I can’t tell you how blissfully happy I am with the new bedroom paint job, it’s so fabulous. Thought I’d pass on a few paint picking tips since everyone always comments on how great my paint choices are:

Don’t be afriad of color. It’s not a scary monster. I know you will want to lean towards the lighter more pastel shades, everyone does - but don’t.

The first couple passes of a darker bold color with a trim brush will be shocking to your senses, you’ll doubt your decision, you will have color distress in your heart. It’s normal. Just grit and bear it. Once you see all that bold color up you will LOVE it. I swear, you will!

Always pick at least one shade darker than the color you want on the card. Seriously, color reads lighter once on a big ole’ wall and not crammed against other colors. Once it’s all by itself on a wall with your windows casting all that pretty light on it it will look almost exactly like the lighter color you wanted to begin with.

As an example I actually liked the middle blue color but I alwaysgo one or two darker knowing it will look lighter and it always works out as you can see.

You’d never guess it was darkest color on the card. When you hold the card up to the wall you can see it’s a dead on for the darkest one

Anyway, that’s my advice for those painting - be not afriad of color!

THIS is the best goddamn Bush article I’ve read in weeks.

Having that post holiday shuffle.
Let’s do the count down:

The days preceding Xmas Eve I cleaned, prepped and painted our bedroom a luscious deep blue (see pictures in a previous post) in preparation for…

Xmas eve we bought and set up the new mega-über bed and spent the day napping in it knowing that…

Xmas day we did all that two family junk (luckily both were only 6 blocks apart), and packed for…

Day after Xmas Mr Man and I traveled to Chicago (with my brother and his wife) for the yearly IKEA pilgrimage. (They have a sale every year starting the 26th) Got to the town, checked in, swam our butts off, ate so much delicious meat we nearly popped, and slept deeply at the hotel entrenched in a pleasant food coma so we could…

Day after the day after Xmas we woke up, actually went to IKEA, bought tons of stuff, ate meatballs, and drove home with all our swedish booty that we had…

Last two days I’ve been sewing curtains, washing new duvet covers in preparation for “improving” them with ties/velcro tabs so the comforter inside doesn’t shift around on us, assembling new bedside tables and end tables, meeting friends from Columbus and going to the Dayton Art Institute’s Egyptian special exhibit ($17 but worth $10 tops).

Whew! So you can see why I haven’t posted the last few days… what have YOU been doing so far? Are you as tired as I am, naps notwithstanding?

As an aside, for you graphics geeks, this site about weird clipart is great fun.

Before:

After:

Our christmas bed! More pics here. Buying to small (SMALL!) side tables and curtains at IKEA on Tuesday.

And by Christians I mean the right wing Protestants who are screaming that “Happy Holidays” is stealing Christ out of the festivities somehow.

(I know I had a rant a few days ago about “eason’s Greetings” too, no one said you had to read this.)

Let’s do a little visual historical etymology, shall we?

Holidays >> holi days >> holy days

Holiday
O.E. haligdæg, from halig “holy” + dæg “day;” in 14c. meaning both “religious festival” and “day of recreation,” but pronunciation and sense diverged 16c.

Holy = Jesus Christ/God/Ghosty thing
Days = measurement of time that signifies the moon’s rotations around the Earth

Now let me say this, the Middle Ages were pretty much the pinnicle of Christendom as we know it. EVERYONE was fervently faithful to a fault to the point that they’d think you born again whack job guys were slacker wannabes. Malcom the outhouse cleaner’s DOG was more devout than you.

Seriously you haven’t seen religious devotion till you’ve studied the middle ages. They actually walked the streets half naked and FREAKING WHIPPED THEMSELVES for God in pennance because they thought the servant had nice legs, okay?

Would YOU travel on a horse or wagon, or even on foot, for months, if not years, from London (or Paris, or name it) to Jerusalem on a Pilgrimage just to see a shrine and say you’ve been there (and pick up a few pricey baubles to prove it and maybe cure your gout while you were at it)? I thought not.

They lived their lives by church rule (when they got up, went to bed, what they did when…, kings took direction from the church a number of times over non religious issues (thus why this country is here, thank you) so don’t even try to tell me the word doens’t mean that since the Middle ages were filled with Pagans and devil worship It wasn’t. (BTW, Pagans don’t worship the devil, honest.)

Anyway, By the 14th century even the Vikings had been saying the rosary for a couple hundred years and just one float in the great big parade for Jesus.

Now with that established: SHUT THE HELL UP! Holiday is a 700 year old word and is used correctly in the same manner and with the same intention it is said with today.

YOU are a stupid head. Bite me please thank you very much long time.

Merry Christmas OR ELSE!

I love you guys, I do. But the Ricky Gervais podcast is a riot. I’m sorry.

If you like british humor, excuse me… humour you’ll die laughing. It’s just three brit guys chatting and screaming and telling bad jokes, and it’s complete madness.

At least if you use macs, but the advice is solid for everyone.

Firefox now!

Ralph Wiggums said it, this guy can make it happen…

Ditto what he said!

As long time readers know, I belong to a local email list called Freecycle (I call it “moochcycle” that is a place for your unwanted crap to find a new owner no money involved. It’s a great way to dump something fast. We’ve gotten some good stuff, and given some away that we just didn’t want or need and wasn’t worth our time to garage sale or Ebay and didn’t want to make the effort to lug to Goodwill.

Christmas time has the want ads out ranking the offers as usual with people asking for all kinds of pretty ballsy stuff - christmas trees, presents for their children, new game systems, designer handbags, specific breeds of puppies… big screen tv’s.

This time I had an oriental-ish area rug that I needed rid of. We got it at Ikea for a whopping $35 a few years ago but my cat Sophie informed us in no uncertain terms hat were strictly verboten in her house. After cleaning it with OdorMute and a power washer (and a weekend drying over the fence in the summer sun) we rolled it up had since been rolled up in the back room for the last year gathering dog hair. So I put it up on freecycle… I said exactly what I said above about it. Within 24 hours I had twenty responses. Some even hit me up on Yahoo IM to beg for it.

Finally, After I gave it away I sent this:

And with that, BAH HUMBUG!

It’ll barely fit in our bedroom, but damn it what the hell.

This christmas eve Mr man and I are getting a real bed. Now understand I’ve been sleeping on a waterbed since 8th grade, so this is big for me. Mr man has been pushing for it for awhile, and I realized I can sleep on pillowtop mattresses so that’s what we’re getting - a king size Simmons Beautyrest mattress with the ultra thick 3″ pillowtop. Top of the line baby - but scratch and dent and who the hell cares! I’ll never see the smudge on it until I change the sheets anyway.

The sheets, oh my the sheets… which is where my girly moment of shopping joy comes in. I went to Target to scout the clearance row and saw a shelf of Fieldcrest single packed SIX HUNDRED thread count 100% egyptian cotton sheets for $25 each.

Now I just was in shock. Around the aisle corner the same brand, same content sheets of the mere 400 thread count were $50 EACH. WTF? I grabbed a King fitted and a set of King cases (we’re not top sheet people) and ran for the register prepared to fight for that marked price to the freaking death for it. Just to be sure, on the way I told some other women about the deal because, at christmas time, no manager will mess with a gaggle women on a rabid deal bender like that if they want to walk again.

But it was true, and I’ll share with you too.

I might have to go back and buy another set, dear god, I just might.

Just guess what kind of electronic vote machine Ohio’s board of elections just switched to state wide this last election. Yup Diebold. From Ohio no less, which is why they got the bid.

Guess who’s Republican Secretary of State was on the Bush fundraising campaign BOTH times, and is running for Govenor? Yup Ohio.

Put on your tinfoil hats and hold on tight - this is the “true” story of an evil pentaverate of uber-wealthy and influential African-Americans called the “Dark Crudsaders” consisting of Oprah, Cosby, Farrakahn, Sharpton and… hang in there, Magic Johnson, took down Dave Chappelle and his show.

It seems Farrahkhan and Cosby just happen to be in lil’old Yellow Springs a lot and like to commit some CIA type operations in the dark of night at Dave’s house and offices. They even have eveil henchmen. Right.

Point-conterpoint, if you will.

I thought Kong was good as a whole, but it didn’t need some scenes that stretched this thing out to 3 hours. Other parts were a little “out there”.

I loved the visual effects. Kong was gorgeous and the detail on the character was incredible. They managed to give Kong personality, too. Of course, he showed a little too much at times, considering he is an large ape on a secluded island and the only human contact is normally the tribe that camps out at the wall. For him to play the “hard to get” routine when he meets Naomi is stretching it. They really did succeed in making you think that a 60-foot tall monkey and a woman could fall in love. Although, the original didn’t have the leading lady falling in love with Kong as much she had a lot of compassion for him.

WETA is incredible in this. From the scenery to the creatures. The CGI is bar-none the best Hollywood has produced yet. Lucas could take a cue from these guys and kick ILM in the ass. The whole New York city scenes are great. You truly feel like it’s 1930.

Was it worth seeing? I think I got $6.00 out of my $10.00 ticket. And I disagree with Jen about Jack Black. He’s really not meant for serious roles. Yeah, he plays the likeable con-man enough, but almost every scene features his trademark “crazy face” where his eyebrows prop up and he has a smile reminiscent of the Joker.

Now, for the bits I didn’t like…
(more…

Just found this on Mefi, and had to pass it on it’s hilarious:
Ricky Gervais (the writer and actor behind original BBC’s Office) and Patrick Stewart talk about Stewart’s screen play. (WMV will fire up)

This all kinda wraps up into something I’ve been pondering as of late - that british actors seem far less hesitant at taking some out there roles - even the scifi stuff that we’d basically consider B-grade (like Sam Neil in the recent Triangle Miniseries on Scifi, which is actually pretty decent so far on Tivo).

Maybe it’s the enviorment of the British acting system where they do theatre and BBC series and movies sometimes all at once becasue well, you take it if you can get it and Englands not that huge of place (and my brit readers, please chime in on this) Are they more professional or just willing to be more resourceful than our US actors?

All these Brit actors we see as “movie” actors here, like Judi Dench, all do TV work, and wacky comedy work over there. Everyone seems to do TV, things here that our “movie actors” are just starting to widen thier repetiore with, even its just a lark. When I turn over to BBCA I see all kinds of famous british actors, or just ones I like, in all kinds of surprising roles on odd series.

Jamie Bamber, known as Archie Kennedy from the Horatio Hornblower miniseries, has dropped his lilty accent for a completely american sounding Apollo on Battlestar Gallactica (actually one of the best UK to US accent conversiosn I’ve ever witnessed, I think his dad is American). The guy who played Admiral Pellew on Hornblower is starringin a wacky family comedy on the BBC. Hugh Laurie, for all extents is a well known comedian (he was in Black Adder and had his own series with his friend Stepehn Fry and bazillion other things) and he’s now hiding his very high end british accent and playing the lead in House (he’s the only reason I watch it, he’s fascinating to watch. The writing however SUCKS). Brits just seem to act in whatever comes up. I love that.

Last week’s South Park has been condemed by Catholics. Gee I wonder why.

Ignore those who are crying bomb. Far from it.

King Kong is amazing. Utterly beautiful and heartbreaking. It really is that good. Your head will be swimming from all the action sequences, and they are fast and unrelenting. It’s three hours of pure action.

I think the “bomb” tag is applied too liberally, first it came out on a Wednesday in mid (not late)-December. People aren’t off work for the holidays yet. It IS #1 right now, but nothing is raking in a mega-ton if you look at the numbers. Not even the Super CS Lewis thing that I never read. And at 3+ hours it’s a little hard to fit in your day if you have gift shopping and work to do still. I fully expect it to explode this weekend. This should have opened up the day after Christmas.

Anyway how was it?

It was so good I barely noticed how crooked Adrian Brody’s nose is - and believe me thats ALL I tend to notice about him. (I think maybe Weta might have “fixed it in some scenes actually.) It was so good I stopped thinking of Naomi Watts as a younger and less plasticized version Nicole Kidman, and see that she can really act. And do it well. The opening sequences alone were brilliant and really sent the tone and Jackson’s attention to detail showed as the US military costumes were accurate to early 1930’s that were still the dopey “doughboy” ensemble from WWI until like 1940. He made great pains to make it accurate and realistic looking for the era without the fake polish and glitter so many other put on in the time period.

What I loved most was “Ann Darrow” pulling prat falls and physical comedy to get through to Kong. Previous movies had Ann talking to Kong as if he understood English, this movie their interplay was all dialog in expression and mannerisms, which is how apes, and humans, really communicate. Kong was amazing to see in action.

The effects were amazing, if not a little too up close and personal for too long, you’ll understand when you see it, but it’s okay I doesn’t hurt a thing. We sat a few rows closer than our normal favored seats and I think thats the reason.

I saw TWO little effects (in a movie that is ONE big CGI) that stood out as a little less than Weta-typical quality, but they were in such small parts in such LARGE scenes I’m pretty sure I’m nitpicking. I’ll let you tell me if you think you know what they are.

Andy Serkis, who was the action actor for Gollum is back in King Kong. This time in TWO parts, as Kong and as the ship cook. It took me a whole half hour to recognize him. He was wonderful. I think I’m a fan now.

Holding off seeing it because of some dislike for Jack Black? Don’t. You’ll hate him by the end anyway. It really was a good casting job, swear. In this he’s a merely egotistical sneaky hollywood creep who turns into the movie’s true evil villain. I was so sorry he didn’t die in bloody and painful way instead of essentially getting off scot-free for the tragic and horrific series of events he caused.

Trust Jen. Go see it. Just be sure to not sit TOO close, and to go in with an empty bladder and you’ll plenty happy.

Ok I had a big King Kong review, but every time I try to post it MT gives me a big fat 403 finger, but anything else it takes. Anyone know what’s up with that?

Can someone explain the Golden Globes, PLEASE?

How can they nominate movies that aren’t even OUT yet? Everyone was bemoaning that King Kong didn’t get any nods but Jackson did - the damned movie wasn’t even out for two days yet!

How can they do movies that are barely out but a few weeks, or not out even in europe yet if they are the “foreign press”. At least the oscars has a timeframe movies have to be released in, and how many theaters count as a “release” the globes just appear to be what film can get the most top of the year buzz.

Is it just a buzz contest? The more and more I see from the Globe noms the more and more I feel it’s a freaking useless popularity award and I’m sick to freaking death of hearing about it.