Monitor Lizard

I haven't said much about the movies I've seen lately. Talladega Nights, like Anchorman, will hold up over time. Just today we were reliving three or four scenes at work, almost a month after release. Jacque Smith (not to be confused with Jackie Smith of the Cowboys) didn't like it, but it probably isn't for everyone. I liked it for the supporting cast probably more than Ferrell. Sacha Baron Cohen as Gerard is great and I'm really anticipating Borat. John C. Reilly is spectacular as "Shake" of "Shake 'n' Bake." The end of the credits with an explication of Faulkner's The Bear is worth the wait.

Nacho Libre achieved what it attempted. It draws quick comparisons to Napoleon Dynamite because of the common director. It uses a similar "dork chic" aesthetic. This works sometimes and fails many others. It didn't try to be more than it was (how profound), so it was fine. The key here is expectation management.

Little Miss Sunshine was a fine dark comedy/light dramedy. Alan Arkin is outstanding as the grandpa. Steve Carell becomes so much deeper with a beard. The directors have an interesting pedigree [I suppose this range isn't surprising given that the film's directors, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, also supervised episodes of the subversive Mr. Show, as well as the sweet video for Smashing Pumpkin's "1979," Korn's dark "Freak on a Leash" video, Jane's Addiction's bizarre "Been Caught Stealing" video, and the cheesy black & white classic -- Extreme's "More Than Words."]. Sufjan Stevens on the soundtrack doesn't hurt either.

Now for a quick rundown of the TV I watch. A friend once said, "Everyone is entitled to a couple of vices. I'll take TV for both of mine." I concur, and then I have even more vices than I'm entitled to.

No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain: I happened upon this one, and I'm very glad I did. Sweden, Indonesia, Mexico, Montreal, Edo, Peru, North Korea, and Beirut unfortunately when Israel started bombing. Raw reindeer, spit-roasted pig basted in coconut juice, foie gras, octopus, alpaca, and kim chee are just a few of the dishes he enjoys while smoothly integrating info about the culture and people with impromptu interviews with locals and guide friends. I just finished Kitchen Confidential by Bourdain, on recommendation from Ellen, and he really does a good job of keeping the same tone.

Project Runway: This is one of my favorite reality game shows. The casting brings a nice variety of personalities and socioethniconomic backgrounds. Plus they have a reliable and accessible format. Everyone wears clothes. I think I can tell what is a good outfit and what is a bad one.

30 Days: This one approaches social issues with the ol' walk thirty days in their shoes philosophy. I netflixed the first three episodes of season one, which includes the minimum wage episode, the HGH-testosterone episode, and the Muslim episode. I also appreciated the illegal alien and new age episodes.

The Venture Bros. Metalocalypse: These are my favorite Adult Swim shows. The innocence of Hank and Dean combined with the uber-machismo of Brock Samson (voiced by Patrick Warburton) is animated gold. The villians are great too: Doctor Girlfriend (smokin' hot with the voice of Guido the forty seven year old smoker), Phantom Limb, The Monarch (thinks that because monarch butterflies eat milkweed they are poisonous). Doctor Orpheus, the renter at Venture Industries is great fun too ("Necromancer, not necrophile!"). Metalocalypse is a cartoon about Dethklok, a death metal band. They have some pretty fun fifteen minute episodes. One of the creators is Brendon Small who also did Home Movies, another Adult Swim show I liked. Mark Hamill and James Hetfield do voice work for it as well. You can watch both shows at Adultswim.com.

Football: Meaningful games started Thursday night (the 31st) and the last meaningful one this season will be played the first weekend of February. Five months of football watching fun. Tonight I toured the $50 mil new Osborne Athletic Complex. (The lockers are carved out of maple and have individual ventilation systems.) To think that the university will get it back in football revenues in maybe three years. Crazy.

A Dozen Chicks Were in My Pants Last Night

Literally. In my dreams.

I had a dream that I was in a grocery store and the eggs were old. [How old were they?] They were so old they were hatching into chicks. And for some reason we were trying to gather them all, but I had to shake them out of my pants. At least in my dream world they were a nice fuzzy tickly and not all beaks and claws.

The second half of the dream included more small tactile animals, a rodent, I think a gerbil, because it had a tail but wasn't too rat like, there was a parti-colored coat, pied if you will. This took place in my DAA dream location, like DAA but not. In a space like the north side of the basement library. It was a competition between groups of people. I didn't realise til the end that it was a competition to see who could eliminate the most gerbils in a given time. There wasn't any blood though which probably threw me off. The probable winner and feature of my dream was a group that had a conveyor belt with a vacuum tube with four blades that joined to open and close the tube. Very efficient. Take that Martin Luther King Jr.

(Listening to The Avalanche, Sufjan Steven's latest release, recorded during Come On Feel the Illinoise.)

"The Night That I Fell In Love With a Roller Derby Queen"

I had a 7 outta 10 great time at Pershing watching the No Coast Derby Girls: Mary Kay Mafia and Gang Green compete. My favorites were Shiv from MKM and Devilynn Wheels from GG, honorable mention goes to Systa Wrecktomy. I was most pleased with the rules of the derby and the strategies implemented by the teams. As great as the pageantry is, they are still impressive "athletes." The team strategy seems to be a combination of rugby and race car drafting.

OK GO "Here It Goes Again" is a great video.

Gettin' Busy at Work

I mean order volume, not this. This is good because it matches exactly with the influx of our student workers, who are mostly new and seem very capable. Yesterday I was tired, but I remained energized throughout the day.

Last night was my penultimate Thursday Night: Bean Bags and Blubarb. That means that next Thursday, the 24th, at 7 pm will be my last of the season. This doesn't mean that I won't continue baking pie and playing bean bags, but I will be less deliberate about it. So, come one and most, and bring a friend and a dog. There will be blubarb pie and rhubarb crisp and maybe a surprise dessert.

Tonight I go to my first ever roller derby. The Mary Kay Mafia are taking on Gang Green. More on this later.

And if you haven't been to my other blog, Word Hoard, I invite you there. Just click the link "More of Me."

Morgan Spurlock

To start with, what a great name. He also makes good documentaries, the most recent being his TV series 30 Days on FX. Last night he had an atheist woman live with a Christian family in Texas for 30 days. The previous episode was a border patrolling minuteman of Cuban descent who lived with a family of illegal aliens from Mexico. Next week is a gentleman who has a very stressful life and will live in a New Age compound for the thirty days. There is also an episode where a gentleman who lost his job to outsourcing goes to India. Thank you Morgan for giving us reality television.

The Bears play their first game, preseason against the 49ers, of the new season tomorrow night. I'm excited. My family is coming down today to bring Marcy, who will eventually start at Union. I also have made another blubarb pie and some banana bread, which turned out great (Kudos to Janice Heinrich, whose recipe was in a church ladies cookbook).

"You still don't like to leave before the end of the movie."

This weekend I watched Clerks II, Lady in the Water, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and Tully. Lady in the Water was the only one I didn't enjoy. Part of my hang up with it was that the story, with narfs and scrunts and tartutics, didn't match linguistically for me with the Asian family that was relating it. Clerks II could be offensive to some, but it was funny and balanced the comedic rants of Randal with a more distinct plot nicely. At the end of the credits of Talladega Nights, there is a fun explication of Faulkner's The Bear. Tully takes place in Nebraska.

My pie has been figured out. One cup of normal sugar, instead of 1 1/2, did the trick at toning down the sweetness. This next Thursday will be a fun one with my family bringing my sister down to start at Union.

Stellaaaa!

Artois, that is. She is my new roommate now that Scott has moved out. She is Belgian.

Now let us play a game. I am going to name actors that have been in the same film. Your part is to see how many actors it takes to guess the film. Bud Cort, Henry Rollins, Tone Loc, Dennis Haysbert, Mykelti Williams, William Fitchner, Tom Sizemore, Danny Trejo, Natalie Portman, Amy Brenneman, Ashley Judd, Jon Voight, and now the give aways-- Val Kilmer, Robert DeNiro, and Al Pacino. I find it interesting that all these actors were in the same movie. Henry Rollins and Bud Cort? Crazy.

I didn't mention it, but my penultimate post was my sesquincentennial post.