Like a Replacements' song

"Unsatisfied." I think that was the theme of the day. It was another sit around and wait for something to do sort of day at work. I think I need to have a chat with the general manager when he gets back tomorrow about how exactly I'm going to be assigned jobs to do.

Rep #1 kept giving tasks to the other new girl. I think I need to designate a name for her. Perhaps Disney. Yeah. I was going to go for Snow White, but I think Disney works.

Anyway, Disney kept getting little tasks all day long. I hoping this due to the fact that her office is right across the hall from Rep #1 so it's easy for him to just pop over there. Rep #2 was playing catch up from his on the road day yesterday. I did spend the morning asking the questions I needed to ask on the project I'd started on Wed. I got finished right around lunch time after revising my work 3 times. Went to lunch feeling pretty good. Was gonna practice AHU's right after lunch except...

Disney went on an errand run till about 1:30. Okay. I got back from lunch. Checked my email, sent a few emails, check movie showtimes. She gets back and she has little projects to do. Okay. I go through some of my notes from the last few weeks. Then I go back online. Check to see if the NIN site has posted any pic's from last night's show in St. Louis that I missed.

Around 2:15 I decide, fuck it, I'm going to work on the AHU's by myself. The plans we are supposed to look at are flippin' huge and in the conference room so I'm walking back and forth trying to make sense of what I'm looking at. Nothing is making sense. Every time I check, both rep's are on the phone so I have no one to pose questions to at this time. Around 3:30, I get a couple of questions answered and I start to dive in. Finally around 4, Disney swings by my office and says we don't have time to set up in back so maybe we should just work on our own. Fine. She then proceeds to call back to my office every once in awhile to ask me a question.

I spent about 4 hours doing almost nothing. Definitely need to find out if I'm supposed to go trolling for work or are they supposed to come to me. Hope tomorrow is better.

Feeling unsatisfied was also part of the crux of the new Woody Allen film I went to see after work tonight. Vicky Cristina Barcelona stars Scarlett Johansson, Rebbeca Hall and Javier Bardem. Cristina and Vicky have been friends since college and go to Spain together to hang out for a couple of months. Rough I know. While there, they chance to see Juan at an art gallery. Cristina is immediately struck and it works out that they see him later while out to dinner. He walks up to their table and invites them to join him for a weekend of good food, great wine, beautiful vistas and oh, yeah, sex.

Vicky, the pragmatic one, is both amused and appalled by his offer. She is engaged and even if she wasn't, she tells him, this sort of offer from a complete stranger is not for her. Cristina, who has a more "romantic" view of love (pain is always involved), accepts the offer easily. And, even though she argued against going, the next thing you know the three are heading out for the weekend.

Thus begins our story. How does it end you may be asking? Well, I think it's inaccurate to say the movie really ends. We just sort of leave the characters to continue living their lives. Through this relatively brief inter-twining of their lives, the characters share experiences that you'd think would change their lives. But, that doesn't seem to happen. I walked out of the movie with the impression that whether you live your life looking for some revolutionary type of romance or you take the safe and steady route you've got an equal chance of being happy...or unhappy. Satisfied or not.

The movie is really beautiful. I'd like to visit Barcelona someday and the movie made it even more desirable. Rebbeca Hall, who plays Vicky, is very good. I'd seen and been impressed with her in Starter For 10. She displays the strongest wit in the film and you really like her character. It's a pleasure to watch her character deal with feelings and events that are foreign to her.

Javier Bardem is the perfect temptation for both women. He is charming and intelligent, but also a bit wounded (via his crazy ex-wife played by Penelope Cruz). He is that artistic boy from college (mostly) grown up. You never get the sense that he is using either woman. Rather, like Cristina, he may not really know what he wants.

Scarlett Johansson almost makes up for The Island and The Black Dahlia in her portrayal of Cristina. Cristina still seems to be clinging on to her romantic ideals of suffering for love and for art. She even admits that she has an artistic inclination without any talent. She's like the artistic girl from college who never picked a major and just sort of wanders from art form to art form. Still, I'll give Johansson credit for keeping Cristina from getting annoying. Her acting is very natural, and even though I felt like the script was poking fun at her view of life just a bit, she never went into comic relief mode.

The dialogue is fabulous. Everyone sounds smart without sounding too smart. As I mentioned before, Vicky is quite funny and dry and to some extent so is Juan. Cristina ends up in some amusing situations which also give the film some humor.

But, this isn't a true romantic comedy. I'm not even sure I would call it a romantic anything. It's a character study with some humor in it. If you're looking for something smart, full of attractive people and places, and that will generate an interesting discussion on the way home, you can't really go wrong with two girls and a city.