness. This is a list of words applying to memes.  I particularly like membot.

We’ve come to the portion of the year HEAVILY BIASED toward self-improvement.  Everybody, get better.

Why music? Great article from the economonomist.