Trainspotting Vs. Trick R' Treat

Well that was interesting. The end of last week left me sick as a dog. Cassandra kept teasing me that I might have the dreaded Swine Flu, but it just turned out I had the regular flu. It kicked my ass. It kicked it so hard that I took a header out of bed somehow and banged up my knees, shoulders, and my right triceps. The only good part about the whole thing was I got to sit in bed and watch The Sword & The Sorcerer (**** out of 5 Stars). Holy CRAP! I remember this flick as a kid, because it had a sweet villain and an utterly and completely insane three bladed shooting sword. It did not disappoint. Sure it doesn’t hold up over time, but it’s got an ambitious plot, two decent villains, enough camp to get a laugh, but enough fake blood to give you a case of the 10 year old “Ohhs” & “Ahhhs”. The biggest drawback of the entire film is the main character that is annoying with his five-day stubble and Han Solo wannabe dialogue. This one needs to be seen again ASAP at a Movie-A-Thon.

Friday night Cassandra and I sat down & watched Anvil: The Story Of Anvil (**** ½ out of 5 Stars). What a great little documentary. I’ll tell you what; I would never want any piece of the music industry, what a said slimy business. To watch those guys struggle was heartbreaking. To tell you how entertaining it was, Cassandra almost cried at the end. It’s a very, VERY good documentary worth watching numerous times.

Anywho, after those moments of celluloid bliss I was able to get into the weekend.

So Cassandra got her birthday present. Yes, I know it’s not November, but it just worked out that way. This year I was lucky enough to have my friend Heidi paint the moment of my proposal as her gift. For those that don’t know Heidi is an immensely talented artist, who also makes kick ass hats, and I was fortunate enough to cajole her with cash enough to get her to create what turned out to be magic on canvas. It truly is gorgeous, and I hope it encapsulates what was one of the best moments of my life as much to Cassandra as it does to me.

Saturday we hit the C1 Buffet and I had a bout with some bad sushi. It was ugly. I spent a great deal of time “taking the Cleveland Browns to the Superbowl” the rest of the day. I did however convince my lovely wife to watch two horror movies on Saturday night;
- Doghouse (*** our of 5 Stars) – Not a bad little Brit horror comedy, but it falls quiet flat in the last thirty minutes. The basic premise is cocky guys go out to a small town to “be guys” for the weekend and run into a village full of infected cannibal women, blood and hijinx ensue. It had the various array of hackneyed characters, and gags for laughs, but it moved along at a brisk pace for the most part, again, until the last thirty minutes, and then it fell apart. Cassandra was extremely irritated by the ending, I could have taken or left it either way. Good movie? Yeah. Great? Not so much.
- Trick R’ Treat (**** ½ out of 5 Stars) – I had been reading for some time about this little diddy. It was being dubbed as sort of a modern take on Creepshow (**** out of 5 Stars). A horror anthology with interwoven tales that all, in the end, tie together. It was that. It was that and a lot more. It was just a fun little movie of the events transpiring on a Halloween night, where EVERYONE gets what’s coming to him or her in the end. I thoroughly enjoyed this film, it’s to bad it didn’t get a big theatrical release, because as entertaining as it was in my house, I can imagine it would have been great in a theatre. I highly recommend giving this one a watch.

Sunday we took the sojourn to “The Cloud” for the nephew’s birthday. It was pretty damn fun to watch him tear through to get to his gifts. And as always Char & Anthony “Brett Farve is Jebus” J. put out a pimp spread. We laughed, we cried, we ate cake, and eventually we went home, all in all a successful 4th birthday. It’s amazing to see that Seany is 4, utterly and completely amazing.

How ‘bout some

RANDOM CRAP!

- On our way out to our car this morning I took the time to look around the backyard under the deep blue snowing sky and was just blown away. I live there. I live there with my wife, it’s our house. Oh, and it’s snowing…
- If your not reading Grant Morrison’s Batman & Robin comic then you are missing what is a post-modern MASTERPIECE!
- Can a man change? Or are we simply the sum of what we have done to this point? And if we are simply the sum of past deeds how do we balance those proverbial scales in order to be able to illustrate that we are evolving?
- Baseball is dumb.
- Small World tomorrow, I’m optimistic. Cautiously optimistic.
- Here is a public service announcement to all that know me; please do me a favor and pull the word “Retarded” from your vocabulary while we’re together. I hate being the ass who asks anyone to stop saying anything, but I’m asking for a reason. For ten years now I’ve worked with people with Mental Illness, Traumatic Brain Injury, & Developmental Disabilities. No one I know has asked for any of these issues, they have them and they do the best they can. To know what that word does, how it hurts them, it upsets me to hear it. I’m not preaching at anyone, I’m simply asking. Think of it this way, what if that was my kid? What if my parent(s) or sibling(s) was “retarded”? Would you still use the word? It’s a simple word, so it’s simple enough to change it. Believe me, I have. I don’t use that word anymore, and I’m working real hard to stay away from “gay”. No, not for any lame ass commercials, but for the fact that I KNOW people who are gay, so why am I using a word that is synonymous with who they are as an expression of something being “lame” or “dumb” it’s tangently insulting. So I’m making an effort to stop, and I’ll I’m asking is for all of you to do the same. Thanks.
- At Seany’s birthday I found myself answering football questions from in-law family members, who watched college football on Saturday, and I swear my heart almost exploded with the sheer amount of awesome that permeated that room. It’s as if the world was in perfect alignment with me for 10 minutes, and those ten minutes brought joy and song to my soul.
- I am now enemies with the Buffalo Bills. Seriously, E-N-E-M-I-E-S-!
- Today is making me want to look into a future in being a crash test dummy. Seriously, are there that many dumb & lazy people out there? And if so how am I always meeting and exceeding my quota of dealing with them?
- D&D on Saturday. I have a sneaking suspicion that there will be some companion characters introduced. Now I’m not promising anyone is getting exactly what they want, that means you Dave, but I think I have a good way to integrate something’s directly into the campaign & have them make sense in multi-contexts.

Well back at it I suppose…

“I have never failed to fail…”