Movie Mania Monday - You're dead now, so shut up!

Okay, so I like foreign film. You knew that when you met me, don't act so surprised. And maybe it was cheating on my part, to include a 'quote' that was actually part of the subtitles.

And I love subtitles. Have I mentioned that?

Something I don't like is a Cardinals win on such a blatant unnecessary roughness penalty, ignored by the officials and media alike. True, if it weren't my favorite team, I wouldn't have minded the facemask tackle, either, because that's how I roll. I'll try not to be bitter.

And two weeks in a row, we have a mysterious winner. Nothing wrong with mystery, it's nice to have new guessers, but it would be nicer if we could be properly introduced. Last week, Ms was quite astute in her identification of last week's quote from Bergman's The Seventh Seal. I loved my college film class, but since it wasn't my major, I never continued classes and had to find Bergman on my own. Thank you, cable television!

Welcome now to this week's quote! Remember the rules. First person to guess correctly the original source of the quote wins a prize - no movie characters quoting other movies. No Googling or asking Jeeves, either you know the quote or you don't. The prize is a Major Award and consists of the people's ovation and fame forever (and the title of Iron Quote-Guesser):

I won't report you this time, but next time just watch it, will ya?

Allez guessing!!!

Random Acts of Thursday - Happy Thanksgiving

May it be a time of joy for you and yours. If you're reading this, it means you didn't chew your food long enough. I'm not here in person, but in spirit on this day of gathering, but felt it only fair to share my thanks to you, dear reader, for without you, I'd just be a crazy fat guy talking to himself.

To quote Kevin James: "Thanksgiving, man! Not a good day to be my pants."

Now log off your computer and go get a slice of pie. I'll be back on Monday, save me a piece, would you?

Elliott and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

***note, I apologize now for the negative tone and self-centered nature of this post. Save yourself. Go Google cute bunnies or surf porn now, avoid the whole mess.
I had a fantastic weekend. Should I, therefore, be punished? Apparently so.

My phone died Sunday night, and apparently that means that the phone itself decides to go into paperweight mode after recharging. No calls, no email, nothing. Therefore, I never got the calls from the mechanic about the Buick, so even though I dropped the car for service yesterday morning, it didn't get fixed. I was able to bum a ride home, but now I have two vehicles in south Tampa and none at home, on a night I work until 8 pm. I'll be going to get Lori tonight, then driving back down here to get my car, then driving back home. That's not inconvenient. Not at all.


And the Packers lost. To He-who-shall-not-be-named. But we won't discuss that.

When I got to my desk this morning, my computer was off. I didn’t shut it off, but powering it back on confirmed a ‘thermal event’ transpired overnight. That’s a weather condition, not a PC issue. It’s like the Alli people referring to uncontrollable anal seepage as a ‘Treatment Effect’.
***artist's depiction. If only our closet was actually this big!

When the computer finally booted up again, I got the email from Lori that the new double-poled, double-shelved, beautifully organized closet that we put together last month suffered a meltdown this morning. The top shelf collapsed, and since it landed on the bottom pole, I’m sure that one’s worse for wear, too. Lori can’t tell for sure because the whole closet is just a jumble of wire shelving, clothes, hangers and boxes.
***not the Dammit, but the markings are strangely familiar


Now I just got another email from her, indicating that the Dammit Dog decided he wanted to roll in poo, and is now encrusted in it. He never does this, but it’s my fault, I haven’t picked up the yard lately because in rainy season, it disintegrates before I can get to it.
Meanwhile, our systems have been experiencing outages all day, so clients can’t access our system. And their clients can’t access our system.

And, thanks to stress, the nightmares are better than ever. Lori woke me up because I was whimpering in my sleep, apparently. That’s better than snoring, I would think, but she doesn’t agree. As I was trying to go back to sleep, the medivac helicopter was suddenly hovering and circling above our house until traffic wherever they were headed could clear. That’s not disconcerting when you’ve just been woken from a bad dream. Not at all. When I came back from lunch, my desk fan wouldn’t turn. After a few minutes disassembling, turning, flipping switches and banging it on my desk, it’s finally running again.
And I just read that my favorite magazine, Gourmet, is stopping publication after 68 years.
Can I get a do-over on my week? Because this one just isn’t working for me.

And it’s only Tuesday.

My attention span is barely a footbridge

From time to time, I do manage to squeeze a coherent, well-versed essay from my addled brain. However, as much as I want to, today is not one of those days. Instead, I am electing to enlighten you with random little thoughts that have crossed my mind of late.

I love Bond films, and I am biased toward Sean Connery. Especially when compared to the wacky, '70's episodes with Roger Moore and wacky music and bad stop-motion photography. Which begs the question. Obviously James Bond in a finely tailored suit is NOT the same as James Bond with his tweed safari jacket and Sansabelt bell-bottomed trousers. Why then did '70's babes like Britt Ekland, Jayne Seymour, Maud Adams and Lois Chiles simply fall into bed with him? If we're going to do a parody of Bond in the NOW era, wouldn't it be far more empowering for them to reject him cold? To simply chuckle in his face when he tries to be suave in his bell-bottomed Sansabelt slacks? To scream 'Rape' when he grabs their arms tightly and throws them down on the bed?

This is not something a superspy wears. Even if he did get a Chevy Vega from the rental agency.

Oh, and even though I always want Connery to win, and would love to see Moore fail, I still love the episode up above where Homer tackles Bond, resulting in his demise. He he he!

A while back at the grocery store, I discovered manna from the pork gods: a three-pound box of bacon ends and pieces for the same price as a pound of strip bacon that I was going to chop up, anyway. Nothing like frying three pounds of bacon at once to put the whole house in an applewood-induced state of euphoria. A plus, it was Wright Brand bacon, whose marketing campaign includes one of the all-time best call-in radio questions: How can I get my wife to be more like Wright Brand bacon?

And yes, I'm inserting another rad '70's clothing moment. Because how else can we appreciate how far we've come if we don't remember where we've been?

Last week, as part of my weekly movie quote contest, I decided to take it upon myself to catalog all the films I've seen in my life so far. I knew I'd seen a few, but so far, I have over 650 on the list, and somehow I keep coming up with films that I thought were obvious and that I would have listed early on, but they're not there. It also amazes me how many movies I haven't seen in their entirety, despite knowing their plots and intricacies.

A week or so ago, I managed to get my entire desk dismantled into its component pieces, and I only had to drill out one 40-year-old bolt to get it done. Now I can once again park a car in the garage along with both bikes, and we can still navigate around with relative confidence. Which was especially nice this past weekend, because it poured for most of it, and unloading groceries is far nicer if I don't have to walk through the deluge off the roof of the house.

I did manage to stay relatively dry on my ride home on Friday, though I still get a little flinchy on wet pavement. No traction is a bad thing.

The Packers won yesterday, and beating the Bears is always especially nice. Tough thing, though, I didn't get to see any of the game since we're apparently not in prime Packer-watching country. That also means, however, I don't get any of these on my television, while overpaid commentators make generalizations about my home state:

Which could be a mixed blessing, depending on who decides to wear them.

Look at that! No discernable theme, not even any segues. The road to enlightenment blurs before you. Sorry about that. I'll try harder next time.