Month: May 2010

New Coat

Its not really a coat either, its a jacket. Aiken’s climate is such that you only need a coat for 3-4 weeks in late January and/or early February and for that I have my trusty US Navy Cold Weather Flight Jacket that “inadvertently” got packed up when I left Japan. A new jacket is a big deal for me because once I find something I like I stick with it (i.e. the 30 year-old flight jacket) and since October of 1999 I have been wearing an MMC jacket. It is forest green with tan accents and has a large embroidered Club logo on the back and my first name in script on the front. This baby has seen a lot of use. It gets worn probably around 275 days a year (sometimes summer mornings can seem cool to me with the top down) and is starting to show it. The tab came off the zipper a while back and was replaced by some string, the lining near the collar in the back is getting frayed, the waist and cuffs are loosing their elasticity, etc.

Instead of the usual Extra Large size I normally get (mostly for the sleeve length) I decided to try and find a Large Tall size. I wanted something similar; lightweight, contrasting light inner lining, water resistant (but not shiny nylon), 2 side slash pockets and elastic waist and cuffs, so off to the internet I went. After an exhaustive search I found just the thing.

Behold, my new outwear of choice, a Tri-Mountain 5300 Panorama in Navy/Khaki/Khaki from the Highland Apparel Company. Hopefully this puppy will hold up for the next ten years as well as the Club jacket did for the past ten. I will still break out the MMC jacket for Club events, but mostly it will be spending a quiet retirement in the hall closet on a hanger.

Started down, went up, went down, still down.
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Really?

Some one lent me a copy of Avatar (thanks James) because it won’t be available from Netflix for a few more days and I watched all of 25 minutes of it.* I’m thinking Cameron had a really vivid acid trip back in 1994…

Don’t ask how I can buy into a guy in a metal suit that can fly at supersonic speeds and shoot, like, plasma rays out of his palms and then one day later can’t believe 10 foot tall blue creatures. Probably had to do with what seemed to me like a continuous stream of scenes I’d seen before several times in numerous other movies.

* Edit: While pondering this morning on why I didn’t like this movie, I thought of a better title for this post, GCI’d Disney Movie, but for some reason WordPress won’t let me edit my own titles.

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Bacon Tree

Two Mexicans are stuck in the desert after crossing into the United States, wandering aimlessly and starving. They are about to just lie down and wait for death, when all of a sudden Luis says………

“Hey Pepe, do you smell what I smell. Ees bacon, I theenk.”

“Ees, Luis, eet sure smells like bacon.”

With renewed hope they struggle up the next sand dune, & there, in the distance, is a tree loaded with bacon. There’s raw bacon, there’s fried bacon, back bacon, double smoked bacon … Every imaginable kind of cured pork.

“Pepe, Pepe, we ees saved. Ees a bacon tree.”

“Luis, maybe ees a meerage? We ees in the desert don’t forget.”

“Pepe, since when deed you ever hear of a meerage that smell like bacon…ees no meerage, ees a bacon tree.”

And with that, Luis staggers towards the tree. He gets to within 5 metres, Pepe crawling close behind, when suddenly a machine gun opens up, and Luis drops like a wet sock. Mortally wounded, he warns Pepe with his dying breath,

“Pepe… Go back man, you was right, ees not a bacon tree!”

“Luis, Luis MI amigo… What ees it?”

“Pepe.. Ees not a bacon tree. Ees

Ees

Ees

Ees a ham bush…..”

Iron Man 2

My rants about this movie the other week turned out not to be as big an issue as I imagined. The intro to the Stark Expo was still a little long, but taken in context not all that bad. The race scene/suitcase suit grip disappeared because Whiplash didn’t just wait for it watching, he was pinned to the side wall by Happy driving a Rolls Royce. Mickey Rouke makes an awesome villain. I don’t understand why they change the opening bit from the trailer wher Tony jumps out of the plane unless they though it might spoil the the ending bit. I thought it would have been a perfect way to tie that together…

Scarlett Johansson looks good in black hair and her chemistry with RDJ leads me to believe she would have made a good Pepper Potts had not Gwyneth Paltrow already had a lock on that role. But the whole Black Widow bit seemed tossed in as an intro to the character and for the sex appeal of the suit (not that there is anything wrong with that.) But if rumors are correct and the Black Widow gets her own movie, I think I feel a repeat of Cat Woman or Elektra coming on.

There is more action in this one, some dangerously close to being too much (and/or too long), but all and all very satisfying. Man I need one of those suits…

Two important lessons can be learned from this movie, 1) do not ever let a Russian near your computer, both the males and females seem to be trained hackers that can break any encryption thrown at them and 2) (this one I already knew) a convertible is as good as a pick up truck on a sunny day.

Brian gives it 2 thumbs up and Donna says I owe her a Julia Roberts movie.

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Inside on a Beautiful Day

It was spent mostly watching Life. We had disc three of season two from Netflix to watch and did. Then got antsy and didn’t want to wait for the last two discs to come in the mail, so off to the back alleys of the internet. I downloaded the four episodes that are on disc 4 while we watched the other red envelope disc, Michael Clayton (which after watching the four simplistic 42 minute TV shows was hard to follow because you had to pay attention, but if you did you were rewarded.) We then watched those four downloaded episodes of Life. The next thing we knew it is past 8:00 PM with the sun is going down.

The last 5 episodes of the short lived show are being torrented as we speak, but those won’t get watched until tomorrow afternoon or night though. We are off to do some geocaching in the morning and possibly see an early showing of IM2.

My last post chronicled all the TV I’ve been watching, well that is about to come to an end, literally and figuratively. Monday is the season-enders for House and Castle. Flashforward didn’t get renewed for next year, so I probably won’t even bother watching how many ever new episodes of that are left. There are only 2 more episodes of Law & Order (the Mothership version) ever. It ends its 20 year run the day after TDTVS finishes its 6 year ride on the 23rd of May. That leaves just a month and a half left of new of L&O:Criminal Intent (although I really miss Goren and Eames) and In Plain Sight to see on USA.

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Young Love

Little Bruce and Jenny are only 10 years old, but they know they are in love.

One day they decide that they want to get married, so Bruce goes to Jenny’s father to ask him for her hand.

Bruce bravely walks up to him and says, “Mr. Smith, me and Jenny are in love and I want to ask you for her hand in marriage.”

Thinking that this was just the cutest thing, Mr. Smith replies, “Well Bruce, you are only 10. Where will you two live?”

Without even taking a moment to think about it, Bruce replies, “In Jenny’s room. It’s bigger than mine and we can both fit there nicely.”

Still thinking this is just adorable, Mr. Smith says with a huge grin, “Okay, then how will you live? You’re not old enough to get a job. You’ll need to support Jenny.”

Again, Bruce instantly replies, “Our allowance, Jenny makes five bucks a week and I make 10 bucks a week. That’s about 60 bucks a month, so that should do us just fine.”

Mr. Smith is impressed Bruce has put so much thought into this.

“Well Bruce, it seems like you have everything figured out. I just have one more question. What will you do if the two of you should have little children of your own?”

Bruce just shrugs his shoulders and says, “Well, we’ve been lucky so far.”

TV Is Winning

I haven’t been posting or a couple reasons, but the main one is I can’t seem to find the time. I’m watching too much TV. On Monday their is House from 8-9. then at ten there is the original Law & Order and Castle which get watched via torrent on Tuesday. Tuesday evening we watch the L&O and Castle before watching TDTVS at 9. Tuesday at 10 is The Good Wife and L&O:CI on USA which get delayed until Wednesday. Wednesday at 10 is In Plain Sight which get watched on Thursday before Flashforward (which sometimes gets delayed until Friday.) And as always there is a Netflix disc with a movie and another disc with a TV show (currently Life) that need watching too.

It has gotten so bad that I haven’t even been listening to the FRS on the internet (which as it turns out is a good thing because they seem to be winning when I’m not listening.)*

I’ve got plenty of stuff to post about, but by the time I get around to it a lot of the details will have leaked out my ears and won’t be available to make the story more than a tweet length. The only reason you are getting this on today is I’m bored at work with a very repetitive job and needed a break before I nodded off in my chair.

*As if to prove my point, the FRS had an afternoon game today and I listened to it at work. They lost 3-2 to Toronto.

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