I hate Wes Craven

I went to see Wes Craven's new movie, Red Eye, tonight with my roomate Julie. I was completely utterly pissed by the end of the movie. Wes Craven is a @#%ing @sshole!!! This is twice now that I have been tricked into seeing movies by him that were falsely represented by their trailers. The trailer makes the movie look like it is going to be a supernatural thriller/horror movie, but in reality it is a boring, predictable piece of crap with no supernatural, no thrill, and no horror. WTF!!! I can't believe they can get away with this crap. And Hollywood wonders why ticket sales have decreased so much in the past year. Hmmm....let's see, the ticket price and snacks are outrageously priced, we have to sit through 20 minutes of advertisements and previews, people can't put down their @#$% cell phones, then after you watch the movie you come to find out that the trailer was a complete falacy just to scam people out of their money. There are a million great books out there that are just waiting to be created into movies.

Picnic at Aunt Jerry's

Pretty uneventful day today. I slept in till about 9:30 AM, then made my way downstairs for some breakfast. I watched Raging Bull while eating breakfast. It was recommended to me by a friend because I had told him how much I had enjoyed Million Dollar Baby. I really wanted to like this movie, but for must of the movie I found myself just getting bored. It was drawn out, and there really wasn't much that happened. There would be a quick fight, De Niro would go into a jealous rage over his wife looking or talking to another guy, then there would be another fight. There were a couple scenes that were filmed beautifully, but overall this movie was not what I was expecting it to be. Perhaps it just lost some of it's edge with age, or maybe it was just because I disliked how big of a cocky asshole the main character was.

At 2:30 PM, I went over to my sisters house to pick her and Emily up and we drove over to my Aunt Jerry's house. There was a little family gathering being held there for my Grandmother & Aunt who were up from Florida. I was bored to death at the gathering. I really should have just skipped it because there really was no point for me being there. My relatives, a.k.a the baby paparrazi, spent the entire gathering snapping pictures of my sister's new baby and my cousin's 2-year old daughter. It was insane; and completely boring for me. I felt so out of place, because I had noone my age to talk to, and it was just the same conversation over and over with the relatives.

Family Fun Night at Browns Stadium

I started the morning by watching the last few episodes of the first season of Tru Calling. I was skeptical about the show when I watched the first couple episodes, but after that the series just kept getting better and better. I then watched another episode of Brat Camp that was on my DVR. I stand by my opinion from my previous post. This is one of the most worth while shows to make it on television for a long time.

Around 4:00 PM, I met my sister, bro-in-law, and my niece at their place and we left for Cleveland to attend Family Fun Night at the Cleveland Brown's stadium. I took them to the Mongolian Barbeque before the game, and I think I have made some new fans out of them. Family Fun Night actually turned out to be a pretty kickass time. I'm not exactly what one would call a football fan, so my excitement was at a minimum at the idea of going. I did want to spend some time with them all though, so I agreed to go. Our seats were the second row up in the Browns endzone, section 145. They could not have been more perfect seats because the Browns were running the majority of their plays into the endzone on our side of the field. The best part of the evening though, hands down, would have to go to this little kid that could not have been more then a few years old who was sitting on his fathers' shoulders flexing and screaming out his rendition of "Who Let the Dogs Out". What made it so great though was that the audience all joined in with him barking the "hoo...hoo hoo...hoo hoo" part after he screamed at the top of his longs "Who Let the Dogs Out!". It's moments like these that make one treasure life.

Relatives

Today was a pretty decent day. I was in an unusually good mood for having been dissed yesterday. Probably because I was getting so into my work today. I have been designing a new website for the agency. Web design is a new experience to me, and I'm very interested in learning some of the different techniques.

Following work, I went home for a short while and watched an episode of Brat Camp that was on my DVR. I honestly love this show. It sounded cheesy the first time I heard about it, but after the first episode I was hooked. It actually had me in tears when Nick was struggling to read the letter from his parents explaining why he was sent to the camp. He basically just broke down in the middle of trying to read it and explained that he has dislexia. He then went on to tell how is brother calls him stupid sometimes and that he should go live with their Father. You could just feel the kids pain, and it only got worse as the episode continued. I think what touches me so much about this show is that it brings back memories of when I was younger and how I sometimes felt. Along with Nick, the other kids had some tear jerking moments as well. If you haven't seen this show before, watch it. You will be lucky to find a show with as much emotion packed into an hour.

The capper for the night was going to my parents house to spend a little quality time with some of my relatives. My grandmother, Aunt Judy, and my cousin Kevin with his wife and daughter are in Ohio visiting this weekend. My Grandmother and my Aunt both live in Florida, and my cousin lives in Bowling Green. It was really nice to get to see them all because it has been years. Most of the night was spent being entertained by my cousins 5 year old daughter, Abigail. She was so adorable, and ball of energy describes this girl to a tee. She was dancing, rolling around on the floor, snacking on Sponge Bob crackers, and just having as much fun as possible. Kids are great. In my opinion, kids are one of the major things in this world that make life worth living.

Dissed Again!

Yes....dissed again. Today, Lauren and I were supposed to go golfing after work; or so I thought. Like Sunday though, I was given another excuse. This one actually hurt a little bit because it was just a plain flat out made up excuse. I was told that it was too hot today to go golfing. Granted it was hot, but there hasn't been many days lately that it has not been. The kicker was she had decided to go out with her cousins that night to the bar, and etc. How's that for a royal kick to the nuts. WTF! I can handle a girl not wanting to go out with me, but saying yes to something and then giving me excuses not to go do it, I just don't get. Fuggit....

Later that night, my friend Joe came over and we cooked some burgers on the grill, played some guitar on the porch, and watched National Treasure.

Dissed

Sunday, July 21, 2005. Like the title says....I got dissed! Damnit! I was supposed to go play golf with Lauren, the sexy college intern from my Dead People post. Lauren had a rugby tournament the day before, and she told me that she was too sore to go golfing. This may be the truth because she did play in multiple rugby games that day, but somehow it just seemed like more of an excuse to get out of going. Needless to say, I was a little disappointed, but I tried to be nice about the whole thing and just brush it off. She said that we could probably go later in the week if she was feeling better. Sounded good to me at the time, but I still felt despondent towards the situation.

Penguins

Saturday, July 30, 2005, I went to see March of the Penguins at the Cedar Lee Theatre in Cleveland with my friend Nick. The Cedar Lee Theatre is my new favorite theatre. It shows all of the good independent films that are released, and for an added bonus it serves alcohol. You never have to deal with the young kids that treat the theatre like social playtime, and the people that do attend this theatre are people with taste. Obviously the movies that they play aren't for everyone, but for someone like me, a true movie lover, it's one of the most heavenly places on earth.

Prior to the movie, Nick and I went out to eat at the Mongolian Barbeque. I love, love, love the Mongolian barbecue. If you have never been, I suggest that you go; you will not be sorry. Basically it is just a big buffet line where you grab a big bowl, fill it up with meat, procede down the line, fill it up with vegetables, grab a saucer and fill it with different types of sauces, and finally sprinkle some spices on top. After your bowl is ready, you take it over to the grill, where the chefs cook your creation in front of you. You can only blame yourself if you leave this place not enjoying the food.

March of the Penguins played like a documentary on discovery channel or animal planet. The film never showed people mingling with the penguins, it strictly focused on the penguins and their ritual of life. Being naive, I was always under the impression that mommy penguins just popped out an egg and then kept it warm until it hatched. I was way off. It's actually quite a complicated process that takes months and involves the father as much as the mother (perhaps even more than).

Dead People

On July 23, 2005 I went to see the dead people at the Great Lakes Science Center. Yes, actual dead people. Their bodies were preserved through a process called plastination, then positioned in various ways that provided a view of the inner organs, nerves, bones, etc. It sounds kind of gross, but really it was quite educational. Along with this facinating display there was a movie at the omnimax theatre that showed some parts of the human body in more detail. Touring the displays with me were my friends Nick, Mimi, and Lauren. Nick being the freak that he is, could not stop touching the dead people (even though there were signs everywhere telling people not to). I was just waiting for one of the parts to fall off, like a testicle or something. Didn't happen, but damn that would have been funny.

After going through all of the displays and watching the film, we were all pretty hungry; which is strange, but I guess it was just the cannibals in us or something. We went to eat at Nick's favorite restaurant, The Colony. It is a little pub where everyone knows your name and the food is spectacular. Well, I guess everyone didn't know my name, but everyone knew Nicks' name. We pigged out like crazy....Nachos w/cheese & chicken, Buffalo Wings, and Burgers! The food was excellent, and I got to chat with Lauren, the college intern from work. She's beautiful, smart, and just plain fun! Nick and Mimi were also fun as always at the pub.

Overall this was an excellent day for me, and hopefully there will be more days like it soon!

Monkeys

Because today is my first ever blogging experience, I'm going to try and pick a special topic to entertain myself with. Monkeys...that seems like as good a topic as any. I don't really know the first thing about monkeys, but my entire life I have thought about how cool it would be to actually own one. I think a monkey would be the ultimate pet. I mean seriously, have you ever been able to look at a monkey and not get a smile on your face. They have to be one of the most entertaining creatures on the planet. What I will never understand though, is how society has deemed it to be okay to use monkeys as test subjects. They are just sweet innocent creatures, and society says that just because they are not human, it's okay to basically kill them. Why not use prisoners that are on death row to test new drugs on? They are going to die anyways, and why not use them for something that could help others someday. I mean we're paying for their room and board, the least they could do is test out some drugs for us, right?