BO-ring

Dinner tonight: Tilapia, broccoli and carrots in garlic-herb sauce, and italian green beans. 'Twas YUMMY.

We're on season 4 of 24. As far as I can tell, it's the same basic plot every season. Just the nationality of the bad guys changes.

I'm on season 7 of Stargate SG-1. Ditto the plot and nationality.

We're about to watch Remember Me. Don't ask me why!

BTW, Portrait Innovations is having a special. I think I might take Ethan to get some pictures made! YAY! I need to print out some pictures of him; the only print picture I have is an ultrasound picture. oops.

Charlie isn't feeling well, so I have to go. We don't want baby to get sick!

so. tired.

First mistake: three energy drinks in one day (I like the way they taste, what can I say?). Of course, these procede to make me sick late last night. So, about 1 am, I take a Phenergan, which are marvelous by the way. Unfortunately, 6 am came a little too early this morning.

Ethan is getting sick as well. He ran a low fever last night and tossed and turned and cried all night long. We gave him two bottles within 1.5 hours last night just so he would calm down.

I am still looking for work, and that is no fun. I didn't think it would be this hard to find something after I was ready to go back to work. I am trying not to stress about it too much, but, well, I don't do that too well.

I have become such a boring person; I don't even have anything to blog about. Perhaps it's because I am sort of zoning out right now because I'm sleepy.

The highlight of my life right now (besides the adorable baby) is the Word Search active content I downloaded for my Kindle. And the completely addictive solitaire game. I haven't read very much lately, but I've been using it to play solitaire all the time. Isn't that sad. Who am I??

We started watching The Last Exorcism a few days ago, but we haven't even finished 20 minutes of it yet. But it looked promising, and that's the important part.

This is truly a disconnected entry, but I'm hoping that it's just because I'm sleep deprived.

Boo and hiss

My family was supposed to come up to see us this weekend, but my sister got sick with the flu. The poor dear has not had a good time of it lately, what with the various car issues and whatnot. Since they've all been exposed, they decided to wait until next weekend to come. That's alright because I'm not feeling too well; I think it's my sinuses. Boo.

Netflix delivered two extremely opposite movies this time: Resident Evil: Afterlife and Charlie St. Cloud. We watched those, and then today Charlie started watching the first season of 24. I think I might kill him. I hate government conspiracy shows.

We've also been watching Blue Mountain State, which, against my better judgment, is pretty hilarious. Wrong and sick and frequently twisted, but so funny.

God my life is boring right now. I'll evaluate the movies later. Right now, I'm going to file our taxes. Boo. Hiss.

Inception

We got tired of waiting for our next Netflix movies (regrettably mailed on a Saturday, boo), so we rented out of a redbox type thing. Inception! We had to see it sometime, I guess.

The problem with gimmicky movies is that you may keep the gimmick a secret, but you can't keep the fact that it's a gimmicky movie a secret. So I went into this knowing that something was up. Which I would have known without being told after watching about 10 minutes of the movie. After all, a movie that is about messing with people's dreams and being careful not to get lost in them...there's no possible way that that could lead to a gimmick. I suspected it, because movies like that perforce MUST end in a similar way. It's a Hollywood rule, I suspect. It's like knowing that when you pick up a book of Saki's short stories, you are going to get a lot of surprise endings--and in fact, you start to anticipate them. There's no way around it. Not that I suggest picking up a book of Saki's short stories, mind you.

I can't really go into a lot of detail about the plot without giving everything away. But let's just say I thought the ending was lame, but it was the only ending that would have given this movie wings. Any other ending would have made it hopelessly vanilla.

I will say this: If I had to choose the better movie between Inception and Shutter Island, I would probably go with the latter. Better movie, better DiCaprio, more thrills and surprises, and it's available free on Netflix Instant.

Sleep and the lack of it

At about 6 to 8 weeks, Ethan started sleeping through the night. It was very sudden and we certainly didn't do anything to cause it. Then just as quickly right before Christmas, he stopped. He started waking up and crying and was generally unable to go back to sleep unless he was in our bed. So he's been sleeping in our bed since Christmas. Around this time, his bottom teeth started to come in. Now his top teeth are coming in, and he's started to wake up screaming every night around 2 am, crying for a bottle. I have no idea what to do.

/end parental desperation

so we got two new movies from Netflix this past weekend: Knight and Day and Easy A.

First, Knight and Day.

Let me just say that I never really want to watch anything with Tom Cruise, but I always end up enjoying his movies. I don't know if it's because he has a talent for picking movies or if he's an enjoyable actor. I'm not going to think about it too much; I think TC the person is a bit creepy and I try not to think about him too much. Anyway.

Knight and Day has some funny moments but is pretty shallow as far as plot goes. It's your standard spy-gone-rogue-or-is-he? plot. There are cardboard cutout Spanish-speaking arms dealers, evil turncoat agents, and a teenage genius. Entertaining, sure. Great cinema, not quite.

But then, there was Easy A.

This movie is great. I love the actress in this; there's something about her movements and her facial expressions. I'm sure you've heard of it, but here's a short synopsis if you haven't. Olive is invisible in her high school--as a straight A student she's never been in trouble. But when a lie of desperation gets spread around the school as the truth, she decides to capitalize on the rumor to help her friend, a gay student who wants to stop getting bullied. Once Olive helps this guy, all the social outcasts in school want her help to get accepted. It's an interesting look at how sexuality functions differently for girls versus boys. For the guys that Olive helps, their social status increases, but the inverse is true for Olive. Allusions to The Scarlet Letter are a recurring theme. If you like movies about the hypocrisy of high school, especially movies like Saved!, then you'll like this one. I had some issues with the way it ended, but I don't want to over-analyze it. I'll leave that to some of my smarter friends. Watch it!

on a steel horse I ride...

It took me forever to get back into this thing. Password? I couldn't even remember my login name.

So, if you know my husband, you know that he has the worst taste in movies. If you give him access to a hundred good movies and one terrible one, he will pick the terrible one every time, usually some crappy low-budget narco/gang movie. But every once in a while he will pick something so truly priceless that even I'm impressed.

Case in point: Vampires: Los Muertos.

Now, this movie stars not only Cristian de la Fuente ("Chico" from In Plain Sight and most recently Private Practice, but more often than not some terrible telenovela) but the holy grail of movie stars...Jon Bon Jovi. Yes, Jon "Dead or Alive" Bon Jovi. As a vampire hunter. I think his hair got separate billing, and if it didn't it should get better representation, because it was FAB for the whole movie--I don't think it moved, even when he was getting his ass kicked the requisite number of times before he can make a heroic comeback to be the hero.

The spear-carrier is Diego Luna, of Y Tu Mama Tambien and Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights fame. So the plot is essentially that Bon Jovi, as Derek Bliss, gets called to Mexico to build a team to take out a vampire princess named Una. Except all the good vampire hunters get killed before he can get to them, so he ends up building his team with a 14-year-old boy, a fake priest, and a vampire who's on meds to fight her affliction. At some point Bon Jovi might turn into a vampire. At some other point he might take all of his weapons out of a secret compartment in a surfboard, vaguely reminiscent of Antonio Banderas's guitar in Desperado, except a little more unwieldy. And the whole movie takes place in Mexico, where, oddly enough, everyone speaks English with an accent. I guess either A) subtitling is expensive, or B) the target audience doesn't like to read.

I'm going with B.

It was produced by John Carpenter...I guess that doesn't really mean what I thought it meant.

Can't miss scene: As Derek Bliss realizes the woman he's talking to at the bar of this little cafe is actually a vampire, he retreats to stand behind a swinging door and use a little device to take the temperature of everyone in the restaurant. Sure enough! She's a little below 98. More like dead. Then, of course, he goes to the bathroom to wash his hands and splash some water on his face. Duh! What else should he do? And then we get a slow motion shot of him throwing his paper towel in the trash, while simultaneously a vampire slashes everyone in the restaurant except him (cause he's in the bathroom, silly!). Then as soon as the paper towel hits the trash, he takes out his gun and rushes into the restaurant to find...everyone dying and the vampires gone. Does he do anything for the dying people? Does he attempt to staunch any wounds? No! He gets the hell out of there before the federales show up. Niiice. (His hair, btw, performs nicely in this scene).

Available now (and probably forever) on Netflix Instant.

Friday RWP

Reading: Nothing yet, unfortunately. I have The Seville Communion on my desk to be read. But I should really be reading Zoltan Kovesces book Language and Culture, especially Chapter 10. And I should be reading the student papers I have to grade by Tuesday. And I should be reading the backlog of Labov articles.

Wanting: I changed it from wearing, because who cares what I'm wearing?? I am wanting my Kindle to arrive so that I can play with it. Also, so I can use part of that gift certificate my mom sent me for Valentine's day :)

Planning: I have to take Carla to TaeKwonDo this afternoon, start working on all my school work, and perhaps find the time to buy groceries. I also need to find out if I can schedule Carla's riding lesson. Sleep would also be nice.



I totally don't want to be here today. I want to be at home, working on the half-billion things that must. be. completed. before next week. Argh.

I have to A) finish transcribing one project and add pitch markers, intonation, and tone, etc. etc. Then I have to read all the stuff about narrative so that I can have at least some idea of what I want to say next Wednesday.

I also have to grade about 38 papers and return them by Tuesday, so they can turn rough drafts into me on Thursday. le sigh.

So what are Charlie and I doing this weekend? We use Valentine's day, or the nearest day to 2/14 that is convenient, as our anniversary. This will make seven years that we've been together! Can you believe it? I can't. It doesn't seem that long. Anywho...

We want to go to the movies since we haven't been in forever (and when we did go, it was to see a kids' movie). Charlie wants to see Push but I would kind of like to see Coraline, Taken, or Underworld: Rise of the Lycans.

Although, My Bloody Valentine in 3D is almost intriguing.

I do not know if we will do dinner or anything. Probably not...we might just order in.

et tu?