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.

After the snow the thaw

So around six a.m. I commenced to making waffles, and around seven we moseyed on down to the Stuporstore. Our departure was delayed by an accumulation on the car of glutinous snow.  The snow adhered to a depth of two inches (5 cm) all over the roof surface and covered the bottom half of the front windscreen. Trying to sweep it off was like trying to move concrete. Pounding it with your fist was pointless – this was a job for tools.  I went back into the house and procured one sturdy kitchen spoon and two plastic spatulas to chip the dense and crispy ice off the windscreen.  Bash, Bash.  Very satisfying.  I took some of the rime off with a credit card.  The car had been warming up for a number of minutes while Jeff adjusted the level of the snow so he could actually get out of the parking space.  After enough shoveling for Jeff to have gotten quite warm, we were ready to go.  Jeff rolled down his window about halfway, and about two seconds after he started heaving the car out of that abbreviated snowbank, his side of the car filled with footlong chunks of dense and abrasive snow, which had all merrily slid off the now-warm roof – and then continued to slide in, although not in quite so much quantity. It was like being on a movie set; the sun shone through the ice while it was happening. I began to suspect Jeff of setting it up for my entertainment, but on the other hand I didn’t think it wise to laugh.  After a brief and agonizing pause (all streets are one way now, since they are only one lane, so you’re constantly butting heads with people trying to go the other way, and Jesus God!  Mary, St. Patrick and St. Jude! what IS IT with Vancouver drivers and their signally failing to signal habit?  Must I even call them drivers, before the bones of all the saints?) Jeff had hucked as much of the snow overboard as possible and again we were on our way.

Earlier that day, in a rare show of weakness, I admitted to my brother that I had been running away with his plastic containers and eating them.  He owned that this was indeed a possible explanation for their continuing disappearances.  I, blushing furiously, stated that I thought eating them would somehow be less shameful than losing them, which was, indeed, what I had been doing with them.  He had had his suspicions. The leftovers departed the house, and neither they nor their containers ever returned. The world’s oldest, and saddest, story, don’t you think?

Eddie sleeps on my bed a good portion of every day.

Somewhere in there we watched Keira Knightley in Domino.  It’s an interesting movie that bites off much more than it can chew, but gets by on lightly done comic book charm.  It is a movie, in my opinion, of forgivable faults. When did Christopher Walken get the “I must appear in every Hollywood movie in a substantial bit part?” contract?  Damn!

I know I am a traitor to my kindred, but I prefer Keira Knightley as Lizzie Bennett to any others I have seen. As Domino she’s all haircut and bravado, not her best role.

I have an appointment with some pork chops.  I intend to ingest broccoli, with a smidge of dressing.  I see a salad, embellished with those new grape tomatoes that taste so good.  But all these things will not be unless I arise and make them to happen, and I should chop almonds for biscotti.  That is if anybody wants some.

Three whole days off

I have a list of things to do which includes:

Usual Life Maintenance

Food shop… no veggies! bad girl!

Heading off to Renfrew Pool at least once this weekend.

Checking into the family history website to see my mom’s blog… I find it weewy fwustwating that her blog is password protected! Okay, I can take that off my list of things to do.  My mOm is a very busy woman and I very much appreciate her family history work.

More biscotti…

It would be nice if at some point I picked up the mandolin!  I have not been feeling like practicing at ALL.

And of course more messing about wit’ Garageband.

Happy New Year

So Keith, Paul and I were at Jarmo and Susana’s last night, and once again performed the stannomancy.  Katie and Jeff chose the better part – to stay home, and not to drink!

NOT A SINGLE PERSON had money for 2009.

Not one.  Out of fifteen people. You may recall Dr. Filk was told that he’d get money two thirds of the way into the year and found it laughable, and then went from John’s Jukes to Earl’s at a considerable increase in rate.  But it also said there was a baby in his future so you can’t b’lieve everything the tin tells you.

My year is smooth, and expanding, for 4/5ths of it, and then there’s a hell of a twist at the end.  I’ll post pics at some point… I actually have to pull everything off my camera and stick it someplace where those interested may view them… I still haven’t posted the Louvre, and I should, but that was, candidly, one hell of a trip and I get kind of shaky when I go anywhere near those memories.

Anyway, it was a lovely, congenial crowd, and there was even a lovely dog named Kona (lab setter cross, from the coat) who was being dogsat by some of the attendees.

Snowed more.  Lots more.

; why is the rum always gone?  Between us all we killed a forty pounder, and I had two triples so I definitely helped.  I’m still hanging on the edge of a migraine so I’d better get off the computer now.

And, via an LJ buddy, Neil Gaiman’s blessing:

I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you dream dangerously and outrageously, that you make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked. And most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now) that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.