An experiment in terrible

by on February 26, 2008 at 6:03 am
Posted In: Uncategorized

Today I decided to clear a little room off my TV by doing some blockbuster online spring cleaning. If you, like me, have this movies-by-mail service, then you’ve probably felt the obligation to eat the leftovers of your media diet. I had that instinct and later regretted it, because in between I watched ‘Next’ – last summer’s forgotten Sci-fi Nick Cage thriller. Well, the short story is that it was terrible. But the long story is available here.

The cleverest thing about this movie is the credits, which play backwards as if to remind us that we just wasted two hours. Thanks assholes. First off, the script is limp, featuring B-movie cheese and blockbuster stunts rolled together, minus a personality. Normally, everyone’s playing it straight; earning their paychecks without much fuss, but occasionally you’ll be momentarily interested in a so-bad-it’s-good moment. Like when Cage gets safely swept up in an avalanche of cars by dropping to his knee with an Elvis arm pump (true story). But the improbabilities are best expressed in the casting. Cage plays a sleazy magician who bares the heavy burden of a superpower. And oddly this burden makes you stalk Jessica Biel and overact. Somehow his inappropriately timed and occasionally impossible magic tricks sweep fucking Jessica Beil off her feet. I’m sorry, but the biggest suspension of disbelief came from her being wooed by his shtick. Our first impression of her character is that she’s sassy and kinda mean, but that’s immediately stripped away in every other scene where she plays a love sick kitten. The vibe between them shoots for true love, but lands at creepy voyeur neighbor. It felt icky to see them in bed together.

Then there are the gimmick stunts, which this film is required to have because it has a gimmick. You will see our heroic sleazy voyeur dodge bullets, split himself into future copies, and let extra’s die for no good reason. I mean, if the guy can see into the future, why not save SWAT cop #2? It is a sad moral ambivalence to think that being in a hurry justifies marching cops through gunfire. Our hero just lets them get shot, whataguy.

There are so many things wrong with this movie it’s difficult to choose one bad note to end on. In terms of this film, a long review demeans us both. On a good day, it’s almost bad enough to be good, but not quite. 3 cheers for anyone who thought that last line made sense/11

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Jump of Faith

by on February 22, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized

So I met up with King Sheep last night for a rare evening of theater and amazingly good garlic cheese bread (if there is a Keg restaurant near you, stop reading and go now). It’s rare because we live a good 300 miles apart, so popping by for a quick visit requires a little more than a slow afternoon and 15 minutes of spare time. It requires planning, coordination, and the occasional misdemeanor moving violation. What did we see at ye olde theatre? Jumper. Review is forthcoming. I promise. Moving on.

What I’m really writing about is a wonderful event that seems to be worming its way into my work life as a Friday morning perodical. For the dozen people on this blog who don’t know me personally, I spend my daylight hours as a manager in a press shop, and one of my main duties is e-mail management. A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail from a reverend who urgently needed 10,000 full-color flyers printed. After excitedly working up a quote and going back-and-forth over the e-mail with him, I find out that he wants the flyers shipped to West Africa via a very specific shipping company. Call me thick, but that was what finally set off the alarm. I Google the shipping company’s name and discover it’s a scam.

It works like this: Joe Printer makes 10,000 flyers and gives them to the shipper. The shipper requires a money order to do business. The reverend tells the printer to roll the cost of shipping into his bill, which he pays with a credit card, which turns out to be fake. Printer is now out a couple grand plus labor, paper, and ink.

The “reverend” has tried e-mailing me several times since then using different names but always asking for immense quantities of flyers, and it always starts like this:

———

Hello Sir/Madam
Goodmorning and My Name Is Mr Walton Smith and am the Owner of Smith & Company Inc, I Am Contacting you to Know if you can make an Order for same Flyers .and i will need the Qty 90,500 with the size of 8.5”x11” in full copies Black Ink on Yellow Paper l want you to write of the flyer (Smith & Company Inc).,I want you to go ahead and quote me the total pick up prices plus tax without shipping,and also addvice me the methods of payment that you accpet so that as soon as i get the price here i will go ahead and make the payment for you right away , so that we can schdule for the pick up whe it is ready for pick up. so that i can get back to you as soon as i can .Try and get back to me with your Name and Phone Number.

Thank you and hope to hear again back from you..
….

Best Regards.
Mr.Walton

Reverend. Moore

——–

Incidentally, the name of the shipping company is always Federf Cargo and Trading Company. Another thing this scammer does it use a TTY connection or phone relay to send his order. If you’ve been contacted with a similar message, report the phone number or e-mail address and let’s try to get these guys caught.

Peach out.

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Waiting for something slow

by on February 21, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized

Okay, my title line doesn’t quite rhyme with Godot, but I recently heard that it was pronounced ‘God-doh’ and was alluding to a lack of faith in God. Well, I have no intention of discussing anything that heady, but I am stuck with a two-hour plane delay so you can expect this blog to cover all the things I used to claim I didn’t have time for it. Fate called my bluff and handed me two hours of time that aren’t good for much of anything, so I figure this is a great time to talk about my weekend. My fiancee and I did a little trek down to Portland for a variety of reasons, chief among them a belated-Valentine’s Day at the McMenamin’s Edgefield. Also, we knew that the McMenamin’s franchise was hosting a beer-fest at one of its locations and we figured ‘why not devote an entire weekend to beer?’ And that turned out to be the mission statement of the weekend.

Before we left for the weekend, we picked up some bottles of the Abyss from Deschutes. The backstory goes that Deschutes did a limited release of this special stout that was reviewed by Men’s Health magazine as being ‘the best stout ever made.’ With a label like that you can see why Portland stores sold out. Turns out that the Co-Op in Moscow ID had a supply of Abyss and my mom asked me to pick up some. Also, the idea of a rare beer is truly a new concept to me. And the beer may not be the best stout ever, but it doesn’t fall very short of the hype. Beer count – 1.

The next day my parents joined us as we hit my first ever McMenamin’s beer-fest. Just the concept for this event is exciting. There are 20+ McMenamin locations around the OR/WA area and all of them were asked to prepare a new beer. Then, each of the beers are sampled at several beer-fests around the state, with drinkers voting on their favorites. Then the winning beer represents the McMenamin’s brand in a national brewfest next fall. So, with visions of 20 fantastically new beers dancing in our heads, we entered the establishment and immediately saw the commemorative cake and the belt for the winning brewery. We grabbed our seats and started drinking. Some of the titles were more inspired than the beer, but the opportunity to taste beer that will probably never be bottled or reproduced was inexplicably exciting. Some of my favorites: Don’t worry be hoppy (with it’s hoppy zing), Bada-Bing (a porter brewed with chocolate and bing cherries), and M (the thousandith brew from one of the brewmasters – also our tables top pick). We then went and saw Cloverfield with our bellies full of beer. Beer count – 21.

On Sunday, the day we were heading out to the Edgefield, Sarah and I went into Portland to meet with a wedding florist. After our meeting (which went very well) we saw that there was an old theater on our block playing this years Oscar nominated short films (live action and animated). It was a no-brainer (even without beer in our systems) and we hopped into the animated collection. I’d like to go into the impressive and bizarre shorts we saw, but this blog is about beer now and I’m sticking to my theme. Post film, we saw there was a local brewery right across the street and we continued to figure “what the hell?” The place is called the Laurelwood public house and brewery. They made a mean cannoli and nifty 10-beer sampler. Standouts included their vanilla stout and tree-hugger porter. Beer count – 31.

That night we visited the Edgefield and made a point to switch from beer to wine. Mostly, we did this because we wanted to taste what options would work best for our wedding. However, after a great round of meals and 7 glasses of wine, we switched back to beer. Oh, glorious beer. We ended our night, and our weekend, with glasses of Sleepy Hollow Brown Ale and Nitro Cream Ale, while watching Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox story. Beer count – 33 plus wine – 7: total 40!

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend full of…beer. And movies, and fun, and families. And beer.

Burp.

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Perils of Frugality

by on February 20, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized

Every so often, I wake up in the morning and feel genuinely peaceful. I feel in tune with all of creation, and that there are nothing but possibilities at my fingertips. It’s usually mornings like this that life decides you need to be taken down a notch, shown that you certainly are not “all that,” and reminded that you are still a bumbling goof.

This morning, my car ran out of gas on the way to work. See, I’d been puting off a trip to the gas station because money has been flowing in a strictly outward direction these past few weeks, and I was hoping to make it to Friday without bending over to Big Oil for my monthly beating. Not surprisingly, my car lurched and died five blocks from home. I had to run home because I’d also forgotten my cell and needed to call work and let them know I’d be late. I borrowed the keys to Becky’s car, and drove to the gas station where I borrowed a 3 gallon can and put a couple gallons in Becky’s car as well (she was almost out). I was half-way home when I noticed that I’d not only left Becky’s fuel door open, but I could see in the side mirror that the gas cap was still precariously balanced on the open door.

I made it back home without incident, but in my haste to get back home, I’d also forgotten to close the air spout on the back of the gas can. I should explain that my wife owns a hatch back, thus there was no trunk to put the can in, so it was sitting behind the driver’s seat. I’d rolled down the windows to keep from asphyxiating on the fumes, but apparently left the air cap off so that droplets of gasoline could soak the papers beneath it. Even destroying the papers didn’t lessen the chemical stench in the car. Becky’s not happy about it, but it actually affects me more.

I once had to do the old siphoning trick on my grandpa’s pickup truck to get to work about a decade ago. Anyone who’s done that knows that it takes about two days for the taste to get out of your mouth, followed by another three days of smelling gasoline everywhere you are. The memory has stayed with me.

So, I’ve had better mornings. How about you?

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