What James Knows

I think the alarm clock went off at 7:30 but I promptly went back to sleep. I get up around 8:30 or so. After a quick shower and some breakfast, Monica and I head north.

We get into Monroe around 10 and stop to get some breakfast for Monica. We sit and eat in “Not Just Bagels” for a little while and then make our way to Mountainville Manor only missing one turn. This was another in a series of places we’re looking at as possible sites for our wedding reception. Mountainville Manor was beautiful but it was a little on the small side. After we talked with Lindy, the caretaker, we head over to my parents’ house.

My Mom had to get to a doctor’s appointment, so Christa hung out with us for the day. We drove over to Washingtonville which I haven’t been to in I don’t know how long. Joe’s Video, a local video chain that’s been in the area for years, is closing up shop and selling everything. I figured I’d take a look to see what was left. Joe’s was downsized to this shack behind another building that looked like a place people got raped. Monica didn’t want to come in and stayed in the car. Unfortunately, the last day for Joe’s Video was yesterday and the place was locked up. Oh well.

We then drove over to the Country Store which is basically like a thrift store / Salvation Army. All of their books were a nickel a piece so I wanted to see what was available. Christa and Monica walked around while I checked out the literature. I found ten books in total, five of them by Isaac Asimov whom I’ve never read. I also found a weird old Star Wars book called Han Solo’s Revenge. All in all, the haul was definitely worth the 50 cents.

We then head back to the house to hang out for a little while. I worked on the blog while Monica checked out her wedding stuff. After about a half hour, we went down the road to get my haircut by Paula. I’ve been going to her for over 10 years. We talked for a bit and I got my hair cut professionally. If you recall, I had a mishap about a month ago where I cut my own hair and it didn’t work out all that well.

We went back to the house to kill time before our visit to the Bull’s Head Inn and then head over at 3. I’ve driven past this place a million times but I’ve never been inside. It’s basically like a really old house. This place could easily accommodate the amount of guests were were anticipating, but with one catch: They’d have to be separated on two different floors. This added to the fact that the hostess got me confused with another person that was coming in later (causing all sorts of confusion and glares from Monica) made this one not for us. We’ve pretty much decided on another place at this point. Bulls Head Inn was pretty nice though and it would be a great place to eat a swanky meal. We received a coupon for a free meal at another fancy restaurant / catering hall that is totally out of our price range. I want to check it out just so I can eat like a rich person.

We all then ventured into Middletown to meet up with my Mom at the mall for lunch. We ate at Ruby Tuesday’s. I had this southwestern chicken pasta that had black beans and tomatoes in it. I ate around most of them, but I did in fact eat a couple. I also topped it off with a Diet Coke which didn’t taste as good as I hoped it would. Look at me trying new things. As we were finishing up our meal, they sat a couple in the booth behind us. The seats weren’t too sturdy so when the people behind us leaned back, we were pushed forwards. I of course pushed back. When we got up to leave, what I was expecting to be a big burly asshole guy turned out to be an older woman. Oh well. Bitch should know not to push my seat.

Monica and I said goodbye to my Mom and Christa and then head south into the pouring rain. The sky looked like it was ready to explode all day long and it finally did and just didn’t let up. Surprisingly there wasn’t any traffic on the way down to the apartment. We made it back around 6.

After getting soaked on the way in and jumping over a river of water flowing through the courtyard, we relax in the apartment and dry off. Monica dives into her wedding spreadsheets and I’m left to pick out a movie to watch. Since Monica is around and she’s not all that attentive to it, I can’t watch one that she wants to watch, but I also can’t watch one that she’s not interested in at all. I end up going with Face/Off which she’s seen several times. I enjoyed the movie even with the ridiculous premise. Review to come soon.

After the movie we hang out for a bit and just talk. We get to bed around 11:30. I start reading The Great Gatsby. The book, while short, seems a bit fancy for me. The writing is a bit more higher brow than I’m used to. I get through a few pages and then fall asleep around midnight.

Tags: blog

After the success of Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock became famous. Now what? Let’s give him a TV show!

Enter 30 Days: a series on FX where Spurlock himself or a helpful volunteer spend a month in someone else’s shoes. The result is hopefully, but not always an enlightening experience for all involved as the shoe tries to put people together that would otherwise never be in touch with one another. An example is a heavily Christian man spending 30 days living with a Muslim family in a town filled with Muslims working and learning about Islam.

Each episode of 30 Days plays like a mini documentary. Somehow a ton of information is packed into just 45 minutes. This is both good and bad. There are some cases like the example I mentioned above where I felt that the show really did a good job of providing information about the situation as well as giving us some good drama as the Christian guy struggles with his own beliefs in a world completely unknown to me. Then there are others where it felt like the episode was rushed and there wasn’t really a resolution. Fortunately this doesn’t happen in every episode.

There are only 6 episodes included in this first season release. This is a pretty short run even for a cable show, but there’s got to be a ton of footage for each episode so I can understand that it probably takes awhile to produce each one. There are commentaries on most of the episodes as well as bonus footage from each one.

This release is pretty entertaining. As I mentioned, you’re getting these bite-size documentaries with each episode so it’s like checking out the cliff note version of a full-scale documentary with each episode. Topics range from minimum wage and binge drinking to homosexuality and “living off the grid” so there’s a lot of topics to choose from. At the very least, this DVD set provides an introduction to topics that you might not know a lot about. I know that a few of these episodes sparked an interest in me that I’d like to look further into. Any fans of documentaries would enjoy this.

Rating:

Tags: 30 Days, DVD, Morgan Spurlock, Review

I wake up at 6:30 to the alarm clock. I’m surprised by the lack of soreness in my body from yesterday’s workout. Must be a good thing. I’m going to make a conscious effort to get into a regular routine exercising 3 times a week. We’ll see how that works out. Monica and I watch some Scrubs and get ready for the day. She has to leave a little early for work, so I hang out and watch some HomestarRunner on DVD. I then head into work.

I get to the office around 8:30 and do the usual routine. Emails are checked. Files updated. Yadda yadda yadda.

I email my former professor and academic adviser James Smith. It’s been at least 6 months since I’ve been in touch with him so there was a lot to catch up on. He was a huge help to me both during and after college. I mean, he helped me get my internship with Josh and my first “real” job at SWMX. It was just good to catch up.

I feel unbelievably hungry at around 11. I still have at least an hour until lunch and I already devoured a granola bar. What am I to do? I tough it out and drink a bunch of water before checking on the status of my PB&J that I left here yesterday. It seems that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches have a shelf life of less than 24 hours. Hmm. I head downstairs and check out the food. I end up getting a mediocre slice of pizza and reading Fight Club. I end up finishing the book and I have to say that while I really enjoy it, I think I like the film a bit more. It’s rare that this happens for me because I usually love the books. The only other case of this happening that I can remember was V for Vendetta. I didn’t think the book aged well as I read it for the first time when I heard that the movie was in production. I thought the film was great though. Sorry Alan Moore.

I finish up my lunch and return to my desk. Things slow down a bit and I peruse the Internet for new WordPress themes. I find one that I really like and with some customization I think it would be perfect. Unfortunately it needs an update, but I hear that one is on the way. I’d really like to upgrade the site a bit to add a second sidebar on the right hand side where I’d list things that I’m reading / watching / playing, etc. I was using a great widget for this but it’s not compatible with the latest release of WordPress. That’s unfortunate.

I head out at 5:30 and meet up with Monica at the apartment around 6. We chat for a bit and then make some tacos for dinner. We chow down and watch the last episode of the first season 30 Days. The episode was about a mom who decided to take up binge drinking for a month to show her daughter how dangerous it was. Unfortunately her daughter was a fucking moron and she learned nothing.

After the episode, I played some Pikmin 2 for the first time in months. I lost quite a bit of the little buggers to explosions and shit but I managed to get through a cave and finished the first half of the game. Now I have to rescue poor Louie. Monica watched me play for a bit but ended up falling asleep. I went on the computer and played with the possible new layout for a little while. I flipped to The Daily Show at 11 and watched the beginning before getting to sleep around 11:30.

Tags: 30 Days, Amazon, blog, Fight Club, Pikmin 2, scrubs, Wordpress

The alarm clock goes off at 6:30 and for some reason I can’t figure out how to shut it off. It’s like my brain just can’t process it. I think I yelled at Monica too while the alarm was going off. I’m not 100% sure, but I think I started saying “Wake up!” really loud. I have no idea why. She was up. We do some yoga and get on with the rest of our morning.

I get to work around 8:30. The morning goes by pretty slowly. I just go through the usual stuff. Nothing special really.

I was going to head downstairs to eat my PB&J, but Rob offered to take me out to lunch. Not being one to turn down free food, I took him up on his offer. We went to a sort of pub in Pearl River. There are a ton of restaurants over there. We sat at the bar and talked politics and business for a bit. I got a great chicken sandwich with waffle fries. After finishing our meal, we head back to the office.

I jump on a conference call with Rob a bit later on. Apparently I give good phone because Rob comments on how people seem to love me when talking to me on the phone.

Around 4, I rock out when “Free Bird” comes on my Last.fm playlist. I friggin’ love that song. I also make the decision to skip my comics pick up this week. There are only 7 comics for me to pick up and while they include Buffy, Green Lantern and The Boys, I can hold off and pick up two weeks worth next time. It’s not worth driving all the way over there and fighting the hordes of trolls for just that many.

I head out at 5:30. There’s this side road I keep seeing on the way home that I always forget to check online. I want to see if it connects to the road that I end up turning on. On the way, I figured I’d take a chance and see if it leads where I think it leads. Well, it doesn’t. After driving along this winding road, I turned around and just shook my head a lot as I realized what an epic failure that turn was. Oh well. I took a chance.

I get back to the apartment around 6 and do some exercise. Since I didn’t feel sore after the last few times I did the regular workout, I moved up to exercise #2 on the DVD. It’s half the length of the other workout and it’s crazy. 25 minutes of non-stop moving. Monica gets home as I’m finishing up and panting like a dog on a hot day. The shirt I was wearing was not conducive to sweating so it felt rather uncomfortable. I forgot how this workout made me feel the first few times I did it. It’s a great workout but I have to basically learn how to use my limbs again after it’s finished. I limp to the bathroom and take a cool shower. The water hits me and I start gasping for breath. It felt like my body was in shock at the sudden temperature change.

After the cooldown, I laid down on the bed for a little while. I felt like I couldn’t move. I just needed to rest for a little while. Monica and I were going to watch a movie, but she pointed out that we wanted to check out Obama’s appearance on The O’Reilly Factor tonight. Instead we watched an episode of 30 Days. I really like this show. Each episode is a great, well done little documentary.

I was feeling a lot better after the episode was over. We were going to make some tacos tonight, but I didn’t feel like cooking them. We’ll eat them tomorrow. Instead I made some hot dogs. The O’Reilly Factor came on and I lost interest. Of course they were going to play the Obama interview (and just a piece of said interview) at the very end. Monica sat through it, but I jumped on the computer to check out a few things and fiddle with DVDProfiler some more.

After we catch the brief snippet of an interview, we watch another episode of 30 Days then brace ourselves for McCain’s speech. I monitored Twitter again, but it was a lot less active than last night during Palin’s speech. I thought McCain’s speech wasn’t bad, but I definitely didn’t feel the inspiration that I felt during Obama’s speech last week. I am looking forward to the debates though. Wow. This is so weird. I’ve never cared about politics before. Now I’m looking forward to watching a debate? 2008 is a year of change for James Ferguson!

We get to bed and watch the beginning of The Daily Show. We watch up until the guest comes on and then talk for a bit before getting to sleep around 11:30 or so.

Tags: blog

With a small theatrical run and seemingly no advertising, I hadn’t heard of Cassandra’s Dream until I searched though Woody Allen’s page on IMDB. Being a fan of his work, I picked up the movie.

Cassandra’s Dream follows two brothers, Ian (Ewan McGregor) and Terry (Colin Farrell) who have fell on hard times. Ian is struggling to get out of his rut in life on the straight and narrow. He’s been guilt-tripped into working for his father at the family restaurant and he feels stuck. Meanwhile, Terry takes to gambling to improve his life. When Terry loses big, he turns to his brother for help and the two don’t know what to do. Fortunately they’ve got a crazy rich uncle that will help them, only this time the uncle wants something in return. In order to get their lives back on track, Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson) wants the boys to kill someone that could testify against him. Simple, right?

That’s the beauty of this film. Two ordinary men who have never even thought of killing someone are now put into a situation where they have to in order to finally get out of this hole they’ve dug themselves into. It really makes you think. I mean, their situation can’t be that far off from several people out there. If you were faced with a pile of debt and no hope in sight of ever getting rid of it, would you consider ending a man’s life?

While I loved the story of the film and the way the two brothers lives inevitably weave together with their target, I felt that the pacing was a little off for Cassandra’s Dream. There were these perfect times of fantastic tension where I actually gasped or had my hands clenched into fists that turned my knuckles white. But then there were times right after that felt like the film was sort of meandering around the issue. This stop and go aspect was a little tough.

I really dug this film. It felt a little like a poor man’s Match Point, but there was enough of a difference to distinguish it from it’s predecessor. I’m a fan of most of Woody Allen’s work and while I really like his comedies, his tragedies like this one are just such compelling dramas that I can’t look away. They tend to just grab me and not let go until the credits start rolling. Cassandra’s Dream definitely held me for some moments, but let me go and get a bite to eat on occasion too. I liked it, but I liked Match Point more. Let’s leave it at that.

Rating:

Tags: Cassandra's Dream, DVD, Review