Three day weekend, hour 28.
Apparently Saturday morning at 11 is peak Grandma-calling hours. Two grandmothers before noon, one discussing a past visit, the other scheduling an upcoming one. The latter is my grandmother, the Italian lady from the Bronx who has lived in VT for fifty years and misses real Italian food. I’ve got a feeling Buffalo has more to offer in that regard than Burlington.
Three day weekend, hour 24.
My plan had been to sleep in, but the combination of the upstairs neighbor clomping around at 6 and the incessent squeaking of the radiators put that concept to bed. I got up and went down to the basement so I could stare in impotence at the offending pipes, apparently under the impression I would have been able to diagnose the issue and then change the universal properties of metal with my bare hands. “What’s he looking for, a big ON/OFF switch?”
Three day weekend, hour eleven.
Aside from about an hour and a half of eating excellent lunch, enjoying conversation, and answering the blasted phone, all I’ve done since the last post is play PS2 games.
You see, something in my head changed today. A little backstory – I have become more and more voracious for new titles, since when I get a game I either play it all the way through or stop when the fun-to-difficulty ratio swings too far to the right. This leaves me with a stack of games that I have had enough of. Every once in a while I go back and mess around a bit, but for the most part they’re as useful to me as used Kleenex brand facial tissues. One of the titles that was set aside for difficulty issues is Gran Turismo 3. I pulled it back out a few days ago, and today I found that I could get past the parts that gave me trouble before. So now, with these newfound racing skills, I was unable to stop. The trophies and prize cars kept rolling in, and before I knew it, it was 6.
Now I go drink.
Three day weekend, hour six.
Only in Buffalo does it take three stops to buy lunch.
At the recommendation of a German scientist, the fraulein and I went in search of a deli which is purported to have the best bratwurst in town. All I had to go on was a general location (Grant and Amherst) and a single syllable: “spaaaaah”. Right when we had given up and started to head home, there on the right appeared Spar’s. In we go to find on display all manner of german meat products, including the promised bratwurst.
After a swing by Globe Market for bread and Wilson Farms for mustard, we’re go for lunch. I was tempted to run out to Premier to get some weird German beer, but the two Molsons left over from last night’s sixer will do. I’ll keep you posted.
Three-day weekend, hour three.
Just got back from a supply run. Every time I take a day off I end up at a store of some kind, and it always weirds me out. The only men at a store on a weekday are retired or gay, and there stands Alex, living out the part of the dazed young married guy to an absolute T.
Three day weekend, hour one.
Watched the first few minutes of Lock Stock, followed by Napoleon Dynamite and Shaun of the Dead last night, both of which had striking similarities to my own life. Well, to be fair the stuff in Napoleon just reminded me of the eighties (those jumpropes!) and general geekiness. Shaun on the other hand… yikes. We all know that if you want a good flick, just add zombies, but the real success of this movie is in its accurate portrayal of the fading late youth of people raised on TV, right down to the ninja poster. AND the videogame they play throughout is Timesplitters 2, an all-time favorite which is quite appropriate, as there is much, much zombie decapitiation and the developers are English. My question is, where is this fictional setting in which people can still smoke in bars?
Well this is it. I took a day off. So, what do I do with this three-day weekend? I went to see the inlaws last weekend, so the demon Obligation is snoozing peacefully. I got my haircut last weekend. Hmmm… I predict a trip to the grocery store, about half an hour of reading, a mere few hours of videogame playing, several walks, forty-five minutes of writing, eight hours of drinking, two movies, two hours of Carnevale. And you wonder why I haven’t been posting much recently.
I submit this for your consideration. Will this be informative, interesting, or good? No. Will I be watching it? Yes. Now, there’s no damn mystery to dragons. There are dino bones all over the place, big lizard looking things. Never understood why there has any been any doubt. Perhaps this show will straighten a few things out for me. More likely it will tell me the poignant tale of young George who lives in peace on the Isle of Wight with his dearest mommy dragon until a bigger dragon comes to mess with them. Now and then the Book of Kells will be displayed. Several white guys will talk. I will quickly grow tired of ads for the Chevy Cobalt.
Go check Royal Toybox. Right out loud.
Two horns way up for Constantine. Everything I wanted, nothing I didn’t. I was introduced to the character in the works of Neil Gaiman, in which he makes a few appearances, and everything I inferred about his mysterious past was proved by a little internet research to be completely incorrect, so I don’t get to go all geek on anybody. (Too many commas? You think so? )
Riddle me this: was the chair on which Constantine stood the same chair from The Matrix? Because I think it is, and my long-standing insanity of The Matrix has been well-documented. In short, Constantine is the best anti-smoking propaganda film I’ve ever seen.
Not since Wednesday? Good gracious.
Thing #1: The Loonatics. A new version of the Looney Tunes characters set in the distant future, a future which seems to consist of scary eyes, dark colors, and long, curved lines. My take — go for it. The originals are eternal, and adding to the universe is fine with me. They aren’t calling the new characters “replacements” or “updates”, so I will leave my purist attack mode aside. For now.
Thing #2: The movie Troy. Now, I fully expected to find a nearly limitless number of problems with this movie, my purist attack mode at the ready. I did not expect it to be a horrifically bad movie. If you’re going to make a bad movie, stick to the text. If you’re not going to stick to the text, at the very least make the movie worth watching.
Thing #3: The city of Pittsburgh. Surprisingly awesome.
With the hockey season officially over and done with, I give you the following play-by-play of a tic-tac-toe match in which I kicked the shit out of Slazak.
The arena: my cubicle, as we waited for a “webinar” to begin, forced into silence by the active speakerphone.
Opening honors: Livingston
Livingston chooses “X”.
1: Livingston, lower left.
2: Slazak, upper right.
3: Livingston, middle right.
4: Slazak, lower right.
4: Livingston, middle left.
That’s right. One round, three moves. Livingston completely eschewed the lengthy series of draws that usually takes place in a match and delivered a master stroke in the first round.
After the match, a brief round of generally unsportsmanlike conduct took place. Slazak, realizing he had lost, sent the paper back with the word “BASTARD” as his only response. Livingston, always the gentleman, carefully wrote a “Booyah!” on the pad, sure to write each letter clearly. Slazak then crumpled the piece of paper and tossed it at the back of Livingston’s head, a clear display of his inability to emotionally handle competition on a professional level. Livingston, in a questionable move, quietly uncrumpled the paper and posted it on his bulletin board. When asked for comment after the match, Livingston stated that he finds it “a good way to get in his head. Every time he comes by, he’ll have to look at the physical representation of how much he sucks”. Slazak could not be reached for comment, as he was sitting in his cubicle crying.