Updatey datey: Crankwhores, pigeons, concerts (or lack thereof), Snarry and Robin Hood!

I feel the urge to update again, you lucky, lucky people.

Crankwhore: Still no sign of her in person, although we did get a call from the environmental testing 'people' (HA! My blog has inside jokes). It seems our attic tested positive for unacceptable levels of contamination. They'll have to break through the firewall after all, and decontaminate all the seasonal stuff we've got stored up there. You can imagine the effect this news had on the tiny amount of good will I'd managed to scrounge up earlier in her defense. Fucking Crankwhore. It also occurred to me that we pulled all that stuff down for Christmas, obviously long before realizing the danger. Fucking Crankwhore poisoned Christmas! This might shed some light on why I was so sick for the first three months of this year, or perhaps not since Tery wasn't. Until they clean it up, all that stands between our bedroom and unacceptable levels of contamination is a thin piece of plywood with cottage cheese ceiling material. THAT'S a relaxing thought. The good news is I'll get to hang with my friend Leah some more.

Pigeons: The HOA sent out a pest control "hit man" to examine our situation. He gave us large corn kernels to lay down for them with instructions to call him back in 3 weeks when he would switch them out for poisoned kernels. Mind you, I don't really want them dead, but it is starting to resemble an Alfred Hitchcock movie around here. We put out the corn and honest to god haven't seen them since (on our balcony, at least). Go figure: I attacked them with a bat repeatedly for a week, and they kept coming back. We covered the balcony top to bottom with elaborate fencing, and they kept coming back. We lay down a little corn for them, and they said, "Shit, they mean business! We're outta here!" As MyFriendDeb put it, "Perhaps all the ones who said, 'Look! Food from the people previously hostile to our presence!' have been weeded out already." The birds aren't gone completely. Tery noticed definite nest-building activity over on the CW's balcony *snicker* The babies? Dead. Tery was upset, but come on... it's not like she drove them miles and miles away. They were in a tree 10 feet away from the building. Any species too stupid to find their offspring in this situation deserves to be thinned a little.

Concerts: I had a bit of an existential crisis on Friday. I decided I HAD to see Muse when they come to Denver next month, forcing me to ask the age-old question that still has no answer -- where have all my real friends gone? You know how you kind of categorize your friends in terms of social situations? Like, Friend A is good to see a movie with but Friend B is better at a club? Yeah, I don't have enough friends to do that. And concerts are trickiest of all because they are typically expensive, a logistical pain in the ass (buying tickets, getting to the location, fighting the crowds to get to your seat, then when it's all over fighting the crowds to escape, etc.), PLUS you have to know someone who likes the band enough to deal with the first two issues. Not easy. I had a friend for this category, he even lived in the Denver area, but the shithead went and moved out of state on me. Long story short (for real this time), I got so frustrated and self-pitying trying to think of someone to go with me (that was right about the time I contacted you, metatronis) that I called Tery in tears and she said she would go. She said she LOVED Muse and couldn't wait to go with me. She was lying of course (proven easily enough when she couldn't sing even one song), but that's what you do when you love someone as much as she loves me. But then I got online to buy us tickets and stopped dead in my tracks when I realized the place where they're playing didn't have assigned seating. "Standing Room/Limited Seating" it said. I didn't care for the sound of that at all. I'm getting too old to be stuck in a giant mosh pit with a bunch of 16-year-olds. I had an instant flashback to every concert I've ever been to. With the exception of Sarah McLachlan where I practically fell asleep, concerts usually sound like a lot of fun in theory until I get there and suddenly remember they're all hordes of obnoxious, often drunk people who are going to spend the rest of the night jamming their elbows into my boobs. Or so I rationalized to myself. Those conditions might be more tolerable with someone as passionate about the band as I am, but not with someone who's going just to make me happy, as much as I love her for it. Sorry, Roxie, I'm going to puss out. : (

Snarry: I'm writing attempting one of my own. It's a more daunting task than I thought it would be, keeping them in character. Tery says it's good so far, for what that's worth coming from someone who hasn't read the books and has only seen small snippets of the movies before I relent and let her change the channel. She takes great pleasure in adding her own bits to the story, for example: "Poop," said Harry. "You're stinky," said Snape. Very mature. She's also very insistent that I incorporate a famous phrase from her own teenage writing effort, namely, "Cooperate, you hot bitch." I asked if I could scatter the words throughout rather than use them in the same sentence. (I'm kidding. I won't be using at least half of these words.) I haven't decided yet whether it will see the light of day. I feel terribly shy about posting it in one of the Snarry communities; not so much fearing negative feedback (I'm perfectly capable of stringing words together into pleasing and grammatically correct sentences, which is more than I can say for some of the writers who have posted there) as having it be completely ignored, as it seems most of my other appearances on LJ are. Maybe it will be available by request only. I don't know why fiction writing is so intimidating, I certainly find it easy enough to blather on about my life.

Finally, a movie review 15 years in the making: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. I taped this for the Rickman goodness of course. I had worked an 11-1/2-hour inventory during the day and plopped on the couch as soon as I got home. 15 minutes later my joints had stiffened up so much I literally could barely move enough to change out of my uniform. I discovered this is actually the most desirable condition in which to watch Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and possibly the only way to endure Kevin Costner's embarrassingly bad performance - namely, to be so utterly immobilized that you can't even muster the strength to work the remote. Oh my god. He might even be worse than Richard Gere, someone I had previously considered to be the world's worst, most overrated actor. I've seen RH: PoT before of course, but that was when I was much younger (well, 15 years younger to be exact) and still blissfully unaware that appallingly horrible actors can be glorified just for being marginally good-looking.

Some of the more painful lines (which I will not blame the writers for....there's nothing wrong with the lines themselves, only the actor delivering them):

(Being chased by Nottingham and his men, debating entering haunted Sherwood Forest) "Either we face the ghosts or become ghosts ourselves!" Not the best of lines, but Kevin's delivery is so ham-handed it made me physically cringe.

(just before the Turkish executioner is going to cut off his hand in prison) "This is English courage," says Kevin. No, judging from your accent I'd say it's Southern Californian courage. Is it so very hard to do a British accent? Apparently not, as later in the film when he poses as a beggar to sneak into church he does a perfectly passable Cockney accent. Why, Kevin, why? Because no one would buy you with a British accent? Well, I don't buy that Robin Hood was a "whooooohooooooo!" guy (which is what Kevin does when he becomes over-excited about walking on his farmland again). (BTW The same accent criticism applies to Christian Slater, who comes awfully close....but then gives up, doubtlessly in light of his co-star's pathetic effort.)

Even when he's saving people's lives he's got the emotional range of a beer vendor at a baseball game. I could go on and on, but you get the point.

Of course Alan does his best in the way of damage control, but there's only so much you can do as the deliciously evil comic relief. Wearing deliciously evil leggings and pirate shirt. Deliciously raping and pillaging and...and....oh hell, what was I saying?

As for Morgan Freeman, he was the only bright spot next to Alan. And got all the best lines (AND managed to deliver them in a foreign dialect. ACTING!!!!)

This is the review imdb.com chose to post on the RH: PoT front page:

I am totally shocked this movie has such a low rating! [I am totally shocked you feel passionately enough about the movie to say so]

I thought it was an excellent movie. One of my favorites!!

Of course Kevin Costner is so yummy! He could be the only character and I would still love it! ["Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - a one-man show in three acts, by Kevin Costner." Might actually be kind of amusing]

Also Mary Elizabeth [don't want to attempt spelling her last name?] did a good job as Marian. I thought both of them put alot of emotion into their roles and they had GREAT chemistry! I loved watching Marian go from wary of Robin Hood to realizing he wasn't "stealing all the gold and jewels for himself". [wait, why is this in quotes? Is this a line from the movie?]

You could just see the love on the screen! Of course Alan Rickman made a super bad guy. [how generous of you to mention him in the midst of your Kevin Costner-obsessed frenzy] And who can not like the Bryan Adams song? [::meekly raising hand::] Perfect addition to this movie!

All in all a great cast and a great twist on an old story!

This was written in 2004, long after most people had realized that some Hollywood blockbusters of olde don't always stand the test of time. I'm guessing this person still lives in their parents' basement and owns a very battered, worn out VHS copy of the movie.

Ugh. 3 out of 5, as long as you edit out anything not involving Alan.