Back to the Present

Come on 2015! Where the hell are my hover boards? Happy New Year!

It is a Gift

A Hobbit/ The Office SNL sketch is freaking awesome. Enjoy.

Trailer of Trailer

I really didn't like teaser trailers because they didn't really do much. Most of the time, it was just giant words of anticipation and no footage from the movie. Then again, I really hate the entire movie cut down into two and a half minutes. I only watched the first trailer for Interstellar and was very happy to only have the first third of the movie already in my head. I may have written about teasers of trailers, but now officially, I just watched a trailer for a trailer.

Coming soon: Slightly more!

I will give credit to the creator of this spot. It's using the music to give me enough chills and get my attention. But then it's over and I'm supposed to happily await the commercial next week? Oh, I will watch it, but I won't be happy about it. Well played.

Who are These Bitches?

I have a sore spot since the toys spoiled the arrival of Princess Twilight Sparkle. I also have a problem with Princess Twilight Sparkle. So when I saw a yellow Princess Celestia in the corner of my eye, I was amused of the mistake toy. That is until I saw them up close.

Introducing Princess Spoiler and Princess Cash Grab.

So either more princesses will be introduced in the next season or this is a creation of non show characters because all girls want more princesses. They apparently also want unnaturally colored human dolls with pony personalities. 

I used to walk around toy stores and marvel at how much stuff that kids own. That was about fifteen years ago. Now I wonder into the toy section, think of how much I could play with, get frustrated because I want it all and am grateful that now I have to pay for it, I can just walk away because it's not worth it. Kids don't really have a chance. Hell, adults don't have a chance. I'll just have to listen to Queen Elsa and let it go.

Revenge for Puppy

Less than two weeks ago, my dog passed away unexpectedly. I saw the trailer for John Wick before it happened and since the movie came out, I have heard about it on many of my movie podcasts. It is getting pretty good reviews and many say that it's a great action movie. Well, even before the pain of losing my puppy buddy, the sound of the dog dying broke my heart. I wondered if I ever saw this movie, if it would break the record of the movie Up, of how long I had to pause the film and pull myself together before I could continue watching. Second place is the movie I Am Legend. 

I realize that Keanu Reeves leaves a trail of bodies and inflicts so much pain because Theon Greyjoy killed the puppy (...given to him by his dying wife... Sure that makes it pretty bad too.) but I doubt I could stomach even artificial sounds of a dog suffering. Sort of like when I watched Django Unchained. No amount of revenge and carnage could make up for the mental anguish of watching human suffering.

Annnnndd.....depressed.

Speaking of mental anguish, the last week I've had emotional reactions that I swear I'm stealing from Twilight: New Moon. The scene where Bella is screaming and crying in her sleep and is comforted by mustache dad is what my sobbing has felt like. I also had a cinematic moment of screaming "NO" at my car that died on a freeway on ramp when I was rushing to an emergency situation. I feel like Martin Tupper in Dream On, but my references suck.

Now that I've depressed everyone, have a happy and safe Halloween.

Every Day is Boss's Day

Since I tend to not notice not real holidays, I was surprised to find out October 16th is National Boss's Day. There were decorations put up in my new office. Decorations that pissed off my coworker because they were grammatically incorrect. I on the other hand was fixated on the photos of Donald Trump and Bill Lumbergh. 

Wow. Yep, let's celebrate douche bags. I did a Google search for famous bosses and, yes, I had to filter out the mafia associated people. Then I realized, how about Michael Scott? A big dork, but still a lovable boss. Granted, there are mainly crappy bosses in pop culture, but I for some reason I could not let this go. So I settled for silently putting up pictures of Bruce Springsteen. I'm still new and I bet most people just don't get me. I did make my grammatically focused coworker laugh. One victory at a time.

License Plate Game 2014

And with great shame on Labor Day (Whooo, finally figured out when to stop. Shut up, I know this report is late.) I ended my game with the following states not spotted:

Alabama
Delaware
Kansas
Kentucky
New Hampshire
North Dakota
South Carolina
South Dakota

Not bad. Not great. Until 2015!

Hey HEY Hey!

This made me a very happy girl when this was released. And I'm not creepy because it's for charity.

Yeah, my charity.

Celebrity Sighting # I'm not High, Just Busy

So forgot to mention it, but went to the Castro Theater on August 16th to see Doug Benson and the guests Hals Sparks, DC Pierson, Jacob Sirof, and Daniel Kinno interrupt Twilight: Eclipse. The show was not as good as the New Moon interruption, since that movie was a train wreck interrupted by freaking Chris Hardwick, Paul Scheer, Rob Hubel and shirtless Tom Lennon. I'm still trying to figure out how to get the pictures from the SF Sketchfest website. Come on! Shirtless Tom Lennon!

The beginning made it into the Doug Loves Minis. Great thanks to Marie Carney for writing a review so I could get the guest names I couldn't remember and putting up some of the best gags. Oh man I so can not wait for Breaking Dawn Part 2.

 I love you Aro!

Celebrity Sighting # I'm Paying Atttention

Though I knew for a little while that Alonzo Boden was playing at Tommy T's this weekend, I made the spontaneous decision to see him perform on Thursday night. I've only heard him interviewed and that he won Last Comic Standing the year they didn't air the finale, but man I was not disappointed. This guy freaking rules and I encourage everyone to see him. We got a picture with him after the show and I tried to over pay him for a CD. He would not accept but said give the change to a homeless guy. Now I worry that I insulted him, but I just want to give my support to good entertainment and $15 a ticket was not enough. So go to Hulu and watch his special. The view are good for him, right? I don't know how entertainers make money anymore.

Tears of a Clown

Of course I was devastated by the news that Robin Williams died. I am reliving it as podcasts that were taped when the news broke are now being released. I don't want to get into it because, as is life, we move on and new things happen. I remember when I was in high school and sitting on the phone as my best friend cried over the death of Chris Farley. I just went to her daughter's third birthday party. Make note that while many people can have kids in high school and that could just be a whopping four years ago, that was, in fact, back in 1997.

Fortunately for me, I live in northern California and get to mourn the loss of many bottle of wine as the earth shook the Napa Valley. I got to wake up to at least of ten seconds of "what the hell?" And then, since no major damage was done, I moved on and had to be reminded at work there was a damn earthquake just yesterday morning. So this month will see an increase of  sales of everything Robin William related and if people are feeling silly, a jump in YouTube views of this.

 

I'm pretty sure she wasn't singing about plate tectonics.

Childlike Excuses

I recently recommended The Lego Movie to one of my coworkers. Because she has a soul, she loved it and now understand why her nephew sings "Everything is awesome!" I needed this win because earlier this month I babysat my two and six year old nieces. The two year old passed out in the first ten minutes and the six year old was using every excuse imaginable to avoid watching.

Even before we got to that point I would tell her it was great, but she would insist that she didn't want to watch it. As the day went on she told me that she wasn't really "into" movies. Then she mentioned that since she watched a lot of movies on the road on the way back from Disneyland, so she was burned out on watching things. Then she mentioned that the color on the TV was looking a little odd earlier and she was worried that watching more TV would make it worse so we should leave it off. Then she mentioned that she saw part of it at her friend's house before and didn't like it.

Being the "adult" of the situation, I said she didn't have to watch, but we would still have it on.When it was over, she told me that she didn't like it. Then kept asking me question like "what's the guy in orange named again?"

After the third round of how she didn't like it, I wanted to smack her, but I also realized that I used to lie my ass off when I was trying to avoid things I didn't want to do. Specifically, I remember in the fourth grade, we had to make up a commercial and act it out on camera. When we had to watch all of them, I would fake a stomach ache when mine came on. I faked a lot of stomach aches when something was on TV I didn't want to see.

I may also be annoyed at the situation since I bought the damn DVD in preparation for her loving it. And in two minutes that cover was thrashed. The bright side is that my sister really wanted to watch it. Man, I watch her kids and she get a bonus DVD. I'm really bad at favors.

Happy 4th!

He got me back.

The Power of Suggestion

I was in a bathroom and glanced at the tampon dispenser and saw someone had left a tampon by it. Just a tiny thing and BAM, the song from an In Living Color parody commercial about tampons was in my head. The background music I heard when I was a little girl and it was there. I know I watched this show a lot, but this borderline sad. Oh well. Such is my crazy brain.

Man, I love DAG.

May Movie...Nope Resolution Dead

While I did read Shrinkage as I mentioned in the last post, my husband and I are officially spent on the movie resolution. Yes, it IS very hard to watch one movie a week. And we have some big changes and events coming up, so our time is allocated towards ignoring these big changes. We'll see what happens when things calm down, but for now, we'll just watch movies for fun and not obligation. Feeewwww. That feels good.

Celebrity Sighting #Lederhosen

My husband and I went to go see Adam Carolla at the Palace of Fine Arts last weekend. Bald Bryan's book Shrinkage is out and I was looking forward to showing up in my Film Vault t-shirt and hoodie and get my book signed. Sadly, they had to catch a flight and did not stay to meet the crowd. 

But because I can't read a map, I didn't realize that our seats weren't very close to an exit, but instead isolated us right next to the sound equipment. Where the sound engineer and other crew were. So I am sitting right next to sound engineer Mike Dawson. I also hear a familiar voice talking shop behind me and I ask if he's Gary. Yes, he was. Yep. I got to throw my praise and get a picture with Dawson and Gary (ahem, Carolla nickname omitted) Smith. 

Say hi to Stew Hendershot and Carl Thompson.

This is another reason I am happy that I contributed to the Ear Buds documentary. There is a relationship that exists when you spend hours listening to podcasts, even if it is one sided. People, get in on this awesomeness.

Rest of April Movies (Sort of) and Lack of Book

I cracked and wanted to continue Sherlock. My husband, on the other hand, picked Lethal Weapon. No book. I need to say good bye to this month. Then again, I may claim a movie from last week and watch during this week. That's what happened with Lethal Weapon. We will see.

My List of Five, Version 4.0

Holy crap, I haven't updated this in years. I can't be stuck with some of these guys. Then again, I guess there is no shame in some of my choices. I guess I'm only confident in two or three and then feel like I'm settling for the rest. Now I'm watching Sherlock and think "Well, if I choose one and then it turn out the other one is better....." then I'm screwed. (Yes, I am officially trying to declare if I will have a crush on Sherlock or Holmes.)  I really take this not important and never going to matter list seriously. So in an attempt to stop fretting, I'm just going to update and move on. And hope I don't run into Martin Freeman in a coffee shop anytime soon.

1) Chris Evans
2) Joseph Gordon-Levitt
3) Chris Pratt
4) Karl Urban
5) Adam Scott

March & April (so far) Movies and Bo....

I didn't read anything in March. I have Angels and Demons just waiting for me to get started, but I just can't pull the trigger. So I'll use my surplus from the earlier months to get to my twelve this year average. In fact I'll do the same for April because it is busy times right now. 

All of the movies I've seen are stating to blur and I will need forgiveness as I state this from March up to today. In response to Wreck it Ralph, the husband chose Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I decided that we needed to be depressed and bored so I picked No Country ForOld Men after we watched Gravity that didn't count since we borrowed it from friends. He went on a 90's action kick so he chose JurassicPark. I went Hobbit 2 then he followed with Speed. I get why Jurassic Park and Speed were popular at the time, but of course in certain ways, they do not hold up. For last week, I cheated and said I wanted to watch Sherlock. I know it's TV, but it's an hour and a half per episode TV and we watched all of Season 1 (or Series 1) so it is my choice and I stand by it. 

I will say that of the three most recent versions of Sherlock Holmes in media, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman have the best sexual chemistry. (Apologies to Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law, but not to Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu.)That catches us up to this week, and he has one more day to declare. 

On my own I watched Pitch Perfect to rinse the taste of Javier Bardem out of my mouth, then Thor 2 and Hunger Games 2 so I could finally listen to the spoiler episodes of Comedy FilmNerds. And if we are accurate, I got to listen to and see parts of Frozen while eating my nieces. I have to see it all in a child free environment soon. And get me a plush Sven. So cute. 

Feeeewwwww. I guess now I can go back to enjoying my Good Friday. Or back to my being solemn and dignified.

Dora Made Me Dumb

I know I'm not the target audience, but holy crap, watching Dora made the experience of babysitting my nieces stretch for eternity. I did, however come out of it with an observation. The horrible making the children scream "Swiper, no swiping!" three times to get him to stop seems like the way to train a new generation of children to have the OCD of Sheldon Copper and his Knock, Knock, Knock, Penny.

Your choice on which is more annoying.

 My money is on Dora.

And after writing this, I had this scene jump into my head. You're welcome.

Celebrity Sighting #Arm the Children!

"We need comedy to get rid of our desire to kill." 

Holy crap my face hurt so hard after this show. I went with friends and family to see the wonderful Christopher Titus at Tommy T's. Since my husband and I saw him a few years ago, I don't need to gush some more about him. The bonus was getting to see his new wife as his opening act.I'm a regular listener of the Titus Podcast, so I know Bombshell Rae is funny, but it was great to see her perform solo instead of bounce off of Titus.

Even more incredible is that he went on for almost two hours and Rae told me after the show that he usually goes longer. That is unfair to other performers I may see. They can't live up to the quality of this man. If you have the chance to see him perform live, get your ass to the show.

February Movies and Book(s)

To back track I also watched by myself A.C.O.D. which was fine. My husband and I got through Don Jon(me), This Film is Not Yet Rated(him), Kick Ass 2(me), Dr. Horrible(me, I stole), and Wreck It Ralph(me). In the not counting list, we saw The Lego Movie and finished our LoTR winter watching spiced up with Rifftrax.

I think Ralph and Lego win that month.

Personally, I watched In a World, and The Heat. I declared Heat the week we watched Kick Ass 2, but the three hour thing sort of took it's toll and we had to shove some movies into another week. The point is we are averaging one movie a week. Watching The Heat was a little overboard for me since I was trying to use Redbox coupons before they expired. Damn right, I love free stuff.

For reading, I rushed through the inferior sequel Midnight in Austenland, and in an attempt to finish before it was borrowed, The Disaster Artist. My actual choice was Self-Inflicted Wounds by Aisha Tyler, and since it finally came in to the library, Paddle Your Own Canoe. Besides Austenland, these books all have really long ass names. I fully recommend Paddle to anyone who thinks like me.

Wow, it was a really rough, though short month, but I did my thing and we move on. By the way, technically Ralph was in March but I declared in February, so I put it here.

Resolutions Are Hard

We have wavered back and forth. For the most part we are keeping up with watching movies, but due to some full weekend problems, we are making concessions. We saw the Lego Movie (oh, it was awesome!), but that didn't really count, but we're busy so it did....crap like that. Hell, we just watched Dr. Horrible for the first time and that sort of counts for me this week. Feels like cheating, and we probably are, but we've watched and now I can still get to bed at a decent hour. Once I'm done reading about it on the internet.

Celebrity Sighting #420

At the end of SF Skecthfest and the Christmas presents from my husband, I got to sit in on a Benson Movie Interruption of Twilight: New Moon. It occured to me that I have never seen this movie without famous people talking over it.

The line in was ridiculous as was the line for the ladies room. While bonding over mutual Benson love with the girl in front of me, I see the man himself sneak through the lobby. I frantically tapped her on the shoulder and pointed as I saw him and Paul Scheer go through. Then I immediately apologized afterward and said I would not have done so if it were anything else. She quickly accepted and thanked me since she was focused on the line moving forward. The girl behind me claimed she saw Chris Hardwick and Janet Varney, but I dared not to dream. I did see Janet Varney upstairs chilling before the show and wanted to wave, but knew I was holding up people on the stairs so moved quickly.

When back in the balcony I excitedly heard the special guests announced: Paul Scheer, Rob Hubel, Chris Hardwick, and Tom Lennon. Oh happy day indeed. It was a fun show and I loved that my husband took me out. I love supporting my favorite podcasters and performers. I love laughing and sharing with like minded people. I did forget that this was a huge group of stoners and got annoyed with every inhale of cigarette and pot smoke. Well, can't have a perfect night.

Then again, as an "homage" to Taylor Lautner, Tom Lennon took his shirt off. How any people get to see that? Well, I Googled it and apparently anyone who Googles it can see it. But not in person so I win. And yes, I am aware that his IMDb picture features him pant-less. I still win. Actually we all win now.

Celebrity Sighting #Whaaaaaat? No......

I already got to gush over the Comedy Film Nerds when I saw them last August. For Christmas, my husband gave me an unlimited pass to SF Sketchfest. One of my choices was the CFN live podcast and it ruled. I listened to them announce their guest list on an earlier podcast and they said Mark Wahlberg. My instant reaction was "please don't be the real one.....please don't be the real one.....".

Yeah okay, but not quite who I wanted to meet.

Oh yes, sports fans, after the show I got to meet fuckin Mahrk fuckin Wahlberg. I got to shake his hand, tell him I hoped the real one wasn't scheduled, and become very excited at the end of the show when Steven Seagal made a last minute special appearance. For those of you who do not know the talents of Dan Van Kirk, I strongly suggest you listen to Sklarbro County and take in all of this awesomness.

You're welcome.

On a final note, I was a little embarrassed that I didn't know it was a wig.

January Movies & Book(s)

So after my disastrous choice my husband took week two. He thought we should watch It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. While I get that it's a classic and it is amazing that all of these actors were in one movie, I didn't enjoy as much as he wanted me to. I have this talent for fixating on one point and in this case I didn't enjoy people trying to screw each other over for the possibility of a fortune. In fact my observation was that the elbows and shoving and pointless greed can be see in footage of a Walmart on Black Friday.

 Nominated for one Oscar.

Sadly, we let a week slide but got back on the wagon with The Wolverine. It was a more thoughtful superhero movie as most are trying to be, but to me not worthy to watch again. On a personal mission to see a movie a week on my own, I saw Austenland. Okay, I am falling victim to the Mormon girl porn. No touching, no kissing, just quietly falling in love and making sweeping declarations that will be rejected and misunderstood, but then ultimately redeemed. Yeah, watched it many times. Skipped to the parts that would give me lady, ummm, tingles(don't judge). Then in a fit of stupidity got the book. 

Yes, the more you watch and the more you read, the more you see the cracks in the foundation and I'm starting to understand why this is a bad movie and a bad book. But like the men and their non-sexual guy porn, let this time wasting fun go on. I want to see bad true love bloom and win. Screw you certain parts of Love Actually. 

I suppose that could count as my book for the month, but my official choice was Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons, Tales of Redemption From an Irish Mailbox, by Greg Fitzsimmons. I will say that my experience with reading Carolla books, this is not just a rehash of radio bits. These are personal stories, some I've already heard and some that go deeper. I enjoyed it and it's well written, but I do not necessarily recommend it to the casual reader. I do recommended it to Fitzdog fans, but no need to, because they most likely have already read it.

Finally, my husband's second choice was Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. I was happy to have the story end at the end of the movie. No to be concluded in 2015 crap. Yes it was okay, but I'm tried of the action sequence, pause action sequence, ect. formula. I'll say that I came out watching this movie realzing that me and my husband have a bad habit of finishing a movie then abandoning each other for TV Tropes and Wikipedia to read more about the movie.

So, a mostly miss set of choices for January. My instainct to pick Oscar winners burned me in the beginning, so as you see I am treading lightly for now. I must declare soon. Don't want to get stuck in another three hour epic. Though I bet I'll laugh more during Hamlet. (To be fair, I'll just be thinking of Rosencarl and Guildenlenny.)

2014 Resolution

I blew my "Do not eat fast food" resolution on January 3rd but I still have hope that I will pull through with the resolution I made with my husband. We blew this challenge a while ago, but are at it again. 

We will watch one movie a week together this year. Starting on Monday one of us gets the whole week to chose a movie that we will watch together. It must be one that at least one us us has not seen, and if we do not declare out choice by Saturday night, the other gets to steal. We flipped a coin and I got to chose first. I picked The Wolverine.  I did not get to the Redbox in time so instead I picked up Django Unchained and This is the End with Django being my choice. 

SIGH. Now that I have experienced Django, my soul needs to be scrubbed cleaned. I had to ask to pause it and get my self together a couple of times. It just felt so upsetting and I reached the point where I wonder if I need to see these types of movies. I don't see horror movies anymore because they upset me. I'm mostly not a fan of revenge movies because I tend not to be happy about the comeuppance so much as linger on the dark nature of humanity that feels they can wrong others in such a horrible way.

Noting my depression as the credits started, my husband quickly gave me a mulligan and let me claim This is the End as my pick for the week. And because people are not responsible with someone else's property, the disk skipped constantly one hour in and we could not finish. I called customer service as I didn't want to toss the disk back in the machine so someone else could get screwed. They flagged the disk and I think my duty has been done.

Week one is completed, but at what cost? I thought I would finally have an excuse to see There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men finally, but if the dramas are going to drag me down, I'm not sure I'll want to continue. I think resolutions are supposed to make you better, right? Well, I also promised myself a book a month. I could cancel this stuff out with books from my favorite comedians. I don't want to fall into the books like In Her Shoes. Sisters don't get along, like me and my sister, sound good. Wait mother committed suicide? Uggg, why must I have this compulsion to complete these books once I started?