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Notes and Updates

Sunday, 18 October 2009 22:06 Matt O

So I've been thinking a lot about proper blogging over the last few days and being entirely too lazy to actually write anything. That's not going to change in any material way tonight, but I did want to mention that I survived the weekend.

I've been really tired for some reason all weekend long, starting on Thursday. Weird. My Birthday was pretty good - I didn't do much, but had a really nice dinner with Casey, then drinks with some friends at the Dime. Saturday was supposed to be sleeping in and relaxing, but somehow it wasn't. I did manage to leave the house with Christopher to go to some beach thing in the evening that was pretty fun, then met Casey and some folks at Michael's house (my former temporary place of residence). Came home 'round 1. Survived my first Sunday School in more than a decade, too. I'd like to think I'll go another decade without doing it again, too.

Eagles I don't want to, but I have to talk about the Eagles. I would like to just turn in my fan card right now. I know I can't do it, but jesus fucking christ, could they have looked more inept? Remember the thing I said about the offensive line at the start of the season? Fuck. Remember all those things about glass-jaw McNabb not being the same after his multiple injuries? One good game against a shitty team does not excuse an absurd game against a shittier team. And given that we have yet to play an important game in the six weeks so far of the season, losing three starters (last I looked - it's probably more by now) means that the season, already in jeopardy, is gone before the halfway point. Anyway, I certainly won't be going out of my way to watch the birds for the rest of the season. Oh, it'll still hurt when we lose to the goddamn Cowboys, but what the hell, right? A team of a collapse this epic... geh.

Lastly, on a slightly-happier note, I didn't hate Where The Wild Things Are. I didn't love it. The source material is seven sentences long, so there's a little trouble with making a feature-length story and not losing too much of the magic. Brevity is the soul of children's fiction, afterall. I mean, look at Jim Carrey's Grinch movie. I mean, don't, but you know what I mean. Also, Dave Eggers is a douchebag. More properly, A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius couldn't have been written by anyone but a giant, dripping, splooshy douchebag, and, well, yeah. WTWTA did look amazing, and the puppetry was spectacular. I liked the monsters' characters (minus the Silent Bob moment at the end, I think the Bull might have been my favorite), and I liked Max a lot. I want that wolf costume to wear when I'm having a bad day. I think I'd be wearing it a lot lately, and it's time to change that.

On that note, I'm off to bed. Maybe I'll write more tomorrow, but likely, I'll be too caught up in work and mowing the lawn. Maybe I'll also build something, too. We'll see. Thanks for reading all this shit.

Last Updated ( Sunday, 18 October 2009 22:28 )

Happy Birthday to us!

Friday, 16 October 2009 07:14 Matt O

Whee! It's Jared's birthday! It's my birthday! We're so much fun!

That's all. Happy 30th to my cousin. Justin beat us to the punch, though, probably because he's older than both of us (not combined, though).

Last Updated ( Sunday, 18 October 2009 22:25 )

Whoa, hey

Tuesday, 01 September 2009 07:49 Matt O

I'm getting lamer at updates, even when I do things to update about. I'm going to blame the heat. And the smoke.

So where are we? We're in LA, surrounded by the burning hills of, well, just about everywhere, and we're sitting at the computer working on yet another redesign of shoehardware.com. I've bought tickets for NYC, but I haven't yet gotten around to getting a place to stay. We'll change that in a heartbeat or two. To the sounds of my neighbors' chainsaw, it would seem. Good for phone calls.

What else? I've been house-sitting. I have less than a week left, and I have yet to play tennis. I went to Vegas with Kieran. Somehow, we'd never been to Vegas together in any capacity before. This time, we went cause he got a free room and tickets to Love, the Beatles show. We managed to have a pretty good time, even if it was less than the ultimate in Vegas debauchery. Isn't everything less than the ultimate in Vegas debauchery? We did see a guy fall through a mirror and off the stairway he was on to the floor 12 feet below. If he didn't break his neck or back or lacerate any important arteries, I'm sure he's fine. It only took paramedics 45 minutes to arrive. At least I had plenty of time to finish my drink.

Okay, I'm back to editing. Let me know if you're going to be in NYC end of next week, cause I will.

I saw some movies

Monday, 17 August 2009 10:59 Matt O

Okay, so the drought ended this weekend. I went from zero movies ever in my life to seeing four in just under 24 hours. What the hell. Anyway, here's the rundown. And before you ask, I'm conditionally for the Michael Vick thing. The oceans of grayscale here are almost limitless, and the man's level of play will go a long way in my mind, as will his continued involvement in animal cruelty prevention programs. Anyway, let's get back to this. In order:

Dead Snow
Not as good as I'd hoped. The previews made it look spectacular but the execution wasn't nearly as great as I'd hoped. It was like the filmmakkers watched Evil Dead and copied it, not understanding how things have changed in the last 25 years. There was a lot meta going on there "Fortune and glory kid, fortune and glory..." but it wasn't enough to make it awesome. I had hoped, but no.

Zardoz
What a flick. The picture of Sean Connery that's been floating around Facebook got Kevin interested, and he managed to get a copy running on the XBMC (awesome, BTW). It was spectacular. Awesome in the original sense of the word. The Speedo with the dual bullet bandoliers and the knee-high boots, all in red? I smell a halloween costume, right? Anyway, go see it.

Julie & Julia
I haven't read the blog or the book, and I don't have a lot of interest in doing either, but it seemed like the movie really whitewashed Julie's opinion of Julia. If the movie were all there was, the crazy foodies wouldn't have felt the need to savage the blogger to save the cranky old chef. If the chef is cranky. I don't know. My mom said it made her want to host dinner partys but not cook Childs' foods, but I kinda liked that cool thing they did with the fish. If only they used more tomatoes. I have a couple more coming due this afternoon, so I'm taking applications.

District 9
Oh what the hell. Everyone's lauding this thing as the greatest sci-fi since The Matrix which was the greatest sci-fi since Star Wars, which means you should definitely stay away from the sequels. The special effects were great, some of the best I've seen, but that doesn't get the story moving faster or give the apartheid-again plot any more punch. I don't know. Didn't hate it, but it wasn't great.

The rest of the weekend was pretty fun, too. Went to the beach, did some drinking at the Dime and generally relaxed in between taking in all those movies.

It's been a long time

Monday, 03 August 2009 06:42 Matt O

Turns out that a new site doesn't mean I update more.

Mom came last Thursday and she gets up early, so my normal morning writing time was interrupted by social time, which is infinitely better for me. Friday, we went up to Santa Barbara and had a little wine, which was fun, then ate a late lunch at the Mustard Seed, a restaurant that I'd believed closed just a couple of weeks before.