I, Splotchy

Unconnected Tuesdays

2009-12-01T21:19:00.000-06:00

Whipped Cream

Fez

Couples Retweet

2009-11-25T08:09:00.003-06:00

I only have to work Monday this week, so the rest of my time leading up to Thanksgiving can be devoted to developing my eight-pack abs and watching shitty movies.

Okay, watching shitty movies.

What were my choices?

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs - Nope!

This Is It - I'm pretty sure it isn't, but thank you.

Where The Wild Things Are - I was all excited about this until I realized it was not in fact a sequel to The Wild Life.

Couples Retreat - LET'S GO.

I got the great idea of live-tweeting my moviewatching experience. I sat near the back of the theater and got my phone and my typing fingers ready.

Sadly, during the film I realized that to properly live-tweet a movie, you have to be sitting in the VERY back row of the theater. Unless, of course, you don't mind getting repeatedly punched in the back of the head by people who for some reason don't like the life-giving glow of your mobile phone.

Regardless of this, I'm going to let my Tweets stand as a review of this film. Enjoy!

7:10pm - Live-tweeting Couples Retreat in a cheap theater. GO

7:10pm - It is only me & 4 annoying teens here.

7:11pm - Wait! A "couple" just walked in.

7:11pm - Bob Marley's Legend on the sound system.

7:12pm - Another couple-

7:12pm - I have always loved "Stir It Up". Genuinely.

7:13pm - Movie is supposed to start at 7:15pm.

7:13pm - This is kind of like live-tweeting Crank 2, except not really.

7:14pm - I hope I anger no one. I'm a sweetheart.

7:15pm - lights out

9:12pm - Sorry, somebody sat behind me. It was shittt

9:12pm - shitty

Unconnected Tuesdays

2009-11-24T20:08:00.000-06:00

Skee Ball

Troll

Law Abiding Shitizen

2009-11-20T08:44:00.006-06:00

Ahhhhhh! How long has it been since I reviewed a movie? TOO LONG.

What were my choices?

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs - No thanks, I've eaten and been rained on!

Couples Retreat - This would be awful, I do not doubt. Still, no.

(500) Days Of Summer - I wouldn't mind seeing this. However, I would be afraid if I said anything negative about the movie, I would make Zooey Deschanel sad. And that, my friends, is too much burden for me to bear.

Law Abiding Citizen - YES! YES! YES!

So, I roll into LaGrange in my fashionable cobalt station-wagon. Christmas lights have been strung in the village of LaGrange, and the town is a prematurely winter wonderland.

How about those mediocre-looking pics, huh? I took them with my FUCKING PHONE! Hello, 21st Century!

So, the LaGrange is really not the friendly, very slightly grimy theater I toiled away in as the Two Buck Schmuck. They have done some quite lovely renovations. Okay, I'll admit it. Things are different.

Remodeled lobby, with ticket enforcers

Remodeled hallway

Some restored frescoes. Yeah, fucking frescoes!

New inside theater marquee

The Bob Seger Theater was largely unaffected by the renovation. Except, instead of playing Bob Seger tonight before the movie they were playing the Temptations.

The movie choices are better now. I mean, they played the latest Hayao Miyazaki film here, for Christ's sake. Do you know how hard it was for me to find a boilerplate revenge drama with suspect philosophical underpinnings? It wasn't easy.

Okay, to the movie! So, Gerard Butler is this loving dad whose wife and child are killed in the first few minutes of the movie (pre-credits, even!). He spends the rest of the movie punishing the rest of the world for not properly serving up justice to the guys that killed them. I'm not sure if it was cut out in the version I watched, but the movie seemed to be missing that hilarious scene with the vibrating panties.

I knew absolutely nothing about the movie going in, so it was kind of nice wondering where it was going. It wasn't obvious at first, at least. We flash-forward ten years and see the two thugs that did the killings die -- one gets death by lethal injection (a very painful one, thanks to that sneaky Gerard), the other gets gradually amputated to death (also by Gerard). Gerard likes his justice served gradually!

Oh, Jamie Foxx is actually the star of the movie. He's was Gerard's lawyer. He is a hotshot lawyer. He didn't do right by Gerard, so this movie is pretty much geared to teach Jamie Foxx that the only true way to justice is to gradually cut someone's limbs off.

Gerard lets himself get caught, and then engineers a whole lot of mayhem from within his prison cell. Oh, before I forget, there was a "Hello, ladies!" moment in the movie. So, Gerard pretty much leads the police to himself. For whatever reason, as he is waiting for them, he strips completely down, giving the viewer a nice backside view. As he is taken from his house in custody, he is shirtless but in jeans. What the fuck? They make him put on pants, but they say, "No, a shirt will not be necessary." I was hoping he would wink at the camera in his shirtless glory, but I guess they did not want to break the fourth wall.

So, most of the movie is just him killing lawyers and shit.

Oh, you end up finding what Gerard does (or did) for a living. He was basically a genius guy that worked for the government, figuring out ways to kill people. He was essentially an assassin. Now, the whole point of the movie, the whole motivation for his character killing all these people, is that justice was not done when his wife and child were killed. The movie *completely* misses any of the irony, that this self-righteous douchebag would in his job routinely kill people extrajudicially. The movie is totally on his side, too. The movie is like Se7en, except you are being asked to sympathize with Kevin Spacey. Yeah, man! Put Gywneth Paltrow's head in that box!!!

Anyways, Jamie Foxx finally figures out one of Gerard's plans, to blow up the mayor with a homemade napalm bomb. So, please bear with me -- Foxx takes the bomb to Gerard's solitary confinement cell, which Gerard is not in because he left through a tunnel he made years before being arrested to allow him to move freely from the jail to the outside world. Foxx hides the bomb in Gerard's cell and waits for him. Gerard eventually makes it back, Foxx asks him not to detonate the napalm bomb (via a cellphone call) to kill the mayor, and Gerard says sorry, and detonates it. Then Gerard realizes the bomb is in his bed as Foxx hightails it out of the cell and locks the special fancy door Gerard built. The napalm bomb explodes, in a prison, a FULLY-POPULATED prison, mind you, killing Gerard and probably a whole lot of other inmates. Then, Jamie Foxx goes to watch his daughter play in a cello recital.

So, Jamie Foxx has learned some valuable lessons in this movie. One, you can blow bombs up in prison, and two, really, see your daughter's recitals. They're only young once!

Facebook, I Must Respectfully Disagree. I Am Pretty Certain This Person Was Not Searching For Me.

2009-11-19T11:21:00.001-06:00

Unconnected Tuesdays

2009-11-17T08:58:00.001-06:00

Rainforest

Earrings

Unconnected Tuesdays

2009-11-10T15:07:00.001-06:00

Thermometer

Rat

Oh, I Suppose I Can Doodle Something For You, If You Like

2009-11-09T13:02:00.001-06:00

First commenter with a doodle idea gets that idea doodled.

UPDATE:

For Doc:
Napoleon with a "will work for food" sign.

(it took me a little longer than 60 seconds because of the onerous task of lettering on that goddamn sign)

Unconnected Tuesdays

2009-11-03T09:24:00.000-06:00

Lawn Clippings

Quetzalcoatl

Unconnected Tuesdays

2009-10-27T23:26:00.000-06:00

White

Quiche

Unconnected Tuesdays

2009-10-20T20:52:00.000-05:00

Accordion

Sluice Box

Unconnected Tuesdays

2009-10-13T21:06:00.000-05:00

Ball Bearings

Fox

Unconnected Tuesdays

2009-10-06T12:22:00.000-05:00

Jeans

Wheelbarrow

Because Calling It My Vagina Might Offend Some People

2009-10-02T12:36:00.000-05:00

Unconnected Tuesdays

2009-09-29T23:45:00.000-05:00

Gecko

Orchestra

Holy Shit! An Entire Album's Worth Of Paul Stanley Stage Banter!

2009-09-29T09:55:00.003-05:00

If you have anything remotely resembling my sense of humor, you need to download this now.

PAUL STANLEY - PEOPLE LET ME GET THIS OFF MY CHEST

(H/T)

A Nice Moment With My Youngest

2009-09-26T09:29:00.004-05:00

Not sharing a piece of artwork from my youngest (4 yo) boy, but an anecdote from earlier this morning.

He came into the bathroom to show me something when I was getting ready to take a shower.

I said to him, covering myself up a bit, "Can I have a little privacy? I'm naked."

He responded, "It's okay, Daddy. I won't laugh at you."

Darth Penguin

2009-09-26T09:09:00.003-05:00

Oh, my daughter isn't the only kid with mad art skills. Check out this creation of my eldest son, DARTH PENGUIN.

Etch A Sketch Goodness

2009-09-26T09:01:00.004-05:00

When I was a kid, I loved dialing around and making lines, but that's as far as it went. I don't think I ever managed to make any interesting pictures.

My daughter, however, is a different story.

Etch A Dragon

Etch A Robot

Nope.

2009-09-25T08:45:00.001-05:00

Unconnected Tuesdays

2009-09-22T10:16:00.000-05:00

Leaf

Brain

Numerous Photos Of The Sun Trying To Burn Through The Fog

2009-09-22T09:50:00.002-05:00

I was taking a break on a pedestrian bridge over the Salt Creek, and noticed a faint white disc through the fog -- the sun!

The fog was ever so slowly lifting, so I decided to take a whole bunch of pictures as the sun was getting brighter and brighter.

Enjoy! (or don't!)

Click on any pic for a larger version.

Fog, Yellow Field, Etc.

2009-09-22T09:34:00.003-05:00

Since getting my bike back from the shop a few weeks ago, I have made a point to ride the Salt Creek trail on the weekends, on both days if my schedule will allow it.

I was able to go on both September 12th and 13th.

It was quite foggy on both Saturday and Sunday (I rode in the morning), and I took my camera with me.

So... PICTURES FOR YOU. Click any pic for a larger version.

From the second day:

A park near my house.

Just another fucking foggy day (excuse my French!).

Some nice dilapidated woods (if woods can be dilapidated) along the Salt Creek Trail.

A section of trail just north of 31st Street. Don't pretend you don't know the section of trail I am talking about.

This place is generally the end of my bike ride -- a nice pedestrian bridge that crosses the Salt Creek.

As I was riding I could feel the moisture condensing on me. My arm hairs were covered in little droplets. Here's a picture of some berries that were drippin' with delicious fog.

From the first day:

I rode over to the prairie documented here on my first day of biking, and saw that the lovely prairie had become even lovelier with the bloom of hundreds of yellow flowers:

Caught a shot of some ducks flying overhead.

And got another shot of them flying off into the fog.

The Turtle Tries To Buy Some Lettuce

2009-09-21T08:34:00.001-05:00

(click for bigger)

The Secret Lair Of Doctor Doom...

2009-09-16T21:16:00.003-05:00

...as constructed by my daughter.

I believe Dr. Doom is attempting to reanimate the skeleton.

Click on each pic for larger awesomeness.