Saturday, July 11, 2009

Classics

I've spent a good portion of this afternoon, evening, and now night watching classic movies. It all started when we were in Squall-mart today and I saw Cool Hand Luke in the $3.00 rack. Cool Hand Luke is one of my favorite films and I've been wanting to buy it for a while. So, when I saw it for $3.00, it promptly went in the cart. It's one of the cinematic forefathers for films like The Shawshank Redemption (yes, I know Shawshank is based on a Stephen King short story, but the film itself draws quite a bit on Cool Hand Luke).

Well, once that finished, I was casting around for something else to watch and I spotted The Sting on our shelf. "It's been a while since I've watched that," I thought. So I did. To this day, The Sting is one of the all time great films.

And now, I've just put in The Magnificent Seven, one of the classic westerns, based on a classic early Japanese film.

And well see how late I'm up tonight, but I'm kind of suspecting the next film on the list might just be The Great Escape.

Friday, July 10, 2009

I Had Forgotten . . .

. . . just what a fucking great film Ghostbusters is.

Here are a couple of my favorite bits.






Amazingly, I was not able to find a clip of this: "I think this building should be condemned. There's serious metal fatigue in all the load-bearing members, the wiring is substandard, it's completely inadequate for our power needs, and the neighborhood is like a demilitarized zone."

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

A Little Tired and More Than A Little Pissed Off

I am running real short on sleep today. I think all told, I got maybe four or four and a half hours of sleep last night - and not all of that at one time.

First there were the bubbly, chipper girls next door who came outside several times (I'm assuming for a smoke) and proceeded to talk and laugh quite loudly as they were deciding to go ahead and head out to the bars for one of their birthdays at about 12:30 AM (why anyone would wait until 12:30 to head for the bar when they close at 2:00 is beyond me, but then again I do tend to take my drinking more seriously than some people). And since the first time they did this was just as I was starting to fall asleep, it woke me up - as it did the second time I was starting to go under. Only this second time, there were a couple of guys who noticed the girls and decided to try and "communicate" with them. Unfortunately for me, this included the guys shouting things to girls and then trying to impress them with left over fireworks. Despite sounding like empty-headed soccer-momlettes, these girls appear to have at least some sense because the they did shoot the guys down and went off to drink without them.

At last, I could sleep.

Or, at least, I could until about 2:00 or 2:30 when a fight started up outside the house next door. I'm pretty sure it was different guys from early, not I'm not certain. And really, I couldn't care less. Whomever it was this time, they were drunk and getting into it with another couple of drunk guys. I have no idea what the problem was except for it somehow involved someone trying to find their glasses. Whatever the cause, there was a lot of "Don't fuck with me, man!" and "I'll fuck you up!" going back and forth. There was even one shout of "I'm fuckin' Northside, bitch, I'll fuckin' kill you!"

Even in my tired, sleep deprived state at that point, I thought "Did he really just say that?" The only time people say that kind of shit is in bad movies or TV shows, or when they're drunk posers who are trying to look tough. Real gangs don't say that shit. I've known guys in gangs, and they called phrases like that "Hollywood crap" and would mock anyone who used such things.

Eventually, this fight broke up and the groups started to go their separate ways, allowing me to once again seek the comforts of unconsciousness. I should have known better. Apparently as a parting shot, one of the groups decided set off a couple of fireworks in the hopes that they would sound like gunshots to encourage the others on their way. Apparently it worked in at least getting their attention before they left.

How do I know this? I could hear the assholes laughing and bragging about it as they came back near our house. It sure as shit worked for getting my attention, I can tell you that. This last salvo (fuck, I must be tired to make a pun like that - I apologize) finished waking me up. It's now about 3:30 in the morning and I've had maybe an hour or an hour and half of real sleep and I've got to be up a little before 6:30. Fuck.

Needless to say, I was little tired this morning and more than a little pissed off. Unfortunately, we don't have any coffee in the office this morning. Even if we did, since it's a communal pot, I can't really get away with making my preferred plastic-melting, metal-etching type of coffee which is what I really needed today - but at least having a normal person's pot on hand would have been nice. So I had to stop at the coffee shop to get some on my way in. But that means only one cup, which proved to not be enough.

And I fully blame this on the drunk assholes. Yeah, the girls and their "suitors" were not real conducive to sleeping, but at least they were fairly early in the night and it was just mundane, if annoying, crap. The "fighters" however, are another matter. I will admit that a part of me would like to have a go at them with my cricket bat, but given that there were at least four of them, I have a feeling that might have resulting in me doing some serious damage to the bat before I was done.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Nearly Impossible . . .

. . . trying to move a 12-15 pound cat out of your lap when she has decided to go boneless.