Man if that doesn't bring back a flood of memories. At the least they ought to have hunted down that picture of him getting pied in the face by a drive-by biker.
Recently, I resumed my Netflix subscription and have begun throwing mass volumes into my queue (so many it's taking a while for it to load the page). Chrissy and I have a separate queue each, so she still gets to watch her Definitely, Maybe and Harold and Kumar while I still get my horror selections and Doctor Who. And Smurfs. I'm a very weird individual.
We're still on a three-month trial for premium movie channels through DirecTV, though, and so I've been playing the shuffle with making sure that none of my queue is showing on one of the movie channels (and if so, removing it and just DVR'ing it). During the process, I ended up watching two movies--one through the DVR and one through Netflix--almost in tandem. This was made possible by the Netflix movie being Stephen King's Storm of the Century, consisting of two sides. The DVR movie was Vacancy. I highly recommend both, but liked Vacancy better.
I had actually seen Storm of the Century before but wanted to watch it again. I love King to death--I really do--but sometimes reading (and even watching) his stuff is like going into McDonald's and wanting a simple hamburger and ending up with a 1500 calorie triple-quarter-pounder-with-cheese that is incredibly time-consuming and almost indigestible. Storm had a number of elements I really liked, but over the course of four-plus hours, the wear and tear started to take it's toll until at the end, I couldn't feel sad for anybody, not even the constable; rather, I started mentally calling Ralphie's mother every obscenity I could think of. Interestingly, I don't remember having that reaction when I saw it before, and I wonder if it had to do with the realization (from watching Chrissy fall asleep repeatedly while it was playing) that the storyline actually did take twice the amount of time it really required. When it comes to King, I may love The Stand just as much as the next person (and I do), but sometimes I really get a kick out of Carrie which, coincidentally, is one of his shortest and most direct novels--which I don't think is merely because it's mostly epistolary.
King himself believed Carrie was one of his less-refined novels, comparing it to a cookie baked by a first grader. I personally don't think so; there's a definite beauty in that book. Contrary to popular opinion, longer does not necessarily mean better. It can be better, but not necessarily so.
I DVR most of my movies on the DVR in my office, so I turned off the lights, settled down on the couch I stowed away up there, and watched Vacancy last night while Chrissy was still at work. It's actually more gruesome than Storm on several levels (hence the R-rating rather than the PG-13 rating), and took a very good idea and somehow managed to cram it into a ninety minute punch that seemed perfectly natural. The story was not without its problems, of course; I found a number of issues with the plotline and on several occasions I said, "Yeah, right, like that would happen," or "Am I the only one who wouldn't have made that mistake in real life?" or "Okay, now they're reaching," and what not. But it actually held well enough, and in retrospect, it was ninety minutes I considered very well spent.
While on Netflix, I was trying to figure out how to adjust my community icon (anybody know how to do that?) and I came across the account profile details.
And there was a Gender line that read, well, of course, "Male."
And a link next to it saying "Change".
Okay, so I know it could happen, but it still caught me off guard.
BTW, news flash: I'm not a terrible fan of anchovies on pizza. I do like little fishes like that, but I found out I'm not terribly thrilled about them being on a pizza.
Whee. The home security guy was here all morning and has set the house up.
BTW, #1 on the list of Top Ten Things I Do Not Want to Hear from somebody who has just crawled around in my crawlspace: "Wow, you have a nest of copperheads down there."1
Nah, I'm just kidding, but he did say #2 on the list: "Yeah, you have some brown recluses down there."2
#1 on the list of Top Ten Things Ryan Will Be Doing Very Soon: Calling an exterminator.
I put out a request for a rec on sas.misc about that very thing. Got some good recommendations so I'll proceed from there. But seriously, even though the house had been uninhabited for a good half-year before I moved in, I've only found two harmless little spiders in here since moving in, and I escorted them both out to the back yard. IOW, no I'm not as arachniphobic as I made myself out to be on sas.misc. :)
[1] This was an actual past incident apparently encountered by the installer this morning. [2] At least my situation isn't like #1, or like the Time-Warner installer that time who told me a past experience about pulling down someone's insulation and having a dead rat falling on him.
So I just ordered pizza. Okay, it's one of those three medium deals but I got them to put anchovies on one of them (I've never tried anchovies on a pizza). I'm not put off from trying new things; I'd try dog if a decent restaurant around here served it. (Oh, and gorski, before you point out that many Chinese restaurants around here probably do serve dog, note that I said "decent restaurant").
Cary isn't close enough to my house yet for me to go out and pick up a yard-sign with the above URL on it; I think by 2016 they'll planning to annex to about a mile from me. But I do pass by a gang of houses that do have the signs on my way to/from Crossroads.
Oh yeah, minor update. I bought a house, about 8 miles or so south of Raleigh. Big yard, no city limits (meaning county taxes, assuming Cary doesn't come along and mess things up). I can actually see the stars (at least more than I could before).
I called up drmellow last night out of the blue (actually he called me back, the first time I called I talked to yarbiedoll) because I was out in the garage. That doesn't make much sense, I know. Basically, the full story is: I was in the garage having come home early from work. I came home early because there was a $100 item of merchandise on my front porch that UPS dropped off earlier. In the box on the porch was a guitar, my first. So I was inside learning to tune it and learning a few chords (I have barely even ever touched a guitar in my life), and then went out to the garage (where sometimes I'll just open the garage door and sit out there with a beer or six). While out there, I was pondering what I could start learning to play (it's an acoustic). Simon and Garfunkle maybe, and then I thought of Johnny Cash. I'm a baritone, so that would probably work. And when I thought of Johnny Cash, I thought of Dr. Mellow, so I called him up.
We both indicated the same thing; it's been five years since a CATT reunion. I think that justifies one this year. He also indicated he had King's BBQ. Blah. I'm jealous. I need to take Christine up on the Ole Time run again because my blood Q levels are low.
Anyway, back to the house. I went to Lowe's and bought a number of items the other day: a chisel, washing machine hose replacements (I've heard they suggest changing those out every five years but I'm not sure), those little solar powered light fixtures that go at the foot of the driveway. I changed all the locks in the house a few weeks ago and there wasn't much leeway with the new deadbolt so I chiseled away and gave it more clearance.
Okay, back to work.
Current Music: Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash - If I Were a Carpenter
I need to quit watching this thing. I want to go run out and buy and iPhone and an Apple TV and the newest iPod. And that's even with the Cingular reception being crappy at my parents' house.
