Jay, here’s to ya, and I hope you enjoyed your stay in Canada!
Anyhow, what can I say about my parents? I must admit that they are probably the coolest ones out there, and I’m not saying this because they are my parents. I have many friends who also claim that this statement is true. You’ve always been good to Maureen and I, and to each other, and to everyone who enters your home. I can only assume that when children grow older and start their own families, they look upon their parents to see what they would change in terms of parenting. I’m happy to say that I want to be exactly like the two of you, no changes needed!
Happy Anniversary to the both of you and I hope you didn’t forget it (and if you both did, I hope Dad reads this first so he can rush out and get Mom something.)
All Hail the Spudtrooper!
To join the ranks of Darth Tater in my office, I stumbled upon this gem at the grocery store for $10. Sweet! It even has its own masher of a weapon!
I was telling Jennie that if I wanted to show off that I’m a true geek, then I would be getting legitimate statues of the sorts and putting them on display at work…but the Mr. Potato Head series is just a fun item that hides my true geekdom.
This reminds me of how Vero’s family dropped by my place to check it out and her dad made some comments on my Matrix and Star Wars figures on top of my book shelf. 10 years ago, I would have been quite embarassed, but now, I thrive on these comments as Vero herself contributed to the collection.
Does anyone have my copy of Shaun of The Dead?
Mike wants to watch it and I can’t seem to find it.
*update* Although I appreciate the help from my friends in lending their own copies of the movie to me, I have revised my statement above to put more emphasis on an important word in the sentence, as opposed to what you must have thought you had read. 😉
Well I just realized what is wrong with my right hand side nav bar. A freakin’ gremlin must have chomped out half the code to my website! *groan*
I’m pretty sure I have the HTML code I was working with at home during the weekend still on my computer so I can probably salvage it there.
Although, I am hoping that I get a Blogger beta account soon to see their new features. But with my luck, there will be a slew of cool new templates to pick from after I scoured the Net for this one.
Last night after volleyball, Mike and I watched Land of the Dead which is the fourth film in George Romero’s Dead series.
I was pretty excited to see this film as I had only see the other three parts and the third one was made in 1985. 20 years later, I’m sure a zombie film can be beefed up immensely with the aid of something I like to call the ‘puter.
When we last left the Dead, they had infiltrated an army bunker where some scientists and army types were hanging out trying to figure out how to get out of this mess.
Fast forward to sometime in the future where the Dead seem to run rampant around the countryside (if not the world, although it sounds like Canada fared well during these times. Go Canada!) and humans rarely go outside of their barricaded cities. However, with any civilization, someone at the top has to screw it up for all of us (read: Bush) and so the rich live in luxury, while the poor live in the dregs.
As for the Dead, they happen to evolve during this movie – learn how to use crude tools to get to a goal, learn to communicate together, etc. It was interesting to wonder if they’ll make it so the Dead actually become human again over time. That would be wild.
There as an interesting part of the movie where they used fireworks to make the Dead stare up into the sky so the humans could go about their adventures since the Dead didn’t even bother with them while there were some cool lights in the sky. I read how Robert Epert compared this to the shock and awe tactics used by the Bush Administration. Interesting. What’s also interesting is the fact that the Dead finally realize the fireworks mean nothing and keep on doing their zombie thing; eating people and wreaking havoc. Take that!
Also read on the Internet (I’m just cribbing a bunch of this stuff from the Wikipedia entry) is that George Romero stated that the movie was a statement on the current Bush administration. Wild.
My favourite part was when they cut to some underground gambling/bar/general human mayhem establishment and the humans were paying money to get their picture taken with two chained up zombies. NO WAY! That hit home as to how humans can ignore the actual danger that’s out there by making a mockery of it. Fast fact: I missed it, but it turns out that the two chained up zombies for the picture taking were none other than the two guys from Shaun of the Dead. I want to see the movie again just to catch that!
I give this 5 bloody killings out of 5 because I thought the idea portrayed in the film were excellent, the zombie mayhem was coolness (and they realize they can breathe (do zombies breathe?) in the water!) and overall, I would say the best of the series (next to the original of course).
One day, I’ll have to check out the remakes of Dawn and Day, but for now, I’ve filled my zombie quota for the month.
Thanks to Marc-Bernard for lending us this flick!
Awhile back I had picked up the Karate Kid box set for the sole reason of watching The Karate Kid. Heck, you can’t go wrong with picking up the second one also.
I had never seen The Next Karate Kid which did away with Daniel-san and introduced Hilary Swank as Julie-san.
Overall, I would put this film at par with Karate Kid Part III which wasn’t the best film in the series. I enjoyed the humourous elements of pitting Mr. Miyagi with a girl instead of a boy but other than that, it was your run of the mill ‘coming of age’ story. Heck, there wasn’t even a tournament of some sorts! Where’s the Cobra Khans? All they had is some lame-ass security force at a freakin’ high school (who had a bunch of high school students who were security detail? We sure didn’t have that in Kapuskasing!) run by some old-timer war vet with a chip on his shoulder. I always like it when you see these dudes run around and say “Finish him.” to the students after a brawl and the students are thinking “Wha???” and I’m also thinking “Wha??? Is this Mortal Kombat?”
I give this 2 karate kicks out of 5.
D’oh, what happened to my website? It’s all messed up now.
Awesome! In a few hours I was about to hand in my security badge form and get a new card and spend $25 to get a new bus pass.
But, the heavens heard my cry and my stuff was found! I just have to pick it up tonight.
The only downfall is that I had to pay $20 in Bus Tickets in the past week. Ah well.
Friday brought the parents into town where I took them to the Mer Bleue bog as well as around the town to various stores. We also hit up J.P.’s Chip Stand at the Canadian Tire parking lot on Merivale Road. Mike and I saw on the news that this was voted the #1 stand in town. I will admit that it was a good meal, but I can’t say they were the super-ultra-best fries I’ve ever tasted. But they are yummy. So don’t be scared to check this place out! Although GJs chip stand outside the Canadian Tire on 10th Line is just as good. What’s with all the chip stands outside of Canadian Tire?
A funny observation was how it was a beautiful 25 degrees on Friday, and my parents thought it was killer with the humidity, whereas I felt comfortable. I can remember first moving to the city thinking I would die during the summer…I suppose the human body can adapt over time. I would imagine this is the case for people who live in humid climates (Hello Uncle Gerry!).
Saturday brought forth a late afternoon beach trip to Constance Bay. I remember spending countless days during the Summer of ’01 basking in the sun. It’s a fair trek outside of town, but heck, you make up what you lose in distance with the massive amounts of beach available to you.
I ended up seeing Shawn from Kapuskasing there which was a surprise. I had not seen him for a few years and he has sure put on the muscle! I didn’t think a human body could put on that much mass! He hangs out there regularly so I may see him in the future.
Alex enjoyed his Captain Hat that Mike, Vero and I picked up for him for his birthday. This was hell to find in town. Who would have thought that it would be so hard to find a freakin’ cap’n hat? We then went out on the boat for a rip around the bay while Vero, Philipp and Alex attempted to wakeboard. It is too bad that Philipp couldn’t manage to get himself up but I have a feeling that it was due to the fact that the bindings were a size 1 and his feet were a size 20 (or at least that’s what my estimates were). His feet were hurting him pretty bad later in the night. Ouch!
We then headed to the homestead and played some Mario Party (who’s the winner? BOOYA. I am the king) and had some pizza. Feeling pretty tired, I bailed on any further festivities of the night and left their place.
Fall Television is soon starting up so I binged on Grey’s Anatomy on Sunday afternoon as it was pissing rain all day outside. It was one of those days were you were thankful for the blanket and a couch to curl up on. I also watched a biography of Led Zeppelin which was kind of lame (lame as in there wasn’t anything really new to see), although they had this excellent part where after the Beatles broke up, George Harrison wanted to see Led Zeppelin perform and the following conversation took place:
G. Harrison: “Well, what time should I get there?”
Tour Manager: “From the beginning, definitely!”
G. Harrison: “Hmm…well, when’s the intermission?”
Tour Manager: “There’s no intermission.”
G. Harrison: “But it starts at 8:00!”
Tour Manager: “That’s right! They play from 8:00 until 10:30 some nights!”
G. Harrison: “When the Beatles used to perform, we would be slotted to play for 20 minutes and speed through it to play for 15 minutes and that was it!”
I found that amusing as I couldn’t imagine paying good money to see someone perform for 15 minutes. It almost sounds like the Beatles were more about the experience of seeing The Beatles whereas Led Zeppelin was all about the music.