Tuesday, November 11, 2003

I went over to my parents for dinner and to watch Matrix Reloaded with Dad before we see the final installment later today. I’m still a little confused by the whole plot, but it took six viewings of the first one before I finally got it.

Anyway, Mom and I discussed Love Actually a little more - it still sucks. Simply awful. Really.

But we agreed there were some bright spots and there were several places where we laughed out loud - mostly the scenes with Hugh Grant, the scenes with Colin Firth were very sweet, Emma Thompson is just brilliant. That’s why it was so disappointing, because the rest of the movie was like some bad Cinemax soft core pr()n in some places.

***MORE SPOILERS FOLLOW IN THE MORE SECTION***

UPDATE: Movie Mom gave it an A. *ARGH* There’s no accounting for taste, I suppose. The one quote that alarmed me a little:

Families who see this movie should talk about how the characters handle their feelings of loss, longing, and fear.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the other Curtis movies as well as classic romantic comedies with more emphasis on romance than comedy like Moonstruck, Roman Holiday, and The Philadelphia Story.

Monday, November 10, 2003

I get more confirmation daily that I’m pretty boring and predictable. *sigh*

Golly Gee!! You are NORMAN ROCKWELL.
You are a painter of simple, everyday happenings.
You tend to avoid the outrageous and stay well
within the guidelines of society. Your friends
count on you for your loyalty and level-
headedness.


Which famous artist most reflects your personality?
brought to you by Quizilla

So Mom and I went to see Love Actually. We were both really disappointed - almost walked out and really, we should have walked out.

Here’s why we thought it would be good:

Emma Thompson
Hugh Grant
Alan Rickman
Colin Firth
Laura Linney
Liam Neeson
Keira Knightley (granted she’s new to us, but the potential was there)

Here’s why you shouldn’t waste your money (***SPOILERS AHEAD***):

1.  All of the secondary characters and plotlines, including soft core pr()n, which is actually part of a plotline and rather cliched.

2.  Unneccesary nudity, both live people and in photographs.

3.  A ridiculous focus on secks (I unrepentanly stole that spelling from Jared, to whom I’m grateful).

The movie had some bright spots - Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, and Emma Thompson had good characters that would have been enough to do a full movie. They were tied together in some fashion, if the secondary stuff had been removed and the focus had been on those four lines, then it would have been an excellent movie. But instead there were these gratuitous people who were vulgar and crass and shallow - I didn’t care about them, I wanted them to go away. Meh. Just meh.

I give it 1 out of 4 stars - and it only gets that one star because of Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, and Colin Firth.

And now I’m going to go gargle with some Scope™ to wash that terrible taste out of my mouth.

Tomorrow’s movie adventure: Matrix Revolutions. I’m hoping that will be a lot more pleasant.

Bryan didn’t like the Jessica Lynch movie on NBC.

If the permalink is hosed, it’s the post called who wants roast peacock for thanksgiving? from Nov 9.

In perusing my referrer logs this morning, I saw that I was visited by someone via my-psychic-city. So I clicked over to check out that blog and came upon this post, which is her satirical view of Christianity.

I don’t link it to send trolls her way, so if you’re compelled to comment over there, BE KIND. I just found it to be an interesting perspective.

Did you miss me? I missed ya’ll, although I was busy enough that I didn’t really think about the computer or my blog that much. It was a great weekend, but Jaynee, CootieGirl, and I are all so happy to be out of the car. We did a lot of driving, and they have their final leg home tomorrow. Poor things.

Friday: I got done what was on my list and met up with them at my parents’. We stopped at my office so I could show off CootieGirl to everyone - all agreed she’s adorable. Funny moment as we were leaving - they were in the conference room having lunch - when we said good-bye to the group they all waved bye-bye to CootieGirl at the same time.

We got to Grandma’s house at about 5pm as planned. We went to her favorite restaurant for dinner then headed back home where we watched the CootieGirl video that Jaynee and Denis are “building” - just the best highlights of the hours of video they’ve taken so far. Our grandmother is 90 years old - it was great to see her with CootieGirl.

Saturday: We hit the road in the morning, planning to arrive at the college by 1pm for the start of the game. We made good time until we hit a bit of traffic in Charlotte and we ended up at the college at about 2pm. We were grateful later, not many of our era were there this year. I did see one of my good friends, Tracy, and his wife. He’s the campus minister now. I also was happy to see one of the nurses I hung out with my freshman and sophomore year - she was able to fill me in on news of the other 3 nurses we hung with. I hadn’t seen her since she graduated in 1987! Amazing.

After the game we went to Noel and Beth’s for dinner. They’re the couple we hooked up with at Homecoming last year and who have the most adorable kids, Kathryn and Thomas. We had fun catching up with them - Noel is one of the funniest people we knew in college.

After dinner we drove to Kirby’s to spend the night. His new house is simply beautiful. It could be photographed for home magazines. It’s on a mountain with a lovely view and he has decorated it beautifully. We had a great morning with him and Anthony before we started the trip back to Virginia.

And now I’m home. I’m looking forward to two more days off before my adventures at our super secret location later this week. Now I’m going to try to start catching up on a weekend’s worth of blog reading.

Friday, November 07, 2003

I have a meeting with our pastor at 10:00am before we head to North Carolina. And I have a few things to do before we leave too:

1. Empty dishwasher and reload
2. Pack
3. Take Annie to kennel
4. Meet with pastor
5. Meet up with Jaynee and CootieGirl
6. Stop by office on the way south

We had a good dinner last night. There’s this little Italian place near my parents’ - for the first 30 minutes or so we had the place to ourselves. We don’t know how they stay in business because they never have more an a table or two in use when we’re there. But their food is excellent and the service is stellar.

Our waiter is expecting his first child in December, so he was enthralled with CootieGirl. And she is just too precious. I’m excited to spend a weekend on the road with her - and her mom too.

I’m sure I’ll have tales to tell when I return. Have a great weekend, all!

Thursday, November 06, 2003

Sgt Hook has a follow-up post in response to the post he had with Jessica’s final letter to her father whom she lost in Iraq.

Make sure you have Kleenex™ handy.

The Tattler has been at it again. She has two contractors that work with her, not for her, but with her. Both are hard workers. Both are very sweet ladies who jump when she says jump. And she just jumped down the throat of the more timid one, bringing her to tears. Here’s what happened…

One of the CSO’s asked KM if she had seen MB because a shipment had arrived at the loading dock and they needed him to sign off on it. The Tattler jumped on him and KM - he is not to ask them questions like that, they are only to work on their stuff. She then dragged RP, KM’s supervisor, into her office to reprimand them for taking the 10 seconds needed to occasionally answer a mundane question from anyone in the office. (Their cubicles are right next to the copy/fax/mail area, so people who are confused will peek around to ask for their assistance.)

After the lecture to RP, The Tattler and KM (who carpool together - yikes!) left for the day. So we’re pretty sure that KM has gotten an earful on that commute, poor thing. And RP was left to finish her workday in tears, as I said before. She’s timid enough that she won’t stand up to The Tattler. She has complained to MB (My Boss, remember?), but I don’t think he’s doing anything about it. And RP is reluctant to complain to her boss at the contractor because if he investigates then it might make things worse for her here with The Tattler. Having lived through a similar experience, I can relate to that some.

I just feel for the lady and I wish I could help. I suggested that RP talk to the Assistant Chief, but I don’t know that that would help either. I also told her that if anyone comes to them with questions like that to send them my way. I’ll be happy to help them. It’s just a bad situation and The Tattler uses those little incidents to keep them under her thumb.

Any advice?

Turns out I’ll be working at our super secret location next week. The Marshal’s wife works for a special division of our HQ that has separate offices from the main HQ location. She needs help with an inventory thing, asked The Marshal if I could do it, and that’s where I’ll be Wednesday through Friday.

I’m excited because I’ll get to see the super secret location that I hear so much about, I’ll be meeting a bunch of new folks, it’ll be good for my resume, and it’s a little closer to home.

Blogging will be impossible, I’m sure. So don’t expect any activity in the blogosphere from me much next week at all.

Greg Burnett posted a little snippet from The Table of Inwardness the other day. I read that book about 10 years ago. I can highly recommend it, for the following reason (posted at Greg’s blog today):

Intimacy may not be rushed. To meet with the Son of God takes time. We have learned all too well the witless art of living fast. We gulp our meals sandwiched between pressing obligations. The table of communion with the inner Christ is not a fast-food franchise. We cannot dash into His Presence and choke down inwardness before we hurry to our one o-clock appointment. Inwardness is time-consuming, open only to minds willing to sample spirituality in small bites, savoring each one. It is difficult to teach the unhurried disciplines of the table to a culture so used to frozen dinners and condensed novels.
Intimacy with Christ comes from entering His Presence with inner peace rather than bursting into His Presence from the hassles of life. T.S. Eliot well described our dilemma when he wrote, “Where shall the world be found, where will the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence.” The church fathers spoke of otium sanctum or “holy leisure.” A relaxed contemplation of the indwelling Christ allows for an inner communion impossible to achieve while oppressed by busyness and care.

I’m not planning to watch either TV movie on Sunday night. I’ll be watching Alias. I’d rather see their stories told in a documentary on the History Channel than in some souped up docudrama on network television.

On the radio this morning, I heard a TV critic saying much the same thing. Then when talking about the decision CBS made to move the Reagan bio-pic to Showtime, he said it displayed their “cowardness.”

Shouldn’t that be “cowardice”?

Sometimes it’s really nice to be so close to the kitchen and the microwave. Other times it’s not - like when someone heats up their stinky fish for breakfast.

Ew.

Wednesday, November 05, 2003

So after living with the new look for a couple of days, I’ve come to the conclusion that I really, really like it. What I most like is that the background and text blocks are seamless. I’m very happy.

This weekend is homecoming weekend my college. I am going with Mrs. Cootiehog, who is also an alumnus of Gardner-Webb, and CootieGirl.

Jaynee and CootieGirl are making the trip to our parents tomorrow. My father’s birthday is Friday, so we plan to celebrate that occasion tomorrow night.

On Friday, the three of us will hit the road for our paternal grandmother’s home in southern Virginia. We will spend the night at her abode.

On Saturday, we hit the road for Boiling Springs, NC. We will enjoy a quick lunch at the Quik Snak followed by the football game, where we’ll stand at the top of the “stadium” chatting with whatever friends show up. After the game we’ll be having dinner with a family we just adore.

Noel and Beth were a couple my senior year. Beth and I graduated together. Noel and I shared the same major and he now works at the college Public Relations Office. He also runs the college radio and TV stations. And he’s one of the kookiest people - he cracks us up. Anyway, they have two adorable kids and I know that both Jaynee and I are looking forward to catching up with them.

After dinner, we’ll hit the road for Kirby’s, where we’ll crash for the night. Then on Sunday morning we’ll head for home. Well, my home. Jaynee and CootieGirl will stay at our parents’ on Sunday night and head for their home on Monday.

I’m taking Monday off and Tuesday is Veteran’s Day, a holiday for federal employees. I think I’m going to go see two movies on those days - Master and Commander Love Actually on Monday with Mom and Matrix: Revolutions on Tuesday with Dad. At least that’s my plan, I’ll have to work that out with them.