grrgoyl

Tery has returned home after her 3-week vacation, and no one is happier than me -- except maybe her. She was supposed to arrive Monday evening, until her plane leaving Rhode Island was detained on the tarmac for such an extended period of time (no explanation given) that she missed her connection, leaving her stranded at JFK for about 13 hours.

I myself have had plenty of travel mishaps, but that was back in the day when the airline gave you a meal, or sometimes even a hotel, voucher for your inconvenience. This was Tery's first, and she received nothing of the kind -- not that it would have done her any good, as JFK, despite being situated in The City That Never Sleeps, essentially shuts down in a retail capacity at 10 p.m. They did upgrade her to first class for the flight she eventually took home, which almost made up for her getting about 10 minutes of sleep in JFK's really-not-made-with-sleeping-in-mind seats (keep in mind sleep is challenging for Tery under the best of conditions. I would probably have been out like a light, a sentiment she didn't find particularly helpful). She documented most of it via camcorder, in increasingly bleary-eyed, miserable testimonials that looked more and more Blair Witchian as the morning wore on.

She actually burst into tears when my car pulled up to the curb to pick her up. I couldn't really blame her. I've been there too, and I've done that (when we first got together, I was already committed to a 2-week family visit in California. My flight home was delayed probably this long too. I left her the message from the airport, where I couldn't hold back the tears of frustration; here I finally had a girlfriend, someone I couldn't wait to get home to, and I was stuck at stupid John Wayne airport. Tery later told me hearing me cry on the answering machine was the first moment she realized she loved me, so it wasn't all bad).

This excursion to the airport marks the first time I got to see Denver's newest and most controversial public artwork, the Mustang. It was kind of unsettling at sunrise, and really not much less so in daylight.

Standing 32 feet tall, it's located at a spot where traffic zips by at such velocities that there's no chance of stopping to admire it -- or verify that it's not alive and won't start chasing you. Artistic embodiment of the fierce spirit of the West, or Emissary from Hell which will be your last earthbound sight if your plane crashes? You decide.

There are plenty of people criticizing it on the sites I found, but the funniest was someone's proposal that we petition the Convention Center's Big Blue Bear to come chase it away:

Denver: We've got a thing about gigantic blue animal sculptures.

~*~

I spoke earlier about vast accomplishments in Tery's absence. The second of these is another stained glass window, this one in the kitchen:

Whereas the masterpiece in the loft took about six months, this one took about six hours (or less) once I decided on a design. It serves two purposes: 1) I think it's awful purdy, and 2) our kitchen window has a direct view into our neighbor's living room due to an unfortunate lack of planning by the condo builders, and despite knowing how rude it is, we're simply powerless to avoid looking. With the help of the crystal clear glaze panels, now our neighbors are just fuzzy lights, not very compelling at all.

Funnily enough, Tery brought home this new rug from Ikea, which complements the red circles in the window perfectly:

Coincidence or freaky lesbian psychic connection? You decide.

~*~

Sunday night, with Tery's return imminent (or so I thought), I went upstairs to play me a little Rock Band, only to discover my Playstation suddenly refusing to read any of my discs. What the....? I searched online for answers in vain, apart from instructions on cleaning the lens. I wasn't optimistic, given a.) the console was bought from a pawn shop to begin with, so age unknown and warranty status grim, b.) the previous weekend actually Washburn had gotten 75% through the hole behind the entertainment center where the cords exit. I discovered him thrashing wildly and salivating desperately. I pulled him out without difficulty, but he had managed to displace most of the electronics inside the cabinet. I assumed he must have knocked the lens out of whack or something. Either way, I figured I was looking at a new (or close to new) PS2.

I spent most of the night cruising eBay and Craigslist, only to discover that most PS2 consoles in any kind of like-new condition were selling at like-new prices as well. My search was worth it though when I discovered one joker looking to trade his PS1 (which, the seller confided, is going to increase greatly in value very soon) for a PS3, Wii, or XBox 360. Yeah, good luck with that buddy. You can have my $400 PS3, and I'll take your PS1 that people are selling (or trying to) for around $15.

Monday morning I decided to quit faffing around looking for a used machine and just bought a new one at Target. Damn you, Rock Band. I can't just walk away.

Well, the new PS2 had the exact same problem. What the....FUCK. I gave up trying, applied to Sony for a service return request, and left it for a few hours. When I went back upstairs later, suddenly they BOTH worked again. GodDAMMIT.

I'd return it to the store, except I'm certain the minute I do the old one will start acting up again, and I gotta have my Rock Band. Especially with the new one coming out in a few short months.

~*~

Finally, some very quickie movie reviews, a pretty odd grouping, but that's how I roll when left on my own too long.

First, I've finally given Angel a chance, and made quite respectable progress with Tery gone -- Season 1 flew by, and I'm now almost halfway through 2. I don't know why I put it off for so long. It took no time at all to get sucked back into the Buffyverse (pun fully intended). Time will tell if I'll want to buy the boxed set that's obviously designed as a companion piece to the Chosen Collection. It's practically worth the purchase price alone for this scene of Angel dancing:

Second, Tipping the Velvet: This was recommended originally by

swankyfunk. Immediately preceding it in my Netflix queue was Fingersmith, probably a related recommendation from Netflix in the category of British lesbian movies. Tery and I watched it for all of three minutes, wherein some schoolchildren watched a hanging (?), and decided maybe it wasn't for us. Back to Netflix it went.

I was similarly ambivalent about Tipping the Velvet, in fact barely looked at the screen for the first ten minutes (I was working on the loft window project). Then Kitty Butler appeared and I was riveted from that point on.

Nan Astley is a simple girl from a fishing community with not much to look forward to in life but finding a husband and settling down, until by chance she attends the performance of Kitty Butler, a male impersonator who rocks her world (and mine). Glamorous, sexy, androgynous (though emphasis on the female), Nan falls in love instantly. Episode one is all about Nan shyly getting closer to her and trying to determine if her feelings are returned.

(Tiny spoiler ahead) Episodes two and three are about the turns Nan's life takes after Kitty betrays her: Dealing with life on the street in London as a "tom" but finding it more lucrative to be a male impersonator and service lonely gentlemen in the alleys, being taken in briefly by a leather mistress, then finally finding true love in the least likely of places.

I don't want to give any more away. I only want to say that I was absolutely spellbound and watched all 178 minutes in one go. I also thought it was based on some obscure stuffy Victorian text, but was actually written by a very modern little butch who simply "wrote the lesbian love story she wanted to read." And that's it in a nutshell: It deals with very real lesbian issues, like wanting someone and not knowing whether she even likes girls, or if the hand-holding and affection mean what you want them to mean, etc.

I excitedly called Tery to tell her how much I enjoyed it, how surprised I was at how much I enjoyed it, and she could watch it after I bought it for our library. She said, "See? Fingersmith might be the best lesbian movie ever made. We'll never know now."

Third, I caught Death Sentence on cable. Also enjoyed it more than expected, though still on the fence about buying it, mostly due to the overwhelmingly negative response it's gotten from nearly everyone else on the planet (not that I allow other people's opinions to influence me). Some people on Amazon are downright disgusted by it. Despite being directed by Saw's James Wan, they still apparently expected some sort of remake of The Crow with a Footloosian touch or something. I'm not sure.

Simple story: A father's life is shattered when random gang violence claims the life of his oldest son. Proper legal channels would get the gangbanger only three to five, so he opts instead for some good old-fashioned vigilante revenge. He succeeds, sparking a gang war on his family. The unfairness of this galled me, though I'm sure it's not so unrealistic: The gang members seem to think it's perfectly okay, even funny, that they can murder an innocent bystander and get away with it, but when one of their own is killed, oh brother, you've just entered a world of pain. There's also a fair amount of "Poor us. The police don't care at all when one of US gets killed." Yeah, poor you. It doesn't really matter who STARTED the violence.

I think Kevin Bacon did an outstanding job, really nailed a father caught between what's right in the eyes of the law and what he needs to do to satisfy his own sense of justice. People at Amazon all squawk at how unbelievable it is that a mild-mannered insurance employee (who, fittingly, works in risk assessment) would turn Rambo and take on an entire gang singlehandedly. I think it was covered with one line in the movie, "You don't know how you'll react until it happens to you."

However, I share the complaints that the police are portrayed as laughably ineffective, which of course clears the way for Kevin to leap into action himself.

The music was fantastic (NIN's Charlie Clouser again, though inexplicably there's no soundtrack available) and the ending fairly satisfying. So why haven't I bought it yet? I'M DOING IT. GOD.

~*~

Last but not least, it's only September and already I've had it up to here with the political ads. Although it is mildly amusing to watch the Republicans steal Obama's promise of change without the slightest hint of irony that the change the country is crying out for is from their party. Please America, don't be that stupid again. It might help if they weren't so SMUG, acting for all the world that it wasn't a Republican that got us into this mess to begin with. I tried to watch the RNC, but just couldn't stomach all the snideness. I had to resort to my Daily Show filter to get through it. I could go on and on, but it's so exhausting. Wake me up on November 5th, preferably with good news.