The 30th We rented Napoleon Dynamite tonight and I wasn't disappointed. I've seen this guy on a couple of late night shows and whatever he was doing was hilarious. The trailer alone made me laugh so much that I knew there couldn't be any way this movie wouldn't be "sweet". Jon Heder plays this character so well that I figured he was probably just a real guy. Everything he did, from eating to running to dancing and speaking, was funny. He is probably one of the weirdest of those mundane types of characters I've ever watched in a movie. I'd be freaked out if this guy was around me but at the same time he'd be endlessly entertaining with the stories of his nunchuk fights and his model girlfriends. I think I'm going to have to buy this movie on DVD. The 29th I went to see Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events last night with Jill and enjoyed every minute of the film. It has such a great look and a kind of Tim Burton-esque bizarreness to it. All of the characters were great and the little girl, Sunny, was extra cute and funny. The approach to everything just seemed to fit together so well. Some of the pacing kind of felt a little off though but the movie was disjointed a bit in a good way to begin with and it was, apparently, 3 books crammed into 1 movie. The only thing I didn't really like was all of the cameos for secondary characters. Dustin Hoffmann, Cedrick the Entertainer, etc. just seemed to take me out of the movie a somewhat. Whoever cast the film apparently has something for the Best in Show/A Mighty Wind cast members. I think there were 4 of them that showed up, even just briefly. But with those few minor things aside it was still a great film. The end credits alone though would be worth the price of admission. They are so tasteful and artisticly rich that I was blown away by them. I don't think I've ever seen a credit sequence as well done as that one. Go see the film and stay for the credits. The 28th Well, that's another Xmas done and over with for another year. My family again went foolish with the gifts and I'm seriously thinking next year that I'm going to tell them to not spend any money on me. But I got some good stuff, ate a LOT of food, and spent some time at my parents and at my grandparents. That night Ian and Holly came over for a while and brought the GameCube with them. We played some Mario Party but he also brought Donkey Konga which sounded like a novelty game at first. You have to match beats and stuff onscreen playing along to music. Sounded like a game with very little re-play value but the kicker is that the controller is actually a set of bongos. I was surprised how fun it was and when you're not playing you either laugh at the person when they mess up or get into it when they're nailing it. I don't know how the hell they come up with an idea like that. Boxing Day night the storm hit and Melissa and Jill got storm-stayed here. We all stayed up until 6am playing a sort of bastardized version of Trivial Pursuit and woke up to a ton of snow everywhere. Since no one could go anywhere we basically spent the entire day eating. Bacon and eggs and then a few hours later we made this really good homemade pizza and pasta. The eating of vast quantities of food has to stop soon or I'm going to need a new belt or something. Since the snow didn't let up they had to crash here again but at least it's nice out now. Jill managed to cab into work but the rest of us had more bacon and eggs. I'm probably going to have a heart attack soon. Maybe if I have some more sweets it will offset the grease with the sugar and chocolate. A heart attack may kill me right away but I might live longer with diabetes. But gifts, food and my potential heart/blood disease is pretty insignificant compared to the horrible death toll from the 9.0 earthquake/tsunami in Southeast Asia. I think last I heard in the news the number of dead was estimated at somewhere between 44,000 to 60,000 and counting. Millions are homeless and thousands are still missing. They say the threat of communicable diseases might even double the death toll. I've watched video online of the new reports and it's just insane to see the water crashing in and all of the dead. It's hard to wish people a Happy New Year when something like this happens. The 23rd It's weird that it's going to be Xmas Eve tomorrow. Doesn't really seem very Xmassy yet (if that's even a word) but I'm sure it will tomorrow when I start filling my gut with twice the allowable amount of food. I guess that's what all of that extra space in my windpipe and lungs is for. Speaking of eating too much, I ate way too many cookies and sweets tonight at Tyler and Melissa's. We were supposed to have a big game night tonight but it was kind of late by the time we all got together. We mostly sat around eating and making up foul, disgusting things. We did play Pass the Pigs at one point but it wasn't comparable to the "rousing" Monopoly games of yore. It was a fun night though. And Melissa has given me an idea for a new food I will have to make—chili nachos. Easy, tasty and quick. This is going to be a very fattening holiday season. The 22nd The winning streak in trivia and in air hockey has ended. We didn't even place tonight and I almost got beaten so many times at air hockey it wasn't even funny. Shawn managed to beat me twice, Jill brought the score to 6-6 a couple of times, even Ellen MacPhee (who had never played before) was beating me 4-2 at one point. I'm slipping but I'm also playing injured. Between my busted knuckles, bruised knee and sore elbow, I don't know which is worse. There were far too many people at the pub but at one point Ellen and Amanda Brander came back with a bunch of photos from school years. It was pretty funny to see everyone when they were kids. I had hair then. It was strange. I know I have always been a geek but I looked pretty much exactly like Dexter from Freakazoid in junior high. At least I'm a fan of the show so I'm not too offended by having the comparison made. The 21st A bunch of us went to play Simpsons trivia tonight at Bernie's. It was a pretty depressing place but at least there were a lot of people playing and the first prize was $100. The questions were damn near impossible for me but thankfully we had people like Sharon and Shawn on the team. I just worked on a stupid Simpsons word find with Jill and came close to getting a headache. But it was worth it. We won 1st place and I even got a Simpsons poster as a door prize. We didn't spend our winnings very well though. Afterwards, a bunch of people came back here and we spent $70 on Greco pizza, garlic fingers and wings. I don't know what the hell we were thinking. That money could have been spent much more wisely than that. I can have Greco about once a year and sometimes even that's too much. I'm good for a while now. The 19th Once again the annual A Christmas Story party went off without a hitch. Tons of people showed up and I hope they enjoyed themselves. There was way too much junk food though but at least it wasn't just Doritos this time. I ate too much of too many different things though so I'm not feeling so swell in the guts at the moment. I think that movie gets better and better each year. I never get tired of it and each scene is as funny as it was the year before. I have to say it's my favourite Xmas movie of all time, hands down. As a side note, Troy and Carol's being here tonight reminded me that I've been meaning to post this link for a couple of weeks now. Anyone reading this should check out Troy Little's online Mygrain comic strip here. Just plain messed up, strange and funny. The 18th Well, the winning streak has come to an end. Witnessed tonight by many people was my defeat at the air hockey table after something like 20+ games without a loss. Steve Howard was at The Heritage and right before closing he beat me something like 7-4 and I was humbled. But I was intimidated going in because I know what kind of arm that guy has and how he thinks in angles, numbers and shit like that. He probably had me figured out after 3 shots. Oh well, as long as he doesn't show up anytime soon at the pub then I might get a nice long string of wins going again. Good game, Steve. We will meet again…that much I promise. The 16th I went to see Ray tonight with Nathan and Shawn. I learned quite a bit about Ray Charles and didn't realize he had been on heroin for so long. Jamie Foxx did an amazing job and after a while you sort of forget it's him and it feels like pure Ray. They did a great job re-creating the era. It was cool to see the industry in those days and that slice of music history. I have to see if there are more films coming out or that I can rent like that. Music bio-pics or documentaries and such. I think the last one I saw that was really good was Standing in the Shadows of Motown. I could watch that one again tonight. The 15th We've come in 3rd place for the 4th week in a row now at trivia. I'm kind of hoping next week we'll place higher. But at least I'm getting to play lots of air hockey afterwards and continue to beat everyone. Though, Marianne has probably been the best competition yet. Tammy and Catherine are up there too but Cat plays like some strange Zen master. She moves only when she has too, has some weird innate sense of where the puck will end up and blocks it with one moving. But hey, Zen master or not I still won. I really hope I don't start gloating (well, more than this) or people are really going to hate me and maybe lead to violence. Just before the pub was about to close we headed over to our place, picked up Marianne along the way from the cab stand and potentially saved her from some creep waiting with her outside in the cold. We sat around chatting and stuff for a long time then Marianne had to leave. It was after 5am before Melissa and Crystal headed home. I don't think I should be doing those late nights very often but at least I didn't have to work in the morning. Another benefit of being unemployed. The 14th There are just some things I won't ever understand. One of those things is my former landlord and his wife. My poor sister had to put up with them after I moved out because she and her friends took over the house back in July. She had to deal with them on the phone much as I did since they are out of province. Thankfully, she's out of there now and free of them for the most part. One day not very long ago she was on the phone with the landlord's wife. She told my sister that when either of them call me or Nathan that they aren't calling to bitch at us. She says they are calling to see how we're doing and say hi instead. Well, that's so very, very nice to know. They had called once since we moved out but I never got back to them and never will. However, if I were to call back I'd love to be a total sarcastic bastard and say, "Hi, former landlady. How are things? Oh, good. Great to hear. Um, sorry. But I have to make a quick call because I'm about to go out. I have to confirm my dinner reservation with my first landlord from back in 2000. Ya, that's right. I just like to keep in touch with him and maintain the relationship. You know how that is. Ya, it's great that I can be such good friends with all of my past landlords. Well, anyway, I should probably get going. And just so you know, I'll be mailing you both your Xmas gifts by the end of the week. I hope you like them. Talk to you soon and be sure to give my best to your family. Bye for now." Why the fuck do they continue trying to be friendly and wanting to stay in contact?! We were never on very friendly terms. If we had been then things wouldn't have been such a gawddamn hassle when we needed something fixed or whatever. Tenant-to-landlord dealings should be strictly a business type of relationship, nothing more. I don't want to hear from you ever again after I move out unless it's to tell me you owe me money for something. The 8th Tammy, Nathan and I went to trivia tonight and we came in third. That's the third week in a row we got third place but it was only a few free drinks tonight because so few people showed up. We bombed pretty badly too so I was surprised we even placed. After that I played some air hockey with Tammy, Nathan and Melissa Morse. I need an air hockey table in the house. It would be such a good way to let the winter pass. Though, chances are I wouldn't be playing as much against people who have been drinking. For the most part that is my advantage and why I have been winning so much lately. Granted, Tammy did beat me in one game before she left. We all sat back at the table with Jill and Clayton and basically spent the whole rest of the night talking about whatever, both mundane and foul. Later on though, Jimmy the Chief decided he was going to sit with us along with some mash-potato lady and basically acted fucked and weird. I was hoping to see Bloyce at Courtesy on the way home just to round off the evening nicely. The 7th I'm going to make an effort to call the movie line every week to hear the movie phone lady completely mispronounce the names of the actors. Once I called last year and was shocked by exactly how much she screwed up the names. It wasn't like they were new celebs either or unknowns even, most of them were big like "Hugh Jackson" (Jackman) and "Hail Berry" (Halle). How the fuck can you be allowed to announce films and actors when you don't even know household names? And doesn't she have anyone supervising these recordings? These listings, I believe, are being made by the same individual for all of the Empire Theatre movie lines on the east coast too. She is no doubt reading everything from a script but even if the writer is a complete retard and messed up the spelling of the names wouldn't any regular person in that industry have enough sense to recognize the typos for what they are? Then again, maybe she's dyslexic. So in the last 2 weeks she's messed up the same 2 actors in the same 2 movies in 2 different recordings: • Pierce Bronston in After the Sunset • Renelle Zellwigger in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason Wasn't Renée Zellweger nominated for an Academy Award and remains one of the hottest actors in Hollywood today? Hasn't Pierce Brosnan played James Bond for about 10 years and been a big star and that all-around hunky sort of a guy since the 80s when he played Remington Steele? I think what's more sad than that is the fact that the movie line is giving out a list of movies from which some aren't even playing anymore. I pity anyone showing up to see After The Sunset to find Blade: Trinity playing instead. The 6th Tammy dropped by tonight to watch The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, a bio pic from HBO or something. I couldn't imagine how Geoffrey Rush could end up looking like Sellers but it worked, he was almost the spitting image as some characters. He played all of his roles too and they were pretty much exact. I had no idea Sellers was such a nut. I knew he was an unhappy person and crazy to some extent but he was a serious basket case. But I guess most geniuses are. I crashed at Tyler and Melissa's place last night again after we watched Raiders of the Lost Ark. I got the Indiana Jones box set on VHS a few years ago for Xmas and now I'm thinking I should be asking for it again but on DVD. I love those movies and I just hope the next one will be good. Hollywood really knows how to churn out some real crap these days. Catherine had a pot luck on Saturday evening at her and Tanya's new place before her CD launch at Baba's. The food was great and a ton of people showed up. It was Troy's last night too before he went out west for a few months to work. Baba's was packed but I endured the masses for Saddle River and Cat's set but it was just way too hot and crammed for my liking. I spent quite a bit of time downstairs or outside in the cold chatting with some people before we left and saw Troy off.