Obscure Movies I Love, pt. 1: Diggstown

Erik has his features "Overrated Films" and "Bad Movies I Love" and he has suggested I do my own Overrated Films thing, but I don't want to copy the man outright. So instead, I'm going to do my own, Obscure Movies I Love. This is the first in said series. The great movie, Diggstown:



Diggstown is a classic con-man movie. It features some fantastic actors: James Woods, Bruce Dern, Oliver Platt, and Louis Gossett Jr.
The movie focuses on con-man Gabriel Caine (Woods), just out of prison, who sets up a complicated con involving a small town addicted to boxing, and his old boxer friend "Honey" Roy Palmer (Gossett).

So I will get my main criticism of the movie out of the way first: it is hard to believe Gossett, at his age, could fight and win against some of the boxers he goes up against. The movie stretches the bounds of Suspension of Disbelief here and there.

Other than that, it's a great flick. The writing is funny. The pace is slow enough to tell the story, but quick enough to keep you interested. Woods, Platt, Gossett, and Dern play off each other expertly. While the Woods/Gossett scenes are good, the best ones are between rivals Woods and Dern. Both are amazing character actors, and yet both can ham it up...these are both traits this script called for, and these two acquit themselves well.

So why am I calling this movie "obscure"? After production was all done, the studio decided to undersell it. No hype, no promotional tours, no talk shows. The trailers came out about two weeks before the movie. As a result, when the movie released, hardly anyone had heard of it and it bombed at the box office. With poor ticket sales, it only lasted a few weeks in the theaters. A shame in my opinion.

Speaking of trailers, there was a line in the trailer that got cut from the movie that frankly I thought was quite funny. When "Hammerhead Hagan" comes out Gossett looks at Woods and asks, "Did you tell him he's black, too?"
If you haven't seen the movie it makes no sense. But if you've seen it, or if you go watch it now that I've told you about it, you'll know why that's funny.

If you haven't seen this one, rent it, Netflix it, whatever. If you have seen it, feel free to share your opinions here.

Would you say I have a plethora of posts?

So, I haven't posted on here in awhile (three weeks?). I've been busy, and stuff. So for your reading (dis)pleasure, below are a few posts made all-in-a-row. Enjoy.

That is the most flexible woman I've seen in my life!

...Now that I have your attention...

What I am referring to is Cirque du Soleil (henceforth, CdS). They are in town doing their show Varekai. Back on Valentine's Day, I got tickets to this for my loved one. And a teddy bear holding a heart. Musn't forget the teddy bear holding the heart. Ok, inside joke, sorry. Moving on...

I like CdS. But Jen loves CdS. When she discovered that Netflix carried their DVDs, she put them in our movie queue. All of them. In one solid block. I had to move the queue around so some actual movies would arrive in between CdS DVDs. She was happy when I gave her the tickets; she was nearly ecstatic when the day finally arrived for the show, this past Saturday.

Our son also likes CdS. He would sit and watch their TV show or the DVDs all the way through, even at 3. But all day Saturday it was "I don't want to go!" or "We're not going!" or "I don't like Cirque du Soleil!"
When he says it, it kind of comes out "serkda solay".
He was a demon all day. He was a brat on the car ride there. He calmed down a little when he saw their big, colorful tents. Then we went inside.

From the moment we entered, he was enthralled. He sat through the first half only moving or speaking to ask for a drink of water. He watched the act and applauded with enthusiasm when the adults appluaded. He was an angel.

Intermission came and he needed to go to the bathroom, for which there were long lines. While in line, he impressed the adults with his trick - I hold his hands, and he half-jumps-half-get-pulled up and plants his feet on my chest, then flips over backwards and lands. He is still so flexible it doesn't bother him that his arms are jacked around the complete wrong way when he lands. We really ought to get him into gymnastics now. I always ask him if he wants to be in CdS when he grows up, but he always says no. When we went back in, he continued his enthralled, but completely good, behavior.

Anyway, enough about the kid. The adults loved it too. I've seen them on TV, on DVD, and yes it is amazing to watch that way. But live, it just takes on a whole 'nother level. If you haven't seen them at all, rent a DVD or two. If you've seen the DVD, but not the live act...oh, you're missing out. A woman in line for the bathroom insisted (really, insisted, like in a scary-crazy way) that you absolutely must see them in Vegas, that it is even better there. Going to have to do that one of these days.

I leave you with this:

Yummy Xbox 360 goodness....

Yes, Jen spoiled me and bought me an Xbox 360 as a slightly early birthday present. I am enjoying it greatly. It came with Project Gotham Racing 3, and I went out and bought Battlefield 2 and Burnout Revenge.

So yeah. Now I have an Xbox 360 hooked up to a widescreen HDTV and surround sound. I am one spoiled bastard.

Eat it. :)

The Body Nazis

As some of you have heard from me already, my lovely wife decided we needed a personal trainer. Apparently, I'm overweight or something.

She heard about this place called Temple of Health. It's run by a couple, both bodybuilders (yes, male-female couple). They have this little private gym where you go train with them one-on-one or as a couple (as Jen and I do). So with two of them, there is generally a max of four people working out in the gym, and often it is just us with our trainer. So we started going there twice a week, and we train with the woman, Charma (pronounced Sharma).

Who am I kidding? We go there twice a week and she tries to kill me. We got back from there about an hour and a half ago, and I feel like I've been run over. By a tank. With a disco happening on top of it.

Owie.

I refer to our them as the Body Nazis - lovingly, of course. And never, ever to their faces. He is Czech and she is not white and from a jewish upbringing, so they may not see the humor with which I am using the term. I mean, would you call this woman anything but "ma'am" to her face?:


She's not quite that buff anymore. She doesn't do shows or really bodybuild anymore, but she is still fit enough to kick the crap out of this fat man.

They put us on a really horrendous diet, which we are going to start tomorrow. Supposedly. Jen hasn't cooked anything for tomorrow yet, and I sure as hell am not about to right now. I can barely stand right now.

We will see how it goes. Hopefully it will stave off the heart attack I am sure I have coming. In the meantime, I feel like such a fucking yuppie. I own a home in the Duvall area, quickly becoming the place for Microsoftie yuppies (yes, I know, I know). I have a doctor, whom I refer to as "my doctor". I have a lawyer. Now I have a personal trainer. Next I'll have an accountant.

Lord, please take me now, before I start shopping at Nordstroms.

The Ego-Breaker

So probably none of you have noticed the little button at the bottom of my blog. You can see the same little button at the bottom of, say, My meme can beat up your meme. It leads to my Site Meter page. This is a handy little service that lets you see who's been visiting your blog...it shows their ISP, IP address, approximate geographic location, when they checked it, how long they were there, where they came in from, what they clicked on to leave, etc.

Mostly, it is as I refer to it the Ego-Breaker. What Site Meter tells me is, my little bloggy doesn't get a lot of hits, 75% of those hits are me checking for comments (I hate having them e-mailed to me) or updating or what-have-you. And then there's all, say, four of you that actually read it.

And people searching Yahoo for "spankings in a doctor's office."

That's where the amusement is for even a little blog like mine. You can see search terms. Because I posted about going to the doctor (for the Bell's Palsy) and spankings (Loxie's 30th) in a short amount of time, someone from Seneca Falls searching Yahoo for the above phrase wound up on my page. Said person staid for 0 seconds - he clicked in and out. Technorati, a site that lets you search blogs, had me on the first page for both birthday spankings and Vandenbrink Carver for quite some time, so I got some hits (however brief) for those.

Spankings! Spankings! Spank spank spank spank!
There, that ought to about double my hits for the next week. Probably get a 0 second visit from somebody searching for "spanking Spike Lee" or something.

Anyway, fun stuff. Good way to show you what a little slice of the internet you have compared to, say, a waiter in New York.

Movie Review time: The Inside Man

Last weekend, got to cut loose and go see a movie in the theater. While the movie in my feature "What I'm looking forward to seeing" is out ("Thank you for Smoking"), I just was not in the mood for that really. Instead, we went to "Inside Man".

For those of you who accuse me of hating everything, you're not going to like this review. "Inside Man" is directed by and stars a couple of people whose works I could definitely say I hated - until recently. Opinions change, and this movie has helped change my opinion of both of them.

Inside Man was directed by Spike Lee. I've never liked Lee's movies. His films have historically been ethnocentric, which is fine, but his carried it to a bit of an extreme. Most of his movies might as well have been called "White people won't get this", "How white people keep my people down", or perhaps just "Kill Whitey". Recently, though, he seems to be breaking out of that. "25th Hour", one of his more recent films, was a definite departure for Lee and was actually pretty interesting. I don't know if I'd call it good, but it was interesting. Inside Man is a big departure, and Lee acquits himself well with this film.

One of Lee's favorite actors to cast is Denzel Washington. Until recently, Denzel would probably have gotten my vote for Most Overrated Actor. The guy plays the same character no matter what the movie. No range, no variation, maybe just 4 or 5 facial expressions. But he gets constant praise. I never could understand why, other than a crapload of women swoon at the mere mention of "Denzel" - which in of itself I don't really get. However, my opinion of Denzel has been changing already due to some films he has been in that I genuinely enjoyed - particularly "Man on Fire" and "The Manchurian Candidate". Both remakes, but well done ones.
Anyhow, on to Inside Man: The movie was excellent. As I've said, Spike Lee and Denzel both manage to overcome my dislike of them by putting in good work. Denzel manages to actually create a fairly believable and likeable character. Lee creates a movie that doesn't entirely revolve around race, and in fact brings up some ethical questions - albeit fairly easy ones. Clive Owen plays his usual kind of snearing character bad-guy-who's-not-so-bad. I actually rather like Clive Owen, although I recognize he isn't the greatest thespian around. Jodie Foster gets a key role that is practically custom-tailored to her talents, and gets some of the best lines aside from Denzel - especially near the end. Christopher Plummer and Willem Dafoe, perhaps the two most talented actors in this thing, turn in excellent supporting performances.

The movie is a bit long, at just over two hours, and there are some spots where it drags a little, but overall it keeps the interest going and has a good plot and good writing. There were two things that really ticked me off, though. One is a plot point involving a racist cop that doesn't fit at all and is just designed to move along the fairly long movie. The other follows immediately after, and it is a stereotype I really hate in movies - The Hothead SWAT Captain. You see, whenever SWAT gets portrayed in movies, there's always the Hothead SWAT Captain whose solution to the whole thing is use his snipers to take out the targets they can see and send "my boys" in guns a-blazing to take down the baddies, and there's always Levelheaded Detective/Negotiator there to keep him in check. I've known some SWAT guys, and nothing could be further from the truth. If SWAT is there, it's because the situation is dangerous and probably lethal. The last thing they want is shots fired, by either side. What's most annoying in this movie about Hothead Captain is that he suddenly gets this way an hour and a half into the movie. WTF?

So yeah, in a nutshell: couple minor plotpoints that sucked, but overall a very good movie that helped raise my opinion of an actor and a director I have long hated.

Mattbear out.

Scott McClellan's body isn't even cold...

Oh wait, Scott didn't die. He just resigned. And damn, I will so miss watching that inept baffoon be the White House press corp's punching bag. But the White House has apparently named a new meat shield...I mean, press secretary. Tony Snow, a hard-right Fox pundit and former Daddy Bush speech writer (I refuse to link directly to Fox News here).

I have no joke to follow that. I mean..I just..I can't. There's nothing that could beat that one.

Linky Linky

To direct your attention to the sidebar, I have added a couple of links I wanted to point out under "Other Stuff that Amuses Me".

One is "Liquid Metal Magazine", the latest creative endeavor of my brother-in-law (feels weird calling him that after all these years). He's put together a downloadable indie comic magazine with some other contributors. Check it out. Currently free, he intends to charge a small amount for future issues.

The other is "Evil Bunny with a Wrench", a little comic posted via LJ by a friend of Charley's. The art isn't staggering, just a simple drawn bunny (with a wrench), but the humor is fantastic. If you like "Something Positive" (my favorite webcomic) you'll like Evil Bunny.

Mattbear out.

Update on an old post

Alright, nobody seemed to care about my old post about the Vandenbrink Carver One, but damn it I love the idea of that little sportster. I lamented in said post that they were only available in Europe. But now, they have announced that they have found an importer to bring the Carver One to the U.S.! Oh joyous day! Now all I need is the $50k to buy one....

30 years + birthday partay + paddle = Bruised Ass

Saturday was Loxie's 30th birthday, and we threw a little party for said event. There were some other plans that fell through for her birthday, and some confused discussion about what to do, so it wound up being a kind of last-minute thrown together thing, which I feel bad about. A good time was had by all, however. Especially after the kids went to bed. A fair amount of drinking was done, largely facilitated by the great bartender, my nephew Big Mike. Lots of vodka was used.

Now, anyone who has known us long knows of the tradition of The Paddle. The Paddle was purchased by my lovely wife specifically for the purpose of me receiving 30 birthday spankings on my 30th birthday. Everybody got a turn. It hurt. And tradition has been ever since that on the 30th birthday, all our friends must face The Paddle. So Saturday, it was Loxie's turn.

Normally, there are pictures of the main event, but this time I got it all on video. If you want to see it, you're going to have to ask.

Poor girl had it pretty tough between me and Big Mike. After missing a shot (my second or third, really) with The Paddle, I threw it to Launchpad and turned around real quick to give her a barehand shot that apparently stung quite a bit. Not to be outdone, Big Mike gave her a barehanded whack that lifted her about four inches off the floor. After about the 10th spanking she said her ass was numb anyway, but the next evening she wouldn't game with us because she couldn't sit down long enough. I guess her arse wound up black and blue, and quite sore. I almost feel bad about it. But I pretty much know how it feels.

I might think that this tradition is getting out of hand, that we're trying too hard to one-up each other. I might think we should back off and tone it down. But the next person to have a 30th is Big Mike - and Jen, Launchpad, Loxie, and I all owe him some big payback. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Mattbear.

Quick update

Saw the neurologist today. He didn't tell me much I didn't already now, except that my case of Bell's Palsy wasn't as bad as it could be and I'll probably recover in about a week. In the meantime, I'm taking 12 pills a day and have to put eardrops in every four hours. Oy vey.

Where did I stash that clone? I'm ready for a new body.

So, if you read the gruesome health problems I faced at the end of last post, here's an update. By Sunday I was doing better, the pain let up, I could survive without pain killers and everything. Then Monday morning it started hurting again. By Monday evening I was nearly as miserable as I was Friday night. In addition to the ear, I had wicked headaches, and the whole right side of my face hurt - at the time I thought it was because I had spent so much time lieing on my right side trying to get my ear to drain.

Tuesday morning I called the doctor's office to set up an appointment. I noticed I was having trouble being understood, but I got the appointment set up for 4pm. At work I noticed it was becoming a real effort to talk (keep your smartass remarks to yourself, thank you). I looked in the mirror in the bathroom and saw that when I opened my mouth, the left side opened all the way, but the right side only moved as far as the left side could drag it. This could not be good.

I tried poking my cheeks, and found that the right one was a bit numb. I kind of...panicked. I made some comments to Jen about "It might be a tumor," which I always say and to which she always replies in her best Governator, "It's not a tumor." But I was starting to worry that this time...maybe it was something serious.

4pm came, not nearly soon enough. Diagnosis: in addition to the fluid in my inner ear (which was not infected) the middle and outer ear have become infected. Two types of antibiotics for that. And the face thing? Bell's Palsy, a temporary and partial paralysis of the face. Apparently can be caused by viral infections of the facial nerves. Yay. Don't worry, I should recover fully in a few days. But I have two more meds for that (an anti-inflammatory/steroid and an anti-viral) and I have to go see a neurologist tomorrow to make sure there won't be any permanent damage.
For right now I look kind of Sly Stallone-ish when I talk (Sly's facial paralysis is from a birth complication). My boss jokingly called me his "little stroke victim" today.

Anyway, another update on my health soap-opera will come tomorrow after I visit Bellevue Neurology. Mattbear out.

How the same movie plot can go well...or go rotten

A couple of weeks ago we took a kid-free, "adult-time" weekend. During said weekend, we went to two movies. One I hoped would be good, and I was not disappointed. The other I was near certain would be awful, but wanted to see it anyway. I was also not disappointed.

Both movies had a heavy, "1984"-ish repressive establishment at the center of the plot, and both featured a violent rebel bent on its overthrow. One used the plot as a fertile grounding for themes about strength, spirit, and the need to question authority. The other used it to show off Matrix-esque sword fight scenes involving a half-assed bio-engineered vampire and a bad guy whose big line was "Are you mental?"

By now, if you've been paying attention to the movie scene, you know I saw "V for Vendetta" and "Ultraviolet".


The first one we watched was "Ultraviolet", starring the lovely but relatively talentless Milla Jovovich. I knew it was going to suck. I went anyway. It sucked even more than I thought it would. One of our friends who was with us, who admits readily that she enjoys bad movies, sat there at the end saying, "What the fuck was that? That didn't make any sense." And indeed it didn't.
It was written by Kurt Wimmer, who wrote and directed the also-1984-ish catastrophe "Equilibrium". He also had a hand in writing "The Recruit", which was actually a passable film - but directed by someone else, and I think that's why it stands out from his other disasters. Aside from clinging to this oppressive 1984 rip-off theme he seems to have going on, Ultraviolet tries to rely on "plot twists" that just don't make any sense. I mean none. They are so arbitrary...half way through the movie, I thought I had one of the "twists" pegged. But no, he wasn't that predictable. He tried a different twist that a) didn't make sense and b) had no grounding in the story other than he wrote it that way. The villain's motive was the same way. So if you are looking for a plot, there really isn't one, and it winds up hurting your head. And if you want to see Milla looking hot and doing some dance-fighting-type-stuff, you're better off watching "Fifth Element", which had better writing and better fight coreography even though it was just Luc Besson sucking up to his wife by having her referred to as "perfect" some 30 times in the movie. If I ever meet Kurt Wimmer, I'm going to punch him in the face and say "That's for Equilibrium," and when he recovers from that I'm going to kick him in the nuts and say, "and that's for Ultraviolet."
Hey, it's better dialogue than he can pull off.

Anyway, next day we went to see "V for Vendetta". It also relied on an oppressive, big-brother type government. It made good use of it, however. The movie is based on a "graphic novel" (aka comic book) by Alan Moore. I have heard that Alan Moore wanted his name removed from it and not to be associated with it. If that is true, I think it probably has more to do with the aftermath to his reputation from the last movie adaptation of one of his comic...err..."graphic novels", "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen". As a writer, I'd be afraid to have my name attached to a movie after that piece of shit, too.
"V for Vendetta" was written (in terms of the screenplay) by the Wachowski brothers, who probably titled their drafts of the screenplay "We're really, really sorry about the second and third Matrix movies. Really, our bad." But this story was really quite good, following a sensible plot full of political commentary (albeit thinly veiled) about the state of our country, and about our duty as citizens to protect our rights against those who would usurp them for their own power.
Combine the good plot with some excellent cinematography and the acting chops of the excellent cast including Hugo Weaving, Natalie Portman, and Stephen Rhea, and you have yourself a very good movie.
In case you saw the movie but aren't big on history, yes, there really was a Guy Fawkes.

There's my movie reviews for now. In other news, I went to the emergency room this past Friday because I had the worst earache I've ever felt and was in excrutiating pain. Apparently, a bunch of fluid drained from my sinuses and was trapped in my ear, pushing my eardrum out of shape. OUCH. Seriously, it's the worst pain I've been in that didn't require surgery. So I've spent the last three days doped up on Vicodin and holding wet washcloths and a hot-water bottle against the side of head to get the fluid to drain out. YUM. Just a little nastiness for ya there, because I know you wanted those delicious details. I'm getting better, but it is still a serious bitch.

Enough for now. Mattbear out.

On Matrimony

So, today being the day of my nuptials, my mind is naturally on the topic. This evening, a small sampling of family and kin will be at our home to see us married by our friend, Charley, he being an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church. I shall be clad in kilt; photos posted online of my sexy bare lower legs shall surely follow.

I am also an ordained minister, and am legally able to perform weddings. I have offered many times to be the minister of friend's weddings, and all have refused thus far. Charley and Cynthia ran off to Hawaii to be married, LP wanted me as his best man instead, Brad and Susie were afraid of what I might say given the chance to perform a wedding (although I was the best man and got to make the toast - what's that about?). I just want the experience, just once, of getting to stand up there as a minister and marry off a couple. I actually enjoy on some level speaking in front of people, and I think it would be fun in a way. So if you are getting married, think about having me as your minister, ok?

Brad and Susie's fear that I might say something untoward was not only unfounded, but also not original. Leo and Jess actually had their minister remove the "if anyone here has any reason these two should not be married" part, because they were afraid I would pull some prank. I'm sure this fear is born from my disdain of marraige in general, but the truth is I always feel weddings are an important and reverant occassion. Boring, yes. A pain in the ass, yes. But still reverant. I'm always polite and on my best behavior.

Last Friday, Jen and I went to get our marraige license. The courthouse in Seattle only does that until 4:30, and we had to race to get there. We walked into the office at 4:28, and got the paperwork all done, our 5-year-old son in tow. I remembered a couple of stories about marraige licenses that always amused me:

• My father was my mother's second husband, and she had my oldest sister already from her first marraige. When my parents went to get their marraige license, they had to drive to the county seat and had my sister, then two, with them. In 1958, a couple just getting married but already with a kid was cause for raised eyebrows. The clerk at the courthouse eyed my sister when my parents announced they were there for a marraige license. My father, ever the smartass, looked at the clerk, then my sister, then the clerk, and said, "The roads are real bad out our way."
• My 8th grade Chemistry teacher told us a story about getting his marraige license. He lived in a state that required blood tests for a marraige license. He also just so happened to work in the lab that processed said blood tests for the county he lived in. When his fiance's bloodwork came back, his co-workers decided to play a little prank on him and printed up a fake results sheet showing she was pregnant. They came up to him and said, "So, is this why she's marrying you, or is this a complete surprise?" He looked over the print out and said, "OK you jokesters. Where's the real one?" They protested that it was the real one, until he explained that he happened to know that it was his fiance's time of the month and the jig was up on their little joke. I believe the phrase he used to explain this to our class was, "I told them I had firm biological evidence to the contrary."

Alrighty. That's it from today's Groom. Mattbear out.

Free at last, free at last

The picture you see here is an item we call "The ECS Relic". It was given to our old team manager years ago as a white elephant gift at a Christmas party for the managers. When she left Email Customer Service (ECS), she passed it on to the "Acting" manager, who passed it on to her friend when she (the Acting Manager) left ECS, who then passed it on to me when she in turn left ECS.

I liked having the Relic around because if it wasn't the ECS Relic, then I would be. I have now been on the ECS team longer than anyone, ever. I have watched my teammates get promoted, have their contracts end, quit in disgust, get fired, and have their jobs outsourced from under them. I am still here, nearly seven years later.

Or at least I will be for another hour and a half or so. The picture of the ECS Relic above is of it sitting on Will's cube, for I have duly passed it along to him today, on my last day on this job.

It feels so strange. I have been doing this job so long, I have trouble remembering what it was like to not be doing this job. As I box up my stuff to take home, recycle all my old training papers, and delete all my e-mails, I just feel weird. Odds are I'll be right back here in this same building sooner than you can say "contractor", doing a different job as a temp through Volt. But this is still the end of an era of sorts for me.

Alright...I'm outta here now. MATTBEAR OUT.

What comes around, goes around

There's a news story out this week that exemplifies a little phrase I use sometimes. When a weird coincidence happens, I'll say "God's playing Nintendo with my life."

I don't believe in God, but it's how I feel sometimes when the same people pop up randomly in my life or the same theme keeps cropping up all day. The closest I've come to the weirdness in this news story was when I was in a motorcycle wreck and one of the surgeons who worked to repair my spleen was the doctor who lived across the street from my grandparents. This was not too surprising, though, since it was in the small town of Pendleton, Oregon.

But this news story happened in the not-so-small town of Buffalo, NY...a teenage dishwasher who also happened to be a volunteer fireman performed the Heimlech on a woman choking in the restaurant...who turned out to be a nurse who performed CPR on him and saved his life seven years earlier.

In other weird news, last week a judge in Tacoma ordered her courtroom to cheer "Go Seahawks" before starting a manslaughter trial. Talk about poor judgement (pun very much intended). Somebody that insensitive should be remanded to handling traffic ticket court only.

Mitchell Rupe, the robber/killer too fat to die, finally died. Rupe was supposed to be executed long ago, but weighing 400 pounds he argued that hanging (then Washington's default execution method) would decapitate him, which constituted cruel and unusual punishment. He could have chosen lethal injection, but refused to, thus saving himself from execution. He also had cirrohsis of the liver and hepatitis C that were slowly killing him anyway, and even tried to get a liver transplant to save him from that. Luckily, the state refused to waste a good liver on a murderer. The state changed the primary execution method from hanging to lethal injection just to make sure we didn't wind up with another un-executable fatty sometime down the road.

Politics! I haven't posted anything political here in awhile, so here you go. Rep. John Murtha, already getting good press on the sane side of things for calling for a near immediate withdrawal from Iraq, put another bitch slap on the Bushites by publishing an open letter to Bush with a 4-point plan for withdrawal and rebuilding our security and military. God damn, this is the only person in politics who sounds even half way intelligent to me right now. If the Dems put Wesley Clark up in '08 with Murtha as his VP, I would vote for that ticket in a heartbeat. They put Clinton anywhere on the ticket, I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do.

Alrighty! Enough for now. Mattbear out.

That Not-new-but-new-to-me Car Smell

There's a couple of things I've been wanting of late...a diesel vehicle in which to run biodiesel, and a truck. Being a homeowner, one often finds need for a truck to haul crap around in. Trips to Home Despot, the dump, whatever.

So Friday I went and bought a big diesel truck, thereby killing two birds with one stone. It's an '82 GMC Suburban, with a 6.2 liter diesel V8. It is HUGE. I've driven bigger vehicles back when I was doing delivery, but I've never owned anything this big. It is a monster.

I always name my vehicles. Generally, they have female names because I always think of my cars as girls. The Saturn is "Caroline", the Volvo is "Ella", and the VW is "Starchild" (you have to give a 1969 VW bus a hippie name, it's like a law or something). But the Suburban is too huge and ugly to be feminine. I don't want to give it a guy name though, so it's just going to have a nickname: Big Dog.

I love driving big vehicles, so I'm pleased as punch with Big Dog. That diesel engine has some guts to it, and there's so much room...even though it doesn't have the third row seat, I could comfortably fit six adults in the seats for a ride, and when we got where we were going those same six adults could comfortably have group sex in the back. It's that roomy.Alrighty...it's past my bedtime. That is all for tonight. Mattbear out.

The only certainty is change

So, I've been making some changes in my life, and have some changes coming up.

First off, getting healthier, especially losing weight: At the beginning of January, I entered into a little contest against my boss and co-worker to see who could shed the most pounds in a month. My reputation for being fat and lazy is doubled or tripled at work, where I am often seen eating McDonald's breakfast and getting stains on my shirt. As such, neither of the other contestants thought I stood a hope in hell of beating them. But oh, I had a surprise for them! Today was the day of reckoning, and I've dropped 14 pounds in the last month - which made me the winner since they lost 9 and 7 pounds respectively. Go me!

Second, my job. Anyone who has known me for long knows my love-hate-but-mostly-hate relationship with my job. Well, that's finally changing. I gave my resignation (with, naturally, 2 weeks notice) today. There is something on the horizon for me, employment-wise, but I have to leave the Evil Empire first. Trust me, this is a good thing. Huzzah! I am Free!

Third, my "bachelor" days (long since only a technicality anyway) are going to disappear. Jen and I will be getting married come March 16, which is the 15th anniversary of us being together. Our intent is to have only a small ceremony with the minimal people present (The good Rev. Charley, and two witnesses). Jen says big party after, though.

Anybody dieing from shock yet? No? Good. Mattbear out.

My biggest weakness as a consumer

So, I guess it's about time I posted about my spending spree of a couple weeks ago. See, I decided I really wanted a video camera so that I could film some stuff and edit it on the computer. I wanted to get the hang of shooting, using a camera, and the editing piece. I asked Jen, and she gave me the go-ahead. Right on!

First I went to Costco, as I recalled them having some video cameras. Unfortunately, they didn't have squat. Mostly they had those burn-direct-to-DVD cameras, which is definitely not what I wanted. So we decided to go to Fry's the next day.

The next day, it was on to Fry's. I looked over their cameras, and decided I wanted the Canon Elura 85. That wasn't the one I really wanted - the one I really wanted was three grand. But I wanted the Canon so I could just kind of get started here. Jen asked if I wanted to apply for a Fry's account, and I said sure. We're used to getting turned down for credit left and right, so we figured at best we'd get an account for a few hundred.

They approved us for over $3k.

This was quite tempting. We looked around for awhile. Jen decided to buy a portable DVD player to use for Chas when we're on long drives and stuff. And we bought a computer desk, as we didn't really have a decent one. We looked at new computers, and Jen drooled over the Media Center PCs, which she has wanted for awhile. But she said we should wait. She's generally the voice of reason in these situations.

Then I saw the Macs they had. I've been wanting a Mac for awhile, specifically for video and audio editing. I've seen the programs for that on both the Mac and Windows, and the ones for Mac are much easier and better. Jen told me no way was I getting a Mac before she got a new computer, and complained about the fact that we hadn't bought a new computer for her in...oh, I think ever...while I had gotten a laptop and a desktop machine. We left, without giving in to the temptation to buy a bunch of stuff and rack up our new account.

But you see, electronics are my biggest weakness as a consumer. I love 'em. Those and cars. I don't like to shop for clothes, or food, or anything...except vehicles and electronics. Those I will go window shopping for just for fun. And I got to thinking, we hadn't bought Jen a new computer in...well, ever...and I was feeling guilty about that. So the next day, while she was at work, I went back to Fry's. I bought a Media Center PC for Jen, and some upgrades to it (it really needed a better video card and more memory). And another desk. And then I walked by the Macs.

Oh, I was tempted. I kept debating, imagining Jen's voice screaming at me about spending so much after she told me to wait. In the end, I gave in. After all, Fry's has a return policy...if she was too pissed off, I could return stuff. I bought myself a Mac Mini, which is very cute and nice, and should run Final Cut Express quite nicely. In fact, I'm writing this on my Mac. I'm kind of a convert now, after years of bitching about them. I still have the PC for gaming, and my Windows laptop, but I use the Mac for browsing and e-mail and stuff like that. And of course, I'll be using it for video and audio editing.

Anyway, I started home with the Volvo loaded down with about two grand worth of Fry's products - the salesmen loved me - and got into Issaquah about the time Jen should be off work. So I called her and asked her if she wanted to go to dinner, and she said sure. I was hoping to get to the restaurant after her, but she pulled in right behind me and clearly saw all the stuff piled up in the back. She got out of the car and the look on her face...oh boy. I started to get the boy out of the car, and when Jen got out I said, "You wouldn't kill me in front of the boy, would you?"
The look on her face said she was thinking about it.

After dinner and a discussion about just how much I spent, she decided it was ok, especially since she got a nice new computer all her own. So now our office is all set up and I have the Mac and the old PC at my desk hooked up with a Keyboard/Monitor/Mouse switch, and Jen sits next to me with her computer. We're happy. I've hardly watched TV since we got the office set up, because I spend that time in here instead. Although I gotsta watch some West Wing tonight.

Mattbear out.