come on down, i'll chew on the dog!

as i lay here in bed watching beetlejuice for the billionth time, i am reminded of all the movies that i watched incessantly as a child. it wasn't until i was much older that i realized it isn't normal for a kid in elementary school to watch beetlejuice, batman, ghostbusters, and indiana jones and the last crusade on a pretty much weekly basis.

my uncle john was the first person i knew who owned a cd player. he was so hip back then. he was also the first person i knew who had 2 vcrs and could make copies of movies, thus the strange list of movies for a kid to own. my twin friends, alison and alanna, once told me about their uncle john who also copied movies for them using 2 vcrs except he copied movies like the little mermaid, you know, movies that are appropriate for children. oh and don't think i didn't watch the little mermaid A LOT when i was a kid, because i did, but it didn't stick with me in the same way. and the "kid" movies that did stick with me? creepy movies like the return to oz and the gnome-mobile. have any of y'all seen those movies? creepy as shit!

now, as near as i can tell, watching these "grown-up" movies as a youngster didn't have any real affect on me. yes, i am an odd duck but i think that was bound to happen anyway.

picture from the gnome-mobile released by disney in 1967

what movies do you remember watching the most as a child? 

movies movies movies

when i got laid off i thought maybe i should cancel my netflix subscription. i mean, it's an added expense that i don't really need. but then i figured that i would need something to entertain me during this period so i decided to keep it. i've used netflix a couple other times in the past, as well as blockbuster online. i re-subscribed to netflix in august and was sooooo lazy about it. i kept movies for WEEKS (and i'm talking weeks) at a time. since being laid off, though, i've watched:

broken flowers
sunshine cleaning
i'm not there
adventureland
i love you, man
waitress
whip it
thumbsucker
into the wild
watcher in the woods
death proof
planet terror
gigantic
pineapple express
one flew over the cuckoo's nest
i'm reed fish
the hangover

i'd seen several of those movies before but i re-watch movies so many times it's ridiculous. i also watched all 10 episodes of party down, season 2 of weeds, and several episodes of fawlty towers. i'd say that i've made up for those few months where i was so lax about using the service.

also since being laid off i've taken myself on three movie dates. i saw up in the air, fantastic mr. fox (for the second time), and an education. i absolutely loved all of them.

now i just need to start reading (books, not blogs) a little more.

the amazing mr. anderson

i would say that, overall, wes anderson is my all-time favorite director. i absolutely adore all of his movies. i can't really think of a good way to express how i feel about them. they just make sense to me.

on sunday i saw the fantastic mr. fox and let me tell y'all, wes did not disappoint with this one! i found myself so enraptured with the set and the puppets. i just couldn't believe that everything was handmade. that blows my mind! i think the sets belong in the smithsonian. no kidding, they are truly a masterpiece! and it's not just a great movie in visual terms, the story and cast are wonderful too. i hope to see it again very soon, perhaps this weekend.

anyhow, i thought i'd leave you guys with some of my favorite videos from/about the movie. and please go see it!

in this first one, pay special attention to :48 in and 1:38 in...those are two of my favorite parts of the entire movie!

some movie stuffs

i realize that the last thing i posted was a movie trailer but here's some more movie stuff.

last night i went to see 500 days of summer and i absolutely adored it. i loved the story, the actors, the soundtrack...almost everything! i didn't quite care for the very end but you can't win them all.

before the movie we saw the following trailers, which all looked good to me in different ways:

i saw the trailer for whip it a few weeks ago and i'm still interested in seeing it. it just looks cute! plus, the third wilson brother is in it and he's such a fox (well, he would be if he wasn't so hairy). and, of course, i love kristen wiig so damn much.

who doesn't love demetri martin? seriously, who? taking woodstock doesn't look super fabulous or anything but i just think it looks fun. i doubt i'll see it in the theater though because i so rarely see movies in the theaters.

my only complaint about adam is that peter gallagher's character seems like kind of a tool. sandy cohen would never act like that! but in all seriousness, i am very intrigued by this movie because i've always had a fascination with asperger's syndrome for some reason.

rachel getting married

the first time i saw this trailer i wasn't really paying attention until "everyday" by rogue wave came on. i adore their version of that song. adore adore adore! anyway, i actually watched the trailer a day or so later and it looks really good.

i thought you might be worried about the security of your shit

the coen brothers have a new movie coming out and it looks freakin' AWESOME!! my dad is hilarious. his cat, shonequa, has some sort of bladder infection. she just got over one. she will pretty much only drink out of the sink in my parents' bathroom so she got dehydrated while we were in kansas. when she has these infections, she pees all over the place. so here's the funny story...my dad couldn't find any of his bandannas this morning (he uses them when he works outside...he wraps them around his head to catch sweat. gross.) so he grabbed one out of my mom's gym bag. then all morning he was thinking, "what is that disgusting smell?" cat piss on the bandanna. so he called my mom and asked her if she was planning on going to the gym after work and she said no. he said, "good because the cat pissed in your gym bag and i've got it wrapped around my head." hahaha he has a way with words that really cracks me up sometimes. -we played trivia at the pluckers in round rock last night because lakeline trivia is douchetastic right now. there was an entire sex and the city round! i got 9 out of 10 of them correct. the only one i missed was what day of the week does carrie's column run. i totally spaced and thought it was tuesday but it was wednesday. but i totally dorked out on one of them. the question was who did carrie dedicate her book to and i wrote "charlotte-the eternal optimist". i may or may not have too much time on my hands. we came in 4th. the sports round really killed us! -girl talk has a new album out. you can name your price for a digital download of it. it's super fun. i think "still here" is my favorite track right now. alright, i'm off to eat some lunch and then get my blood taken again. they found a high level of calcium in my blood last week so my doctor wants to check it again. apparently something like 98% of people with high calcium levels in their blood have hyperparathyroidism. some of the symptoms are dead on but i don't really think that means i have it.

3 awful movies

here are trailers for 3 movies that look absolutely terrible: you don't mess with the zohan the love guru tropic thunder OMG. awful, awful, awful! why anyone would want to see any of those movies is baffling to me. it's pretty sad, actually...adam sandler, mike myers, and ben stiller? they're better than this crap! what is happening?!?

non-wilco related blog

i do have other things going on in my life other than wilco, i promise. such as...I FINALLY ORDERED MY DIGITAL SLR! i ended up going with the black canon rebel xti. i have no idea when it is going to arrive but i sure do hope it is soon. i can't wait to take pictures of wittle nels with it! i'm going to turn him into a baby model. a while back i wrote about how i was going to buy the indiana jones box set but it was full screen so didn't. really all i wanted was indiana jones and the last crusade anyway. i mean, the other ones are good but the last crusade is my faaaavorite. my sister and i used to watch it all the time when we were little. so today i hauled my ass to target and bought it! they just released all 3 of them individually as "special edition" dvds in conjunction with the theatrical release of the new indiana jones movie. i'm going to watch it right after the law and order: svu season finale. while i was at target i also bought a pack of topps baseball cards for the 2008 season. i'm starting a baseball card collection for nels. how cute is that? yeah, i think it's adorable. i already decided if he doesn't get taller than 6 feet he can be a catcher because he'll probably have sturdy hips and thighs. otherwise, he might have to be a pitcher. either way he's going to switch hit so he'll be more valuable to whatever team he is on. yeah, he's only like 5 days old but it's never too early to plan for the future :) speaking of baseball, i haven't been. i've been pretty busy so i haven't been able to pay a whole lot of attention to what has been happening in america's favorite past time. but i do know that the yankees kind of blow right now. i'm so not worried about it though. it's only may 13 and they're still not very far behind the red sox who are leading the al east. however, they do need a-rod and jorge back as soon as possible. a-rod could be back in about a week. jorge still has another month probably before they'll think about activating him off the DL. i miss my jorgie!

dear diary,

this is probably going to feel a bit like a diary entry because i have a lot of random goings on to discuss. let's start with robin's birthday. the party at amber and lolo's went better than any of us could have expected! there were so many wonderful faces to see. it was wonderful! and, miraculously, most of us made it down to beauty bar before midnight. it's all a bit fuzzy but there are pictures to prove that it was just as much fun as i think i remember it being :) sunday was a long day of doing nothing. i had the beginnings of a migraine, mixed with a hangover, so i pretty much wanted to die. but it was all worth it because i had a marvelous weekend. monday i went to see smart people with zach. it was very blah. the cast was great, duh, but the storyline was very flat and the ending left just about EVERYTHING to be desired. so, in short, i do not recommend it and i'm glad that we went to a matinée showing. after the movie we had coffee and played uno outside of starbucks for a little while. it was very pleasant and nice to catch up with my old roomie. after he left to spend time with his dad i went over to josh's to be bored to death. finally casey came over and we went to spiderhouse for a couple of drinks. i always wish i could be one of the people that gets to overhear our conversations because i'm sure they're fascinating to strangers. tuesday was feist at stubb's! dana and i headed to jaime's around 6:00 and stayed there until about 8:45 before rushing over to the show. oh jaime's. their margaritas hurt so good. they have a huge pitcher of patron margaritas on the rocks for like $30, and it's $26 during happy hour. normally, we get a pitcher like that if we have 4 or 5 people but we decided to get one just for the 2 of us anyway. yoooowzas. the show itself was great, i can't remember every song that was played but we did a lot of dancing and laughing and self portrait taking. it was great! you've heard how the feist night ends so there's no need to go into that again. yesterday i stayed home all day until it was time to go to pluckers for trivia. it wasn't our best night but we ended up winning anyway. the finals are on april 30. my sister is due on may 1 so let's hope that a) she doesn't have the baby before april 30 and that b) she's not bed-ridden or something. the prize for this round is actually really good! we get to take our whole team to a round rock express game to watch from one of the boxes with free beer and food. it sounds way better than the super bowl party that we won! which was still fun but...you know. today i had horrible horrible horrible allergies i didn't do a thing until about 4:00 when i decided to go buy some allergy medicine. and that's pretty much it. i also got a mothers' day card for my mom and for my sister, since she's having her baby right before mothers' day! how exciting, her first mothers' day is right after the baby is born! speaking of cards, i would like to encourage any of you that might read this blog to check out this facebook group. if you have a moment, please drop a get well card in the mail for bette. it would mean a lot to her, which in turn means a lot to kerry, which in turn means a lot to me. she needs all the positive thoughts and wishes she can get right now! and i would also like to remind you all how fantastic it would be if you could make a donation to the avon walk for breast cancer that my friend tanya is participating in. please see this post for more information. thanks guys! seriously, it would really mean a ton to me if you could make any sort of donation. large or small! it doesn't matter! this is one of those cases where it's true to say "size doesn't matter!" and now i'm going to watch drop dead gorgeous and let my ambien cr kick in. i really think this is the best role kirsten dunst has ever played!

hodge podge 1

there's no general theme to this particular blog posting. last night i went to barnes and noble and best buy. at b&n i bought girl, interrupted and prozac nation. yes, i am aware that i bought two crazy books. perhaps i'm feeling a little crazy lately. maybe reading these books will help me put my own shit into perspective. or, maybe it'll just make me even crazier! at best buy i found this. pride of the yankees, bull durham, and eight men out all for $22.99? i had a bit of an ordeal trying to figure out if the movies were full or wide screen. i never buy full screen. i hate it. however, i was thisclose to buying the indiana jones box set in FULL SCREEN because i didn't even notice. i went to grab the correct one and they didn't have it! i don't know if they were just out of wide screen or if they just don't make it. weird. anyway, so i stumbled upon the triple play and immediately had to find out if they were in full screen or not. i looked around for a blue shirt to help me out and when i finally found one, i realized it was a guy i had gone to middle and high school with. in 7th grade he apparently "stole" some girl's science book so she referred to him as "science book stealer" for a couple of years after the incident. i will forever think of him as "science book stealer". such is life. he didn't act as though he recognized me but i sort of pretended not to know him either. anyway, sbs (science book stealer, not to be confused with wilco's latest album sky blue sky) couldn't find the answer i was looking for. he looked up the item on best buy's website to see if they had the "specs" but they didn't. he checked with a manager to see what my options were as far as buying it, opening it and finding out that they're all full screen. each of these dvds was some sort of "anniversary" or "collectors" edition so i was fairly certain they were wide screen but you never know! then i got to thinking, pride of the yankees was made in 1942 so it's probably in full screen because that's all they have. sure enough, after all was said and done, bull durham and eight men out are wide screen and pride of the yankees is full screen. now, call me a bad baseball fan if you will, but i obviously didn't already own those movies. i've seen them all before though. i think i was just waiting for a fabulous "triple play" box set, i just didn't know it. let's quickly address a couple of great april fool's jokes. the first, which i cannot link you to because it has been deleted, was benjamin gibbard's new side project entitled just jazzin'. it was basically just him playing a xylophone like a moron. a very big part of me hoped that it was real because i think he's stupid enough to really do something like that. don't get me wrong, i loves me some death cab for cutie and postal service. i really do. but i'm tired of gibbs and all the 12 year olds that think he's some sort of god. oh, i take that back, there are 35 year olds that think he's some sort of god as well. i went to my first death cab show in 2001. so, i was slightly ahead of the times. anyway, this was a great april fool's joke because all the people who worship gibbs were leaving comments on the just jazzin' myspace like, "hahaha this is hilarious. but you should really do it. you could do anything and i would still love it!" vomit. the next great joke was google's approach to email. my favorite parts are, "Gmail utilizes an e-flux capacitor to resolve issues of causality (see Grandfather Paradox), " and " Everyone sort of knows I used Custom Time on this one, but I'm denying it." haha kudos to you, google. and i'll leave you with one reason why i'm glad i don't work at ubs anymore. yow-zas! ohhh edited to add: i thought someone, somewhere might appreciate knowing that best buy has six feet under on sale for like $16.99 per season. the box set of the entire series isn't on sale, which is a shame because it RULES. but still, $17 per season? that's a steal! i remember when it first came out on dvd it was like $80 for one season. craaaazy!