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Tuesday, June 14, 2005

I'm Back And I Feel Like A Monkey... 


As is customary when I've been away and have TOO MUCH CRAP rolling around in my pointy little head, I am (once again) going to blatantly rip off gently borrow the format of everyone's favorite monkey, who is known simply and inexplicably as the Monkey. This is due to the fact that I am just as "lazy" as I am "evil" and, if you are to believe the things which are typed by the likes of Collin, then that makes me much lazier than you...Believe it...

Anyway, here goes...

I just returned home from visiting the Las Vegas area, something which my wife and I are apt to do at least a couple times per year. We've had family in the area for about 5 years now, and it seems that the number of people whom we can visit/stay with/depend upon to cart our lazy asses around keeps growing year by year. My wife's dad, stepmom, and grandmother all live there, and my wife's sister and her man (Big Al) recently purchased a very nice home just up the road from the dad. In addition to that, my friend Andy, who is the copywriter Andy that DOESN'T have a website, lives there now with his wife. It's kind of nice to visit Las Vegas and NOT stay at a hotel/casino sometimes, it helps me avoid two things that I really kind of hate: cigarette smoke and "people."
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Speaking of Las Vegas (we were), it's just so damn strange to be in a place with such gigantic frickin' landmarks. Now, I know that this is nothing new, but I think that I noticed it just a bit more than normal this time since I was a full-time passenger and not a driver. Case in point: you can see "the Strip" from a good number of miles away, but can't actually GET to "the Strip" in a timely fashion from that "good number" of miles away due to the insane amount of traffic and road construction. Don't get me wrong, Vegas has been crowded before during my many visits, but this most recent visit was easily the most crowded I've seen it...
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So, that Michael Jackson guy...Um...So what's with him?
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Remember when I said that I might post while I was away? Remember that? Heh...I...um..."lied."
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I participated in the a poker tournament at the Orleans while I was in Las Vegas. In a strange twist of fate, the same exact hand (Ace-Eight) won me my first pot in this tournament, just as it did when I played in a tournament at the Orleans around Christmastime. Conversly, a wired pair of nines led to my exit from the tournament BOTH FRICKIN' TIMES...Same place, same hand, same result... I think that the lesson to be learned here is NOT TO PLAY NINES...Of course, I'm sure that if I were to FOLD the nines, a nine would come up on the board. Why? Because this is how my luck works. Overall, though, I did better than the last time. It's only a matter of time before I win one of those stupid things...
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Speaking of "not losing" (we kind of were), the Sharks, with whom I play the "hockey," are on a "not-losing" streak. We've tied the last two games we've played in the advanced league at the Chapel Hills Mall. This "not losing" thing is a real confidence booster for the team, it's only a matter of time before everything comes together and we "win" a game.
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We rented and watched a couple of movies while I was in vegas...White Noise, the supposedly spooky film based loosely on the real-life Phenomena that is EVP, was the first rented film that we suffered through watched. Granted, it had it's moments of shock value, but I found the plot to be a little weak and the drama, what there was of it, was not particularly well-developed. You kind of knew who the bad guys (or spirits) were the whole time and the "big payoff" at the end was not that big of a twist...I guess I did like how there was no happy ending at all, for anyone, in this film, but as "horror" movies go, the previews and the commercials I saw for this film turned out to be scarier that the film itself.
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Speaking of "scary," or, better yet, things that turn out to not be scary, the second film that stole two precious hours of my life away I sat through was Wicker Park which appeared to be, if the trailers and commercials for the film are to be believed, a "suspenseful thriller." in the end, though, this film turned out to be anything but. I can easily break this movie down to 3 specific points...Ready? Good... A: If you're scheduled to go to China, you GO TO FRIGGIN' CHINA. You don't turn into psycho stalker boy, looking for your "woman," who ain't even still your woman, you just go...to...China...Of course, there wouldn't have been a movie if he DID go to China, but that would've been just fine with me.
B: If you're a psycho stalker girl who's been doing everything she can to get to psycho stalker boy who's been trailing your friend, obsessed with HER the whole time you've been obsessed with HIM and you've finally gotten said stalker boy to notice you, you should probably take the opportunity and simply kill your friend. I mean, really, she gave up WAY too easy...Again, I thought that this chunk of shit movie was supposed to be suspenseful! I really don't think that the Star Wars series would've had the lasting appeal that it does if ol' Darth Vader just simply said "ok, whatever you wanna do, I'm gonna just go hang out" when Luke refused to come to the dark side...Or whatever, I dunno, I don't like Star Wars...Anyway...
C: Without "flashbacks," this movie could've easily been nothing more than a half-hour sitcom, even if you threw in some commercials. The way this story was told was not "innovative," nor was it "clever." It was, in fact, "fucking annoying." I hate you, Brandon Boyce...You too, Paul McGuigan...
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Have a fine Tuesday, kids!

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