Where's MY maid?!

I was just in the pantry here at the office and one of the new partners spilled milk all over the floor while getting his coffee. His reaction: "Wow. What a mess." Then he put the milk back in the fridge, picked up his coffee and went back to his cube. Um, crazy concept--clean up after yourself you freaking slug!!!

The guy behind him at the coffee maker just kinda stared down at it for a minute before stepping over it to the refrigerator.

I walked the two steps to the sink, got a paper towel and wiped it up. Sometimes it seems like I'm the only person in the world (or at least this office) who didn't have a maid following them around and cleaning up after them their entire life.

More movie nonsense

Watched an entire movie last week: Close Your Eyes. Okay, I spent a fair amount of time with my face buried in Greg's shoulder, but that was not due to a poor film. Very creepy, very suspenseful, and surprisingly violent for a BBC production. I must say I found a man being strapped to a table, his belly sliced open and having a live rat sewn inside to eat his entrails quite disturbing. Of course, no one used a gun, so I guess it's not really violent then.

All in all, a very interesting premise, especially if you're into the 16th Century French occult. I'd actually recommend it rather highly, I just wouldn't recommend eating right before.

Kill Quentin...

Last night I went to see Kill Bill Vol. 2. After 40 minutes of being sickened yet incredibly bored, I walked out. Every other line was emphasized with a dramatic pause and super-closeup, which stretches out each scene ENDLESSLY. Somehow Quentin didn't get the memo that that device is really only effective when it happens to underscore dramatic moments. I know that the film is supposed to be an homage to other, older films, but if you're just going to lift the settings and cobble them together, what's the point? Along that line, if you're going to do scenes in black and white, one should really shoot with black and white film--the movie's black and white scenes looked like I'd hit the BW option on my DVD player--no depth in the medium range shots, but every pore and wrinkle in the closeups.

I do have to say that no one else shoots violence the way he does--thus the "sickened"--but without a modicum of dramatic tension (something that Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction were loaded with) Kill Bill was nothing but self-aware drek.

The night wasn't a total loss however, I greatly enjoyed the previews for the coming attractions.

I'm BAAAACK!!!

So my little trip to the homeland is being referred to by Greg as an "Amish Vacation". But, just because I spent the better part of the trip doing heavy labor in the yard is no reason to mock my trip... I'm telling you, digging out sod is a really zen activity, slow, methodical, empty your mind--it's really quite nice.

The key factor in accomplishing anything in the yard is the amount of help you get from others. My niece Jordyn, age 4, was quite the helper, especially when Grandma was gone on an errand. She really wanted to be digging with me, so Ann and I finally decided that she could dig in the vegetable garden. It's yet to be tilled, so no big deal. I used a hand rake to make "Xs" in the soil to mark the spots she could dig. Well, one thing led to another, and soon she was being encouraged to dig deeper and deeper, then to bury her little feet in the dirt as if she were planting herself. That is when inspiration struck, my friends. Struck with the force of a pickax. (No, I didn't get to use one of those, I'm sorry to say.)

"Perhaps, she'd grow if she were watered?"

I looked at Ann, she looked and me, shrugged and said, "What the heck, I used to play in the mud all the time." I went and filled the watering can and returned to water Jordyn's buried toes. When I returned with the second can of water, she was pretty coated from the shins and forearms down. When I returned with the third, she was jumping up and down, shrieking like a banshee and splashing thick black mud all over, including into her newly cut and styled hair. By the time Grandma got home, she was covered from biceps and thighs down. Then came the moment we'd all been waiting for...the wipeout. She was mud from mid-back on down, half an inch thick and peeling off in strips as it started to dry.

In the end, Ann had to strip her naked under the outdoor faucet because she was just too muddy to be carried through the kitchen to the bathroom. Ann and I thought the whole thing was hysterical from start to finish. We were laughing almost as much as Jordyn and while my mom kept shaking her head at the whole mess, it didn't stop her from taking lots of pictures of the little wallower.

PS. I didn't really do any more yardwork that day.

"Baby, no one deserves to end up on my table..."

So, I'm walking to work this morning and there are tons of production trailers set up near Gramercy Park. No big deal, they're always shooting Law and Order in some incarnation or other in the neighborhood. But then I saw Radioman, a semi-homeless guy with a radio around his neck featured in the NY Times this weekend who's known for getting bit parts in movies/autographs of "big" stars. Hmmmm...this is NOT going to be Law and Order.

I walked over to the no parking posts and discovered that the shoot is for "CSI: Miami". Huh? Last I heard, this is New York and there's no way they're gonna make it look like Florida. Kyle mentioned that perhaps they're chasing a criminal to New York. Yeah, 'cause law enforcement EVER crosses jurisdictions. But you know, it's just another example of the blatant disregard for reality that makes the show so fun.

Admission of lameness: I walked through their food area in hopes of seeing David Caruso--I really wanted to ask him if he'd been attending the Shatner school of acting during the 10-year period he had no work. "Tell me.....did you test to see IF...our victim's blood...was the only BLOOD...on the knife?"

Alas, no luck, only a few techies and the clean-cut white guy. Another little note, they should tell them in contracts when they get a big job that wearing wraparound sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled down way low on a really overcast day just makes you even more obvious.

Haunted, we've got to be haunted.

Last night we were sitting in the living room watching an intense episode of CSI. All of a sudden there are steel drums playing a really menacing tribal rhythm in the entry. Not out in the hall, but IN the entry. It took us a minute to figure out that an update was available from Compaq and this was simply the notification alarm. Deep breaths, shut the computer down, go back to watching.

Fifteen minutes later, there's a whoosh and a crash in the living room closet. The end bracket that holds up the clothes bar split in half and the whole load of clothes, etc. came crashing down.

Now, to have these things occur within such a short time was just a little too odd to be mere coincidence. But the real capper is, the first couple of times I've tried to publish this post, it's blanked out.

Freakin' ghosts.

Haunted, we've got to be haunted.

Last night we're sitting in the living room, watching a very intense "CSI" when all of a sudden, there are steel drums playing LOUDLY in the entry--a menacing tribal hunting rhythm. It took about a minute to figure out that a new Compaq update was available and this was the notification noise. Shut down the computer, went back to watching.

About 15 minutes later, there's a whoosh and a crash in the living room closet as the bracket holding up the clothes bar breaks and the entire load of clothing collapses. Once again, we jump out of our skins.

The two incidents occured just a bit too closely to be mere coincidence. Freakin' ghosts.