This Dating Life 2

I really wish the really cute girl who lives upstairs spoke better English, because I speak zero Russian. I also wish I knew for certain she wasn't a prostitute, for that matter. She's always around in the middle of the day, and is never able to open the front door, so I always have to buzz her in. That doesn't mean she's a prostitute, but her lock opening skills are sub-par. I just went upstairs to turn off her burglar alarm, and she clearly doesn't know the English for the phrase "Come in, let me show you my bed, so that we may share it naked. O yeah, I am also very flexible, and my attractive female roommate is too."

Things I Might Have Thought Had I Been Thinking

Sorry DJ Gallo for sorta ripping you off. But I think I thought of thinking about this first.

So I watched the VP debate weeks ago, eagerly, as did everyone else. I wanted to watch Joe "Mad Dog" Biden put his foot in his foaming mouth before squashing the completely incompetent and out of her mind Sarah Palin. I wanted to see her embarrass herself, say stupid things, and feel completely out of her league, like a child in a grown-up conversation. For the most part, she disappointed, though she started out strong by basically announcing she was refusing to answer the actual questions and would talk about what she wanted. Way to go, maverick!

I found the debate pretty frustrating, as Palin and Biden were mostly just mouthpieces for Barack and John "MC JohnnyCaneCakes" McCain. Joe was often on the defensive as Palin just made things up, and he had to often repeat that what she said was untrue, because she would keep repeating her lies. Here are some more observations, in list form:

-Palin thinks Biden is old, but doesn't think McCain is.

-Palin needs to learn basic punctuation uses, such as commas and periods, and to pause for breath while speaking in 10 minute long run-on sentences.

-Joe Biden just said "Only 10 percent of the people who are -- have been affected by this whole switch from Chapter 7 to Chapter 13 -- it gets complicated." And then didn't explain it.

-Palin has claimed she and McCain wouldn't take anything off the table (referring to promises of programs made to voters) despite the current economic crisis. So, Sarah (may I call you Sarah?), how do you plan to pay for everything, if you're not going to raise taxes and you're not going to leave Iraq?

-None of Palin's sentences make sense. I don't know if that's because of the run-on, or what, but it seems she takes the question, doesn't answer it, twists things around, and then just says words, hoping they'll combine to form a coherent thought, such as: "to positively affect the outcome." She's like a white, female Xzibit...talking a lot, but not saying a thing.

-"Joe Biden would like to interject that Joe Biden and Sarah Palin have a difference of opinion, because her and Joe Biden don't agree on what Joe Biden is talking about." Congratulations sir, you've just now referred to yourself in the 3rd person for the 100th time.

-You've also referred to McCain as your friend for the 100th time. Forget which side you're on, Senator Biden? It's not your job to defend McCain. When are you going to smash Palin already? I know all the pundits said you couldn't, because it would make you seem like a bully, but Joe Biden doesn't have to listen to anyone Joe Biden doesn't wish to. The alternative is letting Palin spend the entire debate lying.

-"Nucular." Seriously? Palin, it's nuclear. You are able to clearly say Ahmadinejad (no small task) but not nuclear? It makes you sound more like a folksy moron.

-I think Palin was about to start talking about the Castro Brothers as two Cuban plumbers who had to fight Bowser and eat mushrooms to grow large.

-Here's what I imagine Sarah Palin's "good talk" with Dr. Henry Kissinger went like:
Sarah: "Hi Henry. Can I call you Henry?"
Kissinger: "No."
Sarah: "Okie dokie Henry. You ever hunt a moose, or a Russian? I can field dress either. Can I have your recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies?"
Kissinger: "No."
Sarah: "Thanks Doc. Good talk."

-"Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future." There was a lot of that in the debate, despite Palin constantly talking about the last 8 years and how folks need change.

-I know a lot of people think Palin is hot, but I don't think I could even hate f*ck her with someone else's dick.

-I threw up a little in my mouth when Palin said this: "In my comment there, it was a lame attempt at a joke and yours was a lame attempt at a joke, too, I guess, because nobody got it. Of course we know what a vice president does."

-Moments later I cried a little when Palin decided the Constitution was flexible in it's definition of a VP's powers, and then exploded with joy when Biden finally put her in her place and said "The idea [Cheney] doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that."

Ikea? More Like YOU-KEA!

I decided this blog had become too much of a really professional quality movie review site and not enough of an arena for me to complain, so I'm taking it back to the old school. Friday night* I went out to the IKEA in Red Hook to look for Benno media shelves for my living room, to better organize my CDs and DVDs. I know what you're thinking: shouldn't I have had like 6 dates since I'm such a pimp? Well, I did, but I told them all, "Ladies, I need IKEA shelves. You'll have to wait for Saturday night to be happy."

Unfortunately, the story gets pretty sad for me, as I wasted 35 minutes in the IKEA store, and I knew exactly what I wanted and the general direction of where it would be. I spent 2 minutes finding out the item was discontinued, and the other 33 minutes trying to find my way out of the store, following exit signs that led to nowhere, weaving through mazes of cheap faux wood desks and finally following the smell of swedishn meatballs to the lingonberry jam fort near the exit,** only to fear for my safety once I made it to the parking lot, which was devoid of human life despite the three hundred plus cars parked there. O yea, go see Burn After Reading.

*Right, like YOUR Friday night was much better. You're reading this, so I doubt it. No offense mom.

**Special thanks to pkilla for references and for helping me keep my sanity when I felt trapped by the Stojka and Bruuuuuneg collections closing in on me.

Pumpkin Fields Forever

I went out to Long Island with my family to go pumpkin picking and to get any other kinds of fresh, farm picked produce we could get our greedy hands on. I find it sad that there's less and less farm land on L.I. as more and more identical gated communities are constructed with golf courses for rich assholes to own. I love pumpkin picking, and kept thinking of Linus in the patch. We don't do that fake shit, with pumpkins pre-picked in wooden crates or set up on grass. We go into the actual patch and cut them off the vines, frontier style. My sister and I spend hours looking around for perfect pumpkins, then bringing them together and debating their individual merits. For me, the ideal pumpkin is a deep orange color, a good 15-20 pounds, and roundish shape, with strong character traits, like deep grooves and furrows. No pretty boy pumpkin for me. It was a really fun day, and I came back super happy. Afterward, I realized I just want to be always surrounded by squashes, pumpkins, and gourds. Ah, pure bliss!

Thanks A Lot, Mets

Well, the baseball season officially ended the day the Mets managed not to make it to the playoffs. Again. I think more than anything, more than being sad, or angry, I was hurt. I felt betrayed. Being a freelancer and having TiVo has it's advantages, and one of those was being able to watch Mets games whenever I want. Out of the 162 games played this year, I watched at least 120 of them, most of those to completion, and went to another 7 or 8 games. That's a lot of time to waste on a team that won't even make it into the playoffs for you. I didn't want roses, or chocolate, or even Carlos Delgado to show up to my house and sing Hanukkah songs. I just wanted to root the Mets on in the playoffs. Thanks a lot guys. Now that you failed me, baseball is dead to me. I know next March I'll get all the familiar butterflies as Opening Day looms closer, but I'll know better. No longer will I so innocently and naively throw all my support and time into watching you pitch and hit your way to disappointment. Worse still, you'll be doing it a stadium with a sponsored, soulless name, Citi Field.

I'm not going to be entirely negative, though. I have some advice that can help you next year. Omar Minaya, please read this and see it through, and the Mets will be guaranteed NL Champions.

1. Change Carlos Beltran's calendar so that every month reads July, August, or September. These are the only months he seems to be able to hit for power in.

2. Take away some of Beltran's money. You're paying him an awful lot to be a 20/20 guy who's a little lazy in the outfield and tries to look cool by catching flyballs casually.

3. Stop playing Luis Castillo.

4. Take away all of Luis Castillo's money. Hey, he's no longer playing, so what's he getting paid for?

5. Clone David Wright and play him at second base and catcher. I used to use this strategy in Bulls vs. Blazers for Sega Genesis, playing 3 Michael Jordans and 2 Patrick Ewings. The team was unstoppable.

6. Let Johan Santana pitch every inning of every game.

7. Get Moises Alou a reverse-aging machine. This is not to be confused with a time machine. If Alou goes back in time, he'll still be old. But with a fountain of youth, Alou can once again hit .350 and will only miss 30 games a year, instead of 130. Hey, if they can fund Beltran's ocular enhancer machine, which seems to not have any tennis balls colored for overhand curve, they can afford this.

8. Desperately try to find a clause that reverses the Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano trade.

9. Make sure Ryan Church doesn't get any more concussions, maybe by wrapping his head in bubble wrap or forcing him to wear some sort of helmet, like in football or hockey. This guy wears a helmet, and never seems to get a concussion, despite running into things much harder than Marlon Anderson.

10. Petition MLB to make all Mets games only 6 innings long. Bullpen? Who needs a bullpen. Can't have blown saves or late inning collapses if there are no late innings.

Professional Movie Review # 12 Disciples

Go see Religulous. It's worth it for the image of a saddle on a triceratops at the Creationism Museum alone. I know the whole point of Bill Maher's movie is to ask questions and his philosophy is "I don't know," but I tell you with certainty, go see this movie.

Eagle Eye

To steal from Jesse's movie review technique, I give this movie 7 "Will Smiths with bionic arms in wife beaters" out of 10 possible "Will Smiths" for being a movie that's already been done. Oh, major spoilers ahead. By that, I mean I plan on giving away everything in the movie.

The action in Eagle Eye is fantastic, and non-stop. By fantastic, I mean relating to fantasy, and by non-stop I mean just that. It never ends, and maybe there's too much of it. I don't believe Michelle Monaghan is a good enough driver to pull off many of the moves she pulls while trying to get away from the cops. A million cars get totaled in the chase scenes, as Shia and Michelle are aided by someone with immense control over all technology, someone who makes lights turn green or red at will and gets a crane to run over a cop car. Seems like overkill to me. I spent much of the movie wanting to know who the mysterious woman who called both characters and left them messages everywhere and coordinated everything so they could get away was, only to be disappointed to find out it was a robot. Wait, no, not a robot. It was some sort of supercomputer that could watch everything and interface with everything and was meant to monitor humanity and make things better but ended up going all bad ass and thinking it had to control everything. Plot sound familiar? *Cough irobot Cough*

Why the Thing was in the movie, but the rest of Fantastic Four was missing, threw me for a little while as well, but I soon found other things to complain about. The movie is insanely long, and ends like this: Rosario Dawson and the guy who watches the computer figure out Shia's twin brother (who is much less of a screw up than Shia) sent them a message that the computer is evil, and they need to take it down. The computer's physical form, outside of it's computery looking parts, is an eye that goes round and round in a circle. Rosario and guy go to a high platform to do something to the eye's liquid nitrogen core, when the eye knocks them both off. Seriously. A huge sphere vs. Rosario and some guy who has a gun. And it's winning. They're in water, because for some reason the eye has a moat, yet no sea monsters to detract invaders, and things are all going to hell, so Rosario takes a big piece of pipe and jams it in the center of the eye, and it's over. That's it. Just jam a pipe in it's eye and it's over. Meanwhile, Shia, who made it into a secure area after beating up highly trained guards, shoots a gun in the air to prevent Michelle's kid from playing the note on his trumpet which has a sonic bomb-goer-offer device in it. Since he's shooting his gun in a room full of government types, he gets taken like 50 Cent by the Secret Service. At least 5 shots hit him. Oh, but he's still alive, as the last scenes point out, and he visits Michelle for her son's birthday and there's a kiss on the cheek and the movie ends.

That's it. That's the end. Over two hours of ridiculousness, with people doing everything for a computer, scared to death of it, and that's how the movie ends. No seeing Michelle in some lingerie, no Will Smith showing up to tell Shia to go home and not adapt his old movie, no Star Scream showing up to cackle and plot. That reminds me, I can't wait to see Shia in Transformers 2.