My Year of (Suspected) Garbage: Pearl Harbor

As a personal growth thing this year, I'm going to try to watch some of the movies that I have avoided previously. I think it's important to test one's prejudices now and then and see if they still hold (e.g. eggnog, note: still icky).

And, unlike the My Year of Netflix from a prior year, I will be giving these a sort of up/down rating: Still Garbage/Surprisingly Not Garbage. I may come up with a little logo for these, but don't hold your breath.

One rule: Like with books, if it ain't happening for me by halfway through, I'm allowed to shut it down.

1. Pearl Harbor.

Thought I was making it easier on myself by picking a movie that had both Alec Baldwin and Peter Firth in it. I mean, that worked so well last time, right?(1)

Initial thoughts: "Oh, Lordy, this movie is three hours long. Three hours of the 'direction' of Michael Bay and the 'acting' of Ben Affleck. Better leave the counter running in the corner of the screen."

Then: "Oh, finally, Alec! Wait! Where are you going, Alec? That was only like three lines! Come back, Alec!"

Then, billions of years worth of crap dialogue later: "Oh, look, Aykroyd! Wait! Where are you going, Aykroyd?...." You get the picture.

So, no, to make a long story short, I didn't make it all the way through this movie. Firth,(2) bless his cotton socks, conveniently blows up at one hour and thirty-two minutes in. I frankly wasn't invested enough to stay and find out how the whole war thing comes out, so I guess I'll just have to wikipedia that.

Ruling: Still Garbage.

1. The guy who plays the cook in Red October is also in this one. Sometimes I wish I didn't recognize character actors so easily, because it's distracting. This, however, was not one of those times. Distract away, Tomas Arana!
2. (who if I had to guess is using a southern accent - his two lines that weren't shouted over machine gun fire don't really give many clues)

Save the Date!

I'm not one to get hung up on celebrating certain things on the exact date, but I think I'm going to have to insist that the 2011 Mai Tai be scheduled for the Traditional, rather than any Observed Date. And heck, I'd be willing to start around brunchish so we can be sure of enough time:

Biblical Scholar's Date for Rapture (SFGate)

And every day she cries

When she remembers the day that Elvis died. ("She's Happy" - The Gear Daddies)

Elvis would have been 75 today. Guess I never really think of him as someone who would have been in my father's cohort (to haul a word out of one of my past lives). And I never knew when his birthday was, although I will never forget the day he died: My sister's birthday. So, every time I see or hear anything having to do with Elvis, I generally stream of consciousness over to thinking about my sister. Or the Gear Daddies. And then hockey.

Had what I felt was a solid-B interview in Seattle, but also the immediate sense that I was the "let's take a flier on this person we don't know, even though we're pretty much set on someone else" candidate. Like I mentioned on Twitter, it was a bit bittersweet to be in Seattle without the leisure to wander to the Library or climb the Standpipe (although I did have time to drive past both, and sigh).

We repeat the entire process again next week, hopefully without the hellish blizzard-ridden tarmac bits, in Albuquerque (for a job in Fresno, I hasten to add, since a delay in mentioning this bit earlier got my Dad hella excited).

I took perverse joy in the fact that the worst turbulence I had on the trip was while reading the chapter in Stiff about what happens to the human body in plane crashes. Helps that I was in the back row of the plane and would therefore, in the event of a crash, according to the book, be less likely to end up nekkid. Not that that's ever been a concern of mine.

Until next time: "Feet first, feet first, feet first."

The Year that Was

Just looked through and I didn't do this last year. Hm. I thought I did, but maybe it was two years ago. Or, I have once again fallen into an alternate timeline. Funny, the technology doesn't seem to be disconcertingly more advanced in this one.

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before? Got on and off of a moving train.
2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I kept one resolution-type goal that I made, which means that I get to keep my Netflix!
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? It seems like Genghis has been around more than a year, but I guess not.
4. Did anyone close to you die? No, but the death of someone I didn't know pretty much had the biggest impact on my year of anything.
5. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009? Some sense of what the future's going to look like? Bit much to ask for, I think.
6. What was your biggest achievement of the year? I'm going to go with "mechanical bull" on this one, even if I didn't get anywhere near 8 seconds.
7. What was your biggest failure? I remain horrible at keeping in touch with people.
8. Did you suffer illness or injury? I think Syl had enough for all of us.
9. What was the best thing you bought? My gym membership.
10. Where did most of your money go? The software says, "Other", but if I had to guess, I'd say, "Rent."
12. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Nothing that I didn't then have to get really, really, really disappointed about.
13. What song will always remind you of 2009? "You Part the Waters" by Cake
14. Compared to this time last year, are you a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer? Sadder/Thinner/Richer
15. What do you wish you’d done more of? Spent time in the company of actual people.
16. What do you wish you’d done less of? Sitting in airports. Didn't do all that much, but any of it is too much.
17. What was your favorite TV program? Spooks. (And, if I'm being completely honest, Hoarders, but I don't go out of my way to watch that.)
18. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate last year? No one I actually know.
19. What was the best book you read this year? For the first time? Neverwhere.
20. What was your greatest musical discovery? There was that 10-year-old Cake album that I miraculously did not already own.
21. What was your favorite film this year? District 9.
22. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? My own fountain pop machine.
23. What kept you sane? For the last 8 weeks, it's been this lovely person in the UK who's enabled me to watch Spooks.
24. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Fancy? OK, fine, Alec Baldwin.
25. What political issue stirred you the most? Health Care Reform, and trust me, living in Nebraska and having to watch the "Tell Ben Nelson that if he caves to the Demmycrats, it will be THE END OF CIVILIZATION" ads for the last two months, I'm good and stirred.
26. Who was the best new person you met? One of the young'ns, who I just got addicted to Netflix (it was the access to SeaquestDSV that sold him).
27. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009. That it was a "serenity to accept the things I cannot change" year.
28. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
You need to straighten your posture and suck in your gut.
You need to pull back your shoulders and tighten your butt.
Yeah, come Comanche, Comanche, Comanche, commode.
If you want to have cities, you've got to build roads.

You are entitled to my opinion....

About Christmas songs.

**Note: If you haven't guessed, I really can't decide where the commas go in relation to the quotes. Rather than pick one, I will drive at least half of you nuts. End Note**

I tend to break the songs surrounding this time of the year into three categories:

1. Carols. The best are either the ones which, in my head, are being sung by an choir of English school boys: "Once in Royal David's City" and "The Holly and the Ivy"; or a church full of Lutherans, preferably holding drippy candles. "Silent Night," of course, but my favorite is actually "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," for all its non-inclusive "Mild he lays his glory by, Born that Man no more may die," poetry.

2. Seasonal. "White Christmas", mostly goes without saying. As sung at the end of "Holiday Inn." But, I do rather prefer "I'll be Home for Christmas":

You can count on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the lovelight gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams....

Heartbreaking, no?

Oh, and "Mele Kalikimaka" (for pure singability).

3. Shite. I shouldn't put this last and end on a downer, but the following simply suck, and I'm only half joking when I say that it's a pretty significant bit of evidence against the existence of God that these abominations are allowed to exist:

"Mary, Did You Know?" (Um, yes she did -- the ANGEL TOLD HER. And the rhythm is all weird and unsingable. And the whole thing that some Christians have with the pregnant Mary borders on fetish. Creepy, creepy fetish.)

This new Christmas Shoes (?) song that my sister's been ranting about that I haven't heard yet. We will however, likely spend much of the holiday listening to it over and over and inventing new ways to say, "Oh, redacted, it's awful...."

"The Little Drummer Boy." Unadulterated Evil. And yet, I was whistling it much of the day.

Not quite a benefit concert

Seven hours was not far enough south to move to keep my hands and feet from disappearing for hours on end during the cold time. Went looking in Jay's Pants for remedies other than things that would make me either pass out (blood pressure meds) or dangerous to self and others (quitting caffeine). Lo and behold, turns out I needn't suffer alone. We have, saints alive, a website. Never had a condition with a web presence before, unless you count this....



Anyway, I feel compelled to aid in the cause. After all, there doesn't even appear to be a celebrity spokesperson. I nominate George Clooney, who could use the talk show appearances he's been having to promote his recent movies to also push awareness. By, optimally, sitting there holding the hand of a Raynaud's sufferer to, you know, warm it up. And of course, my idea = my hand. Only fair.

Our ribbons should be made out of that same stuff they're making the Coors bottles out of -- the ones that turn color when they're cold enough to choke down a Coors.

I am coming up a bit short on the slogan end, so suggestions appreciated. So far I have:

"Raynaud's Phenomenon: Cold Hands, Cold Feet, Warm Innards, Mostly."

and:

"You 'Try to Avoid Cold', You Sodding Twit."

Neither of which really sings.

FOILED!

Although Surdyk's, like Mary Poppins, is practically perfect in every way, its website is refusing to let me send a gift card to Puck for his birthday. Nebraska simply doesn't exist to them, and while I appreciate the sentiment, it's not really helpful.

So...is anyone passing by Surdyk's sometime soon? And would take a personal check?

And, Happy Birthday, Puck. Welcome to your mid-30s.