Although we’re still behind on a few things, overall, I’d say we got a lot done this weekend. Friday night we watched the movie Juno, which was excellent. Excellent cast, real dialog, well, just very real in general. Well done!
Saturday we worked the Decatur Arts Festival from 10-1 and then had lunch at Twains. Saturday night we watched two bad movies: Cloverfield and Pan’s Labyrinth (aka El Labirinto del Fauno). Cloverfield was pure suckage for two hours. Using a steadycam does NOT make your movie better, Abrams. This was a STINKER. I am now feeling very sad that Abrams is doing the Trek movie. If he sucks as bad with Trek as he did with Cloverfield, it will be unwatchable.
Pan’s Labyrinth was not bad like Cloverfield – to the contrary, it was well shot, well written, well directed, overall a very high quality movie. The problem I had with it was the period (fascist Spain, 1944) and the totally depressing, dark and NOT fun movie it actually is. If I want tragedy, I’ll rent a Chinese movie: beautiful costumes, lovely women, everybody dies. But at least there’s pretty stuff to look at!! Pan’s Labyrinth is not as much fantasy as I thought it was. It’s very little fantasy, actually. It deserved the accolades and I love del Toro, but it was not what I expected or particularly wanted to see.
I must point out that Nick picked the movies this time – he’s currently banned from movie picking for a while! I picked Juno, the only one that was fun and good. Heh.
Sunday, was all about yardwork. I was mowing the back yard when the little Bolens push mower began to choke. We just had it serviced ($75), so we had to decide whether to spend more money on a 4 year old mower that was only $160 to begin with or get a new bigger mower… Off we went to Lowe’s. We got a TroyBilt 160cc Honda push mower. This mower is about a step and a half up from the little Bolens and we can certainly tell. It’s heavier and it does an amazing job with cutting/bagging/mulching. It’s also quieter than the Bolens. The Honda engine is aluminum and much better quality than the small Briggs and Stratton on the Bolens. After slaving away in the yard all day, we were ready to kick back and drink some beer!
I had put out some calls to various people on Saturday night, because we were slightly bored and wanted some company, but no takers. Barry called me around 4:30 on Sunday thinking I’d just called him. It was from the day before, but we still wanted to hang out, so Barry and Kalyn came over and we grilled some cow. We had an excellent time!
Monday was all about NO work and seeing Caroline/Dru’s new house. We made the trek to East Bumblefuck without issue. They’ve got a late 70s style split foyer that is odd and cool. We had shrimp stew, wings, cajun potato salad, cookies and plenty of beer and cider. Yum! Aside from the good food, we got a wonderful arc of stories for ThinkWeasel! It is the history of the contributions the weasel has made to warfare. Very appropriate for Memorial Day, I think! Thanks to all our crazy friends for creating such a funny story! ::smooch::
We came home after the festivities and watched Open Season, which we’d had laying around forever. It is by Sony animation, so it’s no Pixar, but the story and jokes were very funny and I enjoyed it. Anytime you anthropomorphise animals, I’m all over it. The bunnies were especially amusing. :-)
I passed out at 10pm and didn’t wake up until 9am this morning. I feel great, but I hate it when you start the week late and are already behind. Bleh. Well, enough chatter, I’ve got to get some work done.