Break in the in-action

Finally, a beautiful day! Why then am I inside writing on the computer? Because I haven't updated since we entered the second ring of hell and it was too flippin' hot in the computer room!

Thanks to the heat, I haven't been doing much beside sweating while not moving. Not much then to write about. But, I can recount going to the theater.

Well, children's theater, but theater just the same. My friend's oldest son was Gaston in a production of Beauty and The Beast (junior). He is a big ham so it was a perfect part for him. I'm happy to report that Noah is a good singer and he did an excellent job projecting both his singing and speaking parts.

There were a few other kids that you could tell were comfortable on stage. They were actually "acting," I just wish they had spoken louder. We were in the second row about 7 feet from the front of the stage and I still missed some lines. The kid who played the Beast seemed to come from the school of acting that says angry = yell your lines really quickly. But, I shouldn't be so judgmental. The kids looked like they were having fun. Even the youngest kids who played the flatware during "Be Our Guest" seemed to be having a good time. I'll save my smart mouth for the Broadway Series production that I'll be seeing in Feb.

Hopefully soon I'll be getting out to see some of the big summer flicks. Public Enemies is out this week and the countdown has begun for HP6!!!! Can't decide if I want to mess with Transformers 2 or not. Maybe I'll save it for a really hot day.

On a final note, my new favorite thing, Wired magazine, called out the Maru the cat videos as one of their favorite things! Thanks to galaxy carol for hooking me up to the best kitty in Japan. Seems he is now a national treasure, which is how it should be. There is also a great article about Facebook in this months issue, as well as an interview with the guy behind Prez O's plan to open up tons of government data and make it available to the public on-line.

End of the world, coming to theaters this Nov.

I found this link to the new international trailer for the upcoming disaster flick, 2012. I'm surprised that it is coming out in the winter, a time usually reserved for Oscar fare, but Nov. has also been the month for HP and Twilight, etc. so perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised.

Brought to you by the fine Independence Day folks, we get to see John Cusack (yeah!), his wife, Amanda Peet (yeah!) and their kids trying to survive the end o' the world. It looks like we will get plenty of the now standard destruction of major world landmarks (bye Vatican, see you later big Brazilian Jesus, au revoir some L.A. freeway). I'm always up for Cusack in hero mode.

Oooo...and extra groovy bonus, Danny Glover appears to be the President and Woody Harrleson is crazy. Sweet!

Someone I Know Has Talked to Martha Stewart on National TV!

I got word that my friend Jill, who is a goddess at Purina, was on the Martha Stewart show. Purina is partnering with Martha to sponsor a pet video section on the website. Or something like that. Anyway, Martha went to HQ in St. Louis and got a tour of the facility, etc. Jill talks to her about a new dog food that they have developed.

You can watch it here. Jill shows up about the 2 min. mark (looking quite lovely in blue I might add). Hang around till the 4 min. mark-ish and you can see her super cute beagle, Fiver (hope I'm spelling that right). One of my fave bits occurs around the 5 min. mark when the guy next to Jill starts to tell Martha about a surprise they have for her. Jill's eyes go a bit wide for a second; it's almost a WTF sort of moment. I wonder if Jill knew about the surprise.

Groovy stuff none the less.

When "one" sounds like "three."

Today I went into the big city to see a movie and have some lunch. When I can, I try to avoid chain places only because I can make my own damn hamburger and it won't cost me $10. But, I have a gift certificate I got from work for Applebee's so I figured I'd save my own cash and go there.

It was a little after one and the place wasn't very busy. The kid in charge of seating people walks over to where I am waiting. He looked like he was a twelve year old stoner. Or, at the least, had taken too much Ritalin this morning. He asks me how many, which you'd think would be obvious because I was the only one standing there at the moment. Still, I could be meeting people there I suppose. Anywho, I answer, "One."

He proceeds to grab 3 menus and three sets of silverware. I was almost going to say something, but I can just see a couple people have walked in the door behind me. Okay, he's multi-tasking and going ahead and grabbing stuff for the next table. Fine.

Nope. We go to the table he's selected and he starts setting down more than one menu. I get his attention and say, "umm...it's only one."

He looks at me, completely surprised and says "I thought you said three." Now, I can fake my way through some French, but I am in no way bilingual. That being said, off the top of my head, I am unaware of any language where "one" sounds like "three." Except maybe the language of "I don't want to be here today and I'm not really paying any attention to you because you aren't a hot 20 year old." Perhaps in that language the words are almost exactly alike.

Lunch was okay. I wouldn't have directly paid what I did for that salad. The service was okay and at least nothing got spilled on me.

Now, the movie. I went and saw The Hangover. The vote is still not quite in on it. There were some very funny parts and I really liked Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis. I also thought the idea of us finding out what happened the same time that the guys do worked to the movie's advantage. I just didn't laugh through the whole movie the same way I did with 40 Year Old Virgin and Superbad. It's a funny, raunchy film--good for adults, but I don't know that I put it up there with my favorites. Speaking of adult films, it was almost refreshing to see trailers for R rated movies since the last few trailers I've seen have been for G Force and other kid's flicks. I'd almost forgotten what an adult trailer looked like. But, I have to admit I'm frightened to see Kyra Sedgewick and Michael C. Hall in a trailer for Gamer, which looks just awful.

I might try to get to Drag Me To Hell this week. It will be fitting since this week both sales engineers are on vacation and it's just us chicks and our boss at work. Sounds a bit like hell to me.

Ups and downs

Last week, during my vacation, I saw Up a total of three times. It was worth it all three times.

Normally, I don't do Disney. But, now that Pixar is part of the Disney con-glom, I patiently sit through the "when you wish upon a star" crap to get to the hopping lamp.

Up tells the story of Carl Fredrickson and his quest to fulfill the childhood dream of going to South America. Along for the ride is Russell, a Wilderness Explorer (friends to all of nature) who is trying to get his Assisting the Elderly badge.

Pixar amazes me in their ability to broach bold, emotional topics in a way that is entertaining and a bit subversive. I remember when I first saw The Incredibles. I was blow away by seeing the very real struggle of someone trying to get what they have paid for from the insurance company. Who the hell else puts that in a "kids" movie? It is no different with Up. I don't want to tell anyone too much about it, but I will say I was crying in the first 15 min. of the film. I actually cried during the same 3 parts all 3 times I've seen the movie.

The film itself looks beautiful. One of my favorite scenes is the deceptively simple shot of the house and all its colorful balloons set against a perfectly blue sky. The score is very good; I actually blame it for the two other times I cried. I would hear the refrain from an earlier piece and instantly went back to the same place emotionally. Micheal G. (I won't try and spell his name) who does the music for Lost created the score. The vocal talent is perfect, esp. Ed Asner as Carl. There is plenty of comedy in the shape of Dug the dog and Kevin the bird, particularly when they are interacting with the human characters.

Up is easily one of the best movies I've seen so far this year, not to mention the last couple of years. The short, Partly Cloudy, that runs before it is quite sweet and entertaining as well. GO NOW TO A THEATER NEAR YOU!

Okay, on to the down. My flippin' car is still at the dealership. It was supposed to be done Friday. Nope. I got a rental car. I called there at 3pm to make sure the car would be ready tonight. Yep, I was told. If there's a problem, we'll call you.

I didn't get a call so I drove the extra 10 min. to the dealership. I get there and look around the lot near the service entrance and I don't see my car. The doors to the service garage are still open so I go inside to try and find someone to help me. As I'm looking around I notice my car...up on the lift things...missing two tires. WTF!? The lone service guys comes up to me and I explain that I was here to pick up my finished car, but since I thought it was that one over there the whole "finished" thing seemed a bit premature.

Oh, he says. Didn't Ryan get a hold of you? Erm. No. There was no call to me at work before I left at 5pm. The only other number I gave him was my home phone and I told him not to call me there.

Which, of course, is exactly where he called me. After letting the service guy know I'd already told the rental car guy that I would be returning the car and being told that it was fine if I kept the rental, I got home and had four messages. Three where Ryan spoke to me and one that I could hear things in the back ground, but then whomever hangs up.

Now, if you had spoken to someone at 3pm, told them you would call them if the car wasn't ready and you had been given their work number, where they would be until 5pm, wouldn't you call the work number first? And, if, in your stupidity, you called the home number, left a message, claim to have sent a text to a land line, and no one responded, wouldn't you try the work number?

Dork boy left his cell phone number so I called him. His first words were, "I've been trying to get a hold of you." No, really? Who would have guessed? I asked, did you have my work number? Yes, he says I tried that around 5pm. I pointed out it was after 5pm because I left at 5pm and I didn't talk to him. He tells me he should have the car done by 9 or 9:30. Convenient since I will be 40 miles away at that point at work. I also have an appointment tomorrow night so I am hoping to get my car by 7:30 or so. I'm also hoping no one will steal it because the dealership closes at 7 pm, of course, and my keys will be hidden on the car so I can actually drive it home.

Have I mentioned I have to pay for gas on the rental? I filled it up tonight right before pulling into the dealership. Now I've already added about 10 more miles. It'll be 30 to work tomorrow, about 25 to go to my appointment and about 45 to go from the appointment to the car dealership so I'll be filling it up again tomorrow night.

What is the dealership doing for me after all this hassle? They are paying for the rental car, but they should since if they would have had the car done on Friday like they said they would, I wouldn't be needing a rental. The extra special thing they are doing for me is.....they are going to wash my car. Yep. That'll go bad pretty quickly since I park out in the open and I'm near a tree. You do the math. Don't think I'll be going back to these folks anytime soon. ARRGHHH!!!!

Travelling back in time and getting lost

I took off a few days this week to get some vacation time in between the breeders popping out their kids. As a part of that break, a friend and I drove over to my beloved Univ. of Illinois to bum around.

It was raining when we first got there, but since we were hitting a used bookstore before heading to the campus, I figured we'd end up okay. It was a little misty, but the Quad looked as lovely as I remember it.

In fact, the Quad was about the only thing that had not changed that much. While pointing out the various apartment buildings I had lived in, I realized that there was a hell of a lot less parking available. My usual hot spots were all now designated for people with stickers. All my tricks and special knowledge seemed to have vanished.

Also gone, a great bar where I saw a ton of bands play. The bulk of the campus town area looks completely different. As we walked, I kept saying "that used to be..." I was happy to see Zorba's, a Greek restaurant, was still there along with a bar that has the best grilled chicken sandwich ever. But, the two cool records stores are gone (replaced by a Panera break company and I think a sushi place). The Steak n Shake where the hookers hung out and where a couple members of The Smithereens snagged some fries from me is long gone.

I understand that change happens and a decent amount of the time, happens for a reason. Still, I felt a bit disappointed that the version of campus that was closest to my heart was no longer there. It made me feel old. Thankfully, bringing home a couple of Papa Del's deep dish frozen pizzas made much of the pain go away. Right now, the past is a close as my oven and that's pretty cool.

Coming your way in 2010...

Lego games are about the only ones in which I have a chance of kicking any ass so I am very excited to see HP 1-4 is coming out. Woo hoo, I'm a dork.