1. When her beloved TiVo breaks, and you have to get out the ancient VCR, help with the transition:
2. While watching Dr. Who, season 6, if your weird wife is having a hard time visualizing timelines, help her out with a hand-drawn diagram. Important: Before you come to your senses and help her in the friendly manner you excel at, stating that “It’s not that hard to figure out” is not the best first approach as it will unleash an expletive-filled verbal lashing. While she does understand you don’t mean anything by it, it’s still kind of an assy move.
3. On a weekend, when you all have planned to see a movie, like you do every weekend, and you’ve looked up all the showtimes and ran down everything that’s playing and even sometimes looked up all the reviews because your weird wife is also a weird lazy wife, get your day started off right. Since your weird wife doesn’t trust her own memory when it comes to time, write everything on her hand so that you don’t have to answer the same question 10 times before it’s time to leave. Hand is best, she will misplace paper.
On the right of this blog is an Amazon affiliate banner. Yes, it’s an affiliate link, but it’s also a little list of the things I’ve been watching at any given time, like a lazy, non-personal journal. It’s over that way ======>
But, I also like to occasionally talk about what I’ve seen, and so here’s some of the stuff I’ve watched over the last few weeks:
Things I Hadn’t Seen Before:
1. Downton Abbey. Everyone kept blabbing about how good it was, and it’s generally not my kind of thing, but if something’s good, and it’s taking a segment of the population by storm, sometimes I feel left out. So, Tom and I watched the whole first season (or “series” if you’re British) over a weekend. It’s pretty addictive. It caused a few tweets from me:
Although, I have to say, the second season is getting a little too far fetched for me (we’re watching it as it’s being shown on PBS). I feel like unrealistic decisions are being made by the characters for the sake of suspense and tension. And, quiet suppressed emotion really does drive me up the wall eventually. Just say what you’re thinking, for God’s sake! It reminds me of this Eddie Izzard bit:
2. REC Spanish zombies! I liked this movie. It’s only 78 minutes long, and you know what? It doesn’t need to be any longer. It has very good pacing, and considering the situation the characters are put it, things move swiftly, as they should. The movie was re-made in America – Quarantine – essentially shot-for-shot. I haven’t seen Quarantine, but I can’t imagine there’s anything in it that would improve upon REC.
3. The Public Enemy I’d never seen a James Cagney movie before. I thought it was time. Good lord does he have charisma. It was made in 1931, so it does have early film pacing, those kinds of awkward beats that seem like a play is being filmed, if that makes sense. Jean Harlow, who I love in Dinner at Eight, hasn’t quite gotten her style together yet. She reads her lines in of the strangest cadences I’ve ever heard. The DVD we watched had a whole segment featuring Martin Scorsese explaining why The Public Enemy is one of his favorite movies, and THAT I really loved.
4. Big Trouble in Little China I loved this so much. You know what the best thing about this movie is? The fact that the whole plot makes no sense but Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) has no idea what’s going on, either, and he just goes with the flow, so you do, too. Kurt Russell is so good in this movie. I found a compilation of Jack Burton being confused about what the hell is happening and it made me laugh all over again.
Things I Had Seen:
1. Spinal Tap The local theater showed this the other week, so I got to see if for the first time on a big screen. We own this movie on DVD. The DVD has commentary from Spinal Tap in-character and it’s hilarious. It’s like a second movie. There’s so many good moments in this movie. My favorite is the entire Stonehenge segment, but it’s just filled wall to wall with jokes.
As you may already know, I like to look through old catalogs on wishbookweb.com. I genuinely like doing it, so please don’t comfort yourself by thinking that I look at them so I can make fun of them later. That’s just a bonus.
This weekend, my catalog of choice was the 1975 Sears Catalog. It was a good year for catalogs. The plaids, mustard yellows, burnt oranges, and avocado greens were plentiful and the bottoms were belled. Here’s what I found:
Have you ever seen a more depressing image in a catalog? These two clearly did NOT want Winnie the Pooh jogging suits for Christmas.I find this picture frightening. I feel like these children are threatening me with the way Pooh's head is on the floor and they are eating his innards. And the look on their faces doesn't help, either.What is this? Some kind of messed up training for future Eyes Wide Shut parties? These are pajamas, not costumes. Children who wear creepy masks to bed should not be marketed to in Sears catalogs. And, if they are the spawn of Satan, you can't even fight them off with fire because the pajamas are flame resistant.
Finally, I was really surprised when I fake turned the page and saw world-famous 1970’s-early 80s supermodel Corduroy featured on the pages.
What he was doing in the Sears catalog, and how they could have afforded him is a mystery. As we all know, he quickly shot to fame and was on the cover of dozens of high-profile magazines.
Until, of course his untimely death – brought down by the excesses of being a famous one-name 1970s supermodel.
While I certainly understand that a gray, rainy, soggy day sucks (I’ve been in a bad mood for a month partially because of the weather), neither one of you will use a toilet. And, if I were to introduce you to the concept of a litter box, you would consider it more a buffet than a bathroom. So, we are left with sticking with what works most other days of the year – you both need to pee and poop outside.
I’m writing you this letter at noon, which means you have refused to pee for well over twelve hours now. You are both boy dogs, you LOVE to pee on things – if you had eHarmony profiles, it would be one of the first things you listed under “likes.” I KNOW you have to pee, don’t look at me like I’m insane when I force you outside.
I would like to remind you both of the following facts:
Jenkins – you lived your first 8-9 months of your life chained outside in someone’s backyard. I’m sure it rained. Several times. Did you melt? No.
Ed – you lived your first several YEARS most likely a semi-feral country dog who has been shot at with bb guns and were most certainly rained on. While I have applauded your spirit and willingness to rise above your past and become a couch dog many times, I do feel the need to point out that my asking you to not pee in the house is not akin to your homeless rural beginnings.
This is the deal: if you both suck it up for fifteen damn seconds and go pee on the side of the house for all I care (and I know you can do it because I’ve seen it happen), I will stop shoving you out the door every twenty minutes. Then, you can stop acting like I’m twirling my mustache and planning on taking over the world somehow by forcing two spoiled dogs to get their tootsies wet. Those ASPCA ads were NOT made for dogs in your current situation, as much as you’d like me to believe that.
Sincerely,
Carrie
