wildyams

I haven't blogged in months, although that was partially due to the fact that I moved servers and the 50 or so most recent entries of mine never made the move and I didn't have the URL needed to log in; but I figured all that out today and manually inputted the missing entries (I hope I didn't miss any), so now I'm back. My blog from here on out is going to be different than what it had become, in that I've turned off all comments because I don't want any feedback on what I write here (that's what Who Needs Ice is for). One hopeful benefit of having blogged so little in the last 18 months or so is that there's probably nobody reading here anymore, and that is a good thing. When I started this blog I wanted to be honest in expressing my thoughts, but over time I discovered that it caused issues with friends and whatnot, so I eventually resigned myself to blogging about movies and the Lakers and little else for fear of upsetting people. So hopefully nobody looks here anymore, and I can go back to blogging about what's actually going on with me from time to time. The beauty is that if people are gonna get upset with me over something I write here, they're either gonna have to contact me privately to complain or they're just gonna have to let it fester and say nothing. Hopefully I'll be blogging more often, but I guess that remains to be seen.

I watched Lady in the Water for the first time last night when it was on cable, cause I wanted to see if all the negative press it got was warranted. While it wasn't a great movie, I thought it was definitely better than The Village. It is a movie for which you need to suspend a ton of disbelief though, and just accept the very weird, very arbitrary premise. M. Night wasn't in the movie nearly as much as I'd heard, and the bit he was in was OK, I suppose (although he does play a writer who's going to "change the world", which is a little pompous). The big problem with the movie is just that it's not grounded in anything real at all. It's supposed to be a children's story come to life, but it's much less effective than it would have been if it was based on an actual children's story rather than one M. Night just made up. However, the fact that it is all made up did result in me being interested in the movie because I was curious to see what would happen (and any movie that keeps me guessing is going to be enjoyable at least once). I'd have to say that unless the reviews for M. Night's next movie are equally awful as they were for Lady in the Water, I'd probably go check it out.

I watched The Devil Wears Prada for the second time last night, and was struck once again by how bad the ending was and how it really for the most part ruins what could have been a surprisingly good movie. What ends up hurting most movies is the ending, since so few movies really have good endings, and in this case going for the "happy ending" really ruins the movie. In The Devil Wears Prada a girl with journalistic ambitions has trouble finding a job in her preferred field out of college living in New York, and so ends up getting a job as an assistant for one of the most powerful people in the fashion industry: the editor-in-chief at the most-respected fashion magazine. Over the course of the movie the girl slowly becomes pulled more and more into this crazy fashion world as she works to impress her demanding-to-the-point-of-sadism boss, and she does so at the expense of her friends, family and even co-workers. The movie cumulates with the real viciousness of the industry's political inner-workings being laid bare to the girl after she's essentially betrayed everyone she cares about and she's left with a choice of accepting who she is and what she's become and just take what she's wanted, or abandon everything entirely and just walk away. They went for the happy ending and had her just walk away and make good with all the people she'd betrayed, and then had her land the journalist job that had eluded her at the beginning of the story.

So why is this a bad ending? I mean, after all, everybody's happy right? The reason I think it's a bad ending is because she didn't learn anything by the end of the movie. What did she learn? That she wanted to be a journalist? That she wanted to stay with her boyfriend? That she didn't want to be involved in the fashion world? That she didn't want to work 100 hours a week for a sadistic boss? That she didn't want to be an evil person who would step on people to get what she wanted? If you think that any of these things were big lessons for her to learn, you weren't paying attention at the beginning of the movie when she already knew all of that.

Essentially there was no character arc in the movie at all, the main character just arrived back at where she started having learned nothing she didn't already know. This is why movies like Swimming With Sharks or especially The Godfather are so much better along these same lines: because you find out at the end of the movie that the sweet, innocent person at the beginning of the movie is not at all who you thought they were, and you find out that they are every bit as ruthless as the other evil characters have been. The good ending would not have been the happy ending, but instead would have been for the girl to have accepted what her boss told her at the end of the movie, that everyone wants what they have. It should have been a moment of clarity for her where she dropped all pretense and had the last bit of her innocence swept away while we the audience realize she's become what she at first hated and feared. That's an ending that would have stayed with you in an otherwise well executed movie; but instead the ending we got was akin to the "it was all a dream" ending which is so horribly limp and forgetful.

Here's a good article I read today which I thought does a good job of explaining why comments on blogs are a bad idea. It's tough to express how limited I felt blogging here over the years because of the comments I knew that were coming, and they weren't even anonymous comments like the ones mentioned in that article, but rather just passive-aggressive snarkiness from people who wanted to break my balls. I'm definitely not back to the open frame of mind I had when it came to blogging back when I started because the worry of the comments still lingers a lot, but I do think I'm getting over it with each blog post. It's funny, when I first started blogging here I was hopeful that people would read it and either be entertained or enlightened or something. Now I just hope that nobody reads it at all. It is quite comforting to know that at least I don't have to receive feedback on what I write though.

Around Tuesday of last week I was out to lunch with some friends when I got a flat tire while waiting at a stoplight. We pulled over and checked the tire and it had gone flat just cause my tires were well overdue to be replaced. So we changed the tire, had lunch and then back at work I ordered myself a new set of tires online and had them delivered to a recommended place that would install them. Friday I got the call that they were in, so Saturday I cruised over and had them put on. Then I went home, grabbed my laundry and went to my Dad's place (I'm house-sitting cause he's out of town) and stayed the night there while I did some laundry. Today I got up, packed up my clean laundry and headed home after stopping in at Pie N Burger for lunch (the best burgers and milkshakes I've ever had come from there, by the way).

Tonight I watched High Tension (which was ok) and Entourage (which was good as always) and I found myself wondering where I could get some good still-in-the-shell peanuts. Since I don't think they sell them at the store, unless I see a guy by a freeway onramp selling them along with roses and oranges, I figure online is the best place to look, but I haven't found anything so far, although I did find that apparently when peanuts are still in the shell they're called "unshelled" and when they're not in the shell they're called "shelled". I see what they're referring to, with the "shelling" being the process of taking them out of the shell, but that still kinda throws me off. Anyway, my quest for good unshelled peanuts continues...

While cruising the web looking for a good hot dog stand in the area I came across the most shocking and disturbing thing I've seen in a while:

Oki Dog has received an "A" Rating for health status by the city of Los Angeles.

Now granted, this happened back in January, so I'm a little behind the curve on this one, but that doesn't make this news any less shocking or disturbing. For anyone who's ever been in Oki Dog, you know all too well of what I speak. I've never eaten there (and I'm not kidding when I say this) because I was genuinely afraid to.

However, I have been in the place, once, when Jon decided he wanted to tempt fate and get a double chili dog wrapped in a tortilla, despite our myriad protestations. Jon has been known to have the occasional digestive problem (usually related to too much pizza), so he's not some iron-stomached individual who would be immune to whatever food anomalies inhabit Oki Dog, so to Oki Dog's credit he did eat the foul-looking meal they served him and didn't need to go to the emergency room or anything like that. If I recall correctly (and we were all nervously eyeing him all night after eating there), he didn't even need to make any rushed trips to the bathroom.

Nevertheless, I'm not going to be eating there any time soon, despite Jon's canary-in-a-coal-mine-esque exploration of the joint, nor the "A" Rating they've received. Being in that restaurant the one time, even though I didn't purchase or consume anything, was enough to convince me that I'd rather eat at a strip club than there. It's been a long time, but I seem to remember that there was either a lot of dirt on the floor or that the place actually had a dirt floor, and I got the distinct impression that the sparse furniture spread round the dirt floor was homemade, and probably the work of a novice at best, because it was all misshapen and oddly-sized. The place looked like it had to have been a front for some type of illicit operation (drugs or guns would be my guess) because I couldn't imagine a place so intimidating could actually make enough to cover the rent if they were just selling food (to be fair, they did have a video game or two as well to help cover their overhead costs).

Suffice it to say, if anyone was to ask me "what is the scariest, most disgusting, least trustworthy-appearing eatery you've ever been to?" without a moment's hesitation I would say "Oki Dog." In a word, the place is vile. So to see that it's received an "A" Rating on it's health inspection can only mean that either the city of Los Angeles has some of the lowest standards imaginable or that they must have the most corrupt inspectors to be found (it's probably both). Maybe they figured nobody would notice? Whatever the case, this doesn't bode well for anyone and is just another example of how this current administration has failed us.

Predictably, I've been playing Diablo II again lately. I was playing a while ago, maybe 6 months or a year or so, and I got to a point I couldn't seem to get past: fighting the Ancients on the Arreat Summit in Nightmare mode. I'd gotten past this years ago (cause I made it past it even in Hell mode slightly before I lost interest for a couple years), but at some point they updated the game a bit and made this particular part rather difficult: they made it so if you opened a town portal the Ancients returned to statue form and any damage you'd done to them was erased, so as a result you had to kill them without dying or going back to town, which was tough. Anyway, after trying for a while I gave up and quit playing for a long time; but recently I went back to it and finally figured out how to get past that (I'm wondering how hard it will now be in Hell mode though). So since then, which was maybe 2 weeks ago, I've been playing for a little bit almost every day and it's cutting into my TV/movie watching and I can't decide if this is a good or a bad thing. In any event, I'm definitely glad that the extent of my "gaming" is relegated to a game I defeated about 6 years ago, and which doesn't have much of that scary addictive hold on me that I'm sure something like Warcraft would have.

Like most "serious" moviegoers in Los Angeles, I'm a big fan of the Arclight when it comes to seeing movies. Their prices are a little higher than other theaters (not by much except on Friday and Saturday nights), but they really cater to the serious moviegoer, especially those who are generally annoyed with what you usually get at most movie theaters. For instance, they offer assigned seats, so you can pick your exact seat before the theater's doors open (and you can do this online if you want), and this eliminates the need to wait in a big line or fight crowds to see a popular movie right as it's being released. They also run no commercials before any movies - they do run trailers for other movies (which generally everyone loves), but no commercials for cars or soda or newspapers or cell phones or anything like that. The seats are always comfortable, the picture and audio quality is always great, and they have ushers that check on the theater in person to make sure that everything is running smoothly so you don't have to yell out "volume!" or "focus!" or go miss some of the movie to tell someone that there's something wrong with the film. On top of all that, in all the time I've been going there, I've never had a bad experience with people talking too much during the movie, with cell phones going off, or in particular, with little babies crying and disrupting the show. Until now I just figured that maybe it was the slightly higher ticket prices or the ushers or something that helped with that, but I just noticed something on their website which made me really appreciate them even more:

Notice that they charge full price for infants! How awesome is that? Also notice that they don't give a child's discount for movies that are rated R. Clearly they realized the best way to keep parents with infants out of their theater, and to keep children out of "adult" movies was to just bang them extra hard with the buck. Kudos to you, Arclight. I can't wait for the 2nd Arclight to open in the Valley.

Two nights ago I stopped in at the local pet store to pick up a few mice for the snake. The snake, as you may recall, belongs to my sister Rebecca, but since she moved to Texas almost two years ago I've been left in charge of it/he/she (I never bothered to have it sexed and neither did she). I could have gone all Snakes on a Plane and tried to smuggle it out to Texas with me on one of the flights I've made out there since she moved to Texas, but figured the possibility of being searched and found to be in possession of a snake hidden on my person might result in jail time in Gitmo and/or the snake being impounded and/or destroyed. I did smuggle a snake on a plane twice back in college, but that was pre-9/11 when it was still OK for mothers to bring their breast milk with them on an airplane.

So anyway, normally I buy no less than 4 mice for the snake and feed them all to the snake one at a time (in case you're wondering why I keep referring to it as "the snake" instead of by the snake's name, it's because the snake's name is Little Dude, which takes longer to type than "the snake"). This time I decided to really live on the edge though and I bought five (5) mice, and took them home to their doom. Oddly enough, even though the snake usually eats 4 mice and still has this look about it like it/he/she is still hungry, this time the snake only ate 3 mice, and upon throwing the 4th one in, the snake just sniffed at it and then ignored it. Well it turns out I noticed today that the snake is getting ready for a shed, so that explains the odd appetite, but I didn't know that two days ago (I can tell cause the skin starts to get dull in appearance before a shed), so this left me with two live mice left. I thought about throwing them outside to fend for themselves, but I didn't want to upset the fragile Hollywood ecosystem by introducing pet store-bought mice into the equation; so then I considered killing them and throwing them down the trash chute, but I didn't want to do that either so I decided to just leave them locked up in the plastic critter cage I've got and see if the snake would want to eat them the next day (yesterday).

So last night I came home and decided to see if the snake's appetite had kicked in. I went to get the mice out of the critter cage and I gotta say it smelled absolutely awful. Nothing really crawls up your nostrils like the stench of mice urine (except maybe for cat urine). So before I tried to throw the mice in there, I figured I should wash them off, so I grabbed the first one and rinsed him off for a while before throwing it soaking wet into the cage. The snake inspected it for a while while appearing to not be interested, then as almost an afterthought decided to kill it and eat it anyway, which was very encouraging. One down, one to go. So I rinsed off the other mouse and threw it in there too, but this time the snake was truly disinterested. After about 10 minutes of disinterest on the snake's part, I took the mouse out and decided it was back into the foul-smelling critter cage with it (I did rinse out the critter cage as well).

This morning I woke up and decided I didn't think the mouse was going to last much longer one way or the other, so I decided to rinse it off again and put it back in with the snake (who was still disinterested, despite having taken a big crap in the corner of it's cage). But I figured this is it, so I left the mouse in there this morning (all weakly huddled in the corner but still alive) and then I went to work. Anyway, I couldn't help but wonder about that mouse as I was sitting here. And yes, I still feel as though I can smell that mouse urine, it was so foul.

A significant portion of my day today was spent devoted to this guy:

And this site featured in this hilarious (sorry, "epic lulz inducing") "news story":

When I got home last night the mouse had died of starvation so I threw it away.

I hate entries where I just describe something that happened, because I realize they are probably as dull to read as they are to write, but I do them because I figure some day I may read back on them and find them interesting, but then I almost never go back and read any of my old entries, so what's the point? This weekend John Bell was in town and I hadn't seen him since last year at this time. Matt and Kelly had a party to commemorate the occasion, and a good time was had by all. I even got to talk to an Associate Producer of one of the few shows I watch and got some spoiler-free insights. The party went very late into the night, but I had fun. Tonight I got together with a few people from the party and went to see The Simpsons Movie after dining at the Arclight, and that was great fun too.

I've got a busy week ahead of me. In addition to tentative plans for dinner and a movie with friends, I've got definite plans for dinner (tomorrow night w/ Dave & Jen) and a movie (The Bourne Ultimatum on Friday at the Arclight, hopefully). On top of that I've got Steve & Juliet's housewarming party/wedding reception on Saturday, and I'm going to my Dad's on Sunday. For someone as sedentary as myself, that's a lot of hustle and bustle for me for one week.

Now I'm a big Pink Floyd fan, but there's always been something about the song "Wish You Were Here" that kinda bugged me and I could never put my finger on it till now, but I just figured it out. If you listen to that song, for the first minute or so it's all tinny and mono like you're supposed to be listening to it on some old timey radio or something, and then eventually the second guitar kicks in and then finally it goes to full production mode, and all of that is great. However, during this old timey radio part, at about 43 seconds into the song you hear someone (presumably Roger Waters?) hawk up some phlegm in his throat like he's getting ready to sing. This is quite disgusting and probably shoulda been axed from the recording. A cough or simple clearing of the throat without all that loose phlegm would have gotten the job done equally well.

You know, I'm a big fan of Nick Nolte, especially when he's yelling his head off in a movie or when he's posing for a mugshot. Since his mugshot is pretty much old news, I figured I'd post one of his lesser-known rants from the end of the movie Blue Chips. This is essentially the last scene in the movie so if you've never seen Blue Chips and have been trying to avoid spoilers for all these years about how it ends, you may want to skip this. Otherwise it's great to see Nolte and JT Walsh screaming at each other: