I Hate To Let Down My Readers

I checked my email earlier this evening, only to find the following comment waiting in my inbox:

"michaelsean said...

I was hoping you has watched Category 7 and included your sagely wisdom upon it. Alas."

After the wonder that was Locusts (the inspiration for a running diary and the source of a great many hits), I began contemplating a running diary of Category 7 as soon as I saw the first commercial. In fact, it was the subject of great debate in my house since we returned home from vacation. I was tired, had no desire to watch it and didn't feel like I had the energy to write about it. MK, on the other hand, felt it was a once in a lifetime (or maybe six-month time frame) chance. The first hurdle was schedule; fortunately, it didn't conflict with the Simpsons. I could handle missing most shows for this, but not the Treehouse of Horror. I began thinking about it more and pretty much became convinced that it was a good idea until I read the synopsis on TV Guide. It had four words that changed everything: "Part one of two." It was one thing to suffer through it while not feeling too inspired, but I just couldn't commit to doing it two weeks (and I certainly couldn't stop halfway through). So the final decision was made to skip Category 7 and hope no one would notice.

So, Michael Sean (and anyone else who hoped for a skewering of really bad TV movies), sorry for letting you down. If it makes you feel any better, as soon as I told MK about the comment, she said, "See, I told you that you needed to blog about it." Now, I've not only let my readers down, I have to admit she was right, and I'm not sure which is worse.

Until later...

Don't forget to add yourself to the map.

On The Subject of Jarhead

I haven't seen the movie Jarhead yet. I'm pretty much indifferent about whether or not I actually see it. However, I did think I should share a conversation we had when the trailer came on TV the other day.

[Television is on and the trailer for Jarhead begins]

MK: It looks like they did a good job with that.

CK: Really? Yeah, I suppose it might be interesting.

MK: Well, they at least did a good job of making Jake Gyllenhaal look like a man for this movie.

Mark it down, people. I let someone else have a punch line in a post. It doesn't happen too often.

Seriously, I don't get the idea of Jake as an action hero in any movie. They keep trying, but I don't buy it (please insert your own Brokeback Mountain joke here). He looks like he should still be asking his big sister's boyfriend to buy him cigarettes. To make him a convincing soldier would be a pretty impressive feat (a convincing movie soldier, that is. I'm aware real soldiers don't always look like the hero in a movie. I don't want realism. I want movie realism.)

Also, when the tagline, "Welcome to the suck," comes up, am I the only one that half expects it to be written as "teh suck"? It's as if some leet-spewing prepubescent boy who just fragged his best friend in Doom 3 for the first time wrote the tagline for them. "U R teh suck!!!!1!1!! W00T!!"

Am I rambling? I'm out of practice with this blogging thing. I think I should have shut up after the conversation about the trailer. Too late now. Changing it would involve effort, and I'm lazy.

Until later...

Go on, put yourself on the map.

A Narcissist And A Thief

I'm stealing this from James, the Malibu librarian of Books Beaches and Blather fame, and I'm not ashamed. Not at all.

Check out the Fount of Useless Information Readers Map and put yourself on it. You can add a photo (or not). You can give me a shout out (or not). Whether you usually comment or don't, go ahead and put yourself on the map. You know you want to.

Until later...

Home Again, Home Again

After a very long, very unpleasant day of traveling yesterday, we arrived home just as the clock in our house stuck midnight.

On our way down to the Albuquerque airport, we stopped for breakfast at the Tecolote Cafe in Santa Fe. They have an absolutely wonderful breakfast burrito, smothered in green chile. Now I understand why MK's dad says they stop there for breakfast anytime they have to go to Albuquerque. Plus, I got this shirt there.



Yep, I'm still a dork.

A few more thoughts on the trip home:

It really makes me upset that airlines will make a mistake, but not try to make it up to you. Instead, they will make you fly standby. If we had wanted to fly standby, our tickets would not have been purchased months in advance. Somehow, the airlines wonder why they are all on the verge of going bankrupt. Let me give you a hint...It's because we all hate you. If there were any better way to get from point A to point B, most people would take it, because there are so many problems with the industry right now. That's as much as I am going to rant about this now, but it may come up again.

Something needs to be done about parking at O'Hare. I'm honestly surprised that the signs telling you the prices for long-term parking do not say "Pound of Flesh" or "First Born Child." I was upset about this to begin with, but then saw that there were multiple lots around the airport in Albuquerque advertising prices under $2.00 a day for stays of 7 or more days. I realize that I comparing things that aren't really equivalent, but I'm annoyed...let me gripe. When we made it back to Chicago last night, I actually had to give them all the cash I had plus two pints of blood to get my car out of the lot.

On the ticket for parking at O'Hare, it stated that a lost ticket would be charged at full rate of a 24 hour stay. Remind me again why I didn't "accidentally" lose it while on this trip. Oh yeah, because that's not who I am. Honesty can be expensive.

The worst part about the long day of travel is that once we made it back to Chicago, we still had about three hours of driving to go. I probably would not have bothered to get up until very late today, if at all, except that we needed to go pick up Booker from the dog resort where he spent his vacation. Apparently, the beast is glad to be home too.


Until later...

Last Two Pictures...At Least For Now

Sorry for turning this into a photoblog recently. Now that I'm home (read more here), I'll try to think up something witty to say.

For now, you'll have to be satisfied with a couple more photos. Unlike almost all of the others, which were taken by MK, these are mine.

Sky Through Aspens taken on Pajarito Mountain

Flower in The Desert taken on the trail to Windows in The Earth at Rancho de San Juan.

Until later...

White Sands

Some pictures of our visit to White Sands National Monument during our trip to New Mexico.






Unfortunately, we had didn't have a sled, so we couldn't go sliding down the dunes. That's actually a lot of fun and nowhere near as cold as sledding in the snow.

I'm Average

From the Weblog Review: "In the end, I really wanted to like this site. Useless is sort of my specialty, throwing practical knowledge out the door and preferring things that won't get you anywhere. However, after going through the site, I have no choice but to label it average."

Read more.